Complete Works and Other Stories by Augusto Monterroso

Author:Augusto Monterroso
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Texas Press

THE CENTENNIAL

“Which reminds me,” I said, “of the story of the ill-fated Swede, Orest Hanson, the tallest man in the world—in his time. These days the record he set is frequently broken.

In 1892 he made a well-deserved tour of Europe to display his height of eight feet, one inch. The journalists, with the imagination that distinguishes them, called him the Giraffe Man.

Imagine. Since the weakness of his joints made any effort almost impossible, in order for him to eat, one of his relatives had to climb to the branches of a tree and place special little meatballs, with small pieces of beet sugar for dessert, into his mouth. Another relative tied his shoes for him. And still another was always on the lookout for the moment when Orest would need to pick up some object that by accident or because of his peculiar clumsiness had slipped through his fingers and fallen to the ground. Orest looked at the clouds and allowed himself to be waited on. His kingdom, in fact, was not of this world, and you could see in his sad, distant eyes a persistent nostalgia for earthly things. In his heart of hearts he felt a special envy for dwarfs, and he always dreamed of trying with no success to reach doorknobs and of breaking into a run as he used to in the afternoons of his childhood.

His fragility reached incredible extremes. When he walked along the street, each step made even the Scandinavians fear a spectacular fall. In time his parents showed signs of a greedy pragmatism that deserved the harshest criticism; they decided that Orest would go out only on Sundays, preceded by his Uncle Erick and followed by the servant Olaf, who passed his hat for the coins that sentimental souls thought they were obliged to pay for that show of gravitational danger. His fame grew.

But it is true that happiness is never perfect. Little by little, an irresistible love for those coins began to filter into Orest’s childish soul. His genuine passion for minted metal eventually caused his downfall and proved to be the reason for his strange end, as you will see in due course.

Barnum made him a professional. But Orest did not feel the artistic vocation, and the circus interested him only as a source of money. His aristocratic spirit, however, could not bear the smell of the lions or the fact that people pitied him. He said goodbye to Barnum.

At the age of nineteen, he measured seven feet, eleven inches. Then came a period of quiescence, and it was not until the age of twenty-five that he reached his full height of eight feet, one inch, which he maintained until his death. This is how the discovery was made. Invited to London by the gracious command of their British Majesties, he went to the English consulate in Stockholm to obtain a visa. The English consul, being the man he was, received him with no great show of surprise, dared to ask his height and weight, and doubted he was eight feet tall.

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