Leading the Blind

Начало книги

In 1861, Baedeker’s guidebook to Switzerland informs us that an English officer fell into the bears’ den at Berne and was ‘torn in pieces after a desperate struggle’. Like the eternal conundrums that have puzzled poets, such as who cleft the Devil’s foot, what song the Sirens sang, and what secret was concealed by the Gordian knot, I was curious to solve this one, at least as far as knowing the man’s name, but a letter to the mayor’s officer at Berne querying his identity brought no response.

Murray’s handbook for 1874 gave more details of the officer’s fate, saying that he was ‘destroyed by the large male bear, having fallen in an attempt to pass along the wall separating the two dens. The struggle was long, and took place in the presence of many witnesses, and, it is said, of an armed sentry, who did not interfere.’

Later editions of the same book tell us that the victim was Swedish, a Captain Lorck, who was killed ‘owing to the stupidity of his companion, who might easily have caused him to be rescued, but lost his head’. One wonders which of the bears dined off that, and whether it was at all palatable.

Читать дальше →