Monday Begins on Saturday

GLOSSARY

Afreet: A variation of the jinn. As a rule the afreets are well-preserved doubles of the most famous Arabian generals. At the Institute, they are used by M.M. Kamnoedov in the role of armed security guards, as they are distinguished from other jinns by being highly disciplined. The fire-throwing mechanism of the afreets has not been well investigated and it is hardly likely that anyone will ever study it thoroughly, because nobody needs it.

Anacephalon: A congenitally deformed individual without brain or cranium. Typically, anacephalons die at birth or a few hours later.

Augurs-K: Priests in ancient Rome who foretold the future by the flight of birds and their behavior. The great majority of them were conscious confidence men. This applies in considerable measure to the augers in the Institute, although they have now developed new methods.

Basilisk: Mythological monster with the body of a rooster and the tail of a snake, which kills with its gaze. In actuality, an almost extinct lizard covered with feathers and the precursor of the archaeopteryx. Capable of hypnosis. Two exemplars are maintained in the Institute’s vivarium.

Beczalel, Leo Ben: A well-known medieval magician, royal alchemist of Emperor Rudolph II.

Brownie: A certain kind of supernatural creature inhabiting each occupied house, according to the imagination of the superstitious. There is nothing supernatural about brownies. They are either magi who have sunk to the lowest depths and are not amenable to reeducation, or mixed breeds resulting from the unions of gnomes with domestic animals. At the Institute they are under the administration of Kamnoedov and are used as unskilled labor.

Danaides: In Greek mythology the criminal daughters of King Danaus, who killed their husbands at his behest. At first, the Danaides were sentenced to fill a bottomless vessel with water. Subsequently, following an appeal, the court took into account that they were married under duress. This mitigating circumstance permitted their transfer to a somewhat less nonsensical occupation. At the Institute they now break up asphalt wherever they themselves had recently laid it.

Demon, Maxwell’s: An important element in the mental experiment of the great English physicist Maxwell. Intended for an assault on the second law of thermodynamics. In Maxwell’s mental experiment, the demon is placed next to an aperture in a dividing partition between the two compartments of a vessel filled with moving molecules. The work of the demon consists of allowing fast molecules to move from one compartment into the other, and to slam the door shut in the face of slow molecules. The ideal demon is thus able to create a very high temperature on one side and a very low temperature on the other side of the partition, without doing any work, realizing a perpetual engine of the second order. But only very recently, and only in our Institute, has it been possible to find and put such demons to work.

Dracula, Count: The celebrated Hungarian vampire of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. Never was a count. Committed a great many crimes against humanity. Was caught by the hussars and ceremoniously pierced with an aspen stake in the presence of a large assemblage of people. Distinguished for a tremendous power of survival: the autopsy disclosed one and one half kilograms of silver bullets in his body.

Gian Ben Gian: Either an ancient inventor or an ancient warrior. His name is always associated with the concept of a shield and is not encountered separately. (For example, it is mentioned in The Temptation of St. Anthony by Flaubert.)

Gnome: Found in West European tales—an ugly dwarf guarding underground treasures. I have spoken with some of the gnomes. They are in fact ugly and are in fact dwarfs, but as to treasures, they have never heard of them. The majority of gnomes are forgotten and considerably desiccated doubles.

Golem: One of the first cybernetic robots, made of clay by Leo Ben Beczalel. (See, for example, the Czech comedy The Emperor’s Baker its golem bears a good resemblance to a real one.

The Hammer of Witches: An ancient manual of instructions on interrogation of the third degree. Was developed and applied by the clerics especially for exposing witches. Has been rescinded in modern times as obsolete.

Incubus: A variation of resuscitated corpses, which have a tendency to enter into wedlock with the living. Do not exist. In theoretical magic the term “incubus” is used in an entirely different sense; as a measure of the negative energy of a living organism.

Jinn: Evil spirit of Arabian and Persian myths. Almost all the jinns are doubles of King Solomon and the magi of his times. Used in military and political hooliganism applications. Distinguished by a repulsive character, gall, and total absence of a sense of gratitude. Their ignorance and aggressive behavior is so unbearable that all are now imprisoned. Widely used in modern magic as test specimens. In particular, E. Amperian determined, based on material obtained from thirteen jinns, the quantity of evil that a nasty ignoramus can inflict on a society.

Levitation: The ability to fly without any mechanical contrivances. The levitation of birds, bats, and insects is well known.

Oracle: In the belief of the ancients, a means of communication by the gods with men: the flight of birds (used by augurs), the rustling of trees, the dreams of a prophet, and so forth. Also the place where prophecies were made. “The Solovetz Oracle” is a small dark room. It has been planned for several years to install a large computer there for minor prophecies.

Phantom: A ghost, a spook. In modern view it is a condensation of necrobiotic information. Phantoms excite a superstitious horror, though they are entirely harmless. In the Institute they are used for the verification of historic truth, although they cannot be legal witnesses.

Pythia: A priestess, a prophetess in ancient Greece. Prophesied after breathing poisonous fumes. Pythias do not practice at the Institute. They smoke a great deal and restrict themselves to the study of the general theory of prediction.

Ramapithecus: In contemporary view, the immediate precursor of pithecanthropus on the evolutionary ladder.

Segure, Richard: The hero of the phantasmic story “The Mystery of Richard Segure,” the discover of threedimensionai photography.

The Star of Solomon: In world literature, a magical sign in the shape of a six-pointed star, possessing powerful thaumaturgical properties. In the present time, as with most other geometrically based incantations, it has lost its potency and is useful only for frightening the illiterate.

Taxidermist: A stuffer of figures. I recommended this term to the authors because C.J. Junta becomes infuriated when called by that name.

Tertium: One-sixtieth of a second.

Upanishads: Ancient Hindu commentaries on the four sacred books.

Vampire: Blood-sucking corpse of folklore. In reality, vampires are magi who, for one reason or another, have taken the path of abstract evil. The tried-and-true remedy for them is the wooden stake and bullets cast from virgin silver. In the text the word is used loosely.

Werefolk or Shape-Changers: People capable of turning into certain animals: such as wolf (werewolf), fox (kitzuneh), and the like. For some reason they excite horror in the superstitious. V.P. Korneev, for instance, turned into a rooster when he had a toothache and immediately felt relieved.

Zombi (also Cadaver): Generally speaking, an unliving object: a portrait, statue, idol, scarecrow. (See, for example, Count Cagliostro by A.N. Tolstoi.) One of the first zombis in history was the well-known Galatea, the work of the sculptor Pygmalion. Not used in modern magic. As a rule they are phenomenally stupid, capricious, hysterical, and almost unresponsive to training. In the Institute, unsuccessful doubles and doublelike colleagues are sometimes ironically called cadavers.