Hunting for Silence by Robert Thier
Endnotes
[1]There actually was a magazine called Punch in Great Britain during the Victorian period. It proved to be quite a long-lived publication, shutting down only in the 1990s. Punch was one of the earliest publications of its kind and helped to create the principle of political caricature.
[2]There actually was a channel ferry of this name. It was the first steam boat to ever make the crossing, and was later bought by the French postal service, renamed ‘Henri IV’ and put to use as a passenger ferry between England and France.
[3]You are a skewed boot tied to a zucchini.
[4]Drapery Miss – a Victorian expression, defined by the poet Lord Byron, as ‘a pretty, a high-born, a fashionable young female, furnished by her milliner with a wardrobe upon credit, to be repaid, when married, by her husband’.
[5]Pumpkins! Fresh Pumpkins!
[6]I hate you, you asshole!
[7]Do you know how much time your mother needs to take a shit? Nine months!
[8]Oh, you are an admirer of the opera?
[9]This is outrageous! I demand to see the manager-or I would, if the manager were here, but that ice cold block of stone called Ambrose had to send him on vacation because there was no need to pay him while he was here, was there? That man drives me insane! But why would I tell you this? You’re his loyal minion, and a man to boot! You would never dare to question your precious master’s orders, would you? Go to hell! Go to hell and take your ice block of a boss with you! Maybe he’ll melt and make the world a better place. And since we’re on the subject of hell…
[10]Why the hell did you call me in here? And why do you keep on jabbering in English? I don’t understand one word you’re saying. Honestly, I don’t really care, but I’ve got better things to do than sit around here listening to nonsense in a foreign language. Will that cheapskate Ambrose deduct this time from my paycheck?
[11]That man is a complete dickhead!
[12]For a man, you aren’t too bad. Especially an Englishman.
[13]Wow! Slow down, little guy, slow down!
[14]What did you say? I’m afraid I don’t understand a word you say. I don’t speak English. It’s such a complicated language, and I’m just a silly singer.
[15]Excuse me? What did you say?
[16]Rat-arsed: another one of those lovely British expressions for ‘drunk’.
[17]British English for cheap wine.
[18]Temperance activists were (often religiously motivated) people who wanted to reduce the general consumption of alcoholic beverages. In some countries and at some times, this included the outlawing of alcohol. Although temperance movements already started during the 19th century in response to the high alcoholism and domestic violence of the Victorian Age, it only gained true popularity with the general populace of some countries in later years. The prohibition in the USA from 1920 to 1933, for example, was the result of the efforts of the temperance movement.
[19]Another British English expression for being drunk. Britons have quite an amazing collection of these, it seems.
[20]Shit! You English people are completely crazy! No one should be allowed to walk around awake at this hour of the morning.
[21]You can take that gun of yours and shoot it up your own arse, you miserable, slimy little cockroach.
[22]A Victorian expression for a woman’s ladyparts.
[23]A beautiful park that is a popular tourist attraction today. In spite of its name, it is not located in the country of Luxembourg, but in the city of Paris. Its name originates from the fact that it was originally owned by the Duke of Luxembourg.
[24]Just in case you are wondering whether it is historically accurate to be referencing the ice age in a book set in Victorian times—the first modern scientific theory of a widespread ice age was developed by the Danish-Norwegian geologist Jens Esmark in the early nineteenth century. So it is quite plausible for such a comparison to occur.
[25]For his Majesty, King Louis Philippe, to be delivered immediately.
[26]Yes, Sir! Right away, Sir!
[27]The title of the king in France at that time was indeed ‘King of the French’, and not ‘King of France’—the reason being that King Louis Philippe had just replaced the branch of the royal family who originally (and legitimately, as regards succession) held the throne. Therefore, he was trying to legitimize his kingship not through descent and legal ownership of land, but through assent by his people.
[28]Before ‘gay’ became the commonly accepted euphemism for ‘homosexual’, the word ‘queer’ (which originally meant ‘strange’) was used in such a way. Although not in common use today, it played quite a big role in the gay rights movement, as in the famous slogan ‘We’re here! We’re Queer! Get used to it!’.
[29]Rat’s hole.
[30]A British English expression for ‘prison’, originating from the Hindi term ‘caukī’.
[31]This is actually true, creating an interesting dichotomy between theatre and opera. While in theatre, for a long time in history female roles were played by boys dressed up as ladies, in opera, it was the other way around, with ladies playing the roles of younger male characters. The reason for this was that teenagers are at the age where they go through their change of voice. So teenage boys were (and still are) unable to play singing roles.
[32]My head is a rotten potato.
[33]Welcome! Welcome, Sir and Madam, to Leclercq and Lacroix, the finest fashion designers in France.
[34]In spite of the name, these troops have nothing to do with any president, especially not an American one. They were the official troops of the East India Company, the British conglomerate which at this time controlled the Indian subcontinent, including some countries and regions that today are not part of India, such as Pakistan.
[35]A ‘tricolour’ is any insignia with the colours red, white and blue (in France, not the USA). It was the official emblem of the French Revolution and later became the flag of the French Republic, a rather ironic fact if you take into consideration that the white part of the flag stems from the white banner of the House of Bourbon, the very monarchs of France who were beheaded during the Revolution.
[36]A few years after this book, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did in fact change premises from its old headquarters to number 37 Quai d’Orsay in Paris, where it still is located today.
[37]One of the major branches of British trade during the 19th century was the opium trade. Opium was planted in India, and then mostly sold to China, where addiction to the drug caused severe health problems and was the origin of two successive wars against the British Empire. It would be difficult to make comparisons to modern times because of the illegal nature of today’s drug trade, but it probably wouldn’t be unfair to say that the British Empire was the greatest drug cartel in the history of humankind.
[38]If you consider the possibility of a country going to war over a single death remote, think again. This is essentially how the First World War was started: the crown prince of Austro-Hungary, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated in Sarajevo by Serbian nationalist terrorist Gavrilo Princip, which began a war between Austro-Hungary and Serbia that was joined by so many allies on both sides that, eventually, it involved nearly all the major powers of the modern world.
[39]May ants infest your underwear!
[40]Jacques, let me in.
[41]My God! It’s you! Come in, come in!
[42]Death to the aristocrats.
[43]This should actually be historically correct. I took me quite a while to discover the real crest of an obscure personality from 19th-century England. I truly hope I’ve done my research correctly. If I’m correct, the motto to go along with the crest is ‘si sit prudentia’, Latin for ‘if there be prudence’.
[44]What in God’s name is this racket—?
[45]This is an outrage! Can’t honest citizens go about their daily business in peace in France nowadays? I’m going to complain to the mayor! I’m going to complain to the governor! I’m going to complain to the—
[46]Unless you wish to complain to His Majesty the King, you had better close your mouth right now!
[47]Wealthier households in Victorian England used to have a gong which was rung by the butler to call the family together, usually to meals.
[48]John Wood the Younger, son of (unsurprisingly) John Wood the Elder, was the architect of the Royal Crescent and many other buildings in the city of Bath. The Royal Crescent is an intriguing piece of architecture. Presenting an elegant, unified, crescent-shaped façade at the front, at its back one can see that it is actually composed out of many individual houses arranged in a crescent shape right next to one another. It is generally considered one of the most significant examples of Georgian Neo-Classical architecture in the United Kingdom.
[49]For anyone who might be interested: shining a light in your eyes is done by doctors to test your pupillary light reflex. If your pupil contracts when intense light shines in your eyes, the doctor knows that the most important nerves in your eye are working correctly.
[50]‘Embarrassing shit’ sickness.
[51]‘Finding-out-I’m-lying’ sickness.
[52]Humour, in this case, is not referring to anything comical, but to the medical theory of Humourism. Before doctors developed the germ theory and discovered that viruses and bacteria spread sicknesses, the most widespread theory was one stemming from Ancient Greece which proposed that there are four temperaments, each of which is linked to one of four bodily fluids, and sicknesses are caused by an excess of one or more of these bodily fluids. This is the theoretical reasoning behind leeches being used in medieval and ancient medicine: blood was considered to be associated with the sanguine humour, and if doctors diagnosed you as being excessively sanguine, they would bleed you.
[53]This was also part of pre-modern medical theory. The idea that bad-smelling air caused sickness is quite ancient, which was why, for example, in medieval Europe, people lit fires to cover the odor of plague victims, hoping it would hinder the spread of the disease.
[54]The phrase ‘hope springs eternal’ comes from the poem An Essay on Man by 18th-century poet Alexander Pope. The part of the poem around the quotation goes like this:
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be blessed:
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
[55]Fussock—a victorian insult for well-padded ladies.
[56]A Victorian expression for an ugly person.