The Master Mind Of Mars

Edgar Rice Burroughs

ESL Easy Read

Reading Comprehension B1 • Original Text • Português Support

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Copyright

Fonte original — domínio público

Esta edição ESL Easy Read foi adaptada a partir de The Master Mind Of Mars, de Edgar Rice Burroughs, publicado originalmente em 1927.

A obra original encontra-se em domínio público e pode ser utilizada, reproduzida, distribuída e adaptada de acordo com a legislação aplicável.

Autor

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950)

Estados Unidos

Esta obra foi publicada originalmente em 1927.

Nos Estados Unidos, obras publicadas antes de 1930 encontram-se normalmente em domínio público.

Com base no ano de publicação disponível, esta obra encontra-se em domínio público nos Estados Unidos desde 1º de janeiro de 2023.

Brasil

Autor: Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950)

De acordo com a Lei nº 9.610/1998, os direitos patrimoniais expiram 70 anos após a morte do autor, contados a partir de 1º de janeiro do ano seguinte ao falecimento.

Edgar Rice Burroughs faleceu em 1950.

Situação no Brasil: DOMÍNIO PÚBLICO.

Portugal

Autor: Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950)

De acordo com o Código do Direito de Autor e dos Direitos Conexos, a proteção patrimonial dura 70 anos após a morte do autor.

Edgar Rice Burroughs faleceu em 1950.

Situação em Portugal: DOMÍNIO PÚBLICO.

Dados da publicação original

Obra original: The Master Mind Of Mars

Autor: Edgar Rice Burroughs

Primeira publicação: 1927

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Esta adaptação ESL Easy Read

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Introdução

Como ler este livro

Cada livro desta coleção é apresentado em um nível de leitura simplificada, de acordo com o CEFR — Quadro Europeu Comum de Referência para Línguas.

A2 — Básico: indicado para leitores que já compreendem frases simples, vocabulário frequente e textos curtos sobre situações do cotidiano.

B1 — Intermediário: indicado para leitores que conseguem compreender as ideias principais de textos claros e acompanhar uma narrativa com vocabulário e estruturas de dificuldade moderada.

B2 — Intermediário avançado: indicado para leitores que já conseguem compreender textos mais complexos, acompanhar descrições detalhadas e reconhecer uma variedade maior de vocabulário e estruturas gramaticais.

Este livro foi adaptado para o nível B1.

Assim, você pode começar a lê-lo mesmo sem dominar completamente o inglês. O texto foi simplificado para facilitar a compreensão, preservando a história, os personagens e os acontecimentos principais da obra original.

Como usar as notas

No texto de leitura simplificada, cada parágrafo possui um link Pt/En. Esse link abre uma nota com a tradução em português do texto simplificado e o trecho correspondente no texto original em inglês.

No texto original em inglês, o link PT leva diretamente ao parágrafo correspondente na versão em português. Na tradução portuguesa, o link En retorna ao parágrafo correspondente no texto original.

A tradução para o português é feita a partir do texto em inglês simplificado, e não diretamente do texto original. O objetivo é ajudar você a compreender com precisão a frase simplificada que está estudando naquele momento.

O texto original em inglês é apresentado separadamente para a etapa seguinte do aprendizado, quando você já estiver preparado para ler e comparar a obra em sua forma original.

Cada nota contém links que permitem retornar exatamente ao parágrafo que você estava lendo.

Como usar o glossário

Na última parte do livro, o Glossary: New Words reúne, em ordem alfabética, palavras mais complexas ou menos frequentes presentes no texto simplificado de nível B1. Essas palavras aparecem em itálico no texto.

Cada entrada apresenta pronúncia, tradução em português, explicação simples em inglês, frase de exemplo e até cinco frases reais do livro.

O link Back to B1 retorna exatamente à frase correspondente na versão simplificada.

Depois do texto simplificado, o livro apresenta também o texto original completo em inglês e a versão completa em português.

Sobre este livro

Em O Cérebro de Marte, sexto romance da série Barsoom de Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ulysses Paxton, um soldado terrestre moribundo, tem sua consciência transferida para Marte, conhecido como Barsoom. Lá, ele assume o corpo de um guerreiro recém-falecido e adota o nome Vad Varo. Envolve-se nas tramas de Ras Thavas, um cientista brilhante, porém moralmente ambíguo, conhecido como o Mestre Mental de Marte. Ras Thavas aperfeiçoou a arte do transplante cerebral, permitindo transferir mentes entre corpos. Ele emprega Vad Varo como assistente, e juntos realizam operações que levantam questões éticas sobre identidade e mortalidade. O conflito central surge quando Vad Varo se apaixona por Valla Dia, uma bela mulher cujo cérebro foi colocado no corpo de uma velha decrépita por Ras Thavas. Determinado a restaurá-la à sua forma original, Vad Varo precisa navegar pela política traiçoeira de Barsoom, confrontar as ambições implacáveis de Ras Thavas e encontrar uma maneira de reverter o procedimento. A história se desenrola pelas paisagens exóticas do planeta vermelho, do laboratório de Ras Thavas às cidades-estado em guerra. Burroughs mescla aventura empolgante com ciência especulativa, explorando temas de amor, lealdade e a natureza do eu. O tom é acelerado e imaginativo, característico da ficção científica pulp inicial, com um toque satírico que critica a fé cega e a arrogância científica. A jornada de Vad Varo é de despertar moral enquanto ele lida com as consequências de adulterar a própria vida.

Nota editorial

A tradução para o português e a versão Reading Comprehension B1 foram geradas com apoio de inteligência artificial e submetidas a revisão editorial.

Em caso de dúvida ou observações, fale conosco.

MicMac from Las Vegas LLC
Contato: admin@micmacfromlasvegas.com

Outros livros e materiais

Materiais e outros livros da série ESL Easy Read:

Coleção Marte de Burroughs

A Fighting Man Of Mars

A Princess of Mars

Synthetic Men of Mars

The Chessmen Of Mars

The Gods Of Mars

The Master Mind Of Mars

The Warlord Of Mars

Thuvia, Maid Of Mars

Outras coleções disponíveis

Doctor Dolittle

Anne of Green Gables / L. M. Montgomery

Gothic and Terror Classics

A Selva de Burroughs

Sherlock Holmes

The Land of Oz

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Reading Comprehension B1

1 - I. -- A LETTER

2 - MY DEAR MR. BURROUGHS:

3 - II. -- THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD

4 - III. -- PREFERMENT

5 - IV. -- VALLA DIA

I. -- A LETTER

Pt/En Helium, June 8th, 1925

MY DEAR MR. BURROUGHS:

Pt/En In the autumn of 1917, at a camp for training officers, the writer first learned about John Carter, the War Lord of Barsoom, from a book called "A Princess of Mars." The story was very impressive. Even though the writer knew it was a fantasy, he felt it might be real. He started dreaming about Mars, John Carter, Dejah Thoris, Tars Tarkas, and Woola, as if he knew them personally.

Pt/En During the busy training days, there was not much time for dreaming. But in the short moments before sleeping, the writer had dreams. These dreams were always about Mars. When he was awake at night, he would look for the Red Planet in the sky and try to understand the mystery of Mars that people have wondered about for a long time.

Pt/En The writer thinks this idea became like an obsession. It stayed with him during his training. At night, on the ship, he would lie down and look at the sky. He would gaze at Mars, which he called the "red eye of the god of battle," and wish he could travel through space to Mars, like John Carter did.

Pt/En Then came the difficult days and nights in the war trenches. There were rats, insects, and mud. Sometimes, there were exciting moments when they had to go "over the top." The writer enjoyed the fighting and the loud sounds of war. However, he really hated the rats, insects, and mud. He admits this might sound like bragging, but he wanted to tell the truth. He believes Mr. Burroughs will understand, and this might explain later events.

Pt/En The narrator received his first promotion to captain. He was proud but knew it was a big responsibility. His unit had moved forward two kilometers, and he was in an advanced position with a small group. He got orders to move back to a new line. The next thing he remembered was waking up after dark. A shell must have exploded nearby. He didn't know what happened to his men. When he woke up, it was dark and cold. At first, he felt comfortable, but then he started to feel terrible pain in his legs. He tried to move them but found he could not feel anything from the waist down. The moon came out, and he saw he was in a shell hole with dead soldiers all around him.

Pt/En It took him a long time to find the courage and strength to lift himself up on one elbow to see the damage done to him.

Pt/En One look was enough, and he fell back in great pain and sadness. His legs had been blown off between his hips and knees. He was losing blood, but not very fast. He knew he would die soon if he wasn't found. Lying there in pain, he hoped he would not be found too soon because he was more afraid of living without legs than of dying.

Pt/En Then, he saw the bright red eye of Mars, and he felt a sudden hope. He reached his arms towards Mars and prayed to the god of his work to help him. He believed the god would help him. This strong mental effort to escape his terrible physical state made him feel sick for a moment. Then he heard a sharp sound, like a wire breaking. Suddenly, he was standing, naked, on two healthy legs, looking down at the bloody, broken body that had been him. He stood like that for a moment, then looked up at his star of destiny again, with his arms out, waiting in the cold French night.

Pt/En Suddenly, he felt himself being pulled through empty space at the speed of thought. There was a moment of extreme cold and total darkness. The rest of the story is in a manuscript that he found a way to send with this letter, with help from someone greater than them. He believes that the recipient and a few others will believe it, and for others, it doesn't matter yet.

Pt/En The writer said that a certain time would come, but he asked why he should tell the reader something they already knew.

Pt/En He sent greetings and congratulations to the reader. He said the reader was lucky to be chosen to help people from Earth learn about Barsoom. This would happen when people could travel through space easily, like John Carter, and visit the places he described through the reader.

Pt/En The letter was signed by Ulysses Paxton, who was a former Captain in the U.S. Army.

II. -- THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD

Pt/En The writer felt he must have closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was lying on his back. He looked up at a bright, sunny sky. A few feet away, a very strange-looking person was looking down at him with a confused expression.

Pt/En The person looked very old, with many wrinkles. His arms and legs were thin, and his ribs could be seen under his skin. He had a large head that seemed too big for his thin body, but the writer thought the head was actually in proportion.

Pt/En A short, red-skinned man with grey hair looked at me. He wore a leather harness and a special collar with jewels. He had big glasses with many lenses. He seemed confused, scratched his head, and spoke in a language I did not know.

Pt/En I sat up and looked around. I was on red grass inside a high wall. The building looked like an old European castle but was strange and beautiful. Inside the walls were unusual trees and plants with many flowers. Paths were made of colored stones and shiny gems.

Pt/En The old man spoke again, more strongly. I shook my head again. He put his hand on one of his two swords. As he pulled out a sword, I jumped up. I was very surprised, and so was he. I jumped high and far. This showed me I was on Mars. The lower gravity, the red grass, and the red skin of the Martians were like the stories of John Carter. I knew I was on the Red Planet, Barsoom.

Pt/En The old man was so surprised by my jump that he moved suddenly. His glasses fell off his nose onto the grass. I saw that he was almost blind without them. He got on his knees and looked everywhere for his glasses, as if his life depended on finding them quickly.

Pt/En He might have thought I would hurt him because he could not see. The glasses were very big and were close to him, but he could not find them. His hands searched all around the lost glasses but did not touch them.

Pt/En While I watched him try uselessly and thought about giving him back his sword so he could attack me more easily, I noticed that someone else had entered the area.

Pt/En I looked towards the building and saw a big red man running fast towards the old man with glasses. The new man was naked and held a club. His face showed he was going to hurt the old man, who was on the ground looking for his lost glasses.

Pt/En At first, I wanted to stay out of it because it did not seem to be my problem. But when I looked again at the face of the man with the club, I wondered if it might concern me after all.

Pt/En The attacker's face looked very wild or angry. I thought he might attack me after he finished with the old man. The old man seemed harmless, even though he had tried to attack me earlier. Between the two, the old man seemed like the better choice.

Pt/En The old man was still looking for his glasses, and the naked man was close to him. I decided to help the old man. I ran quickly towards the attacker. The attacker swung his club at me, but I moved out of the way. I realized my body was very fast, but I had to learn to use it quickly to fight this man with a club. He looked very angry and dangerous.

Pt/En As I tried to get used to the new situation, I found it very difficult to fight my opponent. I kept falling down on the red grass and almost died several times. The fight became a game where he tried to hit me with his big club, and I tried to run away from him. It was embarrassing, but true.

Pt/En But this did not continue for long. I soon learned to control my body, especially because I had to. Then I was able to stand my ground. When he swung his weapon at me, I dodged it and then I hit him with my sword. He started bleeding and roared in pain. He became more careful, so I used this chance to push him back. This made me feel much more confident. I started fighting him seriously, attacking him with my sword until he was bleeding in many places. I was careful to avoid his powerful swings, as one hit could have knocked me out.

Pt/En While I was trying to escape him at the start, we had moved far from where we first met. I was facing that direction when the old man found his glasses and put them on. He quickly looked around and saw us. He started shouting at us and ran towards us, pulling out his sword. The red-skinned man was still attacking me, but I was now in control of myself. I feared I would have to fight two people, so I attacked the red-skinned man with even more energy. He almost hit me, but I stepped into an opening and ran my sword through him. I thought I had hit his heart, but I remembered reading that Martians' organs are different from humans'. However, the wound was bad enough to stop him. Just then, the old man arrived. He saw me ready to fight, but I had misunderstood him. He did not make any threatening moves with his weapon and seemed to be trying to show me he meant no harm. He was very excited and frustrated that I could not understand him. He jumped around, shouting strange words that sounded like angry commands. But the fact that he put his sword away was more important than his shouting. When he stopped yelling and started using gestures, I understood he wanted peace. So, I lowered my sword and bowed. I did this to show him I had no intention of attacking him.

Pt/En He seemed happy with this. He then turned his attention to the man on the ground. He checked his pulse and listened to his heart. After nodding, he stood up and took a whistle from his pocket. He blew it loudly once.

Pt/En A group of naked red-men immediately came out of nearby buildings and ran towards us. They were not armed. The old man gave them a few short orders. They picked up the fallen man and carried him away. Then the old man started walking towards a building and motioned for me to follow. I felt I had no choice but to obey. No matter where I was on Mars, I was likely surrounded by enemies. So, I decided I might as well stay with them and rely on my own skills and quickness to survive on the Red Planet.

Pt/En An old man took me into a small room. Many doors led from it. Through one door, they were carrying my enemy, who had just died. We followed them into a big, bright room. I was shocked by the terrible sight. There were many tables in lines. Most tables had a dead body that was cut or hurt. Above each table were shelves with containers. Surgical tools hung from the shelves. It looked like a very large medical school.

Pt/En The old man told the people carrying the Barsoomian I had hurt to put him on an empty table. They left the room. My host, who was not yet my captor, then motioned me to come closer. While he spoke normally, he made two cuts in the dead man. One cut was in a large vein, and the other in an artery. He attached two tubes. One tube went to an empty glass container. The other tube went to a container with a clear liquid like water. He pushed a button for a small motor. The motor pumped the dead man's blood into the empty jar. Then, the liquid from the other jar was pushed into the dead man's veins and arteries.

Pt/En The old man's words and actions showed me he was explaining what he was doing and why. But I did not understand his language. I was still confused after he finished speaking. However, what I saw made me think it was a normal Barsoomian way of preparing dead bodies. After removing the tubes, the old man covered the cuts with tape. Then he asked me to follow him. We walked through many rooms, and each room had the same frightening displays. In many rooms, the old man stopped to look at the bodies or check a record that hung near each table.

Pt/En From the last room on the first floor, my host led me up a ramp to the second floor. The rooms there were like the ones below. But here, the tables held whole bodies, not cut ones. All the bodies had tape on them in different places. As we walked past the bodies in one room, a Barsoomian girl, who seemed to be a servant, came in. She spoke to the old man. He then signaled me to follow him, and we went down another ramp to the first floor of a different building.

Pt/En In this new building, we entered a large, beautiful, and well-furnished room. An old red-skinned woman was waiting for us. She looked very old, and her face was badly hurt. She wore rich clothes and had many women and armed guards with her, showing she was important. However, the old man spoke to her rudely. Her attendants were very shocked by his behavior.

Pt/En After a long conversation, the woman told one of her guards to pay the old man with Martian coins. The old man then asked the woman and me to follow him. He did not want her other people to come with us. The woman and one of her warriors argued with the old man. He became angry and offered to return the money. The woman refused the coins, spoke briefly to her people, and then went with the old man and me alone.

Pt/En The old man led us to a room on the second floor. This room was like the others, but all the bodies were of young women, many of them very beautiful. The woman followed the old man closely and looked at the dead bodies very carefully.

Pt/En The woman walked slowly past the tables three times, looking at the dead bodies. She stopped the longest at a table with the body of the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. She returned a fourth time and looked at the dead face for a long time. She talked with the old man, asking many questions, and he gave quick answers. Then, she pointed to the body and agreed with the old keeper of the exhibit.

Pt/En She pointed to the body with her hand.

Pt/En The old man blew his whistle to call servants. He told them what to do. Then he led us to a smaller room with empty tables. Two female slaves helped the old woman get ready. They took off her clothes, unfastened her hair, and placed her on a table. They sprayed her with a cleaning liquid, dried her, and moved her to another table, about twenty inches away from a second, parallel table.

Pt/En The door opened, and two helpers brought in the body of a beautiful young woman. They placed her on a table. She was sprayed, and then moved to a different table. The old man made cuts in the old woman, similar to what he did with the red-skinned man. Her blood was removed, and a clear liquid was put into her veins. She died and lay on the table, looking like the dead young woman next to her.

Pt/En The old man, who had removed his harness and been sprayed, took a sharp knife. He removed the old woman's scalp around her head. Then, he did the same to the young woman's body. Using a small saw, he cut through the skull of each woman where the scalp had been removed. The rest of the operation was done very skillfully.

Pt/En After four hours, the old man had successfully switched the brains of the two women. He carefully connected the nerves and then put the skulls and scalps back in place. He secured both heads with a special tape that helped heal, prevented infection, and numbed the area.

Pt/En He reheated the blood he had taken from the old woman and added a chemical. He then removed the blood from the beautiful corpse's veins and replaced it with the old woman's blood. At the same time, he gave her an injection.

Pt/En The old man had not spoken during the whole process. He then gave short instructions to his helpers, told me to follow him, and left the room. He led me to a luxurious room in the building. He showed me into a fancy apartment and left me with trained servants.

Pt/En Feeling refreshed after an hour in the bath, I went to the next room. There, I found clothes and equipment ready for me. They were simple but made of good material, though they did not include any weapons.

Pt/En I had been thinking a lot about the strange things I saw on Mars. The most confusing thing was why an old woman paid my host a lot of money to kill her and put a dead person's brain into her head. I wondered if it was for a strange religion or if there was a reason my mind from Earth could not understand.

Pt/En While I was still thinking about this, a slave called me to another room. My host was there, waiting for me in front of a table full of delicious food. I ate a lot because I had not eaten well for a long time.

Pt/En During the meal, my host tried to talk to me, but it was difficult because we did not understand each other. He became very angry three times and put his hand on his sword when I did not understand him. I started to think he was a little crazy, but he always stopped himself before anything bad happened.

Pt/En After the meal, he thought for a long time. Then, he suddenly decided to teach me the Barsoomian language. It was late when he finally let me go to sleep. He took me to the room with my new clothes, showed me soft silks and furs to sleep on, said goodnight in the Barsoomian way, and locked the door from the outside. I was not sure if I was a guest or a prisoner.

III. -- PREFERMENT

Pt/En Three weeks went by quickly. The narrator could now speak the Barsoomian language well enough to talk with his host. He was also slowly learning to read it. He learned a lot about the strange place where he was both a guest and a prisoner. He also learned about his host, Ras Thavas, an old surgeon. Ras Thavas ruled his institution almost alone, with only simple helpers. His intelligence and skill guided all the activities of his life's work, which could be good, bad, or amazing.

Pt/En Ras Thavas was as remarkable as his work. He was not intentionally cruel or wicked. He did terrible things, but he could also do good deeds that would be highly respected on Earth. He was not motivated by bad reasons for cruelty, nor by good reasons for kindness. He had a scientific mind without feelings. He was practical, as shown by his high fees. However, he would not operate just for money. He sometimes spent days studying problems that would not make him richer, even though his waiting clients were very wealthy.

Pt/En Ras Thavas treated the narrator based on scientific needs. The narrator was a mystery, possibly not Barsoomian or from an unknown species. So, for science, he needed to be kept and studied. Ras Thavas wanted to learn from the narrator about Earth, hoping to solve Barsoomian scientific puzzles. However, the narrator knew little about science, and Earth's science was far behind Mars. Ras Thavas kept him and trained him in his laboratory. He learned how to use a special fluid to preserve bodies without changing them. He also learned how to add drops to blood to make it healthy again before returning it to the body.

Pt/En Ras Thavas once explained why he taught the narrator these secrets and why he kept him close, instead of other people who worked for him.

Pt/En Ras Thavas told the narrator, whose Barsoomian name was Vad Varo, that he needed an assistant for many years. He had not found someone who would work for him completely and without reason to leave or share his secrets. He said Vad Varo was unique because he had no other friends on Barsoom. If he left, he would be in danger and suffer greatly. Here, he had everything he needed and was busy with interesting work. So, there was no reason for him to leave. Ras Thavas expected loyalty based on self-interest. He thought Vad Varo was an ideal assistant because he was intelligent and quick. After watching him, Ras Thavas decided Vad Varo could also be his personal bodyguard.

Pt/En Ras Thavas explained that he was the only one in his laboratory with a weapon. He said this was unusual on Barsoom, where most people carry weapons. He could not give weapons to many people because they might kill him. He also worried that if he gave weapons to people he trusted, others might take them, or the trusted people might attack him. He thought Vad Varo was the only person who had no other place to go. So, Ras Thavas decided to give Vad Varo weapons.

Pt/En Ras Thavas reminded Vad Varo that he had saved his life before and might have another chance to do so. He believed Vad Varo was sensible and would not kill him. Ras Thavas said that Vad Varo would lose everything and gain nothing if he died, as he would be left alone and unprotected in a dangerous world where killing was common. Then, Ras Thavas opened a cabinet, showed many weapons, and chose a long-sword, a short-sword, a pistol, and a dagger for Vad Varo.

Pt/En Vad Varo asked Ras Thavas if he was sure about his loyalty.

Pt/En Ras Thavas shrugged. He said he knew that Vad Varo's actions were based on his own best interests. He explained that words like love, loyalty, and friendship were not important. He believed that intelligent people understood that everything was about self-interest. They decided if someone was a friend or enemy by looking at their needs and what they liked. He thought that people who believed in sentiment were foolish.

Pt/En Vad Varo smiled as he put on his weapons. He decided not to argue with Ras Thavas, as he knew he would probably lose an argument and it would not help. However, Ras Thavas's words made him curious about some things. He thought again about why the red man had tried to kill Ras Thavas on the day Vad Varo first arrived on Barsoom. After their evening meal, while they were talking, Vad Varo asked Ras Thavas about it.

Pt/En The speaker described someone as a very emotional person who hated him intensely. He explained that the victim was a young, strong warrior who had been killed. The speaker's agent bought the dead body from the victim's family. The speaker used these bodies for his work. He kept one body in his lab for a year. Later, a rich, older man wanted to marry a young woman. This man had money and intelligence, but he was not good-looking. The young woman had many attractive suitors.

Pt/En The speaker said that the dead warrior, identified as 378-J-493811-P, had the good looks that his rich client wanted and could pay for.

Pt/En They quickly agreed on a price. The speaker moved his rich client's brain into the body of 378-J-493811-P. The client left, and the speaker believed he married the woman. The body of 378-J-493811-P could have stayed unused, but the speaker needed another male slave and chose him by chance.

Pt/En The speaker reminded the listener that the man had been murdered and was dead. He had bought the corpse and everything in it. The body could have remained dead, but the speaker brought it back to life. However, the man was not able to think about the situation calmly and wisely.

Pt/En Because of his strong emotions, the man blamed the speaker for giving him a new body. The speaker felt that, if anything, the man should have been grateful for being brought back to life in a healthy body, even if it was not his original one.

Pt/En The speaker explained that he could not return someone's body. He said it was only possible if the body of the client who bought it was found, which was very unlikely. The other person suggested killing the client to get the body back so the speaker could reverse the operation. When the speaker refused to tell the name of the person who had the body, the other person became unhappy. The speaker did not realize how much hate this person felt until they attacked him.

Pt/En Feelings can stop progress. People in Toonol are less affected by feelings than others on Barsoom, but many still have them. However, feelings also have good points. Without them, it would be impossible to have a stable government, and other people might conquer them. Enough people in Toonol have feelings to be loyal to their leader, and the smart upper classes know it is best for them to keep the leader in power.

Pt/En In contrast, the Phundahlians are very emotional and foolish, believing in silly ideas. They are ruled by stupid thoughts. The fact that they keep their old, bad leader, Xaxa, shows their stupidity. She is ignorant, proud, selfish, and cruel, but the Phundahlians would fight and die for her because her father was their leader. She taxes them heavily, rules them badly, uses them, and betrays them, yet they still admire her. They do this because her family has ruled for a long time, and they are led by feelings instead of thinking. Their rulers use these feelings to control them.

Pt/En The speaker said that the woman had no good qualities for a sensible person, not even beauty. He reminded the listener that they had seen her.

Pt/En The listener asked if he had seen her.

Pt/En The speaker told the listener that he had helped him on the day they put an old woman's brain into a new container. This was also the day the listener arrived from Earth.

Pt/En The speaker asked in surprise if the old woman was Jeddara of Phundahl.

Pt/En The old man confirmed that her name was Xaxa.

Pt/En The speaker explained that because the listener did not treat the old woman like a ruler from Earth, he did not know she was important.

Pt/En The old man introduced himself as Ras Thavas. He said he did not need to bow to anyone because in his world, only intelligence mattered, and he believed he had no equal in that.

Pt/En The narrator asked if the Master Mind felt proud of his intelligence. The Master Mind said it was not pride, but a fact. He believed he had the best and most advanced mind among all the smart people he knew. He thought his mind was probably the best on Barsoom. He also said that minds on other planets, like Mercury and Venus, might be as good or even better. He explained that they had studied thought waves from these planets, but their tools were not good enough to know for sure.

Pt/En The narrator then asked about the girl whose body had been given to the Jeddara. He remembered her body and thought she must have had a good brain too.

Pt/En The Master Mind replied that she was just a subject.

Pt/En The narrator insisted on knowing what would happen to her.

Pt/En The Master Mind asked why it mattered. He explained that he had bought her with prisoners of war and did not remember where they came from. He said these details were not important.

Pt/En The speaker asked if the woman was alive when the other person bought her.

Pt/En The other person confirmed she was alive and asked why the speaker was asking.

Pt/En The speaker then asked if the other person had killed her.

Pt/En The other person replied that they had not killed her but had preserved her. They explained that this was about ten years ago and that they kept her young so she would still have value. They said that when Xaxa bought her, she looked as fresh as the day she arrived. Many women wanted her face and figure, but only a Jeddara could afford her, and she brought the highest price the seller had ever received.

Pt/En The seller added that they had kept her for a long time, knowing that one day she would sell for their desired price.

Pt/En The speaker explained that feelings are useful because they make people help his work, which allows him to do important research. He said he was very close to creating thinking people by using special light on chemical mixtures. He thought scientists probably did not know about this because they lacked knowledge.

Pt/En The narrator told the speaker that he would not be surprised by anything the speaker might achieve.

IV. -- VALLA DIA

Pt/En That night, the narrator could not sleep. He thought about a beautiful girl, identified as 4296-E-2631-H. Her perfect body had been used for the cruel mind of a tyrant. The narrator felt this was a terrible crime. Thinking about it made him hate and dislike Ras Thavas. He could not imagine someone being so uncaring as to harm that sweet body, even for a good reason, and certainly not for money.

Pt/En The narrator thought so much about the girl that he saw her image first thing in the morning. After eating, and since Ras Thavas had not arrived, he went to the storage room. There, he saw the body of an old woman with a damaged face, lying still in death. However, he did not see that body. Instead, he imagined a vision of beautiful loveliness, whose soul was asleep under the gray hair.

Pt/En The body that looked like Xaxa was not Xaxa. Everything that made the other person who she was had been moved to this cold body. The narrator wondered how terrible it would be if she woke up. He imagined the horror she would feel when she realized what had happened to her. He questioned who she was, what her story was, and what loves she had known, given her great beauty and kind face. He wondered if Ras Thavas would ever wake her up, thinking it might be better for her to stay as she was. He felt afraid of her waking up, but also wanted to hear her speak, to know her brain was alive, to learn her name, and to hear the story of her life that had been taken away and treated so badly. Suddenly, Ras Thavas placed a hand on his shoulder.

Pt/En He said that I seemed interested in the subject.

Pt/En I replied that I was wondering how the girl's brain would react if she woke up and found out she had become an old, disfigured woman.

Pt/En He stroked his chin and looked at me closely. He thought it was an interesting experiment.

Pt/En He was pleased that I was showing scientific interest in his work. He admitted he had not paid much attention to the psychological parts of his work for about a hundred years, though he used to. He thought it would be interesting to study several cases. He suggested this one would be good for me to start with because it was simple. Later, he said, I could look at cases where a man's brain was put into a woman's body, and a woman's brain into a man's. He also mentioned cases where part of a damaged brain was replaced with part of another person's brain. He added that there were opportunities to study human brains put into animal bodies, and animal brains into human bodies. He remembered one case where he put half of an ape's brain into a man's skull after removing half of the man's brain, and put that removed part into the ape's skull. He thought about checking on these two subjects again. He said they were probably in vault L-42-X, under building 4-J-21, and that we should look at them soon. He thought there might be interesting specimens there that he had forgotten about. Then he said, "Come! let us recall 4296-E-2631- H."

Pt/En I exclaimed, "No!" and put my hand on his arm, saying it would be horrible.

Pt/En He looked at me with surprise, and a mean, mocking smile appeared on his face. He called me a foolish and overly emotional person. He asked who would dare refuse him.

Pt/En I put my hand on the handle of my long sword and looked directly into his eyes.

Pt/En I told Ras Thavas that he was the master of his own home, but asked him to treat me with respect while I was his guest.

Pt/En He looked back at me for a moment, but then his eyes moved away. He admitted that he had been too quick to speak.

Pt/En I accepted his words as an apology, which was more than I expected. After this, I believe he treated me with more respect. He then turned his attention to the slab holding the body of 4296-E-2631-H.

Pt/En Ras Thavas told him to prepare the person for revival and to study all the body's reactions. Then he left the room.

Pt/En He felt he was doing the right thing by following Ras Thavas's orders. The blood that belonged to the body Ras Thavas had sold to Xaxa was in a sealed container. He had to do this work alone for the first time. After heating the blood, making cuts, attaching tubes, and adding a special liquid, he was ready to bring life back to the brain that had been dead for ten years. As he was about to start the machine, he felt a feeling he imagined no one else had ever experienced.

Pt/En He felt like he was controlling life and death. But at that moment, he felt more like a murderer than a savior. He tried to think like a scientist but could not. He only saw a sad girl who had lost her beauty. He turned away, unable to do it. Then, it was like something else controlled him, and his finger pressed the button. He thought maybe his other mind made him do it. He did not know for sure. He only knew that he did it, the machine started, and the blood level in the container began to go down.

Original English Text

1 - I. -- A LETTER

2 - MY DEAR MR. BURROUGHS:

3 - II. -- THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD

4 - III. -- PREFERMENT

5 - IV. -- VALLA DIA

I. -- A LETTER

PT HELIUM, June 8th, 1925

MY DEAR MR. BURROUGHS:

PT It was in the Fall of nineteen seventeen at an officers' training camp that I first became acquainted with John Carter, War Lord of Barsoom, through the pages of your novel "A Princess of Mars." The story made a profound impression upon me and while my better judgment assured me that it was but a highly imaginative piece of fiction, a suggestion of the verity of it pervaded my inner consciousness to such an extent that I found myself dreaming of Mars and John Carter, of Dejah Thoris, of Tars Tarkas and of Woola as if they had been entities of my own experience rather than the figments of your imagination.

PT It is true that in those days of strenuous preparation there was little time for dreaming, yet there were brief moments before sleep claimed me at night and these were my dreams. Such dreams! Always of Mars, and during my waking hours at night my eyes always sought out the Red Planet when he was above the horizon and clung there seeking a solution of the seemingly unfathomable riddle he has presented to the Earthman for ages.

PT Perhaps the thing became an obsession. I know it clung to me all during my training camp days, and at night, on the deck of the transport, I would he on my back gazing up into the red eye of the god of battle -- my god -- and wishing that, like John Carter, I might be drawn across the great void to the haven of my desire

PT And then came the hideous days and nights in the trenches -- the rats, the vermin, the mud -- with an occasional glorious break in the monotony when we were ordered over the top. I loved it then and I loved the bursting shells, the mad, wild chaos of the thundering guns, but the rats and the vermin and the mud -- God! how I hated them. It sounds like boasting, I know, and I am sorry; but I wanted to write you just the truth about myself. I think you will understand. And it may account for much that happened afterwards.

PT Here came at last to me what had come to so many others upon those bloody fields. It came within the week that I had received my first promotion and my captaincy, of which I was greatly proud, though humbly so; realizing as I did my youth, the great responsibility that it placed upon me as well as the opportunities it offered, not only in service to my country but, in a personal way, to the men of my command. We had advanced a matter of two kilometers and with a small detachment I was holding a very advanced position when I received orders to fall back to the new line. That is the last that I remember until I regained consciousness after dark. A shell must have burst among us. What became of my men I never knew. It was cold and very dark when I awoke and at first, for an instant, I was quite comfortable -- before I was fully conscious, I imagine -- and then I commenced to feel pain. It grew until it seemed unbearable. It was in my legs. I reached down to feel them, but my hand recoiled from what it found, and when I tried to move my legs I discovered that I was dead from the waist down. Then the moon came out from behind a cloud and I saw that I lay within a shell hole and that I was not alone -- the dead were all about me.<

PT It was a long time before I found the moral courage and the physical strength to draw myself up upon one elbow that I might view the havoc that had been done me.

PT One look was enough, I sank back in an agony of mental and physical anguish - my legs had been blown away from midway between the hips and knees. For some reason I was not bleeding excessively, yet I know that I had lost a great deal of blood and that I was gradually losing enough to put me out of my misery in a short time if I were not soon found; and as I lay there on my back, tortured with pain, I prayed that they would not come in time, for I shrank more from the thought of going maimed through life than I shrank from the thought of death.

PT Then my eyes suddenly focussed upon the bright red eye of Mars and there surged through me a sudden wave of hope. I stretched out my arms towards Mars, I did not seem to question or to doubt for an instant as I prayed to the god of my vocation to reach forth and succor me. I knew that he would do it, my faith was complete, and yet so great was the mental effort that I made to throw off the hideous bonds of my mutilated flesh that I felt a momentary qualm of nausea and then a sharp click as of the snapping of a steel wire, and suddenly I stood naked upon two good legs looking down upon the bloody, distorted thing that had been I. Just for an instant did I stand thus before I turned my eyes aloft again to my star of destiny and with outstretched arms stand there in the cold of that French night -- waiting.

PT Suddenly I felt myself drawn with the speed of thought through the trackless wastes of interplanetary space. There was an instant of extreme cold and utter darkness, then -- But the rest is in the manuscript that, with the aid of one greater than either of us, I have found the means to transmit to you with this letter. You and a few others of the chosen will believe in it -- for the rest it matters not as yet.

PT The time will come -- but why tell you what you already know?

PT My salutations and my congratulations -- the latter on your good fortune in having been chosen as the medium through which Earthmen shall become better acquainted with the manners and customs of Barsoom, against the time that they shall pass through space as easily as John Carter, and visit the scenes that he has described to them through you, as have I.

PT Your sincere friend, ULYSSES PAXTON, Late Captain, -- th Inf., U.S. Army.

II. -- THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD

PT I MUST have closed my eyes involuntarily during the transition for when I opened them I was lying flat on my back gazing up into a brilliant, sun-lit sky, while standing a few feet from me and looking down upon me with the most mystified expression was as strange a looking individual as my eyes ever had rested upon.

PT He appeared to be quite an old man, for he was wrinkled and withered beyond description. His limbs were emaciated; his ribs showed distinctly beneath his shrunken hide; his cranium was large and well developed, which, in conjunction with his wasted limbs and torso, lent him the appearance of top heaviness, as though he had a head beyond all proportion to his body, which was, I am sure, really not the case.

PT As he stared down upon me through enormous, many lensed spectacles I found the opportunity to examine him as minutely in return. He was, perhaps, five feet five in height, though doubtless he had been taller in youth, since he was somewhat bent; he was naked except for some rather plain and well-worn leather harness which supported his weapons and pocket pouches, and one great ornament a collar, jewel studded, that he wore around his scraggy neck -- such a collar as a dowager empress of pork or real estate might barter her soul for, if she had one. His skin was red, his scant locks grey. As he looked at me his puzzled expression increased in intensity, he grasped his chin between the thumb and fingers of his left hand and slowly raising his right hand he scratched his head most deliberately. Then he spoke to me, but in a language I did not understand.

PT At his first words I sat up and shook my head. Then I looked about me. I was seated upon a crimson sward within a high walled enclosure, at least two, and possibly three, sides of which were formed by the outer walls of a structure that in some respects resembled more closely a feudal castle of Europe than any familiar form of architecture that comes to my mind. The facade presented to my view was ornately carved and of most irregular design, the roof line being so broken as to almost suggest a ruin, and yet the whole seemed harmonious and not without beauty. Within the enclosure grew a number of trees and shrubs, all weirdly strange and all, or almost all, profusely flowering. About them wound walks of colored pebbles among which scintillated what appeared to be rare and beautiful gems, so lovely were the strange, unearthly rays that leaped and played in the sunshine.

PT The old man spoke again, peremptorily this time, as though repeating a command that had been ignored, but again I shook my head. Then he laid a hand upon one of his two swords, but as he drew the weapon I leaped to my feet, with such remarkable results that I cannot even now say which of us was the more surprised. I must have sailed ten feet into the air and back about twenty feet from where I had been sitting; then I was sure that I was upon Mars (not that I had for one instant doubted it), for the effects of the lesser gravity, the color of the sward and the skin-hue of the red Martians I had seen described in the manuscripts of John Carter, those marvellous and as yet unappreciated contributions to the scientific literature of a world. There could be no doubt of it, I stood upon the soil of the Red Planet, I had come to the world of my dreams -- to Barsoom.

PT So startled was the old man by my agility that he jumped a bit himself, though doubtless involuntarily, but, however, with certain results. His spectacles tumbled from his nose to the sward, and then it was that I discovered that the pitiful old wretch was practically blind when deprived of these artificial aids to vision, for he got to his knees and commenced to grope frantically for the lost glasses, as though his very life depended upon finding them in the instant.

PT Possibly he thought that I might take advantage of his helplessness and slay him. Though the spectacles were enormous and lay within a couple of feet of him he could not find them, his hands, seemingly afflicted by that strange perversity that sometimes confounds our simplest acts, passing all about the lost object of their search, yet never once coming in contact with it.

PT As I stood watching his futile efforts and considering the advisability of restoring to him the means that would enable him more readily to find my heart with his sword point, I became aware that another had entered the enclosure.

PT Looking towards the building I saw a large red-man running rapidly towards the little old man of the spectacles. The newcomer was quite naked, he carried a club in one hand, and there was upon his face such an expression as unquestionably boded ill for the helpless husk of humanity groveling, mole-like, for its lost spectacles.

PT My first impulse was to remain neutral in an affair that it seemed could not possibly concern me and of which I had no slightest knowledge upon which to base a predilection towards either of the parties involved; but a second glance at the face of the club-bearer aroused a question as to whether it might not concern me after all.

PT There was that in the expression upon the man's face that betokened either an inherent savageness of disposition or a maniacal cast of mind which might turn his evidently murderous attentions upon me after he had dispatched his elderly victim, while, in outward appearance at least, the latter was a sane and relatively harmless individual. It is true that his move to draw his sword against me was not indicative of a friendly disposition towards me, but at least, if there were any choice, he seemed the lesser of two evils.

PT He was still groping for his spectacles and the naked man was almost upon him as I reached the decision to cast my lot upon the side of the old man. I was twenty feet away, naked and unarmed, but to cover the distance with my Earthly muscles required but an instant, and a naked sword lay by the old man's side where he had discarded it the better to search for his spectacles. So it was that I faced the attacker at the instant that he came within striking distance of his victim, and the blow which had been intended for another was aimed at me. I side- stepped it and then I learned that the greater agility of my Earthly muscles had its disadvantages as well as its advantages, for, indeed, I had to learn to walk at the very instant that I had to learn to fight with a new weapon against a maniac armed with a bludgeon, or at least, so I assumed him to be and I think that it is not strange that I should have done so, what with his frightful show of rage and the terrible expression upon his face.

PT As I stumbled about endeavoring to accustom myself to the new conditions, I found that instead of offering any serious opposition to my antagonist I was hard put to it to escape death at his hands, so often did I stumble and fall sprawling upon the scarlet sward; so that the duel from its inception became but a series of efforts, upon his part to reach and crush me with his great club, and upon mine to dodge and elude him. It was mortifying but it is the truth.

PT However, this did not last indefinitely, for soon I learned, and quickly too under the exigencies of the situation, to command my muscles, and then I stood my ground and when he aimed a blow at me, and I had dodged it, I touched him with my point and brought blood along with a savage roar of pain. He went more cautiously then, and taking advantage of the change I pressed him so that he fell back. The effect upon me was magical, giving me new confidence, so that I set upon him in good earnest, thrusting and cutting until I had him bleeding in a half-dozen places, yet taking good care to avoid his mighty swings, any one of which would have felled an ox.

PT In my attempts to elude him in the beginning of the duel we had crossed the enclosure and were now fighting at a considerable distance from the point of our first meeting. It now happened that I stood facing towards that point at the moment that the old man regained his spectacles, which he quickly adjusted to his eyes. Immediately he looked about until he discovered us, whereupon he commenced to yell excitedly at us at the same time running in our direction and drawing his short-sword as he ran. The red-man was pressing me hard, but I had gained almost complete control of myself, and fearing that I was soon to have two antagonists instead of one I set upon him with redoubled intensity. He missed me by the fraction of an inch, the wind in the wake of his bludgeon fanning my scalp, but he left an opening into which I stepped, running my sword fairly through his heart. At least I thought that I had pierced his heart but I had forgotten what I had once read in one of John Carter's manuscripts to the effect that all the Martian internal organs are not disposed identically with those of Earthmen. However, the immediate results were quite as satisfactory as though I had found his heart for the wound was sufficiently grievous to place him hors de combat, and at that instant the old gentleman arrived. He found me ready, but I had mistaken his intentions. He made no unfriendly gestures with his weapon, but seemed to be trying to convince me that he had no intention of harming me. He was very excited and apparently tremendously annoyed that I could not understand him, and perplexed, too. He hopped about screaming strange sentences at me that bore the tones of peremptory commands, rabid invective and impotent rage. But the fact that he had returned his sword to its scabbard had greater significance than all his jabbering, and when he ceased to yell at me and commenced to talk in a sort of pantomime I realized that he was making overtures of peace if not of friendship, so I lowered my point and bowed. It was all that I could think of to assure him that I had no immediate intention of spitting him.

PT He seemed satisfied and at once turned his attention to the fallen man. He examined his pulse and listened to his heart, then, nodding his head, he arose and taking a whistle from one of his pocket pouches sounded a single loud blast.

PT There emerged immediately from one of the surrounding buildings a score of naked red-men who came running towards us. None was armed. To these he issued a few curt orders, whereupon they gathered the fallen one in their arms and bore him off. Then the old man started towards the building, motioning me to accompany him. There seemed nothing else for me to do but obey. Wherever I might be upon Mars, the chances were a million to one that I would be among enemies; and so I was as well off here as elsewhere and must depend upon my own resourcefulness, skill and agility to make my way upon the Red Planet.

PT The old man led me into a small chamber from which opened numerous doors, through one of which they were just bearing my late antagonist. We followed into a large, brilliantly lighted chamber wherein there burst upon my astounded vision the most gruesome scene that I ever had beheld. Rows upon rows of tables arranged in parallel lines filled the room and with few exceptions each table bore a similar grisly burden, a partially dismembered or otherwise mutilated human corpse. Above each table was a shelf bearing containers of various sizes and shapes, while from the bottom of the shelf depended numerous surgical instruments, suggesting that my entrance upon Barsoom was to be through a gigantic medical college.

PT At a word from the old man, those who bore the Barsoomian I had wounded laid him upon an empty table and left the apartment. Whereupon my host if so I may call him, for certainly he was not as yet my captor, motioned me forward. While he conversed in ordinary tones, he made two incisions in the body of my late antagonist; one, I imagine, in a large vein and one in an artery, to which he deftly attached the ends of two tubes, one of which was connected with an empty glass receptacle and the other with a similar receptacle filled with a colorless, transparent liquid resembling clear water. The connections made, the old gentleman pressed a button controlling a small motor, whereupon the victim's blood was pumped into the empty jar while the contents of the other was forced into the emptying veins and arteries.

PT The tones and gestures of the old man as he addressed me during this operation convinced me that he was explaining in detail the method and purpose of what was transpiring, but as I understood no word of all he said I was as much in the dark when he had completed his discourse as I was before he started it, though what I had seen made it appear reasonable to believe that I was witnessing an ordinary Barsoomian embalming. Having removed the tubes the old man closed the openings he had made by covering them with bits of what appeared to be heavy adhesive tape and then motioned me to follow him. We went from room to room, in each of which were the same gruesome exhibits. At many of the bodies the old man paused to make a brief examination or to refer to what appeared to be a record of the case, that hung upon a hook at the head of each of the tables.

PT From the last of the chambers we visited upon the first floor my host led me up an inclined runway to the second floor where there were rooms similar to those below, but here the tables bore whole rather than mutilated bodies, all of which were patched in various places with adhesive tape. As we were passing among the bodies in one of these rooms a Barsoomian girl, whom I took to be a servant or slave, entered and addressed the old man, whereupon he signed me to follow him and together we descended another runway to the first floor of another building.

PT Here, in a large, gorgeously decorated and sumptuously furnished apartment an elderly red-woman awaited us. She appeared to be quite old and her face was terribly disfigured as by some injury. Her trappings were magnificent and she was attended by a score of women and armed warriors, suggesting that she was a person of some consequence, but the little old man treated her quite brusquely, as I could see, quite to the horror of her attendants.

PT Their conversation was lengthy and at the conclusion of it, at the direction of the woman, one of her male escort advanced and opening a pocket pouch at his side withdrew a handful of what appeared to me to be Martian coins. A quantity of these he counted out and handed to the little old man, who then beckoned the woman to follow him, a gesture which included me. Several of her women and guard started to accompany us, but these the old man waved back peremptorily; whereupon there ensued a heated discussion between the woman and one of her warriors on one side and the old man on the other, which terminated in his proffering the return of the woman's money with a disgusted air. This seemed to settle the argument, for she refused the coins, spoke briefly to her people and accompanied the old man and myself alone.

PT He led the way to the second floor and to a chamber which I had not previously visited. It closely resembled the others except that all the bodies therein were of young women, many of them of great beauty. Following closely at the heels of the old man the woman inspected the gruesome exhibit with painstaking care.

PT Thrice she passed slowly among the tables examining their ghastly burdens. Each time she paused longest before a certain one which bore the figure of the most beautiful creature I had ever looked upon; then she returned the fourth time to it and stood looking long and earnestly into the dead face. For awhile she stood there talking with the old man, apparently asking innumerable questions, to which he returned quick, brusque replies, then she indicated the body with a gesture and nodded assent to the withered keeper of this ghastly exhibit.

PT She indicated the body with a gesture...

PT Immediately the old fellow sounded a blast upon his whistle, summoning a number of servants to whom he issued brief instructions, after which he led us to another chamber, a smaller one in which were several empty tables similar to those upon which the corpses lay in adjoining rooms. Two female slaves or attendants were in this room and at a word from their master they removed the trappings from the old woman, unloosed her hair and helped her to one of the tables. Here she was thoroughly sprayed with what I presume was an antiseptic solution of some nature, carefully dried and removed to another table, at a distance of about twenty inches from which stood a second parallel table.

PT Now the door of the chamber swung open and two attendants appeared bearing the body of the beautiful girl we had seen in the adjoining room. This they deposited upon the table the old woman had just quitted and as she had been sprayed so was the corpse, after which it was transferred to the table beside that on which she lay. The little old man now made two incisions in the body of the old woman, just as he had in the body of the red- man who had fallen to my sword; her blood was drawn from her veins and the clear liquid pumped into them, life left her and she lay upon the polished ersite slab that formed the table top, as much a corpse as the poor, beautiful, dead creature at her side.

PT The little old man, who had removed the harness down to his waist and been thoroughly sprayed, now selected a sharp knife from among the instruments above the table and removed the old woman's scalp, following the hair line entirely around her head. In a similar manner he then removed the scalp from the corpse of the young woman, after which, by means of a tiny circular saw attached to the end of a flexible, revolving shaft he sawed through the skull of each, following the line exposed by the removal of the scalps. This and the balance of the marvellous operation was so skillfully performed as to baffle description.

PT Suffice it to say that at the end of four hours he had transferred the brain of each woman to the brain pan of the other, deftly connected the severed nerves and ganglia, replaced the skulls and scalps and bound both heads securely with his peculiar adhesive tape, which was not only antiseptic and healing but anaesthetic, locally, as well.

PT He now reheated the blood that he had withdrawn from the body of the old woman, adding a few drops of some clear chemical solution, withdrew the liquid from the veins of the beautiful corpse, replacing it with the blood of the old woman and simultaneously administering a hypodermic injection.

PT During the entire operation he had not spoken a word. Now he issued a few instructions in his curt manner to his assistants, motioned me to follow him, and left the room. He led me to a distant part of the building or series of buildings that composed the whole, ushered me into a luxurious apartment, opened the door to a Barsoomian bath and left me in the hands of trained servants.

PT Refreshed and rested I left the bath after an hour of relaxation to find harness and trappings awaiting me in the adjoining chamber. Though plain, they were of good material, but there were no weapons with them.

PT Naturally I had been thinking much upon the strange things I had witnessed since my advent upon Mars, but what puzzled me most lay in the seemingly inexplicable act of the old woman in paying my host what was evidently a considerable sum to murder her and transfer to the inside of her skull the brain of a corpse. Was it the outcome of some horrible religious fanaticism, or was there an explanation that my Earthly mind could not grasp?

PT I had reached no decision in the matter when I was summoned to follow a slave to another and near-by apartment where I found my host awaiting me before a table loaded with delicious foods, to which, it is needless to say, I did ample justice after my long fast and longer weeks of rough army fare.

PT During the meal my host attempted to converse with me, but, naturally, the effort was fruitless of results. He waxed quite excited at times and upon three distinct occasions laid his hand upon one of his swords when I failed to comprehend what he was saying to me, an action which resulted in a growing conviction upon my part that he was partially demented; but he evinced sufficient self-control in each instance to avert a catastrophe for one of us.

PT The meal over he sat for a long time in deep meditation, then a sudden resolution seemed to possess him. He turned suddenly upon me with a faint suggestion of a smile and dove headlong into what was to prove an intensive course of instruction in the Barsoomian language. It was long after dark before he permitted me to retire for the night, conducting me himself to a large apartment, the same in which I had found my new harness, where he pointed out a pile of rich sleeping silks and furs, bid me a Barsoomian good night and left me, locking the door after him upon the outside, and leaving me to guess whether I were more guest or prisoner.

III. -- PREFERMENT

PT THREE WEEKS passed rapidly. I had mastered enough of the Barsoomian tongue to enable me to converse with my host in a reasonably satisfactory manner, and I was also progressing slowly in the mastery of the written language of his nation, which is different, of course, from the written language of all other Barsoomian nations, though the spoken language of all is identical. In these three weeks I had teamed much of the strange place in which I was half guest and half prisoner and of my remarkable host-jailer, Ras Thavas, the old surgeon of Toonol, whom I had accompanied almost constantly day after day until gradually there had unfolded before my astounded faculties an understanding of the purposes of the institution over which he ruled and in which he labored practically alone; for the slaves and attendants that served him were but hewers of wood and carriers of water. It was his brain alone and his skill that directed the sometimes beneficent, the sometimes malevolent, but always marvellous activities of his life's work.

PT Ras Thavas himself was as remarkable as the things he accomplished. He was never intentionally cruel; he was not, I am sure, intentionally wicked. He was guilty of the most diabolical cruelties and the basest of crimes; yet in the next moment he might perform a deed that if duplicated upon Earth would have raised him to the highest pinnacle of man's esteem. Though I know that I am safe in saying that he was never prompted to a cruel or criminal act by base motives, neither was he ever urged to a humanitarian one by high motives. He had a purely scientific mind entirely devoid of the cloying influences of sentiment, of which he possessed none. His was a practical mind, as evidenced by the enormous fees he demanded for his professional services; yet I know that he would not operate for money alone and I have seen him devote days to the study of a scientific problem the solution of which could add nothing to his wealth, while the quarters that he furnished his waiting clients were overflowing with wealthy patrons waiting to pour money into his coffers.

PT His treatment of me was based entirely upon scientific requirements. I offered a problem. I was either, quite evidently, not a Barsoomian at all, or I was of a species of which he had no knowledge. It therefore best suited the purposes of science that I be preserved and studied. I knew much about my own planet. It pleased Ras Thavas' scientific mind to milk me of all I knew in the hope that he might derive some suggestion that would solve one of the Barsoomian scientific riddles that still baffle their savants; but he was compelled to admit that in this respect I was a total loss, not alone because I was densely ignorant upon practically all scientific subjects, but because the learned sciences on Earth have not advanced even to the swaddling-clothes stage as compared with the remarkable progress of corresponding activities on Mars. Yet he kept me by him, training me in many of the minor duties of his vast laboratory. I was entrusted with the formula of the "embalming fluid" and taught how to withdraw a subject's blood and replace it with this marvellous preservative that arrests decay without altering in the minutest detail the nerve or tissue structure of the body. I learned also the secret of the few drops of solution which, added to the rewarmed blood before it is returned to the veins of the subject revitalizes the latter and restores to normal and healthy activity each and every organ of the body.

PT He told me once why he had permitted me to learn these things that he had kept a secret from all others, and why he kept me with him at all times in preference to any of the numerous individuals of his own race that served him and me in lesser capacities both day and night.

PT "Vad Varo," he said, using the Barsoomian name that he had given me because he insisted that my own name was meaningless and impractical, "for many years I have needed an assistant, but heretofore I have never felt that I had discovered one who might work here for me wholeheartedly and disinterestedly without ever having reason to go elsewhere or to divulge my secrets to others. You, in all Barsoom, are unique -- you have no other friend or acquaintance than myself. Were you to leave we you would find yourself in a world of enemies, for all are suspicious of a stranger. You would not survive a dozen dawns and you would be cold and hungry and miserable -- a wretched outcast in a hostile world. Here you have every luxury that the mind of man can devise or the hand of man produce, and you are occupied with work of such engrossing interest that your every hour must be fruitful of unparalleled satisfaction. There is no selfish reason, therefore, why you should leave me and there is every reason why you should remain. I expect no loyalty other than that which may be prompted by egoism. You make an ideal assistant, not only for the reasons I have just given you, but because you are intelligent and quick-witted, and now I have decided, after observing you carefully for a sufficient time, that you can serve me in yet another capacity -- that of personal bodyguard.

PT "You may have noticed that I alone of all those connected with my laboratory am armed. This is unusual upon Barsoom, where people of all classes, and all ages and both sexes habitually go armed. But many of these people I could not trust armed as they would slay me; and were I to give arms to those whom I might trust, who knows but that the others would obtain possession of them and slay me, or even those whom I had trusted turn against me, for there is not one who might not wish to go forth from this place back among his own people -- only you, Vad Varo, for there is no other place for you to go. So I have decided to give you weapons.

PT "You saved my life once. A similar opportunity might again present itself. I know that being a reasoning and reasonable creature, you will not slay me, for you have nothing to gain and everything to lose by my death, which would leave you friendless and unprotected in a world of strangers where assassination is the order of society and natural death one of the rarest of phenomena. Here are your arms." He stepped to a cabinet which he unlocked, displaying an assortment of weapons, and selected for me a long-sword, a shortsword, a pistol and a dagger.

PT "You seem sure of my loyalty, Ras Thavas," I said.

PT He shrugged his shoulders. "I am only sure that I know perfectly where your interests lie -- sentimentalists have words: love, loyalty, friendship, enmity, jealousy, hate, a thousand others; a waste of words -- one word defines them all: self-interest. All men of intelligence realize this. They analyse an individual and by his predilections and his needs they classify him as friend or foe, leaving to the weak-minded idiots who like to be deceived the drooling drivel of sentiment."

PT I smiled as I buckled my weapons to my harness, but I held my peace. Nothing could be gained by arguing with the man and, too, I felt quite sure that in any purely academic controversy I should get the worst of it; but many of the matters of which he had spoken had aroused my curiosity and one had reawakened in my mind a matter to which I had given considerable thought. While partially explained by some of his remarks I still wondered why the red-man from whom I had rescued him had seemed so venomously bent upon slaying him the day of my advent upon Barsoom, and so, as we sat chatting after our evening meal, I asked him.

PT "A sentimentalist," he said. "A sentimentalist of the most pronounced type. Why that fellow hated me with a venom absolutely unbelievable by any of the reactions of a trained, analytical mind such as mine; but having witnessed his reactions I become cognizant of a state of mind that I cannot of myself even imagine. Consider the facts. He was the victim of assassination -- a young warrior in the prime of life, possessing a handsome face and a splendid physique. One of my agents paid his relatives a satisfactory sum for the corpse and brought it to me. It is thus that I obtain practically all of my material. I treated it in the manner with which you are familiar. For a year the body lay in the laboratory, there being no occasion during that time that I had use for it; but eventually a rich client came, a not overly prepossessing man of considerable years. He had fallen desperately in love with a young woman who was attended by many handsome suitors. My client had more money than any of them, more brains, more experience, but he lacked the one thing that each of the others had that always weighs heavily with the undeveloped, unreasoning, sentiment-ridden minds of young females -- good looks."

PT "Now 378-J-493811-P had what my client lacked and could afford to purchase."

PT Quickly we reached an agreement as to price and I transferred the brain of my rich client to the head of 378-J- 493811-P and my client went away and for all I know won the hand of the beautiful moron; and 378-J-493811-P might have rested on indefinitely upon his ersite slab until I needed him or a part of him in my work, had I not, merely by chance, selected him for resurgence because of an existing need for another male slave.

PT "Mind you now, the man had been murdered. He was dead. I bought and paid for the corpse and all there was in it. He might have lain dead forever upon one of my ersite slabs had I not breathed new life into his dead veins. Did he have the brains to view the transaction in a wise and dispassionate manner? He did not."

PT His sentimental reactions caused him to reproach me because I had given him another body, though it seemed to me that, looking at the matter from a standpoint of sentiment, if one must, he should have considered me as a benefactor for having given him life again In a perfectly healthy, if somewhat used, body.

PT "He had spoken to me upon the subject several times, begging me to restore his body to him, a thing of which, of course, as I explained to him, was utterly out of the question unless chance happened to bring to my laboratory the corpse of the client who had purchased his carcass -- a contingency quite beyond the pale of possibility for one as wealthy as my client. The fellow even suggested that I permit him to go forth and assassinate my client bringing the body back that I might reverse the operation and restore his body to his brain. When I refused to divulge the name of the present possessor of his body he grew sulky, but until the very hour of your arrival, when he attacked me, I did not suspect the depth of his hate complex.

PT "Sentiment is indeed a bar to all progress. We of Toonol are probably less subject to its vagaries than most other nations upon Barsoom, but yet most of my fellow countrymen are victims of it in varying degrees. It has its rewards and compensations, however. Without it we could preserve no stable form of government and the Phundahlians, or some other people, would overrun and conquer us; but enough of our lower classes have sentiment to a sufficient degree to give them loyalty to the Jeddak of Toonol and the upper classes are brainy enough to know that it is to their own best interests to keep him upon his throne.

PT "The Phundahlians, upon the other hand, are egregious sentimentalists, filled with crass stupidities and superstitions, slaves to every variety of brain withering conceit. Why the very fact that they keep the old termagant, Xaxa, on the throne brands them with their stupid idiocy. She is an ignorant, arrogant, selfish, stupid, cruel virago, yet the Phundahlians would fight and die for her because her father was Jeddak of Phundahl. She taxes them until they can scarce stagger beneath their burden, she misrules them, exploits them, betrays them, and they fall down and worship at her feet. Why? Because her father was Jeddak of Phundahl and his father before him and so on back into antiquity; because they are ruled by sentiment rather than reason; because their wicked rulers play upon this sentiment.

PT "She had nothing to recommend her to a sane person -- not even beauty. You know, you saw her."

PT "I saw her?" I demanded.

PT "You assisted me the day that we gave her old brain a new casket -- the day you arrived from what you call your Earth."

PT "She! That old woman was Jeddara of Phundahl?"

PT "That was Xaxa," he assured me.

PT "Why, you did not accord her the treatment that one of the Earth would suppose would be accorded a ruler, and so I had no idea that she was more than a rich old woman."

PT "I am Ras Thavas," said the old man. "Why should I incline the head to any other? In my world nothing counts but brain and in that respect and without egotism, I may say that I acknowledge no superior."

PT "Then you are not without sentiment," I said, smiling. "You acknowledge pride in your intellect!" "It is not pride," he said, patiently, for him, "it is merely a fact that I state. A fact that I should have no difficulty in proving. In all probability I have the most highly developed and perfectly functioning mind among all the learned men of my acquaintance, and reason indicates that this fact also suggests that I possess the most highly developed and perfectly functioning mind upon Barsoom. From what I know of Earth and from what I have seen of you, I am convinced that there is no mind upon your planet that may even faintly approximate in power that which I have developed during a thousand years of active study and research. Rasoom (Mercury) or Cosoom (Venus) may possibly support intelligences equal to or even greater than mine. While we have made some study of their thought waves, our instruments are not yet sufficiently developed to more than suggest that they are of extreme refinement, power and flexibility."

PT "And what of the girl whose body you gave to the Jeddara?" I asked, irrelevantly, for my mind could not efface the memory of that sweet body that must, indeed, have possessed an equally sweet and fine brain.

PT "Merely a subject! Merely a subject!" he replied with a wave of his hand.

PT "What will become of her?' I insisted.

PT "What difference does it make?" he demanded. "I bought her with a batch of prisoners of war. I do not even recall from what country my agent obtained them, or from whence they originated. Such matters are of no import."

PT "She was alive when you bought her?" I demanded.

PT "Yes. Why?"

PT "You-er-ah-killed her, then?"

PT "Killed her! No; I preserved her. That was some ten years ago. Why should I permit her to grow old and wrinkled? She would no longer have the same value then, would she? No, I preserved her. When Xaxa bought her she was just as fresh and young as the day she arrived. I kept her a long time. Many women looked at her and wanted her face and figure, but it took a Jeddara to afford her. She brought the highest price that I have ever been paid."

PT "Yes, I kept her a long time, but I knew that some day she would bring my price."

PT She was indeed beautiful and so sentiment has its uses -- were it not for sentiment there would be no fools to support this work that I am doing, thus permitting me to carry on investigations of far greater merit. You would be surprised, I know, were I to tell you that I feel that I am almost upon the point of being able to produce rational human beings through the action upon certain chemical combinations of a group of rays probably entirely undiscovered by your scientists, if I am to judge by the paucity of your knowledge concerning such things."

PT "I would not be surprised," I assured him. "I would not be surprised by anything that you might accomplish."

IV. -- VALLA DIA

PT I LAY awake a long time that night thinking of 4296- E-2631- H, the beautiful girl whose perfect body had been stolen to furnish a gorgeous setting for the cruel brain of a tyrant. It seemed such a horrid crime that I could not rid my mind of it and I think that contemplation of it sowed the first seed of my hatred and loathing for Ras Thavas. I could not conjure a creature so utterly devoid of bowels of compassion as to even consider for a moment the frightful ravishing of that sweet and lovely body for even the holiest of purposes, much less one that could have been induced to do so for filthy pelf.

PT So much did I think upon the girl that night that her image was the first to impinge upon my returning consciousness at dawn, and after I had eaten, Ras Thavas not having appeared, I went directly to the storage room where the poor thing was. Here she lay, identified only by a small panel, bearing a number: 4296-E- 2631-H. The body of an old woman with a disfigured face lay before me in the rigid immobility of death; yet that was not the figure that I saw, but instead, a vision of radiant loveliness whose imprisoned soul lay dormant beneath those graying locks.

PT The creature here with the face and form of Xaxa was not Xaxa at all, for all that made the other what she was had been transferred to this cold corpse. How frightful would be the awakening, should awakening ever come! I shuddered to think of the horror that must overwhelm the girl when first she realized the horrid crime that had been perpetrated upon her. Who was she? What story lay locked in that dead and silent brain? What loves must have been hers whose beauty was so great and upon whose fair face had lain the indelible imprint of graciousness! Would Ras Thavas ever arouse her from this happy semblance of death? -far happier than any quickening ever could be for her. I shrank from the thought of her awakening and yet I longed to hear her speak, to know that that brain lived again, to learn her name, to listen to the story of this gentle life that had been so rudely snatched from its proper environment and so cruelly handled by the hand of Fate. And suppose she were awakened! Suppose she were awakened and that I -- A hand was laid upon my shoulder and I turned to look into the face of Ras Thavas.

PT You seem interested in this subject," he said.

PT "I was wondering," I replied, "what the reaction of this girl's brain would be were she to awaken to the discovery that she had become an old, disfigured woman."

PT He stroked his chin and eyed me narrowly. "An interesting experiment," he mused.

PT "I am gratified to discover that you are taking a scientific interest in the labors that I am carrying on. The psychological phases of my work I have, I must confess, rather neglected during the past hundred years or so, though I formerly gave them a great deal of attention. It would be interesting to observe and study several of these cases. This one, especially, might prove of value to you as an initial study, it being simple and regular. Later we will let you examine into a case where a man's brain has been transferred to a woman's skull, and a woman's brain to a man's. There are also the interesting cases where a portion of diseased or injured brain has been replaced by a portion of the brain from another subject, and, for experimental purposes alone, those human brains that have been transplanted to the craniums of beasts, and vice versa, offer tremendous opportunities for observation. I have in mind one case in which I transferred half the brain of an ape to the skull of a man, after having removed half of his brain, which I grafted upon the remaining part of the brain in the ape's skull. That was a matter of several years ago and I have often thought that I should like to recall these two subjects and note the results. I shall have to have a look at them -- as I recall it they are in vault L-42-X, beneath building 4-J-21. We shall have to have a look at them someday soon -- it has been years since I have been below. There must be some very interesting specimens there that have escaped my mind. But come! let us recall 4296-E-2631- H.

PT "No!" I exclaimed, laying a hand upon his arm. "It would be horrible."

PT He turned a surprised look upon me and then a nasty, sneering smile curled his lips. "Maudlin, sentimental fool!" he cried. "Who dare say no to me?"

PT I laid a hand upon the hilt of my long-sword and looked him steadily in the eye.

PT "Ras Thavas," I said, "you are master in your own house; but while I am your guest treat me with courtesy."

PT He returned my look for a moment but his eyes wavered. "I was hasty," he said.

PT "Let it pass." That, I let answer for an apology -- really it was more than I had expected -- but the event was not unfortunate. I think he treated me with far greater respect thereafter; but now he turned immediately to the slab bearing the mortal remains of 4296-E-2631-H.

PT "Prepare the subject for revivification," he said, "and make what study you can of all its reactions." With that he left the room.

PT I was now fairly adept at this work which I set about with some misgivings but with the assurance that I was doing right in obeying Ras Thavas while I remained a member of his entourage. The blood that had once flowed through the veins of the beautiful body that Ras Thavas had sold to Xaxa reposed in an hermetically sealed vessel upon the shelf above the corpse. As I had before done in other cases beneath the watchful eyes of the old surgeon I now did for the first time alone. The blood heated, the incisions made, the tubes attached and the few drops of life- giving solution added to the blood, I was now ready to restore life to that delicate brain that had lain dead for ten years. As my finger rested upon the little button that actuated the motor that was to send the revivifying liquid into those dormant veins, I experienced such a sensation as I imagined no mortal man has ever felt.

PT I had become master of life and death, and yet at this moment that I stood there upon the point of resurrecting the dead I felt more like a murderer than a saviour. I tried to view the procedure dispassionately through the cold eye of science, but I failed miserably. I could only see a stricken girl grieving for her lost beauties. With a muffled oath I turned away. I could not do it! And then, as though an outside force had seized upon me, my finger moved unerringly to the button and pressed it. I cannot explain it, unless upon the theory of dual mentality, which may explain many things. Perhaps my subjective mind directed the act. I do not know. Only I know that I did it, the motor started, the level of the blood in the container commenced gradually to lower.

Versão em Português

1 - I. -- UMA CARTA

2 - MEU CARO SR. BURROUGHS:

3 - II. -- A CASA DOS MORTOS

4 - III. -- PROMOÇÃO

5 - IV. -- VALLA DIA

I. -- UMA CARTA

En A carta foi datada de Helium em 8 de junho de 1925.

MEU CARO SR. BURROUGHS:

En No outono de 1917, em um campo de treinamento de oficiais, o escritor encontrou pela primeira vez John Carter, o Senhor da Guerra de Barsoom, através das páginas do romance 'Uma Princesa de Marte.' A história o afetou profundamente. Embora logicamente soubesse que era ficção, ele sentiu um estranho senso de verdade sobre ela. Ele começou a sonhar com Marte e seus personagens como se fossem pessoas reais que conhecia.

En Durante aqueles dias de treinamento intenso, havia pouco tempo para sonhar. No entanto, nos breves momentos antes do sono, o escritor sonhava com Marte. Quando acordado à noite, ele olhava para o Planeta Vermelho, tentando resolver o antigo mistério que sempre apresentou à Terra.

En O fascínio do escritor tornou-se uma obsessão. Durante todo o treinamento, ele não conseguia se livrar disso. À noite, no convés do transporte, ele se deitava de costas olhando para Marte, que chamava de olho vermelho do deus da guerra, e desejava também poder ser transportado pelo espaço até o desejo de seu coração, assim como John Carter havia sido.

En Então vieram os dias e noites terríveis nas trincheiras, cheios de ratos, vermes e lama. Ocasionalmente, a monotonia era quebrada por uma ordem para ir para o ataque, que o escritor amava junto com o caos das explosões. Mas ele odiava os ratos, vermes e lama. Ele admitiu que isso poderia parecer arrogância, mas queria ser verdadeiro. Ele acreditava que o destinatário entenderia, e que isso poderia explicar eventos posteriores.

En Por fim, algo que havia acontecido a muitos outros naqueles campos sangrentos aconteceu a ele. Aconteceu na semana de sua primeira promoção a capitão, uma patente da qual ele se orgulhava profundamente, embora humildemente, ciente de sua juventude e da grande responsabilidade que isso lhe impunha, tanto no serviço ao seu país quanto pessoalmente aos homens sob seu comando. Eles haviam avançado cerca de dois quilômetros e, com um pequeno destacamento, ele mantinha uma posição muito avançada quando recebeu ordens de recuar para a nova linha. Essa foi a última coisa de que se lembrou até recuperar a consciência após o anoitecer. Um projétil deve ter explodido entre eles. Ele nunca soube o que aconteceu com seus homens. Quando acordou, estava frio e muito escuro. No início, por um instante, ele se sentiu bastante confortável — antes de estar totalmente consciente, ele imaginou — e então a dor começou. Cresceu até parecer insuportável. Era em suas pernas. Ele estendeu a mão para senti-las, mas sua mão recuou diante do que encontrou. Quando tentou mover as pernas, descobriu que estava morto da cintura para baixo. Então a lua apareceu por trás de uma nuvem, e ele viu que estava deitado em uma cratera de bomba e que não estava sozinho — os mortos estavam ao seu redor.

En Levou muito tempo para encontrar a coragem moral e a força física para se levantar sobre um cotovelo, de modo que pudesse ver os danos que lhe haviam sido causados.

En Um olhar foi suficiente; ele afundou de volta em uma agonia de angústia mental e física. Suas pernas haviam sido arrancadas do meio entre os quadris e os joelhos. Por alguma razão, ele não estava sangrando excessivamente, mas sabia que havia perdido muito sangue e estava gradualmente perdendo o suficiente para tirá-lo de seu sofrimento em pouco tempo se não fosse encontrado em breve. Enquanto estava deitado de costas, torturado pela dor, ele rezou para que não chegassem a tempo, pois temia mais a ideia de passar a vida aleijado do que a ideia da morte.

En Então seus olhos de repente se fixaram no olho vermelho e brilhante de Marte, e uma onda repentina de esperança o inundou. Ele estendeu os braços em direção a Marte. Ele não questionou ou duvidou por um instante enquanto rezava ao deus de sua vocação para alcançá-lo e ajudá-lo. Ele sabia que isso aconteceria; sua fé era completa. No entanto, tão grande foi o esforço mental para se livrar dos horríveis laços de sua carne mutilada que ele sentiu uma náusea momentânea e então um clique agudo, como o estalo de um fio de aço. De repente, ele estava nu sobre duas pernas boas, olhando para a coisa sangrenta e distorcida que fora ele. Apenas por um instante ele ficou assim antes de erguer os olhos novamente para sua estrela do destino e, com os braços estendidos, ficou ali no frio daquela noite francesa — esperando.

En De repente, ele se sentiu puxado com a velocidade do pensamento através dos ermos sem trilhas do espaço interplanetário. Houve um instante de frio extremo e escuridão total, então — mas o resto está no manuscrito que, com a ajuda de alguém maior que ambos, ele encontrou meios de transmitir a você junto com esta carta. Você e alguns outros escolhidos acreditarão nisso — para o resto, ainda não importa.

En O escritor comentou que um certo tempo chegaria, mas questionou a necessidade de informar o leitor sobre algo já conhecido.

En O escritor ofereceu suas saudações e parabéns, especialmente pela boa sorte do leitor em ser selecionado como o canal para que os terráqueos aprendessem sobre os costumes de Barsoom, em preparação para quando pudessem viajar pelo espaço tão facilmente quanto John Carter e ver os lugares que ele havia descrito por meio do leitor, assim como o próprio escritor havia feito.

En A carta foi assinada por Ulysses Paxton, um ex-capitão do Exército dos Estados Unidos.

II. -- A CASA DOS MORTOS

En Ele deve ter fechado os olhos sem querer durante a transição, porque quando os abriu estava deitado de costas olhando para um céu brilhante e ensolarado. A alguns metros de distância estava uma pessoa de aparência muito estranha, olhando para ele com uma expressão profundamente confusa, o indivíduo mais peculiar que ele já tinha visto.

En Ele parecia muito velho, enrugado e encolhido além da descrição. Seus membros eram extremamente finos e suas costelas eram claramente visíveis sob sua pele encolhida. Ele tinha um crânio grande e bem desenvolvido que, combinado com seu corpo definhado, lhe dava uma aparência desproporcional, como se sua cabeça fosse grande demais para seu corpo, embora o narrador tivesse certeza de que não era realmente o caso.

En Ele me encarou através de grandes óculos com múltiplas lentes, e eu o examinei minuciosamente em troca. Ele tinha cerca de um metro e sessenta e cinco de altura, embora antes fosse mais alto, agora um pouco curvado. Usava apenas um simples arnês de couro que segurava suas armas e bolsas, e um colar com joias em volta do pescoço fino — um colar tão precioso que uma rica viúva poderia sacrificar sua alma por ele. Sua pele era vermelha, seu cabelo grisalho. Ele parecia confuso, segurou o queixo, coçou a cabeça e então falou comigo em uma língua que eu não entendia.

En Sentei-me e balancei a cabeça. Olhando ao redor, vi-me sentado sobre grama carmesim dentro de um recinto de muros altos. Dois ou três lados eram formados pelas paredes externas de uma estrutura que lembrava um castelo feudal europeu, mas era diferente de qualquer arquitetura familiar. A fachada era ornamentadamente esculpida e irregular, a linha do telhado tão quebrada que sugeria uma ruína, mas o todo parecia harmonioso e belo. Dentro cresciam árvores e arbustos estranhos, todos floridos. Caminhos de seixos coloridos, entre os quais brilhavam o que pareciam gemas preciosas, serpenteavam por entre eles.

En O velho falou novamente, mais enfaticamente, como se repetisse um comando que eu havia ignorado. Balancei a cabeça mais uma vez. Ele colocou a mão em uma de suas duas espadas e começou a puxá-la. Saltei com tanta força que voei dez pés para o ar e vinte pés para trás, surpreendendo a ambos. Então soube que estava em Marte, pois a gravidade mais baixa, a grama carmesim e a pele vermelha dos marcianos correspondiam às descrições nos manuscritos de John Carter. Não havia dúvida: eu estava no solo do Planeta Vermelho, Barsoom.

En O velho ficou tão assustado com minha agilidade que ele mesmo saltou, fazendo com que seus óculos caíssem na grama. Então percebi que ele era praticamente cego sem eles. Ele caiu de joelhos e começou a tatear freneticamente pelos óculos perdidos, como se sua vida dependesse de encontrá-los imediatamente.

En Talvez ele pensasse que eu me aproveitaria de sua cegueira e o mataria. Embora os óculos fossem grandes e estivessem a apenas alguns passos de distância, ele não conseguia encontrá-los. Suas mãos pareciam afligidas por uma estranha perversidade que confunde nossas ações mais simples, passando ao redor do objeto perdido, mas nunca tocando nele.

En Enquanto eu o observava lutar inutilmente e pensava se deveria devolver sua arma para que ele pudesse tentar me matar mais facilmente, notei que outra pessoa havia entrado no recinto.

En Olhei em direção ao edifício e vi um grande homem vermelho correndo rapidamente em direção ao velhinho de óculos. O recém-chegado estava completamente nu e carregava um porrete. Sua expressão claramente sugeria que o velho, que rastejava no chão como uma toupeira em busca de seus óculos perdidos, estava em perigo grave.

En A princípio, eu queria ficar de fora da situação, pois parecia não ter relação comigo e eu não tinha motivo para favorecer nenhuma das pessoas. Mas um segundo olhar para o rosto do homem com o porrete me fez pensar se aquilo poderia realmente me envolver.

En A expressão no rosto do atacante sugeria selvageria natural ou loucura, e ele poderia voltar sua atenção assassina para mim após acabar com o velho. O velho, pelo menos na aparência, parecia são e inofensivo. Embora tivesse puxado a espada contra mim, o que não era amigável, ele ainda parecia o menor dos dois males.

En O velho ainda estava procurando seus óculos. O homem nu estava quase em cima dele quando decidi ajudar o velho. Eu estava a vinte pés de distância, nu e desarmado, mas meus músculos terrestres me permitiram percorrer essa distância instantaneamente. Uma espada nua estava ao lado do velho, que a havia deixado para procurar seus óculos. Alcancei o atacante no momento em que ele entrava em alcance de golpe de sua vítima. O golpe destinado ao velho agora era apontado para mim. Eu desviei, e então percebi que minha maior agilidade tinha vantagens e desvantagens: eu tinha que aprender a andar e a lutar com uma nova arma ao mesmo tempo, contra um maníaco com um porrete. Sua terrível fúria e expressão me levaram a acreditar que ele era insano.

En Eu tropeçava, tentando me acostumar com as novas condições. Em vez de revidar efetivamente, mal conseguia escapar da morte. Eu caía constantemente na grama escarlate. O duelo se tornou uma série de tentativas dele para me esmagar com seu cassetete e minhas para desviar. Foi humilhante, mas verdade.

En No entanto, essa fase não durou muito. Logo, sob pressão, aprendi a controlar meus músculos. Mantive minha posição e, após desviar do golpe dele, toquei-o com a ponta da minha espada, fazendo sangue e arrancando um rugido selvagem de dor. Ele se tornou mais cauteloso, e eu aproveitei para pressioná-lo para trás. Isso me deu confiança, e o ataquei ferozmente, estocando e cortando até que sangrasse em muitos lugares, enquanto ainda evitava seus golpes poderosos.

En Durante o início do duelo, havíamos cruzado o recinto e agora lutávamos longe do ponto de partida. Naquele momento, eu estava virado naquela direção quando o velho recuperou seus óculos. Ele os ajustou rapidamente, olhou em volta e nos avistou. Começou a gritar excitadamente e correu em nossa direção, sacando sua espada curta. O homem vermelho me pressionava com força, mas eu havia ganhado mais controle. Temendo dois oponentes, intensifiquei meu ataque. Ele errou por um triz, mas eu entrei em uma abertura e atravessei seu coração com minha espada, como pensei. No entanto, eu havia esquecido dos manuscritos de John Carter que os órgãos internos marcianos não são dispostos como os dos terráqueos. O ferimento ainda foi grave o suficiente para tirá-lo de ação. Nesse instante, o velho cavalheiro chegou. Eu estava pronto, mas havia julgado mal suas intenções. Ele não fez movimentos hostis com sua arma e parecia tentar me convencer de que não queria me machucar. Estava muito animado e irritado por eu não entendê-lo. Pulava gritando frases estranhas, mas o fato de ter recolocado a espada na bainha era mais significativo. Quando parou de gritar e começou a usar pantomima, percebi que ele estava oferecendo paz. Então baixei a ponta da minha espada e fiz uma reverência.

En Ele pareceu satisfeito e voltou sua atenção para o homem caído. Verificou seu pulso e ouviu seu coração. Com um aceno de cabeça, levantou-se, tirou um apito de uma bolsa no bolso e soou um único assobio alto.

En Imediatamente, uma vintena de homens vermelhos nus emergiu de um edifício próximo e correu em nossa direção, desarmados. O velho deu-lhes algumas ordens curtas, e eles juntaram o homem caído e o carregaram. Então ele começou a andar em direção ao edifício e fez sinal para que eu o seguisse. Não vi escolha a não ser obedecer. Onde quer que eu estivesse em Marte, provavelmente estava entre inimigos, então poderia muito bem ficar ali e confiar em minha própria desenvoltura, habilidade e agilidade para sobreviver no Planeta Vermelho.

En O velho me guiou para uma sala pequena com muitas portas. Por uma delas, carregavam meu oponente recente. Seguimos e entramos em uma câmara grande e bem iluminada. Lá, vi a cena mais horrível que já testemunhei. Inúmeras mesas estavam enfileiradas, e na maioria delas jaziam cadáveres humanos parcialmente desmembrados ou mutilados. Acima de cada mesa, uma prateleira segurava recipientes de vários tamanhos, e instrumentos cirúrgicos pendiam da parte inferior, fazendo-me pensar que minha chegada em Barsoom se dava através de uma faculdade de medicina gigante.

En Quando o velho falou, os que carregavam o barsoomiano ferido o colocaram em uma mesa vazia e saíram. Meu anfitrião, como posso chamá-lo, já que ainda não me havia capturado, fez gestos para que eu me aproximasse. Enquanto falava em tom normal, fez dois cortes no corpo: um em uma veia grande e outro em uma artéria. Ele prendeu dois tubos — um ligado a um jarro de vidro vazio, o outro a um jarro cheio de um líquido claro. Então apertou um botão para ligar um pequeno motor, que bombeou o sangue da vítima para o jarro vazio enquanto forçava o líquido claro para dentro das veias e artérias.

En Durante o procedimento, as palavras e gestos do velho me convenceram de que ele estava explicando o processo, mas não entendi nada de sua língua. Depois que terminou, continuei tão confuso quanto antes, embora o que vi me levasse a crer que se tratava de um embalsamamento barsoomiano comum. Ele removeu os tubos, fechou as aberturas com fita adesiva e fez sinal para que eu o seguisse. Fomos de sala em sala, cada uma repleta das mesmas exibições horripilantes. Em muitos corpos, ele parava para examiná-los ou consultar um registro que pendia na cabeceira de cada mesa.

En Da última sala no primeiro andar, meu anfitrião me levou por uma rampa até o segundo andar, onde as salas eram semelhantes. No entanto, aqui as mesas continham corpos inteiros, não mutilados, e todos estavam remendados com fita. Ao passarmos por uma sala, uma garota barsoomiana, provavelmente uma serva, entrou e falou com o velho. Ele fez sinal para que eu o seguisse, e descemos outra rampa até o primeiro andar de outro edifício.

En Em uma sala grande e lindamente decorada, uma idosa de pele vermelha nos esperava. Ela parecia muito velha, e seu rosto estava severamente desfigurado, como se por um ferimento. Usava roupas magníficas e era acompanhada por vinte mulheres e guerreiros armados, indicando que era uma pessoa importante. No entanto, o velhinho a tratou com bastante aspereza, o que horrorizou seus acompanhantes.

En A conversa se prolongou por um bom tempo. Finalmente, ao sinal da mulher, um de seus guardas masculinos tirou um punhado do que pareciam ser moedas marcianas de uma bolsa ao lado. Ele contou algumas e as entregou ao velhinho, que então disse à mulher para segui-lo, incluindo-me em seu gesto. Várias de suas mulheres e guardas começaram a vir conosco, mas o velho ordenou que voltassem. Isso gerou uma discussão acalorada entre a mulher e um de seus guerreiros de um lado e o velho do outro. Terminou quando o velho, irritado, se ofereceu para devolver o dinheiro. Isso resolveu a situação: ela recusou as moedas, disse algumas palavras ao seu povo e seguiu o velho e a mim sozinha.

En Ele nos levou ao segundo andar, a uma sala que eu não tinha visto antes. Era muito parecida com as outras, exceto que todos os corpos ali eram de mulheres jovens, muitas delas muito bonitas. A mulher seguia de perto os calcanhares do velho e examinou a terrível exibição com grande cuidado.

En Ela caminhou lentamente entre as mesas três vezes, estudando as cargas horríveis. Cada vez, ela parou mais tempo diante de uma certa mesa que continha o corpo da criatura mais bonita que eu já tinha visto. Então ela voltou uma quarta vez e ficou olhando longa e intensamente para o rosto morto. Por um tempo, ela conversou com o velho, fazendo muitas perguntas, às quais ele dava respostas rápidas e curtas. Finalmente, ela gesticulou em direção ao corpo e assentiu em concordância ao envelhecido guardião da horripilante exposição.

En Ela apontou para o corpo com um gesto.

En Imediatamente, o velho soprou seu apito, chamando servos, e deu-lhes ordens breves. Então ele nos levou a outra sala, menor, que tinha várias mesas vazias como as das outras salas. Duas escravas ou atendentes estavam lá. À palavra de seu mestre, elas removeram os adornos da velha, soltaram seu cabelo e ajudaram-na a subir em uma das mesas. Lá, eles a borrifaram completamente com o que presumi ser uma solução antisséptica, secaram-na cuidadosamente e a mudaram para outra mesa. A cerca de cinquenta centímetros de distância, havia uma segunda mesa paralela.

En A porta abriu e dois atendentes entraram, carregando o corpo da bela jovem. Eles a colocaram na mesa que a velha tinha acabado de deixar. Ela foi borrifada e depois movida para outra mesa. O velhinho fez dois cortes no corpo da velha, como havia feito com o homem de pele vermelha. O sangue dela foi removido e substituído por um líquido claro. Ela morreu e ficou sobre a laje polida, tão sem vida quanto a bela garota morta ao seu lado.

En O velhinho, que havia tirado seu arnês e sido borrifado, escolheu uma faca afiada. Ele removeu o couro cabeludo da velha ao longo da linha do cabelo. Ele fez o mesmo no cadáver da jovem. Então, usando uma pequena serra circular, ele cortou cada crânio ao longo da linha exposta. O restante da notável operação foi realizado com tanta habilidade que desafiava a descrição.

En Em quatro horas, ele havia transferido o cérebro de cada mulher para o crânio da outra. Ele conectou cuidadosamente os nervos e gânglios seccionados, recolocou os crânios e couros cabeludos e prendeu ambas as cabeças com uma fita adesiva especial. A fita era antisséptica, cicatrizante e anestésica local.

En Ele reaqueceu o sangue que havia retirado da velha e adicionou algumas gotas de um produto químico claro. Então removeu o líquido das veias do belo cadáver e o substituiu pelo sangue da velha. Ao mesmo tempo, aplicou uma injeção hipodérmica.

En Durante toda a operação, ele não havia dito uma palavra. Agora ele deu breves instruções aos seus assistentes, fez sinal para que eu o seguisse e saiu da sala. Ele me levou a uma parte distante do edifício, me conduziu a um apartamento luxuoso, abriu a porta para um banho barsoomiano e me deixou aos cuidados de servos treinados.

En Após uma hora de relaxamento no banho, me senti revigorado e descansado. Na sala ao lado, encontrei arreios e equipamentos me esperando. Eram feitos de bom material, embora simples, e não havia armas com eles.

En Eu havia refletido muito sobre os estranhos acontecimentos desde que cheguei a Marte. O que mais me intrigava era o ato da velha: ela pagou ao anfitrião uma quantia considerável para matá-la e colocar o cérebro de um cadáver dentro de seu crânio. Eu me perguntava se era devido a algum fanatismo religioso horrível ou se havia uma explicação que minha mente terrena não conseguia compreender.

En Eu não havia chegado a nenhuma conclusão quando um escravo me chamou para outra sala próxima. Lá, meu anfitrião me esperava diante de uma mesa coberta de comidas deliciosas. Naturalmente, após meu longo jejum e semanas de comida de exército, fiz ampla justiça à refeição.

En Durante a refeição, meu anfitrião tentou conversar comigo, mas o esforço foi naturalmente infrutífero. Ele ficou bastante agitado às vezes, e em três ocasiões, quando não o entendi, ele colocou a mão em uma de suas espadas. Isso me levou a acreditar que ele poderia estar parcialmente insano, mas cada vez ele mostrou autocontrole suficiente para evitar uma catástrofe.

En Após a refeição, ele ficou sentado em profunda reflexão por muito tempo, então pareceu tomar uma decisão súbita. Ele se virou para mim com um leve sorriso e começou um curso intensivo da língua barsoomiana. Já era tarde da noite quando ele me permitiu ir dormir. Ele me levou ao grande quarto onde eu havia encontrado meus novos arreios, apontou uma pilha de ricas sedas e peles para dormir, disse boa noite em barsoomiano e trancou a porta pelo lado de fora, deixando-me pensando se eu era mais um hóspede ou um prisioneiro.

III. -- PROMOÇÃO

En Três semanas se passaram rapidamente. O narrador havia aprendido o bastante da língua barsoomiana para conversar razoavelmente bem com seu anfitrião, e estava aprendendo lentamente a ler a língua escrita, que difere entre as nações embora a língua falada seja a mesma. Durante esse tempo, ele aprendeu muito sobre o lugar estranho onde era hóspede e prisioneiro, e sobre seu notável anfitrião, Ras Thavas, o velho cirurgião de Toonol. O narrador o acompanhava quase constantemente, gradualmente compreendendo os propósitos da instituição sobre a qual Ras Thavas governava e na qual trabalhava quase sozinho, com apenas escravos e atendentes para tarefas simples. Era seu cérebro e habilidade que dirigiam as atividades, ora boas, ora más, mas sempre maravilhosas, de seu trabalho de vida.

En O próprio Ras Thavas era tão notável quanto suas realizações. Ele nunca era intencionalmente cruel ou perverso, no entanto cometia as mais diabólicas crueldades e os mais baixos crimes. No momento seguinte, poderia realizar um feito que na Terra lhe teria garantido a mais alta estima. No entanto, ele nunca era levado à crueldade por motivos baixos nem a atos humanitários por motivos elevados. Ele tinha uma mente puramente científica, completamente livre de sentimentalismo. Era prático, como demonstrado por suas enormes taxas, mas não operava apenas por dinheiro. Frequentemente passava dias em um problema científico que não acrescentava nada à sua riqueza, enquanto suas salas de espera estavam cheias de clientes ricos ansiosos para pagá-lo.

En O tratamento de Ras Thavas para com o narrador era baseado inteiramente em requisitos científicos. O narrador era um problema: ele claramente não era um barsoomiano, ou pelo menos era de uma espécie desconhecida. Para fins científicos, era melhor preservá-lo e estudá-lo. Ras Thavas esperava aprender com o narrador sobre a Terra, mas o narrador era ignorante em ciência, e a ciência da Terra estava muito atrás da de Marte. No entanto, Ras Thavas o manteve e o treinou nos deveres menores do laboratório. O narrador foi confiado com a fórmula do fluido de embalsamamento e ensinado a retirar sangue e substituí-lo por um conservante que interrompe a decomposição sem alterar a estrutura dos nervos ou tecidos. Ele também aprendeu o segredo das poucas gotas de solução que, adicionadas ao sangue reaquecido, revitalizam o sujeito e restauram cada órgão à atividade normal.

En Ras Thavas explicou certa vez por que havia permitido que o narrador aprendesse esses segredos, que ele mantinha em segredo de todos os outros, e por que mantinha o narrador sempre perto, em preferência aos muitos servos de sua própria raça que os atendiam dia e noite.

En Ras Thavas disse ao narrador, a quem chamava de Vad Varo, que por muitos anos ele precisava de um assistente, mas nunca havia encontrado alguém que trabalhasse de todo coração e desinteressadamente, sem motivo para sair ou revelar segredos. O narrador era único em toda Barsoom, não tendo outro amigo ou conhecido. Se ele saísse, se encontraria em um mundo de inimigos, pois todos desconfiam de um estranho; ele não sobreviveria por muito tempo e passaria frio, fome e miséria. Mas ali, ele tinha todo luxo e estava ocupado com um trabalho cativante. Não havia motivo egoísta para sair e todo motivo para ficar. Ras Thavas esperava lealdade baseada apenas no interesse próprio. Ele considerava o narrador um assistente ideal por ser inteligente e perspicaz, e após observação cuidadosa, decidiu que o narrador também poderia servir como seu guarda-costas pessoal.

En Ras Thavas apontou que ele era o único em seu laboratório que carregava uma arma, o que era incomum em Barsoom, onde todos geralmente andavam armados. Ele explicou que muitas de suas pessoas não podiam ser confiadas com armas porque poderiam matá-lo. Se ele armasse aqueles em quem confiava, outros poderiam pegar as armas ou até mesmo as pessoas confiáveis poderiam se voltar contra ele, já que todos, exceto Vad Varo, tinham algum lugar para ir. Portanto, ele decidiu dar armas a Vad Varo.

En Ras Thavas lembrou Vad Varo de que ele havia salvado sua vida uma vez, e uma oportunidade semelhante poderia ocorrer novamente. Ele argumentou que Vad Varo era uma criatura sensata e não o mataria, já que não tinha nada a ganhar e tudo a perder com a morte de Ras Thavas, o que o deixaria sem amigos e desprotegido em um mundo onde o assassinato era comum e a morte natural rara. Então ele abriu um armário de armas e selecionou uma espada longa, uma espada curta, uma pistola e um punhal para Vad Varo.

En Vad Varo comentou que Ras Thavas parecia muito confiante em sua lealdade.

En Ras Thavas deu de ombros e respondeu que ele tinha apenas certeza de que sabia onde os interesses de Vad Varo estavam. Ele descartou palavras como amor, lealdade, amizade e ódio como desnecessárias, afirmando que todas se resumem ao interesse próprio. Pessoas inteligentes analisam as predileções e necessidades de um indivíduo para classificá-lo como amigo ou inimigo, deixando o sentimento para tolos de mente fraca.

En Vad Varo sorriu enquanto colocava suas armas, mas permaneceu em silêncio, sabendo que discutir seria inútil e ele provavelmente perderia qualquer debate intelectual. No entanto, as observações de Ras Thavas haviam despertado sua curiosidade, especialmente sobre o homem vermelho que tentara matar Ras Thavas no dia em que Vad Varo chegou a Barsoom. Após o jantar, enquanto conversavam, Vad Varo perguntou sobre aquele incidente.

En O orador descreveu o guerreiro morto como um sentimentalista extremo. O guerreiro o odiava intensamente, mas o orador considerava esse ódio irracional. Ele explicou que o guerreiro havia sido assassinado e que seus agentes compraram o cadáver da família. O orador manteve o corpo em seu laboratório por um ano antes de vendê-lo a um cliente idoso e rico que queria uma aparência bonita para conquistar o amor de uma jovem.

En O corpo do guerreiro, designado 378-J-493811-P, possuía a boa aparência que o cliente não tinha e podia pagar para adquirir.

En Eles rapidamente concordaram com um preço. O orador transferiu o cérebro do cliente para a cabeça do guerreiro. O cliente foi embora e provavelmente conquistou a mão da mulher. O corpo do guerreiro poderia ter permanecido sem uso, mas o orador depois precisou de um escravo do sexo masculino e, por acaso, selecionou aquele corpo para o renascimento.

En O orador enfatizou que o homem havia sido assassinado e estava morto. Ele havia comprado o cadáver e tudo que havia nele. O corpo poderia ter permanecido morto para sempre, mas o orador lhe deu nova vida. No entanto, o homem não conseguiu encarar a transação com sabedoria e sem emoção.

En Por causa de suas reações sentimentais, o homem culpou o orador por lhe dar um corpo diferente. O orador sentiu que, de qualquer perspectiva razoável, o homem deveria tê-lo considerado um benfeitor por restaurar sua vida em um corpo saudável, embora usado anteriormente.

En Ele havia falado comigo várias vezes, pedindo que eu restaurasse seu corpo para ele. Expliquei que isso era impossível, a menos que o corpo do cliente que o comprou aparecesse no meu laboratório, o que era extremamente improvável para alguém tão rico quanto meu cliente. O homem até sugeriu que eu permitisse que ele matasse meu cliente e trouxesse o corpo de volta para que eu pudesse reverter a operação e devolver seu corpo original. Quando me recusei a revelar o nome da pessoa que agora tinha seu corpo, ele ficou mal-humorado. No entanto, até ele me atacar pouco antes de você chegar, eu não percebi o quão profundo era seu ódio.

En O sentimentalismo é de fato um obstáculo a todo progresso. Nós, toonolianos, somos provavelmente menos afetados por seus caprichos do que a maioria das outras nações em Barsoom, mas ainda assim muitos dos meus compatriotas sofrem com isso em vários graus. No entanto, ele tem suas recompensas e compensações. Sem ele, não poderíamos manter um governo estável, e os phundahlianos ou algum outro povo nos invadiria e conquistaria. Uma parte suficiente das classes baixas tem sentimento para ser leal ao Jedak de Toonol, e as classes altas são inteligentes o suficiente para saber que é do seu próprio interesse mantê-lo no trono.

En Os phundahlianos, por outro lado, são extremamente sentimentais, cheios de superstições estúpidas e escravos de toda vaidade que enfraquece a mente. O simples fato de manterem a velha megera Xaxa no trono mostra sua idiotice. Ela é uma virago ignorante, arrogante, egoísta, estúpida e cruel, mas os phundahlianos lutariam e morreriam por ela porque seu pai era Jedak de Phundahl. Ela os tributa até mal conseguirem suportar o fardo, os governa mal, os explora, os trai, e eles a adoram. Por quê? Porque seu pai era Jedak e seu pai antes dele, remontando à antiguidade. Eles são governados pelo sentimento, não pela razão, e seus governantes perversos jogam com esse sentimento.

En Ela não tinha nada que a recomendasse a uma pessoa sã, nem mesmo beleza. Você a viu, então sabe.

En Perguntei se eu a tinha visto.

En O orador observou que o ouvinte o havia ajudado no dia em que transplantaram o cérebro da velha para um novo corpo, que também foi o dia em que o ouvinte chegou da Terra.

En O orador expressou espanto, perguntando se aquela velha era de fato Jeddara de Phundahl.

En Ele confirmou que o nome dela era Xaxa.

En O orador explicou que, como o ouvinte não a tratara com a deferência esperada para uma governante na Terra, ele não fazia ideia de que ela era algo além de uma mulher idosa e rica.

En O velho se apresentou como Ras Thavas e declarou que não via razão para se curvar diante de ninguém. Em seu mundo, apenas a inteligência importava, e sem arrogância, ele podia dizer que não reconhecia superior nesse aspecto.

En O narrador sorriu e sugeriu que a Mente Mestre não era desprovida de sentimento e se orgulhava de seu intelecto. A Mente Mestre respondeu, com certa paciência, que não era orgulho, mas um simples fato que podia provar. Ele afirmou que, entre todos os homens eruditos que conhecia, possuía a mente mais desenvolvida e perfeitamente funcional e, por extensão, provavelmente a melhor mente de Barsoom. Acrescentou que, com base em seu conhecimento da Terra e na observação do narrador, nenhuma mente terrestre poderia sequer se aproximar da sua, que ele havia cultivado ao longo de mil anos de estudo. Ele reconheceu que Mercúrio ou Vênus poderiam ter inteligências iguais ou superiores, mas seus instrumentos eram insuficientes para confirmar.

En Perguntei sobre a garota cujo corpo ele havia dado à Jeddara. Minha mente não conseguia esquecer a lembrança de sua doce forma, que certamente deve ter abrigado um cérebro igualmente doce e fino.

En Ele descartou a pergunta com um aceno de mão, repetindo que ela era apenas um sujeito.

En Insisti, exigindo saber o que seria dela.

En Ele perguntou por que isso importava. Ele a havia comprado junto com um lote de prisioneiros de guerra e nem lembrava de qual país seu agente os havia obtido ou de onde eles eram originários. Tais detalhes, disse ele, não tinham importância.

En Ele exigiu saber se ela estava viva quando a outra pessoa a comprou.

En A outra pessoa confirmou que ela estava viva e perguntou por que ele queria saber.

En Ele então perguntou, hesitante, se o outro a havia matado.

En O vendedor negou tê-la matado, alegando que a preservou. Ele explicou que, cerca de dez anos atrás, manteve-a jovem para preservar seu valor. Quando Xaxa a comprou, ela estava tão fresca quanto no dia em que chegou. Muitas mulheres desejavam sua aparência, mas apenas uma Jeddara podia pagar o preço. Ela rendeu a maior quantia que ele já recebera.

En Ele admitiu que a manteve por muito tempo, confiante de que eventualmente ela seria vendida pelo preço que ele queria.

En O orador observou que a beleza inspirava sentimento, o que tinha seus usos porque, sem sentimento, não haveria tolos para ajudar seu trabalho, permitindo-lhe realizar investigações mais valiosas. Ele afirmou que estava quase capaz de criar seres humanos racionais aplicando certos raios a combinações químicas, raios provavelmente desconhecidos pelos cientistas da Terra, dado seu conhecimento limitado.

En O narrador garantiu a ele que não ficaria surpreso com nada que o orador pudesse realizar.

IV. -- VALLA DIA

En Naquela noite, o narrador ficou acordado por muito tempo, pensando na bela garota cujo corpo perfeito havia sido roubado para servir como um magnífico receptáculo para a mente cruel de um tirano. Ele considerou isso um crime tão terrível que não conseguia parar de pensar, e acreditava que contemplar esse ato plantou a primeira semente de seu ódio e repulsa por Ras Thavas. Ele não conseguia imaginar uma criatura tão completamente desprovida de compaixão a ponto de sequer considerar a terrível violação daquele corpo doce e amável, mesmo para o propósito mais sagrado, muito menos alguém que o faria por dinheiro sujo.

En Ele pensou tanto na garota que sua imagem foi a primeira coisa a aparecer em sua mente quando acordou ao amanhecer. Depois de comer, como Ras Thavas não havia chegado, ele foi diretamente para o depósito onde a pobre garota estava guardada. Lá ela estava, identificada apenas por um pequeno painel com um número. O corpo de uma velha com rosto desfigurado estava diante dele, rígido e imóvel como a morte; no entanto, não era aquela figura que ele via. Em vez disso, ele viu uma visão de radiante formosura, cuja alma aprisionada jazia adormecida sob aqueles cabelos grisalhos.

En A criatura diante dele tinha o rosto e a forma de Xaxa, mas não era Xaxa de forma alguma, porque tudo o que fazia a outra pessoa ser quem ela era havia sido transferido para aquele cadáver frio. Ele estremeceu ao pensar como seria terrível o despertar dela, se algum dia acontecesse. Ele foi tomado pelo horror que a garota sentiria quando percebesse o terrível crime que havia sido cometido contra ela. Quem era ela? Que história estava trancada naquele cérebro morto e silencioso? Que amores foram os seus, cuja beleza era tão grande e cujo rosto justo carregava a marca indelével da graciosidade? Será que Ras Thavas algum dia a despertaria daquela feliz aparência de morte, que era muito mais feliz do que qualquer despertar poderia ser para ela? Ele se encolheu com a ideia do despertar dela, mas ansiava por ouvi-la falar, saber que aquele cérebro vivia novamente, aprender seu nome e ouvir a história de uma vida gentil tão abruptamente arrancada de seu ambiente adequado e tão cruelmente tratada pelo destino. E suponha que ela fosse despertada, e suponha que ele... Então uma mão foi colocada em seu ombro, e ele se virou para encarar Ras Thavas.

En Ele comentou que eu parecia interessado no assunto.

En Eu respondi que estava refletindo sobre qual seria a reação do cérebro da garota se ela acordasse e se descobrisse uma velha mulher desfigurada.

En Ele acariciou o queixo, me examinou atentamente e refletiu que seria um experimento interessante.

En Ele expressou prazer por eu estar demonstrando interesse científico em seu trabalho. Ele admitiu que havia negligenciado os aspectos psicológicos por cerca de cem anos, embora costumasse dar-lhes muita atenção. Ele pensou que seria interessante estudar vários casos, começando por este simples. Mais tarde, ele me deixaria examinar casos de trocas de cérebros entre sexos, substituições de cérebros e cérebros humanos em corpos de animais ou vice-versa. Ele lembrou de um caso em que transferiu metade do cérebro de um macaco para o crânio de um homem e a metade removida do homem para o crânio do macaco. Ele queria verificar esses sujeitos, que acreditava estarem no cofre L-42-X sob o edifício 4-J-21. Ele sugeriu que os víssemos em breve e então propôs evocar o espécime 4296-E-2631-H.

En Eu exclamei, colocando a mão em seu braço, que seria horrível.

En Ele me lançou um olhar surpreso, então seus lábios se torceram em um sorriso cruel e zombeteiro. Ele me chamou de tolo fraco e sentimental e exigiu saber quem ousaria desafiá-lo.

En Coloquei minha mão no cabo da minha espada longa e mantive seu olhar sem vacilar.

En Direcionei-me a Ras Thavas, reconhecendo sua autoridade em seu próprio domínio, mas insistindo que, como seu convidado, deveria ser tratado com cortesia.

En Ele encontrou meu olhar brevemente, mas seus olhos vacilaram. Ele admitiu que havia falado com muita pressa.

En Deixei sua observação servir como um pedido de desculpas—foi mais do que eu esperava—e o incidente não terminou mal. Acredito que ele passou a me tratar com consideravelmente mais respeito depois disso. Ele então se virou imediatamente para a laje contendo os restos mortais de 4296-E-2631-H.

En Ele ordenou que o sujeito fosse preparado para a reanimação e instruiu para estudar todas as suas reações, depois saiu da sala.

En Ele agora era habilidoso neste trabalho e prosseguiu com alguma inquietação, mas confiante de que obedecer a Ras Thavas era o certo. O sangue que um dia fluíra no belo corpo vendido a Xaxa estava em um recipiente selado sobre o cadáver. Como fizera antes sob supervisão, agora realizava o procedimento sozinho. Após aquecer o sangue, fazer incisões, conectar tubos e adicionar uma solução vivificante, ele estava pronto para restaurar a vida ao cérebro que estivera morto por dez anos. Enquanto seu dedo pairava sobre o botão que enviaria o líquido revitalizante nas veias, ele sentiu uma sensação que acreditava que nenhum mortal jamais experimentara.

En Ele se tornara senhor da vida e da morte, mas naquele momento se sentia mais um assassino do que um salvador. Tentou ver o procedimento de forma imparcial pela ciência, mas falhou. Só conseguia ver uma garota enlutada sentindo falta de sua beleza perdida. Com um juramento abafado, ele se virou, incapaz de prosseguir. Então, como se uma força externa o tivesse dominado, seu dedo pressionou o botão. Ele não conseguia explicar, exceto talvez pela teoria da mentalidade dupla. Ele só sabia que fez aquilo, o motor começou e o nível de sangue no recipiente começou a baixar.

I. -- A LETTER

Português

A carta foi datada de Helium em 8 de junho de 1925.

Original English

HELIUM, June 8th, 1925

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MY DEAR MR. BURROUGHS:

Português

No outono de 1917, em um campo de treinamento de oficiais, o escritor encontrou pela primeira vez John Carter, o Senhor da Guerra de Barsoom, através das páginas do romance 'Uma Princesa de Marte.' A história o afetou profundamente. Embora logicamente soubesse que era ficção, ele sentiu um estranho senso de verdade sobre ela. Ele começou a sonhar com Marte e seus personagens como se fossem pessoas reais que conhecia.

Original English

It was in the Fall of nineteen seventeen at an officers' training camp that I first became acquainted with John Carter, War Lord of Barsoom, through the pages of your novel "A Princess of Mars." The story made a profound impression upon me and while my better judgment assured me that it was but a highly imaginative piece of fiction, a suggestion of the verity of it pervaded my inner consciousness to such an extent that I found myself dreaming of Mars and John Carter, of Dejah Thoris, of Tars Tarkas and of Woola as if they had been entities of my own experience rather than the figments of your imagination.

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Português

Durante aqueles dias de treinamento intenso, havia pouco tempo para sonhar. No entanto, nos breves momentos antes do sono, o escritor sonhava com Marte. Quando acordado à noite, ele olhava para o Planeta Vermelho, tentando resolver o antigo mistério que sempre apresentou à Terra.

Original English

It is true that in those days of strenuous preparation there was little time for dreaming, yet there were brief moments before sleep claimed me at night and these were my dreams. Such dreams! Always of Mars, and during my waking hours at night my eyes always sought out the Red Planet when he was above the horizon and clung there seeking a solution of the seemingly unfathomable riddle he has presented to the Earthman for ages.

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Português

O fascínio do escritor tornou-se uma obsessão. Durante todo o treinamento, ele não conseguia se livrar disso. À noite, no convés do transporte, ele se deitava de costas olhando para Marte, que chamava de olho vermelho do deus da guerra, e desejava também poder ser transportado pelo espaço até o desejo de seu coração, assim como John Carter havia sido.

Original English

Perhaps the thing became an obsession. I know it clung to me all during my training camp days, and at night, on the deck of the transport, I would he on my back gazing up into the red eye of the god of battle -- my god -- and wishing that, like John Carter, I might be drawn across the great void to the haven of my desire

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Português

Então vieram os dias e noites terríveis nas trincheiras, cheios de ratos, vermes e lama. Ocasionalmente, a monotonia era quebrada por uma ordem para ir para o ataque, que o escritor amava junto com o caos das explosões. Mas ele odiava os ratos, vermes e lama. Ele admitiu que isso poderia parecer arrogância, mas queria ser verdadeiro. Ele acreditava que o destinatário entenderia, e que isso poderia explicar eventos posteriores.

Original English

And then came the hideous days and nights in the trenches -- the rats, the vermin, the mud -- with an occasional glorious break in the monotony when we were ordered over the top. I loved it then and I loved the bursting shells, the mad, wild chaos of the thundering guns, but the rats and the vermin and the mud -- God! how I hated them. It sounds like boasting, I know, and I am sorry; but I wanted to write you just the truth about myself. I think you will understand. And it may account for much that happened afterwards.

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Português

Por fim, algo que havia acontecido a muitos outros naqueles campos sangrentos aconteceu a ele. Aconteceu na semana de sua primeira promoção a capitão, uma patente da qual ele se orgulhava profundamente, embora humildemente, ciente de sua juventude e da grande responsabilidade que isso lhe impunha, tanto no serviço ao seu país quanto pessoalmente aos homens sob seu comando. Eles haviam avançado cerca de dois quilômetros e, com um pequeno destacamento, ele mantinha uma posição muito avançada quando recebeu ordens de recuar para a nova linha. Essa foi a última coisa de que se lembrou até recuperar a consciência após o anoitecer. Um projétil deve ter explodido entre eles. Ele nunca soube o que aconteceu com seus homens. Quando acordou, estava frio e muito escuro. No início, por um instante, ele se sentiu bastante confortável — antes de estar totalmente consciente, ele imaginou — e então a dor começou. Cresceu até parecer insuportável. Era em suas pernas. Ele estendeu a mão para senti-las, mas sua mão recuou diante do que encontrou. Quando tentou mover as pernas, descobriu que estava morto da cintura para baixo. Então a lua apareceu por trás de uma nuvem, e ele viu que estava deitado em uma cratera de bomba e que não estava sozinho — os mortos estavam ao seu redor.

Original English

Here came at last to me what had come to so many others upon those bloody fields. It came within the week that I had received my first promotion and my captaincy, of which I was greatly proud, though humbly so; realizing as I did my youth, the great responsibility that it placed upon me as well as the opportunities it offered, not only in service to my country but, in a personal way, to the men of my command. We had advanced a matter of two kilometers and with a small detachment I was holding a very advanced position when I received orders to fall back to the new line. That is the last that I remember until I regained consciousness after dark. A shell must have burst among us. What became of my men I never knew. It was cold and very dark when I awoke and at first, for an instant, I was quite comfortable -- before I was fully conscious, I imagine -- and then I commenced to feel pain. It grew until it seemed unbearable. It was in my legs. I reached down to feel them, but my hand recoiled from what it found, and when I tried to move my legs I discovered that I was dead from the waist down. Then the moon came out from behind a cloud and I saw that I lay within a shell hole and that I was not alone -- the dead were all about me.<

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Português

Levou muito tempo para encontrar a coragem moral e a força física para se levantar sobre um cotovelo, de modo que pudesse ver os danos que lhe haviam sido causados.

Original English

It was a long time before I found the moral courage and the physical strength to draw myself up upon one elbow that I might view the havoc that had been done me.

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Português

Um olhar foi suficiente; ele afundou de volta em uma agonia de angústia mental e física. Suas pernas haviam sido arrancadas do meio entre os quadris e os joelhos. Por alguma razão, ele não estava sangrando excessivamente, mas sabia que havia perdido muito sangue e estava gradualmente perdendo o suficiente para tirá-lo de seu sofrimento em pouco tempo se não fosse encontrado em breve. Enquanto estava deitado de costas, torturado pela dor, ele rezou para que não chegassem a tempo, pois temia mais a ideia de passar a vida aleijado do que a ideia da morte.

Original English

One look was enough, I sank back in an agony of mental and physical anguish - my legs had been blown away from midway between the hips and knees. For some reason I was not bleeding excessively, yet I know that I had lost a great deal of blood and that I was gradually losing enough to put me out of my misery in a short time if I were not soon found; and as I lay there on my back, tortured with pain, I prayed that they would not come in time, for I shrank more from the thought of going maimed through life than I shrank from the thought of death.

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Português

Então seus olhos de repente se fixaram no olho vermelho e brilhante de Marte, e uma onda repentina de esperança o inundou. Ele estendeu os braços em direção a Marte. Ele não questionou ou duvidou por um instante enquanto rezava ao deus de sua vocação para alcançá-lo e ajudá-lo. Ele sabia que isso aconteceria; sua fé era completa. No entanto, tão grande foi o esforço mental para se livrar dos horríveis laços de sua carne mutilada que ele sentiu uma náusea momentânea e então um clique agudo, como o estalo de um fio de aço. De repente, ele estava nu sobre duas pernas boas, olhando para a coisa sangrenta e distorcida que fora ele. Apenas por um instante ele ficou assim antes de erguer os olhos novamente para sua estrela do destino e, com os braços estendidos, ficou ali no frio daquela noite francesa — esperando.

Original English

Then my eyes suddenly focussed upon the bright red eye of Mars and there surged through me a sudden wave of hope. I stretched out my arms towards Mars, I did not seem to question or to doubt for an instant as I prayed to the god of my vocation to reach forth and succor me. I knew that he would do it, my faith was complete, and yet so great was the mental effort that I made to throw off the hideous bonds of my mutilated flesh that I felt a momentary qualm of nausea and then a sharp click as of the snapping of a steel wire, and suddenly I stood naked upon two good legs looking down upon the bloody, distorted thing that had been I. Just for an instant did I stand thus before I turned my eyes aloft again to my star of destiny and with outstretched arms stand there in the cold of that French night -- waiting.

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Português

De repente, ele se sentiu puxado com a velocidade do pensamento através dos ermos sem trilhas do espaço interplanetário. Houve um instante de frio extremo e escuridão total, então — mas o resto está no manuscrito que, com a ajuda de alguém maior que ambos, ele encontrou meios de transmitir a você junto com esta carta. Você e alguns outros escolhidos acreditarão nisso — para o resto, ainda não importa.

Original English

Suddenly I felt myself drawn with the speed of thought through the trackless wastes of interplanetary space. There was an instant of extreme cold and utter darkness, then -- But the rest is in the manuscript that, with the aid of one greater than either of us, I have found the means to transmit to you with this letter. You and a few others of the chosen will believe in it -- for the rest it matters not as yet.

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Português

O escritor comentou que um certo tempo chegaria, mas questionou a necessidade de informar o leitor sobre algo já conhecido.

Original English

The time will come -- but why tell you what you already know?

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Português

O escritor ofereceu suas saudações e parabéns, especialmente pela boa sorte do leitor em ser selecionado como o canal para que os terráqueos aprendessem sobre os costumes de Barsoom, em preparação para quando pudessem viajar pelo espaço tão facilmente quanto John Carter e ver os lugares que ele havia descrito por meio do leitor, assim como o próprio escritor havia feito.

Original English

My salutations and my congratulations -- the latter on your good fortune in having been chosen as the medium through which Earthmen shall become better acquainted with the manners and customs of Barsoom, against the time that they shall pass through space as easily as John Carter, and visit the scenes that he has described to them through you, as have I.

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Português

A carta foi assinada por Ulysses Paxton, um ex-capitão do Exército dos Estados Unidos.

Original English

Your sincere friend, ULYSSES PAXTON, Late Captain, -- th Inf., U.S. Army.

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II. -- THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD

Português

Ele deve ter fechado os olhos sem querer durante a transição, porque quando os abriu estava deitado de costas olhando para um céu brilhante e ensolarado. A alguns metros de distância estava uma pessoa de aparência muito estranha, olhando para ele com uma expressão profundamente confusa, o indivíduo mais peculiar que ele já tinha visto.

Original English

I MUST have closed my eyes involuntarily during the transition for when I opened them I was lying flat on my back gazing up into a brilliant, sun-lit sky, while standing a few feet from me and looking down upon me with the most mystified expression was as strange a looking individual as my eyes ever had rested upon.

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Português

Ele parecia muito velho, enrugado e encolhido além da descrição. Seus membros eram extremamente finos e suas costelas eram claramente visíveis sob sua pele encolhida. Ele tinha um crânio grande e bem desenvolvido que, combinado com seu corpo definhado, lhe dava uma aparência desproporcional, como se sua cabeça fosse grande demais para seu corpo, embora o narrador tivesse certeza de que não era realmente o caso.

Original English

He appeared to be quite an old man, for he was wrinkled and withered beyond description. His limbs were emaciated; his ribs showed distinctly beneath his shrunken hide; his cranium was large and well developed, which, in conjunction with his wasted limbs and torso, lent him the appearance of top heaviness, as though he had a head beyond all proportion to his body, which was, I am sure, really not the case.

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Português

Ele me encarou através de grandes óculos com múltiplas lentes, e eu o examinei minuciosamente em troca. Ele tinha cerca de um metro e sessenta e cinco de altura, embora antes fosse mais alto, agora um pouco curvado. Usava apenas um simples arnês de couro que segurava suas armas e bolsas, e um colar com joias em volta do pescoço fino — um colar tão precioso que uma rica viúva poderia sacrificar sua alma por ele. Sua pele era vermelha, seu cabelo grisalho. Ele parecia confuso, segurou o queixo, coçou a cabeça e então falou comigo em uma língua que eu não entendia.

Original English

As he stared down upon me through enormous, many lensed spectacles I found the opportunity to examine him as minutely in return. He was, perhaps, five feet five in height, though doubtless he had been taller in youth, since he was somewhat bent; he was naked except for some rather plain and well-worn leather harness which supported his weapons and pocket pouches, and one great ornament a collar, jewel studded, that he wore around his scraggy neck -- such a collar as a dowager empress of pork or real estate might barter her soul for, if she had one. His skin was red, his scant locks grey. As he looked at me his puzzled expression increased in intensity, he grasped his chin between the thumb and fingers of his left hand and slowly raising his right hand he scratched his head most deliberately. Then he spoke to me, but in a language I did not understand.

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Português

Sentei-me e balancei a cabeça. Olhando ao redor, vi-me sentado sobre grama carmesim dentro de um recinto de muros altos. Dois ou três lados eram formados pelas paredes externas de uma estrutura que lembrava um castelo feudal europeu, mas era diferente de qualquer arquitetura familiar. A fachada era ornamentadamente esculpida e irregular, a linha do telhado tão quebrada que sugeria uma ruína, mas o todo parecia harmonioso e belo. Dentro cresciam árvores e arbustos estranhos, todos floridos. Caminhos de seixos coloridos, entre os quais brilhavam o que pareciam gemas preciosas, serpenteavam por entre eles.

Original English

At his first words I sat up and shook my head. Then I looked about me. I was seated upon a crimson sward within a high walled enclosure, at least two, and possibly three, sides of which were formed by the outer walls of a structure that in some respects resembled more closely a feudal castle of Europe than any familiar form of architecture that comes to my mind. The facade presented to my view was ornately carved and of most irregular design, the roof line being so broken as to almost suggest a ruin, and yet the whole seemed harmonious and not without beauty. Within the enclosure grew a number of trees and shrubs, all weirdly strange and all, or almost all, profusely flowering. About them wound walks of colored pebbles among which scintillated what appeared to be rare and beautiful gems, so lovely were the strange, unearthly rays that leaped and played in the sunshine.

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Português

O velho falou novamente, mais enfaticamente, como se repetisse um comando que eu havia ignorado. Balancei a cabeça mais uma vez. Ele colocou a mão em uma de suas duas espadas e começou a puxá-la. Saltei com tanta força que voei dez pés para o ar e vinte pés para trás, surpreendendo a ambos. Então soube que estava em Marte, pois a gravidade mais baixa, a grama carmesim e a pele vermelha dos marcianos correspondiam às descrições nos manuscritos de John Carter. Não havia dúvida: eu estava no solo do Planeta Vermelho, Barsoom.

Original English

The old man spoke again, peremptorily this time, as though repeating a command that had been ignored, but again I shook my head. Then he laid a hand upon one of his two swords, but as he drew the weapon I leaped to my feet, with such remarkable results that I cannot even now say which of us was the more surprised. I must have sailed ten feet into the air and back about twenty feet from where I had been sitting; then I was sure that I was upon Mars (not that I had for one instant doubted it), for the effects of the lesser gravity, the color of the sward and the skin-hue of the red Martians I had seen described in the manuscripts of John Carter, those marvellous and as yet unappreciated contributions to the scientific literature of a world. There could be no doubt of it, I stood upon the soil of the Red Planet, I had come to the world of my dreams -- to Barsoom.

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Português

O velho ficou tão assustado com minha agilidade que ele mesmo saltou, fazendo com que seus óculos caíssem na grama. Então percebi que ele era praticamente cego sem eles. Ele caiu de joelhos e começou a tatear freneticamente pelos óculos perdidos, como se sua vida dependesse de encontrá-los imediatamente.

Original English

So startled was the old man by my agility that he jumped a bit himself, though doubtless involuntarily, but, however, with certain results. His spectacles tumbled from his nose to the sward, and then it was that I discovered that the pitiful old wretch was practically blind when deprived of these artificial aids to vision, for he got to his knees and commenced to grope frantically for the lost glasses, as though his very life depended upon finding them in the instant.

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Português

Talvez ele pensasse que eu me aproveitaria de sua cegueira e o mataria. Embora os óculos fossem grandes e estivessem a apenas alguns passos de distância, ele não conseguia encontrá-los. Suas mãos pareciam afligidas por uma estranha perversidade que confunde nossas ações mais simples, passando ao redor do objeto perdido, mas nunca tocando nele.

Original English

Possibly he thought that I might take advantage of his helplessness and slay him. Though the spectacles were enormous and lay within a couple of feet of him he could not find them, his hands, seemingly afflicted by that strange perversity that sometimes confounds our simplest acts, passing all about the lost object of their search, yet never once coming in contact with it.

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Português

Enquanto eu o observava lutar inutilmente e pensava se deveria devolver sua arma para que ele pudesse tentar me matar mais facilmente, notei que outra pessoa havia entrado no recinto.

Original English

As I stood watching his futile efforts and considering the advisability of restoring to him the means that would enable him more readily to find my heart with his sword point, I became aware that another had entered the enclosure.

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Português

Olhei em direção ao edifício e vi um grande homem vermelho correndo rapidamente em direção ao velhinho de óculos. O recém-chegado estava completamente nu e carregava um porrete. Sua expressão claramente sugeria que o velho, que rastejava no chão como uma toupeira em busca de seus óculos perdidos, estava em perigo grave.

Original English

Looking towards the building I saw a large red-man running rapidly towards the little old man of the spectacles. The newcomer was quite naked, he carried a club in one hand, and there was upon his face such an expression as unquestionably boded ill for the helpless husk of humanity groveling, mole-like, for its lost spectacles.

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Português

A princípio, eu queria ficar de fora da situação, pois parecia não ter relação comigo e eu não tinha motivo para favorecer nenhuma das pessoas. Mas um segundo olhar para o rosto do homem com o porrete me fez pensar se aquilo poderia realmente me envolver.

Original English

My first impulse was to remain neutral in an affair that it seemed could not possibly concern me and of which I had no slightest knowledge upon which to base a predilection towards either of the parties involved; but a second glance at the face of the club-bearer aroused a question as to whether it might not concern me after all.

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Português

A expressão no rosto do atacante sugeria selvageria natural ou loucura, e ele poderia voltar sua atenção assassina para mim após acabar com o velho. O velho, pelo menos na aparência, parecia são e inofensivo. Embora tivesse puxado a espada contra mim, o que não era amigável, ele ainda parecia o menor dos dois males.

Original English

There was that in the expression upon the man's face that betokened either an inherent savageness of disposition or a maniacal cast of mind which might turn his evidently murderous attentions upon me after he had dispatched his elderly victim, while, in outward appearance at least, the latter was a sane and relatively harmless individual. It is true that his move to draw his sword against me was not indicative of a friendly disposition towards me, but at least, if there were any choice, he seemed the lesser of two evils.

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Português

O velho ainda estava procurando seus óculos. O homem nu estava quase em cima dele quando decidi ajudar o velho. Eu estava a vinte pés de distância, nu e desarmado, mas meus músculos terrestres me permitiram percorrer essa distância instantaneamente. Uma espada nua estava ao lado do velho, que a havia deixado para procurar seus óculos. Alcancei o atacante no momento em que ele entrava em alcance de golpe de sua vítima. O golpe destinado ao velho agora era apontado para mim. Eu desviei, e então percebi que minha maior agilidade tinha vantagens e desvantagens: eu tinha que aprender a andar e a lutar com uma nova arma ao mesmo tempo, contra um maníaco com um porrete. Sua terrível fúria e expressão me levaram a acreditar que ele era insano.

Original English

He was still groping for his spectacles and the naked man was almost upon him as I reached the decision to cast my lot upon the side of the old man. I was twenty feet away, naked and unarmed, but to cover the distance with my Earthly muscles required but an instant, and a naked sword lay by the old man's side where he had discarded it the better to search for his spectacles. So it was that I faced the attacker at the instant that he came within striking distance of his victim, and the blow which had been intended for another was aimed at me. I side- stepped it and then I learned that the greater agility of my Earthly muscles had its disadvantages as well as its advantages, for, indeed, I had to learn to walk at the very instant that I had to learn to fight with a new weapon against a maniac armed with a bludgeon, or at least, so I assumed him to be and I think that it is not strange that I should have done so, what with his frightful show of rage and the terrible expression upon his face.

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Português

Eu tropeçava, tentando me acostumar com as novas condições. Em vez de revidar efetivamente, mal conseguia escapar da morte. Eu caía constantemente na grama escarlate. O duelo se tornou uma série de tentativas dele para me esmagar com seu cassetete e minhas para desviar. Foi humilhante, mas verdade.

Original English

As I stumbled about endeavoring to accustom myself to the new conditions, I found that instead of offering any serious opposition to my antagonist I was hard put to it to escape death at his hands, so often did I stumble and fall sprawling upon the scarlet sward; so that the duel from its inception became but a series of efforts, upon his part to reach and crush me with his great club, and upon mine to dodge and elude him. It was mortifying but it is the truth.

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Português

No entanto, essa fase não durou muito. Logo, sob pressão, aprendi a controlar meus músculos. Mantive minha posição e, após desviar do golpe dele, toquei-o com a ponta da minha espada, fazendo sangue e arrancando um rugido selvagem de dor. Ele se tornou mais cauteloso, e eu aproveitei para pressioná-lo para trás. Isso me deu confiança, e o ataquei ferozmente, estocando e cortando até que sangrasse em muitos lugares, enquanto ainda evitava seus golpes poderosos.

Original English

However, this did not last indefinitely, for soon I learned, and quickly too under the exigencies of the situation, to command my muscles, and then I stood my ground and when he aimed a blow at me, and I had dodged it, I touched him with my point and brought blood along with a savage roar of pain. He went more cautiously then, and taking advantage of the change I pressed him so that he fell back. The effect upon me was magical, giving me new confidence, so that I set upon him in good earnest, thrusting and cutting until I had him bleeding in a half-dozen places, yet taking good care to avoid his mighty swings, any one of which would have felled an ox.

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Português

Durante o início do duelo, havíamos cruzado o recinto e agora lutávamos longe do ponto de partida. Naquele momento, eu estava virado naquela direção quando o velho recuperou seus óculos. Ele os ajustou rapidamente, olhou em volta e nos avistou. Começou a gritar excitadamente e correu em nossa direção, sacando sua espada curta. O homem vermelho me pressionava com força, mas eu havia ganhado mais controle. Temendo dois oponentes, intensifiquei meu ataque. Ele errou por um triz, mas eu entrei em uma abertura e atravessei seu coração com minha espada, como pensei. No entanto, eu havia esquecido dos manuscritos de John Carter que os órgãos internos marcianos não são dispostos como os dos terráqueos. O ferimento ainda foi grave o suficiente para tirá-lo de ação. Nesse instante, o velho cavalheiro chegou. Eu estava pronto, mas havia julgado mal suas intenções. Ele não fez movimentos hostis com sua arma e parecia tentar me convencer de que não queria me machucar. Estava muito animado e irritado por eu não entendê-lo. Pulava gritando frases estranhas, mas o fato de ter recolocado a espada na bainha era mais significativo. Quando parou de gritar e começou a usar pantomima, percebi que ele estava oferecendo paz. Então baixei a ponta da minha espada e fiz uma reverência.

Original English

In my attempts to elude him in the beginning of the duel we had crossed the enclosure and were now fighting at a considerable distance from the point of our first meeting. It now happened that I stood facing towards that point at the moment that the old man regained his spectacles, which he quickly adjusted to his eyes. Immediately he looked about until he discovered us, whereupon he commenced to yell excitedly at us at the same time running in our direction and drawing his short-sword as he ran. The red-man was pressing me hard, but I had gained almost complete control of myself, and fearing that I was soon to have two antagonists instead of one I set upon him with redoubled intensity. He missed me by the fraction of an inch, the wind in the wake of his bludgeon fanning my scalp, but he left an opening into which I stepped, running my sword fairly through his heart. At least I thought that I had pierced his heart but I had forgotten what I had once read in one of John Carter's manuscripts to the effect that all the Martian internal organs are not disposed identically with those of Earthmen. However, the immediate results were quite as satisfactory as though I had found his heart for the wound was sufficiently grievous to place him hors de combat, and at that instant the old gentleman arrived. He found me ready, but I had mistaken his intentions. He made no unfriendly gestures with his weapon, but seemed to be trying to convince me that he had no intention of harming me. He was very excited and apparently tremendously annoyed that I could not understand him, and perplexed, too. He hopped about screaming strange sentences at me that bore the tones of peremptory commands, rabid invective and impotent rage. But the fact that he had returned his sword to its scabbard had greater significance than all his jabbering, and when he ceased to yell at me and commenced to talk in a sort of pantomime I realized that he was making overtures of peace if not of friendship, so I lowered my point and bowed. It was all that I could think of to assure him that I had no immediate intention of spitting him.

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Português

Ele pareceu satisfeito e voltou sua atenção para o homem caído. Verificou seu pulso e ouviu seu coração. Com um aceno de cabeça, levantou-se, tirou um apito de uma bolsa no bolso e soou um único assobio alto.

Original English

He seemed satisfied and at once turned his attention to the fallen man. He examined his pulse and listened to his heart, then, nodding his head, he arose and taking a whistle from one of his pocket pouches sounded a single loud blast.

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Português

Imediatamente, uma vintena de homens vermelhos nus emergiu de um edifício próximo e correu em nossa direção, desarmados. O velho deu-lhes algumas ordens curtas, e eles juntaram o homem caído e o carregaram. Então ele começou a andar em direção ao edifício e fez sinal para que eu o seguisse. Não vi escolha a não ser obedecer. Onde quer que eu estivesse em Marte, provavelmente estava entre inimigos, então poderia muito bem ficar ali e confiar em minha própria desenvoltura, habilidade e agilidade para sobreviver no Planeta Vermelho.

Original English

There emerged immediately from one of the surrounding buildings a score of naked red-men who came running towards us. None was armed. To these he issued a few curt orders, whereupon they gathered the fallen one in their arms and bore him off. Then the old man started towards the building, motioning me to accompany him. There seemed nothing else for me to do but obey. Wherever I might be upon Mars, the chances were a million to one that I would be among enemies; and so I was as well off here as elsewhere and must depend upon my own resourcefulness, skill and agility to make my way upon the Red Planet.

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Português

O velho me guiou para uma sala pequena com muitas portas. Por uma delas, carregavam meu oponente recente. Seguimos e entramos em uma câmara grande e bem iluminada. Lá, vi a cena mais horrível que já testemunhei. Inúmeras mesas estavam enfileiradas, e na maioria delas jaziam cadáveres humanos parcialmente desmembrados ou mutilados. Acima de cada mesa, uma prateleira segurava recipientes de vários tamanhos, e instrumentos cirúrgicos pendiam da parte inferior, fazendo-me pensar que minha chegada em Barsoom se dava através de uma faculdade de medicina gigante.

Original English

The old man led me into a small chamber from which opened numerous doors, through one of which they were just bearing my late antagonist. We followed into a large, brilliantly lighted chamber wherein there burst upon my astounded vision the most gruesome scene that I ever had beheld. Rows upon rows of tables arranged in parallel lines filled the room and with few exceptions each table bore a similar grisly burden, a partially dismembered or otherwise mutilated human corpse. Above each table was a shelf bearing containers of various sizes and shapes, while from the bottom of the shelf depended numerous surgical instruments, suggesting that my entrance upon Barsoom was to be through a gigantic medical college.

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Português

Quando o velho falou, os que carregavam o barsoomiano ferido o colocaram em uma mesa vazia e saíram. Meu anfitrião, como posso chamá-lo, já que ainda não me havia capturado, fez gestos para que eu me aproximasse. Enquanto falava em tom normal, fez dois cortes no corpo: um em uma veia grande e outro em uma artéria. Ele prendeu dois tubos — um ligado a um jarro de vidro vazio, o outro a um jarro cheio de um líquido claro. Então apertou um botão para ligar um pequeno motor, que bombeou o sangue da vítima para o jarro vazio enquanto forçava o líquido claro para dentro das veias e artérias.

Original English

At a word from the old man, those who bore the Barsoomian I had wounded laid him upon an empty table and left the apartment. Whereupon my host if so I may call him, for certainly he was not as yet my captor, motioned me forward. While he conversed in ordinary tones, he made two incisions in the body of my late antagonist; one, I imagine, in a large vein and one in an artery, to which he deftly attached the ends of two tubes, one of which was connected with an empty glass receptacle and the other with a similar receptacle filled with a colorless, transparent liquid resembling clear water. The connections made, the old gentleman pressed a button controlling a small motor, whereupon the victim's blood was pumped into the empty jar while the contents of the other was forced into the emptying veins and arteries.

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Português

Durante o procedimento, as palavras e gestos do velho me convenceram de que ele estava explicando o processo, mas não entendi nada de sua língua. Depois que terminou, continuei tão confuso quanto antes, embora o que vi me levasse a crer que se tratava de um embalsamamento barsoomiano comum. Ele removeu os tubos, fechou as aberturas com fita adesiva e fez sinal para que eu o seguisse. Fomos de sala em sala, cada uma repleta das mesmas exibições horripilantes. Em muitos corpos, ele parava para examiná-los ou consultar um registro que pendia na cabeceira de cada mesa.

Original English

The tones and gestures of the old man as he addressed me during this operation convinced me that he was explaining in detail the method and purpose of what was transpiring, but as I understood no word of all he said I was as much in the dark when he had completed his discourse as I was before he started it, though what I had seen made it appear reasonable to believe that I was witnessing an ordinary Barsoomian embalming. Having removed the tubes the old man closed the openings he had made by covering them with bits of what appeared to be heavy adhesive tape and then motioned me to follow him. We went from room to room, in each of which were the same gruesome exhibits. At many of the bodies the old man paused to make a brief examination or to refer to what appeared to be a record of the case, that hung upon a hook at the head of each of the tables.

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Português

Da última sala no primeiro andar, meu anfitrião me levou por uma rampa até o segundo andar, onde as salas eram semelhantes. No entanto, aqui as mesas continham corpos inteiros, não mutilados, e todos estavam remendados com fita. Ao passarmos por uma sala, uma garota barsoomiana, provavelmente uma serva, entrou e falou com o velho. Ele fez sinal para que eu o seguisse, e descemos outra rampa até o primeiro andar de outro edifício.

Original English

From the last of the chambers we visited upon the first floor my host led me up an inclined runway to the second floor where there were rooms similar to those below, but here the tables bore whole rather than mutilated bodies, all of which were patched in various places with adhesive tape. As we were passing among the bodies in one of these rooms a Barsoomian girl, whom I took to be a servant or slave, entered and addressed the old man, whereupon he signed me to follow him and together we descended another runway to the first floor of another building.

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Português

Em uma sala grande e lindamente decorada, uma idosa de pele vermelha nos esperava. Ela parecia muito velha, e seu rosto estava severamente desfigurado, como se por um ferimento. Usava roupas magníficas e era acompanhada por vinte mulheres e guerreiros armados, indicando que era uma pessoa importante. No entanto, o velhinho a tratou com bastante aspereza, o que horrorizou seus acompanhantes.

Original English

Here, in a large, gorgeously decorated and sumptuously furnished apartment an elderly red-woman awaited us. She appeared to be quite old and her face was terribly disfigured as by some injury. Her trappings were magnificent and she was attended by a score of women and armed warriors, suggesting that she was a person of some consequence, but the little old man treated her quite brusquely, as I could see, quite to the horror of her attendants.

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Português

A conversa se prolongou por um bom tempo. Finalmente, ao sinal da mulher, um de seus guardas masculinos tirou um punhado do que pareciam ser moedas marcianas de uma bolsa ao lado. Ele contou algumas e as entregou ao velhinho, que então disse à mulher para segui-lo, incluindo-me em seu gesto. Várias de suas mulheres e guardas começaram a vir conosco, mas o velho ordenou que voltassem. Isso gerou uma discussão acalorada entre a mulher e um de seus guerreiros de um lado e o velho do outro. Terminou quando o velho, irritado, se ofereceu para devolver o dinheiro. Isso resolveu a situação: ela recusou as moedas, disse algumas palavras ao seu povo e seguiu o velho e a mim sozinha.

Original English

Their conversation was lengthy and at the conclusion of it, at the direction of the woman, one of her male escort advanced and opening a pocket pouch at his side withdrew a handful of what appeared to me to be Martian coins. A quantity of these he counted out and handed to the little old man, who then beckoned the woman to follow him, a gesture which included me. Several of her women and guard started to accompany us, but these the old man waved back peremptorily; whereupon there ensued a heated discussion between the woman and one of her warriors on one side and the old man on the other, which terminated in his proffering the return of the woman's money with a disgusted air. This seemed to settle the argument, for she refused the coins, spoke briefly to her people and accompanied the old man and myself alone.

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Português

Ele nos levou ao segundo andar, a uma sala que eu não tinha visto antes. Era muito parecida com as outras, exceto que todos os corpos ali eram de mulheres jovens, muitas delas muito bonitas. A mulher seguia de perto os calcanhares do velho e examinou a terrível exibição com grande cuidado.

Original English

He led the way to the second floor and to a chamber which I had not previously visited. It closely resembled the others except that all the bodies therein were of young women, many of them of great beauty. Following closely at the heels of the old man the woman inspected the gruesome exhibit with painstaking care.

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Português

Ela caminhou lentamente entre as mesas três vezes, estudando as cargas horríveis. Cada vez, ela parou mais tempo diante de uma certa mesa que continha o corpo da criatura mais bonita que eu já tinha visto. Então ela voltou uma quarta vez e ficou olhando longa e intensamente para o rosto morto. Por um tempo, ela conversou com o velho, fazendo muitas perguntas, às quais ele dava respostas rápidas e curtas. Finalmente, ela gesticulou em direção ao corpo e assentiu em concordância ao envelhecido guardião da horripilante exposição.

Original English

Thrice she passed slowly among the tables examining their ghastly burdens. Each time she paused longest before a certain one which bore the figure of the most beautiful creature I had ever looked upon; then she returned the fourth time to it and stood looking long and earnestly into the dead face. For awhile she stood there talking with the old man, apparently asking innumerable questions, to which he returned quick, brusque replies, then she indicated the body with a gesture and nodded assent to the withered keeper of this ghastly exhibit.

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Português

Ela apontou para o corpo com um gesto.

Original English

She indicated the body with a gesture...

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Português

Imediatamente, o velho soprou seu apito, chamando servos, e deu-lhes ordens breves. Então ele nos levou a outra sala, menor, que tinha várias mesas vazias como as das outras salas. Duas escravas ou atendentes estavam lá. À palavra de seu mestre, elas removeram os adornos da velha, soltaram seu cabelo e ajudaram-na a subir em uma das mesas. Lá, eles a borrifaram completamente com o que presumi ser uma solução antisséptica, secaram-na cuidadosamente e a mudaram para outra mesa. A cerca de cinquenta centímetros de distância, havia uma segunda mesa paralela.

Original English

Immediately the old fellow sounded a blast upon his whistle, summoning a number of servants to whom he issued brief instructions, after which he led us to another chamber, a smaller one in which were several empty tables similar to those upon which the corpses lay in adjoining rooms. Two female slaves or attendants were in this room and at a word from their master they removed the trappings from the old woman, unloosed her hair and helped her to one of the tables. Here she was thoroughly sprayed with what I presume was an antiseptic solution of some nature, carefully dried and removed to another table, at a distance of about twenty inches from which stood a second parallel table.

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Português

A porta abriu e dois atendentes entraram, carregando o corpo da bela jovem. Eles a colocaram na mesa que a velha tinha acabado de deixar. Ela foi borrifada e depois movida para outra mesa. O velhinho fez dois cortes no corpo da velha, como havia feito com o homem de pele vermelha. O sangue dela foi removido e substituído por um líquido claro. Ela morreu e ficou sobre a laje polida, tão sem vida quanto a bela garota morta ao seu lado.

Original English

Now the door of the chamber swung open and two attendants appeared bearing the body of the beautiful girl we had seen in the adjoining room. This they deposited upon the table the old woman had just quitted and as she had been sprayed so was the corpse, after which it was transferred to the table beside that on which she lay. The little old man now made two incisions in the body of the old woman, just as he had in the body of the red- man who had fallen to my sword; her blood was drawn from her veins and the clear liquid pumped into them, life left her and she lay upon the polished ersite slab that formed the table top, as much a corpse as the poor, beautiful, dead creature at her side.

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Português

O velhinho, que havia tirado seu arnês e sido borrifado, escolheu uma faca afiada. Ele removeu o couro cabeludo da velha ao longo da linha do cabelo. Ele fez o mesmo no cadáver da jovem. Então, usando uma pequena serra circular, ele cortou cada crânio ao longo da linha exposta. O restante da notável operação foi realizado com tanta habilidade que desafiava a descrição.

Original English

The little old man, who had removed the harness down to his waist and been thoroughly sprayed, now selected a sharp knife from among the instruments above the table and removed the old woman's scalp, following the hair line entirely around her head. In a similar manner he then removed the scalp from the corpse of the young woman, after which, by means of a tiny circular saw attached to the end of a flexible, revolving shaft he sawed through the skull of each, following the line exposed by the removal of the scalps. This and the balance of the marvellous operation was so skillfully performed as to baffle description.

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Português

Em quatro horas, ele havia transferido o cérebro de cada mulher para o crânio da outra. Ele conectou cuidadosamente os nervos e gânglios seccionados, recolocou os crânios e couros cabeludos e prendeu ambas as cabeças com uma fita adesiva especial. A fita era antisséptica, cicatrizante e anestésica local.

Original English

Suffice it to say that at the end of four hours he had transferred the brain of each woman to the brain pan of the other, deftly connected the severed nerves and ganglia, replaced the skulls and scalps and bound both heads securely with his peculiar adhesive tape, which was not only antiseptic and healing but anaesthetic, locally, as well.

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Português

Ele reaqueceu o sangue que havia retirado da velha e adicionou algumas gotas de um produto químico claro. Então removeu o líquido das veias do belo cadáver e o substituiu pelo sangue da velha. Ao mesmo tempo, aplicou uma injeção hipodérmica.

Original English

He now reheated the blood that he had withdrawn from the body of the old woman, adding a few drops of some clear chemical solution, withdrew the liquid from the veins of the beautiful corpse, replacing it with the blood of the old woman and simultaneously administering a hypodermic injection.

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Português

Durante toda a operação, ele não havia dito uma palavra. Agora ele deu breves instruções aos seus assistentes, fez sinal para que eu o seguisse e saiu da sala. Ele me levou a uma parte distante do edifício, me conduziu a um apartamento luxuoso, abriu a porta para um banho barsoomiano e me deixou aos cuidados de servos treinados.

Original English

During the entire operation he had not spoken a word. Now he issued a few instructions in his curt manner to his assistants, motioned me to follow him, and left the room. He led me to a distant part of the building or series of buildings that composed the whole, ushered me into a luxurious apartment, opened the door to a Barsoomian bath and left me in the hands of trained servants.

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Português

Após uma hora de relaxamento no banho, me senti revigorado e descansado. Na sala ao lado, encontrei arreios e equipamentos me esperando. Eram feitos de bom material, embora simples, e não havia armas com eles.

Original English

Refreshed and rested I left the bath after an hour of relaxation to find harness and trappings awaiting me in the adjoining chamber. Though plain, they were of good material, but there were no weapons with them.

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Português

Eu havia refletido muito sobre os estranhos acontecimentos desde que cheguei a Marte. O que mais me intrigava era o ato da velha: ela pagou ao anfitrião uma quantia considerável para matá-la e colocar o cérebro de um cadáver dentro de seu crânio. Eu me perguntava se era devido a algum fanatismo religioso horrível ou se havia uma explicação que minha mente terrena não conseguia compreender.

Original English

Naturally I had been thinking much upon the strange things I had witnessed since my advent upon Mars, but what puzzled me most lay in the seemingly inexplicable act of the old woman in paying my host what was evidently a considerable sum to murder her and transfer to the inside of her skull the brain of a corpse. Was it the outcome of some horrible religious fanaticism, or was there an explanation that my Earthly mind could not grasp?

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Português

Eu não havia chegado a nenhuma conclusão quando um escravo me chamou para outra sala próxima. Lá, meu anfitrião me esperava diante de uma mesa coberta de comidas deliciosas. Naturalmente, após meu longo jejum e semanas de comida de exército, fiz ampla justiça à refeição.

Original English

I had reached no decision in the matter when I was summoned to follow a slave to another and near-by apartment where I found my host awaiting me before a table loaded with delicious foods, to which, it is needless to say, I did ample justice after my long fast and longer weeks of rough army fare.

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Português

Durante a refeição, meu anfitrião tentou conversar comigo, mas o esforço foi naturalmente infrutífero. Ele ficou bastante agitado às vezes, e em três ocasiões, quando não o entendi, ele colocou a mão em uma de suas espadas. Isso me levou a acreditar que ele poderia estar parcialmente insano, mas cada vez ele mostrou autocontrole suficiente para evitar uma catástrofe.

Original English

During the meal my host attempted to converse with me, but, naturally, the effort was fruitless of results. He waxed quite excited at times and upon three distinct occasions laid his hand upon one of his swords when I failed to comprehend what he was saying to me, an action which resulted in a growing conviction upon my part that he was partially demented; but he evinced sufficient self-control in each instance to avert a catastrophe for one of us.

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Português

Após a refeição, ele ficou sentado em profunda reflexão por muito tempo, então pareceu tomar uma decisão súbita. Ele se virou para mim com um leve sorriso e começou um curso intensivo da língua barsoomiana. Já era tarde da noite quando ele me permitiu ir dormir. Ele me levou ao grande quarto onde eu havia encontrado meus novos arreios, apontou uma pilha de ricas sedas e peles para dormir, disse boa noite em barsoomiano e trancou a porta pelo lado de fora, deixando-me pensando se eu era mais um hóspede ou um prisioneiro.

Original English

The meal over he sat for a long time in deep meditation, then a sudden resolution seemed to possess him. He turned suddenly upon me with a faint suggestion of a smile and dove headlong into what was to prove an intensive course of instruction in the Barsoomian language. It was long after dark before he permitted me to retire for the night, conducting me himself to a large apartment, the same in which I had found my new harness, where he pointed out a pile of rich sleeping silks and furs, bid me a Barsoomian good night and left me, locking the door after him upon the outside, and leaving me to guess whether I were more guest or prisoner.

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III. -- PREFERMENT

Português

Três semanas se passaram rapidamente. O narrador havia aprendido o bastante da língua barsoomiana para conversar razoavelmente bem com seu anfitrião, e estava aprendendo lentamente a ler a língua escrita, que difere entre as nações embora a língua falada seja a mesma. Durante esse tempo, ele aprendeu muito sobre o lugar estranho onde era hóspede e prisioneiro, e sobre seu notável anfitrião, Ras Thavas, o velho cirurgião de Toonol. O narrador o acompanhava quase constantemente, gradualmente compreendendo os propósitos da instituição sobre a qual Ras Thavas governava e na qual trabalhava quase sozinho, com apenas escravos e atendentes para tarefas simples. Era seu cérebro e habilidade que dirigiam as atividades, ora boas, ora más, mas sempre maravilhosas, de seu trabalho de vida.

Original English

THREE WEEKS passed rapidly. I had mastered enough of the Barsoomian tongue to enable me to converse with my host in a reasonably satisfactory manner, and I was also progressing slowly in the mastery of the written language of his nation, which is different, of course, from the written language of all other Barsoomian nations, though the spoken language of all is identical. In these three weeks I had teamed much of the strange place in which I was half guest and half prisoner and of my remarkable host-jailer, Ras Thavas, the old surgeon of Toonol, whom I had accompanied almost constantly day after day until gradually there had unfolded before my astounded faculties an understanding of the purposes of the institution over which he ruled and in which he labored practically alone; for the slaves and attendants that served him were but hewers of wood and carriers of water. It was his brain alone and his skill that directed the sometimes beneficent, the sometimes malevolent, but always marvellous activities of his life's work.

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Português

O próprio Ras Thavas era tão notável quanto suas realizações. Ele nunca era intencionalmente cruel ou perverso, no entanto cometia as mais diabólicas crueldades e os mais baixos crimes. No momento seguinte, poderia realizar um feito que na Terra lhe teria garantido a mais alta estima. No entanto, ele nunca era levado à crueldade por motivos baixos nem a atos humanitários por motivos elevados. Ele tinha uma mente puramente científica, completamente livre de sentimentalismo. Era prático, como demonstrado por suas enormes taxas, mas não operava apenas por dinheiro. Frequentemente passava dias em um problema científico que não acrescentava nada à sua riqueza, enquanto suas salas de espera estavam cheias de clientes ricos ansiosos para pagá-lo.

Original English

Ras Thavas himself was as remarkable as the things he accomplished. He was never intentionally cruel; he was not, I am sure, intentionally wicked. He was guilty of the most diabolical cruelties and the basest of crimes; yet in the next moment he might perform a deed that if duplicated upon Earth would have raised him to the highest pinnacle of man's esteem. Though I know that I am safe in saying that he was never prompted to a cruel or criminal act by base motives, neither was he ever urged to a humanitarian one by high motives. He had a purely scientific mind entirely devoid of the cloying influences of sentiment, of which he possessed none. His was a practical mind, as evidenced by the enormous fees he demanded for his professional services; yet I know that he would not operate for money alone and I have seen him devote days to the study of a scientific problem the solution of which could add nothing to his wealth, while the quarters that he furnished his waiting clients were overflowing with wealthy patrons waiting to pour money into his coffers.

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Português

O tratamento de Ras Thavas para com o narrador era baseado inteiramente em requisitos científicos. O narrador era um problema: ele claramente não era um barsoomiano, ou pelo menos era de uma espécie desconhecida. Para fins científicos, era melhor preservá-lo e estudá-lo. Ras Thavas esperava aprender com o narrador sobre a Terra, mas o narrador era ignorante em ciência, e a ciência da Terra estava muito atrás da de Marte. No entanto, Ras Thavas o manteve e o treinou nos deveres menores do laboratório. O narrador foi confiado com a fórmula do fluido de embalsamamento e ensinado a retirar sangue e substituí-lo por um conservante que interrompe a decomposição sem alterar a estrutura dos nervos ou tecidos. Ele também aprendeu o segredo das poucas gotas de solução que, adicionadas ao sangue reaquecido, revitalizam o sujeito e restauram cada órgão à atividade normal.

Original English

His treatment of me was based entirely upon scientific requirements. I offered a problem. I was either, quite evidently, not a Barsoomian at all, or I was of a species of which he had no knowledge. It therefore best suited the purposes of science that I be preserved and studied. I knew much about my own planet. It pleased Ras Thavas' scientific mind to milk me of all I knew in the hope that he might derive some suggestion that would solve one of the Barsoomian scientific riddles that still baffle their savants; but he was compelled to admit that in this respect I was a total loss, not alone because I was densely ignorant upon practically all scientific subjects, but because the learned sciences on Earth have not advanced even to the swaddling-clothes stage as compared with the remarkable progress of corresponding activities on Mars. Yet he kept me by him, training me in many of the minor duties of his vast laboratory. I was entrusted with the formula of the "embalming fluid" and taught how to withdraw a subject's blood and replace it with this marvellous preservative that arrests decay without altering in the minutest detail the nerve or tissue structure of the body. I learned also the secret of the few drops of solution which, added to the rewarmed blood before it is returned to the veins of the subject revitalizes the latter and restores to normal and healthy activity each and every organ of the body.

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Português

Ras Thavas explicou certa vez por que havia permitido que o narrador aprendesse esses segredos, que ele mantinha em segredo de todos os outros, e por que mantinha o narrador sempre perto, em preferência aos muitos servos de sua própria raça que os atendiam dia e noite.

Original English

He told me once why he had permitted me to learn these things that he had kept a secret from all others, and why he kept me with him at all times in preference to any of the numerous individuals of his own race that served him and me in lesser capacities both day and night.

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Português

Ras Thavas disse ao narrador, a quem chamava de Vad Varo, que por muitos anos ele precisava de um assistente, mas nunca havia encontrado alguém que trabalhasse de todo coração e desinteressadamente, sem motivo para sair ou revelar segredos. O narrador era único em toda Barsoom, não tendo outro amigo ou conhecido. Se ele saísse, se encontraria em um mundo de inimigos, pois todos desconfiam de um estranho; ele não sobreviveria por muito tempo e passaria frio, fome e miséria. Mas ali, ele tinha todo luxo e estava ocupado com um trabalho cativante. Não havia motivo egoísta para sair e todo motivo para ficar. Ras Thavas esperava lealdade baseada apenas no interesse próprio. Ele considerava o narrador um assistente ideal por ser inteligente e perspicaz, e após observação cuidadosa, decidiu que o narrador também poderia servir como seu guarda-costas pessoal.

Original English

"Vad Varo," he said, using the Barsoomian name that he had given me because he insisted that my own name was meaningless and impractical, "for many years I have needed an assistant, but heretofore I have never felt that I had discovered one who might work here for me wholeheartedly and disinterestedly without ever having reason to go elsewhere or to divulge my secrets to others. You, in all Barsoom, are unique -- you have no other friend or acquaintance than myself. Were you to leave we you would find yourself in a world of enemies, for all are suspicious of a stranger. You would not survive a dozen dawns and you would be cold and hungry and miserable -- a wretched outcast in a hostile world. Here you have every luxury that the mind of man can devise or the hand of man produce, and you are occupied with work of such engrossing interest that your every hour must be fruitful of unparalleled satisfaction. There is no selfish reason, therefore, why you should leave me and there is every reason why you should remain. I expect no loyalty other than that which may be prompted by egoism. You make an ideal assistant, not only for the reasons I have just given you, but because you are intelligent and quick-witted, and now I have decided, after observing you carefully for a sufficient time, that you can serve me in yet another capacity -- that of personal bodyguard.

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Português

Ras Thavas apontou que ele era o único em seu laboratório que carregava uma arma, o que era incomum em Barsoom, onde todos geralmente andavam armados. Ele explicou que muitas de suas pessoas não podiam ser confiadas com armas porque poderiam matá-lo. Se ele armasse aqueles em quem confiava, outros poderiam pegar as armas ou até mesmo as pessoas confiáveis poderiam se voltar contra ele, já que todos, exceto Vad Varo, tinham algum lugar para ir. Portanto, ele decidiu dar armas a Vad Varo.

Original English

"You may have noticed that I alone of all those connected with my laboratory am armed. This is unusual upon Barsoom, where people of all classes, and all ages and both sexes habitually go armed. But many of these people I could not trust armed as they would slay me; and were I to give arms to those whom I might trust, who knows but that the others would obtain possession of them and slay me, or even those whom I had trusted turn against me, for there is not one who might not wish to go forth from this place back among his own people -- only you, Vad Varo, for there is no other place for you to go. So I have decided to give you weapons.

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Português

Ras Thavas lembrou Vad Varo de que ele havia salvado sua vida uma vez, e uma oportunidade semelhante poderia ocorrer novamente. Ele argumentou que Vad Varo era uma criatura sensata e não o mataria, já que não tinha nada a ganhar e tudo a perder com a morte de Ras Thavas, o que o deixaria sem amigos e desprotegido em um mundo onde o assassinato era comum e a morte natural rara. Então ele abriu um armário de armas e selecionou uma espada longa, uma espada curta, uma pistola e um punhal para Vad Varo.

Original English

"You saved my life once. A similar opportunity might again present itself. I know that being a reasoning and reasonable creature, you will not slay me, for you have nothing to gain and everything to lose by my death, which would leave you friendless and unprotected in a world of strangers where assassination is the order of society and natural death one of the rarest of phenomena. Here are your arms." He stepped to a cabinet which he unlocked, displaying an assortment of weapons, and selected for me a long-sword, a shortsword, a pistol and a dagger.

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Português

Vad Varo comentou que Ras Thavas parecia muito confiante em sua lealdade.

Original English

"You seem sure of my loyalty, Ras Thavas," I said.

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Português

Ras Thavas deu de ombros e respondeu que ele tinha apenas certeza de que sabia onde os interesses de Vad Varo estavam. Ele descartou palavras como amor, lealdade, amizade e ódio como desnecessárias, afirmando que todas se resumem ao interesse próprio. Pessoas inteligentes analisam as predileções e necessidades de um indivíduo para classificá-lo como amigo ou inimigo, deixando o sentimento para tolos de mente fraca.

Original English

He shrugged his shoulders. "I am only sure that I know perfectly where your interests lie -- sentimentalists have words: love, loyalty, friendship, enmity, jealousy, hate, a thousand others; a waste of words -- one word defines them all: self-interest. All men of intelligence realize this. They analyse an individual and by his predilections and his needs they classify him as friend or foe, leaving to the weak-minded idiots who like to be deceived the drooling drivel of sentiment."

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Português

Vad Varo sorriu enquanto colocava suas armas, mas permaneceu em silêncio, sabendo que discutir seria inútil e ele provavelmente perderia qualquer debate intelectual. No entanto, as observações de Ras Thavas haviam despertado sua curiosidade, especialmente sobre o homem vermelho que tentara matar Ras Thavas no dia em que Vad Varo chegou a Barsoom. Após o jantar, enquanto conversavam, Vad Varo perguntou sobre aquele incidente.

Original English

I smiled as I buckled my weapons to my harness, but I held my peace. Nothing could be gained by arguing with the man and, too, I felt quite sure that in any purely academic controversy I should get the worst of it; but many of the matters of which he had spoken had aroused my curiosity and one had reawakened in my mind a matter to which I had given considerable thought. While partially explained by some of his remarks I still wondered why the red-man from whom I had rescued him had seemed so venomously bent upon slaying him the day of my advent upon Barsoom, and so, as we sat chatting after our evening meal, I asked him.

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Português

O orador descreveu o guerreiro morto como um sentimentalista extremo. O guerreiro o odiava intensamente, mas o orador considerava esse ódio irracional. Ele explicou que o guerreiro havia sido assassinado e que seus agentes compraram o cadáver da família. O orador manteve o corpo em seu laboratório por um ano antes de vendê-lo a um cliente idoso e rico que queria uma aparência bonita para conquistar o amor de uma jovem.

Original English

"A sentimentalist," he said. "A sentimentalist of the most pronounced type. Why that fellow hated me with a venom absolutely unbelievable by any of the reactions of a trained, analytical mind such as mine; but having witnessed his reactions I become cognizant of a state of mind that I cannot of myself even imagine. Consider the facts. He was the victim of assassination -- a young warrior in the prime of life, possessing a handsome face and a splendid physique. One of my agents paid his relatives a satisfactory sum for the corpse and brought it to me. It is thus that I obtain practically all of my material. I treated it in the manner with which you are familiar. For a year the body lay in the laboratory, there being no occasion during that time that I had use for it; but eventually a rich client came, a not overly prepossessing man of considerable years. He had fallen desperately in love with a young woman who was attended by many handsome suitors. My client had more money than any of them, more brains, more experience, but he lacked the one thing that each of the others had that always weighs heavily with the undeveloped, unreasoning, sentiment-ridden minds of young females -- good looks."

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Português

O corpo do guerreiro, designado 378-J-493811-P, possuía a boa aparência que o cliente não tinha e podia pagar para adquirir.

Original English

"Now 378-J-493811-P had what my client lacked and could afford to purchase."

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Português

Eles rapidamente concordaram com um preço. O orador transferiu o cérebro do cliente para a cabeça do guerreiro. O cliente foi embora e provavelmente conquistou a mão da mulher. O corpo do guerreiro poderia ter permanecido sem uso, mas o orador depois precisou de um escravo do sexo masculino e, por acaso, selecionou aquele corpo para o renascimento.

Original English

Quickly we reached an agreement as to price and I transferred the brain of my rich client to the head of 378-J- 493811-P and my client went away and for all I know won the hand of the beautiful moron; and 378-J-493811-P might have rested on indefinitely upon his ersite slab until I needed him or a part of him in my work, had I not, merely by chance, selected him for resurgence because of an existing need for another male slave.

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Português

O orador enfatizou que o homem havia sido assassinado e estava morto. Ele havia comprado o cadáver e tudo que havia nele. O corpo poderia ter permanecido morto para sempre, mas o orador lhe deu nova vida. No entanto, o homem não conseguiu encarar a transação com sabedoria e sem emoção.

Original English

"Mind you now, the man had been murdered. He was dead. I bought and paid for the corpse and all there was in it. He might have lain dead forever upon one of my ersite slabs had I not breathed new life into his dead veins. Did he have the brains to view the transaction in a wise and dispassionate manner? He did not."

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Português

Por causa de suas reações sentimentais, o homem culpou o orador por lhe dar um corpo diferente. O orador sentiu que, de qualquer perspectiva razoável, o homem deveria tê-lo considerado um benfeitor por restaurar sua vida em um corpo saudável, embora usado anteriormente.

Original English

His sentimental reactions caused him to reproach me because I had given him another body, though it seemed to me that, looking at the matter from a standpoint of sentiment, if one must, he should have considered me as a benefactor for having given him life again In a perfectly healthy, if somewhat used, body.

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Português

Ele havia falado comigo várias vezes, pedindo que eu restaurasse seu corpo para ele. Expliquei que isso era impossível, a menos que o corpo do cliente que o comprou aparecesse no meu laboratório, o que era extremamente improvável para alguém tão rico quanto meu cliente. O homem até sugeriu que eu permitisse que ele matasse meu cliente e trouxesse o corpo de volta para que eu pudesse reverter a operação e devolver seu corpo original. Quando me recusei a revelar o nome da pessoa que agora tinha seu corpo, ele ficou mal-humorado. No entanto, até ele me atacar pouco antes de você chegar, eu não percebi o quão profundo era seu ódio.

Original English

"He had spoken to me upon the subject several times, begging me to restore his body to him, a thing of which, of course, as I explained to him, was utterly out of the question unless chance happened to bring to my laboratory the corpse of the client who had purchased his carcass -- a contingency quite beyond the pale of possibility for one as wealthy as my client. The fellow even suggested that I permit him to go forth and assassinate my client bringing the body back that I might reverse the operation and restore his body to his brain. When I refused to divulge the name of the present possessor of his body he grew sulky, but until the very hour of your arrival, when he attacked me, I did not suspect the depth of his hate complex.

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Português

O sentimentalismo é de fato um obstáculo a todo progresso. Nós, toonolianos, somos provavelmente menos afetados por seus caprichos do que a maioria das outras nações em Barsoom, mas ainda assim muitos dos meus compatriotas sofrem com isso em vários graus. No entanto, ele tem suas recompensas e compensações. Sem ele, não poderíamos manter um governo estável, e os phundahlianos ou algum outro povo nos invadiria e conquistaria. Uma parte suficiente das classes baixas tem sentimento para ser leal ao Jedak de Toonol, e as classes altas são inteligentes o suficiente para saber que é do seu próprio interesse mantê-lo no trono.

Original English

"Sentiment is indeed a bar to all progress. We of Toonol are probably less subject to its vagaries than most other nations upon Barsoom, but yet most of my fellow countrymen are victims of it in varying degrees. It has its rewards and compensations, however. Without it we could preserve no stable form of government and the Phundahlians, or some other people, would overrun and conquer us; but enough of our lower classes have sentiment to a sufficient degree to give them loyalty to the Jeddak of Toonol and the upper classes are brainy enough to know that it is to their own best interests to keep him upon his throne.

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Português

Os phundahlianos, por outro lado, são extremamente sentimentais, cheios de superstições estúpidas e escravos de toda vaidade que enfraquece a mente. O simples fato de manterem a velha megera Xaxa no trono mostra sua idiotice. Ela é uma virago ignorante, arrogante, egoísta, estúpida e cruel, mas os phundahlianos lutariam e morreriam por ela porque seu pai era Jedak de Phundahl. Ela os tributa até mal conseguirem suportar o fardo, os governa mal, os explora, os trai, e eles a adoram. Por quê? Porque seu pai era Jedak e seu pai antes dele, remontando à antiguidade. Eles são governados pelo sentimento, não pela razão, e seus governantes perversos jogam com esse sentimento.

Original English

"The Phundahlians, upon the other hand, are egregious sentimentalists, filled with crass stupidities and superstitions, slaves to every variety of brain withering conceit. Why the very fact that they keep the old termagant, Xaxa, on the throne brands them with their stupid idiocy. She is an ignorant, arrogant, selfish, stupid, cruel virago, yet the Phundahlians would fight and die for her because her father was Jeddak of Phundahl. She taxes them until they can scarce stagger beneath their burden, she misrules them, exploits them, betrays them, and they fall down and worship at her feet. Why? Because her father was Jeddak of Phundahl and his father before him and so on back into antiquity; because they are ruled by sentiment rather than reason; because their wicked rulers play upon this sentiment.

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Português

Ela não tinha nada que a recomendasse a uma pessoa sã, nem mesmo beleza. Você a viu, então sabe.

Original English

"She had nothing to recommend her to a sane person -- not even beauty. You know, you saw her."

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Português

Perguntei se eu a tinha visto.

Original English

"I saw her?" I demanded.

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Português

O orador observou que o ouvinte o havia ajudado no dia em que transplantaram o cérebro da velha para um novo corpo, que também foi o dia em que o ouvinte chegou da Terra.

Original English

"You assisted me the day that we gave her old brain a new casket -- the day you arrived from what you call your Earth."

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Português

O orador expressou espanto, perguntando se aquela velha era de fato Jeddara de Phundahl.

Original English

"She! That old woman was Jeddara of Phundahl?"

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Português

Ele confirmou que o nome dela era Xaxa.

Original English

"That was Xaxa," he assured me.

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Português

O orador explicou que, como o ouvinte não a tratara com a deferência esperada para uma governante na Terra, ele não fazia ideia de que ela era algo além de uma mulher idosa e rica.

Original English

"Why, you did not accord her the treatment that one of the Earth would suppose would be accorded a ruler, and so I had no idea that she was more than a rich old woman."

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Português

O velho se apresentou como Ras Thavas e declarou que não via razão para se curvar diante de ninguém. Em seu mundo, apenas a inteligência importava, e sem arrogância, ele podia dizer que não reconhecia superior nesse aspecto.

Original English

"I am Ras Thavas," said the old man. "Why should I incline the head to any other? In my world nothing counts but brain and in that respect and without egotism, I may say that I acknowledge no superior."

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Português

O narrador sorriu e sugeriu que a Mente Mestre não era desprovida de sentimento e se orgulhava de seu intelecto. A Mente Mestre respondeu, com certa paciência, que não era orgulho, mas um simples fato que podia provar. Ele afirmou que, entre todos os homens eruditos que conhecia, possuía a mente mais desenvolvida e perfeitamente funcional e, por extensão, provavelmente a melhor mente de Barsoom. Acrescentou que, com base em seu conhecimento da Terra e na observação do narrador, nenhuma mente terrestre poderia sequer se aproximar da sua, que ele havia cultivado ao longo de mil anos de estudo. Ele reconheceu que Mercúrio ou Vênus poderiam ter inteligências iguais ou superiores, mas seus instrumentos eram insuficientes para confirmar.

Original English

"Then you are not without sentiment," I said, smiling. "You acknowledge pride in your intellect!" "It is not pride," he said, patiently, for him, "it is merely a fact that I state. A fact that I should have no difficulty in proving. In all probability I have the most highly developed and perfectly functioning mind among all the learned men of my acquaintance, and reason indicates that this fact also suggests that I possess the most highly developed and perfectly functioning mind upon Barsoom. From what I know of Earth and from what I have seen of you, I am convinced that there is no mind upon your planet that may even faintly approximate in power that which I have developed during a thousand years of active study and research. Rasoom (Mercury) or Cosoom (Venus) may possibly support intelligences equal to or even greater than mine. While we have made some study of their thought waves, our instruments are not yet sufficiently developed to more than suggest that they are of extreme refinement, power and flexibility."

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Português

Perguntei sobre a garota cujo corpo ele havia dado à Jeddara. Minha mente não conseguia esquecer a lembrança de sua doce forma, que certamente deve ter abrigado um cérebro igualmente doce e fino.

Original English

"And what of the girl whose body you gave to the Jeddara?" I asked, irrelevantly, for my mind could not efface the memory of that sweet body that must, indeed, have possessed an equally sweet and fine brain.

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Português

Ele descartou a pergunta com um aceno de mão, repetindo que ela era apenas um sujeito.

Original English

"Merely a subject! Merely a subject!" he replied with a wave of his hand.

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Português

Insisti, exigindo saber o que seria dela.

Original English

"What will become of her?' I insisted.

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Português

Ele perguntou por que isso importava. Ele a havia comprado junto com um lote de prisioneiros de guerra e nem lembrava de qual país seu agente os havia obtido ou de onde eles eram originários. Tais detalhes, disse ele, não tinham importância.

Original English

"What difference does it make?" he demanded. "I bought her with a batch of prisoners of war. I do not even recall from what country my agent obtained them, or from whence they originated. Such matters are of no import."

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Português

Ele exigiu saber se ela estava viva quando a outra pessoa a comprou.

Original English

"She was alive when you bought her?" I demanded.

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Português

A outra pessoa confirmou que ela estava viva e perguntou por que ele queria saber.

Original English

"Yes. Why?"

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Português

Ele então perguntou, hesitante, se o outro a havia matado.

Original English

"You-er-ah-killed her, then?"

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Português

O vendedor negou tê-la matado, alegando que a preservou. Ele explicou que, cerca de dez anos atrás, manteve-a jovem para preservar seu valor. Quando Xaxa a comprou, ela estava tão fresca quanto no dia em que chegou. Muitas mulheres desejavam sua aparência, mas apenas uma Jeddara podia pagar o preço. Ela rendeu a maior quantia que ele já recebera.

Original English

"Killed her! No; I preserved her. That was some ten years ago. Why should I permit her to grow old and wrinkled? She would no longer have the same value then, would she? No, I preserved her. When Xaxa bought her she was just as fresh and young as the day she arrived. I kept her a long time. Many women looked at her and wanted her face and figure, but it took a Jeddara to afford her. She brought the highest price that I have ever been paid."

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Português

Ele admitiu que a manteve por muito tempo, confiante de que eventualmente ela seria vendida pelo preço que ele queria.

Original English

"Yes, I kept her a long time, but I knew that some day she would bring my price."

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Português

O orador observou que a beleza inspirava sentimento, o que tinha seus usos porque, sem sentimento, não haveria tolos para ajudar seu trabalho, permitindo-lhe realizar investigações mais valiosas. Ele afirmou que estava quase capaz de criar seres humanos racionais aplicando certos raios a combinações químicas, raios provavelmente desconhecidos pelos cientistas da Terra, dado seu conhecimento limitado.

Original English

She was indeed beautiful and so sentiment has its uses -- were it not for sentiment there would be no fools to support this work that I am doing, thus permitting me to carry on investigations of far greater merit. You would be surprised, I know, were I to tell you that I feel that I am almost upon the point of being able to produce rational human beings through the action upon certain chemical combinations of a group of rays probably entirely undiscovered by your scientists, if I am to judge by the paucity of your knowledge concerning such things."

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Português

O narrador garantiu a ele que não ficaria surpreso com nada que o orador pudesse realizar.

Original English

"I would not be surprised," I assured him. "I would not be surprised by anything that you might accomplish."

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IV. -- VALLA DIA

Português

Naquela noite, o narrador ficou acordado por muito tempo, pensando na bela garota cujo corpo perfeito havia sido roubado para servir como um magnífico receptáculo para a mente cruel de um tirano. Ele considerou isso um crime tão terrível que não conseguia parar de pensar, e acreditava que contemplar esse ato plantou a primeira semente de seu ódio e repulsa por Ras Thavas. Ele não conseguia imaginar uma criatura tão completamente desprovida de compaixão a ponto de sequer considerar a terrível violação daquele corpo doce e amável, mesmo para o propósito mais sagrado, muito menos alguém que o faria por dinheiro sujo.

Original English

I LAY awake a long time that night thinking of 4296- E-2631- H, the beautiful girl whose perfect body had been stolen to furnish a gorgeous setting for the cruel brain of a tyrant. It seemed such a horrid crime that I could not rid my mind of it and I think that contemplation of it sowed the first seed of my hatred and loathing for Ras Thavas. I could not conjure a creature so utterly devoid of bowels of compassion as to even consider for a moment the frightful ravishing of that sweet and lovely body for even the holiest of purposes, much less one that could have been induced to do so for filthy pelf.

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Português

Ele pensou tanto na garota que sua imagem foi a primeira coisa a aparecer em sua mente quando acordou ao amanhecer. Depois de comer, como Ras Thavas não havia chegado, ele foi diretamente para o depósito onde a pobre garota estava guardada. Lá ela estava, identificada apenas por um pequeno painel com um número. O corpo de uma velha com rosto desfigurado estava diante dele, rígido e imóvel como a morte; no entanto, não era aquela figura que ele via. Em vez disso, ele viu uma visão de radiante formosura, cuja alma aprisionada jazia adormecida sob aqueles cabelos grisalhos.

Original English

So much did I think upon the girl that night that her image was the first to impinge upon my returning consciousness at dawn, and after I had eaten, Ras Thavas not having appeared, I went directly to the storage room where the poor thing was. Here she lay, identified only by a small panel, bearing a number: 4296-E- 2631-H. The body of an old woman with a disfigured face lay before me in the rigid immobility of death; yet that was not the figure that I saw, but instead, a vision of radiant loveliness whose imprisoned soul lay dormant beneath those graying locks.

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Português

A criatura diante dele tinha o rosto e a forma de Xaxa, mas não era Xaxa de forma alguma, porque tudo o que fazia a outra pessoa ser quem ela era havia sido transferido para aquele cadáver frio. Ele estremeceu ao pensar como seria terrível o despertar dela, se algum dia acontecesse. Ele foi tomado pelo horror que a garota sentiria quando percebesse o terrível crime que havia sido cometido contra ela. Quem era ela? Que história estava trancada naquele cérebro morto e silencioso? Que amores foram os seus, cuja beleza era tão grande e cujo rosto justo carregava a marca indelével da graciosidade? Será que Ras Thavas algum dia a despertaria daquela feliz aparência de morte, que era muito mais feliz do que qualquer despertar poderia ser para ela? Ele se encolheu com a ideia do despertar dela, mas ansiava por ouvi-la falar, saber que aquele cérebro vivia novamente, aprender seu nome e ouvir a história de uma vida gentil tão abruptamente arrancada de seu ambiente adequado e tão cruelmente tratada pelo destino. E suponha que ela fosse despertada, e suponha que ele... Então uma mão foi colocada em seu ombro, e ele se virou para encarar Ras Thavas.

Original English

The creature here with the face and form of Xaxa was not Xaxa at all, for all that made the other what she was had been transferred to this cold corpse. How frightful would be the awakening, should awakening ever come! I shuddered to think of the horror that must overwhelm the girl when first she realized the horrid crime that had been perpetrated upon her. Who was she? What story lay locked in that dead and silent brain? What loves must have been hers whose beauty was so great and upon whose fair face had lain the indelible imprint of graciousness! Would Ras Thavas ever arouse her from this happy semblance of death? -far happier than any quickening ever could be for her. I shrank from the thought of her awakening and yet I longed to hear her speak, to know that that brain lived again, to learn her name, to listen to the story of this gentle life that had been so rudely snatched from its proper environment and so cruelly handled by the hand of Fate. And suppose she were awakened! Suppose she were awakened and that I -- A hand was laid upon my shoulder and I turned to look into the face of Ras Thavas.

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Português

Ele comentou que eu parecia interessado no assunto.

Original English

You seem interested in this subject," he said.

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Português

Eu respondi que estava refletindo sobre qual seria a reação do cérebro da garota se ela acordasse e se descobrisse uma velha mulher desfigurada.

Original English

"I was wondering," I replied, "what the reaction of this girl's brain would be were she to awaken to the discovery that she had become an old, disfigured woman."

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Português

Ele acariciou o queixo, me examinou atentamente e refletiu que seria um experimento interessante.

Original English

He stroked his chin and eyed me narrowly. "An interesting experiment," he mused.

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Português

Ele expressou prazer por eu estar demonstrando interesse científico em seu trabalho. Ele admitiu que havia negligenciado os aspectos psicológicos por cerca de cem anos, embora costumasse dar-lhes muita atenção. Ele pensou que seria interessante estudar vários casos, começando por este simples. Mais tarde, ele me deixaria examinar casos de trocas de cérebros entre sexos, substituições de cérebros e cérebros humanos em corpos de animais ou vice-versa. Ele lembrou de um caso em que transferiu metade do cérebro de um macaco para o crânio de um homem e a metade removida do homem para o crânio do macaco. Ele queria verificar esses sujeitos, que acreditava estarem no cofre L-42-X sob o edifício 4-J-21. Ele sugeriu que os víssemos em breve e então propôs evocar o espécime 4296-E-2631-H.

Original English

"I am gratified to discover that you are taking a scientific interest in the labors that I am carrying on. The psychological phases of my work I have, I must confess, rather neglected during the past hundred years or so, though I formerly gave them a great deal of attention. It would be interesting to observe and study several of these cases. This one, especially, might prove of value to you as an initial study, it being simple and regular. Later we will let you examine into a case where a man's brain has been transferred to a woman's skull, and a woman's brain to a man's. There are also the interesting cases where a portion of diseased or injured brain has been replaced by a portion of the brain from another subject, and, for experimental purposes alone, those human brains that have been transplanted to the craniums of beasts, and vice versa, offer tremendous opportunities for observation. I have in mind one case in which I transferred half the brain of an ape to the skull of a man, after having removed half of his brain, which I grafted upon the remaining part of the brain in the ape's skull. That was a matter of several years ago and I have often thought that I should like to recall these two subjects and note the results. I shall have to have a look at them -- as I recall it they are in vault L-42-X, beneath building 4-J-21. We shall have to have a look at them someday soon -- it has been years since I have been below. There must be some very interesting specimens there that have escaped my mind. But come! let us recall 4296-E-2631- H.

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Português

Eu exclamei, colocando a mão em seu braço, que seria horrível.

Original English

"No!" I exclaimed, laying a hand upon his arm. "It would be horrible."

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Português

Ele me lançou um olhar surpreso, então seus lábios se torceram em um sorriso cruel e zombeteiro. Ele me chamou de tolo fraco e sentimental e exigiu saber quem ousaria desafiá-lo.

Original English

He turned a surprised look upon me and then a nasty, sneering smile curled his lips. "Maudlin, sentimental fool!" he cried. "Who dare say no to me?"

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Português

Coloquei minha mão no cabo da minha espada longa e mantive seu olhar sem vacilar.

Original English

I laid a hand upon the hilt of my long-sword and looked him steadily in the eye.

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Português

Direcionei-me a Ras Thavas, reconhecendo sua autoridade em seu próprio domínio, mas insistindo que, como seu convidado, deveria ser tratado com cortesia.

Original English

"Ras Thavas," I said, "you are master in your own house; but while I am your guest treat me with courtesy."

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Português

Ele encontrou meu olhar brevemente, mas seus olhos vacilaram. Ele admitiu que havia falado com muita pressa.

Original English

He returned my look for a moment but his eyes wavered. "I was hasty," he said.

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Português

Deixei sua observação servir como um pedido de desculpas—foi mais do que eu esperava—e o incidente não terminou mal. Acredito que ele passou a me tratar com consideravelmente mais respeito depois disso. Ele então se virou imediatamente para a laje contendo os restos mortais de 4296-E-2631-H.

Original English

"Let it pass." That, I let answer for an apology -- really it was more than I had expected -- but the event was not unfortunate. I think he treated me with far greater respect thereafter; but now he turned immediately to the slab bearing the mortal remains of 4296-E-2631-H.

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Português

Ele ordenou que o sujeito fosse preparado para a reanimação e instruiu para estudar todas as suas reações, depois saiu da sala.

Original English

"Prepare the subject for revivification," he said, "and make what study you can of all its reactions." With that he left the room.

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Português

Ele agora era habilidoso neste trabalho e prosseguiu com alguma inquietação, mas confiante de que obedecer a Ras Thavas era o certo. O sangue que um dia fluíra no belo corpo vendido a Xaxa estava em um recipiente selado sobre o cadáver. Como fizera antes sob supervisão, agora realizava o procedimento sozinho. Após aquecer o sangue, fazer incisões, conectar tubos e adicionar uma solução vivificante, ele estava pronto para restaurar a vida ao cérebro que estivera morto por dez anos. Enquanto seu dedo pairava sobre o botão que enviaria o líquido revitalizante nas veias, ele sentiu uma sensação que acreditava que nenhum mortal jamais experimentara.

Original English

I was now fairly adept at this work which I set about with some misgivings but with the assurance that I was doing right in obeying Ras Thavas while I remained a member of his entourage. The blood that had once flowed through the veins of the beautiful body that Ras Thavas had sold to Xaxa reposed in an hermetically sealed vessel upon the shelf above the corpse. As I had before done in other cases beneath the watchful eyes of the old surgeon I now did for the first time alone. The blood heated, the incisions made, the tubes attached and the few drops of life- giving solution added to the blood, I was now ready to restore life to that delicate brain that had lain dead for ten years. As my finger rested upon the little button that actuated the motor that was to send the revivifying liquid into those dormant veins, I experienced such a sensation as I imagined no mortal man has ever felt.

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Português

Ele se tornara senhor da vida e da morte, mas naquele momento se sentia mais um assassino do que um salvador. Tentou ver o procedimento de forma imparcial pela ciência, mas falhou. Só conseguia ver uma garota enlutada sentindo falta de sua beleza perdida. Com um juramento abafado, ele se virou, incapaz de prosseguir. Então, como se uma força externa o tivesse dominado, seu dedo pressionou o botão. Ele não conseguia explicar, exceto talvez pela teoria da mentalidade dupla. Ele só sabia que fez aquilo, o motor começou e o nível de sangue no recipiente começou a baixar.

Original English

I had become master of life and death, and yet at this moment that I stood there upon the point of resurrecting the dead I felt more like a murderer than a saviour. I tried to view the procedure dispassionately through the cold eye of science, but I failed miserably. I could only see a stricken girl grieving for her lost beauties. With a muffled oath I turned away. I could not do it! And then, as though an outside force had seized upon me, my finger moved unerringly to the button and pressed it. I cannot explain it, unless upon the theory of dual mentality, which may explain many things. Perhaps my subjective mind directed the act. I do not know. Only I know that I did it, the motor started, the level of the blood in the container commenced gradually to lower.

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Glossary: New Words

Words introduced by the simplified reading. Each entry shows up to five real sentences from this book; every Back to B1 link opens the exact sentence in the simplified version.

achieve əˈtʃiːv (3)

Português: alcançar

Simple English: To successfully do or finish something.

Example: She worked hard to achieve her goal.

Uses in this book:

1. The narrator told the speaker that he would not be surprised by anything the speaker might achieve. Back to B1

2. He explained that thinking a lot about something could help find a way to achieve it if it was wanted strongly enough.

3. However, he wanted her to know that he never forgot about it and would find a way to achieve his goal, even if his current plan failed.

amazing əˈmeɪzɪŋ (7)

Português: incrível

Simple English: very surprising or great

Example: It was an amazing fight.

Uses in this book:

1. His intelligence and skill guided all the activities of his life's work, which could be good, bad, or amazing. Back to B1

2. He explained that the money Ras Thavas earned allowed him to keep his amazing place where he did many experiments.

3. It was a beautiful place with amazing decorations made of ivory, jewels, special wood, nice fabrics, and soft furs.

4. The officer said it was amazing.

5. Everyone waited, looking towards the main doors, expecting something amazing to happen.

animal ˈænɪməl (6)

Português: animal

Simple English: A living creature that is not a human.

Example: The young animal ran through the forest.

Uses in this book:

1. He added that there were opportunities to study human brains put into animal bodies, and animal brains into human bodies. Back to B1

2. I felt that my sword was not good enough for such a strong and angry animal.

3. He explained that when he opened the door to find someone in the garden, he saw that person there, with a garden animal called a calot almost attacking him.

4. His animal nature seemed to affect him most when he was eating or fighting.

5. Next, they visited a statue of a man with an animal's body.

argue ˈɑːrɡjuː (1)

Português: discutir

Simple English: To speak angrily with someone because of different ideas.

Example: The sailor started to argue with the young man.

Uses in this book:

1. He decided not to argue with Ras Thavas, as he knew he would probably lose an argument and it would not help. Back to B1

ate eɪt (5)

Português: comeu

Simple English: past form of eat; to put food in the mouth and swallow

Example: The canary ate another small piece of food.

Uses in this book:

1. I ate a lot because I had not eaten well for a long time. Back to B1

2. The owner did not want Hovan Du inside at first, but he finally agreed to let them keep the large ape in a back room with his food while they ate.

3. They ate a simple but filling meal.

4. Xaxa and Sag Or also ate and drank.

5. They ate breakfast with Valla Dia.

attractive əˈtræktɪv (1)

Português: atraente

Simple English: Nice or good looking, causing interest.

Example: The promises were attractive to young men.

Uses in this book:

1. The young woman had many attractive suitors. Back to B1

autumn ˈɔːtəm (1)

Português: outono

Simple English: The season between summer and winter.

Example: He kept his books until the autumn.

Uses in this book:

1. In the autumn of 1917, at a camp for training officers, the writer first learned about John Carter, the War Lord of Barsoom, from a book called "A Princess of Mars." The story was very impressive. Back to B1

blamed bleɪmd (2)

Português: culpou

Simple English: to say someone is responsible for a bad situation

Example: He blamed Zoanthrohago for failures.

Uses in this book:

1. Because of his strong emotions, the man blamed the speaker for giving him a new body. Back to B1

2. This was so Mu Tel would not be blamed if we were caught.

bragging ˈbræɡ.ɪŋ (1)

Português: gabar-se

Simple English: talking proudly about yourself

Example: Phobeg was still bragging loudly.

Uses in this book:

1. He admits this might sound like bragging, but he wanted to tell the truth. Back to B1

calmly ˈkɑːmli (2)

Português: calmamente

Simple English: in a relaxed and peaceful way

Example: She spoke calmly to the children.

Uses in this book:

1. However, the man was not able to think about the situation calmly and wisely. Back to B1

2. Dar Tarus calmly told someone to take Xaxa away.

check tʃɛk (4)

Português: verificar

Simple English: to look at something to be sure

Example: He checked the time on his watch.

Uses in this book:

1. In many rooms, the old man stopped to look at the bodies or check a record that hung near each table. Back to B1

2. He then told me to go to the office and check for cases that I could handle myself, without his help.

3. He hoped Ras Thavas would not check on the two men.

4. I said I would go up the ladder to check if it was safe.

checked tʃekt (3)

Português: verificou

Simple English: looked carefully to see if everything is okay

Example: He checked his wife for injuries.

Uses in this book:

1. He checked his pulse and listened to his heart. Back to B1

2. He checked the chart where the narrator had written a short note about the history of Case Number 4296-E-2631-H.

3. He checked the door and saw it had a spring lock.

checking ˈtʃekɪŋ (2)

Português: verificando

Simple English: looking carefully to be sure

Example: He was checking the branches to be sure they were strong.

Uses in this book:

1. He thought about checking on these two subjects again. Back to B1

2. He walked carefully, checking each step before putting his weight on it.

cleaning ˈkliːnɪŋ (1)

Português: limpando

Simple English: removing dirt from something

Example: Two sailors were cleaning the ship's decks.

Uses in this book:

1. They sprayed her with a cleaning liquid, dried her, and moved her to another table, about twenty inches away from a second, parallel table. Back to B1

confirmed kənˈfɜːrmd (11)

Português: confirmado

Simple English: Shown to be true.

Example: This was confirmed when pygmies surrounded them.

Uses in this book:

1. The old man confirmed that her name was Xaxa. Back to B1

2. The other person confirmed she was alive and asked why the speaker was asking. Back to B1

3. The speaker confirmed it was John Carter, known as The War Lord.

4. Ras Thavas confirmed that he remembered the case of the subject with Xaxa's body.

5. The speaker confirmed that was all they wanted.

confusing /kənˈfjuːzɪŋ/ (1)

Português: confuso; confundindo; desconcertante

Simple English: Difficult to understand or unclear, causing uncertainty.

Example: The confusing directions led us to the wrong location for the meeting.

Uses in this book:

1. The most confusing thing was why an old woman paid my host a lot of money to kill her and put a dead person's brain into her head. Back to B1

contrast /kənˈtrɑːst/ (1)

Português: contraste; contrastar; ao contrário

Simple English: To compare things to highlight clear differences between them.

Example: We can contrast the two paintings to see their styles better.

Uses in this book:

1. In contrast, the Phundahlians are very emotional and foolish, believing in silly ideas. Back to B1

crazy ˈkreɪzi (2)

Português: louco

Simple English: very strange or wild

Example: The deck of the ship seemed like a crazy place.

Uses in this book:

1. I started to think he was a little crazy, but he always stopped himself before anything bad happened. Back to B1

2. The woman told him he was crazy.

cruelty ˈkruː.əl.ti (2)

Português: crueldade

Simple English: behavior that hurts others on purpose

Example: They showed ambition, betrayal, and cruelty.

Uses in this book:

1. He was not motivated by bad reasons for cruelty, nor by good reasons for kindness. Back to B1

2. Mu Tel also mentioned that people might think he would be just as tyrannical as Vobis Kan, but perhaps more active in his cruelty because he was younger.

dangerous ˈdeɪndʒərəs (15)

Português: perigoso

Simple English: likely to cause harm or injury

Example: Climbing the mountain can be dangerous.

Uses in this book:

1. He looked very angry and dangerous. Back to B1

2. Ras Thavas said that Vad Varo would lose everything and gain nothing if he died, as he would be left alone and unprotected in a dangerous world where killing was common. Back to B1

3. The subject was a large Barsoomian white ape, known for being very wild and dangerous on the Red Planet.

4. She said he could not reach it because of dangerous marshes, wild people, animals, and cities.

5. She asked why he wanted to go on such a dangerous trip.

didn't ˈdɪdənt (2)

Português: não

Simple English: did not do something

Example: He didn't go to school yesterday.

Uses in this book:

1. He didn't know what happened to his men. Back to B1

2. I also thought he could have trained one of his own Martian assistants instead of me, especially since he didn't fully trust me.

Dislike /dɪsˈlaɪk/ (3)

Português: antipatia; desagrado; desagrada

Simple English: The feeling of not liking someone or something.

Example: I have a strong dislike for cold weather and prefer sunny days.

Uses in this book:

1. Thinking about it made him hate and dislike Ras Thavas. Back to B1

2. The speaker explained that their actions were for friendship, or possibly love, and that the other person should thank their own dislike of sentimentality for the transfer's success.

3. The narrator noticed that the Toonolian found it hard to hide his dislike, because Toonolians do not believe in gods.

doesn't ˈdəʊzənt (1)

Português: não

Simple English: Short form for 'does not'

Example: She doesn't like spicy food.

Uses in this book:

1. He believes that the recipient and a few others will believe it, and for others, it doesn't matter yet. Back to B1

emotional /ɪˈmoʊʃənəl/ (5)

Português: emocional; emotivo; sentimental

Simple English: Showing strong feelings; easily affected by emotions.

Example: She was emotional during the farewell party and cried quite a bit.

Uses in this book:

1. The speaker described someone as a very emotional person who hated him intensely. Back to B1

2. In contrast, the Phundahlians are very emotional and foolish, believing in silly ideas. Back to B1

3. He called me a foolish and overly emotional person. Back to B1

4. He said that even though Toonolians were not supposed to be emotional, he felt a sense of gratitude.

5. The speaker felt they were very emotional and that things would go smoothly.

European ˌjʊərəˈpiːən (1)

Português: europeu

Simple English: From Europe, a continent.

Example: The European country has many beautiful cities.

Uses in this book:

1. The building looked like an old European castle but was strange and beautiful. Back to B1

fancy ˈfænsi (1)

Português: chique

Simple English: nice and expensive in style

Example: They arrived at a fancy house with a decorated gate.

Uses in this book:

1. He showed me into a fancy apartment and left me with trained servants. Back to B1

fantasy ˈfæntəsi (1)

Português: fantasia

Simple English: Fantasy is an imaginary world or story, not real.

Example: He reads fantasy books about magic.

Uses in this book:

1. Even though the writer knew it was a fantasy, he felt it might be real. Back to B1

feelings ˈfiːlɪŋz (15)

Português: sentimentos

Simple English: emotions like happy, sad, or angry

Example: He shared his feelings with his best friend.

Uses in this book:

1. He had a scientific mind without feelings. Back to B1

2. Feelings can stop progress. Back to B1

3. People in Toonol are less affected by feelings than others on Barsoom, but many still have them. Back to B1

4. However, feelings also have good points. Back to B1

5. Enough people in Toonol have feelings to be loyal to their leader, and the smart upper classes know it is best for them to keep the leader in power. Back to B1

flowers ˈflaʊərz (2)

Português: flores

Simple English: The colorful parts of plants.

Example: The garden has many beautiful flowers.

Uses in this book:

1. Inside the walls were unusual trees and plants with many flowers. Back to B1

2. There were bright green lawns, colorful flowers, and tall trees providing shade.

foolish ˈfuːlɪʃ (3)

Português: tolo

Simple English: Not smart or showing bad judgment.

Example: It was foolish to forget his homework.

Uses in this book:

1. He thought that people who believed in sentiment were foolish. Back to B1

2. In contrast, the Phundahlians are very emotional and foolish, believing in silly ideas. Back to B1

3. He called me a foolish and overly emotional person. Back to B1

frightening ˈfraɪtnɪŋ (4)

Português: assustador

Simple English: Causing fear or scary feelings.

Example: She was a large and frightening animal.

Uses in this book:

1. We walked through many rooms, and each room had the same frightening displays. Back to B1

2. On the lawn, I saw a very frightening creature.

3. Some statues were of people, and many were beautiful, while others were of strange animals and creatures and looked frightening.

4. He was a very frightening creature, and the fear he caused helped the narrator's plan because everyone was watching him.

gaze ɡeɪz (1)

Português: olhar fixo

Simple English: to look at something for a long time

Example: He would gaze at Mars, dreaming about space travel.

Uses in this book:

1. He would gaze at Mars, which he called the "red eye of the god of battle," and wish he could travel through space to Mars, like John Carter did. Back to B1

goodnight ɡʊdˈnaɪt (1)

Português: boa noite

Simple English: Words used when going to sleep.

Example: She said goodnight and went to bed.

Uses in this book:

1. He took me to the room with my new clothes, showed me soft silks and furs to sleep on, said goodnight in the Barsoomian way, and locked the door from the outside. Back to B1

grass ɡræs (6)

Português: grama

Simple English: Green plants that grow close to the ground.

Example: The children played on the grass.

Uses in this book:

1. I was on red grass inside a high wall. Back to B1

2. The lower gravity, the red grass, and the red skin of the Martians were like the stories of John Carter. Back to B1

3. His glasses fell off his nose onto the grass. Back to B1

4. I kept falling down on the red grass and almost died several times. Back to B1

5. They fell fast but landed gently on the grass in the gardens of Prince Mu Tel.

gray ɡreɪ (1)

Português: cinza

Simple English: a color between black and white

Example: His hair was gray and old.

Uses in this book:

1. Instead, he imagined a vision of beautiful loveliness, whose soul was asleep under the gray hair. Back to B1

handle /ˈhændl/ (4)

Português: lidar com; identificador; manipular

Simple English: To deal with a situation or problem successfully.

Example: It is important to handle conflicts with care and understanding.

Uses in this book:

1. I put my hand on the handle of my long sword and looked directly into his eyes. Back to B1

2. He needed to transfer more brains and learn to handle different problems.

3. He then told me to go to the office and check for cases that I could handle myself, without his help.

4. He asked if she could handle it.

heal hiːl (1)

Português: curar

Simple English: To become healthy after an injury.

Example: This helped his body heal more quickly.

Uses in this book:

1. He secured both heads with a special tape that helped heal, prevented infection, and numbed the area. Back to B1

heating ˈhitɪŋ (1)

Português: aquecimento

Simple English: Making something warm or hot.

Example: She was heating a lot of water.

Uses in this book:

1. After heating the blood, making cuts, attaching tubes, and adding a special liquid, he was ready to bring life back to the brain that had been dead for ten years. Back to B1

helpers ˈhɛlpərz (6)

Português: ajudantes

Simple English: People who help others.

Example: He hunted a lion with many helpers.

Uses in this book:

1. The door opened, and two helpers brought in the body of a beautiful young woman. Back to B1

2. He then gave short instructions to his helpers, told me to follow him, and left the room. Back to B1

3. Ras Thavas ruled his institution almost alone, with only simple helpers. Back to B1

4. Ras Thavas signaled, and his helpers untied the ape.

5. He told the other person to put the subjects back to sleep and that his helpers would assist if needed.

infection ɪnˈfɛkʃən (1)

Português: infecção

Simple English: when germs make a part of the body sick

Example: The powder stopped infection in the wound.

Uses in this book:

1. He secured both heads with a special tape that helped heal, prevented infection, and numbed the area. Back to B1

insects ˈɪnˌsɛkts (2)

Português: insetos

Simple English: Small animals like ants, flies, and bees.

Example: Bees and ants are common insects.

Uses in this book:

1. There were rats, insects, and mud. Back to B1

2. However, he really hated the rats, insects, and mud. Back to B1

intensely ɪnˈtɛnsli (1)

Português: intensamente

Simple English: With strong feelings or focus.

Example: She studied intensely for the exam.

Uses in this book:

1. The speaker described someone as a very emotional person who hated him intensely. Back to B1

introduced ˌɪntrəˈdjuːst (2)

Português: apresentou

Simple English: told someone your name

Example: Toog introduced himself saying he was strong.

Uses in this book:

1. The old man introduced himself as Ras Thavas. Back to B1

2. Gor Hajus then introduced Vad Varo to Mu Tel, who was a prince from the House of Kan.

jump dʒʌmp (3)

Português: pular

Simple English: to move by pushing yourself up

Example: He tried hard to jump away.

Uses in this book:

1. The old man was so surprised by my jump that he moved suddenly. Back to B1

2. He did not trust his muscles to jump from the window to the ground when he returned, so he prepared the rope.

3. He was watching her closely and saw her try to jump overboard.

knocked nɒkt (2)

Português: derrubou

Simple English: To hit something and cause it to fall or move.

Example: He knocked over the water pail.

Uses in this book:

1. I was careful to avoid his powerful swings, as one hit could have knocked me out. Back to B1

2. At the same time, someone knocked on the door of the room we had entered.

lab læb (4)

Português: laboratório

Simple English: a place for scientific experiments or work

Example: She works in a science lab.

Uses in this book:

1. He kept one body in his lab for a year. Back to B1

2. In the middle of the room was a table made of ersite, with surgical tools, a motor, and other lab equipment.

3. It had seen some of the place before it was captured and brought to the lab, helpless, onto a cold table.

4. She thought he would die quickly, even if he escaped the island where Ras Thavas's lab was.

lift lɪft (1)

Português: levantar

Simple English: to raise something up

Example: Can you lift this box for me?

Uses in this book:

1. It took him a long time to find the courage and strength to lift himself up on one elbow to see the damage done to him. Back to B1

lucky ˈlʌki (3)

Português: sortudo

Simple English: having good luck

Example: He felt lucky to win the prize.

Uses in this book:

1. He said the reader was lucky to be chosen to help people from Earth learn about Barsoom. Back to B1

2. He exclaimed that he was lucky.

3. Hovan Du and I jumped, and we were lucky.

machine's məˈʃiːnz (11)

Português: da máquina

Simple English: Belonging to the machine.

Example: The machine's engine is very powerful.

Uses in this book:

1. As he was about to start the machine, he felt a feeling he imagined no one else had ever experienced. Back to B1

2. He only knew that he did it, the machine started, and the blood level in the container began to go down. Back to B1

3. He stopped the machine, removed the tubes, and sealed the openings.

4. Ras Thavas knew the narrator could harm him, keep him in his life-support machine forever, or do anything he wanted.

5. Now he stood next to her with his finger ready to press the button to start the machine.

married ˈmærid (3)

Português: casados

Simple English: Joined in marriage.

Example: They got married last year.

Uses in this book:

1. The client left, and the speaker believed he married the woman. Back to B1

2. John Carter took Valla Dia and the speaker to Duhor after Dar Tarus and Kara Vasa got married.

3. Kor San gave the speaker many honors and riches when Valla Dia and the speaker got married.

marry ˈmæri (4)

Português: casar

Simple English: To become husband and wife legally.

Example: She had to marry Cadj.

Uses in this book:

1. Later, a rich, older man wanted to marry a young woman. Back to B1

2. He went to Duhor in disguise, saw her, and decided he wanted to marry her.

3. Kor San wanted his daughter to marry one of his own leaders so their son could rule Duhor.

4. He told them about his past as a soldier and how Xaxa had killed someone so that a noble could marry the woman he loved.

mentioned ˈmɛnʃənd (10)

Português: mencionou

Simple English: said something briefly before

Example: He mentioned the plan in his speech.

Uses in this book:

1. He also mentioned cases where part of a damaged brain was replaced with part of another person's brain. Back to B1

2. He also mentioned that Ras Thavas said some people had been in that state for fifty years.

3. The speaker mentioned that there was another person from Jasoom whose reputation was known everywhere on Barsoom, but they had never met this person.

4. He wanted to look at two cases in L-42-X, which he had mentioned before.

5. He also mentioned that the human subject walking on four legs showed it was becoming more like an ape because of the brain transplant.

mixtures ˈmɪkstʃərz (1)

Português: misturas

Simple English: combinations of different things

Example: The cake is a mixture of chocolate and nuts.

Uses in this book:

1. He said he was very close to creating thinking people by using special light on chemical mixtures. Back to B1

mocking ˈmɒkɪŋ (1)

Português: zombando

Simple English: showing you do not respect someone

Example: He had a mocking smile on his face.

Uses in this book:

1. He looked at me with surprise, and a mean, mocking smile appeared on his face. Back to B1

motivated ˈmoʊtɪveɪtɪd (1)

Português: motivado

Simple English: Having a reason to do something.

Example: They were not motivated by politics or power.

Uses in this book:

1. He was not motivated by bad reasons for cruelty, nor by good reasons for kindness. Back to B1

narrator ˈnærətər (344)

Português: narrador

Simple English: The person who tells a story.

Example: The narrator was busy looking for strange things.

Uses in this book:

1. The narrator received his first promotion to captain. Back to B1

2. The narrator could now speak the Barsoomian language well enough to talk with his host. Back to B1

3. Ras Thavas treated the narrator based on scientific needs. Back to B1

4. The narrator was a mystery, possibly not Barsoomian or from an unknown species. Back to B1

5. Ras Thavas wanted to learn from the narrator about Earth, hoping to solve Barsoomian scientific puzzles. Back to B1

numbed nʌmd (1)

Português: entorpecido

Simple English: to lose feeling or sensation in an area

Example: The tape numbed the area to prevent pain.

Uses in this book:

1. He secured both heads with a special tape that helped heal, prevented infection, and numbed the area. Back to B1

onto ˈɑntu (12)

Português: em cima de

Simple English: moving to a higher position on something

Example: The cat jumped onto the table.

Uses in this book:

1. His glasses fell off his nose onto the grass. Back to B1

2. It had seen some of the place before it was captured and brought to the lab, helpless, onto a cold table.

3. We went up the ramp quietly and onto the roof.

4. A moment later, we took the small ship onto the roof and pointed it east, away from Toonol.

5. The narrator held onto the dead Toonolian's equipment with his left hand.

opponent /əˈpoʊnənt/ (1)

Português: adversário; oponente; opositor

Simple English: The person or team you compete against in sports.

Example: My opponent played very well in the final match yesterday.

Uses in this book:

1. As I tried to get used to the new situation, I found it very difficult to fight my opponent. Back to B1

original /əˈrɪdʒənl/ (2)

Português: original; inicial

Simple English: Created firsthand by an artist, not reproduced.

Example: He sold the original painting, which was highly sought after by collectors.

Uses in this book:

1. The speaker felt that, if anything, the man should have been grateful for being brought back to life in a healthy body, even if it was not his original one. Back to B1

2. The head of the body was ready, and the original brain had been completely burned to prevent any problems.

plants plænts (2)

Português: plantas

Simple English: living things like trees and flowers

Example: The garden has many different plants.

Uses in this book:

1. Inside the walls were unusual trees and plants with many flowers. Back to B1

2. He also made plants and water so that people and animals could live.

process /ˈprəʊsɛs/ (3)

Português: processo; processar

Simple English: An occurrence of a program actively running on a computer.

Example: To create a video, the system will process your selected files overnight.

Uses in this book:

1. The old man had not spoken during the whole process. Back to B1

2. He had already learned from transplanting whole brains that this process makes brain cells grow and become more active.

3. Soon, she became unconscious as the process to put her brain back into her body began.

push pʊʃ (1)

Português: empurrar

Simple English: to move something by pressing it with force

Example: She tried to push the door open.

Uses in this book:

1. He became more careful, so I used this chance to push him back. Back to B1

puzzles ˈpʌzlz (1)

Português: quebra-cabeças

Simple English: problems or games that require thinking to solve

Example: He enjoys solving puzzles in his free time.

Uses in this book:

1. Ras Thavas wanted to learn from the narrator about Earth, hoping to solve Barsoomian scientific puzzles. Back to B1

qualities ˈkwɒlətiz (1)

Português: qualidades

Simple English: features or characteristics of a person or thing

Example: She has many good qualities like kindness and honesty.

Uses in this book:

1. The speaker said that the woman had no good qualities for a sensible person, not even beauty. Back to B1

ramp ræmp (5)

Português: rampa

Simple English: A sloped surface connecting two levels.

Example: She walked up the ramp to enter the building.

Uses in this book:

1. From the last room on the first floor, my host led me up a ramp to the second floor. Back to B1

2. He then signaled me to follow him, and we went down another ramp to the first floor of a different building. Back to B1

3. We went up the ramp quietly and onto the roof.

4. The narrator, Gor Hajus, and Dar Tarus went up a ramp towards the roof, where they knew the royal ships were kept.

5. With help from Hovan Du and Dar Tarus, the four tied-up and covered people were taken from the ship down a ramp to the rooms of Xaxa, the Jeddara of Phundahl.

react riˈækt (2)

Português: reagir

Simple English: to behave or respond in a particular way to something

Example: He can react quickly to danger.

Uses in this book:

1. I replied that I was wondering how the girl's brain would react if she woke up and found out she had become an old, disfigured woman. Back to B1

2. I was worried about how Dar Tarus would react, as he did not know about the trick.

recipient rɪˈsɪpiənt (1)

Português: destinatário

Simple English: someone who receives something

Example: They hoped to see the recipient in autumn.

Uses in this book:

1. He believes that the recipient and a few others will believe it, and for others, it doesn't matter yet. Back to B1

rely /rɪˈlaɪ/ (1)

Português: confiar; contar; baseiam

Simple English: To depend completely on someone or something for support.

Example: I can always rely on my friends to help me when I'm in trouble.

Uses in this book:

1. So, I decided I might as well stay with them and rely on my own skills and quickness to survive on the Red Planet. Back to B1

removing rɪˈmuvɪŋ (3)

Português: removendo

Simple English: taking away or getting rid of something

Example: Removing Tarzan was part of the plan.

Uses in this book:

1. After removing the tubes, the old man covered the cuts with tape. Back to B1

2. He remembered one case where he put half of an ape's brain into a man's skull after removing half of the man's brain, and put that removed part into the ape's skull. Back to B1

3. Removing these bullets from wounded people is also very dangerous.

revival rɪˈvaɪvəl (1)

Português: recuperação

Simple English: the act of becoming healthy or active again

Example: He prepared the person for revival.

Uses in this book:

1. Ras Thavas told him to prepare the person for revival and to study all the body's reactions. Back to B1

sad sæd (9)

Português: triste

Simple English: feeling unhappy or sorrowful

Example: She was sad after hearing the bad news.

Uses in this book:

1. He only saw a sad girl who had lost her beauty. Back to B1

2. He said that most women would be very upset and sad to lose their beauty, but she did not seem to care.

3. She added with a sad smile that no one would fight for her now.

4. She said, with a sad and harsh voice, that it might give the terrible Ras Thavas new ideas for his torture chamber, or a new way to make money from the pain of his victims.

5. She told him to remember that the terrible face was not really her and that he should not feel too sad when he saw it.

sadness ˈsædnəs (1)

Português: tristeza

Simple English: A feeling of being unhappy or sorrowful.

Example: This made the sadness stronger because it showed he was tired and without hope after much pain.

Uses in this book:

1. One look was enough, and he fell back in great pain and sadness. Back to B1

savior ˈseɪvjər (1)

Português: salvador

Simple English: a person who saves others from danger

Example: He felt more like a murderer than a savior.

Uses in this book:

1. But at that moment, he felt more like a murderer than a savior. Back to B1

school skuːl (1)

Português: escola

Simple English: A place where people go to learn.

Example: She goes to school every day.

Uses in this book:

1. It looked like a very large medical school. Back to B1

scientist ˈsaɪən.tɪst (1)

Português: cientista

Simple English: a person who studies or works in science

Example: He wanted to be a true scientist by studying all parts of natural philosophy.

Uses in this book:

1. He tried to think like a scientist but could not. Back to B1

sensible ˈsensəbl (2)

Português: sensato

Simple English: Showing good judgment and wisdom.

Example: He was a wise and sensible man.

Uses in this book:

1. He believed Vad Varo was sensible and would not kill him. Back to B1

2. The speaker said that the woman had no good qualities for a sensible person, not even beauty. Back to B1

share ʃɛər (3)

Português: compartilhar

Simple English: to use or have something with others

Example: They share their food with friends.

Uses in this book:

1. He had not found someone who would work for him completely and without reason to leave or share his secrets. Back to B1

2. The old doctor began to share more of his knowledge and secrets with me.

3. After leaving the old man, the narrator went to Valla Dia's apartment to share the news.

shiny /ˈʃaɪni/ (1)

Português: brilhante; reluzente

Simple English: Bright and smooth, reflecting light effectively visually.

Example: Her shiny hair reflects the sunlight beautifully during the summer.

Uses in this book:

1. Paths were made of colored stones and shiny gems. Back to B1

shown ʃoʊn (4)

Português: mostrado

Simple English: to make something visible or known

Example: He had shown respect to the king.

Uses in this book:

1. He was practical, as shown by his high fees. Back to B1

2. Mu Tel explained that the side of the globe shown was the part of Earth facing them.

3. One picture, shown many times, depicted Turgan creating a flat, round Mars and throwing it into space.

4. They stopped near a window of the tower that Hovan Du had shown them.

smart smɑːrt (4)

Português: inteligente

Simple English: clever and able to solve problems

Example: The smart boy quickly answered the question.

Uses in this book:

1. Enough people in Toonol have feelings to be loyal to their leader, and the smart upper classes know it is best for them to keep the leader in power. Back to B1

2. He believed he had the best and most advanced mind among all the smart people he knew. Back to B1

3. Gor Hajus told the people that he and the narrator were presenting two panthans who had captured and trained a very wild and smart white ape.

4. He promised to show how smart the ape was, saying it had entertained important people and confused wise men on Barsoom.

special ˈspɛʃəl (16)

Português: especial

Simple English: different and better than usual

Example: Teeka was beautiful in a special way.

Uses in this book:

1. He wore a leather harness and a special collar with jewels. Back to B1

2. He secured both heads with a special tape that helped heal, prevented infection, and numbed the area. Back to B1

3. He learned how to use a special fluid to preserve bodies without changing them. Back to B1

4. He said he was very close to creating thinking people by using special light on chemical mixtures. Back to B1

5. After heating the blood, making cuts, attaching tubes, and adding a special liquid, he was ready to bring life back to the brain that had been dead for ten years. Back to B1

stupidity stuːˈpɪdəti (1)

Português: estupidez

Simple English: The quality of being very foolish.

Example: Keeping the bad leader shows their stupidity.

Uses in this book:

1. The fact that they keep their old, bad leader, Xaxa, shows their stupidity. Back to B1

suffer /ˈsʌfər/ (1)

Português: sofrer; sofra; sofro

Simple English: To experience physical or mental pain, illness, or hardship.

Example: Many people suffer from allergies during the spring due to pollen.

Uses in this book:

1. If he left, he would be in danger and suffer greatly. Back to B1

sunny ˈsʌni (1)

Português: ensolarado

Simple English: full of sunlight

Example: It was a warm, sunny day at the park.

Uses in this book:

1. He looked up at a bright, sunny sky. Back to B1

teach tiːʧ (1)

Português: ensinar

Simple English: To give knowledge or show someone how to do something.

Example: She will teach me how to play the guitar.

Uses in this book:

1. Then, he suddenly decided to teach me the Barsoomian language. Back to B1

threatening ˈθrɛtənɪŋ (1)

Português: ameaçador

Simple English: Showing danger or harm.

Example: The dog was barking in a threatening way.

Uses in this book:

1. He did not make any threatening moves with his weapon and seemed to be trying to show me he meant no harm. Back to B1

tools tuːlz (3)

Português: ferramentas

Simple English: Objects used to do a job or work.

Example: He used many tools to fix the chair.

Uses in this book:

1. Surgical tools hung from the shelves. Back to B1

2. He explained that they had studied thought waves from these planets, but their tools were not good enough to know for sure. Back to B1

3. In the middle of the room was a table made of ersite, with surgical tools, a motor, and other lab equipment.

uncaring ʌnˈkɛərɪŋ (1)

Português: indiferente

Simple English: not showing care or concern

Example: His uncaring attitude upset everyone.

Uses in this book:

1. He could not imagine someone being so uncaring as to harm that sweet body, even for a good reason, and certainly not for money. Back to B1

unfastened ʌnˈfæsn̩d (1)

Português: desabotoado

Simple English: Not closed or fixed in place.

Example: He unfastened his belt before sitting down.

Uses in this book:

1. They took off her clothes, unfastened her hair, and placed her on a table. Back to B1

unit ˈjuːnɪt (1)

Português: unidade

Simple English: a group that works or acts together

Example: The army unit moved carefully in the forest.

Uses in this book:

1. His unit had moved forward two kilometers, and he was in an advanced position with a small group. Back to B1

unused ʌnˈjuːzd (1)

Português: não usado

Simple English: Not used or rarely used.

Example: The road looked unused because of the tall grass.

Uses in this book:

1. The body of 378-J-493811-P could have stayed unused, but the speaker needed another male slave and chose him by chance. Back to B1

useful ˈjuːsfəl (6)

Português: útil

Simple English: Helping to do a job or something important

Example: This tool is very useful for fixing bikes.

Uses in this book:

1. The speaker explained that feelings are useful because they make people help his work, which allows him to do important research. Back to B1

2. The talk was useful because I thought it almost convinced Ras Thavas that I did not know what happened to Valla Dia, just like him.

3. He believed the ape's strength would be useful for dangerous journeys.

4. The other man, Dar Tarus, said the ape could be useful, especially in the marshes or in Phundahl, where many apes are kept and seen by people.

5. The narrator explains that he did not know about the fleet because Ras Thavas never told him things unless it was useful for his own plans.

woke woʊk (12)

Português: acordaram

Simple English: to stop sleeping

Example: They woke early in the morning.

Uses in this book:

1. When he woke up, it was dark and cold. Back to B1

2. The narrator wondered how terrible it would be if she woke up. Back to B1

3. I replied that I was wondering how the girl's brain would react if she woke up and found out she had become an old, disfigured woman. Back to B1

4. Because the creature was very strong and fierce, Ras Thavas made sure it was tied up securely before it woke up again.

5. Ras Thavas woke up after the operation.

worried ˈwʌrid (19)

Português: preocupada

Simple English: feeling nervous or anxious

Example: She was always worried about him.

Uses in this book:

1. He also worried that if he gave weapons to people he trusted, others might take them, or the trusted people might attack him. Back to B1

2. Ras Thavas told the creature that he was worried it might hurt them or try to get away.

3. The narrator worried about Valla Dia's survival and the danger of being followed to her hiding place.

4. However, he was very worried about Valla Dia's happiness and could not risk it too much.

5. The narrator worried that spies might be in the corridor.

wrinkles ˈrɪŋkəlz (1)

Português: rugas

Simple English: small lines on the skin caused by age or movement

Example: His forehead was white and without wrinkles.

Uses in this book:

1. The person looked very old, with many wrinkles. Back to B1