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〠
Jodokus Hocker would sit for
hours
near the entrance to the grotto
listening to the mechanical mermaid
playing the harp.
Sometimes he would imagine he wore
a gargantuan wig of demons, like a bulbous
froth of snouts, wings, legs, and claws.
Sometimes he would pretend the
mermaid was his mistress held in
the grotto by a magic curse that
only he could break with the power
of his love embodied in the phrase,
"na' draffub den vindemi vilessa.."
When the mermaid would stop playing
on the hour for 26 minutes, he might
stroll for a time and think upon some
detail from
Leibniz's Theodicee
which interested him, why God
gave the devil the power of miracles,
perhaps..
ഊ
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