James Thurber

Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a golden horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her. "There's a unicorn in the garden," he said. "Eating roses." She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him. "The unicorn is a mythical beast," she said, and turned her back on him. The man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn was still there; now he was browsing among the tulips. "Here, unicorn," said the man, and he pulled up a lily and gave it to him. The unicorn ate it gravely. With a high heart, because there was a unicorn in his garden, the man went upstairs and roused his wife again. "The unicorn," he said,"ate a lily." His wife sat up in bed and looked at him coldly. "You are a booby," she said, "and I am going to have you put in the booby-hatch."

So fangen Fabeln von James Thurber an. Unverhoffte Dinge geschehen hier häufig. Wie Einhörner, die man im Garten beim Frühstück sieht. Es wäre ja eine idyllische Sache, ein Einhorn im Garten zu haben, aber das bleibt nicht so. Das mit dem booby hätte seine Frau besser nicht gesagt, wenn wir einmal einen Blick auf das Ende der Geschichte werfen:

"My husband," she said, "saw a unicorn this morning." The police looked at the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist looked at the police. "He told me it ate a lilly," she said. The psychiatrist looked at the police and the police looked at the psychiatrist. "He told me it had a golden horn in the middle of its forehead," she said. At a solemn signal from the psychiatrist, the police leaped from their chairs and seized the wife. They had a hard time subduing her, for she put up a terrific struggle, but they finally subdued her. Just as they got her into the strait-jacket, the husband came back into the house.
"Did you tell your wife you saw a unicorn?" asked the police. "Of course not," said the husband. "The unicorn is a mythical beast." "That's all I wanted to know," said the psychiatrist. "Take her away. I'm sorry, sir, but your wife is as crazy as a jaybird."
So they took her away, cursing and screaming, and shut her up in an institution. The husband lived happily ever after.

Moral: Don't count your boobies until they are hatched.

So wie die Kurzgeschichten von O.Henry immer ein surprise ending haben, hat James Thurber am Ende immer eine etwas schräge Moral parat. Die Geschichte mit dem Einhorn ist zuerst 1939 im New Yorker erschienen, heute ist sie schon ein Klassiker. Sie wird im ➱Englischunterricht behandelt, und es gibt sie als ➱Video. Sie können sie hier im ➱Volltext lesen oder sie sich von ➱Peter Ustinov vorlesen lassen.

James Thurber, der Philosoph des Alltäglichen, ist heute vor fünfzig Jahren gestorben. I write humor the way a surgeon operates, because it is a livelihood, because I have a great urge to do it, because many interesting challenges are set up, and because I have the hope it may do some good. hat er einmal geschrieben. Dem hat der Schriftsteller E.B. Wright entgegnet: During his happiest years, Thurber did not write the way a surgeon operates, he wrote the way a child skips rope, the way a mouse waltzes. Das mit dem Mäusewalzer gefällt mir besonders gut.