The Indiscreet Jewels · Chapter
XIX: Seventh Trial of the Ring explained
Mangogul tests his ring on Zelais, whose Toy is stifled by a muzzle, causing her to nearly suffocate.
What happens
Mangogul tests his ring on Zelais, whose Toy is stifled by a muzzle, causing her to nearly suffocate. Orcotomus claims to cure her, but the Sultan's intervention and the ring's power discredit muzzles and expose Orcotomus as a quack, leading women to abandon muzzles altogether.
Themes in this chapter
Satire of Court and Society
The absurd fashion of muzzles and the court's reaction to Zelais's accident satirize societal hypocrisy and the tyranny of fashion.
Truth vs. Appearance
The ring forces hidden truths to surface, as Zelais's stifled Toy reveals the danger behind the seemingly polite muzzle.
Characters to notice
- Mangogul
Tests the ring on Zelais, causing her Toy to speak despite the muzzle, and later turns off the ring to save her.
- Zelais
Subject of the seventh trial; her Toy is stifled by a muzzle, leading to a near-fatal suffocation.
- Orcotomus
Physician who claims to cure Zelais but is later exposed as a quack by Mangogul's actions.
- Eolipila
Mentioned as a rival quack whose muzzles lose credit after Orcotomus's indiscretion.
Key passages
“Pshuh! says the Sultan, here is a Toy that has a vast impediment of speech. Most certainly there must be somewhat that impedes its respiration.”
The Sultan remarks that the Toy's speech is obstructed, suspecting something is blocking its breath.
Mangogul identifies the physical cause of Zelais's stifled Toy.
“Alas! alas!—I am—I am—I am stifled. I can no more.—Alas! alas! I am stifled.”
The Toy cries out that it is being suffocated and can no longer endure.
The Toy's desperate words reveal the lethal effect of the muzzle.
“Shame was preferred to the apoplexy. The one kills, said the women, the other does not. Wherefore they renounced their muzzles; let their Toys talk on; and nobody died thereby.”
Women chose shame over death, abandoning muzzles because they preferred the risk of scandal to the risk of suffocation.
The women's pragmatic decision ends the fashion for muzzles.