Guignol's band

.. You realize that much too late!..You don’t get the difference at first glance! The earth’s just a roulette wheel!.. good… bad numbers!.. Everything’s out of joint!.. those born cooked!.. those born lucky! At first it’s all the same!.. All the lice in the same bunch! but go fuck yourself! And not at all!.. Day and night!.. In the worst classes of poverty a world’s spinning round! The best and the worst!.. It’s like mountains seen from the clouds, from way up, from an airplane, it’s all sinister, dark and evil, but from close up, below, ring-a-ring-o’-roses! It’s all full of charming spots, of rich shade, of pretty chalets!.. Got to go through it to know.. you don’t learn that in school.

That makes the lucky numbers nice and optimistic!.. Let the others rush to the slaughter!.. The guys in clover sing well together in chorus!.. It’s music to your ears especially when there’s lots of trimmings!.. jaunty pals like Cascade!..

Another round!.. And another!.. The Maharajah on a spree!.. The whole pack of banknotes on the table!.. He didn’t want them any more!.. Let ’em go!.. All down the hatch!.. They were cheering him to the rafters! For he’s a jolly good fellow!

They were roaring out in chorus, so loud that it resounded all through the joint, it made the walls shake!. The gas chandelier was rocking, waltzing over our heads.. The whole works was swaying, the whole room, the whole pier.. Pros-pero started the refrain again… I think he was yelling loudest of all! For he’s a jolly good fellow!

Waang! the door booming! A package comes in from the street!.. In a heap! Waang! in the middle of the pub! She threw herself in!.. She didn’t see.. There were three steps!

.. She trips!.. Tumbles! sprawls! It’s Joconde! in a package!.. in her cotton.. her bandages!.. she gets up, she screams, she’s awful!.. starts blaming right away!.. there it goes. she hoists herself up, clings to the bar!.. A fury! She’s choking with effort.. she’s suffocating.. she ran through the whole neighborhood… looking for us! she’s green beneath the chandelier… a panic!.. She looks all around! She shrieks.. Isn’t he there?

"Where are you, Loulou? Where are you? my precious peegy!”

"Here m’love! Here you pain in the ass! ’’

Cascade answers her right off.

"Come on, catastrophe! Come on! ”

What an effect!.. The tables! Boy how the guys howled! Some family scene! Right in the nick of time!. He’s sure sore!.. Ah! it’s the doctor who’s going to get it!..

"Look at that!.. Just take a look at that!.. Dr. Clodovitz! I entrust an injured person to you! I put her into your hands!

.. Thinking she’s going to keep quiet!.. I pay for the hospital! I pay for everything! I load you with dough, my fine doctor! And that’s the thanks I get! Say, tell me something!..

They can leave your place whenever they like! They go out for a stroll, they run around, they raise hell! What do I look like? I’m asking you! Your joint’s a plain cathouse! Your London Hospital! Monsieur Clodovitz!.. It’s worse than the Charing from what I can see! It’s a regular circus! Like your papers, Doctor! just plain garbage! Incapable of watching your lunatics! The bed-wetter! Take a look at the bitch!”

She was standing there doing nothing. She was pulling at her dressings, she was chucking them all around, all over the floor, cotton, bandages, shreds.. Boy, what laughing in the joint!.. some ovation! Clodovitz didn’t know what was what!.. he was circling around the trollop… He wanted to arrange her bandages! she didn’t want him to! she was defending herself!.. They were each pulling at an end!.. The whole crowd was roaring so that the floors shook! the walls! the windows!

"Go back Joconde! ”… Clodo was pleading, begging on his knees. "Go back! It’s not a wise thing to do! Your wound’ll open again!”

Her whole bandage in clots, she was tearing it off! Loosening it from her skin! the blood was pissing out again… it was dripping all over the floor!.. ah! she wouldn’t obey!..

"Keep quiet you bum! You murderer!”

She was the one raising the riot… all foulmouthed..

Then they started yelling, in the pub. The dockers didn’t know what it was all about.. their minds were fuzzy.. they thought we were being mean to the gal!.. They suddenly got sore at us.. A sudden tempest, just like that. Taking her side, the poor little thing! Now they were rooting for her!

.. At least a dozen giants who wanted to rip Cascade’s guts out!.. Then and there!.. Terrible arms! There’d be hell to pay!.. tattoos.. muscles like a gorilla’s..

Ah! when she sees danger threatening.. that they’re going to jump on her darling, she’s the one who proteas him!..

with her whole body! She rushes up in front of him!.. she covers him up!.. She rages at the peril! the lioness roars!.. All her dressings unwind.. she gets caught in them, she’s all tangled up.. she yells louder than the whole mob.. "Grrr! Grrr! ”

“Darling prrrreciouz! Make a little zmile for your baby!”

But the big guys are boiling!.. Got to beat up Cascade! Now in a raging fury!.. There they go grabbing bottles, siphons, chairs! and whang! it starts ringing! squirting! bouncing all over! Bang! A-bing! A-boom! over the mirrors!.. the door!.. An awful riot!.. Cascade wiggles out!.. jumps back!.. the battle’s at its height!.. tables upside-down!. Barricades and zoom!.. they dive for shelter! He and Pros-pero!.. The cash register, the cupboard, the coat-rack.. And zoom! everything goes flying!.. whirling!.. Down comes a bombardment of chairs!.. crashes, rocks!.. The dockers, all red, come tearing down! they buck into the pile.. Assault! Massacre! Yelling on all sides!.. Zoom! Zing! Boom! It’s the mechanical organ, the big one in the back, suddenly starting to play!.. It started going! Taraza! Zoom! the monster with the trumpets! flutes! drums! Should have heard it pounding! whacking out its waltz! Boro who started the machine going! God-damned instrument! It’s a storm! I see him fiddling around in the back… He sees me!.. He signals to me.. “Get the hell out!”.. broad gesture! I don’t get him, like a dope! He’s yelling to me! He’s screaming!..

“What’s the matter?” I mumble..

No time! Wrraang!.. thunder! The joint’s exploding! Boy that was something! and the flames!.. Damn it! I saw! Damn it! It’s him!. In the flames there. In the leaping fire! He threw the gadget! Sure was something!. TNT!.. It burst!.. there under the table!.. Wang! Bang!.. Another one! Right there!.. He threw the contraption!.. A grenade, I know them! Ah! the skunk!.. the gorilla!.. A spray of sparks!.. A hail!.. The blockhead!.. He’s pulling us!. Oh! panic! The way they’re beating it!.. Three guys laid out flat! I jump over them! The ceiling’s collapsing!.. Everything’s caving in behind us. falling to pieces!. the plasterwork!.. the tiles!.. An avalanche!.. Cascade’s safe!..He’s running ahead!.. So’s Prospero and Joconde! It’s curtains!.. She’s running behind!. she’s chugging away, she’s yowling… She wants them to wait for her!.. it’s hurting her!..And what insults! She’s calling us cowards! Boro’s on his way, too!. any old thing!.. not at all shy!.. He’s running after us! His paunch doesn’t keep him from running!

.. All shaken up, he’s chugging along! and pretty pleased!.. No shame!.. He’s laughing! His hands are bleeding! He stumbles! he picks himself up! The hell with the old gal behind him who’s running after us.. her with her gimpy leg!.. wah! wah!.. She’s squealing that we’re killing her!..But she’s tearing along, any way!.. We don’t go back through the same alleys.. We dash through Lambeth Highway. and slow up at Grave Lane.. Ruysdale.. then zigzags.. we’re covering our tracks!.. threading our way.. Cascade’s in the lead!.. The Doll hooks on to Boro.. She’s holding him by the sleeve.. Cascade won’t bother with her!

.. Doesn’t ever want to see her again!..

Every time she get to a sidewalk she howls!.. it hurts her wound. she jumps up screaming!.. Good thing the streets are all empty!.. The whole gang’s racing along!.. It’d be a fine sight in broad daylight!.. Prospero galloping too… I can’t see his mug!.. I hear him snuffling.. He’s in front of me. Nothing the matter with him!.. His joint had been pretty flimsy! Shit! A flame!.. Wood! mud! Jerry-built! That’s the truth.. All the same, Boro’s cracked.. He’s running with Joconde. He’s dragging her along.. she’s yelling at him!

.. “Not so fast! My God! Not so fast!”.. Another spurt!.. Moorgate Street! from end to end! Ass on fire, that’s the word for it!..

Right after the Square come the docks. I think we’ve lost Clodovitz… I yell after him.. while running… no answer.. His hospital’s there.. right near.. Aren’t we going to leave the old gal there?.. We pass right by it.. I ask.. I call out on the run! We’re tearing along! We keep going!..

.. One! two!.. One!.. two!.. obliquely left!.. Maryle-bone.. straight ahead!. then Mint Place.. So’s we’re going to Tackett’s?.. I didn’t know.. No one had said!.. Here we are!.. Stop!

And zip! We dash through the door! We all come tearing in!.. The whole cavalcade!.. Ah! surprise! He was in the midst of tidying up! Poof!. All his junk! ropes! scrap iron! his shed full of gewgaws! He throws himself against the door, he closes it. He’s pretty choked up!.. "Where are you all coming from?” he asks.. No one answers.. Everyone’s snorting, gasping. wheezing.. the whole mob’s sneezing wet! collapses on the heap! Boy! some fun!

Cascade’s the first to start talking.. got his wind back..

He points to Boro..

"Tackett, you want to see a murderer?”

And then he tells exactly what happened… he saw the grenade, too!..

"You don’t have another in your pants?”

Then we all rush for Boro! Ah! the big half-wit!.. the louse!.. the drunk… everyone jumps on his paunch!.. rummages through him, searches him all over!. maybe he’s still got another one?

"You big butcher! You big lunatic!”

They bawl him out something awful!

He takes it well.. That doesn’t worry him!.. He’s laughing!.. he giggles because they’re tickling him!

"Do you have another one?”

They rough-and-tumble him again, they’re really after him.. Tackett wants to kick him out.. He’s worried about his premises!.. his goods!.. his wood!.. Prospero was so down in the dumps he didn’t say a single word. He must have been worrying about his pub, his customers, mainly about his lease.. He was always talking about his lease.. 78 years more to run!.. He was proud of it!.. Shit, Matthew was right!

Boro was just a dirty grease-ball! a wild sneaky firebug!.. Ah! You could see that right off! I’d never have believed it!.. And the way he sent it flying! No doubt about it. I’m telling you!.. A wrecker!.. and insolent besides!.. not bothered a bit!. Now he was thirsty again!.. He wanted everyone to have a drink! "Always a thirst on!” he announces! Someone open a bottle for him! not in an hour! then and there! it was bad enough waiting around with his hand injured!

It’s true he was still bleeding, so was Joconde.. The two of them were comparing… It was a real ambulance… I didn’t feel thirsty, but somewhat cold..

Joconde, now that she was back in the bosom of her family, was getting snotty again.. They did up her bandages, patched up the whole works, her towels, her cotton.. Every thing was hanging between her legs. They laid her down on some bags. Cascade stretched out beside her… so she’d stay a bit quiet… so she’d finally shut her mouth..

There’s Clodovitz coming… He knocks… He bangs at the door. He barks out his name.. How did he find us?.. that rheumy-eyed chicken! He comes in… He blinks… He starts talking. Doesn’t know what he’s saying.. He thinks it didn’t explode!.. He’s jabbering away!.. He doesn’t remember a thing! He’s had a shock, he got knocked on the head, some skin’s been torn away.. he’s bleeding pretty bad, too.. and from his mouth also. Got to heat up some coffee for him.. He’s going to be sick.. He’d been running at full speed.. That gives him palpitations… We take advantage of bringing him around to get ourselves a grog too, two salad bowls!.. Tackett hasn’t finished!.. His guests are greedy!.. We all huddle together.. We roll in the bags! the piles!.. There’s not a bed in the house. Sheds and that’s all..

Boro’s beginning to feel better, he decides he’s going to leave.. He announces:

"I’m leeeaving!.. I’m leeeaving! ”

It must be around two o’clock..

"Get the hell out!.. We’ve seen enough of you! ”

That’s everyone’s opinion.

Prospero hasn’t let out a peep. He’s sitting on the bags.. he hasn’t even lain down.. Just there with his head in his hands..

"You get the hell out too! You hear me?”

That was Cascade who went and shook him, he didn’t want him staying around.. Still he hadn’t said anything! hadn’t opened his mouth! not a word out of him..

"Go on! get going! ”

Brutal!

I think he suspected that Prospero and Boro were going to fight it out at night, to settle about the grenade, that they were just waiting for us to sleep!

"Go murder yourselves!”

He kicked them out just like that!.. There was no comeback. Tackett was with him.. Tackett was some brute! he used a crowbar for his arguments.. His favorite weapon.. He’d let you have it in the legs.

So Prospero got thrown out and Boro with him.

The shed was ours now!.. We’d be able to sleep.. Boro had a place to sleep! I wasn’t worrying about him! I wasn’t anxious. He’d go to his pal, The Horror… he always went there…It was opposite, on the other side…after Cubitt Docks..

But now they were yelling from the street.. "You cock-suckers! ” they were calling us… it rang out in the darkness.. "Peegs!.. Peegs!”.. When the other one joined him he started cursing us too.. "Cocksawkers!.. Cocksawkers!.. They were both swearing at us.

We heard them far off… We heard their steps.. For a long time.. till the end. We fell asleep.

The moment the shadows come up, when soon well have to be going, we remember something of the frivolities of the stay.. Jokes, courteous chats, witty banter, kindly acts.. and all that no longer is, after so many trials and horrors, seems but heavy and freakish funeral trumpery. Drapings with leaden folds, wasted effort! the huge mantle of the rigors, arias, sermons, mournful virtues, the dead all crushed.. spruced up under pinewood, in empty crypt. Ah! how dazzling it would be if, at that very moment, as we were being nailed up, there should escape, gush from the coffin, the miraculous trill of a flute! so brisk, delightfully gay! What a surprise! what pride! Sighs in the dwelling place of the dead! Ah, what a lesson for families!.. Joyous crony of a corpse, phantom larker! Minstrel for all precipices, enchanted places, accursed paths! The first Mr. Kick-the-Bucket not having lived in vain, having finally surprised, understood, all the graces of springtime! the renewal of the fledgling! of the finch in the coppice, bearing everything off! Revolutionary of the Shades! Troubadour in the Sepulchers! Buffoon yodeling in the Caverns of the World!. I’d like to be that fellow! What an ambition! My only one! By Gosh! Blast it! A thousand graces the shrewd fellow!. Better the Eternals rigadoon than the human calamitous Empire, the mammoth scheming molehill… A heap of crumbling mirages!

.. Hail to the monarchs! Liven up the subjects! make them jig all in time! What a scramble!.. Crazy to give yourself to the Ephemeral!.. A thousand times better to perish nicely carrying off the flute!.. But still you need the moment of high ecstasy! Not all who want to can go off to music! The chosen moment!.. You have to last while waiting.. That’s what I always say! Pros and cons! Jump here!.. Bounce there!.. get hold of the daily bread.. A flea’s life!. They spy on you!.. What torture!. I gave you a violent picture of the kind at Tackett’s. Running off with the flute is another matter! You’ll see. No time for a jerk-off!..

Since the blowup at the Dingby what a scramble! What exercise! From waiting-rooms to shady hotels, from basements to attics, from rats to rats, what drops! what climbs! from Salvation Army joints to tuppenny landladies at night, what a runaround! Cascade had scared me stiff with his stories about the Consulate’s being after me.. My nerves weren’t too steady any more. I went off my nut easily.. I’d dash from one neighborhood to another. Never twice in the same room because of the suspicious questions… I was being sensible… I hadn’t seen any of the others!.. followed to a T the careful advice… I avoided Leicester and Bedford, the beat, the sidewalks with the women, where I might have learned something.. Still I was on pins and needles!.. And there was a good reason!.. Not a line in the papers. Cascade must have forked over!.. We weren’t to see one another until he got in touch with me!

.. I’d kept my word. The critical stage had passed!.. the cops were sniffing elsewhere.. after other riffraff.. Only I was getting low in cash!.. Before the blowup I’d borrowed about ten pounds from Cascade. I hadn’t been extravagant, all the same the end was in sight… I couldn’t sleep on the bare ground, it gave me howling cramps on account of my arm!.. I was forced to take a bed.. That’s always expensive.. even in the most modest places. I spent my time at the movies.. I still remember the programs.. They were mostly Pearl White in The Mysteries of New York.. In spite of the hours I spent there, I still had a lot of time on my hands.. I’d take the little streets in Soho, the bustling busy ones. where the people kept going.. where it's a perpetual little fair.. they swarm around the shops from Shaftesbury to Wig-more Street, the windows full, in the doorways, all teeming with crowds, it covers you up, reassures you, at the same time it’s lively, it distracts you.. still and all after ten or twelve days like that, of coming and going in the streets, it began to be enough. I’d had my bellyful of penance! After all, hell! I hadn’t done anything!.. I didn’t quite dare look up Cascade but I wanted to see Boro again!.. One Sunday morning I made up my mind… I said to myself, "My boy, let’s go! ” I was around Barbeley Dock, the Ferry was waiting, the little boat was inviting, it took ten minutes along the river… As soon as I see water, I’m tempted.. Ready to go at the drop of a hat!.. I’d sail around the pond in the Tuileries at the slightest pretext! in a watchglass if I were a tiny little fly.. Anything just to sail! I walk across bridges for no reason at all.. I wish all roads were rivers.. It’s the spell… the bewitchment.. it’s the movement of the water… Just so, without wanting to, an idea in my head, right at the lapping of the Thames.. I stood there having visions.. The charm was too much for me, especially with the big ships.. everything gliding around.. twisting in and out, foaming. the dinghies. the south landing of the docks.. cutters and brigantines tacking.. coming in. drifting.. skimming the bank. Floating lazily!. It’s magical!.. no denying it!.. A ballet!.. It’s hallucinating!

.. It’s hard to drag yourself away!. You got into the swing of things a bit with the little ferry, the Dolphin.. two little trips.. from shore to shore.. I’ve done it five or six times! like a holiday!.. round trip!.. Barbeley-Greenwich… almost touching the big cargoes. the colossal potbellies going upstream, the propellers buzzing away like mad.. drifting in the eddies.. roaring, grunting in alarm.. scared of the landings. What beauty!. gulls flying! glide to heaven! enough dreaming! down to earth, boy! Not a penny left in my pocket! Get going! Greenwich. it’s sad! Let’s go now! enough dawdling! mooning!.. I’ve got to find that son-of-a-bitch! It was understood, definite! at The Horror’s place.

He’d told me.. Greenwich Alley.. Greenwich Park… Van Claben Junior, his real moniker. he’d explained it carefully. not far from the south wharf. What would they say when they saw me?. They’d surely spot me from outside.. Maybe they wouldn’t open the door?… Ah! my mind was made up! But no undue confidence! I was going and that was all…

i look around a bit… to see if I don’t smell cops.. The name of the place?. “Titus Van Claben”. If there’re any suspicious characters around.. It’s all quiet.. all reassuring.. Three or four people on the steps just chatting.. probably clients.. they were waiting their turn… In the park kids running around, dashing all over, racing through the lanes.. In short, everything pretty normal. Besides the weather’s fine.. bright sun, almost warm.. That’s rare in London in early May.. From the open windows on the first floor I hear Boro pounding it out.. same as usual.. that’s fine.. It’s his touch all right, his music, I don’t think I’m wrong.. He’s there, the tramp!.. I say to myself, “I’m in luck!.. He’s at the piano… he might have been in jail! ”… I was beginning to get dopey walking from one neighborhood to another.. day and night! A nasty kind of fatigue!. Still, not completely shot!

.. but almost.. well, just about pooped.. and besides, a pain in my arm from sleeping any old place. from snoring on bumpy beds!.. and besides, buzzings in my ears so shrill and painful they’d make me close my eyes… A cripple’s life is lousy. and it’s bad to be broke… it gives you nasty, vicious ideas. But anything was better than the army! What if they ever made me go back? It was God-damned possible according to that windbag!.. What if they were looking for me at the Consulate?.. Suppose they were scraping the bottom of the barrel… It was a chance I was taking, all the same, still and all. It was that much to the good as a matter of fact. One chance in a thousand being there in London. I’ll tell you how. Downright luck!. A real treat!. A reversal of fate!

.. What a break!.. And Cascade, no denying it, what a windfall!. All of it through Raoul. There was a poor guy for you! What tough luck!.. I’ll tell about that, too!.. Mustn’t sulk about destiny!. I was lucky, and how!. All the others like me were cooked! They were digging their foxholes in the Artois. or elsewhere!. in the 16th Heavy!. in the armored division.. Some of them had switched… to the hungry infantry.. splattered, piled up in the lime.. shelled ten, twelve hours at a time! Here’s to their health! It was better here! Got to realize!. Roses! Even in delicate moments!.. Ah! no getting soft!.. Grab everything!.. Always on the lookout! I pulled myself together! I held on! My pals weren’t too respectable, of course, I agree, but a wonderful family for me, knew all the ropes.. Since I was well recommended, coming from poor Raoul, a fine welcome right off!.. Till then.. just a couple of little slips!.. and then the blowup at the Dingby!. They’d dropped me a little. It was inevitable!

.. Now had to make a comeback… I’d find them all right through Boro!. So there I was in front of the door, "Van Claben Titus”… It was the moment for decision… I ring.. I knock. Nobody answers. I bang again. I insist..

"Boro!. It’s me! ” I yell out right from the park.

Finally Monsieur is so good as to appear… He leans out the window.. There he is!.. He’s amazed to see me… He motions to me..

"Take it easy! Take it easy!. Come back a little later!”

I show him my belt. that I’ve had to tighten it!

"Sh! Sh! ” he starts again… He shows me the lane of trees away off, I've got to go away!..

Hell no! it’s not possible! Enough walking!..

The clients, the people around coming and going, waiting on the steps, don’t give a damn about our gesturing.. Just then the door opens!. There’s Titus!. Titus Van Claben! known as The Horror!. That’s his nickname!. I recognize him right away from the stories… He simply appears in the doorway in a big pasha’s costume, that’s the way he runs his business… all got up in yellow and purple silk with an enormous turban and also a cane full of precious stones and a big jeweler’s magnifying glass. That’s exactly the way he is in the shop. He carries on his business in oriental fancy dress… He wants to chase me away immediately… his first instinct… He doesn’t know me. What’s the difference. I don’t bat an eyelash! He looks me up and down..

"Ah! so it’s you making all that racket!’’

He talks French, but with a thick accent, he comes down on it hard, like the one upstairs. They’re both greasers..

"You can go to hell!” I answer..

Right off, Boro starts giggling! He’s above us, he busts out laughing! He contemplates us.. from the front boxes..

The caliph blinks… He chorts… He wants to bluff me!.. He’s attacking me, he’s in a rage, he’s flapping around… he jumps up and down in his pants, his enormous baggy silks.. Ah! the big nasty stinker!. "You going to get out of here, you little bandit? Go beat it! Go on!”

He starts waving his stick at me.

I stay put.

"Go beat it! Go on! ” He’s starting again.. He’s in such a stew his turban’s wobbling on his head..

"Get out of here! Don’t let me see you again!. You want to debauch him again?. That what you’ve come for?. You don’t think he’s depraved enough?”

He points to Boro up above laughing out loud, splitting so that he’s hanging limp on the window sill. What a couple!

I thought he was funny at first, the potbellied stinker, now he starts running at me.

"I’ll give it to you, you wretch!”

I don’t like threats. It’s happening in public. it’s grotesque..

"Go ’way, you scoundrel!” he repeats. Me! A war cripple!

Hell no!

"I’ll have both of you arrested! ”

He points to both of us.

My, my, another jealous guy!

Now the other one starts talking, he’s delivering an address from the window, right to the public, he’s speechifying..

"Greetings! everybody!. Greetings, gents!. Greetings, mopey!. Greetings, pal!”..

He’s brandishing a big bottle, a whiskey gallon, he takes a swig, right down his throat from the bottle.. He’s making a spectacle of himself. The people are laughing themselves sick!. They’re roaring! They’re waiting for what comes next!

The pasha’s stamping, sputtering, he’s wild with rage..

"Get inside! you damned dog!. Get inside!” he yells.. "Aren’t you drunk enough? And you, you little wretch, do you know what’s in store for you?”

Ah! it’s a threat, a direct one!..

Ah! no! I don’t know a thing about it. Ah! It’s a fact!.. He still sickens me, that’s sure! It’s true I’ve got only one arm!

.. but he’s going too far!.. I’m going to let him have it!.. I go through the spectators. that’ll do!. "Wait, Caliph of my heart! ”. I rush up to him.. Seeing him right in front of my face flabbergasts me, he’s unbelievable!. Right in broad daylight! All made up!. A mug like a plaster mask!. Some job!..even worse than Joconde! and jowls, Madame! and rolls of fat with cream! and powder!.. even lipstick!.. The effect upon me is fantastic, a terrific illusion, a mirage… he fascinates me. He’s looking straight at me too.. Looks me up and down. he’s blinking… He starts scrutinizing me with his big magnifying glass..

"Oh! Oh!” he suddenly screams… "Oh my! young man! But young man! You’re not at all well!”

Ah! I brush him off!..

"But you look very ill to me!.. Come in!.. Come in!.. Rest yourself!”

He’s inviting me.. He’s suddenly changed his tone.. obsequious now, sympathetic.. oily..

"You must be very tired! Come in!. Lie down!”

He’s just too polite!

I come out of my daze, I dash through the door, I find the stairway… I bound up the steps, two at a time..

A room. what a shambles!. I stumble over everything!. Boro’s sprawled out. oof! shapeless on the sofa. He sees me.. he gets up..

"Ah! there you are! Oh! my boy!. Oh! my boy!. Oh! what a mess! Have you run into Matthew?”

His first words: Matthew!.. That’s all that’s worrying him..

"Where’s Matthew?”

He just keeps mumbling "Matthew! ”… He doesn’t even ask what’s been happening to me!.

"No!” I answer. "I don’t know where Matthew is!. You big drunk!. But I think he’ll be along soon!. from the way you raise hell!. the way you collect a crowd!”

I was giving him my opinion.

"Me raise hell?”. Ah! he’s bristling. Right away violence!. He’s brandishing his bottle at me! He wants to throw it in my face..

He stumbles. He moves forward!. He falls all o\er himself!.. Ba-da-da-boom!. The old guy downstairs starts howling!. by repercussion!. he’s yelping at me. a shrill whining voice. acrazy bitch!

"Will you stop it, you riffraff! You’ll break everything! Boro play me the Merry Widow Waltz!”

There’s also a piano in the corner.. The pasha wants music!

quite exacting! a wish of his!. he’s screaming with desire!

"The Merry Widow Waltz. You hear me? The Merry Widow! ”

Immediately he throws a tantrum… He flutters around! jumps about. a real madwoman!

He sets the whole shop bouncing, shakes the floor! What a racket! He keeps time by knocking on the ceiling!.. with the cane!. he’s raging for the Merry Widow Waltz!

"Shit!” the other one answers. "Shit! you dumb hussy!”

That was Boro from his sofa… He shot that one down the stairs..

"You’re already drunk, Borokrom!” the old guy answers.. "You’ve been drinking like a hole!”

They’re at one another now…

"Like a hole?”. Ah! that’s the limit!. "Tell me, what kind of hole? What kind of hole? Ass-hole, is that it?”

It’s too outrageous!.. Boro gets up! He wants to hear that to his face. what the old guy’s insinuating! he’s going downstairs. shit! He stumbles… he staggers.. He gets to the stairs.. His shirt hanging out like a smock, his belly sagging. He’s reeling again. Boom!. he tumbles, upsets. rolls down.. crashes into the shop… A mess.. Right into the whole works. Right into the crockery.. The pyramid of fruit dishes. plates! Thunder!.. A cataract!. The old boy’s choking with fury. The client in front of the counter yelps.. she’s bleating with horror.. She wants to run away.. she can’t!. Everything falls all over her!. The old guy tries to help her, to pull her out! he yanks at her, by her shoes… he takes a firm stand. ho! hip! hup!. the whole works tumbles down again!..

"You, you tramp? You just standing there?”. He’s talking to me. I go downstairs. He wants me!. I dash forward. I grab her by the feet… I get her out of the chaos.. back into the light.. The two fatsoes immediately start brawling again. Insults, threats, right over the lady’s belly.. With her underneath screaming to death!.

Boro grabs the old guy by the hair.. Ah! now he’s going to bash him!. The turban wobbles!. He’s squeezing his Adam’s apple. He’s strangling him, by God!. He calls the customer to witness. how he’s going to strangle the old guy…

“And he wanted to murder me!.. I’m telling you, Madame, a pirate! ”

And then, so she won’t misunderstand, they both fall on her, they come crashing down on her.. they roll over her, body to body.. she was just a slender thing.. She’d come to borrow on her "bond,” her Mexican stock. She’s still holding it in her hand. Ah! She won’t let go!. She’s clutching it. She was too scared of robbers!. and she keeps on yelping..

"Help! Help! The door please!. the door!”. But Boro didn’t want her to slip away… He was holding on to her skirt!. while squeezing Claben by the collar… He was afraid she’d yell outside.. but there’s the caliph escaping!.. flattening himself, making himself flabby-wabby under the grip. he sort of melted himself from enormous to all-shriveled-up under the force… his whole big ass, his big belly. he’s slipping.. dissolving. he gets away. just look at him! Pop!. he’s up again! All balloon! He springs up from the combat! He rushes to a big knife there on the table.. Luckily I move fast, I grab him by his skirts… his baggy pants, I tear at his silks, head over heels!..Pa-ta-ta-boom!. His ass in the air!. Ah! good thing I came!. Boro lets right go of the client… he grabs a rifle from the umbrella stand, a big-game Winchester, an awful bludgeon.. and he runs after The Horror! The fight goes on! He’s going to whack him with the butt! He’s brandishing his blunderbuss in the air! There’s a scramble in the back of the room!. It’s all closed in. muffled. I can hardly see.. just the light of a water-lamp… an oddlooking gadget on the table, there near the customer. a big globe… a drip glass for oil underneath..

I can just about see the hysteria!.. the way they’re both whacking away at each other!. I want the lady at least to be saved!. my presence of mind!. I grab hold of her again in the pile of crockery. I pull her out again by her skirt. I yank! Oh! whiss! I get all of her out! I stand her up straight! vertical! she’s wobbly!. she can’t stand up! she sits down.. she’s breathing hard..

In the back. in the darkness. the two keep at it like mad! a struggle! terrific hmphs!. The old guy’s moneybag turns inside out!. It’d been slung across his back. clink!.. clink!. clink! It all spills!. rolls out. pours. scatters. clinking everywhere! A whole wave of gold!. coins!.. coins!. They go on strangling each other. they roll over together. right in the gold!. horrible grips. They come up against the customer. They knock her off her chair again!

.. She rolls under them again. she’s caught under the wrestlers again!. she’s being crushed!..

"Mister! Mister!” she begs… "The door please!.. the door!”. she’s starting it again..

I can’t pull her out from under the lunatics this time, that’s the end of it now! they’re planted squarely on top of her.. she’s all flattened out!. I crawl toward the door. I give up!

air!. I’m all in!. I’m croaking too!. A puff!.. A breath! Have pity! I’ve made it!.. Oof! I push! The door! The cool wind! Ah! the old man’s choking! Ooh! awful!.. Right in the breadbasket, on top of the other, in the back, in the dark, arms locked!. The air got him! choking outright!

It was too cool! "Asthma! Asthma!” he gasps at me! he’s suffocating!.. puking!.. Ah! he’s going to drop dead sure thing. his eyes are rolling! And it all collapses! caftan, silks, puffed pants, the guy himself.. He’s there on the floor.. he’s drooling. groaning. We unhook his jacket, he’s having convulsions, foaming, a mess!.. he’s going to pass out!.. his eyes are rolling like crazy!. The customer spins round with fear. she flies out through the door!. she leaves everything there!.. her things, her bag!.. her stocks!..

She just about gets out when another dame breezes in.. This one was even worse!. Starts screaming right away.. clamoring! a fit of barking! she’s hardly seen the thing, the pasha like that on his back… a horrible scene right away.. Boro knows her.

"Delphine! Delphine!” he calls..

It’s the maid… He tells me it’s the maid!..

Where’s she coming from?… She immediately throws herself on her boss.. She covers him with tears, with kisses!.. She’s very fond of her Mr. Titus.. She wants him to come right to his senses… to open his eyes!.. Boro’s busy with him, too!.. He also wants him to come around!.. He’s doing all he can.. He’s squatting in contortions.. He’s breathing into him everywhere. in his ears. in his mouth. Ah! the battle’s over!. Now it’s everything to save the man!. He stretches out his arms in the form of a cross… He lifts him up.. lowers him.. artificial respiration. That does him good immediately… He starts breathing a little. they sit him down.. with his back to the wall.. they prop him up with cushions… he breaks down again. slumps again… he f alls to the right. then to the left!. He wants to inhale smelling salts. he mumbles. groans. he wants!. The salts are in the closet! on the first floor! quick! quick! quick!.. Boro can’t go up! He has to work on him. So I jump up!. I find them right away.. The bottle’s empty! Woe upon woe!..

It makes Delphine roar!. What an ordeal!

"Mr. Titus!. Please! Wake up!.. Be yourself!”

Awful clamors! she grabs him. shakes him!. He’s got to come to! got to revive! All means! use everything! She’s an extraordinary maid! blazing with affection and zeal!..You can’t deny it! she’s a fine person! Her boss isn’t a pretty sight! Her hippo’s not dainty! He’s lying there in his silks full of his filth.. his vomit.. he’s still gurgling!.. his eyes are swiveling. they get rigid. revulse. Ah! it’s horrible to watch!

.. and then poof!.. He turns crimson!.. So livid just a second ago!. He’s swelling up with big gobs… his mouth’s full… he makes an effort. Relief comes!.. She holds his head… she helps him..

"Good! Mr. Claben! Good!”

She’s quite pleased.. She’s down on her knees, holding him up.. she’s encouraging him… at every gasp a nice word.. Finally he pukes it all out!.. she’s quite happy!.. He’s still disgorging his bile. and more green stuff. all around.. even over Boro at his side. who’s looking on. it splashes around… I get a big gasp of it too.. He’s feeling much better! He wants to be put back on his bed. There behind the screen… in the shop itself… on the enormous four-poster.. I take a look… I see it… full of furs, piles of them, mattresses. in big soft heaps. We hoist him up on it, whew!. He’s heavy! We arrange his pillows. Have to put his jacket on him, his yellow and purple silks, his turban, he insists on it! He’s getting kittenish again! Ah! that means he’s feeling better!.. Got to let him have all his trinkets, all his pasha junk, his bells and moire ribbons! and now his moneybag! and his blunderbuss!.. top to toe! Fine! He wants all of it right there on his bed!. all beside him!. Right away! He’s quite demanding.. He’s got no more confidence.. and his jeweler’s glass!.. and his carved cane!.. Got to have it all right there!.. He’s had his head punched in… he’s got a shiner!.. blue and red and bleeding!.. and his left eyebrow’s split open!. Delphine’s kissing him. she grabs him around the waist, hugs him. cajoles him, adores him!. She’s an ardent servant!.. Ah! she came in the nick of time!. She’s not too young a woman… I can’t get a good look at her in that damned dive… all windows closed.. just that dirty disgusting lamp that gives light like a turd.. They haven’t opened a blind! He refuses to, won’t hear of it!.. He starts groaning a little. still a bit weak. She throws herself on him with caresses!.. He doesn’t want anyone to send for a doctor… He absolutely refuses.. Delphine’s soothing him.. fondling him… He demands music.. All his ideas are coming back..

"Boro! Boro!” he mutters, whining, unhappy. "Boro! Boro!

The Merry Widow Waltz!”. Still wants it!. He insists on it…

Boro’s sprawled out there collapsed, in a pile of furs at Claben’s side. He’s fallen asleep on the pile. The battle royal’s done him good.. His nerves were wound up.. He’s snoring now with his belly in the air. We shake him.. He’s got to obey!. It’s the sick man’s will..

"Get up! Get up! Get to the piano! You big loafer!”

Delphine doesn’t give a damn that he’s sleeping! Everything for her boy!

"Get up! ”… He’s got to get up, the louse! and right away! "Go on! Go on! Merry Widow Waltz! pianist! damn it!”.. That’s the way they handle him!..

The piano’s upstairs… he’s got to climb up again! He yawns.. stretches.. All the same he goes.. Good God, get going!. He grabs hold. staggers to the rail. Delphine hustles him along.. She has authority over him… Old Potbelly’s still groaning… he wants his music, he’s wailing!.. He’s starting to choke again..

Finally, there it goes!. It starts!. There’s his waltz!.. the notes! at last! the runs!. prelude!. He’s made up his mind!. After all!. A shower!. two trills!. we’re off! pedal!. cascades! triple-time!. spinning round!. it’s delightful!.. the waltz whisks you up!.. the shading. the arpeggio!.. and then largo, rich chords!..

Once started… all you wanted.. never tired.. forward!

.. evenings. nights. if you wanted!. it sort of excited him too, in a way… his big can on the stool, he just kept bouncing around. jigging away in rhythm… it kept him pretty busy.

i have been telling it all like a stick… First I’ve got to organize myself. give you something of an idea, something of a picture of what it was like. the place, the setting.. It’s the excitement that throws me off, flusters me, spoils the effect. I’ve got to react!.. got to describe the whole setup to you.. the Van Claben warehouse, his pawnshop.

It had a wonderful location, just outside Greenwich, right on the park and overlooking the Thames a way off, the whole panorama of the river… a magical kind of spectacle.. From his first-story windows you could see the riggings, the whole India Dock, the first sails, the tackle, the April clippers, the Australian ocean liners.. Farther off, beyond Poplar, the ocher chimneys, the wharves of the Peninsulars, the steamboats from the Straits, dazzling white, with high decks..

Ah! it was an ideal spot, no denying it, for looking out, the view and everything, for anyone who’s got a turn for voyages, navigation, playing truant..

A wonderfully situated house, a whole theatre in front of his windows, an amazing setting of greenery on the greatest port in the world… In the good season it turned straight into a dreamland. Should’ve seen the display of flower beds!. all kinds, yellow, red, purple, dazzling, all varieties, enough to get you all worked up, restore all your confidence, pleasant giddiness..

Only a sullen mope would contradict me!. Especially after the winter of 1915-16, so harsh and merciless. It was a terrific springtime!.. Nature’s maddening sweetness, a blossoming of the grove, enough to bust open the cemeteries! to make the tapers dance a jig!.. I saw it! I can talk!..

When spring started cutting up that way it always had a bad effect on The Horror, whose story I’m telling. it made him jumpy! out of sorts. He didn’t want to hear about blithe blossoming.. He’d shrivel up in a bad temper at the back of his shop, closed in, shifty-looking, he was suspicious of the radiant season, he kept all his windows and blinds shut… He couldn’t tolerate the whiffs of spring. He’d lock up his shop at six in the evening. He was afraid of clematis, of daisy magic, he tolerated only the customers.. All he wanted to see was business, customers, not little birds, no, nor roses. He could take care of himself! He spat on crazy nature!. There was only one thing, for example, that made him woozy, moony, tender, soft, that was music.. Greedy enough to gobble up his hands, a disgusting pig, a damned first-class usurer, you could moisten him only with melody, and not a little either!. Totally!. Didn’t give a damn about tail, tobacco or pretty faces, dead set against whisky, not a homo either, nothing at all, he was really frigid, except to little piano tunes, to melodious fantasy. And he never went out. you had to go and get him. He didn't go out because of his asthma that the fogs from the river would bring on at the first whiff.. I’ve given you an idea of an attack. Boro knew his boss, he’d take advantage of the magic spell!. When he was down to nothing, beaten by the cops or the races, he’d come in from London unexpected, he’d fall on The Horror, attack him by the digestion, and put him to sleep melodiously… If you could have seen the job, the style!.. The old guy would never have admitted that it gave him such pleasure. It was almost his damnation, especially after lunch. Must have been something exceptional, all the circumstances of life, that they’d known each other formerly, in the past, a way off in their youth, for him to let himself be bewitched that way by such a crafty scoundrel, even worse perhaps than himself… I learned all about it little by little. in the course of things. piecemeal. Boro didn’t complicate things, he’d go straight through the shop, without shilly-shallying, not a word, he’d climb upstairs, impolite, attack the ivories. The old guy would curse and swear as he passed, he’d yell out insults, he’d go nuts for a while, he’d call him a hyena, a blackmailer, a stinking disgusting fat pimp.. Boro, who wasn’t tongue-tied, would let him have it right back, there’d be a nice show of fireworks!.. and then it would subside, pretty quickly. They were just being a little kittenish. They were quite pleased with one another..

On the first floor under the beams was the big stock of instruments, especially the strings, mandolins, pledged harps, and cellos, a closetful of violins, bits of guitars and zithers, an awful hodgepodge. a whole cartload of clarinets, oboes, cornets, flutes, piccolos, an entire trunk full of ocarinas, all kinds of trick gadgets for the wind.. and exotic instruments, two Madagascan drums, a tom-tom, three Japanese balalaikas, enough to make all London dance, to accompany a continent, to stock a couple of dozen orchestras in The Horror’s garret alone.. merely with the securities of musicians who’d evaporated… the unredeemed pledges, the junk hanging around. The old guy was supposed to clear it out, to get rid of it all in Petticoat, the headquarters for secondhand stuff, their flea market, so as to give himself room! But he kept putting it off from day to day. It was too painful, he couldn’t make up his mind… He was too fond of his instruments… He even bought up others… especially pianos. The latest one a

Pleyel, a perfect baby grand at retail price, a smart-looking model from Maxon’s, a dream.. Shows you how bad he was bitten!. How music got him.. Not that he played personally, he couldn’t have hit out a note, but his place was full of it and it gave him such a kick that he couldn’t find a reason for putting it on sale.. He accumulated piles of harps and trombones, it was such a jammed chaos under the rafters that it just wasn’t possible. you couldn’t push the door, it blocked all the skylights.. He could have made dough, he who was so damned tight, whence his nickname, old sordid, a monster who’d eat rat, a miser who’d skin a penny, he’d have sold fishbone if there’d been a taker anywhere, but when it came to music he took such a stand that he forgot all about his natural bent..

In order to make room Boro would knock everything right and left.. with big kicks.. he’d pick at something in the pile, a saxophone, a piccolo, a mandolin.. he’d fool around with the gadget for a while.. just so.. a bit of a prelude… a fantasy. nothing at all. he’d drop it. just a whim!. then he’d yank out his piano, ferociously. clear away all the junk. whatever was in his way. the whole museum!. Bara-boom!.. finally installed, stool, all ready!.. on with the waltz!. Arpeggios, trills, gingerbread. you know. plugging it, street stuff.. with the best possible variations for charm. plaintive, tinsel, sob-stuff, it could go on forever.. it was irresistible… It would make a crocodile start daydreaming.. But you’ve got to have the knack.. It’s the magic know-how… to turn on the charm anywhere, jolly place, dull occasion, smart salon, cuckold ball, gloomy lofts, sinister squares, hopeless streets, communions, country inns, All Saints’ Day, low dives, July l4ths!. a zim! bang! ding! and it starts. never meets resistance!. I know what I’m talking about.. Later on, after lots of ups and downs I sold some of that market-place stuff with Boro, that nice strummed jigging.. Should’ve heard our "three-handed” numbers. I did the "one-armed” bass, my octave run, I had time to think about how the charm works.. later on, as the days went by… it has to keep going! that’s the big secret. never slow up never stop! it’s got to keep popping away like seconds, each with its little tick, its little dancing hurrying soul, but, by God, kept on the move by the next one!.. perks you up with a trill.. nicks you!. tinkles right into your worries. plays tricks with time, tickles your trouble, teases, pleases and tinkles your worries, and turn! turn! whirls you round!. carries you off. constant gallop! notes and notes!.. and then the arpeggio!.. another trill! the English air sweeps along cool and saucy!.. a high jig!. pedal thunders! never backs out!. or sighs.. rests!.. that’s what’s sad when you think about it!.. all that wild sweetness, always shooting ahead, note after note. Should’ve seen Boro at it! some performer! when it came to the ivories. flashiness. but flighty rhythms!. and what a repertoire!. some memory!. variations ad infinitum. He, rather uncouth by nature and really just a brute and pretty impossible with his mania for explosives, would get all fluttery, all showery, all elfin!. His mind was in his fingers. Pixy hands!.. butterflies on the ivories.. He’d spin about the harmonies!. snatch them on the wing!. dreams and fancies!. garlands. twists and turns. nimble pranks. Possessed!

.. that’s the word for it!.. by twenty little devils in his fingers!.. Never out of sorts or tired! for hours and hours I’ve seen him like that capering from thirds to fourths and dotted rests… a run.. gingerbread.. never just musing, or sighing.. never a single word. "That’s enough! ”… always brisk.. gay hypnotic nodding with his big dome, five, three fingers, crash!. back to the keynote!. A big chord! sharp! He made it!.. The charm follows through! It’s the old refrain dignified and tricky. Never coming. never ending!. all hearts!. and so much for that!.. and no nonsense!.. and let’s drop the music! and good night for the pedal!.. and it’s just sob-stuff!.. just a plugging!.. sleight of hand!.. crossing fingers!.. beat it, cheapjack!.. and go on, go on!

break down the F!. the A!. the B!. the C! C! skid… at it again!.. beat it to the end of the sharps!. There it goes again!. never dies out!. What a break!. Rum-ti-ti-tum!. Everyone’s puffing! swooning. giving up!. kidding the ivories!. low-down style. rough and winning!. brutal and stinging! with ping! pang!.. loosens the notes!.. wizard with his hands! conquers and strikes!.. dum-ti-ti- turn!.. sweeps all before him!. everyone’s sailing!. everything’s spellbound, dissolved, blinking! blinking at the waves! ding! ding! dong!.. Don’t buckle!.. Hold on to the B! sharp! sharp! sharp!. turn!..

The thing’s been all the rage since, done a thousand times, chewed up, puked out by all the tin pans in the world, by all the jazz bands of the continents!.. by jukeboxes, practically everywhere.. botched-up tinsel.. But at the time I’m talking about, it was still new… a hash no one had ever heard.. the tough sentimental kind of thing, the kidding throb, message of the low-down times that were on their way! roguish tinkling at the corners of squares… at the doors of pubs, the tart nervous music… soft-pedal and oop-la staccato!.. the poker-faced screw, by far the best!.. the cream and pepper!.. no one wanted anything else! cynical, basic and hurried!.. notes stripped!. heart stripped!. turn!.. tarn!. turn!. frolicking, four, five, three-fingered crack! on with the whirligig and with arpeggios and you know what!. hold pedal!. and it’s up in the air!. and not tired on the left. the accompaniment full of little dreams. naughty as possible!. I can’t tear myself away from it!.. No use talking… it sounds delicious!.. It’s spellbinding, it’s free and easy! It’s a treat rolled off by a pianist who knows zum! pim! wham! the heart of things!. who knows how to get at it, merciless! to take command, cruelly, right from the start. to pack the theme in!.. to carry way. and yoop! and zoom!. zim! Keep moving, trills! and chords!.. Shake it, scales sharps galore! Waves all screwball!. It’s tough!. It’s masterful!. puffy!. the spell of technique!..

Titus understood it. You wouldn’t have thought so at first from his face, by looking at him, a potbellied sneaky-looking hippo, stuck away in his filth and semidarkness, and yet he was sensitive, influenced, in seventh heaven as soon as it got going.. hypnotized, frozen, swooning, especially when it went on and on and on.. He’d sit there all washed out, prostrated, aching with the charm. He didn’t dare move at all.. It was just too much.. he’d close his eyes.. he’d shrivel up in his pillows, deep in his easy chair, he’d let the customers float by, he’d stop answering questions.. He’d even put them out.. impolite. with their pledges, their saucers, their secondhand junk. he wanted to be let the hell alone!..

He became indifferent to everything as long as the music kept coming. still kept falling from upstairs!. the waves of harmony!.. the pretty tunes, the playthings, the little rip-plings, the string of variations!.. reeled off this way, that way.. everything that came from that big hulk’s fingers.. sorcery.

Ah! but he mustn’t stop! Ah! by God!. mustn’t slacken a single minute!.. not a second!.. He’d suddenly get awful! he’d yell, swear something fierce!. He’d grab anything.. He’d lose all control!.. Banging on the ceiling, enough to scatter everything!. to bring the house down!. in a fury!

fit to be tied!. Keep playing!. Get started, by God! Death!..

Boro upstairs knew all about it… he knew the act!.. the charm or death! shit!. shit!. shit!. He’d cLaw out the little torture.. He’d announce, yell out his price. his tax!..

"Hand me the money!. One bob, Mister! One bob!.. right away or I won’t ever play again!” One shilling! One shilling! or nothing! The categorical condition. take it.. leave it!..

The musician stuck to his guns!. his shilling right away!

"Have it you dirty dog! Have it you rascal! ”

The old guy thrashed about. insults!. but he had to fork over!

"Here, take it! you pig! you bandit!”

He’d get them. force his hand!. about two or three shillings an hour. two or three pauses!. Boro had character when it came to that!.. He wouldn’t have played again! never!. The old guy had to bring up the two shillings himself!. with difficulty. he’d struggle up the stairs. Boro wouldn’t budge from the piano.. he’d never have gone down.. and then he’d make him wait a little while.. work him up.. susceptible as all that!.. after all, he was fed up!.. let the old boy rave downstairs… let him get jumpy, let him beg again. Then he'd start, very low, muting it all, with a sly turn on the pedal, with a plaintive refrain.. dreamy.. doing the whole bass in arpeggios… the melody, B-minor beaded, and always ragging the tonic! Ah! watch it! Bringing back everything to the quick tremolo rigadoon rhythm. That’s the trick!.. the magic!.. the lost plaintive sweetness!.. Aim! and ding! bim! dead little things dancing to the tune.. three fingers.. five fingers.. and then the rest of it.. and then the chord and everything rushes off!.. goblins!.. and it’s won spruce and shrill!.. all the little live ones dash in! dawdling from a scale played in thirds, weaving motifs, and spattering! all the fingers spattering!.. the brisk rondo!.. the refrain! and everything topples!. and it all zips up again!. giddily!. Zim! Zang! Ping!..

And so on until dinner, sometimes three or four hours at a stretch!.. wilting, galloping! octaves in D!..ding! dim! bim! twitteringly!.. hearts and flowers! five! three! four! Zim!.. a shower of sharps! from sad to gay! and rigadoon!..

In his three or four hours of banging away Boro easily wangled his quid!.. from pub to pub, always his style, "Sugar, please! ”… a dead stop.. and off again… It was flashy stuff, hard work, but not so tough as his number outside. He didn’t like being indoors, he much preferred the street, life in the open air! the piano on wheels to play outside standing up.. Still the street’s no joke, you can realize, much worse than the pubs when it comes to cops. You’re in their paws, that tells everything!.. Always there crabbing and bullying, that you’re bottling up their gutters!. treated like mutts!. And then the street..the competition! the minstrels! the blackfaces!..Ought to see the type! what yappers! coal-heads! they banged out the bamboola! the thing they were doing at the time!.. the day’s jazz.. screaming it out a little like Joconde!

.. their yowling!

The people ate it up!.. Those bums came up from the beaches, they were allowed since the war. They’d finish a sidewalk in three yelps. They’d take in enough for a week! For that, it was less dumb doing the pubs, Boro was forced to admit..

Circumstances forced us to work in the open too, pushing around our instrument on rollers!

Naturally it turned out badly. I’ll tell about it later on..

The mountains of junk around Titus were an amazing sight. Everything was just itching to fall down.. Things would topple over for no reason at all. It would collapse in avalanches, in valleys, in rushes of hardware, over baby carriages, women’s bicycles, crockery and knickknacks, curios, it would thunder down, down on the mattresses pillows blankets enough to cover the fourteen docks, loads of bottle baskets, fiendish slaughters, pyramids of top hats, fans for a thousand tropics, enough to uncurl the cutting blasts, to brush off all the north winds, such a wall of quilts that if they came down on you it meant sure death by soft swooning, a coma under feathers!.. Titus felt quite comfortable in the midst of this enormous mass!.. in the heart of trading.. right in the chaotic crater, that’s where he felt in top form, with a reason for living, right in the sanctuary, behind his globe, his water-lamp… Had to see him in action, there was no one like him for breaking down a customer, for brushing away all his shrewdness. just by undoing the package, his way of feeling the weight of the thing under the lamp shade… the lace.. the tea service, the delicate knickknack, the cherished bauble, the way he depreciated the article, just by breathing on it… so that it wasn’t worth a thing… it was just cheap junk, a rabbit fart… it was amazing enough that he, Titus in person, so difficult and delicate, let himself be interested in such cheap, shoddy stuff, such paltry filthy slop, it wasn’t worth the string it was tied in!.. He’d start just by putting it on the scale. the way he’d tap the pan. it didn’t weigh anything. really nothing!. a piffle!.. He’d listen to the sound of the poor thing… the bright red coffeepot. really it was worthless!. He’d question the person with a frown. How much did he want? very skeptical.. He’d reset his turban.. He’d scratch his head… He wouldn’t hear the answers. The remarks were blotted out because of his hearing device.. He’d take it out just at that moment from under the table… at the end of the discussion, at the final veto… his ear trumpet of great deafness.. He’d blink. squint.. whistle… He couldn’t believe his big eyes.. the naive person was exaggerating so. the nerve!. He’d put in his trumpet again. He wanted to hear it again!. the terrifying figure!. Ah! shocked!. couldn’t be possible! He didn’t believe his ear! He’d raise his eyelids to pronounce judgment. his offer? a tenth!. if that! And maybe!. first a fiver and then! and then that was all! Take it. leave it!.. he’d bring the drama to a quick end. Ah! not another word! not another sigh!.. It wasn’t worth insisting. He’d settle down in his easy chair.. He’d pull his big coat over him.. lower his turban over his eyes. He stopped seeing anything!. You wouldn’t see him!..

It was dingy in his place, almost dark, except for the globe lamp on the table which gave out a kind of gleam, an aquarium green. The blinds were never opened except for a moment before dinner when Delphine was cleaning, when the governess came, his "governess”! she wouldn’t have any other name.

"Call me Delphine or governess! but not your maid! I’m not your maid! I’m not your maid!”

As soon as you arrived she let you know then and there what her rank in the house was, so you wouldn’t look down on her, as soon as you said hello, that she wasn’t a maid, "Governess”!.. and in a tone which you couldn’t answer!.. It’d been going on for twenty years!

She didn’t overwork keeping house, it was impossible at Claben’s, she’d sweep the centers of the rooms, she’d pile up the heaps, she’d arrange the valleys, so you could worm your way, get to the door..

Claben didn’t talk much, I mean with his customers, he stuck to his kind of mystery, he’d say things to himself in a sort of Yiddish, had to catch a word here and there. he’d bluff from the start with his pasha’s jacket, his enormous purple and yellow puffs, his jowled pierrot’s head, his threelayered turban.. he’d bewilder them.. he’d shock the timid ones.. he’d let them do the talking.. whereas Delphine was the opposite, constant clamoring.. endless monologues.. about nothing at all. her troubles shopping, in the street, in the stores with arrogant people.. that people had stepped on her feet, here, there, practically anywhere, in the trolleys, in the buses. Touchiness itself!.. She’d go to do her shopping in the center… as far as Soho… at the same time she bought her tickets.. she needed her theatre at least three times a week.. Which means that she followed what was going on! Ah! not like a maid at all!. like a real lady, like a governess!

.. Sometimes.. not very often.. there’d be spells of absence.. she’d stay out a week. she’d come back streaked, swollen, her face all mottled, she’d got into a brawl with riffraff.. her dress in rags.. and she’d drunk all her dough.. her whole ex-teacher’s pension, all her wages from Claben, plus a tiny bit of cash that came to her from an aunt. she had to resign from teaching three times, we learned how, little by little.. because of violent rows she raised with her pupils over trifles, terrible changes of character!. much later she realized what she was really cut out for.. her true vocation.. her tragedy!

she knew how to tell about it. to anyone who’d listen..

and even those who weren't interested.. she’d let them see how educated she was! and what feeling she had!..what emotiveness! what soul! ah! it was something out of the ordinary!..

She’d interefere in the business, too, at the drop of a hat.. she took all kinds of liberties!.. in the midst of a discussion about a pledge she’d put her word in.. these unheard-of interruptions would drive Claben crazy, but he kept his temper and didn’t bawl her out, she would have been sore, might never come back. And he couldn’t do without her.. not that she was very honest, she stole lots of little things from him.. but someone else would have been worse!. It was far too tempting in his shop… too much of a bazaar, the whole enormous place… He preferred to keep Delphine and spy on her to death. They didn’t argue very often except over the word "governess”.. but about that every day. He hated the word "governess”..

"After all, Delphine, I’m not weak in the head!”

"I’m not your maid either!”

That was the answer. Always the same argument. Still if she’d done housework elsewhere she’d have been called a "maid”! She wouldn’t have got away with it!.

Later on in all confidence she told me about it.. she confessed everything..

"You understand? Between you and me. I’ve acted, I have! ”

Big secret. hush-hush..

"I’ve acted, haven’t I? In the theatre! Ah!”. She enjoyed your surprise. Were you by chance interested in it? Delphine? Delphine?. Didn’t that name mean anything to you?

Besides, always dressed up, hat, gloves and everything, all rigged out, except when she’d come back from her big drunks… in awful states.. her swinish sprees..

She’d stand in line for hours for the pit, the English nigger-heaven, all dolled up, feathers all over, silk evening dress..

At Claben’s she had a fancy choice, wardrobes galore! a whole floor of evening gowns, she was spoiled, all colors and materials, she’d borrow them, bring them back, she could bluff all Greenwich with her outfits, and even the streets in the center of London, and the lounges of the big theatres!. And she did!.. She didn’t miss a single premiere! nor the slightest artistic "event”.. She’d walk there and back.. she didn’t go unnoticed, she’d be seen in all kinds of outfits. she’d strut about between the acts, first and last one in the lounge.. She’d take from Claben’s wardrobes all the styles, winter and summer, of the past hundred years.. Naturally people noticed her, they’d take little digs at her, it sometimes caused incidents. but altogether things went off all right. Dignity!. But once at the Old Vic, carried away with enthusiasm, she’d disturbed the performance..

They were playing Romeo and Juliet. She’d screamed from the balcony… screaming congratulations at Miss "Juliet” Gleamor.. The cops had thrown her out.. She’d been wounded to the quick.. She’d postponed it to the intermission. Not tamed by any means!.. let the two thousand spectators see what real theatre was!. soul!. fire!. ringing text!.. She herself had played the text from the very top of the balcony.. jammed with people!.. the big "Duo” scene!

What a triumph! Endless applause! Romeo Juliet! Of course, they’d thrown her out again! The police!.. But how the spectators ate it up!. All standing and yelling enthusiastically!. She’d done the same thing all over again elsewhere.. from one theatre to the next. always impromptu!. always from the balcony!. the whole theatre would turn to her.. acclaim her! and always after the second act.

The performers would get to know her, she’d go to see them in their dressing-rooms.. She was often disappointed by the personal contact… "Excitable… but no soul!”. That was her verdict! She didn’t want any actors’ photos, even personally initialed, she’d refuse outright, even the great Barrymore’s..

"Poor mortal soul!”

That’s what she called him.

She took pity on all of them, however famous they might be, she thought them pygmy, piddling, lost in the presence of the masterpieces.. crushed by the text. Glad that she didn’t get angry!. She didn’t miss a thing during the season! Punctual at all the classics.. first in line for the pit.. often two and three times a week… of course it cost something!.. But she was independent, she pointed out, her little income, her pension, but still a little close for all her "spirituous” needs besides and her worldly life!.. She wouldn’t have been able to dress up.. But being "governess” at Titus’ made ends meet. the evening gowns and the pubs, and in addition all her freakish ideas, theatre, big musical galas, charity evenings.. She’d be everywhere.. More so since the war with parties for the wounded, recitals of the great virtuosos..

She was ready out of kindness to do some errands… to do little things for Titus. But only as a personal favor she let him know. not at all as a servant!. Ah! not a servant! She never took off her hat or her veil or her gloves, she did her housework as she was, harnessed from head to foot! with her feathers, her lorgnette, corset, high shoes, handbag.

"Just let some hoodlum touch me!”. She’d flare up thinking about the impertinent scoundrel. Brandishing her hatpin right away!. A dagger!..

With all her grand manners still and all she’d swipe things. not much!.. just odds and ends. that she’d sell in Petticoat Lane for her little incidental expenses.. not very much, just little trinkets, leftovers. Titus wanted to catch her..

He suspected, of course!.. It was a sort of comedy.. He’d been mistrusting her for twenty years. The mistrust was mutual.. From the moment she arrived he didn’t take his eyes off her.. until she left! In order that not a single movement, the slightest gesture, might escape him, he’d observe her with a spyglass from the other end of the room, his navigator’s "Zeiss.” He wanted the windows wide open while she moved the furniture around, it was the only time of the day he wanted to see clearly. so she wouldn’t run away with some treasure, an item in his great collection. He’d climb up the stairs, to the very top, he’d put on three or four overcoats because of the drafts. on top of his pasha brocades. He’d pull down his turban, squatting on the stairs, his blunderbuss on his knees, he wouldn’t let Delphine out of his sight. with the spyglass… It might last for hours..

"Delphine! Delphine! Hurry up!”

She’d whip up a sirocco on purpose, whirlwinds, hurricanes of dust. They’d be completely enveloped. He’d cough, spit, choke, he’d stick to his guns. He’d stay perched up there yelling away at her..

In order to make a little room, she’d poke at the piles, setting off torrents of junk, it would all come tumbling down!.. when it crashed on her, that was another matter! she’d be buried!.. Had to be pulled out from under… the way I’d done for the customer. They’d have to stop yelling at each other, they’d be choking in the dust. When it came to weight, the worst was the bunch of old armor, the whole wall on the left, and the dentist chairs stuck into one another.. When all of that upset!.. Woe!.. In a second the wild session would be over.. they’d had enough choking and yelling and raving!..

"Stop! Delphine! Stop! I’m all in!”

He was the one who’d ask for an armistice!.. Then she’d open the other window, the one on the dead end, the draft would rush through… All the wobbling junk would come thundering down again!. And it was over for the week!..

Delphine would be triumphant on the heap!..

The whole effort for nothing!

My name is sweet Jenny!

My father ’e’s deafy!

Now I am the Queen!

The refrain! Quite satisfied! So much for Titus!.. She’d won!.. The customers waiting outside would start getting restless.. grumble, frowning.

Claben would start snarling too.

"Come on! Hurry up, Delphine! You see I’m catching cold!”

She still had to do the bed, the enormous heap of furs.. the back of the den… He never left his premises, never got undressed, he kept all his clothes on, his cloaks and his turban, he buried himself as is beneath the pile of sables, sealskins, minks… he slept with one eye, always worried about robbers.. Protected against drafts by the huge tapestried portiere, I still see the gigantic thing that cut the whole place in two, the "Prodigal Son”..

He’d cough, sniffle, wheeze… he was really going to catch cold. He was sore at Delphine… It was just about over.. The two or three big valleys of junk just about under control.. shakily stacked against the walls.. Delphine would shut the blinds, Titus would light his globe, his water-lamp. poke at the Greco-Byzantine incense burner.. swinging from the ceiling.. when it sizzled, smoked hard, he’d take a deep sniff. he was ready for business!. The customer would sit down facing him.. the discussion would get started.. but interrupted immediately. "Ooh!. Roch!”. another coughing fit! Asthma! His asthma! from having sat there like that in the cold! in the dust!. "Ah! now! by God!".. He tried everything for his asthma, all possible medicines, everything in the advertisements. and for emphysema. everything that Delphine brought back from her conversations with the asthmatic housewives in the neighborhood.. Clodovitz’ remedies, unguents, powders, bottles, all shapes and sizes.. Each new specialty.. Delphine would drop in at the hospital, would never return without a few drops, two or three phials, the day’s wonderful new product!. He tried everything!.. All the weird smells, all the worst quack powders.. he’d sniffed them all.. the headiest aromas, the most awful fetid scents.. absolutely everything for asthma.. wheeziness from the fogs.. When that got him! what a panic!.. Should've seen his eyes then!. the horror that seized him! All kinds of plants in a plate that were burned at the critical moment. Once it was Senegalese herbs with a bitter stink that’d knock you over and then little ground shells that he took before going to sleep.. It could also be smoked in a pipe.. The customers, in order to win him over, so that he’d be a little less of a louse when it came to renewals, were very anxious about his condition, they’d talk to him about his illness, they’d ask how he was, they were very concerned, they’d bring him candy, eucalyptus tablets to be inhaled over sugar as they were being burned.. You can’t imagine what a stinking horror that was! He tried all their stuff, he tried whatever they wanted, but he wasn’t much better. In fact it was even getting worse. his nose was rasping more and more. especially since the big bomb explosion, since the night of the Zeppelin, when it fell on Mill Wall, less than a mile away!. it had shaken everything, his house had got a jolt, been hurt. he’d thought it was the end! he’d sprung from his furs, squirted into the air, fallen on his belly with his full weight! Och! What a shake! a catapult-shock! He reacted two days later by throwing a fit, so intense and acute that he lay gasping at the bottom of the staircase!.. his tongue drooping to the mat. trying to catch his breath!.. for at least forty-eight hours unable to go up or down or even move, or call for help, his tongue completely tied, unable to answer anyone. The clients, after waiting, had alerted the neighborhood, sent for the firemen, the neighbors, the park guards, they’d forced the locks, they’d thought he was dead. That gives you an idea of the character.

They didn’t complain about him at Cascade’s, they didn’t think he was too much of a snarling haggler, considering the kind of louse he was, taking advantage of poverty, a bloodsucker, and so on. Naturally he’d handle things that came to him from Cascade’s, but never large quantities, just knick-knacks, odds and ends that the girls wangled from the customers, small stuff.. more or less as a joke.. more or less gifts.. Cascade didn’t encourage them… He didn’t like thieves.. but it was hard stopping them.. they were stubborn about it, they had to rummage around in pockets!. gold pencils!

cigarette holders!.. and even watches and chains!. Cascade didn’t want the stuff around!.. he’d fly right off the handle! Had to get rid of it! then and there!.. Titus for that, the sleight-of-hand artist, never a question!.. right to the melting pot!.. And that was the end of it!.. And he’d forget about it at once. Never a slipup. mum’s the word!. And he’d stop remembering even more quickly!.. neither the objects nor the women!.. He’d forget everything, lightning! He’d even kid us!. He didn’t even remember our faces!. That was his charm! the lightning way he forgot!. Lots of people came to his pawnshop. what a stream from five to six! people of all conditions. the modest and arrogant!. hell-raisers and ass-lickers. Bad luck strikes everywhere.. but his real business, his regular clients, were the ordinary people, the little crowd from the neighborhoods opposite.. jobbers, workmen, small business… Mainly from the other side of the Thames

Eastwall. Wapping. Beckleton. also a lot of little retired shopkeepers, waitresses, fishwives, artisans, a little of everything.. But the number of self-respecting people who didn’t want to be seen carrying their gewgaw "to be hocked”. And he had competition! He wasn’t the only one in the East!.. Mile End was jammed with pawnbrokers, hock shops in every building, but on top of one another, shops side by side, it got them pretty upset to be seen like that waiting around there. Whereas at Claben’s it was after all much more discreet!. there weren’t windows all around, just the clear view of the park. And then it was a trip, had to take the penny boat.. And besides, right next to the park… if you met anyone. if you were a little low at the moment. it was easy to be taking the air. you were just out walking. you could carry it off..

I’ve said that Claben didn’t talk much with the customers.. but he’d give the article a long going-over. he’d examine it in detail.. he’d squint at the trade-mark.. he’d come closer with his big glass… it would squeeze against his jowls, he’d press so hard on it that his cheeks would touch his ears… so passionately.. He’d forget his asthma.. He’d take another glass… a still bigger one!.. an enormous one… so as to see the thing better.. he’d be so nervous examining it that in his excitement he’d jolt everything, the table, the water-lamp, the armchair. he’d snuffle and flounder around so that he couldn’t talk… He didn’t have many teeth left, he’d splutter over his stumps, it kept him from swallowing.. Delphine had to chop up everything fine, especially meat, his big beefsteaks at two and six! The customers liked him as he was, that’s a fact, maybe because of his hocus-pocus, his oriental jacket, his Ali Baba style, his incense, his hangings, everything.. The English like it when foreigners remain quaint. and don’t start playing the gentleman, and stay as is, humbugs… a sort of monkey… I never saw Claben bawled out for his performance, his extortions, yet he was a louse, the worst vile stingy hyena when it came to usury and dishonesty! A skunk when it came to "lend and lease”! Never a day’s, a penny’s grace. the worst tyrant about extensions… he’d fleece them to zero!.. he’d finish off even the most decrepit woebegone wrecks.. he’d suck them beyond the bone!.. and he’d insult them besides into the bargain! Called them lower than worms for being the tiniest bit late! Should’ve heard his jabbering! The way he shook down poverty! It didn’t do him any harm. on the contrary!.. When he had one of his big attacks, almost dead, there’d be a rush, a crowd from all parts of the city asking about him, bringing him consolation, good wishes, flowers and fruit. he had some small customers who’d been skinned to the quick, from whom he’d taken everything, their tables, watches, door mats and who still came back to see him.. just so, without any hard feelings, who even brought him other customers, acquaintances from here and there, people who were also hard up… He didn’t even say thanks. Often they came from far away to pay him a quick visit, leaving their work when it was cold, freezing, rainy, hailing, just for the satisfaction of seeing their Horror at the back of his den gasping, sniffling, groaning, just to see that he wasn’t dead. That was the wonder of his charm. All he spoke to them about was hard cash, hardly ever a decent word.. That’s how it was and that’s all there’s to it. The worst cutthroats of the poor enjoy prestige.. often fawned upon, soft-soaped, while the nice ones are massacred. pulverize some poor guy and no crapping around!.. take advantage of utter misery so they puke blood, that’s the very essence of magic, real spellbinding, the height of beauty!

Let’s talk about it some more.

Here’s how the man and the shop presented themselves.. Titus Van Claben and partner. .The sign over the zinc emblem The Three Globes. Pawnbroker. On Securities and Personal Word. .right on the balcony in yellow and gold.. I never saw the partner.. Probably didn’t exist.. The personal word surely didn’t exist!

Titus wasn’t in a hurry to open his shop, he’d start around four o’clock.. sometimes later.. The customers who got impatient could take a walk in the park while waiting. could look at the landscape.. cross the lawns till they reached the trees, the big poplars a way off… I mean when the weather was nice.

It was full of games, merry-go-rounds, flocks of children!.. If the kids got in their hair the waiting customers could take refuge behind the kiosks, it was quiet there.. they’d feel their linings again.. Whether they’d lost anything.. their locket, their gadget.. Often it was more important, a household article. the coffee mill. the teapot. they’d redo the package.. the newspaper… As soon as Titus opened they’d all rush up..

"Don’t shove! One by one! Close the door!”

Fine, very well, so the other one’s playing, the old guy’s keeping more or less quiet. That is, he’s wheezing less.. We hear Big Ben ring out eleven o’clock. Boom! Boom!.. The strokes roll off into the clouds..

Briefly that’s the setting..

It’s not much of a risk now… I can tell you everything.. the whole comedy. It’s been ages and ages! Boy, and how! That’s all done with!. It’s a dream. just images left.. imagination!. and then there’s been the war of 1939- and then what you know about. It’s like another world now.. Too bad.. Really too bad.. I’ll probably never see the real places again.. They won’t let me go back there.. still, let me tell you, it would be my last wish. They’ll hang me first.. It’s too bad.. it’s a pity.. I’m forced to imagine.. I'm going to create a little artistic effect. You’ll excuse me. I wouldn’t have liked being reduced to melodrama. All the same isn’t that my case?. Just put yourself in my place. I wouldn’t like someone to be telling you things the wrong way.. later on.. when there won’t be a single witness left… no one living. when it’ll be just loose talk. old wives’ tales.. scraps of cheap smears.. Ah! They’ll get a good kick out of my suffering, tossing dirt at me right and left!.. If I don’t take full precautions I’ll be blackened in advance, if I don’t tell all the details starting today, starting now! not in an hour!

everything very scrupulous, exact, meticulous!.. So I’ll go on with my whole story, at Big Ben’s Boom! Boom!. the strokes rolling off into the clouds.. rumbling in the echo.. that’s exactly how it was… I’m not trying to play on your feelings. I’m not straining for effect. The foghorn. the boat going upstream. You hear its big puffing close by. It’s true, it’s passing right alongside you.. The power it breathes, the way it inhales, its propellers grinding away like all sixty.. right near the bank. the water whispering.. just enormous.. "Choo! Choo! ”… It’s passed by..

Upstairs Boro’s fallen asleep playing the Merry Widow Waltz. He’s slumped on the keyboard, his head on his elbows.. That’s how he’s sleeping, very uncomfortable..

Downstairs in the shop the two of us and Delphine are dozing. We’ve finally fallen asleep.. But the old guy’s starting to choke.. He’s asking someone to go get his salts!.. He’s acting up again.. Delphine’s all in. she’s also choking a bit.. muzzled up. the atmosphere’s awful.. thick with fumigations, all the muck for asthma. Ah! I’m getting fed up!.. getting tired of all the guy’s quirks!..

"Hello, Mr. Claben! Hello! Please now, try a little air!”

She pleads with him to let her… let her open the door a bit. it’s true that we’re dying in the joint, it’s so thick and close, but he’s hostile, he won’t have it!..

"Open it?. Open it?” he gasps..

He stays like that with his mouth open..

"Mr. Claben! Mr. Claben!” Delphine groans.

But he absolutely won’t even let her touch the latch.

The stubborn louse!..

I go to get the brandy, we wet his lips with it..

I can’t find the salts. The brandy’s strong, he writhes and squirms. Then Delphine and I have a drink. I’m not a drinker but there’re times you need it… need it or not, Del-phine’s always boozing… I leave her the bottle, she helps herself.. two.. three.. four stiff ones, one after the other.. then she gets an idea..

"I’m going,” she says.. "Don’t hold me back! Neither of you! I’m going to get the doctor!”

There’s decision for you! She rearranges her gear, her skirts..

"Dr. Clodovitz! naturally!. The perfect man! the perfect man!”

A pronouncement!.. It wasn’t a bad idea. I’d even say it was a fine one.. but the hospital wasn’t around the corner.. Boy, what a stretch!.. First she had to go to the Tunnel. then cross under the river. and then all along Wapping, on foot, in the dark, and all alone.

It was foolhardy. pretty unhealthy alleys.. and not lit up at all.. well, almost not. They were expecting attacks, maybe some more Zeppelins and they were saying even airplanes which were supposed to fly all over Wapping because of the factories and loaded with terrific bombs. The streets weren’t at all safe. Not only because of the Zeppelins!. There were also prowlers taking advantage of the darkness. But she insisted, she wanted to save her Claben!. At once!.. absolutely!. It’s true he was having a pretty bad time. He wasn’t red now, as he’d been awhile before but pale pallid almost gray… He was fully conscious.. He was groaning quietly between gasps. We finished the bottle and a second one, too, discussing whether she’d go for Dr. Clodovitz or not.. The second bottle was cognac.. We got so excited that we woke up Boro. He was grunting upstairs.

He comes down. He starts wanting to drink everything!.. So does the old guy!. "Myum! Myum!” he mutters. with his whole mouth… he can’t budge, still and all he winks at us so we’ll understand. We soak his lips with booze but ne can’t swallow anything.. Seeing him so sick Boro starts petting him, smiling at him… he kisses him.. soothes him.. That starts Delphine wheedling him.. what a big tender moment!

You can see she’s jealous. she wants all the kisses for herself.. Finally they huddle together.. they fiddle about and cuddle, they get all tangled up right in the poor patient’s bed… I hardly knew what to say or do with all that going on, but I was comfortable, that was all I asked for, I’d fixed up a kind of litter with the oriental rugs, the woolens and the coverlets, stuck in between the wall and the wardrobe… It was pretty good!.. I wasn’t asking for anything else.. It reminded me of when I used to be on stable watch, but I wasn’t in the manure now! in brocades and plush! "All right!” I said to myself.. "Let them enjoy themselves! let them enjoy themselves! youth doesn’t last! That’s all right with me.. But I’m going to take a serious nap! afterward I’ll go to the kitchen. I’ll find a bite to eat. But after the workout I’ve had, hit the hay first!. Ah! a good snooze!. hunger can wait!”.. Go fuck yourself! Just at that moment Delphine starts yelling! Bawls us out!

We’re murderers and ought to be ashamed! we’re not letting her get the doctor! Our behavior is frightful!. She’s raving!..

"Mr. Claben! Mr. Claben!” she yelps. "You need a doctor!

.. You need a doctor!”

The old man’s in a state of collapse but he’s still wary, damn it!.. He’s not staying alone with us!.. He doesn’t have confidence! He grabs on to her lace!..

"Be a lady!. Be a lady!” he whines. "Don’t go out at night! ”

"But I am a lady, sir!.. I am!”

She a lady?. Ah! What a question! a lady and how! quite a lady!. and of the very finest quality!. He mustn’t doubt that! She immediately takes offense! She shows him!.. She grabs her gloves, she straightens her hair, her hat, her flowers, her plume, a pin for her veil! and there she is all dressed up!

absolutely ready!. Mind all made up!

Hail Delphine! Hail you beauty! O hail! Nobody’ll prevent her! So have a drink!. and courage!. hurrah for her determination!. Madame Daredevil!. Even Claben’s singing, gasping hoarsely! The dashing verses! the galloping send-off! The parting shot!. So all together!. Glory to valor! She’s not scared of anything!. of the darkness! of hoodlums! of ruffians! no more of Zeppelins than of butter! Let 'er bring back Clodovitz!

Delphine! oh! Delphine! oh!

For she’s a jolly good fellow!

En route!

She’s gone! at a quarter to two in the morning, dressed to the nines, in fine array!

It was dark in the streets, as I’ve said, just a small camouflaged street-light here and there around the crossings.

We go back to sleep again, good-by!.. We’d opened the window to let out the smells, we stopped bothering about the old guy, he was choking comfortably!.. Time passed!.. Sleep, it’s easy to say.. First my ear wakes me up.. buzzings, jets of steam… I go back to sleep.. the nightmare gets me again. I’m awakened four or five times in a row!

Ah! it’s bad!.. I toss! I turn!.. twist around. two hours pass like that.. finally just about… a racket at the door.. it’s Delphine. she’s calling. There she is again!. back again!. Ah! the old hag!. All I needed!. I wanted to go back to sleep. She was in a stew!. I’m telling the truth.. Half-nuts!.. terrified!.. shivering!. out of breath!. wildlooking!

"Ah! Gentlemen!.. Gentlemen!”

She couldn’t get it out!

She was panting!

“If you’d seen that face! ”

“What face?” we ask her.

“The man’s face! ”

"Whose face?” we insist.

“The one who gave them to me.”

"Gave what?”

"The cigarettes!”

She opens her hand.. cigarettes stuck together, gummy.. in green paper, pasty..

She starts puffing again, then she explains.. she finally gets it out.. Here’s the story.. Right at the exit of the tunnel, at the Embankment. after Wapping, a man had fallen on her, just like that!.. Plunk!.. from above!.. A dark little man!.. He’d sort of tumbled down on her from the very top of the lamppost! right on her hat!. They’d rolled over one another in the tunnel! Luckily he wasn’t heavy! not at all heavy! She hadn’t been hurt at all! Fortunately! What luck!. The little man was light.. Like a kind of bag of bones!. light!.. light!.. A real bag of bones!.. He was even rattling all over while she was tussling and struggling with him!. When they’d both got to their feet the tussle continued.. The little man’s arms were like sticks.. She’d noticed that right away.. and she’d yelled! but it hadn’t done any good! There’d been no one around! Wapping Alley! just imagine!

And that wasn’t all!. The man had spoken to her!. That terrible bony ruffian! She remembered his words! not as crazy as that!. She even imitated him!. In a nasal voice, like that… in a queer kind of English besides.. She thought it was rather Scotch.. He certainly wasn’t from London..

"Don’t be frightened, pretty Delphine!” that was what he said. ‘‘I shall be the angel of your big love!”. his very words. *‘I wish you all the luck in the world!. I want to save your dear Claben!.. My gentle dove, won’t you make him smoke these magic leaves?.. Here you see them rolled up preciously ready for use in these lovely water-colored petals!

Let him inhale the three elements!. Fire!. wind!.. smoke!. How intoxicating to smell them!. Run! Run!.. Run, gentle Delphine!.. Go back to his bedside quickly!.. Don’t go any farther!.. I am the Sky Physician!.. The Magus of souls!. I can give breath to the dying!. Don’t go getting lost in the city! Don’t let yourself be lead astray by the spells of the Cloven Hoof!.. The devil is a sprite to mad maidens! Be careful, Delphine! Be careful!. The charm of the air!”

Smoke!.. Smoke!.. hardly had he uttered these words than he shriveled up, curled on the sidewalk.. there beneath her eyes!.. a piece of rag right under the lamppost!. and then nothing at all!. it hadn’t lasted long!. She’d dashed straight ahead!.. double-quick time!.. He kept shriveling as he spoke. she was still telling about it. he was curling up. finally just a tiny ball!. there under the light!. a little heap of rags!. then nothing at all!. Ah! she hadn’t shillyshallied! she’d dashed straight off! her skirts under her arms! her belly absolutely to the ground! gone back under the Thames! taken the tunnel of the depths!. She arrived home spluttering, all pooped, knocked out by the running! He was a little man all dressed in black!. That was all she knew about him… He was full of bones, supposedly. pointy everywhere..

Some hell of a story! The way he’d thrown himself on her! Plop! from the lamppost!. swooped down on her!. right at the Tunnel exit!.. with all his weight!. not heavy! just bones!. sure of that! positive!..

All the same he was strong in spite of his being so light! struggle as she did, he’d kept her in his arms!. in his bony embrace!.. covered her with kisses at the same time! and then right away the cigarettes!.. "Here, Delphine!’’. his hand full of them.. There were the cigarettes!.. no denying it!. sticky, gummy, green.. She lifted her veil to get a good look at them. there on the table. and it wasn’t an illusion!.. She couldn’t get over it!.. There was even a bit of bone with the butts!. a tiny yellow piece! A bonelet!. Ah! it was beyond dispute!.. and then the words he had uttered.. "Oh, Delphine! I’m your friend! Your friend! The Sky Physician!” She kept repeating it to us. "Your friend!. The Sky Physician! ”… His very words!..

We tried to figure it out. who could it have been? all three of us. maybe it was a vampire?. maybe a priest?.. maybe it was a German disguised as an eccentric?… a funambulist? a ghost?. some practical joker?.. But we really knew nothing!. We sniffed at the cigarettes. They had a queer smell!. not at all the smell of tobacco. rather like honey and sulphur… a mixture.. really not a tempting aroma.. But it got the old guy at once. Naturally! his taste!. He wanted to sniff at them over and over!.. Kept sticking his nose into them without a stop!.. pushing his whole face into them. stuffing them up his nostrils!. a real infatuation on the spot.. Then he wanted to chew them.. that seemed to do him good… I must say it might have worked.. Both of us tried. with a drop of cognac! but smoking them was another matter!. The dark man had told her! Ah! he’d warned her and kept repeating! that it cured the sick but would kill a healthy man outright!. Ah! no mistake! any healthy man! That left us a little puzzled.. All the same chewing made us awfully thirsty.. There was some gin in the cupboard.. more gin! it’s refreshing with water.. We tossed off a whole bottle!

and then a whole bottle of cider with it at the same time! first-class cider!. with kirsch in it!.. there goes the old boy drinking!.. That does him even more good!.. Ah, now were getting all nervous. We start arguing again! We’ve got to make up our minds!.. whether we smoke these phenomenal butts or not?… the sky weeds, God damn it!.. That’s the word for it!.. We stood there in a muddle..

Boro starts tearing one open!. he stuffs it into his pipe.. lights up… it was burning all right… It smelled all right as smoke. I wanted to try, too. it might be good for The Horror. We were always thinking about his good… it resembled eucalyptus in a way… he always smoked a lot of eucalyptus. the poor guy.. Immediately we all take a puff. then two. then three. The old guy’s inhaling the smoke all the way down. he swallows it. ours too. he’s inhaling everything… it seems to be working.. he’s breathing better.. it eases him!

"Feeling grand, boys! Feeling grand!”

He’s feeling high.. and letting us know.. Suddenly I’m happy with him..

"It’s going to my head!. I’m woozy!. I feel just delightful!”

Those were my words after about ten minutes… I remember exactly!. And then I felt like vomiting. not much, just an idea… I held it in. Plain nausea… It sure went to your head… It came out of your eyes. like sniveling. Boro said he wasn’t seeing straight either..

"You’re double!” he says to me. "You’re double, fathead!”

The Horror was getting high!.. He was inhaling more than we were… he was jumping around in his furs. He was more comfortable, too… He was lying down… it was getting him real hot. He was jumping on the bed. He was getting all passionate. even while choking away. He grabs hold of

Delphine… He squeezes her with all his might… he throws her down on his couch! still out of breath… He puts his tongue into her mouth. all the way in. he’s declaring his love.. while coughing and smoking away… It was quite an act!. the smell was revolutionizing him!. Ah! I thought he was going to croak the way he was tossing around coughing.. Delphine, that was another matter. She was cluck-clucking away!. she escaped!. came back!..

"Oh! cluck! Oh! cluck!.. please Mr. Claben! ”… while twisting around on the bed swooning.. most happy.. cluck! cluck!..

They were both urging me to take a cigarette!..

"Smoke, my boy!. Smoke!”

It was making me sick. Everything was going round. I was seeing stars… but mine was just starting!.. It couldn’t’ve been tobacco. It was far more brutal!. It was wooziness with a wallop… the real thing!.. no laughing matter… It immediately made Boro queer.. maybe in a quarter of an hour.. maybe just two or three cigarettes.. completely off!.. He wants to go up the stairs… I see him trying.. holding tight to the rail. Oh! Whiss!. Step by step!. When he gets to the landing. he turns around. he rolls about-face!.. Zoom!.. He topples straight into space!.. It’s fantastic!.. He’s not scared!. not at all!. through the air!. Boom!.. He falls right in!. into the junk. He disappears into the crater!.. into the porcelains! the crockery! He emerges delighted!.. He brushes himself off. shakes himself! He’s going up again! He hasn’t dropped his pipe. it’s still lit!. His hands are bleeding a little… He wants to start all over. He’s going up!.. to the top of the stairs.. Whiss!.. hop! a tumble!. He’s off again!. higher and higher!.. He’s torn a whole ear off!. Now he’s full of blood!. It gives Titus a big laugh!.. sitting there in his bed… he applauds! he applauds! and then the chortling starts him choking!. The fun’s strangling him!..Our patient can’t take any more! He rolls and convulses over Delphine!.. ah! we’re having a great time!.. the little loonies!.. He loses his turban!. They put it back on. Boro’s laughing hard, too.. all smudged red… ah! we’re plastered to the limit! Those weeds must be poison.. that’s what I’m thinking, the way I see it!. even with all my nausea!.. My idea!.. Just have to see those poor wretches. the way they’re yowling!.. squirming!..

"Poison! Poison! ” I yell to Delphine in English!..

She doesn’t give a damn about poison! she hasn’t taken off her hat, or her veil, or her gloves, she’s simply tucked up her skirts. she’s on top of Claben again! she’s frolicking on him! astride! Giddy-ap! she’s singing. she’s roaring with laughter..

Hep! Youp! horsey!

See me that horse!

Trot! Hi! gallop!

To Burberry Cross!

The charge of the children!..

Ah! some fun!. The old guy’s drooling in the furs. The smoke’s so thick I can barely see them.. we’ll pass out in that atmosphere. "I’m going to run all around!” I say to myself. A sudden idea. it’ll do me good!. around the big heap of furs. I was squatting. Then Boro grabs hold of me. He’s colossal… He lifts me up, he carries me in his arms… I kick, I rear, I bite at his wrists.. He carries me off, anyway!.. He’s as strong as a bear… He rocks me on the bed next to the two pigs. He lies on top of me too. He’s crushing me..belching at me. jabbering at me..

"I love you!. I love you!”.. He’s fondling me. "Ferdinand my baby-face! ” he calls me..

And now the other two, The Horror and his maid, go for my pants!.. they want to take them off!.. they’re dead set on it. they want to go down on me!. They say it right out!

they yell it at me!.. they clutch me, pull at me, roll on me.. they’re drooling on my head.. but Boro won’t let go of me!. hegrips me, chokes me!. He’s much too strong.. All three of us are rolling. we fall down! plop! plunk! from the bed! Whack!. on the floor!. we go sprawling. I tear myself from his grip!. I get out of it!. I stand up. I’m seeing red… I’m going to kill Boro!.. I see the yataghan hanging there in the middle of the room!.. in the air.. very sharp. right in the darkness.. just at my height!.. Ah! it’s going to be a cinch! I grab the saber!. It eludes me!.. What a dope!.. Am I boiling!..

"Shit!” I say. "Just my luck!. It’s an illusion!..”

The rest of them were in stitches watching me carry on that way, their little zany!. they’re laughing at me! They’re in seventh heaven!.. The old guy’s stopped choking!.. He’s cured, sure thing!. They’re necking away hard. giving each other love taps.. They adore each other.. and big gooey kisses.. right in the midst of the hodgepodge!..

"Come and see! ”.. he calls to me. "Come and see! my little bunny!. My little onion!”

It’s The Horror urging me!. I don’t want to go near. Immediately he leans over his table, he shows me his globe, his water-lamp.. with the light in it..

"Look!” he says. "Look!”

We all bend over it.. We look hard… to the bottom.. We don’t see anything at first..

"Don’t you see the man?. Don’t you see the man?” he insists in my ear..

I squint harder… I press my beak.. I’m sort of hypnotized.. maybe I see something in the crystal.. sort of jigging in the ball. but I’m not sure. I lean farther over. I get all the way down.. And Boro goes for me again… He takes advantage of my leaning over… he wants to spank me in public… I give him a stiff clout in the eye… a real hard sock. he goes staggering backwards!. He goes smashing into the sofa! He stays there collapsed! then I go for him! I climb on him! on his big body! I stamp on him! I kick him! I let him have it!. I go right at him!

We’re all pretty tight, no denying it!. Worse than that!

Were boiling!. We’re thundering!. It can’t be what we drank that’s affecting us like that!. There’s no such liquor!

After all, I’ve still got my common sense. It’s the poison cigarettes! That’s it! it’s the cigarettes! I said it as soon as I saw them. I’m going to cut their throats, all of them!.. right now! and no one’s going to stop me! No doubt about it!

.. I feel it!. to make them spit out their lies!. all their lies!.. all over the place!.. I’m going to save them in spite of themselves!.. I see a big battle scene!.. It’s a vision!.. a movie!. Ah! it’s going to be something out of the ordinary!..in the darkness above the tragedy!.. There’s a dragon munching them all!. tearing their behinds out. their guts. their livers. I see it all!. Ah! the poor carcasses!. it’s all dripping bleeding! it squirts in my eye! rip their buttocks out! Ah! there!. that’s a juicy piece. That dragon’s got hooks like sabers!.. the louse!.. He digs into the meat again… It goes "Rrrpp”.. each time!.. The blood squirts all over.. spatters!.. I’m going to pep myself up, too!.. I’m going to smoke up all their tobacco!. That’s it! That’s it! That’s the big miracle! I swipe some from Delphine’s bag. one, two, three, four cigarettes!. the sticky ones.. just wait!. They’ll see how I smoke them!. No monkey business!. another one and then two!.. then twelve!.. I smoke nine of them together!. all at the same time!. My mouth full. all together!. The spoiled brat!. I light up nine of them at the lamp!.. I take a good squint!.. I immediately see the things!. the queer things inside! At the very bottom of the ball!. Ah! he sure was right!. damned old Horror! I’m fascinated!.. It’s my head moving!.. And Boro, his head beckoning. He’s after me, the louse! He’s coming from the back of the shop, feeling his way.. blindly, from one thing to another

"I see you!” he screams. "I see you clearly!. I see you, you wet blanket. It’s some job, huh? you big dope! Come here, pretty boy! Come, I’ll tell you something!”

He takes me by the ear. He whispers to me.. He’s got an idea! Ah! but I’ve got the saber in my hand! I’m armed, fearfully! That’s why he’s joining up with me now!.. Something bad’s going to happen!.. I’m holding the saber in my left hand!. my strong and powerful left hand!. Invincible! I’m going to slit the skunk’s nostrils!.. I don’t like homos!.. What if I cut off his organs?… ah, that’d be something! I’m thinking about it!. I’m thinking about it!. but suppose he went around telling?. Ah! that scares me!. I’m palpitating!.. ah! the gab! the yellow doubt!.. Boro’s really a stool pigeon! A big dirty double-crosser!. He’s in the police, that’s it!. Ah! a rotten hunch! I see him as a policeman! I see him double!. I see ten of him!. with his ten helmets at the same time! Ah! still and all it’s funny! I’ve stopped killing him! I give up the idea!. The old guy’s clamoring again!.. He’s bellowing! He wants the piano!. He’s dreaming a concert!.. He’s having a sweet dream about the piano! The female, too!.. They insist! They’re both crying!.. But Boro, that’s another matter!. The pound they owe him!. They squabble. It’s his dough he wants!. Titus gives in!. He’s ready for great sacrifices! He doesn’t have the strength!. Anything so long as he plays!.. plays the pretty piano! magic! charm!.. One pound!.. two, three pounds!.. ten!.. for the Merry Widow Waltz!.. It’s a craze for chords!.. In short, he’s in good humor.. He’s under Delphine at the moment, just swooning, she’s lapping him, kissing him voraciously.. straddling him.. Suddenly he brutally tears away… he wants to grab me… he wants to play with me!.. But Boro rushes in between us… He doesn’t want it to go on.. He wants his dough and right away!. He wants his twenty pounds!.. Twenty pounds, he demands!.. He swears!.. He curses!.. He’s in a rage!

"You big pig! Twenty pounds! You hear me!..Twenty pounds or I’ll croak you! ”

That doesn’t trouble the old guy… on the contrary!.. you’d think it delighted him… he immediately grabs his moneybag… he who’s usually so shrewd.. who’d skin a flea. he lays the bag on his belly, his big game pouch. He opens it wide!. He plunges into it. It’s the charm acting!

..and no mistake!. it’s miraculous!.. We stand there pop-eyed looking at him!. He’s being as nice as can be. It doesn’t matter that he’s coughing and snorting, he smiles anyhow! he drools, clears his throat, spits out his asthma! with enormous effort! Another big whoop. an awful one!. And then he turns his whole bag inside out. there, plop! on the bed!. clink! clink! clink!.. a wave of gold pouring out!.. all over the furs. the bedspread!. the rugs!. How it flows!.. sparkles!.. clinks!.. I plunge Boro’s hand right into it, right in the cool glittering flood. and then all the coins suddenly go flying off! right in front of our eyes!.. all the money!.. they whirl around! spangle! scatter!.. the whole magic flutter! across the room!. I see a hundred, I see a thousand louis! little ones, big ones, sovereigns!. I’ve never seen so much dough!..The way it twinkles in the atmosphere! nice and dainty! frisky! flighty!. it lights up the whole shop!. with gold and glints. it tinkles!. I stand there popeyed!.. The others are getting a hell of a kick out of me!

.. They’re laughing.. howling at me.. the way I stand there like a dope!. The old guy opens his bag again.. leaves it yawning in the air and all the coins flutter in! come home to the dark hole!. rushing in like little birds into a cage!.. And then he spills it all out again! It tumbles over the table!

.. the whole heap shining!.. It’s time to wash our hands!..

All three of us plunge into the pile, Boro, me, Delphine..

We give our hands a good washing in the treasure!. boy, it’s pretty extraordinary… It’s a real hallucination!.. Suddenly we feel like smoking again!.. And Delphine’s the one egging us on. Ah! mustn’t weaken! in spite of the nausea!

since that’s what prodigies are like! Strength, by the God of the Treasure!. happiness in the air!. you can see it!.. we’re not scared!.. the nausea’s getting worse! We’ll puke it all out!.. We’re down to the last cigarettes!. They’re really intoxicating weeds!. The old guy keeps jeering!. He’s shaking the whole shop with his snickering.. Especially since he’s choking too…

"Stop it, you hyena! Stop it!” Boro yells at him.

The bawling-out steps him up! What joy! he writhes! he chortles!. He keeps guffawing like mad!. We start laughing too! and big cluck-cluckings.. We’re making big gurgling belly music! it echoes all through the joint. That’s the noise we’re making now… It was Delphine who started it.. Cigarettes like that make you awfully thirsty! so hot and bitter!.. There’s nothing left to drink!. It’s awful!.. We start counting all the gold again!.. We’re so god-damned hilarious that we’re practically fainting with laughter!..

No one’d ever seen The Horror displaying all his gold on the table! his entire treasure!.. all the money!. and he’s busting with exaltation! I was helping him hold down the little rascals!. Take it easy!. None of that!. they’re beating it! running out the door!. Oh God!. wide-open there!. Whizzing off!. at top speed!. We all pile on them!. We crush them!. We squash everything!. right on top of them!.. Right on the bed!.. flat on our bellies!

All three of us!. in the big fur!. like nice pleasant friends!. you’d think they were delighted rummaging around in the fortune.. rolling in it on the bed. wallowing in the big heap of gold. It was Boro who got rough… he started it!

Ah! that’s a fact! He wanted to eat one of the coins!.. just swallow it down!. all raw!. a half-guinea! 10 shillings! 6 pence! and then ten!. and then fifteen at a time!

.. whole mouthfuls.. The old man says something to him.. Right off Boro gets red and green with anger!..

Ah! right off, immediately!

"Claben! listen!” he barks at him. "Go on! you’re eating them, too! You big slob! You louse! You big pansy!”

That’s what he calls him!..

"Open your mug! ”

The old guy was giggling so that he couldn’t defend himself!

.. Fell flat on his back with his mouth open. Then Boro starts cramming him. he stuffs him. he rams it down!.. coins by the fistful. like that, by force!. The old guy swallows it all! He puffs for a second!. and poof he rams in another!. another fistful!

"Go on papa! go on! have some salt with it!”

That’s how he talks to him.

No pity!

Delphine was holding up her big darling’s head while Boro was stuffing him. She was giving him big kisses. smack! smack! smack! on his big cheeks… on his big jowls. The old guy’s appetite was enormous! In spite of his choking he kept wanting more! still more!..he wanted to wolf it all down. another little one!. another one!. all the coins!

… all the little coins there on the table!.. The whole pile!. he was still hungry!. He chewed everything! he gobbled it all!.. the greedy pig!

"Another one!. Another!” he kept calling. His throat was full.. shaking with wild laughter!.. his belly was full, making noises. it jingled in his pants!. the more it jingled, the more he laughed!.. his whole paunch making golden noise!

"Another one!.. Another one!.. My love! ”

Delphine kept encouraging him that way… to swallow two, three more!.. There were none left on the table, since he’d gobbled them up. or on the bed either. They turned his bag inside out.. they slapped the bottom.. Nothing left!.. Nothing at all! He’d guzzled them all!. all the gold!. Ah! the big fat dirty glutton!. And he was exulting, delighted!

.. through his coughing fits!.. He couldn’t stop laughing, the freak!. His whole guts jingling!. All the gold in it! hardware!. Jangling! Jingling!. Ah! he was feeling much better!. He sits up. He wants to smarten up, put on makeup!. a little lipstick!. do his eyelashes!. his eyebrows.. Kittenish! Kittenish!

"I want to love you, you little rascal! you little savage!”.. he’s teasing me. He’s steaming, drooling, bubbling, grunting. I can’t move any more. I’m not like him. I feel like lead!. My head! legs! everything!. I’m groggy!. I force myself. uh! uh!. I’m rolling. I tumble off the bed. He grabs hold of me… he hoists me up… he puts me down near them..

Then Delphine starts acting nuts!. she grabs me, she sucks at me!. She’s a vampire!. I’m revolted, tear away!. A mighty leap!. Into the air!. I get away. I’m saved!. I fall down on the rifle!. the big Winchester!.. his hunting gun!. I grab it. I don’t let go!. it melts in my hands!

that’s a fact!. I’m telling the truth! it melts away on me!. The butt stretches like putty, it trickles through my fingers. Marshmallow!. everything I touch melts!. and everything starts turning around the globe! like a merry-go-round.. the water-lamp.. I’m seeing things inside it! I see garlands. I see flowers!. I see daffodils!. I see birdies!. I realize it’s not so. I tell Boro!.. He belches at me!. He’s between Delphine and the old guy!. They’re still at their dirty game!. there in the big bed!. They’re making me sicker!. The guy who guzzled all his dough!. he doesn’t feel sick!. all the money in his bag!. he’s satisfied. he’s hilarious!. he’s jumping around on his big can. he’s squealing with joy!..

Boro’s getting annoyed, he’s getting sore… He demands twenty-five pounds and right away.. Twenty-five pounds then and there.. twenty-five! A big stink, right away!.. no kidding around!.. He’s getting hot under the collar!.. He starts boiling!. He’s acting like my father!. his eyes are rolling, goggling, popping out of his head!. that’s the way he is.

"My pound!” he screams.. "No my twenty-five!.. No thirty!.. Shit! ” He’s always wanting more!..

He grabs him by his overcoat. by his scarf. he’s throttling him!..

"You going to puke it out, you skunk?”

Delphine’s lying there with her head thrown back, grunting, dazed. She’s wailing, puking. The old guy feels like throwing up too. He’s making horrible efforts.. he’s barking!.. He’s beating the air!.. waving his arms around.. All you can see is the white of his eyes!.. He wants to vomit but he can’t!.. not a single little goldpiece!.. he’s convulsing, even disgorging! but only drool!.. only gurgles… not a single coin!.. Oooach!.. Oooaach!.. No go.

"Slit open his belly!. Slit it!” Boro yells to me. wild, dishonest. “Slit it! I want mine right now!. Stop thief!.. empty him!”

He’s talking to me.

That’s an idea!.. It’s superb!.. Ah! I get enthusiastic pronto!

Ah! but what’ll Delphine say?. Ah! I’ve got to wake her up right away!. Got to see the face she’ll make! We’re going to open her guy up!. Come on! I’m shaking you, baby-doll!.. I grab her by the hair, I jolt her!.. I yank her!.. Nothing doing! She grunts but doesn’t wake up! Then Boro gets on the old guy, mounts on his belly!

He’s crushing him with all his weight!.. squeezing his Adam’s apple meanwhile. and harder and harder!. The Horror turns all yellow right away… his tongue’s hanging clean out. He’s not breathing any more, that’s sure!. He’s just a big enormous yellow piece of wax!.. It’s awful to look at! I can’t take any more!.. “I don’t want to see it! ” I tell him right out!..

"Come here!’’ says Boro…he’s ordering me besides!.. "Come on, mopey!. Got to give the poor guy some relief!. You’ll see! We’re going to do him lots of good!”

Ah! it’s about time!. what a fine idea!. I’m all for it!

right away!

So we grab him by the shoes… we lift up the whole damned bulk another little bit!. Wow! He’s heavy!. He’s heavy!

Good and heavy!. head hanging down!. heavy as an ox! Whiss! lift! Ah! It’s tough work!..I’m sweating!.. streams of it!. makes me close my eyes!. Whiss! Another big tug!. Whiss!.. and poof!. let go!. plop!!! his hard skull on the stone floor!. it jolts the whole shop!. The whole place jumps with the shock!.. the turban comes off. rolls away!. and we start all over!. Whiss!. once! twice! mustn’t give in!. Up in the air. and bangg!!. all his weight!.. he’s going to puke up his nest egg!.. No go! No go!.. Doesn’t puke! Nothing!.. Doesn’t throw up a single coin!. It’s dumbfounding! It dumbfounds both of us!. It gets us damned sore again!. It’s not high enough from the bed!. Got to lift him way higher! an enormous height!

Ah! that’s the idea!. hoist him up again by his capes, head down!. Up the stairway!. all the way up!. Oooh! whiss! all the steps!. the whole flight! Oooh! whiss! and up! let ’er go! boy, it’s hard work!. keep at it! Ah! that does it! here he is! Let ’er go! Whang! What a crash! whang! his big head!

.. the whole floor shakes with the shock!. not a peep out of him!. not the least sigh!. not an oof!. He crashed. That’s all!.. We can’t leave him like that!.. We jump on his belly. We bounce up and down on it!. to see if he’s going to puke!.. Go fuck yourself!.. Doesn’t say oof!.. not the slightest hiccup. We bend down to look at his face. we put the globe lamp right against it. his head’s split! Wow!.. a hole right between the eyes… A crack!.. a noseful of snot dripping… Hasn’t said oof! Just like that, ringing his head!. Boro stares popeyed. It’s all white. all gooey.. all the same it’s a surprise… He didn’t say oof!.. hasn’t puked up a coin!. not one little sovereign!. Ah! the mule! He’s stubborn!..

"Hey! ” Boro exclaims.. "Hey, you!.. Can you imagine such a louse? Didn’t even burp!”

I look at him. I don’t get it. And then I sit down, God damn it!. That was some job!. He sure w^ras heavy!.. We had a tough time!.. I wouldn’t’ve believed it!.. It made me dizzy!. Even Boro was knocked out!. And yet he’s a real husky!. We both sit down. We just sit there like dopes. We’re resting on the furs.. On the bugger’s couch! let’s hit the hay, brother!. we sure accomplished something!

.. That’s what I said to Boro..

Delphine doesn’t give a damn! she’s sleeping! She’s snoring again! She’s sprawled out against the old guy… I close my eyes to see if I’m not sleeping. I feel myself. If it’s not a dream. Hell no!. no it’s not a dream!. it’s true enough all right!

"Listen!” I say to Boro. "I can’t get over what happened!”

He can’t get over it either..

"We’ve been acting drunk! ”

I’m talking about the incident..

He doesn’t answer… he pukes.. He’s the first one sick.

"It’s the booze, all right!”…I point out…"Maybe the cigarettes, too.”

Ah! that’s my idea. I stick to it. The cigarettes!. I always said so!.. That’s Delphine’s fault, too!. that old faker!. But what about the guy there on the floor?. the skull there!. the hole!. Ah! take it easy!..

I try reasoning a little..

"Say, you drunk! Didn’t you see his dome?”

"It’s you, you bastard!” he answers right back at me. "It’s your affair and that’s all there’s to it! ”

He’s accusing me!

Ah! That’s a new one!. He’s waking up! He stops vomiting.. Now for the complaints!..

"Ah! ” I say.. "Aren’t you ashamed, you big louse? I suppose it wasn’t you who banged him?… It wasn’t you who jumped up and down on him like that on the floor?”

I point to him..

"It was you!. It was you!” he insists. "All you had to do was hold him up. You were the one holding him!”

Listen to that!. some gag!.. I can’t get over the phoniness of it! such dishonesty!.. ah! the pig!

"It was you!.. It was you! ” he insists..

"Oh! ” I exclaim.. "disgusting!.. I suppose it wasn’t you who split it open?… I suppose you haven’t seen his poor head?”

"His poor head!. His poor head!.. Ah! listen to him!.. his poor head!. Talking to me like that! to me!”

He’s outraged by my insolence!.. He sits down on the edge of the bed, he can’t stand my guts, he’s choking with fury!. he’s gagging and snorting with such rage that he can’t even say a word!.. he’s rocking. jumps up. Delphine wakes up, she’s crying..she doesn’t know what she’s bawling about..

She looks at us.. she’s all shaken with sobs… I go at him again, the matter’s not settled!. It’s still on my mind!..

"But it was you, Boro!. You were the one!”

I want him to realize. to stop shooting his mouth off!

"Me?. Me?”. he repeats. in a real daze..

"Me what?. Me what?”

He doesn’t understand a thing.

Outside it’s getting a little light. it’s starting. you can see it through the blinds.. sort of vague.. greenish.. then gray. It's not ordinary daylight. it has an effect on me. it’s different from the usual daylight.

"You got to be careful you know, you dog!”. I’m warning him.. eye to eye!.. "Got to watch out for drafts!.. you see the old guy there?. He died on account of them”. That’s how I talk to him. To me it’s funny!.. Jigging! there! writhing around!.. let him laugh too, the dirty gorilla!

"What about the gal?. Is she moving?”

She’s stretched out. she’s crying again!.. I give her a kick in the ribs… so she’ll straighten up!. She lets out a yell.. She’s reacting and furioso!.. Her eyes are all stuck together. she rubs them. she gets the moths out. bango, a riot!. She spits at me. she insults me. She calls me a garbage pail!.. Who’d’ve thought it!. She, usually so ladylike!.. she forgets all about her politeness!.. just a little kick!

"You little pirate!” she yells…"you little hyena!..you cholera! ”

Ah!.. some nerve!.. I answer back!..

"You pig!” I say to her… "You bitch!.. Look at your guy!”

She hasn’t even seen him!.. The fathead hasn’t seen a thing… I grab her by the back of the neck, I force her, I make her bend down so she can look! Right up against him!. With her nose on top of him!..

"What do you say about that?. There!. Take a look!.. now say something! ”

But it’s too dark in the room.. she doesn’t see a thing… I bring over the lamp, right against him. the water globe.. That does it!. She sees him all right! She sees it all. she wobbles her head… she stands there gaga, without moving..

"Ah!” she says, "ah! oh!’’…she can’t believe it…just petrified.. and then wow!

"Oooh!. Oooh!”. she starts howling, and what screams! She plunges forward. throws herself on the body.. she grabs it. hugs it. she kisses it all over. mouth!. eyes! she lies on top of it!.. She kisses the head, the blood.. she slobbers all over it!.. and then she goes for us!

"You murderers! murderers!” she calls us, and she points at us!. she’s counting us. "One!. Two!. One! two murderers! ”

"Go take a shit, you whore! ”

It’s getting on Boro’s nerves.. "Sh! sh! ” he whispers.. she doesn’t give a damn!. she’s high! she’s in a trance, that’s all!

.. Now she’s at us!

"Why, you murderers! don’t you know me? you don’t know who I am? Finish your job!”

She’s offering herself up like that as a victim.. her, too!.. the martyr! the volunteer! Right off! immediately!.. she’s egging us on!.. She’s challenging us!..

"One more to kill! here! here!’’. She shows us her skinny chest.. she bares herself..

"Finish your job! ”

All exalted.. panting!..

"I’m Mary Stuart! Yes! I’ve just arrived from France!”

She’s proclaiming it!.. Then she dashes to the body again.. she kneels over Claben in prayer… all shuddering.. she lifts her veil high up, over the feathers. her hat. she uncovers her neck. she’s offering it to us!.. to cut it off. her slender neck…

"Cut it off!. Cut it off!” she wants us to behead her. It’s her last breath.. "Cut it off!.. Cut it off! ”

She’s ordering it.. she starts all over..

"I’m Mary Stuart, from France! ”

Same refrain!.. damn it! that’s enough.. Boro’s enjoying it, the big ape! Ah! I’ve had more than enough!. He doesn’t see it’s getting light outside! almost day. I point to it.

"Look! ” I say to him.. "Look! ”

I sit down again. I’m too tired..and the other idiot’s still yelling her head off! I can’t kill them all!. Ah! it’s getting too light. The yataghan’s back!. It’s on the table. I see it there!. I’m going to take it now!. I’m going to grab it!

.. No!.. Not worth the trouble!.. Everything’s been said. First of all, it’s getting cold!. dawn’s breaking. the cold.. No denying it.. Cold and anxious.. Boy, but it’s cold!. I’m shivering. the questions going through my mind!

.. loads of ’em, real ones.. not drunken nonsense!.. real questions with the cold!. You can’t just go on raising hell, it’s got to come to an end.. and then you’ve got to get out of it! Doesn’t work out all by itself!. You finally come to realize it!. I throw up a bit. gives me some relief. it was the right moment!. Boro’s puking, too. We sit down in a reasonable state of mind!. Enough foolishness!.. We try to think!. It’s cold now!. It’s almost daytime!. Delphine interrupts us!. Ah! that old fart!. she’s yelling again.. whining louder and louder!. Mary Stuart’s over. She’s got a headache now. Like pincers twisting her head around!..

"What a headache! What pain!”.. She turns to me. "Do you hear me, Froggy?”

She’s insulting me as a Frenchman!.. Then she starts putting on her act again.. she plunges into prayer. kneeling over the body.. with tears streaming!.. she starts begging us to cut off her head!. her headache’s too bad!. That’s how she is!

"Go on, you rascals!. Go on, you brutes!” she begs us.. "Here’s Mary Stuart for you! Here’s Mary Stuart! The poor little queen!”. She gives us a pain in the ass!. All the same, we’re going to have to get out! arrange things in the place! at least try to!.. I was used to it, I’d already seen bodies and bloodier ones than this!. much more messed up!. I’d seen much worse!. especially in Artois!. under the mortars.. really chopped up!.. I was quiet, in a way, it was Boro who was worried..

"You think it’s really him?” he asks me again.

Some idea.

It’s a funny question to ask me… he touches him again, he’s in doubt! he messes around!. He leans on his belly!..

"Say! ” he calls to him.. "Say! ”

He’d even like to make him talk!.. He picks up the turban… He puts it back on the head… It’s hard for him to realize… It doesn’t seem possible to him.. Still he’s sobered up.. he sees straight.. But he still doesn’t realize..

He doesn’t yield to reason..

"You think it’s really him?”

Ah! the idiot!

"Of course!” I answer, "of course!..and you’re the one who split his head open! ”

"Me? Me?”

He stares at me flabbergasted.

"Of course!..Sure!.. and how!”

I want him to get it into his head! So I insist, damn it, I’ve got to!

"Say! Delphine! Listen! Listen to him! ”

He’s calling Delphine to witness, he’s acting phony again!

.. But Delphine’s not listening.. she’s leaning her head forward… her neck bent over her body.. she’s offering herself up. that’s all she wants. she wants to be beheaded. she’s dead set on it!

Boro’s wild with anger, with rage at me!.. He’s acting flabbergasted, out of his mind!..

"But God damn it!.. But it’s a shame! ”

Ah! the skunk, he’s trying to bluff me!.. He flies off the handle!..

"Who fell on his head this time?” he asks me. the nerve of him!

"The old guy!” I answer. "The old guy!. He fell from his stepladder all by himself! Now are you satisfied?… Is that enough for you?… He threw himself down.. Does that explain it?”

I bust out laughing. Boy, that’s a hot one, the stepladder!

Clears up everything, doesn’t it?

Ah! I’m proud of myself!..

I stand up… I want to take a look outside! I want to breathe the air! I feel dizzy again… I sit down… I want to get it straight, still and all.. But I’ve got an awful headache!.. my ear’s buzzing bad. my arm’s throbbing. the orgy! the drunk! the cigarettes!.. I try to figure out what might happen… I can’t think straight!.. The old guy, that’s a fact!.. There he is!. His head’s split all right!.. No mistake about that!. He’s in a heap in front of us!. In all his embroideries!. the turban, the overcoats. It’s all there!..

"Well, got to get him out!’’.. the idea occurs to me.. "Got to send for the police! ’’

There’s a brilliant idea!..

"Shut up!.. Leave him there. We’ll go get Cascade.” That’s the way he answers. It’s certainly more reasonable!

I immediately agree. I even congratulate him!. I wouldn’t have thought of that by myself!.. And then I throw up again!. It’s some relief! but not much. I invite Del-phine to come outside.. She’s nauseated too.. but she won’t go out at all. doesn’t want to get any air.

She never wants to leave the body again!.. That’s Del-phine for you!

"Come on! this way, little birdie!”

Boro grabs her by her bun and ouch! she’s got to get up!. We’re all pretty seedy. We don’t look so good!. I’m staggering. It wasn’t an ordinary drunk!. Ah! now I’m quite sure of it! We finally get to the door.. We open it.. The light comes rolling in. It blasts me!.. absolutely right in the eyes! like a punch! I grab hold!.. I don’t know what it is!

I open again!. It’s the park!. Right in front!. Right there!. the steps. I grab the railing. it’s clearing up!.. The veils are lifting.. it’s gray.. purple… in front of my eyes. it’s dawn. What time is it?. No bells are ringing!

Maybe five o’clock, six?. in my opinion!. Delphine’s whimpering.. that it still hurts.. that she’ll never be able to move again!. She forces herself, anyway. She gets to her feet.. Now she’s simpering.

"Gentlemen!” she calls out.."Gentlemen! it’s all a mistake!.. It’s the fumes of drunkenness!”

She straightens her hat, her feathers, her gloves… She puts on a smile. she’s enjoying herself. "What a mistake!”. a lady of fashion. just bantering. just a joke. She’s amused at the sight of us.. woebegone, crestfallen.. she finds us funny, childish.. She treats us like little rascals..

"Boys! Boys!” she calls us…"You drank too much!.. You’re sick!”

She plants herself there in front of us!.. She’s going to whip the little devils!.. going to restore us to reason!..

Ah! then Boro grabs her. he lifts her up!. carries her to the back!.. throws her down on her knees so she can get a good look! so she’ll stop being a pain in the ass! so she can get a good look at the stiff! so she’ll stop dreaming!..

"Look!. Look!” he tells her. "That’s not him, eh?.. That’s not him?”

She hangs back. she grumbles.. she doesn’t understand a thing. then suddenly she starts screaming again!..

"That’s the man!. Yes that’s the man!” she screams.. "It’s he. It’s the devil! Gentlemen, we are all damned!”

There goes another riot..

She rushes toward the steps.. She yells it across the park. to the trees!. to the open air!. to the echoes!. Boro grabs her again… He brings her back in.. She throws herself on the stiff. she starts kissing it again!..

"Darling! Darling! ” right on the mouth!. above his wound… all around.. she sucks the opening. she gets all spattered with blood!..

Boro yanks her away again..

"Go wash!” he says.. "Go wash!..Shit!”

He pushes her under the faucet… he takes her completely in hand… he gives her a good rinsing.

"Come on! you mope! Let’s go!”

He holds on to her… he keeps her head under the running water!. She howls. she protests..

"But I’m Lady Macbeth! Never! Never! Never shall I be clean again! Never more! ”

She thrashes about.. but he doesn’t let go!

Now we’ve got to make up our minds!.. Do we go?… Or don’t we?. Ah! I’m trying to think!.. I want to put my word in, too! I don’t say anything!.. It's sleepiness, my eyes hurt too much. sleep first. I couldn’t have told left from right!. Ah! it’s pretty bad, all the same!. I force myself. I take a look outside.. there on the steps. I see the trees climbing in the park… I see them growing visibly. there in front!. right in front of my eyes. branches and branches!

.. the way they’re going up and up!.. to dizzying heights!

.. and then they get tiny.. tiny little trees, tiny little branches, they all shrivel up small. they get into my pocket! whole trees!. I don’t believe it! No. I don’t believe! Ah! can’t fool me! It’s just dizziness! a mirage! But I see them moving! Ah! no denying it! it’s a fact! they’re rising up!. It’s still the smoke I see! as far as the Observatory up there! it’s in full blossom. All those moving treetops give me a pain in the ass!

Ah! but Boro’s in charge. he’s doing the talking. "Let’s go!”

So we’re out in the chilly air. Boro’s dragging us along.. We don’t go far. Just to the bench. We squat in front of the lawn. in front of the bed of heliotrope. I remember clearly… I still see it!.. on the other side is the water! the bank!.. and farther on Poplar.. the gray house-fronts.. the anchored barges.

The three of us are sitting there.. on the bench. We’re wondering. got to know!. Delphine’s between us. she’s afraid we’ll run away..

"What do you say?.. Talk, wise guy! ”

I wasn’t saying anything.

"Listen!” I exclaim. "Listen!”

It was striking six o’clock over London. ah! it was true.. exactly six o’clock!. I was right! Boom! Boom!. Real loud above the wharves!. from way off in the distance!..

‘'Say!. Say listen!”

That was all I had to say!..

"Don’t you know anything, you dumb dope?. Don’t you know anything?”

He insists on my knowing!.. But God damn it I don’t know anything!. What I like is the Booms!. it makes me fluttery.. hazy.. the sound of the chimes.. especially as I’m already bleary, already off center. I get lit up! that’s it! lit up! I’m sensitive! I vibrate!.. He can’t understand, the big lug!

Dirty filthy dope!

"They’re drifting! ” I say to him.. "They’re drifting!. The chimes are drifting, don’t you hear them?.. Listen, you slob!

.. You blockhead! you murderer!”

Pop! just like that! whack, right in the teeth! It simply came to my mouth!..

The hell with him!

"What?” he gasps. "Wh-what, you louse? I’ll show you!”

He’s about to leap at my throat. He thinks it over. He sits still.

"Shit!” he mumbles. "Shit!”.. he’s grousing..

"You don’t give a damn, you stinker!”

I do give a damn! But I’m cold. that’s the size of it!.. I’m shivering!. So’s Delphine. Is he warm?. Delphine and I are shaking the bench. We’re trembling so much that we’re going to knock it over.. People are passing by.. the early-risers. men from the dock opposite. They stare at us.. They wonder what’s up.. why we’re yelling at each other like that. what the hell we’re doing there. We shouldn’t be talking so loud.. But he’s the one shouting, not me!..

He’s ill-bred!.. his voice booms through the park!.. his Bulgarian accent..

"So, you mug! you don’t give a damn?”. That’s how he talks to me!. "You’re leaving it all to me?”

"No! that’s not so! ”

"Maybe it wasn’t you?”

There it goes! he’s at it again!.. He’s starting!.. he’s stubborn! God damn it!

"It wasn’t you who tossed him around!. I suppose it wasn’t you? Maybe I was the one who was drunk?”

The gall! He’s pulling a fast one! He still dares!

"A dream!.. A dream!” I answer.

Ah! he can’t control himself. He’s foaming!. Some act!.. He gets off the bench to yell at me.. for better effect! Ah! he’s on the wrong tack! He makes us laugh!.. he’s trying hard!..he’s working himself up!..he’s gesticulating, the lunkhead!. standing there right in front of us. He absolutely wants me to confess! He bounces around, jumps on the grass!. with fury! with hot air!.

"And the hell with you, you big dope! A dream! A dream!” I shriek. I’m not at all excited!. I want to see how far he’ll jump!

"You’re warming us up, lunkhead!. But a cup of coffee would be even better! ”

I let him have it!

Ah! I’m not at all excited!.. It calms me to see him in such a stew!..

Can you imagine! Can you imagine! What screams! The lunatic! hysterical!. worse than Delphine almost! She starts having fun too!.. she makes a spectacle of herself.. yowling!

laughing!.. kicking up!.. I swear, at it again!.. now they’re both at it! she clucking away like that and he crazy with rage! that I’m just sitting there indifferent!. taking it easy and not giving a damn!

He can croak there raving!.. I won’t budge except for coffee!. good and hot! and a nip! Won’t budge, Delphine neither!. Our mind’s made up!. we huddle together!.. we’re shivering.. and we’re laughing!.. He starts insulting us again!. People are walking around us..

"Come on! ” I decide.. "Let’s go! ”

It’s getting idiotic.

"Let’s go where?” he asks.

"Why, to see Cascade! you don’t remember?… it was your idea! ”

It really was his idea.

"And what about the old guy? You’re leaving him like that?. You don’t care?. with the door open?”

He thought of everything.

It's true that we hadn’t closed up!. that we’d left everything as is!. That was bad! what a binge!. You could see the door open from our bench, you could see it from there.. Had to go back and close the door!.. The least of our troubles!..

"All right! Then what’re you going to do?”

I saw he had a scheme..

"We’ll take him down! ”

"Down where?”

"To the cellar!”

"And then what?”

"We’ll come back tonight with the men.”

"Good!” I said. "You’re smart!”

It's true that it wasn’t a dumb idea… in the cellar, that was a little better..

"You want me to help you?”

"I sure do!”

Good! I make an effort. I stand up. I shouldn’t have.. feel like vomiting again.. sleeping too… I feel the torpor getting me again..

‘'Let’s go! Get a move on!”

He’s hustling me.

I’m on my feet again… I take Delphine’s arm.. we’re in front of the house. the door wide open. that’s a fact. the shop as is. We go in. nothing has moved. Still and all it was queer. We weren’t drunk. We walk through the shop.. there was the body on the floor.. there on its belly.. in the overcoats… the silks.. the soaked rug, a pool, the turban in the puddle..

“Come on!”.. he shakes me. "Let’s go! take him by the cape. Delphine, you the legs!. Let’s go! Lift!”

You can’t imagine how heavy he was! Even heavier than on the stairway!. He weighed around two hundred-fifty pounds! It was like lead, only soft. He was rolling all over. You couldn’t get a grip on him… all flabby, enormous padding.. The three of us got him down… the cellar staircase… the trap door open, luckily.. the two of us eased him down.. the wide staircase… the cellar passage full of sand… We laid him there. he sure was heavy!.. We just laid him right down. in the middle of the cellar, on the sand.. and it was all dark! just the water-lamp for the whole maneuver!..

It was quite a big cellar… a vast vault.. but what a junk heap! much worse than the shop! what a chaos!. All the secondhand odds and ends! tons, piles of rubbish!.. cartloads of everything!

“We’ll leave him here! Hell, that’ll do!”

I sit down, I’m puffing, it knocked me out. on one of the steps. in the darkness. I’m resting. Delphine, right on the sand.

“Ah! we made it!” I remark. “It’s done!”

We were about to go up again.. I’m telling everything exactly as it was.

"Hey!” Boro suddenly calls out, he grabs my arm as if he’s heard a noise.. something upstairs in the shop. I listen, I don’t hear anything..

"Sh! ” he orders.. "Don’t move, I’m going to see what’s up.. There’re people!”

He scoots up, he leaves us all alone just like that. It wasn’t funny.. with the corpse!!!. He does what he says. He goes up. And he shuts the big trap door on us! right in the dark. Ah! that was laying it on!. I didn’t understand! Ah! he’s shutting us in!

"Hey! hey!” I call.."Shit! What the hell!” He doesn’t answer. Not a word!. I hear him walking, moving furniture, putting things over our heads, right on the trap door. Ah! then I start roaring!..

"Boro! Boro! What the hell are you doing?”

He continues, he’s making a lot of noise.. he’s throwing things down. a raft of stuff on the trap door. Ah! he’s shutting us in!.. I don’t hear anyone with him.. he’s all alone in the shop!. Ah! that does it!.. suspicion!. hell! I’m sure!..Ah! that does it! he’s shutting us in!..He's locking us up!..

I clutch the steps!.. I bang the door!..

"Boro!” I scream. "open up!”

Go fuck yourself!.. I try to do something… I set my back against the wall.. It’s stuck! Shit! What did he put there?.. the lousy traitor!. Everything in the shop!. I heave again!

I’m forcing. Oooooh! whshhh!. the rat!. it’s giving!

just a crack. I see the shop. a ray of light!. I take a better stance. I’ve got a strong back. Oooh! whshhh! oh whshhh. there it goes!. it’s coming! I’ve pushed it back!

.. I’ve got an opening!. Just then plop!. right in the mush!. I get smacked!.. right in the mug!. wham!!.. I get groggy!.. I tumble over!. backwards!. from the crack! I let go!.. the trap door crashes!.. falls back! clack! It’s that bandit! Boom!!!. Thunder bursting in the darkness!

.. right in the cellar!. at the same time!.. amidst all the junk!. Ah! it’s magical!. right in the mug!. The rubbish comes down on me..He’s the one who threw the gadget! Dirty dog!. a terrific explosion!. Him again!. That’s it!

.. like at the Dingby… I suspected it!.. I should have suspected!. I’m whirling around in the plaster!. in the dark!

.. I’m pulled in! rolled over! flattened out! all the junk and timber fall on my mug!.. I call Delphine.. "Delphine! ”… She answers!.. She’s stuck in the sand.. she’s screaming.. she’s not dead yet.. everything fell on her head!.. under a heap of chunks of wood.. I feel my way.. I don’t see anything. I catch hold of her.. I clutch her!.. by the shoes.. I disentangle her… I yank at her!.. She screams.. but it’s nothing.. she’s in a kind of sand tank.. under a heap of broken cases… I tug at the whole shebang.. pull it all along!.. all that in pitch darkness..

“It’s a bomb!” I explain.. "It’s Boro!”

She doesn’t understand.. she’s choking.. it’s full of bitter smoke… the whole cellar.. but not cigarette smoke… the real thing! It’s coming from the back, I sniff, it’s burning! It’s a fire!.. I see sparks.. in the smoke.. Delphine really starts screaming… as if I were killing her!..

"All right, Delphine! There’s nothing the matter with you!

Help me!” I shout. so she can push the trap door with me!..

"I’m blind! ” she answers…

"You’re not! It’s the smoke!.. the cellar!”

She’s panicky. she wants to get away! to run to the back! into the fire! I get hold of her again. I pull her to the steps!..

‘'Come on, you bitch!.. together! ”

I want to raise the door again… A last effort!..

"Push, darling!.. push!”

It rose a tiny bit.. things were toppling down! wobbling. Boom!! it was furniture piled up. all the junk!. We weren’t getting anywhere! They were cabinets!.. dead sure!

.. buffets that weighed a ton!..

"Push!” I repeated..

"But I am!”

She was protesting. Smoke was coming from the shop. more smoke!.. it was rushing in through the opening!. smoke from everywhere!.. into the hole!.. into our cellar! from our pit! from the shop!.. We were caught in the spirals.. it came rushing up!. choking everything!. Now the vixen was giving all she had! with all her might! Come on, no more groaning! whiss! against the door!.. She forgot about wanting to die. no more Mary Stuart!.. no more whining!

.. But it wasn’t giving, damn it! Whiss! it dropped again. catastrophe! the door Ba-ta-boom!.. it was too heavy!.. Needed something else!.. I didn’t lose my head!.. in spite of my sniffling, gasping and choking. I’m not flustered. keep cool!.. I look for something hard.. there. an iron!

.. something… I feel around among the junk… in the dark.. I grab an iron in the rubbish, a crowbar!.. I ram it into the trapdoor, groping… my eyes hurt like mad. from the smoke.. I ram it into the door and oop!.. Oooh whiss! both of us! we press down! press down!.. we get it up!.. ah it’s coming!.. Oooh whiss! that’s it! it gives! tumbles down! everything! the whole works!.. topples over! cases! wardrobes!.. the whole shebang.. everything he’d piled on us!

.. The door loosens, opens! That does it!.. made it!.. but it’s murder! The shop’s burning! what smoke!..the whole place! the whole floor! The fire’s roaring!.. all over the house.. the flames are licking, racing, snarling.. Wow! Lady!.. There’re sheets of flame.. We’re sneezing. sniffling. suffocating. It’s too much!.. It’s worse than in the hole!..

"Do something!” Delphine yells.. She grabs my hands!.. She clutches at me!

"No!.. No!.. come on with me!”

We’ve got to push the door some more… so we can get out. out in the open.. make a dash for it!.. and oop! outside! out through the flames! right through everything! knock the stuff over!.. Come on! Let’s go! No monkey-business!.. I see the door at the other end… the daylight… the white frame. into the smoke. we’ve got to tear through!.. ah!

.. right in the bull’s-eye!

"Let’s go Delphine! careful!.. together! now! one! two! three!.. right through it!.. Come on!”.. We dash forward.. I hadn’t noticed!

Plop! I stumble! I topple over! I’m lifted up! carried away! two hands! ten hands clutch me! grab me!.. rush me off!.. the works!. Ah! the smoke!. I couldn’t see a thing!. But outside! in the open! The firemen!.. the people!. They’re all over!.. We’re outside! we’re saved!.. What a crowd.. Ah! the firemen!.. Ah! what acrobats! with their helmets! brass! ladders! the streams of water.. shooting, spattering! squirting all over! They grab us. water us!. drench us!.. I’m not burned!.. Neither is Delphine!.. That doesn’t matter!. They douse us anyway!.. they soak us, plunge us into the enormous tub!.. They fish us out, shake us, rub us down, roll us up in blankets.. It’s the excitement!.. A rescue!.. And then questions, words.. bowing and scraping! they congratulate us! Shake hands!.. Hurrah for our courage!. hugs!

"Hello! Hello!”.. They saw us cut through the flames!.. It was magnificent!.. Ah! a rousing rescue! Marvelous! Superb! Attaboy! What a jump! Atta good girl!.. They’re all talking together; And the questions! They’re screaming! Cla-ben!.. the crowd’s yelling for him..

They want to know where Claben is! Old Claben!.. What’s happened to him? His customers are very unhappy!.. Ah! they’re worried!.. They get close to the flames.. They come back!.. The whole house is on fire now!

"Inside! ” I point, I’m breathless.. dying from the effort.. "He’s in there!.. in there! ”.. I point to the flames… the giant fire.. The furnace that’s roaring, growling..

"Oh! ” they all exclaim.. "Oh! ”

It’s too horrible.

"Yes, he was sleeping in the shop!”

I keep repeating it, mumbling… I’m fully convinced.. it’s got to be sure.. absolutely!.. naturally..

"Did you see him?”

"Yes, yes!”

Not the slightest doubt. That way there won’t be any mistake.. It’s a sure thing!

The house was crackling horribly.. from top to bottom!.. the firemen couldn’t get at it any more.. not even approach it from a hundred yards!.. it was just a torch. a wild enormous torch.. the flames were shooting from all the windows.. The crowd was getting bigger and bigger.. they must have come from all neighborhoods… a terrible jabbering in addition to the crackling of the flames. all around the burning mass.. they must have seen it from far off.. from farther off than the devil.. They’d come rushing up in crowds!

.. a storm of jabberers!.. The rescuers of the Order of Saint John with their soft little hats took good care of us.. Delphine and me!.. quite specially.. their heroic survivors!. They cheered us up.. crammed us, coddled us.. biscuits.. brandy.. hot coffee!.. ah! at last..

"Coffee! ” I said to Delphine..

She straightened her hat, coquettish immediately!.. Her silk dress was scorched.. That shows what a close shave we had.. she’d lost her gloves.. We watched the house flaming.. the House of Claben.. I wasn’t thinking of anything else!

Nothing’s so fascinating as flames, especially flying around like that, shooting, dancing in the sky.. It just makes you stare… spellbound… the shapes they take.. just dazed, dopey, gaping.. sitting on the grass.. Delphine, too, beside me..

Someone takes hold of me.. shakes me, damn it! grabs me, hugs me to his body!.. What’s going on?

“My child!.. My child!”

I thought it was the firemen again!.. that they were going to dunk us again! that they were going to rescue us again! Oh! what a horror! I scream! I yell! but it wasn’t the firemen! I look! it was Boro! the louse himself! suddenly gushing! ah! the fairy! hugging! tears!

"My child!.. My child! ”

He embraces us.. kisses us!.. Ah! what a fine chap! he’s so happy to see us again!..

"Neither one of you is burned?”

Ah! he’s so excited!.. He’s squealing with joy!.. he’s crying. he’s yapping around us!..

"Oh! my children!.. Oh! my children! ”

It’s such a moving scene!..

"Are you safe and sound, my children?”

The people rush up.. they all want to kiss us..

It’s a unanimous effusion.. What can I say?.. I kiss him, too.. I kiss anyone!.. I kiss a fireman! a Saint John!..

But he doesn’t give us time to think..

"Let’s go home!.. Let’s hurry! ’’

"Home where?”

We don’t know..

He grabs Delphine by the arm… off they go together.. I’m going to follow. I’m going to follow them.. I look at the house again.. the flames are shooting up! whirling around!.. climbing. waltzing up above!.. the yellow, the red wreaths!.. Ah! some furnace!.. I’m not going to stay around!

.. I’d get burned again!.. I get going.. I force myself..

I catch up with them.. Ah! now, my boy, you’re going to get it! When we pass the kiosk I go for him!..

"Listen, you big louse!.. listen you mug! ”

He doesn’t answer.. he’s stepping on it..

Ah! that’s nerve for you!

His arm in Delphine’s and oops! she’s got to hustle!.. get a move on! She asks for a second!.. she’s all in!.. a stitch in her side!.. then her shoe!.. her heel’s twisting! and damn it! and damn it!.. he won’t let go!.. Shake a leg!.. Shake a leg! she’s hobbling.. "Come on!” he pinches her. what a shriek!.. The people look at us.. the whole sidewalk!.. We were moving fast… to the station, the Stepham entrance.. they’re swallowed up.. the Tube.. I catch up.. he gets the tickets…At last! We squat! oof! in the train…it bumps along… I ask him where we’re going..

"To Cascade’s, of course! You know well enough!”

I irritate him by asking..

We pass one station.. two.. three..

Cascade’s? I don’t like that… I don’t want to.. that’s enough!.. Shit! I don’t want to drag around like that. disgusting!.. it’s awful!.. I don’t care if I’m sick, nuts, knocked out, limp and everything. Hell! I won’t go with them!.. I won’t follow them!.. The big filthy pig! and the other one, the old witch! Go on, strut!.. I’ve had enough of their guts!

and of Cascade, too!.. suddenly it hits me, it sets me on fire! Ah! what a dope I am! I never in my life want to see them again! Ah! I’ll have the strength, God damn it!.. none of them!The little trains give you a jolting. They’re jerky.. They're nervous.. We pass a station.. we’ll soon come to Clapham…

“You’re not sore?’’ he asks me..

“Oh! no! no! I’m not sore! ”

It’s nice of him..

"Just wait!” I say to myself.. “the next one!.. Boy, am I going to beat it!.. Sincerely yours!.. Good sailing! my darlings!”

Clapham! That’s it!.. Now’s the moment! A whistle!.. the door! It just closes! I dash forward! squeeze it open.. Zip!.. That does it!.. Push! on the platform!.. just! on the button! Yip! Bravo, boy! The train takes off!.. Oh! their mugs!.. They see me! I didn’t get hurt!. lucky! whisked! zip! with my leg!

“So long!.. So long! ” I yell to them..

There! I did it! Now some rest! Squat! first!

Wait a minute!.. Got to know where I am. the stations are all right for that.

k/o now I’m free. I drag around like that for two. three days.. I sleep here and there. I spend time in the movies.. I keep out of sight pretty much. I avoid the center of town… I watch out for meeting the wrong people! I keep track of my money… all the same, it’s running out.. When I’ve got around two or three shillings left, I say to myself that I’ve got to stay in the stations.. It’s warm, you sleep well, you wait..

I had no definite ideas… I couldn’t make up my mind.. I decided on Waterloo.. It’s got the nicest waiting-room.. It’s certainly the most upholstered… I knew a particular bench on the other side of the heaters that was as inconspicuous as possible.. back behind the exit.. from which you could see people passing.. the whole crowd… all the main lines… A real torrent in those days… all the men in the services… a continuous stream of soldiers.. khaki!.. more khaki!.. at the gate there’d be a waiting.. swarms of hustlers!.. they’d cross inside!.. I know you!.. At random.. high-heeled shoes!.. boas! yellow stockings!.. red stockings.. purple stockings!.. the styles of the time… on the attack… a hot chase!.. day and night!.. They’d carry off Tommy Atkins with his wad! Mohamed Jouglou! Gorgovitch! whatever came along! soldiers on a spree! the dominions! the natives! the dear allies! at top speed!.. tearing off a piece not a hundred yards away.. in the alley to the left, first floor.. Tudor Commons… I shouldn’t have sat down there.. After all it wasn’t playing safe! But I was pretty bored, got to admit!. That was my excuse… I didn’t know anyone… I dozed awhile on the upholstered seat… I even had a rather long sleep. Suddenly. someone’s disturbing me.. shaking me.

“It’s you!.. Ah! it’s you, pretty boy! ”

I jump up with a start.

“Ah! it’s you, Finette?.. Ah! that’s nice!”

"What the hell are you doing here?”.. She’s questioning me.. "They’re all asking about you at the Leicester! ”

I’d rather not talk much. I mumble something.. that I’d taken a little trip. She was the one who gave me the news. that things were fine at the “Boardinghouse”.. that there were no more arguments.. that everyone had made up… on the go again for a time. That Cascade had taken back all his women.. that Joconde was back, cured, from the London Hospital.. with her mashed-up ass.. was down in the kitchen again.. that Angele was back with her bad boy.. that she was breaking in the new girls.. but that Cascade’s sore about my breezing out on him!..Ah! he doesn’t like that one bit!..

“All right, Finette! All right!” I answer.. "You still haven’t got me!.. I can see you coming a mile off! ”

Suddenly I feel anxious again..

“Who?.. Who sent you?” I ask.. "Spit it out!.. Right now!.. Cascade or Matthew?”

Ah! no monkey-business!

“Me?” she exclaims.. "Ah! It’s a crime! I swear to you!” “Well?” I said, dropping my voice. “It must be about the Dingby!. say it!.. or Claben? Eh?.. isn’t it?.. Claben?” Ah! I’m suspicious..

No beating about the bush… I come straight out with it..

I insist.. Ah! she looks at me.. she thinks I’m queer..

“Kiss me!” she says.. “Kiss me!.. You’re like my wounded brother.. the war’s been getting you too!.. But he’s in Athis-Mons now, home with the family.. You shouldn’t be going out either.. Let’s have a cup of coffee at the Basket.. You look cold!.. The treat’s on me!”

Finette works the stations… or rather around them… in other words, the whole wide sidewalk up to the movie-house.. She’d make enough even for two!.. She’d be satisfied with Fernande.. they’re pimped, naturally.. but Fernande’s a bitch.. she won’t cheat on Big Fatso!.. which causes jealousy! complications!. Big Fatso’s the world-champ loafer!.. He’s the prize pimp!.. It’s all right with him if his women monkey around with each other as long as they don’t hold out on his dough!.. He wants to collect on both of them… on three, on ten if he could! A very demanding gentleman!. Which gets Finette sore! she’d like to hand it over only to Fernande!

.. She must’ve had a reason for shaking me!.. She wants to tell me something!.. some news!.. That Big Fatso’s been called up again!.. yes sir! That the Consulate’s looking all over for him!.. Seems he made a hell of a face!.. Ah! no volunteering for him! Kid Gold-brick in person!..

Finette liked a good time!.. She had beautiful big green eyes.. like a cat… a bit slanting toward the temples. with a spark of mischief.. and devilish, but on the whole a pain in the neck!..

While we drank our coffee at the Basket, she told me a couple of lousy things about the big pimp.. That she couldn’t take him any more.. how he was too disgusting!.. that they weren’t clearing him out any too soon!.. he could go to hell!

.. She’d been waiting for that a long time!.. it wasn’t a luxury!.. She’d burned more than one candle.. He came from Montauban, the big pimp!.. She didn’t like people from the south!.. He used to be a tenor!.. so it seems… he was always yodeling!.. and he hadn’t sung for ten years!.. He was a dope! I’m telling you, a prize dope!.. Fernande didn’t understand anything!.. and she, Finette, was shelling out to both of them, what do you think of that!.. and for years! Nice, wasn’t it?.. And her Fernande was a real angel!.. Ah! she didn’t want to play second fiddle!.. Not her! Ah! she was through with that now!.. She sure was glad he was going!.. It was like giving her a bouquet of roses!.. the two girls all by themselves!.. "You’ll see how I’m going to work!.. What I’m doing now is nothing!.. And yet I’m working like a dog! I want my little woman to be happy!. Ah! my boy!.. Ah! just kid-stuff! I’m just loafing now!.. Wait’ll I really get going!.. There’ll be business! Business!.. There’s a whole world there!.. A whole world! ”

She was pointing to the station.. the sidewalk!..

"You’ll get a look at our clothes!.. And what about you?” she reminds herself. "Say, you’re not looking so good!.. You’ve lost weight!.. Why don’t you go back to Cascade’s? It's a good place.. He’s not stingy!.. Since you’re convalescing!.. One more mouth doesn’t matter!.. What a family in his joint!.. You should’ve built up your health!.. You’re like the rest of them! You’re slipping!.. You just don’t know where you’re at!.. That’s the trouble with you! ”

Finette, Big Fatso and Fernande lived in an apartment not very far from the Empire Music Hall. in Wardow.. They’d knock themselves silly, jealous alcohol binges, so that at times they’d lie on their backs two or three days in a row, giving each other herb tea, compresses.. Passion did it! but now all that was going to change! At last Big Fatso was getting his!.. Ah! how happy she was!.. really hilarious!..

"Will he be killed? You think so?”

He had a chance in the artillery!.. Ah! I point out to her, he might come back! I tell her frankly..

"What about you? Aren’t you going back?" she suddenly snaps! the bitch!

"Listen! Take it easy, you tramp!” I answer.. "Listen! I’ve just come back!.. Cool off! ”

"But you’re still good, darling!.. You’ve still got some pieces left!”

She had it in for men!..

"War’s a fine thing!.. a fine thing!.. Just look at that!”

A squad of khaki was passing in front of the windows.. and behind them a whole fanfare!.. The Guard Band on the way to Buckingham! The changing of the palace guard.

"Say! They’re good-looking! They get me hot!.. Say, does your arm still hurt?”

I’d spoken to her about my wounds..

"What about your head? You got a bullet in it, didn’t you?”

"Oh! a very small one! ”

"Oh! a wise guy!”.. suddenly she thinks I’m funny!.. She bursts out laughing, so high and so shrill, about the bullet in my head that everyone turns around… all the customers at the counter.

"Come here so I can kiss you, you poor fish!.. You’ve got no luck! You’re behind the times!”

That’s what she thinks of me!

"But I’m way ahead of the times!”

She was getting me sore!..

"God! you’re as big a jerk as Fatso!.. You’re no house afire!. Still and all you’re less conceited. Why don’t you go back to Cascade’s?… It’s a good place! ”

Ah! she was dead set on that.

"He’d’ve given you whatever you wanted!” she continues, she’s handing me a line!.. "Without even asking!.. just for yourself!.. you’d’ve been in the dough!.. He’s got more girls than he wants!.. You’d’ve got along!.. ’d’ve had it soft!

He had nothing against you!. You didn’t fight with him?

.. Didn’t you ever try to take away Angele just for the hell of it sometimes? She’s a real grandma!.. Boy, she’s had plenty between the legs, from the Bastille to Rio! Just imagine the racket! And the garrisons besides! with Nougat, her first guy!

.. My boy!.. a real hustler!.. Let me tell you!.. Steel-ass!

.. That’s what they called her at the Reole… at the Petit Soupir.. almost twelve years ago!.. I had my share, too!.. Why talk about it!.. I won’t go complaining!.. I’m frank! I admit! I can take it! I’m not scared of men! Though I like twats better, of course!.. But the god-damned things are the injections! Boy, I’m awful about that! Boy, I’m telling you, I hate going to the doctor!.. 44 in a row, you realize, right in the ass!. Used to pass out after every shot!. Say, I thought I’d croak!.. God, I was crapping green!.. Say d’you think syph can be cured?”

The Englishwomen from the provinces who were drinking their tea screwed up their snooty noses. They suspected the sort of Frenchwoman she was.. Finette started making eyes at them, they immediately turned away their heads.. Just "snacks” in the station restaurants. especially Waterloo, there’s an enormous number of people and of all kinds.. besides, of course, the servicemen… to and from Flanders!.. A stream of khaki!.. Finette started thinking of her girlfriend again..

"Fernande’s not loafing either!. Especially now that she’s doing the Empire. We’re sure going to be happy! The two of us all by ourselves!.. We’ll send Fatso big juicy money orders!. Ah, our man! ah! the sweet trou-trou-badour!.. Life looks bright! It’s coming along great!.. He’s got to eat over there, you know! Fatso’s some eater!.. I want him to croak, but not of hunger.. First of all, you know she still likes him.. that’s a fact! I’m not kidding myself!.. imagine what a dope!.. She sings with him! you should hear them!.. When your big gentle eyes!. I don’t know what she sees in him!. Whenever he touches me, I gag. Still I’m no saint!

.. He just rubs me the wrong way!. It’s because he’s Fer-nande’s guy! It’s jealousy! That’s it!.. It’s only natural!.. What about you, aren’t you jealous?”

I admit I’m not very!. Ah! she doesn’t like that. Ah! that irks her! Just what am I, after all? She looks at me. up and down.. she can’t stomach me any more!

"Beat it!”. she snaps at me!. "Beat it, dope!”

Doesn’t want to see me any more!

"Pst! Pst! ” she calls from her stool.. she saw something outside… she calls through the door… a soldier on the prowl.. she runs after him. she jumps.. I’m alone again… I smile around vaguely… at the countergirls… no go… an aviator’s monopolizing them. they’re snickering and clucking. all right!. I’m going to sit down at a table. since I’m there… I start thinking things over again… I order a cup of coffee. another one. I just sit there. with a dazed look.. Someone signaling to me from outside through the glass. Don’t recognize who. couldn’t make it out. Ah! it’s the midget!.. Ten-paw Lou.. He’s spotted me.

"You doing the stations?” he asks. He’s getting a kick out of seeing me there..

His head reaches the edge of the table. To tell the truth he’s almost a dwarf.. he’s bowlegged..

"Say, things are bad!. Don’t you know what’s happening?… They’re talking about you at the Leicester.. Haven’t you read the Minor?”

No, I hadn’t read it..

"Well I’ll be damned!. Give me a penny!”

He goes out. he brings back the Mirror.. The whole page, a big photo. Oh! the old guy’s house!. the joint!.. the rubble!. it was called the "Greenwich Tragedy” in huge letters. the smoke. the ruins. the beams. everything! "Boy! Some hell of a sight!”

It’s funny, I couldn’t quite understand! I looked again.. just couldn’t figure it out. It seemed strange to me.

"Do you believe it?” I ask him. "You believe it?”

"Look!.. It’s written down! ”

"I don’t know,” I answer..

"Can’t you read English?”

He could read English well..

"Ah! go to hell, you don’t understand anything!” That’s his conclusion.. We start talking about something else… He was a cook at Barbe’s in Soho Square, also an "extra” at the Royal.. that way he could fool around the unions… in good standing!. but the dwarf was especially clever with cards!. His real racket!.. his magic! Ah! gambling? nothing he couldn’t do!. "Unionized”!. Could get in anywhere. He called all the chefs by their first names… all the London clubs.. He’d show them his terrific tricks with cards. at poker! at whist! Backgammon! unbeatable in shuffling!.. That’s why they called him Ten-paw.. No one saw him go in or out.. Just a quick little game!.. Let’s go, gentlemen! No higher than the table!. the midget. They’d put cushions under him so he could play at the right height… He amused the hostesses.. and always good-natured, easygoing. and also an "extra” at the races! ah! tipped-off like a pope! really inside stuff! Always three to "show” at the Derby!. at least!. In London 18 years! and dough laid aside!.. rejected because of his coat-sleeve legs. never a day in the army!

"But my fingers haven’t been rejected! That’s what counts in my game!”

Doesn’t hide the fact that he’s intelligent.

He’s terrific with his fingers, he’ll turn a single deck into ten or twelve right in front of your eyes! an acrobat with cards!.. He plays only with customers, never with friends… Ah! none of that! Out of the question!..

When he dropped in at the Leicester, right away it was "Into the kitchen, Ten-paw!”. Ah! no monkey-business! right away! go on! Ten-paw’s the boy for French fries!. no equal when it comes to souffles..

"Get to the frying pan, Ten-paw”.. they’d call from all over the house. all the girls!. "You’ll get kissed!”

In fact he’d have all of them free for his potato souffles!.. They’d let him, it was all right with the men, they had a big weakness for French fries. Ah! really tasty with lard, and Saumur wine if possible!.. It seems they were better than oysters when made a la Ten-Paw!. I think fried potatoes are the only real French vice!.. seriously speaking.. just right, to a turn, golden, salted, not too much, neither dry nor greasy, with a glass of white wine. You couldn’t tear them away when the midget got to the frying pan. There’d be heaping platefuls and endless cheering.. enough to bring down the whole whorehouse… Sometimes around 10 or 12 pimps crowded together at the table treating themselves to crispies.. without counting the ladies, naturally!..

"Ah!” he says to me. tackling the subject. "To go on with my story.. you poor mug, you sure are in the shit! ”

Looking at the photographs… we read the following gibberish. "The body of Titus Jerome Van Claben, the well-known pawnbroker, was found yesterday afternoon at five o’clock”. I had no idea his name was Jerome. in addition to Titus.. "badly mutilated and completely burned”..

It was easy English.

"The fire consumed the entire building and two neighboring houses as well.. No fire of such violence has broken out in Wigmore Alley, the well-known promenade in our lovely Greenwich Park, since 1768. The District Officer in charge of the investigation refuses to give us his opinion as to the origin of this disaster which, according to certain experts, might be due to foul play. The private life of Titus Jerome Van Claben was not quite what it might have been. In addition to his ordinary clients, Titus Van Claben received many visits from dubious people and vagabonds.. known, moreover, to the officers of Scotland Yard. Tongues have been wagging in the neighborhood of the disaster. Van Claben was known to have a certain taste for oriental dress and the smoking of hashish, long piano performances, and the easy French game of 'loto’… A middle-aged housekeeper, a former teacher named Delphine, is being actively sought..”

"But we weren’t playing loto!. We never played loto!.. It’s a downright lie! ”

I sat up!

"All right! But then you were really there?”

"How do you know?”

It’s true after all, how did he know?…

I reread the lousy sheet.. I started shivering.. right in front of the newspaper and all… I can tell you that those nosy reporters gave me the shakes. the shivers like that morning… in the park with Delphine..

"Listen!.. Listen!.. That’s just my luck!.. But how do you know about it, half-pint?”

"Heard about it at the Boss’s place, the Leicester!. They came back two days ago! Boro and Delphine.. Boy, did they eat!. Were they hungry!. You can’t imagine!.. They gobbled up everything! ”

"What did they say?”

I had to know.

"Cascade said that he never would’ve thought it of you!” "So they told everything! ”

"Absolutely everything! ”

"Then where did they go?”

"Go see!. Ah! they sure fixed you all right!”

"Fixed me?.. Ah! wait, take it easy!”

"They gave you the works all right! Naturally!.. You weren’t there!. Go see Cascade!”

Ah! I could see what he was up to. Just wait awhile, wise guy!. I say nothing!. I act dumb. So I leave the restaurant with him… In other words, I’m taking a risk… all or nothing!.. Outside we head for Cascade’s, we’re walking side by side. he’s so tiny he’s half-running to keep up with me.. toward Buckingham Palace.. our direction… I take a look around. I’m on the lookout. Got an idea. there’s nothing in front of the gate. Good!. Farther on, about two hundred yards.. Suddenly I grab him by the back of the neck. Ah! you little joker!.. I carry him straight into a corner, the squirming fish!.. hanging from my left fist!

"Listen, Ten-paw!”. I shake him. "Who’s paying you?” I ask.

"Paying me?.. Paying me?. No one! ”… he’s twisting and struggling.. he’s yelling..

"It wasn’t Cascade who sent you?”

I put him down on his feet.

"Cascade doesn’t send anyone!.. Get that, you big dope!

He settles things himself. But here’s the way he talked.. 'Ferdinand’s not what I thought he was!.. I took him in, in full confidence!.. as a very serious young man. Ferdinand’s double-crossed us!. he came to my house like a friend!

sent by Raoul!. poor Raoul!. He’s acted like a skunk!

Especially after being sent by Raoul!’. That’s what hurts him… Sent in confidence by Raoul!..'He’s acted like a skunk! ’ ”

He hadn’t minced words.

"You can imagine how Boro piled it on!. You weren’t there!.. So go there!. 'You’re quite right, Cascade!’.. Oh! the trimmings!. 'A little criminal!’. They were talking about you!.. 'He bashed poor Claben on the head!.. He swiped all the dough!.. He set the joint on fire!.. He ran away! ’.. Those are their very words! ”

"Ah! Say listen!..”

Hearing that gives me palpitations! What a crime! Ah! they’re strangling me!

"What? They dared, those fairies?.. Ah, the damned lousy skunks!.. Ah! just let me find them!.. So that’s exactly what they said?”

"In front of everyone there! ”

No doubt about it.

"And what about you, you little rat?” I ask.

I grab him by the throat..

"What about you? What’d you come around for?”

We were still in the doorway… He struggles around, he’s playing innocent.

"Ah! I was pimping I swear! ” he gasps… "I never lie to you, Ferdinand!”

He’s protesting. he’s groaning. wailing..

"I know you’re wounded, Ferdinand! I know you’re wounded! I wouldn’t want to hurt you!. Never!. I swear!. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you!. It’s just for your good, believe me, pal!.. They’re a mean crowd at the Leicester!. Watch out!. They’ve got it in for you!”

"Watch out for what?”

"I don’t know… I don’t know.”

Good, all right! I let him alone. We walk past the shops. I keep still. all right. I’m on the watch. Ah! I’m suspicious!. the son-of-a. Just wait, you little runt!. I was thinking.. You won’t get away with that stuff!.,I act dumb too, since that’s the game!. I play along.. there!. So go there!. ‘You’re quite right, Cascade!’.. Oh!

"Ten-paw, I’ve got confidence! ” I tell him.. “All things considered… all in all.. you’re absolutely right!.. I’m going back!. I want to see them all!. It’s settled!. You’re sure there won’t be any hard feelings?. Do you guarantee it?. You know I’m frank and regular!. I don’t like lies!.. Look me straight in the eyes! ”

He was too small.

I lift him up again from the ground… so he can look me straight in the eyes… He stares at me.. and I talk to him.

’‘Ten-paw, now listen to me! I didn’t steal anything! I’m telling you that now! You can believe me! I didn’t touch the old guy!..Do you believe me? You believe me? I’m all clear!”

“Ah! ” he says..

He doubts it.. he doubts. I see it’s bothering him. he’d have liked me to be guilty..

“I just swiped two sovereigns that’d fallen out of his bag! That’s all I admit to and that’s the size of it!. You’ll tell them! It’s very simple!”

I put him down again.

He takes me by the arm… He understands… I see he’s glad that he’s bringing me back.. After all, in spite of everything.. that I’m ready to go back to the Leicester..

Ah! I’m suspicious of him!..

“Say, how’d you find me?”

I ask him the same question again.

“Just so, you know… by accident!.. I was passing by! ”

Sure, sure, I think to myself!. just wait, shorty! accident, my ass!

He’s hanging on to my arm, he’s tiny..We keep going.. He gives me the latest gossip as we walk. the news at the Leicester… that two more men have left. Philippe and Julien.. that they’ve joined up in Dunkerque.. that they’ve left two more girls.. that dough’s been rolling in galore.. that Angele didn’t know where to put it.. that she’d already bought something like seven blue foxes and a three-quarter-length sable coat. That as for him, Ten-paw, he wasn’t going to go dragging around in the kitchens of clubs!. Not by a long shot!.. Even with trick cards!.. The others can have it!

.. Ah! no more of that!.. that he was going to go into business, too.. into the hustling racket!.. that with times as they were he’d make a pile in no time! Boy, and how! that he’d already taken up the big matter with Cascade about a little sister!. that he’d mentioned it to him. that he had more than enough to treat himself to one. That he hadn’t said yes or no. Not too bad-looking a one who made out all right..

"You’re going to be kind of short for a pimp!. You’ll hide under the bed! ”

I couldn’t keep from saying it.

"Short! Short! ” he exclaims.. "Listen, you cluck! Can’t I have a piece like anyone else? Ah! Gravy! Greetings! There’s a war on! ”

Ah! he was dead set on it!

"Tail, that’s the business!”

Besides there were going to be widows!.. That was understood, too.. Cascade had spoken to him about it… He was counting on it. A widow!. maybe two!. bargains!.. There’d never been such a boom… it was really the perfect business!.. Whore galore!.. velvet!

A nasty little stinker!

So gabbing away like that we came to the Mall, the big avenue in front of the Palace.. Buckingham Palace… a fine bridle path. We sat down there on a bench. under a tree… I feel like letting some people go by… to look at them..

"You see?” he says. "That’s where the king is!”

I still remember his remark.

"It’s not as nice as the Louvre! ” I answer.

"That’s a matter of taste, their kings liked it!.. London’s not Paris! ”

We argue about it awhile.

"Our kings had a swell setup too.. Say, I’ve seen the Louvre!”

But I stuck to the Louvre! he’d never convince me!

"'Listen I know something about it! ”

I start going into detail.

"Ah! and what paintings! millions of them in a row!” "What was the name of our last one?”

He asks me a question. I never remember!

"Louis the Sixteenth! ”

What the hell.

"You’re educated, pal!” he answers back, but that immediately annoys him.

"Remember, education’s not everything! the thing that counts in life, see, is natural intelligence!.. And I’ve got it! I can flatter myself about that! That’s the main thing! I’ve known women who knew five and six languages! I wouldn’t have wanted them as kitchenmaids!. stuck up! that’s all!. Swell-headed!. Just look at the suckers. They’re often educated, eh?..You never saw anything so dopey!. proof!.. You ought to see the way they pass their time in the clubs!.. I can tell you about that!. They play! they lose! and I win!

.. My boy, the hell with them I tell you!.. What does a king do for a good time?. ‘I’m a-off to war!’ he announces. 'I’ll be right back!. The other guys are getting killed for me!’. He gets there around noon!. He has a swell lunch in his tent stuck in the back of the woods.. He’s in the lines!.. the photographers come along! They take a photo of the guy! on a horse! in a car! and I go home!..Nice chap! Greetings, ladies and gentlemen! Ah! nice majesty! Badaboom! a hundred and three canon shots! We’ve won! You see him in all the magazines!. like you, pal! Hurrah! and God Save the King!. You think the King worries?. I’ve always known. It’s natural! They got life too soft!. I’d take it easy, too! in his place!. You, too!. If you were spoiled like them!.. You’d just fiddle around, it’s only natural! if you were king!

You just lap it up, can’t help it!”

He was doing all the talking. I wasn’t saying anything

.. Suddenly he asks me, "Say, d’you know Big Fatso?.. Ever heard him give out at Cascade’s?. . If I Were King!. He sure knows how to sing it! ”

I’d stopped listening to him. he was wearing me out.. I was feeling pooped again.. especially my head.. What excitement in the last two weeks!. In my state it was murderous..

"Ferdinand, you’re not staying here?. You said you were coming!. Aren’t you? Come along!”

That was right after all.

"Come on! Let’s go!. We’ll take the Tube! You’re too tired, you’re groggy! ”

That was quite true.

"You see?”.. he points to the lawns in the distance. "the sparrows are happy… for them it’s the feed bag everywhere.. it’s the berries everywhere!.. That’s the sparrow’s life!

.. You see the advantage!. Say, you know I like birds!.. I’d have a big bird-cage if I had the dough! like at the zoo! Have you seen the one here? Cocatoos! the rainbow! all colors!

It’s beautiful! It’s more beautiful than the paintings in your Louvre!.. real rainbows!.. hurry up!.. They’ll be gone!.. We’ll have to drop in at the Ping-Pong.”

"You think so?” I ask him again. "You really think it's serious?.. that I ought to go back to the Leicester?.. Maybe it’s better not to see them again?”

"Ah! be careful, Ferdinand!. You know Cascade, he’s a decent guy!.. But if he sees that you’re giving him a runaround!.. that you’re afraid of explaining things!.. Ah! he’ll really think there’s something fishy about you! Ah! there’ll be hell to pay!.. Ah! he’ll get pretty mean! Boro won’t have any trouble filling him with his hokum! Ah! they’ll step all over you! Since you’re not there!”

He was set on my making up my mind… on our taking the Tube. both of us. he insisted terrifically. Ah! he’s working on me, he’s making me groggy.. right there in front of the station I was still hesitating..

"Oh! ” I say.. "Ten-paw, I’m not going! ”

I changed my mind.

"You’re making a mistake Ferdinand!. You’re making a mistake! ’’

Ah! it griped him that I’d said no!.. I saw his stubborn little mug… I gave in a little… I took two or three steps..

I stopped.. People were looking at us on the sidewalk… at the midget, the two of us arguing… I entered the station.. He didn’t let me catch my breath… He rushed to the ticket window..

"Come on, Ferdinand!.. Let’s go!.. Here’s your chance!

It’s better to go!. Afterwards you’ll be glad!. Stop worrying!.. Shake a leg! ”

I follow him… I go along. I’m giving in because I’m tired, that’s the truth… It was the Baker Street station… He gets the tickets… We’re pushed into the elevator.. smothered in the rush. suddenly I feel anxious!. My heart had been racing away since the night before.. the morning. since Greenwich, in fact.. now it’s charging! Cooped up that way in the elevator! I’m palpitating! palpitating! an awful burst!

"Listen, midget!” I say. "Listen, are you really sure?”

It’s going down. down..

"Don’t be silly, Ferdinand!.. Don’t be silly.. All you’ve got to do is explain!.. If you don’t go, they’ll believe everything!.. you don’t realize what can happen! ”

Squeezed together like that in the coop! We come right out on to the platform.. he’s still holding me by the arm.

"Mustn’t get lost!” he says. "Mustn’t get lost!”

So there we are waiting for the train.. squeezed among the people. I don’t know why. they’re all stifling me!.. I can’t breathe any more!. They’re all there against me! I free myself. Ah! I free myself. I take three steps forward to the edge of the track.. And there opposite? who do I see? who’s that there?. there facing me?. Ah! excuse me! Ah! my eyes pop!.. His raglan!.. His soft felt!.. His mug!.. It’s Matthew! Matthew! there on the other platform!. Matthew looking straight at us!.. My blood turns!.. I stop breathing!.. I stop moving!.. I stand there hypnotized… he looks at me!.. I look at him! Ah! but I’m thinking!.. I’m thinking fast!.. It’s the midget! there against me!.. It’s him!.. It’s the double-crosser!. "Good!. Good!. Good!”.. It’s getting ready by itself!. my scheme. I concentrate. concentrate.. Not a word. calm and collected.. People are talking all around us.. They’re waiting for the train like us.. We hear the train roaring. it’s coming!. there in the darkness. in the hole. at my right. Good!. Good!.. Good!

.. the train’s approaching. It’s roaring fiercely, crashing in swelling up. Brrr! Brrroom. Good! Good! Good!. It’.* near… I look at Matthew opposite… I feel the midget against me.. he’s got me by the arm… he doesn’t want to lost me! "BRRRR!”. the locomotive emerges and "Tweet!.. Tweet! ” the whistle. Bop! I hit him with my ass! the midget! up in the air!. The thunder lets loose, passes below! Whistle! Whistle! Whistle!.. They’re all yelling! all around! the whole station!..I pull clean back! I’m magnetized! That’s just the word!. positively!. I’m lifted up!. I’m light as a feather! I get going!.. I’m snapped up by the exit!

the stairway! I’m sucked up!. I’m flying off!. It’s instinct! flight!. the whole corkscrew!. the four flights.. I shoot up! a whirlwind! I don’t feel them!.. a mile a minute!

I’m being sucked up!. I’m so light I’m not touching the stairs!. I’m a bird of fear!. I shoot from the cage into the street!.. running!.. running!. I’m galloping! I cross a street.. two!.. three!. I’m a bird of fright!. I’m off like a shot!. Another street… a square.. another avenue… a park. I turn around. I’m swooping in circles. I graze the ground. just graze it. speed!. a ball of fire!. I knock people over!. another square!.. I go all around it. I slow up. oof!. I stop. My tongue’s hanging out. It’s over!

.. I’m going to faint!.. But no!.. I sit down on the curb!

right under a tree!. They’ve lost me!. I look up at the street sign! It says Berkeley Square… a swell neighborhood. oof!. limousines and landaus are passing one another.. It must be around six o’clock… a rather busy hour.. It’s the way to Regent Street. The parade of elegance. I catch my breath a little. I’m seized by anxiety again. I start thinking. my heart’s twinging again!. It’s attacking me. it’s banging at my ribs.. and then my head starts acting up… I can’t rest any more. I’m buzzing. tingling. overheated. it’s my common sense wobbling and wavering… I can’t see anything. and then I see everything!. I’m not me any more!.. It is me!.. I shook him up, the dirty midget!.. up in the air, Ten-paw!. up in the air!. Ah! say, you there!.. Say! he’s bashed up right this minute! Wham! the tough guy! Matthew there opposite! watching! staring! I still see the cop!

umbrella and all!. Ah! popeyed!. He hadn’t come alone!. Ah! sure and certain!. Ah! Ten-paw, the rotten little jerk! finagling little rat! Sh! Sh! Not another word! Shit! Now Cascade!.. All mine! Claben too! Ah! it’s not possible! Everything’s getting mixed up!.. It’s all fire!.. it’s flaming!.. it's all growling inside my head!. like over there! I'm in a fever!. my ass on the curb! ah! frozen like that I’m going to cool off!.. Like over there! Ah! Providence! Ah! I’m saved! Ah! it’s getting better! sitting oft the stone! Hurray for the Saint Johns! Hurray for the firemen! but it won’t last long!.. I got off to a bad start!.. I think of my folks!.. my mother in France in her shop mending lace..I get a headache thinking of mamma.. ruining her eyes that way under the big gas lamp. and the customers never satisfied.. I’d let the customers have it!.. I’d teach them how to behave!

.. and my father at the Coccinelle transcribing addresses!.. that he’ll never finish!.. and my pals in the trenches, the dumb dopes, getting it smack in the puss.. it’s an avalanche, thunder, and me there like a murderer! shit!.. I could see the whole damned setup… it haunted me, set my head spinning. I didn’t dare move. "Ferdinand! Ferdinand!’’ I said to myself. "You’re the victim of a plot!. and no denying it, they’re out to hurt you!.. Your head hurts!. That proves it! Are you a decent guy? That’s the question that staggers me. Did Claben do you any harm?. So you robbed him just to drink? No one has any proof!. Tempaw either!.. He’s in the Tube now!.. He’s even smaller!.. that’ll teach him to double-cross!.. It was horrible of him.. Ferdinand, you’re going to pay for everything!.. Matthew’s got a perfect right!. He’s on duty!. No doubt about it! He’s looking for you. he has a right to!..He’s got the police behind him!

He’s on the lookout!. that’s his job! criminal matters! punishment tra-la-la! Oh you riffraff! it all works out!.. my youth knocking me around again! plaguing me! sickening me! it’s all there in a heap! shaking me! the people from the Passage du Verododat! the nosy bodies! the neighbors! and lots more! They’re accusing me! they’re involving me! The nerve! and lots more! The self-examination!. You’ll see what people are like.. they won’t want to look at my mother any more!

how she’s going to cry and weep!.. "A deserter, Madame! an uninteresting young man!. in fact, a monster! A bandit!..And his poor father!..He should have boarded him somewhere!.. Not in La Roquette!.. in prison with the hoodlums! This wouldn’t have happened to you, Madame!.. He deserted in London!. He was wounded!. He was crazy!.. A drunkard!.. A sex-maniac!. He was a liar!. he masturbated in every corner!. he was often caught. He had vile instincts! He was failed three times when he came up for his elementary-school diploma!.. What rings under his eyes!.. everyone remembers it!.. The way he spoke to his mother!. They were weak with him!.. He stole four rolls!

How they deprived themselves for him!. It was worth while!.. He robbed his employer!.. And then he enlisted!

Then he had a little courage!. He left in September.. mentioned three times in the military dispatches!.. and then the military medal!. Brave at the beginning. it didn’t last. afterwards he lost everything!.. Courage and everything else! all his good resolutions!.. He didn’t want to die any more!. He was just a little delinquent!. I always said so!

and the military medal!. just hotheaded!. a basically criminal nature!.. They arrested him in London!.. They locked him up!.. They put him through torture!. He deserved it! He lost his head!.. He started admitting.. They plucked his eyes out!. men who knew him well! people who were sick and tired of his criminal instincts!”. I could hear the voices going in and out of the gates!.. they reached my ears!.. right on Berkeley Square! All I could hear was those voices… I didn’t even hear the cars.. They were real voices.. and even some English voices among them.. with the accent. everything. "Watch your step! Watch your step! Bloody murder!. Bloody murder!”. muted. among the other voices!.. with a bit of music among the street echoes. Murder! Murder! Oh! I’ve got to act fast!. Things look very bad, Ferdinand!. They’re going to catch you!. They’re going to jump on your neck like Delphine in the tunnel.

Ah! they won’t get me!.. Bloody mess!. I know all about the traps! the tricks! the murderous war! the pitfalls! The hell with the dopes! So I get up very gingerly. nice and quickly. and oop!. I make a dash!. The opposite sidewalk.. I bolt!.. I run!.. I hug the walls!.. I hit Bond Street!.. Marylebone!.. I know where I’m going!.. My heart’s racing like mad!..A drum!. A tattoo!. but in the right place!.."With heart and soul!”…I still hear the colonel…

"Cavalry! sabers in hand!” Sir Colonel Guts!. "With heart and soul!. Gallop!. Chaaarge!” I obey his command!.. I dash forward!. Ah! how I dash!. I bolt!. I fly to the charge!. Heart and soul!. All for my country!. I know the itinerary!. I don’t get lost in the heart of London!. I race ahead! spurt!. Hip! Hip! Hurrah! cavalcade!. whirlwind! Heart and soul!. Valor!. Victory’s my law!. Victoria!. Tottenham Court Road!. I change pace!. neck down! on the bit!. I clap spurs!. I charge the omnibus!

the whole flock! Mastodons! they grunt! growl! quiver! big potbellies! twenty-five motors!.. stopped, all red, there, alert, muzzle against croup. massed, set. all vibrating at the signal!. snuffling at the butt-ends! putt! putt!. blood buffaloes!.. I confront them!.. snuffle as they do!.. brrrooo! brr. rr. roo. oooo!. And I charge everything! lightning! dodge!. hack the herd!. cut sideways!. arrow! escape!. right at the crossing!. in front of the Lyons, the giant tearoom, open night and day!. Ah! the stout fellow!