Planus Read Free Page B

cylinders, his gaunt head supernaturally lit by one of those water-globes which diamond-cutters place in front of a light so as to reflect and concentrate the luminosity on a single point. He was holding a book in his hand. I do not remember what it was. I had nothing much to say to him. As for Mandaieff, his face was already turned towards death.
    . . . And we walked away through the deserted streets, Korzakow carrying me off to Julia's place where, so he had always claimed, ever since our arrival in Antwerp, he had made a hit.
    'Well, we had a damned good blow-out today!' he said as we entered the brothel. I went to see Rij.
     
    Rij was a windbag, a barrel of a woman who must have weighed seventeen or eighteen stone. I have never seen such a monument of crumbling, overblown flesh. She spent her days and nights in an upholstered armchair which had been specially made for her, and she was forever adorning it with ribbons and plaited rosettes, bows, gold and silver braid, embroidery and lace; as the padded head-rest was very high, rising well above her head, and she herself was always tangled up in her skeins of embroidery wools, she was enthroned there, in this kind of cradle or cocoon, like a knowing sow in the enchanted caravan, the ark of a fortune-teller, pontifical, with a mischievous eye, her heavy eyelids fringed with black mascara, swigging countless bottles of beer and smoking a long clay pipe, cramming the tobacco in with her fat, bejewelled, sausage-shaped fingers, her teeth gold, her legs bare, showing pale calves, her feet, in Turkish slippers of red and blue leather, resting on a foot-muff that concealed her chamber-pot, her hair hanging down below her knees, but with a bun on top crowned with combs set with brilliants, a mirror within reach of her hand, a Hand of Fatima hanging round her neck. There was something of the prize-winning mother rabbit about her, and also something of a Hindu idol. But she had a sentimental heart and was always in a tizzy about everybody and everything. She exercised great authority at Julia's, for she had a devoted clientele who came to the house especially for her, and in order to fornicate with this wallowing monster, the male, like an insect, had to squat, behind, in front, or underneath, since the woman, like a queen termite, would not deign to move herself.
    'Fortunately, I have a large hole,' she was in the habit of saying, when the screen behind which she had done her stuff was drawn back (nothing would induce her to go up to the first floor), 'you can't bungle it with me. I am not shaped like a circumflex accent, a man can ride me astride or side-saddle. But not many men have the necessary equipment, and I don't like miserable beggars who show off and try to butter me up, it gives me a migraine and tires me out. If all women were made like me, making love would not be just an affectation. With me, a man gets good solid meat. Something he can screw. It's healthy. Look... .'
    And she would slap her buttocks and smack her tits, moving her belly and hips, showing off her thighs, her knees, her phenomenal ankles, making you measure the roundness of her arm, and feel her neck and back.
    'Creamy as a bar of soap, isn't it?' she would say. 'It's smooth and it smells good. And what's more, I froth. I am unique. Barnum wanted to take me to America. But I come from Antwerp, and besides, I have my self-respect as a woman. I would not exhibit myself like that. . ..'
    The other girls in the house — there were eighteen of them, and that was the number on the lantern over the front door — clustered round, knitting placidly and listening to Rij's inexhaustible chatter. They were a fine regiment of sailors' girls, solid landlubbers, dairymaids and housemaids. They were not malicious. We took them out for boat-trips, upstream or downstream, or for picnics in the open air, improvised hops at the local inns, and, on rainy days, we took them to the cinema in the afternoon, or went on