The Black Book Read Free

rufous cork, etherized, like a diseased butterfly; Tarquin in the bloodless dream of this Ionian morning, among the foam and uproar, extending his lax hand in greeting. Here we are, sitting in the hallowed fug of the lounge, wrapped in rugs, among the declining plants and statues. He is as ancient and exclusive as leprosy. I am afraid to shake hands with him, for fear that the skin will slip the bony structure of the hand and come away. It would take so little to produce the skeleton from this debile bundle of meat.
    When I am in the Regina I am dead again. Not with the complete mystery and passivity of the dead organism, but dead in the sense of the little death. With me I carry this little toy ark, with its little toy animals, Lobo, Miss Venable, etc. We are lit up in the signs of a new chaos. We are like patches of tissue, kept warm in sealed flasks, fed, washed, and commanded to multiply under the watchful supervision of a scientist. Our world is a world of strict boundaries, outside which we dare not wander, not even in our imagination; whose seasons come and go without any sense of change. It is medieval in its blindness, this existence. Only in winter, when the snow falls, there is a strange dark light thrown on the walls of our hired rooms. The shadows in corners melt, flow, dissolve, and dwindle to black. This is the season we all hate so much. This carol of snow, when the red robin sits importantly on the rose bushes which line the deserted gardens, and the letter rack is crammed with tradesmen’s Xmas cards. A very merry Yuletide to you and yours! (Sweep on, ye fat and greasy citizens.)

    The gardens have many mirrors, shining up on the drawn blinds, in a chaotic, withering flare of imbecility. In his little cubicle Lobo lies in bed, curled up like a foetus, and rings for his breakfast. The unearthly light of the snow sprawls on the green canvas blind. It is still snowing. It will doubtless continue snowing forever. One begins to disregard these things, such is the spiritual disease of this world. The ambience in which we pin decorations up, inflate balloons, or blacken the snow with our best friend’s funeral.
    Winter morning. An elegy in swan’s-down, ferroconcrete, postmen, Lobo, foetus, halfpenny stamps. Four flights up, Tarquin is brooding on the immaculate conception, while the kettle snores on the hob. In the musical armchair, I smoke and watch Lobo’s vague movements in the gloom. It is pleasant to lie like this, somnolent, not daring to touch the cold parts of the bed with his toes. The mirror is arranged so that, by lifting himself on one elbow, he can take a good look at his own swart face, and decide whether the night’s sleep has refreshed his majesty, or whether the debauchery is gaining on him. There is also the question of his penis. He is catapulting it meditatively against his belly as he studies his features. We do not speak, for this is a solemn moment. He is checking up on his appearance. His face is a sort of diary on which every triviality of the daily life is written. He is convinced of this. “Every line here or there, dear boy, the nose or the mouth, has to mean something; when you do something there is a line; a woman taught me the lines but I don’t remember much now, except the virgin line: so.” It is impossible to do this without a phonetic system, his argot is so queer. The gloom is swelling with cigarette smoke. Next door Miss Venable is powdering her harelip. The gas fire is playing its mute jazz. The snow is falling. The elegiac morning is opening on the frozen rivers, ponds, eyeballs, wells, fingers, teeth. Not one of us is Canute enough to put his head out of the window and order it to stop. Dactyl, dactyl, the ducks are going to market. The vermilion postman fights his way through drifts of snow to bring me a letter from the white lady, yclept Pat. Lobo is catapulting, catapulting, with a kind of heavy Peruvian rhythm, and thinking over his