Read Online Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec - Free Book Online
Authors: Georges Perec
Tags: Fiction
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on his return he was capable of extracting square and cube roots of nine-digit numbers with relative speed. When that began to get a bit too easy for him, he was seized by a fever for factorials: 1 ! = 1; 2 ! = 2; 3 ! = 6; 4 ! = 24; 5 ! = 120; 6 ! = 720; 7 ! = 5,040; 8 ! = 40,320; 9 ! = 362,880; 10 ! = 3,628,800; 11 ! = 39,916,800; 12 ! = 479,001,600; […]; 22 ! = 1,124,000,727,777,607,680,000, that is to say more than a billion times seven hundred and seventy-seven billions.
So far Smautf has got up to 76! but he can no longer find paper of sufficient width, and even if he could no table would be big enough to lay it out on. He has less and less confidence in himself, which means that he is for ever doing his sums over again. A few years ago Morellet tried to discourage him by telling him that the number written 9(9 9 ), that is, nine to the power of nine to the ninth, which is the largest number you can write using only three figures, would have, if written out in full, three hundred and sixty-nine million digits, which at the rate of one second per digit would keep you busy for eleven years just in writing it, and at the rate of four digits per inch would be one thousand one hundred and fifty-four and one eighth miles long! But that hasn’t deterred Smautf from filling backs of envelopes, notebook margins, and butcher’s wrappers with columns and columns of numbers.
Smautf is now nearly eighty. Bartlebooth offered him retirement long ago, but Smautf has always refused. To tell the truth, he doesn’t have much to do anymore. In the morning he prepares Bartlebooth’s clothes and helps him dress. Until five years ago, he shaved him – with a cut-throat that had belonged to Bartlebooth’s great-great-grandfather – but his sight has dimmed a lot and his hand shakes a little, so he was replaced by a lad sent up every morning by Monsieur Pois, the hairdresser on Rue de Prony.
Bartlebooth no longer ever goes out, he scarcely leaves his study all day. Smautf stays in the next room with the other servants, who don’t have much more work than he does and spend their time playing cards and talking of times past.
Smautf stays for long periods each day in his bedroom. He tries to make some little progress with his arithmetic; for relaxation he does crosswords, reads detective stories which Madame Orlowska lends him, and spends hours stroking the white cat, which purrs whilst massaging the old man’s knee with its claws.
The white cat doesn’t belong to Smautf but to the whole floor. At times it goes to live in Jane Sutton’s room or at Madame Orlowska’s, or goes down to Isabelle Gratiolet or Mademoiselle Crespi. Three or four years ago it came in from the roof. It had a large wound on its neck. People noticed that its eyes were different colours, one was as blue as Chinese porcelain, the other was gold. A little later, people realised that it was completely deaf.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Servants’ Quarters, 6
Mademoiselle Crespi
OLD MADEMOISELLE CRESPI is in her room on the seventh floor, between Gratiolet’s flat and Hutting’s maid’s room.
She is lying in bed, beneath a grey woollen blanket. She has a dream: an undertaker, eyes gleaming with hatred, stands opposite her in the doorway; in his half-raised right hand he proffers a pointed, black-edged card. His left hand supports a round cushion on which two medals lie, one of which is the Stalingrad Hero’s Cross.
Below him, beyond the doorway, lies an Alpine scene: a lake, a frozen and snow-covered round, bordered with trees; the mountains seem to slope directly down to its further shore, while beyond there again show unfamiliar peaks, all in full snow, overtopping each other against the blue sky. In the foreground, three young people are climbing a path which leads to a cemetery, in the middle of which a column surmounted by an onyx basin rises from a clump of oleander and aucuba trees.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
On the Stairs, 2
ON THE STAIRS the
So far Smautf has got up to 76! but he can no longer find paper of sufficient width, and even if he could no table would be big enough to lay it out on. He has less and less confidence in himself, which means that he is for ever doing his sums over again. A few years ago Morellet tried to discourage him by telling him that the number written 9(9 9 ), that is, nine to the power of nine to the ninth, which is the largest number you can write using only three figures, would have, if written out in full, three hundred and sixty-nine million digits, which at the rate of one second per digit would keep you busy for eleven years just in writing it, and at the rate of four digits per inch would be one thousand one hundred and fifty-four and one eighth miles long! But that hasn’t deterred Smautf from filling backs of envelopes, notebook margins, and butcher’s wrappers with columns and columns of numbers.
Smautf is now nearly eighty. Bartlebooth offered him retirement long ago, but Smautf has always refused. To tell the truth, he doesn’t have much to do anymore. In the morning he prepares Bartlebooth’s clothes and helps him dress. Until five years ago, he shaved him – with a cut-throat that had belonged to Bartlebooth’s great-great-grandfather – but his sight has dimmed a lot and his hand shakes a little, so he was replaced by a lad sent up every morning by Monsieur Pois, the hairdresser on Rue de Prony.
Bartlebooth no longer ever goes out, he scarcely leaves his study all day. Smautf stays in the next room with the other servants, who don’t have much more work than he does and spend their time playing cards and talking of times past.
Smautf stays for long periods each day in his bedroom. He tries to make some little progress with his arithmetic; for relaxation he does crosswords, reads detective stories which Madame Orlowska lends him, and spends hours stroking the white cat, which purrs whilst massaging the old man’s knee with its claws.
The white cat doesn’t belong to Smautf but to the whole floor. At times it goes to live in Jane Sutton’s room or at Madame Orlowska’s, or goes down to Isabelle Gratiolet or Mademoiselle Crespi. Three or four years ago it came in from the roof. It had a large wound on its neck. People noticed that its eyes were different colours, one was as blue as Chinese porcelain, the other was gold. A little later, people realised that it was completely deaf.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Servants’ Quarters, 6
Mademoiselle Crespi
OLD MADEMOISELLE CRESPI is in her room on the seventh floor, between Gratiolet’s flat and Hutting’s maid’s room.
She is lying in bed, beneath a grey woollen blanket. She has a dream: an undertaker, eyes gleaming with hatred, stands opposite her in the doorway; in his half-raised right hand he proffers a pointed, black-edged card. His left hand supports a round cushion on which two medals lie, one of which is the Stalingrad Hero’s Cross.
Below him, beyond the doorway, lies an Alpine scene: a lake, a frozen and snow-covered round, bordered with trees; the mountains seem to slope directly down to its further shore, while beyond there again show unfamiliar peaks, all in full snow, overtopping each other against the blue sky. In the foreground, three young people are climbing a path which leads to a cemetery, in the middle of which a column surmounted by an onyx basin rises from a clump of oleander and aucuba trees.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
On the Stairs, 2
ON THE STAIRS the
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