Read Online More Pricks Than Kicks by Samuel Beckett - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Samuel Beckett
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refreshments. Turning her back on the high dumb-waiter, with a great winged gesture of lapidated piety, she instituted the following selection:
“Cup! Squash! Cocoa! Force! Julienne! Pan Kail! Cock-a-Leekie! Hulluah! Apfelmus! Isinglass! Ching-Ching!”
A terrible silence fell on the assembly.
“Great cry” said Chas “and little wool.”
The more famished faithful stormed the platform.
Two banned novelists, a bibliomaniac and his mistress, a paleographer, a violist d'amore with his instrument in a bag, a popular parodist with his sister and six daughters, a still more popular Professor of Bullscrit and Comparative Ovoidology, the saprophile the better for drink, a communist painter and decorator fresh back from the Moscow reserves, a merchant prince, two grave Jews, a rising strumpet, three more poets with Lauras to match, a disaffected cicisbeo, a chorus of playwrights, the inevitable envoy of the Fourth Estate, a phalanx of Grafton Street Stürmers and Jemmy Higgins arrived now in a body. No sooner had they been absorbed than the Parabimbi, very much the lone bird on this occasion in the absence of her husband the Count who had been unable to escort her on account of his being buggered if he would, got in her attributions of the Frica for which, as has been shown, the Beldam was so profoundly beholden.
“Maaaacche!” said the Countess of Parabimbi, “I do but constate.”
She held the saucer under her chin like a communion-card. She lowered the cup into its socket without a sound.
“Excellent” she said, “most excellent Force.”
The crone smiled from the teeth outward.
“So glad” she said, “so glad.”
The Professor of Bullscrit and Comparative Ovoidology was nowhere to be seen. But that was not his vocation, he was not a little boy. His function was to be heard. He was widely and distinctly heard.
“When the immortal Byron” he bombled “was about to leave Ravenna, to sail in search of some distant shore where a hero's death might end his immortal spleen…”
“Ravenna!” exclaimed the Countess, memory tugging at her carefully cultivated heart-strings, “did I hear someone say Ravenna?”
“Allow me” said the rising strumpet: “a sandwich: egg, tomato, cucumber.”
“Did you know” blundered the Man of Law “that the Swedes have no fewer than seventy varieties of Smoerrbroed?”
The voice of the arithmomaniac was heard:
“The arc” he said, stooping to all in the great plainness of his words, “is longer than its chord.”
“Madam knows Ravenna?” said the paleographer.
“Do I know Ravenna!” exclaimed the Parabimbi. “Sure I know Ravenna. A sweet and noble city.”
“You know of course” said the Man of Law “that Dante died there.”
“Right” said the Parabimbi, “so he did.”
“You know of course” said the Professor “that his tomb is in the Piazza Byron. I did his epitaph in the eye into blank heroics.”
“You knew of course” said the paleographer “that under Belisarius…”
“My dear” said the Parabimbi to the Beldam, “how well it goes. What a happy party and how at home they all seem. I declare” she declared “I envy you your flair for making people feel at their ease.”
The Beldam disclaimed faintly any such faculty. It was Caleken's party reelly, it was Caleken who had arranged everything reelly. She personally had had very little to do with the arrangements. She just sat there and looked exhausted. She was just a weary old Norn.
“To my thinking” boomed the Professor, begging the question as usual, “the greatest triumph of the human mind was the calculation of Neptune from the observed vagaries of the orbit of Uranus.”
“And yours” said the P.B. That was an apple of gold and a picture of silver if you like.
The Parabimbi waxed stiff.
“What's that?” she cried, “what's that he says?”
A still more terrible silence fell on the assembly. The saprophile had slapped the communist painter and decorator.
The
“Cup! Squash! Cocoa! Force! Julienne! Pan Kail! Cock-a-Leekie! Hulluah! Apfelmus! Isinglass! Ching-Ching!”
A terrible silence fell on the assembly.
“Great cry” said Chas “and little wool.”
The more famished faithful stormed the platform.
Two banned novelists, a bibliomaniac and his mistress, a paleographer, a violist d'amore with his instrument in a bag, a popular parodist with his sister and six daughters, a still more popular Professor of Bullscrit and Comparative Ovoidology, the saprophile the better for drink, a communist painter and decorator fresh back from the Moscow reserves, a merchant prince, two grave Jews, a rising strumpet, three more poets with Lauras to match, a disaffected cicisbeo, a chorus of playwrights, the inevitable envoy of the Fourth Estate, a phalanx of Grafton Street Stürmers and Jemmy Higgins arrived now in a body. No sooner had they been absorbed than the Parabimbi, very much the lone bird on this occasion in the absence of her husband the Count who had been unable to escort her on account of his being buggered if he would, got in her attributions of the Frica for which, as has been shown, the Beldam was so profoundly beholden.
“Maaaacche!” said the Countess of Parabimbi, “I do but constate.”
She held the saucer under her chin like a communion-card. She lowered the cup into its socket without a sound.
“Excellent” she said, “most excellent Force.”
The crone smiled from the teeth outward.
“So glad” she said, “so glad.”
The Professor of Bullscrit and Comparative Ovoidology was nowhere to be seen. But that was not his vocation, he was not a little boy. His function was to be heard. He was widely and distinctly heard.
“When the immortal Byron” he bombled “was about to leave Ravenna, to sail in search of some distant shore where a hero's death might end his immortal spleen…”
“Ravenna!” exclaimed the Countess, memory tugging at her carefully cultivated heart-strings, “did I hear someone say Ravenna?”
“Allow me” said the rising strumpet: “a sandwich: egg, tomato, cucumber.”
“Did you know” blundered the Man of Law “that the Swedes have no fewer than seventy varieties of Smoerrbroed?”
The voice of the arithmomaniac was heard:
“The arc” he said, stooping to all in the great plainness of his words, “is longer than its chord.”
“Madam knows Ravenna?” said the paleographer.
“Do I know Ravenna!” exclaimed the Parabimbi. “Sure I know Ravenna. A sweet and noble city.”
“You know of course” said the Man of Law “that Dante died there.”
“Right” said the Parabimbi, “so he did.”
“You know of course” said the Professor “that his tomb is in the Piazza Byron. I did his epitaph in the eye into blank heroics.”
“You knew of course” said the paleographer “that under Belisarius…”
“My dear” said the Parabimbi to the Beldam, “how well it goes. What a happy party and how at home they all seem. I declare” she declared “I envy you your flair for making people feel at their ease.”
The Beldam disclaimed faintly any such faculty. It was Caleken's party reelly, it was Caleken who had arranged everything reelly. She personally had had very little to do with the arrangements. She just sat there and looked exhausted. She was just a weary old Norn.
“To my thinking” boomed the Professor, begging the question as usual, “the greatest triumph of the human mind was the calculation of Neptune from the observed vagaries of the orbit of Uranus.”
“And yours” said the P.B. That was an apple of gold and a picture of silver if you like.
The Parabimbi waxed stiff.
“What's that?” she cried, “what's that he says?”
A still more terrible silence fell on the assembly. The saprophile had slapped the communist painter and decorator.
The
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