Read Online Mr Palomar (Vintage Classics) by Italo Calvino - Free Book Online
Authors: Italo Calvino
Ads: Link
flight, inevitable when the density is too great.”
“I’ve figured out why they keep flying all together in the evening over this area of the city. They’re like planes stacked up over the airport, circling until they get a permission-to-land signal. That’s why we see them flying around for such a long time; they’re waiting their turn to perch on the trees where they will spend the night.”
“I’ve seen how they act when they light on the trees. They fly around and around in the sky, in a spiral, then one by one they dive very fast towards their chosen tree, then they brake sharply and light on the branch.”
“No, aerial traffic jams can’t be a problem. Each bird has a tree that is his, he has his branch and his place on the branch. He can pick it out from above and he dives.”
“Is their eyesight so sharp?”
“Hmph.”
The phone-calls are never long, because Mr Palomar is also impatient to get back to the terrace, as if he were afraid of missing some decisive turn of events.
Now you would say that the birds occupy only that portion of the sky that is still struck by the rays of the setting sun. But taking a better look, you realize that the condensing and thinning out of the birds unwinds like a long ribbon, flapping in a zigzag. Where this ribbon curves the flock seems thicker, like a swarm of bees; where it stretches out, not twisting, there is only a dotting of scattered flights.
Until the last glow vanishes in the sky, and a tide of darkness rises from the depths of the streets to submerge the archipelago of tiles and domes and terraces and garrets and loggias and spires; and the suspension of the black wings of the celestial invaders precipitates until it is confused with the grievous flight of the stupid, spattering urban pigeons.
PALOMAR DOES THE SHOPPING
----
Two pounds of goose-fat
The goose-fat is shown in glass jars, each containing, as the handwritten label says, “two limbs of plump goose (a leg and a wing), goose-fat, salt and pepper. Net weight: two pounds.” In the thick, soft whiteness that fills the jars the clangor of the world is muffled: a dark shadow rises from the bottom and, as in the fog of memories, allows a glimpse of the goose’s severed limbs, lost in its fat.
Mr Palomar is standing in line in a Paris charcuterie. It is the holiday season, but here the throng of customers is usual even at less ceremonial times, because this is one of the good gastronomical shops of the city, miraculously surviving in a neighborhood where the leveling of mass trade, taxes, the low income of the consumers, and now the depression have dismantled the old shops, one by one, replacing them with anonymous supermarkets.
Waiting in line, Mr Palomar contemplates the jars. He tries to find a place in his memories for cassoulet , a rich stew of meats and beans, in which goose-fat is an essential ingredient; but neither his palate’s memory nor his cultural memory is of any help to him. And yet the name, the sight, the idea attract him, awaken an immediate fantasy not so much of appetite as of eros: from a mountain of goose-fat a female figure surfaces, smears white over her rosy skin, and he already imagines himself making his way towards her through those thick avalanches, embracing her, sinking with her.
He dispels this incongruous thought from his mind, raises his eyes to the ceiling bedecked with salamis, hanging from the Christmas wreaths like fruit from boughs in the land of Cockaigne. All around, on the marble counters, abundance triumphs in the forms developed by civilization and art. In the slices of game pâté, the pursuits and flights of the moor are fixed forever, sublimated in a tapestry of flavors. The galantines of pheasant are arrayed in gray-pink cylinders surmounted, to certify their origin, by two birdly feet like talons that jut from a coat-of-arms or from a Renaissance chest.
Through the gelatine sheaths the thick beauty-spots of black truffle stand
“I’ve figured out why they keep flying all together in the evening over this area of the city. They’re like planes stacked up over the airport, circling until they get a permission-to-land signal. That’s why we see them flying around for such a long time; they’re waiting their turn to perch on the trees where they will spend the night.”
“I’ve seen how they act when they light on the trees. They fly around and around in the sky, in a spiral, then one by one they dive very fast towards their chosen tree, then they brake sharply and light on the branch.”
“No, aerial traffic jams can’t be a problem. Each bird has a tree that is his, he has his branch and his place on the branch. He can pick it out from above and he dives.”
“Is their eyesight so sharp?”
“Hmph.”
The phone-calls are never long, because Mr Palomar is also impatient to get back to the terrace, as if he were afraid of missing some decisive turn of events.
Now you would say that the birds occupy only that portion of the sky that is still struck by the rays of the setting sun. But taking a better look, you realize that the condensing and thinning out of the birds unwinds like a long ribbon, flapping in a zigzag. Where this ribbon curves the flock seems thicker, like a swarm of bees; where it stretches out, not twisting, there is only a dotting of scattered flights.
Until the last glow vanishes in the sky, and a tide of darkness rises from the depths of the streets to submerge the archipelago of tiles and domes and terraces and garrets and loggias and spires; and the suspension of the black wings of the celestial invaders precipitates until it is confused with the grievous flight of the stupid, spattering urban pigeons.
PALOMAR DOES THE SHOPPING
----
Two pounds of goose-fat
The goose-fat is shown in glass jars, each containing, as the handwritten label says, “two limbs of plump goose (a leg and a wing), goose-fat, salt and pepper. Net weight: two pounds.” In the thick, soft whiteness that fills the jars the clangor of the world is muffled: a dark shadow rises from the bottom and, as in the fog of memories, allows a glimpse of the goose’s severed limbs, lost in its fat.
Mr Palomar is standing in line in a Paris charcuterie. It is the holiday season, but here the throng of customers is usual even at less ceremonial times, because this is one of the good gastronomical shops of the city, miraculously surviving in a neighborhood where the leveling of mass trade, taxes, the low income of the consumers, and now the depression have dismantled the old shops, one by one, replacing them with anonymous supermarkets.
Waiting in line, Mr Palomar contemplates the jars. He tries to find a place in his memories for cassoulet , a rich stew of meats and beans, in which goose-fat is an essential ingredient; but neither his palate’s memory nor his cultural memory is of any help to him. And yet the name, the sight, the idea attract him, awaken an immediate fantasy not so much of appetite as of eros: from a mountain of goose-fat a female figure surfaces, smears white over her rosy skin, and he already imagines himself making his way towards her through those thick avalanches, embracing her, sinking with her.
He dispels this incongruous thought from his mind, raises his eyes to the ceiling bedecked with salamis, hanging from the Christmas wreaths like fruit from boughs in the land of Cockaigne. All around, on the marble counters, abundance triumphs in the forms developed by civilization and art. In the slices of game pâté, the pursuits and flights of the moor are fixed forever, sublimated in a tapestry of flavors. The galantines of pheasant are arrayed in gray-pink cylinders surmounted, to certify their origin, by two birdly feet like talons that jut from a coat-of-arms or from a Renaissance chest.
Through the gelatine sheaths the thick beauty-spots of black truffle stand
Similar Books
