Read Online The Brooke-Rose Omnibus by Christine Brooke-Rose - Free Book Online
Authors: Christine Brooke-Rose
Ads: Link
Mrs. Ned. I’ve been given a job.
– Oh, hello. I didn’t recognise you without the chip on your shoulder. Oh, hello, I didn’t recognise you in the dark.
The letter is on the table, folded in four, next to the remedy. The handwriting on the top quarter is upside down which draws the eye to decipherment. The remedy is called Metabol. Nervousness and agitation irritability motor unrest insomnia hostility aggressiveness phobias and hallucinations. Even though many personality problems characteristic of senility may be linked with organic changes in the brain which I … hope … hasn’t … reached you … in any… shapeor … form … you … being … such a very … active ….person This terrible malady which I hope hasn’t reached you in any shape or form you being of course their fear is irrational as it’s not catching from people it’s the radiation in the air and they merely resist better, but it’s all very soul-destroying though I must cry it out aloud that they’re being extraordinarily humane and generous about it. I must say I’m lucky to have married as I did, at least my children stand a sporting chance.
The light over the table makes a moon in the darkness beyond the window. Below the moon is the window-ledge. The pool of light engulfs the entire table and part of the red stone floor. The wrinkled wood is quite static in the light, as static, at any rate, as the network of minute lines on the back of the wrist. A microscope might perhaps reveal which is the more static of the two. The protozoan scene under the microscope is one of continual traffic jams and innumerable collisions.
– What was it you said?
– I was saying that Mr. Marburg the butler was most obliging today –
– No, before that.
– Don’t forget to lick your spoon.
– Ah, yes, I knew it was something important.
The circle of steaming gruel in the bowl is greyish white and pimply. The squint seems blue tonight, and wider. The pale eye that doesn’t move is fixed on the remedy, but the mobile eye wriggles away, its blue mobility calling out the blueness of the temple veins and a hint of blue in the white skin. A microscope might perhaps reveal a striking increase in the leucocyte count, due to a myeloid hyperplasia leading to an absolute increase in the granular leucocytes. Sooner or later immature and primitive white cells appear in the peripheral blood and corresponding changes in the bone marrow. Then the mobile eye too remains fixed, reproachful perhaps.
– Mr. Marburg just happened to mention it to me, I had no idea of course, and I would never have known if he hadn’t come up to the guest wing just at the time that I happened to be there. I’ve never seen him up there I must say, it was the purest chance, unless perhaps he came specially to tell me, which is always a possibility. But why did you do it?
Sooner or later movement, which is necessary but not inevitable , will lead to attainment. That seems to be the general theory at any rate. Yet everything that moves increases risk. Sometimes it is sufficient merely to desire intensely.
The knock ushers Mrs. Ivan into the kitchen to fill her two large jugs of water. Phrases come and go, with and without smies, not at all, good evening, thank you, goodnight.
– Oh, Mrs. Ivan.
– Yes?
– I hope you don’t mind my mentioning it, but could you use up and throw away your opened tins more quickly? They do smell so and anyway it’s dangerous for your health. You may get food poisoning.
– Thank you Mrs.
– I mean if you don’t eat the whole contents why open so many?
– Thank you. Thank you. Goodnight.
– Goodnight. She’ll break my heart with those tins. Well anyway it was very awkward for me, I mean, I didn’t know whose fault it was and I assumed naturally that it was ours in some way. But Mrs. Mgulu couldn’t have been kinder. She really takes an interest you see and it’s become a matter of principle with her. She said – I say are you
– Oh, hello. I didn’t recognise you without the chip on your shoulder. Oh, hello, I didn’t recognise you in the dark.
The letter is on the table, folded in four, next to the remedy. The handwriting on the top quarter is upside down which draws the eye to decipherment. The remedy is called Metabol. Nervousness and agitation irritability motor unrest insomnia hostility aggressiveness phobias and hallucinations. Even though many personality problems characteristic of senility may be linked with organic changes in the brain which I … hope … hasn’t … reached you … in any… shapeor … form … you … being … such a very … active ….person This terrible malady which I hope hasn’t reached you in any shape or form you being of course their fear is irrational as it’s not catching from people it’s the radiation in the air and they merely resist better, but it’s all very soul-destroying though I must cry it out aloud that they’re being extraordinarily humane and generous about it. I must say I’m lucky to have married as I did, at least my children stand a sporting chance.
The light over the table makes a moon in the darkness beyond the window. Below the moon is the window-ledge. The pool of light engulfs the entire table and part of the red stone floor. The wrinkled wood is quite static in the light, as static, at any rate, as the network of minute lines on the back of the wrist. A microscope might perhaps reveal which is the more static of the two. The protozoan scene under the microscope is one of continual traffic jams and innumerable collisions.
– What was it you said?
– I was saying that Mr. Marburg the butler was most obliging today –
– No, before that.
– Don’t forget to lick your spoon.
– Ah, yes, I knew it was something important.
The circle of steaming gruel in the bowl is greyish white and pimply. The squint seems blue tonight, and wider. The pale eye that doesn’t move is fixed on the remedy, but the mobile eye wriggles away, its blue mobility calling out the blueness of the temple veins and a hint of blue in the white skin. A microscope might perhaps reveal a striking increase in the leucocyte count, due to a myeloid hyperplasia leading to an absolute increase in the granular leucocytes. Sooner or later immature and primitive white cells appear in the peripheral blood and corresponding changes in the bone marrow. Then the mobile eye too remains fixed, reproachful perhaps.
– Mr. Marburg just happened to mention it to me, I had no idea of course, and I would never have known if he hadn’t come up to the guest wing just at the time that I happened to be there. I’ve never seen him up there I must say, it was the purest chance, unless perhaps he came specially to tell me, which is always a possibility. But why did you do it?
Sooner or later movement, which is necessary but not inevitable , will lead to attainment. That seems to be the general theory at any rate. Yet everything that moves increases risk. Sometimes it is sufficient merely to desire intensely.
The knock ushers Mrs. Ivan into the kitchen to fill her two large jugs of water. Phrases come and go, with and without smies, not at all, good evening, thank you, goodnight.
– Oh, Mrs. Ivan.
– Yes?
– I hope you don’t mind my mentioning it, but could you use up and throw away your opened tins more quickly? They do smell so and anyway it’s dangerous for your health. You may get food poisoning.
– Thank you Mrs.
– I mean if you don’t eat the whole contents why open so many?
– Thank you. Thank you. Goodnight.
– Goodnight. She’ll break my heart with those tins. Well anyway it was very awkward for me, I mean, I didn’t know whose fault it was and I assumed naturally that it was ours in some way. But Mrs. Mgulu couldn’t have been kinder. She really takes an interest you see and it’s become a matter of principle with her. She said – I say are you
Similar Books
