Read Online Under the Jaguar Sun by Italo Calvino - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Italo Calvino
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scale of odors, I was lost, I could no longer discern the direction of the memory I should follow: I knew only that at one point of the spectrum, there was a gap, a secret fold where there lurked that perfume which, for me, was a complete woman.
And wasnât it, after all, the same thing in the savannah, the forest, the swamp, when they were a network of smells, and we ran along, heads down, never losing contact with the ground, using hands and noses to help us find the trail? We understood whatever there was to understand through our noses rather than through our eyes: the mammoth, the porcupine, onion, drought, rain are first smells which become distinct from other smells; food, non-food; our cave, the enemyâs cave; dangerâeverything is first perceived by the nose, everything is within the nose, the world is the nose. In our herd, our nose tells us who belongs to the herd and who doesnât; the herdâs females have a smell that is the herdâs smell, but each female also has an odor that distinguishes her from the other females. Between us and them, at first sight, there isnât much difference: weâre all made the same way, and besides, whatâs the point of standing there staring? Odor, thatâs what each of us has thatâs different from the others. The odor tells you immediately and certainly what you need to know. There are no words, there is no information more precise than what the nose receives. With my nose I learned that in the herd there is a female not like the others, not like the others for me, for my nose; and I ran, following her trail in the grass, my nose exploring all the females running in front of me, of my nose, in the herd; and there I found her, it was she who had summoned me with her odor in the midst of all those odors; there, I breathed through my nose all of her and her love-summons. The herd moves, keeps running, trotting, and if you stop, in the herdâs stampede, they are all on top of you, trampling you, confusing your nose with their smells; and now Iâm on top of her, and they are pushing us, overturning us; they all climb on her, on me; all the females sniff me; all the males and females become tangled with us, and all their smells, which have nothing to do with that smell I smelled before and now smell no longer. It is waiting for me to hunt for it. I hunt for her spoor in the dusty, trampled grass. I sniff. I sniff all the females. I no longer recognize her. I force my way desperately through the herd, hunting for her with my nose.
Â
F OR that matter, now that I wake up in the smell of grass and turn my hand to make a
zlwan zlwan zlwan
with the brush on the drum, echoing Patrickâs
tlann tlann
on his four strings, because I think Iâm still playing She knows and I know, but actually there was just Lenny knocking himself out, sweating like a horse, with his twelve strings, and one of those birds from Hampstead kneeling there and doing some things to him, while I was playing
ding bong dang yang,
and all the others including me were off. I was lying flat, the drums had fallen and I hadnât even noticed, I reach out to pull the drums to safety or else theyâll kick them in, those round things I see, white in the darkness, I reach out and I touch flesh, by its smell it seems warm girlâs flesh, I hunt for the drums which have rolled on the floor in the darkness with the beer cans, with all the others who have rolled on the floor naked, in the upset ashtrays, a nice warm ass in the air, and saying itâs not so hot you can sleep naked on the floor, of course there are a lot of us shut up in here for God knows how long, but somebody has to put more shillings in the gas stove thatâs gone out and is making nothing but a stink, and, out as I was, I woke up in a cold sweat all the fault of the lousy shit they gave us to smoke, the ones who brought us to this stinking place down by the docks with the excuse that here we
And wasnât it, after all, the same thing in the savannah, the forest, the swamp, when they were a network of smells, and we ran along, heads down, never losing contact with the ground, using hands and noses to help us find the trail? We understood whatever there was to understand through our noses rather than through our eyes: the mammoth, the porcupine, onion, drought, rain are first smells which become distinct from other smells; food, non-food; our cave, the enemyâs cave; dangerâeverything is first perceived by the nose, everything is within the nose, the world is the nose. In our herd, our nose tells us who belongs to the herd and who doesnât; the herdâs females have a smell that is the herdâs smell, but each female also has an odor that distinguishes her from the other females. Between us and them, at first sight, there isnât much difference: weâre all made the same way, and besides, whatâs the point of standing there staring? Odor, thatâs what each of us has thatâs different from the others. The odor tells you immediately and certainly what you need to know. There are no words, there is no information more precise than what the nose receives. With my nose I learned that in the herd there is a female not like the others, not like the others for me, for my nose; and I ran, following her trail in the grass, my nose exploring all the females running in front of me, of my nose, in the herd; and there I found her, it was she who had summoned me with her odor in the midst of all those odors; there, I breathed through my nose all of her and her love-summons. The herd moves, keeps running, trotting, and if you stop, in the herdâs stampede, they are all on top of you, trampling you, confusing your nose with their smells; and now Iâm on top of her, and they are pushing us, overturning us; they all climb on her, on me; all the females sniff me; all the males and females become tangled with us, and all their smells, which have nothing to do with that smell I smelled before and now smell no longer. It is waiting for me to hunt for it. I hunt for her spoor in the dusty, trampled grass. I sniff. I sniff all the females. I no longer recognize her. I force my way desperately through the herd, hunting for her with my nose.
Â
F OR that matter, now that I wake up in the smell of grass and turn my hand to make a
zlwan zlwan zlwan
with the brush on the drum, echoing Patrickâs
tlann tlann
on his four strings, because I think Iâm still playing She knows and I know, but actually there was just Lenny knocking himself out, sweating like a horse, with his twelve strings, and one of those birds from Hampstead kneeling there and doing some things to him, while I was playing
ding bong dang yang,
and all the others including me were off. I was lying flat, the drums had fallen and I hadnât even noticed, I reach out to pull the drums to safety or else theyâll kick them in, those round things I see, white in the darkness, I reach out and I touch flesh, by its smell it seems warm girlâs flesh, I hunt for the drums which have rolled on the floor in the darkness with the beer cans, with all the others who have rolled on the floor naked, in the upset ashtrays, a nice warm ass in the air, and saying itâs not so hot you can sleep naked on the floor, of course there are a lot of us shut up in here for God knows how long, but somebody has to put more shillings in the gas stove thatâs gone out and is making nothing but a stink, and, out as I was, I woke up in a cold sweat all the fault of the lousy shit they gave us to smoke, the ones who brought us to this stinking place down by the docks with the excuse that here we
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