Nightwood Read Online Free PDF Page B

gloves on in church! They often end by slicing themselves up, it's a rhythm that finally meets their own neck. He leaned forward and drew a finger across mine and said, "As much hair as thick as that makes it a little difficult," and at that moment I got heart failure for the rest of my life. I put down a franc and flew like the wind, the hair on my back standing as high as Queen Anne's ruff! And I didn't stop until I found myself spang in the middle of the Musée de Cluny, clutching the rack.'
    A sudden silence went over the room. The Count was standing in the doorway, rocking on his heels, either hand on the sides of the door, a torrent of Italian, which was merely the culmination of some theme he had begun in the entrance hall, was abruptly halved as he slapped his leg, standing tall and bent and peering. He moved forward into the room, holding with thumb and forefinger the centre of a round magnifying glass which hung from a broad black ribbon. With the other hand he moved from chair to table, from guest to guest. Behind him, in a riding habit, was a young girl. Having reached the sideboard he swung around with gruesome nimbleness.
    'Get out!' he said softly, laying his hand on the girl's shoulder. 'Get out, get out!' It was obvious he meant it; he bowed slightly.
    As they reached the street the 'Duchess' caught a swirling hem of lace about her chilling ankles. 'Well, my poor devil?' she said, turning to Felix.
    'Well!' said Felix. 'What was that about, and why?'
    The doctor hailed a cab with the waving end of a bulldog cane. 'That can be repaired at any bar,' he said.
    'The name of that', said the Duchess, pulling on her gloves, 'is a brief audience with the great, brief, but an audience!'
    As they went up the darkened street Felix felt himself turning scarlet. 'Is he really a Count?' he asked.
    'Herr Gott!' said the Duchess. Am I what I say? Are you? Is the doctor?' She put her hand on his knee. 'Yes or no?'
    The doctor was lighting a cigarette and in its flare the Baron saw that he was grinning. 'He put us out for one of those hopes that is about to be defeated.' He waved his gloves from the window to other guests who were standing along the curb, hailing vehicles.
    'What do you mean?' the Baron said in a whisper.
    'Count Onatorio Altamonte—may the name eventually roll over the Ponte Vecchio and into the Arno—suspected that he had come upon his last erection.'
    The doctor began to sing, 'Nur eine Nacht.'
    Frau Mann, with her face pressed against the cab window, said, 'It's snowing.' At her words Felix turned his coat collar up.
    'Where are we going?' he asked Frau Mann. She was quite gay again.
    'Let us go to Heinrich's, I always do when it's snowing. He mixes the drinks stronger then, and he's a good customer, he always takes in the show.'
    'Very well,' said the doctor, preparing to rap on the window. 'Where is thy Heinrich?'
    'Go down Unter den Linden ,' Frau Mann said. 'I'll tell you when.'
    Felix said, 'If you don't mind, I'll get down here.' He got down, walking against the snow.
    Seated in the warmth of the favoured café, the doctor, unwinding his scarf said: 'There's something missing and whole about the Baron Felix—damned from the waist up, which reminds me of Mademoiselle Basquette who was damned from the waist down, a girl without legs, built like a medieval abuse. She used to wheel herself through the Pyrenees on a board. What there was of her was beautiful in a cheap traditional sort of way, the face that one sees on people who come to a racial, not a personal, amazement. I wanted to give her a present for what of her was missing, and she said, "Pearls—they go so well with everything!" Imagine, and the other half of her still in God's bag of tricks! Don't tell me that what was missing had not taught her the value of what was present. Well, in any case,' the doctor went on rolling down his gloves, 'a sailor saw her one day and fell in love with her. She was going uphill and the sun was shining all