Pricksongs & Descants Read Online Free PDF Page A

ruin? ” “ Yes, something like that, ” she says. “ And getting kicked in and gutted and shat upon. ” “ Mmm. ” He straightens. “ Just a moment, ” she says, and he resum es his pose. The girl has accom plished a reasonable likeness of the tall man, except that his legs arc stubby (perhaps she failed to center her drawing properly, and ran out of space at the bottom of the paper) and his buttocks are bare and shaggy.
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    “ It ’ s a sad place, ” he says, contemplating the vast wilderness. He turns to find her grinning and wiggling her ears at him. “ Karen, you ’ re mocking me ! ” he complains, laughing. She props one foot up on the stone parapet, leans against her leg, sticks an iron poker between her teeth, and scowls out upon the lake. “ Come on I Stop it! ” he laughs. She puffs on the iron poker, blowing imaginary smoke - rings, then turns it into a walking stick and hobbles about imitating an old granny chasing young children. Next, she puts the poker to her shoulder like a rifle and conducts an inspection of all the broken windows facing on the terrace, scowling or weeping broadly before each one. The man has slumped to the terrace floor, doubled up with laughter. Suddenly, Karen discovers an unbroken window. She leaps up and down, does a somersault, pirouettes, jumps up and clicks her heels together. She points at it, kisses it, points again. “ Yes, yes! ” the man laughs, “ I see it, Karen! ” She points to herself, then at the window, to herself again. “ You? You ’ re like the window, Karen? ” he asks, puzzled, but still laughing. She nods her head vigorously, thrusts the iron poker into his hands. It is dirty and rusty and he feels clumsy with the thing. “ I don ’ t under stand ... ” She grabs it out of his hands and—crash!—drives it through the window. “ Oh no, Karen! No, no ... ! ”
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    “ It ’ s a sad place. ” Karen has joined her sister on the terrace, the balcony, and they gaze out at the lake, two girls alone on a desolate island. “ Sad and yet all too right for me, I suppose. Oh, I don ’ t regret any of it, Karen. No, I was wrong, wrong as always, but I don ’ t regret it. It ’ d be silly to be all pinched and morbid about it, wouldn ’ t it, Karen? ” The girl, of course, is talking about the failure of her third marriage. “ Things are done and they are undone and then we get ready to do them again. ” Karen looks at her shyly, then turns her gen tl e gaze back out across the lake, blue with a river ’ s muted blue under this afternoon sun. “ The sun! ” the girl in gold pants exclaims, though it is not clear why she thought of it. She tries to explain that she is like the sun somehow, or the sun is like her, but she becomes confused. Finally, she interrupts herself to blurt out: “ Oh, Karen! I ’ m so miserable! ” Karen looks up anxiously: there are no tears in her sister ’ s eyes, but she is biting down pain fully on her lower lip. Karen offers a smile, a little awkward, not quite understanding perhaps, and finally her sister, eyes closing a moment, then fluttering open, smiles wanly in return. A moment of grace settles between them, but Karen turns her back on it clumsily.
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    “ No, Karen! Please! Stop! ” The man, collapsed to the terrace floor, has tears of laughter running down his cheeks. Karen has found an old shoe and is now holding it up at arm ’ s length, making broad silent motions with her upper torso and free arm as though declaiming upon the sadness of the shoe. She sets the shoe on the terrace floor and squats down over it, covering it with the skirt of her yellow dress. “ No, Karen! No! ” She leaps up, whacks her heels together in midair, picks up the shoe and peers inside. A broad smile spreads across her face, and she does a little dance, holding the shoe aloft. With a little curtsy, she presents the shoe to the man. “ No ! Please! ” Warily, but still laughing, he