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.The dry fountain in the center and in the center of the fountain the two tritons that once, painted gold, had spouted water but that now were scaling, greenish, dry, their open mouths blocked with dust and cobwebs.On either side, great ornate stone doors gave entrance to the old great chambers which long since had been subdivided, partitioned into many small rooms walled off from each other and reached from the abandoned patio by small doors of splintered wood and broken glass.He lifted his head and looked again at the intricate web of vines woven over the high portal and he could think only of the even more intricate web of small and great vessels and nerves that threaded through his own flesh.The Stelabid already was making him a little dizzy, a little drowsy, but it had not freed him from the pain near his liver.Slowly he walked out.He took his cigarettes from his pocket and put one of them between his lips, wetting the paper and sucking in air, holding the box of matches—Talismans: Imperial Quality, a golden scorpion on a red ground and unrolled papyrus with the admonition, Do not be distrusting.No, for mistrust and doubt and suspicion are invitations to betrayal.Distrust him who counsels you to distrust—knowing that there was no need to light the cigarette.Then he returned both cigarettes and matches to his pocket and heard the motors of cars, the sounds of radios, jukeboxes, shrill whistles, a voice singing, mortar slapping against bricks, the burrr-brrr of a handsaw, a tinkle of piano keys, the steps of a rag vender crying his wares, a clatter of dominoes spilled out on a tabletop, a sigh, a cry, the cackle of chickens passing in a cage carried on their owner’s back.He opened his eyes.Black-clad mourners were walking out of a church.A hunchback was shining someone’s shoes, his brushes and waxes and clothes in a small wooden box festooned with bits of glass and copper centavos.A kitchen with its nested kettles and its smells of boiled chicken, white rice, garbanzo soup.A bakery with trays outside on the sidewalk showing large and small loaves and rolls, twists, puffs, muffins, coils, an endless variety.Across the street, a telegraph office.He moved toward it, dodging cars, and entered and propped his elbows on the marble counter and held his face between his hands.Now he was relaxed with the lassitude that was his compensation for the pain the barbital had subdued.But in an hour or two the lassitude would depart to be followed by its rebound, banal, sterile tension, and his nerves would be taut wires again and he would feel afraid, his fear of death by water or the absurd fear, the ridiculousness of which he would recognize but he would feel it just the same, of sudden death in the street.His fear would concentrate itself in the spastic pit of his belly and he would close his eyes and see himself laid out cold and colorless with a beard that like his fingernails and toenails would go on growing, with his guts distended by gases as if there were still life in him, as if the glassy eyes could still see, the gray-lipped mouth, hanging brutishly open, could still breathe.His hands cradled his face and became tactile mirrors reflecting its protruberances and declivities, its hairs, its orifices, its greases and oils, its dryness and dampness, its weight.They smelled of cologne still, his hands.He put them down.Scattered over the marble countertop were fresh telegraph forms and crumbled, wadded, discarded ones that he smoothed out and read: Please return home everything forgiven.Happy birthday dearest mother.Arriving bus from Acapulco tonight.Freddy passed examinations all well kisses.Papa died yesterday please come.Rorra my life how long will you resist your big daddy.Reference our conversation bales ordered shipped.Intended no offense will you forgive remember nights of love.Baby boy Alicia fine all happy.Book required for thesis out of print.Wonderful time keys to the city wish you were here mother stop.Stop, when perhaps the only way to ensure the permanence of a pleasure was to repeat it until simply that permanence became pleasurable no matter how jaded the repetition.Remember nights of love [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]