Cyclops (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) by Ranko Marinkovic Page B

sanitary technicians plead. What refinement in Thénardier, the vile condor! With a mere shoe he lifts his establishment to considerable renown, to the level of international urinary language. The Micturition Code. Now,
there’s
a European for you!
    Melkior was ill at ease with their daring throughout. To have dashed wine in Ugo’s face! And with what a regal gesture! To have kissed
her
like that! He proceeded to examine his bitter yearning in detail; the fantasies struck him as terribly forward and he blushed.
    “So, Maestro,” the invincible Ugo spoke up with a chairmanlike efficiency, “I think this is just the moment for
Snap.
Europe has left through a door that could hardly be called a triumphal arch, and spitting in people’s faces, since civilization forbids spitting on the floor, makes perfect sense. And it’s forceful in a virile way. Virile in particular. It’s not easy getting cast for a spitting role, that sort of thing is reserved for the big players. Roscius himself, in Rome, used to spit in key scenes. But let us leave those sputalitious matters to the spitters, what comes out of their mouths is spittle, not words. Goodbye, snot-dribblers, and hoard your precious ammunition like those besieged in a fortress, your mouths will go dry with excitement. My apologies, Maestro, for keeping you waiting until I finished delivering the war message to those on the other bank, over there where culture leaves off. I was speaking like Caesar to Vercingetorix. So, if you please, what is it that two shot glasses of the hard stuff say? Then again … perhaps they whisper, do they whisper?”
    “No they do not,” Maestro growled angrily, “they damned well bellow! But I will be moderate in playing my
marche funèbre,—moderato
, as they put it in the scores. Parampion, the question!” he said sternly, like a champion demanding his gong.
    “What is it that two shot glasses of the hard stuff say?” Ugo asked ceremonially.
    “Two shot glasses of the hard stuff say
Snap,”
Maestro pronounced solemnly.
    He then spat out his cigarette butt, cleared his throat thoroughly and sluiced it with a sip of brandy (which was equally part of the ritual), and, closing his eyes, began to recite, craning his neck awkwardly:
Anatomy, Or My Person on Sale:
    “Put your money down
Snip me—I’m a snap.”
    “That’s the introduction, gentlemen,” Ugo chimed in, “and a refrain of sorts …” But everyone shushed him and Maestro went on:
    “For sale, cheap and mortgage-free:
every little piece of me.
First, my skin—no warts, no rash—
easy for the scalpel’s slash.
Item, one nose, large, purple like a plum
(which comes of too much brandy, wine, and rum),
a first-class sniffer of plots and shady deals …
    Put your money down
Snip me—I’m a
snap.
    Item, an organ, ill-bred and misled,
planted by Nature in my head,
a little horror, devil, razor, snake—
my filthy tongue, which truly takes the cake
for foul, dirty, slanderous talk …
    Put your money down
Snip me—I’m a
snap.
    (Here, innkeeper, pour and bring
shot to shot—shot glasses twain
and we will knock ’em back and sing
and thereupon we’ll drink again!)”
    “Bring shot glasses twain, shot to shot,” whispered Ugo to Thénardier.
    “Right,” said Maestro when the drinks arrived, “the two shots go on to say as follows:
    Item, one brain-casing bursting at the seams,
holding a brain with many-colored dreams
of Her, blue-clad Madonna (devils all around her)
while I, her suitor, am told I’m a bounder
who’s not to hound her and is left to founder …
Hence those scabs from reality on the brain,
those scars and pimples, welts, and stabs of pain,
hence the worms, bugs, slugs crawling in slimy bliss
all over the filthy picture of the selfsame lovely miss …
    Put your money down
Snip me—I’m a
snap.
    What else have I to give, butchering MDs?”
    “Nothing,” Ugo broke in. “We’re going to skip the various delicacies. Because he”—this to the