.. Keeps eating you!.. Indeed, Madame!.. Victory here!
.. Victory there!.. Offensives!. Cannon fodder!. They need it!.. Send back the bones! the goo! the mug! all for nothing!.. What’s there to write about?… I see just one thing in war!.. It means raising hell and making dough! Just have to lie down to get it!.. It’s women’s work!.. I’m not victory!.. I’m not defeat! I don’t disembark!. I’m no offensive!. I’m no retreat!. I have a good time, that’s all!.. What’s the difference! Not just a laughing matter!.. They pay for being dumb!. The proof is that they run away! the faster the better!. They get scared, in my opinion!. Just that!. Blind fear, that’s all!. You half-wit! I’m not scared, damn it!.. I don’t need a travel permit! I get along by myself!. The hell with Matthew! and the rest of them!. and Marshal Haig! and the Czar! and Poincare! and the Lord Mayor, too! All in the same bag! I want to cash in, me too! Ah! timid! They’re having a good time! Let’s us too! All right with me!. They’re bloodsuckers! All right! I’ve always said so! I’m known! I’ve got my card! You go look me up in the records! I’m just a poor fish! Not a general!. I don’t want to bother anyone! Here’s mud in your eye!.. I could cash in more! My girls are enough for me. I could make munitions! I got an offer!.. Bigger dopes than me are rolling in dough!
or drafty condoms!. or fake cardboard shoes!.."Victory Pumps!” It’s not hard.. but me, my business is tail! All right, good! I’m staying in it!. Yes, Majesty!. So what’re they handing me?… I had three girls, all I needed.. plus Angele of course. now they slap a dozen on me!. What kind of business is that?…Will you tell me?…I don’t read the papers! I’m not bats!.. Even Little-Arm Pierrot realizes!.. Now he’s in jail!.. He knows I talk straight!. no beating about the bush!.. It’s straight stuff or they get your hide! I’ll let him have his Clemence back!.. But it sure gives me a pain in the ass! I didn’t ask for anything!. It’s not an ordinary traffic!. I’ve got a dozen on my neck!. I’ve got to arrange for a house like Pepe the Hump! Where should I go?.. Tell me, you grafters!.. You all read the papers!. And I see you like cognac!. I’m so glad!. So I see!.. And you smoke my cigars, don’t you! Cuban tobacco, bear in mind!..Ah, you’re not letting yourselves get depressed!. Ah! that’s delightful.. Everything to keep up the morale, gentlemen!.. It’s a mug’s game! Quite right! you’ll get out of it!. So!.. Boom! Morale’s everything!.. My old man, who was in the war of 1870, who was a cabinetmaker in Bezons, always used to say to me, ’Sonny, watch out for the omnibuses’… He was the one who got run over by one!.. You see what use it is to be careful!.. Catastrophe!. The poor world’s full of syph! Luckily there’re some free men!”
We’d had three drinks, we were beginning to feel pretty warm.
"Mimi!. Mimi!. Bring up the Burgundy! I don’t want these gentlemen to leave on an empty stomach!.. And the sausage!. and the headcheese!. I want the gentlemen to have a bite!. I can’t ever do enough for them!. Kidders!
.. Wise guys!. Real characters!. Matthew kept telling me that!. They’re genuine artists! And he knows about those things!. The kind of men you don’t meet often!..
” 'Artists! Mr. Cascade!’ Boro! Boro! sing me my song!. So I can really see if you’re an artist!.. Or I won’t talk to you any more!. for ten years!. That’s how I am!. Come on, the Dark Waltz. and all the girls in the chorus!.. To the victory of the little guys and the bathhouse boys!.. Ah! Ah! need some imagination! Wilhelm’s listening to us.”
There was a small Gaveau in the corner, with some notes missing. Boro obliges. he starts off!. They get going in chorus! they’re ripping along!.. The Knight of the Moo.. oo. oonl They’re so off-key that we’re all splitting!. The yowling doubles!. makes the windows creak!. and what feeling!. Big Angele’s bellowing the loudest. There’s pain in her voice. She’s sobbing, she’s so unhappy!. Because she’s upset that her man’s so nervous..
He shouts to Mimi again!
"Burgundy, Mimi!. Burgundy, sweetie!”
The drinking’s not over! he yells down the stairs again.
Mimi was downstairs in the basement kitchen goosing around with the others. You could hear them all clucking away.. They were having a great time!
"She doesn’t give a damn what I say, that trollop.. just doesn’t give a damn!. Mimi! Mimi! you hear me?. Tell Joconde to come up!.. Boys, she’s got to read the cards for you! You’ll see something!. You’re going to have a belly laugh! Joconde’s a real circus! Boy, she’s something!. Cards!
Cards!. Hands!. You’ll split!. My wench used to believe in cards! She used to say to me, 'Darling.. ’ In any case, I don’t believe in it!. Not a bit of superstition in me!. But I get a kick out of watching Joconde! She’s right once in a thousand! it’s the real thing with her!. She even knows the Tarots! Since the cradle. All kinds of cards! Life! Past.. Future!. A hell of a character! You’ll get a look at her face!
She’s not from Seville for nothing!.. They’ve got it in their blood!. I brought her back in 1902 from the Castilian Exposition!. Her name was Carmen. I call her Joconde! And, well, she’s still around! Leaves today! Comes back tomorrow! In the kitchen!. She takes a little outing. she comes back!. She says to me, 'Good-by, Cascade!. You’ll never see me again!’. It doesn’t worry me!. Three days later my beauty’s back! Faithfulness in person!. The same song and dance for twenty years!.. Gypsy to the core!.. steals, cheats, lies, everything!. She drinks only water! It’s not from booze that she’s batty! It’s something worse. Got to see her castanets too!. Some workout!. Hailstones!. You’d think it was hailing!. You don’t see her fingers!. I never ask her for anything. She brings me a pound. two pounds!.. Sometimes a fiver!. No discussion!. I take it all!. so does she!.. A gypsy!”
"Joconde’s busy!” someone answers from downstairs.. "She’s preparing the rabbit for this evening!”
Mimi yelling from the bottom of the stairs.
"Damn it! tell her to get going! We’re waiting! Are we going to wait all day?”
"Coming, darling!. My sweet Precious!”
What a cooing! coo-coo-coo!..
It’s Joconde cooing like that.. from downstairs… all the way in the back..
"And all the cards! Don’t forget anything, Precious!.. And not the junk! You hear me?. The real stuff!. Luck, Baby!”
He tells us about it. "It’s a passion of hers! She’d cheat with Deibler.” We bust out laughing!
There she comes, scaling up, Carmen has annunciated!.. she sniffles.. she spits.. wheezes..
"Sacro mio!. .. Sacro mio!.. Quouelle casa!. craouha!”