.. You realize that much too late!..You don’t get the difference at first glance! The earth’s just a roulette wheel!.. good… bad numbers!.. Everything’s out of joint!.. those born cooked!.. those born lucky! At first it’s all the same!.. All the lice in the same bunch! but go fuck yourself! And not at all!.. Day and night!.. In the worst classes of poverty a world’s spinning round! The best and the worst!.. It’s like mountains seen from the clouds, from way up, from an airplane, it’s all sinister, dark and evil, but from close up, below, ring-a-ring-o’-roses! It’s all full of charming spots, of rich shade, of pretty chalets!.. Got to go through it to know.. you don’t learn that in school.
That makes the lucky numbers nice and optimistic!.. Let the others rush to the slaughter!.. The guys in clover sing well together in chorus!.. It’s music to your ears especially when there’s lots of trimmings!.. jaunty pals like Cascade!..
Another round!.. And another!.. The Maharajah on a spree!.. The whole pack of banknotes on the table!.. He didn’t want them any more!.. Let ’em go!.. All down the hatch!.. They were cheering him to the rafters! For he’s a jolly good fellow!
They were roaring out in chorus, so loud that it resounded all through the joint, it made the walls shake!. The gas chandelier was rocking, waltzing over our heads.. The whole works was swaying, the whole room, the whole pier.. Pros-pero started the refrain again… I think he was yelling loudest of all! For he’s a jolly good fellow!
Waang! the door booming! A package comes in from the street!.. In a heap! Waang! in the middle of the pub! She threw herself in!.. She didn’t see.. There were three steps!
.. She trips!.. Tumbles! sprawls! It’s Joconde! in a package!.. in her cotton.. her bandages!.. she gets up, she screams, she’s awful!.. starts blaming right away!.. there it goes. she hoists herself up, clings to the bar!.. A fury! She’s choking with effort.. she’s suffocating.. she ran through the whole neighborhood… looking for us! she’s green beneath the chandelier… a panic!.. She looks all around! She shrieks.. Isn’t he there?
"Where are you, Loulou? Where are you? my precious peegy!”
"Here m’love! Here you pain in the ass! ’’
Cascade answers her right off.
"Come on, catastrophe! Come on! ”
What an effect!.. The tables! Boy how the guys howled! Some family scene! Right in the nick of time!. He’s sure sore!.. Ah! it’s the doctor who’s going to get it!..
"Look at that!.. Just take a look at that!.. Dr. Clodovitz! I entrust an injured person to you! I put her into your hands!
.. Thinking she’s going to keep quiet!.. I pay for the hospital! I pay for everything! I load you with dough, my fine doctor! And that’s the thanks I get! Say, tell me something!..
They can leave your place whenever they like! They go out for a stroll, they run around, they raise hell! What do I look like? I’m asking you! Your joint’s a plain cathouse! Your London Hospital! Monsieur Clodovitz!.. It’s worse than the Charing from what I can see! It’s a regular circus! Like your papers, Doctor! just plain garbage! Incapable of watching your lunatics! The bed-wetter! Take a look at the bitch!”
She was standing there doing nothing. She was pulling at her dressings, she was chucking them all around, all over the floor, cotton, bandages, shreds.. Boy, what laughing in the joint!.. some ovation! Clodovitz didn’t know what was what!.. he was circling around the trollop… He wanted to arrange her bandages! she didn’t want him to! she was defending herself!.. They were each pulling at an end!.. The whole crowd was roaring so that the floors shook! the walls! the windows!
"Go back Joconde! ”… Clodo was pleading, begging on his knees. "Go back! It’s not a wise thing to do! Your wound’ll open again!”
Her whole bandage in clots, she was tearing it off! Loosening it from her skin! the blood was pissing out again… it was dripping all over the floor!.. ah! she wouldn’t obey!..
"Keep quiet you bum! You murderer!”
She was the one raising the riot… all foulmouthed..
Then they started yelling, in the pub. The dockers didn’t know what it was all about.. their minds were fuzzy.. they thought we were being mean to the gal!.. They suddenly got sore at us.. A sudden tempest, just like that. Taking her side, the poor little thing! Now they were rooting for her!
.. At least a dozen giants who wanted to rip Cascade’s guts out!.. Then and there!.. Terrible arms! There’d be hell to pay!.. tattoos.. muscles like a gorilla’s..
Ah! when she sees danger threatening.. that they’re going to jump on her darling, she’s the one who proteas him!..
with her whole body! She rushes up in front of him!.. she covers him up!.. She rages at the peril! the lioness roars!.. All her dressings unwind.. she gets caught in them, she’s all tangled up.. she yells louder than the whole mob.. "Grrr! Grrr! ”
“Darling prrrreciouz! Make a little zmile for your baby!”
But the big guys are boiling!.. Got to beat up Cascade! Now in a raging fury!.. There they go grabbing bottles, siphons, chairs! and whang! it starts ringing! squirting! bouncing all over! Bang! A-bing! A-boom! over the mirrors!.. the door!.. An awful riot!.. Cascade wiggles out!.. jumps back!.. the battle’s at its height!.. tables upside-down!. Barricades and zoom!.. they dive for shelter! He and Pros-pero!.. The cash register, the cupboard, the coat-rack.. And zoom! everything goes flying!.. whirling!.. Down comes a bombardment of chairs!.. crashes, rocks!.. The dockers, all red, come tearing down! they buck into the pile.. Assault! Massacre! Yelling on all sides!.. Zoom! Zing! Boom! It’s the mechanical organ, the big one in the back, suddenly starting to play!.. It started going! Taraza! Zoom! the monster with the trumpets! flutes! drums! Should have heard it pounding! whacking out its waltz! Boro who started the machine going! God-damned instrument! It’s a storm! I see him fiddling around in the back… He sees me!.. He signals to me.. “Get the hell out!”.. broad gesture! I don’t get him, like a dope! He’s yelling to me! He’s screaming!..
“What’s the matter?” I mumble..
No time! Wrraang!.. thunder! The joint’s exploding! Boy that was something! and the flames!.. Damn it! I saw! Damn it! It’s him!. In the flames there. In the leaping fire! He threw the gadget! Sure was something!. TNT!.. It burst!.. there under the table!.. Wang! Bang!.. Another one! Right there!.. He threw the contraption!.. A grenade, I know them! Ah! the skunk!.. the gorilla!.. A spray of sparks!.. A hail!.. The blockhead!.. He’s pulling us!. Oh! panic! The way they’re beating it!.. Three guys laid out flat! I jump over them! The ceiling’s collapsing!.. Everything’s caving in behind us. falling to pieces!. the plasterwork!.. the tiles!.. An avalanche!.. Cascade’s safe!..He’s running ahead!.. So’s Prospero and Joconde! It’s curtains!.. She’s running behind!. she’s chugging away, she’s yowling… She wants them to wait for her!.. it’s hurting her!..And what insults! She’s calling us cowards! Boro’s on his way, too!. any old thing!.. not at all shy!.. He’s running after us! His paunch doesn’t keep him from running!