in restaurants, because I like my food,
but nowhere else except the Frankfort zoo
and German betting-shop I will describe.
I think it was the smell which wakened me.
This place (just like the zoo) stank of despair,
and fearful hope, also of stale obsession
which seemed a mixture of the first two stinks.
My fancy nose perhaps exaggerated—
I opened eyes upon a brilliant room.
Do you remember taking me to see
the Glasgow Stock Exchange? It looked like that.15
Around me fluted columns, cream and gold,
held up a vaulted ceiling, blue and white,
from which hung shining crystal chandeliers
which lit up all the business underneath—
six tables where smart people played roulette.
Against the walls were sofas, scarlet plush,
where more smart people sat, and one was me.
And Wedderburn was standing by my side,
and gazing at the table nearest us,
and muttering, “I see. I see. I see.”
I thought that he was talking in his sleep
with open eyes, as I had done. I said,
(gentle but firm) “Let’s go to our hotel,
dear Duncan. I will put you into bed.”
He stared at me, then slowly shook his head.
“Not yet. Not yet. I have a thing to do.
I know you inwardly despise my brain—
think it a mere appendage to my prick
and less efficient than my testicles.
I tell you Bella, that this brain now grasps
a mighty FACT which other men call CHANCE
because they cannot grasp it. Now I see
that GOD, FATE, DESTINY, like LUCK and
CHANCE
are noises glorifying IGNORANCE
under the label of a solemn name.
Up, woman, and attend me to the game!”
The people at the table turned to stare
as we approached. One offered him a chair.
He murmured thanks, and into it he slid.
I stood behind to watch, as he had bid.
Dear God I am tired. It is late. Writing like Shakespeare is hard work for a woman with a cracked head who cannot spell properly, though I notice my writing is getting smaller. Tomorrow we stop at Athens. Do you remember taking me there ages ago by way of Zagreb and Sarajevo? I hope they have mended the Parthenon. Now I will creep to Wedder’s side and say what led to his collapse another day, ending this entry with a line of stars.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
At dawn our ship, which is a Russian one,
left Constantinetcetera; now we steam
out of the Bosphorus toward Odessa.
The air is fresh and calm, the sky clear blue.
I wrapped my man up warm and made him sit
outside upon a deck-chair for an hour.
Had I not done it he’d have crouched below,
reading the Bible in his bunk all day.
Again he begged to be joined onto me
in “wholly wedlock”. Wholly wedlock! Ugh.
The joys of wedding cannot be locked up,
not even partly, nor can his nipple-noddle
remember I must marry someone else.
The mob who clustered round the roulette table
did not seem smart when we were part of it.
Of course some folk were rich or richly dressed
with fine silk waistcoats, officers’ tail coats
and obvious breasts in low-cut velvet gowns.
Others were wealthy in a middling way
like merchants, owners of small properties
or clergymen, all very neat and sober,
and some of them escorted by their wives.
At first I did not notice any poor
(the obviously poor were not let in)
but then I saw some clothes were not quite clean,
or fraying at the cuffs, or buttoned high
to hide the colour of the underwear.
The rich laid gold and notes upon the squares.
Middle folk bet with silver more than gold,
and thought a lot before they placed their bets.
The poorest people staked the smallest coins,
or stood and stared with faces white as Wedder’s.
Folk who moved money fast were rich or poor,
or turning quickly into rich or poor:
yet rich, poor, middling — frantic, stunned, amused—
young, in the prime of strength or elderly—
German, French, Spaniard, Russian or Swede—
even some English folk who seldom bid
but stared about as if superior—
had something wrong with them. I worked out what,
but not before the damage had been done.
The spinning wheel and little rattling ball
ground something down in those who bet and watched,
and they were pleased to feel it ground away
because it was so precious that they loathed it,
and loved to see others destroy it too.
I’ve since discussed this with a clever man
who says the precious thing has many names.
Poor people call it money; priests, the soul;
the Germans call it will and poets, love.
He called it freedom, for that makes men feel
to blame for what they do. Men hate that feeling,
so want it crushed and killed. I am no man.
To me the place stank like a Roman game
where tortured minds, not bodies were the show.
This crowd had come to see the human mind
whose thoughts can wander through eternity
pinned to a little accidental ball.
Poor Wedder, meanwhile, had begun to bet.
Most of the gamblers shifted bets about
from black squares onto red and back again.
Wedderburn bet upon a single square
marked zero, laying one gold coin on it.
He lost, bet two, lost those, then bet and lost
four, eight, sixteen, then laid down thirty-two.