— Stand up. We cannot see you.
— Madam—I answered—there is a throne here and I am going to sit on it.
— Pum — Pum, Paco, vamos a bailar.
— Después, Xana, ahora estoy fumándome este cigarro.
— Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
— I feel Croatian, surrounded by all these languages.
— And, and, when we were children, staying at the Archduke’s, my cousin, he took me out on a sled.
— You stole that sled from my diary. It was not my cousin’s, it was my brother Benny’s.
— No, she took it from Rosebud, Rosebud, the sled in Citizen Kane. What Orson Welles had lost was a sled — his childhood — in a big bonfire. La hoguera de las vanidades.
— The fire, the bonfire — I still see it — it is burning in flames my eyes. Tyger, Tyger, burning bright, in the forest of the night, what immortal hand, or sight, build thy fearful symmetry.
— Oh, be drunk, be always drunk.
— Yes, be always drunk with fire.
— Tyger, tyger, burning bright, in the forest of a night.
— I see him coming.
— Fire, Mona, fire.
— Reflecting light upon the table as the glitter of her jewels rose to meet it, from satin cases poured in rich profusion, in vials of ivory and coloured glass unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes, unguent, powdered, or liquid — troubled, confused and drowned the sense in odours, stirred by the air that freshened from the window.
— Yes, crack a window — it’s stuffocating. El aire no resbala por la chimenea. Y prende el fuego. Madera, madera. It’s Christmas.
— Well, she stole my diary. That was written in my diary. And down we went in the mountains, there, were you feel free.
— And I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, hold on tight.
— He said, Mona, Mona, hold on tight. And down we went, in the mountains, there where you feel free. I have never experienced that wild freedom of death again. Sometimes, like now, the fire burned like a tyger, tyger, burning bright, in the forest of the night.
— Mona, look at my new glasses.
— Spectacular. Put them on.
— I am seeing the tygers burning bright.
— Wear them, you’ll experience las hormigas tyghding back your sight.
— Cushions, give me cushions. I need comfort. I need to feel cozy, mushy, like in my bed. I want to go, down the mountain, with her, in her sled, there where you feel free.
— Come here, I’ll lend you mushy cushions. You’ll feel the comfort with me.
— These ascended in fattening the prolonged candle-flames, flung their smoke into the laquearia, stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
— I still prefer this painting of Mama Mona. The setting of the stage. The candles burning. The tygers, tygers, running wild, in the forest of the child. Laquearia, unguent, smoke, in rich profusion.
— I am burning, it’s too hot. Crack another window.
— I fell deep into sleep. The comfort burning bright in the forest of the night.
— Where am I?
— Here, in Mona’s house. You’re just drunk.
— Be drunk, be always drunk. And, if sometimes, on the stairs of a palace, or on the green side of a ditch, or on the dreary solitude of our room, you should awaken and the drunkenness be half or wholly slipped away from you, ask of the wind, or of the wave, or of the star, or of the bird, or of the clock, of whatever flies, or sighs, or rocks, or sings, or speaks.
— I ate too much. Las alas del pavo are starting to flutter inside my belly. I’m stuffed. I can’t budge from this chair. I’m falling asleep.
— My head is spinning. In a rollercoaster. Down and up la montaña rusa — there, en las machinas del parque, where you feel free.
— Mona, Mona, hold on tight. And down we went, again, against the mountains and the cushions, against the death, there
Oed’ und leer das Meer
There, in the mountains.
— There, again, cambia el disco rayado.
— There, again, in the mountains
Oed’ und leer das Meer
— What does it mean?
— Where you feel freeeee.
— Yo no sabía que ella sabía alemán.
— Pero su pronunciación es fatal.
— Sabe más que tú.
— Cómo vas a decir que Paco Pepe no sabe alemán si es un filósofo. Hizo su tesis doctoral sobre Nietzsche.
–¿Cómo es su pronunciación?
— Perfecta.
— Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
–¿Qué quiere decir?
— Ya te lo dije: there, where you feel free. Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee.
— Did you see a lot of things?
— Yes, thank you very much, many bright things whirling, wild and open in a rollercoaster.
— With a shower of rain, we stopped in the colonnade.
— I never liked Eliot. So unsensual, unappealing, repressed. I mean, being in the closet is all right, if you come out, someday. But he never came out. And then he wrote:
Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest
burning
He really was burned — repressed — and that’s why he says:
O Lord, Thou pluckest me out.
— What does pluckest mean?
— Oh, Dios, por qué me desplumas. Dios lo desplumó, y por eso se hizo religioso. His sexual desire was so repressed hasta que Dios le quitó todas sus plumas. Pero qué es un poeta sin plumas. Es como un vampiro sin dientes. O una bruja sin escoba.
— I would have never written:
Do I dare to eat a peach? Shall I part my hair in the middle?
I would have eaten the peach. I have eaten plenty. And why is it so difficult to part your hair in the middle. Scardy cat, pussy cat, pusilánime.
— O Lord thou pluckest meeoowt.
— Meowt. O Lord thou pluckest meeoowt. Oh Dios, me estás pluckeando del closet.
— She doesn’t understand anything. She’s like my aunt. I asked her what son of a bitch meant.
Son of a beach—she explained—son las putas americanas who come to Puerto Rico and have sex on the beach, and sus bastardos are called: son of a beach.
— Now, I really understand. I’m really plucking the meanings. Deshojando las margaritas:
me quiere, o no me quiere
me quiere, me quiere
— O Lord Thou pluckest me out
Burning burning burning burning
— I figured it all out. I conquered Jabalí with this poem. With it, I’m now going to conquer the world. You see, uno no da, llévate más. How many orgasms does it take to make you happy. What they usually do is excite your desire, and your longings. If I had it once, I want to have it a thousandfold. More, more, more — you have to give more, more infinitely more, more to one thousand platitudes, nothing is there where more is, except your desire to give more, or a greedy, greedy feeling, that can never stop, once it emerges, a little bit, a tiny-weeny little bit, it starts complaining and whining, it becomes unbearable, you don’t know what you want, but you certainly know you want more, more, more. I know what I want. I want more, more, more.
— A quarter to the left, first panel, a quarter to the left, second panel, a quarter to the left, third panel, a quarter to the left fourth panel. And then, all of them at the same time, a quarter to the right. And there you have it: musical fugue.