PA RTISAN REVIEW
355
Come to think of it, said Mercier, why didn't we use our umbrella?
Camier looked at the umbrella, now in his hand. He had placed it
there so that he might run more freely.
We might have indeed, he said.
Why burden oneself with an umbrella, said Mercier, and not put it
up as required?
Quite, said Camier.
Put it up now, in the name of God, said Mercier.
But Camier cou ld not put it up.
Give it here, said Mercier.
But Mercier could not put it up either.
This was the moment chosen by the rain, acting on behalf of the
universal malignity, to come down in buckets.
It's stuck, said Camier, don't strain it whatever you do.
Mercier used a nasty expression.
Meaning me? said Camier.
With both hands Mercier raised the umbrella high above his head
and dashed it to the ground. He used another nasty expression. And to
crown all, lifting to the sky his convulsed and streaming face, he said,
As for thee, fuck thee.
Decidedly Mercier's grief, heroically contained since morning,
could be no longer so.
Is it our little omniomni you are trying
to
abuse? said Camier. You
should know better. It's he on the contrary fucks thee. Omniomni, the
all-unfuckable.
Kindly leave Mrs. Mercier outside this discussion, said Mercier.
The mind has snapped, said Camier.
The first thing one noticed at Helen's was the carpet.
Will you look at that pile, said Camier.
Prime moquette, said Mercier.
Unbelievab le, said Camier.
You'd think you never saw it till now, said Mercier, and you wal-
lowing on it all these years.
I never did see it till now, said Camier, and now I can't forget it.
So one says, said Mercier.
If
that evening the carpet in particular caught the eye, it was not
alone in catching it, for a cockatoo caught it too. It clung shakily to its
perch hung from a corner of the ceiling and dizzily rocked by conflict–
ing swing and spin. IL was wide awake, in spite of the late hour. Feebly
and fitfully its breast rose and fell, faint quiverings ruffled up the down
