"Tuesday. Supper at Nemo's. Caviar,
cognac,jromage-from,
I
guess, both the
Prince
and
Tzarina.
The savages served: good
We discussed the matter raised yesterday, that is, my
immortality ; Pascal's
Pensees;
recent La Scala tenors .
manners .
Just think of it: evening, candles. The octopus all around.
Nemo with his goatee and baby-blue, nay, prenatal
eyes.
If
I think of his loneliness, my heart starts to pound.
"
That's the last Mlle . Blanche Delarue heard from Jacques Benz,
Navigator.
x
When the ship doesn't arrive at the port of call
on time, or later on, the Business
Manager says in his office, "Hell!"
The Admiralty says, ''Jesus ."
Both are quite wrong. But how could they know what had
transpired? You can't interrogate a seagull
or a shark with its streamlined head.
Nor is sending an eager
doggy down the track of much help. And anyway, what sort
of tracks are there at sea? All this is valiant
bunk . One more triumph - via the absurd-
for waves contesting dry land.
Oceanic events are, as a rule , abrupt.
Still , long afterwards, the waves toss the remnants of their brief
sally:
life-vests, splinters of masts, a rat–
none with fingerprints, sadly.
And then comes autumn. And later on, winter cuts
in . The sirocco tatters awnings that summer fancied.
Silent waves can drive the best attorney nuts
with their show of a sunset.
