He coloured, and looked down. “What does it mean?” he repeated, and as he said it he could not remember what he had come for, or what he had said, and while she was answering he tried desperately to re-establish himself.
He said, “And you do not know what I must go through before I feel like Bailey?”
“A little evil day by day, that makes everything grow.”
“Yes, that is what I wanted to know,” he said, breathlessly.
“Listen then, it’s all that makes the difference between a gentleman and a fool. Never do evil to good people, they always forgive it, and that is nasty.”
“But what about all these things that people talk of and I do not understand?”
“The simple story, simply told by simple people—that in the end is all you will listen to.”
“And I’m not to try to make anything out of all this?”
“No,” she said, “nothing at all, leave it alone.”
“And not to try to understand what made him cry?”
“Just as it is. The calf is born, she lies in the sun; she waits for the end. That is dignity.”
“In the end you will know you know nothing. That will be the death of you.”
Brandt stood still, though she had taken up her paper.
“Come here,” she said, and he came, quickly. She put her hand out with a gentle laugh and touched him. “There, that’s all.”
The mortal fruit upon the bough Hangs above the nuptial bed. The cat-bird in the tree returns The forfeit of his mutual vow.
The hard, untimely apple of The branch that feeds on watered rain Takes the place upon her lips Of her late lamented love.
Many hands together press Shaped within a static prayer Recall to one the chorister Docile in his sexless dress.
The temperate winds reclaim the iced Remorseless vapours of the snow. The only pattern in the mind Is the cross behind the Christ.
For you, for me? Why then the striking hour, The wind among the curtains, and the tread Of some late gardener pulling at the flower They’ll lay between our hearts when we are dead.
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1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. 2. Anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed. 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Book, by Djuna Barnes