The drawing was a
potted plant with four blossoms. The four blossoms were elaborately dead.
Their death was drawn with a fearful care. An obscure deliberation was
exposed in the depiction of their drooping petals. The pot tottered very
crookedly on a sort of table, as near as I could see. All around ran a
funereal scroll. I read: "My farewell to my beloved wife, Gaby." A fierce
hand, totally distinct from the former, wrote in proud letters above:
"Punished for desertion. Six years of prison--military degradation."
It must have been five o'clock. Steps. A vast cluttering of the exterior
of the door--by whom? Whang opens the door. Turnkey-creature extending a
piece of chocolate with extreme and surly caution. I say "_Merci_" and
seize chocolate. Klang shuts the door.
I am lying on my back, the twilight does mistily bluish miracles through
the slit over the whang-klang. I can just see leaves, meaning tree.
Then from the left and way off, faintly, broke a smooth whistle, cool
like a peeled willow-branch, and I found myself listening to an air from
Petroushka, Petroushka, which we saw in Paris at the _Chatelet, mon ami
et moi_....
The voice stopped in the middle--and I finished the air. This code
continued for a half-hour.
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