Флетчер Флора - The Brass Bed

“Cut it out, Fran,” Sid said.

“I’m only asking for information. I really feel very clinical about it. Sort of like Kinsley.”

“Kinsey,” Jolly said.

“Really? Is it Kinsey? I thought it was Kinsley.”

“No, it’s Kinsey. I’m quite sure of that.”

“Well, anyhow, I’d like to know. Is it, Sid?”

“Cut it out,” Sid said.

Fran poured another martini for herself and drank some of it. While she was drinking, she stared at Sid judicially.

“You know,” she said, “I believe this is significant. Your refusing to answer, I mean. I ask you a scientific question, and you refuse to answer. It shows that, under all that pretense of drinking to be congenial and everything, you are really quite antisocial. It is the duty of every good citizen nowadays to be scientific, and anyone who refuses is surely antisocial.”

Jolly was looking at Sid with interest. She looked as if she might be inclined to forgive him a little for being a social drinker.

“Are you in love with me, Sid?” she said. “It simply never occurred to me.”

“Of course he’s in love with you,” Fran said. “He’s simply wallowing in the filthy stuff. Couldn’t you tell? Actually couldn’t you? Even from the way he keeps looking at you and following you around and everything? It’s really rather disgusting, if you want to know the truth. Take the way he got so angry and all about your black eye. Didn’t you think that was really rather disgusting?”

“Speaking of the eye,” I said to Jolly, “I’ve been wondering about it.”

She smiled happily and touched it proudly with finger tips.

“Isn’t it beautiful?”

“It certainly is. It’s the most beautiful one I’ve ever seen. Where did you get it?”

“Kirby gave it to me. We were discussing something, and all at once he hit me right in the eye.”

She turned up a palm and made a fist and smacked the fist into the palm. “Pow!” she said.

“What were you discussing?” I said.

“I don’t quite remember. It must be that it sort of knocked it right out of my head when he socked me. Anyhow, it was apparently something that annoyed him.”

“Apparently. Did he knock you down?”

“Yes, he did. On the bed, that is. If the bed hadn’t been there, I’d have gone right down on the floor. I didn’t lose consciousness, though. I’m rather proud of that. It shows I’m pretty tough. I dare say lots of women would have simply blacked out.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Oh, it hurt, all right, but I didn’t cry. I believe that annoyed Kirby even more than what I must have said to make him do it. Are you angry about it?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t seem to be.”

“I don’t know that I like that. I think I would prefer that you be a little angry. Nothing excessive and disgusting like Sid, of course, but maybe just a little.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll keep thinking about it, and maybe after a while I’ll begin to get angry.”

“All right. All I ask is that you do your best.”

“It was beastly,” Sid said. “No one but a beast would hit a woman like that. He ought to be thrashed.”

Fran and Jolly turned on him simultaneously.

“Oh, please don’t start being disgusting again,” Fran said.

“Who the hell do you think you are,” Jolly said, “to be wanting my husband thrashed? Don’t you think a husband has the right to hit his wife in the eye now and then without having you try to interfere?”

“Besides,” Fran said, “why couldn’t you say beat up or kicked in the teeth or something sensible? Thrashed, for God’s sake! It makes you sound like a fairy or something.”

“When I want you to thrash Kirby for hitting me in the eye, I’ll let you know,” Jolly said.

“All right, all right,” Sid said.

Fran tried to pour another martini, but there wasn’t any left, and so she started putting gin and vermouth into the shaker. She was very good at it. She had gotten so good that she could measure the proportions with only her eye. It was her right eye that she used. She closed her left one and used the right one somewhat as if she were looking through a telescope.

“This conversation is getting dull,” she said. “Every time you get into a conversation, Sid, it immediately begins getting dull. I think it would be exciting to talk about Felix for a change. What have you been doing with yourself, Felix?”

“I’ve been teaching bright kids and schoolteachers about goliards,” I said.

“Seriously? I’m afraid that doesn’t sound so exciting after all. You are being a big disappointment to me, Felix.”

“Well, the kids and the schoolteachers aren’t much, I’ll admit, but the goliards are pretty exciting.”

“Do you mean it? Really exciting? What are they?”

“Not are. Were. They were mostly twelfth century clerics and students in the universities.”

“What’s so exciting about students in universities? What I’d like to know is, why should twelfth century students be more exciting than twentieth century students? You just said your own students aren’t so much, and it seems very unlikely to me that twelfth century students were any better.”

“From the standpoint of being interesting, they were much better. They wrote poetry about drinking and gambling and having love affairs.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so? I’ll agree that this puts a different light on the matter. Why are they called goliards?”

“They were supposed to have had a leader named Golias, but it is generally understood that Golias was a mythical figure. Some of the poetry is pretty good.”

“Is it all about drinking and love and stuff like that?”

“Mostly. They wandered around a lot, and there are some about how nice it was out on the open road and all that, and there are a few parodies of sacred hymns.”

“You say some of these goliards were clerics? Doesn’t that mean priests or something?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what I thought, and it seems to me very odd that they should have written that kind of poetry. I’m not at all sure that they should have done it.”

“I don’t agree,” Jolly said. “I think it’s very nice that they wrote poetry about drinking and love, especially if it has turned out to be interesting to Felix, but what I think was wrong is that they wrote parodies of sacred hymns. I’m very reverent myself, and I don’t think it was right to write parodies of sacred hymns.”

“Some of them are pretty vulgar,” I said.

“You see? Vulgar parodies of sacred hymns. That wasn’t right.”

“Could you recite one of the vulgar parodies?” Fran said.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Jolly said.

“Oh, come on, Jolly, be a sport,” Fran said. “Let’s hear it.”

“You needn’t argue about it,” I said, “because I don’t remember any of the parodies.”

“Good,” said Jolly. “I’m glad you don’t remember any. I’m very reverent, and I wouldn’t want to hear it.”

“Since when have you been so reverent?” Fran said.

“I’ve always been reverent,” Jolly said. “Didn’t you know that?”

“It isn’t very apparent,” Fran said.

“Well,” Jolly said, “I have been, just the same. I’m reverent by nature.”

“How about one about love?” Fran said. “Do you know one about love, Felix?”

“Yes,” Jolly said, “I wouldn’t object at all to hearing one about love.”

“I know one called The Pretty Fruits of Love,” I said. “It’s about a pregnant girl whose lover has run away.”

“That doesn’t sound very interesting to me,” Jolly said. “I don’t believe I care to hear a poem on that subject.”

“I must say you are being quite difficult, Jolly,” Fran said. “It seems to me that a poem about a pregnant girl would be unusual and interesting.”