Djuna Barnes - Ladies Almanack

“Alas and alas!” sighed Dame Musset, “to think that blue Blood should set so many out of reach! Yet were I one of the direct Peerage, could I not confer the Order of the Garter upon her, thus bring her, like a Calf on a Rope, slowly balking to my Bed, through the Land unknown, over the hedges of How-So, slipping and sliding past the Zone of unfit, in by a Leg at least, until incarnation by generation, the Calf becomes the Bird of Paradise, to lean all moulting Love upon my Spartan Chest, there to pluck at my heart’s Armour, until the Visor is lifted — but no!” thought she, “I get my Armoury mixed, that is another Spot!”

Still she paced. “If,” said she,” I could mould the Pot nearer to the Heart’s desire, I would have my Scullion’s Eye lie in the Head of Billings-On-Coo, with the Breasts of Haughty on the Hips of Doll, on the Leg of Moll, with the Shins of Mazie, under the Scullion’s Eye which lies in the Head of Billings-On-Coo. The Buttocks of a Girl I saw take a slip and slither one peelish day in Fall, when on her way to Devotion in the side Aisles of the Church of the St Germain des Pres , to lie on the back of the Hips of Doll, on the Leg of Moll, whose Shins are Mazie’s, all under the Eye of the Scullion, Etc., and the rowdy Parts of a scampering Jade in Pluckford Place, on the front of the Back that was a Girl seen one peelish day, all under the Scullion’s Eye, with the Breasts of Haughty on the Hips of Doll, with the Leg of Moll, whose Shins are Mazie’s, all under the Scullion’s Eye, in the Head of Billings-on-Coo. But the Hand,” she said, “must be Queen Anne’s, to smooth down the Dress with the rightful and elegant Gesture necessary to cover the Hip that was and the rowdy Part, etc., and the things that there were done! Oh monstrous Pot!” she sighed, “oh heinous Potter, oh refined, refined, refined Joke, that once smashed to bits it must go a go-going, and when once concocted must eternally be by another’s Whim! We should be able to order our Ladies as we would, and not as they come. Could any haphazard be as choice as I could pick and prefer, if this Dearing were left scattered about at Leg-counter and Head-rack? Ah, how I could choose were I not floor-walked and pounced upon at every Step!” Yet never by so much as a Feature did she choose, in her roving, one Tendon, nay not so much as a Sternum bone or a coxal of Daisy Downpour; and by so much Indifference, packed down on Scorn, became she first God, then God Almighty, then God Dumbfounding, and still later God help us, and finally God Damn to Daisy Downpour. Year on Year she leaned in her pink hook-weave Underkirtel, singing, “Auprès de ma Blonde,” and Autumn by Autumn tossed a tattered linen Rose, and age by age became more God-haunted and Demon-seeking, until Dame Musset, who was in a way an Amazon unhorsed, feared her more than she noticed her, and noticed her yet more than she liked her, and liked her not at all. “That woman,” said she to her Folly, Senorita Fly-About, “knows when I go and come, when I bed and when I arise, and all she has asked of me these ten Years is that on the Day I shall find a need of her, I shall place a Pot of Geraniums on my Sill, and she will come flying to me, a Drupe of a Juno in Flannels, to thaw me down, shall I, as I Say but hint that State by the simplest Pot of rosy Geraniums set out upon my Sill, and has turned her Eye that way so long and so tirelessly that I dread me one of these days she will fancy the Flower into growing there indeed, and for such a Catastrophe” she said, sinking into her Furs, and drawing a duvet about her, “I shall need Friends, Friends of a noble Tarnish, as flocking as Shad-roe, and all of them stout of Heart, high and sharp of Heel. All Women,” she apostrophised, “are not Women all, and I fear that, in yonder Bosom leaning upon her Casement, grows a Garden of Hope, and that with it she would crown and feather me with the Pinions of celestial Glory only to destroy me with these same Implements, for in the Mind,” said she, “of the Woman lost twice there is only one Furrow in which to grow a Seed, and much dead Matter to nourish it, and alas! in that mundane Skull, that Fontanel of Baby-lady-woman, grows one Weed, myself!”

“Be not afraid,” twittered Mazie Tuck-and-Frill, “you shall be well surrounded.”

“God help us!” said Patience Scalpel, draining her Glass, “not one good hammer-throwing, discus-casting, coxy Prepuce amongst you!”

“Oh wry Luck and wrong cast! Is the Belly-strap of Venus to slip Sling and slew me to my dimming? Am I to be cuddled to the Grave in three Pins and a Yard of warm Woman’s Pelt?” cried Dame Musset. “All in my willy-nilly years, when I should find Custom only, and never a sly waylaying Drab in the dark to gin and make a catch of me, no longing lingering at Turnstile and Toll-gate, at Door-lock and Key-hole!” “Time passes,” said Patience.

Now, was it the same in the Hap-hour of the World, when whelks whispered in the brink of the Night, rocked in the Cradle of Time’s Ditch, taking their Will-of-the-wisp, all in a flux of Tenses and Turns? The simplicity of their nature was upon them, Cap and Shoe. What they gave out was but the Earth given bide, until some billion of improving Years later, having toiled for the worse, and having made a stink of Advancement, became Queen-Man and King-Woman, under the Bells of the Bride’s Wake, and Corpse Sleep, with Butter and Mustard on their Alms-bread for Charity, snitching in Larder cold end upon cold end of most comical Mutton, to fatten the lift to a Strumpet’s turn, or buck up her Roup with promise of Glut, bridling her Kick with the trace of Contention; the Snood upon her a jiffy too late; greasing the Firkin for the Passover plate — from Slime unto Dream one long Mystery of Æons-pot, steaming on the Hip of the Lamb, bringing us forward, hand over hand, up to the Standard, baa upon bleat, until, we say, we have it presented to us on an Anno Domini Salver, that Christians now think nothing of head-dipping to bite the Pippin in tub-water and Cow’s-trough; while but a thought backward the Heathen, lang syne, heaped Mystic on Magic, to bring about the same end — will she or won’t he?

So Philters and Drams, and which-ways for Maidens all forlorn in tatters of Love’s hope. Drain they not draughts of last Year’s Snow, of late year’s Bitter, tainted with Sassifras and sickened with Shag, to wax the rough Highway on which Love balks at a canter, to make them a byword of she loves me, he loves me, and the not to the not? Some go in Weal Chains and Woe Anchors, neck tied and night worn, Thumb worried and Lip lavished for the good it may cast up on the Knees of the Morrow, or on the Neck of the stiff God of Chance. But Philter by falter, and Hope upon Clutch, and the more Peels spilt over Shoulder the more spelled of a Girl. And saying riddle me this, or meddle me that, contriving the Potion as ever you may, hiccup hie jacet, brings up nothing but naught with a Dear on its back.

Was there a whisper of Ellen or Mary, of Rachel or Gretchen, of Tao or Hedda or Bellorinabella y Bellorella, or Tancred of Injen in the Old Winds, or of Wives whispering a thing to a Wife? What’s in a name before Christ? Were all Giants’ doings a Man’s, and no mountain-top moultings of a Goblin well-papped to the Heel? To say nothing and less of Myths Tongue-tied with Girltalk, or a petal of Dog-fennel seeking a bi-fatal Breeze? Blowing inland for Trace, and out-ocean for Scent, and nosing to Ground for Spoor of her want? Higg over Bluff, and jogg over Moor, prancing down Gullies and preen up an Alley. Whirling and hooting of a Miss with her Missus? No Time without God, no end without Christ!