Alasdair Gray - Poor Things

nudged me and hissed, “Wake up and concentrate!”

This taught me how to sleep with open eyes.

Soon I could also do it standing up

and rushing arm-in-arm from place to place.

I think I answered questions in my sleep —

the only answer he required was, “Yes dear.”

I always wakened up in our hotels,

offices where I sent you telegrams

(while Wedder telegrammed to his mama)

in restaurants, because I like my food,

but nowhere else except the Frankfort zoo

and German betting-shop I will describe.

I think it was the smell which wakened me.

This place (just like the zoo) stank of despair,

and fearful hope, also of stale obsession

which seemed a mixture of the first two stinks.

My fancy nose perhaps exaggerated —

I opened eyes upon a brilliant room.

Do you remember taking me to see

the Glasgow Stock Exchange? It looked like that. 15

Around me fluted columns, cream and gold,

held up a vaulted ceiling, blue and white,

from which hung shining crystal chandeliers

which lit up all the business underneath —

six tables where smart people played roulette.

Against the walls were sofas, scarlet plush,

where more smart people sat, and one was me.

And Wedderburn was standing by my side,

and gazing at the table nearest us,

and muttering, “I see. I see. I see.”

I thought that he was talking in his sleep

with open eyes, as I had done. I said,

(gentle but firm) “Let’s go to our hotel,

dear Duncan. I will put you into bed.”

He stared at me, then slowly shook his head.

“Not yet. Not yet. I have a thing to do.

I know you inwardly despise my brain —

think it a mere appendage to my prick

and less efficient than my testicles.

I tell you Bella, that this brain now grasps

a mighty FACT which other men call CHANCE

because they cannot grasp it. Now I see

that GOD, FATE, DESTINY, like LUCK and

CHANCE

are noises glorifying IGNORANCE

under the label of a solemn name.

Up, woman, and attend me to the game!”

The people at the table turned to stare

as we approached. One offered him a chair.

He murmured thanks, and into it he slid.

I stood behind to watch, as he had bid.

Dear God I am tired. It is late. Writing like Shakespeare is hard work for a woman with a cracked head who cannot spell properly, though I notice my writing is getting smaller. Tomorrow we stop at Athens. Do you remember taking me there ages ago by way of Zagreb and Sarajevo? I hope they have mended the Parthenon. Now I will creep to Wedder’s side and say what led to his collapse another day, ending this entry with a line of stars.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

At dawn our ship, which is a Russian one,

left Constantinetcetera; now we steam

out of the Bosphorus toward Odessa.

The air is fresh and calm, the sky clear blue.

I wrapped my man up warm and made him sit

outside upon a deck-chair for an hour.

Had I not done it he’d have crouched below,

reading the Bible in his bunk all day.

Again he begged to be joined onto me

in “wholly wedlock”. Wholly wedlock! Ugh.

The joys of wedding cannot be locked up,

not even partly, nor can his nipple-noddle

remember I must marry someone else.

The mob who clustered round the roulette table

did not seem smart when we were part of it.

Of course some folk were rich or richly dressed

with fine silk waistcoats, officers’ tail coats

and obvious breasts in low-cut velvet gowns.

Others were wealthy in a middling way

like merchants, owners of small properties

or clergymen, all very neat and sober,

and some of them escorted by their wives.

At first I did not notice any poor

(the obviously poor were not let in)

but then I saw some clothes were not quite clean,

or fraying at the cuffs, or buttoned high

to hide the colour of the underwear.

The rich laid gold and notes upon the squares.

Middle folk bet with silver more than gold,

and thought a lot before they placed their bets.

The poorest people staked the smallest coins,

or stood and stared with faces white as Wedder’s.

Folk who moved money fast were rich or poor,

or turning quickly into rich or poor:

yet rich, poor, middling — frantic, stunned, amused —

young, in the prime of strength or elderly —

German, French, Spaniard, Russian or Swede —

even some English folk who seldom bid

but stared about as if superior —

had something wrong with them. I worked out what,

but not before the damage had been done.

The spinning wheel and little rattling ball

ground something down in those who bet and watched,

and they were pleased to feel it ground away

because it was so precious that they loathed it,

and loved to see others destroy it too.

I’ve since discussed this with a clever man

who says the precious thing has many names.

Poor people call it money; priests, the soul;

the Germans call it will and poets, love.

He called it freedom, for that makes men feel

to blame for what they do. Men hate that feeling,

so want it crushed and killed. I am no man.

To me the place stank like a Roman game

where tortured minds, not bodies were the show.

This crowd had come to see the human mind

whose thoughts can wander through eternity

pinned to a little accidental ball.

Poor Wedder, meanwhile, had begun to bet.

Most of the gamblers shifted bets about

from black squares onto red and back again.

Wedderburn bet upon a single square

marked zero, laying one gold coin on it.

He lost, bet two, lost those, then bet and lost

four, eight, sixteen, then laid down thirty-two.

A wooden-rake-man pushed back twelve of these —

twenty was highest bet the shop would take.

Wedderburn shrugged and let the twenty lie.

The ball was rattled round and Wedder won.

He won a lot. The little rolls of gold

were given him in small blue envelopes.

He turned and faced me with a happy smile,

the first I had from him since we eloped.

While pocketing the gold he murmured, “Well?

You did not know that I could do it, Bell!”

I felt such pity for his muddled head

I did not notice he was glad to think

he had done something to astonish me.

I should have said, “O Duncan you were grand!

I nearly fainted, I was so impressed —