Bluebeard - Kurt Vonnegut [92]
“The last time I rode with him,” she said, “he told me his family had been working hard out here for three hundred years, but that all he had to show for it was his taxicab.”
“It’s a nice taxicab,” I said.
“Yes, he keeps it polished on the outside and vacuumed on the inside,” she said. “I guess that’s how he keeps grief away—whatever it is he’s got to grieve about.”
“Three hundred years,” I said.
We worried about Paul Slazinger. I speculated as to what his helpless soul must have felt like when it realized that his meat had thrown itself down on a hand grenade which was about to go off.
“Why didn’t it kill him?” she said.
“Unforgivably sloppy workmanship at the hand grenade factory,” I said.
“His meat did that, and your meat made the picture in the potato barn,” she said.
“Sounds right,” I said. “My soul didn’t know what kind of picture to paint, but my meat sure did.”
She cleared her throat. “Well, then,” she said, “isn’t it time for your soul, which has been ashamed of your meat for so long, to thank your meat for finally doing something wonderful?”
I thought that over. “That sounds right, too,” I said.
“You have to actually do it,” she said.
“How?” I said.
“Hold your hand in front of your eye,” she said, “and look at those strange and clever animals with love and gratitude, and tell them out loud: ‘Thank you, Meat.’”
So I did.
I held my hands in front of my eyes, and I said out loud and with all my heart: ‘Thank you, Meat.’”
Oh, happy Meat. Oh, happy Soul. Oh, happy Rabo Karabekian.
BLUEBEARD
A Dial Press Trade Paperback Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Delacorte Press hardcover edition published September 1987
Delta Trade Paperback edition published October 1998
Dial Press Trade Paperback edition/June 2006
Published by The Dial Press
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 1987 by Kurt Vonnegut
The Dial Press and Dial Press Trade Paperbacks are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 87-14677
eISBN: 978-0-307-56720-8
www.dialpress.com
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Books By This Author
Title Page
Author’s Note
Part 1 - Bluebeard: The Autobiography of Rabo Karabekian (1916–1988)
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Copyright