U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [445]
at last westbound away from pension spinsters tasty about watercolors the old men with crocodile eyes hiding their bloody claws under neat lisle gloves the landscapes corroded with literature westbound
for an old man he is old
for an old man he is grey
but a young man's heart is full of love
get away old man get away
at the dinnertable westbound in the broadlit saloon the amplybosom'ed broadbeamed la bel a cubana in a yel-low lowcut dress archly with the sharp rosy nail of her littlest finger points
the curlyhaired young bucks from Bilbao (louder and funnier) in such tightwaisted icecreamcolored suits silk shirts striped ties (westbound to Havana for the sugar-boom) the rich one has a diamond ring tooshiny eyes look the way her little finger jabs but a young man's heart is ful of love
-238-she whispers He came out of her cabin when I
was on the way to the bath Why was she giggling in
number sixtysix? the rich one from Bilbao orders cham-pagne to echo the corks that pop in an artil ery salute from the long table where the Mexican general tal solemnfaced with a black mustache and five tal solemnfaced bluejowled sons a fat majordomo and a sprinkling of blank henshaped ladies who rustle out hurriedly in black silk with their handkerchiefs to their mouths as soon as we round the cape where the lighthouse is westbound (out of old into new inordinate new uncle-ciphered new) southerly summertime crossing (towards events) the roar in the ears the deep blue heaving the sun hot on the back of your hand the feel of wet salt on the handrails the smel of brasspolish and highpressure steam the multitudinous flickering dazzle of light and every noon we overeat hors d'oeuvres drink too
much wine while gigglingly with rol ing eyes la bel a to indicate who slept with who sharply jabs with littlest pin-sharpened finger la juerga
alas the young buck from Bilbao the one with the dia-mond ring suffers amidships (westbound the ancient furies fol ow in our wake) a kick from Venus's dangerous toe retires to bed we take our coffee in his cabin instead of the fumoir the ladies interest themselves in his plight
-239-two gal egos loosemouthed frognecked itinerant are invited up from the steerage to sing to the guitar ( Vichy water and deep song argyrol rhymes with rusiñol) si quieres qu'el carro cante
mójele y déjele en rio
que después de buen moja'o
canta com' un silbi'o
and funny stories a thousand and one Havana nights
the dance of the mil ions the fair cubanas a el as les gustan los negros but stepping out on deck to get a breath of briny
afternoon there's more to be seen than that rusty freighter wal owing in indigo el rubio the buck from Bilbao
who has no diamond ring beset with yel ing cubans la bel a leads with heaving breast a smal man with grey side-burns is pushed out at el rubio they shove at him from behind escándalo
alternately the contestants argue with their friends who hold them back break loose fly at each other
with threshing arms are recaptured pul ed apart
shipsofficers intervene.
pale and trembling the champions are led away
he of the sideburns to the ladies' drawingroom el rubio aft to the fumoir
-240-there we masticate the insults what was it al about? no señor no el rubio grabs a sheet of the note-paper of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique but fingers refuse to hold the pen while he twined them in his long curly hair an unauthorized observer who had become involved in the broil misspel ed glibly to his dic-tation a chal enge and carried it frozenfaced to the parties in the ladies'
drawingroom coño
then we walk el rubio back and forth across the pal-pitating stern discuss rapiers pistols fencingpractice now only the westbound observer appears at meals
el. rubio mopes at the end of the bunk of his beclapped friend and prepares for doom the ship's agog with
dueltalk until mon commandant a redfaced Breton visits al parties and explains that this kind of nonsense is ex-pressly forbidden in the regulations of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique and