Overnight to Many Different Cities 作者：唐纳德·巴塞尔姆 （美国）

-- Plate, dish, I dont care, its something of an imposition, you must admit, to have to think about it. Normally I wouldnt think about it.

-- There is a difference in texture. . .

-- That the sack is, beyond a doubt, yours.

-- Im delighted to hear it. Not that you have a condition but that the sack is, without doubt, yours.

-- Unacceptable. What happened to her?

-- She made a lot of money. Opened a Palais de Glace, or skating rink. Read R. D. Laing to the skaters over the PA system meanwhile supplementing her income by lecturing over the country as a spokesperson for the unborn.

-- Looks to be about one.

-- Nevertheless I withdraw it. Its inadmissible. It was coerced.

-- How do you feel about that?

-- You were complaining about the sun.

-- Thats true. Whats the time?

-- White powder of some kind. . .

-- And these Japanese rocks --

-- You cant really say too much. These days.

-- You fatigue me. Now, about the hundred-pound sack of saccharin.

-- Yes, okay, what do I care?

-- Caw caw caw caw.

-- Never used to have them. Now theyre everywhere.

-- What are you writing there, in your notes?

-- It has your name on the back. Engraved on the back.

-- The struggle is admirable. Useless, but admirable. Your struggle.

-- I liked H. V. Kaltenborn. Hes long gone.

-- Well, you cant have everything.

-- Cold here in the garden.

-- The kid ever come to see you?

-- Cold, here in the garden.

-- I am not suggesting that the shoe is yours in the sense that you wear or would wear such a shoe. Its obviously a womans shoe.

-- Not wholeheartedly.

-- Cold, here in the garden.

-- Absolutely.

-- You feel coerced?

-- Whatd you get?

-- Took a walk. In the wild trees.

-- Wholeheartedly.

-- Surely not your last word on the subject.

-- When?

-- Yes. I think so. Are they on spring hinges? Do they swing?

-- Twelve-fifty.

-- Thank the Lord for all small favors.

-- Did for a while. Then stopped.

-- No, I remember, it was definitely sugar. Granulated. So the sack of saccharin is definitely not mine.

-- Half-way consoled already.

-- Well, youre driving me crazy.

-- You have a hectoring tone. I dont like to be hectored. You came here with something in mind. You had made an a priori decision.

-- I said blue.

-- All right. The hollowed-out book containing the single Swedish municipal bond in the amount of fifty thousand Swedish crowns is not yours. Weve established that. Lets go on.

-- She did things with her eyebrows. Painted them gold. You had the gray eyes with a touch of violet, and the gold eyebrows. Yes, the doors must be mine. I seem to remember her bursting through them. In one of the several rages of a summers day.

-- Within the limits of the law, of course.

-- The shoe is in no sense a thing of mine. Although found I admit among my things.

-- Where theres a will theres a way. Thats what my mother always said.

-- A bonbon dish?

-- They spend a lot of time worrying about where to park their cars. Glad I dont have one.

-- That was a point of fact, it was, in fact, a dish.

-- Not yours.

-- You exhaust me. In this context, the word "maybe" is unacceptable.

-- If you were a Japanese master you wouldnt snap. Those guys never snapped. Some of them were ninety.

-- Sometimes we hugged. Lengthily. Heart to heart, the one trying to pull the other into the upright other. . .

-- How does that make you feel?

-- Havent eaten anything except some rice, this morning. Cooked it with chicken broth.

-- Did she perhaps wear shoes of this type?

-- I have some swatches. If youd care to take a gander.

-- Yes. They seem to be. I mean, Im not arguing with you. On the other hand, theyre not something I want to remember, particularly. They have sort of an unpleasant aura around them, for some reason. I would have avoided them, left to myself.

-- Ive never heard a cri de coeur.

-- A perfectly possible answer. People use it every day.

-- Not now. This sun is blistering.

-- Hocked it.

-- The flowers are beautiful.

-- Sexuality, too.

-- The gold eyebrows and the gray-with-violet eyes. On television, very often.

-- Lets move on to the shoe, now. I dont have that much time.

-- I am entitled to a good, solid, answer. Is the dressing gown yours?

-- Certainly. "Young person" is an elastic term. You think Im going to mess with jailbait?

-- No no no no no. Not so. Sourballs, perhaps.

-- She sometimes threw something through the doorway before bursting through the doorway herself. Acid, on one occasion.

-- You mean to say that you think that I would own a bonbon dish? A sterling-silver or whatever it is bonbon dish? Youre mad.

-- Well, you cant have everything.

-- We dont operate that way. That has nothing to do with it. I dont want to discuss this any further. Lets go on to the dressing gown. Is the dressing gown yours?

-- Going to snap one of these days.

-- With what in mind?

-- They swing in either direction. Spring hinges. Wood slats.

-- Doesnt that make you nervous? Girls talking on the radio?

-- Please.

-- They have books about it. I read one.

-- Perhaps she craved bonbons?

-- I havent agreed tothat. Did I agree to that?

-- In the beginning, you dont know.

-- You want to sing that song.

-- But theyre here.

-- I didnt mean anything by it. Well, lets leave the doors, then, and go on to the dish.

-- God, arent these flowers beautiful!

-- I have it right here. Written down. "Yes, they must be mine."

-- Nothing is yours.

-- I think its mine. It seems to be.

-- Of course not. Never occurred to me. The shoe has something of the pathetic about it. A wronged quality. Do you think it possible that the shoe may be in some way a cri de coeur?

-- Getting farther and farther away from life.

-- My business. Leave it at "maybe."

-- I wonder if its true.

-- No no no no. Come come come.

-- Some things are mine, but the sack is not mine, the shoe is not mine, the bonbon dish is not mine, and the doors are not mine.

-- It was never mine. Or it might have been mine, once. Perhaps it belonged to my former wife. I said I wasnt sure. She was fond of hiding things in hollowed-out books.

-- What are they?

-- Well we still havent decided what color, to paint the trucks.

-- Perhaps once. When Shirley was with us?

-- Listening to theradio. "Elmers Tune."

-- A great consolation.

-- Your name. Right there. And the date, 1962.

-- The maid. She was studying eschatology. Maiding parttime. She left us for a better post. Perfectly ordinary departure.

-- I cant tell you how pleased I am. The inquiry moves. Progress is made. Results are obtained.

-- Cant remember how it goes.

-- Can you fine-tune that for me?

-- You must admit, a great consolation.

-- There was a vogue for that kind of shoe, some time back, among the young people. It might have belonged to a young person. I sometimes saw young persons.

-- Its a dish. A bonbon dish.

-- I fondled them, if they were fondleable.

-- It must have been some time ago. Some years. I dont know what theyre doing here. It strikes me they were in another house. Not this house. I mean its kind of cloudy.

-- I read a book. Just the other day.

-- I dont like it when they let girls talk on the radio.

-- All that business about "dish" rather than "plate" --

-- Plate.

-- Youve never heard a cri de coeur?

-- Thats true.

-- Mine. Yes.

-- Artfully placed, most artfully.

-- Maybe.

-- Not a chance.

-- New skin. Youre going to complain?

-- And Social Security.

-- Mine. Indubitably mine. Im forbidden to use sugar. I have a condition.

-- Where? Show me.

-- The doors were yours. Why not the dish?

-- Only three of them. But each remarkable, of its kind.

-- Forgot to buy soap, forgot to buy coffee --

-- Not yet I want to think about it.

-- No. Nor was she given to the cri de coeur. Except, perhaps, once. Death of her flying fish. A cry wrenched from her bosom. Rather like a winged phallus it was, she kept it in a washtub in the basement. One day it was discovered belly-up. She screamed. Then, insisted it be given the Last Rites, buried in a fish cemetery, holy water sprinkled this way and that --

-- You cant withdraw it. Ive written it down.

-- Indeed.

-- The gold eyebrows, still?

-- "Wholeheartedly"?

-- Maybe.

-- Yes.

-- Seems!

-- Well, you cant have everything.

-- I know, I know, I know. Im not blaming you, but it just seems to me that you could have let it go. The doors. Im sure you didnt mean anything by it, but still --

-- I dont want to look. Ill take your word for it. That was twenty years ago. My God. She read R. D. Laing. Aloud, at dinner. Every night. Interrupted only by the telephone. When she answered the telephone, her voice became animated. Charming and animated. Gaiety. Vivacity. Laughter. In contrast to her reading of R. D. Laing. Which could only be described as punitive. O.K., so its mine. My plate.

-- Lazing in the garden. This is really most luxurious.

-- Consoling to have the flowers.

-- Yes or no?

-- I withdraw that.

-- Thats a little ridiculous when you consider that I have, personally, nothing to gain. Either way. Whichever way it goes.

-- Who was Shirley?

-- Are you sure it wasnt saccharin?

-- We want not the shadow of a doubt. We want to be absolutely certain.

-- Oh,I dont blame him.

-- I think its mine.

-- I get hungry. In the night.

-- But when it goes behind a cloud --

-- I dont want to distress you. Unnecessarily.

-- Its here. An old-fashioned shoe. Eleven buttons.

-- This place is cold, no getting around it.

-- Well, I have to muck out the stable and buff up the silver.

-- Wholeheartedly, then.

-- Some kind of Japanese dealies I dont know.

-- Yes. How about blue?

-- Well youre driving me crazy too. Know what I mean?

-- Maybe maybe maybe maybe.

-- You enjoy their trust.

-- What do you mean, think? You stated. . . Is it yours or isnt it?

-- I did resist. Would you allow "valiantly"?

-- The shoe is definitely not mine.

-- I just remembered, I put sugar in my coffee. At breakfast.

-- I think not.

-- We still havent decided what color to paint the trucks.

-- Well to the woods no more. I assume.

-- And philosophy. Furthermore.

-- Guilty but less guilty than I should.

-- I appreciate it. She had gray eyes. Gray with a touch of violet.

-- No, I must say you resisted. Admirably, resisted.

-- Wheres your watch?

-- Whatd you do yesterday?

-- They trust you with the silver?

-- Youre too old, thats all it is, think nothing of it. Dont give it a thought.

-- Of course. I have their trust.

-- Promotion, advancement. . .

-- Just one more thing: The two mattresses surrounding the single slice of salami. Are they yours?

-- Lets go on to the plate, then.

-- But the doors are here. Theyre yours.

-- Yes. Now, are these your doors?

-- You admitted the doors.

-- Its a womans shoe. Its too small for me. My foot, this foot here, would never in the world fit into that shoe.

-- You said, I have it right here, written down, "Yes, they must be mine."

-- You were wrong about the dish.