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

-- A great consolation.

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

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

-- Whatd you do yesterday?

-- Yes, okay, what do I care?

-- Yes. How about blue?

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

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

-- But theyre here.

-- Thats true. Whats the time?

-- Not yet I want to think about it.

-- 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 --

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

-- Seems!

-- A bonbon dish?

-- Maybe.

-- I get hungry. In the night.

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

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

-- There is a difference in texture. . .

-- You admitted the doors.

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

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

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

-- Half-way consoled already.

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

-- Cold, here in the garden.

-- Whatd you get?

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

-- You want to sing that song.

-- And Social Security.

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

-- Thats true.

-- 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.

-- Plate.

-- Who was Shirley?

-- Going to snap one of these days.

-九-九-藏-书-网- In the beginning, you dont know.

-- Well, youre driving me crazy.

-- Where? Show me.

-- Hocked it.

-- Thank the Lord for all small favors.

-- Well, you cant have everything.

-- Ive never heard a cri de coeur.

-- I said blue.

-- I dont want to distress you. Unnecessarily.

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

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

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

-- You must admit, a great consolation.

-- 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.

-- But when it goes behind a cloud --

-- God, arent these flowers beautiful!

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

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

-- But the doors are here. Theyre yours.

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

-- You were complaining about the sun.

-- Cant remember how it goes.

-- Lets go on to the plate, then.

-- Of course. I have their trust.

-- I think its mine.

-- White powder of some kind. . .

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

-- 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.

-- Yes.

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

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

-- Wholeheartedly.

-- Did for a while. Then stopped.

-- Maybe maybe maybe maybe.

-- You were wrong about the dish.

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

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

九九藏书网

-- Getting farther and farther away from life.

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

-- Unacceptable. What happened to her?

-- Indeed.

-- Youve never heard a cri de coeur?

-- Consoling to have the flowers.

-- And philosophy. Furthermore.

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

-- Yes or no?

-- Did she perhaps wear shoes of this type?

-- 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.

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

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

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

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

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

-- 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.

-- With what in mind?

-- The gold eyebrows, still?

-- Twelve-fifty.

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

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

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

-- Not a chance.

-- Well, you cant have everything.

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

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

-- 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.

-- 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 phal99lib.netlus 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 --

-- Not now. This sun is blistering.

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

-- They trust you with the silver?

-- When?

-- Wholeheartedly, then.

-- 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.

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

-- Took a walk. In the wild trees.

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

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

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

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

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

-- 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?

-- 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.

-- And these Japanese rocks --

-- 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.

-- Its a womans shoe. Its too sma九-九-藏-书-网ll for me. My foot, this foot here, would never in the world fit into that shoe.

-- You enjoy their trust.

-- Cold, here in the garden.

-- Sexuality, too.

-- Promotion, advancement. . .

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

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

-- Yes. Now, are these your doors?

-- 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.

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

-- Not wholeheartedly.

-- Absolutely.

-- Not yours.

-- How does that make you feel?

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

-- 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.

-- Some kind of Japanese dealies I dont know.

-- New skin. Youre going to complain?

-- Mine. Yes.

-- The kid ever come to see you?

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

-- No no no no. Come come come.

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

-- Are you sure it wasnt saccharin?

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

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

-- 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.

-- Please.

-- Oh, I dont blame him.

-- I fondled them, if they were fondleable.

-- The shoe is definitely not mine.

-- 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 t九九藏书he shoe may be in some way a cri de coeur?

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

-- Looks to be about one.

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

-- Caw caw caw caw.

-- Well, you cant have everything.

-- Its a dish. A bonbon dish.

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

-- Surely not your last word on the subject.

-- Perhaps once. When Shirley was with us?

-- I think not.

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

-- Can you fine-tune that for me?

-- You feel coerced?

-- Wheres your watch?

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

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

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

-- Guilty but less guilty than I should.

-- 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.

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

-- The flowers are beautiful.

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

-- "Wholeheartedly"?

-- How do you feel about that?

-- I wonder if its true.

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

-- I withdraw that.

-- Perhaps she craved bonbons?

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

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

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

-- Listening to the radio. "Elmers Tune."

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

-- What are they?

-- Artfully placed, most artfully.

-- Nothing is yours.

-- Maybe.

-- Cold here in the garden.