I, Bartleby

Начало книги

am a copyist, what am I copying? Down or over. From what page to what page. The flow of ink through the nose of the pen replicating reptilely the tick of a clock turning into another alleyway of lines or mind running down grammatical streets — ever outward like a river through all the islands and channels of its delta after pitching itself downward from mountains and, even before that, from glaciers that had oozed fingers into high valleys but now are said not to be oozing but rather shrinking away from those mountain crags — those humps and hulks and heaved-up layers of ancient seas, jumbled quixotics, masked tectonic rafts of rock my pen makes into loops and sticks and dots.

They shrink from a hot stove, from an odious task, from drudgery, from admitting they’re no longer wanted — these glaciers — no longer loved by the mountains. No. The mountains have had enough, and these glaciers must leave, must melt away, must sink into sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous fissures, cracks, and fractals of mountainhood and meadowhood. Slowly, ever so slowly pulling away the blankets and sheets — inch by inch sliding back the antimacassars on mountainous couches and chairs once protected from human oil but now gradually subjected to this pulling away of garments, this peeling back of scarves and coats, this drawing down of sweater sleeves and chemises, this relentless baring of mountain flesh despite snatches at collars and cuffs, fringes and hems, despite the pocketing of a sash or a sock, a garter or culottes that nevertheless melt trickle pour and hurl themselves down as if under a truck.

Читать дальше →