Madeleine Is Sleeping by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum Read Free Book Online

the same stultifying pose.
    It is M. Pujol, however, who suffers most. The photographer is forever bumping into him. When he stumbles, it is always in M. Pujol's direction that he falls. The photographer cannot, it seems, refill his wine glass, wash his hands, extract his handkerchief, illustrate a point, without somehow getting in M. Pujol's way. Their soapy knuckles knock against each other in the basin. They reach for the bottle at the same time, and their forearms brush. During the course of a lively conversation, it often happens that the back of Adrien's gesticulating hand will hit M. Pujol in the face.
    The flatulent man finds himself apologizing even more often than he usually does. But the photographer is ungracious; though he is the one who always bumps and crowds, he never asks for forgiveness. He never once says, Pardon me. Instead, he skulks behind a caravan, where he furtively examines his knuckles, his arm, the back of his hand, as if it were he who stood the greatest risk of being bruised.

In the Candlelight
    LOUDER, THE WIDOW SAYS , leaning forward in her chair.

By the Folly
    M. PUJOL IS CHARMED by his reflection: he appears enormous! There he is, in the still waters of the fishpond, looking nearly as tall as the temple that rises up behind him. He sits down upon its crumbling steps. Of course, he has not really grown; it is only that the temple is perfectly small.
    There was once a widow, M. Pujol says, to no one in particular. He is alone.
    And it seems that he has gone mad, that failure and humiliation have destroyed his sense, but indeed he has not, or at least not yet, for this afternoon he has an audience, whom he spotted in the mirror of the fishpond. A small figure, unannounced, crouching in the reeds, watching him. She has taken off her stockings and her boots. The hem of her white dress drifts in the water.
    And the widow, M. Pujol continues, loved all beautiful things. But she was very old, and decrepit, and had barely the strength to leave her rooms. She said to her gardener, Dig me a pond; I will sit by my window and the sight of it will soothe me. Then she said: Fill my pond with fish, so that I might see their scales flashing in the sunlight.
    A voice from the reeds says: I know a widow.
    The gardener did as she wished, but one by one the fish began to disappear. The gardener told the widow, There is an orange carp that is slowly devouring the contents of your pond. Unless I kill him, he will eat all the other fish, and you will no longer be able to
look at them. But the widow said: He is the most beautiful; he is my favorite. Let him do as he likes.
    A voice from the reeds says: She lives in a very grand house.
    So the carp grew to a gigantic size. He spent his days turning lazily about the pond, the sun glinting off his prodigious scales. Reflections swayed across the ceiling of the widow's room, so that now, even from her bed, she could take pleasure in her carp. All summer long he illuminated her ceiling, and when she wheeled herself to the window and peered down into her pond, he seemed to grow even more languorous, even more indifferent, as though he could feel her watching him.

Justice
    BUT THEN a thunderstorm descended, and a lightning bolt struck the widow's pond.
    Laughter erupts from the reeds. The audience's sense of justice is delighted.

Bloodless
    YES; ONE WOULD THINK the carp had died. The gardener was certain of it: he brought with him a net to drag the fish out from the water. As he neared the pond, he spied a pale shape slipping beneath the surface—not a shape but a shade, belonging perhaps to a ghostly carp. Upon closer inspection, however, the gardener found the fish very much alive; the accident had simply drained him of color.
    After his encounter with the lightning bolt, the carp resumed his lazy circles about the pond. Instead of resembling a great golden shield, flashing in the green depths of the water, the fish was now mistaken, by turns, for a sunken