Exercises in Style (10 page)

Then if you are patient for an hour or two, in front of a bumpy
station you can dip your tepid hand into the exquisite freshness of a vegetable ivory
button which is not in its right place.

isual

The general effect is green with a white top, oblong, with windows.
’Tisn’t as easy as all that to do windows. The platform isn’t any
colour, it’s half grey half brown if it must be something. The most important
thing is it’s full of curves, lots of esses as you might say. But the way it is at
midday, rush hour, it’s an extraordinary mess. To get somewhere near it
you’d have to extract from the magma a light ochre rectangle, put a light ochre
oval on top, and then on top of that again, stick a darkish ochre hat which you’d
encircle with a plait of burnt Siena, all mixed-up, at that. Then you’d shove in a
patch the colour of
duck’s muck to represent fury, a red
triangle to express anger, and just a pissworth of green to portray suppressed bile and
squittery funk.

After that you’d draw one of those sweet darling little navy
blue overcoats and, near the top of it, just below the opening, you’d put a
darling little button drawn with great precision and loving care.

uditory

Quacking and letting off, the S came rasping to a halt alongside the silent pavement. The sun’s trombone flattened the midday note. The pedestrians, bawling bagpipes, shouted out their numbers. Some went up a semitone, which sufficed to carry them off towards the Porte Champerret with its chanting arcades. Among the panting élite was a clarinet tube to whom the untowardness of the times had given human form, and the perversity of a hatmaker had given to wear on the coconut an instrument which resembled a guitar that might perhaps have plaited its strings together to make a girdle. Suddenly in the middle of
some minor arrangements between enterprising passengers and consenting passengeresses and of bleating tremolos from the covetous conductor, a ludicrous cacophony broke out in which the fury of the double bass was blended with the irritation of the trumpet and the jitters of the bassoon.

Then, after sigh, silence, pause and double pause, there rang forth the triumphant melody of a button in the process of going up an octave.

BUS CROWDED STOP YNGMAN LONGNECK PLAITENCIRCLED HAT APOSTROPHISES
UNKNOWN PASSENGER UNAPPARENT REASON STOP QUERY FINGERS FEET HURT CONTACT HEEL ALLEGED
PURPOSELY STOP YNGMAN ABANDONS DISCUSSION PRO-VACANT SEAT STOP 1400 HOURS PLACE ROME
YNGMAN LISTENS SARTORIAL ADVICE FRIEND STOP MOVE BUTTON STOP SIGNED ARCTURUS

O in the bus

O in the bin

th ’yomnibus S

th ’yomnibussin

which with percuss

and hellish din

goes on its way

with us within

nearth’ Pare Monceau

nearth’ Pare Monsin

in the sun’s glow

in the sun’s glin

Monsieur André

whose neck’s too thin

wears a hatuss

wears a hatin

in th ’yomnibus

in th ’yomnibin

And this hatuss

and this hatin

is ribbonless

is ribbonlin

in th ’yomnibus

in th ’yomnibin

and what is muss

and what is min

there’s an excess

of bods therein

and this André

whose neck’s too thin

starts to inveigh

starts to invin

against a cuss

against a kin

in th ’yomnibus

in th ’yomnibin

but this same cuss

but this same kin

za bit too tuss

za bit too tin

and says his say

and says his sin

on th ’yomnibus

on th ’yomnibin

and our André

whose neck’s too thin

goes by express

goes by exprin

in the bus S

in the bussin

a seat to let

his arse sink in

A seat I’d let

my arse sink in

I the poet

gay Harlequin

and two hours

after I saw him

at Saint-Lazare

at Saint-Lazin

the station? yeah

so spick and spin

him, that’s André

whose neck’s too thin

I heard him say

“O pardon min

my dear old pay

my dear old pin

for my buttuss

for my buttin”

quite near the bus

quite near the bin

Now if by

chancetmy tale you grin

since happiness

was born a twin

then take no restand

take no rin

until from far

until from finn

from the bus S

from the bussin

you too your eyes

should chance to spin

on that André

whose neck’s too thin

& his hatuss

& his hatin

& his buttuss

& his buttin

in th ’yomnibus

in th ’yomnibin

th ’yomnibus S

th ’yomnibussin.

Ed on to ay rd wa id sm yo da he nt ar re at pl rm fo an of us sb aw is
ou ay ma ng ho nw ne se wa ck oo st ng lo dw an wa ho ea sw ng ri at ah th wi la ap ro
it dt un sa he me.

Den sud est lyh edt art ran oha his gue ghb nei cla our ngt imi hew
hat urp asp lyt ose din rea his gon sev toe tim ery yon ean tin ego ut oro.

Verh howe idly erap done aban disc dthe onan ussi eada dmad rava shfo
seat cant.

Oursl afewh sawhi ateri ninfr magai thega
ontof
ntlaz resai gross areen conve edina onwit rsati endwh hafri ellin owast ogett ghimt
butto hetop sover nofhi aised coatr.

Ytowa oneda ddayo rdsmi earpl nther mofan atfor saway sbusi anwho oungm kwast senec gandw oolon weari howas twith ngaha tedco aplai ndit rdrou. Lyhest sudden oharan artedt neighb guehis imingt ourcla urpose hathep onhist lytrod rytime oeseve gotino anyone rout. Herapid however onedthe lyaband ionandm discuss htoward adeadas tseat savacan.

Slater is a few hour in in fron aw him aga resaintl tof the ga rossed in azareeng ation wit a convers who was te ha friend to get the lling him nof his ov top butto ised ercoatra.

Ards midda one day tow r platform yon the rea saw a young of an S bus I eck was too man whosen o was weari long and wh ha plaited nga hat wit it cord round. Started toh suddenly he neighbourc arangue his the purpose laiming tha stoes every ly trod on hi got in or out time anyone. Pidly abando however he ra ssion and mad ned the discu acant seat ea dash for av.

Er I saw him aga a few hours lat he gare Saintl in in front oft edina convers azare engross iend who waste ation with afr tthe top button lling him toge at raised a bit nof his overco.

Day one midday towards the on platform rear an of bus S saw I young a
whose man was neck long too who and wearing was hat a a with cord plaited it round.
Started to suddenly he neighbour claiming harangue his purposely trod that he toes every
on his got in time anyone or out. Abandoned the discussion however he rapidly dash for a
and made a vacant seat.

I saw him again a few hours later gare Saint-Lazare engrossed in front
of the a friend who was in a conversation with the top button of telling him to get his
overcoat raised somewhat.

ellenisms

In a hyperomnibus full of petrolonauts in a chronia of metarush I was a martyr to this microrama; a more than icosimetric hypotype, with a petasus pericycled by a caloplegma and a eucylindrical macrotrachea, anathematized an ephemeral and anonymous outis who, he pseudologed, had been epitreading his bipods, but as soon as he euryscoped a coenotopia he peristrophed and catapelted himself on to it.

At a hysteretic chronia I aesthesised him in front of the siderodromous hagiolazaric stathma; peripating with a compsanthropos
who was symbouleuting him about the metakinetics of a sphincterous omphale.