Which reminds me of Mademoiselle Basquette who was damned from the
waist down, a girl whitout legs, built like a medieval abuse. She
used to wheel herself through the Pyrenees on a board. (...) Well, in any case,' the doctor went on rolling down his
gloves, 'a sailor saw her one day and fell in love with her. She was
going uphill and the sun was shining all over her back, it made a
saddle across her bent neck and flickered along the curls of her
head, gorgeous and bereft as the figure head of a Norse vessel that
the ship has abandoned. So he snatched her up, board and all, and
took her away and had his will; when he got good and tired of her,
just for gallantry, he put her down on her board about five miles out
of town, so she had to roll herself back again, weeping something
fearful to see, because one is accustomed to see tears falling down
to the feet. Ah truly, a pine board may come up to the chin of a
woman, and still she will find reason to weep. I tell you Madame, if
one gave birth to a heart on a plate, it would say «Love» and
twitch like the lopped leg of a frog.'
'Wunderbar!'
exclaimed Frau Mann. 'Wunderbar, my God!'
Nightwood
Djuna Barnes
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