Blow-Up and Other Stories by Cortázar Julio

Author:Cortázar, Julio [Cortázar, Julio]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Classics
ISBN: 9780804153249
Goodreads: 22828612
Publisher: Pantheon
Published: 1968-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

AT YOUR SERVICE

For some time now it’s been a problem lighting the fire. The matches are not as good as they used to be, now you have to hold them head down and hope that the flame has some force to it; the kindling arrives damp, and no matter how often I tell Frederic to bring me dry logs, they always smell wet and do not take well. Since my hands started shaking, everything is more of a problem. Before, I could make a bed in two seconds, and the sheets would look and feel as though they’d just been ironed. Now I have to make my way around and around the bed, and madame Beauchamp gets irritable and says that if they’re paying me by the hour it’s not to waste time smoothing out one wrinkle here and another there. And all that fuss because my hands shake, and because the sheets today are not like they used to be, not so solid and heavy. Doctor Lebrun says there’s nothing wrong, only I have to be very careful, not to catch cold and to go to bed early. “And that glass of wine every now and then, eh, madame Francinet? It would be better if we eliminated that, and the pernod before lunch also.” Doctor Lebrun is a young doctor and his ideas are very good for young people. In my day, nobody would have said that wine was bad for one. But after that, I don’t drink, not what you’d call drinking, like that Germaine on the third floor, or that animal Felix, the carpenter. I don’t know why that reminds me now, that poor monsieur Bébé, the night he made me drink a glass of whiskey. Monsieur Bébé! Monsieur Bébé! In the kitchen at madame Rosay’s apartment the night of the party. I used to go out a lot then, still even while I was working house to house. Mr. Renfeld’s place was one, at the sisters’ who taught piano and violin, a lot of places, all of them very nice houses. Now I can hardly make it three times a week at madame Beauchamp’s, and it looks like that’s not going to last long. My hands shake so badly, and madame Beauchamp gets irritable with me. These days, madame Rosay would never give me a recommendation, nor would madame Rosay come herself looking for me, now monsieur Bébé would not talk with me in the kitchen. No, especially not monsieur Bébé.

When madame Rosay came to my house it was already afternoon, and she didn’t stay more than a few minutes. To be frank, my house consists of a single room, but I have a kitchen in the back and what I have left over of the furniture from when George died and I had to sell everything, it seems to me I have the right to call it my house. In any case, there’re three chairs, and madame Rosay removed her gloves, sat down and said that the room was small but pleasant.

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