Bluebeard: The Autobiography of Rabo Karabekian (1916-1988) by Vonnegut Kurt

Author:Vonnegut, Kurt [Vonnegut, Kurt]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780795319341
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Published: 2011-08-21T04:00:00+00:00

19

Belief is nearly the whole of the Universe, whether based on truth or not, and I believed back then that sperm, if not ejaculated, was reprocessed by healthy males into substances which made them athletic, merry, brave and creative. Dan Gregory believed this, too, and so did my father, and so did the United States Army and the Boy Scouts of America and Ernest Hemingway. So I cultivated erotic fantasies about making love to Marilee, and behaved as though we were courting sometimes, but only in order to generate more sperm which could be converted into the beneficial chemicals.

I used to shuffle my feet for a long time on a carpet, and then give Marilee an electric shock with my fingertips when she wasn’t expecting it—on the back of her neck or her cheek or a hand. How is that for pornography?

I also got her to sneak off with me and do something which would have made Gregory furious, if he had found out about it, which was to go to the Museum of Modern Art.

But she certainly wasn’t about to promote me erotically above the rank of pest and playmate. Not only did she love Gregory, but he was also making it very easy for both of us to get through the Great Depression. First things first.

Meanwhile, though, we were innocently exposing ourselves to a master seducer against whose blandishments we were defenseless. It was too late for either of us to turn back by the time we realized how deeply embroiled we had let ourselves become.

Want to guess who or what it was?

It was the Museum of Modern Art.

***

The theory that sperm, if unspent, was converted into cosmic vitamins seemed validated by my own performances. Running errands for Gregory, I became as cunning as a sewer rat about the fastest ways to get from anywhere to anywhere on the island of Manhattan. I quintupled my vocabulary, learning the names and functions of every important part of every sort of organism and artifact. My most thrilling accomplishment, however, was this: I finished a meticulously accurate painting of Gregory’s studio in only six months! The bone was bone, the fur was fur, the hair was hair, the dust was dust, the soot was soot, the wool was wool, the cotton was cotton, the walnut was walnut, the oak was oak, the horsehide was horsehide, the cowhide was cowhide, the iron was iron, the steel was steel, the old was old and the new was new.

Yes, and the water dripping from the skylight in my painting was not only the wettest water you ever saw: in each droplet, if you looked at it through a magnifying glass, there was the whole damned studio! Not bad! Not bad!

***

An idea has just come to me from nowhere, to wit: Might not the ancient and nearly universal belief that sperm could be metabolized into noble actions have been the inspiration for Einstein’s very similar formula: “E equals MC squared”?

***

“Not bad, not bad,” said Dan

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