Friday, September 18, 2009

Bolkonskyites

Dumfries and Galloway had seen starrier days, like those in Abruzzi dinning on calf’s testicles with Al Vomano, president of the Montorio Montessori school for the uneducable and dim. The man in the hat first met Dumfries and Galloway at the second annual Feast of the Annunciation, Dumfries introducing himself as a pagan orgiast, Galloway grabbing hold of his hand and saying ‘pleased to make your acquaintance, surely’. Galloway and Dumfries belonged to the Nikolai Bolkonsky society, Dumfries taking the side of war, Galloway peace; Dumfries the warmonger and Galloway the libertarian shared a dislike for communards, the Dreyfus Affair having left them unimpeachably sad and disillusioned.

When the Witness got word that Dumfries and Galloway were in town, which he did by way of the harridan’s sister, herself once a member of the Nikolai Bolkonsky society, who after much cajoling recanted her alliance and became a junior pamphleteer, he rush-printed a dozen pamphlets extolling the virtues of religious observance and the heathenry of orgiasts and Nikolai Bolkonskyites.

Overhearing two embittered false Witnesses squabbling Galloway turned to Dumfries and said, “The Moor had hardly heard these words when with marvellous quickness he flung himself headforemost into the sea, where no doubt he would have been drowned had not the long and full dress he wore held him up for a little on the surface of the water. Zoraida cried aloud to us to save him, and we all hastened to help, and seizing him by his robe we drew him in half drowned and insensible…”.
[1] 'do you remember that Flugel fellow, the one that was always changing his jacket?' asked Dumfries of Galloway, both men standing with their backs to the rectory wall.
[1] Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

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"Poetry is the short-circuiting of meaning between words, the impetuous regeneration of primordial myth". Bruno Schulz
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