Magus Tabor. Mad Meg. He holds up a ghostly bucket. Full of them, he says - facts which we've seen him gather - little one's like pebbles, snails. Or like beads or buttons or bottle caps. Coins. He rattles them around in the pail while we listen. Little lives, he says. Small deaths. Like marbles or match covers. Prizes in Cracker Jack. A soupçon of souls. Paper clips, knucklebones, candy corn, nails. Left over from the Franco-Prussian War. Jean Andre Veau, for instance. Heinrich Klein. Are they historical? Tabor is menacing. He waits, hands on hips, as if about to exercise. The little lives, their deaths - impatiently he taps with the toe of his shoe as he ticks them off: a, b, c, d, e, f, endlessly, g, h, i, j - are they historical? Lives lost at Cannae? or a man who might have died in Paris Sunday of the itch? And before this question, as before the others, we remain silent, watchful... silent.
Tabor's on to something. It's lightly verdigrised, vast and reticular, yet he envelops it. The next one is craven; the next one is blue; the next one is badly barbered. He discovers more; he captures another; it's long and thin - so thin and long he reels it to his thumb as though he'd cast it fishing. Like a magician pulling a silver dollar from an ear, he locates them behind curtains, under chairs, in thin air. He pretends, like a Mud Man, to fart a few. He hugs them all, gathering every kind together, while we sit mute... mesmerised. Why didn't we laugh? why didn't we howl and shake and topple from our seats? No one in anger cried clown. He might have been Oedipus after his eyes, or Antigone mourning her brother... when he measured and he counted for us: k, l, m...
[The Tunnel, Gass, W. H.]
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