Blood on the Dining-Room Floor

by Gertrude Stein

  Blood on the Dining-Room Floor

  Gertrude Stein

  Chapter One

  They had a country house. A house in the country is not the same as a country house. This was a country house. They had had one servant, a woman. They had changed to two servants, a man and woman that is to say husband and wife.

  The first husband and wife were Italian. They had a queer way of walking, she had a queer way of walking and she made noodles with spinach which made them green. He in his way of walking stooped and picked up sticks instead of chopping them and he dried the sticks on the stove and the fires did not burn.

  The next ones were found on the side of a mountain. She had a queer way of walking, he didn’t. She had been married before but perhaps not only then, at any rate she was soon very sick and is still in a hospital lying on a chair and will not live long. He was like a sheep. He was not at all silly. He was like a sailor. He had been a waiter. He cried when he was disappointed and fell down when he was angry.

  The third pair came by train from a long distance and most unexpectedly they had a little child with them. She was a pretty child and went up stairs gracefully. He had been an accountant and loved automobiles and poetry. He was very quickly certain that a mistake had been made. She had lost one kidney and was soon to lose another. They wished all three to sleep under a tree but that is unbecoming and dangerous. There was fear and indignation everywhere until there was nothing any longer to fear. There never had been.

  The next ones were immigrants. That is immigrants exist no longer because no nation accepts them. These however had been immigrants years ago when everybody wanted them. This is a pity. Not that they had been wanted but that they had been married after they had been wanted. At any rate she was wonderful with horses and he loved automobiles only he would never take a job where he would have to lie down under an automobile with his legs sticking out. This was distasteful to him. However that had nothing to do with it because he was to have nothing to do with automobiles. It must not be forgotten that it was a country house and so naturally there were visitors.

  There were two visitors, not young, both women. What happened, nobody saw, but everybody knew. That is everybody knew except the two visitors. They only saw the result, that is they were only aware of a result.

  Why should blood on the floor make anyone mad against automobiles and telephones and desks. Why.

  This is what happened. There were dogs in the house but they were no bother. Listen carefully.

  The next morning on coming to the desk to write a letter it was noticed that hair and dust had been scattered all over. This was not an accident and it was mentioned. Then some one went out to start a car. The owner of it naturally. It did not start. Then some one else went out to start another car. Once more naturally the owner of that one. The car did not start. Telephone to the garage in the town, they called out to some one else, the telephone is not working, was the answer. The telephone was not working that was a fact. There was another telephone nearby, of this fact as it happened no one in the house was aware except the person who telephoned to the garage. Soon two mechanics with two cars came. They found that one gasoline tank was filled with water and that the spark plugs of the other had been broken. The telephone man came and he found that a little wire had been detached and the piece of cotton that is wound around the wire had been screwed in instead. The mechanic spoke to the man servant at the request of the owner of the car, and said this could hardly happen by itself, and the man servant answered nothing. Just then more guests came and just then in the middle of everything there in the dining-room was a very sweet young man giving someone a very lovely painting. How had he come there, but that was not surprising, everybody knew him, but everybody thought everybody had quarrelled with him. Well anyway everybody kissed him and he left. The man servant served the lunch very well and then he and his wife were sent away. The garage man said send them away and forget them and this was done.

  Lizzie do you understand.

  After a while everybody went away that is to say nobody did stay who was not living there any way in the country house anyway.

  These those that did stay and were living in the country house anyway, these had to go to a funeral right away. A funeral is always an event and this time everybody went that is to say only one went only one actually went because it had been a tragical event and everybody went. This was how they went and this was how they saw what they saw and no more.

  Mind with her mind, she withered with her mind.

  All please a face which smiled in case that she did mind.

  For which if she did mind. She fell upon the pavement of cement in the court and broke her back but did not die nor did she know why. In five days she was dead.

  Do you see what I mean. A country house is not the same as a house in a country and a hotel in the country is not the same as a hotel in a town but is it in a small town. A small town can and is near the house in the country which is a country house. They all went to the funeral. They passed up near the corpse, they kissed the cross they sprayed the censer and they passed near where they five of them, perhaps more, were standing. It was not terrible.

  Find likely that she was dead.

  In a hotel one cooks and the other looks at everything. That makes a man and wife.

  Everybody knows all that. As that can keep everybody busy, nobody goes out. He did not go out because his mother had not, although his father had. He was like that. She his wife did not go out because she was the only wife he had. He said he did not want another even if she cried. He did not say he did not want another even if she tried and died.

  Oh dear. We all cried. When we heard she was dead. Not that anybody minded. But they said. She is dead.

  How did she die. Now I will try to tell. How she fell. And she was dead. Not at once. But in five days. Although many wanted to send flowers, in case, that she was, already dead.

  How can she die if it is not right to die. In some countries nobody can die if it is not right to be dead. And if it happens in a country where nobody dies if it is not right to die, it is a dishonor, that if she is dead, she died.

  In every country in some way it is not right to be dead, that is to die. And why. Each one knows why, in that country where no one should die in a way which it is not right to try.

  Listen to this one.

  Long ago, that is before this war, long ago, not so very long ago after all because she was not forty, but anyway some time ago there was a hotel-keeper who had succeeded his father, who had succeeded his father, who had already succeeded his father. In other words if there was to be a son and there came to be three, there would then have been six generations of hotel-keepers.

  Six generations in some countries are not so many but still any way they are quite a few. It was the sixth who was not yet a hotel-keeper and perhaps never would be because he was to be a lawyer who said that there were six. But he became one, that is he became a hotel-keeper, and the reason why is this.

  He was not yet a lawyer when his mother, yes it was his mother, it was she who was found dead, and not in her bed, not even dead anywhere.

  It was she who was dead there where no one should be dead, when all is said, and very much is said, is always said.

  And so he would not be a lawyer because, and this is natural, if a mother is dead, mysteriously dead, a son cannot be trusted as a lawyer, but he can be trusted as a cook, or as a brother of a cook, or as a son of a cook, or even later as a grandson and a father of a cook.

  Do you really understand.

  Way back before this war, there was a hotel-keeper, a very little man with very fine features and if he became very stout later he would be impressive
, which he did, and which he was.

  He saw a young girl who was also small but rather flat of face, who had a smile and who also later on would be stout but she would be stout and charming and be very steadily moving. She would be occupied with every little thing that she ever saw. She would know about clean linen, about peaches and little cakes, as few as possible of each, and yet always enough. She would oversee the maids at work, she would push them gently forward to do what there was to do and there was always all of that to do. For them and for her. All day and every day. She was always very nearly perfect when she stood. She never sat. Except when it was late and he and she would dine.

  Think of all that.

  Just think of all that.

  He was little like his mother. His father had been and was tall.

  All of us who think about it see what we see.

  And then the war came, this late war. She had come from poorer people than he. He had not come from poor people at all. She had. This does make a difference and in a way does not make anybody glad. Does not make anybody glad.

  When the war came he went away to the war. He was a little man and he went away to the war. Sometimes a little man does not go to the war, but he was a little man, and he went to the war, and what is more, he did not go and cook at the war, as many a cook did, he went to the war, and he fought in the war, and what is more, he fought all the long years of the war until there was no more war.

  And all this time she was at home, home at the hotel. And was it home. In a way it was and in a way it was not, but any way it was the only home she had.

  Every day and every day she had to see that everything came out from where it was put away and that everything again was put away. That was their way. That had always been their way. Any way was that way. Any way, she came that way to be that way. In that way she passed each day and each day passed away which was a night too.

  Anybody knows that a night is not a day.

  She cried when she tried but soon she did not try and so she did not cry. As a day was a day it came to be that way. But it was never only a day, and that a little left it to her still to cry, because it was a day, but it was not only a day. Every day had a day in its way.

  In every day there was a day in the way. Do you think she tried. No she did not try because it always happened that way that the day was all day.

  In this way one day she tried to find the night beside and when she tried to find the night beside, she cried. But she did not care to die. Of course not, and somebody knew but everybody did not know then. Just how she did everything. But it was very sweet and very feminine. And she did everything and her husband came home from the war and there were four children. This sounds different from the way it was. There were four children and they all looked like him, quite exactly like him. The four children were Etienne, John, Ernest, and Emily.

  Now you see the family as it was and as it is only now it is no longer.

  Now that he had come back from the war they grew richer and richer. Nothing changed but that.

  They grew richer and richer. Nothing changed but that. After a war is over if they come back from the war and they grow richer and richer sometimes everything changes and sometimes nothing changes but that.

  She had come from poor people and he had not. Nothing had changed about that. She was very gracious and smiled sweetly and every day everything was taken out and every day everything was put away; and sometimes several times during every day and sometimes very often during every day everything was taken out and everything was put away.

  He was busy every day.

  That is the way to see a thing, see it from the outside. That makes it clear that nobody is dead yet.

  They grew richer and richer every day. The four children grew richer and richer in that way. They grew richer and richer. That was the only change every day. And every day the change was in that way. They grew richer and richer every day.

  As I said they never went out and they never went away and they stayed that way they stayed where they stayed every day and they were richer and richer in every way every day.

  One day he did not go away, but what happened. He was unfaithful to her. He never went away she never went away, they did not even go out a minute of the day any day, but he was unfaithful to her, and she knew that the night was a day. Just think of it. She knew that the night was a day.

  Everybody knows in a way the difference between the night and the day. She did and she did not. He did but what difference does that make.

  She tried to be while she cried. Oh dear yes. She tried and once when she tried, do you remember once when she tried she cried. She could not try and not cry. She could smile and take things in and take things out. But if she were to try she would be obliged to cry.

  Lizzie do you understand.

  Everything passed away except that they did get richer day by day.

  This was all five years ago or so.

  Now you see what there is to see. They are getting richer there every day. She is putting everything away and taking everything out every day and taking everything out and putting everything away as many times a day as there was time in the day.

  What did you say. Yes they had somebody employed there who certainly did her share. She worked well and admired all there was to admire. And she gradually never came to be beloved. Her family were well known too, and soon it will be very easy to see they had nothing to do with it, nor had she.

  All this was five years ago.

  And now nothing happened. They were just as rich if only not richer.

  Their second boy the hotel-keeper’s second boy was to be with his father, he was to be with his mother and father, he was to be there. And what happened. What often does happen. He was not well and then he was to die. He is not dead. He did not die. But what happened instead. A terrible thing happened instead. Somebody had to be dead. The grandmother perhaps but that was no matter.

  And then everybody knew it was true. She the mother fell out of a window on the cement floor and then knew no more than anybody what had happened before.

  She was dead then five days after and everybody said the horticulturist’s family said that she walked in her sleep. Did she walk in her sleep. Had she walked in her sleep. Who had walked in her sleep. Where did she walk. And whose was it that she walked. Whose was it. Can anybody cry.

  I wish to say all I know about the horticulturist who grew flowers. They are a family of eight not counting the father and mother nor any married brother. They did not belong in any way to the hotel except that they had a sister who did, she was employed there.

  They said, that is, he said, he the horticulturist said, that the only thing that kept the hotel going his sister was employed there were three wills, his sister’s will, the eldest son of the mother the wife of the hotel-keeper’s will and the grandfather the father of the hotelkeeper’s will.

  Lizzie do you mind.

  And now to tell and to tell very well very very well how the horticulturist family lived to tell everything, and they live in spite of everything, they live to tell everything.

  Once upon a time there was a garden. It was an old garden and everybody who had ever been in it had been religious. In their way they had been religious. Even so there had been families. And this family as a history of the family had been famous. That is to say as the town knew about itself it learned to know about them. Not that in a way they were important. In a kind of way they were of no importance of no importance at all but they had come to be known to be of enough importance that they were important anywhere. As I said there were eight of them, four brothers and four sisters. The four sisters and three brothers exactly resembled the eldest brother and the mother. But of course this is not possible. It is foolish to think such a thing is possible since there was only two years difference between every brother and every sister until the youngest. And he was to be a priest.

  It is of not the smallest importance what everybody knows about anybody’s ways not o
f the smallest importance. In a way it does not make any difference even what is said. Not if it makes any difference anywhere.

  The eldest of the eight sisters and brothers that is four brothers and four sisters was called the eldest. This too did not make any difference because everybody knew him and how important it was that nobody should know that they would think alike. At least they bowed alike. And so did she his mother who looked like him and wore a wig. Everybody knew she looked like him and wore a wig.

  They lived in a garden and they lived off of the garden. They might be rich but as the family were like that nobody knew. If at any rate they suffered from poverty they had suffered long. This might make some of them intellectual. It certainly did this if they were poor.

  They were not poor and proud. Nobody said that. Somebody said that they had too much manner but at any rate the elder brother was accomodating, he was ready to do anything that he could.

  He had not placed his sisters where they worked. His brothers stayed at home and carried their garden with them wherever they went and none of them went very far but none of them stayed away and only one of them got married and he only had one child.

  It was in this way that they lived and none of them died, not even the father who did not live in the garden, although he had.

  She the sister who never left the hotel where she worked except to go home to the garden, which she did every day, was the eldest of seven that is she was younger than the eldest. And as such she felt herself.

  Who was the hero of the garden and was there a father in this thing. There was but he disappeared. The hero was older than the seven, that is to say he was the eldest of eight, there were seven younger.

  But to come back to the hotel as well.

  Do any of you know a disease that makes complete black rings all around the eyes as if the rings were made with shoe black. The nursery governess of the little Emily had that.

  Etienne who was to have been a lawyer, taking the place of his dead mother, stood at the door of the hotel, to meet the guests as they came in.