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A couched spear of acuminated granite rested by him while at his feet reposed a savage animal of the canine tribe whose stertorous gasps announced that he was sunk in uneasy slumber, a supposition confirmed by hoarse growls and spasmodic movements which his master repressed from time to time by tranquilising blows of a mighty cudgel rudely fashioned out of paleolithic stone.

“I don’t put tattoos on drunks,” he said.
“You know me!” Parker cried indignantly. “I’m O. E. Parker! You done work for me before and I always paid!”
The artist looked at him another moment as if he were not altogether sure. “You’ve fallen off some,” he said. “You must have been in jail.”
“Married,” Parker said.
“Oh,” said the artist.

‘Parker’s Back’

It was as if a blind boy had been turned so gently in a different direction that he did not know his destination had been changed.

‘Parker’s Back’

The figure seated on a large boulder at the foot of a round tower was
that of a broadshouldered deepchested stronglimbed frankeyed redhaired
freelyfreckled shaggybearded widemouthed largenosed longheaded
deepvoiced barekneed brawnyhanded hairylegged ruddyfaced sinewyarmed hero.

Ten days before the festival began, a man named Singleton had been tried by a mock court ... for not buying an Azela Festival Badge. During the trial he had been imprisoned in a pair of stocks and when convicted, he had been locked in the “jail” together with a goat ... Ten days later, Singleton had appeared in a side door of the courthouse porch and with a silent automatic pistol, had shot five of the dignitaries ..

. . . Thomas touched it. She stood with her head cocked on one side in an attitude of disbelief. “Oh boy, “ she said slowly, “is he a case.”
At that instant Thomas damned not only the girl but the entire order of the universe that made her possible.
“Thomas wouldn’t put a gun in your bag, “ his mother said. “Thomas is a gentleman.”
The girl made a chortling noise.

‘The Comforts of Home’

It’s so nice to have you come, Asbury said. “This place is incredibly dreary. There’s no one here an intelligent person can talk to. I wonder what you think of Joyce, Father?”
The priest lifted his chair and pushed closer. “You’ll have to shout,” he said. “Blind in one eye and deaf in one ear.”
“What do you think of Joyce?” Asbury said louder
“Joyce? Joyce who?” asked the priest
“James Joyce,” Asbury said and laughed

—What’s your opinion of the times?

Doing the rapparee and Rory of the hill. But, begob, Joe was equal to
the occasion.

—I think the markets are on a rise, says he, sliding his hand down his
fork.

So begob the citizen claps his paw on his knee and he says:

—Foreign wars is the cause of it.

And says Joe, sticking his thumb in his pocket:

—It’s the Russians wish to tyrannise.

The moon came up and Asbury was aware of a presence bending over him and a gentle warmth on his cold face. He knew that this was Art come to wake him and he sat up and opened his eyes. Across the hill all the lights were on in his mother’s house. The black pond was speckled with little nickel-colored stars. All around him the cows were spread out grazing ... and one ... violently spotted, was softly licking his head

Howcome you let him drink that milk every day?”
“What he do is him,” Randall said, “What I do is me.”
“Howcome he talks so ugly about his ma?”
“She ain’t whup him enough when he was little,” Randall said.

Asbury lay with a rigid outraged stare while the privacy of his blood was invaded by this idiot.

Vladimir. You’re a hard man to get on with, Gogo.

Estragon. It’d be better if we parted.

Vladimir. You always say that and you always come crawling back.

Estragon. The best thing would be to kill me, like the other.

Vladimir. What other? (Pause.) What other?

Estragon. Like billions of others.

What’s that cry of deadly pain?” his sister drawled from the back seat. “Oh it’s you,” she said. “Well we’ll, we have the artist with us again. How utterly utterly.” She had a decidedly nasal voice.
He didn’t answer her or turn his head. He had learned that much. Never answer her.
“Mary George!” his mother said sharply. “Asbury is sick. Leave him alone.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Mary George asked.

VLADIMIR:
You should have been a poet.
ESTRAGON:
I was.

GREGERS. If you are right, and I am wrong, then life is not worth
living.

RELLING. Ah! life might be pleasant enough all the same, if only we
could be left in peace by those blessed duns who come worrying us poor
folk about the claims of the ideal.

GREGERS (_looking in front of him_). At any rate I am glad that my
destiny is what it is.

RELLING. Upon my soul I’ve not noticed any spiritual turmoil going on
in him.

GREGERS. What! At such a juncture, when a new foundation is being
laid for his whole life. Now, can you imagine that a man of Hjalmar’s
individuality----

RELLING. Oh! Individuality--he! If he ever had any tendencies to
the abnormal developments that you call individuality, they were
extirpated, root and branch, while he was yet a boy;

GREGERS. Do you pray in the morning, too?

HEDVIG. No, I don’t do that.

GREGERS. Why not in the morning as well?

HEDVIG. Oh! it’s light in the morning, and there’s nothing to be afraid
of.

HJALMAR (_laughing_). Ha--ha! If you weren’t Gregers Werle, what else
would you be?

GREGERS. If I had my choice, I should prefer being a clever dog.

GINA. A dog!

HEDVIG (_involuntarily_). Oh! not that!

GREGERS. Yes, a real uncommonly clever dog; . . .

BLUNTSCHLI.
You gave me your hand to kiss, your bed to sleep in, and your roof to shelter me—
RAINA.
(interrupting him). I did not give them to the Emperor of Switzerland!
BLUNTSCHLI.
That’s just what I say. (He catches her hand quickly and looks her straight in the face as he adds, with confident mastery) Now tell us who you did give them to.
RAINA.
(succumbing with a shy smile). To my chocolate cream soldier!

BLUNTSCHLI.
(before he can speak). It’s no use. He never apologizes.
LOUKA.
Not to you, his equal and his enemy. To me, his poor servant, he will not refuse to apologize.
SERGIUS.
(approvingly). You are right. (He bends his knee in his grandest manner.) Forgive me!
LOUKA.
I forgive you. (She timidly gives him her hand, which he kisses.) That touch makes me your affianced wife.

SERGIUS.
(commandingly). It means that you love me, and that I have had you here in my arms, and will perhaps have you there again. Whether that is an insult I neither know nor care: ... If I choose to love you, I dare marry you, in spite of all Bulgaria. If these hands ever touch you again, they shall touch my affianced bride.
LOUKA.
We shall see whether you dare keep your word. But take care. I will not wait long.

SERGIUS.
What would you do, most noble Empress?
LOUKA.
I would marry the man I loved, which no other queen in Europe has the courage to do.

BLUNTSCHLI
(making a wry face). Do you like gratitude? I don’t. If pity is akin to love, gratitude is akin to the other thing.
RAINA
Gratitude! (Turning on him.) If you are incapable of gratitude you are incapable of any noble sentiment. Even animals are grateful. Oh, I see now exactly what you think of me! You were not surprised to hear me lie. That is how men think of women. (She walks up the room melodramatically)

RAINA.
(suddenly coming out of her picturesque revery). Really, mother, if you are going to take the jewellery, I don’t see why you should grudge me my Arab.

SERGIUS.
(grimly). Yes: we’ll manage it. He finds out what to do; draws up the orders; and I sign ’em. Division of labour, Major. (Bluntschli passes him a paper.) Another one? Thank you. (He plants the papers squarely before him; sets his chair carefully parallel to them; and signs with the air of a man resolutely performing a difficult and dangerous feat.) This hand is more accustomed to the sword than to the pen.

SERGIUS.
Soldiering, my dear madam, is the coward’s art of attacking mercilessly when you are strong, and keeping out of harm’s way when you are weak. That is the whole secret of successful fighting. Get your enemy at a disadvantage; and never, on any account, fight him on equal terms.

By his brooding on the perpetual failure, not only of others, but of himself, to live up to his imaginative ideals, his consequent cynical scorn for humanity, the jejune credulity as to the absolute validity of his ideals . . . he has acquired the half tragic, half ironic air, the mysterious moodiness, the suggestion of a strange and terrible history that has left him nothing but undying remorse,

(Major Sergius Saranoff, the original of the portrait in Raina’s room, is a tall, romantically handsome man, with the physical hardihood, the high spirit, and the susceptible imagination of an untamed mountaineer chieftain. But his remarkable personal distinction is of a characteristically civilized type.

(Major Petkoff comes from the stable yard, followed by Nicola. He is a cheerful, excitable, insignificant, unpolished man of about 50, naturally unambitious except as to his income and his importance in local society, but just now greatly pleased with the military rank which the war has thrust on him as a man of consequence in his town. The fever of plucky patriotism which the Servian attack roused in all . . . .)

Louka, smoking a cigaret, is standing between the table and the house, turning her back with angry disdain on a man-servant who is lecturing her. He is a middle-aged man of cool temperament and low but clear and keen intelligence, with the complacency of the servant who values himself on his rank in servility, and the imperturbability of the accurate calculator who has no illusions.