Snow White Read Online Free Page B

of discourse in which
     you existed, and puttered about, was in all ways adequate and satisfactory. It may
     never have crossed your mind to think that other universes of discoursedistinct from your own existed, with people in them, discoursing. You may have, in
     a commonsense way, regarded your own u. of d. as a plenum, filled to the brim with
     discourse. You may have felt that what already existed was a sufficiency. People like
     you often do. That is certainly one way of regarding it, if fat self-satisfied complacency
     is your aim. But I say unto you, Mr. Quistgaard, that even a plenum can leak. Even
     a plenum, cher maître , can be penetrated. New things can rush into your plenum displacing old things, things
     that were formerly there. No man’s plenum, Mr. Quistgaard, is impervious to the awl
     of God’s will. Consider then your situation now . You are sitting there in your house on Neat Street, with your fine dog, doubtless,
     and your handsome wife and tall brown sons, conceivably, and who knows with your gun-colored
     Plymouth Fury in the driveway, and opinions passing back and forth, about whether
     the Grange should build a new meeting hall or not, whether the children should become
     Thomists or not, whether the pump needs more cup grease or not. A comfortable American
     scene. But I, Jane Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, am in possession of your telephone number, Mr.
     Quistgaard . Think what that means. It means that at any moment I can pierce your plenum with
     a single telephone call, simply by dialing 989-7777. You are correct, Mr. Quistgaard,in seeing this as a threatening situation. The moment I inject discourse from my u.
     of d. into your u. of d., the yourness of yours is diluted. The more I inject, the
     more you dilute. Soon you will be presiding over an empty plenum, or rather, since
     that is a contradiction in terms, over a former plenum, in terms of yourness. You
     are, essentially, in my power. I suggest an unlisted number.
    Yours faithfully,
    J ANE

PAUL: A FRIEND OF THE FAMILY

“IS there someplace I can put this?” Paul asked indicating the large parcel he held
     in his arms. “It is a new thing I just finished today, still a little wet I’m afraid.”
     He wiped his hands which were covered with emulsions on his trousers. “I’ll just lean
     it up against your wall for a moment.” Paul leaned the new thing up against our wall
     for a moment. The new thing, a dirty great banality in white, poor-white and off-white,
     leaned up against the wall. “Interesting,” we said. “It’s poor,” Snow White said.
     “Poor, poor.” “Yes,” Paul said, “one of my poorer things I think.” “Not so poor of
     course as yesterday’s, poorer on the other hand than some,” she said. “Yes,” Paul
     said, “it has some of the qualities of poorness.” “Especially poor in the lower left-hand
     corner,” she said. “Yes,” Paul said, “I would go so far as to hurl it into the marketplace.”
     “They’re getting poorer,” she said. “Poorer and poorer,” Paul said with satisfaction,
     “descending to unexplored depths of poorness where no human intelligence has ever
     been.” “I find it extremely interesting as a social phenomenon,” Snow White said,
     “to note that during the height of what is variously called, abstract expressionism,
     action painting and so forth, when most artists were grouped together in a school,
     you have persisted in an image alone. That, I find—and I think it has been described
     as hard-edge painting,is an apt description, although it leaves out a lot, but I find it very interesting
     that in the last few years there is a tremendous new surge of work being done in the
     hard-edge image. I don’t know if you want to comment on that, but I find it extremely
     interesting that you, who have always been sure of yourself and your image, were one
     of the earliest, almost founders of that school, if you can even call it a school.”
     “I have