“That's the joke.”
They ate in silence for a little while. They could hear the couple opposite them talking in low soft voices. The stove purred, and from the kitchen came a sound of something being beaten in a bowl. Andrews leaned back in his chair.
“This is so wonderfully quiet and mellow,” he said.... “It is so easy to forget that there's any joy at all in life.”
“Rot...It's a circus parade.”
“Have you ever seen anything drearier than a circus parade? One of those jokes that aren't funny.”
“Justine, encore du vin,” called Henslowe.
“So you know her name?”
“I live here.... The Butte is the boss on the middle of the shield. It's the axle of the wheel. That's why it's so quiet, like the centre of a cyclone, of a vast whirling rotary circus parade!”
Justine, with her red hands that had washed so many dishes off which other people had dined well, put down between them a scarlet langouste, of which claws and feelers sprawled over the tablecloth that already had a few purplish stains of wine. The sauce was yellow and fluffy like the breast of a canary bird.
“D'you know,” said Andrews suddenly talking fast and excitedly while he brushed the straggling yellow hair off his forehead, “I'd almost be willing to be shot at the end of a year if I could live up here all that time with a piano and a million sheets of music paper...It would be worth it.”