Manny in the Wasps' Nest
Jacobsen, Josephine
Manny in the Wasps' Nest Small, dark, with big spectacles and the voice of a corncrake. He knew where he was. He kept it clean but he kept it fast. He was the only thing moving, and there sat the...
...He came by an error, but he was there to give and they to receive, and it was a kind of truce...
...Not bad," and he flashed his diamond, and they laughed indulgently as though they were free to laugh with him...
...At the end, "God bless you," said Manny, "and let's dance...
...All chasms, baskets...
...his dying mother-in-law said, "Get a handsome stone...
...It was a sort of truce-by-chance...
...Josephine Jacobsen...
...They laughed a little, and then more because it was short and Manny was a comic...
...He told a joke, did a trick with the diamond ring, told a joke: his mother-in-law said, "'What's this fly doing in my soup?' I said to her, 'I think it's the breast-stroke.'" He set fire to a guest's handkerchief, but it turned out whole, as did the cut rope— ("nothing gets destroyed," said Manny, "nobody gets embarrassed...
...It was like a truce...
...They met on formal terms: his: laughter...
...Small dark and different on the point of a needle...
...He was the only thing moving, and there sat the solid crowd, not so grim as they looked to him nor nearly so meaty...
...nothing gets destroyed...
...He played a flute shaped like a toilet-plunger, and a snake rose jerkily out of a basket with a scarf in its mouth...
...all snakes, stuffed, with jewels to return...
...no one embarrassed...
Vol. 126 • November 1999 • No. 20
