Blood on the Dining-Room Floor

by Gertrude Stein

  But to return to the garden and not at all to the same thing.

  Once upon a time there was an eldest son the eldest of eight who had fought in this war.

  That was not of any importance.

  When there is a war everybody fights in this war. And if there is a war they all have fought in this war. Of course they have because in this way there is this war and not another war. The eldest brother once upon a time had fought in this war. Which they wish.

  He had fought in this war, he would have been a priest before or after or during this war, but not at all. Nobody had died. A great many were killed but nobody had died.

  Lizzie do you mind.

  And so here he was and his brothers and sisters, here he was, and his mother, here he was. And a father. A father who lived alone, who owned and owned and lived alone, and had a cataract in one eye and nobody saw anybody cry but they worked all day too soon.

  This is not a description of what they did because nobody saw them do it. Once the eldest brother with a watering can, a kind of apron on, and a watering can which he waved and between him and the one that came, was a man. Who was the man. A stout man, all the others were thin, a walking man, all the others bowed and ran. Who was this man, and he was in between.

  I feel I do not know anything if I cry.

  Slowly they could see their way.

  Everybody proposes that nobody knows even if everybody knows.

  There is no difference between knows and grows.

  Gradually they changed the garden.

  The eldest felt that he could not be a priest no not as long as his father was alive and his father did not die and later on the father did not die nor did they, not even a cousin died, but they got rid of the father just the same. At that time it was to everybody’s shame so they thought, this that they had wrought.

  By that time, the time that they had gotten rid of the father, how that could happen you will be told later. It was not a crime but a crime is in time. By that time it was too late for the oldest brother to be a priest and all the family wanted him to go away and pray very nearly right away after they had gotten rid of the father; the eldest brother, who had sent the father away. Every day another brother was there to say that he wished his brother to go away and pray. The next to the eldest brother could not pray because he was married any way. His wife had made flowers, artificial flowers, and now she had a child and they were all as glad.

  Here there were no artificial flowers, they were natural flowers. Sometimes the flowers were too natural, they were wild flowers planted, which they sold.

  When there are eight they never can become seven, if none of them die, and none of them can be put away. What did you say.

  Could any place be shut away in time. To prevent crime.

  Four three five. What.

  Has everybody got it straight. So far we have two families and besides a country house.

  We have three times crime.

  Remember there was a country house where everything happened one day, and other things happened the other days.

  Then there was a funeral.

  Read the beginning again.

  Then there was a hotel where something happened and everybody went, not away from the hotel, because nobody who just went and ate and slept at the hotel could know that anything had happened. It was wonderful the way they covered it up and went on. This was due to three strong wills, so the horticulturist said. The will of the hotel-keeper’s father, the will of the hotel-keeper’s oldest son who was not yet twenty and was studying to be a lawyer and the will of the horticulturist’s sister who was employed there and who admired everybody, so she said, and was the one certainly helped to admire the hotel-keeper. A hotel-keeper needs admiring, because if he is a cook, he has to put forth a prodigious physical effort, particularly when he practically does it all alone and there are two hundred people in the restaurant.

  Of course Lizzie you do understand of course you do.

  There was nothing interesting in the horticulturist’s sister’s nature, she who was employed in the hotel, to anybody in the hotel. Of course not. This is all very well.

  It was not she who said the hotel-keeper’s wife who was not dead in bed but on the cement pavement instead, where she had fallen, walked in her sleep. No indeed it was not she. It was her elder brother.

  Everybody remembers what I said about that elder brother. He was an elder brother with his mother and there were seven besides and nobody ever died. Not they. But this is not as it sounds. The youngest sister had not been nearly dead but sent away to stay so that she would not be dead that way. And she was not. She never was. She came back very well. And then later she went to a city to see the city and an automobile knocked her over, and a little spoiled her beauty, not that she was a beauty but she had had a fresh color.

  At any rate everybody had liked to look at her. She was not the youngest of eight. She was the youngest girl and there was a brother who was younger. What became of him. He was to be a priest. To make up for the eldest one who wanted to be one. What had stopped him. Everything. The war. Poverty. Seven brothers and sisters with his mother and his father who was a stout man and who looked like a solemn man.

  Do you remember what happened. The elder brother got rid of the father. And that was right. The father was using up everything and was getting fatter and the eight of them with a very bony mother who wore a wig, bowed and ran hither and thither and were not getting but were thinner.

  This is the way they were.

  The eldest brother, the brother and the mother and the seven younger did not get rid of the father. The eldest brother with the help of a rich old woman, not so rich but very old and very well known, and full of resolution and wonder got rid of the father. That is, the eldest brother following advice and taking his courage altogether got rid of the father.

  And then what happened.

  The father was safely away, the mother with the wig did not stay, that is she went another way, and there they were in the garden all getting richer and richer. Only it was not really richer, or perhaps nobody ever could be richer if they were really poor. Were they really poor. Ah alas. This nobody can know.

  Anyway the sisters and the brothers, seven remember now, there were eight before, and they were all alive and as the brothers and the sisters thought the elder brother had done enough and now ought to go away and pray. That made them seven.

  Now do you see this elder brother was only thirty-seven. Now at thirty-seven an elder brother ought not to go away and pray and naturally he did not wish to.

  It was this elder brother who had said that the hotel-keeper’s wife had walked in her sleep.

  Had she.

  I am sure I do not know.

  Chapter Two

  Now this is all about the old lady who treated the horticulturist the eldest of eight as if he were like herself.

  Do you hear.

  How many kinds of country houses are there, imagine, just imagine how many kinds of country houses there are.

  There are many kinds of country houses, listen to all the many kinds of country houses there are.

  This one had been one which was a small one. She who lived there now, she had not lived there when it had been a small one. Listen to her story. Anyhow listen to her story.

  It is wonderful to be as strong when you are eighty as you will be when you are ninety, and as lively. I mean eighty and ninety years of age, of course.

  This was she. She was as lively at eighty as some are at ninety, and she would be as lively at ninety as some are at eighty, and as rich. Was she rich, were her sons rich, and were her daughters-in-law rich or had they ever been. Daughters-in-law can be rich, if they ever have been, rich. But they were not rich, if they had ever been, if they had ever been.

  There were two sons, one and one and one which makes three, but the second one was dead, it is very often that the second one is dead when there has been a war. And everybody knows, that there has been, a war.
/>   So the two who were deft did not look at all alike.

  This is not strange if their mother is ninety and eighty and just the same as ever.

  As I say she lived in the home that was big but she had not lived in the home that was big when she was young and the house was small. She had lived in another house that was about the same size as the house that was small. So her neighbors said. But this did not matter. She might have lived in either and her second husband made the small house bigger. By building.

  Her eldest son was married, so was the younger one. The eldest one was married to some one who was not able to live continuously in a city as she had an absolute need for a private life. In between she stayed with her own mother, her own father and her own aunt. She might have married a rich man if her father had not lost his money in South America a long time before other people lost their money in South America. But she was well married and said a doctor had killed her aunt. She said this to the doctor’s wife and to the mother of the husband of the doctor’s daughter. And this even if it was true was insulting.

  The second son was a rich man as long as it was rich to have a lot of money in everything, and then and alas and all of a sudden it was no longer rich, not any longer rich to have money, in everything. He had married a beautiful and young little girl and her name was Mabel. Mabel with her face against the pane looking out upon the rain. She had a little girl who was beautiful. But Mabel who had loved her old husband who was deaf and wore a monocle now that everything was not the same did not love him any more. If she could she would have gone to the bad. This is the history of Mabel.

  And now whom did the old lady of eighty love. No one said she loved any one. But she did. Well she did not love any one but she loved to listen to the horticulturist, the eldest son.

  And then she became poor.

  She listened, she listened about everything and helped him to hear it. She helped him to hear everything. She heard everything, and she told everybody everything and this gave the eldest son the horticulturist’s eldest son a great reputation. And her own sons did not mind. On the contrary they sympathized. And the daughter-in-laws. This is another matter and at any rate one that did not matter much as much as if it did that everybody thought alike.

  About which they cry.

  Oh dear about which they do cry.

  Mabel had been kind to the horticulturist’s younger sister and they all called her Mabel which seems strange and is not usually done.

  You call the person you are kind to Mabel if her name is Mabel but the person who is kind is not called Mabel. Oh not at all. But to everybody’s astonishment this time it was the other way around.

  How confused are you all but I, I am not confused.

  It really is not confusing.

  How many houses and families do you know about now.

  One two three four five.

  And how many crimes.

  One two three.

  And how many possible crimes.

  Six.

  Chapter Three

  This brings us up to mabel and to be followed by the confessions of Mary M. in this case. There is no Mary M. in this case, but if there were this is what she would do.

  Mary M. does not sound the same as Mary I, or even Mary D. or what is the difference between Mary B. and Mary C.

  The confessions of Mary in this case.

  I do in this case. Possibly for you in this case. I do in this case. Possibly not only possibly, but they will, possibly, be you.

  This is what she said. I will remember everything that she said.

  If you, possibly you, could conclude that I love best.

  Mary said that she could not, not strangely not certainly not love best.

  She also talked about dogs and mothers.

  Do you remember way back in the beginning, when the guests were in the country house, and the servants were there there were dogs and they were said not to be any bother.

  Mary said that this was not true. It could not be true. Dogs could not be anywhere and not be any bother because something always happened to dogs. And one loved dogs so. And if you did you thought of nothing else. This had not been true because a great many had thought of other things particularly then. Do you remember particularly then.

  Mary said that in no case, just as much as if she liked, nobody could imagine or arrange it, there, where they were in affluence. She liked the word affluence. Nobody could be, not only, but really as rich as that.

  Do you remember way back when the servants went mad, and the house was strange, and the young man was there and a great many said he was sweet, but he really was not. He was scotch and he had given it all away.

  Please remember everybody’s name. But nobody had given the names away. They never do when there is only a crime, that is to say a background for a crime. And you see the thing to remember is that when there is a background for a crime there is no crime. This is what Mary thought although she did not say, well you may say, she talked a great deal about a number of things, but what was most interesting was what she thought.

  Do you realize how greatly everybody misses a little dog, at least they say they do, but perhaps not. This is what Mary said.

  There is an adventure in what Mary said. There is always an adventure in what Mary said.

  Mary spoke of Mabel but she did not know her. This was because we did not have time to introduce her.

  Please prepare for Mary, for Mabel, and for many others. This is what Mary said.

  Mary said prepare for Mabel, Mary and some others. It is just as you like.

  Mary could be very venturesome and it always amounted to this. She had been well aware that it amounted to this. She was not afraid of sleep walking. Nobody had been who had ever walked in their sleep or heard about it. She had heard about the horticulturist’s eldest son and she thought it was magnificent not to be ready to go away and pray, though it was just as much as magnificent. This is where Mary is cold.

  She manages everything just as she is finishing the way they began. Oh please please Mary. This is not difficult as they are like that.

  Now go on with Mary and make it exact and in detail from the beginning.

  It is very early to begin with the end and so this will not be done. Oh leave anybody to be a son or a father of a son or a mother.

  Prepare to cry as you try to be a son to a mother or a sister to a father or a brother to a mother or either of which you love best.

  Chapter Four

  It is very strange how everybody occupies your time, very strange and very difficult and very hard and very much as it is.

  It is not because they are not careful that you go away.

  You like best everything that you do and you ask them to come and anybody can never ask them not to come.

  It is one way to try to cry.

  Leave this with this.

  There is no difference between a very old woman and her son nor between the son and the son of some other one. They all live together even as they come and go.

  Lizzie do you mind.

  If a woman is an old one and remembers to like any one she is not an old woman and she does not remember to like any one.

  This is not a crime.

  But it can become one if after a while the one whom she remembers does not sleep at night.

  Do you feel that this is right.

  Remember I wish to tell you in every way what they do not say.

  The horticulturist the eldest son did not sleep at night.

  It was extraordinary how little sleep he had.

  Gradually he slept less and less, so he said. It is always very difficult to know how much sleep is slept in bed. He said none. Everybody knew he did not sleep.

  Now is there any connection between this and the fact that he had said that the hotel-keeper’s wife she who had not died in her bed but on the cement walk instead had walked in her sleep.

  Do you think knowing that he did not sleep would make him say what he said.

&n
bsp; I personally do not think so.

  I think it possible she did walk in her sleep.

  I think in any case his saying this thing had no connection with his not sleeping. This came about quite naturally from the life he was leading and had led. No nobody was dead. Not in his family at any rate. Everybody knew that.

  Why should they care. Mabel and Mary.

  Mary disappeared.

  By saying that Mary disappeared I mean that she left behind her a memory of her having been like Harriet, only Harriet did not think of dogs and Mary did.

  How do you cry about a crime.

  Mary had nothing to do with it and yet. She did disappear that is to say, if you wished, you knew where to find her. No one is anxious for breath or that.

  Oh please play around fountains. No gardener says please play around fountains. Mary did not care about gardens either before or after she disappeared.

  Mabel who never disappeared, she wished to go to the bad but how can you go to the bad if you have a mother-in-law who is as well as eighty years old and has never been other than just that. She the mother-in-law had always done just that, in short everything.

  Oh Mabel Mabel cannot even fasten a pin, because she is so different in everything.

  I often wonder if anybody knows how they manage to feel well. Well very well.

  Why were they surprised to see her. Nobody ever is surprised to see any one because after all there are a number of things. There are servants, there are marriages, there are hotels, there are horticulturists, there are butchers, there are other people living, there are markets and there are garages and there are automobiles. Of course there are and in each case it is all strange that they did not look upon each other before. Before when.

  Oh dear. Before then.

  Think of it, think how near crime is, and how near crime is not being here at all. Think of it. Think of it. Think how strange it is that if they met they had never met. Oh dear, think of it.

  Mabel when she was young and she still was young only now it was not so, could make anybody think of anything. And she had married, he was a large middle-aged man who wore a monocle and she loved him. Her mother had been a beauty and her little baby was beautiful.