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“Age before beauty”

“P’s before Q’s”

It was starting to seem funny They were a pair of comedy supernuloolasses—he was tired of sharing a bottle with Mayakovsky, though no doubt Antarcticproperties—and they followed him

He led theh a door Quentin had never seen unlocked before and through his private apartarments scattered on the floor

“Dreenk!” Mayakovsky roared as they walked

“Thanks,” Quentin said, “but I’m—”

“Dreenk! This is your professor speaking, skraelings!”

“You know,” he said, “I’ Or I was”

“I will show you so you will see nowhere else”

Apparentlywas the price of ad to follow any lead no matter how tenuous He was still wobbly fro heat source in his sto peat fire Mayakovsky himself didn’t seem particularly drunk, except that his mood had flipped from depressive to manic

He led thehts of stairs, down into the Antarctic rock itself Maybe he was the anti-Santa, of the South Pole, and he was going to show them where the elves made luod he could think of, living and dead, that this was not a sex thing

It wasn’t It was Mayakovsky’s laboratory: a suite of dark, square, less workrooms, each one furnished orn benches and tables and studded with silent heavy e, a lathe In contrast with everything else in Mayakovsky’s donificently clean and orderly The tools and instruht rows on cloths as if they were for sale The leamed a dull ulartop that for so armillary sphere

The three of theht, the lichen vodka or whatever it was otten The silence was another level below the regular ambient silence of Antarctica: an absolute sonic vacuum

“This is lovely,” Plum said

It was true

“Beautiful”

“I knohy you do this,” Mayakovsky said

He didn’t soon in his head

“You”—he looked at Plum—“you, I don’t know Maybe you are bored Maybe you are in love with hiesture: No, abort, abort “But you, Quentin, you I understand You are like reat wizard Gandalf maybe Merlin Dumb-bell-door”

He spoke softly and, for hiently He drank, then cleared his throat and spat wetly into a handkerchief, which he stuffed into the pocket of his robe He’d been living alone for a long time

Did he? Quentin thought Want to be a great ician? Was that the truth? Maybe it used to be Now all he wanted was to be a ician period He wanted to break an incorporate bond He wanted Alice back But truth was see pretty relative at this point Truth was a substance soluble in lichen vodka

“Sure,” he said “Why not”

“But you will not be great You are clever, yes—you have good head”

He reached over and rapped on Quentin’s head with his knuckles

“Don’t do that”

But Mayakovsky was unstoppable, a drunk bestan inappropriate toast

“Fine head Better than most But sadly for you there are many heads like it One hundred One thousand maybe”

“I’ainst the cool, oiled ly stable, an ally at his back

“Five hundred,” Pluenerously She boosted herself up on a table “Be fair”

“You will never be great You know nothing of greatness You want to see? I will show you greatness”

He waved his arh the rooines moved, wheels turned, flames lit

“This is my museum Museum of Mayakovsky”

And he showed the Antarctic winters

Mayakovsky’s workshop wasn’t just aof answered prayers and irails Suddenly Mayakovsky was a showrandly from table to table: here was a perpetual ue boots He showed them one drop of universal solvent, which no vessel could contain and thus had to be kept ic beans, and a pen that would write only the truth, and a old, silver, platinuold into lead

It was the end of every fairy tale, all the prizes for which knights and princes had fought and died and clever princesses had guessed riddles and kissed frogs Mayakovsky was right, this was grand ic, this hat a lifetiht you Later it was hard for Quentin to remember details—the moonshine bleached theent—but he recalled a player piano that would i itself, optiyou’d ever wanted to hear

After a few minutes it was painful—he had to tell Mayakovsky to stop it before he broke down sobbing Later he couldn’t have hummed the melody to save his life

“This, Quentin This is greatness These are things you will never do Never understand”

It was true Even with the strength he’d gained after his father died, he would never be in Mayakovsky’s league It cost hienius Mayakovsky could help them

But Plu