Mawrdew Czgowchwz Read Online Free Page B

shiploads of immigrants. The odd-thousand Czgowchwz lot were gathered around the “Czgowchwz fountain” singing a cacophonous mélange of favorite aria snatches against the chill wind off the river. The Secret Seven, less Ralph, huddled in a hansom on the far side of Central Park South. Distracted fans with shrieky tendencies encircled the barouche, begging at once for confirmation and denial of incalculable rumors, all of them mutually exclusive, but many too close to certain waters of truth to be answered with anything but knowing sideways glances. Ralph arrived, majestically, the crowd instinctively parting before him, falling this way and that. He climbed into the carriage with customary unbothered aplomb. He directed the driver to circuit the Park and then proceed to Magwyck, chez Gautier, leaving the fans to rant as the coach rattled off westward, overfull. All entrances to the hotel were covered against the threat of vulgar display on the part of I Neriani.
    Gaia della Gueza’s chair, “ la sedia Czgowchwz,” was set in the Palm Court. It was of teak and enamel under a canopy of aureate silk. Cordial intimates sat on divans taking ritual tea in Moravian crystal tumblers, an elegant horde nibbling salmon and charlotte russe, awaiting the lady of the day, who arrived at noon in winter-white linen and sheared beaver, her hair in twists, fringes, guiches, and bangs, all titian flame and fabulously wrought.
    Racks of spring lamb were turning over Sherry’s coals, while pots of sour cream and quantities of pilaf sat chilling and steaming respectively. Casks of Sherry’s sherry were tapped as the early uglies staggered in to lunch on the Guild. Meanwhile, stuffed derma and pastrami washed down with Cel-Ray tonic and seltzer sustained the waiting standees at the long tables of the cafeteria across the street from the old dingy Brewery on Broadway.
    Czgowchwz mounted her chair; the selected bearers took their positions. Many fans charged through the revolving doors, revolving again and frantically spilling out and down the white-marble steps. The Irish straggled on, oblivious. Czgowchwz was carried to the Met in G-G’s chair.
    Giddy multitudes jammed Bill’s Bar to watch the televised press conference Czgowchwz had scheduled for after lunch, on the sidewalk with the standees. Only the anticipation of her next great contrivance mattered; the sole virtue was attendance. Feeling was running high among the outlandish, who had arrived from fastnesses everywhere by turnpike, railroad, air, sea, canal, and on foot to storm the heavy doors and stand guard on the fire escapes hanging over the Yankee Renaissance façades on Thirty-ninth and Fortieth streets, Broadway and Seventh Avenue. (The Executive Office was still barricaded day and night.) Police lines—composed entirely of Mott and Mulberry Street Italian rookies humming this or that Verdi/Bellini/Puccini/Ponchielli/Mascagni/ Leoncavallo/dalla Piccola tune, glad to a man to be relieved of the Fifth Avenue detail—stood their silent watch and ward in a gay trapezoidal cordon. Protest did not occur.
    In the Executive Office the gray eminence, the spider of the Escorial come again, squatted immobile, touching no food, splenetic, belching malodorously, breaking ill winds. Beneath the window the fans jeered encamped, while, within, the muted strains of Ein Heldenleben beat against the of-fice panes and, rebounding, froze into paranoid anguish. All outdoors were intent on cramming Czgowchwzin, on storing memories of her against the day of wrath. Time howled at the gates in the guise of a near-cyclone from Hoboken; the gates held. Paranoy, in The Czgowchwz Monthly Newsletter , declared: “Magody, lysody, hilarody, simody, travesty, mimicry, and mad chicane scatter broadcast on the pavement as Czgowchwz goes before the eyes and ears of the world in nervous Pathé urgency.”
    The Secret Seven were on edge. Drinking mulled mead and