barrel. Domino the midget says that being near him is like having a great wind rush about your ears. He says that’s how Madame de Stäel put it and she’s famous enough to be right. She doesn’t live in France now. Bonaparte had her exiled because she complained about him censoring the theatre and suppressing the newspapers. I once bought a book of hers from a travelling pedlar who’d had it from a ragged nobleman. I didn’t understand much but I learned the word ‘intellectual’ which I would like to apply to myself. Domino laughs at me. At night I dream of dandelions.
