Terrific/fascinating find, Bill... J
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, William Denton
<buff@p...> wrote:
> There's one bit of accommodation to language
restrictions that
really
> clangs: in the scene in THE MALTESE FALCON where
Hammet confronts
Wilmer
> the gunsel in the hotel lobby:
>
> # -----
>
> The boy put down his paper quickly and faced Spade,
staring at his
necktie
> with bleak hazel eyes. The boy's small hands were
spread flat over
his
> belly. "Keep asking for it and you're going to get
it," he said,
> "plenty." His voice was low and flat and menacing.
"I told you to
shove
> off. Shove off."
>
> Spade waited until a bespectacled pudgy man and
thin-legged blonde
girl
> had passed out of hearing. Then he chuckled and
said: "That would
go over
> big back on Seventh Avenue. But you're not in
Romeville now.
You're in
> my burg." He inhaled cigarette smoke and blew it out
in a long pale
> cloud. "Well, where is he?"
>
> The boy spoke two words, the first a short guttural
verb, the second
> "you."
>
> "People lose teeth talking like that." Spade's voice
was still
amiable
> though his face had become wooden. "If you want to
hang around
you'll be
> polite."
>
> The boy repeated his two words.
>
> # -----
>
> That's fourteen words to say "Fuck you." Hammett
could have
written this
> so that the phrase never arose, but as it is, it
demands "Fuck you."
>
> Notice the "bespectacled pudgy man and thin-legged
blonde girl,"
though.
> A visiting businessman and a prostitute? Nice little
bit of colour
there.
>
> Bill
> --
> William Denton : Toronto, Canada : http://www.miskatonic.org/
:
Caveat lector.
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