12. Tender buttons

Tender Buttons [A Little Called Pauline]

by Gertrude Stein

A little called anything shows shudders.
Come and say what prints all day. A whole few watermelon. There is no pope.
No cut in pennies and little dressing and choose wide soles and little spats really little spices.
A little lace makes boils. This is not true.
Gracious of gracious and a stamp a blue green white bow a blue green lean, lean on the top.
If it is absurd then it is leadish and nearly set in where there is a tight head.
A peaceful life to arise her, noon and moon and moon. A letter a cold sleeve a blanket a shaving house and nearly the best and regular window.
Nearer in fairy sea, nearer and farther, show white has lime in sight, show a stitch of ten. Count, count more so that thicker and thicker is leaning.
I hope she has her cow. Bidding a wedding, widening received treading, little leading mention nothing.
Cough out cough out in the leather and really feather it is not for.
Please could, please could, jam it not plus more sit in when.

Am 3.6.1874 wurde Gertrude Stein in Allegheny, Pennsylvania geboren. Nach dem Collegebesuch ging sie nach Paris, wo sie sich in Alice B. Toklas verliebte. Alice tippte ihre Manuskripte ab,  putzte und spülte Geschirr, kochte, kaufte ein und führte den Haushalt. Zusammen führten sie einen Salon in 27 Rue de Fleurus. Junge Schriftsteller und Künstler verkehrten dort — Picasso, Matisse, Ezra Pound, Georges Braque, Guillaume Apollinaire; später Hemingway, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Der Text im Original und deutsch von Barbara Köhler in: Gertrude stein: Tender buttons. Zarte knöpft. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 2004, S. 38f.