For Vincent it was a holiday. No one had come by the gallery all morning, which, considering the arctic weather, was not unusual. He sat at his desk devouring tangerines, and enjoying immensely a Thurber story in an old New Yorker. Laughing loudly, he did not hear the girl enter, see her cross the dark carpet, notice her at all, in fact, until the telephone rang. “Garland Gallery, hello.” She was odd, most certainly, that indecent haircut, those depthless eyes—“Oh, Paul. Comme ci, comme ça and you?”—and dressed like a freak: no coat, just a lumberjack’s shirt, navy-blue slacks and—was it a joke?—pink ankle socks, a pair of huaraches. “The ballet? Who’s dancing? Oh, her!” Under an arm she carried a flat parcel wrapped in sheets of funny-paper—“Look, Paul, what say I call back? There’s someone here…” and, anchoring the receiver, assuming a commercial smile, he stood up. “Yes?”

Her lips, crusty with chap, trembled with unrealized words as though she had possibly a defect of speech, and her eyes rolled in their sockets like loose marbles. It was the kind of disturbed shyness one associates with children. “I’ve a picture,” she said. “You buy pictures?”

At this, Vincent’s smile became fixed. “We exhibit.”

“I painted it myself,” she said, and her voice, hoarse and slurred, was Southern. “My picture—I painted it. A lady told me there were places around here that bought pictures.”

Vincent said, “Yes, of course, but the truth is”—and he made a helpless gesture—“the truth is I’ve no authority whatever. Mr. Garland—this is his gallery, you know—is out of town.” Standing there on the expanse of fine carpet, her body sagging sideways with the weight of her package, she looked like a sad rag doll. “Maybe,” he began, “maybe Henry Krueger up the street at Sixty-five…” but she was not listening.

“I did it myself,” she insisted softly. “Tuesdays and Thursdays were our painting days, and a whole year I worked. The others, they kept messing it up, and Mr. Destronelli…” Suddenly, as though aware of an indiscretion, she stopped and bit her lip. Her eyes narrowed. “He’s not a friend of yours?”

“Who?” said Vincent, confused.

“Mr. Destronelli.”

Truman Capote, “The Headless Hawk”

La ville la plus proche de la ferme-prison est à vingt-cinq kilomètres. De nombreuses forêts de pins se dressent entre la ferme et la ville et c’est dans ces forêts que travaillent les forçats. Ils recueillent la résine. La prison elle-même est dans la forêt. On la trouve à l’extrémité d’un chemin de terre rouge à ornières, les fils de fer barbelés se déployant comme une vigne au-dessus de ses murs. À l’intérieur, vivent cent neuf Blancs, quatre-vingt-dix-sept Nègres, et un Chinois. Il y a deux dortoirs, dans de longs bâtiments verts, en bois, avec des toits de papier goudronné. Chaque dortoir comporte un gros poêle ventru, mais les hivers de la région sont froids, et la nuit, tandis que les pins gelés se balancent et qu’une clarté glaciale tombe de la lune, les hommes étendus sur leurs couchettes de fer demeurent éveillés, avec les rougeoiements du feu dansant dans leurs yeux.

Truman Capote, La guitare de diamants (tr. Germaine Beaumont et Serge Doubrovsky)

Dehors la pluie avait cessé. Il n’en restait qu’une vapeur dans l’air. Je pris le tournant et suivis la rue jusqu’à l’endroit où se dresse la maison de pierre brune. C’est une rue avec des arbres qui en été dessinent des ombres fraîches sur le trottoir. Mais en cette saison les feuilles avaient jauni et la plupart étaient tombées; la pluie les avait rendues glissantes et elles dérapaient sous les pieds. La maison brune est à mi-chemin du bloc, contre une église où l’horloge bleue du clocher sonne les heures. Une élégante porte noire a remplacé l’ancienne, en verre dépoli, et de distingués volets gris habillent les fenêtres. Aucun des locataires d’autrefois n’y habite encore, à l’exception de Mme Sapphia Spanella, chanteuse à la voix rauque, qui, chaque après-midi, allait patiner à roulettes dans Central Park. Je sais qu’elle est encore là parce que j’ai gravi les marches et inspecté les boîtes à lettres. C’est une de ces boîtes qui m’avait autrefois révélé Holly Golightly.

Truman Capote, Petit déjeuner chez Tiffany (tr. Germaine Beaumont)

She stopped to straighten her socks, which had crawled down into her shoes; and she decided then to wait a moment, wondering how long it would take Clyde to realize he’d left her behind. On the corner was an open-air store, and the sidewalk there was like an amazing garden where fountains are fruit and the flowers are arranged in bunches of large parasols. Clyde stood an instant there, then walked rapidly back to meet her. And she wanted to hurry him through the streets, hide with him in the dark of the apartment. But: “Go across the street,” he said, “and wait for me in front of that drugstore.”

Truman Capote, Summer Crossing