Cat’s CradleKurt VonnegutContents


107. Feast Your Eyes!

I let the three children of Dr. Felix Hoenikker into “Papa” Monzano’s bedroom. I closed the door and put my back to it. My mood was bitter and grand. I knew ice-nine for what it was. I had seen it often in my dreams.

There could be no doubt that Frank had given “Papa” ice-nine. And it seemed certain that if ice-nine were Frank’s to give, then it was Angela’s and little Newt’s to give, too.

So I snarled at all three, calling them to account for monstrous criminality. I told them that the jig was up, that I knew about them and ice-nine. I tried to alarm them about ice-nine’s being a means to ending life on earth. I was so impressive that they never thought to ask how I knew about ice-nine.

“Feast your eyes!” I said.

Well, as Bokonon tells us: “God never wrote a good play in His Life.” The scene in “Papa’s” room did not lack for spectacular issues and props, and my opening speech was the right one.

But the first reply from a Hoenikker destroyed all magnificence.

Little Newt threw up.

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