Midweek Mad Geniuses: Virginia Woolf

"The fuck did you say?"

"What?" asked Leonard, waking from a deep sleep and rubbing his eyes. He had been dreaming of his mother's chicken soup. He often dreamed of soup after a big night.

"Did you call me a lesbian?"

"No."

"Are you sure? Didn't you just say 'move over dyke'?"

"What? I just woke up. You're hearing voices again."

"You didn't say anything?"

"I was dreaming of my mother's soup."

"Chicken soup?"

"Yes."

"Jew."

"I beg your pardon!"

"You heard me. I don't like Jews. Their voice, their laugh."

"Well, you married me."

"I didn't know you were Jewish."

"I was wearing a Kippah when we met."

"I thought it was a bald patch."

"I read you passages from the The Fifth Book of the Maccabees over dinner at Goldstein's Kosher House!"

"I thought you were listing the specials."

"Bloody hell!"

"God, I should've married some christian from the upper class intelligentsia. Like Rupert Brooke. Or Clive Bell. Virginia Bell certainly has a ring to it!"

"Very funny."

"You never liked my jokes."

"They started to become a little morbid after your third nervous breakdown."

"You could hardly blame me! It followed the fire-bombing of my house by the fucking krauts!"

"Well, whose fault's that? You put a huge bullseye on the roof!"

"It was supposed to be a tribute. I thought I heard my father say that William Tell was coming to dinner."

"What!"

"Turned out it was William Thackery."

"Well, anyway, this new place is ok."

"When are you going to start work on the extension?"

"Again with the extension!"

"A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

"That's what you always say."

"I need my own space! I'm working on a new technique called 'stream of consciousness'."

"What are you talking about? Everyone's doing it."

"Name one."

"Dostoyevsky, Proust, Joyce."

"Fucking men!"

"Why don't you do what George Eliot did?"

"What did he do?"

"He's a woman. He pretended to be a man."

"George Eliot's a woman?"

"Yes!"

"I guess that explains his vagina."

"Oy vey!"

"Anyway, I'm not going to hide behind a set of balls. I've started work on a new novel. In fact, I'm heading off this morning to do some research."

"Oh yes?"

"It involves filling my pockets with stones and walking into the middle of the river."

"Make sure you're back for dinner. I'm making matza balls."