The Recognitions (87 page)

—Have you heard the one about the muscular fellow named Rex? who had minuscular organs of sex? —Do you know, II y avail une jeune fille de Dijon? —Es gibt ein Arbeiter von Linz? —'The whole gripping story is founded on fact. Look at the beautiful girl shown in the accompanying cut . . ." Anselm read aloud. —Are you listening? "Note the cruel marks cut in her tender body by the lash of the cat-o'-nine-tails wielded by the hands of a heartless and Christless Mother Superior in whose heart all human sympathy had been assassinated by the papal system . . ." He lowered The Moan of the Tiber to look up at Stanley. —You're still brooding over that thing? he asked, seeing the torn strip of newspaper in Stanley's hand. —That's yesterday's paper, the whole of Saint Mark's is probably under water by now. What are you drinking so much coffee for? —I have to stay awake, when I get home to work, Stanley said and looked anxiously at his wrist watch. —To work! Anselm muttered. —What are you waiting for? But he appeared to have no interest in what Stanley might answer, or not. He sat slumped, looking sullenly out from the table at the evening victims of the Viareggio. The spots on his face were dulled, his eyes lit with a smoldering rancor now and then as he watched them, but his tone was vague when a tall girl with dark hair reaching her furpiece said to someone, —Well I have yet to see an animal reading a book . . . and Anselm mumbled, —How'd you like to get your hand in her muff? Then he brought a hand up, fingers turned in upon the palm, and commenced to bite his nails. A minute later he had slumped again, motionless, and started to whistle, dull and rasping through his teeth. Stanley looked up. —What's that? What you're whistling. — Too Much Mustard. —Too much . . . what? No, what is it? It's familiar, it's Bach? —Yes, it's called I can give you anything but love, Anselm answered without looking up. —Bach wrote it when he was three, he added, —for Mother's Day. —Anselm, Stanley said inclining toward him slightly, —is there something, is something wrong? —Is something wrong! Anselm turned at him. —That's the stupidest ... But his voice tailed off, he lowered his eyes from Stanley, and scratched his head. —If there's anything I could . . . do? Anselm looked at the blunt black ridges of his nails, then held them out. —I've got a sycosis, see? Not psychosis, like these other crazy bastards. Plain sycosis. Scabs. And he went back to scratching his head. Mr. Feddle entered, an alarm clock swinging from his neck on a piece of twine. In the doorway he bumped the man in the checked suit, whose companion said, —Go in and get him. —I couldn't just pull him out of there, said the man in the checked suit. —He won't stay long, he's too jumpy to hang around a dump like this. —Look out, there he goes! . . . —Goes, hell. He's going to the can. As he stood, occupied, the mirror was beside him at his left shoulder, and Otto stared into it. He continued to stare as he turned a minute later, buttoning his trousers, weaving slightly, and allowed the smile to come to his face slowly as though savoring the renewal of an acquaintance long away, dead perhaps, for all they knew, in the jungles; returned now, and returned affluent. Then the smile left his face as slowly, and the same reckoned composure with which it had come: with all the sincerity of a suppliant before an icon he said, —If I were a character in a play . . . would I be credible? When the door banged open he was standing looking down at the pale left hand extended from his sleeve, and licking the strangely naked upper lip. —What are you grinning about? You look pretty pleased with yourself. —What? Oh ... he spun around. —Max. —What happened, you sell your play or something? —My play? I ... yes, yes that's it. How did you know? Yes . . . —Good, Max said over his shoulder. Smiling, he added, —Look, I hope you didn't think I had anything to do with what people were saying. —People? Otto repeated vaguely, going toward the door. —You know, that you'd plagiarized . . . —Oh, oh that, yes, no, no I wouldn't have thought that, Otto said, and left Max bound there to deepen the steaming gully in the cake of ice in the drain. He saw Stanley sitting at a table with Anselm, who was listlessly turning pages in a magazine which bore the picture of a girl sliding down a bannister, and the challenge, Can Freaks Make Love? on the cover. Anselm tore something out and pushed it across the table to Stanley who looked at it and then away quickly, his eyes searching the room for refuge until he lowered them to the floor. —Hey, Hannah? Look at those two, said a tall round-headed young man in an expensive suit. —Did you ever see that Kollwitz print, "Zwei Gefangene Musik hörend"? That's what they look like, two prisoners listening to music. —Stanley is a sort of prisoner, Hannah said half to herself. —Anybody is who's always broke. He handed her the beer he'd got her. —You can talk! Hannah turned on him, accepting the dripping glass. —You work for your money, so you don't have to worry spending it. He stared at her; then cleared his throat and asked, —Say, is that really Ernest Hemingway behind me? —What if it is, what would that make you? —He, I ... I'd like to meet him, I think he's a great writer. —You think some of it will wipe off on you? You're still a salesman. Did you ever read Cummings' poem, a salesman is an it that stinks to please . . and you want to write? —I do in my spare time, I've taken a course . . . —Go stink to please somewhere else. —Yes, I ... all right, all right . . . He turned two hundred dollars' worth of tweed on her, and said, —Mister Hemingway? My name is George . . . —Glad to see you, George, said the Big Unshaven Man. —What are we drinking? Otto paid for his whisky-and-soda with a twenty-dollar bill, and stood unsteadily looking about him. —What are you mumbling about? Hannah demanded from just beneath the level of his gaze. He was looking at a tall blond girl who had just said, in Boston accents, that Paris was like a mouthful of decayed teeth. —Hannah? I just sold my play, Otto repeated, but aloud this time, as though finding confirmation in what he heard. —You sold your play? her query sustained him, but no further than, —Can you buy me a beer? as she put an empty glass on a table behind her. He struggled to the bar, got her a glass and handed it to her over someone's shoulder, but when he'd paid for it and turned again she was gone, leaving only her query echoing Max's, sanctioning what he had heard in his own words, and ratified now with a murmured yes and a smile of discovery. But immediately he saw Max, standing at the table with Anselm and Stanley, looking in his direction and talking through a smile, he felt unsteady again, called upon to defend himself, and his hand rose to the empty fall of his jacket as he approached them. Max always looked the same, always the same age, his hair always the same short length, in his smile the humorless agreeability of one who could neither suffer friendship nor celebrate enmity, a parody on the moment, as his clothes caricatured a past at eastern colleges where he had never been. —And if it's only through sin that we can know one another, and share our human frailty? Stanley went on, staring into his coffee. —And by doing that, we come to know ourselves . . . —Crossing the Atlantic Ocean to get laid. He can't even get it up without a dose of methyltestosterone, Anselm interrupted, without looking up as Otto approached, without a pause in his speaking he tore something from his magazine and held it out to Otto, who read, "LONELY? 25cents brings magazine containing pictures, descriptions of lonely sincere members everywhere, seeking friendship, companionship, marriage . . ." —What better reason is there to get out of this stupid white Protestant country, for Christ's sake. Yes, for Christ's sake. At least Catholic countries take sin as a part of human nature, they don't blow their guts when they find you've gone to bed with a woman. Somebody like him is scared to try it here, he'd rather go where nobody knows him, a bunch of stupid foreigners he doesn't have to respect because they don't speak English, and don't have any money, where nobody will point at him in the street if they see him coming out of a whorehouse. Christ. It breaks my heart. Somebody like that, it breaks my heart. But you know what breaks my heart? He looked up directly at Otto, who started, the smile jarred from his face, whose eyes, evading a wince, found Max's .indulgent smile. —That that's sin! Anselm hissed, looking back at the table top. —That . . . Chhrist! None of them spoke. Stanley clung to his coffee cup as though moored there. Otto tottered slightly. Max stood reflecting the vacant satisfaction he found in expose. —With all the . . . rotten betrayals around us, and that, that . . . that one moment of trust, is sin? Anselm whispered, looking at none of them. None of them spoke until Anselm said, —You're spilling your God-damned drink, what's the matter with you? and Otto, righting his glass and licking his naked upper lip, came round to the other side of the table and the empty chair Max stood beside, bumping a girl who was carrying Everybody Can Play the Piano under her arm, and saying, —Well I thought his approach was rarther crude, just coming at me like that with a dollar bill wrapped around it ... —You're not sitting here? Otto asked Max, who stepped aside with the courtesy accorded infirmity. —Who's going abroad? Otto asked after a moment, seated. Stanley looked up at Anselm, as though to give him opportunity of answering, then said himself in a quelled tone, —Don Bildow . . . sounding as though he wanted to say more, but could find no more to say. And Otto looked up, over backs and shoulders, to see Don Bildow's white face bobbing behind the plastic-rimmed glasses; and heard, from someone falling toward the table, —Everything is either concave or convex . . . 526

someone caught and raised to receive this intelligence, —Nothing, absolutely nothing, can convince me that all of us and everything isn't shrinking at the rate of one millimeter a minute . . . —Has anybody seen Esme? Otto asked, his voice in an abrupt strain. —I just went by her house, he added hurriedly, and brought his glass to his lips. —Nobody there? Max asked behind him. —Well no, no not really, I mean no. —Not even Chaby? —No, he was ... he wasn't there, no. I mean, I didn't see him, I didn't really go in, I . . . I just passed there, Otto finished looking up confused, rummaging his pale left hand, whose freedom no one had noticed, in a pocket, and seeing Stanley's ragged mustache, licking a lip whose nakedness no one had remarked. —Would anybody like a drink? he asked, and signaled a waiter who did not see him. Behind him, someone said, —A million people try to disappear in America every year, a million Americans try to erase themselves, that's a statistic and it doesn't include criminals either, a million a year, a million people a year . . . The juke-box played Return to Sorrento; and nearby someone said that Saint Francis Xavier was only four and a half feet tall. —"Does Drunkenness Threaten Your Happiness or Your Loved Ones? Our Remarkable New Discovery Quickly and Easily Helps Bring Relief from All Desire for Liquor! . . . No Will Power Is Necessary To Stop Drinking. This Is Strictly a Home Method! . . ." Anselm read, returned to his magazine and his dull tone. —I'd just like some coffee, Stanley said. —Have you got some money? Anselm asked. —If you do I'd rather eat. And he called a waiter. —Yes, as a matter of fact I, yes I just sold my play, Otto said to them. He looked quickly from Anselm's shrug to the first sign of Stanley's approving pleasure but could not stop his eyes, and turned to Max for confirmation. —Eggplant Parmigiana, Anselm ordered beside him, and Otto caught the waiter's arm as he departed, to order another whisky, and coffee for Stanley who looked up at that moment to ask, —Didn't you go to see Esme earlier? —Well yes, earlier, I saw her earlier . . . The confusion in Otto's voice was reflected in his eyes. Escaping Stanley's simple question, he looked round at hazard for a new topic and unfortunately found it immediately. —There's Hannah, he said. —I just saw Hannah, she ... I ... The waiter appeared with their orders. Anselm was laughing. —But I don't see why someone said what they said about me, about Hannah and me, Stanley brought out. And Otto, fleeing the appeal on this side, and the laughter on the other, looked to Max, whose smile was the conspiracy of an instant, an embrace confirmed in Stanley's discerning, and quickly lowered eyes. —Stanley, you don't think ... I didn't mean . . . Otto commenced, the lines of his face rising toward his brow in anxious entreaty, when Anselm interrupted, growling, with his mouth full, and Otto turned to him for deliverance. Anselm ate rapidly, jamming pieces of bread into his mouth between forkfuls of the eggplant, as though he expected it all to be taken away at any moment. Still he managed to growl at Stanley, and crumbs flew from his mouth across the table. —The beast, Anselm gurgled, chewing, —the beast in the jungle. The beast with two backs, he growled and snarled and laughed at once. —Stalking, crouching, ready to spring, that's the number of the beast that's stalking you, the beast that's waiting to devour you, the beast with two backs, waiting to sspring! . . . and he lunged, blowing bread crumbs. —Look, Anselm . . . Otto's voice quavered toward firmness. But Anselm already appeared to have relented. He sat chuckling over his almost empty plate, looking down as though some imminent satisfaction filled his mind; while under the table out of their sight, his hands opened a small flat tin, took out an envelope, and unrolled its contents. Meanwhile the waiter stood there with the bill, and Otto seized the interruption, taking a roll of money from his pocket. —Here, I'll get this, he said, as though it were necessary to forestall them, though neither moved until Anselm shot an arm forth unseen and dropped something into Stanley's coffee. And as Otto sat back, folding his money, Anselm asked him agreeably, —Could you lend me something? —Why, why yes, sure, Otto said. —How much? —Whatever you can. —Yes, Otto repeated, hesitated, and turned to Stanley. —Do you need any right now, Stanley? Any money? because I'd be glad to, to lend you some? —Maybe, five dollars? Stanley said. —I might need it, if I go to the dentist, I have a tooth . . . —Here, take this, Otto said unfolding the bills again, and he held out a twenty. —Go ahead, you might need it. —No, just five, that's all I'd need, just five. —Give him five, I'll take the twenty, Anselm said quickly, putting 3 hand out. —You know the kind of a lousy life I have, I need it . . . But he watched Otto hand the clean twenty-dollar bill to 528

Stanley, over another faint gasp of protest, and accepted himself a worn five, murmuring, —Thanks, I ... thanks. And, have you got a cigarette? having trouble even then getting one from the pack with his blunt bitten finger-ends. —I didn't know you smoked, Otto said to him. —I do sometimes, Anselm said holding the cigarette unfamiliarly, and then he folded the five-dollar bill smaller and smaller, until it was a wad scarcely the width of his tortured thumbnail. He puffed the cigarette once or twice, then dropped it on the floor and stepped on it; and in that minute all of the sullenness of a little while before had returned, and he stared at the table as though he were sitting there alone. Max had turned away to talk with a small elderly man dressed in black, with black rubbers and a black hat, carrying a black umbrella. He appeared to say nothing, nodded his head occasionally, and accepted the drink Max brought him, while Max talked. Max returned to identify the black figure as the art critic for Old Masses, said he had a very incisive wit, and had given his pictures very good notices, —which is what makes all the difference, Max added smiling. —It's strange having the use of this left arm again, Otto said finally. —Oh yes, you were wearing a sling, weren't you, Stanley said, looking up quickly at the hand motionless on the table. —It looks very white, he commented. —Did it leave a bad scar? —Why don't you ask him to show you the scar? Anselm demanded. —I'll bet it was a nice hole. You envy him, for Christ sake. —It isn't the wound that matters so much, getting it, Stanley said as Otto sat back and lowered the pale hand to his lap. —But the scar, the scar is a witness for all the wounds we get ... all the wounds, all kinds of wounds. I heard about somebody once who had a scar and he bandaged it, every once in a while, to renew the wound. —Scars, all Stanley wants is scars, to show people. Scars! Hey Stanley, did you hear about the reliquary they opened that was supposed to have Ignatius Loyola's left arm in it? They brought it-over on a boat, when they opened it they found an arm with a heart tattooed on it, with a bleeding dagger and the word Mother, ha, haha . . . —That's not true, Stanley said promptly. —And it's not wanting to suffer, just for that, just to suffer, it's more . . . proving the right to it, to suffering. —Come off it, man, said a haggard face rising over the back of a booth. —You're dragging us. —He's right, for Christ sake, everybody suffers, the crime is in this world you suffer and it doesn't mean a God-damned thing, it doesn't fit anywhere. You can stand any suffering if it means something, Anselm went on rapidly, but still as though suppressing some specific thing which filled his mind. —The only time suffering's unbearable is when it's meaningless, he finished, muttering. At that Otto raised an eyebrow and licked his lip, preparing to quote the lines with which Gordon reduced Priscilla toward the close of Act II, the scene in the doorway of the summer cottage which glittered before him even now, as though in production. GORDON: Suffering, my dear Priscilla, is a petty luxury of mediocre people. You will find happiness a far more noble, and infinitely more refined . . . —You remember what Montherlant has to say, Max interrupted them. —Le bonheur est un état bien plus noble et bien plus raffiné que la souffrance . . . His French was unprofessional and surprisingly clear. Otto muttered impatiently at being interrupted the moment he had started to speak, and turned to ask Stanley if he had ever read any of Vainiger, as Max finished, —le petit luxe des per-sonnes de mediocre qualité. —That's a lot of crap, Anselm said without looking up. —When he says that life must be led in the dark, Otto pursued, —and that we must assume postulates to be true which, if they were true, would justify . . . —Hey Stanley, I've got a song for you. —Leave him alone. —Hannah, sit down, sit down in Otto's place, he's delivering a lecture on Die Philosophic des Als Ob, Anselm advised her. —On what? Otto demanded curtly. —The buttons say U.S., So they just mean us I guess, Anselm sang, tearing something from his magazine which he handed to Hannah. —So they must just stand for me . . . and Mo-therrr . . . "Get Male HORMONES Science has discovered that domestic and business worries often disappear when male hormone deficiency is overcome ... If you do not feel the return of that old-time activity, that keen love and zestful desire for life . . ." —Shut up and leave him alone, Hannah repeated, crumpling the paper but she did not drop it. —Leave who alone? Otto and I are discussing Vaihinger, aren't we Otto? He's an expert on als ob, ich gebe Ihnen mein Wort, Hannah, an expert, ich bin ihm nicht gewachsen, Hannah . . . —Shut up, she said to him, looking him straight in the face as he became more agitated. The spots on his complexion stood out vividly, and his hair was up as though a wind were blowing. He reached up and felt it, took out a dirty pocket comb and made cracking sounds combing his hair. —Scabs, he said. —I'm sycotic. Do you know who I envy? I envy Tourette. He had a disease named after him, a very God-damned rare one. —Are you drunk? If you're not why don't you shut up. —When you have Tourette's disease you go around repeating dirty words all the time. Coprolalia. Everybody below Fourteenth Street has coprolalia. Then he opened his magazine and turned suddenly to Otto. —"Women are funny," he read. —"You never know whether you're making the right move or not. Avoid disappointment, heartbreak! Save yourself lots of tragedy. Don't be a Faux pas!" —Anselm, Otto began quietly, —why don't you relax and . . . —You're drunk. Why don't you try God? Four three-letter words, Why Not Try God? That's a book by Mary Pickford. Real coprolalia. You'd like that. Then he got breath and said, —You know who I envy? Never mind. The buttons say U.S. . . . —What's the matter with you tonight, is it on account of Charles? Hannah cut in, and Anselm stopped singing abruptly, and stared at her. —I'm not . . . singing to you, he said after a moment, faltering, and he looked down at the dirty floor muttering something. —Well why don't you . . . —Well why don't you leave us alone! . . . you, God damn you, you . . , —I meant to tell you how glad I am about your play, Stanley said to Otto. —I am, honestly. —Thank you, I ... I know you are, Otto said, and put a hand to his shoulder. —You're really good, aren't you Stanley. —I wish I were. I wish everyone was. —There'd be a lot of crazy priests out of work. Work! Hahaha . . . —Anselm, you . . . —Damn you Hannah, God damn you, is it any business of yours if I feel this way about Charles? And his mother coming here to get him and take him home to Grand Rapids and when he wouldn't go she left him here, with nothing? with his wrists . . . just like she found them, she . . . You remind me of her, maybe it's your Goddamned smile. Maybe it's the way you try to get your hooks into Stanley, for his own good, for his own good! —But what . . . —It's the complacency I can't stand, Anselm burst out. —I can't stand it anywhere, but most of all I can't stand it in religion. Did you see Charles's mother? did you see her smile? that holier-than- thou Christian Science smile, she turns it on like . . . They're so complacent about this error of matter they've picked up, "It's nice because it's mine," that's the kind of a look they have, as if the old bag who started them off was the first one to think of the error of matter, didn't they ever hear of Catharism? or the Albigensians? or the Manichaeans? or even Bishop Berkeley? No, they stop thinking the minute they get hold of that thing Science and Health, they never read another book after that, they've got a corner on the Truth, everybody else is a Goy . . . —So what have you got your balls in an uproar for? Hannah pressed him. —Because Charles and I ... I don't blame Charles a God damn bit for flipping. God is Love! We'd all flip, taking that from your own mother and you're lying there with your wrists slashed open. But love on this earth? Christ! . . . pity? compassion? That's why I've got my balls in an uproar if you want to know, talking about some kind of love floating around Christ knows where, but what did she give him? When he wouldn't go back to Grand fucking Rapids and be treated by Christian Science? She gave him one of those eternally damned holier-than-thou smiles and left him here. She left him here without a cent, to let Bellevue kill him, or let him try it again himself. God is Love, for Christ sake! If Peter had smiled like a Christian Scientist Christ would have kicked his teeth down his throat. He sat there whispering to himself, and then said, —At least the Catholics have some idea of humility, I have to admit. —All right, Anselm, nobody . . . —All right, all right, I'll shut up. But don't you understand me? He half rose from the table, looking at her with an insane intensity; and then shuddering through his frame, sank back in his chair, and she turned to Stanley. —How is your mother? she asked him. —You always ask me that, Hannah. Thank you for asking. —But how is she? —She's . . . waiting. She's still waiting very patiently. They're going to move her to another hospital. —Catch my mother waiting patiently, Anselm muttered. —Please don't talk disrespectfully of your mother, Anselm. —She's a nut, Stanley, said Anselm calmly, looking up at him. —It's all right, I'm just stating a fact. She's a nut. An old nut. Right now she's probably down in the Tombs forcing a Bible on some poor bastard who just wants to be left alone with . . . alone. He was perspiring, staring at the dirty floor. —Do you care if He ... a saint, kissing the leper's sores? he whispered to none of them; and then said, —Never mind, never mind, you don't . . . you can't . . . do you know who I envy? Mr. Feddle's alarm clock swung like a pendulum as he almost fell, recovered, and tipped in the opposite direction. The swinging clock banged the edge of their table. —That old fool, Otto muttered, —except he's not funny. —But very sad, Stanley said, drawing back as the clock swung in a dangerous arc, above the tabletop, and down. Someone cried, —Owwwww, as it cracked an ankle. —He's happy now because he's publishing something at last. People congratulate him, they're really laughing at him all the time because it's a vanity house, but he doesn't know that, that they're laughing at him. And his wife looks troubled and says, But publishing is expensive, isn't it, she doesn't know you're supposed to make money publishing something, she thinks any author has to pay to publish something of his own. At parties he used to go around autographing books from the bookshelves, he'd write a dedication and sign the author's name. —That's good, Otto laughed, looking at Mr. Feddle's back which stood now stolid as a grandfather clock, only the pendulum swinging for he had just bowed and shaken hands. —It could go in a play. —You shouldn't be cruel now, just when you've sold your play Otto. —But even if I hadn't, Otto turned on Stanley. —Even if I hadn't ... —I envy Doctor Hodgkin. Anselm was cleaning his teeth thoughtfully with a folded match cover. —He had a disease named after him. —What kind of disease? —Hodgkin's disease, for Christ sake. —A kind of cancer, said Max from behind them. —Cancer hell. It's a kind of leukemia. If you want to know what it is, it's progressive hyperplasia of the lymphatic glands associated with anemia. Lymphadenoma. —Where'd you hear that? —I studied medicine, Anselm said, mumbling as he did usually when admitting to something favorable about himself; and as immediately embarrassed at so having drawn their attention, tore from his magazine "PILES! Amazingly fast palliative relief . . . No mess or sticky fingers! . . . It's Better, Faster, Easier to use! . . ." Beneath that: "GoD Wants You . . . Poor health? Money troubles? ... A remarkable New Way of Prayer that is helping thousands to glorious New Happiness and Joys . . ." —Here Stanley, take your choice. It's all one anyhow, he said, rolling the cover closed on Can Freaks Make Love? —You know, the trouble with you, you're all mothers' sons, Max said to them. Stanley stopped stirring his coffee and looked up, Anselm turned on him, Hannah had turned away. —You and An-selm and Charles, Max smiled agreeably to Stanley. —And Otto? he added, looking at Otto who said, —As a matter of fact, I just finished dinner with my father a little while ago. —Otto's part of a series of an original that never existed, Max said as though he had not heard. —What do you mean, you ... —That's what you told me yourself yesterday, didn't you? Max drew him on. —But no, Otto rubbed his hand over his eyes. —The series didn't exist but the original existed. The original did. It had to. He sat there looking glazed-eyed for a moment, then turned to Stanley. —I just had dinner with my father, he said, as though remembering back over a great distance, or attempting to separate a distant image from one which had recently supplanted it. —For the first time, he added. —Did you like him? Stanley asked uncertainly. —It's a funny feeling. It was strange, sort of ... I feel like I'd lost something, like ... I feel like nobody sort of ... Staring straight ahead of him, he rubbed his forehead, and his wrist, descending, paused to press against his ribs, where no identity interrupted his contagion with himself. —I don't know, he mumbled, licking his naked lip, and went on in a low tone to Stanley, —Look, if you had a friend, somebody you haven't seen for a long time and he ... someone else takes his place, but he still ... I don't know. Never mind. —You're drunk, Anselm offered. —That's funny, Otto persisted without looking up at Max. —To say the original never existed! Look, he went on to Stanley, —Suppose you knew somebody who used to be a friend and who . . . and you found out he was, well like Mister Feddle, putting names on things that weren't his, I mean . . . —You know who I envy? Anselm broke in on them impatiently. —I envy Christ, he had a disease named after him. Hahaha, hey Stanley? Stanley pretended not to hear. He looked up from his cold coffee and said to Otto, —But if Mister Feddle saw a copy of a play by Ibsen, if he loves The Wild Duck and wishes he had written it, he wants to be Ibsen for just that moment, and dedicate his play to someone who's been kind to him, is that lying? It isn't as bad as people doing work they have no respect for at all. Everybody has that feeling when they look at a work of art and it's right, that sudden familiarity, a sort of ... recognition, as though they were creating it
themselves, as though it were being created through them while they look at it or listen to it and, it shouldn't be sinful to want to have created beauty? —Why don't you go home and read Saint Anselm before you talk like this? said Anselm sitting forward, opening his eyes which he had closed as though attempting sleep here. —"The picture, before it is made is contained in the artificer's art itself," he said. "And any such thing, existing in the art of an artificer, is nothing but a part of his understanding itself." —Saint Anselm. Dig him, said the haggard face bobbing over the back of the booth. —What are you trying to prove? —I'm proving the existence of God, God damn you. Saint Augustine says a man who is going to make a box has it first in his art. The box he makes isn't life, but the one that exists in his art is life. "For the artificer's soul lives, in which all these things are, before they are produced." —Where's God? In the box? —You dumb son of a bitch ... —What's your favorite song, Anselm? —Nola. Now screw, will you. —I wish I had written The Wild Duck, Stanley said. —I'm high, man. —On what? —On tea. We been balling all night. Have you got any? Hey Saint Anselm, have you got any charge? The haggard face hung over the back of the booth like a separate floating entity, rolling the eyes toward Max, to say, —He's in training. To be a saint. —I notice he doesn't eat meat, is that the reason Anselm? Max asked. —So that your body won't . . . —What God damn business is it of yours? —Save the bones for Henry Jones . . . gurgled the haggard face. —Anselm, preaching leftovers of the bleak ruin of Judaism, Max commenced with sententious ease, —a watered-down humanism . . . —Cause Henry don't eat no meat. Hey Anselm, I got something for you. —What are you supposed to know about religion? Anselm turned on Max. —As Frazer says, Max explained indulgently, —the whole history of religion is a continuous attempt to reconcile old custom with new reason, to find sound theory for absurd practices . . . —And what does Saint Augustine mean when he talks about the Devil perverting the truth and imitating the sacraments? —This sacrament will go the way of all the rest of them, Max smiled. —It won't be long before they're sacrificing Christ to God as God's immortal enemy. —Hey Anselm, listen to this, Daddy-o noster. Daddy-o, up in thy way-out pad. You are the coolest, and we dig you like too much . . . —The god killed, eaten, and resurrected, is the oldest fixture in religion, Max went on suavely. —Finally sacrificed in the form of some sacred animal which is the embodiment of the god. Finally everyone forgets, and the only sense they can make out of the sacrament is that they must be sacrificing the animal to the god because that particular animal is the god's crucial enemy, responsible for the god's death . . . —Crucial! . . . Anselm spat out. —Thy joint be right, the squares be swung . . . the haggard face continued, reading from a scrap of paper. —And what does Justin Martyr mean, when he says "the evil spirits practice mimicry"? Anselm demanded. —Crucial! . . . —Help us to score for some scoff today, and don't jump us salty if we come on like a drag, cause like we don't put down other cats when they goof . . . the haggard face went on in the silence straining between Anselm and Max. —For thine is the horse, the hash, and the junk . . . —God damn you! give me that God-damned thing! Anselm burst out, swinging round and tearing the paper from the loose fingers; and the haggard face dropped out of sight, to bob up once more with, —Cause face it ... and disappear again, as Anselm tore the shred of paper into smaller and smaller bits. —Look Anselm, Max said coming up to him, —why don't you be reasonable? You'll end up like Charles, this pose of yours . . . —Like Charles! And you, what ... be reasonable! Anselm got to his feet. —This pose! this . . . Gott-trunkener Mensch, yes, you ... be reasonable! That's what they called Spinoza, your prince of rationalists, damn him, you know what they offered Spinoza to conform? A thousand florins. "Conform outwardly" they told him, but what did he do, he changed his name from Baruch to Bene-dictus. The prince of rationalists! Max had taken a step back, and another, smiling as though embarrassed for Anselm, as Anselm came on. —And what did they do, they damned him, the lens-maker Spinoza. They excommunicated him, right into the darkness of reason. The Schammatha, they damned him in the name that contains forty-two letters, they damned him in the name of the Lord of Hosts, and the Tetragram- raaton, in the name of the Globes, and the Wheels, and the Mysterious Beasts ... Max was backing toward the door, toward the man in the checked suit who said, —To tell the truth I wouldn't dare go in there, they're all nuts. —I'm freezing to death, said his companion. —In the name of Prince Michael and the Ministering Angels, Metateron, Achthariel Jah, the Seraphim, the Ofanim . . . Anselm went on shrilly as Max backed out into the night. —The trumpets dropped, they reversed the candles, Amen, there's the Schammatha, damned right into the darkness of Reason . . . and he stood quivering in the empty doorway for a minute, indifferent to the eyes turned on him. Then he spat in the street and came back to the table where Otto had just stood preparing to leave. —Here, take this, Anselm said to him, holding out his magazine. —There's a special article in it, Can Freaks Make Love? with illustrations, a "rare photo of Chang and Eng, the original Siamese twins, with two of their natural children . . ." He slumped in his chair again, and after a moment started to whistle, rasping through his teeth. —What is that? what you're whistling, it's Bach isn't it? He looked up at Stanley, and after a moment, —Yes, he admitted, —the seventy-eighth cantata. His elbow rested on The Moan of the Tiber. —An aria? Stanley asked to his empty face. —"We hasten with feeble but diligent footsteps" ... a duet, Anselm said vaguely, watching Stanley stir the cold coffee, with a lifeless chill in his eyes. —Sung by women, by women's voices . . . Stanley gasped, lifting the spoon from the coffee cup. —What is it? he whispered, as the thing slipped back into the coffee. He raised it out again. —Ha, ha, hahaha . . . The alarm clock strung to Mr. Feddle's neck went off. —What is it? It's a ... he held it in the air, unable to move, staring at it. —You can use it for a bookmark, Stanley. For when you read Malthus. Hahahahaha . . . look at what Stanley found in his coffee. —Anselm, did you . . . —Hahahahahahahahaha Mr. Feddle shut the clock off with one hand, finished his beer with the other, bowed to three people, stumbling away from the hollow desperate laughter behind him, out the door where he bumped the man in the checked suit who said, —There, there he goes, out the other door, the side door. Above emptied streets, the roseate heaving persisted; above bodies contorted with sleep, strewn among the battlements erected in this common war without end, some wrenched as though in the last embrace, spoke with tongues, untended and unattended, extended limbs and members to come up against the thigh of another fallen, and be similarly still, or rise distended to enter the warm nest again and swim in the dark channel, committing the final assault in the anonymity of exhaustion, hearts emptied of prayer. But the blood-luster of the sky witnessed that the battle was not done, though all were slain: it shone like the sky over the Campagna where Attila's Huns met the Romans in engagement so fierce that all were slain in deed, extreme but inconclusive, for their spirits continued the battle three nights and days over the field of unburied dead. In the bar of a midtown hotel where the rear guard bivouacked among chrome and glass, scarred, alert, at battle stations (for there's no discharge in the war), Otto rested his left arm openly before him, raised one eyebrow, turned his lips down at the corners, flared his nostrils, and paid with a twenty-dollar bill. He spilled his drink. —Better give me another, he said. —Irish. —You've had enough, Jack. —Will you give me another drink? —You've had enough tonight. Go home and sleep it off. —Have I had enough? May I buy you a drink, madame? —Come on, Jack, don't start any trouble. Leave the lady alone. —I'm talking to her, not to you. —Come on, fellow. Be a sport. Get the hell out of here. The man in the checked suit came in the street door as Otto, clutching Can Freaks Make Love? rolled in his fight hand, strode from the bar into the lobby of the hotel. —You want to buy some pictures? —Pictures? Otto asked, turning. —Girls, you know? —Just girls? —Yeh, what'sa matter, you queer? He started to thrust back into the envelope the pictures he had half displayed, tangles of white limbs. —Don't I know you? Otto stared at the young man, the hat on the back of his head, the extinguished cigarette stub in the corner of his mouth. —You don't know me, Mac, the young man said quickly. —You don't know me. You want these or not. —Let's see them. —What's the matter, you don't trust me? I can't bring them out here. A buck for the pack. —All right, here. Here. Otto handed him a one-dollar bill. In the men's room, he opened the envelope. A sailor banged the door, coming in, and Otto went into a booth. He stared at the first picture; and then sat down, staring at it. He turned it up, and 538