The Recognitions (93 page)

—But you do look better than when you were up here a few days ago, don't you, she went on, her voice with an edge to it. —Yes, I'm tired. —Where have you been? —A Turkish bath. —All this time? —No, I ... yes. —Why? Why? Why? —Oh, they ... do all sorts of things to you there. Heat and cold, and steam . . . and cold water, and they pound you, and you . . . and they . . . they do all sorts of things to you to make you . . . that you feel . . . He turned toward the closet again, took a step and startled at his brief image in the mirror. —Oh, but that . . . I'm sorry, she said, laughing, coming toward him around the foot of the bed. —Well I didn't . . . think it was mine, he said, confused again, taking off the jacket he'd got from a closet hanger. Its bold plaid sleeves came down to his knuckles, the skirt well down over his thighs. —I am sorry, Esther said and she quit laughing. —It's . . . someone left it here. —But they're all like this, he said from the closet. —Your things are in here, in these drawers. She stopped her going toward him, and pulled open a bottom drawer. When she straightened up she'd recovered her impatience. —When you're away for as long as you've been, she began. He was putting back on the wrinkled black jacket from the floor where he'd dropped it. —But here, Esther said, pulling folded clothes from the drawer, —surely there's something in here that will do better than . . . that. But he buttoned the jacket in front, taking both hands to each button. —This, she said. He took from her the suit she held out, plain gray with a diagonal weave. —Well, aren't you going to put it on? He folded it and put it on the bed, at the same time making sure of the buttons on the jacket he wore, as though suddenly afraid to lose it. —Aren't you going to wear this? —I'll . . . I'll take it with me, and a shirt. Some shirts too. Then with a step he was nearer her, and another; and he stopped, bringing up his head, both hands open before him, open as though to come to grips except that he'd already fallen half a step back, and She, straightening up with some shirts held forth on the flat of her hands raised her face to his, joining forces with the mirror behind her. —What is it? But with that half a step back one image retired, and bearing his green eyes on her he recovered, the half-step and another with it so that Esther shrank back against the chest holding the shirts out farther still between them and she repeated —What is it? The door opened, flung open. Music burst in. —What do you ... —Sorry. Broken shapes, gray Glen Urquhart mitigated by blond hair in a wild panache, shattered the wall; a peripheral pattern instantly restored as the door bangs, closed. —What was it? —Purcell. —No. Her hands lay in his, under the squared white mass of the shirts, cold nails and soft lined joints against his hard palms. —The music? —No. Her thumbs out, and palms up with the weight on them, her shoulders relax, and her hands open further, to draw up as instantly there is no support, first his right hand gone, clearly gone, and then with an instant's paroxysm the left. And then the weight of those shirts, lifted away, and her hands rise empty, round-fingered, untapering and separate. The mass of the shirts broke on the bed as he dropped them there, and took his left hand in his right where veins stood out in swollen tributaries rising between the roughed mounds of the knuckles, breaking in detail on the fingers whose severity they articulated. —That night . . . Esther said staring at his hands, her own withdrawn to shelter the hollows, heels on bone and the round ends of her fingers appointing that soft declivity which rose above them until her thumbs could not meet across her waist. —That night, she repeated, curling her finger-ends in upon the yielding bank, and the tips of her thumbs touched. —When I wanted to ... manicure you? She looked up at his face, and with the effort smiled until she said, —And you . . . drew away just like that . . . each word draining the smile from her face, and she lowered her eyes, and her empty hands came down to her sides. She waited, and heard no response, but watching saw his lips go tight. —What have you been doing all this time? she demanded of him, and sat on the bed. He turned back to the shirts, which he'd just left stacked un-588

evenly on the bed, and commenced to arrange them in a careful pile. —Nothing, he answered automatically. —Nothing! she repeated, and sat up straight. —A few things . . . working, sort of ... experimental things. —Painting? What kind of things, then? —Yes, sort of ... that kind of thing. —Painting? He looked up at her, quickly and away, back to what he was doing, squaring the pile between his hands. —Looking around us today, he said with effort, —there doesn't seem to be ... much that's worth doing. —Well what good is it then? . . . she burst out at him, —going on only to find out what's not worth doing? —You find ... he mumbled, —if you can find, that way . . . —Are you very ill? Esther said. —111? He looked up pale and surprised. —Everything is just like it was, isn't it. Only worse. She started speaking rapidly again, as she got to her feet. —You've just got everything tangled up worse and worse, haven't you. Why the way you pulled your hands away from me just now, as though they were something . . . —Esther . . . —And your guilt complexes and everything else, it's just gotten worse, hasn't it, all of it. And the way you pulled your hands away from me just now, it was just like when we were first married and I hardly knew you, and the longer we were married the less you . . . won't you talk to me? even now, won't you talk to me? —Really Esther, I ... I didn't come here to argue with you. He sounded again himself she remembered, and she pursued, —You won't argue, you'll say things like that but you won't argue, you won't talk ... to me . . . —Damn it, I ... Esther, I just came in to get some things. —Get them then! Take them! Take them! He busied himself folding the shirts up with the gray suit, tightening his lips against the sounds which escaped her. —Because there's no one, is there. You're alone now, aren't you. Are you alone now? —Esther, good God . . . please ... —Ignorance and desire, you've told me . . . Oh, you've told me so many things, haven't you. All of our highest goals are inhuman ones, you told me, do you remember? I don't forget. But remorse binds us here together in ignorance and desire, and . . . and . . . not salt tears then, but . . . She gasped again, shuddered but would not give in. —And what is it now, this reality you used to talk about, she went on more quietly. —As though you could deny, and have nothing to replace what you take away, as though . . . Oh yes, zero does not exist, you told me. Zero does not exist! And here 1 ... I watched you turn into no one right here in front of me, and just a ... a pose became a life, until you were trying to make negative things do the work of positive ones. And your family and your childhood, and your illness then and studying for the ministry, and . . . when I married you we used to talk about all that intelligently, and I thought you were outside it, and understood it, but you're not, you're not, and you never will be, you never will get out of it, and you never . . . you never will let yourself be happy. Esther was talking rapidly again, and she paused as though to give effect to the softness of her voice as she went on, though her memory crowded details upon her and it was these she fought. —There are things like joy in this world, there are, there are wonderful things, and there is goodness and kindness, and you shrug your shoulders. And I used to think that was fun, that you understood things so well when you did that, but finally that's all you can do, isn't it. Isn't it. He stood across the bed holding his bundle up before him, meeting her eyes, provoked, and he smiled, ready to speak. —And your smile, she went on, —even your smile isn't alive, because you abdicated, you moved out of life, and you . . . —But the past, he broke in, —every instant the past is reshaping itself, it shifts and breaks and changes, and every minute we're finding, I was right ... I was wrong, until . . . Esther plundered the fragments her memory threw up to her, taking them any way, seizing them as they rose and clinging to each one until she'd thrust it out between them. —The boundaries between good and evil must be defined again, they must be reestablished, that's what a man must do today, isn't it? A man! Wasn't it? ... She paused, retaining hold on that for a moment longer, raising her hand to her forehead in fact as though doing so, considering its details and lowering her voice. —Yes, you couldn't have a world in which the problem of evil could be solved with a little cunning, she added, word by word, dully, —and you . . . Oh yes, by confessing, to set up order once more between yourself and the world . . . Esther's voice tailed off as she stared down at the bed between them. —Yes, go on, go on with it, he said eagerly when she stopped, staring at her. For as it happened, this point had come from a play she'd read shortly after Otto had sailed for Central America, a play by Silone called And He Hid Himself: but even now, looking up, Esther saw these words on the lips before her, slightly parted in expectation. She began again, —I wish . . . —Yes, you understand, he burst in, —you understand, that's why this is crucial, you understand, don't you. How this is going to expiate . . . —Expiate! She accepted him again, standing there with his hand out. —And that it isn't just expiation, but . . . that's why it is cru-cial, because this is the only way we can know ourselves to be real, is this moral action, you understand don't you, the only way to know others are real . . . A wave of nausea rose through her body, and Esther gripped the corner of the night table behind her, swaying a little, swallowing again. —If we had had a child . . . she murmured. —Yes, if we ... —And you understand it, his voice came on at her, —this moral action, it isn't just talk and -. . . words, morality isn't just theory and ideas, that the only way to reality is this moral sense . . . —Stop it! she cried out. —Stop it! ... She caught herself, and took up the handkerchief again quickly for saliva was running from the corner of her mouth beyond the apprehension of her swallowing. —Moral sense! she repeated loudly at him. —Do you think women have a moral sense? Do you think women have . . . any morals? that . . . that women can afford them? —Esther . . . He started toward her round the end of the bed. —Oh no! she said. —No! Do you know how much she has to protect? and every minute more? And you make these things up, and force them on her, men take their own guilt, and call it moral sense and oppress her with it in the name of ... She shrank back as he came close to her. —In the name of Christ why didn't you go on and . . . stay where you came from, and be a minister where you came from, instead of ... coming here where I ... she shuddered as he took her arm, —have so much to protect. —Esther, he said to her, that close. —But now you . . . are here, she said to him in a whisper. The nausea had fallen away, abruptly as it had come,' leaving her in his grip with her teeth chattering as she spoke, and her tears did not fall but spread evenly into the wetness of her cheeks. Two of her fingers sought his wrist, and tried to close on it. —You . . . she articulated from a wild breath in his face, —now you are here to . . . stay and protect ... They stood there with three senses locked in echo of the fourth, and she licked her lip. —Sorry . . .

The door banged against the wall. —They're still there only talking ... The door banged closed. —Esther . . . you don't understand? His hand opened. —You're not . . . going to ... —Not yet, because tonight, when I've done what I have to do ... —Not yet! She stepped away as though she had broken from him. The clothes bundle fell to the floor. He put a hand out, and then withdrew it slowly, and stooped to recover the clothes. Esther stared at the wrinkled black of his bent unsteady figure only for a moment. Then she opened the handkerchief, wadded all this time in her hand, and blew her nose as she crossed the room to the mirror, and he backed toward the door. —I'd better go, he said, from there. She did not answer. She had picked up a lipstick, and stood contorting her mouth, drawing generous lips. Then a rush of sound broke over her, and she looked up quick as the door came open behind him, and he stood there in the course of the waves pouring in around him, his back to it, not straight but still as a rock secure against the flood, safe until the turn of the tide. —Because this . . . one thing I have to do is ... crucial, Esther. —Crucial? she repeated calmly, and still she did not turn from the mirror. —And you think it will work, well it won't. Whatever it is, it won't. She watched her lips as she spoke, paused to draw them in, purse them, separate them so that her large teeth showed, and smudge the handkerchief between them. And she stopped, dry and silent, as the door came closed where he stood against it. —What are you going to do? she asked him. —I don't mean this . . . thing you're up to now, this crucial thing, whatever it is, I don't care what it is, but after all this what are you going to do? What are you going to do? —I don't know but I think ... he started precipitously, and as he went on his voice was strained but for the first time there was no doubt in it, and no effort to control excitement, —if we go on ... if we go on we're finally forced to do the right thing, but . . . and how can I say, now, where, or with whom ... or what it will be. Then he lost his balance and almost went over as the door came open behind him in someone else's hand. —Rose! —I saw you here. —My razor, I forgot that, he said, between them, turning. —A straight razor with black handles, is it in the bathroom? Rose followed him there. Looking for the thing, he paused half turned to her, seeming slightly confused at the scent of lavender she brought with her. —Rose ... —I heard a poem, Rose said, —"A magnet hung in a hardware shop ..." —It's not here. —Rose, Esther said, —that music is too loud, Rose. Around them the sounds of voices reached separate crests, broke in spray, and lay in foam awash on the surface of the swells as the music rose and receded, and the faces themselves seemed to lift into a moment's prominence, immediately lost in the trough that followed. So Benny's face was raised, and stood out inflated with effort, and dropped from sight again. —To find out what sex it is you just spread it out and blow. Esther looked down to see the kitten, unfurled upside down between large thumbs. —Here, give it to me, give it to me, she said, rescuing it. The nausea startled up in her for a moment. —It's the worst feeling in the world, said the tall woman beside her. —What? Esther asked, drawing the kitten in to her. —To know you've laid a cigarette down somewhere. The little girl tugged at her skirt. —Mummy sent me up again . . . The tall woman laid a hand on her wrist. —You didn't tell me that he was coming tonight. Esther turned quickly, startled. —Do you know him? —No, my dear, and I didn't know that you did. —But . . . Oh, Esther said. Looking round to where he had been standing beside her she realized that the tall woman was talking about someone else. —Did you like his book? —What book? Esther asked, looking where the tall woman was looking, at a man in a tan suit who had just fallen over one end of the couch. —Now don't tell me you don't know about The Trees of Home? Or are you snobbish about best sellers too? —No, I ... —My husband says he stole the plot from the Flying Dutchman, whoever that is. My husband meets all sorts of people. The man in the tan suit, back on his feet, was saying, —Why should I bother to write the crap for those speeches? I'm lucky I can stand up before the Rotary Club and deliver them. Some faggot writes them for me. Near him, someone obligingly derived fnggot from the Greek phagein. —Phag-, phago-, -phagous, -phagy, -phagia . . . the voice whined. —It means to eat. Arny Munk, propped against a wall with Sonny Byron's arm around him, said, —Really ought to tell Maude, ought to tell her . . . huhhh . . . the University of Rochester has discovered huhhhh how to make synthetic morphine huhhhhp from coal tar dyes . . . —I think you're sweet, said Sonny Byron, soberly. Mr. Feddle was standing on a chair, reaching for a book on a high shelf. The swinging alarm clock hit a girl on the back of the head, and she stopped singing I Can't Give You Anything But Love. Esther, listening intently beyond the tall woman's voice to escape it, heard only a whine, —the decay of meaning, and you can't speak a sentence that doesn't reflect it. You're enthusiastic over sealed-beam headlights. Enthousiazein, even two hundred years ago it still meant being filled with the spirit of God . . . She would have gone direct to the couch and sat down, had not Benny caught her by both hands and turned her to face him. —Where did he go? Where is he? Who was that? —Why . . . my husband. Do you know him? —Where is he? What was he doing here? —He just came to get . . . some things . . . Two or three people turned, curious at the tone in their voices, Benny's excitedly high, while Esther spoke with faltering intensity, as though forced to affirm, and repeat affirmation to this impersonal, circumstantial demand which was Benny. —You're hurting my wrists, she said. —But ... I thought I'd never see him again. Isn't that . . . isn't that ... I never wanted to see him again, and now here he is and I want to see him, I have to see him, where is he? —I can't believe he's really gone, she murmured as they took their eyes from each other and looked toward the door, saw only the young man whose heavy mustache seemed to weigh his round head forward, looking at them, innocent, anxious at their sudden scrutiny. —Ellery, did you see him? I mean, he was just here, did you see him leave, Ellery? —Sorry, old girl. He broke a leg. Had to shoot him. —Really, Ellery, please. I've got to find him, is he still here? She had taken hold of Benny's arm; and who Benny was, or what he wanted, ceased in her grasp which held Benny forth, a dumb prodigy, to witness that the matter was not hers, but necessity's own. —A shame to shoot him, a fine blooded animal like that ... It was difficult to know if the blonde beside Ellery was trying, but unable, to smile, or subduing that smile which is stupidity's cordial greeting to matters which its very nature excuses it from attempting to understand: so she looked, not at Esther, but at the silent phenomenon of Esther's evidence, as though there might be immediately apparent not only the evidence, but the very nature of the case itself, and its disposition not understanding, but dismissal. —Ellery . . . —The truck just came around from the Futtybrook Hunt Club, skinned him, cut him up, took him back to the kennels. Dog meat . . . Benny tore from Esther's grasp, and, stepping forward, he said, —Ellery, what's the matter with you, good God Ellery will you . . . —Hell of an end for a thoroughbred. —Stop it, will you tell us ... Benny commenced, raising his hands. —Come on, Benny. You're drunk, Ellery said, grinning and looking at him, and the blonde looked at Esther, no longer plaintiff but witness herself to the relieving and obvious fact that there was really nothing to be concerned about after all. —He's gone, Ellery said easily. —I saw him leave a minute or two ago. He put a hand on Benny's shoulder. —Come on, Benny, Christ. Straighten up. I told you you deserved a drink, but not a whole bottle . . . Benny drew away from him, without even looking at his face; and Ellery shrugged, took a deep inhalation from his cigarette, winking at the blonde as he turned away. Esther and Benny stood silent, as though both listening for denial of Ellery, for explanation of one another. —That very odd girl with the green tongue has been telling me that it was really the Jews who discovered America, said the tall woman, her back to them. —Isabella's jewels didn't have a thing to do with it, backing Columbus I mean, it seems it was Isabella's Jews . . . They both looked up, and both spoke at once. But Esther stopped. —He was a draftsman, wasn't he. Were you married to him then? He was only a draftsman, and I was a designer. We worked together. He never mentioned me, did he. Well why, why should he, why should he have mentioned me to anybody, why . . . Over his shoulder, Esther looked up to see the brown eyes of the critic; then she turned back to Benny with a different look on her face. —Don't you want to sit down somewhere? she said. —He never talked about me, did he. And why should you care, what would it matter to you? And why should I care now, why should I want to see him, because anyhow everything's different now. And it's all different for him too, isn't it. Why should I want to see him now, any more than . . . why should we have even worked together then, what . . . because everything's different now, I'm fine now, I'm getting along fine, and is he? What's he doing now? Is he happy now? Is he getting along fine, like I am? Did everything change for him too, so that ... Is he doing what he wanted to do now? or like me, is he doing what he can do, what he has to do ... —Why don't you just sit down here? Esther said as they reached the couch. —Can I bring you some coffee? She hesitated, and turned away. —That's funny. That's funny, Benny said, sitting down slowly. —But you didn't tell me what he's doing now. That's funny. God. Benny blew his nose, and looked round him. He saw the back of his own flannel suit, and heard the voice of the man in it saying, —It's not really my line of work, I'm really a sort of historian, a musicologist, you might say, but I've been trying to get permission from the city to operate a public toilet concession in New York . . . Could you hand me those crackers? The woman in the collapsed maternity dress said to someone, —And you see that person in the green shirt, you see that scar on his nose? Well I understand that he had his nose bobbed, an expensive plastic surgeon did it and some girl paid for it, didn't leave a mark, and then one night when he was in bed a radio fell off the shelf and gave him that scar, there's poetic justice . . . heh, heh heh heh ... —What's his name? —Him? It's ... I can't think of it, but it's one of those nice names, you know the kind they take, like White, White is a good nigger name. Nearby, Mr. Crotcher had settled into an armchair, and begun moaning accompaniment to a harpsichord fraction of the Harmonious Blacksmith. He stopped to look down, and say, —Good heavens, good heavens, where did you come from? Get away. You're going to have an accident, get away, getaway getaway getaway . . . The baby, with a welt rising on its forehead, had begun to climb up his leg. Out of sight, the girl with bandaged wrists was saying, —After all, this is its first birthday, so this is kind of a birthday party for it too ... —Started to call himself Jacques San-jay when he went into interior decorating, someone said. —I knew him when his name was Jack Singer. —So after that, the old man left me with nothing but fifty tons of sugar that I can't unload, and they're forcing me to take delivery. Do you think Esther would mind storing it here? —Yess, said the dark man in the sharkskin suit, —I was told that the Stock market in New York was a complex affair. —Maybe I ought to have it dumped on the old man's doorstep. Chr-ahst, after a trick like that. Now all I have to do is sell one of his God-damned battleships . . . —Ah? How fortunate, said the shark-skinned Argentine. —For a moment I thought I was at the wrong party. —Dear God no, the tall woman was saying, —my husband hasn't got any friends. He doesn't have the time. —Well look, it's obvious to any thinking person. The Swiss have banks all over the world. What's more necessary to a successful war than banks? Mr. Feddle, concentrating on an open book (it was Frothingham's Aratos) was bumped aside by someone looking for an encyclopedia. —Got to look up a mutt, named Chavenay. Sounds French. —You have to really live there to understand why France has turned out so many great thinkers, and artists, a girl said. —Just live there for awhile and get a load of what they have to revolt against, and anybody would be great. The boy who had got an advance on his novel said, —I wanted to sort of celebrate, but what the hell. Where are the nice places? They're all business lunchrooms, do you know what I mean? Expense accounts. They're all supported by expense accounts. It's depressing as hell. —But my dear boy, why should all this bother you? said the tall woman, who had appeared. — You don't have to eat in these places all the time. Look at my husband, he has to. —I know. But it's depressing as hell, where can you celebrate? —I'd suggest Nedick's, said the tall woman. —I'd suggest Murti-Bing, said the young man with no novel to advance. —Oh, where is that? said the tall woman. —I don't believe I've ever eaten there. —Fifty million tons of food a year eaten in New York, what does that mean? —Something terrible happened, Stanley. Agnes put her hand on his. —I'm sorry, Stanley said. —If you'll just give me my glasses . . . —No, dear, I'm not talking about that, and that was so long ago, that night . . . She was looking in her purse. —Here, she said, —you'll have to read it yourself. What am I going to do, Stanley? Her hand shook as she dragged the letter from her bag. —It was a terrible thing to do, an unforgivable thing to do to this poor man but he's got to forgive me, and how can I ... what can I do to ... so he will? Stanley unfolded the letter from the Police Department; and Agnes felt a gentle tap on the shoulder, and turned. —Did you see a kitty-cat here, lady? —Why there was a kitten here somewhere, Agnes said, looking round her, —but I guess the kitty-cat has gone to bed. What are you doing up so late? —My mummy sent me up to get some sleeping pills, but I can't find the lady who . . . —Now don't you bother the nice lady, said Agnes, rummaging in the bottom of her large purse, taking out a French enameled thimble case.
—I have some right here. Is three enough? You just take these down to Mummy. And I've already written him. She looked up at Stanley. —Thank you, lady. Where'd you get the funny watch? —Why, Mickey Mouse is my loyal faithful friend, said Agnes. —I can always trust him. —What have you got the funny things sticking on your face for? —Where . . . Agnes raised her hand, to feel the strip of tape at her temple, put there to discourage wrinkles when she lay down. —Oh my God, and they've been there . . . why didn't someone . . . —What are they for, lady? the child asked as Agnes tore them off, and opened her compact. —Go along down to Mummy now, for God's sake. —He would understand, if you went to him, Stanley said, handing the letter back. —If you went to him and . . . —I couldn't face him. To ask forgiveness . . . —Is a sublime test of humility . . . —And he's really rather an awful person I think . . . —And from your interiors an even greater trial. —I want to do something, and . . . but don't you think I might just send him something? Maybe some sort of nice gift . . . yes, something nice and you know fairly expensively nice for his daughter? —I think, Stanley commenced soberly, —that really, for your own good . . . —Oh, let's stop thinking about it for a little while, she interrupted. —I just get so ... tired of the terrible things I get in the mail. She smiled up at him briskly, and tightened her grasp on his hand. —Tell me about your music, Stanley, this long whatever-it-is that you've been working on for so long. Oh, and your tooth? I'm sorry, I forgot to ask. —I think it went away, the toothache, it didn't last, but my work, it's an organ concerto but it isn't finished yet. —But you've been working on it for months. —For years, he said. —And you know, I look at the clean paper that I'm saving to write the finished score on, and then I look at the pile of ... what I've been working on, and, well I can see it all right there, finished. And yet, well . . . you know I never read Nietzsche, but I did come across something he said somewhere, somewhere where he mentioned "the melancholia of things completed." Do you . . . well that's what he meant. I don't know, but somehow you get used to living among palimpsests. Somehow that's what happens, double and triple palimpsests pile up and you keep erasing, and altering, and adding, always trying to account for this accumulation, to order it, to locate every particle in its place in one whole . . . —But Stanley, couldn't you just ... I don't know what a palimsest is, but couldn't you just finish off this thing you're working on now, and then go on and write another? She ran her hand over his, resting on the chair arm there; and Stanley called her by her Christian name for the first time. —No, that's . . . you see, that's the trouble, Agnes, he said. —It's as though this one thing must contain it all, all in one piece of work, because, well it's as though finishing it strikes it dead, do you understand? And that's frightening, it's easy enough to understand why, killing the one thing you . . . love. I understand it, and I'll explain it to you, but that, you see, that's what's frightening, and you anticipate that, you feel it all the time you're working and that's why the palimpsests pile up, because you can still make changes and the possibility of perfection is still there, but the first note that goes on the final score is ... well that's what Nietzsche . . . —All I know about Nietzsche is that he's decadent, that's what they say. Stanley withdrew his hand, and it hung in air for a moment, like an object suddenly unfamiliar, which he did not know how to dispose of. —He was, because of ... well that's the reason right there, because of negation. That is the work of Antichrist. That is the word of Satan, No, the Eternal No, Stanley said, and put his hand in his pocket. Agnes Deigh looked at her own hand on the arm of her chair. Two of the tanned fingers rose, and went down again; and when she looked over to where the critic had joined Benny on the couch, and sat, smoothing down the back of his hair, her face took the expression of the man she looked at, one of contemptuous, almost amused indulgence, though she did not have the dark hollows in her face, nor the brow and the forehead worn so with this expression that it looked natural; rather she looked uncomfortable, saying, -Those two look like they're discussing the same thing we are, and he should know, that one . . . —You know what I thought of immediately just now when I looked up and saw them? Stanley said, earnestly. —I thought of El Greco before the Inquisition, arguing the dimensions of angels' wings. He looks like an Inquisitor, that dark fellow. People laugh at arguments like that now, and how many angels can dance on the end of a pin. But it's not funny, it's very wonderful. Science hasn't explained it, and you know why, because science doesn't even understand the question, any more than science understands . . . You know, Agnes, this concerto I'm working on, if I'd lived three hundred years ago, why . . . then it would be a Mass. A Requiem Mass. —Einstein . . . someone said. —Epstein . . . said someone else. —Gertrude . . . —Of course you're familiar with Heisenberg's Principle of Uncertainty. Have you ever observed sand fleas? Well I'm working on a film which not only substantiates it but illustrates perfectly the metaphor of the theoretic and the real situation. And after all, what else is there? —Who was it that said, "a little lower than the angels"? —That? it's in that poem about "What is man, that thou art mindful of him." That was Pope. —Which one? At this point, Anselm, in a shirt torn at the shoulder, his hair tousled and on end, unshaven, and clutching a magazine and two books, appeared in the door. No one seemed to notice him; and he stood there silent for some time. The music had got quite loud. —There, you see? said someone more loudly, —I told you. It is Handel. The Gods Go A-Begging, so there! Benny's face was fleshy. Moreover, though it was not puffy, it seemed to be flesh recently acquired, and his expressions seemed, if such a thing were possible, to have difficulty in reaching the surface or, once arrived, to represent with conviction the feelings which had risen from within. So it appeared; though it may be that this want of precision pervaded the source itself, and his amorphous facade faithfully expressed confused furnishings, broken steps mounting deep stairwells, rooms boarded up, in disuse, and rooms of one character being used for new and timely purposes in the interior castle, whose defenses were not yet adjusted to the new tenancy but being constantly hastily altered in the midst of skirmishes, before that battle which would be the last. —God is love, telling that to a Welsh Corgi in labor, isn't that divine? the girl with Boston accents laughed, and Benny, who had 6oo