Conrad Aiken - Great Circle

— Resistance.

— What the hell do you mean.

— All this is just your evasion of what is for you a painful subject — something you don’t dare look in the eye. Yourself.

— Yes, indeed. There are many things I don’t look in the eye, my dear Bill. Why should I. Most, if not all, aspects of existence are disagreeable. The art of living is the art of the exclusion or mitigation of the disagreeable. Why go about deliberately rubbing one’s snout in the mud? Not by a damned sight. What the hell is whisky for? What the hell is music for, or painting, or poetry, or psychoanalysis? All of them escapes. Don’t tell me analysis is an abstract pure science — good God no. It’s an anodyne, both for the analyst and the patient, and they both enjoy it thoroughly. It’s a debauch at one remove. You can’t fool me. No. There you are, in your God-damned Morris chair — I hate that chair — goggling at me and leering and having a hell of a good time ferreting out my secrets — why? Disinterested service to mankind? Not by a hell of a way. You’re a paltry little voyeur . Afraid to live yourself, you take it out by digging into other peoples’ little filths and disasters. Yes, by God. That’s what it is. Vicarious sexperience! What a dirty little thrill you get in reminding me that I stopped sleeping with Bertha! And in suspecting all sort of dirty little reasons for it! I drink to you, Bill, old boy — you have a swell time, don’t you. You wrap yourself in all the dirty sheets of the world. The world is your soiled-clothes basket. What’s them spots on the sheet, Miranda? Oh, them’s the maculate conception, them is.

— Ha, ha. There’s a hell of a lot in what you say.

— Of course there is. Have a drink.

— Why do you hate this chair.

— Oh, pitiful little Bill.

— You’re fond of the word little , and the word dirty , aren’t you.

— Dirty little.

— Equals fecal infantine.

— Look at the snow, Bill — it must be six inches deep.

— No, I think it’s seven.

— We are seven. Against Thebes. Did you ever read the Anabasis? Do you remember the Arabian sparrows?

— You mentioned them before. Why do you mention them again.

— Damned if I know. Rather funny.

— Why don’t you sit down, instead of pacing around the room. That’s the second time you’ve knocked over that ash stand. Give it a rest.

— Perhaps I’d better. Whoooof.

— Do you feel sick.

— No. I’m all right. A little bewildered all of a sudden, that’s all.

— Eat some crackers.

— No, I’m all right. I’m all right. But what a whirl. I thought I was unhappy. What a whirl, what a joke. You know the feeling. Delirious, delicious. Clutching the inevitable. The postage-stamp going for a ride on the back of the ant. What did I say to her? Ma non è vero. Voi credete che si muove — ma non è vero . And she laughed like hell.… Christ, what a breeze.

— Yes, indeed. I suppose you see it.

— Why shouldn’t I — pigs see the wind, and it’s pink. But, my God, how I hurt her feelings. Ma non è vero . She said she saw me in the Piazza, drinking a cup of café nero at one of those iron tables, and that I was thinking. I denied it. I never think. And she laughed like hell.

— What the hell are you talking about.

— From Venice as far as Belmont.

— Why don’t you try to take a nap.

— Good God, man, what am I? Don’t be insulting. Take a nap yourself if you feel like it. Go on, you take it. Take the couch. Wrap your feet in snow, it’s pure. Puzzle record number two is now ready, on sale at the nearest dealer. Contains two tunes. Can you find them. I think I’ll be an advertising man. There’s no money in private tutoring. None. Never. But puzzle record number two is now ready, that’s the think to remember. That ought to interest any analyst. Analist. How do you pronounce the anal? Christ, what a breeze.

— I’m laughing.

— That’s good of you. Presently I’ll laugh too, I’ll join you. Take a seat, madam, and I’ll join you presently.

— What’s this about Venice.

— As far as Belmont. Shakespeare said that. He was always saying things like that. He said everything, the damned bastard, except the truth. But, my God, how I hurt her. I think she was in love with me. She was teaching me Italian at the Berlitz — excuse me — school. And I ran away from her. I paid off and left without even saying good-by to her. She saw me. She came out into the hall just as I was paying the bill, and saw me. And even then, I didn’t say anything to her. I just smiled. What kind of a smile, Bill? There are many kinds of a smile. You know. This was a guilty smile, a Judas smile, a cut-throat smile, a tombstone smile. E divieto il nuoto. Il nuoto è vietato . As if anybody would want to swim in their foul canals anyway. Did you ever see them? Jesus. It’s a lot of liquid garbage. But at the Lido, those German fräuleins, with their one-piece bathing suits and their delirious, upstanding breasts — Christ, what a breeze. And strawberries, too, con panna . She admired Tiepolo. One afternoon we took a gondola and saw them all. Putty cupids. Wings everywhere. Angels ascending and descending and all diaphanous — such pinks and blues, Bill, such pallors of pink and blue. But that was far away. And then there was — hell, I can’t even remember her name. At Interlaken. I ran all the way from Venice to Interlaken, and the hotel was only just opened for the season, and I was the only person there, and the maid who waited on the table — I’ve forgotten her name. Elsa! When I paid my bill after a week, the manageress looked hard at me and said, “Elsa will be sorry you go. She will miss you.” I went back into the dining room and gave Elsa a good tip, I don’t remember how much it was. She was crying. I told her the number of my room, but she never came. I told her I would take her for a walk, on her afternoon off, but I never did. I said she ought to marry and have six children, all of them with blue eyes and golden hair, and she laughed, she giggled, she simpered, she went to the other side of the room and stood up on a chair, pretending to rearrange dishes on a shelf, so that I could have a good look at her legs. My God, I was excited about her. But when I saw she was excited too, I got frightened. I ran away again, this time to Paris. What I really wanted was to get back to the Atlantic Ocean, to salt water, freedom. Something I knew. I wanted to leave behind me my wife, Elsa, and my six blue-eyed golden-haired children, by gum. Elsa, with her lovely teeth, false every one of them. That’s what Alan said. I met him later in London, and told him about her, and he said he would go there, in Interlaken, and give her my love. He did, and she cried again. And he said, on a postcard, I love her false teeth, every one of them. Just the same, she was damned pretty, damned nice. I’m sorry about it. At this very minute I might be living in a Swiss chalet with Elsa and the six children and the cow. And an Alp-horn, Bill!

— What the hell.

— Where else, Cambridge, Mass. Harvard Central Kendal Park, through the subway in the dark. But this was later, much later. And now Alan is dead, and all the others are dead, everybody I loved is dead, whenever I pick up a newspaper somebody is dead. Anyway, Elsa’s skull will have detachable teeth. What a rush there must be on the escalator to hell. Among the lost people. Per me si va nella città dolente . Have your tickets ready, with your passport, please — have your tickets ready, with your passport, please. Brattle Street is, as you might say, one of the main arteries of hell. Cambridge is a flourishing suburb. What swarms of hypocrites there be mounting the slopes of Calvary.