Conrad Aiken - Great Circle

— Why Calvary again.

— Ah, but my dear chap, I’ve changed it this time. That’s my cunning. You thought you’d caught me, didn’t you. Why, here’s some Rhine wine, some echt love-lady milk, as I live and breathe.

— I wouldn’t begin mixing drinks, if I were you.

— But you aren’t me, Bill. Quod erat demonstrandum . Why not hang yourself on the wall like a bat beside that rusty harpoon. Upside down, like Dracula on the turret. Jesus! What a turn that gave me, in Paris, on Christmas Eve! It was snowing, too, just like tonight. Snowbroth.… Oh, sorry, damn that ash stand anyway. Why do you have it. It’s ugly.

— Why don’t you sit down.

— I will. There’s nothing I like better. Whoooof. My God, that went fast. But I saw it going, just the same.

— What.

— I think it was the nasturtium quid .

— What did it look like.

— Excuse me. I’m not really drunk, Bill. I’m not as much of a fool as you think. I can see pretty straight. I am thinking clearly, too. Very clearly. I see you distinctly, there, you with your three eyes, and an extra one in your ear. Oh, I know what you have them for, it’s all right, I understand it perfectly, every man to his taste, as the farmer said when he kissed the pig. There’s the pig again. But this death business. This dying business. These coffins. These funeral parlors. These greasy undertakers, and the ribbons on doors. Do you know what, Bill? We’re dying piecemeal. Every time some one you know dies, you die too, a little piece of you. Now a fingernail, now an eyelash. A hair today, a corpuscle tomorrow. Slowly, slowly. The liver, then the lights. And the worst of it is that what’s dead isn’t buried: it rots in you. There’s Alan, dead in my side. Elsa, dead in my prostate gland. Uncle David, dead in my right hand. My father, dead in my memory of geometry, turned to a putrid phosphorescent rhomboid. I’m a walking graveyard, a meditative dance of death. So are you. A bone orchard. Why if I were to investigate you, Bill — good God, how I widen my eyes at the mere thought! I’d probably know why you’re an amateur analyst. I’d know why you’re afraid to speak out. Why you sit there and wait for your poor fool of a patient to do the speaking for you. Who died on you, Bill? Who lies dead on your heart? Oh, Jesus. I feel sick. But that eye in your ear. What’s that, synesthesia? Dislocation? Per auram wollen sie? Und das hat mit ihrem singen. Per auram . I suppose it was your little sister, who died when you were twelve. I’m sorry — I shouldn’t have said that. Perhaps it was only a cat. But this death business — aren’t you really dead, Bill? And if not, why not? I’m dead. Any further death for me would be merely, as it were, a publication. No essential addition. Just take the bones out, Felix, and spread them on the grass. Burn them, and spread them on the grass. I feel sick.

— I don’t wonder. Why don’t you try the Roman feather.

— Don’t be simple-minded, you idiot. I don’t feel sick in any sense so God-damned easy.

— No?

— No.

— Then where’s your mother.

— Ah, ha! The cloven hoof. I knew I’d get you down to that at last.

— Down to what.

— The mother.

— Speak for yourself, Andy. I’m only trying to help you.

— Yes yes yes yes. So you are. Good old Bill. Top hole. But this death business. This dying, this piecemeal dying. This death that creeps in from the extremities, slowly, slowly — and up from the unconscious, too, darkly — these dreams of death, corruption, rot — it’s all been said, I know, I’m tiresome. But it’s real, just the same. To lie in massed corruption, and to stink. To walk through cold corruption, and to speak. To think through foul abstractions, and to live. You know what I mean. I hate you, but I’ll tell you. Shall I tell you? Yes, I’ll tell you. You don’t deserve it. You understand nothing, you have no perceptions, you’re a fool, a well-meaning fool, a failure, but I’ll tell you. What is it gives you such a power over the subtle, Bill? Your pseudonymous calm? No doubt. Your rare combination of muscle and breadth of brow. Brawn and brains. But the brains, not so hot. Not so hot. Why, with your stupidity and my brains, Bill, we’d rock the world. Let me see — I was going to tell you something. What was it. Oh, yes, it was my dream last night. This will be easy for you, and I make you a present of it, gratis. How did it begin? I was asleep with Bertha, that was it — and she woke me. She said we must go upstairs. So I got up and followed her upstairs, taking my pillow with me. It seemed to be a strange house, and yet somehow familiar. At the top of the stairs we went into a dark bedroom, and there, in a wide double bed, with a single bed beyond, were my mother and father. My father was in the single bed, and Bertha walked around to it. Meanwhile, I myself — tee-hee — crept softly into the wide bed with my mother, who was asleep. Isn’t this a beauty? Could consciousness go further in deliberate self-torture? I lay on my side, facing my sleeping mother, drew up my knees, and by accident touched her flank with one of my hands. I felt very small, my head and hands were small, my hair was close-cropped and thick (you see how young I was) — and also, suddenly, I was filled with horror. I got up hastily, and spoke to Bertha, who was somewhere in the dark. Told her I was going. She answered from the dark: “Do you call this a MARRIAGE?” I ran out into the hall, and darted down the stairs, which were dark, and there I discovered a strange thing — the stairs were strewn with the family silver — forks and knives and spoons were scattered all up and down, some of them still sliding slowly and heavily, as if only just launched downard by the burglar, who, I assumed, must be still in the house — a nameless ghost-like horror came over me, and I woke up. I woke up. Sweating.

— Jupiter and Semele.

— I don’t get you, but we needn’t go into it. Every man to his own interpretation, all of them correct. Oedipus complex, castration complex, anything you like.

— What about that silver.

— My family silver, that’s all.

— You recognized it.

— You bet. Acanthus pattern and everything.

— I suppose you have it?

— Of course I have it. It came down to me from my mother!.. Hot dog.

— Pretty good. I don’t seem to know much about your mother. You’ve never spoken much about her, have you.

— Why should I.

— How did she die.

— She was drowned.

— How old were you.

— Twelve. Anything else? I’d got all my second teeth. I knew how to read and write. My favorite book was Jackanapes . After that, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea . As you might expect.

— You said it, Andy! You’re helpless. None so blind as those who see and doubt it. You know all this, but you won’t let it do you any good. Isn’t that it? Think it over.

— Oh, for God’s sake, Bill.

— Anything you like. That’s a swell dream.

— Isn’t it, though? By God, yes. I knew you’d like it. But wait till I tell you the one about the bones.

— Why not go into this one a little more, first.

— Oh, no, what’s the use. It’s all as plain as a codpiece.

— It is to me. I’m not so sure it is to you.

— Take my word for it. I know what you mean — don’t be stupid! Sure, I’ll have a cracker and a drink. Why, hello, Michel, old fellow! Are you still there? My God, if I could only sculp — is that the word? — I’d twist the whole damned college yard into a single group of agonized gods that would send the northstar west. What a chance, what a chance. I’d squeeze Appleton Chapel with one squeeze into such a shape of hypocrisy and cold slow sweat as even Cambridge would recognize … Take it from me, kid, take it from me.