Conrad Aiken - Great Circle

and walking away walking away

now the man with mustaches is showing us the new house the peculiar house with glass walls we follow him up the stairs all four of us follow him the three others ahead of me I am last going up the glass stairs the glass curtains too and the cupboards of glass it is all very bright and clear and artificial it is an artifact where have the others gone I hear their voices but I do not see them they have gone round the corner or into another room and here is a w. c. and I am determined yes I will have time will I have time yes there is plenty of time but the voices suddenly come nearer they are all looking in what a nice bathroom too O isn’t it a nice bathroom but the stairs we go down are narrower and darker than before and who are these people these three people and the man who has gone ahead somewhere with mustaches into the street and along toward the factory alone the waterfall is pouring out of the side of the factory across the sidewalk how can I get past is it safe shall I cross to the other side of the street no I will stay on this side but it is poisonous water it is acid it is yellow I can feel the spray burning my cheek and hands it spouts out in innumerable jets and splashes upward from the sidewalk yellow and acid

Is that you Andy is that you Bertha Andy and Bertha

and this medical student whom I knew at Harvard too walking beside me and looking at me in a peculiar way over the tip of his mustache

No I don’t live there any more do you live there still

I am married

I am now a gynecologist

I will walk with you as far as that little Catholic church

We played tennis once on Soldiers’ Field the ball hit you in the face is that why you are blind or was it because you were looking through a peephole I can see that you don’t like me

he grins at me as if he knew that I am afraid of him he is tall and takes a longer step wears tweeds brown shoes and an A.D. hat band or is it the Gas House we separate in silence before the church and I am going in beside an old woman it smells of incense and is full of images chasubles crucibles chrysms chrysoprases columns and columns and columns of white plaster the cheap painted stations of the cross gaunt yellow jaundiced marble crucifix and all the old women kneeling among the images I stand behind them and look at all the bright brasses and silvers and hanging lamps the rows of little candles and the priest is coming down the aisle toward me as I go out again his crooked mouth

My dear friends I would like to tell you that although this is the house of god you need not only think of it as a house of images it is not only a collection of images and objects and simulacra it is a place of friendship here you can speak to a friend of that which is nearest and dearest to your heart lay down your burdens before embodied kindness I am your friend the voice dies down behind me dies away here are the fields and the trees there with sunlight on their bark and leaves and the stone wall beside the road here under the tree I am sitting in the grass on a little knoll and looking into a green wood and in the secret grass what is this a thimble a crushed thimble Bertha’s thimble and also the rouge compact but I open it and there is no rouge in it no powder only three old corroded pennies and I walk with them to the corner of the park opposite the tall apartment house where the Negress is standing watching me by the door it is Clara the cook does she know what I am coming for yes she knows and is watching me Bertha has told her to watch me

Good morning Mister Cather

I am not coming in I am going down there where the children are playing in the meadow beside the marsh picking flowers the little boy and the little girl picking flowers spring flowers too wild columbine and crowfoot violet look children there is another flower over there do you see it in the marsh how is it you have forgotten to get that one too it is an orchid you can see it is some kind of green-and-white speckled tall orchid perhaps it wasn’t there a moment ago but now it is there you can see it but can you reach it or is there too much water in the marsh yes it is very wet but wait by the wall don’t go back to the city yet and it is I who will nobly go to the edge of the marsh stepping now on the spongy moss the water bubbles my hand out body stooping can I reach it yes the rare orchid for the two strange children

the shape of my left foot made of hollows built like a crystal a bone of slow dark crystals off there too curving downward as if a pain of accretions items but this is a walk I am walking this is Harvard Street Arrow Street Bow Street the College Yard and there is Fred walking ahead of me turns his head a package under his arm looks away from me the buildings have changed moved away where is Gore Hall the path strange too yellow sand no trees but a wideness

Widener

Are you going to the poolroom

pays no attention goes to the left walks ahead of me looking back is on wheels in a little car cart an old Ford is it Rodman saying the Spanish Grammar has been read and is a deep sleep yes a deep sleep I am rolling a large hoop ribbons tied round the rim he watches me it leans always to one side the wind blowing the ribbons it careens why

Why don’t you hit it on the other side keep it straight and here is the Fair will you go round or through it if you go through it you may lose your hoop and once we played Ping-pong in Concord Avenue or was it Shepard and the Fair here

Good-by I am going in I will get through diagonally the narrow crowded path of children drums horns the squealing merry-go-round calliope steam spouting an inclosure of wire a long alley for Ping-pong the Japanese hits the ball to the other end of the wire enclosure look it explodes when the other hits it it opens becomes a go-cart rolling quickly back to us on wheels with a child in it no a doll a puppet nodding and another ball hit another explosion flash bang a little balloon going up diagonally then I am turning to the right and cross the street something my foot lifting the two feet together hopping see I am walking slowly queerly like an animal what animal is it a penguin can I get across doing it without being hit by that car yes it is all right and Shepard Hall there but changed redder brighter smaller and a restaurant in the hall no letter boxes what has happened but I was living here where is the janitor where is Mister O’Connor where is Jack a strange janitor with a mop on the wet marble floor this is now a dormitory for students

Can you tell me Jack’s address

No he is gone perhaps I could find it

Send it to Widener

Yes

obras obras obras that book is out Mister Gather for another week but here is the key with the large wooden handle and on the handle is Jack’s address Waxage Street somewhere in Somerville carved on the handle and his name too carved the last thing he did before he went away Uncle David is of course dead Uncle Tom has gone off for the day not back in time the house he lives in now too far away take a Belmont bus walk through Craigie Street and find the house with open walls go upstairs Aunt Norah is very old and small bending down to the floor her white head wants to go downstairs you will have to carry her how small light white she is as I go down the carpeted stairs her arm is round my neck

I am your child now

the saucy face impish smiles detachedly looks at me indifferently wide-eyed like an infant at the breast but on my shoulder the small head I have been kind am being kind will give her a conch shell a house by the sea in that village leave her here and call Bertha