Conrad Aiken: Great Circle

He chose a book at random from the shelf by the fireplace, turned on the light and began to read, standing with his back to the hearth.

“Man is pre-eminently distinguished from the lower animals by the enormous development of his libido … he loves a great deal more than is necessary.”

He loves a great deal more than is necessary. Christ!

The impulse to fling the book down violently was translated quietly into a precise reinsertion of it in its place on the shelf. These psychologists. These fellows who become psychologists because they understand neither themselves nor any one else. These phrase-makers — man with his enormous libido, man with his persistent libido, man pre-eminently distinguished from the lower animals because his love is not confined to the rutting season! Pre-eminently distinguished from the birds by his lack of wings. Look at the poor devil, staggering through the world under his enormous burden of libido. I forgive you, Bertha, for now I realize that the burden of libido which you carry everywhere with you is far too much for you. Yes. Let us share it with you. Hand it about to the audience at Sanders Theater — God knows they could stand a little more. And if they and Tom don’t want it all — if there is something left over — a quantum, a surd, one tiny flame-plume — one eyelash-flicker of a loving look—

But no. Not that. My dear Bertha — Bertha my dear — need I explain to you the so very simple fact that after what has happened it will be impossible for us to resume — I mean, impossible for us to live — we must wave away the notion of a shared bedroom. You understand that. Old-fashioned of me, I daresay, but honest. Honest Andrew. What arrangement shall we make. Can we discuss it now quite calmly and sensibly. Shall I take a separate apartment next door. Shall we separate, or is it possible that now — now that this action has freed us — we can come together more usefully on another and perhaps more realistic plane. But not exactly — need I say — the planes of Abraham. No. And strange too that it is still with such a pang, though partly retrospective, and therefore sentimental—

And why was it with excitement, with quickened heartbeat, with unseeing eye, the familiar sensation of the face lowered so as to avoid the impalpable psychological problem, precisely as if it were a thing physically visible, that he approached Memorial Hall in the rain, slowing his steps as he passed Appleton Chapel, and even tempted, as long ago, to make a deliberate circuit of a block or two, for the mere gaining of time? Dismay? fear? doubt? animal distrust of the unknown? Pull yourself together. Enter. Climb the stairs. Ten minutes to eight. Take your seat and look about you.

The brown program in his hand, he climbed the steps to the balcony, found the seat near the parapet, which overlooked the absurd brightly lighted little auditorium of wooden Gothic, which Tom called late Visigothic or early Swiss Chalet, and watched the musicians filing on to the stage. The concert-master, Burgin, came last, and tucked his feet backward under the rung of his chair, as if for leverage when drawing the bow. Like the bird who tightens his claws on the twig, in order to release a particularly fine burst of song. And the squeakings and squawkings and runs and trills began, the grunts of the cellos, the tappings and listenings of the kettle drummer, all the delicious miscellany of tuning — while the audience of dodos and baldheads and wonderfully-bedizened frumps settled, and preened, and cooed at one another, or studied programs through telescopes. But was Bertha here. Was Tom here. Dared he lean over the edge and look. Would he be seen looking.

He looked, and she was not there. Nor Tom. The two seats, in the last row, were empty. But there were still people coming in — along the back — he watched them — and not finding her there, he looked down the aisle into the audience on the floor, where here and there little groups of women stood talking. Who was it who had made a standing bet with some one that if he could find more than three men in any one row of seats — and look at them tonight. Solid phalanxes of females. Aged females. As you progressed forward, toward the stage, solid rows of white hair, with now and then one solitary gleaming baldheaded octogenarian of a professor. Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly? Echo answers why. What did these creatures care about music, what did it mean to them? O God, O Cambridge.

“ Overture to ‘The Magic Flute.’ … Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Born at Salzburg, January 27, 1756; died at Vienna, December 5, 1791. Thirty-six years old. ”

Koussevitzky came quickly on to the stage, stepped with mathematical precision to his little dais, ascended, took up his baton, and as the applause drew him, pivoted with choreographic neatness. At precisely that moment, Bertha entered from the door at the far side and walked with quick, short steps, almost running, along the back, her hand clutching the blue velvet cloak against her breast. Alone. And as she dropped into her seat, he leaned over the edge of the parapet and felt that he drew forcibly upwards the surprised gaze that she lifted to him. She started visibly, controlled an impulse to rise again, and while still she looked at him he lifted his program, pointed to it, raised one finger in the air, and then with the waved program indicated the door. She nodded, and the overture began.

The Masonic chords drew themselves out, melancholy, profound, and the sad slow air followed them, the theme that later would be given to the delicious little hurdy-gurdy tune—“ Emanuel Johann Schikaneder, the author of the libretto of ‘The Magic Flute,’ was a wandering theater director … poet … improvident, shrewd, a bore.… ”

She was very white, she had on the blue velvet opera cloak, and under it the black satin. The white coral necklace. She sat stiffly, as if unseeing, but also as if aware embarrassedly that she was being looked at.

“ He asked Mozart to write the music for it. Mozart, pleased with the scenario, accepted the offer and said —”

Why was the overture considered gay, happy — for an undercurrent of sadness ran all through it. Papageno. Papagenesis. The birdcatcher. She was turning her face a little away from him, with a sort of frozen precision, self-conscious and a little evasive, but firm.

“ Mozart said —‘ I have never written magic music .…’ … Goethe once wrote of the text … Hegel praised the libretto highly … symbolical meanings. ”

And now the break, the cessation, the almost imperceptible pause, and then the rapid chatter of the fugue, the sudden sawed-off bursts of fiddle sound, the harsh quick downward scrapes of simultaneous bows, the brave sforzandi followed immediately by the swift twinkle, the delicate pattern, of the fugue, the mouse-dance, of light quick sound—

“ Schikaneder knew the ease with which Mozart wrote … knew that it was necessary to keep watch over him … put Mozart in a little pavilion which was in the midst of a garden near his theater … inspired by the beautiful eyes of the singing woman, Gerl.… ”

She looked ill. Her face was thinner, her eyes looked larger, were sombered, she was somehow nicer than he had thought her to be, she had been hurt. She was watching Koussevitzky intently, but the way in which her elbows were drawn in at her sides meant that she was conscious of the people who sat at left and right: who, nevertheless, were paying no attention to her.

“ Velvet of itself is a natural response to the new quest of lovely ladies for a fabric, luxurious unto the demands of this exacting mode.…” “Schikaneder’s name was in large type on the bill: Mozart’s name was in small type underneath the cast.… Schenk gave Beethoven lessons.… At the end of the Overture, he went to Mozart and kissed his hand. Mozart stroked his admirer’s cheek. Mozart went behind the scenes and saw Schikaneder in his costume of a bird .…”