Conrad Aiken - Conversation; or, Pilgrims' Progress

“That’s the way it’s been, Tip. That’s the way it’s been all day.”

“I think you were a little hard on her, Karl.”

“Yeah, I know, I know. I was a little hard on her. But it’s the only way to treat her when she goes hysterical. And don’t I know it. She’ll get over it; she always does. You just have to spank her, and then she has a good cry and gets over it. She’ll come back as sweet as pie.”

“Maybe. But I think this is a little different. Maybe you’d better go up and talk to her.”

“No. Let her have her cry first.”

“By god, I’m so hungry! I wonder if there are any of those sardines left?”

“There was one in the kitchen, by the sink — I saw it with my own eyes. But Lorna may have got it, I wouldn’t be surprised. One little sardine. First come, first served in this house. What we need is the miracle of the loaves and fishes. I wish to god there was a delicatessen in this dump. What couldn’t I do to a wiener schnitzel ! Boy. Or a nice big plate of spaghetti.”

“That’s what it’s been like all day, Tip — first Lorna, and then Kitty. They want to go back to New York. And I’ve got this place for six months, I’ve paid the rent for six months. And now your friend Paul’s sore about his canoe—”

“Tell him about the canoe.”

“Well, what about the canoe. I noticed there was a lot of mud in it.”

“Mud! You call that mud, Mister Kane? You can’t ever have seen any mud. You amaze me. Tell him about it, Jim.”

“I don’t really think it was our fault, kid, I don’t really think it was, but Paul seems almost to think we did it on purpose.”

“Yeah, and is Paul burned up! Is he frying! Go on, tell him the whole story.”

“What happened?”

“Well, kid, we were supposed to go up there yesterday in the canoe. Paul asked us to come up, and told us how to get there. And it seems there was a misunderstanding.”

“A misunderstanding! Am I laughing?”

“We don’t know anything about boats — so he gave us directions. He said when we got up to the place opposite the golf links — you know, where the lagoon begins — there would be a little narrow place in the river, and then it would broaden out again. He said it would be too shallow on the left, or too much eelgrass — is that it, eelgrass? — or something, and so he told us to keep the canoe as close as we could to the right-hand shore. And then follow that shore till we got to his boathouse. See? Well, we did exactly as he told us—”

“I’m afraid Mister Kane will be a little contemptuous? I’m afraid he’ll think we’re just a pair of landlubbers — eh, Mister Kane?”

“We did exactly as he told us. But when we tried to keep as close to the shore as all that, well, there wasn’t enough water even for a canoe — so we had to get out.”

“You had to get out!”

“Yeah, we had to get out. We ran aground on the mud. So we had to get out and push it.”

“Push it! Good lord.”

“Yeah, push it. Karl took the front and I took the back. But we didn’t realize there was so much mud, that it would be as soft as that — gosh, we sunk in up to our knees. We had to pull off our shoes and stockings, then, and put them in the canoe — it took us over an hour. I should think it must have been damned near two miles.”

“Yeah. Two miles as the mud flies!”

“At the end, we finally got to some deep water again, and got back in, but by that time the damage was done. And your friend Paul was pretty sore. It seems we had misunderstood him—”

“ And how. Oh, boy, this is killing me!”

“—and that he didn’t mean us to stick as close as all that to the bank, but just to follow it, for guidance, you see? But how could we know that? He said the other side was too shallow or something — by god, kid, but it certainly was a mess! And then we stuck our feet in the kitchen oven to dry—”

“And did Paul like that? Did your exquisite friend Paul like that? He did not. You’d have thought we were desecrating the place. I fear your friend Paul is just a shade dainty, if you know what I mean?”

“Dainty! I never knew it.”

“Yes, and it seemed to me too that he was just a little too curious, and asked just a few too many questions. He was exceedingly inquisitive. Did you notice that, Jim?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You mean to say you didn’t notice that?”

“What sort of questions?”

“Oh, he was very cagey, your friend Paul was. He wanted to know all sorts of things. I’m afraid Jim is a little naïve, he fell for it. Questions about his profession, questions about his technique.”

“His technique?”

“Sure, his technique. What you and I do with a camel’s hair brush, and Jim does with legerdemain. Do you get me? The technique of redistribution. Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy — do I amuse myself to death! Am I burned alive! And you sure had him fascinated, Jim — Yeah, he was all hopped up with the idea that at last he was seeing life in the raw. You’d have thought he was entertaining a couple of Apaches. I think, Mister Kane, he was even a little frightened. And that reminds me — don’t you sometimes feel a little out of your element with us, a little out of your depth? You Bostonians are so godawful refined—”

“Don’t be a damned fool, Karl. Why in hell should I feel out of my element? I always take my own element with me!”

“Ah, very neat, very neat. But a little unconvincing?”

“Not at all.”

“Yes, I’ve occasionally felt that you were just a shade self-conscious with us, just a shade uncomfortable. I’ve noticed it when you were in New York. How is it you Bostonians keep so exquisitely innocent. Or is it a refined kind of hypocrisy, Mister Kane, and are you keeping things up your sleeve? Maybe that’s it. Maybe we’d be surprised if we really knew you.”

“Maybe you would. Maybe you will.”

“But don’t let’s be unpleasant.”

“Were you being unpleasant?”

“Ah, perhaps I wasn’t. Sometimes I don’t know my own subtlety.”

“Yeah. I prefer your subtlety when it’s on canvas! It isn’t quite so ignoble.”

“Ignoble! Ouch! I led with my chin, that time. Yeah — you should never lead with your chin — or with your heart. Never lead with the heart! Well, I guess I’ll go up and see if I can calm Kitty down — why don’t you tell Mister Kane about your technique, Jim. It might amuse him!”

He got up slowly, indifferently, the dirty raincoat still held shroudlike over his shoulders, blinked the lashless blue eyes, smiling, with an affectation of cynicism which couldn’t wholly conceal the essential beauty — though a wasted beauty — of the pallid ascetic face, and then went quietly, the raincoat rustling, across the room and up the unpainted pine stairs.

“Karl gets my goat when he talks like that.”

“I think this place and Kitty have got on his nerves. He’s been crabbing everybody and everything. Don’t pay any attention to him, kid. When he sees you don’t mind, he quits.”

“Yes, I know. If only he weren’t such a damned good painter—”

“You think he is, don’t you?”

“Brilliant, yes — a real poetic genius for it. Too soon to say what’ll he do, of course, and he certainly ought to work a lot harder—”

“Yes, Kitty spoils him, of course—”

The piano paused in the next room, they heard Lorna coughing, and Jim half turned his head — across the front windows of the house, the long room, a gust of fine rain flew with quick needle-sound from window to window, stinging and darkening them — the soft sound then lost in the sudden resumption of the music. This time it was Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue — played languishingly, sentimentally, heavily, the rubatos hanging and dripping like sirup, like treacle. Jim’s eyes, hooded and solemn under the cap visor, looked toward the open door, he was listening intently, listening proudly.