Conrad Aiken - The Collected Short Stories of Conrad Aiken

The Jew walked to the mantel, and resting one foot on the brass fender, appeared to stare into the disintegrating coal fire. Identification! That word again. It was important—it meant that something, something very peculiar, was expected of him. Left thus to himself, Dace felt that at last a definite turning point had come, and felt also, quite clearly, that it was in his power to “go on” or not, just as he chose; not merely a power to refuse or acquiesce, but something much more singular—a power, if he liked, to acquiesce creatively . If the man was mad—and certainly the worn and shiny back, the high peaked shoulders, and comically bald head combined to produce an effect of decided queerness—his madness might be harmless, and was also, for Dace—and this struck him as remarkable—perfectly, potentially transparent . What Dace felt was indeed that if now he were to make the smallest effort (of a sort which he recognized brilliantly, but could scarcely analyze) he would not only be able to see the mechanism of the Jew as clearly as one sees the mechanism of a glass-cased clock, but also exactly what that mechanism, so driven and so eccentric, would demand of himself . Even this was not all. For was it not also true that, once he accepted this course, something of himself would have to be surrendered?… Would it not definitely involve his “descent,” or “ascent,” into that curious void, already glimpsed, of the “other” world?… Was he not quite clearly putting himself in the hands of this Jew?… Certainly the mere summoning up once more, before his mind’s eye, of the chessboard, the peculiar set of chessmen, was absurdly easy—he could do it without any effort whatever. It was, in fact, already there—he had only to look at it. If there was something just the least disquieting in this fact—in the fact that he might almost say that his mind was, in a manner, possessed —he at once waved the suggestion away. He looked, then, once again at the visionary board. It was closer, more pressingly vivid and alive, than ever. He could certainly, if he liked, put his hand out and touch it—he could certainly put his hand among the pieces, past the White King (whose crown showed the letters I. N. R.) and lift the fallen Knight, which was Judas. This was what he desired to do—he put out his hand, and as he did so, realized for the first time how extraordinarily important this action was for him. The fallen piece, however, resisted him as before, resisted his thought, would not be otherwise conceived than as fallen. But it must be lifted! He strained at the shadow, concentrating against it a whole world of shadows. He bent his life against it. It could not be seized, it would not budge. It was as if he were—yes—trying to lift a part of himself—a symbol—

The revelation was sudden enough to shock him. He broke into a cold sweat, and barely mastered an impulse to spring to his feet. There was still time to “go back”—he seemed to see it, however, as a long way, and involving, also, a sort of cowardice. It was to go back into—hadn’t he, in the snow-filled square, called it the slow crucifixion of middle age—boredom? This could hardly be worse; though he now knew, with a sense rather spacious and vast than precise, that it involved danger. Still, it was possible to go forward, with caution. He would keep some part of his wits about him—still free, and his own. He was a match, he felt, for—well, for that Jew. He needn’t be influenced, beyond a certain point?…

He opened his eyes, which during his waking dream he had shut, and rose. The Jew turned about. For a moment the two men regarded each other in silence, a silence broken only by the small feverish ticking of invisible clocks. The shopkeeper, when at last he spoke, spoke in a tone which had become, for no apparent reason, sardonic and slightly tyrannous. He leaned back, with his elbows behind him on the white marble mantel.

“Well?” he said.

Dace was cool—he allowed himself a slightly ironic smile.

“You were quite right,” he rang out. Then, measuring with the nicest accuracy the queer light in the other’s eyes, he went on, with a considered leisureliness, which he perhaps intended to be provocative—“I do identify myself with one of the pieces on the board—as you so perspicaciously suggested.… I identify myself with Judas.”

“I didn’t suggest it”—cried the Jew. “I didn’t suggest it! As God is my witness.… Don’t think it!”

Dace was amazed by the violence of this outburst. He was amazed also by the change in the Jew’s appearance. He stood rigid and tall, his fists clenched at his sides, his face white as the marble, his large mouth grotesquely opened in a fixed and tragic expression of suffering, like the mouth of the tragic mask. He was absurd—Dace had even a fleeting desire to “kick” him—but he was also portentous.

“I think you misunderstand me,” Dace pursued, endeavoring to speak without agitation. “You merely suggested that I might, during this waking dream, experience some feeling of sympathy—am I not right? Well, I now tell you that is true. God knows how you guessed it!” He laughed apologetically. “And I improve on your suggestion, quite clearly, when I tell you that in this dream Judas and I are one and the same person.… Isn’t it extraordinary!”

The Jew, at this, merely gasped. Then relaxing, and as if he had suddenly become faint, he sank into a chair, where he dropped his face into his hands and began absurdly rolling his great, dark curly head from side to side, as if in an ecstasy of pain. “Ah, my God,” he breathed through his hands, without looking up. “Ah, my God, my God!”

Dace, if he was surprised by the spectacle, did not show it. He merely watched, with the absorbed amusement of a child, this uncontrolled and unexplained behavior, and smiled. The top of the Jew’s head, with its bald spot ringed with curls, thus rolling heavily and serpentinely, with that sinuous unction peculiar to camels, simply struck him as funny.

III.

He was also, however, somewhat disgusted. And it was with some severity that he asked, after a moment:

“Are you feeling ill?”

The shopkeeper stopped rolling his head. His face remained hidden in his hands, nevertheless, and it was some time before he sat up, looking extraordinarily ravaged and pale, and with his large mouth still tragically relaxed. His voice, when at last he spoke, had changed, had become harsh, deep, tortured, uncertain—“Biblical”—Dace had time to say to himself.

“You persist in being flippant,” the voice cried. “You have no seriousness. You permit yourself merely to be amused by all this. And you have the impertinence to ask me if I am ill when as you might see, I am simply overcome by compassion. My God! Don’t you see that it is serious, that it is tragic—that we sound together the whole horror of the world?”

He glared at Dace with unexpected ferocity. Then, before Dace had time for anything but a turmoil of bewilderment, he sprang up, approached Dace’s chair menacingly, leaned over him, pointed at him with a white thick finger on which he wore three rings.

“You are Judas, and you admit it. Don’t pretend any longer that you don’t fully realize it. The time for such foolery is past. You are Judas. You knew it before you came in here—you came in to tell me. You knew the countersign—you asked for the set of Twelve Disciples. Ah! I know everything. You tried to fool me, but you couldn’t—I saw through your pretenses from the beginning—I knew you were coming today. And why shouldn’t I? It’s Easter Eve. You know as well as I do that we always meet on Easter Eve!…”

Dace sat as if hypnotized, his glassy eyes fixed on the thick withered eyelids of the Jew. He was frightened, and found it difficult to control his voice.