Conrad Aiken - The Collected Short Stories of Conrad Aiken

There was a pause, during which the two men stared across the smoky room, watching three players who moved about a table at the other side, having a noisy game of cowboy pool. “Put the five in the corner pocket,” one of them shouted. “Ah, he’s got a glass eye and a wooden arm,” said another. The shot was made, and all three shrieked with laughter, thumping the butts of their cues against the floor. “The boy has brains! The boy’s clever!”…

“I think I’ll get drunk tonight,” said Cleghorn, reflectively smiling, and pushing his gray mustache up towards his spectacles. “At that place on Atlantic Avenue.”

“Don’t be a fool. That rot-gut whisky!”

“That’s all right—it’s got plenty of kick.”

“It’ll kick you over the fence into eternity one of these days.”

“So much the better.… You think I’m joking, Henry, but I’m perfectly serious.”

“Serious about what?”

“Married life.…”

“Are you still worrying about that?”

“Worrying? No. I’ve made up my mind, that’s all.”

“Oh.”

“It’s a queer thing, you know, how deep a disgust can go. Right into the most vital and living part of your consciousness.… So that you hate the physical with a hatred—” He broke off, making a tense, spasmodic clawlike gesture with his hand. His eyes were opened rather wide. “If only we could get rid of the whole thing!”

Jackson goggled angrily at Cleghorn.

“What’s eating you?… What do you say, shall we finish the game?”

He was still staring at Cleghorn when the page came into the room with a slip of paper in his hand. “Dr. Jackson!” he bawled, walking. “Dr. Jackson!”

“Here!” said Jackson, rising. “Good night, Charlie.… Take my advice and go home like a good boy. See you Tuesday.” He rested his plump pink hand on Cleghorn’s shoulder for a second, beamed, and walked briskly away.

For a few minutes, Cleghorn sat perfectly still, staring at the green-shaded lights and watching the tobacco smoke coil into them in lazy clouds. He felt miserably a sense of defeat. He had hoped to draw out Jackson, or at any rate to compel him to listen, and had for some reason felt a peculiar need for a heart-to-heart discussion. It had been useless to attempt it. With Jackson, the attempt was always useless. Jackson always growled and changed the subject, or became inarticulate, or pretended to misunderstand.… Good old Henry.… The three young men began arguing loudly at the table on the far side of the room, flourishing their cues. “Of course, I put it up—you were seventy-nine before and now you’re eighty-four—what could be simpler?… Solid ivory!”… Cleghorn felt angry with them, rose, and walked heavily out of the room and up the stairs. He went and looked out from the reading-room window, lifting the shade, to see if it was still snowing. It was snowing hard. Long white diagonals flew in straight lines under the arc light at the corner. A horse-drawn newspaper wagon went by, the horse plodding slowly in deep snow, his head down, his hoofs not making a sound. A taxi stood opposite the club, with white-drifted roof and a blanket flung over the radiator. It had a derelict look. “Escape!” it seemed to say—“Adventure! Mystery!”… He recalled stories of men who had engaged cabs simply saying to the driver, “If you know a good place, take me to it. Here’s a dollar. Here’s five dollars. Here’s a thousand dollars.… Take me to the Queen of Sheba. Take me to the number of numbers in the street of streets. 1770 Washington Street. No. 2,876,452 Eternity Street. Minus seven Insanity Street.… Anywhere you like.”… Dropping the window shade, Cleghorn went to the coat room for his hat and coat. A young man came in, stamping snow off his feet on the marble floor. “A taxi,” said Cleghorn to Peters, the doorman. “There’s one at the door now, sir.” “Oh, is there? Thanks.”… A large snowflake crashed coldly into his left ear. “Rowe’s Wharf!” he shouted to the driver, who as he inclined his face to listen reached a hand to turn down the flag.

The taxi bumped softly through the snow, while Cleghorn smoked a cigarette. Swarms of flakes flew past the windows. The streets were almost deserted. They passed an electric snowplow moaning along the car tracks with slipping wheels. Delightful, to be running away like this—not a soul in the world knew where he was. Old Henry, bungling stupidly off to the hospital in Brookline to watch the death of Mrs. Feldeinsamkeit; Clara, reading a magazine before a fire of wet logs; Lulu, the star-spangled queen coming down to the footlights, rubbing one pink knee rhythmically, caressingly against the other, and singing “Come on, take a chance, and we’ll dance to that syncopated mellow-dee”; while he, in a taxi, smoking, escaped through the wild, wild night, soundless and trackless. Was Henry in love with Clara? Ha, ha! what an idea. Let him have her, then. A good solution.… “Are you dying, Mrs. Feldeinsamkeit?…” “Dying, doctor, dying.”… “Give me your rings then, and your gold watch with the lock of hair in it, and the twenty-dollar gold-piece which you wear round your neck. Sign your name along the dotted line, or, if you cannot see, make a cross. You hereby solemnly declare that you are about to die; that you are already dead from the soles of your feet to your breastbone; that you have no longer a heart, or any of the grosser appetites, or a digestive system; that you have only the signal beauty of your face and the waning light of your brain, and these, too, presently being dead, you will be dead forever. You give me your solemn oath that you will not again countenance existence in the flesh or in the spirit, in this world or in any other. In witness whereof you affix hereto your name, FELDEINSAMKEIT.”… “I swear.”… “Nurse, remove the pillow from beneath her head. Feldeinsamkeit is dead. Strip the sheet from this emaciated corpse. She died young.…” The funeral comes next. Died: Clara Feldeinsamkeit, of a loss of blood. The corpse, corrupt, is hermetically sealed to prevent botulism. The horses are lashed, they gallop, an endless procession of galloping black horses. Farewell, Feldeinsamkeit! Up the vast pyramid of eternity you go, the rain-maned horses silhouetted galloping against the sky, hoofs crashing against rock. Poise the coffin on the pinnacle—she is lost in the Feldewigkeit.… And Clara turns the page, sighing, looks at the clock, looks at her watch, and reads on. “Darling! Your violet eyes! Your eyes which are pools in which irises have been drowned! Speak to me! Tell me that it is not true, that it is only a hideous dream, a fearful nightmare!… Speak!… SPEAK!…” It was the bronzed young engineer who was thus imploring the heroine to speak. Ah—it was only too true.… Among the drowned irises something moved, it was there that the alligator had laid her eggs. The little alligators swarmed, grinning.… Bong, bong; half-past nine, and Clara, lifting her left leg off her right leg, and then the right leg onto the left leg, rustling, reads on.… And the star-spangled Lulu undulates in the purple and green light, undulates, oscillates, swaggles, singing, “The world goes round, to the sound, of a syncopated mellow-dee.”…

Rowe’s Wharf. The elevated was a fantastic structure of iron and snow. The taxi stood in the snow like a sinking ship—snowflakes swirled about it as Cleghorn fished out the dollar and a half for the driver. “Good night!” he shouted, and began plunging through drifts of slushy snow toward the brightly lighted Bar, before the steamed windows of which he could see that the sidewalk had been partially cleared and strewn with wet sawdust. The word Bar on the left window had lost its white enamel R, and become a bleat. Bar—bar—black sheep, come and have a pull. Yes, sir, yes, sir, three barrels full.