Conrad Aiken - The Collected Short Stories of Conrad Aiken

“Tom’ll wait for us.”

“Sure I’ll wait for you.” Tom grinned, rattling his knuckles on the counter. “You just walk round the block.”

… Outside, he tried to get away from Jerry’s arm and slipped in the half-melted snow. They both floundered. He took a series of deep drinks of cold air, and the snowflakes, touching his cheeks and forehead, made him feel intelligent. He threw back his head and laughed.

“Drunk as a fish! But I’m beginning to feel sober now.… I understand everything.”

“This air’ll do us both good.”

“Lots of air tonight, like sherbet. Have a quart, Jerry. Eat it.… Was that a clock striking?”

“No—signal on a ferryboat.”

“I thought it was midnight—the beginning of my anniversary.”

“What anniversary?”

Jerry spoke absent-mindedly—he was looking for a cab. Not a cab in sight. He dragged Cleghorn along toward the South Station, where there would be sure to be one. Cleghorn slipped again and lunged violently against him, gasping. The snow was beginning to stop.

“Wedding,” said Cleghorn. “Married life—take my advice—don’t ever marry!”

“I’m married already.”

“Well, then, you fool, don’t marry again.… Where are we? On the Great White Way? Ha! I know. What we want to go to is No. 8,756,432 Infinity Street. Or minus seven Insanity Street.… One of those houses where cab drivers take you if you give them five dollars.… This isn’t the way!”

“Don’t be an ass, Charlie—come on!”

“Don’t you call me an ass, you cheap shyster!… Where are we going?”

“If you don’t shut up and behave yourself I’ll leave you right here.”

“Leave me, then!… Oh, God, how rotten I feel … like the bottom of a bird-cage.”

They walked for several blocks in silence, plunging and slipping in the soft snow. Water dripped heavily from eaves, pitting the sodden white banks. Drops flashed slowly from rims of arc lamps. The ferries could be heard hooting in the harbor, and a train, casting brilliant lights on the snow, rattled along the elevated, rhythmically clanking.

“There’s a cab,” said Zimmerman. “Come on—make an effort. Farthest north.”

They plunged across the wide square filled with brown slush. Cleghorn was half pushed, half lifted into the cab, and sank back on the seat. An effort, he thought, an effort. Zimmerman, outside, murmured something to the driver. Mumble, mumble. The driver took something out of his pocket and gave it to Zimmerman.… “Ta-ta!” shouted Zimmerman, but Cleghorn, staring, made no reply. Zimmerman vanished from the window, the dark world swirled, water swashed, and Cleghorn shut his eyes. Zimmerman had gone. Where? Into the Feldewigkeit.… Surprising.… Gone down like a ship in a fog.… Clara Feldewigkeit, with violet eyes, bleeding to death, smiled while she read a magazine. She rustled and tinkled. “Why, Charlie! What have you—”

… He was suddenly aroused by the opening of the cab door. The driver was looking in at him.

“Here you are,” he said—“Want to get out?”

Cleghorn stared. It was his own house. It was dark—Clara had gone to bed. He let himself in and stood in the hall—not a sound. Removing his wet shoes he went softly up the stairs, holding to the banisters. Clara’s door was shut. He went into his own room, undressed in the dark, and went to bed. Midnight began to strike on Clara’s clock.… No, it wasn’t a bell—it was the ringing, the clashing of hoofs. A parade. A warm sunny day in spring. The escort came galloping first on black horses, their swords flashing. Then came a white horse. It was being ridden by a girl—but she was enclosed in a glass case which was strapped to the horse’s back. Then he noticed that she was only a head and arms—she had no body. She wore an enormous wide-rimmed black hat, and her face was beautiful. Her arms were bare, and she held the reins in her hands. She looked neither to left nor right, the horse galloped, and she was gone. Farewell, Feldeinsamkeit!

The quarrel had amounted to very little, to practically nothing, and yet it had cast its shadow over the evening. They had gone to bed without speaking and—more disturbing still—she did not get up to make his breakfast; and this although she knew he was going to town, and by the early train. He had had to forage in the dark kitchen by himself, attended only by Squidge, the cat; hunting among innumerable unlabeled cans for the coffee, spilling the sugar, and in general allowing himself the luxury of feeling pretty annoyed. A silly business, altogether—damned silly. And he mustn’t let it spoil his day in town.

And what a day it was, what a day it was going to be! A lovely spring morning—yes, a perfect spring morning if there ever was one. Blue as a baby’s eye. The apple blossoms just getting ready to pop, the song sparrows shouting in the lilac bushes, the robins—there seemed to be hundreds of them everywhere—saying over and over their loud and all-too-contented “Cheerio, cheerio, cherilee!”—or was it jubilee? Well, yes, perhaps it was jubilee. And why not indeed? The whole world seemed to be bursting with good will.

The little local train which would take him as far as Appledore came clanking and hissing round the bend, under the crazy footbridge, and he climbed aboard, deferring the reading of the morning paper till the longer run from Appledore to town. Besides, the marsh on a morning like this was too good to miss. Bathed in sunlight, the last of the night mist just curling away in the creeks and shadows, it looked wonderfully peaceful. Crows were quarreling over some shapeless white object in a ditch; a blue heron stood poised and arrowlike beside a pool, as still as his own image. What a morning, what a morning! And the little train rattling and clanking through it, as if only to keep the whole thing from being too precious, too lonely.

Well, it was a pity she hadn’t got up and come down to see him off, for she would have enjoyed it. And it served her right. And all because he had said—What was it he had said? That he was more perceptive—yes, that was it, perceptive. Good heavens, the word perceptive had been like a red rag to a bull! Had that been so outrageous? To claim that women weren’t by any means as perceptive as they were supposed to be, and that he himself was a devil of a lot more perceptive than most? Well, you never knew when you were going to injure a woman’s vanity, and that was, of course, what he had done. It had been tactless. He ought to have shied off, changed the subject when he saw that she was upset about it. But then she had been so damned positive, so damned certain of herself, so conceited, in fact, about her perceptiveness, and so incredulous about his, that he became suddenly mad, and the fat was in the fire. Extraordinary how quickly a quarrel can blaze up out of nothing, absolutely nothing! One minute everybody perfectly serene and happy, in the best and most serene of all possible worlds, and then—bingo, one little word or look blows the whole thing to smithereens. And there you are, glaring at each other like a couple of starved hyenas. And in a state of smoldering fury, moreover, that seems unlikely ever to come to an end.

Just the same, he had been perfectly right—it was perfectly true. All nonsense, this notion that women had a sort of sixth sense, or a superhuman kind of clairvoyance. What rubbish! True enough, of course, that a woman might understand a child—but did she always? Even that was debatable. And as for her understanding of other women, or men—No, most of the time she was just thinking about herself, thinking of her own feelings and, above all, of the impression she was making. She was only perceptive when it was somehow useful to her, that was it—and very seldom perceptive merely because she had to be. No.