Conrad Aiken: King Coffin

He narrowed his eyes as he stared at Toppan, and Toppan narrowed his own a little in answer, but made no reply beyond a slight nod. A mere reflex, a mere automatism, he was hardly listening, or at any rate not listening intelligently, he had simply become a fascinated mirror.

— All right, suppose for whatever reasons you decide that your action has to be secret, even though this takes away some of its virtue: you pick out your victim and you make your plans; but then it occurs to you that although you can’t tell every one about it, and do it with nobility, you can at least tell one or two trusted persons . Can’t you?

— I suppose you could.

— You suppose you could. Suppose then you decided to tell me. In that case do I become an accessory before the fact, and am I criminally liable if you are caught?

— Certainly. That is, if I gave you away. But if you kept your mouth shut—

— It would be to my interest to keep my mouth shut.

— Good God, yes. But why—

— That’s all I wanted to know. I’m thinking of writing a story about it. I’ve even got the title for it — King Coffin.

— King Coffin. That’s a swell title. Real up-to-the-hilt nihilism.

— Not at all.

— I don’t get you, then.

— It’s just life, it’s just hatred. The essential thing in life is hate!

He put his pipe quickly into his pocket, walked to the door without looking again at Toppan, and as he let himself out said without turning—

— Bear in mind what I said about Gerta.

Toppan’s uneasy “of course” was cut off by the closing door, and the sound of his chair being pushed back, he had been interrupted in the very middle of his unhappy vision, he would now have time to pace to and fro in his empty room and to allow, in the silence, the nocturnal conjecture to pile itself to heaven in all its true horror. It was already beginning, the smaller shadows were grouping themselves about his feet and in the corners, the crazy shape was hinting itself first here and then there, and horribly against his will it would curse his sleep.

So much for Toppan, the seed of the vision had been securely planted, but what about his own vision?

Noiselessly and swiftly, and with a queer kind of exultation, he took the stairs three steps at a time, the vision grew like a tree, the immense whirl was once more above him, the sense of speed and hurry returned, it was almost as if something threatened to stop his breathing. But he must take it calmly, the thing must be thought out with precision: the tempo must be slowed down. The vision was all right, but it must not become too possessive or emotional; calculated or uncalculated, there must be an interruption. At the bend of the corridor, in the shadow beside the professor’s door, the professor’s cat was sitting, it watched his approach without moving, looked up at him when he paused, rose and arched its back when he spoke to it.

— Little cat, you can be the interruption. Come in.

He opened his door and stood aside. The cat preceded him into the room, advanced into the center of the rug with cautious dignity, and sat down, looking towards the window. The spiked seashell on the window sill was white and sharp against the darkness outside, the little glass bird cage sparkled, in the stillness of the room he could hear the voices of two students from Plympton Street below.

— All right, start her up.

— Wait till I get this thing under the back here—

— Well, go ahead—

As the self-starter began its rhythmic skirling he sat by the red table and drew towards him a sheet of paper and a silver pencil. On the paper in a straight small column he wrote quickly the names Toppan, Gerta, Sandbach, Taber, Gottlieb. But no — no! At once he drew a precise line through each name in turn, crumpled the paper into a ball, and rolled it along the floor to the cat, who, with a neat hook of the paw, skittled it under the table.

The terribleness of the deed must be kept pure: the problem had become a problem in art-form.

The Angelus was striking in the campanile of Saint Paul’s as he turned off the shower, the three urgent bells, and three others after a pause, and three more, and then the rapid complexion of the nine, as if the bell ringer had triumphantly added his significant sum; eight o’clock; no doubt some pious sort of hugger mugger was going on there at this minute, fellows in white surplices — or was it chasubles — shaking mysterious cocktails over a kind of holy bar, or waving red lanterns up and down; and all for the benefit of a few housemaids and nursemaids. It might be a good thing to go there: to drop in on the way to breakfast, stand at the back for a moment, look over the little audience, or even observe more particularly, and for a particular purpose. He stepped out of the pools of water which his feet had left on the oilcloth floor, slid into the red slippers, then leaned from the little window. Clouds and a wind, the skylight was gray, he could hear the humming. Looking downward, he could see into the bathroom of the apartment on the floor below: the fair-haired girl, Mrs. Finden, was leaning against the wash-bowl, naked, her hands thrust forward into the water. Her husband came and stood beside her, rested for a moment one hand on her hip, squeezed it, then took some small object from the shelf and disappeared.

It was like that, of course; it ought to be just like that. The unknown eye from above, the God’s eye view, the death ray directed downward when least suspected. Like The Crimson editor on the roof, Mrs. Finden was now dead without knowing it; the thing was completely pure, completely motiveless: the anonymous tree stump had been struck by anonymous lightning. He watched Mrs. Finden dry her hands and arms, she turned her head to say something over her shoulder while still manipulating the blue towel, the muscles of her small upper arms trembling slightly, then she picked up two rings from the marble slab, slid them on to the fourth finger of her left hand, and vanished. Finden was laughing at something, then after a moment the bath was turned on, a masculine arm reached up and closed the ground-glass window.

In his own room, the curtain still lowered, he ran it up and let go of the cord so that it flapped round and round. Clouds and a wind. The man at the window of the room in Fairfax, a block away, was there as usual, in his B.V.D.’s, as close to the window as he could get, holding a mirror in his hand to preen himself. He stooped slightly, turned the mirror this way and that to get a better light, then put something that looked like a nightcap over his hair and went away for a moment only to return and resume his peculiar occupation. This too. The same thing. A dead man.

Yes: but these were a little too close, too immediate, to put one’s hand on them was too easy. What was wanted—

The little ball of paper was still lying under the table where the cat had left it, he remembered first his impulse to drop the cat out of the window, and the curious repugnance which had seemed to rise as if from his hands; then the relief with which he had driven the cat out into the corridor. Odd. But the list of names was there, crumpled but still there, and the question with them, the profound question. And it could only be answered by himself: about this, there could be no conferring, not even with Gerta. The decision must be pure. The question was, was it still in fact a question? or had it actually — and as he thought this he stood quite still and stared at the necktie which he was holding — been solved in his sleep? There had been a dream, a queer and deep dream: a series of crisscrossed shadows, shifting and ominous. Further than that, it was vague, but as he had waked from it he had felt a kind of lightness or ease, something spacious but as if lightly etched with lines — analogous — was that it? — to the small script hidden inside the crumpled ball of paper, the list of rejected names. Rejected, yes, but for what, in favor of what? Something more remote, but how remote? He carried the blue necktie to the mirror in the bedroom, tossed it over his head, began to draw it to and fro beneath the collar. The Buddha was behind him on its shelf, the bed was unmade in the silent room, it was his own silence once more beginning to deepen and widen, and as he leaned closer to the glass to look into his black pupils it seemed to him that the sense of limitless silence and peace came from his own eyes. The mystery lay there, the solution lay there, was already known there, it was as if he were looking into an immense depth, an immense distance, and trying to make out some far-off and tiny and incredible action. Had it already taken shape there? But remember, if thou gazest into the abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee. The abyss will gaze into thee.