Conrad Aiken - King Coffin

What did he do there?

Perhaps that was where the whisky came in. Though he never showed any signs of it.

Or perhaps most of his business was mail-order advertising, the preparation of sales-letters — which could be managed largely by correspondence. A typewriter could be heard there intermittently, and used, moreover, with quite respectable speed. But always, then, came the long silence. In fact, it had soon become only too obvious that the fruitful end for observation was not the business, but the domestic, end of Jones’s little life-pattern — the study of the house, although a great deal more difficult, would in time be more rewarding. But how to manage this? To be seen hanging about there day after day, or even sitting in a car, would ultimately attract attention — it might not be Jones, it might be any one, but it would be dangerous. There was the problem of the postman, for instance.…

Toppan! The very thing.

He sat up in bed, switched on the light in the corner, looked at the hexagonal wrist watch — quarter to three.

Why not present the whole business to Toppan as a mere exercise in detection — the latest and best specimen — a particularly attractive problem? It would join on to the previous conversation perfectly: and his pleasure in it, both their pleasures, would be deliciously enhanced by the fact that Toppan wouldn’t quite dare presume that it was a question of the other thing, the pure murder, or in any case that it was for anything but the novel. Why not? And why not now? To rouse Toppan from his sleep, startle him, take him thus off his guard, with all his conscious defenses down, still surrounded, as it were, by all the naïve transparency of sleep — it would be like turning a harsh searchlight on a naked soul. An experience in itself.

In the study, knotting the dressing gown, he paused to look at the map, leaning close to it to familiarize himself once more with the tangle of small streets between Huron and Concord Avenues, and also to observe the column of dates which he had entered in pencil on the upper left-hand margin: ten of them, — the latest this morning’s. It looked formidable enough. Ten days. Possibly a little slow: but certainly there had been no delay? Map of the City of Cambridge. C. Frank Hooker Acting Engineer. 1932 .…

From the table beneath it he picked up the small green book which lay open there, with the pages downward, and read again the passage which had caught his attention earlier in the evening. “But there is the dark eye which glances with a certain fire, and has no depth. There is a keen quick vision which watches, which beholds, but which never yields to the object outside: as a cat watching its prey. The dark glancing look which knows the strangeness , the danger of its object, the need to overcome the object. The eye which is not wide open to study, to learn , but which powerfully, proudly or cautiously glances, and knows the terror or the pure desirability of strangeness in the object it beholds.” Extraordinary that Lawrence should have said just that — italicizing the word “ strangeness ”—but wasn’t he completely mistaken in assuming that there was no desire — in the savage eye — to learn, to study? In any case, what was the savage eye? Who was to say? or who was to say that — finally speaking — it wasn’t the only true eye in the world, the only one which saw virtuously?

The terror, or the desirability of strangeness.

The pure desirability!

That was odd, too. An odd, but perhaps natural, antithesis. Something a little uncomfortable in it, as well. But why? After all, if the prime need was to overcome the object, then the study of it was absolutely indispensable, was simply a means to an end. The cat, in short, understands —in the deepest sense — the mouse: observes it with that sort of pure virtue of love which is the prelude to conquest. It sees, and knows, the mouse— and that is precisely its playing with it . In the savage eye there is therefore not merely the desire to kill, there is also that look which just as coldly embraces a tree, a landscape, a star, an idea. It must purify what it sees, and see what it purifies: the only vision which is noble. There is no compromise with the object, no placid or reasoned acceptance of it. It is seen, understood, and destroyed. The vision is pure.

He said it aloud, as he descended the half-dark stairs—“the vision is pure”—remembered his pipe and tobacco and went back for them, descended again with the pipe in his hand. Toppan’s door was unlocked, he stepped in, switched on the light, his forefinger automatically finding the ebony button in the dark, then for a moment he stood unmoving in the silent room. The bedroom door, in the far right-hand corner, was closed, the green window shade had been pulled down, except for three inches at the bottom, where the night-dark showed, a sheet of music had fallen from the piano and lay open on the bench, a brown felt hat dangled from one corner of the mantel. Taking three steps forward, to the middle of the gray carpet, he listened: he could hear the deep and regular breathing. Toppan had not waked: lay there at his mercy. To read the diary now, with Toppan in the next room—

And there it was, on top of the desk.

It had been closed on a pen, tonight’s entry was still fresh.

He turned the pages.

“May 2. The great Jasper has certainly stirred them up, and no mistake. Saw all of them — Sandbach, Gerta, Mrs. Taber, her husband, and that analyst chap, also a little fellow from Chicago, at the C Bookshop this afternoon, and what they wouldn’t do to him if they could! Sandbach and Mrs. T. in particular. They had a long discussion of the episode at Tremont Temple — I must say I couldn’t help laughing, for Jasper seems to have done a first-rate theatrical job of it: apparently just walked in and dismissed them. Not so bad! Goodness knows there is something rather fine about it, even if one doesn’t feel moved to emulation. Gerta, however, I noticed, didn’t have anything to say: what does she know? I had an impulse to talk with her, but of course, in the circumstances — I decided it could wait, perhaps she doesn’t know what I know, or guess, and there’s plenty of time. Mrs. T. says what he needs is a good spanking, that he’s spoiled. Sandbach rather surprised me by suggesting that he’s definitely insane. The analyst just said ‘Oh, no, perhaps a little paranoid,’ wanted to know what his relations were with his father. Gerta could have told him, of course, and so could I, but neither of us said anything. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure that would account for much, though I daresay an analyst would do him a lot of good. I never knew any one so cut off as he is — but then, you’ve got to admit that he seems entirely and horribly self-sufficient. It seems impossible to get at him, much less to hurt him. Walked back with Gerta, and she asked me in, but I didn’t go.… Squash with Hempel—

“May 3. Law Society—

“May 4, 5, 6, 7—

“May 8.… and had a curious encounter with Sandbach and Gerta outside the Fogg Museum. They looked as if they’d been quarreling, anyway something was up, they were walking along very slowly ahead of me, and just before I caught up with them they turned and came toward me. Their voices were raised a little, they had that fixed and angry look, didn’t see me at first, and then were both embarrassed. Very self-conscious meeting. I thought Gerta looked extremely pale. I asked them to tea, and Gerta came up, S pretending (?) that he had to get back to town to go over a talk he is giving at the Burroughs Foundation. Sounded like an alibi. Gerta was unusually quiet, subdued, didn’t say anything about J till after we had had tea, then asked me if I had seen much of him lately. I said quite truthfully that I hadn’t. She said she hadn’t either, and just wondered whether he was ‘all right’—wanted then to know whether I had seen him at all . As a matter of fact it hadn’t occurred to me before, but when I stopped to think of it, I had been pretty busy, and I don’t believe I have seen him, even a glimpse of him, for over a week. She thought this was a little queer, and asked me if I didn’t agree: as before, I could see she wanted to discuss the question of his sanity, in fact she got as far as saying she was worried about him, but I pooh-poohed it, reminded her that he had always been like that, going in for temporary disappearances and so forth. I don’t think I convinced her, but then I didn’t try very much, for I was uneasy about perhaps getting in too deep. She’s frightfully in love with him. I have a feeling Sandbach is jealous, and that the row was connected with it: of course S has been hanging around her for a hell of a while. She was a little hurt with me, I could see, managed to suggest something like ‘well, if you don’t want to talk I can’t make you’ but just the same was very nice about it, as she always is. A damned fine person, I admire her reticence, why in God’s name must she throw herself away on that incomparable egoist! It certainly is odd that neither of us has seen Jasper all week: I wonder if by any chance he’s gone to work on that fantastic Coffin idea: and I wonder what the analyst would make of that ! Lordy, but wouldn’t he get his teeth into it.