Conrad Aiken: King Coffin

It could not have been better managed — he was at a safe distance, just far enough away to be unnoticeable — he stood still and watched the black limousine come slowly along the avenue and stop. There was a moment’s pause, the black door swung open, the hand that had pushed it was visible for a second and then withdrawn, and Jones, stooping, stepped down to the grass-edge. He was wearing the derby hat, turned round toward the car buttoning a soiled raincoat, he appeared to be saying something, his head a little on one side, and as he did so a second figure stooped from the car, holding with gloved hands a small white box. From the other side of the road a workman had mysteriously appeared, as if from nowhere, and the three men began to walk slowly across the grass toward the little grave, their heads just slightly lowered. The man who held the box wore a black frock coat — presumably the undertaker. The box he held was hardly bigger than a shoe box, it was astonishingly small, it made the whole affair seem more than ever ridiculous and meaningless. That it should all have come to this — that all the elaborate structure should amount only to this—! This absurd little ritual in the rain.

He watched them group themselves before the grave, Jones standing a little in the rear, as if in a measure detaching himself from the queer proceedings, and then the undertaker placed the coffin on the cat’s cradle and the workman began to lower it. Jones, with his hat still on, and his hands in his raincoat pockets, suddenly turned away and began to walk quickly toward the car: the undertaker, after a final look into the grave, while the workman drew up the bands, followed him. Apparently, not a word had been said. The whole business had been done in silence. No earth had been flung; only the soft rain fell into the grave.

It was unbelievable. And yet it was what he had expected?…

He found himself standing very tensely, as if he had been about to take a step but had inhibited it — his weight slightly forward; without conscious decision he began to walk toward the little scene, saw the two men get into the limousine, and had just reached the juncture of the two roads when the car passed him, driving slowly. Scarcely a yard away — their two orbits at last almost touching — Jones was sitting upright, his small chin raised as if proudly or challengingly, his blue eyes fixed straight ahead on the road beyond the driver. He was pale, it was obvious that he hadn’t slept, and it was just as obvious that he hardly knew what he was doing or where he was. Possibly he had been drinking. Beyond him, the undertaker was looking out of the window on the far side with an air of professional embarrassment, touching his gloved fingers together. Neither of them was speaking. In another minute, the car took a sharp left turn, and moved off toward the Egyptian gates. He watched it flash slowly in and out among the columns and pyramids and vaults, saw it make a final swing to the right, and then disappear.

And as it did so, a strange thing happened to him. He felt that he had died.

He must have known that this would happen — for when the car had turned to the left, and for a brief interval crept along the road which paralleled the one on which he was himself standing, he had suddenly felt an almost overwhelming impulse to run , to shout at it, to keep abreast of it, shouting — like the people on a wharf who rush excitedly, desperately, along the dock’s edge as the ship begins to move, trying to keep up with it, trying to hold it, crying to it, as if they were mere bodies whose souls it was taking away. He had felt this, but of course had done nothing. He had stood still. And it seemed to him now, as he stood motionless, watching the departure of that somber limousine, with Jones inside it, as if life itself were going away from him, moving farther and farther away, fading and dying like the melancholy last flare of sunset seen for a moment through lifting rain. The thing was finished.

Finished!.. Finis coronat opus . King Coffin …

Before he knew it, he was in his car, was driving fiercely down Mount Auburn Street. He was angry, he half closed his eyes and said aloud, bitterly — it oughtn’t to be like that; to think that it was like that; my God, that it should be like that! The rain had stopped again, the sky over Boston was brightening, a pale beam of sunlight glistened for a moment on a distant roof and was extinguished. To write to Gerta — to write now to Gerta. Yes. He decided not to take the car to the garage, but parked it immediately in front of the fire station in Eliot Square, and hurried on foot to Boylston Street before they could have time to notice it and protest. Let them protest! By all means. Let them look him up, and come hunting for him — the more the merrier. View halloo! In Boylston Street, he stepped into the Western Union office, sat down, drew the yellow form toward him on the glass-topped table, seized the chained pencil, and began to write.

My dear Gerta — the impediment in my speech removed—

He crossed it out, took a fresh sheet, closed his eyes for a second, and began again.

“My dear Gerta — the master builder builds better than he knows. Things have happened. I write too quickly to shape my thoughts, this is —so to speak — the final dislocation. Is it the shadow of Kay, and were you right after all? You were wise, anyway, you saw the queer shape of things more clearly than I, and I can now salute your narrow vision with respect if not with gratitude. To hell with gratitude! I don’t know any longer what it all is, the show is too profound, goes too fast , it begins to escape me, if you know what I mean, or care to know, but with the impediment in my speech removed I can at least say that the thing will be perfect as it now stands, or only lacking in perfection as it lacked you, or a clear vision of you: but even this I can now look back to with Kaylike detachment . That isn’t quite all of it either, there must be a halfway point which would be good —too difficult, however, for me to try to analyze for you now. No, it’s all too despicable.… Ammen.”

The large electric clock over the counter said nineteen past nine. He sealed the yellow envelope, and addressed it; then marked it, after a moment’s thought, Not to be delivered till eleven o’clock. At the desk he said:

— This is important, do you understand? It might be a matter of life and death. I want this note delivered to this address at precisely eleven — not a moment before, and not a moment after. I’m willing to pay for it. Can that be done?

— Yes, sir — at eleven o’clock — we’ll send the messenger and have him wait there till the correct time exactly. Walnut Street?

— Right.

His calculations might or might not be exact — it was difficult to tell — but it ought to make a very nice little gamble. It was Gerta’s day at home, she wouldn’t be going to the Museum, and the chances were, of course, that she wouldn’t have gone out before eleven. If she had —?

The sun was coming out again, the rails in Massachusetts Avenue were brimming and sparkling. It was spring, it was more than spring, it was almost summer. There would be track meets at the Stadium, boat races, perhaps a revival of the straw hat. In another month Gerta would go to Ogunquit, Greenwich Village would move to Provincetown, everywhere the human being would be creeping out of his cellar or attic to lie naked on a beach and admire the beauty of his body, as if it were something of transcendental importance. Young ladies would be photographed on headlands doing ridiculous dances with wisps of scarf. In secret places in the Maine woods, in half darkened bedrooms of seaside boardinghouses, in the warm hollows of Cape Cod sand dunes, lovers would once more be renewing the flesh at the expense of the spirit, as certain that in this way they had discovered God as that a year hence they would be embracing the same partner.… The wrens go to it, and the small gilded fly.