Conrad Aiken: King Coffin

— I suppose it simply means that you’re asking me to share your insanity. You are insane, aren’t you?

— No.

— It would be interesting. I think Sandbach could be managed — of course you know that I share your feeling that he is inferior, he would be a substitute, it wouldn’t be necessary to feel that he was being betrayed.

— He talks of treachery to me .

— And there’s no need to be sorry for him. He’s quite competent!

— God, yes.

— But aren’t we insane?

— You’re thinking of Kay. But purity is not insanity. An action could have the purity of a work of art — it could be as abstract and absolute as a problem in algebra.

— What sort of action do you mean, Jasper?

He got up from his chair again, went behind her to the mantel, and blew out first one candle and then the other. She sat quite still below him as the room darkened, and he knew that in ordinary circumstances, or with another man, Sandbach for example, she would have interpreted this as the preliminary move toward a kiss. He wondered why he had wanted to do it. His thoughts went back, for no reason, to Julius Toppan, to her phrase about his chaste and epicene little room, that unconscious murder, to the fact that she had discussed him with Julius, and he felt a tightening of amused anger. But she was now helpless.

— I didn’t say. I don’t think I’ll quite tell you, yet. As a matter of fact, it has only become clear to me this evening. There will be plenty of time for that, when I’ve worked it out, and made up my mind exactly how it should be done.

— You and your precious inviolacy, my dear!

— Incidentally, don’t think any part of my hatred of S is jealousy. It’s not. He’s not the only one — I hate them all, the whole damned crowd. There isn’t a soul in this city that I wouldn’t willingly kill, they’re all alike.

He felt his bitterness rising, it came up from within him as if he were a deep well of venom and blackness, he must be careful not to go too far. At such moments it was only too easy to surrender to the vision, to give it its headlong freedom. The vision grew like a tree, like a tree-shaped world — he walked quickly to the window, turning his back, and looked down into the dark yard, across which fell oblique shafts of light from the windows of the Women’s Club. He added, without turning:

— There’s nothing abnormal about it.

— I wonder whether you dislike S because he is older—

— No!

— My dear, you are certainly very difficult. Do you mind if I turn on the light?

— Go ahead. It might change our tempo.

She switched on the table lamp, by the door, then came and stood beside him at the window. They both stood still. He thought again of Steinlen, but this time of the black cat on the farmyard wall, in the moonlight, the two peasants embracing under a dark tree. Something seemed to suffocate him, perhaps it was her nearness, like the nearness of the postman in the train: he felt as if he must move, or say something: Gerta might already have guessed too much. Certainly, there were elements in the situation which seemed to be unaccountable, a little incalculable—

— I suppose you don’t want to tell me, Jasper, why you suddenly have to quarrel with every one like this — and make things so hard for yourself—

— No. We’ve got to learn to be hard.

She gave a little laugh, which sounded half angry, half distracted, and walked away from him, putting her hands to the sides of her head: and laughing bitterly she thus crossed and recrossed the room several times, shaking her head, while he watched her. Then she sank down into her chair, as if she were suddenly very tired.

— I suppose I must wait, she said.

— Did you think I meant to kill some one? But I’m not as transparent as I sometimes look.

— Of course not!

— Not that it would matter much, would it. I’d like to play King Coffin!

She looked at him soberly, and he smiled. Her lips were parted, she seemed bewildered, perhaps a little apprehensive, she slid the silver bracelet up and down her arm.

— What on earth do you mean?

— I’ll tell you about it sometime. It was a doctor’s sign I saw somewhere — or thought I saw, or perhaps simply dreamed I saw — I could even swear it was in Commonwealth Avenue, near Massachusetts, on the south side. But it may have been in Saint Louis. Just the name King Coffin. It seemed to me a very good, and very sinister, name for a doctor — it sounds a little supernatural. It might not be a man at all, but a sort of death-principle. It would be nice to be King Coffin, don’t you think? I’ve often thought about it, I’ve thought I might make a story out of it. The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari ! But you needn’t be frightened. It’s just one of my crazy ideas, no crazier than anarchism, no crazier than absolute egoism, no crazier than the fact that we are here, or that Sandbach doesn’t know what we have arranged for him—

— Jasper, I’m very tired—

— I’m afraid I bore you—

— No, but it’s all rather a strain—

— I see.

— If we could talk about something else for a while—

— Oh, of course. Oh, of course. Of ships and shoes and sealingwax, and cabbages and coffins. Sandbach’s taste in shirts, for example.

She was silent, with lowered eyes.

— His socks, too. His one necktie, and his yellow shoes, his East Side shoes, by God! And always that little piece of nostril ingredient protruding from the left nostril—

He watched her blush, wondering how much of it was shame and how much was anger. He picked up his hat from the table and put it on.

— Well, I’ll go and make my plans, and communicate with you later. If I decide to communicate at all. You’ll of course consider how to deal with Sandbach, and how much to say to him, if anything. But you needn’t bother to report to me, for of course I shall know.

— You don’t need to be angry.

— I’m not — thanks for the taste of the future — dislocation number four.

He walked past her quickly, as she started to rise, ran down the stairs, heard her say Jasper but paid no attention, and on emerging into Walnut Street stood still on the brick sidewalk, thinking. The shape had not been exactly as foreseen, but on the whole the direction was correct, the huge structure was rising all about him, and himself borne upward with it, the arc of bright steel was beginning to threaten the sky. He breathed hard, ran his eyes along the row of dark eaves opposite, felt that with a simple gesture he could remove the tin gutters, making one sweep of the hand. Park Street Church was striking ten, Toppan would not be in till a little before eleven, there was still time for a further formulation before the plunge into sleep.

He looked in through the wide window of the Merle as he passed, it was possible that Toppan would have returned there for his usual glass of orangeade and his perusal of the stock market reports and in the hope that he or Gottlieb might turn up; but the room was empty, the waitress was wiping a table, he saw the cocoanut on the shelf, it would soon be closing time. Toppan was probably at his law club in Church Street, after all there would be plenty of time, or even if he had returned it hardly mattered, the diary could be read another day. Better however if it could be done tonight, for Toppan himself could thus be considered: if only to be eliminated. And of course he would have to be eliminated, for in his case the dangers, even if one were going to accept the dangers, would be too immediate, and the actual result perhaps less rewarding. Might it not be better to employ Toppan as witness number two — a figure in the half background — as one who, for example, would know more than Sandbach but less than Gerta? The problem might be posed for him as if it existed entirely in the abstract, in the realm of pure supposition. Moreover, the mere technique of it, the detective aspect, would interest him. From this point of view, of course, it was fascinating to consider that Toppan might become: a necessity , even of the act itself.