Conrad Aiken - Blue Voyage

(“ My throte is cut unto the nekke bone, ”

Seyde this child; “and, as by way of kinde,

I sholde have deyed, ye, longe tyme agoon …” …

Of course it was deliberate. That cold blue light in her eye. She bore down on me like a frigate. Frigga, the goddess of fertility. Perhaps she and Cynthia had disagreed about it — and this was her way of forcing a crisis? She guesses that now I won’t be inclined to approach Cynthia? Damned clever! Damned clever. I take off my hat to her. It was done so beautifully, too — like an aseptic operation — no feelings, no display, no waste of effort; a miracle of economy. The first time, I thought — actually! — that it might have been a mistake! I had made ready to bow to her — and I was so pleased, too, to be discovered walking there, in broad daylight, like one who “belongs,” on the first cabin deck with Purington — so anxious, also, that I might be seen by Cynthia! I was positively wagging my tail, as I drew nearer — discreetly, of course, and to myself; the bow I had prepared was to be a very refined and quiet one. Alas! it will never be seen, that clearly preconceived bow on the deck of the Nordic, on the port side, at eleven o’clock in the morning, at latitude such-and-such and longitude so-and-so, with the sun x degrees above the horizon in a fleece of cirro-cumulus, and one sea gull perched on the foremast like a gilded finial! And now the question is — will Cynthia be told of that encounter? That depends on whether she is already a party to the plan. About even chances … No — more than that … After all, there was the copy of Galatea I sent her, and the two silly letters, which she never acknowledged or answered. She must, therefore, have been annoyed. In the circumstances, after so brief and casual and superficial and unguaranteed an acquaintance, I had no right to send them. Of course, I knew that. Just the same, if she had been as mature, as broad-minded, as fine as I thought—)

“No, you see, I miss boat in New York — got to take dis one, sure. I lose one week. Torino. I go Torino. How I go? Liverpool to Lond’ is four hour,’ tha’s fi’ dollar? Lond’ to Dover is t’ree hour?… Naw, I don’ care, I got plenty time, sure … Torino, I go Torino firs’. My fader liver in Ancona, ol’ man, live alone. My moder, she die six, seven year ago. Look — she give me—”

“—pretty risky, yes. I saw a man killed on a derrick once. He was climbing up near the top, when he slipped. His shoes were worn down, and the broken sole of one of them — anyway, that’s what we thought — caught on a girder … Another time I saw an oil derrick start to fall — eighty feet high — with two men on it, right at the top. They felt it beginning to go — and by gosh they jumped —first one and then the other, — eighty feet down to the slush vat — only a little thing ten feet square, you know — and both of them hit it, neither of them hurt! Gosh! The rest of us felt pretty sick. About five minutes after it, I began to shake so bad I had to sit down on a barrel. A thing like that makes you think …”

Lights of Library and Port Deck. Lights of Bar and Starboard Deck. Single Stroke. Trembling .

Sound Signals for Fog and So Forth .

In fog, mist, falling snow, or heavy rainstorms, whether by day or night, signals shall be given as follows :

A steam vessel under way, except when towing other vessels or being towed, shall sound at intervals of not more than one minute, on the whistle or siren, a prolonged blast .

“Well, Mr. Demarest, why so sad?”

“Sad, do I look sad?”

“You look as if you’d lost your last friend!”

“So I have — I’ve been crossed in love.”

“No. You don’t say so. You’re old enough to know better. Were you on your way to the Library? Do you mind if I join you till dinnertime?”

“I should be delighted. I’ve been trying to read psychology in the smoking room. But the combination of disappointment in love with the noise there — was too much for me.”

“Noise! My dear Mr. Demarest, you ought to be grateful. Up where I come from, if anyone is so careless as to drop a teaspoon, everybody else is upset for the rest of the day. I feel like screaming … What’s the psychology?”

“Well, I’m a little hazy about it. Did you ever hear of the Bororos?”

“Bororos? Any relation to the Toreadors?”

“No — I believe they’re a totemistic tribe in South America or Australia or is it Madagascar. Anyway, I know this much about them: their totem is a red caterpillar called the Arara. And they believe themselves to be red Araras. Van den Stein — of course you’ve heard of him — asked them if they meant that after death they would become Araras? But they were shocked and offended and replied, ‘Oh no, we are Araras!’”

“Is this nonsense you’re talking to me? It sounds like Alice in Wonderland .”

“Said the Arara to the Bororo—”

“You aren’t a psychologist yourself, by any chance, are you?”

“Nothing like that. I sometimes wish I were. Every man his own psychoanalyst?”

“What do you do, if you don’t mind my asking so personal a question?”

“What do I do! That’s what a good behaviorist would ask, and what I often ask myself … Accurately and dispassionately put, I’m an unsuccessful author.”

“An author!.. Well. You could knock me down with a toothpick. You don’t look like an author.”

“No?”

“No. Where’s your long hair? your flowing tie? your — pardon me — maternity trousers?”

“Yes, I do lack the secondary sexual characteristics. That’s probably why I’m unsuccessful. Or at any rate, the two things go together. If a man takes himself seriously enough to dress the part, and to look like a damned fool, he may perhaps be crazy enough to be some good!”

“Well now, that’s an interesting point!.. Wait for me five minutes, will you? I’ve left my old reekie behind.”

“Sure.”

“—well, that’s all right . You have your opinion; and other people have theirs. Which kills the most — this last war — or tubercleosis?… So!.. You would pronounce judgment on it without knowing the facts. That’s what women do … Not all the people that’s in the street is bad . And not all the people that’s in the street is good . There’s no grand rules by which you can lay down the law — if you’re a good Christian. There’s only special cases, that’s all; and what you’ve got to do is to look into each case by itself, and judge it on its own merits … Everybody is aimin’ for the same place, ain’t they? That’s the fact to be remembered, and not the fact that they go different ways to get there from what you choose. That’s the way it is with religion. We all take different routes. But we’re all aimin’ to get to the same place. So what’s the good of quarrelin’ about the routes we take, or scorning one man because he goes this way, and another because he goes that … as long as they’re honestly striving to get to the good place … But if there’s a place on this earth that’s a second Sodom, it’s New York.”

“How are you, Mrs. Simpson? Have you got hearts?”

“For fair!”

“Hearts are trumps.”

“—the dollar, that’s their god, the almighty dollar. You see what they mean by that, don’t you?”

“Yes?”

“You remember the Jews in their journey through the desert. You remember how some of them, losing faith, backsliding, went whoring after false gods, and worshiped the golden calf. That is a symbol —the golden calf. And the golden calf is today the god of America. It’s the Almighty Dollar; instead of Almighty God. Mark my words.”