John Gardner - Stillness & Shadows

Craine nodded, thoughtful. “I take it you’ve got some idea why he’s doing it.”

Davies nodded. “I think so. Partly, of course, it’s because he believes it’s a good idea, maybe a brilliant idea. One should never underestimate the seriousness of these young intellectuals. Tenure’s the least of what they’ll sacrifice in the name of their convictions. He’s a poet, after all. Poets — even relatively bad ones, and Ira’s not that, I think — poets have an almost frightening tenacity, not unlike hard scientists or mathematicians. They’ll work days, weeks, months to get one small detail just right by their own private judgment.”

“Autumn, clear as the eyes of chickens,” Craine said.

Davies glanced at him, decided to let it pass. “Yes, something like that,” he said. “Everything in a poem — rhymes, rhythms, line breaks, every slightest little technical trifle — aims at one single thing, saying exactly and precisely what you mean, intellectually and emotionally. Choose a slightly wrong word, let in the slightest distracting assonance, even indent a given line too far, and you change the whole meaning — disastrously! Believe me, it takes a madman — I mean in Plato’s sense — to write poetry. What I’m saying may not hold for every poet — I’d say it doesn’t hold for Robert Duncan, for instance — well-known poet in San Francisco — but it’s true, I think, for Ira Katz and for many others like him. He gets an intuition and he follows it out; nothing on earth can stop him, all ordinary human considerations are forgotten — family considerations, anything you can name — he follows it out with the ferocious concentration of a maniac, or a cat at a mouse hole, follows it till he gets it — or it kills him.”

“You admire him a good deal,” Craine said.

“I envy the son of a bitch, that’s the truth of it.” He did not smile. “So anyway, put a mind like that on this crazy computer idea and you can predict what will happen.” Now he did smile, shaking his head. “And then, of course, there’s the social-psychological component.”

Craine waited.

“It’s a natural alliance, poet with an idea, metaphysical idea, and a group of first-rate computer mathematicians. They’re already half persuaded that the world’s all symbols. They encourage him, and he’s flattered. You know how it is with these literary types. They’re impressed by a man who can add nine and seventeen. They’re a class above him, always have been. When he got C’s in algebra, they got easy A’s, though in every subject he was always very smart. When they talk over coffee, he’s lost most of the time — yet they look up to him, they respect him. Compare what he gets in the English Department. We deal — just between you and me, Mr. Craine — with dead poets, the kind that don’t ever say ‘That’s not what I meant!’ Here Katz is, three books out and a collection of small prizes, and his fellow teachers of freshman comp and sophomore lit can’t make sense of what he writes, don’t even read him — don’t read anybody, just Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter again and again, and write articles on ‘Hawthorne and Alchemy,’ for which they get promoted, as Katz does not. It could make a man bitter, if that were his natural inclination. Ira’s not the bitter type, needless to say. But by degrees he pays less and less attention to his colleagues, occasionally lets a little slur slip out — to a student, or some friend — and it gets back, in time. These people, you understand, are the people that get to vote on his significance to the department. I don’t mean to say they’re mean or small-minded — not at all. We have a top-notch department, some outstanding scholars. But he makes himself an unknown quantity, if you see what I mean. Take Professor Schaffer, eighteenth-century specialist. He doesn’t read Ira or any other modern poet, though he’s a very good man, we were lucky to grab him. Taught at Columbia, then Princeton. Three fat books with the Oxford University Press. Kind man, beloved. Ira Katz meets Schaffer in the hall, doesn’t even know he works for us! Wilbur T. Schaffer! One of the three biggest names in the field. You see the problem, Mr. Craine.

“All right. I don’t mean to be criticizing Ira. I just meant to explain that there’s a natural social-psychological component. Ira doesn’t ‘work well,’ as they say, with his colleagues, and what he does — aside from his teaching, of course — is a hard thing for his colleagues to evaluate. No doubt I sound as if I’d like to see him fired. It’s not true. But believe me, he’s difficult. You’re a realist. Think about my position. The job of a chairman is to some extent political. If I come out swinging for a fellow, he’d better be standing there behind me, trying to look polite! — But all right, that’s my problem; not to the point.

“All right. So where were we?”

“You were saying he’s self-destructive.”

“Yes, good. Yes, that’s the point. Did you hear about the death of his mother?”

“I don’t think he mentioned it.”

Davies nodded, lips pursed. After a moment he said, “Ira’s mother was alcoholic; a very difficult woman. She lived with them — no doubt part of the reason for the divorce. When she died he was there at the hospital with her, sitting at her bedside. She seemed to be asleep when her esophagus burst. I suppose it must have waked her. She reared up in bed, blood pouring out of her mouth — Ira jumped up and grabbed her — and she said, ‘Ira, why’d you let me do this to myself?’ You can imagine how it is for a man like Ira to have to live with a thing like that!”

“Maybe,” Craine said.

Davies shot him a look. “Maybe?”

Craine waved. “The ole lady wasn’t exactly being fair, you’ll admit.”

“Of course she wasn’t! Real ‘Jewish mamma,’ as Ira’s wife put it.”

“Ex-wife.”

“Well yes, technically.” He smiled, as if feeling a little trapped. “She was — is — a wonderful woman. We’re all very fond of her. He had a wonderful family. Smart, good-looking kids, beautiful little house on Chautauqua—”

“The wife got the house?”

He studied the pencil, which he held now by the point and the eraser, between his two index fingers. “Jane’s very social, stunningly beautiful, an excellent cook. Maybe beautiful’s too strong; she’s just a little puffy— cortisone treatments. And of course when a man walks out on her, a woman shows the wear and tear.”

“Of course.

Abruptly, Professor Davies put the pencil in his pocket and turned back toward the desk. “Well, that’s about it,” he said. “There’s not much more I can tell you. As you can see, we’re pretty worried.”

“Yes I can,” Craine said. He leaned forward as if to get up. “One thing,” he said. “Where did he run into this other woman, this April?”

“Ah yes, April.” The professor shook his head. “She was a programmer over at the center. So in a way, you see, I’m responsible.”

“Yes, that’s too bad,” Craine said. “You know anything about her?”

“I’m not sure I ever laid eyes on her. No doubt a nice enough person. Ira’s always had good taste.”

“Mmm,” Craine said, and now he did rise. He said, “There were others, then?”

“I can’t definitely say,” Professor Davies said. A coolness came over him, quite suddenly, as if with a click.

Craine looked down at his pipe and grinned a little wickedly. “Occupational hazard, I imagine,” he said. “They’re like rock stars, these poets. They go off and do readings, talk behind closed doors with their female students about whatever little intimacies show up in their poems … I imagine there must be rumors, at the very least. I imagine you’d have to be a saint to be the wife of a poet and never suffer jealousy.”