Alexander Theroux - Darconville’s Cat

Darconville drove into Massachusetts.

We shall rise forever and drift over quintillions of things and thrust our beautiful faces into dawn after dawn! We’ll go on long mysterious quests to see the magnetic rock on the Klebermeer, the black knulps of Shantung, Mt. Nebo where Moses is buried, the City of Humpbacked Women in India, and the three trees of Hudimesnil! And then to Tyde Castle, Fumeland, the Valley of Cheviot, the underworld Garden of Deduit, the land of Nod, the savannahs of Blodd, and the faraway, faraway extra-faraway all out-glittering stairwells of God! We shall clasp hands and walk the dizzy heights of Wenchwan and Aucanguilca, then cross down the fried roads of Al ‘Aziziyah and Dallol, wrun around in Wroxeter, slide down the falls of the Sabbatic River in the Kingdom of Agrippa that runs only on Saturdays and call upon the Choromandacians who have no speech but only can scream or the one-eyed Arimaspians or the Keakles who teach rabbits their prayers! And on and on to Kurdistan, the lost Lyonesse, the monastery of Disembodenburg, Winkie Country, the wooden palace of the King of Tonga in Nukualofa, Opis, and the Shalimar Gardens, and if the wind is up and the evening clear coast in a blue-sailed shell down the Guadalquivir to hop on the Harpasian Rock a mere finger can twiddle, then stop by Yedo, the Thymbran temple, and hide in the Riphaean mountains right in the middle! And then to Klang and the secret abodes of the blessed in Twat and if you’re not tired I’ll tell you what, we’ll creep out at night with one and all and when the moon is shining and bright trip out to trot and trot to dance and dance a jig at the Jellicle Ball!

It was then into Boston, and Darconville soon caught the lights of Cambridge, reflecting like drops of gold in the river Charles.

Welcome, fate! The future shall be greater than all the past! It shines with prophecies, unborn deeds, liberty and love! Come, finally, with me to the Land of Cinnamon, the olive yards by the river Alpheus, the Isles of Orcades and the promontory of the Cimbri, Aneroid and Gravelburg, the medieval castle of Broglio, the empire of Lugalzaggisi and the masses of Negropont, Maleventum, and Orinoco! Come away with me and wander through the Upper Valley of Greater Zap, eat the ten-pound peaches of Chinaland, climb the spires of the foursquare city of Golgonooza, wave to the gold-guarding griffins in the Deserts of Gobi, pray with the holy apocalypts in the ancient monasteries of St. Neot, Pill, Axholme, Stixwould, Drax, Tip-tree, and Burnham-on-Crouch, then watch the Plow of Jehovah and the Harrow of Shaddai pass over the dead, and then maybe sit on a dune in the month of June by the amber waters of the Syllabub Sea where the tide comes in in an opal mist, splashing in sweetly like the sound of a kiss, and we’ll trip upon trenches and dance upon dishes and see whither the hither of yon, but if without reason you should find me gone, I won’t be buried among the dead — no, go instead and look for me where eternity goes, in another world where the rain makes bows, for there’ll be restored by the hand of art whatever’s lost in the human heart, for something of us will always be, and forever-more I’ll live for you if forevermore you’ll live for me.

It was long past midnight and very dark when, awakening the night-porter at Harvard, Darconville was let into his rooms, and, exhausted, he fell down on his bed and went immediately to sleep.

HAD HE DREAMT IT? Darconville prayed not, and very early the next morning — it was still pitch-black outside — he went, still fully clothed from the previous night, into the dark living-room, opened the door, and by match read the doorcard over the knocker: “ Dr. and Mrs. Darconville .” And a flock of birds flew out of his heart.

THE BELLS in the tower of St. Paul’s struck the hour: bong-bong bang bong, bong bing bang bong, bingbbang bong bong, bong-bingbang bong . It was noon. This particular morning, Darconville had awakened and gone back to sleep several times, but now he rose and followed a procession of sunlight into the living-room which suddenly seemed, like the great college to its founder, a “pocket of godliness in a profane world,” for it was surely one of the most beautiful suites in Adams House. The rooms were paneled in old and elegant wood, the oak bookcases and rubbed leather furniture impressively set off at one end with a large fireplace by which stood a rack of blackened fire-tools. There was a sturdy Plymouth table in the center of the room and several Windsor chairs, each stamped on the back with the college insignia that was also replicated on the wall over the hearth in a large, magnificent shield: giles three open books argent, edges covers and clasps gold, on the books the letters Ve Ri Tas sable.

Harvard! The oldest college in America. Darconville simply stood there, considering the wonder of where he was.

There were low windowseats into which one could comfortably sit and look down, on one side, over the streetlamps to the narrows of Plympton St. and on the other across the slate-beveled roof and curious metal ibis atop that queer Dutch castle on Mt. Auburn St. known as the “Lampoon” building, beyond which one had a faint glimpse of the far river. Darconville threw open a window, and Spellvexit leaped onto a seat. The traffic, the various noises of Cambridge, braced him up, and everyone and everything seemed at play in the bright air outside. Darconville ranged the immediate area below on Bow St. — his van was still parked there — and surveyed with a smile all the tiny intersecting streets, the few quaint shops, and the vines of English ivy twining around colonial buildings of deep red brick and white-trimmed windows which evoked in simple, unpretentious glory the spirit of Good Old Colony Times. They were extremely old houses, some of them, with little winking windows, oeil-de-boeuf windows, and strange lunettes, the low-arched doors, in some of the narrower ways, quite overhanging the pavement.

Darconville listened. Above him, some woodpeckers were hammering on the slate-and-lead rooftop, and he wondered, resolving to check later, about the exact shape of Adams House, for it had seemed, as he stumbled through the darkness the previous night, a Gothic maze of angles, bays, and strange alcoves. The sky was as blue as eyebright, with just a hint of mellow smokedrift in the air, prognostic, always, of the rich New England autumn soon to follow. Sunshine caught the fickling leaves on some nearby poplars, under which a group of children in knee-socks and caps passed swinging satchels of books. The trees, with some leaves falling, were just beginning to shed. The days were drawing in.

The building was empty. In any case, Darconville had seen no one about. What with the changed plans, it turned out he’d come up a bit early, earlier, apparently, than anyone else, but it gave him some added time and he took advantage of the quiet afternoon to unload his clothes and books. He was, all at once, happy, busy, and yet to be sure a trifle lonesome — a photograph of Isabel immediately went up on the mantelpiece. Darconville delighted in the fastness of privacy and warmth circumcluding the little study he arranged by the kitchen, having already developed a nice scheme of checks and balances on the facility of not only writing there but of being able to eat quickly and, most important of all, of maintaining a perpetual and unremitting vigil by the telephone — which had yet to be connected.