—Why Stanley, Agnes Deigh admonished from the chair below him, and reached a spray of white fingernails soothingly toward his face. But the consecrated mind thrust the vagrant heart aside. —It’s “birth and copulation and death,” he said to the profane girl.
—But she’s joking, darling, said Agnes Deigh as her hand reached his trembling chin.
“Dust and ashes!” So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold. Dear dead women, with such hair too—what’s become of all the gold Used to hang and brush their bosoms?
Otto looked up, avoiding the eyes of Max. She was watching him, suddenly, still hidden on the couch. Pretending he had not noticed her, he let a few pages slip under his finger and continued.
He never saw, never before today,
What was able to take his breath away,
A face to lose youth for, to occupy age
With the dream of, meet death with . . .
And she was alone. The sight of her had startled him: looking out at nothing, her lips silent and almost smiling while the rest chattered, her body still where everyone else shifted, conscious only in herself while all the others were only self-conscious. Alone on the couch, and alone in the room like the woman in that painting whose beauty cannot be assailed, whose presence cannot be discounted by turning one’s back, but her silence draws him to turn again, uncertain whether to question or answer. Otto put the book back in the shelf, and started toward her. Then a tweed arm was around his shoulders. Beside him someone was saying, —There was a woman in Brooklyn who used to do it, but I think the police got her. She charged two hundred dollars. And someone else said, —Is this the first one she’s ever had? You can’t let it go much longer than two months. —She might make something on the side, a third person said, —You get two dollars an ounce for mother’s milk these days.
—Someone has been very cru-el not introducing us, said the owner of the tweed arm. Otto freed himself and set off again, as someone in the other group said, —I’m surprised she’s never been in a mess like this before.
Through the smoke, among the bumping buttocks and wasted words, he arrived. She looked up and smiled. —May I get you something? he asked her. He had taken out the cigarette package and put the last remaining cigarette between his lips, which were dry. —I’m sorry, it’s my last, he said, struggling to light it, and then in confusion, —Oh I’m sorry, I should have . . . He stood gesturing at her with the fuming cigarette.
—I’d like a cigarette, she said.
—But I . . . here, take this. He had forgotten the casual stance, the raised eyebrows, lips moistened, slightly parted. His mouth was dry, and palms wet with perspiration. —I’m sorry. Let me get you one.
—No, I have some I think, she said, and reached for her bag on the floor. —My name is Esme, she told him when she sat up with a cigarette.
—Oh. Is it? said Otto, struggling to open a small match box with one hand. She helped him with the light, looking into the room beyond him. Her large eyes were exaggerated in their beauty by the hollows of her thin face, and the image he sought, distended afloat on their surfaces, drowned and was gone.
—Yes. And you?
—Me? Oh. My name’s Otto, he said. A face to lose youth for, to occupy age, with the dream of, meet death with . . .
—But won’t you sit down?
He sat.
The room was filled with smoke, dry worn-out smoke retaining in it like a web the insectile cadavers of dry husks of words which had been spoken and should be gone, the breaths exhaled not to be breathed again. But the words went on; and in those brief interruptions between cigarettes the exhalations were rebreathed. —I don’t know, he told me he was a negative positivist. —Well he told me he was a positive negativist. —Incidentally have you read Our Contraceptive Society? —My dear fellow, I wrote it, for Christ sake. Adeline had been cornered by Ed Feasley, who was telling her that the trouble with America was that it was a matriarchy and had no fatherland myth. Someone said, —No one here really understands New York. It’s a social experience. Max was discussing or-gone boxes as though he had lived in one all of his life. Buster Brown had an arm around Sonny Byron, a young Negro said to be descended from an English poet of whom few in the room had heard. One of the policemen was asleep. The other sat holding his glass, making faces at no one. Anselm was working his way round the wall, so as not to lose his balance, toward the window. The chinless Italian boy was standing all alone, looking at the painting. Charles was in the bathroom looking through the medicine cabinet. Hannah was divided between intellect and emotion: on the one hand, arguing that D. H. Lawrence was impotent with a youth in eye-shadow who insisted that at heart he was a “raving queen”; on the other, she was trying to protect Stanley from Agnes Deigh, where he sat on the arm of her chair with the white fingertips dug into his knee.
—Sometimes I know just what it must be like, being the left arm of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, said the big Swede, who looked ready to weep.
—Baby, don’t touch me, said Herschel, —my head is brackaphallic, and he began to sing as he sank back toward the floor.
Anselm managed to reach the window, which he opened, and crawled to the fire-escape, making a mess in someone’s yard below.
The critic in the green wool shirt was stooped over the poet, saying —These snotty kids who come out of college and think they can write novels.
Mr. Feddle was busy inscribing the fly-leaf of a book.
Someone came in at the door with a manila envelope under his arm, and went over to the policeman who was making faces. —The radio in your patrol car is making a hell of a racket, he said. The policeman buttoned his tunic over the mangy red sweater and went out. Then the boy who had come in said, —It’s snowing.
—Chrahst, how unnecessary, said Ed Feasley. He had just told Adeline that the literal translation of the German word for marry, freien, was to free; for aside from immediate intentions she was being considered as a character in forthcoming fiction. This Harvard boy who had never learned a trade watched her with indulgent curiosity.
—Ye haven’t an arm and ye haven’t a leg, Hulloo, hulloo . . .
sang Adeline’s sometime escort from a far corner, with sudden cheer as though he’d just discovered the song.
Ye haven’t an arm and ye haven’t a leg,
Ye eyeless noseless chickenless egg,
Ye’ll have to be put in a bowl to beg
(he sang, delighted with such a device), and an unlikely chorus followed:
I’m going down to Dutch Siam’s, yes I am . . .
Then someone said loudly what everyone had been suspecting. —There’s no more to drink. The room quieted. Even the eyeless noseless chickenless egg was abandoned, as its chorister struggled to an optimistically vertical position against the bookcase.
—Oh God, said Agnes Deigh. —Give me my bag will you darling? she asked an anonymous trouser seat, pulling at the coat which hung above but did not match. She handed a folded twenty-dollar bill to a boy wearing her racing colors and stood, saying —I’ve got to go to the can anyhow, where is it?
Hannah had been watching her. She felt in the pockets of the deep-seated denim pants, came up with nothing, and said, —What time is it? to Max, probably the only other sober person in the room.
—Three-fifteen, said Max, for whom time was also a matter of the clock.
She sniffed, as with a personal grievance. —It’s disgusting, giving a string of Mozart operas as benefits so they can buy new scenery for The Ring. Mozart pimping for Wagner. And that old bag, she added, —with her Mickey Mouse watch. Then she looked down the room and asked, —Who’s that skinny girl on the couch, with that . . . Otto?
—She writes poems, her name’s Esme. I think she’s been modeling for some painter. She hasn’t got any stomach.
—I’ve heard about her, Hannah muttered. —On the needle. A schiz.
—Manic depressive, schizoid tendencies, Max elaborated. —Has anybody ever seen her child?
; —Child? She’s a mother, her? She’s too fucking spiritual.
—She says she has one four years old.
—Christ. And look at Herschel, he’s simple, but Stanley, this thing he has on the Church, that’s why he’s stuck on that old bag with the Mickey Mouse watch, he wants to bring her back to the Church he thinks. I wish he’d get off it.
—I wish he didn’t smell, said Max. —I’ve told you before, he’s an oral type. But if you want a real obsessive neurosis look at this, he said nodding to where Anselm approached on hands and knees, a beatific expression on his blemished face. —Have you read any of his poetry? I don’t see why Bildow takes it.
—Why shouldn’t he smell? Anselm demanded from below. —He doesn’t wash.
—Screw, will you Anselm? Hannah said, with a step toward Stanley.
—What did Saint Jerome say? “Does your skin roughen without the bath?”
—Screw.
—“Who is once washed in the blood of Christ need not wash again.”
Hannah reached Stanley and took his arm. —Don’t you want to leave? Come on, I’ll walk you as far as the subway.
—Yes . . . in a minute, he said looking down at the warm indentations Agnes Deigh had left in the chair.
Hannah muttered something. She was staring at Esme again, and suddenly said to Max, —She looks like she thinks she is a painting. Like an oil you’re not supposed to get too close to.
—She’s high right now, can’t you see it? She’s been on for three days.
Hannah snorted, and took Stanley’s arm again. —Coming?
He looked down to see someone tugging at his trouser leg. —What kind of an ass-backwards Catholic are you? asked Anselm from the floor.
—Why . . . why . . .
—Shut up, Anselm, said Hannah. —For Christ sake, go home and take a nap.
—For Christ sake, you say to me! What do you know about Christ?
—Take a nap.
—Well I can’t. Do you know why? Because of Christ. Because when I lie down and feel my hands against my own body, that’s all I can think of, that thin body of Christ. I can feel it, with my own hands. Does that interest you?
—Please . . . said Stanley.
—Not a God-damned bit, said Hannah.
—Well don’t try to talk to me about Christ then, said Anselm, and started away. Then he turned his head back to them. —Do you know who went around like this? Do you know that Saint Teresa went around on all fours, with a basket of stones on her back? and a halter? That’s the ritu quadrupedis, if you think it’s so God damn funny don’t you. And do you know what Christ said to her? “If I had not already created Heaven, I would create it for thy sake alone.” Don’t try to talk to me about Christ, he said, and went toward the other end of the room, quadrupedis. Stanley stood still; and Hannah turned from him angrily.
Herschel was still propped against the bookcase, where he had left himself a while before. Hannah’s approach woke him to a look of fear and no understanding. —By now you probably don’t even know what your name is, she said, her tone merciless sobriety.
—Hannah . . .
—No. I’m Hannah, and who are you? He stumbled past her to the other side of the room and interrupted Ed Feasley, who was telling Adeline that the literal translation of the German word for surrender, niederlage, is to lie under.
—Adeline, said Herschel. —Baby, drawing his breath through his open mouth, liquidly audible. —Is your name really Adeline? I had a nurse once named Adeline, a west black woman Adeline. One day I bit her right square under the apple tree. What do you think of that?
The white Adeline thought enough of it to stand away from him. Herschel swung before her, like a man whose feet were grounded on springs. —Is your name really Adeline? he pled, now with such insistence that if she would answer, or even allow the affirmative by silence, it would legitimize anything to follow. But the door opened upon them, and four late arrivals appeared, hazy-eyed, with willowy movements, the three boys unshaven and the girl unclean, smelling like lives from the swamp. —We’ve been having a ball, man, one of them said. —Have you got any tea?
A policeman, his tunic unbuttoned, appeared in the doorway to announce loudly that he had had a call from headquarters to answer a complaint at this address . . . a party . . . too much noise . . . have to quiet down . . . and could somebody get me another drink?
Otto took Esme’s arm and helped her up, almost using that arm which lay helpless in the sling. He recovered enough of his wit to say, —May I take you home? Now you’re supposed to say, Sure, where do you live? Esme looked up, smiled pleasantly, blankly. She did not understand; and sophistry, confronted by simplicity, was lost. —It seems like we’ve always been just here, she said.
Someone appeared before Otto with a manila envelope. —Here’s the story, the one you said you’d send to your friend on a magazine for me, he said, and disappeared.
Herschel stood mumbling to himself. All sense of humor was gone, all sense of anything. His eyes, looking and finding nothing, had stopped seeking and lay open and empty. Only when Hannah reappeared, reflected in their glassy surface, they clouded. —Now I suppose you want to get your tattoo? she said. He nodded helplessly. —Herschel, don’t be such a fool. Go back to analysis. Do you think a tattoo will solve everything?
—Hannah . . . baby . . .
—What are you going to have tattooed on you, anyhow? Names? Pictures?
—Leave me alone, he whispered.
A discussion of fierce intellectual intensity continued in one corner. Someone had said that everyone knew that Tennyson was a Jew. In the middle of the room two young men met. —I thought you’d gone home, one said. The other embraced him. —I was waiting for someone to ask me. The Swede sat on the windowsill, head in his hands. —Those horrid horrid vulgar labels, all over my bags, he sobbed. —But I could hear them laughing behind the door, behind the locked door, I could hear them laughing . . . The flat girl said, —Aren’t you going to say good night to our host? And her escort, a full-blown woman, said, —God no, I never speak to him.
Agnes Deigh returned, straightening her skirt and loosening her waist. Then there was Stanley’s voice saying, —No, I promised I’d go home with Hannah, the tone of the seven-year-old’s loyalty to the squat and eternal mother. A boy in a bow tie thanked Agnes Deigh for the party, and she cried, —Darling it wasn’t my party, I’m leaving too. Will you take me home? As she went out she stopped with Max, who stood smiling under the forgotten scars of the Workman’s Soul. —There’s somebody in the can darling, she said, —somebody passed out in the tub, somebody I’ve never seen before. You’d better go in and look at him, there’s blood all over the place.
At their feet squatted the late guests, smoking something the size of a thumbnail which they passed among them, like a pitiful encampment of outcast Indians satisfying the wrong hunger. —This stuff doesn’t really affect me, one said, —but don’t you notice that the ceiling is getting closer?
The policeman who had been making faces put down an empty glass, and woke up his buddy. They left.
Otto felt strange, holding her thin wrist: that Esme could give all and lose nothing, for the taker would find she had given nothing; plundering her, the plunderer would turn to find himself empty, and she still silently offering. When she looked up, he was lost to himself as though the woman in that painting had turned her unchanging eyes on his helplessness, and he looked away from her eyes, at the straight darkness of her hair, and cowardly, down at her ringless fingers. Her eyes embarrassed him with their beauty, all at once as she showed them.
—Whore! said a voice at their feet, throaty, breathing heavily, as if there were indeed a load of stones on his back. Then in a clear hard voice Anselm called Esme a name which fell from his mouth like a round stone, and seemed to strike the floor and remain. She looked down at him. —Come on. Look out, Otto said, pulling her away. But she stood, for all her delicacy, firm, and smiling. —Anselm, she said, her voice gent
le and quenching as she repeated the name. —Anselm.
—Succubus, said Anselm, his voice deep in his throat again. —Ssuccubus, he hissed. —Devil in a woman’s body, to lead a man in vile sin, abominable lusts, carnal pleasures, blasphemy, the filthy delights of copulation. Do you think I don’t know? Do you think no one knows? Not for your own delectation, you get no pleasure from it, only to corrupt and pollute the soul and body of a mortal man. Succubus to a man, incubus to a woman . . . He reared his acned chin.
—Come on, Esme, said Otto. —Let’s get out of here. But she stood, charmed, still gently smiling.
—Go home and read Saint Augustine. On the Trinity, said Anselm, turning his thin face up to Otto. —There you’ll find that devils do indeed collect human seed. Not for delectation. Succubus to a man, incubus to a woman. Damn you, damn you, damn you. If devils fell from every rank, those who fell from the lowest choir are deputed to perform these abominations, these filthy delights. Not for delectation. Do you know about the monk Helias, and how the angels answered his prayers by castrating him? Do you know about Saint Victor?
Otto had moved Esme toward the door, where the Swede stood sobbing —Behind the locked door, I could hear them laughing . . .
Then Otto turned, feeling something spray on him. Anselm had flung up a hand wet with beer, and was shuddering, —I exorcise thee, unclean spirit, in the name of Jesus Christ; tremble, O Satan, thou enemy of the faith, thou foe of mankind, who hast brought death into the world . . . He gasped; and in that moment Otto heard clearly from across the room, in Max’s voice:
—I’d say he was a latent heterosexual, and looked up to find Max’s eyes upon him. He stood trapped for an instant in Max’s smiling eyes, then sought others, saw Stanley sunk against a chair watching Anselm.
—Thou seducer of mankind, thou root of evil, thou source of avarice, discord, and envy . . .
—Esme, come on. He pulled her arm.
—Hey Stanley, Anselm called suddenly over his shoulder, —who’s this coon with your girl? Hey Stanley, I am one, sir, that comes to tell you . . .
—Esme . . .