He could not get his mind to produce the answer.
The only product in it was the yes of the ravishing Chinchilla Benét.
She had said yes to him, yes to him, yes — but presently demonstrated to him the hopelessness in all things uttered once she had lain herself out alongside him in his very soft, very thoughtful, very complicated bed.
"Is there something wrong?" said he. "I'll fix whatever is wrong," said he.
"Oh no, thank you — it is all wonderfully lovely, thank you," said the ravishing Chinchilla Benét, offering the bosom of her pillow — he had retrieved from storage for her his most treasured, his featheriest, example of the sort — a reassuring pat of the hand, a gesture incomparably prophetic of the one the ravishing Chinchilla Benét in due course performed on the elbow of his arm when bidding him adieu at the delightful moment of her departure.
"Was there something wrong?" said he. "I would have fixed whatever might have been wrong," said he.
"Oh no, thank you — it is all wonderfully lovely, thank you," said the ravishing Chinchilla Benét, thence — presto! — with no further ado, exhibiting herself as gone from him, and therefore from his habitation, forever.
Whereupon he, our unnamed tenant, not one whit to his surprise, found himself discovering in himself a certain sense of — ah, the word is triumph, isn't it? — and never a gladness more grateful and intemperate.
AT LEAST THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT LOOK
LISTEN, YOU ARE LOOKING AT SOMEBODY who just can't wait to look derived. It scares the spunk out of me for me to think they'll come along and look at my writing and say, "Hey, who sent this clown? Where'd he come from? Uh-oh, this goofball, he's not some kind of vagrant Johnny-come-lately, is he?"
Please, I know all about Bloom and that stuff — and, believe me, I'm not saying it's not terrific stuff, Bloom's stuff. But I'm telling you, the one thing you are sitting there looking at when you sit and look at me is somebody who does not want to look like somebody who is exclusively responsible for himself.
Talk about anxiety — as far as I myself am concerned, Bloom did not know what he was talking about when the man was talking about anxiety.
He ever hear of the Anxiety of the Appearance of You Being the Sole Culpable Party in Sight?
Which is why I always knock myself out looking for epigraphs as alibis.
I figure if I can stand my writing right in back of the right writer by citing the right epigraph right up front in front of my writing before anybody has had himself a chance to look at my writing, I can maybe sort of look as if I am sort of maybe guilty, all right — conceded, conceded! — but not without virtue of a certain glamorous affiliation. You know — the forgivably bastard son of, a traceably impoverished relation to. As in, you know, all honor to Bloom, you bet — but, honest, I'm always looking to look as if I am as influenced as anybody can transumptively get. Which is what led me to looking very closely at Wallace Stevens a little bit ago — epigraph-hunting for all I was worth.
Well, I had the notion it would look pretty wonderful on me for me to look as if I had spent some deep time looking deep into the depths of Wallace Stevens.
(Which can have the effect of getting you to believe Wallace Stevens spent some deep time looking deeply into you, you know?)
So when the poems had me stumped (except for a couple or three that probably had me no less stumped but that, anyhow, knocked me flat), I started looking all around inside of Stevens' daughter's selection of Stevens' letters — and, boy, didn't I find there all the wild provocation for wild postures of derivation a fellow as underived as myself could require!
Get this.
The man's wife was named Elsie.
Okay, the fifth-most of the most romantic sensations of my childhood (the first-most I felt in the vicinity of myself, the second-most in the ditto of my mother, the third-most in that of one of my grammar-school teachers, the fourth-most while sitting on the curb gazing at — I admit it, I admit it! — an American coin) was aroused by the name Elsie when I found out it was the name Elsie which was the name of the woman up the block, which woman — O Elsie, Elsie, Elsie! — was my playmate Harvey Weidenfeld's — oh, wow! — mother.
Okay, so now I find out Stevens' wife, his daughter Holly's mother, that she also was an Elsie.
Okay, what next do I find but that that where Stevens and his Elsie first lived here in the city here was where their landlord had Stevens' Elsie model for him so that the landlord — otherwise, in the official manifestation of himself, a sculptor — could enter the result in a U.S. Mint competition for the face that would newly decorate the U.S. Mint's newly-to-be-minted ten-cent piece, which is, you know, remember the coin? Oh, you must, you must!
The dime.
Get this.
It wins.
He wins.
The Stevenses' landlord wins.
It's therefore Elsie Stevens' face that is there on one side of the ten-cent piece that is driving me — when I am eight and nine and ten — crazy with feelings.
Plus which, it's such a swell face, or that version of it is, that the U.S. Mint decides to let it also go be the face that goes on the fifty-cent piece, too.
The half dollar.
So that that face — you get it, you get it? — the face a million years ago my insides were getting themselves all swimmy over — turns out to have been the face of — well, of my derived-from's missus.
But here's the capper, topper, pay-off.
Which is that where they made their residence, the Stevenses, when they first got together as marrieds and first set up housekeeping here in the city here, and which was where Mr. Weinman, the landlord/sculptor I was telling you about, got Elsie Stevens — O Elsie, Elsie, Elsie! — to sit for him for the coin thing I was just telling you about, that where that was, that where (according to a Holly Stevens footnote in the compilation of letters I was, wasn't I, just telling you about) all those goings-on were going on was three doors from the selfsame address where I, Gordon — O Gordon, Gordon, Gordon, shame! — pulled off the most lucrative of my — burgle, burgle — larcenies.
So will you look?
Will you just look at how far somebody will go for him to look as if he is not just any old nameless belatedness but — look, look! — an identifiably indictable one?
FUCK JAMES JOYCE
NUMBER ONE, I NEVER REALLY READ IT. So just so you know I never really did. I had a copy of it, yes — a cousin I hated gave me a copy of it, yes — but, no, this doesn't mean I really read it, does it? Because, no, I didn't. Granted, I went looking through it looking for the dirty parts in it because this cousin I hated who gave it to me said to me there's dirty parts in it. But I didn't have the patience. I wanted to find them, but I didn't have the patience. I just turned the pages looking for cunt and for tits and for so on. There were plenty of books where you could find cunt and find tits and had so on. There was one I had that was called Twelve Nights in a Moorish Harem that had cunt and that had tits in it and had so on. There were in it even things in it I can remember even all of these ages and ages after it, such as this person nailing this other person while the whole time the second one is up on her heels and is up her toes up on a cushion and so on. I beat off on that one lots of times. Whereas I beat off on his book maybe at the most, if that, only twice. It was the yes stuff in the back. It was all of this yes I said stuff way back in the back. It was all right, this yes I said yes I said stuff way back in the back. I hand it to the man for that. You've got to hand it to the man for that. For that and for the other thing after that — where the man says Trieste, Zurich, Paris, 1914–1921. That's all right. That I loved. I really absolutely really loved that. I had never heard of any places like that. Boys didn't hear so much about places like those kinds of places back when I was a boy. I'm serious. Not even about Paris. People were different. People weren't so, call it like, so international like. Well, I guess it depended on who your people were, didn't it? Mine weren't the kind. So I wasn't the kind. My cousin who gave it to me, the cousin I probably didn't hate so much as just didn't like so much, he must have been more the kind I'm talking about — hearing of Paris, having heard of Paris, a pretty international specimen, him. But the other two outfits, forget it, you would have had to have been way more international than was anybody in any way related to me could have been for you to have heard of either of those. Jesus — Trieste, Zurich. Even just pronounce them, just the business of pronouncing. So it sort of really made this really sort of hideous, you'd call it, cruel impression on me, this thing the man wrote at the end of the book even after all of the yes I said I said yes that is at the end of it before that. I mean this other thing — at the really end of it — this Trieste, Zurich, Paris, 1914–1921 I've been sitting here carrying on so much about. So that I twice sat there after just beating off just looking at that — my heart thumping all around with itself with what it must be for a fellow to come along and say to people a thing like that — say where he was matters because that's where he was, say so now here's the book I brought back from it, so like it or lump it. That's something — how you just sit down and say to them look, you people, look. So this is how come Scranton, Schenectady, Bayonne, 5:51 p.m-5:59 p.m. shows up at the back of one of the books that are my books. Plus then, just to beat the pants off him, just to show the Micks this is one Yid that can go them one better than one of the Micks could — so this is how come I go ahead and stick on another one after that one — namely, Akron, Akron, no time flat. Hey, two of them for his one of them! Better still, just to go them all even one better better still, this here right here is your official goddamn final notice those ones are hereby amended to read Nowhere, Nothing, not even writ. So, okay, so how's that? Which, for your information, I just decided just writing here with my foot up. Which, for your further information, I just this instant decided sitting writing with my foot up on a stool with a pillow up under it. Man oh man, how I would just love to see some Mick come try writing anything sitting with a foot up on a stool with anything up under it. Did he ever? No, he never! There is not one Mick anywhere who could do it. You could go look high and low for the Mick who could do it and not find even a gymnast who could. And don't try to hand me any crap about his eyes. I don't want to hear from you any crap about his eyes. He is not the first one with eyes. There have been plenty of them with eyes. Whereas a foot is a foot. Plus which, it is from guess what. It is from this tremendous walk I took. I walked all around the block. Which is how come this foot. Plus talk about you going them all of them one better — did I see one thing to come home and sit down and write one thing about? I did not even have a stinking lousy what you could call like a true-to-life experience. The whole walk, no, all the whole walk all I was ever thinking about was, you know, was cushion versus pillow. Please, you can't be any fucking James Joyce and answer any word versus any word like that one. It's you're either a Gordon Lish or skip it. On top of which, don't you dare try to sit there and tell me the day ever dawned when no could not take yes by a country mile — as witness who's got the hard-on now?