— Well, for the — if somebody was to — and so saying he knocked me down with a fountain pen. Just like that. He drove up in his chariot and blew me over with a whisper, that’s what he did. With bright little words of love and kindness, too, and adjurations to Christlike mercy. You make me sick. You’d better go to sleep, if that’s the best you can do, that’s all I can say. Your complete lack of comprehension simply staggers me — if I weren’t already staggering. Yes yes yes yes yes. I ought to do everything for them. I love them dearly. They’re so kind to me, day and night, aren’t they. So considerate of me. They put me first every time, don’t they. Tom, that God-damned snob — what did he ever do for me. What. Oh yes, he got me into the Institute of 1770 as an honorary. I forgot that. And tried to get me into the Gas House. Helped me get the football managership. Long ago and far away. Wonderfully kind, he was — I’ll never forget it as long as I live. I owe him everything. So now that he presents his bill, of course I’ll pay on the nail. Yes. I’ll help him in every way. I’ll give him five dollars for the Sacco-Vanzetti fund, and make speeches for his parlor Reds at Ford Hall. I’ll run his errands for him. I’ll mix his prussic acid for him. I’ll give him my rum, my Hogarth prints, my first editions of Henry James, and my collection of pressed flowers. From Duxbury, too. Why not. And all as a preliminary to the greatest gift of all, which you foresee already. Little Bertha, the Brattle Street Bovary. Let him have all he can get of her, and all he can keep. With both hands, with auricle and ventricle, with liver and lights, I give her up. And she too. The immaculate. Whom I had to teach, whom I taught, whom I made what she is today. What is she today? She is Andrew Cather, that’s who she is. Saturated solution of A. One-eye Cather. What would her hair have been without me? Her hats? Her music? Her mind? Her body? A few timid Vincent Club jokes, a conversation about maids at the Sewing Circle lunch, a hundred visiting cards left in silver dishes in Brattle Street and Marlborough Street and Scott Street and Highland Avenue. I made her over in my image. Is that why I don’t know whether to hate her or love her? I made her over, gave her one eye in exchange for two — ah, but what an eye, what an eye — myopic but precise — the eye of imagination — taught her the animal pleasures and with them gave her the great gift of horror — and now that she is a Cather, now that she is Andy, Tom wants her. Oh yes. He is moving in on me, closing in on me. It’s the Michelangelo thing. Hello, Mike old boy — are you still there? Keep one eye on me — we’re going on to bigger and better things. Dawn of the artist’s consciousness, which is consciousness awaking with the last beat of the dying heart. The eye that opens in the coffin. Monsieur Valdemar — the mind that blossoms to terrific thought with the energy thrown off by the final catalysis of corruption. Christ, I must get away from here. Not geographically, but on the wings of Father Imago. Did you ever hear of him? My best friend. Myself. The one who was left — who was left — what was I about to say. I’m going too fast. Left high and dry. I must maneuver back to the sea, that’s it. I knew that all along, too, and wanted it before. Yes, I told you about it. The long, blond beach in moonlight, the bronze waves in moonlight, the dory whose name was Doris, named of course after my mother, the dry curled waves of seaweed, the blackened stones left from clambake fires, the Indian arrowheads of white quartz — there it all is, spread out, miles long, worldlong, on the way to the Gurnett. I shall go to the Gurnett. Along that frightful beach. At midnight, in mournful moonlight, alone, or with a whore.
— Take Bertha with you.
— That’s rather witty of you, my boy. I might do worse. I could point out the exact spot where we always had the picnic, the annual picnic, the clambake. On clear days, the mirage of Provincetown, and the smoke of the Provincetown steamer streaked along the horizon. Yes. And the Plymouth boat too, closer in, white and glittering. And all the dead fish on the sand, stinking in the sun. Shall we take off our clothes and bathe? Have we brought our bathing suits? Shall we divellicate? You’re snoring, Bill. Go to bed.
— Sorry. Go ahead. I’ll just put this paper over my eyes.
— It’s funny — I get soberer and soberer, the more I drink. What’s that — tolerance? Clear as a bell. And all the agonies in rows, as separate and distinct as sea shells in a glass case. Were we talking about that before somewhere? Seems to me we were. Where was it. Let me think. Those wet ashes remind me of something — there’s a puddle on the hearth, too — what is it they remind me of. Not Bertha, no. Not that camp in Maine, no. Not Jaffrey, or Jackson Falls, no. But what. Was it the Madison Hut at sunrise — no. But it was Bertha somewhere, yes it was Bertha, much younger, before she’d got such a belly, and begun to shave her legs with pumice. Yes. Did she shave — did you know she shaved her legs with pumice so that the hairs wouldn’t come sparkling through her stockings, Bill. Did you know that. Must be painful, I wonder. Before the bath or in the bath. Did you know there was a barber in Washington Street where women used to go and get shaved all over, or depiled, or whatever the word is. Can’t be depiled, can it. Did you know that. You don’t know anything. You’re snoring again. But this has been a wonderful nonstop talk, hasn’t it, you didn’t know I had it in me, did you. And now as you see, I’m all at peace with myself — like hell I am — with all the little separate agonies in rows like sea shells, the ones I was telling you about.
— Oh, sure.
— Yes. Did you know that.
— Oh, sure.
— If you can’t say anything but Oh, sure, go to sleep. You’re no use to me.
— I think I will if you don’t mind. Here. And when you get tired of addressing yourself you can have my bed.
— Greater love hath no man than this. But I would feel guilty. But you’re already snoring again. But I’m alone again, alone as always, alone as you are in your subterranean world of sleep, you with your middle-aged and far too fat hands crossed on your breathing and automatic belly. Good god what a thing it is — and the snow too — all night a night of snow — covering the college yard so innocently, so that all the sad traces are obliterated — even the President’s footsteps gone, and the little privet bushes mantled, and the neat little vomit by Appleton Chapel covered over, and the little trefoil bird tracks filled in, and the dog-stale and cat-stale gone. How many times have we crossed it? How many times our footsteps lie there, Bill, immortal but invisible, on the way from Heeney’s Palace of Pleasure to Seaver, from the Union to University 4, from the Bursar’s Office to the Coop, from x to y. Do you see them all, sleeping Bill. That network. Do you see them all, Mike old boy. You with your Homeric curls. Shall I tell you a dream while I walk up and down with this drink in my hand. Shall I. Yes I will, thank you. I will start with the simple premise of the actual and delicious dream, that one, the one of the crucified pig, my old friend the bleeding pig, Andrew Pigsnout Cather, the winged pig, whose wings were bitten off in childhood. It was like this, or like that, but you won’t mind if I just change it a little as I go along, will you, and touch it up like a photographer; you know, just to make it brighter. Shall I do that. Oh, Christ. I don’t care. It comes out like a ribbon and lies flat on the brush. Listen Bill, listen you prostrate and sleeping guts — it was like this. I was in the Swiss Navy at the time. I was in Gibraltar, with my Spanish grammar in my hand. I was on my way to my castle in Spain, the ideal, the everlasting, the infinite, the beautiful. Do you hear — all those lovely words, all the evanescent ones, the pale plasma of sublimation. Alloplastic, autoplastic. Have you ever ridden in an autoplastic? Bores me. And it was in the spring, it was when birds fly north, and I too was flying north, and I sent Tom a wire to say that I would meet him and the two other fellows at that little place in the mountains, way off there, at that high altitude, in that remote village, and in that familiar and dearly-beloved little inn, where we knew all the people, and had gone so many times — you know the place. I wired him, and took a train and rode all night. Who were the other fellows. I didn’t know, but one of them was a Spaniard. I rode all night in the train, and got to the mountain village before sunrise. And walked in the twilight up the muddy road, for it had been raining in the night, and I knew my way perfectly to the little inn, with its yellow plaster walls and the purple clematis growing on the trellis, and I went in and turned to the left, into the little breakfast room where I knew they would all be sitting and having their morning tea, and sure enough there they were — Tom, burly and athletic, damn his athletic eyes, in his rough tweed jacket with shapeless pockets full of books and his English pipe stinking the room out, already in possession, and the Spanish fellow, and the other fellow, whose name I never knew — there they all were, their breakfast finished, the tea cold, the dishes dirty, the early gray light coming in on to the soiled red tablecloth, and as soon as I had come in they all got up and said they must be going. Yes, they must be going. They must be in time to see the waterfall, the famous waterfall, which was the show piece of the village, by sunrise: for that, ladies and gentlemen, was the Thing to Do. Oh, yes. You always had to go and see the waterfall in the glen by sunrise. And would they wait for Andrew? No, indeed. Out they went, taking alpenstocks with them, just like God-damned mountaineers, and Tom rang the bell to tell the landlady that Mr. Cather would now have his tea, and they would go ahead, and Mr. Cather having had his tea would follow them to the waterfall. Do you hear me in your sleep, Bill. Do I influence your dreams. Do you hear the waterfall, is it rushing down in a shapeless pour past your subconscious ear. Do you feel in your pancreas the sunrise light that never was on land or sea. Do you feel the cold peaks of the Cantabrigian mountains, the sunrise clouds, towering above you there on your putrid sleep-ridden couch, you with your hands on your belly, which is full of Liebfraumilch. Do I draw you forth into that realm. Are you climbing goatlike among those wet crags of slate and gravel. Are you stumbling or slipping there, your feet wet and cold. Oh, Christ. So I had my tea and followed them, but they were already out of sight, they had gone down into the glen. And as I went down the muddy road to the village I knew that I didn’t quite remember where the path was, the little field path, that led from the road across the fields to the glen. And I stood there by a stone wall and wondered, and a peasant with a bicycle stopped and pointed out the path to me, but said that it was almost impassable with mud, as I could see. We leaned over the wall, and I saw that what he said was true. The mud was knee-deep. It was like soup. But he added that if I walked further down the road to the next farm I would come to a barn, and if I went into the barn, and through it, and out at the back, I would find another and better path which would lead me safely down to the glen, from which I would easily enough find my way to the waterfall. So I did it. I went to the barn, which was on the right hand side of the road. But this was the appalling thing, Bill, you must dream vividly about this. I’m telling you about it. This was the appalling thing, for as I entered the gloom of the barn, in the morning twilight, I heard, from somewhere near me, the most dreadful and heart-rending screams, animal screams, animal agony, and I stopped, terrified, and looked about me to see where the screams came from. And in a dark corner, then, under some cobwebbed stairs, in a sort of pen, so dark that at first I could hardly make it out—