Christ, Bill, it was the pig, the crucified pig. You won’t believe it when I tell you about it. Nor you, Mike, you won’t believe it. It was the huge naked pig — supported upright, with arms outspread, as on a cross, by a devilish machine, an affair of slowly revolving wheels and pullies, with an endless belt which was attached by steel claws to the flesh of the pig. But my God there was practically no flesh left on the pig; none, except on the breast over the heart; the belt had torn the rest away, and as I went a little closer, appalled by the screams of the pig — whose head was flung back in a final ecstasy of anguish, turned to one side, the mouth wide open — as I went a little closer, and watched the endless belt slowly moving down the red breast of the carcass, between the ribs of which I could see the entrails, the steel claws fetched away the last strip of flesh, the pig was automatically released, and with a final scream of pain rushed out of the pen. It was nothing but a skeleton full of guts, but it was alive and sentient. Sentient. It whirled madly about the floor of the barn, driven by such a demon of suffering as compelled it to translate the consciousness of pain into the wildest energy — and this was only last night, are you listening, Bill — and I was frightened of what it might do, and ran out into the street again and climbed with incredible speed up a waterpipe on the wall of the house opposite, and managed to hang there, out of reach. And sure enough the pig came rushing out, as if it were going to destroy the whole world. But at this very minute the miracle happened, Bill. I saw in the road a little scaffold hung with gay cloths, like the ones mountebanks use at country fairs, and on this a monk, in a gray gown, with a rope tied round his middle, stood and rang a brass bell. And he began announcing, as the pig galloped up the stairs and stood upright beside him — Ladies and gentlemen, you will now witness the farewell performance of the dying pig. The pig will first give you an example of his acrobatic prowess, on the parallel bars, the trapeze, and also without the use of any implements whatever.
Before he had finished speaking, the pig began performing at lightning speed — standing somersaults, running and double somersaults. Catherine wheels, handsprings, chinned himself rapidly innumerable times on the trapeze, whirled to and fro over the parallel bars, and finished with a series of giant swings so swift that I could hardly follow them. Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, the dying pig will now play the Chinese whole-tone scale on an arrangement of coins, with his hoof. And instantly on a table, where the monk had flung down a haphazard handful of gold and silver coins, the pig tapped out rapidly with his hoof the Chinese whole-tone scale. I could see that the pig was dying. But the monk rang the bell again and said — ladies and gentlemen, the dying pig will now give you a demonstration of the fact that the death-agony can be transmuted into pure genius of consciousness. Without previous knowledge of Sanskrit, Hebrew, or Greek he will translate passages from those languages as I read them aloud. He will first translate a passage from the Sanskrit Upanishads, which, as you know, represent the earliest attempt of the Hindu mind to understand the nature and reality of existence. The monk read aloud, and the pig translated. The bell clanged again, the pig translated a passage from the Hebrew version of the Book of Genesis, at the end of which the monk said that the pig had corrected several inaccuracies in the King James Version. The bell rang again, the pig was about to translate from the Greek, but suddenly—
Are you dreaming about this, Bill. Am I making you suffer. Are you and Michelangelo listening to this. As you should by God. But at this minute I couldn’t stand it any longer. I didn’t want to see the pig die — perhaps not unnaturally, for I know as well as you do — damn you — that the pig was myself. Oh, yes indeed. Step up, ladies and gents — so I slid down from my waterpipe and went hurrying up the road again toward the path that led to the waterfall, leaving that scene behind me to finish itself as it would. I went toward the path, and I thought — Tom is here by this time, he and the others, they have seen the beautiful waterfall in the sunrise. Christ yes — they’ve seen the ideal, which I have missed. While they have been looking at the ideal, I’ve been seeing the real. Shall I go and join them — is it too late — will I be in time to see the ideal. Do I want to see the ideal. Or is it — tell me Bill — is it enough to have seen the real. Is it enough? Can you tell me that, you with your outer eyes shut. You with your two eyes. Can you tell me that. Does it tell you everything or doesn’t it. And don’t feel that you must wake up like Lazarus and explain it to me. Oh, no. You go on sleeping, you go on rotting there in that deep mulch of the underworld, where good and evil meet. While I drink and walk up and down here on this dirty carpet and spit into your dirty fireplace. Yes, you go on. While I unwarrantably despise you merely because I’m more conscious than you are. Or am I. And put my hand on your arm to see if you react. And you don’t do a thing or say a thing, you’re to all intents dead. Christ, what a dream. Did he die, will he die. Performing. Turning his very death into an entertainment. Turning his pain into perception. Christ, what a dream. And where do we go from here. Is this the turning point, do we turn back from the underworld, do we move to the bloody little sunrise now — the little Christmas card sunrise — is that where we’ve got to go. Do we go back to the sea from here, Michelangelo, as we said before — is it there — is what we want there — shall we burrow back to the sea, while Bill sleeps with his hand over his eyes to keep out the light — instinct again — do we feel sorry for Bill — have we been mean to Bill — must we give Bill a present to make it up to him — what shall we give him. A dozen bottles of Liebfraumilch. An Australian wimpus. A fountainpen filler. An old shoe. Shall we cry on the floor beside him, lie down and cry, so quietly that he won’t wake. Shall we walk out into the storm with the glass in our hand, walk all the way to Fresh Pond, meet the ghost of Bertha, salute her among the algae, how-do-you-do, madam, and have you slept well. Or else. What. What else. Fatigue again, the feet are slow and uncertain. The feet are reluctant. They do not miss the legs of chairs or stems of ash trays. No. The feet and hands are detached. But shall we continue to say all this aloud or merely think it. It is becoming — a little — false. Unconvincing. Parepractical. Without a listener, why does one become dramatic. Or so much more dramatic. Alloplastic and autoplastic. And all these books here, these masses of words — must we swallow them only to spit them out. Bill, there is a fly walking on the back of your hand, and you don’t know it. You don’t even hear me tell you about it. He doesn’t know that I am thinking about the Gurnett again, walking along the beach again. Brant Rock. He doesn’t know how heavy the sand is, how it pulls at your feet, as if you were falling asleep. How it seems, as you drag slow footsteps, even to come up over your eyes, over your brain. He doesn’t know that. He doesn’t hear the nymphae singing as we slowly divellicate the waves of sluggish foam. How could he know that. Have we translated the book of nosogenesis, or done our dream work. Can we unravel the perception material on our feet, walking slowly, walking slowly, from one bipolarity to another. Have we devoured the id, or seen the dead ids lying on the beach and stinking in the east wind. Am I going toward the bedroom or first to the bathroom. Bedroom. Put the glass down you fool. Are we inclining toward, swooping toward, the streaming horizontal. Christ, to sleep — to sleep now — and without a single dream — not even those lumps, those clots, those whirls — not even those sickly lights — that fringe of lanterns under the eyelid, that fringe of slatterns — nor the mounting of lattices — textures of bedspread under the hand — the threads, the thralls, the threshes — must the leaning of the chin lead us into the southwest inevitably — into the dull darkness of whiteness with the room in the other light still on — forgot it — or this edge under the cheek — this cold edge of sheet — must we go downward there, leaning downward, and all for a last long slow deluding and terrible curve O God — is it there we go with a last little spinal effort—