Can you tell us the way to the beach
Yes you follow this road to the beach
they didn’t see me in my bed on the wall beside the hedge although they came so close to me no they didn’t but here is sand on the floor filth and mud on the sitting-room floor and under the dining-room table the blood comes into my hands and face I am angry hit something it is all one room but there too is a door to the pantry and there is Magma standing
This room is dirty you must sweep it out Magma
Sweep it out yourself
Give me a broom
piles of sand under the table under the chairs along the walls on the sills heaped against the screen doors shavings too blocks dolls paper soldiers with wooden props toy cannons rags dirty clothes
This room is filthy you must clean it at once Magma
Clean it out
with the broom I am in the pantry and rush towards Magma the freckle-faced sister where is Bertha and where are the children but now we are in the corner of the sitting room again blood is in my hands and face and neck I am angry
I will not be made a Christian slave by the Berthas
What did you say
with the broom hitting the saucepan on her head crash have I killed her but she is moving away and the brothers and cousins lean silently closer to me press closer and lean closer on all sides five six seven evil faces hard faces American army faces tough mouths menacing
What was that you said
I will not be made a slave to the Berthas
Squads right
Give him the bootsit
Is it
Squads left
Out with him
It’s the wibbots what
this is that ghost again under the rim of my hat this is a dream is it the bad kind or the good kind shall I wake or not what will it be this squads right and bootsit tar and feathers hanging a beating and merciless men shall I keep still fight now or later SCREAM
peace on the left ear left hand peace
one shape and then another the little turmoils lead to big turmoils turmoils turmoils who said turmoils what is a turmoils this is the way to the this is the way and it is a clear landscape a clear cold landscape such as you saw in ice but far off cold and small the tiny splinters come out of it against my face there are splinters of ice stars fragments glass bright landscape against my face against my eye and now the glare must be a fire and in the mirror I see the reflection the little red bead from the unseeing eye it was those glass eyes on the little plush carpet all looking in different directions watchful and quiet how often do you wash them how often do you take them out can I do it myself must I use a lotion an eyewash and I am walking along the beach alone the little lonely beach is it Nantucket is it Plymouth is it Nantasket no it is somewhere else it is Melville it is Shakespeare it is the edge-beach the wild beach the beach where I shall see the octopus it is the end and far Bohemian seacoast
Go ahead and wait for me
I will go ahead and wait for you
I have something
Is it the what is it where
It is crying
alone I see it I step over the long black thick tentacles of a quivering celluloid jelly I am among them what if they should move seize me but it is really dead here on the sand it is quite dead I am sure it is dead o the poor thing it is dead shall I touch the tentacles with my stick shall I turn back and look at the body the corpse the crystal globe the bell-shaped body motionless on the wet hard sand with the tide going out it was left here by the tide and is dying look it is still alive look the eyes are watching me and what is that it is but don’t SCREAM it is a it is a quite the largest octopus I ever heard of vast enormous the enemy of Moby Dick WHITE too but look
Go ahead and wait for me
I will
o christ it has a man’s head inside the transparent jelly a man’s face a fine man’s head a magnificent face a face in aspic a head in aspic it is Michelangelo’s head in aspic and o god it is still alive the life is ebbing backward along the long lucid tentacles the tentacles which are drying on the sand and this face is watching them dry watching them die feeling them die watching the tide go out and see the agony on that face the lips contorted in hatred and scorn the eyes that watch you with malevolent godhead that watch the receding waves wtih horror and hatred it is conscious it sees you and despises you even in its death it does not want your pity or your help how can you help it what can you do it hates you anyway if you saved it even if you could save it even if you could cast it back in the sea it would want to kill you for it is more intelligent than you and knows it but what is it thinking now that it is dying what terrific thought is it thinking for the face is wonderful it is intelligence meeting death with a vast thought
and walking away walking away
now the man with mustaches is showing us the new house the peculiar house with glass walls we follow him up the stairs all four of us follow him the three others ahead of me I am last going up the glass stairs the glass curtains too and the cupboards of glass it is all very bright and clear and artificial it is an artifact where have the others gone I hear their voices but I do not see them they have gone round the corner or into another room and here is a w. c. and I am determined yes I will have time will I have time yes there is plenty of time but the voices suddenly come nearer they are all looking in what a nice bathroom too O isn’t it a nice bathroom but the stairs we go down are narrower and darker than before and who are these people these three people and the man who has gone ahead somewhere with mustaches into the street and along toward the factory alone the waterfall is pouring out of the side of the factory across the sidewalk how can I get past is it safe shall I cross to the other side of the street no I will stay on this side but it is poisonous water it is acid it is yellow I can feel the spray burning my cheek and hands it spouts out in innumerable jets and splashes upward from the sidewalk yellow and acid
Is that you Andy is that you Bertha Andy and Bertha
and this medical student whom I knew at Harvard too walking beside me and looking at me in a peculiar way over the tip of his mustache
No I don’t live there any more do you live there still
I am married
I am now a gynecologist
I will walk with you as far as that little Catholic church
We played tennis once on Soldiers’ Field the ball hit you in the face is that why you are blind or was it because you were looking through a peephole I can see that you don’t like me
he grins at me as if he knew that I am afraid of him he is tall and takes a longer step wears tweeds brown shoes and an A.D. hat band or is it the Gas House we separate in silence before the church and I am going in beside an old woman it smells of incense and is full of images chasubles crucibles chrysms chrysoprases columns and columns and columns of white plaster the cheap painted stations of the cross gaunt yellow jaundiced marble crucifix and all the old women kneeling among the images I stand behind them and look at all the bright brasses and silvers and hanging lamps the rows of little candles and the priest is coming down the aisle toward me as I go out again his crooked mouth