— Like a jungle, Otto repeated, looking into the room beyond her. — A jungle where you've lived in the dry season, and you come back in a wet season. . His voice tailed off and he stood there trying to assume no expression at all as her eyes searched his face, to find no betrayal but a quirked eyebrow which started to rise, and did not.
— What's happened to you? she asked him.
— Nothing, I… I'm tired.
— Nothing! She caught breath. — You're different. You've changed.
— I guess I'm just tired, he repeated.
— Do you want to stay here tonight?
— Here? he said, looking at her as though not understanding.
— Here. With me.
— But Esther, I… I don't think it would be…
— All right.
— I mean I just think it might. .
— All right, I said.
— But… — Please._ If you don't want to then don't talk about it.
— Oh damn it Esther, I didn't come here to argue with you, he said in a hoarse whisper. — Why are you looking at me like that?
— Where have you been all this time? She asked him that gently, as though prompting him to the question he should have asked about himsell, of her: for she had the answer ready enough, as he may have known, looking down at his own thumbnails instead of into her eyes where he might have read it.
— Just. . around, he mumbled.
— But what have you been doing to yourself? she came on, forced to recover the moment.
— Nothing really, not much of anything, I… He looked up at her with an attempted smile. — Looking around, there just hasn't seemed to be much worth doing.
— Is it worth going on like this, alone? just to find out what's not worth doing? she demanded with an involuntary abruptness, and as he looked down again, — Even your smile isn't alive. . and she stopped, lowering her own eyes as though someone else had spoken. Then she looked up quickly, as though to ascertain him there, before she went on, — And you, I suppose you have something. . crucial, something crucial you have to do before you can. . But Esther stopped speaking again, for in his face, she saw that he had not.
The place did present aspects of foliage, shifting and dank, the florist's window flooded perhaps, its tenants afloat in slithering similitude; or the jungle: for at that instant the room was pierced by a raptorial cry like that of the bird descending.
— That? that's Max's poern? Anselm laughed, crying out, — "Wer, wenn ich schriee. ." that?
They looked toward the door, saw only the paunchy guest of the evening moving toward it, in an unsteady rasorial attitude as though following a trail of crumbs to the great world outside. Mr. Feddle approached, looking rather reckless, gripping The Vertebrate Eye and its Adaptive Radiation.
Otto's hand jerked, and then moved furtively to his inside breast pocket as half a step back he looked frankly down Esther's figure. Her eyes drew him up quickly. — I just thought. . remembered, you? are you all right? I mean, I heard. .
— What?
— I don't know. Nothing. You hear things.
— What are you talking about?
— Well you, that you needed a doctor?
— A doctor came this afternoon, and… I saw him.
— But, and then, you're all right?
— I'd rather not talk about it.
— But all right, I'm sorry, I didn't mean. .
He had started to move away from her but Esther was speaking to him, her voice going on as though she had not stopped, — Because you've done the same thing, you've spent all your time too, you've put all your energy up against things that weren't there, but you put them there yourself just to have something to fight. .
— Esther…
— So you wouldn't have to fight the real things. She spoke with great rapidity at him. — And now you say you're tired? At your age, because you've been trying to make negative things do the work of positive ones. .
— I wish I was an old man! he burst out at her, and then lowered his eyes again, his pale hand inside his coat holding the thick packet there. — Because. . damn it, this being young, it's like he said it was, it's like a tomb, this youth, youth, this thing in America, this accent on youth, on everything belongs to the young, and we, look at us, in this tomb, like he told me it could be, like he said it was. . And Otto raised his eyes to see nothing moving in her face.
— Yes, you came here for him, didn't you, she said quietly. — You only wanted to see him, didn't you. And you came here hoping to find him? Well he isn't here. He was here. But he isn't here now. '
— Where, he was? here?
— I said he was, but he isn't here now, she answered steadily, watching Otto look everywhere round the room, waiting calmly until he brought his bloodshot eyes back to her, to say, — He's gone.
— Where, do you know where?
— No, she answered and paused, looking at him for seconds, before she said, — Yes I knew, you'd come for him, because, from the first it was like that, and you took me to get closer to him, to take what you thought was the dearest thing he had, and you. . trusted him, didn't you. .
— Do you think it's you I mistrust? he said suddenly looking up to her face; but then he looked away slowly, as from the light of a candle after knowing the light of a self-consuming indestructible sun, carefully as though in fear of extinguishing that candle, though it flare up in determined self-immolation, demanding to be saved from itself. — If I did then, he went on trying to speak clearly, — if I didn't trust you then, I mean mistrust you, then, I wouldn't have learned to mistrust myself and everything else now. And this, this mess, ransacking this mess looking for your own feelings and trying to rescue them but it's too late, you can't even recognize them when they come to the surface because they've been spent everywhere and, vulgarized and exploited and wasted and spent wherever we could, they keep demanding and you keep paying and you can't. . and then all of a sudden somebody asks you to pay in gold and you can't. Yes, you can't, you haven't got it, and you can't.
— Where have ytra been asked to pay in gold? she asked quietly, when he finished the outburst which left him breathless staring down, as if uncertain if he knew what he'd said, and sought to recover it at their feet. — Otto? He looked up and stared at her. — Tell me, who's done this to you?
— I… he mumbled, looking away again, — I guess I've done it myself, he answered in a whisper, as Mr. Peddle bumped him, passing in the other direction, empty-handed.
And though aware of someone at her side demanding her attention, she waited, looking at him, waiting for his eyes to return to her.
— Esther, have you got a copy of the Diuno Elegies? Rilkey's Diuno. .?
— "Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ord-nungen?" Anselm repeated, in a rapture of delight, — "und gesetzt selbst, es nähme einer mich plötzlich ans Herz. ."
— Shut up, Anselm.
— It can't be, Don Bildow repeated, staring at the open page of the small stiff-covered magazine in his hand, as the words of the first line under Max's name formed on his lips, "Who, if I cried, would hear me among the angelic. ." — He wouldn't have dared.
— "Ich verginge von seinem stärkeren Dasein. ." Hahaha, that's Max's poem? Die erste. . haha, hahahahahaha, from the Duine-ser Elegien von Max Rilke, hahahaha
— Esther, have you got a copy of Rilke? these. . elegies?
— I have, she faltered (for it was not true), — but I've lent it.
— But not Rilke, he wouldn't have dared, Don Bildow repeated, as though it might be a matter of opinion, or a rumor which, traced down, might yet be retracted.
— Ask him to show you his Sonette an Orpheus, you'd love it.
— Shut up, Anselm, said the stubby poet darkly, motioning to the man in the green wool shirt.
— You should have known, Bildow cried out at him as he slogged toward them.