— Whut?
— This, this. . poem, this thing of Max's, you wrote that essay on Rilke last spring, you. .
— Rilke, but that was on Rilke, Rilke the man, an essay on Rilke the man. .
— Max Rilke. "Weisst du's noch nicht?". . Anselm howled, waving his magazine in the air, wrapping something around his neck. — Christ, don't you know Max by now? Like that shirt he cut up and framed, he called it a painting, "The Workman's Soul"?
— Shut up… was repeated, but Don Bildow was staring at Anselm dumbly. Then, — Shirt? he whispered.
— And these pictures he's showing now, the abstract paintings he's selling now, don't you know where he got them? Max Rilke Constable, Anselm went on, laughing. — Didn't you know where he got them? that they're all fragments lifted right out of Constable canvases?
— My God, my dear, excuse me, said the tall woman, — but that creature has my furpiece. . She set off toward Anselm, sundering numerous conversations as she crossed that room.
— D'you know what happened when Caruso died? Science cut open his throat to see what made him sing. D'you know what that means?
— Do we know even half of what's happening to us?
— And do you know why the French are so honest? because there are so few words in their language they're forced to be.
Otto had moved slowly across the room, vaguely, sideways, steps backwards, picking up a glass half full, getting nearer the door of the studio, as though in that darkness might be the figure hidden there working, still there and silent from two years before.
— Hello, Rose said looking up to him with a smile.
— Oh! he startled, to see her there sitting on the floor. — And. . you?
— Yes.
— And you, then you're Esther's sister?
— Rose. And she continued to smile while he looked at her almost wincing as though seeking something there in her face. Then, — You look like the doctor, she said. — Except the doctor was not so old.
— The doctor? You mean the doctor who came to… to see Esther?
— Yes, Rose said, and turned her face away suddenly. — To kill her beautiful baby.
— But the… I mean, they told you about it? Esther, about. . a baby?
Rose looked up at him. She was smiling again; but it was a different sort of smile. — Not a real baby, she said, in a low tone of confidence. — For Esther made it up, she only made it up.
— Made it up? But I mean, is that what he said? the doctor? that it was a… I mean, what do they call them, a hysterical pregnancy? Is that what he called it?
— Yes, Rose confirmed after a thoughtful moment, moving her lips as though fitting the words to them in recall. — So he said, when he killed it, for so he killed it. Those are the best babies, she said, as Otto looked away from her and stared out into the room. — Are they not? the best babies, for they do never grow up, she went on, — and when they die they go where nothing happens, and there they remain in suspense forever. .
Her sigh lingered as he stared out into the room, listening to the tall woman, watching her attentively as though every word and movement of hers were extremely important, though he did not hear a thing she was saying, — Aren't they charming? Baby's breath. . taking a jeweled spray from her purse and fixing it to an ear-lobe. — My husband gave them to me, he says a woman can lie so much more convincingly when she wears jew-els, she went on, affixing the other. — I just gave him some money and told him to go out and buy himself something and promise not to look at it, she finished, snapping her purse. — We have to go on to another God-awful party later. She cleared her throat, looking round, and took up again, — Did you meet that very. . healthy-looking Boy Scout master? Except for his nose, possibly. I overheard him say that the Boy Scouts had hit him with a sidewalk.
Maude Munk had not moved. She said, — I haven't seen Arny for hours.
— Late hell, it's morning, said the man in uniform.
— It's always morning somewhere. . She looked at a window-less wall.
— That's Longfellow. I may not be an intellectual, but I know my American poets.
— Is it? she murmured, surprised without interest.
— That was Hannah the Horror of Hampstead, Mr. Crotcher intoned from his armchair bastion, to no one. — Shall I sing something else?
And the woman in the collapsed maternity dress, who had been talking to the tall woman, went right on to the girl with the green tongue, — You see all the fat ugly little men with beautiful girls? All the wrong people have the money now, that's because ugly people make money because there's no alternative. When you're ugly nobody spoils you, you see reality young and you see beautiful things as something separate from you you're going to have to buy. So you start right out thinking money. Since the old aristocratic system where you inherited looks and manners and taste with your money. .
— Quick, gimme a piece of paper quick, Anselm said grabbing Otto by the shoulder. He wore the furpiece circling his face, knotted under his unshaven chin. — Hahaha, did you hear what just happened? I want to write something down, quick. He had jammed his rolled magazine into a hip pocket with the stethoscope. He was too excited with pleasure to notice Otto's face, an anxious expression, but a vacant anxiety, and the more abandoned for being features inured by conscious arrangements where, only now as in sleep, nothing happened. Otto's pale hand delved in his left jacket pocket, came up with his father's note, some papers, — Wait!. . wait a minute, not that. .
— Gimme that picturel. . Everything about Anselm changed in an instant.
Papers dropped between them. And Otto stood staring, at the pale, quivering, empty left hand so long out of use.
— Where did you get it? Anselm demanded, half in a fury and half in a rage, as though he'd never seen, never before tonight, what was able to take his breath away: he picked it up from the floor staring at the glossy surface as though unable to contain the whole figure in his apprehension, seizing at details, the chair, the wallpaper, finally the delineating blemishes on the shadowed white, in a manic silence of search which led him to her face and left his own in a helpless show of fury and dismay. — I'd. . youl. . he hissed, looking up at Otto.
— Esther, I've just heard the campiest limerick about an a.-meeba. and the queen of She-ba … a frail voice cried.
— You. . Anselm hissed.
— But, listen. . you can't. .
— Are you the lady who wanted to hear about Pablo and his kitten?
— You. .
— But how do you think I felt. .? Otto burst out at him, and reached to catch his naked trembling lip under a yellow forefinger.
— Pablo was this scientist. .
— And it murmured, ich liebe, ich Hebe.
Then Anselm laughed, a choking hysterical sound, broken for an instant with a whimpered, — Sssuccubus. . until he got his voice, — And when they took her to Bellevue and she knew they were going to undress her, she stopped screaming long enough to take out her falsies, and then she started in again, there, there, there!. . his face was almost touching Otto's.
— In. . she in, Bellevue? The whisper burned both their lips.
Then a word ruptured Anselm's mouth in a concussive sound which laid them at arm's length: for both had brought up hands and stood so until, only Anselm did not move but followed his words with his eyes only, — yess, find her, find her, he hissed at the face gone in profile, and then that lost to hair and collar, and the soft convolution of an ear, — find her and be damned.
Sounds rose about him; still Anselm did not move. With another look at the likeness in his hand, he shuddered and stuffed it into a pocket, then stood there alone gazing with an expression of revulsion at the orchid wilting upside-down on the graceless trunk of the figure moving like something afloat, bearing the signature of the jungle deeper among its shadows.