Confessions…." — You're trying to tell me these are reviews of your book?
— Yes, yes, said Mr. Feddle eagerly, snatching the ribbons of paper back, and returning them to the book under his arm. He'd met the hunched critic in the green wool shirt plodding up Sixth Avenue as though in deep snow, a heavy book under his own arm, about to enter a tailor shop to have two buttons sewn on the front of his pants. — How come I haven't seen it then?
— It's out. It's out, it just came out, said Mr. Feddle retreating.
— I thought it was poetry, how come these say. .
— Poetical autobiography, Mr. Feddle said quickly.
— How come all these reviews have the name of it torn off the top?
— Oh, oh that's my. . being modest…
— You being modest? Don't try to give me… is that it? Under your arm there, is that it? Lemme see it.
— Yes, but… an advance copy, Mr. Feddle said retiring further out of reach, moving the book under his arm only enough to show his name on the jacket.
— Here, lemme see it, you… all right, you stupid old bastard, don't, I don't want to see it.
— But you. . aren't you even going to buy me a glass of beer?
— Go on, you crazy old bastard. Do you think I don't know what those reviews are? You think I don't know the book those reviews are written about?
— Oh did you. . read it? Mr. Feddle asked helplessly.
— No, but I knew the son of a bitch who wrote it, said the critic, turning away, into the tailor shop where he found his friend the stubby poet sitting debagged in a waist-high booth.
— What are you doing here?
— Having the zipper on my fly fixed.
The critic undid his waist and sat down in the next booth. — That crazy old bastard out there, showing me reviews of Anselm's book he's trying to say are his. Anselm. .
— Anselm, the Church really had him. I laugh every time I think of him, retiring from the world and they make him publicity agent for a monastery. And the importance he tries to give himself by talking about what a sinner he was, he has to bring in every saint from Saint Augustine to Saint. . some other saint to back him up, for Christ sake, publicity agent for a spiritual powerhouse. How'd you come out in court today?
— That snotty kid swore he'd never met me, so how could he have used me in his novel. But we're proving he took incidents right out of my own life. .
— So what good are they to you. .? The tailor came out with a pair of pants over his arm. The poet put on his pants and the critic took off his pants. — Tell him to hurry up, we have to get uptown to meet this guy who's going to put up money for a new magazine.
— I can't go without my pants, for Christ sake. Give him a couple of minutes to sew the buttons on.
And then they silenced, each bending forth, closer and closer, to fix the book the other was carrying with a look of myopic recognition.
— You reading that? both asked at once, withdrawing in surprise.
— No. I'm just reviewing it, said the taller one, hunching back in his green wool shirt. — A lousy twenty-five bucks. It'll take me the whole evening tonight. You didn't buy it, did you? Christ, at that price? Who the hell do they think's going to pay that much just for a novel. Christ, I could have given it to you, all I need is the jacket blurb to write the review.
It was in fact quite a thick book. A pattern of bold elegance, the lettering on the dust wrapper stood forth in stark configurations of red and black to intimate the origin of design. (For some crotchety reason there was no picture of the author looking pensive sucking a pipe, sans gene with a cigarette, sang-froid with no necktie, plastered across the back.)
— Reading it? Christ no, what do you think I am? I just been having trouble sleeping, so my analyst told me to get a book and count the letters, so I just went in and asked them for the thickest book in the place and they sold me this damned thing, he muttered looking at the book with intimate dislike. — I'm up to a hundred and thirty-six thousand three hundred and something and I haven't even made fifty pages yet. Where's your pants?
— Wait a second, he'll be right out with them. I got a card from Max.
— Did he hear about Charles Dickens yet?
— I wrote a note to him about it on a review of his book I sent him.
— Your review? He'll thank you for that.
— They cut it on me, for Christ sake, you know that. The hell with them, anyway, they're all of them fucked and far from home, sitting over there right now pretending they're in New York pretending they're in Paris. . hey wait, wait. .
— I can't, I can't miss this guy, I'll see you later, the Viareggio.
— That place, for Christ sake, it's taken over by fairies. Wait. .
Out on the sidewalk, Mr. Feddle hurried up fluttering the ribbons of newspaper. — Beat it, screw, go on you crazy old bastard, I heard all about your book…
— You did? you did? You've heard about it already? Yes, a beer? a beer to celebrate. .? And in his enthusiasm Mr. Feddle came too close. The book was snatched from under his arm and he fluttered here helplessly, listening to the laughter, and an instant's more hope that it might not be opened, that the dust wrapper he had made so carefully, lettering his name with such meticulous clarity on the front, pasting a picture of himself taken forty years before on the back, might yet sustain it. Then pages flashed, the laughter broke. — The Idiot? That's the title of your book? The Idiot. . the laughter came on, — by Feodor Feddle. .?
" 'Did you imagine that I did not foresee all this hatred!' Ippolit whispered again. ." Mr. Feddle wiped his eye, sitting at an empty cafeteria table a few minutes later, over a tomato cocktail he had made with catsup and water, trying to hold together the torn dust wrapper so that his picture and his name might be seen whole by anyone coming near, the book balanced upright as pages slipped under his thumb, and a smile as of satisfaction fixed to his lips, weary satisfaction for a work completed, as the last page turned and the last paragraph swam before his eyes. "They can't make decent bread anywhere; in winter they are frozen like mice in a cellar. ." He touched at his watering eye with the crook of a finger. " 'We've had enough of following our whims; it's time to be reasonable. And all this, all this life abroad, and this Europe of yours is all a fantasy, and all of us abroad are only a fantasy. . remember my words, you'll see it for yourself!' she concluded almost wrathfully. ." Someone approached his table. He swallowed hard, preparing to speak. It was a Puerto Rican busboy, with a hairline mustache. Pages retreated under his thumb.
" 'Pass by us, and forgive us our happiness, said Myshkin in a low voice.
" 'Ha, ha, ha! Just as I thought! I knew it was sure to be something like that! Though you are. . you are. . Well, well! You are eloquent people! Goodbye! Goodbye!' "
On the terrace of the Flore sat a person who resembled the aging George Washington without his wig (at about the time he said farewell to his troops). She was drinking a bilious cloudy liquid and read, with silent moving lips,from a small stiff-covered magazine. Anyone could have seen it was Partisan Review she was reading, if anyone had looked.
Paris lay by, accomplished. Other cities might cloy the appetites they fed, but this serpent of old Seine, pinched gray and wrinkled deep in time, continued to make hungry where she most satisfied, even to that hill where by night, round corners, she fed on most delicious poison, where, with, — Hey Joe, you see ciné cochon? deu^ femmes fooky-fooky? the vilest things became her still; where by day picturesque painters infested picturesque alleys painting the same picturesque painting painted so many times before: the spectral bulbiferous pyramids crowning the ascent where the first bishop of the city had approached carrying his head under his arm in a two-league march which centuries later would provoke a comment worthy any thinker before him, in a woman's pen whose shrewd instant would, ever after him, define and redeem the people whose patron saint he became.