At least, there was that question between us, “What will become of my grandchildren?” He was looking ahead but his concern for immortality was translated into terms of grandchildren. He would live in them; he would live in his books, of course; I may have murmured something vaguely to the effect that future generations would continue to be grateful to his written word; that, I may have mentioned — I am sure I did sometime or other, on that or another occasion. But though a sincere tribute, those words were, or would be, in a sense, superficial. They would fall flat, somehow. It was so very obvious that his work would live beyond him. To express this adequately would be to delve too deep, to become involved in technicalities, and at the same time it would be translating my admiration for what he stood for, what actually he was, into terms a little too formal, too prim and precise, too conventional, too banal, too polite.
I did not want to murmur conventional words; plenty of people had done that. If I could not say exactly what I wanted to say, I would not say any thing, just as on his seventy-seventh birthday, if I could not find what I wanted to give, I would not give anything. I did find what I wanted, that cluster of gardenias, somewhat later; that offering was in the autumn of 1938. And these words, the words that I could not speak then, too, come somewhat later, in the autumn of 1944. The flowers and the words bear this in common, they are what I want, what I waited to find for the Professor, “to greet the return of the Gods.” It is true, “other people read: Goods.” A great many-people had read “goods” and would continue to do so. But the Professor knew, he must have known, that, by implication, he himself was included in the number of those Gods. He himself already counted as immortal.
49
I did not know exactly who he was and yet it seems very obvious now. Long ago, in America, I had a peculiar dream or merely a flash of vision. I was not given to these things, though as a small child, in common with many other small children, I had had one or two visionary or supernormal experiences. This time I must have been eighteen or nineteen. The picture or segment of picture impressed me so much that I tried to identify it. It was not a very sensational experience. The vision or picture was simply this: before sleeping or just on wakening, there was a solid shape before my eyes, no luminous cloud-pictures or vague fantasy, but an altar-shaped block of stone; this was divided into two sections by the rough stone marking; it was hardly a carved line but it was definitely a division of the surface of the rough stone into two halves. In one half or section, there was a serpent, roughly carved; he was conventionally coiled with head erect; on the other side, there was a roughly incised, naturalistic yet conventionally drawn thistle. Why this?
It is odd to think, at this very late date, that it was Ezra Pound who helped me interpret this picture. Ezra was a year older; I had known him since I was fifteen. I do not think I spoke of this to anyone but Ezra and a girl, Frances Josepha, with whom later I took my first trip to Europe. Ezra at that time was staying with his parents in a house outside Philadelphia, for the summer months. It was there, one afternoon, that Ezra said, “I have an idea about your snake on a brick,” as he called it. We went into the study or library — it was a furnished house, taken over from friends — and Ezra began jerking out various reference books and concordances. He seemed satisfied in the end that this was a flashback in time or a prevision of some future event that had to do with Aesculapius or Asklepios, the human or half-human, half-divine child of Phoebus Apollo, who was slain by the thunder-bolt or lightning-shaft of Zeus, but later placed among the stars. The serpent is certainly the sign or totem, through the ages, of healing and of that final healing when we slough off, for the last time, our encumbering flesh or skin. The serpent is symbol of death, as we know, but also of resurrection.
There was no picture of this. Ezra said airily, “The thistle just goes with it.” I do not think he actually identified the thistle in connection with the serpent, but in any case it was he who first gave me the idea of Asklepios, the “blameless physician,” in that connection. I found this design later but only once and in only one place. I was with Frances Josepha and her mother on our first trip “abroad.” This was the summer of 1911. We went from New York to Havre, then by boat up the Seine to Paris. “Here it is,” I said on one of our first visits to the galleries of the Louvre, “quick,” as if it might vanish like the original “brick.” It was a small signet-ring in a case of Graeco-Roman or Hellenistic seals and signets. Under the glass, set in a row with other seal-rings, was a little grey-agate oval. It was a small ring with rather fragile setting, as far as one could judge, but the design was unmistakable. On the right side, as in the original, was the coiled, upright serpent; on the left, an exquisitely chased stalk, with the spiny double leaf and the flower-head, our thistle. I have never found this design anywhere else; there are serpents enough and heraldic thistles but I have not found the two in combination, though I have leafed over reference books from time to time, at odd moments, or glanced over classic coin designs or talismans just “in case.” I never found my serpent and thistle in any illustrated volume of Greek or Ptolemaic design or in any odd corner on an actual Greek pottery jar or Etruscan vase, but through the years as I stopped off in Paris, on cross-continental journeys, I went back to assure myself that I had not, at any rate, “dreamt” the signet-ring. There it was; it was always in the same place, under the glass, in the frame, with the small slip of faded paper with a letter or a group of letters and a number. Once I even went to the length of purchasing the special catalogue that dealt with this section, hoping for some detail, but there was the briefest mention of “my” little ring; I read, “intaglio or signet-ring of Graeco-Roman or Hellenistic design,” and a suitable approximate date. That was all.
50
Signet — as from sign, a mark, token, proof; signet — the privy seal, a seal; signet-ring — a ring with a signet or private seal; sign-manual — the royal signature, usually only the initials of the sovereign’s name. (I have used my initials H. D. consistently as my writing signet or sign-manual, though it is only, at this very moment, as I check up on the word “signet” in my Chambers’ English Dictionary that I realize that my writing signature has anything remotely suggesting sovereignty or the royal manner.) Sign again — a word, gesture, symbol, or mark, intended to signify something else. Sign again — (medical) a symptom, (astronomical) one of the twelve parts of the Zodiac. Again sign — to attach a signature to, and sign-post — a direction post; all from the French, signe, and Latin, signum. And as I write that last word, there flashes into my mind the associated in hoc signum or rather, it must be in hoc signo and vinces.
51
There was a handful of old rings in a corner of one of the Professor’s cases and I thought of my signet-ring at the galleries of the Louvre in Paris, but I did not speak of it to the Professor then or later, and though I felt curious about the rings at the time, I did not suggest his opening the door of the case and showing them to me. He had taken up one of the figures on his desk. He was holding it in his hand and looking at me. This, I surmised, was the image that he thought would interest me most. There was an ivory Indian figure in the center; the objects were arranged symmetrically and I wondered if the seated Vishnu (I think it was) belonged there in the center by right of precedence or preference or because of its shape. Though I realized the beautiful quality and design of the ivory, I was seeing it rather abstractly; the subject itself did not especially appeal to me. Serpent-heads rose like flower petals to form a dome or tent over the head of the seated image; possibly it was seated on a flower or leaf; the effect of the whole was of a half-flower, cut lengthwise, the figure taking the place or producing the effect of a stamen-cluster or oval seed-pod, in the center. Only when you came close, you saw the little image and the symmetrical dome-like background of the snakes’ heads. It is true, these snake-heads suggested, each, a half-S, which might have recalled the scroll pattern of the inverted S or incomplete question mark in the picture series on the wall of the bedroom in the Greek island of Corfu of that spring of 1920. But I did not make this comparison then or afterwards to the Professor, and I felt a little uneasy before the extreme beauty of this carved Indian ivory which compelled me, yet repelled me, at the same time.