Great Circle: A Novel

by Conrad Aiken

  It has no wall on this side

  And how dirty it is

  Do you see how dirty it is

  out of my bed then and running across the lawn and then slowing down so as to pass them not running and veering off from them toward the porch while they approach the side door they have not seen me I am safe I can get in without being seen I can get into this strange house where Bertha lives and all our children and all our relatives and the stove and the ice box and then they will come in and ask the way to the beach which is the way to the beach can you direct us to the beach

  You must go through the village the little wooden village of a winding two-storied road and flagpoles and shingles and the white church I know the way well I have often been there it has a flat and washed look slightly crazy the houses are flimsy the beach is small the sea is cold

  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

  My dear f
riends I would like to tell you that although this is the house of god you need not only think of it as a house of images it is not only a collection of images and objects and simulacra it is a place of friendship here you can speak to a friend of that which is nearest and dearest to your heart lay down your burdens before embodied kindness I am your friend the voice dies down behind me dies away here are the fields and the trees there with sunlight on their bark and leaves and the stone wall beside the road here under the tree I am sitting in the grass on a little knoll and looking into a green wood and in the secret grass what is this a thimble a crushed thimble Bertha’s thimble and also the rouge compact but I open it and there is no rouge in it no powder only three old corroded pennies and I walk with them to the corner of the park opposite the tall apartment house where the Negress is standing watching me by the door it is Clara the cook does she know what I am coming for yes she knows and is watching me Bertha has told her to watch me

  Good morning Mister Cather

  I am not coming in I am going down there where the children are playing in the meadow beside the marsh picking flowers the little boy and the little girl picking flowers spring flowers too wild columbine and crowfoot violet look children there is another flower over there do you see it in the marsh how is it you have forgotten to get that one too it is an orchid you can see it is some kind of green-and-white speckled tall orchid perhaps it wasn’t there a moment ago but now it is there you can see it but can you reach it or is there too much water in the marsh yes it is very wet but wait by the wall don’t go back to the city yet and it is I who will nobly go to the edge of the marsh stepping now on the spongy moss the water bubbles my hand out body stooping can I reach it yes the rare orchid for the two strange children

  the shape of my left foot made of hollows built like a crystal a bone of slow dark crystals off there too curving downward as if a pain of accretions items but this is a walk I am walking this is Harvard Street Arrow Street Bow Street the College Yard and there is Fred walking ahead of me turns his head a package under his arm looks away from me the buildings have changed moved away where is Gore Hall the path strange too yellow sand no trees but a wideness

  Widener

  Are you going to the poolroom

  pays no attention goes to the left walks ahead of me looking back is on wheels in a little car cart an old Ford is it Rodman saying the Spanish Grammar has been read and is a deep sleep yes a deep sleep I am rolling a large hoop ribbons tied round the rim he watches me it leans always to one side the wind blowing the ribbons it careens why

  Why don’t you hit it on the other side keep it straight and here is the Fair will you go round or through it if you go through it you may lose your hoop and once we played Ping-pong in Concord Avenue or was it Shepard and the Fair here

  Good-by I am going in I will get through diagonally the narrow crowded path of children drums horns the squealing merry-go-round calliope steam spouting an inclosure of wire a long alley for Ping-pong the Japanese hits the ball to the other end of the wire enclosure look it explodes when the other hits it it opens becomes a go-cart rolling quickly back to us on wheels with a child in it no a doll a puppet nodding and another ball hit another explosion flash bang a little balloon going up diagonally then I am turning to the right and cross the street something my foot lifting the two feet together hopping see I am walking slowly queerly like an animal what animal is it a penguin can I get across doing it without being hit by that car yes it is all right and Shepard Hall there but changed redder brighter smaller and a restaurant in the hall no letter boxes what has happened but I was living here where is the janitor where is Mister O’Connor where is Jack a strange janitor with a mop on the wet marble floor this is now a dormitory for students

  Can you tell me Jack’s address

  No he is gone perhaps I could find it

  Send it to Widener

  Yes

  obras obras obras that book is out Mister Gather for another week but here is the key with the large wooden handle and on the handle is Jack’s address Waxage Street somewhere in Somerville carved on the handle and his name too carved the last thing he did before he went away Uncle David is of course dead Uncle Tom has gone off for the day not back in time the house he lives in now too far away take a Belmont bus walk through Craigie Street and find the house with open walls go upstairs Aunt Norah is very old and small bending down to the floor her white head wants to go downstairs you will have to carry her how small light white she is as I go down the carpeted stairs her arm is round my neck

  I am your child now

  the saucy face impish smiles detachedly looks at me indifferently wide-eyed like an infant at the breast but on my shoulder the small head I have been kind am being kind will give her a conch shell a house by the sea in that village leave her here and call Bertha

  Bertha Berty

  lifting from the dark the open suitcase the nightgown holding it up laughing but it is spotted dirty a large spot he is laughing can’t be helped you don’t mind do you what can I say nothing say nothing but turn away sadly in the hotel room no it’s all right perfectly all right but sad I am going up the hill on the grass behind juniper trees birches the road dusty she is coming up the other side yes there she is look it is who is it not Berty no Molly no a girl with red hair comes through the oak trees beautiful loves me puts out her hand kisses me we are kissing become one face floating in air with wings one fused face with wings Turner sunset and this and this and this and this and this WINGbeat and WINGbeat where whirled and well where whirled and well where whirled and well——

  To come upward from the dark world, through the mild shafts of light, as a swimmer in long and curved periphery from a dive; from the whirled and atomic or the swift and sparkling through the slower and more sleekly globed; effortless, but with a drag at the heels of consciousness—to float upward, not perpendicularly, but at an angle, arms at sides, turning slightly on one’s axis, like a Blake angel, through the long pale transverse of light—with the sounds, too, the bell-sounds, the widening rings of impalpable but deep meaning, as if someone far off with spheral mouth said, Time—and the goldfish mouth released its bubble, and closed, and then again opened to say, Time—to come upward thus slowly revolving, thus slowly twisting, the eye scarcely opened and almost indifferent to light, but opening more widely as the light with obscure and delicate changes teased at the eyelid, teased at the sleepy curiosity—and the textures too, the warm or soft, the wrinkled or knotted, those that caressed whitely and obliquely, and those also that withdrew, or focussed slowly in a single sharp point and pressed—to float upward like this, from plane to plane, sound to sound, meaning to meaning—the attitudes changing one into another as the hands shifted, the feet shifted, the breathing altered or the hearing cleared—from turbulent to troubled, from troubled to serene—but with the bell-sound nearer and nearer, as if the head were emerging into a glistening ring, and as if over the edges of this ring came the words like bubbles, at first meaningless, and then with half-meanings, and at last—not with meanings precisely but with gleams, as of fins that turned away in a flash and vanished——

  To move upward like this, surrounded by one’s own speech, and continuously more closely surrounded by one’s own body, the hand heavy on the heart, the heart beating insistently in the ear, that which a moment ago was the chime of a dream become the rhythm of the pulse, the distorted faces and filaments of the dream becoming only the fluttering defense of the eyelashes against the square of light from the window—all the somatic disturbances, as of cramped elbow and bent knee and cold hand and stifled nostril, which were a moment since so marvelously translated into wastes of snow or ugly corners of rock or difficult escapes from social awkwardness, now again assuming the simple physical reality, against which the dream had fought, as it were, a rear-guard action—to say again, after all this obscure welter of images and spaces, this kaleidoscope of times, “here,” “now,” “time,” “I”—I that was there, twisted, twisted into t
hat strange shape, am here again, but with a queer difference——

  The confusion fell slowly away, in ebbing rings of sound, he looked more firmly at the window, putting one hand up to touch the brass knob at the head of the bed above him, he looked and listened, and knew that the sound was the bell of Memorial Hall. How many strokes he had missed, or heard only in his sleep, he couldn’t know, but he counted four. Four. Not in the morning, it was almost that when he had fallen asleep. It must be five or six in the afternoon. The light from the square of window at the foot of the bed was that of winter twilight, and lamplight, mixed—cold natural gray tinged with artificial orange: and something in it, too, suggested the pale reflections of snow. Thursday. Another day gone, soundlessly gone, an agony got through without pain, as if he had been anaesthetized. What a good thing. And to wake up, or come to, comparatively refreshed, comparatively calm! But how refreshed? He explored dry lips with his tongue, tasted the salt, opened and shut his mouth experimentally, and found himself thirsty. Turning his head from side to side on the pillow, he felt no headache, or only a very slight one, at the base of the skull. He looked at his watch. Seven o’clock.

  But it was difficult to get up, if one didn’t know what one got up for. Or at such an hour, so dislocated, in such a place, after such a series of nights, with so much of oneself gone, so much of one’s secret gone. Idiot! You have confessed: your virtue is lost. Only the reticent man retains his virtue. But was virtue precisely the word? Or if not, what was it? He tried to remember the details: Michelangelo, the sea, Melville, the Gurnett, the secret of intimacy—intimate secrets. Sleep was better, or perhaps laughter.

  He laughed lightly, almost gaily, but as if without meaning, and turned his head toward the door that led to Bill’s study; then cut the laugh short and said “Bill.” There was no answer. He heard the study clock ticking. He said it again, and listened again, and still getting no answer clasped his hands under his head. So it all came to this. After all the agony, all the confusion, all the death, one came to this. One awoke on a strange bed, at twilight, and found that suddenly everything was—peace. No longer a need to run, to hurry, to evade, to escape. No problems to solve. No people to avoid. No single person to hate. Except perhaps oneself. And why bother to hate oneself? Why bother? This curious amiable little collocation of wishes and repugnances—but more amiable than hateful—decidedly more amiable—with his hands clasped under his head and a fixed small smile—and the sounds of the Memorial Hall bell agreeably in his ear—why hate him? Or had it been the Unitarian Church. No, it was Memorial Hall. But was it still snowing?