by Conrad Aiken
He watched the swarms of raindrops coming toward the headlamps, arriving and mysteriously vanishing, the continuous vanishing swarm, and suddenly, with a sense of power, he pressed his foot on the accelerator, and laughed. Life was good—life was going to be good. Unexplored, unfathomable, marvelous and terrible. Filthy, and incalculable. Cruel, and inexhaustible. Like this unceasing swarm of bright raindrops, like the waves breaking on the beach at the Gurnett, innumerable as the atoms in the brain. The wonderful nightmare, the wonderful and acceptable nightmare! When I slap on the kalsomine I think about those gals o’ mine. I’m only a Spanish grammar, but my heart is pure as mud.
About the Author
Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) was an American poet, novelist, and short story author, and one of the most acclaimed writers of the twentieth century. His numerous honors include the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the National Book Award for Poetry, the Bollingen Prize, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal. Born in Savannah, Georgia, Aiken was orphaned at a young age and was raised by his great-great-aunt in Massachusetts. He attended Harvard University with T. S. Eliot and was a contributing editor to the influential literary journal the Dial, where he befriended Ezra Pound.
Aiken published more than fifty works of poetry, fiction, and criticism, including the novels Blue Voyage, Great Circle, King Coffin, A Heart for the Gods of Mexico, and Conversation, and the widely anthologized short stories “Silent Snow, Secret Snow” and “Mr. Arcularis.” He played a key role in establishing Emily Dickinson’s status as a major American poet, mentored a young Malcolm Lowry, and served as the US poet laureate from 1950 to 1952. Aiken returned to Savannah eleven years before his death; the epitaph on his tombstone in Bonaventure Cemetery reads: Cosmos Mariner, Destination Unknown.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1933 by Conrad Aiken
Cover design by Michel Vrana
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1140-2
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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