by John Barth
Then in 1927, when I set up practice in Cambridge, the letter and notes were packed into my trunk. I moved in with Dad and to my great pleasure found myself—or so I believed—closer to him than I’d ever been before. He was still garrulous and gruff by turns, but I thought I was beginning to understand him somewhat; at least I had hope that our communication was becoming less imperfect, and in this hope I abandoned the letter. I had, you see, always assumed that the source of the imperfection was in myself, and it seemed to me that perhaps as I matured (although I was twenty-seven then) my difficulty would vanish.
But Dad hanged himself, and rack my memory as I might until sleep was a red-eyed wish, I could find no adequate reason for his act, I realized then that I had been pursuing an impossible task since 1920: to understand an imperfect communication requires perfect knowledge of the party at each end, and I’d been studying only myself. When, in the course of moving into the Dorset Hotel, my letter and notes came to light, I put the pages of the letter on my new writing desk, dumped the notes into an empty suitcase (not until later did I begin to use peach baskets), and began work on it again. I saw at once that the next step was to open an inquiry into Dad’s life, in order to understand the nature and extent of his contribution to our imperfect communication; and at the same time I saw the necessity of a special and separate inquiry into the circumstances surrounding his death, this inquiry to be in the nature of a control (for unless the suicide were explained, nothing was explained) and also perhaps a key (for should I find the answer to the question of his death, the whole problem might be solved by the same solution). Thus my two Inquiries were initiated; but they did not close off my work on the letter and the notes on myself.
You see, then, the purposes of the three peach baskets beside my desk in 1937: one represented the life-Inquiry, one the death-Inquiry, the third the less organized self-Inquiry. And the cardboard box (MORTON’S MARVELOUS TOMATOES) contained the drafts of the letter to my father. To be sure, he can never now receive it. If you don’t see that this fact only demonstrates further the imperfection of my communication with him, and hence intensifies the need for the letter instead of eliminating it, then between you and me, too, the communication is less than perfect. But you shall have to investigate it: I’ve enough to do with the three baskets and the box beside me—four parallel projects, which, like parallel lines, will meet only in infinity.
On this particular evening, to be sure, their progress would cease, for the notes I took then I intended to be my last.
I. Nothing has intrinsic value.
II. The reasons for which people attribute value to things are always ultimately irrational.
III. There is, therefore, no ultimate “reason” for valuing anything.
By seven o’clock, these were the things I had written on my piece of paper, not knowing exactly which file would finally receive them. But I felt very strongly that this sequence of ideas, which represented my day’s rationalizing, was of supreme importance to my Inquiries and my letter. In fact, when in the same list I entered the Roman numeral IV, without yet writing anything after it, I had a nostril-flaring sensation of the chase; I felt that some sort of answer was on the verge of being treed.
I called these ideas rationalizings, and so they were: the post facto justification, on logical grounds, of what had been an entirely personal, unlogical resolve. Such, you remember, had been the case with all my major mind-changes. My masks were each first assumed, then justified.
My heart, reader! My heart! You must comprehend quickly, if you are to comprehend at all, that those masks were not assumed to hide my face, but to hide my heart from my mind, and my mind from my heart. Understand it now, because I may not live to end the chapter! To be sure, each mask hid other things as well, as a falseface hides identity and personality as well as nose and mouth; but it was to hide my enigmatic heart that I became a rake, a saint, and then a cynic. For when one mask no longer served its purpose of disguise, another had perforce to take its place at once. I had been a not-very-extraordinary boy; then one day in 1919 while standing retreat I collapsed on the parade grounds at Fort Meade, Dr. Frisbee looked up from his stethoscope, and I began to eat, drink, and be merry at Johns Hopkins—my first mask. In 1924 Betty June Gunter slashed me with a broken bottle, a man named Cozy rabbit-punched me and threw me out of a Calvert Street brothel, Marvin Rose found a wicked infection in my prostate, and I became a saint—my second mask. In 1930 my father, with whom (thinking my saintliness was bringing on maturity) I had thought I was beginning to communicate, inexplicably hanged himself; I took the belt from his neck, mailed my legacy to Col. Morton, and became a cynic—my third mask. And each time, it did not take me long to come to believe that my current attitude was not only best for me, because it put me on some kind of terms with my heart, but best in itself, absolutely. Then, on the night of June 20 or 21, 1937—
But now you must know my last secret. In my life I have experienced emotion intensely on only five occasions, each time a different emotion. With Betty June in my bedroom I learned mirth; with myself in the Argonne I learned fear; with my father in the basement of our house I learned frustration; with Jane Mack in her summer cottage I learned surprise; with my heart, in my hotel room on the night before this last day, I learned despair, utter despair, a despair beyond wailing.
My despair began, not with my heart, but with two other parts of my body. Jane was in my room for the night, as you know. She had come in at perhaps ten o’clock; we’d had a drink and retired shortly afterwards. Jane had sat Turk-fashion on the bed for some time, plucking her eyebrows before we turned out the light, and I had stroked her idly while I lay beside her reading a book. We hadn’t been talking at all. Then, taking my hand in hers to examine it, she said, “Did you ever ask Marvin about your fingers, Todd? My, they’re ugly.”
I jerked my hand away, blushing hotly. Had you forgotten that my fingers were clubbed? So had I, reader, and Jane’s remark, though offered in a mild enough tone, stung me all out of proportion to my actual sensitivity about my fingers—perhaps because I’d been caressing her.
“Oh, I’m awfully sorry!” she said at once. “I didn’t mean to insult you at all.” She tried to kiss my fingers then, but I couldn’t bear the thought. I kept them out of sight.
My subsequent failure at love-making no doubt grew out of that. For one thing, in her efforts to redeem herself Jane made all the advances, immediately, and I have rarely responded well in such situations. For another, the remark about my fingers made me irrationally disgusted with my whole skinny body, and disgust is a cold bedfellow for desire.
“Please tell me what’s wrong, Toddy,” Jane pleaded. “I really don’t want to hurt you.” (There was more to this than ordinary solicitude, as I realized next day when she announced the Italian trip.)
I assured her that I wasn’t offended—after the first few minutes I really wasn’t—but both her curiosity and her desire had to go unsatisfied. I got up, smoked a cigarette, went to bed, tossed and turned, sat up and read, drank another drink, and tossed and turned some more. Jane fell asleep, annoyance and injured pride still pouting from her lips. I kissed her very lightly on her frowning brow and got out of bed, resolved, since sleep was impossible, to work on the Inquiry.
My mood was black; I had little patience with my work. It is only in very weak moments like this that I call my project silly; I sat for an hour in the window, looking over at the Post Office and thinking how incomparably silly my thirteen years work was. How silly, for that matter, was my whole life during those thirteen years—one feeble mask after another!
Ah, there was a symptomatic thought: it was, I think, the first time I’d ever used the term masks in referring to what I’d always considered to be the stages of my intellectual development. Moreover, it was not the thought of a cynic, for as soon as it lodged in my consciousness it sent out quick rootlets of despair to all corners of my mind. Indeed, as I vaguely recognized at the time, it was a sign that the mask o
f my cynicism—I saw then that it was a mask—was wearing thin, and no longer doing its job. If it were, would I even have thought of my heart?
And suddenly my heart filled my entire body. It was not my heart that would burst, but my body, so full was it of my heart, and every beat was sick. Surely it would fail! I clapped my hand quickly to my chest, feeling for the beat; clutched at the window frame to keep from falling; stared at nothing, my mouth open, like a fish on the beach. And this not in pain, but in despair!
Here is what I saw: that all my masks were half-conscious attempts to master the fact with which I had to live; that none had made me master of that fact; that where cynicism had failed, no future mask could succeed; that, in short, my heart was the master of all the rest of me, even of my will. It was my heart that had made my masks, not my will. The conclusion that swallowed me was this: There is no way to master the fact with which I live. Futility gripped me by the throat; my head was tight. The impulse to raise my arms and eyes to heaven was almost overpowering—but there was no one for me to raise them to. All I could do was clench my jaw, squint my eyes, and shake my head from side to side. But every motion pierced me with its own futility, every new feeling with its private hopelessness, until a battery of little agonies attacked from all sides, each drawing its strength from the great agony within me.
I can’t say for how long I sat. What finally happened, when I had become sufficiently demoralized, was that my nerves, fatigued already, succumbed to the unusual strain. My body was suddenly soaked in perspiration; I trembled from head to foot. Indeed, I can’t find it in me to deny that, had no other crutch been available, I should very possibly have ended that night on my knees, laying my integrity on the altar of the word God. But another crutch was within reach: Jane, now sleeping soundly. And the embarrassment that I feel at telling you how I went shocked and trembling to the bed; how I buried my head blindly in her lap; how I lay there shuddering until sleep found me, my knees clasped to my chest, fighting despair as one fights appendicitis—this embarrassment is not different from that I’d feel at having to confess that I’d buried myself in God. I am in truth embarrassed, reader, but in good faith I recommend this refuge to your attention. There is nothing in it of the ostrich, because the enemy you flee is not exterior to yourself.
I have no idea whether Jane was aware of any of this. At the tick of six I popped awake; my head was on the pillow, Jane’s on my right shoulder. In great wisdom I inhaled the smell of her hair: sunshine and salt. There have been no women in my bed since that morning, and yet still at 6:00 A.M. I can summon to my nostrils the smell of Jane Mack. I sat up and looked around me, swelling with incipient wisdom. What had been the problem I’d buried? As was my habit, before I got up I reached to the window sill for my Sherbrook, took a good pull, and shuddered all over, but no answer came. I rose carefully from the bed, so as not to wake Jane, donned my seersucker suit, splashed cold water on my face—and realized that on this day I would destroy myself.
“Of course!”
I grinned at my dripping face in the mirror-dumb, stunned surprise. There was the end of masks!
“Of course!”
There was no mastering the fact with which I lived; but I could master the fact of my living with it by destroying myself, and the result was the same—I was the master. I choked back a snicker.
“For crying out loud!”
III. There is, therefore, no ultimate “reason” for valuing anything.
Now I added including life, and at once the next proposition was clear:
IV. Living is action. There’s no final reason for action.
V. There’s no final reason for living.
This last statement merited some minutes of expressionless contemplation, after which I capped my pen and clipped it in my pocket, put Eustacia’s letter where Jimmy would find it, fetched my straw, and left my room without a shred of regret.
The Inquiry was closed.
XXVI. the first step
Ideally, a new philosophical position, like a new row-boat, should be allowed to sit a day or two at the dock, to let the seams swell tight, before it’s put to any strenuous application. But no sooner had I taken one step into the hall than Capt. Osborn called to me from his room.
“Are ye goin’ to the boat show, Toddy?”
“Yes, sir.”
Capt, Osborn gave a grunt or two, hocked some vagrant phlegm into his handkerchief, and hobbled out of his room.
“I’ll jest walk along with ye, if ye don’t mind,” he declared. “Ain’t seen a boat show for years.” He chuckled. “Young Haecker—I call ’im Young Haecker now—Young Haecker’s been gloomin’ around so lately, I figure I better have me some fun while I can. All set, boy?”
One should not have to make such decisions quickly; it’s like launching a new rowboat into the teeth of a nor’easter.
“Where is Young Haecker?” I smiled.
“Oh, he ain’t goin’,” Capt. Osborn sniffed. “He’s too old for such carryin’ on! I ain’t seen ’im since this mornin’. Here, I’ll jest take yer arm.”
Ah. As a boatwright might examine his craft for leaks, with considerable interest if little real anxiety, so I examined myself. Can he be called a builder who shies at launching the finished hull? For what other purpose was it finished?
“Of course,” I said, and took my friend with me down the steps.
XXVII. the floating opera
Plain enough by day, the Original & Unparalleled Floating Opera was somewhat more ornamented as Capt. Osborn and I approached it across Long Wharf in the hot twilight. Power lines had been run from a utility pole near the dock, and the showboat was outlined in vari-colored electric lights, which, however, needed greater darkness for their best effect. On the roof of the theater Prof. Eisen and the thirteen members of his $7,500 Challenge Atlantic & Chesapeake Maritime Band were installed in their bandstand, rendering, as I recall, “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy” to the crowd of several hundred onlookers gathered around—many of whom, particularly among the Negroes, came only to hear the free concert and regard the “Op’ry Barge” with amazement, not having money to spare for admission to the show. The box office was open (it was nearly showtime), and a line was queued up from the ticket window down the gangplank to the bulkheads. Capt. Osborn grew excited and used his cane to nudge small running urchins out of his path, which led unswervingly to the ticket line.
The band wound up George M. Cohan and began a Stephen Foster medley. When we reached the top of the gangplank I looked around at the crowd and saw Harrison, Jane, and Jeannine just taking a place in line. They were occupied with opening Jeannine’s popcorn bag, and didn’t notice me.
The auditorium was already nearly half filled with the citizens of Cambridge. Capt. Osborn and I took seats about seven rows from the rear, on the extreme starboard side of the theater—he complaining that we hadn’t arrived earlier to get really good seats. The hall was illuminated with electric lights, each built into a double fixture along with a gas mantle for use at less progressive landings. Scanning the audience, I saw almost no unfamiliar faces. Col. Morton and his wife sat in the front row on the aisle. Marvin Rose, a showboat aficionado, sat a few rows behind. Bill Butler waved cheerily to me from across the theater. My partner Mr. Bishop was there with his wife, whom one seldom saw in public. Harrison, Jane, and Jeannine came in—if they saw me, they made no sign, although I waved to them—and sat on the other side of the theater. Jimmy Andrews, as I’d anticipated, was absent—doubtless out sailing with his fiancée, for a mild but usable breeze had sprung up earlier in the evening.
Above our heads the $7,500 Challenge Band concluded its free concert with “The Star-Spangled Banner.” There was some uncertainty in the house as to whether it was necessary to stand, since the band was outside. Some men made a half-hearted motion to rise, hesitated, and sat down embarrassed, laughing explanations at their wives with much pointing of fingers toward the roof. Finally Col. Morton stood unfalteringly, without a back
ward look, and the rest of us followed suit, relieved to have a ruling on the matter. When the anthem ended there was applause from the freeloaders outside, and much discussion inside about whether it had really been necessary for us to stand. Soon, however, everyone’s attention was focused on the small door under the stage, from which the members of the orchestra, resplendent in gold-braided red uniforms, began filing into the pit. When all were in their places, and instruments had been tootled cacophoniously, Prof. Eisen himself—lean, hollow-cheeked, Van-dyked, intense—stepped to the podium amid generous applause from orchestra and balcony, rapped for attention, and raised his baton, on the tip of which the whole house hung. The lights dimmed slightly, the baton fell, and the band crashed into “The Star-Spangled Banner.” An instant’s murmur and then we sprang to our feet again, none more quickly than the Colonel—although Evelyn was a trifle flustered.
No sooner had the final cymbal clashed than the house lights went out completely and the electric footlights rose, playing on the mauve velvet stage curtain. Prof. Eisen’s baton fell again, and the sprightly overture was commenced: a potpourri of martial airs, ragtime, a touch of some sentimental love ballad, a flourish of buck-and-wing, and a military finale. We applauded eagerly.
Captain Jacob Adam himself stepped from behind the curtain, bowed to our ovation, and smilingly bade us listen.
“Good evenin’, good evenin’, friends!” he cried. “I can’t say how happy I am to see ye all here tonight. It does my heart good when the Floating Op’ry comes round Hambrook Light, I’ll tell ye, ’cause I know that means it’s Cambridge ahead, and I tell John Strudge, my calliope man, I say to him, ‘John,’ I say, ‘get up a good head o’ steam, boy, and let’s have ‘Dem Golden Slippers,’ ’cause that there’s Cambridge yonder,’ I says, ‘and ye’ll sail a lot o’ water ’fore ye meet finer folks than ye’ll see a-plenty in Cambridge!’ Now, then!”