Conversation; or, Pilgrims' Progress: A Novel

by Conrad Aiken

  “Oh, sure. We’ll forget all about it, won’t we, Jim? Don’t give it a thought. What’s a knife in the back between friends?”

  “It won’t make any difference to me, kid.”

  “So you’re going to take it lying down!”

  “There’s one thing I thought I’d suggest, though.”

  “Listen to this, this is probably going to be good.”

  “Shut up, Karl, will you? Let Tip say what he wants to say.”

  “It’s simply this, Jim. If you’d agree to suspend your operations while you’re here, and not use this as a center for operations, I think maybe I could persuade Enid to reconsider.”

  “Well, for the—! Isn’t that just too sweet of Mister Kane? Go on, Jim, tell him! Seems to me I smell the cloven hoof.”

  “Well, that’s very nice of you, kid. And of course it goes without saying that I’ll miss not seeing you, and all our good philosophical talks. That’s one of the main reasons I came here, as you know, and it won’t be the same thing without you—yes, I’m sorry about that. And I see how you’re fixed—you can’t do anything if Enid feels like that about it. I wouldn’t expect you to, and I don’t want to be the cause of trouble between you—I like you both much too much for that, you know that, Tip. And the same way, I can honor Enid’s principles about all this, even if I can’t agree with them. I like Enid, she’s honest, and she isn’t afraid of sticking to her guns. She’s a damned fine girl. But no, I’m afraid, kid, I couldn’t do that, I couldn’t promise to do that.”

  “Yeah. Maybe Mister Upright Kane will try to realize that it isn’t only the upright Bostonians and upright snobs that have upright principles—”

  “Well, yes, that’s it. It’s a matter of principle with me. It’s what I believe, see, kid? And you wouldn’t really expect me to give that up, any more than I would expect Enid to, would you?”

  “Why can’t you—oh, gard, oh, gard—why don’t you have some sense for once, and let us have a little peace here, instead of just sitting round waiting for the police to come. And it won’t be only you they’ll come for, either, it’ll be you too, Karl. It’ll be all of us—they’ll arrest us all. Oh, gard, what’s the use—”

  “Will you shut your damned fool wailing, weakwit? You wouldn’t know a principle if it hit you in the face.”

  “As if you had any principles! As if you were doing anything but sponge! As if you were doing anything—”

  “Shut up!”

  “Yes, by god, Karl, I’m damned if I don’t think Kitty’s right! I don’t believe you give a hoot in hell for Jim’s principles, or care a damn what happens to him—so long as you get your share of the money. That’s what makes me feel really sick about all this business, Jim. I don’t think Karl or this Bucholtz, for instance, really believe in you for a minute—oh, I know, they think it’s all very amusing and original, it makes a good story, doesn’t it? It’s nice and spectacular, and they can share in the glory—from a safe distance! But they’ll use you for their own selfish ends, and then sacrifice you when the time comes. Look at that cheapskate riding all the way up here in a taxi at your expense—he’ll be the first to run out on you when the trouble starts—”

  “Yeah? And would he be the first to take a run-out powder round here? You make me sick.”

  “No, kid, I don’t believe that.”

  “Oh, of course not, you’re too holy to believe anything like that, aren’t you, you and your Messiah idea—”

  “Who said anything about a Messiah idea, Kitty?”

  “Oh, no, you never posed as a Messiah, did you?—you never thought you were another Christ, did you?—why, he’s crazy, that’s what he is, and anybody can see it—he’s crazy as a bedbug, he ought to be in a hospital, even Lorna admits that, she feels the same way I do about it—”

  Suddenly she began wailing again—grotesquely, tragically, as if in an absurd kind of accompaniment to the badly played jazz from the next room, that glucose rhapsody—but as abruptly she stopped again, pressed a stained handkerchief hard against her mouth, and began feverishly writing once more on the sheet of paper which lay before her on the disordered table. Tears were running down her cheeks, she was audibly sniffling, she was obviously on the verge of hysterics—and it was as if this sudden manifestation of the depth of her misery had brought them all up short, they were all silent, they all watched her and were silent. A needled flight of rain, swift and light, a gust of blown drizzle, pattered across the windows of the long room, stinging and darkening them; the fire smoked; Lorna interrupted her playing to cough once more, and then resumed stolidly, stubbornly, almost as if angrily; the putt—putt—putt of a motorboat stuttered from the river, a detached and ironic reminder of the sea, of the outer world—but they were all silent, as if somehow bewitched by Kitty’s unhappiness, and as if it had mysteriously emptied them of all power to act or speak. What more was there to do? What more was there to say? It was time alone that remained, and as they listened to the hectic scribbling of the pencil, moving rapidly on the paper, by a tacit agreement they avoided each other’s eyes. Was it shame? Embarrassment? Despair? Jim, moving very carefully, very slowly, leaned over to strike a match on the tiles at his feet, drew it crackling and spurting towards him, to relight the blackened stump of his cigar. Karl lay sideways on the wicker couch, the blue eyes looking at nothing, the thin mouth fixed in a defensive half-smile, the soiled raincoat drawn over his knees. And in that stillness the disorderly room, with its unswept floor, the piled dishes, the tumblers, the gin bottle, the dead matches and lipsticked cigarettes, looked inconceivably forlorn. How could they ever be happy here? How could anybody possibly be happy here? Newspapers—a rocking chair, with one rocker broken, shoved out of the way against the corner wall under the stairs—the one sardine, too, in the kitchen—and Lorna, in “that damned dressing gown,” playing the piano tirelessly, badly, as if nothing else in the world existed—no, they could never be happy here. But would they, in fact, be here much longer? For the little Utopia was already broken, and even now above it hovered the invisible wings of departure. The mistake was coming to an end.

  “Well, I guess there’s not much else to say, Jim.”

  “No, I guess there’s not much else to say.”

  “Except to say that I’m sorry, again.”

  “Yes, Mister Kane, you said that before. I suppose you plan to leave the rest to your friend Mister George Pierce?”

  “I don’t think you need to worry about Mister George Pierce.”

  “Yeah? I thought he was threatening to notify the police?”

  “You don’t know the police here, Karl. The police consists of Uncle Cy William, who boasts that he never made an arrest in his life. It’s a fact. Once they heard him yelling late at night to some thieves he’d been set on, ‘Run, boys, run, or Uncle Cy William will get you!’ No, his only vice is cutting off the heads of dogs.”

  “What, kid?”

  “Yes, one of his jobs is to see that all dogs are licensed. Dog licenses cost two bucks, and the money goes to the town library for books—it’s the library’s only support. They say, if he finds an unlicensed dog, he takes it out to the woods and chops its head off with an axe. But I don’t know. Besides, I feel pretty sure George Pierce was only bluffing. You don’t need to worry.”

  “Thanks for them few kind words. And here’s your hat, what’s your hurry? But don’t try to reach for that one, it’s over your head.”

  “Very clever of you, Karl. Your magnanimity overwhelms me.”

  “Keep the change.”

  “And if I might be allowed one personal observation—”

  “Oh, sure. And why not?”

  “It seems to me, in a matter that’s after all none of your business, that you’re behaving damned badly.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got nothing but respect for Jim. I’ve got none at all, I’m afraid, for you.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate that. Coming from you—”

  “Don�
�t pay any attention to him, kid. Just let him sulk. He’ll get over it.”

  “Okay. Well, I guess I’ll be going.”

  He got up and went to the table to shake hands with Kitty, but she sat with lowered head, as if blind, desperately absorbed in her writing, and he merely patted her shoulder instead. Even as he touched the stooped shoulder she continued to write—and looking down he saw at last what it was. The torn piece of paper was almost entirely covered with the words Jesus Christ. And while he watched, fascinated, the hurrying hysterical pencil added yet others—Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ … It was her final comment on the Utopia.

  “Good-by, Kitty,” he said.

  “Good-by, Tip. I think you’ve been swell.”

  “No. I’m damned sorry. Good-by, Jim.”

  “Don’t say good-by, kid. We’ll be seeing you in New York.”

  “Not if I see him first, he won’t!”

  “Okay, Karl, if that’s the way you feel about it—”

  “That’s the way I feel about it.”

  “All right. That suits me.”

  “Forget it, kid. He’s just got a grouch on. And give my best to Enid. And shall I tell Lorna about it? For you, I mean, as she wasn’t here?”

  “Sure. And give her my best, too.”

  “All right. Good-by for the present.”

  “Good-by for the present.”

  Jim was standing by the fireplace, smiling—Karl lay unmoving on the couch, with his eyes now closed, as if he were endeavoring to imitate the death mask of a saint, but nevertheless looking more than ever like a dead hen—Kitty continued to scribble her Jesus Christs. The ceaseless piano, the intolerable piano, was the only sound as he let himself out, closed the door behind him, went down the steps into the light rain, and started up Baker Street. The Rhapsody in Blue—

  Under the silver-gray signpost, in the rain, he hesitated for a moment, and then turned to the left, towards the sea. Impossible to go home—impossible—the mere thought was unbearable. Let her wait. It would do her good to wait! He would walk to the sea by the mile-long shore road, perhaps take the little footpath through the wet pine woods, where always, under the soft needles, the first Mayflowers were to be found, the first pipsissewa, the whitest Indian Pipes. And then the stone jetty, the skeletal iron light house, and the sea. The unpotable sea, the all-smiling sea, which was driving Kitty mad.

  IV

  “… the wind was south, the morning misty; but towards noon warm and fair weather. The birds sang in the woods most pleasantly. At one o’clock it thundered, which was the first we heard in that country. It was strong and great claps, but short; but after an hour it rained very sadly till midnight.… This day some garden seeds were sown.…”

  —JOURNAL OF THE PILGRIMS

  “So you wouldn’t wait for me, eh? And you had your supper without me, eh? And at the Murphys’, too, with doughnuts! And I have to give this lummox of a girl her bath, and go without supper, or eat a cold sad sardine, all because I’m a little late, and walk to the sea! Fie upon you, and out upon you, and fie. That’s all I can say. Now shut your eyes.”

  “And did you walk all the way to the sea?”

  “Yes, I walked all the way to the sea. And I stood on the breakwater and looked at it—”

  “And what did you see, daddy?”

  “I saw nothing. I saw lots and lots and lots of nothing.”

  “Ho, how silly, as if you could see lots of nothing!”

  “Well, that’s what it was like, see? There was a gray, cold, miserable rain, filling all the air as far as you could see, and falling on the water, and rustling on my slicker, and running in beads off my oilskin hat, and there wasn’t a single ship, nor a motorboat, not even so much as a dory. There was only the little red bell buoy, in the middle of the channel, bobbing up and down like a jack-in-the-box—”

  “Not like a jack-in-the-box—!”

  “Well, sort of. And ringing its little sad bell, cling-clang, clingity-clang, cling-clang, cling-clang, so dolefully and pitifully to itself, with not even a sea gull listening to it—”

  “And then what?”

  “Well, then, after looking at all that nothing, I came back. I came back by the pine wood path, the Indian Pipe path, and it was all wet and silent and juicy and dripping and solemn and mysterious—”

  “A mystery, a mystery!”

  “Exactly—a mystery.”

  “Yes, and go on.”

  “Well, I guess that’s about all. Now, out of that bath!”

  “All right. But you must tell me about the starlings.”

  “Foo! Why, you saw the starlings yourself!”

  “Yes, I know, but I want you to tell me about them. You saw them first, daddy, you know you did!”

  “Well, so I did. Now, out you come—heave, ho!”

  “So what.”

  “Well, first of all I heard a great chittering and chattering, and a squeaking and a squawking, and a dithering and a dathering—”

  “Ho ho, what funny words!”

  “Like a thousand mice all squealing and squeaking—”

  “Mice in a tree?”

  “Ha, but I didn’t say they were mice, did I? That was before I knew what they were. Of course, it would have been very funny if they had turned out to be mice, up in a tree—perhaps that would have been better! Shall we have it mice instead?”

  “No, let’s have it starlings. Besides, daddy, they were starlings!”

  “So they were. Anyway, that’s what I saw they were, when I looked up at the tree to find out what all that uproar was about. And there they were, a thousand starlings—or maybe a thousand and one—”

  “You couldn’t count them, silly!”

  “Approximately. Now give me that foot.”

  “You’ve already dried that one!”

  “Well, then, the other.”

  “And now go on—”

  “I saw them all in the big poplar tree at the corner by Mr. Murphy’s house, that’s where they were first, and they were all fluttering and flapping, as if they were quarreling. They would dart down into the middle of the tree and then up again, whistling and screeching and shrieking at the tops of their voices, as if they were dreadfully angry about something; and then it seemed to me that there was some sort of fight going on, right in the middle of the tree, where most of the flapping was—”

  “And that was where the poor starling was.”

  “That was where the poor starling was. Of course, he may have been very naughty—”

  “Well, and then what.”

  “Suddenly they all went scrambling, the whole thousand, to the tree across the street, by the Bank, in Mister Riley’s field, all still chittering and chattering, and I was just getting back from my walk to the sea, and I watched them, and then I saw that they were all fighting with that one poor starling, pecking and pecking at him—”

  “Do you suppose they really meant to hurt him?”

  “Well, perhaps not, Buzzer—perhaps they just meant to punish him a little, see?”

  “Yes, if he’d been really naughty—and go on!”

  “And that was when I saw you, and told you to come and look at them. And we rushed into the garden then, just in time to see the whole great black cloud of them fly straight into the Puringtons’ poplar tree, right over our beautiful new lilac hedge, screaming and flapping, and then suddenly—”

  “Yes, suddenly!”

  “—that poor starling fell like a stone; with hardly so much as a flutter of a wing; on the wet grass right at our feet. And at first we thought it was dead, didn’t we?—”

  “Yes, and you clapped your hands at all the other starlings, and they flew away—you were very angry, weren’t you, daddy? Because it was mean of them to all fight against just one—”

  “—and it didn’t move, and its eyes were closed, and it lay there on its back, with its claws in the air, and then I picked it up and held it in my hands, and it was quite still—”

&n
bsp; “But it wasn’t dead? Ho ho! It wasn’t dead at all! Was it!”

  “No, it wasn’t dead at all. For suddenly it opened its eyes, and looked at us, quite calmly, first at you and then at me—”

  “Did it, daddy?”

  “Well, it just looked around, perhaps—perhaps to see where the rest of the starlings had gone to. And then, just as if nothing at all had happened, it up and flew away—lippity-lippity-lip!”

  “And it was alive all the time!”

  “It was alive all the time.”

  “But why did it lie so still, and fall down out of the tree like that!”

  “Well, Buzzer, I think maybe it was playing ’possum. Maybe it was pretending to be dead, so that the other starlings would all go away. And so it pretended to fall, like that, as if it couldn’t fly any more, but all the same managing not to hit the ground too hard, you see—it just waggled a wing once or twice, when it saw the ground coming up pretty fast, so as to keep from being hurt, and then it lay still with its eyes shut—but of course it hadn’t expected you and me to be there! That was a surprise.”

  “Ho ho! And what do you suppose it thought when you picked it up, daddy?”

  “Hmm, I don’t know, my pet. That must have given it rather a shock. Maybe it thought the other starlings were picking it up—goodness knows! But when it opened its eyes, and saw that it was sitting in my hand, and saw a little girl staring at it with eyes as big as lollipops, or marbles, or cannonballs—or umbrellas—”

  “Ho, how silly, they weren’t either!”

  “—and her mouth wide open, like the wolf in Little Red Riding-hood—”

  “Do you suppose it thought I would eat it?”

  “Ha! You never know. I daresay you looked pretty frightening, my lamb! And much bigger than a lion. And now, up the stairs!”

  “And do you suppose it’s gone back to its friends, now?”

  “Very likely. Perhaps when they saw what a fearful danger it was in, actually right in the hands of one of those dreadful, dreadful men—they’d be sorry for it, and think it had been punished enough, see? Now up you go, no more dillydallying. March!”