44
As a little girl, during the most intense period of her Maggie Tulliver incarnation, she had thought – standing in The Forum, surrounded by the fruits of Carlo Fiorelli’s labors – that this was the nearest she would ever approach to Latin. It was not, she had to admit to her innermost self – as she averted her gaze from Albert Comstock’s straining hams – the most seductive of visions (would she really wish to approach any nearer to that?) but that was not the point. (She could utilize italics with the best of them.)
The first time she looked at her new baby brother, Ben, she had leaned her face alongside his on the pillow, and – to Mama’s astonishment – said, “You’ll learn Latin,” no great encouragement to the mild-natured infant. As she helped to teach him to walk, she would help him with his Latin, as Maggie had helped Tom.
“Latin’s a language,” she would say, in her most Maggie-like manner, as the toddler tottered toward her. “There are Latin words in the Dictionary. There’s bonus, a gift.” Maggie was so hungry for the written word that she read the dictionary when there was nothing else available. It would give him a flying start at Otsego Lake Academy, and everyone would be impressed by his fluency.
The nearest they approached to Latin or Greek at Miss Pearsall’s School for Girls was when they read translations of some of the more decorous myths in prettily illustrated editions. Charles Kingsley – she had to admit it – had been absolutely right about girls and Greek (and Latin).
“A mouse – of a mouse – to a mouse – a mouse – O mouse!”
She was struggling in the water. She was starting to drown. The water was entering her mouth, being drawn up into her nostrils.
“O mouse!”
No mouse appeared.
“O mouse!”
No mouse came to save her from drowning, or offer assistance with Latin grammar.
The men and women within the books of myths were clad in a plethora of loose, flowing, all-enveloping garments (each fold meticulously delineated), and both sexes seemed to favor matching loose, flowing hair. The occasional knee (male) was the sum total of their raciness. The Judgment of Paris was a parade of winter fashions; The Birth of Venus an object lesson in how to avoid catching a chill. Perhaps some day, as their long-delayed entrance into the Classical World, the girls might be allowed to embroider an Ionic column, or even – if they showed real promise – a Corinthian column.
No danger here – it occurred to Alice in later years – of impressionable girls being confronted by the flagrantly displayed Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s Districts of the Classical World. She could see the pain of thought in the expressions of Mrs. Albert Comstock and Mrs. Goodchild. Had the Greeks and Romans really experienced such uninterrupted sunshine that clothes were no longer necessary? Carlo Fiorelli’s generously carved buttocks were problematic enough, but buttocks were the least of their worries when confronted by brazen wall-to-wall bareness in Greece, Italy, or most of the larger museums. One really did not know where to look; every averted eye found itself confronted by further excesses.
Mrs. Albert Comstock occasionally played at being a gardener at 5 Hampshire Square, an enormous Marie Antoinette pottering about as a shepherdess between neatly sculpted topiary, a gigantic Mrs. Elton (a woman, surely, after Mrs. Albert Comstock’s own heart) picking strawberries at Donwell Abbey in Emma. In all her apparatus of happiness, wearing a large-brimmed hat in the sunshine (a very large-brimmed hat), adopting various picturesque, nurturing poses, she would stand about in the shrubbery like a half-ruined folly erected by an eccentric landowner. She was especially keen on cutting, lopping, and pruning, whatever the time of year.
Snip-snap! Snip-snap! Snip-snap!
This skill would be utilized for a new and even more important purpose: to ensure the tenacious endurance of all that was nice, the destruction of all that was not nice. Niceness was a central concept of Comstockian philosophy.
(“Is it nice? Is it really nice?” Alice imagined her inquiring, quite as enthusiastically as she herself asked “Is it horrid?” when Charlotte urged some dubious novel upon her.)
Mrs. Albert Comstock would approach disapproved-of nude statues with that same expression of intense concentration, that same pair of scissors, that same snip-snap enthusiasm. Never had Struwwelpeter looked so nightmarish, the great, long, red-legged scissor-woman so threatening.
Snip-snap! Snip-snap! Snip-snap!
In her wake would be small tinkling sounds, like Christmas tree baubles smashing on the hall tiles, though, instead of sharp silvery shards, there would be white pieces of marble, curled and rounded, like sea-smoothed tropical shells.
Snip-snap! Snip-snap! Snip-snap!
Tinkle! Tinkle! Tinkle!
A well-gloved Mrs. Goodchild would surely not take too much persuasion to follow behind her, gingerly sweeping the – ahem – lopped extremities into a dustpan with an expression of theatrical disgust (Tamora realizing the precise contents of the pie she’d so enjoyed polishing off), head shudderingly averted. Reynolds Templeton Seabright would have been hard put to equal it. Here could be the raw materials for a Swiss Garden to outdo G. G. Schiffendecken’s Crikey!-inducing landscape, one of the sights of Hudson Heights. The genteel ladies of Longfellow Park would line up with sedate eagerness for entry, elbows fiercely angled to prevent latecomers from pushing their way forward. The rumor was that the Swiss Garden on the dentist’s “estate” was composed of hundreds of discarded Schiffendecken Grins, the marbled teeth piled high in serried ranks with the alpine plants cascading around them. It would be a terrifying sight in the twilight, with all those hundreds of identical grins gleaming cheekily, like a scene at 5 Hampshire Square just after Mrs. Albert Comstock had unleashed an epigram. It was unnerving, the thought of lips being silently retracted in the half-darkness, and the garden grinning in the gloom. Suddenly, startlingly, they would begin to yodel in unison, to demonstrate that they were Swiss. This must have done much damage to the Swiss tourist industry, and inhibited an entire generation from purchasing cuckoo clocks and learning to ski. Skiing would have been a useful accomplishment on a day like today.
In her travels – Mrs. Albert Comstock traveled far and wide, Kodak clicking, scissors snipping (though Switzerland had so far escaped the clickings and snippings) – she would have a special pocket in her reticule, next to the one for her Kodak, and in it she would keep her scissors. She would leave a white wake behind her like a battleship bashing through marble, and all the world would wonder. (“Who on earth is that appalling woman?” That’s what the world would wonder.)
She saw no contradiction whatsoever in disapproving of public displays of nudity, and yet at the same time inflicting – in the shapely form of The Curse of Constipation – the biggest buttocks in the Northern Hemisphere, the Grand Canyon of the eastern states, on Longfellow Park. She was a Walt Whitman of art critics: “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” (Walt Whitman had clearly been personally acquainted with Mrs. Albert Comstock, and knew what he was talking about, but had he inserted that final period in the right place?) She knew Art when she saw Art, and she knew Filth when she saw Filth. Carlo Fiorelli’s Albert was Art; Michael Angelo’s David was – Mrs. Albert Comstock was a great believer in the power of italics – Filth.
45
G. G. Schiffendecken was scrambling up the slope that led to Hudson Heights, taking the footpath parallel with the road. On his right was the site of the apple orchards, and the George Washington-lopped cherry orchards. It was still very icy, and he slid back a foot or so on his first few attempts. Olivia plodded along behind him. Ahead were the trees above which the tower of the Shakespeare Castle had once been visible, alongside the road that led to the group of big houses. She had seen it every time she had looked across from the schoolroom window. She had passed it every time she had gone to or from Charlotte’s house when she was a little girl. She was conscious of the absence in the air, the sensation of something missing
that should still be there even after so many years, like the feeling on the birthday of someone who had died long ago.
She focused the telescope on G. G. Schiffendecken. At the top of the slope, he turned around to look out over Longfellow Park and New York City beyond. His teeth came fully into view, and he was complete once more, a man in every detail. He stood like a megalomaniac grinning with salivating glee as he savored his power over the unsuspecting city that would capitulate, and lie defenseless before his toothy rampage, unsubtle as a villain in one of the Reverend Goodchild’s novels (and every Reverend H. P. – Heroes Pounded – Goodchild novel had a villain). John Randel, Jr.’s power was as nothing compared to that possessed by cackling, hand-rubbing, teeth-unleashing G. G. Schiffendecken, the diabolical desperado of dentistry.
It was he who had sold the land to the west of Dadenhof Road to the developers. The mind tried to come to terms with the thought of an area named Schiffendecken just across from da Ponte, savoring the possibilities of Incisor Avenue, Canine Street, Bicuspid Drive, and Wisdom Tooth Way. It would be next to the Hudson River district, where all the streets bore the names of artists from the Hudson River School. The artistic allure of Longfellow Park grew ever more powerful. Connoisseurs of landscape painting could casually announce that they lived on Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, or Frederick E. Church Street. Those who could not raise the necessary cash for one of the larger houses with the grander, more well-known names, had to be content with one of the smaller houses in the more closely built side-streets, crammed in more tightly. Here were the streets named after Thomas Worthington Whittredge, Albert Bierstadt (Mrs. Albert Comstock wouldn’t like the sound of “Bierstadt”), and John Frederick Kensett. Had these artists painted smaller canvases? G. G. Schiffendecken was waiting for the Misses Isserliss to die, so that he could annex their grounds to his, a second Louisiana Purchase precisely one hundred years after the first, albeit (he liked to imply) slightly larger. Thus, he would consolidate his landholdings in one continuous area. He might even assist with the demise of the Misses Isserliss, informally mixing business with pleasure, creeping up on them with his implements in his hand, his teeth glinting in the darkness as he advanced, grinning.
He already spoke rather grandly of his “estate,” and this purchase would treble its size. He said that it took him more than half an hour to walk across his “estate” from side to side, and this was probably true, if he walked rather slowly. She imagined his walking pace becoming slower and slower as he expanded the size of his land, so that it would become worthy of the size of his teeth. He sounded rather Russian, like someone out of Tourgenieff or Tolstoi, like Prince Andrei Bolkonsky referring to Bald Hills (not a name that would have appealed to Papa), when he spoke in a lordly manner of “the estate,” someone who owned serfs, and for whom respectful peasants labored, doffing their caps on his approach and bowing deferentially. Those particularly keen to make a good impression would spread-eagle themselves before him, their features impressively impressed – mask-like – into the snow. Mrs. Albert Comstock always referred to Tolstoi as “Count Tolstoi,” as if to demonstrate his superiority to mere commoners amongst novelists, the unennobled multitude. More recently, she had started to correct anyone who referred to “Dr. Conan Doyle.” “Sir Arthur,” she would hiss, teeth unleashed in what was intended to be winsome playfulness (rather terrifying). No doubt, his novels had vastly improved since his knighthood, with – Snip-snap! – nicer printing and a more aristocratic choice of words.
G. G. Schiffendecken stood on the edge of Hudson Heights, like Eugene Onegin waiting for the next troika home after having shot Lenski in the duel. His dark greatcoat was whitened with the windblown snow, and he stood there, half man, half statue, the forerunner of the new race that would soon conquer the world and dominate it dentally. All smiles were G. G. Schiffendecken’s. His were the grins and the giggles, all visible signs of glee. The teeth would nibble, chomp, crunch, chew, munch, munch, munch, advancing as the irresistible vanguard of the new world of Schiffendecken.
The New World was well underway in Longfellow Park. Dvořák would be displeased to hear that whenever Alice heard From the New World, she did not visualize majestic American rivers, dappled with sunlight; vast unspoiled forests, free of the sound of the ax; or endless rippling cornfields stretching away to distant horizons. What she saw was teeth, enormous teeth, rearing into view as lips peeled back to maximize their magnificence.
Social historians – by a close analysis of the photographs produced in the studio of Henry Walden Gauntlett (the local Photographer of Note) – would be able to date the precise moment at which G. G. Schiffendecken had begun to demonstrate his dental dexterity. With startling suddenness, teeth appeared in the photographs like a sunrise after a long winter night to grin out from the surrounding darkness. It had become the fashion to smile a little in photographs, giving the impression that the past was a – ha, ha – happy place, but the corset-busting guffaws in Longfellow Park photographs were positively disconcerting, and took some getting used to. Once there had been seriousness, expressions of grave resolve, constipational concentration, and now – as they grouped themselves in front of clouded skyscapes around the chair and table (those standing always looking as if they resented not being given the chair), lingered (as if contemplating suicide) on the rustic bridge, sat on the lover’s seat (studiously avoiding each other’s eyes), or posed (rather awkwardly, especially if they were men) beside the statue of the bouncily bare-breasted Vestal – ahem – virgin, or the giant urn – his subjects grinned with terrifying glee, anxious to illustrate that they could afford the biggest and best when it came to inserting teeth. The teeth were the prime motivation in having the photographs taken – (“Look what I’ve just bought!”) – and every effort was made to display as much of them as was humanly possible. It was as if, overnight, Henry Walden Gauntlett had suddenly developed an irresistibly hilarious line in behind-the-camera banter, reducing his subjects to helpless laughter as he wittily click-clicked away, the Oscar Wilde of the wet plate. In some of the photographs – those people who had been, perhaps, a little overambitious dentally – there were more teeth than there was face, and – my! – how those dentures dazzled. The Schiffendecken conquest had begun with the people of Longfellow Park, and it would continue with the statues.
Statuary was – without doubt – the glummest of all the arts (second only to pre-Schiffendecken photography, if that could be considered an art), and G. G. Schiffendecken would take it upon himself to have the Schiffendecken Grin inserted into all the statues in the park. His own statue (it would appear soon, soon), fittingly, would be the first, and from there they would spread: the first half-suppressed smirk, and then the irresistible tidal wave of titters, sniggers, gigantic grins, and cacophonous guffaws. One by one the statues would succumb: Dr. Wolcott Ascharm Webster (first it would be the turn of the man himself – the gold from his extracted teeth reemployed to produce quite an attractive set of cutlery – and then it would be the turn of the statue), the Reverend Goodchild, Reynolds Templeton Seabright (now visibly pleased to see the Ghost, quite perked up), Albert Comstock … It would be as if some new hilarity were being whispered around the circle of the bearded, something spicy and smutty passed from Beard to Beard, the grins spreading out in ripples, the chuckles ever expanding.
“… Longfellow Park! Longfellow Park!
Where even the statues grin!
Longfellow Park! Longfellow Park!
I can tell by your teeth it’s your home! …”
After the statues it would be the turn of the door knockers, gleaming grins hanging from every door, this new architectural feature announcing to all visitors that they were now in the carefree land that was Longfellow Park, the land of Happy Families. Far more demonstrative than the muted word Welcome woven into a doormat, the cheerful choppers would line up in rows down every street, like the servants gathered together in the hall of a great mansion to greet their new master. Smiling hospitably, th
ey would lift the spirits of all passers-by, gladdening the hearts of strangers.
“Rat-a-tat-tats
Outsmile welcoming mats
In Longfellow Park.
Longfellow Park! Longfellow Park!
Where even the doors have a smile!
“When I see mouths crammed with teeth
It’s such a relief
To be home!
When those canines emerge
I feel such a surge
Of joy!
You’re revealingly toothy,
So, come on, tell the truthy,
You’re from there!
Longfellow Park! Longfellow Park!
I can tell by your teeth it’s your home! …”
A new era of jollity was being ushered in as the grin spread from the statues and the door knockers, out from Longfellow Park and across the sculptures of the world, and Schiffendecken’s Grin would become more celebrated than the Gioconda Smile. Carlo Fiorelli would be commissioned to produce the teeth for the statues, and long rows of workmen – specially trained skilled artisans – would labor all day at their benches to produce rows of identical fierce grins. They would beam out with gladsome good humor from every flat surface, lending an air of cheerfulness to the whole establishment, dispelling the memento mori atmosphere of the death-masked shelves.
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