The Guy Davenport Reader

by Guy Davenport

  1 PRAIRIAL

  It was the Englishman John Tyndall who discovered why the sky is blue. What we see is dust suspended in our shell of air, quadrillions of prisms shattering pure sunlight into spectra. Blue is the color that scatters. The moon’s sky is black, Mars’ is red.

  Bronze Leaves and Red

  HE SLEEPS ON AN IRON COT AND HIS ONLY INCOME IS THE ROYALTY the State pays him for the use of his portrait on our postage stamps. They say he can sit by the hour regarding a bust of Nietzsche. He likes to chat with his friends on the telephone. The sole decoration he wears is his Iron Cross. That and the armband of the Party are the only accents that alleviate the drab plainness of his uniform. His favorite composer is Anton Bruckner, the strong surge and harmonic progressions of whose symphonies remind him of the old Germany, the forests and the mountains, the coffeehouses with their newspapers, chess games, metaphysical conversations, and scientific journals, the Germany of fine autumns and mists when between the hamlets the little roads are lined with trees whose bronze leaves and red burn with a kind of glory in the afternoon sun.

  He has one afternoon visited both the widow of Wagner and Nietzsche’s sister. He was often stopped on the way by villagers anxious to admire him. They know that he has a sweet tooth for macaroons and present him with platters of them. He jokes that he will lose his figure, he who is so spare and lean. Nevertheless, he accepts and chews a macaroon, and old women clasp their hands and press them to their cheeks. He is especially fond of children. His eyes light up at the sight of a little blond girl with blue eyes.

  With Wagner’s widow he discussed the Ring, with Nietzsche’s sister the political question of the Jews. He asks to see the philosopher’s writing table, his primitive typewriter, his duelling sword from student days, his Italian cape. He is shown the philosopher’s teacup, and with a congenial deference he explains that he does not drink tea or coffee, or smoke, or imbibe alcohol except for the occasional stoup of beer in the company of fellow Party members.

  His life is austere. It is said by some that in a beautiful actress he has a bosom friend whose gay laughter and pleasant ways beguile him from the cares of the State after a day of reviewing Bavarian labor battalions, of meeting with diplomats, generals, and architects, of inspecting armaments, model communities, and barracks.

  He knows everything. His study of Bolshevism, state finance, defense, racial purity, destiny, the German soul, music, city planning, military history, and nutrition has been profound.

  He speaks German only. We all find it charming that the only alien word he knows is the English word gentleman. He respects learning in others. Not since Frederick the Great have we had so intellectual a leader. He admires Mussolini his gift of languages, his literary talent, his organizational genius, his classical flair for triumphal parades and ancient Roman dignity.

  His sense of humor is delicious. Once, out driving in his Mercedes, wearing an aviator cap to keep his hair in place, he exceeded the speed limit by a few miles only and was haled to the shoulder by a motorcycle policeman.

  — Follow me, the policeman said, to the Magistrate’s in the next township, where you will catch it.

  — Follow him, he instructed his chauffeur corporal.

  The policeman, you see, did not recognize who was in the Mercedes, because of the aviator cap, but the guard at the Magistrate’s saw who was entering the building, and gave a salute, and the Magistrate gave a salute, and everyone froze.

  — I have been arrested for speeding, he said to the Magistrate, who opened his mouth like a fish, struck dumb. When capable of it, the Magistrate whispered a word that sounded like mistake.

  — Not a bit of it, he said. We were well over the limit, and whereas I was not heeding the speedometer, I will not blame my chauffeur corporal but take full responsibility myself, like a proper citizen. Germans are law-abiding folk, are we not?

  — Yes! all cried.

  — Sieg! he shouted.

  — Heil! they all replied.

  And he paid the fine. On the way back to his car he was stopped by a little girl with blond hair and blue eyes who gave him a macaroon from a saucer. He ate it, and picked her up and kissed her. Her mother and all the townspeople were watching in an ecstasy. He waved to them as he drove away, back to Berlin and the pitiless responsibilities of his office.

  He is a connoisseur of the fine arts and has frequently astounded the professors of aesthetics. He is fond of paintings of weeping clowns, a subject he maintains that Rembrandt would excel in were Rembrandt with us today. He collects still lifes of beer steins and grapes with must on the cluster, conversation pieces depicting a family at table. He is not taken in by the cynical scrawls of inverts so fashionable during the postwar depression. He knows drawing when he sees it, and color, and proportion. It is a charming characteristic of his Viennese taste that he has a weakness for light opera and for films with a romantic theme.

  His speeches are electrifying. His command of minutiae keeps the engineers and tacticians on their toes. Manufacturers and bankers come away from his conferences gasping at his deep knowledge of their own businesses.

  At meals he is brilliant. He likes to entertain his guests with history and philosophy, which he can make clear and fascinating to even the most untrained mind. And yet he can talk about mountain scenery like a poet, about actors and orchestra conductors, the design of a carpet, the ingredients of a salad dressing.

  He is a vegetarian, eschewing the cruelty of slaughter. His plans for retirement are to return to painting, to leave a few good scenes to the museums of the State as a legacy. It is ironic, is it not, that his soul is essentially Bohemian, artistic, and dreamy. He says that he would have been happy leading a simple life in a garret, seeing his fellow artists in the cafés, brooding endlessly on the mysteries of light and shadow. And yet this mind was the one destiny chose to see the truth of history in clearest perspective, and he did not flinch from Duty when She came with clarion and banner at the moment when Germany took her place foremost among the nations. Germany above all.

  His shyness has endeared him to many. Once, when he was a rising politician, he came to the notice of a lady in society who invited him to an evening at her mansion. He came in formal wear, perhaps as a surprise to some of his detractors. He kept his hands folded modestly in his lap, having to refuse the liquors and nicotine periodically offered him by liveried butlers moving among the revellers. Aside from some meaningless chitchat with various socialites, he said nothing all evening until the party was breaking up, when he took a stand near the door and gave a beautiful oration against Jewishness, communism, atheism, lies in the press, and flagrant immorality in entertainment and the arts. The tone of frivolity which had prevailed throughout the festivities was, you can be sure, suddenly sobered. Thoughtful expressions took command of faces which moments before had been heedless and silly. It was a magnificent performance.

  There are many accounts of the skeptical going to the Leader’s study groups for a lark and of being converted and coming away new men.

  He is never at a loss. When he mounted the podium to eulogize Hindenburg at that great man’s funeral, he opened his folder to discover that some careless clerk had put in it not his well-chosen words but what seemed to be a financial report from the Gauleiter of Weimar. He spoke ex tempore and none of the thousands before him were the wiser.

  He can hold his salute for hours when he reviews the army.

  He is in perfect health and never sees a doctor except to talk about the health of his people. He and the doctor usually have a good laugh. The German people are so healthy, who needs a doctor?

  He is a man of exemplary tolerance. When a deputy once asked if French art was to be brought in line with National Socialist ideals, the reply was:

  — Far be it from me to dictate the taste of so witty and accomplished a people!

  He thinks the Paris Opéra the most beautiful building in the world. He likes the advanced design of transoceanic steamships and of airplanes.
On his table at the Chancellory he likes to have a vase of chrysanthemums resplendent in golden light through the window.

  Our minds resonate with his opinions. Spain under Franco will save the Catholic west as it did in the time of Phillip II. You can detect the stalwartness of the Russian peasant by his bread. Psychoanalysis is Jewish filth impudently trying to pass for science. The Italians are romantic and flamboyant. The German spirit has best been expressed by Wagner. Responsibility and alertness characterize the German, treachery and hypocrisy the Jew, dullness and vapidity the Russian intelligentsia, sloth and mindlessness the American, hauteur and shallowness the English, ignorance and venality the Pole.

  Dr. Goebbels hangs on his every word. Goering loves him like a brother. His faithful staff rejoices in his presence.

  It is not true that his square moustache is copied from Chaplin, or that the Party rallies derive from the chants and cheers of American football games. The Leader’s hobbies are weekends in the mountains, phonograph records, automobiling, home movies, and designing neoclassical buildings. While he listens with every attention to his ministers at conferences, his hand draws triumphal arches on his notepad. He has an ear for the mighty line of Goethe. He is fond of dogs.

  Spengler remarks that it is a German trait to be aware of an historical moment while it is happening. Just so. Were words ever so true? There is an electric excitement to the air this October, a sweetness everywhere all about. We are, as always, a scholarly sober people with our dumplings and beer and good fat black blood puddings, our string ensembles, which even in the humblest villages can do memorable evenings of Brahms and Beethoven, our incomparable schools and universities, our youth so strong, healthy, and beautiful. And all is purpose, purpose, a purpose perhaps greater than any ever undertaken since the world began.

  And somewhere in this resplendent autumn, along roads glowing with the bronze and red foliage through which they wind, there is the Leader, driven by his proud chauffeur corporal. He loves Germany and knows that Germany loves him. He stops to chat with children, farmers, doting grandmothers, blushing maidens whom he enjoins to bear stout sons for the Fatherland.

  Perhaps he has stopped to look in on Frau Elsbeth Förster-Nietzsche, whose passion for all things Teutonic is almost as fervent as his. They sit under the autumn trees in the fine air, with a plate of macaroons and a bottle of Selterswasser. The distinguished sister touches a handkerchief to an eye, remembering Fritz. The Leader sits with his legs comfortably crossed, a pose he permits himself only in the company of his equals and friends. Ordinarily he is shy around women (an astute writer has said that the transcendent idea of Germany is his wife), but with Nietzsche’s sister he is at ease.

  They feel that his spirit is with them and quote to each other the mighty aphorisms that Frau Förster-Nietzsche compiled in Der Wille zur Macht. They know the work off by heart. It is said by privileged witnesses that their voices make a kind of music. Noble minds, noble words, noble hearts! But this idyll for a poet, this conversation piece of historical subject for a painter, does not remain wholly on the level of the sublime. As with all civilized people, they exchange pleasantries, and the Leader’s charming laughter is like those jolly phrases from German folk dances and rustic songs that Beethoven in his joy could not suppress from even his most serious compositions.

  Might we not, in imparting the essence of the Leader’s character to children and students, do well to preserve for them the magic of this autumn afternoon, the high seriousness of the talk under trees so lyrically beautiful, and the very human playfulness of the Leader as he is beguiled by Nietzsche’s sister into having another macaroon?

  A Gingham Dress

  THESE BUTTER PEAS ARE A DIME THE QUART. FIFTEEN FOR THE RUNNERS and a nickel the okra. Lattimer here picked the dewberries. He’s a caution, ain’t he? Going on nine and still won’t wear nothing but a dress and a bonnet. Says he’s a girl, don’t you, Lattimer? He’s as cute as one. Everybody says that.

  Say what, Leon? That’s what I was telling Mrs. Fant. He’ll grow out of it.

  We’ll be sure to bring watermelons when they’re in. It’s been so dry. Good for the corn but keeps the melons back. Our cantaloupes, I always say, are sweet as sugar. We stand good to have some next time down. The mushmelon, the honeydew, and the ice-box: we raise all three.

  What, Lattimer? Of course Mrs. Fant has a ice-box. He likes to know what things people have in their houses. He was saying on the way down that he wished he could see ever bird in ever cage all over town.

  We heard tell it was in the paper about the church up to Sandy Springs. Leon says it puts us on the map. Nothing to do with us. We go Baptist. These are the Pentecostals, church right at the turn off to Toccoa. The way I understand it is that their preacher went on vacation, to Florida, and he ast this Rev. Holroyd, from Seneca, to take his flock while he was away, you see. Well, first thing he saw was neckties on the men. And he said the Holy Bible is against any necktie. You ever hear such a thing? But they taken them off.

  What, Leon? Leon says he thinks he’ll join their church.

  Our preacher, speaking of wearing and not wearing, don’t know no better but what Lattimer is a girl. He comes to us on the Sunday only, from over to Piney Grove. Of course, you are, dear heart, if you say you are. On the Wednesday we get a lady preacher. Comes over from Saluda, regular as clockwork, and does a beautiful service. Sings, plays the piano, reads from Scripture just like a man. She knows that Lattimer is a boy. Knew it right off. She said first time she set eyes on him, That’s a boy in a dress.

  Leon says Anybody would. But this Mrs. Dillingham, Rev. Dillingham I ought to say, says she don’t see why not. She says as long as he’s not lewd, she sees no harm.

  Anyway, here’s Rev. Hunnicutt back from Florida and the first thing they ast him is do Christians wear neckties. What they wrote in the paper was that about half the church wanted Rev. Holroyd to stay on, as knowing Scripture better than Rev. Hunnicutt, and the other half was content with Hunnicutt, who says there’s not a word in the Bible about any necktie.

  It is funny, ain’t it, Lattimer? He listens to every word you say, and remembers it. And sings along with the radio. He has a lovely voice, if I do say so. The Gospel Hour’s his favorite. Holds his doll up and makes like it’s singing, too. He helps in the kitchen, you know, as kindly as a daughter, and can wring a chicken’s neck good as I can. Wants his hair long, but Leon draws the line there. So he’s a girl with boy’s hair.

  You’ll not regret them butter peas. They cook up best with salt pork, I always say. Let’s see now, would you want some of Lattimer’s dewberries, a pint?

  This Roosevelt is something else, ain’t he? They say he’s a Jew. And his wife sits down and eats with niggers. I never seen the beat.

  You’d think the boys would tease, but they don’t. He’s that dear. One of the MacAlister boys, Harper, calls him his sweetheart.

  A thing I don’t hold with is one person telling another how to lead their life, like with the neckties and the two preachers. They say the half the flock that holds with Holroyd are going to build another church right across the highway.

  What, Leon? Of course we’re mountain people. He says mountain people have always lived the way they want to. Leon will sit in the car and talk to the dashboard while I’m selling produce.

  Lattimer, now, wants a gingham dress he saw in the window of Lesser’s uptown. Why, I said, all I need is a yard and a half of gingham off the bolt at Woolworth’s, some rickrack for the collar, a card of buttons, and I can sew one just like it. Pleats and all. I’ve used the pattern many’s the time, for Sue Elizabeth’s red dress she wears to school for one, Maddie Mae’s pink dress for another.

  What, Leon? Leon says it’s cheaper than a pair of overalls. That’s true. Well, I guess that’s it. What say, Lattimer? It’s not polite to whisper, I’ve always heard. What? Lattimer wants you to know he thinks your permanent wave is becoming.

  Yes, Leon, we’re through.

 
Jonah

  IN THE HARBOR OF JOPPA IN PHOENICIA A MERCHANT SHIP WITH two kids stitched in black on its sail the yellow of pumpkins was stowing and lashing its cargo when yet another passenger made his way through the crates of figs, bundles of cedarwood, and straw-bound casks of sweet water being unloaded from asses, to pay in full from a leather purse his fare to Tarshish.

  He had a fine black beard, round as a basket. Though his carpetbags were neatly strapped and his clothes showed that he was an experienced traveler, there was a furtiveness in his eyes, as if there might be someone about whom he did not care to meet. His staff was of olive, and his name was Dove. Teomim, he read aloud the ship’s name on the prow, so he was a man of letters. He added, by way of a friendly word with whoever might be interested, that for a sign of A Pair of Kids his people said Rebecca’s Twins, or Esau and Yakov.

  — Yes, said the captain, the good of pictures is that you can call them what you want. I have heard those stars called The Double Gazelle.

  — Simeon and Levi also, Dove remarked.

  The sea was as dark as wine, the sky sweet. A stout wind took them out of the bay, toward the other side of the world. A sailor played a tambourine, the sail swelled fat and tight, and the helmsman with a complacent bellow ordered sailors to let out or bring in lines, to trim this, and make that fast, until he was satisfied that his ship, the wind, and sea were in his hands.

  — Grand weather! was the opinion of a merchant. While gourds are ripening and spiders spinning is the time to sail. This part of the year, I mean. Earlier, when swallows nest.

  — Signs, said Dove, if we could but read them all.

  — My guess, Brother Dove, is that your business in this world is with more than salt fish and dried figs?