Collected Novels and Plays

by James Merrill

  Mrs N. (interrupting): But you’re talking as if we knew for certain that Dora had married this man. The rumor may be totally unfounded.

  Mr N.: You’re hopeless, Nicole. Of course they are married. She has been how long in America? Six years? Without a passport she’d have been deported after 6 months.

  Mrs N.: Is it true? I’ll have to marry an American if I’m to have my last wish in life?

  I: What’s that?

  Mrs N.: My last wish is to die while playing canasta in Atlanta, Georgia, the home of Scarlett O’Hara.

  Mr N.: It’s too much, one can discuss nothing with you.

  A pause. Mrs. N. (animated): No! I want to say that I can understand Dora. Heavens! Who doesn’t want to be American today? Look what dollars are doing for this country. Suddenly we have roads, hotels—ça fait impression, vous savez.

  Here Lucine, curled up with her chin in a cushion, made a remark (her own?) to the effect that, yes, America was buying Europe, country by country. The next victim was clearly Greece. L. felt lucky to have come here in time.

  We discussed it a while, skimming the sapphire depths of the immense subject. The N.’s wouldn’t exactly admit that Greece was being spoiled—“How can you spoil this?” with a sweep of the hand that took in sea & sun & the approaching heights of Mycenae—but did grant that a certain quaint charm was being sacrificed. For this we could thank the Greek Americans. They (or a faction that poured money into Greece and so had influence in high places) were responsible for the virtual disappearance of tavernas in Athens. It gave them, the G. A.’s, a bad name when other Americans saw a pair of men get up & dance together. They’d even tried to keep the bouzoukia music—to which such dances are done—off the radio, etc. Mr N. was the first to recall that Orson fitted into the category of Greek Americans, as for that matter did I, despite my appearance. “You understand, I don’t speak of intellectuals,” he said, as if there were other Greek-American intellectuals besides O. Well, there may be; nothing’s impossible.

  It strikes me as I write that this national theme could be most expressively illuminated by the story of Orestes & (Dora)—the one coming to Greece athirst for his past, unaware of how it is his coming, and that of others like him, that will in the end obliterate what he has come for; the other asking nothing better than to be changed, to take on the fancied independence & glamor of the American Woman. Remember this.

  Mr N. said unexpectedly, “I knew your brother. In fact it was I who introduced him to Dora.”

  His wife stared in consternation. “Akis, it’s true? You never told me so!”

  Mr N. (winking at L. & me): If you say I never told you, then you must be right, because you are always right. However, you’ll recall my going to Diblos overnight not long before Tasso’s death. He wanted some slight changes in his will. As the boat wasn’t crowded, I sat on deck. Your brother was sitting nearby, reading Antony & Cleopatra. I took him for a student. We talked for 2 hours. He had all kinds of lively &, to me, original ideas. Tasso, I thought, would be diverted by him. So I asked him to the house for lunch the next day. In fact I left him there when I went to catch the afternoon boat. That’s all.

  Mrs N.: That’s all! But you’re mad! Invited him to lunch? Someone Dora had never met!

  Mr N.: What do you mean? I bring strangers home to lunch all the time.

  Mrs N.: Watch out, from now on, that I don’t marry one of them!

  She brought her large blue eyes to bear, humorously, upon me. I had been wondering in what previous life I’d encountered the N.’s—or where they had found themselves. It was in the pages of Proust. Addressing each other, they shared with the Duke & Duchess of Guermantes that same ironic consciousness of an audience.

  Mr N. (patiently): Do I have to explain that there was no question, during lunch, of Dora’s marrying our friend’s brother? They need never have seen him again.

  Mrs N.: And you, did you see him again? It’s fascinating, this glimpse into one’s husband’s life!

  Mr N.: I did not see him again. Nor did I see Tasso again until 6 weeks later when we went to his funeral.

  Mrs N.: I remember! He was barefoot in his coffin. There was an asphodèle in his lapel.

  Mr N.: I beg your pardon, it was in his hand.

  Mrs N.: I beg yours. In one hand he held his edition of Dante. The other hand was empty.

  Mr N.: You see, she’s always right.

  I still prefer my version of Orestes’ & (Dora)’s meeting. Can I use the N.’s in my book? As Lucine said when they’d gone below to take naps, “They’re funny.”

  L. is funny enough, if less useful. I’ve sat beside her both nights at Epidauros. She watched the plays with a concentration I’d have thought impossible to muster out of doors. The more glorious the natural setting, the less I care for the human figure. At Epidauros it was like a ballet of fleas on a round, lamplit table. When the gods finally came, I wanted them to be 40 feet tall.

  What were they doing but the Oresteia! A weird neo-Wagnerian prelude, tubas & strings, offstage. The actors unmasked. The watchman cries into the afterglow (the first & virtually last intelligible word) and soon the stage is flooded with artificial dawn.

  The Agamemnon was familiar; the two plays that followed, not. I’ve been reading them in a translation bought yesterday. They are very strange. For instance:

  Agamemnon—a Chorus made up of old men, comically powerless. They wring hands, complain, sympathize, disapprove. Nothing more.

  The Libation Bearers—a Chorus of young women. They have considerably more influence. Not that they do anything, yet they are able to persuade the Nurse to have Aegisthus arrive unarmed, thus ensuring his death.

  The Eumenides—Chorus of Furies (Kindly Ones) which totally dominates stage & action. Orestes enters holding, instead of a sword, a leafy branch—his mind no longer adamant but diffuse, perishable, rustling in a wind none of the others can feel. The furies possess him. Only at the end, with the intervention of Divine Wisdom (Athena) do they become civil & courteous, marching off with their judges. Each casts two shadows, one orange, one green. Verdict: O. shall go free; the Kindly Ones shall be given shrines.

  This resolution moved me. The gods alone can change turmoil to peace, hatred to love.

  Orestes might reply: I refuse to believe that. The tensions within man’s soul, within society, must effect the miracle.

  How wrong he will be to think so!

  Throughout, buzzing of insects, buzzing of time exposures. Hushed explications from the N.’s.

  Lucine’s attentiveness. The unfolding story must have come as a surprise. When she gathered that Orestes was going to kill his mother, she gave a short gasp, her eyes were sparkling with tears. She impressed me as belonging there, her short curls & clenched hands, uncreasable white dress knotted at the shoulder, there under the rising moon. She was in a sense far more Greek than the N.’s.

  I may not see her after tonight.

  A car drove us from the theatre to Nauplion where the caïque was already moored. Town jammed. 100’s of torches streaming along jetties & up hillsides in honor of the drama festival. We sat at an outdoor taverna. Mr N. thought of going into the kitchen to order our food. L. accompanied him.

  Mrs N. began by saying she had gone to a Swiss school with L.’s mother, that they were an “excellent” California family—“Remind me another time to ask you what that means!” They had hoped she would look out for the child this summer, which she was glad to do.

  I said that Lucine’s having money explained her air of poverty.

  “Oh, they have money. That doesn’t prejudice me against them, does it you? Who knows, our daughter may go to America one day. Stranger things have happened.”

  Where was her daughter now?

  “With her grandmother in France. She’s charming if I do say so myself. Just 16. A pity you can’t meet her.”

  Her tone, pure Guermantes, told me she meant precisely the opposite. Having decided long ago that Orson was an adventurer bent
on marrying a rich wife, but never having had occasion to wither him by saying so to his face, Mrs N. was finding it appropriate & economical—2 birds, 1 stone—to act as if he and I were the same person.

  I could have told her then that my father had money, too, even if O. preferred to be proud & poor. Instead, I wanted to know if Lucine had written to the N.’s about me.

  “Tell me something,” Mrs N. countered, giving her marvelous imitation of devouring curiosity. “How old are you?” Then: “I thought so. Along with having a nice face, you’re clever for your age. If you’re as young as you say, you’ll remember what it was like to be still younger—to be her age. The age at which whoever one meets makes an impression. Her character is still being formed. It’s a temptation, I admit, to add some little touch of one’s own. You’ve added yours, in any case, from the first day.”

  Several things needed to be said right off. But Mr N. & Lucine were back, a waiter following with glasses &: wine.

  I wanted to explain about Orson—that there were differences between us, which had gone so far as to be dramatized by our present coolness estrangement. But Mrs N. had given me to feel that he & I stood or fell together. In her eyes at least, he had taken advantage of Dora’s age, I was taking advantage of L.’s youth. Was there no age that couldn’t be taken advantage of? Well, there was Mrs N.’s who would, for another 5 years if not for the rest of her life, turn everything to her own profit.

  Both her implications, actually, were unjust. I would have liked to correct them.

  We began talking about the plays. I said tentatively—the words were Orson’s, not mine—that the Greek myths had become more & more literary, that indeed, if it hadn’t been for Freud, we should have no key to their shocking power.

  Mr N. observed that in Europe Freud was passé, Europe had gone beyond Freud.

  “Where has it gone?” asked L., really wanting to know.

  Mrs N. (breaking bread): Don’t ask him that, I think he could tell you! I think it has been written down in 500 books of varying thickness which Akis will lend you, or I will—on condition that you mislay them one by one.

  Her tone was infectious. Having set out to defend Orson, I made gentle fun of him instead. It was fascinating (I said) how deeply O., as both a Greek & a “modern man,” longed to enter that world of myth. For instance, it had never been enough just to be on plain bad terms with his stepfather (my father). Orson wasn’t happy until he could see him as Aegisthus & Mother as Clytemnestra, instead of an ordinary well-off Texas oil man (Mrs N. take note) and his Greek-born wife. By the same token Orson, in loving Dora, may have loved particularly the idea of her being “old enough to be his mother.” He had been analyzed (met the Sphinx); here he was in Europe. Between the Dowager Queens of Thebes and Diblos there wasn’t much to choose.

  I still had hoped to show Mrs N. how little of a fortune-hunter Orson was. Her face told me I had succeeded too well; she would think of him henceforth as seriously unbalanced.

  L.’s face showed something else. She’s taken not my words so much as my tone of voice. Later, under the full moon, she asked what had been wrong, why I’d talked that way. “You sounded like the N.’s, making fun of everything, you know? Are you like them?” Meaning, O God, what? That I was false & superficial, that my heart was withered in my breast? No, I was not like them, I told her, & closed that fearful little mouth with a kiss.

  Still at table, L. asked where Orson was now. I’d begun to think no one would, & drained my wineglass before speaking.

  “I’m not sure. In New York, the last I heard.”

  “No,” said Mr. N., “your brother is in Athens. He telephoned my office last week.”

  Sensation.

  Mr N.: It has its pathetic side. He’s under the impression that he has a claim upon Dora’s property, specifically upon a small cottage behind the house, which he says she gave him. There was no legal agreement, I assure you. The cottage was never Dora’s to give. Under Tasso’s will, the entire property goes to Byron after her death. Your brother is asking us, nevertheless, to write to Dora, and to Byron, how shall I say? Sounding them out—

  Lucine (rich girl, identifying): Even though they’re married, he wouldn’t be able—

  Mrs N.: They are married? Still!

  Mr N.: Yes of course. But we have no Code Napoléon in Greece, whereby a man is entitled to his wife’s estate.

  Mrs N.: It’s true? You married me for love, Akis?

  Mr N. (pressing her hand): You see through me like clear glass.

  I: But then you’ve seen Orson?

  Mr N.: As a friend of Dora’s I thought it tactfuller to let a younger man in our office handle the case.

  Mrs N.: He’s not going to court!

  Mr N.: Ah no. He’s asking where he stands, that’s all.

  L. (to me): You didn’t know he was in Greece? Don’t you write each other?

  I begged her not to worry, O. & I would find each other soon enough. That was the time to bring up the famous letter of last year in N. Y.—I’d broken faith, was no longer the person I had been, I had “sided against him.” The N.’s I don’t think would have believed me, or if so, would have been further prejudiced against Orson. One doesn’t write letters like that! One certainly doesn’t try to answer them.

  (In any case, O. can only just have arrived in Greece. Good Lord, it’s his sabbatical again. Seven years!)

  Mrs N. came oddly near the mark. “You’re not close to your brother, then?”

  I shrugged it off. We’d grown up apart, 15 years’ difference in age, etc.

  “But you became close.”

  “Yes. Well, only here in Greece. At Dora’s.”

  “So—” throwing up her hands at the devious ways of life—“you are Dora’s friend after all! Something told me!”

  “Dora told you,” I said smiling.

  “Perhaps you’ve even taken her side—brothers have been known to quarrel over women. Akis, tu écoutes? It’s dramatic!”

  (With people like the N.s, evidently, I could make light of O. But in my story he must be kept fine & serious. Which means that I must keep sprinkling my sandy heart with that view of him.)

  This was our 2nd & last night. The N.’s had booked rooms in a hotel on shore, as being more comfortable than the caïque. I said goodnight on the street, I was going to walk a bit. At 1 end of town a wide white path led round tall cliffs, blue, pulverized in moonlight. L. caught up with me there. Once I’d kissed her she seemed to relax. I led her back to the hotel, my arm around her. Outside her room, kissed her again. I didn’t want anything to happen.

  Ouf!

  I’ve been writing all morning, my whole body aches. The others are due back from Mycenae. Since I stayed behind, they can tell me what I missed. The plan, as of yesterday, is to sail for Diblos after lunch, pick up some clothes, & move on to other islands for a week or 2 of Pleasure. We are all so congenial, said Mrs N., it was a shame to separate. (Is she really Mme Verdurin?) Lucine is so passive, any suggestion automatically excludes an alternative. She said it sounded lovely. I said I was expecting letters which would have to decide for me. It will be NO.

  Diblos. Past midnight. I’ve seen L. off on the caïque.

  Her face in moonlight, gray & mild, as if about to administer receive an anesthetic.

  Before that, in the empty street. Her bags packed, the N.’s already aboard. I stepped back from her, trying to reason. She’d given up her room. I couldn’t take her to mine.

  face in moonlight, grown transparent, a darkness bleeding through lips & eyes. The cricket’s gauze-dry

  “Yes I see.”

  I said something.

  She: You don’t want it to happen. You’re writing your book, you don’t need anything else.

  I said we would meet again. Athens, America …

  Eaten by light silver maw

  The moon had risen and drunk the water

  “I thought the Greek boys weren’t human beings, were animals really, thinking just of their
bodies. It seemed so selfish—” Whispering.

  She was right. The soul’s selfishness was worse. The thirst for pattern, whether that of words on a page or stresses in the universe. The hubris that invents tragedy for the glory of undergoing it. As I saw O., Lucine saw me.

  In my arms once more. Take me somewhere. I don’t care. Please.

  She was so young, she thought that to feel love meant that it must be returned. My heart went out to her. My flesh as well.

  Neither cold nor hot, the moonlight had the flimsiness of gauze, the intensity of frost. It was a gas inhaled

  Holding my hand for comfort

  inhale this gas

  made by the cricket’s voice

  acting on dark bl indigo oxygen

  blind I go!

  3 a.m. Impossible to sleep.

  An opening. Orestes arrives at the Acropolis by full moon, only to have the whistle blow & the gates barred to him.

  I could have sailed with them. She thought I would, up to the last.

  I had taken her to some rocks above the path to the slaughterhouse.

  1.vii.61

  At last, the House.

  I am sitting on pine-needles overlooking the smaller cove, the one we didn’t bathe in. 50 yards away, the House faces across darker water to the mainland. It is, I imagine, “Othonian” in style, with balconies, an empty niche, all pleasantly run down. It has shrunken over the years, or else the surrounding trees—eucalyptus, mimosa, cypress—have grown to disproportionate height.

  The “garden” was, is, paved with dirt, one of those that so often adjoins a 19th cent, plastered house. Trees, benches, marble fragments, the table, the geranium urns stand up from the flat ground like pieces of scenery. A plate on a bench. One recognizes it not from life but from productions of Chekhov. One came out of the front door onto a kind of stage apron, a squarish terrace which was in fact the roof of the cistern—can that be right? Beyond it rose the tips of small cypresses planted below; one could reach out and all but touch them. They, too, are higher now, but the flat empty space they protect still catches &: holds the eyes. A 10 or 12 foot drop. Across the water: the slopes of the lemon groves, like a modern “textured” hanging done in green & yellow wools.