King Coffin: A Novel

by Conrad Aiken

  —You mean we might have been lovers.

  —Well, yes, why not?

  —Because I don’t want it and never did. There’s nothing invidious in it.

  —There’s something really wrong with you, Jasper—what is it?

  —Only this: I won’t be contaminated any longer, by you or any one else. That’s something the exceptional man must learn sooner or later, and I’ve learned it. Nietzsche speaks of it in Beyond Good and Evil. The exceptional man is subject to one great temptation—a sort of desperateness—a sudden weak-kneed longing for the society of the commonplace and orderly, the good little parasites. He thinks he gets a kind of healing from it. It’s a flight from himself, from his loneliness. The same with sex. Nietzsche speaks of the fear of the eternal misunderstanding, and of the good genius that prevents people of opposite sexes from hasty and degrading attachments.

  —Good Lord. So it’s that, is it. You’re afraid I’ll contaminate you, so you prefer to have me contaminate Sandbach, or to be contaminated by him. You prefer to get your contamination at one remove, and to experiment with us as if we were guinea pigs!

  —Why not?

  —My dear, do sit down, you make me uneasy when you pace about like that.

  That was characteristic of Gerta, her levelness, her calm, it was what he most liked in her, and he sat down, stretching his long legs before him. In the silence, he could hear the dishes being washed in the Women’s Club next door. Sandbach had lectured there, it was there that Gerta had met him, it was after that lecture, two years ago, that she had first told him of Sandbach’s curious oriental detachment and humor.

  —You’re pretty insufferable, you know. Not many women would stand it!

  —I don’t ask them to.

  —Neither do I make any claims. I simply wanted to help you: that’s why I wanted to see you today, and to explain——

  —Oh, don’t bother! I know all about it——

  ——that it needn’t make any difference. It will simply be quite separate. But I wish you could talk about it, aren’t you being a little too tense, this dislocation business and all that. It seems to me you’re getting too deeply into yourself, it might be dangerous.

  —Oh, of course I need a job to take my mind off it! Christ.

  —You are changing. Something is happening to you.

  —My assumption of power? It’s only the beginning.

  —It’s very attractive, but isn’t it a little unbalanced?

  —Not at all, and you know it. You agree with me. The strong individual makes his own laws, you make yours and I make mine, at this point we agree that you shall go to Sandbach so as to leave us free from this sex thing and free to co-operate in something new. Dislocation number three. These two dirty years have got to be wiped out. I gave Sandbach his congée at the meeting, dismissed them brutally. I now propose to exist outside society. And I’m beginning to have a very beautiful plan. But I don’t know whether I can trust you. Will you really be able to remain separate in this regard from S?

  She put her fingertips together and thought, turning her head sideways, he admired the soft candlelight on her smooth arms, her artist’s hands, he liked the gentle and unhurried grace with which she just perceptibly swung her knee. The door creaked slightly open in a draft, he rose to shut it, shutting out the renewed sound of the radio from downstairs, and returned then to a suddenly sharpened sense of the fact that something really extraordinary was impending. The shape of it hung beautiful and ominous. A new relationship, a new dimension, the dreadful taste of eternity in a new horror, the sense of sharing, himself and this woman, in a deeper and darker world of which a pure terribleness would be the principle. He was seducing her—his genius was in the very act of seducing her—her entire attitude, at this moment, was precisely that of a woman to whom an adultery has been proposed. She was fascinated, she was frightened, her balance half lost she was half consciously debating with herself whether to lose the rest, she knew that if she looked at him she would be destroyed. What fascinated her was the dimly guessed thing, the new and astonishing pattern into which she would be drawn with him. Perhaps even now she was a little impure—perhaps she thought that their co-operation in the “thing” would lead inevitably, or possibly, to an “affair”—or perhaps it was this very violence to her instincts that enticed her forward. Could she share all the way, all the way to its logical culmination, his hatred and contempt for mankind? And could she, at the same time, deliver herself voluntarily to its evil, in the shape of little Sandbach, and at his own bidding, for the sake of the completeness? And could she see how important it was that they were alone, together, that they must be alone in the world, as now they were alone in this room? Or at any rate that she should revolve around his aloneness?

  —It’s very queer, isn’t it.

  She spoke very quietly, with the characteristic combination of frown and smile. Then, the smile fading, the frown continuing, she added:

  —I suppose it simply means that you’re asking me to share your insanity. You are insane, aren’t you?

  —No.

  —It would be interesting. I think Sandbach could be managed—of course you know that I share your feeling that he is inferior, he would be a substitute, it wouldn’t be necessary to feel that he was being betrayed.

  —He talks of treachery to me.

  —And there’s no need to be sorry for him. He’s quite competent!

  —God, yes.

  —But aren’t we insane?

  —You’re thinking of Kay. But purity is not insanity. An action could have the purity of a work of art—it could be as abstract and absolute as a problem in algebra.

  —What sort of action do you mean, Jasper?

  He got up from his chair again, went behind her to the mantel, and blew out first one candle and then the other. She sat quite still below him as the room darkened, and he knew that in ordinary circumstances, or with another man, Sandbach for example, she would have interpreted this as the preliminary move toward a kiss. He wondered why he had wanted to do it. His thoughts went back, for no reason, to Julius Toppan, to her phrase about his chaste and epicene little room, that unconscious murder, to the fact that she had discussed him with Julius, and he felt a tightening of amused anger. But she was now helpless.

  —I didn’t say. I don’t think I’ll quite tell you, yet. As a matter of fact, it has only become clear to me this evening. There will be plenty of time for that, when I’ve worked it out, and made up my mind exactly how it should be done.

  —You and your precious inviolacy, my dear!

  —Incidentally, don’t think any part of my hatred of S is jealousy. It’s not. He’s not the only one—I hate them all, the whole damned crowd. There isn’t a soul in this city that I wouldn’t willingly kill, they’re all alike.

  He felt his bitterness rising, it came up from within him as if he were a deep well of venom and blackness, he must be careful not to go too far. At such moments it was only too easy to surrender to the vision, to give it its headlong freedom. The vision grew like a tree, like a tree-shaped world—he walked quickly to the window, turning his back, and looked down into the dark yard, across which fell oblique shafts of light from the windows of the Women’s Club. He added, without turning:

  —There’s nothing abnormal about it.

  —I wonder whether you dislike S because he is older——

  —No!

  —My dear, you are certainly very difficult. Do you mind if I turn on the light?

  —Go ahead. It might change our tempo.

  She switched on the table lamp, by the door, then came and stood beside him at the window. They both stood still. He thought again of Steinlen, but this time of the black cat on the farmyard wall, in the moonlight, the two peasants embracing under a dark tree. Something seemed to suffocate him, perhaps it was her nearness, like the nearness of the postman in the train: he felt as if he must move, or say something: Gerta might already have guessed too much. Certainly, there were ele
ments in the situation which seemed to be unaccountable, a little incalculable—

  —I suppose you don’t want to tell me, Jasper, why you suddenly have to quarrel with every one like this—and make things so hard for yourself——

  —No. We’ve got to learn to be hard.

  She gave a little laugh, which sounded half angry, half distracted, and walked away from him, putting her hands to the sides of her head: and laughing bitterly she thus crossed and recrossed the room several times, shaking her head, while he watched her. Then she sank down into her chair, as if she were suddenly very tired.

  —I suppose I must wait, she said.

  —Did you think I meant to kill some one? But I’m not as transparent as I sometimes look.

  —Of course not!

  —Not that it would matter much, would it. I’d like to play King Coffin!

  She looked at him soberly, and he smiled. Her lips were parted, she seemed bewildered, perhaps a little apprehensive, she slid the silver bracelet up and down her arm.

  —What on earth do you mean?

  —I’ll tell you about it sometime. It was a doctor’s sign I saw somewhere—or thought I saw, or perhaps simply dreamed I saw—I could even swear it was in Commonwealth Avenue, near Massachusetts, on the south side. But it may have been in Saint Louis. Just the name King Coffin. It seemed to me a very good, and very sinister, name for a doctor—it sounds a little supernatural. It might not be a man at all, but a sort of death-principle. It would be nice to be King Coffin, don’t you think? I’ve often thought about it, I’ve thought I might make a story out of it. The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari! But you needn’t be frightened. It’s just one of my crazy ideas, no crazier than anarchism, no crazier than absolute egoism, no crazier than the fact that we are here, or that Sandbach doesn’t know what we have arranged for him——

  —Jasper, I’m very tired——

  —I’m afraid I bore you——

  —No, but it’s all rather a strain——

  —I see.

  —If we could talk about something else for a while——

  —Oh, of course. Oh, of course. Of ships and shoes and sealingwax, and cabbages and coffins. Sandbach’s taste in shirts, for example.

  She was silent, with lowered eyes.

  —His socks, too. His one necktie, and his yellow shoes, his East Side shoes, by God! And always that little piece of nostril ingredient protruding from the left nostril——

  He watched her blush, wondering how much of it was shame and how much was anger. He picked up his hat from the table and put it on.

  —Well, I’ll go and make my plans, and communicate with you later. If I decide to communicate at all. You’ll of course consider how to deal with Sandbach, and how much to say to him, if anything. But you needn’t bother to report to me, for of course I shall know.

  —You don’t need to be angry.

  —I’m not—thanks for the taste of the future—dislocation number four.

  He walked past her quickly, as she started to rise, ran down the stairs, heard her say Jasper but paid no attention, and on emerging into Walnut Street stood still on the brick sidewalk, thinking. The shape had not been exactly as foreseen, but on the whole the direction was correct, the huge structure was rising all about him, and himself borne upward with it, the arc of bright steel was beginning to threaten the sky. He breathed hard, ran his eyes along the row of dark eaves opposite, felt that with a simple gesture he could remove the tin gutters, making one sweep of the hand. Park Street Church was striking ten, Toppan would not be in till a little before eleven, there was still time for a further formulation before the plunge into sleep.

  IV The Friends Who Might Be Murdered

  He looked in through the wide window of the Merle as he passed, it was possible that Toppan would have returned there for his usual glass of orangeade and his perusal of the stock market reports and in the hope that he or Gottlieb might turn up; but the room was empty, the waitress was wiping a table, he saw the cocoanut on the shelf, it would soon be closing time. Toppan was probably at his law club in Church Street, after all there would be plenty of time, or even if he had returned it hardly mattered, the diary could be read another day. Better however if it could be done tonight, for Toppan himself could thus be considered: if only to be eliminated. And of course he would have to be eliminated, for in his case the dangers, even if one were going to accept the dangers, would be too immediate, and the actual result perhaps less rewarding. Might it not be better to employ Toppan as witness number two—a figure in the half background—as one who, for example, would know more than Sandbach but less than Gerta? The problem might be posed for him as if it existed entirely in the abstract, in the realm of pure supposition. Moreover, the mere technique of it, the detective aspect, would interest him. From this point of view, of course, it was fascinating to consider that Toppan might become: a necessity, even of the act itself.

  But no, the idea was at once perceived to be secondary, it was already past, and on the level of mere observation, like the window of the Merle or the row of queer dresses hanging in Keezer’s: it was as still and lifeless as those dresses, which in the lamplight from the corner looked like a ghostly Madame Tussaud’s, as if the waxworks had stepped out of them for the night. Toppan would definitely be a stage-hand, useful but unimportant. And if at any time he became suspicious or pressing, that would merely add to the excitement, the pressure. He would simply be there, looking over Gerta’s shoulder, as in a photograph.…

  He turned on the lights in his room, all three, the sitting room and bedroom and kitchenette, deposited his hat on top of the scarlet enamel Chinese cabinet, then went at once to the mirror. Jasper Ammen. With his long hands flat on the glass top of the dressing table, he surveyed himself with the usual and desirable calm and leisure: after an action, or series of actions, and especially as now in the presence of a prospect of an action, it was necessary to see oneself from outside. It was necessary to see and recapitulate what Gerta had seen, to study what Gerta had studied, and to judge himself through Gerta’s eyes. It was therefore Gerta’s Jasper whom he saw, mysterious, tall, a little languid perhaps, but with an obvious reserve of tremendous subtlety and power, not to say of cruelty. The eyes were enigmatic and lynxlike, and with that profound and inscrutable impersonality which looks out of eyes which themselves see too clearly for any counteranalysis: all they offered was an anonymity of depth and light. They were pure vision. The controlled mouth, and the Greek serenity of the forehead, accentuated the effect of philosophic essentialness: the face, the body, the hands (one of them surrounded by the tiny hexagonal wrist watch) were all one thing, they were a pure ego of unimaginable intensity, and it was this, above all, that Gerta had seen. She had felt the extraordinary virtue of this, it was this that always held her motionless and as if incapable of any separate action. Even in the act of moving toward Sandbach she was moving not to Sandbach but to himself.

  He said aloud: But there are grades and heights where pity itself is regarded by him as impurity, as filth. Thus spake Zoroaster. He watched the words form themselves on the lips, which only restrainedly and slightly moved, the eyelids were a little lowered, the beautiful face remained immobile and cold. It was as if the word death had been pronounced by a flower, or by a mask of silver: and now the flower, or the mask, had become death’s symbol. He smiled superciliously in the silence which was his own, then pulled out the top drawer and took from it a photograph. It was of Gerta, he had suddenly thought of it in the train, Gerta at Walden two years ago, she looked much younger: with one bare arm raised she was shading her eyes and laughing, her eyes squinting a little in the bright sunlight. He looked closely at the dress, remembering it as one which had since been discarded, and considered with it the sense of deepened time. It had been himself of course that she was thus peering at from under her hand, thus laughing at, not yet had the obscurities and tangles between them been discovered by either of them, though they were already taking shape; it had been
their age of innocence; the day at Walden had been relatively simple. Thoreau, and the notion of egoism, had hung, there a little, but not much: Gerta had been pretty sure that they would end by marrying, or at any rate that they would have an affair. But was there, just perceptible in the sunlit frown, the shadow of a doubt, the shadow of Sandbach? Perhaps this was why she had written jokingly on the back “Gertadämmerung. Passed by the Censor.”

  The twilight of Gerta.

  He slid the photograph into his side pocket, not for the moment wishing to be separated from it, since it might give rise to further considerations, then retraced his steps into the corridor, leaving the lights on, and proceeded towards the back stairs which led down to Toppan’s room. The electric lights had been turned off for the night, and the gas jets turned on, the copper cylinder of the fire extinguisher gleamed in its corner, and the corridor was still, except for the low voices of the epileptic and his wife from the room by the stairhead. He paused to listen.

  —and walking very slowly like that with the paper in my hand——

  —She probably didn’t see you at all.

  —watching me just the same, I could see——

  —matter. I ordered a packing case from Sage’s——

  But was Gerta quite as asquiescent as she appeared to be?

  He descended the two flights, deliberately lightening his footsteps, glanced through the window at the dark pile of Beck Hall, and his thoughts reverted to Gerta’s question. But aren’t we insane? Certainly there was a hint of “outside” observation or criticism in this, but if the aroma of challenge arose from it, very faintly, it needn’t perhaps be taken too seriously. The tone of acquiescence was already there, it need only be followed up, the challenge was not aimed at rebellion but simply at—yes, there could be no doubt of it, and he smiled—at her need for further coercion, her desire for further coercion. She wanted to be persuaded, she wanted to be forced, her real depth of pleasure would lie precisely in the fact that she was being compelled into a conspiracy which perhaps she considered insane and horrible. But did she think this? She knew his logic to be flawless. After the first step beyond morals, beyond good and evil, one was in chaos and must trust one’s own wings. Her wings she might mistrust, but his——