King Coffin: A Novel
Page 20
—I’ve meant for a long time to ask whether you’d come in and have coffee with me some evening, or a drink—if you’re not doing anything special tomorrow night would you care to drop in?
They were visibly surprised, Finden half got up from his chair holding a paper napkin, Mrs. Finden, over a glass of orange-juice, was looking at him very peculiarly, her mouth open, her gray eyes narrowed: as if she were looking at some one whom she thought very queer. Finden said:
—Why, we’d like to very much, I think!
—Thank you, Mr. Ammen, we’d like to!
It was not entirely satisfactory, but he hugged it, just the same, he thought of it with grim pleasure as he ascended in the creaking elevator and walked lightly along the corridor. The empty metal wastebaskets stood at the doors, Jack had already done his morning round, he entered his apartment and flung his hat violently on to the sofa, under the seashell on the window sill. The room seemed very quiet. Dropping his raincoat on the floor, he went into the kitchenette, looked down at the gas-stove, returned to the sitting room to make sure that the window was open, and to pick up the little green book from the table. Then he went back to the kitchenette, closed the door behind him, turned on all four taps of the stove, and sat down at the table with the book.
The gas behind him made a steady sh-h-h-h-h-h-h, sh-h-h-h-h-h-h, soft and insistent, and opening the book he started reading—(all the while conscious of the little watch ticking on his wrist, the tiny hand creeping slowly towards eleven)—the page at which he had left off.
“This reaction is still subjective. When a child stiffens and draws away, when it screams with pure temper, it takes no note of that from which it recoils. It has no objective consciousness of that from which it reacts, the mother principally. It is like a swimmer endlessly kicking the water away behind him, with strong legs vividly active from the spinal ganglia. Like a man in a boat pushing off from the shore, it merely thrusts away, in order to ride free, ever more free. It is a purely subjective motion—”
Like a man in a boat pushing off from the shore.
He raised his eyes, looked through the kitchen window, saw the immense Greek coping of the library, the huge words cut in granite, Harry Elkins Widener Library, then beyond it the slate roof of Boylston Hall, and farther still the gray wooden steeple of the Unitarian Church. There was a faint smell of coffee coming from the professor’s apartment, it mixed oddly with the not unpleasant smell of the gas, he was aware that he was hungry.
But also he was sleepy, it would be very easy to fall asleep. By this time, Jones would have got back to the shabby little house in Reservoir Street—the grave at Mount Auburn would have been filled—the khaki-clad messenger was sitting in a subway train on his way to Beacon Hill. And Gerta—would she be there? would she come? was she standing there at her open window, with an apple in her hand, looking down over the roofs to the morning sunlight flashing on the Charles River Basin? wearing the white Russian blouse?
Half past nine. The professor’s clock sent its soft tyang through the walls. He closed his eyes.
About the Author
Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) was an American poet, novelist, and short story author, and one of the most acclaimed writers of the twentieth century. His numerous honors include the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the National Book Award for Poetry, the Bollingen Prize, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal. Born in Savannah, Georgia, Aiken was orphaned at a young age and was raised by his great-great-aunt in Massachusetts. He attended Harvard University with T. S. Eliot and was a contributing editor to the influential literary journal the Dial, where he befriended Ezra Pound.
Aiken published more than fifty works of poetry, fiction, and criticism, including the novels Blue Voyage, Great Circle, King Coffin, A Heart for the Gods of Mexico, and Conversation, and the widely anthologized short stories “Silent Snow, Secret Snow” and “Mr. Arcularis.” He played a key role in establishing Emily Dickinson’s status as a major American poet, mentored a young Malcolm Lowry, and served as the US poet laureate from 1950 to 1952. Aiken returned to Savannah eleven years before his death; the epitaph on his tombstone in Bonaventure Cemetery reads: Cosmos Mariner, Destination Unknown.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1935 by Conrad Aiken
Cover design by Michel Vrana
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1141-9
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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