King Coffin

III The Background

The evening had deepened, with the completion of this action, but again it was only as if the evening were a mere projection of himself, and its deepening, or his own deepening, was of course due to the very fact that the action had not been entirely satisfactory. It would have been better if he had made a formal address, a formal and drastic analysis: if he had dissected their pitifulness and futility before their very eyes, shamed them, horrified them. He could have quoted Martin—“I am sick of this oozing democracy. There must be something crystalline and insoluble left in democratic America. Somewhere there must be people with sharp edges that cut when they are pressed too hard, people who are still solid, who have impenetrable depths in them and hard facets which reflect the sunlight. They are the hope of democracy, these infusible ones.” To hell with their crowd-mindedness, their weak and slavish dependence on each other! What had their little anarchism to do with this? It was a contradiction in terms, an absurdity, they were themselves absurdities, and their unfitness was as clear in their sheeplike instinct of banding themselves together as in their sheeplike faces. Yes, this would have been better, he ought to have done it, but as usual his own sense of hurry — was it that? — had impeded him, his anger had produced the usual short circuit. At such moments one’s mere animal disgust became paramount, it was impossible to do anything but turn one’s back, it was a choice between that and killing them.

To kill them, yes: what was necessary was a machine gun.

The beautiful terribleness of the deed!

He stood still in the dark canyon of Beacon Street, between the somber stone walls of his own canyon, at the bottom of his own sky, at the center of his own world, and aimed his pipe stem like a gun across the paving stones toward a small crowd which stood before one of Houghton and Dutton’s windows. The fascinating impulse was already quivering in his index finger. The stupid backs were cut in two by death’s mechanical rattlesnake chatter, the plate glass window was drilled shrilly from side to side, the falling glass made an irregular tinkling and chiming, and then everything was again silent. It was toward a group of dead men that he crossed the street, it was a group of corpses that he joined before the window, and looking over the heads he saw that the window had been turned into a little zoo, it was a cage of monkeys. A dozen little gray monkeys, with long ratlike tails, skipped, sat, or swung, stared sadly, peered out of kennels, or made rapid circuits of the interior, scarcely seeming to touch floor, wall, trapeze or platform in their soundless flight. Close to the window, in the foreground, oblivious of the onlookers, one of them picked with fastidious little black fingers at the posterior of another, and tasted what he found: the crowd laughed obscenely, face turned grinning toward grinning face, their animal blood thickened and darkened. It was Sandbach observing the obscenity of Sandbach, the foulness was irremediable.

Sandbach, speaking of treachery!

He turned away, up the hill, in the deepened evening, the darkened world, felt in every direction and dimension the swift growing and extension of new structure, new thrusts and explorations into the infinite, but all of it a little crazy, perhaps, a little headlong and awry. Why was this? The affair of the meeting had been, certainly, only a partial success, it was in some measure because he had gone there with his plans unformulated, with nothing but his anger and contempt, and therefore it had got beyond his control: or at any rate, his control had not been quite perfect. This remained tethered to him, as by threads or eyebeams, as if himself, the puppetteer, had become subtly and dangerously entangled in the threads of his own puppets, could not quite escape from them, found their voices still at his ears, like gnats. The meeting was still there, in Tremont Temple, Sandbach was still breathing thickly down his nose at Breault, Mrs. Taber cooed her professional old-lady’s sweetness, they stood in a group round the varnished platform and chattered about manifestos and propaganda and the founding of a paper or the revival of The Voice of the People, in Saint Louis, or The Anarchist, in Boston, or whether the No Hat Club might be re-established, or they should join the Socialists, secretly, and operate “from within.” Now perhaps they were rustling down the stairs, they were saying his name, Ammen, and again Ammen, laughing angrily, they walked in twos and threes into Pemberton Square and past the dark courthouse, under the dark windows made foul with the piled nests of pigeons. They must be dismissed, they had been dismissed, their path lay now at right angles with his. They had gone to Sandbach’s bleak room in Allston Street, to look adoringly at the portrait of Bakunin which hung above the fireplace of smooth-carven white marble, relic of a capitalist past.

Dismissed. His fumbling amateurish past dismissed, his slave-self strangled and cast out. He would be an infusible one. He said aloud — egoism is the essence of the noble soul, every star is a similar egoist, I revolve like Nietzsche proudly amongst my proud equals. But then from the street and the houses, the hill of houses around him, came the ugly shapes of his amateurish past, the sordid ill-directed history of two years, the voices and faces of Sandbach, Gottlieb, Toppan, Mrs. Taber, Gerta (but with exceptions), the frequenters of the esthetic little candlelit restaurants on the hill, the shadowy denizens of the radical “parties,” smelly young women and unwashed young men. It had been a mistake, a miscalculation, but need one be too concerned about it? It was all there, no doubt, it was a part of him, this alien city was a part of him, was in a sense himself, it could be accepted and dismissed. It had now become simply a background, it had receded from him, like the evening itself with its pale stars, it would henceforth serve merely as the rich backdrop for the action to come. And for this purpose all that scene of the past would be useful: the meetings at Tremont Temple, at the printing press in Hanover Street, in Gerta’s room or Sandbach’s, the midnight conclaves at the C Bookshop: Gottlieb’s drinking parties, the literary young men and women, the lesbians and pansies, the endless pseudo-intellectual talk, the indiscriminate alcoholic amorousness: it now died away drowsily like the chorus fading off stage at the opera, fading and dying before the coming of that profound and meaningful silence in which the action will suddenly deepen to tragedy.

The action to come.

He quickened his step at the thought of it, the shape of it urged him forward, but at the same time he wanted to delay the meeting with Gerta, and crossed Beacon Street into the Common. Had Gerta, in fact, also become unimportant, dropped into that background? The idea was just faintly disagreeable. To cut oneself off, yes — but might Gerta still be useful? actively, or receptively, useful? Some one to talk to, but of course only partially, not with complete confidence. One must be aware of her duplicity henceforth, the doubleness supplied by Sandbach: Sandbach’s shadow would be always just over her shoulder. What one said to her must be calculated therefore for a double purpose, the echo must be taken into account, and this in itself would actually be amusing …

He sat down on the bench under the light below Walnut Street. Two men came down the stone steps, talking, one of them paused to strike a match.

— Well, I’m a great soup-eater. I’m very fond of soup. Now I’ll eat meat only once a day as a rule, but I’m very fond of soup …

They went down the curved brick path toward the pond, talking about soup. This too to know! But Gerta was waiting there, leaning out of her window with a bitten apple, Gerta was the question, and perhaps the answer was in the affirmative. And perhaps especially, perhaps all the more so, because now, with the intervention of Sandbach, something of the purely personal pressure between them would have ceased: the relation could be calm, sexless, cerebral: the other aspect or possibility would be once and for all removed. He could make her listen, make her the receptacle of his hate, compel her to be, as it were, the praegustor of his new poisons, observe her horror. She could be forced into a half unwilling alliance, and one of which she would of course intensely disapprove. And she wouldn’t dare to interfere, she wouldn’t dare to discuss it with Sandbach. Or would she? And if she did, would it so much matter? But how much should he tell her? She posed as a liberal, a radical, as emancipated — but how much would she dare? To test and press her, in this direction, would be delicious, would be an important part of the venture, the experiment — yes, she would be indispensable—

He ran up the steps, remembered how once he had found there, on just such an evening, a woman’s handkerchief and ten dollars in neatly folded bills, touched the iron railing with his hand, and in another moment, admitted by the old Negress, Sally, was on his way up the carpeted stairs. Apollo stood listening in his plaster niche in the curved wall, as well he might: from the front room, that of the two gay girls from Haverhill, came the sound of the eternal radio, did you ever see a dream walking, well I did, did you ever hear a dream talking, well I did, he heard them laughing, and through the partly open door saw one of them, the younger one, in her knickers, her back turned, one foot on a stool to pull up a stocking.

On the floor above, a shaft of soft light across the stair rail told him that Gerta’s door was also open, she was standing between the two candles by the fireplace, her elbows on the mantel behind her, wearing her blue painter’s smock, she had let down her hair, which had fallen in dark ringlets on her shoulders. Her sleeves were rolled up, her arms were bare. The effect was calculated and she looked at him gravely. Keeping his hat on, he said:

— Don’t you ever get tired of your esthetic candles?

— I think they’re very restful. I notice you use them yourself.

— I have them, it’s a concession, but I don’t use them. I suppose you had a reason for lighting one of them?

— Simply to light up your lovely death mask.

— That’s very apropos.

— What?

— Nothing.

— I’ll put them out if you like.

— Don’t bother.

He went to the window and looked out at the Charles River Basin, the rows of lights along the Esplanade reminded him once again of the Steinlen lithograph, Ballade d’Hiver, it was as if winter had returned, the snow was falling.

— Why have you been avoiding me, Jasper.

— Have I been avoiding you?

— Of course. But I don’t think we need to be quite so dramatic with each other.

— I wasn’t aware of any drama?

— Then what about your postcard. Postcards. Dislocation number one and number two.

He turned around, looked down at her somber face, white and calm between its dark parentheses of hair, and smiled. He had her in the palm of his hand.

— I’m afraid I move too quickly for you, don’t I?

— Why can’t you be simpler? The whole thing is quite simple.

— I didn’t say it wasn’t. You merely mistake my insistence on clearness for drama. That’s why I say I move too quickly for you: you don’t follow me: neither you nor Sandbach. You and Sandbach.

She was in the act of seating herself, crossing her knees, she looked upward at him with baffled affection, deliberate affection, and he returned the gaze downward with a conscious narrowing of his eyes, but amiably. She stroked her silk-stockinged knee with a fingertip, ruffling the smock’s edge to do so.

— Me and Sandbach: you put us together invidiously, don’t you.

He took off his hat and bowed.

— Again too quick, but not drama. Perhaps in due course I’ll tell you all about it. My postcards were a mere statement. I didn’t have to, but I wanted to give you a signal.

— I don’t say you owed me anything, but we’ve been good friends, we might even have been better—

— 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 elements 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.