Omensetter’s Luck

4

I couldn't sleep. Did you notice how restless I was and wound in the sheets? The weather must be changing. I'm always restless then.

She filled her cheeks with air.

Henry ignored his wife's voice; dipped his hand in the wind. The leaves were learning of the cold. He turned his palm, allowing the wind to pass between his fingers. Cool as hill water it seemed to flow from the pale clouds. This is how it feels, he thought, to run through the cup of Omensetter's hands. Time goes coolly through the funnel of his fingers — click, click, click — like water over stones. When he had lately felt the wind he seldom had another feeling; yet there were moments, as if in dream, when he could plunge his hand into the air and feel the stream at the lip of Being, and the hesitating water. There was a bather at the precipice with breasts as great as God's, nippled as the berry bush, bright as frost. Corn golden hair was gathered to His thighs. Not in my image. Nothing like me. But in the dream that disabled him, he was afloat on the brink, poised above the incredible gulf like a bird, while each minute frightened him by passing over. With his hands on his ears he could feel them falling. Below lay an empty plain where the bright stream dried. It then became a road that thinned to a rail in the cold horizon. He heard the roar of a miracle coming, a long beak looking for snakes.

A soft plop. The air rushed out.

It's going to rain, you can see that.

Henry withdrew his hand.

The rent is due. I'll walk.

Walk. Walk. He'll walk too. You'll pass.

Likely, he said, fetching his coat.

Is walking what the doctor ordered? Whoo. Our room was stuffy as a tomb last night. Didn't you feel it? I don't want him here heaven knows, that beast. He's like an animal. Breathes like an animal. Awf. Smells like an animal. Heaven knows I don't want him here.

That's why I'm going. He won't come.

Oh no it's not. He'll come. He'll come along. You want to meet him out of sight of me, that's all. You should stay right here and rest. He's just a beast, a beast. And with her big lately he's been a while without her — unless he never paid any mind to her pain.

Lucy, please.

Now they've had that boy it'll be a bit before he'll dare to come at her again, I'd think. Imagine that fat creature sprawled on top of you. I'll bet there's fur on him there like a tom cat's.

For Christ's sake.

Oh pooh, don't be a prude.

She plunged her spoon into a bowl.

I wonder how poor Matthew can afford him, she said in a quieter voice. He can't make as much as his rent, I'm certain of that.

I wish to god—

Salt. Wasn't it last time I left out the salt? You remember. They were flat. You complained all evening and it was wretchedly hot.

Sometimes she made Henry think of steam — of something dangerously vaporous and white — but she stood at the counter now as stiff and metallic as the spoon whose edge she wore around and around in the bowl that she pressed into her stomach.

Well he works hard and I'm sure he's worth what he's getting… You're down there most of the day since your sickness.

Omensetter saved my life. You hate him for it.

Oh for sweet sakes, Hen, you know you always denied it. You never said he saved your life before. That sort of magic? You only want to rile me.

She suddenly turned to him with a weak sad face.

I've a lot to complain of myself, Hennie, not just about salt, Hennie — a lot to complain of. You know. . our… and, oh you oughtn't to do me this way, Hen.

Her face grew hard again.

Well. Wasn't that what you said? It was Doctor Orcutt, I thought, you gave your gratefuls to. Hoosh. My arm tires easy. In this, kitchen. You should have seen him in this kitchen — my personal place. Chopping beets. These counters aren't my height. Well they weren't made for me but for your mother of course. He stained the wood in them badly, you can see it — there — there—

No, those—

See — over there — and here — and there — there — ah the dirty beast.

She released the spoon and put her palm on the counter; began patting the wood.

Your mother, now, could stir a day and never sigh more than her usual.

Well he works. He's handy.

Oh I'm sure Matthew never regrets him. He is handy.

She set the bowl down with a jar.

Though what an easy fool he is to dance the tune for both of you.

Mat pays him properly, and after all, he's grown.

Hoo. He's huge. Takes care of his children on that, does he? And his wife too? She must be mighty saving. What is he owing you?

He pays, he pays.

Lalee. Of course he pays. He's what, if I weren't such a well-raised lady, I would call a poor stupid bastard — a poor stupid bastard.

Well, Lucy that's one thing — you are a lady. She looked at him sharply.

More than you're a decent man, she said.

Then she began to cry and turned from the counter to blow her nose.

Doctor Orcutt, thought Henry. I hate him. His teeth slide in his beard and his eyes cross.

Come out of the door. Are you hearing me? Henry? When he was here he stared at me like an owl.

You should comb your hair.

It was indecent — how he stared. Stared. He's just an animal. Hairy as a bear. His head turns the whole way around.

I'm going.

Go then. Go. You'll pass in the woods, the two of you. I know. You'll pass. Must you be walking there? You're catching cold again. I saw you shiver.

No.

Like an old dog going everywhere there is a patch of sun to sit and shiver in. No one ever comes to see us. People used to — Gladys, Rosa, Mat. No one now since you were sick. He always takes the wood path. Why?

It saves time.

Time? Oh dear. Time. The animal. Smell him. There's no time to him. There's only himself. Like a cow whose bowels are moving. Heavens — time. What do you want from him? You'll never get it, whatever it is. He cares for no one, don't you know that? Not even you, Henry. Oh look what you're doing — letting the wind in. Shut the door.

The path took Henry Pimber past the slag across the meadow creek where his only hornbeam hardened slowly in the southern shadow of the ridge and the trees of the separating wood began in rows as the lean road in his dream began, narrowing to nothing in the blank horizon, for train rails narrow behind anybody's journey; and he named them as he passed them: elm, oak, hazel, larch and chestnut tree, as though he might have been the fallen Adam passing them and calling out their soft familiar names, as though familiar names might make some friends for him by being spoken to the unfamiliar and unfriendly world which he was told had been his paradise. In God's name, when was that? When had that been? For he had hated every day he'd lived. Ash, birch, maple. Every day he thought would last forever, and the night forever, and the dawn drag eternally another long and empty day to light forever; yet they sped away, the day, the night clicked past as he walked by the creek by the hornbeam tree, the elders, sorrels, cedars and the fir; for as he named them, sounding their soft names in his lonely skull, the fire of fall was on them, and he named the days he'd lost. It was still sorrowful to die. Eternity, for them, had ended. And he would fall, when it came his time, like an unseen leaf, the bud that was the glory of his birth forgot before remembered. He named the aspen, beech, and willow, and he said aloud the locust when he saw it leafless like a battlefield. In God's name, when was that? When had that been?

Omensetter was in his large coat today. Pieces appeared between the trees. Then tousled hair. Round hot face: determined, splotched. Pebbly teeth. His arm was lifted in a wave. This disappeared. His hand sprang out of a limb. Henry began to trot. Omensetter crossed a small glade, his feet hidden by bushes. A branch leaped in front of Henry and split his vision at its waist. His pulse grew noisy in his ears. We must take care, he thought, everything is against us.

The elder's pods won't hang through winter I'm afraid, Omensetter said. The moss is thick and the caterpillar's, fur is deep.

I thought I'd walk your way, Henry said, for exercise. Omensetter laughed. His teeth were bleached.

It wasn't for the rent, I knew you'd be along with that… And how's the boy?

The boy is fine. We have him sleeping south to catch the sun.

What have you named him, I haven't heard.

Amos.

Omensetter lingered on the word.

I've an uncle of that name who's rich.

He chuckled.

Lovely, Henry said. Amos Omensetter. Yes. Lovely. And the girls?

The girls?

How are they?

They're fine, and Lucy's fine. The dog is fine too. So am I.

Good, said Henry. Fine.

The aspen's leaves, he saw, were yellow early. Omensetter held money in his hand. There was a spatter of red in the maples. There me money was and there the end was. It would settle in his hand and be good-bye. Omensetter would present his back and wave. The white oaks, still green, would swallow him, the sound already gone he walked so softly in the forest. Henry bent and picked an acorn up. If there were any other way. He filled his hand with acorns, flipped them idly. Omensetter's fist hid the money and Henry was grateful for that, but he saw he had trimmed his nails, and Henry felt terribly wronged. He tried to search Omensetter's face for a deeper sign but they seemed to be standing in a cloud of gnats. Henry waved his hand in front of his eyes.

I'm glad to hear that Amos does so well, he finally said.

It would never do, he thought, to ask if he would live there free.

I want to see how far the turning's gone. Let's climb the hill, it isn't far.

Omensetter held aside a pin oak's limbs and Henry followed him.

A leaf would now and then detach itself and sail into the valley. Henry tried to speak but Omensetter led. The wind Awed around him as around a rock, and Henry didn't feel his voice was strong enough to salmon such a current. He watched a broad leaf break away and dip while; the woods sank below them like a receding wave. They stopped for a moment on the bare hillside and Omensetter pointed to the flare his wife's wash made behind the trees.

Orcutt says she shouldn't do such work, Omensetter shouted, so I've taken to hanging it myself.

He lifted his shoulders expressively.

I can't get the girls to.

Then Henry realized that he could see through that massive green and changing tide as if to bottom.

It was since his sickness… Everything began with — since his sickness. Once to petrify and die had been his wish; simply to petrify had been his fear; but he had been a stone with eyes and seen as a stone sees: the world as the world is really, without the least prejudice of heart or artifice of mind, and he had come into such truth as only a stone can stand. He yearned to be hard and cold again and have no feeling, for since his sickness he'd been preyed upon by dreams, sleeping and waking, and by sudden rushes of unnaturally sharp, inhuman vision in which all things were dazzling, glorious, and terrifying. He saw then, he thought, as Omensetter saw, except for painful beauty. If there were just a way to frighten off the pain.

The path was steep. His head was nearly level with Omensetter's marching feet — his softly polished shoes. Henry felt abandoned. The blasted fellow understood his luck. He knew. The wind blew strongly and streams of tears protected Henry's eyes.

Perhaps it was the height, perhaps the wind, perhaps he was catching cold after all, but Henry felt his senses blur and merge, then focus again. Something was trying to come up — Omensetter was shouting that the frost was finicky — something was leaping against the sides of his skull. Ah — god — the fox, Henry thought, knuckling his eyes. He'd had the hen in his mouth, life in his teeth, saliva running. Feathers foamed over his nose. And then the earth had groaned. Just a moment ago. He'd never nailed the well shut, though now when he closed his teeth it all latched. Some went early, said Omensetter's shout. The leaves were minnowing. Had he thought they were playing at Adam and Eve? three children and a dog? PARADISE BY RIVERSIDE. Perhaps by Springwater Picturesquely Overrun. Exorbitantly leased from Mr. Henry God, a lesser demon, with insufficient spunk to make a Christ. No. Not Omensetter. He'd always seemed inhuman as a tree. The rest — who visited-ware human. They made him sick inside his sickness. There was Mrs. Henry Pimber, her untidy hair, dull eyes, her fallen breasts and shoulders exclaiming grief and guilt at his demise, while every gesture was a figure in a tableau of desire; there was the Reverend Jethro Furber, a blackening flame, and Mrs. Valient Hatstat, rings spotted on her fingers, a small white scar like an unwiped white of egg lying in the corner of her mouth; there was Doctor Truxton Orcutt of the rotting teeth and juice-stained beard, who looked like a house with a rusting eave; there was Mrs. Rosa Knox, sofa-fleshed and fountain-spoken, with an intermittent titter that shook her breasts, and also Israbestis Tott, together beggar, hurdy-gurdy, cup, chain, monkey; and there was Mrs. Gladys Chamlay, the scratched rod, nose like a jungle-bird's, teeth like a beast's; Miss Samantha Tott, so tall she had to stoop in the sun she thought; and all those others, with their husbands or their brothers, invisible, behind them, making sounds to celebrate the death of tea-weak Henry Pimber; while Mr. Matthew Watson, neither praying, speaking, crying, or exclaiming, uncomfortable in a corner, surreptitiously scratched a rash through his trousers.

They haven't turned… in earnest yet, Omensetter said.

Not Adam but inhuman. Was that why he loved him, Henry wondered. It wasn't for his life — a curse, god knew; it wasn't for the beet-root poultice. It lay somewhere in the chance of being new… of living lucky, and of losing Henry Pimber. He had always crammed humanity in everything. Even the air felt guilty. Once he would have seen each tree along this slope boned humanly and branched with feeling like the black bile tree, the locust, despondent even at the summit of the highest summer. How convenient it had been to find his friends and enemies embarked in tame slow trunks, in this or that bent tree, their aspirations safely in high branches and their fires podded into quiet seed. He could pat their bodies with his hands and carve his name and make up animal emotions for them no fruit could contradict. It was always easier to love great trees than people. Such trees were honest. Their deaths showed.

Come on Henry — what the hell — let's get where we can see.

They were silver in the spring. They were still new green like the river. The sun came to them. The wind turned them. And a dark deep glossy green grew on by the head of summer. It was like the green he sometimes saw when the sun was right and the wind had died cover a stone that was lightly under water. There was hedge green and ivy, slick as slippery elm and cool as myrtle. There was slime green pale with yellow; some that was like moss or grass beneath a rock or the inside of a shuck of corn. There was every shade of green in the world. There was more than the rivers had, more than any meadow.

The wind rushed over the brow of the hill, billowing Henry's coat and flattening Omensetter's hair. Behind them in the valley, the leaves were quiet as if at the hilltop they had sponged the wind. Here the rush covered their ears. mensetter shouted something. Henry's toes curled in his shoes to catch the ground. He sidled awkwardly, his coat lashing his legs until his body seemed to sing like wire.

… the notch.

Henry ledged after him. His coat ballooned. Somehow, in this mad place, he was losing everything. Omensetter vanished. The ground seemed to fall away. He hadn't known the sea had holes but how else did you drown? Then he saw Omensetter's bushy head and he dropped into the notch where the wind roared above them like Niagara Falls.

Henry sat on a rock and pulled his coat round him.

You don't like it, Omensetter said.

Oh no, it's fine.

They had to shout.

The cold stone pressed against him.

Lovely view, they said.

It was a terrifying wind.

I come often, Omensetter said. A boat's out. I wonder whose.

Henry shrugged and held on. He thought of the wild beauty of the trees, his own affection for them, his romantic sentiments, his wretched illness with its lying clarity.

Will you climb here in the winter?

Omensetter made a face.

Too cold. Freeze. Don't you love the noise?

No, Henry thought, I don't love the noise; the wind win wash my wits out.

But in the winter, he reflected, when the sun was in the west, the leafless trees would print the snow. Chamlay's snake fence would lace his south fields. Every bush would blossom, each twig sharply thrown, and every paltry post embark for consciousness as huge. The wind might blow here constantly, it would alter nothing; but this was the season of change, Henry's coat billowed out from him, and Omensetter's countenance escaped into the valley. An immense weariness took hold of Henry now, though the sun in the notch was warming. Of course — he'd been a fool — Omensetter lived by not observing — by joining himself to what he knew. Necessity flew birds as easily as the wind drove these leaves, and they never felt the curvature which drew the arc of their pursuit Nor would a fox cry beauty before he chewed.

Remember?… remember coming, Henry shouted finally, pointing to the western hill.

Omensetter put his head up in the stream where the wind blew away his words.

Ah… uddy… raid it would ray…

You were afraid?

… ott?

Were you afraid of getting wet?

Ah…ur.

You saved my life.

… ott?

I said are you happy in Gilean?

Omensetter left the notch abruptly, and started down. Obedient, Henry followed, and saw between them and the sun a broad-winged hawk like a leaf on the flooding air. The sailor of the wind is loose, he thought; my life is lost down this dead hill. He had raised his arms and now he let them fall. I'm dreadfully sick… stupidly sick. A scientific fact. Quiet giggles shook him. And I've scarcely been alive. Henry Winslow Pimber. Now dead of weak will and dishonest weather. Some such disease. How would that look carved on my stone? He stumbled.". for sweet sakes, Hennie, you'll never have a stone…" I shall be my own stone, then, my dear, my own dumb memorial, just as all along I've been my death and burial, my own dry well — hole, wall, and darkness. I ought to be exposed upon a mountain where the birds can pick my body, for no one could put himself on purpose in this clay. Besides, anyone who's lived so slow and stupidly as I have ought to spend his death up high. His mouth filled. Poor, foolish, stupid bastard, foolish fellow… foolish wards…But I'd have made a worthier Omensetter — all new fat, wild hair, and furry testicles like a tiger's. Henry spat. A scientific fact. The saliva drifted against his coat. And when I arrived in my wagon like a careless western hero, clouds would be swimming in the river. Rain would fall beyond us in the forest, the Ohio like a bright hair ribbon… Gilean — a dream. Lalee. Naa-thing. Lalee.

I have to sit somewhere.

Oh no, keep up. We'll go on down.

Lucky was he? Was he, Henry wondered — with his polished shoes and all his new concerns.

The river disappeared beneath the trees.

They walked by the creek by the hornbeam tree — Omensetter, his hand in his greatcoat pocket where the rent was, his back indifferent as a wall — by elm and oak and maple, in the bowl that tamed by the riverside, toward Henry Pimber's house where Henry followed, by the aspen, by the suede green sassafras, the beech. The silver morning grass was golden and resilient now. The slate was clean, the sandstones rich as brown sugar, and the red clay, softer after sunshine, moist, kept their feet to the slate, the sugar rocks, and the rough, resilient grass.

I've got to rest, Henry said.

The log was stripped of bark and bleached. It lay by the creek like a prehistoric bone.

Oh say, you've been sick, that's right. That hill is sort of steep. How are you feeling now — good?. . fine, that's good.

Omensetter took money from his pocket.

We'll have to move when we can find a place. It's a little wet there for the boy — you understand — it's a little low near the river. Well… You've been kind.

The money emptied into Henry's hand.

I'd better see to Lucy now, Omensetter said.

He swayed rhythmically a moment like a bear.

Lucy will be fine.

Sure — still, she must be watched — the boy…

Omensetter waved. Limbs divided up his back.

Good-bye.

So, Henry thought, well. . he's going to leave the fox where he has fallen. Anyway, that's that. Yes. That. Because it was impossible to speak in a wind. And there was only weather in it, after all. Weather. Leaves. Pollen, he'd been told, from infinite plants. Dust, too, of course. And the grains that carry cooking, bloom, and pine tree to the nose. Seeds naturally. Flies. Birdie song and the growl of bees. Himself — Pimber — rushing along. Yesterday it was the long night rain that fell, misplaced, through morning. Tomorrow? Tomorrow might be calm.

All right. I'll hide high up. I'll do that. Anyway, why speak in a wind? Didn't I wait for a wind to say: you saved my life?

Ding dong bell,

Pimber's down our well.

Didn't I wait until a wind could blow away my lie?

Who never did him any harm,

But wound his soul through a sleeve

of arm.

Just the same I thought the way you walked through town, Henry was whispering just barely aloud, carrying your back as easy and as careless as you would a towel, newly come from swimming always, barely dry you always seemed, you were a sign. Remember that first evening when you came? You were a stranger, bare to heaven really, and your soul dwelled in your tongue when you spoke to me, as if I were a friend and not a stranger, as if I were an ear of your own. You had mud beneath your arms, mud sliding down the sides of your boots, thick stormy hair, dirty nails, a button missing. The clouds were glowing, a rich warm rose, and I watched them sail till dark when I came home. It seemed to me that you were like those clouds, as natural and beautiful. You knew the secret — how to be.

Henry cleared his throat. And had he simply been mistaken? Or had Omensetter been persuaded of his luck so thoroughly that now he guarded it like gold, and feared being thieved? Henry wrapped his arms like a kerchief round his head. Omensetter had been robbed already. Everybody but the preacher stole from him. Furber merely hated. But what I took was hope — a dream — fool's gold — quarrel — toothsome hen, Henry said. How weary he was, and sorry… sorry for everything. He was sorry about the rent, about the house, the damp, the open well, the river. He was sorry for Omensetter, sorry for Lucy, sorry for the children, sorry for Lucy again. He was sorry for himself. Tears pooled in his eyes.

Just the same, Henry said, I thought you measured us by your inhuman measure like the trees, and we were busy ants in hills or well-hived bees whose love was to pursue the queen and bring on death. When you put my hands in bandages and beets I thought I understood. There was no shade between us ever but the shade I'd drawn. You were the same to human or inhuman eye.

Henry slid from the log and hushed his whispering. He pushed at low shrubs until he couldn't see the sycamores. It was thick in this part of the woods. He parted the branches with his arms. Brackett Omensetter before he left had hid behind his face and made his back a wall. The man had been a miracle. He had, Henry spoke out angrily. A miracle. Not to be believed. And now he took defense against the world like everybody else. No miracle, a man, with a man's mask and a man's wall. Henry chuckled, unfastening the belt of his coat. He tugged at it. It would be strong. His pooled tears ran. If Brackett Omensetter had ever had the secret of how to live, he hadn't known it. Now the difference was-he knew. Everyone at last had managed to tell him, and now like everybody else he was wondering what it was. Like everybody else. Henry wiped his eyes. Don't look for Henry here, my dear, he's gone. He's full of foolishness, and off to kill a fox. But I'll not die as low as he did, for I could ornament a tree like the leaves of a maple. No. It should be tall. A white oak maybe, with its wide lobes. There was beauty in the pun: leave-taking. Though it wouldn't be an easy climb for a man who'd been so sick so recently. Still the sun would reach him early there and stay the day, the win blow pleasantly. It ought to seem like leaping to the sea. He went by cherry and by black gum trees calling their names aloud. He was the Adam who remembered them. Tears nevertheless began again. How sorry for it all he felt. How sorry for Omensetter. How sorry for Henry.

The Reverend,Jethro

Furber's Change of Heart

1

Rough dogs, barking, splashed into the river chasing sticks. Coats and ties had been hung in the trees and men were hurling stones at soda bottles or skimming pieces of slate and loudly counting the skips. He picked out squealing children and the laughter of the women. If there hadn't been a wall he would have seen them scuffling on the edge of the water. The land fell and the trees parted so that seated where he was the Ohio might have made his eyes blink, but the wall was eight feet high and wound in its vines like a bottle of claret. The bench was damp and cold, shadowed all morning by the elms, and he slid his Bible under him. It was a poor garden, given over to ground ivy and plants that preferred deep shade, for the sun reached it only at the top of the day when it found an opening between the crowns of the trees and the head and body of the church. Absently, he felt the pores of the cement. The shadows of the elm leaves passed gently over the vines and grasses. In winter one could see quite easily through the gate at the end of the garden to the river lying placidly in its ice — leaden, grave, immortal. He had never learned when the key had been lost but the lock was rusted now and the double gates were bound. By spring, when the ivy leafed and thickly curtained the pickets, his blindfold was complete. Nevertheless he could see the sand rising in little puffs and the brilliant water striking the shore. It wasn't true, but Jethro Furber felt he had spent his life here. Certainly he had brought to the garden the little order it had, laying the walk with his own hands and clearing the graves of weeds and creepers, carefully scrubbing the markers. The rough cold bench was as familiar to him as his skin, and the garden, with its secret design and its holy significance, was like himself. He smiled as he considered it (he had considered often), for the body of any symbol was absurd, as ridiculous as Christ's body was, so lank and ribby. And those crudely fashioned timbers thrust clumsily in the earth were foolish. The crucifixion was so far from love. How far was he from what he meant?… pale, pinch-faced little man in Negro-colored clothing, the nail-eyed reverend, Jethro Furber, fourth in this church and a liar; how far was he from the conscience of his people? That Scanlon girl was turning around, blooming her pink skirt, and The Noisy One was calling to his dog. He saw the hair of The Noisy One tossing like a girl's; his stones were shattering the water. Furber had told them what was due the Sabbath; he had thrown his voice on its knees before them shamefully; he had warned and threatened; he had rounded his words with brass and blown through them strongly like a choir of trumpets. But what use was it to preach? Futile. Futile. He could not face them down again. That, too, was futile. In three corners of the garden there were graves, crookedly laid, where the no longer living persons of his predecessors had been put away, and there was still an empty corner left for him to lie futile and forgotten in. All was proper and correct. Even the clichés of the preacher were correct: the no longer listening ears, the no longer swelling lungs, the no longer laughing teeth or dancing hair, the no longer bitterly envenomed prick. He struck his thigh, half rose, then settled slowly back again. Omensetter's stones dipped and flew and lit like gulls upon the water. Furber rubbed his teeth together so they squeaked, then shivered at the sound. Soon the sun will reach the bench, he thought, and the leaves will whiten. He would wait where he was. He would have to. Certainly he would not go out again.

He had his rehearsals here. Slowly, his head bowed, the Bible held firmly against his chest, he would circle the garden. His eyes would sweep over the ground near his feet, over the bruised leaves and bared roots, the grass stubble and the mud that oozed between stones. Lilies of the valley grew thickly near the wall where trails of crumbled mortar, smears of river damp and moss, were visible under the vines. Violets, chickweed and the buckhorn plantain flourished. There was privet still alive from a feeble attempt before his time to divide the garden with hedges, and a rose which the wind burned to the ground every winter sprawled over a rotting willow stump, its canes nearly leafless from disease, struggling to bloom. Chafers would feed upon the buds, yet he would stay his hand, verifying, once again, the destructive course of nature. Orange yellow when it flowered, it was a climber, and he thought he recognized its fragrance. A neighbor of his mother grew it, or she had… like a dream of gold along her fence—Rève d'or … and golden honeysuckle up the trellis of her porch, with strident morning glories too and clematis as purple as the robe of a king; and there were pearl-white lily trumpets, forsythia and lilacs like so many fountains, four o'clocks and bleeding heart, begonias spilling out of baskets swung from chains, straw flowers, daisies, pink hydrangeas that she sometimes fertilized with nails to make them blue, weedy magenta phlox and columbine, verbena, floppy red petunias, bachelor buttons, zinnias, round transparent pennyroyal to dry and press between the psalms, rose geraniums in pots along the rails, gentians, pinks, sweet peas, nasturtiums of the clearest orange… he peered at all this thick sweet beauty through the pickets, frightened somewhat, for they kept a dog, and at the rough sweet lawn, so cool and moist, the walk around it edged with snowy ageratum and violet alyssum, pansies pink as lips, stonecrop squeezing between the bricks, while in the beds behind them there were sky-blue asters on hooping stems, pale and methodical, as perfect as if they had been grown by spiders; and hidden by high grass and goldenrod and stock he would watch the woman, Mrs. Kermit Hazen — Maisie was it? did she live beyond her operation? Fidel was the dog — stretching her garish yellow print across her rump and show the roll of her stockings when she bent to cut the stems and pile the flowers in her dusty apron. Tears would form in his eyes, running the figures of the flowers and the woman together, and he would press the fence slats cruelly into his cheeks. She'd have planted marigolds nearby and through the fence he would reach one, uprooting it roughly and rubbing his face with its pungent leaves before he went into the house and gave his cheek to his aunt to kiss so she would sneeze.

As he walked he meditated on some passage of scripture or some thought he'd found in St. Jerome or Augustine, trying to penetrate and reformulate it. Finally words would begin to rise, his throat would move, he would begin to mutter and his fingers drum on the book. Although he had taken the same steps many times — indeed he had minutely organized them and given each a symbolic character — and though his downward glance seemed vacant and his posture affected, he did not miss the movements of life at his feet. Indeed he fed his soul on these sensations and there they mingled with his thoughts on equal terms, for Jethro Furber felt that Nature was the word of God as certainly as scrpiture was — his task, therefore, to watch and listen, to interpret and bear witness. We should all be watchmen, and we should pray that God will open our eyes to evil and burn our hearts to admonish the ungodly. Think, he often said, how the demons howl. Their voices are rough and crude; they live in fire; they scream; they sever their words as their heads are severed; but is not the justice of it sweet? In the same way the worst of this world signifies the best of the other. While saying this his voice would rise, his hands flutter, his eyelids squeeze rapturously together.

Rancorous ivy. On the other side of the wall, at the edge of the river, the sand burned. The river lay afire. Kingfishers fell like spots across the eyes and laughter was yellow. Every Sunday Omensetter strolled by the river with his wife, his daughters, and his dog. They came by wagon, spoke to people who were off to church, and while Furber preached, they sprawled in the gravel and trailed their feet in the water. Lucy Omensetter lay her swollen body on a flat rock. Furber felt the sun lapping at her ears. It was like a rising blush, and his hands trembled when he held them out to make the bars of the cross. May the Lord bless you and keep you… He closed his eyes, drifting off. They would see how moved he was, how intense and sincere he was. Cause His light to shine upon you….He would find the footprints of the dog and the imprint of their bodies. All the days of your life…. The brazen parade of her infected person. Watchman. Rainbows like rings of oil around her. Watchman. Shouldn't we be? I spy you, Fatty, behind the tree. He wanted to rub the memory from his eyes. Glittering. Beads of water stood on her skin and drop fled into drop until they broke and ran, the streaks finally fading. Her navel was inside out — sweet spot where Zeus had tied her. She was so white and glistening, so… pale, though darker about the eyes, the nipples dark. Open us to evil. He made a slit in his lids. Burn our hearts. Shawls of sunlight spilled over the back of the pews. Nay-ked-nessss. The droplets gathered at the point of her elbow and hung there, the sac swelling until it fell and spattered on her foot. Nay… nay. To enclose her like the water of the creek had closed her. Nay… Proper body for a lover. Joy to be a stone. Please, the peep-watch is over. Please hurry now. Hurry. Get out of my church.

Though surely not now. With the baby scarcely born she should be home beside it; yet she likely had it cradled in her arm where it would root for her teats in the loose open folds of her dress. Always blue or yellow for some reason, it was lacy around the throat and fell like a golden fountain from her chin. Joy to be a thread. Lord. And all the other mothers, even all the men, smiled, wishing her breasts were their own. Dee dum dee dum. How'd it gone? While his mother lay sleeping, Big Jack had come creeping… Guilty of nessss. Um… some, something to tipple from her mountainous nipple. Cover her nay… No, that wasn't right. Shaymmm. He had mixed the days. So far apart. Years apart. Yet alike. Yet the same. The sky was the same clear blue. There'd been the same sweet breeze — everything as crisp as lettuce. Not years, of course. Seasons. Exactly two. And they were scuffling and shouting down there beyond him, out of his reach.

The rolling brilliant blue and yellow balls, the stiff white wickets, the dark sweet grass lay beyond the fence, and a large man in a white shirt, his coat on the grass, was kneeling, squinting along the handle of his mallet, while a girl in white slippers, puffs of rabbity fuzz at the toes and heels, in a gauzy dress as green as the grass was, as cool, turned very slowly about and swung her mallet in a slow circle; and Mrs. Kermit Hazen was there too, her feet well spaced, leaning forward a little and using her mallet like a cane, speaking rapidly to the man as he sighted until brushing his knees, he straightened up and pointed the grass-stained nose of his mallet at her, making her teeter with laughter; then, taking his stroke, the beautiful bright ball rolled down a gentle slope through the wicket and struck the yellow with a resonant clack. There was also a ferret-faced boy in a black suit and white collar who kept clearing his throat and spitting and who was supposed to be playing though he didn't know how but only rubbed his stomach and complained of an ache.

Futile…Oh my deliberately driven heels clattered on the shale and I held the Bible like a black stone tightly to my chest, pressing the buttons of my coat against me, and I said is this a Sunday thing and does the service come so easy off that you can laugh and shout within the hearing of the steeple? His heart replied to the pressure of the buttons, thundering. The congregation had come by the riverside, going home, while Omensetter was throwing sticks for the dog, shattering images in the water, when a sudden gust blew the ragged straw he always wore on Sunday into the Ohio where the current swept it quickly out of reach. It was studded with fish hooks and sat on the crown of his head like an untidy nest. As if it were a stick, his yellow dog pursued it. There was consequently great excitement and the betting and the bowling of the laughter rose to Furber with such a ring of vulgar, brazen joy that he rushed in anger from his garden, as pale-eyed and black as he could make himself, and flew down among them to stalk stiff-legged like a jackdaw, clacking futilely.

Initially, between the trees, he caught sight of whirling, jumping bodies. Heya-heya-heya. Someone climbing. Rocks pitched after a board; and on the river, tilting patches of reflection. Heya-fulla-heya-heya. Boys were sliding down the bank on their buttocks, roughing the scaly sand. They sailed a can lid on the water where at first it turned, floating, then sank, burning like a mirror. Hiyah-smilah. Hee-mee? Coltch. Skirts rose slowly, slowly subsided. A parasol flew open with a snap. Or-rawk. Gah. Houf. Half buried in the shingle, a deep red brick was then awash. Yo-yo giggy. Teetoo. Sheek? Nam! Lissa-lissa. A willow leaned out, trailing its leaves in the water. Someone was biding under the canopy. A stream of sand poured down the Cate girl's back. Though she wriggled suggestively, hand to her mouth, she had no points to her chest, and Furber decided she still had a glabrous cleft. Ze-e-e-p. A ribbon went up, revolving, and fell over a branch. Sweeping the beach with a broom of leaves was a flimsy little girl in pale green organdy frock, very stiff and frilly, very city. He couldn't place her. Whar? Bally. Karck! karck! karck! Some were crying for the hat; some were shouting for the river; others favored the dog. But no one was really prepared to bet against Omensetter. Furber knew they were pretending that.

The current caught the hat, spinning it round and round on its crown. The dog, his nose cresting the water, swam faster, and the crowd's excitement grew. Children ran frantically about. The women tried to restrain them and restrain their husbands who were slapping their knees, waving their own hats, and calling out encouragement to hat, dog, and river. Arthur was clearly gaining and there was cheering for him. Omensetter smiled. He had the wide moist mouth he bragged his son would have. The hat leaped ahead then, finding its place in the blood of the river. Arthur lunged, and the hat bobbed. There was more cheering. The fever was rising. The hat sped away, a speck in the plaster light. Omensetter yelled come back above the shouting and his girls yelled too, come back, come back. His wife sat placidly, her hands folded on her belly.

This is the church. This is the steeple. Look inside and see all the people.

The testaments against his heart, he kept a firm grip on himself. Trailing kerchiefs, violet and green, pale hands like iris out of sleeves, the young girls were turning. That night he would dream of maidenly garments. He smelled sachets of lavender. People began shading their eyes and leaning forward. Omensetter was yelling come back. Arr-thurrl His brick-red neck was netted with thin lines. Piercingly, his daughters yelled come back, severing their words. Their bare feet were clenching pebbles and water ran down their legs. People shouted kum-baack! heyheyhey kum-baack! Children ceased running and scuffling. A few took hold of their mothers' hands. One of the Hatstat boys was standing on his head and his brothers were clapping. Kangaroo, Furber thought. Kangaroo, he almost shouted. Why in the world should I want to do that? Yazebo heenie, yazebo! The dog was tired when he turned. He was deeper in the water and his nose dipped once or twice. Higher on the bank, Furber saw the hat go on. He felt it spinning on its crown, the hooks in its band hanging down in the water to the nose and teeth of fishes. The dog had failed, and the hat that Furber had so often seen and hated, Sundays, on that thick unwholesome head was finally gone. He regretted that he had not flipped it from those popping eyes himself, and sailed it off. Now he felt no elation for what the wind had done. The dog bobbed and thrashed. If Omensetter swam for the dog, would he take off his trousers? Lord save us from that. Light streamed from the water and he passed his hand wearily over his eyes. The river was a streak of red on his lids. A jay was calling. He devoutly hoped the dog would drown.

It was a mistake to have come here. The women had red hands and peasant bodies — legs as thick as trees. Not that it mattered. He'd forsaken all that. Furber stirred, deliberately and painfully kicking his ankles. The book was uncomfortable. Not nearly wide enough, it was biting his thighs. He slid to the bench and immediately felt the damp through his trousers. The Cate girl, for instance, or May Cobb. What would happen to them? They'd grow dugs and hair like any woman. May Cobb already had. Blond doubtless, downy, curling under, perhaps a hint of red, of reddish… it was one of the laws of God. They'd carry their new mouths about with them for a few months — always moist, a bit inflamed. The farm boys would finger their breasts with less skill, certainly, than they milked the cows, preferring the unbuttoned flies of their friends. Their thick stubby fingers were like chewed on school pencils, rows of dents like rings around them, the paint broken and scaling, yellow mostly, why was that?… they had dirty, bitten, discolored nails; their hands were rough already; they had stupid hands; they had stumbling, bad-hearted hands; clumsily pawing hands, clumsily unhooking hands, poking, pulling, parting, jerking, why?. to insert a cold wet nose? ah, the dog with damp fur! say, chuck chuck Charlie, a smart slap on the butt and bottom's up old girl, that's love… mmmn pet the love dog, Dickie, nnnm? Eeee, goody geedge! Then to marry and settle down. How fares the thumb, boy? well? Aye, merry, 'tis the sign of the penis. With the women, look you, observe the ear. The parts appear and come together. So obesity and malice. So grumbling and nagging. So gossip, envy, spite, and avarice. Slowly settling into. So feminine weakness. Heartless piety. Savage morals. They come together. No more goody geedge. Ruthless, lifelong revenge. Zrr. Grease in a cold pan. Stay off from gingerly lobed and delicately whorled ones. Thus appear the parts. Mind your uncle, boy, who knows. And the men then. Lewd speech and slovenly habits. And the peasant's suspicion, his cruelty and rancor, his anger, drunkenness, pig-headed ignorance and bestiality. Inevitable they should be parts. Hoolyhoohoo. All in the normal course of nature. And they were saying we had evolved. What did it mean? But, he said in a voice that was clearly audible, I protest this world of unilluminated cocks. He caught the sense of his own words — so absurd — and his body began to shake — half in laughter, half in despair.

It would nearly always end like this — with an outburst of speech. He would come to the bench and sit quietly a while, his arms tightly folded and his feet clenched; but after a time he would be impelled to jump up hugging his book, his lips moving as he began to pace, intently examining the ground. Before long the rhythm of his walk would alter, and while his free arm gestured grandly, a series of expressions, each eloquent of feeling, would pass rapidly across his face. Finally some real emotion would cause his eyes to smart, eventually to water, and his mutterings would swell and sprout and put out leaves, taking their place in an oratory that was personal, ornate, and violent. Sometimes he would go directly to a corner of the garden where the gravestones of what it amused him to call his ancestors were placed, and there he would nonchalantly rest his foot upon a marker and in a low, meditative voice, with only an edge of surprise and wonder to it, like Hamlet's at the grave of Yorick, exercise his art upon a multitude of sacred topics. . the pews packed, the fans and hankies still, the feet still as he bore them on from thought to thought, as safely by their perils as a hare through a thorn bush.

Futile love, Horatio, futile love. My hand droops from its wrist. No lily better. Yet there's a finger stiffly thrust. Mark it. And the nail shine. How long had they loved one another… my smile's like a floating leaf… this flesh on the bones of Eve, our lovely mother, and death in the fruit of the tree? The delicate wires of my hand, the delicate wrist-hinge, the sharp cuff, the willow limbs… How long had she lain all trouble full, so lankly haunched, disconsolate, the yearning in her, the apple burning? Or did she squat with reverently mingled hands beneath its branches while it bloomed, to wait. . oh la, patiently. . her soul like a mollusk? My trunk is bending and my forelock's sliding. She knew what she wanted. I ought to be holding something while I talk, a fragment of our Universal Mother, something not too foolish, something common nonetheless and simple although richly emblematic. A piece of Palestine perhaps. I laugh, my teeth appearing. And the moon. Well the rose is too common and the phallus too foolish. Are you there, in the tinkler, Mother, just as much? Nevermind. My hands will serve. Fine threads throughout bind the tubes. See her in there, in my palmist's body; see her, how she know? Picture her, your parent, Horatio, your initial mother, wandering in the garden, far from her spouse: thin, hairless, hard, slat-limbed… a child… everywhere angular and skimped on, scarcely papped… a smooth-loined boy. But hollow, my friend, oh so hollow. Listen. There's wind bottled in her. And what did the serpent promise — to be like a god, to know good and evil — what was that? It was the apple Eve ate of. It was the apple, the fruit, the fullness, she wanted. Rub up the lamp, lad. Let's have jokes and poetry. Let progeny appear. That's one for Tott if he could grasp it.

Nell ate lettuce,

and on its leaves

Bel sat thinking

of enemies.

Nell ate Forcas,

and on her tongue

hell fell burning

for Christendom.

Nell ate Satan,

and in her lust

well was growing

an incubus.

Nell ate me,

and up her sleeves

fell fall turning

with all its leaves.

For an incubus, too tame. Incubus:

It ate Nell,

and from its bum

shit fell forming

Babylon.

Chuckling, I slide my next lines up the slippery sleeve. Inky the coils of the darkness up there. Hear her, hear? There's only a rush in the listener's ear. It was for that she disobeyed. What did she know or care about gods or good or evil, when growing was her concern? Suppose she had been warned not to cross a certain line, or not to sit unmaidenly, or not to pick her nose, or not to yell in the park — would she have disobeyed? For knowledge, for good and evil, would Eve have set her will against her Father's? Ah, Horatio, you and I know women. Not for that. But she'd have eaten the apple anyway — to be the mother of all living. And how perfectly the sign was chosen, think of it, Horatio. Pendent from a crown of leaves, this globe, so firm and smooth and red without, so soursweet and white within, holds at its core, like tears, its seeds. Oh it is very moving, Horatio. It makes me weep like an aunt at a wedding… or an uncle at a wake… which?… am I aunt or uncle, man or mother, Horatio?… it's too riddling.

Dressed in black hose and a loose white doublet, he was smiling gently, his eyes were shining, he looked directly at Horatio, with deep intent, prepared to go back over his speech to improve it, change its meaning if need be, anything, so that it might be eloquent. Flesh, he might begin, flesh is male and female in one fabric, interlaced like fingers, good Horatio, and death's their double shadow; therefore there are four of them together in this wedding bed. Straighten smiling; on tiptoe turn. Sweet my dancing clothes, sweet blossoms on my dancing branch, my arm unrolls. Bone cell, skin cell, gristle cell, blood cell… bone… bone … rap against the wall like a stave. Yet since flesh is partly canine — mark the tongue, Horatio, the abundance of saliva, the lowered snout, the panting breath — we must add a fifth. Bone… oh love this glove of flesh contains—the mother of the world. What kind of dog do you imagine serves this purpose best, one that nicely fits the hollow of the lap and has soft hair, do you vote for that? Finally, because death has a fat bald stubby nigger slave with neither genitals nor fingers, we must count to six… in one love bundle all enwrapped… and you will admit, Horatio, that only a god could have contrived such a tangle. Outside the bedroom door the wedding party beats on pans.

Be fruitul. Wasn't He a merry joker, the Old Man?

Sometimes while he walked he would break into wild half-whispered words instead, and turn with open arms to the walls and leaves, his gaze fixed ecstatically on heaven, adopting the posture of saints he'd seen in prints. I am the Francis of this place. I feed these vines and they grow tame for love of me. Or unable to stomach his own acting, he would turn to mockery. Oh give us a dramatic speech. And often he would oblige, charming himself with his rhetoric like a snake playing the flute.

What is the holiest thing in God's world?

Hands lift to his eyes as they did each Sunday when he spoke from his sacred stump.

Everything is God's — hearts, stars, and carrots, dry sticks and infinite spaces — hah? We start with that. What shows His limitless glory?

The private parts? More dainty japery. Pun of God. And what do we say to that? Bla-a-a-a-a-a—

He bends near the twigs of a bush and stares at them fiercely. Have you heard we compete, you and I, like Jacob and angel? You're entangling my air. Laughing coarsely, he snatches the head from a flower.

The good man? His mouth pulls apart at the corners. Gah. He leans weakly against the wall. The loveliest river? His eyes light, his thumbs plug his ears, his fingers waggle. The sun when it burns in the heart of a cloud? He skips… la, la, la … his eyes turn up in despair. No. No. Oh no no no. There's no reach for Him in these; there's no extension of Him here. Why He would soften with such exercise; grow short of breath and weak. Wobbling, he bends his knees, cane feeling the flagstones. Are we more amazed when the strong man lifts his leg than when he lifts the chair he stands on? Whoo-ee. Impressed? Indeed.

A swift kick has swithened the spirit of love. So stiffly military, a statue unstuck, he speaks.

Consider then that He is present most in what seems fartherest from Him.

Youthfully to the bench soars, torches around him, vibrating arms: oh this is His greatest triumph — to turn dung into a monument.

Ah well, too bad. I've given the game away.

Um? I have? Pity.

Hiccoughs.

So then it is the Devil, of course, the sly old snake, who is holiest… think of that. He fell, he was The Fall itself, the suicidal star; but he fell at the end of a fine elastic. It is the cord through which he even yet is fed and thrives. Obvious when you think about it. Eh? Nonsense. Obvious. She-e-e… cluck, cluck, cluck… Try to think. Try. Quack, quack, quack… Satan shows God's power best. Oh you're cows. Browse then, damn you. Wallow. Drink. Moo-oo-oo… How well He wears the tragic mask; how splendid perfect goodness is in such a role! Was God not Pontius Pilate? And everybody else? He was the nails, the spear, the thorns, the soldiers asleep. For christ's sake, how can you disbelieve it? It's yes now, is it? That's better. Yes. A brilliant performance, you agree? Yes. Oh yes. Listen. It's HE in that red clothing. Hah. Good day. It's He. It's old St. Nick, the jolly redman. Now then — applaud. Applaud. Pigs. Pee-e-eegs!

You and I — you, master builder, spinner of threads, you and I, like Jacob and angel, we — fight. The spider floats on a bit of web. Furber follows grimly; raises his foot.

Nevertheless pigs. Oh yes. Evil is His chiefest work. Take some delight in it. Do. Do do do. He might well have set aside one of the six days of creation for it. Man, woman, fawning dog, nigger, gnome and worm, then rest. Which day would it have been? Gnomesday? Manday or Wormsday? Or did it rain, keeping Him in, pruning the masculine crotch? Dogsday? Well no matter. Applause is due Him. You ought to stand and cheer Him, hats in hand… Ah, there He is, at the top of the tent, in pink tights and carrying a striped umbrella. Nononono nets! I hope you're on to this. It is His chiefest work. Oh you'll feel it; you'll get a taste of it. But listen. To have put Himself safely, entirely, in even that… there my dears, there… there is glory!

But wait. The devil is a clever fellow surely. He hides himself, eh? Good. Where? Where's he hid? Find his face in the picture. He'll have lit on the sweet cream like a fly in a dairy. Why there he is, tree-twigged and woolly-swaddled, outspread to rise, grimace on his geezer… oh ho! in the butt and body of the best… ah ha! in the goody's soulskin shoes, a comical surprise, who'd ever figure… Flack? Goody's got gah-lory in his gut, Flack; that's what goody's got, gah-lory

Flack? Where are you, Flack? Help me up.

The colored man would come without a word and help Furber to his feet wherever he had fallen and lead palsied and weak, to his room to rest.

The Lord succeed my pink borders.

Yes sir. I hope so. Yes indeed.

He had gotten his days confused. The air had done it. From where he sat there were easily visible hips on the rose. That little girl had been from Cleveland, a guest of Chamlay's. He hadn't seen her since. Her bloomers had been green too, a matching shade, flowering beneath her skirt… sweet and cool. Who'd made the broom? His legs filled with energy. Kangaroo! The opening curtain found him to the left of the stage poised on his right toe in the posture of Mercury. Slowly he folded his limbs and sank to his haunches… Up! Without warning he was soaring, turning, wingspreading; then he was rising again, going up and up, wheeling, floating… Fish in the skywater, a glint of gold as he passed through the limbs of the seatrees, deeply voyaging, even to the purple shadows along the bottom where he lay on his side to wait for seamice, small luminous shrimps, and butterflies. Wasn't that the shadow of the hat, the hooks hanging? Or was it a moon in a green sky? There's the line come down, a homemade spinner, Knox's surely, a little rusty, the sinker's already clouding an inch of the bottom. What's he using, grubs? Fly maggots maybe. Nothing heaves with life like they do. Two or three are forked on the hook like peas. Is it channel cat he's after? Is that where I'm lying. Um. His spinner's dancing. Catches the eye. Revolving white haunches. What if I bit? The moment the mouth surrounds the grub, the throat will endeavor to swallow. Saliva will skid the grub along; the hook will be carried down. Ah but the angler — that's the mark of his boat passing… see the streaks and bubbles of the dipping oars? — retracts his line. The hook pulls free of the grub and lodges its point on the roof of the mouth or in the side of the cheek or at the root of the tongue. Then it's up… turning, spinning… up… and you're out and it's all over. Sweet world of air, another element.

And this is the garden. Constraint in her voice, a certain thickness, harshness, was it scorn? She wouldn't let the little colored man help her and now she struggled with the latch, pushing at the door with her bony shoulder. She knew Gilean society for what it was. You couldn't be much if you were sent to such a place, especially if you were no longer young. She was right. It was only too clear he'd been banished. The door yielded suddenly and she staggered through it with an embarrassed cry. In the church it had been pleasantly cool and dark, even his room had seemed restful, but the light in the garden was painful; the air was hot and smelled of dust. They had fastened walls of stone to a wooden box. This is your suite, she had said disdainfully. The church itself had a certain crude charm; he wouldn't mind it. What was it called — Pike's Peak? She was saying that Reverend Rush had little interest in gardening. There was a smudge on her arm now and if she would only move a bit he might edge by. The Chamlay woman had referred to Mister Rush, over and over, very determinedly. Quite correct, of course, but in the sticks they ought to say "Reverend." He was always so busy, poor man, so busy, even in his last days… Professionally sad face. Then sour, hard Mrs. Pimber, with a twitch. Pretty once. A distrubing woman, somehow. Was it the way she walked or the stretch of her lips? Mumbling, mumbling, the Flack fellow shuffling — what sort was he? She'd just begun mumbling. Yes, her mumbling was new. Self-conscious? She had a permanent stoop; walked with slightly bent knees; crick in her neck. Her brother was nothing like her size though he had her lumpy nose. God if he wasn't a fatuous ass. That joke at luncheon about putting him out to pastorage. What was she saying?… you can see. He stared grimly at the garden."… when the dew was still on the row-zezz …" We can't afford to pay someone to keep it up, though Flack does dig about in it from time to time, don't you Flack? Yes ma'am, now and then. She was a little belligerent about the money, he thought; she was warning him maybe; and to the darkie she was threatening. Yes. He was complaining he was old. No one had thought to donate the labor, of course; that's how things were done in the church, for christ's sake, didn't they know? That rear pew's got a little rickety, Mr. Knox. Chuckle. I'm afraid it'll collapse in the middle of the offertory music. Touch his shoulder. Please, not a rheumatic complainer, anything else; a liar, a peeper, a thief. At lunch, who seemed interested in money? Mrs. Pimber? Mrs. Pimber. Important to know. They were suspicious of him, he could see, held his fork properly for one thing. Stingy farmers, stinking of cows. Oh it would be dreary here — a wilderness, a desert. Well St. Jerome had thrived in one… and drawn the women to him. The walk was overgrown with creepers and covered with dry green leaves. It would have to be relayed. There was a sundial but the gnomon was missing. A pagan object, he said, pointing. She smiled. Endless mouth. He wondered if the children teased her much as a girl. Not so long ago really. A maidenhead like a bass drum. They might have called her Bones. There's quite a lot… of Samantha Tott. Oat weed. Jimson. Nettle. The trail of a garter snake in the dust, or a rope. Crabgrass and dandelion. At least there was a wall. Plantain. Ah Miss Tott, you're lagging. This might be difficult for her, after all. Here was St. Francis as a bird bath, missing an arm, with a dented nose. St. Francis, for christ's sake-in this Protestant yard. Watch the thorns, he said, you'll snag your dress. He'd bet a rhino couldn't puncture it. An improperly cut stump next. Couldn't they do anything right? He dug into it with his toe. Alive with ants. Wasn't a muscle jumping at the hinge of her jaw? How her brother did jabber — lazy looking young fool. Pike's Peak. And that Lutheran language. He was the one. Perhaps the pastor would appreciate another cup? Pastor has a lump of gas as large as a penny balloon lodged in his lower intestine. He would like to fart but he doesn't dare to. Cowardly pastor. That Chamlay woman had unfriendly eyes, and Mrs. Knox, Rosa was it? didn't keep her bust up. He'd wade over there. In the corner bronze chrysanthemums were blooming. The unseasonable heat had made them ratty. Nearby there were patches of bare ground thickly layered with dust. He chuckled. This is where you put them when they're all used up? That was cruel. Is this Mister Rush, he said, looking down. She was coloring. The blood's up for Mister Rush. Rest his soul. If he'd worn a hat — what a chance. Anyway he bowed his head. Bad form, no hat. Some sort of symbol. The dead ground in Gilean didn't look like this. This was a pauper's pocket. He had half a mind to say so. There was a hankie in her hand he hadn't seen. Up her sleeve? The dust. Dab at her nose. Made of putty. Samantha Totty… grew her nose… in her potty… like a rose. He indicated the flowers. In his honor? That was cruel too. Did he have his hat on when they slid him under? The weeds do get about, don't they? Oh me oh my I'd like to cry and wash the evil from my eye. You'd never guess that all of this was dug in June. Or did he die in July? Last through the fourth? Miracle of growth. Lid twitch. Dust again. Talking through her hankie. Not very proud… discouraging … lack of action… years of service… loved him though… a fine inscription on the stone… You might point out that the church never moved him up. Left him to rot in this hole in Ohio. What was his weakness? Little girls with creamy underclothes? It was a tradition to be hung here despite the churchly laws. Forever for their sins. Gilean. End of the line. Get off. The Negro man was blowing his nose. He did it delicately and Furber was surprised. She did have good brown eyes. But wore a bracelet. The others are over there? and there? I suppose we might as well go.".. the son of God dis-cloh-oh-zezz …" That damn tune was haunting him. "Oh He walked with me, and He talked with me, and He told me I was His oh-n-ne…" Out that gate? No?

Two years of living in this garden like a toad. They didn't weed it for me, or clip the hedges, or mow, or reset the walk. I failed at that too. Didn't I touch OK's shoulder nicely, pitty-pat the back of C. Chamlay? Whose knee did I fail to squeeze? And now The Noisy One. Futile… futile. They're no longer listening. The breeze seems gentler where he walks. Where he stands the sun seems warmer. The ground grows easy for his feet. Useless for me… hopeless.

Furber had recognized, almost at once, the drunken spirit of the man, so Indian-skinned and wild. The knowledge had run through him like a fire. It had been raining again, and blowing. He'd darted into Watson's shop, shutting his umbrella. Behind it a man like a range of hills. But he'd been greeted simply with a smile. Mat had said: Mister Furber, this is Backett Omensetter, just come on to here from Windham. Backett, Mister Furber preaches in our church. Both of Omensetter's hands had reached for his, enclosing it warmly. His own had seemed terribly pale and damp, wrongly inside of the other's, like a worm in fruit. He'd withdrawn it in panic, and pleading urgent business, he had fled. He'd strode about the church in sodden coat and trousers, gesturing with his umbrella. Oh this is no ordinary magician! Then anger and chagrin had overwhelmed him. Mister Furber preaches in our church. He had beaten his fists against the wall until he felt he'd broken them. Mister Furber preaches in our church. When they ached he shouted at them: well, well, do you enjoy this? what have you both deserved?

If I played the banjo… How's the fishing Olus? oats nicely? hay? ain't it hot though, ain't it rainy, ain't it cold? The wife? thin whiny Marjorie for instance? sour Susan? Pat the fat? curdled Carol? bitch Clariss? Has Constance come into her awfuls yet? and it don't scare her? god it did mine — put the terror to her. How's your old bald ma, Willie Amsterdam? And that indian she's got living with her? Boylee, your balls has gone soft, that's all. Borers? hoppers? rust? Ever try tobacco? — way up here? shit, Ames, you're in for a surprise. Pork's a poor price again. Well screw those dirty assed pigs. A hog's as mean as hell, boy. I mean it. They don't come any meaner. A mean hog's real mean, all right. That's no lie, let me tell you. Mean. Yeeee. And hailstones as big as your fist a-slamming into the ground whop. Yar? Judas the Profiting Priest. Here's Al. That dog's got a tongue on her, don't care what she licks. Kekekekekekekeke … Oh Lord we pray you not to forget your good servants here in Gilean. They're good faithful servants, Lord. I've been here all the time, watching, watching, watching, like a toad in the high grass… God oh merciful God… and they're good faithful servants, you bet they are, and they need rain, they need rain bad. Preachers is just people, ain't that right Curtis? Catholics are cannibals — they eat their own. Babies-god, boy, do they have babies. Say, how they hanging? Like Judas Priest. Here's Luke. It's damn good manure, I'll say that. Best shit in the world. Get any geese? Connie's got a bloody bunny; she'll not lay for love or money; Patrick thinks that's awful funny; he has neither dough nor dummy. Rum a dum dum, rum a dum. Say Luther, how come you to break that wagon's wheel? ran over a stone, Turner, why? you ran over a stone, Luther? didn't you see it? naw, Turner, naw, the kid had it hid in his fist. Rum a dum dum, rum a dum. Pastor astor faster faster, has a cock he cannot master, crows so loud he always haster, pastor astor faster faster. Rum a dum dum, rum a dum. The god damn government. Listen he could hit a man harder than anybody I ever seen, even if he was a nigger. Whop. I mean really. Blam. Heemeny heemeny ho ho ho, I took my wife to the carnival show. What did she see there, heemeny hee? She saw a cunt on a male monkey. What did she think of it, heemeny ho? Well what she thought of it, I don't know, since she's left me for the carnival show. Rum a dum dum, rum a dum. What's your flavor? I love orange. Only thing keeps me sober is you can't pitch horseshoes drunk. Chamlay can. Alfalfa? barley? timothy? rye? Sing us another song soon, sing-a-ling, sing us another song soon. Flax corn clover. The god damn government. Ding dong bell, pussy's not so well. Billy Butter has a lover, whom he's taken to the clover; roll me over, Billy Butter, and I'll leave my home and mother. How they hanging? Like Absalom — by the hairs. I love cher-rie. Here's Fred. If you think grasshoppers is bad in Ohio… Say, what fun do monks have, Lloyd? Why I don't know, Boylee, what fun do monks have? Nun, Lloyd, nun. Whoo-oo-ee. The little ones, the little green ones, when they move through the grass you'd think it was raining. Wheat's wet. That's an I think about. Wheat. I sleep awful. I love lickerass. Well say now Boylee, what fun do nuns have? Gol-lee, I don't know, Lloyd, what fun do nuns have? Nun, Boylee, nun. Whoo-ooee. Off Sandy Point there's a hole in the shape of a horse's collar and they're all in there, the hundreds of them, and some days you can see them, golden, lying in quiet bunches like pieces of sun. Do you know Mable Fox? All the same I've heard them convent cemeteries is full of bastards. No lie? They use hairpins. Never wash. Cannibals. Knew a cat did that — ate her own. Naw? Billy Butter has a lover; without no hands he lies above her, fucking lightly as a plover, first his sister, then her mother. Here's Ben. There ain't no law in the Redeemer's church against a good fuck, is there Furber? Why of course not, Luther, only it's got to be your wife, and beyond five inches it's a sin to enjoy it. By christ you're a good sport, Furb. By christ you are. Pat. Hey boys, ain't Furb a good sport? Squeeze. By christ. You can play at our picnic. Rum a dum. Rum a dum. Rum a dum dum.

Furber had come in the late fall following that enormous summer, now famous, in which the temperature had hung in the high nineties along the river for weeks, parching the fields, drying and destroying; weeks which had, unmindful of the calendar, fallen undiminished into October so that the leaves shriveled before they fell and fell while green, the river level fell, exposing flat stretches of mud and bottom weed, the Siren Rocks were seen for the first time in twenty years, quite round and disappointingly small, and an unmoving cover of dust lay thickly everywhere, on fields, trees, buildings, on the river itself which crawled beneath it blindly like a mole. In October the Hen Woods burned, towers of flame — burning willows, sycamores and beeches — toppling into the river and causing smoke and steam to cover the lower bend like a fog. Young Israbestis Tott, to the shame of his sister, ran wildly up and down the bank opposite the fire, throwing himself to the ground in a fit of despair when a silvery, fine-limbed sycamore the rivermen called Uncle Simon, long a landmark on its part of the river and said to be nearly one hundred and thirty feet tall, finally burst into flames and spilled its branches on the water. Normally shy and awkward, Henry Pimber had embraced him manfully. In October, too, the Reverend Jethro Furber, comparing himself to a dry wind, preached his greeting sermon on a threatening text from Jeremiah. He wondered why it was that God was laying waste the land, and he found the answer in the sinful Gilean souls he scarcely knew. "Because the ground is chapt, for there was no rain in the earth, the plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads. ." But I didn't have to know them, I knew them already, he always said when he tasted the bitterness of that disastrous day again; but this excuse had ceased to serve him. He simply found it on his lips as automatically as he found the formulas of worship, and the bitterness remained.

The church was still, wrapped in layers of heat. Particles of dust blinked as they sank past the gray windows. Missus, what's her name? Simpson? not Simpson, of course not, Simpson's a widow woman. . Spink, god; Simpson… Sampson?… Stinson? no, Simpson… Simpson's the Cleveland woman's name, the doctor's wife, this one doesn't limp at least though she looks like a bundle of rags… Mrs. Spink, although she'd finished playing, still hovered nervously over the keys. . thinks she should play something else and that's why I'm waiting… Cool, black, immaculate, himself silent, he surveyed his congregation… but I'm waiting for effect, madam, dramatic effect, and I wish you wouldn't hover, relax… Gray shoes, gray floor, dry splintery wood, gray windows, creaking benches, dry coughs, gray female faces. The women, expressionless, were fanning themselves, and the men were mopping their brows and running large spotted bandanas under the backs of their collars. From time to time one of the women would lean over and yank on a child's arm, straightening it in its seat. Missus Stimson? has it a p? she also called me doctor, that's why I thought. . no… Kinsman… where in the world did I get Stimpson, I don't know any Stimpsons… she married a surgeon who carved her knee for nothing, nine times she said. . yes it's certainly Kinsman, where did Simpson come from?. . had two children, both abnormal… funny… Kinsman, Kinsman… my creative years are passing, doctor, don't you think? face in hankie, reddish nose tip, trace of tears… And doctor—that was more like it. Stiff, harsh, unmoving, in the continuing silence, he counted them, examining their faces, achieving domination and command by staring, as one did over dogs. First face: fat and puffy, pale from the heat, flickering behind its fan, eyes opaque, ah, the tongue is darting like a snake's, tick, tick, tick, a strand of gray hair flopping, tick flop, tock flip, tongue again, tick tick. In front a line of shoes well disciplined, each flat on the floor, all dusty, one, two, five, seven, ten, that's five to the left of the aisle, and on the right, four, six in the second row and the same left, the weak bench empty, I figured that, then four, why that little bitch is crimping pages in her hymnal, then four more, she couldn't have been any older when her husband fell out of the window and broke his back… didn't paralysis set in? people wondered did he fall or was he pushed? quick, I'd better begin, six, eight, I've drawn them as tight as I dare… just a bit… a boot in each shoe, dirty too, the dust has surely sifted in, dry crinkled skin, gnarled yellowy nails, think of those toes when you preach… and underneath the blood about its business. He steadied the Bible stand and spoke the first words of his text. Mrs. Spink began to play. They stopped together and Furber glared at her. Why don't you teach piano, Mrs. Simpson, you play the organ so well, I'm sure you could manage. Averting her eyes, Mrs. Spinlk began again, gathering strength as she went along until the notes were jostling one another and the piano whined. Does she think I've forgotten my lines? Furber made a helpless gesture and some of the congregation stood. What was the number? one twenty-two? Up-down, undecided, half-up-down. Like weather images in clocks. We'll sing number one forty-four. Shit, that wasn't it. They're standing; their toes are bending; their toes are rubbing the ends of their all-in-line shoes. Ah, thank God, here it is. One fifty-seven please. "We rise to praise the living God." Great christ, was that right?

He could have set fire to it, the garden was dry enough, and burned it clean — privet, vines, and weeds; but he waited in his rooms through the winter instead, weeping and dreaming. The congregation dwindled; it was the high snows, they said, and then it was the spring rains, and then the planting, and the unseasonable heat and strong winds, and then they no longer troubled to lie, they just stayed away; and Furber climbed slowly to the pulpit, and Mrs. Spink played and some sang, and then he spoke to a crack in a window, and crawled down after like a drunkard from a tree. He knew complaints were being made about him, but why had they sent him from Cleveland if not for this — to be a lash to Gilean, Gilean to be a rod to him?

And then by god he got them all back. But that was before The Noisy One and The Noisy One's nesting hat and dog. Now it was touch and go again. Bark. Oh yes, bark away. They were a family of apocalyptic beasts.

It was the fore-edge of summer when he started work in the garden.- The work was idly begun, in a desperate moment, and continued obsessively, like a madman picking imaginary lint from his sleeve. He cleared the graves of weeds so their mounds were defined; tore the vines from the stones, scrubbing their faces; and then read the labels aloud as well as he could, beginning with Pike's, for Pike was the first and demanded the honor.

Rev A dy Pike

when his churc

was a cabin

die o his love

189

The other inscriptions were stupid and dull, lines of sweet memorial cant, but this one never failed to lighten his spirit. Andrew Pike had been the first to preach along this stretch of the river, and among the dead in the garden, he had the only ghost who mattered. Stories were told about him still, by Tott and Mossteller mainly, by Lloyd Cate sometimes, by Watson rarely; they were vague, confused tales, anguished and full of disaster, passionate as the legend on his monument; and Furber began coming to Pike's corner often — to redecipher the lines and ponder them. The Reverend Andrew Pike, when this church was a cabin, died of his love, eighteen nine. He was surely only his skeleton now, wrapped up in the earth like bones in butcher's paper. Furber wondered what it was he'd struck — grub or worm most likely, hardly fly. It was strange the stone didn't call him brother. Perhaps Brother Pike would appreciate another cup. Cookie? Missus Hatstat made them. Her first name's Valient. Tott says she was named for her stays. Poor Pike must have bitten hard. The stone seemed to say so. Anyway- he's altered; Pike's fisher now. There's the shadow of his boat, floating quietly in the corner, bulging the water. And here's his line come down, a little curly. Furber bent over and tore off a tip of ivy. This is Brother Pike who preaches in our church. He has the voice of an indian, Backett, you ought to like him. Howls when he feels the need. We're proud of him. Those are the scalps of twenty devils at his belt. Just give him into Omensetter's hands, then we'll see who the darkie is. Have another brownie, they've nuts all through them, I put in plenty. Thanky kindly, Missus Spink, but if I do I'll surely sink. Second face: thin and polished, nose like a pick, brows like woolly caterpillars, pale bluish lip, eyes closely ringed like the first years of a tree or like pebbles newly fallen in a pond or like. . ah, he has the low blood. . cold feet, undoubtedly, all year round. Mister Pimber, isn't it? husband of the money one? in truth she has an iron haunch and thigh. Let's see, who was it? Grave Pythagoras… who ate the gold his converts gave him. Nine plus sixteen equals twenty-five. And turned base flesh into a gold hypotenuse. The pastor haster. It's them beans. "But he that is of a cheerful heart hath a continual feast." On whom, oh jackal's muzzle? On his cheerful heart, kite's beak. Bag of gas in the ass. Pike baked bears he had throttled with his toes. Indeedy, we compete. Try to remember please that plants, in warm Christian friendship and fall cherry-leaved cooperation contrary to the vicious allegations of that damned Englishman, purify and replenish the air. Lies, lies. They soak up light and exude shadow. Enter Toit talking. Hand claps. Lovely. What you've done. Don't you think, Samantha? This garden has been positively — refurberished. Want to wrestle? Care to share a joint of cougar Pike has squeezed the life from with his knees? Giants in those days; now ghosts, now you and me.

Furber rose and began to walk, rubbing his buttocks. The hour was passing. Then they'd draw their wagon off.

The others — Meldon, Rush — bragged of the number of their years. Thirty-five in this church unchanged since its building; then Rush, exceeding even Meldon's strength of jaw with forty-one… forty-one years in the wilderness… and never a lion. Ordinarily they moved their ministers around — a very irregular proceeding, this interminable tenure. Always conscious of what he stood for, what he meant and ought to mean, Furber roughed the dark cloth of his coat with his fingernails and paced off the flagstones carefully. Dusk had fallen. Several fireflies, by glowing together, had haloed the head of the chip-nosed saint. He had smiled in his grief. In the half-light, the stone was faintly showing… it was Andrew Pike in his ghosting curtain… and he remembered leaning toward him drunkenly to say, ah Pike, breathe your spirit into me. Six years had failed to dim that memory. Six? It was six, surely? Somehow it seemed an eternity. the moment of his birth. He'd sat there several hours in a kind of stupor, rousing to weep and to bite his hands, occasionally to press his forehead painfully against the ground, sincerely miserable yet vaguely conscious, too, that Flack, his nigger soul and shadow, might be watching. This intensified his performance and greatly increased its range. He was boisterous, then silent; he cursed and begged; he confessed and threatened. He crumpled to a ball, like paper. He marched, cheering: heyheyhey. He snickered while he wept, and joked while he prayed. Spitting, he offered up his soul. Vain, he was humble. Proud, he was ashamed. I sign my petition, he cried, carried quite away, with my thirty million names. And I am lonely among my voices, these voices roaring in me. At last his strength began to fail him; he wearied of it all, and finally caring ^-for nothing, went half to sleep. Through his head, to the tunes of children's songs, his pitiful beliefs, his little sentences of wisdom, danced foolishly as he dozed, the meters they were forced to skip to reducing them to a vulgar gibberish. He tried to rally his thoughts and form them in unassailable squares, but not a line would hold, they broke ahead of any shooting, and the Logos wandered disloyally off, alone, rudely hiccoughing and chewing on pieces of raw potato, looking surly and dangerous. No book but Nature is the word of God. Logos. No ghost. Whirled. Screech. Hisssst.

Willie the whiny,

his nose nice and shiny,

will die, die, die;

as Millie the silly,

her belly so hilly,

will die, die, die;

and Minnie the bunny,

whose buttocks are yummy,

will die, die, die;

so Lily the beauty,

her bust absolutely

high, high, high,

must just as fully

fall willy nilly,

and die, die, die.

Once before, but in an entirely different manner, he had received a revelation. He was eleven, still a sexless child, weak even then, with signs of palsy and an affinity for fear so pronounced that he had driven his parents nearly out of their wits with it. At that time he sought out terror as though it were a sweetly scented flower. Black and white, bowlegged with a blind eye, Mrs. Kermit Hazen's bulldog would rush across the lawn from his customary place beneath a bush to snap at Furber's shadow where it fell between the picket. All too often they found Jethro lying unconscious there, and then his mother and father would embrace one another, weeping, wondering what in the world they were going to do with their child and why he had been taken with these strange demented ways, so cruel and unnatural. They denied him every book they had not carefully examined themselves, just as they forbade him the Hazen's fence and later the stone quarry and the bluffs beyond town, and finally all farmyards because of the geese and railroad stations because of the engines, then funerals, cemeteries, zoos, and circuses, cellars, closets, attics, deep woods and vacant houses, athletic contests, fires, rallies and revival meetings — indeed any form of public excitement — and they tried to shelter him from the noise and violence of storms too, as well as from every other remarkable exertion of nature; but none of these prohibitions proved of any use for he wantonly disobeyed them, and his father's threats, his mother's hysterical seizures, their hours of mourning and commiseration, since they were things he greatly feared, he sought as eagerly as he sought the bulldog, or accounts of cannibals in books, or the dizziness which always overcame him in high places.

To forbid him the Bible was unthinkable, and since it was a book he might be safely seen with, Jethro Furber's knowledge of it was complete at an early age. He read how they stoned a man for gathering sticks on the sabbath. It was easy to imagine himself in a circle of stones and implacable faces — the faces the worst — for had he not been stung by pebbles and knocked down by a clod of dirt and beaten, too, by his companions? Third face: small and dainty, nearly smooth, the features barely pinched out on the surface like the decorations of a cookie… tremulous smile… tiny jaw that jiggles. When he fell, the sticks he had gathered were somehow scattered all around him. The people then shared out his clothes and other belongings, and his family drove the memory of him from its mind as he'd been driven from the village. His wife, too, forgot him, even the touch of his hand. Why not? a hand's a hand. Was he a hero? Standing disdainfully in their midst, did he say: come now, who shall be the first? And then: well thrown, good Korah, son of Izhar, playmate of my youth, friend in my manhood, neighbor and love. Or did he run till a rock broke his knee? Perhaps he beseeched them. Perhaps he fell at their feet and they dropped a boulder on his skull. No, here we are: he begins by begging. The stones come anyway and they sting. Why the amazement? A fair trade — stones for sticks. He never believed they would throw at him. Good friends, my kinsmen. But he must protect his face. He huddles, making himself small. The stones begin to hurt and now he's running. Ah, the fun's begun. Go faster. Faster. Hurrah.

Hero? Unlikely. Anyway — to whom? Once you're dead there's no difference, the kites aren't fastidious.

He read how Korah, son of Izhar, son of Kohath, son of Levi, was swallowed by the earth with all his followers, while fire consumed two hundred fifty more. He read how Lot's daughters lay with their drunken father; how the Lord destroyed Sodom and brought the flood. He read how the Lord smote the firstborn of the Egyptians, and how, at the behest of Moses, the sons of Levi slew three thousand of their brothers, and later every male of the Midians, and their male children, and also all of their women who had slept with men, keeping only the young virgins for themselves. He read how Israel, at the order of Joshua, slew all but a harlot in Jericho, and how Joshua hung five kings from five trees before destroying their cities, and how a certain Levite, whose concubine was ravished in his stead by men in Gibeah (for they were pederasts and would have preferred him), afterward divided her in twelve parts like a pie and sent a piece to each of the tribes of Israel that they might make war on Benjamin. He read how Saul and his sons and his armorbearer and all his men died on the same day, and how Uzzah was stricken for touching the ark when the oxen faltered, and how Ammon ravished the sister of Absalom so that Absalom had his brother slain, and then how Absalom stole the loyalty of the people from his father who was king, and to vex his father lay with his father's whores, and at last led the people away. He read how finally Absalom was defeated, and how he Bed on an ass and was caught in the branches of a tree Mere Joab, his father's captain, bled his heart for the dogs with darts. He read how Joab spilled the bowels of Amasa on the ground and received the head of Sheba which was thrown from the walls of his town to turn away the wrath of King David. He read how the Lord put a plague upon Israel, His anger consuming seventy thousand, and how Amasa was revenged, for Solomon had Joab slain, and how much in love Solomon was with foreign women so that the Lord took ten of the tribes of Israel from him and gave them to Jeroboam, whom, however, He later cursed with a terrible curse, causing his son to die.

These and many others. He saw Absalom alive in the oak and me head of Sheba falling from the wall and Joab's sword entering Amasa. He heard the Lord curse Jeroboam through the mouth of His prophet Ahijah: the dog shall eat those of the house of Jeroboam who die in the city, and the birds shall eat those of his house who die in the country, and all of his house shall be consumed as a dry cake of dung is consumed in the fire. He imagined the men of King David at the foot of the wall, the head of Sheba looping over, and Joab running to catch it before it smashed on the rocks, spoiling its features, for the king liked to have the heads of his enemies brought into his presence since he hoped to find the meaning of their death in the final arrangement of their faces. Here is the head of a foolish man, My does he smile so wisely? Fourth face: small moustache and triangular chin, nervously winking eyes… something in them? ah, he's chewing on his tongue… wink tick chew tock, wink wink. You've waited too long, now what's her name's begun, de dum de dum de dum de dum: we rise to praise the living God. Oh no indeedy. Incorrect. The third stone, reddish, small, flat with rounded edges and a glacial nick-the first two having fallen grievously short — was thrown by a ferrety boy in a sailor suit. It skipped twice before turning toward its target, then twice more, quickly, striking the giant between the eyes so that he fell with a groan, shaking the earth. There was generous applause and considerable shouting. A pillar of dust rose from beneath the body, two thousand sneezing. With the clangor of arms the armies collided. Yar. Yar. Yar.

He saw Absalom alive in the oak. The locusts flew up in a cloud and the servants of King David saw them rising and knew where Absalom was. While Joab pierced his heart and ten men struck him, his mule was grazing. Absalom said, ah my father's friend has come, my kinsman; but Joab did not speak, affixing the darts. The head of Absalom then was like the head of Sheba tossed from the wall top and like Amasa's who was murdered on the highway; it was like the head of the Levite's concubine sent as a message to Judah; it was the head of Goliath and the other stone man; it was like the head of Saul and the five kings Joshua had hung in the trees; it was like the heads of thousands brought one by one into his dreams and held by their hair as the oak had held Absalom, all those whom war and plague and treachery had slain, each in the griff of a warrior, and all the heads were smiling in the same way… wisely… and Furber heard King David muttering, why are they smiling? what is the meaning? for head after head, even those with sad eyes or poor teeth, those who met death weeping, were smiling. Everyone stood in a group near me tree, even Jethro, who was shortest. Abner, wearing the ringlet of leaves, had already hid. Ruth, the fat girl, began the chant.

hingle-dy

dingle-dy

this is so sing-a-ly

if we go single-ly

we'll find the crown

Then they all ran, Jethro screaming, bringing his parents running from the house. In the tent with the king there were people on benches, wailing. The king said: shall I cut this child in two? Just so. Someone was playing the piano and everyone rose to sing. Oh I do believe you Lord, I do. Jethro ran to the front, saying: I have seen Absalom alive in the oak. From there his father dragged him, squalling. Never again. No more religious circuses, you understand? Not even a psalm-singing acrobat? A little introductory music please. Ladies and Gentlemen. Let me call your Attention to the Top of the Tent: the Lord of Hosts! all the way from Egypt! floating! in Thin Air! and without Nets! without any Support! of Any Kind! No one Else in the World is Capable of such a Feast! Dum diddy dumm dum, dum daaaa. But it was the stoned man he saw most. When they began throwing he ran to a small hill. Flies drank his sweat. It was only a game called king of the mountain. A stone came out of the sun and struck him just back of the ear. Death in every direction. He staggered drunkenly down the slope into their arms.

ringlet

ringlet

where's our kinglet

king has run away

Furber did not stay long with the later books. He was disappointed with them. Of Revelation he was even a little disdainful. What this saint had dreamed of, Moses and Joshua had done. His book was filled with the wind of trumpets and the insubstantial wings of angels, and while there were cataclysms of all kinds which the emperor's prisoner promised would destroy a fifth or a fourth or a third of the earth, his threats were like those Jethro himself had sometimes shouted from his yard at the bullying fat girl with whom he often played and who had showed him, as Rome he supposed had showed John, her private parts; and in consequence no one whose foot would raise real dust in the road was deprived of his bowels by the sword; for Furber had already read how King David had numbered Israel, angering the Lord, and how the Lord had offered him a punishment for his people: either three years of famine, three months of flight before their foes, or three days of pestilence brought by an angel, and how King David had wisely chosen the latter, saying: let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for His mercy is great; but let us not fall into the hands of man; so Furber felt, even as a boy, that if the Lord really wished to bring the world to a terrible end, He would not toss earth and heaven together or bring forth fire from the ground or roll up the sea like a scroll, but simply withdraw Himself so that the whole earth and the heavens beyond the earth would settle quietly into the hands of man.

I have seen Absalom alive in the oak; I have seen his neck between the branches; locusts flew from his hair. Then a servant of David saw him also and ran to tell Joab. Oh prevent it… prevent it! But Joab has come in his gown of blood to bare the breast of Absalom, while Absalom watches, and find his heart. I have never seen the Lord God. But I have seen Absalom alive in the tree.

Jethro was a priest of Midian, father-in-law to Moses, and a wise adviser. Furber, too, determined to live for the church. But at first it was only the wild times and his own terror that attracted him: the immense stretch of the opposing hosts and the harsh cries of battle, the plagues and the engulfing sea, the cloud and the pillar of fire. Then one morning, his eyes still aching from an unpleasant sleep, he came into the parlor where the Bible lay open on a table before a window, its pages turning in the morning breeze, and glancing idly down he saw these words of St. Paul which seemed to leap from the page to strike him: "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." And his heart stopped. There was an immense silence inside him. It was a silence like that which overtook the world while he slept. "They are without excuse." All night he'd been in the tent of David, before the rows of benches and the clapping people. Heads had been brought in, and David, peering at each closely, had asked him again and again: what do you see? why is he smiling? what is the meaning? The head of Goliath. Laughing, David had thrust his finger in its mouth. You're a fish past biting, old friend. Saul. Tears had soaked Saul's beard though he was smiling. David assaulted the head with his spear. How long has this been happening? Saul — dead — is weeping. And no one dared to tell me. The head of Sheba, caught by Joab's running awkwardly, and Joab's own, and many more of David's captains, smiling. What is the meaning? The page curled and blew over. Furber had cried out: yes, that's so; while pans slid noisily in the kitchen. To Jethro they were trumpets. Even now, as he remembered it, his flesh prickled. That terrible night of heads. There was a plague among the people in the tent. They began to groan and fall forward on their faces. David said: let us sing a song of my own composition.

red

red

maidenhead

Janet's no longer a boy-oh

A man and a woman opened the flap. Jethro rose, shouting angrily: that woman is a woman of Midian. Who plays the harlot with this daughter of Moab, bringing this plague of heads upon us? And he took up David's spear, for David was weeping — Absalom's head was swinging by its hair — and rushed down the aisle to spit the man and woman on it beautifully-bravo. David praised him, saying: you have turned back the wrath of God from the people of Israel. Then a strange head was brought in, a head without features, smiling, without cheeks or lips or chin, and Furber said: who is this? what is the meaning? and David answered: this is the head of Jethro, a priest of Midian, once father-in-law to Moses, and a wise adviser.

His mother came from the kitchen where she was peeling cucumbers. What is the matter, Jethro, she said. This too, he thought, is a sign, even the smell of cucumber, and I must try to understand it. At the end of his dream, while he'd sat paralyzed beside King David, another head had been brought. This is the head of Solomon, your son, a voice said to David. King David rose slowly, his weapons falling from him. But I die before Solomon, he said. Shall I cut this child in two, said Solomon's head. I die before Solomon, David said, his garments falling from him. Tell me I'm not smiling. Tell me. I can't hear you, he shouted, his body falling from him. Tell me I'm not smiling not smiling not smiling. . But his head wore a smile as sweet and mild and rosy as the heads, for example, of Saul and Amasa, as the heads, for instance, of Goliath and Joab, or as the head of the foolish Sheba which Joab caught so awkwardly just in time. Jethro gave his mother a reassuring peck and asked for breakfast: sugared peaches in cream, fresh milk, sweet rolls with sweet butter, whole strawberry jam.

You'd have loved my mother, Pike. Happy? Proud?

Visiting ladies in elaborate Sunday hats shaded my face from the sun that came streaming through the parlor windows in the summer afternoons. Mother hugs me. He's decided, she says, and they — the ladies with smoothed cosmetic faces — smile and sigh. So young. And mother would always misunderstand them. But not too young to decide, she'd insist. Maybe Aunt Janet would come away from the fishbowl. She hoped the fish would nibble at her finger. She said she thought it would tickle. If she did stop it was always to ram that finger, dripping, into my ribs. Her wide hat would darken my eyes and I would blink at the things which hung from the brim. So you've chosen Christ, my boy, she would say in a low soft voice, putting her face close to mine so I always saw the powder at the bottom of her wrinkles. That's-she drives the finger into my side — fine. Mother hauls me to her bosom in an overflow of love, denting my nose with one of her buttons. He doesn't say much about it… but Janet, I think he's had an experience.

Pike, what if I'd said: yes mother, I've seen the private parts of fatty Ruth? Would my life have changed? Much? Oh I should have spoken out. Shame. Not to praise the parts of fatty Ruth. Ah if I'd had your spirit, Pike, when her skirts were hoisted up. Breathe your spirit into me.

wiggle oh

gigolo

we'll live so bungalow

in my soft down below

until you drown

Pike speaks: ladies love religious little boys.

By god Pike, you're right. I was loved. I was held, pinched, squeezed, encompassed by beads. Then Morton, too, sanctimonious old pimp, shook my hand and gave me a hymnal with a broken spine. What number was it? Ninety-two? we rise to praise… no, nineteen, no, that's the number of the psalm: "the heavens declare the glory" — but Pike, it's what I learned as a boy from Paul, though I was a long time understanding it. "Day to day uttereth speech." What is the meaning? God spoke that day between the lower lips of fatty Ruth but I missed the meaning of his proposition. Well even Moses was slow witted with the burning bush. I missed the meaning again of Auntie Janet who has just now cocked her thumb and taken aim with her right forefinger blam! hug chest quick — too late it's into the rib just under my arm and the moon is falling near, see the mountains and the craters and the lines of snow and ice. There's a chapped mouse squeaking indistinctly cheeses priced at sss-blam! dime. Cheeses. Holey cheeses. Janet, I believe he's had an experience. Well the boy's high-strung. But he's changed; you've no idea. And so young, dear child. He doesn't shake. He may, again, there's plenty of time.

I should have reminded her, Pike, that Jesus was a God already as a fetus, but I've no spirit, no proper spirit. Christ. No ghost. Whirld. Shreech.

one a pastor

two a parson

hot cross bun

three a doctor

four a brother

bake them done

five a reverend

six a shepherd

eat each one

seven a preacher

eight a teacher

we're not done

nine a minister

ten the sinister

end has come

Listen, Pike, you are a stone ghost now, a trick of the light, and perhaps you know already what I'm trying to say, for you've been through it all and died of love, the best death. My face is muffled in my mother's clothing. Her rhinestones injure me. See: my feet are going. Fish flee the forefinger of my aunt. The sun streams over the geraniums. What has this to do with what I feel, with what I am?

Aunt Janet sits carelessly on the edge of her chair, her hands like fruit that's fallen in her lap. Her gaze is soft and watery. The past has overtaken her, just as you, Pike, have overtaken me. I was nearly twelve, you understand, and I would search her eagerly like a lover. But her grief was all inside her, Pike. She might as well have been of stone or plaster like that sentimental saint. And when in my room I would weep, for I was fond of weeping in those days, I realized my grief had no connection with my tears. Anyone might see how they streamed, but no one could know how they burned. Then I tried the private parts of fatty Ruth on my aunt and mother. Oh I was like the searching prince in Cinderella, hiking every skirt. But they've been badly misnamed. There's nothing really private to those parts which I later heard the boys in seminary call the banks of the river Urine, nor did they have the slipper's size; for although all the girls and ladies wore it, none of them seemed nicely fitted. One day — it was sometime after my "experience," perhaps three weeks or a month, and Janet had come according to her custom to nose our fish and stir them up — after her kiss had smeared cosmetic on my cheek and she had cocked her fist and painfully speared my side, congratulating me because I'd ceased my shaking (a pillow for your mother's head, she said); after she'd lit on the edge of the simple ladder chair she fancied because it was as light and delicate as herself, and had taken breath toward one of her favorite "ticklish topics," since her conversation consisted entirely of prefaces, forewords, and introductions to pink tumescent subjects which she safely never touched; and when she had, following an especially long and devious preamble to what I guessed was the problem of the unwed mother, sunk behind the sea which rose suddenly in her eyes as it always did, I saw her — mind this Pike, are you awake? — I saw her, poised on the edge of her chair as I've said her habit was, let go and slowly topple over. We helped her up at once, of course. She didn't seem hurt or even ill. Slipped off, my mother said, because she has to perch and never minds what she's doing. You may think it's my diseased imagination — it has a beggar's body — I freely admit it — but I see her still, whenever I wish, letting go and falling, her skirts flattening and streaming behind her and then ballooning as she turns in the air. I had penetrated the quality of the act, Pike, and I was dreadfully shaken by my knowledge, though I tried not to show it and got away as soon as I dared. She'd had too much of life, and she'd let go of it at last and left the wire. In my dreams sometimes I see her too, slipping from a window sill or off a windy mountain ledge, her skirts rising about her as she descends and revealing beneath them the private parts of fatty Ruth. On she somersaults until I've lost the sense of heads or tails and she has spun herself into a single, broadly grinning, comic mask.

Pike speaks: that was the face of truth on fatty Ruth.

By god Pike you're right. The head of Medusa, with Medusa's softly whiskered grin. Were you turned to stone by such a sight? Morton, I remember, rubbed my back. Humility, my boy, is also important. The hymnal he gave roe was dog-eared at all the customary places and it always fell open at A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. Now there was a man who made a downy pillow. Pike… when I stopped trembling and fainting, the ladies wrapped me in their warm arms and cooed in my ears and gently ruffled my hair. Aunt Janet's chair had skidded, tipping when she fell. Both were light but my aunt was voluptuous. I held her like a lover, receiving her soul. It was then I felt my whole interior shudder. It was nothing like the palsy of the body. I have that still. It was a fright of the spirit, a terrible ghost-fear. Hats shaded me. The petals of the potted plants were turning purple. She rose through the circle of my grasp, rubbing herself ecstatically against me. Well why not? I was the vulgar flesh receiver, wasn't I? And wasn't it all over, the harsh press and scruple of life? There ought to be some sweet to console her for the fall. So she thought. But it was her limp spirit I held, as helpless, flung over my arm, as a wrap. This was my first use of the godly eye, Pike, and in the beginning I was no better for it. Beads and cameos and buttons cut me. Morton squeezed my arm, the dirty old butt. In the moment that we lifted her, I saw her estimate the age of the zinnias. Ghostfallen, Pike. You know what that means. She was ghostfallen, yet she troubled to guess how recently my mother's flowers had been cut. Well I'd declared for God, my mother said, and smartly dressed auxiliary ladies came to look at me and whisper about Jesus. A fat lot of good it would have done to insist I hadn't chosen him, I'd chosen the Lord of Hosts, His Tent, Tights, and Trapeze, not the aime thing at all; so I refrained. My prematurely wrinkled aunt held out her head. Its lips were spread with love. Now what do you make of that?

Pike speaks: in women revenge takes the form of religion.

By god Pike you're right. And I had mine. Faithfully I went to Brother Morton's services and sat apart, not proudly or disdainfully, but in an absent mind, as if rapt; and I dare say there were eyes that saw wisps of pink cherubic cloud like straw in my hair. I bent my head and printed in his hymnals with a pencil end, which you can bet I kept most carefully concealed, every dirty word or line, every bawdy jingle I could remember or make up on the spot (I had an aptitude, but eleven isn't an accomplished age), while throughout I'd note the pages of the hymns I'd written on, referring the reader to them, or I would advise the devout to

sing psalm one eleven

if you would see heaven

but for a good time

sing psalm sixty-nine.

Pop pop pop, I'd crack the spines. Oh Pike, my spirit was light then. How heavy it is now. Breathe your spirit into me: I don't know what to believe. My luck has left me. I preach and no one listens. Only the crack in the window widens. Nar. Nar. Nar.

Pike speaks: believe nothing that does not sound well.

By god Pike you have something there. But I have a ringing in my ears, and all those noisy faces…. The fifth face is a pig's, its nostrils aimed like eyes, its cheek skin moistly glistening, teeth like pebbles overgrown with moss, they've stood so long in saliva, stiff white hair in rows above the brow. Hardly Circean. Let us have another number, Mrs. Samson, say, The Old Rugged Cross. Isn't it nice here in the yard, the fresh breeze and the white wickets? My boy, to follow Christ is nice, you will enjoy it. Happy? Proud? Asleep? Pike? Don't leave me, I'm lonely. Oh lord you weren't a jew's-harp religionist? you didn't squeeze an accordion? slap your knee? jig? Not Samson, damn it, but my Kinsman, the stoned man, whose corpse is blind. What's happened to the light? Ah, Pike, the flies have failed us. That Mrs. Pimber has a strenuously knuckled hand, it just occurred to me to think so, not like Mrs. Claude… um… Spink, the fidgety, who is losing her hair but goes bravely anywhere there's music because of her calling. How about a bit of Throw Out the Lifeline, that's rousing. Another muffin? Don't drip butter, the cloth's so white, a beautiful expanse of something clean, and the blue shadows of the silver calm me wonderfully, and don't you feel the coolness of the crystal and the silence of the porcelain? No? Another muffin? coffee? please cream and sugar. See the ghostly spirit spill into the darkness, clouding. Dunk? Only on occasion. Mrs. Chamlay fries the greatest doughnuts; you'll love them, Mr. Furber. There's nothing like country cooking. Well I've always loved what's large. The church must have a sale, a way to get going. For sweethearting charity. Cakes, clothes, and kisses. Prizes of chastity. Ice creams are such fun in July. Think of the long white papered tables under the trees. The cool mouth of watermelon. Pike, Pike! rally! rally to me! Rowdies a rarity although known to happen. Threw stones in the pudding of old Mrs. Jasper. Which was bought by Carl Skelton to sicken his dog. It was quite entertaining. I remember the bowl; it went in her auction. Didn't she have some lovely things, poor dear. A shade of blue not too pleasing for chocolate. Who was it that got it? (Samantha has darkened; her lips are severe.) That fat Mrs. Arthur who moved back to Windham. And not a month here. Pike! A desert, Pike, a wilderness Jerome would not have dwelled in. He'd have gathered up his books and gone to Rome. You lived with Indians — very well — but I've fallen among people. Is there no one who will pity me? Speak and say, oh great recumbency of sky, vast chest and hollow water bottle, would you spit upon your image, eh? Ho, Barlar? Grunn? Petvich? Hooloo? Kishish? Quarckaling? Sull Yully? Nannerbantandan? TuK? Too rooky, won't reply, all tweetered up with ravens, swifts, and fowling hawks. Anyway let's have an answer… some bird of omen… no ghost… shreeeeeee…

The moon is falling near. Here are the deserts and the mountains. There I am, the raisin-eyed, cross-legged on a stone. Is that a lion feeding from my lap? My spirit dines on salt and water. I don't suppose you know the desert fathers, Pike, you were never a scholar. Well listen, you've much to learn. A monk who lived in one of those Egyptian monasteries found himself set upon by thoughts of distant places, and the desire to leave the dry hole where he was and visit them began to torment him severely as you might expect, for he was put together in the same way as the rest of us — weak eyes and hairless knees. He told the abbot of his troubles, much as I am telling you of mine, Pike, and the abbot said: go to your cell and give your body in pledge to its walls; let your thoughts roam as they will but forbid your body to stir. So the monk did as his abbot suggested and apparently his desires were quelled: Now do you see how wrong that was? Dear me. Satan had that abbot by the heels. He had them all by the heels, even Macarius and Paul and Anthony. He swung them like a storm through the desert.

Pike speaks: pounding the pipe won't punish the plumber.

By god Pike you're quick. I preached in Cleveland once upon that theme. You can't feel the spirit through the body, it's far too thick and woolly. That monk should have fastened his mind to the wall and let his body go hang. There's a better story, though, about the saintly Arsenius who was willed some property by a kinsman of his, a senator. Pay attention, Pike, you've a good deal to learn. When the magistrate brought him the will, ceremoniously phrased and piously laced as our wills invariably are, he indignantly refused it, sending the magistrate away. I died before he did, Arsenius said, and now he's dead, how can he make me his heir? Yes sir, that was the ticket. He slipped the Devil there, and got scot-free. And so it was I saw the fall of my Aunt Janet from the Shaker chair. She died, poor soul, in the jump. Not however like a saint but like a suicide. What did it matter if her body bloomed for thirty years and her face dried? Age made trenches for her eyes. It might have been the source of some annoyance as the years went by, this sapling body and this withered face, but I think she saw what was coming. You have to peek under the covers, Pike; then by the holy rood of Moses what you see! It was only surfaces, before, that frightened me. I pledged my body to the fence but my love fell beyond it. And when I read of war in Israel, it was the banners and dust in that Egyptian desert that moved me, the misshapen trees in which the kings were hung. All wrong. Then afterward, when the armies moved and the warriors grimaced at one another and shouting struck their swords together, I did not linger among the shields and weapon edges like a coward in the camp, but my eyes rode in with the spear.

Pike speaks: o hemulous blarsh! cole shemly kitch! rah poffomouse twild!

Don't mock me, Pike. After I've furnished you with life, it isn't fair. Besides I'm being bitten by these insects for your sake. What's that? Is someone speaking? I'll ask Samantha Tott to teach a Sunday school — now there's a move — a charming thought that's just this minute come to me. Oh I'm ill, I'm ill, I've chipped my nose, and nothing will restore me. Then make a clean breast, eh? Throw myself, you know, like the bride's bouquet, into their arms. My father prints a paper, Pike. All those words. Ah, I'll heel them home and make myself loved like a stray. A miracle, Pike — life out of ink. Why, it frees me. Feeesh? Who's wise? Who is it who keeps buffohoing me? Is it you Flack, or these bloody fever bees? Well, He's a great comedian — the King of the High Wire, and He's surely made a fool of me. Ill. Ill. I no longer feel, I only remember. Look: He's lost His trousers. Say, fatty Ruth had a face on both her knees. Merciful heaven, He's wearing red-hot BVD's. Cherubic windpuffers, they looked like, wrought of hinge-wrinks by a genius: little mump-cheeked North, cruel smiling West. Thus appear the parts. What a howl by all that's holy. Luff? Who said so? Oh breathe your spirit into me! Pike? Don't leave me. Ill. Ill. Ill. Don't leave. Listen. I'm in your debt for six sentences of wisdom, but seven is the sacred number. Yield another and I'll have no other ghosts before me. Be Lombardy Peter, Pike. Seven metals, seven wonders, seven ages… That sentence of Paul's — I'd almost forgot how it transformed me when I was nearly twelve and picked up Janet's hair shirt from the floor. Tomorrow I'm going to dig up the sundial and beat the body from that plaster St. Francis.

Pike speaks: the way the world is, you have to look down to see up.

You do by god. The thought turned him topsy-turvy. It seemed to summarize the whole worthless way of the world — if there was one. And versions of it began to flutter wildly through his head. You have to look round to see straight. Good enough. Useful. And the rough places plain. But all that's geometry. But it measures the earth. You have to go slow to catch up. Eat to get thin? no, but fast to grow fat, that was a fine one. Then lose to win? fail to succeed? Risky. Stop to begin. The form made noiseless music — lumly lum lum or lum-lee-lee lum — like fill to empty, every physical extreme. Die to live was a bit old hat. But default to repay. And lie to be honest. He liked the ring of that. Flack! I'm white in order to be black. Sin first and saint later. Cruel to be kind, of course, and the hurt's in the hurter — that's what they say — a lot of blap. That's my name, my nomination: Saint Later. Now then: humble to be proud; poor to be rich. Enslave to make free? That moved naturally. Also multiply to subtract. Dee dee dee. Young Saint Later. A list of them, as old Pythagoras had. Even engenders odd. How would that be? Eight is five and three. There were no middle-aged saints — they were old men or babies. Ah, god — the wise fool. The simpleton sublime. Babe in the woods, roach in the pudding, prince in the pauper, enchanted beauty in the toad. This was the wisdom of the folk and the philosopher alike — the disorder of the lyre, or the drawn-out bow of that sane madman, the holy Heraclitus. The poet Zeno. The logician Keats. Discovery after discovery: the more the mice eat, the fatter the cats. There were tears and laughter, for instance — how they shook and ran together into one gay grief. Dumb eloquence, swift still waters, shallow deeps. Let's see: impenitent remorse, careless anxiety, heedless worry, tense repose. So true of tigers. Then there was the friendly enmity of sun and snow, and the sweet disharmony of every union, the greasy mate of cock and cunt, the cosmic poles, the war that's peace, the stumble that's an everlasting poise and balance, spring and fall, love, strife, health, disease, and the cold duplicity of Number One and all its warm divisions. The sameness that's in difference. The limit that's limitless. The permanence that's change. The distance of the near at home. So — to roam, stay home. Then pursue to be caught, submit to conquer. Method — ancient — of Chinese. To pacify, inflame. Love, hate. Kiss, kill. In, out, up, down, start, stop. Ah… from pleasure, pain. Like circumcision of the heart. Judgment and mercy. Sin and grace. It little mattered; everything seemed to Furber to be magically right, and his heart grew fat with satisfaction. Therefore there is good in every evil; one must lower away to raise; seek what's found to mourn its loss; conceive in stone and execute in water; turn profound and obvious, miraculous and commonplace, around; sin to save; destroy in order to create; live in the sun, though underground. Yes. Doubt in order to believe — that was an old one — for thus the square is in the circle. O Phaedo, Phaedo. O endless ending. Soul is immortal after all — at last it's proved. Between dead and living there's no difference but the one has whiter bones. Furber rose, the mosquitoes swarming around him, and ran inside.

It was six, surely. Counting from the moment when he took a spoon to his melon and looked along the row of faces, lips wrinkling, jaws in gentle motion, all in greeting, it was seven; so six from the night at the stone was correct. Andy Pike didn't put up the church as she stands, of course, Brother Rush did that; some of us think the original location was a little west of where it is now, Mossy and me mainly, I guess — you'll meet Mossteller later, first-rate fellow, he was sorry he couldn't make it — but people around here call it Pike's Peak just the same, on account of the steeple, out of love for his memory, you know, not disrespect… Fly near the butter. Mossy and me. Me and Mossy. If I tip my cup I may get a peek at the maker. Would he look like a lichen? Nice shape to the bowls, they're feathery; my fingers show through them. Oh God what must be eaten in Your Name — not counting Yourself. That steeple didn't look any more than elm high to me and just a little shovel-nosed. Now that Brother Pike has rotted out his clothes and ghosts to the let of his halter, he's old Andy to this bung-mouth. I'm to see his grave too. What bores the dead are. I'll bet a bible ribbon it's Pike's Penis to the barn boys. Well, like Sir Thomas Browne, I'm great on resting places. Oh yes reverence really. I saw it from the train. Impressive. A round of watermelon slid from his spoon as he raised it to his lips. Falling, it tumbled from the mound of fruit and slipped over the edge of the glass where his deft spoon pinned it just in time. Silly lie. They probably knew you couldn't see a thing ahead of the hills. Why hadn't he said he'd peeked from the second story of the station? Impossible. They thought he was taking a leak. There was, thank god, salt, but they'd never heard of lemon. Actually, it should have been served over ice with a thin slice of lime. Now the melon was warmish and slippery. Poor season? There wasn't much juice. Too little rain? And the fruit should have been laced with kirsch or drowned in white wine. His name was Tott, remember, something Bester. Telegrapher? ticket-taker? grocery clerk? drygoods maybe, or real estate and insurance. He was some sort of pencil-licker certainly. Local oracle. Village idiot. Town pump.

All kinds of containers sat about the table in sullen disconnection. Some steamed despite the hot day; others enclosed pools of green brine where pickles drowsed like crocodiles; still others held up mounds of melting jellies. Fans of ham and meat loaf lay on platters let to drift among conserves and cheeses, and bowls of candied carrots, scalloped potatoes and baked beans bulged above the cloth, scraping sides, while baskets heaped with rolls were set among trays of cake and tins of pie and sheets of slicing cookie. God curse the covered dish. Curse this peasant Trimalchio beside me. Peasant food was poison. Most of them, all of them maybe, just look at Mrs. Grimmouth, were temperance quacks, the worst kind. Piety of the palate. He remembered St. Jerome's favorite proverb: when an ass eats thistles up, his lips have lettuce like themselves. There was a little embarrassment at the platform when he went so briskly off to pee but really it was all right because he was in a sweat to see the tower of God — the spike that was to spit him. Natural function, ladies, like the menses. By the stools of Jesus, as they used to say at school. Here sir, in this antique metal box, all verdigris, I have several curious relics of Our Saviour. What an awesome beauty swells that notion. Too bad the better sermons can't be preached. Debilitating heat. . terror of traveling. . rivers of dust. Would he like to wash before lunch? Of course he just. . but perhaps the ride. Has shaken me up? oh yes PLEASE; beneath the stairs7 how clever and amusing, perfectly charming, thank you kindly. Just waste space says Mr. Tott. To wash. Flicker of unease: wash-up. Dirty word. Hee. Sloping ceiling, coffin close. Round silver mirror to examine your teeth. Shakes with a step on the stair. Roses on the sloping ceiling. Silver leaves match the silver mirror. The latest improvements. Height of luxury. Jesus I'm going to have the jerks. Button your pants and practice deep breathing. Not built for bowels, the gas overwhelming. Breathed his last. Dung dead. The body of Our Saviour shat but Our Saviour shat not. Would it be appropriate to say, then, that the body of Our Saviour saw but Our Saviour saw not, swot but swot not, swinked but… The bowl was deeply stained. Blood of martyrs. "I will wash mine hands in innocency…" He covered his eyes; his stomach gurgled; he still heard the train. He'd seen everything through a haze: the stack spitting cinders, the dirt smears dancing, the impatient flies. There was a landscape of flaws in the glass, footprints of fingers, and he found himself traveling along them, ticking each off carefully as though they were squares composing the perilous wandering path of a children's game. It wound over blue-gray wastes and sticky rivers. The mirror bleary, the roses grinning, he shook as though riding. Dust on the sills, boot marks in the aisles, the car close and still, the heat profound… a passage to Hell — here, under the rose-smiling slope and the shoe-creaking stair, in company with the sound of water and the oppressive smell of his urine, loud and orange; while the mirror jiggled his image and he bent above the basin Proposing to Purify Himself in Preparation for a Feast of Love; he began to understand the nature of his destination and the extent of his punishment. So far there were significant absentees: the husband of the ledge-chested lady, for instance, and the husband of the woman with the fatuous first name — neither was present. Undoubtedly they scorned him; they hated his appointment, his having been so hastily thrust upon them, so immoderately squeezed between the rails of their objections; and he was cityish too, quite plainly, sour and runty, with a handshake far from hearty, even, one might say, unmanly (better that a preacher stutter); and he had a noticeable general shiver, though these seizures seemed infrequent; and he was pale, truly pale, like one whom caves have shaded. . yes, overall he gave the impression of something unwholesome and hidden; he was the same species as the spider, bat or beetle, companions who — a class which… — or they scorned Tott, they might, he was a determined gabbler, who knew what else? Or they were not scorners but the scorned themselves; or rather, being husbands who — no, there was hanky-panky somewhere certainly, and rancor, you could count on it — petty local pride and fancied injuries, little intrigues like snarls of twine. Well his host was pleased with his, ah… dear me… his divers lavers. Better make no mention that direction. Wit and pedantry were out of place among these dreary villagers. Trees, hills, river… yet life was monotonously flat, straight… plankish… with a dreadful sameness everywhere like dust.. a climate without any real extremes, deprived of virtue even in its mean. though there were trees, the sloping fields, the river, still life was hard, level… wooden… inevitable… and moments ran on mindlessly like driven cattle, and young men struggled in the net of their friends, relatives, and other connections for a while like dripping fish before wearing out their wills and settling down to live with the rest of the gently poor, their pets, and their obsequious diseases… where bitterness grew up on everything like ivy. Yet the fact was he wanted their good opinion. Lord, lord, he was a dreadful creature. Why did he mind? They were such small potatoes. How could they nourish him? Furber grasped the chain. "Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men…" Bowels up, bladders down. Where had they got their money? another happy consequence of papa's passing on? Turreted, scalloped, the clapboards patterned, the roof-tree edged with iron tracery, the house was huge, with wide curving porches and a stained-glass window on the landing; it had been built to be grand. He unsnicked, and stooping grotesquely, emerged. Somebody grasped his newly purified—"In whose hands is mischief. . " People stood about in the hall, bumping when they moved. Between them, beyond the door, he saw the table, another landscape, harshly white, already cluttered with bowls and goblets. Were there really so many or was he failing to sort them? He smiled and nodded and dropped his jaw like a visor. The ceiling slowly turned. Perhaps there would be blizzards now, tornadoes in the spring, and floods; for he had always perched on the end of the teeter, weighing it down. The air felt like wool. Was it something he'd brought with him from Cleveland? The staircase wrapped itself around the inside of the tower. Of course. They were in the foot of the turret. It had a top like a Prussian's helmet and shone dully in the sun like lead. These people couldn't lift their feet. In the presence of the holy, their voices fell to a murmur, and he could scarcely understand a word. Death, doubtless, did it. Reverence really. That girl had brought it with her. No, she had gotten off a station ahead of him and loosed clouds of stinging Spites which flew from Windham: Old Age, Labor, Sickness, Vice. For prying into the mysteries of women. Passion. Madness. Blind, lying Hope — hemmed in. Click of jewelry, buttons maybe. Rub of clothing. And the sheriffy person he'd met for a moment in Cleveland was missing too. Held at the elbow, he was being steered. Hold on, you don't touch the minister. Way up here? at the head? dear me. In the box: fallen air, prostrate winds, unmoving steam. The ladies struggling not to sweat, their hairy parts ahead nevertheless. Deep in the tank, deep in the cage — descending. The light is failing. Courage, old friend.

Waiting, his hands resting lightly on the back of his chair, his head alert to tip, what would he say about the food the good Lord of the ladies had provided? Benedictus benedicat Pro Christum Dominum Jesus Nostrum. No loaves, no fishes. Just covered dishes. Let thy grace lighten the potatoes but relieve us of the beans. Devil take them. No damp cast-uponwater bread either. After all, he was the water in this case. May this food form an image of the twin ends of our lives; may it be as peaceful and resigned on parting as it's noxious and rebellious starting. Is all in order? ready to begin? shall I bow now? I've come home to rolls and biscuits, mom, to hugs of butter and kisses of berry. Stay off foot washing and all blood and body. Cath-all-oh-cizz-zum. Love's no sort of food though hate's a tasty nettle. Love your mother? have another. His hosts intended to sit on either side of him, apparently. His hosts… What would the point of it be? How would it be taken? Would it be a cut the town would talk about for years? or was it simply unrestrained conceit? black spite? mere honest gaucherie? Kick your bruvver in his muvver. Envy somewhere. Malice. Greed. That's the way we… love our bay-bee. Fit of pique. Rely. The Husband of his Harpist in the Holy House was here, holding on his head and shoulders the head and face of some small mammal Furber couldn't place; heavily cinched about the waist, no bones in his hands; oh yes, there was the fellow with crêpe over his eyes, the one who had the face of a man, as the books of magical secrets say, destined to die by drowning. That made two of them he knew. The Totts were two. Numbering is knowing. Bless these bounteous provisions. In an unctuous bishop's voice. It was Christ's own blood he was blushing. No doubt he'd get the blame for being in between them. Better to cry: I see shit in the soup, turds in the cream; be honest and be out of it — free. Study their faces for a moment. Enjoy the revelation of the word. Yes. Joy. Then smoothly pass the portals and away. But no, god no, flatter like the coward, chew weeds. Moistened by his tongue, his words crossed the burning linen safely. Sparrowing the corner of the table he clenched Samantha's chair, but he heard wingbeats behind him, by god, as the other Tott flew swiftly to seize his. Devil boil his pee. Samantha bent poorly; he bumped the back of her legs. Not an old woman but an old woman. Then it became necessary to rejoin Master Tott. Furber was trembling with maledictions but there was a smile on the greengrocer's face. It was the face of a… disciple. Smile matched smile… shared flame… dead heat. Well for christ's sake are the legs stuck? He grasped the seat and jerked the chair forward. Sunny grin and pleasant murmur. Honey bees. Storm of curses. Reluctant to touch the hot cloth, his hands hid in his lap; the raw melon waited his spoon. My toes are dry though it rains in my heart. That's the tune, all right. My shoes are shined though… The fellow was still scraping and squirming. Was he the hallfoot shuffler? Praise be, at last he's comfy… the sole's come apart. Or has it come in holes? where's the rhyme go? Damn. Dum dee. Dum dee. Lord save us, he's clearing his throat. Empty, useless curses. A scalding stream or there's no god. How'd it go? my pants are pressed, my shirt is clean? There's nothing like the old songs, but what's the good if you can't remember them. Mem. Mem. Memory.

Pike, the bearded beaver-skin prophet, scalps of the lost modestly shading his privy members, tiptoed savage-like from vale to glade, hatchet and Bible his only weapons though he held love in his teeth like a dagger, and he brought Jesus to the Indians of the Ohio country so that on Sundays they collected at the cabin Pike had built on the brow of a low hill which quietly sloped to the river close by a clearing where he'd previously set up a cross cut of saplings and a Christ formed of clay, and there the Indians, axes holstered in the earth, their loincloths dragging, knelt to pray by wringing their hands and groaning, eventually receiving a few brightly colored beads before they went away.

Reverence really. He gazed on the steaming plain… the smoke of heavy industry: meats, beans, taters… O despair. Devil take those seeds. Let them have rebirth in other bodies. Their spirits seek too swift release, all out of season and intemperate. Haunt others. Off. There were some nice pieces spotted here and there, some lovely brown birds on an ironstone pitcher. A breeze in the foliage, their heads erect, perhaps they felt the well water through the glaze. Their beaks were in line and they seemed to be actually in sight of one another. Mrs. Tightsqueeze was eyeing him. What if my thoughts spilled out, madame, what would you do? ah, what if yours did? Her dress held her fiercely braced. A regular full-bellied tumbletit, aren't you? fat of love. Oops … ah … caught. Is that mustard on the tablecloth? No ma'am, I spilled some thinking. To be a bird at the edge of the pond like these… a sweet cool breeze… the pebbles would moisten my toes… so much at ease. They've twiggy feet, and ironstone birds have no mites in their feathers. Instead I have this windy comedian beside me, and Miss Samantha getting dark. Hell's the tip of an inverted steeple. The lift's descending. Call it Furber's Fiddling Finger. Call it The Gilean Bum Hoist. Here I am and I am innocent. Butt me Billy, Billy Butter, bang me like a windy shutter. What kind of pleasure from her bony lover? Damn, what's her name? Na, na… Knox. By covertly scratching her underarm not far from the pit she caused the cantaloupe still on her spoon to roll so severely Furber feared an accident like his own. Someone said how elegant — what was? what? — while Miss Tott, sitting straight as her stoop would let her, dipped her utensil down and then away like the bucket of a ferris wheel, bracelet meanwhile shaking. A salad of canned peas and bits of cheese. Innocence no antidote. That emperor's name? he was a sixth but not the one who preferred the windup metal singing bird. Poisoned himself by bits and by degrees. Furber's gaze slipped by the tip of — how to remember it — Mrs. Knox's nose and leaped her pearly ear and swam into the space behind her. There were dogs on the wall, rusty setters smiling graciously, dead pheasants, several quail, lurching fences. Brought from abroad at conspicuous expense. English country-house and English horses. Furber discovered he hated the British. Was that a chewed on fox?… a copse of yellow furze. Oh yes I have various plans for the church. In the event… THAT… it becomes necessary… TO… BUT … far too soon to say… WHAT. Some sort of dry pod mounted on a stick spoke from the distant end. And Tott would never stop. He'd never stop. Never never never. The Chinese water torture. Dribble of reddish fruit juice on the chin of the speckled person… now she's dabbing. Young, yet ancient like his sister, he was a button collector already, a museum director, a digger of dry earth, a peeler of print from old paper, feeder upon the past, despoiler of the slain, bugger of corpses. Save oh save. Preserve. Oh redigest. And here's one that fell from the fly of Prince Albert once when bored, uncomfortable, he crossed his legs too closely at a musicale. Note the coat of arms embossed. That milkweed woman was shouting something, seeds were winding from her mouth, heads were turning, all but mine, we are in line like birds, I'm smiling, see, I understand, she nods, she understands, spoons clash, head swing to mine, I'll drop my eyes, dear god, more words and more replies. Somewhere his baby shoes are nailed to a wall, ticket attached. Ask attendant for the story. That fleshy Knox female… thoroughly middle-aged, not otherwise so huge, rather rosy-cheeked though it looks like tucks have been taken in her chin… the kind of breasts to lay a cock between. Rad he seen her husband? was he one of those in Cleveland? local chief? Try one of these, you dirty old man. God I am. Don't say old, though, it smacks of affection. You were wheezing on the station stairs. Ran to see the blue sky sickened by' the grime. If I were only a piece of cheese, I could dissove in her mouth. There it was, smearily between the trees, t:-be teetery tent-top, flying flags. Heartsfallen, I crept down — the stairs. Slink now if you like but on the bottom look buoyant. Remember, you've just been relieved. They'd fold nicely over. Rolypoly puddings. Sweet cool cream. Yes, I felt the same when Mrs. Kinsman showed me her knee. Nine operations she said. My Harpist is speaking. Indeed. Indeed. Brazenly she drew up her skirt. But how cowardly are the clergy. Nevertheless I ran my finger down a scar and nearly burst. Does it still hurt? Ah what a liar. Keep your eye on the aerial horses. And the dogs whose mouths have broken open. There goes my plate. It's been terribly hot in Cleveland. Dry. Well we've — ,the lake. And you've the river. Dry. Yes, ma'am. Dry. Like lava. Yes ma'am, indeed. Like lead in the sunlight. Yes indeed. A Prussian helmet's head. Like the river Styx. Oh like… Oh very like… they'll find us in our pederastic postures like Pompeii. Somebody called him Henry just now? who? Millicent? The milkweed virgin? Naming is knowing. I can see from here she's got bad teeth. They've a coon clearing, who's he? Madame, do you know the old tune: Golly Molly' Life is Jolly in Your Bawdy House? Her naked knee. Nicest thing about whores would be their willing suspension of taste. Samantha's sizzling sin house. Oh there's always room for improvement. Isn't there though. In all of us? Eh? Oh — room. I said there was room, said room said rrrrrooo………. ooooooooo……… oommmm. Benches would be pleasant facing the river. Shaded resting places. Comfy^-dumfy. With this swelling I'll never dare rise. Kinsman's come over me. Concentrate on the panting setters. There's doubtless a town pig, the Gilean whore, outcast on the outskirts, one who's lost her way, has had hard use, now only narrowly superior to sheep, who might just welcome a _regenerating screw. I'll pray for you if you'll lay for me under the green bay tree. My god Furber, you — you're brave.

Resting places. Where, for god's sake, were there resting places? He hardly knew them, their features dissolved as he looked; yet he knew they were no more at home than he was. There was hair and nose and napkin cloth and painted trim along the stair. He peered through his eyes at the other boys at play, afraid of the cool glass, his incomplete reflection like a boogie watching, or like God, transparent, evanescent, here and there. Good the skull held the head in, the caged chest in safety. He was master of the resting places. How? Where? These pacing cats, these bears, these songless singing birds, these slaty cases. . If the soul has a body for its grave, graves are no resting places. I am afloat in here. The panes are smeared; there's steam in the air and the litter of voices. They do not touch me. The world cranked by his window. Cinders flew and flags of smoke; the grass was gray; the sun seemed large and orange though it was morning; he bobbed lightly in his jar and the shadow of his hand descended on the lap of the thick young lady sitting next to him. There it fluttered gently despite its passion, scratching the smooth cloth of her skirt where a stripe like one upon a peppermint began describing the ample spread of her thighs — thighs which widened beneath her weight, he felt, like puddles of honey. He was sure she'd seen his ghost alight and felt its brushing. With inflated cheeks, wool hair, sewn eyes, she seemed as tranquil as a dove, as pink and plump and smooth besides. Furber flexed his fingers. The head of a rabbit fell asunder. Her eyes were warming, weren't they? Had he seen a slackness in her lips just then? her breathing quicken? Cornering, he watched her chest lift slowly while his hand paled out at her waist. Agony. He began again at the knee… thumb, forefinger at a wrinkle, delicately pinched together. There was a storm inside him, gusts of desire, intervals of weakness, rain… his hand flew off, then reappeared. . again… He watched it anxiously, each time willing it under until he felt it sink to her skin. A sigh escaped him. Pretty pudcums. She stirred; her legs moved lightly under his fingertips, down tickling, and his undulating flower bird settled in the hollow of her lap. Pet my bunny. Eee, sweet fig. His back was aching. He had brought her to the limit of her nature; he was showing her unventured seas beyond; she wiped her brow with her arm. Seecreeshun — oh my lovey-dolly. His fingers startled, then burrowed toward her privacy. The train lurched and as it whistled she rose clumsily, bumping his leg. His hand fell from the window, ah… he squeezed himself, weary. The girl edged up the aisle, hatbox rocking, her buttocks fastened moistly to her dress. A whore at heart for all she is a cow, Furber thought, and as the sun turned he tried to throw his outline under the wheels of the train, but when he peered out all he saw were the shadows of the cars and in them gray oblongs of window, irregularly splotched. Thus the china smutched the cloth. His own plate had escaped him and was passing wildly now from hand to hand. Master of the resting places. Hadn't he this blackened clothing? hadn't he by heart the words for setting out? God cast His shadow over him; he was divine in his darkness; somewhat, like these villagers, an ardent agriculturalist, a specialist in earth. That paten douse could have saved me? Why not? Put your hand here, reverend, just while we travel, she could have said, and take your rest. Wrong? Aunt Janet had succeeded where he'd failed. It was only luck his image would not leave him. Rest? Peace? There? He'd be a cutout creased by the brilliant rails, cinders would pucker his chest. But she bumped me most unkindly; waddled off. He shuddered; heard the silver clatter. Careful. Care oh care. To sink down rest. Duckie. To touch. These faces all in tatters, words passing, glasses clinking, steam and condensation… He drew a line on his goblet. Dewy, cool, a drop hung from the tip. There was no law unproclaiming it. End to his lip then. Off hand. The taste of life. Proof of the labor in the glass. Sad testimonial to love.

Omensetter's luck, they said. Furber thought he could distinguish Omensetter's noises from the rest. What good was a wall that didn't blind and deafen? He could see and hear them as well as if he were on the beach beside them, smoking like a green branch against mosquitoes. Fingering the ivy he touched them more closely than if he held a still attached hank of their hair in his hand. It was a strange method of communication, skipping space and contravening causal laws. He remembered, on those rare occasions when his family entertained in the evenings after his bedtime, how the sounds of their voices would tease and draw him, how the laughter seemed to him so wondrously musical, so richly dipped in something sweet, like jelly in chocolate sometimes, that his mouth filled, and he would creep to the stairhead, straining to make it all out, then smelling them too, their perfume and tobacco, the fragrance of warm cakes and coffee rising with the click of their cups and spoons and their low bubbling speech, and once in a while a word would stand out clearly amid their scraping chairs and rustling garments, bewitching him. How he hated sleep. The world — how did it dare — went on without him while he slept, went on happily — this was proof — for everything he wanted and missed and felt should exist existed just beneath him, as close at hand while out of reach as his own insides, yet tomorrow when he was released and woke and went downstairs the rooms would be stale and unfriendly, a forgotten saucer, maybe, would disgust him, and his parents would be lethargic, cross, and awkward with objects. It had finally occurred to him that he was the figure that altered the sum, just as his presence on the beach so much later had subtracted from everyone's pleasure. So his family and his family's friends were happy because he slept. If he died in the night as he sometimes hoped, thinking to punish them, they would not weep but would pass the hours of his death dipping cookies in their coffee, chuckling, and swirling cream in their frail scalloped cups. Tree, ball, wagon: they were greener, firmer, smoother without him. Hoops, the street: it was intolerable they did not need him, but when he lay in his bed they were more completely. Sleep was bearable only if the whole world slept, he'd decided; yes, we must all sleep together, that was just; and these thoughts, the words "sleep together," without his in the least understanding why at the time, had suddenly awakened the monster in him. Then he'd cruelly scraped his ears and listened at the stairhead like a deer. He thought he heard their clothing parting. Certainly they giggled at the flesh they showed. He saw through the barriers of wall and floor the pale tangle of their limbs. Later he understood what people feared in fearing ghosts. Strange forms smoked along the stairs. Shapes moved vaguely in sheets. Holding his throat he'd risen and wobbled to his bed and sought sleep as he'd sought it ever since: as a friend and lover — further: as a medicine and god.

Watchman. What a monstrous liar. He hadn't stopped their games at all. They'd stopped their ears, so he made useless noises. Composing sentences he flew down. Kek. Is this a Sunday thing? Ke-kek. Now when he closed his eyes… hullabillyhooly… what went on?… that?

Creep away, sneak away, leak away — hide.

There are animals hunting in Furber's inside.

What will they find there? What will they eat?

Lungs, liver, the kidneys, and watery meat.

Much later than that lying moment on the stair, in the flower-decked pavilion of his dreams, he'd made love too — to handsome monsters virtuous as witches, their bodies flung full length upon divans, rows of mouths along their limbs beseeching kisses, bald vaginas drawing wind; for he was constantly deceived by sleep. Of course it would not give him peace, and as he'd gradually come to realize it was his own heart he'd heard on the stairs, these visions had entered his dreams to take their place. Sometimes, gratefully, he was a long silk multicolored handkerchief a magician drew with tantalizing slowness from his fist. Triumphantly, no butterfly more beautiful, he would emerge, and with a snap, unfurl. He was so slender the wind made him wiggle. Then the face of the magician would fall near. Cosmetic smoothed his cheeks. The handkerchief would fold about his nose.

Behind the wall, farther than the stair had been, he thought he heard them clearly: Omensetter and his dog, the children and the jays, floating sticks and splashing, the slow lap of the water on the shore. Well my watch won't run without me. I'm the works. Another one for Tott. Ghost, gnome, witch, companions of the night's mare (as Tott insisted, eyeing him eagerly to see how he took it, disappointed each time): at least they needed him if they wanted to exist at all. Cruel, frightening, wicked as they were they waited like a school of playmates underneath his window. Often, awake, he would hear them call.

Here I come a-riding

like a wild west scout, if I spy you hiding,

Pike, you're out out OUT.

Nevertheless, and it gave Furber courage to remember it in all of Gilean's amazement at Omensetter's luck there was suspicion; in all of their thanksgiving there was a measure of ingratitude; in all their admiration — yes, it would not be too strong to say their feverish love — there was no little envy. Well why not? Natural. Who hadn't envy of the animals? He had, certainly, his share. They were the trunk of his life — these envious feelings. He'd made his return on such a theme: Uncle Simon burning — the same theme that had earlier been his ruin, a poetically appropriate recovery, he thought. He'd pulled out his pockets. I am showing what's inside me: look. Right here. Toothpick. Corner of a coupon. Penny. Ball of lint. Then how he'd preached — preached burning — and got them back. Pride — confessed. Arrogance — confessed. Error — confessed. Anger — confessed. Sorrow, despair, failure, shame — confessed. Contrition, oh yes that — confessed. He might as well have advertised upon his sign: This Sunday: Your Well-loved Preacher's Personal Parts Exposed; Next Sunday: A Sooty Scoundrel's SelfAbuse. Humility, love, faith — confessed. So well confessed he was invited to do the toothpick bit in Windham. Uncle Simon, of course, was too local-river reference; but what a large career its burning had. Limb after limb, he said, the great proud church, he said, ulcerous and scaling, burned in the heart of the water. Burned on the skin of the river. Sank. Burned in the belly of the water. Burned. Moved in the blood of the river. Sank. Lodged in the muddy bottom, burning. Burned and burned. Ah, and they came like cattle, in droves, butting and shoving. Furber pulled at his shirt, undid his cuffs, released his collar. And you know more of God than I, he said. And he recited as much as he dared of his night at the stone — oh legendary Pike, oh worthy soulcollector — and of the whole desperate time preceding, and how he'd dragged himself before them, week after week, and watched them dwindle. Was I a king of Judah all that time? 1 was. I was. For I chattered like a swallow. Like a crane, I clamored, waving my arms. I moaned like a dove. My eyes were worn with weeping, with staring at my feet and at the floor, with the effort of going forth against new things. My hands were pinched with prayer and my ankles bruised. But He broke my bones like a lion. Day to night. He brought me to my end. No, by god, no tub-thumping for him, no rattling tambourines. He got them, even invented as it mostly was, with large words largely put — not a syllable of low speech — and he let this achievement quiet his conscience. When he had spoken, slowly, with long silences between them, his closing words (the same for each sermon in the series): He brought me to my end; he heard sniffling, and often saw a run of tears.

Like a schoolboy released to his summer, he capered in the garden. He knew how the orator, the actor, felt; what they sought in their success. He could tickle them and they would laugh; he could spank them and they'd howl; he could caress… and sighing, they'd respond. He was an honest preacher at last. Through this thicket, now, he could thrust his stick to stir the soul. It was better, he felt, touching them this way, than all the ways he had imagined would bring on rapture if he had only dared to reach out to employ them, boldly to stare or boldly speak, harshly to grasp and greedily to seize: that knee, for instance, for which he'd known such bitter regret, he might have moistened with his lips while his delicately socketed accompanist pretended that his passion was merely pity for her suffering and gently tangled her hands in his hair — how he might have made an altar, how he might have worshiped there! — or the crisp green girl who'd called one day like an eminent Cleveland lady to carry on such a sweet and holy conversation with him he felt licked clean and wished gratefully to embrace her; or all those times, his nose in the weeds, he had lain at the fence, watching the croquet, unable to ask if he might play; for fatty Ruth, or the plump girl on the train whom only his shadow had petted; or any of the thousand simple impulses that hurled themselves helplessly against the walls of his heart: to finger the lobe of a strange ear or sniff on hands and knees a patch of something wet, make bawdy verses up and sing them loudly, leap in the air, chew on the thumb of a leather glove, play soccer in the street… any sudden gesture of joy or love… but who could know, when he heard his heart, what the beating was? and who could be expected to understand these gestures, so out of character, so threatening, for weren't they the same moves that went with rage, with lust, with any molesting? well, no matter, it was all a dream, this rapture of touch; you'd taste the knee's rough cover with your tongue; the little girl would squeak and click her eyes; your sweetheart would wet on your hand; yes, words were superior; they maintained a superior control; they touched without your touching; they were at once the bait, the hook, the line, the pole, and the water in between.

He, Olus Knox, Chamlay and Mat were fishing, not getting much, but fishing; trying the rocky point past the big bend, not getting much, but fishing in the very early morning; the boat passing across the long shale crop opposite the clay 'bank, bringing their bait from the deep to shallow, but with no success but fishing; and he, Olus Knox, Chamlay and Mat had nearly given up hope of fish and had got to that fine point of enjoying, as much as any fish they might have caught, the drops of water clinging to their lines, and the slowly widening rings they made on the surface of the river; when of all things to see floating on the river they saw a large straw hat bobbing on its crown, spinning very slowly, moving very patiently down between the lines toward the boat; and Olus Knox said immediately my god it's Omensetter's hat, but Jethro Furber said immediately oh no it's not, it's not his hat, while the hat drifted to the boat, its brim brushing against the side Chamlay and Mat were fishing from, Jethro Furber and Olus Knox craning to watch it, no one saying a word more or moving to pick it up; and the hat passed under Mat's front line and passed under Chamlay's and rubbed the side of the boat as it passed away around the stern; then Jethro Furber took from Chamlay's tackle box the largest, heaviest sinker he could find and lurching in the boat stood and hurled it into the hat as it went away. Then they drew in their lines and rowed in silence. Jethro Furber scrambled out with the mooring rope and crouched awkwardly on the dock with the rope in his fist thinking of Chamlay's sinker lying in the bottom of the hat and how the brim had curled like a yellow water flower. When the others had gathered their gear and the boat was tied, hearing the child in his voice, yet unable to prevent it, Furber turned to them with an angry face. Wait, he said, trembling all over, wait — just wait.

Thus. Everything so bitterly won, lost. His words had flown like finches. Then the trap of those hands. Why?

It had been raining hard, the wind driving through every protection into his face. He had untented his umbrella, darting for the door. There was the glow of a white shirt… not Mat's… and a rumpled burlap-colored man. But no one was wearing a white shirt, he remembered. Yet a paleness thatched by shadows from the forge floated before him like a cloud, and there was Mat, reassuringly familiar, his figure fringed by the light of the fire. Had he been able to recover the whole of that scene, even as dull as his senses had been while fleeing the downpour, he'd have found the sign on it somewhere, unmistakably stuck like a poster announcing the Ringlings; but it was all so provokingly vague; he'd been taken unfairly unaware; and there remained with him now only a few scattered impressions — the drifting light, the delicate lattices of shadow and the overwhelming sense of Omensetter's size, of his boundless immensity, with the astonishment which followed on it, and then the sudden inexplicable shame and fear — and even these had an unfortunate habit of mixing with those of later meetings… in the open air, in the hot sun, his huge feet shoveling dust, patches of sweat on his shirt like maps of the Great Lakes, the smell of weeds… so that sometimes he wondered whether that ghostly presence wasn't simply a flash from the lake or a limestone jut or a maple revolving its leaves employed by that earlier time to enliven it, as if that peculiar brightness were the sign he was hunting, the clown who burst the bright paper ring or the acrobat in silver tights, an hysterical smile painted on his face, who dangled from the trapeze by his knees.

One Sunday, before the service and against his custom, where the people gathered, he went out to Omensetter, Omuenster's dog, his wife and daughters, and he said, the crowd around him listening on, why don't you come to church, you come to town, why not attend the services instead of throwing stones at the water? and Omensetter smiled and said, why if you like, we will; so presently they did. He'd been a fool, a fool — for he lost his fire. Sin sweetened in his mouth. The climate of the pit grew temperate and the great damnation day drew further off. Consequently Furber was convinced that evil dwelled within the pew where Omensetter sat, and he resolved to speak against it. No longer merely a grim phizzed comedian, he saw his arm outstretched to God, his finger pointing like a thorn upon its branch. He saw his open hand before his face, shielding his eyes from horror, his head thrown back and slightly turned away. He heard his voice echo from his mouth as from a well that drew its water from the center of the earth. Behold, oh Lord, your champion here, your fond believer, for Furber felt his body fill with resolution, and he stood in his study to make the gesture. He jerked his head and he arched his back and he raised his arms, and when his eyes lay naked on his face, he shrieked with joy. Yet when he came before the congregation and took his place and book above it, preparing his words for bearing on the subject, shaping his lips for strong sounds, his certainty grew a hesitation, his strength a meekness, and his sounds came down as softly as the gray birds building in the steeple. He listened to himself as to another man. He preached a God, a law, he never knew. He saw the faces of the people widen with surprise and revelation, and he realized that he was already anticipating the moment when he would stand at the church door awaiting Omensetter's laugh, receiving his felicitations as he stood in line — you sure spoke my mind, Reverend Furber, first rate — while his own hand sank in Omensetter's to its wrist, and his heart turned. I am inhabited, I am possessed, he thought. When the opportunity came he broke off and with great effort drew himself into his study where he swore at the walls and damned Flack for a sooty nigger. But the compliment he dreamed he had received from Omensetter, persistent as a fly, pursued him droning, though now the words were mischievously altered so he heard — you sure spoke my mind, Father Furber, first rate — repeated like a chant of such spiritual profundity its significance could not be caught the first time, and this further increased his already intolerable feeling of futility and despair. Yet by god Omensetter was a stupid fellow; he had too large a mouth; he was wrinkled badly about the eyes; fat padded his face; his hair was always flying. His face was just another — the sixth face, that was all — broadly smiling, widely cracked across. The rain had been rebounding when he'd ducked into the shade of Watson's shop and nearly spitted Omensetter on the point of his umbrella. Was the man wet to the skin? No… but that was the feeling he gave. Actually… what? Tan shirt? open throat? button missing? dry certainly… yes, wet to the skin, beaded, draining, flowering in the water like a splash. A curse on the gray light, on the rain that drove him in, on the foolishness that drove him out in it again to run so unbecomingly, so erratically and without heart, while he wrestled with the catch on his umbrella and stumbled through puddles, his dignity drowning in the tub of his trousers, the rain filling his shoes too and crawling down his back like a party of ants so that when he tried to scratch between his shoulders his hat was shaken loose over his forehead and blown beyond a thin wire fence which he at once charged angrily and angrily shook, and it was there, with the wire responding in his fist, that some sense of the impropriety of his performance reached him, its futility struck him, and its folly… for he could be as easily observed, he supposed, as his hat could, caught on a stalk of last year's cabbage (indeed he imagined the signs brushed up, jumbles of bright red and blue letters that announced his appearance locally, from Friday to Sunday-he was the darkie on the yellow ground — in his famous role as a cheap buffoon, the small black helpless clown the others drenched with water, tickled with unrolling paper tubes and deprived of trousers, so they might implant their grotesque cardboard shoes on his flamboyantly checkered behind, then to goose to the accompaniment of piercing whistles and terrify with firecrackers and packs of little yapping dogs tricked out in tissue paper skins to look like tigers)… its folly was of Egyptian proportions, it nearly brought him to his knees with shame; and he halted himself like an army, folded his umbrella with a great show of composure, and proceeded homeward in a suit of the driest unconcern, head erect, hair knotted, lashes heavy, as if the spring sun were his cover, until, on reaching the churchyard at last, he bolted like a rabbit and threw a tantrum in the vestry, spilling his cuffs and denying the Lord.

Looking back he realized he had unwittingly mimicked Omensetter's habitual manner, for how otherwise would Omensetter have gone home through the rain, if he had wished to, but like one in his natural element, gently at ease, calmly collecting his pleasures. If this was a consequence of simply shaking hands, it made him a kind of deadly infection. I am inhabited, Furber said. Ah god, I am possessed. He would sit in his study for hours, searching his mind for some clue to the nature of the creature, the source of what he grimly called "Omensetter's magic," while from his window he would watch the pigeons wheeling to occupy his eyes. Finally he sought out Omensetter himself when Omensetter was strolling in the fields. Why do you inhabit me, he cried, why do you possess my tongue and turn it from the way it wants to go? Leave me, Omensetter, leave us all. He came abruptly on the man, blurting out his speech before his resolution left him and shouting in his excitement, though the words came just as he'd prepared and frequently rehearsed them. Omensetter halted and turned slowly to face Furber, who must have seemed to have lit like a crow behind him. The fellow's eyes were huge, their gaze steady; his whole body was listening, pointing toward Furber like a beast; yes, like a beast, a cow, exactly: wary, stupid, dumb; yes, as he thought back there was nothing in his manner that could be ascribed to an animal higher, and he had never replied; yet Omensetter had not come to church again, he had returned to skipping stones on the river where the people saw his example and said he was a godless man, while Furber preached against frivolity with heat.

It was truly astonishing the way his stones would leap free of the water and disappear into the glare. Omensetter always chose them carefully. He took their weight in his palm and recorded their edges with his fingers, juggling a number as he walked and tossing the failures down before he curled his index finger around their rims and released them as birds. Furber chose his own stones carefully too. In the beginning, when he had failed so miserably and lost his congregation, he had fallen upon the garden like a besieger and torn away its weeds. You've been in mourning long enough, he declared, enjoying his joke sufficiently he repeated it to Flack who nodded without smiling and responded in his rich contralto: yes, he was a gentle man; a remark which enraged Furber so much that like Moses he flung down the rock he was carrying and shouted: let that be noon and midnight — there; following his words with laughter to cover his confusion.

Now he strode briskly from stone to stone, circling the sixty. How differently we give the semblance of life to the stone, he thought. And it did seem a stone until it skipped from the water… effortlessly lifting… then skipped again, and skipped, and skipped. . a marvel of transcending… disappearing like the brief rise of the fish, a spirit even, bent on escape, lifting and lifting, then almost out of sight going under, or rather never lifting from that side of things again but embraced by the watery element skipping there, skipping and skipping until it accomplished the bottom. Pike's nothing but a shadow himself, merely a thin dim swimming something alongside the boat, a momentary tangle, a whistle of light. The hat too — passing around them, turning, wetly bobbing was due, eventually, to absorb too much, to sag, close up and sink. Omensetter threw horseshoes the same way. He sent them aloft and the heart rose with them, wondering if they'd ever come back, they seemed so light. A soft tish… and the shoe might slip beneath the surface of the air like the Chinese sage, or painter was it? who disappeared into his picture, except that Omensetter managed this miracle for things, for stones and horeshoes, while doing nothing to untie or lighten himself — no, he heavily and completely remained. Pike died of his love, his stone said. Omensetter's stones did not skip on forever either, though they seemed to take heart, or did they renew their fear? from their encounter with the water; but despite this urging each span was less, like that shortness of breath which grows the greater, the greater effort is required — and plip…….. plip… plipplippliplish was their hearts' register and all they were.

Tell me, Mr. Rush, in that uncustomary country, are you comfortable by this time? A child, for all his fright at first, grows used to life too, swells to a fondness even, and sucks on its sweets till they loosen his jaws. Or do you worry whether your bones will be up to the next leap when it will be the end of you again, poor thing… oh well, the water will take you on, or the fire, though there'll be new responsibilities as always, new risings required, you'll never escape those—but weren't you one, when you lived on air, who badgered the body about spirit? Ghosting's what we've always called for. Be above yourself, that's what we've urged — Pike, you and I — the hanker for the other side. We've no reason to complain, then, if our crotch is cracked by a hurdle. But I wonder — you might know now — is it a lie? What ease instead to melt into the body's arms and be one's own sweet concubine. And Omensetter? Is he, in his fashion, like us? Is it cruel to tease stones so? What's your view now you've splashed under? Whatever he gives them, it lasts only a moment. There's no help for it, they have to come down to a stone's end.

Furber's heels registered loudly on his walk. Not too quick, he moved with the sun; he threw his shadow like the gnomon, his absence warming, his presence cooling, the face of his clock.

Name his name, the missing fellow, so they said, sick so long, who ran from his wife, well almost certainly, hardly surprising, who could stand her? after all these years not to remember, tongue tipped, yet… who could stand her? though she had a strange body under those clothes, breasts with buttons, he imagined, stranger soul; it was Henry… Henry… and she was. . she was. . an effect like fallen slag… she was… there was no such thing as flaccid stone or she'd seem made of it… she was… no connection to Kinsman, with the crumpled knee and the dainty limp, why do they escape me? oh she's strange, strange, who could stand her? the way her teeth snap, like a toy lock, well that's what he had, a stone jaw, he — Pimber! — and she went to pieces just as though she loved him the night he passed through the valley of the shadow scared to death, that juice-spewing doctor perched beside him like a night-shitting bird, and the god-calling going great guns beneath him, as the Reverend Jethro Furber — ah, 'twas I, in my grave-colored clothing, long a small dear friend of the nearly departed-name his name — in low-pitched swallowy prayers beseeched our gentle God to spare, oh spare, and pled with Him to save, oh save. His Henry, our humbly cherished, that he not be let to cross the limit of the living yet or that he cross quite painlessly if that were the wish of his Father or that he find some comfort among the dead, and merciful rewards, and rest.. from his wife, one thought, for who could stand her? it would have been no bother to his bones if he had died, they were stiff in their joints already, while through his skin his skull was glowing, nearly safe his teeth were smiling, for he no longer had to stand her, or stand anything, sloughing his sensitive parts; and these, these prayers and these petitions, pathetically strung like beads of kisses round the forehead of a feverish child, our feverish child, he had at a critical moment, as though divinely breathed on, in confidential whispers, touchingly described him — I, that is, the Reverend Jethro Furber, he, the sweetly speaking, oh the charlatan melodious… name it, name it, name her name… just fake, just liar — sprung tears from the eyes of: who first were they? Mrs. Curtis Chamlay, Mrs. George Hatstat, and Mrs. Olus Knox, which were a match for the beads… chatoyant… like Christ's eyes… my soul's eyes… and from Mrs. Hesiod Harmon, too, in for the weekend from Bridge, who kept her heart enclosed in heelskin normally, while residing with the Luther Hawkins family still at home, also from Miss Millicent Andrew and Miss Grace Cate and Mrs. Quentin Martin only moved to town a month yet socially as well ancestored as anyone in Gilean, and her daughter Eliza, lovely as lilac, whose hand she held, then Mrs. Emory Root with Lutie on the Sheraton settee, freshly reupholstered in beige wool rep by Mrs. Pimber working evenings till her eyes were sore, and further Mr. and Mrs. Claude Spink, as well as Edna Hoxie, fly that death drew, and Mr. Israbestis Tott, of course, who won the weeping; while later, as the night wore on and the watchmen wearied, ginger cookies Mrs. Chamlay had baked were served with coffee by Miss Samantha Tott, serious throughout and, Furber thought, severe; well there was some sense there, the mumbo jumbo didn't stir her, unless it was the stain of the beets, for it wasn't Henry's life that was the thought of the house but the bandaged hands the doctor wouldn't touch, the red pulse underneath, and the superstition that would catch it if he died, if Orcutt's didn't, since death meant the triumph of the clergy's, they were the masters of the resting places-and she was… that other was… she was… full, smooth, glistening, white… while life meant, in this case… Omensetter's luck… and it would be just like the Lord to raise up Henry in the circle of the beet's spell… name her, name her, name her name… while additional refreshments were offered Misters Knox, Stitt, Hatstat, Mossteller, and Chamlay, who popped in and out looking grave, smelling of spirits and rubbing their faces, for who could stand her? no wonder Henry was going away, the lucky devil; and Furber felt his prayers smoke up to the god of the witches: death is better for you, Henry, better for me too, of course, better for Gilean; defeat him, fight him for us all, wrestle him down like Jacob the angel, perhaps Omensetter will receive the blame, that's worth dying for, Christ's cause; listen, you can't stand her anyway, just think, no more nights and days; listen to me, your spiritual adviser, no more living, what a prize! look, ask Rush or Meldon… Pike, yes, ask Pike, he'll speak, he will advise, he's stone himself now, and knows what it means to have relief from feeling… Henry? remember! it's Omensetter otherwise… then the dark hollows of his eyes and the woolly eyebrows were menacing, his smile was menacing, the pillow glowing in the pale light was menacing, and Furber heard the whistling of witches or the god of the witches, was it wind through Henry's teeth? but he kept on bravely closing in, his hands sanctimoniously clasped, lips shaping words of love and life and light and Lord — but crying die, shouting die through his whole inside, lungs echoing, liver ringing, belly thundering, die, it's best you die… but it was as if Henry's body had sunk beneath him, or his bones had risen, for only the bones were showing, luminously shining, ghost lit, and Furber fell back, frightened terribly… out of the body, then, as out of a cave covered with stones, He rose alive, a net of thongs and wires His nature now, imperishable, a God… and leaving the room to Watson and the watching to Watson, he flew below stairs… our feverish child, he said, to ooze the tears… and name the liar … liar … name the liar … loudly… listen… Lucy… it's Lucy… looo… seee… look… how fat she is and unattractive, her dress hiked above her knee to cross a log, and where am I all this time, where's the watchman? he's waiting God's cruel sign like a weasel in the woods. . oh I leave nothing moving though I breathe with difficulty, my chest heaves… I've scratched my hands and ankles, haven't I? lying behind those young elderberries and these knuckles of granite. . Henry, if you'd seen. . she was. . she was. . who'd believe me? I'm the perjuring preacher, only my lies have their ears, yet to touch… just to. . I tell you I saw them bathing in the creek like two cows… indescribably smooth and full and shining. . not a pig's bladder, not a stone the sun's bleached… you'd have run away to have a sight of her… she snapped in my face like a twig. not like a mushroom, either, even fresh and perfectly puffed… her son inside her… who'd believe me? that she was…

He stood uneasily in the door as though an unpleasant thought had caught him by the sleeve. The portentous question still held the air. After a moment he sighed to signify his resignation and turned toward Watson, flinging out his hands to indicate a kind of facing-up was taking place, another kind of defeat. He measured his tone as carefully as a carpenter and struck on his opportunity like a clock. For such a question, a monstrous answer, and he pushed his words by every objection, maneuvering his voice and body eloquently in the small space, bending, turning, shrugging, hissing….

It will be a boy if he says so. If he says so, it will surely be a boy. Sometimes, Matthew, sometimes there's a certainty in things of this kind — from sources of this sort — that's like the certainty that streams from God—like the certainty, I say, like it, only like—for this man's in no way godlike — hard-ly — but it will be a boy if he says so. As I believe my God, because he says. I fancy I'm considered one who strives to tell the truth in everything. Is there only vanity in that?

Listen Matthew, when Omensetter came into the church I could not speak in my usual way. I spoke in his. You heard. Weren't you amazed to hear me speaking in this way and not in mine, my hard and honest way of speaking? Listen Matthew, I spent hours in my room beseeching God. And then I went where he was walking in the new fields, the corn a foot into the summer — let me continue, please! — I put it frankly to him, I asked him why he had possessed my tongue and turned it from the way it wished to go. I said possessed, yes. That was my word. Listen Matthew — and he said: "you would have spoken hard against me" — I admit it, this was so—"and that is why I've taken all your words away. I'll not be talked against." Oh no! Oh no! There was a glow around him, Matthew, as he spoke, and his hair rose straight above his head and his face was flushed and full of the kind of anger I have no knowledge of. Oh no! Oh no! That's what he said. Listen Matthew, he was in the young corn walking and I said leave us Omensetter, leave us all. Oh I accused him: I did. Yes, I said, you are of the dark ways, Omensetter, leave us all. He stopped — wait — he stopped, his hair on end, abush — wait now, wait — he laughed noisily. "I am of the dark ways, preacher," he said. Oh no! Oh no! I fancy I'm considered one who strives to tell the truth in everything. Is there only vanity in that? Then he laughed in that terrible long way. He said: "I am of the dark ways, preacher." Yes, he said: "I walk the dark path." Those were his words. No no, those were his words. They are engraven on me. Listen Matthew, listen, I went home then to our church and prayed to God.

The days were turning back from the frost; it would be warm again in Indian summer. The walk had lost the last traces of dew, his shoes were dry now, the grass no longer glistening though the wall was damp in several places. They were drawing off. He heard the ungreased wheels, the dog barking as it ran beside them, and he felt his anger subside. He ought to visit Mrs. Pimber, perhaps this evening. She'd be nervous, of course, worried, and inclined to pour her heart in his ear. What spiritual work might he recommend? Furber allowed himself to smile as he marked the time. He knew what would be on her mind. She'd groan and sputter. Owf. Ugh. Twenty bushels, half spoiled. Pumping her rocker. This settee. That chair. Jars of watermelon pickles, peach preserves, spiced pears. She'd number spaces in the air and jab at them with her forefinger. Glasses of grape and apple jelly — how many? Blueberries earlier, beans, beets, corn. Now it was pumpkin. More than last year — by precisely how many? Completing her inventory, she'd absently crack her knuckles. Pints of plums and cherries. Quarts of applesauce. Beside the stewed tomatoes, this many of the juice. All under wax and glass. Put up — the favorite phrase — preserved. Left from last year — how many? Then rhubarb and raspberries. Given away — how many? Henry doesn't care for elderberry jelly, he prefers strawberry jam — nevertheless, how many? Save. Conserve. In the stiff dry grass… through the elder bushes, their berries filling, green, the stream… Furber waved his thoughts away. Always he fought to keep that image out: he standing, she beside. Lust was not the feeling. Lust was nothing, though in his lust he smelled continually of cheese. Lust was for little girls with scratchy underclothes. Lust was nothing… nothing. He should try to remember that Omensetter was a man like all men. Just another chest with matted hair. "Every one of them is gone back; they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." She too — Lucy — so bravely named. "Can two walk together except they be agreed?" That was from Amos. Amos. They named the child Amos… brazenly… Amos Omensetter… hurtled from his father's penis like those angels who were spat from the mouth of heaven, bad seed t bitter fruit, to topple through eternity. Out. Like an acrobat through paper. Out. Out altogether. What luck. For the blasphemous thought he struck himself. The garden was stippled with sun let through the elms. There, Furber thought, was the real fruit of life. Involuntarily he stretched out his hand to take the bait. Another gesture. Futile. And sometimes he failed to understand where his safisfaction came from — marching off the minutes on his clock — for to was driving his own life under, too, with every step he took.

Furber is a sticky pill

he will make you sick

he will

Was such spite in him? He sighed. Another gesture. Spite? there was enough. This, though, he would like to have remain: these pieces of shade; was that asking too much? He stopped abruptly but his heart went on, he felt it laboring. He eased his grip on the book and tenderly felt of his chest. At any time, if he wished (and he always did) he could fill his eyes with her. Was this the kind of vision that was sent the desert fathers? Well it was too much, too much for mere mortality — these perverse figures in a painting of the paradise. Ah, Mrs. Pimber. Greetings. I've boiled up six buckets of spying in windows with six cups of sugar and canned three quarts of bachelor love to warm me this winter. That should last nicely if I don't serve it to company, it's calorific. But perhaps Henry really had run away and she did need the clergy's advice and consolation. Chamlay had begun to speak of painful duty — a bad sign. They were worried, yet something kept them off, a fact remarkable enough by since ordinarily they'd have had their noses down like dogs. Now it looked as though they had waited as long as they were able. This morning Knox and Chamlay had come to stir him up, to tell him his business by god, and the hope he'd heard in their voices had made him cringe. Curtis had been wrapped in his large coat though the grass was only lightly streaked with rime. While Knox talked, Chamlay peeled dead skin from his lip and flew it from his tongue. Perhaps Ire should go out. He was, after all, their representative. He wore their colors, bore their powers, exercised their rites. Consolation for Tott. Yet he had the fear that she would merely pause in her rocking and while humming thoughtfully tilt her face to the ceiling to calculate quart boxes of currants and transform them into jars of jelly. Under the circumstances he doubted his ability to bear it. Was that it really? He might suggest she paint plates, she was fond of decorating chairs.

Curtis, he said, what are you up to? Chamlay looked away through the trees. Someone has to go out there, he said mournfully, she hasn't said a word or been around to see a soul. That's mighty funny, you know that. He wore a fur hat like a hunter's. Thin hot face. Determined. Splotched. Knox on his arm like a cane. Pride, Furber suggested. Pride. Domestic tiff. Protect her feelings. Wait. What she pretends does not exist — for her friends should also not exist, he said. For her friends. Shrewd thrust that missed. Everything missed. Then he saw the badge — damn tinlight — and his heart fell. They repeated their words — in effect, their demands. Nothing else mattered. They repeated them. Opportunity like a hand to be seized and shaken. Theirs. His. Shake. True enough, she had not complained, yet she kept within her house, the shades all drawn, the door locked tight, and Valient Hatstat said she knocked and knocked to no avail. At night, at the back of the house, the curious said they saw a light pass the shaded windows or heard the pump squeak once or twice, the back door bang. A few, more credulous, maintained the barn was sometimes lit, across its upper face, by the same pale and passing lamp. These were boys, entirely, whose fathers fetched them in. Pride. Protect. If she pretends, pretend. The fact is that Henry Pimber has run away — out of Gilean, out of the world maybe — and his wife has gone strange. I didn't know you were a deputy. Shines pretty. Where'd you get it? Something new? Chamlay's arm extends. Fur hat. Whistles his lip skin. Someone had to. Knox is speaking. She won't let you in, but it's proper procedure. Light frosts his glasses. Oh, procedure! He's gone off, there's nothing of him anywhere. Fur at his boot tops. Well it's not that cold. Except inside. Why didn't they go away? If he just thought about it hard enough — go away! Chamlay slaps his gloves. Well it's not that cold. Warm really. Except inside. Shamed and weak, Furber settled to the bench, the sun was cool. Up and down. Slap. Boot gleam. Slap. Coat fur. Slap. Hat fur. Slap. Go away. Badge glitter. A decision of the town board requesting authority from the county seat. Knox frosted eyes. Once taking tea with Rosa Knox he'd had the same feeling. There were three little girls… running… and she'd said: don't chew your shoes. Over and over. Slap. It's madness. He has Pimber under his coat. Henry's not been right since his sickness. And so quiet. He used to sit like a ghost in a corner of Mat's shop. Now… he's gone. Like a ghost. Go away. Yes yes yes yes. Go away. His wife was ill then too. Slap. Not quite right in her mind remember. There, in the dark room, emerging from the froth of sheets, Henry's eyes as hard and shiny as a teddy bear's were fixed on him whichever way he moved. Knox nod. Official frosted glass. Please. What is she doing out there? what is she up to? what in heaven is going on? what has happened? what? Thump. Boot ends. What what what. Olus Knox said ask her. Yes yes yes. Why not? why doesn't someone? why why why. Because of the jars in rows, the potatoes in bins, the apples in barrels, the crocks of pickles and sauerkraut, the drying onions… Don't be absurd. Because of the gourds. . Don't be a fool. Interview. The local cause. The sun was cool. And she was like an after-image still, a scar of light, a sailor's deep tattoo. She stepped from a pool of underclothing. Oh Anthony had it easy! Because he'd seen the other Lucy mother-naked (buck-naked, Pike, I guess you'd say), yet who'd believe him? I'm afraid the Reverend Furber's not right in his head. It wasn't lust that tumbled him. Lust was nothing. . for schoolboys really. It had been — perception. His rage rose, filling him. These interviews! these damnable suggestions! He would like to have beaten Brother Chamlay flat as a footed apple. Listen. Then they kissed like needles. And he has a member, gentlemen, you might envy. It looked… infinite. Beneath it… a heap of thunderous cloud. It had risen with her rubbing as they shambled in the water. By its measure it might have been the massive ram and hammer of the gods. You could see it would beget men children only. Well, Egypt was easy on Jerome. And lucky for Macarius he was not with me. Is sin what I saw? is that what burned my eyes and left its brutal image in them? Then — listen — then, so full herself, she spilled his seed, and they both laughed like gulls. Furber slammed the Bible on the bench. No, he said aloud, rising. This is a matter for theology, not for feeling. His anger made him tremble. Nevertheless he straightened and turned to address a host of cherubim, speaking in level measured tones: early in their paradisal life the Lord God blessed His man and womankind and said be fruitful, multiply. But how could man beget unless his flesh could rise and what was there in innocence to move the simplest muscle in a gesture of desire? Were men to love unmindful, below the beasts, like flowers? It is impossible to know, of course. That moment has passed for all time. Yet watching Omensetter I sometimes think I’m trembling on the lip of understanding it. It's then I think I recognize the nature of his magic. For whatever Omensetter does he does without desire in the ordinary sense, with a kind of abandon, a stony mindlessness that makes me always think of Eden. The thought is blasphemous, I realize. And this of course is the clue, for more than any man I've ever known, Omensetter seems beyond the reach of God. He's truly out of touch. Furber paced a moment with his arms symbolically flexed. Sin's nothing but exile. It occurs when God withdraws. Should exile seem so blessed and free? He strode forward vigorously. Should everything seem fine beyond the fence, while we… Listen to me, listen, he cried, coming to a stop and holding out his hands, we know that men are evil, don't we? Don't we? Oh god haven't we observed it often? haven't we bruised our eyes and stunned our hearts to discover the hardness of that truth? Yet Omensetter doesn't seem to be. He does not seem. Seem. Is this correct, this — seem? Oh you're cows! Is this the feeling? I require an answer not a hiccough. Nannerbantan? TuK? Well he does. He does, doesn't he? Well? Well? And what? And what shall we conclude from all of this then?

We must conclude he is the worst.

He is the worst.

Therefore.

2

Twilight was moving through the woods upon the fields when the Reverend Jethro Furber, pebbles in his shoes, sand pushing between his toes, limped down the River Road to Henry Pimber's house. Trees divided the pale sheet of water on his left, while on his right loomed a bank of darkness like a battlement. The air was quiet, there was cloud, and all the sounds that human silence sharpens were, unearthly, stopped. The house seemed a deep extension of the trees, and Furber began to wonder what fool conceit or cowardice had driven him. He decided it was both: there was cowardice in his coming at all; there was conceit, certainly, in the melodrama of the moment he had chosen. Now and then the moon appeared and bleached a path across the road. He heard a horse, and far away, perhaps in town, a lonely bark. The pebbles pressed against the bottoms of his feet. It had been a delicious pair of pains at first but now it made him wobble awkwardly. Madame, the clergy has come to call: give greeting. He looked about. The long lane was silent. The Holy Spirit has no better emissary: loose loud hurrahs. His mouth twisted sourly as he heard himself. Furber turned past the forsythia, wading in a trench of shade to penetrate the darkness that lay beyond the lilacs, and soon he reached the steps where he could see the neighborly gift of Mrs. Gladys Chamlay glimmering quietly in the moonlight and groaning from neglect. Though its shining is silent, there's speech in the spoiling. Furber considered whether this expression was worth recording and decided against it. He raised the napkin covering the picnic basket and in the moonlight ants splashed like pepper past his feet. Leaning shame against fear, he removed one shoe at last, and in the moonlight emptied it of sand and stones, roughly dusting his sock. Since the leather had a tendency to wad, he shoved his foot back through the shoe's high neck with difficulty. He then drew from the other an easing stream. Both feet' comfortably shod again, he tromped noisily across the porch and pounded on the door, startling a bird which rose angrily from its bush. Twice he called her name, then waited, feeling absurd. The aches in his feet were subsiding. He felt he ought to stop and tie his shoes, but he had compunctions about kneeling. In the morning he'd have more than a bruise. Attempting to listen, he went carefully down the steps and quickly toward the back of the house. In that moment the resting branches turned their leaves. Brilliantly, the still grass glittered. He found the side door locked, the rear door bolted. The cellar door seemed hooked. Ineffectually, he tugged and hauled at windows, beginning to wheeze. His heels were rising in his shoes, the laces slapping. Nor could he tolerate the funk he was in. Were there goblins in the gumtrees, ghosts in the cupboards? He had no fear of spirits surely — of brooming witches, of gnomes, elves, sprites. Bear in mind: hate finds nothing hard. He ought to make a note of that. Nevertheless he could not ignore the figure he was cutting. Distraught, he wandered aimlessly about until he stumbled on a stick which, when he discovered what it was, he seized in a fury, attacking the house. By prying with it, he made a window squeak. Next he balanced a rock on a box and stood on these, the better to shove and heave. Yes indeed, he was an accomplished comedian and entrancing equilibrist, favorite of queens. At last he was able to squeeze inside. Something fell as he entered. Whatever it was, it did not break, but rolled slowly across the floor: a-runk, a-runk, a-runk. He couldn't remember how the furniture was arranged or where in the house he was. The children who had spied on her, as he'd been told, claimed she roamed the building with a lamp, but the place was cold, the air unstirred, the darkness unrelieved. He sneezed — curtain across his face. Now where are you, Lucy, he yelled, ashamed of the quaver in his voice. But he might come on her corpse. Swimming in the dark, he might bump it with his nose, or his foot might crush its fingers. Then Henry's head might moon, his fierce eyes stare, the covers close about his neck like foam, and Furber would hear his own voice singing die in a relentless monotone — die die die. He turned back to the window, terrified, bumping a chair which slid on the unrugged floor. Above him, on what he later decided were the back stairs, a figure appeared wrapped in gauze, holding a faintly burning lamp. Sagging. Furber uttered an uncourageous groan. Backett, is that you, Lucy Pimber said in a whisper.

It was, no one could doubt it, a great stroke of luck, and the sense of her words brought him to his feet in a moment. It is I, the Reverend Jethro Furber, he formally announced. She fled up the stairs. The pale light danced as he stumbled after her. Don't be frightened. Don't be frightened. She extinguished the lamp and he thought he would never find her. Before he did, the whole business had gotten thoroughly on his nerves, his old illness had returned, and even his bones shook. He cradled the rail in his arms. He was blind — a buzzing in his eyes. Despite the grotesqueness of the wish, a part of him wanted to be mistaken for the huge hide-wetter who was so marvelously fitted and so universally desired. Another part didn't care at all about that, but would have been immensely gratified to have her fall beneath him, opening easily, whoever she thought he was. So what if her breasts were like pancakes. Nor was that all he wanted, for he was in a thousand careening pieces like a shattered army. However, when at last he dragged Lucy from the linen closet and obtained the lamp — she was a torn and dirty spirit, certainly, for she'd fouled her clothes — he was nearly sickened by the smell of her, it was so strong and fecal. He possessed the lamp but had no way to light it, and while he stood stupidly considering this, she flew through the darkness again, whining weirdly like a bat. In pursuit, Furber fell on the stairs, smashing the mantle. Rattled, he shouted threats. You're to tell no one I fell, you hear, smell-belly, he roared. You're loony, you hear me? You're loony Lucy. He was beginning to see quite well now, and he found her hunched under the table in the kitchen mewing and spitting like a cat. Twisting a great knot in her nightdress, he pulled her out, saying experimentally, "I am Backett Omensetter," in a deep bass voice. When he heard her chuckle he struck out blindly, hitting her several times on the head and shoulders. These blows rendered her docile, and though exhausted by his own emotions, he was able to restore her to the care of her friends without further difficulty or exertion.

Not many days after, at the Hatstat's where Lucy had been taken to recover, he was even able to offer her a good deal of excellent advice concerning the management of her life in the future. He was aware, at the time, of his stiffness, of the extreme correctness of his deportment all in all; but Lucy Pimber, though she seemed as large-eyed as an owl and nearly as watchful, listened to his lengthy and somewhat elaborate monologue, despite the cold remoteness of its tone and the unflinching directness of its message, with a steady, calm, and sober mien throughout, for which Furber, more than once in the weeks that followed, gave grateful thanks to ghosts, elves, sprites, gnomes, witches — all of the disloyal angels, each of the fallen gods.

3

It was an afternoon of weak sun, the hour was late, and Mat appeared slowly on the end of the street. Outside his shop, as lightly as a water bird, Jethro Furber waited, and so observed reluctance enter the blacksmith's knees. It's lovely to be loved, he thought bitterly, rising to tiptoe and pulling the collar of his coat around his neck. Love… hate… what did it matter which it was? He was ready for either. His plans were made. His speeches had been well rehearsed. He had his courage and his anger up, his makeup straight, his costume fresh, its creases squeezed so ardently they gave him edges like a knife. Furthermore, he knew his man. That was a terrible thing — to know your man; terrible, that is, for the man known, if it was true. And in this case, it was true. He did know. He knew. Mat's imagination would undo him.

There was coming toward him now, its body pondering, its temples glowering, a beast, burthenous with shadow. Furber winked. Mat's shoulders were too heavy for his buck. Frowns pinched his eyes. Undo — and a totter of limbs, a clatter of bones in collections. Oh he was always such a weighty man. "Yet His burthen is light." But Mat dragged his shadow like a sled and fragments of dancehall song pierced Furber's head.

Imagine my distress

if you undo my dress.

for if you do,

oh me! undo—

for if you do,

oh my! untie—

then I'm undone,

I must confess;

I'll simply die

without my dress.

He felt strangely adrift again. A shadow flew under his feet. It was curious — this floating. Better watch it. Hair lapped Mat's ears.

So if you do,

oh me! undo—

so if you do,

oh my! untie—

Mat was habitually heavy-hearted, morosely kind, distinctly dull in that sense, slow and gloomy; his center of gravity seemed to Furber near his knees.

consider that my dress

fits tight across my chest;

has hooks and eyes,

and bows and ties,

has pins and clips

clear to my hips,

Furber had withdrawn from his skin but he was still cold. Unhappy hands, fallen out of pockets, fluttered in greeting. Greeting? The sky fled without moving. Mat came slowly on.

and is difficult to press

so very difficult to press.

Yet somewhere in that ponderous person lived a lively fancy… yes — as a mouse might nest in a bear or a bird in a beaver. Thus Mat was curious, though a dreadful prude, and if he would gossip only when he felt obliged, he was frequent and unfalling in the discharge of his duties. He was fond of popular philosophy which he badly misconstrued, and once he had embarrassed Furber with a gift of some tracts on Eastern mysticism and the occult which he had acquired while a carter in Chicago in his youth.

If you insist

that I divest

the dress that clasps

me to its breast,

and guards my honestness,

and shields my honestness,

Despite Mat's reputation for having what barbers, shaving, call a light touch — a quality unusual, even irrelevant, in smiths — he regularly broke things: chairs, crocks, dishes, cooking pots and tools.

then whatever you may do

do to yourself too—

He was proud, in addition, that his thoughts were sometimes deep; that his mind was, on occasion, devious; that he saw through people, or around them, which was often the greater feat; and that he had a flair for finding affinities, however different and bizarre their outward forms (Pimber and Omensetter were a natural pair, he always said) which his friends pronounced both exact and remarkable.

for that's the golden rule,

the golden, golden rule—

To Furber, watching Mat's unwilling progress up the street, he represented the perfect pulley, for a gentle tug at one end would move a mountain at the other, or raise an unwilling Lazarus from the dead.

and when we're finally through,

this maid shall ask of you,

that whatever has been done,

as a gentleman,

whatever has been done,

you redo.

First, however, it would be necessary to get in. Furber had been standing for some time motionless, his mind asleep, and now both men leaned toward one another like two sticks thrust weakly in the earth. The street was strangely empty, the store fronts seemed painted on a drop, and Furber had the feeling that they might rise out of sight any moment, the scene change suddenly — and then what? a desert might surround them or a jungle… hummocks of snow or the restless terrain of ocean. Through his uneasiness he recognized the need for strength and motion, and grasping himself, regained his stature. Normally small and thin, he seemed pulled by his own will through his black coat sleeves and trouser legs and stiff white tube of collar until he was as tall as he thought he ought to be, the total of his body and his shadow so completely cast together that Mat could scarcely have distinguished the separate figures that made the sum.

Ah, Matthew, here you are at last. I feel a chill, he said.

The lengthy ah, Mat's name swimming in his breath, the ladybook language, the preacher's tone: the stage. Standing too long, he'd struck a false note; his determination drained away through his feet. Consequently Watson put his back to Furber's eye. Mat's shirt was stained and the sides of his face were streaked. Matthew, Furber crooned. Matthew, he bellowed. Matthew, Matthew, he chanted, filling his head with the sounds that meant smith, as if these sounds would give him some hold on their object. Didn't a man grow like his name in the long run, and wasn't there a piece of him wedged in it, between the syllables, like meat in a sandwich? How else could you know that the noises fit? It's what finally does those famous people in, his father used to say, wagging a long, plump, finger; every time you're thought of, a part of you gets used. It's slow erosion. Death from simple use. Double U and T. That was his father's life, his father's motto. Wear and wear. And then we're through. It's simply Double U and T. Too much Double U and T. A hole pokes through, he used to say, as through a shoe. And then we're through. Over and over and over he'd say it, wearing the edges of his teeth away. What shall we do? what shall we do? Furber was removed — giddy — all awobble. Another of his father's newspaper truths: where are liquor and tobacco? why, they live in habit's hollow. Over and over and over. If each man were in his syllables somewhere, he could be reached that way. And touched. Over and over. Loved? What did it matter? He could be chewed and swallowed. Jethro, for instance… or Matthew. He knew true habit's hollow. Omen-What if Romeo's name were Bob? Or Jethro. What if Jethro's name were — what? a wise adviser, a fluent liar, a slippery spier, a loud woe-crier, a God-denier with his soul on fire-no-what if his name were — what? But you couldn't wear out Romeo. He grew with each repeating. Omensetter. Simpson. Suppose it were Simpson. Or Henry Pimber. Or Olus Knox. A pig wallow — that was habit's hollow. Stitt. Tott. Chamlay. I've your name here, bucko, with my spit around it — how do you like that? Hatstat. Flack. Cox. Hawkins. Cobb. Well there might be something in it. Still another of his father's newspaper truths: thou shalt not take the name of the Lord they God in vain. Were there one, He should have slain… Had there been, He would have… My will be done. And thrust the lightning home. Suppose God's name was Simpson. Suppose, all this time, through all this hoot and hollering, He was Simpson. Unhearing. That would explain.. everything. Hey there, Simpson! Hey hey! Not opportune. My name's not Jethro Furber. You've the wrong man once again. It's Joe Pete Andy. It's Philly Kinsman. What would that be like to be? Kinsman. Any. To slip away to a new life. And so be safe, from Double U and T.Ah. There was Backett Omensetter, then. He'd worn that man to a shadow, if this was true; his name could only call a ghost.

Silly Billie

has a belly

big as Marge

and large as Nellie.

Matthew Omensetter. The two of them were twins of a kind, Furber saw that now; they possessed a terrible similarity, and he felt further weakened.

… the treasures that she carried

were mostly deeply buried…

To be Philly Kinsman… to swim in a river of trees… the sun asleep on the grass, in the weeds… oh god, he was going to die and never

… the belle of the Spanish Main…

Matthew Omensetter. Both were large-bodied gentlemen, always moist like river clay, darkening their shirts with designs as they worked, speaking in streaks and splotches.

I shall never marry

a maid who is a fairy;

she'd be too military,

and I've no taste for war,

or ….. or ……

for I've no taste for war.

Both were clay-skinned, too, their deep tans yellowy; and they had thick tropical hair that fell untidily over their foreheads, though Mat's was oftener cut and not so coarse — that was the difference.

And I shall never tarry

with a girl who's lost her cherry;

of her virtue I'd be wary,

despite my taste for whores,

ors ….. ors ……

despite my taste for whores.

Besides there was a looseness about Omensetter's fleshy parts, not exactly unpleasant, he had to admit, not puffy or like skin that's bubbled from the bone as paper does sometimes from plaster, but rather as if the muscles were at ease there, children asleep in their comforts—

"What do you want?" Is that it? Is it thus he addresses his minister? with a you. While I cry: ah, ah Matthew, ah… while I cry: ah, the gospel author's name, that name, you, instead, say: "what do you want?" Well, he would not answer. He'd topple silence on them like the temple. He would not answer to a you.

Simple Samson went to the fair,

all of the Philistine people were there.

I want — I want to be Philly Kinsman. Orcutt. Cate. Mossteller. Jenkins. Amsterdam. He recognized the wickedness and strength of the temptation, but he was sometimes overcome by the incredible sweetness of life, the warmth, the softness of his imaginary women, their skin so white and luminous with comfort.

But a wise apothecary

bid me once be chary

of girls who tipple sherry

and sleep the day indoors,

ors ….. ors ……

and sleep the day indoors.

In order to survive the silence he would have to think of darkly distant and dissimilar things: the Antarctic, camels, Bogota. Mat's thumbs were hooked to the tops of his trousers, so Furber tried to turn his thoughts to the wood thrush, then to Sardanapalus the king. The blacksmith's belly was large for all his laboring and it was puffing faintly beneath the cloth.

Her nipples bright as berries,

my maiden's great mammaries,

will yield milk like the dairy's,

till I've no taste for more,

or ….. or ……

till I've no taste for more.

The silence was a cross, but Furber resolved to share it, and he saw with pleasure that Mat had begun shifting his weight, leg to leg, like a bear. It was God's work, God's good work, Furber thought; he'd stand like this forever if necessary, like a holy image, though his church denied him images — well damn them and their dreary doctrines for that — all right then, like a mute accusing witness, an everlasting reminder…

And down where she is hairy,

I'll cage my wild canary,

a songbird legendary,

till it can sing no more,

or ….. or ……

till it can sing no more.

Mat's left hand flew to his face and clawed it roughly, then fell to his side with a slap. His right still clung to his pants like a bat to a rafter, Bogota… Bogota, Colombia.

It would be futile to say: as a man, I don't matter. I don't. I don't matter. But remember what I mean, for the body of every symbol is absurd. Tell me: how did Jesus pee? Who will preach on this point? Who will address himself to this question? Did He? Oh yea, Sisters and Brothers, He did. He peed the same as you do. Certainly the same, Brothers. Fully as well, too. Yea, fully as often. A pale straw-yellow stream. It's more likely He was circumcised than He was wispy bearded, weakly blond, girl whiskerless, a boy at twenty though a man at ten, a carpenter each inch a king. He was, in sum, an ordinary Son of God, the average kind, in all ways pious, meek, contentious, thin. Food wedged in His teeth, for instance; His skin blistered. Empty, His belly rumbled; stones cut His feet. Consider a moment the chemistry of The Last Supper. And when hung on the cross, between the thieves, He felt no differently the kiss of His nails than they did theirs. I can assure you of that much. Happy to do so, Sisters; happy… so happy, Brothers. So much, too, you're this God's equal. He made His wind like anyone. His buttocks coughed, and I can imagine He was tempted, relieving Himself, to spatter the spider who'd bit Him. His body made Him humble, yet He was piss proud. What sense to say Hé had one otherwise? What sense? But futile. Yea, Brothers — bombaddybast. They've scrubbed Him, drained His fluids, wiped up His colors, ironed out His creases. Beautiful Jesus — the embalmer's pride.

And Furber then, to pass the time, thought salt, thought dill, thought vinegar. At least he should look at me, he should have the courage. Myrrh. Myrrh. Watson drew air harshly through his nose. If he spits… But Furber could not take the risk.

I want to speak to you about a matter, he said, briskly folding up his arms.

It's late.

I know it's late. There's time.

Is there? It's late. I've got a lot to do.

There's time enough, all the same.

I've got to wash and eat. I've had a heavy day.

There's time, I say.

Well what then? about what?

But Furber secured his chest in his arms. Do not answer questions. He wrote "rudeness" on one side of a line. There was Ptolemy, Seleucus, Perdiccas, Gonatus, Cassander — all kings, and Furber cast his eyes down the empty street. They weren't real, they were echoes of buildings. It was as though the morning had been so exhilaratingly cool and clear and sunny that the boards had shouted away their substance, and now, from those earlier hours, only these images had been reflected to the afternoon.

I think I'd better wash. I've got a lot to do.

Got. You've got.

Mat swung about and stared at Furber, blood coloring his face.

Well, he said in a moment, squinting, I really have.

He paused to tilt.

What was it you wanted?

Yes, blink, Furber thought. You've never seen me before. I'm new, a stranger, and my dark clothes dazzle. Mat's tone had altered — that was something. Furber warned himself to move cautiously, not to carry matters too far. This was a contest he didn't dare lose, and his man was restless, uneasy and restless, anxious, worn, not just physically, but spiritually strained, worn and anxious in his heart. Yet he'd have to go far to win, fantastically far, and his confidence was gone. It had disappeared the moment it was called on, despite his careful preparations. Doubt made his voice weak and Mat did not respond to Omensetter's name. Ashamed, Furber repeated it, but Watson did not answer. His head wagged and the tail of his shirt fluttered. How much — the question flew in Furber's ear — how much was Watson paying Omensetter for his help? Could he afford such a man? It might be a matter worth pursuing. But I want to be Philly Kinsman. Furber allowed himself a sigh. There'd be loyalty to be undone, rectitude, Mat's sense of Omensetter's use, his antagonism (and now that this had shown itself so plainly, it proved to be so much greater than he'd guessed — but why? why?), and how many buttons more?… faith? trust? belief? each less, each easier, that, too, was something; then plenty of straightout foolishness and ignorance, he could be sure of that. Not. so simple, either, to free him from the mulewood he was made of. It was well Mat was weary, it would be will against will. Centipedes, he sang without conviction-waiting. Aphids, slugs. Then Eglon came — a Moab king. Jeroboam. Nadab. Baasha. Elah. Zimri. Omri. Ahab. "And Eglon was a very fat man." He was surrendering again.

It's treacherous weather. Don't you feel a chill?

The forge is banked.

Mat's voice remained weary and dispirited, scarcely polite.

Let's stand beside it, Matthew. I'll be warm enough.

A double-edged dagger of cubit length was well devised and gartered cunningly to the thigh of Ehud the assassin, deliverer of Israel. When Ehud was privately with Eglon in his summer parlor, bringing as he said a message to the king from God, he drew the dagger from its nest and with his left hand, for he was an utterly left-handed man, buried it beyond the haft in the king's belly, a belly so enormously fat that it was not possible to draw the dagger forth again, and it had to remain there instead, death's bone driven deeply, while the king's stools spilled on the carpet in the king's surprise. At first no hue and cry was raised, for Ehud fastened the chamber when he fled so that the king lay shut from his servants in his arbor as though (as they thought) he were answering to a call of nature. Such was the joke God made of Eglon then, and thus was Israel delivered that time.

The doors, yielding slowly to the pressure of Watson's shoulder, squealed. Then Mat was shouting above the noise.

O… Omensetter didn't come to work… he didn't come to work today. . he's sick… I say he's sick… his daughter came to tell me.. came to say he's sick… he's sick she said.

Oh?

Furber gathered to the forge. Coals lit the bottom of his chin. As the door rushed in — scraps of shadow, birding patches. Rehoboam, Abijam, Asa — kings in Judah. All of a sudden Mat appeared willing to communicate — good. He pushed his hands toward the fire. The coals were friendly. It didn't seem at all as if they'd sear you at a touch. He tumbled his hands, scrubbing them roughly. The darkness was a comfort. Dim as a church, at the moment as quiet, the shop seemed a haven, and Furber, yawning and swallowing, smelled straw, then wood and leather, oil and old metal, manure and cooling water. He wanted to sink down and hug the coals to his chest. Flamboyant…coins of light… oil, wood, tatters… fumes from acids, soap, smoke.. the sunlight shattered. He briefly wondered how it felt to Watson — this wild rich place — whether he found any peace in its confusion. It was sad, but churches rarely lived so largely. They were seldom permitted such extravagance of feeling. In, fact, they were — at least his was — a sour denial of the human spirit. He caught himself quickly. He'd meant, of course, that they were a sober condemnation of the evil in human nature.. something different. However he was a notorious liar. In this sort of place, Furber could feel life opening out to him, the roof of the heavens rising in the darkness; but it was the darkness, the deep obscurity of the shop that was responsible; it was an illusion of shadow, and he realized with his customary bitterness that whatever his love was he could never show himself honestly to it; he would always undress in the dark. Moving about the forge, he saw that Mat had remained in the doorway, and made out his fingers swimming in the barrel. Furber's impulse was to fly against him like a girl and hammer the blacksmith's chest with his fists.

As you've doubtless guessed, Omensetter is the matter I've come about. It's rather confidential — in my province as a preacher, Furber said, using the word with distaste, but, he thought, with skill.

He'd lost his shadow now, was small, not even thin, leaning over the fire.

Oh?

Indifferent as a stick, Mat rested against the jamb. His rudeness was complete, and though Furber struggled against it, he found that rage had swept him away. There were ancient cities. Think. Palmyra. Nineveh. Corinth. Mat's indifference was a pose. Acre. Tyre. A performance for my performance. Issus. Damascus. Gaza. Rhodes. Now gone. All lost. He's simply afraid. Persepolis. Nor do I appear angry, though I'm burning like this hill of coals. Even the sleeves of my coat are calm. Merv. Nevertheless Furber clapped his hands so sharply and so suddenly, Mat jumped.

I've had inquiries, he said, concerning Omensetter's signs. I meant to ask you before but I saw you weren't receptive.

Oh?

Mat's eyelids drooped; they seemed to close.

What makes you think I'm receptive now?

Signs of another kind, Matthew, said Furber, smiling mildly.

Oh?

All those cities, those hollow houses, all those lives, those graves, the graves of hope… With a madness like the madness to bury that seizes men, a craze to cover that overcomes all of them, the cities covered themselves with sand and mud, vines, grass, lava, with noisier cities, com- pleter ruins, further graves and further grasses. I am their proper lordship, Furber thought. My credentials make me master of the resting places. That was the way — burial to burial, shame to shame — it had always been since Adam's fig had hidden him, his sex and death together and the same, and surely that was the way it would continue. He — Furber — would be lost in a swallow of persons. The stone in the corner of his garden would not truly speak of him, the great Leviathan would have him, he'd be buried in their bodies — cover after cover coming — for that was the whole of life on the earth, our bodies for a time athwart another's middle, our lives like leaves, generation after generation lifting the level of the land, the aim of each new layer the efficient smother of the last.

Rubbing his chin, Mat alters the closure of his eyes. He also pulls thoughtfully at his nose. Like an actor. Yes. Deep in meditation. Oh yes. But in fact he has the fidgets. May his thoughts be pitch and smoke his wits out.

It seems to me, if I remember rightly, we've—

Been over this before? Yes, in a manner of speaking, we have, but I'm afraid that we must go over it again, though more carefully this time, more thoroughly you know, more thoughtfully.

Oh?

An enormous yawn burst into flower on Mat's face.

So I'm to be the grave of my father and mother. In an agony of embarrassment, Furber covered his mouth. These damnable fancies were the curse of his life. Besides, he merely wished to be Philly Kinsman, an imaginary friend, orphaned for convenience, though no doubt a ducal heir. But they aren't dead yet, they live in the South. He pushed his fingers between his teeth. He'd be their marker, nevertheless; his speech was their inscription. HERE LIES. How could he have known he'd rattle so? MEMENTO. I had a letter last week. Friendly. Complete. The usual sort of news. No concern. No cause. MEMORIAE SACRUM. Scum. Pee bottles. But both are really quite well, and very active in the church. MEMO. With his tongue he'd wet his fingers. MENDACEM MEMOREM ESSE OPORTET. What was passing through Matthew's head? Wind shadows? the language of the dead? Not the specters of his parents, certainly. Well damn them, if I've got to have them, they deserve me. MORS JANUA VITAE. Then the memory of his mother's enclosing arms and fragrant garments overwhelmed him. Flowers bloomed along her like a fence. His eyes were smarting. I've been waiting for Mat, here, too long. It's the shade the weather's taken, and the time of day. MEMORIA IN AETERNA. I've lost my nerve. My god, I don't think of them once in a month, and here I'm bundled in blue and fluffy flannel like a child in a crib. He started to chuckle but coughed instead. You'll be the death of me, she'd often said; what am I going to do with you? what will you turn into? what will you be? Spittle flew through his father's teeth. All right, all right, die down, die down, but you'll find no rest in me. MORS OMNIA SOLVIT. A lie.

Furber groaned, securing Mat's attention, and then he said: perhaps you remember the occasion—

I remember it.

— but you seem to have forgotten what was said.

I don't remember I said much.

All right — what I said. You do remember? You haven't forgotten?

No.

But you didn't understand it?

No, I understood it well enough, I think.

You refused to believe it?

No, that wouldn't be exactly right.

Yet you did nothing.

What was there to do?

Watch!

Furber drew back, collecting himself, silent, noting that his rush had not made Watson budge. He hardly needed the forge now. His chill had been followed by a fever. Camels. That was an idea. Camels.

Circumstances compel me, he said; circumstances, you know — circles surrounding — they make it necessary to — these things which lie — which are so circumambient — to take the matter up again. I wasn't clear. Am I clear now? I fear not — no. Alas. Ah, but in a moment. I shall be then. Well… these cincturing affairs, eh? they force me, you see, they make me, as a… missionary — for apparently I wasn't clear before, and—

Oh you were clear enough.

I was? I'm surprised. I can't believe I was. Constrained as by a cingulum… Was I really?

Yes, you were clear enough, though I don't follow now.

Look Jethro — please — we're both tired and it's the end of the—

Yes, yes. Agreed. The—

Look — it's a difficult time. It's been a long day. I'm tired. Done in.

A tired body makes a ready mind.

Mat began to protest but Furber cut him off. He had thrust both palms forward, and Mat's veiled eyes had seen them. If one person is the grave of another, he wondered, what part is in the arm, for instance? There could be a correspondence, I suppose, of arm to arm and nose to nose, but what if the deceased is a much larger fellow? And justice would be better served in many cases, I should think, if the head of the dead one were hung down in the buttocks of the other, or if the heart of the corpse could be seen through the eyes — that would tell you something. Camel. Hump where the head is. That's why. Two humps: two heads. The heads of infants — several. Or embracing lovers. A camel's good dry ground and thus to be preferred for lying at any length in. Creatures of that kind will come high, likely, once it's known. On such a chance, though, it would be wise to reserve one now. Of course cash in hand in a case like this is certainly essential. Also you could specify the place the camel, when it dies, should be laid to rest. It's the sort of transmigration which might have pleased Pythagoras had anyone had the wit within his time to think of it.

Clodhopper. Pee bottle.

My name is Philly Kinsman.

I am a famous bandsman.

My fife's my wife,

but on my life,

when I unease my trumpet,

all the ladies…

(in these parts)

all the ladies. .

(bless their hearts)

all the ladies hump it.

Hell you say — What was wavering? Darkness spinning like the seed of a maple.

My name is Philly Kinsman.

I am a famous bandsman.

Though my trombone

gives quite a tone

whene'er the ladies pump it,

it's very sore

from playing more

music than

it bargained for,

and still the ladies pump it.

Mat sniffed, lifting his arm to his face. Light spread over the floor.

You spent the day hunting Henry, I suppose, Furber said, his voice light and quiet, calm and low, scarcely in motion while he searched Mat's face, alert as an animal for any change. How'd it go? a day of stubby fields, eh? They twist your ankles. I know how that is. It's wearing when it's all for nothing. Weeds and burrs — they're everywhere this time of year and very trying too, as sighting endlessly down rows of corn is, and poking in the little caves along the river — you looked there? — depressing when it's all for nothing; and along the fences, the shocks and hayhills-you investigated them? for nothing? Well your clothes look picked and there's a mean scratch on your chin — has it been stinging? Hawthorn thickets would account for it, I'll bet, and berry tangles — damnable things — and that marsh ground, too; did it wet through your shoes and wash your ankles? a bit chilling, eh? Well a nasty business all around — so very tiring when it's all for nothing. Sure. It makes a long day.

Gay songs and vulgar catches… death…

You don't think that he's run off then? You're not of that opinion? He was an unraveled man, a doll's sort, thoroughly unticked, unstrung, with no heart for flight, thrown by disease-is that your theory? and his wife all the while a flail, a handful of stones — oh I know; I know, he's a friend still, though he's wrapped himself in fronds to winter over like an ambitious hopeful worm, to see the spring, eh? but as a man he was sunken in spirit like those rowboats you see rotting by the shore, aslope with river water, or like that house he rented Omensetter, gone to moss and weeds and soft besotted boards. that's the view you're taking? I know—I know your feeling. Hoh. I'm a man of feeling too. Yet what was he but some vegetable that hadn't reached her canning, some parsnip or potato? Oh, and his wife's a friend, I know — I know. It's distressing. And you're opposed to everything I'm saying. Trust me, Matthew. Goodness. So am I. But people have their fears… and Matthew — these fears must be put by.

Mat was speaking. His collar had chafed his neck. His tongue appeared. The lord kinkle it.

You can help me, Mat.

At the friendly note, Mat's right eye rose, his hispidulous cheeks bulged with air: puff pop, he spoke.

You are — I confess it, observe that, I confess it — you are essential to me. I have to have you, Mat.

My frankness has dispossessed him. I'm faced by puzzlement — oh hoo ha — perhaps by fear? Bug beneath the rug. Mat rubs his ear. Tick talk.

Don't mock me, Matthew.

That threw him off. His eyes slid. What to make of it. He'd give anything to get away. Well that's my price. I'm two hours late for the Nones myself. Little doth he realize I' am the pope's panjandrum in disguise. His mass is shifting. Watch his feet, oh Furb the foxer, he may be big, but he's no boxer.

Don't you trust me, Matthew?

It's not — it's not a matter of trust.

Ah, isn't it?

Furber threw up his arms and darted toward the rear of the shop.

Darkness seeped from Matthew's mouth and spilled like smoke on either side of Furber. A dream. An idol breathing steam. He was running blind and struck something. Consequently.

Just that, said Furber, dwindling. Fears of Heaven.

Lord love us. Everything above us. Love us.

Furber returned to the forge and flung his arms over it. Heaven forsaking fears.

Oh all right, all right, what else?

Else? Else? What do you take me for? Isn't that enough?

Oh well now nonsense, Jethro.

Yes indeed, you're quite right, certainly, nonsense.

Furber snapped his fingers sharply.

Nonsense… but?

He opened out his hands. He slumped.

The pope's chief panjandrum. A genii. Look at the lion. I… I… shaken to the roots. Towns begining in C: Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chillicothe… Come and confess? What was he daring? all this god a'mighty amounting? to my making them up? Jesus. Look at my coat's color — is it not honest?

Ah.

Furber placed his palms against his cheeks. I get no trust.

Oh look here, don't be silly, I don't distrust you.

Under menacing eyebrows, pebble-smooth nose, over sharpening fingers, Matthew's speech stream burbled.

Just the same, you know you tend to… well, you're, always sort of making mountains, you know, making mysteries out of molehills, always warning and willying the way you do and carrying on…

Towns beginning — towns beginning in — god I can't think of any.

Of course I'm not against that. I'm not objecting. Maybe that's your business and you know your business and you're doing what you're supposed to, but… well, after all, what are they anyway?

Towns — towns… Where have I nestled that dagger? I shall kiss him now and eat him later. Left or right, it does not matter if I contaminate my sacred hand with this pig's blood.

Who has them — these fears, I mean? You have them, is all, Jethro. That's all. You. You have them.

In his face a handful of coals — could he manage? Scoop them quickly — there!

No place for that here, Matthew. No place and time for that now. But we must bruise the serpent, eh?

He peered queerly past his shoulder.

There aren't any children about. That accounts for it. That's strange. Where are they? They play around here, don't they? every day.

Mat nodded. The door was forcing itself into his back.

Roll hoops?

On one foot, Furber began jumping.

Hopscotch — remember?

Warily, Mat moved in from the door as Furber leaped past.

Ever skip rope? kick the can? how about hide and seek?

He stopped, noisily huff-puffing his cheeks. He had never uttered an untruth in his life. All his lies had been… necessary.

Jacks?

He faced toward Watson to demand an answer, but his man was deep in bewilderment now.

Mat made a vague gesture, showing his teeth. Phosphorescent, they lit his lower lip.

Furber was back on both feet. This seemed to reassure Watson, who steadied, so Furber began hopping again.

Since O-men-set-ter… more-of-them… wouldn't-you-say? he said among bounds.

Camel and kangaroo. You could be sewn in the pouch. To take to the air. The day had seemed so clear there'd been nothing to swim in. Now shadows crisscrossed it like the bodies of divers, and those other bright blue days returned to him, clamoring. He stumbled. Mat leaned forward, saying something Furber couldn't understand.

My name is Philly Kinsman.

I am a famous bandsman.

You ladies may have heard of me.

I can hold a note

just like a rope

that's hanging from a balcony.

Stooping, Furber dropped an imaginary ball, and with remarkable reality swept his hand down for the jacks.

Creep away, sneak away, leak away — hide.

There are animals hunting in Furber's inside.

You know, Mat, he said, delighted with his performance, when I was a kid I was never permitted to play with other children. The truth is, the others kept me out.

He smiled: there were no hard feelings.

But I watched them — how I watched them-hour after hour: running, jumping, skipping, swinging, dancing, yelling, hopping, singing… Did you like playing house? Never? School? No? Ships and sailors? I'm surprised. I certainly wanted to — with all my heart. So then I'd imitate them, go through the motions I saw, pretend I was outside running with them, shouting with them, running and shouting and dancing about like one of them, no differently made. Well. The Olden Days. They shouldn't occupy us now. Actually, I played caves and craters. And have there been more, would you say, since Omensetter came? He's such a hand with kites.

Mat struggled with his words. He slapped his thighs.

I suppose. Maybe, he said.

Good. We are agreed at last. I knew we would.

What? What? Agreed about what?

Furber smiled.

Agreed, that's all, he said. Agreed.

My harp is highly rated,

and my flute is celebrated,

as for my drum, it's equal fun,

however it's berated…

Furber moved to Omensetter's bench and began inspecting it.

My lips are highly rated,

and my fingers celebrated,

as for my tongue, it's equal fun,

however it's rotated…

Tannin, he said, makes him seem brown. From oak bark, isn't it? Gall nuts. Well, an illusion. He'll be yellowish, by and by. I've heard it enters poisonously through the fingers.

My balls are quite inflated,

and my ass hole's lubricated,

wherever it's located…

as for my prick, it's just as thick,

He shifted a knife.

Don't—

Disturb. No.

Yes, my name is Philly Kinsman,

and I am that famous bandsman,

but silent now my symphony,

My fife, my horn, my timpani;

He held up a length of leather.

they've played their last

for any lass

excepting

present

company.

Breasting the feculent flood…

What I want to know, in strictest confidence, Furber said, is have you seen him strangely any time?

He moved a rule.

Have you seen him strangely?

He crossed abruptly to the forge.

Catch your death of cold… day like this, he muttered. Now have you seen him strangely any time?

Oh my god… well, honestly, Jethro—

Have you seen him strangely is what I asked: burning piles of tiny twigs and new — pulled grasses, say, or singing to himself in numbers, one two seven four or so, back and forth, six or nine, or crooning, you might call it, to some object — rock, a branch, a swatch of cloth — or doing things by evens or by odds, walking in a circle or avoiding certain sights, like that of a goose, a cracked glass, or an empty bowl?

gir-affe!

Furber went on slowly, shyly almost, wagging the meaning of his words away, smiling them off, while his eyes searched along the rafters and the point of his shoe dug at the floor.

You mean that kind of sign, Mat said. My god—

Well you might invoke Him, Matthew.

Sweet christ—

Yes. That would be wise. He too. Sweet.

I thought by signs you meant just how he knew the baby'd be a boy.

How did he know? It's a question that will do. How?

Furber floated to tiptoe, his face alight.

cam-el! kang-a-roo!

I don't know. I mean — how should I know? He guessed. How should I know? He wanted a boy bad. You know how that is. Why ask me? He was lucky, that's all. Omensetter's luck.

Mat made to move outside but Furber didn't stir. He held his hands above the furnace and the faint light lathered his cheeks. Your answer isn't good enough, his posture said, while his eyes and lips said it was everything, and confirmed his fears.

Luck. Is that really your opinion: luck?

The silence of the street was intimidating.

hip-po! cam-el! kang-a-roo!

The buildings were of paper. Now against a bench, Mat stood propped. Damn the fat dackering dunce. Again Furber brought his hands, like boards, together.

hiiii-eeeee-naaa!

Does he make swirls in his hair with his fingers? Does he pull at his ear? Does he turn his head from reflections? Is he frightened of gnats?

Poison was once placed in the glass of a saintly priest, but as the priest blessed the meal, intoning latinly the name of the Father, the glass shattered and the poison flew up like a rainbow. No prot gawd could pull that off — never fear. Rome has a first-rate finagler…

baa-boon! monn-goose! gazz-elle!

The questions went on, Furber in the same position as before, the same expression on his face, though now he had a terrible desire to laugh, to shout gir-affe, and then such a sweating fear of doing so that the noise turned in his throat like a mouse he might have suddenly confronted on the stairs. It was proving too easy, too damnably easy. Mat might remain in everybody's eye the permanent and same Good Watson but his soul was sinking through the mire of their filthy private conversation toward the central ice.

lynx!

There's no longer any power in those legs and arms or he would throw me out, Furber thought. He's in to his knees already.

horse loris

civet seal

And the Reverend Jethro Furber, guide for the tour, master of the steeple, spokesman for the dead (they have an eye in me, he'd often said), was going too. Would the ground groan like a rotten plank and send him straight to hell? Or would he go down slowly (bitter foolish image) like a proud ship?

ox fox lynx

pig lion jackal

ass giraffe

gir-affe!

His soul scaly… furfuraceous scalp…

To regain possession of himself, Furber began moving violently about, flapping his arms.

Everything above us… love us. Bat.

Mat was bending over, coughing.

That painted paper body — coughing. Frog in your throat? a mouse in mine.

What in the world, was all Mat finally said — something like that.

Yes, yes, you might well say so, Furber said, darting up to him. So I say myself. You may laugh, but so I say myself. You see I emphasize the idiotic in it all, the superstitious — the insane, you could call it if you liked. Go that far. Observe that I don't avoid it. I emphasize it. I insist on it.

Mat nodded heavily.

Scalps at his belt by the dangling dozens … furry midriff… a kind of pubicle possession, Pike… soul straps… ghost clouts…

Yet this is the substance of their fears.

Mat mumbling nonnys… Go on — chew your knarry knuckle up.

ass asp, fox!

Quite so. No doubt. But have you seen anything unusual, anything to give them rise, some yeast?

Omensetter's not the same as everybody… he's different—

Of course he is. Of course.

Furber smiled in celebration.

ass asp fox — snake!

berarzzz ox!

He's most unusual, our noisy friend, quite different — hair, nose, teeth — quite striking, quite remarkable. Ah well, he's a huge enjoyer. Have you ever seen him eat? He's quite original, as you say — unique. And most strange, too. His comings and goings. Quite unaccountable. His attitudes — queer. His step, had you noticed? is not that of an ordinary man. And so you have seen something then. I knew you had. Naturally. In the course of work, you would. Together so much. Close and close and close about, eh? Then these fears I speak of — they're not without foundation wholly?

They are unholy.

Oh ex-cellent. Good. Very good.

Furber mimed applause.

lizz-ard

Fret fret fret, Furber thought, delighted; there were mice in the cloud of his mane.

ox fox lynx snake

catamount and swan

A clever witticism, he said, chuckling. All around Omensetter, like a monstrous halo, the unholy burns.

antelope and swam

centipede and swan

Watson lurched toward Furber, threateningly.

Why do you turn everything… Look — Omensetter's fine. He's okay. I like him. His work's good—

His work—

His work, sure. For god's sake, let him be. Make up other mysteries. Look — ah god-look, I've been listening a long tune. I'm played out. What have you got against him? What did he ever do to you? He's a simple enough fellow and better than most of us.

Ah, that—

What did he ever do to you? What have you got against him? He's a bit better and a bit luckier, maybe, than most of us—

Yes, Matthew, the point—

So what's the matter? Where's the problem? And me too, for all of that. What have you got against me? What did I ever do to you? I've had a long day. I'm tired. I've been listening a lot. Furber, I've been a long time listening. I'm worn out and I'm sick about Henry. I'm hungry and I want something to eat. There. That's all there is.

Growing near, the smooth-nosed, bristle-crowded moon of Matthew's face, its lines of weariness and worry, its by george bright green eyes… what? smaragdine… small yellow in them too? pressing themselves upon him, pressing him back. May you guttle brittle glass, you galligaskins. Guzzle oil or acid, all kinds of iridescent poisons. Yes, you're like your sweet peculiar friend, that fatling Faunus, except about the eyes, and then the nose… lord, lord, let's see… the nose — the nose is—

Furber nodded, waving Watson off.

You're tired. That's it. You're tired, or you'd see better. Tired feet make tired eyes.

Furber was getting tall again. He backed and the forge light flew against the ceiling.

His work, now — there's his pay, for instance—

His pay?

How can you afford him, Matthew? What do you pay him?

Is that what you want to know? what I pay? is that why you've come here?

I had no idea you had so large — so opulent — a business.

Is what I pay your business?

Ah, now, easy … because he's better, isn't he? Yes, and luckier than most, too — just as you say, so—

Shit.

So you say shit to a minister. Shit, eh?

Oh well I'm sorry. Okay. Of course I'm sorry.

You think shit's an ugly word for a man of God to hear. Doubtless you do. Still uglier for him to say. And you'd hide your own shame under it — under shit. Why? Because I asked you what you paid, you threw that word at me. Well Luther could shout shit, if he was a mind to…. Shit! So can I. As you hear. I can say it. Shit…. Oh I'm acquainted with the major product of our days, Matthew, what we principally manufacture, what we spool out — stand to pool and sit to stool is what they say, don't they? — our—

All right, okay. I'm sorry — but I'm tired, like I said, you know — worried. It slipped.

That's the way it goes….

No offense unless offended;

my cruelish words for love intended,

were with hate intensely blended…

ha ha

ha ha …

an error pharmaceutical's

an easy one to make.

Well now. And you're tired. Worried. Of course…

A careless tear is soonest mended,

so if you'd wound your fond intended,

mortal blows are recommended…

ha ha

ha ha

an error gymnosophical's

an easy one to make.

Well. And you're the only one who thinks of Henry. I never do. Just you. Your friends. I'm out, well out. There's none of that concern in me. In you. Your friends…. Well now what foolishness, Matthew. Sorry to have to say so, but — foolishness. I think of no one else. That's why I'm here. That's why I ask my foolish questions. What do you take me for, I wonder? A peck of foolishness, I suppose. Well don't take conceit from your weariness, please don't take pride. No — no — I mean what I say, and so I mean to say it…. You take me lightly. All of you take me lightly. All these years. You. Your friends… God! — to be taken lightly. . Am I a gossip, eh? an old shawled lady? Does the rocker move my blood? Sorry to say — more foolishness, Matthew. A peck of foolishness. No. I've said I'll have my say, and so I shall…. I'm merely meddlesome, that's what you and your friends think. I know. No. I will not listen now. Oh no…. You've been out hunting Henry all day — that's where everybody's been — all day — out hunting Henry. It's been an effort of the community like a barn raising or a quilting party or a husking bee. Dear god — what am I going to do with you? And I held you all at ears' length once like so many hares. Well where have you looked? along the river? there's mud on your shoes. In another contingent, then — with Chamlay? — well hip hip hooray — with Knox, too, on his right arm handy like a coil of rope — oh I know, I know — and it was meadows for you, was it? or woods? Dear god — it's futile for me to preach. And to think, once — speech…. You never thought to search a single spirit, turn out a single skin, to bring a lung, a bowel, a heart, to view. But I'm a meddler, not the master of this church — one of the ladies, regular in attendance, not so strong as I once was and now strenuous in hearing — only that. And if I tell you someone's swallowed Henry like a hungry animal, like a wild beast, why I'm just preaching, making up my mysteries, and the beast is an image I've drawn in the air. No — I will not listen anymore…. And while you hunted, did you swap stories, by any chance? Did you rest a bit on a warm stone, say, and speak of the old times, and of Henry, and his foolish life and his foolish ways? There was the pleasure of companionship, the walk over the old shooting trails, the air, these late fall days, so moderate, sweet how often did you chuckle? There — you see? I hope so. I devoutly hope so. My god what must I do to make you see? A slap on the back at parting — the friendly sting of a friendly hand. "Tomorrow, Mat, tomorrow, we'll try again tomorrow." Sure. Better luck tomorrow. It was fun. It was like catching fish. It was like hunting deer. No — you're right. I'll forget it. I wasn't even there. How could I know?…. Already I've forgotten — as I promised. But you should remember that my heart's large too, that it contains my people — my whole congregation… my dear people. You.

Coals in his eyes… in his face, a scoopful, the speakbacker. Fair? What does he know of- Speak back. You're just a jocose cusser, ain't you? Joe the josser. Quite a jouker. My life for a knife. .

Fair is mostly made of air. You know that little poem? Fffair…. Well. No matter… Have you inspected Mrs. Pimber's fruit cellar, Matthew? I expect you'll find him there, heels up, in a stone jar — preserved. Oh yes. Positively Egyptian. Or perhaps she put him up in parts, year after year, as pieces broke off. Who knows how many of each? Easy — mind now — take it easy. Don't misunderstand. We've had enough of that. But it's important that you see them: quarts of feet and fingers over there-a new batch, the caps are clean and shiny — then jams of liver and kidney jellies, brains and lungs like cauliflowers floating halfway up their jars, eyebuds bleached like little onions or, if bloodshot, like baby beets — oh no, I hold my hands up to you — you've got to take the tour, why, it's instructive — brains, did I say? — well such a store: glands and tongues and teeth like white corn, pearly ear lobes and lips in soft pink sauce, crocks of pickled pricks- So, Matthew, now it's your turn to flinch. That's not a word a minister should use. Brother Jethro should not say prick; he should not say peter either, or even think… Well, to the shaded ladies, Matthew, and dishonest men, I shade my words, but we needn't fear. We've been burned so many times, you and I, our hide's tanned now, dark as my suit and tough as Omensetter's leather… So I'm unfair? It's mostly air but I don't care. You don't know that little poem? But I'm unfair? Unjust, unfair — good god no—precise. Exact as plain geometry. Please remember that I always speak in figure, Matthew, through emblem and design, you understand. They enlarge my voice like cupped hands. Once, in Cleveland, I called such purity in speaking, such precision and force of phrase, the measure of spiritual space, the algebra of the inward life. No use to do that here. I'm never so grand now, though I've my plans. But for christ's sake, face up, you know how she is. How often did she geld him, I mean? So many times — so many jars. Or did she want him differently unable? There, in her memory — don't you see it? — like a storing cellar, snapped off as they grew… all that growing life.

Though the watched pot wouldn't — now there was a bubble — something stirring, the woolly mammoth moving, his face eclipsing queerly.

You follow me?

Nudgewinkbump, as crude as, nearly. Bim. Am I making myself out? The christmas cookie. Making it clearly? Soon I shall. Have patience though patience is painful. Bam. Winken and Blinken and Nod one night crawled under their underclothes. Bum. Please have patience. Wrathfully bitten christmas cookie, curving according to the mouth. And he bulks bigly still. Ape. Like what did he say I talk? like what? Cock-a-doodle-do? An owl, a cat, a kangaroo? He doesn't understand my anger, my exasperation.

Such phrases as: bottled body fluids — they mean nothing to you? Ah well, you're hard.

My dame has lost her shoes. I see a balloon in the day sky — God's plae face. Smiling. Which comes from going about unlaced. Cinderella's was of glass, a glass slipper. None of them was nicely fitted. Glass lets you know.

Shall I explicate the figure for you, Matthew, as I might a holy parable?

My master's lost his fiddling stick and what's my dame to do? Pour the pebbles out. Face of truth. On fatty Ruth. No withy smithy, not he. A gloomy Goliath. Let's go out Daviding. Whom can we dap into dim death, do you think, with our stoning?

Well. As I say-his-wait-Henry's pulsing stalk — hold up now — Monday through Sunday-contain yourself, let me explain — she — Lucy — snipped as often as it showed itself—as often, as often—no, no, easy, wait, d it, wait I say, be easy! — then she boiled the snippings, when she had enough, bound in upright bunches — wait a moment please, one more moment… like asparagus in their canning glasses — you're making me shout! — to cool and shelve and count them later, contemplate and ponder — you wouldn't wouldn't jostle—

Shoved, pushed, well-touched. . jesus. . bumped, banged, bimmied by god, brushed… christ… so, struck, struck… you don't touch the minister…

Your action's clear enough. You don't relish the explanation though it was important to me to complete it. There's no anger in you, Matthew, except your anger against me. Hardly fair, if fair's up.

I shall pee you like rain on a window. I shall dissolve, disperse…The Lord shall bless my labor. I shall shit you like shavings… I shall spread, disperse… The Lord shall bless my labor.

Here are all the jars for June. His favorite time. Wonderful crop. We had a lot of rain. How thick and straight they are; how sweetly shaped; put up so well, if I may praise myself as openly as bees do, their bravery still swells in them — oh I know — christ — all right. For you I shall desist. I'm done. Still I make a splendid—all right! Disgusting if you think so. Unjust if you like. But intolerabilius nihil est quam femina dives… Not so near! I have a horror… ah, god. I'm cold… Well then what's strange about him, Matthew? I come back to our sheep; that should please you. What is it? Mind, it's not for me to say…

Thank god he's turning away. Thank god.

It's not for either one of us to judge its meaning.

Owl am I? no, kangaroo he said. Well. Did he? He's still stuttering… Through his back now I can hardly hear the grunting. Not fox. Not likely. Py-thon. Squeeeeeze. Speech? Eh? What?

Then Furber feared he might dissolve in giggles. Mat was folding up, his pleats were touching: kiss me on the eyes before they close, good-bye, sweet love, I had my hand at hunting in my time and read the dung of moose — pathfinder, man of double-barreled gun. Furber touched Mat's arm.

There, there, he said soothingly, just let me be the judge.

Thunder under the mountain… Owl ox.

Hush.

Furber put his hands over his ears. He rocked back on his heels. Quick quick quick the sand the softening sand the bursting board the bog of dreams.

He knows the future, Matthew, admit that.

Fanfaronade… goose coot.

Hush.

Furber shook his head.

It's plain and clear, he said. Omensetter's knowledge, not Omensetter's luck.

Listen for a minute just this once—

gibbon hare!

I am listening, Matthew.

Look — if you, Chamlay, or Olus Knox, or I, or anyone like that — someone, say, with kids, all girls maybe like Olus has, and like Olus wanting a boy to bear his name on—

Vanity.

Well anyway suppose Knox was expecting another—

His wife's past that.

drill bull

gull snipe

It doesn't matter, does it? Just suppose, can't you?

Sup-po-sit-ion. . mule, rail.

He's waiting for the kid to come, thinking this time it must be a boy, it just must be a boy, and then he talks and talks and talks about it, he talks to each of us about it, all the time talking and talking to us, and to himself, too, of course, and lie listens to the women going on about those signs the way they do sometimes, and to the men, too, who are interested in calves, the way Knox is himself, in colts and calves, and then he starts looking for them because he's so concerned, like I said, so full of the desire to see them, and because he wants to see them, why — he does; and then he thinks, it's true, a boy is coming down to me, a boy is coming out of her, and this goes on, you know, like people do go on, and soon he's just as sure as if he'd crawled inside like Edna Hoxie said she could and looked.

So Edna Hoxie said that.

If Knox went on that way—

Disagreeable woman.

We — we wouldn't think twice about it, I mean if his luck held out and he got the boy he wanted.

Laughter carried Furber off, flushing his cheeks and bringing tears to his eyes. He drew a handkerchief from his coat and covered his face.

No, he said in a muffled voice, because it's — because it's Olus Knox we — wouldn't — but…

Furber threw up a supplicating hand and withdrew the handkerchief momentarily from his face.

Be — because it's that fellow O-O-ah…

The handkerchief flew back and Furber folded sharply over, shuddering.

Because it's that — that fellow — oh — we do — and — that's the hoe — whole of it, Matthew — you couldn't have put it better.

Unclasped and straight again, he filled his lungs and dabbed at his eyes. Watson's body settled slowly. Hadn't it moved? Blinking, he restored the face and its embarrassment — or was it bewilderment? or anger? or surprise? Who knew? A little simple annoyance? no more? Mat was drifting toward the back of the shop out of sight.

Well I'm warm now, Furber said, still gasping a bit. If I laughed like that — if — as often as Omensetter does, why — hoo — it would kill me, like as not. He's sick, you say?

… his daw said.

Which?

Whaa?

Which daughter?

…ohlderan.

Who?

… older…

Yes, What's her name?

Name?

Yes. Did you ever hear him say?

The baby's name is Amos.

I know. Amos. Interesting. But the others? The girls'?

No. I don't know the girls'.

It isn't that you've forgotten?

No. I don't believe I ever knew.

Matthew.

What's—

They don't have any. They haven't any names. They are without names. Doesn't that strike you as strange?

Oh I guess they have names.

What names?

Well I don't know what names.

They haven't any names. Ask him.

I'll ask him.

When will you see him?

When he's feeling better. When he's well.

You won't go out to see him?

He'll be back when he's better.

You won't go out to see him?

I might. I don't know.

Have you ever been out to see him?

No, not yet.

Not yet? The dog has a name, had you noticed?

The dog does?

Arthur.

Oh. Yes. I guess I knew that.

When you go, ask him.

I will. I'll ask him. It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter — not to have a name? Well you're weary, I can see that, so I'll say my leaves. But Matthew, before I go I want to make myself — I want to make my meaning — my intentions, my continuous intention — clear to you. I think you can understand and appreciate my anxiety, my very great worry, my desire to do that — to make myself a crystal in your hand. I want to be really clear, honestly clear — direct, you know. I want to be frank, plain as plain, precise — all that, you know — sincerely straight, eh? since, as you're aware, your aid and, dare I say? — esteem — weigh in the balance. I fear, from what I've said, from what I've had to say you've made me say it — most of it — you have, you have — well, I'm afraid that you may think that I believe — hah — all Tahiti mean — oh, about the signs: the looking glass, the large feet, the soft dark skin, the sporting hair, the moist eyes… dear me no, believe me, trust me — no; that's to believe in witchery — imagine — witchery — late in our old century — when there is no such thing as witchery, is there? — any longer? no — and it's insulting to God — a sin, I should say, Matthew-it's a sin to believe such a thing. Yet people — good heavens — a year's turn does not change them any, a decade's ending does not change them any, twentyfive, fifty, the use of a hundred or a thousand years — noth-ing — the same — time does not change them any, and they — well — just as one might expect, they will worship anything that sparkles, take fright at any shadow, sin out of witlessness and love of pleasure, from shame of sloth start into violence against the innocent — oh there's no end — no need to tell you that — no end, no end. So finally you may have your dinner. My apologies for that. A long day. Funny that we know Amos, Arthur, Lucy, Backett—

Brr-ackett.

Oh? Brackett?

Yes.

Really? Well. I'm happy to know. A thing like that. What, by the way, did his daughter say he was sick of?

She didn't say. Or I don't remember.

She didn't say. That must be it. Your friend, after all. If she had said, you would remember. Too bad. At a time when all hands — except mine, I fancy — were badly needed, eh? unfortunate moment for it. Well illness will. You'd think she might have said. Friend and employer. How did she put it?

… don't remember… upset.

She was upset? Why? Did it seem serious?

No — I–I was upset.

Oh? So you didn't ask.

She didn't say. Not serious.

But not upset herself? Childlike? Gay?

No — not — perhaps, a bit… natural.

At having to lie?

What?

That.

You're crazy—

We're where we began. You should go out. To see him. Friendly interest. I'm quite sane. And in the future—watch.

Furber gathered his collar together across his neck and stepped out into the street. A din.

Do not judge me harshly, Matthew, he said. I work as I can for God.

Shivering, Furber presumed a breeze. A large pale smiling moon.

gull pelican coot kite

Mind, Matthew, he said, turning toward the doorway and Watson's form looming in it, if you notice anything, remember it. The yeast, you know. But don't worry about me. I'm sound.

loris lemur

He struck his chest. Godhead. Balloon. Yeast can be killed.

sparrow, sparrow

He went to tiptoe, releasing his collar, about to continue, when Watson drew the doors in with a squeal and hid himself behind them.

a lion cheetah goose, the cat stork jackal plover

toucan giraffe, bat newt fox

finch lynx that skink

cow hog ass ox

4

Here the ladies and the gentlemen were, bumping through the door, lining up in. his study. Such brazen cheek. Standing in rows — Furber had difficulty, now, remembering who'd been the spokesman or even if there'd been one since like rubber dolls they'd all squeaked — requesting — nod-bobbing — but not exactly begging, not at all respectful — squeezing in his study — nerve, nerve, nerve — they said, while folding elbow into elbow — ah, the brass — that they required from him a more moderate tone.

Here the ladies were and there the gentlemen, very stiff and embarrassed, entering. They nodded vaguely, smiled wanly, looked elsewhere. The ladies first and then the gentlemen — all catty-cornered. Fast old friends, they scarcely knew one another. They ought to be ashamed, it was shameful work, a shameful business, yet they warmed to it — never a great deal — yet they warmed, they warmed enough. A more moderate tone. They were Greeks, were they? these? this stingy beaked crowd? Dorcases maybe. More like. Well this is an honor, ladies. Sorry I can't ask you to be seated. Quite a pleasure, gentlemen, indeed.

The recollection shattered him. He swirled in his room like a storm of snow, striking the wall without feeling. For the Christmas season, for the joyous time, it was their desire that he should put on flesh and a red coat, cry ho ho ho from the pulpit. There would be snow for Christmas and the light sound of bells, and caroleers would gather at the comers of hospitable houses. How he'd had to struggle to hide his surprise and his dismay. For the birthday of the Christ, these words were in their mouths, these words-now. Wet, red, howling, He arrives in the world. We are ready, oh mewling King, they say, for tables of food and newly molded candles and finely burning fires, for red wool stockings and sweet wine and burned beer.

Jesus — may You remember, though so small a God, Your giant father through this time.

The words popped from their rounded cheeks like halfeaten figs while their small eyes roved up and down searching for something unwashed on his person, their jaws revolving slowly on the sounds of moderation Furber turned to hisses in his own mouth now, and their fat moist palms gesturing at their ears to hear no evil, begging him to protect the young at least for the joyous season, season of their Redeemer, their dear Saviour, their sweet Lord. Well it was not his Redeemer; it was not his Saviour or his Lord. He bit his hand in helplessness and anger. Had his ministry been to swine and cattle; had it been to dogs and horses, goats and sheep? Now it seemed it had — or worse — was still to people: to Missus Valient Hatstat, rings glittering across her knuckles, her throat roped with clicking beads; and to Missus Rosa Knox, her flesh straining to be peeked, her cheeks dimpled, hair in knots; and to Missus Gladys Chamlay, parrot-eyed, head cocked, a purple birth smear sloping down her neck; and to Miss Samantha Tott, the doggerel muse — what did her children sing?

Miss Samantha Tott

if she were straightened out

would be found to possess

beneath her dress

as long a crack

as the Erie track

… anyhow, a lover of the Psalms; and to all those others, with their husbands or their brothers, invisible, behind them, making cautious music for the joyous season, for the season of the Lord's delivery — augh! I shall be sick, Furber thought, I'll vomit in a moment, I surely shall — or I shall weep.

His ministry. Out the window the Ohio crept between the trees and a pale sun softened the snow beneath them. He could, he thought, have preached in Cleveland to a congregation from brick houses — to beautiful women on wealth and evil. The rich will pay to have their souls revealed. He could have had tea in the great houses; drank tea poured from sculptured silver pots to porcelain cups as light as flowers. There would have been cloths of linen and plates of cakes and tiny sandwiches arranged in tiers. He would have sat by the window in a deep chair with laughter and wit like a light around him though he was dressed in his deep gown of disaster. There would be silk falling from full bosoms, silk shimmering in the firelight and reflected in the windowpane, and his eyes would fill with the white arms and bare shoulders of women and his nostrils with the delicate fragrances of their powders and perfumes as they fluttered near him whispering. Thirty boys would compose his choir, each richly arrayed. Stained glass would color all the lights and the air would be fused with singing. Well-robed acolytes would serve him as he raised the silver chalice to his lips and blessed its scented wine. Stately they would bear before him down the aisle the cross of burnished silver with Christ wrought beautifully upon it at the moment of His cry. Worshipers when they entered would display the reverent knee and when he mounted to the pulpit he'd lift his eyes and see the dust-filled traceries of light just beneath the dome while his hands ran on rich woods like olive, teak, and ebony. At each step the voices of the choir would rise and swell until he turned, left hand lightly on the massive book, right hand high toward heaven, when they would marvelously burst to silence.

Intercourse, he could have shouted in that silence — adultery. Piss even? Yes. Piss too. He could have cried piss at the steeple and been applauded during tea. Nevertheless there'd be no use, no sense to it. That's what they payed for, the rich in their rich houses with those deep pile carpets and the drapes of velvet he so vividly imagined. Titillation. The wealthy ladies would come from church excited and while they slept beside their obese husbands dream of the hard distended penis of their coachman hung with jewelry. In the privacy of thought and through the secrecy of image, they would enjoy each sin his preaching had suggested. They would wallow safely in the worst sensations; conceive the most obscene devices; place him, their preacher, in vulgar postures; ravish him on ornate altars or on the floors of pews; urge upon him the caresses of small boys, naked under choir gowns, still moist and warm from baths.

Furber stretched, yawning and rising on his toes. Once these had been his secret fancies too. In former times. In good old bygone days. He remembered rolling on the floor, wrapped in them, in pain, in ecstasy. He'd fled them here and so his ministry was here, here in the wilderness of conscience; this sodden dorp and river midden where he preached each week from a teepee as the Reverend Andrew Pike had doubtless done, shaking a crucifix like a tomahawk, stamping his feet, and in every appropriate way playing missionary to the forsaken and savage Gileans. Let bygones be. No use. He'd fled his childhood here, all those flowers and sweet honey, his fears, the evil smell of ink, the shriek of print… no use. The wealthy women he was presently imagining would love as much exhibiting their naked souls as their naked bodies, and Furber was aware that he himself as often in his dreams found a naked soul to be a naked body that he took them now together in one glance. For terror you looked to the teeth. Rage lay in the muscles of the legs and arms, hypocrisy weighed on the lids of the eyes, while other dishonesties rang around the pupils like shoes thrown true to the stake.

The ladies egged him on; in Eve's name, they dared him; so he made love with discreet verbs and light nouns, delicate conjunctions. They begged; they defied him to define… define everything. They could not be scandalized — impossible, they said. Indecent prepositions such as in, on, up, merely made them smile, and the roundest exclamation broke upon them like a bubble's kiss, a butterfly's. Smooth and creamy adjectives enabled them to lick their lips upon the crudest story. How charmingly you speak, Reverend Furber, how much you've seen of this wicked world, and how alive you are to it, they said. And with Mrs. Kinsman he had gotten to a point where, by speaking indirectly, he could… well. . say anything. The missionaries, madame, when they reached this remote and isolated place, found the natives given over entirely to the most horrible indecencies, utterly sunk in them… They ran about naked for one thing. It was quite a task, let me tell you, to win them for Christ. They practiced the most elaborate ritual competitions which they pretended were also highly magical and religious. A man, to reach the inner councils of the king and be a priest, during the moon's dark quarter, had to bring a maiden honestly and safely on through seven tourneys undertaken over seven nights until she felt the seven separate excitements, heights, and swooning conclusions that were considered customary; these blissful moments to be accomplished on a consecrated canvas dais under smoking public lights, and the ravishing fulfillments come to in each of the seven now celebrated ceremonial ways which the earliest tribal sages, no doubt divinely guided, had somehow hit on and in moving rhymes then movingly indited: that is, by posture, speech, eyes, hands, tongue, feet, and finally uninserted member; thus leaving her as much a maiden at the end as she had been in the beginning. When you know further, madame, that the virgin in the contest was always the same — an angular, man-hating hag — alas, completely incorruptible — and that she had been performing in the round arena forty years already when the mission beached its boats upon the island, you will understand no ordinary cozy clip or buss or prance or greasy squeeze could move her. Truly, in that country, the priesthood was a peerless calling, and guaranteed the king should always be advised by the noblest, best and wisest men the little nation could command. As I've said, it was quite a task to win them for Christ, but praise the Lord and the strength of the Faith, for it was done. Here's how: it occurred immediately to one of the mission, a strapping young cleric named Frederick, that if the Christians could only come up with a champion of their own, one who had outdoughtied all others, they should then have a man near the ear of the king who could claim his skill and vigor from his baptism. Conversion would follow hard upon. To achieve this extraordinary end, young Frederick had a plan. This is how he put it into play… And then she had offered up that knee, frightfully scarred, and he had gone so far as to touch it. A kiss upon that spot, a healing kiss, and he could have marched along her thigh to bliss — such as bliss is. These words of his — for her they were only the prelude to Lohengrin, but for him they were the thing, the actual opera, itself. It was just like a woman to want the performance.

Yet he was like them, the rich ones not the real ones, he, the Reverend — with darkness for his dress. In the theater of his head, in the privacy of Philly Furber's Fancy FotoCabinet — what thrilling horrors were enacted, what lascivious scenes encranked. Come to the skull show, honey. Gets no babies out of it, just fun… fun thin as tish-ee paper, and all rumply crumply.

The difference as it lies these days, professor, between the Christians and the early Greeks? Christians soap their balls, I think — correct, my boy, quite right — whereas the pagans, it is my opinion, always olive-oiled their penises. Yes, lad, yes, and the reason for that is, you see, that in our modern world, we, with wider horizons, steamships, copra, chemistry… There was a time, I believe, when a Christian didn't dare to wash downstairs for fear he'd find some pleasure in it. He didn't care to, either, I suspect. His sort was not disposed to water. They drew their substance mostly from the baser, denser, massier elements, and one brief wade and gentle sprinkle was enough for them. Go on, go on, that's shrewd; though Gibbon said it, still it's shrewd. Well all danger of pleasure's past, there's no risk now. The Christians, too, always imitating Jews, though always poorly I'm afraid, though they were always Jews, these Christians were, though fallen I fear, have lately cut the ends of their cocks off with consecrated scissors. I should like to put it to the class, sir: what Greek would countenance disfigurement like that, and encourage such a loss of feeling in a fellow? Only that damn Jew, Antisthenes, perhaps. Certainly not Socrates — with his ambidextrous bat and balls. You'll go far, Furby. You've a head, child. All the lines on those amphora would go wrong, sir — how they'd uglify. Amphorae—all the lines on those amphorae — don't forget one subject while reciting on another. Besides that, Master Furber, uglify is a barbaric and ugly word. Besides that there's nothing in Robertson or Hume or Gibbon on this subject, Master Furber, watch your step. The penis in repose, professor, with that little hat of skin, why it's a lovely childlike thing, and each man's gentle babyhood is in it. Nor Voltaire, Macaulay, or Carlyle. Please get on. Nor Michelet. But continue. Nor any of the Germans. I remember reading how on one amphora a satyr is depicted balancing, what? — a cup? bowl? plate? one of these, at any rate, upon the point of his prick. Where are your authorities? Prescott? Parkman? dumb. It's not in Renan, surely? Aren't you forgetting Tacitus is silent, Cornelius Nepos equally, and Thucydides likewise? Xenophon notes nothing, nothing. Even Herodotus, or gossips like Plutarch and the Plinys… I'd pay a thousand drachmas to see a trick like that, and sell my soul a thousand times not to feel ashamed attempting it myself.

Oh he was like them, like those laced-up ladies — warm from words. A man, he still chewed the nipple, titillation, and risked no freer, deeper draught. Fearless in speech, he was cowardly in all else… ah, to be rich, luxuriant, episcopal… well, he'd conquered that by flight. Yet to spread simplicity more deeply than cosmetic…. These steaming images, Mrs. Kinsman, these strange wants, we must fight them off. You've been given back to maidenhood. Do not despair. Jerome rejoices — he who praised marriage because it made more virgins — good Jerome, his dog, his lion. The injury to your husband was a gracious act of God.

His first announcement had said that the Reverend Jethro Furber would preach on Godless Ways, a customary theme, and surely disappointing. He thought that considering the circumstances most would think something more pointed was proper, and he knew everyone entertained a picture of Lucy Pimber's disarranged and dirty clothes. Certainly they would hope that he would preach upon that picture; define the character of the disaster; say, in short, what ailed the present time; warn, as pastors had of old, with a trumpet. Godless ways were numberless, and even though his congregation knew his rhetoric could skirt the nature of each sin so skillfully that selfsame skirt was flung above the head and chaste discretion tumbled, how much easier it was to follow the outline of general woes when colored by your neighbor's troubles, and how much easier to take to heart the lessons of man's universal flaws, his little mischiefs, if they were enlivened with local examples and the recital of Gilean names.

Well he'd not fail them, he would name a name, but they would have to wait, for it was in the mind of the Reverend Jethro Furber to preach a series, and the thought of its simple form filled him with radiant power. His outward movements were in contrast stiff and short like shafts and pistons that run in rapid jerks from steam. His ends and surfaces trembled continually; his tongue darted from his mouth and slid its length to disappear; his dark curly hair seemed tightened into knots and forced flat against his head. Indeed his appearance might have given alarm had he not kept entirely to his study, repulsing every effort to communicate, including those of Jefferson Flack who brought the Reverend Furber's supper and left it by his lunch.

The Reverend Furber's designing figure was a slowly circling hawk, its orbits tightening until with shut-up wings, it dropped. Only the quietness was out of place. In his plan there was no quietness. Rather he would make them like the windings of hell, noisy with flame. He had in mind to preach a series, each one a wind of hell, a circle of the hawk, a coil of snake. He paced the room, his body rocking, shouting at God. Always, too, he fought to keep that one bright image out: he standing, she beside. He fought it furiously. He damned the meadow grass that seemed to lie along his cheek all night and the stream that ran like music through him, his voice growing hoarse, lost in his composing, yet always fighting the cool sweet air, the devilish calm, the loosening that followed him. On his shoulder, sometimes, these sensations seemed. Up his sleeves he found he must pursue them, through his clothing, underarms — air like the first of spring, infinitely promising. Then he would shout, writhing, his hands hunting them like crawling things, clawing through his clothes, striking at space, pounding against his ears until he thought the drums would break. All this until he was exhausted and he fell in pillows, hiding his face. Up again his arm described a circle. He floated out, alight behind his glowing eyes, the hawk, predatory of mice.

He searched eagerly for his texts, reading each one he thought suitable aloud in a voice that shook with emotion. He was silent afterward listening to himself. Then with angry mutters he always shuffled on. When he finally bent the corner of a page and shut the book, it was suddenly, without a reading or a silence after, like the hawk's wings come together. He stacked the Bible in the cupboard with several others that despite their excellent condition were deemed by Reverend Furber to have their potency exhausted. They were only fit to serve as prizes for good behavior and dutiful attendance, now, for feats of memory and recital as Miss Samantha, in each case, decided. He was constantly renewing his supply of power. Some demands dispelled it quickly, and he'd seen, in his trouble with the texts, that this one was running down.

He had in stock, especially for the series, one of splendid size and paper, of multicolored type and softest leather. He reached in the cabinet and touched the top. There, he thought, was force and eloquence; he could feel it swelling against the cover.

He was troubled, however, by the immanence of his success. He met it everywhere. It was in the air like the smell of apples — troubling, sweet. Every day of Henry's disappearance was a day of rejoicing, and as the year drifted slowly toward its winter, Jethro Furber sped to his triumph. Yet his visions had increased — in vividness, in number, in the shamelessness of their delights. He rolled in pubic hair and woke with semen sliding down his leg. Sin and sin and sin again. He knew the names. But no name damned this clean and innocent relief. It seemed, God help him, like the action of successful prayer, the momentary prevenience of grace.

For some time the ferocity of his sermons had increased. He was leading them up… up. And he was winning. He knew this to be true despite their disappointment at the general, abstract tenor of his remarks at first, despite their uneasiness at his heat, their mystification, too, since the pitch of his language was steep. So that when the delegates of moderation broke upon his privacy, they broke his confidence and peace. Could he trust his judgment? trust his eyes? for he'd been certain they were fattening on his words. The sense of his success rose from them like a warm wind from a field, bending the hairs in his nose. Had he only felt his own pulsebeat? God — more moderate — a more moderate tone… Were they frightened? then of what? of the truth — was that it? should that affright them, a simple bugaboo? well for what cause? or worse — were they merely afraid of what he might say, the embarrassment of it, caught in the pews, with no page to thumb for response?

And events, too, with a kind of fatality, had fallen in his favor. Pushed against his will toward Lucy Pimber — who could have imagined the extent of his triumph there? Then summoning all his powers, like an ancient Celtic lord, a German chief, an heroic Greek, he had struck down Watson, driving the light from his eyes so that he toppled into darkness and his bones clattered about him. Henry, moreover, had cleverly escaped the combing net. One could only conclude that everything was changing in favor of Furber, everything was moving to the tune of his wishes, everything was changing… What was it he heard? trumpets? tambourines and timbrels? church chimes? balustrades of bells?

Success, the tide turned once again, that's what he sensed, and no mistake. Just as he'd won them in the past by turning out his pockets on the stage, he'd win them again with a great performance — a series of them — an extended run — triumph topping triumph. Bright posters posted over town… bells and banners… ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling dong. He'd give them Christmas by god; he'd fill their stockings for them; and turn Omensetter into candle tallow.

Well this is an honor, ladies. Quite a pleasure, gentlemen. Can you all fit in?

Why were they whining then?… whining, damn them, whining…

Because they'd have to give up their hope of living like an animal and return to an honest, conscious, human life. The prospect was hard.