My dear friends I would like to tell you that although this is the house of god you need not only think of it as a house of images it is not only a collection of images and objects and simulacra it is a place of friendship here you can speak to a friend of that which is nearest and dearest to your heart lay down your burdens before embodied kindness I am your friend the voice dies down behind me dies away here are the fields and the trees there with sunlight on their bark and leaves and the stone wall beside the road here under the tree I am sitting in the grass on a little knoll and looking into a green wood and in the secret grass what is this a thimble a crushed thimble Bertha’s thimble and also the rouge compact but I open it and there is no rouge in it no powder only three old corroded pennies and I walk with them to the corner of the park opposite the tall apartment house where the Negress is standing watching me by the door it is Clara the cook does she know what I am coming for yes she knows and is watching me Bertha has told her to watch me
Good morning Mister Cather
I am not coming in I am going down there where the children are playing in the meadow beside the marsh picking flowers the little boy and the little girl picking flowers spring flowers too wild columbine and crowfoot violet look children there is another flower over there do you see it in the marsh how is it you have forgotten to get that one too it is an orchid you can see it is some kind of green-and-white speckled tall orchid perhaps it wasn’t there a moment ago but now it is there you can see it but can you reach it or is there too much water in the marsh yes it is very wet but wait by the wall don’t go back to the city yet and it is I who will nobly go to the edge of the marsh stepping now on the spongy moss the water bubbles my hand out body stooping can I reach it yes the rare orchid for the two strange children
the shape of my left foot made of hollows built like a crystal a bone of slow dark crystals off there too curving downward as if a pain of accretions items but this is a walk I am walking this is Harvard Street Arrow Street Bow Street the College Yard and there is Fred walking ahead of me turns his head a package under his arm looks away from me the buildings have changed moved away where is Gore Hall the path strange too yellow sand no trees but a wideness
Widener
Are you going to the poolroom
pays no attention goes to the left walks ahead of me looking back is on wheels in a little car cart an old Ford is it Rodman saying the Spanish Grammar has been read and is a deep sleep yes a deep sleep I am rolling a large hoop ribbons tied round the rim he watches me it leans always to one side the wind blowing the ribbons it careens why
Why don’t you hit it on the other side keep it straight and here is the Fair will you go round or through it if you go through it you may lose your hoop and once we played Ping-pong in Concord Avenue or was it Shepard and the Fair here
Good-by I am going in I will get through diagonally the narrow crowded path of children drums horns the squealing merry-go-round calliope steam spouting an inclosure of wire a long alley for Ping-pong the Japanese hits the ball to the other end of the wire enclosure look it explodes when the other hits it it opens becomes a go-cart rolling quickly back to us on wheels with a child in it no a doll a puppet nodding and another ball hit another explosion flash bang a little balloon going up diagonally then I am turning to the right and cross the street something my foot lifting the two feet together hopping see I am walking slowly queerly like an animal what animal is it a penguin can I get across doing it without being hit by that car yes it is all right and Shepard Hall there but changed redder brighter smaller and a restaurant in the hall no letter boxes what has happened but I was living here where is the janitor where is Mister O’Connor where is Jack a strange janitor with a mop on the wet marble floor this is now a dormitory for students
Can you tell me Jack’s address
No he is gone perhaps I could find it
Send it to Widener
Yes
obras obras obras that book is out Mister Gather for another week but here is the key with the large wooden handle and on the handle is Jack’s address Waxage Street somewhere in Somerville carved on the handle and his name too carved the last thing he did before he went away Uncle David is of course dead Uncle Tom has gone off for the day not back in time the house he lives in now too far away take a Belmont bus walk through Craigie Street and find the house with open walls go upstairs Aunt Norah is very old and small bending down to the floor her white head wants to go downstairs you will have to carry her how small light white she is as I go down the carpeted stairs her arm is round my neck
I am your child now
the saucy face impish smiles detachedly looks at me indifferently wide-eyed like an infant at the breast but on my shoulder the small head I have been kind am being kind will give her a conch shell a house by the sea in that village leave her here and call Bertha
Bertha Berty
lifting from the dark the open suitcase the nightgown holding it up laughing but it is spotted dirty a large spot he is laughing can’t be helped you don’t mind do you what can I say nothing say nothing but turn away sadly in the hotel room no it’s all right perfectly all right but sad I am going up the hill on the grass behind juniper trees birches the road dusty she is coming up the other side yes there she is look it is who is it not Berty no Molly no a girl with red hair comes through the oak trees beautiful loves me puts out her hand kisses me we are kissing become one face floating in air with wings one fused face with wings Turner sunset and this and this and this and this and this WINGbeat and WINGbeat where whirled and well where whirled and well where whirled and well—
To come upward from the dark world, through the mild shafts of light, as a swimmer in long and curved periphery from a dive; from the whirled and atomic or the swift and sparkling through the slower and more sleekly globed; effortless, but with a drag at the heels of consciousness — to float upward, not perpendicularly, but at an angle, arms at sides, turning slightly on one’s axis, like a Blake angel, through the long pale transverse of light — with the sounds, too, the bell-sounds, the widening rings of impalpable but deep meaning, as if someone far off with spheral mouth said, Time — and the goldfish mouth released its bubble, and closed, and then again opened to say, Time — to come upward thus slowly revolving, thus slowly twisting, the eye scarcely opened and almost indifferent to light, but opening more widely as the light with obscure and delicate changes teased at the eyelid, teased at the sleepy curiosity — and the textures too, the warm or soft, the wrinkled or knotted, those that caressed whitely and obliquely, and those also that withdrew, or focussed slowly in a single sharp point and pressed — to float upward like this, from plane to plane, sound to sound, meaning to meaning — the attitudes changing one into another as the hands shifted, the feet shifted, the breathing altered or the hearing cleared — from turbulent to troubled, from troubled to serene — but with the bell-sound nearer and nearer, as if the head were emerging into a glistening ring, and as if over the edges of this ring came the words like bubbles, at first meaningless, and then with half-meanings, and at last — not with meanings precisely but with gleams, as of fins that turned away in a flash and vanished—