"Well, can't blame a girl for — fllupp! POP! — trying. It was terrif seeing you again, prof. You're really something else!" And — "Peace!" — she is gone.
"Wait — !" he whispers and, twisting round, catches just a glimpse of her tightly denimed posteriors disappearing provocatively out the door. "B-Bluebell — ? Miss — ?!" Too late. He has lost her, lost her forever! Of course, he cautions himself, turning back, shriveling once more into his terrible debilities, it's no catastrophe, insolent uncouth creature that she is, frivolous and disrespectful, no, good riddance, his final hours can be better spent without suffering yet another gum-popping American barbarian, her cockiness exceeded only by her ignorance, though she is not completely stupid, it must be said, brash, garrulous, but also fresh and winsome in her boorish way, blasphemous to be sure, impudent, a shamelessly wanton creature no doubt, but warm-hearted (he knows, he has been there), generous, compassionate, and willing to learn, yes, he could teach her, he has already changed her life, has he not, she said so, the soil is prepared, as it were, it's never too late — and think of it! a hot bath! What does he want to do, go back to that stinking boat yard? He finds he has already staggered to his feet. In the painting behind the altar, if his beclouded eyes do not deceive him, the Virgin Mary has opened her bodice to give baby Jesus and all the cherubs and angels crowding round a suck and is peering down now past her hiked skirts at Saint Sebastian, struggling in agony against his bonds beneath her but his eyes to heaven. And then (is something dripping on his face — ?! what is she doing — ?!) the holy martyr's nose begins to grow! Straight up! Oh my God! Even before the arrow in the saint's groin starts to twang obscenely, the old professor is out of his pew and scrambling stiff-kneed up the aisle. "Miss — !" he croaks. "WAIT FOR ME — !"
"What — ?! Is the old sinner going to chase after that poor bambina, that little chick in the tow with milk at her mouth still?" comes an indignant voice, quavering eerily, from behind the organ. "Is he defiling my tomb and sanctuary with thoughts of pederasty? Has the wretch no dignity? Has he no shame?"
"Beware of men who make public profession of virtue but behave like perfect scoundrels!" thunders a hollow voice above him on the left: the Bishop of Cyprus, he sees with horror, is sitting straight up, rigid and stony-eyed, blood dripping from the corners of his mouth as though he might have bit the host with his teeth. "It just goes to prove that a naughty person retains his evil character even if his outward appearance is altered!" And — crash! — he falls back onto his stone bier again.
"Let me give you some advice!" trumpets a voice from above, and others pick up the theme: "I want to give you some advice!" "Give you advice!" "Advice!" "Advice!" The entire church, as he struggles up the aisle (nothing's working right, it was his old babbo who taught him how to walk, he could use another lesson now), echoes and resounds with clamorous counseclass="underline" "Do not go for things bald-headed, woodenpate! Old codgers who, in an excess of passion, rush into affairs without precaution, rush blindly into their own destruction!" "Regrets are useless, booby, once the damage is done!"
"Stop it! Stop it!" he squawks, wheezing and snorting. He would clap his hands over his ears if he still had any ears and if he didn't need both hands for forward progress. The rose and white marble squares of the checkered floor seem to be on springs, rising and falling erratically, making him climb over some and out of others. Some drop away completely to reveal heaps of bones and moldering bishop's hats far below, forcing him to circle around, grasping pews and benches which are also on the move, sliding apart and then together again with great clashing noises like monstrous gates. "Woe to those blockheads whose minds are so beclouded by monkey business that they do not perceive the dangers that beset them!" cry the lugubrious voices, which seem to be coming from another world. Terrible odors, like hung game going off, rise up from the yawning chasms opening up in the floor. "Woe to those wicked ragamuffins who run away from their homeland! They will never do any good in this world!" "Woe to those who do not wait for their friends!" "They will repent bitterly!" "They will lose the bone of their neck!" "They will pay through the NOSE!" From the ceiling above, where Esther and her uncle Mordecai are subverting the reign of Xerxes, forestalling one massacre and launching another, come wild whinnies and a glittery blitz, as he fights his way over the undulating floor and through the crashing gates, of brightly gilded horse turds. Splat! SPLAT! they fall, bursting around him like thrown pies. "Eh, big shot! Pezzo grosso!" "Mister Nobel Laureate!" "Where do you think you are going?" Books are thrown at him from the Nuns' Choir, skulls rattle underfoot like bowling balls, arrows fly, the hanging brass lamps swing, clinking and clanking like muffled bells, the organ doors flap, the martyred saint screams in his reduplicated pain, masonry rains down, the whole church seems to be splitting and cracking and threatening him with destruction! "Eh, furfante! Vagabondo! Ragazzaccio!" Splut! Crash! Ka-pok! "Come back! Come back, you little ninny!"
As he drags himself past the font of holy water near the door, the tumult now fading behind him, the carved Christ's halo falls off and, ringing like a coin, rolls around on the stone floor in front of him. "I say, pick that up for me, would you, Pinenut old man? That's a good chap! I can't seem to move my arms." As, still on his hands and knees, he snatches at it, the hung Christ dips a bit lower and, chin at his navel, adds in a whisper: "You know, from one woodenhead to another, old boy, let me give you a little useful advice — "
"No!" he screams, staggering to his feet. "Why is everybody always trying to give me advice?!" And he flings the halo into the suddenly stilled and dusty church: it sails like a Frisbee straight to the front where, in the deep hush, it blasts away a jar of pink and yellow carnations, startling an old bespectacled nun dusting the altar. She squeaks like a mouse caught in a trap and drops her feather duster, crossing herself in terror. As he turns to flee, the talking Christ is counseling him to "calm down, let things take their own course, dear fellow, let the water run along its own slope, as we say," whereupon, as though cued, the font tips over, threatening to inundate the church — he splashes through the flood and out the door, a fresh chorus of "Let me give you some advice!" ringing in his aching head like canned laughter.
13. THE TALKING CRICKET
He's caged. As he ought to be. As Jiminy once said: You buttered your bread, now sleep in it. People passing by glance at him, stuffed there, shivering and sniveling, in the metal rubbish basket, and cast upon him weary expressions of pity mixed with undisguised loathing and contempt. They dump garbage on him, hang lost mittens on his nose. No more than he deserves. No more! Rushing baldheaded into this bizarre adventure, blind to dangers, deaf to advice, he has, just as all those madhouse voices prophesied, lost his neck bone in this one and all else besides. A lifetime of virtue, of self-conquest and in-spite-of's, an heroic career of the most rigid discipline and soberest endeavor, with all its books, honors, degrees, and endowed chairs, is no protection against the wild whims of senectitude, extremity's giddy last-minute bravado. Ah, Bluebell, Bluebell, you silly wise-cracking dumb-blonde murderess! he thinks, hruffing and hawffing and sucking up cold strangulated breaths that may well be his last. What have you done to me now?