And how strange [it was] to be [so] exposed, so visible! At her age! [During the course of her long life,] she continually shed her coquettish vestures although she continued to make them the butt of her jokes. Even now, with her wrinkles, her involuntary whistles, her sudden outbursts, her habit of praying, and her occasional lapses of memory, she’s managed to retain her peculiar style.
How long it took to impose it on the others! Almost as long as it took her to adopt it herself. An ugly old crone who became well known for her wit and wisdom. What seminal moments in her life [or her biography] vindicate this reputation? None. They were foisted on her all at once, as if she’d lived her whole life in a daze until, one day, when she was ugly and old, she awoke and found herself famous for being witty and sage.
Lie. She’d been ugly from birth, and only became intelligent long afterwards. Ugly as sin. As she discovered when she looked in the mirror and saw her distorted features and lamented the fact they were immutable as stone, and afterwards, sought the intervention of these animistic powers that now beleaguer her, imploring them to make her literary hobby a cosmetic and prosthetic veil — to make a covenant, a pact with her: that they allow her, at least in part, to be someone else, to be their half-sister (they didn’t have a sister, but she suspected there would be a temporary easement of parental divisions). Her ugliness had moreover two aspects, one distinctive, the other alarming: together, they aroused sympathy in no one except herself. It wasn’t the consecratory effect of the whole that made others recoil, but a meticulous examination of each part. For example, her eyes, her nose and her mouth had each been considered ugly per se: one had to get used to seeing them in combination to appreciate the coherency of the whole.
So it was perfectly understandable why the animals approached her, [then and now,] curious about something that wasn’t very different from themselves. Unseen, timid, ignorant … without a theory!
Another of the friendly, filthy zoomorphs had landed on her left shoulder, biting her [corresponding] ear. It didn’t hurt very much: a mere pinching sensation incident to the mechanics of mastication. A sensation that bordered on pleasure, an act that seemed to solicit from her a [reciprocation] reciprocating gesture. Something she was unaware of because of her age—78 years — as she was of many things except the things she already knew. Her vast knowledge of Balkan literature, for example, brought her great renown. But, in compensation, Annick Bérrichon knew nothing about Malagasy fauna. In compensation, indeed, because, in that ultimate or penultimate hour, all her experiences seemed to vanish, evanesce before all those snouts and muzzles, the beaks and claws surrounding her — the sudden intervention of a gifted imagination, or the chance effect of light on the surrounding scenery. What a pity! Otherwise, she’d have known the imperfectly penitent occupant of her sinister shoulder was actually an aye-aye.
Atrius Umber (pseudonym of Belisario Tregua), “The Dreadmist.”
“The Dreadmist”
And Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.
Exodus XX, 21
God was, and Annick Bérrichon also was. They weren’t speaking. Madame Scardinelli was searching in the dark for those diurnal creatures that a long night’s digestion had caused her to imagine. Madame Obstreperous had learned to cross herself far from the mirror. She did so that no one but God would notice. And the preponderant maki on Annick Bérrichon’s left shoulder, which unlike the owl that hung upside down, could not see the future, but both cried in unison: “We can’t get out.”
Side discussion with Cornelius Sacrapant (Wynthrope-Smyth)
— I could hear them on your shoulder — said Cornelius Sacrapant — although it just struck me that they speak with great authority about something they know little about.
— You mean about the mysteries of the sects and French songwriters? — I asked.
— No, no, about English Literature.
— Do you think you know more than we are ignorant of?
— The question isn’t well phrased. You are ignorant of far more things than I happen to know. Don’t take it the wrong way: You ignore without knowing you do so.
— Then please give me an example.
— If I take yours and your Argentine friend’s taste for naturalism seriously, I’d have to point out the fact that, of all the practitioners of the genre, you omit the only names that are actually worth mentioning — said Sacrapant [smugly, pointedly].
— I don’t believe we mentioned any names, but how about … — so I ventured — Ford Madox Hueffer, also known as Ford Madox Ford?
— Nonsense — dismissed Sacrapant—. That’s [logically] the one name I’d expect one of you to say. An outstanding exponent of international modernism, his reputation’s been challenged a thousand times over, but he never seems to go away. A kind of walrus carcass, long since emptied of its innards, which the ingenious hidalgos of cultural journalism float to the surface every now and then. So eminent is he, that they suppose him — not that I’m changing the subject here — the “discoverer” of D. H. Lawrence. (You can imagine that “discovering” Lorenzaccio wasn’t the most difficult thing in the world, true?) No, not Ford Madox Hueffer, nor his cognate.
— Then who? — I asked in mock reverence to conceal my dudgeon.
— Hubert Crackanthorpe, for example, a matrilineal ancestor of mine, or George Egerton. I know erudition is misleading in every language, and the sea in every language is deaf, but have you heard or read anything about them?
Without saying a word, I admitted no. But [I must say in my defense that] the gesture of admitting denial isn’t an easy [simple] one.
— Well, I won’t be too hard on you; after all, your cases aren’t exactly unique. Many things were obliterated in the Great War [as, for example, proper instruction on methods of reproach], but I have to find at least one book on which I can speak with the same authority.
— What about this Terry Eagleton fellow? Do you think you’ll be able to get a copy of his book in Cambridge?
— Eagleton is just plain Terry, whom I sure you’ve already met. Egerton, like the other George — Eliot, Mary Evans, as you’ll recall — is a lady: Mrs. Golding Bright. As in my case, remember the dash [between the two surnames].
— I see, I see … — I said, nodding.
— As regards your Argentine friend’s favorite subject, the metrical arrangement of Spenser’s Mutability Cantos, it wouldn’t hurt to consult T. S. Omond …