Standing under the bare bulb, facing Valentine, he started to speak, but all he said was, — She. .
— Yes, or your mother?
— Yes. My mother, he admitted in a whisper, looking back at the picture on the soiled gesso, his face drawn up in lines of confusion as though he had just remembered.
— Yes, is it? Valentine muttered. — The Visitation, then? He laughed. — A Stabat Mater? No. No more, thank you. Suppose. . like Nicodemus I come down here? Yes, the Pharisee Nicodemus in Saint John, that. . least reliable of the gospels? "Except a man be born again"? Yes, verily, ". . Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?" Valentine coughed and cleared his throat. He'd snatched up his coat before he seemed aware of the clouding of anxiety which had risen in the eyes fixed on his sudden movements, an expression near a wince drawing up the face, and the figure seated unbalanced on a high stool, retreated there from avoiding him with the alert caution of a shadow, the crumpled shoulders sunk unevenly and still. Nonetheless Valentine pulled on his coat, but slowed, and his voice recovered its sharp ease. — You want to get on with this work, don't you. But we might go up together sometime, and have a look at that Eden? The snake there, he laughed, gripping his lapels and lifted his overcoat into shape at the front. — The snake of consciousness? And there she is, Eve, the woman. The same woman, personalizing everything. Good Christians, good targets for advertising, because they personalize everything. A deodorant or a crucifix, they take it and make it part of them. He picked up his hat, dropping his voice to an irritating monotone. — What was it, in Ecclesiastes? God hath made man upright, but the women have sought out many inventions. .?
— Wait. .
— Eh? — Do you think. . here, do you want some more brandy?
— I'll get along, I don't want to keep you, Valentine said, in his voice a tone of cordial deference; and back a step, something rolled away from his foot, and he stooped to retrieve it. — Rose madder? he read from the label.
— Oh that, it's nothing. Rose madder, it's too late.
— Too late? Valentine looked up pretending surprise at the eager distress in the voice, and the unsteady hand where he surrendered the packet.
— I got it for a Bouts, the first Dierick Bouts, but these colors, . madder lake wasn't used until the sixteenth century. And Bouts was dead. Dierick Bouts, he… he was dead. Wait. . listen, do you think something might go wrong?
— Go wrong?
— If I try to tell them, about these pictures?
— Have it your own way, Valentine shrugged. — If you think you can do it alone.
— But the proof? even with that?
— You're sure they're safe? Valentine's lips drew to a thin smile.
— Well, wait then. Wait. If you. .
— I? If I could help you?
— Yes, these fragments. .
— Bring them along, then, if you like. We'll work this thing out. Basil Valentine put on his hat; and his eyes, gone hard under the black brim, were drawn over the wrinkled shoulder from the lined face before him to the clear face on the easel, as he added, — Bring them up to my place, then. Do you hear? There's no room for mistakes. He stood like that, staring at the picture up on the easel whose unsurprised eyes looked beyond him; and finally, murmuring, — Your mother, eh? he took his eyes from it with abrupt effort. — A Stabat Mater? Not a girl, not a woman at all.
He turned on his heel and pulled open the door. — It's going to smell strange out there, after this. . odor of sanctity? The gold seal ring shone against the edge of the open door, glittering softly in the light of the bare electric bulb, as the slow light of day entered behind him with the sound of bells. — Hear Saint Bavon's? Another blue day. I'll be waiting for you. And many thanks for the cognac.
There was not a cab in sight.
— Blood is all they know, every hour boys being killed, an airplane just crashed and who was surprised, forty-one people killed, though there is some hope that the stewardess, who survived, will be able to tell police, because it is all there in the newspapers that anyone can read. .
What was it?
Stanley sat down. Across from him a woman stared into his face, lips moving, fingers moving on her beads. He clutched the chisel in his pocket, the first time in years he had been on the subway, as though overcome with the necessity to dive down into darkness and not emerge until he reached home. He was not shivering from the cold, though it was cold in the subway. He was still buttoning his shirt. What was it she had cried to him when he asked her to kneel beside him, beside the bed; and then as he retreated through one door, fled toward another, escaped naked with all of his clothes in his hand, out into the hall where her voice died but the smell of her perfume followed him. He pulled his necktie's knot to his throat. The train roared into its rock firmament where lights twinkled in warning ahead of this front car and the woman's voice disappeared while her lips still moved, steaming the glass before them, and Stanley realized that he was on the wrong train, going in the wrong direction.
He looked up anxiously; as though another passenger might have made his mistake and, confirming him, prove everyone else misguided, misdirected. (It was an expression Stanley wore much of the time.) Standing across from him, gazing as though able to see through the dirty glass, a tall man stood with a handkerchief held to his nose and mouth. Gold glittered at his cuff. Then a woman of an uncertain age and massive shifting proportions trod on Stanley's foot, and swung, with grand inertia, into a white pole.
— You never see Jews drunk like that, said the person next to Stanley.
— Yehhh? the woman shouted, turning to them. The train was nearing a station. Stanley got up and went to the door where the tall man stood with his handkerchief to his face, turned, now, to the car. — Yehhh? the woman shouted, swinging round with Stanley. Both her hands were free. — Is that what you want? That's what you want is it? she cried, and as she did gripped the hem of her dress, and it became immediately apparent that it was the only garment she had on.
Stanley staggered into the tall man with the handkerchief, whose eyes had frozen in a cold blue horror, who whispered, — Good God!. .
— Here! Come and get it! Come and get it!
Then a commotion started in the other end of the car, where a shabby old man had found something: but the commotion was his, only two others got up to look; the others stared in dreadful scorn, just as these seated near Stanley stared, not at the woman, but at him and the man beside him.
— Come on, both of you, you scared. .? The train lurched, approaching a station, and her skirt sagged and dropped as she caught a pole. The doors opened, and she kept shouting after them, — Come on, come on, you. . throw a toilet seat around your heads and we'll all use it…
HE WAS WOUNDED for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: