— But very sad, Stanley said, drawing back as the clock swung in a dangerous arc, above the tabletop, and down. Someone cried, — Owwwww, as it cracked an ankle. — He's happy now because he's publishing something at last. People congratulate him, they're really laughing at him all the time because it's a vanity house, but he doesn't know that, that they're laughing at him. And his wife looks troubled and says, But publishing is expensive, isn't it, she doesn't know you're supposed to make money publishing something, she thinks any author has to pay to publish something of his own. At parties he used to go around autographing books from the bookshelves, he'd write a dedication and sign the author's name.
— That's good, Otto laughed, looking at Mr. Feddle's back which stood now stolid as a grandfather clock, only the pendulum swinging for he had just bowed and shaken hands. — It could go in a play.
— You shouldn't be cruel now, just when you've sold your play Otto.
— But even if I hadn't, Otto turned on Stanley. — Even if I hadn't…
— I envy Doctor Hodgkin. Anselm was cleaning his teeth thoughtfully with a folded match cover. — He had a disease named after him.
— What kind of disease?
— Hodgkin's disease, for Christ sake.
— A kind of cancer, said Max from behind them.
— Cancer hell. It's a kind of leukemia. If you want to know what it is, it's progressive hyperplasia of the lymphatic glands associated with anemia. Lymphadenoma.
— Where'd you hear that?
— I studied medicine, Anselm said, mumbling as he did usually when admitting to something favorable about himself; and as immediately embarrassed at so having drawn their attention, tore from his magazine "piles! Amazingly fast palliative relief. . No mess or sticky fingers!. . It's Better, Faster, Easier to use!. ." Beneath that: "GoD Wants You. . Poor health? Money troubles?… A remarkable New Way of Prayer that is helping thousands to glorious New Happiness and Joys. ." — Here Stanley, take your choice. It's all one anyhow, he said, rolling the cover closed on Can Freaks Make Love? — You know, the trouble with you, you're all mothers' sons, Max said to them. Stanley stopped stirring his coffee and looked up, Anselm turned on him, Hannah had turned away. — You and An-selm and Charles, Max smiled agreeably to Stanley. — And Otto? he added, looking at Otto who said,
— As a matter of fact, I just finished dinner with my father a little while ago.
— Otto's part of a series of an original that never existed, Max said as though he had not heard.
— What do you mean, you…
— That's what you told me yourself yesterday, didn't you? Max drew him on.
— But no, Otto rubbed his hand over his eyes. — The series didn't exist but the original existed. The original did. It had to. He sat there looking glazed-eyed for a moment, then turned to Stanley. — I just had dinner with my father, he said, as though remembering back over a great distance, or attempting to separate a distant image from one which had recently supplanted it. — For the first time, he added.
— Did you like him? Stanley asked uncertainly.
— It's a funny feeling. It was strange, sort of… I feel like I'd lost something, like… I feel like nobody sort of… Staring straight ahead of him, he rubbed his forehead, and his wrist, descending, paused to press against his ribs, where no identity interrupted his contagion with himself. — I don't know, he mumbled, licking his naked lip, and went on in a low tone to Stanley, — Look, if you had a friend, somebody you haven't seen for a long time and he… someone else takes his place, but he still… I don't know. Never mind.
— You're drunk, Anselm offered.
— That's funny, Otto persisted without looking up at Max. — To say the original never existed! Look, he went on to Stanley, — Suppose you knew somebody who used to be a friend and who. . and you found out he was, well like Mister Feddle, putting names on things that weren't his, I mean. .
— You know who I envy? Anselm broke in on them impatiently. — I envy Christ, he had a disease named after him. Hahaha, hey Stanley?
Stanley pretended not to hear. He looked up from his cold coffee and said to Otto, — But if Mister Feddle saw a copy of a play by Ibsen, if he loves The Wild Duck and wishes he had written it, he wants to be Ibsen for just that moment, and dedicate his play to someone who's been kind to him, is that lying? It isn't as bad as people doing work they have no respect for at all. Everybody has that feeling when they look at a work of art and it's right, that sudden familiarity, a sort of… recognition, as though they were creating it themselves, as though it were being created through them while they look at it or listen to it and, it shouldn't be sinful to want to have created beauty?
— Why don't you go home and read Saint Anselm before you talk like this? said Anselm sitting forward, opening his eyes which he had closed as though attempting sleep here. — "The picture, before it is made is contained in the artificer's art itself," he said. "And any such thing, existing in the art of an artificer, is nothing but a part of his understanding itself."
— Saint Anselm. Dig him, said the haggard face bobbing over the back of the booth. — What are you trying to prove?
— I'm proving the existence of God, God damn you. Saint Augustine says a man who is going to make a box has it first in his art. The box he makes isn't life, but the one that exists in his art is life. "For the artificer's soul lives, in which all these things are, before they are produced."
— Where's God? In the box?
— You dumb son of a bitch…
— What's your favorite song, Anselm?
— Nola. Now screw, will you.
— I wish I had written The Wild Duck, Stanley said.
— I'm high, man.
— On what?
— On tea. We been balling all night. Have you got any? Hey Saint Anselm, have you got any charge? The haggard face hung over the back of the booth like a separate floating entity, rolling the eyes toward Max, to say, — He's in training. To be a saint.
— I notice he doesn't eat meat, is that the reason Anselm? Max asked. — So that your body won't. .
— What God damn business is it of yours?
— Save the bones for Henry Jones. . gurgled the haggard face.
— Anselm, preaching leftovers of the bleak ruin of Judaism, Max commenced with sententious ease, — a watered-down humanism. .
— Cause Henry don't eat no meat. Hey Anselm, I got something for you.
— What are you supposed to know about religion? Anselm turned on Max.
— As Frazer says, Max explained indulgently, — the whole history of religion is a continuous attempt to reconcile old custom with new reason, to find sound theory for absurd practices. .
— And what does Saint Augustine mean when he talks about the Devil perverting the truth and imitating the sacraments? — This sacrament will go the way of all the rest of them, Max smiled. — It won't be long before they're sacrificing Christ to God as God's immortal enemy.
— Hey Anselm, listen to this, Daddy-o noster. Daddy-o, up in thy way-out pad. You are the coolest, and we dig you like too much. .
— The god killed, eaten, and resurrected, is the oldest fixture in religion, Max went on suavely. — Finally sacrificed in the form of some sacred animal which is the embodiment of the god. Finally everyone forgets, and the only sense they can make out of the sacrament is that they must be sacrificing the animal to the god because that particular animal is the god's crucial enemy, responsible for the god's death. .
— Crucial!. . Anselm spat out.
— Thy joint be right, the squares be swung. . the haggard face continued, reading from a scrap of paper.
— And what does Justin Martyr mean, when he says "the evil spirits practice mimicry"? Anselm demanded. — Crucial!. .
— Help us to score for some scoff today, and don't jump us salty if we come on like a drag, cause like we don't put down other cats when they goof. . the haggard face went on in the silence straining between Anselm and Max. — For thine is the horse, the hash, and the junk. .