The dog growled at him. He crumpled the paper and hurled it, but it fell slowly, at the dog's feet. The dog stood up instantly and backed into the other room, which was already getting darker, though not yet as dark as the studio, where he'd sat down gripping the edge of the table, looking feverishly over the books and papers spread before him. He caught at Remigius' Demonolatria and pushed it aside, raised the cover of the Libra dell' Arte, and pushed it off to the floor, then found pen and paper, and the ink bottle already opened, and wrote, slow, and with great care and application,
Emperor
His lips moved over the letters, as the flute disappeared, the music broke, recovered, rose into collision, fell in clangor, and the dog in the other room commenced trotting in irregular circles, sniffing the air which the heat seemed to have weighed down the more heavily with lavender.
. by the power of the grand ADONAY. his lips were moving, over letters, then words,
. to appear instanter, and by ELOIM, by ARIEL, by JEHOVAM, by AQUA, TAGLA, MATHON, OARIOS, ALMOAZIN, ARIOS, MEMBROT, VARIOS, PITHONA, MAJODS, SULPHÆ, GABOTS, SALAMANDRÆ, TABOTS, GINGUA, JANNA, ETITNAMUS, ZARIATNATMIX.
He stopped and listened. Then,
A. E. A. J. A. T. M. O. A. A. M. V. P. M. S.
The music stopped, leaving the sounds of the dog's nails clicking on the wood floor. Then as abruptly that stopped, and the pen hung in his hand over the wet black letters on the paper. A movement caught the corner of his eye; he turned his head quickly, saw the arm of the phonograph raise itself, pause. He looked through the door, unable to see the black poodle. — Dog, he whispered in a hoarse tone. — Dog! Dog! Dog! No sound contested his challenge, no recognition of men imprisoned in the past for spelling the Name of God backwards, no response to God, if not the Name, reversed three times in his whisper.
He jumped to his feet, slipped against the table, spilling the ink on the papers there, and in three steps was through the door to the other room. The dog lay in the darkened foyer before the front door, facing the door and apparently at rest. — Damn you! he said. -I'll.
The dog turned to look at him, as he threw his hands out before him. — Damned. animal out of hell are you. The dog, only partially distinguishable in the darkness, got up, the hair on its shoulders bristling as he took two steps closer, and paused. They both listened to the footsteps on the lower staircase, he with his hands still in the air as though counting the steps, heavy and even, neither casual nor hurried, reaching the hallway below, the foot of the stairs, and up the stairs with no more apparent effort than one step at a time, though too soon knock knock knock
The rain, silenced by inattention, took up its beating against the glass; then the dog whined and clawed the door, movement which broke the still arrangement where every object seemed tense in suspension. He walked to the door, and as he put his hand to the latch the hand on the other side, as though responding, moved too: knock knock knock. And he drew back as though threatened.
The dog clawed the door, and when he pulled it open the dog jumped so fast that he had no chance to restrain it. But the visitor who waited in the darkness had apparently expected the attack, for he caught at the red collar and held the black poodle down.
— Hello. Hello, said that voice in the shadow, a voice at once cheerful and unpleasant. — Some kids in the street saw you bring her in here.
He opened the door more widely. — Come in, he said, in a tone which seemed to reassure him, for he repeated it. — Come in… Who are you?
The visitor extended his hand as he entered, a stubby hand mounting two diamonds set in gold on one finger. — My name is Recktall Brown.
He took the hand and said his own name in reply, distantly, as though repeating the name of an unremembered friend in effort to recall him.
Recktall Brown entered and strode to the middle of the room, looking round it through heavy glasses which diffused the pupils of his eyes into uncentered shapes. — Good thing you brought her in, he said, and waved the diamonds at the dog where it lay on the floor, licking itself. — She hates the rain. Then he turned, a strange ugliness, perhaps only because it looked that a smile would be impossible to it.
— Would you. like a drink?
— No. Not now. Not now.
— Yes, but. there, yes, sit down.
Recktall Brown dropped into a heavy armchair facing the open door of the studio. He tapped the diamonds on the arm of the chair while he continued to look around the room, his head back, his face highly colored with the redness of running up flights of stairs; yet he breathed quietly, almost imperceptibly, for his stoutness absorbed any such evidence before it reached the double-breasted surface of his chest. — I know your name. He smiled, a worse thing than the original, turning for a moment to the man who stood watching him as he poured brandy into a glass, and said, — Yes, I… I think I know your name, but in what connection.
— A publisher? A collector? A dealer? Recktall Brown sounde 1 only mildly interested. — People who don't know me, they say a lot of things about me. He laughed then, but the laughter did not leave his throat. — A lot of things. You'd think I was wicked as hell, even if what I do for them turns out good. I'm a business man.
— But. how did you know my name?
— What's your business?
— I'm a draftsman.
— And an artist? Recktall Brown was looking beyond him to the studio, and back at him as he approached and sat on the couch.
— I… do some restoring.
— I know.
— You know? He sat forward on the couch, holding the glass between his knees, and looked at his visitor and away again, as though there were some difficulty which he could not make out.
— You did some work for me.
— For you?
— A Dutch picture, a picture o£ a landscape, an old one.
— Flemish. Yes, I remember it. That painting could hang in any museum.
— It does. The hand which carried the diamonds was folded over the other before him. — You couldn't tell it had been touched. Even an expert couldn't tell, without all the chemical tests and X-rays, an expert told me that himself.
— Well, I tried, of course.
— Tried! You did a damn good job on it. He looked around the room with an air of detached curiosity, and finally asked what the funny smell was. Because the glasses obliterated any point in his glance, it was difficult to tell where he was looking, but he seemed aware that he was being watched with an expression of anxiety almost mistrust, not of him, but an eagerness to explain anything which might be misunderstood. His questioning was peremptory
— Lavender. I use it as a medium sometimes. The smell seems tc stay.
— A medium?
— To mix colors in, to paint with.
— You do a lot of work here, don't you.
— Well, I… I've been doing some of my work at home. This drafting, bridge plans.
— No. The painting, the painting, Recktall Brown said impatiently.
— Oh, this restoring, this. patching up the past I do.
— You don't paint? You don't paint pictures yourself?
— I… No.
— Why not?
— I just. don't paint.
Recktall Brown watched him wipe his perspiring forehead, and drink part of the brandy quickly. — All this work, all these books, you go to all this trouble just to patch up other people's work? How come you've never painted anything yourself?
— Well I have, I have.
— What happened, you couldn't sell them?
— Well no, but…
— Why not?
— Well people. the critics… I was young then, I was still young.