— Oh, stuff Henry James. Hannah commenced, and coughed. Otto had lit another cigarette. He turned upon her seriously unattractive face as though to accuse her of having made it so on purpose.
— Of course, when Vainiger says… he began, but she turned and set off toward a plate of crackers.
— Are you a painter? Stanley asked Otto.
— Me? Oh no, I just, I'm a writer, a playwright, I just finished a play.
— I thought from the way you talked maybe you were.
— A playwright?
— A painter.
— Well I, no, in fact I would have thought that vou. And, but w.hat does Hannah do?
— She really doesn't do so very much, Stanley admitted.
A face lowered behind them, to contribute, — Hannah knows The Sound and the Fury by heart.
— The sound and the fury? Otto turned.
— The Sound and the Fury. Faulkner's novel, haven't you ever read it?
— Of course I've read it, Otto said without an instant's hesitation.
— Hannah knows it by heart.
— She paints some, Stanley said in a vindicatory tone.
— Paints! Did you see the abstract she did for the Army Air Force? the face persisted. — For a psychological test, they used it to pick out the queers, if you were queer the painting didn't look like anything, if you weren't it looked like a snatch.
— A what?
— What's the matter, you queer?
— She painted still lifes, Stanley interposed helpfully.
— It took her so long the fruit got rotten.
— But Cezanne.
— Now she paints landscapes but she has to put telephone poles in all of them to get perspective. Linear perspective.
— How does she get on without working?
— She says work is death.
— People give her money?
— Work is death. She's too strong to ask for charity. When she really needs something, that's different, we all helped her when she got her front teeth knocked out. The ones she has now are made of cellophane. She washes and does all her laundry in a subway ladies' washroom.
— She's very. she has such integrity of purpose, Stanley said weakly.
— Purpose? Otto repeated. — What purpose.
— Just. purpose, Stanley said looking after their nameless companion. — I ought to leave, he added, shifting nervously, gazing toward that full-blown flower whose fey petals curled and yellowed round its white spore-bearing carpel, Agnes Deigh. She was reciting a limerick about Titian which ended, — climbed up the ladder and had 'er, to rhyme with rose madder.
— What is she, anyhow? Otto asked as they drifted in that direction.
— An agent, a literary agent, Stanley answered under his breath, and they arrived to fill a gap in the trouser-seat curtain around her. There was a silent moment: Agnes Deign and Otto compared sun tans. Then she said, — I'm collecting members for Art for Labor and Democracy. It's a party.
— A party? someone from another cluster turned to ask.
— A political party, darling, she said, and he retired.
— I have no political interests, Otto said to her.
— But you don't have to do anything. You just give me two dollars, that pays your dues and they have another member.
— But why join if I'm not going to do anything?
— They need members. They just want your name, darling.
— I'm sorry, I'm afraid I really couldn't afford it.
— Two dollars?
— That isn't what I meant. But Agnes Deigh was talking to someone else. Otto retired, to recover composure with an eyebrow raised on nothing.
The funeral spray was on the floor; and in the sunless garden round it the flowers wilted one way and another, toward each other and away. There was music, briefly. A girl's voice counterfeited by the phonograph sang, "I sold my heart to the junkman. " until the needle broke and the song was lost in a whirr and momentary dimming of the electric light. A healthy baritone voice from a girl with a tubercularly collapsed chest said, — But it isn't really a good novel at all, the only perceptive chapter is where the boy discovers he's queer.
One, with an unconscionably persistent smile, his coat too long and trousers too short, was detailing the plot of his as-yet-unfinished novel, — slightly reminiscent of Djuna Barnes perhaps. A man is told that his girl is a lesbian, so he makes himself up as a girl and goes to a party where she'll be. He makes advances to her, she accepts, and he throws off his disguise and rapes her. The voice of Agnes Deigh rose, — But darling, you don't have to do anything.
Time, essential for growth, seemed to have forgotten the place, abandoned this garden which had never seen the sun, neither known the songs nor the fertilizing droppings of birds; still there might be worms, and one would hesitate to pry under to prove that there were not. In spite of not being tall, Otto looked loftily over the dusty scene, as he had upon the simmering market in the Central American port two weeks before. Here, as there, he poured disdainfully casual and acrid tobacco smoke over the traders, stood with one foot extended, an eyebrow raised. Occasionally he flicked at the ends of his new mustache, or affected difficulty with his sling. No one had mentioned either.
In spite of the fact that the couch was out of sight, he set off toward it, suddenly remembering the perennial hunt; and by now he had had enough to drink to encourage him toward the woman sought after in vain, die Frau nach der man sich sehnt (as Gordon called her in Act III). So he knew the eyes that looked beyond and did not acknowledge him, the hands which offered but protected, and these were the places one was forced to seek her in New York, no matter the shadows, the choking air, this Ewig-Weibliche, the Eternal Helen. Then he suddenly heard Jesse Franks's voice saying, — She looks like some friggin madonna, and, no more realizing the wonder in that remark than the man who had spoken it, shut it out.
— I haven't seen you for months, said someone beside him. They shook hands.
— I've been in Central America, said Otto, brandishing the sling.
— Were you? I didn't know it.
Otto recognized him: the young man who wore his coat too long and trousers too short. The unconscionable smile, Otto remembered unpleasantly, not a smile to make one feel cheerful in its presence and persistence. Rather its intimation was that the wearer knew all of the dismal secrets of some evil jungle whence he had just come, a place of surreptitious traffic in fetid sweetish air where the fruits hung rotten on the trees. — How do you like my painting? This, of course, was Max.
— The colors are good, said Otto warily to his host. The smile was not cold, but its very attempt to show itself open and honest revealed disarming calculation. It was a smile that had encouraged many to devote confidences, which gaining the cold air of outdoors they regretted, and mistrusted him accordingly. He dealt largely in facts, knowing for instance that most Hawaiian grass skirts are made in Switzerland, that Scottish Border ballads originated in the Pacific islands, that Scotch tartans are made in Switzerland, British army swords in Germany. It was for these moments that Otto wanted to carry a gun, not to flourish, certainly not to fire, simply to feel it heavily protective under his arm. — Did it take you long? he asked.
— Thinking it out was the main thing, said Max.
— It always is. I've just finished a play and.
— Do you know Ed Feasley? He was at Harvard too, said Max, who had studied locally.
— Hello, said Ed. — Chrahst we were in the same class. You know, I called you up a couple of months ago. I looked you up in the phone book when I came to New York and called. I got some man. He seemed to know you, but he didn't know where you were.
— That must have been my father, Otto said. There was the sound of collision across the room, as Anselm went down.