Faithful and Virtuous Night Read online

  and if it was not done, it was not

  essential.

  I was on my balcony.

  In my right hand I held a glass of Scotch

  in which two ice cubes were melting.

  Silence had entered me.

  It was like the night, and my memories—they were like stars

  in that they were fixed, though of course

  if one could see as do the astronomers

  one would see they are unending fires, like the fires of hell.

  I set my glass on the iron railing.

  Below, the river sparkled. As I said,

  everything glittered—the stars, the bridge lights, the important

  illumined buildings that seemed to stop at the river

  then resume again, man’s work

  interrupted by nature. From time to time I saw

  the evening pleasure boats; because the night was warm,

  they were still full.

  This was the great excursion of my childhood.

  The short train ride culminating in a gala tea by the river,

  then what my aunt called our promenade,

  then the boat itself that cruised back and forth over the dark water—

  The coins in my aunt’s hand passed into the hand of the captain.

  I was handed my ticket, each time a fresh number.

  Then the boat entered the current.

  I held my brother’s hand.

  We watched the monuments succeeding one another

  always in the same order

  so that we moved into the future

  while experiencing perpetual recurrences.

  The boat traveled up the river and then back again.

  It moved through time and then

  through a reversal of time, though our direction

  was forward always, the prow continuously

  breaking a path in the water.

  It was like a religious ceremony

  in which the congregation stood

  awaiting, beholding,

  and that was the entire point, the beholding.

  The city drifted by,

  half on the right side, half on the left.

  See how beautiful the city is,

  my aunt would say to us. Because

  it was lit up, I expect. Or perhaps because

  someone had said so in the printed booklet.

  Afterward we took the last train.

  I often slept, even my brother slept.

  We were country children, unused to these intensities.

  You boys are spent, my aunt said,

  as though our whole childhood had about it

  an exhausted quality.

  Outside the train, the owl was calling.

  How tired we were when we reached home.

  I went to bed with my socks on.

  The night was very dark.

  The moon rose.

  I saw my aunt’s hand gripping the railing.

  In great excitement, clapping and cheering,

  the others climbed onto the upper deck

  to watch the land disappear into the ocean—

  THE SWORD IN THE STONE

  My analyst looked up briefly.

  Naturally I couldn’t see him

  but I had learned, in our years together,

  to intuit these movements. As usual,

  he refused to acknowledge

  whether or not I was right. My ingenuity versus

  his evasiveness: our little game.

  At such moments, I felt the analysis

  was flourishing: it seemed to bring out in me

  a sly vivaciousness I was

  inclined to repress. My analyst’s

  indifference to my performances

  was now immensely soothing. An intimacy

  had grown up between us

  like a forest around a castle.

  The blinds were closed. Vacillating

  bars of light advanced across the carpeting.

  Through a small strip above the windowsill,

  I saw the outside world.

  All this time I had the giddy sensation

  of floating above my life. Far away

  that life occurred. But was it

  still occurring: that was the question.

  Late summer: the light was fading.

  Escaped shreds flickered over the potted plants.

  The analysis was in its seventh year.

  I had begun to draw again—

  modest little sketches, occasional

  three-dimensional constructs

  modeled on functional objects—

  And yet, the analysis required

  much of my time. From what

  was this time deducted: that

  was also the question.

  I lay, watching the window,

  long intervals of silence alternating

  with somewhat listless ruminations

  and rhetorical questions—

  My analyst, I felt, was watching me.

  So, in my imagination, a mother stares at her sleeping child,

  forgiveness preceding understanding.

  Or, more likely, so my brother must have gazed at me—

  perhaps the silence between us prefigured

  this silence, in which everything that remained unspoken

  was somehow shared. It seemed a mystery.

  Then the hour was over.

  I descended as I had ascended;

  the doorman opened the door.

  The mild weather of the day had held.

  Above the shops, striped awnings had unfurled

  protecting the fruit.

  Restaurants, shops, kiosks

  with late newspapers and cigarettes.

  The insides grew brighter

  as the outside grew darker.

  Perhaps the drugs were working?

  At some point, the streetlights came on.

  I felt, suddenly, a sense of cameras beginning to turn;

  I was aware of movement around me, my fellow beings

  driven by a mindless fetish for action—

  How deeply I resisted this!

  It seemed to me shallow and false, or perhaps

  partial and false—

  Whereas truth—well, truth as I saw it

  was expressed as stillness.

  I walked awhile, staring into the windows of the galleries—

  my friends had become famous.

  I could hear the river in the background,

  from which came the smell of oblivion

  interlaced with potted herbs from the restaurants—

  I had arranged to join an old acquaintance for dinner.

  There he was at our accustomed table;

  the wine was poured; he was engaged with the waiter,

  discussing the lamb.

  As usual, a small argument erupted over dinner, ostensibly

  concerning aesthetics. It was allowed to pass.

  Outside, the bridge glittered.

  Cars rushed back and forth, the river

  glittered back, imitating the bridge. Nature

  reflecting art: something to that effect.

  My friend found the image potent.

  He was a writer. His many novels, at the time,

  were much praised. One was much like another.

  And yet his complacency disguised suffering

  as perhaps my suffering disguised complacency.

  We had known each other many years.

  Once again, I had accused him of laziness.

  Once again, he flung the word back—

  He raised his glass and turned it upside-down.

  This is your purity, he said,

  this is your perfectionism—

  The glass was empty; it left no mark on the tablecloth.

  The wine had gone to my head.

  I walked home slowly, brooding, a little drunk.

  The wine had gone to my head, or was it

  the night itself
, the sweetness at the end of summer?

  It is the critics, he said,

  the critics have the ideas. We artists

  (he included me)—we artists

  are just children at our games.

  FORBIDDEN MUSIC

  After the orchestra had been playing for some time, and had passed the andante, the scherzo, the poco adagio, and the first flautist had put his head on the stand because he would not be needed until tomorrow, there came a passage that was called the forbidden music because it could not, the composer specified, be played. And still it must exist and be passed over, an interval at the discretion of the conductor. But tonight, the conductor decides, it must be played—he has a hunger to make his name. The flautist wakes with a start. Something has happened to his ears, something he has never felt before. His sleep is over. Where am I now, he thinks. And then he repeated it, like an old man lying on the floor instead of in his bed. Where am I now?

  THE OPEN WINDOW

  An elderly writer had formed the habit of writing the words THE END on a piece of paper before he began his stories, after which he would gather a stack of pages, typically thin in winter when the daylight was brief, and comparatively dense in summer when his thought became again loose and associative, expansive like the thought of a young man. Regardless of their number, he would place these blank pages over the last, thus obscuring it. Only then would the story come to him, chaste and refined in winter, more free in summer. By these means he had become an acknowledged master.

  He worked by preference in a room without clocks, trusting the light to tell him when the day was finished. In summer, he liked the window open. How then, in summer, did the winter wind enter the room? You are right, he cried out to the wind, this is what I have lacked, this decisiveness and abruptness, this surprise—O, if I could do this I would be a god! And he lay on the cold floor of the study watching the wind stirring the pages, mixing the written and unwritten, the end among them.

  THE MELANCHOLY ASSISTANT

  I had an assistant, but he was melancholy,

  so melancholy it interfered with his duties.

  He was to open my letters, which were few,

  and answer those that required answers,

  leaving a space at the bottom for my signature.

  And under my signature, his own initials,

  in which formality, at the outset, he took great pride.

  When the phone rang, he was to say

  his employer was at the moment occupied,

  and offer to convey a message.

  After several months, he came to me.

  Master, he said (which was his name for me),

  I have become useless to you; you must turn me out.

  And I saw that he had packed his bags

  and was prepared to go, though it was night

  and the snow was falling. My heart went out to him.

  Well, I said, if you cannot perform these few duties,

  what can you do? And he pointed to his eyes,

  which were full of tears. I can weep, he said.

  Then you must weep for me, I told him,

  as Christ wept for mankind.

  Still he was hesitant.

  Your life is enviable, he said;

  what must I think of when I cry?

  And I told him of the emptiness of my days,

  and of time, which was running out,

  and of the meaninglessness of my achievement,

  and as I spoke I had the odd sensation

  of once more feeling something

  for another human being—

  He stood completely still.

  I had lit a small fire in the fireplace;

  I remember hearing the contented murmurs of the dying logs—

  Master, he said, you have given

  meaning to my suffering.

  It was a strange moment.

  The whole exchange seemed both deeply fraudulent

  and profoundly true, as though such words as emptiness and meaninglessness

  had stimulated some remembered emotion

  which now attached itself to this occasion and person.

  His face was radiant. His tears glinted

  red and gold in the firelight.

  Then he was gone.

  Outside the snow was falling,

  the landscape changing into a series

  of bland generalizations

  marked here and there with enigmatic

  shapes where the snow had drifted.

  The street was white, the various trees were white—

  Changes of the surface, but is that not really

  all we ever see?

  A FORESHORTENED JOURNEY

  I found the stairs somewhat more difficult than I had expected and so I sat down, so to speak, in the middle of the journey. Because there was a large window opposite the railing, I was able to entertain myself with the little dramas and comedies of the street outside, though no one I knew passed by, no one, certainly, who could have assisted me. Nor were the stairs themselves in use, as far as I could see. You must get up, my lad, I told myself. Since this seemed suddenly impossible, I did the next best thing: I prepared to sleep, my head and arms on the stair above, my body crouched below. Sometime after this, a little girl appeared at the top of the staircase, holding the hand of an elderly woman. Grandmother, cried the little girl, there is a dead man on the staircase! We must let him sleep, said the grandmother. We must walk quietly by. He is at that point in life at which neither returning to the beginning nor advancing to the end seems bearable; therefore, he has decided to stop, here, in the midst of things, though this makes him an obstacle to others, such as ourselves. But we must not give up hope; in my own life, she continued, there was such a time, though that was long ago. And here, she let her granddaughter walk in front of her so they could pass me without disturbing me.

  I would have liked to hear the whole of her story, since she seemed, as she passed by, a vigorous woman, ready to take pleasure in life, and at the same time forthright, without illusions. But soon their voices faded into whispers, or they were far away. Will we see him when we return, the child murmured. He will be long gone by then, said her grandmother, he will have finished climbing up or down, as the case may be. Then I will say goodbye now, said the little girl. And she knelt below me, chanting a prayer I recognized as the Hebrew prayer for the dead. Sir, she whispered, my grandmother tells me you are not dead, but I thought perhaps this would soothe you in your terrors, and I will not be here to sing it at the right time.

  When you hear this again, she said, perhaps the words will be less intimidating, if you remember how you first heard them, in the voice of a little girl.

  APPROACH OF THE HORIZON

  One morning I awoke unable to move my right arm.

  I had, periodically, suffered from considerable

  pain on that side, in my painting arm,

  but in this instance there was no pain.

  Indeed, there was no feeling.

  My doctor arrived within the hour.

  There was immediately the question of other doctors,

  various tests, procedures—

  I sent the doctor away

  and instead hired the secretary who transcribes these notes,

  whose skills, I am assured, are adequate to my needs.

  He sits beside the bed with his head down,

  possibly to avoid being described.

  So we begin. There is a sense

  of gaiety in the air,

  as though birds were singing.

  Through the open window come gusts of sweet scented air.

  My birthday (I remember) is fast approaching.

  Perhaps the two great moments will collide

  and I will see my selves meet, coming and going—

  Of course, much of my original self

  is already dead, so a ghost would be forced

  to embrace a mutilation.

  The sky, alas, is still far away,
r />   not really visible from the bed.

  It exists now as a remote hypothesis,

  a place of freedom utterly unconstrained by reality.

  I find myself imagining the triumphs of old age,

  immaculate, visionary drawings

  made with my left hand—

  “left,” also, as “remaining.”

  The window is closed. Silence again, multiplied.

  And in my right arm, all feeling departed.

  As when the stewardess announces the conclusion

  of the audio portion of one’s in-flight service.

  Feeling has departed—it occurs to me

  this would make a fine headstone.

  But I was wrong to suggest

  this has occurred before.

  In fact, I have been hounded by feeling;

  it is the gift of expression

  that has so often failed me.

  Failed me, tormented me, virtually all my life.

  The secretary lifts his head,

  filled with the abstract deference

  the approach of death inspires.

  It cannot help, really, but be thrilling,

  this emerging of shape from chaos.

  A machine, I see, has been installed by my bed

  to inform my visitors

  of my progress toward the horizon.

  My own gaze keeps drifting toward it,

  the unstable line gently

  ascending, descending,

  like a human voice in a lullaby.

  And then the voice grows still.

  At which point my soul will have merged

  with the infinite, which is represented

  by a straight line,

  like a minus sign.

  I have no heirs

  in the sense that I have nothing of substance

  to leave behind.

  Possibly time will revise this disappointment.

  Those who know me well will find no news here;

  I sympathize. Those to whom

  I am bound by affection

  will forgive, I hope, the distortions

  compelled by the occasion.

  I will be brief. This concludes,

  as the stewardess says,

  our short flight.

  And all the persons one will never know

  crowd into the aisle, and all are funneled

  into the terminal.

  THE WHITE SERIES

  One day continuously followed another.

  Winter passed. The Christmas lights came down

  together with the shabby stars

  strung across the various shopping streets.

  Flower carts appeared on the wet pavements,

  the metal pails filled with quince and anemones.

  The end came and went.

  Or should I say, at intervals the end approached;