Creation by Katherine Govier

Author:Katherine Govier [GOVIER, KATHERINE]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: FIC000000, FIC019000, FIC014000, FIC041000
ISBN: 9781468303933
Publisher: Overlook
Published: 2012-07-10T04:00:00+00:00

“That the Birds must be life-sized.

The pages double elephant portfolio.”

The phrenologist stretched his arms high, letting his sleeves fall away from his wrists. His hands were large, fleshy, insistent. He first pressed the flats of his palms slowly over the whole of Audubon’s head and face. He dug the rounded ends of his fingers into Audubon’s skull. He turned and lifted Audubon’s head on his neck, describing in a toneless voice his discoveries: a flat nape, hollows behind his ears, a certain ridge across the back of his head that ran between his ears. He measured the cranium over the top, from ear tip to ear tip. All the while his fingers prodded and pushed, and in their pushing, shook with excitement. Audubon understood all too well the shaky fingers. He was the bird in the hand, snatched from its habitat. He was to be proof of a theory. As the fingers roved and probed his skull, a chill worked its way up his spine. He shivered under the white draping; he felt his captivity.

The phrenologist spoke.

“It is in fact a small head. But the muscles of the neck tell me that the man himself is tall and strong. He is a little primitive: his head slopes back quickly from the eyebrows. His forehead flows backward, rising to the height of the crown, which tells me he is unlearned, close to the animals. He is not a parlour creature, not an intellectual.”

Audubon began to feel quite separate from his head. He could see it, floating in the air ahead of him. The phrenologist took his chin in one hand, the back of his head in the other, and measured, describing a particular arc here, a nodule there.

“One is reminded of certain African mammals — the gorilla, yes? But in direct contrast to that is the aquiline nose, evidence of the high born, of a fascination with detail, or a Mediterranean antecedent. A very mixed parentage. The deep eye sockets suggest restlessness and passion. He is genial on the whole but quick tempered. Here, just here, the line, which should be smooth from temple to temple, is oddly uneven. It meanders, in fact, showing a great inconsistency of character.”

The man’s hands roamed more urgently over the territory of Audubon’s head, and seemed now to be expressing irritation with what they found. Devoted but faithless. A dangerous split in his personality … “There is one other man alive whose head has these characteristics. I am reminded now of, I am reminded of the great poet, of Byron.”

The audience gasped.

Audubon was flattered. Byron, indeed!

“BYRON,” says Bayfield. It has been said before. And now he can see why. Both men show what ordinary mortals might consider a triple insolence; they had beauty, talent, and a ferocity of spirit. It is bound to raise hackles.

“I am frightened,” says Audubon, suddenly. “Do you see? Not by Fame but by the strange coils of life. Do you know, I had been reading Byron’s Corsair on the Delos, as I approached Europe that year.

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