Great Circle by Conrad Aiken

Author:Conrad Aiken [Aiken, Conrad]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Psychological, Family Life, Fiction
ISBN: 9781504011402
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 1933-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

III

—Perhaps, after all, I’d better go. I’m afraid you were busy, old man. And I think it’s stopped snowing.

—No—I don’t think it has. What about a drink.

—Well—well——

—It’ll do you good. Release the inhibitions, et cetera. Remove your consciousness from one plane to another, you know.

—Oh, yes?

—Yes.… Here.… Say when.…

—When. Thanks.… Thanks.…

—And come to think of it, why don’t you spend the night. You might talk it all out, between drinks. Plenty of whisky here—some Rhine wine, if you prefer—quiet as the tomb—you can sleep on the couch if you get sleepy—What do you say.

—Well, maybe—if you don’t mind—after all—good God, I feel like crying.

—Why not sit down.

—No, thanks, I’d rather stand—walk—touch things and hold on to things—do you mind if I put my hand flat on that picture of Michelangelo and feel the glass——

—Why should I?

—He, too. I wonder if he ever went as deep. Did he ever talk to a psychoanalyst and weep? Did he ever pace about a room, at midnight, with a glass in his hand, a glass that might have been his heart, and drink his own bitter blood? Christ, what am I chattering about.

—Don’t we all do it, sooner or later?

—Before I came here, half an hour ago, do you know what I was doing? I was walking in the snow, hardly knowing what I was doing. Oh, yes, I did know, too, for God’s sake let’s be honest. I was crying as I walked, and I enjoyed crying—I felt the tears at the corners of my mouth, tears mixed with melting snow, and I deliberately opened my coat and shirt, so that I could feel the snowflakes on my chest and throat. My feet were getting wet, and I didn’t care, I stepped into the puddles and slush, thinking what a good thing it would be if I got pneumonia. Isn’t it amazing how even at such a moment, when one is absolutely broken, dissolved, a mere whirlwind of unhappiness, when one walks without knowing or caring where one is going, nevertheless one still has to dramatize oneself, one sees oneself as a pitiful figure under an arc light in the snow, one lifts a deliberately tormented face to the storm, and despite the profound actuality of one’s grief, there is also something false in it too. Suddenly the snow is paper snow, one almost expects to hear an accompaniment of sob music on nicely ordered violins, or the whole world breaking into applause! Good God. Let’s laugh.

—Ha, ha. I’m laughing.

—Where is honesty then? I don’t believe we’ve got an honest fiber in our souls. We’re all colossal fakes—the more power we have, the more ingeniously and powerfully we fake. Michelangelo—what the hell. Did he ever tell the truth? Or Shakespeare? No, by God, they went lying into their graves, nothing said, their dirty little mouths twisted with deceit, their damned hearts packed full of filthy lies and blasphemies. Their whole lives wasted. One long fake, a pitiful and shameful glozing and glazing of

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