—Mister Brown, sar, Mister Brown behave quite vexed which is not altogether surprisin, though I try to wahrn him Mister Brown goin to be vexed . . .
—What do you mean, you tried to warn him? Valentine demanded, his mind already in the other room. Fuller had gone on as though he had forgot to whom he was speaking, which he probably had.
—I try to wahrn him . . . he drew himself up again, faltering, —such a projeck destin to no great success . . . He paused, and then added as a revelation, —Mister Brown behavin like it is not my fortune to see him heretofore. Seem like Mister Brown incline to drink quite heavily tonight, sar . . . But Basil Valentine had already turned away, and Fuller stood immobile holding his coat, and watched him out of sight into the great room beyond.
Someone had turned the radio on; and as it warmed to the finish of the Jupiter Symphony, someone else turned it off.
The tall woman returned across the room to her husband, looking affronted. —That rather . . . oriental creature told me that there were no female sphinxes in Egypt before Greek times, imagine! Is this drink for me? Good heavens but it is hot in here. Always the same people, or they look the same to me. There! who do you suppose that flashy little dago is?
—We want a goverment that will do something for Americans, said Mr. Schmuck, to the right, —and I don’t mean the Indians.
Three men stood over the low table before the fireplace as Basil Valentine entered, fingertips suppressing, at that moment, the vein standing out at his temple. He approached them. Two of them were European, and the third was Recktall Brown.
—There is no place here for history to accumulate, said the tallest of them, taking the cigarette and pausing the lighted match as though to illuminate his synthesis, —and you call this progress.
—Good evening, Basil Valentine said as they turned to acknowledge his arrival; and while courtesies were being exchanged, he looked straight across the table.
There was something reckless about Brown’s appearance. He had had his glasses on and off a number of times, and though they were on now, slightly crooked, the pupils swimming behind those thick lenses seemed to be wary of that constant renewal, sharpened to points, each time the glasses were removed, and nervously alerted against it. He was perspiring; and the cigar he held in his mouth burnt on a bias. At that moment he noticed it, taking it from among those uneven teeth, and threw it into the fireplace behind him. He had another out very quickly, unwrapped, and stood, vaguely marsupial, delving for the penknife in a pocket of his vest.
Basil Valentine wasted no manners in getting round beside him. —What happened?
And M. Crémer politely turned his back on them, and speaking to the tall man beside him managed to continue a conversation which had not yet begun. —Mais cette peinture-là, je veux l’acheter, vous savez, mais le prix! . . . bien sûr que c’est Memlinc, alors, mais le prix qu’il demande, il est fou!
—Pas si bête . . . that one murmured, and together they crossed the room to look at a painting recently hung in the neighborhood of the vast tapestry. A lantern-jawed young man with a low forehead stared at them dumbly as they passed without a glance for him. He was quite used to being annoyed in public as a movie star. Now, hearing French, he muttered, —Fairies . . . and went for another drink.
—Him Byronic? Miss Stein demanded.
—I said moronic, said Mr. Schmuck’s assistant. —We have to keep a tank of straight oxygen on the set to sober him up . . .
—What happened, I asked you.
—Nothing. Not a damn thing happened. Not a God-damned thing, Brown threw back unsteadily.
—You’re in splendid shape this evening. Valentine stepped back, looking him over. —Splendid, he rasped.
Brown would not look round at him. Finally he did say, —He wants to buy that Memling.
—Who?
—This frog that was just here, he wants to buy it for nothing. Crazy frog.
—He is an idiot, I agree, Basil Valentine said, and supporting one elbow drew the hand up to his face, his chin lowered so that he seemed to kiss that gold seal ring, and they stood side by side, sustaining a perilous abeyance between them, and weighing the room before them in the balance.
Fuller entered, bearing glasses on a tray suspended at nose level between white hands, and altogether a harried look about him. They both watched Fuller until he arrived, without the mishap he appeared to expect, at the bar; but even when he’d set the tray down there safe, his expression did not change: it even seemed to summon itself to an exaggeration as he looked round to see them watching him from across the room, and the sounds and the movement about him fell away in the suspense of his own paralysis, an intolerable moment while they three were alone in the room, surrounded by shades, and waiting.
—Hey George, where’s the can?
Fuller turned to Miss Stein. —I will direck you to the tilet, madam, he said, and set off before her.
Like undersea flora, figures stood weaving, rooted to the floor, here and there one drifting as though caught in a cold current, sensing in a greater or a less degree what one expressed as —Something submarine, as he paddled the air before him, and went on, —Agnes should be here, this is her world. Then he touched the beard which dripped to a point at his chin with two fingers, smirked at the stolid figure across the room whose somber presence he caricatured, and whined, —Where is that black Ganymede? . . .
Fuller was sitting on a white stool in the kitchen, bolt upright pretending to read a cruise guide he had found in a street trash bin. On the floor, the dog watched him. She swallowed. He did not move. She was watching him as though to see if the intent strain on his face were for his reading or tense suspension, waiting, for a sound from her. She growled. At that, as though it were a signal of relief from restraint, he brought a hand up to hide the intent corner of his profile, and peeked at her through his fingers. Sometimes this went on for what seemed hours to them both; though tonight the surveillant might be justified: she had seen him selling the evening’s emptied liquor bottles, with their undamaged expensive labels, to a furtive shade at the service entrance.
Miss Stein returned to hear the lantern-jawed young man finishing what was apparently a familiar joke, for she laughed before it was done while the tall woman listened with polite anticipation to, —So one nurse says, And did you see he has the word swan tattooed on it? And the other nurse says (here Miss Stein burst into laughter), —That word’s Saskatchewan.
The tall woman waited politely for a moment more, then she said agreeably, —Oh . . . that’s in Canada, isn’t it? They quit laughing and stared at her. —I’d better go look after my husband, she said. And turning, she gathered her features to return in kind an expression of vaguely startled curiosity from a tall white-haired man in gray, who was turning it everywhere in the room, though apparently in conversation with the hapless creature before him, to whom he had just said,
—Eh?
—Ail séd, ouî mest keep gôing ouor semmhouer naoû olouezz azz a séfté valv it izz valyouebel, ouith provijenn it dezz not spredd.
—Good heavens yes, daresay you’re right, eh? Now if you’ll just . . .
—Semm aoutt-ovv-dthe-oué pléce houer it dezz not interfîre ouith dthe civilise oueurld.
—Good heavens yes! Excuse me, there’s a good mpphhht fellow.
—Ouonne ouor . . .
Nearby, someone overheard mention of Tuthmosis in another conversation, and going on, found it immediately useful in still another, —This is for your tomb-like little ears, she has something contagious called . . .
—Tuthmosis third, eh? Good heavens yes, remember him well, the white-haired man went on, now deep in confusion with a sharp-bearded “oriental sort of chap” as he would say when he escaped. —Probably the greatest Pharaoh of them mphht all, I daresay, eh? Had a very low forehead I remember, curious thing, eh? Looked a bit like this mphht chap here somewhere, works in pictures they tell me. Pitiful sort of mppht way to live eh? He finished and glanced up,
startled again at the sharp eyes fixed on him.
—Ah yes . . . and the child princess Ink-naton, is she perhaps familiar?
—Ink . . . mphht . . . Ikhnaton, daresay that’s who you mean, eh? Good heavens yes, very interesting chap he was, Ikhnaton. Put down the mphht what-do-you-call-ems, don’t you know. Religious reform, all that sort of thing. Good heavens yes, had them all running round worshiping the sun. All very well, that sort of thing, don’t you know, pushing out the mphht old gods, eh? But keep an eye on politics, eh? Keep an eye on politics. Not like this fellow what’s-his-name we’re talking about, building his temple out there on the edge of nowhere, eh? Spending everything he could get his hands on out there worshiping the mphht visible disc of the sun, eh? Won’t do, won’t do at all.
—This is perhaps your field of interest? Because it is mine also.
—Interest? Good heavens no, my dear chap, don’t care a damn for the whole lot of them.
—You are very well informed, nevertheless?
—Oh, pick things up, don’t you know, pick things up. Old school chum of mine, Lord mphht the devil, what the devil was his name, dug up old King Tut don’t you know, not so long ago. Tutankhamen you know, the son of this fellow mphht Ikhnaton don’t you know, who built Akhetaton out there on the edge of nowhere for his sun-worshiping, and let his politics go out the window. Go-od heavens yes, this white-haired man paused to grip his lapels and stare up with an air of recollection, —before the whole thing went to pot, don’t you know, the Nineteenth Dynasty, eh? Too much gold, that was their difficulty, gold kicking around all over the place, and vulgarity everywhere, eh? Yes, that’s what happens, that’s when the decadence sets in, eh? Same damn thing running around today from the look of things, eh? Wasn’t like this fifty years ago, eh? Good heavens no, people then who had money inherited it don’t you know, knew how to spend it. Some sense of responsibility to their culture, eh?
—Nevertheless, I hear on the radio that gold to the amount of three-hundred fifty-six thousand dollars will bring a million dollars on the black market? . . .
—The radio? . . . good heavens yes, total loss in this country, don’t you know. Turned it on meself and had some brazen idiot ask me how was the color personality of my house, eh? Who the devil puts up with all that nonsense do you spose. A pound a year we pay at home, don’t you know, a pound a year to keep the airwaves clean, you might say. Cheap enough, eh? to keep that kind of infernal rubbish out of your house.
—Of course. But now, in the field of Egyptology, have you ever encountered a gentleman by the name . . .
—Good heavens, not my field at all, don’t know you. I say, I’ve gut to get over and have a word with that chap, d’you mind? That offensive little Frenchman don’t you know.
He almost stumbled over the Argentine Trade Commissioner, who had been worrying his way about that vast room for some time, and now approached the elbow of a man whom he apparently took for a countryman.
—Con permiso, señor . . . conoce Usted el Señor Brown?
—Iført den uovervinnelige rustning . . . eh?
—Nada . . . nada, gracias . . .
Even the tapestried eyes above avoided him.
At the foot of that sylvan enterprise, M. Crémer took out a blue coarse-paper packet, offered one of the harsh cigarettes, and took it himself when it was declined. —Oui, à vendre à l’aimable, vous savez, au prix d’un retable de . . . Hubert van Eyck. They turned again to look at the painting, hands in trouser pockets bunching the jackets behind. Crémer blew a steady stream of smoke at its surface. —Memlinc, bien sûr, he murmured again. —La force, voyez vous, encore plus la . . . tendresse.
The white-haired gentleman approached, side-stepping the argument going on behind them which went something like this,
—Roughly, .00000000000000000000000006624
—Roughly! It’s nearer to .000000000000000000000000006624
—Good heavens, eh? Lots of odd ducks here this evening. Crémer straightened round to him. —Just met some wog over there who talked me ear off about mphhht lot of dead Egyptians he carts about with him. You’re buying this thing, are you? He leant over Crémer’s shoulder to look close at the painting.
—I am interested in it, Crémer answered him, and then he introduced the two. The white-haired man was identified with a London gallery of some prominence, and Crémer was careful to add an R.A. after his name.
—Odd bit of business we had here earlier, eh? the R.A. said to them. —Funny sort of chap, storming in here like that, eh?
Crémer shrugged. —There are madmen everywhere.
—And he really had a go on this, didn’t he, this Memlinc here, almost tore it from the wall, don’t you know. I was standing nearby here, almost expected him to . . . attack me, don’t you know, no reason on earth.
Crémer’s shrug still hung in his shoulders, and he emphasized it with a twitch, throwing the exact lines of his neat blue suit off, for it was a thing of careful French construction, and fit only when the figure inside it was apathetically erect, arms hung at the sides, at which choice moment the coat stood up neat and square as a box, and the trousers did not billow as they did in walking, but hung in wide envelopes with all the elegance that right angles confer, until they broke over the shoes, which they were, fortunately, almost wide enough at the bottoms, and enough too long, to cover. —I saw him only this distance across the room, you know. But these spectacles, these spectacles you know . . . Crémer waved a hand before him as though he were going to take the cigarette from between his lips. —In America they are not uncommon. And this Memlinc, you know, it is beyond a doubt. He jerked his head back, dropping the long ash on the carpet, to indicate the painting hung behind him. —I am familiar with the origin, you see . . . et surtout, vous savez . . . there is no test to which it has not been subjected.
—That mmph what that curious fellow had to say about the sky here, don’t you know, eh? Prussian blue, don’t you know. ’T’s what it is.
—Bleu de Prusse, alors. What difference?
—Mphh eighteenth-century color, don’t you know.
—Bien alors, Crémer said wearily, —the hand of a restorer, you know. It is not uncommon. He shrugged again. The R.A. had been leaning over his shoulder, and straightened up now with a glance at Crémer which, if he had given himself to rudeness, might have been one of extreme distaste. Nevertheless, he said,
—Nevertheless, don’t you know, a lovely thing, this. Ought to pick it up meself, I spose. Eh?
—I have no intention to bid against you, said Crémer, staring straight out into the room.
—Eh? Mphh . . . nothing like that, of course, I mean to say, don’t you know. Good heavens! Quite out of my reach right now. I mphht special sort of taste for these Flemish things meself. So cleean, don’t you know.
Crémer almost smiled, at that. Still looking across the room he murmured, —You should enjoy what Michel-Ange has to say about these painters, perhaps. Les tableaux flamands plaisent aux femmes, surtout aux vieilles et au très jeunes, ainsi qu’aux moines et aux religieuses . . .
—Mphh . . .
—. . . et enfin aux gens du monde qui ne sont pas susceptibles de comprendre la vraie harmonie . . .
—Mphht . . . The R.A. started to turn his back. —Eh? Don’t keep up on these things much any more. Modern mphht attitudes, don’t you know, modern art and all that sort of thing, eh? They try to say their paintings are the spirit of the times, don’t you know, but good heavens aren’t the times bad enough without having pictures of it hanging all over the place?
But M. Crémer, with the cigarette gone out and stuck like a sore on his lip, was looking across the room. —Your Monsieur Brown, you know, he is exceptional?
—Not mine, old fellow. Good heavens, not mine.
—See his feet behind the table, so small they are as he moves on them, it is a wonder he can find equilibrium. How he sways this evening. Pffft. On va faire des zigzags, eh?
Behind them, to one side
, someone said something with the precise care of a radio announcer mispronouncing something from another language.
—Excuse me, said their companion, silent all this time, to their right now as they stood facing momentary exposures of the delicately detached balance which their host had broken, and restored, and maintained again with the man beside him across the depths of that room, —I am not here early for this . . . contretemps? What happened?
And the guests drifted past on courses which left no more trace than water, glassy-eyed, with as little purpose apparent as movement undersea but, as there, interrupted by swift predatory sweeps, and darting search for cover. In striking differences of shape, and protective coloration, exotically helpless, deceptively dull, distinct varieties fed together in clusters, or tended to move separately, here and there raising wide-open eyes, and bumping the sides of the tank.
—We’re shooting Faust now, a sort of bop version, we’ve changed him to this refugee artist, and Mephistopheles is . . .
—But it’s funny seeing pictures of yourself everywheres, starin out at you eatin things and drinkin things and smokin things you never heard of . . . went on the one with no more forehead than a black bass; and in spite of the shocks of sound that broke the surface, a pelagian quiet drenched the whole place.
So the sprays at the ears of the tall woman shone like growths of some special nature, antennae perhaps, or merely lures, as she said to her husband, —You might ask him now, about that Queen Anne table? or was it a chair.
—And that . . . person over there? with the beard?
—Oh yes, carries art to the masses, women masses, you know. A pontificator in . . . Oh! Oh that one, calls himself Kuvetli, an Egyptian . . . And where they turned their eyes, that denizen lurked and caught their glances instantly, though he went on talking to the person before him, and though, until that moment, he had not been looking in their direction at all.
—Of course, I do not concern myself with politics, or such triumphs of scientific ingenuity as your atom bombs and hydrogen bombs. All that I leave for the newspapers, it is so necessary to their self-importance to have all the answers. For me this war will be no more than a matter of academic interest, of course, a confirmation of the prophecies contained in the Great Pyramid of Cheops. As I say, we have entered the period . . . ahm, symbolized by the King’s Chamber, in 1936, and it is only last year we have entered the period of final woe at last. But at this moment, he went on, pulling a stream of tinsel from the tree and winding it around his finger, —I am more interested in this mummy of which I speak, the mummy of Ink-naton. Of course she died when only twelve years of age, the Fourth Dynasty . . . of course it is too much to hope that I may encounter here someone who will be able to assist me with information? . . . And here he returned his black eyes, not to the man before him, to whom he spoke, but beyond him, directly across the room.