1
Beautiful white corpse of night actually! So the north-west winds of
death are mountain sweet after all! All the troubled stars are put to
bed now: three bullets from wife’s hand none kindlier: in the crown, in
the nape and one lower: three starlike holes among a million pocky pores
and the moon of your mouth: Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and all stars melted
forthwith into this one good white light over the inquest table,—the
traditional moth beating its wings against it—except there are two here.
But sweetest are the caresses of the county physician, a little clumsy
perhaps—_mais_—! and the Prosecuting Attorney, Peter Valuzzi and the
others, waving green arms of maples to the tinkling of the earliest
ragpicker’s bells. Otherwise—: kindly stupid hands, kindly coarse voices,
infinitely soothing, infinitely detached, infinitely beside the question,
restfully babbling of how, where, why and night is done and the green
edge of yesterday has said all it could.
* * * * *
_Remorse is a virtue in that it is a stirrer up of the emotions but it
is a folly to accept it as a criticism of conduct. So to accept it is to
attempt to fit the emotions of a certain state to a preceding state to
which they are in no way related. Imagination though it cannot wipe out
the sting of remorse can instruct the mind in its proper uses._
2
It is the water we drink. It bubbles under every hill. How? Agh, you
stop short of the root. Why, caught and the town goes mad. The haggard
husband pirouettes in tights. The wolf-lean wife is rolling butter
pats: it’s a clock striking the hour. Pshaw, they do things better in
Bangkok,—here too, if there’s heads together. But up and leap at her
throat! Bed’s at fault! Yet—I’ve seen three women prostrate, hands
twisted in each other’s hair, teeth buried where the hold offered,—not
a movement, not a cry more than a low meowling. Oh call me a lady and
think you’ve caged me. Hell’s loose every minute, you hear? And the
truth is there’s not an eye clapped to either way but someone comes off
the dirtier for it. Who am I to wash hands and stand near the wall? I
confess freely there’s not a bitch littered in the pound but my skin
grows ruddier. Ask me and I’ll say: curfew for the ladies. Bah, two in
the grass is the answer to that gesture. Here’s a text for you: Many
daughters have done virtuously but thou excellest them all! And so you
do, if the manner of a walk means anything. You walk in a different air
from the others,—though your husband’s the better man and the charm won’t
last a fortnight: the street’s kiss parried again. But give thought to
your daughters’ food at mating time, you good men. Send them to hunt
spring beauties beneath the sod this winter,—otherwise: hats off to the
lady! One can afford to smile.
3
Marry in middle life and take the young thing home. Later in the year let
the worst out. It’s odd how little the tune changes. Do worse—till your
mind’s turning, then rush into repentence and the lady grown a hero while
the clock strikes.
Here the harps have a short cadenza. It’s sunset back of the new
cathedral and the purple river scum has set seaward. The car’s at the
door. I’d not like to go alone tonight. I’ll pay you well. It’s the
kings-evil. Speed! Speed! The sun’s self’s a chancre low in the west. Ha,
how the great houses shine—for old time’s sake! For sale! For sale! The
town’s gone another way. But I’m not fooled that easily. _Fort sale! Fort
sale!_ if you read it aright. And Beauty’s own head on the pillow, _à la
Muja Desnuda_! _O Contessa de Alba! Contessa de Alba!_ Never was there
such a lewd wonder in the streets of Newark! Open the windows—but all’s
boarded up here. Out with you, you sleepy doctors and lawyers you,—the
sky’s afire and Calvary Church with its snail’s horns up, sniffing the
dawn—o’ the wrong side! Let the trumpets blare! _Tutti i instrumenti!_
The world’s bound homeward.
* * * * *
_A man whose brain is slowly curdling due to a syphilitic infection
acquired in early life calls on a friend to go with him on a journey
to the city. The friend out of compassion goes, and, thinking of the
condition of his unhappy companion, falls to pondering on the sights he
sees as he is driven up one street and down another. It being evening
he witnesses a dawn of great beauty striking backward upon the world in
a reverse direction to the sun’s course and not knowing of what else to
think discovers it to be the same power which has led his companion to
destruction. At this he is inclined to scoff derisively at the city’s
prone stupidity and to make light indeed of his friend’s misfortune._