The Recognitions (117 page)

Go on, Mr. Yak said bridling both hands before his companion. —Stephan. —If it's that early . . . you'll go away if I tell you? —Yes, yes, go on. Go on, Stephan. Mr. Yak stepped back and spat on the floor, then brought his glittering eyes up in enthusiasm, though the voice he heard was level, even forced, the words spoken rapidly, as vacantly strung together as a recitation. —The body is extended, make an incision in the left flank and take the internal organs out, except the heart. Fill the vacant cavity with linen and resin, saturate the outer wrappings with resin and mold them to the shape of the body, then emphasize the details with paint on the outside. —That's all? —That's all. —But what about wrapping it up, all those linen bandages around it? —That's quite complicated, the series of bandages. And leave the brain in, they didn't take the brain out until very late. And the heart, don't forget the heart, leave the heart in. —What about the bandages, do you know them? Stephan said nothing, but nodded vaguely. —And the paint, what kind of paint do you paint it up with. —I don't know. Red ochre I suppose, he answered wearily, as though the recitation had exhausted him. He turned to his empty glass. —All right, all right for now, Mr. Yak said in a sudden hurry. —But later you and me, we can work it out. You and me . . . He stopped speaking. The burning green eyes were fixed on him. —You and me . . . what? —Never mind, never mind now, Stephan. We'll work it out, you and . . . —Good God . . . will you . . . aren't you going? —Yes, but later ... —Wait. —What's the matter? —Here, do me a favor will you? Get one of those . . . get me a fresh clean one-peseta note if he has one, will you? —You haven't got any money? You want some money? —Yes, damn it, I have some money. I just want a look at a fresh one-peseta note, I want to look at the picture on it. —Listen, I'll lend you . . . —Damn it, never mind. Never mind. Go away. Mr. Yak examined the dirty wad from his own pocket, then called the bartender and explained what his friend wanted, —por e) dibujo sabe? . . . quiere ver eJ dibujo. The bartender's expression did not change. He found the freshest one-peseta note he had, and put it before the man at the bar, watched the one with the blown rose pat his arm, heard him say, —Goodbye Stephan, I'll be back, I won't be long, be careful . . . and when that one had clattered out the door, pressing his mustache with one finger, smoothing the shock of black hair with the other hand, the bartender managed to look a little relieved, not having understood the parting threat. He crossed his arms and sighed, as though a party of twenty had just gone out the door, leaving one numb member behind, standing now, gazing, not at the bad engraving of the Dama de Elche, but returning the vacant stare of the sardines. In that quiet village, stacked three thousand feet above the sea against the southwestern slopes of the Sierra de Guadarrama, the province of Madrid, and the kingdom of New Castile laid out barren at its feet, there are thirty-seven bars, where, as in most of that country, the visitor is free to enjoy that privilege which distinguishes him from the natives to such advantage, and get morbidly, or helplessly, riotously, or roaring, drunk. No one minds. He is looked upon as a curiosity, one who has, perhaps, worked out an ingeniously obvious solution to unnecessary problems, and is mortgaging a present which is untenable to secure a future which does not exist. All but three (and they are known but to the learned hand), before that sunny day was out, became familiar with the draggled man whose greeting, and entire store of conversation, lay in the word Manzanilla; with the tune La Tani on the local barrel organ, which at first he trailed from one to another, and then, finding a tattered duro waiting at each stop, it trailed him; and finally, with the vociferous shock-haired figure whose boutonnière, by the time he found his comrade in Mis Niños, was no more than a twist of wire flying a shred of spotted pink paper, and his mustache awry as though stuck on in a hurry, for he adjusted it before each threshold he crossed. He also sported, by now, a cord of yellow and purple intertwined, knotted under the plexiglas collar where his tie had been, a manifest, as he hastened to explain to his glazed friend after his first recriminatory greetings, of a pledge made to Saint Anthony in return for the Saint's assistance in this impending project. —No. No. Good God. —Where have you been? I've looked all over the town for you, all afternoon. You said you were going to wait for me back . . . —I thought you'd wrapped yourself up ... in a mummy. 788

-What? —No. —Listen . . . what's the matter, you hiding from somebody? —Yes. —Who? Where? Where are they? Mr. Yak looked wildly round. —Hmmn? Come on. Stephan? Stephan, come on. Hmmn? At the door, La Tani played in thunderous broken chords. Mr. Yak finally brought his eyes round to find the two faintly green ones fixed on him. —All right. You all right? There was a withering crash as La Tani finished, something dodged between them, plucked a green duro from the hand hanging off the bar, got out, —Dios se lo pague señor ... in one word, and was gone. —Listen now, it's almost dark, and we ... There was a shimmering crash at the door: it was the opening chord of La Tani. —Listen . . . Jesus! Mr. Yak brought his fist down, got to the door in two steps, and started to shout above the music, which continued, skipping notes it had lost during the day, but parading what remained with frenzied exultation. Mr. Yak finally managed to halt the spinning handle, and returned a minute later looking even more done in, after an argument which had become as deranged as the music it had sent packing. —Una y ima . . . tres. What do you want now? —Listen, it's almost dark by now, did you know that? What are you doing here, anyway? —I tried to leave. No trains. —No, I mean in this dump. Mr. Yak looked around. It was a modest place, to be sure. There were barrels, bottles, and dirty glasses recklessly arranged behind the bartender, who put a dish of olives before them, and awaited Mr. Yak's order. When he realized that someone was eavesdropping, Mr. Yak spun round with, — Nothing! Nothing! . . . niente! Nada! . . . He was quite agitated, and returned to his comrade, propped before him. —I ought to just leave you here like you are. —That's the spirit. —Now listen, said Mr. Yak, taking a step closer, and he put a hand on the reposing arm on the bar. A crafty look came to his face as the sharp eyes narrowed over the expression which was almost a smile before him. —How would you like to make sure? he asked in his low confidential tone. —Sure? . . . —Sure listen . . . how would you like to go up with me, up the hill, see? . . . And look in and make sure that . . . that that's your mother's . . . resting place. Some recrudescence mounted to the face before him: the smile fell away, at any rate, leaving evidence of sharp consciousness scat-tered in fragments of complete confusion, which the muscles of the face seemed to try to draw together into some single question. —Listen, see? ... I have to go up there anyway, on business. You can come up with me. 1 hen you and me can . . . —Damn it just . . . stop saying that. That you and me. Will you? Damn it. What do they want me for? What do you want me for? Damn it, what do they all want me for?! he burst out. —Listen . . . —Damn it. Damn them. And you . . . you . . . —Come on out, we'll get some fresh air outside. —They all ... they all ... want me, they want . . . damn it! What do they want? he cried. —Come on. Come on. Mr. Yak put an arm round his shoulders, and led him toward the door. The bartender called, but not loudly, —Señor . . . se olvida . . . He held up a fresh one-peseta note, and Mr, Yak waved it back in a munificent gesture with his free hand. Clusters of lights stood out on the mountain slopes like the lights of ports driven uphill by the sea, for it was yet light enough that the barren plateau stretched away levelly blue under the haze. They made their way up behind the town, and as they climbed the stone streets shocks of consciousness, and consequent revulsion, ran through the figure Mr. Yak supported, and pulled away from him, to come back the more heavily. Meanwhile, Mr. Yak talked. He explained the purple and yellow cord hanging from his shiny collar, and the debt incumbent upon Saint Anthony. He said he had made full confession, but in Rumanian, so the old párroco, who had not understood a word of it, had given him a light penance, —not like Rome, at Saint Peter's they can confess you in half a dozen languages, they got you going and coming. He said he had turned in three per cent of his money to the church, —to be devoted to pious uses, like it says, see? And he said the párroco was real old, —it won't take much to bring him around where we want him, I've got some ideas right now, see? . . . because I already gave him an idea I've got an in on the sacred mysteries, see? But there's this one guy I got to watch, we got to watch, I met him the last minute there . . . and as they trudged toward the rock-studded road up behind the town, Mr. Yak went on to describe Señor Hermoso Hermoso, who —had this real holy attitude about everything, see? Because they're getting this patron saint and he acts like he arranged everything, and he's not even a priest or anything, he runs a drugstore sort of, and that's one reason we got to watch out for him, see? And he speaks English, so he told me all about this patron saint they're getting. When they took her out of the graveyard here to put her somewhere else when she was beatified they thought she looks kind of big for an eleven-year-old girl, but the way the body was preserved after forty years almost, so that made them sure it's a saint. But that long, even no matter how well it's preserved they probably make a new head out of wax. Anyway that's not so long, you don't eat anything but beans all your life like these people around here they haven't got enough money to eat anything but beans all their life, then you don't decay so fast. Mr. Yak paused, but took up again almost immediately as though harried by the silence of his companion. —Anyway so he told me all about the cures she effected, by her intervention, you know, like there was this one old guy who's deaf for six years, and so he prays to her for intervention and he gets over it just like that, what it was, it was an earwig that was in his ear all that time, you know? . . . and when it comes out all of a sudden then he could hear again. And then about this old guy who raped this girl, or he tried to rape her, see? . . . when he was young, he's real old now, he gets out of prison and he goes to this monastery where he's some kind of a penitent, you know? He's sort of like a janitor there . . . Mr. Yak finally silenced, mainly for the exertion this walk was costing him. It was dark now, as they reached the hill and started up it. Then Mr. Yak heard something behind them, and stopped. He looked back. —What the . . . well I'll . . . that barrel organ, they been following us. A square shape, with two shapeless conductors, had stopped at the last corner behind them, and reluctantly turned back into the streets of the town. —See? See? Mr. Yak shook his companion as they climbed. —I told you not to go giving them money like that, they'll follow you around the world now. About halfway up, as he stepped out of a soft mound in the middle of the rough road, Mr. Yak stopped. —Listen, why don't you just wait for me here? You don't have to come up, you just sit down here a minute and wait, I'll be back in a minute, see? At that, the man he was supporting suddenly came to life, and stepped back, almost falling over. —No, no, no, he said clearly. —I'm coming. I'm coming now. —Listen there's no reason you should bother to come, see? And what I said before, I was just kidding, you don't want to go prying around up here, you just sit and wait here for me a minute, you . . . wait . . . But the figure was already steps ahead up the hill in the dark, and Mr. Yak hurried to overtake him. A light shone at the gate, piloting an unseen figure. It was the sacristan, and he groaned. —Quién es? he asked the specters, though he knew well enough, and turning without an answer, led them in. They passed through the inside gate, and the light from his lantern glanced away from the white bóvedas and here and there caught a beaded wreath, the Virgin stark in an icon looking like a playing-card queen, the Infant with a hand out as though hailing a passing cab. The sacristan was pausing, helplessly, waiting for word from Mr. Yak, who was bending down along the way to look at ages and dates on the vaults, when they both realized that the man with them had gone on ahead. They found him, there where they had all met in the sunlight. —Look, you don't want to go prying in there . . . Mr. Yak commenced, but too late, he'd already started to pull the unmarked vault down himself, when the light showed him where it was. Mr. Yak was trembling too, turning his face as though he did not want to look when they lifted it down; and they were all surprised at the lightness of it as they lowered it to the ground. Of the three, the sacristan appeared most distracted now, trying to loose the top with one hand, holding the light up with the other, and he kept looking up as though in fear someone, or something, might appear. When it came open, not with a wrench, but breakage of the wooden top, it was he who was first to shatter the pattern of shock which gripped them together, staring in at the dark, withered, and childish-figured contents. —Coñol . . . Dios! válgame Dios! He banged the broken cover down and stayed, quaking on his knees beside the little girl who had been left behind. He raised his eyes slowly, beyond them to where their shadows were sundered over the sills of the empty compartments next to one another high in the bóveda. And Mr. Yak, still motionless, felt a shudder beside him, one which persisted in the shadow thrown flickering past the broken broom, back into the hollow depth bereft of the alien presence who had waited so long unchallenged by earth, through war, and profane seizure, and the destruction of names more ornate than her own, among decayed floral tributes and wreaths made of beads, to be removed at last from this domain of broken glass facades and rickety icons, and enshrined, to work miracles. The sacristan crossed himself: and the leaping shadow was caught and reflected, twice, in the arms of the men standing above him. Mr. Yak turned, startled at that motion beside him. The hand he put on his companion's shoulder was not rejected, and he whispered —There Stephan. I told you, you weren't a bum. The sacristan was struggling to his feet. Suddenly Mr. Yak's eyes were glittering again. —Now, see? back to the work. She . . . this, he motioned at the box without noticing the paper torn in trembling hands seeking a cigarette beside him. —This is just what we want. See? Stephan? You all right? Mr. Yak looked at him. There in the broken moving light from the match and the lantern, his face appeared darker, and everything seemed to move in it though nothing moved there at all, lines drawn down from the nose holding the jaw up rigid, lines which broke the flat cheeks sinking away from the high-boned lines of the face. Then the sacristan was assailing them for help, to get the thing back up where it belonged before they were discovered, and Mr. Yak got hold of one side, but the third of them simply stood staring into the empty space where there was nothing but the wet end of a broken broom. When they got it back in place, he was gone. They found him a few minutes later, sitting outside the front gate on a stone, eating an orange in the dark, and looking af the moon which had just come into view beyond the mountains. —Come on, Stephan. It's cold, Mr. Yak said taking his arm down the hill. —We want to make that train. His voice sounded loud on the night air, and he lowered it as though talking to himself to add, —We'll see about this thing tomorrow, when we get the old párroco in line, eh? He felt the figure beside him shrug, and said no more, busily planning in his head the immediate future. Neither of them spoke all the way through the town, where single lights cast clear separate shadows, stood doorways up vertically, none of the lights close enough to one another to confuse the night with multiple and exaggerated shades, or the shadows of these two moving figures behind with those before them. They reached the railway station without speaking. On the empty platform, Mr. Yak shivered looking at the sky. —Look at that, that moon, he said, hunched up with his hands thrust deep in his pockets. —Yes . . . —What? After a pause, Mr. Yak muttered, —It looks so close there, don't it ... Then he shivered again, and looked back over his shoulder to where a dull glow hung over the sign Urinarios. —Hey, Stephan? I got to go over here a minute, he said. —Stephan? —Oh yes, do you know? . . . charms can even bring it down'. . . —What? —Down from heaven? Mr. Yak waited, half turned, and then his shoulders relaxed a little and he said, —I forgot to tell you, hey? ... I had a Mass said for your mother, up there at the church today. He waited another moment, swaying with his knees together. —See? he added. But from where he stood, it looked to him like the lonely figure there, drawn back from the empty platform, was trying to brush a streak of moonlight from his sleeve, and Mr. Yak turned and went on in the direction he'd started. When he arrived and stood, occupied, staring above him at the sky, the silence of the country, that silence which keeps city ears awake, alert, provoked him to speak aloud, as though to hear what he said confirmed. —This poor guy, he's as crazy as an eagle . . . Then he sniffed, cocked his head, and seemed to hear the rush of the barrel organ pounding inside it. But everywhere was silence, and as a matter of fact, La Tani has not been heard through those streets since that sunny day. The Andalusian maiden looked down from her balcony, next morning, past her wooer, upon a scene of considerable activity. The air was enhanced with smells, mutterings, and occasional puffs of smoke, as Mr. Yak bustled among the confusion of newspapers so engrossed in his work that he almost dropped the glass test tubes he held in either hand when the dueño knocked at his door. —Su amigo, señor . . . The dueño stepped back to introduce the bedraggled figure in the hall beside him, and Mr. Yak, who had put down the test tubes and pulled on the shock of black hair slightly askew, stepped back and said, —Come in, Stephan. Come in. Sit down . . . here, let me move this . . . there. Sit down. Now watch. Watch this. And he grabbed up the test tubes again. He began to pour the clear liquid from one into the other which was apparently empty, but the hair had slid over one glittering eye. He reached up impatiently, caught the black shock, tore it off and flung it across the room to the bureau top. Then his hand returned to his face in a reflex and gave the mustache a sharp tug. He yelped and almost dropped the test tubes, but recovered his purpose quickly. —Watch . . . The colorless liquid poured into the empty test tube, where it became bright red. —Now, what do you think of that? —It's very nice,
but tell me . . . —Wait. Watch . . . He poured the red liquid into another test tube, and it became colorless again. —Just tell me . . . —Water into wine, wine into water. I can change it into milk too. Add a little sodium bisulphate ... —Will you please tell me . . . —Here's another one. This one's even better. Water into blood, blood into a solid. Remember the miracle at Bolsena? Watch. A little aluminum sulphate dissolved, a few drops of phenolphthalein, and now . . . watch. Sodium silicate. Watch. See? Look at that, blood. Watch. See it? See it congeal? —Yes, yes, but ... —What do you think of that? —All I want to know is ... —I can eat fire too, if I have to. Mr. Yak hopped off among the flurry of newspapers, to see where some wads of blotting paper were drying on the sink. —See? he said, holding one up. —You just light it and wrap it up in cotton. And then, whoof! —If you'll just . . . —Whoooft! Sparks all over the place. Hey? Mr. Yak's eyes shone eagerly across the room, as he awaited some confirmation of his enthusiasm. But his guest simply stared at him. —Hey Stephan? What's the matter? —Will you just tell me where I am? and how I got here? —Where are we? We're in Madrid, where else would we be. This is the pension I'm living at, I got a room for you here last night. You were drunk last night, you don't want to drink so much. I gave your passport to the dueño, he has to show it up at the police station, see? I told him you're a friend of mine from Switzerland worn out by the journey here, that's why you couldn't walk I told him, see? Now everything's O.K., you're safe as a nut. Stephan. There was a tap at the door. Mr. Yak snatched up his hair and put it on. His excitement had brought color to his face, and while it might not be the blush of youth, he did look younger this morning, and capable of almost anything. —It's backwards. —What? —Your hair. You've got your hair on backwards, said his guest, folded up there in the corner among the newspapers, speaking in a tone which reflected the look in his eyes, one of patient, but wary. curiosity. He pulled a yellow cigarette from the green and black paper of Ideales. —Oh! Oh! Oh! Mr. Yak spun the shock of hair round on his head, and opened the door the margin of an eye. —Señor Asche? said the dueño from the dark passage. Mr. Yak started to make wild gestures of beckoning behind the door. His guest stared at him. —Su pasaporte . . . Finally Mr. Yak reached through the opening to snatch the Swiss passport, with a muttered —Gracias to the dueño, and he closed the door and bolted it. —Señor Asche, that's you, he said crossing the room. —I wanted you to come get it from him, your passport. Stephan Asche. See? He handed the Swiss passport over the newspaper barricade. —There, Stephan. Like I said, see? Safe as a nut. Look at the picture in it, go ahead. It's just like you, just like I said, that square face all screwed up around the eyes, see? Now you just want to wash up a little and get a shave. And he bounded off again, across the room toward the mirror over the washbowl, where the drying wads of blotting paper caught his eye. —Do you want to see me eat fire? he brought out, leering into the glass at the image of the man behind him. The image of Stephan Asche did not move. Nothing moved there, but the smoke rising gently behind the disorder of newspapers, the untended trail of a fire smoldering in a pile of debris where nothing retains its original shape, or purpose, among broken parts and rusted remains of useful objects, unidentifiable now, in-distinguishable from other fragments of the past, shapes and sharp angles of curious design and unique intention, wasting without flame under the litter of news no longer news, pages of words torn by the wind, sodden with rain, words retaining separation, strung to the tear, without purpose, but words, and nothing moves but the smoke, rising from two bright embers. —Stephan! Mr. Yak bursts out, turning from the washbowl. —Wake up! . . . you . . . you went to sleep with your eyes open it looked like, you . . . listen . . . —Look . . . —Listen, you don't want to smoke that stuff, see? It smells lousy, it makes the whole room here smell like the town dump. It's a third potato peel, the tobacco here . . . See? Listen, you want to wash up and shave. —But I don't. —Yes you do. Come on ... what do you want to do? —Nothing. —You can't do nothing. See? There's work to do. See? All this . . . All this . . . The spotted cigarette-burned robe comes off in a swirl: Mr. Yak's neck is quite a long one, springing out of the neck-band shirt, caught, constricted with a preposter's dignity, in plexiglas, roped and drawn with Saint Anthony's earnest, Saint Anthony's hostage draws it tight to the throat. —The water into wine, and the wine into water, the blood that congeals and turns into stone, that's all for the old párroco, see? To bring him around to where he'll agree to sell us that . . . sell us the thing for the mummy. Nothing? You don't want to do nothing? That's the way you get into mischief. You get into mischief, doing nothing. —Dies irae, dies illa, solvet saeclum in favilla . . . Tell me, did they sing that out here? —Where? —The Mass, you said you had a Mass sung for the dead. They sing that sometimes, in Masses for the dead, swinging the censer to kill the smell of the living. Look, what was that blonde I met in the hall? Silence submits to the thud of an Ideal ash hitting the floor. From. the wall, the Andalusian maiden stares down over her sturdy balcony, over the shoulder of him in the guitar's embrace, to coquette with her host, who disdains her directly their eyes meet, turning as though yanked to by the lead at his neck. —Just what you say, a blonde. Forget her. —But 1 don't even know her yet. —So that saves you tbe trouble. You don't want to get mixed up with that flashy piece of goods. See? Somewhere, a clock struck. —See? Mr. Yak repeated, taking a step toward the darker corner, his head lowered, chin jutting forth, he looked searchingly where the smoke rose like a man looking on a refuse heap, finding a nondescript necktie worn and discarded among the cinders, some rags, two shoes which will never fit anyone else, still he looked searchingly, and his eyes caught a glitter. —You're here to get mixed up with some blonde that'll take them diamonds right off your finger? Then why are you here then? —Why am I here? I'm here because I'm not any place else. Now look . . . —Now listen, you and me . . . Wait! What are you doing? You don't want to open the windows . . . Nevertheless, the floor-length windows were swung open, and the sounds of Alphonso del Gato rose to them, mounting on a chorus of Francisco alegre . . . ole! —You don't want to get mixed up with that flashy piece of goods down the hall, Mr. Yak repeated, addressing Stephan's back, at the windows. —See? Nevertheless, awhile after everyone else had lunched on garlic soup, a simple cocido, dead fish, and an orange, and the blue angora sweater nowhere in sight in the small dining room, Mr. Yak, slipping down the passage between doors closed upon afternoon slumber, glanced in the dining room, and there saw his friend at a table, the blue fluff catercorner. She was biting his thumb. Reproach filled Mr. Yak before he knew it, and he almost mistook his step; but there would be time enough for all his words of rebuke, warning, and censure: now there was work ahead, and he hurried toward it, feeling chilly and grown old. As for Marga, she was a discreet person: there was a building in the Calle Ventura de la Vega where, up a flight, a dim shuttered room afforded but one furnishing above necessity, a mirror, mounted along the length of the bed, which that afternoon reflected with a fertile vigor undiminished by repetition liberties taken upon every natural part of her but her coiffure, though that, to be sure, was a crown of artifice whose consequent fragility she had good reason to protect: only in descent from the exposed and cultivated brow did the remontant powers of nature prove how, as the poet wrote, the natural in woman closely is allied to art. —I saw you . . . Mr. Yak said that evening, standing in the spotted robe, holding his hair in his hand before him, and he looked weary. His day had been a busy one, inveigling the old párroco on the one hand, fending off the importunate Señor Herrnoso Hermoso on the other. But more than the day's fatigue showed on him. The instant he pulled off that shock of black hair, a heavy decade of years weighed his shoulders down, and now his eyes, as though another day's application had exhausted their glitter, showed with a dullness which, but for the impatient promptings of his voice, might have been construed as disappointment. —Listen, we ... we have work to do, and you, behaving like this, it's like cutting your nose off in spite of your face, he said. —You're not a bum. —Stephan. —What? —No, I ... I just said that, I just called you that, so you'll get used to it. Mr. Yak lowered his eyes wearily, to the floorboards whose different lengths effected an unsteady parquet. If the orange-colored cloth of that coat could be so quickly supplanted in memory by its leopard collar at full length, both disappeared from attention and memory alike when the coat was drawn open and nothing but Marga beneath it, for she wore it as a robe de chambre, or rather de couloir, on that last-minute trip between her room and the toilet, managed, like all of her public appearances, with a decorum which greatly enhanced her license in private. There, except for the armoire across the room mounting something the proportions of a pier glass which would have demanded taxing, if not unnatural, exertions, for its full employment, there was no mirror in her room to confirm one sense in what four others were making possible, no confirmation for that most immediate sense, that most used, most depended upon, most easily deceived, none but her lips too close, separated, teeth biting silence, and eyes demanding correspondence in closing. —I heard you . . . Mr. Yak said next day. —I heard you in there last night. And now look at you, look at your eyes, you're getting this French influenza like everybody's getting, that ought to put you in bed a while and take care of yourself, see? Because in a day or two we're going to bring it in, for the mummy, see? If she heard the heart pounding in the dark, or felt it shaking the whole frame she embraced, every beat splitting the head she held between her hands, the jaw rigid then shivering on gasps for breath, while every beat of the heart surged the flow more weakly and ebbed to withhold the life she drew forth, she gave no sign of knowing in the dark, the first time, the second, the third and her knee raised to manage gently insistent manipulation with her toes, to continue the rehearsal and then in a rush repeat the performance, no more sign than the animal trainer putting the sick dog through its paces. Two days later, when Margà had left for the country (a family wedding), Mr. Yak had his arrangements almost made. The párroco in San Zwingli was properly awed, the sacristan thoroughly intimidated, and Señor Hermoso Hermoso, convinced with such happy importance that he knew what was going on, had given up trying to find out. He had even at one point, and quite unwittingly, put Mr. Yak onto something most pertinent to the project, in a casual cafe conversation which turned to a local method for aging fine lace, a process Mr. Yak now considered employing to add some dozens of centuries to the linen bandaging, before it was finally baked on. —So what we want to do, we want to bury it somewhere, in the ground, see? Listen . . . are you listening, Stephan? How do you feel, you feel better? Listen, then what you want to do, you go there where it's buried, and wet it down, see? You know what I mean, wet it down? I mean, like . . . like you stand over it and wet it down, see? You do that a lot of times, then you dig it up and hang it in the sun, and it's got that nice yellow aged color that makes it look real old, see? You listening? Come on, get your head out of under the covers. You got to come out with me and buy this linen bandaging so we get the right kind. See? Come on. You feel better. You're all well now. Come on, get your head out of under the cover. The mound on the bed shifted, but remained silent, and Mr. Yak leaned forward to put a kindly hand on what he believed to be a shoulder. There was a growl from inside. —Come on, you want to come out in the fresh air will do you more good than this here . . . Mr. Yak shook the mound, and the growl grew louder. Finally a cautious aperture appeared, with an eye behind it, and a clear voice said, —Go away. —Good. You're not in a delirium any more anyway, Mr. Yak said, letting go the shoulder, and he sat down beside the bed, re- lieved. For these past two evenings, Mr. Yak had returned wearied enough with the work of the day, to the even more taxing demands of this friendship he had formed from the depths of what he could by now believe to have been the kindness of his heart. And just as there could be no doubt, after touching his forehead, but that Stephan had been ill, there was even less doubt of his delirium after listening to his conversation: Salamanders and Sylphs, and Mermaids, a regular Carnival, but wait, not carne vale . . . Ave carne! . . . Salve! . . . macte virtute esto! —Did you want me to end like Descartes, then? Larvatus prodeo, retiring to prove his own existence, and he kept a Salamander. She came to visit him like mine did then. But now . . . Copulo, ergo sum. Eh? Carne, O te felicem! And Mr. Yak had shaken his head, and muttered something about "that flashy piece of goods down the hall," at which he was instantly threatened with blindness as happened to Stesichorus, —for slandering Helen. —What an affliction, Mr. Yak muttered, but to himself, and thinking of himself, not Stesichorus. —Why, proving one's own existence, you'd be surprised what a man will do to prove his own existence? . . . pursued Mr. Yak out the night before, crossing himself. —Why, there's no ruse at all that people will disdain, to prove their own existences . . . —Get some sleep, Stephan. —No ruse at all ... Now, Mr. Yak gave up once more, with a glance up at the An-dalusian love scene on Stephan's wall, and returned to his own room where now hung the picture he had traded for it, Jesus del Gran Poder, which he had found leaning face-to against Stephan's wall. He stood looking absently at the dark bowed head of Christ under the weight of the Cross, and, after a full minute, cocked his head at a sound in the hall. A moment later he found Stephan trying to slip out of the pension. He let him escape, followed, and then caught him up in the street