Letters полностью

Some things that are perfectly obvious to others aren’t obvious at all to me, “Todd Andrews” remarks somewhere in that novel, and vice versa: hence this chapter; hence this book. OK, Dad: you saw it coming a long way back (let’s presume you’re closer than I to our Author). But it took me now by total, exhilarated surprise, what Cook’s mid-sentence, mid-committee wink disclosed to me; nor can I say now what connects the wink to the revelation, any more than I can say what if anything connects A. B. Cook to André Castine. But there it suddenly, astonishingly, beautifully was: 13 R, not yet in detail, but in clear principle, as plainly as if carved into the conference table.

Well! Too bad, Germaine: nothing I could do for you beyond insisting that those photocopies be destroyed at once (I shredded mine; Cook followed suit; the others were duly shamed by our example); I wish you a better job and a better companion, or better luck with the one you have. Adieu, Jeannine: if you can’t find what you want, may you at least learn what it is you can’t find. Adieu, Drew, less and more my child than your sister is. And bye-bye, I think, dear Jane: belatedly cured of the passion I belatedly recognized, I leave you to “Lord Baltimore” and Cap’n Chick.

Good-bye! Good-bye!

But having been so tardy, now I’m being premature. I shall be seeing you all again. We have business together. Even as “Lord Baltimore” observed, there is no hurry, no hurry, not even to resolve the details of what’s so clear in outline: 13 R.

The threshold once crossed from middle to old age, it is not recrossed: I am still and irrevocably an old man, and the world is what it is. But my energies returned, and my self-possession. My authority with Schott I judged to be impaired for keeps; therefore I called for the sense of the committee on the question of dropping all charges against the demonstrators, declaring in advance my resignation as Marshyhope’s counsel if they chose to proceed. The vote to prosecute was closer than I expected (I’m surprised Schott permitted one; it was strictly advisory), but the ayes — loudly led by Cook and Carter — carried the resolution. I shrugged and bid them cordial good-bye, good-bye.

Back to the office: Ms. Pond & Co. cheered to see me Myself again. I put in a couple hours’ fruitful clearing of my desk, another of yet fruitfuller staring out my window at the oyster-shell pile. Yes, yes!

Then here (Thank you, Marian; I feel better, too), where I thought to reopen at once my Inquiry, then understood I’d better address the old Letter first.

Ahem, Dad: Nothing has intrinsic value! Everything has! Notwithstanding which, bye-bye!

I’ll get back to you. What an Author! But then, what a reader, your slow son

T.

I: Jacob Horner to Jacob Horner. His discovery that he is in love.

7/10/69

TO:

Jacob Horner, Remobilization Farm, Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada

FROM:

Jacob Horner, Remobilization Farm, Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada

In a sense you Are Jacob Horner, Making Ready to Leave Baltimore in July 1953 at the Doctor’s prescription to be Interviewed by John Schott and Joseph Morgan at Wicomico Teachers College as a Prospective Instructor of English grammar. It is the birthday of John Calvin, Giorgio de Chirico, James III of Scotland, Carl Orff, Camille Pissarro, Marcel Proust, James McNeill Whistler. The Allies are landing in Sicily, Apollo-11 has sprung a leak, Vice-President Fillmore has succeeded Zachary Taylor to the U.S. presidency, the first contingent of U.S. Marines is leaving Viet Nam, Ben Franklin is proposing a Colonial Union modeled after the Iroquois League of Six Nations, the Germans have begun their bombing of Britain and ratified the Versailles Treaty, Thor Heyerdahl’s Ra is swamping again in rough seas and may not make it to Barbados, Korean truce negotiations have begun, the stock market continues its decline, and Woodrow Wilson has presented his League of Nations proposal to the U.S. Senate. But Der Wiedertraum is out of synch, out of focus, perhaps out of control. The world’s turned upside down; you Scarcely Recognize yourself; you Begin To Wonder who’s writing whom, at whose prescription.