Orpheus Emerged Read online

  ORPHEUS EMERGED 18

  preoccupied frown on his face.

  It was a beautiful day in early spring...

  Spring Day Eve, for a fact—when Paul was

  interrupted in his perusal of Kenneth

  Patchen’s Journal of Albion Moonlight by Leo, a student at the University. Slim, dark

  haired, wearing blue horn-rimmed glasses,

  the boyishly ugly Leo hurried across the

  Shop and slapped Paul on the back.

  “Paul!” he cried. “I heard you had been

  fired from your job. Is that true?”

  Paul, glancing up to see who it was, and

  annoyed by the question, returned his atten-

  tion to the book.

  “You have!” ejaculated Leo, leaning

  toward Paul anxiously.

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  The other waved his hand and sent Leo step-

  ping back. “Don’t annoy me,” he hissed

  sharply. “It’s my affair. Don’t start asking for

  details. Please shut up.”

  At this, Leo began to smile sporadically,

  and he bowed from the waist as a sign of def-

  erence. He could always manage to conceal

  his feelings.

  “Where’s Arthur?” Paul then curtly inquired.

  “In class. I’m headed there now.”

  “I’ll come,” Paul said, and replaced the

  book on the shelf. He gave the shelf a last

  frowning look and started out to the street.

  Leo, at his heels, shrugged his shoulder

  doubtfully.

  “You know, don’t you,” he said, “that the

  Professor is beginning to dislike your sitting

  in on his class. After all, you’re not an

  enrolled student here…”

  “I know, I know. He can do no more than

  throw me out of the class.”

  “Well that’s true.”

  “Then come.” Paul led Leo hastily

  across the street onto the green grass of

  the campus. He began to talk all at once.

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  “Those books! If

  only I had time

  to read them, and

  more. This morn-

  ing, after I lost

  my job, I went to

  the University

  Library itself,

  and do you know,

  there were hun-

  dreds of thou-

  sands of books

  there I honestly

  felt

  I should read!

  And the ideas

  that rush through

  my mind. The

  impatience I

  feel! The time

  running off like

  sand.

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  Ah...” and he dismissed the question with a

  wave of his hand.

  Leo laughed. “Do you know,” he said,

  “this is about the fifth time you’ve told me

  that. Always, you’re talking about books,

  and all the things to be learned, like

  Faustus in reverse himself. Arise, Paul!

  Come across the moonlit fields and seek

  the Golden Tree of Knowledge.”

  Paul almost sneered. He was hurrying

  along with his hands in his pockets.

  Despite his haste, he looked like a loafer of

  some sort, for his clothes were those of a

  tramp, and his shoe soles flapped rhythmi-

  cally as he walked; and his large red and

  raw hands, like those of a peasant, were

  always in his pockets, so that he gave the

  conventional impression of the loafer and

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  ne’er-do-well. Yet, he no longer created a

  sensation on the campus.

  He had arrived two months ago, in

  February, “from the road,” and from the

  North—and had taken a room on the campus,

  a sort of semi-coal-bin in the cellar of an

  apartment house on M street. He had imme-

  diately struck up an acquaintanceship with

  several of the students who had attracted his

  fancy in order to be accompanied to the use of

  the various cultural conveniences around the

  campus, such as the library, the music library,

  the art studio, and to be afforded a chance to

  sit in on lectures when he had occasion to. It

  was all very mysterious indeed. Some con-

  tended that he was a mere country bumpkin

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  come to the big city and the big university, with-

  out sufficient funds to register as a student. But

  others saw in him a great deal of sophistication

  and previous education, and dismissed the

  whole matter as some sort of psychopathic

  technique on his part.

  Of Paul, Arthur had this to say one day to

  Michael, who lived on the campus with his

  mistress and was himself some sort of loafer:

  “Paul has something in his past that drives

  him like a madman. He is daemonic man per-

  sonified! I wonder what it is!?”

  And to this, the laconic Michael only

  answered, “Yes, I suppose so. It must interest

  you a great deal. But as for me, I can’t stand

  him.” “It’s because he’s so much like you,”

  Arthur had been quick to remark.

  “Peut-etre,” Michael had replied, smiling faintly,

  and turning to resume the meal that had been set

  up on his work desk by his mistress, Maureen.

  Now Leo led Paul into the classroom as he

  had done several times before in the past two

  months. The other students paid no notice,

  for none of them knew that Paul was not a

  registered student, except Arthur, who now

  rose to come and greet the two young men.

  “Paul,” he said. “I hope it will go off today

  as it did last week, although I think our distin-

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  guished Professor is beginning to spout at

  the seams. Today’s lecture, in case you’re

  interested, will deal with the Zarathustra of

  Nietzsche.”

  “It’s strange that he hasn’t thrown you out

  yet,” Leo put in. They took their seats in the

  last row of the class. “Perhaps he’s discreet.”

  “Do you have any definite ideas on

  today’s lecture?” Paul inquired of Arthur.

  “Yes! You’ll hear me air them in full. I

  have my notes here.”

  “And you’ll manage as usual to get his

  gander up,” Leo laughed.

  “I for my part haven’t had time to formu-

  late anything specific,” Paul said gloomily.

  He began to clean his fingernails with the

  nails of his other hand. “And of course, if I

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  had, it wouldn’t be right to speak up. I must

  keep my silence and listen. There’s a

  limit…”

  “Last night, at his apartment. He was writ-

  ing a poem and wouldn’t allow me to see it.

  He hardly acknowledged my presence!” Paul

  smiled craftily. “But of course, that can be

  expected of him.
He’s afraid of me.”

  “Have you known each other before?” Leo

  demanded.

  “Oh yes.”

  “But Michael claims otherwise!”

  “Well?” Paul smiled angelically, and

  almost began to blush. “That can be expect-

  ed of him.”

  “I don’t understand—” Leo began, but at

  this point, the Professor, bushy of eyebrow,

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  had entered the class bearing a briefcase under

  his arm. From his mouth protruded a cigarette

  holder into which he had not as yet inserted a cig-

  arette. Now he paused at the desk in front of the

  class and dramatically inserted a cigarette and

  lighted it with a flagrantly large and decorative

  lighter.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, and his eye fell on the

  dishevelled Paul in the back of the room. “Good

  morning,” he now concluded, addressing Paul

  directly. The latter blandly nodded back.

  “Today’s lecture,” went on the Professor, talk-

  ing straight at Paul with a great deal of irony in

  his tone, “deals with Nietzsche’s great philosophical poem, ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra. ’ ”

  The door of the classroom opened and a pro-

  fessor’s head appeared, beckoning to the other.

  “William, a moment.”

  While the class Professor was thus engaged

  outside, in the hall, Leo turned excitedly to Paul.

  “Now, tell me! You say that you knew Michael

  before? Where? When?”

  “Some time ago. He refuses to admit it, of course.”

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  “But why!?” cried Leo in perfect agony.

  Paul smiled. “It’s all very involved and mys-

  terious. I knew him when he was not the man

  he is today.”

  “Well tell us!”

  “I shall, some time. You’ll find out anyway”

  The Professor had returned and now he sat on

  the edge of the desk at the front of the class and

  began puffing meditatively on his cigarette.

  “ ‘I bid you lose me,’ ” he began without warn-

  ing, “ ‘and find yourselves. Only when ye have

  rejected me, may I return onto you.’ Does any-

  one recall reading these lines during the exe-

  cution of the assignment?” There was more

  irony in this last remark, and the bushy eye-

  brows contracted portentously.

  Arthur, glancing quickly over his class notes,

  now raised his hand.

  “Well!” cried the Professor. “Do you remem-

  ber it? Do you?”

  “I remember it vaguely.”

  “Vaguely!” shouted the Professor with savage

  triumph. “And what does it mean to you?”

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  Arthur smiled mockingly at the Professor.

  “Shall I be frank?”

  “Frank?” The Professor puffed on his cig-

  arette. “Yes, do!”

  “Well—Zarathustra is speaking as the voice of ultimate society, and as society in

  general. I bid you lose me—society as it is,

  this pre-ultimate society—and find your-

  selves; and only when ye have all rejected

  me, this false, pre-ultimate society, this com-

  promising civilization, may ye at last find

  Zarathustra, the ultimate, artistic society.”

  “Your own interpretation, I presume?”

  “Precisely,” answered Arthur quickly.

  Paul, who sat next to him, had begun to

  frown almost angrily.

  The Professor was pacing in front of the

  class. “Do you think,” he roared, “that

  Nietzsche can be embodied in your private

  desires? Heh?” Silence. “Is it ever going to

  be possible that anyone will resist reading

  himself into the man?”

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  The others of the class turned disconso-

  late faces on Arthur, as though he had been

  a culprit. Some of them were raising their

  hands tentatively in order to put in a word

  or two when Paul, who had by now reached

  a great state of suppressed excitement,

  jumped up on his feet and spoke:

  “I thoroughly agree with you, Professor,

  where you condemn Arthur’s liberal use of

  Nietzsche’s meanings. But of course—that in

  itself is not the greater crime. Now, if you will

  permit me, I can point out where Arthur is

  making a far more serious mistake…” Paul

  paused here in order to catch his breath. The

  Professor was staring at him with something

  of indignation and outrage written on his face,

  but Paul ignored this.

  “All asceticism,” Paul began nervously,

  waving his large hands for emphasis, “is non-

  sense—and I construe Arthur’s remark on the

  rejection of society as a broad, sweeping form

  of asceticism.” Paul turned to Arthur, nodding

  his head at him eagerly.

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  “You see, now

  we are embark-

  ing on the

  business of

  rejecting life,

  happiness, nat-

  uralness, for

  the sake of

  some dim ideal

  as the ultimate

  state or what-

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  ever it was.

  This is the

  first step

  towards the

  disease of

  good and evil,

  the first

  rather child-

  ish overture

  to false

  ‰ aintliness...”

  Paul had lost all of his nervousness now,

  and the more he spoke, the more confident

  he became. He was just about to launch

  himself further into his little speech when

  the Professor held up his hand.

  There was silence. But Arthur broke it by

  directly addressing his opponent: “What do you

  mean, false saintliness? Explain that, please…”

  And Leo, sensing that all was not well,

  added eagerly: “Yes, do…”

  But the Professor was not to be dissuad-

  ed. He was still holding up his hand, and

  the silence fell heavily all over. Some of the

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  students had turned and were peering curi-

  ously at Paul, for they had grown accus-

  tomed to his silence on the occasion of his

  rare visits, and now, suddenly, he had burst

  out with a lot of nonsense that bewildered

  and annoyed them.

  “Sir…whatever your name is, young

  man…you know, don’t you,” the Professor

  began, “the circumstances attending your

  presence here today, and several times pre-

  viously in the course. I haven’t mentioned it

  before, for reasons, er, commensurate with

  the unpleasantness involved.”

  Paul nodded and walked towards the door.

  “I have a definite course to pursue in these

  lectures,” the Professor went on, going to the

&nbs
p; door and blocking Paul’s way, “and much of

  my time is very precious. Any interrup-

  tions…. Well, and there’s the matter of my

  responsibility. If the Dean were to know…”

  The Professor was opening the door.

  Paul quite suddenly bowed and smiled

  angelically to the Professor.

  “Thank you, sir,” he said. “I hope to meet

  you under more favorable circumstances in the

  future…” And with this he was gone out the

  door, with the Professor looking after him with

  a rather preoccupied expression on his face.

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  “Thankyou,sir”

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  Leo and Arthur, meanwhile, were exchanging

  anxious looks; but after the Professor had

  closed the door, and returned to his station at

  the front of the class as though nothing had

  happened, they rested easily.

  After the hour, they found Paul waiting

  for them downstairs in the lobby of the

  building.

  “Well,” Leo called, “that’s that!”

  “Yes,” said Paul, “it was good while it last-

  ed.” And with this, all three burst out into

  laughter and went out on the walk. It was

  lunch hour.

  “You’re going to have to do a lot of

  explaining to me about that false saintliness

  business,” Arthur admonished in mock

  anger. “And Good Lord! What a mess you

  made of things, all because of your opposi-

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  tion to my ideas!”

  “Where to?” Leo asked.

  “Come with me,” Paul said, hurrying off,

  “and we’ll go to my room. You two must buy

  some sandwiches and we’ll have lunch

  there.”

  “Again! Are you broke again?”

  “Yes.”

  “He lost his job today,” Leo explained to

  Arthur. “Tell us, Paul… What happened?

  Did you just walk out?”

  “No, nothing like that. I stayed up late

  two nights ago trying to read all of

  Lucretius, On the Nature of Things you know—and in the morning I couldn’t get up.

  So when I reported for work today, poof! I

  was fired. There was another man running

  the elevator.”

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