Orpheus Emerged Read online

  street.

  “Are you going to come anyway?”

  Michael suddenly called. This came as a

  great surprise to both Maureen and Leo,

  and to Paul himself no less. He stopped in

  his tracks and stood still, stiffly, as though a

  stunning thought had just shot into his

  mind. Maureen gave Michael a strange,

  puzzled look, and Leo was again vaguely

  embarrassed.

  Paul had not yet turned, was still stand-

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  ing numbly, as though struck.

  Michael strode up the steps and into the

  dark hall of the apartment house. Maureen

  followed, while Leo, for his part, wavered

  near the steps, to wait and see what Paul

  would do. Paul had not yet moved, not yet

  turned, and although Leo hesitated at least

  ten seconds while Michael and Maureen

  were going up the steps, he did not see Paul

  move, and reported it so later.

  Michael immediately went to his bed to lie

  down, stating that he would sleep awhile and

  wake up in time for the party. Before he could

  fall asleep, Maureen questioned him about

  Paul. “I thought you didn’t want him around?

  I felt sure you wouldn’t have liked my inviting

  him to the party, he’s such a madman, and a lot

  of people don’t want him around.”

  “Who for instance?” Michael illogically

  pouted.

  “Well, my friend Barbara.”

  “Barbara is a bore.”

  “She is not! And she’s a nice girl, and a

  whole lot smarter than the lot of you with all

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  “Oh shut

  up”

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  ORPHEUS EMERGED 86

  your fancy talk.”

  “Oh shut up. I want to sleep now.”

  “Don’t shut me up, you brat!” Maureen

  shouted, and she hit Michael with his own

  shoe that lay at the foot of the bed.

  “Is this the way to start a party!?” called

  Leo from the other room, where he was sat-

  isfying his aesthetic impulse by moving the

  flowers around to different parts of the

  room. “Yelling at each other. Look, I’ve

  arranged things nicely here. Look at it.”

  “Now I’m sleeping,” said Michael, and

  turned over.

  “Yes, and you’ll wrinkle your trousers. I

  just pressed them this morning.”

  Michael sighed, rose from his bed,

  removed his trousers, handed them to

  Maureen, and lay down again to sleep.

  “Close the door,” he added.

  “The dreamer, the dreamer,” said Leo,

  with his face in the bedroom door. “Tell me

  what you dream this time, Michael. ‘Life,

  you impalpable phantom, thrust not your

  fog shapes at me, I reject you! Oh dreams! Oh

  powerful, tangible dreams—I’ll dream till

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  death is a dream!’ He wrote that himself,

  Maureen, now look at him. He’s—”

  “Shut up,” interrupted Maureen. The

  doorbell was ringing. “Answer the bell,” she

  ordered Leo. She closed the door and

  Michael was left to sleep.

  “It’s Arthur and Toni!” Leo cried from the

  hall. “And they have wine and record albums

  with them. Hello, hello, hello. And Julius is with

  them. Hello Julius. Come in, come in, the place

  is all fixed up; you won’t recognize it! What’s that

  you’ve got under your arm, Arthur? Ha! T. S.

  Eliot. ‘Ash Wednesday,’ is it?”

  “ ‘Quartets,’ ” corrected Arthur, brushing into the room with his load of records.

  Maureen was standing arranging the candy

  bowls and preparing to light the candles.

  “Well, well,” cried Arthur, “how nice

  everything is! And Maureen—you look beau-

  tiful. Where’s Michael?”

  “Taking a nap.”

  “Taking a nap, taking a nap. Toni, see how

  nice these gladiolas are.”

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  Toni entered the room demurely and

  smiled at Maureen. “My God,” she said, look-

  ing around, “the place doesn’t look the same.

  You must have been working all day. Is

  Barbara coming?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Julius echoed softly, and sat

  down on the couch. Leo sat down next to

  him and offered him a cigarette. “Julius,” he

  said straight off, “what happened during your

  trip?”

  “I rode,” he answered. “I rode and I rode.”

  “Wine!” cried Arthur, holding up a bottle of

  vermouth. He held it up to the candlelight.

  “See the color? Get some glasses, somebody.”

  The doorbell rang again.

  “Well!” cried Leo, jumping up.

  “Everyone’s coming early. It’s going to be

  some night. That must be Anthony and

  Marie. Perhaps they have some wine too.”

  Julius had stretched out on the couch

  and was perusing a volume of Baudelaire’s

  works. “Take your big feet off my couch,”

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  Maureen warned as she ran up to the

  kitchen to fetch glasses. Toni was standing

  in front of the mirror preening her hair.

  Anthony and Marie came in, and soon

  the party was well underway.

  “Big surprise!” cried Arthur, holding

  up his albums of records for all to see.

  “I have here the Brahms Clarinet

  Quintet in G minor. We’re going to

  play this and also some others I have

  here. Stravinsky’s Petruchka ballet

  suite, who likes that?”

  “I do, I do!” cried Anthony happily.

  “I borrowed these from Bartholomew,

  the capitalist aesthete. Look! And here I

  have Shostakovich’s Fifth, the ‘Apassionata Sonata’ and shorter pieces.”

  “Shostakovich!” cried Anthony wildly,

  running up to Arthur. He had already begun

  drinking, and had a head start on everyone

  else. “Let me hold it to my heart! And here,

  you didn’t show us this one…Rachmaninoff!

  His Second Concerto! Marie, Marie,” he

  cried, turning to his beloved. “The Russian

  soul!”

  “Yes,” she said, “I know.”

  “Said the rooster to the hen, or some-

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  “I do,I do!”

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  thing,” Julius mumbled from the couch. “Is

  this the Slavic soul I’ve heard so much

  about?”

  “What is it from?” cried Leo, reflecting.

  “I read it somewhere…”

  The doorbell was ringing again.

  “Barbara that must be, and her friend

  Hubert!” Leo went on, hurrying towards the

  hall. “I’ll bet it’s them. That completes it,

  all right…”

  “Only the Russians know how to write

  music,
” Anthony was saying to Julius, who

  lay demurely on the couch. “Don’t talk to

  me about those damned classic forms. Pah!

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  Rachmaninoff!” he shouted, carried away

  again with excitement. “Rachmaninoff!”

  Anthony had not yet taken his hat off, he

  was too excited; it was a slouch hat, dark

  and limp, and he looked utterly fantastic in

  it. “Let me hold it to my heart!!” he repeat-

  ed, picking up the album.

  Barbara, a girl about Maureen’s age, and

  her escort, Hubert, were the last to arrive.

  Immediately after, with the serving of wine

  and hors d’oeuvres, and the beginning of

  the record concert, the party was in full

  swing—and Michael still slept.

  Anthony had insisted on beginning the

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  but Arthur protested, and they compro-

  mised on playing excerpts. All during the

  performance, Anthony was in raptures; and

  he would have started dancing hadn’t there

  been so many people, or, rather, hadn’t he

  had so little wine as yet. When the music

  was finished, and everybody applauded,

  and the hubbub grew, Arthur and Anthony

  argued violently over the next piece to be

  played.

  “But did you notice,” Arthur put in, after

  they had come to an agreement, “that pecu-

  liar ebullient quality in Petruchka, in all of

  Stravinsky? Eh? I would compare that art with that of Tchelichev, and with Joyce too.”

  “Yes, yes,” nodded Anthony, drinking up

  some wine. Julius was at their side. “You

  know why?” Arthur went on. “Well, it

  should be evident. It seethes with life—

  there are great eruptions of organic matter,

  and behind a sort of ripple of amoebae. Ho!

  That’s good!”

  “Vaguely,” said Julius. “Tell me, Arthur.

  Since I’ve been gone, I hear you’ve been

  espousing poetry. Can I lay that to

  Michael’s influence?”

  “Perhaps,” said Arthur, putting on the

  new record in the machine. “This!” he now

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  cried to the party in general, “is the new

  Brahms Clarinet Quintet in G minor.

  Everybody listen!”

  The music started, but this time every-

  body kept talking; wine had loosened all

  their tongues. They were assembled in lit-

  tle groups throughout both the rooms.

  Arthur sat rapturously by the machine,

  while Anthony sulked over by the couch.

  “Only the Russians know how to write

  music,” he insisted darkly, but Arthur paid

  him no attention.

  “Well, tell me,” Julius persisted, sitting by

  Arthur. “Tell me now in all seriousness:

  what does the modern poet want, hey?”

  “That’s a vague question. But perhaps I

  can answer it. Yes! He wants a return to the

  conditions of the Golden Age.”

  Julius chuckled softly. “That does sound

  like Michael. You know, I know him better

  than you think. He’s got you in his grip…”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, nothing. But—” and Julius chuckled

  again — “that business of wanting a return

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  to the conditions of the Golden Age, you

  know that sounds terribly like the phrase,

  ‘he wants a return to the conditions of the

  nursery,’ now doesn’t it?”

  Arthur waved an impatient hand.

  Just after the music ended on the phono-

  graph—at the termination of the second

  movement of the quintet, to be exact—and

  as everyone began clapping their hands,

  and laughing and talking while Arthur

  somewhat proudly and bashfully removed

  the record from the turntable, Michael

  gloomily emerged from his bedroom.

  There was a pause in the hubbub, and

  then Leo cried out his name and ran up to

  him with a glass and a bottle of wine: “Here,

  here, help yourself to some wine! Wake up!

  … you’re half asleep.”

  Michael stared sullenly at Leo, rubbing

  his eyes with his knuckles. Then he gradu-

  ally became conscious of the large group

  assembled in the two rooms, most of whom

  were staring and smiling at him, for he was

  technically and undeniably the “host.”

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  “All right,” smiled Michael bashfully, tak-

  ing the bottle and the glass. “I guess I do

  need to wake up. I had only intended to

  take a nap…”

  “Famous last words!” cried Julius, and at

  this, the tension was released: laughter and

  the babble were resumed, during which

  Michael, with a sort of sigh of relief, poured

  himself some wine and drank it. At this

  point, the doorbell rang once more, and Leo

  immediately dashed into the hall. Maureen,

  excitedly relating something to her friend

  Barbara in the next room, had not heard the

  ringing. Michael sat down on the couch and

  began to scratch his hair sleepily.

  “Well, well, Mike,” said Arthur, coming

  over. “You missed the Brahms quintet.”

  “On the contrary, no,” Michael said, smil-

  ing up at Arthur. “It woke me up; I listened

  in bed. It was comfortable in bed and the

  music was soothing, particularly the second

  movement—although there was so much

  noise I could hardly hear it.”

  “It’s wonderful music,” said Arthur, sit-

  ting down beside Michael. He lit a cigarette.

  Michael drained another glassful of

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  wine. He smacked his lips. “Can you imag-

  ine that music?” he said eagerly. “Those

  slow movements? God! What an incredibly

  sensitive man Brahms must have been, to feel that type of thing in him…”

  “It’s Paul!” Leo cried from the hallway.

  “Come on in, friend. We have wine, music,

  everything. We’ve all been waiting for you,

  as you so accurately predicted…”

  There was an answering mumble.

  Arthur rose from the couch and went into

  the hallway: “Hi there, you…”

  Michael picked up his bottle and glass

  and stood up irresolutely. Then he walked

  quickly to the other room and stood at the

  fringe of a group comprised of Anthony,

  Marie, Toni and Barbara’s friend Hubert.

  They were talking about the latest psycho-

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  logical advances, and Hubert was holding

  forth on hypno-analysis. Michael refrained

  from looking directly at Marie; instead, he

  concentrated his gaze on Toni
, Arthur’s

  blonde girl, and would have spoken to her

  hadn’t she been so engrossed in what

  Hubert was saying.

  “It’s a great thing,” Hubert was saying,

  motioning with his long thin hands.

  “Certain blind spots deny you and the psy-

  choanalyst both an insight into certain

  important matters. Under hypno-analysis,

  of course, one lets loose completely—the

  blind spot becomes an illumined eye…”

  “You turn your phrases like a poet,”

  Michael interrupted suddenly, and without

  warning to the little group. “Let me tell

  you,” he rushed on, as the others stared at

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  him with some surprise, “in psycho-analysis

  one very important factor is completely

  overlooked, as far as I am concerned you

  see—although I’m no expert on the subject.”

  Hubert was staring coldly. “So you’re given

  an adult insight into child emotions which

  have formed certain emotional patterns in

  you, so that is so…”

  “Well,” began Hubert. Michael held up

  his hand. At this instant, Anthony caught

  sight of Paul in the next room and shouted

  at him across the apartment. “Paul, Paul,

  you’ve come. It worked, you know!” And

  with this, Anthony ran to Paul, and as he

  disengaged himself from the little circle of

  conversation, he left a little place for

  Michael to step into. Before the others

  could turn their attentions to the effusive

  greeting Anthony was tendering Paul in the

  next room, Michael rushed on, hardly

  knowing what he was talking about: “You

  see, now, as I was saying, look! The analy-

  sis regains your right, psychologically

  speaking, to make adult decisions, under-

  stand? It has revealed to you certain blind

  spots, say as hypno-analysis does, it is a

  revelation. What can I find out about my-

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  self, for instance, hey? Plenty, plenty. But I

  refuse to find out!— it would ruin me, I

  would no longer contain dark secrets, and

  nightmares, and dualisms, and thrilling con-

  flicts. No, I would be left completely cleaned

  out of all my poetic equipment, and I would

  have to say, in a broad sweeping voice,