Collected Novels and Plays

by James Merrill

  “You have control over Francis,” she begged. “Why is he in this state? He could help. Tommy really values his taste. Go out, please, talk to him, Jane. See what you can do!”

  “I can’t!”

  “You can’t!” scoffed Xenia. “Why can’t you?”

  “That boy, Marcello,” Jane brought out nervously, “I don’t like him, I don’t want to be near him.”

  “But that’s nonsense, that’s childish—” Xenia broke off and shot the girl a look of triumphant perspicacity. “You’re still in love with Francis, then!”

  No, thought Jane. The remark needed only to be made for her to see its irrelevance. Oh, she could shrug and look down in a hurt helpless way that soon got Xenia out of the box, satisfied; but when Jane looked up she was smiling. What she now felt for Francis was something ineffably sweet and sad; remote, too, as if his life had become the closing chapter of a novel in which the characters keep on talking and behaving, quite unaware of a reader already planning what to do, once finished with their fictive lives. What had Jane to do—go to a party? Write Roger? Not that she felt, yet, any great resurgence of interest in him. He was, however, part of a world she recognized. Naively, she wondered if she would ever see Francis again.

  Another person entered the box. It was Marcello.

  “They’re quarreling outside,” he said. “May I sit here, if I’m not in the way? Oh, scusi!” For he had let his knuckle graze her bare arm.

  She stared outraged into his eyes, into Xenia’s eyes, into the eyes of all who took for granted that love—their kind of love—mattered more than anything else. Then Francis’s voice sounded from the door: “Marcello, I’m going now.”

  “I’m not ready to go, Francis,” he said, not looking round.

  “Oh I see,” said Francis sarcastically. “Excuse me!”

  Jane took a deep breath. “Go!” she told them in hushed fury. “Go this minute, I command you!”

  The word “command” undid all three. Francis gave a little helpless croak. Even Marcello backed away. The door shut behind them. Jane smiled wildly into the dark. How Roger would have laughed, had he been there! A hush overcame the audience.

  It ended almost at once, as if something unforeseen had interrupted the performance. Vague voices filled the theater, laughs and coughs. The two bald old men in the next box glared about, failing to realize, like many others, that with these rude noises the second act had begun. As the curtain parted a slow warm gasp of amusement greeted the scene. The old men, bent over their programs, whispered and winked. So this was Hell!

  Before them, beyond the glowing apron of the stage, could be distinguished the lights and boxes of a theater so like their own that a vast mirror might have been set up inside the proscenium. The view being from the vantage of the stage itself, hence unfamiliar to most, heightened the illusion. Gilt and puce, cherub and luster, all had been copied. Somewhere infernal musicians tuned their instruments. The ranks of the damned chattered, called to one another, ruffled their libretti or wielded great plumed fans, wiped steam from monocles—there was a sense of extreme heat—until at a nod from a horned demon in white tie, a bit elevated above the unseen players, the music began.

  First came an overture solemn but shallow in the early-nineteenth-century style. A French horn disgraced itself before seeking shelter in a thumping tutti. Everything had to be heard twice. At last, after prolonged chords, Orpheus stepped into a pool of light directly facing the prompter’s box.

  This was the treat they’d been waiting for. While Orpheus bowed, smirking in scuffed black tights and gold-laced doublet, a ridiculous hat under one arm, the damned souls hailed him with such fervor as a living audience would have reserved for the latest Italian tenor, possessed of a continental or cinematic reputation, to appear before them in the mustiest Italian opera, the oldest chestnut of all. Then, silence; upon every ear fell the famous pianissimo that opened his lament, the gem each would have sat till dawn to hear. He unwound it like a spool of gold. Tears from his throat, that sobbing petition in six-eight time (save for those highest, softest notes—how did he sustain them?) rang beyond the comprehension of the decorous awe-struck orchestra. Eurydice, Eurydice had been taken from him, was lost forever—ristorate il mio amore, and not just the melody but the language of romantic loss was his, viver’ non voglio più, in all its rich incoherence. His notes began to flutter now within a net of runs and turns. Non dirmi che sia perduta, sento gelar il cuore! When he had done, the damned souls (in certain of whom there had been leisure to discover, by reference to the location of their boxes or the eccentricity of their dress, suspicious likenesses to their worldly counterparts, those jeweled and decrepit patrons known to all) rose from their seats, weeping. Flower and glove rained down upon the singer. Fans, themselves enthralled, trembled ignored on the rims of boxes. Encore! Bis! the listeners cried. Bravo! Bis! And he began again.

  But Eurydice, where was she? In rapture they heard his plea, her cruel chaperons, yet not one stirred to summon her. Orpheus himself could be seen to scan the boxes, alive with singers who in soft harmony began now to remark upon the bliss they suffered. Could it be that she alone hadn’t come to hear him? He sang more fervently, one hand to his heart, the other high in the air for guidance, begging again and again, dunque, bell’ alma, vieni!—nor was it possible to tell at which point in his song a high unearthly voice mingled with his own.

  It seemed to have come from nowhere, clear and cold as a stream, reaching at once an indifference of volume and passion from which it was not to depart. As instructed by the angel, Orpheus turned his back on the theater of Hell and on its central box which, hitherto in darkness, was now suffused with a weak violet light. One could just make out, against cloths and shadows, the sparkle of a diamond, a white hand limp on the plush rim and, within, the aigrette rising like an idea from the seated woman’s brow. The voice, frigid and clear as ever, belonged to her.

  Little remained but for Orpheus to hear the song that, with his own and the chorus that reconciled them, wove so mysterious a braid; to hear in her music how she was perpetually unmoved, how alone (or was there a figure behind her, tall, shadowy?) in her box, narrower it seemed than the others, she sat beyond the reach of his wooing. At last he would know that he had placed her there himself, for at her death he had enshrined in his song not Eurydice but her loss, her absence that, growing bearable through his art, had as well grown irrevocable. With sickening force his knowledge was to break upon him by the end of the ensemble. Then, as foretold, he would turn incredulously to read it in her eyes—only to see her fade, a second and last time, past his reaching voice. His song at an end, again the damned souls would weep, applaud, hurl flowers, cry for encores. There would be no denying them.

  PART THREE

  21. The Buchanans learned of Mr. Tanning’s impending marriage on their fourth day in Rome.

  They stood together outside the Hotel Eden. The cable still fluttered in Larry’s good hand. A doorman splendidly outfitted—all he lacked was a flaming sword—signaled for a taxi.

  “It could have been much worse,” said Larry. “You know who it could have been. La trampessa.”

  “We must be on the lookout for a nice present,” said Enid.

  Lily asked, “Would you call Lady Good attractive?”

  “Oh, definitely!”

  “We like her very much, Lily,” her father said.

  “It’s intelligent of Prudence,” added her mother, “to have the wedding in New York.”

  “Will we go to it?”

  “If we’re invited, sweetie.”

  “Another thing,” said Larry. “I won’t have you killing yourself to get the Cottage ready by,” he glanced at the cable, “May fifteenth.”

  “I was thinking,” Enid mused, “she may not want red in the ocean room.”

  The doorman asked where they were going.

  Enid had started for the taxi, but stepped back. Where were they going?

  “Mummy,” Lily whispered
in her ear, “can we go do what you said?”

  “What did I say, my pearl?”

  “That if I wanted you’d ask Daddy if I could sell it.”

  “Now what’s the trouble?” he demanded.

  Enid was flustered. The ring, the gold ring Francis gave Lily for Christmas. She had thought of taking it to a shop and asking—

  “I’m sick and tired of shops,” said Larry. “We’ve done nothing but spend money for four days. Why don’t we try to see something?”

  “Villa-Borghese-Vatican-Museum-San-Pietro-Foro-Romano-Roman-Forum,” recited the doorman encouragingly.

  The taxi-driver shot for the moon. “Tivoli! Villa d’Esté! Villa of Hadrian!” he wheedled. “Moho bella giornata, Signori. Spenderepoco!”

  No. Tivoli was too far. Besides, half the fun of Tivoli was a soufflé, and that evening they’d be going back to Alfredo’s for rum omelets. It didn’t do to overdo. As for the Vatican, they would see it tomorrow. A business connection had arranged a Special Audience with the Pope, not the easiest feat during Easter Week. Lily and her mother had already bought black gauze veils, lace-trimmed, and rehearsed obeisances in their suite at the Eden. “What would Alice say!” Lily kept exclaiming. As yet, neither Enid nor Larry guessed the extent of Alice’s influence.

  Wasn’t there, Enid was asking, something of Michelangelo’s they could go see? “You’re interested in sculpture, sweetie,” she reminded Lily. The famous Moses—where was that?

  “San Pietro in Vincoli!” cried doorman and driver in unison. Soon the Buchanans were rattling over cobblestones towards it.

  Larry did his best. “Isn’t this great?” he said, rubbing his hands. “Look at those palm trees. You’d never think we were on the same latitude as Trenton, New Jersey.” But a vein ticked angrily at his temple. “What about Francis and some ring?” he growled.

  “It’s the little antique gold ring Francis gave Lily for Christmas,” said Enid cheerfully.

  “This one.” Lily spoke as if she had numberless rings. She removed her new white glove and showed it.

  “That was a damn nice present,” Larry declared, “say what you like about Francis.”

  Enid agreed. “It was. Lily just thinks she’s a little grown-up for it now. I can understand that, Larry, can’t you? After all, a ring with an owl, like her baby plate and mug …” Her mother’s reasonable voice made light of Lily’s real feelings about the ring, its dangerous fragility. The gold was too soft, she could bend it without thinking. Once it snapped, she would have damaged a precious thing, impossible to repair. Also, the owl’s eyes unnerved her, round and knowing, like Francis’s own. If ever she left the ring on her dresser, it gazed after her so reproachfully! “… I told her she might sell it to buy something she really wants,” Enid wound up.

  “Such as what, Lily? What do you want?”

  She looked away. Did she have to want something? “I don’t know yet,” she said.

  “I’m not butting in.” Larry wiped his brow. “The ring belongs to you. But why don’t you think it over?”

  “She has, Larry.”

  “I have, Daddy.”

  “Eccovi, Signori!” said the driver, stopping the taxi. “Lovely day. Good luck.”

  “They won’t let you practice your Italian,” Enid pouted.

  “We’ll talk about the ring later,” said Larry firmly.

  Inside, they made for the monument. It was barely visible behind a breathing shroud of tourists, passengers of four CIT buses the Buchanans had remarked, pretending bravely not to, in the piazza.

  “God damn it!” Larry hissed. “Don’t tell me these baboons know what they’re seeing!”

  Lily hoped he would be forgiven. Her new straw hat sat squarely on her head. Alice had described to her the torments in store for bareheaded women.

  When the crowd pivoted and marched away, the Buchanans moved forward to where a gray-haired couple remained in conversation with the English-speaking guide. From behind bars Moses stared furiously over their heads. The marble had an oily unwashed look. Horns grew from his brow. One huge hand clutched not only the tablets of the Law but a few thick coils of his unnaturally long beard.

  “Moses was very wise,” said Enid. “That’s why his beard’s so long.”

  Oddly enough, Moses’ beard was the subject of the tourists’ debate.

  “I do not see it,” said the woman. “I’m not sure I want to see it.”

  “There, below his lip, and a little to the left.” Her husband pointed. “That’s her head. About six inches on down, the waist begins, then the curve of the buttock. Right?” he appealed to the guide.

  “Do I understand?” asked the latter, a civil young man. “You have seen a nude figure in the beard of Moses?”

  “There’s her breast. There’s her knee. See her now? She’s partly wrapped up in the beard.”

  “Don’t listen to him, he’s crazy,” the woman told the guide, who forthwith, as if at last perceiving how to deal with this type of crank, broke into a smile of illumination.

  “Ah!” he exclaimed. “Quite so. There in the beard.”

  “See?” said the man.

  “No, I do not see,” said his wife, putting on one-way-mirror dark glasses.

  “Thank you, Sir,” continued the guide. “Wisdom and woman. I shall mention it next time. It is very interesting.”

  When they left, Enid giggled: “Grandpa would have been amused by that, don’t you think?” Larry glowered. This oblique remark was one of the few Lily heard either make, throughout their stay in Rome, that could be taken to bear on her grandfather’s marriage. The omission didn’t bother her. Stranger things had been occupying her thoughts, much of that winter.

  It had begun with Xenia’s telling Lily that her mother had been raised in the Roman Church. Since then, the child had developed a curious susceptibility to incense, to droned Latin and red flickerings. Alice furthermore—it was Alice who now and then exposed her to these novelties—had flatly stated that nobody was ever converted from the Church. An amazing suspicion then dawned on Lily; her mother hadn’t left the Church, but chose, for reasons of her own, to either neglect or dissemble her faith. At once the little girl felt engaged in some dark communion with her mother, too strange and sweet ever to be hinted at. Strolling down a side aisle, Lily would be overcome by a guilty warmth, a dizziness nearly. The give-and-take shocked her most. The fonts of holy water, the poor boxes, old women in black waiting to be paid for the candle you lit, above all the confessionals—to what did they add up, if not the weird notion of bringing out into the open what you felt; the notion, weirder yet, of confessing to anyone what you had done? That should be between you and God. But Alice disagreed and more than once, after vanishing into the carved recess with its whispering and perhaps the fold of a black skirt visible, had emerged smiling, rosary in hand. It had worked.

  It worked in Rome on a scale for which even Alice couldn’t have prepared her. Lent had turned the city into a vast humming clay-colored baroque greenhouse for the conscience. In every church a pleasurable moaning from behind the little grilles told of sins sprouting like bulbs, soon to grow tall and fragrant for the Mother whose image, sometimes lofty and unapproachable, sometimes sadly smiling with hands outstretched, met Lily on all sides. She made now for a freestanding statue. Maria! Santa Vergine! sighed the women pressing forward, black shawls slipping off their heads, to fondle her garment, kiss her hand. A sudden gap in the worshippers made Lily gasp. She had never seen that before. The Virgin wore a cluster of knives at her breast, but casually, like a big brooch. Her hand, moreover, had been entirely worn away by love. These glimpses both excited and alarmed Lily. She wanted to know whether the women were to be punished for what they’d done.

  Her alarm extended, as she toured the church, to include a number of paintings, large and small, draped with black veils. She didn’t care to think what had happened to them. Still, before she could check herself Lily had pictured a tiny monkey of an Italian child leaping
up in a passion to plunge a knife into the canvas. Shrouded like corpses—or as she and her mother would be, tomorrow at the Pope’s—she counted a dozen such in this church alone. No wonder the confessionals were full.

  To tell a priest what you had done was easy. To tell your own mother—! Sick at heart, Lily swore, not for the first time, that she would do this before Easter.

  Or if not—for she’d put off her confession so often as to have grown a bit cynical about it—if not, she would know what to buy with the money from the ring. A lovely present. A present to show her mother how she felt.

  Lily had had, the past two days—they spent the first day being measured for suits and dresses; the second day, Sunday, shops were closed—her first concentrated vision of how much money could buy. Shopping in the States was a tame ritual, involving perhaps two shops in an afternoon; each purchase would be charged and sent. But in Rome Enid’s great bulb-shaped leather bag kept opening. The beautiful money, pink, gold, green, blue, unfolded like blossoms, to be spent like perfume in one shop after another. All but the biggest items were carried off in triumph. People turned on the street to point out the rich Americans. Back at the hotel you could hardly sit down. Packages open or sealed contained: baby clothes for little Tanning, wardrobes for the twins; luncheon sets, dinner sets, breakfast-tray sets; leather boxes, pocketbooks, wallets; Roman scarves; eighty meters of red damask for the ocean room; ceramic roosters; two pairs of Venetian glass candlesticks in the shape of blackamoors, tubular, flecked with gold; ties and gloves and pullovers; compacts, two of silver, three of amber; a pile of fruit in bisque; dolls dressed as little Dutch girls, as Spanish dancers, as peasants from Sicily—where Michèle, the Buchanans’ gardener, had been born; dolls with carrots or peapods for heads; a grasshopper of colored felt, an octopus of the same; a guaranteed Canaletto, on approval for a week; a pair of electrified baroque cupids; and six alabaster dishes, rims marked by alternating indentations for cigarettes and white doves bending, no doubt, to sip the ashes. Bulkier purchases—antique chests, chandeliers, a carpet, etc.—were being shipped home.