Читать книгу The House of Dust: A Symphony - Conrad Aiken - Страница 5

Table of Contents

I.

The round red sun heaves darkly out of the sea.

The walls and towers are warmed and gleam.

Sounds go drowsily up from streets and wharves.

The city stirs like one that is half in dream.

And the mist flows up by dazzling walls and windows,

Where one by one we wake and rise.

We gaze at the pale grey lustrous sea a moment,

We rub the darkness from our eyes,

And face our thousand devious secret mornings …

And do not see how the pale mist, slowly ascending,

Shaped by the sun, shines like a white-robed dreamer

Compassionate over our towers bending.

There, like one who gazes into a crystal,

He broods upon our city with sombre eyes;

He sees our secret fears vaguely unfolding,

Sees cloudy symbols shape to rise.

Each gleaming point of light is like a seed

Dilating swiftly to coiling fires.

Each cloud becomes a rapidly dimming face,

Each hurrying face records its strange desires.

We descend our separate stairs toward the day,

Merge in the somnolent mass that fills the street,

Lift our eyes to the soft blue space of sky,

And walk by the well-known walls with accustomed feet.

II. THE FULFILLED DREAM

More towers must yet be built—more towers destroyed—

Great rocks hoisted in air;

And he must seek his bread in high pale sunlight

With gulls about him, and clouds just over his eyes …

And so he did not mention his dream of falling

But drank his coffee in silence, and heard in his ears

That horrible whistle of wind, and felt his breath

Sucked out of him, and saw the tower flash by

And the small tree swell beneath him …

He patted his boy on the head, and kissed his wife,

Looked quickly around the room, to remember it—

And so went out … For once, he forgot his pail.

Something had changed—but it was not the street—

The street was just the same—it was himself.

Puddles flashed in the sun. In the pawn-shop door

The same old black cat winked green amber eyes;

The butcher stood by his window tying his apron;

The same men walked beside him, smoking pipes,

Reading the morning paper …

He would not yield, he thought, and walk more slowly,

As if he knew for certain he walked to death:

But with his usual pace—deliberate, firm,

Looking about him calmly, watching the world,

Taking his ease … Yet, when he thought again

Of the same dream, now dreamed three separate times,

Always the same, and heard that whistling wind,

And saw the windows flashing upward past him—

He slowed his pace a little, and thought with horror

How monstrously that small tree thrust to meet him! …

He slowed his pace a little and remembered his wife.

Was forty, then, too old for work like this?

Why should it be? He'd never been afraid—

His eye was sure, his hand was steady …

But dreams had meanings.

He walked more slowly, and looked along the roofs,

All built by men, and saw the pale blue sky;

And suddenly he was dizzy with looking at it,

It seemed to whirl and swim,

It seemed the color of terror, of speed, of death …

He lowered his eyes to the stones, he walked more slowly;

His thoughts were blown and scattered like leaves;

He thought of the pail … Why, then, was it forgotten?

Because he would not need it?

Then, just as he was grouping his thoughts again

About that drug-store corner, under an arc-lamp,

Where first he met the girl whom he would marry—

That blue-eyed innocent girl, in a soft blouse—

He waved his hand for signal, and up he went

In the dusty chute that hugged the wall;

Above the tree; from girdered floor to floor;

Above the flattening roofs, until the sea

Lay wide and waved before him … And then he stepped

Giddily out, from that security,

To the red rib of iron against the sky,

And walked along it, feeling it sing and tremble;

And looking down one instant, saw the tree

Just as he dreamed it was; and looked away,

And up again, feeling his blood go wild.

He gave the signal; the long girder swung

Closer to him, dropped clanging into place,

Almost pushing him off. Pneumatic hammers

Began their madhouse clatter, the white-hot rivets

Were tossed from below and deftly caught in pails;

He signalled again, and wiped his mouth, and thought

A place so high in the air should be more quiet.

The tree, far down below, teased at his eyes,

Teased at the corners of them, until he looked,

And felt his body go suddenly small and light;

Felt his brain float off like a dwindling vapor;

And heard a whistle of wind, and saw a tree

Come plunging up to him, and thought to himself,

'By God—I'm done for now, the dream was right … '

III. INTERLUDE

The warm sun dreams in the dust, the warm sun falls

On bright red roofs and walls;

The trees in the park exhale a ghost of rain;

We go from door to door in the streets again,

Talking, laughing, dreaming, turning our faces,

Recalling other times and places …

We crowd, not knowing why, around a gate,

We crowd together and wait,

A stretcher is carried out, voices are stilled,

The ambulance drives away.

We watch its roof flash by, hear someone say

'A man fell off the building and was killed—

Fell right into a barrel … ' We turn again

Among the frightened eyes of white-faced men,

And go our separate ways, each bearing with him

A thing he tries, but vainly, to forget—

A sickened crowd, a stretcher red and wet.

A hurdy-gurdy sings in the crowded street,

The golden notes skip over the sunlit stones,

Wings are upon our feet.

The sun seems warmer, the winding street more bright,

Sparrows come whirring down in a cloud of light.

We bear our dreams among us, bear them all,

Like hurdy-gurdy music they rise and fall,

Climb to beauty and die.

The wandering lover dreams of his lover's mouth,

And smiles at the hostile sky.

The broker smokes his pipe, and sees a fortune.

The murderer hears a cry.

IV. NIGHTMARE

'Draw three cards, and I will tell your future …

Draw three cards, and lay them down,

Rest your palms upon them, stare at the crystal,

And think of time … My father was a clown,

My mother was a gypsy out of Egypt;

And she was gotten with child in a strange way;

And I was born in a cold eclipse of the moon,

With the future in my eyes as clear as day.'

I sit before the gold-embroidered curtain

And think her face is like a wrinkled desert.

The crystal burns in lamplight beneath my eyes.

A dragon slowly coils on the scaly curtain.

Upon a scarlet cloth a white skull lies.

'Your hand is on the hand that holds three lilies.

You will live long, love many times.

I see a dark girl here who once betrayed you.

I see a shadow of secret crimes.

'There was a man who came intent to kill you,

And hid behind a door and waited for you;

There was a woman who smiled at you and lied.

There was a golden girl who loved you, begged you,

Crawled after you, and died.

'There is a ghost of murder in your blood—

Coming or past, I know not which.

And here is danger—a woman with sea-green eyes,

And white-skinned as a witch … '

The words hiss into me, like raindrops falling

On sleepy fire … She smiles a meaning smile.

Suspicion eats my brain; I ask a question;

Something is creeping at me, something vile;

And suddenly on the wall behind her head

I see a monstrous shadow strike and spread,

The lamp puffs out, a great blow crashes down.

I plunge through the curtain, run through dark to the street,

And hear swift steps retreat …

The shades are drawn, the door is locked behind me.

Behind the door I hear a hammer sounding.

I walk in a cloud of wonder; I am glad.

I mingle among the crowds; my heart is pounding;

You do not guess the adventure I have had! …

Yet you, too, all have had your dark adventures,

Your sudden adventures, or strange, or sweet …

My peril goes out from me, is blown among you.

We loiter, dreaming together, along the street.

V. RETROSPECT

Round white clouds roll slowly above the housetops,

Over the clear red roofs they flow and pass.

A flock of pigeons rises with blue wings flashing,

Rises with whistle of wings, hovers an instant,

And settles slowly again on the tarnished grass.

And one old man looks down from a dusty window

And sees the pigeons circling about the fountain

And desires once more to walk among those trees.

Lovers walk in the noontime by that fountain.

Pigeons dip their beaks to drink from the water.

And soon the pond must freeze.

The light wind blows to his ears a sound of laughter,

Young men shuffle their feet, loaf in the sunlight;

A girl's laugh rings like a silver bell.

But clearer than all these sounds is a sound he hears

More in his secret heart than in his ears—

A hammer's steady crescendo, like a knell.

He hears the snarl of pineboards under the plane,

The rhythmic saw, and then the hammer again—

Playing with delicate strokes that sombre scale …

And the fountain dwindles, the sunlight seems to pale.

Time is a dream, he thinks, a destroying dream;

It lays great cities in dust, it fills the seas;

It covers the face of beauty, and tumbles walls.

Where was the woman he loved? Where was his youth?

Where was the dream that burned his brain like fire?

Even a dream grows grey at last and falls.

He opened his book once more, beside the window,

And read the printed words upon that page.

The sunlight touched his hand; his eyes moved slowly,

The quiet words enchanted time and age.

'Death is never an ending, death is a change;

Death is beautiful, for death is strange;

Death is one dream out of another flowing;

Death is a chorded music, softly going

By sweet transition from key to richer key.

Death is a meeting place of sea and sea.'