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The House Of Dust: Part 03: 09: Cabaret

by Conrad Potter Aiken

We sit together and talk, or smoke in silence.

You say (but use no words) 'this night is passing

As other nights when we are dead will pass . . .'

Perhaps I misconstrue you: you mean only,

'How deathly pale my face looks in that glass . . .'

You say: 'We sit and talk, of things important . . .

How many others like ourselves, this instant,

Mark the pendulum swinging against the wall?

How many others, laughing, sip their coffee,

Or stare at mirrors, and do not talk at all? . . .

'This is the moment' (so you would say, in silence)

When suddenly we have had too much of laughter:

And a freezing stillness falls, no word to say.

Our mouths feel foolish . . . For all the days hereafter

What have we saved, what news, what tune, what play?

'We see each other as vain and futile tricksters,

Posturing like bald apes before a mirror;

No pity dims our eyes . . .

How many others, like ourselves, this instant,

See how the great world wizens, and are wise? . . .'

Well, you are right . . . No doubt, they fall, these seconds . . .

When suddenly all's distempered, vacuous, ugly,

And even those most like angels creep for schemes.

The one you love leans forward, smiles, deceives you,

Opens a door through which you see dark dreams.

But this is momentary . . . or else, enduring,

Leads you with devious eyes through mists and poisons

To horrible chaos, or suicide, or crime . . .

And all these others who at your conjuration

Grow pale, feeling the skeleton touch of time,

Or, laughing sadly, talk of things important,

Or stare at mirrors, startled to see their faces,

Or drown in the waveless vacuum of their days,

Suddenly, as from sleep, awake, forgetting

This nauseous dream; take up their accustomed ways,

Exhume the ghost of a joke, renew loud laughter,

Forget the moles above their sweethearts' eyebrows,

Lean to the music, rise,

And dance once more in a rose-festooned illusion

With kindness in their eyes . . .

They say (as we ourselves have said, remember)

'What wizardry this slow waltz works upon us!

And how it brings to mind forgotten things!'

They say 'How strange it is that one such evening

Can wake vague memories of so many springs!'

And so they go . . . In a thousand crowded places,

They sit to smile and talk, or rise to ragtime,

And, for their pleasures, agree or disagree.

With secret symbols they play on secret passions.

With cunning eyes they see

The innocent word that sets remembrance trembling,

The dubious word that sets the scared heart beating . . .

The pendulum on the wall

Shakes down seconds . . . They laugh at time, dissembling;

Or coil for a victim and do not talk at all.