~-----

Sonnet 29ALLYN WOOD

THE boy Argus, who is nineteen,with palette colors in the carriersof his fingers, turns back to thehouse as if to make a last precau-

tionary round before a journey. Insteadhe has decided to stay. He leaves his be-longings in the debris of the hall. A catfrom the end of the hall peers and theyexchange reserves across silence heavy butfor a hum, compoundly powerful and accus-tomed, like a thousand cats purring, or asa tornado may sound to those it has leftbehind, with implication eternal, bothretrospective and ominous; from the coreof which pierces a steady tapping of hisfather's typewriter. The boy starts to gothrough the rooms when something rises"Ind catches in his throat, a cough or a cry,unclasping time that rolls out before him.'Ilow did it begin? By what way have I

come?'His mother was dead and he was four,

drawing her portrait with enormous headin a sunny room. His father, Pere, beganto care for him with preoccupied tender-nesS. Papers collected on the floor and onthe furniture. Strangers came who madetables rap and curtains move, who lookeddown at him as if he were too alive. Onenight Pere pointed to the bottom of the bedand said, "Your mother's there, if youcould see her." Thus had begun his father'sjourney to find the meaning of death.

Then rain was falling through im-measurable afternoon and he was eight.Ilis father was reading aloud Shakespeare'ssonnet Twenty-nine. Deeply, softly as alute he sang the words-lute in a troubad-or's hands who sings of love and thecrusades. The child drew, frequently look-ing out into the strange dusk that brought

Pere so near and held him becalmed, oreven had delivered him to stay. Pere satin shadow, only the book extended-to win-dow light; seeming to shrink, to let therest find its way toward Argus. So read-ing, darkness became complete, when sud-denly as his father rose to pull the curtain,scent of thaw filled the room, which theyst!"etched to breathe, held on the pinnacleof a wave that was too great to be of one,or even two, or even three.

Then pitched into stormy blackness,unmapped chaos, 'while the dead werederacinated! The crusader found not a holyland, the explorer not a welcoming world.Did Pere, trying to be open-minded, knowwhen he looked without or when within?·Driven, tormented, pursued by the unseen,he said that in seeking her he had asked theway of others who had fallen upon him andwere robbing him of life. He told the boythat his mother was trying to save them,"us," he said, although Argus did not feelin need of rescue. "People must knowabout death," cried Pere-"What a differ-ence it will make!"

Gradually as time passed and less andless could be changed, the house grew tolook as if they were starting for a longjourney. Trunks containing his father'smanuscripts-diary of the invisible odys-sey-pressed the furniture toward thecentres of the rooms. The world of theirdomesticity shrank until it was only chan-nels such as a mole makes Isol ti. . a lOn pres-sed ~ward; his father was too busy to behospitable, and friends made a detour ofthought about him as they do about onedead, seeming reluctant to admit that hehad ever lived. At night Argus ki, wa mg,heard Pere's typewriter tapping, or his

-3-

voice talking with whom he did not know.He tucked in one of the great purring catsthat had come, been named Lares andPenates, and remained. In pauses of typ-ing, through the room channels that bynight were the interior of an ear, he heardthe other purring. But he waited to hearthe typewriter again. Pere was ill and layon the couch too long, laughing grimly atthe suggestion that a doctor be called. "Iknow what it is . He wouldn't believe orhelp." But when he rallied, their life wasa citadel, to ArgUS exciting when curious,officious persons from without tried to in-vade; from which they frequently emergedto mingle unrecognized and happy.

Time grows short, is almost now . . .When did the citadel fall?He was sixteen. He called toward

clear faces, and the call shook the walls.He summoned Pere to adventure in artists'terms of space and harmony and light; fora while he stayed by Pere Who yearned yetfeared, until seeing he grew adamant, notbold, at last he went out alone. Until aftersunset he roamed through strange streets-streets that climbed hills and rolled intovalleys; wherever he walked, children onroller-skates followed sliding throughmelting ice on their skates, which wereChristmas gifts they had had to wait to use.Scent of northern thaw swelled strong asmagnolias or vast tea shops. Then twilightcame, tea-colored, with porcelain soundsthrough opened .windows, with a lost kittenthat he tucked inside his coat. Home wasso different now he scarcely knew it, aruin with a door, though outwardly thesame. Pere would not forgive him buttook the kitten.

Being part of the world, he returned

to it many days. Never quite gone: some-

times in the midst of life his soul stood

in a doorway barring the sight from some-

thing horrible. Among certain persons he

felt ashamed, until he went back to thebeginning of the journey to find the mean-ing of death, and understood that no matterhow mistaken he might be, Pere was brave.

The cats increased. Huge impenetrablecats slunk about the house keeping theircounsel, children of Lares and Penates, thefirst pair, or others that came along thestreet; huge pent cats that felt not wantnor weather. Their purring and singingwere intense and loud, sometimes a tremen-dous largo, again, as they divided, spoke,and answered, a fugue of Bach's aspiration.There was never silence until their soundbecame silence in his exhaustion or pre-occupation. Sometimes it did not speakcontentment, but was a vast voice of resent-ment Argus heard, a rumble that massesmake before a revolution, rumble that isignored until too late. He asked Pere tolet him give some of the cats away. Perereplied bitterly,

"They do not desert me. See! theywatch the mystery that you deny." Tearsrose to Pere's eyes but did not flow. 'Thethaw-the late thaw, my father, remem-ber?'

Argus is climbing the stair to his room.Papers crackle about his ankles and pilesof manuscript ascend the stair. If thismorning there had been poetry, even apoached egg, what a difference such thingsmake! But he had had an idea; he hadwished to paint; the cats were maddening.Suddenly he went downstairs into the cryptfilled with morning light where his fatherwas writing, and told him that he mustmake a choice between himself and someof the cats. His proclamation was far

from amusing or dramatic; he trembled for

the decision, which Pere made silently by

gathering the cats about him. So Argus

went upstairs to pack, calling down hope-

fully, "How about Othello? ... Poe? ...

Jenghiz Khan? Won't you give him up?"

-4-

Then it was time to go.Pere stood in the hall holding a cruci-

fix. He exorcised his son, but there wasno appreciable change. Argus was iI agonyto stay and yet to go. He thought of Perefilling his empty room with cats; the wallsof the citadel raised, reinforced, the wallsbesieged and someday broken. And hethought of the intervals of peace whenPere read, a wanderer barely touchingshore; life like people streaming to theshore from a ramparted city beyond, bear-ing food and clothing; for Pere was bothwithin walls and without. He asked hisfather again and then went out.

There was a sound of something

falling.Pere lay on the floor in the corner

where he had shrunk. The boy fell besidehim and raised his head, which was veryred. He was gasping. Argus shouted in11isface things one shouts to another be-

loved, who sails, when many waves arebetween, and the words must carry abovethe deep. He ran to the telephone to calla doctor. But Pere rose unsteadily andsnatched the receiver from his hand. "Iknow what it is. He wouldn't believe orhelp."

Argus stands in his room. Presentlyhe must bring his belongings up again. Hisfather is typing and the cats sing a tremen-dous largo. Pale gold eyes stare fromunder his bed; his tired mind thinks, 'colorof wine that goes with fish ... translatedfish.' There is a fish-spine on his bed.Among his belongings is a canvas that hehad prepared for his idea this morning;he feels a faint magnetic pull toward itthat tingles his fingers, or are they goingto sleep? 'Yet I wouldn't be anyone else,'he thinks,

Though for such, an uncertain indivi-dual eternity at once begins.

-5-