House Of Leaves - House of Leaves Part 40
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House of Leaves Part 40

He's gone to the wind, God knows how he's sinned, 'Cause in Latin he's practically fluent.

P.

September 19, 1988 Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, thaumaturgist roots cardinal lemoine tarots porte dauphine mango rue des belles feuilles easter vexillology pelican I la St. John day embalmed windows yore trespasses rectopathic elephants place de la concorde karmic opaque Cimmerian a person's entity x-ray euphony gare MOMA montparnasse overture Q1isling ohms paralipomena stones hammers sea prolix tide norths spoons eels pompidou hints sour dolorously in red lines ostracized virgin evenings installment easter spotted moon youth totemic paraclete ogle irenic place de la contrescarpe cloud de thumbs easels quai stay des celestins cwms replete antinomies eidetic simple Pigalle creatures Wednesday return jardin du luxembourg anguish meaning issues noticing guys pennying Spanish stews tawny pencil townships crepe restoration slinking toothless odor opium runs kettles hat hops rituals embers enjambed educible withering mistaken safe __________________.

November 1, 1988 Dearest Johnny What a terrible sleep and dream I've been roused from. There are so many pieces to make sense of, the doctors all warn me to just put aside the last two years. It's a shambles. Seems I'm better off consigning the whole lot to psychosis, locking it up, throwing away the keys.

They tell me I should be grateful that that presents itself as an option. I suppose they're right. Cast no backward glances, eh?

The doctors also inform me that you visited several times but apparently I was completely unresponsive. As for all the letters I said I had written you, chock full of paranoia and all, I hardly wrote a thing. Five reams of paper and postage were nothing more than figments of my imagination.

I tend to believe all this because I have come to realize, as you probably realized when you came here, that the New Director is in fact none other than the Old Director, the patient one, the decent one, the honest one, the kind one who has been taking care of your mother far well over ten years.

I have now my own biochemical cycles and a couple of new drugs to thank for these days of clarity. The Director has already warned me that my lucidity may not last forever. In fact it's unlikely.

I shall be fine as long as I know the one on whose tender sensibilities I imposed such hogwash will forgive me. How could I misplace your visits? Lose your letters? Not even recognize you? I love you so, so very much.

Will you ever forgive me?

As always, all my love, Mommy November 3, 1988 Dearest Johnny, As I seem to have been granted temporary clemency from rabid thoughts, reflections pour out of me at an alarming rate. I think of all the heartache I subjected your beautiful father to. I think of everything I have put you through.

It is completely within reason for you to turn your back on me forever. It might even be the wisest decision. Saint Elizabeth was right to warn us from the rooms of Bedlam.

I am hopelessly unreliable, and though my love for you bums so brightly all would seem thrown into darkness were the sun to eclipse it, such feelings can still never excuse my condition.

The Director has patiently explained to me, probably for the thousandth time, that my varied dispositions are the result of faulty wiring. For the most part I have come to accept his evaluation. (He quotes Emily Dickinson, saying I cover the abyss with a trance so my memories can manage a way around it-this "pain so utter.") Sometimes, however, I wonder if my problems originate elsewhere. In my own childhood, for example.

These days I like to believe-which is a shade different from belief itself-all I really needed to survive was the voice my own mother never gave me. The one we all need but one I never heard.

Once, a long while ago, I watched a little black girl fall off a street curb and skin both her knees. When she got up, wailing like a siren, I could see that her shins and the palms of her hands were flecked with hurt.

The mother had no gauze or antiseptic or even running water handy but she still managed to care for her daughter. She whisked her up in her arms and murmured over and over the perfect murmurs, powerful enough to fully envelop her child in the spell and comfort of only a few words: "It'll be okay. It'll be alright."

To me, my mother only said 'That won't do." She was right. It didn't do at all.

Love, Mom November 27, 1988 Dear, dear Johnny, So convinced such happiness has to be a dream-especially these days-I have repeatedly asked the Director whether or not you were really here yesterday.

One lifetime ago I was crouched in shadow and in the next I am with you. How profound the differance.

Victoria Lucas once said there's nothing 'so black... as the inferno of the human mind." She didn't know you. You shimmered almost to the point where I had to squint for fear you'd burn away another chance for me to ever see you again.

I was even confused at first. You detected that, I saw. You're so keen. Keener than Anaxagoras. But it's true. A vagrant thought had momentarily convinced me that I was dead and your father had been restored to me. Fortunately my better faculties righted my first impression: this figure was taller and broader and in all respects stronger than my love.

Here was my son, come at long last and at a time when at last I could recognize him.

If my tears upset you, you should understand they were not spilled out of grief or bitterness but out of pure bliss for having you here with me, able to lift my spirits so effortlessly, carry this old heap of bones, all of me, safe and warm in my dear child's arms.

For a few hours, every yesteryear repealed its hold. I felt free and silly. A school girl once again giggling out the day and in the presence of such a fine young man.

Your adventures in Europe caught me between heartbreak and laughter. You tell your stories so well, all that tramping over the continent for four months with only a backpack, a Pelican pen and a few hundred dollars. I'm glad to see you gained back most of the weight you lost.

Of course, only now as I write you this letter do I realize how careful you were to keep me from your greater troubles and mutilations. How can I not appreciate your protective instincts? Nevertheless, I assure you that I am fine and would love nothing more than to rally at your side, urge you through the hard times, and where the obstacles seem insurmountable, opponents invulnerable, play the part of the witch again and cast dreadful spells.

Open yourself to me. I will not harm your secrets. Do not think your mother cannot read in her own child the trauma he still endures every day and evening.

I am here. Ever devoted. Still surfeit with tenderness, affection and most of all love, your mother Mr. John XXXXXX xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx January 12, 1989 Dear Mr._______ As you requested in your last visit, I am writing now to inform you that your mother's condition may be on the decline again.

We are doing our best to adjust her medication, and while this relapse could prove temporary, you may want to prepare yourself for the worst.

If there are any questions I can answer, please do not hesitate to contact me at ______________. Also, I wish to remind you that I will be retiring at the end of March. Dr. David J. Draines will be taking my place. He is very capable and well versed in psychiathe care. He will provide your mother with the very best treatment.

Sincerely yours, ______ ________ M.D., Ph. D.

Director The Three Attic Whalestoe Institute February 28, 1989 Dear Johnny, It's remarkable how much I continue to improve. For the first time ever, the Director has suggested I might even be able to leave. Every day I read, write, exercise, eat well, sleep well and enjoy the occasional movie on the television.

For the first time, I feel normal. I know you are swept up in a tide of your own affairs but would it be possible for you to purchase for me a suitcase? I shall need a large one as well as a carry-on. Any color is fine though I prefer something akin to amethyst, heliotrope or maybe lilac.

It's been so long since I've traveled, I've forgotten if one checks one's luggage at the station or do I just carry everything to my compartment on the train? Is there room beneath the sleeper or am I forgetting some other sort of storage place? (That is my thinking behind the smaller carry-on.) Love, P.

March 31, 1989 Dear Johnny, Why have you written me such lovely letters and yet failed to mention my luggage?

If my request is a terrible imposition I wish you would just say so. Your mother's an able woman. She'll find another way.

As it is I'm fairly annoyed. The Director left today and I was informed that ill had been packed I could have left with him.

Unfortunately, while I am quite adept at folding and arranging my belongings, my inability to place them anywhere impedes my ascent into my new life- drowsy, baked in sun, with you.

1,.

P.

May 3, 1989 Dear John, With no luggage to speak of-amethyst, lilac or otherwise-I've had nowhere to put my things and so I've lost all of it. To be honest I don't know where all of it went. Clearly the worker bees have stolen it.

By the way I was mistaken. The Director didn't leave. He's still here. The new one is the same one after all. In other words everything is fine, though the Old Director's moods have been a little odd lately.

I think I've upset him somehow. There's something malicious in his manner now, very slight, but noticeable just the same, a nasty, twisting wire woven into the fabric of an otherwise perfectly decent man.

No matter. I cannot tire myself on the feelings of the world. I am leaving after all, though it is no easy task, especially for this old Sibyl of Cumae.

Climes of any kind are trying. Frankly I'm exhausted by all the planning and the paperwork.

Donnie will pick me up soon, very soon, but you my dear child, you should stay awhile.

Do that for me.

Mmmy Mr. John XXXXXX xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx May 5, 1989 Dear Mr.________ We regret to inform you that on May 4, 1989 at approximately 8:45 P.M. your mother, Pelafina Heather Lievre, died in her room at The Three Attic Whalestoe Institute.

After a detailed examination, both our resident doctor, Thomas Janovinovich M.D., as well as the county coroner, confirmed the cause of death was the result of self-inflicted asphyxiation achieved with bed linen hung from a closet hook. Ms. Lievre was 59.

Please permit us to express our sincere condolences over your terrible loss. Perhaps it will be of some solace to know that despite the severity of her mental affliction, your mother managed to show much humor in her last year and attendants said she often spoke fondly of her only son.

While this will be a difficult time, we urge you to contact us as soon as possible to make arrangements for her burial. The conditions of her enrollment here already provide for a standard cremation. However for an additional $3,000, we would happily provide a proper casket and service. For another $1,000, a burial plot may also be secured at the nearby Wain Cemetery.

Again we wish to extend our sympathies over the death of Ms. Livre. [sic] If we can be of any help during this time of need, whether by answering questions or assisting you with funeral plans, please feel free to contact us directly at _____________ Respectfully yours, David J. Draines, M.D.

Director.

The Three Attic Whalestoe Institute.

#669-951381-.6634646-94.

#162- 11231-1614161-23.

This receipt indicates that on September 8, 1989, the following article previously owned by Ms. Pelafina Heather Lievre was claimed by her son John _________ one jewelry.

F.

Various Quotes.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Anonymous.

Le coeur a ses raisons, que Ia raison ne connait point. [435- "The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.TM - Ed.]

Blaise Pascal.

Pensees.

We have to describe and to explain a building the upper story of which was erected in the nineteenth century; the ground-floor dates from the sixteenth century, and a careful examination of the masonry discloses the fact that it was reconstructed from a dwelling-tower of the eleventh century. In the cellar we discover Roman foundation walls, and under the cellar a filled-in cave, in the floor of which stone tools are found and remnants of glacial fauna in the layers below. That would be a sort of picture of our mental structure.

C. G. Jung.

"Mind and the Earth"

Je ne vois qu 'infini par toutes Iesfenetres. [436-Through all windows, I see only Infinity." - Ed.]

Charles Baudelaire Les Fleurs du Ma!

A professor's view: "It's the commentaries on Shakespeare that matter, not Shakespeare."

Anton Chekhov Notebooks Un livre est un grand cimetiere oil sur la plupart des tombes on ne peut plus lire les noms effacds. [437-A book is a vast cemetery where for the most part one can no longer read the faded names on the tombstones." - Ed.]

Marcel Proust Alles nahe werdefrrn. [438- "Everything near becomes distant." As translated by Eliot Weinberger. - Ed.]

Goethe There are not leaves enough to crown, To cover, to crown, to cover-let it go - The actor that will at last declaim our end.

Wallace Stevens "United Dames of America"

Nubes-incertum procul intuentibus ex quo monte (Vesuvium fi4isse postea cognitum est)- oriebatur, cuius similitudinem etformam non alia magis arbor quam pinus expresserit. Nam longissimo velut trunco elata in altum quibusdam ramis dffundebatur, credo quia recenti spiritu evecta, dein senescente eo destituta aut etiam pondere suo victa in latitudinem vanescebat, candida interdum, interdum sordida et maculosa prout terram cineremve sustulerat.

[439- "The cloud was rising; watchers from our distance could not tell from which mountain, though later It was known to be Vesuvius. In appearance and shape it was like a tree-the [umbrella] pine would give the best idea of it. Like an Immense tree trunk It was projected Into the air, and opened out with branches. I believe that It was carried up by a violent gust, then left as the gust faltered; or, overcome by Its own weight, It scattered widely-sometimes white, sometimes dark and mottled, depending on whether it bore ash or cinders." As translated by Joseph Jay Deiss In Flerculaneum (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1985), p. 11. - Ed.]

Young Pliny Letters and Panegyricus Book VI Quel' che tu si i' sev', qul' che i' son' a'devend'. [440-"Quello che tu sei 10 ero, quello che io sono tu sarai.] [441-"What you are I was, what I am you will be." - Ed.]

Neapolitan Proverb Homer Iliad Detto cosI,fu ilprimo a lasciare ii Consiglio; e quelli si aizarono, obbedirono a! pastore d 'eserciti i re scettrati. Intanto I soldati accorrevano; come vanno gli sciami dell'api innumerevoli ch'escono senza posa da unforo di roccia, e volano a grappolo suifiori di primavera, queste in Jolla volteggiano qua, queue la; cosifitte le schiere dalle navi e dalle tende lungo la riva bassa si disponevano in file, affollandosi all'assemblea; tra lorofiammeggiava Ia Fama, messaggera di Zeus, spin gendoli a andare: quelli serravano. Tumultuava l'assemblea; Ia terra gemeva, sotto, mentre i soldati sedevano; v'era chwtsso. E nove araldi, urlando, ii trattenevano, se mai la voce abbassassero, ascoltassero i re alunni de Zeus. A stento infine sederte 1 'esercito, furon tenuti a posto, smettendo ii voclo.

Omero Iliade Homer Ilias Gomer Iliada Ce/a di:, ii quitre le premier le Conseil. Sur quoi les autres se levent: tous les rois porteurs de sceptre obeissent au pasteur d'hommes. Les homes deja accourent. Comme on volt les abeilles, par troupes compactes, sortir d'un afire creux, aflots toujours nouveaux, pour former une grappe, qui bientot voltige au-dessus des fleurs du printemps, tandis que beaucoup d'autres s'en vont voletant, les unes par-cl, les autres par-la; ainsi, des nefs et des baraques, des troupes sans nombre viennent se ranger, par groupes serres, en avant du rivage bas, pour prendre part a 1 'assemblee, Parmi elles, Rumeur, messagere de Zeus, est k qui flambe et les pousse a marcher, jusqu 'au moment oa tous se trouvent reunis. L 'assemblee est houleuse; le so! gemit sous les guerriers occupes a s'asseoir; le tumulte regne. Neuf herauts, en criant, tachent a contenir la foule: ne pourrait-elle arreter sa clameur, pour ecouter les rois issus de Zeus! Ce n 'est pas sans peine que les hommes s 'asseoient et qu 'enfin us consentent a demeurer en place, tous cris cessant.

[442-The Greek (Homer), Italian (Rosa Calzecchi Onesti), German (Johann Heinrich Voss), Russian (Gnedich), and French (Paul Mazon) all refer to the same passage: "On this he turned and led the way from council,! and all the rest, staff-bearing counselors,! rose and obeyed their marshaL From the camp! the troops were turning now, thick as bees/ that issue from some crevice In a rock face! endlessly pouring forth, to make a cluster! and swarm on blooms of summer here and there,! glinting and droning, busy in bright air.! Like bees innumerable from ships and huts! down the deep foreshore streamed those regiments! toward the assembly ground-and Rumor blazed! among them like a crier sent from Zeus. Turmoil grew in the great field as they entered! and sat down, clangorous companies, the ground / under them groaning, hubbub everywhere./ Now nine men, criers, shouted to compose them: / Quiet! Quiet! Attention! Hear our captains!'! / Then all strove to their seats and hushed their din." As translated by Robert Fitzgerald. The Iliad (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1975), p. 38. - Ed.]

Homere Iliade Through Wisdom Is An House Builded And By Understanding It Is Established And By Knowledge Shall The Chambers Be Filled With All Precious And Pleasant Riches.

University of Virginia commemorative plaque As I dig for wild orchids in the autumn fields, it is the deeply-bedded root that I desire, not the flower.

Izumi Shikibu Dicamus et labyrinthos, vel porrentosissimum humani inpendii opus, sed flon, Ut existimari potest, falsum. [443- "We must speak also of the labyrinths, the most astonishing work of human riches. but not, as one might think, fictitious." - Ed.]

Pliny Natural History 36.19.84.

Philosophy is written in this grand book-I mean the universe-which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth.

Galileo II Saggiatore Others apart sat on a hill retir'd, In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.

John Milton Paradise Lost It is the personality of the mistress that the home expresses. Men are forever guests in our homes, no matter how much happiness they may find there.

Elise De Wolfe The House in Good Taste La maison, c 'est l.a maison de famille, C 'est pour y mettre les enfants er les hommes, pour les retenir dans un endroit fait pour eux, pour y contenir leur egaremenr, les distraire de cetie humeur d'aventure, defuite qui est Ia leur depuis les commencements des ages. [444-"A house means a faintly house, a place specially meant for putting children and men In so as to restrict their waywardness and distract them from the longing for adventure and escape they've had since time began." As translated by Barbara Bray in Duras' Practicaittles (New York: Grove, 1990), p. 42. - Ed.]

Marguerite Duras Practicalities L'homme se cr0 it un heros, toujours comme l'enfant. L'homme aime la guerre, la chasse, Ia peche, les motos, les autos, comme l'enfant. Quand ii don, ca se voit, et on aime les hommes comme Ca, les femmes. II tie faut pas se mentir la-dessus. Cz aime les hommes innocents, cruels, on aime les chasseurs, les guerriers, on aime les enfants. [445- "Men think they're heroes-again Just like children. Men love war, hunting, fishing, motorbikes, cars, Just like children. When they're sleepy you can see It. And women like men to be like that. We mustn't fool ourselves. We like men to be innocent and cruel; we like hunters and warriors; we like children." Duras again, as translated by Barbara Bray, p. 51. - Ed.]

Marguerite Duras Practicalities again The only wife for me now is the damp earth... Heho-ho!... The grave that is!... Here my son's dead and I am alive... It's a strange thing, death has come in at the wrong door.

Anton Chekhov again "Misery"

lam cinis, adhuc tamen rarus. Respicio: densa coiigo tergis imminebat, quae nos torrentis modo infusa terive sequebarur. "Dejiectamus" inquam "than videmus, ne in via strati comitantium turba in tenebris obteramur." Vix consideramus, et nox non qualis inlunis aut nublia, sed qualis in locis clausis lumine exstincto. [446- "Ashes were already falling, not as yet very thickly. I looked round: a dense black cloud was coming up behind us, spreading over the earth like a flood. 'Let us leave the road while we can still see,' I said, 'or we shall be knocked down and trampled underfoot in the dark by the crowd behind.' We had scarcely sat down to rest when darkne fell, not the dark of a moonleas or oloudy night, but aa if the lamp had been put out in a closed room." As translated by Betty Radice, Pliny: Letters and Panegyricus. Volume 1 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1969), p. 445.-Ed.]

Young Pliny again He turned his stare towards me, and he led me away to the palace of Irkalla, the Queen of Darkness, to the house from which none who enters ever returns, down the road from which there is no coming back.

"There is the house whose people sit in darkness; dust is their food and clay their meat. They are clothed like birds with wings for covering, they see no light, they sit in darkness. .

The Epic of Gilgamesh The Mother of the Muses, we are taught, Is Memory: she has left me.

Walter Savage Landor "Memory"

Far off from these a slow and silent stream, Lethe the River of Oblivion rolls Her wat'ry Labyrinth, whereof who drinks, Forthwith his former state and being forgets, Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.

Paradise Lost again The comets Have such a space to cross, Such coldness, forgetfulness.

So your gestures flake off - Warm and human, then their pink light Bleeding and peeling Through the black amnesias of heaven.