The Revolt of Aphrodite Read Free

go to Poggio’s.”
    He was pouring out Chianti when Vibart put in an appearance—my publisher, purple with good living: a kind of tentative affability about him whenever he spoke about the book he wanted me to write for him. “The age of autobiography.” He solicited Nash’s good offices in the matter. He knew too that over all these years I had been dribbling into recorders of one sort or another. A friend of twenty years’ standing I first encountered here, yes, in Athens: dear old slowcoach of a horse-tramway buried in some minor proconsular role with his cabinets of birds’ eggs. And here was Vibart persuading poor Felix to quit quasars and debouch into memoirs. I drank deeply of the wine and smiled upon my two friends in clownish gag. What was to be done with them?
    “Please Charlock” he was fearfully drunk.
    “Let those who have a good bedside manner with a work of art throw the first stone.”
    “Nash, can’t you convince him?”
    “Flippancy is a form of alienation” said Nash rather to my surprise ; nevertheless I could not resist making dear Vibart sing once more “The Publisher’s Boating Song”. We were always asked to leave when he did this. I beat time with my fork.
    Lord, you may cancel all my gifts,
    I feel they can be spared
    So long as one thing still remains,
    My pompe à merde 
    My books will stand the test of slime
    My fame be unimpaired
    So long as you will leave me, Lord,
    My pompe à merde.
    To my surprise, despite angry glances, we survive this outburst. Vibart has just been acclaimed Publisher of the Year by the Arts Guild; he owes his celebrity to an idea of breathtaking simplicity. Who else would have thought of getting Bradshaw translated into French? The effect on the French novel has been instantaneous. As one man they have rallied to this neglected English genius. Vibart bangs the table and says in a sort of ecstasy: “It’s wonderful! They have reduced events to incidents. It’s truthful to your bloody science, Felix. Non-deterministic. In Nash’s terms it would be pure catatonia. Hurrah. We don’t want to get well. No more novels of the castration complex. Do you like the idea of the God of Abraham advancing on you with his golden sickle to cut off your little—your all too little bit of mistletoe?” He points a ghastly finger at Nash, who recoils with a shudder. “Nevermore” continues my friend thickly. “No more goulash-prone Hungarian writers for me, no more vieux jew ,I spit on all your frightened freckled little minds. I’m rich! Hurrah. Bookstalls display me which heretofore were loaded with nothing but blood-coooling sex-trash. No more about sex, it’s too boring. Everyone’s got one. Nastiness is a real stimulant though—but poor honest sex, like dying, should be a private matter.”
    His voice failed and faltered; I noticed the huge circles under his eyes. His wife committed suicide last month; it must do something to a man’s pride. One says one is not to blame and one isn’t. Still. Quickly change the subject.
    We could see that he was rippling with anxiety, like wet washing on the line. Said Nash unkindly, “He needs a rest, does Felix, O yes.”
    Yes, this was true.
    Yes, this was true.
    I remember Koepgen talking of what he called the direct vision, the Autopsia. In a poem called “The relevance of thunder”. In the Russian lingo. “Futility may well be axiomatic: but to surprise oneself in the act of dying might be one way to come thoroughly awake, no?” I let out another savage growl. The waiters jumped. Ah! They are converging on us at last.
    Later, leaning out of the taxi window I say in a deep impressive voice. “I have left you a message written on the wall of the Gents at Claridges. Please go there and read it.” My two friends exchange a glance. Some hours earlier, a bag-fox drunk on aniseed, I had written in my careful cursive, “I think the control of human memory is essential for any kind of future advance of the species.