Chapters (60)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Personae
- I: Early Days
- One. Control
- Two. Doubt
- Three. Fate
- Four. Same
- Five. Fine Arts
- Six. In Loco Parentis
- Seven. Settling
- Eight. Neighbors
- Nine. Prospects
- Ten. The Lucky
- Eleven. Instruction
- Twelve. Same
- Thirteen. This Is a Pipe
- Fourteen. This Is Not a Pipe
- Fifteen. The Reason
- Sixteen. That Person
- Seventeen. Predictably
- II: Writing Teacher
- Eighteen. Early Poems
- Nineteen. Motivation
- Twenty. Allegory
- Twenty-One. Grief
- Twenty-Two. A Portrait
- Twenty-Three. Veils
- Twenty-Four. Soft Power
- Twenty-Five. Lists
- Twenty-Six. A Break
- Twenty-Seven. Elsewhere
- Twenty-Eight. Custom
- Twenty-Nine. Parity
- Thirty. Fortune
- III: Volta
- Thirty-One. Images
- Thirty-Two. A Very Interesting Young Man
- Thirty-Three. Letters
- Thirty-Four. We Prefer to See Ourselves Living
- Thirty-Five. Love
- Thirty-Six. The Iceberg
- IV: Your Best Reader
- Thirty-Seven. A Novelist
- Thirty-Eight. In Advance of the Broken Arm
- Thirty-Nine. Their Penultimate Encounter
- Forty. Détente
- Forty-One. Worlds
- Forty-Two. Recognition
- Forty-Three. Persistence
- Forty-Four. And Then
- Forty-Five. Mingling
- Forty-Six. You
- Forty-Seven. Persona
- Forty-Eight. Est et Non
- Forty-Nine. The Author
- Epilogue
- Afterword: The Libertine
- Acknowledgments
- About the Authors
Harry realizes that the Glass Hat Man, aka Neutral Man, looks a lot like Loudermilk, except thinner and much older, as if Harry is seeing a faded, shrunken version of Loudermilk at a distance.
“I live here,” the Glass Hat Man, aka Neutral Man, says. “This is where I work.” The Glass Hat Man twirls a luxuriant white mustache that Harry has somehow neglected to notice. The mustache is like cotton or snow, the fur of a rabbit, pure and filled with blue light. The Glass Hat Man’s mustache must be made of glass.
“You want to move,” the Glass Hat Man tells Harry.
Harry feels himself nodding. Behind Harry’s head, the wind picks up. Harry can see that the Glass Hat Man’s lips are forming words, but the rushing sound blots out everything else. The Glass Hat Man is raising his arms. He is pointing with both of his index fingers. Harry follows the gesture.
Harry is moving. The Glass Hat Man becomes a voice. Harry can no longer see the Glass Hat Man. Harry is in the hallway again and the hallway extends to another space. Harry can make it out before him, an arched entry.
Harry can’t stop shivering.
The wind blows.
“They are hunting,” the Glass Hat Man says.
Harry notes that although the wind seems to be coming from behind him, it actually originates at a point in front of his body, possibly the entrance before him. Harry is beginning to hear a clamor, too. It’s the sound of metal pots being struck by metal spoons, dogs barking, paper shaking, car engines turning over, the low horns of ships, intermittent explosions.
“It’s the hunt,” Harry hears the Glass Hat Man, somewhere, remark.
“I’m not supposed to be here,” Harry says.
“Your name is Hearry,” the Glass Hat Man says.
“What?”
“Heeerrrry. Heeerrrrry! That’s your name!”
“OK,” says Harry.
The Glass Hat Man does not reply, but Harry’s ears precipitously become unclogged and he is inside. It’s blue here, a sky just before evening, when space begins to blacken at its edges. There are flashes. The flashes occur in the shapes of stars. The ceiling is domed, veined with red. Before Harry is an immense gold ladder. The ladder sways. Harry can feel the Glass Hat Man, Neutral Man, aged, shrunken Loudermilk, whoever he is, at his side. The Glass Hat Man shoves Harry toward the ladder with warm little shoves, sighing with what seems like a kind of ecstasy each time he touches him.
“Look!” the Glass Hat Man exclaims, and Harry is compelled to gaze up, up to the top of the ladder, where he can perceive a large, bright entity.