Will there be novelty? No. My great wife avalanching me. When she smiles she shows a pale gray upper gum like chewed pork. Grinning, she rolls off her panties. What a crowd of hair has gathered under! Is something happening in the crease? there’s been an accident? where are police? Her nipples rise from broadly wrinkled paddies. Aroused, the wrinkles stiffen, harden to a tree’s bark. Those nipples were so pink once, now they’re grimy smudged cloth-covered buttons, they button down her belly. I don’t want to be what I am: old clothes hangered in a closet.

The sun on such a brilliant day is blinding. Planmantee in his vest and great graycoat smiles with condescension. I’m to be twitted. Why must he dress like a dandy? He summers in Paris; shops for snobberies along the quais; would wear a straw boater à la Maurice Chevalier, if he dared. I should like a chat about that dissertation, he says. I’ve been summoned to his office like a servant. His graycoat is hung upon a hanger like a cloud around a mountain. How did he—that—fellow—how did he hit upon his topic? did you approve it? The sun has covered the floor with a rug of the same stupid snow as the earth. You mean Larry? Lacelli? I’ve been supervising his thesis for—ummm, two—two years as of yesterday noon during the third dong. Plan nods his head, though nothing else of him agrees to go along. I take it, then, that

Would I do that—

put two years in—if I didn’t approve of the subject? Oh, of course, I assumed you had yessed it, he says, that I had assumed, but because of your okay, Bill, I find myself with a little puzzle that . . . He smiles like thin slice of meat. I shook the puzzle just a little, and that shaking shook my assumption, he says. Planmantee settles his long frame into his chair. I stand. The window. Soon my eyes will buzz. O my, how he enjoys masturbating his turgid morality! He looks at me with what I take to be intensity. Only his thick glasses would fit his brain. Otiosities—they can’t be seen through. Whew. A pompous positivist. Can either be endured? When a positivist says he’s been presented with a “little puzzle,” he means you’ve crapped a load of concepts into the upturned bowl of his thinking cap. I thought it was the one subject Lacelli knew well, I say. (I am apologizing, and I hate it.) Otherwise he’d never finish. Eyebrows rise above the opaque gray rounds of his empiricism. This signifies a surprise which is nevertheless wholly expected. Need Lacelli finish? Can’t we finish Lacelli? Plan lacquers his eeee’s. You could set a drink down and not ring them. Must every student, of whatever dense or porous quality, complete our program? We have carried this kid for years, Plan. (I appeal to him. I hate it.) Don’t you remember those meetings of the candidates’ committee? If you do, you will remember that I protested Lacelli’s admission. I voted against him again at the end of the first year. I was the only dissenter. I was accused of head-hunting. Now no one will work with the schmuck. What the hell’s he to work on? Who the hell’s he to work with? Well, Planmantee says, I’m only an outside examiner, of course, in this case . . . He uses the expression “I’m only” as if he were Socrates. The Wisest Man in Greece. His large wrists emerge from a herringbone sleeve. He is about to compose a gesture. Of hard-won complacency. Those etchy praying hands. But—he sighs invisibly, like a leaking tire: D’Annunzio? A mere touch of the tips, then the palms fall faceup. . . . so narrow, so silly, so thin . . . No, I say, Not D’Annunzio. Italian fascism is his subject. Plan has large, heavy, workman’s hands he’s washed, made soft, manicured. He peers at me through a tube shaped by one of them. Through so small an asshole, he says with some passion, how much history does Lacelli expect to see? Silver chain across his chest carries his PBK key. He also belongs to Mensa. One wide gold band boasts of his husbanding . . . not only is the topic unhistorical, basically absurd as conceived, but the treatment . . . Just because D’Annunzio is— . . . fascism and the ottava rima, for christ’s sake . . . That’s not fair, that’s a complete distortion, a cartoon you’ve—