My own work went on fitfully. I composed an answer to Bishop Winston which brought down on my head a series of ecclesiastical thunderbolts, each louder than the one before. I wrote a short life of Cave in simple declarative sentences which enjoyed a considerable success for many years and, finally, seriously, my first attempt at a real counterattack, I began the several dialogues in which Cave and I purportedly traversed the entire field of moral action.
I felt that in these dialogues I could quietly combat those absolutist tendencies which I detected in the disciples. Cave himself made no pretense of being final on any subject other than death where, even without his particular persuasiveness, he stood on firm, even traditional ground. The attacks he received he no longer noticed. It was as simple as that. He’d never enjoyed reading and to watch others make telecasts bored him, even when they spoke of him. After the fateful Empire State Building conference he ceased to attend the world; except for a few letters which Paul forwarded to him and his relations with us, he was completely cut off from ordinary life, and perfectly happy. For though human contacts had been reduced to a minimum, he still possessed the polished glass eye of the world before whose level gaze he appeared once a week and experienced what he called: “Everyone: all of them, listening and watching everywhere.”
In one year he had come a long way from the ex-embalmer who had studied a book of newspaper clippings on a Washington farm and brooded about an old man in a hospital. Though Paul was never to refer again to the victim of Cave’s driving, I was quite sure that he expected, sooner or later, it would return to haunt us all.
By midsummer, however, Cave had grown restless and bored and since the telecasts had been discontinued until the following November, he was eager to travel. He was never to lose his passion for places. It was finally decided that he spend the summer on one of the Florida keys, a tiny island owned by a Cavite who offered to place everything at Cave’s disposal. And, though warned that the heat might be uncomfortable, Cave and his retinue left secretly one night by chartered seaplane from Long Island Sound and for at least a month the press did not know what had happened to him.
I declined to accompany Cave and Iris. Paul remained in New York while Iris’s work was temporarily turned over to various young enthusiasts, trained by her. I went back to the Hudson Valley, to my house and....
2
I’ve not been able to write for several days. According to the doctor, it is a touch of heat but I suspect that this is only his kind euphemism.
I had broken off in my narrative to take a walk in the garden last Friday afternoon when I was joined by Butler whose attentions lately have been more numerous than I should like.
“He’ll be here Sunday, Hudson. Why don’t we all three have dinner together that night and celebrate.”
I said nothing could give me more pleasure, as I inched along the garden path, moving toward the hot shaded center where, beneath fruit trees, a fine statue of Osiris stood, looted in earlier days by the hotel management from one of the temples. I thought, however, with more longing of the bench beside the statue than of the figure itself whose every serene detail I’d long since memorized. Butler adjusted his loose long stride to my own uneven pace. I walked as I always do now with my eyes upon the ground, nervously avoiding anything which might make me stumble for I have fallen down a number of times in the last few years and I have a terror of broken bones, the particular scourge of old bodies.