Exposition, Chapter 7 (p. 138-144)

D. ate chicken with Huck and Jake. They had made extra for those who weren't there for the meal, and it fell on D. to inform Nick and Martin. They were both in Nick's room drinking champagne. Nick's walls were covered with tapestries, and the two men thanked her very cordially.

Jake and Huck were very friendly with each other, and they got D. to feel comfortable with them. Jake was kind, but at the same time he seemed tough. He seemed like a big brother, or the fat kid in high school gotten strong without losing his perspective.

Later, everybody gathered in the courtyard and then went off on their own. D. sat in her room reading. Night slipped over the house. Somehow, the room was too warm for her, so she had the window open halfway. Jim was with her.

When she got tired, D. closed and locked her door and lay down in her bed. She watched the ebb of moon shadows on her walls and her ceiling. The night was quiet and tranquil. D. was amazed at the calmness with which the day had passed.

Once her senses had adjusted to the night, she heard first a whimper and then sobs floating in from outside. She went to the window. The crier was on the northern porch below her. D. put on her robe, lit her candle, opened the door, and looked cautiously around; she whistled to Jim to follow.

It looked like everybody had retired to their rooms except John, who was snoring in his chair. Taking the front stairs, she went through the kitchen and opened the other door enough to see into the northern hallway. A single candle lay on the floor at the center of the corridor and reflected yellowish red light off the windows and sent flickering shadows across the paintings. She opened the door a little more. All of the canvases had plain wooden frames except for the one at which she hadn't looked yet, which had a fancier frame, and Jake was standing at the French doors looking out into the dark woods.

D. opened the door all the way and walked into the hall. Her candle helped to cancel out the flickers of Jake's. He heard her and turned around. Tears had made lines on his face and gathered in his beard at his cheek bones.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Did I wake you?"

"No. I'd just gone to bed."

"Oh. Listen, if you're tired, why don't you get some sleep."

Jake turned away.

D. started to do the same but didn't. "I don't think you ever finished that fairy tale that you were telling me."

Jake chuckled and wiped his eyes.

"It's the easiest thing in the world to be indifferent in the daylight, but it's a lot harder at night," he said. "You don't have to listen to me if you don't want to. You must think me odd to be crying on the first night of my vacation."

"I don't. Honestly." Seeing such a big man in tears brought a sympathy out in her that she could not explain. "I wasn't really tired anyway."

Jake nodded and started to come into the hall.

"Could we go somewhere else, though?" asked D. "Being so close to the windows gives me the creeps."

They went into the kitchen and sat down. After a moment of silence, a moment that D. strove to fill with an exuded sense of openness, Jake started talking.

He seemed relieved to have the chance to hear himself speak. "Well, to jump right into the matter, Nathaniel drank hell's own amount of liquor that summer. I'm not sure what set it off in him, or why he kept drinking when it only made him more miserable, but he did. And nobody seemed too concerned by it, including myself. For all I knew, this was his usual state. As Martin put it, 'He is the only man I know who is as intelligent when he's drunk as when he's sober.' I don't know about that, but he's certainly more than charming enough to balance the scales. Martin probably thinks what he does because Nathaniel can lead him in circles of wordplay drunk or sober.

"It was Martin who kicked the whole thing off that evening. He, Nathaniel, and I were sitting on the eastern porch, and Nathaniel was blind drunk.

"'You're an angel, Martin. Simply an angel,' he said.

"Martin blushed and said, 'Why do you say that?'

"'Well, no matter what you do you're so damn...' he stopped.

"'... passionate?'

"'No. No. That's not what I was going to say at all. I mean to say that you must be an angel because whatever you do you...' he stopped again.

"'... do it well? I try.'

"'No. No. Quite the contrary. But it seems that there's...'

"'What?'

"'Well, there's something that keeps you from...'

"'For God's sake, Nathaniel,' Martin said, 'finish your sentences.'

"'Why? You're probably better off finishing them yourself.'

"'But I really am inquisitive on what you're saying.'

"Nathaniel rolled his eyes by rolling his entire head and said, 'That's not the right word!'

"'Oh,' Martin blushed. 'Alright then: curious. But you don't have to be so inclement about it.'

"Nathaniel walked into the house and came back a moment later with another drink. He sloshed some of it on himself as he spoke. 'The miraculous thing about you, Martin, is that you always avoid consequences.'

"Martin stood up in offense. 'Why, that's only because I try not to do those things that lead to adverse... things.'

"'Everybody does those things' I said. 'When there's opportunity.'

"Nathaniel wagged a finger in my direction as if to suggest that I had said exactly what he had planned to. Martin stammered for a response and ended up just slithering inside. After a while Nathaniel turned to me and said, 'I'm really a hell of a bastard.'

"I told him that he wasn't, but he insisted that I didn't know what the hell I was talking about.

"'But we pay for it all eventually, though. Don't we.' It wasn't a question. 'I just want...' he added. 'I just want to do something that I want to do. Do you know what I want to do?'

"'What do you want to do?'

"'I want to do something.' He sipped his drink and slapped his thigh. 'I want to do something that will justify everything I've done so far.'

"He looked at me, and for a moment it didn't seem like the booze had dimmed his eyes. I felt that I could see all the way into his eyes and see what it was that those eyes had looked at to make them so deep.

"I told him that what he was saying was like wanting what you can never have. If you get what you thought you couldn't have, you don't want it. When you do something that erases everything that you've done, you lose sight of why you've done it.

"'Best not to think about it,' I said. But I knew when I said it that I was giving advice that would be impossible to follow. I suggested that maybe he needed to get out of here and get back to some routine.

"'Oh, I stay here because it's the only place in the world where I can have a routine because it's the only place in which I don't know anybody.' he said.

"That was as much as he wanted to talk at that time, so we went inside and found everybody in the courtyard. Martin was in his room typing. Something happens to the courtyard at night. All the candles and the shadows make everything look differently. Nathaniel fell asleep on the grass, and eventually everybody drifted off to their rooms except Nick. He tried to wake up Nathaniel.

"'Oh lay off him,' I said. I think I was looking for a fight. 'He's fine where he is. If he wakes up I'll take care of him.'

"'I'm sure you will.' He tried to lift him again.

"'I said leave him alone. Just because you spent some time alone with him last fall doesn't mean he needs you to be his personal protector. Christ, Nick. You follow him around like a puppy dog when all he really wants is to be left alone. And believe me, I know why you do it.'

"'And what do you know about what anybody wants? You haven't half the breeding he does. Hell, I'm not even sure that you breed.'

"I guess he was looking for a fight, too. We're of conflicting types Nick and me.

"'What's that supposed to mean?' I said.

"'You figure it out.'

"He nearly had Nathaniel upright, and Nathaniel had woken to an unintelligible murmuring state.

"'Just sit him in the chair then. He doesn't need you to tuck him into bed.'

"I saw that he had no intention of listening to me, so I decided to help. I moved up to put Nathaniel's free arm over my shoulders and Nick pushed me away. He took me by surprise, so I tripped over my own feet and fell to the ground.

"Nathaniel had woken up enough to see me fall and looked at Nick and said, 'Why don't you just go away? Can't you see that you're not wanted?'

"I don't know if Nathaniel was sincere in what he had said; in fact, I'm pretty sure that he thought that he was quoting — he did that sometimes when he couldn't think; he quoted things he had memorized along the way — but Nick took it pretty hard and just let him go and stormed out of the yard. Nathaniel fell down. I noticed that everybody was standing on the balconies outside their rooms and looking down at us. I felt like I should bow. I got up and went over to him.

"'Are you alright?' I asked.

"Nathaniel was falling asleep again. 'I think I was too hard on him. I don't want him to leave.'

"'No,' I said. 'I don't think he'd deprive us of his company.'

"Huck came down the stairs and helped me put Nathaniel to bed. As we were closing the door I heard Nathaniel calling my name.

"'Jake,' he said. 'We've got to stop putting things on the tab. It's gonna be awful hard to pay.'

"'I know,' I said. 'We will.'

"I shut the door. Huck and I walked down here to the kitchen to warm up some milk. We had just poured the milk when Nick came in. He had tears in his eyes, though I don't think he ever lets them fall.

"'Look,' he said. 'I don't know what that was all about. I'm sorry.' He held out his hand for me to shake it. I hesitated, and he said, 'please.'

"I shook his hand, and he went away. I felt badly for him. It wasn't his fault that he was so possessive of Nathaniel. It wasn't his fault that he was looking for an angle. It's just who he's learned to be, here and elsewhere. I don't think he knows much about love, and it seemed that it wouldn't take much to bring his entire world crashing down.

"'It's like bein' in church, bein' all the way out here,' said Huck.

"'What do you mean?'

"'Well, I reckon there's no need to be ashamed'v askin' fergiveness.'

"'I wouldn't hold that against him. It actually makes me feel for him a bit.'

"'I warn't talkin' 'bout Nick. I meant you. Y'oughtta pity him. He's prob'ly more'n need of it'n any a' us, on a bad road as he is.'

Jake put down the water he had been drinking. "I know what you're thinking."

"What's that?" asked D.

"That we've all got some kind of sickness. That I'm sick."

"No. No more than the rest of the world."

"I thank you for saying that, but I feel badly about that night even if I still find it hard to handle Nick. I've tried to keep him out of trouble but… well, I was a little drunk that night, and when you're drunk no matter what you say it's just careless."

D. got the feeling that Jake had just said more than he had intended, but not enough for her to understand why she felt that way. "Then why don't you..."

The door to the entrance hall swung shut, though neither had noticed it open. Jake jumped to his feet, ran to the door, and shoved it open. A shape was running out the front door.

"That's Alex," D. said.

Jake started to run after him.

"No, Jake, don't."

"Don't worry. He won't hurt me."

"How do you know?"

"Because I'm not his friend."

The door shut. D. waited and then, not even realizing the puzzling nature of Jake's response, took her candle and went cautiously up to her room with Jim. Jake's a big man, she thought.

D. was pacing in her room. There was a knock on the door.

"Who is it?"

"Jake."

She opened the door, and he came in. He looked winded.

"He got away."

"Oh."

He reached in his pocket. "But he dropped these. Are they yours?" He pulled out a key ring.

"Yes," said D. "Yes they are."

Jake gave her the keys and said goodnight. She locked the door behind him.

"I hope you decide to stay," Jake said through the door.

He walked to his room three doors away.

The house is quiet. An owl calls out in the willow. In her room, D. lies in bed dangling a silver key ring over her face. She pushes it under her pillow. The wind blowing through the window extinguishes her candle. She shuts the window, locks it, and closes the curtain. Giving Jim a fond pat on the head, she undresses and climbs into her bed to sleep.

A breeze flows across the northern lawn of the house, erasing two sets of heavy footprints, tumbles over the porch, and slips through the French doors. A candle that has been left in the corridor flutters and then goes out. The light of the moon moves in. All of the paintings are dark except for the one with an ornately carved frame. That one seems to glow with a neon phosphorescence. On it a gaunt gray face with tearing blue eyes stares toward the south. Its hair is disheveled. There are small bumps like growing horns above the temples.