convenience?”
“You didn’t interrupt. What is it you want?”
“You know that writing we found on the walls of the Mowry apartment?”
“Too clearly.”
“Well, I’ve been trying to track down the source for the past few hours, and—”
“You’re still on duty at two in the afternoon?”
“No, no. I’m at home.”
“Don’t you ever sleep?”
“I wish I could. I haven’t been able to sleep more than four or five hours a day for the past twenty years. I’m probably ruining my health. I know I am. But I’ve got this twisted brain. My head’s full of garbage, thousands of useless facts, and I can’t stop thinking about them. I keep picking at the damnedest things. Like the writing on the walls at the Mowry apartment. I couldn’t sleep for thinking about it.”
“And you’ve come up with something?”
“Well, I told you last night the poetry rang a bell. ‘Rintah roars and shakes his fires in the burden’d air ;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep.’ As soon as I saw it I said to myself, ‘Ira, that’s from something William Blake wrote.’ You see, when I was in college for that one year, my major was literature. I had to write a paper on Blake. Twenty-five years ago. You see what I mean about garbage in my head? I remember the most useless things. Anyway this morning I bought the Erdman edition of Blake’s poetry and prose. Sure enough, I found those lines in ‘The Argument,’ part of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Do you know Blake?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“He was a mystic and a psychic.”
“Clairvoyant?”
“No. But with a psychic bent. He thought men had the power to be gods. For an important part of his career he was a poet of chaos and cataclysm—and yet he was fundamentally a table-pounding optimist. Now, do you remember the line the Butcher printed on the bedroom door?”
“Yes.‘A rope over an abyss.’”
“Do you have any idea what that’s from?”
“None.”
“Neither did I. My head is full of garbage. There’s no room for anything important. And I’m not a well-educated man. Not well educated at all. So I called a friend of mine, a professor in the Department of English at Columbia. He didn’t recognize the line either, but he passed it around to a few of his colleagues. One of them thought he knew it. He got a concordance of the major philosophers and located the full quotation. ‘Man is rope stretched between the animal and the Superman—a rope over an abyss.’”
“Who said it?”
“Hitler’s favorite philosopher.”
“Nietzsche.”
“You know his work?”
“In passing.”
“He believed men could be gods—or at least that certain men could be gods if their society allowed them to grow and exercise their powers. He believed mankind was evolving toward godhood. You see, there’s a superficial resemblance between Blake and Nietzsche. That’s why the Butcher might quote both of them. But there’s a problem, Graham.”
“What’s that?”
“Blake was an optimist all the way. Nietzsche was a raving pessimist. Blake thought mankind had a bright future. Nietzsche thought mankind should have a bright future, but he believed that it would destroy itself before the Supermen ever evolved from it. Blake apparently liked women. Nietzsche despised them. In fact, he thought women constituted one of the greatest obstacles standing between man and his climb to godhood. You see what I’m getting at?”
“You’re saying that if the Butcher subscribes to both Blake and Nietzsche’s philosophies, then he’s a schizophrenic.”
“Yet you say he’s not even crazy.”
“Wait a minute.”
“Last night—”
“All I said was that if he’s a maniac, he’s a new kind of maniac. I said he wasn’t crazy in any traditional sense.”
“Which rules out schizophrenia?”
“I guess it does, Ira.”
“But I think it’s a good bet... maybe I’m wrong... God knows... but maybe he looks at himself as one of Nietzsche’s Supermen. A
“You didn’t interrupt. What is it you want?”
“You know that writing we found on the walls of the Mowry apartment?”
“Too clearly.”
“Well, I’ve been trying to track down the source for the past few hours, and—”
“You’re still on duty at two in the afternoon?”
“No, no. I’m at home.”
“Don’t you ever sleep?”
“I wish I could. I haven’t been able to sleep more than four or five hours a day for the past twenty years. I’m probably ruining my health. I know I am. But I’ve got this twisted brain. My head’s full of garbage, thousands of useless facts, and I can’t stop thinking about them. I keep picking at the damnedest things. Like the writing on the walls at the Mowry apartment. I couldn’t sleep for thinking about it.”
“And you’ve come up with something?”
“Well, I told you last night the poetry rang a bell. ‘Rintah roars and shakes his fires in the burden’d air ;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep.’ As soon as I saw it I said to myself, ‘Ira, that’s from something William Blake wrote.’ You see, when I was in college for that one year, my major was literature. I had to write a paper on Blake. Twenty-five years ago. You see what I mean about garbage in my head? I remember the most useless things. Anyway this morning I bought the Erdman edition of Blake’s poetry and prose. Sure enough, I found those lines in ‘The Argument,’ part of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Do you know Blake?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“He was a mystic and a psychic.”
“Clairvoyant?”
“No. But with a psychic bent. He thought men had the power to be gods. For an important part of his career he was a poet of chaos and cataclysm—and yet he was fundamentally a table-pounding optimist. Now, do you remember the line the Butcher printed on the bedroom door?”
“Yes.‘A rope over an abyss.’”
“Do you have any idea what that’s from?”
“None.”
“Neither did I. My head is full of garbage. There’s no room for anything important. And I’m not a well-educated man. Not well educated at all. So I called a friend of mine, a professor in the Department of English at Columbia. He didn’t recognize the line either, but he passed it around to a few of his colleagues. One of them thought he knew it. He got a concordance of the major philosophers and located the full quotation. ‘Man is rope stretched between the animal and the Superman—a rope over an abyss.’”
“Who said it?”
“Hitler’s favorite philosopher.”
“Nietzsche.”
“You know his work?”
“In passing.”
“He believed men could be gods—or at least that certain men could be gods if their society allowed them to grow and exercise their powers. He believed mankind was evolving toward godhood. You see, there’s a superficial resemblance between Blake and Nietzsche. That’s why the Butcher might quote both of them. But there’s a problem, Graham.”
“What’s that?”
“Blake was an optimist all the way. Nietzsche was a raving pessimist. Blake thought mankind had a bright future. Nietzsche thought mankind should have a bright future, but he believed that it would destroy itself before the Supermen ever evolved from it. Blake apparently liked women. Nietzsche despised them. In fact, he thought women constituted one of the greatest obstacles standing between man and his climb to godhood. You see what I’m getting at?”
“You’re saying that if the Butcher subscribes to both Blake and Nietzsche’s philosophies, then he’s a schizophrenic.”
“Yet you say he’s not even crazy.”
“Wait a minute.”
“Last night—”
“All I said was that if he’s a maniac, he’s a new kind of maniac. I said he wasn’t crazy in any traditional sense.”
“Which rules out schizophrenia?”
“I guess it does, Ira.”
“But I think it’s a good bet... maybe I’m wrong... God knows... but maybe he looks at himself as one of Nietzsche’s Supermen. A
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