Read Online The Masters of Atlantis by Charles Portis - Free Book Online
Authors: Charles Portis
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it. Let someone else deal with the Central Powers this time. And the Japs. According to the newspapers, the little monkeys couldnât see very well. They were clever, and quick on their feet too, remarkable jumpers, but their jiujitsu would prove useless against the rapid and sustained fire of our Lewis guns.
Still, as with many others, Mr. Jimmerson was to suffer loss and misfortune. Even the birth of his son turned out to be a mixed blessing. Coming to motherhood so late, Fanny was much taken with the child, and she lavished all her attention on this tardy arrival, baby Jerome, to the neglect of her husband. âLook, Lamar!â she said. âWhat a little pig he is for his milk!â Sometimes Mr. Jimmerson held Jerome on his knee and patted his back and said jip jip jip in his face in the way he had seen others do, but he really didnât know what to make of the drooling little fellow and his curling pink feet, almost prehensile. And he was at a loss to understand the change that had come over his wife. People seemed to be pulling away from him, receding.
He passed more and more of his time alone, in his wingback chair before the fireplace in the Red Room, a copy of the Codex Pappus in his lap. At the age of forty-six he had become chair-bound. Pharris Whiteâs remarks had set him wondering if there werenât perhaps some higher secrets he had missed, something implicit, some deeply hidden pattern in the fine tapestry of Plethoâs thought that had escaped him, and so he read and pondered and drifted in and out of sleep while the baby crawled about on the Temple carpets and great armies clashed around the world. At the age of forty-six Mr. Jimmerson was already looking forward to his senescence.
Meanwhile, Sir Sydney Hen, Bart., had become mobile. Now radiant with health and joined in a kind of marriage to the rich widow Babette, he began to stir. His new book, Approach to Knowing , had just been published, and it was his claim that he had written the entire work, excepting only bits of connective matter, while in a threeday Gnomonic trance, this being an exalted state of consciousness not to be confused with an ordinary hypnotic stupor or any sort of Eastern rapture. It was revealed to him in the trance that he had âcompleted the triangleâ and âscaled the coneâ and been granted âthe gift of ecstatic utterance,â all of which meant that he had gone beyond Mastery and was no longer bound by law or custom.
Deep waters, as Hen himself admitted. There was more. Other menâother Gnomons, that isâcould aspire to this singular state, and might even achieve it by undergoing a rigorous program of instruction in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Babette owned a house in Cuernavaca, a sprawling, enclosed place with swimming pool and blazing gardens, and it was here that Hen established his New Croton Institute for Advanced Gnomonic Study.
Candidates for the school were carefully selected. They had to have clear eyes and all their limbs. There was a fee of $1,200, payable in advance, nonrefundable. There was one week of forgetting followed by three weeks of learning. There was a rule of silence. They slept on a cold tile floor and fed on alfalfa sprouts and morning glory seeds. Their reading was restricted to Henâs books. Hen stood behind a screen as he taught them, in the morning and again in the afternoon, to lute music, or rather to lute strumming. Noel Kinlow could not actually play the lute; he simply trailed his fingers across the strings from time to time, on a signal from Hen, to point up some significant recurring word or phrase. The candidates were bled weekly, by Kinlow, and not of the customary pint but of an imperial quart at each draining. On successful completion of the program, with thin new blood coursing through their emaciated bodies, they were at last permitted to look Hen in the face. He embraced them and presented them with signed copies of Approach to
Still, as with many others, Mr. Jimmerson was to suffer loss and misfortune. Even the birth of his son turned out to be a mixed blessing. Coming to motherhood so late, Fanny was much taken with the child, and she lavished all her attention on this tardy arrival, baby Jerome, to the neglect of her husband. âLook, Lamar!â she said. âWhat a little pig he is for his milk!â Sometimes Mr. Jimmerson held Jerome on his knee and patted his back and said jip jip jip in his face in the way he had seen others do, but he really didnât know what to make of the drooling little fellow and his curling pink feet, almost prehensile. And he was at a loss to understand the change that had come over his wife. People seemed to be pulling away from him, receding.
He passed more and more of his time alone, in his wingback chair before the fireplace in the Red Room, a copy of the Codex Pappus in his lap. At the age of forty-six he had become chair-bound. Pharris Whiteâs remarks had set him wondering if there werenât perhaps some higher secrets he had missed, something implicit, some deeply hidden pattern in the fine tapestry of Plethoâs thought that had escaped him, and so he read and pondered and drifted in and out of sleep while the baby crawled about on the Temple carpets and great armies clashed around the world. At the age of forty-six Mr. Jimmerson was already looking forward to his senescence.
Meanwhile, Sir Sydney Hen, Bart., had become mobile. Now radiant with health and joined in a kind of marriage to the rich widow Babette, he began to stir. His new book, Approach to Knowing , had just been published, and it was his claim that he had written the entire work, excepting only bits of connective matter, while in a threeday Gnomonic trance, this being an exalted state of consciousness not to be confused with an ordinary hypnotic stupor or any sort of Eastern rapture. It was revealed to him in the trance that he had âcompleted the triangleâ and âscaled the coneâ and been granted âthe gift of ecstatic utterance,â all of which meant that he had gone beyond Mastery and was no longer bound by law or custom.
Deep waters, as Hen himself admitted. There was more. Other menâother Gnomons, that isâcould aspire to this singular state, and might even achieve it by undergoing a rigorous program of instruction in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Babette owned a house in Cuernavaca, a sprawling, enclosed place with swimming pool and blazing gardens, and it was here that Hen established his New Croton Institute for Advanced Gnomonic Study.
Candidates for the school were carefully selected. They had to have clear eyes and all their limbs. There was a fee of $1,200, payable in advance, nonrefundable. There was one week of forgetting followed by three weeks of learning. There was a rule of silence. They slept on a cold tile floor and fed on alfalfa sprouts and morning glory seeds. Their reading was restricted to Henâs books. Hen stood behind a screen as he taught them, in the morning and again in the afternoon, to lute music, or rather to lute strumming. Noel Kinlow could not actually play the lute; he simply trailed his fingers across the strings from time to time, on a signal from Hen, to point up some significant recurring word or phrase. The candidates were bled weekly, by Kinlow, and not of the customary pint but of an imperial quart at each draining. On successful completion of the program, with thin new blood coursing through their emaciated bodies, they were at last permitted to look Hen in the face. He embraced them and presented them with signed copies of Approach to
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