Agape Agape by William Gaddis Read Free Book Online

flute humming in his ears he can’t hear anything else now, now, ease it out I think I’ve got it don’t, oh my God! Who, my God! Who would have put a glass of water back there! All over these newspapers these Japanese staples down my leg and books, papers where, can’t stand up can’t, get my breath can’t, avoid, yes avoid stress but, oh my God. Sit here talking to these detachable selves belly-talkers kangaroos, thinking someone else’s thoughts deadened out of existence and I’m the other, I am the other, sit here talking to automatons the Turkish lady in four languages Vaucanson’s flute player like Galen’s patient haunted by hallucinatory flutists he heard and saw day and night and another one Dodds mentions panics when a flute is played at a party but that’s not the, that’s the, not what Dodds calls an old Pythagorean catechism, “Pleasure” it says. “Pleasure is in all circumstances bad; for we came here to be punished and we ought to be punished” it’s all, pictures the body as the soul’s prison where the gods keep it locked up till it’s purged of guilt, purgatorio! Madness, it’s all madness, wanted to break out of this prison I, look at it, look at me, skin like tissue paper blotches that blossom daily blood spilled a week ago and this damned armoured leg, lungs shot and what’s going on down below’s nobody’s business can’t see across the room the whole thing’s wreckage, top to bottom, a prison like this one break out of it like blowing out a candle I, I can’t no I, I can’t. Purgatory it’s all purgatory beginning to end, catharsis right from the start. Flutes and kettledrums! Orgiastic music dancing people out of their minds talk about treating anxiety states, talk about avoiding stress about diagnosing madness in these Corybantic rituals out there banging away different tunes till they hit the one that belongs to the god who’s possessing the patient the only one in this pandemonium he responds to, finds which god’s tormenting him and pays him off sounds like the waterfront, sounds like buying indulgences pick your saint intercedes with Mary intercedes with Jesus intercedes with God knows what’s all this guilt, original sin like a plague down the ages one heresy after another mortifying the body wait around long enough and it will do it for you, pushpin or poetry and here comes Mary Baker Eddy to say the whole thing’s a mistake, an egregious pululating error and here’s your sample wet right down to my God, my God, my God! I can’t, see what’s next foretell the future where every prospect pleases and only mine is, is like a long corridor doors opening off it closing off it fresh start go to one door closes when I get to it run to the next one and no! No here’s my mail, soaking wet never even opened it spread it out to dry with the, what’s this. What in God’s name is this doing here, deeds to the properties land surveys title insurance, supposed to be in my safe how did it get here mixed up with my notes books papers what I came here to work on, my whole idea wasn’t it? Get down to work fresh start don’t let other things interfere avoid stress doors closing settle in, spread out like a prison like a tomb where the bed’s the catafalque made by God the bed-maker in the last book of The Republic, talk about avoiding stress. Three kinds of beds God made one of them, if he’d made two a third one would have appeared behind them, the real bed not a particular bed, that’s the carpenter, and then the painter imitating what they’ve made, good enough to fool children or the simple-minded out there waiting to be entertained you see I’ve got to explain all this because I don’t, we don’t know how much time there is and I have to work on the, to finish this work of mine while I, get it all sorted and organized before