Free Set This House on Fire by William Styron Page B

I realized for the first time that Cass, though outwardly composed, was quite drunk, and that again he was talking, not so much to me as to this lowering, tranquil dusk, and was filling it with sunbursts of weird eloquence as he swung his wine bottle through the air. “Their faces,” he was saying. “Their faces! My God, haven’t you seen them? They’re like something out of Goya in his most bilious, baneful, toxic mood. Goya! He would’ve ransomed his legs for a crack at them. One of them—that oldest one—is positively antediluvian. He’s got the primal curse on him, if ever I’ve seen it. And the other one, the lush-head, what’s his name—Burns. There’s a prince for you! I’d have sacks full of gold if he were a Medici. He’s got a slit-eyed Tuscan look, like one of Lorenzo’s seedy, black-sheep cousins dragged into town for a whorehouse romp. He’s the only man alive, I swear, with solid-green eyeballs. Check ’em, Leverett,” he said with a tickled laugh, turning to me, “and see if that’s not a twenty-four-carat fact. And the dame, too. Check her. My God, she’s dazzling. But a spook. Yesterday in the sunlight I saw her turn—it was bright noon with this harsh, enormous brilliance all around—and I swear the death’s-head was laid beneath her skin as plain as if it had been chiseled marble. Then I saw her eyes, and upon my word they evaporated away before me as if they had become dissolved like jelly by that selfsame midday sun—”
    I heard Poppy’s voice, close by us down the slope now, cross and annoyed: “Goodness, Cass Kinsolving, if you can’t find anything to hate better than those movie stars, running on like that. Mr. Leverett is tired and upset and wants to go up the hill. I told you about drinking all that wine on a hot day like this—”
    “Look, Leverett,” Cass went on, “am I boring you? Do you want to see faces, real faces? Are you going to be here for a while? Let me take you back to Tramonti sometime. There are faces there right out of the twelfth century. I’ll show you a face so proud and tragic and full of mortal splendor that you’ll think you had stumbled on Isaiah himself. More! Back there—”
    “Hush!” I heard Poppy say, stamping her foot. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, Cass Kinsolving. Why are you acting like this—”
    “You know,” he said, “there’s an old witch back there makes ninety lire a day, hauling stakes for the vineyard on her back. Ninety lire! Fifteen cents! On her back! I want you to see her face. She’s got a face like something out of Grünewald, with this agony, you see, twisted perpetually on her lips so mean and gray that it’s like some living lamentation—”
    “Stop it now!” Poppy shrilled. “You’re such a bore, Cass, when you drink all that wine! And you’re going to ruin your ulcer! Mr. Leverett, just ignore him. What I was asking you is this: will you please ask Rosemarie de Laframboise to lend us Francesca for the evening? Felicia has a cold and I want to put her right to bed and I want Francesca to help out.”
    “Yes—” I began, but as I spoke, my warm languid sense of beauty swept away from me, replaced by a sickening feeling like terror. Oh God not again, I thought, not again. Because I realized that that hurrying, ominous noise I had heard buzzing in my ears was not a trick; it was real and full of peril, and was now almost on top of us. Ear-racking explosions rent the dusk. “Watch out!” I yelled. “Out of the road!” But it was too late. A gray-green blur surmounted by two crouched figures—a black-haired man hugged close behind by a girl in fluttering red pants—the motorscooter was already among us with a roar, sending Cass and Poppy in startled leaps to the fenders of the car, and children flying like wind-blown scraps of paper in all directions. “You fool!” Cass cried, but again too late. The motorscooter shot on headlong past us, in full-throttled acceleration