Eyes: Novellas and Stories

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Taken from Hatred and Civility: The Antisocial Life in Victorian England, by Christopher Lane. Figure 6.1, Der Augenturm (The Eye Tower), 1977. Copyright Dieter Appelt. Courtesy Kicken Berlin and the Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York.

Four pieces in this group—“In Camera,” “Charity,” “Don’t Even Try, Sam,” and “The Man Who Spoke with His Hands”—first appeared in that sterling magazine Conjunctions, while the oddly authored “Soliloquy for a Chair” was published in Tin House and “Toy Chest” in The Yale Review. Thanks, too, to artists Michael Eastman and Michael Hafftka, as well as for the assistance of Catherine Gass.

Photo of the author by the author

Mr. Gab didn’t have that gift, though his assistant, who was supposed to be stupid but only looked so, would mutter beneath his breath, when annoyed by his tasks, “he had the gift, he did, did Gab.” Mr. Gab spoke seldom, and then it was to shout at the steel shutters of the shop that were always reluctant to alter their position, whatever it was, and needed to be cajoled, flattered, then threatened. Or sometimes he spoke to the steam pipes, complaining of the knocking, complaining of the excessive heat they gave off when they had to be heated and of the odor that the steam brought to the nose through layers of paint resembling aluminum. Curls the graphs, he said with as close to a curse as he came.

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