“It’s a large painting,” Chockinaw said, “his biggest yet, a four by six. He placed the canvas inside an ugly chrome steel frame. I don’t get that. If he’d been smart enough to ask me, I’d have advised differently. Then again, maybe it doesn’t matter with this one. I don’t believe anything could make it right.

“How do I put Cosmic Kaleidoscope into words? When I first saw it, across the gallery, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. It seemed a jumble of clashing images. The picture is a mess, I can tell you, just a bath of muddy oils; chaotic, like Guernica, but not as clever– no thought, no higher significance– ugliness without meaning. Somehow, though, he slipped in forms and figures in a way you wouldn’t expect.

“I saw that up close, however. I’ve never denied that Terry has technical skill. He’s done something to the image– I haven’t seen this before, maybe fancy varnish– that makes the picture appear to develop, like a photograph, as you approach. The closer I got, and the longer I stared, the more I saw. Portions seemed to detach themselves from the whole– no order to any of this– and catch the eye.

“And then in a flash I saw it all– or just one part– I don’t know; it leaped out at me, as if I’d entered a room rather than stuck my nose into canvas. The scene came at me from all sides, it overwhelmed my vision. It hurts to think about what I saw.”

It took a generous dose of expensive Moselle to move Chockinaw forward. Then he said, in a low, whispering voice, “It ought to be a crime. What he’s done goes beyond pornography. I’ve looked at that stuff– for professional reasons– but this beats anything I’ve seen. How could that man cram so much depraved, detestable, debasing foulness into one painting? Bosch is a joke by comparison. Terry’s strong point has always been human figures– he does funny things to them– but here he’s gone around the bend. A great sweating, slobbering heap of sexual excess, without purpose. I sensed a sick joy behind the physical distortions, the pain and cruelty, the ecstatic wallowing in human shame. He doesn’t leave anything out, and he invents new combinations of flesh and fluids. There’s nothing cosmic about it, it’s all lowly and degenerate sadomasochism. He must be hiding something horrible inside him… and yet, upon viewing the picture, I haven’t been able to escape the feeling that what I saw was inside me, coming from within me, that it wasn’t in the picture at all. Ridiculous, you say– I’m a great guy, everyone knows that– but I haven’t felt good about myself since.”

As soon as I could tear myself away from my maundering companion I wired home for press clippings and a copy of Evocative, the weekly periodical, in order to get the straight story on Langley’s painting. The artist’s vague declamations hadn’t prepared me for this. From Chockinaw’s distraught account I gathered that I should expect something on the order of Turd Race II, with an enhanced dwelling on nastiness. If so, what an amazing let down! On principle I rejected the notion, considering my source, but no matter how wrong he’d gotten it, could the poor fool have missed the point that completely?

My situation annoyed me throughout the following day. Here I was, on the opposite side of the planet, while Langley released his extravaganza– without my being in the thick of things– and possibly damaged his career. A regrettable outcome, if it happened without my wise and pertinent comments. I refused to speculate until I learned more, but the time passed slowly, and I wasn’t in the mood for fun and games. Even Clarisse couldn’t cheer me up. When the afternoon paper came I sent her away, for I read a small item which further got under my skin in the worst way. I had misjudged the man. I didn’t know Chockinaw had it in him– I didn’t know he had anything in him– and a mild clutch of guilt seized me as I realized how disturbed he must have been. Last night, shortly after I left him, Chockinaw had hanged himself.

The materials I’d sent for arrived. The newspaper references were sparse and unrevealing. They established that Cosmic Kaleidoscope existed. The latest issue of Evocative contained one long paragraph on the subject, in which the glib, anonymous editorialist seemed to be struggling mightily to write around the painting, without quite coming to grips with what it objectively conveyed. He wrote nothing that corresponded to Chockinaw’s lewd description, but he didn’t offer much else, either. He did have this to say:

“We hope that Terrible Terrill hasn’t run off the rails with this one. Always a fantasist and explorer of dark themes, this time he attempts to merely disgust his audience, rather than awaken honest, if suppressed, feeling. Also, he abandons even the pretense of realism. All art, no matter how outré, must be grounded in reality, in the true experience of humanity.

It remains to be seen whether this complex and striking painting, however brilliant its execution, meets this bedrock definition of art.” And thanks for nothing, I thought, whoever you are.

It wouldn’t serve my interests to remain in France. I had to be at the scene of the action. A few calls, a few apologies– good luck, Clarisse– and this not so old man went west, in a hurry, on the next available flight. I landed in California whenever, and once back in the groove everything turned strange.

The Radetsky was closed this day. I phoned Langley, without success. No matter; I’d follow up with him later. I called Hoskins, who tended to make sense in the best of times, but he told me nothing. He refused to discuss the painting. He sounded angry. I didn’t pester him. I tried to contact Morton, another straight shooter, but only reached his wife, who informed me that he was late– as in the late Morton– my colleague was dead. She didn’t tell me how it happened, and I didn’t press, but I gathered that it was a recent and sudden occurrence.

Whatever in hell was going on, it certainly wasn’t a happy time for my gang. Now I called Winslow. He wanted to talk, he was glad to talk. His voice quavered. He said something odd over the telephone– “It doesn’t always pay to think too deeply”– then invited himself to my home for an extended session. He appeared, looking worn, more nervous than I remembered him. We commiserated the losses of Chockinaw and Morton. Concerning the latter, he would only say: “If he had to do it, why did he do it that way?”

He gave me his impressions of Langley’s painting, and he showed me something. It was a photograph of the picture he’d snapped for a feature, which he now declined to write. I looked at it. Taken from a moderate distance (not too close; against the rules of the salon), it captured the familiar wall of honor, with the harshly framed oil as the centerpiece. I glanced up at Winslow, mystified. He shook his head in sympathy. The photo revealed nothing. I saw an oblong of inky darkness, a sheer black canvas. I could not discern a hint of detail. He verified my unwilling suspicion that this wasn’t an accurate image. Somehow, through some kind of unprecedented lighting effect, the camera had entirely failed to carry out its function.

As stated, he gave me his impressions– he described the painting at consummate, professional length– but at first all I could think was how dissimilar his version was from that of Chockinaw. A little of it harked back to the generalities I’d heard, the bits about confusion and disorder, but after that Winslow might as well have been telling me about a different picture. According to him, there was nothing overtly or suggestively sexual about it.

“In retrospect, I can’t guarantee you that I viewed the entire painting. Perhaps I missed something. I don’t think so. If anything, I saw too much. Such a large canvas, so many elements intertwined, themes flowing like rivers– the magnitude of it all!– I could have overlooked this or that portion. I’m convinced that I took in its essence, and that’s enough. Cosmic Kaleidoscope is a ghastly work, the most intensely vile production I’ve seen or heard about. It’s evil. Yes, that’s what I mean. We must create a new category, Evil Art, in order to understand Langley’s intention. Talking about it gives me the creeps. When I saw it, I felt as if he had painted it solely for my benefit, that it spoke directly to me and only me. It wasn’t a picture, an object, before me, but images in my mind, images of forgotten nightmares and forbidden memories. He can’t portray men accurately to save his life– he stopped trying years ago– but that doesn’t matter in this case, because now he invents monsters. A fine hand he’s got for it, and superb technique. I grant him this: he’s mastered the medium. He paints monsters. I look here, I look there, they’re springing out at me, those creatures. I believe they were grouped around some central figure, an uncongealed shape in the background. I didn’t think about that until later, so I only recall a fleeting suggestion of looming shape in… yes, in dreary, filthy circumstances. There was a lot of dirt. Raggedly clothed shapes stood or crouched up to their skinny ankles in mud. The creatures crowded around, as if worshipping the central monstrosity. I see them as in life, right down to the straggly hairs on their arms; those that had arms. Some resembled the medical freaks I saw a long time ago in an old book. They were relatively easy to view. There were things that might once have been human, but had decayed to an extent incompatible with their apparent liveliness. Other things might pass for human at a distance– or in a dark alley, sneaking up behind you– but their faces gave them away. No human soul animated those faces; none ever had. Mixed in among them were still others, twisted fantasies of horror, which looked like nothing in this or any sane world. Anything faintly human would have recoiled from them in panic, yet they seemed to be the leaders of the pack. Others deferred to them. All of them were hideous. I couldn’t stand their touch when they crawled on me.”