Henry Miller's
TROPIC OF CANCER
_______________________
I AM
living at the Villa Borghese. There is
not a crumb of dirt anywhere, nor a chair misplaced. We are all alone here and we are dead.
Last night Boris discovered that he was
lousy. I had to shave his armpits and
even then the itching did not stop. How
can one get lousy in a beautiful place like this? But no matter. We might never have known each other so intimately,
Boris and I, had it not been for the lice.
Boris has just given me a summary of his
views. He is a weather prophet. The weather will continue bad, he says. There will be more calamities, more death,
more despair. Not the slightest
indication of a change anywhere. The
cancer of time is eating us away. Our
heroes have killed themselves, or are killing themselves. The hero, then, is not Time, but
Timelessness. We must get in step, a
lock step, toward the prison of death.
There is no escape. The weather
will not change.
It is now the fall of my second year in
Paris. I was sent here for a reason I
have not yet been able to fathom.
I have no money, no resources, no
hopes. I am the happiest man alive. A year ago, six months ago, I thought that I
was an artist. I no longer think about
it, I 'am'. Everything that was
literature has fallen from me. There are
no more books to be written, thank God.
This then? This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of
character. This is not a book, in the
ordinary sense of the word. No, this is
a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to
God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty ... what you will. I am going to sing for you, a little off key
perhaps, but I will sing. I will sing
while you croak, I will dance over your dirty corpse....
To sing you must first open your mouth. You must have a pair of lungs, and a little
knowledge of music. It is not necessary
to have an accordion, or a guitar. The
essential thing is to want to sing.
This then is a song. I am
singing.
It is to you, Tania, that I am
singing. I wish that I could sing
better, more melodiously, but then perhaps you would never have consented to
listen to me. You have heard the others
sing and they have left you cold. They
sang too beautifully, or not beautifully enough.
It is the twenty-somethingth of
October. I no longer keep track of the
date. Would you say - my dream of the
14th November last? There are intervals,
but they are between dreams, and there is no consciousness of them left. The world around me is dissolving, leaving
here and there spots of time. There
world is a cancer eating itself away.... I am thinking that when the great
silence descends upon all and everywhere music will at last triumph. When into the womb of time everything is
again withdrawn chaos will be restored and chaos is the score upon which
reality is written. You, Tania, are my
chaos. It is why I sing. It is not even I, it is the world dying, shedding
the skin of time. I am still alive,
kicking in your womb, a reality to write upon.
Dozing off. The physiology of love. The whale with his six-foot penis, in
repose. The pat - penis libre. Animals with a bone in the penis. Hence, a bone on....
"Happily," says Gourmont, "the bony structure is lost in
man." Happily? Yes, happily.
Think of the human race walking around with a bone on. The kangaroo has a double penis - one for
weekdays and one for holidays.
Dozing. A letter from a female
asking if I have found a title for my book.
Title? To be sure: "Lovely
Lesbians".
Your anecdotal life! A phrase of M. Borowski's. It is on Wednesdays that I have lunch with
Borowski. His wife, who is a dried-up
cow, officiates. She is studying English
now - her favourite word is "filthy".
You can see immediately what a pain in the ass the Borowskis are. But wait....
Borowski wears corduroy suits and plays
the accordion. An invincible
combination, especially when you consider that he is not a bad artist. He puts on that he is a Pole, but he is not,
of course. He is a Jew, Borowski, and
his father was a philatelist. In fact,
almost all Montparnasse is Jewish, or half-Jewish, which is worse. There's Carl and Paula, and Cronstadt and
Boris, and Tania and Sylvester, and Moldorf and Lucille. All except Fillmore. Henry Jordan Oswald turned out to be a Jew
also. Louis Nichols is a Jew. Even Van Norden and Cherie and Jewish. Frances Blake is a Jew, or a Jewess. Titus is a Jew. The Jews then are snowing me under. I am writing this for my friend Carl whose
father is a Jew. All this is important
to understand.
Of them all the lovelist Jew is Tania,
and for her sake I too would become a Jew.
Why not? I already speak like a
Jew. And I am as ugly as a Jew. Besides, who hates the Jews more than the
Jew?
Twilight hour. Indian blue, water of glass, trees glistening
and liquescent. The rails fall away into
the canal of Jaures. The long
caterpillar with lacquered sides dips like a roller coaster. It is not Paris. It is not Coney Island. It is a crepuscular melange of all the cities
of Europe and Central America. The
railroad yards below me, the tracks black, webby, not ordered by the engineer
but cataclysmic in design, like those gaunt fissures in the polar ice which the
camera registers in degrees of black.
Food is one of the things I enjoy
tremendously. And in this beautiful
Villa Borghese there is scarcely ever any evidence of food. It is positively appalling at times. I have asked Boris time and again to order
bread for breakfast, but he always forgets.
He goes out for breakfast, it seems.
And when he comes back he is picking his teeth and there is a little egg
hanging from his goatee. He eats in the
restaurant out of consideration for me.
He says it hurts to eat a big meal and have me watch him.
I like Van Norden but I do not share his
opinion of himself. I do not agree, for
instance, that he is a philosopher, or a thinker. He is cunt-struck, that's all. And he will never be a writer. Nor will Sylvester ever be a writer, though
his name blaze in 50,000-candle-powered lights.
The only writers about me for whom I have any respect, at present, are
Carl and Boris. They are possessed. They glow inwardly with a white flame. They are mad and tone deaf. They are sufferers.
Moldorf, on the other hand, who suffers
too in his peculiar way, is not mad.
Moldorf is word drunk. He has no
veins or blood vessels, no heart or kidneys.
He is a portable trunk filled with innumerable drawers and in the
drawers are labels written out in white ink, brown ink, red ink, blue ink,
vermilion, saffron, mauve, sienna, apricot, turquoise, onyx, Anjou, herring,
Corona, verdigris, gorgonzola....
I have moved the typewriter into the next
room where I can see myself in the mirror as I write.
Tania is like Irene. She expect fat letters. But there is another Tania, a Tania like a
big seed who scatters pollen everywhere - or, let us say, a little bit of
Tolstoy, a stable scene in which the fetus is dug up. Tania is a fever, too - les voies
urinaires, Café de la Liberté, Place des Vosges, bright neckties, on the
Boulevard Montparnasse, dark bathrooms, Porto Sec, Abdulla cigarettes, the
adagio sonata Pathètique, aural amplificators, anecedotal seances, burnt
sienna breasts, heavy garters, what time is it, golden pheasants stuffed with
chestnuts, taffeta fingers, vaporous twilights turning to ilex, acromegaly,
cancer and delirium, warm veils, poker chips, carpets of blood and soft
thighs. Tania says so that every one may
hear: "I love him!" And while
Boris scalds himself with whisky she says: "Sit down here! O Boris ... Russia ... what'll I
do? I'm bursting with it!"
At night when I look at Boris' goatee
lying on the pillow I get hysterical. O
Tania, where now is that warm cunt of yours, those fat, heavy garters, those
soft, bulging thighs? There is a bone in
my prick six inches long. I will ream
out every wrinkle in your cunt, Tania, big with seed. I will send you home to your Sylvester with
an ache in your belly and your womb turned inside out. Your Sylvester! Yes, he knows how to build a fire, but I know
how to inflame a cunt. I shoot hot bolts
into you, Tania, I make your ovaries incandescent. Your Sylvester is a little jealous now? He feels something, does he? He feels the remnants of my big prick. I have set the shores a little wider. I have ironed out the wrinkles. After me you can take on stallions, bulls,
rams, drakes, St. Bernards. You can
stuff toads, bats, lizards up your rectum.
You can shit arpeggios if you like, or string a zither across you
navel. I am fucking you, Tania, so that
you'll stay fucked. And if you are
afraid of being fucked publicly I will fuck you privately. I will tear of a few hairs from your cunt and
paste them on Boris' chin. I will bite
into your clitoris and spit out two franc pieces....
Indigo sky swept clear of fleecy clouds,
gaunt trees infinitely extended, their black boughs gesticulating like a
sleepwalker. Sombre, spectral trees,
their trunks pale as cigar ash. A
silence supreme and altogether European.
Shutters drawn, shops barred. A
red glow here and there to mark a tryst.
Brusque the facades, almost forbidding; immaculate except for the
splotches of shadow cast by the trees.
Passing by the Orangerie I am reminded of another Paris, the Paris of
Maugham, of Gauguin, Paris of George Moore.
I think of that terrible Spaniard who was then startling the world with
his acrobatic leaps from style to style.
I think of Spengler and of his terrible pronunciamentos, and I wonder if
style, style in the grand manner, is done for.
I say that my mind is occupied with these thoughts, but it is not true;
it is only later, after I have crossed the
The trouble with Irene is that she has a
valise instead of a cunt. She wants fat
letters to shove in her valise. Immense,
avec des choses inouies. Llona
now, she had a cunt. I know because she
sent us some hairs from down below.
Llona - a wild ass snuffing pleasure out of the wind. On every high hill she played the harlot -
and sometimes in telephone booths and toilets.
She bought a bed for King Carol and a shaving mug with his initials on
it. She lay in Tottenham Court Road with
her dress pulled up and fingered herself.
She used candles, Roman candles, and door knobs. Not a prick in the land big enough for her
... not one. Men went inside her
and curled up. She wanted extension
pricks, self-exploding rockets, hot boiling oil made of wax and creosote. She would cut off your prick and keep it
inside her forever, if you gave her permission.
One cunt out of a million, Llona!
A laboratory cunt and no litmus paper that could take her colour. She was a liar, too, this Llona. She never bought a bed for her King
Carol. She crowned him with a whisky
bottle and her tongue was full of lice and tomorrows. Poor Carol, he could only curl up inside her
and die. She drew a breath and he fell
out - like a dead clam.
Enormous, fat letters, avec des chose
inouies. A valise without
straps. A hole without a key. She had a German mouth, French ears, Russian
ass. Cunt international. When the flag waved it was red all the way
back to the throat. You entered on the
Boulevard Jules-Ferry and came out on the Porte de la Villette. You dropped your sweetbreads into the
tumbrils - red tumbrils with two wheels, naturally. At the confluence of the Ourcq and
It is the caricature of a man which
Moldorf first presents. Thyroid
eyes. Michelin lips. Voice like pea soup. Under his vest he carries a little pear. However you look at him it is always the same
panorama: netsuke snuffbox, ivory handle, chess piece, fan, temple motif. He has fermented so long now that he is
amorphous. Yeast despoiled of its
vitamins. Vase without a rubber plant.
The females were sired twice in the ninth
century, and again during the Renaissance.
He was carried through the great dispersions under yellow bellies and
white. Long before the Exodus a Tatar
spat in his blood.
His dilemma is that of the dwarf. With his pineal eye he sees his silhouette
projected on a screen of incommensurable size.
His voice, synchronized to the shadow of a pinhead, intoxicates
him. He hears a roar where others hear
only a squeak.
There is his mind. It is an amphitheatre in which the actor
gives a protean performance. Moldorf,
multiform and unerring, goes through his roles - clown, juggler, contortionist,
priest, lecher, mountebank. The
amphitheatre is too small. He puts
dynamite to it. The audience is
drugged. He scotches it.
I am trying ineffectually to approach
Moldorf. It is like trying to approach
God, for Moldorf is God - he has never been anything else. I am merely putting down words....
I have had opinions about him which I
have discarded; I have had other opinions which I am revising. I have pinned him down only to find that it
was not a dung-beetle I had in my hands, but a dragonfly. He has offended me by his coarseness and then
overwhelmed me with his delicacy. He has
been voluble to the point of suffocation, then quiet as the Jordan.
When I see him trotting forward to greet
me, his little paws outstretched, his eyes perspiring, I feel that I am
meeting....No, this is not the way to go about it!
"Comme
un oeuf dansant sur un jet d'eau."
He has only one cane - a mediocre
one. In his pocket scraps of paper
containing prescriptions for Weltschmerz. He is cured now, and the little German girl
who washed his feet is breaking her heart.
It is like Mr. Nonentity toting his Gujarati dictionary everywhere. "Inevitable for everyone" -
meaning, no doubt, indispensable.
Borowski would find all this incomprehensible. Borowski has a different cane for each day in
the week, and one for Easter.
We have so many points in common that it
is like looking at myself in a cracked mirror.
I have been looking over my manuscripts,
pages scrawled with revisions. Pages of literature. This frightens me a little. It is so much like Moldorf. Only I am a Gentile, and Gentiles have a
different way of suffering. They suffer
without neuroses and, as Sylvester says, a man who has never been afflicted
with a neurosis does not know the meaning of suffering.
I recall distinctly how I enjoyed my
suffering. It was like taking a cub to
bed with you. Once in a while he clawed
you - and then you really were frightened.
Ordinarily you had no fear - you could always turn him loose, or chop
his head off.
There are people who cannot resist the
desire to get into a cage with wild beasts and be mangled. They go in even without revolver or
whip. Fear makes them fearless.... For
the Jew the world is a cage filled with wild beasts. The door is locked and he is there without
whip or revolver. His courage is so
great that he does not even smell the dung in the corner. The spectators applaud but he does not
hear. The drama, he thinks, is going on
inside the cage. The cage, he thinks, is
the world. Standing there alone and
helpless, the door locked, he finds that the lions do not understand his language. Not one lion has ever heard of Spinoza. Spinoza?
Why, they can't even get their teeth into him. "Give us meat!" they roar, while he
stands there petrified, his ideas frozen, his Weltanschauung a trapeze
out of reach. A single blow of the
lion's paw and his cosmogony is smashed.
The lions, too, are disappointed. They expected blood, bones, gristle,
sinews. They chew and chew, but the
words are chicle and chicle is indigestible.
Chicle is a base over which you sprinkle sugar, pepsin, thyme, liquorice. Chicle, when it is gathered by chicleros,
is O.K. The chicleros came over
on the ridge of a sunken continent. They
brought with them an algebraic language.
In the Arizona desert they met the Mongols of the North, glazed like
eggplants. Time shortly after the earth
had taken its gyroscopic lean - when the Gulf Stream was parting ways with the
Japanese current. In the heart of the
soil they found tufa rock. They
embroidered the very bowels of the earth with their language. They ate one another's entrails and the
forest closed in on them, on their bones and skulls, on their lace tufa. They language was lost. Here and there one still finds the remnants
of a menagerie, a brain plate covered with figures.
What has all this to do with you,
Moldorf? The word in your mouth is
anarchy. Say it, Moldorf, I am waiting
for it. Nobody knows, when we shake
hands, the rivers that pour through our sweat.
Whilst you are framing your words, your lips half parted, the saliva
gurgling in your cheeks, I have jumped halfway across Asia. Were I to take your cane, mediocre as it is,
and poke a little hole in your side, I could collect enough material to fill
the British Museum. We stand on five
minutes and devour centuries. You are
the sieve through which my anarchy strains, resolves itself into words. Behind the word is chaos. Each word a stripe, a bar, but there are not
and never will be enough bars to make the mesh.
In my absence the window curtains have
been hung. They have the appearance of
Tyrolean tablecloths dipped in lysol.
The room sparkles. I sit on the
bed in a daze, thinking about man before his birth. Suddenly bells begin to toll, a weird,
unearthly music, as if I had been translated to the steppes of Central
Asia. Some ring out with a long,
lingering roll, some erupt drunkenly, maudlinly. And now it is quiet again, except for a last
note that barely grazes the silence of the night - just a faint, high gong
snuffed out like a flame.
I have made a silent compact with myself
not to change a line of what I write. I
am not interested in perfecting my thoughts, nor my actions. Beside the perfection of Turgenev I put the
perfection of Dostoveski. (Is there anything more perfect that The Eternal
Husband?) Here, then, in one and the
same medium, we have two kinds of perfection.
But in Van Gogh's letters there is a perfection beyond either of
these. It is the triumph of the
individual over art.
There is only one thing which interests
me vitally now, and that is the recording of all that which is omitted in
books. Nobody, so far as I can see, is
making use of those elements in the air which gives direction and motivation to
our lives. Only the killers seem to be
extracting from life some satisfactory measure of what they are putting into
it. The age demands violence, but we are
getting only abortive explosions. Revolutions
are nipped in the bud, or else succeed too quickly. Passion is quickly exhausted. Men fall back on ideas, comme d'habitude. Nothing is proposed that can last more than
twenty-four hours. We are living a
million lives in the space of a generation.
In the study of entomology, or of deep sea life, or cellular activity,
we derive more ...
The telephone interrupts this thought
which I should never have been able to complete. Someone is coming to rent the apartment....
It looks as though it were finished, my
life at the Villa Borghese. Well, I'll
take up these pages and move on. Things
will happen elsewhere. Things are always
happening. It seems wherever I go there
is drama. People are like lice - they
get under your skin and bury themselves there.
You scratch and scratch until the blood comes, but you can't get
permanently deloused. Everywhere I go
people are making a mess of their lives.
Everyone has his private tragedy.
It's in the blood now - misfortune, ennui, grief, suicide. The atmosphere is saturated with disaster,
frustration, futility. Scratch and
scratch - until there's no skin left.
However, the effect upon me is exhilarating. Instead of being discouraged, or depressed, I
enjoy it. I am crying for more and more
disasters, for bigger calamities, for grander failures. I want the whole world to be out of whack, I
want everyone to scratch himself to death.
So fast and furiously am I compelled to
live now that there is scarcely time to record even these fragmentary
notes. After the telephone call, a
gentleman and his wife arrived. I went
upstairs to lie down during the transaction.
Lay there wondering what my next move would be. Surely not to go back to the fairy's bed and
toss about all night flicking bread crumbs with my toes. That puking little bastard! If there's anything worse than being a fairy
it's being a miser. A timid, quaking
little bugger who lived in constant fear of going broke some day - the 18th of
March perhaps, or the 25th of May precisely.
Coffee without milk or sugar.
Bread without butter. Meat
without gravy, or no meat at all.
Without this and without that!
That dirty little miser! Open the
bureau drawer one day and find money hidden away in a sock. Over two thousand francs - and cheques that
he hadn't even cashed. Even that I
wouldn't have minded so much if there weren't always coffee grounds in my beret
and garbage on the floor, to say nothing of the cold cream jars and the greasy
towels and the sink always stopped up. I
tell you, the little bastard he smelled bad - except when he doused himself
with cologne. His ears were dirty, his
eyes were dirty, his ass was dirty. He
was double-jointed, asthmatic, lousy, picayune, morbid. I could have forgiven him everything if only
he had handed me a decent breakfast! But
a man who has two thousand francs hidden away in a dirty sock and refuses to
wear a clean shirt or smear a little butter over his bread, such a man is not
just a fairy, not even just a miser - he's an imbecile!
But that's neither here nor there, about
the fairy. I'm keeping an ear open as to
what's going on downstairs. It's a Mr.
Wren and his wife who have called to look at the apartment. They're talking about taking it. Only talking about it, thank God. Mrs. Wren has a loose laugh - complications
ahead. Now Mister Wren is
talking. His voice is raucous, scraping,
booming, a heavy blunt weapon that wedges its way through flesh and bone and
cartilage.
Boris calls me down to be
introduced. He is rubbing his hands,
like a pawnbroker. They are talking
about a story Mr. Wren wrote, a story about a spavined horse.
"But I thought Mr. Wren was a
painter?"
"To be sure," says Boris, with
a twinkle in his eye, "but in the wintertime he writes. And he writes well ... remarkably well."
I try to induce Mr. Wren to talk, to say
something, anything, to talk about the spavined horse, if necessary. But Mr. Wren is almost inarticulate. When he essays to speak of those dreary
months with the pen he becomes unintelligible.
Months and months he spends before setting a word to paper. (And there
are only three months of winter!) What
does he cogitate all those months and months of winter? So help me God, I can't see this guy as a
writer. Yet Mrs. Wren says that when he
sits down to it the stuff just pours out.
The talk drifts. It is difficult to follow Mr. Wren's mind
because he says nothing. He thinks as
he goes along - so Mrs. Wren puts it.
Mrs. Wren puts everything about Mr. Wren in the loveliest light. "He thinks as he goes along" - very
charming, charming indeed, as Borowski would say, but really very painful,
particularly when the thinker is nothing but a spavined horse.
Boris hands me money to buy liquor. Going for the liquor I am already
intoxicated. I know just how I'll begin
when I get back to the house. Walking
down the street it commences, the grand speech inside me that's gurgling like
Mrs. Wren's loose laugh. Seems to me she
had a slight edge on already. Listens
beautifully when she's tight. Coming out
of the wine shop I hear the urinal gurgling.
Everything is loose and splashy.
I want Mrs. Wren to listen.
Boris is rubbing his hands again. Mr. Wren is still stuttering and
spluttering. I have a bottle between my
legs and I'm shoving the corkscrew in.
Mrs. Wren has her mouth parted expectantly. The wine is splashing between my legs, the
sun is splashing through the bay window, and inside my veins there is a bubble
and splash of a thousand crazy things that commence to gush out of me now
pell-mell. I'm telling them everything
that comes to mind, everything that was bottled up inside me and which Mrs.
Wren's loose laugh has somehow released.
With that bottle between my legs and the sun splashing through the
window I experience once again the splendour of those miserable days when I
first arrived in Paris, a bewildered, poverty-stricken individual who haunted
the streets like a ghost at a banquet.
Everything comes back to me in a rush - the toilets that wouldn't work,
the prince who shined my shoes, the Cinema Splendide where I slept on the
patron's overcoat, the bars in the window, the feeling of suffocation, the fat
cockroaches, the drinking and carousing that went on between times, Rose
Cannaque and Naples dying in the sunlight.
Dancing the street on an empty belly and now and then calling on strange
people - Madame Delorme, for instance.
How I ever got to Madame Delorme's, I can't imagine any more. But I got there, got inside somehow, past the
butler, past the maid with her little white apron, got right inside the palace
with my corduroy trousers and my hunting jacket - and not a button on my
fly. Even now I can taste again the
golden ambiance of that room where Madame Delorme sat upon a throne in her
mannish rig, the goldfish in the bowls, the maps of the ancient world, the
beautifully bound books; I can feel again her heavy hand resting upon my
shoulder, frightening me a little with her heavy Lesbian air. More comfortable down below in that thick
stew pouring into the Gare St. Lazare, the whores in the doorways, seltzer
bottles on every table; a thick tide of semen flooding the gutters. Nothing better between five and seven than to
be pushed around in that throng, to follow a leg or a beautiful bust, to move
along with the tide and everything whirling in your brain. A weird sort of contentment in those
days. No appointments, no invitations
for dinner, no program, no dough. The
golden period, when I had not a single friend.
Each morning the dreary walk to the American Express, and each morning
the inevitable answer from the clerk.
Dashing here and there like a bedbug, gathering butts now and then,
sometimes furtively, sometimes brazenly; sitting down on a bench and squeezing
my guts to stop the gnawing, or walking through the Jardin des Tuileries and
getting an erection looking at the dumb statues. Or wandering along the Seine at night,
wandering and wandering, and going mad with the beauty of it, the trees leaning
to, the broken images in the water, the rush of the current under the bloody
lights of the bridges, the women sleeping in doorways, sleeping on newspapers,
sleeping in the rain; everywhere the musty porches of the cathedrals and
beggars and lice and old hags full of St. Vitus' dance; pushcarts stacked up
like wine barrels in the side streets, the smell of berries in the market place
and the old church surrounded with vegetables and blue arc lights, the gutters
slippery with garbage and women in satin pumps staggering through the filth and
vermin at the end of an all-night souse.
The Place St. Sulpice, so quiet and deserted, where toward midnight
there came every night the woman with the busted umbrella and the crazy veil;
every night she slept there on a bench under her torn umbrella, the ribs
hanging down, her dress turning green, her bony fingers and the odour of decay
oozing from her body; and in the morning I'd be sitting there myself, taking a
quiet snooze in the sunshine, cursing the goddamned pigeons gathering up the
crumbs everywhere. St. Sulpice! The fat belfries, the garish posters over the
door, the candles flaming inside. The
Square so beloved of Anatole France, with that drone and buzz from the altar,
the splash of the fountain, the pigeons cooing, the crumbs disappearing like
magic and only a dull rumbling in the hollow of the guts. Here I would sit day after day thinking of
Germaine and that dirty little street near the Bastille where she lived, and
that buzz-buzz going on behind the altar, the buses whizzing by, the sun
beating down into the asphalt and the asphalt working into me and Germaine,
into the asphalt and all Paris in the big fat belfries.
And it was down the Rue Bonparte that
only a year before Mona and I used to walk every night, after we had taken
leave of Borowski. St. Sulpice not
meaning much to me then, nor anything in
A few months later. The same hotel, the same room. We look out on the courtyard where the
bicycles are parked, and there is the little room up above, under the attic,
where some smart young Alec played the phonograph all day long and repeated
clever little things at the top of his voice.
I say "we" but I'm getting ahead of myself, because Mona has
been away a long time and it's just today that I'm meeting her at the Gare St.
Lazare. Toward evening I'm standing
there with my face squeezed between the bars, but there's no Mona, and I read
the cable over again but it doesn't help any.
I go back to the Quarter and just the same I put away a hearty
meal. Strolling past the Dôme a little
later suddenly I see a pale, heavy face and burning eyes - and the little
velvet suit that I always adore because under the soft velvet there were always
her warm breasts, the marble legs, cool, firm, muscular. She rises up out of a sea of faces and
embraces me, embraces me passionately - a thousand eyes, noses, fingers, legs,
bottles, windows, purses, saucers all glaring at us and we in each other's arms
oblivious. I sit down beside her and she
talks - a flood of talk. Wild
consumptive notes of hysteria, perversion, leprosy. I hear not a word because she is beautiful
and I love her and now I am happy and willing to die.
We walk down the Rue de Chateau, looking
for Eugene. Walk ever the railroad
bridge where I used to watch the trains pulling out and feel all sick inside
wondering where the hell she could be.
Everything soft and enchanting as we walk over the bridge. Smoke coming up between our legs, the tracks
creaking, semaphores in our blood. I
feel her body close to mine - all mine now - and I stop to rub my hands over
the warm velvet. Everything around us is
crumbling, crumbling and the warm body under the warm velvet is aching for
me....
Back in the very same room and fifty
francs to the good, thanks to Eugene. I
look out on the court but the phonograph is silent. The trunk is open and her things are lying
around everywhere just as before. She
lies down on the bed with her clothes on.
Once, twice, three times, four times ... I'm afraid she'll go mad ... in
bed, under the blankets, how good to feel her body again! But for how long? Will it last this time? Already I have a presentiment that it won't.
She talks to me so feverishly - as if
there will be no tomorrow. "Be
quiet, Mona! Just look at me ... don't
talk!" Finally she drops off
and I pull my arm from under her. My
eyes close. Her body is there beside me ...
it will be there till morning surely.... It was in February I pulled out of the
harbour in a blinding snowstorm. The
last glimpse I had of her was in the window waving goodbye to me. A man standing on the other side of the
street, at the corner, his hat pulled down over his eyes, his jowls resting on
his lapels. A fetus watching me. A fetus with a cigar in its mouth. Mona at the window waving goodbye. White heavy face, hair streaming wild. And now it is a heavy bedroom, breathing
regularly through the gills, sap still oozing from between her legs, a warm
feline odour and her hair in my mouth.
My eyes are closed. We breathe
warmly into each other's mouth. Close
together, America three thousand miles away.
I never want to see it again. To
have her here in bed with me, breathing on me, her hair in my mouth - I count
that something of a miracle. Nothing can
happen now till morning....
I wake from a deep slumber to look at
her. A pale light is trickling in. I look at her beautiful wild hair. I feel something crawling down my neck. I look at her again, closely. Her hair is alive. I pull back the sheet - more of them. They are swarming over the pillow.
It is a little after daybreak. We pack hurriedly and sneak out of the
hotel. The cafés are still closed. We walk, and as we walk we scratch
ourselves. They day opens in milky
whiteness, streaks of salmon-pink sky, snails leaving their shells. Paris.
Paris. Everything happens
here. Old, crumbling walls and the
pleasant sound of water running in the urinals.
Men licking their moustaches at the bar.
Shutters going up with a bang and little streams purling in the
gutter. Amer Picon in huge
scarlet letters. Zigzag. Which way will
we go and why or where or what?
Mona is hungry, her
dress is thin. Nothing but evening
wraps, bottles of perfume, barbaric earrings, bracelets, depilatories. We sit down in a billiard parlour on the
Avenue du Maine and order hot coffee.
The toilet is out of order. We
shall have to sit some time before we can go to another hotel. Meanwhile we pick bedbugs out of each other's
hair. Nervous. Mona is losing her temper. Must have a bath. Must have this. Must have that. Must, must, must ...
"How much money
have you left?"
Money! Forgot all about that.
Hotel des
Etas-Unis. An ascenseur. We go to bed in broad daylight. When we get up it is dark and the first thing
to do is to raise enough dough to send a cable to America. A cable to the fetus with the long juicy
cigar in his mouth. Meanwhile there is the
Spanish woman on the Boulevard Respail - she's always good for a warm
meal. By morning something will
happen. At least we're going to bed
together. No more bedbugs now. The rainy season has commenced. The sheets are immaculate....
A NEW
life opening up for me at the Villa Borghese.
Only ten o'clock and we have already had breakfast and been out for a
walk. We have an Elsa here with us now. "Step softly for a few days,"
cautions Boris.
The day begins gloriously: a bright sky,
a fresh wind, the houses newly washed.
On our way to the Post Office Boris and I discussed the book. The Last Book - which is going to be
written anonymously.
A new day is beginning. I felt it this morning as we stood before one
of Dufresne's glittering canvases, a sort of dejeuner intime in the
thirteenth century, sans vin. A
fine, fleshy nude, solid, vibrant, pink as a fingernail, with glistening
billows of flesh; all the secondary characteristics, and a few of the
primary. A body that sings, that has the
moisture of dawn. A still life, only
nothing is still, nothing dead here. The
table creaks with food; it is so heavy it is sliding out of the frame. A thirteenth century repast - with all the
jungle notes that he has memorized so well.
A family of gazelles and zebras nipping the fronds of the palms.
And now we have Elsa. She was playing for us this morning while we
were in bed. Step softly for a few
days.... Good! Elsa is the maid and
I am the guest. And Boris is the big
cheese. A new drama is beginning. I'm laughing to myself as I write this. He knows what is going to happen, that lynx,
Boris. He has a nose for things too. Step softly....
Boris is on pins and needles. At any moment now his wife may appear on the
scene. She weighs well over 180 pounds,
that wife of his. And Boris is only a
handful. There you have the
situation. He tries to explain it to me
on our way home at night. It is so
tragic and so ridiculous at the same time that I am obliged to stop now and then
and laugh in his face. "Why do you
laugh so?" he says gently, and then he commences himself, with that
whimpering, hysterical note in his voice, like a helpless wretch who realizes
suddenly that no matter how many frock coats he puts on he will never make a
man. He wants to run away, to take a new
name. "She can have everything,
that cow, if only she leaves me alone," he whines. But first the apartment has to be rented, and
the deeds signed, and a thousand other details for which his frock coat will come
in handy. But the size of her! - that's
what really worries him. If we were to
find her suddenly standing on the doorstep when we arrive he would faint -
that's how much he respects her!
And so we've got to go easy with Elsa for
a while. Elsa is only there to make
breakfast - and to show the apartment.
But Elsa is already undermining me. That German blood. Those melancholy songs. Coming down the stairs this morning, with the
fresh coffee in my nostrils, I was humming softly.... "Es war' so shon
gewesen". For breakfast,
that. And in a little while the English
boy upstairs with his Bach. As Elsa says
- "he needs a woman." And Elsa
needs something too. I can feel it. I didn't say anything to Boris about it, but
while he was cleaning his teeth this morning Elsa was giving me an earful about
Berlin, about the women who look so attractive from behind, and when they turn
round - Wow, syphilis!
It seems to me that Elsa looks at me
rather wistfully. Something left over
from the breakfast table. This afternoon
we were writing, back to back, in the studio.
She had begun a letter to her lover who is in Italy. The machine got jammed. Boris had gone to look at a cheap room he
will take as soon as the apartment is rented.
There was nothing for it but to make love to Elsa. She wanted it. And yet I felt a little sorry for her. She had only written the first line to her
lover - I read it out of the corner of my eye and I bent over her. But it couldn't be helped. The damned German music, so melancholy, so
sentimental. It undermined me. And then her beady little eyes, so hot and
sorrowful at the same time.
After it was over I asked her to play
something for me. She's a musician,
Elsa, even though it sounded like broken pots and skulls clanking. She was weeping, too, as she played. I don't blame her. Everywhere the same thing, she says. Everywhere a man, and then she has to leave, and
then there's an abortion and then a new job and then another man and nobody
gives a fuck about her except to use her.
All this after she's played Schumann for me - Schumann, that slobbery,
sentimental German bastard! Somehow I
feel sorry as hell for her and yet I don't give a damn. A cunt who can play as she does ought to have
better sense that be tripped up by every guy with a big putz who happens to
come along. But that Schumann gets into
my blood. She's still sniffling, Elsa;
but my mind is far away. I'm thinking of
Tania and how she claws away at her adagio.
I'm thinking of lots of things that are gone and buried. Thinking of a summer afternoon in Greenpoint
when the Germans were romping over Belgium and we had not yet lost enough money
to be concerned over the rape of a neutral country. A time when we were still innocent enough to
listen to poets and to sit around a table in the twilight rapping for departed
spirits. All that afternoon and evening
the atmosphere is saturated with German music; the whole neighbourhood is
German, more German even than Germany.
We were brought up on Schumann and Hugo Wolf and sauerkraut and kummel
and potato dumplings. Toward evening
we're sitting around a big table with the curtains drawn and some fool
two-headed wench is rapping for Jesus Christ.
We're holding hands under the table and the dame next to me has two
fingers in my fly. And finally we lie on
the floor, behind the piano, while someone sings a dreary song. The air is stifling and her breath is
boozy. The pedal is moving up and down,
stiffly, automatically, a crazy, futile movement, like a tower of dung that takes
twenty-seven years to build but keeps perfect time. I pull her over me with the sounding board in
my ears; the room is dark and the carpet is sticky with the kummel that has
been spilled about. Suddenly it seems as
if the dawn were coming: it is like water purling over ice and the ice is blue
with a rising mist, glaciers sunk in emerald green, chamois and antelope,
golden groupers, sea cows mooching along and the amber jack leaping over the
Arctic rim....
Elsa is sitting in my lap. Her eyes are like little bellybuttons. I look at her large mouth, so wet and
glistening, and I cover it. She is
humming now ... "Es war' so schon gewesen...." Ah, Elsa, you don't know yet what that means
to me, your Trompeter von Sackingen.
German Singing Societies, Schwarben Hall, the Turnverein ... links
um, rechts um ... and then a whack over the ass with the end of a rope.
Ah, the Germans! They take you all over like an omnibus. They give you indigestion. In the same night one cannot visit the
morgue, the infirmary, the zoo, the signs of the zodiac, the limbos of
philosophy, the caves of epistemology, the arcana of Freud and Stekel.... On
the merry-go-round one doesn't get anywhere, whereas with the Germans one can
go from Vega to Lope de Vega, all in one night, and come away as foolish as
Parsifal.
As I say, the day began gloriously. It was only this morning that I became
conscious again of this physical Paris of which I have been unaware for
weeks. Perhaps it is because the book
has begun to grow inside me. I am
carrying it around with me everywhere. I
walk through the streets big with child and the cops escort me across the
street. Women get up to offer me their
seats. Nobody pushes me rudely
anymore. I am pregnant. I waddle awkwardly, my big stomach pressed
against the weight of the world.
It was this morning, on our way to the
Post Office, that we gave the book its final imprimatur. We have evolved a new cosmogony of
literature, Boris and I. It is to be a
new Bible - The Last Book. All
those who have anything to say will say it here - anonymously. We will exhaust
the age. After us not another book - not
for a generation, at least. Heretofore
we had been digging in the dark, with nothing but instinct to guide us. Now we shall have a vessel in which to pour
the vital fluid, a bomb which, when we throw it, will set off the world. We shall put into it enough to give the
writers of tomorrow their plots, their dramas, their poems, their myths, their
sciences. The world will be able to feed
on it for a thousand years to come. It
is colossal in its pretentiousness. The
thought of it almost shatters me.
For a hundred years or more the world, our
world, has been dying. And not one man,
in these last hundred years or so, has been crazy enough to put a bomb up the
asshole of creation and set it off. The
world is rotting away, dying piecemeal.
But it needs the coup de grace, it needs to be blown to
smithereens. Not one of us is intact,
and yet we have in us all the continents and the seas between the continents
and the birds of the air. We are going
to put it down - the evolution of this world which has died but which has not
been buried. We are swimming on the face
of time and all else has drowned, is drowning, or will drown. It will be enormous, the Book. There will be oceans of space in which to
move about, to perambulate, to sing, to dance, to climb, to bathe, to leap
somersaults, to whine, to rape, to murder.
A cathedral, a veritable cathedral, in the building of which everybody
will assist who has lost his identity.
There will be masses for the dead, prayers, confessions, hymns, a
moaning and a chattering, a sort of murderous insouciance; there will be rose
windows and gargoyles and acolytes and pallbearers. You can bring your horses in and gallop
through the aisles. You can butt your
head against the walls - they won't give.
You can pray in any language you choose, or you can curl up outside and
go to sleep. It will last a thousand
years, at least, this cathedral, and there will be no replica, for the builders
will be dead and the formula too. We
will have postcards made and organize tours.
We will build a town around it and set up a free commune. We have no need for genius - genius is
dead. We have need for strong hands, for
spirits who are willing to give up the ghost and put on flesh....
The day is moving along at a fine
tempo. I am up on the balcony at Tania's
pace. The drama is going down below in
the drawing room. The dramatist is sick
and from above his scalp looks more scabrous than ever. His hair is made of straw. His ideas are straw. His wife too is straw, though still a little
damp. The whole house is made of
straw. Here I am up on the balcony,
waiting for Boris to arrive. My last
problem - breakfast - is gone. I
have simplified everything. If there are
any new problems I can carry them in my rucksack, along with my dirty
wash. I am throwing away all my sous. What need have I for money? I am a writing machine. The last screw has been added. The thing flows. Between me and the machine there is no
estrangement. I am the machine....
They have not told me yet what the new
drama is about, but I can sense it. They
are trying to get rid of me. Yet here I
am for my dinner, even a little earlier than they expected. I have informed them where to sit, what to
do. I ask them politely if I shall be
disturbing them, but what I really mean, and they know it well, is - will
you be disturbing me? No, you
blissful cockroaches, you are not disturbing me. You are nourishing me. I see you sitting there close together and I
know there is a chasm between you. Your
nearness is the nearness of planets. I
am the void between you. If I withdraw
there will be no void for you to swim in.
Tania is in a hostile mood - I can feel
it. She resents my being filled with
anything but herself. She knows by the
very calibre of my excitement that her value is reduced to zero. She knows that I did not come this evening to
fertilize her. She knows there is
something germinating inside me which will destroy her. She is slow to realize, but she is realizing
it....
Sylvester looks more content. He will embrace her this evening at the
dinner table. Even now he is reading my
manuscript, preparing to inflame my ego, to set my ego against hers.
It will be a strange gathering this
evening. The stage is being set. I hear the tinkle of the glasses. The wine is being brought out. There will be bumpers downed and Sylvester,
who is ill, will come out of his illness.
It was only last night, at Cronstadt's,
that we projected this setting. It was
ordained that the women must suffer, that offstage there should be more terror
and violence, more disasters, more suffering, more woe and misery.
It is not accident that propels people
like us to Paris. Paris is simply an
artificial stage, a revolving stage that permits the spectator to glimpse all
phases of the conflict. Of itself Paris
initiates no dramas. They are begun
elsewhere. Paris is simply an
obstetrical instrument that tears the living embryo from the womb and puts it
in the incubator. Paris is the cradle of
artificial births. Rocking here in the
cradle each one slips back into his soil: one dreams back to Berlin, New York,
Chicago, Vienna, Minsk. Vienna is never
more Vienna than in Paris. Everything is
raised to apotheosis. The cradle gives
up its babes and new ones take their places.
You can read here on the walls where Zola lived and Balzac and Dante and
Strindberg and everybody who ever was anything.
Everyone has lived here some time or other. Nobody dies here....
They are talking downstairs. Their language is symbolic. The world "struggle" enters into
it. Sylvester, the sick dramatist, is
saying: "I am just reading the Manifesto." And Tania says - "Whose?" Yes, Tania, I heard you. I am up here writing about you and you divine
it well. Speak more, that I may
record you. For when we go to table I
shall not be able to make any notes.... Suddenly Tania remarks: "There is
no prominent hall in this place."
Now what does that mean, if anything?
They are putting up pictures now. That, too, is to impress me. See, they wish to say, we are at home here,
living the conjugal life. Making the
home attractive. We will even argue a
little about the pictures, for your benefit. And Tania remarks again: "How the eye
deceives one!" Ah, Tania, what
things you say! Go on, carry out this
farce a little longer. I am here to get
the dinner you promised me; I enjoy this comedy tremendously. And now Sylvester takes the lead. He is trying to explain one of Borowski's gouaches. "Come here, do you see? One of them is playing the guitar; the other
is holding a girl in his lap."
True, Sylvester. Very true. Borowski and his guitars! The girls in his lap! Only one never quite knows what it is he
holds in his lap, or whether it is really a man playing the guitar....
Soon Moldorf will be trotting in on all
fours and Boris with that helpless little laugh of his. There will be a golden pheasant for dinner
and Anjou and short fat cigars. And
Cronstadt, when he gets the latest news, will live a little harder, a little
brighter, for five minutes; and then he will subside again into the humus of
his ideology and perhaps a poem will be born, a big golden bell of a poem
without a tongue.
Had to knock off for an hour of so. Another customer to look at the
apartment. Upstairs the bloody
Englishman is practising his Bach. It is
imperative now, when someone comes to look at the apartment, to run upstairs
and ask the pianist to lay off for a while.
Elsa is telephoning the greengrocer. The plumber is putting a new seat on the
toilet bowl. Whenever the doorbell rings
Boris loses his equilibrium. In the
excitement he has dropped his glasses; he is on his hands and knees, his frock
coat is dragging the floor. It is a
little like the Grand Guignol - the starving poet come to give the butcher's
daughter lessons. Every time the phone
rings the poet's mouth waters. Mallarmé
sounds like a sirloin steak, Victor Hugo like foie de veau. Elsa is ordering a delicate little lunch for
Boris - "a nice juicy little pork chop," she says. I see a whole flock of pink hams lying cold
on the marble, wonderful hams cushioned in white fat. I have a terrific hunger though we've only
had breakfast a few minutes ago - it's the lunch that I'll have to skip. It's only Wednesdays that I eat lunch, thanks
to Borowski. Elsa is still telephoning -
she forgot to order a piece of bacon.
"Yes, a nice little piece of bacon, not too fatty," she says
... Zut alors! Throw in some
sweetbreads, throw in some mountain oysters and some psst clams! Throw in some fried liverwurst while you're
at it; I could gobble up the fifteen hundred plays of Lope de Vega in one
sitting.
It is a beautiful woman who has come to
look at the apartment. An American, of
course. I stand at the window with my
back to her watching a sparrow pecking at a fresh turd. Amazing how easily the sparrow is provided
for. It is raining a bit and the drops
are very big. I used to think a bird
couldn't fly if its wings got wet.
Amazing how these rich dames come to Paris and find all the swell
studios. A little talent and a big
purse. If it rains they have a chance to
display their brand new slickers. Food
is nothing: sometimes they're so busy gadding about that they haven't time for
lunch. Just a little sandwich, a wafer,
at the Café de la Paix or the Ritz Bar.
"For the daughters of gentlefolk only" - that's what it says
at the old studio of Puvis de Chavannes.
Happened to pass there the other day.
Rich American cunts with paint boxes slung over their shoulders. A little talent and a fat purse.
The sparrow is hopping frantically from
one cobblestone to another. Truly
herculean efforts, if you stop to examine closely. Everywhere there is food lying about - in the
gutter, I mean. The beautiful American
woman is inquiring about the toilet. The
toilet! Let me show you, you
velvet-snooted gazelle! The toilet, you
say? Par ici, Madame. N'oubliez pas que les places numerotées sont
reservées aux mutilés de la guerre.
Boris is rubbing his hands - he is
putting the finishing touches to the deal.
The dogs are barking in the courtyard; they bark like wolves. Upstairs Mrs. Melverness is moving the
furniture around. She had nothing to do
all day, she's bored; if she finds a crumb of dirt anywhere she cleans the
whole house. There's a bunch of green
grapes on the table and a bottle of wine - vin de choix, ten
degrees. "Yes," says
Boris. "I could make a washstand
for you, just come here, please. Yes,
this is the toilet. There is one
upstairs too, of course. Yes, a thousand
francs a month. You don't care much for
Utrillo, you say? No, this is it. It needs a new washer, that's all...."
She's going in a minute now. Boris hasn't even introduced me this
time. The son of a bitch! Whenever it's a rich cunt he forgets to
introduce me. In a few minutes I'll be
able to sit down again and type. Somehow
I don't feel like it anymore today. My
spirit is dribbling away. She may come
back in an hour or so and take the chair from under my ass. How the hell can a man write when he doesn't
know where he's going to sit the next half-hour? If this rich bastard takes the place I won't
even have a place to sleep. It's hard to
know, when you're in such a jam, which is worse - not having a place to sleep
or not having a place to work. One can
sleep almost anywhere, but one must have a place to work. Even if if's not a masterpiece you're
doing. Even a bad novel requires a chair
to sit on and a bit of privacy. These
rich cunts never think of a thing like that.
Whenever they want to lower their soft behinds there's always a chair
standing ready for them....
Last night we left Sylvester and his God
sitting together before the hearth.
Sylvester in his pyjamas, Moldorf with a cigar between his lips. Sylvester is peeling an orange. He puts the peel on the couch cover. Moldorf draws closer to him. He asks permission to read again that
brilliant parody, The Gates of Heaven.
We are getting ready to go, Boris and I.
We are too gay for this sickroom atmosphere. Tania is going with us. She is gay because she is going to escape. Boris is gay because the God in Moldorf is
dead. I am gay because it is another act
we are going to put on.
Moldorf's voice is reverent. "Can I stay with you, Sylvester, until
you go to bed?" He has been staying
with him for the last six days, buying medicine, running errands for Tania,
comforting, consoling, guarding the portals against malevolent intruders like
Boris and his scallywags. He is like a
savage who has discovered that his idol was mutilated during the night. There he sits, at the idol's feet, with
breadfruit and grease and jabberwocky prayers.
His voice goes out unctuously.
His limbs are already paralysed.
To Tania he speaks as if she were a
priestess who had broken her vows.
"You must make yourself worthy.
Sylvester is your God." And
while Sylvester is upstairs suffering (he has a little wheeze in the chest) the
priest and the priestess devour the food.
"You are polluting yourself," he says, the gravy dripping from
his lips. He has the capacity for eating
and suffering at the same time. While he
fends off the dangerous ones he puts out his fat little paw and strokes Tania's
hair. "I'm beginning to fall in
love with you. You are like my
Fanny."
In other respects it has been a fine day
for Moldorf. A letter arrived from
America. Moe is getting A's in
everything. Murray is learning to ride
the bicycle. The victrola was
repaired. You can see from the
expression on his face that there were other things in the letter besides
report cards and velocipedes. You can be
sure of it because this afternoon he bought 325 francs worth of jewellery for
his Fanny. In addition he wrote her a
twenty-page letter. The garçon
brought him page after page, filled his fountain pen, served his coffee and
cigars, fanned him a little when he perspired, brushed the crumbs from the
table, lit his cigar when it went out, bought stamps for him, danced on him,
pirouetted, salaamed ... broke his spine damned near. The tip was fat. Bigger and fatter than a Corona Corona. Moldorf probably mentioned it in his
diary. It was for Fanny's sake. The bracelet and the earrings, they were
worth every sou he spent. Better to
spend it on Fanny than waste it on little strumpets like Germaine and
Odette. Yes, he told Tania so. He showed her his trunk. It is crammed with gifts - for Fanny, and for
Moe and Murray.
"My Fanny is the most intelligent
woman in the world. I have been
searching and searching to find a flaw in her - but there's not one.
"She's perfect. I'll tell you want Fanny can do. She plays bridge like a shark; she's
interested in Zionism; you give her an old hat, for instance, and see what she
can do with it. A little twist here, a
ribbon there, and voila quelque chose de beau! Do you know what is perfect bliss? To sit beside Fanny, when Moe and Murray have
gone to bed, and listen to the radio.
She sits there so peacefully. I
am rewarded for all my struggles and heartaches in just watching her. She listens intelligently. When I think of your stinking Montparnasse
and then of my evenings in Bay Ridge with Fanny after a big meal, I tell you
there is no comparison. A simple thing
like food, the children, the soft lamps, and Fanny sitting there, a little
tired, but cheerful, contented, heavy with bread ... we just sit there for
hours without saying a word. That's
bliss!
"Today she writes me a letter - not
one of those dull stock-report letters.
She writes me from the heart, in language that even my little Murray
could understand. She's delicate about
everything, Fanny. She says that the
children must continue their education but the expense worries her. It will cost a thousand bucks to send little
Murray to school. Moe, of course, will
get a scholarship. But little Murray,
that little genius, Murray, what are we going to do about him? I wrote Fanny not to worry. Send Murray to school, I said. What's another thousand dollars? I'll make more money this year than ever
before. I'll do it for little Murray -
because he's a genius, that kid."
I should like to be there when Fanny
opens the trunk. "See, Fanny, this
is what I bought in Budapest from an old Jew.... This is what they wear in
And Fanny is sitting there on the settee,
just as she was in the oleograph, with Moe on one side of her and little
Murray, Murray the genius, on the other.
Her fat legs are a little too short to reach the floor. Her eyes have a dull permanganate glow. Breasts like ripe red cabbage; they bobble a
little when she leans forward. But the
sad thing about her is that the juice has been cut off. She sits there like a dead storage battery;
her face is out of plumb - it needs a little animation, a sudden spurt of juice
to bring it back into focus. Moldorf is
jumping around in front of her like a fat toad.
His flesh quivers. He slips and
it is difficult for him to roll over again on his belly. She prods him with her thick toes. His eyes protrude a little further. "Kick me again, Fanny, that was
good." She gives him a good prod
this time - it leaves a permanent dent in his paunch. His face is close to the carpet: the wattles
are joggling in the nap of the rug. He
livens up a bit, flips around, springs from furniture to furniture. "Fanny, you are marvellous!" He is sitting now on her shoulder. He bites a little piece from her ear, just a
little tip from the lobe where it doesn't hurt.
But she's still dead - all storage battery and no juice. He falls on her lap and lies there quivering
like a toothache. He is all warm now and
helpless. His belly glistens like a
patent-leather shoe. In the sockets of
his eyes a pair of fancy vest buttons.
"Unbutton my eyes, Fanny, I want to see you better!" Fanny carries him to bed and drops a little
hot wax over his eyes. She puts rings
around his navel and a thermometer up his ass.
She places him and he quivers again.
Suddenly he's dwindled, shrunk completely out of sight. She searches all over for him, in her
intestines, everywhere. Something is
tickling her - she doesn't know where exactly.
The bed is full of toads and fancy best buttons. "Fanny, where are you?" Something is tickling her - she can't say
where. The buttons are dropping off the
bed. The toads are climbing the
walls. A tickling and a tickling. "Fanny, take the wax out of my
eyes! I want to look at you!" But Fanny is laughing, squirming with
laughter. There is something inside her,
tickling and tickling. She'll die
laughing if she doesn't find it.
"Fanny, the trunk is full of beautiful things. Fanny, do you hear me?" Fanny is laughing, laughing like a fat
worm. Her belly is swollen with
laughter. Her legs are getting blue. "O God, Morris, there is something
tickling me.... I can't help it!"
SUNDAY! Left the Villa Borghese a little before noon,
just as Boris was getting ready to sit down to lunch. I left out of a sense of delicacy, because it
really pains Boris to see me sitting there in the studio with an empty
belly. Why he doesn't invite me to lunch
with him I don't know. He says he can't
afford it, but that's no excuse. Anyway,
I'm delicate about it. If it pains him
to eat alone in my presence it would probably pain him more to share his meal
with me. It's not my place to pry into
his secret affairs.
Dropped in at the Cronstadts' and they
were eating too. A young chicken with
wild rice. Pretended that I had eaten
already, but I could have torn the chicken from the baby's hands. This is not just false modesty - it's a kind
of perversion, I'm thinking. Twice they
asked me if I wouldn't join them.
No! No! Wouldn't even accept a cup of coffee after
the meal. I'm delicat, I am! On the way out I cast a lingering glance at
the bones lying on the baby's plate - there was still meat on them.
Prowling around aimlessly. A beautiful day - so far. The Rue de Buci is alive, crawling. The bars wide open and the curbs lined with
bicycles. All the meat and vegetable markets
are in full swing. Arms loaded with
truck bandaged in newspapers. A fine
Catholic Sunday - in the morning, at least.
High noon and here I am standing on an
empty belly at the confluence of all these crooked lanes that reek with the
odour of food. Opposite me is the Hotel
de Louisiane. A grim old hostelry known
to the bad boys of the Rue de Buci in the good old days. Hotels and food, and I'm walking about like a
leper with crabs gnawing at my entrails.
On Sunday mornings there's a fever in the streets. Nothing like it anywhere, except perhaps on
the East Side, or down around Chatham Square.
The Rue de l'Echaude is seething.
The streets twist and turn, at every angle a fresh hive of
activity. Long queues of people with
vegetables under their arms, turning in here and there with crisp, sparkling
appetites. Nothing but food, food,
food. Makes one delirious.
Pass the Square de Furstenberg. Looks different now, at high noon. The other night when I passed by it was
deserted, bleak, spectral. In the middle
of the square four black trees that have not yet begun to blossom. Intellectual trees, nourished by the paving
stones. Like T.S. Eliot's verse. Here, by God, if Marie Laurencin ever brought
her Lesbians out into the open, would be the place for them to commune. Très lesbienne ici. Sterile, hybrid, dry as Boris' heart.
In the little garden adjoining the Eglise
St. Germain are a few dismounted gargoyles.
Monsters that jut forward with a terrifying plunge. On the benches other monsters - old people,
idiots, cripples, epileptics. Snoozing
there quietly, waiting for the dinner bell to ring. At the Galerie Zak across the way some
imbecile has made a picture of the cosmos - on the flat. A painter's cosmos! Full of odds and ends, bric-a-brac. In the lower left-hand corner, however,
there's an anchor - and a dinner bell.
Salute! Salute! O Cosmos!
Still prowling around. Guts rattling. Beginning to rain now. Notre-Dame rises tomblike from the
water. The gargoyles lean far out over
the lace facade. They hang there like an
idée fixe in the mind of a monomaniac.
An old man with yellow whiskers approaches me. Has some Jaworski nonsense in his hand. Comes up to me with his head thrown back and
the rain splashing in his face turns the golden sands to mud. Bookstore with some of Raoul Dufy's drawings
in the window. Drawings of charwomen
with rosebushes between their legs. A
treatise on the philosophy of Joan Miro.
The philosophy, mind you!
In the same window: A Man Cut in
Slices! Chapter one: the man in the
eyes of his family. Chapter two: the
same in the eyes of his mistress.
Chapter three: - No chapter three.
Have to come back tomorrow for chapters three and four. Every day the window trimmer turns a fresh
page. A man cut in slices.... You
can't imagine how furious I am not to have thought of a title like that! Where is this bloke who writes "the same
in the eyes of his mistress ... the same in the eyes of ... the same ..."? Where is this guy? Who is he?
I want to hug him. I wish to
Christ I had had brains enough to think of a title like that - instead of Crazy
Cock and the other fool things I invented.
Well, fuck a duck! I congratulate
him just the same.
I wish him luck with his fine title. Here's another slice for you - for your next
book! Ring me up some day. I'm living at the Villa Borghese. We're all dead, or dying, or about to die. We need good titles. We need meat - slices and slices of meat -
juicy tenderloins, porterhouse steaks, kidneys, mountain oysters,
sweetbreads. Some day, when I'm standing
at the corner of
How a man can wander about
all day on an empty belly, and even get an erection once in a while, is one of
those mysteries which are too easily explained by the "anatomists of the
soul". On a Sunday afternoon, when
the shutters are down and the proletariat possesses the street in a kind of
dumb torpor, there are certain thoroughfares which remind one of nothing less
than a big chancrous cock laid open longitudinally. And it is just these highways, the Rue St.
Denis, for instance, or the Faubourg du Temple - which attract one
irresistibly, much as in the old days, around Union Square or the upper reaches
of the Bowery, one was drawn to the dime museums where in the show windows
there were displayed wax reproductions of various organs of the body eaten away
by syphilis and other venereal diseases.
The city sprouts out like a huge organism diseased in every part, the
beautiful thoroughfares only a little less repulsive because they have been
drained of their pus.
At the Cité Nortier, somewhere near the Place du Combat, I pause a few
minutes to drink in the full squalor of the scene. It is a rectangular court like many another
which one glimpses through the low passageways that flank the old arteries of
Paris. In the middle of the court is a
clump of decrepit buildings which have so rotted away that they have collapsed
on one another and formed a sort of intestinal embrace. The ground is uneven, the flagging slippery
with slime. A sort of human dump heap which
has been filled in with cinders and dry garbage. The sun is setting fast. The colours die. They shift from purple to dried blood, from
nacre to bister, from cool dead grays to pigeon shit. Here and there a lopsided monster stands in
the window blinking like an owl. There
is the shrill squawk of children with pale faces and bony limbs, rickety little
urchins marked with the forceps. A fetid
odour seeps from the walls, the odour of a mildewed mattress. Europe - medieval, grotesque, monstrous: a symphony
in B-mol. Directly across the street the
Ciné Combat offers its distinguished clientele
Metropolis.
Coming away my mind reverts to a book
that I was reading only the other day.
"The town was a shambles; corpses, mangled by butchers and stripped
by plunderers, lay thick in the streets; wolves sneaked from the suburbs to eat
them; the black death and other plagues crept in to keep them company, and the
English came marching on; the while the 'danse macabre' whirled about the tombs
in all the cemeteries...." Paris during the days of Charles the Silly! A lovely book! Refreshing, appetizing. I'm still enchanted by it. About the patrons and prodromes of the
Renaissance I know little, but Madam Pimpernel, la belle boulangère, and
Maitre Jehan Crapotte, l'orfevre, these occupy my spare thoughts
still. Not forgetting Rodin, the evil
genius of The Wandering Jew, who practised his nefarious ways
"until the day when he was enflamed and outwitted by the octoroon
Cecily." Sitting in the Square du
Temple, musing over the doings of the horse knackers led by Jean Caboche, I
have thought long and ruefully over the sad fate of Charles the Silly. A half-wit, who prowled about the halls of
his Hotel St. Paul, garbed in the filthiest rags, eaten away by ulcers and
vermin, gnawing a bone, when they flung him one, like a mangy dog. At the Rue des Lions I looked for the stones
of the old menagerie where he once fed his pets. His only diversion, poor dolt, aside from
those card games with his "low-born companion", Odette de
Champdivers.
It was a Sunday afternoon, much like
this, when I first met Germaine. I was
strolling along the Boulevard Beaumarchais, rich by a hundred francs or so
which my wife had frantically cabled from America. There was a touch of spring in the air, a
poisonous, malefic spring that seemed to burst from the manholes. Night after night I had been coming back to
this quarter, attracted by certain leprous streets which only revealed their
sinister splendour when the light of day had oozed away and the whores
commenced to take up their posts. The
Rue du Pasteur-Wagner is one I recall in particular, corner of the Rue Amelot
which hides behind the boulevard like a slumbering lizard. Here, at the neck of the bottle, so to speak,
there was always a cluster of vultures who croaked and flapped their dirty
wings, who reached out with sharp talons and plucked you into a doorway. Jolly, rapacious devils who didn't even give
you time to button your pants when it was over.
Led you into a little room off the street, a room without a window
usually, and, sitting on the edge of the bed with skirts tucked up, gave you a
quick inspection, spat on your cock, and placed it for you. While you washed yourself another one stood
at the door and, holding her victim by the hand, watched nonchalantly as you
gave the finishing touches to your toilet.
Germaine was different. There was nothing to tell me so from her
appearance. Nothing to distinguish her
from the other trollops who met each afternoon and evening at the Café de
l'Elephant. As I say, it was a spring
day and the few francs my wife had scraped up to cable me were jingling in my
pocket. I had a sort of vague
premonition that I would not reach the Bastille without being taken in tow by
one of these buzzards. Sauntering along
the boulevard I had noticed her verging toward me with that curious trot-about
air of a whore and the run-down heels and cheap jewellery and the pasty look of
their kind which the rouge only accentuates.
It was not difficult to come to terms with her. We sat in the back of the little tabac
called l'Elephant and talked it over quickly.
In a few minutes we were in a five franc room on the Rue Amelot, the
curtains drawn and the covers thrown back.
She didn't rush things, Germaine.
She sat on the bidet soaping herself and talked to me pleasantly
about this and that; she liked the knickerbockers I was wearing. Très chic! she thought. They were once, but I had worn the seat out
of them; fortunately the jacket covered my ass.
As she stood up to dry herself, still talking to me pleasantly, suddenly
she dropped the towel and, advancing toward me leisurely, she commenced rubbing
her pussy affectionately, stroking it with her two hands, caressing it, patting
it, patting it. There was something
about her eloquence at that moment and the way she thrust that rosebush under
my nose which remains unforgettable; she spoke of it as if it were some
extraneous object which she had acquired at great cost, an object whose value
had increased with time and which now she prized above everything in the world. Her words imbued it with a peculiar
fragrance; it was no longer just her private organ, but a treasure, a magic,
potent treasure, a God-given thing - and none the less so because she traded it
day in and day out for a few pieces of silver.
As she flung herself on the bed, with legs spread wide apart, she cupped
it with her hands and stroked it some more, murmuring all the while in that
hoarse, croaked voice of hers that it was good, beautiful, a treasure, a little
treasure. And it was good, that
little pussy of hers! That Sunday
afternoon, with its poisonous breath of spring in the air, everything clicked
again. As we stepped out of the hotel I
looked over her again in the harsh light of day and I saw clearly what a whore
she was - the gold teeth, the geranium in her hat, the run-down heels, etc.,
etc. Even the fact that she had wormed a dinner out of me and cigarettes and
taxi hadn't the least disturbing effect upon me. I encouraged it, in fact. I liked her so well that after dinner we went
back to the hotel again and took another shot at it. "For love," this time. And again that big, bushy thing of hers
worked its bloom and magic. It began to
have an independent existence - for me too.
There was Germaine and there was that rosebush of hers. I liked them separately and I liked them
together.
As I say, she was different,
Germaine. Later, when she discovered my
true circumstances, she treated me nobly - blew me to drinks, gave me credit,
pawned my things, introduced me to her friends, and so on. She even apologized for not lending me money,
which I understood quite well after her maquereau had been pointed out
to me. Night after night I walked down
the Boulevard Beaumarchais to the little tabac where they all
congregated and I waited for her to stroll in and give me a few minutes of her
precious time.
When some time later I came to write
about Claude, it was not Claude that I was thinking of but
Germaine...."All the men she's been with and now you, just you, and barges
going by, masts and hulls, the whole damned current of life flowing through
you, through her, through all the guys behind you and after you, the flowers
and the birds and the sun streaming in and the fragrance of it choking you,
annihilating you." That was for Germaine! Claude was not the same, though I admired her
tremendously - I even thought for a while that I loved her. Claude had a soul and a conscience; she had
refinement, too, which is bad - in a whore.
Claude always imparted a feeling of sadness; she left the impression,
unwittingly, of course, that you were just one more added to the stream which
fate had ordained to destroy her. Unwittingly,
I say, because Claude was the last person in the world who would consciously
create such an image in one's mind. She
was too delicate, too sensitive for that.
At bottom, Claude was just a good French girl of average breed and
intelligence whom life had tricked somehow; something in her there was which
was not tough enough to withstand the shock of daily experience. For her were meant those terrible words of
Louis-Philippe, "and a night comes when all is over, when so many jaws
have closed upon us that we no longer have the strength to stand, and our meat
hangs upon our bodies, as though it has been masticated by every mouth." Germaine, on the other hand, was a whore from
the cradle; she was thoroughly satisfied with her role, enjoyed it in fact,
except when her stomach pinched or her shoes gave out, little surface things of
no account, nothing that ate into her soul, nothing that created torment. Ennui! That was the worst she ever
felt. Days there were, no doubt, when
she had a bellyful, as we say - but no more than that! Most of the time she enjoyed it - or gave the
illusion of enjoying it. It made a
difference, of course, whom she went with - or came with. But the principal thing was a man. A man!
That was what she craved. A man
with something between his legs that could tickle her, that could make her
writhe in ecstasy, make her grab that bushy twat of hers with both hands and
rub it joyfully, boastfully, proudly, with a sense of connection, a sense of
life. That was the only place where she
experienced any life - down there where she clutched herself with both hands.
Germaine was a whore all the way through,
even down to her good heart, her whore's heart which is not really a good heart
but a lazy one, an indifferent, flaccid heart that can be touched for a moment,
a heart without reference to any fixed point within, a big flaccid whore's
heart that can detach itself for a moment from its true centre. However vile and circumscribed was that world
which she had created for herself, nevertheless she functioned in it
superbly. And that in itself is a tonic
thing. When, after we had become well
acquainted, her companions would twit me, saying that I was in love with
Germaine (a situation almost inconceivable to them), I would say:
"Sure! Sure, I'm in love with
her! And what's more, I'm going to be
faithful to her!" A lie, of course,
because I could no more think of loving Germaine than I could think of loving a
spider; and if I was faithful, it was not to Germaine but to that bushy
thing she carried between her legs.
Whenever I looked at another woman I thought immediately of Germaine, of
that flaming bush which she had left in my mind and which seemed
imperishable. It gave me pleasure to sit
on the terrasse of the little tabac and observe her as she plied
her trade, observe her as she resorted to the same grimaces, the same tricks,
with others as she had with me.
"She's doing her job!" - that's how I felt about it, and it
was with approbation that I regarded her transactions. Later, when I had taken up with Claude, and I
saw her night after night sitting in her accustomed place, her round little
buttocks chubbily ensconced in the plush settee, I felt a sort of inexpressible
rebellion toward her; a whore, it seemed to me, had no right to be sitting
there like a lady, waiting timidly for someone to approach and all the while
abstemiously sipping her chocolat.
Germaine was a hustler. She
didn't wait for you to come to her - she went out and grabbed you. I remember so well the holes in her
stockings, and the torn ragged shoes; I remember too how she stood at the bar
and with blind, courageous defiance threw a strong drink down her stomach and
marched out again. A hustler! Perhaps it wasn't so pleasant to smell that
boozy breath of hers, that breath compounded of weak coffee, cognac, aperitifs,
Pernods and all the other stuff she guzzled between times, what to warm herself
and what to summon up strength and courage, but the fire of it penetrated her,
it glowed down there between her legs where women ought to glow, and there was
established that circuit which makes one feel the earth under his legs
again. When she lay there with her legs
apart and moaning, even if she did moan that way for any and everybody, it was
good, it was a proper show of feeling.
She didn't stare up at the ceiling with a vacant look or count the
bedbugs on the wallpaper; she kept her mind on her business, she talked about
the things a man wants to hear when he's climbing over a woman. Whereas Claude - well, with Claude there was
always a certain delicacy, even when she got under the sheets with you. And her delicacy offended. Who wants a delicate whore! Claude would even ask you to turn your face
away when she squatted over the bidet.
All wrong! A man, when he's
burning up with passion, wants to see things; he wants to see everything,
even how they make water. And while it's
all very nice to know that a woman has a mind, literature coming from the cold
corpse of a whore is the last thing to be served in bed. Germaine had the right idea: she was ignorant
and lusty, she put her heart and soul into her work. She was a whore all the way through - and
that was her virtue!
EASTER
came in like a frozen hare - but it was fairly warm in bed. Today it is lovely again and along the
Champs-Elysées at twilight it is like an outdoor seraglio choked with dark-eyed
houris. The trees are in full foliage
and of a verdure so pure, so rich, that it seems as though they were still wet
and glistening with dew. From the Palais
du Louvre to the Étoile it is like a piece of music for the pianoforte. For five days I have not touched the
typewriter nor looked at a book; nor have I had a single idea in my head except
to go to the American Express. At nine
this morning I was there, just as the doors were being opened, and again at one
o'clock. No news. At four-thirty I dash out of the hotel,
resolved to make a last-minute stab at it.
Just as I turn the corner I brush against Walter Pach. Since he doesn't recognize me, and since I
have nothing to say to him, I make no attempt to accost him. Later, when I am stretching my legs in the
Tuileries, his figure reverts to mind.
He was a little stooped, pensive, with a sort of serene yet reserved
smile on his face. I wonder, as I look
up at this softly enamelled sky, so faintly tinted,, which does not bulge today
with heavy rain clouds but smiles like a piece of old china, I wonder what goes
on in the mind of this man who translated the four thick volumes of the History
of Art when he takes in this blissful cosmos with his drooping eye.
Along the Champs-Elysées, ideas pouring
from me like sweat. I ought to be rich
enough to have a secretary to whom I could dictate as I walk, because my best
thoughts always come when I am away from the machine.
Walking along the Champs-Elysées I keep
thinking of my really superb health.
When I say "health" I mean optimism, to be truthful. Incurably optimistic! Still have one foot in the nineteenth
century. I'm a bit retarded, like most
Americans. Carl finds it disgusting,
this optimism. "I have only to talk
about a meal," he says, "and you're radiant!" It's a fact.
The mere thought of a meal - another meal - rejuvenates me. A meal!
That means something to go on - a few solid hours of work, an erection
possibly. I don't deny it. I have health, good solid, animal
health. The only thing that stands
between me and a future is a meal, another meal.
As for Carl, he's not himself these
days. He's upset, his nerves are
jangled. He says he's ill, and I believe
him, but I don't feel badly about it.
I can't. In fact, it makes me laugh. And that offends him, of course. Everything wounds him - my laughter, my
hunger, my persistence, my insouciance, everything. One day he wants to blow his brains out
because he can't stand this lousy hole of a Europe any more; the next day he
talks of going to Arizona "where they look you square in the eye."
"Do it!" I say. "Do one thing or the other, you bastard,
but don't try to cloud my healthy eye with your melancholy breath!"
But that's just it! In Europe one gets used to doing
nothing. You sit on your ass and whine
all day. You get contaminated. You rot.
Fundamentally Carl is a snob, an
aristocratic little prick who lives in a dementia praecox kingdom all of his
own. "I hate Paris!" he
whines. "All these stupid people
playing cards all day ... look at them!
And the writing! What's the use
of putting words together? I can be a
writer without writing, can't I? What
does it prove if I write a book? What do
we want with books anyway? There are too
many books already...."
My eye, but I've been all over that
ground - years and years ago. I've lived
out my melancholy youth. I don't give a
fuck any more what's behind me, or what's ahead of me. I'm healthy.
Incurably healthy. No sorrows, no
regrets. No past, no future. The present is enough for me. Day by day.
Today! Le bel aujourd'hui!
He has only one day a week off, Carl, and
on that day he's more miserable, if you can imagine it, than on any other day
of the week. Though he professes to
despise food, the only way he seems to enjoy himself on his day off is to order
a big spread. Perhaps he does it for my
benefit - I don't know, and I don't ask.
If he chooses to add martyrdom to his list of vices, let him - it's O.K.
with me. Anyway, last Tuesday, after
squandering what he had on a big spread, he steers me to the Dôme, the last
place in the world I would seek on my day off.
But one not only gets acquiescent here - one gets supine.
Standing at the Dôme bar is Marlowe,
soused to the ears. He's been on a
bender, as he calls it, for the last five days.
That means a continuous drunk, a peregrination from one bar to another,
day and night without interruption, and finally a layoff at the American
Hospital. Marlowe's bony, emaciated face
is nothing but a skull perforated by two deep sockets in which there are buried
a pair of dead clams. His back is covered
with sawdust - he has just had a little snooze in the water closet. In his coat pocket are the proofs for the
next issue of his review, he was on his way to the printer with the proofs, it
seems, when someone inveigled him to have a drink. He talks about it as though it happened
months ago. He takes out the proofs and
spreads them over the bar; they are full of coffee stains and dried
spittle. He tries to read a poem which he
had written in Greek, but the proofs are undecipherable. Then he decides to deliver a speech, in
French, but the gerant puts a stop to it. Marlowe is piqued: his one ambition is to
talk a French which even the garçon will understand. Of Old French he is a master; of the
surrealists he has made excellent translations; but to say a simple thing like
"get the hell out of here, you old prick!" - that is beyond him. Nobody understands Marlowe's French, not even
the whores. For that matter, it's
difficult enough to understand his English when he's under the weather. He blabbers and spits like a confirmed
stutterer ... no sequence to his phrases.
"You pay!" that's one thing he manages to get out
clearly.
Even if he is fried to the hat some fine
preservative instinct always warns Marlowe when it is time to act. If there is any doubt in his mind as to how
the drinks are going to be paid he will be sure to put on a stunt. The usual one is to pretend that he is going
blind. Carl knows all his tricks by now,
and so when Marlowe suddenly claps his hands to his temples and begins to act
it out Carl gives him a boot in the ass and says: "Come out of it, you
sap! You don't have to do that with
me!"
Whether it is a cunning piece of revenge
or not, I don't know, but at any rate Marlowe is paying Carl back in good
coin. Leaning over us confidentially he
relates in a hoarse, croaking voice a piece of gossip which he picked up in the
course of his peregrinations from bar to bar.
Carl looks up in amazement. He's
pale under the gills. Marlowe repeats
the story with variations. Each time Carl
wilts a little more. "But that's
impossible!" he finally blurts out.
"No it ain't!" croaks Marlowe.
"You're gonna lose your job ... I got it straight." Carl looks at me in despair. "Is he shitting me, that bastard?"
he murmurs in my ear. And then aloud -
"What am I going to do now? I'll
never find another job. It took me a
year to land this one."
This, apparently, is all that Marlowe has
been waiting to hear. At last he has
found someone worse off than himself.
"They be hard times!" he croaks, and his bony skull glows with
a cold, electric fire.
Leaving the Dôme, Marlowe explains
between hiccups that he's got to return to San Francisco. He seems genuinely touched now by Carl's
helplessness. He proposes that Carl and
I take over the review during his absence.
"I can trust you, Carl," he says. And then suddenly he gets an attack, a real
one this time. He almost collapses in
the gutter. We haul him to a bistro
at the Boulevard Edgar-Quinet and then sit him down. This time he's really got It - a blinding
headache that makes him squeal and grunt and rock himself to and fro like a
dumb brute that's been struck by a sledgehammer. We spill a couple of Fernet-Brancas down his
throat, lay him out on the bench and cover his eyes with his muffler. He lies there groaning. In a little while we hear him snoring.
"What about his proposition?"
says Carl. "Should we take it
up? He says he'll give me a thousand
francs when he comes back. I know he
won't, but what about it?" He looks
at Marlowe sprawled out on the bench, lifts the muffler from his eyes, and puts
it back again. Suddenly a mischievous
grin lights up his face. "Listen,
Joe," he says, beckoning me to move closer, "we'll take him up on
it. We'll take his lousy review over and
we'll fuck him good and proper."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Why, we'll throw out all the other
contributors and we'll fill it with our own shit - that's what!"
"Yeah, but what kind of shit?"
"Any kind ... he won't be able to do
anything about it. We'll fuck him good
and proper. One good number and after
that the magazine'll be finished. Are
you game, Joe?"
Grinning and chuckling we lift Marlowe to
his feet and haul him to Carl's room.
When we turn on the lights there's a woman in the bed waiting for
Carl. "I forgot all about
her," says Carl. We turn the cunt
loose and shove Marlowe into bed. In a
minute or so there's a knock at the door.
It's Van Norden. He's all
aflutter. Lost a plate of false teeth -
at the Bal Negre, he thinks. Anyway, we
get to bed, the four of us. Marlowe
stinks like a smoked fish.
In the morning Marlowe and Van Norden
leave to search for the false teeth.
Marlowe is blubbering. He
imagines they are his teeth.
IT is
my last dinner at the dramatist's home.
They have just rented a new piano, a concert grand. I meet Sylvester coming out of the florist's
with a rubber plant in his arms. He asks
me if I would carry it for him while he goes for the cigars. One by one I've fucked myself out of all
these free meals which I had planned so carefully. One by one the husbands turn against me, or
the wives. As I walk along with the
rubber plant in my arms I think of that night a few months back when the idea
first occurred to me. I was sitting on a
bench near the Coupole, fingering the wedding ring which I had tried to pawn
off on a garçon at the Dôme. He
had offered me six francs for it and I was in a rage about it. But the belly was getting the upper
hand. Ever since I left Mona I had worn
the ring on my pinkie. It was so much a
part of me that it had never occurred to me to sell it. It was one of those orange-blossom affairs in
white gold. Worth a dollar and a half
once, maybe more. For three years we
went along without a wedding ring and then one day when I was going to the pier
to meet Mona I happened to pass a jewellery window on Maiden Lane and the whole
window was stuffed with wedding rings.
When I got to the pier Mona was not to be seen. I waited for the last passenger to descend
the gangplank, but not Mona. Finally I
asked to be shown the passenger list.
Her name was not on it. I slipped
the wedding ring on my pinkie and there it stayed. Once I left it in a public bath, but then I
got it back again. One of the orange
blossoms had fallen off. Anyway, I was
sitting there on the bench with my head down, twiddling the ring, when suddenly
someone clapped me on the back. To make
it brief, I got a meal and a few francs besides. And then it occurred to me, like a flash,
that no one would refuse a man a meal if only he had the courage to demand
it. I went immediately to a café and
wrote a dozen letters. "Would you
let me have dinner with you once a week?
Tell me what day is most convenient for you." It worked like a charm. I was not only fed ... I was feasted. Every night I went home drunk. They couldn't do enough for me, these
generous once-a-week souls. What
happened to me between times was none of their affair. Now and then the thoughtful ones presented me
with cigarettes, or a little pin money. They
were all obviously relieved when they realized that they would see me only once
a week. And they were still more
relieved when I said - "it won't be necessary any more." They never asked why. They congratulated me, and that was all. Often the reason was I had found a better
host; I could afford to scratch off the ones who were a pain in the ass. But that thought never occurred to them. Finally I had a steady, solid programme - a
fixed schedule. On Tuesdays I knew it
would be this kind of a meal and on Fridays that kind. Cronstadt, I knew, would have champagne for
me and homemade apple pie. And Carl
would invite me out, take me to a different restaurant each time, order rare
wines, invite me to the theatre afterwards or take me to the Cirque Medrano. They were curious about one another, my
hosts. Would ask me which place I liked
best, who was the best cook, etc. I
think I liked Cronstadt's joint best of all, perhaps because he chalked the
meal up on the wall each time. Not that
it eased my conscience to see what I owed him, because I had no intention of
paying him back nor had he any illusions about being requited. No, it was the odd numbers which intrigued
me. He used to figure it out to the last
centime. If I was to pay in full I would
have had to break a sou. His wife was a
marvellous cook and she didn't give a fuck about those centimes. Cronstadt added up. She took it out of me in carbon copies. A fact!
If I hadn't any fresh carbons for her when I showed up, she was
crestfallen. And for that I would have
to take the little girl to the Luxembourg next day, play with her for two or
three hours, a task which drove me wild because she spoke nothing but Hungarian
and French. They were a queer lot on the
whole, my hosts....
At Tania's I look down on the spread from
the balcony. Moldorf is there, sitting
beside his idol. He is warming his feet
at the hearth, a monstrous look of gratitude in his watery eyes. Tania is running over the adagio. The adagio says very distinctly: no more words
of love! I am at the fountain again,
watching the turtles pissing green milk.
Sylvester has just come back from Broadway with a heart full of love. All night I was lying on a bench outside the
mall while the glove was sprayed with warm turtle piss and the horses stiffened
with priapic fury galloped like mad without ever touching the ground. All night long I smell the lilacs in the
little dark room where she is taking down her hair, the lilacs that I bought
for her as she went to meet Sylvester.
He came back with a heart full of love, she said, and the lilacs are in
her hair, her mouth, they are choking her armpits. The room is swimming with love and turtle
piss and warm lilacs and the horses are galloping like mad. In the morning dirty teeth and scum on the
windowpanes; that little gate that leads to the mall is locked. People are going to work and the shutters are
rattling like coats of mail. In the
bookstore opposite the fountain is the story of
Upon the balcony with the rubber plant
and the adagio going on down below. The
keys are black and white, then black, then white, then white and black. And you want to know if you can play
something for me. Yes, play something
with those big thumbs of yours. Play the
adagio since that's the only goddamned thing you know. Play it, and then cut off your big thumbs.
That adagio! I don't know why she insists on playing it
all the time. The old piano wasn't good
enough for her; she had to rent a concert grand - for the adagio! When I see her big thumbs pressing the
keyboard and that silly rubber plant beside me I feel like that madman of the
North who threw his clothes away and, sitting naked in the wintry boughs, threw
nuts down into the herring-frozen sea.
There is something exasperating about this movement, something
abortively melancholy about it, as if it had been written in lava, as if it had
the colour of lead and milk mixed. And
Sylvester, with his head cocked to one side like an auctioneer, Sylvester says:
"Play that other one you were practising today." It's beautiful to have a smoking jacket, a
good cigar and a wife who plays the piano.
So relaxing. So lenitive. Between the acts you go out for a smoke and a
breath of fresh air. Yes, her fingers
are very supple, extraordinarily supple.
She does batik work too. Would
you like to try a Bulgarian cigarette? I
say, pigeon breast, what's that other movement I like so well? The scherzo!
Ah, yes, the scherzo! Excellent,
the scherzo! Count Waldemar von
Schwisseneinzug speaking. Cool, dandruff
eyes. Halitosis. Gaudy socks.
And croutons in the pea soup, if you please. We always have pea soup Friday nights. Won't you try a little red wine? The red wine goes with the meat, you
know. A dry, crisp voice. Have a cigar, won't you? Yes, I like my work, but I don't attach any
importance to it. My next play will
involve a pluralistic conception of the universe. Revolving drums with calcium lights. O'Neill is dead. I think, dear, you should lift your foot from
the pedal more frequently. Yes, that
part is very nice ... very nice, don't you think? Yes, the characters go around with
microphones in their trousers. The
locale is in Asia, because the atmospheric conditions are more conducive. Would you like to try a little Anjou? We bought it especially for you....
All through the meal this patter
continues. It feels exactly as if he had
taken out that circumcised dick of his and was peeing on us. Tania is bursting with the strain. Ever since he came back with a heart full of
love this monologue has been going on.
He talks while he's undressing, she tells me - a steady stream of warm
piss, as though his bladder had been punctured.
When I think of Tania crawling into bed with this busted bladder I get
enraged. To think that a poor, withered
bastard with those cheap Broadway plays up his sleeve should be pissing on the
woman I love. Calling for red wine and
revolving drums and croutons in his pea soup.
The cheek of him! To think that
he can lie beside that furnace I stoked for him and do nothing but make
water! My God, man, you ought to get
down on your knees and thank me. Don't
you see that you have a woman in your house now? Can't you see she's bursting? You telling me with those strangulated
adenoids of yours - "well now, I'll tell you ... there's two ways of
looking at that...." Fuck your two
ways of looking at things! Fuck your
pluralistic universe and your Asiatic acoustics! Don't hand me your red wine or your Anjou ...
hand her over ... she belongs to me!
You go sit by the fountain, and let me smell the
lilacs! Pick the dandruff out of your
eyes ... and take that damned adagio and wrap it in a pair of flannel
pants! And the other little movement too
... all the little movements that you make with your weak bladder. You smile at me so confidently, so
calculatingly. I'm flattering the ass of
you, can't you tell? While I listen to
your crap she's got her hand on me - but you don't see that. You think I like to suffer - that's my role,
you say. O.K. Ask her about it! She'll tell you how I suffer. "You're cancer and delirium," she
said over the phone the other day. She's
got it now, the cancer and delirium, and soon you'll have to pick the
scabs. Her veins are bursting, I tell
you, and your talk is all sawdust. No
matter how much you piss away, you'll never plug up the holes. What did Mr. Wren say? Words are loneliness. I left a couple of words for you on the
tablecloth last night - you covered them with your elbows.
He's put a fence around her as if she
were a dirty, stinking bone of a saint.
If he only had the courage to say "Take her!" perhaps a
miracle would occur. Just that. Take her! And I swear everything would come out all
right. Besides, maybe I wouldn't take
her - did that ever occur to him, I wonder?
Or I might take her for a while and hand her back, improved. But putting up a fence around her, that won't
work. You can't put a fence around a
human being. It ain't done any more....
You think, you poor withered bastard, that I'm no good for her, that I might
pollute her, desecrate her. You don't
know how palatable is a polluted woman, how a change of semen can make a woman
bloom! You think a heart full of love is
enough, and perhaps it is, for the right woman, but you haven't got a heart any
more ... you are nothing but a big, empty bladder. You are sharpening your teeth and cultivating
your growl. You run at her heels like a
watchdog and you piddle everywhere. She
didn't take you for a watchdog ... she took you for a poet. You were a poet once, she said. And now what are you? Courage, Sylvester, courage! Take the microphone out of your pants. Put your hind leg down and stop making water
everywhere. Courage I say, because she's
ditched you already. She's contaminated,
I tell you, and you might as well take down the fence. No use asking me politely if the coffee
doesn't taste like carbolic acid: that won't scare me away. Put rat poison in the coffee, and a little
ground glass. Make some boiling hot
urine and drop a few nutmegs in it....
It is a communal life I have been living
for the last few weeks. I have had to
share myself with others, principally with some crazy Russians, a drunken
Dutchman, and a big Bulgarian woman named Olga.
Of the Russians there are chiefly Eugene and Anatoly.
It was just a few days ago that Olga got
out of the hospital where she had her tubes burned out and lost a little excess
weight. However, she doesn't look as if
she had gone through much suffering. She
weighs almost as much as a camel- backed locomotive; she drips with
perspiration, has halitosis, and still wears her Circassian wig that looks like
excelsior. She has two big warts on her
chin from which there sprouts a clump of little hairs; she is growing a
moustache.
The day after Olga was released from the
hospital she commenced making shoes again.
At six in the morning she is at her bench; she knocks out two pairs of
shoes a day. Eugene complains that Olga is
a burden, but the truth is that Olga is supporting Eugene and his wife with her
two pairs of shoes a day. If Olga
doesn't work there is no food. So
everyone endeavours to pull Olga to bed on time, to give her enough food to
keep her going, etc.
Every meal starts off with soup. Whether it be onion soup, tomato soup,
vegetable soup, or what not, the soup always tastes the same. Mostly it tastes as if a dish rag had been
stewed in it - slightly sour, mildewed, scummy.
I see Eugene hiding it away in the commode after the meal. It stays there, rotting away, until the next
meal. The butter, too, is hidden away in
the commode; after three days it tastes like the big toe of a cadaver.
The smell of rancid butter frying is not
particularly appetizing, especially when the cooking is done in a room in which
there is not the slightest form of ventilation.
No sooner than I open the door I feel ill. But Eugene, as soon as he hears me coming,
usually opens the shutters and pulls back the bedsheet which is strung up like
a fishnet to keep out the sunlight. Poor
Eugene! He looks about the room at the
few sticks of furniture, at the dirty bedsheets and the washbasin with the
dirty water still in it, and he says: "I am a slave!" Every day he says it, not once, but a dozen
times. And then he takes his guitar from
the wall and sings.
But about the smell of rancid butter....
There are good associations too. When I
think of this rancid butter I see myself standing in a little, old-world
courtyard, a very smelly, very dreary courtyard. Through the cracks in the shutters strange
figures peer out at me ... old women with shawls, dwarfs, rat-faced pimps, bent
Jews, midinettes, bearded idiots.
They totter out into the courtyard to draw water or to rinse the slop
pails. One day Eugene asked me if I
would empty the pail for him. I took it
to the corner of the yard. There was a
hole in the ground and some dirty paper lying around the hole. The little well was slimy with excrement,
which in English is shit. I
tipped the pail and there was a foul, gurgling splash followed by another and
unexpected splash. When I returned the
soup was dished out. All through the
meal I thought of my toothbrush - it is getting old and the bristles get caught
in my teeth.
When I sit down to eat I always sit near
the window. I am afraid to sit on the
other side of the table - it is too close to the bed and the bed is
crawling. I can see bloodstains on the
gray sheets if I look that way, but I try not to look that way. I look out on the courtyard where they are
rinsing the slop pails.
The meal is never complete without
music. As soon as the cheese is passed
around Eugene jumps up and reaches for the guitar which hangs over the
bed. It is always the same song. He says he has fifteen or sixteen songs in
his repertoire, but I have never heard more than three. His favourite is Charmant poème d'amour. It is full of angoisse and tristesse.
In
the afternoon we go to the cinema which is cool and dark. Eugene sits at the piano in the big pit and I
sit on a bench up front. The house is
empty, but Eugene sings as if he had for audience all the crowned heads of
Europe. The garden door is open and the
odour of wet leaves sops in and the rain blends with Eugene's angoisse
and tristesse. At midnight, after
the spectators have saturated the hall with perspiration and foul breaths, I
return to sleep on a bench. The exit
light, swimming in a halo of tobacco smoke, sheds a faint light on the lower
corner of the asbestos curtain; I close my eyes every night on an artificial
eye....
Standing in the courtyard with a glass
eye; only half the world is intelligible.
The stones are wet and mossy and in the crevices are black toads. A big door bars the entrance to the cellar;
the steps are slippery and soiled with bat dung. The door bulges and sags, the hinges are
falling off, but there is an enamelled sign on it, in perfect condition, which
says: "Be sure to close the door."
Why close the door? I can't make
it out. I look again at the sign but it
is removed; in its place there is a pane of coloured glass. I take out my artificial eye, spit on it and
polish it with my handkerchief. A woman
is sitting on a dais above an immense carven desk; she has a snake around her
neck. The entire room is lined with
books and strange fish swimming in coloured globes; there are maps and charts
on the wall, maps of Paris before the plague, maps of the antique world, of
Knossos and Carthage, of Carthage before and after the salting. In the corner of the room I see an iron
bedstead and on it a corpse is lying; the woman gets up wearily, removes the
corpse from the bed and absentmindedly throws it out the window. She returns to the huge carven desk, takes a
goldfish from the bowl and swallows it.
Slowly the room begins to revolve and one by one the continents slide
into the sea; only the woman is left, but her body is a mass of geography. I lean out the window and the Eiffel Tower is
fizzing champagne; it is built entirely of numbers and shrouded in black
lace. The sewers are gurgling
furiously. There are nothing but roofs
everywhere, laid out with execrable geometric cunning.
I have been ejected from the world like a
cartridge. A deep fog has settled down,
the earth is smeared with frozen grease.
I can feel the city palpitating, as if it were a heart just removed from
a warm body. The windows of my hotel are
festering and there is a thick, acrid stench as of chemicals burning. Looking into the Seine I see mud and
desolation, street lamps drowning, men and women choking to death, the bridges
covered with houses, slaughterhouses of love.
A man is standing against a wall with an accordion strapped to his
belly; his hands are cut off at the wrists, but the accordion writhes between
his stumps like a sack of snakes. The
universe has dwindled; it is only a block long and there are no stars, no
trees, no rivers. The people who live
here are dead; they make chairs which other people sit on in their dreams. In the middle of the street is a wheel and in
the hub of the wheel a gallows is fixed.
People already dead are trying frantically to mount the gallows, but the
wheel is turning too fast....
Something was needed to put me right with
myself. Last night I discovered it: Papini. It doesn't matter to me whether he's a
chauvinist, a little Christer, or a nearsighted pedant. As a failure he's marvellous....
The books he read - at eighteen! Not only Homer, Dante, Goethe, not only
Aristotle, Plato, Epictetus, not only Rabelais, Cervantes, Swift, not only Walt
Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe, Baudelaire, Villon, Carducci, Manzoni, Lope de Vega,
not only Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Kant, Hegel, Darwin, Spencer, Huxley - not
only these but all the small fry in between.
This on page 18. Allors,
on page 232 he breaks down and confesses.
I know nothing, he admits. I know
the titles, I have compiled bibliographies, I have written critical essays, I
have maligned and defamed.... I can talk for five minutes or for five days, but
then I give out, I am squeezed dry.
Follows this: "Everybody wants to
see me. Everybody insists on talking to
me. People pester me and they pester
others with inquiries about what I am doing.
How am I? Am I quite well again? Do I still go for my walks in the
country? Am I working? Have I finished my book? Will I begin another soon?
"A skinny monkey of a German wants
me to translate his works. A wild-eyed
Russian girl wants me to write an account of my life for her. An American lady wants the very latest
news about me. An American gentleman
will send his carriage to take me to dinner - just an intimate, confidential
talk, you know. An old schoolmate and
chum of mine, of ten years ago, wants me to read him all that I write as fast
as I write it. A painter friend I know
expects me to pose for him by the hour.
A newspaperman wants my present address.
An acquaintance, a mystic, inquires about the state of my soul; another,
more practical, about the state of my pocketbook. The president of my club wonders if I will
make a speech for the boys! A lady,
spiritually inclined, hopes I will come to her house for tea as often as
possible. She wants to have my opinion
of Jesus Christ, and - what do I think of that new medium?...
"Great God! what have I turned
into? What right have you people to
clutter up my life, steal my time, probe my soul, suckle my thoughts, have me
for your companion, confidant, and information bureau? What do you take me for? Am I am entertainer on salary, required every
morning to play an intellectual farce under your stupid noses? Am I a slave, bought and paid for, to crawl
on my belly in front of you idlers and lay at your feet all that I do and all
that I know? Am I a wench in a brothel
who is called upon to lift her skirts or take off her chemise at the bidding of
the first man in a tailored suit who comes along?
"I am a man who would live an heroic
life and make the world more endurable in his own sight. If, in some moment of weakness, of
relaxation, of need, I blow off steam - a bit of red-hot rage cooled off in
words - a passionate dream, wrapped and tied in imagery - well, take it or
leave it ... but don't bother me!
"I am a free man - and I need my
freedom. I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in
seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without
companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music
of my heart for company. What do you
want of me? When I have something to
say, I put it in print. When I have
something to give, I give it. Your
prying curiosity turns my stomach! Your
compliments humiliate me! Your tea
poisons me! I owe nothing to
anyone. I would be responsible to God
alone - if He existed!"
It seems to me that Papini misses
something by a hair's breadth when he talks of the need to be alone. It is not difficult to be alone if you are
poor and a failure. An artist is always
alone - if he is an artist. No,
what the artist needs is loneliness.
The artist, I call myself. So be it.
A beautiful map this afternoon that put velvet between my
vertebrae. Generated enough ideas to
last me three days. Chock-full of energy
and nothing to do about it. Decide to go
for a walk. In the street I change my
mind. Decide to go to the movies. Can't go to the movies - short a few
sous. A walk then. At every moviehouse I stop and look at the
billboards, then at the price list.
Cheap enough, these opium joints, but I'm short just a few sous. If it weren't so late I might go back and
cash an empty bottle.
By the time I get to the Rue Amelie I've
forgotten all about the movies. The Rue
Amelie is one of my favourite streets.
It is one of those streets which by good fortune the municipality has
forgotten to pave. Huge cobblestones
spreading convexly from one side of the street to the other. Only one block long and narrow. The Hotel Pretty is on this street. There is a little church, too, on the Rue
Amelie. It looks as though it were made
especially for the President of the Republic and his private family. It's good occasionally to see a modest little
church. Paris is full of pompous
cathedrals.
Pont Alexandre III. A great windswept space approaching the
bridge. Gaunt, bare trees mathematically
fixed in their iron gates; the gloom of the Invalides welling up out of the
dome and overflowing the dark streets adjacent to the Square. The morgue of poetry. They have him where they want him now, the
great warrior, the last big man of
The river is still swollen, muddy,
streaked with lights. I don't know what
it is rushes up in me at the sight of this dark, swift-moving current, but a
great exultation lifts me up, affirms the deep wish that is in me never to
leave this land. I remember passing this
way the other morning on my way to the American Express, knowing in advance
that there would be no mail for me, no cheque, no cable, nothing, nothing. A wagon from the Galeries Lafayette was
rumbling over the bridge. The rain had
stopped and the sun breaking through the soapy clouds touched the glistening
rubble of roofs with a cold fire. I
recall now how the driver leaned out and looked up the river toward Passy
way. Such a healthy, simple, approving
glance, as if he were saying to himself: "Ah, spring is coming!" And God knows, when he comes to Paris the
humblest mortal alive must feel that he dwells in paradise. But it was not only this - it was the
intimacy with which his eye rested upon the scene. It was his Paris. A man does not need to be rich, nor even a
citizen, to feel this way about Paris.
Paris is filled with poor people - the proudest and filthiest lot of
beggars that ever walked the earth, it seems to me. And yet they give the illusion of being at
home. It is that which distinguishes the
Parisian from all other metropolitan souls.
When I think of New York I have a very
different feeling. New York makes even a
rich man feel his unimportance.
When I think of this city where I was
born and raised, this Manhattan that Whitman sang of, a blind, white rage licks
my guts. New York! The white prisons, the sidewalks swarming
with maggots, the breadlines, the opium joints that are built like palaces, the
kikes that are there, the lepers, the thugs, and, above all, the ennui,
the monotony of faces, streets, legs, houses, skyscrapers, meals, posters,
jobs, crimes, loves.... A whole city erected over a hollow pit of
nothingness. Meaningless. Absolutely meaningless.
"LIFE",
said Emerson, "consists in what a man is thinking all day." If that be so, then my life is nothing but a
big intestine. I not only think about
food all day, but I dream about it at night.
But I don't ask to go back to America, to
be put in double harness again, to work the treadmill. No, I prefer to be a poor man of Europe. God knows, I am poor enough; it only remains
to be a man. Last week I thought the
problem of living was about to be solved, though I was on the way to becoming
self-supporting. It happened that I ran
across another Russian - Serge is his name.
He lives in Suresnes, where there is a little colony of émigres
and run-down artists. Before the
revolution Serge was a captain in the Imperial Guard; he stands six foot three
in his stockinged feet and drinks vodka like a fish. His father was an admiral, or something like
that, on the battleship "Potemkin".
I met Serge under rather peculiar
circumstances. Sniffing about for food I
found myself toward noon the other day in the neighbourhood of the
Folies-Bergère - the back entrance, that is to say, in the narrow lane with an
iron gate at one end. I was dawdling
about the stage entrance, hoping vaguely for a casual brush with one of the
butterflies, when an open truck pulls up to the sidewalk. Seeing me standing there with my hands in my
pockets the driver, who was Serge, asks me if I would give him a hand unloading
the iron barrels. When he learns that I
am an American and that I'm broke he almost weeps with joy. He has been looking high and low for an
English teacher, it seems. I help him
roll the barrels of insecticide inside and I look my fill at the butterflies
fluttering about the wings. The incident
takes on strange proportions to me - the empty house, the sawdust dolls
bouncing in the wings, the barrels of germicide, the battleship
"Potemkin" - above all, Serge's gentleness. He is big and tender, a man every inch of
him, but with a woman's heart.
In the café nearby - Café des Artistes -
he proposes immediately to put me up; says he will put a mattress on the floor
in the hallway. For the lessons he says
he will give me a meal every day, a big Russian meal, or if for any reason the
meal is lacking then five francs. It
sounds wonderful to me - wonderful.
The only question is, how will I get from Suresnes to the American
Express every day?
Serge insists that we begin at once - he
gives me the carfare to get out to Suresnes in the evening. I arrive a little before dinner, with my knapsack,
in order to give Serge a lesson. There
are some guests on hand already - seems as though they always eat in a crowd,
everybody chipping in.
There are eight of us at the table - and
three dogs. The dogs eat first. They eat oatmeal. Then we commence. We eat oatmeal too - as an hors
d'oeuvre. "Chez nous,"
says Serge, with a twinkle in his eye, "c'est pour les chiens, les
Quaker Oats. Ici pour le gentleman. Ça va." After the oatmeal, mushroom soup and
vegetables; after that bacon omelette, fruit, red wine, vodka, coffee,
cigarettes. Not bad, the Russian
meal. Everyone talks with his mouth
full. Toward the end of the meal Serge's
wife, who is a lazy slut of an Armenian, flops on the couch and begins to
nibble bonbons. She fishes around in the
box with her fat fingers, nibbles a tiny piece to see if there is any juice
inside, and then throws it on the floor for the dogs.
The meal over, the guests rush away. They rush away precipitously, as if they
feared a plague. Serge and I are left
with the dogs - his wife has fallen asleep on the couch. Serge moves about unconcernedly, scraping the
garbage for the dogs. "Dogs like
very much," he says, "Very good for dogs. Little dog he has worms ... he is too young
yet." He bends down to examine some
white worms lying on the carpet between the dogs's paws. Tries to explain about the worms in English,
but his vocabulary is lacking. Finally
he consults the dictionary.
"Ah," he says, looking at me exultantly, "tapeworms!" My response is evidently not very
intelligent. Serge is confused. He gets down on his hands and knees to
examine them better. He picks one up and
lays it on the table beside the fruit.
"Huh, him not very beeg," he grunts. "Next lesson you learn me worms,
no? You are gude teacher. I make progress with vou...."
Lying on the mattress in the hallway the
odour of the germicide stifles me. A
pungent, acrid odour that seems to invade every pore of my body. The food begins to repeat on me - the Quaker
Oats, the mushrooms, the bacon, the fried apples. I see the little tapeworm lying beside the
fruit and all the varieties of worms that Serge drew on the tablecloth to
explain what was the matter with the dog.
I see the empty pit of the Folies-Bergère and in every crevice there are
cockroaches and lice and bedbugs; I see people scratching themselves
frantically, scratching and scratching until the blood comes. I see the worms crawling over the scenery
like an army of red ants, devouring everything in sight. I see the chorus girls throwing away their
gauze tunics and running through the aisles naked; I see the spectators in the
pit throwing off their clothes also and scratching each other like monkeys.
I try to quiet myself. After all, this is a home I've found, and there's
a meal waiting for me every day. And
Serge is a brick, there's no doubt about that.
But I can't sleep. It's like
going to sleep in a morgue. The mattress
is saturated with embalming fluid. It's
a morgue for lice, bedbugs, cockroaches, tapeworms. I can't stand it. I won't stand it! After all, I'm a man, not a louse.
In the morning I wait for Serge to load
the truck. I ask him to take me into
Paris. I haven't the heart to tell him
I'm leaving. I leave the knapsack
behind, with the few things that were left me.
When we get to the Place Pereire I jump out. No particular reason for getting off
here. No particular reason for anything. I'm free - that's the main thing....
Light as a bird I flit about from one
quarter to another. It's as though I had
been released from prison. I look at the
world with new eyes. Everything
interests me profoundly. Even trifles. On the Rue due Faubourg Poissonnière I stop
before the window of a physical culture establishment. There are photographs showing specimens of
manhood "before and after".
All frogs. Some of them are nude,
except for a pince-nez or a beard. Can't
understand how these birds fall for parallel bars and dumb-bells. A frog should have just a wee bit of paunch,
like the Baron de Charlus. He should
wear a beard and a pince-nez, but he should never be photographed in the
nude. He should wear twinkling
patent-leather boots and in the breast pocket of his sack coat there should be
a white handkerchief protruding about three-quarters of an inch above the
vent. If possible, he should have a red
ribbon in his lapel, through the buttonhole.
He should wear pyjamas in going to bed.
Approaching the Place Clichy toward
evening I pass the little whore with the wooden stump who stands opposite the
Gaumont Palace day in and day out. She
doesn't look a day over eighteen. Has
her regular customers, I suppose. After
midnight she stands there in her black rig rooted to the spot. Back of her is the little alleyway that
blazes like an inferno. Passing her now
with a light heart she reminds me somehow of a goose tied to a stake, a goose
with a diseased liver, so that the world may have paté de foie gras. Must be strange taking the wooden stump to
bed with you. One imagines all sorts of
things - splinters, etc. However, every
man to his taste!
Going down the Rue des Dames I bump into
Peckover, another poor-devil who works on the paper. He complains of getting only three or four
hours' sleep a night - has to get up at eight in the morning to work at a
dentist's office. It isn't for the money
he's doing it, so he explains - it's for to buy himself a set of false
teeth. "It's hard to read proof
when your dropping with sleep," he says.
"The wife, she thinks I've got a cinch of it. What would we do if you lost your job? she
says." But Peckover doesn't give a
damn about the job; it doesn't even allow him spending money. He has to save his cigarette butts and use
them for pipe tobacco. His coat is held
together with pins. He has halitosis and
his hands sweat. And only three hours'
sleep a night. "It's no way to
treat a man," he says. "And
that boss of mine, he bawls the piss out of me if I miss a
semicolon." Speaking of his wife he
adds: "That woman of mine, she's got no fucking gratitude, I tell
you."
In parting I manage to worm a franc fifty
out of him. I try to squeeze another
fifty centimes out of him but it's impossible.
Anyway, I've got enough for a coffee and croissants. Near the Gare St. Lazare there's a bar with
reduced prices.
As luck would have it I find a ticket in
the lavabo for a concert. Light
as a feather now I go there to the Salle Gaveau. The usher looks ravaged because I overlook
giving him his little tip. Every time he
passes me he looks at me inquiringly, as if perhaps I will suddenly remember.
It's so long since I've sat in the
company of well-dressed people that I feel a bit panic-stricken. I can still smell the formaldehyde. Perhaps Serge makes deliveries here too. But nobody is scratching himself, thank
God. A faint odour of perfume ... very
faint. Even before the music begins
there is the bored look on people's faces.
A polite form of self- imposed torture, the concert. For a moment, when the conductor raps with
his little wand, there is a tense spasm of concentration followed almost
immediately by a general slump, a quiet vegetable sort of repose induced by the
steady, uninterrupted drizzle from the orchestra. My mind is curiously alert; it's as though my
skull has a thousand mirrors inside it.
My nerves are taut, vibrant! the notes are like glass balls dancing on a
million jets of water. I've never been
to a concert before on such an empty belly.
Nothing escapes me, not even the tiniest pin falling. It's as though I had no clothes on and every
pore of my body was a window and all the windows open and the light flooding my
gizzards. I can feel the light curving
under the vault of my ribs and my ribs hang there over a hollow navel trembling
with reverberations. How long this lasts
I have no idea; I have lost all sense of time and place. After what seems like an eternity there
follows an interval of semiconsciousness balanced by such a calm that I feel a
great lake inside me, a lake of iridescent sheen, cool as jelly; and over this
lake, rising in great swooping spirals, there emerge flocks of birds of passage
with long slim legs and brilliant plumage.
Flock after flock surge up from the cool, still surface of the lake and,
passing under my clavicles, lose themselves in the white sea of space. And then slowly, very slowly, as if an old
woman in a white cap were going the rounds of my body, slowly the windows are
closed and my organs drop back into place.
Suddenly the lights flare up and the man in the white box whom I had
taken for a Turkish officer turns out to be a woman with a flowerpot on her
head.
There is a buzz now and all those who
want to cough, cough to their heart's content.
There is the noise of feet shuffling and seats slamming, the steady,
frittering noise of people moving about aimlessly, of people fluttering their
programmes and pretending to read and then dropping their programmes and
scuffling under their seats, thankful for even the slightest accident which
will prevent them from asking themselves what they were thinking about because
if they knew they were thinking about nothing they would go mad. In the harsh glare of the lights they look at
each other vacuously and there is a strange tenseness with which they stare at
one another. And the moment the
conductor raps again they fall back into a cataleptic state - they scratch
themselves unconsciously or they remember suddenly a show window in which there
was displayed a scarf or a hat; they remember every detail of that window with
amazing clarity, but where it was exactly, that they can't recall; and that
bothers them, keeps them wide awake, restless, and they listen now with
redoubled attention because they are wide awake and no matter how wonderful the
music is they will not lose consciousness of that show window and that scarf
that was hanging there, or the hat.
And this fierce attentiveness
communicates itself; even the orchestra seems galvanized into an extraordinary
alertness. The second number goes off
like a top - so fast indeed that when suddenly the music ceases and the lights
go up some are stuck in their seats like carrots, their jaws working
convulsively, and if you suddenly shouted in their ear Brahms, Beethoven,
Mendeleev, Herzegovina, they would answer without thinking - 4,967,289.
By the time we get to the Debussy number
the atmosphere is completely poisoned. I
find myself wondering what it feels like, during intercourse, to be a woman -
whether the pleasure is keener, etc. Try
to imagine something penetrating my groin, but have only a vague sensation of
pain. I try to focus, but the music is
too slippery. I can think of nothing but
a vase slowly turning and the figures dropping off into space. Finally there is only light turning, and how does
light turn, I ask myself. The man next
to me is sleeping soundly. He looks like
a broker, with his big paunch and his waxed moustache. I like him thus. I like especially that big paunch and all
that went into the making of it. Why
shouldn't he sleep soundly? If he wants
to listen he can always rustle up the price of a ticket. I notice that the better dressed they are the
more soundly they sleep. They have an
easy conscience, the rich. If a poor man
dozes off, even for a few seconds, he feels mortified; he imagines that he has
committed a crime against the composer.
In the Spanish number the house was
electrified. Everybody sat on the edge
of his seat - the drums woke them up. I
thought when the drums started it would keep up forever. I expected to see people fall out of the
boxes or throw their hats away. There
was something heroic about it and he could have driven us stark mad, Ravel, if
he had wanted to. But that's not
Ravel. Suddenly it all died down. It was as if he remembered, in the midst of
his antics, that he had on a cutaway suit.
He arrested himself. A great
mistake, in my humble opinion. Art
consists in going the full length. If
you start with the drums you have to end with dynamite, or TNT. Ravel sacrificed something for form, for a
vegetable that people must digest before going to bed.
My thoughts are spreading. The music is slipping away from me, now that
the drums have ceased. People everywhere
are composed to order. Under the exit
light is a Werther sunk in despair; he is leaning on his two elbows, his eyes
are glazed. Near the door, huddled in a
big cape, stands a Spaniard with a sombrero in his hand. He looks as if he were posing for the
"Balzac" of Rodin. From the
neck up he suggests Buffalo Bill. In the
gallery opposite me, in the front row, sits a woman with her legs spread wide
apart; she looks as though she had lockjaw, with her neck thrown back and
dislocated. The woman with the red hat
who is dozing over the rail - marvellous if she were to have a hemorrhage! if
suddenly she spilled a bucketful on those stiff shirts below. Imagine these bloody no-accounts going home
from the concert with blood on their dickies!
Sleep is the keynote. No-one is listening any more. Impossible to think and listen. Impossible to dream even when the music
itself is nothing but a dream. A woman with
white gloves holds a swan in her lap.
The legend is that when Leda was fecundated she gave birth to
twins. Everybody is giving birth to
something - everybody but the Lesbian in the upper tier. Her head is uptilted, her throat wide open;
she is all alert and tingling with the shower of sparks that burst from the
radium symphony. Jupiter is piercing her
ears. Little phrases from California,
whales with big fins, Zanzibar, the Alcazar.
When along the Guadalquivir there were a thousand mosques ashimmer. Deep in the icebergs and the days all
lilac. The
IN
America I had a number of Hindu friends, some good, some bad, some
indifferent. Circumstances had placed me
in a position where fortunately I could be of aid to them; I secured jobs for
them, I harboured them, and I fed them when necessary. They were very grateful, I must say; so much
so, in fact, that they made my life miserable with their attentions. Two of them were saints, if I know what a
saint is; particularly Gupte, who was found one morning with his throat cut
from ear to ear. In a little boarding
house in Greenwich Village he was found one morning stretched out stark naked
on the bed, his flute beside him, and his throat gashed, as I say, from ear to
ear. It was never discovered whether he
had been murdered or whether he had committed suicide. But that's neither here nor there....
I'm thinking back to the chain of
circumstances which has brought me finally to Nanantatee's place. Thinking how strange it is that I should have
forgotten all about Nanantatee until the other day when lying in a shabby hotel
room on the Rue Cels. I'm lying there on
the iron bed thinking what a zero I have become, what a cipher, what a nullity,
when bango! out pops the word: NONENTITY!
That's what we called him in New York - Nonentity. Mister Nonentity.
I'm lying on the floor now in that
gorgeous suite of rooms he boasted of when he was in New York. Nanantatee is playing the good Samaritan; he
has given me a pair of itchy blankets, horse blankets they are, in which I curl
up on the dusty floor. There are little
jobs to do every hour of the day - that is, if I am foolish enough to remain
indoors. In the morning he wakes me
rudely in order to have me prepare the vegetables for his lunch: onions,
garlic, beans, etc. His friend, Kepi,
warns me not to eat the food - he says it's bad. Bad or good, what difference? Food!
That's all that matters. For a
little food I am quite willing to sweep his carpets with a broken broom, to
wash his clothes and to scrape the crumbs off the floor as soon as he has
finished eating. He's become absolutely
immaculate since my arrival: everything has to be dusted now, the chairs must
be arranged a certain way, the clock must ring, the toilet must flush
properly.... A crazy Hindu if ever there was one! And parsimonious as a string bean. I'll have a great laugh over it when I get
out of his clutches, but just now I'm a prisoner, a man without caste, an
untouchable....
If I fail to come back at night and roll
up in the horse blankets he says to me on arriving: "Oh, so you didn't die
then? I thought you had died." And though he knows I'm absolutely penniless
he tells me every day about some cheap room he has just discovered in the
neighbourhood. "But I can't take a
room yet, you know that," I say.
And then, blinking his eyes like a Chink, he answers smoothly: "Oh,
yes, I forgot that you had no money. I
am always forgetting, Endree.... But when the cable comes ... when Miss Mona
sends you the money, then you will come with me to look for a room,
eh?" And in the next breath he
urges me to stay as long as I wish - "six months ... seven months, Endree
... you are very good for me here."
Nanantatee is one of the Hindus I never
did anything for in America. He
represented himself to me as a wealthy merchant, a pearl merchant, with a
luxurious suite of rooms on the Rue Lafayette, Paris, a villa in Bombay, a
bungalow in Darjeeling. I could see from
first glance that he was a half- wit, but then half-wits sometimes have the
genius to amass a fortune. I didn't know
that he paid his hotel bill in New York by leaving a couple of fat pearls in
the proprietor's hands. It seems amusing
to me how that little duck once swaggered about the lobby of that hotel in New
York with an ebony cane, bossing the bellhops around, ordering luncheons for
his guests, calling up the porter for theatre tickets, renting a taxi by the
day, etc., etc., all without a sou in his pocket. Just a string of fat pearls around his neck
which he cashed one by one as time wore on.
And the fatuous way he used to pat me on the back, thank me for being so
good to the Hindu boys - "they are all very intelligent boys, Endree ...
very intelligent!" Telling me that
the good lord so-and-so would repay me for my kindness. That explains now why they used to giggle so,
these intelligent Hindu boys, when I suggested that they touch Nanantatee for a
five-spot.
Curious now how the good lord so-and-so
is requiting me for my benevolence. I'm
nothing but a slave to this fat little duck.
I'm at his beck and call continually.
He needs me here - he tells me so to my face. When he goes to the crap-can he shouts:
"Endree, bring me a pitcher of water, please. I must wipe myself." He wouldn't think of using toilet paper,
Nanantatee. Must be against his
religion. No, he calls for a pitcher of
water and a rag. He's delicate,
the fat little duck. Sometimes when I'm
drinking a cup of pale tea in which he has dropped a rose leaf he comes
alongside of me and lets a loud fart, right in my face. He never says "Excuse me!" The word must be missing from his Gujarati
dictionary.
The day I arrived at Nanantatee's
apartment he was in the act of performing his ablutions, that is to say, he was
standing over a dirty bowl trying to work his crooked arm around toward the
back of his neck. Beside the bowl was a
brass goblet which he used to change the water.
He requested me to be silent during the ceremony. I sat there silently, as I was bidden, and
watched him as he sang and prayed and spat now and then into the washbowl. So this is the wonderful suite of rooms he
talked about in New York. The Rue
Lafayette! It sounded like an important
street to me back there in New York. I
thought only millionaires and pearl merchants inhabited the street. It sounds wonderful, the Rue Lafayette, when you're
on the other side of the water. So does
Fifth Avenue, when you're over here. One
can't imagine what dumps there are on these swell streets. Anyway, here I am at last, sitting in the
gorgeous suite of rooms on the Rue Lafayette.
And this crazy duck with his crooked arm is going through the ritual of
washing himself. The chair on which I'm
sitting is broken, the bedstead is falling apart, the wallpaper is in tatters,
there is an open valise under the bed crammed with dirty wash. From where I sit
I can glance at the miserable courtyard down below where the aristocracy of the
Rue Lafayette sit and smoke their clay pipes.
I wonder now, as he chants the doxology, what the bungalow in Darjeeling
looks like. It's interminable, his
chanting and praying.
He explains to me that he is obliged to
wash in a certain prescribed way - his religion demands it. But on Sundays he takes a bath in the tin tub
- the Great I AM will wink at that, he says.
When he's dressed he goes to the cupboard, kneels before a little idol
on the third shelf, and repeats the mumbo jumbo. If you pray like that every day, he says,
nothing will happen to you. The good
lord what's his name never forgets an obedient servant. And then he shows me the crooked arm which he
got in a taxi accident on a day doubtless when he had neglected to rehearse the
complete song and dance. His arm looks
like a broken compass; it's not an arm any more, but a knucklebone with a shank
attached. Since the arm has been
repaired he has developed a pair of swollen glands in the armpit - fat little
glands, exactly like a dog's testicles.
While bemoaning his plight he remembers suddenly that the doctor had
recommended a more liberal diet. He begs
me at once to sit down and make up a menu with plenty of fish and meat. "And what about oysters, Endree - for le
petit frère?" But all this is
only to make an impression on me. He
hasn't the slightest intention of buying himself oysters, or meat, or
fish. Not as long as I am there, at
least. For the time being we are going
to nourish ourselves on lentils and rice and all the dry foods he has stored
away in the attic. And the butter he
bought last week, that won't go to waste either. When he commences to cure the butter the
smell is unbearable. I used to run out
at first, when he started frying the butter, but now I stick it out. He'd only be too delighted if he could make
me vomit up my meal - that would be something else to put away in the cupboard
along with the dry bread and the mouldy cheese and the little grease cakes that
he makes himself out of the stale milk and the rancid butter.
For the last five years, so it seems, he
hasn't done a stroke of work, hasn't turned over a penny. Business has gone to smash. He talks to me about pearls in the Indian
Ocean - big fat ones on which you can live for a lifetime. The Arabs are ruining the business, he
says. But meanwhile he prays to the lord
so-and-so every day, and that sustains him.
He's on a marvellous footing with the deity: knows just how to cajole
him, how to wheedle a few sous out of him.
It's a pure commercial relationship.
In exchange for the flummery before the cabinet every day he gets his
ration of beans and garlic, to say nothing of the swollen testicles under his
arm. He is confident that everything
will turn out well in the end. The
pearls will sell again some day, maybe five years hence, maybe twenty - when
the Lord Boomaroom wishes it. "And
when the business goes, Endree, you will get ten percent - for writing the
letters. But first Endree, you must
write the letter to find out if we can get credit from India. It will take about six months for an answer,
maybe seven months ... the boats are not fast in India." He has no conception of time at all, the
little duck. When I ask him if he has
slept well he will say: "Ah, yes, Endree, I sleep very well ... I sleep
sometimes ninety-two hours in three days."
Mornings he is usually too weak to do any
work. His arm! That poor broken crutch of an arm! I wonder sometimes when I see him twisting it
around the back of his neck how he will ever get it into place again. If it weren't for that little paunch he
carries he'd remind me of one of those contortionists at the Cirque
Medrano. All he needs is to break a leg. When he sees me sweeping the carpet, when he
sees what a cloud of dust I raise, he begins to cluck like a pygmy. "Good!
Very good, Endree. And now I will
pick up the knots." That means that
there are a few crumbs of dust which I have overlooked; it is a polite way he
has of being sarcastic.
Afternoons there are always a few cronies
from the pearl market dropping in to pay him a visit. They're all very suave, butter-tongued
bastards with soft, doelike eyes; the sit around the table drinking the
perfumed tea with a loud hissing noise while Nanantatee jumps up and down and a
jack-in-the-box or points to a crumb on the floor and says in his smooth
slippery voice - "Will you please pick that up, Endree." When the guests arrive he going unctuously to
the cupboard and gets out the dry crusts of bread which he toasted maybe a week
ago and which taste strongly now of the mouldy wood. Not a crumb is thrown away. If the bread gets too sour he takes it
downstairs to the concierge who, so he says, has been very kind to him. According to him, there concierge is
delighted to get the stale break - she makes breadpudding with it.
One day my friend Anatoly came to see
me. Nanantatee was delighted. Insisted that Anatoly stay for tea. Insisted that he try little grease cakes and
the stale bread. "You must come
every day," he says, "and teach me Russian. Fine language, Russian ... I want to speak
it. How do you say that again, Endree - borsht? You will write that down for me, please, so
that he can observe my technique. He
bought the typewriter, after he had collected on the bad arm, because the
doctor recommended it as a good exercise.
But he got tired of the typewriter shortly - it was an English
typewriter.
When he learned that Anatoly played the
mandolin he said: "Very good! You
must come every day and teach me the music.
I will buy a mandolin as soon as business is better. It is good for my arm." The next day he borrows a phonograph from the
concierge. "You will please teach
me to dance, Endree. My stomach is too
big." I am hoping that he will buy
a porterhouse steak some day so that I can say to him: "You will please
bite it for me, Mister Nonentity.
My teeth are not strong!"
As I said a moment ago, ever since my
arrival he has become extraordinarily meticulous. "Yesterday," he says, "you
made three mistakes, Endree. First, you
forgot to close the toilet door and so all night it makes boom-boom; second,
you left the kitchen window open and so the window is cracked this
morning. And you forgot to put out the
milk bottle! Always you will put out the
milk bottle please, before you go to bed, and in the morning you will please
bring in the bread."
Every day his friend Kepi drops in to see
if any visitors have arrived from India.
He waits for Nanantatee to go out and then he scurries to the cupboard
and devours the sticks of bread that are hidden away in a glass jar. The food is no good, he insists, but he puts
it away like a rat. Kepi is a scrounger,
a sort of human tick who fastens himself to the hide of even the poorest
compatriot. From Kepi's standpoint they
are all nabobs. For a Manila cheroot and
the price of a drink he will suck any Hindu's ass. A Hindu's, mind you, but not an
Englishman's. He has the address of
every whorehouse in Paris, and the rates.
Even from the ten franc joints he gets his little commission. And he knows the shortest to any place you
want to go. He will ask you first if you
want to go by taxi; if you say no, he will suggest the bus, and if that is too
high then the streetcar or the metro. Or
he will offer to walk you there and save a franc or two, knowing very well that
it will be necessary to pass a tabac on the way and that you will please be so
good as to buy me a little cheroot.
Kepi is interesting, in a way, because he
has absolutely no ambition except to get a fuck every night. Every penny he makes, and they are damned
few, he squanders in the dance halls. He
has a wife and eight children in Bombay, but that does not prevent him from
proposing marriage to any little femme de chambre who is stupid and
credulous enough to be taken in by him.
He has a little room on the Rue Condorcet for which he pays sixty francs
a month. He papered it all himself. Very proud of it, too. He used violet-coloured ink in his fountain
pen because it lasts longer. He shines
his own shoes, presses his own pants, does his own laundry. For a little cigar, a cheroot, if you please,
he will escort you all over Paris. If
you stop to look at a shirt or a collar button his eyes flash. "Don't buy it here," he will
say. "They ask too much. I will show you a cheaper place." And before you have time to think about it he
will whisk you away and deposit you before another show window where there are
the same ties and shirts and collar buttons - maybe it's the very same store!
but you don't know the difference. When Kepi
hears that you want to buy something his soul becomes animated. He will ask you so many questions and drag
you to so many places that you are bound to get thirsty and ask him to have a
drink, whereupon you will discover to your amazement that you are again
standing in a tabac - maybe the same tabac! - and Kepi is saying
again in that small unctuous voice: "Will you please be so good as to buy
me a little cheroot?" No matter
what you propose doing, even if it's only to walk around the corner, Kepi will
economize for you. Kepi will show you
the shortest way, the cheapest place, the biggest dish, because whatever you
have to do you must pass a tabac, and whether there is a
revolution or a lockout or a quarantine Kepi must be at the Moulin Rouge or the
Olympia or the Ange Rouge when the music strikes up.
The other day he brought a book for me to
read. It was about a famous suit between
a holy man and the editor of an Indian paper.
The editor, it seems, had openly accused the holy man of being
diseased. Kepi says it must have been
the great French pox, but Nanantatee avers that it was the Japanese clap. For Nanantatee everything has to be a little
exaggerated. At any rate, says
Nanantatee cheerily: "You will please tell me what it says, Endree. I can't read the book - it hurts my
arm." Then, by way of encouraging
me - "it is a fine book about the fucking, Endree. Kepi has brought it for you. He thinks about nothing but the girls. So many girls he fucks - just like Krishna. We don't believe in that business,
Endree...."
A little later he takes me upstairs to
the attic which is loaded down with tin cans and crap from India wrapped in
burlap and firecracker paper. "Here
is where I bring the girls," he says.
And then rather wistfully: "I am not a very good fucker,
Endree. I don't screw the girls any
more. I hold them in my arms and I say
the words. I like only to say the words
now." It isn't necessary to listen
any further: I know that he is going to tell me about his arm. I can see him lying there with that broken
hinge dangling from the side of the bed.
But to my surprise he adds: "I am no good for the fucking,
Endree. I never was a very good
fucker. My brother, he is good! Three times a day, every day! And Kepi, he is good - just like
Krishna."
His mind is fixed now on the
"fucking business".
Downstairs, in the little room where he kneels before the open cabinet,
he explains to me how it was when he was rich and his wife and the children
were here. On holidays he would take his
wife to the House of All Nations and hire a room for the night. Every room was appointed in a different
style. His wife liked it there very
much. "A wonderful place for the
fucking, Endree. I know all the
rooms...."
The walls of the little room in which we
are sitting are crammed with photographs.
Every branch of the family is represented, it is like a cross-section of
the Indian empire. For the most part the
members of this genealogical tree look like withered leaves: the women are frail
and they have a startled, frightened look in their eyes: the men have a keen,
intelligent look, like educated chimpanzees.
They are all there, about ninety of them, with their white bullocks,
their dung cakes, their skinny legs, their old-fashioned spectacles; in the
background, now and then, one catches a glimpse of the parched soil, of a
crumbling pediment, of an idol with crooked arms, a sort of human
centipede. There is something so
fantastic, so incongruous about this gallery that one is reminded inevitably of
the great spawn of temples which stretch from the Himalayas to the tip of
Ceylon [Sri Lanka], a vast jumble of architecture, staggering in beauty and at
the same time monstrous, hideously monstrous because the fecundity which
seethes and ferments in the myriad ramifications of design seems to have
exhausted the very soil of India itself.
Looking at the seething hive of figures which swarm the facades of the
temples one is overwhelmed by the potency of those dark, handsome peoples who
mingled their mysterious streams in a sexual embrace that has lasted thirty
centuries or more. These frail men and
women with piercing eyes who stare out of the photographs seem like the
emaciated shadows of those virile, massive figures who incarnated themselves in
stone and fresco from one end of India to the other in order that the heroic
myths of the races who here intermingled should remain forever entwined in the
hearts of their countrymen. When I look
at only a fragment of these spacious dreams of stone, these toppling, sluggish
edifices studded with gems, coagulated with human sperm, I am overwhelmed by
the dazzling splendour of those imaginative flights which enabled half a
billion people of diverse origins to thus incarnate the most fugitive
expressions of their longing.
It is a strange, inexplicable medley of
feelings which assails me now as Nanantatee prattles on about the sister who
died in childbirth. There she is on the
wall, a frail, timid thing of twelve or thirteen clinging to the arm of a dotard. At ten years of age she was given in wedlock
to this old roue who had already buried five wives. She had seven children, only one of whom
survived her. She was given to the aged
gorilla in order to keep the pearls in the family. As she was passing away, so Nanantatee puts
it, she whispered to the doctor: "I am tired of this fucking....I don't
want to fuck any morel, doctor." As
he relates this to me he scratched his head solemnly with his withered arm. "The fucking business is bad,
Endree," he says. "But I will
give you a word that will always make you lucky; you must say it every day,
over and over, a million times you must say it.
It is the best word there is, Endree ... say it now ...
OOMAHARUMOOMA!"
"OOMARABOO...."
"No, Endree
... like this ... OOMAHARUMOOMA!"
"OOMAMABOOMBA...."
"No, Endree ... like this...."
... But what with the murky light, the
botchy print, the tattered cover, the jigjagged page, the fumbling fingers, the
foxtrotting fleas, the lie-a-bed lice, the scum on his tongue, the drop in his
eye, the lump in his throat, the drink in his pottle, the itch in his palm, the
wail of his wind, the grief from his breath, the fog of his brainfag, the tic
of his conscience, the height of his rage, the gush of his fundament, the fire
of his gorge, the tickle of his tail, the rats in his garret, the hullabaloo and the dust in his ears, since it
took him a month to steal a march, he was hard-set to memorize more than a word
a week.
I suppose I would never have gotten out of
Nanantatee's clutches if fate hadn't intervened. One night, as luck would have it, Kepi asked
me if I wouldn't take one of his clients to a whorehouse nearby. The young man had just come from India and he
had not very much money to spend. He was
one of Gandhi's men, one of that little band who made the historic march to the
sea during the salt trouble. A very gay
disciple of Gandhi's I must say, despite the vows of abstinence he had taken. Evidently he hadn't looked at a woman for
ages. It was all I could do to get him
as far as the Rue Laferriere; he was like a god with his tongue hanging
out. And a pompous, vain little devil to
boot! He had decked himself out in a
corduroy suit, a beret, a cane, a Windsor tie; he had bought himself two
fountain pens, a kodak, and some fancy underwear. The money he was spending was a gift from the
merchants of Bombay; they were sending him to England to spread the gospel of
Gandhi.
Once inside Miss Hamilton's joint he
began to lose his sang-froid.
When suddenly he found himself surrounded by a bevy of naked women he
looked at me in consternation.
"Pick one out," I said.
"You can have your choice."
He had become so rattled that he could scarcely look at them. "You do it for me," he murmured,
blushing violently. I looked them over
coolly and picked out a plump young wench who seemed full of feathers. We sat down in the reception room and waited
for the drinks. The madam wanted to know
why I didn't take a girl also.
"Yes, you take one too," said the young Hindu. "I don't want to be alone with
her." So the girls were brought in
again and I chose one for myself, a rather tall, thin one with melancholy eyes. We were left alone, the four of us, in the
reception room. After a few moments my
young Gandhi leans over and whispers something in me ear. "Sure, if you like her better, take
her," I said, and so, rather awkwardly and considerably embarrassed, I
explained to the girls that we would like to switch. I saw at once that we had made a faux pas,
but by now my young friend had become gay and lecherous and nothing would do
but to get upstairs quickly and have it over with.
We took adjoining rooms with a connecting
door between. I think my companion had
in mind to make another switch once he had satisfied his sharp, gnawing
hunger. At any rate, no sooner had the
girls left the room to prepare themselves than I hear him knocking on the
door. "Where is the toilet,
please?" he asks. Not thinking that
it was anything serious I urge him to do it in the bidet. The girls return with towels in their
hands. I hear him giggling in the next
room.
As I'm putting on my pants suddenly I
hear a commotion in the next room. The
girl is bawling him out, calling him a pig, a dirty little pig. I can't imagine what he has done to warrant
such an outburst. I'm standing there
with one foot in my trousers listening attentively. He's trying to explain to her in English,
raising his voice louder and louder until it becomes a shriek.
I hear a door slam and in another moment
the madam bursts into my room, her face as red as a beet, her arms
gesticulating wildly. "You ought to
be ashamed of yourself," she screams, "bringing a man like that to my
place! He's a barbarian ... he's a pig
... he's a ...!" My companion is
standing behind her, in the doorway, a look of utmost discomfiture on his
face. "What did you do?" I
ask.
"What did he do?" yells the
madam. "I'll show you....Come
here!" And grabbing me by the arm
she drags me into the next room.
"There! There!" she
screams, pointing to the bidet.
"Come on, let's get out," says
the Hindu boy.
"Wait a minute, you can't get out as
easily as all that."
The madam is standing by the bidet,
fuming and spitting. The girls are
standing there too, with towels in their hands.
The five of us are standing there looking at the bidet. There are two enormous turds floating in the
water. The madam bends down and puts a
towel over it. "Frightful! Frightful!" she wails. "Never have I seen anything like
this! A pig! A dirty little pig!"
The Hindu boy looks at me
reproachfully. "You should have
told me!" he says. "I didn't
know it wouldn't go down. I asked you
where to go and you told me to use that."
He is almost in tears.
Finally the madam takes me to one
side. She has become a little more
reasonable now. After all, it was a
mistake. Perhaps the gentlemen would
like to come downstairs and order another drink - for the girls. It was a great shock to the girls. They are not used to such things. And if the good gentlemen will be so kind as
to remember the femme de chambre.... It is not so pretty for the femme
de chambre - that mess, that ugly mess.
She shrugs her shoulders and winks her eye. A lamentable incident. But an accident. If the gentlemen will wait here a few moments
the maid will bring the drinks. Would
the gentlemen like to have some champagne?
Yes?
"I'd like to get out of here,"
says the Hindu boy weakly.
"Don't feel so badly about it,"
says the madam. "It is all over
now. Mistakes will happen
sometimes. Next time you will ask for
the toilet." She goes on about the
toilet - one on every floor, it seems.
And a bathroom too.
"I have a lot of English
clients," she says. "They are
all gentlemen. The gentleman is a
Hindu? Charming people, the Hindus. So intelligent. So handsome."
When we get into the street the charming
young gentleman is almost weeping. He is
sorry now that he bought a corduroy suit and the cane and the fountain
pens. He talks about the eight vows that
he took, the control of the palate, etc.
On the march to Dandi even a plate of ice cream it was forbidden to
take. He tells me about the spinning
wheel - how the little band of Satyagrahists imitated the devotion of their
master. He relates with pride how he
walked beside the master and conversed with him. I have the illusion of being in the presence
of one of the twelve disciples.
During the next few days we see a good
deal of each other; there are interviews to be arranged with the newspaper men
and lectures to be given to the Hindus of Paris. It is amazing to see how these spineless
devils order one another about; amazing also to see how ineffectual they are in
all that concerns practical affairs. And
the jealousy and the intrigues, the petty, sordid rivalries. Wherever there are ten Hindus together there
is India with her sects and schisms, her racial, lingual, religious, political
antagonisms. In the person of Gandhi
they are experiencing for a brief moment the miracle of unity, but when he goes
there will be a crash, an utter relapse into the strife and chaos so
characteristic of the Indian people.
The young Hindu, of course, is
optimistic. He has been to America and
he has been contaminated by the cheap idealism of the Americans, contaminated
by the ubiquitous bathtub, the five-and-ten-cent store bric-a-brac, the bustle,
the efficiency, the machinery, the high wages, the free libraries, etc.,
etc. His ideal would be to Americanize
India. He is not at all pleased with
Gandhi's retrogressive mania. Forward,
he says, just like a YMCA man. As I
listen to his tales of America I see how absurd it is to expect of Gandhi that
miracle which will deroute the trend of destiny. India's enemy is not England, but
America. India's enemy is the time
spirit, the hand which cannot be turned back.
Nothing will avail to offset this virus which is poisoning the whole
world. America is the very incarnation
of doom. She will drag the whole world
down to the bottomless pit.
He thinks the Americans are a very
gullible people. He tells me about the
credulous souls who succoured him there - the Quakers, the Unitarians, the
Theosophists, the New Thoughters, the Seventh-day Adventists, etc. He knew where to sail his boat, this bright
young man. He knew how to make the tears
come to his eyes at the right moment; he knew how to take up a collection, how
to appeal to the minister's wife, how to make love to the mother and daughter
at the same time. To look at him you
would think him a saint. And he is a
saint, in the modern fashion; a contaminated saint who talks in one breath of
love, brotherhood, bathtubs, sanitation, efficiency, etc.
The last night of his sojourn in Paris is
given up to "the fucking business."
He has had a full program all day - conferences, cablegrams, interviews,
photographs for the newspapers, affectionate farewells, advice to the faithful,
etc., etc. At dinner time he decides to
lay aside his troubles. He orders
champagne with the meal, he snaps his fingers at the 'garcon' and behaves in
general like the boorish little peasant that he is. And since he has had a bellyful of all the
good places he suggests now that I show him something more primitive. He would like to go to a very cheap place, order
two or three girls at once. I steer him
along the Boulevard de la Chapelle, warning him all the while to be careful of
his pocketbook. Around Aubervilliers we
duck into a cheap dive and immediately we've got a flock of them on our
hands. In a few minutes he's dancing
with a naked wench, a huge blonde with creases in her jowls. I can see her ass reflected a dozen times in
the mirrors that line the room - ad those dark, bony fingers of his clutching
her tenaciously. The table is full of
beer glasses, the mechanical piano is wheezing and gasping. The girls who are unoccupied are sitting
placidly on the leather benches, scratching themselves peacefully just like a
family of chimpanzees. There is a sort
of subdued pandemonium in the air, a note of repressed violence, as if the
awaited explosion required the advent of some utterly minute detail, something
microscopic but thoroughly unpremeditated, completely unexpected. In that sort of half-reverie which permits
one to participate in an event and yet remain quite aloof, the little detail which
was lacking began obscurely but insistently to coagulate, to assume a freakish,
crystalline form, like the frost which gathers on the windowpane. And like those frost patterns which seem so
bizarre, so utterly free and fantastic in design, but which are nevertheless
determined by the most rigid laws, so this sensation which commenced to take
form inside me seemed also to be giving obedience to ineluctable laws. My whole being was responding to the dictates
of an ambience which it had never before experienced; that which I could call
myself seemed to be contracting, condensing, shrinking from the stale,
customary boundaries of the flesh whose perimeter knew only the modulation of
the nerve ends.
And the more substantial, the more solid
the core of me became, the more delicate and extravagant appeared the close,
palpable reality out of which I was being squeezed. In the measure that I became more and more
metallic, in the same measure the scene before my eyes became inflated. The state of tension was so finely drawn now
that the introduction of a single foreign particle, even a microscopic
particle, as I say, would have shattered everything. For the fraction of a second, perhaps, I
experienced that utter clarity which the epileptic, it is said, is given to
know. In that moment I lost completely
the illusion of time and space: the world unfurled its drama simultaneously
along a meridian which had no axis. In
this sort of hair-trigger eternity I felt that everything was justified,
supremely justified; I felt the wars inside me that had left behind this pulp
and wrack; I felt the crimes that were seething here to emerge tomorrow in
blatant screamers; I felt the misery that was grinding itself out with pestle
and mortar, the long dull misery that dribbles away in dirty handkerchiefs. On the meridian of time there is no
injustice: there is only the poetry of motion creating the illusion of truth
and drama. If at any moment anywhere one
comes face to face with the absolute, that great sympathy which makes men like
Gautama and Jesus seem divine freezes away; the monstrous thing is not that men
have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other,
they should want roses. For some
reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade
through blood. He will debauch himself
with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his
life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured - disgrace,
humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui - in the belief that overnight
something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable. And all the while a meter is running inside
and there is no hand that can reach in there and shut it off. All the while someone is eating the bread of
life and drinking the wine, some dirty fat cockroach of a priest who hides away
in the cellar guzzling it, while up above in the light of the street a phantom
host touches the lips and the blood is pale as water. And out of the endless torment and misery no
miracle comes forth, no microscopic vestige of relief. Only ideas, pale, attenuated ideas which have
to be fattened by slaughter; ideas which come forth like bile, like the guts of
a pig when the carcass is ripped open.
And so I think what a miracle it would be
if this miracle which man attends eternally should turn out to be nothing more
than these two enormous turds which the faithful disciple dropped in the bidet. What if at the last moment, when the banquet
table is set and the cymbals clash, there should appear suddenly, and wholly
without warning, a silver platter on which even the blind could see that there
is nothing more, and nothing less, than two enormous lumps of shit. That, I believe, would be more miraculous
than anything which man has looked forward to.
It would be miraculous because it would be undreamed of. It would be more miraculous than even the
wildest dream because 'anybody' could imagine the possibility but nobody ever
has, and probably nobody ever again will.
Somehow the realization that nothing was
to be hoped for had a salutary effect upon me.
For weeks and months, for years, in fact, all my life I had been looking
forward to something happening, some intrinsic event that would alter my life,
and now suddenly, inspired by the absolute hopelessness of everything, I felt
relieved, felt as though a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders. At dawn I parted company with the young
Hindu, after touching him for a few francs, enough for a room. Walking toward Montparnasse I decided to let
myself drift with the tide, to make not the least resistance to fate, no matter
in what form it presented itself.
Nothing that had happened to me thus far had been sufficient to destroy
me; nothing had been destroyed except my illusions. I myself was intact. The world was intact. Tomorrow there might be a revolution, a
plague, an earthquake; tomorrow there might not be left a single soul to whom
one could turn for sympathy, for aid, for faith. It seemed to me that the great calamity had
already manifested itself, that I could be no more truly alone than at this
very moment. I made up my mind that I
would hold on to nothing, that I would expect nothing, that henceforth I would
live as an animal, a beast of prey, a rover, a plunderer. Even if war were declared, and it were my lot
to go, I would grab the bayonet and plunge it, plunge it up to the hilt. And if rape were the order of the day then
rape I would, and with a vengeance. At
this very moment, in the quiet dawn of a new day, was not the earth giddy with
crime and distress? Had one single
element of man's nature been altered, vitally, fundamentally altered, by the
incessant march of history? By what he
calls the better part of his nature, man has been betrayed, that is all. At the extreme limits of his spiritual being
man finds himself again naked as a savage.
When he finds God, as it were, he has been picked clean: he is a
skeleton. One must burrow into life
again in order to put on flesh. The word
must become flesh; the soul thirsts. On
whatever crumb my eye fastens, I will pounce and devour. If to live is the paramount thing, then I
will live, even if I must become a cannibal.
Heretofore I have been trying to save my precious hide, trying to
preserve the few pieces of meat that hid my bones. I am done with that. I have reached the limits of endurance. My back is to the wall; I can retreat no
further. As far as history goes I am
dead. If there is something beyond I
shall have to bounce back. I have found
God, but He is insufficient. I am only
spiritually dead. Physically I am
alive. Morally I am free. The world which I have departed is a
menagerie. The dawn is breaking on a new
world, a jungle world in which the lean spirits roam with sharp claws. If I am a hyena I am a lean and hungry one: I
go forth to fatten myself.
AT
one-thirty I called on Van Norden, as per agreement. He had warned me that if he didn't answer it
would mean that he was sleeping with someone, probably his Georgia cunt.
Anyway, there he was, tucked away
comfortably, but with an air of weariness as usual. He wakes up cursing himself, or cursing the
job, or cursing life. He wakes up
utterly bored and discomfited, chagrined to think that he did not die
overnight.
I sit down by the window and give him what
encouragement I can. It is tedious
work. One has to actually coax him out
of bed. Mornings - he means by mornings
anywhere between one and five p.m. - mornings, as I say, he gives himself up to
reveries. Mostly it is about the past he
dreams. About his
"cunts". He endeavours to
recall how they felt, what they said to him at certain critical moments, where
he laid them, and so on. As he lies
there, grinning and cursing, he manipulates his fingers in that curious, bored
way of his, as though to convey the impression that his disgust is too great
for words. Over the bedstead hangs a
douche bag which he keeps for emergencies - for the virgins whom he
tracks down like a sleuth. Even after he
has slept with one of these mythical creatures he will still refer to her as a
virgin, and almost never by name.
"My virgin" he will say, just as he says "my Georgia
cunt." When he goes to the toilet
he says: "If my Georgia cunt calls tell her to wait. Say I said so. And listen, you can have her if you like. I'm tired of her."
He takes a squint at the weather and
heaves a deep sigh. If it's rainy he
says: "God damn this fucking climate, it makes one morbid." And if the sun is shining brightly he says:
"God damn this fucking sun, it makes you blind!" As he starts to shave he suddenly remembers
that there is no clean towel. "God
damn this fucking hotel, they're too stingy to give you a clean towel every
day!" No matter what he does or
where he goes things are out of joint.
Either it's the fucking country or the fucking job, or else it's some
fucking cunt who's put him on the blink.
"My teeth are all rotten," he
says, gargling his throat. "It's
the fucking bread they give you to eat here." He opens his mouth wide and pulls his lower
lip down. "See that? Pulled out six
teeth yesterday. Soon I'll have to get
another plate. That's what you get
working for a living. When I was on the
bum I had all my teeth, my eyes were bright and clear. Look at me now! It's a wonder I can make a cunt anymore. Jesus. what I'd like is to find some rich
cunt - like that cute little prick, Carl.
Did he ever show you the letters she sends him? Who is she, do you know? He wouldn't tell me her name, the bastard ...
he's afraid I might take her away from him." He gargles his throat again and then takes a
long look at the cavities. "You're
lucky," he says ruefully.
"You've got friends, at least.
I haven't anybody, except that cute little prick who drives me bats
about his rich cunt."
"Listen," he says, "do you
happen to know a cunt by the name of Norma?
She hangs around the Dôme all day.
I think she's queer. I had her up
here yesterday, tickling her ass. She
wouldn't let me do a thing. I had her on
the bed.... I even had her drawers off ... and then I got disgusted. Jesus, I can't bother struggling that way
anymore. It isn't worth it. Either they do or they don't - it's foolish
to waste time wrestling with them. While
you're struggling with a little bitch like that there may be a dozen cunts on
the terrasse just dying to be laid.
It's a fact. They all come over
here to get laid. They think it's sinful
here ... the poor boobs! Some of
these schoolteachers from out West, they're honestly virgins ... I mean
it! They sit around on their can all day
thinking about it. You don't have to
work over them very much. They're dying
for it. I had a married woman the other
day who told me she hadn't had a lay for six months. Can you imagine that? Jesus, she was hot! I thought she'd tear the cock off me. And groaning all the time. "Do you? Do you?" She kept saying that all the time, like she
was nuts. And do you know what that
bitch wanted to do? She wanted to move
in here. Imagine that! Asking me if I loved her. I didn't even know her name. I never know their names ... I don't want
to. The married ones! Christ, if you saw all the married cunts I
bring up here you'd never have any more illusions. They're worse than the virgins, the married
ones. They don't wait for you to start
things - they fish it out for you themselves.
And then they talk about love afterwards. It's disgusting. I tell you, I'm actually beginning to hate
cunt!"
He looks out the window again. It's drizzling. It's been drizzling this way for the last
five days.
"Are we going to the Dôme,
Joe?" I call him Joe because he
calls me Joe. When Carl is with us he is
Joe too. Everybody is Joe because it's
easier that way. It's also a pleasant
reminder not to take yourself too seriously.
Anyway, Joe doesn't want to go to the Dôme - he owes too much money
there. He wants to go to the
Coupole. Wants to take a little walk
first around the block.
"But it's raining, Joe."
"I know, but what the hell! I've got to have my constitutional. I've got to wash the dirt out of my
belly." When he says this I have
the impression that the whole world is wrapped up there inside his belly, and
that it's rotting there.
As he putting on his things he falls back
again into a semicomatose state. He
stands there with one arm in his coat sleeve and his hat on assways and he
begins to dream aloud - about the Riviera, about the sun, about lazing one's
life away. "All I ask of
life," he says, "is a bunch of books, a bunch of dreams, and a bunch
of cunt." As he mumbles this
meditatively he looks at me with the softest, the most insidious smile. "Do you like that smile?" he
says. And then disgustedly -
"Jesus, if I could only find some rich cunt to smile at that way!"
"Only a rich cunt can save me
now," he says with an air of utmost weariness. "One gets tired of chasing after new
cunts all the time. It gets
mechanical. The trouble is, you see, I
can't fall in love. I'm too much of an
egoist. Women only help me to dream,
that's all. It's a vice, like drink or
opium. I've got to have a new one every
day; if I don't I get morbid. I think
too much. Sometimes I'm amazed at
myself, how quick I pull it off - and how little it really means. I do it automatically like. Sometimes I'm not thinking about a woman at
all, but suddenly I notice a woman looking at me and then, bango! it starts all
over again. Before I know what I'm doing
I've got her up to the room. I don't
even remember what I say to them. I
bring them up to the room, give them a pat on the ass, and before I know what
it's all about it's over. It's like a
dream.... Do you know what I mean?"
He hasn't much use for the French
girls. Can't stand them. "Either they want money or they want you
to marry them. At bottom they're all
whores. I'd rather wrestle with a
virgin," he says. "They give
you a little illusion. They put up a
fight at least." Just the same, as
we glance over the terrasse there is hardly a whore in sight whom he
hasn't fucked at some time or other.
Standing at the bar he points them out to me, one by one, goes over them
anatomically, describes their good points and their bad. "They're all frigid," he says. And then begins to mould his hands, thinking
of the nice, juicy virgins who are just dying for it.
In the midst of his reveries he suddenly
arrests himself, and grabbing my arm excitedly, he points to a whale of a woman
who is just lowering herself into a seat.
"There's my Danish cunt," he grunts. "See that ass? Danish. How that woman loves it! She just begs me for it. Come over here ... look at her now, from the
side. Look at that ass, will you? It's enormous. I tell you, when she climbs over me I can
hardly get my arms around it. It blots
out the whole world. She makes me feel
like a little bug crawling inside her. I
don't know why I fall for her - I suppose it's that ass. It's so incongruous like. And the creases in it! You can't forget an ass like that. It's a fact ... a solid fact. The others, they may bore you, or they may
give you a moment's illusion, but this one - with her ass! - zowie, you can't
obliterate her ... it's like going to bed with a monument on top of you."
The Danish cunt seems to have electrified
him. He's lost all his sluggishness
now. His eyes are popping out of his
head. And of course one thing reminds
him of another. He wants to get out of
the fucking hotel because the noise bothers him. He wants to write a book too so as to have
something to occupy his mind. But then
the goddamned job stands in the way.
"It takes it out of you, that fucking job! I don't want to write about Montparnasse....
I want to write my life, my thoughts. I
want to get the dirt out of my belly.... Listen, get that one over there! I had her a long time ago. She used to be down near Les Halles. A funny bitch. She lay on the edge of the bed and pulled her
dress up. Ever try it that way? Not bad.
She didn't hurry me either. She
just lay back and played with her hat while I slugged away at her. And when I come she says sort of bored like -
'Are you through?' Like it didn't make
any difference at all. Of course, it
doesn't make any difference, I know that goddamned well ... but the cold-
blooded way she had ... I sort of liked it ... it was fascinating, you
know? When she goes to wipe herself she
begins to sing. Going out of the hotel
she was still singing. Didn't even say Au
revoir! Walks off swinging her hat
and humming to herself like. That's a
whore for you! A good lay though. I think I liked her better than my
virgin. There's something depraved about
screwing a woman who doesn't give a fuck about it. It heats your blood...." And then, after a moment's meditation -
"Can you imagine what she's be like if she had any feelings?"
"Listen," he says, "I want
you to come to the Club with me tomorrow afternoon ... there's a dance
on."
"I can't tomorrow, Joe. I promised the help Carl out...."
"Listen, forget that prick! I want you to do me a favour. It's like this" - he commences to mould
his hands again. "I’ve got a cunt
lined up ... she promised to stay with me on my night off. But I'm not positive about her yet. She's got a mother, you see ... some shit of
a painter, she chews my ear off every time I see her. I think the truth is, the mother's jealous. I don't think she'd mind so much if I gave
her a lay first. You know how it is....
Anyway, I thought maybe you wouldn't mind taking the mother ... she's not so
bad ... if I hadn't seen the daughter I might have considered her myself. The daughter's nice and young, fresh like,
you know what I mean? There's a clean
smell to her...."
"Listen, Joe, you'd better find
somebody else...."
"Aw, don't take it like that! I know how you feel about it. It's only a little favour I'm asking you to
do for me. I don't know how to get rid
of the old hen. I thought first I'd get
drunk and ditch her - but I don't think the young one'd like that. They're sentimental like. They come from Minnesota or somewhere. Anyway, come around tomorrow and wake me up,
will you? Otherwise I'll oversleep. And besides, I want you to help me find a
room. You know I'm helpless. Find me a room in a quiet street, somewhere
near here. I've got to stay around here
... I've got credit here. Listen, promise
me you'll do that for me. I'll buy you a
meal now and then. Come around anyway,
because I go nuts talking to these foolish cunts. I want to talk to you about Havelock
Ellis. Jesus, I've had the book out for
three weeks now and I haven't looked at it.
You sort of rot here. Would you
believe it, I've never been to the Louvre - nor the Comèdie-Francaise. Is it worth going to those joints? Still, it sort of takes your mind off things,
I suppose. What do you do with yourself
all day? Don't you get bored? What do you do for a lay? Listen ... come here! Don't run away yet ... I'm lonely. Do you know something - if this keeps up
another year I'll go nuts. I've got to
get out of this fucking country. There's
nothing for me here. I know it's lousy now,
in America, but just the same.... You go queer over here ... all those cheap
shits sitting on their ass all day bragging about their work and none of them
is worth a stinking damn. They're all
failures - that's why they come over here.
Listen, Joe, don't you ever get homesick? You're a funny guy ... you seem to like it
over here. What do you see in it? ... I
wish you'd tell me. I wish to Christ I
could stop thinking about myself. I'm
all twisted up inside ... it's like a knot in there.... Listen, I know I'm
boring the shit out of you, but I've got to talk to someone. I can't talk to those guys upstairs ... you
know what those bastards are like ... they all take a byline. And Carl, the little prick, he's so goddamned
selfish. I'm an egotist, but I'm not
selfish. There's a difference. I'm a neurotic, I guess. I can't stop thinking about myself. It isn't that I think myself so important....
I simply can't think about anything else, that's all. If I could fall in love with a woman, that
might help some. But I can't find a
woman who interests me. I'm in a mess,
you can see that can't you? What do you
advise me to do? What would you do in my
place? Listen, I don't want to hold you
back any longer, but wake me up tomorrow - at one-thirty - will you? I'll give you something extra if you'll shine
my shoes. And listen, if you've got an
extra shirt, a clean one, bring it along, will you? Shit, I'm grinding my balls off on that job,
and it doesn't even give me a clean shirt.
They've got us over here like a bunch of niggers. Ah, well, shit! I'm going to take a walk ... wash the dirt
out of my belly. Don't forget, tomorrow!"
For six months or more it's been going
on, this correspondence with the rich cunt, Irene. Recently I've been reporting to Carl every
day in order to bring the affair to a head, because as far as Irene is
concerned this thing could go on indefinitely.
In the last few days there's been a perfect avalanche of letters
exchanged; the last letter we dispatched was almost forty pages long, and
written in three languages. It was a
potpourri, the last letter - tag ends of old novels, slices from the Sunday
supplement, reconstructed versions of old letters to Llona and Tania, garbled
transliterations of Rabelais and Petronius - in short, we exhausted
ourselves. Finally Irene decides to come
out of her shell. Finally a letter
arrives giving a rendezvous at her hotel.
Carl is pissing in his pants.
It's one thing to write letters to a woman you don't know; it's another
thing entirely to call on her and make love to her. At the last moment he's quaking so that I
almost fear I'll have to substitute for him.
When we get out of the taxi in front of her hotel he's trembling so much
that I have to walk him around the block first.
He's already had two Pernods, but they haven't made the slightest
impression on him. The sight of the
hotel itself is enough to crush him: it's a pretentious place with one of those
huge empty lobbies in which Englishwomen sit for hours with a blank look. In order to make sure that he wouldn't run
away I stood by while the porter telephoned to announce him. Irene was there, and she was waiting for
him. As he got into the lift he threw me
a last despairing glance, one of those mute appeals which a dog makes when you
put a noose around its neck. Going
through the revolving door I thought of Van Norden....
I go back to the hotel and wait for a
telephone call. He's only got an hour's
time and he's promised to let me know the results before going to work. I look over the carbons of the letters we sent
her. I try to imagine the situation as
it actually is, but it's beyond me. Her
letters are much better than ours - they're sincere, that's plain. By now they've sized each other up. I wonder if he's still pissing in his pants.
The telephone rings. His voice sounds queer, squeaky, as though he
were frightened and jubilant at the same time.
He asks me to substitute for him at the office. "Tell the bastard anything! Tell him I'm dying...."
"Listen, Carl ... can you tell me
...?"
"Hello! Are you Henry Miller?" It's a woman's voice. It's Irene.
She's saying hello to me. Her
voice sounds beautiful over the phone ... beautiful. For a moment I'm in a perfect panic. I don't know what to say to her. I'd like to say: "Listen, Irene, I think
you are beautiful ... I think you're wonderful!" I'd like to say one true thing to her, no
matter how silly it would sound, because now that I hear her voice everything
is changed. But before I can gather my
wits Carl is on the phone again and he's saying in that queer squeaky voice:
"She likes you, Joe. I told her all
about you...."
At the office I have to hold copy for Van
Norden. When it comes time for the break
he pulls me aside. He looks glum and
ravaged.
"So he's dying, is he, the little
prick? Listen, what's the lowdown on
this?"
"I think he went to see his rich
cunt," I answer calmly.
"What! You mean he called on her?" He seems beside himself. "Listen, where does she live? What's her name?" I pretend ignorance. "Listen," he says, "you're a
decent guy. Why the hell don't you let
me in on this racket?"
In order to appease him I promise finally
that I'll tell him everything as soon as I get the details from Carl. I can hardly wait myself until I see Carl.
Around noon next day I knock at his
door. He's up already and lathering his
beard. Can't tell a thing from the
expression on his face. Can't even tell
whether he's going to tell me the truth.
The sun is streaming in through the open window, the birds are chirping,
and yet somehow, why it is I don't know, the room seems more barren and
poverty-stricken than ever. The floor is
slathered with lather, and on the rack there are the two dirty towels which are
never changed. And somehow Carl isn't
changed either, and that puzzles me more than anything. This morning the whole world ought to be
changed, for bad or good, but changed, radically changed. And yet Carl is standing there lathering his
face and not a single detail is altered.
"Sit down ... sit down there on the
bed," he says. "You're going
to hear everything ... but wait first ... wait a little." He commences to lather his face again, and
then to hone his razor. He even remarks
about the water ... no hot water again.
"Listen, Carl, I'm on
tenterhooks. You can torture me
afterwards, if you like, but tell me now, tell me one thing ... was it good or
bad?"
He turns away from the mirror with brush
in hand and gives me a strange smile.
"Wait! I'm going to tell you
everything...."
"That means it was a failure."
"No," he says, drawing out his
words. "It wasn't a failure, and it wasn't a success either.... By the
way, did you fix it up for me at the office?
What did you tell them?"
I see it's no use trying to pull it out
of him. When he gets good and ready
he'll tell me. Not before. I lie back on the bed, silent as a clam. He goes on shaving.
Suddenly, apropos of nothing at all, he
begins to talk - disconnectedly at first, and then more and more clearly,
emphatically, resolutely. It's a
struggle to get it out, but he seems determined to relate everything; he acts
as if he were getting something off his conscience. He even reminds me of the look he gave me as
he was going up the elevator shaft. He
dwells on that lingeringly, as though to imply that everything were contained
in the last moment, as though, if he had the power to alter things, he would
never have put foot outside the elevator.
She was in her dressing sack when he
called. There was a bucket of champagne
on the dresser. The room was rather dark
and her voice was lovely. He gives me
all the details about the room, the champagne, how the garçon opened it,
the noise it made, the way her dressing sack rustled when she came forward to
greet him - he tells me everything but what I want to hear.
It was about eight when he called on
her. At eight-thirty he was nervous,
thinking about the job. "It was
about nine when I called you, wasn't it?" he says.
"Yes, about that."
"I was nervous, see."
"I know that. Go on...."
I don't know whether to believe him or
not, especially after those letters we concocted. I don't even know whether I've heard him
accurately, because what he's telling me sounds utterly fantastic. And yet it sounds true too, knowing the sort
of guy he is. And then I remember his
voice over the telephone, that strange mixture of fright and jubilation. But why isn't he more jubilant now? He keeps smiling all the time, smiling like a
rosy little bedbug that has had it fill.
"It was nine o'clock," he says once again, "when I called
you up, wasn't it?" I nod my head
wearily. Yes, it was nine o'clock. He is certain now that it was nine o'clock
because he remembers having taken out his watch. Anyway, when he looked at his watch again it
was ten o'clock. At ten o'clock she was
lying on the divan with her boobies in her hands. That's the way he gives it to me - in
driblets. At eleven o'clock it was all
settled; they were going to run away, to Borneo. Fuck the husband! She never loved him anyway. She would never have written the first letter
if the husband wasn't old and passionless.
"And then she says to me: 'But listen, dear, how do you know you
won't get tired of me?'"
At this I burst out laughing. This sounds preposterous to me, I can't help
it.
"And you said?"
"What did you expect me to say? I said: 'How could anyone ever grow tired of you?'"
And then he describes to me what happened
after that, how he bent down and kissed her breasts, and how, after he had
kissed them fervidly, he stuffed them back into her corsage, or whatever it is
they call these things. And after that
another coupe of champagne.
Around midnight the garçon arrives
with beer and sandwiches - caviar sandwiches.
And all the while, so he says, he has been dying to take a leak. He had one hard on, but it faded out. All the while his bladder is fit to burst,
but he imagines, the cute little prick that he is, that the situation calls for
delicacy.
At one-thirty she's for hiring a carriage
and driving through the Bois. He has
only one thought in his head - how to take a leak? "I love you ... I adore you," he
says. "I'll go anywhere you say - Istanbul,
Singapore, Honolulu. Only I must go
now.... It's getting late."
He tells me all this in his dirty little
room, with the sun pouring in and the birds chirping away like mad. I don't yet know whether she was beautiful or
not. He doesn't know himself, the
imbecile. He rather thinks she
wasn't. The room was dark and then there
was the champagne and his nerves all frazzled.
"But you ought to know something
about her - if this isn't all a goddamned lie!"
"Wait a minute," he says. "Wait ... let me think! No, she wasn't beautiful. I'm sure of that now. She had a streak of gray hair over her
forehead ... I remember that. But that
wouldn't be so bad - I had almost forgotten it, you see. No, it was her arms - they were thin ... they
were thin and brittle." He begins
to pace back and forth. - Suddenly he stops dead. "If she were only ten years
younger!" he exclaims. "If she
were ten years younger I might overlook the streak of gray hair ... and even
the brittle arms. But she's too
old. You see, with a cunt like that
every year counts now. She won't be just
one year older next year - she'll be ten years older. Another year hence and she'll be twenty years
older. And I'll be getting younger
looking all the time - at least for another five years...."
"But how did it end?" I
interrupt.
"That's just it ... it didn't
end. I promised to see her Tuesday
around five o'clock. That's bad, you
know! There were lines in her face which
will look much worse in daylight. I
suppose she wants me to fuck her Tuesday.
Fucking in the daytime - you don't do it with a cunt like that. Especially in a hotel like that. I'd rather do it on my night off ... but
Tuesday's not my night off. And that's
not all. I promised her a letter in the
meantime. How am I going to write her a
letter now? I haven't anything to
say.... Shit! If only she were ten years
younger. Do you think I should go with
her ... to Borneo or wherever it is she wants to take me? What would I do with a rich cunt like that on
my hands? I don't know how to
shoot. I am afraid of guns and all that
sort of thing. Besides, she'll be
wanting me to fuck her night and day ... nothing but hunting and fucking all
the time ... I can't do it!"
"Maybe it won't be so bad as you
think. She’ll buy you ties and all sorts
of things...."
"Maybe you'll come along with us,
eh? I told her all about you...."
"Did you tell her I was poor? Did you tell her I needed things?"
"I told her everything. Shit, everything would be fine, if she were just
a few years younger. She said she was
turning forty. That means fifty or
sixty. It's like fucking your own mother
... you can't do it ... it's impossible."
"But she must have had some
attractiveness ... you were kissing her breasts, you said."
"Kissing her breasts - what's
that? Besides it was dark, I'm telling
you."
Putting on his pants a button falls
off. "Look at that will you. It's falling apart, the goddamned suit. I've worn it for seven years now.... I never
paid for it either. It was a good suit
once, but it stinks now. And that cunt
would buy me suits too, all I wanted most likely. But that's what I don't like, having a woman
shell out for me. I never did that in my
life. That's your idea. I'd rather live alone. Shit, this is a good room, isn't it? What's wrong with it? It's a damned sight better than her room,
isn't it? I don't like her fine hotel. I'm against hotels like that. I told her so. She said she didn't care where she lived ...
said she'd come and live with me if I wanted her to. Can you imagine her moving in here with her
big trunks and her hatboxes and all that crap she drags around with her? She has too many things - too many dresses and
bottles and all that. It's like a
clinic, her room. If she gets a little
scratch on her finger it's serious. And
then she has to be massaged and her hair has to be waved and she mustn't eat
this and she mustn't eat that. Listen,
Joe, she'd be all right if she were just a little younger. You can forgive a young cunt anything. A young cunt doesn't have to have any
brains. They're better without
brains. But an old cunt, even if she's
brilliant, even if she's the most charming woman in the world, nothing makes
any difference. A young cunt is an
investment; an old cunt is a dead loss.
All they can do for you is buy you things. But that doesn't put meat on their arms or
juice between their legs. She isn't bad,
Irene. In fact, I think you'd like
her. With you it's different. You don't have to fuck her. You can afford to like her. Maybe you wouldn't like all those dresses and
the bottles and what not, but you could be tolerant. She wouldn't bore you, that I can tell you. She's even interesting, I might say. But she's withered. Her breasts are all right yet - but her arms! I told her I'd bring you around some
day. I talked a lot about you.... I
didn't know what to say to her. Maybe
you'd like her, especially when she's dressed.
I don't know...."
"Listen, she's rich, you say? I'll like her! I don't care how old she is, so long as she's
not a hag...."
"She's not a hag! What are you talking about? She's charming, I tell you. She talks well. She looks well too ... only her
arms...."
"All right, if that's how it is, I'll
fuck her - if you don't want to. Tell
her that. Be subtle about it,
though. With a woman like that you've
got to do things slowly. You bring me
around and let things work out for themselves.
Praise the shit out of me. Act
jealous like.... Shit, maybe we'll fuck her together ... and we'll drive and
hunt and wear nice things. If she wants
to go to Borneo let her take us along. I
don't know how to shoot either, but that doesn't matter. She doesn't care about that either. She just wants to be fucked, that's all. You're talking about her arms all the
time. You don't have to look at her arms
all the time, do you? Look at this
bedspread! Look at the mirror! Do you call this living? Do you want to go on being delicate and live
like a louse all your life? You can't
even pay your hotel bill ... and you've got a job too. This is no way to live. I don't care if she's seventy years old -
it's better than this...."
"Listen, Joe, you fuck her for me
... then everything'll be fine. Maybe
I'll fuck her once in a while too ... on my night off. It's four days now since I've had a good
shit. There's something sticking to me,
like grapes...."
"You've got the piles, that's
what."
"My hair's falling out too ... and I
ought to see the dentist. I feel as
though I were falling apart. I told her
what a good guy you are.... You'll do things for me, eh? You're not too delicate, eh? If we go to Borneo I won't have hemorrhoids
anymore. Maybe I'll develop something
else ... something worse ... fever perhaps ... or cholera. Shit, it's better to die of a good disease
like that than to piss your life away on a newspaper with grapes up your ass
and buttons falling off your pants. I'd
like to be rich, even if it were only for a week, and then go to a hospital
with a good disease, a fatal one, and have flowers in the room and nurses
dancing around and telegrams coming.
They take good care of you if you're rich. They wash you with cotton batting and they
comb your hair for you. Shit, I know all
that. Maybe I'd be lucky and not die at
all. Maybe I'd be crippled all my life
... maybe I'd be paralysed and have to sit in a wheelchair. But then I'd be taken care of just the same
... even if I had no more money. If
you're an invalid - a real one - they don't let you starve. And you get a clean bed to lie in ... and
they change the towels every day. This
way nobody gives a fuck about you, especially if you have a job. They think a man should be happy if he's got
a job. What would you rather do - be
crippled all your life, or have a job ... or marry a rich cunt? You'd rather marry a rich cunt, I can see
that. You only think about food. But supposing you married her and then you
couldn't get a hard on anymore - that happens sometimes - what would you do
then? You'd be at her mercy. You'd have to eat out of her hand, like a
little poodle dog. You'd like that,
would you? Or maybe you don't think of
those things? I think of everything. I think of the suits I'd pick out and the
places I'd like to go to, but I also think of the other thing. That's the important thing. What good are the fancy ties and the fine
suits if you can't get a hard on anymore?
You couldn't even betray her - because she'd be on your heels all the
time. No, the best thing would be to
marry her and then get a disease right away.
Only not syphilis. Cholera, let's
say, or yellow fever. So that if a
miracle did happen and your life was spared you'd be a cripple for the rest of
your days. Then you wouldn't have to
worry about fucking her anymore, and you wouldn't have to worry about the rent
either. She'd probably buy you a fine
wheelchair with rubber tires and all sorts of levers and what not. You might even be able to use your hands - I
mean enough to be able to write. Or you
could have a secretary, for that matter.
That's it - that's the best solution for a writer. What does a guy want with his arms and
legs? He doesn't need arms and legs to
write with. He needs security ... peace
... protection. All those heroes who
parade in wheelchairs - it's too bad they're not writers. If you could only be sure, when you go to
war, that you'd have only your legs blown off ... if you could be sure of that
I'd say let's have a war tomorrow. I
wouldn't give a fuck about the medals - they could keep the medals. All I'd want is a good wheelchair and three
meals a day. Then I'd give them
something to read, those pricks."
The following day, at one-thirty, I call
on Van Norden. It's his day off, or
rather his night off. He has left word
with Carl that I am to help him move today.
I find him in a state of unusual
depression. He hasn't slept a wink all
night, he tells me. There's something on
his mind, something that's eating him up.
It isn't long before I discover what it is; he's been waiting
impatiently for me to arrive in order to spill it.
"That guy," he begins, meaning
Carl, "that guy's an artist. He
described every detail minutely. He told
it to me with such accuracy that I know it's all a goddamned lie ... but I
can't dismiss it from my mind. You know
how my mind works!"
He interrupts himself to inquire if Carl
has told me the whole story. There isn't
the least suspicion in his mind that Carl may have told me one thing and him
another. He seems to think that the
story was invented expressly to torture him.
He doesn't seem to mind so much that it's a fabrication. It's the "images", as he says,
which Carl left in his mind, that get him.
The images are real, even if the whole story is false. And besides, the fact that there actually is
a rich cunt on the scene and that Carl actually paid her a visit, that's
undeniable. What actually happened is
secondary; he takes it for granted that Carl put the boots to her. But what drives him desperate is the thought
that while Carl has described to him might have been possible.
"It's just like that guy," he
says, "to tell me he put it to her six or seven times. I know that's a lot of shit and I don't mind
that so much, but when he tells me that she hired a carriage and drove him out
to the Bois and that they used the husband's fur coat for a blanket, that's too
much. I suppose he told you about the
chauffeur waiting respectfully ... and listen, did he tell you how the engine
purred all the time? Jesus, he built
that up wonderfully. It's just like him
to think of a detail like that ... it's one of those little details which makes
a thing psychologically real ... you can't get it out of your head
afterwards. And he tells it to me so
smoothly, so naturally.... I wonder, did he think it up in advance or did it
just pop out of his head like that, spontaneously? He's such a cute little liar you can't walk
away from him ... it's like he's writing you a letter, one of those flowerpots
that he makes overnight. I don't
understand how a guy can write such letters ... I don't get the mentality behind
it ... it's a form of masturbation ... what do you think?"
But before I have an opportunity to
venture an opinion, or even to laugh in his face, Van Norden goes on with his
monologue.
"Listen, I suppose he told you
everything ... did he tell you how he stood on the balcony in the moonlight and
kissed her? That sounds banal when you
repeat it, but the way that guy describes it ... I can just see the little
prick standing there with the woman in his arms and already he's writing
another letter to her, another flowerpot about the roof tops and all that crap
he steals from his French authors. That
guy never says a thing that's original, I found that out. You have to get a clue like ... find out whom
he's been reading lately ... and it's hard to do that because he's so damned
secretive. Listen, if I didn't know that
you went there with him, I wouldn't believe that the woman existed. A guy like that could write letters to himself. And yet he's lucky ... he's so damned tiny,
so frail, so romantic looking, that women fall for him now and then ... they
sort of adopt him ... they feel sorry for him, I guess. And some cunts like to receive flowerpots ...
it makes them feel important....But this woman's an intelligent woman, so he
says. You ought to know ... you've seen
her letters. What do you suppose a woman
like that saw in him? I can understand
her falling for the letters ... but how do you suppose she felt when she saw
him?
"But listen, all that's beside the
point. What I'm getting at is the way he
tells it to me. You know how he
embroiders things ... well, after that scene on the balcony - he gives me that
like an hors d'oeuvre you know - after that, so he says, they went inside and
he unbottoned her pyjamas. What are you
smiling for? Was he shitting me about
that?"
"No, no! You're giving it to me exactly as he told
me. Go ahead ..."
"After that" - here Van Norden
has to smile himself - "after that, mind you, he tells me how she sat in the
chair with her legs up ... not a stitch on ... and he's sitting on the floor
looking up at her, telling her how beautiful she looks ... did he tell you that
she looked like a Matisse? ... Wait a minute ... I'd like to remember exactly
what he said. He had some cute little
phrase there about an odalisque ... what the hell's an odalisque anyway? He said it in French, that's why it's hard to
remember the fucking thing ... but it sounded good. It sounded just like the sort of thing he
might say. And she probably thought it
was original with him ... I suppose she thinks he's a poet or something. But listen, all this is nothing ... I make
allowances for his imagination. It's what
happened after that that drives me crazy.
All night long I've been tossing about, playing with these images he
left in my mind. I can't get it out of
my head. It sounds so real to me that if
it didn't happen I could strangle the bastard.
A guy has no right to invent things like that. Or else he's diseased....
"What I'm getting at is that moment
when, he says, he got down on his knees and with those two skinny fingers of
his he spread her cunt open. You
remember that? He says she was sitting
there with her legs dangling over the arms of the chair and suddenly, he says,
he got an inspiration. This was after he
had given her a couple of lays already ... after he had made that little spiel
about Matisse. He gets down on his knees
- get this! - and with his two fingers ... just the tips of them, mind
you ... he opens the little petals ... squish-squish ... just like
that. A sticky little sound ... almost
inaudible. Squish-squish! Jesus, I've been hearing it all night
long! And then he says - as if that
weren't enough for me - then he tells me how he buried his head in her muff. And when he did that, so help me Christ, if
she didn't swing her legs around his neck and lock him there. That finished me! Imagine it!
Imagine a fine, sensitive woman like that swinging her legs around his
neck! There's something poisonous
about it. It's so fantastic that it
sounds convincing. If he had only told
me about the champagne and the ride in the Bois and even the scene on the
balcony I could have dismissed it. But
this thing is so incredible that it doesn't sound like a lie anymore. I can't believe that he ever read anything
like that anywhere, and I can't see what could have put the idea into his head
unless there was some truth in it. With
a little prick like that, you know, anything can happen. He may not have fucked her at all, but she
may have let him diddle her ... you never know with these rich cunts what they
might expect you to do...."
When he finally pulls himself out of bed
and starts to shave the afternoon is already well advanced. I've finally succeeded in switching his mind
to other things, to the moving principally.
The maid comes in to see if he's ready - he's supposed to have vacated
the room by noon. He's just in the act
of slipping into his trousers. I'm a
little surprised that he doesn't excuse himself, or turn away. Seeing him standing there nonchalantly
buttoning his fly as he gives her orders I begin to titter. "Don't mind her," he says, throwing
her a look of supreme contempt, "she's just a big sow. Give her a pinch in the ass, if you
like. She won't say anything." And then addressing her, in English, he says,
"Come here, you bitch, put your hand on this!" At this I can't restrain myself any longer. I burst out laughing, a fit of hysterical
laughter which infects the maid also, though she doesn't know what it's all
about. The maid commences to take down
the pictures and the photographs, mostly of himself, which line the walls.
"You," he says, jerking his thumb, "come here! Here's something to remember me by" -
ripping a photograph off the wall - "when I go you can wipe your ass with
it. See," he says, turning to me,
"she's a dumb bitch. She wouldn't
look any more intelligent if I said it in French." The maid stands there with her mouth open;
she is evidently convinced that he is cracked.
"Hey!" he yells at her as if she were hard of hearing. "Hey, you. Yes, you! Like this....!" and he takes the
photograph, his own photograph, and wipes his ass with it. "Comme ça! Savvy?
You've got to draw pictures for her," he says, thrusting his lower
lip forward in absolute disgust.
He watches her helplessly as she throws
his things into the big valises.
"Here, put these in too," he says, handing her a toothbrush
and a douche bag. Half of his belongings
are lying on the floor. The valises are
crammed full and there is nowhere to put the paintings and the books and the
bottles that are half empty. "Sit
down a minute," he says.
"We've got plenty of time.
We've got to think this thing out.
If you hadn't come around I'd never have gotten out of here. You see how helpless I am. Don't let me forget to take the bulbs out ...
they belong to me. That wastebasket
belongs to me too. They expect you to
live like pigs, these bastards."
The maid has gone downstairs to get some twine.... "Wait till you
see ... she'll charge me for the twine even if it's only three sous. They wouldn't sow a button on your pants here
without charging for it. The lousy,
dirty scroungers!" He takes a
bottle of Calvados from the mantelpiece and nods to me to grab the other. "No use carrying these to the new
place. Let's finish them off now. But don't give her a drink! That bastard, I wouldn't leave her a piece of
toilet paper. I'd like to ruin the joint
before I go. Listen ... piss on the floor,
if you like. I wish I could take a crap
in the bureau draw." He feels so
utterly disgusted with himself and everything else that he doesn't know what to
do by way of venting his feelings. He
walks over to the bed with the bottle in hand and, pulling back the covers, he
sprinkles Calvados over the mattress.
Not content with that, he digs his heel into the mattress. Unfortunately there's no mud on his
heels. Finally he takes the sheet and
cleans his shoes with it. "That'll
give them something to do," he mutters vengefully. Then, taking a good swig, he throws his head
back and gargles his throat, and after he's gargled it good and proper he spits
it out on the mirror. "There, you
cheap bastards! Wipe that off when I
go!" He walks back and forth
mumbling to himself. Seeing his torn
socks lying on the floor he picks them up and tears them to bits. The paintings enrage him too. He picks one up - a portrait of himself done
by some Lesbian he knew and he puts his foot through it. "That bitch! You know what she had the nerve to ask
me? She asked me to turn over my cunts
to her after I was through with them.
She never gave me a sou for writing her up. She thought I honestly admired her work. I wouldn't have gotten that painting out of
her if I hadn't promised to fix her up with that cunt from Minnesota. She was nuts about her ... used to follow us
around like a dog in heat ... we couldn't get rid of the bitch! She bothered the life out of me. I got so that I was almost afraid to being a
cunt up here for fear that she'd burst in on me. I used to creep up here like a burglar and
then lock the door behind me as soon as I got inside.... She and that Georgia
cunt - they drive me nuts. The one is
always in heat and the other is always hungry.
I hate fucking a woman who's hungry.
It's like you push a feed inside her and then you push it out
again....Jesus, that reminds me of something ... where did I put that blue
ointment? That's important. Did you ever have those things? It's worse than having a dose. And I don't know where I got them from
either. I've had so many women up here
in the last week or so I've lost track of them.
Funny too, because they all smelled so fresh. But you know how it is...."
The maid has piled his things up on the
sidewalk. The patron looks on
with a surly air. When everything has
been loaded into the taxi there is only room for one of us inside. As soon as we commence to roll, Van Norden
gets out a newspaper and starts bundling up his pots and pans; in the new place
all cooking is strictly forbidden. By
the time we reach our destination all his luggage has come undone; it wouldn't
be quite so embarrassing if the madam had not stuck her head out of the doorway
just as we rolled up. "My
God!" she exclaims, "what the devil is all this? What does it mean?" Van Norden is so intimidated that he can
think of nothing more to say than "C'est moi ... c'est moi,
madame!" And turning to me he
mumbles savagely: "That cluck! Did
you notice her face? She's going to make
it hard for me."
The hotel lies back of a dingy passage
and forms a rectangle very much on the order of a modern penitentiary. The bureau is large and gloomy,
despite the brilliant reflections from the tile walls. There are bird cages hanging in the windows
and little enamel signs everywhere begging the guests, in an obsolete language,
not to do this and not to forget that.
It is almost immaculately clean but absolutely poverty- stricken,
threadbare, woebegone. The upholstered
chairs are held together with wired things; they remind one unpleasantly of the
electric chair. The room he is going to
occupy is on the fifth floor. As we
climb the stairs Van Norden informs me that Maupassant once lived here. And in the same breath remarks that there is
a peculiar odour in the hall. On the
fifth floor a few windowpanes are missing; we stand a moment gazing at the
tenants across the court. It is getting
toward dinner time and people are straggling back to their rooms with that
weary, dejected air which comes from earning a living honestly. Most of the windows are wide open: the dingy
rooms have the appearance of so many yawning mouths. The occupants of the rooms are yawning too,
or else scratching themselves. They move
about listlessly and apparently without much purpose; they might just as well
be lunatics.
As we turn down the corridor toward room
57, a door suddenly opens in front of us and an old hag with matted hair and
the eyes of a maniac peers out. She
startles us so that we stand transfixed.
For a full minute the three of us stand there powerless to move or even
to make an intelligent gesture. Back of
the old hag I can see a kitchen table and on it lies a baby all undressed, a
puny little brat no bigger than a plucked chicken. Finally the old one picks up a slop pail by
her side and makes a move forward. We
stand aside to let her pass and as the door closes behind her the baby lets out
a piercing scream. It is room 56, and
between 56 and 57 is the toilet where the old hag is emptying her slops.
Even since we have mounted the stairs Van
Norden has kept silence. But his looks
are eloquent. When he opens the door of
57 I have for a fleeting moment the sensation of going mad. A huge mirror covered with green gauze and
tipped at an angle of 45 degrees hangs directly opposite the entrance over a
baby carriage which is filled with books.
Van Norden doesn't even crack a smile; instead he walks nonchalantly
over to the baby carriage and picking up a book begins to skim it through, much
as a man would enter the public library and go unthinkingly to the rack nearest
to hand. And perhaps this would not seem
so ludicrous to me if I had not espied at the same time a pair of handlebars
resting in the corner. They look so
absolutely peaceful and contented, as if they had been dozing there for year,
that suddenly it seems to me as if we had been standing in this room, in
exactly this position, for an incalculably long time, that it was a pose we had
struck in a dream from which we never emerged, a dream which the least gesture,
the wink of an eye even, will shatter.
But more remarkable still is the remembrance that suddenly floats up of
an actual dream which occurred only the other night, a dream in which I saw Van
Norden in just such a corner as is occupied now by the handlebars, only instead
of the handlebars there was a woman crouching with her legs drawn up. I see him standing over the woman with that
alert, eager look in his eye which comes when he wants something badly. The street in which this is going on is
blurred - only the angle made by the two walls is clear, and the cowering
figure of the woman. I can see him going
at her in that quick, animal way of his, reckless of what's going on about him,
determined only to have his way. And a
look in his eyes as though to say - "you can kill me afterwards, but just
let me get it in ... I've got to get it in!" And there he is, bent over her, their heads
knocking against the wall, he has such a tremendous erection that it's simply
impossible to get it in her. Suddenly,
with that disgusted air which he knows so well how to summon, he picks himself
up and adjusts his clothes. He is about
to walk away when suddenly he notices that his penis is lying on the sidewalk. It is about the size of a sawed-off
broomstick. He picks it up nonchalantly
and slings it under his arm. As he walks
off I notice two huge bulbs, like tulip bulbs, dangling from the end of the
broomstick, and I can hear him muttering to himself "flowerpots ...
flowerpots."
The garçon arrives panting and
sweating. Van Norden looks at him
uncomprehendingly. The madam now marches
in and, walking straight up to Van Norden, she takes the book out of his hands,
thrusts it into the baby carriage, and, without saying a word, wheels the baby
carriage into the hallway.
"This is a bughouse," says Van
Norden, smiling distressedly. It is such
a faint, indescribable smile that for a moment the dream feeling comes back and
it seems to me that we are standing at the end of a long corridor at the end of
which is a corrugated mirror. And down
this corridor, swinging his distress like a dingy lantern, Van Norden staggers,
staggers in and out as here and there a door opens and a hand yanks him, or a
hoof pushes him out. And the further off
he wanders the more lugubrious is his distress; he wears it like a lantern
which the cyclists hold between their teeth on a night when the pavement is wet
and slippery. In and out of the dingy
rooms he wanders, and when he sits down the chair collapses, when he opens his
valise there is only a toothbrush inside.
In every room there is a mirror before which he stands attentively and
chews his rage, and from the constant chewing, from the grumbling and mumbling
and the muttering and cursing his jaws have gotten unhinged and they sag badly
and, when he rubs his beard, pieces of his jaw crumble away and he's so
disgusted with himself that he stamps on his own jaw, grinds it to bits with
his big heels.
Meanwhile the luggage is being hauled
in. And things begin to look crazier
even than before - particularly when he attaches his exerciser to the bedstead
and begins his Sandow exercises. "I
like this place," he says, smiling at the garçon. He takes his coat and vest off. The garçon is watching him with a
puzzled air; he has a valise in one hand and the douche bag in the other. I'm standing apart in the antechamber holding
the mirror with the green gauze. Not a
single object seems to possess a practical use.
The antechamber itself seems useless, a sort of vestibule to a
barn. It is exactly the same sort of
sensation which I get when I enter the Comèdie-Francaise or the Palais-Royal
Theatre; it is a world of bric-a-brac, of trap doors, of arms and busts and
waxed floors, of candelabras and men in armour, of statues without eyes and
love letters lying in glass cases.
Something is going on, but it makes no sense; it's like finishing the
half-empty bottle of Calvados because there's no room in the valise.
Climbing up the stairs, as I said a
moment ago, he had mentioned the fact that Maupassant used to live here. The coincidence seems to have made an
impression upon him. He would like to
believe that it was in this very room that Maupassant gave birth to some of
those gruesome tales on which his reputation rests. "They lived like pigs, those poor bastards,"
he says. We are sitting at the round
table in a pair of comfortable old armchairs that have been trussed up with
thongs and braces; the bed is right beside us, so close indeed that we can put
our feet on it. The armoire
stands in a corner behind us, also conveniently within reach. Van Norden has emptied his dirty wash on the
table; we sit there with our feet buried in his dirty socks and shirts and
smoke contentedly. The sordidness of the
place seems to have worked a spell on him: he is content here. When I get up to switch on the light he
suggests that we play a game of cards before going out to eat. And so we sit there by the window, with the
dirty wash strewn over the floor and the Sandow exerciser hanging from the
chandelier, and we play a few rounds of two-handed pinochle. Van Norden has put away his pipe and packed a
wad of snuff on the underside of his lower lip.
Now and then he spits out of the window, big healthy gobs of brown juice
which resound with a smack on the pavement below. He seems content now.
"In America," he says,
"you wouldn't dream of living in a joint like this. Even when I was on the bum I slept in better
rooms than this. But here it seems
natural - it's like the books you read.
If I ever go back there I'll forget all about this life, just like you
forget a bad dream. I'll probably take
up the old life again just where I left off ... if I ever get back. Sometimes I lie in bed dreaming about the
past and it's so vivid to me that I have to shake myself in order to realize
where I am. Especially when I have a
woman beside me; a woman can set me off better than anything. That's all I want of them - to forget myself. Sometimes I get so lost in my reveries that I
can't remember the name of the cunt or where I picked her up. That's funny, eh? It's good to have a fresh, warm body beside
you when you wake up in the morning. It
gives you a clean feeling. You get
spiritual like ... until they start pulling that mushy crap about love et
cetera. Why do all those cunts talk
about love so much, can you tell me that?
A good lay isn't enough for them apparently ... they want your soul
too...."
Now this word soul, which pops up
frequently in Van Norden's soliloquies, used to have a droll effect upon me at
first. Whenever I heard the word soul
from his lips I would get hysterical; somehow it seemed like a false coin, more
particularly because it was usually accompanied by a gob of brown juice which
left a trickle down the corner of his mouth.
And as I never hesitated to laugh in his face it happened invariably
that when this little word bobbed up, Van Norden would pause just long enough
for me to burst into a cackle and then, as if nothing had happened, he would
resume his monologue, repeating the word more and more frequently and each time
with a more caressing emphasis. It was
the soul of him that women were trying to possess - that he made clear to
me. He has explained it over and over
again, but he comes back to it afresh each time like a paranoiac to his
obsession. In a sense Van Norden is mad,
of that I'm convinced. His one fear is
to be left alone, and this fear is so deep and so persistent that even when he
is on top of a woman, even when he has welded himself to her, he cannot escape
the prison which he has created for himself.
"I try all sorts of things," he explains to me. "I even count sometimes, or I begin to
think of a problem in philosophy, but it doesn't work. It's like I'm two people, and one of them is
watching me all the time. I get so
goddamned mad at myself that I could kill myself ... and, in a way, that's what
I do every time I have an orgasm. For
one second like I obliterate myself.
There's not even one me then ... there's nothing ... not even the
cunt. It's like receiving
communion. Honest, I mean that. For a few seconds afterwards I have a fine
spiritual glow ... and maybe it would continue that way indefinitely - how can
you tell? - if it weren't for the fact that there's a woman beside you and then
the douche bag and the water running ... all those little details that make you
desperately selfconscious, desperately lonely.
And for that one moment of freedom you have to listen to all that love
crap ... it drives me nuts sometimes ... I want to kick them out immediately
... I do now and then. But that doesn't
keep them away. They like it, in
fact. The less you notice them the more
they chase after you. There's something
perverse about women ... they're all masochists at heart."
"But what it is you want of a woman,
then?" I demand.
He begins to mould his hands; his lower
lip droops. He looks completely
frustrated. When eventually he succeeds
in stammering out a few broken phrases it's with the conviction that behind his
words lies an overwhelming futility.
"I want to be able to surrender myself to a woman," he blurts
out. "I want her to take me out of
myself. But to do that she's got to be
better than I am; she's got to have a mind, not just a cunt. She's got to make me believe that I need her,
that I can't live without her. Find me a
cunt like that, will you? If you could
do that I'd give you my job. I wouldn't
care then what happened to me: I wouldn't need a job or friends or books or
anything. If she could only make me
believe that there was something more important on earth than myself. Jesus, I hate myself! But I hate these bastardly cunts even more -
because they're none of them any good.
"You think I like myself," he
continues. "That shows how little
you know about me. I know I'm a great
guy.... I wouldn't have these problems if there weren't something to me. But what eats me up is that I can't express
myself. People think I'm a
cunt-chaser. That's how shallow they
are, these highbrows who sit on the terrasse all day chewing the
psychologic cud....That's not so bad, eh - psychologic cud? Write it down for me. I'll use it in my column next week....By the
way, did you ever read Stekel? Is he any
good? It looks like nothing but case
histories to me. I wish to Christ I
could get up enough nerve to visit an analyst ... a good one, I mean. I don't want to see these little shysters
with goatees and frock coats, like your friend Boris. How do you manage to tolerate those guys? Don't they bore you stiff? You talk to anybody, I notice. You don't give a goddamn. Maybe you're right. I wish I weren't so damned critical. But these dirty little Jews who hang around
the Dôme, Jesus, they give me the creeps.
They sound just like textbooks.
If I could talk to you every day maybe I could get things off my
chest. You're a good listener. I know you don't give a damn about me, but
you're patient. And you don't have any
theories to exploit. I suppose you put
it all down afterwards in that notebook of yours. Listen, I don't mind what you say about me,
but don't make me out to be a cunt-chaser - it's too simple. Some day I'll write a book about myself,
about my thoughts. I don't mean just a
piece of introspective analysis ... I mean that I'll lay myself down on the
operating table and I'll expose my whole guts ... every goddamned thing. Has anybody ever done that before? - What the
hell are you smiling at? Does it sound
naïf?
I'm smiling because whenever we touch on
the subject of this book which he is going to write some day, things assume an
incongruous aspect. He has only to say
"my book" and immediately the world shrinks to the private dimensions
of Van Norden and Co. The book must be
absolutely original, absolutely perfect.
That is why, among other things, it is impossible for him to get started
on it. As soon as he gets an idea he
begins to question it. He remembers that
Dostoevski used it, or Hamsun, or somebody else. "I'm not saying that I want to be better
than them, but I want to be different," he explains. And so, instead of tackling his book, he
reads one author after another in order to make absolutely certain that he is
not going to tread on their private property.
And the more he reads he more disdainful he becomes. None of them are satisfying; none of them
arrive at that degree of perfection which he has imposed on himself. And forgetting completely that he has not
written so much as a chapter he talks about them condescendingly, quite as
though there existed a shelf of books bearing his name, books which everyone is
familiar with and the titles of which it is therefore superfluous to
mention. Though he has never overtly
lied about this fact, nevertheless it is obvious that the people whom he
bottonholes in order to air his private philosophy, his criticism, and his
grievances, take it for granted that behind his loose remarks there stands a
solid body of work. Especially the young
and foolish virgins whom he lures to his room on the pretext of reading to them
his poems, or on the still better pretext of asking their advice. Without the least feeling of guilt or
selfconsciousness he will hand them a piece of soiled paper on which he has
scribbled a few lines - the basis of a new poems, as he puts it - and with
absolute seriousness demand of them an honest expression of opinion. As they usually have nothing to give by way
of comment, wholly bewildered as they are by the utter senselessness of the
lines, Van Norden seizes the occasion to expound to them his view of art, a
view, needless to say, which is spontaneously created to suit the event. So expert has he become in this role that the
transition from Ezra Pound's cantos to the bed is made as simply and naturally
as a modulation from one key to another; in fact, if it were not made there
would be a discord, which is what happens now and then when he makes a mistake
as regards those nitwits whom he refers to as "pushovers". Naturally, constituted as he is, it is with
reluctance that he refers to these fatal errors of judgement. But when he does bring himself to confess to
an error of this kind it is with absolute frankness; in fact, he seems to
derive a perverse pleasure in dwelling upon his inaptitude. There is one woman, for example, whom he has
been trying to make for almost ten years now - first in America, and finally
here in Paris. It is the only person of
the opposite sex with whom he has a cordial, friendly relationship. They seem not only to like each other, but to
understand each other. At first it
seemed to me that if he could really make this creature his problem might be
solved. All the elements for a
successful union were there - except the fundamental one. Bessie was almost as unusual in her way as
himself. She had as little concern about
giving herself to a man as she has about the dessert which follows a meal. Usually she singled out the object of her
choice and made the proposition herself.
She was not bad-looking, nor could one say that she was good-looking
either. She had a fine body, that was
the chief thing - and she liked it, as they say.
They were so chummy, these two, that
sometimes, in order to gratify her curiosity (and also in the vain hope of
inspiring her by his prowess), Van Norden would arrange to hide her in his
closet during one of his seances. After
it was over Bessie would emerge from her hiding place and they would discuss
the matter casually, that is to say, with an almost total indifference to
everything except "technique".
Technique was one of her favourite terms, at least in those discussions
which I was privileged to enjoy.
"What's wrong with my technique?" he would say. And Bessie would answer: "You're too
crude. If you ever expect to make me
you've got to become more subtle."
There was such a perfect understanding
between them, as I say, that often when I called for Van Norden at one-thirty,
I would find Bessie sitting on the bed, the covers thrown back and Van Norden
inviting her to stroke his penis ..."just a few silken strokes," he
would say, "so as I'll have the courage to get up." Or else he would urge her to blow on it or,
failing that, he would grab hold of himself and shake it like a dinner bell,
the two of them laughing fit to die.
"I'll never make this bitch," he would say. "She has no respect for me. That's what I get for taking her into my
confidence." And then abruptly he
might add: "What do you make of that blonde I showed you
yesterday?" Talking to Bessie, of
course. And Bessie would jeer at him,
telling him he had no taste. "Aw,
don't give me that line," he would say.
And then playfully, perhaps for the thousandth time, because by now it
had become a standing joke between them - "Listen, Bessie, what about a
quick lay? Just one little lay ...
no." And when this had passed off
in the usual manner he would add, in the same tone: "Well, what about him? Why don't you give him a lay?"
The whole point about Bessie was that she
couldn't, or just wouldn't, regard herself as a lay. She talked about passion, as if it were a
brand new word. She was passionate about
things, even a little thing like a lay.
She had to put her soul into it.
"I get passionate too
sometimes," Van Norden would say.
"Oh, you" says
Bessie. "You're just a worn-out
satyr. You don't know the meaning of
passion. When you get an erection you
think you're passionate."
"All right, maybe it's not passion
... but you can't get passionate without having an erection, that's true isn't
it?"
All this about Bessie, and the other
women whom he drags to his room day in and out, occupies my thoughts as we walk
to the restaurant. I have adjusted
myself so well to his monologues that without interrupting my own reveries I
make whatever comment is required automatically, the moment I hear his voice
die out. It is a duet, and like most
duets moreover in that one listens attentively only for the signal which
announces the advent of one's own voice.
As it is his night off, and as I have promised to keep him company, I
have already dulled myself to his queries.
I know that before the evening is over I shall be thoroughly exhausted;
if I am lucky, that is, if I can worm a few francs out of him on some pretext
or other, I will duck him the moment he goes to the toilet. But he knows my propensity for slipping away,
and, instead of being insulted, he simply provides against the possibility by
guarding his sous. If I ask him for
money to buy cigarettes he insists on going with me to purchase them. He will not be left alone, not for a
second. Even when he has succeeded in
grabbing off a woman, even then he is terrified to be left alone with her. If it were possible he would have me sit in
the room while he puts on the performance.
It would be like asking me to wait while he took a shave.
On his night off Van Norden generally
manages to have at least fifty francs in his pocket, a circumstance which does
not prevent him from making a touch whenever he encounters a prospect. "Hello," he says, "give me
twenty francs ... I need it." He
has a way of looking panic-stricken at the same time. And if he meets with a rebuff he becomes
insulting. "Well, you can buy a
drink at least." And when he gets
his drink he says more graciously - "Listen, give me five francs then ...
give me two francs...." We go from bar to bar looking for a little
excitement and always accumulating a few more francs.
At the Coupole we stumble into a drunk
from the newspaper. One of the upstairs
guy. There's just been an accident at
the office, he informs us. One of the
proofreaders fell down the elevator shaft.
Not expected to live.
At first Van Norden is shocked, deeply
shocked. But when he learns that it was
Peckover, the Englishman, he looks relieved.
"The poor bastard," he says, "he's better off dead than
alive. He just got his false teeth the
other day too...."
The allusion to the false teeth moves the
man upstairs to tears. He relates in a
slobbery way a little incident connected with the accident. He is upset about it, more upset about this
incident than about the catastrophe itself.
It seems that Peckover, when he hit the bottom of the shaft, regained
consciousness before anyone could reach him.
Despite the fact that his legs were broken and his ribs busted, he had
managed to rise to all fours and grope about for his false teeth. In the ambulance he was crying out in his
delirium for the teeth he had lost. The
incident was pathetic and ludicrous at the same time. The guy from upstairs hardly knew whether to
laugh or to weep as he related it. It
was a delicate moment because with a drunk like that, one false move and he'd
crash a bottle over your skull. He had
never been particularly friendly with Peckover - as a matter of fact, he had
scarcely ever set foot in the proofreading department: there was an invisible
wall like between the guys upstairs and the guys down below. But now, since he had felt the touch of death,
he wanted to display his comradeship. He
wanted to weep, if possible, to show that he was a regular guy. And Joe and I, who knew Peckover well and who
knew also that he wasn't worth a good goddamn, even a few tears, we felt
annoyed with this drunken sentimentality.
We wanted to tell him so too, but with a guy like that you can't afford
to be honest; you have to buy a wreath and go to the funeral and pretend that
you're miserable. And you have to
congratulate him too for the delicate obituary he's written. He'll be carrying his delicate little
obituary around with him for months, praising the shit out of himself for the
way he handled the situation. We felt
all that, Joe and I, without saying a word to each other. We just stood there are listened with a
murderous, silent contempt. And as soon
as we could break away we did so; we left him there at the bar blubbering to
himself over his Pernod.
Once out of his sight we began to laugh
hysterically. The false teeth! No matter what we said about the poor devil,
and we said some good things about him too, we always came back to the false
teeth. There are people in this world
who cut such a grotesque figure that even death renders them ridiculous. And the more horrible the death the more
ridiculous they seem. It's no use trying
to invest the end with a little dignity - you have to be a liar and a hypocrite
to discover anything tragic in their going.
And since we didn't have to put on a false front we could laugh about
the incident to our heart's content. We
laughed all night about it, and in between times we vented our scorn and
disgust for the guys upstairs, the fatheads who were trying to persuade
themselves, no doubt, that Peckover was a fine fellow and that his death was a
catastrophe. All sorts of funny
recollections came to our minds - the semicolons that he overlooked and for
which they bawled the piss out of him.
They made his life miserable with their fucking little semicolons and
the fractions which he always got wrong.
They were even going to fire him once because he came to work with a
boozy breath. They despised him because
he always looked so miserable and because he had eczema and dandruff. He was just a nobody, as far as they were
concerned, but, now that he was dead, they would all chip in lustily and buy
him a huge wreath and they'd put his name in big type in the obituary
column. Anything to throw a little
reflection on themselves; they'd make him out to be a big shit if they
could. But unfortunately, with Peckover,
there was little they could invent about him.
He was a zero, and even the fact that he was dead wouldn't add a cipher
to his name.
"There's only one good aspect to
it," says Joe. "You may get
his job. And if you have any luck, maybe
you'll fall down the elevator shaft and break your neck too. We'll buy you a nice wreath, I promise you
that."
Toward dawn we're sitting on the terrasse
of the Dôme. We've forgotten about poor
Peckover long ago. We've had a little
excitement at the Bal Negre and Joe's mind has slipped back to the eternal
preoccupation: cunt. It's at this hour,
when his night off is almost concluded, that his restlessness amounts to a
fever pitch. He thinks of the women he
passed up earlier in the evening and of the steady ones he might have had for
the asking, if it weren't that he was fed up with them. He is reminded inevitably of his Georgia cunt
- she's been hounding him lately, begging him to take her in, at least until
she can find herself a job. "I
don't mind giving her a feed once in a while," he says, "but I
couldn't take her on as a steady thing ... she'd ruin it for my other
cunts." What gripes him most about
her is that she doesn't put on any flesh.
"It's like taking a skeleton to bed with you," he says. "The other night I took her on - out of
pity - and what do you think the crazy bitch had done to herself? She had shaved it clean ... not a speck of
hair on it. Did you ever have a woman
who shaved her twat? It's repulsive,
ain't it? And it's funny, too. Sort of mad like. It doesn't look like a twat anymore: it's
like a dead clam or something." He
describes to me how, his curiosity aroused, he got out of bed and searched for
his flashlight. "I made her hold it
open and I trained the flashlight on it.
You should have seen me ... it was comical. I got so worked up about it that I forgot all
about her. I never in my life looked at
a cunt so seriously. You'd imagine I'd
never seen one before. And the more I
looked at it the less interesting it became.
It only goes to show you there's nothing to it after all, especially
when it's shaved. It's the hair that
makes it mysterious. That's why a statue
leaves you cold. Only once I saw a real
cunt on a statue - that was by Rodin.
You ought to see it some time ... she has her legs spread wide apart....
I don't think there was any head on it.
Just a cunt you might say. Jesus,
it looked ghastly. The thing is this -
they all look alike. When you look at
them with their clothes on you imagine all sorts of things: you give them an individuality
like, which they haven't got, of course.
There's just a crack there between the legs and you get all steamed up
about it - you don't even look at it half the time. You know it's there and all you think about
is getting your ramrod inside; it's as though your penis did the thinking for
you. It's an illusion! You get all burned up about nothing ... about
a crack with hair on it, or without hair.
It's so absolutely meaningless that it fascinated me to look at it. I must have studied it for ten minutes or
more. When you look at it that way, sort
of detached like, you get funny notions in your head. All that mystery about sex and then you
discover that it's nothing - just a blank.
Wouldn't it be funny if you found there ... nothing at all. It's disgusting. It almost drove me mad.... Listen, do you
know what I did afterwards? I gave her a
quick lay and then I turned my back on her.
Yeah, I picked up a book and I read.
You can get something out of a book, even a bad book ... but a cunt, it's
just sheer loss of time...."
It just so happened that as he was
concluding his speech a whore gave us the eye.
Without the slightest transition he says to me abruptly: "Would you
like to give her a tumble? It won't cost
much ... she'll take the two of us on."
And without waiting for a reply he staggers to his feet and goes over to
her. In a few minutes he comes
back. "It's all fixed," he
says. "Finish your beer. She's hungry.
There's nothing doing anymore at this hour ... she'll take the both of
us for fifteen francs. We'll go to my
room ... it's be cheaper."
On the way to the hotel the girl is
shivering so that we have to stop and buy her a coffee. She's a rather gentle sort of creature and
not at all bad to look at. She evidently
knows Van Norden, knows there's nothing to expect from him but the fifteen
francs. "You haven't got any
dough," he says, mumbling to me under his breath. As I haven't a centime in my pocket I don't
quite see the point of this, until he bursts out: "For Christ's sake,
remember that we're broke. Don't get
tenderhearted when we get upstairs.
She's going to ask you for a little extra - I know this cunt! I could get her for ten francs, if I wanted
to. There's no use spoiling
them...."
"Il est mechant, celui-la,"
she says to me, gathering the drift of his remarks in her dull way.
"Non, il n'est pas mechant, it
est très gentil."
She shakes her head laughingly. "Je le connais bien, ce type." And then she commences a hard-luck story,
about the hospital and the back rent and the baby in the country. But she doesn't overdo it. She knows that our ears are stopped; but the
misery is there inside her, like a stone, and there's no room for any other
thoughts. She isn't trying to make an
appeal to our sympathies - she's just shifting this big weight inside her from
one place to another. I rather like
her. I hope to Christ she hasn't got a
disease....
In the room she goes about her
preparations mechanically. "There
isn't a crust of bread about by any chance?" she inquires, as she squats
over the bidet. Van Norden laughs
at this. "Here, take a drink,"
he says, shoving a bottle at her. She
doesn't want anything to drink; her stomach's already on the bum, she
complains.
"That's just a line with her,"
says Van Norden. "Don't let her
work on your sympathies. Just the same,
I wish she'd talk about something else.
How the hell can you get up any passion when you've got a starving cunt
on your hands?"
Precisely! We haven't any passion either of us. And as for her, one might as well expect her
to produce a diamond necklace as to show a spark of passion. But there's the fifteen francs and something
has to be done about it. It's like a
state of war: the moment the condition is precipitated nobody thinks about
anything but peace, about getting it over with.
And yet nobody has the courage to lay down his arms, to say, "I'm
fed up with it ... I'm through."
No, there's fifteen francs somewhere, which nobody gives a damn about
anymore and which nobody is going to get in the end anyhow, but the fifteen
francs is like the primal cause of things and rather than listen to one's own
voice, rather than walk out on the primal cause, one surrenders to the
situation, one goes on butchering and butchering and the more cowardly one feels
the more heroically does he behave, until a day when the bottom drops out and
suddenly all the guns are silenced and the stretcher- bearers pick up the
maimed and bleeding heroes and pin medals on their chest. Then one has the rest of his life to think
about the fifteen francs. One hasn't any
eyes or arms or legs, but he has the consolation of dreaming for the rest of
his days about the fifteen francs which everybody has forgotten.
It's exactly like a state of war - I
can't get it out of my head. The way she
works over me, to blow a spark of passion into me, makes me think what a damned
poor soldier I'd be if I was ever silly enough to be trapped like this and
dragged to the front. I know for my part
that I'd surrender everything, honour included, in order to get out of the
mess. I haven't any stomach for it, and
that's all there is to it. But she's got
her mind set on the fifteen francs and if I don't want to fight about it she's
going to make me fight. But you can't
put fight into a man's guts if he hasn't any fight in him. There are some of us so cowardly that you
can't even make heroes of us, not even if you frighten us to death. We know too much, maybe. There are some of us who don't live in the
moment, who live a little ahead, or a little behind. My mind is on the peace treaty all the
time. I can't forget that it was the
fifteen francs which started all the trouble.
Fifteen francs! What does fifteen
francs mean to me, particularly since it's not my fifteen francs?
Van Norden seems to have a more normal
attitude about it. He doesn't care a rap
about the fifteen francs either now; it's the situation itself which intrigues
him. It seems to call for a show of mettle
- his manhood is involved. The fifteen
francs are lost, whether we succeed or not.
There's something more involved - not just manhood perhaps, but
will. It's like a man in the trenches
again: he doesn't know anymore why he should go on living, because if he
escapes now he'll only be caught later, but he goes on just the same, and even
though he has the soul of a cockroach and has admitted as much to himself, give
him a gun or a knife or even just his bare nails, and he'll go on slaughtering
and slaughtering, he'd slaughter a million men rather than stop and ask himself
why.
As I watch Van Norden tackle her, it
seems to me that I'm looking at a machine whose cogs have slipped. Left to themselves, they could go on this way
forever, grinding and slipping, without ever anything happening. Until a hand shuts the motor off. The sight of them coupled like a pair of
goats without the least spark of passion, grinding and grinding away for no
reason except the fifteen francs, washes away every bit of feeling I have
except the inhuman one of satisfying my curiosity. The girl is lying on the edge of the bed and
Van Norden is bent over her like a satyr with his two feet solidly planted on
the floor. I am sitting on a chair
behind him, watching their movements with a cool, scientific detachment; it
doesn't matter to me if it should last forever.
It's like watching one of those crazy machines which throw the newspaper
out, millions and billions and trillion of them with their meaningless
headlines. The machine seems more
sensible, crazy as it is, and more fascinating to watch, than the human beings
and the events which produced it. My
interest in Van Norden and the girl is nil; if I could sit like this and watch
every single performance going on at this moment all over the world my interest
would be even less than nil. I wouldn't
be able to differentiate between this phenomenon and the rain falling or a
volcano erupting. As long as that spark
of passion is missing there is no human significance in the performance. The machine is better to watch. And these two are like a machine which has
slipped its cogs. It needs the touch of
a human hand to set it right. It needs a
mechanic.
I get down on my knees behind Van Norden
and I examine the machine more attentively.
The girl throws her head on one side and gives me a despairing
look. "It's no use," she
says. "It's impossible." Upon which Van Norden sets to work with
renewed energy, just like an old billy goat.
He's such an obstinate cuss that he'll break his horns rather than give
up. And he's getting sore now because
I'm tickling him in the rump.
"For God's sake, Joe, give it
up! You'll kill the poor girl."
"Leave me alone," he
grunts. "I almost got it in that
time."
The posture and the determined way in
which he blurts this out suddenly bring to my mind, for the second time, the
remembrance of my dream. Only now it
seems as though that broomstick, which he had so nonchalantly slung under his
arm, as he walked away, is lost forever.
It is like the sequel to the dream - the same Van Norden, but minus the
primal cause. He's like a hero come back
from the war, a poor maimed bastard living out the reality of his dreams. Wherever he sits himself the chair collapses;
whatever door he enters the room is empty: whatever he puts in his mouth leaves
a bad taste. Everything is just the same
as it was before; the elements are unchanged, the dream is no different than
the reality. Only, between the time he
went to sleep and the time he woke up, his body was stolen. He's like a machine throwing out newspapers,
millions and billions of them every day, and the front page is loaded with
catastrophes, with riots, murders, explosions, collisions, but he doesn't feel
anything. If somebody doesn't turn the
switch off he'll never know what it means to die; you can't die if your own
proper body has been stolen. You can get
over a cunt and work away like a billy goat until eternity; you can go to the
trenches and be blown to bits; nothing will create that spark of passion is
there isn't the intervention of a human hand.
Somebody has to put his hand into the machine and let it be wrenched off
if the cogs are to mesh again. Somebody
has to do this without hope of reward, without concern over the fifteen francs;
somebody whose chest is so thin that a medal would make him hunchbacked. And somebody has to throw a feed into a
starving cunt without fear of pushing it out again. Otherwise this show'll go on forever. There's no way out of the mess....
After sucking the boss's ass for a whole
week - it's the thing to do here - I managed to land Peckover's job. He died all right, the poor devil, a few
hours after he hit the bottom of the shaft.
And just as I predicted, they gave him a fine funeral, with solemn mass,
huge wreaths, and everything. Tout
compris. And after the ceremonies
they regaled themselves, the upstairs guys, at a bistro. It was too bad Peckover couldn't have had
just a little snack - he would have appreciated it so much to sit with the men
upstairs and hear his own name mentioned so frequently.
I must say, right at the start, that I
haven't a thing to complain about. It's
like being in a lunatic asylum, with permission to masturbate for the rest of
your life. The world is brought right
under my nose and all that is requested of me is to punctuate the
calamities. There is nothing in which
these slick guys upstairs do not put their fingers: no joy, no misery passes
unnoticed. They live among the hard
facts of life, reality, as it is called.
It is the reality of a swamp and they are they frogs who have nothing
better to do than to croak. They more
they croak the more real life becomes.
Lawyer, priest, doctor, politician, newspaperman - these are the quacks
who have their fingers on the pulse of the world. A constant atmosphere of calamity. It's marvellous. It's as if the barometer never changed, as if
the flag were always at half-mast. One
can see now how the idea of heaven takes hold of men's consciousness, how it
gains ground even when all the props have been knocked from under it. There must be another world besides this swamp
in which everything is dumped pell-mell.
Its hard to imagine what it can be like, this heaven that men dream
about. A frog's heaven, no doubt. Miasma, scum, pond lilies, stagnant
water. Sit on a lily pad unmolested and
croak all day. Something like that, I
imagine.
They have a wonderful therapeutic effect
upon me, these catastrophes which I proofread.
Imagine a state of perfect immunity, a charmed existence, a life of
absolute security in the midst of poison bacilli. Nothing touches me, neither earthquakes nor
explosions nor riots nor famine nor collisions nor wars nor revolutions. I am inoculated against every disease, every
calamity, every sorrow and misery. It's
the culmination of a life of fortitude.
Seated at my little niche all the poisons which the world gives off each
day pass through my hands. Not even a
fingernail gets stained. I am absolutely
immune. I am even better off than a
laboratory attendant, because there are no bad odours here, just the smell of
lead burning. The world can blow up -
I'll be here just the same to put in a comma or a semicolon. I may even touch a little overtime, for with
an event like that there's bound to be a final extra. When the world blows up and the final edition
has gone to press the proofreaders will quietly gather up all commas,
semicolons, hyphens, asterisks, brackets, parentheses, periods, exclamation
marks, etc., and put them in a little box over the editorial chair. Comme ça, tout est règle....
None of my companions seem to understand why
I appear so contented. They grumble all
the time, they have ambitions, they want to show their pride and spleen. A good proof-reader has no ambitions, no
pride, no spleen. A good proof-reader is
a little like God Almighty, he's in the world but not of it. He's for Sundays only. Sunday is his night off. On Sundays he steps down from his pedestal
and shows his ass to the faithful. Once
a week he listens in on all the private grief and misery of the world; it's
enough to last him for the rest of the week.
The rest of the week he remains in the frozen winter marshes, an
absolute, an impeccable absolute, with only a vaccination mark to distinguish
him from the immense void.
The greatest calamity for a proof-reader
is the threat of losing his job. When we
get together in the break the question that sends a shiver down our spines is:
what'll you do if you lose your job? For
the man in the paddock, whose duty it is to sweep up manure, the supreme terror
is the possibility of a world without horses.
To tell him that it is disgusting to spend one's life shovelling up hot
turds is a piece of imbecility. A man
can get to love shit if his livelihood depends on it, if his happiness is
involved.
This life which, if I were still a man
with pride, honour, ambition and so forth, would seem like the bottom rung of
degradation, I welcome now, as an invalid welcomes death. It's a negative reality, just like death - a
sort of heaven without the pain and terror of dying. In this chthonian world the only thing of importance
is orthography and punctuation. It
doesn't matter what he nature of the calamity is, only whether it is spelled
right. Everything is on one level,
whether it be the latest fashion for evening gowns, a new battleship, a plague,
a high explosive, an astronomic discovery, a bank run, a railroad wreck, a bull
market, a hundred-to-one shot, an execution, a stick-up, an assassination, or
whatever. Nothing escapes the
proof-reader’s eye, but nothing penetrates his bullet-proof vest. To the Hindu Agha Mir, Madam Scheer (formerly
Miss Esteve) writes saying she is quite satisfied with his work. "I was married June 6th and I thank
you. We are very happy and I hope that
thanks to your power it will be so forever.
I am sending you by telegraph money order the sum of ... to reward
you...." The Hindu Agha Mir
foretells your future and reads all your thoughts in a precise and inexplicable
way. He will advise you, will help you
rid yourself of all your worries and troubles of all kinds, etc. Call or write 20 Avenue MacMahon, Paris.
He reads all your thoughts in a
marvellous way! I take it that means
without exception, from the most trivial thoughts to the most shameless. He must have a lot of time on his hands, this
Agha Mir. Or does he only concentrate on
the thoughts of those who send money by telegraph money order? In the same edition I notice a headline
announcing that "the universe is expanding so fast it may burst" and
underneath it is the photograph of a splitting headache. And then there is a spiel about the pearl,
signed Tecla. The oyster produces both,
he informs all and sundry. Both the
"wild" or Oriental pearl, and the "cultured" pearl. On the same day, at the Cathedral Trier, the
Germans are exhibiting the Coat of Christ; it's the first time it's been taken
out of the mothballs in forty-two years.
Nothing said about the pants and vest.
In Salzburg, also the same day, two mice were born in a man's stomach,
believe it or not. A famous movie
actress is shown with her legs crossed: she is taking a rest in Hyde Park, and
underneath a well-known painter remarks "I'll admit that Mrs. Coolidge has
such charm and personality that she would have been one of the 12 famous
Americans, even had her husband not been President." From an interview with Mr. Humhal, of Vienna,
I glean the following ... "Before I stop," said Mr Humhal, "I'd
like to say that faultless cut and fit does not suffice; the proof of good
tailoring is seen in the wearing. A suit
must bend to the body, yet keep its line when the wearer is walking or
sitting." And whenever there is an
explosion in a coalmine - a British coalmine - notice please that the
King and Queen always send their condolences promptly, by telegraph. And they always attend the important races,
though the other day, according to the copy, it was at the Derby, I believe,
"heavy rains began to fall, much to the surprise of the King and
Queen." More heart- rending,
however, is an item like this: "It is claimed in Italy that the
persecutions are not against the Church, but nevertheless they are conducted
against the most exquisite parts of the Church.
It is claimed that they are not against the Pope, but they are against
the very heart and eyes of the Pope."
I had to travel precisely all around the
world to find just such a comfortable, agreeable niche as this. It seems incredible almost. How could I have foreseen, in America, with
all those firecrackers they put up your ass to give you pep and courage, that
the ideal position for a man of my temperament was to look for orthographic
mistakes? Over there you think of
nothing but becoming President of the United States some day. Potentially every man is Presidential timber. Here it's different. Here every man is potentially a zero. If you become something or somebody it is an
accident, a miracle. The chances are a
thousand to one that you will never leave your native village. The chances are a thousand to one that you'll
have your legs shot off or your eyes blown out.
Unless the miracle happens and you find yourself a general or a read
admiral.
But it's just because the chances are all
against you, just because there is so little hope, that life is sweet over
here. Day by day. No yesterdays and no tomorrows. The barometer never changes, the flag is
always at half-mast. You wear a piece of
black crape on your arm, you have a little ribbon in your buttonhole, and, if
you are lucky enough to afford it, you buy yourself a pair of artificial
lightweight limbs, aluminium preferably.
Which does not prevent you from enjoying an aperitif or looking
at the animals in the zoo or flirting with the vultures who sail up and down
the boulevards always on the alert for fresh carrion. Time passes.
If you're a stranger and your papers are in order you can expose
yourself to infection without fear of being contaminated. It is better, if possible, to have a
proof-reader’s job. Comme ça, tout
s'arrange. That means, that if you
happen to be strolling home at three in the morning and you are intercepted by
the bicycle cops, you can snap your fingers at them. In the morning, when the market is in swing,
you can buy Belgian eggs, at fifty centimes apiece. A proof-reader doesn't get up usually until noon,
or a little after. It's well to choose a
hotel near a cinema, because if you have a tendency to oversleep the bells will
wake you up in time for the matinee. Or
if you can't find a hotel near a cinema, choose one near a cemetery, it comes
to the same thing. Above all, never
despair. Il ne faut jamais desesperer.
Which is what I try to din into Carl and
Van Norden every night. A world without
hope, but no despair. It's as though I
had been converted to a new religion, as though I were making an annual novena
every night to Our Lady of Solace. I
can't imagine what there would be to gain if I were made editor of the paper,
or even President of the United States.
I'm up a blind alley, and it's cosy and comfortable. With a piece of copy in my hand I listen to
the music around me, the hum and drone of voices, the tinkle of the linotype
machines, as if there were a thousand silver bracelets passing through a
wringer; now and then a rat scurries past our feet or a cockroach descends the
wall in front of us, moving nimbly and gingerly on his delicate legs. The events of the day are slid under your
nose, quietly, unostentatiously, with, now and then, a by-line to mark the
presence of a human hand, an ego, a touch of vanity. The procession passes serenely, like a
cortege entering the cemetery gates. The
paper under the copy desk is so thick that it almost feels like a carpet with a
soft nap. Under Van Norden's desk it is
stained with brown juice. Around eleven
o'clock the peanut vendor arrives, a half-wit of an Armenian who is also
content with his lot in life.
Now and then I get a cablegram from Mona
saying that she's arriving on the next boat.
"Letter following," it always says. It's been going on like this for nine months,
but I never see her name in the list of boat arrivals, nor does the garçon
ever bring me a letter on a silver platter.
I haven't any more expectations in that direction either. If she ever does arrive she can look for me
downstairs, just behind the lavatory.
She'll probably tell me right away that it's unsanitary. That's the first thing that strikes an
American woman about Europe - that it's unsanitary. Impossible for them to conceive of a paradise
without modern plumbing. If they find a
bedbug they want to write a letter immediately to the chamber of commerce. How am I ever going to explain to her that
I'm contented here? She'll say I've
become a degenerate. I know her line
from beginning to end. She'll want to
look for a studio with a garden attached - and a bathtub to be sure. She wants to be poor in a romantic way. I know her.
But I'm prepared for her this time.
There are days, nevertheless, when the
sun is out and I get off the beaten path and think about her hungrily. Now and then, despite my grim satisfaction, I
get to thinking about another way of life, get to wondering if it would make a
difference having a young, restless creature by my side. The trouble is I can hardly remember what she
looks like nor even how it feels to have my arms around her. Everything that belongs to the past seems to
have fallen into the sea; I have memories, but the images have lost their
vividness, they seem dead and desultory, like time-bitten mummies stuck in a
quagmire. If I try to recall my life in
New York I get a few splintered fragments, nightmarish and covered with
verdigris. It seems as if my own proper
existence had come to an end somewhere, just where exactly I can't make
out. I'm not an American anymore, nor a
New Yorker, and even less a European, or a Parisian. I haven't any allegiance, any
responsibilities, any hatreds, any worries, any prejudices, any passion. I'm neither for nor against. I'm a neutral.
When we walk home of a night, the three
of us, it often happens after the first spasms of disgust that we get to
talking about the condition of things with that enthusiasm which only those who
bear no active part in life can muster.
What seems strange to me sometimes, when I crawl into bed, is that all
this enthusiasm is engendered just to kill time, just to annihilate the
three-quarters of an hour which it requires to walk from the office to
Montparnasse. We might have the most
brilliant, the most feasible ideas for the amelioration of this or that, but
there is no vehicle to hitch them to.
And what is more strange is that the absence of any relationship between
ideas and living causes us no anguish, no discomfort. We have become so adjusted that, if tomorrow
we were ordered to walk on our hands, we would do so without the slightest
protest. Provided, of course, that the
paper came out as usual. And that we
touched our pay regularly. Otherwise
nothing matters. Nothing. We have become Orientalized. We have become coolies, white-collar coolies,
silenced by a handful of rice each day.
A special feature in American skulls, I was reading the other day, is
the presence of the epactal bone, or os Incae, in the occiput. The presence of this bone, so the savant went
on to say, is due to a persistence of the transverse occipital suture which is
usually closed in fetal life. Hence it
is a sign of arrested development and indicative of an inferior race. "The average cubical capacity of the
American skull," so he went on to say, "falls below that of the
white, and rises above that of the black race.
Taking both sexes, the Parisians of today have a cranial capacity of
1,448 cubic centimetres; the Negroes 1,344 centimetres; the American Indians
1,376." From all of which I deduce
nothing because I am an American and not an Indian. But it's cute to explain things that way, by
a bone, an os Incae, for example.
It doesn't disturb his theory at all to admit that single examples of
Indian skulls have yielded the extraordinary capacity of 1,920 cubic
centimetres, a cranial capacity not exceeded in any other race. What I note with satisfaction in that the
Parisians, of both sexes, seem to have a normal cranial capacity. The transverse occipital suture is evidently
not so persistent with them. They know
how to enjoy an aperitif and if they worry if the houses are
unpainted. There's nothing extraordinary
about their skulls, so far as cranial indices go. There must be some other explanation for the
art of living which they have brought to such a high degree of perfection.
At Monsieur Paul's, the bistro
across the way, there is a back room reserved for the newspapermen where we can
eat on credit. It is a pleasant little
room with sawdust on the floor and flies in season and out. When I say that it is reserved for the
newspapermen I don't mean to imply that we eat in privacy; on the contrary, it
means that we have the privilege of associating with the whores and pimps who
form the more substantial element of Monsieur Paul's clientele. The arrangement suits the guys upstairs to a
T, because they're always on the lookout for tail, and even those who have a
steady little French girl are not averse to making a switch now and then. The principal thing is not to get a dose; at
times it would seem as if an epidemic had swept the office, or perhaps it might
be explained by the fact that they all sleep with the same woman. Anyhow, it's gratifying to observe how
miserable they can look when they are obliged to sit beside a pimp who, despite
the little hardships of his profession, lives a life of luxury by comparison.
I'm thinking particularly now of one
tall, blonde fellow who delivers the Havas messages by bicycle. He is always a little late for his meal,
always perspiring profusely and his face covered with grime. He has a fine, awkward way of strolling in,
saluting everybody with two fingers and making a beeline for the sink which is
just between the toilet and the kitchen.
As he wipes his face he gives the edibles a quick inspection; if he sees
a nice steak lying on the slab he picks it up and sniffs it, or he will dip the
ladle into the big pot and try a mouthful of soup. He's like a fine bloodhound, his nose to the
ground all the time. The preliminaries
over, having made peepee and blown his nose vigorously, he walks nonchalantly
over to his wench and gives her a big, smacking kiss together with an
affectionate pat on the rump. Her, the
wench, I've never seen look anything but immaculate - even at three a.m., after
an evening's work. She looks exactly as
if she had just stepped out of a Turkish bath.
It's a pleasure to look at such healthy brutes, to see such repose, such
affection, such appetite as they display.
It's the evening meal I'm speaking of now, the little snack that she
takes before entering upon her duties.
In a little while she will be obliged to take leave of her big blonde
brute, to flop somewhere on the boulevard and sip her digestif. If the job is irksome or wearing or
exhaustive, she certainly doesn't show it.
When the big fellow arrives, hungry as a wolf, she puts her arms around
him and kisses him hungrily - his eyes, nose, cheeks, hair, the back of his
neck ... she'd kiss his ass if it could be done publicly. She's grateful to him, that's evident. She's no wage slave. All through the meal she laughs convulsively. You wouldn't think she had a care in the
world. And now and then, by way of
affection, she gives him a resounding slap in the face, such a whack as would
knock a proof-reader spinning.
They don't seem to be aware of anything
but themselves and the food that they pack away in shovelsful. Such perfect contentment, such harmony, such
mutual understanding, it drives Van Norden crazy to watch them. Especially when she slips her hand in the big
fellow's fly and caresses it, to which he generally responds by grabbing her
teat and squeezing it playfully.
There is another couple who arrive
usually about the same time and they behave just like two married people. They have their spats, they wash their linen
in public and after they've made things disagreeable for themselves and
everybody else, after threats and curses and reproaches and recriminations,
they make up for it by billing and cooing, just like a pair of
turtledoves. Lucienne, as he calls her,
is a heavy platinum blonde with a cruel, saturnine. She has a full underlip which she chews venomously
when her temper runs away with her. And
a cold, beady eye, a sort of faded china blue, which makes him sweat when she
fixes him with it. But she's a good
sort, Lucienne, despite the condor-like profile which she presents to us when
the squabbling begins. Her bag is always
full of dough, and if she deals it out cautiously, it is only because she
doesn't want to encourage him in his bad habits. He has a weak character; that is, if one
takes Lucienne's tirades seriously. He
will spend fifty francs of an evening while waiting for her to get
through. When the waitress comes to take
his order he has no appetite. "Ah,
you're not hungry again!" growls Lucienne.
"Humpf!" You were
waiting for me, I suppose, on the Faubourg Montmartre. You had a good time, I hope, while I slaved
for you. Speak, imbecile, where were
you?"
When she flares up like that, when she
gets enraged, he looks up at her timidly, and then, as if he had decided that
silence is the best course, he lets his head drop and he fiddles with his
napkin. But this little gesture, which
she knows so well and which of course is secretly pleasing to her because she
is convinced now that he is guilty, only increases Lucienne's anger. "Speak, imbecile!" she
shrieks. And with a squeaky, timid
little voice he explains to her woefully that while waiting for her he got so
hungry that he was obliged to stop off for a sandwich and a glass of beer. It was just enough to ruin his appetite - he
says it dolefully, though it's apparent that food just now is the least of his
worries. "But" - and he tries
to make his voice sound more convincing - "I was waiting for you all the
time," he blurts out.
"Liar!" she screams.
"Liar! Ah, fortunately, I too am a
liar ... a good liar. You make me
ill with your petty little lies. Why
don't you tell me a big lie?"
He hangs his head again and
absentmindedly he gathers a few crumbs and puts them to his mouth. Whereupon she slaps his hand. "Don't do that! You make me tired. You're such an imbecile. Liar!
Just you wait! I have more to
say. I am a liar too, but I am not an
imbecile."
In a little while, however, they are
sitting close together, their hands locked, and she is murmuring softly:
"Ah, my little rabbit, it is hard to leave you now. Come here, kiss me! What are you going to do this evening? Tell me the truth, my little one.... I am
sorry that I have such an ugly temper."
He kisses her timidly, just like a little bunny with long pink ears;
gives her a little peck on the lips as if he were nibbling a cabbage leaf. And at the same time his bring round eyes
fall caressingly on her purse which is lying open beside her on the bench. He is only waiting for the moment when he can
graciously give her the slip; he is itching to get away, to sit down in some
quiet café on the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre.
I know him, the innocent little devil,
with his round, frightened eyes of a rabbit.
And I know what a devil's street is the Faubourg Montmartre with its
brass plates and rubber goods, the lights twinkling all night and sex running
through the street like a sewer. To walk
from the Rue Lafayette to the boulevard is like running the gauntlet; they
attach themselves to you like barnacles, they eat into you like ants, they
coax, wheedle, cajole, implore, beseech; they try it out in German, English,
Spanish; they show you their torn hearts and their busted shoes, and long after
you've chopped the tentacles away, long after the fizz and sizzle has died out,
the fragrance of the lavabo clings to your nostrils - it is the odour of
the Pafum de Danse whose effectiveness is guaranteed only for a distance
of twenty centimetres. One could piss
away a whole lifetime in that little stretch between the boulevard and the Rue
Lafayette. Every bar is alive,
throbbing, the dice loaded; the cashiers are perched like vultures on their
high stools and the money they handle has a human stink to it. There is no equivalent in the Banque de
France for the blood money that passes currency here, the money that glistens
with human sweat, that passes like a forest fire from hand to hand and leaves
behind it a smoke and stench. A man who
can walk through the Faubourg Montmartre at night without panting or sweating,
without a prayer or a curse on his lips, a man like that has no balls, and if
he has, then he ought to be castrated.
Supposing the timid little rabbit does
spend fifty francs of an evening while waiting for his Lucienne? Supposing he does get hungry and buy a
sandwich and a glass of beer, or stop and chat with somebody else's trollop? You think it ought to weigh on him, oppress
him, bore him to death? You don't think
that a pimp is inhuman, I hope? A pimp
has a private grief and misery too, don't you forget. Perhaps he would like nothing better than to
stand on the corner every night with a pair of white dogs and watch them
piddle. Perhaps he would like it if,
when he opened the door, he would see her there reading the Paris-Soir,
her eyes already a little heavy with sleep.
Perhaps it isn't so wonderful, when he bends over his Lucienne, to taste
another man's breath. Better maybe to
have only three francs in your pocket and a pair of white dogs that piddle on
the corner than to taste those bruised lips.
Bet you, when she squeezes him tight, when she begs for that little
package of love which only he knows how to deliver, bet you he fights like a
thousand devils to pump it up, to wipe out that regiment that has marched
between her legs. Maybe when he takes
her body and practises a new tune, maybe it isn't all passion and curiosity
with him, but a fight in the dark, a fight single-handed against the army that
rushed the gates, the army that walked over her, trampled her, that left her
with such a devouring hunger that not even a Rudolph Valentino could
appease. When I listen to the reproaches
that are levelled against a girl like Lucienne, when I hear her being
denigrated or despised because she is cold and mercenary, because she is too
mechanical, or because she's in too great a hurry, or because this or because
that, I say to myself, hold on there bozo, not so fast! Remember that you're far back in the
procession; remember that a whole army corps has laid siege to her, that she's
been laid waste, plundered and pillaged.
I say to myself, listen, bozo, don't begrudge the fifty francs you hand
her because you know her pimp is pissing it away in the Faubourg
Montmartre. It's her money and her
pimp. It's blood money. It's money that'll never be taken out of
circulation because there's nothing in the Banque de France to redeem it.
That's how I think about it often when
I'm seated in my little niche juggling the Havas reports or untangling the
cables from Chicago, London and Montreal.
In between the rubber and silk markets and the Winnipeg grains there
oozes a little of the fizz and sizzle of the Faubourg Montmartre. When the bonds go weak and spongy and the
pivotals balk and the volatiles effervesce, when the grain market slips and
slides and the bulls commence to roar, when every fucking calamity, every ad,
every sport item and fashion article, every boat arrival, every travelogue,
every tag of gossip has been punctuated, checked, revised, pegged and wrung
through the silver bracelets, when I hear the front page being hammered into
whack and see the frogs dancing around like drunken squibs, I think of Lucienne
sailing down the boulevard with her wings outstretched, a huge silver condor
suspended over the sluggish tide of traffic, a strange bird from the tips of
the Andes with a rose-white belly and a tenacious little knob. Sometimes I walk home alone and I follow her
through the dark streets, follow her through the court of the Louvre, over the
Pont des Arts, through the arcade, through the fents and slits, the somnolence,
the drugged whiteness, the grill of the Luxembourg, the tangled boughs, and the
snores and groans, the green slats, the strum and tinkle, the points of the
stars, the spangles, the jetties, the blue and white striped awnings that she
brushed with the tips of her wings.
In the blue of an electric dawn the
peanut shells look wan and crumpled; along the beach at Montparnasse the water
lilies bend and break. When the tide is
on the ebb and only a few syphilitic mermaids are left stranded in the muck,
the Dôme looks like a shooting gallery that's been struck by a cyclone. Everything is slowly dribbling back to the
sewer. For about an hour there is a
deathlike calm during which the vomit is mopped up. Suddenly the trees begin to screech. From one end of the boulevard to the other a
demented song rises up. It is like the
signal that announces the close of the exchange. What hopes there were are swept up. The moment has come to void the last bagful
of urine. The day is sneaking in like a
leper....
One of the things to guard against when
you work nights is not to break your schedule; if you don't get to bed before
the birds begin to screech it's useless to go to bed at all. This morning, having nothing better to do, I
visited the Jardin des Plantes.
Marvellous pelicans here from Chapultepec and peacocks with studded fans
that look at you with silly eyes.
Suddenly it began to rain.
Returning to Montparnasse in the bus I
noticed a little French woman opposite me who sat stiff and erect as if she
were getting ready to preen herself. She
sat on the edge of the seat as if she feared to crush her gorgeous tail. Marvellous, I thought, if suddenly she shook
herself and from her derrière there sprung open a huge studded fan with
long silken plumes.
At the Café de l'Avenue, where I stop for
a bite, a woman with a swolen stomach tries to interest me in her
condition. She would like me to go to a
room with her and while away an hour or two.
It is the first time I have ever been propositioned by a pregnant woman:
I am almost tempted to try it. As soon
as the baby is born and handed over to the authorities she will go back to her
trade, she says. She makes hats. Observing that my interest is waning she
takes my hand and puts it on her abdomen.
I feel something stirring inside.
It takes my appetite away.
I have never seen a place like Paris for
varieties of sexual provender. As soon as
a woman loses a front tooth or an eye or a leg she goes on the loose. In America she'd starve to death if she had
nothing to recommend her but a mutilation.
Here it is different. A missing
tooth or a nose eaten away or a fallen womb, any misfortune that aggravates the
natural homeliness of the female, seems to be regarded as an added spice, a
stimulant for the jaded appetites of the male.
I am speaking naturally of that world
which is peculiar to the big cities, the world of men and women whose last drop
of juice has been squeezed out by the machine - the martyrs of modern
progress. It is this mass of bones and
collar buttons which the painter finds so difficult to put flesh on.
It is only later, in the afternoon, when
I find myself in an art gallery on the Rue de Seze, surrounded by the men and
women of Matisse, that I am drawn back again to the proper precincts of the
human world. On the threshold of that
big hall whose walls are no ablaze, I pause a moment to recover from the shock
which one experiences when the habitual gray of the world is rent asunder and
the colour of life splashes forth in song and poem. I find myself in a world so natural, so
complete, that I am lost. I have the
sensation of being immersed in the very plexus of life, focal from what place,
position or attitude I take my stance.
Lost as when once I sank into the quick of a budding grove and, seated
in the dining room of that enormous world of Balbec, I caught for the first
time the profound meaning of those interior stills which manifest their
presence through the exorcism of sight and touch. Standing on the threshold of that world which
Matisse has created I re-experienced the power of that revelation which had
permitted Proust to so deform the picture of life that only those who, like
himself, are sensible to the alchemy of sound and sense, are capable of
transforming the negative reality of life into the substantial and significant
outlines of art. Only those who can
admit the light into their gizzards can translate what is there in the
heart. Vividly now I recall how the
glint and sparkle of light caroming from the massive chandeliers splintered and
ran blood, flecking the tips of the waves that beat monotonously on the dull
gold outside the windows. On the beach,
masts and chimneys interlaced, and like a fuliginous shadow the figure of
Albertine gliding through the surf, fusing into the mysterious quick and prism
of a protoplasmic realm, uniting her shadow to the dream and harbinger of
death. With the close of day, pain
rising like a mist from the earth, sorrow closing in, shuttering the endless
vista of sea and sky. Two waxen hands
lying listlessly on the bedspread and along the pale veins the fluted murmur of
a shell repeating the legend of its birth.
In every poem by Matisse there is the
history of a particle of human flesh which refused the consummation of
death. The whole run of flesh, from hair
to nails, expresses the miracle of breathing, as if the inner eye, in its thirst
for a greater reality, had converted the pores of the flesh into hungry seeing
mouths. By whatever vision one passes
there is the odour and the sound of voyage.
It is impossible to gaze at even a corner of his dreams without feeling
the lift of the wave and the cool of flying spray. He stands at the helm peering with steady
blue eyes into the portfolio of time.
Into which distant corners has he not thrown his long, slanting
gaze? Looking down the vast promontory
of his nose he has beheld everything - the Cordilleras falling away into the Pacific,
the history of the Diaspora done in vellum, shutters fluting the froufrou of
the beach, the piano curving like a conch, corollas giving out diapasons of
light, chameleons squirming under the book press, seraglios expiring in oceans
of dust, music issuing like fire from the hidden chromosphere of pain, spore
and madrepore fructifying the earth, navels vomiting their bright spawn of
anguish.... He is a bright sage, a dancing seer who, with a sweep of the brush,
removes the ugly scaffold to which the body of man is chained by the
incontrovertible facts of life. He it
is, if any man today possesses the gift, who knows where to dissolve the human
figure, who has the courage to sacrifice an harmonious line in order to detect
the rhythm and murmur of the blood, who takes the light that has been refracted
inside him and lets it flood the keyboard of colour. Behind the minutiae, the chaos, the mockery
of life, he detects the invisible pattern; he announces his discoveries in the
metaphysical pigment of space. No
searching for formulae, no crucifixion of ideas, no compulsion other than to
create. Even as the world goes to smash
there is one man who remains at the core, who becomes more solidly fixed and
anchored, more centrifugal as the process of dissolution quickens.
More and more the world resembles an
entomologist's dream. The earth is
moving out of its orbit, the axis has shifted; from the north the snow blows
down in huge knife-blue drifts. A new
ice age is setting in, the transverse sutures are closing up and everywhere
throughout the corn belt the fetal world is dying, turning to dead
mastoid. Inch by inch the deltas are
drying out and the river beds are smooth as glass. A new day is dawning, a metallurgical day,
when the earth shall clink with showers of bright yellow ore. As the thermometer drops, the form of the
world grows blurred; osmosis there still is, and here and there articulation,
but at the periphery the veins are all varicose, at the periphery the
lightwaves bend and the sun bleeds like a broken rectum.
At
the very hub of this wheel which is falling apart, is Matisse. And he will keep on rolling until everything
that has gone to make up the wheel has disintegrated. He has already rolled over a goodly portion
of the globe, over Persia and India and China, and like a magnet he has
attached to himself microscopic particles from Kurd, Baluchistan, Timbuktu,
Somaliland, Angkor, Tierra del Fuego.
The odalisques he has studded with malachite and jasper, their flesh
veiled with a thousand eyes, perfumed eyes dipped in the sperm of whales. Wherever a breeze stirs there are breasts as
cool as jelly, white pigeons come to flutter and rut in the ice-blue veins of
the Himalayas.
The wallpaper with which the men of
science have covered the world of reality is falling to tatters. The grand whorehouse which they have made of
life requires no decoration; it is essential only that the drains function
adequately. Beauty, that feline beauty
which has us by the balls in America, is finished. To fathom the new reality it is first
necessary to dismantle the drains, to lay open the gangrened ducts which
compose the genito-urinary system that supplies the excreta of art. The odour of the day is permanganate and formaldehyde. The drains are clogged with strangled
embryos.
The world of Matisse is still beautiful
in an old- fashioned bedroom way. There
is not a ball bearing in evidence, nor a boiler plate, nor a piston, nor a
monkey wrench. It is the same old world
that went gaily to the Bois in the pastoral days of wine and fornication. I find it soothing and refreshing to move
amongst these creatures with live, breathing pores whose background is stable
and solid as light itself. I feel it
poignantly when I walk along the Boulevard de la Madeleine and the whores
rustle beside me, when just to glance at them causes me to tremble. Is it because they are exotic and
well-nourished? No, it is rare to find a
beautiful woman along the Boulevard de la Madeleine. But in Matisse, in the exploration of his brush,
there is the trembling glitter of a world which demands only the presence of
the female to crystallize the most fugitive aspirations. To come upon a woman offering herself outside
a urinal, where there are advertised cigarette papers, rum, acrobats, horse
races, where the heavy foliage of the trees breaks the heavy mass of walls and
roofs, is an experience that begins where the boundaries of the known world
leave off. In the evening now and then,
skirting the cemetery walls, I stumble upon the phantom odalisques of Matisse
fastened to the trees, their tangled manes drenched with sap. A few feet away, removed by incalculable eons
of time, lies the prone and mummy-swathed ghost of Baudelaire, of a whole world
that will belch no more. In the dusky
corners of cafés are men and women with hands locked, their loins
slather-flecked; nearby stands the garçon with his apron full of sous,
waiting patiently for the entr'acte in order to fall upon his wife and gouge
her. Even as the world falls apart the
Paris that belongs to Matisse shudders with bright, gasping orgasms, the air
itself is steady with a stagnant sperm, the trees tangled like hair. On its wobbly axle the wheel rolls steadily
downhill; there are no brakes, no ball bearings, no balloon tires. The wheel is falling apart, but the
revolution is intact....
OUT
of a clear sky there comes one day a letter from Boris whom I have not seen for
months and months. It is a strange
document and I don't pretend to understand it all clearly. "What happened between us - at any rate,
as far as I go - is that you touched me, touched my life, that is, at the one
point where I am still alive: my death.
By the emotional flow I went through another immersion. I lived again, alive. No longer by reminiscence, as I do with
others, but alive."
That's how it began. Not a word of greeting, no date, no
address. Written in a thin, pompous
scrawl on ruled paper torn out of a blank book.
"That is why, whether you like me or not - deep down I rather think
you hate me - you are very close to me.
By you I know how I died: I see myself dying again: I am
dying. That is something. More than to be dead simply. That may be the reason why I am so afraid to
see you: you may have played the trick on me, and died. Things happen so fast nowadays."
I'm reading it over, line by line,
standing by the stones. It sounds nutty
to me, all this palaver about life and death and things happening so fast. Nothing is happening that I can see, except
the usual calamities on the front page.
He's been living all by himself for the last six months, tucked away in
a cheap little room - probably holding telepathic communication with
Cronstadt. He talks about the line
falling back, the sector evacuated, and so on and so forth, as though he were
dug into a trench and writing a report to headquarters. He probably had his frock coat on when he sat
down to pen this missive, and he probably rubbed his hands a few times as he
used to do when a customer was calling to rent the apartment. "The reason I wanted you to commit
suicide ..." he begins again. At
that I burst out laughing. He used to
walk up and down with one hand stuck in the tail flap of his frock coat at the
Villa Borghese, or at Cronstadt's - wherever there was deck space, as it were -
and reel of this nonsense about living and dying to his heart's content. I never understood a word of it, I must
confess, but it was a good show and, being a Gentile, I was naturally
interested in what went on in that menagerie of a brainpan. Sometimes he would lie on his couch full
length, exhausted by the surge of ideas that swept through his noodle. His feet just grazed the bookrack where he
kept his Plato and Spinoza - he couldn't understand why I had no use for
them. I must say he made them sound
interesting, though what it was all about I hadn't the least idea. Sometimes I would glance at a volume
furtively, to check up on these wild ideas which he imputed to them - but the
connection was frail, tenuous. He had a
language all his own, Boris, that is, when I had him alone; but when I listened
to Cronstadt it seemed to me that Boris had plagiarized his wonderful
ideas. They talked a sort of higher
mathematics, these two. Nothing of flesh
and blood ever crept in; it was weird, ghostly, ghoulishly abstract. When they got on to the dying business it
sounded a little more concrete: after all, a cleaver or a meat axe has to have
a handle. I enjoyed those sessions
immensely. It was the first time in my
life that death had even seemed fascinating to me - all these abstract deaths
which involved a bloodless sort of agony.
Now and then they would compliment me on being alive, but in such a way
that I felt embarrassed. They made me
feel that I was alive in the nineteenth century, a sort of atavistic remnant, a
romantic shred, a soulful Pithecanthropus erectus. Boris especially seemed to get a great kick
out of touching me; he wanted me to be alive so that he could die to his
heart's content. You would think that
all those millions in the street were nothing but dead cows the way he looked
at me and touched me. But the letter ...
I'm forgetting the letter....
"The reason why I wanted you to
commit suicide that evening at the Cronstadts', when Moldorf became God, was
that I was very close to you then.
Perhaps closer than I shall ever be.
And I was afraid, terribly afraid, that some day you'd go back on me,
die on my hands. And I would be left
high and dry with my idea of you simply, and nothing to sustain it. I should never forgive you for that."
Perhaps you can visualize him saying a
thing like that! Myself it's not clear
what his idea of me was or, at any rate, it's clear that I was just pure idea,
an idea that kept itself alive without food.
He never attached much importance, Boris, to the food problem. He tried to nourish me with ideas. Everything was an idea. Just the same, when he had his heart set on
renting the apartment, he wouldn't forget to put a new washer in the
toilet. Anyway, he didn't want me to die
on his hands. "You must be life for
me to the very end," so he writes.
"That is the only way in which to sustain my idea of you. Because you have gotten, as you see, tied up
with something so vital to me, I do not think I shall ever shake you off. Nor do I wish to. I want you to live more vitally every day, as
I am dead. That is why, when I speak of
you to others, I am just a bit ashamed.
It's hard to talk of one's self so intimately."
You would imagine perhaps that he was
anxious to see me, or that he would like to know what I was doing - but no, not
a line about the concrete or the personal, except in this living- dying
language, nothing but this little message from the trenches, this whiff of
poison gas to apprise all and sundry that the war was still on. I sometimes ask myself how it happens that I
attract nothing but crackbrained individuals, neurasthenics, neurotics,
psychopaths - and Jews especially. There
must be something in a healthy Gentile that excites the Jewish mind, like when
he sees sour black bread. There was
Moldorf, for example, who had made himself God, according to Boris and
Cronstadt. He positively hated me, the
little viper - yet he couldn't stay away from me. He came round regularly for his little dose
of insults - it was like a tonic to him.
In the beginning, it's true, I was lenient with him; after all, he was
paying me to listen to him. And though I
never displayed much sympathy I knew how to be silent when it involved a meal
and a little pin money. After a while,
however, seeing what a masochist he was, I permitted myself to laugh in his
face now and then; that was like a whip for him, it made the grief and agony
gush forth with renewed vigour. And
perhaps everything would have gone smoothly between us if he had not felt it
his duty to protect Tania. But Tania
being a Jewess, that brought up a moral question. He wanted me to stick to Mlle. Claude for
whom, I must admit, I had a genuine affection.
He even gave me money occasionally to sleep with her. Until he realized that I was a hopeless lecher.
I mention Tania now because she's just
got back from Russia - just a few days ago.
Sylvester remained behind to worm his way into a job. He's given up literature entirely. He's dedicated himself to the new
Utopia. Tania wants me to go back there
with her, to the Crimea preferably, and start a new life. We had a fine drinking bout up in Carl's room
the other day discussing the possibilities - if I could be a proof-reader, for
example. She said I didn't need to worry
about what I would do - they would find a job for me so long as I was earnest
and sincere. I tried to look earnest,
but I only succeeded in looking pathetic.
They don't want to see sad faces in Russia; they want you to be
cheerful, enthusiastic, light-hearted, optimistic. It sounded very much like America to me. I wasn't born with this kind of
enthusiasm. I didn't let on to her, of
course, but secretly I was praying to be left alone, to go back to my little
niche, and to stay there until the war breaks.
All this hocus-pocus about Russia disturbed me a little. She got so excited about it, Tania, that we
finished almost a half dozen bottles of vin ordinaire. Carl was jumping about like a cockroach. He has just enough Jew in him to lose his
head over an idea like Russia. Nothing
would do but to marry us off - immediately.
"Hitch up," he says, "you have nothing to
lose!" And then he pretends to run
a little errand so that we can pull off a fast one. And while she wanted it all right, Tania,
still that Russia business had gotten so solidly planted in her skull that she
pissed the interval away chewing my ear off, which made me somewhat grumpy and
ill at ease. Anyway, we had to think
about eating and getting to the office, so we piled into a taxi on the
Boulevard Edgar-Quinet, just a stone's throw away from the cemetery, and off we
whizzed. It was just a nice hour to spin
through Paris in an open cab, and the wine rolling around in our tanks made it
seem even more lovely than usual. Carl
was sitting opposite us, on the strapontin, his face as red as a
beet. He was happy, the poor bastard,
thinking what a glorious new life he would lead on the other side of
Europe. And at the same time he felt a
bit wistful, too - I could see that. He
didn't really want to leave Paris, any more than I did. Paris hadn't been good to him, any more than
it had to me, or to anybody, for that matter, but when you've suffered and
endured things here it's then that Paris takes hold of you, grabs you by the
balls, you might say, like some lovesick bitch who'd rather die than let you
get out of her hands. That's how it
looked to him, I could see that. Rolling
over the Seine he had a big foolish grin on his face and he looked around at
the buildings and the statues as though he were seeing them in a dream. To me it was like a dream too: I had my hand
in Tania's bosom and I was squeezing her titties with all my might and I
noticed the water under the bridges and the barges and Notre-Dame down below,
just the postcards show it, and I was thinking drunkenly to myself that's how
one gets fucked, but I was sly about it too and I knew I wouldn't ever trade
all this whirling about my head for Russia or heaven or anything on earth. It was a fine afternoon, I was thinking to
myself, and soon we'd be pushing a feed down our bellies and what could we
order as a special treat, some good heavy wine that would drown out all this
Russia business. With a woman like
Tania, full of sap and everything, they don't give a damn what happens to you
once they get an idea in their heads.
Let them go far enough and they'll pull the pants off you, right in the
taxi. It was grand though, milling
through the traffic, our faces all smudged with rouge and the wine gurgling
like a sewer inside us, especially when we swung into the Rue Lafitte which is
just wide enough to frame the little temple at the end of the street and above
it the Sacré-Coeur, a kind of exotic jumble of architecture, a lucid French
idea that gouges right through your drunkenness and leaves you swimming
helplessly in the past, in a fluid dream that makes you wide awake and yet
doesn't jar your nerves.
With Tania back on the scene, a steady
job, the drunken talk about Russia, the walks home at night, and Paris in full
summer, life seems to lift its head a little higher. That's why, perhaps, a letter such as Boris
sent me seems absolutely cockeyed. Most
every day I meet Tania around five o'clock, to have a Porto with her, as she
calls it. I let her take me to places
I've never seen before, the swell bars around the Champs-Elysees where the
sound of jazz and baby voices crooning seems to soak right through the mahogany
woodwork. Even when you go to the lavabo
these pulpy, sappy strains pursue you, come floating into the cabinet through
the ventilators and make life all soap and iridescent bubbles. And whether it's because Sylvester is away
and she feels free now, or whatever it is, Tania certainly tries to behave like
an angel. "You treated me lousy
just before I went away," she says to me one day. "Why did you want to act that way? I never did anything to hurt you, did
it?" We were getting sentimental,
what with the soft lights and that creamy, mahogany music seeping through the place. I was getting near time to go to work and we
hadn't eaten yet. The stubs were lying
there in front of us - six francs, four-fifty, seven francs, two-fifty - I was
counting them up mechanically and wondering too at the same time if I would
like it better being a bartender. Often
like that, when she was talking to me, gushing about Russia, the future, love,
and all that crap, I'd get to thinking about the most irrelevant things, about
shining shoes or being a lavatory attendant, particularly I suppose because it
was so cosy in these joints that she dragged me to and it never occurred to me
that I'd be stone sober and perhaps old and bent ... no, I imagined always that
the future, however modest, would be in just this sort of ambiance, with the
same tunes playing through my head and the glasses clinking and behind every
shapely ass a trail of perfume a yard wide that would take the stink out of
life, even downstairs in the lavabo.
The strange thing is it never spoiled me
trotting around to the swell bars with her like that. It was hard to leave her, certainly. I used to lead her around to the porch of a
church near the office and standing there in the dark we'd take a last embrace,
she whispering to me "Jesus, what am I going to do now?" She wanted me to quit the job so as I could make
love night and day; she didn't even care about Russia anymore, just so long as
we were together. But the moment I left
her my head cleared. It was another kind
of music, not so croony but good just the same, which greeted my ears when I
pushed through the swinging door. And
another kind of perfume, not just a yard wide, but omnipresent, a sort of sweat
and patchouli that seemed to come from the machines. Coming in with a skinful, as I usually did,
it was like dropping suddenly to a low altitude. Generally I made a beeline for the toilet -
that braced me up rather. It was a
little cooler there, or else the sound of water running made it seem so. It was always a cold douche, the toilet. It was real.
Before you got inside you had to pass a line of Frenchmen peeling off
their clothes. Ugh! but they stand,
those devils! And they were well paid
for it, too. But there they were,
stripped down, some in long underwear, some with beards, most of them pale,
skinny rats with lead in their veins.
Inside the toilet you could take an inventory of their idle
thoughts. The walls were crowded with
sketches and epithets, all of them jocosely obscene, easy to understand, and on
the whole rather jolly and sympathetic.
It must have required a ladder to reach certain spots, but I suppose it
was worthwhile doing it even looking at it from just a psychological
viewpoint. Sometimes, as I stood there
taking a leak, I wondered what an impression it would make on those swell dames
whom I observed passing in and out of the beautiful lavatories on the
Champs-Elysées. I wondered if they would
carry their tails so high if they could see what was though of an ass
here. In their world, no doubt,
everything was gauze and velvet - or they made you think so with the fine
scents they gave out, swishing past you.
Some of them hadn't always been such fine ladies either; some of them
swished up and down like that just to advertise their trade. And maybe, when they were left alone with
themselves, when they talked out loud in the privacy of their boudoirs, maybe
some strange things fell out of their mouths too; because in that world, just
as in every world, the greater part of what happens is just muck and filth,
sordid as any garbage can, only they are lucky enough to be able to put covers
over the can.
As I say, that afternoon life with Tania
never had any bad effect upon me. Once
in a while I'd get too much of a skinful and I'd have to stick my finger down
my throat - because it's hard to read proof when you're not all there. It requires more concentration to detect a
missing comma than to epitomize Nietzsche's philosophy. You can be brilliant sometimes, when you're
drunk, but brilliance is out of place in the proofreading department. Dates, fractions, semicolons - these are the
things that count. And these are the
things that are most difficult to track down when your mind is all ablaze. Now and then I made some bad blunders, and if
it weren't that I had learned how to kiss the boss's ass, I would have been
fired, that's certain. I even got a
letter one day from the big mogul upstairs, a guy I never even met, so high up
he was, and between a few sarcastic phrases about my more than ordinary
intelligence, he hinted pretty plainly that I'd better learn my place and toe
the mark or there'd be what's what to pay.
Frankly, that scared the shit out of me.
After that I never used a polysyllabic word in conversation; in fact, I
hardly even opened my trap all night. I
played the high-grade moron, which is what they wanted of us. Now and then, to sort of flatter the boss,
I'd go up to him and ask politely what such and such a word might mean. He liked that. He was a sort of dictionary and timetable,
that guy. No matter how much beer he
guzzled during the break - and he made his own private breaks too, seeing as
how he was running the show - you could never trip him up on a date or a
definition. He was born to the job. My only regret was that I knew too much. It leaked out now and then, despite all the
precautions I took. If I happened to
come to work with a book under my arm this boss of ours would notice it, and if
it were a good book it made him venomous.
But I never did anything intentionally to displease him; I liked the job
too well to put a noose around my neck.
Just the same it's hard to talk to a man when you have nothing in common
with him; you betray yourself, even if you use only monosyllabic words. He knew goddamn well, the boss, that I didn't
take the least bit of interest in his yarns; and yet, explain it how you will,
it gave him pleasure to wean me away from my dreams and fill me full of dates
and historical events. It was his way of
taking revenge, I suppose.
The result was that I developed a bit of
a neurosis. As soon as I hit the air I
became extravagant. It wouldn't matter
what the subject of conversation happened to be, as we started back to
Montparnasse in the early morning, I'd soon turn the fire hose on it, squelch
it, in order to trot out my perverted dreams.
I liked best talking about those things which none of us knew anything
about. I had cultivated a mild sort of
insanity, echolalia, I think it's called.
All the tag ends of a night's proofing danced on the tip of my
tongue. Dalmatia - I had held
copy on an ad for that beautiful jewelled resort. All right, Dalmatia. You take a train and in the morning your
pores are perspiring and the grapes are bursting their skins. I could reel it off about Dalmatia from the
grand boulevard to Cardinal Mazarin's palace, further, if I chose to. I don't even know where it is on the map, and
I don't want to know ever, but at three in the morning with all that lead in
your veins and your clothes saturated with sweat and patchouli and the clink of
bracelets passing through the wringer and those beer yarns that I was braced
for, little things like geography, costume, speech, architecture don't mean a
goddamn thing. Dalmatia belongs to a
certain hour of the night when those high gongs are snuffed out and the court
of the Louvre seems so wonderfully ridiculous that you feel like weeping for no
reason at all, just because it's so beautifully silent, so empty, so totally
unlike the front page and the guys upstairs rolling the dice. With that little piece of Dalmatia resting on
my throbbing nerves like a cold knifeblade I could experience the most
wonderful sensations of voyage. And the
funny thing is again that I could travel all around the globe but America would
never enter my mind; it was even further lost than a lost continent, because
with the lost continents I felt nothing at all.
Now and then, it's true, I did think of Mona, not as of a person in a
definite aura of time and space, but separately, detached, as though she had
blown up into a great cloudlike form that blotted out the past. I couldn't allow myself to think about her
very long; if I had I would have jumped off the bridge. It's strange.
I had become so reconciled to this life without her, and yet if I though
about her only for a minute it was enough to pierce the bone and marrow of my
contentment and shove me back again into the agonizing gutter of my wretched
past.
For seven years I went about, day and
night, with only one thing on my mind - her. Were there a Christian so faithful to his God
as I was to her we would all be Jesus Christs today. Day and night I thought of her, even when I
was deceiving her. And now sometimes, in
the very midst of things, sometimes when I feel that I am absolutely free of it
all, suddenly, in rounding a corner perhaps, there will bob up a little square,
a few trees and a bench, a deserted spot where we stood and had it out, where
we drove each other crazy with bitter, jealous scenes. Always some deserted spot, like the Place de
l'Estrapade, for example, or those dingy, mournful streets off the Mosque or
along that open tomb of an Avenue de Breteuil which at ten o'clock in the
evening is so silent, so dead, that it makes one think of murder or suicide,
anything that might create a vestige of human drama. When I realize that she is gone, perhaps gone
forever, a great void opens up and I feel that I am falling, falling, falling
into deep, black space. And this is
worse than tears, deeper than regret or pain or sorrow; it is the abyss into
which Satan was plunged. There is no
climbing back, no ray of light, no sound of human voice or human touch of hand.
How many thousand times, in walking
through the streets at night, have I wondered if the day would ever come again
when she would be at my side: all those yearning looks I bestowed on the
buildings and statues, I had looked at them so hungrily, so desperately, that
by now my thoughts must have become a part of the very buildings and statues,
they must be saturated with my anguish.
I could not help but reflect also that when we had walked side by side
through these mournful, dingy streets now so saturated with my dream and
longing, she had observed nothing, felt nothing: they were like any other
streets to her, a little more sordid perhaps, and that is all. She wouldn't remember that at a certain
corner I had stopped to pick up her hairpin, or that, when I bent down to tie
her laces, I remarked the spot on which her foot had rested and that it would
remain there forever, even after the cathedrals had been demolished and the
whole Latin civilization wiped out forever and ever.
Walking down the Rue Lhomond one night it
a fit of unusual anguish and desolation, certain things were revealed to me
with poignant clarity. Whether it was
that I had so often walked this street in bitterness and despair or whether it
was the remembrance of a phrase which she had dropped one night as we stood at
the Place Lucien-Herr I do not know.
"Why don't you show me that Paris," she said, "that you
have written about?" One thing I
know, that at the recollection of these words I suddenly realized the
impossibility of ever revealing to her that Paris which I had gotten to know,
the Paris whose arrondissements are undefined, a Paris that has never
existed except by virtue of my loneliness, my hunger for her. Such a huge Paris! It would take a lifetime to explore it again. This Paris, to which I alone had the key,
hardly lends itself to a tour, even with the best of intentions; it is a Paris
that has to be lived, that has to be experienced each day in a thousand
different forms of torture, a Paris that grows inside you like a cancer, and grows
and grows until you are eaten away by it.
Stumbling down the Rue Mouffetard, with
these reflections stirring in my brain, I recalled another strange item out of
the past, out of that guidebook whose leaves she had asked me to turn but
which, because the covers were so heavy, I then found impossible to pry
open. For no reason at all - because at
the moment my thoughts were occupied with Salavin, in whose sacred precincts I
was now meandering - for no reason at all, I say, there came to mind the
recollection of a day when, inspired by the plaque which I passed day in and
day out, I impulsively entered the Pension Orfila and asked to see the room
Strindberg had occupied. Up to that time
nothing very terrible had befallen me, though I had already lost all my worldly
possessions and had known what it was to walk the streets in hunger and in fear
of the police. Up to then I had not
found a single friend in Paris, a circumstance which was not so much depressing
as bewildering, for wherever I have roamed in this world the easiest thing for
me to discover has been a friend. But in
reality, nothing very terrible had happened to me yet. One can live without friends, as one can live
without love, or even without money, that supposed sine qua non. One can live in Paris - I discovered that! -
on just grief and anguish. A bitter
nourishment - perhaps the best there is for certain people. At any rate, I had not yet come to the end of
my rope. I was only flirting with
disaster. I had time and sentiment
enough to spare to peep into other people's lives, to dally with the dead stuff
of romance which, however morbid it may be, when it is wrapped between the
covers of a book, seems deliciously remote and anonymous. As I was leaving the place I was conscious of
an ironic smile hovering over my lips, as though I were saying to myself
"Not yet, the Pension Orfila!"
Since then, of course, I have learned
what every madman in Paris discovers sooner or later; that there are no
readymade infernos for the tormented.
It seems to me I understand a little
better now why she took such huge delight in reading Strindberg. I can see her looking up from her book after
reading a delicious passage, and, with tears of laughter in her eyes,
saying to me: "You're just as mad as he was ... you want to be
punished!" What a delight that must
be to the sadist when she discovers her own proper masochist! When she bites herself, as it were, to test
the sharpness of her teeth. In those
days, when I first knew her, she was saturated with Strindberg. That wild carnival of maggots which he
revelled in, that eternal duel of the sexes, that spiderish ferocity which had
endeared him to the sodden oafs of the northland, it was that which had brought
us together. We came together in a dance
of death and so quickly was I sucked down into the vortex that when I came to
the surface again I could not recognize the world. When I found myself loose the music had
ceased; the carnival was over and I had been picked clean....
After leaving the Pension Orfila that
afternoon I went to the library and there, after bathing in the Ganges and
pondering over the signs of the zodiac, I began to reflect on the meaning of
that inferno which Strindberg had so mercilessly depicted. And, as I ruminated, it began to grow clear
to me, the mystery of his pilgrimage, the flight which the poet makes over the
face of the earth and then, as if he had been ordained to re-enact a lost
drama, the heroic descent to the very bowels of the earth, the dark and
fearsome sojourn in the belly of the whale, the bloody struggle to liberate
himself, to emerge clean of the past, a bright, gory sun god cast up on an
alien shore. It was no mystery to me any
longer why he and others (Dante, Rabelais, Van Gogh, etc., etc.) had made their
pilgrimage to Paris. I understood then
why it is that Paris attracts the tortured, the hallucinated, the great maniacs
of love. I understood why it is that
here, at the very hub of the wheel, one can embrace the most fantastic, the
most impossible theories, without finding them in the least strange; it is here
that one reads again the books of his youth and the enigmas take on new
meanings, one for every white hair. One
walks the streets knowing that he is mad, possessed, because it is only too
obvious that these cold, indifferent faces are the visages of one's
keepers. Here all boundaries fade away
and the world reveals itself for the mad slaughterhouse that it is. The treadmill stretches away to infinitude,
the hatches are closed down tight, logic runs rampant, with bloody cleaver
flashing. The air is chill and stagnant,
the language apocalyptic. Not an exit
sign anywhere; no issue save death. A
blind alley at the end of which is a scaffold.
An eternal city, Paris! More eternal than Rome, more splendorous than
Nineveh. The very navel of the world to
which, like a blind and faltering idiot, one crawls back on hands and
knees. And like a cork that has drifted
to the dead centre of the ocean, one floats here in a scum and wrack of the
seas, listless, hopeless, heedless even of a passing Columbus. The cradles of civilization are the putrid
sinks of the world, the charnel house to which the stinking wombs confide their
bloody packages of flesh and bone.
The streets were my refuge. And no man can understand the glamour of the
streets until he is obliged to take refuge in them, until he has become a straw
that is tossed here and there by every zephyr that blows. One passes along a street on a wintry day
and, seeing a dog for sale, one is moved to tears. While across the way, cheerful as a cemetery,
stands a miserable hut that calls itself "Hotel du Tombeau des
Lapins". That makes one laugh,
laugh fit to die. Until one notices that
there are hotels everywhere, for rabbits, dogs, lice, emperors, cabinet
ministers, pawnbrokers, horse knackers, and so on. And almost every other one is an "Hotel
de l'Avenir". Which makes one more
hysterical still. So many hotels of the
future! No hotels in the past
participle, no subjunctive modes, no conjunctivitis. Everything is hoary, grisly, bristling with
merriment, swollen with the future, like a gumboil. Drunk with this lecherous eczema of the
future, I stagger over to the Place Violet, the colours all mauve and slate,
the doorways so low that only dwarfs and goblins could hobble in; over the dull
cranium of Zola the chimneys are belching pure coke, while the Madonna of
Sandwiches listens with cabbage ears to the bubbling of the gas tanks, those
beautiful bloated toads which squat by the roadside.
Why do I suddenly recollect the Passage
des Thermopyles? Because that day a
woman addressed her puppy in the apocalyptic language of the slaughterhouse,
and the little bitch, she understood what this greasy slut of a midwife was
saying. How that depressed me! More even than the sight of those whimpering
curs that were being sold on the Rue Brancion, because it was not the dogs
which filled me so with pity, but the huge iron railing, those rusty spikes
which seemed to stand between me and my rightful life. In the pleasant little lane near the Abattoir
de Vaugirard (Abattoir Hippophagique), which is called the Rue des Perichaux, I
had noticed here and there signs of blood.
Just as Strindberg in his madness had recognized omens and portents in
the very flagging of the Pension Orfila, so, as I wandered aimlessly through
this muddy lane bespattered with blood, fragments of the past detached
themselves and floated listlessly before my eyes, taunting me with the direst
forebodings. I saw my own blood being
spilled, the muddy road stained with it, as far back as I could remember, from
the very beginning doubtless. One is
ejected into the world like a dirty little mummy; the roads are slippery with
blood and no one knows why it should be so.
Each one is travelling his own way and, though the earth be rotting with
good things, there is no time to pluck the fruits; the procession scrambles
toward the exit sign, and such a panic is there, such a sweat to escape, that
the weak and helpless are trampled into the mud and their cries are unheard.
My world of human beings had perished; I
was utterly alone in the world and for friends I had the streets, and the
streets spoke to me in that sad, bitter language compounded of human misery,
yearning, regret, failure, wasted effort.
Passing under the viaduct along the Rue Broca, one night after I had
been informed that Mona was ill and starving, I suddenly recalled that it was
here in the squalor and gloom of this sunken street, terrorized perhaps by a
premonition of the future, that Mona clung to me and with a quivering voice
begged me to promise that I would never leave her, never, no matter what
happened. And, only a few days later, I
stood on the platform of the Gare St. Lazare and I watched the train pull out,
the train that was bearing her away: she was leaning out of the window, just as
she had leaned out of the window when I left her in New York, and there was
that same, sad, inscrutable smile on her face, that last-minute look which is
intended to convey so much, but which is only a mask that is twisted by a
vacant smile. Only a few days before,
she had clung to me desperately and then something happened, something which is
not even clear to me now, and of her own volition she boarded the train and she
was looking at me again with that sad, enigmatic smile which baffles me, which
is unjust, unnatural, which I distrust with all my soul. And now it is I, standing in the shadow of
the viaduct, who reaches out for her, who clings to her desperately and there
is that same inexplicable smile on my lips, the mask that I have clamped down
over my grief. I can stand here and
smile vacantly, and no matter how fervid my prayers, no matter how desperate my
longing, there is an ocean between us; there she will stay and starve, and Here
I shall walk from one street to the next, the hot tears scalding my face.
It is that sort of cruelty which is
embedded in the streets; it is that which stares out form the walls and
terrifies us when suddenly we respond to a nameless fear, when suddenly our souls
are invaded by a sickening panic. It is that
which gives the lampposts their ghoulish twists, which makes them beckon to us
and lure us to their strangling grip; it is 'that' which makes certain houses
appear like the guardians of secret crimes and their blind windows like the
empty sockets of eyes that have seen too much.
It is that sort of thing, written into the human physiognomy of the
streets which makes me flee when overhead I suddenly see inscribed "Impasse
Satan". That which makes me shudder
when at the very entrance to the Mosque I observe that it is written:
"Mondays and Thursdays tuberculosis; Wednesdays and Fridays syphilis." In every Metro station there are grinning
skulls that greet you with "Defendez-vous contre la syphilis!" Wherever there are walls, there are posters
with bright venomous crabs heralding the approach of cancer. No matter where you go, no matter what you
touch, there is cancer and syphilis. It
is written in the sky; it flames and dances, like an evil portent. It has eaten into our souls and we are
nothing but a dead thing like the moon.
I
THINK it was the Fourth of July when they took the chair from under my ass
again. Not a word of warning. One of the big muck-a-mucks from the other
side of the water had decided to make economies; cutting down on proofreaders
and helpless little dactylos enabled him to pay the expenses of his
trips back and forth and the palatial quarters he occupied at the Ritz. After paying what little debts I had
accumulated among the linotype operators and a goodwill token at the bistro
across the way, in order to preserve my credit, there was scarcely anything
left out of my final pay. I had to
notify the patron of the hotel that I would be leaving; I didn't tell
him why because he'd have worried about his measly two hundred francs.
"What'll you do if you lose your
job?" That was the phrase that rang
in my ears continually. Ca y est
maintenant! Ausgespielt! Nothing to do but to get down into the street
again, walk, hang around, sit on benches, kill time. By now, of course, my face was familiar in
Montparnasse; for a while I could pretend that I was still working on the
paper. That would make it a little easier
to bum a breakfast or a dinner. It was
summertime and the tourists were pouring in.
I have schemes up my sleeve for mulcting them. "What'll you do....?" Well, I wouldn't starve, that's one thing. If I should do nothing else but concentrate
on food that would prevent me from falling to pieces. For a week or two I could still go to
Monsieur Paul's and have a square meal every evening; he wouldn't know whether
I was working or not. The main thing is
to eat. Trust to Providence for the
rest!
Naturally, I kept my ears open for
anything that sounded like a little dough.
And I cultivated a whole new set of acquaintances - bores whom I had
sedulously avoided heretofore, drunks whom I loathed, artists who had a little
money, Guggenheim-prize men, etc. It's
not hard to make friends when you squat on a terrasse twelve hours a
day. You get to know every sot in
Montparnasse. They cling to you like
lice, even if you have nothing to offer them but your ears.
Now that I had lost my job Carl and Van
Norden had a new phrase for me: "What if your wife should arrive
now?" Well, what of it? Two mouths to feed, instead of one. I'd have a companion in misery. And, if she hadn't lost her good looks, I'd
probably do better in double harness than alone: the world never permits a
good-looking woman to starve. Tania I
couldn't depend on to do much for me; she was sending money to Sylvester. I had thought at first that she might let me
share her room, but she was afraid of compromising herself; besides, she had to
be nice to her boss.
The first people to turn to when you're
down and out are the Jews. I had three
of them on my hands almost at once.
Sympathetic souls. One of them
was a retired fur merchant who had an itch to see his name in the papers; he
proposed that I write a series of articles under his name for a Jewish daily in
New York. I had to scout around the Dôme
and the Coupole searching for prominent Jews.
The first man I picked on was a celebrated mathematician; he couldn't
speak a word of English. I had to write
about the theory of shock from the diagrams he left on the paper napkins; I had
to describe the movements of the astral bodies and demolish the Einsteinian
conception at the same time. All for
twenty-five francs. When I saw my
articles in the newspaper I couldn't read them; but they looked impressive,
just the same, especially with the pseudonym of the fur merchant attached.
I did a lot of pseudonymous writing
during this period. When the big new
whorehouse opened up on the Boulevard Edgar- Quinet, I get a little rake-off,
for writing the pamphlets. That is to
say, a bottle of champagne and a free fuck in one of the Egyptian rooms. If I succeeded in bringing a client I was to
get my commission, just like Kepi got his in the old days. One night I brought Van Norden; he was going
to let me earn a little money by enjoying himself upstairs. But when the madame learned that he
was a newspaperman she wouldn't hear of taking money from him; it was a bottle
of champagne again and a free fuck. I
got nothing out of it. As a matter of
fact, I had to write the story for him because he couldn't think how to get
round the subject without mentioning the kind of place it was. One thing after another like that. I was getting fucked good and proper.
The worst job of all was a thesis I
undertook to write for a deaf and dumb psychologist. A treatise on the care of crippled
children. My head was full of diseases
and braces and workbenches and fresh air theories; it took about six weeks off
and on, and then, to rub it in, I had to proofread the goddamned thing. It was in French, such a French as I've never
in my life seen or heard. But it brought
me in a good breakfast every day, an American breakfast, with orange juice,
oatmeal, cream, coffee, now and then ham and eggs for a change. It was the only period of my Paris days that
I ever indulged in a decent breakfast, thanks to the crippled children of
Rockaway Beach, the East Side, and all the coves and inlets bordering on these
sore points.
Then one day I fell in with a
photographer; he was making a collection of the slimy joints of Paris for some
degenerate in Munich. He wanted to know
if I would pose for him with my pants down, and in other ways. I thought of those skinny little runts, who
look like bell-hops and messenger boys, that one sees on pornographic postcards
in little bookshop windows occasionally, the mysterious phantoms who inhabit
the Rue de la Lune and other malodorous quarters of the city. I didn't like very much the idea of
advertising my physiog in company of this elite. But, since I was assured that the photographs
were for a strictly private collection, and since it was destined for Munich, I
gave my consent. When you're not in your
home town you can permit yourself little liberties, particularly for such a
worthy motive as earning your daily bread.
After all, I hadn't been so squeamish, come to think of it, even in New
York. There were nights when I was so
damned desperate, back there, that I had to go out right in my own
neighbourhood and panhandle.
We didn't go to the show places familiar
to the tourists, but to the little joints where the atmosphere was more
congenial, where we could play a game of cards in the afternoon before getting
down to work. He was a good companion,
the photographer. He knew the city
inside out, the walls particularly; he talked to me about Goethe often, and the
days of the Hohenstaufen, and the massacre of the Jews during the reign of the
Black Death. Interesting subjects, and
always related in some obscure way to the things he was doing. He had ideas for scenarios too, astounding
ideas, but nobody had the courage to execute them. The sight of a horse, split open like a
saloon door, would inspire him to talk of Dante or Leonardo da Vinci or
Rembrandt; from the slaughterhouse at Villette he would jump into a cab and
rush me to the Trocadero Museum, in order to point out a skull or a mummy that
had fascinated him. We explored the 5th,
the 13th, the 19th and the 20th arrondissements thoroughly. Our favourite resting places were lugubrious
little spots such as the Place Nationale, Place des Peupliers, Place de la
Contrescarpe, Place Paul-Verlaine. Many
of these places were already familiar to me, but all of them I now saw in a
different light owing to the rare flavour of his conversation. If today I should happen to stroll down the
Rue du Chateau-des-Rentiers, for example, inhaling the fetid stench of the
hospital beds with which the 13th arrondissement reeks, my nostrils
would undoubtedly expand with pleasure, because compounded with that odour of
stale piss and formaldehyde, there would be the odours of our imaginative
voyages through the charnel house of Europe which the Black Death had created.
Through him I got to know a
spiritual-minded individual named Kruger, who was a sculptor and painter. Kruger took a shine to me for some reason or
other; it was impossible to get away from him once he discovered that I was
willing to listen to his "esoteric" ideas. There are people in this world for whom the
word "esoteric" seems to act as a divine ichor. Like "settled" for Herr Peeperkorn
of the Magic Mountain. Kruger was
one of those saints who have gone wrong, a masochist, an anal type whose law is
scrupulousness, rectitude and conscientiousness, who on an off day would knock
a man's teeth down his throat without a qualm.
He seemed to think I was ripe to move on to another plane, "a higher
plane", as he put it. I was ready
to move on to any plane he designated, provided that one didn't eat less or
drink less. He chewed my head off about
the "threadsoul", the "causal body", "ablation",
the Upanishads, Plotinus, Krishnamurti, "the Karmic vestiture of the
soul", "the nirvanic consciousness", all that flapdoodle which
blows out of the East like a breath from the plague. Sometimes he would go into a trance and talk
about his previous incarnations, how he imagined them to be, at least. Or he would relate his dreams which, so far
as I could see, were thoroughly insipid, prosaic, hardly worth even the
attention of a Freudian, but, for him, there were vast esoteric marvels hidden
in their depths which I had to aid him to decipher. He had turned himself inside out, like a coat
whose nap is worn off.
Little by little, as I gained his
confidence, I wormed my way into his heart.
I had him at such a point that he would come running after me, in the
street, to inquire if he could lend me a few francs. He wanted to hold me together in order to
survive the transition to a higher plane.
I acted like a pear that is ripening on the tree. Now and then I had relapses and I would
confess my need for more earthly nourishment - a visit to the Sphinx or the Rue
St. Apolline where I knew he repaired in weak moments when the demands of the
flesh had become too vehement.
As a painter he was nil; as a sculptor
less than nil. He was a good housekeeper,
that I'll say for him. And an economical
one to boot. Nothing went to waste, nor
even the paper that the meat was wrapped in.
Friday nights he threw open his studio to his fellow artists; there was
always plenty to drink and good sandwiches, and if by chance there was anything
left over I would come round the next day to polish it off.
Back of the Bal Bullier was another
studio I into the habit of frequenting - the studio of Mark Swift. If he was not a genius he was certainly an
eccentric, this caustic Irishman. He had
for a model a Jewess whom he had been living with for years; he was now tired
of her and was searching for a pretext to get rid of her. But as he had eaten up the dowry which she
had originally brought with her, he was puzzled as to how to disembarrass
himself of her without making restitution.
The simplest thing was to so antagonize her that she would choose
starvation rather than support his cruelties.
She was rather a fine person, his
mistress; the worst that one could say against her was that she had lost her
shape, 'and' her ability to support him any longer. She was a painter herself and, among those
who professed to know, it was said that she had far more talent than he. But no matter how miserable he made life for
her she was just; she would never allow anyone to say that he was not a great
painter. It was because he really has
genius, she said, that he was such a rotten individual. One never saw her canvases on the wall - only
his. Her things were stuck away in the
kitchen. Once it happened, in my
presence, that someone insisted on seeing her work. The result was painful. "You see this figure," said Swift,
pointing to one of her canvases with his big foot. "The man standing in the doorway there
is just about to go out for a leak. He
won't be able to find his way back because his head is on wrong.... Now take
that nude over there.... It was all right until she started to paint the
cunt. I don't know what she was thinking
about, but she made it so big that her brush slipped and she couldn't get it
out again."
By way of showing us what a nude ought to
be like he hauls out a huge canvas which he had recently completed. It was a picture of her, a splendid
piece of vengeance inspired by a guilty conscience. The work of a madman - vicious, petty,
malign, brilliant. You had the feeling
that he had spied on her through the keyhole, that he had caught her in an off
moment, when she was picking her nose absentmindedly, or scratching her
ass. She sat there on the horsehair sofa,
in a room without ventilation, an enormous room without a window; it might as
well have been the anterior lobe of the pineal gland. Back of her ran the zigzag stairs leading to
the balcony; they were covered with a bilious-green carpet, such a green as
could only emanate from a universe that had been pooped out. The most prominent thing was her buttocks,
which were lopsided and full of scabs; she seemed to have slightly raised her
ass from the sofa, as if to let out a loud fart. Her face he had idealized: it looked sweet
and virginal, pure as a cough drop. But
her bosom was distended, swollen with sewer gas; she seemed to be swimming in a
menstrual sea, an enlarged fetus with the dull, syrupy look of an angel.
Nevertheless one couldn't help but like
him. He was an indefatigable worker, a
man who hadn't a single thought in his head but paint. And cunning as a lynx withal. It was he who put it into my head to
cultivate the friendship of Fillmore, a young man in the diplomatic service who
had found his way into the little group that surrounded Kruger and Swift. "Let him help you," he said. "He doesn't know what to do with his
money."
When one spends what he has on himself,
when one has a thoroughly good time with his own money, people are apt to say
"he doesn't know what to do with his money." For my part, I don't see any better use to
which one can put money. About such
individuals one can't say that they're generous or stingy. They put money into circulation - that's the
principal thing. Fillmore knew that his
days in France were limited; he was determined to enjoy them. And as one always enjoys himself better in
the company of a friend it was only natural that he should turn to one like
myself, who had plenty of time on his hands, for that companionship which he
needed. People said he was a bore, and
so he was, I suppose, but when you're in need of food you can put up with worse
things than being bored. After all,
despite the fact that he talked incessantly, and usually about himself or the
authors whom he admired slavishly - such birds as Anatole France and Joseph
Conrad - he nevertheless made my nights interesting in other ways. He liked to dance, he liked good wines, and
he liked women. That he liked Byron
also, and Victor Hugo, one could forgive; he was only a few years out of
college and he had plenty of time ahead of him to be cured of such tastes. What he had that I liked was a sense of
adventure.
We got even better acquainted, more intimate,
I might say, due to a peculiar incident that occurred during my brief sojourn
with Kruger. It happened just after the
arrival of Collins, a sailor whom Fillmore had got to know on the way over from
America. The three of us used to meet
regularly on the terrasse of the Rotonde before going to dinner. It was always Pernod, a drink which put
Collins in good humour and provided a base, as it were, for the wine and beer
and fines, etc., which had to be guzzled afterwards. All during Collins's stay in Paris I lived
like a duke; nothing but fowl and good vintages and desserts that I hadn't even
heard of before. A month of this regimen
and I should have been obliged to go to Baden- Baden or Vichy or Aix-les-Bains. Meanwhile Kruger was putting me up at his
studio. I was getting to be a nuisance
because I never showed up before three a.m. and it was difficult to rout me out
of bed before noon. Overtly Kruger never
uttered a word of reproach but his manner indicated plainly enough that I was
becoming a bum.
One day I was taken ill. The rich diet was taking effect upon me. I don't know what ailed me, but I couldn't
get out of bed. I had lost all my
stamina, and with it whatever courage I possessed. Kruger had to look after me, had to make
broths for me, and so on. It was a
trying period for him, more particularly because he was just on the verge of
giving an important exhibition at his studio, a private showing to some wealthy
connoisseurs from whom he was expecting aid.
The cot on which I lay was in the studio; there was no other room to put
me in.
The morning of the day he was to give his
exhibition, Kruger awoke thoroughly disgruntled. If I had been able to stand on my feet I know
he would have given me a clout in the jaw and kicked me out. But I was prostrate, and weak as a cat. He tried to coax me out of bed, with the idea
of locking me up in the kitchen upon the arrival of his visitors. I realized that I was making a mess of it for
him. People can't look at pictures and
statues with enthusiasm when a man is dying before their eyes. Kruger honestly thought I was dying. So did I.
That's why, despite my feelings of guilt, I couldn't muster any
enthusiasm when he proposed calling for the ambulance and having me shipped to
the American Hospital. I wanted to die
there, comfortably, right in the studio; I didn't want to be urged to get up
and find a better place to die in. I
didn't care where I died, really, so long as it wasn't necessary to get up.
When he heard me talk this was Kruger
became alarmed. Worse than having a sick
man in his studio should the visitors arrive, was to have a dead man. That would completely ruin his prospects,
slim as they were. He didn't put it that
way to me, of course, but I could see from his agitation that that was what
worried him. And that made me
stubborn. I refused to let him call the
hospital. I refused to left him call a
doctor. I refused everything.
He got so angry with me finally that,
despite my protestations, he began to dress me.
I was too weak to resist. All I
could do was to murmur weakly - "you bastard you!" Though it was warm outdoors I was shivering
like a dog. After he had completely
dressed me he flung an overcoat over me and slipped outside to telephone. "I won't go! I won't go!" I kept saying, but he
simply slammed the door on me. He came
back in a few minutes and, without addressing a word to me, busied himself
about the studio. Last minute preparations. In a little while there was a knock on the
door. It was Fillmore. Collins was waiting downstairs, he informed
me.
The two of them, Fillmore and Kruger,
slipped their arms under me and hoisted me to my feet. As they dragged me to the elevator Kruger
softened up. "It's for your own
good," he said. "And besides,
it wouldn't be fair to me. You know what
a struggle I've had all these years. You
ought to think about me too." He
was actually on the point of tears.
Wretched and miserable as I felt, his
words almost made me smile. He was
considerably older than I, and even though he was a rotten painter, a rotten
artist all the way through, he deserved a break - at least once in a lifetime.
"I don't hold it against you,"
I muttered. "I understand how it
is."
"You know I always liked you,"
he responded. "When you get better you can come back here again ... you
can stay as long as you like."
"Sure, I know.... I'm not going to
croak yet," I managed to get out.
Somehow, when I saw Collins down below my
spirits revived. If ever anyone seemed
to be thoroughly alive, healthy, joyous, magnanimous, it was he. He picked me up as if I were a doll and laid
me out on the seat of the cab - gently too, which I appreciated after the way
Kruger had manhandled me.
When we drove up to the hotel - the hotel
that Collins was stopping at - there was a bit of a discussion with the
proprietor, during which I lay stretched out on the sofa in the bureau. I could hear Collins saying to the patron
that it was nothing ... just a little breakdown ... be all right in a few
days. I saw him put a crisp bill in the
man's hands and then, turning swiftly and lithely, he came back to where I was
and said: "Come on, buck up! Don't
let him think you're croaking." And
with that, he yanked me to my feet and, bracing me with one arm, escorted me to
the elevator.
Don't let him think you're croaking! Obviously it was bad taste to die on people's
hands. One should die in the bosom of
his family, in private, as it were. His
words were encouraging. I began to see
it all as a bad joke. Upstairs, with the
door closed, they undressed me and put me between the sheets. "You can die now, goddamn it!" said
Collins warmly. "You'll put me in a
hole.... Besides, what the hell's the matter with you? Can't stand good living? Keep your chin up! You'll be eating a porterhouse steak in a day
or two. You think you're ill! Wait, by Jesus until you get a dose of
syphilis! That's something to make you
worry...." And he began to relate, in a humorous way, his trip down the
Yangtze Kiang, with hair falling out and teeth rotting away. In the feeble state that I was in, the yarn
that he spun had an extraordinary soothing effect upon me. It took me completely out of myself. He had guts, this guy. Perhaps he put it on a bit thick, for my
benefit, but I wasn't listening to him critically at the moment. I was all ears and eyes. I saw the dirty yellow mouth of the river,
the lights going up at Hankow, the sea of yellow faces, the sampans shooting
down through the gorges and the rapids flaming with the sulphurous breath of
the dragon. What a story! The coolies swarming around the boat each
day, dredging for the garbage that was flung overboard, Tom Slattery rising up
on his deathbed to take a last look at the lights of Hankow, the beautiful
Eurasian who lay in a dark room and filled his veins with poison, the monotony
of blue jackets and yellow faces, millions and millions of them hollowed out by
famine, ravaged by disease, subsisting on rats and dogs and roots, chewing the
grass off the earth, devouring their own children. It was hard to imagine that this man's body
had once been a mass of sores, that he had been shunned like a leper; his voice
was so quiet and gentle, it was as though his spirit had been cleansed by all
the suffering he had endured. As he
reached for his drink his face grew more and more soft and his words actually
seemed to caress me. And all the while
I could no longer follow his story; my
mind had slipped back to a Fourth of July when I bought my first package of
firecrackers and with it the long pieces of punk which break so easily, the
punk that you blow on to get a good red glow, the punk whose smell sticks to
your fingers for days and makes you dream of strange things. The Fourth of July the streets are littered
with bright red paper stamped with black and gold figures and everywhere there
are tiny firecrackers which have the most curious intestines; packages and
packages of them, all strung together by their thin, flat, little gutstrings,
the colour of human brains. All day long
there is the smell of powder and punk and the gold dust from the bright red
wrappers sticks to your fingers. One
never thinks of China, but it is there all the time on the tips of your fingers
and it makes your nose itchy; and long afterwards, when you have forgotten
almost what a firecracker smells like, you wake up one day with gold leaf
choking you and the broken pieces of punk waft back their pungent odour and the
bright red wrappers give you a nostalgia for a people and a soil you have never
known, but which is in your blood, mysteriously there in your blood, like the
sense of time or space, a fugitive, constant value to which you turn more and
more as you get old, which you try to seize with your mind, but ineffectually,
because in everything Chinese there is wisdom and mystery and you can never
grasp it with two hands or with your mind but you must let it rub off, let it
stick to your fingers, let it slowly infiltrate your veins.
A few weeks later, upon receipt of a
pressing invitation from Collins who had returned to Le Havre, Fillmore and I
boarded the train one morning, prepared to spend the weekend with him. It was the first time I had been outside of
Paris since my arrival here. We were in
fine fettle, drinking Anjou all the way to the coast. Collins had given us the address of a bar
where we were to meet; it was a place called Jimmie's Bar, which everyone in Le
Havre was supposed to know.
We got into an open barouche at the
station and started on a brisk trot for the rendezvous; there was still a half
bottle of Anjou left which we polished off as we rode along. Le Havre looked gay, sunny; the air was
bracing, with that strong salty tang which almost made me homesick for New
York. There were masts and hulls
cropping up everywhere, bright bits of bunting, big open squares and
high-ceilinged cafés such as one only sees in the provinces. A fine impression immediately; the city was
welcoming us with open arms.
Before we ever reached the bar we saw
Collins coming down the street on a trot, heading for the station, no doubt,
and a little late as usual. Fillmore
immediately suggested a Pernod; we were all slapping each other on the back,
laughing and spitting, drunk already from the sunshine and the salt sea
air. Collins seemed undecided about the
Pernod at first. He had a little dose of
clap, he informed us. Nothing very
serious - "a strain" most likely.
He showed us a bottle he had in his pocket - "Venetienne" it
was called, if I remember rightly. The
sailors' remedy for clap.
We stopped off at a restaurant to have a
little snack before repairing to Jimmie's place. It was a huge tavern with big, smoky rafters
and tables creaking with food. We drank
copiously of the wines that Collins recommended. Then we sat down on a terrasse and had
coffee and liqueurs. Collins was talking
about the Baron de Charlus, a man after his own heart, he said. For almost a year now he had been staying at
Le Havre, going through the money that he had accumulated during his
bootlegging days. His tastes were simple
- food, drink, women and books. And a
private bath! That he insisted on.
We were still talking about the Baron de
Charlus when we arrived at Jimmie's Bar.
It was late in the afternoon and the place was just beginning to fill
up. Jimmie was there, his face red as a
beet, and beside him was his spouse, a fine buxom Frenchwoman with glittering
eyes. We were given a marvellous
reception all around. There were Pernods
in front of us again, the gramophone was shrieking, people were jabbering away
in English and French and Dutch and Norwegian and Spanish, and Jimmie and his
wife, both of them looking very brisk and dapper, were slapping and kissing
each other heartily and raising their glasses and clinking them - altogether
such a bubble and blabber of merriment that you felt like pulling off your
clothes and doing a war dance. The women
at the bar had gathered around like flies.
If we were friends of Collins that meant we were rich. It didn't matter that we had come in our old
clothes; all Anglais dressed like that.
I hadn't a sou in my pocket, which didn't matter, of course, since I was
the guest of honour. Nevertheless I felt
somewhat embarrassed with two stunning-looking whores hanging on my arms
waiting for me to order something. I decided
to take the bull by the horns. You
couldn't tell anymore which drinks were on the house and which were to be paid
for. I had to be a gentleman,
even if I didn't have a sou in my pocket.
Yvette - that was Jimmie's wife - was
extraordinarily gracious and friendly with us.
She was preparing a little spread in our honour. It would take a little while yet. We were not to get too drunk - she wanted us
to enjoy the meal. The gramophone was
going like wild and Fillmore had begun to dance with a beautiful mulatto who
had on a tight velvet dress that revealed all her charms. Collins slipped over to my side and whispered
a few words about the girl at me side.
"The madame will invite her to dinner," he said,
"if you'd like to have her."
She was an ex-whore who owned a beautiful home on the outskirts of the
city. The mistress of a sea captain
now. He was away and there was nothing
to fear. "If she likes you she'll
invite you to stay with her," he added.
That was enough for me. I turned at once to Marcelle and began to
flatter the ass off her. We stood at the
corner of the bar, pretending to dance, and mauled each other ferociously. Jimmie gave me a big horse-wink and nodded
his head approvingly. She was a
lascivious bitch, this Marcelle, and pleasant at the same time. She soon got rid of the other girl, I
noticed, and then we settled down for a long and intimate conversation which
was interrupted unfortunately by the announcement that dinner was ready.
There were about twenty of us at the
table, and Marcelle and I were placed at one end opposite Jimmie and his
wife. It began with the popping of
champagne corks and was quickly followed by drunken speeches, during the course
of which Marcelle and I played with each other under the table. When it came my turn to stand up and deliver
a few words I had to hold the napkin in front of me. It was painful and exhilarating at the same
time. I had to cut my speech very short
because Marcelle was tickling me in the crotch all the while.
The dinner lasted until almost
midnight. I was looking forward to
spending the night with Marcelle in that beautiful home up on the cliff. But it was not to be. Collins had planned to show us about and I
couldn't very well refuse. "Don't
worry about her," he said.
"You'll have a bellyful of it before you leave. Tell her to wait here for you until we get
back."
She was a bit peeved at this, Marcelle,
but when we informed her that we had several days ahead of us she brightened
up. When we got outdoors Fillmore very
solemnly took us by the arm and said he had a little confession to make. He looked pale and worried.
"Well, what is it?" said
Collins cheerfully. "Spit it
out!"
Fillmore couldn't spit it out like that,
all at once. He hemmed and hawed and
finally he blurted out - "Well, when I went to the closet just a minute ago
I noticed something...."
"Then you've got it!" said
Collins triumphantly, and with that he flourished the bottle of
"Venetienne". "Don't go to a doctor," he added
venomously. "They'll bleed you to
death, the greedy bastards. And don't
stop drinking either. That's all
hooey. Take this twice a day ... shake
it well before using. And nothing's
worse than worry, do you understand?
Come on now. I'll give you a
syringe and some permanganate when we get back."
And so we started back out into the night,
down towards the waterfront where there was the sound of music and shouts and
drunken oaths, Collins talking quietly all the while about this and that, about
a boy he had fallen in love with, and the devil's time he had to get out of the
scrape when the parents got wise to it.
From that he switched back to the Baron de Charlus and then to Kurtz who
had gone up the river and got lost. His
favourite theme. I liked the way Collins
moved against this background of literature continuously; it was like a millionaire
who never stepped out of his Rolls Royce.
There was no intermediate realm for him between reality and ideas. When we entered the whorehouse on the Quai
Voltaire, after he had flung himself on the divan and rung for girls and for
drinks, he was still paddling up the river with Kurtz, and only when the girls
had flopped on the bed beside him and stuffed his mouth with kisses did he
cease his divagations. Then, as if he
had suddenly realized where he was, he turned to the old mother who ran the place
and gave her an eloquent spiel about his two friends who had come down from
Paris expressly to see the joint. There
were about half a dozen girls in the room, all naked and all beautiful to look
at, I must say. They hopped about like
birds while the three of us tried to maintain a conversation with the
grandmother. Finally the latter excused
herself and told us to make ourselves at home.
I was altogether taken in by her, so sweet and amiable she was, so
thoroughly gentle and maternal. And what
manners! If she had been a little
younger I would have made overtures to her.
Certainly you would not have thought that we were in a "den of
vice", as it is called.
Anyway we stayed there an hour or so, and
as I was the only one in condition to enjoy the privileges of the house,
Collins and Fillmore remained downstairs chattering with the girls. When I returned I found the two of them
stretched out on the bed; the girls had formed a semicircle about the bed and
were singing with the most angelic voices the chorus of Roses in Picardy. We were sentimentally depressed when we left
the house - Fillmore particularly.
Collins swiftly steered us to a rough joint which was packed with
drunken sailors on shore leave and there we sat awhile enjoying the homosexual
rout that was in full swing. When we
sallied out we had to pass through the red-light district where there were more
grandmothers with shawls about their necks sitting on the doorsteps fanning
themselves and nodding pleasantly to the passers-by. All such good-looking, kindly souls, as if
they were keeping guard over a nursery.
Little groups of sailors came swinging along and pushed their way
noisily inside the gaudy joints. Sex everywhere:
it was slopping over, a neap tide that swept the props from under the
city. We piddled along at the edge of
the basin where everything was jumbled and tangled; you had the impression that
all these ships, these trawlers and yachts and schooners and barges, had been
blown ashore by a violent storm.
In the space of forty-eight hours so many
things had happened that it seemed as if we had been in Le Havre a month or
more. We were planning to leave early
Monday morning, as Fillmore had to be back on the job. We spent Sunday drinking and carousing, clap
or no clap. That afternoon Collins
confided to us that he was thinking of returning to his ranch in
Around midnight Sunday Fillmore and I
retired; we had been given a room upstairs over the bar. It was sultry as the devil, not a breath of
air stirring. Through the open windows
we could hear them shouting downstairs and the gramophone going
continually. All of a sudden a storm
broke - a regular cloudburst. And
between the thunderclaps and the squalls that lashed the windowpanes there came
to our ears the sound of another storm raging downstairs at the bar. It sounded frightfully close and sinister;
the women were shrieking at the tops of their lungs, bottles were crashing,
tables were upset and there was that familiar, nauseating thud that the human
body makes when it crashes to the floor.
About six o'clock Collins stuck his head
in the door. His face was all plastered
and one arm was stuck in a sling. He had
a big grin on his face.
"Just as I told you," he
said. "She broke loose last
night. Suppose you heard the
racket?"
We got dressed quickly and went
downstairs to say goodbye to Jimmie. The
place was completely demolished, not a bottle left standing, not a chair that
wasn't broken. The mirror and the show
window were smashed to bits. Jimmie was
making himself an eggnog.
On the way to the station we pieced the
story together. The Russian girl had
dropped in after we toddled off to bed and Yvette had insulted her promptly,
without even waiting for an excuse. They
had commenced to pull each other's hair and in the midst of it a big Swede had
stepped in and given the Russian girl a sound slap in the jaw - to bring her to
her senses. That started the
fireworks. Collins wanted to know what
right this big stiff had to interfere in a private quarrel. He got a poke in the jaw for an answer, a
good one that sent him flying to the other end of the bar. "Serves you right!" screamed
Yvette, taking advantage of the occasion to swing a bottle at the Russian
girl's head. And at that moment the
thunderstorm broke loose. For a while
there was a regular pandemonium, the women all hysterical and hungry to seize
the opportunity to pay off private grudges.
Nothing like a nice barroom brawl ... so easy to stick a knife in a
man's back or club him with a bottle when he's lying under a table. The poor Swede found himself in a hornet's nest;
everyone in the place hated him, particularly his shipmates. They wanted to see him done in. And so they locked the door and, pushing the
tables aside, they made a little space in front of the bar where the two of
them could have it out. And they had it
out! They had to carry the poor devil to
the hospital when it was over. Collins
had come off rather lucky - nothing more than a sprained wrist and a couple of
fingers out of joint, a bloody nose and a black eye. Just a few scratches, as he put it. But if he ever signed up with that Swede he
was going to murder him. It wasn't
finished yet. He promised us that.
And that wasn't the end of the fracas
either. After that, Yvette had to go out
and get liquored up at another bar. She
had been insulted and she was going to put an end to things. And so she hires a taxi and orders the driver
to ride out to the edge of the cliff overlooking the water. She was going to kill herself, that's what
she was going to do. But then she was so
drunk that when she tumbled out of the cab she began to weep and before anyone
could stop her she had begun to peel her clothes off. The driver brought her home that way,
half-naked, and when Jimmie saw the condition she was in he was so furious with
her that he took his razor strap and he belted the piss out of her, and she
liked it, the bitch that she was.
"Do it some more!" she begged, down on her knees as she was
and clutching him around the legs with her two arms. But Jimmie had enough of it. "You're a dirty old sow!" he said,
and with his foot he gave her a shove in the guts that took the wind out of her
- and a bit of her sexy nonsense too.
It was high time we were leaving. The city looked different in the early
morning light. The last thing we talked
about, as we stood there waiting for the train to pull out, was Idaho. The three of us were Americans. We came from different places, each of us,
but we had something in common - a whole lot, I might say. We were getting sentimental, as Americans do
when it comes time to part. We were
getting quite foolish about the cows and sheep and the big open spaces where
men are men and all that crap. If a boat
had swung along instead of the train we'd have hopped aboard and said goodbye
to it all. But Collins was never to see
America again, as I learned later, and Fillmore ... well, Fillmore has to take
his punishment too, in a way that none of us could have suspected then. It's best to keep America just like that,
always in the background, a sort of picture postcard which you look at in a
weak moment. Like that, you imagine it's
always there waiting for you, unchanged, unspoiled, a big patriotic open space
with cows and sheep and tenderhearted men ready to bugger everything in sight,
man, woman or beast. It doesn't exist,
America. It's a name you give to an
abstract idea....
PARIS
is like a whore. From a distance she
seems ravishing, you can't wait until you have her in your arms. And five minutes later you feel empty,
disgusted with yourself. You feel
tricked.
I returned to Paris with money in my
pocket - a few hundred francs, which Collins had shoved in my pocket just as I
was boarding the train. It was enough to
pay for a room and at least a week's good rations. It was more than I had had in my hands at one
time for several years. I felt elated,
as though perhaps a new life was opening up before me. I wanted to conserve it too, so I looked up a
cheap hotel over a bakery on the Rue du Chateau, just off the Rue de Vanves, a
place that Eugene had pointed out to me once.
A few yards away was the bridge that spans the
I could have had a room for a hundred
francs a month, a room without any conveniences to be sure - without even a
window - and perhaps I would have taken it, just to be sure of a place to flop
for a while, had it not been for the fact that in order to reach this room I
would have been obliged to first pass through the room of a blind man. The thought of passing his bed every night
had a most depressing effect on me. I
decided to look elsewhere. I went over
to the Rue Cels, just behind the cemetery, and I looked at a sort of rat trap
there with balconies running around the courtyard. There were birdcages suspended from the
balcony too, all along the lower tier. A
cheerful sight perhaps, but to me it seemed like the public ward in a
hospital. The proprietor didn't seem to
have all his wits either. I decided to
wait for the night, to have a good look around, and then choose some attractive
little joints in a quiet side street.
At dinnertime I spent fifteen francs for
a meal, just about twice the amount I had planned to allot myself. That made me so wretched that I wouldn't
allow myself to sit down for a coffee, even despite the fact that it had begun
to drizzle. No, I would walk about a bit
and then go quietly to bed, at a reasonable hour. I was already miserable, trying to husband my
resources this way. I had never in my
life done it; it wasn't in my nature.
Finally it began to come down in bucketfuls. I was glad.
That would give me the excuse I needed to duck [in] somewhere and
stretch my legs out. It was still too
early to go to bed. I began to quicken
my pace, heading back toward the Boulevard Raspail. Suddenly a woman comes up to me and stops me,
right in the pouring rain. She wants to
know what time it is. I told her I
didn't have a watch. And then she bursts
out, just like this: "Oh, my good sir, do you speak English by
chance?" I nod my head. It's coming down in torrents now. "Perhaps, my dear good man, you would be
so kind as to take me to a café. It is
raining so and I haven't the money to sit down anywhere. You will excuse me, my dear sir, but you have
such a kind face ... I knew you were English right away." And with this she smiles at me, a strange,
half-demented smile. "Perhaps you
could give me a little advice, dear sir.
I am all alone in the world ... my God, it is terrible to have no money...."
This "dear sir" and "kind
sir" and "my good man", etc., had me on the verge of
hysteria. I felt sorry for her and yet I
had to laugh. I did laugh. I laughed right in her face. And then she laughed too, a weird,
high-pitched laugh, off key, an altogether unexpected piece of
cachinnation. I caught her by the arm
and we made a bolt for it to the nearest café.
She was still giggling when we entered the bistro. "My dear good sir," she began
again, "perhaps you think I am not telling you the truth. I am a good girl ... I come of a good family. Only" - and here she gave me that wan,
broken smile again - "only I am so misfortunate as not to have a place to
sit down." At this I began to laugh
again. I couldn't help it - the phrases
she used, the strange accent, the crazy hat she had on, that demented smile....
"Listen," I interrupted,
"what nationality are you?"
"I'm English," she
replied. "That is, I was born in
Poland, but my father is Irish."
"So that makes you English?"
"Yes," she said, and she began
to giggle again, sheepishly, and with a pretence of being coy.
"I suppose you know a nice little
hotel where you could take me?" I
said this, not because I had any intention of going with her, but just to spare
her the usual preliminaries.
"Oh, my dear sir," she said, as
though I had made the most grievous error, "I'm sure you don't mean
that! I'm not that kind of girl. You were joking with me, I can see that. You're so good ... you have such a kind face. I would not dare to speak to a Frenchman as I
did to you. They insult you right
away...."
She went on in this vein for some
time. I wanted to break away from
her. But she didn't want to be left
alone. She was afraid - her papers were
not in order. Wouldn't I be good enough
to walk her to her hotel? Perhaps I
could "lend" her fifteen or twenty francs, to quiet the patron? I walked her to the hotel where she said she
was stopping and I put a fifty franc bill in her hand. Either she was very clever, or very innocent
- it's hard to tell sometimes - but, at any rate, she wanted me to wait until
she ran to the bistro for change.
I told her not to bother. And
with that she seized my hand impulsively and raised it to her lips. I was flabbergasted. I felt like giving her every damned thing I
had. That touched me, that crazy little
gesture. I thought to myself, it's good
to be rich once in a while, just to get a new thrill like that. Just the same, I didn't lose my head. Fifty francs!
That was quite enough to squander on a rainy night. As I walked off she waved to me with that
crazy little bonnet which she didn't know how to wear. It was as though we were old playmates. I felt foolish and giddy. "My dear kind sir ... you have such a
gentle face ... you are so good, etc."
I felt like a saint.
When you feel all puffed up inside it
isn't so easy to go to bed right away.
You feel as though you ought to atone for such unexpected bursts of
goodness. Passing the "Jungle"
I caught a glimpse of the dance floor; women with bare backs and ropes of
pearls choking them - or so it looked - were wriggling their beautiful bottoms
at me. Walked right up to the bar and
ordered a coupe of champagne.
When the music stopped, a beautiful blonde - she looked like a Norwegian
- took a seat right beside me. The place
wasn't as crowded or as gay as it appeared from outside. There were only a half dozen couples in the
place - they must have all been dancing at once. I ordered another coupe of champagne
in order not to let my courage dribble away.
When I got up to dance with the blonde
there was no one on the floor but us.
Any other time I would have been self- conscious, but the champagne and
the way she clung to me, the dimmed lights and the solid feeling of security
which the few hundred francs gave me, well.... We had another dance together, a
sort of private exhibition, and then we fell into conversation. She had begun to weep - that was how it
started. I thought possibly she had had
too much to drink, so I pretended not to be concerned. And meanwhile I was looking around to see if
there was any other timber available.
But the place was thoroughly deserted.
The thing to do when you're trapped is to
breeze - at once. If you don't, you're
lost. What retained me, oddly enough,
was the thought of paying for a hat check a second time. One always lets himself in for it because of
a trifle.
The reason she was weeping, I discovered
soon enough, was because she had just buried her child. She wasn't Norwegian either, but French, and
a midwife to boot. A chic midwife, I
must say, even with the tears running down her face. I asked her if a little drink would help to
console her, whereupon she very promptly ordered a whisky and tossed it off in
the wink of an eye. "Would you like
another?" I suggested gently. She
thought she would, she felt so rotten, so terribly dejected. She thought she would like a package of
Camels too. "No, wait a
minute," she said. "I think
I'd rather have les
I went to the toilet and counted the
money over again. I hid the hundred
franc notes in my fob pocket and kept a fifty franc note and the loose change
in my trousers pocket. I went back to
the bar determined to talk turkey.
She made it easier for me because she
herself introduced the subject. She was
in difficulties. It was not only that
she had just lost her child, but her mother was home, ill, very ill, and there
was the doctor to pay and medicine to be bought, and so on and so forth. I didn't believe a word of it, of
course. A since I had to find a hotel
for myself, I suggested that she come along with me and stay the night. A little economy there, I thought to myself. But she wouldn't do that. She insisted on going home, said she had an
apartment to herself - and besides she had to look after her mother. On reflection I decided that it would be
still cheaper sleeping at her place, so I said yes and let's go
immediately. Before going, however, I
decided it was best to let her know just how I stood, so that there wouldn't be
any squawking at the last minute. I
thought she was going to faint when I told her how much I had in my
pocket. "The likes of it!" she
said. Highly insulted she was. I thought there would be a scene....
Undaunted, however, I stood my ground.
"Very well, then, I'll leave you," I said quietly. "Perhaps I've made a mistake."
"I should say you have!" she
exclaimed, but clutching me by the sleeve at the same time. "Écoute,
cheri ... sois raisnonable!" When
I heard that all my confidence was restored.
I knew that it would be merely a question of promising her a little
extra and everything would be O.K.
"All right," I said wearily, "I'll be nice to you, you'll
see."
"You were lying to me, then?"
she said.
"Yes," I smiled, "I was
just lying...."
Before I had even put my hat on she had
hailed a cab. I heard her give the
Boulevard de Clichy for an address. That
was more than the price of a room, I thought to myself. Oh well, there was time yet ... we'd
see. I don't know how it started anymore
but soon she was raving to me about Henry Bordeaux. I have yet to meet a whore who doesn't know
of Henry Bordeaux! But this one was
genuinely inspired; her language was beautiful now, so tender, so discerning, that
I was debating how much to give her. It
seemed to me that I had heard her say - "quand il n'y aura plus de
temps." It sounded like that,
anyway. In the state I was in, a phrase
like that was worth a hundred francs. I
wondered if it was her own or if she had pulled it from Henry Bordeaux. Little matter. It was just the right phrase with which to
roll up to the foot of Montmartre. "Good
evening, mother," I was saying to myself, "daughter and I will look
after you - quand il n'y aura plus de temps!" She was going to show me her diploma, too, I
remembered that.
She was all aflutter, once the door had
closed behind us. Distracted. Wringing her hands and striking Sarah
Bernhardt poses, half undressed too, and pausing between times to urge me to
hurry, to get undressed, to do this and do that. Finally, when she had stripped down and was
poking about with a chemise in her hand, searching for her kimono, I caught
hold of her and gave her a good squeeze.
"She had a look of anguish on her face when I released her. "My God!
My God! I must go downstairs and
have a look at mother!" she exclaimed.
"You can take a bath if you like, cheri. There!
I'll be back in a few minutes."
At the door I embraced her again.
I was in my underclothes and I had a tremendous erection. Somehow all this anguish and excitement, all
the grief and histrionics, only whetted my appetite. Perhaps she was just going downstairs to
quiet her marquereau. I had a
feeling that something unusual was happening, some sort of drama which I would
read about in the morning paper. I gave
the place a quick inspection. There were
two rooms and a bath, not badly furnished.
Rather coquettish. There was her
diploma on the wall - "first class," as they all read. And there was the photograph of a child, a
little girl with beautiful locks, on the dresser. I put the water on for a bath, and then I
changed my mind. If something were to
happen and I were found in the tub ... I didn't like the idea. I paced back and forth, getting more and more
uneasy as the minutes rolled by.
When she returned she was even more upset
than before. "She's going to die
... she's going to die!" she kept wailing.
For a moment I was almost on the point of leaving. How the hell can you climb over a woman when
her mother's dying downstairs, perhaps right beneath you? I put my arms around her, half in sympathy
and half determined to get what I had come for.
As we stood thus she murmured, as if in real distress, her need for the
money I had promised her. It was for "maman". Shit, I didn't have the heart to haggle about
a few francs at the moment. I walked
over to the chair where my clothes were lying and I wriggled a hundred franc
note out of my fob pocket, carefully keeping my back turned to her just the
same. And, as a further precaution, I
placed my pants on the side of the bed where I knew I was going to flop. The hundred francs wasn't altogether
satisfactory to her, but I could see from the feeble way that she protested
that it was quite enough. Then, with an
energy that astonished me, she flung off her kimono and jumped into bed. As soon as I had put my arms around her and
pulled her to me she reached for the switch and out went the lights. She embraced me passionately, and she groaned
as all French cunts do when they get you in bed. She was getting me frightfully roused with
her carrying on; that business of turning out the lights was a new one to me
... it seemed like the real thing. But I
was suspicious too, and as soon as I could manage conveniently I put my hands
out to feel if my trousers were still there on the chair.
I thought we were settled for the
night. The bed felt very comfortable,
softer than the average hotel bed - and the sheets were clean, I had noticed
that. If only she wouldn't squirm
so! You would think she hadn't slept
with a man for a month. I wanted to
stretch it out. I wanted full value for
my hundred francs. But she was mumbling
all sorts of things in that crazy bed language which goes to your blood even
more rapidly when it's in the dark. I
was putting up a stiff fight, but it was impossible with her groaning and
gasping going on, and her muttering: "Vite cheri! Vite cheri!
Oh, c'est bon! Oh, oh! Vite, vite, cheri!" I tried to count but it was like a fire alarm
going off. "Vite, cheri!" and
this time she gave such a gasping shudder that bango! I heard the stars chiming
and there was my hundred francs gone and the fifty that I had forgotten all
about and the lights were on again and with the same alacrity that she had
bounced into bed she was bouncing out again and grunting and squealing like an
old sow. I lay back and puffed a
cigarette, gazing ruefully at my pants the while; they were terribly wrinkled. In a moment she was back again, wrapping the
kimono around her, and telling me in that agitated way which was getting on my
nerves that I should make myself at home.
"I'm going downstairs to see mother," she said. "Mais faites comme chez vous,
cheri. Je reviens tout de suite."
After a quarter of an hour had passed I
began to feel thoroughly restless. I
went inside and I read through a letter that was lying on the table. It was nothing of any account - a love
letter. In the bathroom I examined all
the bottles on the shelf; she had everything a woman requires to make herself
smell beautiful. I was still hoping that
she would come back and give me another fifty francs' worth. But time dragged on and there was no sign of
her. I began to grow alarmed. Perhaps there was someone dying
downstairs. Absentmindedly, out of a
sense of self-preservation, I suppose, I began to put my things on. As I was buckling my belt it came to me like
a flash how she had stuffed the hundred franc note into her purse. In the excitement of the moment she had
thrust the purse in the wardrobe, on the upper shelf. I remembered the gesture she made - standing
on her tiptoes and reaching for the shelf.
It didn't take me a minute to open the wardrobe and feel around for the
purse. It was still there. I opened it hurriedly and saw my hundred
franc note lying snugly between the silk coverlets. I put the purse back just as it was, slipped
into my coat and shoes, and then I went to the landing and listened
intently. I couldn't hear a sound. Where she had gone to, Christ only
knows. In a jiffy I was back at the
wardrobe and fumbling with her purse. I
pocketed the hundred francs and all the loose change besides. Then, closing the door silently, I tiptoed
down the stairs and when once I had hit the street I walked just as far as my
legs would carry me. At the Café Bourdon
I stopped for a bite. The whores there
having a gay time pelting a fat man who had fallen asleep over his meal. He was sound asleep; snoring, in fact, and
yet his jaws were working away mechanically.
The place was in an uproar. There
were shouts of "All aboard!" and then a concerted banging of knives
and forks. He opened his eyes for a
moment, blinked stupidly, and then his head rolled forward again on his
chest. I put the hundred franc bill
carefully away in my fob pocket and counted the change. The din around me was increasing and I had
difficulty to recall exactly whether I had seen "first-class" on her
diploma or not. It bothered me. About her mother I didn't give a damn. I hoped she had croaked by now. It would be strange if what she had said were
true. Too good to believe. Vite cheri ... vite, vite! And the other half-wit with her "my good
sir" and "you have such a kind face"! I wondered if she had really taken a room in
that hotel we stopped by.
IT was
along the close of summer when Fillmore invited me to come and live with
him. He had a studio apartment
overlooking the cavalry barracks just off the Place Dupleix. We had seen a lot of each other since the
little trip to Le Havre. If it hadn't
been for Fillmore I didn't know where I should be today - dead, likely.
"I would have asked you long
before," he said, "if it hadn't been for that little bitch
Jackie. I didn't know how to get her off
my hands."
I had to smile. It was always like that with Fillmore. He had a genius for attracting homeless
bitches. Anyway, Jackie had finally
cleared out of her own accord.
The rainy season was coming on, the long,
dreary stretch of grease and fog and squirts of rain that make you damp and
miserable. An execrable place in the
winter, Paris! A climate that eats into
your soul, that leaves you bare as the Labrador coast. I noticed with some anxiety that the only
means of heating the place was the little stove in the studio. However, it was still comfortable. And the view from the studio window was
superb.
In the morning Fillmore would shake me
roughly and leave a ten franc note on the pillow. As soon as he had gone I would settle back
for a final snooze. Sometimes I would
lie abed till noon. There was nothing
pressing, except to finish the book, and that didn't worry me much because I
was already convinced that nobody would accept it anyway. Nevertheless, Fillmore was much impressed by
it. When he arrived in the evening with
a bottle under his arm the first thing he did was to go to the table and see
how many pages I had knocked off. At
first I enjoyed this show of enthusiasm but later, when I was running dry, it
made me devilishly uneasy to see him poking around, searching for the pages
that were supposed to trickle out of me like water from a tap. When there was nothing to show I felt exactly
like some bitch whom he had harboured.
He used to say about Jackie, I remembered - "it would have been all
right if only she had slipped me a piece of ass once in a while." If I had been a woman I would have been only
too glad to slip him a piece of ass: it would have been much easier than to
feed him the pages which he expected.
Nevertheless, he tried to make me feel at
ease. There was always plenty of food and
wine, and now and then he would insist that I accompany him to a dancing. He was fond of going to a nigger joint on the
Rue d'Odessa where there was a good-looking mulatto who used to come home with
him occasionally. The one thing that
bothered him was that he couldn't find a French girl who liked to drink. They were all too sober to satisfy him - He
liked to bring a woman back to the studio and guzzle it with her before getting
down to business. He also liked to have
her think that he was an artist. As the
man from whom he had rented the place was a painter, it was not difficult to
create an impression; the canvases which we had found in the armoire
were soon stuck about the place and one of the unfinished ones conspicuously
mounted on the easel. Unfortunately they
were all of a surrealistic quality and the impression they created was usually
unfavourable. Between a whore, a
concierge and a cabinet minister there is not much difference in taste where
pictures are concerned. It was a matter
of great relief to Fillmore when Mark Swift began to visit us regularly with
the intention of doing my portrait.
Fillmore had a great admiration for Swift. He was a genius, he said. And though there was something ferocious
about everything he tackled, nevertheless when he painted a man or an object
you could recognize it for what it was.
At Swift's request I had begun to grow a
beard. The shape of my skull, he said,
required a beard. I had to sit by the
window with the Eiffel Tower in the picture too. He also wanted the typewriter in the
picture. Kruger got the habit of
dropping in too about this time; he maintained that Swift knew nothing about
painting. It exasperated him to see
things out of proportion. He believed in
Nature's laws, implicitly. Swift didn't
give a fuck about Nature; he wanted to paint what was inside his head. Anyway, there was Swift's portrait of me
stuck on the easel now, and though everything was out of proportion, even a
cabinet minister could see that it was a human head, a man with a beard. The concierge, indeed, began to take a great
interest in the picture; she thought the likeness was striking. And she liked the idea of showing the Eiffel
Tower in the background.
Things rolled along this way peacefully
for about a month or more. The
neighbourhood appealed to me, particularly at night when the full squalor and
lugubriousness of it made itself felt.
The little Place, so charming and tranquil at twilight, could assume the
most dismal, sinister character when darkness came on. There was that long, high wall covering one
side of the barracks against which there was always a couple embracing each
other furtively - often in the rain. A
depressing sight to see two lovers squeezed against a prison wall under a
gloomy street light: as if they had been driven right to the last bounds. What went on inside the enclosure was also
depressing. On a rainy day I used to
stand by the window and look down on the activity below, quite as though it
were something going on on another planet. It seemed incomprehensible to me. Everything done according to schedule, but a
schedule that must had been devised by a lunatic. There they were, floundering around in the
mud, the bugles blowing, the horses charging - all within four walls. A sham battle. A lot of tin soldiers who hadn't the least
interest in learning how to kill or how to polish their boots or currycomb the
horses. Utterly ridiculous the whole
thing, but part of the scheme of things.
When they had nothing to do they looked even more ridiculous; they
scratched themselves, they walked about with their hands in their pockets, they
looked up at the sky. And when an
officer came along they clicked their heels and saluted. A madhouse, it seemed to me. Even the horses looked silly. And then sometimes the artillery was dragged
out and they went clattering down the street on parade and people stood and
gaped and admired the fine uniforms. To
me they always looked like an army corps in retreat; something shabby,
bedraggled, crestfallen about them, their uniforms too big for their bodies,
all the alertness, which as individuals they possess to such a remarkable
degree, gone now.
When the sun came out, however, things
looked different. There was a ray of
hope in their eyes, they walked more elastically, they showed a little
enthusiasm. Then the colour of things
peeped out graciously and there was that fuss and bustle so characteristic of
the French; at the bistro on the corner they chattered gaily over their
drinks and the officers seemed more human, more French, I might say. When the sun comes out, any spot in Paris can
look beautiful; and if there is a bistro with an awning rolled down, a
few tables on the sidewalk and coloured drinks in the glasses, then people look
altogether human. And they are
human - the finest people in the world when the sun shines! So intelligent, so indolent, so
carefree! It's a crime to herd such a
people into barracks, to put them through exercises, to grade them into
privates and sergeants and colonels and what not.
As I say, things were rolling along
smoothly. Now and then Carol came along
with a job for me, travel articles which he hated to do himself. They only paid fifty francs a piece, but they
were easy to do because I had only to consult the back issues and revamp the
old articles. People only read these
things when they were sitting on a toilet or killing time in a waiting room. The principal thing was to keep the
adjectives well furbished - the rest was a matter of dates and statistics. If it was an important article the head of
the department signed it himself; he was a half-wit who couldn't speak any
language well, but who knew how to find fault.
If he found a paragraph that seemed to him well written he would say -
"Now that's the way I want you to write!
That's beautiful. You have my
permission to use it in your book."
These beautiful paragraphs we sometimes lifted from an encyclopaedia or
an old guide book. Some of them Carl did
put into his book - they had a surrealistic character.
Then one evening, after I had been out
for a walk, I open the door and a woman springs out of the bedroom. "So you're the writer!" she
exclaims at once, and she looks at my beard as if to corroborate her
impression. "What a horrid
beard!" she says. "I think you
people must be crazy around here."
Fillmore is trailing after her with a blanket in his hand. "She's a princess," he says,
smacking his lips as if he had just tasted some rare caviar. The two of them were dressed for the street;
I couldn't understand what they were doing with the bedclothes. And then it occurred to me immediately that
Fillmore must have dragged her into the bedroom to show her his laundry
bag. He always did that with a new woman,
especially if she was a Francaise.
"No tickee, no shirtee!" that's what was stitched on the
laundry bag, and somehow Fillmore had an obsession for explaining this motto to
every female who arrived. But this dame
was not a Francaise - he made that clear
to me at once. She was Russian - and a
princess, no less.
He was bubbling over with excitement,
like a child that has just found a new toy.
"She speaks five languages!" he said, obviously overwhelmed by
such an accomplishment.
"Non, four!" she corrected
promptly.
"Well, four then.... Anyway, she's a
damned intelligent girl. You ought to
hear her speak."
The princess was nervous - she kept
scratching her thigh and rubbing her nose.
"Why does he want to make his bed now?" she asked me abruptly.
"Does he think he will get me that
way? He's a big child. He behaves disgracefully. I took him to a Russian restaurant and he
danced like a nigger." She wriggled
her bottom to illustrate. "And he
talks too much. Too loud. He talks nonsense." She swished about the room, examining the
paintings and the books, keeping her chin well up all the time but scratching
herself intermittently. Now and then she
wheeled around like a battleship and delivered a broadside. Fillmore kept following her about with a
bottle in one hand and a glass in the other.
"Stop following me like that!" she exclaimed. "And haven't you anything to drink but
this? Can't you get a bottle of
champagne? I must have some
champagne. My nerves! My nerves!"
Fillmore
tries to whisper a few words in my ear.
"An actress ... a movie star ... some guy jilted her and she can't
get over it.... I'm going to get her cockeyed...."
"I'll clear out then," I was
saying, when the princess interrupted us with a shout. "Why do you whisper like that?" she
cried, stamping her foot. "Don't
you know that's not polite? And you,
I thought you were going to take me out?
I must get drunk tonight, I have told you that already."
"Yes, yes," said Fillmore,
"we're going in a minute. I just
want another drink."
"You're a pig!" she
yelled. "But you're a nice boy
too. Only you're loud. You have no manners." She turned to me. "Can I trust him to behave himself? I must get drunk tonight but I don't want him
to disgrace me. Maybe I will come back
here afterwards. I would like to talk to
you. You seem more intelligent."
As they were leaving the princess shook
my hand cordially and promised to come for dinner some evening - "when I
will be sober," she said.
"Fine!" I said. "Bring another princess along - or a
countess, at least. We change the sheets
every Saturday."
About three in the morning Fillmore
staggers in ... alone. Lit up like an
ocean liner, and making a noise like a blind man with his cracked cane. Tap, tap, tap, down the weary lane....
"Going straight to bed," he says, as he marches past me. "Tell you all about it
tomorrow." He goes inside to his
room and throws back the covers. I hear
him groaning - "what a woman! what a woman!" In a second he's out again, with his hat on
and the cracked cane in his hand.
"I knew something like that was going to happen. She's crazy!"
He rummages around in the kitchen a while
and then comes back to the studio with a bottle of Anjou. I have to sit up and down a glass with him.
As far as I can piece the story together
the whole thing started at the Rond-Point des Champs Elysées where he had
dropped off for a drink on his way home.
As usual at that hour the terrasse was crowded with
buzzards. This one was sitting right on
the aisle with a pile of saucers in front of her; she was getting drunk quietly
all by herself when Fillmore happened along and caught her eye. "I'm drunk," she giggled,
"won't you sit down?" And
then, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to do, she began right
off the bat with the yarn about her movie director, how he had given her the
go-by and how she had thrown herself in the Seine and so forth and so on. She couldn't remember anymore which bridge it
was, only that there was a crowd around when they fished her out of the
water. Besides, she didn't see what
difference it made which bridge she threw herself from - why did he ask such
questions? She was laughing hysterically
about it, and then suddenly she had a desire to be off - she wanted to
dance. Seeing him hesitate she opens her
bag impulsively and pulls out a hundred franc note. The next moment, however, she decided that a
hundred francs wouldn't go very far.
"Haven't you any money at all?" she said. No, he hadn't very much in his pocket, but he
had a chequebook at home. So they made a
dash for the chequebook and then, of course, I had to happen in just as he was
explaining to her the "No tickee, no shirtee" business.
On the way home they had stopped off at
the Poison d'Or for a little snack which she had washed down with a few
vodkas. She was in her element there
with everyone kissing her hand and murmuring Princesse, Princesse. Drunk as she was, she managed to collect her
dignity. "Don't wiggle your behind
like that!" she kept saying, as they danced.
It was Fillmore's idea, when he brought
her back to the studio, to stay there.
But, since she was such an intelligent girl and so erratic, he had
decided to put up with her whims and postpone the grand event. He had even visualized the prospect of
running across another princess and bringing the two of them back. When they started out for the evening,
therefore, he was in a good humour and prepared, if necessary, to spend a few
hundred francs on her. After all, one
doesn't run across a princess every day.
This time she dragged him to another
place, a place where she was still better known and where there would be no
trouble in cashing a cheque, as she said.
Everybody was in evening clothes and there was more spine-breaking,
hand-kissing nonsense as the waiter escorted them to a table.
In the middle of a dance she suddenly
walks off the floor, with tears in her eyes.
"What's the matter?" he said, "what did I do this
time?" And instinctively he put his
hand to his backside, as though perhaps it might still be wiggling. "It's nothing," she said. "You didn't do anything. Come, you're a nice boy," and with that
she drags him on to the floor again and begins to dance with abandon. "But what's the matter with you?"
he murmured. "It's nothing,"
she repeated. "I saw somebody,
that's all." And then, with a
sudden spurt of anger - "why do you get me drunk? Don't you know it makes me crazy?
"Have you got a cheque?" she
says. "We must get out of
here." She called the waiter over
and whispered to him in Russian.
"Is it a good cheque?" she asked, when the waiter had
disappeared. And then, impulsively:
"Wait for me downstairs in the cloakroom.
I must telephone somebody."
After the waiter had brought the change
Fillmore sauntered leisurely downstairs to the cloakroom to wait for her. He strode up and down, humming and whistling
softly, and smacking his lips in anticipation of the caviar to come. Five minutes passed. Ten minutes.
Still whistling softly. When
twenty minutes had gone by and still no princess he at last grew
suspicious. The cloakroom attendant said
that she had left long ago. He dashed
outside. There was a nigger in livery
standing there with a big grin on his face.
Did the nigger know where she had breezed to? Nigger grins.
Nigger says: "Ah heerd Coupole, dassall sir!"
At the Coupole, downstairs, he finds her
sitting in front of a cocktail with a dreamy, trancelike expression on her
face. She smiles when she sees him.
"Was that a decent thing to
do," he says, "to run away like that?
You might have told me that you didn't like me...."
She flared up at this, got theatrical
about it. And after a lot of gushing she
commenced to whine and slobber.
"I'm crazy," she blubbered.
"And you're crazy too. You
want me to sleep with you, and I don't want to sleep with you." And then she began to rave about her lover,
the movie director whom she had seen on the dance floor. That's why she had to run away from the
place. That's why she took drugs and got
drunk every night. That's why she threw
herself in the Seine. She babbled on
this way about how crazy she was and then suddenly she had an idea. "Let's
go to Bricktop's!" There was a man
there whom she knew ... he had promised her a job once. She was certain he would help her.
"What's it going to cost?"
asked Fillmore cautiously.
It would cost a lot, she let him know
that immediately. "But listen, if you take me to Bricktop's, I promise to
go home with you." She was honest
enough to add that it might cost him five or six hundred francs. "But I'm worth it! You don't know what a woman I am. There isn't another woman like me in all Paris...."
"That's what you
think!" His Yankee blood was coming
to the fore. "But I don't see
it. I don't see that you're worth
anything. You're just a poor crazy
son-of-a-bitch. Frankly, I'd rather give
fifty francs to some poor French girl; at least they give you something in
return."
She hit the ceiling when he mentioned the
French girls. "Don't talk to me
about those women! I hate them! They're stupid ... they're ugly ... they're
mercenary. Stop it, I tell you!"
In a moment she had subsided again. She was on a new tack. "Darling," she murmured, "you
don't know what I look like when I'm undressed.
I'm beautiful!" And
she held her breasts with her two hands.
But Fillmore remained unimpressed. "You're a bitch!" he said
coldly. "I wouldn't mind spending a
few hundred francs on you, but you're crazy.
You haven't even washed your face.
Your breath stinks. I don't give
a damn whether you're a princess or not ... I don't want any of your high-assed
Russian variety. You ought to get out in
the street and hustle for it. You're no
better than any little French girl.
You're not as good. I wouldn't
piss away another sou on you. You ought
to go to America - that's the place for a bloodsucking leech like you...."
She didn't seem to be at all put out by
this speech. "I think you're just a
little afraid of me," she said.
"Afraid of you? Of you?"
"You're just a little boy," she
said. "You have no manners. When you know me better you will talk
differently.... Why don't you try to be nice?
If you don't want to go with me tonight, very well. I will be at the Rond-Point tomorrow between
five and seven. I like you."
"I don't intend to be at the
Rond-Point tomorrow, or any other night!
I don't want to see you again ... ever.
I'm through with you. I'm going
out to find myself a nice little French girl.
You can go to hell!"
She looked at him and smiled wearily.
"That's what you say now. But
wait! Wait until you've slept with
me. You don't know yet what a beautiful
body I have. You think the French girls
know how to make love ... wait! I will
make you crazy about me. I like
you. Only you're uncivilized. You're just a boy. You talk too much...."
"You're crazy," said
Fillmore. "I wouldn't fall for you
if you were the last woman on earth. Go
home and wash your face." He walked
off without paying for the drinks.
In a few days, however, the princess was installed. She's a genuine princess, of that we're
pretty certain. But she has the
clap. Anyway, life is far from dull
here. Fillmore has bronchitis, the
princess, as I was saying, has the clap, and I have the piles. Just exchanged six empty bottles at the
Russian epicerie across the way.
Not a drop went down my gullet.
No meat, no wine, no rich game, no women. Only fruit and paraffin oil, arnica drops and
adrenalin ointment. And not a chair in
the joint that's comfortable enough.
Right now, looking at the princess, I'm propped up like a pasha. Pasha!
That reminds me of her name: Macha.
Doesn't sound so damned aristocratic to me. Reminds me of The Living Corpse.
At first I thought it was going to be
embarrassing, a menage à tois, but not at all. I thought when I saw her move in that it was
all up with me again, that I should have to find another place, but Fillmore
soon gave me to understand that he was only putting her up until she got on her
feet. With a woman like her I don't know
what an expression like that means; as far as I can see she's been standing on
her head all her life. She says the
revolution drove her out of Russia, but I'm sure if it hadn't been the
revolution it would have been something else.
She's under the impression that she's a great actress, we never
contradict her in anything she says because it's time wasted. Fillmore finds her amusing. When he leaves for the office in the morning
he drops ten francs on her pillow and ten francs on mine; at night the three of
us go to the Russian restaurant down below.
The neighbourhood is full of Russians and Macha has already found a
place where she can run up a little credit.
Naturally, ten francs a day isn't anything for a princess; she wants
caviar now and then and champagne, and she needs a complete new wardrobe in
order to get a job in the movies again.
She has nothing to do now except to kill time. She's putting on fat.
This morning I had quite a fright. After I had washed my face I grabbed her
towel by mistake. We can't seem to train
her to put her towel on the right hook.
And when I bawled her out for it she answered smoothly: "My dear,
if one can become blind from that I would have been blind years ago."
And then there's the toilet, which we all
have to use. I try speaking to her in a
fatherly way about the toilet seat. "Oh, zut!" she says. "If you are so afraid I'll go to a
café." But it's not necessary to do
that, I explain. Just use ordinary
precautions. "Tut tut!" she
says, "I won't sit there then ... I'll stand up."
Everything is cockeyed with her
around. First she wouldn't come across
because she had the monthlies. For eight
days that lasted. We were beginning to
think she was faking it. But no, she
wasn't faking. One day, when I was
trying to put the place in order, I found some cotton batting under the bed and
it was stained with blood. With her,
everything goes under the bed: orange peel, wadding, corks, empty bottles,
scissors, used condoms, books, pillows.... She makes the bed only when it's time
to retire. Most of the time she lies
abed reading her Russian papers.
"My dear," she says to me, "if it weren't for my papers I
wouldn't get out of bed at all."
That's it precisely! Nothing but
Russian newspapers. Not a scratch of
toilet paper around - nothing but Russian newspapers with which to wipe your
ass.
Anyway, speaking of her idiosyncrasies,
after the menstrual flow was over, after she had rested properly and put a nice
layer of fat around her belt, still she wouldn't come across. Pretended that she only liked women. To take on a man she had to first be properly
stimulated. Wanted us to take her to a
bawdy house where they put on the dog and man act. Or better still, she said, would be Leda and
the swan: the flapping of the wings excited her terribly.
One night, to test her out, was
accompanied her to a place that she suggested.
But before we had a chance to broach the subject to the madam, a drunken
Englishman, who was sitting at the next table, fell into a conversation with
us. He had already been upstairs twice
but he wanted another try at it. He had
only about twenty francs in his pocket, and not knowing any French he asked us
if we would help him to bargain with the girl he had his eyes on. Happened she was a Negress, a powerful wench
from Martinique, and beautiful as a panther.
Had a lovely disposition too. In
order to persuade her to accept the Englishman's remaining sous, Fillmore had
to promise to go with her himself soon as she got through with the
Englishman. The princess looked on,
heard everything that was said, and then got on her high horse. She was insulted. "Well," said Fillmore, "you
wanted some excitement - you can watch me do it!" She didn't want to watch him - she wanted to
watch a drake. "Well, by
Jesus," he said, "I'm as good as a drake any day ... maybe a little
better." Like that, one word led to
another, and finally the only way we could appease her was to call one of the
girls back and let them tickle each other.... When Fillmore came back with the
Negress her eyes were smouldering. I
could see from the way Fillmore looked at her that she must have given an
unusual performance and I began to feel lecherous myself. Fillmore must have sensed how I felt, and
what an ordeal it was to sit and look on all night, for suddenly he pulled a
hundred franc note out of his pocket and, slapping it in front of me, he said:
"Look here, you probably need a lay more than any of us. Take that a pick someone out for yourself." Somehow that gesture endeared him more to me
than anything he had ever done for me, and he had done considerable. I accepted the money in the spirit it was
given and promptly signalled to the Negress to get ready for another lay. That enraged the princess more than anything,
it appeared. She wanted to know if there
wasn't anyone in the place good enough for us except this Negress. I told her bluntly NO. And it was so - the Negress was the queen of
the harem. You had only to look at her
to get an erection. Her eyes seemed to
be swimming in sperm. She was drunk with
all the demands made upon her. She
couldn't walk straight anymore - at least it seemed that way to me. Going up the narrow winding stairs behind her
I couldn't resist the temptation to slide my hand up her crotch; we continued
up the stairs that way, she looking back at me with a cheerful smile and
wiggling her ass a bit when it tickled her too much.
It was a good session all around. Everyone was happy. Macha seemed to be in a good mood too. And so the next evening, after she had had
her ration of champagne and caviar, after she had given us another chapter out
of the history of her life, Fillmore went to work on her. It seemed as though he was going to get his
reward at last. She had ceased to put up
a fight anymore. She lay back with her
legs apart and she let him fool around and fool around and then, just as he was
climbing over her, just as he was going to slip it in, she informs him
nonchalantly that she has a dose of clap.
He rolled off her like a log. I
heard him fumbling around in the kitchen for the black soap he used on special
occasions, and in a few moments he was standing by my bed with a towel in his
hands and saying - "can you beat that? that son-of-a-bitch of a princess
has the clap!" He seemed pretty
well scared about it. The princess
meanwhile was munching an apple and calling for her Russian newspapers. It was quite a joke to her. "There are worse things than that,"
she said, lying there in her bed and talking to us through the open door. Finally, Fillmore began to see it as a joke
too and, opening another bottle of Anjou, he poured out a drink for himself and
quaffed it down. It was only about one
in the morning and so he sat there talking to me for a while. He wasn't going to be put off by a thing like
that, he told me. Of course, he had to
be careful ... there was the old dose which had come on in Le Havre. He couldn't remember anymore how that
happened. Sometimes when he got drunk he
forgot to wash himself. It wasn't
anything very terrible, but you never knew what might develop later. He didn't want anyone massaging his prostate
gland. No, that he didn't relish. The first dose he ever got was at
college. Didn't know whether the girl
had given it to him or he to the girl; there was so much funny work going on
about the campus you didn't know whom to believe. Nearly all the co-eds had been knocked up
some time or other. Too damned ignorant
... even the profs were ignorant. One of
the profs had himself castrated, so the rumour went....
Anyway, the next night he decided to risk
it - with a condom. Not much risk in
that, unless it breaks. He had brought
himself some of the long fishskin variety - they were the most reliable, he
assured me. But then, that didn't work
either. She was too tight. "Jesus, there's nothing abnormal about
me," he said. "How do you make
that out? Somebody got inside her all
right to give her that dose. He must
have been abnormally small."
So, one thing after another failing, he
just gave it up altogether. They lie
there now like brother and sister, with incestuous dreams. Says Macha, in her philosophic way: "In
Russia it often happens that a man sleeps with a woman without touching
her. They can go on that way for weeks
and weeks and never think anything about it.
Until paff! once he touches her ... paff! paff! After that it's paff, paff, paff!"
All efforts are concentrated now on
getting Macha into shape. Fillmore
thinks if he cures her of the clap she may loosen up. A strange idea. So he's bought her a douche bag, a stock of
permanganate, a whirling syringe and other little things which were recommended
to him by a Hungarian doctor, a little quack of an abortionist over near the
Place d'Aligre. It seems his boss had
knocked up a sixteen-year-old girl once and she had introduced him to the
Hungarian; and then after that the boss had a beautiful chancre and it was the
Hungarian again. That's how one gets
acquainted in Paris - genito-urinary friendships. Anyway, under our strict supervision, Macha
is taking care of herself. The other
night, though, we were in a quandary for a while. She stuck the suppository inside her and then
she couldn't find the string attached to it.
"My God!" she was yelling, "where is that string? My God!
I can't find the string!"
"Did you look under the bed?"
said Fillmore.
Finally she quieted down. But only for a few minutes. The next thing was: "My God! I'm
bleeding again. I just had my period and
now there are gouttes again. It
must be that cheap champagne you buy. My
God, do you want me to bleed to death?"
She comes out with a kimono on and a towel stuck between her legs,
trying to look dignified as usual.
"My whole life is just like that," she says. "I'm a neurasthenic. The whole day running around and at night I'm
drunk again. When I came to Paris I was
still an innocent girl. I read only
Villon and Baudelaire. But as I had then
300,000 Swiss francs in the bank I was crazy to enjoy myself, because in Russia
they were always strict with me. And as
I was even more beautiful then than I am now, I had all the men falling at my
feet." Here she hitched up the
slack which had accumulated around her belt.
"You mustn't think I had a stomach like that when I came here ...
that's from all the poison I was given to drink ... those horrible aperitifs
which the French are so crazy to drink.... So then I met my movie director and
he wanted that I should play a part for him.
He said I was the most gorgeous creature in the world and he was begging
me to sleep with him every night. I was
a foolish young virgin and so I permitted him to rape me one night. I wanted to be a great actress and I didn't
know he was full of poison. So he gave
me the clap ... and now I want that he should have it back again. It's his fault that I committed suicide in
the Seine.... Why are you laughing? Don't you believe that I committed
suicide? I can show you the newspapers
... there is my picture in all the papers.
I will show you the Russian papers some day ... they wrote about me
wonderfully.... But, darling, you know that first I must have a new dress. I can't vamp this man with these dirty rags I
am in. Besides, I still owe my
dressmaker 12,000 francs...."
From here on it's a long story about the
inheritance which she is trying to collect.
She has a young lawyer, a Frenchman, who is rather timid, it seems, and
he is trying to win back her fortune.
From time to time he used to give her a hundred francs or so on
account. "He's stingy, like all the
French people," she says. "And
I was so beautiful, too, that he couldn't keep his eyes off me. He kept begging me always to fuck him. I got so sick and tired of listening to him
that one night I said yes, just to keep him quiet, and so as I wouldn't lose my
hundred francs now and then." She paused
a moment to laugh hysterically. "My
dear," she continued, "it was too funny for words what happened to
him. He calls me up on the phone one day
and he says: 'I must see you right away ... it's very important.' And when I see him he shows me a paper from
the doctor - and it's gonorrhoea! My
dear, I laughed in his face. How should
I know that I still had the clap? 'You
wanted to fuck me and so I fucked you!'
That made him quiet. That's how
it goes in life ... you don't suspect anything, and then all of a sudden paff,
paff, paff! He was such a fool that he
fell in love with me all over again.
Only he begged me to behave myself and not run around Montparnasse all
night drinking and fucking. He said I
was driving him crazy. He wanted to
marry me and then his family heard about me and they persuaded him to go to
Indo-China...."
From this Macha calmly switches to an
affair she had with a Lesbian. "It
was very funny, my dear, how she picked me up one night. I was at the 'Fetiche' and I was drunk as
usual. She took me from one place to the
other and she made love to me under the table all night until I couldn't stand
it anymore. Then she took me to her
apartment and for two hundred francs I let her suck me off. She wanted me to live with her but I didn't
want to have her suck me off every night ... it makes you too weak. Besides, I can tell you that I don't care so
much for Lesbians as I used to. I would
rather sleep with a man even though it hurts me. When I get terribly excited I can't hold
myself back anymore ... three, four, five times ... just like that! Paff, paff, paff! And then I bleed and that is very unhealthy
for me because I am inclined to be anaemic.
So you see why once in a while I must let myself be sucked by a
Lesbian...."
WHEN
the cold weather set in the princess disappeared. It was getting uncomfortable with just a
little coal stove in the studio; the bedroom was like an icebox and the kitchen
was hardly any better. There was just a
little space around the stove where it was actually warm. So Macha had found herself a sculptor who was
castrated. She told us about him before
she left. After a few days she tried
coming back to us, but Fillmore wouldn't hear of it. She complained that the sculptor kept her
awake all night kissing her. And then
there was no hot water for her douches.
But finally she decided that it was just as well she didn't come
back. "I won't have that
candlestick next to me anymore," she said.
"Always that candlestick ... it made me nervous. If you had only been a fairy I would have
stayed with you...."
With Macha gone our evenings took on a
different character. Often we sat by the
fire drinking hot toddies and discussing the life back there in the
States. We talked about if as if we never
expected to go back there again.
Fillmore had a map of New York City which he had tacked on the wall; we
used to spend whole evenings discussing the relative virtues of Paris and New
York. And inevitably there always crept
into our discussions the figure of Whitman, that one lone figure which America
has produced in the course of her brief life.
In Whitman the whole American scene comes to life, her past and her
future, her birth and her death.
Whatever there is of value in America Whitman has expressed, and there
is nothing more to be said. The future
belongs to the machine, to the robots.
He was the Poet of the Body and the Soul, Whitman. The first and the last poet. He is almost undecipherable today, a monument
covered with rude hieroglyphs for which there is no key. It seems strange almost to mention his name
over here. There is no equivalent in the
language of Europe for the spirit which he immortalized. Europe is saturated with art and her soil is
full of dead bones and her museums are bursting with plundered treasures, but
what Europe has never had is a free, healthy spirit, what you might call a
MAN. Goethe was the nearest approach,
but Goethe was a stuffed shirt, by comparison.
Goethe was a respectable citizen, a pedant, a bore, a universal spirit,
but stamped with the German trademark, with the double eagle. The serenity of Goethe, the calm, Olympian
attitude, is nothing more than the drowsy stupor of a German bourgeois deity. Goethe is the end of something, Whitman is a
beginning.
After a discussion of this sort I would
sometimes put on my things and go for a walk, bundled up in a sweater, a spring
overcoat of Fillmore's and a cape over that.
A foul, damp cold against which there is no protection except a strong
spirit. They say America is a country of
extremes, and it is true that the thermometer registers degrees of cold which
are practically unheard of here; but the cold of a Paris winter is a cold
unknown to America, it is psychological, an inner as well as an outer cold. If it never freezes here it never thaws
either. Just as the people protect
themselves against the invasion of their privacy by their high walls, their
bolts and shutters, their growling, evil-tongued, slatternly concierges, so
they have learned to protect themselves against the cold and heat of a bracing,
vigorous climate. They have fortified
themselves: protection is the key word.
Protection and security. In order
that they may rot in comfort. On a damp
winter's night it is not necessary to look at the map to discover the latitude
of Paris. It is a northern city, an
outpost erected over a swamp filled in with skulls and bones. Along the boulevards there is a cold
electrical imitation of heat. Tout Va
Bien in ultraviolet rays that make the clients of the Dupont chain cafés
look like gangrened cadavers. Tout Va
Bien! That's the motto that
nourishes the forlorn beggars who walk up and down all night under the drizzle
of the violet rays. Wherever there are
lights there is a little heat. One gets
warm from watching the fat, secure bastards down their grogs, their steaming
black coffees. Where the lights are
there are people on the sidewalks, jostling one another, giving off a little
animal heat through their dirty underwear and their foul, cursing breaths. Maybe for a stretch of eight or ten blocks
there is a semblance of gaiety, and then it tumbles back into night, dismal,
foul, black night like frozen fat in a soup tureen. Blocks and blocks of jagged tenements, every
window closed tight, every shopfront barred and bolted. Miles and miles of stone prisons without the
faintest glow of warmth; the dogs and the cats are all inside with the canary
birds. The cockroaches and the bedbugs
too are safely incarcerated. Tout Va
Bien. If you haven't a sou why just
take a few old newspapers and make yourself a bed on the steps of a
cathedral. The doors are well bolted and
there will be no draughts to disturb you.
Better still is to sleep outside the Metro doors; there you will have
company. Look at them on a rainy night,
lying there stiff as mattresses - men, women, lice, all huddled together and
protected by the newspapers against spittle and the vermin that walks without
legs. Look at them under the bridges or
under the market sheds. How vile they
look in comparison with the clean, bright vegetables stacked up like
jewels. Even the dead horses and cows
and sheep hanging from the greasy hooks look more inviting. At least we will eat these tomorrow and even
the intestines will serve a purpose. But
these filthy beggars lying in the rain, what purpose do they serve? What good can they do us? They make us bleed for five minutes, that's
all.
Oh, well, these are night thoughts
produced by walking in the rain after two thousand years of Christianity. At least now the birds are well provided for,
and the cats and dogs. Every time I pass
the concierge's window and catch the full icy impact of her glance I have an
insane desire to throttle all the birds in creation. At the bottom of every frozen heart there is
a drop or two of love - just enough to feed the birds.
Still, I can't get it out of my mind what
a discrepancy there is between ideas and living. A permanent dislocation, though we try to
cover the two with a bright awning. And
it won't go. Ideas have to be wedded to
action; if there is no sex, no vitality in them, there is no action. Ideas cannot exist alone in the vacuum of the
mind. Ideas are related to living: liver
ideas, kidney ideas, intestinal ideas, etc.
If it were only for the sake of an idea Copernicus would have smashed
the existent macrocosm and Columbus would have foundered in the Sargasso
Sea. The aesthetics of the idea breeds
flowerpots and flowerpots you put on the windowsill. But if there be no rain or sun of what use
putting flowerpots outside the window?
Fillmore is full of ideas about
gold. The "mythos" of gold, he
calls it. I like "mythos" and
I like the idea of gold, but I am not obsessed by the subject and I don't see
why we should make flowerpots, even of gold.
He tells me that the French are hoarding their gold away in watertight
compartments deep below the surface of the earth; he tells me that there is a
little locomotive which runs around in these subterranean vaults and
corridors. I like the idea
enormously. A profound, uninterrupted
silence in which the gold softly snoozes at a temperature of 17¼ degrees
Centigrade. He says an army working 46
days and 37 hours would not be sufficient to count all the gold that is sunk
beneath the Bank of France, and that there is a reserve supply of false teeth,
bracelets, wedding rings, etc. Enough
food also to last for eighty days and a lake on top of the gold pile to resist
the shock of high explosives. Gold, he
says, tends to become more and more invisible, a myth, and no more
defalcations. Excellent! I am wondering what will happen to the world
when we go off the gold standard in ideas, dress, morals, etc. The gold standard of love!
Up to the present, my idea in
collaborating with myself has been to get off the gold standard of
literature. My idea briefly has been to
present a resurrection of the emotions, to depict the conduct of a human being
in the stratosphere of ideas, that is, in the grip of delirium. To paint a pre- Socratic being, a creature
part goat, part Titan. In short, to
erect a world on the basis of the omphalos, not on an abstract idea
nailed to a cross. Here and there you
may have come across neglected statues, oases untapped, windmills overlooked by
Cervantes, rivers that run uphill, women with five and six breasts ranged
longitudinally along the torso. (Writing
to Gauguin, Strindberg said: "J'ai vu des arbres que ne retrouverait
aucun botaniste, des animaux que Cuvier n'a jamais soupçonnes et des hommes que
vous seul avez pu creer.")
When
Rembrandt hit par he went below with the gold ingots and the pemmican and the
portable beds. Gold is a night word
belonging to the chthonian mind: it has dream in it and mythos. We are reverting to alchemy, to that false
Alexandrian wisdom which produced our inflated symbols. Real wisdom is being stored away in the
subcellars by the misers of learning.
The day is coming when they will be circling around in the middle air
with magnetizers; to find a piece of ore you will have to go up ten thousand
feet with a pair of instruments - in a cold latitude preferably - and establish
telepathic communication with the bowels of the earth and the shades of the
dead. No more Klondikes. No more bonanzas. You will have to learn to sing and caper a
bit, to read the zodiac and study your entrails. All the gold that is being tucked away in the
pockets of the earth will have to be re-mined; all this symbolism will have to
be dragged out again from the bowels of man.
But first the instruments must be perfected. First it is necessary to invent better
airplanes, to distinguish 'where' the noise comes from and no go daffy just
because you hear an explosion under your ass.
And secondly it will be necessary to get adapted to the cold layers of
the stratosphere, to become a cold-blooded fish of the air. No reverence.
No piety. No longing. No regrets.
No hysteria. Above all, as
Philippe Datz says - "NO DISCOURAGEMENT!"
These are sunny thoughts inspired by a
vermouth cassis at the Place de la Trinité.
A Saturday afternoon and a "misfire" book in my hands. Everything swimming in a divine mucopus. The drink leaves a bitter herbish taste in my
mouth, the lees of our Great Western civilization, rotting now like the
toenails of the saints. Women are
passing by - regiments of them - all swinging their asses in front of me; the
chimes are ringing and the buses are climbing the sidewalk and bussing one
another. The 'garcon' wipes the table
with a dirty rag while the 'patronne' tickles the cash register with fiendish
glee. A look of vacuity on my face,
blotto, vague in acuity, biting the asses that brush by me. In the belfry opposite the hunchback strikes
with a golden mallet and the pigeons scream alarum. I open the book - the book which Nietzsche
called "the best German book there is" - and it says:
"MEN WILL BECOME MORE CLEVER AND
MORE ACUTE, BUT NOT BETTER, HAPPIER, AND STRONGER IN ACTION - OR, AT LEAST,
ONLY AT EPOCHS. I FORSEE THE TIME WHEN
GOD WILL HAVE NO MORE JOY IN THEM, BUT WILL BREAK UP EVERYTHING FOR A RENEWED
CREATION. I AM CERTAIN THAT EVERYTHING
IS PLANNED TO THIS END, AND THAT THE TIME AND HOUR IN THE DISTANT FUTURE FOR
THE OCCURRENCE OF THIS RENOVATING EPOCH ARE ALREADY FIXED. BUT A LONG TIME WILL ELAPSE FIRST, AND WE MAY
STILL FOR THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF YEARS AMUSE OURSELVES ON THIS DEAR OLD
SURFACE."
Excellent! At least a hundred years ago there was a man
who had vision enough to see that the world was pooped out. Our Western World! - When I see the
figures of men and women moving listlessly behind their prison walls,
sheltered, secluded for a few brief hours, I am appalled by the potentialities
for drama that are still contained in these feeble bodies. Behind the gray walls there are human sparks,
and yet never a conflagration. Are these
men and women, I ask myself, or are these shadows, shadows of puppets dangled
by invisible strings? They move in
freedom apparently, but they have nowhere to go. In one realm only are they free and there
they may roam at will - but they have not yet learned how to take wing. So far there have been no dreams that have
taken wing. Not one man has been born
light enough, gay enough, to leave the earth! The eagles who flapped their mighty pinions
for a while came crashing heavily to earth.
They made us dizzy with the flap and whir of their wings. Stay on the earth, you eagles of the
future! The heavens have been explored
and they are empty. And what lies under
the earth is empty too, filled with bones and shadows. Stay on the earth and swim another few
hundred thousand years!
And now it is three o'clock in the
morning and we have a couple of trollops here who are doing somersaults on the
bare floor. Fillmore is walking around
naked with a goblet in his hand, and that paunch of his is drumtight, hard as a
fistula. All the Pernod and champagne
and cognac and Anjou which he guzzled from three in the afternoon on, is
gurgling in his trap like a sewer. The
girls are putting their ears to his belly as if it were a music box. Open his mouth with a buttonhook and drop a slug
in the slot. When the sewer gurgles I
hear the bats flying out of the belfry and the dream slides into artifice.
The girls have undressed and we are
examining the floor to make sure that they won't get any splinters in their
ass. They are still wearing their
high-heeled shoes. But the ass! The ass is worn down, scraped, sandpapered,
smooth, hard, bright as a billiard ball or the skull of a leper. On the wall is Mona's picture: she is facing
northeast on a line with Cracow written in green ink. To the left of her is the Dordogne, encircled
with a red pencil. Suddenly I see a
dark, hairy crack in front of me set in a bright, polished billiard ball; the
legs are holding me like a pair of scissors.
A glance at that dark, unstitched wound and a deep fissure in my brain
opens up: all the images and memories that had been laboriously or
absentmindedly assorted, labelled, documented, filed, sealed and stamped break
forth pell-mell like ants pouring out of a crack in the sidewalk; the world
ceases to revolve, time stops, the very nexus of my dreams is broken and
dissolved and my guts spill out in a grand schizophrenic rush, an evacuation
that leaves me face to face with the Absolute.
I see again the great sprawling mothers of Picasso, their breasts covered
with spiders, their legend hidden deep in the labyrinth. And Molly Bloom lying on a dirty mattress for
eternity. On the toilet door red chalk
cocks and the madonna uttering the diapason of woe. I hear a wild, hysterical laugh, a room full
of lockjaw, and the body that was black glows like phosphorus. Wild, wild, utterly uncontrollable laughter,
and that crack laughing at me too, laughing through the mossy whiskers, a laugh
that creases the bright, polished surface of the billiard ball. Great whore and mother of man with gin in her
veins. Mother of all harlots, spider
rolling us in your logarithmic grave, insatiable one, fiend whose laughter
rives me! I look down into that sunken
crater, world lost and without traces, and I hear the bells chiming, two nuns
at the Place Stanislas and the smell of rancid butter under their dresses,
manifesto never printed because it was raining, war fought to further the cause
of plastic surgery, the Prince of Wales flying around the world decorating the
graves of unknown heroes. Every bat
flying out of the belfry a lost cause, every whoopla a groan over the radio
from the private trenches of the damned.
Out of that dark, unstitched wound, that sink of abominations, that
cradle of black-thonged cities where the music of ideas is drowned in cold fat,
out of strangled Utopias is born a clown, a being divided between beauty and
ugliness, between light and chaos, a clown who when he looks down and sidelong
is Satan himself and when he looks upward sees a buttered angel, a snail with
wings.
When I look down into that crack I see an
equation sign, the world at balance, a world reduced to zero and no trace of
remainder. Not the zero on which Van
Norden turned his flashlight, not the empty crack of the prematurely
disillusioned man, but an Arabian zero rather, the sign from which spring
endless mathematical worlds, the fulcrum which balances the stars and the light
dreams and the machines lighter than air and the lightweight limbs and the
explosives that produced them. Into that
crack I would like to penetrate up to the eyes, make them waggle ferociously,
dear, crazy, metallurgical eyes. When
the eyes waggle then will I hear again Dostoevski's words, hear them rolling on
page after page, with minutest observation, with maddest introspection, with
all the undertones of misery now lightly, humorously touched, now swelling like
an organ note until the heart bursts and there is nothing left but a blinding,
scorching light, the radiant light that carries off the fecundating seeds of
the stars. The story of art whose roots
lie in massacre.
When I look down into this fucked-out
cunt of a whore I feel the whole world beneath me, a world tottering and
crumbling, a world used up and polished like a leper's skull. If there were a man who dared to say all that
he thought of this world there would not be left him a square foot of ground to
stand on. When a man appears the world
bears down on him and breaks his back.
There are always too many rotten pillars left standing, to much festering
humanity for man to bloom. The
superstructure is a lie and the foundation is a huge quaking fear. If at intervals of centuries there does
appear a man with a desperate, hungry look in his eye, a man who would turn the
world upside down in order to create a new race, the love that he brings to the
world is turned to bile and he becomes a scourge. If now and then we encounter pages that
explode, pages that wound and sear, that wring groans and tears and curses, know
that they come from a man with his back up, a man whose only defences left are
his words and his words are always stronger than the lying, crushing weight of
the world, stronger than all the racks and wheels which the cowardly invent to
crush out the miracle of personality. If
any man ever dared to translate all that is in his heart, to put down what is
really his experience, what is truly his truth, I think then the world would go
smash, that it would be blown to smithereens and no god, no accident, no will
could ever again assemble the pieces, the atoms, the indestructible elements
that have gone to make up the world.
In the four hundred years since the last
devouring soul appeared, the last man to know the meaning of ecstasy, there has
been a constant and steady decline of man in art, in thought, in action. The world is pooped out: there isn't a dry
fart left. Who that has a desperate,
hungry eye can have the slightest regard for these existent governments, laws,
codes, principles, ideals, ideas, totems, and taboos? If anyone knew what I meant to read the
riddle of the thing which today is called a "crack" or a
"hole", if anyone had the least feeling of mystery about the
phenomena which are labelled "obscene", this world would crack
asunder. It is the obscene horror, the
dry, fucked-out aspect of things which makes this crazy civilization look like
a crater. It is this great yawning gulf
of nothingness which the creative spirits and mothers of the race carry between
their legs. When a hungry, desperate
spirit appears and makes the guinea pigs squeal, it is because he knows where
to put the live wire of sex, because he knows that beneath the hard carapace of
indifference there is concealed the ugly gash, the wound that never heals. And he puts the live wire right between the
legs; he hits below the belt, scorches the very gizzards. It is no use putting on rubber globes; all
that can be coolly and intellectually handled belongs to the carapace and a man
who is intent on creation always dives beneath, to the open wound, to the
festering obscene horror. He hitches his
dynamo to the tenderest parts; if only blood and pus gush forth, it is
something. The dry, fucked-out crater is
obscene. More obscene than anything in
inertia. More blasphemous than the
bloodiest oath is paralysis. If there is
only a gaping wound left then it must gush forth through it produce nothing but
toads and bats and homunculi.
Everything is packed into a second which
is either consummated or not consummated.
The earth is not an arid plateau of health and comfort, but a great
sprawling female with velvet torso that swells and heaves with ocean billows;
she squirms beneath a diadem of sweat and anguish. Naked and sexed she rolls among the clouds in
the violet light of the stars. All of
her, from her generous breasts to her gleaming thighs, blazes with furious
ardour. She moves amongst the seasons
and the years with a grand whoopla that seizes the torso with paroxysmal fury,
that shakes the cobwebs out of the sky; she subsides on her pivotal orbits with
volcanic tremors. She is like a doe at
times, a doe that has fallen into a snare and lies waiting with beating heart
for the cymbals to crash and the dogs to bark.
Love and hate, despair, pity, rage, disgust - what are these amidst the
fornications of the planets? What is
war, disease, cruelty, terror, when night presents the ecstasy of myriad
blazing suns? What is this chaff we chew
in our sleep if it is not the remembrance of fang-whorl and star cluster.
She used to say to me, Mona, in her fits
of exaltation, "you're a great human being," and though she left me
here to perish, though she put beneath my feet a great howling pit of
emptiness, the words that lie at the bottom of my soul leap forth and they
light the shadows below me. I am one who
was lost in the crowd, whom the fizzing lights made dizzy, a zero who saw
everything about him reduced to mockery.
Passed me men and women ignited with sulphur, porters in calcium livery
opening the jaws of hell, fame walking on crutches, dwindled by the
skyscrapers, chewed to a frazzle by the spiked mouth of the machines. I walked between the tall buildings toward
the cool of the river and I saw the lights shoot up between the ribs of the
skeletons like rockets. If I was truly a
great human being, as she said, then what was the meaning of the slavering
idiocy about me? I was a man with body
and soul, I had a heart that was not protected by a steel vault. I had moments of ecstasy and I sang with
burning sparks. I sang of the Equator,
her red-feathered legs and the islands dropping out of sight. But nobody heard. A gun fired across the Pacific falls into
space because the earth is round and pigeons fly upside down. I saw her looking at me across the table with
eyes turned to grief; sorrow spreading inward flattened its nose against her
spine; the marrow churned to pity had turned liquid. She was light as a corpse that floats in the
Dead Sea. Her fingers bled with anguish
and the blood turned to drool. With the
wet dawn came the tolling of bells and along the fibres of my nerves the bells
played ceaselessly and their tongues pounded in my heart and clanged with iron
malice. Strange that the bells should
toll so, but stranger still the body bursting, this woman turned to night and
her maggot words gnawing through the mattress.
I moved along under the Equator, heard the hideous laughter of the
green-jawed hyena, saw the jackal with silken tail and the dick-dick and the
spotted leopard, all left behind in the Garden of Eden. And then her sorrow widened, like the bow of a
dreadnought and the weight of her sinking flooded my ears. Slime wash and sapphires slipping, sluicing
through the gay neurons, and the spectrum spliced and the gunwales
dripping. Soft as lion-pad I heard the
gun carriages turn, saw them vomit and drool: the firmament sagged and all the
stars turned black. Black ocean bleeding
and the brooding stars breeding chunks of fresh-swollen flesh while overhead
the birds wheeled and out of the hallucinated sky fell the balance with mortar
and pestle and the bandaged eyes of justice.
All that is here related moves with imaginary feet along the parallels
of dead orbs; all this is seen with the empty sockets bursts like flowering
grass. Out of nothingness arises the
sign of infinity; beneath the ever-rising spirals slowly sinks the gaping
hole. The land and the water make
numbers joined, a poem written with flesh and stronger than steel or
granite. Through endless night the earth
whirls toward a creation unknown....
Today I awoke from a sound sleep with
curses of joy on my lips, with gibberish on my tongue, repeating to myself like
a litany - "Fay se que vouldras!... fay ce que vouldras!"; Do anything, but let it produce joy. Do anything, but let it yield ecstasy. So much crowds into my head when I say this to
myself: images, gay ones, terrible ones, maddening ones, the wolf and the goat,
the spider, the crab, syphilis with her wings outstretched and the door of the
womb always on the latch, always open, ready like the tomb. Lust, crime, holiness: the lives of my adored
ones, the failures of my adored ones, the words they left behind them, the
words they left unfinished; the good they dragged after them and the evil, the
sorrow, the discord, the rancour, the strife they created. But above all, the ecstasy!
Things, certain things about my old idols
bring the tears to my eyes: the interruptions, the disorder, the violence,
above all, the hatred they aroused. When
I think of their deformities, of the monstrous styles they chose, of the
flatulence and tediousness of their works, of all the chaos and confusion they
wallowed in, of the obstacles they heaped up about them, I feel an
exaltation. They were all mired in their
own dung. All men who
over-elaborated. So true is it that I am
almost tempted to say: "Show me a man who over-elaborates and I will show
you a great man!" What is called
their "over- elaboration" is my meat: it is the sign of struggle, it
is struggle itself with all the fibres clinging to it, the very aura and
ambience of the discordant spirit. And
when you show me a man who expresses himself perfectly I will not say that he
is not great, but I will say that I am unattracted ... I miss the cloying
qualities. When I reflect that the task
which the artist implicitly sets himself is to overthrow existing values, to
make of the chaos about him an order which is his own, to sow strife and
ferment so that by the emotional release those who are dead may be restored to
life, then it is that I run with joy to the great and imperfect ones, their
confusion nourishes me, their stuttering is like divine music to my ears. I see in the beautifully bloated pages that
follow the interruptions the erasure of petty intrusions, of the dirty
footprints, as it were, of cowards, liars, thieves, vandals, calumniators. I see in the swollen muscles of their lyric
throats the staggering effort that must be made to turn the wheel over, to pick
up the pace where one has left off. I
see that behind the daily annoyances and intrusions, behind the cheap,
glittering malice of the feeble and inert, there stands the symbol of life's
frustrating power, and that he who could create order, he who would sow strife
and discord, because he is imbued with will, such a man must go again and again
to the stake and the gibbet. I see that
behind the nobility of his gestures there lurks the spectre of the
ridiculousness of it all - that he is not only sublime, but absurd.
Once I thought that to be human was the
highest aim a man could have, but I see now that it was meant to destroy
me. Today I am proud to say that I am inhuman,
that I belong not to men and governments, that I have nothing to do with creeds
and principles. I have nothing to do
with the creaking machinery of humanity - I belong to the earth! I say that lying on my pillow and I can feel
the horns sprouting from my temples. I
can see about me all those cracked forebears of mine dancing around the bed,
consoling me, egging me on, lashing me with their serpent tongues, grinning and
leering at me with their skulking skulls.
I am inhuman! I say it
with a mad, hallucinated grin, and I will keep on saying it though it rain
crocodiles. Behind my words are all
those grinning, leering, skulking skulls, some dead and grinning a long time,
some grinning as if they had lockjaw, some grinning with the grimace of a grin,
the foretaste and aftermath of what is always going on. Clearer than all I see my own grinning skull,
see the skeleton dancing in the wind, serpents issuing from the rotted tongue
and the bloated pages of ecstasy slimed with excrement. And I join my slime, my excrement, my
madness, my ecstasy to the great circuit which flows through the subterranean
vaults of the flesh. All this unbidden,
unwanted, drunken vomit will flow on endlessly through the minds of those to
come in the inexhaustible vessel that contains the history of the race. Side by side with the human race there runs
another race of beings, the inhuman ones, the race of artists who, goaded by
unknown impulses, take the lifeless mass of humanity and by the fever and
ferment with which they imbue it turn this soggy dough into bread and the bread
into wine and the wine into song. Out of
the dead compost and the inert slag they breed a song that contaminates. I see this other race of individuals
ransacking the universe, turning everything upside down, their feet always
moving in blood and tears, their hands always empty, always clutching and
grasping for the beyond, for the god out of reach: slaying everything within
reach in order to quiet the monster that gnaws at their vitals. I see that when they tear their hair with the
effort to comprehend, to seize this forever unattainable, I see that when they
bellow like crazed beasts and rip and gore, I see that that is right, that
there is no other path to pursue. A man
who belongs to this race must stand up on the high place with gibberish in his
mouth and rip out his entrails. It is
right and just, because he must! And
anything that falls short of this frightening spectacle, anything less
shuddering, less terrifying, less mad, less intoxicated, less contaminating, is
not art. The rest is counterfeit. The rest is human. The rest belongs to life and lifelessness.
When I think of Stavrogin for example, I think
of come divine monster standing on a high place and flinging to us his torn
bowels. In The Possessed the
earth quakes: it is not the catastrophe that befalls the imaginative
individual, but a cataclysm in which a large portion of humanity is buried,
wiped out forever. Stavrogin was
Dostoevski and Dostoevski was the sum of all those contradictions which either
paralyse a man or lead him to the heights.
There was no world too low for him to enter, no place too high for him
to fear to ascend. He went the whole
gamut, from the abyss to the stars. It
is a pity that we shall never again have the opportunity to see a man placed at
the very core of mystery and, by his flashes, illuminating for us the depth and
immensity of the darkness.
Today I am aware of my lineage. I have no need to consult my horoscope or my
genealogical chart. What is written in
the stars, or in my blood, I know nothing of.
I know that I spring from the mythological founders of the race. The man who raises the holy bottle to his lips,
the criminal who kneels in the marketplace, the innocent one who discovers that
all corpses stink, the madman who dances with lightning in his hands,
the friar who lifts his skirts to pee over the world, the fanatic who ransacks
libraries in order to find the Word -
all these are fused in me, all
these make my confusion, my ecstasy. If
I am inhuman it is because my world has slopped over its human bounds, because
to be human seems like a poor, sorry, miserable affair, limited by the senses,
restricted by moralities and codes, defined by platitudes and isms. I am pouring the juice of the grape down my
gullet and I find wisdom in it, but my wisdom is not born of the grape, my
intoxication owes nothing to wine....
I want to make a detour of those lofty
arid mountain ranges where one dies of thirst and cold, that
"extratemporal" history, that absolute of time and space where there
exists neither man, beast, nor vegetation, where one goes crazy with
loneliness, with language that is mere words, where everything is unhooked,
ungeared, out of joint with the times. I
want a world of men and women, of trees that do not talk (because there is too
much talk in the world as it is!, of rivers that carry you to places, not
rivers that are legends, but rivers that put you in touch with other men and
women, with architecture, religion, plants, animals - rivers that have boats on
them and in which men drown, drown not in myth and legend and books and dust of
the past, but in time and space and history.
I want rives that make oceans such as Shakespeare and Dante, rivers
which do not dry up in the void of the past.
Oceans, yes! Let us have more
oceans, new oceans that blot out the past, oceans that create new geological
formations, new topographical vistas and strange, terrifying continents, oceans
that destroy and preserve at the same time, oceans that we can sail on, take
off to new discoveries, new horizons.
Let us have more oceans, more upheavals, more wars, more holocausts. Let us have a world of men and women with
dynamos between their legs, a world of natural fury, of passion, action, drama,
dreams, madness, a world that produces ecstasy and not dry farts. I believe that today more than ever a book
should be sought after even if it has only one great page in it: we must search
for fragments, splinters, toenails, anything that has ore in it, anything that
is capable of resuscitating the body and soul.
It may be that we are doomed, that there
is no hope for us, any of us, but if that is so then let us set up a
last agonizing, bloodcurdling howl, a screech of defiance, a war whoop! Away with lamentation! Away with elegies and dirges! Away with biographies and histories, and
libraries and museums! Let the dead eat
the dead. Let us living once dance about
the rim of the crater, a last expiring dance.
But a dance!
"I love everything that flows,"
said the great blind Milton of our times.
I was thinking of him this morning when I awoke with a great bloody
shout of joy: I was thinking of his rivers and trees and all that world of
night which he is exploring. Yes, I said
to myself, I too love everything that flows: rivers, sewers, lava, semen,
blood, bile, words, sentences. I love
the amniotic fluid when it spills out of the bag. I love the kidney with its painful
gallstones, its gravel and what-not; I love the urine that pours out scalding
and the clap that runs endlessly; I love the words of hysterics and the
sentences that flow on like dysentery and mirror all the sick images of the
soul; I love the great rivers like the Amazon and the Orinoco, where crazy men
like Moravagine float on through dream and legend in an open boat and drown in
the blind mouths of the river. I love
everything that flows, even the menstrual flow that carries away the seed
unfecund. I love scripts that flow, be
they hieratic, esoteric, perverse, polymorph, or unilateral. I love everything that flows, everything that
has time in it and becoming, that brings us back to the beginning where there
is never end: the violence of the prophets, the obscenity that is ecstasy, the
wisdom of the fanatic, the priest with his rubber litany, the foul words of the
whore, the spittle that floats away in the gutter, the milk of the breast and
the bitter honey that pours from the womb, all that is fluid, melting,
dissolute and dissolvent, all that pus and dirt that in flowing is purified,
that loses its sense of origin, that makes the great circuit toward death and
dissolution. The great incestuous wish
is to flow on, one with time, to merge the great image of the beyond with the
here and now. A fatuous, suicidal wish
that is constipated by words and paralysed by thought.
IT
was close to dawn on Christmas Day when we came home from the Rue d'Odessa with
a couple of Negresses from the telephone company. The fire was out and we were all so tired
that we climbed into bed with our clothes on.
The one I had, who had been like a bounding leopard all evening, fell
sound asleep as I was climbing over her.
For a while I worked over her as one works over a person who has been
drowned or asphyxiated. Then I gave it
up and fell sound asleep myself.
All during the holidays we had champagne
morning, noon and night - the cheapest and the best champagne. With the turn of the year I was to leave for
Dijon where I had been offered a trivial post as exchange professor of English,
one of those Franco-American amity arrangements which is supposed to promote
understanding and good will between sister republics. Fillmore was more elated than I by the
prospect - he had good reason to be. For
me it was just a transfer from one purgatory to another. There was no future ahead of me; there wasn't
even a salary attached to the job. One
was supposed to consider himself fortunate to enjoy the privilege of spreading
the gospel of Franco-American amity. It
was a job for a rich man's son.
The night before I left we had a good
time. About dawn it began to snow: we
walked about from one quarter to another taking a last look at Paris. Passing through the Rue St. Dominique we
suddenly fell upon a little square and there was the Église Ste.-Clotilde. People were going to mass. Fillmore, whose head was still a little
cloudy, was bent on going to mass too.
"For the fun of it!" as he put it. I felt somewhat uneasy about it; in the first
place I had never attended a mass, and in the second place I looked seedy and
felt seedy. Fillmore, too, looked rather
battered, even more disreputable than myself; his big slouch hat was on assways
and his overcoat was still full of sawdust from the last joint we had been
in. The worst they could do would be to
throw us out.
I was so astounded by the sight that
greeted my eyes that I lost all uneasiness.
It took me a little while to get adjusted to the dim light. I stumbled around behind Fillmore, holding
his sleeve. A weird, unearthly noise
assailed my ears, a sort of hollow drone that rose up out of the cold
flagging. A huge, dismal tomb it was
with mourners shuffling in and out. A
sort of antechamber to the world below.
Temperature about 55 or 60 Fahrenheit.
No music except this undefinable dirge manufactured in the subcellar -
like a million heads of cauliflower wailing in the dark. People in shrouds were chewing away with that
hopeless, dejected look of beggars who hold out their hands in a trance and
mumble an unintelligible appeal.
That this sort of thing existed I knew,
but then one also knows that there are slaughterhouses and morgues and
dissecting rooms. One instinctively
avoids such places. In the street I had
often passed a priest with a little prayerbook in his hands laboriously
memorizing his lines. Idiot, I
would say to myself, and let it go at that.
In the street one meets with all forms of dementia and the priest is by
no means the most striking. Two thousand
years of it has deadened us to the idiocy of it. However, when you are suddenly transported to
the very midst of his realm, when you see the little world in which the priest
functions like an alarm clock, you are apt to have entirely different
sensations.
For a moment all this slaver and
twitching of the lips almost began to have a meaning. Something was going on, some kind of dumb
show which, not rendering me wholly stupefied, held me spellbound. All over the world, wherever there are these
dim-lit tombs, you have this incredible spectacle - the same mean temperature,
the same crepuscular glow, the same buzz and drone. All over Christendom, at certain stipulated
hours, people in black are grovelling before the altar where the priest stands
up with a little book in one hand and a dinner bell or atomizer in the other
and mumbles to them in a language which, even if it were comprehensible, no
longer contains a shred of meaning.
Blessing them, most likely.
Blessing the country, blessing the ruler, blessing the firearms and the
battleships and the ammunition and the hand grenades. Surrounding him on the altar are little boys
dressed like angels of the Lord who sing alto and soprano. Innocent lambs. All in skirts, sexless, like the priest
himself who is usually flat-footed and nearsighted to boot. A fine epicene caterwauling. Sex in a jockstrap, to the tune of J-mol.
I was taking it in as best I could in the
dim light. Fascinating and stupefying at
the same time. All over the civilized
world, I thought to myself. All over the
world. Marvellous. Rain or shine, hail, sleet, snow, thunder,
lightning, war, famine, pestilence - makes not the slightest difference. Always the same mean temperature, the same
mumbo- jumbo, the same high-laced shoes and the little angels of the Lord
singing soprano and alto. Near the exit
a little slot-box - the carry on the heavenly work. So that God's blessing may rain down upon
king and country and battleships and high explosives and tanks and airplanes,
so that the worker may have more strength in his arms, strength to slaughter
horses and cows and sheep, strength to punch holes in iron girders, strength to
sew buttons on other people's pants, strength to sell carrots and sewing
machines and automobiles, strength to exterminate insects and clean stables and
unload garbage cans and scrub lavatories, strength to write headlines and chop
tickets in the subway. Strength ...
strength. All that lip chewing and
hornswoggling just to furnish a little strength!
We were moving about from one spot to
another, surveying the scene with that clear-headedness which comes after an
all- night session. We must have made
ourselves pretty conspicuous shuffling about that way with our coat collars
turned up and never once crossing ourselves and never once moving our lips
except to whisper some callous remark.
Perhaps everything would have passed off without notice if Fillmore
hadn't insisted on walking past the altar in the midst of the ceremony. He was looking for the exit, and he thought while
he was at it, I suppose, that he would take a good squint at the holy of
holies, get a close-up on it, as it were.
We had gotten safely by and were marching toward a crack of light which
must have been the way out when a priest suddenly stepped out of the gloom and
blocked our path. Wanted to know where
we were going and what we were doing. We
told him politely enough that we were looking for the exit. We said "exit" because at the
moment we were so flabbergasted that we couldn't think of the French for
exist. Without a word of response he
took us firmly by the arm and, opening the door, a side door it was, he gave us
a push and out we tumbled into the blinding light of day. It happened so suddenly and unexpectedly that
when we hit the sidewalk we were in a daze.
We walked a few paces, blinking our eyes, and then instinctively we both
turned round; the priest was still standing on the steps, pale as a ghost and
scowling like the devil himself. He must
have been sore as hell. Later, thinking
back on it, I couldn't blame him for it.
But at that moment, seeing him with his long skirts and the little
skullcap on his cranium, he looked so ridiculous that I burst out
laughing. I looked at Fillmore and he
began to laugh too. For a full minute we
stood there laughing right in the poor bugger's face. He was so bewildered, I guess, that for a
moment he didn't know what to do; suddenly, however, he started down the steps
on the run, shaking his fist at us as if he were in earnest. When he swung out of the enclosure he was on
the gallop. By this time some
preservative instinct warned me to get a move on. I grabbed Fillmore by the coat sleeve and
started to run. He was saying, like an
idiot: "No, no! I won't run!" - "Come on!" I
yelled, "we'd better get out of here.
That guy's mad clean through."
And off we ran, beating it as fast as our legs would carry us.
On the way to Dijon, still laughing about
the affair, my thoughts reverted to a ludicrous incident, of a somewhat similar
nature, which occurred during by brief sojourn in Florida. It was during the celebrated boom when, like
thousands of others, I was caught with my pants down. Trying to extricate myself I got caught,
along with a friend of mine, in the very neck of the bottle. Jacksonville, where we were marooned for
about six weeks, was practically in a state of siege. Every bum on earth, and a lot of guys who had
never been bums before, seemed to have drifted into Jacksonville. The YMCA, the Salvation Army, the firehouses
and police stations, the hotels, the lodging houses, everything was full
up. Complet absolutely, and signs
everywhere to that effect. The residents
of Jacksonville had become so hardened that it seemed to me as if they were
walking around in coats of mail. It was
the old business of food again. Food and
a place to flop. Food was coming up from
below in trainloads - oranges and grapefruit and all sorts of juicy edibles. We used to pass by the freight sheds looking
for rotten fruit - but even that was scarce.
One night, in desperation, I dragged my
friend Joe to a synagogue, during the service.
It was a Reformed congregation, and the rabbi impressed me rather
favourably. The music got me too - that
piercing lamentation of the Jews. As
soon as the service was over I marched to the rabbi's study and requested an
interview with him. He received me
decently enough - until I made clear my mission. Then he grew absolutely frightened. I had only asked him for a handout on behalf
of my friend Joe and myself. You would
have thought, from the way he looked at me, that I had asked to rent the
synagogue as a bowling alley. To cap it
all, he suddenly asked me point-blank if I was a Jew or not. When I answered no, he seemed perfectly
outraged. Why, pray, had I come to a
Jewish pastor for aid? I told him
naively that I had always had more faith in the Jews than in the Gentiles. I said it modestly, as if it were one of my
peculiar defects. It was the truth
too. But he wasn't a bit flattered. No, siree.
He was horrified. To get rid of
me he wrote out a note to the Salvation Army people. "That's the place for you to address
yourself," he said, and brusquely turned away to tend his flock.
The Salvation Army, of course, had
nothing to offer us. If we had had a
quarter apiece we might have rented a mattress on the floor. But we hadn't a nickel between us. We went to the park and stretched ourselves
out on a bench. It was raining and so we
covered ourselves with newspapers.
Weren't there more than a half hour, I imagine, when a cop came along
and, without a word of warning, gave us such a sound fanning that we were up
and on our feet in a jiffy, and dancing a bit too, though we weren't in any
mood for dancing. I felt so goddamned sore
and miserable, so dejected, so lousy, after being whacked over the ass by that
half-witted bastard, that I could have blown up the City Hall.
The next morning, in order to get even
with these hospitable sons of bitches, we presented ourselves bright and early
to the door of a Catholic priest. This
time I let Joe do the talking. He was
Irish and he had a bit of a brogue. He
had very soft, blue eyes, too, and he could make them water a bit when he
wanted to. A sister in black opened the
door for us; she didn't ask us inside, however.
We were to wait in the vestibule until she went and called for the good
father. In a few minutes he came, the
good father, puffing like a locomotive.
And what was it we wanted disturbing his likes at that hour of the
morning? Something to eat and a place to
flop, we answered innocently. And where
did we hail from, the good father wanted to know at once. From
About an hour later, drifting around
helplessly like a couple of drunken schooners, we happened to pass by the
rectory again. So help me God if the
big, lecherous-looking turnip wasn't backing out of the alley in a
limousine! As he swung past us he blew a
cloud of smoke into our eyes. As though
to say - "That for you!"
A beautiful limousine it was, with a couple of spare tires in the back,
and the good father sitting at the wheel with a big cigar in his mouth. Must have been a Corona Corona, so fat and
luscious it was. Sitting pretty he was,
and no two ways about it. I couldn't see
whether he had skirts on or not. I could
only see the gravy trickling from his lips - and the big cigar with that
fifty-cent aroma.
All the way to Dijon I got to reminiscing
about the past. I thought of all the
things I might have said and done, which I hadn't said or done, in the bitter,
humiliating moments when just to ask for a crust of bread is to make yourself
less than a worm. Stone sober as I was,
I was still smarting from those old insults and injuries. I could still feel that whack over the ass
which the cop gave me in the park - though that was a mere bagatelle, a little
dancing lesson, you might say. All over
the States I wandered; and into Canada and Mexico. The same story everywhere. If you want bread you've got to get in
harness, get in lock step. Over all the
earth a gray desert, a carpet of steel and cement. Production!
More nuts and bolts, more barbed wire, more dog biscuits, more
lawnmowers, more ball bearings, more high explosives, more tanks, more poison
gas, more soap, more toothpaste, more newspapers, more education, more
churches, more libraries, more museums. Forward! Time presses.
The embryo is pushing through the neck of the womb, and there's not even
a gob of spit to ease the passage. A
dry, strangulating birth. Not a wail,
not a chirp. Salut au monde! Salute of twenty-one guns bombinating from
the rectum. "I wear my hat as I
please, indoors or out," said Walt [Whitman]. That was a time when you could still get a
hat to fit your head. But time
passes. To get a hat that fits now you
have to walk to the electric chair. They
give you a skullcap. A tight fit,
what? But no matter! It fits.
You have to be in a strange country like
France, walking the meridian that separates the hemispheres of life and death,
to know what incalculable vistas yawn ahead.
The body electric! The
democratic soul! Flood tide! Holy Mother of God, what does this crap
mean? The earth is parched and
cracked. Men and women come together
like broods of vultures over a stinking carcass, to mate and fly apart again. Vultures who drop from the clouds like heavy
stones. Talons and beak, that's what we
are! A huge intestinal apparatus with a
nose for dead meat. Forward! Forward without pity, without compassion,
without love, without forgiveness. Ask
no quarter and give none! More
battleships, more poison gas, more high explosives! More genococci! More streptococci! More bombing machines! More and more of it - until the whole fucking
works is blown to smithereens, and the earth with it!
Stepping off the train I knew immediately
that I had made a fatal mistake. The
Lycée was a little distance from the station; I walked down the main street in
the early dusk of winter, feeling my way toward my destination. A light snow was falling, the trees sparkled
with frost. Passed a couple of huge,
empty cafés that looked like dismal waiting rooms. Silent, empty gloom - that's how it impressed
me. A hopeless, jerkwater town where
mustard is turned out in carload lots, in vats and tuns and barrels and pots
and cute-looking jars.
The first glance at the Lycée sent a
shudder through me. I felt so undecided
that at the entrance I stopped to debate whether I would go in or not. But as I hadn't the price of a return ticket
there wasn't much use debating the question.
I thought for a moment of sending a wire to Fillmore, but then I was
stumped to know what excuse to make. The
only thing to do was to walk in with my eyes shut.
It happened that M. le Proviseur was out
- his day off, so they said. A little
hunchback came forward and offered to escort me to the office of M. le Censeur,
second in charge. I walked a little
behind him, fascinated by the grotesque way in which he hobbled along. He was a little monster, such as can be seen
on the porch of any half-assed cathedral in Europe.
The office of M. le Censeur was large and
bare. I sat down in a stiff chair to
wait while the hunchback darted off to search for him. I almost felt at home. The atmosphere of the place reminded me
vividly of certain charity bureaus back in the States where I used to sit by
the hour waiting for some mealy-mouthed bastard to come and cross-examine me.
Suddenly the door opened and, with a
mincing step, M. le Censeur came prancing in.
It was all I could do to suppress a titter. He had on just such a frock coat as Boris used
to wear, and over his forehead there hung a bang, a sort of spitcurl such as
Smerdyakov might have worn. Grave and
brittle, with a lynxlike eye, he wasted no words of cheer on me. At once he brought forth the sheets on which
were written the names of the students, the hours, the classes, etc., all in a
meticulous hand. He told me how much
coal and wood I was allowed and after that he promptly informed me that I was
at liberty to do as I pleased in my spare time.
This last was the first good thing I had heard him say. It sounded so reassuring that I quickly said
a prayer for France - for the army and for the navy, the educational system,
the bistros, the whole goddamned works.
This folderol completed, he rang a little
bell, whereupon the hunchback promptly appeared to escort me to the office of
M. l'Econome. Here the atmosphere was
somewhat different. More like a freight
station, with bills of lading and rubber stamps everywhere, and pasty-faced
clerks scribbling away with broken pens in huge, cumbersome ledgers. My dole of coal and wood portioned out, off
we marched, the hunchback and I, with a wheelbarrow, toward the dormitory. I was to have a room on the top floor, in the
same wing as the pions. The situation was taking on a humorous
aspect. I didn't know what the hell to
expect next. Perhaps a spittoon. The whole thing smacked very much of
preparation for a campaign; the only things missing were a knapsack and rifle -
and a brass slug.
The room assigned me was rather large,
with a small stove to which we attached a crooked pipe that made an elbow just
over the iron cot. A big chest for the
coal and wood stood near the door. The
windows gave out on a row of forlorn little houses all made of stone in which
lived the grocer, the baker, the shoemaker, the butcher, etc. - all
imbecilic-looking clodhoppers. I glanced
over the rooftops toward the bare hills where a train was clattering. The whistle of the locomotive screamed
mournfully and hysterically.
After the hunchback had made the fire for
me I inquired about the grub. It was not
quite time for dinner. I flopped on the
bed, with my overcoat on, and pulled the covers over me. Beside me was the eternal rickety night table
in which the piss pot is hidden away. I
stood the alarm on the table and watched the minutes ticking off. Into the well of the room a bluish light
filtered in from the street. I listened
to the trucks rattling by as I gazed vacantly at the stove pipe, at the elbow
where it was held together with bits of wire.
The coal chest intrigued me.
Never in my life had I occupied a room with a coal chest. And never in my life had I built a fire or
taught children. Nor, for that matter,
never in my life had I worked without pay.
I felt free and chained at the same time - like one feels just before
election, when all the crooks have been nominated and you are beseeched to vote
for the right man. I felt like a hired
man, like a jack-of-all-trades, like a hunter, like a rover, like a galley
slave, like a pedagogue, like a worm and a louse. I was free, but my limbs were shackled. A democratic soul with a free meal ticket,
but no power of locomotion, no voice. I
felt like a jellyfish nailed to a plank.
Above all, I felt hungry. The
hands were moving slowly. Still ten more
minutes to kill before the fire alarm would go off. The shadows in the room deepened. It grew frightfully silent, a tense stillness
that tautened my nerves. Little dabs of
snow clung to the windowpanes. Far away
a locomotive gave out a shrill scream.
Then a dead silence again. The
stove had commenced to glow, but there was no heat coming from it. I began to fear that I might doze off and
miss the dinner. That would meal lying
awake on an empty belly all night. I got
panic-stricken.
Just a moment before the gong went off I
jumped out of bed and, locking the door behind me, I bolted downstairs to the
courtyard. There I got lost. One quadrangle after another, one staircase
after another. I wandered in and out of
the buildings searching frantically for the refectory. Passed a long line of youngsters marching in
a column to God knows where; they moved along like a chain gang, with a slave
driver at the head of the column. Finally
I got an energetic-looking individual, with a derby, heading toward me. I stopped him to ask the way to the
refectory. Happened I stopped the right
man. It was M. le Proviseur, and he
seemed delighted to have stumbled on me.
Wanted to know right away if I were comfortably settled, if there was
anything more he could do for me. I told
him everything was O.K. Only it was a
bit chilly, I ventured to add. He
assured me that it was rather unusual, this weather. Now and then the fogs came on and a bit of
snow, and then it became unpleasant for a while, and so on and so forth. All the while he had me by the arm, guiding me
toward the refectory. He seemed like a
very decent chap. A regular guy, I
thought to myself. I even went so far as
to imagine that I might get chummy with him later on, that he'd invite me to
his room on a bitter cold night and make a hot grog for me. I imagined all sorts of friendly things in
the few moments it required to reach the door of the refectory. Here, my mind racing on at a mile a minute,
he suddenly shook hands with me and, doffing his hat, bade me goodnight. I was so bewildered that I tipped my hat
also. It was the regular thing to do, I
soon found out. Whenever you pass a prof,
or even M. l'Econome, you doff your hat.
Might pass the same guy a dozen times a day. Makes no difference. You've got to give the salute, even though
your hat is worn out. It's the polite
thing to do.
Anyway, I had found the refectory. Like an East Side clinic it was, with tiled
walls, bare light, and marble-topped tables.
And of course a big stove with an elbow pipe. The dinner wasn't served yet. A cripple was running in and out with dishes
and knives and forks and bottles of wine.
In a corner several young men conversing animatedly. I went up to them and introduced myself. They gave me a most cordial reception. Almost too cordial, in fact. I couldn't quite make it out. In a jiffy the room began to fill up; I was
presented from one to the other quickly.
Then they formed a circle about me and, filling the glasses, they began
to sing....
L'autre
soir l'idée m'est venue
Cré nom de
Zeus d'enculer un pendu;
Le vent se
leve sur la potence,
Voila mon
pendu qui se balance,
J'ai du
l'enculer en sautant,
Cré nom de
Zeus, on est jamais content.
Baiser
dans un con trop petit,
Cré nom de
Zeus, on s'ecorche le vit;
Baiser
dans un con trop large,
On ne sait
pas ou l'on decharge;
Se branler
étant bien emmerdant,
Cré nom de
Zeus, on est jamais content.
With this, Quasimodo announced the
dinner.
They were a cheerful group, les
surveillants. There was Kroa who
belched like a pig and always let off a loud fart when he sat down to
table. He could fart thirteen times in
succession, they informed me. He held
the record. Then there was Monsieur le
Prince, an athlete who was fond of wearing a tuxedo in the evening when he went
to town; he had a beautiful complexion, just like a girl, and never touched the
wine nor read anything that might tax his brain. Next to him sat Petit Paul, from the Midi,
who thought of nothing but cunt all the time; he used to say every day - "a
partir de jeudi je ne parlerai plus de femmes." He and Monsieur le Prince were
inseparable. Then there was Passeleau, a
veritable young scallywag who was studying medicine and who borrowed right and
left; he talked incessantly of Ronsard, Villon and Rabelais. Opposite me sat Mollesse, agitator and
organizer of the pions, who insisted on weighing the meat to see if it
wasn't short a few grams. He occupied a
little room in the infirmary. His
supreme enemy was Monsieur l'Econome, which was nothing particularly to his
credit since everybody hated this individual.
For companion Mollesse had one called Le Penible, a dour-looking chap
with a hawklike profile who practised the strictest economy and acted as
moneylender. He was like an engraving by
Albrecht Dürer - a composite of all the dour, sour, morose, bitter,
unfortunate, unlucky and introspective devils who compose the pantheon of
Germany's medieval knights. A Jew, no
doubt. At any rate, he was killed in an
automobile accident shortly after my arrival, a circumstance which left me
twenty-three francs to the good. With
the exception of Renaud who sat beside me, the others have faded out of my
memory; they belonged to that category of colourless individuals who make up
the world of engineers, architects, dentists, pharmacists, teachers, etc. There was nothing to distinguish them from
the clods whom they would later wipe their boots on. They were zeros in every sense of the word,
ciphers who form the nucleus of a respectable and lamentable citizenry. They ate with their heads down and were
always the first to clamour for a second helping. They slept soundly and never complained; they
were neither gay nor miserable. The
indifferent ones whom Dante consigned to the vestibule of Hell. The upper-crusters.
It was the custom after dinner to go
immediately to town, unless one was on duty in the dormitories. In the centre of town were the cafés - huge,
dreary halls where the somnolent merchants of Dijon gathered to play cards and
listen to the music. It was warm in the
cafés, that is the best I can say of them.
The seats were fairly comfortable, too.
And there were always a few whores about who, for a glass of beer or a
cup of coffee, would sit and chew the fat with you. The music, on the other hand, was
atrocious. Such music! On a winter's night, in a dirty hole like
Dijon, nothing can be more harassing, more nerve-racking, than the sound of a
French orchestra. Particularly one of
those lugubrious female orchestras with everything coming in squeaks and farts,
with a dry, algebraic rhythm and the hygienic consistency of toothpaste. A wheezing and scraping performed at so many
francs the hour - and the devil take the hindmost! The melancholy of it! As if old Euclid had stood up on his hind
legs and swallowed prussic acid. The
whole realm of Ideas so thoroughly exploited by the reason that there is
nothing left of which to make music except the empty slats of the accordion,
through which the wind whistles and tears the ether to tatters. However, to speak of music in connection with
this compost is like dreaming of champagne when you are in the death cell. Music was the least of my worries. I didn't even think of cunt, so dismal, so
chill, so barren, so gray was it all. On
the way home the first night I noticed on the door of a café an inscription
from the Gargantua. Inside the
café it was like a morgue. However, forward!
I had plenty of time on my hands and not
a sou to spend. Two or three hours of
conversational lessons a day, and that was all.
And what use was it, teaching these poor bastards English? I felt sorry as hell for them. All morning plugging away on John Gilpin's
Ride, and in the afternoon coming to me to practise a dead language. I thought of the good time I had wasted
reading Virgil or wading through such incomprehensible nonsense as Hermann
und Dorothea. The insanity of
it! Learning, the empty
breadbasket! I thought of Carl who can
recite Faust backwards, who never writes a book without praising the shit
out of his immortal, incorruptible Goethe.
And yet he hadn't sense enough to take on a rich cunt and get himself a
change of underwear. There's something
obscene in this love of the past which ends in breadlines and dugouts. Something obscene about this spiritual racket
which permits an idiot to sprinkle holy water over Big Berthas and dreadnoughts
and high explosives. Every man with a
bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race.
Here was I, supposedly to spread the
gospel of Franco- American amity - the emissary of a corpse who, after he had
plundered right and left, after he had caused untold suffering and misery,
dreamed of establishing universal peace.
Pfui! What did they expect me to
talk about, I wonder? About Leaves of
Grass, about the tariff walls, about the Declaration of Independence, about
the latest gang war? What? Just what, I'd like to know. Well, I'll tell you - I never mentioned these
things. I started right off the bat with
a lesson in the physiology of love. How
the elephants make love - that was it!
It caught like wildfire. After
the first day there were no more empty benches.
After the first lesson in English they were standing at the door waiting
for me. We got along swell
together. They asked all sorts of questions,
as though they had never learned a damn thing.
I let them fire away. I taught
them to ask still more ticklish questions.
Ask anything! - that was my motto. I'm here as a plenipotentiary from the realm
of free spirits. I'm here to create a fever
and a ferment. "In some ways,"
says an eminent astronomer, "the material universe appears to be passing
away like a tale that is told, dissolving into nothingness like a vision." That seems to be the general feeling
underlying the empty breadbasket of learning.
Myself, I don't believe it. I
don't believe a fucking thing these bastards try to shove down our throats.
Between sessions, if I had no book to
read, I would go upstairs to the dormitory and chat with the pions. They were delightfully ignorant of all that
was going on - especially in the world of art.
Almost as ignorant as the students themselves. It was as if I had gotten into a private
little madhouse with no exit signs.
Sometimes I snooped around under the arcades, watching the kids marching
along with huge hunks of bread stuck in their dirty mugs. I was always hungry myself, since it was
impossible for me to go to breakfast which was handed out at some ungodly hour
of the morning, just when the bed was getting toasty. Huge bowls of blue coffee with chunks of
white bread and no butter to go with it.
For lunch, beans or lentils with bits of meat thrown in to make it look
appetizing. Food fit for a chain gang,
for rock breakers. Even the wine was
lousy. Things were either diluted or bloated. There were calories, but no cuisine. M. l'Econome was responsible for it all. So they said.
I don't believe that, either. He
was paid to keep our heads just above the water line. He didn't ask if we were suffering from piles
or carbuncles; he didn't inquire if we had delicate palates or the intestines
of wolves. Why should he? He was hired at so many grams the plate to
produce so many kilowatts of energy.
Everything in terms of horse power.
It was all carefully reckoned in the fat ledgers which the pasty-faced
clerks scribbled in morning, noon and night.
Debit and credit, with a red line down the middle of the page.
Roaming around the quadrangle with an
empty belly most of the time, I got to feel slightly mad. Like Charles the Silly, poor devil - only I
had no Odette Champdivers with whom to play stinkfinger. Half the time I had to grub cigarettes from
the students, and during the lessons sometimes I munched a bit of dry bread
with them. As the fire was always going
out on me I soon used up my allotment of wood.
It was the devil's own time coaxing a little wood out of the ledger
clerks. Finally I got so riled up about
it that I would go out in the street and hunt for firewood, like an Arab. Astonishing how little firewood you could pick
up in the streets of Dijon. However,
these little foraging expeditions brought me into strange precincts. Got to know the little street named after M.
Philibert Papillon - a dead musician, I believe - where there was a cluster of
whorehouses. It was always more cheerful
hereabouts; there was the smell of cooking, and wash hanging out to dry. Once in a while I caught a glimpse of the
poor half-wits who lounged about inside.
They were better off than the poor devils in the centre of town whom I
used to bump into whenever I walked through a department store. I did that frequently in order to get
warm. They were doing it for the same
reason, I suppose. Looking for someone
to buy them a coffee. They looked a
little crazy, with the cold and the loneliness.
The whole town looked a bit crazy when the blue of evening settled over
it. You could walk up and down the main
drive any Thursday in the week till doomsday and never meet an expansive
soul. Sixty or seventy thousand people -
perhaps more - wrapped in wooden underwear and nowhere to go and nothing to
do. Turning out mustard by the
carload. Female orchestras grinding out The
Merry Widow. Silver service in the
big hotels. The ducal palace rotting
away, stone by stone, limb by limb. The
trees screeching with frost. A ceaseless
clatter of wooden shoes. The University
celebrating the death of Goethe, or the birth, I don't remember which. (Usually
it's the deaths that are celebrated.)
Idiotic affair, anyway. Everybody
yawning and stretching.
Coming through the high driveway into the
quadrangle a sense of abysmal futility always came over me. Outside bleak and empty; inside, bleak and
empty. A scummy sterility hanging over
the town, a fog of book-learning. Slag
and cinders of the past. Around the
interior courts were ranged the classrooms, little shacks such as you might see
in the North woods, where the pedagogues gave free rein to their voices. On the blackboard the futile abracadabra
which the future citizens of the republic would have to spend their lives
forgetting. Once in a while the parents
were received in the big reception room just off the driveway, where there were
busts of the heroes of antiquity, such as Molière, Racine, Corneille, Voltaire,
etc., all the scarecrows whom the cabinet ministers mention with moist lips
whenever an immortal is added to the waxworks.
(No bust of Villon, no bust of Rabelais, no bust of Rimbaud.) Anyway, they met here in solemn conclave, the
parents and the stuffed shirts whom the State hires to bend the minds of the
young. Always this bending process, this
landscape gardening to make the mind more attractive. And the youngsters came too, occasionally -
the little sunflowers who would soon be transplanted from the nursery in order
to decorate the municipal grassplots.
Some of them were just rubber plants easily dusted with a torn
chemise. All of them jerking away for
dear life in the dormitories as soon as night came on. The dormitories! where the red lights glowed,
where the bell rang like a fire alarm, where the treads were hollowed out in
the scramble to reach the education cells.
There were the profs! During the first few days I got so far as to
shake hands with a few of them, and of course there was always the salute with
the hat when we passed under the arcades.
But as for a heart-to-heart talk, as for walking to the corner and
having a drink together, nothing doing.
It was simply unimaginable. Most
of them looked as though they had had the shit scared out of them. Anyway, I belonged to another hierarchy. They wouldn't even share a louse with the
likes of me. They made me so damned
irritated, just to look at them, that I used to curse them under my breath when
I saw them coming. I used to stand
there, leaning against a pillar, with a cigarette in the corner of my mouth and
my hat down over my eyes, and when they got within hailing distance I would let
squirt a good gob and up with the hat. I
didn't even bother to open my trap and bid them the time of day. Under my breath I simply said: "Fuck
you, Jack!" and let it go at that.
After a week it seemed as if I had been
here all my life. It was like a bloody,
fucking nightmare that you can't throw off.
Used to fall into a coma thinking about it. Just a few days ago I had arrived. Nightfall.
People scurrying home like rats under the foggy lights. The trees glittering with diamond-pointed
malice. I thought it all out, a thousand
times or more. From the station to the
Lycee it was like a promenade through the Danzig Corridor, all deckle-edged,
crannied, nerve- ridden. A lane of dead
bones, of crooked, cringing figures buried in shrouds. Spines made of sardine bones. The Lycee itself seemed to rise up out of a
lake of thin snow, an inverted mountain that pointed down toward the centre of
the earth where God or the Devil works always in a straitjacket grinding grist
for that paradise which is always a wet dream.
If the sun ever shone I don't remember it. I remember nothing but the cold greasy fogs
that blew in from the frozen marshes over yonder where the railroad tracks
burrowed into the lurid hills. Down near
the station was a canal, or perhaps it was a river, hidden away under a yellow
sky, with little shacks pasted slap up against the rising edge of the
banks. There was a barracks too
somewhere, it struck me, because every now and then I met little yellow men
from Cochin-China - squirmy opium-faced runts peeping out of the baggy uniforms
like dyed skeletons packed in excelsior.
The whole goddamned medievalism of the place was infernally ticklish and
restive, rocking back and forth with low moans, jumping out at you from the
eaves, hanging like broken-necked criminals from the gargoyles. I kept looking back all the time, kept
walking like a crab that you prong with a dirty fork. All those fat little monsters, those slablike
effigies pasted on the façade of the Église St. Michel, they were following me
down the crooked lanes and around corners.
The whole facade of St. Michel seemed to open up like an album at night,
leaving you face to face with the horrors of the printed page. When the lights went out and the characters
faded away flat, dead as words, then it was quite magnificent, the façade; in
every crevice of the old gnarled front there was the hollow chant of the
nightwind and over the lacy rubble of cold stiff vestments there was a cloudy
absinthe-like drool of fog and frost.
Here, where the church stood, everything
seemed turned hind side front. The
church itself must have been twisted off its base by centuries of progress in
the rain and snow. It lay in the Place
Edgar-Quinet, squat against the wind, like a dead mule. Through the Rue de la Monnaie the wind rushed
like white hair streaming wild: it whirled around the white hitching posts
which obstructed the free passage of omnibuses and twenty-mule teams. Swinging through this exit in the early
morning hours I sometimes stumbled upon Monsieur Renaud who, wrapped in his
cowl like a gluttonous monk, made overtures to me in the language of the
sixteenth century. Fallowing in step
with Monsieur Renaud, the moon bursting through the greasy sky like a punctured
balloon, I fell immediately into the realm of the transcendental. M. Renaud had a precise speech, dry as
apricots, with a heavy Brandenburger base.
Used to come at me full tilt from Goethe or Fichte, with deep base notes
that rumbled in the windy corners of the Place like claps of last year's
thunder. Men of Yucatan, men of
Zanzibar, men of Tierra del Fuego, save me from this glaucous hog rind! The North piles up about me, the glacial
fjords, the blue-tipped spines, the crazy lights, the obscene Christian chant
that spread like an avalanche from Etna to the
The snow under foot scurries before the
wind, blows, tickles, stings, lisps away, whirls aloft, showers, splinters,
sprays down. No sun, no roar of surf, no
breaker's surge. The cold north wind
pointed with barbed shafts, icy, malevolent, greedy, blighting,
paralysing. The streets turn away on
their crooked elbows; they break from the hurried sight, the stern glance. They hobble away down the drifting lattice
work, wheeling the church hind side front, mowing down the statues, flattening
the monuments, uprooting the trees, stiffening the grass, sucking the fragrance
out of the earth. Leaves dull as cement:
leaves no dew can bring to glisten again.
No moon will ever silver their listless plight. The seasons are come to a stagnant stop, the
trees blench and wither, the wagons roll in the mica ruts with slithering
harplike thuds. In the hollow of the
white-tipped hills, lurid and boneless Dijon slumbers. No man alive and walking through the night
except the restless spirits moving southward toward the sapphire grids. Yet I am up and about, a walking ghost, a
white man terrorized by the cold sanity of this slaughterhouse geometry. Who am I?
What am I doing here? I fall
between the cold walls of human malevolence, a white figure fluttering, sinking
down through the cold lake, a mountain of skulls above me. I settle down to the cold latitudes, the
chalk steps washed with indigo. The earth in its dark corridors knows my step,
feels a boot abroad, a wing stirring, a gasp and a shudder. I hear the learning chaffed and chuzzled, the
figures mounting upward, bat slime dripping aloft and clanging with pasteboard
golden wings; I hear the trains collide, the chains rattle, the locomotive
chugging, snorting, sniffing, steaming and pissing. All things come to me through the clear fog
with the odour of repetition, with yellow hangovers and Gadzooks and
whettikins. In the dead centre, far
below
The fog and snow, the cold latitude, the
heavy learning, the blue coffee, the unbuttered bread, the soup and lentils,
the heavy pork-packer beans, the stale cheese, the soggy chow, the lousy wine
have put the whole penitentiary into a state of constipation. And just when everyone has become shit-tight
the toilet pipes freeze. The shit piles
up like ant hills; one has to move down from the little pedestals and leave it
on the floor. It lies there stiff and
frozen, waiting for the thaw. On
Thursdays the hunchback comes with his little wheelbarrow, shovels the cold,
stiff turds with a broom and pan, and trundles off dragging his withered
leg. The corridors are littered with
toilet paper; it sticks to your feet like flypaper. When the weather moderates the odour gets
ripe; you can smell it in Winchester forty miles away. Standing over that ripe dung in the morning,
with a toothbrush, the stench is so powerful that it makes your head spin. We stand around in red flannel shirts,
waiting to spit down the hole; it is like an aria from one of Verdi's great
operas - an anvil chorus with pulleys and syringes. In the night, when I am taken short, I rush
down to the private toilet of M. le Censeur, just off the driveway. My stool is always full of blood. His toilet doesn't flush either but at least
there is the pleasure of sitting down. I
leave my little bundle for him as a token of esteem.
Towards the end of the meal each evening
the veilleur de nuit drops in for his bit of cheer. This is the only human being in the whole
institution with whom I feel a kinship.
He is a nobody. He carries a
lantern and a bunch of keys. He makes
the rounds through the night, stiff as an automaton. About the time the stale cheese is being
passed around, in he pops for his glass of wine. He stands there, with paw outstretched, his
hair stiff and wiry, like a mastiff's, his cheeks ruddy, his moustache gleaming
with snow. He mumbles a word or two and
Quasimodo brings him the bottle. Then,
with feet solidly planted, he throws back his head and down it goes, slowly in
one long draught. To me it's like he's
pouring rubbies down his gullet.
Something about this gesture which seizes me by the hair. It's almost as if he were drinking down the
dregs of human sympathy, as if all the love and compassion in the world could
be tossed off like that, in one gulp - as if that were all that could be
squeezed together day after day. A
little less than a rabbit they have made him.
In the scheme of things he's not worth the brine to pickle a
herring. He's just a piece of live
manure. And he knows it. When he looks around after his drink and
smiles at us, the world seems to be falling to pieces. It's a smile thrown across an abyss. The whole stinking civilized world lies like
a quagmire at the bottom of the pit, and over it, like a mirage, hovers this
wavering smile.
It was the same smile which greeted me at
night when I returned from my rambles. I
remember one such night when, standing at the door waiting for the old fellow
to finish his rounds, I had such a sense of well-being that I could have waited
thus forever. I had to wait perhaps half
an hour before he opened the door. I
looked about me calmly and leisurely, drank everything in, the dead tree in
front of the school with its twisted rope branches, the houses across the
street which had changed colour during the night, which curved now more
noticeably, the sound of a train rolling through the Siberian wastes, the
railings painted by Utrillo, the sky, the deep wagon ruts. Suddenly, out of nowhere, two lovers
appeared; every few yards they stopped and embraced, and when I could no longer
follow them with my eyes I followed the sound of their steps, heard the abrupt
stop, and then the slow, meandering gait.
I could feel the slag and sump of their bodies when they leaned against
a rail, heard their shoes creak as the muscles tightened for the embrace. Through the town they wandered, through the
crooked streets, toward the glassy canal where the water lay black as coal. There was something phenomenal about it. In all Dijon not two like them.
Meanwhile the old fellow was making the
rounds; I could hear the jingle of his keys, the crunching of his boots, the
steady, automatic tread. Finally I heard
him coming through the driveway to open the big door, a monstrous arched portal
without a moat in front of it. I heard
him fumbling at the lock, his hands stiff, his mind numbed. As the door swung open I saw over his head a
brilliant constellation crowning the chapel.
Every door was locked, every cell bolted. The books were closed. The night hung close, dagger-pointed, drunk
as a maniac. There it was, the
infinitude of emptiness. Over the
chapel, like a bishop's mitre, hung the constellation, every night, during the
winter months, it hung there low over the chapel. Low and bright, a handful of dagger points, a
dazzle of pure emptiness. The old fellow
followed me to the turn of the drive. The
door closed silently. As I bade him
goodnight I caught that desperate, hopeless smile again, like a meteoric flash
over the rim of a lost world. And again
I saw him standing in the refectory, his head thrown back and the rubies
pouring down his gullet. The whole
Mediterranean seemed to be buried inside him - the orange groves, the cypress
trees, the winged statues, the wooden temples, the blue sea, the stiff masks,
the mystic numbers, the mythological birds, the sapphire skies, the eaglets,
the sunny coves, the blind bards, the bearded heroes. Gone all that. Sunk beneath the avalanche from the
North. Buried, dead forever. A memory.
A wild hope.
For just a moment I linger at the
carriageway. The shroud, the pall, the
unspeakable, clutching emptiness of it all.
Then I walk quickly along the gravel path near the wall, past the arches
and columns, the iron staircases, from one quadrangle to the other. Everything is locked tight. Locked for the winter. I find the arcade leading to the dormitory. A sickish light spills down over the stairs
from the grimy, frosted windows.
Everywhere the pain is peeling off.
The stones are hollowed out, the banister creaks; a damp sweat oozes
from the flagging and forms a pale, fuzzy aura pierced by the feeble red light
at the head of the stairs. I mount the
last flight, the turret, in a sweat and terror.
In pitch darkness I grope my way through the deserted corridor, every
room empty, locked, moulding away. My
hand slides along the wall seeking the keyhole.
A panic comes over me as I grasp the doorknob. Always a hand at my collar ready to yank me
back. Once inside the room I bolt the
door. It's a miracle which I perform
each night, the miracle of getting inside without being strangled, without
being struck down by an axe. I can hear
the rats scurrying through the corridor, gnawing away over my head between the
thick rafters. The light glares like
burning sulphur and there is the sweet, sickish stench of a room which is never
ventilated. In the corner stands the
coal box, just as I left it. The fire is
out. A silence so intense that it sounds
like
Alone, with a tremendous empty longing
and dread. The whole room for my
thoughts. Nothing but myself and what I
think, what I fear. Could think the most
fantastic thoughts, could dance, spit, grimace, curse, wail - nobody would ever
know, nobody would ever hear. The
thought of such absolute privacy is enough to drive me mad. It's like a clean birth. Everything cut away. Separate, naked, alone. Bliss and agony simultaneously. Time on your hands. Each second weighing on you like a
mountain. You drown in it. Deserts, seas, lakes, oceans. Time beating away like a meat axe. Nothingness.
The world. The me and the
not-me. Oomaharumooma. Everything has to have a name. Everything has to be learned, tested,
experienced. Faites comme chez vous,
cheri.
The silence descends in volcanic
chutes. Yonder, in the barren hills,
rolling onward toward the great metallurgical regions, the locomotives are
pulling their merchant products. Over
steel and iron beds they roll, the ground sown with slag and cinders and purple
ore. In the baggage cars, kelps,
fishplate, rolled iron, sleepers, wire rods, plates and sheets, laminated
articles, hot rolled hoops, splints and mortar carriages, and Zores ore. The wheels U-80 millimetres or over. Pass splendid specimens of Anglo-Norman
architecture, pass pedestrians and pederasts, open hearth furnaces, basic
Bessemer mills, dynamos and transformers, pig iron castings and steel
ingots. The public at large, pedestrians
and pederasts, goldfish and spun-glass palm trees, donkeys sobbing, all
circulating freely through quincuncial alleys.
At the Place du Bresil a lavender eye.
Going back in a flash over the women I've
known. It's like a chain which I've
forged out of my own misery. Each one
bound to the other. A fear of living
separate, of staying born. The door of
the womb always on the latch. Dread and
longing. Deep in the blood the pull of
paradise. The beyond. Always the beyond. It must have all started with the navel. They cut the umbilical cord, give you a slap
on the ass, and [hey] presto! you're out in the world, adrift, a ship without a
rudder. You look at the stars and then
you look at your navel. You grow eyes
everywhere - in the armpits, between the lips, in the roots of your hair, on
the soles of your feet. What is distant
becomes near, what is near becomes distant.
Inner-outer, a constant flux, a shedding of skins, a turning inside
out. You drift around like that for
years and years, until you find yourself in the dead centre, and there you slowly
rot, slowly crumble to pieces, get dispersed again. Only your name remains.
IT
was spring before I managed to escape from the penitentiary, and then only by a
stroke of fortune. A telegram from Carl
informed me one day that there was a vacancy "upstairs"; he said he
would send me the fare back if I decided to accept. I telegraphed back at once and as soon as the
dough arrived I beat it to the station.
Not a word to M. le Proviseur or anyone.
French leave, as they say.
I went immediately to the hotel at 1 bis,
where Carl was staying. He came to the
door stark naked. It was his night off
and there was a cunt in the bed as usual.
"Don't mind her," he says, "she's asleep. If you need a lay you can take her on. She's not bad." He pulls the covers back to show me what she
looks like. However, I wasn't thinking
about a lay right away. I was too excited. I was like a man who has just escaped from
jail. I just wanted to see and hear
things. Coming from the station it was
like a long dream. I felt as though I
had been away for years.
It was not until I had sat down and taken
a good look at the room that I realized I was back again in Paris. It was Carl's room and no mistake about
it. Like a squirrel cage and shithouse
combined. There was hardly room on the
table for the portable machine he used.
It was always like that, whether he had a cunt with him or not. Always a dictionary lying open on a
gilt-edged volume of Faust, always a tobacco pouch, a beret, a bottle of
vin rouge, letters, manuscripts, old newspapers, watercolours, teapot,
dirty socks, toothpicks, Kruschen Salts, condoms, etc. In the bidet were orange peels and the
remnants of a ham sandwich.
"There's some food in the
closet," he said. "Help
yourself! I was just going to give
myself an injection."
I found the sandwich he was talking about
and a piece of cheese that he had nibbled at beside it. While he sat on the edge of the bed, dosing
himself with his argyrol, I put away the sandwich and cheese with the aid of a
little wine.
"I liked that letter you sent me
about Goethe," he said, wiping his prick with a dirty pair of drawers.
"I'll show you the answer to it in a
minute - I'm putting it in my book. The
trouble with you is that you're not a German.
You have to be German to understand Goethe. Shit, I'm not going to explain it to you
now. I've put it all in the book.... By
the way, I've got a new cunt now - not this one - this one's a half-wit. At least, I had her until a few days
ago. I'm not sure whether she'll come
back or not. She was living with me all
the time you were away. The other day
her parents came and took her away. They
said she was only fifteen. Can you beat
that? They scared the shit out of me
too...."
I began to laugh. It was like Carl to get himself into a mess
like that.
"What are you laughing for?" he
said. "I may go to prison for
it. Luckily, I didn't knock her up. And that's funny, too, because she never took
care of herself properly. But do you
know what saved me? So I think, at
least. It was Faust. Yeah!
Her old man happened to see it lying on the table. He asked me if I understood German. One thing led to another and before I knew it
he was looking through my books.
Fortunately I happened to have the Shakespeare open too. That impressed him like hell. He said I was evidently a very serious
guy."
"What about the girl - what did she
have to say?"
"She was frightened to death. You see, she had a little watch with her when
she came; in the excitement we couldn't find the watch, and the mother insisted
that the watch be found or she'd call the police. You see how things are here. I turned the whole place upside down - but I
couldn't find the goddamned watch. The
mother was furious. I liked her too, in
spite of everything. She was even
better-looking than the daughter. Here -
I'll show you a letter I started to write her.
I'm in love with her...."
"With the mother?"
"Sure. Why not?
If I had seen the mother first I'd never have looked at the daughter. How did I know she was only fifteen? You don't ask a cunt how old she is before
you lay her, do you?"
"Joe, there's something funny about
this. You're not shitting me, are
you?"
"Am I shitting you? Here - look at this!" And he shows me the watercolours the girl had
made - cute little things - a knife and a loaf of bread, the table and teapot,
everything running uphill. "She was
in love with me," he said. "She
was just like a child. I had to tell her
when to brush her teeth and how to put her hat on. Here - look at the lollipops! I used to buy her a few lollipops every day -
she liked them."
"Well, what did she do when her
parents came to take her away? Didn't
she put up a row?"
"She cried a little, that's
all. What could she do? She's under age.... I had to promise never to
see her again, never to write her either.
That's what I'm waiting to see now - whether she'll stay away or
not. She was a virgin when she came
here. The thing is, how long will she be
able to go without a lay? She couldn't
get enough of it when she was here. She
almost wore me out."
By this time the one in bed had come to
and was rubbing her eyes. She looked
pretty young to me, too. Not bad looking
but dumb as hell. Wanted to know right
away what we were talking about.
"She lives here in the hotel,"
said Carl. "On the third
floor. Do you want to go to her
room? I'll fix it up for you."
I didn't know whether I wanted to or not,
but when I saw Carl mushing it up with her again I decided I did want to. I asked her first if she was too tired. Useless question. A whore is never too tired to open her
legs. Some of them can fall asleep while
you diddle them. Anyway, it was decided
we would go down to her room. Like that
I wouldn't have to pay the patron for the night.
In the morning I rented a room
overlooking the little park down below where the sandwich-board men always came
to eat their lunch. At noon I called for
Carl to have breakfast with him. He and
Van Norden had developed a new habit in my absence - they went to the Coupole
for breakfast every day. "Why the
Coupole?" I asked. "Why the
Coupole?" says Carl. "Because
the Coupole serves porridge at all hours and porridge makes you shit." -
"I see," said I.
So it's just like it used to be
again. The three of us walking back and
forth to work. Petty dissensions, petty
rivalries. Van Norden still bellyaching
about his cunts and about washing the dirt out of his belly. Only now he's found a new diversion. He's found that it's less annoying to masturbate. I was amazed when he broke the news to
me. I didn't think it possible for a guy
like that to find any pleasure in jerking himself off. I was still more amazed when he explained to
me how he goes about it. He had
"invented" a new stunt, so he put it.
"You take an apple," he says, "and you bore out the
core. Then you rub some cold cream on
the inside so as it doesn't melt too fast.
Try it some time! It'll drive you
crazy at first. Anyway, it's cheap and
you don't have to waste much time."
"By the way," he says,
switching the subject, "that friend of yours, Fillmore, he's in the
hospital. I think he's nuts. Anyway, that's what his girl told me. He took on a French girl, you know, while you
were away. They used to fight like
hell. She's a big, healthy bitch - wild
like. I wouldn't mind giving her a
tumble, but I'm afraid she'd claw the eyes out of me. He was always going around with his face and
hands scratched up. She looks bunged up
too once in a while - or she used to.
You know how these French cunts are - when they love they lose their
minds."
Evidently things had happened while I was
away. I was sorry to hear about
Fillmore. He had been damned good to
me. When I left Van Norden I jumped a
bus and went straight to the hospital.
They hadn't decided yet whether he was
completely off his base or not, I suppose, for I found him upstairs in a
private room, enjoying all the liberties of the regular patients. He had just come from the bath when I arrived. When he caught sight of me he burst into
tears. "It's all over," he
says immediately. "They say I'm
crazy - and I may have syphilis too.
They say I have delusions of grandeur." He fell over onto the bed and wept
quietly. After he had wept a while he
lifted his head up and smiled - just like a bird coming out of a snooze. "Why do they put me in such an expensive
room?" he said. "Why don't
they put me in the ward - or in the bughouse?
I can't afford to pay for this.
I'm down to my last five hundred dollars."
"That's why they're keeping you
here," I said. "They'll
transfer you quickly enough when your money runs out. Don't worry."
My words must have impressed him, for I
had no sooner finished than he handed me his watch and chain, his wallet, his
fraternity pin, etc. "Hold on to
them," he said. "These
bastards'll rob me of everything I've got." And then suddenly he began to laugh, one of
those weird, mirthless laughs which makes you believe a guy's goofy whether he
is or not. "I'll know you'll think
I'm crazy," he said, "but I want to atone for what I did. I want to get married. You see, I didn't know I had the clap. I gave her the clap and then I knocked her
up. I told the doctor I don't care what
happens to me, but I want him to let me get married first. He keeps telling me to wait until I get
better - but I know I'm never going to get better. This is the end."
I couldn't help laughing myself, hearing
him talk that way. I couldn't understand
what had come over him. Anyway, I had to
promise him to see the girl and explain things to her. He wanted me to stick by her, comfort
her. Said he could trust me, etc. I said yes to everything in order to soothe him. He didn't seem exactly nuts to me - just
caved-in like. Typical Anglo-Saxon
crisis. An eruption of morals. I was rather curious to see the girl, to get
the lowdown on the whole thing.
The next day I looked her up. She was living in the Latin Quarter. As soon as she realized who I was she became
exceedingly cordial. Ginette she called
herself. Rather big, raw-boned, healthy,
peasant type with a front tooth half eaten away. Full of vitality and a kind of crazy fire in
her eyes. The first thing she did was to
weep. Then, seeing that I was an old
friend of her Jo-Jo - that was how she called him - she ran downstairs and
brought back a couple of bottles of white wine.
I was to stay and have dinner with her - she insisted on it. As she drank she became by turns gay and maudlin. I didn't have to ask her any questions - she
went on like a self- winding machine.
The thing that worried her principally was - would he get his job back
when he was released from the hospital?
She said her parents were well off, but they were displeased with
her. They didn't approve of her wild
ways. They didn't approve of him
particularly - he had no manners, and he was an American. She begged me to assure her that he would get
his job back, which I did without hesitation.
And then she begged me to know if she could believe what he said - that
he was going to marry her. Because now,
with a child under her belt, and a dose of clap besides, she was in no position
to strike a match - with a Frenchman anyway.
That was clear, wasn't it? Of
course, I assured her. It was all clear
as hell to me - except how in Christ's name Fillmore had ever fallen for
her. However, one thing at a time. It was my duty now to comfort her, and so I
just filled her up with a lot of baloney, told her everything would turn out
all right and that I would stand godfather to the child, etc. Then suddenly it struck me as strange that
she should have the child at all - especially as it was likely to be born
blind. I told her that as tactfully as I
could. "It doesn't make any
difference," she said, "I want a child by him."
"Even if it's blind?" I asked.
"Mon Dieu, ne dites pas ça!"
she groaned. "Ne dites pas ça!"
Just the same, I felt it was my duty to
say it. She got hysterical and began to
weep like a walrus, poured out more wine.
In a few moments she was laughing boisterously. She was laughing to think how they used to
fight when they got in bed. "He
liked me to fight with him," she said.
"He was a brute."
As we sat down to eat, a friend of hers
walked in - a little tart who lived at the end of the hall. Ginette immediately sent me down to get some
more wine. When I came back they had
evidently had a good talk. Her friend,
Yvette, worked in the police department.
A sort of stool pigeon, as far as I could gather. At least that was what she was trying to make
me believe. It was fairly obvious that
she was just a little whore. But she had
an obsession about the police and their doings.
Throughout the meal they were urging me to accompany them to a bal
musette. They wanted to have a gay
time - it was so lonely for Ginette with Jo-Jo in the hospital. I told them I had to work, but that on my
night off I'd come back and take them out.
I made it clear too that I had no dough to spend on them. Ginette, who was really thunderstruck to hear
this, pretended that that didn't matter in the least. In fact, just to show what a good sport she
was, she insisted on driving me to work in a cab. She was doing it because I was a friend of
Jo-Jo's. And therefore I was a friend of
hers. "And also," thought I to
myself, "if anything goes wrong with your Jo-Jo you'll come to me on the
double-quick. Then you'll see what a
friend I can be!" I was as nice as
pie to her. In fact, when we got out of
the cab in front of the office, I permitted them to persuade me into having a
final Pernod together. Yvette wanted to
know if she couldn't call for me after work.
She had a lot of things to tell me in confidence, she said. But I managed to refuse without hurting her
feelings. Unfortunately I did unbend
sufficiently to give her my address.
Unfortunately, I say. As a matter of fact, I'm rather glad of it
when I think back on it. Because the
very next day things began to happen.
The very next day, before I had even gotten out of bed, the two of them
called on me. Jo-Jo had been removed from
the hospital - they had incarcerated him in a little chateau in the country,
just a few miles out of Paris. The chateau,
they called it. A polite way of saying
"the bughouse." They wanted me
to get dressed immediately and go with them.
They were in a panic.
Perhaps I might have gone alone - but I
just couldn't make up my mind to go with these two. I asked them to wait for me downstairs while
I got dressed, thinking that it would give me time to invent some excuse for not
going. But they wouldn't leave the
room. They sat there and watched me wash
and dress, just as if it were an everyday affair. In the midst of it, Carl popped in. I gave him the situation briefly in English,
and then we hatched up an excuse that I had some important work to do. However, to smooth things over, we got some
wine in and we began to amuse them by showing them a book of dirty
drawings. Yvette had already lost all
desire to go to the chateau. She and
Carl were getting along famously. When
it came time to go Carl decided to accompany them to the chateau. He thought it would be funny to see Fillmore
walking around with a lot of nuts. He
wanted to see what it was like in the nuthouse.
So off they went, somewhat pickled, and in the best of humour.
All the time that Fillmore was at the
chateau I never once went to see him. It
wasn't necessary, because Ginette visited him regularly and gave me all the
news. They had hopes of bringing him
around in a few months, so she said.
They thought it was alcoholic poisoning - nothing more. Of course, he had a dose - but that wasn't
difficult to remedy. So far as they
could see, he didn't have syphilis. That
was something. So, to begin with, they
used the stomach pump on him. They
cleaned his system out thoroughly. He
was so weak for a while that he couldn't get out of bed. He was depressed, too. He said he didn't want to be cured - he
wanted to die. And he kept repeating
this nonsense so insistently that finally they grew alarmed. I suppose it wouldn't have been a very good
recommendation if he had committed suicide.
Anyway, they began to give him mental treatment. And in between times they pulled out his
teeth, more and more of them, until he didn't have a tooth left in his
head. He was supposed to feel fine after
that, yet strangely he didn't. He became
more despondent than ever. And then his
hair began to fall out. Finally he
developed a paranoid streak - began to accuse them of all sorts of things,
demanded to know by what right he was being detained, what he had done to
warrant being locked up, etc. After a
terrible fit of despondency he would suddenly become energetic and threaten to
blow up the place if they didn't release him.
And to make it worse, as far as Ginette was concerned, he had gotten all
over his notion of marrying her. He told
her straight up and down that he had no intention of marrying her, and that if
she was crazy enough to go and have a child then she could support it herself.
The doctors interpreted all this as a
good sign. They said he was coming
round. Ginette, of course, thought he
was crazier than ever, but she was paying for him to be released so that she
could take him to the country where it would be quiet and peaceful and where he
would come to his right senses.
Meanwhile her parents had come to Paris on a visit and had even gone so
far as to visit the future son-in-law at the chateau. In their canny way they had probably figured
it out that it would be better for their daughter to have a crazy husband than
no husband at all. The father thought he
could find something for Fillmore to do on the farm. He said that Fillmore wasn't such a bad chap
at all. When he learned from Ginette
that Fillmore's parents had money he became even more indulgent, more
understanding.
The thing was working itself out nicely
all around. Ginette returned to the
provinces for a while with her parents.
Yvette was coming regularly to the hotel to see Carl. She thought he was the editor of the
paper. And little by little she became
more confidential. When she got good and
tight one day, she informed us that Ginette had never been anything but a
whore, that Ginette was a bloodsucker, that Ginette never had been pregnant and
was not pregnant now. About the other accusations
we hadn't much doubt, Carl and I, but about not being pregnant, that we weren't
so sure of.
"How did she get such a big stomach,
then?" asked Carl.
Yvette laughed. "Maybe she uses a bicycle pump,"
she said. "No, seriously," she
added, "the stomach comes from drink.
She drinks like a fish, Ginette.
When she comes back from the country, you will see, she will be blown up
still more. Her father is a
drunkard. Ginette is a drunkard. Maybe she has the clap, yes - but she is not
pregnant."
"But why does she want to marry
him? Is she really in love with
him?"
"Love? Pfooh!
She has no heart, Ginette. She
wants someone to look after her. No
Frenchman would ever marry her - she has a police record. No, she wants him because he's too stupid to
find out about her. Her parents don't
want her anymore - she's a disgrace to them.
But if she can get married to a rich American, then everything will be
all right.... You think maybe she loves him a little, eh? You don't know her. When they were living together at the hotel,
she had men coming to her room while he was at work. She said he didn't give her enough spending
money. He was stingy. That fur she wore - she told him her parents
had given it to her, didn't she?
Innocent fool! Why, I've seen her
bring a man back to the hotel right while he was there. She brought the man to the floor below. I saw it with my own eyes. And what a man! An old derelict. He couldn't get an erection!"
If Fillmore, when he was released from
the chateau, had returned to Paris, perhaps I might have tipped him off about
his Ginette. While he was still under
observation I didn't think it well to upset him by poisoning his mind with
Yvette's slanders. As things turned out,
he went directly from the chateau to the home of Ginette's parents. There, despite himself, he was inveigled into
making public his engagement. The banns
were published in the local papers and a reception was given to the friends of
the family. Fillmore took advantage of
the situation to indulge in all sorts of escapades. Though he knew quite well what he was doing
he pretended to be still a little daffy.
He would borrow his father-in-law's car, for example, and tear about the
countryside all by himself; if he saw a town that he liked he would plank
himself down and have a good time until Ginette came searching for him. Sometimes the father-in-law and he would go
off together - on a fishing trip, presumably - and nothing would be heard of
them for days. He became exasperatingly
capricious and exacting. I suppose he
figured he might as well get what he could out of it.
When he returned to Paris with Ginette he
had a complete new wardrobe and a pocketful of dough. He looked cheerful and healthy, and had a
fine coat of tan. He looked sound as a
berry to me. But as soon as we had
gotten away from Ginette he opened up.
His job was gone and his money had all run out. In a month or so they were to be
married. Meanwhile the parents were
supplying the dough. "Once they've
got me properly in their clutches," he said, "I'll be nothing but a
slave to them. The father thinks he's
going to open up a stationary store for me.
Ginette will handle the customers, take in the money, etc., while I sit
in the back of the store and write - or something. Can you picture me sitting in the back of a
stationary store for the rest of my life?
Ginette thinks it's an excellent idea.
She likes to handle money. I'd
rather go back to the chateau than submit to such a scheme."
For the time being, of course, he was
pretending that everything was hunky-dory.
I tried to persuade him to go back to America but he wouldn't hear of
that. He said he wasn't going to be
driven out of France by a lot of ignorant peasants. He had an idea that he would slip out of
sight for a while and then take up quarters in some outlying section of the
city where he'd not be likely to stumble upon her. But we soon decided that that was impossible:
you can't hide away in France as you can in America.
"You could go to Belgium for a
while," I suggested.
"But what'll I do for money?"
he said promptly. "You can't get a
job in these goddamned countries."
"Why don't you marry her and get a
divorce, then?" I asked.
"And meanwhile she'll be dropping a
kid. Who's going to take care of the
kid, eh?"
"How do you know she's going to have
a kid?" I said, determined now that the moment had come to spill the
beans.
"How do I know?" he said. He didn't quite seem to know what I was
insinuating.
I gave him an inkling of what Yvette had
said. He listened to me in complete
bewilderment. Finally he interrupted
me. "It's no use going on with
that," he said. "I know she's
going to have a kid, all right. I've
felt it kicking around inside. Yvette's
a dirty little slut. You see, I didn't
want to tell you, but up until the time I went to the hospital I was shelling
out for Yvette too. Then when the crash
came I couldn't do any more for her. I
figured out that I had done enough for the both of them.... I made up my mind
to look after myself first. That made
Yvette sore. She told Ginette that she
was going to get even with me.... No, I wish it were true, what she said. Then I could get out of this thing more
easily. Now I'm in a trap. I've promised to marry her and I'll have to
go through with it. After that I don't
know what'll happen to me. They've got
me by the balls now."
Since he had taken a room in the same
hotel with me I was obliged to see them frequently, whether I wanted to or
not. Almost every evening I had dinner
with them, preceded, of course, by a few Pernods. All through the meal they quarrelled
noisily. It was embarrassing because I
had sometimes to take one side and sometimes the other. One Sunday afternoon, for example, after we
had had lunch together, we repaired to a café on the corner of the Boulevard
Edgar-Quinet. Things had gone unusually
well this time. We were sitting inside
at a little table, one alongside the other, our backs to a mirror. Ginette must have been passionate or
something for she had suddenly gotten into a sentimental mood and was fondling
him and kissing him in front of everybody, as the French do so naturally. They had just come out of a long embrace when
Fillmore said something about her parents which she interpreted as an insult. Immediately he cheeks flushed with
anger. We tried to mollify her by
telling her that she had misunderstood the remark and then, under his breath,
Fillmore said something to me in English - something about giving her a little
soft soap. That was enough to set her
completely off the handle. She said we
were making fun of her. I said something
sharp to her which angered her still more and then Fillmore tried to put in a
word. "You're too
quick-tempered," he said, and he tried to pat her on the cheek. But she, thinking that he had raised his hand
to slap her face, she gave him a sound crack in the jaw with that big peasant
hand of hers. For a moment he was
stunned. He hadn't expected a wallop
like that, and it stung. I saw his face
go white and the next moment he raised himself from the bench and with the palm
of his hand he gave her such a crack that she almost fell off her seat. "There! that'll teach you how to
behave!" he said - in his broken French.
For a moment there was a dead silence.
Then, like a storm breaking, she picked up the cognac glass in front of
her and hurled it at him with all her might.
It smashed against the mirror behind us.
Fillmore had already grabbed her by the arm, but with her free hand she
grabbed the coffee glass and smashed it on the floor. She was squirming around like a maniac. It was all we could do to hold her. Meanwhile, of course, the patron had
come running in and ordered us to beat it.
"Loafers!" he called us.
"Yes, loafers; that's it!" screamed Ginette. "Dirty foreigners! Thugs!
Gangsters! Striking a pregnant
woman!" We were getting black looks
all around. A poor Frenchwoman with two
American toughs. Gangsters. I was wondering how the hell we'd ever get
out of the place without a fight.
Fillmore, by this time, was as silent as a clam. Ginette was bolting it through the door,
leaving us to face the music. As she
sailed out she turned back with fist upraised and shouted: "I'll pay you
back for this, you brute! You'll see! No foreigner can treat a decent Frenchwoman
like that! Ah, no! Not like that!"
Hearing this the patron, who had
now been paid for his drinks and his broken glasses, felt it encumbent to show
his gallantry toward a splendid representative of French motherhood such as
Ginette, and so, without more ado, he spat at our feet and shoved us out of the
door. "Shit on you, you dirty
loafers!" he said, or some such pleasantry.
Once in the street and nobody throwing
things after us, I began to see the funny side of it. I would be an excellent idea, I thought to
myself, if the whole thing were properly aired in court. The whole thing! With Yvette's little stories as a side
dish. After all, the French have a sense
of humour. Perhaps the judge, when he
heard Fillmore's side of the story, would absolve him from marriage.
Meanwhile Ginette was standing across the
street brandishing her fist and yelling at the top of her lungs. People were stopping to listen in, to take
sides, as they do in street brawls.
Fillmore didn't know what to do - whether to walk away from her, or to
go over to her and try to pacify her. He
was standing in the middle of the street with his arms outstretched, trying to
get a word in edgewise. And Ginette
still yelling "Gangster!
Brute! Tu verras salaud!"
and other complimentary things. Finally
Fillmore made a move toward her and she, probably thinking that he was going to
give her another good cuff, took it on a trot down the street. Fillmore came back to where I was standing
and said: "Come on, let's follow her quietly." We started off with a thin crowd of
stragglers behind us. Every once in a
while she turned back toward us and brandished her fist. We made no attempt to catch up with her, just
followed her leisurely down the street to see what she would do. Finally she slowed up her pace and we crossed
over to the other side of the street.
She was quiet now. We kept
walking behind her, getting closer and closer.
There were only about a dozen people behind us now - the others had lost
interest. When we got near the corner
she suddenly stopped and waited for us to approach. "Let me do the talking," said
Fillmore, "I know how to handle her."
The tears were streaming down her face as
we came up to her. Myself, I didn't know
what to expect of her. I was somewhat
surprised therefore when Fillmore walked up to her and said in an aggrieved
voice: "Was that a nice thing to do?
Why did you act that way?"
Whereupon she threw her arms around his neck and began to weep like a
child, calling him her little this and her little that. Then she turned to me imploringly. "You saw how he struck me," she
said. "Is that any way to behave
toward a woman?" I was on the point
of saying yes when Fillmore took her by the arm and started leading her
off. "No more of that," he
said. "If you start again I'll
crack you right here in the street."
I thought it was going to start up all
over again. She had fire in her
eyes. But evidently she was a bit cowed,
too, for it subsided quickly. However,
as she sat down at the café she said quietly and grimly that he needn't think
it was going to be forgotten so quickly; he'd hear more about it later on ...
perhaps tonight.
And sure enough she kept her word. When I met him the next day his face and
hands were all scratched up. Seems she
had waited until he got to bed and then, without a word, she had gone to the
wardrobe and, dumping all his things out on the floor, she took them one by one
and tore them to ribbons. As this had
happened a number of times before, and as she had always sown them up
afterwards, he hadn't protested very much.
And that made her angrier than ever.
What she wanted was to get her nails into him, and she did, to the best
of her ability. Being pregnant she had a
certain advantage over him.
Poor Fillmore! It was no laughing matter. She had him terrorized. If he threatened to run away she retorted by
a threat to kill him. And she said it as
if she meant it. "If you go to
America," she said, "I'll follow you!
You won't get away from me. A
French girl always knows how to get vengeance." And the next moment she would be coaxing him
to be "reasonable", to be "sage", etc. Life would be so nice once they had the
stationary store. He wouldn't have to do
a stroke of work. She would do
everything. He could stay in back of the
store and write - or whatever he wanted to do.
It went on like this, back and forth, a
seesaw, for a few weeks or so. I was
avoiding them as much as possible, sick of the affair and disgusted with the
both of them. Then one fine summer's
day, just as I was passing the Credit Lyonnais, who comes marching down the
steps but Fillmore. I greeted him
warmly, feeling rather guilty because I had dodged him for so long. I asked him, with more than ordinary
curiosity, how things were going. He
answered me rather vaguely and with a note of despair in his voice.
"I've just gotten permission to go
to the bank," he said, in a peculiar, broken, abject sort of way. "I've got about half an hour, no
more. She keeps tabs on me." And he grasped my arm as if to hurry me away
from the spot.
We were walking down toward the Rue de
Rivoli. It was a beautiful day, warm,
clear, sunny - one of those days when Paris is at its best. A mild pleasant breeze blowing, just enough
to take that stagnant odour out of your nostrils. Fillmore was without a hat. Outwardly he looked the picture of health -
like the average American tourist who slouches along with money jingling in his
pockets.
"I don't know what to do
anymore," he said quietly.
"You've got to do something for me.
I'm helpless. I can't get a grip
on myself. If I could only get away from
her for a little while perhaps I'd come round all right. But she won't let me out of her sight. I just got permission to run to the bank - I
had to draw some money. I'll walk around
with you a bit, then I must hurry back - she'll have lunch waiting for
me."
I listened to him quietly, thinking to
myself that he certainly did need someone to pull him out of the hole he was
in. He had completely caved in, there
wasn't a speck of courage left in him.
He was just like a child - like a child who is beaten every day and
doesn't know anymore how to behave, except to cower and cringe. As we turned under the colonnade of the Rue
de Rivoli he burst into a long diatribe against France. He was fed up with the French. "I used to rave about them," he
said, "but that was all literature.
I know them now.... I know what they're really like. They're cruel and mercenary. At first it seems wonderful, because you have
a feeling of being free. After a while it
palls on you. Underneath it's all dead;
there's no feeling, no sympathy, no friendship.
They're selfish to the core. The
most selfish people on earth! They think
of nothing but money, money, money. And
so goddamned respectable, so bourgeois!
That's what drives me nuts. When
I see her mending my shirts I could club her.
Always mending, mending. Saving,
saving. Faut faires des economies! That's all I hear her say all day long. You hear it everywhere. Sois raisonnable, mon cheri! Sois raisonnable! I don't want to be reasonable and
logical. I hate it! I want to bust loose, I want to enjoy
myself. I want to do
something. I don't want to sit in a café
and talk all day long. Jesus, we've got
our faults - but we've got enthusiasm.
It's better to make mistakes than not do anything. I'd rather be a bum in America than to be
sitting pretty here. Maybe it's because
I'm a Yankee. I was born in New England
and I belong there, I guess. You can't
become a European overnight. There's
something in your blood that makes you different. It's the climate - and everything. We see things with different eyes. We can't make ourselves over, however much we
admire the French. We're Americans and
we've got to remain Americans. Sure, I
hate all those puritanical buggers back home - I hate 'em with all my
guts. But I'm one of them myself. I don't belong here. I'm sick of it."
All along the arcade he went on like
this. I wasn't saying a word. I let him spill it all out - it was good for
him to get it off his chest. Just the
same, I was thinking how strange it was that this same guy, had it been a year
ago, would have been beating his chest like a gorilla and saying: "What a
marvellous day! What a country! What a people!" And if an American had happened along and
said one word against France Fillmore would have flattened his nose. He would have died for France - a year
ago. I never saw a man who was so
infatuated with a country, who was so happy under a foreign sky. It wasn't natural. When he said
At the Palais Royal I suggested that we
stop and have a drink. He hesitated a
moment. I saw that he was worrying about
her, about the lunch, about the bawling out he'd get.
"For Christ's sake," I said,
"forget about her for a while. I'm
going to order something to drink and I want you to drink it. Don't worry, I'm going to get you out of this
fucking mess." I ordered two stiff
whiskies.
When he saw the whiskies coming he smiled
at me just like a child again.
"Down it!" I said, "and
let's have another. This is going to do
you good. I don't care what the doctor
says - this time it'll be all right. Come on, down with it!"
He put it down all right and while the garçon
disappeared to fetch another round he looked at me with brimming eyes, as
though I were the last friend in the world.
His lips were twitching a bit, too.
There was something he wanted to say to me and he didn't quite know how
to begin. I looked at him easily, as
though ignoring the appeal and, shoving the saucers aside, I leaned over on my
elbow and I said to him earnestly: "Look here, Fillmore, what is it you'd really
like to do? Tell me!"
With that the tears gushed up and he
blurted out: "I'd like to be home with my people. I'd like to hear English spoken." The tears were streaming down his face. He made no effort to brush them away. He just let everything gush forth. Jesus, I thought to myself, that's fine to
have a release like that. Fine to be a
complete coward at least once in your life.
To let go that way. Great! Great!
It did me so much good to see him break down that way that I felt as
though I could solve any problem. I felt
courageous and resolute. I had a
thousand ideas in my head at once.
"Listen," I said, bending still
closer to him, "if you mean what you said why don't you do it ... why
don't you go? Do you know what I would
do, if I were in your shoes? I'd go
today. Yes, by Jesus, I mean it ... I'd
go right away, without even saying goodbye to her. As a matter of fact that's the only way you
can go - she'd never let you say goodbye.
You know that."
The garçon came with the
whiskies. I saw him reach forward with a
desperate eagerness and raise the glass to his lips. I saw a glint of hope in his eyes - far-off,
wild, desperate. He probably saw himself
swimming across the Atlantic. To me it
looked easy, simple as rolling off a log.
The whole thing was working itself out rapidly in my mind. I knew just what each step would be. Clear as a bell, I was.
"Whose money is that in the
bank?" I asked. "Is it her
father's or is it yours?"
"It's mine!" he exclaimed. "My mother sent it to me. I don't want any of her goddamned
money."
"That's swell," I said. "Listen, suppose we hop a cab and go
back there. Draw out every cent. Then we'll go to the British Consulate and
get a visa. You're going to hop the
train this afternoon for London. From
London you'll take the first boat to America.
I'm saying that because then you won't be worried about her trailing
you. She'll never suspect that you went
via London. If she goes searching for
you she'll naturally go to Le Harvre first, or
"You're right!" he
exclaimed. "I never thought of
that. Besides, you might send them to me
later on - if she'll surrender them! But
that doesn't matter now. Jesus, though,
I haven't even got a hat!"
"What do you need a hat for? When you get to London you can buy everything
you need. All you need now is to
hurry. We've got to find out when the
train leaves."
"Listen," he said, reaching for
his wallet. "I'm going to leave everything
to you. Here, take this and do
whatever's necessary. I'm too weak....
I'm dizzy."
I took the wallet and emptied it of the
bills he had just drawn from the bank. A
cab was standing at the curb. We hopped
in. There was a train leaving the Gare
du Nord at four o'clock or thereabouts.
I was figuring it out - the bank, the Consulate, the American Express,
the station. Fine! Just about make it.
"Now buck up!" I said,
"and keep your shirt on! Shit! in a
few hours you'll be crossing the Channel.
Tonight you'll be walking around in London and you'll get a good
bellyful of English. Tomorrow you'll be
on the open sea - and then, by Jesus, you're a free man and you needn't give a
fuck what happens. By the time you get
to New York this'll be nothing more than a bad dream."
This got him so excited that his feet
were moving convulsively, as if he were trying to run inside the cab. At the bank his hand was trembling so that he
could hardly sign his name. But I think,
had it been necessary, I could have sat him on the toilet and wiped his
ass. I was determined to ship him off,
even if I had to fold him up and put him in a valise.
It was lunch hour when we got to the
British Consulate, and the place was closed.
That meant waiting until two o'clock.
I couldn't think of anything better to do, by way of killing time, than
to eat. Fillmore, of course, wasn't
hungry. He was for eating a
sandwich. "Fuck that!" I
said. "You're going to blow me to a
good lunch. It's the last square meal
you're going to have over here - maybe for a long while." I steered him to a cosy little restaurant and
ordered a good spread. I ordered the
best wine on the menu, regardless of price or taste. I had all his money in my pocket - oodles of
it, it seemed to me. Certainly never
before had I had so much in my fist at one time. It was a treat to break a thousand franc
note. I held it up to the light first to
look at the beautiful watermark.
Beautiful money! One of the few
things the French make on a grand scale.
Artistically done, too, as if they cherished a deep affection even for
the symbol.
The meal over, we went to a café. I ordered Chartreuse with the coffee. Why not?
And I broke another bill - a five- hundred franc note this time. It was a clean, new, crisp bill. A pleasure to handle such money. The waiter handed me back a lot of dirty old
bills that had been patched up with strips of gummed paper; I had a stack of
five and ten franc notes and a bagful of chicken feed. Chinese money, with holes in it. I didn't know in which pocket to stuff the
money anymore. My trousers were bursting
with coins and bills. It made me
slightly uncomfortable also, hauling all that dough out in public. I was afraid we might be taken for a couple
of crooks.
When we got to the American Express there
wasn't a devil of a lot of time left.
the British, in their usual fumbling farting way, had kept us on pins
and needles. Here everybody was sliding
around on casters. They were so speedy
that everything had to be done twice.
After all the cheques were signed and clipped in a neat little holder,
it was discovered that he had signed in the wrong place. Nothing to do but start all over again. I stood over him, with one eye on the clock,
and watched every stroke of the pen. It
hurt to hand over the dough. Not all of
it, thank God - but a good part of it. I
had roughly about 2,500 francs in my pocket.
Roughly, I say. I wasn't counting
by francs anymore. A hundred, or two
hundred, more or less - it didn't mean a goddamned thing to me. As for him, he was going through the whole
transaction in a daze. He didn't know
how much money he had. All he knew was
that he had to keep something aside for Ginette. He wasn't certain yet how much - we were going
to figure that out on the way to the station.
In the excitement we had forgotten to
change all the money. We were already in
the cab, however, and there wasn't any time to be lost. The thing was to find out how we stood. We emptied our pockets quickly and began to
whack it up. Some of it was lying on the
floor, some of it was on the seat. It
was bewildering. There was French, American
and English money. And all that chicken
feed besides. I felt like picking up the
coins and chucking them out of the window - just to simplify matters. Finally we sifted it all out; he held on to
the English and American money, and I held on to the French money.
We had to decided quickly now what to do
about Ginette - how much to give her, what to tell her, etc. He was trying to fix up a yarn for me to hand
her - didn't want her to break her heart and so forth. I had to cut him short.
"Never mind what to tell her,"
I said. "Leave that to me. How much are you going to give her,
that's the thing? Why give her anything?"
That was like setting a bomb under his
ass. He burst into tears. Such tears!
It was worse than before. I
thought he was going to collapse on my hands.
Without stopping to think, I said: "All right, let's give her all
this French money. That ought to last
her for a while."
"How much is it?" he asked
feebly.
"I don't know - about 2,000 francs
or so. More than she deserves
anyway."
"Christ! Don't say that!" he
begged. "After all, it's a rotten
break I'm giving her. Her folks'll never
take her back now. No, give it to
her. Give her the whole damned
business.... I don't care what it is."
He pulled a handkerchief out to wipe the
tears away. "I can't help it,"
he said. "It's too much for
me." I said nothing. Suddenly he sprawled himself out full length
- I thought he was taking a fit or something - and he said: "Jesus, I
think I ought to go back. I ought to go
back and face the music. If anything
should happen to her I'd never forgive myself."
That was a rude jolt for me. "Christ!" I shouted, "you
can't do that! Not now. It's too late. You're going to take the train and I'm going
to tend to her myself. I'll go see her
just as soon as I leave you. Why, you
poor boob, if she ever thought you had tried to run away from her she'd murder
you, don't you realize that? You can't
go back anymore. It's settled."
Anyway, what could go wrong? I
asked myself. Kill herself? Tant mieux.
When we rolled up to the station we had
still about twelve minutes to kill. I
didn't dare to say goodbye to him yet.
At the last minute, rattled as he was, I could see him jumping off the
train and scooting back to her. Anything
might swerve him. A straw. So I dragged him across the street to a bar
and I said: "Now you're going to have a Pernod - your last Pernod
and I'm going to pay for it ... with your dough."
Something about this remark made him look
at me uneasily. He took a big gulp of
the Pernod and then, turning to me like an injured dog, he said: "I know I
oughtn't to trust you with all that money, but ... but ... Oh, well, do what
you think best. I don't want her to kill
herself, that's all."
"Kill herself?" I
said. "Not her! You must think a hell of a lot of yourself if
you can believe a thing like that. As
for the money, though I hate to give it to her, I promise you I'll go straight
to the post office and telegraph it to her.
I wouldn't trust myself with it a minute longer than is
necessary." As I said this I spied
a bunch of postcards in a revolving rack.
I grabbed one off - a picture of the Eiffel Tower it was - and made him
write a few words. "Tell her you're
sailing now. Tell her you love her and
that you'll send for her as soon as you arrive.... I'll send it by pneumatique
when I go to the post office. And
tonight I'll see her. Everything'll be
jake, you'll see."
With that we walked across the street to
the station. Only two minutes to
go. I felt it was safe now. At the gate I gave him a slap on the back and
pointed to the train. I didn't shake
hands with him - he would have slobbered all over me. I just said: "Hurry! She's going in a minute." And with that I turned on my heel and marched
off. I didn't even look round to see if
he was boarding the train. I was afraid
to.
I hadn't thought, all the while I was
bundling him off, what I'd do once I was free of him. I had promised a lot of things - but that was
only to keep him quiet. As for facing
Ginette, I had about as little courage for it as he had. I was getting panicky myself. Everything had happened so quickly that it
was impossible to grasp the nature of the situation in full. I walked away from the station in a kind of
delicious stupor - with the postcard in
my hand. I stood against a lamppost and
read it over. It sounded
preposterous. I read it again, to make
sure that I wasn't dreaming, and then I tore it up and threw it in the gutter.
I looked around uneasily, half expecting
to see Ginette coming after me with a tomahawk.
Nobody was following me. I
started walking leisurely toward the Place Lafayette. It was a beautiful day, as I had observed
earlier. Light, puffy clouds above,
sailing with the wind. The awnings
flapping. Paris had never looked so good
to me, I almost felt sorry that I had shipped the poor bugger off. At the Place Lafayette I sat down facing the
church and stared at the clock tower; it's not such a wonderful piece of
architecture, but that blue in the dial face always fascinated me. It was bluer than ever today. I couldn't take my eyes off it.
Unless he were crazy enough to write her
a letter, explaining everything, Ginette need never know what had
happened. And even if she did learn that
he had left her 2,500 francs or so she couldn't prove it. I could always say that he imagined it. A guy who was crazy enough to walk off
without even a hat was crazy enough to invent the 2,500 francs, or whatever it
was. How much was it anyhow?, I
wondered. My pockets were sagging with
the weight of it. I hauled it all out
and counted it carefully. There was
exactly 2,875 francs and 35 centimes.
More than I had thought. The 75
francs and 35 centimes had to be gotten rid of.
I wanted an even sum - a clean 2,800 francs. Just then I saw a cab pulling up to the
curb. A woman stepped out with a white
poodle dog in her hands; the dog was peeing over her silk dress. The idea of taking a dog for a ride got me
sore. I'm as good as her dog, I said to
myself, and with that I gave the driver a sign and told him to drive me through
the Bois. He wanted to know where
exactly. "Anywhere," I said. "Go through the Bois, go all around it -
and take your time, I'm in no hurry."
I sank back and let the houses whizz by, the jagged roofs, the chimney
pots, the coloured walls, the urinals, the dizzy carrefours. Passing the Rond-Point I thought I'd go
downstairs and take a leak. No telling
what might happen down there. I told the
driver to wait. It was the first time in
my life I had let a cab wait while I took a leak. How much can you waste that way? Not very much. With what I had in my pocket I could afford
to have two taxis waiting for me.
I took a good look around but I didn't
see anything worth while. What I wanted
was something fresh and unused - something from Alaska or the Virgin
Islands. A clean fresh pelt with a
natural fragrance to it. Needless to
say, there wasn't anything like that walking about. I wasn't terribly disappointed. I didn't give a fuck whether I found anything
or not. The thing is, never to be too
anxious. Everything comes in due time.
We drove on past the Arc de Triomphe. A few sightseers were loitering around the
remains of the Unknown Soldier. Going
through the Bois I looked at all the rich cunts promenading in their
limousines. They were whizzing by as if
they had some destination. Do that, no
doubt, to look important - to show the world how smooth run their Rolls-Royces
and their Hispano Suizas. Inside me
things were running smoother than any Rolls-Royce ever ran. It was just like velvet inside. Velvet cortex and velvet vertebrae. And velvet axle grease, what! It's a wonderful thing, for half an hour, to
have money in your pocket and piss it away like a drunken sailor. You feel as though the world is yours. And the best part of it is, you don't know
what to do with it. You can sit back and
let the meter run wild, you can let the wind blow through your hair, you can
stop and have a drink, you can give a big tip, and you can swagger off as
though it were an everyday occurrence.
But you can't create a revolution.
You can't wash all the dirt out of your belly.
When we got to the Porte d'Auteuil I made
him head for the Seine. At the Pont de
Sevres I got out and started walking along the river, toward the Auteuil
Viaduct. It's about the size of a creek
along here and the trees come right down to the river's bank. The water was green and glassy, especially
near the other side. Now and then a scow
chugged by. Bathers in tights were
standing in the grass sunning themselves.
Everything was close and palpitant, and vibrant with the strong light.
Passing a beer garden I saw a group of
cyclists sitting at a table. I took a
seat nearby and ordered a demi.
Hearing them jabber away, I thought for a moment of Ginette. I saw her stamping up and down the room,
tearing her hair, and sobbing and bleating, in that beastlike way of hers. I saw his hat on the rack. I wondered if his clothes would fit me. He had a raglan that I particularly liked. Well, by now he was on his way. I a little while the boat would be rocking
under him. English! He wanted to hear English spoken. What an idea!
Suddenly it occurred to me that if I
wanted I could go to America myself. It
was the first time the opportunity had ever presented itself. I asked myself - "do you want to
go?" There was no answer. My thoughts drifted out, toward the sea,
toward the other side where, taking a last look back, I had seen the
skyscrapers fading out in a flurry of snowflakes. I saw them looming up again, in that same
ghostly way as when I left. Saw the
lights creeping through their ribs. I
saw the whole city spread out, from Harlem to the Battery, the streets choked
with ants, the elevated rushing by, the theatres emptying. I wondered in a vague way what had ever
happened to my wife.
After everything had quietly sifted
through my head a great peace came over me.
Here, where the river gently winds through the girdle of hills, lies a
soil so saturated with the past that however far back the mind roams one can
never detach it from its human background.
Christ, before my eyes there shimmered such a golden peace that only a
neurotic could dream of turning his head away.
So quietly flows the
Human beings make a strange fauna and
flora. From a distance they appear
negligible; close up they are apt to appear ugly and malicious. More than anything they need to be surrounded
with sufficient space - space even more than time.
The sun is setting. I feel this river flowing through me - its past,
its ancient soil, the changing climate.
The hills gently girdle it about: its course is fixed.
TROPIC OF CANCER (polychrome version)