by Jack Kerouac
ORPHEUS EMERGED 18
preoccupied frown on his face.
It was a beautiful day in early spring...
Spring Day Eve, for a fact—when Paul was
interrupted in his perusal of Kenneth
Patchen’s Journal of Albion Moonlight by Leo, a student at the University. Slim, dark
haired, wearing blue horn-rimmed glasses,
the boyishly ugly Leo hurried across the
Shop and slapped Paul on the back.
“Paul!” he cried. “I heard you had been
fired from your job. Is that true?”
Paul, glancing up to see who it was, and
annoyed by the question, returned his atten-
tion to the book.
“You have!” ejaculated Leo, leaning
toward Paul anxiously.
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The other waved his hand and sent Leo step-
ping back. “Don’t annoy me,” he hissed
sharply. “It’s my affair. Don’t start asking for
details. Please shut up.”
At this, Leo began to smile sporadically,
and he bowed from the waist as a sign of def-
erence. He could always manage to conceal
his feelings.
“Where’s Arthur?” Paul then curtly inquired.
“In class. I’m headed there now.”
“I’ll come,” Paul said, and replaced the
book on the shelf. He gave the shelf a last
frowning look and started out to the street.
Leo, at his heels, shrugged his shoulder
doubtfully.
“You know, don’t you,” he said, “that the
Professor is beginning to dislike your sitting
in on his class. After all, you’re not an
enrolled student here…”
“I know, I know. He can do no more than
throw me out of the class.”
“Well that’s true.”
“Then come.” Paul led Leo hastily
across the street onto the green grass of
the campus. He began to talk all at once.
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“Those books! If
only I had time
to read them, and
more. This morn-
ing, after I lost
my job, I went to
the University
Library itself,
and do you know,
there were hun-
dreds of thou-
sands of books
there I honestly
felt
I should read!
And the ideas
that rush through
my mind. The
impatience I
feel! The time
running off like
sand.
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Ah...” and he dismissed the question with a
wave of his hand.
Leo laughed. “Do you know,” he said,
“this is about the fifth time you’ve told me
that. Always, you’re talking about books,
and all the things to be learned, like
Faustus in reverse himself. Arise, Paul!
Come across the moonlit fields and seek
the Golden Tree of Knowledge.”
Paul almost sneered. He was hurrying
along with his hands in his pockets.
Despite his haste, he looked like a loafer of
some sort, for his clothes were those of a
tramp, and his shoe soles flapped rhythmi-
cally as he walked; and his large red and
raw hands, like those of a peasant, were
always in his pockets, so that he gave the
conventional impression of the loafer and
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ne’er-do-well. Yet, he no longer created a
sensation on the campus.
He had arrived two months ago, in
February, “from the road,” and from the
North—and had taken a room on the campus,
a sort of semi-coal-bin in the cellar of an
apartment house on M street. He had imme-
diately struck up an acquaintanceship with
several of the students who had attracted his
fancy in order to be accompanied to the use of
the various cultural conveniences around the
campus, such as the library, the music library,
the art studio, and to be afforded a chance to
sit in on lectures when he had occasion to. It
was all very mysterious indeed. Some con-
tended that he was a mere country bumpkin
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ORPHEUS EMERGED 24
come to the big city and the big university, with-
out sufficient funds to register as a student. But
others saw in him a great deal of sophistication
and previous education, and dismissed the
whole matter as some sort of psychopathic
technique on his part.
Of Paul, Arthur had this to say one day to
Michael, who lived on the campus with his
mistress and was himself some sort of loafer:
“Paul has something in his past that drives
him like a madman. He is daemonic man per-
sonified! I wonder what it is!?”
And to this, the laconic Michael only
answered, “Yes, I suppose so. It must interest
you a great deal. But as for me, I can’t stand
him.” “It’s because he’s so much like you,”
Arthur had been quick to remark.
“Peut-etre,” Michael had replied, smiling faintly,
and turning to resume the meal that had been set
up on his work desk by his mistress, Maureen.
Now Leo led Paul into the classroom as he
had done several times before in the past two
months. The other students paid no notice,
for none of them knew that Paul was not a
registered student, except Arthur, who now
rose to come and greet the two young men.
“Paul,” he said. “I hope it will go off today
as it did last week, although I think our distin-
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ORPHEUS EMERGED 25
guished Professor is beginning to spout at
the seams. Today’s lecture, in case you’re
interested, will deal with the Zarathustra of
Nietzsche.”
“It’s strange that he hasn’t thrown you out
yet,” Leo put in. They took their seats in the
last row of the class. “Perhaps he’s discreet.”
“Do you have any definite ideas on
today’s lecture?” Paul inquired of Arthur.
“Yes! You’ll hear me air them in full. I
have my notes here.”
“And you’ll manage as usual to get his
gander up,” Leo laughed.
“I for my part haven’t had time to formu-
late anything specific,” Paul said gloomily.
He began to clean his fingernails with the
nails of his other hand. “And of course, if I
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ORPHEUS EMERGED 26
had, it wouldn’t be right to speak up. I must
keep my silence and listen. There’s a
limit…”
“Last night, at his apartment. He was writ-
ing a poem and wouldn’t allow me to see it.
He hardly acknowledged my presence!” Paul
smiled craftily. “But of course, that can be
expected of him.
He’s afraid of me.”
“Have you known each other before?” Leo
demanded.
“Oh yes.”
“But Michael claims otherwise!”
“Well?” Paul smiled angelically, and
almost began to blush. “That can be expect-
ed of him.”
“I don’t understand—” Leo began, but at
this point, the Professor, bushy of eyebrow,
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had entered the class bearing a briefcase under
his arm. From his mouth protruded a cigarette
holder into which he had not as yet inserted a cig-
arette. Now he paused at the desk in front of the
class and dramatically inserted a cigarette and
lighted it with a flagrantly large and decorative
lighter.
“Gentlemen,” he said, and his eye fell on the
dishevelled Paul in the back of the room. “Good
morning,” he now concluded, addressing Paul
directly. The latter blandly nodded back.
“Today’s lecture,” went on the Professor, talk-
ing straight at Paul with a great deal of irony in
his tone, “deals with Nietzsche’s great philosophical poem, ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra. ’ ”
The door of the classroom opened and a pro-
fessor’s head appeared, beckoning to the other.
“William, a moment.”
While the class Professor was thus engaged
outside, in the hall, Leo turned excitedly to Paul.
“Now, tell me! You say that you knew Michael
before? Where? When?”
“Some time ago. He refuses to admit it, of course.”
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“But why!?” cried Leo in perfect agony.
Paul smiled. “It’s all very involved and mys-
terious. I knew him when he was not the man
he is today.”
“Well tell us!”
“I shall, some time. You’ll find out anyway”
The Professor had returned and now he sat on
the edge of the desk at the front of the class and
began puffing meditatively on his cigarette.
“ ‘I bid you lose me,’ ” he began without warn-
ing, “ ‘and find yourselves. Only when ye have
rejected me, may I return onto you.’ Does any-
one recall reading these lines during the exe-
cution of the assignment?” There was more
irony in this last remark, and the bushy eye-
brows contracted portentously.
Arthur, glancing quickly over his class notes,
now raised his hand.
“Well!” cried the Professor. “Do you remem-
ber it? Do you?”
“I remember it vaguely.”
“Vaguely!” shouted the Professor with savage
triumph. “And what does it mean to you?”
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Arthur smiled mockingly at the Professor.
“Shall I be frank?”
“Frank?” The Professor puffed on his cig-
arette. “Yes, do!”
“Well—Zarathustra is speaking as the voice of ultimate society, and as society in
general. I bid you lose me—society as it is,
this pre-ultimate society—and find your-
selves; and only when ye have all rejected
me, this false, pre-ultimate society, this com-
promising civilization, may ye at last find
Zarathustra, the ultimate, artistic society.”
“Your own interpretation, I presume?”
“Precisely,” answered Arthur quickly.
Paul, who sat next to him, had begun to
frown almost angrily.
The Professor was pacing in front of the
class. “Do you think,” he roared, “that
Nietzsche can be embodied in your private
desires? Heh?” Silence. “Is it ever going to
be possible that anyone will resist reading
himself into the man?”
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The others of the class turned disconso-
late faces on Arthur, as though he had been
a culprit. Some of them were raising their
hands tentatively in order to put in a word
or two when Paul, who had by now reached
a great state of suppressed excitement,
jumped up on his feet and spoke:
“I thoroughly agree with you, Professor,
where you condemn Arthur’s liberal use of
Nietzsche’s meanings. But of course—that in
itself is not the greater crime. Now, if you will
permit me, I can point out where Arthur is
making a far more serious mistake…” Paul
paused here in order to catch his breath. The
Professor was staring at him with something
of indignation and outrage written on his face,
but Paul ignored this.
“All asceticism,” Paul began nervously,
waving his large hands for emphasis, “is non-
sense—and I construe Arthur’s remark on the
rejection of society as a broad, sweeping form
of asceticism.” Paul turned to Arthur, nodding
his head at him eagerly.
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ORPHEUS EMERGED 31
“You see, now
we are embark-
ing on the
business of
rejecting life,
happiness, nat-
uralness, for
the sake of
some dim ideal
as the ultimate
state or what-
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ORPHEUS EMERGED 32
ever it was.
This is the
first step
towards the
disease of
good and evil,
the first
rather child-
ish overture
to false
‰ aintliness...”
Paul had lost all of his nervousness now,
and the more he spoke, the more confident
he became. He was just about to launch
himself further into his little speech when
the Professor held up his hand.
There was silence. But Arthur broke it by
directly addressing his opponent: “What do you
mean, false saintliness? Explain that, please…”
And Leo, sensing that all was not well,
added eagerly: “Yes, do…”
But the Professor was not to be dissuad-
ed. He was still holding up his hand, and
the silence fell heavily all over. Some of the
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students had turned and were peering curi-
ously at Paul, for they had grown accus-
tomed to his silence on the occasion of his
rare visits, and now, suddenly, he had burst
out with a lot of nonsense that bewildered
and annoyed them.
“Sir…whatever your name is, young
man…you know, don’t you,” the Professor
began, “the circumstances attending your
presence here today, and several times pre-
viously in the course. I haven’t mentioned it
before, for reasons, er, commensurate with
the unpleasantness involved.”
Paul nodded and walked towards the door.
“I have a definite course to pursue in these
lectures,” the Professor went on, going to the
&nbs
p; door and blocking Paul’s way, “and much of
my time is very precious. Any interrup-
tions…. Well, and there’s the matter of my
responsibility. If the Dean were to know…”
The Professor was opening the door.
Paul quite suddenly bowed and smiled
angelically to the Professor.
“Thank you, sir,” he said. “I hope to meet
you under more favorable circumstances in the
future…” And with this he was gone out the
door, with the Professor looking after him with
a rather preoccupied expression on his face.
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“Thankyou,sir”
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Leo and Arthur, meanwhile, were exchanging
anxious looks; but after the Professor had
closed the door, and returned to his station at
the front of the class as though nothing had
happened, they rested easily.
After the hour, they found Paul waiting
for them downstairs in the lobby of the
building.
“Well,” Leo called, “that’s that!”
“Yes,” said Paul, “it was good while it last-
ed.” And with this, all three burst out into
laughter and went out on the walk. It was
lunch hour.
“You’re going to have to do a lot of
explaining to me about that false saintliness
business,” Arthur admonished in mock
anger. “And Good Lord! What a mess you
made of things, all because of your opposi-
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tion to my ideas!”
“Where to?” Leo asked.
“Come with me,” Paul said, hurrying off,
“and we’ll go to my room. You two must buy
some sandwiches and we’ll have lunch
there.”
“Again! Are you broke again?”
“Yes.”
“He lost his job today,” Leo explained to
Arthur. “Tell us, Paul… What happened?
Did you just walk out?”
“No, nothing like that. I stayed up late
two nights ago trying to read all of
Lucretius, On the Nature of Things you know—and in the morning I couldn’t get up.
So when I reported for work today, poof! I
was fired. There was another man running
the elevator.”
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