by Jack Kerouac
afternoon—well, now,
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Prometheus
bids thee
farewell...”
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Michael interrupted himself with a violent
cough. “I’m sick,” he choked. “I’m too sick to
live. Dégout! Dégout! I abandon all my natu-
ral rights…” He went on talking thickly, and
Paul no longer could make out what he was
saying; and suddenly Michael’s face lit up.
“Paul!” he cried. “I just remembered. You
have my poetry with you, in your room. I
want it! I want it to go down with me!”
“Certainly!” cried Paul happily. “Go in
and get it!”
“Are you hinting anything!?” yelled
Michael suspiciously. “Get out of my way—
I’m going to get it!” And with this he lunged
past Paul, almost knocking him down, and
lumbered heavily into the hall. Paul was
right at his heels.
“It’s got to go with me, as a symbol of my
failure,” Michael was muttering. He went
into Paul’s room and wavered uncertainly.
“Where is it?” he demanded menacingly.
Paul was in the doorway. “On my desk,”
he said. “There.”
Michael scuffled to the desk and scooped
up the papers, and folded them in a heap to
fit into his coat pocket. Turning, he saw
Helen standing by the couch in a shadowy
corner of the room. He rubbed his hand
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across his jaw, and smiled inwardly.
“I’m having visions,” he told Paul.
Staggering, he walked towards the door.
“Visions! It’s wonderful. I just saw her…”
“Well?” Paul drawled, still standing in the
doorway and blocking the way.
“Out of my way,” said Michael, waving his
heap of papers.
“It isn’t a vision,” said Paul quietly. “She
is here. I told you she would come.”
Michael frowned at Paul, and his lips
began to tremble. He turned awkwardly,
almost fearfully, and looked once again
towards the shadowy corner. Helen came
out of the shadows and walked soundlessly
to Michael and Paul. The papers dropped
out of Michael’s hand and he breathed out
the name, as though he didn’t believe what
he saw, and was afraid to believe. His
clothes were dripping wet, and a little pool
was forming at his feet; rain water poured
down from his face, and now he was as pale
as a sheet.
Helen stopped just three feet away and
gazed anxiously at Michael, a small wrinkle
forming on her smooth white brow. One
hand, she partly held out, trembling faintly…
Michael’s eyes opened wide with some sort
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of terror. He was trying to mumble something,
his lips were working. Finally, he managed to
mutter out, in a hoarse whisper, “I … thought …
I … had no right … to … ever … see… you …
again.”
Helen advanced another foot.
“Why not?” she asked clearly.
Paul, standing in the doorway, was feel-
ing so faint he didn’t dare speak; he thrust
his hands in his pockets, because they were
trembling; and leaned against the doorjamb
in an attitude of complete exhaustion,
watching Michael with something of fearful
expectation. He opened his mouth to say,
“Michael,” but no sound issued from his
throat.
“Because…” Michael was whispering
awesomely, his eyes fastened on Helen’s
face, “…because…of what…I’ve…done.”
“What have you done?” Helen demanded
softly.
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Michael was swaying on his feet.
“Lived?” he whispered.
“That’s probably all,” Helen said. “Don’t
you think you’re good enough for me?” She
was almost on the verge of tears.
Michael sobbed out one word, “No,” in a
great quivering cry, and fell to his knees
before Helen, and lay there huddled and
weeping pathetically. Helen, with a groan
of despair, immediately knelt down on the
floor beside him and took him into her
arms.
Slowly, Paul closed the door and wavered
across the room to sit on the couch and
watch. There he sat.
Michael was almost hysterical, his
weeping grew more and more profuse.
Helen said nothing, but only leaned her
head against his and closed her eyes; and
cupping Michael’s face in her hands she
rocked his head gently back and forth, as
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though to lull away his tears…
Paul sat for a long while watching.
Suddenly, he realized that the rain had
stopped outside; there was only the sound of
dripping eaves, and of a gentle breeze. He
rose from the couch and went over to the
window to open it.
Michael was holding the weight of
Helen’s dark hair in the palm of his hand
and awesomely looking at it.
Now—explosively, for there had been
much silence—Paul said, “Well! So one
rejoins his true love and the occasion is all
tears! That’s the so-called poet all over. And
money lying outside in the street!” Paul
went to the door. He stopped and gazed
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down at the two on the floor. Then, since
they were both smiling up at him, he
kneeled in front of them and took both their
hands, while they too clasped hands. “The
fault,” Paul said to Michael, “is with you,
and not with anything else, not even God…
If you actually know how to love her—
though she can be bitter—she can flood
your soul with light, all of your soul! Aren’t I
right? Helen, tell him—I’m right!”
Helen pressed both their hands tightly
and only smiled…
And in this manner, amid the happy
endearments of the woman, and the silence
of thought and imagination, the miracle of
wholeness was renewed.
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X
AT MIDNIGHT,
LEO,
his studies finished, put out the light in
his room and went down the dormitory
hall. He knocked at Arthur’s door.
“Come in!”
Arthur was seated at his desk, writing.
“What are you doing?”
“Writing some poetry.”
“What about examinations?”
“Tomorrow.”
Leo sat on the edge of Arthur’s desk.
“I came here earlier,” he said, “but you
weren’t in. I wanted to tell you some-
thing amazing: I went to Paul’s tonight,
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and there, with him in his dirty little room,
was the most beautiful girl I ever saw in my
life, and her name was Helen.”
“Helen?” Arthur exclaimed. “Why, that’s
the name Paul used to get Michael so mad
the night of the party.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think they’re still there?”
“I guess so, but Paul wouldn’t let me in.
He closed the door in my face.”
“Let’s go there,” Arthur said, rising and
putting on his coat. “And where’s Michael?”
“I left him in the Boulevard Bar. He was
weeping and getting drunk.”
“Good Lord!”
They started down the stairs. Arthur
seemed very excited: “I was just working
out something,” he told Leo happily. “I want
to show it to Michael.”
“What is it?”
“It isn’t finished yet. It’s an idea. A poem
about the poet and God.”
They were out on the street; it had
stopped raining. Great gaps in the clouds
revealed clusters of stars, and across the
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sodden campus darkness, the boulevard
glistened in the freshness and glitter of the
lights.
Julius was just then coming across the
campus and they met him.
“I’ve just been to the Boulevard Bar,” he
told them. “They told me that Michael was
thrown out for disturbing the peace, upset-
ting the table.”
“Oh my God!” cried Leo, laughing. “I
should have taken him home. I knew he’d
get too drunk!”
“Come on with us,” Arthur told Julius.
“We’re going over to Paul’s to see the myste-
rious Helen we’ve heard so much about.”
“Helen?” exclaimed Julius, suddenly
quite interested.
“Yes. And Leo claims her to be the most
beautiful girl he ever saw.”
They hastened down M street and turned
to enter Paul’s gate.
“There’s no light,” put in Leo.
Arthur pushed open the hall door and
they all trooped in; in Paul’s room, they lit a
match and found an oil lamp. There was no
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one there, and even the old tattered rain-
coat that had hung on a nail for months
beside the little table, was gone. Just a pair
of old shoes beneath the bed.
“Let’s go see if they’re in the Boulevard
Bar,” Arthur suggested. “They must be
around somewhere.”
“It’s strange,” Julius said softly.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Once again in the street, they marched
three abreast towards the bar. Suddenly,
Leo cried out and pointed up the boulevard.
“There! There’s Paul now, and he’s with
her!”
Arthur and Julius turned to see.
“But you’re crazy,” Julius said. “That’s
not Paul. That’s Michael.”
“It’s Paul’s old raincoat…don’t you recog-
nize him? Let’s catch up to them…” And
they started hurrying up the boulevard.
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Helen and her
lover were
standing on a
trolley island
in the middle
of the boule-
vard, just
beneath a
street lamp,
with arms
entwined
around each
other’s
waists.
A trolley was clanging towards them.
“But he’s too tall to be Paul,” Julius was
saying as he hurried along after Arthur and
Leo. “Michael’s taller.”
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“Nonsense,” laughed Leo. “He’s too
husky to be Michael.”
“Hey!” Arthur now yelled, as he hastened
his footsteps and waved his hand at Helen
and her lover. Helen turned and smiled. To
Leo and Julius, Arthur said: “She does look
beautiful from here, that Helen. I’ve always
wanted to meet her, after all the mystery
that enshrouded her!…”
The trolley was now pulling up in front of
the two people on the island and stopping.
Helen turned once again and waved her
hand at the oncoming students.
“There,” Arthur said, hurrying. “She’s
waving at us. But look! They look as
though… They are! They’re getting into the
trolley!”
“Well!” snapped Julius, a little peeved.
“There’s no sense in hurrying any further.”
He stopped in his tracks. They were still
about a hundred or so feet from the trolley
island. Helen and the other had gotten into
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the trolley and now it was pulling away and
clanging its bell.
“Well!” panted Arthur, a bit disappointed,
with arms akimbo, standing and watching
the departing trolley.
Then they saw Michael, or Paul, or
whomever they thought it was, come to the
back window of the trolley and wave at
them as it reeled away. Helen was at his
side, and she too was waving.
Then, in another moment, the trolley was
on the bridge and speeding over the river
towards the outskirts of the city.
“They should at least have waited for us,”
Leo was now saying sadly. “But I guess they
wanted to catch that trolley. Damn that
Paul.”
“It wasn’t Paul!” Julius insisted again.
“Well, whoever it was,” Leo went on discon-
solately, “I have a feeling we’ll never see them
again, neither one of them. I can feel it by the
way they were waving us good-bye.”
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“Don’t be silly,” said Arthur. “Well, we
might as well go to the Boulevard Bar and
have a few drinks. I want to show you my
poetry.”
“It was Michael,” Julius was still insisting
to Leo.
Leo sighed and waved an impatient hand
at him. “All right, all right. But we’ll never
see them again.”
They were all three very silent as they
walked to the Boulevard Bar. And of course,
they were indeed destined never to see Paul
or Michael again—as Leo had instinctively
divined—but they were not destined to form
any vague notion of what had really hap-
pened that night until several weeks later,
when Arthur, coming back from a class one
day, found a letter in his mailbox.
It read: “Amenehmet looks upon the
beauty of the sun!”—a quotation which
Arthur remembered from his studies in
Egyptian history—and it was signed,
“Orpheus.” This was when the first faint
understanding of the full significance of
what had happened, began to come to
Arthur.
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Excerpts from Jack
Kerouac’s Journals
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Journals 1943-’44
Jan. 1944
We are all too sensitive to go on: it is too cold, and our
bodies are too exhausted. There is too much life around.
The multitude is feverish and ill. There is war where
men sleep on the snow, and when we waken from sleep
we do not desire to go on. I hiccup very violently, twice.
This is an age that has created sick men, all weaklings
like me. What we need is a journey to new lands. I shall
embark soon on one of these. I shall sleep on the grass
and eat fruit for breakfast. Perhaps when I return, I shall
be well again.
Brief notes on “The Half Jest”
(Orpheus Emerged)
MICHAEL – the genius of imagination and art, 22
PAUL – the genius of life and love, 22
MAUREEN – Michael’s mistress, 32 years old
CLAUDE [Arthur] – Michael’s friend, a student, 20
LEO – a student, 18
ANTHONY – Paul’s friend, a drunkard and artist, 38
“TONI” – Claude’s [Arthur’s] girl, 21
JULES – a strange student, 17
MARIE – Dmitri’s [Anthony’s] beautiful wife, 27
“BARBARA” – Maureen’s friend, 25
“ROBERT”– a psychopath, 26
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HELEN – the beloved of Marcel Opheus, 21
MARCEL ORPHEUS, who is never seen, 22
Setting – A large city called West, in the land of Promethea
– or vice versa.
M. has suffered the wound of his calling and deliber-
ately sold out P. The story concerns P.’s return and the
ultimate rejoining, and the struggle with appropriate
principles involved.
Journals 1943-’44
Plot structure of novelette
I. Paul in bookstore; on way to class with Leo, pathetically expresses his desire for learning; class scene, Claude
[Arthur] introduced; then to Paul’s cellar room; Dmitri
[Anthony] there with problem; poverty and few pathetic
books, and picture of Helen.
II. Paul’s call on Michael; patches up things for Dmitri