by Henry Miller
On the way home I stopped off at a music shop and bought an album of records—a Beethoven quartet, if I remember rightly. On the Brooklyn side I bought a bunch of flowers and wangled a bottle of Chianti out of the private stock of an Italian friend. The new life would begin with a good lunch—and music. It would take a lot of good living to wipe out all remembrance of the days, months, years I had wasted in the cosmococcic tread-mill. To do absolutely nothing for a stretch, to idle the days away, what a heavenly pastime that would be!
It was the glorious month of September; the leaves were turning and there was the smell of smoke in the air. It was hot and cool at the same time. One could still go to the beach for a swim. There were so many things I wanted to do all at once that I was almost jumping out of my skin. First of all I would get a piano and start playing again. Perhaps I would even take up painting. Letting my mind roam at will, suddenly it came to rest on a beloved image. The bike! How wonderful it would be if I could get my old racing wheel back again! It was only about two years ago that I had sold it to my cousin who lived nearby. Perhaps he would sell it back to me. It was a special model which I had picked up from a German cyclist at the end of a six-day race. Made in Chemnitz, Bohemia. Ah, but it was a long time since I had taken a spin to Coney Island. Autumn days! Just made for cycling. I prayed that my fool cousin hadn’t changed the saddle; it was a Brooks saddle and well broken in. (And those straps that fitted round the toe-clips, I hoped he hadn’t discarded them.) Recalling the feel of my foot slipping into the toe-clip, I re-experienced the most delicious sensations. Riding now along the gravel path under the archway of trees that runs from Prospect Park to Coney Island, my rhythm one with the machine, my brain thoroughly emptied, only the sensation of rushing through space, fast or slow, according to the dictates of the chronometer inside me. The landscape to either side falling away like the leaves of a calendar. No thoughts, no sensations even. Just everlasting movement I forward into space, one with the machine … Yes, I would go cycling again—every morning—just to get my blood up. A spin to Coney Island and back, a shower and rub-down, a delicious breakfast, and then to work. At my writing desk, of course. Not work, but play. A whole lifetime ahead of me and nothing to do but write. How wonderful! It seemed to me that all I had to do was to sit down, turn on the tap, and out it would flow. If I could write twenty and thirty page letters without a halt, surely I could write books with the same ease. Everybody recognized the writer in me: all I had to do was to make it a fact.
As I hurried up the stoop I caught a glimpse of Mona moving about in her kimono. The big window with the stone ledge was wide open. I swung myself over the balustrade and entered by the window.
Well, I did it! I exclaimed, handing her the flowers, the wine, the music. To-day we begin a new life. I don’t know what we’re going to live on, but we’re going to live. Is the typewriter in good shape? Have you food for lunch? Should I ask Ulric to come over? I’m bursting with effervescence. To-day I could go through a trial by ordeal and come out of it in ecstasy. Let me sit down and look at you. Go on, move about as you were a minute ago. I want to see how it feels to sit here and do nothing.
A pause to give Mona a chance to collect herself. Then spilling over again.
You weren’t sure I would do it, were you? I never would have if it weren’t for you. You know, it’s easy to go to work every day. What’s difficult is to stay free. I thought of everything under the sun that I would like to do, now that I’m footloose and free. I want to do things. It seems to me I’ve been standing still for five years.
Mona began to laugh quietly. Do things? she echoed. Why, you’re the most active person in creation. No, dear Val, what you need is to do nothing. I don’t want you to even think about writing … not until you’ve had a long rest. And don’t worry about how we’re going to get along. Leave that to me. If I can keep that lazy family of mine I can certainly keep you and me. Anyway, don’t let’s think of such things now.
There’s a wonderful bill at the Palace, she added in a moment. Roy Barnes is there. He’s one of your favorites, isn’t he? And there’s that comedian who used to be in burlesque—I forget his name. It’s just a suggestion.
I sat there in a daze, my hat on, my feet sprawled out in front of me. Too good to be true. I felt like King Solomon. Better than King Solomon, in fact, because I had cast off all responsibilities. Sure I would go to the theatre. What better than a matinee on a lazy day? I’d call Ulric later on and ask him to have dinner with us. A red letter day like this had to be shared with some one, and what better than to share it with a good friend? (I knew too what Ulric would say. You don’t think that maybe it would have been better…? Oh, what the hell am I saying? You know best … Et cetera.) I was prepared for anything from Ulric. His dubiety, his cautiousness, would be refreshing. I was almost certain that before the evening ended he would be saying—Maybe I’ll throw up the sponge myself! Not meaning it, of course, but toying with it, flirting with it, just to titivate me. As though to say that if he, Ulric, the greatest stick-in-the-mud ever, could entertain such a notion why then it was self-evident that a man like his friend Henry Val Miller must act on it, that not to act would be suicidal.
Do you think we might be able to afford to buy my bicycle back? This out of a clear sky.
Why of course, Val, she answered, without a moment’s hesitation.
You don’t think it funny, do you? I’ve got a tremendous desire to ride the bike again. I gave it up just before I met you, you know.
It was the most natural desire in the world, she thought. But it made her laugh, just the same. You’re still a boy, aren’t you? she couldn’t resist saying.
Yep! But it’s damned sight better than being a zombie, what?
After a few moments I spoke up again. Do you know what? There’s another thing I thought of this morning…
What’s that?
A piano. I’d like to get a piano and start playing again.
That would be wonderful, she said. I’m sure we can rent one cheaply—and a good one, too. Would you take lessons again?
No, not that. I want to amuse myself, that’s all.
Maybe you could teach me to play.
Of course! If you really want to learn.’
It’s always good to know, especially in the theatre.
Nothing easier. Just get me the piano.
Suddenly, getting up to stretch, I burst out laughing. And what are you going to get out of this new life?
You know what I’d like, said Mona.
No I don’t. What?
She came over to me and put her arms around me. All I would like is for you to become what you want to be—a writer. A great writer.
And that’s all you would like?
Yes, Val, that’s all, believe me.
And what about the theatre? Don’t you want to become a great actress some day?
No, Val, I know I’ll never be that. I haven’t enough ambition. I took up the theatre because I thought it would please you. I don’t really care what I do—so long as it makes you happy.
But you won’t make a good actress if you think that way, I said. Really, you must think about yourself. You must do what you like best, no matter what I do. I thought you were crazy about the theatre.
I’m only crazy about one thing, you
Now you’re acting, I said.
I wish I were, it would be easier.
I chucked her under the chin. Well, I drawled, you’ve got me now for good and all. We’ll see how you like it a month from now. Maybe you’ll be sick of seeing me around before then.
Not I, she said. I’ve prayed for this ever since I met you. I’m jealous of you, do you know that? I want to watch your every move. She came very close and as she spoke she tapped my forehead lightly. Sometimes I wish I could get inside there and know what you’re thinking about. You seem so far away at times. Especially when you’re silent. Ill be jealous of your writing too—because I know you won’t be thinking of me then.
She put her hand over my mouth. Please, Val, don’t talk about it. Not even jokingly. You’re not to think about money … not ever, do you understand?
There exists a curious book by an American anarchist, Benjamin R. Tucker, entitled INSTEAD OF A BOOK BY A MAN TOO BUSY TO WRITE ONE.
The title describes my new-found situation to a T. My creative energy suddenly released, I spilled over in all directions at once. Instead of a book, the first thing I sat down to write was a prose poem about Brooklyn’s back-yard. I was so in love with the idea of being a writer that I could scarcely write. The amount of physical energy I possessed was unbelievable. I wore myself out in preparation. It was impossible for me to sit down quietly and just turn on the flow; I was dancing inside. I wanted to describe the world I knew and be in it at the same time. It never occurred to me that with just two or three hours of steady work a day I could write the thickest book imaginable. It was my belief then that if a man sat down to write he should remain glued to his seat for eight or ten hours at a stretch. One ought to write and write until he dropped from exhaustion. That was how I imagined writers went about their task. If only I had known then the program which Cendrars describes in one of his books! Two hours a day, before dawn, and the rest of the day to one’s self. What a wealth of books he has given the world, Cendrars! All en marge. Employing a similar procedure—two or three hours a day regularly every day of one’s life—Remy de Gourmont had demonstrated, as Cendrars points out, that it is possible for a man to read virtually everything of value which has ever been written.
But I had no order, no discipline, no set goal. I was completely at the mercy of my impulses, my whims, my desires. My frenzy to live the life of the writer was so great that I overlooked the vast reservoir of material which had accumulated during the years leading up to this moment. I felt impelled to write about the immediate, about what was happening outside my very door. Something fresh, that’s what I was after. To do this was compulsive because, whether I was aware of it or not, the material which I had stored up had been chewed to a frazzle during the years of frustration, doubt and despair when everything I had to say was written out in my head. Add to this that I felt like a boxer or wrestler getting ready for the big event. I needed a work-out. These first efforts then, these fantasies and fantasias, these prose poems and rambling divagations of all sorts, were like a grand tuning up of the instrument. It satisfied my vanity (which was enormous) to set off Roman candles, pin-wheels, sputtering fire-crackers. The big cannon crackers I was reserving for the night of the Fourth of July. It was morning now, a long, lazy morning of a holiday that was to last forever. I had elected to occupy a choice seat in Paradise. It was definite and certain. I could therefore afford to take my time, could afford to dawdle away the glorious hours ahead of me during which I would still be part of the world and its senseless routine. Once I ascended to the heavenly seat I would join the chorus of angels, the seraphic choir which never ceases to give forth hymns of joy.
If I had long been reading the face of the world with the eyes of a writer, I now read it anew with, even greater intensity. Nothing was too petty to escape my attention. If I went for a walk—and I was constantly seeking excuses to take a walk, to explore, as I put it—it was for the deliberate purpose of transforming myself into an enormous eye. Seeing the common, everyday things in this new light I was often transfixed. The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnified world in itself. Almost an unrecognizable world. The writer waits in ambush for these unique moments. He pounces on his little grain of nothingness like a beast of prey. It is the moment of full awakening, of union and absorption, and it can never be forced. Sometimes one makes the mistake or commits the sin, shall I say, of trying to fix the moment, trying to pin it down in words. It took me ages to understand why, after having made exhaustive efforts to induce these moments of exaltation and release, I should be so incapable of recording them. I never dreamed that it was an end in itself, that to experience a moment of pure bliss, of pure awareness, was the end all and be all.
Many is the mirage I chased. Always I was overreaching myself. The oftener I touched reality, the harder I bounced back to the world of illusion, which is the name for everyday life. Experience! More experience! I clamored. In a frantic effort to arrive at some kind of order, some tentative working program, I would sit down quietly now and then and spend long, long hours mapping out a plan of procedure. Plans, such as architects and engineers sweat over, were never my forte. But I could always visualize my dreams in a cosmogonic pattern. Though I could never formulate a plot I could balance and weigh opposing forces, characters, situations, events, distribute them in a sort of heavenly lay-out, always with plenty of space between, always with the certitude that there is no end, only worlds within worlds ad infinitum, and that wherever one left off one had created a world, a world finite, total, complete.
Like a finely trained athlete, I was easy and uneasy’ at the same time. Sure of the final outcome, but nervous, restless, impatient, fretful. And so, after I had set off a few fireworks, I began to think in terms of light artillery. I began to align my pieces, so to speak. First of all, I reasoned, to have any effect my voice must be heard. I would have to find some outlet for my work—in newspapers, magazines, almanacs or house organs. Somewhere, somehow. What was my range, what my firing power? Though I wasn’t one to bore my friends with private readings, now and then in moments of unbridled enthusiasm I was guilty of such misconduct. Rare as they were, these lapses, they had a tonic effect upon me. It was seldom, I noticed, that any of my friends grew intoxicated over my efforts.
This silent criticism which friends often give is, I believe, worth infinitely more than the belabored, hostile shafts of the paid critic. The fact that my friends failed to laugh uproariously at the right moment, the fact that they did not applaud vociferously when I terminated my readings, conveyed more than a torrent of words. Sometimes, to be sure, I salved my pride by thinking of them as obtuse or too reserved. Not often, however. To Ulric’s appraisals I was particularly sensitive. It was foolish of me, perhaps, to give such keen attention to his comments, since our tastes (in literature) were widely different, but he was so very, very close to me, the one friend I had whom it was imperative to convince of my ability. He was not easy to please either, my Ulric. What he enjoyed most was the fireworks, that is to say, the unusual words, the striking references, the fine brocades, the senseless jeremiads. Often he would thank me, in parting, for the string of new words I had added to his vocabulary. Sometimes we would spend another evening, an entire evening, looking up these bizarre words in the dictionary. Some we never found—because I had made them up.
But to get back to the grand plan … Since I was convinced that I could write about anything under the sun, and excitingly, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to make up a list of themes which I thought of interest and submit them to editors of magazines in order that they might select what appealed to them. This entailed writing dozens and dozens of letters. Long, fatuous letters they were, too. It also meant keeping files, as well as observing the idiotic rules and regulations of a hundred and one editorial bodies. It involved altercations and disputes, fruitless errands to editorial offices, vexation, disgruntlement, rage, despair, ennui
. And postage stamps! After weeks of turmoil and effervescence there might appear one day a letter from an editor saying that he would condescend to read my article if and if and if and but. Never daunted by the ifs and buts, I would regard such a letter as a bona fide pledge, a commission. Good! So I was at liberty, let us say, to write something about Coney Island in winter. If they liked it it would appear in print, my name would be signed to it, and I could show it to my friends, carry it about with me, put it under my pillow at night, read it surreptitiously, over and over, because the first time you see yourself in print you’re beside yourself, you’ve at last proved to the world that you really are a writer, and you must prove it to the world, at least once in your life, or you will go mad from believing it all by yourself.
And so to Coney Island on a wintry day. Alone, of course. It wouldn’t do to have one’s reflections and observations diverted by a trivial-minded friend. A new pad in my pocket and a sharp pencil.
It’s a long, dreary ride to Coney Island in midwinter. Only convalescents and invalids, or demented ones, seem to be trekking there. I feel as though I were slightly mad myself. Who wants to hear about a Coney Island which is all boarded up? I must have put this theme down in a moment of exaltation, believing that nothing could be more inspiring than a picture of desolation.
Desolate is hardly the word for it. As I walk along the boardwalk, the icy wind whistling through my breeches, everything closed tight, it dawns on me that I couldn’t possibly have chosen a more difficult subject to write about. There is absolutely nothing to take note of, unless it be the silence. I see it better through Ulric’s eyes than my own. An illustrator might have a good time of it here, what with the bleak, crazy, tumbling edifices, the snarling piles and planks, the still, empty Ferris wheel, the noiseless roller coasters, rusting under a feeble sun. Just to assure myself that I am on the job, I make a few notes about the crazy look of the razzle-dazzle, the yawning mouth of George C. Tilyou, and so forth … A hot frankfurter and a cup of steaming hot coffee would do me good, I think. I find a little booth open on a side street off the boardwalk. There is a shooting gallery open a few doors away. Not a customer in sight: the owner is shooting at the clay pigeons himself, for practise, no doubt. A drunken sailor comes lurching along; a few feet away from me he doubles up and lets go. (No need to take note of this.) I go down to the beach and watch the sea gulls. I’m looking at the sea gulls and thinking about Russia. A picture of Tolstoy seated at a bench mending shoes obsesses me. What was the name of his abode again? Yasna Polyana? No, Yasnaya Polyana. Well, anyway, what the hell am I speculating on this for? Wake up! I shake myself and push forward into the icy gale. Driftwood lying all about. Fantastic forms. (So many stories about bottles with messages inside them.) I wish now I had thought to ask MacGregor to come along. That idiotic, pseudo-serious line of his sometimes stimulated me in a perverse way. How he would laugh to see me pacing the beach in search of material! Well, you’re working anyhow, I can hear him chirping. That’s something. But why in hell did you have to pick this for a subject? You know damned well nobody will be interested in it. You probably just wanted a little outing. Now you’ve got a good excuse, haven’t you? Jesus, Henry, you’re just the same as ever—nuts, completely nuts.