by Henry Miller
I hesitated a moment, then said: Not too clearly, but I see what you’re driving at. I believe, however, that if given time to reflect I could answer your question.
Well, let’s not bother now, said Karen. I merely wanted to test your background.
Take it for granted that it’s nil, said I, growing a bit annoyed by these preliminaries.
You must excuse me, said Karen, for beginning in this fashion. It’s not very kind, is it? A hangover from school days, I guess. Look here, Henry … Intelligence is one thing—native intelligence, I mean. Knowledge is another. Knowledge and training, I should say, because they go together. What you know you’ve picked up in haphazard fashion. I underwent a rigorous discipline. I say this so that you will understand why I fumble about instead of answering right off the bat. In these matters we speak different languages, you and I. In a way—forgive the thought!—you’re like a superior type of savage. Your I.Q. is probably just as high as mine, perhaps higher. But we approach the domain of knowledge in diametrically opposite ways. Because of my training and background I’m quite apt to underestimate your ability to grasp what I have to impart. And you, for your part, are most apt to think that I am wasting words, splitting hairs, parading my erudition.
I interrupted him. It’s you who fancy all this, said I. I haven’t any preconceived notions whatsoever. It doesn’t matter to me how you proceed, so long as you give me a definite answer.
That’s just what I expected you to say, old man. To you it’s all quite simple and straightforward. Not so to me! You see, I was taught to postpone queries of this sort until convinced that I could find the answer nowhere … However, all this is no answer, is it? Now let’s see … What was it precisely you wished to know? It’s important to get that straight, otherwise we’ll end up in the Pontine marshes.
I read the second statement over again, giving emphasis to the words less swayed by the imagination.
To my own astonishment I caught myself saying: Never mind, I understand it perfectly now.
You do? cried Karen. Huh! Explain it to roe, then, will you?
I’ll try, said I, though you must realize that it’s one thing to understand a thing yourself and another to explain it to someone. (That’s tit for tat, thought I to myself.) Then, sincerely in earnest, I began: If you were a prophet instead of a statistician or mathematician, I would say that there was something of a resemblance between you and Nostradamus. I mean, in the way you go about things. The prophetic art is a gift, and so is the mathematical flair, if I may call it that. Nostradamus, it would seem, refused to exploit his natural gift in the usual way. As you know, he was versed not only in astrology but in the magic arts. He had knowledge of things hidden—or forbidden—to the scholar. He was not only a physician but a psychologist. He was many, many things all in one. In short, he had command of so many coordinates that it clipped his wings. He limited himself—I say this advisedly—to what was given, like a scientist. In his solo flights he moved from one level to another with cold-blooded precision, always equipped with instruments, charts, tables and private keys. However fantastic his prophecies may sound to us, I doubt if they originated in dream and reverie. Inspired they were, beyond question. But one has every reason to believe that Nostradamus deliberately refused to give free rein to his imagination. He proceeded objectively, so to speak, even when (paradoxical as it may sound) he was subjugated by trance. The purely personal aspect of his work … I hesitate to call it his creation … centers about the veiled delivery of the oracles, the reason for which he made clear in the Preface to Caesar, his son. There is a dispassionate tone about the nature of these revelations which one feels is not altogether attributable to modesty on the part of Nostradamus. He stresses the fact that it is God who deserves the credit, not himself. Now a true visionary would be fervent about the revelations disclosed to him; he would make haste either to recreate the world, according to the divine wisdom he had tasted, or he would make haste to unite himself with his Creator. A prophet, more egotistical still, would make use of his illumination to take revenge upon his fellow-men … I’m hazarding all this at random, you understand. I gave him a quick, keen glance to make sure I had him hooked, then continued. And now, suddenly, I think I begin to understand the real import of the first citation. I mean that part about the grand object of Nostradamus, which, as you recall, the French commentator would have us believe was nothing less than a desire to give predominant significance to the French Revolution. Myself, I think that if Nostradamus had any ulterior motive for dwelling on this event so markedly, it wag in order to disclose to us the manner in which history is to be liquidated. A phrase like la fin des temps—what does it mean? Can there really be an end to time? And if so, could it possibly mean that time’s end is really our beginning? Nostradamus predicts a millenium to come—in a time not far distant, either. I am no longer sure at the moment whether it follows upon the Day of Judgment or precedes it. Neither am I certain whether his vision extended to the end of the world or not. (He speaks of the year 3797, if I remember rightly, as though that were as far as he could see.) I don’t think the two—the Judgment Day and the end of the world—were meant to be simultaneous. Man knows no end, that’s my conviction. The world may come to an end, but if so, it will be the world imagined by the scientists, not the world God created. When the end comes we will take our world with us. Don’t ask me to explain this—I just know it for a fact … But to approach this end business from another angle. All it can possibly mean, as I see it now—and to be sure, this is quite enough!—is the emergence of a new and fecund chaos. Were we living in Orphic times we would speak of it as the coming of a new order of gods, meaning, if you like, the investiture of a new and greater consciousness, something even beyond cosmic consciousness. I look upon the Oracles of Nostradamus as the work of an aristocratic spirit. It has meaning only for true individuals … To get back to the Vulgar Advent, excuse my circumlocutiousness! The phrase so widely used today—the common man—strikes me as an utterly meaningless one. There is no such animal. If the phrase has any meaning at all, and I think Nostradamus certainly implied as much when he spoke of the Vulgar Advent, it means that all that is abstract and negative, or retrogressive, has now assumed dominion. Whatever the common man is or is not, one thing is certain—he is the very antithesis of Christ or Satan. The term itself seems to imply absence of allegiance, absence of faith, absence of guiding principle—or even instinct. Democracy, a vague, empty word, simply denotes the confusion which the common man has ushered in and in which he flourishes like the weed. One might as well say—mirage, illusion, hocus-pocus. Have you ever thought that it may be on this note—on the rise and dominion of an anacephalic body—that history will end? Perhaps we will have to begin all over again from where the Cro-Magnon man left off. One thing seems highly evident to me, and that is that the note of doom and destruction, which figures so heavily in all prophecies, springs from the certain knowledge that the historical or world element in man’s life is but transitory. The seer knows how, why and where we got off the track. He knows further that there is little to be done about it, so far as the great mass of humanity is concerned. History must run its course, we say. True, but only? Because history is the myth, the true myth, of man’s fall made manifest in time. Man’s descent into the illusory realm of matter must continue until there is nothing left to do but swim up to the surface of reality—and live in the light of everlasting truth. The men of spirit constantly exhort us to hasten the end and commence anew. Perhaps that is why they are called paracletes, or divine advocates. Comforters, if you like. They never exult in the coming of catastrophe, as mere prophets sometimes do. They indicate, and usually illustrate by their lives, how we may convert seeming catastrophe to divine ends. That is to say, they show us, those of us who are ready and aware, how to adapt and attune ourselves to a reality which is permanent and indestructible. They make their appeal…
At this point Karen signalled me to stop. Christ, man, he exclaimed, wha
t a pity you aren’t living in the Middle Ages! You would have made one of the great Schoolmen. You’re a metaphysician, by crikey. You ask a question and you answer it like a master of dialectic. He paused a moment to draw a deep breath. Tell me something, he said, putting a hand on my shoulder, how did you come by all this? Come on now, don’t feign humility with me. You know what I’m getting at.
I hemmed and hawed.
Come, come! he said.
His earnestness was pathetically child-like. The only response I could make was to blush deeply.
Do your friends understand you when you talk this way? Or do you talk this way only to yourself? I laughed. How could one answer such queries with a straight face? I begged him to change the subject.
He nodded silently. Then: But don’t you ever think of making use of your talents? As far as I can see, you do nothing but fritter your time away. You waste it on idiots like MacGregor and Maxie Schnadig.
To you it may seem that way, I said slightly nettled now. To me it seems otherwise. I don’t intend to be a thinker, you know. I want to write. I want to write about life, in the raw. Human beings, any kind of human beings, are food and drink to me. I enjoy talking about other things, certainly. The conversation we just had, that’s nectar and ambrosia. I don’t say it doesn’t get anyone anywhere, not at all, but—I prefer to reserve that sort of food for my own private delectation. You see, at the bottom I’m just one of those common men we were talking about. Only, now and then I get flashes. Sometimes I think I’m an artist. Once in a great great while I even think I may be a visionary, but never a prophet, a seer. What I have to contribute must be done in a roundabout way. When I read about Nostradamus or Paracelsus, for example, I feel at home. But I was born in another vector. I’ll be happy if I ever learn to tell a good story. I like the idea of getting nowhere. I like the idea of the game for the game’s sake. And above all, wretched, botched and horrible though it may be, I love this world of human beings. I don’t want to cut myself adrift. Perhaps what fascinates me in being a writer is that it necessitates communion with all and sundry. Well, anyway, this is all surmise on my part.
Henry, said Karen, I’m just beginning to know you. I had you all wrong. We’ve got to talk some more—another time.
With this he excused himself and retired to his study. I sat there for a while, in a semi-trance, mulling over the shreds of our conversation. After a time I absent-mindedly reached for the book which he had put down. As absent-mindedly I picked it up and read: For the divine works, which are absolutely universal, God will complete; those which are contingent, or medial, the good angels direct; and the third sort come under the evil angels. (From the Preface for Caesar Nostradamus, his son.) These few lines kept singing in my head for days. I had a vague hope that Karen would appear for another closed session in which we might discuss the probable task of the good angels. But on the third day thereafter his mother arrived with a friend of long standing. Our conversations took quite another turn.
Karen’s mother! A majestic creature in whose person were combined the diverse qualities of matriarch, hetaera and goddess. She was everything that Karen was not. No matter what she was doing she radiated warmth; her ringing laugh dissolved all problems, assured one of her confidence, trust, benevolence. She was positive through and through, yet never arrogant or aggressive. Divining instantly what you were endeavouring to say, she gave her approval before the words were out of your mouth. She was pure, radiant spirit in a most enchantingly carnal form.
The man she had brought along was a mellow sort of individual, of idealistic temperament, who ran for Governor now and then and was always defeated. He talked of world affairs with knowledge and insight, always in a dispassionate way and with sly humor. He had been in Wilson’s entourage at Versailles, he knew Smuts of South Africa, and he had been an intimate friend of Eugene V. Debs. He had translated obscure works of the pre-Socratic Greeks, was an expert chess player, and had written a book on the origins and evolution of the game. The more he talked the more I was impressed by the multitudinous facets of his personality. The places he had been to!—Tibet, Arabia, Easter Island, Tierra del Fuego, Lake Titicaca, Greenland, Mongolia. And what friends he had made—of the most diverse sort—during the course of his travels! I recalled these: Kipling, Marcel Proust, Maeterlinck, Rabindranath Tagore, Alexander Berkman, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Count Keyserling, Henri Rousseau, Max Jacob, Aristide Briand, Thomas Edison, Isadora Duncan, Charlie Chaplin, Eleanora Duse…
To sit down to table with him was like attending a banquet given by Socrates. Among other things he was a connoisseur of wines. He made sure that we ate well and drank well, larding the dinner talk with such comestible delicacies as the great plagues, the hidden meanings of the Aztec alphabet, the military strategy of Attila, the miracles of Apollonius of Tyana, the life of Sadakichi Hartman, the magic lore of the Druids, the inner workings of the financial clique which rules the world, the visions of William Blake, and so on. He spoke of the dead with the same intimate tenderness as of the living. He was at home in all climes, all epochs of mankind. He knew the habits of birds and snakes, he was an expert on constitutional law, he invented chess problems, he had written treatises on the drift of the continents, on international law, on ballistics, on the art of healing.
Karen’s mother provided the spice. She had a ringing laugh which was infectious. No matter what the subject under discussion, she could make it appetizing by her comments. Her learning seemed almost as prodigious as her consort’s, but she carried it lightly. Karen suddenly seemed like an adolescent who had not yet begun to live his own life. His mother treated him like an overgrown child. Now and then she told him plainly that he was just a fool. You need a vacation, she would say. You ought to have had five children by now. Or—Why don’t you go to Mexico for a few months, you’re getting stale.
As for herself, she was getting ready to make a trip to India. The year before she had been to Africa, not big game hunting either, but as an ethnologist. She had penetrated to regions where no white woman had ever set foot. She was fearless but not reckless. She could adapt herself to any circumstances, enduring hardships which made even the stronger sex flinch. She had a faith and a trust which were invincible. No one could come into her presence without being enriched. At times she reminded me of those Polynesian women of royal lineage who preserved, in the far Pacific, the last vestiges of an earthly Paradise. Here was the mother I should like to have chosen before entering the womb. Here was the mother who personified the primal elements of our being, in whom earth, sea and sky were harmonized. She was a natural descendant of the great Sybilline figures, embodying the texture of myth, fable and legend. Terrestrial to the core, she nevertheless lived in a realm of super-dimensions. Her consciousness seemed to expand or contract at will. For the greatest tasks she made no more effort than for the humblest. She was equipped with wings, fins, tail, feet, claws and gills. She was aeronautic and amphibious. She understood all languages yet spoke as a child. Nothing could dampen her ardor or mutilate her irrepressible joy. Just to look at her was to take courage. Problems became non-existent. She was anchored in reality, but a reality which was divine.
For the first time in my life, I had the privilege of gazing upon a Mother. Images of the Madonna had never meant anything to me: they were too bright, too translucent, too remote, too ethereal. I had formed an image of my own—darker, more substantial, more mysterious, more potent. I had never expected to see it concretized. I had imagined such types to exist, but only in the remote places of this world. I had sensed their existence in previous times; in Etruria, in ancient Persia, in the golden days of China, in the Malay archipelago, in legendary Ireland, in the Iberian peninsula, in far off Polynesia. But to come upon one in the flesh, in every day surroundings, to be eating, talking, laughing with her—no, that I had never believed possible. Every day I studied her anew. Every day I expected the veil to fall away. But no, each day she grew in stature, ever more wondrous, ever more real,
as only dreams become when we sink deeper and deeper into their meshes. What I had understood heretofore to be human, all-too-human, became magnified to an inexhaustible degree. It was no longer necessary to await the coming of a superman. The boundaries of the human world suddenly became limitless. Everything has been given, we are told again and again. All that is demanded of us, I saw it now clearly, is to realize our own nature. One speaks of man’s potential nature as though it were a contradiction of the one he reveals. In Karen’s mother I saw the potential being flourish, I observed it expropriating the crude, external shell in which it is encased. I understood that metamorphosis is present and actual, the very sign of vitality. I saw the feminine principle usurped by the human. I understood that a greater endowment of the human element awakened a greater sense of reality. I understood that, in augmenting the life force, the being incarnating it grows ever closer to us, ever more tender, ever more indispensable. The superior being is not, as I once supposed, more remote, more detached, more abstract. Quite the contrary. Only the superior being can arouse in us the hunger which is justifiable, the hunger to surpass ourselves by becoming what we truly are. In the presence of the superior being we recognize our own majestic powers; we do not long to be that person, we merely thirst to demonstrate to ourselves that we are indeed of that same pith and substance. We rush forward to greet our brothers and sisters, knowing beyond all doubt that we are all kin…
The visit of his mother and her companion lasted only a few days, alas. They had hardly gone when Karen decided that we should all go back to town, where he had some matters to attend to. He thought it might do us all good to go to the theatre, hear a concert or two, and then return to the beach to work in earnest. I realized that his mother’s visit had completely derailed him.