Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch

by Miller, Henry

  He turned to my wife. Long, whining letters, full of self-pity. Surely she understood his plight! The good Miller had taken leave of his senses, he had made himself into stone. Le pauvre, he would regret it some day. And so on and so on.

  I urged my wife to ignore his pleas. I doubt that she heeded me. She felt sorry for him. It was her belief that he would come to his senses at the last minute, take the plane, forget his foolish demand. “Foolish!” she called it.

  I thought of Ramakrishna’s words regarding the “bound” souls. “Those who are thus caught in the net of the world are the Baddha, or bound souls. No one can awaken them. They do not come to their senses, even after receiving blow upon blow of misery, sorrow and indescribable suffering.”

  I thought of many, many things during the hectic days which followed. Particularly of the beggar’s life I had led, first at home, then abroad. I thought of the cold refusals I had received at the hands of intimate friends, of so-called “buddies,” in fact. I thought of the meals which were dished up to me, when I hung on like a shipwrecked sailor. And the sermons that accompanied them. I thought of the times I had stood in front of restaurant windows, watching people eat—people who didn’t need food, who had already eaten too much—and how I vainly hoped they would recognize the look in my eye, invite me in, beg me to share their repast, or offer me the remnants. I thought of the handouts I had received, the dimes that were flung at me in passing, or perhaps a handful of pennies, and how like a whipped cur, I had taken what was offered while cursing the bastards under my breath. No matter how many refusals I received, and they were countless, no matter how many insults and humiliations were flung at me, a crust of bread was always a crust of bread—and if I didn’t always thank the giver graciously or humbly, I did thank my lucky star. I may have thought once upon a time that something more than a crust of bread was my due, that the most worthless wretch, at least in a civilized country, was entitled to a meal when he needed it. But it wasn’t long before I learned to take a larger view of things. I not only learned how to say “Thank you, sir!” but how to stand on my hind legs and beg for it. It didn’t embitter me hopelessly. In fact, I found it rather comical after a while. It’s an experience we all need now and then, especially those of us who were born with silver spoons in our mouths.

  But that bastard, Moricand! To twist things the way he did! To make it appear, if only to himself, that in promising to take care of him I was obligated to keep him in a hotel, dole out cash for drink, theatre, taxis. And, if that proved irksome, why just deposit a thousand dollars to his account in Paris. Because he, Moricand, refused to be a pauper again!

  I’m on the corner of Broadway and 42nd Street again. A chilly night, and the rain beating in my face. Scanning the throng once again for a friendly face, for a fleeting look that will assure me I won’t get a rebuff, won’t get a gob of spit instead of a handout. Here’s a likely one! “Hey, mister, please, can you spare enough for a cup of coffee?” He gives it without stopping, without even looking me in the face. A dime! A lovely, shining little offering. A whole dime! How ducky it would be if one could only catch a generous soul like that on the wing, grab his coattail, pull him gently around, and say with utter conviction and the innocence of a dove: “Mister, what can I do with this? I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning. I’m cold and wet through. My wife’s home waiting for me. She’s hungry too. And ill. Couldn’t you give me a dollar, or maybe two dollars? Mister, we need it bad, terribly bad.”

  No, it’s not in the book, that kind of talk. One has to be grateful even for a Canadian dime—or a stale crust of bread. Grateful that when it comes your time to be hooked, you can say—and mean it with all your heart!—“Here, take this! Do what you like with it!” And so saying, empty your pockets. So saying, you walk home in the rain, you go without a meal!

  Have I ever done it? Of course I have. Many’s the time. And it felt marvelous to do it. Almost too marvelous. It’s easy to empty your pockets when you see your other self standing there like a dog, begging, whimpering, cringing. It’s easy to go without a meal when you know you can have one for the asking. Or that tomorrow’s another day. Nothing to it. It’s you, Prince Bountiful, as gets the better of the deal. No wonder we hang our heads in shame when we perform a simple act of charity.

  I wonder sometimes why rich guys never understand this business, why they never take the opportunity to give themselves a cheap puffing up? Think of Henry Miller, the uncrowned emperor of California, coming out of the bank each morning with a pocket filled with quarters, handing them out like King Solomon to the poor blokes lined up the sidewalk, each and every one mumbling humbly, “Thank you, sir!” and raising his hat respectfully. What better tonic could you give yourself, if you had a soul as mean as that, before tackling the day’s work?

  As for that phony bastard, Moricand, in his palmy days he had been quite a giver too, from all I have heard. Nor had he ever refused to share what he had when he had little or nothing. But he had never gone out into the street and begged for it! When he begged it was on good stationery, in elegant script—grammar, syntax, punctuation always perfect. Never had he sat down to pen a begging letter in trousers that had holes in the seat, or even patches. The room may have been ice cold, his belly may have been empty, the butt in his mouth may have been rescued from the waste basket, but. … I think it’s clear what I’m getting at.

  Anyway, he didn’t take the second plane either. And when he wrote, saying that he was putting a curse on me, I didn’t doubt for a minute that he meant just what he said. To avoid a repetition, I promptly informed his Satanic majesty that any subsequent letters from him would be left unopened. And with that off my chest, I consigned him to his fate. Never again would he see my handwriting, nor the color of my money.

  This didn’t stop the flow of letters, to be sure. Letters continued to arrive, toujours plus espacées, but they were never opened. They are now in the library at U.C.L.A. Still sealed.

  I recall of a sudden the way he worded his break with Cendrars, his old friend of the Foreign Legion days. It was one of those evenings when he had been reviewing the good old days, the wonderful friends he had made—Cendrars, Cocteau, Radiguet, Kisling, Modigliani, Max Jacob, et alii—and how one by one they had disappeared, or else deserted him. All but Max. Max had been faithful to the end. But Cendrars, whom he spoke of so warmly, whom he still admired with all his heart—why had Cendrars also deserted him? Here is the way he put it:

  “One day—you know how he is!—he got angry with me. And that was the end. I could never reach him again. I tried, but it was useless. The door was shut.”

  I never revealed to him what Cendrars had said to me one day, in the year 1938, when I made the horrible mistake of telling him that I had become acquainted with his old friend Moricand.

  “Moricand?” he said. “Ce n’est pas un ami. C’est un cadavre vivant.” And the door went shut with a bang.

  Well, the pendule. I had given it to Lilik to deliver to Moricand. And Lilik had taken it into his head to find out just how valuable the damned thing was. So, before delivering it, he takes it to the very watchmaker whose address Moricand had given me in the event that it should need repair. Its value? According to this bird, who knew something about timepieces, one would be lucky to get fifty dollars for it. An antique dealer might offer a little more. Not much more, however.

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said, when he recounted the incident.

  “That’s what I thought,” said Lilik. “So I took it to an antique dealer, and then to a hock shop. Same story. No market for such junk. They all admired it, of course. Wonderful mechanism. But who wants it?”

  “I thought you’d like to know,” he added, “since the bugger always made such a fuss about it.”

  He then went on to tell me of his telephone conversation with Moricand. (Seems the latter was too wrought up to receive him.) It was a conversation that lasted almost a half hour. With Moricand doing all the talking.

  �
�Too bad you weren’t there,” said Lilik. “He was in top form. I never knew anyone could be so furious, so venomous, and talk so brilliantly at the same time. The things he said about you … Jesus, it would burn you up! And the names he called you! You know, after the first few minutes I began to enjoy it. Now and then I helped him along, just to see how far he would go. Anyway, be on your guard! He’s going to do everything in his power to make trouble for you. I really think he’s out of his mind. Cuckoo. Absolutely…. The last thing I remember him saying was that I would read about you in the French papers. He was formulating a plaidoyer. Said he would give them, your admirers, the lowdown on their beloved Henry Miller, author of the Tropics, sage of the mountain top … ‘Quel farceur!’ That was his parting shot.”

  “Didn’t he say-‘Je l’aurai’?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. He did too.”

  “I thought as much. Le couillon!”

  The first intimation I had of Moricand’s maneuvers was a letter from the Swiss Consulate in San Francisco. It was a polite, formal letter, informing me of Moricand’s visit to their office, his desperate plight, and ended with a desire to have my view of the matter. I replied at some length, offering to send copies of Moricand’s letters, and repeating what I had told Moricand, that I was through and that nothing would make me change my mind. To this I received a reply reminding me that, no matter what had taken place, I was, from an official standpoint, Moricand’s sponsor. Would I mind sending the letters I had spoken of?

  I sent photostat copies of the letters. Then I waited for the next move.

  I could well imagine what must have ensued at this point. One couldn’t repudiate what was written in one’s own hand.

  The next letter was to the effect that Moricand’s was indeed a knotty case, that the poor fellow was obviously not all there. It went on to say that the Consulate would be only too glad to ship him back home had they funds for such a purpose. (They never do, of course.) Perhaps if he, the Vice-Consul, were to come down and talk it over with me, some suitable compromise might be arranged. Meanwhile they would look after Moricand as best they could.

  Well, he came, and we had a long talk. Fortunately, my wife was there to corroborate my statements. Finally, after a snack, he brought forth a camera and took some snapshots of us and the surroundings. The place enchanted him. He asked if he could come again, as a friend.

  “And that idiot couldn’t stand it here!” he said, shaking his head. “Why, it’s a Paradise.”

  “Paradise lost!” I countered.

  “What will you do with him?” I ventured to ask, as he was leaving. He shrugged his shoulders.

  “What can one do?” he said, “with a creature like that?”

  Thanking me warmly for all I had done in behalf of a compatriot, expressing his regret for any annoyance he had caused me, he then said: “You must be a man of great patience.”

  I never had another word from him. Nor did I ever learn what happened to Moricand—until I received a copy of Le Goéland, the issue for July-August-September, 1954, announcing the news of his death. It was from the editor of Le Goéland, Théophile Briant—Moricand’s last and only friend—that I recently received a few facts relating to the interval between our leave-taking in Monterey, hardly three months after his arrival in Big Sur, and his pitiful end.

  It was in March 1948 when we parted. How he lasted until the fall of 1949, when he was deported by the immigration authorities, remains a mystery. Not even Briant could tell me much about this period. It was a black one, évidemment. Toward the end of September he appeared at Briant’s home in Brittany, where he had been offered refuge. Here he lasted only six weks. As Briant tactfully put it in his letter, “I perceived all too quickly that a life in common could not be prolonged indefinitely.” Thus, the 17th of November his faithful friend drove him to Paris—and installed him in the same old Hotel Modial. Here, though he held out for some time, things went rapidly from bad to worse. Finally, in utter despair, fate decreed that he should accept the last humiliation, that is, apply for admission to a Swiss retreat for the aged on the Avenue de St. Mandé, Paris. It was an institution founded by his own parents. Here he chose a small cell giving on the courtyard, where from his window he could see the plaque commemorating the inauguration of the establishment by his mother and his brother, Dr. Ivan Moricand.

  “Tous ses amis,” writes Briant, “sauf moi, l’avaient abandonné. Ses nombreux manuscrits étaient refoulés chez les éditeurs. Et bien entendu, des drames épais surgirent bientôt entre lui et les directrices de l’Asile. Je m’efforcai de le calmer, lui représentant que cette cellule, qu’il avait d’ailleurs merveilleusement aménagée, constituait son ultime havre de grâce.”

  The end came quite suddenly. According to Briant’s obituary article in Le Goéland, on the morning of the day he died Moricand received a visit from a dear friend, a woman. This was towards noon. As they parted he informed her quite simply that she would never see him again. As he seemed to be in good health and good spirits, and since nothing in their conversation had warranted such a remark, she dismissed it as a boutade. That very afternoon, towards four o’clock, he had a heart attack. He went to the kitchen for aid, but despite his grave condition no one saw any reason for alarm. A doctor was called but he was busy. He would come later, when he was free. When he did arrive it was too late. There was nothing to do but rush poor Moricand, already breathing his last, to the hospital. He was unconscious when they delivered him to the Hospital St. Antoine. At ten-thirty that evening he died without regaining consciousness. August 31st, 1954.

  In his last moments, writes Briant, he was “seul comme un rat, nu comme le dernier des clochards.”

  EPILOGUE

  Some years ago I came across these words of Milarepa, the Tibetan saint: “It was written; and it had to be. Behold to where it has led.”

  I often think of these words when the mail arrives. The mail! It is an event which happens three times a week along this coast. It means, to begin with, that the day is shot. You have hardly time to finish your lunch when you hear Jake, the mailman, honking his horn. You scramble up the cliff to the highway, dragging your mailbag, laundry, parcels, books, kerosene tin and anything you wish repaired, replaced or refilled. The mailman and his wife begin to unload from the truck. Everyone clamors for butter, eggs, cigarettes, bread, cake, milk, newspapers, all of which Jake brings together with the mail, express packages, trunks, mattresses, firewood, bags of coal, and other things. It takes a half hour or so to collect your things, during which time the gossip is disseminated free of charge.

  Sometimes you have to wait an hour or two for Jake to arrive. Sometimes there is a washout on the road, or his truck breaks down.

  On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, rain or shine, you can think of nothing but the arrival of the mail truck.

  When it leaves there comes the business of transporting your things back to the house, of sliding down a slippery bank with coal and wood, kerosene, laundry, mailbag, express packages, books, newspapers, food, and supplies from the druggist or the hardware store. This necessitates several trips. If you live on the mountain, instead of by the sea, each trip means an hour lost.

  Finally you sit down, and as you sip another cup of coffee and sample a slice of store cake or a doughnut which will be too stale to eat the next day, you slowly open the mail. Soon the floor is littered with envelopes, wrappers, cardboard, string, excelsior, etc. Oftimes I am the last one to read my own mail. By the time I get to it the most exciting communications have already been transmitted to me viva voce. I sift through the letters like a man looking for a lost glove in dead coals. A review of one of my books is thrust under my nose. Usually it’s an unfavorable one. Some of the letters lie unopened; they are from the bores who persist in writing fat letters even though I never answer them. Someone is now reading the newspaper. There is a shout. “Listen to this!” And with one eye on a half-read letter, I listen to some unsavory piece of news dealing with the outside w
orld. Now the packages have been opened and we begin to glance at the books, records, magazines and pamphlets which arrived. Sometimes there is something good in these and you find yourself riveted to the chair for an hour or so. Suddenly you look up and you see it is already five o’clock. You get panic-stricken. “Must get to work,” you mumble to yourself. But then there is a knock at the door, and who should be standing there but three or four people whom you don’t know, visitors who heard that you were living in this charming region and decided to call on you and see just how you live. You open the wine which some friendly soul from Minnesota or Oregon sent you and you pretend that you are not so busy after all. “Do stay and have dinner,” you say, “it will soon be time to eat.”

  When the visitors have left, when you are thoroughly exhausted with food, wine and talk, you grope for the mail again. It is about time for bed, but you remember that there was one letter you had started to read and which you would like to finish. Then you discover in the pile a telegram which had been mislaid. It demands immediate answer, perhaps by cable, but the mailman has long since returned to town and there is no telephone, no car. You must wait until the mailman comes again—or get up early next morning, stand on the highway to signal a passing car, and beg the driver to stop in Monterey and send the message for you. (Whether he does as you ask or not you won’t discover for several weeks.) Next morning, just as you are sitting down to work, you glance quickly at the mail once again. You see that there are three or four letters which must be answered at once. You begin to answer them. Perhaps you have to dig into a trunk to get out a manuscript or a photo, to look up the reference in a book or pamphlet which is demanded. You have a filing system, of course, but it never works. Just as you are upturning everything in the place a neighbor knocks to ask if you could lend him a hand … he wants to repair the roof or shift the water line, or put up a new stove. Three hours later you go back to your work table. The mail is still staring you in the face. You push it aside. The fading light warns you to hurry, hurry, hurry.