by Henry Miller
Wasn’t that strange, she said, his mentioning Correggio? Do you think he really knows anything about Correggio?
It’s possible, I said. He used to attend the auctions with that Isaac Walker, his predecessor. He might even be acquainted with Cimabue or Carpaccio. You should hear him on Titian sometime! You’d think he had studied with him.
I’m all mixed up, said Stasia, dosing herself with another brandy. Your father talks painters, your sister talks music, and your mother talks about the weather. Nobody knows anything about anything, really. They’re like mushrooms talking together … That must have been a weird walk you had, through the cemetery. I’d have gone out of my mind.
Val doesn’t mind it, said Mona. He can take it.
Why? said Stasia. Because he’s a writer? More material, is that it?
Maybe, said I. Maybe you have to wade through rivers of shit to find a germ of reality.
Not me, said Stasia. I prefer the Village, faky as it is. At least you can air your views there.
Mona now spoke up. She had just had a bright idea. Why don’t we all go to Europe?
Yes, said Stasia airily, why don’t we?
We can manage it, said Mona.
Certainly, said Stasia. I can always borrow the passage money.
And how would we live, once there? I wanted to know.
Like we do here, said Mona. It’s simple.
And what language would we speak?
Everybody knows English, Val. Besides, there are loads of Americans in Europe. Especially in France.
And we’d sponge on them, is that it?
I didn’t say that. I say if you really want to go, there’s always a way.
We could model, said Stasia. Or Mona could. I’m too hairy.
And me, what would I do?
Write! said Mona. That’s all you can do.
I wish it were true, said I. I rose and began to pace the floor.
What’s eating you? they asked.
Europe! You dangle it in front of me like a piece of raw bait. You’re the dreamers, not me! Sure I’d like to go. You don’t know what it does to me when I hear the word. It’s like a promise of new life. But how to make a living there? We don’t know a word of French, we’re not clever … all we know is how to fleece people. And we’re not even good at that.
You’re too serious, said Mona. Use your imagination!
Yes, said Stasia, you’ve got to take a chance. Think of Gauguin!
Or of Lafcadio Hearn! said Mona.
Or Jack London! said Stasia. One can’t wait until everything’s rosy.
I know, I know. I took a seat and buried my head in my hands.
Suddenly Stasia exclaimed: I have it … we’ll go first, Mona and I, and send for you when things are lined up. How’s that?
To this I merely grunted. I was only half listening. I wasn’t following them, I had preceded them. I was already tramping the streets of Europe, chatting with passers-by, sipping a drink on a crowded terrace. I was alone but not the least bit lonely. The air smelled different, the people looked different. Even the trees and flowers were different. How I craved that—something different! To be able to talk freely, to be understood, to be accepted. A land of true kinsfolk, that’s what Europe meant to me. The home of the artist, the vagabond, the dreamer. Yes, Gauguin had had a rough time of it, and Van Gogh even worse. There were thousands, no doubt, whom we never knew of, never heard of, who went down, who faded out of sight without accomplishing anything…
I rose wearily, more exhausted by the prospect of going to Europe, even if only in the mind, than by the tedious hours spent in the bosom of the family.
I’ll get there yet, said I to myself as I made ready for bed. If they could do it, so can I. (By they I meant both the illustrious ones and the failures.) Even the birds make it.
Carried away by the thought, I had a picture of myself as another Moses, leading my people out of the wilderness. To stem the tide, reverse the process, start a grand march backward, back toward the source! Empty this vast wilderness called America, drain it of all its pale faces, halt the meaningless hustle and bustle … hand the continent back to the Indians … what a triumph that would be! Europe would stand aghast at the spectacle. Have they gone mad, deserting the land of milk and honey? Was it only a dream, then, America? Yes! I would shout. A bad dream at that. Let us begin all over again. Let us make new cathedrals, let us sing again in unison, let us make poems not of death but of life! Moving like a wave, shoulder to shoulder, doing only what is necessary and vital, building only what will last, creating only for joy. Let us pray again, to the unknown god, but in earnest, with all our hearts and souls. Let the thought of the future not make us into slaves. Let the day be sufficient unto itself. Let us open our hearts and our homes. No more melting pots! Only the pure metals, the noblest, the most ancient. Give us leaders again, and hierarchies, guilds, craftsmen, poets, jewelers, statesman, scholars, vagabonds, mountebanks. And pageants, not parades. Festivals, processions, crusades. Talk for the love of talk; work for the love of work; honor for the love of honor…
The word honor brought me to. It was like an alarm clock ringing in my ears. Imagine, the louse in his crevice talking honor! I sank deeper into the bed and, as I dozed off, I saw myself holding a tiny American flag and waving it: the good old Stars and Stripes. I held it in my right hand, proudly, as I set forth in search of work. Was it not my privilege to demand work, I, a full-fledged American citizen, the son of respectable parents, a devout worshiper of the radio, a democratic hooligan committed to progress, race prejudice and success? Marching toward the job, with a promise on my lips to make my children even more American than their parents, to turn them into guinea pigs, if need be, for the welfare of our glorious Republic. Give me a rifle to shoulder and a target to shoot at! I’ll prove whether I’m a patriot or not. America for Americans, forward march! Give me liberty or give me death! (What’s the difference?) One nation, indivisible, et cetera, et cetera. Vision 20-20, ambition boundless, past stainless, energy inexhaustible, future miraculous. No diseases, no dependents, no complexes, no vices. Born to work like a Trojan, to fall in line, to salute the flag—the American flag—and ever ready to betray the enemy. All I ask, mister, is a chance.
Too late! comes a voice from the shadows.
Too late? How’s that?
Because! Because there are 26,565,493 others ahead of you, all full-blown catalepts and of pure stainless steel, all one hundred percent to the backbone, each and every one of them approved by the Board of Health, the Christian Endeavor Society, the Daughters of the Revolution and the Ku Klux Klan.
Give me a gun! I beg. Give me a shot-gun so that I may blow my head off! This is ignominious.
And it was indeed ignominious. Worse, it was so much certified horse-shit.
Fuck you! I squeaked. I know my rights.
7.
The thought that they could leave me behind like a dog while they explored Europe on their own ate into me, made me irritable, more erratic than ever, and sometimes downright diabolical in my behavior. One day I would go out to search of a job, determined to stand on my own two feet, and the next I would stay home and struggle with the play. Nights, when we gathered around the gut table, I would make notes of their conversation.
What are you doing that for? they would ask.
To check your lies, I might answer. Or—Some of this I may use in the play.
These remarks served to put spice into their dialogues. They did everything to put me off the track. Sometimes they talked like Strindberg, sometimes like Maxwell Bodenheim. To add to the confusion I would read them disturbing bits from the notebook which I now carried with me on my peregrinations in the Village. Sometimes it was a conversation (verbatim) that I had overheard outside a cafeteria or a night club, sometimes it was a descriptive account of the goings on that took place in these dives. Cleverly interspersed would be fragmentary remarks I had overheard, or pretended to have overheard, about the two of them. They were
usually imaginary, but they were also real enough to cause them concern or make them blurt out the truth, which is exactly what I was gunning for.
Whenever they lost their self-control they contradicted one another and revealed things I was not supposed to hear about. Finally I pretended to be really absorbed in the writing of the play and begged them to take dictation from me: I had decided, I said, to write the last act first—it would be easier. My true motive, of course, was to show them how this manage a trois would end. It meant a bit of acting on my part, and quick thinking.
Stasia had decided that she would take notes while Mona listened and made’ suggestions. The better to act the dramaturge, I paced the floor, puffed endless cigarettes, took a swig of the bottle now and then, while gesticulating like a movie director, acting out the parts, imitating them by turns and of course throwing them into hysterics, particularly when I touched on pseudo-amorous scenes in which I depicted them as only pretending to be in love with each other. I would come to an abrupt stop occasionally to inquire if they thought these scenes too unreal, too far-fetched, and so on. Sometimes they would stop me to comment on the accuracy of my portrayals or my dialogue, whereupon they would vie with one another to furnish me with further hints, clues, suggestions, all of us talking at once and acting out our parts, each in his own fashion, and nobody taking notes, no one able to remember, when we had calmed down, what the other had said or done, what came first and what last. As we progressed I gradually introduced more and more truth, more and more reality, cunningly recreating scenes at which I had never been present, stupefying them with their own admissions, their own clandestine behavior. Some of these shots in the dark so confounded and bewildered them, I observed, that they had no recourse but to accuse one another of betrayal. Sometimes, unaware of the implication of their words, they accused me of spying on them, of putting my ear to the key-hole, and so on. At other times they looked blankly at each other, unable to decide whether they had really said and done what I imputed to them or not. But, regardless of how much they detested my interpretation of their doings, they were excited, they wanted more, more. It was as if they saw themselves on the stage enacting their true roles. It was irresistible.
At the boil I would deliberately let them down, pretending a head-ache or that I had run out of ideas or else that the damned thing was no good, that it was futile to waste further time on it. This would really put them in a dither. To soften me up they would come home loaded with good things to eat and drink. They would even bring me Havana cigars.
To vary the torment, I would pretend, just as we had started work, that I had met with some extraordinary experience earlier that day and, as if absent-minded, I would digress into an elaborate account of a mythical adventure. One night I informed them that we would have to postpone work on the play for a while because I had taken a job as an usher in a burlesque house. They were outraged. A few days later I informed them that I had given up that job to become an elevator operator. That disgusted them.
One morning I awoke with the firm intention of gunning for a job, a big job. I had no clear idea what kind of job, only that it must be something worth while, something important. While shaving I got the notion that I would pay a visit to the head of a chain store organization, ask him to make a place for me. I would say nothing about previous employments; I would dwell on the fact that I was a writer, a free lance writer, who desired to put his talents at their disposal. A much traveled young man, weary of spreading himself all over the lot; eager to make a place for himself, a permanent one, with an up and coming organization such as theirs. (The chain stores were only in their infancy.) Given the chance, I might demonstrate … here I allowed my imagination free fancy.
While dressing I embellished the speech I intended to make to Mr. W. H. Higginbotham, president of the Hobson and Holbein Chain Stores. (I prayed that he wouldn’t turn out to be deaf!)
I got off to a late start, but full of optimism and never more spruce and spry. I armed myself with a brief case belonging to Stasia, not bothering to examine the contents of it. Anything to look business like.
It was a bitter cold day and the head office was in a warehouse not far from the Gowanus Canal. It took ages to get there and, on descending the trolley, I took it on the run. I arrived at the entrance to the building with rosy cheeks and frosty breath. As I glided through the grim entrance hall I noticed a huge sign over the directory board saying: Employment Office closes at 9:30 A.M. It was already eleven o’clock. Scanning the board I noticed that the elevator runner was eyeing me peculiarly. On entering the lift he nodded toward the sign and said: Did you read that?
I’m not looking for a job, I said. I have an appointment with Mr. Higginbotham’s secretary.
He gave me a searching look, but said no more. He slammed the gate to and the lift slowly ascended.
The eighth floor, please!
You don’t have to tell me! What’s your errand?
The elevator, which was inching upward, groaned and squealed like a sow in labor. I had the impression that he had deliberately slowed it up.
He was glaring at me now, waiting for my reply. What’s eating him? I asked myself. Was it simply that he didn’t like my looks?
It’s difficult, I began, to explain my errand in a few words. Terrified by the horrible scowl he was giving me, I pulled myself up short. I did my best to return his gaze without flinching. Yes, I resumed, it’s rather dif…
Stop it! he yelled, bringing the lift to a halt—between two floors. If you say another word … He raised a hand as if to say—I’ll throttle you!
Convinced that I had a maniac to deal with, I kept my mouth shut.
You talk too much, said he. He gave the lever a jerk and the lift started upward again, shuddering.
I kept quiet and looked straight ahead. At the eighth floor he opened the gate and out I stepped, gingerly too, as if expecting a kick in the pants.
Fortunately the door facing me was the one I sought. As I lay my hand on the knob I was aware that he was observing me. I had the uncomfortable presentiment that he would be there to catch me when they threw me out like an empty bucket. I opened the door and walked in. I came face to face with a girl standing in a cage who received me smilingly.
I came to see Mr. Higginbotham, I said. By now my speech had flown and my thoughts were knocking about like bowling pins.
To my amazement she asked no questions. She simply picked up the telephone and spoke a few inaudible words into the mouthpiece. When she put the receiver down she turned and, in a voice all honey, said: Mr. Higginbotham’s secretary will see you in a moment.
In a moment the secretary appeared. He was a middle-aged man of pleasant mien, courteous, affable. I gave him my name and followed him to his desk which was at the end of a long room studded with desks and machines of all kinds. He took a seat behind a large, polished table which was almost bare and indicated a comfortable chair opposite him into which I dropped with a momentary feeling of relief.
Mr. Higginbotham is in Africa, he began. He won’t be back for several months.
I see, said I, thinking to myself this is my way out, can’t confide in any one but Mr. Higginbotham himself. Even as I did so I realized that it would be unwise to exit so quickly—the elevator runner would be expecting precisely such an eventuality.
He’s on a big game hunt, added the secretary, sizing me up all the while and wondering, no doubt, whether to make short shrift of me or feel the ground further. Still affable, however, and obviously waiting for me to spill the beans.
I see, I repeated. That’s too bad. Perhaps I should wait until he returns…
No, not at all—unless it’s something very confidential you have to tell him. Even if he were here you would have to deal first with me. Mr. Higginbotham has many irons in the fire; this is only one of his interests. Let me assure you that anything you wish conveyed to him will receive my earnest attention and consideration.
He stopped short. It was my move.
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br /> Well sir, I began hesitatingly, but breathing a little more freely, it’s not altogether easy to explain the purpose of my visit.
Excuse me, he put in, but may I ask what firm it is you represent?
He leaned forward as if expecting me to drop a card in his hand.
I’m representing myself … Mr. Larrabee, was it? I’m a writer … a free lance writer. I hope that doesn’t put you off?
Not at all, not at all! he replied.
(Think fast now! Something original!)
You didn’t have in mind an advertising campaign, did you? We really…
Oh no! I replied. Not that! I know you have plenty of capable men for that. I smiled weakly. No, it was something more general … more experimental, shall I say?
I lingered a moment, like a bird in flight hovering over a dubious perch. Mr. Larrabee leaned forward, ears cocked to catch this something of moment.
It’s like this, I said, wondering what the hell I would say next. In the course of my career I’ve come in contact with all manner of men, all manner of ideas. Now and then, as I move about, an idea seizes me … I don’t need to tell you that writers sometimes get ideas which practical minded individuals regards as chimerical. That is, they seem chimerical, until they have been tested.
Quite true, said Mr. Larrabee, his bland countenance open to receive the impress of my idea, whether chimerical or practicable.
It was impossible to continue the delaying tactics any longer. Out with it! I commanded myself. But out with what?
At this point, most fortunately, a man appeared from an adjoining office, holding a batch of letters in his hand. I beg pardon, he said, abut I’m afraid you’ll have to stop a moment and sign these. Quite important.
Mr. Larrabee took the letters, then presented me to the man. Mr. Miller is a writer. He has a plan to present to Mr. Higginbotham.
We shook hands while Mr. Larrabee proceeded to bury his nose in the file of correspondence.