by Henry Miller
Inhaling the fragrance of the syringeas, the bougainvilleas, the heavy red roses, I thought to myself—Maybe that poor devil Marco loved her as I once loved Una Gifford. Maybe he believed that by a miracle her scorn and disdain would one day be converted into love, that she would see him for what he was, a great bleeding heart bursting with tenderness and forgiveness. Perhaps each night, when he returned to his room, he had gone down on his knees and prayed. (But no answer.) Did I not groan too each night on climbing into bed? Did I not also pray? And how! It was disgraceful, such praying, such begging, such whimpering! If only a Voice had said: alt is hopeless, you are not the man for her. I might have given up, I might have made way for some one else. Or at least cursed the God who had dealt me such a fate.
Poor Marco! Begging not to be loved but to be permitted to Jove. And condemned to make jokes! Only now do I realize what you suffered, what you endured, dear Marco. Now you can enjoy her—from above. You can watch over her day and night. If in life she never saw you as you were, you at least may see her now for what she is. You had too much heart for that frail body. Guinevere herself was unworthy of the great love she inspired. But then a queen steps so lightly, even when crushing a louse…
The table was set, dinner waiting for me when I walked in. She was in an unusually good mood, Mona.
How was it? Did you enjoy yourself? she cried, throwing her arms around me.
I noticed the flowers standing in the vase and the bottle of wine beside my plate. Napoleon’s favorite wine, which he drank even at St. Helena.
What does it mean? I asked.
She was bubbling over with joy. It means that Pop thinks the first fifty pages are wonderful. He was all enthusiasm.
He was, eh? Tell me about it. What did he say exactly?
She was so stunned herself that she couldn’t remember much now. We sat down to eat. Eat a bit, I said, it will come back.
Oh yes, she exclaimed, I do remember this … He said it reminded him a little of the early Melville … and of Dreiser too.
I gulped.
Yes, and of Lafcadio Hearn.
What? Pop’s read him too?
I told you, Val, that he was a great reader.
You don’t think he was spoofing, do you?
Not at all. He was dead serious. He’s really intrigued, I tell you.
I poured the wine. Did Pop buy this?
No, I did.
How did you know it was Napoleon’s favorite wine? . The man who sold it to me told me so.
I took a good sip.
Well?
Never tasted anything better. And Napoleon drank this every day? Lucky devil!
Val, she said, you’ve got to coach me a bit if I’m to answer some of the questions Pop puts me.
! thought you knew all the answers.
To-day he was talking grammar and rhetoric. I don’t know a thing about grammar and rhetoric.
Neither do I, to be honest. You went to school, didn’t you? A graduate of Wellesley should know something…
You know I never went to college.
You said you did.
Maybe I did when I first met you. I didn’t want you to think me ignorant.
Hell, I said, it wouldn’t have mattered to me if you hadn’t finished grammar school. I have no respect for learning. It’s sheer crap, this business of grammar and rhetoric. The less you know about such things the better. Especially if you’re a writer.
But supposing he points out errors. What then?
Say—’Maybe you’re right. I’ll think about it.’ Or better yet, say—’How would you phrase it?’ Then you’ve got him. on the defensive, see?
I wish you were in my place sometimes.
So do I. Then I’d know if the bugger was sincere or not.
To-day, she said, ignoring the remark, he was talking about Europe. It was as if he were reading my thoughts. He was talking about American writers who had lived and studied abroad. Said it was important to live in such an atmosphere, that it nourished the soul.
What else did he say?
She hesitated a moment before coming out with it.
He said that if I completed the book he would give me the money to stay in Europe for a year or two.
Wonderful, I said. But what about your invalid mother? Me, in other words.
She had thought of that too. I’ll probably have to kill her off. She added that whatever he forked up would surely be enough to see the both of us through. Pop was generous.
You see, she said, I wasn’t wrong about Pop. Val, I don’t want to push you, but…
You wish I would hurry and finish the book, eh?
Yes. How long do you think it will take?
I said I hadn’t the slightest idea.
Three months?
I don’t know.
Is it all clear, what you have to do?
No, it isn’t.
Doesn’t that bother you?
Of course. But what can I do? I’m forging ahead as best I know how.
You won’t go off the trolley?
If I do I’ll get back on again. I hope so, any way.
You do want to go to Europe, don’t you?
I gave her a long look before answering.
Do I want to go to Europe? Woman, I want to go everywhere … Asia, Africa, Australia, Peru, Mexico, Siam, Arabia, Java, Borneo … Tibet too, and China. Once we take off I want to stay away for good. I want to forget that I was ever born here. I want to keep moving, wandering, roaming the world. I want to go to the end of every road…
And when will you write?
As I go along.
Val, you’re a dreamer.
Sure I am. But I’m an active dreamer. There’s a difference.
Then I added: We’re all dreamers, only some of us wake up in time to put down a few words. Certainly I want to write. But I don’t think it’s the end all and be all. How shall I put it? Writing is like the caca that you make in your sleep. Delicious caca, to be sure, but first comes life, then the caca. Life is change, movement, quest … a going forward to meet the unknown, the unexpected. Only a very few men can say of themselves—’I have lived!’ That’s why we have books—so that men may live vicariously. But when the author also lives vicariously—
She broke in. When I listen to you sometimes, Val, I feel that you want to live a thousand lives in one. You’re eternally dissatisfied—with life as it is, with yourself, with just about everything. You’re a Mongol. You belong on the steppes of Central Asia.
You know, I said, getting worked up now, one of the reasons why I feel so disjointed is that there’s a little of everything in me. I can put myself in any period and feel at home in it. When I read about the Renaissance I feel like a man of the Renaissance; when I read about one of the Chinese dynasties I feel exactly like a Chinese of that epoch. Whatever the race, the period, the people, Egyptian, Aztec, Hindu or Chaldean, I’m thoroughly in it, and it’s always a rich, tapestried world whose wonders are inexhaustible. That’s what I crave—a humanly created world, a world responsive to man’s thoughts, man’s dreams, man’s desires. What gets me about (his life of ours, this American life, is that we kill everything we touch. Talk of the Mongols and the Huns—they were cavaliers compared to us. This is a hideous, empty, desolate land. I see my compatriots through the eyes of my ancestors. I see clean through them—and they’re hollow, worm-eaten…
I took the bottle of Gevrey-Chambertin and refilled the glasses. There was enough for one good swallow.
To Napoleon! I said. A man who lived life to the fullest.
Val, you frighten me sometimes, the way you speak about America. Do you really hate it that much?
Maybe it’s love, I said. Inverted love. I don’t know.
I hope you’re not going to work any of that off in the novel.
Don’t worry. The novel will be about as unreal as the land it comes from. I won’t have to say—’All the characters in this book are fictitious’ or whatever it is they put in the front of books.
Nobody will recognize anybody, the author least of all. A good thing it will be in your name. What a joke if it turned out to be a best seller! If reporters came knocking at the door to interview you.’
The thought of this terrified her. She didn’t think it funny at all.
Oh, I said, you called me a dreamer a moment ago. Let me read you a passage—it’s short—from The Hill of Dreams. You should read the book some time; it’s a dream of a book.
I went to the bookshelf and opened to the passage I had in mind.
He’s just been telling about Milton’s Lycidas, why it was probably the most perfect piece of pure literature in existence. Then says Machen: ‘Literature is the sensuous art of causing exquisite impressions by means of words.’ But here’s the passage … it follows right after that: ‘And yet there was something more; besides the logical thought, which was often a hindrance, a troublesome though inseparable accident, besides the sensation, always a pleasure and a delight, besides these there were the indefinable, inexpressible images which all fine literature summons to the mind. As the chemist in his experiments is sometimes astonished to find unknown, unexpected elements in the crucible or the receiver, as the world of material things is considered by some a thin veil of the immaterial universe, so he who reads wonderful prose or verse is conscious of suggestions that cannot be put into words, which do not rise from the logical sense, which are rather parallel to than connected with the sensuous delight. The world so disclosed is rather the world of dreams, rather the world in which children sometimes live, instantly appearing, and instantly vanishing away, a world beyond all expression or analysis, neither of the intellect nor of the senses…’
It is beautiful, she said, as I put the book down. But don’t yon try to write like that. Let Arthur Machen write that way, if he wishes. You write your own way.
I sat down at the table again. A bottle of Chartreuse was standing beside my coffee. As I poured a thimbleful of the fiery green liqueur into my glass, I said: There’s only one thing missing now: a harem.
Pop supplied the Chartreuse, she said. He was so delighted with those pages.
Let’s hope he’ll like the next fifty pages as much.
You’re not writing the book for him, Val. You’re writing it for us.
That’s true, I said. I forget that sometimes.
It occurred to me then that I hadn’t told her anything yet about the outline of the real book. There’s something I have to tell you, I began. Or should I? Maybe I ought to keep it to myself a while longer.
She begged me not to tease.
All right, I’ll tell you. It’s about the book I intend to write one day. I’ve got the notes for it all written out. I wrote you a long letter about it, when you were in Vienna or God knows where. I couldn’t send the letter because you gave me no address. Yes, this will really be a book … a huge one. About you and me.
Didn’t you keep the letter?
No. I tore it up. Your fault! But I’ve got the notes. Only I won’t show them to you yet.
Why?
Because I don’t want any comments. Besides, if we talk about it I may never write the book. Also, there are some things I wouldn’t want you to know about until I had written them out.
You can trust me, she said. She began to plead with me.
No use, I said, you’ll have to wait.
But supposing the notes got lost?
I could write them all over again. That doesn’t worry me in the least.
She was getting miffed now. After all, if the book was about her as well as myself … And so on. But I remained adamant.
Knowing very well that she would turn the place upside down in order to lay hands on the notes, I gave her to understand that I had left them at my parents’ home. I put them where they’ll never find them, I said. I could tell from the look she gave me that she wasn’t taken in by this. Whatever her move was, she pretended to be resigned, to think no more of it.
To sweeten the atmosphere I told her that if the book ever got written, if it ever saw the light of day, she would find herself immortalized. And since that sounded a bit grandiloquent I added—You may not always recognize yourself but I promise you this, when I get through with your portrait you’ll never be forgotten.
She seemed moved by this. You sound awfully sure of yourself, she said.
I have reason to. This book I’ve lived. I can begin anywhere and find my way around. It’s like a lawn with a thousand sprinklers: all I need do is turn on the faucet. I tapped my head. It’s all there, in invisible … I mean indelible … ink.
Are you going to tell the truth—about us?
I certainly am. About every one, not just us.
And you think there’ll be a publisher for such a book?
I haven’t thought about that, I replied. First I’ve got to write it.
You’ll finish the novel first, I hope?
Absolutely. Maybe the play too.
The play? Oh Val, that would be wonderful.
That ended the conversation.
Once again the disturbing thought arose: how long will this peace and quiet last? It was almost too good, the way things were going. I thought of Hokusai, his ups and downs, his 967 changes of address, his perseverance, his incredible production. What a life! And I, I was only On the threshold. Only if I lived to be ninety or a hundred would I have something to show for my labors.
Another almost equally disturbing thought entered my head. Would I ever write anything acceptable?
The answer which came at once to my lips was: Fuck a duck!
Still another thought now came to mind. Why was I so obsessed about truth?
And the answer to that also came clear and clean. Because there is only the truth and nothing but the truth.
But a wee small voice objected, saying: Literature is something else again,
Then to hell with literature! The book of life, that’s what I would write.
And whose name will you sign to it?
The Creator’s.
That seemed to settle the matter.
The thought of one day tackling such a book—the book of life—kept me tossing all night. It was there before my closed eyes, like the Fata Morgana of legend. Now that I had vowed to make it a reality, it loomed far bigger, far more difficult of accomplishment than when I had spoken about it. It seemed overwhelming, indeed. Nevertheless, I was certain of one thing—it would flow once I began it. It wouldn’t be a matter of squeezing out drops and trickles. I thought of that first book I had written, about the twelve messengers. What a miscarriage! I had made a little progress since then, even if no one but myself knew it. But what a waste of material that was! My theme should have been the whole eighty or a hundred thousand whom I had hired and fired during those sizzling cosmococcic years. No wonder I was constantly losing my voice. Merely to talk to that many people was a feat. But it wasn’t the talk alone, it was their faces, the expressions they wore—grief, anger, deceit, cunning, malice, treachery, gratitude, envy, and so on—as if, instead of human beings, I were dealing with totemistic creatures: the fox, the lynx, the jackal, the crow, the lemming, the magpie, the dove, the musk-ox, the snake, the crocodile, the hyena, the mongoose, the owl … Their images were still fresh in my memory, the good and the bad, the crooks and the liars, the cripples, the maniacs, the tramps, the gamblers, the leeches, the perverts, the saints, the martyrs, all of them, the ordinary ones and the extraordinary ones. Even down to a certain lieutenant of the Horse Guard whose face had been so mutilated—by the Reds or the Blacks—that when he laughed he wept and when he wept he jubilated. Whenever he addressed me—usually to make a complaint—he stood at attention, as if he were the horse not the guard. And the Greek with the long equine face, a scholar unquestionably, who wanted to read from Prometheus Bound—or was it unbound? Why was it, much as I liked him, that he always roused my scorn and ridicule? How much more interesting and more lovable was that wall-eyed Egyptian with sex on the brain! Always in hot water, especially if h
e failed to jerk off once or twice a day. And that Lesbian, Iliad, she called herself—why Iliad?—so lovely, so demure, so coy … an excellent musician too. I know because she brought her fiddle to the office one evening and played for me. And after she had rendered her Bach, her Mozart, her Paganini repertoire, she has the gall to inform me that she’s tired of being a Lesbian, wants to be a whore, and wouldn’t I please find her a better office building to work in, one where she could drum up a little business.
They were all there parading before me as of yore—with their tics, their grimaces, their supplications, their sly little tricks. Every day they were dumped on my desk out of a huge flour sack, it seemed—they, their troubles, their problems, their aches and pains. Maybe when I was selected for this odious job some one had tipped off the big Scrabblebuster and said: Keep this man good and busy! Put his feet in the mud of reality, make his hair stand on end, feed him bird lime, destroy his every last illusion! And whether he had been tipped off or not, that old Scrabblebuster had done just that. That and a little more. Ho made me acquainted with grief and sorrow.; However … among the thousands who came and went, who begged, whistled and wept before me naked, bereft, making their last call, as it were, before turning themselves in at the slaughter-house, there appeared now and then a jewel of a guy, usually from some far off place, a Turk perhaps or a Persian. And like that, there happened along one day this All something or other, a Mohammedan, who had acquired a divine calligraphy somewhere in the desert, and after he gets to know me, know that I am a man with big ears, he writes me a letter, a letter thirty-two pages long, with never a mistake, never a comma or a semi-colon missing, and in it he explains (as if it were important for me to know) that the miracles of Christ—he went into them one by one—were not miracles at all, that they had all been performed before, even the Resurrection, by unknown men, men who understood the laws of nature, laws which, he insisted, our scientists know nothing about, but which were eternal laws and could be demonstrated to produce so-called miracles whenever the right man came along … and he, All, was in possession of the secret, but I was not to make it known because he, Ali, had chosen to be a messenger and wear the badge of servitude for a reason known only to him and to Allah, bless his name, but when the time came I had only to say the word and so forth and so on…