by Henry Miller
But you were sitting on his lap when I woke up! I said.
Yes, that was so, she admitted, but only after she had been out searching for him, wandering all through the Village, and finally picking him up on the steps of a church and bringing him home in a taxi.
You must certainly think a lot of him to go to all that trouble.
She didn't deny it. She was tired of going all over that ground again with me.
So that was how the evening had passed. And Valerie? Valerie had left in a huff, after smashing an expensive vase. And what was that bread knife doing alongside me, I wanted to know. That? Oh, that was some more of Carruthers’ tomfoolery. Pretending that he was going to cut my heart out. She hadn't even bothered to take the knife out of his hand. He was harmless, Carruthers. Wouldn't hurt a fly. Just the same, I thought to myself, it would have been wiser to wake me up. What else had happened, I wondered. Christ only knows what went on during the blackout. If she could let me put the blocks to her, knowing that Carruthers was apt to walk in at any moment, surely, she could let him molest her a few minutes (if only to pacify him), seeing that I was in a deep trance and would never be any the wiser.
However, it was now four in the morning and Carruthers was sound asleep on the couch. We were standing in a doorway on Sixth Avenue trying to come to some understanding. I was insisting that she let me take her home; she was trying to make me understand that it was too late.
But I've taken you home before at an even later hour. I was determined not to let her return to Carruthers’ den.
You don't understand, she pleaded. I haven't been home for several weeks. All my things are there.
Then you're living with him. Why didn't you say that in the first place?
I'm not living with him. I'm only staying there temporarily until I find a place to live. I'm not going back home any more. I had a bad quarrel with my mother. I walked out. Told them I'd never come back again.
And your father—what did he say?
He wasn't there when it happened. I know he must be heart-broken, but I couldn't stand it any longer.
I'm sorry, I said, if that's how it is. I suppose you're broke too. Let me walk you back—you must be fagged out.
We started walking through the empty streets. She stopped suddenly and threw her arms around me. You trust me, don't you? she said, looking at me with tears in her eyes.
Of course I do. But I wish you would find another place to stay. I can always dig up the price of a room. Why don't you let me help you?
Oh, I won't be needing any help now, she said brightly. Why, I almost forgot to tell you the good news! Yes, I'm going away for a few weeks—to the country. Carruthers is sending me to his cabin up in the North woods. The three of us are going—Florrie, Hannah Bell and myself. It'll be a real vacation. Maybe you can join us? You'll try, won't you? Aren't you glad? She stopped to give me a kiss. You see, he's not a bad sort, she added. He's not coming up himself. He wants to give us a treat. Now if he were in love with me, as you seem to think, wouldn't he want to go up there with me alone? He doesn't like you, that I admit. He's afraid of you—you're too serious. After all, you've got to expect him to have some feelings. If his wife were dead he'd undoubtedly ask me to marry him—not because he's in love with me but because he wants to protect me. Do you see now?
No, I said, I don't see. But it's all right. You certainly need a vacation; I hope you'll enjoy yourself there. As for Carruthers, no matter what you say about him, I don't like him and I don't trust him. And I'm not at all sure that he's acting from such generous motives as you describe. I hope he croaks, that's all, and if I could give him a drop of poison I'd do it—without a qualm.
I'm going to write you every day, she said, as we stood at the door saying farewell.
Mara, listen, I said, drawing her close to me and murmuring the words in her ear. I had a lot to tell you today and it's all gone up in smoke. I know, I know, she said feverishly. Maybe things will change when you're gone, I continued. Something's got to happen soon—we can't go on this way forever.
That's what I'm thinking too, she said softly, snuggling against me affectionately. I hate this life. I want to think it out when I'm up there and alone. I don't know how I ever got into this mess.
Good, I said, maybe we'll get somewhere then. You'll write, that's a promise?
Of course I will ... every day, she said, as she turned to go.
I stood there a moment after she had turned in, wondering whether I was a fool to let her go, wondering if it wouldn't be better to drag her out and just smash a way through, wife or no wife, job or no job. I walked off, still debating it in my mind, but my feet dragging me towards home.
6
Well, she was off to the North woods. Just arrived, in fact. Those two pole cats had accompanied her and everything was just ducky. There, were two wonderful backwoodsmen who looked after them, cooked their meals, showed them how to shoot the rapids, played the guitar and the harmonica for them on the back porch at night when the stars came out, and so on—all crammed on the back of a picture postcard showing the wonderful pine cones which drop from the pine trees up in Maine.
I immediately went round to Carruthers’ den to see if he were still in town. He was, there all right and quite surprised, and not any too pleased, to see me. I pretended that I had come to borrow a book which had caught my fancy the other evening. He informed me dryly that he had given up the practice of lending out books long ago. He was thoroughly sober and obviously determined to freeze me out as quickly as possible. I noticed, as I was taking leave, that he had tacked up the picture of me with the dagger through the heart. He noticed that I had noticed it but made no reference to it.
I felt somewhat humiliated but vastly relieved just the same. For once she had told me the truth! I was so overjoyed that I rushed to the public library, buying a pad and an envelope on the way, and sat there till closing time writing her a huge letter. I told her to telegraph me—couldn't wait to receive word by mail. After mailing the letter I wrote out a long telegram and dispatched it to her. Two days later, not having heard from her, I sent another telegram, a longer one, and after I had dispatched it I sat down in the lobby of the Mc Alpin Hotel and wrote her an even more voluminous letter than the first one. The next day I received a short letter, warm, affectionate, almost childish. No mention of the first telegram. That made me quite frantic. Perhaps she had given me a phoney address. But why would she do that? Anyway, better telegraph again! Demand full address and nearest telephone. Had she received the second telegram and both letters? Keep a sharp lookout for mail and future telegrams. Write often. Telegraph when possible. Advise when returning. I love you. I'm mad about you. The Cabinet Minister speaking.
The Cabinet Minister must have done the trick. Soon there came a telegram for Glahn the Hunter, followed by a letter signed Victoria (1). God was looking over her shoulder as she wrote. She had seen a deer and she had followed it through the woods and had lost her way. The backwoodsmen had found her and carried her home. They were wonderfully simple fellows, and Hannah and Florrie had fallen in love with them. That is, they went canoeing with them and sometimes slept in the woods with them all night. She was coming back in a week or ten days. She couldn't bear staying away from me longer than that. Then this: I am coming back to you, I want to be your wife. Just as simple as that, the way she put it. I thought it marvelous. I loved her all the more for being so direct, so simple, so frank and honest. I wrote her three letters in a row, moving from place to place, as I shuffled about in a delirium of ecstasy.
On fever hooks waiting for her return. She had said she'd be back Friday night. Would telephone me at Ulric's studio soon as she hit town. Friday
(1) All characters from Knut Hamsun's books.
night came and I sat there until two in the morning waiting for her phone call. Ulric, always skeptical, said maybe she meant the following Friday. I went home thoroughly dejected but certain I would hear from her in the morning. Next day I tele
phoned Ulric several times to inquire if he had had any word from her. He was bored, thoroughly disinterested, almost a little ashamed of me, I felt. At noon, as I was leaving the office, I ran into MacGregor and his wife sporting a new car. We hadn't seen each other for months. He insisted on my having lunch with them. I tried to get out of it but couldn't. What's the matter with you, he said, you're not yourself. A woman again, I suppose. Jesus, when will you ever learn to take care of yourself?
During the lunch he informed me that they had decided to take a ride out on Long Island, perhaps spend the night there somewhere. Why couldn't I come along? I said I had made a date with Ulric. That's all right, he said, bring your friend Ulric along. I haven't much use for him, but if it'll make you any happier, sure we'll pick up, why not? I tried to tell him that Ulric might not be so eager to join us. He wouldn't listen. Hell’ come, he said, you leave that to me. We'll go out to Montauk Point or Shelter Island and just lie around and take it easy—it'll do you good. As for that Jane you're worrying about, why forget it! If she likes you she'll come round by herself. Treat ‘em rough, that's what I always say, eh Tess? and with that he gave his wife a dig in the ribs that knocked the breath out of her.
Tess Molloy was what you'd call a good-natured Irish slob. She was about the homeliest woman I've ever seen, broad in the beam, pock-marked, her hair scant and stringy (she was getting bald), but jolly and indolent, always ready to fight at the drop of the hat. MacGregor had married her for purely practical reasons. They had never pretended to be in love with one another. There was scarcely even an animal affection between them since, as he had readily explained to me shortly after their marriage, sex didn't mean a thing to her. She didn't mind being diddled now and then, but she got no pleasure from it. Are you through? she would ask every now and then. If he took too long a time over it she would ask him to fetch her a drink or bring her something to eat. I got so damned sore at her once that I brought her the newspaper to read. ‘Now go ahead and read,’ I says to her, ‘and see that you don't miss the comic strip!'
I thought we'd have a hard time persuading Ulric to come along. He had only met MacGregor a few times and each time he had shaken his head as though to say—It beats me! To my surprise Ulric greeted MacGregor quite cordially. He had just been promised a fat check for a new can of beans he was to do next week and he was in a mood to lay off work for a while. He had just been out to get himself a few bottles of liquor. There had been no phone call from Mara, of course. There wouldn't be any, not for a week or two, thought Ulric. Have a drink!
MacGregor was impressed by a magazine cover that Ulric had just finished. It was a picture of a man with a golf bag just setting out for the greens. MacGregor found it extremely life-like. I didn't know you were that good, he said with his customary tactlessness. What do you get for a job like that, if I may ask? Ulric told him. His respect deepened. Meanwhile his wife had spied a water color which she liked. Did you do that? she asked. Ulric nodded. I'd like to buy it, she said. How much do you want for it? Ulric said he would be glad to give it to her when it was finished. It's not finished yet, you mean? she screamed. It looks finished to me. I don't care, I'll take it anyway, just as it is. Will you take twenty dollars for it?
Now listen, you fathead, said MacGregor, giving her a playful ox-like poke on the jaw which knocked the glass out of her hand, the man says it ain't finished yet; what do you want to do, make a liar out of him?
I'm not saying it's finished, she said, and I didn't call him a liar. I like it just as it is and I want to buy it.
Well, buy it then, by Jesus, and get done with it!
No, really, I couldn't let you take it in that condition, said Ulric. Besides, it's not good enough to sell—it's just a sketch.
That doesn't matter, said Tess Molloy, I want it. I'll give you thirty dollars for it.
You just said twenty a minute ago, put in MacGregor. What's the matter with you, are you nuts? Didn't you ever buy a picture before? Listen, Ulric, you'd better let her have it or else we'll never get started. I'd like to do a little fishing before the day's over, what do you say? Of course this bird—indicating me with his thumb—doesn't like fishing; he wants to sit and mope, dream about love, study the sky and that kind of crap. Come on, let's get going. Yeah, that's right, take a bottle along—we might want a swig of it before we get there.
Tess took the water color from the wall and left a twenty dollar bill on the desk.
Better take it with you, warned MacGregor. No telling who may break in while we're gone.
After we had gone a block or so it occurred to me s that I ought to have left a note for Mara on the doorbell. Oh, fuck that idea! said MacGregor. Give her something to worry about—they like that. Eh Toots? and again he poked his wife in the ribs.
If you poke me again like that, said she, I'll wrap this bottle around your neck. I mean it too.
She means it. he said, glancing back at us with a bright nickel-plated sort of smile. You can't prod her too much, can you Toots? Yep, she's got a good disposition—otherwise she'd never have stood me as long as she has, ain't that right, kid?
Oh, shut up! Look where you're driving. We don't want this car smashed up like the other one.
We don't? he yelled. Jesus, I like that. And who, may I ask, ran into the milk truck on the Hempstead Turnpike in broad daylight?
Oh, forget it!
They kept it up like that until way past Jamaica. Suddenly he quit pestering and nagging her and, looking though the mirror, he began talking to us about his conception of art and life. It was all right, he thought, to go in for that sort of thing—meaning pictures and all that humbug—provided one had the talent for it. A good artist was worth his money, that was his opinion. The proof was that he got it, if you noticed. Anybody who was any good always got recognition, that's what he wanted to say. Wasn't that so? Ulric said he thought so too. Not always, of course, but generally speaking. Of course, there were fellows like Gauguin, MacGregor went on, and Christ knows they were good artists, but then there was some strange quirk in them, something antisocial, if you wanted to call it that, which prevented them from being recognized immediately. You couldn't blame the public for that, could you? Some people were born unlucky, that's how he saw it. Now take himself, for instance. He wasn't an artist, to be sure, but then he wasn't a dud either. In his way he was as good as the next fellow, maybe just a little bit better. And yet, just to prove how uncertain everything could be, nothing he had put his hand to had turned out right. Sometimes a little shyster had gotten the better of him. And why? Because he, MacGregor, wouldn't stoop to doing certain things. There are things you just don't do, he insisted. No sir! and he banged the wheel emphatically. But that's the way they play the game, and they get away with it too. But not forever! Ah no!
Now you take Maxfield Parrish, he continued. I suppose he doesn't count, but just the same he gives ‘em what they want. While a guy like Gauguin has to struggle for a crust of bread—and even when he's dead they spit in his eye. It's a queer game, art. I suppose it's like everything else—you do it because you like it, that's about the size of it, what? Now you take that bastard sitting alongside of you—yeah you! he said, grinning at me through the mirror—he thinks we ought to support him, nurse him along until he writes his masterpiece. He never thinks that he might look for a job meanwhile. Oh no, he wouldn't soil his lily-white hands that way. He's an artist. Well, maybe he is, for all I know. But he's got to prove it first, am I right? Did anybody support me because I thought I was a lawyer? It's all right to have dreams—we all like to dream—but somebody has to pay the rent.
We had just passed a duck farm. Now that's what I'd like, said MacGregor. I'd like nothing better than to settle down and raise ducks. Why don't I? Because I've got sense enough to know that I don't know anything about ducks. You can't just dream them up—you've got to raise them! Now Henry there, if he took it into his head to raise ducks, he'd just move out here and dream about it. First he'd ask me to lend him some mone
y, of course. He's got that much sense, I must admit. He knows that you have to
buy them before you can raise them. So, when he wants something, say a duck now, he just blandly says ‘Give me some money, I want to buy a duck!’ Now that's what I call impractical. That's dreaming.... How did I get my money? Did I pick it off a bush? When I tell him to get out and hustle for it he gets sore. He thinks I'm against him. Is that right—or am I slandering you? and he gave me another nickel-plated grin through the mirror. It's O.K., I said. Don't take it to heart. Take it to heart? Do you hear that? Jesus, if you think I lay awake nights worrying about you, you're sadly mistaken. I'm trying to set you right, that's all. I'm trying to put a little sense into your thick head. Of course I know you don't want to raise ducks, but you must admit you do get some crazy notions now and then. Jesus, I hope you don't forget the time you tried to sell me a Jewish Encyclopaedia. Imagine, he wanted me to sign for a set so that he could get his commission, and then I was to return it after a while—just like that. I was to give them some cock-and-bull story which he had trumped up on the spur of the moment. That's the sort of genius he has for business. And me a lawyer! Can you see me signing my name to a phoney proposition like that? No, by Jesus, I'd have more respect for him if he had told me he wanted to raise ducks. I can understand a guy wanting to raise ducks. But to try and palm off a Jewish Encyclopaedia on your best friend—that's raw, to say nothing of it being illegal and untenable. That's another thing—he thinks the law is all rot. I don't believe in it,’ he says, as if his believing or not believing made any difference. And as soon as he's in trouble he comes hot-footing it to me. ‘Do something,’ he says, ‘you know how to handle these things.’ It's just a game to him. He could live without law, so he thinks, but I'll be damned if he isn't in trouble all the time. And of course, as to paying me for my trouble, or just for the time I put in on him, that never enters his bean. I should do those little things for him out of friendship. You see what I mean?