by Henry Miller
Nobody said anything.
We drove along in silence for a while. We passed more duck farms. I asked myself how long it would take to go crazy if one bought a duck and settled down on Long Island with it. Walt Whitman was born here somewhere. I no sooner thought of his name than, like buying the duck, I wanted to visit his birthplace.
What about visiting Walt Whitman's birthplace? I said aloud.
What? yelled MacGregor.
Walt Whitman! I yelled. He was born somewhere on Long Island. Let's go there.
Do you know where? shouted MacGregor.
No, but we could ask some one.
Oh, the hell with that! I thought you knew where. These people out here wouldn't know who Walt Whitman was. I wouldn't have known myself only you talk about him so goddamn much. He was a bit queer, wasn't he? Didn't you tell me he was in love with a bus driver? Or was he a nigger lover? I can't remember any more.
Maybe it was both, said Ulric, uncorking the bottle.
We were passing through a town. Jesus, but I seem to know this place! said MacGregor. Where in hell are we? He pulled up to the curb and hailed a pedestrian. Hey, what's the name of this burg? The man told him. Can you beat that? he said. I thought I recognized the dump. Jesus, what a beautiful dose of clap I got here once! I wonder if I could find the house. I'd just like to drive by and see if that cute little bitch is sitting on the verandah. God, the prettiest little trick you ever laid eyes on—a little angel, you'd say. And could she fuck! One of those excitable little bitches, always in heat—you know, always throwing it up to you, rubbing it in your face. I drove out here in a pouring rain to keep a date with her. Everything just fine. Her husband was away on a trip and she was just itching for a piece of tail.... I'm trying to think now where I picked her up. I know this, that I had a hell of a time persuading her to let me visit her. Well, anyway, I had a wonderful time—never got out of bed for two days. Never got up to wash even—that was the trouble. Jesus, I swear if you saw that face alongside of you on the pillow you'd think you were getting the Virgin Mary. She could come about nine times without stopping. And then she'd say—'Do it again, once more ... I feel depraved’ That was a funny one, eh? I don't think she knew what the word meant. Anyway, a few days later it began to itch and then it got red and swollen. I couldn't believe I was getting the clap. I thought maybe a flea had bitten me. Then the pus began to run. Boy, fleas don't make pus. Well, I went round to the family doctor. That's a beauty,’ he said, where did you get it?’ I told him. ‘Better have a blood test,’ he said, ‘it might be syphilis.'
That's enough of that, groaned Tess. Can't you talk about something pleasant for a change?
Well, says MacGregor, in answer to that, you've got to admit I've been pretty clean since I know you, right?'
You better had, she answered, or it wouldn't be healthy for you.
She's always afraid I'm going to bring her a present, said MacGregor, grinning through the mirror again. Listen Toots, everybody gets a dose some time or other. You can be thankful I got it before I met you—isn't that right, Ulric?
Oh yeah? snapped Tess. Another long wrangle might have ensued had we not come to a hamlet which MacGregor thought would be a good stopping place. He had an idea he would like to go crabbing. Besides, there was a road house nearby which served good food, if he remembered rightly. He bundled us all out. Want to take a leak? Come on! We left Tess standing at the roadside like a torn umbrella and went indoors to empty our bladders. He got us both by the arm. Confidentially, he said, we ought to stick around here for the evening. There's a fast crowd comes here; if you'd like to dance and have a drink or two, why this is the place. I won't tell her we're staying just yet—might get the wind up. We'll go down to the beach first and loll around. When you get hungry just say so and then I'll suddenly remember the road house—get me?
We strolled down to the beach. It was almost deserted. MacGregor bought a pocketful of cigars, lit one, took off his shoes and socks and waded around in the water smoking a fat cigar. It's great, isn't it? he said. You've got to be a kid once in a while. He made his wife take her shoes and stockings off. She waddled into the water like a hairy duck Ulric sprawled out on the sand and took a nap. I lay there watching MacGregor and his wife at their clumsy antics. I wondered if Mara had arrived and what she would think when she found I was not there. I wanted to get back as quick as possible. I didn't give a fuck about the road house and the fast ponies who came there to dance. I had a feeling that she was back, that she was sitting on Ulric's doorstep waiting for me. I wanted to get married again, that's what I wanted. What had ever induced me to come out here to this God-forsaken place? I hated Long Island, always had. MacGregor and his ducks! The thought of it drove me mad. If I were to own a duck I would call it MacGregor, tie it to a lamp post and shoot it with a 48 calibre revolver. I'd shoot it until it was dead and then pole-axe it. His ducks! Fuck a duck! I said to myself. Fuck everything!
We went to the roadhouse just the same. If I had thought to demur I forgot it. I had reached a state of indifference born of despair. I let myself drift with the current. And, as always happens when you relent and allow yourself to be borne along by the clashing wills of others, something occurred which we didn't bargain for.
We had finished eating and we were having a third or fourth drink; the place was cosily filled, everybody was in a good mood. Suddenly, at a table nearby, a young man rose to his feet with a glass in hand and addressed the house. He wasn't drunk, he was just in a pleasant state of euphoria, as Dr. Kronski would put it. He was explaining quietly and easily that he had taken the liberty of calling attention to himself and his wife, to whom he raised his glass, because it was the first anniversary of their wedding, and because they felt so good about it that they wanted everybody to know it and to share their happiness. He said he didn't want to bore us by making a speech, that he had never made a speech in his life, and that he wasn't trying to make a speech now, but he just had to let everybody know how good he felt and how good his wife felt, that maybe he'd never feel this way again all his life. He said he was just a nobody, that he worked for a living and didn't make much money (nobody did any more), but he knew one thing and that was that he was happy, and he was happy because he had found the woman he loved, and he still loved her just as much as ever, though they were now married a whole year. (He smiled.) He said he wasn't ashamed to admit it before the whole world. He said he couldn't help telling us all about it, even if it bored us, because when you're very happy you want others to share you happiness. He said he thought it wonderful that there could be such happiness when there were so many things wrong with the world, but that perhaps there would be more happiness if people confessed their happiness to one another instead of waiting to confide in one another only when they were sorrowful and sad. He said he wanted to see everybody looking happy, that even if we were all strangers one to another, we were united this evening with him and his wife and if we would share their great joy with them it would make them still happier.
He was so completely carried away by this idea that everybody should participate in their joy that he went on talking for twenty minutes or more, roaming from one thing to another like a man sitting at the piano and improvising. He hadn't a doubt in the world that we were all his friends, that we would listen to him in peace until he had had his say. Nothing he said sounded ridiculous, however sentimental his words may have been. He was utterly sincere, utterly genuine, and utterly possessed by the realization that to be happy is the greatest boon on earth. It wasn't courage which had made him get up and address us, for obviously the thought of getting to his feet and delivering a long extemporaneous speech was as much of a surprise to him as it was to us. He was for the moment, and without knowing it, of course, on the way to becoming an Evangelist, that curious phenomenon of American life which has never been adequately explained. The men who have been touched by a vision, by an unknown voice, by an irresistible inner prompting—and there have been thousands upon t
housands of them in our country—what must have been the sense of isolation in which they dwelled, and for how long, to suddenly rise up, as if out of a deep trance, and create for themselves a new identity, a new image of the world, a new God, a new heaven? We are accustomed to think of ourselves as a great democratic body, linked by common ties of blood and language, united indissolubly by all the modes of communication which the ingenuity of man can possibly devise; we wear the same clothes, eat the same diet, read the same newspapers, alike in everything but name, weight and number; we are the most collectivized people in the world, barring certain primitive peoples whom we consider backward in their development. And yet—yet despite all the outward evidences of being close-knit, inter-related, neighborly, good-humored, helpful, sympathetic, almost brotherly, we are a lonely people, a morbid, crazed herd thrashing about in zealous frenzy, trying to forget that we are not what we think we are, not really united, not really devoted to one another, not really listening, not really anything, just digits shuffled about by some unseen hand in a calculation which doesn't concern us. Suddenly now and then some one comes awake, comes undone, as it were, from the meaningless glue in which we are stuck—the rigmarole which we call the everyday life and which is not life but a trance-like suspension above the great stream of life—and this person who, because he no longer subscribes to the general pattern seems to us quite mad, finds himself invested with strange and almost terrifying powers, finds that he can wean countless thousands from the fold, cut them loose from their moorings, stand them on their heads, fill them with joy, or madness, make them forsake, their own kith and kin, renounce their calling, change their character, their physiognomy, their very soul. And what is the nature of this overpowering seduction, this madness, this temporary derangement, as we love to call it? What else if not the hope of finding joy and peace? Every Evangelist uses a different language but they are all talking about the same thing. (To stop seeking, to stop struggling, to stop climbing on top of one another, to stop thrashing about in the pursuit of vain and vacillating goals.) In the twinkle of an eye it comes, the great secret which arrests the outer motion, which tranquilizes the spirit, which equilibrates, which brings serenity and ‘poise, and illumines the visage with a steady, quiet flame that never dies. In their efforts to communicate the secret they become a nuisance to us, true. We shun them because we feel that they look upon us condescendingly; we can't bear to think that we are not the equal of any one, however superior he may seem to be. But we are not equals; we are mostly inferior, vastly inferior, inferior particularly to those who are quiet and contained, who are simple in their ways, and unshakeable in their beliefs. We resent what is steady and anchored, what is impervious to our blandishments, our logic, our collectivized cud of principles, our antiquated forms of allegiance.
A little more happiness, I thought to myself as I listened to him, and he'd become what is called a dangerous man. Dangerous, because to be permanently happy would be to set the world on fire. To make the world laugh is one thing; to make it happy is quite another. Nobody has ever succeeded in doing it. The great figures, those who have influenced the world for good or evil, have always been tragic figures. Even St. Francis of Assisi was a tormented being. And the Buddha, with his obsession to eliminate suffering, well he was not precisely a happy man. He was beyond that, if you like: he was serene, and when he died, so it is related, his whole body glowed as if the very marrow were afire.
And yet, as an experiment, as a preliminary (if you like) to that more wondrous state to which the holy men attain, it seems to me that it would be worth the attempt to make the whole world happy. I know that the very word (happiness) has come to have an odious ring, in America particularly; it sounds witless and shitless; it has an empty ring; it is the ideal of the weak and the infirm. It is a word borrowed from the Anglo-Saxons, and distorted by us into something altogether senseless. One is ashamed to use it seriously. But there is no good reason why it should be thus. Happiness is as legitimate as sorrow, and everybody, except those emancipated souls who in their wisdom have found something better, or bigger, desires to be happy and would, if he could (if he only knew how!), sacrifice everything to attain it.
I liked the young man's speech, inane as it might appear on close scrutiny. Everybody liked it. Everybody liked him and his wife. Everybody felt better, more communicative, more relaxed, more liberated. It was as if he had given us all a shot in the arm. People spoke to one another across the tables, or got up and shook hands, or clapped one another on the back. Yes, if you happened to be a very serious person, concerned with the fate of the world, dedicated to some high purpose (such as improving the conditions of the working classes or lowering the rate of illiteracy among the native born), perhaps this little incident would seem to have assumed a thoroughly exaggerated importance. An open, universal display of unfeigned happiness gives some people an uncomfortable feeling; there are some people who prefer to be happy privately, who consider a public demonstration of their joy immodest or slightly obscene. Or perhaps they are simply so locked up in themselves that they can't understand communion or communication. At any rate, there were no such tender souls among us; it was an average crowd made up of ordinary people, ordinary people who owned cars, that is to say. Some of them were downright rich and some were not so rich, but none of them were starving, none of them were epileptic, none of them were Mohammedan or Negroid or just plain white trash. They were ordinary, in the ordinary sense of the word. They were like millions of other American people, that is to say, without distinction, without airs, without any great purpose. Suddenly, when he had finished, they seemed to realize that they were all just like one another, no better no worse, and throwing off the petty restraints which kept them segregated in little groups, they rose indistinctively and began mingling with one another. Soon the drinks began to flow and they were singing, and then they began to dance, and they danced differently than they would have before; some got up and danced who hadn't shaken a leg for years, some danced with their own wives; some danced alone, giddy, intoxicated with their own grace and freedom; some sang as they danced; some just beamed good-naturedly at every one whose glance they happened to encounter. It was astonishing what an effect a simple, open declaration of joy could bring about. His words were nothing in themselves, just plain ordinary words which any one could summon at a moment's notice. MacGregor, always skeptical, always striving to detect the flaw, was of the opinion that he was really a very clever young fellow, perhaps a theatrical figure, and that he had been deliberately simple, deliberately naif, in order to create an effect. Still, he couldn't deny that the speech had put him in a good mood. He simply wanted to let us know that he wasn't being taken in so easily. It made him feel better, so he pretended, to know that he hadn't been duped, even if he had enjoyed the performance thoroughly. I felt sorry for him if what he said were true. Nobody can feel better than the man who is completely taken in. To be intelligent may be a boon, but to be completely trusting, gullible to the point of idiocy, to surrender without reservation, is one of the supreme joys of life.
Well, we all felt so good that we decided to go back to town and not stay overnight as we had planned. We sang at the top of our lungs all the way in. Even Tess sang, off-key it's true, but lustily and without restraint. MacGregor had never heard her sing before; she had always been like a reindeer, as far as the vocal apparatus was concerned. Her speech was limited, restricted to coarse grunts, punctuated by groans of approval or disapproval. I had the queer presentiment that, in the throes of this extraordinary expansiveness, she might take it into her head to burst out singing (later on) instead of making the usual request for a glass of water or an apple or a ham sandwich. I could visualize the expression on MacGregor's face, were she to absent-mindedly pull off a stunt like that. His look would register incredible amazement (What next, b'Jesus? but at the same time it would suggest—Go on, keep it up, try a falsetto for a change! He liked people to do unheard of things. He liked to be able to think
that there were certain vile, almost incredible things people could do that he had never imagined. He liked to think that there was nothing too vile, too scabrous, too ignominious for the human being to perpetrate on or against his fellow-man.
He boasted of having an open mind, a mind receptive to any alleged form of stupidity, cruelty, treachery or perversity. He went on the assumption that every one was at heart a mean, callous, selfish, bastardly son of a bitch, a fact which was proven by the miraculously limited number of cases which came to public attention through the law-courts. If every one could be spied on, trailed, hounded, surveilled, cross-examined, nailed down, forced to confess, why in his honest opinion, we would all be in jail. And the most notorious offenders, to take his word for it, were the judges, the ministers of state, the public wardens, the members of the clergy, the educators, the charitable workers. As for his own profession, he had met one or two in his life who were scrupulously honest, whose word could be depended on; the rest, which included practically the whole profession, were lower than the lowest criminals, the scum of the earth, the shittiest dregs of humanity that ever stood on two legs. No, he wasn't being taken in by any horse shit these birds handed out for general consumption. He didn't know why he was honest and truthful himself; it certainly didn't pay. He was just made that way, he guessed. Besides, he had other foibles, and here he would add up all the faults which he had, or admitted he had, or imagined he had, and a formidable list it made, so that when he had finished one was tempted to ask why he bothered to retain the other two virtues of truthfulness and honesty. So you're still thinking about her? he popped suddenly, turning his head slightly and twisting the words out of the corner of his mouth. Well, I feel sorry for you. I suppose nothing will do but to marry her. You certainly are a glutton for punishment. And what will you live on—have you thought of that? You know you're not going to keep this job very much longer—they must be wise to you by this time. It's a wonder to me they didn't fire you long ago. It certainly is a record for you—how long is it now, three years? I can remember when three days was a long time. Of course if she's the right kind of girl you won't have to worry about keeping a job—she'll keep you. That would be ideal, wouldn't it? Then you could write those masterpieces you're always promising us. I think, by Jesus, that's why you're so eager to get rid of your wife: she's on to you, she keeps your nose to the grind-stone. God, how it must gripe you to get up every morning and go to work! How do you do it, will you tell me? You used to be too damned lazy to get up for a meal.. Listen, Ulric, I've seen that bastard stay in bed for three days hand-running. Nothing the matter with him—just couldn't bear the thought of facing the world. Love sick, sometimes. Or just suicidal. That's something he used to like—to threaten us with suicide. (He looked at me through the mirror.) You forget those days, don't you? Now he wants to live ... I don't know why ... nothing's changed ... everything's just as lousy as ever. Now he talks of giving something to the world—a masterpiece, no less. He couldn't just give us an ordinary book that would sell. Oh no, not him! It's got to be unique, something unheard of. Well, I'm waiting. I don't say you won't do it, and I don't say you will. I'm just waiting. Meanwhile the rest of us have to go on making a living. We can't take a lifetime trying to turn out a masterpiece. (He paused for breath.) You know, sometimes I feel as though I'd like to turn out a book myself—just to prove to this guy that you don't have to make a monkey of yourself to do a trick like that. I think if I wanted to I could do a book in six months—on the side, without neglecting my practice. I don't say that it would be a prize-winner. I never boasted of being an artist. What gets me about this bird is that he's so damned sure he's an artist. He's certain that he's infinitely superior to a Hergesheimer, let's say, or a Dreiser—and yet he hasn't a damned thing to show for it. He wants us to take: it on faith. He gets ruffled if you ask him to show you something tangible like a manuscript. Can you picture me trying to impress a judge with the fact that I'm a capable lawyer without having even taken a degree? I know that you can't wave a diploma in front of some one's eyes to prove that you're a writer, but just the same you could wave a manuscript, couldn't you? He says lie's written several books already—well then, where are they? Has anybody ever seen them?