Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1

by Christopher Isherwood

  September 26. This morning, Swami and George went for a walk in the grounds after breakfast. They got talking about the seventeen acres which lie above our property, higher up the hill. George asked, “How much would they cost?” and Swami answered, “About seven thousand.” George said, “They’re ours.” At first, Swami didn’t understand. “And then,” (he was telling me the story), “George bowed down in the bushes and gave me a check. I said to him, ‘George, how can you afford this?’ And he answered me, ‘It’s the money I use to gamble with.’”

  In other words, George staged this whole little drama, and wrote out the check in advance. He really is the strangest character.

  Bekins arrived with Vernon’s things. He still has an immense accumulation of books, pictures, etc., which he drags around with him. All part of his frustrated instinct for homemaking.

  A class in the afternoon. Vernon was depressed. He complains that Amiya fusses around him too much, and that nobody here speaks his language. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to stick it out. Some friends have offered him a dog, but Swami doesn’t want him to have it, because then Sister wouldn’t be able to bring Dhruva, who fights everything on four legs. “If I had a dog,” said Vernon, “I’d feel less lonely.” This hurt me, of course. I can’t give him as much as he gives me. Or maybe I can, but he isn’t prepared to admit it. I asked him if he wanted to leave and he said coldly that he felt an “obligation” towards me. That word stung me more than anything. I feel as if all our troubles are starting, just as they started before.

  However, tonight, Swami said he could have the dog; and Vernon brightened.

  September 27. A fairly good day. Did four pages of my story, a reasonable amount of japam, and worked in the garden most of the afternoon. Swami, George and Sarada left this morning, and now we three are on our own.

  There is somehow a cloud between me and Vernon—so faint that I can’t define it. He isn’t exactly sulking, but he avoids talking to me, and we aren’t gay. Today, I heard him working in the toolshed, so I looked in to see what he was doing. As I opened the door, he turned quickly and said in a cold, angry voice, “What do you want?” I was simply staggered by his hostility—all the more so because it was obviously involuntary. He recovered himself almost at once, and I pretended not to notice, and left, after asking him some question about the gardening. But it was a shock. Part of him actually hates me, I believe. Because I’m identified with the Vedanta Society, and the minority in him is already rebelling against it. Well, I ought to be able to understand his reactions, if anyone does. No good feeling sorry for myself. Be clinical.

  October 1. Yesterday morning, Vernon summoned me into his studio after breakfast and reproved me because, at breakfast, in Amiya’s presence, I’d talked about the kittens we used to have at the Harratt Street house. Any reference to our previous life together embarrasses and annoys him—I suppose because it makes him feel guilty. I must be patient. He hasn’t much humor, and he’s a prig; but that’s largely his age. I’m slowly learning how to treat him, good-humored but tough.

  October 6. Vernon is away in Los Angeles, seeing the dentist, and I’m alone here with Amiya. I hadn’t realized how fond of her I am. Old Mr. Kellog, with his shock of white hair, fussy and spry, keeps descending on us, and puttering around the place, suggesting this and that. Amiya is always sparring with him. Like all former owners, he still feels that the place partly belongs to him, and reserves the right to arrive without warning. He likes to meditate in the little shrine he built in the garden: it is really in charming taste, except for some dreadful stained glass. His sulky, youngish wife disapproves of these excursions, saying that they’re a strain on his health; he has a bad heart. Actually, she disapproves of the Vedanta Society and Kellog’s financial interest in it. She grudges the gift of Ananda Bhavan, although they’ve a huge house down in Montecito and an enormous income. She’s an unhappy, discontented woman. Amiya says she married the old man for his money, thinking he’d die soon; but he has lived ten years since then, and even run after other women (once they were nearly divorced) and she has to look after him and study his whims. You can’t help feeling sorry for her; it’s such a mess. And they’re both nice people, taken separately.

  It’s so beautiful here. So calm and still. The grounds are three quarters wild, with thick jungly undergrowth, and a creek, and huge rocks which you can climb on to and look out over the valley. At night we hear the howling of the coyotes, and the quick, uncanny trotting of the deer; the deer come right down through the garden, nibbling everything which isn’t fenced in. It is cold, and we build huge log fires on the open hearth, and sit talking about England, and Vedanta, and the members of the family. It is very snug.

  The other evening, toward sunset, a great white floe of cloud far out on the water made a false horizon, above which the ridges of the islands rose, as if surrounded by pack ice in an Arctic sea.

  October 10. Swami is up here again, with Yogi and Yogini. Today he gave a class, and Krishnamurti came, with Iris Tree. He and Swami had never met before. (Swami has always been a bit prejudiced against him, on account of Mrs. Besant’s activities in India. He was terribly shocked when Mrs. Besant declared that he [Krishnamurti] was an avatar. Also, Mrs. Besant used to annoy Brahmananda and try to involve him in the Theosophical movement, and Swami had standing orders not to admit her to the monastery when Brahmananda was there.) However, the meeting today was a huge success. Krishnamurti sat quietly and modestly at the back of the class; and when Swami was through he came over and they greeted each other with the deepest respect, bowing again and again with folded palms. And then they had a long chat, becoming very gay and Indian, and laughing like schoolboys. Some of Krishnamurti’s followers, who had sneaked in knowing he was coming (we didn’t), stood eyeing us a bit suspiciously. But within fifteen minutes we had begun to fraternize. So one more little bridge was built.

  Vernon is back here, with his dog, a very sweet-natured Airedale bitch. We are all fond of her, and Vernon’s mood is better, in consequence.

  October 12. Down to the beach to swim, with Yogi and Yogini. Afterward, I got into the car to put on my clothes. Just as I’d taken off my trunks and was stark naked, an old lady popped her head in through the window and asked when the next bus left for Ventura. I was embarrassed, but she wasn’t in the least; she seemed in no hurry to go away, and we had quite a long conversation, about the weather and the war, at the end of which she thanked me very politely.

  October 19. Well, there’s good and bad to report. A swollen gland in my throat, due to the poison from my bad teeth, which will have to come out next week. And a general failure in discipline, a relapse into pessimism, due to the Vernon situation, which gets no better. He continues to sulk and snap at me, and generally make it clear that he’d rather not have me around. I really think he is a little mad. It’s like banging up against a brick wall. The other, charming, intelligent, cooperative personality which he showed me when he first arrived here in August has vanished without a trace. He is just like he was when things were at their worst in 1940.

  But blaming him won’t help. With or without him, I have to go on trying to live this life. The problem is to win over the minority opposition inside this yelling parliament of myself. The minority—or at least the greater part of it, because there will always be a few die-hards—has to be made to understand that this life is in their best interests. Violence is no use. No use trying to dissolve parliament altogether and rule by dictatorship. The mere brutal will is useless, because it is never strong enough for the job. In the long run, there has to be control through discrimination, there has to be assent. The minority always tries to avoid debate. It uses shock tactics, snap votes, demonstrations, filibusters.

  The good thing is that, last Sunday the 15th, I finished the revised draft of Prater Violet. Also I’ve written ten pages of an introduction to our book of selections from the magazine, Vedanta for the Western World.

  November 7. I returned to Ananda Bha
van yesterday, after a week in Los Angeles, staying with Peggy. The visit wasn’t a success. I had a tooth pulled, and ran one of my fevers afterward, and retired to bed at Alto Cedro, stupidly not realizing that the old days are over and that Peggy, under Bill’s influence, has become as spartan as he is. One day, while I was still feeling lousy, she made a remark which showed me only too plainly that I wasn’t welcome. She was horrified, later; but there wasn’t any way we could unsay what had been said, and we were both embarrassed as we said goodbye. Henceforward, their house will be a place to which I am careful not to come too often, a place where I mustn’t presume on my status as a guest. That’s all right, if it’s the way Peggy wants it. After all, she’s married now, properly married, and her family is all that matters to her. She’s got Bill. Artificial uncles are no longer needed.

  November 11. Heavy rain. Have just been down to the mailbox. Nothing. Have tried to get on with the Vedanta introduction. Can’t.

  Next week, I plan to visit Chris Wood. I want to get away from here. The Vernon experiment has failed. Never mind whose fault that is—to be perfectly honest, I think it’s nearly one hundred percent his—that isn’t the point. The point is that I must stop expecting the very least help or support from him in the future, and probably I’d better see as little of him as possible. He’s in the hell of a mess, but I’m not the one to help him. My motives aren’t sufficiently disinterested.

  Needless to say, I’m not feeling too bright. Props are being kicked away from under me, right and left. I can’t live here, because of Vernon. I don’t want to live at Ivar Avenue because of Sudhira, who is beginning to suffocate me as I seem to suffocate him. I feel that I never want to stay at Peggy’s again. Denny nowadays is so distracted that I couldn’t have any sort of relationship with him. Chris I am very fond of, but certainly not to lean on. The same with the Huxleys. The same with the Beesleys.

  Well, it’s no good groaning. Let me try a new approach. Not so much on the negative side. Never mind the don’ts. Think of the Reality. Make japam. Try to get on with your work. Rely on nobody.

  November 16. The sun is just going down into a sheeted calm of peacock blue and gold, with the islands all outlined in blue-black contours against a pure sky like a Japanese print. Tomorrow I leave for Laguna. Sad, because of the failure with Vernon. The bitterest part of it is that, if I’m not allowed to love him as a little brother, I find that, as an acquaintance, a casual house-companion, I rather dislike him. And yet I feel sorry and protective and hate to see him making things so hard for himself. I’m sure it’s good for him to be here. He’s painting quite a lot, and meditating (which is more than I am) and this place with its quietness and beauty is what he needs. The sun has touched the horizon. The land has grown suddenly very dark and densely wooded and still. Great winding trails of golden light on the water. Goodbye. Nothing now but the red horizon-glow. It’s turning chilly. I must go in.

  November 25. Am writing this in the downstair bedroom at Rockledge Road, waiting for Chris to come down and say it’s time to go swimming. The weather has been glorious all this week.

  Gerald was here when I arrived, on the 17th. He went back to Trabuco three days later. He seemed depressed. Peggy had already told me that Felix Greene has announced that he’s getting married, to a girl who lives up there; and that Gerald is terribly upset about it. But this wasn’t referred to. Also, there’s a coolness with the Hunters, because Gerald’s Gamaliel novel is so anti-Christian, from their point of view. Also, there’s the situation here: Gerald’s attitude to Chris doesn’t seem to have changed in the least. He is still possessively affectionate, still dreadfully jealous of Paul. And Chris, rather naively, still says why can’t they all three live together, the way they used to? There is a great deal of obstinacy on both sides.

  I expect to go back to Ivar Avenue next Monday or Tuesday, to stay for some while. I’ve got to try and get a movie job. I need money badly. Yesterday I finished the final polishing of Prater Violet.

  There is no sense in running away from Ivar Avenue at present. I’ve got to make up my mind to that. I’ve got to learn to live with the family without becoming involved in it. Avoid gossip. Avoid participation in their feuds. Concentrate on what is essential—contact with the Swami and prayer. The time will come for me to leave. Wait for it. Keep on working. Associate with people you can really help in some way, and not with those whose curiosity is always offering you a basin for your tears. Best leave Vernon alone altogether. You don’t really understand him. You are terribly resentful towards him, underneath. You still want to make him submit to your will, and confess that he has wronged you. Maybe you are “in the right.” So what?

  Now that Paul is in New York, Chris leads an entirely solitary life, with Tiny, the dachshund. He goes for walks, plays Chopin, listens to his favorite radio programs—“Gang Busters,” “Suspense,” “Henry Aldrich.” It’s really a marvel that he hasn’t become more set in his ways, more eccentric than he is. But then, Chris is a marvel. In many respects, he’s extraordinarily wise.

  From Vivekananda’s letters: “I am glad I was born, glad I suffered so, glad I did make big blunders, glad to enter peace. … Behind my work was ambition, behind my love was personality, behind my purity was fear, behind my guidance the thirst of power. Now they are vanishing and I drift. …”201

  November 30. Back at Ivar Avenue since Tuesday. The possible job with Wolfgang Reinhardt at Warner’s has fallen through, and though I hated the story I’d have liked to work with Wolfgang, and I need money badly. Meanwhile, Edna Schley has had a cerebral hemorrhage. I talked to her on the phone before I knew this, and thought she must be drunk: she spoke fairly logically but kept wandering and changing the subject. Later, Dan called me and told me about it. He is terribly upset. After the attack, she was quite blind for a while, and completely crazy. Now she’s better and the doctor is hopeful. Dan said he hoped she’d “pass on” if she didn’t get better. It was terribly painful, talking to him, because he kept bursting into tears. He adores her, and she’s all he has in the world to care for.

  (Edna never did get better, and now it’s obvious that she never will. For two years, she has been in hospital, blind, half-crazy, full of horrible nightmares and fears. And Dan has spent everything, every cent he can borrow or scrape together, to keep her alive. His misery is so dreadful that Johnny [van Druten] and I avoid it, as people avoided Oedipus. There is nothing to be done, except to give him about fifty thousand dollars, which we can’t afford: and even this would only be a palliative. In the old days, a simple country doctor would have had the courage and charity to give Edna an overdose of morphia. But that’s “murder.” So modern medical science, with fiendish ingenuity, continues to keep her a quarter alive, and pockets seven hundred dollars a week for doing it.)

  Swami asked me how I was feeling, and I told him a little, not much, about Vernon. This evening, in the shrine, I saw the various alternatives so clearly that it frightened me. Can I possibly face continuing to live here indefinitely? Can I grow old messily, like poor Uncle Henry? The X. situation is beginning again. An awful lot of my guilt about this is simply fear of appearances. Suppose somebody found out? I know quite well that I shouldn’t feel guilty if I were not living at Ivar Avenue. That being true, my guilt is worthless. … Swami says what I’ve written so often in this diary—that the only refuge is in God. What a terrible thought that is! Shall I ever get it properly through my head, before it’s too late?

  December 3. Down to Santa Monica to see Denny. He was very sweet and sympathetic. He suggested, as so often before, that I should come and live with him here, or that we should go East together and he’d study at Columbia. But I can’t. I can’t walk out on Swami right now. And something warns me against living with Denny, at present: he’s so unsettled himself.

  Swami was still up, sitting by the fire, when I got home. “You will live long,” he told me—and explained that he had been thinking about me just as I came in. Suddenly, I felt such peace.
There he sits, while I roam around. After all, there is really no problem, no difficulty. Why do I tie myself into all these knots?

  December 10. On December 5, I had supper with Clifford Odets202 and his wife. The Chaplins were there. Charlie is getting to be a regular opinionated elderly club-bore Englishman. He talked about the war, bullfighting, politics, and everything he said was silly—until he began to act it out: his gestures are so much more intelligent than his conversation. He was very funny, describing his new Bluebeard picture, and taking off his jacket to show us how to make passes at a bull. His wife Oona, who looks about sixteen, scarcely spoke, but I had the impression that she has the marriage well in hand. “Eat your soup,” she told Charlie, in the midst of one of his performances. Odets is rather a bore, I’m afraid. He made an extraordinarily stupid, Hollywoodish speech about Shakespeare’s “virility.” But he was very friendly and pleasant.

  Vernon is here this weekend, very polite and agreeable, like an acquaintance. When I think of our first weeks together, last summer, I want to pinch myself. Can this really be the same person? In a way, I no longer care. And yet I do, because I feel so damned sorry for him. Something is fatally wrong, somewhere. He’s fed up with Santa Barbara, particularly Amiya’s ill-natured gossip, and talks of leaving. But don’t we all?

  December 16. Just back from the beach. Denny found a seagull with a broken wing, and amputated it, which was quite a sensible thing to do and made the bird more comfortable, but didn’t solve its problem. I followed it up the beach and saw how it couldn’t fly or swim and would almost certainly starve: so I killed it. This made me feel horrible all day. I asked Swami, did I do right? And he said no: one shouldn’t interfere in the karma of any creature. This doesn’t convince me, however. What else could I have done? Taken the seagull home, I suppose, and made a pet of it. But this wasn’t practical; especially with Dhruva around.