Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1

by Christopher Isherwood

  Eddie Knopf is taking French lessons. He looked very sick, I thought. His eyes are grey.

  Heinz has written, suggesting that I sponsor the immigration of Gerda, Christian and himself to the States, and that we shall then all live together in a house that I’m to buy. He offers, of course, to pay all this money back by degrees. And now I must answer his letter—explaining tactfully that this scheme is impossible; that is to say, I’d rather die than agree to it.

  May 16. It’s overpoweringly hot—has been for the past three days. I feel such exhaustion that I can hardly make myself write this—yet it’s the very last of my chores. I’ve done all the required Ramakrishna reading, more than my minimum stint at the novel, and the accursed Lehmann article which was sheer loveless grind, and done for no reason on earth except to appease the maddening neuroticism of Lehmann, and, incidentally, to pay for Don’s refusal to see more of him. I will not suffer for any more such causes. From now on, I’m going to avoid this kind of work like the plague.

  Otherwise, all is happiness. Tomorrow we plan to drive down to Ensenada to celebrate Don’s birthday.

  Brad Saunders was here—full of incredible tales of air force crack-ups. A pilot who put a dixie cup over the light signal which told him to put his wheels down—because the light annoyed him—and then forgot to lower his wheels!

  Marguerite is going to New York on vacation, until Clift has sufficiently recovered from his accident for them to go on making Raintree County.8

  Ben and Jo saw Tennessee’s new play in Miami, Sweet Bird of Youth.

  May 17. Woke up running a slight fever (sunstroke? beginning of hepatitis?). So am not sure if we’ll go down to Mexico or not. In any case, I must go and pick up my social security check first.

  John van Druten came to supper with us last night. He suddenly decided that he might possibly dramatize Mr. Norris—this because I told him Terry Rattigan had considered doing it. He was as pompous as ever, but most gracious.

  Marguerite Lamkin looked in with Paul Millard on her way to the airport for New York. She really has changed—she is so amazingly indiscreet, vulgar and tactless; much more like Speed, but without Speed’s wisdom.

  John is really as spoiled as a baby. The minute he set eyes on Marguerite, he pouted and sulked till she left. On his way home, he went into a drugstore and saw some German pastilles, of which the title had been translated as “violate pastilles.” He called to tell me this. Obviously it had never ever occurred to him that we might have gone to bed.

  The great heat has completely broken. It’s grey and cold.

  May 19. In bed all yesterday and part of the day before, with some kind of flu bug. I’m up today, but slightly shaky. So poor Don was disappointed of his Mexican trip. We may go next week.

  I think I was just awfully tired. I lay there in bed not stirring a muscle. It’s so good to do that.

  Johnnie wrote this morning to say he had decided not to adapt Mr. Norris. A small blow, but maybe he wouldn’t be right for it, anyhow. As he says himself, he would echo Sally Bowles.

  May 23. Dull weather, dull times. I’ve been sick on and off. Got up yesterday to have lunch with Jim Geller and David Brown of Fox. No immediate reaction. Brown talked about the poorness of the movie industry, the disappearance of theaters, TV bigger and better, with a slot-machine charge of twenty-five cents a night, no commercials, color, a three by three foot screen. Felt exhausted and returned to bed, where I finished Our Mutual Friend—very enjoyable but actually such a bunch of nonsense. And the happy ending starts halfway through volume two.

  Good things to report: I’ve kept up steadily with my quota of the Ramakrishna book. And with my novel, which is now at page thirty-eight.

  Relations with Don are pretty good, though he’s inevitably approaching a new crisis, as he has to decide about the future: shall he return to UCLA, go to an art school, or what?

  I can count on some money from the pocketbook edition of World and from the Frank Taylor short story anthology. Let’s say $3,500. That would bring us to about $6,000 altogether.

  Bad things: We actually have very poor prospects of making any more money than this, for the present.

  As far as I can learn from John Lehmann, Peter Watson is dead. But he gives no details. And to think Peter was one of the last people we saw in England! This isn’t very real to me yet. In fact, I don’t altogether believe it. Maybe melodramatic old John just means he has gone to prison or something.

  I keep this journal up with an effort, knowing that it’s good to do so. On the whole, this is a quiet but satisfactory time. At least I’m working—and, as far as the novel is concerned, with enjoyment and curiosity.

  May 24. Another grey morning. Woke with sinus headache and didn’t lose it until I took three aspirins after lunch and napped. The whole morning was wasted at social security, explaining to them that I earned some royalties this week from Camera in England, and therefore wasn’t eligible for a payment. A nice Dutchman named Cyfer handled my case.

  Geller called to say that CBS doesn’t want The Vacant Room for radio. Another hope dashed. The volume of Mistress Masham’s Repose has arrived. I can’t believe I shall want to do it. And yet I am loath to talk myself out of a job with Joshua Logan.

  Don worked all day sorting my photographs. Another slothful failure to get started on the pieces I must write for the short story anthology.

  May 28. It seems as if I cannot shake off this tiredness. It comes on in midafternoon, and I have to lie down and doze; I’m fit for nothing. And it’s particularly annoying right now, because there’s so much I want to do.

  We are snug in this house. It’s a nice nest, and a good place to work. I can’t say more than that. It doesn’t lift up my heart. I don’t feel that kind of wild romantic childhood joy that I used to feel on fine mornings in the house we rented out at Trancas.

  Otherwise, Don and I live harmoniously, quite disinclined to go out, even to the movies. Don is reading through the stories I want to use for the Frank Taylor anthology. I find his reactions very valuable. He has already made me decide to throw out Stevenson’s “Suicide Club.”

  Am also reading Mistress Masham’s Repose by T. H. White, which Joshua Logan wanted me to consider turning into a movie. I fear I shall have to say no. It is hideously coy. And yet I hate to turn down the money. And the worst of it is, Logan probably thinks this is a masterpiece and we shall clash seriously.

  May 30. Felt sick again last night and weary this morning, but always just able to do my stint for the day, which is something. So far, I have kept up with all my chores.

  Last night, Marguerite came to supper with Ivan Moffat. Marguerite was on her way to the airport for another trip to New York. Clift, it now seems, won’t be well till July. Everybody is on half-pay. The picture will cost fortunes. Marguerite, meanwhile, has a Long Island millionaire interested in her.

  Ivan tells us that Giant is a masterpiece, and he feels that this is all due to George Stevens9—no one else. James Dean’s selfishness as an actor; he did nothing whatever to help the girl.10 Meanwhile, old Edna Ferber is writing a novel about the Esquimos in Alaska.11

  What an interesting figure Ivan is! I feel I would like to know much more about him—what he really wants, what he hopes for. Is it to be a good writer? A good director? He seems to be avoiding marriage, and he repeatedly says that one of the great advantages of his house up on Adelaide is that you couldn’t possibly share it with anyone else.

  I think he is a prey to great terrors. Last night he talked about his horror of planes. Whenever he’s in them, he expects to be burned alive.

  The Duquettes’ birthday party and dance for Beegle on the 27th was a sensation. Marion Davies’ husband12 threatened to shoot down the chandelier while Agnes Moorhead was reciting. “It’ll be like Booth and Lincoln,” he said. Later at Pickfair,13 he somehow or other fired two shots, one of which grazed Mary Pickford’s forehead.

  Heard from Gerald Hamilton yesterday, confirming the news that Peter
Watson is dead. But still no details.

  June 4. Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. I came here last Friday, the 1st, after Dr. Sellars suddenly informed me that I had hepatitis—from Don, I suppose. The time of incubation was just right. Actually, I’ve been feeling lousy ever since May 17, when I started what Sellars thought was flu. Now that the jaundice is visibly “out,” I’m better.

  The unpleasant part of this illness is the feeling of utter fatigue. Also a tendency to grey thoughts of old age, weakness, death. These somewhat stimulated by reading Arnold Bennett’s Journals—a very sympathetic man, but such a pitiful blind workhorse, self-driven until he dropped. At the end of it all, he could say: “I made a plan and stuck to it.” Well, that’s something, certainly. But the note of obstinacy is tragic, too. It’s the obstinacy of an insect.

  Being in this hospital is really quite absorbing. I see so many people every day and it is possible to observe their reactions to a known and constant object, the Patient. I hope to write more about this when I have more energy.

  My more immediate concerns are: how much is all this going to cost? And also the question of quarantine: Jo (who’s just back with Ben from Florida) asked her doctor (Kirby) and was told on no account to visit me and on no account to see me or Don until five to six weeks after the end of the jaundice. This would mean, in my case, not until about August 1! Dr. Surrey, who is looking after me while Sellars is out of town, says all these precautions are quite unnecessary. They are far in excess, even, of what’s demanded by the health department.

  The bad part of it is that Jo and Ben would have been company for Don while I’m in here.

  June 6. This being in the hospital gets quite tiresome, especially now that my symptoms are gradually disappearing. And yet I can’t hope to get out for another three days at least.

  What makes the place bearable is its good-humored inefficiency. We are awakened much too early, far too many people do tiny services for us—often the same service. Two different people cleaned my room this morning, and at the end of it I found a large piece of wood, which I’d dropped the night before, lying right in the middle of the floor. Most of the nurses seem to be colored. Colored people are of two kinds in the nursing profession; angels of cuteness or motherly sweetness—and real zombies, so dumb that they are rude, and so clumsy that they kick the bed every time they pass it. Thank God, there seem to be very few white nurses of the prim, we-know-best type. There’s one very tiresome Russian male nurse, who thinks he has carte blanche to breeze in at all hours and talk—about himself and the parts he has acted in Russian colony dramatic shows here. He is studying to be a doctor. His name is Nicolas Tolotshko.

  June 7. I’m slightly less mad at him today—for the quite usual reason that I have just done him a favor. I typed out for him an application in German to the University of Bonn, where he wants to study medicine.

  View from my window. There really are cedars in front of this hospital. They are planted too close to the building. Beyond them, you see telegraph poles with lots and lots of wires. Four palms—about sixty to seventy feet tall, with small heads on them—the kind which seem typical of the older sections of Los Angeles. Dead fronds form a thick dry brownish muffler on two of the palms, reaching about three quarters of their length and coming to a point near the ground, so that they look like furled umbrellas. The other two palms have been clipped right up, nearly to their heads, so that they only wear throat mufflers. The principal building in sight is a block of apartments, red (brick?) with the windows outlined in white and a battlement design around the top of the facade. Could it be a tiny bit Venetian? A tiny bit Gothic? God knows. The houses in the foreground are white stucco boxes with tiled roofs, or cream-painted wood with green shingled roofs. There would be quite a lot more houses, palms, telegraph poles and TV aerials visible in the background, if it wasn’t for a warm bright white haze which is only slightly smoggy.

  June 8. Didn’t sleep well last night, because of recurring backache; I have to keep taking aspirin to stop it. Now I’m waiting for my IV—dextrose and water—and waiting for the reappearance of Dr. Sellars, who has been in Chicago, I believe. I want to get him to let me go.

  Being sick this time hasn’t seemed at all inspiring or enlightening—only confusing. No revelations about life. Only the hint that one might quite well die asking: is that all? The end of life, a dark chaos and muddle for most people, no doubt. With the church and the journalists and all kinds of other agencies glibly explaining what is happening—and nobody believing one single word of his own explanation. Nevertheless, against all this, I have had some very strange glimpses and insights from reading Saradananda’s Ramakrishna book. At least, he contrives to take you by the ear and drag you right up to face the unimaginable. At least, he gives you some slight idea of the infinite gap between Ramakrishna’s world and yours. How utterly futile the conventional church religion seems, by comparison! No—not just futile. Quite, quite irrelevant. It has as much relation to what Ramakrishna meant by religion as running a dime store.

  June 11. Back home, since Saturday the 9th.

  And being back home has never been better. Don is looking after me with the utmost sweetness and consideration, and I feel, more strongly than ever before, that we are “kin”—related to each other in the deepest sense.

  As for my symptoms—the backache has let up a little, but I still have to take aspirin for it. I get tired very easily—took two naps today.

  June 15. Yesterday, they sent a doctor and a technician to do blood tests on me, and later Sellars came and told me the tests showed that the jaundice had absolutely disappeared. So I can get up and walk around, but mustn’t leave the house for another week.

  Jo and Ben cooked us a wonderful supper last night—chicken and vegetables—all wrapped in tinfoil. Don called for it and brought it home in a carton, and it was still hot.

  First night without any pain.

  All this week we’ve had glorious beach weather, and Don has been in swimming. He’s going through a phase of Katherine Mansfield.

  Speed came in, full of advice. I’m to write to Joshua Logan and keep him interested in the Mistress Masham project. This is quite sensible, and, God knows, we need the money. It’s just that I hate the book—it’s rotten slush. And, I have reservations about working with Logan, who seems to be a neurotic slave driver.

  Still and all, we’ve got to get some money soon, somehow.

  Miscellaneous news: Tarini died, about two weeks ago—without severe pain, I’m happy to say. Harry Brown has a new girlfriend, introduced to him by Speed, of course. Don has signed on for the summer term at the Chouinard art school. Speed may get a job at MGM.

  June 17. I’ve worked very hard today—maybe a little too hard. I feel tired. Got to page forty-seven of my novel—still shooting for page sixty by July 1. Did my stint on the Ramakrishna book. Tried to start the article for Gerald Hamilton’s book;14 this was very difficult and I’m not sure I can do it. Also, Jo and Ben were in this afternoon and their visit was complicated by Madge MacDonald arriving to give me a shot and then wanting her little dog photographed immediately, so his picture could go in next Sunday’s newspaper. So Ben took my camera, which luckily was supplied with film, and did it. The dog had to be placed on a table, with a plate of fruit beside him to show how small he is, and a screen behind him—for background. And oh, the yapping!

  Seen from my window this morning—two of our next-door neighbors’ (Heinz? Hines?) sons and another little boy, armed with spades, wooden guns, German-style tin helmets, advancing across the vacant lot opposite, on some military project.15 The biggest boy had a pack on his back; he kept giving orders to halt, turn, etc.—which the smallest of the three did his best to obey. But whenever he halted his helmet would slip down over his eyes, and whenever he started turning he couldn’t stop doing it until he fell down on his ass. All three kids wore long pants—blue jeans, one of them with cowboy boots—although they’re so tiny. The sight of the smallest one desperately t
rying to imitate the others was touching, and at the same time horribly depressing, because you always feel: yes, and that’s what he’ll go on doing for the rest of his life.

  Friday—day before yesterday—Swami came to tea, along with Krishna and John Yale. Don was pleased, because I told him that serving a meal to a Swami would probably save him five hundred rebirths. He also drank the remains of Swami’s tea as prasad. I think that reading my 1939–44 diaries, which he has been doing, has made him much more interested in everything to do with Vedanta Place.

  June 22. Yesterday I saw Sellars at his office in Beverly Hills. He said that I’m probably cured. His partner simply cannot believe that I could have recovered so quickly. However—no exertion for another month, and no fats. And no alcohol for at least six months. (Last time, he said a year.)

  Also in Sellars’s office (by appointment) I met a ghost from the past—Otto Guttchen. He called me a few days ago and asked if I would write him a letter to the German Consulate, recommending that he should receive his citizenship back—the Nazis took it away. It seems that he could have regained his citizenship quite easily, a few years ago. But 1952 was the deadline for such cases. Guttchen looked very well. He told me they removed one of his damaged kidneys about a year ago, and that since then he’d been feeling much better.

  Chris Wood came to supper. Don cooked bouillabaisse, and we solemnly served him a whole bottle of white wine, which he couldn’t finish. After supper, he became engrossed in a book of pictures of silent movies, and didn’t leave until after eleven. Chris revels in nostalgia—a somewhat masochistic kind, for he gets kicks out of the pain of wishing he were back in the teens and the twenties.

  Chris says that Gerald and Aldous and their circle are having frequent mescaline and lysergic acid sessions. I’m slightly mad at them both—rather childishly, I admit—because they snoot my experiences and tell people that my mescaline is of an inferior make. I do wish I could get hold of one of their doctors, though, and find out from him if it will be possible for me to take mescaline again, after this illness. The worst of it is, I can’t trust Gerald not to persuade the doctor to tell me no. I’m sure the Huxleys persuaded Osmond not to give me any two years ago.