Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1

by Christopher Isherwood

  Nevertheless, despite this hangover, I mean to work.

  September 2. Today I collected my unemployment check, bought a book by Dr. Lester Morrison called The Low-Fat Way to Health and Longer Life, and under its directions got lecithin tablets, soy lecithin spread (instead of butter), brewer’s yeast and powdered liver extract: all this to increase my energy, calm my nerves. I also started the Ramakrishna book over again, did a page of my novel and started a diary of our Asian trip. So I can say I haven’t been too lazy!

  This morning Don told me he is going away this weekend to Yosemite with a friend, who has a friend who rents a lodge there and is giving a party. Do I mind? Yes, of course. But not really very much. Don makes me feel that this is another part of his life, which doesn’t concern ours. At least, I want to feel it.

  September 3. Black depression, partly hangover from an evening at Ivan Moffat’s. It’s twenty of two and I haven’t even begun to work, and the kids outside are screaming, and Don leaves tomorrow—altogether he’ll be away six days. And then there’s the Quemoy situation getting steadily worse and worse.

  But now two bits of good news. The lady next door calls through the hedge to tell me she is getting married at last. She leaves for New York the day after tomorrow to join him.

  And Carter calls to say he’s read in The New York Times that Dodie Smith is getting a play produced in England; it’s about a publishing firm and is to be called These People (?).40

  September 7. On Thursday night (the 4th) after Don had left, Gavin Lambert came. I had asked him on the phone, “Do you feel in the mood for some very sophisticated entertainment?” and he replied at once, “Do you mean you want to see How to Make a Monster and Teen-Age Caveman?” He was right, and we had supper and went. Monster had something. Caveman was just nothing; the boy was a nervous worried white-collar lad with his shirt off.

  When we had gotten back here again and had had another drink and it was around midnight, I impulsively suggested taking mescaline. (I still had the five tablets I bought in New York.) Gavin agreed.

  Symptoms began at 1:00 a.m. and lasted till around 9:00 a.m. We stayed awake the whole time, in the living room. Our symptoms were more or less the same. Shivers and some nausea but not too bad. Absolutely no fear of the darkness and the night—as I had half expected. Color perception just as good by artificial light. Don’s big portrait of me stood the test very well. But the blue bathrobe one I put upstairs, fearing it might depress me. The best of the experience was the coming of daylight among the plants in the garden—subtly, down there; radiantly and gloriously above, over the walls around the skylight.

  But we both agreed that it was a disappointment, and that we didn’t want to take any more. It was tiresome being kept awake for so long, and one wearied of the translucence of the ceiling beams. Personally I was disappointed because I felt the barrier between Gavin and me unremoved. He is cagey or hostile or just plain blocked up: don’t know which. As for me, I talked too much, boasted, bored myself. Maybe he’ll take notes of it and write a snide story. Then I’ll know more of what he’s like.

  Of course, our dullness may have been partly due to the alcohol we’d drunk. Not much, but enough to be felt.

  Perhaps thanks to the lecithin, brewer’s yeast and liver extract, I came through this self-abuse pretty well, and had energy enough for Bill Robinson, who came and spent the next day with me. We went in swimming, and later fixed supper and he stayed the night. His great enthusiasm and preoccupation is his analyst. Their relationship has the fascination, for Bill, of an aesthetic experience: they are collaborating, as it were, on a novel of which he is the hero. And also of an exceedingly complicated card game: Bill is continually trying to maneuver the analyst into showing his hand—i.e. revealing something about himself and his feelings for Bill. But I think Bill is really quite a nice boy, whom I might get to like.

  Yesterday I had lunch at Vedanta Place, because Swami is back from his holiday at Laguna and Pavitrananda had just arrived by air from India, en route for New York. He is the only other swami I actually love. He is adorable, with his buckteeth, as skinny as a monkey.

  He was saying that he had had no trouble readjusting to Indian ways. He loved the Ganges more than ever. Only the heat had troubled him. In Japan, he had rebuked a lady who had claimed to have had samadhi: “Do not dare to utter that word!” He was very pleased with this rebuke and repeated it twice. Vanity still exists in people like Swami and Pavitrananda, but it becomes more and more childlike.

  Yesterday evening, I had a visit from Vernon: we had supper together. He has grown a beard. He talked nicely and sensibly about Don’s painting and the problems of being an artist and the question of getting married and settling down. He keeps wondering if he should give up sex, but then he always meets a new girl. He still meditates. He is very talkative and very serious, yet not altogether without humor, though I think he mistrusts it.

  The past two days, the heat has been overpowering. Thunderstorms in the mountains. But this morning there’s a breeze.

  Marguerite Lamkin just called. She arrived at the Chateau Marmont this morning from New York to start work on The Sound and the Fury. She says she and Speed are good friends again.

  September 8. This morning I woke early and suddenly decided to meditate—something I haven’t done in weeks. I decided to stay with it at least until the light came; I began at about ten minutes of five. To my surprise and satisfaction, when I finally got up and looked at the clock, it was six twenty.

  I’m not using any of the old instructions; just thinking of Swami in meditation, and of the shrine in the Vedanta Place temple, as it feels when you sit in front of it. That, and making japam.

  September 10. The night before last, I had supper with Jo and Ben. Jim Charlton came by. He looked good. I felt a great wall between us which I knew I mustn’t climb over. However, after supper, when I’d had a few drinks and had left the Masselinks’, I felt tempted to try. And I actually phoned Jim, who was up at his apartment in the Canyon. When he didn’t answer the phone at once, I hung up. But I think he was there.

  Last night Don returned. I was full of good resolutions, but we had a couple of drinks and so I made a small scene. Not one that I’m altogether ashamed of, because at least it was honest. I was and am quite simply jealous because Don saw a thunderstorm from Glacier Point and visited San Simeon without me. My possessiveness hates to face the fact that he can have important experiences with other people. Well, I have got to face it. The trick is to stop minding without ceasing to care for him. Always, before this, the injured ego has simply ducked out from under. Will it do it again? I don’t know. He should go slow.

  Big anxieties about the Quemoy crisis, minor but growing ones about money. I really am at grips with my novel, but oh it is hard! Now I’m about to start another rough draft of the Los Olvidados section.

  September 11. Saw Gore Vidal last night. He is in town to get a director and a star for his new (Civil War) play.41 I do like him. He is handsome, sad, sardonic, plump—quite Byronic, in a way. His amazing stamina: he is writing half-hour TV shows at the rate of one every two days while he is here. He gets paid $2,500 a show, and he needs the money badly. He finds he can’t live on less than $2,000 a month. Howard [Austen] is in New York studying singing.

  Gore’s favorite quotation “I am Duchess of Malfi still.”42 He sees himself as the ex-champ, out of condition and punchy, who still has a fight in him.

  And all the time this rather disconcerting literary ambition: he thinks of himself as a writer of quality—a neglected writer, because readers are turning from his kind of quality to the meanderings of Jack Kerouac. (Whom, incidentally—being halfway through The Subterraneans—I’m beginning to admire!) Gore regards me, also, as a neglected writer of quality, so he feels a bond between us.

  September 14. On Thursday night, Marguerite brought John Foster43 to supper. He is terribly square and doesn’t drink and he ate slice after slice of roast beef, declining vegetables. I su
ppose he’s bright in his own way. He told a funny story about a friend of his in Russia, who frankly told a Russian that the execution of Nagy44 was shameful. “You see,” the Russian blandly replied, “we don’t believe in keeping innocent men in prison.”

  As usual, when Marguerite brings one of her beaux, there was a strained atmosphere. You felt that the whole thing was an exhibitionistic provocation. Marguerite wore a wig to show us how it looked. Then took it off, scattering hairpins I’m still picking up. I find her really too tiresome.

  On Friday, I drove Don and Vernon Old to see the exhibition of fruit and flower painting at the Santa Barbara Museum.

  The extraordinary lemons of Willem Kalf—the cut-open fruit looking as if it were made of glass and gold wire; the lemon peel massive like an embossed bracelet. The sobriety of Cézanne’s dark cold blue; his apples are like facts of life. Also a wonderfully deep Monet pool of water lilies. Some roses of Delacroix as wild as lions. Derain’s strangely Chardin-like table with a pumpkin.

  Vernon liked the Cézanne best. Don loved the Monet and a vase of flowers by Redon. He thought the Kalf was like a landscape on Mars.

  There is also a perfectly wonderful doll exhibition there. The French nineteenth-century dolls are really scary: the women have the heavy relentlessly evil faces of poisoners from the novels of Zola.

  After the museum we had tea at the Sarada convent. Such a delightful atmosphere there, as always. And I always feel that Sarada and Prabha particularly are my sisters. I love Sarada. I can quite imagine going to her in real trouble. She could understand anything. She gives forth light.

  As for me, I’m in a worse state than ever, I think—and with less reason. Because Don, most of the time, is absolutely adorable; and even when he isn’t I can understand exactly how he feels, or should be able to. And there is Swami. And there is my work. True, the money is running away and I’m anxious, but not really anxious yet. There are plenty of prospects.

  Yet I glower and grind with resentment—against the neighbors’ children, and most women, and anyone who seems about to intrude in any way upon my privacy. How I keep peering from the window to see if the children are jumping on our rock garden!

  And now there are only a little over thirteen weeks to Christmas. I have got to do better. Stop idling. Get ahead with rough drafts of my novel and the Ramakrishna book. Or I shall never make my own deadline of my fifty-fifth birthday.

  Throughout these days of the Chinese crisis, the headlines have been all about Debbie and Eddie splitting up on account of Liz!45

  September 16. Last night we were supposed to have supper with Marguerite at the Chateau Marmont and see this Russian boy who is supposed to be madly in love with her and has followed her out here and cooks for her, although he’s quite rich. Don saw the boy, whom he described as a huge dope who appeared to be a pathological liar. But we ate in Caroline’s apartment with Ivan and a Negro authoress who is working at Columbia [Pictures]. And it was dull, dull, dull. And we both got drunk. And today I have scarcely worked at all, because of my hangover. And we are both indignant at having had these bores wished on us.

  September 20. Yesterday, September 19, is usually a day of the year on which I expect happenings;46 but nothing happened. It was very hot and Don didn’t go into town because of the smog, and I did almost nothing; though I did read quite a bit of material for the Ramakrishna book. Geller called to tell me that Selznick had told [David] Brown at Fox that he “got more than his money’s worth” from me; and Brown had told Geller he wouldn’t be surprised if Selznick wanted to hire me again soon.

  Talked to Jim Charlton, who has just had a son. They’ll call him Tim.

  Krishna gave me a sealed brass pot of Ganges water from Benares. Prema gave me a tiny silver image of Ganesha, also from India. With this equipment, I ought to be able to make japam more. I realize that I must. That that’s all I have to do, really, and let the rest just happen.

  Don will be out tonight. He still tells me he is going to do this with an air of apology, which is bad. But at least he does it. As for me, I don’t really mind; I just feel sad when he’s not around but not painfully sad.

  September 25. Just to record that it was hot again, and today I did nothing, and read Mary Renault’s The King Must Die. Also I decided that my novel won’t work, the way it is. Depression—but Don did his best to cheer me up, was so sweet, we went in swimming when he got home from school. Then saw a dreadful film, Damn Yankees.

  September 26. More optimistic. A careful analysis of the novel material shows that there is something here.

  Don talked to me as we drank our morning coffee. Shouldn’t he give up art and work with me, be my secretary and collaborator? He said, “Am I intelligent enough?” “Do you like me, as well as love me?” and “I’m only really happy when I know I’m giving someone pleasure.”

  I, of course, said what I had to say: don’t put your eggs in one basket. Besides, I sincerely believe in Don’s painting now, even if he doesn’t. I think he would regret giving it up, terribly.

  But, of course, no decision has to be final. We could try it.

  Meanwhile, we’ve got to earn money! My new tooth from Peschelt costs $125!

  Hot again.

  Such a wonderful poem by Whitman I never read through before: “Out of the cradle…” How one takes anthology pieces for granted!

  September 27. Last night I dreamt that a fortune-teller said to me: “I see nothing for you in October,” meaning I was going to die then.

  Yesterday evening we went to a reading of The Glass Menagerie, spoilt because the actors weren’t much good; but anyhow I like it the least of Ten’s plays.

  The play was given in aid of The Little Village Nursery School on Westwood. Here’s a sample of academic wa-wa talk from their statement of their “Principles”:

  The aims of our school are based upon the insights provided by modern dynamic psychological, psychiatric and educational knowledge. By this we understand provisions for the satisfaction of the child’s needs as well as measures to help the child to learn the delay and the control of satisfactions. … We seek out and employ a staff trained and experienced in nursery school work with a creative attitude towards children and a capacity to assist parents. We also draw on the professional knowledge of experts in the various areas contingent upon the work of the school.

  September 30. Slept till 10:30 after being out late with Bill Robinson. Was bored, really. I’m getting weary of playing poker with the young—they are so suspicious and so rightly so! The truth is, I would far rather spend an evening with that yakkety little freak Marshall Ephron, who calls me sometimes to talk about books, plays, etc. Last time it was Swift, and Addison!

  Middle-aged, impotent, dull headed, but somehow not dull. I have quite a good time with myself. And perhaps my behavior is a shade less compulsive than it used to be. I think about God, and Swami and Zen—having been much interested in Alan Watts’s article and the bit of Kerouac’s new novel47—and Byron, about whom I’m reading in the second volume of Marchand’s life48—he has never seemed as adorable and funny and truly sweet as he does during the separation from Annabella—and about Caskey, oddly enough—I thought I saw him in the street as I drove home late last night; I must never forget what we did have together in the early days—not allow that to be cheapened by the malice of people like Speed.

  As for Don—he’s a complete family, and I wouldn’t exchange this relationship for any other kind; unless—yes—the perfect twin brother—is that what my novel is really all about?

  Up at Carter and Dick Foote’s last night. Carter seemed so weary. Oh, the despair of not having to work any more! Won’t he die? And yet I sure as hell would like some of that money!

  I feel a sudden “concern” to go see him while Dick Foote is away on this tour.

  An unspoken (as yet) conversation:

  “Why do you keep asking me about my affairs? You ask me, was I in love with X., did I live with Y.?”

  “All ri
ght, let’s talk about me. You came to the house with J. What did you think? What were your plans? Did you want to go to bed with me? Why? What did you think I wanted? What do you think I want now? Surely not just to prove I can get someone to sleep with, if I have to? Or do I? Or what?”

  “Well—what do you want?”

  “Oh, my dear child—something hopeless … I just want to clear out the furniture, so we can dance.”

  When Dorothy Miller talks about her diet, she always puts on a special falsetto voice to imitate the tones of the scoffers and doubters, her enemies.

  October 1. Hangover today. Nevertheless I went in swimming early—the first time in don’t know how long—but Mr. Hine and Mr. Stickle make it nearly impossible by their friendly splashing and barking; they are such dog people. Also started a rough draft of my novel along the new lines I just planned. And got on with the Ramakrishna book, which now seems well and truly started. And continued the travel diary of last winter’s journey.

  The hangover is because I got very drunk last night because Marguerite was coming. I was nice to her but horrid to Don later (apparently) blaming him for having her around. Why? Is it jealousy? I know I don’t dislike Marguerite nearly as much as I pretend. I merely don’t like her very much.

  Tom Wright has been told his mother won’t live.