by Henry Miller
Would you mind taking a walk with me? she asked. I’d like to say a few things to you in private before I go. My bag is packed.
As we left the house she asked if I had any objection to strolling across the bridge. None at all, I replied. I would have consented to walk to White Plains, if she had suggested it.
The fact that she was leaving awakened my sympathies. She was a strange creature, but not a bad one. Stopping to light a cigarette, I sized her up, detachedly. She had the air of a Confederate soldier back from the war. There was a forlorn look in her eyes, but it was not devoid of courage. She belonged nowhere, that was obvious.
We walked in silence for a block or two. Then, as we made the approach to the bridge, it oozed out of her. Softly she spoke and with feeling, change. As if confiding in a dog. straight ahead, as if blazing a trail.
She was saying that, all in all, I hadn’t been as cruel as I might have been. It was the situation which was cruel, not me. It would never have worked out, not even if we were a thousand times better than we were. She should have known better. She admitted that there had been a lot of play acting, too. She loved Mona, yes, but she wasn’t desperately in love. Never had been. It was Mona who was desperate. Besides, it wasn’t love that bound them as much as a need for companionship. They were lonely souls, both of them. In Europe it might have worked out differently. But it was too late for that now. Some day she would go there on her own, she hoped.
But where will you go now? I asked.
To California probably. Where else?
Why not to Mexico?
That was a possibility, she agreed, but later. First she had to pull herself together. It hadn’t been easy for her, this chaotic bohemian life. Fundamentally she was a simple person. Her one problem was how to get along with others. What had disturbed her most about our way of life, she wanted me to know, was that it gave her little chance to work, I’ve got to do things with my hands, she blurted out. Even if it’s digging ditches. I want to be a sculptor, not a painter or a poet. She hastened to add that I should not judge her by the puppets she had turned out—she had made them only to please Mona.
Then she said something which sounded to my ears like high treason. She said that Mona knew absolutely nothing about art, that she was incapable of distinguishing between a good piece of work and a bad one. Which doesn’t really matter, or rather wouldn’t matter, if only she had the courage to admit it. But she hasn’t. She must pretend that she knows everything, understands everything. I hate pretense. That’s one of the reasons why I don’t get along with people.
She paused to let this sink in. ! don’t know how you stand it! You’re full of nasty tricks, you do vile things now and then, and you’re terribly prejudiced and unfair some times, but at least you’re honest. You never pretend to be other than you are. Whereas Mona … well, there’s no telling who she is or what she is. She’s a walking theatre. Wherever she goes, whatever she’s doing, no matter whom she’s talking to, she’s on stage. It’s sickening … But I’ve told you all this before. You know it as well as I do.
An ironic smile slid over her face. Sometimes … She hesitated a moment. Sometimes I wonder how she behaves in bed. I mean, does she fake that too?
A strange query, which I ignored.
I’m more normal than you would ever think, she continued. My defects are all on the surface. At bottom I’m a shy little girl who never grew up. Maybe it’s a glandular disturbance. It would be funny, wouldn’t it, if taking a few hormones daily should turn me into a typical female? What is it that makes me hate women so much? I was always that way. Don’t laugh now, but honestly, it makes me sick to see a woman squat to pee. So ridiculous … Sorry to hand you such trivia. I meant to tell you about the big things, the things that really bother me.
But I don’t know where to begin. Besides, now that I’m I leaving, what’s the point?
We were now half-way over the bridge. In a few minutes we would be among the pushcart vendors, passing shops whose show windows were always stacked with smoked fish, vegetables, onion rolls, huge loaves of bread, great cart-wheels of cheese, salted pretzels and other inviting edibles. In between would be wedding gowns, full dress suits, stove-pipe hats, corsets, lingerie, crutches, douche pans, bric-a-brac galore.
I wondered what it was she wanted to tell me—the vital thing, I mean.
When we get back, I said, there’ll undoubtedly be a scene. If I were you, I’d pretend to change my mind, then sneak away the first chance you get. Otherwise she’ll insist on going with you, if only to see you home safely.
An excellent idea, she thought. It made her smile. Such a thought would never have occurred to me, she confessed. I have no strategic sense whatever.
All the better for you, said I.
Talking of strategy, I wonder if you could help me raise a little money? I’m flat broke. I can’t hitch hike across the country with a trunk and a heavy valise, can I?
(No, I thought to myself, but we could send them to you later.)
I’ll do what I can, I said. You know I’m not very good at raising money. That’s Mona’s department. But I’ll try.
Good, she said. A few days more or less won’t matter.
We had come to the end of the span. I spotted an empty bench and steered her to it.
Let’s rest a bit, I said.
Couldn’t we get a coffee?
I’ve only got seven cents. And just two more cigarettes.
How do you manage when you’re by your self? she asked.
That’s different. When I’m alone things happen.
God takes care of you, is that it?
I lit a cigarette for her.
I’m getting frightfully hungry, she said, her wings drooping.
If it’s that bad, let’s start back.
I can’t, it’s too far. Wait a while.
I fished out a nickel and handed it to her. You take the subway and I’ll walk. It’s no hardship for me.
No, she said, we’ll go back together … I’m afraid to face her alone.
Afraid?
Yes, Val, afraid. She’ll weep all over the place and then I’ll weaken.
But you should weaken, remember? Let her weep … then say you’ve changed your mind. Like I told you.
I forgot, she said.
We rested our weary limbs a while. A pigeon swooped down and settled on her shoulder.
Can’t you buy some peanuts? she said. We could feed the birds and have a bit for ourselves too.
Forget it! I replied. Pretend that you’re not hungry. It’ll pass. I’ve hardly ever walked the bridge on a full stomach. You’re nervous, that’s all.
You remind me of Rimbaud sometimes, she said. He was always famished … and always walking his legs off.
There’s nothing unique in that, I replied. He and how many million others?
I bent over to fix my shoe laces and there, right under the bench, were two whole peanuts. I grabbed them.
One for you and one for men I said. You see how Providence looks after one!
The peanut gave her the courage to stretch her legs. We rose stiffly and headed back over the bridge.
You’re not such a bad sort, she said, as we climbed forward. There was a time when I positively loathed you. Not because of Mona, not because I was jealous, but because you didn’t give a damn about any one but your own sweet self. You struck me as ruthless. But I see you really have a heart, don’t you?
What put that into your head?
Oh, I don’t know. Nothing in particular. Maybe it’s that I’m beginning to see things in a new light now. Anyway, you no longer look at me the way you used to. You see me now. Before you used to look right through me. You might just as well have stepped on me … or over me.
I’ve been wondering, she mused, how the two of you will get along, once I’m gone. In a way it’s I who have held you together. If I were more cunning, if I really wanted her all to myself, I would go away, wait for the two of you to separate, then come back and
claim her.
I thought you were through with her, said I. I had to admit to myself, however, that there was logic in her observation.
Yes, she said, all that’s past. What I want to do now is to make a life for myself. I’ve got to do the things I like to do, even if I fail miserably … But what will she do? that’s what I wonder. Somehow I can’t see her doing anything of consequence. I feel sorry for you. Believe me, I mean it sincerely. It’s going to be hell for you when I leave. Maybe you don’t realize it now, but you will.
Even so, I replied, it’s better this way.
You’re certain I’ll go, eh? No matter what happens?
Yes, I said, I’m sure. And if you don’t go of your own accord, I’ll drive you away.
She gave a weak laugh. You’d kill me if you had to, wouldn’t you?
I wouldn’t say that. No, what I mean is that the time has come…
Said the walrus to—
Right! What happens when you leave is my affair. The thing is to leave. No back bending!
She swallowed this as one does a lump in the throat. We had come to the summit of the arch, where we paused to view the retreating skyline.
How I hate this place! she said. Hated it from the moment I arrived. Look at those bee-hives, she said, indicating the skyscrapers. Inhuman, what! With arm extended she made a gesture as if to sweep them away. If there’s a single poet in that mass of stone and steel I’m a crazy Turk. Only monsters could inhabit those cages. She moved closer to the edge and spat over the rail into the river. Even the water is filthy. Polluted. We turned away and resumed our march. You know, she said, I was brought up on poetry. Whitman, Wordsworth, Amy Lowell, Pound, Eliot. Why, I could recite whole poems once upon a time. Especially Whitman’s. Now all I can do is gnash my teeth. I’ve got to get out West again, and as soon as possible. Joaquin Miller … did you ever read him? The poet of the Sierras. Yes, I want to go naked again and rub against trees. I don’t care what any one thinks … I can make love to a tree, but not to those filthy things in pants who crawl out of those horrid buildings. Men are all right—in the open spaces. But here—my God! I’d rather masturbate than let one of them crawl into bed with me. They’re vermin, all of them. They stink!
She seemed on the point of working herself into a lather. Of a sudden, however, she grew quiet. Her whole expression changed. Indeed, she looked almost angelic.
I’ll get myself a horse, she was saying now, and I’ll hide away in the mountains. Maybe I’ll learn to pray again. As a girl I used to go off by my lonesome, often for days at a stretch. Among the tall redwoods I would talk to God. Not that I had any specific image of Him; He was just a great Presence. I recognized God everywhere, in everything. How beautiful the world looked to me then! I was overflowing with love and affection. And I was so aware. Often I got down on my knees—to kiss a flower. ‘You’re so perfect!’ I would say. ‘So self-sufficient. All you need are sun and rain. And you get what you need without asking. You never cry for the moon, do you, little violet? You never wish to be different than you are.’ That’s how I talked to the flowers. Yes, I knew how to commune with Nature. And it was all perfectly natural. Real. Terribly real.
She stopped to give me a searching look. She looked even more angelic now than before. Even with a crazy hat on she would have looked seraphic. Then, as she began to unburden herself in earnest, her countenance changed again. But the aureole was still about her.
What derailed her, she was trying to tell me, was art Some one had put the bug in her head that she was an artist. Oh, that’s not altogether true, she exclaimed. I always had talent, and it cropped out early. But there was nothing exceptional in what I did. Every sincere person has a grain of talent.
She was trying to make clear to me how the change came about, how she became conscious of art and of herself as an artist. Was it because she was so different from those about her? Because she saw with other eyes? She wasn’t sure. But she knew that one day it happened. Overnight, as it were, she had lost her innocence. From then on, she said, everything assumed another aspect. The flowers no longer spoke to her, or she to them. When she looked at Nature she saw it as a poem or a landscape. She was no longer one with Nature. She had begun to analyze, to recompose, to assert her own will.
What a fool I was! In no time I had grown too big for my own shoes. Nature wasn’t enough. I craved the life of the city. I regarded myself as a cosmopolitan spirit. To rub elbows with fellow artists, to enlarge my ideas through discussion with intellectuals, became imperative. I was hungry to see the great works of art I had heard so much about, or rather read about, for no one I knew ever talked about art. Except one person, that married woman I told you about once. She was a woman in her thirties and worldly wise. She hadn’t an ounce of talent herself, but she was a great lover of art and had excellent taste. It was she who opened my eyes, not only to the world of art but to other things as well. I fell in love with her, of course. How could I not do so? She was mother, teacher, patron, lover all in one. She was my whole world, in fact.
She interrupted herself to inquire if she was boring me.
The strange thing is, she resumed, that it was she who pushed me out into the world. Not her husband, as I may have led you to believe. No, we got along well, the three of us. I would never have gone to bed with him if she hadn’t urged me to. She was a strategist, like you. Of course, he never really got anywhere with me; the best he could manage was to hold me in his arms, press his body to mine. When he tried to force me I pulled away. Evidently it didn’t bother him too much, or else he pretended it didn’t. I suppose it sounds strange to you, this business, but it was all quite innocent. I’m destined to be a virgin, I guess. Or a virgin at heart.
Oof! What a story I’m making of it! Anyway, the point of it all is that it was they, the two of them, who gave me the money to come East. I was to go to art school, work hard, and make a name for myself.
She stopped abruptly.
And now look at me! What am I? What have I become? I’m a sort of bum, more of a fake than your Mona really.
You’re no fake, said I. You’re a misfit, that’s all.
You don’t need to be kind to me.
For a moment I thought she was going to burst into tears.
Will you write to me some time?
Why not? If it would give you pleasure, why of course.
Then, like a little girl, she said: I’ll miss you both. I’ll miss you terribly.
Well, I said, it’s over with. Look forwards, not backwards.
That’s easy for you to say. You’ll have her. I’ll…
You’ll be better off alone, believe me. It’s better to be alone than with some one who doesn’t understand you.
You’re so right, said she, and she gave a shy little laugh. Do you know, once I tried to get a dog to mount me. It was so ludicrous. He finally bit me in the thigh.
You should have tried a donkey—they’re more amenable.
We had reached the end of the bridge. You will try to raise some money for me, won’t you? she said.
Of course I will. And don’t you forget to pretend to change your mind and stay. Otherwise we’ll have a frightful scene.
There was a scene, as I predicted, but the moment Stasia relented it ended like a Spring shower. To me, however, it was not only depressing, but humiliating, to observe Mona’s grief. On arriving we found her in the toilet, weeping like a pig. She had found the valise packed, the trunk locked, and Stasia’s room in a state of wild disorder. She knew it was quits this time.
It was only natural for her to accuse me of inspiring the move. Fortunately Stasia denied this vehemently. Then why had she decided to go? To this Stasia lamely replied that she was weary of it all. Then bang bang, like bullets, came Mona’s reproachful queries. How could you say such a thing? Where would you go? What have I done to turn you against me? She could have fired a hundred more shots like that. Anyway, with each reproach her hysteria mounted; her tears turned to sobs and her sobs
to groans. That she would have me all to herself, was of no importance. It was obvious that I didn’t exist, except as a thorn in her side.
As I say, Stasia finally relented, but not until Mona had stormed and raged and pleaded and begged. I wondered why she had permitted the scene to last so long. Was she enjoying it? Or was she so disgusted that she had become fascinated? I asked myself what would have happened had I not been at her side.
It was I who couldn’t take any more, I who turned to Stasia and begged her to reconsider.
Don’t go yet, I begged. She really needs you. She loves you, can’t you see?
And Stasia answers: But that’s why I should go.
No, said I, if any one should leave, it’s me.
(At the moment I really meant it, too.)
Please, said Mona, won’t you go too! Why does either of you have to go? Why? Why? I want you both. I need you. I love you.
We’ve heard that before, said Stasia, as if still adamant.
But I mean it, said Mona. I’m nothing without you. And now that you’re friends at last, why can’t we all live together in peace and harmony? I’ll do anything you ask. But don’t leave me, please!
Again I turned to Stasia. She’s right, I said. This time it may work out. You’re not jealous of me … why should I be jealous of you? Think it over, won’t you? If it’s me you’re worried about, put your mind at ease. I want to see her happy, nothing more. If keeping you with us will make her happy, then I say stay! Maybe I’ll learn to be happy too. At least, I’ve grown more tolerant, don’t you think? I gave her a queer smile. Come now, what do you say? You’re not going to ruin three lives, are you?
She collapsed on to a chair. Mona knelt at her feet and put her head in her lap, then slowly raised her eyes and looked at Stasia imploringly. You will stay, won’t you? she pleaded.
Gently Stasia pushed her away. Yes, she said, I’ll stay. But on one condition. There must be no more scenes.
Their eyes were now focused on me. After all, I was the culprit. It was I who had instigated all the scenes. Was I going to behave? That was their mute query.
I know what you’re thinking, said I. All I can say is that I will do my best.