by Henry Miller
Two nights later I was in a depressed mood. I was lying on the couch in the dark, my thoughts shifting rapidly from Mara to the bloody, futile telegraph life. Maude had come over to say something to me and I had made the mistake of running my hand carelessly up her dress as she stood there complaining about something or other. She had walked off insulted. I hadn't been thinking about fucking her—I just did it naturally, like you'd stroke a cat. When she was awake you couldn't touch her that way. She never took a fuck on the wing, as it were. She thought fucking had something to do with love: carnal love, perhaps. A lot of water had passed under the bridge since the days when I first knew her, when I used to twirl her around on the end of my cock sitting on the piano stool. Now she acted like a cook preparing a difficult menu. She would make up her mind deliberately, letting me know in her sly, repressed way that the time had come for it. Maybe that's what she had come for a moment ago, though it was certainly odd the way she begged for it. Anyway I didn't give a fuck whether she wanted it or not. Suddenly, though, thinking of Stanley's words, I began to have a yen for her. «Get in your last licks,» I kept saying to myself. Well, maybe I'd go up and tackle her in her pseudo-sleep. Spivak came to mind. He was watching me like a hawk the last few days. My hatred for the telegraph life was concentrated in my hatred for him. He was the bloody cosmococcus in person. Must polish him off somehow before they fire me. I kept thinking how I could lure him to a dark wharf and have some obliging friend push him overboard. I thought of Stanley. Stanley would relish a job like that....
How long was he going to keep me on tenterhooks? I wondered. And what form would it take, this abrupt deliverance? I could see Mara coining to meet me at the station. We'd start a new life together, righto! What sort of life I didn't dare think. Maybe Kronski would raise another three hundred dollars. And those millionaires she talked about, they ought to be good for something. I began thinking in thousands—a thousand for her old man, a thousand for travelling expenses, a thousand to tide us over for a few months. Once in Texas, or some God-forsaken place like that, I'd have more confidence. I'd stop off at newspaper offices with her—she always made a good impression—and I'd ask permission to write a little sketch. I'd walk in on business men and show them how to write their ads. In hotel lobbies I'd be sure to meet up with a friendly soul, some one who would give me a break. The country was so big, so many lonely people, so many generous souls ready to give, if only they met the right individual. I would be sincere and forthright. Say we get to Mississippi, some old ramshackle hotel. A man walks up to me out of the darkness and asks me how I feel. A guy just aching for a little chat. I'd introduce him to Mara. We'd saunter out arm in arm and stroll about in the moonlight, the trees strangled with lianas, the magnolias rotting on the floor of the earth, the air humid, sultry, making things rot—and men too. To him I'd be a fresh breeze from the North. I'd be honest, sincere, almost humble. Would put my cards on the table immediately. There you are, man, there's the situation. I love this place. I want to stay here all my life. That would scare him off a little, because you don't start talking that way to a Southerner straight off. What's Your game? Then I'd speak up again, soft and distant, like a clarinet with a wet sponge plugging the bell. I'd give him a little melody out of the cold North, a sort of chill factory whistle on a frosty morning. Mister man, I don't like the cold. No sir! I want to do some honest work,. anything to keep alive. Can I talk straight? You won't think I'm cracked, will you? It's lonely up there in the North. Yes sir, we go blue with fright and loneliness. Live in little rooms, eat with knives and forks, carry watches, liver pills, bread crumbs, sausages. Don't know where we're at up there, honest, Mister. We're frightened to death we'll say something, something real. Don't sleep.... not really. Thrash around all night praying for the world to end. We don't believe in anything: we hate everybody, we poison one another. Everything so tight and solid, everything riveted with cruel hot irons. Don't make a thing with our hands. Sell. Buy and sell. Buy and sell, that's all, Mister....
I could visualize the old gentleman distinctly as he stood under a droopy tree mopping his feverish brow. He wouldn't run away from me, like others had. I wouldn't let him! I'd hold him spellbound—the whole night long, if I felt like it. Make him give us a cool wing in the big house near the bayou. The darkie would appear with a tray, serving mint juleps. We would be adopted. «This is your home, son; stay as long as you like.» No desire to play tricks on a man like that. No, if a man treated me that way I'd be faithful to him, to the bitter end....
It was all so real I felt I had to tell Mara about it right away. I went to the kitchen and began a letter. «Dear Mara—All our problems are solved....» I went on as though it were all clear and definitive. Mara looked different to me now. I saw myself standing under the big trees talking to her in a way that surprised me. We were walking arm in arm through the thick growths, conversing like human beings. There was a big yellow moon out and the dogs were yapping at our heels. It seemed to me we were married and the blood ran deep and still between us. She would be craving a pair of swans for the little lake in back of the house. No money talk, no Neon lights, no chop suey. How wonderful just to breathe naturally, to never hurry, never get anywhere, never do anything important— except live! She thought so too. She had changed, Mara. Her body had grown fuller, heavier; she moved slowly, talked calmly, became silent for long periods, all so real and natural like. Should she wander off by herself I felt certain she would come back unchanged, smelling sweeter, moving more sure-footedly...
«Do you get it, Mara? Do you see how it will be?» There I was, putting it all down so honestly, almost weeping with the sheer wonder of it, when I heard Maude paddling slip-slop through the hall. I gathered the sheets together and folded them. I put my fist over them and waited for her to say something.
«Who are you writing to?» she asked—just as direct and sure as that.
«To some one I know,» I answered calmly.
«A woman, I suppose?»
«Yes, a woman. A girl, to be more exact.» I said it heavily, solemnly, still thick with the trance, the image of her under the big trees, the two swans floating aimlessly on the unruffled lake. If you want to know, I thought to myself, I will tell you. I don't see why I should lie any more. I don't hate you, as I once did. I wish you could love as I do —it would make it so much easier. I don't want to hurt you. I just want you to let me be.
«You're in love with her. You don't need to answer—I know it's so.»
«Yes, that's true—I am in love. I found some one I really love.»
«Maybe you'll treat her better than you did me.»
«I hope so,» I said, still calm, still hoping she'd hear me through to the end. «We never really loved each other, Maude, that's the truth, isn't it?»
«You never had any respect for me—as a human being,» she replied. «You insult me in front of your friends; you run around with other women; you don't even show any interest in your child.»
«Maude. I wish just for once that you wouldn't talk that way. I wish we could talk about it without bitterness.»
«You can—because you're happy. You've found a new toy.»
«It isn't that, Maude. Listen, supposing all the things you say are true—what difference does it make now? Supposing we were on a boat and it was sinking...»
«I don't see why we have to suppose things. You're going to take up with some one else and I'm going to be left with all the drudgery, all the responsibilities.»
«I know,» I said, looking at her with genuine tenderness. «I want you to try to forgive me for that—can you? What good would it do to stay? We wouldn't ever learn to love each other. Can't we part friends? I don't mean to leave you in the lurch. I'm going to try to do my share—I mean it.»
«That's easy to say. You're always promising things you can't fulfill. You'll forget us the moment you walk out of this house. I know you. I can't afford to be generous with you. You deceived me bitterly, from the very beginning. You've been selfish
, utterly selfish. I never thought it possible for a human being to become so cruel, so callous, so thoroughly inhuman. Why, I hardly recognize you now. It's the first time you've acted like a...»
«Maude, it's cruel what I'm going to say, but I have to say it. I want you to understand something. Maybe I had to go through this with you in order to learn how to treat a woman. It isn't altogether my fault—fate had something to do with it too. You see, the moment I set eyes on her I knew...»
«Where did you meet her?» said Maude, her feminine curiosity suddenly getting the better of her.
«In a dance hall. She's a taxi girl. Sounds bad, I know. But if you saw her...»
«I don't want to see her. I don't want to hear anything more about her. I just wondered.» She gave me a quick pitying look. «And you think she's the woman who will make you happy?»
«You call her a woman—she's not, she's just a young girl.»
«So much the worse. Oh. what a fool you are!»
«Maude, it's not like you think, not at all. You mustn't judge, really. How can you pretend to know? And in any case I don't care. I've made up my mind.»
At this she hung her head. She looked indescribably sad and weary, like a human wreck hanging from a meat hook. I looked down at the floor, unable to bear the sight of her face.
We sat like that a full few minutes, neither of us daring to look up. I heard a sniffle and as I looked up I saw her face quivering with pain. She put her rams forward on the table and, weeping and sobbing, she flung her head down, pressing her face against the table. I had watched her weep many times but this was the most ghastly, unresisting sort of surrender. It unnerved me. I stood over her and put my hand on her shoulder. I tried to say something but the words stuck in my throat. Not knowing what to do I rubbed my hand over her hair, caressed it sadly, and distantly too, as thought it were the head of a strange, wounded animal I had come upon in the dark.
«Come, come,» I managed to gurgle, «this won't do any good.»
Her sobs redoubled. I knew I had said the wrong thing. I couldn't help myself. No matter what she were to do—even if she were to kill herself—I couldn't change the situation. I had expected tears. I had also half expected to do this very thing— stroke her hair as she wept and say the wrong thing. My mind was on the goal. Is she would get through with it and go to bed I could sit down and finish the letter. I could add a postscript about cauterizing the wound. I could say with honest joy and Sorrow mixed—«It's over.»
That's what was going on in my mind as I stroked her hair. I was never further from her. While I felt the quivering gasps of her body I also felt pleasure at thinking how serene she would be a week hence when I had gone. «You will be feeling like a new woman,» I thought to myself. «And now you are going through all this anguish—it's right and natural, of course, and I don't blame you for it— only get done with it!» I must have given her a shake to punctuate the thought, for at that instant she suddenly sat erect and, looking at me with wild, hopeless, tear-stained eyes, she flung her arms around me and pulled me to her in a frantic, maudlin embrace. «You won't leave me yet, will you?» she sobbed, kissing me with salty, hungry lips. «Put your arms around me, please. Hold me tight. God, I feel so lost!» She was kissing me with a passion I had never felt in her before. She was putting body and soul into it—and all the sorrow that stood between us. I slid my hands under her arms-pits and raised her gently to her feet. We were as close as lovers could be, swaying as only the human animal can sway when he is given utterly to another. Her kimono slipped pone and she was naked underneath. I slid my hand down the small of her back, over her plump buttocks, wedged my fingers deep into the big crack, pressing her against me, chewing her lips, biting her ear lobes, her neck, licking her eyes, the roots of her hair. She got limp and heavy, closing her eyes, closing her mind. She sagged as though she were going to drop to the floor. I caught her up and carried her through the hall, up the flight of stairs, threw her on the bed. I fell over her, as if stupefied, and let her rip my things off. I lay on my back like a dead man, the only thing alive being my prick. I felt her mouth closing over it and the sock on my left foot slowly slipping off. I ran my fingers through her long hair, slid them round under her breast, moulded her bread basket which was soft and rubbery like. She was making some sort of wheeling motion in the dark. Her legs came down over my shoulders and her crotch was up against my lips. I slid her ass over my head, like you'd raise a pail of milk to slake a lazy thirst, and I drank and chewed and guzzled like a buzzard. She was so deep in heat that her teeth were clamped dangerously around the head of my cock. In that frantic, teary passion she had worked herself up to I had a fear that she might sink her teeth in deep, bite the end of it clean off. I had to tickle her to make her relax her jaws. It was fast, clean work after that—no tears, no love business, no promise me this and that. Put me on the fucking block and fuck! that's what she was asking for. I went at it with cold-blooded fury. This might be the very last fuck. Already she was a stranger to me. We were committing adultery, the passionate, incestuous kind which the Bible loves to talk about. Abraham went into Sarah or Leander and he knew her. (Strange italicizations in the English Bible.) But the way those horny old patriarchs tackled their young and old wives, sisters, cows and sheep, was very knowing. They must have gone in head first, with all the cunning and skill of aged lechers. I felt like Isaac fornicating with a rabbit in the temple. She was a white rabbit with long ears. She had Easter eggs inside her and she would drop them one by one in a basket. I took a long think inside her, studying every crevice, every slit and tear, every soft, round bump that had swollen to the size of a shrivelled oyster. She moved over and took a rest, reading it like Braille (New York Point) with her inquisitive fingers. She crouched on all fours bike a she animal, quivering and whinnying with undisguised pleasure. Not a human word out of her, not a sign that she knew any language except this block-and-tackle-subgum-one-ton-blow-the-whistle sort. The gentleman from Mississippi had completely faded out; he had slipped back into the swampy limbo which forms the permanent floor of the continents. One swan remained, an octaroon with ruby duck lips fastened to a pale blue head. Soon we'd be in clover, the blow-off, with plums and apricots falling from the sky. The last push, the drag of choked, white-hot ashes, and then two logs lying side by side waiting for the axe. Fine finish. Royal flush. I knew her and she knew me. Spring will come again and Summer and Winter. She will sway in somebody else's arms, go into a blind fuck, whinny, blow off, do the crouch and sag—but not with me. I've done my duty, given her the last rites. I closed my eyes and played dead to the world. Yes, we would learn to live a new life, Mara and I. I must get up early and hide the letter in my coat pocket. It's strange sometimes how you wind up affairs. You always think you're going to put the last word in the ledger with a broad flourish; you never think of the automaton who closes the account while you sleep. It's all the strictest kind of double-entry. It gives you the creeps, it's all so nicely calculated.
The axe is falling. Last ruminations. Honeymoon Express and all aboard: Memphis, Chattanooga, Nashville, Chickamauga. Past snowy fields of cotton... alligators yawning in the mud... the last apricot is rotting on the lawn... the moon is full, the ditch is deep, the earth is black, black, black.
V OLUME TWO
5
The next morning it was like after a storm— breakfast as usual, a touch for carfare, a dash for the subway, a promise to take her to the movies after dinner. For her it was probably just a bad dream which she would do her best to forget during the course of the day. For me it was a step towards deliverance. No mention of the subject was ever made again. But it was there all the time and it made things easier between us. What she thought I don't know, but what I thought was very clear and definite. Every time I assented to one of her requests or demands I said to myself: «Fine, is that all you want of me? I'll do anything you like except give you the illusion that I am going to live the rest of my life with you.»
She was inclined now
to be more lenient with herself when it came to satisfying her bestial nature. I often wondered what she told herself in making excuses to herself for these extra-nuptial, pre- or post-morganatic bouts. Certainly she put her heart and soul into them. She was a better fucker now than in the early days when she used to put a pillow under her ass and try to kiss the ceiling. She was fucking with desperation, I guess. Fuck for fuck's sake and the devil take the hindmost.
A week had passed and I hadn't seen Mara. Maude had asked me to take her to a theatre in New York, a theatre just opposite the dance hall. I sat throughout the performance thinking of Mara so close and yet so far away. I thought of her so insistently and unremittingly that as we were leaving the theatre I gave voice to an impulse which I was powerless to quelch. «How would you like to go up there?» I said, pointing to the dance hall, «and meet her?» It was a cruel thing to say and I felt sorry for her the moment it left my mouth. She looked at me, Maude, as if I had struck her with my fist. I apologized at once and, taking her by the arm, I led her quickly away in the opposite direction, saying as I did so— «It was just an idea. I didn't mean to hurt you. I thought you might be curious, that's all.» She made no answer. I made no further efforts to smooth the thing over. In the subway she slipped her arm in mine and let it rest there, as if to say—«I understand, you were just tactless and thoughtless, as usual.» On the way home we stopped off at her favorite ice cream parlor and there, over a plate of French ice cream which she doted on, she unlimbered sufficiently to eke out a thin conversation about domestic trifles, a sign that she had dismissed the incident from her mind. The French ice cream, which she regarded as a luxury, combined with the opening of a fresh wound, had the effect of making her amorous. Instead of undressing upstairs in the bed-room, as she did ordinarily, she went to the bathroom which adjoined the kitchen and, leaving the door open, she took off her things one by one, leisurely, studiedly, almost like a strip-teaser, calling me in finally as she was combing out her hair to show me a blue mark on her thigh. She was standing there naked except for her shoes and stockings, her hair flowing luxuriantly down her back.