by Henry Miller
At the time I speak of one of his passions was Sigmund Freud. I don't mean to imply that he knew only Freud. No, he spoke as though he had an acquaintance with the whole swarm, from Krafft-Ebing and Stekel on down. He regarded Freud not only as a thinker but as a poet. Kronski, on the other hand, whose reading was wider and deeper in this field, who had the advantage of clinical experience as well, who was then making a comparative study of psycho-analysis and not merely endeavoring to assimilate one new contribution after the other, irritated Arthur Raymond beyond words by what the latter was pleased to call «his corrosive skepticism».
It was in our cubicle that these discussions, which were not only bitter but interminable, took place. Mona had given up the dance hall and was looking about for work in the theatre. Often we all ate together in the kitchen, attempting towards midnight to disperse and reach our respective quarters. But Arthur Raymond had absolutely no regard for time; when he was interested in a subject he thought nothing of food, sleep or sex. If he went to bed at five in the morning he would get up at eight, if he chose to, or remain in bed for eighteen hours. He left it to Rebecca to rearrange his schedule. Naturally this sort of life created an atmosphere of chaos and postponement. When it got too complicated Arthur Raymond would throw up his hands and walk out on it, sometimes remaining away for days. After these periods of absence strange rumors would come floating back, stories which shed quite a different lustre upon his character. Apparently these excursions were necessary to complete the physical being; the life of a musician couldn't possibly satisfy his robust nature. He had to get away occasionally and mix with his cronies—a most incongruous assortment of characters, incidentally. Some of his escapades were innocent and amusing, others were sordid and ugly. Brought up as a sissy, he had found it imperative to develop the brutal side of his nature. He enjoyed picking a quarrel with some burly, blustering idiot much bigger than himself and cold-bloodedly breaking the man's arm or leg. He had done what so many little fellows always dream of doing— mastered ju-jitsu. He had done it in order to have the pleasure of insulting the menacing giants who make up the world of bullies which the little man dreads. The bigger they were the better Arthur Raymond liked it. He didn't dare to use his fists for fear or injuring his hands, but, rather meanly I thought, he would always pretend to fight and then of course take his adversary by surprise. «I don't admire that in you at all,» I told him once. «If you played me a trick like that I'd break a bottle over your head.» He looked at me in astonishment. He knew that I didn't care to fight or to wrestle. «I wouldn't mind,» I added, «if you resorted to those tricks as a last extremity. But you just want to show off. You're a little bully, and a little bully is even more obnoxious than a big one. Some day you'll tackle the wrong man....»
He laughed. I always interpreted things in a queer way, he said.
«That's why I like you,» he would say. «You're unpredictable. You have no code. Really, Henry» —and he would give a hearty guffaw—«you're essentially treacherous. If we ever make a new world you'll have no place in it. You don't seem to understand what it means to give and take. You're an intellectual hobo.... At times I don't understand you at all. You're always gay and affable, almost sociable, and yet ...well, you have no loyalties. I try to be friends with you... we were friends once, you remember... but you've changed... you're hard inside... you're untouchable. God, you think I'm hard... I'm just cocky, pugnacious, full of spirits. You're the one who's hard. You're a gangster, do you know that?» He chuckled. «Yes, Henry, that's what you are— you're a spiritual gangster. I don't trust you...»
It nettled him to observe the easy rapport which existed between Rebecca and myself. He wasn't jealous, nor had he reason to be, but he was envious of my ability to create such a smooth relationship with his wife. He was always telling me of her intellectual attainments', as though that should be the basis of attraction between us, but in a discussion, if Rebecca were present, he behaved towards her as if her opinions were of negligible importance. Mona he listened to with a gravity that was almost comical. He listened, of course, just long enough to hear her out, saying «Yes, yes, to be sure,» but actually giving no heed whatever to what she was saying.
Alone with Rebecca, watching her ironing or cook a meal, I had those sort of talks which one can only have with a woman if she belongs to another man.
Here there was really that spirit of «give and take» which Arthur Raymond complained of missing in me. Rebecca was earthy and not at all intellectual. She had a sensual nature and she loved to be treated as a woman and not as a mind. We talked of the most simple, homely things some 'times, things which the music master found no interest in whatever.
Talk is only a pretext for other, subtler forms of communication. When the latter are inoperative speech becomes dead. If two people are intent upon communicating with one another it doesn't matter in the least how bewildering the talk becomes. People who insist upon clarity and logic often fail in making themselves understood. They are always-searching for a more perfect transmitter, deluded by the supposition that the mind is the only instrument for the exchange of thought. When one really begin» to talk one delivers himself. Words are thrown about recklessly, not counted like pennies. One doesn't care about grammatical or factual errors, contradictions, lies and so on. One talks. If you are talking to some one who knows how to listen he understands perfectly, even though the words make no sense. When this kind of talk gets under way a marriage takes place, no matter whether you are talking to a man or a woman. Men talking with other men have as much need of this sort of marriage as women talking with women have. Married couples seldom enjoy this kind of talk, for reasons which are only too obvious.
Talk, real talk, it seems to me, is one of the most expressive manifestations of man's hunger for unlimited marriage. Sensitive people, people who feel, want to unite in some deeper, subtler, more durable fashion than is permitted by custom and convention. I mean in ways beyond the dreams of social and political Utopists. The brotherhood of man, should it ever come about, is only the kindergarten stage in the drama of human relationships. When man begins to permit himself full expression, when he can express himself without fear of ridicule, ostracism or persecution, the first thing he will do will be to pour out his love. In the story of human love we are still at the first chapter. Even there, even in the realm of the purely personal, it is a pretty shoddy account. Have we more than a dozen heroes and heroines of love to hold up as examples? I doubt if we have even as many great lovers as we have illustrious saints. We have scholars galore, and kings and emperors, and statesmen and military leaders, and artists in profusion, and inventors, discoverers, explorers—but where are the great lovers? After a moment's reflection one is back to Abelard and Heloise, or to Antony and Cleopatra, or the story of the Taj Mahal. So much of it is fictive, expanded and glorified by the poverty-stricken lovers whose prayers are answered only by myth and legend. Tristan and Isolde—what a powerful spell that legend still casts upon the modern world! In the landscape of romance it stands out like the snow-capped peak of Fujiyama.
There was one observation which I made to myself over and over again as I listened to the interminable wrangles between Arthur Raymond and Kronski. It was to the effect that knowledge divorced from action leads to sterility. Here were two vital young men, each brilliant in his way, and they were arguing passionately night after night about a new approach to the problems of life. An austere individual, leading a sober, modest, disciplined life in the far off city of Vienna, was responsible for these clashes. All over the Occidental world this wrangling was going on. One had to speak passionately about these theories of Sigmund Freud or not at all, so it seemed.
That fact alone is of significance, of far more significance than the theories under discussion. A few thousand people—not hundreds of thousands!— would in the course of the next twenty years submit to the process known as psychoanalysis. The term psychoanalysis would gradually lose its magic and become a by-word. Its therapeutic
value would decrease in proportion to the spread of popular understanding. The wisdom underlying Freud's explorations and interpretations would diminish in effectiveness with the increasing desire of the neurotic to become readapted to life.
In the case of my two young friends one of them was later to become dissatisfied with every solution to the problems of the day except that offered by Communism; the other, who would have pronounced me crazy had I then hinted at such an eventuality, was to become my patient. The music master forsook his music in order to right the world and failed. He failed even to make his own life more interesting, more satisfying, more ample. The other abandoned his medical practice and finally put himself into the hands of a quack, yours truly. He did it deliberately, knowing that I had no qualifications other than my sincerity and enthusiasm. He was even pleased at the result, which was nil, and which he had anticipated in advance.
It is now about twenty years since the period I speak of. Only the other day, as I was strolling aimlessly along, I ran into Arthur Raymond on the street. I might have passed him by had he not hailed me. He had altered, had taken on a girth almost commensurable to Kronski's. A middle-aged man now with a row of black, charred teeth. After a few words he began to talk about his son—the oldest boy, who was now in college and a member of the football team. He had transferred all his hopes to the son. I was disgusted. In vain did I try to get some inkling about his own life. No, he preferred to talk about his son. He was going to be somebody! (An athlete, a writer, a musician—God knows what.) I didn't give a fuck about the son. All I could make out of this effusive gush was that he, Arthur Raymond, had given up the ghost. He was living in the son. It was pitiful. I couldn't get away from him fast enough.
«You must come up and see us soon.» (He was trying to hold me.) «Let's have a good old session together. You know how I love talking!» He gave out one of those cachinating snorts as of yore.)
«Where do you live now?» he added, clutching my arm.
I took a piece of paper out of my pocket and wrote clown a false address and telephone number. I thought to myself, the next time we meet it will probably be in limbo.
As I walked away I suddenly realized that he had evinced no interest in what had happened to me all these years. He knew I had been abroad, had written a few books. «I've read some of your stuff, you know,» he had remarked. And then he had laughed confusedly, as if to say: «But I know you, you old rapscallion... you're not taking me in!» For my part I could have replied: «Yes, and I know all about you. I know the deceptions and humiliations you've suffered.»
Had we begun to swap experience we might have had an enjoyable talk. We might have understood one another better than we ever had before. If he had only given me a chance I might have demonstrated that the Arthur who had failed was just as dear to me as the promising young man whom I had once idolized. We were both rebels, in our way. And we had both struggled to make a new world.
«Of course I still believe in it (Communism),» he had said in parting. He said it as though he were sorry to admit that the movement were not big enough to include him with all his idiosyncrasies. In the same way I could imagine him saying to himself that he still believed in mvisic, or in the outdoor life, or in ju-jitsu. I wondered if he realized what he had done by abandoning one road after the other. If he had stopped anywhere along the line and fought his way through, life would have been worth while. Even if he had only become a champion wrestler! I remembered the night he had induced me to accompany him to a bout between Earl Cad-dock and Strangler Lewis. (And another occasion when we had gone together to witness the Dempsey-Carpentier fight.) He was a poet then. He saw two gods in mortal combat. He knew that there was more to it than a tussle to the finish between two brutes. He talked about these great figures of the arena as he would have talked about the great composers or the great dramatists. He was a conscious part of the mob which attends these spectacles. He was like a Greek in the days of Euripides. He was an artist applauding other artists. He was at his very best in the amphitheatre.
I recalled another occasion, when we were waiting on the platform of a railway station. Suddenly, while pacing back and forth, he grabs my arm and says: «By God, Henry, do you know who that is? That's Jack Dempsey!» And like a shot he bolts from my side and runs up to his beloved idol. «Hello Jack!» he says in a loud, ringing voice. «You're looking fine. I want to shake your hand. I want to tell you what a real champ you are.»
I could hear Dempsey's squeaky, piping voice answering the greeting. Dempsey, who overtowered Arthur Raymond, looked at that moment like a child.
It was Arthur Raymond who was bold and aggressive. He didn't seem the least bit awed by Dempsey's presence. I almost expected him to give the champion a pat on the shoulder.
«He's like a fine race horse,» said Arthur Raymond, his voice tense with emotion. «A most sensitive creature.» He was probably thinking of himself, of how he would appear to others should he suddenly become world's champion. «An intelligent chap too. A man couldn't fight in that colorful style unless he possessed a high degree of intelligence. He's a fine fellow really. Just a big boy, you know. He actually blushed, do you know that?» On and on he went, rhapsodizing over his hero.
But it was about Earl Caddock that he said the most wonderful things. Earl Caddock, I think, was even closed to his ideal than Dempsey. «The man of a thousand holds,» that's how Caddock was called. A god-like body, a little too frail, it would seem, for those protracted, gruelling bouts which the ordeal of wrestling demands. I remember vividly how he looked that night beside the burlier, heftier Strangler Lewis. Arthur Raymond was certain that Lewis would win—but his heart was with Earl Caddock. He screamed his lungs out, urging Caddock on. Afterwards, in a Jewish delicatessen over on the East Side, he rehearsed the bout in detail. He had an extraordinary memory when it concerned anything he was passionate about. I think I enjoyed the bout even more, in retrospect, seeing it through his eyes. In fact, he talked about it so marvelously that the next day I sat down and wrote a prose poem about two wrestlers. I brought it with me to the dentist's the following day. He was a wrestling fan also. The dentist thought it was a chef-d'oeuvre. The result was that I never got my tooth filled. I was taken upstairs to meet the family—they were from Odessa—and before I knew what was happening, I had become engrossed in a game of chess which lasted until two in the morning. And then began a friendship which lasted until all my teeth had been treated—fourteen of fifteen months it dragged out. When the bill came I vanished. It was not until five or six years later, I guess, that we met again, and then under rather peculiar circumstances. But of that later....
Freud, Freud.... A lot of things might be laid at his door. There is Dr. Kronski now, some ten years after our semantic life at Riverside Drive. Big as porpoise, puffing like a walrus, emitting talk like a locomotive emits steam. An injury to the head has disregulated his entire system. He has become a glandular anomaly, a study in cross-purposes.
We had not seen each other for some years. We meet again in New York. Hectic confabulations. He learns that I have had more than a speaking acquaintance with psychoanalysis during my absence abroad. I mention certain figures in that world who are well known to him—from their writings. He's amazed that I should know them, have been accepted by them—as a friend. He begins to wonder if he hadn't made a mistake about his old friend Henry Miller. He wants to talk about it, talk and talk and talk. I refuse. That impresses him. He knows that talking is his weakness, his vice.
After a few meetings I realize that he is hatching an idea. He can't just take it for granted that I know something about psycho-analysis— he wants proofs. «What are you doing now... in New York?» he asks. I answer that I am doing nothing, really. «Aren't you writing?»
«No.» A long pause. Then it comes out. An experiment... a grand experiment. I'm the man to do it. He will explain.
The long and short of it is that he would like me to experiment with some of his patients—his ex-patients, I should say
, because he has given up his practice. He's certain I can do as good as the next fellow—maybe better. «I won't tell them you're a writer,» he says. «You were a writer, but during your stay in Europe you became an analyst. How's that?»
I smiled. It didn't seem bad at all, at first blush. As a matter of fact, I had long toyed with the very idea. I jumped at it. Settled then. To-morrow, at four o'clock, he would introduce me to one of his patients.
That's how it began. Before very long I had about seven or eight patients. They seemed to be pleased with my efforts. They told Dr. Kronski so. He of course had expected it to turn out thus. He thought he might become an analyst himself. Why not? I had to confess I could see no reason against it. Any one with charm, intelligence and sensitivity might become an analyst. There were healers long before Mary Baker Eddy or Sigmund Freud were heard of. Common sense played its role too.
«To be an analyst, however,» I said, not intending it as a serious remark, «one should first be analyzed himself, you know that.»
«How about yow?» he said.
I pretended I had been analyzed. I told him Otto Rank had done the job.
«You never told me that,» he said, again visibly impressed. He had an unholy respect for Otto Rank.