by Albert Cohen
Naked now and smooth-cheeked, he opens the old case and from it takes the shawl of the synagogue. He kisses its fringes, drapes his nakedness with it, and says the blessing. He winds the phylacteries around his arm and says the blessing. Then from the case he takes the crown of the Feast of Lots, Rachel's crown, the cardboard crown which travels with him everywhere in his wanderings, the battered crown set with glass diamonds. He puts it on his head and sets off down the nights and through the ages, sorrowing as he goes, blessed with ancient beauty, halts in front of the solitary king who stands before him in the mirror, smiles at his reflection, his companion through life, keeper of his secrets, his reflection which alone knows that he is a king in Israel. 'Yes,' he murmurs to his reflection, 'they will build the Laughing Wall, and in the blue temple the bright water will sing.'
He jumps. Is it the police? He asks who is it. The florist's delivery-man. He puts on a dressing-gown, removes the false nose, half opens the door, shuts it quickly, and puts the bouquet in the bath. What next? But of course, he can eat, that's it, fellow-me-lad, eat. He can still eat, eating never lets you down. His Majesty is about to eat. He picks up the phone; orders cakes so that he doesn't have to wait for anything to be made, so that he can feel instant happiness.
He picks up the tray from outside the door, quickly turns the key in the lock, lowers the blinds, and draws the curtains to cancel the world outside. Next he switches on the lights, sets down the tray of cakes on the table, which he pushes up against the wardrobe mirror so that he has a guest, and then begins to eat while perusing the Saint-Simon. Sometimes he glances up at the mirror, smiles at himself, smiles at the down-and-out eating alone, quietly eating, reading as he eats, accepting his lot, making the most of it. Then he resumes his perusal of Saint-Simon, who, he discovers, was a well-integrated little crawler who knew everybody and was fawned on by the whole court because he had once been honoured by a remark by His Majesty, who had assured him that the royal favour shown to his father would also be bestowed on him. Dukes and peers were up and about from early morning, eagerly discussing His Majesty's mood and his still steaming stools, finding out who was in favour and who disgraced ingratiating themselves with the former and avoiding the latter, and above all determined to be noticed by the Great Excretor seated on his close-stool and be found pleasing in his sight. Crafty tail-wagging curs, the lot of them. Including Racine, grovellingly confessing his faults on the steps of the throne in the hope of being reinstated in the royal favour. Curs. But happy curs.
A sudden burst of the 'Marseillaise' on the radio, sung by a crowd. His heart misses a beat, he rises and stands motionless, stands to attention, his hand absurdly poking his temple in a military salute, tremulous with love, a true son of France, and he lends his voice to the voices of those who were once his compatriots. When the last echo dies away, he turns the radio off and he is alone and a Jew in a room with lowered blinds, lit by electricity, though the sun shines bright outside.
To avoid dwelling on his existence, he gets into bed and picks up a best-selling novel, the author of which is a woman and the heroine a little bitch, a splendid product of the middle classes, who is bored and sleeps with all and sundry for something to do and, after going to bed whisky-drunk with this one and then with that one, who may have syphilis, drives off at ninety miles an hour, for something to do. He tosses the nauseating little trollop into the waste-paper basket.
The radio. A Protestant service. Heart-sad, he listens to the singing of the faithful. Oh those voices! So sure, so hopeful, so gentle, so good: at least they're good for the time being. He gets out of bed, goes over to the radio, and kneels before it to belong, to be with brother human beings. A hard lump in his throat, difficulty breathing. He knows that he is grotesque, a solitary outsider, grotesque for singing their hymns of praise with them, grotesque for singing along with those who reject and mistrust him. But all the same he joins with them and sings their noble hymn, oh the joy of singing with them, of singing that their God is a bulwark, a stout shield and defender, the joy of making the sign of the cross to belong with them, to love them and be loved by them, the joy of saying the sacred words with brother human beings. For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever, amen. 'Receive God's holy blessing,' the minister says. Whereupon he bows his head to receive the blessing, like them, with them. Then he stands up, alone and a Jew, and he remembers the walls.
He puts his cardboard nose on again and sniggers. Why not give the walls outside exactly what they want? Hateful his vitality; stupid this will to live. Jerusalem or Rachel? But for the moment the chocolate truffles, quickly now. 'I'm going to eat you all up, my little treasures,' he says. 'Sorry, but I'd forgotten all about you.' He observes himself masticating in the mirror, masticating with pitiful glee. But when the truffles are all gone the despair has not gone away.
'Death to the Jews.' His cardboard nose is uncomfortable, he chokes on his loneliness, on the suffocating smell of glue and cellar, but no, keep it on, his false nose is his honour. Cornered, behaving like a man cornered, he rolls his eyes and suddenly he is a French army captain and the wall-daubers are going to send him to Devil's Island. He snaps to attention. The whole battalion has assembled at his back, while before him stands the officer charged with ensuring that justice is seen to be done, an officer with a large moustache, reeking of garlic, who rips off his stripes and breaks his sword over his knee. He shouts at the mirror, in a voice made nasal by his fancy-dress nose, shouts that he is innocent, that he is not a traitor. ' Vive la France!' he shouts.
Why not take the flowers and lay them at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe? They'll laugh. In her letter, she said not to open the packet until he was alone. Well, he certainly is alone: alone is the word for it! Suddenly he decides: Yes he'll open it and look. A grubby pleasure owing to him. He can stop worrying about his destiny for whole minutes. Because what's in the packet is a breath of life, a privilege granted only to him. Leper he may be, but few happy men have wives more beautiful and loving. For love, to keep her man, she has dared, demeaned by solitude, dared, she the daughter of unspotted lineage, dared, for his sake, dared to brave the degradation of dirty pictures. Well then, very well then, he now has a Purpose, which is to look at her dirty pictures, love them one by one, painstakingly, find her desirable and to hell with Deuteronomy. Yes, my love, let us be degraded together.
Don't open it straight away. Order a good dinner first. Oh yes, misfortune demeans, but here's one way of fighting back against misfortune. Oh yes, absolutely, a first-class dinner, with champagne. The cooks will pull out all the stops for him. The dirty pictures will keep. No one can deprive him of that pleasure! He may not have the 'Marseillaise' and brothers to sing it with, nor the Coldstream Guards presenting arms to him, to France's representative, but he does have dirty pictures! We have our own ways of being happy, gentlemen, just as you have!
No, not dinner. Not hungry. Can't face it. Quickly now, a quick fix of happiness. He breaks the seals, opens the packet, closes his eyes, and chooses at random. Don't look at once, work up to it slowly, keep telling yourself a glimpse of happiness lies just around the corner. He places one hand flat on the photograph then opens his eyes. Slowly he draws his hand downwards. Oh! Horrible! He slides his hand up again so that only the face is visible. Lo, an aristocratic face, the face of a daughter of those who spurn him. A respectable face, a decent face, but take your hand away and what a contrast! Try some of the others. Ariane as a lusting nun. Ariane as a little girl in a short skirt, with bare legs, beckoning crudely. And this one, even worse. Very well, be degraded, Solal. Poor darling girl, unhinged by solitude, this appalling talent of hers spawned by the seething ferment of her solitude. He stares hard at the photos, spreads them all out, feels desire for them, for his harem. Good, he may have reached the depths of his unhappiness but he can still take an interest in something, can still desire. Oh, the albino with the neatly trimmed hair goes home contentedly to his wife and ch
ildren and does not need degrading photographs to make him happy. He gets to his feet and tears them up. But what can he do now. Love! Go to Ariane! Go to her, his country and his home! Yes, leave tonight! Pack bags, dress, taxi to the station!
He leaves his bags at the luggage counter and wanders idly out into the Boulevard Diderot, waiting for his train to form. Suddenly, in the night, under the misty lights, he knows them as they file out of the station in twos and threes, some wearing black, wide-brimmed, ear-splaying, head-cramming Homburgs, others in flat, fur-trimmed velvet skullcaps, but all garbed in interminable black coats, the older ones clutching furled umbrellas, but all carrying suitcases, shoulders hunched, feet dragging, and debating excitedly as they go. He knows them, knows them for his well-beloved fathers and subjects, meek and majestic, the devout of strict observance, the firm of purpose, the faithful with black beards and dangling earlocks, self-contained and absolute, strangers in their exile, unshakeable in their otherness, scorned and scorning, indifferent to mockery, fabulously, undeviat-ingly themselves, going their own upright way, proud of their truth, scorned and mocked, the exalted of his people, issued forth from the Lord and His Sinai, bearers of His Law.
He has drawn closer the better to see them, the better to feast his eyes. He follows them through the dark night streets, rounding his shoulders like theirs, head down like theirs, and like them screwing up his eyes and darting quick, furtive glances around him, follows God's crook-backs, spellbound by their bent backs and their black coats and their beards, follows the bearded of God, feeling love for his people and filling his heart with his love, walks in the wake of the centuries and the dragging coats and the dragging steps and the everlastingly carried possessions, walks and murmurs 'Thy tents are beautiful, O Jacob, and thy dwellings, O Israel', walks in the wake of his well-beloved black priests of God, fathers and sons of prophets, walks in the wake of his chosen people and fills his heart with his people, Israel, his love.
They halt outside Kohn's Restaurant, debate, make up their minds, enter, find tables, and sit with their cases between their legs, for safety. He remains outside and watches them through the window, through the curtains, watches his languid-eyed wanderers, his well-beloved fathers and subjects stroking their beards and caressing their passports, prodding their aching backs and their overloaded livers, all arguing vociferously, hands gesticulating, hands thinking. Incisive looks probe, deduce and know, fingers curl pensive beards, noses compute, brows impute, lowered eyes conclude. Pink with life against the black of their beards, too pink and fleshy, lips spread in resigned, torpidly knowing smiles, then shut, tremble, tighten, calculate, ponder, cogitate, ruminate and deliberate while diamonds in tissue paper circulate.
Still wearing their hats — for hair is a form of nakedness — the bearded band he loves are now eating with gusto, hunched over their plates, studiously feeding on cold stuffed fish, chopped liver, aubergine caviare and meatballs served on fried onion rings. At the back of the room, an old man with an immeasurable beard sits hunched over the Holy Law, which takes precedence over God himself, reads and rocks as he reads.
Then, outside in the dark night where fine, cold rain drizzles down, their solitary king stands at the curtain-hung window and he too rocks his head and shoulders, rocks in time to the immemorial rhythm, chants a hymn to the Almighty in the old tongue, the hymn which Moses and the children of Israel sang to the Almighty who delivered them from the hand of Pharaoh, who cast the Egyptians into the Red Sea, and the waters covered the chariots and the horsemen and all the host of Pharaoh, and there remained not so much as one of them, but the children of Israel walked upon the dry land in the midst of the sea, and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore, and it was well. Praise to the Almighty, for who is more magnificent in holiness and more worthy of praise than He? Sing praises to the Almighty, for He has made His glory to shine! Horses and horsemen all did He cast into the sea! Hallelujah!
CHAPTER 94
'We had dinner in our dining-room around a table which seats twenty-four and now we are settled in our spacious and quite useless drawing-room sitting in our appallingly comfortable chocolate-mousse armchairs, I am pretending to read so that I shan't have to talk to the poor girl while she is sewing up all the hems which I unpicked on the quiet to give her something to do she told me it would take her quite a while perhaps a couple of hours because first she'll have to remove the old threads and after that she intends putting in some fine needlework poor darling she said she wants to make the stitches even and tiny so they won't show or gape very well darling go ahead make it perfect poor kitten she can't be much of a hand at sewing but at least her life has some point for the time being on no account stop pretending to read under pain of conversation let's hope we're not in for a recital of rumblings tonight, I'm sorry darling but you do realize that I've been doing my level best since I got back from Paris, she was so sweet the other night when I called in on her to say good-night she was reading and I said come along it's time to go to sleep now she shut her book at once she said yes all right in such a way that my heart missed a beat an angel's yes a good little girl's yes heart-stopping and so meek I felt myself melt with love melt with the pity that is love, Ariane my child who cries so bitterly when I get angry her searing anguish her eyes puffy with so much crying her nose swollen with so much wiping but if I say I'm sorry she forgives me at once shows no resentment and in no time at all I hear her in her room singing and the bitter anguish is all gone, I feel such pity for my child so quickly restored to hope so eager to be happy, darling your sex frightens me frightened me when you bent down in your nakedness to pick up something off the floor, this morning you went out shopping and I was alone in the house and I kissed your pretty grey blazer it was hanging up in the hall I kissed it several times I even kissed the lining, and now I'm going to tell you everything without running any risk of making myself look small since you cannot hear me alas oh yes I must absolutely keep face so you can go on being proud to love me but even so some day I may tell you all about the Silbersteins' cellar, I wanted to stay on with them but they asked me to save them so on the fourth day I left only to fail in each and every capital failed in London failed in Washington failed in the Council of their damned L of N when I asked the self-important clowns to take in my German Jews to divide them among themselves, they said my plan was Utopian that if they took them all there would be an upsurge of anti-Semitism in the countries which accepted them in other words they threw them to their butchers because they loathe anti-Semitism, for which I arraigned both them and their love-thy-neighbour cant O great Christ betrayed whereupon ructions and to put it simply I was turfed out as the Forbes woman put it ignominiously instant dismissal for conduct prejudicial to the interests of the League of Nations said the letter which old Cheyne wrote to me and then followed the decree rescinding my nationality on grounds of procedural irregularity and then a few days ago my stupid attempts to get the decree withdrawn and the pathetic comfort of her photos, poor girl thinking up her next pose yes that one too he'll like that one me with no clothes on standing in front of the mirror that way he'll have a view of both sides of me left hand raised touching the mirror and right hand between my as if I'm about to yes he'll like that, poor girl standing in position for the time exposure hurriedly getting into her deplorable pose, and then the decision to go back to her to seek comfort in our miserable bodies but suddenly hope dawns yes stop off first at Geneva, persuade the Clown-General to take me back, ah my serene seamstress behold! behold Solal the Cretin in Geneva drafting a letter to give to old Cheyne when he goes to see him a twenty-page letter in which he sets out his misery the wretched life we lead a long letter ensure he reads it when I'm there, yes best make it a letter because I'm afraid I'll forget what to say if I say it face to face yes a letter because I'm feeling low and not at all sure if I can say it properly and make him see melt his heart whereas with a letter you can put things p
roperly, darling look upon your poor believer who spent days composing his make-or-break weighty deadly serious letter seven days and seven nights spent looking for arguments to melt his heart scribbling words starting again then typing the letter on a typewriter bought specially for the purpose a Royal the fool typing with two fingers shut up in a hotel room preparing his pitiful big move yes typing a letter so the old man can read it easily and get the message and be lulled into a kindly frame of mind and feel sorry yes a letter typed with two fingers in front of a mirror for company so that the mirror is company for this solitary rootless man this Jew a letter typed by a despairing man who sweats and can't type and sometimes glances up and stares at his reflection and feels deep pity for the pathetic figure before him, yes darling with two fingers but it was neatly typed no typing errors at all when I made a mistake I rubbed it out just like a proper typist with a special rubber a round thin eraser which kept me company for a week I would look at the eraser and think it was aiding and abetting and helping to save me I loved it I can remember exactly what was printed on it Weldon Roberts Eraser I rubbed gently so I wouldn't leave marks on the exquisite paper or dirty it yes aim for a really beautifully typed letter to put Cheyne in a good mood these little things can make all the difference at least that is what the no-hopers of this world always say anyway by sticking at it I ended up a pretty competent typist that's the way play the highest cards you have in your hand win him round with a letter moving in content and impeccable in form oh yes dwelling on your misfortunes can addle the brain, and lo came the evening when I called at the Cheyne residence at seven incredibly clean-shaven and feeling awkward almost forced my way in I handed him the letter so impeccable in form and he glanced casually at the letter so moving in content read it turning the pages so quickly that I felt sick felt my Jew face flush angry purple, oh yes darling it took him just four or five minutes to read the letter I had sweated over for days and nights he gave it back to me held it between thumb and forefinger as if it were dirty my lovely letter my beautiful letter so beautifully typed with two fingers he said there was nothing he could do for me, and then just listen to this the fool produced another letter from his pocket a brief note in case the first met with a rebuff a fall-back letter in which the poor fool his wits turned by loneliness dared offer the old man all the money he had the pathetic fool stating the exact amount in dollars yes every penny I had if the old man would agree to give me a job any job even a minor job so long as I would be a part of things so long as I could shake the pariah dust from my feet whereupon the fool was turned away indignantly by Cheyne the sterling multimillionaire Cheyne the incorruptible, outside I tramped the streets dragging my misery with me wanting my Uncle Saltiel oh to see him again and go back and live with him but that's out of the question he would be so distressed to see how low I have fallen I won't make him unhappy stopping by the lake tearing up both letters my two brilliant ploys my great hopes and throwing them into the lake and watching them float away on the current, street after street after street thinking of how to rid you of me and leave you all my dollars putting them in a bank in your name and then going back to live in the cellar with them, I was exhausted I hadn't eaten anything the whole of the time I'd spent sweating over my typewriter so I wandered into a cafe and I talked to you over coffee and croissants and there were tears in my eyes I whispered to you with tears in my eyes for the unhappiness I have brought upon you the misery of love in quarantine a love so chemically pure, at the table to my left was an old man who didn't notice that I was crying a little old man with a nose like a strawberry he was drinking white wine then a grim-voiced newsboy appeared hawking the Tribune his voice was portentous clamorous urgent and he rattled the change in his bag he called out special edition Swiss franc devalued which made a stir everyone bought a paper, the three who came and sat at the table of the man with the grog-blossom nose and the rest of them all started talking about the devaluation some being for and some against, I drew closer the stateless person drew closer and argued strongly that devaluation meant salvation for our country the old man agreed with me he said quite right all decent people should think like this gentleman and he shook my hand and afterwards they all rushed home to pass on the news I left too outside in the street I saw the old man who'd already gone a fair way I ran to catch him but when I was almost up with him I felt awkward and slowed down so he wouldn't realize that I needed him needed the company needed the brotherhood, we talked some more about the devaluation he told me he'd be worse off as a result that the cost of living would go up but too bad the general interest had got to come first so I repeated what matters most is saving our country it was nice to be able to say our country he introduced himself Sallaz schoolteacher retired I felt uncomfortable saying my name so I just babbled on talked about our country the Switzerland we loved the old man was delighted and suggested a drink said it's on me one for all and all for one, we went into a brasserie and sat down next to a fat man and his fat wife who were unfolding their serviettes as the gourmet hors-d'oeuvres arrived settling into their chairs with well-bred complacency and healthy appetites about to be satisfied and exchanging unexpectedly good-humoured smiles, the old man and I clinked our glasses he started asking questions I said I was the Swiss consul in Athens I described the consulate and the Swiss flag hanging from a balcony on national holidays what you've got to understand Monsieur Sallaz is that when you're far from home it's a comfort to see your country's flag flying he asked if the Swiss consul's standing was the same as that of the consuls of the major powers I said it's higher because we are straight as a die everybody knows it and respects us for it he gave a proud little laugh and said by Jove that's right we Swiss aren't a pack of rogues like that lot in the Balkans so I upped the ante I said in Switzerland we don't fiddle the income tax he offered me an alarming black cigar I smoked it all the way down for love of our own Swiss country, I don't want to pry sir but may I know your name well now that we've had a drink together I think you're perfectly entitled to ask the name's Motta you wouldn't by any chance be related to the Federal Councillor Motta I'm his nephew said I whereupon he gave me a look so respectful so fond that it hurt he finished his glass of white wine well you can be very proud of your uncle because Federal Councillor Motta is a great man a true son of Ticino a true son of Switzerland the spearhead of our diplomacy as they say ah what we need is more men of his calibre it's true you do look like him, he suggested another round of white wine to cement the friendship we drank up I spoke fulsomely in praise of liberal Swiss institutions with special reference to their stability and prudence adding a word about the independent Alps and the ranz-des-vaches, did you know Monsieur Sallaz that Louis XIV banned the singing of the ranz and those caught in flagrante delicto were sentenced to life imprisonment that's right when our soldiers in the service of the French king heard the ranz-des-vaches they deserted by the dozen which only goes to show how much we love our country and how much we pine for our beloved mountains and our beloved Alpine slopes, I wasn't joking I was quite carried away I was thinking of you my darling when you're by yourself humming one of your mountain songs, at this point the old man broke into the ranz-des-vaches and I sang along with him the other customers joined in too and next we sang the Swiss national anthem hail to thee fair Switzerland the blood the lives of thy children, then Sallaz got shakily to his feet and announced to all the customers that his friend was the nephew of Federal Councillor Motta Head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at which several came up to me and shook me by the hand and people shouted three cheers for Motta I thanked them all feeling the warmth of my fellow men yes there were tears in the eyes of this descendant of Aaron brother of Moses, I say Monsieur Motta it would give me the greatest pleasure if you would do me the honour of coming to my house tomorrow evening for a fondue with my family, I accepted he gave me his address and we separated I'm delighted to have met you sir take care we'll expect you tomorrow night I knew I wouldn't go it would be too painful to sit round the family table under fa
lse pretences, I was afraid to go back to my hotel afraid of going back to myself so I went to another cafe where they were also talking about the devaluation I sat down near them the bony beret basque with the blotchy face said it's the Jews that's been angling for a devaluation and all your department stores and your fixed-price emporiums is owned by Jew-boys they're driving corner shops to the wall they're taking the bread out of our mouths nobody asked them to come here to my way of thinking they oughter be treated a bit like the way they get treated in Germany if you see what I mean though we didn't oughter be too hard on them because they're yuman when all is said and done, whenever I encounter a little boy my heart does not leap up when I see him smile because I am haunted by the spectre of the man he'll grow up to be a man with long teeth sly sickeningly gregarious another Jew-hater, she sits silent and reserved asking for nothing happy to sew for me I love you I love your clumsiness your childish gestures, Proust had the peculiar habit of dunking little sponge cakes in lime-blossom tea two sweetish tastes combined in one disgusting taste of sponge cake mixed with the even more disgusting taste of the lime tea a kind of perverse femininity which tells me as much about him as the hysterically flattering things he wrote to Anna de Noailles in reality he didn't think that much of her had no reason to he flattered her because she was a star of polite society no don't tell her she'd be hurt she's so very fond of the little Vinteuil phrase and the bells of Martinville and the Vivonne and the hawthorns at Meseglise and the rest of the exquisiteries, Laure Laure Laure Laure in the chalet the little mountain hotel the children got to know me quickly adopted me I played with them and after a few days she decided to call me Uncle she was beautiful very beautiful she was fourteen years old no thirteen and already her breasts her thighs oh so beautiful a woman already but with the grace of a child, when the only way down was over the tangle of fallen tree-trunks I asked her if she was afraid oh no I'm never afraid when I'm with you but hold me tight and I held her close and then she said oh yes and in her upturned eyes was love unadulterated love, the next day she behaved more naturally with me she blurted out you know I like you more than people usually like uncles, O Laure at thirteen what games we played we played on a see-saw so we could face one another so we could go on looking at each other without the others knowing but we never admitted anything to each other about what we felt on the see-sawing yee-yawing plank we stared at one another unsmiling dumb with love grave with love I thought she was so beautiful and she thought I was handsome we stared we drank each other's nearness I can't for the life of me think what you can see in bobbing up and down like you've been doing this past hour said her mother and when her mother had gone we started staring at each other again she and I so serious, with the other children we played Siberian sledging so that we could hold hands under the sledge blanket, we loved each other but never said so we were pure or as good as, every afternoon she would come and ask me to play and I had to try to catch her and her little brother and her friend Isabelle who'd come to spend a week with her in the chalet, Laure O Laure she loved being caught by me she let out little frightened squeals when I grabbed her and held her breathless against me and once she murmured it's awful but I like it, and one evening she sulked because that afternoon I had caught Isabelle too often oh the way she looked when on another evening she and I got back late it was dark in the forest she said hold me I'm scared and I held her by the waist but she removed my arm from her waist and put my hand on her breast she pressed my hand hard on her breast and I heard a salivary intake of breath, every evening after dinner when she and her little brother went to say good-night to the grown-ups before going to bed Laure made sure she kissed everybody but everybody for the sake of appearances and me the last just a peck on the cheek awfully proper with eyes averted and just a tiny bit frightened, we'd both been looking forward so much to that pure kiss throughout the whole of dinner we knew it was coming and we kept glancing at each other throughout the meal the others never suspected a thing and when the marvellous moment came we feigned indifference I was twenty she was thirteen Laure Laure a single summer's love I was twenty she was thirteen after lunch she'd come looking for me I say Uncle let's play siestas come on let's climb up to that grassy ledge up there we can have forty winks together it'll be fun we'll take a rug I was twenty she was thirteen when we got there we lay down on the grass under the tall pine me her and her little brother he got dragged along too for the sake of appearances too but we never said so indeed we never admitted anything openly to each other I was twenty she was thirteen ah those high-altitude siestas the weather was always glorious and the air full of the buzz of summer I was twenty she was thirteen she always insisted that the three of us should get under the rug and she would take my hand and lay her head on my hand and close her eyes and sleep or pretend to sleep on my hand and her burning lips were on my hand but her lips did not move because she did not dare to kiss my hand I was twenty she was thirteen or else she would wrap herself up in the rug oh rugs of our love of our great love of a single summer then she would rest her head on my knee supposedly to go to sleep then she would lift her head and look at me I was twenty she was thirteen and I loved her I loved her Laure O Laure O child yet woman, when the holidays were over the day she was leaving in the little cable-car station her mother was at the ticket window Laure in socks Laure at thirteen suddenly said I know why you always wanted us to be with the others and never alone I know what you were afraid of you were afraid that there were other things for just the two of us to do and I wouldn't have minded those other things I would have liked us to be alone together for a whole day for a whole night farewell Laure who was thirteen oh the love of a single summer's length my great love oh my Cephalonian boyhood oh Passover on the eve of Passover my lord and father would fill the first cup and then say the blessing in Thy love for us has Thou given us this feast of unleavened bread in commemoration of our deliverance and as a token of our going out of Egypt blessed be Thou O Lord who sanctifieth Thy people Israel, I admired his voice and next came the cleansing of the hands and then the dipping of the chervil in vinegar then the breaking of unleavened bread and after that was the telling of the story my lord and father raised the salver aloft and would say here is the bread of affliction which our forefathers did once eat in Egypt's land whoever hungers let him come and eat with us whoever is in need let him come and celebrate Passover with us this year we are here but next may we be in the land of Israel this year we are slaves but next year may we be a free people, and then because I was the youngest I put the prescribed question how does this night differ from other nights why on every other night do we eat leavened bread and why on this night unleavened bread I was deeply moved when I put the question to my lord and father who then would remove the cloth that covered the unleavened bread and begin the reply looking directly at me and I would blush with pride he would say we were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and the Eternal our God brought us forth with His powerful hand and His outstretched arm, my solitary Jewish wandering through the streets of Geneva after the Cheyne fiasco, first to Devaluation Cafe then to the brasserie with Sallaz and then the cafe featuring the beret basque and they're yuman when all is said and done, then a third cafe and the four workmen at the next table who'd finished their game of cards, don't it just make yer sick though exclaimed the loser he threw his cards down with feigned indignation which he intended to be funny to show that he wasn't bothered about losing that he was above such things and also to make out that he was a good sport who took it all in good part he turned to the winner and said you allus turn up aces but me the only thing I ever turn up is the gas which got a laugh, encouraged he went on and said to the winner you're wasted in your job you should have become a croupier, come a cropper more like replied the winner and there was another round of solid working-class guffaws, o' course said the oldest a chap likes winnin' it's only yuman nature but when you lose it don't do to grouse, quite right said the loser and he calmly produced the sum he had lost and handed it to the winner and said oh
it don't do any good getting all hot and bothered and said it in a straight serious way to show he wasn't hiding how cut up he was the fourth member of the group who had red hair said to the winner we'd better phone the bank and tell 'em to fetch a van over to carry your winnin's away in but nobody laughed because he was a shy man and told his jokes with none of the authority of the strong, after a while I left I went into one of those little cafes where they have music-hall turns to entertain the customers I went in because of its name the San Fairy Ann the little curtain went up on the little stage and Damien came on Damien was down on the bill for Comic Songs poor Damien with his paunch large dyed moustache poached eyes jacket too tight key-chain hanging out of a dignified white waistcoat Damien was wearing the Military Cross he rubbed and wrung his large red hands to display his elegance and poise as he waited for the band to finish his introduction and then began singing articulating carefully poor conscientious failure who washed his feet once a week began singing a satirical song about rich people who give a lavish party and he pulled a posh face featuring demurely pouting lips, but nary a crust in the larder for my poor little ones and he raised both heavily ringed hands and clasped his head in despair, so to feed my pretty bairns I took to a life of crime and he waggled his ringed and tastefully thieving fingers, and when the song was over he made more washing motions with his hands while the band played the introduction for the next ditty which was another social protest involving the son of a rich mill-owner who seduces an honest factory-girl by showering her with kisses here Damien caressed his backside, and she was intoxicated by love here Damien's sausage fingers spiralled upwards like smoke, and the poor weak little thing got carried away here he raised one hand to his forehead and closed his eyes, and it all ended up with a lot of being sorry for girls who get into trouble girls who go wrong, yes darling your yes your frightens me, next on the bill was an enormously stout lady with very fat white hands who sang earthy songs she laughed as she came on to suggest that she was a card she beamed at the audience to suggest that she had them just where she wanted them to let them know that she had them in the palm of her hand then with the air of one accustomed to carrying all before her announced the title of the song she was about to sing The Cigarette Waltz dedicated to all smokers then said Maestro to the pianist to indicate that he could start, the last verse was devoted to the cigarette rolled by the man in the condemned cell and the tears of his grief-stricken mother, Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One, O God whom I love I miss Thee every hour, if I forget Thee O Jerusalem let my right hand forget its cunning, next came Yamina the Oriental Dancer the net over her bosom was designed rather to prevent her breasts sagging than to hide them I felt so depressed my darling I thought of you Yamina's two girl assistants clapped their hands extravagantly but managed to do it silently, during the interval Yamina had a drink with the earthy songstress she said I'd give my eye-teeth for a really unusual dance routine you know costume with great big ostrich feathers and the rest of it what would make it a really big hit is that me and Marcel have both got fair hair, then afterwards streets and yet more streets and feeling ashamed as I walked through the door, the four girls sitting in the bar downstairs in negligees all stood up no I want to be left alone I gave them some money I drank a glass of rum two other girls at the next table to mine were sitting on the knees of a couple of soldiers the older one was being saucy to make herself seem younger poking her tongue out at her soldier pinching his ear, no that's what it costs to go upstairs that's separate from tips us girls depend on the generosity of our gentlemen see all we get is what the customers give us go on make it a round figure go on be nice and after we'll give you a good time me and my friend know all the tricks you just see if we don't, in Geneva the letter she read out to me to make me laugh a letter her husband Deume had got from his mother she had the brass-faced nerve to read it out to me, women will do anything to please the man they love, a letter about somebody called Adhemar van Offel who asks his aunt if God loves servants shall I imagine Adhemar talking to his aunt no use it as the basis of a little scene between the Countess de Surville and her son Patrice on a fine morning in summer in the spacious red and gold drawing-room of the ancestral castle a handsome boy of nine was sitting pensively beside his mother who was modestly bent over her needlework suddenly he made up his mind and tiptoed over to her Mother dear tell me does God love servants as much as he loves us who are pukka crust Madame de Surville buried her yearning face in her hands and remained thus for some time reflecting in silence while the boy with blond curls knelt trembling before his one-eyed mother staring radiantly at her then at length the Countess surfacing from her prolonged meditation held out both hands Yes my child God loves servants just as much as he loves us she replied simply and with a strange pallor in her face and eyes cast down, it was a bitter blow but the noble boy bore it without flinching yet as he tried to smile at his mother large tears could be seen trickling down his rosy cheeks, whereupon the Countess held him close Child child she said you stand upon the threshold of life you will encounter many rude surprises but I am confident that you will be able to meet them with courage like a man like a patriot like a true believer like a worthy son of your dear father who fell on the glorious field of battle, Yes Mother replied little Patrice who suddenly giving vent to his despair shook with great racking sobs I am grateful to you he added for thinking sufficiently well of me to tell me the honest truth please forgive me mother dear for momentarily showing something of the cruel disappointment I felt on hearing your words but you will concede Mother dear that God moves in mysterious ways, Dear child went on Madame de Surville I admit it gladly for the lower classes are sometimes such a disappointment and so terribly lacking in spirituality and other-worldly radiance, That I too in turn will concede the blond boy replied eagerly and would even go so far as to add that the crass materialism of humble folk has frequently offended my native delicacy of feeling the Prince of Wales being my ideal and also Marshal Foch and that it has only been by resorting to prayer that I have been able to overcome my revulsion but then you know who I take after he added cleverly catching the eye of his dear mother who blushed modestly, there followed a lengthy silence during which both mother and son seemed to gather new strength through the intense power of concentration little Patrice standing with his eyes turned heavenwards as though listening to choirs of angels through which he thought he could detect the voice of Dear Grandpapa who had also fallen gloriously on the field of battle, then at length patting his blond curls he asked his mother's permission to speak and waited with a delicate smile and well-bred deference, disturbed in her pious thoughts Madame de Surville started clasped her hand tremblingly to her heart and gave a half-stifled but gracious cry then acquiesced with such a sweet look on her ringlet-framed face, Mother dear another and even graver question torments me a question which perhaps Satan has whispered in my ear which is do you truly believe that God also loves those who have only recently taken out French nationality asked the child whose heart was beating so fast that he thought he would faint, the Countess de Surville collected her thoughts for a moment then looked at her son with her one good but luminous eye, Let us pray she said simply, and after letting her soul soar lengthily up to her Maker and having received an answer from on high she stood up suddenly and so fiercely that her hair came undone and her skirt unhitched itself and fell to the floor revealing a camisole and a pair of rather long frilly bloomers, Yes she cried impetuous and flame-cheeked, yes He loves naturalized persons He even loves strikers and strike-fomenters and the ring-leaders who have all come here from abroad He also loves those who have no roof over their heads stateless persons and even Jews and people in concentration camps, at these words Patrice sprang forward and kneeling before his mother kissed her hand passionately, You are a saint dear Mama he exclaimed, they talk about the destructive mind of the Jews but what can I do about it if they have turned Lucifer the bringer of light into the devil himself what can I do about it if barefoot in a long cymar
with a lance in my hand the lance on which perch the moon-owl and all the birds of knowledge and of disquiet what can I do about it if my left eye is half-closed while the other is wide open and second-sighted what can I do about it if I see and know, they say destructive mind but what can I do about it if the dances they dance in their balls are pseudo-couplings the young men press the young women close against them and the mothers look on fondly oh the pure joy of the dance they say but in that case why sex to sex male against female they also say moral uplift because the dancers rub against each other to raise money for the benefit of needy folk who are not made millionaires thereby and wives go home with husbands after clinging to an assortment of strange men against whom they have rubbed while conversing politely on assorted elevated subjects, all's well in the world and they are not ashamed because it was only a dance the word being a sufficient alibi oh the sweet reek of rottenness, they say destructive mind but what can I do about it if they have decked with plumes of grandeur and beauty the strength which is the power to kill, oh the baboonish respect for strength for instance their passion for sport or the pure baboonish homage of mealy-mouthed ceremonial words which are tantamount to saying to the powerful You are the face of the Establishment you have the might of society behind you and are therefore dangerous being many whereas I am one and stand alone before you who represent the might of the many and are therefore able to break me at will and that is why I bend my knee, and what are the bowings and scrapings and obeisance of lesser mortals in the presence of greater men but a substitute and echo of baboonish submission which is none other than the posture of the female deferring on all fours to the dominant male, they say destructive mind but what can I do about it if I have seen and judged their esteemed statesmen, oh the pathetic lives led by politicians courting the moronic masses making them laugh now and then to be popular shaking unwashed hands doing deals with crooks and thieves always watching their step always watching their backs seeking ever greater influence or as the poor clowns put it rising up the ladder laying waste their energies in stratagems setting traps arranging the downfall of rivals losing sleep over it taking a hand in disputes between mortal nations which are as sordid as any family quarrel and all this so that they may rise above the crowd in other words that they may enjoy the respect of the mediocre oh the vulgar thirst for power, they say destructive mind but what can I do about it if disciples follow all too ready to step into the shoes of their revered masters, what can I do if cast away on a desert island, but that's enough about desert islands we know what happens on desert islands, what can I do about it if the peerless wife puts on lipstick and silk stockings the day after the funeral of the husband she adored and will remarry which is a thought too horrible to contemplate, what can I do if my poor girl yielded to animal persuasion and abandoned her Deume who was a decent man, what can I do if men are not good and gentle and make it impossible for me to love them, what can I do if vile servile apes go bed-hopping their way up the social ladder, I feel a sudden pity for the vileness the servility of the tribe of gorillas who don the clothes of men but keep their fangs sharpened poor fools they are afraid because this world of ours is a dangerous place a world of nature red in tooth and claw where a man must either bite or fawn on the biters and have money good jobs contacts protectors the vileness the servileness stem from fear poor clowns, they say destructive mind but what can I do about it if there is no point to the universe neither rhyme nor reason say I with the passion of the true believer what can I do about it if I know that all religions are empty childish magic and mumbo-jumbo because men do not have the courage to see nor do they wish to see that they are alone that they are cast adrift that there is nothing for them neither purpose here below nor life hereafter and what can I do about it if God does not exist it isn't my fault nor is it for want of loving Him and awaiting His coming, for the God I deny each day and love each day I feel a pride which is bottomless and comes down to me through all the length of centuries I am His priest and His Levite and in the synagogue with the fringed silk shawl upon my arm as a shield I proclaim day after day that my God liveth despite all my despairing unbelief, I proclaim Thee the Eternal God of my fathers God of earth and God of sea by the blast of the breath of Thy nostrils were the mountains overturned by Thy right hand was the thunder unleashed and Thy commands were borne upon the winds God of Abraham God of Isaac God of Jacob that didst grant the patriarchs a blessed old age and didst dwell in the tents pitched at eventide in the plains of the valleys God who was worshipped at the rising of the sun by my fathers amid the clamour of ox goat and camel God of the storm and God of the whirling wind God the unforgiving God the chider Thou didst rain down brimstone and fire upon the cities of the unjust Thou didst crush the impure Thou didst cast down the evil-doer Eternal God who didst bring us out of the house of bondage Thou didst chastise Pharaoh with Thy mighty hand Thou didst perform great marvels Thou didst put aside the waters like an unclean woman that Thy beloved people Israel might go out Eternal God of my fathers with fire lit on their lips didst Thou consecrate the clamouring madmen that stood at the crossroads and shouted threats at kings and smote the mighty and roared Thy ordinances wrathful God of Israel God of my fathers who gave Thee praise dressed in gold and fine linen who did make Thee offerings of lambs and wheat and wine, but what can I do about it if I lack the innocent guile to call truth those things which comfort me nor am I sufficiently afraid of dying to need a paradise populated by irritating old women with moustaches who though spiritual are not alas invisible and praise the Almighty without end and cling to the hairs of His beard which He shakes with a toss of His head to be rid of them for He hates them, they say you've got it wrong there is no paradise no one bothers with paradise nowadays smart modern souls go to the hereafter, ah yes the hereafter I had forgotten, the hereafter inhabited only by invisible shades which have no flavour no smell no eyes to see nor lips to smile sorry wraiths bloodlessly floating, ah yes life eternal correct me if I'm wrong means that I shall apparently still be able to see though my eyes are pools of deliquescent slime, ah yes you're trotting out the good old invisible realities again, so very handy these realities which have the good taste to be invisible, and where do I stand in all this, and what am I supposed to do in the hereafter surrounded by invisible exhalations and puny charmless shades, I who am addicted to seeing and hearing seeing with real eyes of flesh and blood hearing with ears that are visible and fitted with Eustachian tubes, the way I see it I'll be more or less lost in the crowd in a set-up designed for souls I who love loving with my loving loved lips, and it would appear that in this hereafter my billions of thoughts and images and feelings for yes in these areas I am a billionaire will go on existing in the ether without any help from my eyes or the workings of my brain beneath the vulnerable shell of my soon-to-be-decomposed skull, so it seems that I shall see without eyes and love without lips, oh no the whole idea is barbarous and fantastical and childish, come let's discuss it seriously like grown men and not like quibblerians, now sexuality is a rather basic ingredient of the human personality and of what you call the soul, so where does this prime ingredient and its physical well-spring figure in your paradise and what happens to it in your hereafter where for obvious reasons angels cannot even sit down, and are not your vasodilators and vasoconstrictors the condition or cause of your excitements and affects and what is a soul without affects and what is meant by living without a body, I hear them protest but in such sweet tones with such pity for the vulgar upstart that I am and they speak to me of disembodied eyes and immaterial ears, but armour-plated by my obtuseness of which I am reasonably proud I say it won't wash with me for ears that aren't ears are hilarious nonsense and as notions go pretty feeble to boot, vulgar upstart you say, I'm only too happy to be vulgar, only vulgar people are afraid of vulgarity, so in a word gentlemen I simply do not believe all this nonsense about ears that vanish up some hey-prestoing conjuror's sleeve, oh yes I'm up with the latest thinking I know that the aficionados of the incorporeal state
don't talk nowadays about disembodied eyes and immaterial ears they prefer to talk about an extremely genteel world inhabited solely by gaggles of unearthly presences that are neither fish nor fowl principles essences insubstantialities taradiddles the fundamental quality and attribute of which is to be non-existent, a very proper very smart very exclusive world where souls circulate safely without ever colliding innumerable intangible souls little diaphanous monsters the plenipotentiary representatives of their owners who have popped their clogs, a very fashionable refined snobbish world where there is neither seeing nor hearing but only spiritually being, but enough for I fear my wits will turn that's more than enough about invisible realities they stick in my craw cut it out away with the rotting stench of the fear of dying, they can think whatever they like let them believe that I'm an infidel that I'm spiritually far too illiterate ever to be at home with their subtleties, oh I see them so knowing but quite incapable of explaining anything to my squalid intellect, expatiating on forces and sources and emanations and fluids and tidal flows of spirit would that be all Madame shall I wrap them for you, expatiating on spiritual experiences which is the name they give to their autosuggestions, when faced by my gross materiality they are visibly embarrassed by an awareness of their own superiority of the loftiness of their spirituality which is never explained but invariably carries all before it, and this spirituality of theirs serves as an extra hot-water bottle and additional central heating and is an anaesthetic and an alibi too, this spirituality of theirs justifies injustice and enables them to reconcile a clear conscience with a private income, spirituality with a bank account, yes God exists but is so inconspicuous that I feel ashamed on His account, but this elderly lady assures me that He thaved her and that she ith conthtantly filled by Hith Prethenthe but what's the point of arguing with the poor old girl let's leave her in peace leave her to be happy another old biddy this one has a beard and the stubborn stern intimidating look of the obtuse informs me that there is a plan in creation and therefore a mind which devised the plan and that it follows that I should pay the author royalties on His handiwork let's leave her alone too, actually in their heart of hearts men don't believe in God all men including those who do believe in God and pious people about to embark for the hereafter are afraid of dying and much prefer the here below, O sweet seamstress of mine so patient so discreet shall I tell her my Rosenfeld story to entertain her no that's one to keep all to myself you see darling my Rosenfeld story isn't true at all there's no such person as Rosenfeld and I feel rather ashamed about the story which isn't true I feel guilty but I can't get it out of my mind I shall tell it to myself all of it leaving nothing out I've plenty of time because she'll be kept fully occupied for a couple of hours with my dressing-gown which I deliberately sabotaged pretty sneaky really but anyhow a good hour. I've bags of time, here goes if you were to invite Rosenfeld something which you'd do reluctantly but let's say you had no choice that day when you met him for the first time if you were to invite him round for tea at four you could be sure he'll turn up at three or five wearing a dinner-jacket and escorted by various members of his family none of whom you know and none of whom you have of course invited, now describe the antics of Rosenfeld and company, the minute he arrives he makes straight for your grand piano and on it deposits little Benjamin who is six wears a miniature grown-up's suit and a dinky bowler hat which he makes no attempt to remove, Benjamin stands on the piano and immediately starts talking to you in English and Spanish and even Russian which he informs you is the language of the future and all the Rosenfelds swell with pride meanwhile Rosen-feld senior watches you like a hawk does not take his eyes off you trying to guess how you are reacting trying to see if you are admiring too, I can already speak four languages says Benjamin but I'll be even cleverer when I'm older because a command of languages shows what a man is made of'and helps you to get to the top with a car servants marry the boss's daughter wedding breakfast in a five-star hotel with smoked salmon and everybody wearing morning coats, then at a sign from his father Benjamin who is still standing on the piano sings a Hebrew prayer then a Swiss folk-song, hums a Russian dance and recites an unsolicited fable which he introduces in these terms And now I shall recite the ant and the grasshopper by our great French poet La Fontaine, and when he has recited it he asks which you like best Corneille or Racine and immediately argues with what you've said while his aunts read your personal diaries and laugh uproariously at the naivety of your jottings and then compare the prescriptions issued by your doctors and discuss your constipation which has emerged in the process and advise you what to do about it while the little sister who wants to show how clever she is and be admired too scrapes away on the fiddle she has brought for that very purpose and the thin oldest sister with the coal-black eyes flicks through the books on your shelves which she makes no secret of despising and then delivers a lecturette in a Romanian accent on Rimbaud who she tells your appalled mother was a young homosexual god or rather a yunk homosessual gott while placid Sara sixteen hair like shoe-polish and mountain-breasted makes periodic forays to the sideboard from which she takes a cream cake and leaning her elbows on the table and cupping her cheek in one hand like a fat Queen of Sheba nibbles the cake half-heartedly and says it isn't very fresh and promptly moves on to the sandwiches which she opens discarding the ones made with ham which she puts to one side for you whispering that Grandma mustn't know that there's pork because she'd be dreadfully cross and if you say that you have been very careful not to serve pork she shakes her head in a sceptical but placatory way and says yes yes yes or rather yay yay yay while Rosenfeld weighs up your cigarette-case in his hand to see if it's made of solid gold or just gold-plated tries to put a value on your carpets blows on his tea which he has poured into his saucer to cool before swallowing it to an earnest accompaniment of gurgles says it's not bad but it would be a lot better if you served it with cherry jam old man to sweeten it the thing to do is pop a spoonful into your mouth and take a quick swig he expresses surprise at your ignorance in the matter of tea raises his arms to heaven knocks over a large Chinese vase of ancient vintage says not to worry he's quite all right thank God and in any case the vase was very badly placed it was far too close to people what a peculiar idea to put it there and anyway who told you it was authentic it's a fake you can take that from me old man and while he's on the subject he tells you a boring story which amuses him immensely about a member of the Romanian cabinet who was a friend of a rabbi a really close friend you have my word on it may I lose the sight of my eyes if I tell a lie who even used to have the odd meal with the rabbi in his house so you can see he had a taste for kasha tzimmus cholent essigfleisch lokschen verenikas kneidlach very partial to anything like that was the Christian politician you understand, at which point he asks you if you believe in God and how much rent you pay for your flat which he says is very tasteful though it's a pity it has a view over that horrible backyard, and then he asks if you declare all your earnings to the taxman and if you say yes of course he smiles sceptically and says yay yay yay just like his daughter, then he asks you if you're a touch anti-Semitic or rather anti-Semitical and tries to get you to admit it with all sorts of friendly knowing conniving cheery kindly head-wagging encouragements and he rounds this off by saying that surely you have polyps in your nose and adenoids too which is why your voice is so flat and nasal and he mimics it and roars with laughter but since he has a kind heart he adds that you shouldn't waste any time but get it seen to by a surgeon whose address he lets you have no better still old man I'll put in a word with him myself and while you stand helplessly by in your own living-room which he has dismissed as being dark and as he says a bit tatty as you stand helplessly in your own living-room amid the debris of Chinese vases shattered by this stumbling fumbling gesticulating athletically ungifted family and while the younger members of the tribe read dog-ear and write all over your books Rosenfeld phones the surgeon embarks on lengthy negotiations over the price of the operation which he enthusiastically ha
ggles down in a welter of chummy conspiratorial winks he tells the surgeon that you are a friend and friends are entitled to a discount yay yay yay a friend I think a great deal of because he's a gent but ha ha not much of a head for business not got much go a bit of a weak character really, whereupon his oldest daughter passes remarks about you and says sniggeringly that you are-an introvert what are you talking about protests a cousin recently arrived from England he's an extrovert read Jung read Stekel read Ranck read Ferenczi read Karl Abraham read Jones read Adler rubbish he's a schizophrenic shouts Benjamin and the moist-eyed Rosenfeld looks on admiringly I advise a course of electric-shock treatment says a young Jacob in a shrill voice whereupon his father a Greek Jew who holds a Turkish passport glares triumphantly at Rosenfeld while his eleven-year-old offspring announces in the same shrill voice that next year he intends sitting the baccalaureate given the fact that my teachers have such a high opinion of me and after that I shall be the most brilliant student in medical school where I shall specialize in gynaecology which is a very lucrative trade because of all the deliveries involved but on the other hand I may very well decide to go into the French diplomatic service or the Turkish diplomatic service if pater hasn't yet got himself naturalized French whereupon Rosenfeld uninterested in the doings of everyone except his Benjamin picks up your phone and uses it to make a number of calls in the course of which he buys and resells a second-hand car while an obscure quarrel breaks out between members of the tribe and an old woman lets down her hair and ululates and Rosenfeld's brother-in-law plays your guitar and a child is sick all over your bed and his hysterical mother makes him a cup of herb tea while Madame Rosenfeld wearing a toothpaste-pink dress opens all your kitchen cupboards and passes remarks about how few provisions they contain and Great-Grandma sings in Russian that love is not a crime as she makes Romanian cakes in the kitchen and explains that she's doing it to teach your wife how meanwhile a female cousin with a face like an ibis and a great mop of hair gives lessons in personal hygiene to your daughter and unidentified relatives taste all the tonics and pick-me-ups in your medicine chest or try your aftershave and a woolly-headed infant pops up in the living-room yelling that the gas company is diddling you because the meter in the cellar which he has just inspected has definitely been tampered with and an aged forebear raves to you about the Old Testament in words which emerge from a beard as long as the fur-lined overcoat he has insisted on keeping on and various ladies wearing jewellery and carrying their shoes in their hands walk about unshod in clammy silk stockings and waggle their toes to rest their feet and complain about the heat which makes their tired little fat tootsies swell and one of them tells you that it's odd you should have chosen a house so far from the underground but obviously it's cheaper to live in an area as derelict as this and maybe you haven't got the cash to move to a better area don't talk rubbish exclaims Rosenfeld suddenly reappearing he's a lot better off than you think so there's no need to worry on that score maybe he's got more than me I'll make enquiries I have this friend who works in a bank but anyhow you needn't worry he's very well off but he's discreet I like a man who's discreet and he slaps you on the back so hard it makes you choke while young girls in green and yellow ball-gowns details of whose respective dowries he has whispered in your ear just in case noisily tuck into successive waves of oily Romanian cakes borne in from the kitchen by the beaming perspiring great-grandma assisted by mute but curly-haired cousins and a nonagenarian fans himself and chuckles inwardly at some obscure joke in the Talmud and a wrinkly-faced but young gnome rattles off incomprehensible Jewish stories which only he finds hilarious and all around you the mob drink noisily congratulate you on your breeding but criticize your plumbing and in particular the flush eat with lips greasy and mouths open and talk as they eat and talk only about themselves and they know everything and they scoff and patronize meanwhile a tiny wily hundred-year-old with a face like a kid goat and a rabbi's skullcap who locked himself in your bathroom the moment he arrived is using your Sandow Elastic Chest-Expander to tone himself up and develop his muscles at the expense of the Gentile whose bathing-trunks he unearthed and immediately put on and at intervals he trots into the living-room to show you his new biceps and makes you feel them makes remarks in Hebrew displays colossal vitality and showers heart-warming blessings on his swarming progeny while one of his aged sons splashes about in your scalding bath and fills your house with steam and singing and you are comatose by midnight when Rosenfeld who you invited to tea by himself suggests having a bite of supper old man we'll start with a vat of bortsch followed by piroshki or if you prefer maybe Pojarski cutlets which he pronounces cutterlets look lively old man don't be like that not saying anything nodding off you're a real sleepyhead come on perk up please we'll ask the womenfolk to see to it we'll ask your ladies and my ladies but my ladies will be in charge because my ladies are better at cooking which he pronounces cushion and we'll lend a hand we'll sing and you mustn't worry about a thing we brought everything we need with us salted cucumbers gefilte fish applestrudel tzibbele kugel nice chopped liver the whole works because it's good manners and we'll stay up all night chatting like old friends and you can put mattresses down on the living-room floor just like in Romania and Rooshia ah Rooshia before was much nicer we'll sleep like tops now you're not to worry the kiddies are used to it and it's no good being all down in the mouth and going all psychautomatic on me you might drop dead tomorrow so you've got to laugh and have fun and to encourage you to relax and cheer up he becomes very familiar and says shape yourself start getting your papers together so you can register which he pronounces rochester, but why in God's name have I told myself this ridiculous made-up tale which has no basis in reality why oh why because I've never met any such crowd of grotesques nor have I ever been present at any such masquerade on the contrary it has always been among my Jewish brethren that I have encountered human beings with the noblest hearts and the most courteous manners, why so fascinated by the minor eccentricities of the handful of Rosenfelds who do exist why did I exaggerate inflate give them such a free rein why did I join so willingly in the festivities oh yes it's because I am unhappy that I said all those horrible things which aren't true it's perhaps because I want to convince myself convince other people that I'm not a Jew like other Jews that I am an exceptional Jew to make it absolutely clear that I am different from those who are reviled of men because I make mock of them to let it be known oh shame on me that I am not a very Jewish Jew and that it's quite all right for you to like me maybe there is in me some terrible hidden wish to disown the greatest people on earth some terrible wish to be free of them maybe it's a way of hitting back at my unhappiness to punish it because it is what makes me unhappy for it is a constant source of unhappiness not to be liked always to be suspect yes a form of retaliation against the noble misery that belonging to the chosen people brings me or worse still it is perhaps attributable to some ignoble resentment that I feel against my people but no I revere my people who bear the mark of suffering my people Israel who saves, a saviour who saves through eyes, through eyes that know through eyes which have wept tears for the jeers of crowds who saves through its face its face twisted by suffering through its suffering face through its mute face through its face spattered with the lingering spittle of the derision and hatred of men who are its sons oh shame it is perhaps an ignoble unconscious rejection of my companions in misery who partake of the same cruel banquet at which we swallow the same insults and it may be that I resent them for the same reasons that prisoners who share the same cell hate each other no no I venerate my beloved my kind-hearted intelligent Jews it was fear of danger that made them so intelligent it was the ever-present need to be alert to the machinations of the enemy that made them such remarkable psychologists perhaps it is also because I have been contaminated by the derision of those who hate us and am merely imitating their unjust ways maybe it is also an attempt to have a little fun at the expense of my unhappiness and find a measure of consolation it is also because I h
ave been infected by their hatred yes we have been hearing their ugly accusations for so long that they have filled us with a temptation born of despair to take them at their word and it is their most devilish sin to have filled us with the temptation born of despair to hate ourselves wrongfully the temptation born of despair to be ashamed of our great people the temptation born of despair to accept the wicked thought that since they hate us so much everywhere then we deserve to be hated and by God I know that we deserve nothing of the sort I know that their hatred is the inane tribal hatred of those who are different and also the hatred born of envy and also the animal hatred of the weak for in numbers we are weak everywhere and men are not good and weakness attracts excites their hidden congenital bestial cruelty and it is no doubt satisfying to hate the weak when you can insult and beat them with impunity O my people my suffering people I am your son who loves and venerates you your son who will never tire of praising his people Israel a loyal people a courageous people a stiff-necked people who in a holy citadel braved Rome under the Caesars and for seven years made the most powerful of empires tremble O my nine hundred and sixty heroes besieged at Masada who all took their own lives on the first day of Passover in the year seventy-three rather than submit to the Roman conqueror and bow down to his contemptible gods O my starving wanderers held captive in so many foreign fields hauling their dogged hope down the centuries and eternally refusing to disperse and be absorbed by the nations where they lived in exile O my proud people bent on survival and jealously guarding its soul a people who stood firm and resisted resisted not for a year not for five years not for ten years but a people who stood firm for two thousand years what other people stood firm for so long yes two thousand years of resistance a beacon to light the way of all other peoples O my forefathers down the length of the centuries who preferred massacre to betrayal and the stake to apostasy licked by flames and proclaiming unto their last breath the Oneness of God and the greatness of their faith O my medieval kinsmen who chose death over conversion in Verdun-sur-Garonne in Carentan in Bray in Burgos in Barcelona in Toledo in Trent in Nuremberg in Worms in Frankfurt in Spires in Oppenheim in Mainz through the length and breadth of Germany from the Alps to the North Sea all my indomitable resisters who cut the throats of their women and children and then killed themselves or entrusted to the most worthy of their number the task of killing them one by one or set fire to their houses and cast themselves into the flames clutching their babes in their arms singing psalms as they burned O my obstinate forebears who for centuries tolerated lives far worse than death lives of degradation and ignominy sacred degradation holy ignominy which was the price they paid for their stiff-backed insistence on keeping faith with a God who is One and Holy and a Pope Innocent III punished their stiff-backed resistance by requiring them to wear a yellow disc forbade them under pain of death to show themselves in the street unless the emblem was sewn to their coats the emblem of infamy which for six centuries was to expose them throughout the whole of Europe to jeers and insults an ever-present visible badge of shame and inferiority which was as an invitation to the mob to heap outrage and violence on their heads but that wasn't enough and fifty years later the Council of Vienna judged that the yellow disc was insufficiently degrading and decided to make us even more ridiculous by making us wear a funny hat which could be either pointed or cocked and thus accoutred did we make our way from province to province and we went in distress in fear obstinate mocked reviled unyielding we went patient grotesque sublime in our pointed or as the case may be cocked hats and the crowd laughed we went branded marked rejected by all stigmatized beaten with sticks a target for every outrage the thought of it makes my stomach heave my eyes sting I feel the nails of it in my heart we went pelted with filth shoulders sunk backs bent eyes wary we went clothed in dirty rags outwardly humble inwardly proud and unbending we went down the centuries the ragged heralds and curators of the true God and the cocked and pointed hats decreed by the Christians' council were our chosen crowns O wonder of wonders the miserable and despised creature that was a Jew became august a patriarch once more in the peace of his home lavished on his wife and his children all the love which the world outside rejected and his home was a temple and the family table an altar and on the sabbath day he was a prince and a member of a nation of priests and on that holy day he was happy for he knew that soon the Almighty would set his feet on the road back to Jerusalem O my living people and while he waited his powerful enemies fell and perished down the length of centuries dead are the peoples who devoured us whole dead the Assyrians so proud of their battle scars so proud in their broad armour dead the Pharaohs and their chariots of war dead the august great-buttocked Whore of Babylon pestle of the protesting earth dead Rome and its legions in grave battle order aligned but Israel lives on and if Rosenfeld exists I claim him as mine as a brother and I give him the limelight and I delight in him and why not he is a good man of business a good father a loving husband a friend always ready to do a good turn enthusiastic ingenious and ebullient no great breeding of course but when would he have had the time the opportunity to become domesticated and learn manners for that requires a modicum of settled contentment it takes roots not expulsions not perpetual upheavals not the drab expectation of misery in each generation not living in an atmosphere of hate not wearing cocked or pointed hats in your heart because insecurity and the habit of humiliation do not breed fine manners the manners which matter so much to you and your kind my darling girl but which are no more than conditioned reflexes and it takes just two or three generations for the reflexes to become second nature see for instance the delightful manners of Disraeli and certain members of the Rothschild family not that such things mean much to me because I know that my lovely boorish brethren are the sons and fathers of mankind's princes are the most luxuriant kind of compost and in any case why shouldn't we have our boors other peoples have them too not all their farmers and workers and shopkeepers are models of refinement we are entitled to our boors I claim our right to have boors for why do we have to be perfect and to be quite frank I secretly dote on Rosenfeld and anyway Rosenfeld isn't any worse than any other nation's undomesticated unfortunates it's just that he's more spectacular more passionate more eager to live life to the full more impetuously and whimsically ill-mannered more inventively and quite brilliantly ill-mannered and no one can deny him a fond combustible heart or cast doubt on the touching concern he shows when his wife whom he calls his capital is ill at the first sign of illness it's quick send for the most famous doctors to attend to his better half or to Benjamin who is his dearly beloved son and close to being his Messiah oh the tender heart of a Jew is beyond compare O Rosenfeld of my heart I was really very happy back there surrounded by Rosenfelds I was part of a family I had come home I loved them and if I exaggerated them caricatured them multiplied their little eccentricities it was perhaps for love of them to enjoy the taste of them just as a man who likes pepper will sprinkle generous quantities will sprinkle too much will sprinkle enough to take the skin off his tongue so that he gets the full benefit but I know that if I exaggerated their outlandishness so that I might savour and love it more I realize that I must also honour it for I know that such strange antics are the sores and wounds of a persecuted people the sores and wounds of an unhappy people racked by centuries of torment bravely borne sores and wounds which are the sorry products of the unkillable steadfastness of my people and that they remind me of this remind me of their staunch refusal to accept arinihilation remind me of how they were condemned to perform daily acts of heroism to react with the ingenuity on which life itself depended to devise uneasy torpid strategies for enduring and surviving in a hostile world so sing praises to the sores of my people they are the unsightly jewels in their crown I will treasure my people and everything about my people even the large and lovely much-mocked noses of my people yes noses that bristle with panic so keen in scenting danger and I will treasure the bent backs of my people their backs bent by fear by flight by desperate wandering
backs bent to make them less visible smaller as they venture down dangerous alleyways backs bent too by centuries of heads lowered over the holy book and its Commandments noble heads of an ancient people forever reading the Testament O my Christian brothers you will see how my people will regain their youth when they return in freedom to Jerusalem and they will exemplify justice and courage they will be a witness for other nations who will look and stand amazed and beneath the sun in that sky there will be no more boors my lovely pathetic boors the luckless offspring of centuries of pain and you will see how the sons of my people restored to the land of Israel will be serene and proud and handsome and noble in bearing and brave in war if need be and when at last you see our true face Hallelujah you will love my people you will love Israel which gave you God which gave you the wisest of books which gave you the prophet who was love and in truth why should it be a cause for astonishment that the Germans a people who live under the sway of nature should have always detested Israel a people who live under the rule of anti-nature for behold the German has heard and he has listened more attentively than others he has heard the youthful forceful voice which speaks in the fearsome forests of the night in the silent rustling forests a siren voice feral as the dawn sings beneath the moonbeams sings that nature's law is arrogant might and rampant egoism and rude health and youthful grappling and assertiveness and domination and quick cunning and sharp-toothed malice and unbridled lust and the joyous cruelty of the young who destroy with a smile on their lips the insistent voice sings sweetly frenziedly of war and its overlords sings of strong naked bodies tanned by the sun of muscles like coiled serpents writhing in the athlete's back sings of beauty and youth which are might the might which is the power of life and death all alone and crazed it sings on it glorifies noble conquest pours scorn on women and contempt on the needy it sings of callousness violence the warlike virtues of military supremacy which is the daughter of might and cunning the exuberant splendour of injustice the sacredness of blood spilt for the cause and the nobihty of arms and the enslavement of the weak and the slaughter of the infirm and the sacred rights of the strong in other words of those best equipped to commit murder sings and glorifies the man of nature who is pure ravening animal the beauty of the wild beast which is a noble and perfect creature a lord unfettered by the hypocrisy that is born of weakness on and on sings the alluring irresistible voice in the German forest it sings the praises of the dominant the intrepid and the brutal harden your hearts the voice sings blithely be like beasts comes the Bacchic echo and the Germanic voice accompanied by a chorus of voices of poets and philosophers mocks at justice mocks at pity mocks at freedom and it sings sweetly beguilingly of the tyranny of nature of the inegalitarianism of nature of the hatred endemic in nature behold it says I bring you new tablets and a new law which decrees that there is no law evoe! the Commandments of the Jew Moses are rescinded and everything is permitted and I am beautiful and my breasts are young cries the Dionysian voice in a howl of drunken mirth that rings through the forest where now the puny bustle of creation begins to stir and with the rising sun all the scraps and crumbs of nature irresponsibly writhe and rise to murder and survive oh yes that is the voice of nature and Hitler sheds a tear for animals and says they are his brothers and he tells Rauschning that nature is cruel and that man must therefore be cruel too in truth when Hitler's henchmen worship armies and war what are they worshipping if not the threatening teeth of the gorilla who stands squat and bow-legged squaring up to another gorilla and when they sing of their ancient legends and of their ancestors with long blond hair and horned helmets oh yes horned for it is vital to look like an animal and it is doubtless a most pleasant thing to go forth in the guise of a bull what are they celebrating if not a cruel past to which they are nostalgically committed and attracted and when they fill their mouths with swaggering talk of their race talk of the one blood by which they are joined what are they doing if not reverting to notions of animality which wolves understand well enough though even wolves do not devour their own kind and when they exalt strength or the exercise of body and flesh in the sunlight when like their Hitler or their Nietzsche they boast of being inexorable and implacable what are they boasting of if not their return to the great apedom of the primeval forest and in truth when they massacre and torture Jews they are punishing the people of the Holy Law and of the prophets the people who strove to establish the reign of the human on earth oh yes they know or sense that they are the people who live under the sway of nature and that Israel is the people who combat the laws of nature and the bearer of a crazy hope which nature abhors and they instinctively abominate the people which opposes them and which upon Sinai's top did declare war upon the natural upon the animal in man and to this war both the religion of Jews and the religion of Christians have borne witness hosanna hallelujah hosanna in the old religion God whose mettle is the mettle of the Jewish prophet irritable benign and naively earnest God issues decrees without cease He specifies what man must do and more particularly must not do if he is to expunge the taint of nature and animality and thou shalt not kill is the first of His Commandments the first battle-cry in the war on nature oh in my bones I feel the pride of it and in the synagogue I tremble when the descendant of Aaron opens the Ark and brings forth the Scrolls of the Holy Law and holds them out to the people hosanna hallelujah hosanna the Christian religion which descended from my people transformed Gentiledom and through it man has become human across vast tracts of this earth hosanna hallelujah hosanna a new birth a new man Adam a new salvation through faith the Imitation of Christ saving grace which redeems original sin which is at bottom the taint of nature and animality and all these lofty Christian concepts stem directly from the same Jewish determination to change natural man into a child of God into a soul which has been saved in other words into a being who is human hosanna hallelujah hosanna and thus by other more inward paths is the same end achieved which is the humanization of man hosanna hallelujah hosanna two daughters of Jerusalem one Jewish and one Christian and Hitler from the height from which he loves to look down upon nature which he worships hates them both in equal measure for both are queens of mankind and eternal enemies of the laws of nature and whether they know it or not whether they wish it or not men's noblest qualities are rooted in the Jewish soul and the rock on which they stand is the Bible O my lovely Jews to whom I speak in silence know your people Israel venerate your people Israel for seeking schism and separation for having taken up arms against nature and nature's laws but alas men do not and will not see the truth I speak and I remain cold and alone with my royal truth alas all truths unshared and unloved by men are pitiful and become madness O my glorious pitiful girl O my crazy darling girl let us be mad together let us keep each other warm far from them a little while back I looked at myself in the mirror and felt pity for the lonely figure I cut that day wandering through Paris a king without a people the only man who truly loves his people felt pity for myself for I shall die one year ten years from now and my crazy truth will die with me a year hence ten years hence die for ever O my brothers in this earthly life companions from whom I keep my distance fellow galley-slaves tell me oh tell me while she sits sewing and I hold aloft an invisible cup pray tell me what I am doing here a guest at this undistinguished banquet which has been laid since the earliest point of unrecorded time I came I am here but why am I here and what is the point and is there really a point my time has come the hour has come for all of us moving particles and it will pass absurdly pass but where will it go and why perhaps the unmoving dead know ah so much knowledge buried deep poor Solal man or beast I shall die I shall be returned to nature for ever and then where will be my joy and the song I sang as I went to her in our beginnings in a motor car went to her who waited in her Romanian dress and she stood at the door beneath the roses waiting for me in her perfect dress and where will be the exquisite evening when I was a schoolboy often and had just begun a new exercise book with such absurd enthusiasm such pointless trust I sat by my serene mothe
r wlio watched her little boy as he lovingly did his homework in the pool of light cast by the oil-lamp and where tell me pray where has that happiness gone give it a rest come Solal return to your unhinged mode yes it pleases me that my brothers the pious Jews of the ghettos give spangled names to their Law calling it Betrothed and Crowned it pleases me that their parchment Scrolls on which the Holy Law is writ in the ancient script of my people are decorated with unpretentious crowns and wrapped in unlovely velvet and gold for they have no talent for comely abominations but they love their Law with every fibre of their beings oh the Scrolls of the Law in the synagogue in grave procession borne the faithful kiss them and with all my soul I bow before them and feel my heart quicken in my chest quicken for the majesty which passes by and I kiss them too and such is our only act of adoration in the house of the God in whom I do not believe but revere O my dead of ancient days O you who by your Law and your Commandments and your prophets took up arms against nature and her animal laws laws of murder and pillage laws of impurity and injustice O my dead of ancient days holy tribe O my sublime stammering prophets my towering simple impassioned indefatigable spouters of threats and promises fierce defenders of Israel unceasingly lashing a people they would make holy a people whose like is not in nature and such is love such is our love O my dead of ancient days I fervently praise you praise your Law for it is our glory as primates sprung from time without memory our claim to royalty and our divine homeland to fashion our clay into figures of men through obedience to the Law to be metamorphosed into the gnarled and twisted but miraculous bent-backed wanderer a creature monstrous and sublime a new being who may at times be loathsome for these are merely his first faltering steps and he will be imperfect and a failure and a hypocrite for thousands of years this twisted miraculous divine-eyed being this non-animal non-natural monster that is man the product of our own heroic handiwork and in sooth it is our last-ditch heroism to refuse to be what we are that is beasts subject to the rules of nature and to want to be what we are not which is men and this we did without urging for there is nothing that forces us to do it nothing for the universe is not governed nor does it have any meaning beyond its pointless existence in the stark eye of the void and in truth our greatness lies in this obedience to the Law which nothing justifies nor sanctions save our own crazy will and there is neither hope nor reward oh to be in the cellar oh to proclaim the coming of the land of sun and sea our homeland granted to us by the Almighty blessed be His name proclaim the flight from captivity and the mountains will crack and give vent to their joy and beneath the sun of our sky we will establish the everlasting reign of justice whereupon the uncle-in-majesty blesses me he winds the thongs of the Law about my arm and about my head and the no-neck midget with the lustrous eyes places the crown on my head then leads me by the hand to the open coach inlaid with antic gold and sparkling with many-faceted mirrors oh the splendour of the royal coach as it proceeds bumpily through the slippery cobbled streets all through the German streets goes the coach of the Law drawn by Isaac and Jacob the centenarian solemn-bearded horses with long oval faces watchful faces thoughtful faces striving to be human while I stand in the coach king of the race which challenged nature and nature's laws king of the loving race beloved of the Lord and chosen by Him a king upright in the old coach adorned with cherubim bearing flaming torches lurching through the German streets a pitching tossing battered coach followed by the midget walking with difficulty on her twisted legs accompanied by her wondrous blind sister and the uncle-in-majesty and behind them come the halt with shining eyes epileptics noble old men astoundingly handsome adolescents all pied-pipered by the king of rubies and sapphires who stands in the open coach the priest and king who holds aloft the Scrolls of the Commandments and smiles with joy unconfined for behold oh miracle wrought by the Law the Germans are magically metamorphosed into men and cease singing of the joy of seeing their knives stream with the blood of Israel cease proclaiming their murderous joy and instead acclaim the king they smile at him oh miracle wrought by the Law they love the king of the Jews who greets them with gentleness and raises on high the Law that is Mother and Betrothed and raimented in velvet and gold and crowned with silver who unremittingly holds out the Holy Law to them while two crookbacked but princely boys with saucer eyes garlanded in blue support his arms for heavy is the Law and from time to time the two ancient nags stop and turn their gentle fearful heads turn their enormous eyes lovingly on their king then resume their trembling careful progress but why do I now find myself in this forest alive with whispering fears the rustling starts a cold sweat and enemies lurk behind trees and icy fingers of fear run up and down my spine and there are dangerous footsteps behind me in this forest on this mountain and why am I nailed no I nail myself to the door of this cathedral on this mountain I pierce my own side with a nail from the cellar one of the long nails she gave me as a souvenir I who proclaim undyingly into the dark wind that the day of the never-ending kiss will dawn who nail myself oh those naked dead men yonder the skeletal incinerated dead with faces pain-twisted by torture who now quicken and rise up in the flames resuscitated helpless hapless victims O my lovely dead dears and yonder the empty coach goes on its doomed way threatening to overturn but pressing ever onwards eternally bearing the august Mother of the Jews raimented in velvet and gold and crowned with silver and the two gaunt horses advance indefatig-ably their hooves slipping in a shower of sparks and they stumble and drop to their knees then struggle bravely to their feet ancient asthmatic broken obedient stubborn creatures painfully plodding and now and then turning their gentle faces to behold their bloody king and still the two sublime palfreys lathered by the sweat of death trudge along the everlastingly windswept road suddenly taking fright and the horse Isaac coughs like a man while the midget with the large round eyes pretends to laugh at the man nailed to the wart-studded door and then wipes the tears from his cheeks for he cannot bear the pain of leaving his earthly children all alone and the midget weeps now weeps openly and suddenly bids him ringingly to offer up the prayer laid down in the ritual for the hour has come and the king has nailed his throat to the wart-studded door and blood spurts black and red and he intones the last prayer proclaims the Oneness of God Hear O Israel the Lord our God the Lord is One and his body arches convulsively and his eyes are upturned and white for ever yes my darling I love you more and more and silently I shout it from the rooftops of my heart while you sit there quietly restitching the hems which I unpicked to give your life a brief point I worship you who sit there sewing making damp little spittly noises as do all needlewomen intent on the task in hand I love the even rhythm of your breathing as you sew I love your serene and demure face as you sew for your face is so kind and gentle that it makes me kind and gentle too makes me a schoolboy once more hello a rumble never mind I can live with a few rumbles I can even respect rumbling and greet it with a smile because it comes from my sweet seamstress I watch lovingly as you wet your finger and twist the cotton to make it fine enough to thread lovingly through the needle eyes asquint and lips placidly pursed as you lovingly ply the looping needle so serious so thoughtful and I feel at peace as I watch you sew I sit in the lee of a mother hunched over her sacred toil sweet slave and mother oh how your task becomes you oh how noble and natural your face seems now but why must I forever be spread-eagling myself on you to make you happy such a shame my love my soothing seamstress the way you ply your needle your fingers moving with a purpose have a quality of such resigned pensive sweetness and I adore you but why must I always be straddling you like an animal to keep you happy and talking of which the two-backed beast has made only one appearance in the week since my return and that was the night I got back and you are probably starting to worry because you want my love you women are obsessed with the need to be shown proof that you are loved by having your man climb all over you anyway I'll try but not tonight maybe tomorrow of course you love me your conscious even worships me and goes on worshipping me but your unconscious isn't as crazy for me as it
used to be oh no darling your unconscious would much prefer to be the lawful wedded wife of that English lord who has just got back to London after leading an expedition to the Himalayas would much prefer to be able to throw a party and invite delightful influential well-bred friends to celebrate the absurd mountain triumph of dear manly hubby so calm a man of few words poised universally popular a man with an ideal a man who loves animals and strong tea and gravely inhales aromatic tobacco through manfully clenched teeth from the briar pipe you bought for him you took a good long look at that photo of him in your magazine twenty seconds at least oh yes my darling your unconscious has its knife in me for being exotic but not very sporty not swimming enough talking too much not leaping around enough in the open air and being far too much of an infidel furthermore your unconscious doesn't care at all for my dressing-gowns which it thinks are too long though your conscious mind thinks them aristocratic your unconscious also loathes my whirling worry-beads and my silk socks it would much prefer the thick woolly sort and the hobnailed boots as worn by the aforementioned peer and mountain-climber and then again your unconscious has it in for me for not saying I liked the thesis your late brother wrote about those two pretentious prigs Madame de Stael and that insufferable George Sand sorry but it's not my fault if your brother was a donnish pedant but above all your unconscious will never forgive me for making you live in a goldfish bowl of course you'd kill yourself if I were to leave you but deep-down you're heartily sick of me and who knows maybe your heart of hearts has never really loved me as required by the standards of your pedigree and class oh yes you came to me because I made you but I'm not your type sweetie I swept you off your feet because I'm clever in any case you were ripe for plucking by the first man who came along and offered to take you away from poor Deume and when your unconscious fell in love with me because it felt trapped and had no choice it loved me mainly to spite your husband loved me because it fancied the role of mistress extraordinaire a part which you couldn't wait to get your teeth into and which I offered you hello she's stopped sewing so she can scratch her nose on the sly her itching nose may very well be a sublimation of her desire to be married to the English lord an itch she can soothe by scratching but of course that's not true it's just a playful little joke to cover my drooping spirits darling what can I say or do to make you feel once more what you felt that first night when we danced at the Ritz because that is what your unconscious requires she's not saying anything at the minute because she thinks I'm concentrating on my book and is far too polite to disturb me but when she's finished sewing I'll have to stop pretending I'm reading and when that happens what topic of conversation can I float perhaps she'll come up with some poetic thoughts along the lines of the pervasive sense she sometimes has of the joy of leafless trees which commune with mother earth yes she'll say pervasive or possibly how the branch of some tree suddenly seemed to her to have a soul she was so intelligent in Geneva but that soon wore off oh outside the wind shrieks like a posse of mad women screaming in terror for help crazy women with their hair hanging down when she's finished sewing the dressing-gown which I deliberately ruined she might well suggest a game of dominoes she'll suggest it in her brightest most animated manner something along the lines of I want my revenge I'm sure I'll win tonight the noise she makes as she mixes the dominoes before the game starts is terrifying the sound of it scares me it's the knell of our love tolling or maybe she'll say yet again how clever she was to get a record-player that works off electricity it's so much nicer don't you think darling or maybe she'll suggest listening to some new thing by Bach and explain that the recording she says pressing which I find very irritating is really of much much better quality than the previous pressings she's bought all those damned Bach records I'm quite aware of course that Bach is a great musician I only call him a metronome for long-distance wood-saws to get my own back for all the anti-anaemic force-feeding that goes on poor girl she does her best never forget that she will die and therefore cherish her without stint or maybe she'll suggest reading me a novel will she never get over her mania for massaging my feet while she reads what did my feet ever do to her to make her want to be forever fiddling with them and she's so irritating when she says darling I think I've improved my massage technique and so grave when she starts on the talc actually she isn't as good at it as Isolde when she reads she emphasizes the words to breathe life into the thing it's ghastly when she puts on that damned gruff voice for the hero that's-how she likes them assertive dynamic outgoing sporty morons she gets on my nerves and she melts my heart she is delightful and absurd when she's imitating a man and she rubs my feet the right way but she rubs me up the wrong way I'm sorry my dear I love you and I tell you so when I'm alone in my room I love you but I get bored being with you and I honestly feel no desire for you she'll soon be finished with her sewing she'll say there all mended now and she'll smile and then I'll say she's sweet and she'll probably turn pert and demand a little kiss as a reward and I will give her a kiss and be scared she'll go for my lips but I'm good at evasive action and then there'll be some anti-anaemic brainwave such as pausing and then saying that she's thinking of taking up painting again darling I'd so love to paint a portrait of you how splendid what a good idea but perhaps you'll get bored posing not at all on the contrary oh the tedium of it all in the old days I only had to turn on the charm and conquered and was loved but I never belonged it was all pretence I've never gone along with it all never believed in their standards and values and categories always the odd man out never part of the crowd I was always on my own even when I was playing the role of government minister even when I was cast as Under-Clown-General Solal solitary solecism oh how bored I am oh I am pursued by boatfuls of skeletons which skim a river that runs past banks lined with temples with many windows through which poke countless tiny laughing faces I am also followed by lions wearing mitres men burning incense old women holding aloft little girls transfixed on long bamboo poles and then I tear out my eyes and throw them into the precipice where they bounce and burst in a shower of little green flames when I reach the palace I yank the bell-pull which makes a sound like a man guffawing and the door opens it's a lift which whisks me down into the depths of the Middle Ages then I have to change lifts and I step into the room with a false window I open the shutters but beyond is still a landscape painted on canvas and I enter the room where the horse gallops non-stop but stays in the same place and the tall woman endlessly arranges her hair with a comb which picks up little green men and I go into the room full of gesticulating bodies piled high one on top of the other in a pyramid in a hullabalooing mound the tongues of those below lick the heels of those above while the heels tread on the heads of the lickers below and spittle runs down the pyramid collects in the basin which overflows and behind the altar made of clay and granite is the goat which strains desperately in a frenzy of copulation oh the tall empress in a blonde wig embraces the nakedness of a slave-girl with great round eyes I am afraid of what lies in store for me later and to avoid finding out I leave and wander through corridors suffering because of the cruel walls there is so much going on in the corridors of the centuries which swarm with actresses dancers circus-performers sacred animals painted harlots bear-tamers raddled queens a barebacked horse galloping with its long thick mane flowing in the wind of its passage and behind it at full stretch and decked with vines run two tigers which keep up a hell-for-leather pace and sometimes weave and pass beneath the magnificent steed the smell of intrigue is palpable there are revolts in burning palaces and century follows century and conquerors come and the conquerors are conquered in turn pass O ye races tribes and empires I remain hello she's all but finished if I tell her it's time for bed she's bound to say no not yet it's only just ten best adopt the fatherly approach darling you look tired better get some rest but do make a special point of saying I'm feeling pretty bushed too that will clinch it with her and then no hanging about get up give her a quick kiss on one eye no make that both eyes the effect is altogether more lovi
ng so make it a double kiss make your move now let's get shot of her it's only being cruel to be kind.'