The Henry Miller Reader

by Lawrence Durrell

  I thought we ought to be getting along, getting to that cozy little restaurant she was so certain we could find. I said so aloud and she agreed. “Yes, let’s go,” and with that she scanned the terrace as if in search of some one. It was a quick, furtive glance followed by a whispered request. “Would you mind waiting here a few minutes?” She explained quickly that she had made a rendezvous with some old geezer at a café up the street. She doubted that he would still be there, we had talked so long, but it was worth trying. It meant a little jack. She promised to get rid of him quickly and rejoin me.

  I told her to go ahead, if it would make her feel better. I said I’d wait a reasonable length of time and, if she failed to return, there was no harm done. I watched her sail up the avenue and head toward the café she had mentioned. I scarcely expected to see her return. I didn’t believe there was a rich old geezer waiting for her. I wondered to myself if all Americans resembled Mr. Winchell—in the eyes of a street walker. I felt a little like Mr. Winchell must have felt at certain awkward moments in his life.

  To my surprise she was back in less than ten minutes. She seemed disappointed and not disappointed. It was rare for a man to keep his word she said flatly. Mr. Winchell, of course, was different; he always kept his word. It was strange, though, he had promised to write regularly and to send more money, and now it was almost three months since she had heard from him last. She began burrowing in her bag to produce his card; a letter written in good English, a letter such as I might write for her, might bring a response, she thought. But she couldn’t find his card. All she could remember was that he lived in some athletic club—with his wife. The waiter came along at this point and she ordered another black coffee. I wondered where, at that hour, I might find a nice, cozy, comfortable, inexpensive restaurant. “Coffee is good for the nerves,” said Berthe, chafing her arms to bring the blood back.

  I was still musing on Mr. Winchell and what a strange athletics club he inhabited when I became aware of Berthe saying in a low voice—“I don’t want you to spend a lot of money on me. I don’t care about your money: it does me good just to talk to you. You don’t know how it feels to be treated like a human being.” She broke out again about the men she had known, in Panama and other places, and how it didn’t matter because they loved her and she loved them, and they would remember her always, because when she gave herself to a man he got pure gold. She glanced at her hands again, then giving me a wan smile, she wrapped the fur tight about her throat. I looked at her earnestly, tenderly, deeply moved by her simple words. It was the truth she was giving me, regardless of all the trimmings. Thinking to make it easier for her, I suggested—too abruptly, perhaps—that she accept what money I had on me (as a gift) and we’d part company then and there. I was trying to convey the idea that I didn’t want her to hang on and pretend to be grateful for a little thing like a meal. I hinted that she probably wished to be alone, to go off and get drunk, or at least have a good cry all by herself. I put it thus because she was talking about herself in a way that sounded utterly desperate. It was as if she had created another Berthe, young and capable, who could love a man without expecting a reward; this other Berthe was choking her, making her feverish and hysterical. In addition she had somehow succeeded in identifying me with the men she had loved, those to whom she had given herself and who would always remember her, as she said before. Out of delicacy I begged her to speak French; I didn’t want her to mutilate the sad, tender, harrowing thoughts which she was spilling out in her Costa Rican English.

  “I tell you,” she blurted out in answer to this, “had it been any other man but you I would have stopped talking English long ago. It fatigues me to talk English. But now I am not tired. I think it is good to talk English to some one who looks upon you as a woman. Sometimes, when I am with a man, he never says a word to me. He doesn’t care who I am, he wants only my body. What can I give such a creature? Feel me, how hot I am! I’m burning up.”

  In the cab, going toward the Avenue Wagram, she suddenly lost her bearings. Where was I taking her, she wanted to know. Sounded almost panicky. “We’re on the Avenue Wagram,” I said, as we veered away from the Etoile. She reacted as if she had never heard of such a street. Then, observing the astonished look on my face, she leaned over and bit my lip. It hurt. I drew her to me and glued my mouth to hers. Her dress was up over her knees; I slid my hand up over the bare flesh. She started biting again, first on the mouth, then the neck, then my ear. Then abruptly she jerked out of the embrace, saying: “Zut alors, wait! Wait till afterwards.”

  Whether through discretion or absent-mindedly, the driver had gone past the place I had indicated. I leaned forward now and told him to go back to the Place Wagram. When we stepped out of the cab she looked dazed. We were in front of a large café, much like the Marignan; an orchestra was playing and there was a mob seated on the terrace. She didn’t want to go inside. I had to plead with her.

  As soon as she had given the waiter her order she excused herself to go to the lavabo. When she returned I couldn’t help but notice how shoddy her attire really was. Waiting for the soup to appear she got out a long nail file and took to trimming her nails. The varnish had worn off in places, causing the nails to look worse than they would have looked had they been left untinted. At last the soup arrived and she laid the nail file aside. Her comb, to which a few hairs still clung, she laid beside the file. I quickly buttered a slice of bread for her and as I handed it to her she blushed. She was now thoroughly ashamed of those two hands she had shown me so bravely before. They were still dirty, and stained with nicotine.

  While waiting for the gigot which she had ordered she gobbled a few chunks of bread, head down, as if embarrassed to betray her appetite. In a moment or two, however, she suddenly looked up into my eyes and grasped my hand. “Ecoute, chéri . . .” she said. “The way you talked to me . . . I’ll never forget it. It means more to me than if you had offered me a thousand francs.” She hesitated a moment, pondering how to put the thought. Then—“You haven’t said anything about it yet, but if you would like. . .”

  I cut her short. “Suppose we don’t talk about that now,” I said. “Not that I don’t want you . . . that would be a lie . . . but not tonight”

  She lowered her eyes. “Berthe understands,” she said. “Berthe doesn’t want to spoil your gesture, but—” She started fumbling through her bag. “Look, any time you want to see me . . . I mean, you don’t ever have to pay me, do you understand? Could you call me up . . . tomorrow, maybe . . . I’d like to take you to dinner.” She was still searching for a scrap of paper. I tore off a piece of the large paper napkin which served as table cloth and on it she wrote, in a large sprawling hand, her name and address. It was a Polish name I saw at once; the name of the street I failed to recognize. “It’s in the St. Paul quarter,” she said. “But please don’t come to the hotel—I’m only there temporarily.” I looked at the name of the street again; I couldn’t recall ever having seen a street by that name in that quarter, or in any other quarter of the city, for that matter.

  “So you’re Polish?” I said.

  “No,” she replied, “I’m a Jewess. I was born in Poland. It’s not my real name.”

  During the course of the meal I became aware of the presence of a man at a table nearby. He was an elderly Frenchman, apparently engrossed in his paper. Every now and then, however, I caught him peering over the top of his paper to give Berthe a further inspection. He had a kindly face and seemed well to do. I sensed that Berthe was also aware of his presence and had probably sized him up the same way. Curious to know what she would do under the circumstances, I excused myself and went below to the lavabo. When I returned I could see by the quiet, easy way she was puffing her cigarette that matters had been arranged. Glancing in the direction of the benign-looking Frenchman, I observed that he was now thoroughly absorbed in his paper. “Ça y est,” I said to myself.

  I was neither irritated nor embarrassed. I simply wondered how to withdraw tact
fully and gracefully—that is, without creating the impression that I was another Mr. Winchell. When the waiter came by again I asked the time. It was almost one o’clock. “I’ve got to go now,” I said. “It’s getting late.” She placed her hand over mine and looked at me with a knowing smile. “You don’t have to pretend with me,” she said. “You’re so very kind, so understanding, I don’t know how to thank you. But don’t run off like that, please. He’ll wait.” She nodded toward the elderly Frenchman. “Let’s walk a stretch together.”

  We moved down a side street, in silence. “You’re angry with me, aren’t you?” she said, when we had gone a little distance. “No, of course I’m not,” I answered. “How could I be?”

  “Not many men would do as you have done,” she said. She pulled me closer to her, so that our thighs touched as we walked.

  “It’s not hard to do,” I replied, “if you’re not in love.”

  Silence again. We walked almost the length of the block without exchanging a word. I could feel her thoughts beating through her veins. “Let’s go this way,” she said, as we came to a street that was utterly shrouded in blackness. Her arm gripped me tighter, our legs moved as if glued together. I let her steer me, as if in a dream, between the somber walls of the utterly soundless dwellings. She was talking now in a husky voice. The words leapt from her mouth like foam: they were almost phosporescent. I can no longer recall what it was she was saying, nor do I believe that she knew what she was saying. She was talking frantically against a fatality which was overpowering. Talking more to herself than to me. All the while she kept tugging my arm, digging into it with her strong fingers, as if the touch of her flesh gave added meaning to her words.

  Finally she stopped dead. “Why don’t you put your arms around me?” she cried. “Why don’t you kiss me, like you did in the cab?”

  We had halted near a doorway. I moved her against the door and flung my arms around her. I felt her teeth brush my ear. Expecting her to bite again, I made an involuntary movement away from her. She caught me around the waist and, as she held me tight, she rattled off in a low, searing voice—“Berthe knows how to love. You have only to ask and you can have anything you wish. Oh, but you don’t know what you have done for me tonight. You don’t know, you don’t know.”

  We stood there against the door for what seemed an interminable while. I made no effort to restrain her. She embraced me, she bit me, she clung to me like a shipwrecked soul. She babbled on, like an anguished child.

  I felt terrible. As if I had taken advantage of her weakness, of her distress.

  Finally we pulled apart, but only, it seemed, by a supreme effort. We backed away from the door and, like in the middle of nowhere, we shook hands. “Good-by,” I said, and started down the street. Like that. I had gone only a few paces when the absolute silence of the street suddenly gripped me. I turned round instinctively. There she was, standing exactly where I had left her. We stood thus a few moments, facing each other blindly. It was impossible to read her face; I could only divine what was written on it. I walked back to her. It was necessary to say something, no matter what. What I wanted to say was—“Take me! Do anything you like with me! Don’t give up!” Instead I said: “Look here, supposing he’s not there?”

  “He’ll be there,” she replied. But the stale, weary tone of her voice belied her words.

  “Listen, Berthe,” I said, delving into my pocket, “I know how these things go. Better take this”—and I stuffed a wad of franc notes in her hand—“just in case.” I closed her fingers over the notes; they lay in her palm like so many dead leaves. “So long now,” I said. “Bonne chance!” And I walked away, rapidly.

  I was almost at the corner when I heard her calling. I turned round to find her running toward me. “You made a mistake,” she cried breathlessly. In her hand was a large bill which she waved before my eyes. “Look!” she said.

  “It was no mistake,” I said. “It’s yours.”

  “Mon Dieu!” she cried. “It’s too much, too much. You can’t mean it!” With that she drew herself close, very close, and with her hands around my waist she started to slump to her knees.

  I yanked her up. “What’s wrong with you?” I said, and the tone of my voice was severe. “Has no one ever treated you decently? No one?”

  The words fell harshly in the silent gloom. I wanted to apologize but I couldn’t. My mouth was dry. Besides, it was too late for further words. She stood there, with her hands to her face, her body racked with sobs. It was frightening, the sound of those sobs echoing in the tomblike silence of that shrouded street. I wanted to put my arms around her, I wanted to say something to comfort her, but I couldn’t. I was petrified.

  Once again I turned my back on her and walked off. Faster and faster I walked, until the sound of her quivering sobs was drowned in the roar of the bright fizzing streets.

  LITERARY ESSAYS

  THE UNIVERSE OF DEATH

  (FROM MAX AND THE WHITE PHAGOCYTES)

  This text really represents a “coda” to my work on D. H. Lawrence, a miss-fire book, fragments of which have appeared here and there. For over two years, beginning in Clichy, I struggled to set forth my views on Lawrence. Never did I work so hard and so assiduously, only to end up in utter confusion. Proust and Joyce I had read in America, shortly before leaving for Europe. In Clichy I reread Proust, this time in French. (I even had an Austrian, whom we were keeping in hiding from the police, make long excerpts from Proust, which I intended to elaborate on later.)

  There was a connection in my mind then between Lawrence, with whom I was chiefly concerned, and Proust and Joyce. Now it is all rather vague to me. The link was, perhaps, that Lawrence represented life and the other two death. I also had plans then for another book, which never came off, and which was to deal with life-givers and death-eaters. A notebook which I kept in those days is crammed with all sorts of data, including many excerpts from “thinkers.”

  During the German occupation of Europe, this text was translated into Dutch and published clandestinely, all unknown to me. Years later the translator wrote me, enclosing a copy of his work, and informed me that the printer had been killed by the Germans for printing an English text. He himself only narrowly escaped the same fate.

  In selecting Proust and Joyce I have chosen the two literary figures who seem to me most representative of our time. Whatever has happened in literature since Dostoievski has happened on the other side of death. Lawrence apart, we are no longer dealing with living men, men from whom the Word is a living thing. Lawrence’s life and works represent a drama which centers about the attempt to escape a living death, a death which, if it were understood, would bring about a revolution in our way of living. Lawrence experienced this death creatively, and it is because of his unique experience that his “failure” is of a wholly different order from that of Proust or Joyce. His aborted efforts towards self-realization speak of heroic struggle, and the results are fecundating—for those, at any rate, who may be called the “aristocrats of the spirit.”

  Despite all that may be said against him, as an artist, or as a man, he still remains the most alive, the most vitalizing of recent writers. Proust had to die in order even to commence his great work; Joyce, though still alive, seems even more dead than Proust ever was. Lawrence on the other hand, is still with us: his death, in fact, is a mockery of the living. Lawrence killed himself in the effort to burst the bonds of living death. There is evidence for believing, if we study for example such a work as The Man Who Died, that had it been given him to enjoy the normal span of life he would have arrived at a state of wisdom, a mystic way of life in which the artist and the human being would have been reconciled. Such men have indeed been rare in the course of our Western civilization. Whatever in the past may have operated to prevent our men of genius from attaining such a state of perfection we know that in Lawrence’s case the poverty, the sterility of the cultural soil into which he was born, was certainly the death-dealing cause. Only a part of the
man’s nature succeeded in blossoming—the rest of him was imprisoned and strangled in the dry walls of the womb. With Proust and Joyce there was no struggle—they emerged, took a glance about, and fell back again into the darkness whence they came. Born creative, they elected to identify themselves with the historical movement.

  If there be any solution of life’s problems for the mass of mankind, in this biological continuum which we have entered upon, there is certainly little hope of any for the individual, i.e., the artist. For him the problem is not how to identify himself with the mass about, for in that lies his real death, but how to fecundate the masses by his dying. In short, it is his almost impossible duty now to restore to this unheroic age a tragic note. This he can do only by establishing a new relationship with the world, by seizing anew the sense of death on which all art is founded, and reacting creatively to it. Lawrence understood this, and it is for this reason that his work, however conventional it may appear extrinsically, has vitality.

  The fact remains, nevertheless, that not even a Lawrence was able to exercise any visible influence upon the world. The times are stronger than the men who are thrown up. We are in a deadlock. We have a choice, but we are unable to make it. It was the realization of this which impelled me to end my long introduction to The World of Lawrence, of which this is the final section, with the title “The Universe of Death.”