by Henry Miller
I think of the dressmaker’s model which was once the symbol of feminine allure. I think how that image of carnal pleasure finished off below the torso in an airy skirt of umbrella ribs.
Here’s what’s passing through my head . . .
We are a community of seven or eight million people, democratically free and equal, dedicated to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness for all—in theory. We represent nearly all the races and peoples of the world at the height of their cultural attainments—in theory. We have the right to worship as we please, vote as we please, create our own laws, and so forth and so on—in theory.
Theoretically everything is ideal, just, equitable. Africa is still a dark continent which the white man is only beginning to enlighten with Bible and sword. Yet, by some queer, mystical agreement, a woman called Cleo is performing an obscene dance in a darkened house next door to a church. If she were to dance this way in the street she would be arrested; if she were to dance this way in a private house she would be raped and mangled; if she were to dance this way in Carnegie Hall she would create a revolution. Her dance is a violation of the Constitution of the United States. It is archaic, primitive, obscene, tending only to arouse and inflame the base passions of men and women. It has only one honest purpose in view—to augment the box office receipts for the Minsky Brothers. That it does. And there one must stop thinking about the subject or go crazy.
But I can’t stop thinking . . . I see a mannikin who under the lustful gaze of the cosmopolitan eye has assumed flesh and blood. I see her draining the passions of a supposedly civilized audience in the second biggest city in the world. She has taken on their flesh, their thoughts, their passions, their lascivious dreams and desires, and in doing so has truncated them, left them with stuffed torsos and umbrella ribs. I suspect that she has even robbed them of their sexual organs, because, if they were still men and women, what would hold them to their seats? I see the whole swift performance as a sort of Caligari séance, a piece of deft, masterful psychic transference. I doubt that I am sitting in a theater at all. I doubt everything, except the power of suggestion. I can just as easily believe that we are in a bazaar in Nagasaki, where sexual objects are sold; that we are sitting there in the dark with rubber sexes in our hands and masturbating like maniacs. I can believe that we are in limbo, amidst the smoke of astral worlds, and that what passes before the eye is a mirage from the phenomenal world of pain and crucifixion. I can believe that we are all hanging by the neck, that it is the moment between the springing of the trap and the snapping of the cerebrospinal cord, which brings about the last most exquisite ejaculation. I can believe that we are anywhere except in a city of seven or eight million souls, all free and equal, all cultured and civilized, all dedicated to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. Above all, I find it most difficult to believe that I have just this day given myself in holy wedlock for the third time, that we are seated side by side in the darkness as man and wife, and that we are celebrating the rites of spring with rubber emotions.
I find it utterly incredible. There are situations which defy the laws of intelligence. There are moments when the unnatural commingling of eight million people gives birth to floral pieces of blackest insanity. The Marquis de Sade was as lucid and reasonable as a cucumber. Sacher-Masoch was a pearl of equanimity. Blue Beard was as gentle as a dove.
Cleo is becoming positively luminous in the cold radiance of the spotlight. Her belly has become a swollen, sullen sea in which the brilliant carmine navel tosses about like the gasping mouth of a naufragé. With the tip of her cunt she tosses floral pieces into the orchestra. The pompon becomes the tom-tom and the tom-tom the pompon. The blood of the masturbator is in her veins. Her teats are concentric veins of stewed purple. Her mouth flashes like the red sear of a tusk ripping a warm limb. The arms are cobras, the legs are made of patent leather. Her face is paler than ivory, the expressions fixed, as in the terra-cotta demons of Yucatán. The concentrated lust of the mob invades her with the nebulous rhythm of a solar body taking substance. Like a moon wrenched from the fiery surface of the earth, she disgorges pieces of blood-soaked meat. She moves without feet, as do the freshly amputated victims of the battlefield in their dreams. She writhes on her imaginary soft stumps, emitting noiseless groans of lacerating ecstasy.
The orgasm comes slowly, like the last gouts of blood from a geyser in pain. In the city of eight million she is alone, cut off, excommunicated. She is giving the last touches to an exhibition of sexual passion which would bring even a corpse to life. She has the protection of the City Fathers and the blessings of the Minsky Brothers. In the city of Minsk, whence they had journeyed from Pinsk, these two farsighted boys planned that all should be thus and so. And it came about, just as in the dream, that they opened their beautiful Winter Garden next door to the Catholic church. Everything according to plan, including the white-haired mother in the lavatory.
The last few spasms. . . . Why is it that all is so quiet? The black floral pieces are dripping with condensed milk. A man named Silverberg is chewing the lips of a mare. Another called Vittorio is mounting a ewe. A woman without name is shelling peanuts and stuffing them between her legs.
And at this same hour, almost to the minute, a dark, sleek chap, nattily attired in a tropical worsted with a bright yellow tie and a white carnation in his buttonhole, takes his stand in front of the Hotel Astor on the third step, leaning his weight lightly on the bamboo cane which he sports at this hour of the day.
His name is Osmanli, obviously an invented one. He has a roll of ten-, twenty- and fifty-dollar bills in his pocket. The fragrance of an expensive toilet water emanates from the silk kerchief which cautiously protrudes from his breast pocket. He is as fresh as a daisy, dapper, cool, insolent—a real Jim Dandy. To look at him one would never suspect that he is in the pay of an ecclesiastical organization, that his sole mission in life is to spread poison, malice, slander, that he enjoys his work, sleeps well and blossoms like the rose.
Tomorrow noon he will be at his accustomed place in Union Square, mounted on a soap box, the American flag protecting him; the foam will be drooling from his lips, his nostrils will quiver with rage, his voice will be hoarse and cracked. Every argument that man has trumped up to destroy the appeal of Communism he has at his disposal, can shake them out of his hat like a cheap magician. He is there not only to give argument, not only to spread poison and slander, but to foment trouble: he is there to create a riot, to bring on the cops, to go to court and accuse innocent people of attacking the Stars and Stripes.
When it gets too hot for him in Union Square he goes to Boston, Providence, or some other American city, always wrapped in the American flag, always surrounded by his trained fomenters of discord, always protected by the shadow of the Church. A man whose origin is completely obscured, who has changed his name dozens of times, who has served all the Parties, red, white and blue, at one time or another. A man without country, without principle, without faith, without scruples. A servant of Beelzebub, a stooge, a stool pigeon, a traitor, a turncoat. A master at confusing men’s minds, an adept of the Black Lodge.
He has no close friends, no mistress, no ties of any kind. When he disappears he leaves no traces. An invisible thread links him to those whom he serves. On the soap box he seems like a man possessed, like a raving fanatic. On the steps of the Hotel Astor, where he stands every night for a few minutes, as though surveying the crowd, as though slightly distrait, he is the picture of self-possession, of suave, cool nonchalance. He has had a bath, and a rubdown, his nails manicured, his shoes shined; he has had a sound nap, too, and following that a most excellent meal in one of those quiet, exclusive restaurants which cater only to the gourmet. Often he takes a short stroll in the park to digest his repast. He looks about with an intelligent, appreciative eye, aware of the attractions of the flesh, aware of the beauties of earth and sky. Well read, traveled, with a taste for music and a passion for flowers, he often muses as he walks on the follies of man. He l
oves the flavor and savor of words; he rolls them over on his tongue, as he would a delicious morsel of food. He knows that he has the power to sway men, to stir their passions, to goad them and confound them at will. But this very ability has made him contemptuous, scornful and derisive of his fellow man.
Now on the steps on the Astor, disguised as a boulevardier, a flâneur, a Beau Brummel, he gazes meditatively over the heads of the crowd, unperturbed by the chewing-gum lights, the flesh for hire, the jingle of ghostly harnesses, the look of absentia-dementia in passing eyes. He has detached himself from all parties, cults, isms, ideologies. He is a freewheeling ego, immune to all faiths, beliefs, principles. He can buy whatever he needs to sustain the illusion that he needs nothing, no one. He seems this evening to be more than ever free, more than ever detached. He admits to himself that he feels like a character in a Russian novel, wonders vaguely why he should be indulging in such sentiments. He recognizes that he has just dismissed the idea of suicide; he is a little startled to find he had been entertaining such ideas. He had been arguing with himself; it had been quite a prolonged affair, now that he retraces his thoughts. The most disturbing thought is that he is unable to recognize the self with which he had discussed this question of suicide. This hidden being had never made its wants known before. There had always been a vacuum around which he had built a veritable cathedral of changing personalities. Retreating behind the facade he had always found himself alone. And then, just a moment ago, he had made the discovery that he was not alone; despite all the change of masks, all the architectural camouflage, someone was living with him, someone who knew him intimately, and who was now urging him to make an end of it.
The most fantastic part of it was that he was being urged to do it at once, to waste no time. It was preposterous because admitting that the idea was seductive and appealing, he nevertheless felt the very human desire to enjoy the privilege of living out his own death in his imagination, at least for an hour or so. He seemed to be begging for time, which was strange, because never in his life had he entertained the notion of doing away with himself. He should have dismissed the thought instead of pleading like a convicted criminal for a few moments of grace. But this emptiness, this solitude into which he usually retreated, now began to assume the pressure and the explosiveness of a vacuum. The bubble was about to burst. He knew it. He knew he could do nothing to stay it. He walked rapidly down the steps of the Astor and plunged into the crowd. He thought for a moment that he would perhaps lose himself in the midst of all those bodies, but no, he became more and more lucid, more and more self-conscious, more and more determined to obey the imperious voice which goaded him on. He was like a lover on his way to a rendezvous. He had only one thought—his own destruction. It burned like a fire, it illumined the way.
As he turned down a side street, in order to hasten to his appointment, he understood very clearly that he had already been taken over, as it were, and that he had only to follow his nose. He had no problems, no conflicts. Certain automatic gestures he made without even slackening his pace. For in-stance, passing a garbage can he tossed his bank roll into it as though he were getting rid of a banana peel; at a corner he emptied the contents of his inside coat pocket down a sewer; his watch and chain, his ring, his pocketknife, went in similar fashion. He patted himself all over, as he walked, to make sure that he had divested himself of all personal possessions. Even his handkerchief, after he had blown his nose for the last time, he threw in the gutter. He felt as light as a feather and moved with increasing celerity through the somber streets. At a given moment the signal would be given and he would give himself up. Instead of a tumultuous stream of thoughts, of last-minute fears, wishes, hopes, regrets, such as we imagine to assail the doomed, he knew only a singular and ever more expansive void. His heart was like a clear blue sky in which not even the faintest trace of a cloud is perceptible. One might think that he had already crossed the frontier of the other world, that he was now, before his actual bodily death, already in the coma, and that emerging and finding himself on the other side he would be surprised to find himself walking so rapidly. Only then perhaps would he be able to collect his thoughts; only then would he be able to ask himself why he had done it.
Overhead the El is rattling and thundering. A man passes him running at top speed. Behind him is an officer of the law with drawn revolver. He begins to run too. Now all three of them are running. He doesn’t know why, he doesn’t even know that someone is behind him. But when the bullet pierces the back of his skull and he falls flat on his face a gleam of blinding clarity reverberates through his whole being.
Caught face downward in death there on the sidewalk, the grass already sprouting in his ears, Osmanli redescends the steps of the Hotel Astor, but instead of rejoining the crowd he slips through the back door of a modest little house in a village where he spoke a different language. He sits down at the kitchen table and sips a glass of buttermilk. It seems as though it were only yesterday that, seated at this same table, his wife had told him she was leaving him. The news had stunned him so that he had been unable to say a word; he had watched her go without making the slightest protest. He had been sitting there quietly drinking his buttermilk and she had told him with brutal, direct frankness that she never loved him. A few more words equally unsparing and she was gone. In those few minutes he had become a completely different man. Recovering from the shock, he experienced the most amazing exhilaration. It was as if she had said to him: “You are now free to act!” He felt so mysteriously free that he wondered if his life up to that moment had not been a dream. To act! It was so simple. He had gone out into the yard and, thinking then with the same spontaneity, he had walked to the dog kennel, whistled to the animal, and when it stuck its head out he had chopped it off clean. That’s what it meant—to act! So extremely simple, it made him laugh. He knew now that he could do anything he wished. He went inside and called the maid. He wanted to take a look at her with these new eyes. There was nothing more in his mind than that. An hour later, having raped her, he went direct to the bank and from there to the railway station where he took the first train that came in.
From then on his life had assumed a kaleidoscopic pattern. The few murders he had committed were carried out almost absent-mindedly, without malice, hatred or greed. He made love almost in the same way. He knew neither fear, timidity, nor caution.
In this manner ten years had passed in the space of a few minutes. The chains which bind the ordinary man had been taken from him, he had roamed the world at will, had tasted freedom and immunity, and then in a moment of utter relaxation, surrendering himself to the imagination, had concluded with pitiless logic that death was the one luxury he had denied himself. And so he had descended the steps of the Hotel Astor and a few minutes later, falling face downward in death, he realized that he was not mistaken when he understood her to say that she had never loved him. It was the first time he had ever thought of it again, and though it would be the last time he would ever think of it he could not make any more of it than when he first heard it ten years ago. It had not made sense then and it did not make sense now. He was still sipping his buttermilk. He was already a dead man. He was powerless, that’s why he had felt so free. But he had never actually been free, as he had imagined himself to be. That had been simply a hallucination. To begin with, he had never chopped the dog’s head off, otherwise it would not now be barking with joy. If he could only get to his feet and look with his own eyes he would know for certain whether everything had been real or hallucinatory. But the power to move has been taken from him. From the moment she had uttered those few telling words he knew he would never be able to move from the spot. Why she had chosen that particular moment when he was drinking the buttermilk, why she had waited so long to tell him, he could not understand and never would. He would not even try to understand. He had heard her very distinctly, quite as if she had put her lips to his ear and shouted the words into it. It had traveled with such speed to all parts of his
body that it was as though a bullet had exploded in his brain. Then—could it have been just a few moments later or an eternity?—he had emerged from the prison of his old self much as a butterfly emerges from its chrysalis. Then the dog, then the maid, then this, then that—innumerable incidents repeating themselves as if in accordance with a pre-established plan. Everything of a pattern, even down to the three or four casual murders.
As in the legends where it is told that he who forsakes his vision tumbles into a labyrinth from which there is no issue save death, where through symbol and allegory it is made clear that the coils of the brain, the coils of the labyrinth, the coils of the serpents which entwine the backbone are one and the same strangling process, the process of shutting doors behind one, of walling in the flesh, of moving relentlessly towards petrification, so it was with Osmanli, an obscure Turk, caught by the imagination on the steps of the Hotel Astor in the moment of his most illusory freedom and detachment. Looking over the heads of the crowd he had perceived with shuddering remembrance the image of his beloved wife, her dog-like head turned to stone. The pathetic desire to overreach his sorrow had ended in the confrontation with the mask. The monstrous embryo of unfulfillment blocked every egress. With face pressed against the pavement he seemed to kiss the stony features of the woman he had lost. His flight, pursued with skillful indirection, had brought him face to face with the bright image of horror reflected in the shield of self-protection. Himself slain, he had slain the world. He had reached his own identity in death.
Cleo was terminating her dance. The last convulsive movements had coincided with the fantastic retrospection on Osmanli’s death. . . .
23
The incredible thing about such hallucinations is that they have their substance in reality. When Osmanli fell face forward on the sidewalk he was merely enacting a scene out of my life in advance. Let us jump a few years—into the pot of horror.