by Henry Miller
Outside a searchlight was spraying the trees and walls with violet rays. When it had finished spraying the earth it tilted upwards and swept the firmament clear of Stardust.
Moloch glanced at Hari. His skin barely sufficed to cover his bones; his complexion had paled until it became the color of urine.
When there are girls and boys in a classroom it is trying for the teacher to say “Lake Titicaca.” No one takes this lake seriously. It sounds absurd—and a trifle suggestive. Moloch felt the same way about this situation. He wanted someone to extricate him.
Blanche slipped off quietly to clasp her dreams. Her gesture was akin to the shrug of a dance-hall woman tossing aside a novel by Maxwell Bodenheim because “it starts off dirty.”
Toward dawn Hari slipped into Matt’s bed. It was not necessary to disturb Reardon since he was not there to disturb. In the telegraph game one meets with a large variety of experience. Very likely Matt had put the kibosh on the insurrection uptown, and then, highly satisfied with his efforts, had gone to a prizefight with one of the operators. After that a drinking bout and a Turkish bath. Or an all-night session in a black-and-tan. Matt would arrive bright and early in the morning with a swollen head and a fitful desire to spend the rest of his days in the South Seas....
Moloch tarried a few minutes before retiring to glance at Hari’s pamphlet entitled “Merry Christmas Greetings to the World!” It was written in the first person spectacular. Some of it was in high fettle.
“I restrain myself lest a stray casual remark develop into a volume. I do not expect to be appreciated all at once. Of this, however, I am convinced, that only the rarest among men have been foreordained to understand me.... The rest are merely humanity on their way to ordination....
“I boast of my system being fluid, gaseous, capable of evaporating. This is the highest rational system ever yet propounded. The sensations embodied in my ‘Aphorisms’ are a tiny fragment of the vast firmament of my philosophy, and exhibit the state of chaos out of which will order be born, to which I shall willingly, proudly, stand Godfather; it is the state of Inharmony out of which shall Harmony be born, to the divine rhythm of which the world shall dance for the pleasure of the Master-Artist....”
“The Master-Artist”! Moloch mused awhile on megalomania. The Master-Artist was already snoring deeply. His “Aphorisms” were floating like toy balloons over the surface of his dreams. He was no longer aware of such mythical realities as corns, bunions and “Charley Horse.” He walked in deep meadow grass through the valley of the moon, and the smell of clover was as incense to his quivering nostrils.
“With a proper diet, clean linen, a soft pallet, he’ll get over this Messianic complex. I suppose it’s up to me to play Joseph of Arimathea…. Ho hum!” He yawned, stretched himself, and lit a cigarette. Ideas gathered, the species of ideas which strangles sleep, and which seems next morning to be more than mildly aberrant. He pictured himself in a Quaker meeting, passing the hat around for his friend, the Master-Artist, who has just finished lecturing on “The Religious Aspects of Procreation.” As an entrepreneur his success is established. The hat is full. If this gag can be repeated, it it can be pulled on the Christian Scientists, well… the telegraph company can go to hell then. The Master-Artist has no idea what a gold mine awaits them. Once California is reached…. California: the land of golden whales. California: where a new cult is born every day. He’s glad he was born an American. America: the land of opportunity, where the rich grow richer and the poor poorer. If necessary, he’ll change his name … Mordecai Brown, Impresario!
In the upper stratum of Chinese society a favorite method of committing suicide is “to take gold leaf.” Death is brought on by the gold leaf obstructing the glottis. Similarly, the web of cocoons that Dion Moloch spun brought about a suffocation of ideas and he became deliciously drowsy. The last impression he was conscious of was the racing extra in the Evening Telegram: “Original wins in the fourth!” It proved to be no more stimulating than those books which are omitted from the Index Li-brorum Prohibitorum.
5
BLANCHE HAS BECOME HABITUATED TO SPEAKING OF herself in the past, as if she were a piece of secondhand furniture. Her mind and spirit have become as angular as her face, which has now acquired an equine aspect. She exhales the atmosphere of a Protestant church. She is not only morbid and suspicious, she is colorless, inflexible, poor-at-heart.
It is easier for these two to quarrel than for a preacher to say Amen. Fortunately, they are seldom left alone. When Moloch does come of an evening, which is rare, he always finds visitors. Not that Blanche is responsible. She seldom sees anyone. She doesn’t believe in friends.
Riding to work mornings, Moloch frequently reflected on the sad state of affairs. His life with Blanche was so absolutely different from anything he had visualized. He almost gave a start when his mind fell back to the days of their courtship. Was this the same Blanche? This the passionate, impetuous woman whom he took to matinees, with whom, under cover of darkness, he committed nameless indiscretions?
He thought with premeditated satisfaction of his secretary, a slim, eighteen-year-old virgin whose skin had the mossy bloom of a magnolia. Each evening, as he dozed in the fetid atmosphere of the subway, he planned anew her seduction. Hers was not the platitudinous beauty of a Jewess, that excites the perverse curiosity of a drummer and arouses in her Gentile sisters the itch of envy and despair. Men thought of Marcelle rather as the frail respository of a forgotten charm, the sort of charm that one discovers in a vase at the museum.
It was a pity, he often told himself, that he could not have married the girl he loved. That was so long ago, his first love … his only love. (Do we not all speak that way of first love?) He no longer thought about it sanely.
This first love was no pale Mona Lisa, of legendary charm. Cora was a buxom, two-breasted Amazon. He never thought of her without a sharp pang at the remembrance of her firm, upstanding breasts, full as an Indian burial mound—and her breath, warm and milky.
At seventeen Cora was like an Arctic summer. She looked out at the world from cold, porcelain eyes that shimmered like blue icebergs under the play of boreal lights. In ten years Cora had paled into a fragile memory, a memory of a tight bodice and a sassafras peruke. He could never permit himself to think of Greenpoint without a vicious tug at his heart. Maujer, Con-selyea, Humboldt Streets; the streets that Cora once had trod. These streets, forlorn now, were consecrated to her. If the truth were known, he had even kissed the flagging of these very streets. Late at night, of course, and in a moment of terrible anguish.
The period we speak of was in the first decade of this century. Young men in long trousers were not ashamed then to hold parties in which they played at “Post Office” and “Kiss the Pillow.” They even formed clubs so that they might meet at one another’s homes. Nor were they abashed to call themselves “the Deep Thinkers.” Had it not been for such diversions Moloch would probably never have kissed this goddess whom he worshiped with all the pathos and chivalry of an adolescent. For months he has contented himself with taking a long walk every evening after dinner. He does this in order to kill time, because it is impossible for him to fathom how he will go on living unless Cora acknowledges her love for him. And how is she going to do this since he is afraid even to speak to her? He does not think of using the telephone, or inviting her to the theater. He would tremble too violently if he heard her voice, if she sat next to him in the dark. No, these things require a courage that is beyond him. He prefers to take a long walk so that at the end of an hour he may find himself, as though by accident, directly beneath her window. He fears to linger there more than a minute lest the door open suddenly and one of her family, perhaps a younger sister, espy him and make fun of him.
Just the same, his secret is known. The other members of the club (thick-skinned, all of them) have taken to spoofing him. When they mention Cora he blushes terribly and stammers. They fail entirely to perceive what a goddess she is. In their vulgar w
ay, they know her only as a robust, athletic figure, sparkling with life and joy. It amuses them, in an indecent way, to see this girl whom they have played with on the streets and in stables and alleys regarded as a Vestal Virgin. She is good to look at, excellent company, kisses divinely, but shucks! She isn’t the only girl in Greenpoint. There is Ethel Tilford, and Violet Munson! What’s wrong with them?
One evening they decide to make a man of Moloch. They get him drunk. They saunter out, twelve young blades, full of kümmel and Rhine wine. They make a beeline for Maujer Street, where Cora lives. It is hardly necessary to drag Moloch along. He is up in the van, shouting and gesticulating. “A capital idea,” he brags. “Let’s give Cora a serenade!”
In front of her home they stop, drag Moloch into the middle of the street, and perform a mystic ceremony. Their shouting and laughter is enough to wake the dead. But no one appears at the window. Not a shade is drawn.
“They must be out,” thinks Moloch. Emboldened by the thought, he mounts nimbly to the top of the stoop and delivers a speech.
His speech is mad, fantastic. He spews it out with volcanic energy. Everything that he has kept locked in his breast pours forth. He plunders the skies to hurl jewels at her feet.
A tumultuous applause bursts from the louts on the sidewalk. They have never heard anything more hilarious. Moloch stands aces high. He will be the next president of the club….
And Cora—where was she during this mad outburst? Was she in bed, dreaming of becoming a ballet dancer? It were better had this been so. But Cora is kneeling at the window in her nightdress, listening to every word of this crazy buffoon. The darkness of the room hides her from sight. She cannot see him, either, but his words make her shiver. He must be mad to love her like this. What are they laughing at, the fools?
She vows never to let him know that she cares for him so. “So?” she asks herself. Up till then she was unaware that he meant anything to her—in this way. “Why has he never said anything? Is he afraid of me?” She is delighted with her powers, and clasps her bosom with a strange, possessive joy. “Oh, Dion,” she murmurs, “if you only knew, if you only knew.” She hugs the shadow of her lover. Her knees are dimpled from the pressure of the carpet. Quivers shoot up and down her spine.
It is tragic, this senseless frustration life deals. Cora is beyond question the woman Dion Moloch should have married. She has everything to offer him: love, health, beauty. God, how he knows it, too! He loves her so much that he wants to crawl to her on his belly and invite her to use him as a footstool.
“This will never occur again,” he tells himself.
How truly the heart speaks in crises like this! Later, when he wants to love, when there is every reason for him to flower again, his heart is strangely empty. He no longer thinks of Cora, unless some accident has precipitated her memory. He does not realize, in such moments, that he has given himself to her irrevocably. Such gifts are impossible to repeat.
But, to return…. The club is holding an affair. It will be the last racket run by “the Deep Thinkers” for some time. Several of the fellows are going off to college. Moloch is one of them.
There is nothing of an unusual nature about this gathering. The atmosphere is hardly more tense than at any time in the past. The same simple incidents are repeated. Not a shadow of the deeper life to come mars their pleasures. All is joy. Youth is having its day. The morrow will be like any other. Not one among them doubts his capacity to meet the future.
Moloch, too, shares this fatuous belief. But he has reason to feel confident. He should exult. Has not Cora been unusually kind to him this evening? She has eyes for no one else, it seems. Oh, he will go off to college and make a name for himself. And when he returns …
“What’s this? She’s asking for me? For me?"
Young Dion Moloch gets up and threads his way through the noisy, chattering group. The room is whirling. He doesn’t know what to say to her, nor how he’ll behave when he finds her in the hall. All evening he has been waiting for the moment when it will come his turn to invite someone outside “to get a few letters.” That she should call him … no, that he never expected.
In the few steps that are left he already sees himself as a swashbuckling figure. Women are clamoring for him … can’t wait till they are called. Great guns! What is this magnetism he possesses?
The face that Cora turns to his in the dim light of the hall is the most beautiful sight in the world. One glance at her and he has lost all that bravado. Not a word is exchanged.
It is up to him to kiss this divinity.
Cora stands ready, her head just the least bit tilted, her arms hanging limp. Her bosom is heaving. It makes him tremble uncontrollably. He has never been so close to her, not even in his dreams.
Without knowing how he finds her in his arms. Their lips touch. The feel of her flesh staggers him. His sensations are so acute, so unique, he wants to scream. He has never held a woman in his arms. He imagines there is a certain amount of struggling to be gone through—what is called “putting up a fight.” But Cora is swaying limply in his arms. There is no resistance. He is certain she is clinging to him; he can feel her grip tightening.
He no longer fastens his mouth to hers; he seeks her ears, her eyes, her throat. She groans as he does so and repeats again and again: “Oh, God! Oh God!” He no longer cares what he says, what he does. Get at her! Conquer her! Devour her!
He is lost to everything.
Now he leans her against the wall, pressing his full weight against her, stroking her hair, uttering her name with hoarse vehemence. His violence terrifies her. To be the target of such passion!
“He must love me tremendously … !”
She, too, does her part—returns pressure for pressure. Her lips are parched and bruised.
“God help me for what I am thinking!”
There is no help for it … she permits him to fasten himself upon her and crush her. “Oh, what can this come to?” She wants time to think. She tries to appeal to him.
Oh, God, what is he up to now?
His hands are clutching at her, straying over her body. His movements become convulsive. There is something bestial about him....
There are things no gentleman ever does to a lady, not even in a moment of passion. One does not play with a woman’s body as if it were a guitar.
Dion Moloch buries his face in his arms and leans against the wall. Nothing but dry sobs fill the hall.
Shortly after this episode his father gives him money to enter college. It is too late. There is a different ordeal in store for him.
The money which his father can scarcely spare young Moloch squanders on a woman who is almost old enough to be his mother. He is hooked.
Cora seems so far beyond his reach that he no longer hopes. The sweet, mysterious, painful world of sex opens. Pauline is a mother to him—and a concubine. She needs someone to cling to, someone who will appreciate the sacrifice she desires to make. Dion Moloch accepts her with open arms. He attaches himself to her body as a tick does to a cow.
The thought that he is making a greater sacrifice nourishes him.
Pauline has a frail, consumptive child. This child, George, is only a year younger than her lover. At night she kisses George tenderly, and tucks him in bed. Then she kisses her lover also, and steals into bed with him. In the morning George finds her sleeping peacefully.
Months pass and Moloch is almost ready to believe that he is happy with his mistress. He has found a job, a paltry one, to be sure, but it enables him to keep her. George has been shipped to a sanitarium. It is better with George away. There is no longer any need for dissembling. George will die soon, anyway. Pauline knows that. So does Moloch.
When Pauline breaks the news that she is with child her lover’s attitude is one of keen disappointment. In a mistress pregnancy is an unpardonable sin. Pauline’s lover interprets this accident in the usual masculine way: it is a trap! The idea is strengthened because it corroborates the opinions of frien
ds and advisers. No one has been able to see any good in this absurd relationship. “It will never work”—that is the unanimous verdict.
Poor Pauline! No one has ever made the least attempt to probe the depths of her affection. It is concluded, because of her age, that she is a schemer, a succubus. A woman of her years has no business to fall in love with a child! How many harsh things were said of her!
On top of this George passes out. Grief overwhelms Pauline. Now she has neither son nor lover, for Dion is hiding away.
Pauline wonders would Dion refuse to see her if he knew George was dead. She does not rush to act immediately on this idea. She surveys it from every angle. Her life and happiness are at stake. A false move and Dion will be lost forever.
Carefully now she tries to piece together his character. First of all, does he love her? She is not misled by his running away. She understands his fear. Men have run away from her before.
Supposing it is only pity. Supposing it is her body—simply that. What then? What then?