GC-106 The Rosy Crucifixion Plexus Book II
by Henry Miller


THERE WILL COME A TIME when man will no longer distinguish between man 
and god. When the human being is raised to his full powers he will be 
divine—his human consciousness will have fallen away. What is called death 
will have disappeared. Everything will be altered, permanently altered. 
There will be no further need for change. Man will be free, that’s what I 
mean. Once he becomes the god which he is, he will have realized his 
destiny—which is freedom. Freedom includes everything. Freedom converts 
everything to its basic nature, which is perfection. Don’t think I am 
talking religion or philosophy. I disclaim them both, utterly. They are not
even stepping stones, as people like to think. They must be hurdled, at one
jump. If you put something outside you, or above you, you become 
victimized. There is only the one thing, spirit. It’s all, everything, and 
when you realize it you’re it. You’re all there is, there is nothing more… 
do you understand what I’m saying?


CHAPTER EIGHT

It was Maxie Schnadig who had introduced me, soGC-106 The Rosy 
Crucifixion Plexus Book II by Henry Miller

The Rosy Crucifixion Plexus Book II by Henry Miller

THERE WILL COME A TIME when man will no longer distinguish between man 
and god. When the human being is raised to his full powers he will be 
divine—his human consciousness will have fallen away. What is called death 
will have disappeared. Everything will be altered, permanently altered. 
There will be no further need for change. Man will be free, that’s what I 
mean. Once he becomes the god which he is, he will have realized his 
destiny—which is freedom. Freedom includes everything. Freedom converts 
everything to its basic nature, which is perfection. Don’t think I am 
talking religion or philosophy. I disclaim them both, utterly. They are not
even stepping stones, as people like to think. They must be hurdled, at one
jump. If you put something outside you, or above you, you become 
victimized. There is only the one thing, spirit. It’s all, everything, and 
when you realize it you’re it. You’re all there is, there is nothing more… 
do you understand what I’m saying?

CHAPTER EIGHT

It was Maxie Schnadig who had introduced me, some years ago, to Karen 
Lundgren. Whatever brought these two together I can’t possibly imagine. 
They had nothing whatever in common, nothing.

Karen Lundgren was a Swede who had been educated at Oxford, where he had 
made something of a stir due to his athletic prowess and his rare 
scholarship. He was a giant with curly blond hair, soft-spoken and 
excessively polite. He possessed the combined instincts of the ant, the bee
and the beaver. Thorough, systematic, tenacious as a bull-dog, whatever he 
engaged in he pursued to the limit. He played just as hard as he worked. 
Work, however, was his passion. He could work standing up, sitting down, or
lying in bed. And, like all hard workers, at bottom he was lazy as sin. 
Whenever he set out to do something he had first to devise ways and means 
of doing it with the least effort. Needless to say, these short cuts of his
entailed much time and labor. But it made him feel good to sweat his balls 
off devising short cuts. Efficiency, moreover, was his middle name. He was 
nothing but a walking, talking, labor-saving device.

No matter how simple a project might be, Karen could make it complicated.
I had had a good dose of his eccentricity while serving as his apprentice 
in a bureau of anthropological research some years previously. He had 
initiated me into the absurd complexities of a decimal system for filing 
which made our Dewey system seem like child’s play. With Karen’s system we 
were able to index anything under the sun, from a pair of white wool socks 
to hemorrhoids.

As I say, it was some years since I last saw Karen. I had always regarded
him as a freak, having respect neither for his vaunted intelligence nor for
his athletic prowess. Dull and laborious, those were his chief 
characteristics. Now and then, to be sure, he indulged in a hearty laugh. 
He laughed too heartily, I might say, and always at the wrong time or for 
the wrong reason. This ability to laugh he cultivated, just as he had once 
cultivated his muscles. He had a mania to be all things to all men. He had 
the mania, but no flair.

I give this thumb-nail sketch because it happens that once again I’m 
working with him, working for him. Mona too. We’re all living together on 
the beach at Far Rockaway, in a shack which he has erected himself. To be 
exact, the house isn’t quite finished. Hence our presence in it. We work 
without compensation, content to room and board with Karen and his wife. 
There’s much yet to be done. Too much. Work continues from the moment I 
open my eyes until I drop from fatigue.

To go back a pace… Running into Karen on the street was something of a 
God-send for us. We were literally without a cent when he happened along. 
Stanley, you see, had told us one evening, just as he was setting forth to 
work, that he was fed up with us. We were to pack our things and get out 
immediately. He would help us pack and see us to the subway. No words. Of 
course I had been expecting something of the sort to happen any day. I 
wasn’t the least bit angry with him. On the contrary, I was rather amused.

At the subway entrance he handed over the valises, put a dime in my hand 
for carfare, and without shaking hands turned abruptly and stalked off. Not
even a goodbye. We of course got into the subway, not knowing what else to 
do, and began riding. We rode back and forth two or three times trying to 
decide what the next step would be. Finally we got out at Sheridan Square. 
We had hardly walked a few steps when, to my astonishment, I saw Karen 
Lundgren approaching. He seemed unusually pleased to have found me again. 
What was I doing? Had we had dinner yet? And so on.

We accompanied him to his town flat, as he called it, and while his wife 
prepared the meal we unburdened ourselves. He was even more delighted to 
hear of our circumstances, “I’ve got just the thing for you, Henry.” he 
said, with his insensitive cheerfulness. And he began at once to explain 
the nature of his work, which sounded like higher mathematics to me, 
meanwhile plying us with cocktails and caviar sandwiches. He had taken it 
for granted, when he began his discourse, that I would give assent to his 
project. To make things more interesting I pretended that I would have to 
think it over, that I had other things in mind. That of course only 
stimulated him more.

“Stay with us overnight,” he begged, “and let me know what you think in 
the morning:” He had explained, to be sure, that in addition to acting as 
his secretary and amanuensis, I might have to give him a hand with the 
house-building. I had warned him frankly that I wasn’t much good with my 
hands, but he had waved this aside as unimportant. It would be fun, after 
working with one’s brain, to devote a few hours to more menial tasks. 
Recreation, he called it. And then there was the beach: we would be able to
swim, toss the ball around, perhaps even do a bit of canoeing. In passing 
he made mention of his library, his collection of records, his chess set, 
as if to say that we would have all the luxuries of a first class club.

In the morning I said yes, naturally. Mona was enthusiastic. She was not 
only willing, but eager, to help Karen’s wife do the dirty work. “O.K.” I 
said, “no harm in trying it.”

We went by train to Far Rockaway. All during the ride Karen talked 
incessantly about his work. I gathered that he was engaged in writing a 
book on statistics. According to him, it was a unique contribution to the 
subject. The data he had amassed was enormous, so enormous in fact that I 
was terrified before I had even moved a finger. In his customary way he had
equipped himself with all manner of devices, machines which he assured me I
would catch on to in no time. One of them was the Dictaphone. He had found 
it more convenient, he explained, to dictate to the machine, which was 
impersonal, than to a secretary. There would be times, of course, when he 
might feel impelled to dictate direct, in which case I could take it down 
on the typewriter. “You needn’t worry about the spelling,” he added. My 
spirits dropped, I must say, when I learned of the Dictaphone. However, I 
said nothing, just smiled and let him roll on from one thing to another.

What he had omitted to tell us about was the mosquitoes.

There was a little storeroom, just big enough to accommodate a creaky 
bed, which he indicated as our sleeping quarters. The moment I saw the 
netting over the bed I knew what we were in for. It began at once, the 
first night. Neither of us slept a wink. Karen tried to laugh it off by 
urging us to loaf for a day or two until we got adjusted. Fine, I thought. 
Mighty decent of him, I thought. An Oxford gentleman, what! But we didn’t 
sleep the second night either, even though protected by the netting, even 
though we had greased ourselves all over, like Channel swimmers. The third 
night we burned Chinese punk and incense. Toward dawn, utterly worn out, 
our nerves frazzled, we dozed off. As soon as the sun came up we plunged 
into the surf.

It was after we had breakfast that morning that Karen intimated we ought 
to begin work in earnest. His wife took Mona aside to explain her duties. 
It took Karen almost the whole morning to explain the mechanism of the 
various machines he found invaluable for his work. There was a veritable 
mountain of records piled up which I was to transcribe on the typewriter. 
As for the charts and diagrams, the rulers, compasses and triangles, the 
slide rules, the filing system, and the thousand and one details which I 
was to familiarize myself with, that could wait a few days. I was to make a
dent in the heap of records and then, if there were still enough light, I 
was to assist him on the roof.

I’ll never forget that first day with the bloody Dictaphone. I thought I 
would go mad. It was like operating a sewing machine, a switchboard and a 
Victrola all at once. I had to use simultaneously hands, feet, ears and 
eyes. If I had been just a bit more versatile I could have swept out the 
room at the same time. Of course the first ten pages made absolutely no 
sense. I not only wrote the wrong things, I missed whole sentences and 
began others in the middle or near the end. I wish I had preserved a copy 
of that first day’s work—it would have been something to put beside the 
cold-blooded nonsense of Gertrude Stein. Even if I had transcribed 
correctly, the words would have made little sense to me. The whole 
terminology, not to speak of his plodding, wooden style, was foreign to me.
I might just as well have written down telephone numbers.

Karen, like a man who is accustomed to training animals, a man of 
infinite patience and perseverance, pretended that I hadn’t done bad at 
all. He even tried to joke a bit, reading over some of the screwy sentences
“It will take a little time,” he said, “but you’ll get on to it.” And then,
to add a little sauce: “I’m really ashamed of myself for asking you to do 
this kind of work, Henry. You don’t know how much I appreciate your 
assistance. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come along.” 
He would have talked much the same way if he were giving me lessons in 
ju-jitsu, of which he was supposedly a master. I could well visualize him 
picking me up, after spinning me twenty feet through the air, and saying 
solicitously: “Sorry, old man, but you’ll get the hang of it after a few 
days. Just couldn’t help it, you know. Are you hurt much?”

What I wanted more than anything was a good drink. But Karen rarely 
drank. When he wanted relaxation he employed his energies at a different 
kind of work. To work was his passion. He worked while he slept. I mean it 
seriously. On falling off he would set himself a problem which his 
unconscious was to solve during the night.

The best I could wheedle out of him was a Coke. Even this I couldn’t 
enjoy in peace, for while I leisurely sipped it he was busy explaining to 
me the next day’s problems. What bothered me more than anything was his way
of explaining things. He was one of those idiots who believe that diagrams 
make things easier to comprehend. For me, anything in the way of a chart or
a diagram means hopeless confusion. I have to stand on my head to read the 
simplest plans. I tried to tell him this but he insisted that I had been 
miseducated, that if I would just be patient I would soon learn to read 
charts and diagrams with ease—and enjoyment. It’s like mathematics, he told
me.

“One shouldn’t say a thing like that, Henry. How can one detest something
useful? Mathematics is only another instrument to serve us.” And here he 
expatiated ad nauseam on the wonders and the benefits of a science in which
I had not the slightest interest. But I was always a good listener. And I 
had discovered already, in the space of just a few days, that one way of 
reducing the working time was to involve him in just such lengthy 
discussions. The fact that I listened so good-naturedly made him feel that 
he was really seducing me. Now and then I would throw in a question in 
order to put off for a few more minutes the inevitable return to the 
grindstone. Of course, nothing he told me about mathematics made the least 
impression on me. It went in one ear and out the other.

“You see,” he would say, with all the seriousness of the fatuous ones, 
“it’s not nearly as complicated as you imagined. I’ll make a mathematician 
of you in no time.”

Meanwhile Mona was getting her education in the kitchen. All day long I 
heard the dishes rattling. I wondered what in hell they were up to in 
there. It sounded like a spring cleaning. When we got to bed I learned that
Lotta, Karen’s wife, had allowed the dirty dishes to accumulate for a week.
She didn’t like housework, apparently. She was an artist. Karen never 
complained. He wanted her to be an artist—that is, after she had done the 
chores and assisted him in every possible way. He himself never set foot in
the kitchen. He never noticed the condition of the plates or the cutlery, 
no more than he noticed what sort of food was being served him. He ate 
without relish, to stoke the furnace, and when he was through he pushed the
dishes aside and began figuring on the tablecloth, or if there were no 
tablecloth, on the bare boards. He did everything leisurely, and with 
painful deliberation, which in itself was enough to drive me frantic. 
Wherever he worked there was dirt, disorder and a clutter of 
non-essentials. If he reached for something he had first to remove a dozen 
obstructions. If the knife he grabbed were dirty he would slowly and 
deliberately wipe it clean with the tablecloth, or with his handkerchief. 
Always without fuss or emotion. Always bearing down, pressing onward, like 
a glacier in its relentless advance. Sometimes there were three cigarettes 
burning at once at his elbow. He never stopped smoking, not even in bed. 
The butts piled up like sheep droppings. His wife was also an inveterate 
smoker, a chain smoker.

Cigarettes were one thing we had a plentiful supply of. Food, that was 
another matter. Food was doled out scantily and in the most unappetizing 
fashion. Mona, of course, had offered to relieve Lotta of the burden of 
cooking, but Lotta had refused to hear of it. We soon discovered why. She 
was stingy. She feared that Mona might prepare succulent, bounteous 
repasts. She was damned right about that! To take over the kitchen and 
stage a feast was the one thought uppermost in our mind. We kept praying 
that they would go to town for a few days and let us take over. Then at 
last we would enjoy a good meal.

“What I would like,” Mona would say, “is a good roast of beef.”

“Give me chicken—or a fine roast duck.”

“I’d like to have sweet potatoes for a change.”

“Suits me, honey, only make some rich gravy to go with them.”

Like badminton it was. We shuffled the phantom food back and forth like 
two starved peacocks. If only they would breeze! God, but we were sick of 
looking at sardine tins, cans of sliced pineapple, bags of potato chips. 
The two of them nibbled away like mice the whole damned day. Never a hint 
of wine, never a drop of whiskey. Nothing but Coke and sarsaparilla.

I can’t say that Karen was stingy. No, he was insensitive, unobservant. 
When I informed him one day that we were not getting enough to eat he 
professed to be appalled. “What would you like?” he asked. And at once he 
got up from his work, borrowed a car from a neighbor, and whisked us off to
town where we went from one store to another ordering provisions. It was 
typical of him to react in this way. Always to extremes. By going to 
extremes he intended, quite unconsciously, I believe, to make you slightly 
disgusted with yourself. “Food? Is that all you want?” he seemed to say. 
“That’s easy, we’ll buy heaps of it, enough to choke a horse.” There was a 
further implication in his exaggerated willingness to please you. “Food? 
Why that’s a mere trifle. Of course we can get you food I thought you had 
deeper worries.”

His wife, of course, was dismayed when she saw the load of provisions we 
brought back with us. I had asked Karen not to say anything to his wife 
about our hunger. He pretended, therefore, that he was laying in a supply 
against a rainy day. “The larder was getting low,” he explained. But when 
he added that Mona would like to fix a meal for us at dinner time her face 
dropped. For an instant there passed over her countenance that horrified 
look of the miser whose hoard is menaced. Once again Karen stepped into the
breach. “I thought, darling, that you would enjoy having some one else cook
the meal for a change. Mona is an excellent cook, it appears. We’re going 
to have filet mignon this evening—how does that sound to you?” Lotta, of 
course, had to feign delight.

We made the dinner an event. In addition to fried onions and mashed 
potatoes we had succotash, beets, and Brussels sprouts, with celery, 
stuffed olives and radishes on the side. We washed this down with red and 
white wine, the best obtainable. There were three kinds of cheese, followed
by strawberries and rich cream. For a change we had some excellent coffee, 
which I prepared myself. Good strong coffee with a bit of chicory in it. 
All that lacked was a good liqueur and Havana cigars.

Karen enjoyed the meal immensely. He acted like a different man. He 
joked, told stories, laughed until his sides ached, and never once referred
to his work. Toward the end of the meal he even tried to sing.

“Not bad, eh?” I said.

“Henry, we ought to do this oftener,” he responded. He looked to Lotta 
for approval. She gave a thin, bleak smile which caused her face to crack. 
“It was obvious that she was desperately trying to reckon the cost of the 
spread.

Suddenly Karen pushed his chair back and rose from the table. I thought 
he was going to bring his charts and diagrams to the table. Instead he went
into the next room and returned in a jiffy with a book. He waved if before 
my eyes.

“Ever read this, Henry?” he demanded.

I looked at the title. “No,” I said, “Never heard of it.”

Karen passed the book to his wife and begged her to read us a morsel. I 
expected something dismal, and Instinctively poured out some more wine.

Lotta solemnly turned the pages, looking for one of her favorite 
passages.

“Read anywhere,” said Karen. “It’s good through and through.”

Lotta stopped fumbling with the pages and looked up. Her expression 
changed suddenly. For the first time I saw her countenance illuminated. 
Even her voice had altered. She had become a diseuse.

“It’s chapter three,” she began, “from The Crock of Gold, by James 
Stephens.

“And a darling of a book it is!” Karen broke in gleefully. With this he 
pushed his chair back a bit and put his big feet on the arm of the easy 
chair near by. “Now you’re going to hear something, you two.”

Lotta began: “It’s a dialogue between the Philosopher and a farmer called
Meehawl MacMurrachu. The two have just greeted one another.” She begins 
reading.

“Where is the other one?” said he (the farmer).

“Ah!” said the Philosopher.

“He might be outside, maybe?”

“He might indeed,” said the Philosopher gravely.

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” said the visitor, “for you have enough 
knowledge by yourself to stock a shop. The reason I came here today was to 
ask your honored advice about my wife’s washing board. She only has it a 
couple of years, and the last time she used it was when she washed out my 
Sunday shirt and her black shirt with the red things on it—you know the 
one?”

“I do not,” said the Philosopher.

“Well, anyhow, the washboard is gone, and my wife says it was either 
taken by the fairies or by Bessie Hannigan—you know Bessie Hannigan? She 
has whiskers like a goat and a lame leg!”

“I do not,” said the Philosopher.

“No matter,” said Meehawl MacMurrachu. “She didn’t take it, because my 
wife got her out yesterday and kept her talking for two hours while I went 
through everything in her bit of a house—the washboard wasn’t there.”

“It wouldn’t be,” said the Philosopher.

“Maybe your honour could tell a body where it is then?”

“Maybe I could,” said the Philosopher: “are you listening?”

“I am,” said Meehawl MacMurrachu.

The Philosopher drew his chair closer to the visitor until their knees 
were jammed together. He laid both his hands on Meehawl MacMurrachu’s 
knees…

“Washing is an extraordinary custom,” said he. “We are washed both on 
coming into the world and on going out of it, and we take no pleasure from 
the first washing nor any profit from the last.”

“True for you, sir,” said Meehawl MacMurrachu.

“Many people consider that scourings supplementary to these are only due 
to habit. Now, habit is continuity of action, it is a most detestable thing
and is very difficult to get away from. A proverb will run where a writ 
will not, and the follies of our forefathers are of greater importance to 
us than is the wellbeing of our posterity.”

At this point Karen interrupted his wife to ask if we liked the passage.

“I do indeed,” I said. “Let her continue!”

“Continue!” said Karen, settling still deeper into his chair.

Lotta read on. She had an excellent voice and could handle the brogue 
expertly. The dialogue got funnier and funnier. Karen began to titter and 
then to laugh like a hyena. The tears were rolling down his face.

“Do be careful, Karen,” begged his wife, putting the book down a moment. 
“I’m afraid you’ll get the hiccoughs.”

“I don’t care,” said Karen, “it’s worth getting the hiccoughs.”

“But you remember, the last time it happened we had to call a doctor.”

“Just the same,” said Karen. “I’d like to hear the end of it.” And again 
he exploded into peals of laughter. It was frightening to hear him laugh. 
He had no control whatever. I wondered to myself if he could weep just as 
bravely. It would be something to unnerve one.

Lotta waited for him to subside, then resumed her reading.

“Did you ever hear, sir, about the fish that Paudeen MacLaughlin caught 
in the policeman’s hat?”

“I did not,” said the Philosopher. “The first person who washed was 
possibly a person seeking a cheap notoriety. Any fool can wash himself, but
every wise man knows that it is an unnecessary labor, for nature will 
quickly reduce him to a natural and healthy dirtiness again. We should 
seek, therefore, not how to make ourselves clean, but how to attain a more 
unique and splendid dirtiness, and perhaps the accumulated layers of matter
might, by ordinary geologic compulsion, become incorporated with the human 
cuticle and so render clothing unnecessary… “

“About that washboard,” said Meehawl, “I was just going to say… “

“It doesn’t matter,” said the Philosopher. “In its proper place I… “

Here Lotta had to close the book. Karen was laughing, if it could be 
called that, with such uncontrollable violence that his eyes were popping 
out of his head. I though he would throw a fit.

“Darling, darling!” came Lotta’s anxious voice, registering a concern I 
hadn’t believed her capable of. “Please, darling, calm yourself!”

Karen continued to be rocked by spasms which now sounded more like sobs. 
I got up and thumped him violently on the back. At once the commotion 
subsided. He looked up at me gratefully. Then he coughed and wheezed and 
blew his nose vigorously, wiping the tears away with his coat sleeve.

“Next time, Henry, use a mallet,” he sputtered. “Or a sledgehammer.”

“That I will,” I said.

He began to titter again.

“Please don’t!” begged Lotta. “He’s had enough for one evening.”

“It was indeed a wonderful evening,” said Mona. “I’m beginning to like it
here. And how wonderfully you read,” she said, addressing Lotta.

“I used to be on the stage,” said Lotta modestly.

“I thought so,” said Mona. “So was I once.”

Lotta arched her eyebrows. “You were?” There was a tinge of sarcasm in 
her voice.

“Why yes,” said Mona, unruffled, “I played with the Theater Guild.”

“Hear, hear!” said Karen, relapsing into his Oxford manner.

“What’s so strange about that?” I demanded to know. “Didn’t you think she
had any talent?”

“Why, Henry,” said Karen, clasping my arm, “you are a sensitive brute, 
aren’t you? I was congratulating myself on our good luck. We’ll all take 
turns reading some night. I was on the stage once myself, you know.”

“And I was once a trapeze artist,” I countered.

“Really!” This from Lotta and Karen simultaneously.

“Didn’t I ever tell you? I thought you knew.”

For some strange reason this innocent lie impressed them. If I had said I
had been .a cabinet minister once it could not have produced as telling an 
effect. It was amazing how limited was their sense of humor. Naturally I 
expatiated at length on my virtuosity. Mona chimed in now and then to help 
me out. They listened as if spellbound.

When I had finished Karen soberly remarked: “Among other things, Henry, 
you’re not a bad story teller. You must tell us some more yarns like that 
when we’re in the mood.”

*

The next day, as if to make up for the grand splurge, Karen was 
determined to tackle the roof. It had to be shingled and then coated with 
tar. And I who could never drive a nail straight was to do the job—under 
his directions. Fortunately it took some time to find the right ladder, the
proper nails, the hammer and saw and a dozen other tools which he thought 
might come in handy. What followed was straight out of Laurel and Hardy. 
First of all I insisted on finding a pair of old gloves so as not to get 
any splinters in my hands. I made it clear as a Euclidian theorem that with
splinters in my fingers I would be unable to type and being unable to type 
would mean no Dictaphone work. After that I insisted on finding a pair of 
sneakers so as not to slip and break my neck. Karen nodded approval in dead
seriousness. He was the type who, in order to get the maximum amount of 
work out of you, would carry you to the toilet if necessary and wipe your 
ass for you. It was clear by this time that I would need a lot of 
assistance to fix the roof. Mona was to stand by in case anything fell to 
the ground; she was also to fetch us some ice-cold lemonade at intervals. 
Karen, of course, had already drawn several diagrams explaining how the 
shingles were to be adjusted one to another. Naturally I profited not all 
from these explanations. I had only one thought in mind—to start hammering 
away like a demon and let the chips fall where they would.

In order to limber up I suggested that I first practice walking along the
ridge pole. Karen, still nodding approval, wanted to lend me an umbrella, 
but at this Mona laughed so heartily that he abandoned the idea. I scurried
up the ladder as nimbly as a cat, hoisted myself up to the ridge pole and 
began my tight rope exercises. Lotta looked on with suppressed fright, her 
mind busy, doubtless, computing hospital expenses in the event I should 
slip and break a leg. It was a scorcher of a day, the flies out in swarms 
and biting like fury. I had on a huge Mexican hat much too big for me which
kept falling over my eyes. When I descended I took the notion to change 
into my swimming trunks. Karen thought he would do likewise. This consumed 
a little more time.

Finally there was nothing left but to begin. I climbed up the ladder with
the hammer under my arm clutching a keg of nails. It was getting on toward 
noon. Karen had rigged up a platform on wheels from which he unloaded the 
shingles and gave directions. He looked like a Carthaginian setting the 
defenses of the city in order. The women stood below, clucking away like 
hens, all set to catch me if I fell.

I got the first shingle set and picked up the hammer to drive the first 
nail home, I missed it by an inch or two and the shingle went flying 
homeward like a kite. I was so surprised, so stunned, that the hammer fell 
out of my hands and the keg of nails tumbled to the ground. Karen, 
unperturbed, gave orders to remain where I was, the women would gather up 
the hammer and nails. It was Lotta who ran to the kitchen to get the 
hammer. When she returned I learned that I had broken the tea pot and a few
plates. Mona was scrambling for the nails, picking them up so fast that 
they fell out of her hand before she could get them in the keg.

“Easy, easy!” shouted Karen “All right up there, Henry? Steady now!”

With this I got the giggles. The situation reminded me all too vividly of
those dreadful occasions in the past when my mother and sister would aid me
in putting up the awnings—parlor floor front. Nobody except an awning maker
has any idea how complicated an awning can be. There are not only the rods 
and flaps, the bolts and screws, the pulleys and cords, there are a hundred
perplexing difficulties which arise after you have mounted the ladder and 
anchored yourself gingerly on the edge of the double window. Somehow there 
always seemed to be a gale blowing when my mother decided to put up the 
awnings. Holding the flapping awning with one hand and the hammer with the 
other, my mother would then endeavor to pass me the various things which 
were needed and which my sister had handed to her. To keep a tight grip 
with my legs and not permit the awning to carry me aloft was a feat in 
itself. My arms would grow tired before I had driven in the first screw, I 
would have to disentangle the damned contraption and jump down for a 
breathing spell. All the time my mother would be mumbling and 
groaning—“It’s so simple, I could put them up myself in a few minutes if I 
didn’t have the rheumatism.” Recommencing, she would be obliged to explain 
to me all over again which part went outside and which inside. For me it 
was like doing something backwards. Once in position again, the hammer 
would fall from my hands, and I would sit there wrestling with the belly of
the awning while my sister ran below and fetched it. It would take at least
an hour to put up one awning. At this point I would invariably say—“Why not
leave the other ones till tomorrow?” Whereupon my mother would fly into a 
rage, horrified by the thought of what the neighbors would think seeing 
only one awning in place. Sometimes, at this point, I would suggest that we
call upon a neighbor to finish the job, offering to pay him handsomely out 
of my own pocket. But this would enrage her even more. It was a sin, in her
opinion, to pay out money for work which one could do oneself. By the time 
we finished I always had a few bruises. “Serves you right,” my mother would
say. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You’re as helpless as your 
father.”

Sitting astride the ridge pole, laughing quietly to myself, I 
congratulated myself that we were doing something other than Dictaphone 
work. I knew that by evening my back would be so sunburned that I would be 
unable to work on the morrow. I would have to lie on my belly all day. 
Fine. It would give me a chance to read something interesting. I was 
growing stupid listening to nothing but statistical abracadabra. I realized
that Karen would try to find something “light” for me to do while lying on 
my belly, but I knew how to discourage such attempts.

Well, we began again, slowly and deliberately this time. The way I worked
over one nail would have driven any normal person crazy. But Karen was 
anything but a normal individual. From his Carthaginian tower he continued 
to shower me with directions and encouragements. Why he didn’t put the 
shingles up himself and let me pass them to him I couldn’t understand. But 
he was happy only when directing. Even when it was a simple thing he had to
do he could somehow break it up into a multitude of component parts which 
would necessitate the cooperation of several individuals. It never mattered
to him how long it took to complete a job; all that mattered was that it be
done his way, i.e., the longest and the most complicated way. This was what
he called “efficiency.” He had learned it in Germany while studying how to 
make organs. (Why organs f So that he could appreciate music better.) I had
only put up a few shingles when the signal came for lunch. It was a cold 
lunch made of the odds and ends from yesterday’s banquet. “A salad,” Lotta 
called it. Happily there were a few bottles of beer to make it palatable. 
We even had a few grapes. I ate them slowly, one by one, stretching the 
minutes out. Already my back looked raw. Mona wanted me to put a shirt on. 
I assured them that I tanned quickly. Wouldn’t think of donning a shirt. 
Karen, who wasn’t altogether a fool, suggested that we lay off the roof 
work for the afternoon and tackle something “light.” He began explaining 
that he had made some complicated charts which had to be corrected and 
remade.

“No, let’s get on with the roof,” I urged. “I’m just getting the hang of 
it.”

As this sounded plausible and logical to him, Karen voted to tackle the 
roof again. Once more I clambered up the ladder, did a little preliminary 
footwork on the ridge pole, and settled down to hammering nails. In a short
time the sweat was pouring off me like rain. The more I perspired the more 
the flies buzzed and bit. My back felt like raw steak. I accelerated my 
rhythm perceptibly.

“Good work, Hank!” yelled Karen. “We ought to be through in a day or two 
at this rate.”

He had no more than got the words out of his mouth when a shingle flew 
skyward and caught him over the eye. It made a gash from which the blood 
trickled into his eye.

“Oh darling, are you hurt?” cried Lotta.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “Carry on, Henry.”

“I’ll get some iodine,” yelled Lotta, trotting off into the house.

Quite unintentionally I let the hammer fall from my hand. It fell through
a hole in the sheathing -right on Lotta’s skull. She gave a shriek as if a 
shark had bitten her, and with that Karen scrambled down from his perch.

It was time to call a halt. Lotta had to be put to bed with a cold 
compress on her head. Karen had a big patch of court plaster over his left 
eye. He never uttered a word of complaint.

“I guess you’ll have to make the dinner again tonight,” he said to Mona. 
It seemed to me that there was a secret note of pleasure in his voice. Mona
and I had difficulty restraining our jubilation. We waited a while before 
broaching the subject of the menu.

“Fix anything you like,” said Karen.

“How about lamb chops?” I put in. “Some lamb chops with French peas, some
noodles and maybe artichokes too—how does that sound?”

Karen thought it would be excellent. “You don’t mind, do you?” he asked 
Mona.

“Not at all,” she said. “It’s a pleasure.”

Then, as if it were quite an afterthought, she added: “Didn’t we bring 
some Riesling yesterday? I think a bottle of Riesling would go well with 
the chops.”

“Just the thing,” said Karen.

I took a shower and got into my pajamas. The prospect of enjoying another
good meal revived me. I was ready to sit down and do a bit of Dictaphone 
work to show my appreciation.

“I think you’d better rest up,” said Karen. “You’ll feel a little 
muscle-bound tomorrow.”

“What about those charts?” I said. “I’d really like to do something, you 
know. I’m sorry I was so damned awkward.”

“Tut tut,” said Karen. “You’ve done a good day’s work. Take it easy till 
dinner time.”

“All right, if you insist. O.K.”

I opened a bottle of beer and plunked myself in the easy chair.

Thus it went au bord de la mer. Great sand spits, with an unceasing surf 
which pounded in one’s ears at night like the hammering of a stupendous 
tocatta. Now and then sand storms. The sand seeped in everywhere, even 
through the glass panes, it seemed.

We were all good swimmers; we bobbed up and down in the heavy surf like 
otters. Karen, always seeking to improve matters, made use of an inflated 
rubber mattress. After he had taken a siesta on the bosom of the deep, he 
would swim out a mile or two and give us all a good fright.

Evenings he enjoyed playing games. He played in dead earnest always, 
whether it was pinochle, cribbage, checkers, casino, whist, fan-tan, 
dominoes, euchre or backgammon. I don’t believe there was a game with which
he was not conversant. Part of his general education, don’t you know. The 
rounded individual. He could play hopscotch or tiddly-winks with the same 
furious zeal and adroitness. Once, when I went to town with him, I 
suggested that we drop into a pool parlor and play a game of pool. He asked
me if I wanted to shoot first. Without thinking I said, “No, you go ahead.”
He did. He cleaned up the table four times before I had a chance to use the
cue. When it finally came my turn I suggested that we go home. “Next time 
you shoot first,” he said, intimating that that would be a break for me. It
never occurred to him, that, just because he was a shark, it would have 
been sporting to miss a shot occasionally. To play ping pong with him was 
hopeless; only Bill Tilden could have returned his serves. The only game in
which I might have stood a chance to break even was craps, but I never 
liked rolling dice, it was boring.

One evening after discussing some books on occultism, I reminded him of 
the time we had taken a trip up the Hudson on an excursion boat. “You 
remember how we pushed the ouija board around?” His face lit up. Of course 
he did. He would like to try it again if I were willing. He’d improvise a 
board.

We sat up that night till two in the morning pushing the damned 
thingamajig around. We must have made a lot of connections in the astral 
realm, judging by the time which elapsed. As usual it was I who summoned 
the eccentric fingers—Jacob Boehme, Swedenborg, Paracelsus, Nostradamus, 
Claude Saint Martin, Ignatius Loyola, the Marquis de Sade and such like. 
Karen made notes of the messages we received. Said he would dictate them to
the Dictaphone the next day. To be filed under 1.352-Cz 240.(18), which was
the exact index for material derived from the departed spirits by means of 
the ouija board on such and such an evening in the region of the Rockaways.
It was weeks later when I decocted this particular record. I had forgotten 
all about the incident. Suddenly, in Karen’s serious voice I began getting 
these crazy messages from the blue… “Eating well. Time hangs heavy. 
Coronary divertissements tomorrow. Paracelsus.” I began to shake with 
laughter. So the idiot really was filing this stuff away! I was curious to 
know what else he might have tucked away under this classification. I went 
to the card files first. There were at least fifty cross references 
indicated. Each one was battier than the previous one. I got out the 
folders and file boxes in which the papers were stored away. His notes and 
jottings were scribbled in a minute scrawl on odds and ends, often paper 
napkins, blotters, menus, tally cards. Some times it was nothing more than 
a phrase which a friend had dropped while conversing in the subway; 
sometimes it wan an embryonic thought which had flitted through his head 
while taking a crap. Sometimes it was a page torn from a book—the title, 
author, publisher and place always carefully noted as well as the date when
he had come across it. There were bibliographies in at least a dozen 
languages, including Chinese and Persian.

One curious chart interested me enormously; I intended to pump him about 
it one day but never did. As best I could make out, it represented a map of
some singular region in limbo, the boundaries of which had been given him 
in a seance with a medium. It looked like a geodetic survey of a bad dream.
The names of the places were written in a language which nobody could 
possibly understand. But Karen had given a rough translation on separate 
sheets of paper. “Notes,” it read: “The following translations of place 
names in the quaternary decan of Devachan were volunteered by de Quincey 
working through Madame X. Coleridge is said to have verified them before 
his death but the documents in which the testimony is given are temporarily
lost.” The singular thing about this shadowy sector of the beyond was this:
in its confines, imaginary perhaps, were gathered the shades of such 
diverse and interesting personalities as Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Longinus, 
Virgil, Hermes Trismegistus, Apollonius of Tyana, Montezuma, Xenophon, Jan 
van Ruysbroeck, Nicolaus of Cusa, Meister Eckhart, St. Bernard of 
Clairvaux, Asoka, St. Francois de Sales, F6nelon, Chuang Tzu, Nostradamus, 
Saladin, the Pope Joanna, St. Vincent de Paul, Paracelsus, Malatesta, 
Origen, together with a coterie of women saints. One would like to know 
what had drawn this conglomeration of souls together. One would like to 
know what they discussed in the mysterious language of the departed. One 
would like to know if the great problems which had tormented them on earth 
had been finally resolved. One would like to know if they consorted 
together in divine harmony. Warriors, saints, mystics, sages, magicians, 
martyrs, kings, thaumaturgists… What an assemblage! What would one not give
to be with them just for a day!

As I say, for some mysterious reason I never brought this subject to 
Karen’s attention. There was little, indeed, outside our work which I did 
discuss with him, first because of his great reserve, second because to 
introduce even a slight detail meant listening to an inexhaustible 
harangue, third because I was intimidated by the vast domain of knowledge 
which appeared to be his. I contented myself with browsing through his 
books, which embraced an enormous range of subject matter. He read Greek, 
Latin, Hebrew and Sanskrit with apparent ease, and was fluent in a dozen 
living tongues, including Russian, Turkish and Arabic. The titles of his 
“books were alone sufficient to set my head spinning. What astounded me, 
however, was that so little of this vast store of learning seeped into our 
daily talk. Sometimes I had the feeling that he regarded me as a thorough 
ignoramus. Other times he embarrassed me by posing questions which only a 
Thomas Aquinas could cope with. Now and then he gave me the impression that
he was just a child with an over-developed brain. He had little humor and 
almost no imagination. Outwardly he appeared to be a model husband, always 
ready to cater to his wife’s whims, always alert to serve her, always 
solicitous and protective, at times positively chivalric. I couldn’t help 
but wonder at times what it would be like to be married to this human 
adding machine. With Karen everything proceeded according to schedule. 
Intercourse too, no doubt. Perhaps he kept a secret file reminding when 
intercourse was due, together with notes on the results—spiritual, moral, 
mental and physical.

One day he caught me unawares reading a volume of Elie Faure which I had 
dug up. I had just read the paragraph which opens the chapter on The 
Sources of Greek Art… “On condition that we respect ruins, that we do not 
rebuild them, that, after having asked their secret, we let them be 
recovered by the ashes of the centuries, the bones of the dead, the rising 
mass of waste which once was vegitations and races, the eternal drapery of 
the foliage—their destiny may stir our emotion. It is through them we touch
the depth of our history, just as we are bound to the roots of life by the 
griefs and sufferings which have formed us. A ruin is painful to behold 
only for the man who is incapable of participating by his activity in the 
conquest of the present… “

He came on me just as I had finished the paragraph. “What!” he exclaimed.
“You’re reading Elie Faure?”

“Why not?” I was at a loss to understand his amazement.

He hesitated a moment, scratched his head, then answered falteringly: “I 
don’t know, Henry… I never thought… Well, I’ll be damned! Do you really 
find it interesting?”

“Interesting f” I echoed. “I’m mad about Elie Faure.”

“Where are you at?” he asked, reaching for the book. “Ah, I see.” He read
the paragraph over aloud. “I wish I had the time to read that sort of 
books—it’s too much of a luxury for me.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“One has to swallow such books early in life,” said Karen. “It’s sheer 
poetry, you know. Makes too much of a demand on one. You’re lucky you have 
time to spare. You’re still an aesthete.”

“And you?”

“Just a work-horse, I guess. I’ve put my dreams behind me.”

“All those books in there… ” I nodded in the direction of the library. 
“You’ve read them?”

“Most of them,” he answered. “Some of them I’m reserving for leisure 
moments.”

“I noticed you had several books on Paracelsus. I only glanced at 
them—but they intrigue me.”

I hoped he would snatch at the bait, but no, he dismissed the subject by 
remarking, as if to himself, that one could spend a lifetime struggling to 
grasp the meaning of Paracelsus’ theories.

“And what about Nostradamus?” I asked. I was intent on getting some spark
from him.

To my surprise his face suddenly lit up. “Ah, that’s another story,” he 
replied. “Why do you ask—have you been reading him?”

“One doesn’t read Nostradamus. I’ve been reading about him. What excites 
me is the Preface which he addresses to his infant son, Caesar. It’s an 
extraordinary document, in more ways than one. Can you spare a minute?”

He nodded. I got up, brought the book back, and hunted up the page which 
had inflamed me just a few days before.

“Listen to this,” I said. I read him a few salient passages, then stopped
abruptly. “There are two passages in this book which… well, they baffle me.
Perhaps you can explain them to me. The first one is this: ‘M. le Pelletier
(says the author) conceives that the Commun Advdnement, or Vavenement au 
regne des gens du commun, which I have rendered “The Vulgar Advent,” 
extending from the death of Louis XVI to the reign of Antichrist, is the 
grand object of Nostradamus.’ I’ll come back to this in a moment. Here’s 
the second one: ‘As an accepted visionary he (Nostradamus) is perhaps less 
swayed by the imagination than any man of a hall kindred type that one can 
mention.’ ” I paused. “What do you make of them, if anything?”

Karen took his time before answering. I surmised that he was conducting 
an inner debate, first, as to whether he could spare the time to make 
adequate answer to the question, second, whether it would be worth his 
while to waste his ammunition on a type like myself.

“You understand, Henry,” he began, “that you’re asking me to explain 
something highly complex. Let me ask you first, have you ever read anything
by Evelyn Underhill, or by A. E. Waite?” I shook my head. “I thought as 
much,” he continued. “Naturally you wouldn’t have asked my opinion if you 
hadn’t sensed the nature of these perplexing statements. I’d like to ask 
you another question, if you don’t mind. Do you understand the difference 
between a prophet, a mystic, a visionary and a seer?”

I hesitated a moment, then said: “Not too clearly, but I see what you’re 
driving at. I believe, however, that if given time to reflect I could 
answer your question.”

“Well, let’s not bother now,” said Karen. “I merely wanted to test your 
background.”

“Take it for granted that it’s nil,” said I, growing a bit annoyed by 
these preliminaries. .

“You must excuse me,” said Karen, “for beginning in this fashion. It’s 
not very kind, is it? A hang-over from school days, I guess. Look here, 
Henry… Intelligence is one thing—native intelligence, I mean. Knowledge is 
another. Knowledge and training, I should say, because they go together. 
What you know you’ve picked up in haphazard fashion. I underwent a rigorous
discipline. I say this so that you will understand why I fumble about 
instead of answering right off the bat. In these matters we speak different
languages, you and I. In a way—forgive the thought—you’re like a superior 
type of savage. Your I.Q. is probably just as high as mine, perhaps higher.
But we approach the domain of knowledge in diametrically opposite ways. 
Because of my training and background I’m quite apt to underestimate your 
ability to grasp what I have to impart. And you, for your part, are most 
apt to think that I am wasting words, splitting hairs, parading my 
erudition.”

I interrupted him. “It’s you who fancy all this,” said I. “I haven’t any 
preconceived notions whatsoever. It doesn’t matter to me how you proceed, 
so long as you give me a definite answer.”

“That’s just what I expected you to say, old man. To you it’s all quite 
simple and straightforward. Not so to me! You see, I was taught to postpone
queries of this sort until convinced that I could find the answer nowhere… 
However, all this is no answer, is it? Now let’s see… What was it precisely
you wished to know? It’s important to get that straight, otherwise we’ll 
end up in the Pontine marshes.”

I read the second statement over again, giving emphasis to the words 
“less swayed by the imagination.”

To my own astonishment I caught myself saying: “Never mind, I understand 
it perfectly now.”

“You do?” cried Karen. “Huh! Explain it to me, then, will you?”

“I’ll try,” said I, “though you must realize that it’s one thing to 
understand a thing yourself and another to explain it to someone.” (That’s 
tit for tat, thought I to myself.) Then, sincerely in earnest, I began: “If
you were a prophet instead of a statistician or mathematician, I would say 
that there was something of a resemblance between you and Nostradamus. I 
mean, in the way you go about things. The prophetic art is a gift, and so 
is the mathematical flair, if I may call it that. Nostradamus, it would 
seem, refused to exploit his natural gift in the usual way. As you know, he
was versed not only in astrology but in the magic arts. He had knowledge of
things hidden—or forbidden—to the scholar. He was not only a physician but 
a psychologist. He was many, many things all in one. In short, he had 
command of so many coordinates that it clipped his wings. He limited 
himself—I say this advisedly—to what was given, like a scientist. In his 
solo flights he moved from one level to another with cold-blooded 
precision, always equipped with instruments, charts, tables and private 
keys. However fantastic his prophecies may sound to us, I doubt if they 
originated in dream and reverie. Inspired they were, beyond question. But 
one has reason to believe that Nostradamus deliberately refused to give 
free rein to his imagination. He proceeded objectively, so to speak, even 
when (paradoxical as it may sound) he was subjugated by trance.

The purely personal aspect of his work… I hesitate to call it his 
creation… centers about the veiled delivery of the oracles, the reason for 
which he made clear in the Preface to Caesar, his son. There is a 
dispassionate tone about the nature of these revelations which one feels is
not altogether attributable to modesty on the part of Nostradamus. He 
stresses the fact that it is God who deserves the credit, not himself. Now 
a true visionary would be fervent about the revelations disclosed to him; 
he would make haste either to recreate the world, according to the divine 
wisdom he had tasted, or he would make haste to unite himself with his 
Creator. A prophet, more egotistical still, would make use of his 
illumination to take revenge upon his fellow-men… I’m hazarding all this at
random, you understand.” I gave him a quick, keen glance to make sure I had
him hooked, then continued. “And now, suddenly, I think I begin to 
understand the real import of the first citation. I mean that part about 
the grand object of Nostradamus, which, as you recall, the French 
commentator would have us believe was nothing less than a desire to give 
predominant significance to the French Revolution. Myself, I think that if 
Nostradamus had any ulterior motive for dwelling on this event so markedly,
it was in order to disclose to us the manner in which history is to be 
liquidated. A phrase like “la fin des temps”—what does it mean? Can there 
really be an end to time? And if so, could it possibly mean that time’s end
is really our beginning? Nostradamus predicts a millennium to come—in a 
time not far distant, either. I am no longer sure at the moment whether it 
follows upon the Day of Judgment or precedes it. Neither am I certain 
whether his vision extended to be end of the world or not. (He speaks of 
the year 3797, if I remember rightly, as though that were as far as he 
could see.) I don’t think the two—the Judgment Day and the end of the 
world—were meant to be simultaneous. Man knows no end, that’s my 
conviction. The world may come to an end, but if so, it will be the world 
imagined by the scientists, not the world God created. When the end comes 
we will take our world with us. Don’t ask me to explain this—I just know it
for a fact… But to approach this end business from another angle. All it 
can possibly mean, as I see it now—and to be sure, this is quite enough!—is
the emergence of a new and fecund chaos. Were we living in Orphic times we 
would speak of it as the coming of a new order of gods, meaning, if you 
like, the investiture of a new and greater consciousness. I look upon the 
Oracles of Nostradamus as the work of an aristocratic spirit. It has 
meaning only for true individuals… To get back to the Vulgar Advent, excuse
my circumlocutiousness! The phrase so widely used today—the common 
man—strikes me as an utterly meaningless one. There is no such animal. If 
the phrase has any meaning at all, and I think Nostradamus certainly 
implied as much when he spoke of the Vulgar Advent, it means that all that 
is abstract and negative, or retrogressive, has now assumed dominion. 
Whatever the common man is or is not, one thing is certain—he is the very 
antithesis of Christ or Satan. The term itself seems to imply absence of 
allegiance, absence of faith, absence of guiding principle—or even 
instinct. Democracy, a vague, empty word, simply denotes the confusion 
which the common man has ushered in and in which he flourishes like the 
weed. One might as well say—mirage, illusion, hocus-pocus. Have you ever 
thought that it may be on this note—on the rise and dominion of an 
anacephalic body—that history will end? Perhaps we will have to begin all 
over again from where the Cro-Magnon man left off. One thing seems highly 
evident to me, and that is that the note of doom and destruction, which 
figures so heavily in all prophecies, springs from the certain knowledge 
that the historical or world element in man’s life is but transitory. The 
seer knows how, why and where we got off the track. He knows further that 
there is little to be done about it, so far as the great mass of humanity 
is concerned. History must run its course, we say. True, but only? Because 
history is the myth, the true myth, of man’s fall made manifest in time. 
Man’s descent into the illusory realm of matter must continue until there 
is nothing left to do but swim up to the surface of reality—and live in the
light of everlasting truth. The men of spirit constantly exhort us to 
hasten the end and commence anew. Perhaps that is why they are called 
paracletes, or divine advocates. Comforters, if you like. They never exult 
in the coming of catastrophe, as mere prophets sometimes do. They indicate,
and usually illustrate by their lives, how we may convert seeming 
catastrophe to divine ends. That is to say, they show us, those of us who 
are ready and aware, how to adapt and attune ourselves to a reality which 
is permanent and indestructible. They make their appeal… “

At this point Karen signaled me to stop. “Christ, man,” he exclaimed, 
“what a pity you aren’t living in the Middle Ages! You would have made one 
of the great Schoolmen. You’re a metaphysician, by crikey. You ask a 
question and you answer it like a master of dialectic.” He paused a moment 
to draw a deep breath. “Tell me something,” he said, putting a hand on my 
shoulder, “how did you come by all this? Come on now, don’t feign humility 
with me. You know what I’m getting at.”

I hemmed and hawed.

“Come, come!” he said His earnestness was pathetically child-like. The 
only response I could make was to blush deeply.

“Do your friends understand you when you talk this way? Or do you talk 
this way only to yourself?”

I laughed. How could one answer such queries with a straight face? I 
begged him to change the subject.

He nodded silently. Then: “But don’t you ever think of making use of your
talents? As far as I can see, you do nothing but fritter your time away. 
You waste it on idiots like MacGregor and Maxie Schnadig.”

“To you it may seem that way,” I said slightly nettled now. “To me it 
seems otherwise. I don’t intend to be a thinker, you know. I want to write.
I want to write about life, in the raw. Human beings, any kind of human 
beings, are food and drink to me. I enjoy talking about other things, 
certainly. The conversation we just had, that’s nectar and ambrosia. I 
don’t say it doesn’t get anyone anywhere, not at all, but—I prefer to 
reserve that sort of food for my own private delectation. You see, at the 
bottom I’m just one of those common men we were talking about. Only, now 
and then I get flashes. Sometimes I think I’m an artist. Once in a great 
while I even think I may be a visionary, but never a prophet, a seer. What 
I have to contribute must be done in a roundabout way. When I read about 
Nostradamus or Paracelsus, for example, I feel at home. But I was born in 
another vector. I’ll be happy if I ever learn to tell a good story. I like 
the idea of getting nowhere. I like the idea of the game for the game’s 
sake. And above all, wretched, botched and horrible though it may be, I 
love this world of human beings. I don’t want to cut myself adrift. Perhaps
what fascinates me in being a writer is that it necessitates communion with
all and sundry. Well, anyway, this is all surmise on my part.”

“Henry, said Karen, “I’m just beginning to know you. I had you all wrong.
We’ve got to talk some more—another time.”

With this he excused himself and retired to his study. I sat there for a 
while, in a semi-trance, mulling over the shreds of our conversation. After
a time I absentmindedly reached for the book which he had put down. As 
absentmindedly I picked it up and read: “For the divine works, which are 
absolutely universal, God will complete; those which are contingent, or 
medial, the good angels direct; and the third sort come under the evil 
angels.” (From the Preface for Caesar Nostradamus, his son.) These few 
lines kept singing in my head for days. I had a vague hope that Karen would
appear for another closed session in which we might discuss the probable 
task of the good angels. But on the third day thereafter his mother arrived
with a friend of long standing. Our conversations took quite another turn.

Karen’s mother! A majestic creature in whose person were combined the 
diverse qualities of matriarch, hetaera and goddess. She was everything 
that Karen was not. No matter what she was doing she radiated warmth; her 
ringing laugh dissolved all problems, assured one of her confidence, trust,
benevolence. She was positive through and through, yet never arrogant or 
aggressive. Divining instantly what you were endeavoring to say, she gave 
her approval before the words were out of your mouth. She was pure, radiant
spirit in a most enchantingly carnal form.

The man she had brought along was a mellow sort of individual, of 
idealistic temperament, who ran for Governor now and then and was always 
defeated. He talked of world affairs with knowledge and insight, always in 
a dispassionate way and with sly humor. He had been in Wilson’s entourage 
at Versailles, he knew Smuts of South Africa, and he had been an intimate 
friend of Eugene V. Debs. He had translated obscure work of the 
pre-Socratic Greeks, was an expert chess player, and had written a book on 
the origins and evolution of the game. The more he talked the more I was 
impressed by the multitudinous facets of his personality. The places he had
been to!—Tibet, Arabia, Easter Island, Tierra del Fuego, Lake Titcaca, 
Greenland, Mongolia. And what friends he had made—of the most diverse 
sorts—during the course of his travels! I recalled these: Kipling, Marcel 
Proust, Maeterlinck, Rabindranath Tagore, Alexander Berkman, the Archbishop
of Canterbury, Count Keyserling, Henri Rousseau, Max Jacob, Aristide 
Briand, Thomas Edison, Isadora Duncan, Charlie Chaplin, Eleanora Duse…

To sit down to table with him was like attending a banquet given by 
Socrates. Among other things he was a connoisseur of wines. He made sure 
that we ate well and drank well, larding the dinner talk with such 
comestible delicacies as the great plagues, the hidden meanings of the 
Aztec alphabet, the military strategy of Attila, the miracles of Apollonius
of Tyana, the life of Sadakichi Hartman, the magic lore of the Druids, the 
inner workings of the financial clique which rules the world, the visions 
of William Blake, and so on. He spoke of the dead with the same intimate 
tenderness as of the living. He was at home in all climes, all epochs of 
mankind. He knew the habits of birds and snakes, he was an expert on 
constitutional law, he invented chess problems, he had written treatises on
the drift of the continents, on international law, on ballistics, on the 
art of healing.

Karen’s mother provided the spice. She had a ringing laugh which was 
infectious. No matter what the subject under discussion, she could make it 
appetizing by her comments. Her learning seemed almost as prodigious as her
consort’s, but she carried it lightly. Karen suddenly seemed like an 
adolescent who had not yet begun to live his own life. His mother treated 
him like an overgrown child. Now and then she told him plainly that he was 
just a fool. “You need a vacation,” she would say. “You ought to have had 
five children by now.” Or—“Why don’t you go to Mexico for a few months, 
you’re getting stale.”

As for herself, she was getting ready to make a trip to India. The year 
before she had been to Africa, not big game hunting either, but as an 
ethnologist. She had penetrated to regions where no white woman had ever 
set foot. She was fearless but not reckless. She could adapt herself to any
circumstances, enduring hardships which made even the stronger sex flinch. 
She had a faith and a trust which were invincible. No one could come into 
her presence without being enriched. At times she reminded me of those 
Polynesian women of royal lineage who preserved, in the far Pacific, the 
last vestiges of an earthly Paradise. Here was the mother I should like to 
have chosen before entering the womb. Here was the mother who personified 
the primal elements of our being, in whom earth, sea and sky were 
harmonized. She was a natural descendant of the great Sybilline figures, 
embodying the texture of myth, fable and legend. Terrestrial to the core, 
she nevertheless lived in a realm of superdimensions. Her consciousness 
seemed to expand or contract at will. For the greatest tasks she made no 
more effort than for the humblest. She was equipped with wings, fins, tail,
feet, claws and gills. She was aeronautic and amphibious. She understood 
all languages yet spoke as a child. Nothing could dampen her ardor or 
mutilate her irrepressible joy. Just to look at her was to take courage. 
Problems became non-existent. She was anchored in reality, but a reality 
which was divine.

For the first time in my life, I had the privilege of gazing upon a 
Mother. Images of the Madonna had never mean anything to me: they were too 
bright, too translucent, too remote, too ethereal. I had formed an image of
my own—darker, more substantial, more mysterious, more potent. I had never 
expected to see it concretized. I had imagined such types to exist, but 
only in the remote places of this world. I had sensed their existence in 
previous times; in Etruria, in ancient Persia, in the golden days of China,
in the Malay archipelago, in legendary Ireland, in the Iberian peninsula, 
in far off Polynesia. But to come upon one in the flesh, in every day 
surroundings, to be eating, talking, laughing with her—no, that I had never
believed possible. Every day I studied her anew. Every day I expected the 
veil to fall away. But no, each day she grew in stature, ever more 
wondrous, ever more real, as only dreams become when we sink deeper and 
deeper into their meshes. What I had understood heretofore to be human, 
all-too-human, became magnified to an inexhaustible degree. It was no 
longer necessary to await the coming of a superman. The boundaries of the 
human world suddenly became limitless. Everything has been given, we are 
told again and again. All that is demanded of us, I saw it now clearly, is 
to realize our own nature. One speaks of man’s potential nature as though 
it were a contradiction of the one he reveals. In Karen’s mother I saw the 
potential being flourish, I observed it expropriating the crude, external 
shell in which it is encased. I understood that metamorphosis is present 
and actual, the very sign of vitality. I saw the feminine principle usurped
by the human. I understood that a greater endowment of the human element 
awakened a greater sense of reality. I understood that, in augmenting the 
life force, the being incarnating it grows ever closer to us, ever more 
tender, ever more indispensable. The superior being is not, as I once 
supposed, more remote, more detached, more abstract. Quite the contrary. 
Only the superior being can arouse in us the hunger which is justifiable, 
the hunger to surpass ourselves by becoming what we truly are. In the 
presence of the superior being we recognize our own majestic powers; we do 
not long to be that person, we merely thirst to demonstrate to ourselves 
that we are indeed of that same pith and substance. We rush forward to 
greet our brothers and sisters, knowing beyond all doubt that we are all 
kin…

The visit of his mother and her companion lasted only a few days, alas. 
They had hardly gone when Karen decided that we should all go back to town,
where he had some matters to attend to. He thought it might do us all good 
to go to the theater, hear a concert or two, and then return to the beach 
to work in earnest. I realized that his mother’s visit had completely 
derailed him.

The town flat, as he called it, was one unholy mess. God knows when a 
broom had last been put to it. The kitchen was strewn with garbage which 
had lain there for weeks. Mice, ants, cockroaches, bedbugs, every sort of 
vermin infested the place. The tables, beds, chairs, divans, commodes were 
littered with papers, with open fileboxes, with cards, graphs, statistical 
tables, instruments of all kinds. Partly-eaten sandwiches lay among the 
heaps of letters. Cigarette butts were there by the hundreds.

The place was so filthy, indeed, that Karen and his wife decided to go to
a hotel for the night. They would return the next evening after we had 
tidied the place up as best we could. I was to do what I could with his 
files.

We were so glad to be alone for a change that we didn’t mind the 
imposition. I had borrowed a ten-spot from Karen so that we could get some 
food. As soon as they had left we went out to eat, and we ate well. An 
Italian dinner with some good red wine.

Returning to the flat we noticed the odor as we ascended the stairs. 
“We’re not going to touch a thing,” I said to Mona. “Let’s get to bed and 
clear out in the morning. I’m fed up.”

“Don’t you think we ought to see them at least, and tell them we’re 
quitting?”

“I’ll leave a note,” I said. “I’m too disgusted to prolong matters. I 
don’t feel that we owe them a thing.”

It took us an hour to clean the bedroom sufficiently to be comfortable 
for the night. At that we had to sleep between soiled sheets. No matter 
what one touched, it was out of order. To pull the shade down was like 
working out a mathematical problem. I came to the conclusion that the two 
of them were suffering from a mild case of dementia. Just as I was about to
turn in I noticed on the shelf above the bed a row of hat boxes and shoe 
boxes. On each one was written an index number, indicating the size, color 
and condition of the hat or shoes. I opened them to see if they really 
contained hats and shoes. They did. None of them were in a condition to be 
worn by anyone but a panhandler. This was the last straw for me.

“I tell you,” I groaned, “that guy’s batty. Crazy as a loon.”

We rose early, unable to sleep because of the bedbugs. We took a quick 
shower, examined our clothes thoroughly to make sure they were not 
infested, and prepared to decamp. I was just in the mood to write a note. I
decided it should be a good one, because I intended never to see the two of
them again. I looked around for a suitable piece of paper. Catching sight 
of a big map on the wall, I ripped it down and, using the end of a broom 
handle which I dipped in a pot of paint, I scrawled a farewell in 
hieroglyphics tall enough to be read thirty yards away. With the back of my
hand I shoved the things on the big work table onto the floor. I placed the
map on the table and in the center of it I dumped a pile of the most 
ancient, the most reeking, garbage. I was sure he wouldn’t miss that. I 
took a final look about, so as to retain a lasting impression of the scene.
I walked to the door, then suddenly turned back. One more thing was 
needed—a postscriptum to the note. Choosing a sharp-pointed pencil I wrote 
in a microscopic hand: “To be filed under C, for catarrh, cleanliness, 
cantharides, cowbells, Chihuahua, Cochin-China, constipation, curlicues, 
crinology, cachination, coterminous, cow-flop, cicerone, cockroaches, cimex
lectularius, cemeteries, crapes Suzette, corn-fed hogs, citrate of 
magnesia, cowries, cornucopia, castration, crotchets, cuneiform, cistern, 
cognomen, Cockaigne, concertina, cotyledons, crapulated, cosine, creasote, 
crupper, copulation, Clytemnestra, Czolgosz—and Blue Label catsup.”

My one regret, as we descended the stairs, was that I couldn’t leave my 
calling card on the table too.

We had a jolly little breakfast in a lunch wagon opposite the Tombs, 
during which we discussed our future, which was a complete blank.

“Why don’t you go to a movie this afternoon?” said Mona. “I’ll run over 
to Hoboken or somewhere and see what I can scrape up. Let’s meet at Ulric’s
for dinner—how’s that?”

“Fine,” I said, “but what will I do this morning? Do you realize it’s 
only eight o’clock?”

“Why don’t you go to the Zoo? Take a bus. The ride will do you good.”

She couldn’t have made a better suggestion. I was in the proper mood to 
look at the creature world. Being foot loose and free at that ungodly hour 
of the morning gave me a sense of superiority. I would sit on the upper 
deck and watch the busy toilers scurrying to their appointed tasks. I 
wondered for a moment what my mission in life might be. I had almost 
forgotten that I had intended to be a writer. I knew only one thing—I was 
not cut out to be a scavenger. Nor a drudge. Nor an amanuensis.

At the corner I parted with Mona. At Fifth Avenue I hopped a bus going 
north and clambered up to the top deck. Free again! I inhaled a few deep 
draughts of ozone. As we came alongside Central Park I took a good look at 
the fading mansions which flank the Fifth Avenue side. Many of them I knew 
from having entered through the servants’ or tradesmen’s door. Yes, there 
was the Roosevelt home where, as a boy of fourteen, I delivered cutaway 
suits, tuxedos, alpaca jackets for the old man. I wondered If the elder Mr.
Roosevelt, the banker, that is, and his four giant sons still walked five 
abreast to their office in Wall Street each morning—after having taken a 
gallop through the park, bien entendu. A little farther along I recognized 
old man Bendix’s mansion. The brother who had a penchant for fancy vest 
buttons, was dead a long time. But H. W. was probably still alive and 
probably still grousing over the fact that his tailor had forgotten that he
dressed on the right side. How I loathed that man! I smiled to think of the
anger I had vented on him in days gone by. He was probably a very lonely, 
feeble old man now, attended by a faithful servant, a cook, a butler, a 
chauffeur and so on. How busy he always managed to keep himself! Truly, the
rich are to be pitied.

So I went… Reminiscence upon reminiscence. Suddenly I thought of 
Rothermel. I could just picture him getting out of bed with a hang-over, 
tripping over his own piss-pot, fuming, fussing, hopping around like a crow
on one leg. Well, it would be a red-letter day for him, seeing Mona again. 
(I was sure she was headed in his direction.) Thinking of Rothermel’s early
morning condition I got to ruminating on how various people I knew greeted 
the new day. It was a delightful game. From friends and acquaintances I 
moved over into the realm of celebrities—artists, actors and actresses, 
political figures, criminals, religious leaders, all classes and all 
levels. It grew positively fascinating when I began digging into the habits
of the great historical personages. How did Caligula greet the day? A swarm
of distant personalities suddenly took possession of my brain: Sir Bacon, 
Mohammed the Great, Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, Hannibal, Confucius, 
Tamerlane, Napoleon at St. Helena, Herbert Spencer, Modjeska, Sir Walter 
Scott, Gustavus Adolphus, Friedrich Barbarossa, P. T. Bamum…

Approaching Bronx Park I forgot what had led me to this spot. I was just 
rehearsing my first impressions of the three-ringed circus, that awesome 
moment in a boy’s life when he sees his idol in flesh and bone. Mine was 
Buffalo Bill. I loved him. To see him gallop into the center of the sawdust
ring and doff his huge sombrero to the applauding spectators was something 
unforgettable. He has long locks, a goatee, and a big curling mustache. 
There is an elegance to the spectacular garb he sports. One hand holds the 
rein lightly, the other grasps the faithful rifle. In a moment he will 
display his unerring marksmanship. He is making the full circle of the 
arena first, his proud steed snorting fire. What a splendid figure of a 
man! His friends are the fierce Indian Chiefs—Sioux, Comanches, Crows, 
Blackfeet.

What a boy admires is unostentatious strength—skill, poise, flexibility. 
Buffalo Bill was the epitome of all these. We never saw him except in full 
costume and then only once a year—if we were lucky. In those few moments 
allotted to us he never missed a shot, never made an awkward move, never 
departed one iota from the ideal portrait we carried in our hearts. He 
never deceived us, never betrayed us, Always at par.

Buffalo Bill was to us what Saladin was to his followers—and to his 
enemies. A boy never forgets his idols. Well, fuck a duck—here we are at 
the Zoo. The first thing I see is a giraffe. Then a Bengal tiger, then a 
rhinoceros, then a tapir. Ah, here are the monkeys! Home again. Nothing 
cleans out the psychological system like looking at wild animals. Tabula 
rasa. The very name of their habitats are inspiring. One drifts back into 
the old Adamic world where the serpent reigned supreme. Evolution explains 
nothing. We were all there together from the beginning of time, and we will
remain until eternity. The stars and the constellations drift, the 
continents drift, man drifts together with his companions of antediluvian 
days—the armadillo, the dodo bird, the dinosaur, the sabre-toothed tiger, 
the diminutive horse of upper Mongolia. Everything in the cosmos is 
drifting toward some drifting point in space. And God Almighty is probably 
drifting too, together with his Creation.

Drifting along, one with the Zoo and all its occupants, I suddenly had 
the clearest vision of Ren6e Tietjen. Ren6e was the sister of Richie 
Tietjen with whom I used to play as a boy of ten. He was like a 
bloodthirsty Zouave, this Richie. He would bite a piece out of you if you 
angered him. It was important, when choosing sides for a game of prisoner’s
base, to have Richie on your side. Now and then Ren6e, his sister, would 
stand at the gate and watch us. She was about six years older than he, 
quite a woman already, and to us youngsters utterly ravishing. When you got
close to her you inhaled the perfume which she used—or was it simply the 
fragrance of her delicious flesh? From the time I had ceased playing in the
street I had never given a thought to Rense Tietjen. Now suddenly, and for 
no reason I could think of, her image danced before me. She was leaping on 
the iron fence beside the gate and the wind molded her thin silk dress 
about her limbs. I realized now what had made her so ravishing and 
unattainable: she was an exact replica of one of the medieval French 
madonnas. All light and grace, chaste, seductive, with golden tresses and 
sea green eyes. Always silent, always seraphic. Buffeted by the wind, she 
swayed back and forth like a young willow. Her breasts, which were two 
nubile hemispheres, and the little tuft which adorned the pelvis, seemed 
extraordinarily alive and sensitive. They met the wind like the bulging 
contour of a ship’s prow. Within a few feet of her we were dashing about 
like mad bulls, ripping, slashing, biting, squealing, as if possessed. 
Renee always stood there imperturbably, her lips faintly parted in an 
enigmatic smile. Some said she had a lover who had jilted her. Some said 
she was lame. Not one of us had the courage to address her. She took her 
place at the railing and remained there like a statue. Now and then the 
wind lifted her skirt and we gasped when we caught sight of the milky flesh
above her knees. Toward evening old man Teitjen would come trudging home, a
long whip in his hand. Seeing Richie, his clothes tom, his face spattered 
with mud and blood, the old man would flick him with the whip. Richie never
uttered a sound. The old man would greet his daughter surlily and disappear
through the front door. A strange scene whose sequel we never knew.

All this came back to me so vividly that I felt impelled to make a few 
notes immediately. I rushed frantically out of the park in search of paper 
and pencil. Now and then I stopped to make water. Finally I found a little 
stationery store run by an old Jewish woman. She was wearing one of those 
hideous wigs the color of a cockroach’s wings. For some reason she had 
difficulty in understanding me. I began making signs in the air. She 
thought I was deaf. She began to yell at me. I yelled back at her, drowning
her with oaths. She grew frightened and ran to the back of the store to 
call for help. Baffled, I stood there a moment, then dashed into the 
street. A bus was standing at the corner. I got in and sat down. Beside me 
was a newspaper. I picked it up and began making notes, first in the 
margins, then across the black print. When we came to Morningside Park I 
furtively threw the paper out the window. I felt relieved, as relieved as 
if I had just had a good fuck. Ren6e had faded out, along with the 
giraffes, the camels, the Bengal tigers, the peanut shells and the sullen 
roar of the lions. I would tell Ulric all about it; he would enjoy it. 
Unless he was just in the midst of a banana campaign.

CHAPTER NINE

Once again we are living in a sedate neighborhood, not far from Fort 
Greene Park. The street is as wide as a boulevard, the houses set far back 
from the sidewalk, most of them of brownstone and adorned with high stoops 
and the same material. Some of the houses are veritable mansions flanked by
immense lawns studded with shrubs and statues. Ample driveways lead to the 
stables and servants’ quarters in the rear. The whole atmosphere of this 
old neighborhood is redolent of the 80’s and 90’s. The remarkable thing 
about it is its state of preservation. Even the hitching posts are intact 
and gleaming, as if just wiped with an oil rag. Sumptuous, elegant, 
somnolescent, it seems like a wonderful haven to us.

It was Mona, of course, who had found the two rooms. And once again, we 
had a congenial landlady, one of those witless young American widows who 
didn’t know what to do with herself. We had taken our furniture out of 
storage and fitted up the two rooms. The landlady was delighted to have us 
as tenants. She ate with us frequently. Quite a jolly creature, with a 
melodious voice and the indolence of a lost soul. Things promised to go 
well here. The rent was cheap, the gas, water and electricity functioned 
perfectly as an abundance of good food, movies afternoons and evenings, if 
we desired it, a game of cards now and then, to please the landlady, and no
visitors. Not a soul knew our address. Where the funds came from I wasn’t 
too sure.

Mathias, still in the offing, and Rothermel, more alive than ever, I knew
contributed the bulk of it. But there must have been others, too, for we 
were living high. The landlady, of course, was liberal with food and drink,
and often invited us to the theater or took us to a cabaret. What 
fascinated her was that we were obviously artists—“Bohemians,” as she put 
it. Her husband had been an insurance agent and had left her a tidy sum. 
But he had been a pretty dull bird, according to her, and she intended to 
make merry now that he was gone.

I rented a typewriter and began writing once more. Everything was just 
ducky. The beautiful silk bathrobe, the pajamas, the Moroccan slippers I 
wore, all were gifts from the landlady: heirlooms. The mornings were 
luxurious. We would get out of bed around ten, bathe leisurely while the 
phonograph played, then sit down to a delicious breakfast, usually prepared
by the landlady. Always fresh fruit and berries smothered in cream, muffins
fresh from the oven, thick strips of bacon, marmalade, steaming coffee with
whipped cream. I felt like a pasha. Though I had no use for them, I was 
equipped with two beautiful cigarette cases and a long cigarette holder, 
which I used only at meal-time, and to please the good landlady who had 
given me them.

I must stop calling her “the landlady.” Her name was Marjorie, and it 
suited her to a T. There was something lascivious about her, as if she were
always picking up the scent. She had a beautiful figure and she displayed 
it freely, especially in the morning when all she wore was a filmy 
bathrobe. It didn’t take long before we were patting one another 
affectionately on the rump. She was the sort of woman who could grab your 
cock and make you laugh at the same time. One couldn’t help liking her, 
even if she were pockmarked, which she wasn’t. Everything she did was open 
and above-board. If you merely voiced a desire, she sought at once to 
appease it. Whatever she possessed was yours for the asking.

What a change from Karen’s establishment! The meals alone were enough to 
put one in a state of divine contentment. Her rooms adjoined ours but the 
door between was never locked. We wandered to and fro at ease, as if we 
were sharing a common manage.

After breakfast I would usually take a walk, to work up an appetite for 
lunch. It was early fall and the weather was superb. I strolled to the Park
and flopped on a bench to doze in the bright sunshine. A marvelous sense of
wellbeing possessed me. No worries of any kind, no responsibilities, no 
intrusions. Completely my own master, and waited on hand and foot by two 
eager, beautiful women who treated me like a peacock. Faithfully each day I
wrote for an hour or two; the rest of the day was—fuck, feast and fun. What
I wrote must have been of slight consequence—probably dreams and fantasies.
It was too good a life to inspire serious work. I wrote to keep my hand in,
nothing more. Now and then I knocked out something expressly for Marjorie’s
benefit, something whimsical and humorous, which I would read aloud at 
table between sips of cognac or some precious liqueur from her 
inexhaustible stock. All they demanded of me was to go through the motions.

“I wish I knew how to write,” Marjorie would say sometimes. (To her the 
art of writing was sheer magic.) She wondered, for example, where I got my 
ideas. “You hatch them, like eggs,” I said. “And those big words, Henry?” 
She doted on them, mispronounced them deliberately, rolled them over on her
tongue lasciviously. “You sure can juggle them,” she’d say. Some times she 
made up a tune in which she introduced these jaw-breakers. What a pleasure 
it was to hear her hum a tune—or whistle softly! Her sex seemed to move 
right up into her throat. Often she burst out laughing in the midst of a 
tune. Such laughter! As if she were getting her ashes hauled.

Sometimes of an evening I would go for a solitary promenade. I knew the 
neighborhood intimately, having lived for a time right opposite the Park. 
Only a few blocks away—Myrtle Avenue was the boundary line—the slums 
commenced. After strolling through the sedate quarters it was a thrill to 
cross the line, to mingle with Italians, Filipinos, Chinese and other 
“undesirables.” A pungent odor invested the poor quarters: it was 
compounded of cheese, salami, wine, punk, incense, cork, dried fish skins, 
spices, coffee, stale horse piss, sweat and bad plumbing. The shops were 
full of nostalgic wares familiar from childhood. I loved the funeral 
parlors (the Italian ones especially), the religious shops, the junk shops,
the delicatessen stores, the stationery stores. It was like passing from a 
cool, immaculate mausoleum into the thick of life. The tongues employed had
a musical quality, even when it was nothing but an exchange of oaths. 
People dressed differently, each one in his own crazy fashion. The horse 
and wagon were still in evidence. Children were everywhere, amusing 
themselves with that lusty exuberance which only the children of the poor 
display. There were no longer the stereotyped wooden faces of the born 
American, but racial types, all saturated with character.

If I kept walking in a certain direction I would come eventually to 
United States Street. It was somewhere near here that my friend Ulric was 
born. Here it was easy to wander astray; in every direction fascinating 
detours opened up. At night one walked with dream feet. Everything appeared
to be upended, churned, tossed about. Sometimes I found myself winding up 
at within striking distance were the Navy Yard, fantastic Wallabout Market,
the sugar refineries, the big bridges, roller mills, grain elevators, 
foundaries, paint factories, tombstone yards, livery stables, glaziers, 
saddlers, grill works, canneries, fish markets, slaughterhouses, tin 
factories—a vast conglomeration of workday horrors over which hung a pall 
of smoke impregnated with the stench of burning chemicals, rotting flesh 
and seared metals.

If I thought of Ulric on such walks I thought also of the middle ages, 
and of Breughel the Elder, and Hieronymus Bosch, or of Petronius Arbiter, 
Lorenzo the Magnificent, Fra Lippo Lippi… to say nothing of the Seven 
Dwarfs, Swiss Family Robinson and Sinbad the Sailor. Only in a Godforsaken 
hole like Brooklyn could one assemble the monsters, freaks and anomalies of
this world. At the Star Theatre, which was given over to burlesque, one 
rubbed elbows with the hairy denizens of this incredible region. The 
performance was always on a level with the almost extinct imagination of 
the audience. No holds were barred, no gestures considered too indecent, no
filth too slimy to be rippled off the tongue of the comedian. It was always
a visual and aural feast such as a Peeping Tom craves. I was thoroughly at 
home in this broth: Smut was my maiden name.

Arriving home after one of these promanades I would usually find Marjorie
and Mona waiting for me, the table spread for a light repast. What Marjorie
called a “snack” consisted of cold cuts, salami, head cheese, olives, 
pickles, sardines, radishes, potato salad, caviar, Swiss cheese, coffee, a 
German cheese cake or apple strudel, with Kummel, Port of Malaga to top it 
off. Over the coffee and liqueurs we would sometimes listen to John Jacob 
Niles’ recordings. Our favorite was “I Wonder As I Wander,” sung in a 
clear, high-pitched voice with a quaver and a modality all his own. The 
metallic clang of his dulcimer never failed to produce ecstasy. He had a 
voice which summoned memories of Arthur, Merlin, Guinevere. There was 
something of the Druid in him. Like a psalmodist, he intoned his verses in 
an ethereal chant which the angels carried aloft to the Glory seat. When he
sang of Jesus, Mary and Joseph they became living presences. A sweep of the
hand and the dulcimer gave forth magical sounds which caused the stars to 
gleam more brightly, which peopled the hills and meadows with silvery 
figures and made the brooks to babble like infants. We would sit there long
after his voice had faded out, talking of Kentucky where he was born, 
talking of the Blue Ridge mountains and the folk from Arkansas. Marjorie, 
always, a-humming and a-whistling, would suddenly break out into a song, 
some simple folk tune which one knew from the cradle.

It was the glorious month of September, described in the Old Farmer’s 
Almanac as the time when “the porcupines take their fill of the ripening 
apples and the deer munch the fine green beans one has tended so 
carefully.” A lazy time and not a thing to worry about. From our window we 
looked down on a row of well kept gardens studded with majestic trees. 
Everything in apple-pie order, everything serene. The leaves were turning 
gold and red, flecking the lawns and pavements with fiery splashes. Often I
sat at the breakfast table, which commanded a view of the back yards, and 
fell into a deep reverie. On certain days not a leaf or twig stirred; there
was only the splendor of sunlight and the incessant drone of insects. It 
was hard to believe sometimes that not so very long ago I had lived in this
neighborhood with another wife, that I had pushed a baby carriage up and 
down the streets, or carried the child to the park and watched it romp in 
the grass. Sitting there by the window, my past grew dim and faint; it was 
more like another incarnation. A delicious feeling of detachment would 
overcome me and I would swim back, leisurely, playfully, like a dolphin, 
into the mysterious waters of imaginary pasts. In such moods, catching a 
glimpse of Mona flitting about in her Chinese shift, I would look at her as
if she were a total stranger. Sometimes I even forgot her name. Looking 
away, I would suddenly feel a hand on my shoulder.

“What are you thinking about?” I can hear her say. (Even now I remember 
vividly how from far, far away her voice seemed to come.) “Thinking… 
thinking… I wasn’t thinking of anything.” She would remark that there was 
such a concentrated look in my eyes. “It’s nothing,” I would say, “I was 
just dreaming.” Then Marjorie would chime in: “He’s thinking about what 
he’s going to write, I guess.” And I would say. “That’s it, Marjorie.” 
Whereupon they would steal away and leave me to myself. Immediately I would
fall back into a state of reverie.

Suspended three stories above the earth, I had the illusion of floating 
in space. The lawns and shrubs on which my gaze was riveted would vanish. I
saw only what I was dreaming of, a perpetual shifting panorama as 
evanescent as mist. Sometimes queer figures, garbed in the costumes of the 
period, floated before my eyes—incredible personages such as Samuel 
Johnson, Dean Swift, Thomas Carlyle, Izaak Walton. Sometimes it was as if 
the smoke of battle suddenly rolled away and men in armor, chargers 
sumptuously caparisoned, stood lost and bewildered amidst the slain of the 
battlefield. Birds and animals also played their part in these still 
visions, particularly the mythological monsters, with all of whom I seemed 
to be on familiar terms. There was nothing too outlandish, nothing too 
unexpected about these apparitions to rout me out of my nothingness. I 
wandered with motionless feet through the vast halls of memory, a sort of 
living cinematograph. Now and then I relived an experience which I had as a
child: a moment, for instance, when one sees or hears something for the 
first time. In such instances I was both the child experiencing this wonder
and the nameless individual observing the child. Sometimes I enjoyed that 
rare experience of synchronizing my thought and being with the tenuous 
fragment of a dream long, long forgotten, and, rather than pursue it, 
rather than fix it objectively in image and sensation.

I would toy with the fringes of it, bathe in its aura, so to say, 
grateful merely that I had caught up with it, that I had scented its 
immortal presence.

To this period belongs a night dream which I recorded with scrupulous 
accuracy. I feel it is worth transcribing…

“It opened with a nightmarish vertigo which sent me hurtling from a dizzy
precipice into the warm waters of the Caribbean. Down, down I swirled, in 
great spiral curves which had no beginning and promised to end in eternity.
During this ceaseless descent a bewildering and enchanting panorama of 
marine life unrolled before my eyes. Enormous sea dragons wriggled and 
shimmered in the powdered sunlight which filtered through the green waters;
huge cactus plants with hideous roots floated by, followed by sponge-like 
coral growths of curious hues, sullen as ox-blood, some a brilliant 
Vermillion or soft lavender Out of this teeming aquatic life poured myrids 
of animalcules, resembling gnomes and pixies; they bubbled up like a 
gorgeous flux of stardust in the tail-sweep of a comet.

“The roaring in my ears gave way to plangent, verdant melodies; I became 
aware of the tremors of the earth, of poplars and birches shrouded in 
ghost-like vapors, bending gracefully to the caress of fragrant breezes. 
Stealthily the vapors roll away. I am trudging through a mysterious forest 
alive with screaming monkeys and birds of tropical plumage. There is a 
quiver of arrows in my girdle and over my shoulder a golden bow.

“Penetrating deeper and deeper into the woods the music become more 
celestial, the light more golden; the earth is carpeted with soft, 
blood-red leaves. The beauty of it is such that I swoon away. On awakening 
the forest has vanished. To my befuddled senses it seems that I am standing
before a pale, towering canvas on which a pastoral scene of great dignity 
is depicted: it resembles one of those murals by Puvis de Chavannes in 
which the grave, seraphic void of dream is materialized. Sedate, somber 
wraiths move to and fro with a measured, haunting elegance which make our 
earthly movements appear grotesque. Stepping in the canvas I follow a quiet
path which leads toward the retreating line of the horizon. A full-hipped 
figure in a Grecian robe, balancing an urn, is directing her footsteps 
toward the turret of a castle dimly visible above, the crest of a gentle 
knoll, I pursue the undulating hips until lost in a dip beyond the crest of
the knoll.

The figure with the urn has disappeared. But now my eyes are rewarded by 
a more mystifying sight. It is as if I had arrived at the very end of this 
habitable earth, at that magic fringe of the ancient world where all the 
mysteries and gloom and terror of the universe are concealed. I am hemmed 
in by a vast enclosure whose limits are only faintly discernible. Ahead of 
me loom the walls of a hoary castle bristling with spears. Pennants 
blazoned with incredible emblems flutter ominously above the crenellated 
battlements. A sickly fungus growth chokes the broad sweeps leading out 
from the terrifying portals; the gloomy casements are bespattered with the 
remains of great carrion birds whose foul stench is unbearable.

“But what awes and fascinates me most is the color of the castle. It is 
red such as my eyes have never beheld. The walls are of a warm blood-like 
hue, the tint of rich corpuscles laid bare by the knife. Beyond the 
frontier walls loom more spectacular parapets and battlements, turrets and 
spires, each receding rank steeped in a more awesome red. To my terrified 
eyes the whole spectacle takes on the proportions of a monstrous butchers’ 
orgy dripping with gore and excrement.

“In fear and horror I avert my gaze an instant. In that fleeting moment 
the scene changes. Instead of poisonous fungus and the scabby carcasses of 
vultures there is spread before me a rich mosaic of ebony and cinnamon, 
shadowed by deep purple panoplies from which cascades of cherry blossoms 
slither away in billowy heaps on a chequered court. Within reach, almost, 
stands a splendid couch festooned with royal drapes and smothered in 
pillows of gossamer loveliness. On this sumptuous divan, as if languidly 
anticipating my arrival, reclines my wife Maude. It is not a wholly 
familiar Maude, though I recognize at once her tiny, bird-like mouth. I 
wait expectantly for her usual inanities. Instead there issues from her 
throat a flood of dark music which sends the blood hammering to my temples.
It Is only at this moment that I realize she is nude, feel the vague, 
splendid pain of her loins. I bend over to lift her in my arms but recoil 
immediately in full horror as I perceive a spider slowly crawling over her 
milky breast. As if possessed, I flee in panic toward the castle walls.

“And now a strange thing happens. To the groaning and creaking of rusty 
hinges the towering gates swing slowly open. Swiftly I race up the narrow 
path which leads to the foot of the spiral staircase. Frantically I climb 
the iron steps—higher and higher, without ever seeming to reach the top. 
Finally, when it seems as if my heart will break from exertion, I find 
myself at the summit. The ramparts and battlements, the casements and 
turrets of the mysterious castle, are no longer there beneath me. Before my
eyes there unfold a black, volcanic waste furrowed with innumerable chasms 
of bottomless depth. Nothing of plant or vegetable life is visible. 
Petrified limbs of gigantic proportions, carbuncled with glistening mineral
crustations, lie sprawled about over the void. Gazing more intently I 
perceive with horror that there is a life down below there—a slimy, 
crawling life which reveals itself in huge coils that wind and unwind about
the crazy, dead limbs.

“Suddenly I have a presentiment that the towering steeple up which I had 
climbed in panic is crumbling at the base, that this immense spire is 
teetering at the edge of the loathsome abyss, threatening at any moment to 
hurl me into a shattering annihilation. For just the fraction of a moment 
there is an eerie stillness, then faintly, so faintly as to be almost 
inaudible, there comes the sound of a voice—a human voice. Now it rings out
boldly, with a weird, moaning accent, only to die out immediately, as if it
had been strangled down in the sulphurous depths below. Instantly the tower
lurches violently; as it swoops out over the void, like a drunken ship, a 
babble of voices breaks forth. Human voices, in which there are mingled the
laughter of hyenas, the shrill screams of lunatics, the blood-curdling 
oaths of the damned, the piercing, horror-laden cackles of the possessed.

“As the rail gives way I am catapulted into space with meteoric speed. 
Down, down, down, my frail body stripped of its tender flesh, the entrails 
clawed by leprous talons, by beaks crusted with verdigris. Down, down, 
down, stripped and mangled by fang and tusk.

“And then it ceases, this hurtling through the void; it gives way to a 
sliding sensation. I am shooting down a paraffin incline supported by 
colossal columns of human flesh that bleed from every pore. Awaiting me is 
the wide, cavernous maw of an ogre champing its teeth with fierce 
expectancy. In an instant I shall be swallowed alive, shall perish to the 
hideous accompaniment of bones, my own precious bones, being crunched and 
splintered… But just as I am about to slide into the gapping red maw the 
monster sneezes. The explosion is so vast that the whole universe is 
snuffed out. I awake coughing like a smoking bellows.”

Was it a coincidence that the very next day I should run into my friend 
Ulric, that he should inform me stutteringly that Maude had been to see him
the day before and had begged him to speak to me, urge me to return to her?
She had been pitifully abject, he told me ruefully. She had wept 
unceasingly from the time she entered his studio until she left. She had 
even got down on her knees and begged him to promise that he would leave no
stone unturned to accomplish his mission.

“I told her truthfully,” said Ulric, “that I didn’t know where to find 
you. She said there must be a way to track you down. She begged you to 
forgive her as she forgave you. She said the child was asking for you 
constantly. She said she didn’t care what you did if only you would come 
back… I tell you, Henry, it was an ordeal. I promised her I would do all I 
could, knowing though that it was futile. I know it must pain you to listen
to all of this.” He hesitated a moment, then added: “There’s one thing I’d 
like to ask you, if it’s not too much—would you mind getting in touch with 
her yourself? I don’t think I could face another session like that. It 
unnerves one.”

I assured him I would handle the situation myself. I told him not to 
worry about either of us. “Listen, Ulric, let’s forget about this for a 
while. Come along with me and have a spot of lunch with us. Mona will be 
delighted to see you again. And I think you’ll like Marjorie.” His eyes lit
up at once. He rubbed his juicy lips with the tip of his tongue.

“All right,” he said, slapping his thigh, “I’ll take you up on it. By 
golly, it’s time we had a little powwow. Do you know, I began to wonder if 
I’d ever see you again. You must have lots to tell me.”

*

As I had surmised, Marjorie and Ulric hit it off perfectly. We had a 
staggering lunch, supplemented by a couple of bottles of Rhine wine. After 
lunch Ulric stretched himself out on the divan and took a little snooze. He
explained that he had been working hard on a pineapple campaign. When he 
had had a little rest he might try a sketch or two. Perhaps Marjorie would 
be good enough to pose for him, yes? One eye was already closed. The Other,
frighteningly alive, rolled and lurched under his beetling brow. “You sure 
eat well around here,” he said, crossing his hands over his paunch. He 
raised himself on one elbow and shaded his eyes with his hand. “I say, do 
you mind if we were to lower that shade just a little? That’s it, that’s 
fine.” He gave a gentle sigh and sank quietly into sleep.

“If you don’t mind,” I said to Marjorie, “we’ll take a little snooze 
ourselves. Call us when he wakes up, won’t you?”

Toward evening we found Ulric sitting on the divan sipping a cool drink. 
He was thoroughly refreshed and in a mellow mood.

“Golly, but it’s good to be with you folks again,” he said, twisting his 
lips and moving that one infernal eyebrow up and down. “I’ve just been 
giving Marjorie an earful about our life in the old days.” He beamed at us 
affectionately, set his drink carefully down on the tabouret beside him, 
and took a deep breath. “You know when I don’t see you for a long time 
there are so many things I want to ask you about. I make hundreds of 
notes—about the damndest things—and then when I see you I forget 
everything… I say, wasn’t it somewhere around here that you once had a flat
with O’Mara and—what was his name again, that crazy Hindu… you know, the 
one with the long hair and the hysterical laugh?”

“You mean Govindar,” I said.

“That’s it. He sure was a weird one, that fella. You thought quite highly
of him, I remember. Wasn’t he writing a book then?”

“Several,” I said. “One of them, a long metaphysical treatise, was really
extraordinary. I only realized how good it was years later, when I began 
comparing his work with the soporific tomes of our distinguished 
numb-skulls. Govindar was a metaphysical Dadaist, I should say. But in 
those days he was just a joke to us.

I was a pretty insensitive brute, as you know. I didn’t give a shit about
Hindu philosophy then; he might just as well have written his book in 
Sanskrit. He’s back in India now—one of Gandhi’s chief disciples, I’m told.
Probably the most unusual Hindu I ever met.”

“You ought to know,” said Ulric, “you sure had a flock of them on your 
hands. And then there were those Egyptians—especially that cockeyed fellow…
“

“Shukrullah, you mean!”

“What a memory! Yes, I do remember the name now. And the other one, who 
wrote you those flowery epistles that never ended?”

“Mohamed Eli Sarwat.”

“Christ, what names! He was a loulou, Henry. I hope you saved those 
letters.”

“I’ll tell you the chap I can never forget, Ulric. That was the little 
Jewish boy, Sid Harris. Do you remember—‘Merry Xmas, President Carmichael, 
and be sure to ask Santa Claus to give all the messenger boys a raise!’ 
What a guy! I can see him all over again as he sat beside me filling out 
the application blank. Sid Harris, born in his mothers womb, address The 
East Side, religion unknown, previous occupations—errand boy, shoe shine 
boy, fire insurance, skeleton keys, soda water jerker, life-saver, 
cough-drops, and Merry Xmas from the American flag waving high over the 
Statue of Liberty.”

“You didn’t give him a job, I suppose?”

“No, but he used to call regularly every week and fill out an application
blank. Always smiling, whistling, shouting Merry Xmas to everyone. I used 
to throw him a quarter to go to the movies. Next day I’d get a letter 
telling me what he had seen, whether he had sat in the third or fourth row,
how many peanuts he ate, what the next program would be, and whether there 
were fire extinguishers or not. At the end ha would sign his name in full: 
Sidney Roosevelt Harris, or Sidney R. Harris, or S. Roosevelt Harris, or S.
R. Harris, or just plain Sidney—one after the other, one under the other, 
followed of course by the perennial Xmas greeting. Sometimes he would add a
postscript saying that he preferred to be a night messenger, or a telegraph
operator, or just a manager. He was a nuisance, of course, but I enjoyed 
his visits—they gave me a lift for the day. Once I gave him an old trumpet 
which I had found in a rubbish bag. It was a battered looking thing and all
the stops were eaten away. He polished it up, tied it around his shoulder 
with a piece of string, and came trooping into my office one morning, 
looking like the Angel Gabriel. Nobody had noticed him coming up the 
stairs. There were about fifty boys waiting to be hired, the telephones 
were ringing like mad—one of those days when I thought I would burst a 
blood vessel. Suddenly there came a tremendous blast. I nearly fell of my 
perch. There he stood, little Sidney, trying to blow taps. Immediately 
there was pandemonium. Before we could collar him, Sidney began to sing the
‘Star Spangled Banner’; the other boys joined in of course, jeering, 
laughing, cursing, upsetting the inkwells, throwing the pens around like 
darts, marking the walls with chalk, and in general raising ructions. We 
had to clear the office out and lock the door downstairs. Outside, that 
damned trumpet was blasting away… He was completely cuckoo, Sidney, but in 
a delightful way. I could never get angry with him. I tried to find out 
where he lived, but it was impossible. He probably didn’t have a home, he 
probably slept in the streets. In winter he wore a man’s coat that reached 
right to the ground—and woolen mittens, b’Jesus! He never wore a hat or 
cap, unless as a joke. Once, in midwinter, he made his appearance in that 
grotesque overcoat and mittens—and on his head was a huge straw hat, a sort
of Mexican sombrero with a gigantic cone-like crown. He came up to my desk,
made a low bow, and doffed his huge straw hat. It was filled with snow. He 
shook the snow out on my desk and then scurried away like a rat. At the 
door he stood a moment and shouted ‘Merry Xmas, and don’t forget to bless 
President Carmichael!’ “

“I certainly remember those days,” said Ulric swallowing the remnants of 
his drink. “I never did understand how you managed to hold your job. I’m 
sure there wasn’t another employment manager like you in all New York.”

“In all America, you mean,” said Mona.

Ulric looked around appraisingly. “Quite another life, this. I certainly 
do envy you… The thing I’ll always remember about this fellow”—he looked 
from one to the other with a melting glow—“is his inextinguishable gayety. 
I don’t think I’ve seen him depressed more than once or twice in all the 
time I’ve known him. As long as there’s food and a place to flop… isn’t 
that it?” He turned his gaze on me with unmingled affection. “Some of my 
friends—you know the ones I mean—ask me occasionally if you aren’t just a 
bit touched. I always say, ‘Certainly he is… too bad we’re not all touched 
in the same way.’ And then they ask me how you support yourself—and your 
family. There I have to give up… “

We all began to laugh rather hysterically. Ulric laughed even more 
heartily than the rest of us. He laughed at himself—for raising such silly 
issues. Mona, of course, had a different reason for laughing.

“Sometimes I think I am living with a madman,” she blurted out, tears in 
her eyes.

“Yes?” said Ulric, drawling the word out.

“Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night and begins laughing. 
He’s laughing about something that happened eight years ago. Something 
tragic usually.”

“I’ll be damned,” said Ulric.

“Sometimes he laughs that way because things are so hopeless he doesn’t 
know what to do. It worries me when he laughs that way.”

“Shucks,” I said, “it’s only another way of weeping.”

“Hear that!” said Ulric. “Golly, I wish I could see things that way.” He 
raised the empty glass for Marjorie to replenish.

“It sounds silly to ask, perhaps,” he continued, gulping down a good 
throatful, “but when you get into a state like that isn’t it usually 
followed by a rather painful fit of depression?”

I shook my head. “It might be followed by anything,” I answered. “The 
important thing is to first have a good meal. That usually sets me up, 
gives me equilibrium.”

“You never drink to drive away a mood, do you? Pshaw! don’t bother 
answering… I know you don’t. That’s another thing I envy about you… Just a 
good meal, you say. How simple!”

“You think so,” I said. “I wish it were… Well, let’s skip that! Now that 
we have Marjorie, food is no longer a problem. I never ate better in my 
life.”

“I can well believe that,” said Ulric, smacking his lips. “It’s 
strange—with me it’s often a job to work up an appetite. I’m the worrying 
sort, I guess. A guilty conscience, probably. I inherited all the old man’s
bad traits. Including this”—and he tapped the glass he was holding.

“Nonsense,” I said, “you’re just a perfectionist.”

“You ought to be married,” said Mona, knowing that this would provoke a 
reaction.

“That’s another thing,” said Ulric, making a wry grimace. “The way I 
treat that girl of mine is a crime. We’ve been going together for five 
years now—but if she dares to mention the word marriage I take a fit. The 
very thought of it scares the life out of me. I’m selfish enough to want 
her all for myself and yet I’m ruining her chances. I sometimes urge her to
leave me and find someone else. That only makes things worse, of course. 
Then I make a half-hearted promise to marry her, which I forget about the 
next day, to be sure.

The poor girl doesn’t know where she stands.” He looked at us 
half-sheepishly, half-roguishly. I’ll be a bachelor all my life, I guess. 
I’m selfish to the core.”

At this we all laughed uproariously.

“I think we should be thinking about dinner soon,” said Marjorie. “Why 
don’t you men go for a walk? Come back in an hour and dinner will be 
ready.”

Ulric thought it a good idea.

“You might try to find a good piece of Roquefort,” said Marjorie as we 
sauntered out. “And a loaf of sour rye, if you can.”

We walked aimlessly along one of the sedate, spacious streets peculiar to
this neighborhood. We had had many walks together through similar vacuums. 
Ulric was reminded of the days long ago when we used to promenade along 
Bushwick Avenue of a Sunday afternoon, hoping to catch a glimpse of the shy
young girls we were in love with. It was like an Easter Parade every 
Sunday—from the little White Church to the reservoir near Cypress Hills 
cemetery. Mid way one passed the lugubrious Catholic church of St. Francois
de Sales, situated a block or two away from Trommers’ beer garden. I speak 
of a period before the first war, the period when in France men like 
Picasso, Derain, Matisse, Vlaminck and others were just becoming known. It 
was still the “end of the century.” Life was easy though we weren’t aware 
of it. The only thought in our heads was girls. If we succeeded in stopping
them long enough to chat for a few minutes we were in seventh heaven. 
Weekdays we sometimes repeated the promenade in the evening. Then we became
bolder. If we had the good fortune to encounter a couple of girls—near the 
reservoir or in the dark lanes of the park, or even at the confines of the 
cemetery—we would really attempt some daring advances. Ulric could remember
the names of all of them. There was one couple he particularly 
remembered—Tini and Henrietta. They had been in the same class with us at 
graduation time, but, being somewhat backward, were two or three years 
older than the rest of the class. Which meant they were quite mature. And 
not only mature but bursting with sex. Every one knew that they were just a
pair of sluts. Tini, who was really audacious, was like one of Degas’ 
women; Henrietta was bigger, juicier, already a wench. They were always 
whispering smutty stories under their breath, to the amusement of the 
class. Now and then they drew their dresses up above their knees—to give us
a look. Or sometimes Tini would grab Henrietta by the teat and squeeze it 
playfully—all this in class, behind the teacher’s back, of course. What 
more natural, therefore, than to be on the lookout for them when for a walk
in the evening? Now and then it happened. Hardly any words exchanged. 
Pushing them back against the iron railing, or against a tombstone, we 
slobbered all over them, fingered them, mauled them—everything but the real
thing. It took older, more experienced boys to get away with that. At best 
we could manage a dry fuck. And go home limping, our balls aching like 
sixty toothaches.

“Did I ever tell you,” said Ulric, “how I tried to make Miss 
Baimsfeather, the graduating teacher? I mean, of course, several years 
after we had graduated. What a gawk I must have been! Well, you know what a
juicy piece of tail she was… I could never get her out of my mind. So one 
day I wrote her a note—I had just taken a little studio and thought myself 
quite an artist, I can tell you—and to my surprise she answered it, urging 
me to look her up some time. I was so excited I nearly pissed in my pants. 
I called her up and invited her over to the studio. Of course I had 
prepared for her coming—all kinds of drinks, delicious little cakes, my 
canvases casually strewn about, a few nudes conspicuously placed over the 
divan, and so on… you know what I mean. What I had forgotten was the 
difference in age. She was still appetizing, of course, but so much of a 
woman now that I was intimidated. It took a bit of maneuvering to establish
the right footing. I could see that she was trying to help me, but I was so
damned shy, so gauche, that I nearly had nervous prostration. After all, 
one doesn’t just rip the pants off one’s favorite teacher.”

He interrupted himself to chuckle and waggle his ears.

“Did you manage it eventually?” I asked, to help him out.

“I did indeed,” said Ulric. “but only after a heap of drinks. By that 
time she was so damned eager for it that she just fished my pecker out and 
pulled me on top of her. I had one of those eternal hard-ons that you get 
sometimes from drinking. We did just about everything, I can assure you, 
and still it wouldn’t go down. She was lying on the divan with just a 
blouse on, panting like a bitch. I had just washed myself with cold water, 
hoping that would do the trick. ‘Come here,’ she said, ‘I want to have a 
good look at that tool of yours. Ulric, why didn’t I know about this when 
you were in my class?’ I looked at her in amazement. ‘You mean you would 
have let me…?’ ‘Let you?’ she said—‘I would have eaten you alive. Didn’t 
the other boys ever tell you about me?’ I could hardly believe my ears. All
the while, Henry, I was standing over her, my prick pointing heavenward. 
Suddenly she sat up and grabbed it; I thought she would break it in two. 
Soon she was on her knees, sucking me off. Even then I didn’t come. I tell 
you, I was getting frantic. At last I turned her over, put it in from 
behind—until she began to moan. Then I eased it out, dragged her off the 
divan and, lifting her by the middle, I walked her around the studio on her
hands. It was just like pushing a wheelbarrow upside down… And even that 
had no effect. Desperate, I sat down in the big easy chair and let her 
straddle me. ‘Just let’s sit and fuck,’ I said. ‘Or don’t fuck—just leave 
it there till it melts.’ We had another drink, sitting there like that, and
then another, and then another. It was still a brute of a bird when we 
unhitched. But limp… But get this, Henry. What do you suppose she says to 
me at that moment?”

I looked at him blankly. Then I said: “Don’t tell me! For Christ’s sake, 
let’s turn around. I’ll have to tear off a piece before we sit down to 
eat.”

He blinked his eyes like an owl. He was just going to open his mouth 
again, when I said: “By the way, have you tackled Marjorie yet? She’s dying
for it, you know.”

“Not a bad idea,” said Ulric. “Do you suppose we can manage it… er… 
circumspectly?”

“Leave it to me!”

We hastened our steps. By the time we reached the door we were almost on 
the double trot.

I took Mona aside and broached the idea.

“Why don’t you wait till after dinner?” she suggested. “I mean, for 
Marjorie and Ulric.” We closed the door after us and had a quick one while 
Ulric and Marjorie talked it over. When we joined them Marjorie was sitting
on Ulric’s lap, her skirt up over her knees.

“Why don’t you get into something comfortable?” said Mona. “Something 
like this,” and so saying, she opened her kimona and revealed her naked 
flesh.

Marjorie lost no time in following suit. Ulric and I had to don pajamas. 
In this fashion we sat down to eat dinner.

A meal which is going to culminate in a sexual orgy has a way of 
traveling direct to the parts which need nourishment, as if directed by the
little switchman who regulates the traffic throughout the autonomic system.
It began with oyster on the half-shell and caviar, followed by a delicious 
ox-tail soup, porterhouse steak, mashed potatoes, French peas, cheese, 
sliced peaches and cream, all to the tune of a genuine Pommard which 
Marjorie had unearthed. With the coffee and liqueurs we had a second 
desert—a French ice cream swimming in Benedictine and whiskey. Between 
courses Marjorie fiddled with Ulric’s pecker. The kimonas were now wide 
open, the breasts exposed, the belly-buttons gently rising and falling. 
Inadvertently one of Marjorie’s nipples fell into the whipped cream, giving
me the opportunity to suckle her breast for a brief moment or two. Ulric 
tried to balance a saucer on his pecker but unsuccessfully. Everything was 
proceeding merrily.

Still nibbling at the tarts, cream puffs, napoleons and what not which 
the women had provided, we fell into an easy conversation about the good 
old days. The women had shifted positions and were now ensconced in our 
laps. It took quite a bit of wiggling and jiggling before they could get 
themselves properly adjusted. Now and then one of us had an orgasm, fell 
silent for a while, then recovered with the aid of ice cream, Benedictine 
and whiskey.

After a time we moved from the table to the divans and, between cat 
winks, kept up a running conversation about the most diverse subjects. It 
was easy, natural talk, and no one felt embarrassed if he dropped off into 
a snooze in the midst of a sentence. The lights had been dimmed, there was 
a warm, fragrant breeze sifting through the open windows, and we were all 
so thoroughly sated that it didn’t matter in the least what was said or 
what answer was given.

Ulric had dropped off to sleep during a conversation with Marjorie. He 
hadn’t been asleep more than five minutes when he awoke with a jerk, 
exclaiming as if to himself: “Golly, I thought so!” Then, realizing that he
was not alone, he mumbled something inaudible and raised himself on one 
elbow.

“Was I asleep long?” he asked.

“About five minutes,” said Marjorie.

“That’s funny. It seemed to me like hours. I had one of those dreams 
again,” He turned to me. “You know, Henry, those dreams in which you try to
prove to yourself that you are only dreaming.”

I had to confess that I had never had one.

Ulric could always describe his dreams in great detail. They terrified 
him somewhat because, to his mind, they indicated that he never really fell
into a state of complete unconsciousness. In the dream his mind was even 
more active than in the waking state. It was his logical mind which came to
the fore when asleep. It was that which disquieted him. He went on to 
describe the endless pains he took, when dreaming, to prove to himself that
he was not awake but dreaming. He would take a heavy ram-chair, for 
example, and lift it high in the air with two fingers, sometimes with his 
brother seated in the chair. And in the dream he would say to himself:

“There, nobody can do that if he’s awake—it’s impossible!” And then he 
would perform other impossible feats, some of them quite extraordinary, 
such as flying through a partially-opened window and returning the same 
way, without disarranging his clothes or mussing his hair. Everything he 
did led to a suspected Q. E. D. which proved nothing, so he averred, 
because—“Well, I’ll put it this way, Henry: to prove to yourself that you 
are dreaming you would have to be awake, and if you are awake you can’t be 
dreaming can you?”

Suddenly he recalled that what had started him dreaming was the sight of 
a copy of Transition lying on the dresser. He reminded me that I had once 
loaned him a copy in which there was a wonderful passage on the 
interpretation of dreams. “You know the man I mean,” he said, snapping his 
fingers.

“Gottfried Benn?”

“Yes, that’s the fellow. A rum one, that bird. I wish I could read more 
of him… By the way, you don’t have that issue here, do you?”

“Yes, I do, Ulric me lad. Would you like to see it?”

“I tell you what,” he said, “I wish you would read that passage aloud to 
us—that is, if the others don’t mind.”

I found the copy of Transition and turned to the page.

“Let us now turn to psychological facts. ‘At night all leaping fountains 
speak with a louder tone; my soul, too, is a leaping fountain,’ says 
Zarathustra… ‘Into the night life seems to be exiled’—these are the famous 
words of Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams—‘into the night life seems to be 
exiled what once ruled during the day.’ This sentence contains the entire 
modem psychology. Its great idea is the stratification of the psyche, the 
geological principle. The soul has its origin and is built in strata, and 
what we learned before in the organic field apropos of the construction of 
the big brain from the anatomic-evolutionary standpoint out of vanished 
aeons, is revealed by the dream, revealed by the child, revealed by 
psychosis as a still existing reality. We carry the ancient… “

“Hear, hear!” exclaimed Ulric.

“We carry the ancient peoples in our souls and when the later acquired 
reason is relaxed, as in the dream or in drunkenness, they emerge with 
their rites, their pre-logical mentality, and grant us an hour of mystic 
participation. When the… “

“Excuse me,” said Ulric, interrupting again, “but I wonder if we could 
have that passage once again?”

“Sure, why not?” I reread it slowly, allowing each phrase to sink in.

“The next sentence is a honey, too,” said Ulric. “I almost know the 
damned thing by heart.”

I continued: “When the logical superstructure is loosened, when the 
scalp, tired of the onslaught of the prelunar states… “

“Golly! What language! Excuse me, Henry, I didn’t mean to interrupt 
again.”

“When the scalp, tired of the onslaught of the prelunar states, opens the
frontiers of consciousness about which there is always a struggle, then 
there appears the old, the unconscious, in the magical transmutation and 
identification of the ‘I,’ in the early experience of the everywhere and 
the eternal. The hereditary patrimony… “

“Of the middle brain!” exclaimed Ulric. “Jesus, Henry, what a line, that!
I wish you would explain that to me a little more fully. No, not now… 
afterward perhaps. Excuse me.”

“The hereditary patrimony of the middle brain,” I continued, “lies still 
deeper and is eager for expression: if the covering is destroyed in the 
psychosis there emerges, driven upward by the primal instincts, from out 
the primive-schizoid sub-structure, the gigantic archaic instinctive ‘I’, 
unfolding itself limitlessly through the tattered psychological subject.”

“The tattered psychological subject! Wow!” exclaimed Ulric. “Thanks, 
Henry, that was a treat.” He turned to the others. “Do you wonder sometimes
why I’m so fond of this guy? (He beamed in my direction.) There isn’t a 
soul who comes to my studio capable of bringing me that sort of pabulum. I 
don’t know where he gets these things—certainly I never stumble on them by 
myself. Which only goes to show, no doubt, how differently we’re geared.”

He paused a moment to fill his glass. “You know, Henry, if you don’t mind
my saying so, a passage like that could have been written by you, don’t you
think? Maybe that’s why I like Gottfried Benn so much. And that Hugo Ball 
is another guy—he’s got something on the ball, too, what f The curious 
thing, though, is this—all this stuff, which means so much to me, I’d never
have known about if it weren’t for you. How I wish sometimes that you were 
with me when I’m with that Virginia bunch! You know, they’re really not 
unintelligent, but somehow this sort of thing seems to repel them. They 
look upon it as unhealthy.” He gave a wry smile. Then he looked at Marjorie
and Mona. “Forgive me for dwelling on these things, won’t you? I know it’s 
not the moment to indulge in windy discussions. I was going to ask Henry 
something about the hereditary patrimony of the middle brain, but I guess 
we could leave it until some more suitable occasion. How about a stirrup 
cup?—and then I’ll be off.”

He filled our glasses, then went over to the mantelpiece and leaned 
against it.

“I suppose it will always be a thing of wonder and mystery to me,” he 
said slowly, caressing his words, “how we ran into each other that day on 
Sixth Avenue after a lapse of so many years. What a lucky day It was for 
me! You may not believe it, but often when I was in some weird place—like 
the middle of the Sahara—I would say to myself: ‘I wonder what Henry would 
have to say if he were here with me.’ Yes, you were often in my thoughts, 
even though we had lost all touch with one another. I didn’t know that you 
had become a writer. No, but I always knew that you would become something 
or somebody. Even as a kid you gave off something which was different, 
something unique. You always made the atmosphere more intense, more 
sparkling. You were a challenge to all of us. Maybe you never realized 
that. Even now, people who met you only once continue to ask me—‘How is 
that Henry Miller?’ That Henry Miller! You see what I mean? They don’t say 
that about anyone else I know. Oh well… you’ve heard this a dozen times or 
more, I know.”

“Why don’t you get a good rest and stay the night?” said Mona.

“I’d like nothing better, but… ” He cocked the left eyebrow and twisted 
his lips. “The scalp, tired of the onslaught of the prelunar states… Some 
day we’ll have to go Into all this more thoroughly. Right now the gigantic 
archaic instinctive ‘I’ is struggling upward through the schizoid 
sub-structure.” He left off and began shaking hands with us. “You know,” he
went on, Tm sure to have a fantastic dream tonight. Not a dream, but dozens
of them! I’ll be slithering in the primal ooze, trying to prove to myself 
that I’m not living in the Pliocene epoch. I’ll probably meet up with 
dragons and dinosaurs—unless the covering has been entirely destroyed by 
previous psychoses.” He smacked his lips, as if he had just swallowed a 
dozen succulent bivalves. He was on the threshold now. “By the way, I 
wonder if it would be imposing on you too much to borrow that Forel book 
from you again? There’s a passage on amorous tyranny that I’d like to 
reread.”

*

As I was going to bed I opened Transition at random. My eye fell on this 
sentence: “Our human biological presence carries in its body two hundred 
rudiments: how many the soul carries is unknown.”

How many the soul carries! With this phrase on my tongue I plunged into a
profound trance. In my sleep I reenact a scene out of life… I am with 
Stanley again. We are walking rapidly in the dark toward the house where 
Maude and the little one live. Stanley is saying that it is a silly, futile
thing to do, but since I wish it he will go through with it. He has the 
keys to the front door; he keeps reassuring me that no one will be home. 
What I want is to see what the child’s room looks like. It is ages since I 
have seen her and I am afraid that when I next meet her—when?—she won’t 
recognize me any more. I keep asking Stanley how big she is, what she 
wears, how she talks, and so on. Stanley answers gruffly and brusquely, as 
usual. He sees no point to this expedition.

We enter the house and I explore the room minutely. Her toys intrigue 
me—they are lying everywhere. I begin to weep silently, as I examine her 
toys. Suddenly I perceive a battered old stuffed doll lying on a shelf in a
corner. I tuck it under my arm and motion to Stanley to clear out. I can’t 
utter a word, I’m shaking and spluttering.

When I awake next day the dream is still vividly with me. Out of habit I 
get into my old clothes, a pair of faded corduroys, a torn, frayed denim 
shirt, a pair of busted shoes. I haven’t had a shave for two days, my head 
is heavy, I feel restless. The weather has changed overnight; a cold fall 
wind is blowing and it threatens to rain. In listless fashion I kill the 
morning. After lunch I don an old cardigan jacket out at the elbows, slap 
my wilted hat over my ear, and set out. I’ve become obsessed with the idea 
that ! must see the child again, at any cost.

I emerge from the subway a few blocks from the house and with eyes peeled
I edge into the danger zone. I creep nearer and nearer to the house, until 
I am at the corner, only half a block away. I stand there a long while, my 
eyes riveted to the gate, hoping to see the little one appear any moment. 
It’s getting chilly. I put my collar up and pull my hat down over my ears. 
I pace back and forth, back and forth, opposite the lugubrious Catholic 
church made of moss-green stone.

Still no sign of her. Keeping to the opposite side of the street, I walk 
rapidly past the house, hoping that I may detect a sign of life indoors. 
But the curtains have been pulled to. At the corner I stop and begin pacing
to and fro again. This goes on for fifteen, twenty minutes, perhaps longer.
I feel lousy, itchy, crummy. Like a spy. And guilty, guilty as hell.

I’ve almost decided to return home when suddenly a troop of youngsters 
swings around the far corner opposite the church. They run wildly across 
the street, shouting and singing. My heart is in my throat. I have a 
feeling that she is among them, but from where I stand it is impossible to 
pick her out. Now I hasten toward the other corner. When I get there I see 
no signs of them. I’m baffled. I stand there like a lost soul for a few 
minutes, then decide to wait. After a few moments I notice a grocery store 
a few doors beyond the church. It’s just possible they are in the store. 
Carefully now I ease up the side street. A bit beyond the store, on the 
opposite side of the street, of course, I dash up a stoop and stand at the 
top of the stairs, my heart pounding like mad.

I’m sure now that they are all in the grocery store. Not for a second do 
I take my eyes off the door. Suddenly I realize that I am rather 
conspicuous, standing there at the top of the stairs. I lean back against 
the door and try to make myself inconspicuous. I am shivering, not so much 
with cold as with fright. What will I do if she spots me? What will I say? 
What can I say or do? I am in such a state of funk that I am almost on the 
point of bolting down the steps and running away.

Just then, however, the store’s door opens with a bang and three children
dash out. One of them, seeing me standing on the stoop, suddenly grabs the 
others by the arm and rushes back into the store with them. I have a 
feeling that it was my own little one who did this. I avert my gaze for a 
few moments, trying to appear nonchalant and disinterested in their 
behavior, as though I were waiting for someone to come out of the house 
from above and join me. When I look again I see a little face pressed 
against the window pane of the door across the way. She is looking up at 
me. I look at her long and hard, unable to tell if it is she or not.

She withdraws and another little one presses her nose against the glass 
pane. Then another and another. Then they all retreat into the depths of 
the store.

A panicky feeling now overcomes me. It was she, I am certain of it now. 
But why are they so shy? Or is it that they are afraid of me?

Beyond the shadow of a doubt it is fear which grips them. When she looked
up at me she didn’t smile. She looked intently to make sure it was I, her 
father, and no other.

Suddenly I realize how disgraceful is my appearance.

I feel my beard, which seems to have grown an inch longer. I look at my 
shoes and the sleeves of my jacket. Damn it, I might well pass for a 
kidnaper.

Kidnaper! Her mother had probably dinned it into her that if she ever ran
across me in the street she must not listen to me. “Run home immediately 
and tell mamma!”

I was crushed. Slowly, painfully, like one broken and bruised, I 
descended the steps. When I reached the foot of the stoop the door of the 
grocery store was suddenly flung open and out trooped the whole troop, six 
or seven of them. They ran as if the Devil himself were pursuing them. At 
the corner, though cars were speeding by, they turned obliquely and ran for
the house—“our” house. It seemed to me that it was my little one who 
stopped in the middle of the street—for just a second—and looked around. It
could have been one of the others, of course. All I could be certain of was
that she was wearing a little bonnet trimmed with fur.

I walked slowly to the corner, stood there a full minute gazing in their 
direction, then marched rapidly toward the subway station.

What a cruel misadventure! All the way to the subway I chided myself for 
my stupidity. To think that my own daughter should be frightened of me, 
that she should run away from me, in terror! What a pass!

In the subway I stood in front of a slot machine. I looked like a bum, a 
derelict. And to think that maybe I would never see her again, to think 
that this might be the last impression of me she would retain! Her own 
father crouching in a doorway, spying on her like a kidnaper. It was like a
horrible cheap movie.

Suddenly I recalled my promise to Ulric—to see Maude and talk things 
over. Now it was impossible, utterly impossible. Why? I couldn’t say. I 
knew only that is was so. I would never see Maude again, not if I could 
help it. As for the little one—I would pray, yes, pray to God, to give me 
once more chance. I must see her and talk to her. When, though? Well, some 
day. Some day when she would be able to see things in a better light. I 
begged God not to let her hate me… above all, not to let her fear me. “It’s
too horrible, too horrible,” I kept mumbling to myself. “I love you so, my 
little one. I love you so much, so much… “

The train came along, and as the doors slid open, I began to sob. I 
pulled a handkerchief out of my pocket and stuffed it over my mouth. I 
almost ran to the vestibule where I hid myself in a corner, hoping the 
noise of the grinding wheels would drown my convulsive sobs.

I must have been standing there like that a few minutes, unconscious of 
anything but my aching misery, when I felt a hand gently pressing my 
shoulder. Still holding the handkerchief to my mouth, I turned around. An 
elderly lady dressed all in black was looking at me with a most 
compassionate smile.

“My dear man,” she began, in a soft, soothing voice. “My dear man, what 
on earth has happened to you?”

With that I literally howled. The tears were blinding me. All I could see
was a compassionate blur in front of me.

“Please, please,” she begged, “try to control yourself!”

I continued to weep and sob. And then the train came to a halt. Some 
passengers entered and we were crowded against the door.

“Have you lost some one dear to you?” she asked. Her voice was so gentle,
so soothing.

I shook my head by way of answer.

“Poor, dear man, I know what it is.” Again I felt the pressure of her 
hand.

The doors were about to close. Suddenly I dropped the handkerchief, 
pushed my way through the crowd, and got out. I ran up the steps at top 
speed and began walking like a madman. It had begun to rain. I walked into 
the rain with head down, laughing and crying. I jostled into people and was
jostled back. Some one gave me a shove which sent me spinning into the 
gutter. I never even looked around. I kept on with head down, the rain 
running down my back. I wanted to be soaked through and through. I wanted 
to be cleansed of all iniquity. Yes, that’s how I put It to myself—cleansed
of my iniquity. I wanted to be soaked through and through, then stabbed, 
then thrown into the gutter, then flattened out by a heavy truck, then 
ground down into the muck and mire, obliterated, annihilated for good and 
all.

CHAPTER TEN

With the turn of the solstice a new phase of existence has opened for 
us—not in the sunny South but in Greenwich Village. The first stage of the 
underground life.

To run a speakeasy, which is what we are doing, and to live in it at the 
same time, is one of those fantastic ideas which can only arise in the 
minds of thoroughly impractical individuals.

I blush when I think of the story I concocted to wheedle the money which 
we required to open the place from my mother.

Ostensibly I’m the manager of this joint. I also wait on tables, fill 
short orders, empty the garbage, run errands, make the beds, clean house 
and in general make myself as useful as possible. (The one thing I shall 
never be able to do is to clear the rooms of smoke. The windows have to be 
kept closed during operations, for reasons soon to be disclosed.) The 
place—a typical basement flat in the poor section of the Village—is 
composed of three small rooms, one of them a kitchen. The windows are 
heavily curtained, so that even in daytime the light scarcely filters 
through. No doubt about it, if the enterprise proves a success we’ll have 
tuberculosis. Our intention is to open toward evening and close when the 
last customer leaves, which will probably be toward dawn.

There’ll be no writing done here, I can see that. I’ll be lucky if I can 
find time to stretch my legs once a day.

Only our most Intimate friends are to know that we live here—and that we 
are married. Everything is to be veiled in secrecy. Which means that if the
bell rings and Mona happens to be out, I am not to answer it. I’m to sit 
quiet in the shadows until the person has gone away. If possible I am to 
peek out and see who It is—just in case. In case what? In case it’s a 
detective or a bill collector. Or one of the more recent, hence ignorant 
and intrepid, lovers…

Such is the set-up, in brief. The most we shall get out of it, I know in 
advance, is fret and worry. Mona, of course, is full of dreams about 
retiring in a few months and buying a house in the country. Pipe dreams. 
I’m so inoculated with them, however, that I’m immune. The only way to 
burst the bubble is to go through with the deal. I have another flock of 
dreams, but I’ve sense enough to keep them under my hat.

It’s amazing the number of friends we have, all of whom have promised to 
be on hand for the opening night. Some who were mere names to me before—all
from Mona’s retinue—have been helping us put things to rights. Cedric Ross,
I discover, is a fop with a monocle who pretends to be a pathobiologist; 
Roberto de Sundra, one of the “heavy lovers,” is a Chilean student reputed 
to be fabulously rich; George Innes, am artist who indulges in opium bouts 
occasionally, is a superb fencer; Jim Driscoll, whom I have seen in the 
ring, is a wrestler with intellectual pretensions; Trevelyan, an English 
writer with a past, is a remittance man; Caccicacci, whose parents are 
supposed to own a marble quarry in Italy, is a clown with a flair for 
telling incredible stories.

And then there’s Baronyi, the most ingratiating of all, who simply cannot
do enough to make the venture a success. A publicity man, he styles 
himself.

To my great surprise, the night before the opening, two ancient lovers 
appeared simultaneously, neither knowing the other, of course. I mean 
Carruthers and that man Harris who had paid a princely sum for the 
privilege of breaking my wife’s hymen. The latter arrived in a Rolls Royce 
with a chorus girl on either arm. Carruthers also had two girls with him, 
both former friends of Mona’s.

Of course all my old cronies have sworn to be on hand the opening night, 
including O’Mara who has just returned from the South. Cromwell is also 
expected, though he may only be able to stay for a few minutes. As for 
Rothermel, Mona is trying to persuade him to stay away—he blabbers too 
much. I’m wondering if Sheldon will show up—just by chance. Certainly one 
or two of the millionaires will make an appearance—the shoe manufacturer 
possibly, or the lumber king.

Will be have enough liquor to go round?—that’s our primary concern. 
Majorie has promised to let us tap her private stock—in a pinch.

The understanding, between Mona and myself, is this—should either of us 
happen to get drunk the other will remain sober. Of course neither of us is
a booze artist, but just the same… The chief problem will be how to get rid
of the drunks. The cops will be sitting on our necks, no use fooling 
ourselves about that. The natural thing, under the circumstances, would be 
to put something aside for hush money. But Mona is certain we can get 
better, bigger protection. Talks about Rothermel’s friends from the swamp 
lands—judges, politicians, bankers, ammunition makers.

That Rothermel! I’m dying to set eyes on him…

There’s one little detail about the new establishment which pleases me no
end and that’s the ice-box. It’s filled with delicious edibles, and it’s 
got to be kept filled no matter what happens. I keep opening and closing 
the damned contraption just to gaze at all the wonderful good things to 
eat. The bread is excellent too—Jewish bread from the East Side. When I get
bored I’ll sit down all by my lonesome and enjoy a little snack. What 
better than a caviar sandwich on black bread smeared with sweet butter—at 
2:00 A.M.? With a glass of Chablis or Riesling to wash it down, certes. And
to round it off, perhaps a dish of strawberries floating in sour cream, or 
if not strawberries then blackberries or huckleberries or blueberries or 
raspberries. I see Halvah and Baklava too. Goody goody! And on the shelf 
Kirschwasser, Strega, Benedictine, Chartreuse Verte. As for the whiskey—we 
have a dozen different brands—it leaves me cold. The beer likewise. Beer 
and whiskey—they’re for the dogs. C’est-ardire—les clients. We also have on
hand, I notice, an excellent stock of cigars, all choice brands. For the 
customers. Now and then I enjoy a cigar myself—a fine Havana, say. But I 
can also do without them. To really enjoy a cigar one has to be at peace 
with the world, that’s my belief. However, I’m sure the customers will be 
stuffing my pockets with them.

No, we won’t lack for food and drink, that’s certain. But exercise, fresh
air… ? I’m already feeling pale about the gills.

All we lack, frankly, is a cash register. I see myself running to the 
bank daily with a satchel full of bills and coins…

The opening night came off with a bang. We must have taken in close to 
five hundred dollars. For the first time in my life I was really lousy with
money: every pocket, including my vest pockets, was stuffed with bills. 
Carruthers, who arrived with two new girls this time, must have passed away
a good hundred dollars, standing treat to all our friends. Two of the 
millionaires showed up also, but they kept to themselves and left early. 
Steve Romero, whom I hadn’t seen for ages, showed up with his wife; he 
looked as good as ever, the Spanish bull through and through. From Steve I 
got an earful about my cosmodemonic friends, most of them still on the job 
apparently, and all playing the horses on the side to make ends meet. I was
delighted to hear that Spivak had fallen from favor, been transferred to 
some dinky place in South Dakota. Hymie, I learned, had become an insurance
agent; he’d be down some night soon, some quiet night when we could have a 
good talk, the three of us. As for Costigan, the knuckle-duster, the poor 
bugger was in a sanatorium—had been taken down suddenly with galloping 
consumption.

Around midnight, MacGregor arrived, had a few drinks on the house, and 
left in short order. Wasn’t at all impressed. Couldn’t understand, he said,
how a man of my intelligence could fall for such a dumb racket. “Too lazy 
to take a job but doesn’t mind serving drinks all night… ha ha! ha ha!” On 
leaving he stuck a card in my mitt. “If you get in a jam, remember, I’m a 
lawyer. Don’t go hiring some shyster who’s full of promises!”

We informed each one as he left that if he sent any friends around he was
to give them the password: Fratres Semper. (Naturally none of them 
remembered it.) We also warned each one all over again to park his car a 
block or two away.

The first thing I discovered about the new job was that it was hard on 
the feet—and on the eyes. The smoke was unbearable: by midnight my eyes 
were like two burnt cinders. When we finally got to bed and pulled back the
blankets the smell of beer, wine and tobacco was overpowering. In addition 
to smoke and liquor I thought I detected the odor of smelly feet. However, 
we fell into a trance immediately. In my sleep I was still serving drinks 
and sandwiches, still making change for the customers.

I had intended to get up at noon the next day, but it was almost four 
o’clock when we tumbled out of bed, more dead than alive. The joint looked 
like the wreck of the Hesperus.

“You’d better take a walk and eat your breakfast out,” I urged. “I’ll fix
myself something as soon as I’ve tidied up a bit.”

It took me about an hour and a half to create even a semblance of order. 
By then I was too weary to think of making breakfast for myself. I poured 
myself a glass of orange juice, lit a cigarette, and waited for Mona to 
return. The customers would be showing up any minute now. It seemed to me 
that the last one had left only a few minutes ago. Outdoors it was already 
dark.

The rooms still reeked of stale smoke and stale drinks.

I opened the windows back and front to create a draught, only to find 
myself coughing fit to bust a lung. The toilet was the place to repair to. 
I took the orange juice with me, sat down on the toilet seat, and lit 
another cigarette. I felt used up.

Presently there was a knock on the toilet door. Mona, of course.

“What’s wrong with you?” she cried. I had resumed my seat, the glass in 
one hand, the cigarette in the other.

“I’m resting,” I said. “Besides, it’s too draughty out there.”

“Get your things on and take a good walk. I’ll take over now. Here are 
some strudels for you and a charlotte russe. I’ll have breakfast ready for 
you when you get back.”

“Breakfast!” I yelled. “Do you know what time it is? It’s time for 
dinner, not breakfast. Jesus, I’m all topsy-turvy.”

“You’ll get used to it. It’s lovely out… hurry! So soft and balmy. Like a
second spring.”

I made ready to go. It seemed crazy to set out for a morning walk just as
the moon was coming up.

Suddenly I thought of something. “You know what? It’s too late to go to 
the bank.”

“The bank?” She stared at me vacantly.

“The bank, yes! That’s where to put the money we rake in.”

“Oh that! I forgot all about the money.”

“Well I’ll be damned, you forgot about that! That’s just like you.”

“Go on, take your walk. You can bank the money tomorrow—or the day after.
It won’t melt.”

Strolling along I kept fingering the money. It made me itchy. Finally, 
like a thief I made for a quiet spot where I could disgorge. Almost five 
hundred dollars did I say? I had over five hundred! So elated was I that I 
almost ran back to show it to Mona.

Instead of running, however, I sauntered along at an easy pace. I forgot 
for a little while that I was in search of breakfast. After a time I 
decided that I must have miscalculated. Keeping my eyes peeled, I stopped 
in the shadow of an abandoned house and fished the money out again. This 
time I counted it out very extra careful, as they say. It came to exactly 
five hundred and forty three dollars and sixty-nine cents. It was 
electrified. And a bit frightened, too, walking around in the dark with a 
sum like that on me. Better make for the bright lights, I told myself. Keep
moving, man, or somebody will sneak up on you from behind!

Money! And they talk about benzedrine… For a shot in the arm give me 
money any time!

I kept myself on the move. My feet weren’t touching the ground: I was 
rolling along on roller-skates, my eyes peeled, my ears laid well back 
against the sides of my head. I was that dizzy, that full of pep, that I 
could have counted up to a million and back without missing a digit.

Gradually a feeling of hunger overtook me. A powerful hunger it was. I 
broke into a dog trot as I headed back for the joint, one hand pressed 
against my breast pocket where the wallet was stowed away. My menu was 
already composed for me: a light omelette with cold lox, some cream cheese 
and jam, some Jewish rolls with bird-seed covered with slabs of sweet 
butter, coffee and thick fresh cream, a dish of strawberries with or 
without sour cream…

At the front door I found I had forgotten the key. I rang the bell, my 
mouth watering with the thought of the breakfast coming. It took several 
minutes for Mona to answer the bell. She came to the door with a finger 
over her lips. “Shhhhhh! Rothermel’s inside. Wants to speak to me alone. 
Come back in about an hour.” She scooted off.

Dinner hour—for ordinary people—was well advanced and here I was looking 
for breakfast. In despair I went to a lunch wagon and ordered ham and eggs.
That down, I strolled over to Washington Square, flopped on a bench and 
dreamily watched the pigeons gobbling up crumbs. A panhandler came along 
and without thinking I gave him a dollar bill. He was so astounded that he 
stood there, right in front of me, examining the bill as if it were 
counterfeit money. Convinced finally that it was the real thing, he thanked
me warmly and—just like a sparrow—hopped away.

I killed a good hour and then some before returning—just to make certain 
the coast was clear. “You’d better get some ice,” were the first words that
greeted me. I set off again, to look for ice.

“When,” I asked myself, “is the day going to begin?”

It took some scouting around to find the ice man. He lived in a cellar 
near Abingdon Square. A big surly brute of a Pole he was. Said he had made 
two attempts to deliver the ice but no one had answered the bell. Then he 
looked me up and down, as if to say—“how will you get it home?” His 
attitude told me clearly enough—crystal clear, in fact—that he had no 
intention of helping me deliver it a third time.

With five hundred bucks in my pockets I saw no reason why I shouldn’t 
hail a cab, ice and all…

During the brief trip back to the house I had some strange recollections,
thoroughly irrelevant too. At any rate, there in my mind, as clear and 
vivid as could be, was Mr. Meyer, an old friend of my parents. He was 
standing at the top of the stairs waiting to greet us. Looked exactly as I 
had known him when I was a boy of eight or nine. Only now I realized what I
had never suspected then—that he was the image of “Gloomy Gus” from the 
comic strip.

We shake hands, exchange greetings, and enter. Now Mr. Meyer’s wife 
enters the picture. She is coming out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on 
the spotless white apron she wears. A frail little woman, neat, quiet, 
orderly. She speaks to my parents in German, a more refined, more pleasing 
German than I am accustomed to hearing at home. What I can’t get over is 
the fact that she is old enough to be Mr. Meyer’s mother. They stand there 
arm in arm, exactly like mother and son. As a matter of fact she was Mr. 
Meyer’s mother-in-law before she married him. Yes, even as a boy, that fact
had registered deep. Katie, her daughter, had been a beautiful young woman.
Mr. Meyer had fallen in love with the daughter and married her. A year 
later Katie died, quietly and quickly. Mr. Meyer couldn’t get over it. But 
a year later he married his wife’s mother. And to all effects they got 
along beautifully. Briefly, that was the situation. But there was something
else connected with this remembrance which stirred me even more deeply. Why
was it that every time we visited the Meyers I had the conviction that it 
was in their living room I once sat in a high chair reciting German verses,
while above me in a cage near the window a nightingale sang? My mother 
always insisted that this was impossible. “It must have been some other 
place, Henry!” Yet each time we visited the Meyers I walked instinctively 
to a certain spot in the living room, where the bird cage had once hung, 
and tried to reconstruct the original scene. To this very day, if I but 
close my eyes and concentrate, I am able to relive this unforgettable 
moment.

However, as Strindberg says in his Inferno—“there is nothing I dislike 
more than calf’s head with brown butter.” Mrs. Meyer always served parsnips
with these meals. From the very first I disliked parsnips, especially 
buttered parsnips. Every time I taste one now I think of Mr. Meyer sitting 
opposite me at the head of the table, his face wreathed in melancholy 
resignation. My mother used to say of him that he was such a good man, so 
quiet, thoughtful and considerate. To me he always smelled of the grave. 
Never once did I see him smile. Twiddling his thumbs, he would sit 
motionless and expressionless with hands folded in his lap. When he spoke 
it was as if from far off and deep down in the bowels of the earth. He must
have been like that even when he was in love with Katie, his wife’s 
daughter.

Ah, but he was indeed a strange man! Peaceful and serene as their home 
life appeared to be, nevertheless one day this lugubrious soul up and 
disappeared. Never a word from him. Not a trace did he leave behind. 
Naturally, everyone thought he had committed suicide. Not I. I thought 
then, as I do now, that he simply wanted to be alone with his sorrow. The 
only thing he had taken with him was the photograph of his Katie which used
to stand on the dresser. Not a stitch of clothing… not even a handkerchief.

Strange recollection. Followed immediately by another, equally baroque. 
Now it’s my father’s sister, the one who married my Uncle Dave. Aunt Millie
is lying on a couch in the middle of the room, their parlor. I am sitting 
on the piano stool, only a foot of two away from her, with a fat music roll
on my lap. (My mother has sent me to New York to play for my Aunt Millie 
who is dying of cancer.) Like all of my father’s sisters, Aunt Millie has a
sweet, beautiful nature. I ask her what she would like me to play for her. 
She says—

“Anything.” I pick out a sheaf of music—“The Orange Blossom Waltz”—and I 
play it for her. When I turn around she is gazing up at me with a beatific 
smile. “That was lovely, Henry,” she says. “Won’t you play another?” I pick
out “The Midnight Fire Alarm,” and I rattle that off. Again the same warm 
look of appreciation, the same plea to continue. I go through my whole 
repertoire—“The Chariot Race,”

“Poet and Peasant,”

“The Burning of Rome,” and so on. What drivel to be hammering out to 
someone dying of cancer! But Aunt Millie is in rapture. She thinks I’m a 
genius. “You will be a great musician some day,” she whispers when I am 
leaving.

It’s at this point that the cab stops and I unload the ice. The genius! 
(“Il est Vaffection et Vavenir”) Eight P.M. and the genius is just about to
begin the day’s work—serving drinks and sandwiches. In a good mood, 
however. Somehow, the recollection of these odd incidents from the warm 
past awakens the thought that I am still a writer. I may not have time to 
set them down on paper now, but I will one day.

(It’s now a good twenty years later. The “genius” never forgets. “II est 
Vamour et Veternitd.”) I am obliged to make two trips through the rooms 
with a block of ice on my shoulder. To the customers—there are eight or ten
an hand—it seems amusing. One of them offers to help me. It’s Baronyi, the 
promoter. Says he must have a long talk with me soon. Buys me a drink to 
cement the deal. We stand there in the kitchen chatting, my eyes riveted to
a spot just above his head where I have pasted a snapshot of my daughter, 
her head set off by a little bonnet trimmed with fur. Baronyi drones away. 
I nod my head and throw him a smile now and then. What is she doing at this
moment, I wonder? Has she been tucked to bed already? And Maude, still 
practicing like a madwoman, I suppose. Liszt, always Liszt, to warm her 
fingers up… Someone asks for a pastrami sandwich on rye bread. Baronyi 
immediately dives into the ice-box and gets out the pastrami. Then he 
slices the bread. I’m still riveted to the spot.

From far away I hear him telling me that he’d like to play me a game of 
chess some night. I nod and absentmindedly make myself a sandwich which I 
begin to much between sips of Dubonnet.

Now Mona stick her head in. Wants to tell me that George Innes would like
a few words with me—when I can spare the time. He’s sitting in the bedroom 
with his friend Roberto, the Chilean.

“What’s on his mind?” I ask. “Why does everyone want to talk to me?”

“Because you’re a writer, I guess.” (What an answer!) In a corner, near 
the front window, Trevelyan and Caccicacci are huddled. They are having a 
furious argument. Trevelyan has the features of a vulture. The other is 
like a clown out of the Italian opera. A strange pair to be hobnobbing 
together.

In another corner sit Manuel Siegfried and Cedric Ross, two discarded 
lovers. They stare at each other gloomily. Now Marjorie comes bouncing in, 
her arms loaded with packages. Immediately things brighten up. In a few 
minutes, like trains pulling in, Ned arrives, then O’Mara, then Ulric 
himself. The old club spirit, what! Fratres Semper!

Everyone has now become acquainted with his neighbor. All talking at 
once. And drinking! That’s my job, to see that no one is without a fresh 
glass. Now and then I sit down to have a little chat with someone. But what
I enjoy most is waiting on the customers, running to and fro, lighting 
their cigars, making up short orders, uncorking the bottles, emptying the 
ash trays, passing the time of the day with them and that sort of thing. 
The constant activity enables me to enjoy my own private thoughts. Seems 
I’m due to write another big book in my head. I study eyebrows, the curve 
of a lip, gestures, intonations. It’s as though I’m rehearsing a play and 
the customers ad-libbing. Catching a little phrase on my way to the 
kitchen, I round it out into a sentence, a paragraph, a page. If someone 
asks a question of his neighbor I answer it for him—in my head. Droll 
effects. Really exciting. Now and then I have a little drink or another 
sandwich on the q.t.

The kitchen is my realm. In there I dream away whole passages of destiny 
and causality.

“Well, Henry,” says Ulric, cornering me at the sink, “how goes it? This 
is your success!” He raises his glass and downs it. “Good stuff! You must 
give me the address of your bootlegger later.” We have a little drink 
together while I fill a couple of orders. “Golly,” he says, “it sure does 
look funny to see you with that carving knife in your hand.”

“Not a bad way to pass the time,” I remark. “Gives me a chance to think 
of what I will write some day.”

“You don’t mean it!”

“Of course I do. It’s not me making these sandwiches—it’s someone else. 
This is like sleep-walking… How about a nice piece of salami? You can have 
the Jewish kind or the Italian. Here, try these olives—Greek olives, what! 
You know, if I were simply a bartender I’d be miserable.”

“Henry,” he says, “you couldn’t be miserable no matter what you were 
doing. You’ll always find life interesting, even when you’re at the bottom.
You know, you’re like those mountain climbers who, when they fall into a 
deep crevasse, see the stars twinkling overhead… in broad daylight. You see
stars where others see only warts or blackheads.”

He gave me one of those knowing, tender smiles, then suddenly assumed a 
serious mein. “I thought I ought to tell you something,” he began. “It’s 
about Ned. I don’t know if he’s told you, but he lost his job recently. 
Drink. He can’t take It. I tell you this so that you’ll keep an eye on him.
He thinks the world of you, as you know, and he’ll probably be here 
frequently. Try to keep him in hand, won’t you? Alcohol is poison to him…

“By the way,” he continued, “do you suppose I might bring my chess set 
down some evening? I mean, when things quiet down a bit. There’ll be nights
when nobody will turn up. Just give me a ring. By the way, I’ve been 
reading that book you lent me—on the history of the game. An astonishing 
book. We must go one day to the Museum and have a look at those medieval 
chess boards, eh?”

“Sure,” I said, “if we ever manager to get up by noon!”

One by one my friends filed into the kitchen to chat with me. Often they 
served the customers for me. Sometimes the customers came to the kitchen 
themselves to ask for a drink, or just to see what was going on.

O’Mara, of course, anchored himself in the kitchen. He talked incessantly
about his adventures in the sunny South. Thought it might be a good idea to
go back there, all three of us, and make a new start. “Too bad you haven’t 
got an extra bed here,” he said. He scratched his head thoughtfully. “Maybe
we could put a couple of tables together and spread a mattress over them?”

“Later, maybe.”

“Sure, sure,” said O’Mara. “Any time. It was just a thought. Anyway, it’s
good to see you again. You’ll like it down South. Good clean air there, for
one thing… This is some dump! What a come down from that other place! By 
the way, do you still see that crazy gink—what’s his name again?”

“You mean Sheldon?”

“Yeah, Sheldon, that’s the guy. He’ll pop up again, just wait! You know 
what they’d do with a pest like that down South? They’d grab him by the 
seat of his pants and run him over the line—or else lynch him.

“By the way,” he continued, clutching my sleeve, “who’ that dame in the 
corner over there? Ask her In here, will you? I haven’t had a good lay now 
in two weeks. She’s not a Yid, is she? Not that I give a damn… only they 
cling too much. You know.” He gave a dirty little laugh and helped himself 
to a brandy.

“Henry, I’ll have to tell you sometime about the gals I fooled around 
with down there. It was like a passage out of the History of European 
Morals. One of them, with a big colonial house and a retinue of flunkeys, 
was all set to hook me for life. I almost fell for it too—she was that 
pretty. That was in Petersburg. In Chattanooga I ran across a nymphomaniac.
She nearly sucked me dry. They’re all a bit queer, I tell you. Faulkner’s 
got the low-down on them, no gainsaying it. They’re full of death—or 
something. The worst of it is, they spoil you. I was pampered to death. 
That’s why I came back. I’ve got to do something. Christ, but New York 
looks like a morgue! People must be crazy to stay here all their lives… “

The girl in the corner, whom he had been eyeing steadily, gave him a 
sign. “Excuse me, Henry,” he said, “this is it,” and off he skedaddled.

It was when Arthur Raymond started coming regularly that things began to 
take a dramatic turn. He was usually accompanied by his bosom pal, Spud 
Jason, and Alameda, the latter’s “paramour.” Arthur Raymond liked nothing 
better than to argue and dispute, and, if possible, to consummate these 
sessions on the floor, with toe-holds and arm-locks. Nothing gave him more 
pleasure than to twist someone’s arm or wrench it out of its socket. His 
idol was Jim Driscoll, who had lately turned professional. Perhaps it was 
because Jim Driscoll had once studied to be an organist that he adored him 
so.

As I say, Arthur Raymond was always itching for trouble. If he was unable
to inveigle the others into an argument and disputation he fell back on his
comrade Spud Jason. The latter was a thorough-going Bohemian, a painter of 
considerable talent, who was going to seed. He was always ready to drop his
work on the slightest excuse. His place was a pig-sty in which he and his 
little spit-lire, Alameda, wallowed. One could knock at his door any hour 
of the day or night. He was an excellent cook, always in good humor, 
amenable to any suggestion or proposal, no matter how fantastic. Too, he 
always had a bit of cash on him which he lent freely.

Mona didn’t care for Spud Jason at all. And she detested “the little 
Spanish bitch,” as she called Alameda. However, they usually brought three 
or four other customers with them when they came. - Certain people usually 
left when this gang arrived—Tony Maurer, for instance, Manuel Siegfried and
Cedric Ross. Caccicacci and Trevelyan, on the other hand, always welcomed 
them with open arms. For them it meant free drinks and a spot of food. 
Besides, they enjoyed argument and dispute. They revelled in it.

Posing as a Florentine, though he had not seen Italy since he was two 
years old, Caccicacci could tell marvelous anecdotes about the great 
Florentines—all pure inventions, to be sure. Some of these anecdotes he 
repeated, with alterations and elaborations, the extent of these depending 
on the indulgence of his listeners.

One of these “inventions” had to do with a robot of the twelfth century, 
the creation of a medieval scholar whose name he could never recall. 
Originally, Caccicacci was content to describe this mechanical freak (which
he insisted was hermaphroditic) as a sort of tireless drudge, capable of 
performing all sorts of menial tasks, some of them rather droll. But as he 
continued to embellish the tale, the robot—which he always referred to as 
Picodiribibi—gradually came to assume powers and propensities which were, 
to say the least, astounding. For example, after being taught to imitate 
the human voice, Picodiribibi’s master instructed his mechanical drudge in 
certain arts and sciences which were useful to the master—to wit, the 
memorizing of weights and measures, of theorems and logarithms, of certain 
astronomical calculations, of the names and positions of the constellations
at any season for the previous seven hundred years. He also instructed him 
in the use of the saw, the hammer and chisel, the compass, the sword and 
pike, as well as certain primitive musical instruments. Picodiribibi, 
consequently, was not only a sort of femme de manage, sergeant-at-arms, 
amanuensis and compendium of useful information, but a soothing spirit who 
could lull his master to sleep with weird melodies in the Doric mode. 
However, like the parrot in the cage, Picodiribibi developed a fondness for
speech which was beyond all bounds. At times his master had difficulty in 
suppressing this proclivity. The robot, who had been taught to recite 
lengthy poems in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and other tongues, would sometimes 
take it into his head to recite his whole repertoire without pausing for 
breath and, of course, with no consideration for his master’s peace of 
mind. And, since fatigue was utterly meaningless to him, he would 
occasionally ramble on in this senseless, faultless fashion, reeling off 
weights and measures, logarithmic tables, astronomical dates and figures, 
and so on, until his master, beside himself with rage and irritation, would
flee the house. Other curious eccentricities manifested themselves in the 
course of time. Adept in the art of self-defense, Picodiribibi would engage
his master’s guests in combat upon the slightest provocation, knocking them
about like ninepins, bruising and battering them mercilessly. Almost as 
embarrassing was the habit he had developed of joining in a discussion, 
suddenly flooring the great scholars who had come to sit at the master’s 
feet by propounding intricate questions, in the form of conundrums, which 
of course were unanswerable.

Little by little, Picodiribibi’s master became jealous of his own 
creation. What infuriated him above all, curiously enough, was the robot’s 
tirelessness. The latter’ ability to keep going twenty-four hours of the 
day, his gift for perfection, meaningless though it was, the ease and 
rapidity with which he modulated from one feat of skill to another—these 
qualities or aptitudes soon transformed “the idiot,” as he now began to 
call his invention, into a menace and a mockery. There was scarcely 
anything any more which “the idiot” could not do better than the master 
himself. There remained only a few faculties the monster would never 
possess, but of these animal functions the master himself was not 
particularly proud. It was obvious that, if he were to recapture his peace 
of mind, there was only one thing to be done—destroy his precious creation!
This, however, he was loath to do. It had taken him twenty years to put the
monster together and make him function. In the whole wide world there was 
nothing to equal the bloody idiot. Moreover, he could no longer recall by 
what intricate, complicated and mysterious processes he had brought his 
labors to fruition. In every way Picodiribibi rivaled the human being whose
simulacrum he was. True, he would never be able to reproduce his own kind, 
but like the freaks and sports of human spawn, he would undoubtedly leave 
in the memory of man a disturbing, haunting image.

To such a pass had the great scholar come that he almost lost his mind. 
Unable to destroy his invention, he racked his brain to determine how and 
where he might sequester him. For a time he thought of burying him in the 
garden, in an iron casket. He even entertained the idea of locking him up 
in a monastery. But fear, fear of loss, fear of damage or deterioration, 
paralyzed him. It was becoming more and more clear that, inasmuch as he had
brought Picodiribibi into being, he would have to live with him forever. He
found himself pondering how they could be buried together, secretly, when 
the time came. Strange thought! The idea of taking with him to the grave a 
creature which was not alive, and yet in many ways more alive than himself,
terrified him. He was convinced that, even in the next world, this prodigy 
to which he had given birth would plague him, would possibly usurp his own 
celestial privileges. He began to realize that, in assuming the powers of 
the Creator, he had robbed himself of the blessing which death confers upon
even the humblest believer. He saw himself as a shade flitting forever 
between two worlds—and his creation pursuing him. Ever a devout man, he now
began to pray long and fervently for deliverance. On his knees he begged 
.the Lord to intercede, to lift from his shoulders the awesome burden of 
responsibility which he had unthinkingly assumed. But the Almighty ignored 
his pleas.

Humiliated, and in utter desperation, he was at last obliged to appeal to
the Pope. On foot he made the journey with his strange companion—from 
Florence to Avignon. By the time he arrived a veritable horde had been 
attracted in his wake. Only by a miracle had he escaped being stoned to 
death, for by now all Europe was aware that the Devil himself was seeking 
audience with his Holiness. The Pope, however, himself a learned man and a 
master of the occult sciences, had taken great pains to safeguard this 
curious pilgrim and his offspring. It was rumored that his Holiness had 
intentions of adopting the monster himself, if for no other reason than to 
make of him a worthy Christian. Attended only by his favorite Cardinal, the
Pope received the penitent scholar and his mysterious ward in the privacy 
of his chamber. What took place in the four and a half hours which elapsed 
nobody knows. The result, if it can be called such, was that the day after,
the scholar died a violent death. The following day his body was publicly 
burned and the ashes scattered sous le pont d’Avignon.

At this point in his narrative Caccicacci paused, waiting for the 
inevitable question–“And what happened to Picodiribibi f” Caccicacci put on
a mysterious baiting smile, raised his empty glass appealingly, coughed, 
cleared his throat, and, before resuming, inquired if he might have another
sandwich.

“Picodiribibi! Ah, now you ask me something! Have any of you ever read 
Occam—or the Private Papers of Albertus Magnus?”

No on had, needless to say.

“Every now and then,” he continued, the question being wholly rhetorical,
“one hears of a sea monster appearing off the coast of Labrador or some 
other outlandish place. What would you say if tomorrow it were reported 
that a weird human monster had been glimpsed roaming through Sherwood 
Forest? You see, Picodiribibi was not the first of his line. Even in 
Egyptian times legends were in circulation attesting to the existence of 
androids such as Picodiribibi. In the great museums of Europe there are 
documents which describe in detail various androids or robots, as we now 
call them, which were made by the wizards of old. Nowhere, however, is 
there any record of the destruction of these man-made monsters. In fact, 
all the source material we have on the subject leads to the striking 
conclusion that these monsters always succeeded in escaping from the hands 
of their masters… “

Here Caccicacci paused again and looked about inquiringly.

“I am not saying it is so,” he resumed, “but there is respectable 
evidence to support the view that in some remote and inaccessible spot 
these Satanic creatures continue their unnatural existence. It is highly 
probable, in fact, that by this time they have established a veritable 
colony. Why not? They have no age, they are immune to disease—and they are 
ignorant of death. Like that sage who defied that great Alexander, they may
indeed boast of being indestructible. Some scholars maintain that by now 
these lost and imperishable relics have probably created their own unique 
method of communication—more, that they have even learned to reproduce 
their own kind, mechanically, of course.

They hold that if the human being evolved from the dumb brute why could 
these pre-fabricated creatures not do likewise—and in less time? Man is as 
mysterious in his way as is God. So is the creature world. And so is the 
inanimate world, if we but reflect on it. If these androids had the wisdom 
and the ingenuity to escape from their vigilant masters, from their 
horrible condition of servitude, might they not have the ability to protect
themselves indefinitely, become sociable with their own kind, increase and 
multiply? Who can say with certitude that there does not exist somewhere on
this globe a fabulous village—perhaps a resplendent city!—populated 
entirely by these soulless specimens, many of them older than the mightiest
sequoia?

“But I am forgetting about Picodiribibi… The day his master came to a 
violent end he disappeared. All over the land a hue and cry went up, but in
vain. Not a trace of him was ever found. Now and then there were reports of
mysterious deaths, of inexplicable accidents and disasters, all attributed 
to the missing Picodiribibi. Many scholars were persecuted, some put to the
stake, because they were thought to have harbored the monster. It was even 
rumored that the Pope had ordered a ‘replica’ of Picodiribibi to be 
manufactured, and that he had made dark use of this spurious one. All rumor
and conjecture, to be sure. Nevertheless, it is a fact that, hidden in the 
archives of the Vatican, are descriptions of other robots more or less 
contemporaneous; none of these, however, is credited with possessing 
anything approaching the functional range of Picodiribibi. Today, of 
course, we have all sorts of robots, one of them, as you know, drawing his 
first breath of life, so to speak, from the radiance of a distant star. Had
it been possible to do this in the early Middle Ages, I think, try to 
think, of the havoc which would have ensued. The inventor would have been 
accused of employing black magic. He would have been burned at the stake, 
would he not? But there may have been another result, another outcome, 
dazzling and sinister at the same time. Instead of machines, perhaps we 
would now be using these star-driven menials. Perhaps the work of the world
would be done entirely by these expert work-hungry slaves… “

Here Caccicacci stopped short, smiled as if bemused, then suddenly burst 
out with this: “And who would arise to emancipate them f You laugh. But do 
we not regard the machine as our slave? And do we not suffer just as 
indubitably from this false relationship as did the wizards of old with 
their androids? Back of our deep-rooted desire to escape the drudgery of 
work lies the longing for Paradise. To the man of today Paradise means not 
only freedom from sin but freedom from work, for work has become odious and
degrading. When man ate of the Tree of Knowledge he elected to find a 
shortcut to Godhood. He attempted to rob the Creator of the divine secret, 
which to him spelled power. What has been the result? Sin, disease, death. 
Eternal warfare, eternal unrest. The little we know we use for our own 
destruction. We know not how to escape the tyranny of the convenient 
monsters we have created. We delude ourselves into believing that, by means
of them, we shall one day enjoy leisure and bliss, but all we accomplish, 
to be truthful, is to create more work for ourselves, more distress, more 
enmity, more sickness, more death. By our ingenious inventions and 
discoveries we are gradually altering the face of the earth—until it 
becomes unrecognizable in its ugliness. Until life itself becomes 
unbearable… That little beam of light from a remote star—I ask you, if that
imperishable ray of light could thus affect a nonhuman being, why can it 
not do as much for us? With all the stars in the heavens lavishing their 
radiant powers on us, with the aid of the sun, the moon and all the 
planets, how is it that we continue to remain in darkness and frustration? 
Why do we wear out so quickly, when the elements of which we are composed 
are indestructible? What is it that wears out? Not that of which we are 
made, that is certain. We wither and fade away, we perish, because the 
desire to live is extinguished. And why does this most potent flame die 
out? For lack of faith. From the time we are born we are told that we are 
mortal. From the time we are able to understand words we are taught that we
must kill in order to survive. In season and out we are reminded that, no 
matter how intelligently, reasonably or wisely we live, we shall become 
sick and die. We are inoculated with the idea of death almost from birth. 
Is it any wonder that we die?”

Caccicacci drew a deep breath. There was something he was struggling to 
convey, something beyond words, one might say. It was evident that he was 
being carried away by his narrative. One felt that he was trying to 
convince himself of something. The impression I got was that he had told 
this story over and over—in order to arrive at a conclusion beyond the 
limits of his own comprehension. Perhaps he knew, deep down, that the tale 
had a significance which eluded him only because he lacked the courage to 
pursue it to the end. A man may be a story teller, a fabulist, a downright 
liar, but embedded in all fiction and falsehood there is a core of truth. 
The inventor of Picodiribibi was a story teller too, in his way. He had 
created a fable or legend mechanically instead of verbally. He had 
defrauded our senses as much as any story teller. However…

“Sometimes,” said Caccicacci, solemnly now and with all the sincerity he 
was capable of mustering, “I am convinced that there is no hope for mankind
unless we begin to think differently and live differently. I know its 
sounds banal… it has been said thousands of times and nothing has happened.
You see, I keep thinking of the great suns which surround us, of these vast
solar bodies in the heavens of which no one knows anything, except that 
they exist. From one of them it is admitted that we draw our sustenance. 
Some include the moon as a vital factor in our earthy existence. Others 
speak of the beneficent or maleficent influence of the planets. But, if you
stop to think, everything—and when I say everything I mean 
everything!—whether visible or invisible, known or unknown, is vital to our
existence. We live amidst a network of magnetic forces which, in a variety 
of ways incalculable and indescribable, are ceaselessly operative. We 
created none of these ourselves. A few we have learned to harness, to 
exploit, as it were. And we are puffed up with pride because of our petty 
achievements. But even the boldest, even the proudest among our latter-day 
magicians, is bound to concede that what we know is infinitesimal compared 
to what we do not know. I beg you, stop a moment and reflect! Does any one 
here honestly believe that one day we shall know all? I go farther… I ask 
in all sincerity—do you believe that our salvation depends on knowing? 
Assuming for a moment that the human brain is capable of cramming into its 
mysterious fibers the sum total of the secret processes which govern the 
universe, what then? Yes, what then? What would we do, we humans, with this
unthinkable knowledge? What could we do? Have you ever asked yourself that 
question? Everyone seems to take it for granted that the accumulation of 
knowledge is a good thing. No one ever says—‘And what shall I do with it 
when I have it?’ No one dares believe any longer that, in the span of one 
short lifetime, it is possible to acquire even a minute fraction of the sum
of all existent human knowledge… ” Another breathing spell. We were all 
ready with the bottle this time. Caccicacci was laboring. He had derailed. 
It was not knowledge, or the lack of it, that he was so desperately 
concerned with. I was aware of the silent effort he was making to retrace 
his steps; I could feel him floundering about in his struggle to get back 
to the main line.

“Faith! I was talking about faith a moment ago. We’ve lost it. Lost it 
completely. Faith in anything, I mean. Yet faith is the only thing man 
lives by. Not knowledge, which is admittedly inexhaustible and in the end 
futile or destructive. But faith. Faith too is inexhaustible. Always has 
been, always will be. It is faith which inspires deeds, faith which 
overcomes obstacles—literally moves mountains, as the Bible says. Faith is 
what? Just faith. Faith is everything, if you like. Perhaps a better word 
would be acceptance. But acceptance is even more difficult to understand 
than faith. Immediately you utter the word, there is an inquisitioner which
says: ‘Evil toot’ And if one says yes, then the way is barred. You are 
laughed out of countenance, shunned like a leper. Good, you see, may be 
questioned, but evil—and this is a paradox—evil, though we struggle 
constantly to eliminate it, is always taken for granted. No one doubts the 
existence of evil, though it is only an abstract term for that which is 
constantly changing in character and which, on close analysis, is often 
found to be good. No one will accept evil at its face value. It is, and it 
is not. The mind refuses to accept it unconditionally. It would really seem
as if it existed only to be converted into its opposite. The simplest and 
readiest way to accomplish this is, of course, to accept it. But who is 
wise enough to adopt such a course?

“I think of Picodiribibi again. Was there anything ‘evil’ about his 
appearance or existence? Yet he was held in dread by the world in which he 
found himself. He was regarded as a violation of nature. But is man himself
not a violation of nature? If we could fashion another Picodiribibi, or one
even more marvelous in his functioning, would we not be in ecstasy? But 
suppose that, instead of a more marvelous robot, we were suddenly 
confronted by a genuine human being whose attributes were so incomparably 
superior to our own that he resembled a god? This is a hypothetical 
question, to be sure, yet there are, and always have been, individuals who 
maintain, and persist in maintaining, despite reason and ridicule, that 
they have had witness of such divine beings. We can all summon suitable 
names. Myself, I prefer to think of a mythical being, some one nobody has 
ever heard of, or seen, or will know in this life. Some one, in brief, who 
could exist and fulfill the requirements I speak of… “

Here Caccicacci digressed. He was forced to confess that he did not know 
what had prompted him to make such a statement, nor where he was heading. 
He kept rubbing his poll and murmuring over and over: “Strange, strange, 
but I thought I had something there.”

Suddenly his face lit up with joy. “Ah yes, I know now. I’ve got it. 
Listen… Suppose this being, universally admitted to be superior to us in 
every way, should take it to address the world in this fashion: ‘Stop where
you are, O men and women, and give heed! You are on the wrong track You are
headed for destruction.’ Suppose that everywhere on this globe the billions
which make up humanity did stop what they were doing and listened. Even if 
this god like being said nothing more than what I’ve just put in his mouth,
what do you suppose the effect would be? Has the entire world ever stopped 
to listen in unison to words of wisdom? Imagine, if you can, a total, 
drastic silence, all ears cocked to catch the fatal words! Would it even be
necessary to utter the words f Can you not imagine that everyone, in the 
silence of his heart, would supply the answer himself? There is only one 
response that humanity longs to give—and it can be voiced in one little 
monosyllable: Love. That little word, that mighty thought, that perpetual 
act, positive, unambiguous, eternally effective—if that should sink in, 
take possession of all mankind, would it not transform the world instantly?
Who could resist, if love became the order of the day? Who would want power
or knowledge—if he were bathed in the perpetual glory of love?

“It is said, as you know, that in the fastnesses of Tibet there actually 
exists a small band of men so immeasurably superior to us that they are 
called ‘The Masters.’ They live in voluntary exile from the rest of the 
world. Like the androids I spoke of earlier, they too are ageless, immune 
to disease, and indestructible. Why do they not mingle with us, why do they
not enlighten and ennoble us by their presence? Have they chosen to remain 
isolate—or is it we who keep them at a distance? Before you attempt to 
answer, ask yourself another question—what have we to offer them which they
do not already know, possess, or enjoy? If such beings exist, and I have 
every reason to believe they do, then the only possible barrier is 
consciousness. Degrees of consciousness, to be more exact. When we reach to
deeper levels of thought and being they will be there, so to speak. We are 
still unready, unwilling, to mingle with the gods. The men of olden times 
knew the gods: they saw them face to face. Man was not removed, in 
consciousness, from either the higher or the lower orders of creation. 
Today man is cut off. Today man lives as a slave. Worse, we are slaves to 
one another. We have created a condition hitherto unknown, a condition 
altogether unique: we have become the slaves of slaves. Doubt it not, the 
moment we truly desire freedom we shall be free. Not a whit sooner! Now we 
think like machines, because we have become helpless victims of power… The 
day we learn to express love we shall know love and have love—and all else 
will fall away. Evil is a creation of the human mind. It is powerless when 
accepted at face value. Because it has no value in itself. Evil exists only
as a threat to that eternal kingdom of love we but dimly apprehend. Yes, 
men have had visions of a liberated humanity. They have had visions of 
walking the earth like the gods they once were. Those whom we call ‘The 
Masters’ undoubtedly found the road back. Perhaps the androids have taken 
another road. All roads, believe it or not, lead eventually to that 
life-giving source which is the center and meaning of creation. As Lawrence
said with dying breath—‘For man, the vast marvel is to be alive. For man, 
as for flower, beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, 
most perfectly, alive… In this sense, Picodirbibi was never alive. In this 
sense, none of us is alive. Let us become fully alive, that is what I have 
been trying to say.”

Exhausted by this unintended flight, Caccicacci took leave abruptly in 
embarrassment and confusion. We who had listened in silence remained seated
in the corner by the window. No one seemed able to summon breath for a few 
minutes. Arthur Raymond, usually immune to such disquisitions, looked from 
one to another defiantly, ready to pounce upon the slightest provocation. 
Spud Jason and his “consort” were already three sheets to the wind. No 
argument coming from that quarter! Finally it was Baronyi who broke the 
ice, remarking in a gentle, perplexed voice that he had never imagined 
Caccicacci to be so serious. Trevelyan groaned, as if to say—“You don’t 
know the half of it!” Then, to our stupefaction, without the slightest 
preliminary, he launched into a long monologue about his own private 
troubles. He began by telling how his wife, who was not only pregnant but 
mad, mad as a hatter, had tried to strangle him in bed while he was asleep 
just the night before. He confessed, in his bland, suppressed, underdone 
way—he was British to the core—that he had certainly treated her 
abominably. He made it painfully clear that from the very beginning he had 
loathed her. He had married her out of pity, because the man who had made 
her with child had run out on her. She was a poetess and he thought highly 
of her work. What he couldn’t abide was her moods. She would sit for hours,
knitting woolen socks which he never wore, and never a peep out of her. Or 
she would sit in the rocker, doing absolutely nothing, and while swaying 
back and forth would hum, hum for hours. Or she would suddenly get a 
talking jag, corner him in the kitchen or the bedroom, and fill him with 
dreamy stuff which she called inspiration.

“What do you mean—dreamy stuff?” asked O’Mara, grinning maliciously.

“Oh,” said Trevelyan, “it might be about fog, fog and rain… how the trees
and bushes looked when the fog suddenly drifted away. It might be about the
color of fog, all the shades of gray which she could discern with her 
cat-like eyes. She had lived on the coast of Cornwall during her 
childhood—they’re all a bit loony there—and she would relive her walks in 
the fog, her experiences with goats and cats, or with the village idiot. In
these moods she talked another language—I don’t mean a dialect, I mean a 
language of her own which no one could understand. It used to give me the 
creeps. It was a sort of cat language, as best I can describe it. She 
yowled now and then, a real yowl that made your blood curdle. Sometimes she
imitated the wind, all kinds of wind, from a gentle breeze to a ripping 
gale. And then she would snuffle and weep, trying to convince me that she 
mourned the flowers which had been cut down—the pansies and the lilies 
particularly, they were so helpless, so defenseless. Before you knew it she
would be walking through strange places, describing them intimately, as if 
she had lived there all her life. Places like Trinidad, Curacao, 
Mozambique, Guadeloupe, Madras, Cawnpore and such like. Eerie f I’ll tell 
you, I thought for a while she had second sight… By the way, couldn’t we 
have another drink? I haven’t a farthing, as you probably know…

“She’s a queer one, all right. And a bloody, obstinate cuss, too. Get in 
an argument with her and you’re doomed. She knows how to block all the 
exits. You’re trapped, once you start in with that one. I never realized 
that women could be so utterly logical. It wouldn’t matter what you were 
discussing—odors, vegetation, diseases or sun spots. Hers is always the 
last word, no matter what the subject. Add to all that a mania for detail, 
a mania for minutae. She’ll sit at the breakfast table, for example, with a
broken petal in her hand, and she’ll examine it for an hour. She’ll ask you
to concentrate on a minute piece of this petal no bigger than the merest 
sliver of a splinter. Claims she can see all sorts of curious and wondrous 
things in this piece of nothingness. All with the naked eye, mind you. Her 
eyes are not human eyes, by God. She can see in the dark, of course, even 
better than a cat. She can see with her eyes closed, believe it or not. She
demonstrated that to my own satisfaction one night. But what she can’t see 
is the other person! She looks right through you when she talks to you. She
sees only what she is talking about, whether it’s fog, cats, idiots, remote
cities, floating islands or floating kidneys. In the beginning I used to 
grab her by the arm and shake her—I thought perhaps she was in a trance. 
Nothing of the sort! Just as wide-awake as you or I. Even more awake, I’d 
say. Nothing escapes her. ‘Did you hear that?’ she says sometimes, right in
the middle of a sentence. ‘Hear what? Maybe a cake of ice slipped just the 
fraction of an inch in the ice-box. Maybe a leaf just fell to the ground in
the back yard. Maybe a drop of water dripped from the kitchen faucet. ‘Did 
you hear that?’ I’d jump whenever she said it. After a while I began to 
think I was growing deaf—she gave such importance to these inaudible 
nothings. ‘It’s nothing,’ she’d say, ‘it’s just your nerves.’ And with all 
that she has absolutely no ear for music. All she hears is the scratching 
of the needle: her pleasure is derived solely from detecting whether the 
record is an old one or a fairly new one, and how new, or how old. She 
can’t tell the difference between Mozart, Puccini and Satie. She likes 
hymns. Dingy, melancholy hymns. Which she always hums with a seraphic 
smile, as if she were already among the angels. No, really, she’s the most 
detestable bitch imaginable. There’s not a spark of joy or gaiety in her. 
If you tell her a funny story she’s bored. If you laugh she’s outraged. If 
you sneeze you have bad manners. If you indulge in a drink you’re a sot… 
We’ve had intercourse—if you can call it that—about three times, I guess. 
She closes her eyes, lies rigid as a pole, and begs you to get done with it
as quickly as possible. Worse than raping a martyr. When it’s over she gets
a pad, props herself up in bed, and writes a poem. To purify herself, I 
suppose. I could kill her sometimes… “

“What about the brat?” O’Mara piped up. “Does she want the child?”

“Search me!” said Trevelyan. “She never mentions the subject. It might 
just as well be a tumor, for all it seems to matter. Now and then she says 
she’s getting too stout… she wouldn’t say ‘fat,’ that’s too coarse. Stout. 
As though it were strange to be blowing up like a balloon when you’re seven
months along!”

“How do you know she is pregnant?” asked Spud Jason sleepily. “Sometimes 
it’s only imaginary.”

“Imaginary, huh! I only wish to Christ it were; She’s pregnant all right…
I’ve felt it moving inside her.”

“It could be wind,” said someone.

“Wind doesn’t have arms and legs,” said Trevelyan, getting irritated. 
“Wind doesn’t roll over or have conniption fits.”

“Let’s get out of here,” said Spud Jason. “You’ll be giving this one 
ideas.” And with this he gave his side-kick a poke in the ribs that almost 
knocked her off the chair.

As if it were a game they played time and again, Alameda rose quietly, 
walked round him, then gave him a resounding thwack on the face with the 
palm of her hand.

“So that’s it?” cried Spud Jason, leaping from his chair and twisting her
arm. With his other hand he grabbed her long mane and pulled vigorously. 
“Behave yourself, or I’ll blacken your eyes for you!”

“You will, will you?” Alameda was brandishing an empty bottle.

“Get out of here, the two of you!” shouted Mona. “And don’t come back 
again, please!”

“How much do I owe you?” said Spud Jason sheepishly.

“You don’t owe anything,” said Mona, “Just get out and stay out!”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

To my surprise, MacGregor dropped in one night, ordered a drink, and paid
for it without a murmur. He seemed unusually mellow. Inquired solicitously 
how we were doing, what the prospects were, did we need any help—legal 
help—and so on. I couldn’t make out what had come over him.

Suddenly, when Mona had turned her back, he said: “Couldn’t you pull 
yourself away for a few hours some night?”

Without waiting for me to say yes or no, he went on to tell me that he 
was in love again, head over heels, in fact. “Guess you can tell it, can’t 
you?” She was a funny gal, in a way, he explained. A divorcee, with two 
kids on her hands. “How do you like that?” He then said that he wanted to 
impart something very confidential. He knew it was hard for me to keep my 
trap shut, but just the same… “Tess, you know, doesn’t suspect a thing. I 
wouldn’t hurt her for the world. Damn it! Don’t laugh! I say it only 
because you might spill the beans some night in one of your chivalrous 
moods.”

I grinned.

So that was the set-up. Trix, the new one, lived in the Bronx. “To hell 
and gone,” as he put it. He was out every night till three, four or five in
the morning. “Tess thinks I’m gambling. The way the money’s going I might 
just as well be out shooting crap every night. But that’s neither here nor 
there. What I’m asking you is—can you steal away some night, just for a few
hours?” I said nothing, just grinned again. “I’d like you to look her over…
tell me if I’m cuckoo or not.” Here he paused a minute, as if embarrassed. 
‘To focus it a little better for you, Hen, let me tell you this: every 
night after dinner she gets the kids to sit in my lap, one on each knee. 
And what do you think I do? Tell them bedtime stories! Can you picture 
that?” He burst out into a loud guffaw. “You know, Hen, I can hardly 
believe it myself. But it’s a fact. I couldn’t be more considerate of them 
if they were my own kids. Christ, I’ve already bought them a whole 
menagerie of toys. You know, if Tess hadn’t had her insides cleaned out, we
would have had three or four brats ourselves. Maybe that’s one of the 
reasons why we’ve drifted apart. You know Tess, Henry—she’s got a heart of 
gold. But she’s not much to talk to. Interested in her law work and that’s 
about all. If I stay home of a night I fall asleep. Or else I get drunk. 
Why the hell I ever married her I don’t know. You, you bastard, you never 
said a word: you let me sail straight into it. Thought it would do me good,
didn’t you? Well, I’m drifting… You know, sometimes, listening to myself, I
hear my old man talking. He can’t stick to the point longer than two 
minutes. Mother’s the same way… How about another drink? I’m paying for 
them, don’t worry.”

There was silence for a few moments, then I asked him point-blank just 
why he was so eager to have me meet his new gal. “I know damned well,” I 
added, “that you don’t want my approval.”

“No, Hen,” and he looked down at the table top, “to be serious about it, 
I wanted you to come for dinner some night when the kids are eating with us
and… “

“And what?”

“And give me some pointers about these damned fairy tales. Kids take 
these things seriously, you know. I have a feeling I’m doing it 
ass-backwards. Maybe I’m telling them things they oughtn’t to hear till 
they’re five years older… “

“So that’s it?” I blurted out. “Well, I’ll be damned! And what makes you 
think I know anything about this business?”

“Well, you had a kid of your own, didn’t you? Besides, you’re a writer. 
You’re up on this crap, I’m not. I start a story and I don’t know how to 
finish it. I’m all at sea, I tell you.”

“Haven’t you any imagination?”

“Are you kidding? Listen, you know me. All I know is law, and maybe not 
too much of that. I’ve got a single-track mind. Anyway, it’s not just for 
that I want you to come… I want you to meet Trix. I think you’ll like her. 
Boy, she’s some cook! Tess, by the way—well, I don’t have to tell you—but 
Tess can’t even fry an egg This one’ll make you think you’re dining at the 
Ritz. She does it with class. She has a bit of a cellar, too—maybe that 
will get you. Listen, what are you hemming and hawing about? I’d like you 
to have a good time, that’s all. You’ve got to have a change once in a 
while. O’Mara can take over for a few hours, can’t he? That is, if you 
trust him! Personally, I wouldn’t trust him out of my sight… “

Just then Tony Maurer popped in, carrying a thick book under his arm. As 
usual, he was extremely cordial. Took a seat at the table alongside of us 
and asked if we wouldn’t join him in a drink. He held the book up in order 
for me to read the title: Decline of the West.

“Never heard of it,” I said.

“You will before long,” he answered. “A great work. Prophetic… “

MacGregor burst in under his breath: “Forget it! You have no time to read
anyway.”

“May I borrow it when you’re through?” I asked.

“Of course,” said Tony Maurer. “I’ll make you a present of it.”

MacGregor, to excuse himself, inquired if it were a mystical work. He 
wasn’t a damned bit interested, of course, but he saw that Tony Maurer was 
not an idiot.

Told that it was a philosophy of history, he mumbled: “It’s all yours!”

We had a couple of drinks with Tony Maurer, and by this time I was 
feeling rather high. It was just dawning on me that we might have a very 
good evening, or dinner at least, chez Trix. Trix Miranda was the full 
name. I liked the sound of it.

“Which bedtime story do they like best?” I asked. “Something about the 
three bears.”

“You mean Goldilocks and the Three Bears? Why, Jesus, I know that thing 
backwards. You know, I’m just thinking… how would the night after next do?”

“Now you’re talking, Henry. I knew you wouldn’t let me down. By the way, 
you don’t have to, of course, but if you could bring a bottle of wine 
along, Trix would appreciate it. A French wine, if you can.”

“Easiest thing in the world! I’ll bring two or three.” He got up to go, 
and as he shook hands with me he said: “Do me a favor, will you? Don’t get 
tight before we put the kids to bed.”

“It’s a bargain. And now I’ll ask you a favor. Let me tell them the story
about the three bears, eh?”

“O.K., Henry—but no dirty work!”

*

Two nights later I’m having dinner with MacGregor and Trix—in a remote 
corner of the Bronx. The kids are in fine fettle. The boy is five and the 
girl about three and a half. Charming youngsters but rather precocious. I’m
doing my best not to get tight before the kids are put to bed. But we’ve 
had three Martinis while waiting for dinner and now we’re sampling the 
Chambertin which I brought along.

Trix is a good scout, as MacGregor would say. Not a beauty, but easy to 
look at. Has a jovial disposition. The only drawback I detect so far is 
that she’s hysterical.

Everything has been proceeding smoothly. I feel at home with the kids. 
They keep on reminding me that I’ve promised to tell them the story of the 
three bears.

“You’re in for it, Henry,” says MacGregor.

Truth to tell, I haven’t the least desire now to reel off that bedtime 
story. I stretch the meal out as long as I can. I’m a bit groggy. I can’t 
remember how the damned story begins.

Suddenly Trix says: “You must tell it now, Henry. It’s long past their 
bedtime.”

“All right!” I groan. “Get me another black coffee and I’ll begin.”

“I’ll start it for you,” says the boy.

“You won’t do anything of the sort!” says Trix. “Henry is going to tell 
this story—from beginning to end. I want you to listen carefully. Now shut 
up!”

I swallowed some black coffee, choked on it, sputtered and stuttered.

“Once there was a big black bear… “

“That’s not how it begins,” piped the little girl.

“Well, how does it begin then?”

“Once upon a time… “

“Sure, sure… how could I forget? All right, are you listening? Here goes…
Once upon a time there were three bears—a polar bear, a grizzly bear, and a
Teddy bear… “

(Laughter and derision from the two kids.) “The polar bear had a pelt of 
long white fur—to keep him warm, of course. The grizzly bear was… “

“That’s not the way it goes, Mommy!” screamed the little girl.

“He’s making it up,” said the boy .

“Be quiet, you two!” cried Trix.

“Listen, Henry,” said MacGregor, “don’t let them rattle you. Take your 
time. Remember, easy does it. Here, have another drop of cognac, it’ll oil 
your palate.”

I lit a fat cigar, took another sip of cognac, and tried to work myself 
back into the groove. Suddenly it struck me that there was only one way to 
tell it and that was fast as lightning. If I stopped to think I’d be sunk.

“Listen, folks,” I said, “I’m going to start all over again. No more 
interruptions, eh? I winked at the little girl and threw the boy a bone 
which still had some meat on it.

“For a man with your imagination you’re certainly having a hard time,” 
said MacGregor. “This ought to be a hundred dollar story, with all the 
preliminaries you’re going through. You’re sure you don’t want an aspirin?”

“This is going to be a thousand dollar story,” I replied, now in full 
possession of all my faculties. “But don’t interrupt me!”

“Come on, come on, stop diddling! Once upon a time—that’s the way it 
begins,” bawled MacGregor.

“O.K… Once upon a time.. Yeah, that’s It, Once upon a time there were 
three bears: a polar bear, a grizzly bear, and a Teddy bear… “

“You told us that before,” said the boy.

“Be quiet, you!” cried Trix.

“The polar bear was absolutely bare, with long white fur which reached to
the ground. The grizzly bear was just as tough as a sirloin steak, and he 
had lots of fat between his toes. The Teddy bear was just right, neither 
too fat nor too lean, neither tough nor tender, neither hot nor cold… “

Titters from the kids.

“The polar bear ate nothing but ice, ice-cold ice, fresh from the ice 
house. The grizzly bear thrived on artichokes, because artichokes are full 
of burrs and nettles… “

“What’s burrs, mommy?” piped up the little girl.

“Hush!” said Trix.

“As for the Teddy bear, why he drank only skimmed milk. He was a grower, 
you see, and didn’t need vitamins. One day the grizzly bear was out 
gathering wood for the fire. He had nothing on but his bearskin and the 
flies were driving him mad. So he began to run and run and run. Soon he was
deep in the forest. After a while he sat down by a stream and fell asleep… 
“

“I don’t like the way he tells it,” said the boy, “he’s all mixed up.”

“If you don’t keep quiet, I’ll put you to bed!”

“Suddenly little Goldilocks entered the forest. She had a lunch basket 
with her and it was filled with all sorts of good things, including a 
bottle of Blue Label Ketchup. She was looking for the little house with the
green shutters. Suddenly she heard some one snoring, and between snores a 
big booming voice was shouting: ‘Acorn pie for me! Acorn pie for me!’ 
Goldilocks looked first to the right and then to the left. She saw no one. 
So she got out her compass and, facing due west, she followed her nose. In 
about an hour, or perhaps it was an hour and a quarter, she came to a 
clearing in the woods. And there was the little house with the olive drab 
shutters.”

“Green shutters!” cried the boy.

“With the green shutters, right!” And then what do you think happened? A 
great big lion came dashing out of the woods, followed by a little man with
a bow and arrow. The lion was very shy and playful. What did he do but jump
on the roof and wrap himself around the chimney. The little man with the 
dunce cap began crawling on all fours—until he got to the doorway. Then he 
got up, danced a merry jig, and ran inside… “

“I don’t believe it,” said the little girl. “It ain’t true.”

“It is, too,” I said, “and if you’re not careful I’ll box your ears.” 
Here I took a deep breath, wondering what next. The cigar was out, the 
glass was empty. I decided to make haste.

“From here on it goes still faster,” I said, resuming the narrative.

“Don’t go too fast,” said the boy, “I don’t want to miss anything.”

“O.K… Now then, once inside, Goldilocks found everything in apple pie 
order: the dishes were all washed and stacked, the clothes mended, the 
pictures neatly framed. On the table there was an atlas and an unabridged 
dictionary, in two volumes. Somebody had been moving the chess pieces 
around in Teddy bear’s absence. Too bad, because he would have mated in 
eight more moves. Goldilocks, however, was too fascinated by all the toys 
and gadgets, especially the new can opener, to worry about chess problems. 
She had been doing trigonometry all morning and her little brain was too 
weary to puzzle out gambits and that sort of thing. She was dying to ring 
the cow bell which hung over the kitchen sink. To get at it she had to use 
a stool. The first stool was too low; the second one was too high; but the 
third stool was just right. She rang the bell so loud that the dishes fell 
out of the racks. Goldilocks was frightened at first, but then she thought 
it was funny, so she rang the bell again. This time the lion unwound 
himself and slid off the roof, his tail twisted into forty knots. 
Goldilocks thought this was even funnier, so she rang the bell a third 
time. The little man with the dunce cap came running out of the bedroom, 
all a-quiver, and without a word, he began turning somersaults. He flipped 
and flopped, just like an old cart wheel, and then he disappeared into the 
woods… “

“You’re not losing the thread, I hope?” said MacGregor.

“Don’t interrupt!” shouted Trix.

“Mommy, I want to go to bed,” said the little girl.

“Be quiet!” said the boy, “I’m getting interested.”

“And now,” I continued, having caught my breath, “it suddenly began to 
thunder and lightning. The rain came down in buckets. Little Goldilocks was
really frightened. She fell head over heels off the stool, twisting her 
ankle and spraining her wrist. She wanted to hide somewhere until it was 
all over. ‘Nothing easier,’ came a tiny little voice from the far corner of
the room, where the Winged Victory stood. And with that the closet door 
opened itself. I’ll run in there, thought Goldilocks, and she made a dash 
for the closet. Now it so happened that in the closet were bottles and 
jars, heaps and heaps of bottles, and heaps and heaps of jars. Goldilocks 
opened a tiny little bottle and dabbed her ankle with arnica. Then she 
reached for another bottle, and what do you suppose was in it? Sloan’s 
Liniment! ‘Goodness Gracious!’ she said, and suiting word to action, she 
applied the liniment to her wrist. Then she found a little iodine, and 
drinking it straight, she began to sing. It was a merry little tune—about 
Fr6re Jacques. She sang in French because her mother had taught her never 
to sing in any other language. After the 27th verse she got bored and 
decided to explore the closet. The strange thing about this closet is that 
it was bigger than the house itself. There were seven rooms on the ground 
floor, and five above, with a toilet and bath in each room, to say nothing 
of a fireplace and a pier glass decked with chintz. Goldilocks forgot all 
about the thunder and lightning, the rain, the hail, the snails and the 
frogs; she forgot all about the lion and the little man with the bow and 
arrow, whose name, by the way, was Pinocchio. All she could think of was 
how wonderful it was to live in a closet like this… “

“This is going to be about Cinderella,” said the little girl.

“It is not!” snapped the boy. “It’s about the seven dwarfs.”

“Quiet, you two!”

“Go on, Henry,” said MacGregor, ‘Tm curious to see how you get out of 
this trap.”

“And so Goldilocks wandered from room to room, never dreaming that the 
three bears had come home and were sitting down to dinner. In the alcove of
the parlor floor she found a library filled with strange books. They were 
all about sex and the resurrection of the dead… “

“What’s sex?” asked the boy.

“It’s not for you,” said the little girl.

“Goldilocks sat down and began reading aloud from a great big book. It 
was by Wilhelm Reich, author of The Golden Flower or The Mystery of the 
Hormones. The book was so heavy that Goldilocks couldn’t hold it in her 
lap. So she placed it on the floor and knelt beside it. Every page was 
illustrated in gorgeous colors. Though Goldilocks was familiar with rare 
and limited editions, she had to admit to herself that never before had she
seen such beautiful illustrations. Some were by a man named Picasso, some 
by Matisse, some by Ghirlandaio, but all without exception were beautiful 
and shocking to behold… “

“That’s a funny word—behold!” cried the little boy.

“You said it! And now just take a back seat for a while, will you? 
Because now it’s getting really interesting… As I say, Goldilocks was 
reading aloud to herself. She was reading about the Saviour and how he died
on the Cross—for us—so that our sins would be washed away. Goldilocks was 
just a little girl, after all, and so she didn’t know what it was to sin. 
But she wanted very very much to know. She read and read until her eyes 
ached, without ever discovering what it was, exactly, to sin. Til run 
downstairs,’ she said to herself, ‘and see what it says in the dictionary. 
It’s an unabridged dictionary, so it must have sin in it.’ Her ankle was 
all heeled by this time, her wrist too, mirabile dictu. She went skipping 
down the stairs like a seven-day goat. When she got to the closet door, 
which was still ajar, she did a double somersault, just like the little 
fellow with the dunce cap had done… “

“Pinocchio!” cried the boy.

“And then what do you think happened? She landed right in the grizzly 
bear’s lap!”

The youngsters howled with delight.

” ‘All the better to eat you up!’ growled the big grizzly bear, smacking 
his rubbery lips. ‘Just the right size!’ said the polar bear, all white 
from the rain and hail, and he tossed her up to the ceiling. ‘She’s mine!’ 
cried the Teddy bear, giving her a hug which cracked little Goldilocks’ 
ribs. The three bears got busy at once; they undressed little Goldilocks 
and put her on the platter, ready to carve. While Goldilocks shivered and 
whimpered, the big grizzly bear sharpened his axe on the grind stone; the 
polar bear unsheathed his hunting knife, which he carried in a leather 
scabbard attached to his belt. As for Teddy bear, he just clapped his hands
and danced with glee. ‘She’s just right!’ he shouted. ‘Just right!’ Over 
and over they turned her, to see which part was the tenderest. Goldilocks 
began to scream with terror. ‘Be quiet,’ commanded the polar bear, ‘or you 
won’t get anything to eat.’ ‘Please Mr. Polar Bear, don’t eat me!’ begged 
Goldilocks. ‘Shut your trap!’ yelled the grizzly bear. We’!! eat first, and
you’ll eat afterwards.’ ‘But I don’t want to eat,’ cried Goldilocks, the 
tears streaming down her face. ‘You’re not going to eat,’ screamed the 
Teddy bear, and with that he grabbed her leg and put it in his mouth. ‘Oh 
oh!’ screamed Goldilocks. ‘Don’t eat me yet, I beg you. I’m not cooked.’ ” 
The children were getting hysterical.

” ‘Now you’re talking sensible,’ said the grizzly bear. Incidentally, the
grizzly bear had a strong father complex. He didn’t like the flesh of 
little girls unless well done. It was fortunate, indeed, for little 
Goldilocks that the grizzly bear felt this way about little girls, because 
the other two bears were ravenously hungry, and besides, they had no 
complexes whatever. Anyway, while the grizzly bear stirred the fire and 
added more logs, Goldilocks knelt in the platter and said her prayers. She 
looked more beautiful than ever now, and if the bears had been human they 
would not have eaten her alive, they would have consecrated her to the 
Virgin Mary. But a bear is always a bear, and these were no exception to 
the rule. So when the flames were giving off just the right heat, the three
bears took little Goldilocks and flung her onto the burning logs. In five 
minutes she was roasted to a crisp, hair and all. Then they put her back, 
on the platter and carved her into big chunks. For the grizzly bear a great
big chunk; for the polar bear a medium-sized chunk, and for the Teddy bear,
the cute little thing, a nice little tenderloin steak. My, but it tasted 
good. They ate every bit of her—teeth, hair, toenails, bones and kidneys. 
The platter was so clean you could have seen your face in it. There wasn’t 
even a drop of gravy left. ‘And now,’ said the grizzly bear, ‘we’ll see 
what she brought in that lunch basket. I’d just love to have a piece of 
acorn pie.’ They opened the basket and, sure enough, there were three 
pieces of acorn pie. The big piece was very big, the middlin’ piece was 
about medium, and the little piece was just a tiny, wee little snack. ‘Yum 
yum!’ sighed the Teddy bear, licking his chops. ‘Acorn pie! What did I tell
you?’ growled the grizzly bear. The polar bear had stuffed his mouth so 
full he could not grunt. When they had downed the last mouthful the polar 
bear looked around and, just as pleasant as could be, he said: ‘Now 
wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were a bottle of schnapps in that 
basket!’ Immediately the three of them began pawing through the basket, 
looking for that delicious bottle of schnapps… “

“Do we get any schnapps, mommy?” cried the little girl.

“It’s ginger snaps, you dope!” yelled the boy.

“Well at the bottom of the basket, wrapped in a wet napkin, they finally 
found the bottle of schnapps. It was from Utrecht, Holland, year 1926. To 
the three bears, however, it was just a bottle of schnapps. Now bears, as 
you know, never use corkscrews, so it was quite a job to get the cork out… 
“

“You’re wandering,” said MacGregor.

“That’s what you think,” I said. “Just hold your horses.”

“Try to finish it by midnight,” he rejoined.

“Much sooner than that, don’t worry. If you interrupt again, though, I 
will lose the thread.”

“Now this bottle,” I resumed, “was a very unusual bottle of schnapps. It 
had magic properties. When each bear in turn had taken a good swig, their 
heads began to spin. Yet, the more they drank, the more there was left to 
drink. They got dizzier and dizzier, groggier and groggier, thirstier and 
thirstier. Finally the polar bear said: ‘I’m going to drink it down to the 
last drop,’ and, holding the bottle between his two paws, he poured it down
his gullet. He drank and drank, and finally he did come to the last drop. 
He was lying on the floor, drunk as a pope; the bottle upside down, the 
neck halfway down his throat. As I say, he had just swallowed the very last
drop. Had he put the bottle down, it would have refilled itself. But he 
didn’t. He continued to hold it upside down, getting the last drop. And 
then a miraculous thing took place. Suddenly, little Goldilocks came alive,
clothes and all, just as she always was. She was doing a jig on the polar 
bear’s stomach. When she began to sing, the three bears grew so frightened 
that they fainted away, first the grizzly bear, then the polar bear, and 
then the Teddy bear… “

The little girl clapped her hands with delight.

“And now we’re coming to the end of the story. The rain had stopped, the 
sky was bright and clear, the birds were singing, just as always. Little 
Goldilocks suddenly remembered. that she had promised to be home for 
dinner. She gathered up her basket, looked around to make sure she had 
forgotten nothing, and started for the door. Suddenly she thought of the 
cow bell. ‘It would be fun to ring it just once more,’ she said to herself.
And with that, she climbed on to the stool, the one that was just right, 
and she rang with all her might. She rang it once, twice, three times—and 
then she fled as fast as her little legs would carry her. Outside, the 
little fellow with the dunce cap was waiting for her. ‘Quick, get on my 
back!’ he ordered. ‘We’ll make double time that way.’ Goldilocks hopped on 
and away they raced, up hill and down dell, over the golden meadows, 
through the silvery brooks. When they had raced this way for about three 
hours, the little man said: ‘I’m getting weary, I’m going to put you down.’
And he deposited her right there, at the edge of the woods. ‘Bear to the 
left,’ he said, ‘and you can’t miss it.’ He was off again, just as 
mysteriously as he had come… “

“It that the end?” piped the boy, somewhat disappointed.

“No,” I said, “not quite. Now listen… Goldilocks did as she was told, 
bearing to the left. In a very few minutes she was standing in front of her
own door.

“Why, Goldilocks,’ said her mother, ‘What great big eyes you have!’ ” ‘AH
the better to eat you up!’ said Goldilocks.

“‘Why, Goldilocks,’ cried her father, ‘and where in hell did you put my 
bottle of schnapps?’ ” ‘I gave it to the three bears,’ said Goldilocks 
dutifully.

” ‘Goldilocks, you’re telling me a fib,’ said her father threateningly.

“‘I’m not either,’ Goldilocks replied. ‘It’s the God’s truth.’ Suddenly 
she remembered what she had read in the big book about sin. ‘Father,’ she 
said, kneeling before him reverently, ‘I believe I’ve committed a sin.’ ” 
‘Worse than that,’ said her father, reaching for the strap, you’ve 
committed larceny.’ And without another word he began to belt and flay her.
‘I don’t mind your visiting the three bears in the woods,’ he said, as he 
plied the strap. ‘I don’t mind a little fib now and then. But what I do 
mind is not to have a wee drop of schnapps when my throat is sore and 
parched.’ He flayed her and belted her until Goldilocks was just a mass of 
welts and bruises. ‘And now,’ he said, putting in an extra lick for the 
finish, ‘I’m going to give you a treat. I’m going to tell you the story of 
the three bears—or what happened to my bottle of schnapps.’ “And that, my 
dear children, is the end.”

*

The story finished, the kids were hustled off to bed. We could now settle
down comfortably to drink and chew the fat. MacGregor liked nothing better 
than to talk of old times. We were only in our thirties but we had twenty 
years of solid friendship between us and besides, at that age one feels 
older than at fifty or sixty. Actually, both MacGregor and I were still in 
a period of prolonged adolescence.

Whenever MacGregor took up with a new girl it seemed imperative for him 
to look me up, get my approval of her, and then settle down for a long, 
sentimental talk-fest. We had done it so many times that it was almost like
playing a duet. The girl was supposed to sit there enchanted—and to 
interrupt us now and then with a pertinent question. The duet always began 
by one of us asking if the other had seen or heard anything recently of 
George Marshall. I don’t know why we instinctively chose this opening. We 
were like certain chess players who, no matter who the opponent may be, 
always open with the Scotch gambit.

“Have you seen George lately?” says I, apropos of nothing at all.

“You mean George Marshall?”

“Yeah, is seems ages since I’ve seen him.”

“No, Hen, to tell you the truth, I haven’t. I suppose he’s still going to
the Village Saturday afternoons.”

“To dance?”

MacGregor smiled. “If you want to call It that, Henry. You know George!” 
He paused, then added: “George is a queer guy. I think I know less about 
him now than ever.”

“What f”

“Just that, Henry. That guy leads a double life. You ought to see him at 
home, with the wife and kids. You wouldn’t know him.”

I confessed I hadn’t seen George since he got married. “Never liked that 
wife of his.”

“You should talk to George about, her sometime. How they manage to live 
together is a miracle. He gives her what she wants and in return he goes 
his own way. Boy, it’s like skating on dynamite when you visit them. You 
know the sort of double-talk George indulges in… “

“Listen,” I interrupted, “do you remember that night in Greenpoint, when 
we were sitting in the back of some gin mill and George began a spiel about
his mother, how the sun rose and set in her ass?”

“Jesus, Hen, you sure think of strange things. Sure, I remember. I 
remember every conversation we ever had, I guess. And the time and place. 
And whether I was drunk or sober.” He turned to Trix. “Are we boring you? 
You know, the three of us were great pals once. We had some good times 
together, didn’t we, Hen? Remember Maspeth—those athletic contests? We 
didn’t have much to worry about, did we? Let’s see, were you tied up with 
the widow then, or was that later? Get this, Trix… Here’s this guy hardly 
out of school and he falls in love with a woman old enough to be his 
mother. Wanted to marry her, too, didn’t you, Hen?”

I grinned and gave a vague nod.

“Henry always falls hard. The serious sort, though you’d never think it 
to look at him… But about George. As I was saying before, Hen, George is a 
different guy. He’s at loose ends. Hates to work, loathes his wife, and the
kids bore him to death. All he thinks of now is tail. And boy, does he 
chase it! Picks ‘em younger all the time. The last time I saw him he was in
a hell of a mess with some fifteen-year-old from his own school. (I still 
can’t picture George as a principal, can you?) It began right In his 
office, it seems. Then he takes to meeting her at the dance hall. Finally 
he has the nerve to take her to a hotel—and register as man and wife… The 
last I heard they were diddlin’ one another in a vacant lot near the ball 
grounds. Some day, Hen, that guy’s going to make the headlines. And boy, 
that won’t make pleasant reading!”

At this point I had a flash of memory, so vivid and so complete I could 
scarcely contain myself. It was like opening a Japanese fan. The picture 
was of a time when George and I were still twins, so to speak. I was then 
working for my father, which means I must have been twenty-two or three. 
George Marshall had come down with a bad case of pneumonia which had kept 
him bed-ridden for several months. When he got well enough, his parents 
shipped him to the country—somewhere in New Jersey. It all started by my 
receiving a letter from him one day saying that he was recuperating fast 
and wouldn’t I come to visit him. I was only too glad of the chance to 
steal a few days’ vacation, and so I sent him a wire saying I’d be there 
the following day.

It was late autumn. The countryside was cheerless. George met me at the 
station, with his young cousin, Herbie. (The farm was run by George’s aunt 
and uncle, that is, his mother’s sister and her husband.) The first words 
out of his mouth—as I might well have expected—were to the effect that it 
was his mother who had saved his life. He was overjoyed to see me and 
appeared to be in excellent shape. He was brown and weather-beaten.

“The grub is wonderful, Hen,” he said. “It’s a real farm, you know.”

To me it looked much like any other farm—sort of seedy, grubby and 
run-down. His aunt was a stout, kind-hearted, motherly creature whom George
worshipped, apparently, almost as much as he did his mother. Herbie, the 
son, was a bit of a zany. A blabbermouth too. But what got me at once was 
the look of wonder in his eyes. He evidently idolized George. And then the 
way we talked to one another was something new for him. It was hard to 
shake him off our heels.

The first thing we did—I remember it so well—was to have a tall glass of 
milk. Rich milk. Milk such as I hadn’t tasted since I was a boy. “Drink 
five and six of them a day,” says George. He cut me a thick slice of 
home-made bread, spread some country butter over it, and over that some 
home-made jam.

“Did you bring any old clothes with you, Hen?”

I confessed I hadn’t thought of that.

“Never mind, I’ll lend you my things. You’ve got to wear old clothes 
here. You’ll see.”

He looked pointedly at Herbie. “Eh, Herbie?”

I had arrived on the afternoon train. It was now getting on to dark. 
“Change your clothes, Hen, and we’ll take a brisk hike. Dinner won’t be 
ready till seven. Got to work up an appetite, you know.”

“Yeah,” said Herbie, “we’re going to have chicken tonight.”

And in the next breath he asked me if I were a good runner.

George gave me a sly wink. “He’s crazy about games, Hen.”

When I met them at the foot of the stairs I was handed a big stick. 
“Better wear your gloves,” said Herbie.

He threw me a big woolen muffler.

“All set?” says George. “Come on, let’s hurry.” And he starts off at a 
record-breaking clip.

“Why the hurry?” said I. “Where are we going?”

“Down by the station,” said Herbie.

“And what’s down there?”

“You’ll see. Won’t he George?”

The station was a dismal, forlorn affair. A line of freight cars was 
standing there, waiting for milk cans, no doubt.

“Listen,” said George, slowing up a bit to keep in step with me, “the 
idea is to take the lead. You know .what I mean!” He talked rapidly, 
mumbling the words, as if there were something secretive connected with our
actions. “Up to now there’s been just Herbie and me: we’ve had to make our 
own fun. Nothing to worry about, Hen. You’ll get on to it quick enough. 
Just follow me.”

I was more than ever baffled by this Quixotic piece of information. As we
hopped along Herbie became positively electrified. He gabbled like an old 
turkey cock.

George opened the door of the station softly, stealthily, and peered 
inside. An old drunk was snoozing away on the bench. “Here,” said George, 
grabbing my hat and stuffing an old cap in my hand, “wear this!” He shoves 
a crazy looking contraption on his own head and pins a badge on his coat. 
“You stay here,” he commands, “and I’ll open shop. Do just as Herbie does 
and you’ll be all right.”

As George ducks into the office and opens the ticket window Herbie pulls 
me by the hand. “This is it, Hen,” says he, going up to the window where 
George is already standing, pretending to make up the train schedule.

“Sir, I would like to buy a ticket,” says Herbie in a timid voice.

“A ticket to where?” says George, frowning. “We’ve got all kinds of 
tickets here. Do you want first, second, or third class? Let’s see, the 
Weehawken Express pulls out of here in about eight minutes. She’s making a 
connection with the Denver and Rio Grande at Omaha Junction. Any baggage?”

“Please, sir, I don’t know where I want to go yet.”

“Whaddaya mean, you don’t know where you want to go? What do you think 
this is—a lottery? Who’s that man behind you? Any relation of yours?”

Herbie turns round to look at me and blinks.

“He’s my great uncle, sir. Wants to go to Winnipeg, but he’s not sure 
when.”

“Tell him to step up here. What’s the matter with him—is he deaf or just 
hard of hearing?”

Herbie pushed me in front of him. We look at each other, George Marshall 
and I, as if we had never seen each other before.

“I just came from Winnipeg,” says I. “Isn’t there some other place I 
could go to?”

“I could sell you a ticket to New Brunswick, but there wouldn’t be much 
in it for the company. We’ve got to make ends meet, you know. Now here’s a 
nice looking ticket for Spuyten Duyvil—how would that suit you? Or would 
you like something more expensive?”

“I’d like to go by way of the Great Lakes, if you could arrange it.”

“Arrange it? That’s my business! How many in the party? Any cats or dogs?
You know the lakes are frozen now, don’t you? But you can catch the iceboat
this side of Canandaigua. I don’t have to draw a map for you, do I?”

I leaned forward as if to communicate something private and confidential.

“Don’t whisper!” he shouted, banging a ruler against the counter. “It’s 
against the rules… Now then, what is it you wished to convey to me? Speak 
clearly and pause for your commas and semicolons.”

“It’s about the coffin,” I said.

“The coffin? Why didn’t you mention that right off? Hold on a minute, 
I’ll have to telegraph the dispatch master.” He went over to the machine 
and tapped the keys. “Got to get a special routing. Livestock and corpses 
take the deferred route. They spoil too quickly… Anything in the coffin 
besides the body?”

“Yes, sir, my wife.”

“Get the hell out of here before I call the police!” Down came the window
with a bang. And then an infernal racket inside the coop, as if the new 
station master had run amok.

“Quick,” says Herbie, “let’s get out of here. I know a short cut, come 
on!” And grabbing my hand, he pulls me out by the other door, around by the
water tank. “Flop down, quick,” he says, “or they’ll spy you.” We flopped 
in a puddle of dirty water under the tank. “Shhhhh!” says Herbie, putting 
his finger over my lips. “They might hear you.”

We lay there a few minutes, then Herbie got up on all fours, cautiously, 
looking about as if we were already trapped. “You lay here a minute and 
I’ll run up the ladder and see if the tank’s empty.”

“They’re nuts,” I said to myself. Suddenly I asked myself why I should be
lying in that cold dirty water. Herbie called softly: “Come on up, the 
coast is clear. We can hide in here a while.” As I gripped the iron rungs I
felt the wind go through me like an icy blast. “Don’t fall in,” says 
Herbie, “the tank’s half-full.” I climbed to the top and hung from the 
inside of the tank with frozen hands. “How long do we stay this way?” I 
asked after a few minutes. “Not long,” says Herbie. “They’re changing the 
watch now. Hear ‘em? George’ll be waiting for us in the caboose. He’ll have
a nice warm stove going.”

It was dark when we clambered out of the tank and raced across the yard 
to the end of the freight train standing on the siding. I was frozen 
through and through. Herbie was right. As we opened the door of the caboose
there was George sitting before a hot stove, warming his hands.

“Take your coat off, Hen,” he says, “and dry yourself.” Then he reaches 
up to a little closet and gets down a flask of whiskey. “Here, take a good 
pull—this is dynamite.” I did as instructed, passed the flask to George who
took a good swig himself, and then to little Herbie.

“Did you bring any provisions?” says George to Herbie.

“A chippie and a couple of potatoes,” says Herbie, fishing them out of 
his pockets.

“Where’s the mayonnaise?”

“I couldn’t find it, honest” says Herbie.

“Next time I want mayonnaise, understand?” thunders George Marshall. “How
the hell do you expect me to eat roast potatoes without mayonnaise?” Then, 
without transition, he continues: “Now the idea is to crawl under the cars 
until we’re near the engine. When I whistle, the two of you crawl from 
under and run as fast as you can. Take the short cut down to the river. 
I’ll meet you under the bridge. Here, Hen, better take another gulp of 
this… it’s cold down there. Next time I’ll offer you a cigar—but don’t take
it! How do you feel now?” I felt so good I couldn’t see the sense of 
leaving in a hurry. But evidently their plans had to be executed in strict 
timing.

“How about that chippie and the potatoes?” I ventured to ask.

“That’s for next time,” says George. ‘We can’t afford to be trapped 
here.” He turns to Herbie. “Have you got the gun?”

Herbie nodded and opened his jacket enough to reveal a rusty old Colt 
revolver in a holster stuck under his belt.

Off again, scrambling around under the freight trains as if we were 
outlaws. I was glad Herbie had given me the woolen muffler. At a given 
signal Herbie and I flung ourselves face downward under the car, waiting 
for George’s whistle.

“What’s the next move?” I whispered.

“Shhhhh! Some one may hear you.”

In a few minutes we heard a low whistle, crawled out from under, and ran 
as fast as our legs would carry us down the ravine toward the bridge. There
was George again, sitting under the bridge, waiting. “Good work,” he says. 
“We gave ‘em the slip all right. Now listen, we’ll rest a minute or two and
then we’ll make for that hill over there, do you see?” He turned to Herbie.
“Is the gun loaded?”

Herbie examined his rusty old Colt, nodded, then shoved it back in the 
holster.

“Remember,” says George, “don’t shoot unless it’s absolutely necessary. I
don’t want you to be killing any more children accidentally, you 
understand?”

There was a gleam in Herbie’s eyes as he shook his head.

“The idea, Hen, is to get to the foot of that hill before they give the 
alarm. Once we get there we’re safe. We’ll make a detour home by way of the
swamp.”

We started off on a trot, crouching low. Soon we were in the bullrushes 
and the water coming over our shoe tops. “Keep an eye open for traps,” 
muttered George. We got to the foot of the hill without detection, rested 
there a few moments, then set off at a brisk pace to skirt the swamp. 
Finally we reached the road and settled down to a leisurely walk.

“We’ll be home in a few minutes,” says George. “We’ll go in the back way 
and change our clothes. Mum’s the word.”

“Are you sure we shook them off?” I asked.

“Reasonably sure,” says George.

“The last time they followed us right to the bam,” says Herbie.

“What happens if we get caught?”

Herbie drew the side of his hand across his throat.

I mumbled something to the effect that I wasn’t sure I wanted to be 
involved.

“You’ve got to be,” says Herbie. “It’s a feud.”

“We’ll explain it in detail tomorrow,” says George.

In the big room upstairs there were two beds, one for me, and one for 
Herbie and George. We made a fire at once in the big-bellied stove, and 
began changing our clothes.

“How would you like to give me a rubdown?” says George, stripping off his
undershirt. “I get a rubdown twice a day. First alcohol and then goose fat.
Nothing like it, Hen.”

He lay down on the big bed and I went to work. I rubbed until my hands 
ached.

“Now you lie down,” says George, “and Herbie’ll fix you up. Makes a new 
man of you.”

I did as instructed. It sure felt good. My blood tingled, my flesh 
glowed. I had an appetite such as I hadn’t known in ages.

“You see why I came here,” says George. “After supper we’ll play a round 
of pinochle—just to please the old man—and then we’ll turn in.”

“By the way, Hen,” he added, “watch your tongue. No cursing or swearing 
in front of the old man. He’s a Methodist. We say grace before we eat. Try 
not to laugh!”

“You’ll have to do it too some night,” says Herbie. “Say any goddamned 
thing that comes to mind. Nobody listens anyway.”

At table I was introduced to the old man. He was the typical farmer—big 
homy hands, unshaven, smelling of clover and manure, spare of speech, 
wolfing his food, belching, picking his teeth with the fork and complaining
about his rheumatism. We ate enormous quantities, all of us. There were at 
least six or seven vegetables to go with the roast chicken, followed by a 
delicious bread pudding, fruits and nuts of all kinds. Everyone but myself 
drank milk with his food. Then came coffee with real cream and salted 
peanuts. I had to open my belt a couple of notches.

As soon as the meal was over the table was cleared and a pack of greasy 
playing cards was produced. Herbie had to help his mother with the dishes 
while George, the old man and I played a three-handed game of pinochle. The
idea was, as George had already explained, to throw the game to the old 
man, otherwise he became grouchy and surly. I seemed to draw nothing but 
excellent hands, which made it difficult for me to lose. But I did my best,
without being too obvious about it. The old man won by a narrow margin. He 
was highly pleased with himself. “With your hands,” he remarked, “I would 
have been out in three deals.”

Before we went upstairs for the night, Herbie put on a couple of Edison 
phonograph records. One of them was “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” It 
sounded like something from another incarnation.

“Where’s that laughing record, Herbie?” says George.

Herbie dug into an old hat box and with two fingers dexterously extracted
an old wax cylinder. It was a record I’ve never heard the like of. Nothing 
but laughter—laughter of a loon, a crackpot, a hyena. I laughed so hard my 
stomach ached.

“That’s nothing,” says George, “wait till you hear Herbie laugh!”

“Not now,” I begged. “Save it for tomorrow.”

I no more than hit the pillow and I was sound asleep. What a bed! Nothing
but soft, downy feathers—tons of them, it seemed. It was like slipping back
into the womb, swinging in limbo. Bliss. Perfect bliss.

“There’s a piss-pot under the bed, if you need it,” were George’s last 
words. But I couldn’t see myself getting out of that bed, not even to take 
a crap.

In my sleep I heard the maniacal laugh of the loon. It was echoed by the 
rusty door knobs, the green vegetables, the wild geese, the slanting stars,
the wet clothes flapping on the line. It even included Herbie’s old man, 
the part of him that gave way sometimes to melancholy mirth. It came from 
far away, deliciously off-key, absurd and unreasonable. It was the laugh of
aching muscles, of food passing through the midriff, of time foolishly 
squandered, of millions of nothings all harmoniously fitting together in 
the great jig-saw puzzle and making extraordinary sense, extraordinary 
beauty, extraordinary wellbeing. How fortunate that George Marshall had 
fallen ill and almost died! In my sleep I praised the grand cosmocrator for
having arranged everything so sublimely. I slid from one dream to another, 
and from dream to a stone-like slumber more healing than death itself.

I awoke before the others, content, refreshed, motionless except for a 
pleasure waggle of the fingers. The farm-yard cacophany was music to my 
ears. The rustling and scraping, the banging of pails, the 
cock-adoodle-doo, the pitter patter, the calls of the birds, the cackling 
and grunting, the squealing, the neighing and whinnying, the chug-chug of a
distant locomotive, the crunch of hard snow, the slap and gust of the wind,
a rusty axle turning, a log wheezing under the saw, the thud of heavy boots
trudging laboriously—all combined to make a symphony familiar to my ear. 
These homely ancient sounds, these early morning notes born of the stir of 
everyday life, these calls, cackles, echoes and reverberations of the 
barnyard filled me with an earthling’s joy. A starveling and a changeling, 
I heard again the immemorial chant of early man. The old, old song—of ease 
and abundance, of life where you find it, of blue sky, running waters, 
peace and gladness, of fertility and resurrection, and life everlasting, 
life more abundant, life superabundant. A song that starts in the very 
bowels, pervades the veins, relaxes the limbs and all the members of the 
body. Ah, but it was indeed good to be alive—and horizontal. Fully awake, I
once again gave thanks to the Heavenly Father for having stricken my twin, 
George Marshall. And, whilst rendering devout thanks, praising the divine 
works, extolling all creation, I allowed my thoughts to drift toward the 
breakfast which was doubtless under way, and toward the long, lazy stretch 
of hours, minutes, seconds before the day would draw to a close. It 
mattered not how we filled the day, nor if we left it empty as a gourd; it 
mattered only that time was ours and that we could do with it as we wished.

The birds were calling more lustily now. I could hear them winging from 
tree top to tree top, fluttering against the window pains, swooshing about 
under the eaves of the roof.

“Morning, Hen! Morning, Hen!”

“Morning, George! Morning, Herbie!”

“Don’t get up yet, Hen… Herbie’ll make the fire first.”

“O.K. Sounds wonderful.”

“How did you sleep?”

“Like a top.”

“You see why I don’t want to get well too quick.”

“Lucky guy, you. Aren’t you glad you didn’t die?”

“Hen, I’m never going to die. I promised myself that on my death-bed. 
It’s just too wonderful to be alive.”

“You said it. I say, George, let’s fool them all and live forever, what 
f” Herbie got up to make the fire, then crawled back into bed and began 
chuckling and cooing.

“What do we do now?” I asked. “Lie here till the bell rings?”

“Exactly,” said Herbie.

“I say, Hen, wait till you taste those com muffins his mother makes. They
melt in your mouth.”

“How do you like your eggs?” said Herbie. “Boiled, fried or scrambled?”

“Any old way, Herbie. Who gives a damn? Eggs are eggs. I can suck them 
raw too.”

“The bacon, Hen, that’s the thing. Thick as your thumb.”

Thus the second day began, to be followed by a dozen more, all of the 
same tenor. As I said before, we were twenty-two or three at the time, and 
still in our adolescence. We had nothing on our minds but play. Each day it
was a new game, full of hair-raising stunts. “To take the lead,” as George 
had put it, was as easy as drawing one’s breath. Between times we skipped 
rope, threw quoits, rolled marbles, played leap-frog. We even played tag. 
In the toilet, which was an outhouse, we kept a chess board on which a 
problem was always waiting for us. Often the three of us took a shit 
together. Strange conversations in that outhouse! Always some fresh tid-bit
about George’s mother, what she had done for him, what a saint she was, and
so on. Once he started to talk about God, how there must be one, since only
God could have pulled him through. Herbie listened reverently—he worshipped
George.

One day George drew me aside to tell me something confidential. We were 
to give Herbie the slip for an hour or so. There was a young country girl 
he wanted me to meet. We could find her down near the bridge, toward dark, 
with the right signal.

“She looks twenty, though she’s only a kid,” said George, as we hastened 
toward the spot. “A virgin, of course, but a dirty little devil. You can’t 
get much more than a good feel, Hen. I’ve tried everything, but it’s no 
go.”

*

Kitty was her name. It suited her. A plain-looking girl, but full of sap 
and curiosity. Hump for the monkeys.

“Hello,” says George, as we sidle up to her. “How’s tricks? Want you to 
meet a friend of mine, from the city.”

Her hand was tingling with warmth and desire. It seemed to me she was 
blushing, but it may have been simply the abundant health which was 
bursting through her cheeks.

“Give him a hug and squeeze.”

Kitty flung her arms about me and pressed her warm body tight to mine. In
a moment her tongue was down my throat. She bit my lips, my ear lobes, my 
neck. I put my hand under her skirt and through the slit in her flannel 
drawers. No protest. She began to groan and murmur. Finally she had an 
orgasm.

“How was it, Hen? What did I tell you?”

We chatted a while to give Kitty a breathing spell, then George locked 
horns with her. It was cold and wet under the bridge, but the three of us 
were on fire. Again George tried to get it in, but Kitty managed to wriggle
away.

The most he could do was put it between her legs where she held it like a
vise.

As we were walking back toward the road Kitty asked if she couldn’t visit
us sometime—when we got back to the city. She had never been to New York.

“Sure,” said George, “let Herbie bring you. He knows his way around.”

“But I won’t have any money,” said Kitty.

“Don’t worry about that,” said big-hearted George, “we’ll take care of 
you.”

“Do you think your mother would trust you?” I asked.

Kitty replied that her mother didn’t give a damn what she did. “It’s the 
old man: he tries to work me to the bone.”

“Never mind,” said George, “leave it to me.”

In parting she lifted her dress, of her own accord, and invited us to 
give her a last good feel.

“Maybe I won’t be so shy,” she said, “when I get to the city.” Then, 
impulsively, she reached into our flies, took out our cocks, and kissed 
them—almost reverently. “I’ll dream about you tonight,” she whispered. She 
was almost on the point of tears.

“See you tomorrow,” said George, and we waved goodbye.

“See what I mean, Hen? Boy, if you could get that you’d have something to
remember.”

“My balls are aching.”

“Drink lots of milk and cream. That helps.”

“I think I’d rather jerk off.”

“That’s what you think now. Tomorrow you’ll be panting to see her. I 
know. She’s in my blood, the little bitch… Don’t let Herbie know about 
this, Hen. He’d be horrified. He’s just a kid compared to her. I think he’s
in love with her.”

“What will we tell him when we get back?”

“Leave that to me.”

“And her old man—don’t you ever think of that?”

“You said it, Hen. If he ever caught us I think he’d cut our balls off.”

“That’s cheering.”

“You’ve got to take a chance,” said George. “Here in the country all the 
gals are dying for it. They’re much better than city tripe, you know that. 
They smell clean. Here, smell my fingers—ain’t that delicious?”

*

Childish amusements… One of the funniest things was taking turns riding 
an old tricycle which had belonged to Herbie’s dead sister. To see George 
Marshall, a grown man, pushing the pedals of that ridiculous vehicle was a 
sight for sore eyes. His fanny was so big he had to be squeezed into the 
seat with might and main. Steering with one hand, he energetically rang a 
cow bell with the other. Now and then a car stopped, thinking he was a 
cripple in trouble: George would allow the occupants to get out and escort 
him to the other side of the road, pretending that he was indeed a 
paralytic. Sometimes he would bum a cigarette or demand a few pennies. 
Always in a strong Irish brogue, as if he had just arrived from the old 
country.

One day I espied an old baby carriage in the bam. It struck me that it 
would be still funnier if we took George Marshall out for a walk in that. 
George didn’t give a shit. We got a bonnet with ribbons and a big horse 
blanket to cover him. But try as we would, we couldn’t get him into the 
carriage. So Herbie was elected. We dressed him up like a kewpie doll, 
stuck a clay pipe in his mouth, and started down the road. At the station 
we ran into an elderly spinster waiting for the train. As usual, George 
took the lead.

“I say, ma’am,” touching his cap, “but would you be tellin’ us where we 
might get a little nip? The boy’s almost frozen.”

“Dear me,” said the spinster automatically. Then suddenly getting the 
drift of his words, she squeaked: “What‘8 that you said, young man f” Again
George touched his cap respectfully, pursing his lips and squinting like an
old spaniel. “Just a wee nip, that’s all. He’s nigh on to eleven but it’s a
terrible thirst he has.”

Herbie was sitting up now, puffing vigorously at the short clay pipe. He 
looked like a gnome.

At this point I felt like taking the lead myself. The spinster had a look
of alarm which I didn’t like.

“I beg pardon, ma’am,” said I, touching my cap, “but the two of them are 
dotty. You know… ” I tapped my skull.

“Dear me, dear me,” she wheezed, “how perfectly dreadful.”

“I do my best to keep them in good spirits. They’re quite a trial. Quite.
Especially the little one. Would you like to hear him laugh?”

Without giving her a chance to answer, I beckoned Herbie to go to it. 
Herbie’s laugh was really insane. He did it like a ventriloquist’s dummy, 
beginning with an innocent little smile which slowly broadened into a grin,
then a chuckle and a cooing followed by a low gurgling, and finally a belly
laugh which was irresistible. He could keep it up indefinitely. With the 
pipe in one hand and the rattle which he waved frantically in the other, he
was a picture out of a Swiss joke book. Every now and then he paused to 
hiccough violently, then leaned over the side of the carriage and spat. To 
make the situation still more ludicrous, George Marshall had taken to 
sneezing. Pulling out a large red handkerchief with huge holes in it, he 
vigorously blew his nose, then coughed, then sneezed some more.

“The tantrums,” I said, turning to the spinster. “There’s no harm they be
doing. Wonderful boys, the two of ‘em—except they be queer.” Then, on the 
impulse, I added: “Fact is, ma’am,” touching my cap reverently, “we’re all 
screwballs. You wouldn’t know where we might stop for the night, seein’ the
condition we’re in? If only you had a drop of brandy—just a thimbleful. Not
for meself, you understand, but for the little ones.”

Herbie broke into a crying fit. He was so gleefully hysterical he didn’t 
know what he was doing. He waved the rattle so assiduously that suddenly he
lurched too far and the carriage tipped over.

“Goodness gracious, goodness gracious!” wailed the spinster.

George quickly pulled Herbie loose. The latter now stood up, in his 
jacket and long pants, the bonnet still wreathed around his head. He 
clutched the rattle like a maniac. Goofy was no word for it.

Says George, touching his cap, “No hurt, ma’am. He’s got a thick skull.” 
He takes Herbie by the arm and pulls him close. “Say something to the lady!
Say something nice!” And he gives him a god-awful box on the ears.

“You bastard!” yells Herbie.

“Naughty, naughty!” says George, giving him another cuff. “What do you 
say to ladies? Speak up now, or I’ll have to take your pants down.”

Herbie now assumed an angelic expression, raised his eyes heavenward, and
with great deliberation, delivered himself thus: “Gentle creature of God, 
may the angels deliver you! There are nine of us in all, not counting the 
goat. My name is O’Connell, ma’am. Terence O’Connell. We were going to 
Niagara Falls, but the weather… “

The old cluck refused to hear any more. “You’re a public disgrace, the 
three of you,” she cried. “Now stay here, all of you, while I look for the 
constable.”

“Yes, ma’am,” says George, touching his cap, “we’ll stay right here, 
won’t we, Terence?” With this he gives Herbie a sound slap in the face.

“Ouch!” yells Herbie.

“Stop that, you fool!” screams the spinster. “And you!” she says to me, 
“why don’t you do something? Or are you crazy too?”

“That I am,” says I, and so saying, I put my fingers to my nose and began
bleating like a nanny goat.

“Stay right here! I’ll be back in a minute!” She ran toward the station 
master’s office.

“Quick!” says George, “let’s get the hell out of here!” The two of us 
grabbed the handle of the baby carriage and started running. Herbie stood 
there a moment, unfastening his bonnet; then he took to his heels.

“Good work, Herbie,” said George, when we got safely out of sight. “Let’s
rehearse this tonight. Hen’ll give you a new spiel, won’t you, Hen?”

“I don’t want to be the baby any more,” said Herbie.

“All right,” said George amiably, “we’ll let Hen ride in the carriage.”

“If I can squeeze in, you mean.”

“We’ll squeeze you in, if we have to use a sledgehammer.”

But after dinner that night we got new ideas, better ones, we thought. We
lay awake till midnight discussing plans and projects.

Just as we were dozing off, George Marshall suddenly sat up.

“Are you awake, Hen?” he says.

I groaned.

“There’s something I forgot to ask you.”

“What’s that?” I mumbled, fearing to wake myself up.

“Una… Una Gifford! You haven’t said a word about her all this time. 
What’s the matter, aren’t you in love with her any more?”

“Jesus!” I groaned, “what a thing to ask me in the middle of the night.”

“I know, Henry, I’m sorry. I just want to know if you still love her.”

“You know the answer,” I replied.

“Good, I thought so. O.K., Hen, good night!”

“Good night!” said Herbie.

“Good night!” said I.

I tried to fall back to sleep but it was impossible. I lay there staring 
at the ceiling and thinking of Una Gifford. After a while I decided to get 
it out of my system.

“Are you awake, George?” I called softly.

“You want to know if I saw her lately, don’t you?” he said.

He hadn’t closed his eyes, obviously.

“Yeah, I would. Tell me anything. Any little crumb will do.”

“I wish I could, Hen, I know how you feel, but there just isn’t anything 
to tell.”

“Christ, don’t say that! Make up something!”

“All right, Hen, I’ll do that for you. Hold on a minute. Let me think… “

“Something simple,” I said. “I don’t want a fantastic story.”

“Listen, Hen, this is no lie: I know she loves you. I can’t explain how I
know, but I do.”

“That’s good,” I said. ‘Tell me a little more.”

“The last time I saw her I tried to pump her about you. She pretended to 
be absolutely indifferent. But I could tell she was dying to hear about 
you… “

“What I’d like to know,” I broke in, “is this: has she taken up with 
someone else?”

“There is somebody, Hen, I can’t deny that. But it’s nothing to worry 
about. He’s just a fill-in.”

“What’s his name?”

“Carnahan or something like that. Forget about him! What worries Una is 
the widow. That hurt her, you know.”

“She can’t know very much about that!”

“She knows more than you think. Where she gets it, I don’t know. Anyway, 
her pride’s hurt.”

“But I’m not going with the widow any more, you know that.”

“Tell it to her!” says George.

“I wish I could.”

“Hen, why don’t you make a clean breast of it? She’s big enough to take 
it.”

“I can’t do it, George. I’ve thought and thought about it, but I can’t 
screw up the courage.”

“Maybe I can help you,” said George.

I sat up with a bang. “You think so? Really? Listen, George, I’d swear my
life away to you if you could patch it up. I know she’d listen to you… When
are you going bach?”

“Not so fast, Hen. Remember, it’s an old sore. I’m not a wizard.”

“But you’ll try, you promise me that?”

“Of course, of course. Fratres Semper!”

I thought hard and fast for a few moments, then I said: “I’ll write her a
letter tomorrow, saying I’m with you and that we’ll both be back soon. That
might prepare the way.”

“Better not,” said George promptly. “Better spring a surprise on her. I 
know Una.”

Maybe he was right. I didn’t know what to think. I felt elated and 
depressed at the same time. Besides, there was no prodding him into quick 
action.

“Better go to sleep,” said George. “We’ve got lots of time to hatch up 
something.”

“I’d go back tomorrow, if I could get you to go with me.”

“You’re crazy, Hen. I’m still convalescing. She won’t get married in a 
hurry, if that’s what’s eating you up.”

The very thought of her marrying someone else petrified me. Somehow I had
never visualized that. I sank back on the pillow like a dying man. I 
actually groaned with anguish.

“Hen… “

“Yes?”

“Before I go to sleep I want to tell you something… You’ve got to stop 
taking this so seriously. Sure, if we can patch it up, fine! I’d like 
nothing better than to see you get her. But you won’t if you let it get 
under your skin. She’s going to make you miserable just as long as she can.
That’s her way of getting back at you. She’s going to say no because you 
expect her to say no. You’re off balance. You’re licked before you start… 
If you want a bit of advice, I’d say drop her for a while. Drop her cold. 
It’s a risk, certainly, but you’ve got to take it. As long as she’s got the
upper hand you’re going to dance like a puppet. No woman can resist doing 
that. She’s not an angel, even if you think she is. She’s a swell-looking 
girl and she’s got a big heart. I’d marry her myself, if I thought I stood 
a chance… Listen, Hen, there’s plenty to pick from. For all you know, there
may even be better ones than Una. Have you ever thought of that?”

“You’re talking drivel,” I replied. “I wouldn’t care if she were the 
worst bitch in creation… she’s the one I want—and no one else.”

“O.K., Hen, it’s your funeral. I’m going to sleep… “

I lay awake a long while, revolving all manner of memories. They were 
delicious thoughts, filled with Una’s presence. I was certain George would 
patch It up for me. He liked to be coaxed, that was all. Through a slit in 
the window shade I could see a brilliant blue star. Seemed like a good 
omen. I wondered, calf-like, if she were also lying awake, mooning about 
me. I concentrated all my powers, hoping to wake her if she were asleep. 
Under my breath I softly called her name. It was such a beautiful name. It 
suited her perfectly.

Finally I began to doze. The words of an olden song came to my lips…

I wonder as I wander out under the sky

How Jesus our Saviour did come for to die

For poor orn’ry people like you and like I

I wonder as I wander out under the sky.

Forget all about her? How easy to say that! I could never, never forget 
Una, not even if I lived to have nine wives and forty-six children. George 
was really a sap. He would never know what it was to be in love—he was too 
clear-headed. I made up my mind to find out all about that guy Carnahan as 
soon as I got back. Taking no chances. I wondered some more as I wandered 
out under the sky. Then blotto—like a sheet of lead falling.

The next day it rained. We cooped ourselves up in the barn the whole day,
playing one game after another—euchre, whist, backgammon, checkers, 
dominoes, lotto, parchesi… We even played jacks. Toward evening George 
suggested that we try out the organ which was in the parlor. It was an 
ancient, wheezy contraption, just made for melancholy hymns. George and I 
took turns playing. We sang with full lungs, lustily, like Christian 
martyrs. Our favorite, which we jazzed up finally, was—“Will There be any 
Stars in my Crown?” Herbie could sing it to perfection, with tears in his 
eyes. His mother, never dreaming that we were clowning it, came in, took a 
seat in the corner, and murmured now and then: “How beautiful!”

Finally the old man appeared. He too joined in the singing. Said it made 
him feel good. Hoped we boys would continue to live and act like good 
Christians. At dinner he thanked God for having inspired us to sing His 
praises so beautifully. He thanked Him heartily for all the blessings He 
had showered on them throughout the years.

It was a smoked tenderloin of pork this time, with sauerkraut and mashed 
potatoes, red cabbage, boiled onions, apple sauce and stewed pears. For 
dessert we had a cheese cake which was still warm. And, of course, the 
usual glass of milk rich with cream.

Oddly enough, the old man was talkative for a change. He had been reading
a book, the same book, for over a year now. It was called In Tune with the 
Infinite. He wondered if George or I had ever read it. George avoided the 
issue, but gave me a sidelong glance which meant—“Take the lead!”

Since we had to talk, I felt we might just as well make an evening of it 
on a subject dear to the old man’s heart. I began by pretending that I 
wasn’t certain I had understood everything the author meant to convey. The 
old man was pleased by this show of modesty. He probably had understood 
very little himself, if the truth were known.

“I had a friend once.” I began, “who could explain all manner of things. 
He carried this very book about with him night and day, wherever he went. 
George knows who I mean, don’t you, George?”

“Sure,” says George, “you mean Abercrombie.” (There was no such person, 
of course.) “Yes, that’s the name.”

“He lisped a bit, didn’t he?” said George.

“No, he limped.”

The old man signalled to get on with the story. He didn’t care what the 
man’s name was nor whether he limped or stuttered.

“I met him out in California, about three years ago, it was. He was 
studying to be a minister of the gospel then. I say then, because he 
discovered a gold mine shortly after we met and he forgot all about God 
pretty quick.”

“Didn’t he meet with an accident?” says George. “No, that was his 
brother—or his half-brother, rather.”

The old man didn’t relish George’s interruptions, I could see that 
plainly. I decided to make haste.

“It was at the edge of the Mojave Desert we happened to meet,” I 
continued. “I had been looking for a job with the borax people. Abercrombie
says to me: ‘You don’t want a job, Henry, what you need is to find God. 
I’ve come to help you.’ He called me Henry, mind you, though I had never 
told him my name. He says: ‘I had a dream about you back in Barstow the 
other night. I knew you were in trouble, so I came just as quickly as I 
could.’ His talk made me just a little uneasy. I had never before met any 
one who had second sight or who could communicate telepathically. I thought
at first he might be spoofing me. But he was dead serious, as I soon 
discovered.”

“You say he had this book with him?” the old man asked, looking somewhat 
puzzled.

“Yes, sir… it was by Ralph Waldo Trine, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right,” said the old man. “Go on now, I’m interested.”

“I hardly know where to begin,” I faltered. “Seems like so many things 
happened at once.”

“Take your time,” said the old man, “this is very interesting indeed. 
Mom, let’s have some more of that coffee, will you—and another cut of 
cheese cake.”

I was glad to have a breather because I actually didn’t know what was 
coming next. I had started a story without any idea of how it would end. I 
had expected George Marshall to fill in, to help me over the humps.

“As I was saying, we were alone out there in the desert. He had come to 
me in the middle of the night, and he was standing there talking to me as 
if he had known me all his life. In fact, I might say that he seemed to 
know me better than my most intimate friends. He kept saying, ‘You’re in 
trouble, let me help you.’ Now the strange thing is I didn’t know I was in 
trouble, not any special trouble, at any rate. All I wanted was a job, and 
that wasn’t so difficult. But the next day I realized that he knew what he 
was talking about, because in the afternoon I got a telegram from a friend 
of mine saying my mother was very ill and that I should return at once. I 
didn’t have more than a couple of dollars in my pocket. Of course, 
Abercrombie knew what was in the telegram–I didn’t have to read it aloud to
him. ‘What’ll I do?’ I says, and he answers: ‘Get down on your knees and 
pray!’ So I got down, and he got down too, right beside me, and we prayed a
long time. I immediately felt better, I must say. It was as though a load 
had been lifted off me. That very evening a stranger knocked at our door. 
He was a cattle man from Wyoming. He wanted to know if we could put him up 
for the night. Well, we got to talking and before long he too knew all 
about my circumstances. We went to bed and the next morning this stranger 
pulls me aside. ‘How much would it take to get you back home?’ he asks me 
straight off. I was flabbergasted. I didn’t know what to say. ‘Here, take 
this,’ he says, and he shoves two bills in my hand. They were fifty dollar 
bills. ‘I guess that’ll see you through,’ he says, giving me a warm, 
friendly smile. ‘I’ll pay you back as soon as I can,’ I said gratefully. 
‘Don’t worry about that, son,’ he says, ‘I’ve got more than I need. Take it
and give it to somebody else in need when the time comes.’ “When he left, 
Abercrombie says to me:

” ‘Your prayer was answered. Never doubt again. I’m going back to 
Barstow. If you’re ever in need again, send for me.’ ” ‘But where and how?’
I asked.

” ‘Send out a call, that’s all. I’ll get it wherever you are. Just 
believe.’ “About six months late I was in trouble again. This time over a 
woman. I was desperate. And then suddenly I remembered Abercrombie’s words,
and I sent out a call. Three days later he showed up at my home—all the way
from Colorado.”

The old man leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his head buried in 
his hands. “That is remarkable, Henry,” he said. “And did he help you the 
second time?”

“He did indeed,” I answered. “I didn’t have to do a thing, except pray. 
This time, when he left, Abercrombie says to me: ‘You’ll never have to send
for me again, Henry. By now you must realize that it is not I who has the 
power, but God. Trust Him and your prayers will be answered. I’ll probably 
never see you again—but I’ll always be near you, in spirit.’ And I never 
did see him again. But, as he said, I know he’s always near. I’d know it if
he were to die, for instance.”

“Well, George,” says the old man, “what have you to say for yourself? Did
you ever have an experience like that?”

“No,” says George, “but I’d like to ask Hen a question.” He turned to me 
with a perfectly straight face, and said: “Isn’t it true, Hen, that this 
Abercrombie was a jail-bird once?”

(Pure invention, of course, but I had to take it up.) “Yes,” I replied, 
“he had been in prison for ten years on a charge of manslaughter. I never 
knew whether he was guilty or not.”

“But how did he happen to commit the crime?”

I had to think fast.

“He was convicted of killing a man in self-defense. There were no 
witnesses.”

“But didn’t Abercrombie have a strange reputation—before the killing?”

“Ye-e-s,” I admitted, not knowing what George’s next move might be.

“Did it ever strike you, Hen, that Abercrombie was a bit queer? I don’t 
mean crazy, but he must have had a loose tile. Didn’t you tell me once that
he believed he could fly?”

“Yes, he did say that—once. But he never repeated it. He wasn’t boasting,
either, when he said it. He was telling me of the extraordinary powers God 
sometimes grants us mortals when we have need of His protection. That isn’t
so queer, is it?”

“Maybe not, Hen… but there were other things.”

“Like what?”

“You said he could see in the dark, like a cat, that he heard things 
other people couldn’t possibly hear, that he had a phenomenal memory. I 
think you said once that he claimed to have two fathers. What did he mean 
by that f” This last really stumped me. I had to admit I couldn’t answer 
the question.

“Listen, Hen, there were a lot of things about Abercrombie that were 
shady. I never said anything at the time, because you believed in him so 
implicitly. You said before that he discovered a gold mine. Are you dead 
sure of that?”

“No,” I said, “I heard that from his half-brother.”

“Who was a notorious liar,” says George quickly.

The old man signified that he wasn’t taking kindly to George’s grilling.

“But Hen’s gullible,” George insisted. “He believes anything and 
everything.”

“Belief is God-like,” said the old man curtly.

“But it’s got to be within reason,” said George. “One can’t believe 
anything and everything!”

“George,” said the old man, “you’re like your father. You’re a doubting 
Thomas.”

“Now, now,” said George’s aunt, “don’t say things like that!”

“I will too!” said the old man, thumping the table with his fist. 
“George’s father is a good man, but he has no faith. He never did have 
any—not an ounce. He’ll die in sin, like he was born.”

The old man’s wrath was rising.

“He’s been good to me,” said George stubbornly, not because he cared 
about his father, but just to make the old man angrier.

“That doesn’t matter,” said the old man, “it’s his duty to treat you 
right, he deserves no credit for that. What is he doing for God? That’s 
what I want to know.”

George couldn’t answer that. The old man continued to rant and rail. His 
wife tried to calm him down but succeeded only in fanning his ire. These 
bursts of temper obviously took the place of a good souse.

I don’t know what would have happened had not little Herbie had an 
inspiration. Suddenly he began to sing—one of those sweet, sticky Christian
hymns which make the tears flow. He sang like an angel, with eyes closed, 
and in a falsetto voice. We were all so astounded no one dared say a word. 
When he had finished, he leaned forward, bowed his head, and murmured a 
prayer. He begged God to restore peace and harmony in the bosom of the 
family, to forgive his father for losing his temper, to ease his mother’s 
burdens, and finally with great sanctimoniousness, to look after Cousin 
George who had been grievously stricken. When he lifted his face the tears 
were streaming down his cheeks.

The old man was visibly moved. Apparently Herbie had never put on an act 
like this before.

“You’d better go to bed now, son,” he said, his voice quivering. 
“Tomorrow I’m going to get you that bicycle you’ve been asking for.”

“Bless you, father,” said Herbie. “And you, too, mother. May God keep us 
all and preserve us from harm!”

I noticed that his mother looked rather apprehensive.

“You’re not ill, are you, Herbie?” she inquired solicitously.

“No, ma, I’m just fine.”

“Well, have a good sleep,” she said, “and don’t worry too much.”

“George,” said the old man, putting his arm around George’s shoulder, 
“forgive my hasty words. Your father is a good man. He’ll find his way to 
God some day.”

“We’re all sinners before the Lord,” said Herbie.

I was beginning to find it difficult to keep a straight face.

“Let’s take a little walk before we turn in,” I suggested.

“You go straight to bed,” said the old man to Herbie. “It’s getting 
late.”

Outside George and I started walking rapidly toward the river. When we 
got a convenient distance away from the house we exploded with laughter.

“That little Herbie’s a comedian,” I said. “I don’t know how the hell I 
managed to keep a straight face.”

“He sure knows how to take the lead,” said George. “I wonder if Kitty’s 
still up?” he added impulsively.

“Jesus, don’t try that!” I cautioned. “It’s too late.”

“You never know,” says George. “I’d like to twine my fingers around that 
rose-bush before going to bed, wouldn’t you?”

“I’d like a good drink, if you ask me,” said I.

“That’s an idea. Let’s go to the caboose and see what’s there.”

We took the long way around, skirting Kitty’s house. The lights were out,
but George insisted on giving the signal—two low whistles—just in case. “If
she’s not dead to the world,” said George, “she’ll sneak out and follow 
us.” We strolled leisurely to the caboose.

We put the lantern on the stove, opened the flask which still contained a
few drops, and sat there with ears cocked.

“You’re taking a hell of a chance, George. You can get twenty years for 
this.”

“If I could only get it in,” he replied, “it would be worth it.”

“You can have her,” I said, “I’m clearing out.”

“Don’t do that, Hen. Wait a few minutes and I’ll go with you.”

I waited a few minutes, then got up.

“Maybe she’s down by the bridge, waiting for us,” said George.

We strolled down to the bridge. Sure enough, there she was. “Oh, George,”
she cried, “I thought you’d never come.” She flung her arms about him 
passionately. I walked away, saying I’d keep watch. I stood at the 
crossroads for almost a half-hour. I had doused the lantern, of course. 
“The fool!” I thought to myself. “He won’t be happy until he knocks her 
up.”

Finally I heard them coming. “Well, any luck this time?” I asked, after 
we had seen Kitty off.

George groaned. “Let’s go down to the river. I think I’ve got blood all 
over me.”

“Oi yoi!” I whistled. “So that’s it! Now you’re really in for it.”

“Guess we’ll have to go back to the city soon,” said George.

“What? Are you going to leave her in the ditch?”

“She won’t tell on me. I made her promise.”

“I’m not thinking of you, you bastard. I’m thinking of her.”

“Oh, we can fix it up when she comes to the city,” said George. “I know a
medical student who’ll do the trick.”

“Supposing she gets a hemorrhage?”

“She won’t,” said George. “She’s too healthy.”

We didn’t speak for a while.

“About Una,” says George suddenly. “I’ve been thinking it over, Hen. I 
think the best thing is for you to see her yourself. I might only make a 
mess of it.”

“You bastard!”

Another streak of silence.

“I think I’ll leave in a day or two,” I said, as we neared the house.

“Might be a good idea,” said George. “You don’t want to wear out your 
welcome.”

“I’d like to pay something for my board,” I said. “You can’t do that, 
Hen, they’d be insulted.”

“Well, I’ll buy them something, then.”

“O.K.,” said George.

After a pause, he added: “Don’t think I’m not grateful for all you’ve 
done.”

“It was nothing,” I said. “Some day you can take care of me.”

“I’m sorry about Una… I really don’t… “

I cut him short. “Forget it!”

“It would be a shame to lose her, Hen.”

“Don’t let that worry you. I’m not giving her up.”

“This Carnahan… she’s engaged to him, you know.”

“What? Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” said George.

“So that’s it? Listen, I’m leaving tomorrow by the first train.”

“Don’t get panicky, Hen! They’ve been engaged for three months now.”

“What? Jesus, it beats me how you could keep such a thing quiet.”

“I thought it would blow over. I’m sure she’s not in love with him.”

“But she might marry him just to spite me,” I retorted.

“That’s true… But she’d regret it for the rest of her life, if she did.”

“And what good would that do me? Listen, you’re a chump, do you know 
that?”

“Don’t get sore, Hen. What could I do? If I had told you, you’d have been
miserable. Besides, we hadn’t seen one another for a long while.”

“Why not be honest about it? You simply don’t give a shit one way or the 
other, isn’t that it?”

“Come on now, don’t be foolish!”

“George,” I said, “I like you just as much as ever; I can’t help liking 
you, we’ve been so close all these years. But I’ll never trust you again. 
You had no right not to let me know.”

“All right, Hen, have it your own way.”

We said no more. We went to bed in silence—after George had washed 
himself thoroughly. I half hoped he’d get a good dose of clap.

In the morning I said goodbye to everyone. When I got to New York I 
stopped at a shop and sent the folks a huge box of chocolates, not knowing 
what the hell would please them.

From then on, George Marshall was no longer my twin brother…

*

“So that’s how you lost Una?” said MacGregor. “Yep! When I got back I 
found that she was married. Had married just three days before.”

“Well, Hen, it was all for the best, I guess.”

“That sounds just like George.”

“No, seriously, why try to buck Fate? Suppose you had married her? In a 
year or two you’d have separated—if I know you.”

“Better to separate than never to marry.”

“Hen, you’re a chump! To hear you, I’d say you were still in love with 
her.”

“Maybe I am.”

“You’re nuts. If you were to run into her tomorrow, in the street, you’d 
probably run away from her.”

“Maybe I would. But that has nothing to do with it.”

“You’re hopeless, Hen.” He turned to Trix. “Did you ever hear the like of
it? And he calls himself a writer! Wants to write about life but doesn’t 
know human nature.” He turned square around. “When you get ready to write 
the great American novel, Hen, see me! I’ll give you a few facts of life to
set you straight.”

I laughed outright.

“All right, wise guy, go head and laugh. When your smoke dreams clear 
away, come to me and I’ll untangle the mess for you. I’ll give you two more
years with this… this what’s her name… yeah, Mona. Mona, Una… sort of go 
together, don’t they? Why don’t you choose a gal with an ordinary name, 
like Mary, Jane or Sal?”

Having delivered himself of this, MacGregor felt a little mellower. 
“Hen,” he began, “we’re all saps. You’re not the worst guy in the world, 
not by a long shot. The trouble is, we all had big ideals. But once your 
eyes are opened you realize that you can never change the set-up. Sure, you
can make minor changes—revolutions and all that—but they don’t mean a 
thing. People remain what they are, whether Royalists, Communists, or just 
plain Democrats. Everyone for himself, that’s the game. When you’re young 
it’s disheartening. You can’t quite believe it. The more faith you have, 
the greater the disillusionment. It’ll take another fifty thousand years—or
more—before there’s any fundamental change in humanity. Meanwhile we’ve got
to make the best of it, isn’t that so?”

“You talk exactly like your old man.”

“That’s true enough, Henry.”

He said it soberly. “Shows you that we’re not as original as we thought 
we were. We’re getting old, do you realize that?”

“You may be—I’m not!” I said bluntly.

Even Trix had to laugh at this. “You’re just kids, the two of you,” she 
said.

“Don’t fool yourself, sister,” said MacGregor, going over to her and 
fondling her. “Because I still have a pair of balls doesn’t make me a 
youngster. I’m a disillusioned old man, believe it or not.”

“Then why do you want to marry me?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said MacGregor wearily. “Maybe just to have a 
change.”

“I like that,” said Trix, slightly offended.

“You know what I mean,” said MacGregor. “Jesus, do we have to become 
romantic—just to please this guy? I want a home, a real home, that’s what! 
I’m sick of running around.”

Trix looked at me dumbly. She shook her head. “Don’t take him seriously,”
said I comfortingly. “He always puts things in the worst light.”

“That’s it,” chirped MacGregor. “Now let me hear you say something nice 
about me. Tell her not to worry, I’ll settle down soon enough. Prove to her
what a good husband I’ll make… No, hold on! Better not say anything. You 
have the god-damndest way of gumming things up.”

“Let him talk!” said Trix. “I’m curious to know what your friend Henry 
really thinks of you.”

“You don’t think he’d tell you the truth, do you? That guy’s as slippery 
as an eel. He talks of George Marshall but… well, if I didn’t know him so 
long and so well I’d have dropped him ages ago.”

“Henry,” said Trix, “do you really think I should marry him?”

“Don’t ask me to answer that, please.” I tried to laugh it off.

“You see,” said MacGregor. “He couldn’t say yes or no, just like that. 
Now what do you mean, Henry? Is it Yes or No?”

I held my tongue.

“That means no,” said MacGregor.

“Don’t be so quick!” said Trix.

“Well, Henry, nothing like being honest,” said MacGregor. “I guess you 
know me too well.”

“I haven’t said one thing or another,” said I. “Why jump to conclusions? 
By the way, what time is it?”

“There you are! Now he wants to know the time. That’s Henry to a T.”

“It’s only two-thirty,” said Trix. “Let me fix you some coffee before you
go.”

“Fine,” said I. “And is there any cake left?”

“See, now he’s all alert. Always wide awake when you mention food. Jesus,
Hen, you’ll never change. I guess maybe that’s what I like about you—you’re
incorrigible.” He sat down close beside me, flicked the ash off his cigar, 
and proceeded to unburden himself.

“Tess has all sorts of connections, you know. She’d like to see me on the
bench. The thing is, I can’t run for judge and start divorce 
proceedings—see what l meant Besides, I’m not so sure I want to be a judge.
Even on the bench you can’t keep your skirts clean, you know that. Still, 
I’m not much good as a lawyer, to be frank with you. Can’t work up any 
enthusiasm… “

“Why don’t you pull out and try something else?”

“Like what—selling tires? What can you do, Henry? One job’s as bad as 
another.”

“But isn’t there anything you’re keen about?”

“Frankly, Hen, no! I’m just a lazy bugger at heart. I want to float along
with the least effort.”

“Then float!” I said.

“That’s no answer. Now, if I had a hankering to write, it would be 
different. But I don’t. I’m not an artist. And I’m not a politician. I’m 
not a ball of fire either.”

“Then you’re licked,” I said.

“I don’t know, Hen, I wouldn’t say that. There must be lots of things a 
fellow can do without getting all heated up.”

“The trouble with you is,” I said, “you always want some one to make up 
your mind for you.”

“Now you’re talking,” said MacGregor, suddenly more cheerful, though why,
I couldn’t understand. “That’s why I want to marry Trix. I need some one to
steady me. Tess is like a wet sponge. Instead of putting some backbone in 
me, she lets me fall apart.”

“When are you going to grow up?” said I.

“Come on now, Henry, don’t hand me that line. You’re just a big boy 
yourself. Running a speakeasy, think of it! And you were going to set the 
world on fire. Ho ho! Ho ho!”

“Give me time. I may fool you yet. At least, I know what I’d like to do. 
That’s something.”

“Can you do it T That’s the question.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“Henry, you’ve been trying to write ever since I knew you. Other writers 
your age have had at least a half-dozen books published already. You 
haven’t even finished your first book—or have you? Come, come, get wise to 
yourself!”

“Maybe I won’t begin till I’m forty-five,” I said jokingly.

“Make it sixty, Henry. By the way, who was that English writer who began 
at seventy?”

I couldn’t remember his name either at the moment.

Trix appeared with the coffee and cake. We moved back to the table.

“Well, Hen,” he began again, helping himself to a huge slice of cake, 
“all I’ve got to stay is—don’t weaken! You may yet be a writer. Whether 
you’ll be a great one, I can’t predict. You’ve got a hell of a lot to 
learn.”

“Don’t pay any attention to him,” said Trix.

“Nothing bothers him,” said MacGregor. “He’s even more obstinate than I 
am, and that’s saying a lot. The truth is, it hurts me to see him wasting 
his time.”

“Wasting his time?” echoed Trix. “And what about you?”

“Me? I’m lazy. That’s different.” He gave her a broad grin.

“If you’re thinking to marry me,” she rejoined, “you’ll have to get on 
your toes. You don’t think I’m going to support you, do you?”

“Will you listen to that, Henry,” howled MacGregor, chuckling as if it 
were a great joke. “Now who said anything about wanting to be supported?”

“Well, how unit we live? Not on what you earn, I’m sure.”

“Tush tush!” said MacGregor. “Honey, I haven’t begun to work yet. Just 
wait till the divorce is granted, then I’ll get down to brass tacks.”

“I’m not so sure I want to marry you,” said Trix. This in dead 
seriousness.

“Now, do you hear that?” said MacGregor. “How do you like that? Well, 
honey, it’s your loss. In ten years I may be sitting on the Supreme Court 
bench.”

“But in the meantime?”

“Don’t cross any bridges before you come to them, that’s my motto.”

“He can always make a living as a public stenographer,” said I.

“And a damned good living at that,” said MacGregor.

“I don’t want to marry a public stenographer.”

“You’re marrying me,” said MacGregor. “Who knows what I am?”

“Right now you’re just a misfit,” said Trix.

“That’s true, honey,” said MacGregor lightly, “but so were lots of men 
before they climbed to the top of the ladder.”

“But you’re not a climber!”

“Right again,” said MacGregor. “I was only using a figure of speech. 
Look, you two, you don’t honestly think I’m a failure, do you? I’m only 
working on two cylinders now. I need inspiration. I need a good wife, a 
home, and one or two real friends. Like this bloke, for example. How about 
it, Henry, am I talking sense?”

Without waiting for a reply, he continued: “You see, Trix, guys like 
Henry and me are out of the common run. We’ve got quality. If you get me 
for a husband, you’re getting a jewel. I’m the most tolerant guy in the 
world. Henry will vouch for that. I can work as hard as any one… if I have 
to! Only I don’t see the sense of killing myself. It’s stupid. Now, I 
haven’t told you anything about this, but I’ve got several bright schemes 
up my sleeve. More than that—I’m actually carrying them out. I didn’t want 
to tell you until they panned out successfully. If only one of them comes 
through, we can sit back and breathe easy for the next ten years. How does 
that strike you?”

“You’re a dear,” said Trix, suddenly melting.

I don’t think she believed in his schemes one bit, but she was eager to 
clutch at any straw.

“There!” said MacGregor, beaming, “you see how simple it is?”

*

On my way home, an hour or so later, I got to thinking of all the wild 
projects he had hatched, beginning from the time I first knew him—when he 
was still going to prep school. How he had always complicated his life 
trying to make things easier for himself. I thought of the hours he had 
spent doing drudge work, so that “later” he might be free to do as he 
pleased, though he never did know precisely what it was he would do when he
would be able to do only what he pleased. To do nothing at all, which he 
always pretended was the summum bonum, was thoroughly out of the question. 
If we went to the beach for a holiday he was sure to bring his notebook 
along, and a law book or two, or even a few pages from the unabridged 
dictionary which he had been reading, a page at a time, for years. If we 
flung ourselves into the water he would have to race some one to the raft 
or propose that we swim around the point or suggest we play water polo. 
Anything but float quietly on our backs. If we stretched out in the sand he
would suggest we shoot craps or play cards. If we started a pleasant 
conversation he would turn it into an argument. He was never able to do 
anything in peace or contentment. His mind was always on the next thing, 
the next move.

Another peculiar thing I remembered about him was that he always had a 
bad cold—“a chest cold,” as he put it. Winter or summer, it made no 
difference. A summer cold was worse, he always said. With the colds he 
often got hay fever. In short, he was usually in a miserable condition, 
always ailing, griping, sneezing, and always blaming it on the cigarettes 
which he swore he would cut out next week or next month, and which 
sometimes he did do, to my great amazement, but only to go back to them, 
only to smoke more heavily. Sometimes it was the drinking which he felt was
putting him “on the bum,” and he would lay off the stuff for a while, maybe
six or eight months, but only to return to it, only to drink still more 
heavily. He did everything in this on-and-off fashion. When he studied he 
studied for eighteen and twenty hours a day, until he almost got congestion
of the brain. He might break the study routine by playing cards with the 
boys, which he considered relaxation. But he played cards in the same way 
he studied, smoked and drank—always to excess. He was a bad loser, 
moreover. As for the women—if he was chasing a girl he would keep after 
her, no matter how many times she refused him, until he almost drove her 
crazy. The moment she relented, or succumbed, he was through with her. Then
no more women for a period. Taboo. Absolutely. It was better to live 
without women; it was saner and healthier: he ate better, slept better, 
felt better; he’d rather have a good shit than a good fuck. And so on—to 
ninety-six decimal places. Until he ran into another girl, some one simply 
too irresistible for words. Then it would be another long goose chase, 
night and day, week after week, until he got his end in, and then she was 
just like all the rest, not a bit better, not a bit worse. “Just cunt, Hen…
just cunt!”

There were always twenty or more hefty tomes stacked up on his desk: he 
would read them as soon as he could get around to it. Often years went by 
before he ever opened one, and by then of course the book had lost all its 
flavor. He would try to sell me them at half price; if I refused he would 
reluctantly make me a present of them. “But you’ve got to promise you’ll 
read them!” he would say. He had copies of magazines ten and fifteen years 
old, and newspapers too, which were treated in the same manner. 
Occasionally he would take a batch of these with him, open them up on the 
trolley or the train, skim through them rapidly, then fling them out of the
window. “That’s that!” he would say, smiling ruefully. He had cleared his 
conscience.

Now and then, meeting me accidentally, he’d say: “Why don’t we go to the 
theater? I hear there’s a good play on at the Orpheum.” We’d get to the 
theater a half-hour late, stay a few minutes, then rush out as if the very 
atmosphere were poisonous. “That’s five bucks gone to hell,” he’d say. “How
much have you on you, Hen? Oh shit, don’t bother to look, I know the 
answer. When will you ever have any money in your pocket?” Then he’d steer 
me to a bar up some dismal side street, a bar where he knew the proprietor 
or the waiter or some one, and he’d try to borrow a few dollars; if he 
couldn’t get the money he’d make them stand us treat for a few rounds. 
“Have you got a nickel at least?” he’d ask petulantly. “I want to phone 
that little bastard Woodruff—he owes me a few bucks. I don’t care if he’s 
in bed or not. We’ll take a taxi and make him pay for it, what say?” He’d 
make one telephone call after another. Finally he’d think of some girl he 
had thrown over years ago, some good-natured slob, as he put it, who would 
be only too glad to see him again. “We’ll have a few drinks and beat it. 
Maybe I can make a touch. But don’t start any funny work—she’s always 
getting over the clap.” Thus the night would pass, running from place to 
place, getting nowhere, getting tired, getting crotchety, getting 
disgusted. Eventually we would wind up in Greenpoint, at his parents’ home,
where there was sure to be some beer on the ice. It had to be filched 
stealthily, noiselessly, because he was always on the outs with his old 
man, or else with his ma, and sometimes with the whole family. “They don’t 
have much love for you, Henry, I don’t mind telling you. I don’t know why 
it is, but they’ve got it in for you. I guess that business with the widow 
was just too much for them. To say nothing of that dose of clap you used to
brag about.”

Though he had left home years ago, his room was always there for him, 
exactly as he had left it, which is to say, in thorough disorder and 
smelling as if a corpse were rotting in it. “You’d think they’d have the 
decency to clean it up occasionally, wouldn’t you?” he’d say, throwing open
the windows. “I suppose they’re still trying to teach me a lesson, the 
damned idiots. You know, Henry, no one could have more stupid parents than 
you and me. No wonder we don’t get anywhere. We got off to a bad start.” 
After rummaging around a bit he’d add: “I suppose I could clean it up 
myself, but I never get around to it. I guess I am a lazy son-of-a-bitch. 
Just the same… ” And he’d trail off with oaths and curses.

Over a bottle of beer… “Do you remember, Hen, when we put that 
advertising campaign over for your old man? Right in this room, wasn’t it? 
Imagine, writing a thousand letters by hand! But we had a good time, didn’t
we? I can still see all those bottles standing on the floor beside us. We 
must have consumed a truck-load of beer. We never got paid for the job, 
either—that’s what I can’t forget. Jesus, I can see what a chip off the old
block you are! Never a cent on you. By the way, how is the old boy these 
days? Has he still the same twelve customers—or have they all died off? 
What a goofy business that was! I’m glad my old man was nothing but an iron
moulder. Wonder how we’ll wind up, eh? You’ll probably be begging in the 
street in your old age. Your old man had some pride, but you, Jesus, you 
haven’t an ounce of pride, faith, loyalty or anything, as far as I can see.
Just day by day, that’s it, eh Hen? What a life!”

He could ramble on this way indefinitely. Even when we turned in, the 
lights out, the covers over our heads, he would carry on. Often he lay in 
bed with a cigar in his mouth and a beer in his hand, talking, talking, 
flitting from memory to memory, like the ghost of a butterfly.

“Don’t you ever brush your teeth?” I would ask. He liked such 
interruptions.

“Hell no! I used to, Hen, but it’s too much bother. They’ll fall out 
anyway some day.”

“But don’t you have a bad taste in your mouth?”

“Of course I do. Terrible! But I’m used to it.” (Chuckling softly to 
himself.) “Sometimes it’s so bad I can hardly stand it myself. Now and then
I’ve had a girl remind me of it. That makes you feel a bit ashamed, of 
course. But you get over it. You’ve got to keep their minds concentrated on
the other thing. Once you get it in, it doesn’t matter what your breath 
smells like. Right t” Lighting his stale cigar and sitting bolt upright… 
“What does bother me, though, I’ll tell you honestly, is to have a dirty 
crotch. I don’t know, Hen, but I have the bad habit of wearing my shorts 
until they fall off. You know how often I take a bath! Once in a blue 
moon.” He chuckled. “I guess I don’t know how to wipe my ass. There’s 
always something clinging to the short hairs—dilberries, I guess. Sometimes
I clip them off with the scissors.”

Still running on… “We should have come home early and had a good talk, 
instead of running around that way. What’s the matter with me, do you 
suppose? I’ve been chasing around like this since I was a kid. Sometimes I 
get so feverish I think I’ve got St. Vitus’ dance. It gives me the jitters.
I tell you, I can tremble like a dipso. Now and then I stutter too. That 
scares the shit out of me… How about some more beer f”

“Let’s sleep, for Christ’s sake!”

“Why, Hen? You’ll sleep a long time when you’re dead.”

“Save something for tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow! Did you ever think, Henry, that there may be no tomorrow? You 
may die in your sleep—ever think of that?”

“So what?”

“Well, think of all you’d be missing.”

“I won’t miss a damned thing,” I said irritably. “All I ask is a good ten
hours’ sleep—and a good breakfast when I wake up! Did you ever think of 
breakfast in heaven?”

“There you go—thinking of breakfast already. And who’s to buy it, tell me
that?”

“We’ll worry about that tomorrow.”

Silence for a while.

“I say, Hen, just how much have you in your pocket? Tell me, will you, 
I’m curious.”

“I don’t know… fifteen or twenty cents maybe.”

“You’re sure it’s not thirty-five?”

“It could be. Why? Do you want to borrow some?”

“Borrow from you! Christ no! You’re a pauper. No, Hen, I was just 
curious, like I said. You start out with fifteen or twenty cents in your 
pocket—and not a wrinkle in your brow. You bump into someone—like me, for 
instance—and you go to the theater, you drink, you take taxis, you make 
telephone calls… “

“So what?”

“And it never disturbs you… I’m not speaking for myself, Hen. But 
supposing it were someone else?”

“What a thing to worry about!”

“I suppose it’s all a matter of temperament. If it were me, I’d be 
miserable.”

“You like to feel miserable.”

“I guess you’re right there. I must have been born that way.”

“And you’ll die that way.”

He coughed violently, then reached for a box of cigars. “What about a 
cigar, Hen? They’re a bit dry but they’re Havanas.”

“You’re mad. I’m going to sleep. Good night!”

“O.K. You don’t mind if I read a while, do you?” He held up a few large 
pages tom from the dictionary. My eyes were closed, I was almost out, but I
could hear him droning away.

“I’m on page 1504 now,” he was saying. “The unabridged. Mandelic. What a 
word! If I live to be another Methuselah maybe I’ll make use of a word like
that sometime. Are you asleep? It’s queer, though, what you do retain out 
of all this shit and verbiage. Sometimes the simplest words are the 
strangest. A word like corpse, for instance. Cadaver is natural and easy, 
but corpse! Or take Easter—I’ll bet you never thought where that comes 
from. English is a crazy language, do you know that? Imagine words like 
Michaelmas and Whitsuntide—or wassail or syndrome or nautch or whangdoodle.
Wait a minute, here’s a funnier one—prepollent. Or parlous—isn’t that a 
strange one? Or take acne or cirrhosis—it’s hard to imagine anyone 
inventing words like that, what? Language is sheer mystery. The more 
etymological I get the less I know. Are you awake? Listen, Hen, you were 
always a stickler for words. I’m surprised you haven’t read the dictionary 
through yet. Or have you? I know you tried to read the Bible through. The 
dictionary’s more fun, I think. It’s even crazier than the Bible… You know,
just to look at some words, just to roll them around in your mouth, makes 
you feel good. Here’s a few off-hand—old favorites: anacoluthon, 
sesquipedalian, apotheosis, which, by the way, you always mispronounce. 
It’s apotheosis. Some mean exactly what they look like or how they sound; 
gimcrack, thingamajig, sockdolager, gazebo, yammer. The Angles and the 
Jutes were responsible for the worst ones, I guess. Did you ever have a 
look at a Swedish book? There’s a mad language for you! And to think we 
once talked that way… Listen, I don’t want to keep you awake all night. 
Forget it! I have to do this every night because I promised myself I would.
It won’t get me anywhere, I know that goddamn well. But there’s one thing 
about this job, Hen—when I’m through, I’m through. Yes sir! When I finish a
page I wipe my ass with it. How do you like that? It’s like putting Finis 
to a book… “

CHAPTER TWELVE

It doesn’t take long for the speakeasy to become a sort of private club 
and recreation center. On the kitchen wall is a long list of names. Beside 
the names are chalked up the sums owed us by friends, our only steady 
customers.

Roberto and George Inness sometimes come to fence in the afternoon. If 
not, O’Mara, Ned and I play chess in the back room near the window. Should 
an important client, like Mathias, turn up, we duck through the window into
the back yard, hop the fence and out into the next street through a narrow 
lane. Occasionally Rothermel comes for a couple of hours in the late 
afternoon, to talk to Mona privately. He pays her ten or twenty dollars for
the privilege.

If it’s an off night, we drive the paying customers out early, put the 
tables together, and settle down to play pingpong. We hold regular 
tournament bouts. Cold snacks in between of course. Always washed down with
beer, gin or wine. If we run out of liquor we go to Allen Street for 
sacramental wine. Usually the “championship matches” are between Arthur 
Raymond and myself. We run up fantastic scores. In the end I usually throw 
the game to him because he’s a hard loser… Always daybreak before we turn 
in.

One evening Rothermel turns up with several of his bosom pals from the 
Jersey swamps. All judges and politicians. They order best of everything, 
of course. Everything was going smoothly until Tony Maurer turned up with a
beautiful model. For some reason Rothermel instantly took a violent dislike
to him, partly because his hair was cropped close, partly because, in 
Rothermel’s opinion, he was too glib. I happened to be serving Tony Maurer 
when Rothermel left his table in the back room, determined to pick a 
quarrel. He was already quite crocked, to be sure. A nasty bird, even when 
sober. I stood to one side for a while, observing with admiration the cool 
way in which Tony Maurer parried Rothermel’s thrusts. But when the latter 
grew outrageously insulting I decided it was time to intervene.

“You’d better get back to your table,” I said quietly and firmly.

“Who are you?” he snarled.

Boiling inside but outwardly cool as a cucumber, I said: “Me? I’m the 
boss here.”

Rothermel sniffed and snorted. I took him by the arm and turned him 
round, in the direction of the other room. “Don’t manhandle me!” he yelled.

Fortunately at this juncture his friends came to my rescue. They dragged 
him back to the other room, as if he were a sack of wood. Then they 
returned to make apologies to Tony Maurer and to Mona.

“We’ll get them all our of here soon,” I whispered to Tony Maurer.

“Please don’t!” he begged. “I can handle the situation. I’m used to it, 
you know. He thinks I’m a Hun, that’s what bothers him. Sit down a moment, 
won’t you? Have a drink. You mustn’t let these things disturb you.” Here he
tailed off into a long anecdote about his experience during the war—first 
as an intelligence officer, then as a spy. As I listened to him I could 
hear Rothermel’s voice rising higher and shriller. It sounded as if he were
having the tantrums. I signalled to Ned and O’Mara to quiet him. Where is 
that bitch? I’ll fuck her yet, by Christ!”

I rushed to his table and shook him, none too gently.

I looked quickly at his friends to see if they were going to make 
trouble. They seemed embarrassed and disconcerted.

“We’ll have to get him out of here,” I explained.

“Certainly,” said one of them. ‘Why don’t you call a cab and send him 
home? He’s a disgrace.”

Ned, O’Mara and myself bundled him into his overcoat and pushed him out 
into the street. A light sleet had fallen; it was now covered with a thin 
coat of snow. Rothermel was unable to stand without support. While Ned went
in search of a cab, O’Mara and I half-dragged, half-shoved him toward the 
corner. He was fuming and cussing; he was particularly venomous toward me, 
naturally. In the scramble he lost his hat. “You don’t need a hat,” said 
O’Mara. ‘We’ll use it to piss in.” Rothermel was now blind with rage. He 
tried to unhitch his arms in order to take a swing at us, but we held him 
tight. Suddenly and instinctively we both let go at once. Rothermel stood 
swaying lightly, not daring to make a move for fear his legs would give 
way. We retreated a few steps and then, moved by a common impulse, we began
dancing around him like goats, making faces at him, taunting him, thumbing 
our noses, scratching’ our behinds like monkeys, capering and cavorting 
like zanies. The poor bugger was beside himself. He was actually bellowing 
now. Fortunately the street was deserted. Finally he could stand it no 
longer. He made a lunge for us, lost his footing and slid into the gutter. 
We picked him up, stood him safely on the sidewalk, and repeated our 
antics, this time to the tune of a little ditty in which we made shameful 
use of his name.

The cab pulled up and we bundled him in. We told the driver that he had 
the D.T.‘s, gave him a phony address in Hoboken, and waved goodbye. When we
returned his friends thanked us and apologized all over again. “He belongs 
in the asylum,” said one of them. With that he ordered a round of drinks 
and insisted on buying us steak sandwiches. “If you ever have any trouble 
with the flat-footed guys, just call on us,” said the bald-headed 
politician. He handed me his card. Then he suggested the name of a 
bootlegger from whom we could get credit, if we ever needed credit. And so 
we had a second round and a third round, always of the best Scotch, which 
could have been horse piss for all I cared about it.

Shortly after they left, Arthur Raymond fell into a violent quarrel with 
some young chap whom I had never seen before, insisting that the latter had
insulted Mona. Duffy was the lad’s name. Seemed like a decent chap, even if
a little under the weather. “He’ll have to apologize publicly,” Arthur 
Raymond kept insisting. Duffy thought this a great joke. At last Arthur 
Raymond could stand it no longer. He got up, twisted Duffy’s arm, and threw
him on the floor. Then he sat on Duffy’s chest and banged his head against 
the floor. “Will you or won’t you?” he repeated, banging the poor fellow’s 
head mercilessly. A1 last Duffy mumbled a thick apology and Arthur Raymond 
lifted him to his feet. There was a dead silence, an unpleasant one for 
Arthur Raymond. Duffy searched for his coat and hat, paid his bill, and 
left—without a word. Arthur Raymond sat alone at his table, head down, 
looking glum and shamefaced. In a few moments he got up and stalked out.

It was not until a few nights later, when he showed up with a pair of 
black eyes, that we learned that Duffy had waited for him outside and given
him a good beating. Oddly enough, Arthur Raymond appeared to be happy over 
the trouncing he had received. It turned out that after the fracas Duffy 
and he had become good friends. With his usual false modesty he added that 
he had been somewhat at a disadvantage, always was when it came to 
fisticuffs, because he couldn’t afford to ruin his hands. Anyway, it was 
the first time in his life that he had taken a beating. It had given him a 
thrill. With a touch of malice he concluded: “Everybody seems to be happy 
about it. Maybe I deserved it.”

“Maybe it will teach you to mind your own business,” said Mona.

Arthur Raymond made no reply.

“And when are you going to pay your bill?” she added.

To everyone’s astonishment, Arthur Raymond replied: “How much is it?” 
Fishing into his pocket he brought up a roll of bills and peeled off the 
amount due.

“Didn’t expect that, did you?” he said, looking around like a bantam 
cock. He got up, went to the kitchen, and crossed his name off the list.

“And now I’ve got another surprise for you,” he said, requesting that 
drinks be served all around. “A month from today I’m giving a concert. 
Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Ravel, Prokofiev and Stravinsky. You’re all 
invited to come—it’s on me. My last appearance, so to say. After that I’m 
going to work for the Communist party. And I don’t care what happens to my 
hands. I’m through with this sort of life. I’m going to do something 
constructive. From now on I disown you all.”

As he sailed out he turned around to deliver this: “Don’t forget the 
concert! I’ll send you seats up front.”

From the time that Arthur Raymond delivered himself of this declaration 
things took a definite turn for the worse. All our creators seemed to 
descend on us at once, and not only the creditors but the police and the 
lawyer whom Maude had engaged to collect the back alimony. It would begin 
in the early morning, with the iceman pounding furiously on our door and us
pretending to be sound asleep or out. Afternoons it would be the grocer, 
the delicatessen man or one of the bootleggers rapping on the front window.
In the evening, trying to pass himself off as a client, would come a 
process server or a plainclothes man. Finally the landlord began to dun us 
for the rent, threatening to hail us to court if we didn’t pay up. It was 
enough to give one the jitters. Sometimes we felt so done up that we would 
close the joint and go to a movie.

One night the old trio—Osiecki, O’Shaughnessy and Andrews—arrived with 
three girls from the Follies. This was toward midnight and they were 
already lit up like ocean liners. It was one of those nights when just our 
intimate friends were on hand. The Follies girls, beautiful, brittle, and 
extraordinary vulgar, insisted on putting the tables together so that they 
could dance on the table tops, do the split, and that sort of thing. 
Osiecki, imagining himself to be a Cossack, kept spinning like a top, to 
our utter amazement. Hadn’t improved a whit in the interim, of course. But 
he was jollier than usual, and for some queer reason fancied himself to be 
an acrobat. After a few chairs had been broken and some crockery smashed, 
it was suddenly decided that we all go to Harlem. Mona, Osiecki and I got 
into a cab with Spud Jason and his Alameda, who was carrying on her lap a 
mangy little dog called Fifi. By the time we reached Harlem it had peed 
over everyone. Finally Alameda peed in her pants from excitement.

At Small’s, which was then the rage, we drank champagne, danced with the 
colored folk and ate huge steaks smothered with onions. Dr. Kronski was in 
the party and seemed to be enjoying himself hugely. Who was paying for it 
all, I had no idea. Probably Osiecki. Anyway, we got home toward dawn and 
tumbled into bed exhausted. Just as we were falling asleep Alan Cromwell 
rapped at the window, begging to be allowed in. We paid no attention to 
him. “It’s me—Alan—let me in!” he kept shouting. He raised his voice until 
it sounded as if he were screaming. Obviously he was soused to the gills 
and in a bad way. Finally a cop came along and dragged him away, giving him
a few love taps with his night stick as he did so. Kronski and O’Mara, who 
were sleeping on the tables, thought it a hell of a good joke. Mona was 
worried. However, we soon fell back into a dead slumber.

The next evening Ned, O’Mara and myself hatched an idea. We had taken to 
sitting in the kitchen with a ukulele, humming and talking softly while 
Mona took care of the customers. It was the time of the Florida boom. 
O’Mara, always restless, always itching to strike it rich, got the idea 
that the three of us ought to light out for Miami. It was his belief that 
we could make enough in a few weeks to send for Mona and lead a new life. 
Since none of us had money to invest in real estate we would have to get it
from those who had made it. We would offer our services as waiters or 
bellhops. We were even willing to shine shoes. Anything for a start. The 
weather was still good, and it would get better the farther south we 
travelled O’Mara always knew how to make the bait attractive.

Naturally Mona wasn’t very keen about our project. I had to promise that 
I would telephone her every night, no matter where we might be. All I 
needed was a nickel to drop in the slot; the charges could be reversed. By 
the time the telephone bill arrived the speakeasy would be closed and she 
would be with us.

Everything was set to decamp in a few days. Unfortunately, two days 
before starting, the landlord served us with summons. In desperation I 
tried to raise at least part of the money we owed him. On an impulse I 
looked up the son of one of my father’s bosom friends. He was quite a young
man but making good in the steamship business. I don’t know what on earth 
possessed me to tackle him; it was like grasping at a straw. The moment I 
mentioned money he turned me down cold. He even had the cheek to ask me why
I had singled him out. He had never asked me for any favors, had he? 
(Already a hard-boiled businessman. In a few years he would be a 
“success.”) I swallowed my pride and bored in. Finally, after being 
thoroughly humiliated, I succeeded in extracting a ten-spot from him. I 
offered to write out a promissory note but he spumed this derisively. When 
I got back to the joint I felt so wretched, so beaten, that I almost set 
fire to the place. However…

*

It was a Saturday afternoon when O’Mara and I set forth for Miami. It was
high time. The air was thick with wet, heavy snowflakes—the first snowfall 
of the season. Our plan was to get on the highway outside Elizabeth, there 
to catch a car as far as Washington where we were to meet Ned. For some 
reason of his own Ned was going to Washington by train. He was taking the 
ukulele along—for morale.

It was almost dark when we bundled into a car outside Elizabeth. There 
were five darkies in the car and they were all liquored up. We wondered why
in hell they were driving so fast. Before long we found out—the car was 
full of dope and the Federal men were on their tail. Why they had stopped 
to pick us up we couldn’t figure out. We felt vastly relieved when a little
this side of Philadelphia they slowed down and dumped us out.

The snow was falling heavily now, and a stiff gale was blowing, an icy 
gale. Moreover, it was pitch dark. We walked a couple of miles, our teeth 
chattering, until we struck a gas station. It was hours before we got 
another lift, and then only as far as Wilmington. We decided to spend the 
night in that Godforsaken hole.

Mindful of my promise I called Mona. She held me on the phone for almost 
fifteen minutes, the operator butting in every so often to remind us that 
the toll was rising. Things were pretty black at her end: she was to appear
in court the following day.

When I hung up I had such a fit of remorse that I was of a mind to turn 
back in the morning.

“Come on,” said O’Mara, “don’t let it get you down. You know Mona; she’ll
find a way out.”

I knew that myself but it didn’t make me feel any better.

“Let’s get started bright and early tomorrow,” I Said. “We can be in 
Miami in three days, if we try.”

The next day, around noon, we walked in on Ned who had installed himself 
in a broken-down hotel for a dollar a night. His room was like the setting 
for Gorki’s Night Lodging. Every other window pane was broken; some were 
stuffed with rags, some with newspapers.

The faucets didn’t work, the bed had a straw mattress, and the springs 
had completely given way. There were cobwebs hanging everywhere. The smell 
of dust was so thick it almost choked us. And this was a hotel for “white 
people.” In our glorious capital, no less.

We bought some cheese, wine and salami, a good loaf of bread and some 
olives, and moved across the bridge, into Virginia. Once across the line, 
we sat down on the grass under a shady tree and filled our bellies. Then we
stretched out in the warm sunshine, smoked a cigarette or two, and finally 
sang a little tune. This tune was to become our theme song—something about 
looking for a friendly face.

We were in high spirits when we got on our hind legs. The South looked 
good—warm, inviting, gracious, spacious. We were already in another world.

Entering the South is always inspiring. By the time one hits Maryland and
starts going over the roller coaster curves everything has undergone 
moderation, softening. When you come to the “Old Dominion” you are 
definitely in a new world, no mistaking it. People have manners, grace, 
dignity. The state that gave us most Presidents, or at least the best ones,
was a great state in its day. It still is, in many ways.

Many time I left New York, not caring in what direction I was wafted, so 
long as I could put some distance between myself and the city I loathed. 
Often I wound up in North Carolina or Tennessee. Passing through Virginia 
was like rehearsing a motif from a familiar symphony or quartet. 
Occasionally I would stop in a little burg and ask for a job because I 
liked the looks of the place. Of course I never took the job. I would 
linger for a while in an effort to imagine what It would be like to pass 
the rest of my days there. Hunger always routed me out of my reverie…

From Washington we got to Roanoke; not without difficulty, since we were 
three; not many drivers are willing to pick up three vagabonds, especially 
from the North. We decided that night that it would be better to split up. 
We looked at the map and decided that we would all meet the next evening at
the Post Office in Charlotte, N.C. The plan worked out beautifully. One by 
one we arrived at our destination, the last one only a half-hour later than
the first. Here we again changed plans, since Ned had discovered that he 
might have gone all the way through to Miami with the man who had picked 
him up. We decided that our next rendezvous would be in Jacksonville. 
O’Mara and I were to stick together; Ned would travel alone. It was a 
drizzling rain we faced next morning, shortly after dawn, standing on the 
highway outside of Charlotte. For an hour or more no one gave us a tumble. 
Fed up, we decided to stand in the middle of the road. It worked. The next 
car in sight came to a stop with a screech.

“What in Christ’s name’s the matter with you?”

shouted the driver.

“Where are you headed?” we shouted.

“Jacksonville!”

The door opened and we tumbled in. We were off again, at a 
record-breaking clip. Not a word out of the driver for several minutes. 
When he did open his trap it was to say—“Lucky I didn’t run you down.” We 
said nothing. “I didn’t know whether to shoot or to run you over,” he 
continued. O’Mara and I exchanged glances. “Where are you from?” he asked. 
“What’s your racket?” We told him. He looked at us searchingly, decided, I 
suppose, that we were speaking the truth, then slowly, painfully, related 
to us that he had accidentally killed a friend of his at a bar in a drunken
brawl. He had hit him over the head with a bottle, in self-defense. 
Terrified and panic-stricken, he had fought his way out of the place, piled
into his car, and skipped. He had two guns in his pockets and was ready to 
use them should any one attempt to bar his way. “You had a narrow escape,” 
he said.

After a while he confided hat he was making for Tampa, where he could 
safely hide away for a while. At least he thought he could. “I’ll probably 
go back and take what’s coming to me. I’ve got to collect myself first,” he
said. Again and again he repeated: “It wasn’t my fault, I never meant to 
kill him.” Once he broke down and wept like a child.

When we stopped for lunch he insisted on paying the bill. He paid for 
dinner too. In Macon (Georgia) we took a room with two beds, for which he 
also footed the bill. At the far end of the wide hall, seated in a rocker 
under a red light, sat a whore. As we were undressing, our friend laid his 
revolvers out on the dresser, together with his wallet, remarking quietly 
that whoever got to them first would be the lucky man.

Early next morning we set out again. Our friend should have gone straight
on to Tampa but no, he insisted on depositing us first in Jacksonville. Not
only that, but we had to accept the ten dollar bill he handed us—“for good 
luck.”

“You’d better get the lay of the land before you go any farther,” he 
warned. “I have a hunch the boom is over.” We wished him good luck and 
watched him take off again, wondering how long it would be before the law 
caught up with him. He was a simple, honest chap with a good heart, a 
mechanic by trade. One of those people of whom one says—“He wouldn’t hurt a
fly.”

It was indeed fortunate for us that we had met up with him. Aside from 
the ten dollars he had handed us we had just about four dollars between us.
Ned had most of the money and he had forgotten to divvy up. Well, we went 
to the Post Office, as agreed upon. Sure enough, there was Ned. Had been 
there some two hours or more. The man who picked him up in Charlotte had 
driven him straight through, and what’s stranger still, he had also paid 
for his meals and put him up in the same room with him.

All in all we hadn’t done so bad. The next thing was to get the feel of 
the land.

It didn’t take us long to find out what the situation was. Jacksonville 
was filled to overflowing with poor dopes like ourselves, all returning 
from the boom country below. If we had had any sense we would have turned 
about immediately and trekked homeward, but pride made us determined to 
stick it out for a while. “There must be something we can do,” we kept 
telling one another. But there was not only nothing to do, there wasn’t 
even a place to sleep. In the daytime we hung around at the Y.M.C.A., which
had come to resemble a Salvation Army shelter No one seemed to be making 
any effort to find work. Every one was waiting for a letter or a telegram 
from the folks back home. Waiting for a train ticket, a money order, or 
just a plain dollar bill. It went on like that for days. We slept in the 
park (until the cops caught up with us), or on the floor of the jail, in 
the company of a hundred or more filthy bodies wrapped in newspapers, some 
vomiting, some shitting in their pants. Now and then, in an effort to 
create work, we would wander off to a neighboring village and try to invent
a job which would at least keep us in food. On one of these forays, not 
having eaten for thirty-six hours and having walked eight miles to the 
mythical job, we had to walk back again on empty bellies, our legs 
creaking, our guts rumbling, so dog-tired, so utterly weary and dejected 
that, like Indians, we walked single file, one behind the other, heads 
down, tongues hanging out. That night we tried to storm the Salvation Army.
Useless. One had to have a quarter to be allowed to sleep on the floor. In 
the toilet there my guts began to fall out. The pain was so great I keeled 
over. Ned and O’Mara had to carry me out of the place. We inched our way to
the railroad yards where the freight trains were loaded with rotting fruit 
for the North. There we ran into a sheriff who drove us away with a gun in 
our backs. He wouldn’t even permit us to gather a few rotten oranges which 
were lying on the ground. “Get back where you belong!” Always the same cry.

By great luck the next day Ned ran into a weird old chap named Fletcher 
whom he had known in the advertising business in New York. The man was a 
commercial artist, had a studio, as he called It, and though utterly broke,
promised to make us a meal that evening. It seems he was celebrating his 
silver anniversary. For the occasion he had managed to get his wife 
released from the insane asylum.

“It won’t be very merry,” he informed Ned, “but we’ll make it as cheerful
as we can. She’s a sweet creature, perfectly harmless. She’s been this way 
for the last fifteen years.”

It was one of the longest days I ever put in, waiting for that promised 
meal. I lolled about the Y.M.C.A. the whole day, trying to conserve my 
energies. Most of the fellows passed the time playing cards or 
checkers—dice was forbidden. I read the newspapers, the Christian Science 
magazines, and all the other trash that was lying about. If a revolution 
had broken out in New York it wouldn’t have excited me in the least. I had 
only one thought—food!

The moment I set eyes on poor Fletcher I felt an immense sympathy for 
him. He was a man approaching seventy, with watery blue eyes and a big 
moustache. He looked for all the world like Buffalo Bill. On the walls were
examples of his work—from the old days—when he had been handsomely paid to 
do ponies and cowboys for the magazine covers. A small pension helped him 
to eke out a bare existence. He lived in hope of getting a fat commission 
some day. Between times he painted little signs for tradespeople, anything 
that would bring in a few pennies. He was thankful to be living in the 
South where the days at least were warm.

To our surprise he brought out two bottles, one half-filled with gin, the
other containing about a fingerful of rye. With the help of a lemon, some 
orange peels and a generous quantity of water, we managed to make his stock
go a few rounds. His wife meanwhile was reposing in the next room. Fletcher
said he would bring her out when it came time to eat. “It makes no 
difference to her,” he said. “She has her own world and her own rhythm. She
doesn’t remember me any more, so don’t be surprised at what she says. She’s
usually very quiet—and fairly cheerful, as you’ll see.”

He then set about preparing the table. The dishes were broken and 
chipped, nothing matched of course, and the cutlery was of tin. He laid the
“couvert” on the bare table, and in the center of the table he placed an 
immense bowl of flowers. “It’ll only be a cold snack,” he said 
apologetically, “but it may help to quiet the wolf.” He put out a bowl of 
potato salad, some rat cheese, some bologna and liverwurst, together with a
loaf of white bread and some margarine. There were a few apples and nuts, 
for dessert. Not an orange in sight. After he had set a glass of water at 
each place he put a pot of coffee up to boil.

“I guess we’re about ready now,” he said, looking toward the other room. 
“Just a minute and I’ll bring Laura in.”

The three of us stood in silence as we waited for the two of them to 
issue from the next room. We could hear him rousing her from her slumber; 
he was speaking to her softly, gently, as he helped her to her feet.

“Well,” he said, smiling desperately through his tears, as he led her to 
the table, “here we are at last. Laura, these are my friends—your friends 
too. They’re going to eat with us—isn’t that lovely?”

We approached in turn, shook hands first with her, then with him. We were
all in tears as we raised the water glasses and drank to their twenty-fifth
anniversary.

“Well, this is almost like old times,” said Fletcher, looking first at 
his poor demented wife, then at us. “Do you remember, Laura, that funny old
studio I had in the Village years ago? We weren’t very rich then either, 
were we?” He turned to us. “I won’t say grace, though tonight I would like 
to. I’ve lost the habit. But I want to tell you how grateful I am that you 
are sharing this little celebration with us. It might have been very sad, 
just the two of us alone.” He turned to his wife.

“Laura, you’re still beautiful, do you know it?” He chucked her under the
chin. Laura looked up wistfully and gave the flicker of a smile. “You see?”
he exclaimed. “Ah yes, Laura was the belle of New York once. Weren’t you, 
Laura?”

It didn’t take us long to plough through the victuals, including the 
apples and nuts and a few stale cookies which Fletcher had dug up by chance
while searching for the canned milk. Over a second cup of Java Ned got out 
the ukulele and we took to singing, Laura too. We sang homely ditties, such
as “O Susanna,”

“A bull-frog sat on a railroad track,”

“Annie Laurie,”

“Old Black Joe”… Suddenly Fletcher rose and said he would sing “Dixie,” 
which he did with gusto, ending up with the blood-curdling Rebel yell. 
Laura, highly pleased with the performance, demanded that he sing another 
tune. He got up again and sang “The Arkansas Traveler,” topping it off with
a little jig. My, but we were merry. It was pathetic.

After a time I got hungry again. I asked if there wasn’t any stale bread 
around. “We might make French pancakes,” I said.

We searched high and low but there wasn’t even a crust to be found. We 
did find some moldy zwieback though and, dipping this in the coffee, we got
a new lease of energy.

If it weren’t for the vacant look in her eyes one wouldn’t have thought 
Laura to be insane. She sang heartily, responded to our quips and jokes, 
and ate her food with relish. After a while, however, she dozed off, just 
like a child. We carried her into the bedroom and put her back to bed. 
Fletcher leaned over her and kissed her brow.

“If you boys will wait a few minutes,” he said, “I think I may be able to
dig up a wee bit more gin. I’m going to see my next-door neighbor.”

In a few minutes he was back with a half-bottle of bourbon. He also had a
little bag of cakes in his hand. We put up another pot of coffee, poured 
the bourbon, and began to chat. Now and then we threw a short log into the 
old pot-bellied stove. It was the first comfortable, cheery evening we were
spending in Jacksonville.

“I was in the same fix when I came here,” said Fletcher. “It takes time 
to get acquainted… Ned, why don’t you go down to the newspaper office? I’ve
got a friend there, he’s one of the editors. Maybe he can dig up something 
for you.”

“But I’m not a writer,” said Ned.

“Hell, Henry will write your stuff for you,” said O’Mara.

“Why don’t you both go?” said Fletcher.

We were so elated with the prospect of getting a job that we all did a 
jig in the middle of the room.

“Let’s have that one about looking for a friendly face,” begged Fletcher.
We took to humming and singing again, not too loud because of Laura.

“You mustn’t worry about her,” said Fletcher, “she sleeps like an angel. 
In fact, she is an angel. I honestly think that’s why she’s—you know. She 
didn’t fit in our world. Sometimes I think it’s a blessing she’s the way 
she is.”

He showed us some of his work which he had stored away in big trunks. It 
wasn’t too bad. At least he was a good draftsman. He had been all over 
Europe in his youth—Paris, Munich, Rome, Prague, Budapest, Berlin. He had 
even won a few prizes.

“If I had my life to live all over again,” he said, “I’d do nothing at 
all. I’d keep tramping around the world. Why don’t you fellows go west? 
There’s still lots of room in that part of the world.”

That night we slept on the floor of Fletcher’s studio. Next morning Ned 
and I went to see the newspaper man. After a few words I was voted out. But
Ned was given a chance to write a series of articles. Naturally, I would do
the dirty work.

All we had to do now was to pull our belts in until pay day. Pay day was 
only two weeks off.

That same day O’Mara led me round to the home of an Irish priest whose 
address some one had given him. We immediately got the cold shoulder from 
the Sister who opened the door. Descending the stoop we noticed the good 
Father easing his Packard out of the garage. O’Mara tried to plead with 
him. For encouragement he got a puff of heavy smoke from the Father’s 
Havana cigar. “Be off with yer and don’t be disturbin’ the peace!” That was
all Father Hoolihan deigned to say.

That evening I wandered off by my lonesome. Passing a big synagogue I 
heard the choir singing. It was a Hebrew prayer and it sounded enchanting. 
I stepped inside and took a seat far back. As soon as the service was over 
I went up front and collared the rabbi. “Reb,” I wanted to say, “I’m in a 
bad way… ” But he was a solemn looking cuss, utterly devoid of bonhomie. I 
told him my story in a few words, winding up with an appeal for food, or 
meal tickets, and a place to flop, if possible. I didn’t dare mention that 
we were three.

“But you’re not a Jew, are you?” said the Reb. He squinted as if he 
couldn’t make me out clearly.

“No, but I’m hungry. What difference does it make what I am?”

“Why don’t you try the Christian churches?”

“I have,” I replied. “Besides, I’m not a Christian either. I’m just a 
Gentile.”

Grudgingly he wrote a few words on a slip of paper, saying that I was to 
present the message to the man at the Salvation Army. I went there 
immediately, only to be told that they had no room.

“Can you give me something to eat?” I begged.

I was informed that the dining room had been closed hours ago.

“I’ll eat anything,” I said, clinging to the man at the desk. “Haven’t 
you got a rotten orange or a rotten banana?”

He looked at me strangely. He was unmoved.

“Can you give me a dime—just a dime?” I begged.

Disgustedly he fished into his pocket and flung me the dime.

“Now clear out of here!” he said. “You loafers belong up North where you 
came from.”

I turned my heel and walked away without a word. On the main street I saw
a pleasant looking fellow selling newspapers. Something about his looks 
encouraged me to address him.

“Hullo,” I said, “how goes it?”

“Not too bad, buddy. Where are you from—New York?”

“Yeah, and you?”

“Jersey City.”

“Shake!”

A few moments later I was hawking the few papers he had given me. It took
me about an hour to get rid of them. But I had earned a few pennies. I 
hurried back to the “Y” and found O’Mara dozing behind a newspaper in a big
arm-chair.

“Let’s go and eat,” I said, shaking him vigorously.

“Yeah,” he responded derisively, “let’s go to Delmonico’s.”

“No, seriously,” I said, “I just made a few cents, enough for coffee and 
doughnuts. Come on.”

At once he was on his feet. As we hurried along I told him briefly what 
had happened.

“Let’s find that guy,” he said, “he sounds like a friend. From Jersey 
City, eh? Swell!”

Mooney was the name of the newsie. He knocked off to have a bite with us.

“You can sleep in my room,” said Mooney. “I’ve got an extra couch. It’s 
better than sleeping in the jail.”

The next day, toward noon, we followed his advice and went to the rear of
the newspaper office to get a bundle of papers. Our friend Mooney of course
had lent us the money to buy papers. There were about fifty kids milling 
around, all trying to get their bundles first. I had to bend over a window 
sill and haul them out through the iron bars. Suddenly I felt some one 
crawling up my back. It was a little darkie, trying to reach over my head 
for his bundle. I got him off my back and he crawled between my legs. The 
kids were all laughing and jeering. I had to laugh myself. Anyway, we were 
soon loaded and marching up the main street. It was the hardest thing in 
the world for me to open my mouth and yell. I tried shoving the papers at 
the passers-by. That didn’t work at all.

I was standing there, looking rather foolish, I suppose, when Mooney came
along. “That’s no way to sell papers,” he said. “Here, watch me!” And with 
this he whirls around, flashing the paper and yelling “Extra! Extra! All 
about the big broo… siiis… ” I wondered what the great news was, unable to 
catch the important word at the end of his phrase. I looked at the front 
page to see what the headline was. There was no headline. There didn’t seem
to be any news at all, in fact.

“Yell anything,” said Mooney, “but yell it at the top of your lungs! And 
don’t stand in one spot. Keep moving! You’ve got to hustle if you want to 
get rid of them before the next edition is out.”

I did my best. I hustled up and down the main street, then ducked into 
the side streets. Soon I found myself in the park. I had sold only three or
four papers. I put the bundle on the ground and sat down on a bench to 
watch the ducks swimming in the pond. All the invalids, recuperationists 
and valetudinarians were out sunning themselves. The park seemed more like 
the recreation grounds of an Old Soldiers’ Home. An old codger beside me 
asked to borrow a paper to see what the weather report was like. I waited 
drowsily and blissfully while he read the paper from front to back. When he
handed it back to me I tried to fold it neatly so that it wouldn’t look 
shopworn.

On my way out of the park a cop stopped me to buy a paper. That almost 
unnerved me.

By the time the next edition was due on the streets I had sold exactly 
seven papers. I hunted up O’Mara. He had done a little better, but nothing 
to brag about.

“Mooney’s going to be disappointed,” he said.

“I know it. I guess we’re not cut out to peddle papers. It’s a job for 
kids—or for a hustler like Mooney.”

“You said it, Henry.”

We had coffee and doughnuts again. Better than nothing. It was food and 
food was what we needed. All that walking up and down, and with a heavy 
bundle, gave one a furious appetite. I wondered just how long I would be 
able to stick it out.

Later in the day we ran into Mooney again. We apologized for our 
inability to do better.

“Forget about it,” he said. “I understand. Listen, let me lend you five 
bucks. Scout around for something better. You’re not cut out for this kind 
of thing. I’ll see you tonight at the lunch counter. O.K.?” He hustled off,
waving his hand cheerily.

“That’s what you call a swell guy,” said O’Mara. “Now, b’Jesus, we’ve 
really got to land something. Come on, let’s strike out!”

We set off straight ahead, neither of us having the faintest notion what 
we were looking for or how to find it. A few blocks farther on we met up 
with a cheerful-looking guy who tried to hit us up for a dime, He was a 
coal miner from Pennsylvania. Trapped, like us. Over coffee and doughnuts 
we got to exchanging ideas.

“Tell you what,” he said, “let’s go down to the redlight district 
tonight. You’re always welcome if you can buy a drink. You don’t have to go
upstairs with the gals. Anyway, it’s cosy and comfortable—and you can hear 
some music. Damned sight better than sitting around in the morgue.” 
(Meaning the “Y”).

That evening, over a few drinks, he asked us whether we had ever been 
converted.

Converted? We wondered what he was driving at.

He explained. Seems there were always a few guys hanging around “the 
morgue” who were eager to win converts to the church. Even the Mormons had 
their scouts out. The thing was, he explained, to listen innocently and 
appear interested. “If the fool thinks he’s hooking you, you can worm a 
meal out of him easy as pie. Try it sometime. They’re on to me—I can’t work
it any more.

We stayed in the whorehouse as long as we possibly could. Every so often 
a new girl showed up, made a few passes at us, and gave up.

“It’s not exactly Paradise for them,” said our friend. “A dollar a crack,
and the house gets the best part of it. Still, some of them don’t look so 
bad, do they?”

We looked them over appraisingly: A pathetic bunch, even more pathetic 
looking than the Salvation Army lassies. All of them chewing gum, humming, 
whistling, trying to look appealing. One or two, I noticed, were yawning, 
rubbing their bleary eyes.

“At least they eat regularly.” This from O’Mara.

“Yeah, there’s something to that,” said our friend. “I’d rather go 
hungry, myself.”

“I don’t know,” said I. “If I had to choose… if I were a woman… I’m not 
sure but what I’d take a crack at it. At least till I got fattened up a 
bit.”

“You think so,” said our friend, “but you’re mistaken. You don’t get fat 
on this job, let me tell you that.”

“How about that one?” said O’Mara, pointing out a ton of lard.

“She was born fat, anyone can see that. Besides she’s a booze artist.”

That night, on the way back to nowhere, I got to wondering about Mona. 
Only one little note from her since our arrival. True, she wasn’t much of a
letter writer. Nor was she ever very explicit about anything. All I had 
gleaned from her note was that she was going to be dispossessed any day. 
And then what? I wondered.

The next day I hung around the “Y” most of the day, hoping, or praying 
rather, that some one would start working on me. I was ready and willing to
be converted to anything, even to Mormonism. But no one gave me a tumble. 
Toward evening I got a bright idea. It was so simple a stunt that I 
wondered why it hadn’t occurred to me sooner. However, one has to get truly
desperate before one thinks of such simple solutions.

What was the bright idea? To go from shop to shop asking only for 
foodstuffs which they were ready to throw out: stale bread, spoiled fruit, 
sour milk… I never realized at the time how similar was my plan to the 
begging tactics of St. Francis. He too had demanded only what was unfit to 
eat. The difference was, of course, that he had a mission to perform. I was
merely trying to keep afloat. A grand difference!

Nevertheless, it worked like a charm. O’Mara took one side of the street,
I the other. By the time we met at the end of the block our arms were full.
We rushed over to Fletcher’s place, got hold of Ned, and prepared for a 
feast.

To be truthful, the scraps and the waste which we had gathered were far 
from being repugnant. We had all eaten tainted meat before, though not 
intentionally; the vegetables needed only to be trimmed; the stale bread 
made excellent toast; the sour milk gave the overripe fruit a delicious 
quality. A Chinese coolie would have regarded our repast as a luxurious 
one. All that lacked was a bit of wine to wash down the stale rat cheese. 
However, there was coffee on hand and a bit of condensed milk. We were 
elated. We ate like wolves.

“Too bad we didn’t think of inviting Mooney,” said O’Mara.

“Who’s Mooney?” asked Ned.

We explained. Ned listened with mouth open. “Jesus, Henry,” he said, “I 
can’t get over it. And me sitting upstairs in the front office all the 
while. Selling your stuff under my name—and you guys peddling papers! I’ll 
have to tell Ulric about it… By the way, have you seen the stuff you wrote?
They think it’s pretty good, did I tell you?”

I had forgotten all about the articles. Perhaps I read them, during those
comas at the “Y”, and never realized that it was I who wrote them.

“Henry,” said Fletcher, “you ought to get back to New York. It’s all 
right for these lads to waste their time, but not you. I have a hunch 
you’re cut out for something big.”

I blushed and tried to pass it off.

“Come,” said Fletcher, “don’t be so modest. You’ve got qualities, anyone 
can see that. I don’t know what you’re going to become—saint, poet, or 
philosopher. But you’re an artist, that’s definite. And what’s more, you’re
unspoiled. You have a way of forgetting yourself that tells me a lot about 
you.”

Ned, who was still feeling guilty, applauded Fletcher warmly. As soon as 
I get my check, Henry,” he said, “I’ll give you the train fare back home. 
That’s the least I can do. O’Mara and I will stick it out. Eh, Ted? You’re 
a veteran: you’ve been on the bum since you were ten years old.”

O’Mara grinned. Now that he had found a way to get food his spirits rose.

Besides, there was Mooney, to whom he had taken quite a fancy. He was 
certain that between them they could cook up something.

“But who’ll write the articles for the paper?”

“I’ve already taken care of that,” said Ned. “They’re making me layout 
man next week. That’s right up my alley. The chances are I’ll be making 
real dough soon.”

“Maybe you’ll be able to throw something my way,” said Fletcher.

“I’ve thought of that too.” said Ned. “If Ted here will take care of the 
food problem I’ll answer for the rest. It’s only a few days now till pay 
day.”

Again we slept at Fletcher’s place. I passed a sleepless night, not 
because the floor was hard but because of Mona. Now that there was a chance
to return I couldn’t get back quickly enough. The whole night long I racked
my brain to find a quick way but. Toward dawn it occurred to me that 
possibly the old man would send me part of the fare at least. If only I got
as far as Richmond it would help.

Bright and early I went to the telegraph office to wire the old man. By 
nightfall the money had arrived–for a full trip. I borrowed an extra five 
bucks from Mooney, so as to eat, and that same evening I was off.

The moment I boarded the train I felt like a new man. Before half an hour
had passed I had completely forgotten Jacksonville. What luxury to doze off
in an upholstered seat! The strange thing was that I found myself writing 
again—in my head. Yes, I was positively itching to get to the machine. It 
seemed like a century ago that I had written the last line… I wondered 
vaguely, dreamily, where I would find Mona, what we would do next, where we
would live, and so on. Nothing was of too great consequence. It was so 
damned good to be sitting in that comfortable coach—with a five dollar bill
in my pocket… Maybe a guardian angel was looking after me! I thought of 
Fletcher’s parting words. Was I really an artist? Of course I was. But I 
had yet to prove it… Finally I congratulated myself on having had such a 
bitter experience. “Experience is golden,” I kept repeating to myself. It 
sounded a bit silly, but it lulled me into a peaceful slumber.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Back to the old homestead, or to put it another way—back to the street of
early sorrows. Mona lives with her family, I with mine. The only way—pro 
tern—to solve the economic problem. As soon as I’ve sold a few stories 
we’ll find a place of our own again.

From the time the old man leaves for the tailor shop until he returns for
dinner I’m hard at it—every day. Every day we talk to each other, Mona and 
I, over the phone; sometimes we meet at noon to have a bite together in 
some cheap restaurant. Not often enough, however, to please Mona. She’s 
going mad with fear, doubts, jealousy. Simply can’t believe that I’m 
writing day in and day out from mom to dusk.

Now and then, of course, I knock off to do “research work.” I have a 
hundred different ideas to exploit, all of them demanding investigation and
documentation. I’m running on all eight cylinders now: when I sit down to 
the machine it just flows off my fingers.

At the moment I’m putting the finishing touches to a self-portrait which 
I’m calling “The Failure.” (I haven’t the remotest suspicion that a man 
named Papini, a man living in Italy, will soon produce a book by this very 
title.) I wouldn’t say it was an ideal place to work—my parents’ home. I 
sit at the front window, hidden by the lace curtains, one eye open for 
callers. The rule of the house is—if you see a visitor coming, duck! And 
that’s exactly what I do each time—duck into the clothes closet, with 
typewriter, books, papers and everything. Fantastic! (I call myself “the 
family skeleton.”) Sometimes I get brilliant ideas, hidden away in the dark
folds of the clothes closet—induced no doubt by the acrid smell of camphor 
balls. My thoughts come so fast that it is almost unbearable to wait until 
the visitor leaves. In utter darkness I make illegible notes on odd bits of
paper. (Just key words and phrases.) As for breathing, no trouble at all. I
can hold my breath for three hours, if necessary.

Coming out of the hole my mother is sure to exclaim: “You shouldn’t smoke
so much!” The smoke has to be explained, you see. Her line is: “Henry was 
just here.” Hearing her give this feeble explanation to a caller I 
sometimes stuff my mouth with a coat sleeve for fear of breaking loose with
a chortle.

Now and then she hands me this: “Can’t you make your stories shorter?” 
Her though—poor soul!—is that the sooner I finish them the quicker I will 
be paid. She doesn’t want to hear about rejection slips. Acts almost as 
though she didn’t believe in them.

“What are you writing about now?” she asks one morning.

“Numismatics,” I tell her.

“What’s that?”

I explain in a few words.

“Do you think people really want to read such things?”

I wonder to myself what she would say if I were to tell her the truth, 
tell her about “The Failure.”

The old man is more amenable. I sense that he doesn’t expect anything to 
come of all this nonsense, but he’s curious and at least pretends to be 
interested in what I’m doing. He doesn’t quite know what to make of the 
fact that he has a son, twice-married and the father of a child, who sits 
in the dining room day after day tapping away on a typewriter. At bottom he
has confidence in me. He knows I’ll get somewhere some day, somehow. He’s 
not uneasy in his soul.

Around the corner, where I trot each morning to get the paper and a pack 
of cigarettes, is a little store run by a newcomer—a Mr. Cohen. He’s the 
only person, this Mister Cohen, who seems at all interested in my doings. 
He thinks it remarkable that he has a writer, even if only an embryonic 
one, for a customer. All the other tradespeople, be it said, know me of 
old; not one of them suspects that I’ve grown a new soul. To them I am 
still the little boy with the corn-colored hair and the innocent smile.

Mister Cohen, however, is of another world, another epoch. He doesn’t 
“belong” any more than I. In fact, being a Yid, he’s still suspect. 
Especially to the old-timers. One bright and lovely morning the dear Mister
Cohen confesses to me that he too once had ambitions to be a writer. With 
genuine feeling he informs me how much our little conversations mean to 
him. It is a privilege, he says, to know some one who is “on the bias.” (Of
the same stripe, I suppose he meant.) Lowering his voice, he confides with 
huge disgust his low opinion of the neighboring shop-keepers. Ah, dear 
Mister Cohen, darling Mister Cohen, come forth, come forth, wherever you 
are, and let me kiss your waxen brow! What was it, now, we had in common? A
few dead authors, fear and hatred of the police, scorn for the Gentiles and
a passion for the aroma of a good cigar. You were no virtuoso, and neither 
was I. But your words came to me as if they were played on the celesta. 
Step forth, pale sprite, step forth from the divine telesma and let me 
embrace you once again!

My mother, of course, is not only surprised but shocked to discover that 
I have become friends with “that little Jew.” What on earth do we talk 
about? Books? Does he read? Yes, mother dear, he reads in five languages. 
Her head swings back and forth unbelievingly, and again back and forth 
disapprovingly. Anyway, Hebrew and Yiddish, which are one and the same to 
her, don’t count: only Jews understand such gibberish. (Ech! Ech!) Nothing 
of importance, says she, could possibly be written in such outlandish 
tongues. And the Bible, mother dear? She shrugs her shoulders. She meant 
books, not the Bible. (Sic.) What a world! Not one of my old pals left. I 
used to wonder if I wouldn’t run into Tony Marella some day. His father 
still sat by the window mending shoes. Every time I passed the shop I 
greeted him. But I never had the courage to inquire about Tony. One day, 
however, reading the local newspaper—The Chat—I discovered that my old 
friend was running for alderman in another district, where he now lived. 
Maybe he would become President of the United States one day! That would be
something, what!—a President out of our obscure little neighborhood. 
Already we could boast of a colonel and a rear-admiral. The Grogan 
brothers, no less. They had lived only a few doors away from us. “Grand 
boys!” as the neighbors all said. (A little later and, by God! one of them 
actually becomes a general; as for the other, the rear-admiral, blast me if
he isn’t sent to Moscow on a special mission—and by none other than the 
President of our Holy Roller Empire. Not so bad for our little 
insignificant Van Voorhees Street!) And now, thinks I to myself (de la part
des voisins), we have little Henry with us. Who knows? Maybe he’ll become 
another O’Henry. If Tony Marella is slated to be a President one day, 
surely Henry, our little Henry, can become a famous writer. Dixit.

Just the same—a slightly different key now—it was too bad we hadn’t 
produced at least one good prizefighter. The Laski brothers had faded out. 
Lacked the stuff that champs are made of. No it wasn’t the neighborhood to 
breed John L. Sullivans or James J. Corbetts. The old 14th Ward, to be 
sure, had turned out a dozen good pugilists, not to speak of politicians, 
bankers, and good old “con” men. I had the feeling that, were I back in the
old neighborhood, I would be writing more vividly. If only I could say 
hello to chaps like Lester Reardon, Eddie Carney, Johnny Paul, I’d feel 
like a new man.

“Shit!” I said to myself, rapping my bare knuckles against the iron spike
of a fence, “I’m not done for yet. Not by a long shot… “

And so one morning I woke up full of piss and vinegar. Decided to bust 
out into the world and make my presence felt. No set plan or project in 
mind. Tucking a sheaf of manuscripts under my arm, I made a dash for the 
street.

Playing a hunch, I make my way into the inner sanctum of an editorial 
office where I find myself face to face with one of the editors of a 
five-cent magazine. My thought is to ask for an editorial position.

The curious thing is that the man is one of the Miller tribe. Gerald 
Miller, no less. A good omen!

I don’t have to exercise my charms because he’s already predisposed in my
favor. “No doubt about it,” says he, “you’re a born writer.” In front of 
him is a slew of manuscripts; he’s glanced here and there, enough to 
convince himself that I have the goods.

“So you would like a job on the magazine? Well, it’s just possible I can 
make room for you. One of the editors is leaving in a week or so; I’ll 
speak to the boss and see what can be done. I’m certain you could fill the 
bill, even if you’ve had no training for it.” Follows this up with a few 
discerning compliments.

Then, apropos of nothing, he suddenly says: “Why don’t you write 
something for us meanwhile? We pay well, you know. I imagine you could use 
a check for $250.00, couldn’t you?”

Without waiting for a reply, he continues: “Why don’t you write about 
words? I don’t have to read very far to see that you’re in love with words…
“

I wasn’t sure I understood what exactly he wished me to say on this 
subject, especially to a five-cent audience.

“I don’t quite know myself,” he said. “Use your imagination. Don’t make 
it too long, either. Say five thousand words. And remember, our readers are
not all college professors!”

We sat there a while, chinning, and then he escorted me to the elevator. 
“See me in about a week,” he said. Then, diving into his pocket, he fished 
out a bill and stuffed it in my fist. “You might need that to hold you 
over.” He smiled. It was a twenty dollar bill, as I discovered when I hit 
the street. I felt like running back and thanking him again, but then I 
thought no, perhaps they’re used to treating their writers that way.

*

“The snow was softly falling all over Ireland… ” The words were running 
like a refrain through my head as I skipped lightly over the cobblestones 
homeward bound. Then came another line—why, I had no idea: “In my Father’s 
house are many mansions… ” They blended perfectly, the snow falling gently,
softly, steadily (all over Ireland), and the jeweled mansions of bliss, of 
which the Father kept an infinite number. It was St. Patrick’s day for me, 
and no snakes in sight. For some weird reason I felt Irish to the core. A 
bit of Joyce, a bit of the Blarney Stone, a few shenanigans—and Erin Go 
Bragh. (Every time the teacher’s back was turned one of us would steal to 
the blackboard and scrawl out in flaming chalk: Erin Go Bragh!) It’s 
Brooklyn I’m walking through and the snow is softly falling. I must ask 
Ulric to recite the passage for me again. He’s got just the voice for it, 
has he. It’s a beautiful melodious voice. And that he has, Ulric!

“The snow was softly falling all over Ireland… “

Nimble as a goat, thin as air, wistful as a faun, I wend my way over the 
lovely bubbly cobblestones.

If only I knew what to write! Two hundred and fifty dollars was not to be
sneezed at. And an editorial position to boot! My, but I had risen 
suddenly! Mister Cohen must hear of this. (Sholem Aleichem!) Five thousand 
words. A cinch. Once I knew what to say I could write it at one sitting. 
Words, words…

Believe it or not, I can’t put a damned word to paper. My favorite 
subject and here I am, tongue-tied. Curious. Worse than that—depressing.

Maybe I ought to do a little research work first. After all, what do I 
know about the English language? Almost nothing. To use it is one thing; to
write about it intelligently quite another.

I have it! Why not go straight to the source? Why not call on the 
editor-in-chief of the famous unabridged dictionary? Which one? Funk & 
Wagnal’s. (The only one I ever used.) Next morning bright and early I’m 
sitting in the ante-room, waiting for Dr. Vizetelly himself to appear. 
(It’s like asking Jesus Christ to help you, think I to myself.) However, 
the cards are on the table. All I pray for is not to make a damned fool of 
myself, as I did years ago when I called on a famous writer and asked 
straight out:

“How does one begin to write?” (The answer is: “By writing.” That’s 
exactly what he said, and that was the end of the interview.) Dr. Vizetelly
is standing before me. A live, genial man, full of sparkle and verve. Puts 
me at ease immediately. Urges me to unburden myself. Draws up a comfortable
chair for himself, listens attentively, then begins…

For a full hour or more this kind, gracious soul, to whom I shall always 
feel indebted, delivers himself of all that he thinks may serve me. He 
speaks so rapidly and fulgently that I haven’t the chance to make a single 
note. My head Is spinning. How will I remember even a fraction of all this 
exciting information? It’s as though I had put my head under a fountain.

Dr. Vizetelly, conscious of my dilemma, comes to the rescue. He orders a 
page to bring me folders and pamphlets. Urges me to look them over at my 
leisure. “I’m certain you’ll write an excellent article,” he says, beaming 
at me like a godfather. Then he asks if I will be good enough to show him 
what I’ve written before submitting it to the magazine.

Without warning he now puts me a few direct questions about myself: how 
long have I been writing? what else have I done? what books do I read? what
languages do I know? One after another—tic, tac, toe. I feel like less than
nobody, or as they say in Hebrew—efes efasim. What indeed have I done? What
indeed do I know? Smoked out at last, what is there to do but humbly 
confess my sins and omissions. I do so, exactly as I would to a priest, 
were I a Catholic and not the miserable spawn of Calvin and Luther.

What a virile, magnetic individual, this man! Who would ever dream, 
meeting him in the street, that he was the editor of a dictionary? The 
first erudite to inspire me with confidence and admiration. This is a man. 
I say it over and over to myself. A man with a pair of balls as well as a 
think-tank. Not a mere fount of wisdom but a living, rushing, roaring 
cataract. Every particle of his being vibrates with an electric ardor. He 
not only knows every word in the English language (including those in “cold
storage,” as he put it) but he knows wines, horses, women, food, birds, 
trees; he knows how to wear clothes, knows how to breathe, knows how to 
relax. And he also knows enough to take a drink once in a while. Knowing 
all, he loves all. Now we touch him! A man rushing forward—on all fours, I 
almost said—to greet life. A man with a song on his lips. Thank you, Dr. 
Vizetelly! Thank you for being alive!

In parting he said to me—how can I ever forget his words?—“Son, you have 
all the makings of a writer, I’m sure of it. Go along now and do what you 
can. Call on me if you need me.” He placed one hand on my shoulder 
affectionately and with the other gave me a warm hand-clasp. It was the 
benediction. Amen!

No longer falls the soft white snow. It is raining, raining deep inside 
me. Down my face the tears stream—tears of joy and gratitude. I have beheld
at last the face of my true father. I know now what it means—the Paraclete.
Goodbye, Father Vizetelly, for I shall never see you again. May thy name be
hallowed forever more!

The rain ceases. Just a thin drizzle now—down there under the heart—as if
a cess-pool were being strained through fine gauze. The whole thoracic 
region is saturated with the finest particles of this substance called H20 
which, when it falls on the tongue, tastes salty. Microscopic tears, more 
precious than fat pearls. Sifting slowly into the great cavity ruled over 
by the tear ducts. Dry eyes, dry palms. The face absolutely relaxed, open 
as the great plains, and ripening with joy.

(“Is it snowing again, Mr. Conroy?”) It’s wonderful to speak one’s own 
idiom, to have it rebound in your face, become again the universal 
language. Of the 450,000 words locked up in the unabridged dictionary, Dr. 
Vizetelly had assured me I must know at least 50,000. Even the shit-pumper 
has a vocabulary of at least 5,000 words. To prove it, all one had to do 
was to go home, sit down, and look around. Door, knob, chair, handle, wood,
iron, curtain, window, sill, button, legs, bowl… In any room there were 
hundreds of things with names, not to mention the adjectives, the adverbs, 
the prepositions, the verbs and participles that accompanied them. And 
Shakespeare had a vocabulary hardly bigger than a moron’s of today!

So what does it add up to? What will we do with more words?

(“And haven’t you your own language to keep in touch with?”) Aye, the own
language! Langue d’oc. Or—huic, huic, huic. In Hebrew one says “How are 
you?” in at least ten different ways, according to whether one is 
addressing a man, a woman, men, women, or men and women, and so on. To a 
cow or a goat nobody in his right senses says “How are you?”

Wending homeward, toward the street of early sorrows. Brooklyn, city of 
the dead. Return of the native…

(“And haven’t you your own land to visit?”) Aye, dismal Brooklyn I have, 
and the neighboring terrain—the swamps, the dumps, the stinking canals, the
ever vacant lots, the cemeteries… Native heath.

And I am neither fish nor fowl…

The drizzle ceases The innards are lined with wet lard. The cold drifts 
down from the north. Ah, but it’s snowing again!

And now it comes to me, fresh from the grave, that passage which Ulric 
could recite like a born Dubliner… “It had begun to snow again. He. watched
sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the 
lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. 
Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was 
falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, 
falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling 
into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part 
of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay
thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the
little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the 
snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the 
descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

In this snowy realm, with language chanting its own sweet litany, I sped 
homeward, ever homeward. Between the covers of the giant lexicon, amid 
ablatives and gerundives, I curled up and fell fast asleep. Between Adam 
and Eve I lay, surrounded by a thousand reindeer. My warm breath, cooled by
living waters, enveloped me in a refulgent mist. In la belle langue d’Oc, I
was out to the world. The caul was about my neck, strangling me, but ever 
so gently. And the name of the caul was Nemesh…

*

It took me a solid month or more to write the article for my namesake, 
Gerald Miller. When I finished I found that I had written fifteen thousand 
words instead of five. I squeezed out half and brought it to the editorial 
offices. A week later I had my check. The article, by the way, was never 
published. “Too good,” was the verdict. Nor did the editorial job ever 
materialize. I never found out why. Probably because I was “too good.”

However, with the two hundred and fifty we were able to resume life 
together once more. We picked ourselves a furnished room on Hancock Street,
Brooklyn, city of the dead, the near dead, and the deader than the dead. A 
quiet, respectable street: row after row of the same nondescript frame 
houses, all adorned with high stoops, awnings, grass plots and iron 
railings. The rent was modest; we were permitted to cook over gas-burners 
tucked away in an alcove next to an old-fashioned sink. Mrs. Henniker, the 
landlady, occupied the ground floor; the rest of the house was let out to 
roomers.

Mrs. Henniker was a widow whose husband had grown rich in the saloon 
business. She had a mixture of Dutch, Swiss, German, Norwegian and Danish 
blood. Full of vitality, idle curiosity, suspicion, greed and malice. Could
pass for a whorehouse keeper.

Always telling risqu6 stories and giggling over them like a schoolgirl. 
Very strict with her roomers. No monkey business! No noise! No beer 
parties! No visitors! Pay on the dot or you go!

It took this old geezer some time to get used to the idea that I was a 
writer. What stupefied her was the way the keys clicked. She had never 
believed anyone could write at such speed. But above all she was worried, 
worried for fear that, being a writer, I would forget to pay the rent after
a few weeks. To allay her fears we decided to give her a few weeks’ rent in
advance. Incredible how a little move like that can solidify one’s 
position!

At frequent intervals she would knock at the door, offer some flimsy 
excuse for interrupting me, then stand at the threshold for an hour or more
pumping me. Obviously it excited her to think that any one could pass the 
whole day at the machine, writing, writing, writing. What could I be 
writing? Stories? What kind of stories? Would I permit her to read one some
day? Would I this and would I that? It was inconceivable the questions the 
woman could ask.

After a time she began dropping in on me in order, as she said, to give 
me ideas for my stories: fragments out of her life in Hamburg, Dresden, 
Bremen, Darmstadt. Innocent little doings which to her were daring, 
shocking, so much so that sometimes her voice dropped to a whisper. If I 
were to make use of these incidents I was to be sure to change the locale. 
And of course give her a different name. I led her on for a while, glad to 
receive her little offerings—cheese cake, sausage meat, a left-over stew, a
bag of nuts. I wheedled her into making us cinnamon cake, streusel kuchen, 
apple cake—all in approved German style. She was ready to do most anything 
if only she might have the pleasure of reading about herself some day in a 
magazine.

One day she asked me point-blank if my stories really sold. Apparently 
she had been reading all the current magazines she could lay hands on and 
had not found my name in one of them. I patiently explained to her that 
sometimes one had to wait several months before a story was accepted, and 
after that another few months before one got paid. I at once added that we 
were living on the proceeds of several stories which I had sold the year 
before—at a handsome figure. Whereupon, as though my words had no effect 
whatever upon her, she said flatly: “If you get hungry you can always eat 
with me. I get lonely sometimes.” Then, heaving a deep sigh: “It’s no fun 
to be a writer, is it?”

It sure wasn’t. Whether she suspected it or not, we were always hungry as
wolves. No matter how much money came in, it always melted like snow. We 
were always trotting about, looking up old friends with whom we could eat, 
borrow carfare, or persuade to take us to a show. At night we rigged up a 
wash line which we stretched across the bed.

Mrs. Henniker, always overfed, could sense that we were in a perpetual 
state of hunger. Every so often she repeated her invitation to dine with 
her—“if you’re ever hungry.” She never said: “Won’t you have dinner with me
this evening, I have a lovely rabbit stew which I made expressly for you.” 
No, she took a perverse pleasure in trying to force us to admit that we 
were ravenous. We never did admit it of course. For one thing, to give in 
meant that I would have to write the sort of stories Mrs. Henniker wanted. 
Besides, even a hack writer has to keep up a front.

Somehow we always managed to borrow the rent money in time. Dr. Kronski 
sometimes came to the rescue, and so did Curley. But it was a tussle. When 
we were really desperate we would walk to my parent’s house—a good hour’s 
walk—and stay until we had filled our bellies. Often Mona fell asleep on 
the couch immediately after dinner. I would do my utmost to keep up a 
running conversation, praying to God that Mona wouldn’t go on sleeping 
until the last horn.

These post-prandial conversations were sheer agony. I tried desperately 
to talk of everything but my work. Inevitably, however, there would come 
the moment when either my father or my mother would ask—“How is the writing
going? Have you sold anything more since we saw you last?” And I would lie 
shamefacedly:

“Why yes, I sold two more recently. It’s going fine, really.” Then would 
come a look of joy and astonishment and they would ask simultaneously: “To 
which magazines did you sell them?” And I would give them names at random. 
“We’ll be watching for them, Henry. When do you think they will appear?” 
Nine months later they would remind me that they were still on the lookout 
for those stories I said I had sold to this and that magazine.) Toward the 
end of the evening, my mother, as if to say “Let’s get down to earth!” 
would ask me solemnly if I didn’t think it would be wiser to drop the 
writing and look for a job. “That was such a wonderful position you had 
with… How could you ever have given it up? It takes years to become a good 
writer—and maybe you will never succeed at it.” And so on and so forth. I 
used to weep for her. The old man, on the other hand, always pretended to 
believe that I would come through with flying colors. He fervently hoped 
so, that I was certain of. “Give him time, give him time!” he would say. To
which my mother would reply—“But how will they live in the meantime?” Then 
it was my cue. “Don’t worry, mother. I know how to get along. I’ve got 
brains, you know that. You don’t think we’re going to starve, do you?” Just
the same, my mother thought, and she would repeat it over and over, as if 
to herself, that it would really be wiser to take a job and do the writing 
on the side “Well, they don’t look as though they were starving, do they?” 
This was the old man’s way of telling me that, if we really were starving, 
all I had to do was to call on him at the tailor shop and he’d lend me what
he could. I understood and he understood. I would thank him silently and he
would acknowledge my thanks silently. Of course I never called on him. Not 
for money. Now and then, out of a clear sky, I would drop in on him just to
cheer him up. Even when he knew I was lying—I told him outrageous 
cock-and-bull stories—he never let on. “Glad to hear it, son,” he’d say. 
“Great! You’ll be a best-seller yet, I’m sure of it.” Sometimes, on leaving
him, I would be in tears. I wanted so much to help him. There he sat in the
back of the shop, a sort of collapsed wreck, his business shot to hell, no 
hopes whatever, and still acting cheerful, still talking optimistically. 
Perhaps he hadn’t seen a customer for several months, but still “a boss 
tailor.” The frightful irony of it! “Yes,” I would say to myself, walking 
down the street, “the first story I sell I’m going to hand him a few 
greenbacks.” Whereupon I myself would wax optimistic, persuaded by some 
crazy logic that some editor would take a fancy to me and write out a 
check, in advance, for five hundred or a thousand dollars. By the time I 
reached home, however, I’d be willing to settle for a five-spot. I’d settle
for anything, in fact, that meant another meal, or more postage, or just 
shoe laces.

“Any mail today?” That was always my cry on entering. If there were fat 
envelopes waiting for me I knew it was my manuscripts coming home to roost.
If they were thin envelopes it meant rejection slips, with a request to 
forward postage for the return of the scripts. Or else it was bills. Or a 
letter from the lawyer, addressed to some ancient address and forwarded to 
me in miraculous fashion.

The back alimony was piling up. I would never be able to foot the bill, 
never. It looked more them ever certain that I would end my days in Raymond
Street jail.

“Something will turn up, you’ll see.”

Whenever anything did turn up it was always by her contrivance. It was 
Mona who ran into the editor of “Scurrilous Stories,” and got a commission 
to write a half-dozen stories for them. Just like that. I wrote two, under 
her name, with great effort, with heroic effort really; then I got the 
bright idea to look up their old files, take their own published stories, 
change the names of the characters, the beginnings and endings, and serve 
them up rehashed. It not only worked—they were enthusiastic about these 
forgeries. Naturally, since they had already savored the stew. But I soon 
grew tired of making potpourris. Just so much time wasted, it seemed to me.
“Tell them to go to hell,” I said one day. She did. But the kick-back was 
wholly unanticipated. From being “our editor,” his nibs now became a heavy 
lover. We got five times the money we used to get for the damned stories. 
What he got I don’t know. To believe Mona, all he demanded was a half hour 
of her time in a public place, usually a tea room. Fantastic! More 
fantastic still was this—he confessed one day that he was still a virgin. 
(At the age of 49!) What he omitted to say was that he was also a pervert. 
The subscribers to the bloody magazine, we learned, included a respectable 
number of perverted souls—ministers, rabbis, doctors, lawyers, teachers, 
reformers, congressmen, all sorts of people whom one would never suspect of
being interested in such trash. The vice crusaders were undoubtedly the 
most avid of their readers.

As a reaction to this phony slush I wrote a story about a killer. I wrote
it as if I had known the man intimately, but the truth is I had gleaned all
the facts from little Curley who had spent a night in Central Park with 
this “Butch” or whatever he was called. The night Curley told me the story 
I had one of those bad dreams in which you are pursued endlessly and 
relentlessly, escaping certain death only by coming awake.

What interested me about this “Butch” was the discipline he imposed on 
himself in plotting his holdups. To plot a job accurately required the 
combined powers of a mathematician and a yogi.

There he was, right in Central Park, and the whole nation searching high 
and low for him. Telling his story, like a fool, to a young lad like 
Curley. Even divulging a few sensational aspects of the job he was then 
plotting.

He might as well have stood on the corner of Times Square as prowl about 
Central Park late at night.

A reward of fifty thousand dollars was coming to the man who got him, 
dead or alive.

According to Curley, the man had locked himself in his room for weeks; he
had spent hours upon hours lying on the bed with a bandage over his eyes, 
rehearsing in detail every step, every move that was to be made. Everything
had been thought out thoroughly, even the most trifling details. But, like 
an author or a composer, he would not undertake the execution of his plans 
until they were perfect. He not only took into account all possibilities of
error and accident, but like an engineer, he allowed a margin of safety to 
meet unexpected stress and strain. He might be dead certain himself, he 
might have tested the ability and the loyalty of his confederates, but in 
the end he could count only on himself, on his own brains, his own 
foresight. He was alone against thousands. Not only was every copper in the
country on the alert, but so were the civilians throughout the land. One 
careless little move and the jig was up. Of course he never intended to let
himself be caught alive. He would shoot it out. But there were his pals—he 
couldn’t let them down.

Perhaps, when he strolled out to get a breath of air that evening, he was
so chock full of ideas, so certain that nothing could go amiss, that he 
simply couldn’t contain himself any longer. He would collar the first comer
and spill the beans, trusting to the fact that his victim would be reduced 
to such a state of terror that he would be paralyzed. Perhaps he enjoyed 
the thought of brushing elbows with the guardians of the law, asking them 
for a light, maybe, or for directions, looking them straight in the eye, 
touching them, thanking them, and they none the wiser. Maybe he needed such
a thrill to steady himself, to get the cold feel of things—because it’s one
thing to think it out intensely all by yourself, securely locked in a room,
and quite another thing to start moving about outdoors, with every pair of 
eyes examining you, with every man’s hand raised against you. Athletes have
to warm up first. Criminals probably have to do something similar… Butch 
was the sort who enjoyed courting danger He was an A-l criminal, a guy who 
might have made a great general, or a wily corporation lawyer. Like so many
of his kind, he had assured Curley, not once but several times, that he had
always given his man a fair chance. He was not a coward, neither was he a 
sneak, and certainly not a traitor. He was against Society, that was all. 
Playing a lone hand, he had reason to be proud of his success. Like a movie
star, he was vain about his following. Fans? He had millions of them. Now 
and then he had done something off the record, just to let them know his 
calibre. Playing to the gallery. Sure. Why not? One had to get a little fun
out of it too. He didn’t particularly relish the killings, though he didn’t
have a bad conscience about them either. What he liked more than anything 
was to put it over on the soft-shoe blokes.

They always thought themselves so goddamned smart!

Curley was still trembling with excitement, fear, anguish, admiration and
God knows what. He could talk of nothing else. He urged us to watch the 
papers. It would be a sensational affair. Even to us he refused to reveal 
the nature of it. He was still frightened, still hypnotized. “His eyes!” he
exclaimed over and over. “I felt as if I were turning to stone.”

“But you met in the dark.”

“Doesn’t matter. They glowed like coals They gave off sparks!”

“Don’t you think maybe you imagined it, knowing he was a killer?”

“Not me. I’ll never forget those eyes. They’ll haunt me to my dying day.”
He shuddered.

“Do you really think, Curley,” asked Mona, “that a criminal’s eyes are 
different from other people’s?”

“Why not?” said Curley “Everything else about them is different. Why not 
their eyes? Don’t you think eyes change when the personality changes? They 
all have ‘other’ personalities. I mean, they’re not themselves. They’re 
something plus—or less, I don’t know which. They’re another breed, that’s 
all I can say. Even before he told me who he was I felt it. It was like 
getting a vibration from another world. His voice was unlike any human 
voice I know. When he shook hands with me I thought I had hold of an 
electric current. I got a shock, I can tell you—I mean a physical shock. I 
would have run away from him, then and there, but those eyes kept me rooted
to the spot. I couldn’t budge, couldn’t lift a finger… I begin to 
understand now what people mean when they talk of the Devil There was a 
strange smell about him—did I mention that? Not sulphur and brimstone. More
like some concentrated acid. Maybe he had been working with chemicals. But 
I don’t think it was that. It was something in his blood… “

“Do you think you would recognize him if you saw him again?”

Here Curley paused, to my surprise. He seemed baffled.

“Frankly,” he answered, and with great hesitation, “I don’t think I 
would. Strong as his personality was, it also had the power to erase itself
from one’s consciousness. Does that sound fishy? Let me put it another 
way.” (Here I was genuinely astounded. Curley had indeed made strides.) 
“Suppose St. Francis appeared before you tonight in this very room. Suppose
he spoke to you. Would you remember what he looked like tomorrow or the day
after? Wouldn’t his presence be so overwhelming as to wipe out all 
remembrance of his features? Maybe you’ve never thought of such an 
eventuality. I have because I knew someone once who had visions. I was only
a kid at the time but I can remember the look on the person’s face when she
told me of her experiences. I know that she saw more than the physical 
being. When someone comes to you from above he brings something of heaven 
with him—and that’s blinding. Anyway, that’s how it seems to me… Butch gave
me a similar feeling, only I knew he didn’t come from above. Wherever he 
came from, it was all about him. You could sense It. And it was 
terrifying.” He paused again, his face brightened. “Listen, you’re the one 
who urged me to read Dostoievsky. You know what it is, then, to be dragged 
into a world of unmitigated evil. Some of his characters talk and act as if
they inhabited a world absolutely unknown to us. I wouldn’t call it Hell. 
Something worse. Something more complex, more subtle than Hell. Nothing 
physical can describe it. You sense it from their reactions. They have an 
unpredictable approach to everything. Until he wrote about them, we’d never
known people who thought as his characters do. And that reminds me—with him
the criminal, the idiot, the saint are not very far apart, are they? How do
you figure that out? Did Dostoievsky mean that we’re all of one substance? 
What is evil, and what divine? Maybe you know… I don’t.

“Curley, you really surprise me,” said I. “I mean it.”

“You think I’m so very different now?”

“Different? No, not so very, but certainly more mature.”

“What the hell, you don’t remain a kid all your life.”

“True… Tell me honestly, Curley, if you could get away with it, would you
be tempted to lead the life of a criminal?”

“Possibly,” he answered, lowering his head ever so little.

“You like danger, don’t you?”

He nodded.

“And you don’t have many scruples either, when the other fellow gets in 
your way?”

“I guess not.” He smiled. A rather twisted smile. “And you still hate 
your step-father?”

Without waiting for a reply I added: “Enough to kill him, if you could 
get away with it?”

“Right!” said Curley. “I’d kill him like a dog.”

“Why? Do you know why? Now think, don’t answer me straight off.”

“I don’t have to think,” he barked. “I know. I’d kill him because he 
stole my mother’s love. It’s as simple as that.”

“Doesn’t that sound slightly ridiculous to you?”

“I don’t give a damn if it does. It’s the truth. I can’t forget it and, 
what’s more, I’ll never forgive him. There’s a criminal for you, if you 
want to know.”

“Maybe you’re right, Curley, but the law doesn’t recognize him as one.”

“Who cares about the law? Anyway, there are other laws—and more important
too. We don’t live by legal codes.”

“Right you are!”

“I’d be doing the world a service,” he continued heatedly. “His death 
would purify the atmosphere.

He’s of no use to any one. Never was. I ought to be honored for doing 
away with him and his kind. If we had an intelligent society, I would be. 
In literature men who commit such crimes are regarded as heroes. Books are 
as much a part of life as anything else. If authors can think such 
thoughts, why not me or the other fellows? My grievances are real, not 
imaginary… “

“Are you so sure of that, Curley?” It was Mona who spoke.

“Dead sure,” said he.

“But if you were the central character in a book,” said she, “the 
important thing would be what happened to you, not your step-father. A man 
who kills his father—in a book—doesn’t become a hero just on that account. 
It’s the way he behaves that counts, the way he faces the problem—and 
resolves it. Any one can commit a crime, but some crimes are of such 
stupendous import that the doer becomes something more than a criminal. Do 
you see what I’m getting at?”

“I follow you all right,” said Curley, “but I don’t give a damn about all
those subtleties and complexities. That’s literature! I’m telling you 
honestly that I still hate his guts, that I’d kill him without compunction,
if I could get away with it.”

“I see one big difference already… ” Mona began.

“What do you mean?” he snapped.

“Between you and the hero of a book.”

“I don’t want to be a hero.”

“I know,” said Mona gently, “but you do want to remain a human being, 
don’t you? If you go on thinking this way, who knows, some day you may get 
your wish. Then what?”

“Then I’d be happy. No, not happy exactly, but relieved.”

“Because he wag out of the way, you mean?”

“No! Because I had done away with him. There’s a difference there.”

Here I felt impelled to break In. “Look, Curley, Mona got off the track. 
I think I know what she meant to say. It’s this—the difference between a 
criminal who commits a crime and the hero of a book who commits the same 
crime is that the latter doesn’t care whether he will get away with it or 
not. He’s not concerned about what happens to him afterward. He must 
accomplish his purpose, that’s all.”

“Which only proves,” said Curley, “that I’ll never make a hero.”

-“Nobody’s asking you to become a hero. But if you see the distinction 
between the two then you’ll realize that you’re hardly much better than the
man you hate and despise so much.”

“Even if that’s true I don’t give a damn!”

“Let’s forget it then. The probabilities are that he’ll die a peaceful 
death and that you’ll end up on a ranch in sunny California.”

“Maybe it’ll be the griffs and the grinds—how do you know?”

“Maybe. And maybe not.”

Before he left that night Curley imparted a piece of information which 
gave us quite a shock. Tony Maurer, he told us, had committed suicide. He 
had hanged himself in the bathroom during the course of a party he was 
giving his friends. They had found him with a sardonic smile on his lips 
and a pipe hanging from his mouth. No one, apparently, knew why he had done
it. He was never in lack of money and he was deeply in love with the woman 
he lived with, a beautiful Javanese girl. Some said he had done it out of 
sheer boredom. If so, it was in keeping with his character.

The news affected me strangely. I kept thinking what a pity it was that I
had not gotten to know Tony Maurer more intimately. He was the sort of man 
I would have been proud to call a friend. But I was too bashful to make 
advances, and he was too surfeited to recognize my need. I always felt a 
little uncomfortable in his presence. Like a schoolboy, to be precise. 
Everything I wanted to do he had done al; ready… Perhaps there was 
something else which had drawn me to him all unconsciously: his German 
blood. For once in my life I had had the pleasure of knowing a German who 
did not remind me of all the other Germans I knew. The truth is, he wasn’t 
really a German—he was a cosmopolite. The perfect example of that “late 
city man” whom Spengler has so well described. His roots were not in German
soil, German blood, German tradition, but in those end periods which 
distinguished the late-city man of Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, India. He 
was rootless and “at home” everywhere—that is, where there was culture and 
civilization. He might just as well have fought on the Italian, French, 
Hungarian or Rumanian side as ours. He had a sense of loyalty without being
patriotic. No wonder he had spent six months (by accident) in a French 
prison camp—and enjoyed it. He liked the French even more than the 
Germans—or the Americans. He liked good conversation, that was it.

All these aspects of the man, plus the fact that he was debonair, adroit,
thoroughly sophisticated, utterly tolerant and forgiving, had endeared him 
to me. Not one of my friends possessed these qualities. They had better and
worse traits, traits all too familiar to me. They were too much like myself
au fond, my friends. All my life I had wanted, and still crave, as a matter
of fact, friends whom I could look upon as being utterly different from 
myself. Whenever I succeeded in finding one I also discovered that the 
attraction necessary to maintain a vital relationship was lacking. None of 
these individuals ever became more than “potential” friends.

Anyway, that night I dreamed. An interminable dream, as I said before, 
and full of hair-raising escapades. In the dream Butch and Tony Maurer had 
exchanged personalities. In some mysterious way I was in league with them, 
or him, for sometimes this mysterious, baffling confederate of mine would 
split into two distinct personalities, never however being clearly Tony 
Maurer or clearly Butch, but always a composite of the two, even when 
split. This sort of double play was sufficient in itself to cause me 
extreme anguish, to say nothing of the fact that I was never certain 
whether he or they were with me or against me.

The theme of this disturbing dream centered about a job we were pulling 
off in some strange city which I had never visited, a remote place like 
Sioux Falls, Tonopah or Ludlow. I played the role of stooge, a most 
uncomfortable role, since I was always exposed, always left in the lurch. 
Over and over again it was impressed on me that one false move, one little 
mistake, and I would be so much horse meat. The instructions were always 
garbled, always given in a code which it took me hours to decipher. Of 
course the job was never pulled off. Instead we were on the run 
continuously, driven from pillar to post, badgered like wild game. When we 
were obliged to hide away—in caves, cellars, swamps, mineshafts—we played 
cards or rolled dice. The stakes were always for grand sums. We paid one 
another off in I.O.U’s, or else in Confederate money which we had seized in
rifling a bank. This Butch-Maurer wore a monocle, wore it even in public, 
despite all my entreaties. His language was a mixture of thieves’ argot and
Oxford slang. Even when explaining the devious complexities of a perilous 
undertaking he had a bad habit of wandering off the track, of telling 
stories which were long-winded and pointless. It was excruciating to follow
him. Eventually the three of us were cornered, or pocketed rather, in a 
narrow defile (in the Far West, it seemed) by a band of vigilantes. We were
all killed outright, shot down like wild boars. I only realized that I was 
still alive when I came awake.

Even then I could scarcely believe it. I was already sprouting wings.

Such was the gist of the dream. I tried to condense this raw material 
into a tale of pursuit, with a strict plot and a definite locale. The 
manhunt part of it I captured quite well, I thought, but the choppy, 
fantastic, episodic dream substance of flight and incident refused to be 
converted into intelligible narrative. I fell between two stools. Still, it
was a brave attempt, and it gave me the courage to tackle more imaginative 
stories. Perhaps I might have succeeded, in this latter vein, had we not 
received a telegram from O’Mara urging us to join him in North Carolina, 
the seat of another big real estate boom. As usual, he intimated that he 
was holding down a big job: “they” had need of me on the publicity end.

I wired back immediately to send us the train fare and advise what my 
salary would be. The answer I received read as follows:

“Don’t worry everything jake borrow the fare.”

Mona immediately suspected the worst. It was just like him, she thought, 
to be vague, noncommittal and utterly unreliable. It was nothing more than 
lonesomeness that had made him wire us.

Defending him instinctively, I worked myself up to such a pitch of 
enthusiasm that, despite the fact that I had a sinking feeling about the 
whole business, I could no longer back out.

“Well,” she said, “and where will we get the fare?”

I was stumped. For a minute only. Suddenly I had a bright idea. “The 
money? Why, from that little Lesbian you met the other day in the 
department store, remember. The Tansy perfume girl. That’s where.”

“Preposterous!” That was her first reaction.

“Come, come,” I said, “she’ll probably bless you for asking her.”

She continued to assert that it was out of the question, but it was 
obvious that she was revolving the suggestion in her mind. By the morrow I 
was certain she’d display a different attitude.

“I tell you what,” said I, as if to dismiss the subject, “let’s go to a 
show tonight, what do you say? Let’s see something funny.”

She thought it an excellent idea. We ate out, picked a good show—at the 
Palace—and came home laughing our heads off. We laughed so much in fact 
that it took us hours to fall asleep.

The next morning, as I had anticipated, she was off to see her little 
Lesbian friend. No .trouble at all borrowing fifty smackers. Her difficulty
had been to shake the girl off.

I suggested that we hitch-hike instead of taking the train. That would 
leave something over on arriving. “You never know about O’Mara. It may be 
all a smoke dream.”

“You talked differently yesterday,” said Mona.

“I know, but now it’s today. I’d rather play safe.”

She acquiesced readily enough. Agreed that we would probably see more of 
the country by hitch-hiking. Besides, with a woman by one’s side it was 
always easier to get a lift.

The landlady was a bit put out by the suddenness of our decision, but 
when I explained that I had been commissioned to do a book she took it with
seeming good nature and wished us well.

“What sort of book?” she asked, clutching my hand in farewell.

“About the Cherokee Indians,” I said, quickly closing the door behind us.

We got lifts easily enough, but to my amazement Mona registered nothing 
but disappointment. By the time we reached Harper’s Ferry she was plainly 
disgusted—with the landscape, the towns, the people we met, the meals and 
everything.

It was late afternoon when we reached Harper’s Ferry. We sat high up on a
rock overlooking three States. Below us the Shenandoah and the Potomac. A 
hallowed spot, if for no other reason than the fact that here John Brown, 
the great Liberator, met his fate. Mona, however, wasn’t at all interested 
in the historic aspects of the place. As for the splendor of the vista, 
that she couldn’t repudiate. But it filled her with desolation. To tell the
truth, I felt much the same, but for different reasons. It was impossible 
to pull myself away. Too much had happened here to permit the obtrusion of 
one’s private worries. I read with moist eyes what Thomas Jefferson had 
said of this particular spot: the words were carved on a tablet fastened to
the rock. There was sublimity in Jefferson’s words. But there was even more
sublimity in the actions of John Brown and his faithful followers. “No man 
in America,” said Thoreau, “has ever stood up so persistently for the 
dignity of human nature, knowing himself for man and equal of any and all 
governments.” A fanatic? Possibly. Who else but a just man could plan to 
overthrow the stable, conservative government of these United States with a
mere handful of men? Glory to John Brown! Glory on high! “I believe in the 
Golden Rule, sir, and the Declaration of Independence. I think they both 
mean the same thing. Better that a whole generation should pass off the 
face of the earth—men, women and children—by a violent death, than that one
jot of either should fall in this country.” (The words of John Brown in the
year 1857.) Let us not forget that the number of Liberators who took 
possession of the town of Harper’s Ferry was only twenty-two, of whom 
seventeen were whites. “A few men in the right, and knowing they are, can 
overturn a king.” said John Brown. With twenty men in the Alleghanies he 
was certain he could smash Slavery in two years. “Who would be free, 
themselves must strike the blow.” There you have John Brown in a nut shell.
A fanatic?

More than likely. The sort who said: “A man dies when his time comes, and
a man who fears is born out of time.” If he was indeed a fanatic, he was a 
unique one. Is this the language of a fanatic?—“Do not allow anyone to say 
that I acted from revenge. I claim no man has a right to revenge himself. 
It is a feeling that does not enter into my heart. What I do, I do for the 
cause of human liberty, and because I regard it as necessary.”

Compromise was not in his nature. Nor palliation. He was a man of vision.
And it was a great, great vision which inspired his “mad” behavior. Had 
John Brown taken over the helm the slaves would really be free today—not 
only the black slaves but the white slaves and the slaves of the slaves, 
which is to say, the slaves of the machine The ironic thing is that the 
great Liberator came to a disastrous end because of his overwhelming sense 
of consideration for the enemy. (That was where his real madness lay!) 
After forty days in chains, after a mock trial during which he lay on the 
floor of the court-room in his blood-soaked, saber-torn clothes, he went to
the gallows, with head erect, standing there on the trap blindfolded, 
waiting, (though his one and only request had been to get done with it 
quickly) while the gallant military men of Virginia performed their 
interminable and asinine parade maneuvers.

To those who had written him toward the end, asking how they might aid 
him, John Brown had replied: “Please send fifty cents a year to my wife in 
North Elba, New York.” As he made his way to the gallows he shook hands in 
turn with each of his comrades, handing them each a quarter with his 
blessing. That’s how the great Liberator went to meet his Maker…

The gateway to the South is Harper’s Ferry. You enter the South by the 
way of the Old Dominion. John Brown had entered the Old Dominion to pass 
into life eternal. “I acknowledge no master in human form,” he said. Glory!
Glory be!

One of his contemporaries, almost as famous in his own way, said of John 
Brown: “He could not have been tried by his peers, for his peers did not 
exist.” Amen! Alleluia! And may his soul go marching on!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I’m now going to sing of “The Seven Great Joys.” This is the refrain:

Come all ye out of the wilderness

And glory be.

Father, Son and the Holy Ghost

Through all eternity.

We will sing it often as we writhe like snakes in the sultry bosom of the
South…

Asheville. Thomas Wolfe, who was born here, was probably composing Look 
Homeward, Angel! at the time of our entry. I had not even heard of Thomas 
Wolfe. A pity, because I might have looked at Asheville with different 
eyes. No matter what anyone says of Asheville, the setting is magnificent. 
In the very heart of the Great Smokies. Ancient Cherokee land. To the 
Cherokees it must have been Paradise. It is still a Paradise, if you can 
view it with a clear conscience.

O’Mara was there to usher us into Heaven. But once again we were too 
late. Things had taken a bad turn. The real estate boom was over. There was
no publicity job awaiting me. No job of any sort. To tell the truth, I felt
relieved. Learning that O’Mara had put a little money aside, enough to tide
us over a few weeks, I decided that it was as good a place as any to stay a
while and write. The only drawback was Mona. The South was not to her 
liking. I had hopes however, that she would adjust herself. After all, she 
had rarely set foot outside New York.

According to O’Mara, there was a ranger’s cabin which we could make use 
of indefinitely, rent free, if we liked the place. An ideal spot, he 
thought, for me to write in. Only a short distance out of town it was, up 
in the hills. He seemed eager to see us move in immediately.

It was nightfall when we got to the foot of the hill, where we were to 
obtain the keys for the cabin. With the aid of an overgrown idiot we rode 
up on muleback, in pitch darkness. Just Mona and myself rode, that is. As 
we slowly and laboriously ascended we listened to the roar of the mountain 
torrent rushing beside us. It was that dark you couldn’t see your hand in 
front of you. It took us almost an hour to get to the clearing where the 
cabin stood. Hardly had we dismounted when we were assailed by swarms of 
flies and mosquitoes. The idiot, a gangling, gawky lad who never opened his
mouth, pushed the door in and hung the lantern on a cord dangling from a 
rafter. Obviously the place hadn’t been inhabited for years. It was not 
only filthy, it was infested with rats, spiders and all manner of vermin.

We stretched out on the two cots side by side; the idiot lay on the floor
at our feet. I was aware of the unpleasant sound of bats swooping about 
over our heads. The flies and mosquitoes, disturbed by our intrusion, 
attacked us mercilessly.

Despite everything, however, we succeeded in falling asleep.

It seemed to me I had hardly closed my eyes when I felt Mona clutching my
arm.

“What is it?” I muttered.

She leaned over and whispered in my ear.

“Nonsense,” I said, “you were probably dreaming.”

I tried to fall back to sleep. In an instant I felt her clutching me 
again.

“It’s him,” she whispered, “I’m sure of it. He’s feeling my leg.”

I got up, struck a match, and took a good look at the idiot. He was lying
on his side, his eyes closed, still as a stick.

“You’re imagining things,” I said, “he’s sound asleep.”

Just the same I thought it better to be on the alert. A dumb gawk like 
that had the strength of a brute. I struck another match and took a quick 
look about to see what I might use as a weapon should he really get out of 
hand.

At daybreak we were all wide awake and scratching like mad. The heat was 
already stifling. We sent the boy to fetch a pail of water, dressed 
hurriedly, and decided without delay to clear out. While waiting for the 
goon to pack we inspected the spot more closely. The cabin was literally 
smothered by trees and brush. No view whatever. Just the sound of running 
water and the insane twittering of birds. I recalled O’Mara’s parting words
when we started up the goat path—“Just the place for you… an ideal 
retreat!”

Descending, again on muleback, we observed with a shudder what a narrow 
escape we had had. One little slip and we would have been done for. Before 
we had gone very far we dismounted and followed on foot. Even thus it was a
ticklish feat to keep from slipping.

At the bottom we were presented to all the members of the family. There 
were over a dozen kids running about, most of them half-naked. We inquired 
if we might have breakfast with them. We were told to wait, they’d call us 
when ready. We sat down on the steps of the porch and waited glumly. By 
now—it was not yet seven—the heat was almost intolerable.

When they called us in we found the whole family congregated about the 
table. For a moment I could scarcely believe my eyes: all those black spots
that peppered the food, were they really flies? At each end of the table 
stood two youngsters busily engaged in brushing away the flies with dirty 
towels. We sat down, all together, and the flies settled in our ears, eyes,
noses, hair and teeth. We sat in silence for a moment while the venerable 
patriarch said grace.

The very first blessing that Mary had

Hit was the blessing of one,

To think her little Jesus

Was God’s only Son,

Was God’s only Son.

The repast was a bounteous one—grits, bacon and eggs, com bread, coffee, 
ham, flapjacks, stewed pears. All for twenty-five cents per head. No extra 
charge for the flies.

O’Mara was a bit put out to see us back so quick. “No guts,” he said 
glumly.

“You know I hate flies,” was all I could say.

As luck would have it, we went to a restaurant that evening which had 
just opened. In West Asheville. The owner, Mr. Rawlins, had been a school 
teacher. For some reason he took a fancy to us instantly. On leaving he 
gave us a letter of introduction to a man and wife who had a comfortable 
room to let and at a very small sum. We paid a week’s rent in advance and 
the next day turned over to Mr. Rawlins sufficient to pay for a week’s 
supply of meals.

From this point on we saw almost nothing of O’Mara. No quarrel. Going 
different ways, that’s all. I borrowed a typewriter from Mr. Rawlins, who 
displayed a touching eagerness to be of service to “a man of letters.” To 
be sure, I had handed him quite a line regarding the books I had written, 
as well as about the magnum opus which was in progress. We ate well in his 
cosy little restaurant. There were all sorts of side dishes which he thrust
upon us gratis, in further recognition, no doubt, of “the man of letters.” 
Now and then he put a good cigar in my breast pocket or insisted that we 
accept a pint of ice cream, to eat when we got home.

It turned out that Rawlins had been a professor of English at the local 
high school. Which explains the royal sessions we held over the Elizabethan
writers. But what endeared me to him most, I do believe, was my love of the
Irish writers. The fact that I had read Yeats, Synge, Lord Dunsany, Lady 
Gregory, O’Casey, Joyce, led him to accept me as a boon companion. He was 
dying to read my work, but I had sense enough to keep it out of sight. 
Besides, there was really nothing to show him.

At the rooming house we struck up an acquaintance with a lumber man from 
West Virginia. Matthews was his name. He was a Scot through and through, 
but a gallant one. It gave him the utmost pleasure, a sincere pleasure, to 
drive us about the country in his beautiful car on his off days. He had a 
liking for good food and good wines, and he knew where they were to be 
found. It was at Chimney Rock one day that he blew us to a meal of which I 
can truthfully say that only twice since have I enjoyed anything like it. I
must say this of Matthews, that from the very beginning he divined our true
situation; from the very beginning of our relationship he made it clear 
that, whenever we were with him, we were never to put our hands into our 
pockets.

To say only this about him would be to give a false impression of the 
man. He was not a wealthy man, nor was he what we call a “sucker.” He was a
sensitive, highly intelligent individual who knew almost nothing about 
books, music or painting. But he knew life—and of nature, animals 
particularly, he was extremely fond. I said that he was not wealthy. Had he
wished to, he could have become a millionaire in no time. But he had no 
desire to become rich. He was one of those rare Americans who is content 
with his lot. To be in his company was like being with your own brother. 
Often, in the evening, we sat on the front porch and talked for five and 
six hours at a stretch. Easy talk. Restful talk…

But the writing… Somehow it wouldn’t come. To finish a simple story, a 
bad one at that, took me several weeks. The heat had something to do with 
it. (In the South the heat explains almost everything, except lynching.) 
Before I could get two lines written my clothes would be drenched with 
perspiration. I’d sit at the window and stare at the chain gang—all 
Negroes—working away with pick and shovel, chanting as they worked, the 
sweat rolling down their backs in rivulets. The harder they worked the less
effort I was able to make. The singing got into my blood. But what 
disturbed me even more was the looks of the guards; just to glance into the
faces of these human bloodhounds sent the shivers up my spine.

To vary the monotony Mona and I would make an excursion on our own 
occasionally, selecting some distant spot, any old spot, which we would get
to by hitch-hiking. We made these excursions merely to kill time. (In the 
South time flies like lead.) Sometimes we took the first car that came 
along, not caring which direction it was taking. Like that, observing one 
day that we were headed for South Carolina, I suddenly recollected the name
of an old school chum who, from last reports, was teaching music in a 
little college in South Carolina. I decided that we would pay him a visit. 
It was a long ride and, as usual, we had not a cent in our pockets. I was 
sure, however, that we could count on having a good lunch with my old 
friend.

It was a good twenty years since I had last seen this good old chum. He 
had left school ahead of us in order to study music in Germany. He became a
concert pianist, traveled all over Europe, and then returned to America to 
accept an insignificant post in this little Southern town. I had had a few 
cards from him—and then silence. As I mused I began to wonder if he could 
have forgotten who I was. Twenty years is a long time.

Every day, on our way home from school, I would stop at his home to 
listen to him play. He played all the compositions I was later to hear in 
concert halls, and he played them (to my youthful mind) as well as the 
maestros. He had the size and the reach to command attention. On his 
forehead was a budding growth which, when he grew inspired, looked almost 
like a short horn. He towered over me by a good foot. He looked like a 
foreigner and he spoke like a European of the upper class who had learned 
English with his mother tongue. Add to this that he usually wore striped 
trousers and a soft black coat. It was in the German class that we struck 
up a friendship. He had taken German, which he knew perfectly, in order to 
have that much less to study. The teacher, a delightful, flirtatious young 
woman with a keen sense of humor, was really taken with him. She pretended,
however, to be annoyed with him. Every now and then she gave him a sly dig.
One day, incensed by the perfect translation he had just delivered aloud 
and without preparation, she asked him why he hadn’t chosen to learn some 
other language. Hadn’t he any desire to learn something new? And so on. 
Putting on a malicious smile, he replied that he had better things to do 
with his time.

“Oh you have, have you? Like what, may I ask?”

“I have my music.”

“So! You’re a musician? A pianist—or perhaps a composer?”

“Both,” he said.

“And what have you composed thus far?”

“Sonatas, concerts, symphonies and operas… plus a few quartets.”

The class burst into an uproar “You’re even more of a genius than I 
thought you were,” she said, after the hubbub had died down.

Before the lesson was over he handed me a note which he had hastily 
scribbled and folded up. I had no more than read it when I was ordered up 
front. I handed it to her face open. She read the message, blushed crimson,
and threw it into the waste basket. All it said was: “Sie ist wie eine 
Blume.”

I thought of other things in connection with this “genius.” How he 
despised everything American, for example; how he detested our literature, 
how he mimicked the professors, how he loathed any form of exercise. But 
above all, I remembered the freedom he enjoyed in his own home and the 
respect shown him by his parents and brothers. There wasn’t another chap 
like him in the whole school. How delighted I was when I got my first 
letter from him, dated Heidelberg. He was thoroughly at home, he wrote, 
even more of a German than the Germans. Why was I staying in America? Why 
didn’t I join him and become a good German poet?

I was just thinking how odd it would be if he should say—“I don’t 
remember you”—when I realized that we had entered the town. It took less 
than no time to learn that my old friend had left the day before to tour 
the East. What luck! We were famished, it being long after noon. In 
desperation I held on to the Dean, a brittle, querulous old lady, trying to
impress upon her the fact that we had made a tremendous detour, on our way 
to Mexico—our car having broken down some miles away—expressly for the 
purpose of greeting my dear boyhood friend of long ago. By dint of holding 
on, chewing her ear off, I managed to get across to her (telepathically) 
that we were in need of refreshment. With bad grace she eventually ordered 
up tea and scones for us.

We walked to the edge of the town, to stretch our legs. There we caught a
lift homeward in a battered Ford. The driver, a veteran and somewhat 
cracked, also a bit spifflicated—in the South everyone drinks like a 
fish—said he would be passing through Asheville. He didn’t seem to know 
very definitely where he was going, except northward. The conversation 
which we carried on during the long ride back to Asheville was absolutely 
crazy. The poor devil had not only been banged up in the war, had not only 
lost his wife to his best friend, but had been in several bad accidents 
since. To make it worse, he was a dunce and a bigot, one of those ornery 
cusses who become even more ornery when they happen to be Southerners. We 
flitted from subject to subject like grasshoppers, nothing apparently being
of interest to him except his own woes and miseries. As we neared Asheville
he became more cantankerous than ever. He made it plain that he thoroughly 
and heartily disliked everything about us, including our manner of speech. 
When he finally deposited us on the sidewalk in Asheville he was fuming.

We stuck out our hands to thank him for the lift and, without wasting 
words, said—“Goodbye!”

“Goodbye!” he cried. “Aren’t you going to pay me?”

Pay? I was dumbfounded. Whoever heard of paying for a ride?

“You didn’t expect to ride for nothing, did you?” he shouted. “What about
the gas and oil I bought?” He leaned out of the car belligerently.

I had to do some tall explaining, and fast. He looked at us 
incredulously, then shook his head and mumbled: “I thought as much when I 
set eyes on you.” As an afterthought: “I’ve a good mind to run you in.” 
Then something I would never have expected happened: he burst into tears. I
leaned forward to say a comforting word, my heart completely melted. “Go 
away from me!” he yelled. “Go way!” We left him sitting huddled up over the
steering wheel, his head in his arms, weeping to break his heart.

“What in Christ’s name do you make of that?” I said, somewhat shaken.

“You were lucky he didn’t pull a knife on you,” said Mona. The experience
confirmed the conviction she had always held about Southerners—that they 
were absolutely unpredictable. It was time we thought of returning home, 
she thought.

The next day, as I sat at the machine with a vacant stare, I began to 
wonder how much longer we could carry on in sunny Carolina. Several weeks 
had passed since we last paid a cent toward our room. What we owed the good
Mr. Rawlins for meals I didn’t dare think.

The following day, however, to our utter astonishment we received a 
telegram from Kronski informing us that he and his wife were on their way, 
would see us that very evening. A windfall!

Sure enough, just a little before dinner time they blew in.

Come all ye out of the wilderness

And glory be, the

Father, Son and Holy Ghost

Through all eternity.

Almost the first thing we asked, disgraceful as it sounds, was whether 
they had any money to spare.

“Is that all that’s eating yez?” Kronski was fairly beaming. “That’s 
easy. How much would you like? Will fifty do?”

We hugged one another for joy. “Money,” he said—“why didn’t you wire me?”
And in the next breath—“Do you really like it here? Kinda scares me, to 
tell you the truth. This ain’t no country for niggers—nor for the Jews. 
Makes me creepy…

Over the meal he wanted to know what I had written, whether I had sold 
anything, and so on. He had suspected, so he said, that things weren’t 
going well with us. “That’s why we hopped down sort of sudden like. I’ve 
got thirty-six hours to spend with you.” He said this with a smile which 
meant—you won’t have to put up with me a minute longer.

Mona was all for going back with them, but for some perverse reason I 
insisted that we stick it out a little longer. We argued about this rather 
heatedly but got nowhere.

“The hell with that question,” said Kronski. “Now that we’re here, what 
can you show us before we leave?”

Promptly I replied: “Lake Junaleska.” I didn’t know why I said it, it 
just popped out of my mouth. But then suddenly I did know. It was because I
wanted to see Waynesville again.

“Every time I get near this place—Waynesville—I feel as though I would 
like to settle down. I don’t know what it is about the place, but it gets 
me.”

“You’ll never settle down in the South,” said Kronski. “You’re a born New
Yorker. Listen, why don’t you stop roaming through the hinterland and go 
abroad? The place for you is France, don’t you know that?”

Mona agreed most enthusiastically.

“You’re the only one who talks sense to him.” said she.

“If it were me,” said Kronski, “I’d pick Russia, but I don’t have the 
wanderlust. I don’t find New York so bad, would you believe that?” Then, in
characteristic fashion, he added: “Once I set up practice I’ll stake you 
two to a trip to Europe. I’m serious about it. I’ve had the thought many a 
time. You’re getting stale here. You don’t belong In this country, neither 
of you. It’s too small, too petty… it’s too goddamned prosaic, that’s what.
As for you, Mister Miller, quit writing those damned things for the 
magazines, do you hear me? You’re not meant to write that stuff. You’re cut
out to write books. Write a book, why don’t you? You can do it… “

The next day we went to Waynesville and to Lake Junaleska. Neither place 
made the least impression on any of them.

“Funny,” said I, as we were riding back, “you can’t picture a guy like me
spending the rest of his days in a spot like that—like Waynesville, I mean.
Why? Why does it seen so fantastic?”

“You don’t belong, that’s all.”

“I don’t, eh?” Where do I belong, I asked myself. France? Maybe. Maybe 
not. Forty million Frenchmen was a lot to swallow in one dose. If anything,
I preferred Spain. I took instinctively to Spaniards, as I did to Russians.

Somehow the conversation had got me to pondering the economic question 
again. That was always a nightmare. In a weak moment I found myself 
wondering if we hadn’t better return to New York after all.

The next day, however, I was of a different mind. We accompanied Kronski 
and his wife to the edge of the town where they quickly got a lift. We 
stood there a moment waving goodbye, then I turned to Mona and mumbled 
thickly: “He’s a good egg, that Kronski.”

“The best friend you’ve got,” she said quick as a flash.

With the fifty from Kronski we paid something on our debts, and, trusting
that Kronski would send us a little more when he got back to New York, we 
made another stab at it. By sheer force of will I succeeded in finishing 
another story. I tried to begin another, but it was hopeless: I hadn’t an 
idea in my bean. So instead I wrote letters to all and sundry, including 
that kind editor who had once offered to give me a job as his assistant. I 
also looked up O’Mara, but found him in such a despondent mood that I 
didn’t have the heart to mention money.

There was no doubt about it, the South was getting us down. The landlord 
and his wife did everything to make us comfortable; Mr. Rawlins, too, did 
his best to encourage us. Never a word from any of them about the money we 
still owed them. As for Matthews, his trips to West Virginia were becoming 
more frequent and more protracted. Besides, we simply couldn’t bring 
ourselves to borrow from him.

The heat, as I have already said, had a great deal to do with our lowered
morale. There is a heat which warms and vitalizes, and there’s another kind
which enervates one, saps one’s strength, one’s courage, even one’s desire 
to live. Our blood was too thick, I suppose. The general apathy of the 
natives only added to our own apathy. It was like somnolescing in a vacuum.
Never did one hear the word art; it was absent from the vocabulary of these
people. I had the feeling that the Cherokees had produced more art than 
these poor devils ever would. One missed the presence of the Indian whose 
land, after all, it was. One felt the overpowering presence of the Negro. A
heavy, disturbing presence. The “tarheel,” as the native is called, is 
certainly no nigger-lover. He’s not much of anything, in fact. As I say, it
was a vacuum, a hot, smoldering vacuum, if one can imagine such a thing.

It made me itchy at times to walk up and down the desolate streets. 
Walking the road was no fun either. On every side a gorgeous setting 
presented itself to the eye, yet inwardly one felt nothing but despair and 
desolation. The beauty of the surroundings only served to ravage one. God 
had certainly meant for man to lead a different life here. The Indian had 
been much closer to God. As for the Negro, he would have thrived here had 
the white man given him a chance. I used to wonder, and I wonder still, 
whether eventually the Indian and the Negro will not get together, drive 
the white man out, and reestablish Paradise in this land of milk and honey.
Ah well—

The very next blessing that Mary had

Hit was the blessing of two

To think her little Jesus

Could read the Bible through

Read the Bible through.

A few contributions dribbled in—pin money, no more!–as a result of the 
letters I had sent out “to all and sundry.” Not a word from Kronski, 
though.

We held out a few more weeks, then totally discouraged, we decided one 
night to get up at the crack of dawn and sneak away. We had only two little
grips to lug. After a sleepless night we rose with the first streak of 
light and, carrying our shoes in one hand and a grip in the other, we eased
out as noiseless as mice. We walked several miles before a car came along. 
It was noon by the time we reached Winston-Salem, where I decided to send 
my father a collect message asking for a few dollars. I suggested he wire 
the money to Durham, where we planned to spend the night.

Toward evening we entered Durham. A telegram was waiting for me, sure 
enough. It read: “Sorry son but I haven’t a cent in the bank.” I felt like 
weeping, not over our plight but because of the humiliation it must have 
caused the old man to send a message like that.

Thanks to a stranger, we had had a sandwich and coffee around noon. We 
were now famished, more famished than ordinary, of course, because of the 
impossible distance still to go on an empty stomach. There was nothing to 
do but take to the road again, which we did—like automatons.

As we were standing on the highway, too tired and defeated to trudge 
another step, as we stood there blankly watching the sun go down like a 
burst tomato, all of a sudden a rather snazzy car pulled up and a cheery 
voice called out—“Want a lift?” It was a couple headed for some little town
about two hours distant. The man was from Alabama, and spoke with the 
accent of a man of the deep South, the woman was from Arkansas. They were 
cheerful, lively individuals who seemed not to have a care in the world.

On the way we had car trouble, one little thing after another. Instead of
making it in two hours it took almost five. By the time we reached our 
destination, thanks to the delays, we had become firm friends. We had told 
them the truth about ourselves, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, 
and it had gone straight to their hearts. I shall never, never forget the 
way that good woman, immediately we entered the house, rushed to the 
bathroom, filled the tub with hot water, laid out the soap and towels, and 
begged us to relax while she scared up a meal. When we reappeared, clothed 
in their bathrobes, the table was set; we sat down at once to an excellent 
meal of hash and fried eggs with hot muffins, coffee, preserves, fruit and 
pie. It was about three in the morning when we turned in. At their request 
we slept in their bed, never realizing until we awoke that our kind hosts 
had improvised a bed for themselves by removing the seats from the car.

When we got up, around noon, we had a hearty breakfast, after which the 
man showed me around his huge back yard where the remains of cars were 
strewn about. Wrecks were his livelihood. He was certainly a happy-go-lucky
sort of fellow, and his wife even more so. Our unexpected visit seemed to 
make them slap-happy. Why we didn’t stay with them a few days, as they 
begged us to do, I don’t know.

As we made ready to leave, the woman took Mona to one side and furtively 
pressed a few bills into her hand, while the husband shoved a carton of 
cigarettes under my arm. They insisted on driving us out of town a little 
distance so that we might get a lift more easily. When we finally parted 
they had tears in their eyes.

It was getting on and we were bent on making Washington that day. We 
would have made it, too, were it not for the fact that we got nothing but 
short hauls. By the time we sailed into Richmond it was nightfall. And 
again we were broke. The few dollars the woman had given us had 
disappeared—Mona’s purse with it. Had someone robbed us of those miserable 
few dollars?

If so, it was a grim joke. However, we felt too good, too near our goal, 
to be depressed over the loss of our little fortune.

Time to eat again…

With a calculating eye we scanned the various restaurants and finally 
decided on a Greek one. We would eat first, then explain our predicament. 
We put away a good meal with extra helpings of dessert, and then gently 
broke the news to the proprietor. Our story made no impression on him 
whatever, or rather, it made the wrong impression. All he could think 
of—hardly a solution!—was to call the police. In a few minutes a motorcycle
cop appeared. After the usual grilling he asked us point blank what we 
intended to do about the situation. I said that if he would pay for the 
wire we would send a message to New York, that undoubtedly the money would 
be forthcoming in the morning. He thought this a reasonable idea and 
volunteered to put us up in a hotel nearby. He then turned to the Greek and
informed him that he would be responsible for us. All of which struck me as
damned decent.

I dispatched a message to Ulric, not without misgivings. The cop escorted
us to our room and said he would be round to see us early the next morning.
Despite the fact that we were from New York, he showed us uncommon 
consideration. A New York cop, I couldn’t help but reflect, was a horse of 
another color.

During the night I got up to make sure the proprietor hadn’t locked us 
in. I found it impossible to close my eyes. As the night wore on I felt 
more and more certain that there would be no answer to our telegram.

To slip out without the night clerk spying us was impossible. I got up, 
went to the window, and looked out. It was a drop of about six feet to the 
ground. That settled it: we’d leave by the window at dawn.

As the sun came up we were again standing on the highway, a mile or two 
outside the town. We still had our two little grips. Instead of making a 
bee-line for Washington we headed for Tappahannock—just in case the cop 
might be on our trail. As luck would have it we got a lift in jig time. No 
breakfast, of course, and no lunch. En route we ate a few green apples, 
which gave us the colic.

A little distance out of Tappahannock a lawyer en route to Washington 
picked us up. A charming fellow, Well read, easy to talk to. We gave him an
earful in the time allotted us. It must have taken effect because, as we 
were saying goodbye to him in Washington, he insisted on lending us twenty 
dollars. He said he was “lending” it, but what he meant very plainly was 
that we were to spend it and forget about it. As he toyed with the brake he
mumbled over his shoulder: “I once tried to be a writer myself.”

We were so elated we couldn’t get home fast enough. Around midnight we 
landed in the big city. The first thing we did was to phone Kronski. Could 
he put us up for the night? Certainly. We dove into the subway and made for
the Bronx, where he was again living.

The subway was a doleful sight to our eyes. We had forgotten how pale and
worn the people looked, we had forgotten what a stench the city gave off. 
The treadmill. Trapped again.

Well, at least we were on familiar ground. Maybe some one would be glad 
to see us after the lapse of a few months. Maybe I’d look for a job in real
earnest.

The sixth joy goes like this—how appropriate!

The very next joy

Mary had It teas the joy of six

To see her little Jesus On the crucifix.

And here is Dr. Kronski…

“Well well! Back again! I told you so. But don’t think you can camp out 
on us. No sir! You can stay the night, but that’s all. Have you eaten? I’ve
got to get up early. There are no clean towels, don’t ask for any. You’ll 
have to sleep in the raw. And don’t expect your breakfast served in bed. 
Good night!” All in one breath.

We cleared the cots of medical books and scraps of food, pulled back the 
gray sheets, noticed the blood stains but said nothing, and crawled in.

O COME ALL YE OUT OF THE WILDERNESS AND GLORY BE!

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

In a Buddhist magazine not long ago I read something like this: “If we 
could only get what we want when we think we need it life would present no 
problem no mystery, and no meaning.” I was a trifle indisposed the morning 
I read this. I had decided to spend the day in bed. Reading these words, 
however, I began to howl with laughter. In less than no time I was up and 
out of bed, chirping away as merrily as usual.

If I had come across this piece of wisdom in the period I am writing of I
doubt if it would have had any effect upon me. It was just impossible for 
me to take a detached view of things. The day was full of problems, full of
complications. There was mystery in everything, irritating mystery. The 
mystery surrounding the universe—that was sheer intellectual luxury. The 
whole meaning of life was wrapped up in the solution of how to keep afloat.
It sounds simple, but we knew how to complicate even such a simple problem.

Disgusted with our haphazard way of life, I made up my mind to take a 
job. No more gold-digging.

No more chasing rainbows. I was determined to earn sufficient for the 
daily necessities, come what may. I knew it would be a blow to Mona. The 
very thought of my taking a job was anathema to her. Worse than that, it 
was sheer black treachery.

Her response, when I broached my resolution, was characteristic. “You’re 
undermining everything I’ve done!”

“I don’t care,” I answered, “I’ve got to do it.”

“Then I’ll take a job too,” said she. And that very day she hired herself
out as a waitress at The Iron Cauldron.

“You’re going to regret this,” she informed me. By this she meant that it
was fatal ever to leave one another’s side.

I had to promise her that while looking for work I would have my meals at
The Iron Cauldron twice a day. I went once, for lunch, but the sight of her
waiting on tables discouraged me so that I couldn’t go back again.

To get regular employment in an office was out of the question. In the 
first place there was nothing I could really do well, and in the second 
place I knew I would never be able to stand the routine. I had to find 
something which would give me the semblance of freedom and independence. 
There was only one job I could think of which filled the bill—and that was 
the book racket. Though it wouldn’t offer me a regular salary, my time 
would be my own, and that meant a great deal to me. To get up every morning
on the dot and punch a clock was out of the question.

I couldn’t go back to work for the Encyclopedia Britannica again—my 
record was to shady. I’d have to find another encyclopedia to handle. It 
didn’t take long to discover the loose-leaf encyclopedia. The sales 
manager, to whom I had applied for a job, didn’t have much difficulty 
convincing me that it was the best encyclopedia on the market. He seemed to
think I had excellent possibilities. As a favor he gave me some of his own 
personal leads to start with. They were “pushovers,” he assured me. I left 
the office with a briefcase filled with specimen pages, various types of 
binding, and the usual paraphernalia which the book salesman always carries
about with him. I was to go home and study all this crap and then start 
out. I was never to take “No” for an answer. Soit.

I made two sales the first day, netting me quite a handsome commission 
since I had managed to sell my customers the most expensively bound sets. 
One of my victims was a Jewish physician, a charming, considerate 
individual who not only insisted on my staying to dinner with the family 
but who gave me the names of several good friends of his whom he was 
certain I could sell. The next day I sold three sets, thanks to this kind 
Jew. The sales manager was secretly elated but pretended that I had the 
usual beginner’s luck. He warned me not to let this quick success go to my 
head.

“Don’t be satisfied because you sell two or three a day. Try to sell five
or six. We have men who sell as many as twelve sets a day.”

“You’re full of shit,” I thought to myself. “A man who can sell twelve 
sets of encyclopedias a day wouldn’t be selling encyclopedias, he’d be 
selling the Brooklyn Bridge.”

Nevertheless I went about my work conscientiously. I followed up every 
lead religiously, even though it meant journeying to such outlandish towns 
as Passaic, Hoboken, Canarsie and Maspeth. I had sold three of those 
“personal” leads the sales manager had given me. He thought I should have 
sold the entire seven, the idiot. Each time we met he became more friendly,
more conciliatory. The publishers were going to have a big show at the 
Garden soon, he informed me one day. If I kept on my toes he might arrange 
to have me work with him in the booth which the firm was renting. He 
implied that there, at the Garden, the sales fell into your lap like ripe 
plums. It would be a clean-up. He added that he had been studying me; he 
liked the way I spoke. “Stick with me,” he added, “and we may give you a 
big piece of territory to handle—out West, perhaps. You’ll have a car and a
crew of men under you. How does that appeal to you?”

“Marvelous!” I said, though the mere thought of it terrified me. I didn’t
want to be that successful. I was quite content to sell one a day—if I 
could.

Any one who tries to sell books soon learns that there is one type of 
individual who takes the wind out of your sails. This is the fellow who 
seems so pliant and yielding that you almost feel sorry for him when first 
you sink your hooks into him. You feel certain that he’ll not only buy a 
set for himself but that he’ll bring you signed orders from his friends in 
a day or two. He agrees with everything you say, and goes you one better. 
He marvels that every intelligent person in the land is not already in 
possession of the books. He has innumerable questions to ask, and the 
answers always incite him to greater enthusiasm. When it comes to the last 
touch—the bindings—he fingers them lovingly, dwelling with exasperating 
elaboration on the relative advantages of each. He even shows you the niche
in the wall where he believes the set will show up to best advantage. A 
dozen times you make ready to hand him the pen in order to sign on the 
dotted line. Sometimes you rouse these birds to such a pitch that nothing 
will do but call up a neighbor and have him look at the books too. If the 
friend comes, as he usually does, you rehearse the program all over again. 
The day wears on and you find yourself still talking, still expounding, 
still marveling over the wonders contained in this beautiful and 
practicable set of books. Finally you make a desperate effort to pull in 
the line. And then you get something like this: “Oh, but I can’t buy the 
books now—I’m out of work at the moment. I sure would love to own a set, 
though… ” Even at this point you feel so certain the guy is sincere that 
you offer to stake him to the first installment. “You can pay me later, 
when you get a job. Just sign here!” But even here the type I speak of will
manage to squirm out. Any bare-faced excuse serves him. Only at this point 
do you realize that he never had the least intention of buying the books, 
it was just a way of passing the time. He may even tell you blandly, as you
take leave, that he never enjoyed anything so much as hearing the way you 
talked…

The French have an expression which sums it up neatly: “il n’est pas 
serieux.”

It’s a great business, the book racket. You learn something about human 
nature if nothing else. It’s almost worth the time wasted, the sore feet, 
the heartaches. One of the striking features about the game, though, is 
this—once you’re in It you can think of nothing else. You talk 
encyclopedias—if that happens to be the line—from mom to midnight; you talk
it every chance you get, and when there is no one else to talk to you talk 
to yourself. Many’s the time I sold myself a set in an off moment. It 
sounds preposterous, if you’re not in the grind, but actually you get to 
believe that every one on God’s earth must possess the precious boon you 
have been given to dispense. Every one, you tell yourself, has need of more
knowledge. You look at people with just one thought in your mind—is he a 
prospect or not? You don’t give a damn whether the person will ever make 
use of the damned set: you think only of how you can convince him that what
you have to offer is a sine qua non. As for other commodities—shoes, socks,
shirts, etc.—what fun would there be in selling a man something he has to 
have? No sir, you want your victim to have a sporting chance. You’d almost 
prefer him to turn his back on you—then you could really put on your song 
and dance with gusto. A good salesman doesn’t enjoy taking money from a 
“pushover.” He wants to earn his money. He wants to delude himself that, if
he were really put to it, he could sell books to an illiterate—or to a 
blind man!

It’s a game, moreover, which throws interesting characters across your 
path, some of them having tastes similar to your own, some being more alien
than the heathen Chinese, some admitting that they have never owned a book,
and so on. Sometimes I came home so elated, so hilarious, that I couldn’t 
sleep a wink. Often we lay awake the whole night talking about these truly 
“droll” characters whom I had encountered.

The ordinary salesman, I observed, had sense enough to clear out quick 
when he saw that there was little prospect of making a sale. Not me. I had 
a hundred different reasons for clinging to my man. Any crackpot could hold
me till the wee hours of the morning, recounting the history of his life, 
spinning out his crazy dreams, explaining his mad projects and inventions. 
Many of these witless ones reminded me strongly of my cosmococcic messenger
boys; some, I discovered, had actually been in the service. We understood 
one another perfectly. Often, in parting, they would make me little gifts, 
absurd trifles which I usually threw away before reaching home.

Naturally I was bringing in less and less orders. The sales manager was 
at a loss to understand: according to him, I had all the requisites for 
making an A-l salesman. He even offered to take a day off and make the 
rounds with me, to prove how simple it was to get orders. But I always 
managed to dodge the issue. Occasionally I hooked a professor, a priest or 
a prominent lawyer. These strikes tickled him pink. “That’s the sort of 
clientele we’re after,” he would say. “Get more like them!”

I complained that he rarely gave me a decent lead. Most of the time he 
was handing me children or imbeciles to call on. He pretended it didn’t 
matter much what the intelligence or station in life of the prospect might 
be—the important thing, the only thing, was to get inside the house and 
stick. If it was a child who had fallen for the ad, then I was to talk to 
the parents, convince them that it was for the child’s good. If it was a 
nitwit who had written in for information, so much the better—a moron had 
no resistance. And so on. He had an answer for everything, that guy. His 
idea of a good salesman was one who could sell books to inanimate objects. 
I began to loathe him with all my heart.

Anyway, the whole damned business was nothing more than an excuse to keep
active, a means of bolstering the pretense that I was struggling to make a 
living. Why I bothered to pretend I don’t know, unless it was guilt which 
prompted me. Mona was earning more than enough to keep the two of us. In 
addition she was constantly bringing home gifts, either of money or of 
objects which could be converted into cash. The same old game. People 
couldn’t resist thrusting things on her. They were all “admirers,” of 
course. She preferred to call them “admirers” rather than “lovers”. I 
wondered very often what it was they admired in her, particularly since she
handed out nothing but rebuffs. To listen to her carry on about these 
“dopes” and “saps” you would think that she never even smiled at them.

Often she kept me awake nights telling me about this new swarm of 
hangers-on. An odd lot, I must say. Always a millionaire or two among them,
always a pugilist or wrestler, always a nut, usually of dubious sex. What 
these queer ones saw in her, or hoped to get out of her, I could never 
fathom. There were to be plenty of them, as time went on. Right now it was 
Claude. (Although, to be truthful, she never referred to Claude as an 
admirer.) Anyway, Claude. Claude what? Just Claude. When I inquired what 
this Claude did for a living she became almost hysterical. He was only a 
boy! Not a day over sixteen. Of course he looked much older. I must meet 
him some day. She was certain I would adore him.

I tried to register indifference, but she paid no heed. Claude was 
unique, she insisted. He had roamed all over the world—on nothing. “You 
should hear him talk,” she babbled on. “You’ll open your eyes. He’s wiser 
than most men of forty. He’s almost a Christ… “

I couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing. I had to laugh in her face.

“All right, laugh! But wait till you meet him, you’ll sing a different 
tune.”

It was from Claude, I learned, that she had received the beautiful Navaho
rings, bracelets and other adornments. Claude had spent a whole summer with
the Navahos. He had even learned to talk their language. Had he wished it, 
she said he could have lived the rest of his life with the Navahos.

I wanted to know where he came from originally, this Claude. She didn’t 
know for sure herself. From the Bronx, she thought. (Which only made him 
all the more unique.) “Then he’s Jewish?” I said.

Again she wasn’t sure. One couldn’t tell a thing about him from his 
looks. He didn’t look anything. (A strange way to put it, I thought.) He 
might pass for an Indian—or for a pure Aryan. He was like the 
chameleon—depended when and where you met him, the mood he was in, the 
people surrounding him, and so on.

“He was probably born in Russia,” I said, taking a wide swing.

To my surprise she said:

He speaks Russian fluently, if that means anything. But then he speaks 
other languages too—Arabic, Trukish, Armenian, German, Portugese, 
Hungarian… “

“Not Hungarian!” I cried. “Russian, O.K. Armenian, O.K. Turkish ditto, 
though that’s a bit hard to swallow. But when you say Hungarian, I balk. 
No, by crickey. I’ll have to hear him talk Hungarian before I believe that 
one.”

“All right,” she said, “come down some night and see for yourself. 
Anyway, how could you tell—you don’t know Hungarian.”

“Right! But I know this much—any one who can talk Hungarian is a wizard. 
It’s the toughest language in the world—except for the Hungarians, of 
course. Your Claude may be a bright boy, but don’t tell me he speaks 
Hungarian! No, you don’t ram that one down my throat.”

My words hadn’t made a dent in her, obviously, because the next thing out
of her mouth was—“I forgot to tell you that he also knows Sanskrit, Hebrew,
and… “

“Listen,” I exclaimed, “he’s not almost a Christ, he is the Christ. 
Nobody but Christ Almighty could master all those tongues at his age. It’s 
a wonder to me he hasn’t invented the universal tongue. I’ll be down there 
mighty soon, don’t fret. I want to see this phenomenon with my own eyes. I 
want him to talk six languages at once. Nothing less will impress me.”

She looked at me as if to say—“You poor doubting Thomas!”

The steadiness of her smile finally nettled me. I said: “Why do you smile
like that?”

She hesitated a full minute. “Because, Val… because I was wondering what 
you’d say if I were to tell you that he also had the power to heal.”

For some queer reason this sounded more plausible and consonant with his 
character than anything she had told me about him. But I had to maintain my
attitude of doubt and mockery.

“How do you know this?” I said. “Have you seen him heal any one?”

She refused to answer the question squarely. She insisted, however, that 
she could vouch for the truth of her statement.

To taunt her I said: “What did he cure—a sick headache?”

Again she took her time in responding. Then, rather solemnly, almost too 
solemnly, she replied: “He’s cured cancer, if that means anything.”

This made me furious. “For Christ’s sake,” I yelled, “don’t stand there 
and tell me a thing like that! Are you a gullible idiot? You might just as 
well tell me he’s raised the dead.”

The flicker of a smile passed over her countenance. In a voice no longer 
solemn, but grave, she said: “Well, Val, believe it or not, he’s done that 
too. Among the Navahos. That’s why they love him so… “

“O.K. girlie, that’s enough for tonight. Let’s change the subject. If you
tell me any more I’ll think you’ve got a screw loose.”

Her next words took me completely by surprise. I nearly jumped out of my 
skin.

“Claude says he has a rendezvous with you. He knows all about you… knows 
you inside-out, in fact. And don’t go thinking I told him, because I 
didn’t! Do you want to hear more?” She went right on. “You have a 
tremendous career ahead of you: you’ll be a world figure one day. According
to Claude, you’re playing blind man’s buff now. You’re spiritually blind, 
as well as dumb and deaf… “

“Claude said that?” I was thoroughly sober now. “All right, tell him, 
I’ll keep the rendezvous. Tomorrow night, how’s that? But not at that 
damned joint of yours!”

She was overjoyed by my complete surrender. “Leave it to me,” she said, 
“I’ll choose a quiet spot where the two of you can be alone.”

Of course I couldn’t resist inquiring how much he had told her about me. 
“You’ll learn all that tomorrow,” she kept repeating. “I wouldn’t want to 
spoil it for you.”

I fell asleep with difficulty. Claude kept reappearing, like a vision, 
each time in a different aspect. Though he always had the figure of a boy, 
his voice sounded like the voice of the ancient one. No matter what 
language he spoke I was able to follow him. I wasn’t the least amazed, 
curiously enough, to hear myself talking Hungarian. Nor was I amazed to 
find myself riding a horse, riding bareback with bare feet. Often we 
carried on our discussions in foreign lands, in remote places such as 
Judea, the Nubian desert, Trukestan, Sumatra, Patagonia. We made use of no 
vehicles; we were always there where our thoughts roamed, without effort, 
without the use of the will. Aside from certain sexual dreams, I don’t 
believe I had ever had such a pleasant dream. It was more than pleasant—it 
was instructive in the highest sense. This Claude was more like an alter 
ego, even though at times he did strikingly resemble the Christ. He brought
me great peace. He gave me direction. More than that—he gave me reason for 
being. I was at last something in my own right and no need to prove it to 
anyone. I was securely in the world yet not a victim. I was participating 
in a wholly new way, as only a man can who is free from conflict. 
Strangely, the world had grown much smaller than I thought it to be. More 
intimate, more understandable. It was no longer something against which I 
was pitted; it was like a ripe fruit which I was inside of, which nourished
me, and which was inexhaustible. I was one with it, one with 
everything—that’s the only way I can put it.

As luck would have it, I failed to meet Claude the next night. It so 
happened that I was in Newark or some such place when evening came on, 
talking to a prospect whom I found fascinating. He was a black man who was 
working his way through law school as a stevedore. He had been out of work 
for several weeks and was in a receptive mood to listen to me expound the 
advantages of the loose-leaf encyclopedia. Just as he was on the verge of 
signing his demi-quivers for a set his aged mother poked her head through 
the doorway and begged me to stay for dinner. She apologized for intruding 
on us, explaining that they were going to a meeting after dinner and that 
she had to remind her son to change his clothes. The latter dropped the pen
which he had been holding and escaped to the bathroom.

Waiting for him to reappear my eye fell upon an announcement. It was to 
the effect that the great Negro leader, W. E. Brughardt Dubois, was to 
speak in the town hall that very evening. I could hardly wait for the lad 
to return. I paced up and down the room in a fever. Well I knew this 
Dubois. Years ago, when I was keen about attending lectures, I had heard 
Dubois speak on the great heritage of the black race. It was in some little
hall on the lower East Side; the audience, oddly enough was mostly Jewish. 
I had never forgotten the man. He was handsome, thoroughly Aryan in 
features, and of an imposing figure; he wore a goatee then, if I remember 
rightly. I learned later that he had been born in New England; his 
ancestors were of mixed blood, French, Dutch and other strains. What I 
remembered best about him was his impeccable diction and his vast 
erudition. He had a challenging, straightforward way of speaking which won 
me over to him immediately. He struck me at once as a superior being. And 
was it not he, I thought to myself, who had accepted and published the 
first article of mine ever to appear in print?

At the dinner table I met the other members of the family. The sister, a 
young woman of about twenty-five, was strikingly beautiful. She had decided
to go to the lecture too. That settled it for me—Claude could wait. When I 
made known to them that I had heard Dubois before and that I had an 
unbounded admiration for him, they insisted that I come along as their 
guest. The young man now suddenly recalled that he had not signed his name 
on the dotted line; he begged me to let him do so before he forgot a second
time. I felt embarrassed, as though I had tricked him.

“Think it over first,” I said. “If you really want the books you can mail
me the slip later.”

“No, no!” cried his mother and sister at once. “He’ll sign up right now, 
‘cause if he don’t he never will. You know how we folks are.”

Now the sister was becoming interested in the subject. I had to explain 
the whole business to her hurriedly.

“Sounds wonderful,” she said. “Leave me some blanks, I think I can get 
you a few orders.”

We hurried through the meal, then piled into their car. A good-looking 
car, it seemed to me. On the way to the hall they told me of Dubois’ 
activities since I had last heard of him. He had assumed an educational 
post in the South, a world not too congenial for one of his temperament and
upbringing. He had grown somewhat bitter, they thought, and more caustic in
his speech. Impulsively I told them that he reminded me in some strange, 
undefinable way, of Rabindranath Tagore, whom I also had heard years ago. 
What I was thinking of probably was that neither of these men minced words 
when it came to telling the truth.

By the time we reached the hall I was in the midst of a long drawn-out 
rhapsody about another Negro, my quondam idol Hubert Harrison. I was 
telling them of all I had learned standing at the foot of his soap-box in 
Madison Square in the days when one could discuss anything freely and 
publicly. There was no one in those days, I told them candidly, who could 
hold a candle to Hubert Harrison. With a few well-directed words he had the
ability to demolish any opponent. He did it neatly and smoothly too, “with 
kid gloves,” so to speak. I described the wonderful way he smiled, his easy
assurance, the great sculptured head which he carried on his shoulder like 
a lion. I wondered aloud if he had not come of royal blood, if he had not 
been the descendant of some great African monarch. Yes, he was a man who 
electrified one by his mere presence. Beside him the other speakers, the 
white ones, looked like pygmies, not only physically but culturally, 
spiritually. Some of them, the ones who were paid to foment trouble, 
carried on like epileptics, always wrapped in the stars and stripes, to be 
sure. Hubert Harrison, on the other hand, no matter what the provocation, 
always retained his self-possession, his dignity. He had a way of placing 
the back of his hand on his hip, his trunk tilted forward, his ears cocked 
to catch every last word the questioner, or the heckler, put to him. Well 
he knew how to bide his time! When the tumult had subsided there would come
that broad smile of his, a broad, good-natured grin, and he would answer 
his man—always to the point, always fair and square, always full on, like a
broadside. Soon every one would be laughing, every one but the poor 
imbecile who had dared to put the question…

I was rattling on in this vein as we entered the hall. The place was 
crowded; this time the audience was mainly Negro. As every white man who’s 
not prejudiced can testify, it’s a privilege to be with a crowd of Negroes.
The atmosphere is always supercharged. At intervals there are hearty 
guffaws, weird ejaculations, genuine peals of laughter such as you never 
hear from the throats of white people. White people lack spontaneity. When 
they laugh it seldom comes from the guts. Usually it’s a mocking sort of 
laughter. The black man’s laugh comes to him as easily as breathing.

It was quite a time before Dubois appeared on the platform. When he did 
it was with the air of a sovereign mounting his throne. The very majesty of
the man silenced any would-be demonstration. There was nothing of the 
rabble-rouser in this leonine figure—such tactics were beneath him. His 
words, however, were like cold dynamite. Had he wanted to, he could have 
set off an explosion that would rock the world. But it was obvious that he 
had no intention of rocking the world—not yet, at any rate. As I listened 
to his speech I pictured him addressing a body of scientists in much this 
same way. I could imagine him unleashing the most devastating truths, but 
in such a manner that one would be left stunned rather than moved to 
action.

What a pity, I thought, that a man of his ability, his powers, should be 
obliged to narrow his range. Because of his blood he was doomed to 
segregate himself, to restrict his horizon, his activities. He could have 
remained in Europe, where he was freely accepted and honored; he could have
made a bigger place for himself there. But he had elected to remain with 
his own kinsmen, to raise them up, and, if possible, to make a better world
for them to live in. He must have known from the beginning that it was a 
hopeless task, that nothing of any importance could be accomplished for his
brethren in the space of one short lifetime. He was too intelligent a man 
to have any illusions on the subject. I didn’t know whether to admire or 
deplore his vain, courageous, stubborn persistence. Involuntarily I was 
making comparisons in my mind between him and John Brown. One had 
intelligence, the other blind faith. John Brown, in his passionate hatred 
of injustice and intolerance, had not hesitated to set himself up against 
the holy government of these United States. Had there been just a few 
hundred souls like himself in this big broad land, I doubt not but that he 
would have overthrown the existent government of these United States. When 
John Brown was executed a commotion pervaded this country which has never 
truly subsided. It is possible that John Brown may have set back the cause 
of the Negro in America. The fiasco at Harper’s Ferry may have made it 
forever impossible for the Negro to obtain his just rights by direct 
action. The amazing deeds of the great Liberator may have made any form of 
insurrection unthinkable—in the minds of later generations. (Just as the 
memory of the French Revolution makes a Frenchman quake.) Since John 
Brown’s day it seems to be silently agreed that the only way to permit a 
Negro to take his place in our world is through a long and dolorous 
education. That this is only a pretext for delaying the true event, no one 
wishes to face. Imagine Jesus the Christ advocating such a policy!

The blessing of freedom! Are we to wait forever until we are fit for it 
before we receive it? Or is freedom something to be wrested from those who 
tyrannically withhold it? Is there anyone great enough, wise enough, to say
how long a man should remain a slave?

Dubois was no rabble-rouser. No, but to a man like myself it was all too 
obvious that what his words implied were—“Assume the spirit of liberty and 
you will be free!” Education t As I saw and felt it, he was saying almost 
bluntly: “I am telling you that it is your own fear and ignorance which 
keep you in slavery. There is only one kind of education, that which leads 
you to assert and maintain your own freedom.” What other purpose could he 
have had, in citing all the marvelous examples of African culture, before 
the white man’s intrusion, than to indicate the Negroes’ own 
self-sufficiency? What need had the Negro of the white man? None. What 
difference was there between the two races, what real, fundamental, vital 
difference? None. The paramount fact, the only fact worth consideration was
that the white man, despite all his grand words, all his tortuous 
principles, was still holding the Negro in subjection… I am not quoting his
words. I am recording my reactions, my interpretation of his speech. “First
get off our backs!” that’s what I could hear him screaming—though he 
scarcely raised his voice, though he made no dramatic gestures, though he 
never said anything of the kind. “I’m telling you tonight about the glories
of the past, of your past, of our common past, as Negroes. What of the 
future? Are you going to wait until the white man has sucked your blood 
dry? Will you wait meekly until he has filled your veins with his own 
poisonous blood? Already you are nothing but half-baked imitations of the 
white man. You ridicule him and you mimic him, at the same time. With every
day that passes you are losing your own precious heritage. You are 
forfeiting it to your keepers who have not the least intention of granting 
you equality. Educate yourselves, if you wish. Improve your lot, if you 
can. But remember this—until you stand free and equal with your white 
neighbors nothing will avail. Don’t delude yourselves that the white man is
your superior in any way. He isn’t. His skin may be white, but his heart is
black. He is guilty before God and before his fellow man. He is bringing 
the world down about his ears in his pride and arrogance. The day is coming
when he will rule no more. He has sown hatred throughout the world. He has 
pitted brother against brother. He has denied his own God. No, this 
miserable specimen of humanity is not the superior of the black man. This 
breed of man is doomed. Awake, my brothers! Awake and sing! Shout the white
man down! Shut him out of your sight! Seal his lips, bind his limbs, bury 
him where he belongs—on the dung heap!”

I repeat, nothing of the sort passed Dubois’ lips. He would undoubtedly 
have held me in contempt had I voiced such an interpretation of his speech.
But words mean little. What’s back of them—that’s what counts. I almost 
felt ashamed of Dubois for using other words than the ones I heard in my 
mind. Had his words created a bloody insurrection he would have been the 
most bewildered man in the whole Negro community. And yet I persisted in 
believing that in his heart the message I have just given was recorded, 
recorded in blood and tears. If he were truly a whit less ardent he would 
not, could not, be the noble figure he was. I blushed to think that a man 
of such gifts, such powers, such insight, should be obliged to muffle his 
voice, to throttle his own true feelings. I admired him for all that he had
done, for all that he was, and it was indeed much—but if only he possessed 
a spark of that passionate spirit of John Brown! If only he had a touch of 
the fanatic! To speak of injustice and to remain cool—only a sage can act 
thus. (It must be granted, however, that where the ordinary man sees 
injustice the sage perhaps detects another kind of justice.) The just man 
is hard, merciless, inhuman. The just man will set fire to the world, will 
destroy it with his own hands, if he can, rather than see injustice 
perpetuated. John Brown was that sort of man. History has forgotten him.

Lesser men have come forward, have upset the world, thrown it into a 
panic—and for nothing even approaching that which we call justice… Give him
a little more time and the white man will destroy himself and the 
pernicious world he has created. He has no solutions for the ills he has 
foisted upon the world. None whatever. He is empty, disillusioned, without 
a grain of hope. He pines for his own miserable end.

Will the white man drag the Negro down with him? I doubt it. All those 
whom he has persecuted and enslaved, degenerated and emasculated, all whom 
he has vampirized will, I believe, rise, up against him on the fateful day 
of judgment. There will be no succor for him, not one friendly alien hand 
raised to avert his doom. Neither will he be mourned. Instead there will 
come from all corners of the earth, like the gathering of a whirlwind, a 
cry of exultation. “White man, your day is over! Perish like the worm! And 
may the memory of your stay on earth be effaced!”

Curiously enough, it was only quite recently that I discovered that 
Dubois had written a book on John Brown in which he predicted much that has
already befallen the white race and much that has yet to come to pass. 
Strange that, knowing nothing of his passion and admiration for the great 
Liberator, I should have linked their names…

*

The next morning, as I was having breakfast in a coffee shop on Pineapple
Street, I felt a hand on my shoulder. A voice from behind was quietly 
asking if I was not Henry Miller. I looked up to find Claude at my elbow. 
Not a possible doubt that it could be anyone else.

“I was told you usually took breakfast here,” he said. “Too bad you 
didn’t come last night; I had a friend with me whom you would have enjoyed 
meeting. He was from Teheran.”

I offered apologies and urged him to have a second breakfast with me. It 
was nothing for Claude to eat two or three breakfasts in a row.

He was like a camel—he tanked up whenever he had the chance.

“You are a Capricorn, aren’t you?” he asked. “December 26th, is that 
right? About noon?”

I nodded.

“I don’t know too much about astrology,” he continued. “It’s simply a 
point of departure for me. I’m like Joseph in the Bible—I have dreams. 
Prophetic dreams, sometimes.”

I smiled indulgently.

“You’re going to travel soon—perhaps in a year or two. An important 
voyage. Your life will be radically altered.” He paused a moment to gaze 
out of the window, as if trying to concentrate. “But that’s not important 
now. I wanted to see you for another reason.” He paused again. “You’ll have
a harrowing time of it, this next year or so. I mean, before you begin your
journey. It will take all your courage to survive. If I didn’t know you so 
well I would say there was a danger of your going mad… “

“Excuse me,” I interrupted, “but how do you happen to know me so well?”

It was Claude’s turn to smile. Then, without the slightest hesitation, he
answered:—

“I’ve known you for a long while—in my dreams. You come back again and 
again. Of course I didn’t know it was you until I met Mona. Then I realized
it could be no other.”

“Strange,” I murmured.

“Not so very,” said Claude. “Many men have had the same experience. Once 
when I was in a little village in China, a man met me on the street and 
taking me by the arm, he said:

“I’ve been waiting for you to come. You arrived exactly on time.’ He was 
a magician. He practiced the black arts.”

“Are you a magician too?” I asked jokingly.

“Hardly,” said Claude. And in the same tone he added: “I practice 
divination. It’s a gift I was born with.”

“But it doesn’t help you much, does it?”

“True,” he replied, “but it permits me to help others. That is, if they 
wish to be helped.”

“And you want to help met”

“If I can.”

“Before you go any further,” said I, “suppose you tell me a little about 
yourself. Mona has told me something of your life, but it all sounds rather
confusing. Tell me this, if you don’t mind—do you know where you were born 
and who your father and mother were?”

Claude looked straight into my eyes. “That’s what I’m trying to find 
out,” he said. “Perhaps you can be of help. You wouldn’t have appeared in 
my dreams so often if you weren’t of importance in my life.”

“Your dreams? Tell me, how do I appear to you in a dream?”

“In various roles,” said Claude promptly. “Sometimes as a father, 
sometimes as a devil, and sometimes as a ministering angel. Whenever you 
appear it’s to the strains of music. Celestial music, I would say.”

I was at a loss what to say to this.

“You are aware, of course,” Claude continued, “that you have power over 
others. Great power. You seldom employ it, however. When you do you usually
misuse it. You’re ashamed of your better self, if I may put it that way. 
You’d rather be thought wicked than good. And you are wicked at 
times—wicked and cruel—especially to those who are fond of you. That’s what
you’ve got to work out… But you’ll soon be put to the test!”

“There’s something eerie about you, Claude. I begin to suspect that you 
do have second sight, or whatever you choose to call it.”

To this Claude replied:

“You’re essentially a man of faith. A man of great faith. The skeptic in 
you is a transitory phenomenon, a heritage from the past, from some other 
life. You’ve got to throw off your doubts—self doubts, above all—they’re 
suffocating you. A being like yourself has only to throw himself on the 
world and he will float like a cork. Nothing truly evil will ever touch you
or affect you. You were made to walk through the fires. But if you shun 
your true role, and you alone know what that is, you will be burned to a 
cinder. That’s the clearest thing I know about you.”

I admitted quite frankly that what he had just said was neither vague nor
unfamiliar to me. “I’ve had inklings of such things a number of times. At 
the moment, however, nothing is altogether clear to me. Go on, if you will,
I’m all ears.”

“What’s brought us together,” said Claude, “is that we are both seeking 
our true parents. You asked me where I was born. I was a foundling: my 
parents left me on a stoop somewhere in the Bronx. I have a suspicion that 
my parents, whoever they were, came from Asia. Mongolia perhaps. When I 
look into your eyes I am almost convinced of it. You have Mongol blood, 
beyond a doubt. Has no one ever remarked it before?”

I now took a deep look at the young man who was telling me all this. I 
took him in as you would a tall drink of water when you’re very thirsty. 
Mongol blood! Of course I had heard it before! And always from the same 
sort of people. Whenever the word Mongol came up it registered on me like a
password. “We’re on to you!” is what is usually conveyed.

Whether I admitted or denied it, I was “one of them.”

The Mongol business was, of course, more symbolical than genealogical. 
The Mongols were the bearers of secret tidings. At some remote period in 
the past, when the world was one and when its real rulers kept their 
identity hidden, “we Mongols” were there. (Strange language? Mongols talk 
only this way.) There was something physical, or physiological, or 
physiognomical at least, which characterized all who belonged to this 
strange clan. What distinguished them from “the rest of humanity” was the 
expression about the eyes. It was neither the color, shape or look of the 
eye: it was the way the eyes were set off, or set in, the way they swam in 
their mysterious sockets. Veiled ordinarily, in talk these veils peeled 
off, one after another, until one had the impression of peering into a deep
black hole.

Studying Claude, my gaze came to rest on the two black holes in the 
centers of his eyes. They were fathomless. For a full minute or two not 
another word was exchanged. Neither of us felt embarrassed of 
uncomfortable. We simply stared at each other like two lizards. The Mongol 
look of mutual recognition.

It was I who broke the spell. I told him that he reminded me slightly of 
Deerslayer—of Deerslayer and Daniel Boone combined. With just a touch of 
Nebuchadnezzar!

He laughed. “I’ve passed for many things,” he said. “The Navahos thought 
I had Indian blood in my veins. Maybe I have too… “

“I’m sure you have a drop of Jewish blood,” said I. “Not because of the 
Bronx!” I added.

“I was raised by Jews,” said Claude. “Until I was eight years of age I 
heard nothing but Russian and Yiddish. At ten I ran away from home.”

“Where was that—what you call home?”

“A little village in the Crimea, not far from Sevastopol. I had been 
transplanted there when I was six months old.” He paused a moment. He 
started to say something about memory, then dropped it. “When I first heard
English,” he resumed, “I recognized it as a familiar tongue, though I had 
heard it only during the first six months of my life. I learned English 
almost instinctively, in less than no time. As you notice, I speak it 
without trace of accent. Chinese also came easy to me, though I really 
never became proficient in it… “

“Excuse me,” I interrupted, “but how many languages do you speak, would 
you mind telling me?”

He hesitated a moment, as if making a quick calculation. “Frankly,” he 
replied, “I can’t tell. I know at least a dozen, certainly. It’s nothing to
be proud of; I have a natural flair for language. Besides, when you knock 
about the world you can’t help but pick up languages.”

“But Hungarian!” I exclaimed. “Surely that didn’t come easy to you!”

He gave me an indulgent smile. “I don’t know why people think Hungarian 
is so difficult. There are Indian tongues right here in North America which
are far more difficult—from the standpoint of pure linguistics, I mean. But
no language is difficult if you’re living it. To know Turkish, Hungarian, 
Arabic or the Navaho tongue you have to become as one of them, that’s all.”

“But you’re so young! How could you have had time to…?”

“Age means nothing,” he interrupted. “It isn’t age which makes us wise. 
Nor even experience, as people pretend. It’s the quickness of the spirit. 
The quick and the dead… You, of all people, should know what I mean. There 
are only two classes in this world—and in every world—the quick and the 
dead. For those who cultivate the spirit nothing is impossible. For the 
others, everything is impossible, or incredible, or futile. When you live 
day after day with the impossible you begin to wonder what the word means. 
Or rather, how it ever came to mean what it does. There’s a world of light,
in which everything is clear and manifest, and there’s a world of 
confusion, where all is murky and obscure. The two worlds are really one. 
Those in the world of darkness get a glimpse now and then of the realm of 
light, but those in the world of light know nothing of darkness. The men of
light cast no shadow. Evil is unknown to them. Nor do they harbor 
resentment. They move without chains or fetters. Until I returned to this 
country I associated only with such men. In some ways my life is stranger 
than you think. Why did I go among the Navahos? To find peace and 
understanding. If I had been born in another time I might have been a 
Christ or a Buddha. Here I’m a bit of a freak. Even you have difficulty not
to think that way about me.”

Here he gave a mysterious smile. For a full moment I felt as though my 
heart had stopped.

“Did you feel something strange then?” said Claude, his smile now 
transformed into a more human one.

“I did indeed,” said I, unconsciously placing a hand over my heart.

“Your heart stopped beating for a moment, that was all,” said Claude. 
“Imagine, if you can, what it would be like if your heart began to beat 
with a cosmic rhythm. Most people’s hearts don’t even beat with a human 
rhythm… There will come a time when man will no longer distinguish between 
man and god. When the human being is raised to his full powers he will be 
divine—his human consciousness will have fallen away. What is called death 
will have disappeared. Everything will be altered, permanently altered. 
There will be no further need for change. Man will be free, that’s what I 
mean. Once he becomes the god which he is, he will have realized 
everything. Freedom converts everything to its basic nature, which is 
perfection. Don’t think I am talking religion or philosophy. I disclaim 
them both, utterly. They are not even stepping stones, as people like to 
think. They must be huddled, at one jump. If you put something outside you,
or above you, you become victimized. There is only the one thing, spirit. 
It’s all, everything, and when you realize it you’re it. You’re all there 
is, there is nothing more… do you understand what I’m saying?”

I nodded my head affirmatively. I was a little dazed.

“You understand,” said Claude, “but the reality of it escapes you. 
Understanding is nothing. The eyes must be kept open, constantly. To open 
your eyes you must relax, not strain. Don’t be afraid of falling backward 
into a bottomless pit. There is nothing to fall into. You’re in it and of 
it, and one day, if you persist, you will be it. I don’t say you will have 
it, please notice, because there’s nothing to possess. Neither are you to 
be possessed, remember that! You are to liberate yourself. There are no 
exercises, physical or spiritual, to practice. All such things are like 
incense—they awaken a feeling of holiness. We must be holy without 
holiness. We must be whole… complete. That’s being holy. Any other kind of 
holiness is false, a snare and a delusion…

“Excuse me for talking to you this way,” said Claude, hastily swallowing 
another mouthful of coffee, “but I have the feeling that time is short. The
next time we meet it will most likely be in some remote part of the world. 
Your restlessness may lead you to the most unexpected places. My movements 
are more determined; I know the pattern set down for me.” He paused to take
another tack. “Since I’ve gone this far let me add a few more words.” He 
leaned forward, and his face took on a most earnest expression. “Right now,
Henry Miller, nobody in this country knows anything about you. Nobody—and I
mean it literally—knows your true identity. At this moment I know more 
about you than I shall probably ever know again. What I know, however, is 
only of importance for me. This is what I wanted to tell you—that you 
should think of me when you are in distress. Not that I can help you, don’t
think that! Nobody can. Nobody will, probably. You—(and here he spaced his 
words)—you will have to solve your own problems. But at least you will 
know, when thinking of me, that there is one person in this world who knows
you and believes in you. That always helps. The secret, however, lies in 
not caring whether any one, not even the Almighty, has confidence in you. 
You must come to realize, and you will undoubtedly, that you need no 
protection. Nor should you hunger after salvation, for salvation is only a 
myth. What is there to be saved? Ask yourself that! And if saved, saved 
from what f Have you thought of these things? Do! There is no need for 
redemption, because what men call sin and guilt have no ultimate meaning. 
The quick and the dead’.—just remember that! When you reach to the quick of
things you will find neither acceleration nor retardation, neither birth 
nor death.

There is and you ore—that’s it in a nutshell. Don’t break your skull over
it, because to the mind it makes no sense. Accept it and forget it—or it 
will drive you mad… “

*

When I walked away I was floating in the clouds. I had my briefcase with 
me, as usual, but all thought of calling on prospects was gone. I got into 
the subway automatically and out again automatically—at Times Square. 
Whenever I had no set destination I would get out automatically at Times 
Square. There I always came upon the rambla, the Nevsky Prospekt, the souks
and bazaars of the damned.

The thoughts and emotions which possessed me were almost frighteningly 
familiar. They were the same which I experienced when I first heard my old 
friend Roy Hamilton talk, when first I listened to Benjamin Fay Mills, the 
Evangelist, when first I glanced at that strange book, Esoteric Buddhism, 
when I read at one gulp the Tao Teh Ch’ing, or—whenever I picked up The 
Possessed, The Idiot, or The Brothers Karamazov. The cowbells which I 
carried under my ribs began clanking wildly; in the belfry above, it was as
if all the stars in the heavens had come together to make a celestial 
bonfire. There was no weight to my body, none whatever. I was at the “six 
extremes” simultaneously.

There was a language which never failed to set me off—and it was always 
the same language. Boiled to the size of a lentil, its whole scope and 
purport could be expressed in two words: Know thyself! Alone with myself, 
and not only alone but disconnected, discalibrated, I ran up and down the 
harmonica, talking the one and only language, breathing only the pure 
ineffable spirit, looking upon everything with new eyes and in an 
absolutely new way. No birth, no death! Of course not! What more, what 
else, could there be than was at this moment? Who said that everything was 
fucked up? Where? When? On the seventh day God rested from his labors. And 
He saw that all was good. D’accord. How could it have been otherwise? 
According to reason, that fat wingless slug, humanity was slowly, slowly 
evolving from the primordial slime. A million years hence we would begin 
faintly to resemble the angels. What rot! Is the mind encysted, then, in 
the asshole of creation? When Roy Hamilton spoke, though he possessed not a
shred of learning, he spoke with the sweet authority of the angels. He was 
all instantaneity. The wheel flashed and you were immediately at the hub, 
in the center of that empty space without which not even the constellations
can wheel and flash their secret codes. Ditto for Benjamin Fay Mills, who 
was not an Evangelist but a hero who had abandoned Christianity in order to
be a Christ. And Nirvana? Not tomorrow but now, forever and eternally now…

This language was ever bright and clear to me. The language of reason, 
which is not even the language of common sense, spelled gibberish. When God
lets go the arm that holds the pen the author no longer knows what he is 
writing. Jacob Boehme used a language all his own, a language direct from 
the Maker. Scholars read it one way, men of God another. The poet speaks 
only to the poet. Spirit answereth spirit. The rest is hog-wash.

A hundred voices are speaking at once. I am still on the Nevsky Prospekt,
still toting the briefcase. I could as well be in limbo. I am most 
assuredly “there,” wherever that may be, and nothing can derail me. 
Possessed, yes. But by the great manitou this time.

Now I’ve gotten below the rambla. I’m approaching the old Haymarket. 
Suddenly a name juts out from a billboard, cuts my eyeball just as clean as
a razor blade. I have just passed a theater which I thought had been torn 
down long ago. Nothing remains in the retina but a name, her name, an 
utterly new name: MIMI AGUGLIA. This is the important thing, her name. Not 
that she is Italian, not that the play is an immortal tragedy. Just her 
name:

MIMI AGUGLIA. Though I keep walking steadily ahead, and then round and 
about, though I keep scudding through the clouds like a three-quarter moon,
her name will draw me back punctually at 2:15 P.M. From the celestial realm
I slide to a comfortable seat in the third row orchestra. I am about to 
witness the greatest performance I shall probably ever witness. And in a 
language of which I know not a word.

The theater is packed—and with Italians exclusively. An awesome hush 
precedes the rising of the curtain. The stage is semi-dark. For a full 
minute not a word is spoken. Then a voice is heard: the voice of Mimi 
Aguglia.

Only a few moments ago my head was seething with thought; now all is 
still, the great swarm gathered in a honeycomb at the base of the skull. 
Not even a buzz issues from the hive. My senses, sharpened to a diamond 
point, are fully concentrated on the strange creature with the oracular 
voice. Even were she to speak a language I know, I doubt that I could 
follow her. It is the sound she makes, the immense gamut of sound, which 
enthralls me. Her throat is like an ancient lyre. So very, very ancient. It
has the ring of man before he ate of the tree of knowledge. Her gestures 
and movements are mere accompaniments to the voice. The features, 
monolithic in repose, express the most subtle modulations with her 
ceaseless changes of mood. When she throws her head back the oracular music
from her throat plays over her features like lightning playing over a bed 
of mica. She seems to express with ease emotions which we can only simulate
in dreams. All is primordial, effulgent, annihilating. A moment ago she was
sitting in a chair. It is no longer a chair; it has become a thing, an 
animated thing. Wherever she moves, whatever she touches, things become 
altered. Now she stands before a tall mirror, ostensibly to catch her own 
reflection. Illusion! She is standing before a gap in the cosmos, answering
the Titan’s yawn with an inhuman shriek. Her heart, suspended in a crevice 
of ice, suddenly glows—until her whole being shoots forth flames of ruby 
and sapphire. Another instant and the monolithic head turns to jade. The 
serpent confronting chaos. Marble returning in horror to the void. 
Nothingness…

She is pacing back and forth, back and forth, and in her wake a 
phosphorescent glow. The very atmosphere thickens, impregnated by the 
impending horror. She is unveiling now, but as if in warm oil, as if .still
drugged by the fumes of the sacrificial altar. A phrase gurgles from her 
tortured lips, a strangled phrase which causes the man beside me to groan. 
Blood oozes from a burst vein in her temple. Petrified, I am unable to make
a sound, though I am screaming at the top of my lungs. It is no longer 
theater, it is the nightmare. The walls close in, twisting and twining like
the dread labyrinth. The Minotaur is breathing upon us with hot and evil 
breath. At precisely this moment, and as if a thousand chandeliers had been
shattered at once, her mad, fiendish laugh splits the ear. She is no longer
recognizable. One sees only a human wreck, a tangle of arms and limbs, a 
mass of twisted hair, a gory mouth, and this, this thing, gropes, staggers,
grapples blindly, suddenly, toward the wings…

Hysteria sweeps the audience. Men with jaws locked are hanging limp in 
their seats. Women scream, faint, or tear their hair convulsively. The 
whole auditorium has become like the bottom of the sea—and pandemonium 
struggling like a crazed gorilla to remove the heavy liquid stone of 
fright. The ushers gesticulate like puppets, their shouts smothered in the 
screeching roar which gradually swells like a typhoon. And all this in 
total darkness, because something has gone wrong with the lights. Finally 
from the pit comes the sound of music, a blare and a blast, which is met by
an angry roar of protest. The music fades out, silenced as if by a hammer. 
The curtain rises slowly to reveal a stage still in darkness. Suddenly she 
comes forth from the wings, a lighted taper in her hand, bowing, bowing, 
bowing. She is mute, absolutely mute. From the boxes, from the balconies, 
from the pit itself flowers rain upon the stage. She is standing in a sea 
of flowers, the taper burning brightly. Suddenly the theater is flooded 
with light. The crowd is screaming her name—MIMI… MIMI… MIMI AGUGLIA. In 
the midst of the uproar she calmly blows the taper out and walks swiftly 
back to the wings…

With the briefcase still under my arm I start ploughing through the 
rambla again. I feel as if I had come down from Mt. Sinai by parachute. All
about me are my brothers, humanity, as they say, still marching on all 
fours. I have an overpowering desire to kick out in all directions, speed 
the poor buggers into Paradise. Just at this “precise chronological moment”
when I’m fizzing like champagne, a man tugs at my sleeve and shoves a dirty
post card under my nose. I keep walking straight ahead with him clinging to
me, and as we move on, trance-like, he keeps changing the cards and 
muttering under his breath: “A honey, what! Dirt cheap. Take the whole 
pack—for two bits.” Suddenly I stop dead in my tracks; I begin to laugh, a 
frightening laugh which grows louder and louder. I let the cards slide from
my fingers, like snowflakes. A crowd begins to gather, the peddler takes to
his heels. People are beginning to pick up the cards; they keep crowding in
on me, closer and closer, curious to know what made me laugh so. In the 
distance I spy a cop approaching. Pivoting round abruptly, I yell: “He’s 
gone in there. Get him!” Pointing to a shop near the corner I push forward 
eagerly with the crowd; as they press forward and ahead of me I turn 
quickly and walk as fast as my legs will carry me in the opposite 
direction. At the corner I swing round, moving like a kangaroo now, until I
come to a gin-mill.

At the bar two men are in the midst of a violent dispute. I order a beer 
and make myself as inconspicuous as possible.

“I tell you he’s off his nut!”

“You’d be too if you had had your balls cut out. But he’ll make you look 
like a horse’s ass.”

“The Pope’s ass he will!”

“Look, who made the world? Who made the stars, the sun, the raindrops? 
Answer me that!”

“You answer it, since you’re so bloody learned. You tell me who made the 
world, the rainbows, the piss-pots and all the other cocksucking devices.”

“You’d like to know, lad? Well, let me say this—it wasn’t made in a 
cheese factory. And it wasn’t evolution made it either.”

“Oh no? What was it then?”

“It was the Almighty Jehovah himself, Lord of Creation, Begetter of the 
Blessed Mary, and the Redeemer of lost souls. That’s a fair answer for you.
Now what have you to say?”

“I still say he’s nuts.”

“You’re a dirty infidel, that’s what. You’re a pagan.”

“I’m not neither. I’m Irish through and through. And what’s more, I’m a 
Mason… yeah, a bloody Mason. Like George Abraham Washington and the Marquis
of Queensbury… “

“And Oliver Cromwell and Bloody Bonesapart. Sure, I know your breed. It 
was a black snake that homed you and it’s his black venom you’ve been 
spreading ever since.”

“We’ll never take orders from the Pope. Put that in your pipe and light 
it!”

“And this for you! You’ve made a Bible out of Darwin’s crazy preachings. 
You make a monkey of yourself and you call it evolution.”

“I still say he’s nuts.”

“Can I ask you a simple question? Can I now?”

“That you can. Fire away! I’ll answer anything that has sense to it.”

“Perfect!… Now what makes worms crawl and birds to fly? What makes the 
spider spin his crazy web? What makes the kangaroo…?”

“Hold it, man! One question at a time. Now which is it—the bird, the 
worm, the spider or the kangaroo?”

“Why do two and two make four? Maybe you can answer that! I don’t ask you
to be an anthroposophagist, or whatever the devil they’re called. Plain 
arithmetic… two plus two equals four. WHY? Answer that and I’ll say you’re 
an honest Roman. Go on, now give it to me!”

“Bugger the Romans! I’d rather be a monkey with Darwin b’Jasus! 
Arithmetic! Bah! Why don’t you ask me if red-eyed Mars ever wobbled in her 
funicular orbit?”

“The Bible answered that long ago. So did Parnell!”

“In the pig’s ass he did!”

“There isn’t a question but was answered once and for all—by somebody or 
other.”

“You mean the Pope!”

“Man, I’ve told you a hundred times—the Pope is but a Pontifical 
interlocutor. His Holiness never asserted that he was the risen Christ.”

“Lucky for him, because I’d deny it to his treacherous face. We’ve had 
enough of Inquisitions. What the sad, weary world needs is a bit of common 
sense. You can rave all you like about spiders and kangaroos, but who’s 
going to pay the rent? Ask your friend that!”

“I told you that he joined the Dominicans.”

“And I said that he was nuts.”

At this point the bartender, thinking to quiet them, was about to offer 
drinks on the house when who walks in but a blind man playing a harp. He 
sang in a tremulous falsetto which was woefully false. He wore dark blue 
glasses and over his left arm was slung a white cane.

“Come give us a bawdy song!” cried one of the disputants.

“And none of your shenanigans!… ” cried the other.

The blind man removed his glasses, slung the harp and cane over a peg in 
the wall, and shuffled to the bar with an alacrity that was amazing.

“Just a wee drop to wet the palate,” he whined.

“Give him a drop of Irish whiskey,” said the one.

“And a bit of brandy,” said the other.

“To the men of Dublin and County Kerry,” said the blind man, raising both
glasses at once. “Down with all Orangemen!” He looked around, bright as a 
bob-o-link, and took a swallow from each of the tumblers.

“When will you get any shame in you?” said the one.

“He’s wallowing in gold,” said the other.

“It’s loike this,” said the blind man, brushing his lips with his sleeve,
“when me owld mother died I promised her I’d never do another stroke of 
work. I’ve kept to me bargain, and so has she. Every time I pluck the 
strings she calls to me softly: ‘Patrick, are you there? It’s grand, me 
boy, it’s grand.’ Before I can ask her a question she’s gone again. The 
fair grounds, I call it. She’s been there for thirty years now—and she’s 
kept to her bargain.”

“You’re dotty, man. What bargain?”

“It’s long to explain and me throat’s parched… “

“Another brandy and whiskey for the scoundrel!”

“You’re kind, the two of you. Gentlemen, that’s what you are!” Again he 
raises both glasses. “To the Blessed Mary and her prodigal son!”

“Did you hear that now? That’s blasphemy or I’ll eat me hat.”

“It’s not either. Tush tush!”

“The Blessed Mary had only one son—and by the holy Patrick he was no 
prodigal! He was the Prince of Paupers, that’s what he was. I’ll take an 
oath on It.”

“This is no court. Easy with your oaths! Go on. man, tell us of your 
bargain!”

The blind man pulled his nose meditatively. Again he looked about—bright 
and merry, chipper as could be. Like an oily sardine.

“It’s loike this… ” he began.

“Don’t say that, man! On with yer! Out with it!”

“It’s a long, long story. And me throat’s still dry, if yer don’t mind me
saying so.”

“Get on with it, man, or we’ll be fleecing your bottom!”

The blind man cleared his throat, then rubbed his eyes.

“It’s loike I wuz sayin’… Me owld mother had the gift of sight. She could
see through a door, her gimlicks were that strong. Wanst, when the dadda 
was late for supper… “

“Your dadda be damned! You’re a creepy old counterfeiter!”

“I am that too,” screeched the blind man. “I’ve every little weakness.”

“And a throat that’s always parched.”

“And a pocketful of gold, eh, you rascal!” Suddenly the blind man became 
terrified. His face blanched.

“No, no!” he screamed, “not me pockets. You wouldn’t do that to me? You 
wouldn’t do that… ” The two cronies began to laugh uproariously. Pinning 
his arms to his sides, they went through his pockets—pants, coat and vest. 
Dumping the money on the bar, they piled it neatly in bills and coins of 
every denomination, putting the bad money to one side. It was a stunt they 
had evidently rehearsed more than once.

“Another brandy!” called the one.

“Another Irish whiskey—the best!” called the other.

They dished out some coins from the pile, and then a few more, to make a 
generous tip for the barman.

“And is your throat still parched?” they asked solicitously.

“And what will you have?” says the one.

“And you?” says the other.

“My throat’s getting dryer and dryer.”

“Aye, and so is mine.”

“And did you ever hear about the bargain Patrick made with his owld 
mother?”

“It’s a long story.” says the other, “but I’ve a mind to hear it to the 
end. Would you tell it now, while I down a goblet to your health and 
virility?”

The other, raising his goblet: “I could tell it till the Day of Judgment,
it’s that good. A corkin’ yam. But let me wet me throat first.”

“They’re a bunch of thieves, the three of ‘em.” said the barkeep, as he 
filled my glass. Would you believe it, one of ‘em was a priest once. He’s 
the biggest faker of the lot. Can’t put ‘em out—they own the building. See 
what I mean?”

He busied himself with the empty glasses, rinsed them, wiped them, 
polished them, lit himself a cigarette. Then he ambled over to me again.

“All shandy-gaff,” he mumbled confidentially. “They can talk sense, if 
they want to. They’re as smart as steel traps. Like to put on an act, 
that’s all. Beats me why they pick this place to do it in.” He leaned back 
to spit a gob in the spittoon beside his feet. “Ireland! They never saw 
Ireland, none of them. They were born and raised a block away from here. 
They love to put it on… You’d never think it, would you, but the blind 
fellow was a great little fighter once. Until he got knocked cold by Terry 
McGovern. He’s got the eyes of an eagle, that bird. Comes in here to count 
his money every day. It bums him up to get wooden money. You know what he 
does with the bad coins? Passes them off on real blind men. Ain’t that 
nice!” He left me a moment to beg them to quiet down. The liquor was 
beginning to have its effect.

“Know what the big news is now? They’re planning to hire a hansom and 
take a ride through Central Park. Time to feed the pigeons, they say. How’s
that for you?” He leaned back again to use the cuspidor. “That’s another 
one of their acts—feeding the pigeons. They throw out some crumbs or 
peanuts, and when they’ve collected a crowd they begin throwing away the 
wooden money. Gives them a great kick. After that Blind Ben does a little 
number and they pass the hat around. As if they hadn’t a cent in the world!
I’d like to be there sometime and put a nice lump of shit in the kitty… “

He looked around to eye them disdainfully. Turns back to me again and 
starts spouting.

“Maybe you thought they were really arguing about something? I’ve 
listened time and again to find out how it begins—but I never can. Before 
you know it they’re in the thick of it. They say any old thing—to get wound
up. It’s gab they like. The argumentation is just dirt in the eye. The 
Pope, Darwin, kangaroos—you heard it all. It never makes sense, no matter 
what they’re talking about. Yesterday it was hydraulic engineering and how 
to cure constipation. The day before it was the Easter Rebellion. All mixed
up with a lot of horse shit—the bubonic plague, the Sepoy mutiny, Roman 
aqueducts and horse feathers.

Words, words… It drives me nuts sometimes. Every night I’m arguin’ in my 
sleep. The hell of it is I don’t know what I’m arguin’ about. Just like 
them. Even my day off is ruined. I keep wondering if they’re goin’ to show 
up somewhere… Some people think they’re funny. I’ve seen guys split their 
sides laughing at ‘em. It ain’t funny to me, no sir! By the time I finish 
here I’m standing on my head… Listen—I did a stretch once—for six 
months—and a colored guy had the cell next to mine… Can I’ freshen it up 
for you?… He sang all day long, and nights too. Got me so made I wanted to 
throttle him. Funny, hah? Shows you how sensitive you can get… Brother, if 
I ever get out of this racket I’m headin’ for the Sierra Nevadas. What I 
need is peace and quiet. I don’t even want to look at a cow. It might go 
MOO-000-00—see what I meant Trouble was, when I got back my wife was gone. 
Yeah! Ran out on me—and with my best friend, of course. Just the same, I 
can’t forget that month of peace and quiet. It was worth everything that 
happened afterward… You get sensitive, working like a slave all day long. I
was cut out for somethin’ else. Never could find out what. I’ve been off 
beat for a long time… Can I freshen it up for you? It’s on the house, what 
the hell! You see… now I’m talkin’ a blue streak. That’s what happens to 
you. You see a sympathetic puss and you spill the beans… I haven’t told you
anything yet.” He reached up and took down a bottle of gin. Poured himself 
a thimbleful, a good one. “Here’s how! And let’s hope they get the hell out
of here soon. Where was It Yeah, the bad news… What do you think my parents
wanted me to be? An insurance agent. Can you beat that? They thought it was
refined like. The old man was a hod-carrier, you see. From the old country,
sure enough. A brogue as thick as mulligatawney. Yeah, the insurance 
racket. Can you picture me goin’ through a routine like that? So I joins 
the Marines. After that the horses. Lost everything. Then I take up 
plumbing. No go. Too clumsy. Besides, I hate filth, believe it or not. So 
what? Well, I bummed around a bit, got wise to myself and borrowed a little
from the old man so as 1 could open a hash joint. Then I make the mistake 
of gettin’ hitched up. A battle royal from the day we were spliced. Except 
for that vacation I was telling you about. So help me God, one experience 
wasn’t enough. Before you know it, I’m hooked up with another one—a cute 
little bitch too. Then the real agony starts. She was a screwball, this 
last one. She got me so bitched up I didn’t know whether I was goin’ or 
comin’. That’s how I landed in the clink. When I came out I was that low I 
was ready for religion. Yes sir, those six months in the clink put the fear
of Christ in me. I was ready to toe the line… ” He poured himself another 
thimbleful of gin, spat again, and resumed where he had left off. “Listen, 
I was that careful you could have offered me a gold ingot and I wouldn’t 
touch it. That’s how I got inter this business. I asked for somethin’ to 
keep me busy. It was the old man who got me the job.” He leaned over to 
whisper the words: “He coughed up five hundred clams to get me this break! 
That’s kindness, what!”

Here I begged off to take a leak.

When I came out the bar was full.

The trio had disappeared, I noticed. I shook myself like a dog and headed
back for the Gay White Way. Everything had fallen back into its normal 
aspect. It was Broadway once again, not the rambla, not the Nevsky 
Prospekt. A typical New York throng, no different from what it was in the 
year One. I bought a paper at Times Square and ducked into the subway. The 
workers were wending their weary ways homeward. Not a spark of life in the 
whole train. Only the switchboard in the motorman’s compartment was alive, 
crackling with electricity. You could add up all the thoughts that were 
being thought, put a decimal in front of them, and add twenty-six digits to
make it even less than nothing.

On the seventh day God rested from His labor and saw that all was good. 
Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

I wondered vaguely about the pigeons. And from that to the Sepoy mutiny. 
Then I dozed off. I fell into such a stupor that I never woke up till we 
got to Coney Island. The briefcase was gone. So was my wallet. Even the 
newspaper was gone… Nothing to do but stay in the train and ride back 
again. I felt hungry. Voraciously hungry. And in excellent spirits. I 
decided I might as well eat at The Iron Cauldron. It seemed as if I hadn’t 
seen my wife for ages.

Fine! Giddy-ap, horsey! To the Village!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Iron Cauldron was one of the landmarks of the Village. Its clientele 
was drawn from far and near. Among the many interesting characters who 
frequented the place were the inevitable freaks and eccentrics who made the
Village notorious.

To believe Mona, it would seem that all the nuts congregated at her 
tables. Almost every day I heard of some new figure, each one, of course, 
more extravagant that the last.

The latest was Anastasia. She had blown in from the Coast and was having 
a time of it to keep going. She had had a few hundred dollars with her on 
arriving in New York but it had vanished like smoke. What she hadn’t given 
away had been stolen. According to Mona, she was an extraordinary-looking 
person. She had long black hair which she wore like a mane, violet blue 
eyes, beautiful strong hands, and large sturdy feet. She called herself 
Anastasia simply. Her last name, Annapolis, she had invented. Apparently 
she had wandered into The Iron Cauldron in search of work. Mona had 
overheard her talking to the proprietor and had come to her rescue. 
Wouldn’t hear of her washing dishes or even waiting on tables. She had 
divined at once that this was an unusual person, had invited her to sit 
down and eat, and after a long conversation had loaned her some money.

“Imagine, she was walking around in overalls! She had no stockings and 
her shoes were worn through. People were making fun of her.”

“Describe her again, will you?”

“I really can’t,” said Mona, whereupon she launched into an extravagant 
description of her friend. The way she said “my friend” gave me a queer 
feeling. I had never heard her refer to any of her other acquaintances in 
quite this way. There was a fervor to her words which suggested veneration,
adoration and other undefinable things. She had made of this meeting with 
her new-found friend an event of the first magnitude.

“How old is she?” I ventured to ask.

“How old? I don’t know. Maybe twenty-two or three. She has no age. You 
don’t think of such things when you look at her. She’s the most 
extraordinary being I’ve ever met—outside of yourself, Val.”

“An artist, I suppose?”

“She’s everything. She can do anything.”

“Does she paint?”

“Of course! She paints, sculpts, makes puppets, writes poetry, dances—and
with it all she’s a clown. But a sad clown, like you.”

“You don’t think she’s nuts?”

“I should say not! She does queer things, but only because she’s unusual.
She’s about as free a person as I’ve ever seen, and tragic to boot. She’s 
really unfathomable.”

“Like Claude, I suppose.”

She smiled. “In a way,” she said. “Funny you mentioned him. You ought to 
see the two of them together. They look as if they hailed from another 
planet.”

“So they know each other?”

“I introduced them to one another. They get along splendidly, too. They 
talk their own private language. And do you know, they even resemble one 
another physically.”

“I suppose she’s a bit on the mannish side, this Anapopoulos or whatever 
it is?”

“Not really,” said Mona, her eyes glistening. “She prefers to dress in 
men’s clothes because she feels more comfortable that way. She’s more than 
a mere female, you see. If she were a man, I’d speak the same way. There’s 
some added quality in her which is beyond sexual distinction. Sometimes she
reminds me of an angel, except that there’s nothing ethereal or remote 
about her. No, she’s very earthy, almost coarse at times… The only way to 
explain it to you, Val, is to say that she’s a superior being. You know how
you felt about Claude? Well… Anastasia is a tragic buffoon. She doesn’t 
belong in this world at all. I don’t know where she belongs, but certainly 
not here. The very tone of her voice will tell you that. It’s an 
extraordinary voice, more like a bird’s than a human being’s. But when she 
gets angry it becomes frightening.”

“Why, does she fly into rages frequently?”

“Only when people insult her or make fun of her.”

“Why do they do that?”

“I told you—because she’s different. Even her walk is unique. She can’t 
help it, it’s her nature. But it makes me furious to see the way she’s 
treated. There never was a more generous, reckless soul. Of course she has 
no sense of reality. That’s what I love about her.”

“What do you mean by that exactly?”

“Just what I said. If some one came along who needed a shirt she’d take 
hers off—right in the street—and give it to the person. She’d never think 
about the fact that she was indecently exposed. She’d take her pants off 
too, if necessary.”

“You don’t call that mad?”

“No, Val, I don’t. For her it’s the natural, sane thing to do. She never 
stops to think of consequences; she doesn’t care what people think of her. 
She’s genuine through and through. And she’s as sensitive and delicate as a
flower.”

“She must have had a strange bringing-up. Did she tell you anything about
her parents, anything about her childhood?”

“A little.”

I could see that she knew more than she cared to reveal.

“She was an orphan, I believe. She said the people who adopted her were 
very kind to her. She had everything she wanted.”

“Well, let’s get to bed, what do you say?”

She went to the bathroom to go through the usual interminable routine. I 
got in bed and waited patiently. The door to the bathroom was open.

“By the way,” I said, thinking to divert her mind, “How is Claude these 
days? Anything new?”

“He’s leaving town in a day or two.”

“Where to?”

“He wouldn’t say. I have a notion he’s heading for Africa.”

“Africa! Why would he be going there?”

“Search me! It wouldn’t surprise me, though, if he said he were going to 
the moon. You know Claude… “

“You’ve said that several times now, and always the same way. No, I don’t
know Claude, not like you mean. I know only what he chooses to tell, 
nothing more. He’s an absolute conundrum to me.”

I heard her chuckling to herself.

“What’s so funny about that?” I asked.

“I thought you understood one another perfectly.”

“No one will ever get to understand Claude,” said I. “He’s an enigma, and
he’ll remain an enigma.”

“That’s just the way I feel about my friend.”

“Your friend,” said I a little testily. “You hardly know her and you 
speak of her as if she were a lifelong friend.”

“Don’t be silly. She is my friend—the only friend I’ve ever had.”

“You sound as if you were infatuated… “

“I am! She appeared at the right moment.”

“Now what does that mean?”

“That I was desperate, lonely, miserable. That I needed some one I could 
call a friend.”

“What’s come over you anyway? Since when have you needed a friend? I’m 
your friend. Isn’t that enough for you?” I said it mockingly, but I was 
half in earnest.

To my astonishment she replied: “No, Val, you’re not my friend any more. 
You’re my husband, and I love you… I couldn’t live without you, but… “

“But what?”

“I had to have a friend, a woman friend. Some one I can confide in, some 
one who understands me.”

“Well I’ll

be damned!

So that’s it?

And you mean you can’t confide in me?”

“Not like

I can

in a

woman. There

are some things you just can’t tell a man, even if you love him. Oh, 
they’re not big things, don’t worry. Sometimes little

things

are

more important

than big things, you

know

that.

Besides, look

at you…

you’ve got loads of friends. And when you’re with your friends you’re a 
different person entirely. I used to envy you sometimes. Maybe I was 
jealous of your friends. Once I thought that I could be everything to you. 
But I see I was wrong. Anyway, now I have a friend—and I’m going to keep 
her.”

Half teasingly, half seriously, I said:

“Now you want to make me jealous, is that it?”

She came out of the bathroom, knelt beside the bed and put her head in my
arms. “Val,” she murmured, “you know that isn’t true. But this friendship 
is something very dear and very precious to me. I don’t want to share her 
with any one, not even with you. Not for a while, at least.”

“All right,” I said. “I get it.” My voice sounded a trifle husky, I 
noticed.

Gratefully she burbled: “I knew you’d understand.”

“But what is there to understand? I asked. I said it softly and gently.

“That’s it,” she answered, “nothing, nothing. It’s only natural.” She 
bent forward and kissed me affectionately on the lips.

As she got to her feet to put out the lights I said impulsively:

“You poor girl! Wanting a friend all this time and I never knew it, never
suspected it. I guess I must be a dumb, insensitive bugger.”

She switched off the lights and crawled into bed. There were twin beds 
but we used only one.

“Hold me tight,” she whispered. “Val, I love you more than ever. Do you 
hear me?”

I said nothing, just held her tight.

“Claude said to me the other day—are you listening?—that you were one of 
the few.”

“One of the elect, is that it?” I said jokingly. “The only man in the 
world for me.”

“But not a friend… “

She put a hand over my mouth.

*

Every night it was the same theme song—“My friend ‘Stasia.” Varied, of 
course, to add a little spice, with tall tales of the annoying attentions 
lavished upon Mona by an incongruous quartet. One of them—she didn’t even 
know his name—owned a string of book stores; another was the wrestler, Jim 
Driscoll; the third was a millionaire, a notorious pervert, whose name—it 
sounded incredible—was Tinkelfels; the fourth was a mad individual who was 
also somewhat of a saint. Ricardo, this last-named, appealed to me warmly, 
assuming that her description of him tallied with reality. A quiet, sober 
individual who spoke with a strong Spanish accent, he had a wife and three 
children whom he loved dearly, was extremely poor but made lavish gifts, 
was kind and gentle—“tender as a lamb”—wrote metaphysical treatises which 
were unpublishable, gave lectures to audiences of ten or twelve, et patati 
et patata. What I liked about him was this—each time he accompanied her to 
the subway, each time he said good night, he would clutch her hands and 
murmur solemnly: “If I can’t have you, nobody will. I will kill you.”

Mona came back to Ricardo again and again, saying how much he thought of 
Anastasia, how “beautifully” he treated her, and so forth. And each time 
she brought up his name she would repeat his threat, laughing over it as if
It were a great joke. Her attitude began to annoy me.

“How do you know he won’t keep his word some day?” I said one night.

She laughed even harder at this.

“You think it’s so impossible do you?”

“You don’t know him,” said she. “He’s one of the gentlest creatures on 
earth.”

“That’s precisely why I think he’s capable of doing it. He’s serious. 
You’d better watch yourself with him.”

“Oh, nonsense! He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Maybe not. But he sounds passionate enough to kill the woman he loves.”

“How can he be in love with met It’s silly. I don’t show him any 
affection. I hardly listen to him, in fact. He talks to Anastasia more than
to me.”

“You don’t have to do anything, you only need to be. He’s got a fixation.
He isn’t mad. Unless it’s madness to fall in love with an image. You’re the
physical image of his ideal, that’s obvious. He doesn’t need to plumb you, 
or even to get a response from you. He wants to gaze at you 
eternally—because you’ve incarnated the woman of his dreams.”

“That’s just the way he talks,” said Mona, somewhat taken aback by my 
words. “You two would get on wonderfully together. You speak the same 
language. I know he’s a sensitive creature, and a most intelligent one, 
too. I like him enormously, but he gets in my hair. He has no sense of 
humor, none whatever. When he smiles he looks even sadder than usual. He’s 
a lonely soul.”

“It’s a pity I don’t know him,” I said. “I like’ him more than any one 
you’ve talked about. He sounds like a real human being. Besides, I like 
Spaniards. They’re men… “

“He’s not a Spaniard—he’s Cuban.”

“Same thing.”

“No, it isn’t, Val. Ricardo told me so himself. He despises the Cubans.”

“Well, no matter. I’d like him even if he were a Turk.”

“Maybe I could introduce him to you,” said Mona suddenly. “Why not?”

I reflected a moment before answering.

“I don’t think you’d better,” said I. “You couldn’t fool a man like that.
He’s not a Cromwell. Besides, even Cromwell isn’t the fool you take him to 
be.”

“I never said he was a fool!”

“But you tried to make me believe so, you can’t deny that.”

“Well, you know why.” She gave me one of her faun-like smiles.

“Listen, sister, I know so much more about you and your wiles than you’d 
ever give me credit for that it hurts to even mention the subject.”

“You have a great imagination, Val. That’s the reason why I sometimes 
tell you so little. I know how you build things up.”

“But you must admit I build on a firm foundation!”

Again the faun-like smile.

Then she busied herself with something, in order to hide her face.

A pleasant sort of pause Intervened. Then, out of a clear sky I suddenly 
remarked—“I suppose women are obliged to lie… it’s in their nature. Men lie
too, of course, but so differently. Women seem to have an unholy fear of 
the truth. You know, if you could stop lying, if you could stop playing 
this foolish, unnecessary game with me, I think… “

I noticed that she had halted whatever it was she was pretending to be 
doing. Maybe she’ll really listen I thought to myself. I could see only the
side of her face. The expression was one of intense alertness. Of wariness 
too. Like an animal.

“I think I would do anything you asked of me. I think I would even 
surrender you to another man, if that was what you wished.”

These unexpected words of mine gave her intense relief, or so it seemed. 
What it was she had imagined I would say I don’t know. A weight had fallen 
off her shoulders. She came over to me—I was sitting on the edge of the 
bed—and sat beside me. She put a hand on mine. The look which stole into 
her eyes was one of utter sincerity and devotion.

“Val,” she began, “you know I would never make such a demand of you. How 
could you say such a thing? Maybe I do tell you fibs now and then, but not 
lies. I couldn’t keep anything vital from you—it would give me too much 
pain. These little things… these fibs… I make them up because I don’t want 
to hurt you. There are situations sometimes which are so sordid that, even 
to relate them to you, I feel would soil you. It doesn’t matter what 
happens to me. I’m made of coarser fiber. I know what the world is like. 
You don’t. You’re a dreamer. And an idealist. You don’t know, nor will you 
ever suspect, much less believe, how wicked people are. You see only the 
good side of everyone. You’re pure, that’s what. And that’s what Claude 
meant when he said you were one of the few. Ricardo is another pure soul. 
People like you and Ricardo should never be involved in j ugly things. I 
get involved now and then—because I’m not afraid of contamination. I’m of 
the world. With you I behave like another being. I want to be what you’d 
like me to be. But I’ll never be like you, never.”

“I wonder now,” said I, “what people would think—people like Kronski, 
O’Mara, Ulric, for example—if they heard you talking this way.”

“It doesn’t matter what other people think, Val.

I know you. I know you better than any of your friends do, no matter how 
long they’ve known you.

I know how sensitive you are. You’re the tenderest creature alive.”

“I’m beginning to feel frail and delicate, with all this.”

“You’re not delicate,” said she feelingly. “You’re tough—like all 
artists. But when it comes to the world, I mean dealing with the world, 
you’re just an infant. The world is vicious through and through. You’re in 
it, all right, but you’re not of it. You lead a charmed life. If you meet 
with a sordid experience you convert it into something beautiful.”

“You talk as if you knew me like a book.”

“I’m telling you the truth, am I not? Can you deny it?”

She put her arm around me lovingly and brushed her cheek against mine.

“Oh Val, maybe I’m not the woman you deserve, but I do know you. And the 
more I know you the better I love you. I’ve missed you so much lately. 
That’s why it means so much to me to have a friend. I was really getting 
desperate—without you.”

“O.K. But we were beginning to behave like two spoiled children, do you 
realize that? We expected everything to be handed to us on a platter.”

“I didn’t!” she exclaimed. “But I wanted you to have the things you 
craved. I wanted you to have a good life—so’ that you could do all the 
things you dream about. You can’t be spoiled! You take only what you need, 
no more.”

“That’s true,” I said, moved by this unexpected observation. “Not many 
people realize that. I remember how angry my folks got when I came home 
from Church one Sunday morning and told them enthusiastically that I was a 
Christian Socialist. I had heard a coal miner speak from the pulpit that 
morning and his words had struck home. He called himself a Christian 
Socialist. I immediately became one too. Anyway, it ended up with the usual
nonsense… the folks saying that Socialists were concerned only with giving 
away other people’s money. ‘And what’s wrong with that?’ I demanded. The 
answer was: ‘Wait till you’ve earned your own money, then talk!’ That 
seemed a silly argument. What did it matter, I asked myself, whether I 
earned money or didn’t earn money? The point was that the good things of 
life were unjustly distributed. I was quite willing to eat less, to have 
less of everything, if those who had little might be better off. Then and 
there it occurred to me how little one really needs. If you’re content you 
don’t need material treasures… Well, I don’t know why I got off on that! Oh
yes! About taking only what I need… I admit, my desires are great. But I 
also can do without. Though I talk a lot about food, as you know, I really 
don’t require much. I want just enough to be able to forget about food, 
that’s what I mean. That’s normal, don’t you think?”

“Of course, of course!”

“And that’s why I don’t want all the things you seem to think would make 
me happy, or make me work better. We don’t need to live the way we were. I 
gave in to please you. It was wonderful while it lasted, sure. So is 
Christmas. What I dislike more than anything is this perpetual borrowing 
and begging this using people for suckers. You don’t enjoy it either, I’m 
sure of it. Why should we deceive each other about it then? Why not put an 
end to it?”

“But I have!”

“You stopped doing it for me, but now you’re doing it for your friend 
Anastasia. Don’t lie to me, I know what I’m saying.”

“It’s different in her case, Val. She doesn’t know how to earn money. 
She’s even more of a child than you.”

“But you’re only helping her to remain a child—by aiding her the way you 
do. I don’t say that she’s a leech. I say this—you’re robbing her of 
something. Why doesn’t she sell her puppets, or her paintings, or her 
sculpture?”

“Why?” She laughed outright at this. “For the same reason that you can’t 
sell your stories. She’s too good an artist, that’s why.”

“But she doesn’t have to sell her work to art dealers—let her sell direct
to individuals. Sell them for a song! Anything to keep afloat. It would do 
her good. She’d really feel better for it.”

“There you go again! Shows how little you know the world. Val, you 
couldn’t even give her work away, that’s how things are. If you ever get a 
book published you’ll have to beg people to accept copies gratis. People 
don’t want what’s good, I tell you. People like you and Anastasia—or 
Ricardo—you have to be protected.”

“To hell with writing, if that’s how it is… But I can’t believe it! I’m 
no writer yet, I’m nothing but a tyro. I may be better than editors think I
am, .but I’ve a long way to go yet. When I really know how to express 
myself people will read me. I don’t care how bad the world is. They will, I
tell you. They won’t be able to ignore me.”

“And until then?”

“Until then I’ll find some other way of making a living.”

“Selling encyclopedias? Is that a way?”

“Not much of a one, I admit, but it’s better than begging and borrowing. 
Better than having your wife prostitute herself.”

“Every penny I make I earn,” said Mona heatedly. “Waiting on tables is no
cinch.”

“All the more reason why I should do my share. You don’t like to see me 
selling books. I don’t like to see you waiting on tables. If we had more 
sense we’d be doing other things. Surely there must be some kind of work 
that isn’t degrading.”

“Not for us! We weren’t cut out to do the work of the world.”

“Then we ought to learn.” I was getting carried away with my own 
righteous attitude.

“Val, this is all talk. You know you’ll never hold down an honest-to-God 
job. Never. And I don’t want you to. I’d rather see you dead.”

“All right, you win. But Jesus, isn’t there something a man like me can 
do without feeling like a fool or a dolt?” Here a thought which was forming
itself on my lips caused me to laugh. I laughed good and hard before I got 
it out. “Listen,” I managed to say, “do you know what I was just thinking? 
I was thinking that I might make a wonderful diplomat. I ought to be an 
ambassador to a foreign country—how does that strike you? No, seriously. 
Why not? I’ve got brains, and I know how to deal with people. What I don’t 
know I’d make up for with my imagination. Can you see me as ambassador to 
China?”

Oddly, she didn’t think the idea so absurd. Not in the abstract, at any 
rate.

“Certainly you would make a good ambassador, Val. Why not, as you say? 
But you’ll never get the chance. There are certain doors that will never be
opened to you. If men like you were directing the world’s affairs we 
wouldn’t be worrying about the next meal—or how to get stories published. 
That’s why I say you don’t know the world!”

“Damn it, I do know the world. I know it only too well. But I refuse to 
make terms with it.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“No it isn’t! It’s the difference between ignorance—or blindness—and 
aloofness. Something like that. If I didn’t know the world how could I be a
writer?”

“A writer has his own world.”

“I’ll be damned! I never expected you to say that! Now you’ve got me 
stumped… ” I was silenced for a moment.

“It’s dead true what you say,” I continued. “But it doesn’t obviate what 
I just said. Maybe I can’t explain it to you, but I know I’m right. To have
your own world, and to live in it, doesn’t mean that you are necessarily 
blind to the real world, so-called. If a writer weren’t familiar with the 
everyday world, if he hadn’t been so steeped in it that he revolted against
it, he wouldn’t have what you call his own world. An artist carries all 
worlds within him. And he’s just as vital a part of this world as any one 
else. In fact, he’s more thoroughly of it and in it than other people, for 
the simple reason that he’s creative. The world is his medium. Other men 
are content with their little corner of the world—their own little job, 
their own little tribe, their own little philosophy, and so on. Damn it, 
the reason why I’m not a great writer, if you want to know, is because I 
haven’t taken the whole wide world unto me yet. It isn’t that I don’t know 
about evil. It isn’t that I’m blind to people’s viciousness, as you seem to
think. It’s something other than that. What it is I don’t know myself. But 
I will know, eventually. And then I’ll become a torch. I’ll light up the 
world. I’ll expose it down to its very marrow… But I won’t condemn it! I 
won’t because I know too well that I am part and parcel of it, a 
significant cog in the machinery.” I paused. “We haven’t touched bottom 
yet, you know. What we’ve suffered is nothing. Flea-bites, that’s all. 
There are worse things to endure than lack of food and such things. I 
suffered much more when I was sixteen, when I was only reading about life. 
Or else I’m deceiving myself.”

“No, I know what you mean.” She nodded thoughtfully.

“You do? Good. Then you realize that without participating in life you 
can suffer the pangs of the martyrs… To suffer for others—that’s a 
wonderful kind of suffering. When you suffer because of your own ego, 
because of lack or because of misdeeds, you experience a kind of 
humiliation. I loathe that sort of suffering. To suffer with others, or for
others, to be all in the same boat, that’s different. Then one feels 
enriched. What I dislike about our way of life is that it’s so restricted. 
We ought to be up and about, getting bruised and battered for reasons that 
matter.”

I went on and on in this vein, sliding from one subject to another, often
contradicting myself, uttering the most extravagant statements, then 
brushing them aside, struggling to get back to terra firma.

It was beginning to happen more and more frequently now, these 
monologues, these harangues. Perhaps it was because I was no longer 
writing. Perhaps because I was alone most of the day. Perhaps, too, because
I had a feeling that she was slipping out of my hands. There was something 
desperate about these explosions. I was reaching out for something, 
something which I could never pin down in words. Though I seemed to be 
censuring her I was really upbraiding myself. The worst of it was that I 
could never come to any concrete resolution. I saw clearly what we ought 
not to do, but I could not see what we should do. Secretly, I relished the 
thought of being “protected.” Secretly I had to admit that she was right—I 
would never fit in, never make the groove. And so I let it out in talk. I 
rambled backward and forward, rehearsing the glorious days of childhood, 
the miserable days of adolescence, the clownish adventures of youth. It was
all fascinating, every iota. If only that man McFarland had been present, 
with his stenographer! What a story for his magazine! (Later it occurred to
me how strange it was that I could talk my life out but could never get it 
down on paper. The moment I sat down before the machine I became 
self-conscious. It hadn’t occurred to me at that time to use the pronoun I.
Why, I wonder? What inhibited me? Perhaps I hadn’t yet become the “I of my 
I”.) I not only intoxicated her with these talks, I intoxicated myself. It 
would be almost dawn before we would fall asleep. Dozing off I had the 
feeling that I had accomplished something. I had gotten it off my chest. 
It! What was that if? I couldn’t say myself. I knew only this, and from it 
I seemed to derive an unholy satisfaction: I had assumed my true role.

Perhaps, too, these scenes were just to prove that I could be as exciting
and “different” as that Anastasia whom I was getting tired of hearing 
about. Perhaps. Possibly I was a wee bit jealous already. Though she had 
known Anastasia only a few days, you might say, the room was already full 
of her friend’s things. All the latter needed to do now was move in. Over 
the beds were two stunning Japanese prints, a Utamaro and a Hiroshige. On 
the trunk was a puppet which Anastasia had made expressly for Mona. On the 
chiffonier was a Russian icon, another gift from Anastasia. To say nothing 
of the barbaric bracelets, the amulets, the embroidered moccasins, and so 
on. Even the perfume she was’ using—a most pungent one!—Anastasia had given
her. (Probably out of Mona’s own money.) With Anastasia you never could 
tell what was what. While Mona was worrying about the clothes her friend 
needed, the cigarettes, the art materials, et cetera, Anastasia was getting
money from home and doling it out to her hangers-on. Mona saw nothing 
incongruous in this. Whatever her friend did was right and natural, even if
she stole from her purse. Anastasia did steal now and then. Why not? She 
stole not for herself but to aid those in distress. She had no scruples or 
compunctions about such matters. She wasn’t a bourgeois, oh no! This word 
“bourgeois” began to pop up frequently now that Anastasia was on the scene.
Whatever was no good was “bourgeois”. Even caca could be “bourgeois,” 
according to Anastasia’s way of looking at things. She had such a wonderful
sense of humor, when you got to know her. Of course, some people couldn’t 
see it. Some people are just devoid of humor. To wear two different shoes, 
which Anastasia sometimes did absentmindedly—or did she do it 
absentmindedly?—that was screamingly funny Or to carry a douche-bag through
the streets. Why wrap such things up? Besides, Anastasia never used one 
herself—it was always for a friend who was in trouble.

The books that were lying around… all loaned her by Anastasia. One of 
them was called Down There—by some “decadent” French writer. It was one of 
Anastasia’s favorites, not because it was “decadent” but because it told of
that extraordinary figure in French history—Gilles de Rais. He had been a 
follower of Jeanne d’Arc. He had murdered more children—he had depopulated 
whole villages, in fact. One of the most enigmatic figures in French 
history. Mona begged me to glance at it sometime. Anastasia had read it in 
the original. She could read not only French and Italian but German, 
Portuguese and Russian. Yes, in the convent school she had also learned to 
play the piano divinely. And the harp.

“Can she blow the trumpet?” I asked derisively.

She gave me the horse laugh. Then followed this revelation: “She can play
the drums, too. But she has to be a little high first.”

“You mean drunk?”

“No, hopped up. Marijuana. There’s no harm in it. It’s not 
habit-forming.”

Whenever the subject came up—drugs—I was sure to get an earful. In Mona’s
opinion (probably Anastasia’s) every one ought to become acquainted with 
the effects of different drugs. Drugs weren’t half as dangerous as liquor. 
And the effects were more interesting. Yes, she was going to try them 
someday. There were lots of people in the Village—respectable people, 
too—who used drugs. There was that Mexican drug which exalted the sense of 
color, for example. Perfectly harmless. We ought to try it sometime. She’d 
see if she couldn’t get some from that phony poet what’s-his-name. She 
loathed him, he was filthy, and so on, but Anastasia maintained that he was
a good poet. And Anastasia ought to know…

“I’m going to borrow one of her poems one day and read it aloud to you. 
You’ve never heard anything like it, Val.”

“O.K.” I said, “but if it stinks I’m going to tell you so.”

“Don’t worry! She couldn’t write a bad poem if she tried.”

“I know—she’s a genius.”

“She is indeed, and I’m not joking. She’s a real genius.”

I couldn’t resist remarking that it was too bad geniuses always had to be
freaks.

“There you go! Now you’re talking just like everyone else. I’ve explained
to you again and again that she’s not like the other freaks in the 
Village.”

“No, she’s a genuine freak!”

“She’s mad maybe, but like Strindberg, like Dostoievsky, like Blake… “

“That’s putting her rather high, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t say she had their talent. All I mean is that if she’s queer, 
she’s queer in the same way they were. She’s not insane—and she’s not a 
fraud. Whatever she is, it’s real. I’ll stake my life on it.”

“The only thing I have against her,” I blurted out, “is that she needs so
damned much looking after.”

“That’s cruel!”

Is it? Look… she got along all right until you came along, didn’t she?”

“I told you what a condition she was in when I met her.”

“I know you did, but that doesn’t impress me. Maybe if you hadn’t nursed 
her along she would have picked herself up and stood on her own two legs.”

“We’re back where we started. How many times must I explain to you that 
she simply doesn’t know how to take care of herself?”

“Then let her learn!”

“How about yourself? Have you learned yet?”

“I was getting along all right until you came along. I not only took care
of myself, I took care of a wife and child.”

“That’s unfair of you. Maybe you did take care of them, but at what a 
price! You wouldn’t want to live that way forever, would you?”

“Of course not! But I’d have found a way out—eventually.”

“Eventually! Val, you haven’t got too much time! You’re in your thirties 
now—and you have yet to make a name for yourself. Anastasia’s just a girl, 
but see what she’s accomplished already.”

“I know. But then she’s a genius… “

“Oh, stop it! We won’t get anywhere talking this way. Why don’t you quit 
thinking about her? She doesn’t interfere with your life—why should you 
interfere with hers? Can’t I have one friend? Why must you be jealous of 
her? Be just, won’t you?”

“All right, let’s drop it. But stop talking about her, will you? Then I 
won’t say anything to hurt you.” Though she hadn’t explicitly asked me not 
to visit The Iron Cauldron, I kept away out of consideration for her 
wishes. I suspected that Anastasia spent much of her time there daily, that
during Mona’s swings the two were always together somewhere. In roundabout 
ways I would hear of their visits to the museums and art galleries, to the 
studios of Village artists, of their expeditions to the waterfront, where 
Anastasia made sketches of boats and skyline, of the hours they spent at 
the library doing research. In a way the change was good for Mona. Gave her
something new to think about. She had little knowledge of painting, and 
Anastasia apparently was delighted to act as her mentor. There were veiled 
references occasionally to the portrait Anastasia intended to make of Mona.

She had never done a realistic portrait of any one, it seems, and she was
especially reluctant to do a resemblance of Mona.

There were days when Anastasia was incapable of doing a thing, when she 
was prostrate and had to be nursed like an infant. Any trifling event could
bring them on, these fits of malaise. Sometimes they occurred because Mona 
had spoken foolishly or irreverently of one of Anastasia’s beloved idols. 
Modigliani and El Greco, for example, were painters about whom she ‘would 
allow no one, not even Mona, to say the wrong thing. She was very fond of 
Utrillo, too, but she did not venerate him. He was “a lost soul,” like 
herself: still on the “human” level. Whereas Giotto, Grunewald, the Chinese
and the Japanese masters, these were on a different level, represented a 
higher order. (Not so bad, her taste!) She had no respect whatever for 
American artists, I gathered. Except for John Marin, whom she described as 
limited but profound. What almost endeared her to me was the discovery that
she always carried with her Alice in Wonderland and the Tao Teh Ching. 
Later she was to include a volume of Rimbaud. But of that later…

I was still making the rounds, or going through the motions. Now and then
I sold a set of books without trying. I worked at it only four or five 
hours a day, always ready to knock off when dinner time came. Usually I 
would look over the cards and choose a prospect who lived a good distance 
away, in some run-down suburb, some bleak and barren hole in New Jersey or 
out on Long Island. I did this partly to kill time and partly to get 
completely off the track. Always, when heading for some dingy spot (which 
only a dotty book salesman would think of visiting!), I found that I would 
be assailed by the most unexpected memories of dear, beloved places I had 
known as a boy. It was a sort of inverse law of association at work. The 
more drab and commonplace the milieu, the more bizarre and wonderful were 
these unbidden associations. I could almost wager that if I headed of a 
morning for Hackensack or Canarsie, or some rabbit hole on Staten Island, 
by evening, I would find myself at Sheepshead Bay, or Bluepoint, or Lake 
Pocotopaug. If I didn’t have the carfare to make a long haul I would 
hitch-hike, trusting to luck that I would run into some one—“some friendly 
face”—who would stake me to a meal and the fare back. I rode with the tide.
It didn’t matter where I ended up nor when I got home, because Mona would 
be sure to arrive after me. I was writing things down in my head again, not
feverishly, as before, but calmly, evenly, like a reporter or correspondent
who had oodles of time and a generous expense account. It was wonderful to 
let things happen as they would. Now and then, sailing along on even keel, 
I would blow into some outlandish town, pick a shop at random plumber or 
undertaker, it made no difference—and launch into my sales talk. I hadn’t 
the least thought of making a sale, nor even of “keeping my hand in,” as 
they say. No, I was merely curious to see the effect my words would have on
a complete nobody. I had the feeling that I was a man descended from 
another planet. If the poor victim felt disinclined to discuss the merits 
of our loose-leaf encyclopedia I would talk his language, whatever it was, 
even if it were nothing but cold corpses. Like that I often found myself 
lunching with a congenial soul with whom I hadn’t a thing in common. The 
farther away from myself I got the more certain I was to have an 
inspiration. Suddenly, perhaps in the midst of a sentence, the decision 
would be made and off I’d scoot. Off searching for that spot which I had 
known in the past, a very definite, a very marvelous past. The trick was to
get back to that precious spot and see if I could reconstitute the being I 
once was. A queer game—and full of surprises. Sometimes I returned to our 
room as a little boy dressed in men’s clothes. Yes, sometimes I was little 
Henry through and through, thinking like him, feeling like him, acting like
him.

Often, talking to utter strangers out there on the fringe of the world, 
there would suddenly leap to mind an image of the two of them, Mona and 
‘Stasia, parading through the Village or swinging through the revolving 
door of a museum with those crazy puppets in their arms. And then I would 
say a curious thing to ‘myself—sotto voce, of course. I would say, and 
smile wanly as I did so: “And where do I come in?” Moving around on the 
bleak periphery, among zombies and dodoes, I had gotten the idea that I was
cut off. Always, in closing a door, I had the impression that the door was 
locked behind me, that I would have to find another way to get back. Get 
back where f There was something ridiculous and grotesque about this double
image which obtruded at the most unexpected moments. I saw the two of them 
garbed in outlandish fashion—‘Stasia in her overalls and hobnailed boots 
and Lady Precious Stream in her fluttering cape, her hair streaming loose 
like a mane. They were always talking simultaneously, and about utterly 
different things; they made strange grimaces and wild gesticulations; they 
walked with two utterly different rhythms, one like an auk, the other like 
a panther.

Whenever I went deep enough into my childhood I was no longer outside, on
the fringe, but snugly inside, like a pit in the fleshy heart of a ripe 
piece of fruit. I might be standing in front of Annie Meinken’s candy shop,
in the old 14th Ward, my nose pressed against the window-pane, my eyes 
a-glitter at the sight of some chocolate-covered soldiers. That abstract 
noun, “the world,” hadn’t yet penetrated my consciousness. Everything was 
real, concrete, individuated, but neither fully named nor wholly 
delineated. I was and things were. Space was limitless, time was not yet. 
Annie Meinken was a person who always leaned far over the counter to put 
things in my hand, who patted me on the head, who smiled at me, who said I 
was such a good little fellow, and sometimes ran out into the street to 
kiss me goodbye, though we lived only a few doors away.

I honestly think that at times, out there on the fringe, when I got very 
quiet and still, I half expected some one to behave toward me exactly as 
Annie Meinken used to. Maybe I was running off to those far-away places of 
my childhood just to receive again that piece of candy, that smile, that 
embarrassing parting kiss. I was indeed an idealist. An incurable one. (An 
idealist is one who wants to turn the wheels back. He remembers too well 
what was given him; he doesn’t think of what he himself might give. The 
world sours imperceptibly, but the process begins virtually from the moment
one thinks in terms of “the world.”) Strange thoughts, strange 
meanderings—for a book salesman. In my portfolio was locked the key to all 
human knowledge. Presumably. And wisdom, like Winchester, only forty miles 
away. Nothing in all the world so dead as this compendium of knowledge. To 
spiel it off about the Foramenifera, about the infrared rays, about the 
bacteria that lie bedded in every cell—what a baboon I must have been! 
Naturally a Picodiribibi would have done far better! So might a dead 
jackass with a phonograph in its guts. To read in the subway, or on an open
trolley, about Prust the founder of Prussia—what a profitless pastime! Far 
better, if one had to read, to listen to that madman who said: “How sweet 
it is to hate one’s native land and eagerly await its annihilation.”

Yes, in addition to the dummies, the bindings, and all the other 
paraphernalia which crammed my briefcase, I usually carried a book with me,
a book so removed from the tenor of my daily life that it was more like a 
tattoo mark on the sole of a convict’s left foot. “WE HAVE NOT YET DECIDED 
THE QUESTION OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD AND YOU WANT TO EAT!” A sentence like 
this jumping out of a book in the dreary wasteland could decide the whole 
course of my day. I cam see myself all over again slamming the book shut, 
jumping up like a startled buck, and exclaiming aloud: “Where in hell are 
we?” And then bolting. It might have been the edge of a swamp where they 
had let me off, it might have been the beginning of one of those 
interminable rows of all-look-alike suburban homes, or the very portals of 
an insane asylum. No matter—on, on, head down, jaws working feverishly, 
grunts, squeals of delight, ruminations, discoveries, illuminations. 
Because of that blitz phrase. Especially the “and you want to eat!” part of
it. It was ages before I discovered who had originated this marvelous 
exclamation. All I knew then, all that mattered, was that I was back in 
Russia, that I was with kindred spirits, that I was completely possessed by
such an esoteric proposition as the debatable existence of God.

Years later, did I say? Why yes—only yesterday, so to speak, I found out 
who the author was. At the same time I learned that another man, a 
contemporary, had written thus of his nation, the great Russian nation:

“We belong to the number of those nations which, so to speak, do not 
enter into the structure of mankind but exist only in order to teach the 
world an important lesson of some sort.”

But I am not going to speak of yesterday or the day before yesterday. I 
am going to speak of a time which has no beginning nor end, a time moreover
which with all the other kinds of time that filled the empty spaces of my 
days…

The way of ships, and of men in general, is the zigzag path. The drunkard
moves in curves, like the planets. But the man who has no destination moves
in a time and space continuum which is uniquely his own and in which God is
ever present. “For the time being”—inscrutable phrase!—he is always there. 
There with the grand cosmocrator, so to speak. Clear? Very well, it is 
Monday, let us say. “And you want to eat?” Instantly the stars begin to 
chime, the reindeer paw the turf; their blue icicles sparkle in the noonday
sun. Whooshing it through the Nevsky Prospekt, I make my way to the inner 
circle, the briefcase under my arm. In my hand is a little bag of candy, a 
gift from Annie Meinken. A solemn question has just been propounded.

“We have not yet decided the question of the existence of God… “

It is at this point I always enter. I’m on my own time now. God’s time, 
in other words. Which is always “for the time being.” To hear me you would 
think I was a member of the Holy Synod—the Holy Philharmonic Synod. It 
isn’t necessary for me to tune in: I’ve been in tune since the dawn of 
time. Utter clarity is what marks my performance. I am of the order whose 
purpose is not to teach the world a lesson but to explain that school is 
over.

The comrades are relaxed and at ease. No bomb will go off until I give 
the order. On my right is Dostoievsky; on my left the Emperor Anathema. 
Every member of the group has distinguished himself in some spectacular 
manner. I am the only one “without portfolio.” I am the Uitlander; I hail 
from “the fringe,” that is to say, from the trouble-bubble cauldron.

“Comrades, it is said that a problem confronts us… ” (I always begin with
this stock phrase.) I look about me; calm, self-possessed, before launching
into my plaidoyer. “Comrades, let us rivet our most concentrated attention 
for a moment on that wholly ecumenical question—”

“Which ist” barks the Emperor of Anathema.

“Which is nothing less than this: If there were no God, would we be 
here?”

Above the cries of Rot! and Rubbish! I follow with ease the sound of my 
own voice intoning the sacred texts buried in my heart. I am at ease 
because I have nothing to prove. I have only to recite what I learned by 
rote in off moments. That we are together and privileged to discuss the 
existence of God, this in itself is conclusive evidence for me that we are 
basking in the sunshine of His presence. I do not speak “as if” He were 
present, I speak “because” He is present. I am back in that eternal 
sanctuary where the word “food” always comes up. I am back because of that.

“And you want to eat f” I address the comrades passionately now. “Why 
not?” I begin. “Do we insult our Maker by eating what He has provided for 
us? Do you think He will vanish because we fill our bellies? Eat, I beg 
you, Eat heartily! The Lord our God has all time in which to reveal 
himself. You pretend that you wish to decide the matter of His existence. 
Useless, dear comrades, it was decided long ago, before there even was a 
world. Reason alone informs us that if there be a problem there must be 
something real which brings it to birth. It is not for us to decide whether
or not God exists, it is for God to say whether or not we exist.” (“Dog! 
Have you anything to say?” I shouted in the Emperor Anathema’s ear.) 
“Whether to eat or not before deciding the issue, is that, I ask you, a 
metaphysical question? Does a hungry man debate whether he is to eat or 
not? We are all famished: we hunger and thirst for that which gave us life,
else we would not be assembled here. To imagine that by giving a mere Yes 
or No the grand problem will be settled for eternity is sheer madness. We 
have not… ” (I paused and turned to the one on my right. “And you, Fyodor 
Mihailovich, have you nothing to say?”) “We have not come together to 
settle an absurd problem. We are here, comrades, because outside this room,
in the world, as they call it, there is no place in which to mention the 
Holy Name. We are the chosen ones, and we are united ecumenically. Does God
loish to see children suffert Such a question may be asked here. Is evil 
necessary f That too may be asked. It may also be asked whether we have the
right to expect a Paradise here and now, or whether eternality is 
preferable to immortality. We may even debate whether Our Lord Jesus Christ
is of one divine nature only or of two consubstantially harmonious natures,
human and divine. We have all suffered more than is usual for mortal beings
to endure. We have all achieved an appreciable degree of emancipation. Some
of you have revealed the depths of the human soul in a manner and to a 
degree never before heard of. We are all living outside our time, the 
forerunners of a new era, of a new order of mankind. We know that nothing 
is to be hoped for on the present world level. The end of historical man is
upon us. The future will be in terms of eternity, and of freedom, and of 
love. The resurrection of man will be ushered in with our aid; the dead 
will rise from their graves clothed in radiant flesh and sinew, and we 
shall have communion, real everlasting communion, with all who once were; 
with those who made history and with those who had no history. Instead of 
myth and fable we shall have everlasting reality. All that now passes for 
science will fall away; there will be no need to search for the clue to 
reality because all will be real and durable, naked to the eye of the soul,
transparent as the waters of Shiloh. Eat, I beg you, and drink to your 
heart’s content. Taboos are not of God’s making. Nor murder and lust. Nor 
jealousy and envy. Though we are assembled here as men, we are bound 
through the divine spirit. When we take leave of one another we shall 
return to the world of chaos, to the realm of space which no amount of 
activity can exhaust. We are not of this world, nor are we yet of the world
to come, except in thought and spirit. Our place is on the threshold of 
eternity; our function is that of prime movers. It is our privilege to be 
crucified in the name of freedom. We shall water our graves with our own 
blood. No task can be too great for us to assume. We are the true 
revolutionaries since we do not baptize with the blood of others but with 
our own blood, freely shed. We shall create no new covenants, impose no new
laws, establish no new government. We shall permit the dead to bury the 
dead. The quick and the dead will soon be separated. Life eternal is 
rushing back to fill the empty cup of sorrow. Man will rise from his bed of
ignorance and suffering with a song on his lips. He will stand forth in all
the radiance of his godhood. Murder in every form will disappear forever. 
For the time being… “

The moment this inscrutable phrase rose to my lips the inner music, the 
concordance, ceased. I was back in double rhythm again, aware of what I was
doing, analyzing my thoughts, my motives, my deeds. I could hear 
Dostoievsky speaking, but I was no longer there with him, I was getting 
only the overtones. What’s more, I could shut him off whenever I pleased. I
was no longer running in that parallel timeless time. Now the world was 
indeed empty, drab, woebegone. Chaos and cruelty ran hand in hand. I was as
grotesque and ridiculous now as those two lost sisters who were presumably 
running through the Village with puppets in their arms.

By the time night falls, and I start to trek it back, an overpowering 
loneliness has gripped me. It does not surprise me in the least to find, on
returning to the room, a telephone message from Mona saying that her dear 
“friend” is ill and that she must stay with her the night. Tomorrow it will
be another story, and the day after another.

Everything is happening to ‘Stasia at once. One day she is ordered to 
move because she talks too loudly in her sleep; another day, in another 
room, she is visited by a ghost and forced to flee in the night. On another
occasion a drunkard attempts to rape her. Or else she is grilled by a 
plainclothes man at three in the morning. It is inevitable that she should 
think of herself as a marked woman. She takes to sleeping in the daytime 
and roaming the streets by night; she passes long hours at a cafeteria 
which never closes, writing her poems on the marble-topped table, a 
sandwich in her hand and a plate of untouched food beside her. Some days 
she is the Slav, speaking with genuine Slavic accent; other days she is the
boy-girl from Montana’s snowy peaks, the nymph who must straddle a horse, 
even if only in Central Park. Her talk becomes more and more incoherent, 
and she knows it, but in Russian, as she always says it, “nothing matters.”
At times she refuses to use the toilet—insists on doing her little jobs in 
the chamber pot, which of course she forgets to empty. As for the portrait 
of Mona which she had begun, it now resembles the work of a maniac. (It is 
Mona herself who confesses this,) She is almost beside herself, Mona. Her 
friend is deteriorating under her own eyes. But it will pass. All will be 
well again, provided she stands by her faithfully, nurses her, soothes her 
tortured spirit, wipes her ass, , if need be. But she must never allow her 
to feel that she is deserted. What matter, she asks, if she has to remain 
three or four nights a week with her friend? Is not Anastasia the all in 
all?

“You trust me, don’t you, Val?”

I nod a silent assent. (It’s not an “ecumenical” question.) When the tune
switches, when I learn from her own lips that it was not Anastasia she 
spent the night with but her own mother—mothers too get ill—I know what any
idiot would have known long before, viz, that there’s something rotten in 
Denmark.

What harm, I ask myself, would there be in talking to her mother—over the
telephone? None whatever. The truth is always enlightening.

So, impersonating the lumber king, I pick up the receiver and, amazed 
that it is a mother speaking to me, I inquire in the most casual tone of 
voice if Mona is there; if so, I would like to talk to her.

She is not there. Very definitely not.

“Have you seen her lately?” (Still the noncommittal gentleman inquiring 
after the lady fair.) Not a sign of her in months. The poor woman sounds 
distressed. She forgets herself to the extent of asking me, a perfect 
stranger, if her daughter could possibly be dead. She virtually implores me
to inform her should I by chance get wind of her daughter’s whereabouts.

“But why don’t you write her husband?”

“Her husband?” There follows a prolonged silence in which nothing 
registers except the ocean’s deep hum. Then, in a weak, toneless voice, as 
if addressing blank space, comes this: “So she really did get married?”

“Why certainly she’s married. I know her husband well… “

“Excuse me,” comes the far off voice, followed by the click of the 
receiver being hung up.

I allow several nights to pass before broaching the subject to the guilty
one. I wait until we are in bed, the lights out. Then I nudge her gently.

“What is it? What are you poking me for?”

“I was talking to your mother yesterday.”

No answer.

“Yes, and we had quite a long conversation… “

Still no answer.

“The funny thing is, she says she hasn’t seen you for ages. She thinks 
maybe you’re dead.”

How much longer can she hold out? I wonder. Just as I am about to let out
another mouthful I feel her spring to a sitting position. Then comes one of
those drawn-out, uncontrollable fits of laughter, the sort that makes me 
shudder inwardly. Between spasms she blurts out. “My mother! Ho ho! You 
were talking to my mother! Hah, hah, hah! It’s too good, just too good for 
words. Hee, hee hee! Val, you poor sap, my mother is dead. I have no 
mother. Ho ho ho!”

“Calm yourself!” I beg her.

But she can’t stop laughing. It’s the funniest, the craziest thing she’s 
ever heard.

“Listen, didn’t you tell me you stayed with her the other night, that she
was very ill? Was it your mother or wasn’t it?”

Peals of laughter.

“Maybe it was your step-mother then?”

“You mean my aunt.”

“Your aunt then, if that’s who your mother is.” More laughter.

“It couldn’t have been my aunt because she knows I’m married to you. It 
was probably a neighbor. Or my sister maybe. It would be like her to talk 
that way.”

“But why would they want to deceive me?”

“Because you’re a stranger. If you had said you were my husband, instead 
of impersonating some one else, they might have told you the truth.”

“It didn’t sound to me as if your aunt—or your sister, as you say—were 
putting it on. It sounded thoroughly genuine.”

“You don’t know them.”

“Damn it all, then maybe it’s time I got acquainted with them.”

Suddenly she looked serious, very serious.

“Yes,” I continued, “I’ve a good notion to run over there one evening and
introduce myself.”

She was angry now. “If you ever do a thing like that, Val, I’ll never 
speak to you again. I’ll run away, that’s what I’ll do.”

“You mean that you don’t ever want me to meet your folks?”

“Exactly. Never!”

“But that’s childish and unreasonable. Even if you did tell me a few lies
about your family… “

“I’ve never admitted anything of the kind,” she broke in.

“Come, come, don’t talk like that. You know damned well that that’s the 
only reason why you don’t want me to meet them.” I allowed a significant 
pause to intervene, then said: “Or maybe you fear that I will find your 
real mother… “

She was angrier than ever now but the word mother got her to laughing 
again.

“You won’t believe me, will you? Very well, one day I’ll take you there 
myself. I promise you.”

“That wouldn’t do any good. I know you too damned well. The stage would 
be all set for me. No sir, if there’s any going I go alone.”

“Val, I warn you… if you dare do that… “

I interrupted her. “If I ever do it you won’t know about it.”

“So much the worse,” she answered. “You could never do that without my 
hearing about it sooner or later.”

She was pacing up and down now, puffing nervously at the cigarette which 
dangled from her lips. She was growing frantic, it seemed to me.

“Look here,” I said finally, “forget about it. I’ll… “

“Val, promise me you won’t do it. Promise me!”

I was silent a few moments.

She got down on her knees beside me, looked up at me imploringly.

“AH right,” I said, as if reluctantly, “I promise.”

I hadn’t the slightest intention, of course, of keeping my word. In fact,
I was more than ever determined to get to the bottom of the mystery. 
However, there was no need to hurry. I had the feeling that when the right 
moment came I would find myself face to face with her mother—and it would 
be her real mother.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“And now, finally, I feel urged to name once more those to whom I owe 
practically everything: Goethe and Nietzsche. Goethe gave me method. 
Nietzsche the questioning faculty, and if I were asked to find a formula 
for my relation to the latter I should say that I had made of his ‘outlook’
(Ausblick) an ‘overlook’ (Uberblick). But Goethe was, without knowing it, a
disciple of Leibnitz in his whole mode of thought. And, therefore, that 
which has at last (and to my own astonishment) taken shape in my hands I am
able to regard and, despite the misery and disgust of these years, proud to
call a German philosophy.” (Blankenburg am Harz, December, 1922.) These 
lines from the preface to The Decline of the West are to haunt me for many 
a year. It happens that I have taken to reading the book during the lonely 
vigils which have begun. Every evening after dinner I return to the room, 
make myself snug and cosy, then settle down to gnaw at this immense tome in
which the panorama of human destiny is unrolled. I am fully aware that the 
study of this great work represents another momentous event in my life. For
me it is not a philosophy of history nor a “morphological” creation, but a 
world-poem. Slowly, attentively, savoring each morsel as I chew it, I 
burrow deeper and deeper. I drown myself in it. Often I break .the siege by
pacing to and fro, to and fro. Sometimes I find myself sitting on the bed, 
staring at the wall. I look right through the wall: I look deep into a past
which is alive and fathomless. Occasionally a line or phrase comes with 
such impact that I am forced out of the nest, flung headlong into the 
street, where I wander like a somnambulist. Now and then I find myself in 
Joe’s restaurant at Borough Hall, ordering a big meal; with each mouthful I
seem to be swallowing another mighty epoch of the past. Unconsciously I 
stoke the furnace in order to gird myself for another wrestling bout with 
the omnivorous one. That I am of the borough of Brooklyn, one of the 
natives, seems preposterous. How can a mere Brooklyn boy ingest all this? 
Where is his passport to the distant realms of science, philosophy, history
et cetera? All that this Brooklyn boy knows has been acquired through 
osmosis. I am the lad who hated to study. I am the charming fellow who 
consistently rejected all systems of thought. Like a cork tossed about on 
an angry sea I follow in the wake of this morphological monster. It 
mystifies me that I should be able to follow him even distantly. Am I 
following or am I being sucked under by a vortex? What is it that enables 
me to read with understanding and delight? Whence the training, the 
discipline, the percipience which this monster demands? His thought is 
music to my ears; I recognize all the hidden melodies. Though I am reading 
him in English, it is as if I were reading the language he wrote in. His 
vehicle is the German language, which I thought I had forgotten. But I see 
I have forgotten nothing, not even the curricula I once planned to follow 
but never did.

From Nietzsche the questioning faculty! That little phrase sets me 
dancing…

Nothing is so inspiring to one who is trying to write as to come upon a 
thinker, a thinker who is also a poet, a thinker who looks for the soul 
which animates things. I see myself again as a mere youth, asking the 
librarian, or the minister sometimes, to lend me certain profound 
works—“deep” I called them then. I see the astonished looks on their faces 
when I mention the titles of these formidable books. And then the 
inevitable—“But why do you want those books?” to which I always rejoined: 
“And why shouldn’t I want those books?” That I was too young, that I hadn’t
read enough to cope with such works, meant nothing to me. It was my 
privilege to read what I wanted when I wanted. Was I not a born American, a
free citizen? What did age matter? Later, however, I had to secretly admit 
that I did not understand what these “deep” works were about. Or rather, I 
understood that I did not want the “abscesses” which accompanied the 
knowledge they secreted. How I yearned to grapple with the mysteries! I 
wanted all that had soul in it and meaning. But I also demanded that the 
author’s style match the mystery he was illuminating. How many books 
possess this quality? I met my Waterloo at the very threshold of life. I 
retained my ignorance, dreaming that is was bliss.

The questioning faculty! That I never abandoned. As is known, the habit 
of questioning everything leads one to become either a sage or a skeptic. 
It also leads to madness. Its real virtue, however, consists in this, that 
it makes one think for himself, makes one return to the source.

Was it so strange that in reading Spengler I began to appreciate all over
again what truly wonderful thinkers we were as boys? Considering our age 
and our limited experience of life, we nevertheless managed to propound to 
one another the most profound and vital questions. We tackled them 
manfully, too, with our whole being. Years of schooling destroyed the art. 
Like chimpanzees, we learned to ask only the right questions—the ones the 
teachers could answer. It is on this sort of chicanery that the whole 
social structure is reared. “The university of life!” Only the desperate 
ones choose this curriculum. Even the artist is apt to go astray, because 
he too is obliged, sooner or later, to observe on which side his bread is 
buttered.

The Decline of the West! I can never forget the thrill which ran up my 
spine when I first heard this title. It was like Ivan Karamazov saying—“I 
want to go to Europe. Maybe I know that I shall go only to a cemetery, but 
it will be the dearest of cemeteries.”

For many a year I had been aware that I was participating in a general 
decline. We all knew it, all felt it, only some succeeded in forgetting 
about it more quickly than others. What we hadn’t understood so clearly, 
most of us, was that we were part of this very “West,” that the West 
included not only Europe but North America. To us America had always been a
chancy place—one day hot, one day cold, one day barren, one day fertile. In
short, according to how you struck it, it was either all myrrh and 
frankincense or plain undiluted horse manure. It was not our way to think 
in terms of historical destiny. Our history had begun only a few years 
back—and what there was of it was dull and boring. When I say “we” I mean 
we boys, we youths, we young men who were trying to sprout long pants under
our skirts. Mamma’s boys, all of us, and if we had a destiny it was to 
become cracker-jack salesmen, cigar store clerks or chain store managers.

The wild ones joined the Army or Navy. The incorrigible ones got 
themselves safely stowed away in Dannemora or Sing Sing. No one pictured 
himself as a plodding engineer, plumber, mason, carpenter, farmer, 
lumberman. One could be a trolley car conductor one day and an insurance 
agent the next day. And tomorrow or the day after one might wake up and 
find himself an alderman. Order, discipline, purpose, goal, destiny? 
Unknown terms. America was a free country, and nothing one did could ruin 
it—ever. That was our world outlook. As for an “Uberlick,” that led to the 
bughouse. “What are you reading, Henry f” If I showed the book to my 
questioner he was sure to say: “You’ll go nuts reading that sort of junk.” 
This “junk,” incidentally, was usually the world’s choice literature. No 
matter. To “them” or “us” such books were of prehistoric vintage.

No, no one was thinking consciously and deliberately in terms of a world 
decline. The decline was none the less real, and it was hollowing us out. 
It revealed itself in unsuspected ways. For example, nothing was worth 
getting excited about. Nothing. Or, one job was as good as another, one man
the equal of another. And so on. All baloney, naturally.

Nietzsche, my first great love, hadn’t seemed very German to me. He 
didn’t even seem Polish. He was like a fresh-minted coin. But Spengler 
immediately impressed me as being German to the core. The more abstruse and
recondite his language, the easier I followed him; A prenatal language, 
his. A lullaby. What is erroneously called his “pessimism” struck me as 
nothing more than cold Teutonic realism. The Teutons have been singing the 
swan song ever since they entered the ranks of history. They have always 
confounded truth with death. Let us be honest. In the whole metaphysic of 
Europe has there ever been any truth but this sad German truth which, of 
course, is a lie? Suddenly, thanks to this historical maestro, we glean 
that the truth of death need not be sad, particularly when, as happens, the
whole “civilized” world is already part of it. Suddenly we are asked to 
look into the depths of the tomb with the same zeal and joy with which we 
first greeted life.

“Alles Vergangliche ist nur ein Gleichnis.”

Try as I might, I could never finish a chapter without succumbing to the 
temptation to glance at the succeeding chapters. The headings of these 
chapters obsessed me. They were enchanting. They belonged to a grimoire 
rather than to a philosophy of history. The Magian World: Act and Portrait:
On the Form of the Soul: Physiognomic and Systematic: Historic 
Pseudomorphoses… And the last chapter of all, what else could it be but 
MONEY? Had anyone ever written of Money in this fascinating language? The 
modem mystery: MONEY.

From “The Meaning of Numbers” to “Money”—a thousand large, dense pages, 
all written out in three years. A bomb that failed to go off because 
another bomb (World War One) had blown the fuse.

And what footnotes! To be sure, the Germans love footnotes. Was it not 
about the same time that Otto Rank, one of the twelve disciples of Freud, 
was busy appending his fascinating footnotes to his studies of the Incest 
Motif, Don Juan, Art and Artist?

Anyway, from the footnotes to the index in the back of the book—like a 
journey from Mecca to Lhassa, on foot. Or from Delphi to Timbuctoo, and 
back again. Who but Spengler, moreover, would have grouped such figures as 
Pythagoras, Mohammed and Cromwell? Who other than this man would have 
looked for homologies in Buddhism, Stoicism and Socialism? Who had dared to
speak of the glorious Renaissance as a “contretemps”?

Walking the streets, my head spinning with all the dazzling references, I
get to thinking of similar periods, periods in the distant past, it now 
seems, when I was completely absorbed in books. One period especially comes
back to me vividly. It is the period when I first got to know Maxie 
Schnadig. There he is, dressing the show window of a haberdashery store not
far from Kosciusko Street, where he lived. Hello Dostoievsky! Hoorah! Back 
and forth through the winter snows—with Dostoievsky, Pushkin, Tolstoy, 
Andreyev, Chekov, Artzibashev… And Oblomov! A new calendar of time for’ me.
New friends, new perspectives, new sorrows. One of these new friends proves
to be none other than Maxie’s cousin. He is a man much older than us, a 
physician from Novgorod. That is to say a Russian Jew, but a Russian just 
the same. And because he is bored with family life he suggests to us that 
we form a little study group, the three of us, to while the evenings away. 
And what do we choose to study? The sociology of Lester F. Ward. But Lester
F. Ward is only a springboard for the good doctor. He literally bounces 
into those subjects which represent the missing links in our lamentable 
scheme of knowledge—magic, symbols, herbology, crystalline forms, the 
prophets of the old Testament, Karl Marx, the technique of revolution, and 
so on. A samovar always on the boil, tasty sandwiches, smoked herring, 
caviar, fine teas. A skeleton dangling from the chandelier. He is happy 
that we are acquainted with the Russian dramatists and novelists, delighted
that we have read Kropotkin and Bakunin, but—do we know the real Slavic 
philosophers and thinkers? He reels off a string of names which are utterly
unknown to us. We are given to understand that in all Europe there never 
were such daring thinkers as the Russians. According to him, they were all 
visionaries and Utopists. Men who questioned everything. Revolutionaries 
all of them, even the reactionary ones. Some had been fathers of the 
Church, some peasants, some criminals, some veritable saints. But they had 
all endeavored to formulate a new world, usher in a new way of life. “And 
if you consult the Encyclopedia Britannica,” I recall him saying, “you will
discover nothing about them. They are not even mentioned.” What these 
Russians were striving for, he emphasized, was not the creation of a rich 
cultural life but “the perfect life.” He would discourse at length about 
the great wealth of the Russian language, how superior it was even to the 
language of the Elizabethans. He would read Pushkin aloud to us in his own 
tongue, then throw the book down with a sigh and exclaim: “What’s the use? 
We’re in America now. A kindergarten.” He was bored, supremely bored with 
the American scene. His patients were nearly all Jewish, but American Jews,
and he had little in common with them. To him America meant apathy. He 
missed the talk of revolution. To be truthful, I think he also missed the 
horrors of the pogrom. He felt that he was rotting away in the hollow tomb 
of democracy. “Sometime you must ask me about Fedorov,” he remarked once. 
But we never got that far. We got bogged down in Lester F. Ward’s 
sociology. It was too much for Maxie Schnadig. Poor Maxie was already 
poisoned by the American virus. He wanted to go ice-skating, wanted to play
handball, tennis, golf. And so, after a few months the study group 
dissolved. Never once since have I heard mention of Lester F. Ward. Nor 
have I ever again seen a copy of his great work. As compensation, perhaps, 
I took to reading Herbert Spencer. More sociology! Then one day I fell upon
his Autobiography, and I devoured it. There was indeed a mind. A lame one, 
but it served its purpose. A mind dwelling alone on an arid plateau. Not a 
hint of Russia, of revolution, of the Marquis de Sade, of love. Not a hint 
of anything but problems. “The brain rules, because the soul abdicates.”

“As soon as Life is fatigued,” says Spengler, “as soon as a man is put on
to the artificial soil of great cities—which are intellectual worlds to 
themselves—and needs a theory in which suitably to present Life to himself,
morale turns into a problem.”

There are phrases, sentences, sometimes whole paragraphs from The Decline
of the West which seem to be engraved in my brain-pan. The first reading 
went deep. Since then I have read and re-read, copied and re-copied the 
passages which obsess me. Here are a few at random, as inexpungible as the 
letters of the alphabet…

“To bring up, out of the web of world-happening, a millennium of organic 
culture-history as an entity and person, and to grasp the conditions of its
inmost spirituality—such is the aim.”

“Only the insight that can penetrate into the metaphysical is capable of 
experiencing in dates the symbols of that which happened, and so of 
elevating an Incident into a Destiny. And he who is to himself a Destiny 
(like Napoleon) does not need this insight, since between himself as a fact
and the other facts there is a harmony of metaphysical rhythm which gives 
his decisions their dreamlike certainty.”

“To look at the world, no longer from the heights as Aeschylus, Plato, 
Dante and Goethe did, but from the standpoint of oppressive actualities is 
to exchange the bird’s perspective for the frog’s.”

“The classical spirit, with its oracles and its omens, wants only to know
the future, but the Westerner would shape it. The Third Kingdom is the 
Germanic ideal. From Joachim of Floris to Nietzsche and Ibsen… every great 
man has linked his life to an eternal morning. Alexander’s life was a 
wondrous paroxysm, a dream which conjured up the Homeric ages from the 
grave. Napoleon’s life was an immense toil, not for himself nor for France,
but for the Future.”

“From the high and distant standpoint it matters very little what 
‘truths’ thinkers have managed to formulate in words within their 
respective schools, for here as in every great art, it is the schools, 
conventions and repertory of forms that are the basic elements. Infinitely 
more important than the answers are the questions—the choice of them, the 
inner form of them… “

“With the Name comes a new world-outlook… The Name grazes the meaning of 
consciousness and the source of fear alike. The world is not merely 
existent, a secret is felt in it… Man names that which is enigmatic. It is 
the beast that knows no enigmas… With the name the step is taken from the 
everyday physical of the beast to the metaphysical of man. It was the 
greatest turning-point in the history of the human soul.”

“A true system of thoughts emphatically cannot exist, for no sign can 
replace actuality. Profound and honest thinkers are always brought to the 
conclusion that all cognition is conditioned a priori by its own form and 
can never reach that which the words mean… And this ignorabimus is in 
conformity also with the intuition of every true sage, that abstract 
principles of life are acceptable only as figures of speech, trite maxims 
of daily use underneath which life flows, as It has always flowed, onward. 
Race, in the end, is stronger than languages, and thus it is that, under 
all the great names, it has been thinkers—who are personalities—and not 
systems, which are mutable, that have taken effect upon life.”

“For the sake of the machine, human life becomes precious. Work becomes 
the great word of ethical thinking: in the 18th Century it loses its 
derogatory implication in all languages. The machine works and forces the 
man to co-operate. The entire Culture reaches a degree of activity such 
that the earth trembles under it… And these machines become in their forms 
less and ever less human, more ascetic, mystic, esoteric… Man has felt the 
machine to be devilish, and rightly. It signifies in the eyes of the 
believer the deposition of God. It delivers sacred Causality over to man 
and by him, with a sort of foreseeing omniscience, is set in motion, silent
and irresistible… “

“A power can be overthrown only by another power, not by a principle, and
no power that can confront money is left but this one. Money is overthrown 
and abolished only by blood. Life is alpha and omega, the cosmic onflow in 
microcosmic form. It is the fact of facts within the world-as-history… Ever
in History it is life and life only—race-quality, the triumph of the 
will-to-power—and not the victory of truths, discoveries, or money that 
signifies. World-history is the world court, and it has ever decided in 
favor of the stronger, fuller, and more self-assured life—decreed to it, 
namely, the right to exist, regardless of whether its rights would hold 
before a tribunal of waking-consciousness. Always it has sacrificed truth 
and justice to might and race, and passed doom of death upon men and 
peoples in whom truth was more than deeds, and justice than power. And so 
the drama of a high Culture—that wondrous world of deities, arts, thoughts,
battles, cities—closes with the return of the pristine facts of the blood 
eternal that is one and the same as the ever-encircling cosmic flow… “

“For us, however, whom a Destiny has placed in this Culture and at this 
moment of its development—the moment when money is celebrating its last 
victories, and the Caesarium that is to succeed approaches with quiet, firm
step—our direction, willed and obligatory at once, is set for us within 
narrow limits, and on any other terms life is not worth the living. We have
not the freedom to reach to this or to that, but the freedom to do the 
necessary or to do nothing… “

“What really signifies is not that an individual or a people is ‘in 
condition,’ well-nourished and fruitful, but for what he or it is so… It is
only with the coming of the Civilization, when the whole form-world begins 
to ebb, that mere life-preserving begins to outline itself, nakedly and 
insistently—this is the time when the banal assertion that “hunger and 
love” are the driving forces of life ceases to be ashamed of itself; when 
life comes to mean, not a waxing in strength for the task, but a matter of 
‘happiness of the greatest number,’ of comfort and ease, of ‘panem et 
circenses’; and when, in the place of grand politics, we have economic 
politics as an end in itself… “

I could go on and on, do as I have done time and again—quote and quote 
until a veritable handbook accumulates. Almost twenty-five years since I 
made the first reading! And the magic is still there. For those who pride 
themselves on being always in the van, all that I have quoted, as well as 
all that lies between the quotes, is now “old hat.” What matter? For me 
Oswald Spengler is still alive and kicking. He enriched and uplifted me. As
did Nietzsche, Dostoievsky, Elie Faure.

Perhaps I am somewhat of a juggler, since I am able to balance such 
incongruous ponderables as The Decline of the West and the Too Teh Ching. 
The one Is made of granite or porphyry and weighs a ton; the other is light
as a feather and runs through my fingers like water. In eternity, where 
they meet and have their being, they cancel one another out. An exile like 
Hermann Hesse understands this sort of juggling perfectly. In the book 
called Siddhartha he presents two Buddhas, the known and the unknown. Each 
perfect in his way. They are opposites—in the sense of Systematic and 
Physiognomic. They do not destroy one another. They meet and part. Buddha 
is one of those names which “grazes the meaning of consciousness.” The real
Buddhas are without name. In short, the known and the unknown balance 
perfectly. Jugglers understand…

When I think of it now, how remarkably this “Untergang” music 
corresponded with my “underground” life! Strange, too, that virtually the 
only person with whom I could then speak of Spengler was Osiecki. It must 
have been in Joe’s restaurant, during one of my promenades nocturnes, that 
we met again. He had not lost that weird gnomic grin—the teeth all loose 
and rattling louder than ever. As far as “actualities” went he was still 
off the beam. But he could take in the Spenglerian music with the same ease
and understanding as he did the music of Dohnanyi, for whom he had 
conceived a passion. To while away the long, weary nights he had taken to 
reading in bed. All that related to number, engineering, architecture (in 
Spengler) he had swallowed like pre-digested food. And money, I should add.
Of this subject he had an uncanny knowledge. Strange to what ends the 
“unfit” develop their faculties! Listening to Osiecki, I used to think how 
sweet it would be to be locked up in the bughouse with him—and Oswald 
Spengler. What marvelous discussions we would have held! Out in the cold 
world all this grand music went to waste. If critics and scholars were 
interested in the Spenglerian view of things it was not at all in the way 
we were. For them it was but another bone to gnaw at. A juicer bone than 
usual, perhaps, but a bone nevertheless. To us it was life, the elixir of 
life. We got drunk on it every time we met. And of course we developed our 
own mutual “morphological” sign language. With each other we could cover 
huge tracts of thought in jig time, because of this code language. As soon 
as a stranger entered the discussion we got bogged down. To him our talk 
was not only unintelligible, it was sheer nonsense.

With Mona I developed another kind of language.

By dint of listening to my monologues she soon picked up the glittering 
tag ends, all the (to her) “fantastic” terminology—definitions, meanings, 
and, so to speak, “morphological excreta.” She often read a page or two 
while sitting on the stool. Just sufficient to emerge with a mouthful of 
phrases and outlandish references. In short, she had learned to bounce the 
ball back to me, which was pleasant and (for me) stimulating. All I ever 
required of a listener, when wound up, was a semblance of understanding. 
Long practice had developed in me the art of Instructing my listener in the
fundamentals, of giving him just enough of a stance to permit me to wash 
over him like a fountain. Thus at one and the same time I instructed or 
informed him—and mystified him. When I sensed that he felt himself on firm 
ground I would sweep the ground away from him. (Does not the Zen master 
endeavor to rob his disciple of every foothold he has ever had—in order to 
supply him with one that is really no foothold?) With Mona this was 
infuriating. Naturally. But then I would have the delicious opportunity of 
reconciling my contradictory statements; this meant expansion, elaboration,
distillation, condensation. In this wise I stumbled on some remarkable 
conclusions, not only about Spengler’s dicta but about thought in general, 
about the thought process itself. Only the Chinese, it seemed to me, had 
understood and appreciated “the game of thought.” Passionate as I was about
Spengler, the truth of his utterances never seemed so important to me as 
the wonderful play of his thought… Today I think what a pity it is that, as
a frontispiece to this phenomenal work, there is not reproduced the 
horoscope of the author. A clue of this sort is absolutely requisite to an 
understanding of the character and nature of this intellectual giant. When 
one thinks of the significance with which Spengler weights the phrase—“man 
as intellectual nomad”—one begins to realize that, in pursuing his high 
task, he came close to being a modem Moses. How much more frightful is this
wilderness in which our “intellectual nomad” is forced to dwell! No 
Promised Land in sight. Nothing on the horizon but empty symbols.

That gulf between the dawn man, who participated mystically, and 
contemporary man, who is unable to communicate except through sterile 
intellect, can only be bridged by a new type of man, the man with a cosmic 
consciousness. The sage, the prophet, the visionary, they all spoke in 
Apocalyptic terms. From earliest times the “few” have been attempting to 
break through. Some undoubtedly have broken through—and will remain forever
outside the rat trap.

A morphology of history, valid, exciting, inspiring though it may be, is 
still a death science. Spengler was not concerned with what lies beyond 
history. I am. Others are. Even if Nirvana be only a word, it is a pregnant
word, it contains a promise. That “secret” which lies at the heart of the 
world may yet be dragged into the open. Even ages ago it was pronounced to 
be an “Open” secret.

If the solution to life is the living of it, then let us live, live more 
abundantly! The masters of life are not found in books. They are not 
historical figures. They are situated in eternity, and they beseech us 
unceasingly to join them, in eternity.

At my elbow, as I write these lines, is a photograph tom from a book, a 
photograph of an unknown Chinese sage who is living today. Either the 
photographer did not know who he was or he withheld his name. We know only 
that he is from Peking: that is all the information which is vouchsafed. 
When I turn my head to look at him, it is as though he were right here in 
my room. He is more alive—even in a photograph—than any one I know. He is 
not simply “a man of spirit”—he is all spirit. He is Spirit itself, I might
say. All this is concentrated in his expression. The look which he gives 
forth is completely joyous and luminous. It says without equivocation: 
“Life is bliss!”

Do you suppose that, from the eminence on which he is poised—serene, 
light as a bird, with a wisdom all-embracing—a morphology of history would 
mean anything to him? No question here of exchanging the perspective of the
frog for that of the bird. Here we have the perspective of a god. He is 
“there” and his position is unalterable. Instead of perspective he has 
compassion. He does not preach wisdom—he sheds light.

Do you suppose that he is unique? Not I. I believe that all over the 
world, and in the most unsuspected places (naturally), there are men—or 
gods—like this radiant being. They are not enigmatic, they are transparent.
There is no mystery about them whatever: they are out in the open, 
perpetually “on view.” If we are removed from them it is only because we 
cannot accept their divine simplicity. “Illumined being,” we say, yet never
ask with what it is they are illumined. To be aflame with spirit (which is 
life), to radiate unending joy, to be serene above the chaos of the world 
and still be part of the world, human, divinely human, closer than any 
brother—how is it we do not yearn to be thus? Is there a role which is 
better, deeper, richer, more compelling? Then shout it from the roof-tops! 
We want to know. And we want to know immediately.

I do not need to wait for your response. I see the answer all about me. 
It is not really an answer—it is an evasion. The illustrious one at my 
elbow looks straight at me: he fears not to gaze upon the face of the 
world. He has neither rejected the world nor renounced it: he is part of 
it, just as stone, tree, beast, flower and star are part of it. In his 
being he is the world, all there can ever be of it… When I look at those 
around me I see only the profiles of averted faces. They are trying not to 
look at life—it is too terrible or too horrible, too this or too that. They
see only the awesome dragon of life, and they are impotent before the 
monster. If only they had the courage to look straight into the dragon’s 
jaws!

In many ways what is called history seems to me nothing more than a 
manifestation of this same fearsome attitude toward life. It is possible 
that what we call “the historical” would cease to be, would be erased from 
consciousness, once we performed that simple soldierly movement of “Eyes 
Front!” What is worse than a backward glance at the world is an oblique 
one.

When we speak of men “making history” we mean to say that they have in 
some measure altered the course of life. But the man at my elbow is beyond 
such silly dreams. He knows that man alters nothing—not even his own self. 
He knows that man can do one thing only, and that that is his sole aim in 
life—open the eyes of the soul! Yes, man has this choice—to let in the 
light or to keep the shutters closed. In making the choice man acts. This 
is his part vis-a-vis creation.

Open the eyes wide and the stir must die down. And when the stir dies 
down then commences the real music.

The dragon snorting fire and smoke from his nostrils is only expelling 
his fears. The dragon does not stand guard at the heart of the world—he 
stands at the entrance to the cave of wisdom. The dragon has reality only 
in the phantasmal world of superstition.

The homeless, homesick man of the big cities. What heart-rending pages 
Spengler devotes to the plight of “the intellectual nomad”! Rootless, 
sterile, skeptical, soulless—and homeless and homesick to boot.

“Primitive folk can loose themselves from the soil and wander, but the 
intellectual nomad never. Homesickness-for the great city is keener than 
any other nostalgia. Home is for him any one of these giant cities, but 
even the nearest village is alien territory. He would sooner die upon the 
pavement than go ‘back’ to the land.”

Let me say it unequivocally—after a “reading” nothing in the world of 
actualities had meaning or importance for me. The daily news was about as 
remote as the dog star. I was in the very center of the transformative 
process. All was “death and transfiguration.”

There was only one headline which still had power to excite me, and that 
was—THE END OF THE WORLD IS IN SIGHT! In that imaginary phrase I never 
sensed a menace to my own world, only to “the” world. I was closer to 
Augustine than to Jerome. But I had not yet found my Africa. My point of 
repair was a stuffy little furnished room. Alone in it I experienced a 
strange sort of peace. It was not the “peace that passeth understanding.” 
Ah no! It was an intermittent sort, the augur of a greater, a more enduring
peace. It was the peace of a man who was able to reconcile himself with the
condition of the world in thought.

Still, it was a step. The cultured individual seldom gets beyond this 
stage.

“Eternal life is not life beyond the grave, but the true spiritual life,”
said a philosopher. What a time it’ has taken me to realize the full import
of such a statement!… A whole century of Russian thought (the 19th) was 
preoccupied with this question of “the end,” of the establishment on earth 
of the Kingdom of God. But in North America it was as if that century, 
those thinkers and searchers after the true reality of life, had never 
existed. True, now and then a rocket exploded in our midst. Now and then we
did receive a message from some distant shore. Such events were regarded 
not only as mysterious, bizarre, outlandish, but as occult. This last label
meant that they were no longer serviceable or applicable to daily life.

Reading Spengler was not precisely a balm. It was more of a spiritual 
exercise. The critique of Western thought underlying his cyclical pattern 
had the same effect upon me as the Koans have for the Zen disciple. Again 
and again I arrived at my own peculiar Western state of Satori. Time and 
again I experienced those lightning flashes of illumination which herald 
the breakthrough. There came excruciating moments when, as if the universe 
were an accordion, I could view it as an infinitesimal speck or expand it 
infinitely, so that only the eye of God could encompass it. Gazing at a 
star outside my window, I could magnify it ten thousand times; I could roam
from star to star, like an angel, endeavoring all the while to grasp the 
universe in these super-telescopic proportions. I would then return to my 
chair, look at my fingernail, or rather at an almost invisible spot on the 
nail, and see into it the universe which the physicist endeavors to create 
out of the atomic web of nothingness. That man could ever conceive of 
“nothingness” always astounded me.

For so long now the conceptual world has been man’s whole world. To name,
to define, to explain… Result: unceasing anguish. Expand or contract the 
universe ad infinitum—a parlor game. Playing the god instead of trying to 
be as God. Godding, godding—and at the same time believing in nothing. 
Bragging of the miracles of science, yet looking upon the world about as so
much shit. Frightening ambivalence! Electing for systems, never for man. 
Denying the miracle men through the systems erected in their names.

On lonely nights, pondering the problem—only one ever!—I could see so 
very clearly the world as It is, see what it Is and why it is the way it 
is. I could reconcile grace with evil, divine order with rampant ugliness, 
imperishable creation with utter sterility. I could make myself so finely 
attuned that a mere zephyr would blow me to dust. Instant annihilation or 
enduring life—it was one and the same to me. I was at balance, both sides 
so evenly poised that a molecule of air would tip the scales.

Suddenly a most hilarious thought would shatter the whole set-up. An idea
such as this: “However deep one’s knowledge of abstruse philosophy, it is 
like a piece of hair flying in the vastness of space.” A Japanese thought, 
this. With it came a return to a more ordinary sort of equilibrium. Back to
that frailest of all footholds—solid earth. That solid earth which we now 
accept as being as empty as space.

“In Europe it was I, and I alone with my yearning for Russia, who was 
free,” said Dostoievsky somewhere. From Europe, like a true Evangel, he 
spread the glad tidings. A hundred, two hundred years hence, the full 
import of this utterance may be realized. What is to be done meanwhile? A 
question I propounded to myself over and over.

In the early pages of the chapter called “Problems of the Arabian 
Culture,” Spengler dwells at some length upon the eschatological aspect of 
Jesus’ utterances. The whole section called “Historic Pseudomorphoses” is a
paean to the Apocalyptic. It opens with a tender, sympathetic portrait of 
Jesus of Nazareth vis-k-vis the world of his day. “The incomparable thing 
which lifted the infant Christianity out above all religions of this rich 
Springtime is the figure of Jesus.” So begins this section. In Jesus’ 
utterances, he points out, there were no sociological observations, 
problems, debatings. “No faith yet has altered the world, and no fact can 
ever rebut a faith. There is no bridge between the course of history and 
the existence of a divine world order… “

Then follows this: “Religion is metaphysic and nothing else—‘Credo quia 
absurdum’—and this metaphysic is not the metaphysic of knowledge, argument,
proof (which is mere philosophy or learnedness), but lived and experienced 
metaphysic—that is, the unthinkable as a certainty, the supernatural as a 
fact, life as existence in a world that is non-actual, but true. Jesus 
never lived one moment in any other world but this. He was no moralizer, 
and to see in moralizing the final aim of religion is to be ignorant of 
what religion is… His teaching was the proclamation, nothing but the 
proclamation, of those Last Things with whose images he was constantly 
filled: the dawn of the New Age, the advent of heavenly envoys, the Last 
Judgment, a new heaven and a new earth. Any other conception of religion 
was never in Jesus’ nor in any truly deep-feeling period of history… ‘My 
kingdom is not of this world,’ and only he who can look into the depths 
that this flash illumines can comprehend the voices that come out of them.”

It is at this point that Spengler voices his scorn for Tolstoy who 
“elevated primitive Christianity to the rank of a social revolution.” It is
here he makes a pointed allusion to Dostoievsky who “never thought about 
social ameliorations.” (“Of what profit would it have been to a man’s soul 
to abolish property 7”) Dostoievsky and his “freedom”…

Was it not in that same time of Tolstoy and Dostoievsky that another 
Russian asked—“Why is it stupid to believe in the Kingdom of Heaven but 
intelligent to believe in an earthly Utopia?”

Perhaps the answer to this conundrum was inadvertently given by Belinsky 
when he said: “The fate of the subject, of the individual, of the person is
more important than the fate of the whole world and the wellbeing of the 
Chinese Emperor.”

At any rate, it was definitely Fedorov who quietly remarked: “Each person
is answerable for the whole world and for all men.”

A strange and exciting period in “the land of holy miracles” nineteen 
centuries after the birth and death of Jesus the Christ! One man writes The
Apology of a Madman; another writes a Revolutionary Catechism; another The 
Metaphysics of Sex. Each one is a revolution in himself. Of one figure I 
learn that “he was a conservative, a mystic, an anarchist, an orthodox, an 
occultist, a patriot, a Communist—and ended his life in Rome as a Catholic 
and a Fascist.” Is this a period of “historic pseudomorphosis”? Certainly 
it is an Apocalyptic one.

My misfortune, metaphysically speaking, is that I was born neither in the
time of Jesus nor in holy Russia of the nineteenth century. I was born in 
the megalopolis at the tail-end of a great planetary conjunction. But even 
in the suburb of Brooklyn, by the time I had come of age, one could be 
stirred by the repercussions of that Slavic ferment. One World War had been
“fought and won.” Sic! The second one was in the making. In that same 
Russia I speak of Spengler had a precursor whom you will scarcely find 
mention of even today. Even Nietzsche had a Russian precursor!

Was it not Spengler who said that Dostoievsky’s Russia would eventually 
triumph? Did he not predict that from this ripe soil a new religion would 
spring? Who believes this today t The Second World War has also been 
“fought and won” (!!!) and still the Day of Judgment seems remote. Great 
autobiographies, masquerading in one form or another, reveal the life of an
epoch, of a whole people, aye, of a civilization. It is almost as if our 
heroic figures had built their own tombs, described them intimately, then 
buried themselves in their mortuary creations. The heraldic landscape has 
vanished. The air belongs to the giant birds of destruction. The waters 
will soon be ploughed by Leviathans more fearful to behold than those 
described in the good book. The tension increases, increases, increases. 
Even in villages the inhabitants become more and more, in feeling and 
spirit, like the bombs they are obliged to manufacture.

But history will not end even when the grand explosion occurs. The 
historical life of man has still a long span. It doesn’t take a 
metaphysician to arrive at such a conclusion. Sitting in that little hole 
in the wall back in Brooklyn twenty-five years or so ago I could feel the 
pulse of history throbbing as late as the 32nd Dynasty of Our Lord.

Nevertheless, I am immensely grateful to Oswald Spengler for having 
performed this strange feat of skill—describing to a nicety the unholy 
atmosphere of arterio sclerosis which is ours, and at the same time 
shattering the whole rigid thought-world which envelops us, thus liberating
us—at least in thought. On every page, virtually, there is an assault upon 
the dogmas, conventions, superstitions and mode of thinking which have 
characterized the last few hundred years of “modernity.” Theories and 
systems are battered about like ninepins. The whole conceptual landscape of
modem man is devastated. What emerges are not the scholarly ruins of the 
past but freshly recreated worlds in which one may “participate” with one’s
ancestors, live again the Spring, the Fall, the Summer, even the Winter, of
man’s history. Instead of stumbling through glacial deposits one is carried
along on a tide of sap and blood. Even the firmament gets reshuffled. This 
is Spengler’s triumph—to have made Past and Future live in the Present. One
is again at the center of the universe, warmed by solar fires, and not at 
the periphery fighting off vertigo, fighting off fear of the unspeakable 
abyss.

Does it matter so much that we are men of the tail-end and not of the 
beginning? Not if we realize that we are part of something in eternal 
process, in eternal ebullition. Undoubtedly there is something far more 
comforting for us to apprehend, if we persist in searching. But even here, 
on the threshold, the shifting landscape acquires a more pregnant beauty. 
We glimpse a pattern which is not a mould. We learn all over again that the
death process has to do with men-in-life and not with corpses in varying 
stages of decomposition. Death is a “counter-symbol.” Life is the all, even
In the end periods. Nowhere is there any hint of life coming to a 
standstill.

Yes, I was a fortunate man to have found Oswald Spengler at that 
particular moment in time. In every crucial period of my life I seem to 
have stumbled upon the very author needed to sustain me. Nietzsche, 
Dostoievsky, Elie Faure, Spengler: what a quartet! There were others, 
naturally, who were also important at certain moments, but they never 
possessed quite the amplitude, quite the grandeur, of these four. The four 
horsemen of my own private Apocalypse! Each one expressing to the full his 
own unique quality: Nietzsche the iconoclast; Dostoievsky the grand 
inquisitor; Faure the magician; Spengler the pattern-maker. What a 
foundation!

In the days to come, when it will seem as if I were entombed, when the 
very firmament threatens to come crashing down upon my head, I shall be 
forced to abandon everything except what these spirits implanted in me. I 
shall be crushed, debased, humiliated. I shall be frustrated in every fiber
of my being. I shall even take to howling like a dog. But I shall not be 
utterly lost! Eventually a day is to dawn when, glancing over my own life 
as though it were a story or history, I can detect in it a form, a pattern,
a meaning. From then on the word defeat becomes meaningless.

It will be impossible ever relapse.

For on that day I become and I remain one with my creation.

On another day, in a foreign land, there will appear before me a young 
man who, aware of the change which has come over me, will dub me “The Happy
Rock.” That is the moniker I shall tender when the great Cosmocrator 
demands—“Who art thou?” Yes, beyond a doubt I shall answer: ‘The Happy 
Rock!”

And if it be asked—“Didst thou enjoy thy stay on earth?”—I shall reply:

“My life was one long rosy crucifixion.”

As to the meaning of this, if it is not already clear, it shall be 
elucidated. If I fail then am I but a dog in the manger.

Once I thought that I had been wounded as no man ever had. Because I felt
thus I vowed to write this book. But long before I began the book the wound
had healed. Since I had sworn to fulfill my task I reopened the horrible 
wound.

Let me put it another way… Perhaps in opening the wound, my own wound, I 
closed other wounds, other people’s wounds. Something dies, something 
blossoms. To suffer in ignorance is horrible. To suffer deliberately, in 
order to understand the nature of suffering and abolish it forever, is 
quite another matter. The Buddha had one fixed thought in mind all his 
life, as we know. It was to eliminate human suffering.

Suffering is unnecessary. But one has to suffer before he is able to 
realize that this is so. It is only then, moreover, that the true 
significance of human suffering becomes clear. At the last desperate 
moment—when one can suffer no more!—something happens which is in the 
nature of a miracle. The great open wound which was draining the blood of 
life closes up, the organism blossoms like a rose. One is “free” at last, 
and not “with a yearning for Russia,” but with a yearning for ever more 
freedom, ever more bliss. The tree of life is kept alive not by tears but 
by the knowledge that freedom is real and everlasting.

THE ENDme years ago, to Karen Lundgren. Whatever brought these two 
together I can’t possibly imagine. They had nothing whatever in common, 
nothing.

Karen Lundgren was a Swede who had been educated at Oxford, where he had 
made something of a stir due to his athletic prowess and his rare 
scholarship. He was a giant with curly blond hair, soft-spoken and 
excessively polite. He possessed the combined instincts of the ant, the bee
and the beaver. Thorough, systematic, tenacious as a bull-dog, whatever he 
engaged in he pursued to the limit. He played just as hard as he worked. 
Work, however, was his passion. He could work standing up, sitting down, or
lying in bed. And, like all hard workers, at bottom he was lazy as sin. 
Whenever he set out to do something he had first to devise ways and means 
of doing it with the least effort. Needless to say, these short cuts of his
entailed much time and labor. But it made him feel good to sweat his balls 
off devising short cuts. Efficiency, moreover, was his middle name. He was 
nothing but a walking, talking, labor-saving device.

No matter how simple a project might be, Karen could make it complicated.
I had had a good dose of his eccentricity while serving as his apprentice 
in a bureau of anthropological research some years previously. He had 
initiated me into the absurd complexities of a decimal system for filing 
which made our Dewey system seem like child’s play. With Karen’s system we 
were able to index anything under the sun, from a pair of white wool socks 
to hemorrhoids.

As I say, it was some years since I last saw Karen. I had always regarded
him as a freak, having respect neither for his vaunted intelligence nor for
his athletic prowess. Dull and laborious, those were his chief 
characteristics. Now and then, to be sure, he indulged in a hearty laugh. 
He laughed too heartily, I might say, and always at the wrong time or for 
the wrong reason. This ability to laugh he cultivated, just as he had once 
cultivated his muscles. He had a mania to be all things to all men. He had 
the mania, but no flair.

I give this thumb-nail sketch because it happens that once again I’m 
working with him, working for him. Mona too. We’re all living together on 
the beach at Far Rockaway, in a shack which he has erected himself. To be 
exact, the house isn’t quite finished. Hence our presence in it. We work 
without compensation, content to room and board with Karen and his wife. 
There’s much yet to be done. Too much. Work continues from the moment I 
open my eyes until I drop from fatigue.

To go back a pace… Running into Karen on the street was something of a 
God-send for us. We were literally without a cent when he happened along. 
Stanley, you see, had told us one evening, just as he was setting forth to 
work, that he was fed up with us. We were to pack our things and get out 
immediately. He would help us pack and see us to the subway. No words. Of 
course I had been expecting something of the sort to happen any day. I 
wasn’t the least bit angry with him. On the contrary, I was rather amused.

At the subway entrance he handed over the valises, put a dime in my hand 
for carfare, and without shaking hands turned abruptly and stalked off. Not
even a goodbye. We of course got into the subway, not knowing what else to 
do, and began riding. We rode back and forth two or three times trying to 
decide what the next step would be. Finally we got out at Sheridan Square. 
We had hardly walked a few steps when, to my astonishment, I saw Karen 
Lundgren approaching. He seemed unusually pleased to have found me again. 
What was I doing? Had we had dinner yet? And so on.

We accompanied him to his town flat, as he called it, and while his wife 
prepared the meal we unburdened ourselves. He was even more delighted to 
hear of our circumstances, “I’ve got just the thing for you, Henry.” he 
said, with his insensitive cheerfulness. And he began at once to explain 
the nature of his work, which sounded like higher mathematics to me, 
meanwhile plying us with cocktails and caviar sandwiches. He had taken it 
for granted, when he began his discourse, that I would give assent to his 
project. To make things more interesting I pretended that I would have to 
think it over, that I had other things in mind. That of course only 
stimulated him more.

“Stay with us overnight,” he begged, “and let me know what you think in 
the morning:” He had explained, to be sure, that in addition to acting as 
his secretary and amanuensis, I might have to give him a hand with the 
house-building. I had warned him frankly that I wasn’t much good with my 
hands, but he had waved this aside as unimportant. It would be fun, after 
working with one’s brain, to devote a few hours to more menial tasks. 
Recreation, he called it. And then there was the beach: we would be able to
swim, toss the ball around, perhaps even do a bit of canoeing. In passing 
he made mention of his library, his collection of records, his chess set, 
as if to say that we would have all the luxuries of a first class club.

In the morning I said yes, naturally. Mona was enthusiastic. She was not 
only willing, but eager, to help Karen’s wife do the dirty work. “O.K.” I 
said, “no harm in trying it.”

We went by train to Far Rockaway. All during the ride Karen talked 
incessantly about his work. I gathered that he was engaged in writing a 
book on statistics. According to him, it was a unique contribution to the 
subject. The data he had amassed was enormous, so enormous in fact that I 
was terrified before I had even moved a finger. In his customary way he had
equipped himself with all manner of devices, machines which he assured me I
would catch on to in no time. One of them was the Dictaphone. He had found 
it more convenient, he explained, to dictate to the machine, which was 
impersonal, than to a secretary. There would be times, of course, when he 
might feel impelled to dictate direct, in which case I could take it down 
on the typewriter. “You needn’t worry about the spelling,” he added. My 
spirits dropped, I must say, when I learned of the Dictaphone. However, I 
said nothing, just smiled and let him roll on from one thing to another.

What he had omitted to tell us about was the mosquitoes.

There was a little storeroom, just big enough to accommodate a creaky 
bed, which he indicated as our sleeping quarters. The moment I saw the 
netting over the bed I knew what we were in for. It began at once, the 
first night. Neither of us slept a wink. Karen tried to laugh it off by 
urging us to loaf for a day or two until we got adjusted. Fine, I thought. 
Mighty decent of him, I thought. An Oxford gentleman, what! But we didn’t 
sleep the second night either, even though protected by the netting, even 
though we had greased ourselves all over, like Channel swimmers. The third 
night we burned Chinese punk and incense. Toward dawn, utterly worn out, 
our nerves frazzled, we dozed off. As soon as the sun came up we plunged 
into the surf.

It was after we had breakfast that morning that Karen intimated we ought 
to begin work in earnest. His wife took Mona aside to explain her duties. 
It took Karen almost the whole morning to explain the mechanism of the 
various machines he found invaluable for his work. There was a veritable 
mountain of records piled up which I was to transcribe on the typewriter. 
As for the charts and diagrams, the rulers, compasses and triangles, the 
slide rules, the filing system, and the thousand and one details which I 
was to familiarize myself with, that could wait a few days. I was to make a
dent in the heap of records and then, if there were still enough light, I 
was to assist him on the roof.

I’ll never forget that first day with the bloody Dictaphone. I thought I 
would go mad. It was like operating a sewing machine, a switchboard and a 
Victrola all at once. I had to use simultaneously hands, feet, ears and 
eyes. If I had been just a bit more versatile I could have swept out the 
room at the same time. Of course the first ten pages made absolutely no 
sense. I not only wrote the wrong things, I missed whole sentences and 
began others in the middle or near the end. I wish I had preserved a copy 
of that first day’s work—it would have been something to put beside the 
cold-blooded nonsense of Gertrude Stein. Even if I had transcribed 
correctly, the words would have made little sense to me. The whole 
terminology, not to speak of his plodding, wooden style, was foreign to me.
I might just as well have written down telephone numbers.

Karen, like a man who is accustomed to training animals, a man of 
infinite patience and perseverance, pretended that I hadn’t done bad at 
all. He even tried to joke a bit, reading over some of the screwy sentences
“It will take a little time,” he said, “but you’ll get on to it.” And then,
to add a little sauce: “I’m really ashamed of myself for asking you to do 
this kind of work, Henry. You don’t know how much I appreciate your 
assistance. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come along.” 
He would have talked much the same way if he were giving me lessons in 
ju-jitsu, of which he was supposedly a master. I could well visualize him 
picking me up, after spinning me twenty feet through the air, and saying 
solicitously: “Sorry, old man, but you’ll get the hang of it after a few 
days. Just couldn’t help it, you know. Are you hurt much?”

What I wanted more than anything was a good drink. But Karen rarely 
drank. When he wanted relaxation he employed his energies at a different 
kind of work. To work was his passion. He worked while he slept. I mean it 
seriously. On falling off he would set himself a problem which his 
unconscious was to solve during the night.

The best I could wheedle out of him was a Coke. Even this I couldn’t 
enjoy in peace, for while I leisurely sipped it he was busy explaining to 
me the next day’s problems. What bothered me more than anything was his way
of explaining things. He was one of those idiots who believe that diagrams 
make things easier to comprehend. For me, anything in the way of a chart or
a diagram means hopeless confusion. I have to stand on my head to read the 
simplest plans. I tried to tell him this but he insisted that I had been 
miseducated, that if I would just be patient I would soon learn to read 
charts and diagrams with ease—and enjoyment. It’s like mathematics, he told
me.

“One shouldn’t say a thing like that, Henry. How can one detest something
useful? Mathematics is only another instrument to serve us.” And here he 
expatiated ad nauseam on the wonders and the benefits of a science in which
I had not the slightest interest. But I was always a good listener. And I 
had discovered already, in the space of just a few days, that one way of 
reducing the working time was to involve him in just such lengthy 
discussions. The fact that I listened so good-naturedly made him feel that 
he was really seducing me. Now and then I would throw in a question in 
order to put off for a few more minutes the inevitable return to the 
grindstone. Of course, nothing he told me about mathematics made the least 
impression on me. It went in one ear and out the other.

“You see,” he would say, with all the seriousness of the fatuous ones, 
“it’s not nearly as complicated as you imagined. I’ll make a mathematician 
of you in no time.”

Meanwhile Mona was getting her education in the kitchen. All day long I 
heard the dishes rattling. I wondered what in hell they were up to in 
there. It sounded like a spring cleaning. When we got to bed I learned that
Lotta, Karen’s wife, had allowed the dirty dishes to accumulate for a week.
She didn’t like housework, apparently. She was an artist. Karen never 
complained. He wanted her to be an artist—that is, after she had done the 
chores and assisted him in every possible way. He himself never set foot in
the kitchen. He never noticed the condition of the plates or the cutlery, 
no more than he noticed what sort of food was being served him. He ate 
without relish, to stoke the furnace, and when he was through he pushed the
dishes aside and began figuring on the tablecloth, or if there were no 
tablecloth, on the bare boards. He did everything leisurely, and with 
painful deliberation, which in itself was enough to drive me frantic. 
Wherever he worked there was dirt, disorder and a clutter of 
non-essentials. If he reached for something he had first to remove a dozen 
obstructions. If the knife he grabbed were dirty he would slowly and 
deliberately wipe it clean with the tablecloth, or with his handkerchief. 
Always without fuss or emotion. Always bearing down, pressing onward, like 
a glacier in its relentless advance. Sometimes there were three cigarettes 
burning at once at his elbow. He never stopped smoking, not even in bed. 
The butts piled up like sheep droppings. His wife was also an inveterate 
smoker, a chain smoker.

Cigarettes were one thing we had a plentiful supply of. Food, that was 
another matter. Food was doled out scantily and in the most unappetizing 
fashion. Mona, of course, had offered to relieve Lotta of the burden of 
cooking, but Lotta had refused to hear of it. We soon discovered why. She 
was stingy. She feared that Mona might prepare succulent, bounteous 
repasts. She was damned right about that! To take over the kitchen and 
stage a feast was the one thought uppermost in our mind. We kept praying 
that they would go to town for a few days and let us take over. Then at 
last we would enjoy a good meal.

“What I would like,” Mona would say, “is a good roast of beef.”

“Give me chicken—or a fine roast duck.”

“I’d like to have sweet potatoes for a change.”

“Suits me, honey, only make some rich gravy to go with them.”

Like badminton it was. We shuffled the phantom food back and forth like 
two starved peacocks. If only they would breeze! God, but we were sick of 
looking at sardine tins, cans of sliced pineapple, bags of potato chips. 
The two of them nibbled away like mice the whole damned day. Never a hint 
of wine, never a drop of whiskey. Nothing but Coke and sarsaparilla.

I can’t say that Karen was stingy. No, he was insensitive, unobservant. 
When I informed him one day that we were not getting enough to eat he 
professed to be appalled. “What would you like?” he asked. And at once he 
got up from his work, borrowed a car from a neighbor, and whisked us off to
town where we went from one store to another ordering provisions. It was 
typical of him to react in this way. Always to extremes. By going to 
extremes he intended, quite unconsciously, I believe, to make you slightly 
disgusted with yourself. “Food? Is that all you want?” he seemed to say. 
“That’s easy, we’ll buy heaps of it, enough to choke a horse.” There was a 
further implication in his exaggerated willingness to please you. “Food? 
Why that’s a mere trifle. Of course we can get you food I thought you had 
deeper worries.”

His wife, of course, was dismayed when she saw the load of provisions we 
brought back with us. I had asked Karen not to say anything to his wife 
about our hunger. He pretended, therefore, that he was laying in a supply 
against a rainy day. “The larder was getting low,” he explained. But when 
he added that Mona would like to fix a meal for us at dinner time her face 
dropped. For an instant there passed over her countenance that horrified 
look of the miser whose hoard is menaced. Once again Karen stepped into the
breach. “I thought, darling, that you would enjoy having some one else cook
the meal for a change. Mona is an excellent cook, it appears. We’re going 
to have filet mignon this evening—how does that sound to you?” Lotta, of 
course, had to feign delight.

We made the dinner an event. In addition to fried onions and mashed 
potatoes we had succotash, beets, and Brussels sprouts, with celery, 
stuffed olives and radishes on the side. We washed this down with red and 
white wine, the best obtainable. There were three kinds of cheese, followed
by strawberries and rich cream. For a change we had some excellent coffee, 
which I prepared myself. Good strong coffee with a bit of chicory in it. 
All that lacked was a good liqueur and Havana cigars.

Karen enjoyed the meal immensely. He acted like a different man. He 
joked, told stories, laughed until his sides ached, and never once referred
to his work. Toward the end of the meal he even tried to sing.

“Not bad, eh?” I said.

“Henry, we ought to do this oftener,” he responded. He looked to Lotta 
for approval. She gave a thin, bleak smile which caused her face to crack. 
“It was obvious that she was desperately trying to reckon the cost of the 
spread.

Suddenly Karen pushed his chair back and rose from the table. I thought 
he was going to bring his charts and diagrams to the table. Instead he went
into the next room and returned in a jiffy with a book. He waved if before 
my eyes.

“Ever read this, Henry?” he demanded.

I looked at the title. “No,” I said, “Never heard of it.”

Karen passed the book to his wife and begged her to read us a morsel. I 
expected something dismal, and Instinctively poured out some more wine.

Lotta solemnly turned the pages, looking for one of her favorite 
passages.

“Read anywhere,” said Karen. “It’s good through and through.”

Lotta stopped fumbling with the pages and looked up. Her expression 
changed suddenly. For the first time I saw her countenance illuminated. 
Even her voice had altered. She had become a diseuse.

“It’s chapter three,” she began, “from The Crock of Gold, by James 
Stephens.

“And a darling of a book it is!” Karen broke in gleefully. With this he 
pushed his chair back a bit and put his big feet on the arm of the easy 
chair near by. “Now you’re going to hear something, you two.”

Lotta began: “It’s a dialogue between the Philosopher and a farmer called
Meehawl MacMurrachu. The two have just greeted one another.” She begins 
reading.

“Where is the other one?” said he (the farmer).

“Ah!” said the Philosopher.

“He might be outside, maybe?”

“He might indeed,” said the Philosopher gravely.

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” said the visitor, “for you have enough 
knowledge by yourself to stock a shop. The reason I came here today was to 
ask your honored advice about my wife’s washing board. She only has it a 
couple of years, and the last time she used it was when she washed out my 
Sunday shirt and her black shirt with the red things on it—you know the 
one?”

“I do not,” said the Philosopher.

“Well, anyhow, the washboard is gone, and my wife says it was either 
taken by the fairies or by Bessie Hannigan—you know Bessie Hannigan? She 
has whiskers like a goat and a lame leg!”

“I do not,” said the Philosopher.

“No matter,” said Meehawl MacMurrachu. “She didn’t take it, because my 
wife got her out yesterday and kept her talking for two hours while I went 
through everything in her bit of a house—the washboard wasn’t there.”

“It wouldn’t be,” said the Philosopher.

“Maybe your honour could tell a body where it is then?”

“Maybe I could,” said the Philosopher: “are you listening?”

“I am,” said Meehawl MacMurrachu.

The Philosopher drew his chair closer to the visitor until their knees 
were jammed together. He laid both his hands on Meehawl MacMurrachu’s 
knees…

“Washing is an extraordinary custom,” said he. “We are washed both on 
coming into the world and on going out of it, and we take no pleasure from 
the first washing nor any profit from the last.”

“True for you, sir,” said Meehawl MacMurrachu.

“Many people consider that scourings supplementary to these are only due 
to habit. Now, habit is continuity of action, it is a most detestable thing
and is very difficult to get away from. A proverb will run where a writ 
will not, and the follies of our forefathers are of greater importance to 
us than is the wellbeing of our posterity.”

At this point Karen interrupted his wife to ask if we liked the passage.

“I do indeed,” I said. “Let her continue!”

“Continue!” said Karen, settling still deeper into his chair.

Lotta read on. She had an excellent voice and could handle the brogue 
expertly. The dialogue got funnier and funnier. Karen began to titter and 
then to laugh like a hyena. The tears were rolling down his face.

“Do be careful, Karen,” begged his wife, putting the book down a moment. 
“I’m afraid you’ll get the hiccoughs.”

“I don’t care,” said Karen, “it’s worth getting the hiccoughs.”

“But you remember, the last time it happened we had to call a doctor.”

“Just the same,” said Karen. “I’d like to hear the end of it.” And again 
he exploded into peals of laughter. It was frightening to hear him laugh. 
He had no control whatever. I wondered to myself if he could weep just as 
bravely. It would be something to unnerve one.

Lotta waited for him to subside, then resumed her reading.

“Did you ever hear, sir, about the fish that Paudeen MacLaughlin caught 
in the policeman’s hat?”

“I did not,” said the Philosopher. “The first person who washed was 
possibly a person seeking a cheap notoriety. Any fool can wash himself, but
every wise man knows that it is an unnecessary labor, for nature will 
quickly reduce him to a natural and healthy dirtiness again. We should 
seek, therefore, not how to make ourselves clean, but how to attain a more 
unique and splendid dirtiness, and perhaps the accumulated layers of matter
might, by ordinary geologic compulsion, become incorporated with the human 
cuticle and so render clothing unnecessary… “

“About that washboard,” said Meehawl, “I was just going to say… “

“It doesn’t matter,” said the Philosopher. “In its proper place I… “

Here Lotta had to close the book. Karen was laughing, if it could be 
called that, with such uncontrollable violence that his eyes were popping 
out of his head. I though he would throw a fit.

“Darling, darling!” came Lotta’s anxious voice, registering a concern I 
hadn’t believed her capable of. “Please, darling, calm yourself!”

Karen continued to be rocked by spasms which now sounded more like sobs. 
I got up and thumped him violently on the back. At once the commotion 
subsided. He looked up at me gratefully. Then he coughed and wheezed and 
blew his nose vigorously, wiping the tears away with his coat sleeve.

“Next time, Henry, use a mallet,” he sputtered. “Or a sledgehammer.”

“That I will,” I said.

He began to titter again.

“Please don’t!” begged Lotta. “He’s had enough for one evening.”

“It was indeed a wonderful evening,” said Mona. “I’m beginning to like it
here. And how wonderfully you read,” she said, addressing Lotta.

“I used to be on the stage,” said Lotta modestly.

“I thought so,” said Mona. “So was I once.”

Lotta arched her eyebrows. “You were?” There was a tinge of sarcasm in 
her voice.

“Why yes,” said Mona, unruffled, “I played with the Theater Guild.”

“Hear, hear!” said Karen, relapsing into his Oxford manner.

“What’s so strange about that?” I demanded to know. “Didn’t you think she
had any talent?”

“Why, Henry,” said Karen, clasping my arm, “you are a sensitive brute, 
aren’t you? I was congratulating myself on our good luck. We’ll all take 
turns reading some night. I was on the stage once myself, you know.”

“And I was once a trapeze artist,” I countered.

“Really!” This from Lotta and Karen simultaneously.

“Didn’t I ever tell you? I thought you knew.”

For some strange reason this innocent lie impressed them. If I had said I
had been .a cabinet minister once it could not have produced as telling an 
effect. It was amazing how limited was their sense of humor. Naturally I 
expatiated at length on my virtuosity. Mona chimed in now and then to help 
me out. They listened as if spellbound.

When I had finished Karen soberly remarked: “Among other things, Henry, 
you’re not a bad story teller. You must tell us some more yarns like that 
when we’re in the mood.”

*

The next day, as if to make up for the grand splurge, Karen was 
determined to tackle the roof. It had to be shingled and then coated with 
tar. And I who could never drive a nail straight was to do the job—under 
his directions. Fortunately it took some time to find the right ladder, the
proper nails, the hammer and saw and a dozen other tools which he thought 
might come in handy. What followed was straight out of Laurel and Hardy. 
First of all I insisted on finding a pair of old gloves so as not to get 
any splinters in my hands. I made it clear as a Euclidian theorem that with
splinters in my fingers I would be unable to type and being unable to type 
would mean no Dictaphone work. After that I insisted on finding a pair of 
sneakers so as not to slip and break my neck. Karen nodded approval in dead
seriousness. He was the type who, in order to get the maximum amount of 
work out of you, would carry you to the toilet if necessary and wipe your 
ass for you. It was clear by this time that I would need a lot of 
assistance to fix the roof. Mona was to stand by in case anything fell to 
the ground; she was also to fetch us some ice-cold lemonade at intervals. 
Karen, of course, had already drawn several diagrams explaining how the 
shingles were to be adjusted one to another. Naturally I profited not all 
from these explanations. I had only one thought in mind—to start hammering 
away like a demon and let the chips fall where they would.

In order to limber up I suggested that I first practice walking along the
ridge pole. Karen, still nodding approval, wanted to lend me an umbrella, 
but at this Mona laughed so heartily that he abandoned the idea. I scurried
up the ladder as nimbly as a cat, hoisted myself up to the ridge pole and 
began my tight rope exercises. Lotta looked on with suppressed fright, her 
mind busy, doubtless, computing hospital expenses in the event I should 
slip and break a leg. It was a scorcher of a day, the flies out in swarms 
and biting like fury. I had on a huge Mexican hat much too big for me which
kept falling over my eyes. When I descended I took the notion to change 
into my swimming trunks. Karen thought he would do likewise. This consumed 
a little more time.

Finally there was nothing left but to begin. I climbed up the ladder with
the hammer under my arm clutching a keg of nails. It was getting on toward 
noon. Karen had rigged up a platform on wheels from which he unloaded the 
shingles and gave directions. He looked like a Carthaginian setting the 
defenses of the city in order. The women stood below, clucking away like 
hens, all set to catch me if I fell.

I got the first shingle set and picked up the hammer to drive the first 
nail home, I missed it by an inch or two and the shingle went flying 
homeward like a kite. I was so surprised, so stunned, that the hammer fell 
out of my hands and the keg of nails tumbled to the ground. Karen, 
unperturbed, gave orders to remain where I was, the women would gather up 
the hammer and nails. It was Lotta who ran to the kitchen to get the 
hammer. When she returned I learned that I had broken the tea pot and a few
plates. Mona was scrambling for the nails, picking them up so fast that 
they fell out of her hand before she could get them in the keg.

“Easy, easy!” shouted Karen “All right up there, Henry? Steady now!”

With this I got the giggles. The situation reminded me all too vividly of
those dreadful occasions in the past when my mother and sister would aid me
in putting up the awnings—parlor floor front. Nobody except an awning maker
has any idea how complicated an awning can be. There are not only the rods 
and flaps, the bolts and screws, the pulleys and cords, there are a hundred
perplexing difficulties which arise after you have mounted the ladder and 
anchored yourself gingerly on the edge of the double window. Somehow there 
always seemed to be a gale blowing when my mother decided to put up the 
awnings. Holding the flapping awning with one hand and the hammer with the 
other, my mother would then endeavor to pass me the various things which 
were needed and which my sister had handed to her. To keep a tight grip 
with my legs and not permit the awning to carry me aloft was a feat in 
itself. My arms would grow tired before I had driven in the first screw, I 
would have to disentangle the damned contraption and jump down for a 
breathing spell. All the time my mother would be mumbling and 
groaning—“It’s so simple, I could put them up myself in a few minutes if I 
didn’t have the rheumatism.” Recommencing, she would be obliged to explain 
to me all over again which part went outside and which inside. For me it 
was like doing something backwards. Once in position again, the hammer 
would fall from my hands, and I would sit there wrestling with the belly of
the awning while my sister ran below and fetched it. It would take at least
an hour to put up one awning. At this point I would invariably say—“Why not
leave the other ones till tomorrow?” Whereupon my mother would fly into a 
rage, horrified by the thought of what the neighbors would think seeing 
only one awning in place. Sometimes, at this point, I would suggest that we
call upon a neighbor to finish the job, offering to pay him handsomely out 
of my own pocket. But this would enrage her even more. It was a sin, in her
opinion, to pay out money for work which one could do oneself. By the time 
we finished I always had a few bruises. “Serves you right,” my mother would
say. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You’re as helpless as your 
father.”

Sitting astride the ridge pole, laughing quietly to myself, I 
congratulated myself that we were doing something other than Dictaphone 
work. I knew that by evening my back would be so sunburned that I would be 
unable to work on the morrow. I would have to lie on my belly all day. 
Fine. It would give me a chance to read something interesting. I was 
growing stupid listening to nothing but statistical abracadabra. I realized
that Karen would try to find something “light” for me to do while lying on 
my belly, but I knew how to discourage such attempts.

Well, we began again, slowly and deliberately this time. The way I worked
over one nail would have driven any normal person crazy. But Karen was 
anything but a normal individual. From his Carthaginian tower he continued 
to shower me with directions and encouragements. Why he didn’t put the 
shingles up himself and let me pass them to him I couldn’t understand. But 
he was happy only when directing. Even when it was a simple thing he had to
do he could somehow break it up into a multitude of component parts which 
would necessitate the cooperation of several individuals. It never mattered
to him how long it took to complete a job; all that mattered was that it be
done his way, i.e., the longest and the most complicated way. This was what
he called “efficiency.” He had learned it in Germany while studying how to 
make organs. (Why organs f So that he could appreciate music better.) I had
only put up a few shingles when the signal came for lunch. It was a cold 
lunch made of the odds and ends from yesterday’s banquet. “A salad,” Lotta 
called it. Happily there were a few bottles of beer to make it palatable. 
We even had a few grapes. I ate them slowly, one by one, stretching the 
minutes out. Already my back looked raw. Mona wanted me to put a shirt on. 
I assured them that I tanned quickly. Wouldn’t think of donning a shirt. 
Karen, who wasn’t altogether a fool, suggested that we lay off the roof 
work for the afternoon and tackle something “light.” He began explaining 
that he had made some complicated charts which had to be corrected and 
remade.

“No, let’s get on with the roof,” I urged. “I’m just getting the hang of 
it.”

As this sounded plausible and logical to him, Karen voted to tackle the 
roof again. Once more I clambered up the ladder, did a little preliminary 
footwork on the ridge pole, and settled down to hammering nails. In a short
time the sweat was pouring off me like rain. The more I perspired the more 
the flies buzzed and bit. My back felt like raw steak. I accelerated my 
rhythm perceptibly.

“Good work, Hank!” yelled Karen. “We ought to be through in a day or two 
at this rate.”

He had no more than got the words out of his mouth when a shingle flew 
skyward and caught him over the eye. It made a gash from which the blood 
trickled into his eye.

“Oh darling, are you hurt?” cried Lotta.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “Carry on, Henry.”

“I’ll get some iodine,” yelled Lotta, trotting off into the house.

Quite unintentionally I let the hammer fall from my hand. It fell through
a hole in the sheathing -right on Lotta’s skull. She gave a shriek as if a 
shark had bitten her, and with that Karen scrambled down from his perch.

It was time to call a halt. Lotta had to be put to bed with a cold 
compress on her head. Karen had a big patch of court plaster over his left 
eye. He never uttered a word of complaint.

“I guess you’ll have to make the dinner again tonight,” he said to Mona. 
It seemed to me that there was a secret note of pleasure in his voice. Mona
and I had difficulty restraining our jubilation. We waited a while before 
broaching the subject of the menu.

“Fix anything you like,” said Karen.

“How about lamb chops?” I put in. “Some lamb chops with French peas, some
noodles and maybe artichokes too—how does that sound?”

Karen thought it would be excellent. “You don’t mind, do you?” he asked 
Mona.

“Not at all,” she said. “It’s a pleasure.”

Then, as if it were quite an afterthought, she added: “Didn’t we bring 
some Riesling yesterday? I think a bottle of Riesling would go well with 
the chops.”

“Just the thing,” said Karen.

I took a shower and got into my pajamas. The prospect of enjoying another
good meal revived me. I was ready to sit down and do a bit of Dictaphone 
work to show my appreciation.

“I think you’d better rest up,” said Karen. “You’ll feel a little 
muscle-bound tomorrow.”

“What about those charts?” I said. “I’d really like to do something, you 
know. I’m sorry I was so damned awkward.”

“Tut tut,” said Karen. “You’ve done a good day’s work. Take it easy till 
dinner time.”

“All right, if you insist. O.K.”

I opened a bottle of beer and plunked myself in the easy chair.

Thus it went au bord de la mer. Great sand spits, with an unceasing surf 
which pounded in one’s ears at night like the hammering of a stupendous 
tocatta. Now and then sand storms. The sand seeped in everywhere, even 
through the glass panes, it seemed.

We were all good swimmers; we bobbed up and down in the heavy surf like 
otters. Karen, always seeking to improve matters, made use of an inflated 
rubber mattress. After he had taken a siesta on the bosom of the deep, he 
would swim out a mile or two and give us all a good fright.

Evenings he enjoyed playing games. He played in dead earnest always, 
whether it was pinochle, cribbage, checkers, casino, whist, fan-tan, 
dominoes, euchre or backgammon. I don’t believe there was a game with which
he was not conversant. Part of his general education, don’t you know. The 
rounded individual. He could play hopscotch or tiddly-winks with the same 
furious zeal and adroitness. Once, when I went to town with him, I 
suggested that we drop into a pool parlor and play a game of pool. He asked
me if I wanted to shoot first. Without thinking I said, “No, you go ahead.”
He did. He cleaned up the table four times before I had a chance to use the
cue. When it finally came my turn I suggested that we go home. “Next time 
you shoot first,” he said, intimating that that would be a break for me. It
never occurred to him, that, just because he was a shark, it would have 
been sporting to miss a shot occasionally. To play ping pong with him was 
hopeless; only Bill Tilden could have returned his serves. The only game in
which I might have stood a chance to break even was craps, but I never 
liked rolling dice, it was boring.

One evening after discussing some books on occultism, I reminded him of 
the time we had taken a trip up the Hudson on an excursion boat. “You 
remember how we pushed the ouija board around?” His face lit up. Of course 
he did. He would like to try it again if I were willing. He’d improvise a 
board.

We sat up that night till two in the morning pushing the damned 
thingamajig around. We must have made a lot of connections in the astral 
realm, judging by the time which elapsed. As usual it was I who summoned 
the eccentric fingers—Jacob Boehme, Swedenborg, Paracelsus, Nostradamus, 
Claude Saint Martin, Ignatius Loyola, the Marquis de Sade and such like. 
Karen made notes of the messages we received. Said he would dictate them to
the Dictaphone the next day. To be filed under 1.352-Cz 240.(18), which was
the exact index for material derived from the departed spirits by means of 
the ouija board on such and such an evening in the region of the Rockaways.
It was weeks later when I decocted this particular record. I had forgotten 
all about the incident. Suddenly, in Karen’s serious voice I began getting 
these crazy messages from the blue… “Eating well. Time hangs heavy. 
Coronary divertissements tomorrow. Paracelsus.” I began to shake with 
laughter. So the idiot really was filing this stuff away! I was curious to 
know what else he might have tucked away under this classification. I went 
to the card files first. There were at least fifty cross references 
indicated. Each one was battier than the previous one. I got out the 
folders and file boxes in which the papers were stored away. His notes and 
jottings were scribbled in a minute scrawl on odds and ends, often paper 
napkins, blotters, menus, tally cards. Some times it was nothing more than 
a phrase which a friend had dropped while conversing in the subway; 
sometimes it wan an embryonic thought which had flitted through his head 
while taking a crap. Sometimes it was a page torn from a book—the title, 
author, publisher and place always carefully noted as well as the date when
he had come across it. There were bibliographies in at least a dozen 
languages, including Chinese and Persian.

One curious chart interested me enormously; I intended to pump him about 
it one day but never did. As best I could make out, it represented a map of
some singular region in limbo, the boundaries of which had been given him 
in a seance with a medium. It looked like a geodetic survey of a bad dream.
The names of the places were written in a language which nobody could 
possibly understand. But Karen had given a rough translation on separate 
sheets of paper. “Notes,” it read: “The following translations of place 
names in the quaternary decan of Devachan were volunteered by de Quincey 
working through Madame X. Coleridge is said to have verified them before 
his death but the documents in which the testimony is given are temporarily
lost.” The singular thing about this shadowy sector of the beyond was this:
in its confines, imaginary perhaps, were gathered the shades of such 
diverse and interesting personalities as Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Longinus, 
Virgil, Hermes Trismegistus, Apollonius of Tyana, Montezuma, Xenophon, Jan 
van Ruysbroeck, Nicolaus of Cusa, Meister Eckhart, St. Bernard of 
Clairvaux, Asoka, St. Francois de Sales, F6nelon, Chuang Tzu, Nostradamus, 
Saladin, the Pope Joanna, St. Vincent de Paul, Paracelsus, Malatesta, 
Origen, together with a coterie of women saints. One would like to know 
what had drawn this conglomeration of souls together. One would like to 
know what they discussed in the mysterious language of the departed. One 
would like to know if the great problems which had tormented them on earth 
had been finally resolved. One would like to know if they consorted 
together in divine harmony. Warriors, saints, mystics, sages, magicians, 
martyrs, kings, thaumaturgists… What an assemblage! What would one not give
to be with them just for a day!

As I say, for some mysterious reason I never brought this subject to 
Karen’s attention. There was little, indeed, outside our work which I did 
discuss with him, first because of his great reserve, second because to 
introduce even a slight detail meant listening to an inexhaustible 
harangue, third because I was intimidated by the vast domain of knowledge 
which appeared to be his. I contented myself with browsing through his 
books, which embraced an enormous range of subject matter. He read Greek, 
Latin, Hebrew and Sanskrit with apparent ease, and was fluent in a dozen 
living tongues, including Russian, Turkish and Arabic. The titles of his 
“books were alone sufficient to set my head spinning. What astounded me, 
however, was that so little of this vast store of learning seeped into our 
daily talk. Sometimes I had the feeling that he regarded me as a thorough 
ignoramus. Other times he embarrassed me by posing questions which only a 
Thomas Aquinas could cope with. Now and then he gave me the impression that
he was just a child with an over-developed brain. He had little humor and 
almost no imagination. Outwardly he appeared to be a model husband, always 
ready to cater to his wife’s whims, always alert to serve her, always 
solicitous and protective, at times positively chivalric. I couldn’t help 
but wonder at times what it would be like to be married to this human 
adding machine. With Karen everything proceeded according to schedule. 
Intercourse too, no doubt. Perhaps he kept a secret file reminding when 
intercourse was due, together with notes on the results—spiritual, moral, 
mental and physical.

One day he caught me unawares reading a volume of Elie Faure which I had 
dug up. I had just read the paragraph which opens the chapter on The 
Sources of Greek Art… “On condition that we respect ruins, that we do not 
rebuild them, that, after having asked their secret, we let them be 
recovered by the ashes of the centuries, the bones of the dead, the rising 
mass of waste which once was vegitations and races, the eternal drapery of 
the foliage—their destiny may stir our emotion. It is through them we touch
the depth of our history, just as we are bound to the roots of life by the 
griefs and sufferings which have formed us. A ruin is painful to behold 
only for the man who is incapable of participating by his activity in the 
conquest of the present… “

He came on me just as I had finished the paragraph. “What!” he exclaimed.
“You’re reading Elie Faure?”

“Why not?” I was at a loss to understand his amazement.

He hesitated a moment, scratched his head, then answered falteringly: “I 
don’t know, Henry… I never thought… Well, I’ll be damned! Do you really 
find it interesting?”

“Interesting f” I echoed. “I’m mad about Elie Faure.”

“Where are you at?” he asked, reaching for the book. “Ah, I see.” He read
the paragraph over aloud. “I wish I had the time to read that sort of 
books—it’s too much of a luxury for me.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“One has to swallow such books early in life,” said Karen. “It’s sheer 
poetry, you know. Makes too much of a demand on one. You’re lucky you have 
time to spare. You’re still an aesthete.”

“And you?”

“Just a work-horse, I guess. I’ve put my dreams behind me.”

“All those books in there… ” I nodded in the direction of the library. 
“You’ve read them?”

“Most of them,” he answered. “Some of them I’m reserving for leisure 
moments.”

“I noticed you had several books on Paracelsus. I only glanced at 
them—but they intrigue me.”

I hoped he would snatch at the bait, but no, he dismissed the subject by 
remarking, as if to himself, that one could spend a lifetime struggling to 
grasp the meaning of Paracelsus’ theories.

“And what about Nostradamus?” I asked. I was intent on getting some spark
from him.

To my surprise his face suddenly lit up. “Ah, that’s another story,” he 
replied. “Why do you ask—have you been reading him?”

“One doesn’t read Nostradamus. I’ve been reading about him. What excites 
me is the Preface which he addresses to his infant son, Caesar. It’s an 
extraordinary document, in more ways than one. Can you spare a minute?”

He nodded. I got up, brought the book back, and hunted up the page which 
had inflamed me just a few days before.

“Listen to this,” I said. I read him a few salient passages, then stopped
abruptly. “There are two passages in this book which… well, they baffle me.
Perhaps you can explain them to me. The first one is this: ‘M. le Pelletier
(says the author) conceives that the Commun Advdnement, or Vavenement au 
regne des gens du commun, which I have rendered “The Vulgar Advent,” 
extending from the death of Louis XVI to the reign of Antichrist, is the 
grand object of Nostradamus.’ I’ll come back to this in a moment. Here’s 
the second one: ‘As an accepted visionary he (Nostradamus) is perhaps less 
swayed by the imagination than any man of a hall kindred type that one can 
mention.’ ” I paused. “What do you make of them, if anything?”

Karen took his time before answering. I surmised that he was conducting 
an inner debate, first, as to whether he could spare the time to make 
adequate answer to the question, second, whether it would be worth his 
while to waste his ammunition on a type like myself.

“You understand, Henry,” he began, “that you’re asking me to explain 
something highly complex. Let me ask you first, have you ever read anything
by Evelyn Underhill, or by A. E. Waite?” I shook my head. “I thought as 
much,” he continued. “Naturally you wouldn’t have asked my opinion if you 
hadn’t sensed the nature of these perplexing statements. I’d like to ask 
you another question, if you don’t mind. Do you understand the difference 
between a prophet, a mystic, a visionary and a seer?”

I hesitated a moment, then said: “Not too clearly, but I see what you’re 
driving at. I believe, however, that if given time to reflect I could 
answer your question.”

“Well, let’s not bother now,” said Karen. “I merely wanted to test your 
background.”

“Take it for granted that it’s nil,” said I, growing a bit annoyed by 
these preliminaries. .

“You must excuse me,” said Karen, “for beginning in this fashion. It’s 
not very kind, is it? A hang-over from school days, I guess. Look here, 
Henry… Intelligence is one thing—native intelligence, I mean. Knowledge is 
another. Knowledge and training, I should say, because they go together. 
What you know you’ve picked up in haphazard fashion. I underwent a rigorous
discipline. I say this so that you will understand why I fumble about 
instead of answering right off the bat. In these matters we speak different
languages, you and I. In a way—forgive the thought—you’re like a superior 
type of savage. Your I.Q. is probably just as high as mine, perhaps higher.
But we approach the domain of knowledge in diametrically opposite ways. 
Because of my training and background I’m quite apt to underestimate your 
ability to grasp what I have to impart. And you, for your part, are most 
apt to think that I am wasting words, splitting hairs, parading my 
erudition.”

I interrupted him. “It’s you who fancy all this,” said I. “I haven’t any 
preconceived notions whatsoever. It doesn’t matter to me how you proceed, 
so long as you give me a definite answer.”

“That’s just what I expected you to say, old man. To you it’s all quite 
simple and straightforward. Not so to me! You see, I was taught to postpone
queries of this sort until convinced that I could find the answer nowhere… 
However, all this is no answer, is it? Now let’s see… What was it precisely
you wished to know? It’s important to get that straight, otherwise we’ll 
end up in the Pontine marshes.”

I read the second statement over again, giving emphasis to the words 
“less swayed by the imagination.”

To my own astonishment I caught myself saying: “Never mind, I understand 
it perfectly now.”

“You do?” cried Karen. “Huh! Explain it to me, then, will you?”

“I’ll try,” said I, “though you must realize that it’s one thing to 
understand a thing yourself and another to explain it to someone.” (That’s 
tit for tat, thought I to myself.) Then, sincerely in earnest, I began: “If
you were a prophet instead of a statistician or mathematician, I would say 
that there was something of a resemblance between you and Nostradamus. I 
mean, in the way you go about things. The prophetic art is a gift, and so 
is the mathematical flair, if I may call it that. Nostradamus, it would 
seem, refused to exploit his natural gift in the usual way. As you know, he
was versed not only in astrology but in the magic arts. He had knowledge of
things hidden—or forbidden—to the scholar. He was not only a physician but 
a psychologist. He was many, many things all in one. In short, he had 
command of so many coordinates that it clipped his wings. He limited 
himself—I say this advisedly—to what was given, like a scientist. In his 
solo flights he moved from one level to another with cold-blooded 
precision, always equipped with instruments, charts, tables and private 
keys. However fantastic his prophecies may sound to us, I doubt if they 
originated in dream and reverie. Inspired they were, beyond question. But 
one has reason to believe that Nostradamus deliberately refused to give 
free rein to his imagination. He proceeded objectively, so to speak, even 
when (paradoxical as it may sound) he was subjugated by trance.

The purely personal aspect of his work… I hesitate to call it his 
creation… centers about the veiled delivery of the oracles, the reason for 
which he made clear in the Preface to Caesar, his son. There is a 
dispassionate tone about the nature of these revelations which one feels is
not altogether attributable to modesty on the part of Nostradamus. He 
stresses the fact that it is God who deserves the credit, not himself. Now 
a true visionary would be fervent about the revelations disclosed to him; 
he would make haste either to recreate the world, according to the divine 
wisdom he had tasted, or he would make haste to unite himself with his 
Creator. A prophet, more egotistical still, would make use of his 
illumination to take revenge upon his fellow-men… I’m hazarding all this at
random, you understand.” I gave him a quick, keen glance to make sure I had
him hooked, then continued. “And now, suddenly, I think I begin to 
understand the real import of the first citation. I mean that part about 
the grand object of Nostradamus, which, as you recall, the French 
commentator would have us believe was nothing less than a desire to give 
predominant significance to the French Revolution. Myself, I think that if 
Nostradamus had any ulterior motive for dwelling on this event so markedly,
it was in order to disclose to us the manner in which history is to be 
liquidated. A phrase like “la fin des temps”—what does it mean? Can there 
really be an end to time? And if so, could it possibly mean that time’s end
is really our beginning? Nostradamus predicts a millennium to come—in a 
time not far distant, either. I am no longer sure at the moment whether it 
follows upon the Day of Judgment or precedes it. Neither am I certain 
whether his vision extended to be end of the world or not. (He speaks of 
the year 3797, if I remember rightly, as though that were as far as he 
could see.) I don’t think the two—the Judgment Day and the end of the 
world—were meant to be simultaneous. Man knows no end, that’s my 
conviction. The world may come to an end, but if so, it will be the world 
imagined by the scientists, not the world God created. When the end comes 
we will take our world with us. Don’t ask me to explain this—I just know it
for a fact… But to approach this end business from another angle. All it 
can possibly mean, as I see it now—and to be sure, this is quite enough!—is
the emergence of a new and fecund chaos. Were we living in Orphic times we 
would speak of it as the coming of a new order of gods, meaning, if you 
like, the investiture of a new and greater consciousness. I look upon the 
Oracles of Nostradamus as the work of an aristocratic spirit. It has 
meaning only for true individuals… To get back to the Vulgar Advent, excuse
my circumlocutiousness! The phrase so widely used today—the common 
man—strikes me as an utterly meaningless one. There is no such animal. If 
the phrase has any meaning at all, and I think Nostradamus certainly 
implied as much when he spoke of the Vulgar Advent, it means that all that 
is abstract and negative, or retrogressive, has now assumed dominion. 
Whatever the common man is or is not, one thing is certain—he is the very 
antithesis of Christ or Satan. The term itself seems to imply absence of 
allegiance, absence of faith, absence of guiding principle—or even 
instinct. Democracy, a vague, empty word, simply denotes the confusion 
which the common man has ushered in and in which he flourishes like the 
weed. One might as well say—mirage, illusion, hocus-pocus. Have you ever 
thought that it may be on this note—on the rise and dominion of an 
anacephalic body—that history will end? Perhaps we will have to begin all 
over again from where the Cro-Magnon man left off. One thing seems highly 
evident to me, and that is that the note of doom and destruction, which 
figures so heavily in all prophecies, springs from the certain knowledge 
that the historical or world element in man’s life is but transitory. The 
seer knows how, why and where we got off the track. He knows further that 
there is little to be done about it, so far as the great mass of humanity 
is concerned. History must run its course, we say. True, but only? Because 
history is the myth, the true myth, of man’s fall made manifest in time. 
Man’s descent into the illusory realm of matter must continue until there 
is nothing left to do but swim up to the surface of reality—and live in the
light of everlasting truth. The men of spirit constantly exhort us to 
hasten the end and commence anew. Perhaps that is why they are called 
paracletes, or divine advocates. Comforters, if you like. They never exult 
in the coming of catastrophe, as mere prophets sometimes do. They indicate,
and usually illustrate by their lives, how we may convert seeming 
catastrophe to divine ends. That is to say, they show us, those of us who 
are ready and aware, how to adapt and attune ourselves to a reality which 
is permanent and indestructible. They make their appeal… “

At this point Karen signaled me to stop. “Christ, man,” he exclaimed, 
“what a pity you aren’t living in the Middle Ages! You would have made one 
of the great Schoolmen. You’re a metaphysician, by crikey. You ask a 
question and you answer it like a master of dialectic.” He paused a moment 
to draw a deep breath. “Tell me something,” he said, putting a hand on my 
shoulder, “how did you come by all this? Come on now, don’t feign humility 
with me. You know what I’m getting at.”

I hemmed and hawed.

“Come, come!” he said His earnestness was pathetically child-like. The 
only response I could make was to blush deeply.

“Do your friends understand you when you talk this way? Or do you talk 
this way only to yourself?”

I laughed. How could one answer such queries with a straight face? I 
begged him to change the subject.

He nodded silently. Then: “But don’t you ever think of making use of your
talents? As far as I can see, you do nothing but fritter your time away. 
You waste it on idiots like MacGregor and Maxie Schnadig.”

“To you it may seem that way,” I said slightly nettled now. “To me it 
seems otherwise. I don’t intend to be a thinker, you know. I want to write.
I want to write about life, in the raw. Human beings, any kind of human 
beings, are food and drink to me. I enjoy talking about other things, 
certainly. The conversation we just had, that’s nectar and ambrosia. I 
don’t say it doesn’t get anyone anywhere, not at all, but—I prefer to 
reserve that sort of food for my own private delectation. You see, at the 
bottom I’m just one of those common men we were talking about. Only, now 
and then I get flashes. Sometimes I think I’m an artist. Once in a great 
while I even think I may be a visionary, but never a prophet, a seer. What 
I have to contribute must be done in a roundabout way. When I read about 
Nostradamus or Paracelsus, for example, I feel at home. But I was born in 
another vector. I’ll be happy if I ever learn to tell a good story. I like 
the idea of getting nowhere. I like the idea of the game for the game’s 
sake. And above all, wretched, botched and horrible though it may be, I 
love this world of human beings. I don’t want to cut myself adrift. Perhaps
what fascinates me in being a writer is that it necessitates communion with
all and sundry. Well, anyway, this is all surmise on my part.”

“Henry, said Karen, “I’m just beginning to know you. I had you all wrong.
We’ve got to talk some more—another time.”

With this he excused himself and retired to his study. I sat there for a 
while, in a semi-trance, mulling over the shreds of our conversation. After
a time I absentmindedly reached for the book which he had put down. As 
absentmindedly I picked it up and read: “For the divine works, which are 
absolutely universal, God will complete; those which are contingent, or 
medial, the good angels direct; and the third sort come under the evil 
angels.” (From the Preface for Caesar Nostradamus, his son.) These few 
lines kept singing in my head for days. I had a vague hope that Karen would
appear for another closed session in which we might discuss the probable 
task of the good angels. But on the third day thereafter his mother arrived
with a friend of long standing. Our conversations took quite another turn.

Karen’s mother! A majestic creature in whose person were combined the 
diverse qualities of matriarch, hetaera and goddess. She was everything 
that Karen was not. No matter what she was doing she radiated warmth; her 
ringing laugh dissolved all problems, assured one of her confidence, trust,
benevolence. She was positive through and through, yet never arrogant or 
aggressive. Divining instantly what you were endeavoring to say, she gave 
her approval before the words were out of your mouth. She was pure, radiant
spirit in a most enchantingly carnal form.

The man she had brought along was a mellow sort of individual, of 
idealistic temperament, who ran for Governor now and then and was always 
defeated. He talked of world affairs with knowledge and insight, always in 
a dispassionate way and with sly humor. He had been in Wilson’s entourage 
at Versailles, he knew Smuts of South Africa, and he had been an intimate 
friend of Eugene V. Debs. He had translated obscure work of the 
pre-Socratic Greeks, was an expert chess player, and had written a book on 
the origins and evolution of the game. The more he talked the more I was 
impressed by the multitudinous facets of his personality. The places he had
been to!—Tibet, Arabia, Easter Island, Tierra del Fuego, Lake Titcaca, 
Greenland, Mongolia. And what friends he had made—of the most diverse 
sorts—during the course of his travels! I recalled these: Kipling, Marcel 
Proust, Maeterlinck, Rabindranath Tagore, Alexander Berkman, the Archbishop
of Canterbury, Count Keyserling, Henri Rousseau, Max Jacob, Aristide 
Briand, Thomas Edison, Isadora Duncan, Charlie Chaplin, Eleanora Duse…

To sit down to table with him was like attending a banquet given by 
Socrates. Among other things he was a connoisseur of wines. He made sure 
that we ate well and drank well, larding the dinner talk with such 
comestible delicacies as the great plagues, the hidden meanings of the 
Aztec alphabet, the military strategy of Attila, the miracles of Apollonius
of Tyana, the life of Sadakichi Hartman, the magic lore of the Druids, the 
inner workings of the financial clique which rules the world, the visions 
of William Blake, and so on. He spoke of the dead with the same intimate 
tenderness as of the living. He was at home in all climes, all epochs of 
mankind. He knew the habits of birds and snakes, he was an expert on 
constitutional law, he invented chess problems, he had written treatises on
the drift of the continents, on international law, on ballistics, on the 
art of healing.

Karen’s mother provided the spice. She had a ringing laugh which was 
infectious. No matter what the subject under discussion, she could make it 
appetizing by her comments. Her learning seemed almost as prodigious as her
consort’s, but she carried it lightly. Karen suddenly seemed like an 
adolescent who had not yet begun to live his own life. His mother treated 
him like an overgrown child. Now and then she told him plainly that he was 
just a fool. “You need a vacation,” she would say. “You ought to have had 
five children by now.” Or—“Why don’t you go to Mexico for a few months, 
you’re getting stale.”

As for herself, she was getting ready to make a trip to India. The year 
before she had been to Africa, not big game hunting either, but as an 
ethnologist. She had penetrated to regions where no white woman had ever 
set foot. She was fearless but not reckless. She could adapt herself to any
circumstances, enduring hardships which made even the stronger sex flinch. 
She had a faith and a trust which were invincible. No one could come into 
her presence without being enriched. At times she reminded me of those 
Polynesian women of royal lineage who preserved, in the far Pacific, the 
last vestiges of an earthly Paradise. Here was the mother I should like to 
have chosen before entering the womb. Here was the mother who personified 
the primal elements of our being, in whom earth, sea and sky were 
harmonized. She was a natural descendant of the great Sybilline figures, 
embodying the texture of myth, fable and legend. Terrestrial to the core, 
she nevertheless lived in a realm of superdimensions. Her consciousness 
seemed to expand or contract at will. For the greatest tasks she made no 
more effort than for the humblest. She was equipped with wings, fins, tail,
feet, claws and gills. She was aeronautic and amphibious. She understood 
all languages yet spoke as a child. Nothing could dampen her ardor or 
mutilate her irrepressible joy. Just to look at her was to take courage. 
Problems became non-existent. She was anchored in reality, but a reality 
which was divine.

For the first time in my life, I had the privilege of gazing upon a 
Mother. Images of the Madonna had never mean anything to me: they were too 
bright, too translucent, too remote, too ethereal. I had formed an image of
my own—darker, more substantial, more mysterious, more potent. I had never 
expected to see it concretized. I had imagined such types to exist, but 
only in the remote places of this world. I had sensed their existence in 
previous times; in Etruria, in ancient Persia, in the golden days of China,
in the Malay archipelago, in legendary Ireland, in the Iberian peninsula, 
in far off Polynesia. But to come upon one in the flesh, in every day 
surroundings, to be eating, talking, laughing with her—no, that I had never
believed possible. Every day I studied her anew. Every day I expected the 
veil to fall away. But no, each day she grew in stature, ever more 
wondrous, ever more real, as only dreams become when we sink deeper and 
deeper into their meshes. What I had understood heretofore to be human, 
all-too-human, became magnified to an inexhaustible degree. It was no 
longer necessary to await the coming of a superman. The boundaries of the 
human world suddenly became limitless. Everything has been given, we are 
told again and again. All that is demanded of us, I saw it now clearly, is 
to realize our own nature. One speaks of man’s potential nature as though 
it were a contradiction of the one he reveals. In Karen’s mother I saw the 
potential being flourish, I observed it expropriating the crude, external 
shell in which it is encased. I understood that metamorphosis is present 
and actual, the very sign of vitality. I saw the feminine principle usurped
by the human. I understood that a greater endowment of the human element 
awakened a greater sense of reality. I understood that, in augmenting the 
life force, the being incarnating it grows ever closer to us, ever more 
tender, ever more indispensable. The superior being is not, as I once 
supposed, more remote, more detached, more abstract. Quite the contrary. 
Only the superior being can arouse in us the hunger which is justifiable, 
the hunger to surpass ourselves by becoming what we truly are. In the 
presence of the superior being we recognize our own majestic powers; we do 
not long to be that person, we merely thirst to demonstrate to ourselves 
that we are indeed of that same pith and substance. We rush forward to 
greet our brothers and sisters, knowing beyond all doubt that we are all 
kin…

The visit of his mother and her companion lasted only a few days, alas. 
They had hardly gone when Karen decided that we should all go back to town,
where he had some matters to attend to. He thought it might do us all good 
to go to the theater, hear a concert or two, and then return to the beach 
to work in earnest. I realized that his mother’s visit had completely 
derailed him.

The town flat, as he called it, was one unholy mess. God knows when a 
broom had last been put to it. The kitchen was strewn with garbage which 
had lain there for weeks. Mice, ants, cockroaches, bedbugs, every sort of 
vermin infested the place. The tables, beds, chairs, divans, commodes were 
littered with papers, with open fileboxes, with cards, graphs, statistical 
tables, instruments of all kinds. Partly-eaten sandwiches lay among the 
heaps of letters. Cigarette butts were there by the hundreds.

The place was so filthy, indeed, that Karen and his wife decided to go to
a hotel for the night. They would return the next evening after we had 
tidied the place up as best we could. I was to do what I could with his 
files.

We were so glad to be alone for a change that we didn’t mind the 
imposition. I had borrowed a ten-spot from Karen so that we could get some 
food. As soon as they had left we went out to eat, and we ate well. An 
Italian dinner with some good red wine.

Returning to the flat we noticed the odor as we ascended the stairs. 
“We’re not going to touch a thing,” I said to Mona. “Let’s get to bed and 
clear out in the morning. I’m fed up.”

“Don’t you think we ought to see them at least, and tell them we’re 
quitting?”

“I’ll leave a note,” I said. “I’m too disgusted to prolong matters. I 
don’t feel that we owe them a thing.”

It took us an hour to clean the bedroom sufficiently to be comfortable 
for the night. At that we had to sleep between soiled sheets. No matter 
what one touched, it was out of order. To pull the shade down was like 
working out a mathematical problem. I came to the conclusion that the two 
of them were suffering from a mild case of dementia. Just as I was about to
turn in I noticed on the shelf above the bed a row of hat boxes and shoe 
boxes. On each one was written an index number, indicating the size, color 
and condition of the hat or shoes. I opened them to see if they really 
contained hats and shoes. They did. None of them were in a condition to be 
worn by anyone but a panhandler. This was the last straw for me.

“I tell you,” I groaned, “that guy’s batty. Crazy as a loon.”

We rose early, unable to sleep because of the bedbugs. We took a quick 
shower, examined our clothes thoroughly to make sure they were not 
infested, and prepared to decamp. I was just in the mood to write a note. I
decided it should be a good one, because I intended never to see the two of
them again. I looked around for a suitable piece of paper. Catching sight 
of a big map on the wall, I ripped it down and, using the end of a broom 
handle which I dipped in a pot of paint, I scrawled a farewell in 
hieroglyphics tall enough to be read thirty yards away. With the back of my
hand I shoved the things on the big work table onto the floor. I placed the
map on the table and in the center of it I dumped a pile of the most 
ancient, the most reeking, garbage. I was sure he wouldn’t miss that. I 
took a final look about, so as to retain a lasting impression of the scene.
I walked to the door, then suddenly turned back. One more thing was 
needed—a postscriptum to the note. Choosing a sharp-pointed pencil I wrote 
in a microscopic hand: “To be filed under C, for catarrh, cleanliness, 
cantharides, cowbells, Chihuahua, Cochin-China, constipation, curlicues, 
crinology, cachination, coterminous, cow-flop, cicerone, cockroaches, cimex
lectularius, cemeteries, crapes Suzette, corn-fed hogs, citrate of 
magnesia, cowries, cornucopia, castration, crotchets, cuneiform, cistern, 
cognomen, Cockaigne, concertina, cotyledons, crapulated, cosine, creasote, 
crupper, copulation, Clytemnestra, Czolgosz—and Blue Label catsup.”

My one regret, as we descended the stairs, was that I couldn’t leave my 
calling card on the table too.

We had a jolly little breakfast in a lunch wagon opposite the Tombs, 
during which we discussed our future, which was a complete blank.

“Why don’t you go to a movie this afternoon?” said Mona. “I’ll run over 
to Hoboken or somewhere and see what I can scrape up. Let’s meet at Ulric’s
for dinner—how’s that?”

“Fine,” I said, “but what will I do this morning? Do you realize it’s 
only eight o’clock?”

“Why don’t you go to the Zoo? Take a bus. The ride will do you good.”

She couldn’t have made a better suggestion. I was in the proper mood to 
look at the creature world. Being foot loose and free at that ungodly hour 
of the morning gave me a sense of superiority. I would sit on the upper 
deck and watch the busy toilers scurrying to their appointed tasks. I 
wondered for a moment what my mission in life might be. I had almost 
forgotten that I had intended to be a writer. I knew only one thing—I was 
not cut out to be a scavenger. Nor a drudge. Nor an amanuensis.

At the corner I parted with Mona. At Fifth Avenue I hopped a bus going 
north and clambered up to the top deck. Free again! I inhaled a few deep 
draughts of ozone. As we came alongside Central Park I took a good look at 
the fading mansions which flank the Fifth Avenue side. Many of them I knew 
from having entered through the servants’ or tradesmen’s door. Yes, there 
was the Roosevelt home where, as a boy of fourteen, I delivered cutaway 
suits, tuxedos, alpaca jackets for the old man. I wondered If the elder Mr.
Roosevelt, the banker, that is, and his four giant sons still walked five 
abreast to their office in Wall Street each morning—after having taken a 
gallop through the park, bien entendu. A little farther along I recognized 
old man Bendix’s mansion. The brother who had a penchant for fancy vest 
buttons, was dead a long time. But H. W. was probably still alive and 
probably still grousing over the fact that his tailor had forgotten that he
dressed on the right side. How I loathed that man! I smiled to think of the
anger I had vented on him in days gone by. He was probably a very lonely, 
feeble old man now, attended by a faithful servant, a cook, a butler, a 
chauffeur and so on. How busy he always managed to keep himself! Truly, the
rich are to be pitied.

So I went… Reminiscence upon reminiscence. Suddenly I thought of 
Rothermel. I could just picture him getting out of bed with a hang-over, 
tripping over his own piss-pot, fuming, fussing, hopping around like a crow
on one leg. Well, it would be a red-letter day for him, seeing Mona again. 
(I was sure she was headed in his direction.) Thinking of Rothermel’s early
morning condition I got to ruminating on how various people I knew greeted 
the new day. It was a delightful game. From friends and acquaintances I 
moved over into the realm of celebrities—artists, actors and actresses, 
political figures, criminals, religious leaders, all classes and all 
levels. It grew positively fascinating when I began digging into the habits
of the great historical personages. How did Caligula greet the day? A swarm
of distant personalities suddenly took possession of my brain: Sir Bacon, 
Mohammed the Great, Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, Hannibal, Confucius, 
Tamerlane, Napoleon at St. Helena, Herbert Spencer, Modjeska, Sir Walter 
Scott, Gustavus Adolphus, Friedrich Barbarossa, P. T. Bamum…

Approaching Bronx Park I forgot what had led me to this spot. I was just 
rehearsing my first impressions of the three-ringed circus, that awesome 
moment in a boy’s life when he sees his idol in flesh and bone. Mine was 
Buffalo Bill. I loved him. To see him gallop into the center of the sawdust
ring and doff his huge sombrero to the applauding spectators was something 
unforgettable. He has long locks, a goatee, and a big curling mustache. 
There is an elegance to the spectacular garb he sports. One hand holds the 
rein lightly, the other grasps the faithful rifle. In a moment he will 
display his unerring marksmanship. He is making the full circle of the 
arena first, his proud steed snorting fire. What a splendid figure of a 
man! His friends are the fierce Indian Chiefs—Sioux, Comanches, Crows, 
Blackfeet.

What a boy admires is unostentatious strength—skill, poise, flexibility. 
Buffalo Bill was the epitome of all these. We never saw him except in full 
costume and then only once a year—if we were lucky. In those few moments 
allotted to us he never missed a shot, never made an awkward move, never 
departed one iota from the ideal portrait we carried in our hearts. He 
never deceived us, never betrayed us, Always at par.

Buffalo Bill was to us what Saladin was to his followers—and to his 
enemies. A boy never forgets his idols. Well, fuck a duck—here we are at 
the Zoo. The first thing I see is a giraffe. Then a Bengal tiger, then a 
rhinoceros, then a tapir. Ah, here are the monkeys! Home again. Nothing 
cleans out the psychological system like looking at wild animals. Tabula 
rasa. The very name of their habitats are inspiring. One drifts back into 
the old Adamic world where the serpent reigned supreme. Evolution explains 
nothing. We were all there together from the beginning of time, and we will
remain until eternity. The stars and the constellations drift, the 
continents drift, man drifts together with his companions of antediluvian 
days—the armadillo, the dodo bird, the dinosaur, the sabre-toothed tiger, 
the diminutive horse of upper Mongolia. Everything in the cosmos is 
drifting toward some drifting point in space. And God Almighty is probably 
drifting too, together with his Creation.

Drifting along, one with the Zoo and all its occupants, I suddenly had 
the clearest vision of Ren6e Tietjen. Ren6e was the sister of Richie 
Tietjen with whom I used to play as a boy of ten. He was like a 
bloodthirsty Zouave, this Richie. He would bite a piece out of you if you 
angered him. It was important, when choosing sides for a game of prisoner’s
base, to have Richie on your side. Now and then Ren6e, his sister, would 
stand at the gate and watch us. She was about six years older than he, 
quite a woman already, and to us youngsters utterly ravishing. When you got
close to her you inhaled the perfume which she used—or was it simply the 
fragrance of her delicious flesh? From the time I had ceased playing in the
street I had never given a thought to Rense Tietjen. Now suddenly, and for 
no reason I could think of, her image danced before me. She was leaping on 
the iron fence beside the gate and the wind molded her thin silk dress 
about her limbs. I realized now what had made her so ravishing and 
unattainable: she was an exact replica of one of the medieval French 
madonnas. All light and grace, chaste, seductive, with golden tresses and 
sea green eyes. Always silent, always seraphic. Buffeted by the wind, she 
swayed back and forth like a young willow. Her breasts, which were two 
nubile hemispheres, and the little tuft which adorned the pelvis, seemed 
extraordinarily alive and sensitive. They met the wind like the bulging 
contour of a ship’s prow. Within a few feet of her we were dashing about 
like mad bulls, ripping, slashing, biting, squealing, as if possessed. 
Renee always stood there imperturbably, her lips faintly parted in an 
enigmatic smile. Some said she had a lover who had jilted her. Some said 
she was lame. Not one of us had the courage to address her. She took her 
place at the railing and remained there like a statue. Now and then the 
wind lifted her skirt and we gasped when we caught sight of the milky flesh
above her knees. Toward evening old man Teitjen would come trudging home, a
long whip in his hand. Seeing Richie, his clothes tom, his face spattered 
with mud and blood, the old man would flick him with the whip. Richie never
uttered a sound. The old man would greet his daughter surlily and disappear
through the front door. A strange scene whose sequel we never knew.

All this came back to me so vividly that I felt impelled to make a few 
notes immediately. I rushed frantically out of the park in search of paper 
and pencil. Now and then I stopped to make water. Finally I found a little 
stationery store run by an old Jewish woman. She was wearing one of those 
hideous wigs the color of a cockroach’s wings. For some reason she had 
difficulty in understanding me. I began making signs in the air. She 
thought I was deaf. She began to yell at me. I yelled back at her, drowning
her with oaths. She grew frightened and ran to the back of the store to 
call for help. Baffled, I stood there a moment, then dashed into the 
street. A bus was standing at the corner. I got in and sat down. Beside me 
was a newspaper. I picked it up and began making notes, first in the 
margins, then across the black print. When we came to Morningside Park I 
furtively threw the paper out the window. I felt relieved, as relieved as 
if I had just had a good fuck. Ren6e had faded out, along with the 
giraffes, the camels, the Bengal tigers, the peanut shells and the sullen 
roar of the lions. I would tell Ulric all about it; he would enjoy it. 
Unless he was just in the midst of a banana campaign.

CHAPTER NINE

Once again we are living in a sedate neighborhood, not far from Fort 
Greene Park. The street is as wide as a boulevard, the houses set far back 
from the sidewalk, most of them of brownstone and adorned with high stoops 
and the same material. Some of the houses are veritable mansions flanked by
immense lawns studded with shrubs and statues. Ample driveways lead to the 
stables and servants’ quarters in the rear. The whole atmosphere of this 
old neighborhood is redolent of the 80’s and 90’s. The remarkable thing 
about it is its state of preservation. Even the hitching posts are intact 
and gleaming, as if just wiped with an oil rag. Sumptuous, elegant, 
somnolescent, it seems like a wonderful haven to us.

It was Mona, of course, who had found the two rooms. And once again, we 
had a congenial landlady, one of those witless young American widows who 
didn’t know what to do with herself. We had taken our furniture out of 
storage and fitted up the two rooms. The landlady was delighted to have us 
as tenants. She ate with us frequently. Quite a jolly creature, with a 
melodious voice and the indolence of a lost soul. Things promised to go 
well here. The rent was cheap, the gas, water and electricity functioned 
perfectly as an abundance of good food, movies afternoons and evenings, if 
we desired it, a game of cards now and then, to please the landlady, and no
visitors. Not a soul knew our address. Where the funds came from I wasn’t 
too sure.

Mathias, still in the offing, and Rothermel, more alive than ever, I knew
contributed the bulk of it. But there must have been others, too, for we 
were living high. The landlady, of course, was liberal with food and drink,
and often invited us to the theater or took us to a cabaret. What 
fascinated her was that we were obviously artists—“Bohemians,” as she put 
it. Her husband had been an insurance agent and had left her a tidy sum. 
But he had been a pretty dull bird, according to her, and she intended to 
make merry now that he was gone.

I rented a typewriter and began writing once more. Everything was just 
ducky. The beautiful silk bathrobe, the pajamas, the Moroccan slippers I 
wore, all were gifts from the landlady: heirlooms. The mornings were 
luxurious. We would get out of bed around ten, bathe leisurely while the 
phonograph played, then sit down to a delicious breakfast, usually prepared
by the landlady. Always fresh fruit and berries smothered in cream, muffins
fresh from the oven, thick strips of bacon, marmalade, steaming coffee with
whipped cream. I felt like a pasha. Though I had no use for them, I was 
equipped with two beautiful cigarette cases and a long cigarette holder, 
which I used only at meal-time, and to please the good landlady who had 
given me them.

I must stop calling her “the landlady.” Her name was Marjorie, and it 
suited her to a T. There was something lascivious about her, as if she were
always picking up the scent. She had a beautiful figure and she displayed 
it freely, especially in the morning when all she wore was a filmy 
bathrobe. It didn’t take long before we were patting one another 
affectionately on the rump. She was the sort of woman who could grab your 
cock and make you laugh at the same time. One couldn’t help liking her, 
even if she were pockmarked, which she wasn’t. Everything she did was open 
and above-board. If you merely voiced a desire, she sought at once to 
appease it. Whatever she possessed was yours for the asking.

What a change from Karen’s establishment! The meals alone were enough to 
put one in a state of divine contentment. Her rooms adjoined ours but the 
door between was never locked. We wandered to and fro at ease, as if we 
were sharing a common manage.

After breakfast I would usually take a walk, to work up an appetite for 
lunch. It was early fall and the weather was superb. I strolled to the Park
and flopped on a bench to doze in the bright sunshine. A marvelous sense of
wellbeing possessed me. No worries of any kind, no responsibilities, no 
intrusions. Completely my own master, and waited on hand and foot by two 
eager, beautiful women who treated me like a peacock. Faithfully each day I
wrote for an hour or two; the rest of the day was—fuck, feast and fun. What
I wrote must have been of slight consequence—probably dreams and fantasies.
It was too good a life to inspire serious work. I wrote to keep my hand in,
nothing more. Now and then I knocked out something expressly for Marjorie’s
benefit, something whimsical and humorous, which I would read aloud at 
table between sips of cognac or some precious liqueur from her 
inexhaustible stock. All they demanded of me was to go through the motions.

“I wish I knew how to write,” Marjorie would say sometimes. (To her the 
art of writing was sheer magic.) She wondered, for example, where I got my 
ideas. “You hatch them, like eggs,” I said. “And those big words, Henry?” 
She doted on them, mispronounced them deliberately, rolled them over on her
tongue lasciviously. “You sure can juggle them,” she’d say. Some times she 
made up a tune in which she introduced these jaw-breakers. What a pleasure 
it was to hear her hum a tune—or whistle softly! Her sex seemed to move 
right up into her throat. Often she burst out laughing in the midst of a 
tune. Such laughter! As if she were getting her ashes hauled.

Sometimes of an evening I would go for a solitary promenade. I knew the 
neighborhood intimately, having lived for a time right opposite the Park. 
Only a few blocks away—Myrtle Avenue was the boundary line—the slums 
commenced. After strolling through the sedate quarters it was a thrill to 
cross the line, to mingle with Italians, Filipinos, Chinese and other 
“undesirables.” A pungent odor invested the poor quarters: it was 
compounded of cheese, salami, wine, punk, incense, cork, dried fish skins, 
spices, coffee, stale horse piss, sweat and bad plumbing. The shops were 
full of nostalgic wares familiar from childhood. I loved the funeral 
parlors (the Italian ones especially), the religious shops, the junk shops,
the delicatessen stores, the stationery stores. It was like passing from a 
cool, immaculate mausoleum into the thick of life. The tongues employed had
a musical quality, even when it was nothing but an exchange of oaths. 
People dressed differently, each one in his own crazy fashion. The horse 
and wagon were still in evidence. Children were everywhere, amusing 
themselves with that lusty exuberance which only the children of the poor 
display. There were no longer the stereotyped wooden faces of the born 
American, but racial types, all saturated with character.

If I kept walking in a certain direction I would come eventually to 
United States Street. It was somewhere near here that my friend Ulric was 
born. Here it was easy to wander astray; in every direction fascinating 
detours opened up. At night one walked with dream feet. Everything appeared
to be upended, churned, tossed about. Sometimes I found myself winding up 
at within striking distance were the Navy Yard, fantastic Wallabout Market,
the sugar refineries, the big bridges, roller mills, grain elevators, 
foundaries, paint factories, tombstone yards, livery stables, glaziers, 
saddlers, grill works, canneries, fish markets, slaughterhouses, tin 
factories—a vast conglomeration of workday horrors over which hung a pall 
of smoke impregnated with the stench of burning chemicals, rotting flesh 
and seared metals.

If I thought of Ulric on such walks I thought also of the middle ages, 
and of Breughel the Elder, and Hieronymus Bosch, or of Petronius Arbiter, 
Lorenzo the Magnificent, Fra Lippo Lippi… to say nothing of the Seven 
Dwarfs, Swiss Family Robinson and Sinbad the Sailor. Only in a Godforsaken 
hole like Brooklyn could one assemble the monsters, freaks and anomalies of
this world. At the Star Theatre, which was given over to burlesque, one 
rubbed elbows with the hairy denizens of this incredible region. The 
performance was always on a level with the almost extinct imagination of 
the audience. No holds were barred, no gestures considered too indecent, no
filth too slimy to be rippled off the tongue of the comedian. It was always
a visual and aural feast such as a Peeping Tom craves. I was thoroughly at 
home in this broth: Smut was my maiden name.

Arriving home after one of these promanades I would usually find Marjorie
and Mona waiting for me, the table spread for a light repast. What Marjorie
called a “snack” consisted of cold cuts, salami, head cheese, olives, 
pickles, sardines, radishes, potato salad, caviar, Swiss cheese, coffee, a 
German cheese cake or apple strudel, with Kummel, Port of Malaga to top it 
off. Over the coffee and liqueurs we would sometimes listen to John Jacob 
Niles’ recordings. Our favorite was “I Wonder As I Wander,” sung in a 
clear, high-pitched voice with a quaver and a modality all his own. The 
metallic clang of his dulcimer never failed to produce ecstasy. He had a 
voice which summoned memories of Arthur, Merlin, Guinevere. There was 
something of the Druid in him. Like a psalmodist, he intoned his verses in 
an ethereal chant which the angels carried aloft to the Glory seat. When he
sang of Jesus, Mary and Joseph they became living presences. A sweep of the
hand and the dulcimer gave forth magical sounds which caused the stars to 
gleam more brightly, which peopled the hills and meadows with silvery 
figures and made the brooks to babble like infants. We would sit there long
after his voice had faded out, talking of Kentucky where he was born, 
talking of the Blue Ridge mountains and the folk from Arkansas. Marjorie, 
always, a-humming and a-whistling, would suddenly break out into a song, 
some simple folk tune which one knew from the cradle.

It was the glorious month of September, described in the Old Farmer’s 
Almanac as the time when “the porcupines take their fill of the ripening 
apples and the deer munch the fine green beans one has tended so 
carefully.” A lazy time and not a thing to worry about. From our window we 
looked down on a row of well kept gardens studded with majestic trees. 
Everything in apple-pie order, everything serene. The leaves were turning 
gold and red, flecking the lawns and pavements with fiery splashes. Often I
sat at the breakfast table, which commanded a view of the back yards, and 
fell into a deep reverie. On certain days not a leaf or twig stirred; there
was only the splendor of sunlight and the incessant drone of insects. It 
was hard to believe sometimes that not so very long ago I had lived in this
neighborhood with another wife, that I had pushed a baby carriage up and 
down the streets, or carried the child to the park and watched it romp in 
the grass. Sitting there by the window, my past grew dim and faint; it was 
more like another incarnation. A delicious feeling of detachment would 
overcome me and I would swim back, leisurely, playfully, like a dolphin, 
into the mysterious waters of imaginary pasts. In such moods, catching a 
glimpse of Mona flitting about in her Chinese shift, I would look at her as
if she were a total stranger. Sometimes I even forgot her name. Looking 
away, I would suddenly feel a hand on my shoulder.

“What are you thinking about?” I can hear her say. (Even now I remember 
vividly how from far, far away her voice seemed to come.) “Thinking… 
thinking… I wasn’t thinking of anything.” She would remark that there was 
such a concentrated look in my eyes. “It’s nothing,” I would say, “I was 
just dreaming.” Then Marjorie would chime in: “He’s thinking about what 
he’s going to write, I guess.” And I would say. “That’s it, Marjorie.” 
Whereupon they would steal away and leave me to myself. Immediately I would
fall back into a state of reverie.

Suspended three stories above the earth, I had the illusion of floating 
in space. The lawns and shrubs on which my gaze was riveted would vanish. I
saw only what I was dreaming of, a perpetual shifting panorama as 
evanescent as mist. Sometimes queer figures, garbed in the costumes of the 
period, floated before my eyes—incredible personages such as Samuel 
Johnson, Dean Swift, Thomas Carlyle, Izaak Walton. Sometimes it was as if 
the smoke of battle suddenly rolled away and men in armor, chargers 
sumptuously caparisoned, stood lost and bewildered amidst the slain of the 
battlefield. Birds and animals also played their part in these still 
visions, particularly the mythological monsters, with all of whom I seemed 
to be on familiar terms. There was nothing too outlandish, nothing too 
unexpected about these apparitions to rout me out of my nothingness. I 
wandered with motionless feet through the vast halls of memory, a sort of 
living cinematograph. Now and then I relived an experience which I had as a
child: a moment, for instance, when one sees or hears something for the 
first time. In such instances I was both the child experiencing this wonder
and the nameless individual observing the child. Sometimes I enjoyed that 
rare experience of synchronizing my thought and being with the tenuous 
fragment of a dream long, long forgotten, and, rather than pursue it, 
rather than fix it objectively in image and sensation.

I would toy with the fringes of it, bathe in its aura, so to say, 
grateful merely that I had caught up with it, that I had scented its 
immortal presence.

To this period belongs a night dream which I recorded with scrupulous 
accuracy. I feel it is worth transcribing…

“It opened with a nightmarish vertigo which sent me hurtling from a dizzy
precipice into the warm waters of the Caribbean. Down, down I swirled, in 
great spiral curves which had no beginning and promised to end in eternity.
During this ceaseless descent a bewildering and enchanting panorama of 
marine life unrolled before my eyes. Enormous sea dragons wriggled and 
shimmered in the powdered sunlight which filtered through the green waters;
huge cactus plants with hideous roots floated by, followed by sponge-like 
coral growths of curious hues, sullen as ox-blood, some a brilliant 
Vermillion or soft lavender Out of this teeming aquatic life poured myrids 
of animalcules, resembling gnomes and pixies; they bubbled up like a 
gorgeous flux of stardust in the tail-sweep of a comet.

“The roaring in my ears gave way to plangent, verdant melodies; I became 
aware of the tremors of the earth, of poplars and birches shrouded in 
ghost-like vapors, bending gracefully to the caress of fragrant breezes. 
Stealthily the vapors roll away. I am trudging through a mysterious forest 
alive with screaming monkeys and birds of tropical plumage. There is a 
quiver of arrows in my girdle and over my shoulder a golden bow.

“Penetrating deeper and deeper into the woods the music become more 
celestial, the light more golden; the earth is carpeted with soft, 
blood-red leaves. The beauty of it is such that I swoon away. On awakening 
the forest has vanished. To my befuddled senses it seems that I am standing
before a pale, towering canvas on which a pastoral scene of great dignity 
is depicted: it resembles one of those murals by Puvis de Chavannes in 
which the grave, seraphic void of dream is materialized. Sedate, somber 
wraiths move to and fro with a measured, haunting elegance which make our 
earthly movements appear grotesque. Stepping in the canvas I follow a quiet
path which leads toward the retreating line of the horizon. A full-hipped 
figure in a Grecian robe, balancing an urn, is directing her footsteps 
toward the turret of a castle dimly visible above, the crest of a gentle 
knoll, I pursue the undulating hips until lost in a dip beyond the crest of
the knoll.

The figure with the urn has disappeared. But now my eyes are rewarded by 
a more mystifying sight. It is as if I had arrived at the very end of this 
habitable earth, at that magic fringe of the ancient world where all the 
mysteries and gloom and terror of the universe are concealed. I am hemmed 
in by a vast enclosure whose limits are only faintly discernible. Ahead of 
me loom the walls of a hoary castle bristling with spears. Pennants 
blazoned with incredible emblems flutter ominously above the crenellated 
battlements. A sickly fungus growth chokes the broad sweeps leading out 
from the terrifying portals; the gloomy casements are bespattered with the 
remains of great carrion birds whose foul stench is unbearable.

“But what awes and fascinates me most is the color of the castle. It is 
red such as my eyes have never beheld. The walls are of a warm blood-like 
hue, the tint of rich corpuscles laid bare by the knife. Beyond the 
frontier walls loom more spectacular parapets and battlements, turrets and 
spires, each receding rank steeped in a more awesome red. To my terrified 
eyes the whole spectacle takes on the proportions of a monstrous butchers’ 
orgy dripping with gore and excrement.

“In fear and horror I avert my gaze an instant. In that fleeting moment 
the scene changes. Instead of poisonous fungus and the scabby carcasses of 
vultures there is spread before me a rich mosaic of ebony and cinnamon, 
shadowed by deep purple panoplies from which cascades of cherry blossoms 
slither away in billowy heaps on a chequered court. Within reach, almost, 
stands a splendid couch festooned with royal drapes and smothered in 
pillows of gossamer loveliness. On this sumptuous divan, as if languidly 
anticipating my arrival, reclines my wife Maude. It is not a wholly 
familiar Maude, though I recognize at once her tiny, bird-like mouth. I 
wait expectantly for her usual inanities. Instead there issues from her 
throat a flood of dark music which sends the blood hammering to my temples.
It Is only at this moment that I realize she is nude, feel the vague, 
splendid pain of her loins. I bend over to lift her in my arms but recoil 
immediately in full horror as I perceive a spider slowly crawling over her 
milky breast. As if possessed, I flee in panic toward the castle walls.

“And now a strange thing happens. To the groaning and creaking of rusty 
hinges the towering gates swing slowly open. Swiftly I race up the narrow 
path which leads to the foot of the spiral staircase. Frantically I climb 
the iron steps—higher and higher, without ever seeming to reach the top. 
Finally, when it seems as if my heart will break from exertion, I find 
myself at the summit. The ramparts and battlements, the casements and 
turrets of the mysterious castle, are no longer there beneath me. Before my
eyes there unfold a black, volcanic waste furrowed with innumerable chasms 
of bottomless depth. Nothing of plant or vegetable life is visible. 
Petrified limbs of gigantic proportions, carbuncled with glistening mineral
crustations, lie sprawled about over the void. Gazing more intently I 
perceive with horror that there is a life down below there—a slimy, 
crawling life which reveals itself in huge coils that wind and unwind about
the crazy, dead limbs.

“Suddenly I have a presentiment that the towering steeple up which I had 
climbed in panic is crumbling at the base, that this immense spire is 
teetering at the edge of the loathsome abyss, threatening at any moment to 
hurl me into a shattering annihilation. For just the fraction of a moment 
there is an eerie stillness, then faintly, so faintly as to be almost 
inaudible, there comes the sound of a voice—a human voice. Now it rings out
boldly, with a weird, moaning accent, only to die out immediately, as if it
had been strangled down in the sulphurous depths below. Instantly the tower
lurches violently; as it swoops out over the void, like a drunken ship, a 
babble of voices breaks forth. Human voices, in which there are mingled the
laughter of hyenas, the shrill screams of lunatics, the blood-curdling 
oaths of the damned, the piercing, horror-laden cackles of the possessed.

“As the rail gives way I am catapulted into space with meteoric speed. 
Down, down, down, my frail body stripped of its tender flesh, the entrails 
clawed by leprous talons, by beaks crusted with verdigris. Down, down, 
down, stripped and mangled by fang and tusk.

“And then it ceases, this hurtling through the void; it gives way to a 
sliding sensation. I am shooting down a paraffin incline supported by 
colossal columns of human flesh that bleed from every pore. Awaiting me is 
the wide, cavernous maw of an ogre champing its teeth with fierce 
expectancy. In an instant I shall be swallowed alive, shall perish to the 
hideous accompaniment of bones, my own precious bones, being crunched and 
splintered… But just as I am about to slide into the gapping red maw the 
monster sneezes. The explosion is so vast that the whole universe is 
snuffed out. I awake coughing like a smoking bellows.”

Was it a coincidence that the very next day I should run into my friend 
Ulric, that he should inform me stutteringly that Maude had been to see him
the day before and had begged him to speak to me, urge me to return to her?
She had been pitifully abject, he told me ruefully. She had wept 
unceasingly from the time she entered his studio until she left. She had 
even got down on her knees and begged him to promise that he would leave no
stone unturned to accomplish his mission.

“I told her truthfully,” said Ulric, “that I didn’t know where to find 
you. She said there must be a way to track you down. She begged you to 
forgive her as she forgave you. She said the child was asking for you 
constantly. She said she didn’t care what you did if only you would come 
back… I tell you, Henry, it was an ordeal. I promised her I would do all I 
could, knowing though that it was futile. I know it must pain you to listen
to all of this.” He hesitated a moment, then added: “There’s one thing I’d 
like to ask you, if it’s not too much—would you mind getting in touch with 
her yourself? I don’t think I could face another session like that. It 
unnerves one.”

I assured him I would handle the situation myself. I told him not to 
worry about either of us. “Listen, Ulric, let’s forget about this for a 
while. Come along with me and have a spot of lunch with us. Mona will be 
delighted to see you again. And I think you’ll like Marjorie.” His eyes lit
up at once. He rubbed his juicy lips with the tip of his tongue.

“All right,” he said, slapping his thigh, “I’ll take you up on it. By 
golly, it’s time we had a little powwow. Do you know, I began to wonder if 
I’d ever see you again. You must have lots to tell me.”

*

As I had surmised, Marjorie and Ulric hit it off perfectly. We had a 
staggering lunch, supplemented by a couple of bottles of Rhine wine. After 
lunch Ulric stretched himself out on the divan and took a little snooze. He
explained that he had been working hard on a pineapple campaign. When he 
had had a little rest he might try a sketch or two. Perhaps Marjorie would 
be good enough to pose for him, yes? One eye was already closed. The Other,
frighteningly alive, rolled and lurched under his beetling brow. “You sure 
eat well around here,” he said, crossing his hands over his paunch. He 
raised himself on one elbow and shaded his eyes with his hand. “I say, do 
you mind if we were to lower that shade just a little? That’s it, that’s 
fine.” He gave a gentle sigh and sank quietly into sleep.

“If you don’t mind,” I said to Marjorie, “we’ll take a little snooze 
ourselves. Call us when he wakes up, won’t you?”

Toward evening we found Ulric sitting on the divan sipping a cool drink. 
He was thoroughly refreshed and in a mellow mood.

“Golly, but it’s good to be with you folks again,” he said, twisting his 
lips and moving that one infernal eyebrow up and down. “I’ve just been 
giving Marjorie an earful about our life in the old days.” He beamed at us 
affectionately, set his drink carefully down on the tabouret beside him, 
and took a deep breath. “You know when I don’t see you for a long time 
there are so many things I want to ask you about. I make hundreds of 
notes—about the damndest things—and then when I see you I forget 
everything… I say, wasn’t it somewhere around here that you once had a flat
with O’Mara and—what was his name again, that crazy Hindu… you know, the 
one with the long hair and the hysterical laugh?”

“You mean Govindar,” I said.

“That’s it. He sure was a weird one, that fella. You thought quite highly
of him, I remember. Wasn’t he writing a book then?”

“Several,” I said. “One of them, a long metaphysical treatise, was really
extraordinary. I only realized how good it was years later, when I began 
comparing his work with the soporific tomes of our distinguished 
numb-skulls. Govindar was a metaphysical Dadaist, I should say. But in 
those days he was just a joke to us.

I was a pretty insensitive brute, as you know. I didn’t give a shit about
Hindu philosophy then; he might just as well have written his book in 
Sanskrit. He’s back in India now—one of Gandhi’s chief disciples, I’m told.
Probably the most unusual Hindu I ever met.”

“You ought to know,” said Ulric, “you sure had a flock of them on your 
hands. And then there were those Egyptians—especially that cockeyed fellow…
“

“Shukrullah, you mean!”

“What a memory! Yes, I do remember the name now. And the other one, who 
wrote you those flowery epistles that never ended?”

“Mohamed Eli Sarwat.”

“Christ, what names! He was a loulou, Henry. I hope you saved those 
letters.”

“I’ll tell you the chap I can never forget, Ulric. That was the little 
Jewish boy, Sid Harris. Do you remember—‘Merry Xmas, President Carmichael, 
and be sure to ask Santa Claus to give all the messenger boys a raise!’ 
What a guy! I can see him all over again as he sat beside me filling out 
the application blank. Sid Harris, born in his mothers womb, address The 
East Side, religion unknown, previous occupations—errand boy, shoe shine 
boy, fire insurance, skeleton keys, soda water jerker, life-saver, 
cough-drops, and Merry Xmas from the American flag waving high over the 
Statue of Liberty.”

“You didn’t give him a job, I suppose?”

“No, but he used to call regularly every week and fill out an application
blank. Always smiling, whistling, shouting Merry Xmas to everyone. I used 
to throw him a quarter to go to the movies. Next day I’d get a letter 
telling me what he had seen, whether he had sat in the third or fourth row,
how many peanuts he ate, what the next program would be, and whether there 
were fire extinguishers or not. At the end ha would sign his name in full: 
Sidney Roosevelt Harris, or Sidney R. Harris, or S. Roosevelt Harris, or S.
R. Harris, or just plain Sidney—one after the other, one under the other, 
followed of course by the perennial Xmas greeting. Sometimes he would add a
postscript saying that he preferred to be a night messenger, or a telegraph
operator, or just a manager. He was a nuisance, of course, but I enjoyed 
his visits—they gave me a lift for the day. Once I gave him an old trumpet 
which I had found in a rubbish bag. It was a battered looking thing and all
the stops were eaten away. He polished it up, tied it around his shoulder 
with a piece of string, and came trooping into my office one morning, 
looking like the Angel Gabriel. Nobody had noticed him coming up the 
stairs. There were about fifty boys waiting to be hired, the telephones 
were ringing like mad—one of those days when I thought I would burst a 
blood vessel. Suddenly there came a tremendous blast. I nearly fell of my 
perch. There he stood, little Sidney, trying to blow taps. Immediately 
there was pandemonium. Before we could collar him, Sidney began to sing the
‘Star Spangled Banner’; the other boys joined in of course, jeering, 
laughing, cursing, upsetting the inkwells, throwing the pens around like 
darts, marking the walls with chalk, and in general raising ructions. We 
had to clear the office out and lock the door downstairs. Outside, that 
damned trumpet was blasting away… He was completely cuckoo, Sidney, but in 
a delightful way. I could never get angry with him. I tried to find out 
where he lived, but it was impossible. He probably didn’t have a home, he 
probably slept in the streets. In winter he wore a man’s coat that reached 
right to the ground—and woolen mittens, b’Jesus! He never wore a hat or 
cap, unless as a joke. Once, in midwinter, he made his appearance in that 
grotesque overcoat and mittens—and on his head was a huge straw hat, a sort
of Mexican sombrero with a gigantic cone-like crown. He came up to my desk,
made a low bow, and doffed his huge straw hat. It was filled with snow. He 
shook the snow out on my desk and then scurried away like a rat. At the 
door he stood a moment and shouted ‘Merry Xmas, and don’t forget to bless 
President Carmichael!’ “

“I certainly remember those days,” said Ulric swallowing the remnants of 
his drink. “I never did understand how you managed to hold your job. I’m 
sure there wasn’t another employment manager like you in all New York.”

“In all America, you mean,” said Mona.

Ulric looked around appraisingly. “Quite another life, this. I certainly 
do envy you… The thing I’ll always remember about this fellow”—he looked 
from one to the other with a melting glow—“is his inextinguishable gayety. 
I don’t think I’ve seen him depressed more than once or twice in all the 
time I’ve known him. As long as there’s food and a place to flop… isn’t 
that it?” He turned his gaze on me with unmingled affection. “Some of my 
friends—you know the ones I mean—ask me occasionally if you aren’t just a 
bit touched. I always say, ‘Certainly he is… too bad we’re not all touched 
in the same way.’ And then they ask me how you support yourself—and your 
family. There I have to give up… “

We all began to laugh rather hysterically. Ulric laughed even more 
heartily than the rest of us. He laughed at himself—for raising such silly 
issues. Mona, of course, had a different reason for laughing.

“Sometimes I think I am living with a madman,” she blurted out, tears in 
her eyes.

“Yes?” said Ulric, drawling the word out.

“Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night and begins laughing. 
He’s laughing about something that happened eight years ago. Something 
tragic usually.”

“I’ll be damned,” said Ulric.

“Sometimes he laughs that way because things are so hopeless he doesn’t 
know what to do. It worries me when he laughs that way.”

“Shucks,” I said, “it’s only another way of weeping.”

“Hear that!” said Ulric. “Golly, I wish I could see things that way.” He 
raised the empty glass for Marjorie to replenish.

“It sounds silly to ask, perhaps,” he continued, gulping down a good 
throatful, “but when you get into a state like that isn’t it usually 
followed by a rather painful fit of depression?”

I shook my head. “It might be followed by anything,” I answered. “The 
important thing is to first have a good meal. That usually sets me up, 
gives me equilibrium.”

“You never drink to drive away a mood, do you? Pshaw! don’t bother 
answering… I know you don’t. That’s another thing I envy about you… Just a 
good meal, you say. How simple!”

“You think so,” I said. “I wish it were… Well, let’s skip that! Now that 
we have Marjorie, food is no longer a problem. I never ate better in my 
life.”

“I can well believe that,” said Ulric, smacking his lips. “It’s 
strange—with me it’s often a job to work up an appetite. I’m the worrying 
sort, I guess. A guilty conscience, probably. I inherited all the old man’s
bad traits. Including this”—and he tapped the glass he was holding.

“Nonsense,” I said, “you’re just a perfectionist.”

“You ought to be married,” said Mona, knowing that this would provoke a 
reaction.

“That’s another thing,” said Ulric, making a wry grimace. “The way I 
treat that girl of mine is a crime. We’ve been going together for five 
years now—but if she dares to mention the word marriage I take a fit. The 
very thought of it scares the life out of me. I’m selfish enough to want 
her all for myself and yet I’m ruining her chances. I sometimes urge her to
leave me and find someone else. That only makes things worse, of course. 
Then I make a half-hearted promise to marry her, which I forget about the 
next day, to be sure.

The poor girl doesn’t know where she stands.” He looked at us 
half-sheepishly, half-roguishly. I’ll be a bachelor all my life, I guess. 
I’m selfish to the core.”

At this we all laughed uproariously.

“I think we should be thinking about dinner soon,” said Marjorie. “Why 
don’t you men go for a walk? Come back in an hour and dinner will be 
ready.”

Ulric thought it a good idea.

“You might try to find a good piece of Roquefort,” said Marjorie as we 
sauntered out. “And a loaf of sour rye, if you can.”

We walked aimlessly along one of the sedate, spacious streets peculiar to
this neighborhood. We had had many walks together through similar vacuums. 
Ulric was reminded of the days long ago when we used to promenade along 
Bushwick Avenue of a Sunday afternoon, hoping to catch a glimpse of the shy
young girls we were in love with. It was like an Easter Parade every 
Sunday—from the little White Church to the reservoir near Cypress Hills 
cemetery. Mid way one passed the lugubrious Catholic church of St. Francois
de Sales, situated a block or two away from Trommers’ beer garden. I speak 
of a period before the first war, the period when in France men like 
Picasso, Derain, Matisse, Vlaminck and others were just becoming known. It 
was still the “end of the century.” Life was easy though we weren’t aware 
of it. The only thought in our heads was girls. If we succeeded in stopping
them long enough to chat for a few minutes we were in seventh heaven. 
Weekdays we sometimes repeated the promenade in the evening. Then we became
bolder. If we had the good fortune to encounter a couple of girls—near the 
reservoir or in the dark lanes of the park, or even at the confines of the 
cemetery—we would really attempt some daring advances. Ulric could remember
the names of all of them. There was one couple he particularly 
remembered—Tini and Henrietta. They had been in the same class with us at 
graduation time, but, being somewhat backward, were two or three years 
older than the rest of the class. Which meant they were quite mature. And 
not only mature but bursting with sex. Every one knew that they were just a
pair of sluts. Tini, who was really audacious, was like one of Degas’ 
women; Henrietta was bigger, juicier, already a wench. They were always 
whispering smutty stories under their breath, to the amusement of the 
class. Now and then they drew their dresses up above their knees—to give us
a look. Or sometimes Tini would grab Henrietta by the teat and squeeze it 
playfully—all this in class, behind the teacher’s back, of course. What 
more natural, therefore, than to be on the lookout for them when for a walk
in the evening? Now and then it happened. Hardly any words exchanged. 
Pushing them back against the iron railing, or against a tombstone, we 
slobbered all over them, fingered them, mauled them—everything but the real
thing. It took older, more experienced boys to get away with that. At best 
we could manage a dry fuck. And go home limping, our balls aching like 
sixty toothaches.

“Did I ever tell you,” said Ulric, “how I tried to make Miss 
Baimsfeather, the graduating teacher? I mean, of course, several years 
after we had graduated. What a gawk I must have been! Well, you know what a
juicy piece of tail she was… I could never get her out of my mind. So one 
day I wrote her a note—I had just taken a little studio and thought myself 
quite an artist, I can tell you—and to my surprise she answered it, urging 
me to look her up some time. I was so excited I nearly pissed in my pants. 
I called her up and invited her over to the studio. Of course I had 
prepared for her coming—all kinds of drinks, delicious little cakes, my 
canvases casually strewn about, a few nudes conspicuously placed over the 
divan, and so on… you know what I mean. What I had forgotten was the 
difference in age. She was still appetizing, of course, but so much of a 
woman now that I was intimidated. It took a bit of maneuvering to establish
the right footing. I could see that she was trying to help me, but I was so
damned shy, so gauche, that I nearly had nervous prostration. After all, 
one doesn’t just rip the pants off one’s favorite teacher.”

He interrupted himself to chuckle and waggle his ears.

“Did you manage it eventually?” I asked, to help him out.

“I did indeed,” said Ulric. “but only after a heap of drinks. By that 
time she was so damned eager for it that she just fished my pecker out and 
pulled me on top of her. I had one of those eternal hard-ons that you get 
sometimes from drinking. We did just about everything, I can assure you, 
and still it wouldn’t go down. She was lying on the divan with just a 
blouse on, panting like a bitch. I had just washed myself with cold water, 
hoping that would do the trick. ‘Come here,’ she said, ‘I want to have a 
good look at that tool of yours. Ulric, why didn’t I know about this when 
you were in my class?’ I looked at her in amazement. ‘You mean you would 
have let me…?’ ‘Let you?’ she said—‘I would have eaten you alive. Didn’t 
the other boys ever tell you about me?’ I could hardly believe my ears. All
the while, Henry, I was standing over her, my prick pointing heavenward. 
Suddenly she sat up and grabbed it; I thought she would break it in two. 
Soon she was on her knees, sucking me off. Even then I didn’t come. I tell 
you, I was getting frantic. At last I turned her over, put it in from 
behind—until she began to moan. Then I eased it out, dragged her off the 
divan and, lifting her by the middle, I walked her around the studio on her
hands. It was just like pushing a wheelbarrow upside down… And even that 
had no effect. Desperate, I sat down in the big easy chair and let her 
straddle me. ‘Just let’s sit and fuck,’ I said. ‘Or don’t fuck—just leave 
it there till it melts.’ We had another drink, sitting there like that, and
then another, and then another. It was still a brute of a bird when we 
unhitched. But limp… But get this, Henry. What do you suppose she says to 
me at that moment?”

I looked at him blankly. Then I said: “Don’t tell me! For Christ’s sake, 
let’s turn around. I’ll have to tear off a piece before we sit down to 
eat.”

He blinked his eyes like an owl. He was just going to open his mouth 
again, when I said: “By the way, have you tackled Marjorie yet? She’s dying
for it, you know.”

“Not a bad idea,” said Ulric. “Do you suppose we can manage it… er… 
circumspectly?”

“Leave it to me!”

We hastened our steps. By the time we reached the door we were almost on 
the double trot.

I took Mona aside and broached the idea.

“Why don’t you wait till after dinner?” she suggested. “I mean, for 
Marjorie and Ulric.” We closed the door after us and had a quick one while 
Ulric and Marjorie talked it over. When we joined them Marjorie was sitting
on Ulric’s lap, her skirt up over her knees.

“Why don’t you get into something comfortable?” said Mona. “Something 
like this,” and so saying, she opened her kimona and revealed her naked 
flesh.

Marjorie lost no time in following suit. Ulric and I had to don pajamas. 
In this fashion we sat down to eat dinner.

A meal which is going to culminate in a sexual orgy has a way of 
traveling direct to the parts which need nourishment, as if directed by the
little switchman who regulates the traffic throughout the autonomic system.
It began with oyster on the half-shell and caviar, followed by a delicious 
ox-tail soup, porterhouse steak, mashed potatoes, French peas, cheese, 
sliced peaches and cream, all to the tune of a genuine Pommard which 
Marjorie had unearthed. With the coffee and liqueurs we had a second 
desert—a French ice cream swimming in Benedictine and whiskey. Between 
courses Marjorie fiddled with Ulric’s pecker. The kimonas were now wide 
open, the breasts exposed, the belly-buttons gently rising and falling. 
Inadvertently one of Marjorie’s nipples fell into the whipped cream, giving
me the opportunity to suckle her breast for a brief moment or two. Ulric 
tried to balance a saucer on his pecker but unsuccessfully. Everything was 
proceeding merrily.

Still nibbling at the tarts, cream puffs, napoleons and what not which 
the women had provided, we fell into an easy conversation about the good 
old days. The women had shifted positions and were now ensconced in our 
laps. It took quite a bit of wiggling and jiggling before they could get 
themselves properly adjusted. Now and then one of us had an orgasm, fell 
silent for a while, then recovered with the aid of ice cream, Benedictine 
and whiskey.

After a time we moved from the table to the divans and, between cat 
winks, kept up a running conversation about the most diverse subjects. It 
was easy, natural talk, and no one felt embarrassed if he dropped off into 
a snooze in the midst of a sentence. The lights had been dimmed, there was 
a warm, fragrant breeze sifting through the open windows, and we were all 
so thoroughly sated that it didn’t matter in the least what was said or 
what answer was given.

Ulric had dropped off to sleep during a conversation with Marjorie. He 
hadn’t been asleep more than five minutes when he awoke with a jerk, 
exclaiming as if to himself: “Golly, I thought so!” Then, realizing that he
was not alone, he mumbled something inaudible and raised himself on one 
elbow.

“Was I asleep long?” he asked.

“About five minutes,” said Marjorie.

“That’s funny. It seemed to me like hours. I had one of those dreams 
again,” He turned to me. “You know, Henry, those dreams in which you try to
prove to yourself that you are only dreaming.”

I had to confess that I had never had one.

Ulric could always describe his dreams in great detail. They terrified 
him somewhat because, to his mind, they indicated that he never really fell
into a state of complete unconsciousness. In the dream his mind was even 
more active than in the waking state. It was his logical mind which came to
the fore when asleep. It was that which disquieted him. He went on to 
describe the endless pains he took, when dreaming, to prove to himself that
he was not awake but dreaming. He would take a heavy ram-chair, for 
example, and lift it high in the air with two fingers, sometimes with his 
brother seated in the chair. And in the dream he would say to himself:

“There, nobody can do that if he’s awake—it’s impossible!” And then he 
would perform other impossible feats, some of them quite extraordinary, 
such as flying through a partially-opened window and returning the same 
way, without disarranging his clothes or mussing his hair. Everything he 
did led to a suspected Q. E. D. which proved nothing, so he averred, 
because—“Well, I’ll put it this way, Henry: to prove to yourself that you 
are dreaming you would have to be awake, and if you are awake you can’t be 
dreaming can you?”

Suddenly he recalled that what had started him dreaming was the sight of 
a copy of Transition lying on the dresser. He reminded me that I had once 
loaned him a copy in which there was a wonderful passage on the 
interpretation of dreams. “You know the man I mean,” he said, snapping his 
fingers.

“Gottfried Benn?”

“Yes, that’s the fellow. A rum one, that bird. I wish I could read more 
of him… By the way, you don’t have that issue here, do you?”

“Yes, I do, Ulric me lad. Would you like to see it?”

“I tell you what,” he said, “I wish you would read that passage aloud to 
us—that is, if the others don’t mind.”

I found the copy of Transition and turned to the page.

“Let us now turn to psychological facts. ‘At night all leaping fountains 
speak with a louder tone; my soul, too, is a leaping fountain,’ says 
Zarathustra… ‘Into the night life seems to be exiled’—these are the famous 
words of Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams—‘into the night life seems to be 
exiled what once ruled during the day.’ This sentence contains the entire 
modem psychology. Its great idea is the stratification of the psyche, the 
geological principle. The soul has its origin and is built in strata, and 
what we learned before in the organic field apropos of the construction of 
the big brain from the anatomic-evolutionary standpoint out of vanished 
aeons, is revealed by the dream, revealed by the child, revealed by 
psychosis as a still existing reality. We carry the ancient… “

“Hear, hear!” exclaimed Ulric.

“We carry the ancient peoples in our souls and when the later acquired 
reason is relaxed, as in the dream or in drunkenness, they emerge with 
their rites, their pre-logical mentality, and grant us an hour of mystic 
participation. When the… “

“Excuse me,” said Ulric, interrupting again, “but I wonder if we could 
have that passage once again?”

“Sure, why not?” I reread it slowly, allowing each phrase to sink in.

“The next sentence is a honey, too,” said Ulric. “I almost know the 
damned thing by heart.”

I continued: “When the logical superstructure is loosened, when the 
scalp, tired of the onslaught of the prelunar states… “

“Golly! What language! Excuse me, Henry, I didn’t mean to interrupt 
again.”

“When the scalp, tired of the onslaught of the prelunar states, opens the
frontiers of consciousness about which there is always a struggle, then 
there appears the old, the unconscious, in the magical transmutation and 
identification of the ‘I,’ in the early experience of the everywhere and 
the eternal. The hereditary patrimony… “

“Of the middle brain!” exclaimed Ulric. “Jesus, Henry, what a line, that!
I wish you would explain that to me a little more fully. No, not now… 
afterward perhaps. Excuse me.”

“The hereditary patrimony of the middle brain,” I continued, “lies still 
deeper and is eager for expression: if the covering is destroyed in the 
psychosis there emerges, driven upward by the primal instincts, from out 
the primive-schizoid sub-structure, the gigantic archaic instinctive ‘I’, 
unfolding itself limitlessly through the tattered psychological subject.”

“The tattered psychological subject! Wow!” exclaimed Ulric. “Thanks, 
Henry, that was a treat.” He turned to the others. “Do you wonder sometimes
why I’m so fond of this guy? (He beamed in my direction.) There isn’t a 
soul who comes to my studio capable of bringing me that sort of pabulum. I 
don’t know where he gets these things—certainly I never stumble on them by 
myself. Which only goes to show, no doubt, how differently we’re geared.”

He paused a moment to fill his glass. “You know, Henry, if you don’t mind
my saying so, a passage like that could have been written by you, don’t you
think? Maybe that’s why I like Gottfried Benn so much. And that Hugo Ball 
is another guy—he’s got something on the ball, too, what f The curious 
thing, though, is this—all this stuff, which means so much to me, I’d never
have known about if it weren’t for you. How I wish sometimes that you were 
with me when I’m with that Virginia bunch! You know, they’re really not 
unintelligent, but somehow this sort of thing seems to repel them. They 
look upon it as unhealthy.” He gave a wry smile. Then he looked at Marjorie
and Mona. “Forgive me for dwelling on these things, won’t you? I know it’s 
not the moment to indulge in windy discussions. I was going to ask Henry 
something about the hereditary patrimony of the middle brain, but I guess 
we could leave it until some more suitable occasion. How about a stirrup 
cup?—and then I’ll be off.”

He filled our glasses, then went over to the mantelpiece and leaned 
against it.

“I suppose it will always be a thing of wonder and mystery to me,” he 
said slowly, caressing his words, “how we ran into each other that day on 
Sixth Avenue after a lapse of so many years. What a lucky day It was for 
me! You may not believe it, but often when I was in some weird place—like 
the middle of the Sahara—I would say to myself: ‘I wonder what Henry would 
have to say if he were here with me.’ Yes, you were often in my thoughts, 
even though we had lost all touch with one another. I didn’t know that you 
had become a writer. No, but I always knew that you would become something 
or somebody. Even as a kid you gave off something which was different, 
something unique. You always made the atmosphere more intense, more 
sparkling. You were a challenge to all of us. Maybe you never realized 
that. Even now, people who met you only once continue to ask me—‘How is 
that Henry Miller?’ That Henry Miller! You see what I mean? They don’t say 
that about anyone else I know. Oh well… you’ve heard this a dozen times or 
more, I know.”

“Why don’t you get a good rest and stay the night?” said Mona.

“I’d like nothing better, but… ” He cocked the left eyebrow and twisted 
his lips. “The scalp, tired of the onslaught of the prelunar states… Some 
day we’ll have to go Into all this more thoroughly. Right now the gigantic 
archaic instinctive ‘I’ is struggling upward through the schizoid 
sub-structure.” He left off and began shaking hands with us. “You know,” he
went on, Tm sure to have a fantastic dream tonight. Not a dream, but dozens
of them! I’ll be slithering in the primal ooze, trying to prove to myself 
that I’m not living in the Pliocene epoch. I’ll probably meet up with 
dragons and dinosaurs—unless the covering has been entirely destroyed by 
previous psychoses.” He smacked his lips, as if he had just swallowed a 
dozen succulent bivalves. He was on the threshold now. “By the way, I 
wonder if it would be imposing on you too much to borrow that Forel book 
from you again? There’s a passage on amorous tyranny that I’d like to 
reread.”

*

As I was going to bed I opened Transition at random. My eye fell on this 
sentence: “Our human biological presence carries in its body two hundred 
rudiments: how many the soul carries is unknown.”

How many the soul carries! With this phrase on my tongue I plunged into a
profound trance. In my sleep I reenact a scene out of life… I am with 
Stanley again. We are walking rapidly in the dark toward the house where 
Maude and the little one live. Stanley is saying that it is a silly, futile
thing to do, but since I wish it he will go through with it. He has the 
keys to the front door; he keeps reassuring me that no one will be home. 
What I want is to see what the child’s room looks like. It is ages since I 
have seen her and I am afraid that when I next meet her—when?—she won’t 
recognize me any more. I keep asking Stanley how big she is, what she 
wears, how she talks, and so on. Stanley answers gruffly and brusquely, as 
usual. He sees no point to this expedition.

We enter the house and I explore the room minutely. Her toys intrigue 
me—they are lying everywhere. I begin to weep silently, as I examine her 
toys. Suddenly I perceive a battered old stuffed doll lying on a shelf in a
corner. I tuck it under my arm and motion to Stanley to clear out. I can’t 
utter a word, I’m shaking and spluttering.

When I awake next day the dream is still vividly with me. Out of habit I 
get into my old clothes, a pair of faded corduroys, a torn, frayed denim 
shirt, a pair of busted shoes. I haven’t had a shave for two days, my head 
is heavy, I feel restless. The weather has changed overnight; a cold fall 
wind is blowing and it threatens to rain. In listless fashion I kill the 
morning. After lunch I don an old cardigan jacket out at the elbows, slap 
my wilted hat over my ear, and set out. I’ve become obsessed with the idea 
that ! must see the child again, at any cost.

I emerge from the subway a few blocks from the house and with eyes peeled
I edge into the danger zone. I creep nearer and nearer to the house, until 
I am at the corner, only half a block away. I stand there a long while, my 
eyes riveted to the gate, hoping to see the little one appear any moment. 
It’s getting chilly. I put my collar up and pull my hat down over my ears. 
I pace back and forth, back and forth, opposite the lugubrious Catholic 
church made of moss-green stone.

Still no sign of her. Keeping to the opposite side of the street, I walk 
rapidly past the house, hoping that I may detect a sign of life indoors. 
But the curtains have been pulled to. At the corner I stop and begin pacing
to and fro again. This goes on for fifteen, twenty minutes, perhaps longer.
I feel lousy, itchy, crummy. Like a spy. And guilty, guilty as hell.

I’ve almost decided to return home when suddenly a troop of youngsters 
swings around the far corner opposite the church. They run wildly across 
the street, shouting and singing. My heart is in my throat. I have a 
feeling that she is among them, but from where I stand it is impossible to 
pick her out. Now I hasten toward the other corner. When I get there I see 
no signs of them. I’m baffled. I stand there like a lost soul for a few 
minutes, then decide to wait. After a few moments I notice a grocery store 
a few doors beyond the church. It’s just possible they are in the store. 
Carefully now I ease up the side street. A bit beyond the store, on the 
opposite side of the street, of course, I dash up a stoop and stand at the 
top of the stairs, my heart pounding like mad.

I’m sure now that they are all in the grocery store. Not for a second do 
I take my eyes off the door. Suddenly I realize that I am rather 
conspicuous, standing there at the top of the stairs. I lean back against 
the door and try to make myself inconspicuous. I am shivering, not so much 
with cold as with fright. What will I do if she spots me? What will I say? 
What can I say or do? I am in such a state of funk that I am almost on the 
point of bolting down the steps and running away.

Just then, however, the store’s door opens with a bang and three children
dash out. One of them, seeing me standing on the stoop, suddenly grabs the 
others by the arm and rushes back into the store with them. I have a 
feeling that it was my own little one who did this. I avert my gaze for a 
few moments, trying to appear nonchalant and disinterested in their 
behavior, as though I were waiting for someone to come out of the house 
from above and join me. When I look again I see a little face pressed 
against the window pane of the door across the way. She is looking up at 
me. I look at her long and hard, unable to tell if it is she or not.

She withdraws and another little one presses her nose against the glass 
pane. Then another and another. Then they all retreat into the depths of 
the store.

A panicky feeling now overcomes me. It was she, I am certain of it now. 
But why are they so shy? Or is it that they are afraid of me?

Beyond the shadow of a doubt it is fear which grips them. When she looked
up at me she didn’t smile. She looked intently to make sure it was I, her 
father, and no other.

Suddenly I realize how disgraceful is my appearance.

I feel my beard, which seems to have grown an inch longer. I look at my 
shoes and the sleeves of my jacket. Damn it, I might well pass for a 
kidnaper.

Kidnaper! Her mother had probably dinned it into her that if she ever ran
across me in the street she must not listen to me. “Run home immediately 
and tell mamma!”

I was crushed. Slowly, painfully, like one broken and bruised, I 
descended the steps. When I reached the foot of the stoop the door of the 
grocery store was suddenly flung open and out trooped the whole troop, six 
or seven of them. They ran as if the Devil himself were pursuing them. At 
the corner, though cars were speeding by, they turned obliquely and ran for
the house—“our” house. It seemed to me that it was my little one who 
stopped in the middle of the street—for just a second—and looked around. It
could have been one of the others, of course. All I could be certain of was
that she was wearing a little bonnet trimmed with fur.

I walked slowly to the corner, stood there a full minute gazing in their 
direction, then marched rapidly toward the subway station.

What a cruel misadventure! All the way to the subway I chided myself for 
my stupidity. To think that my own daughter should be frightened of me, 
that she should run away from me, in terror! What a pass!

In the subway I stood in front of a slot machine. I looked like a bum, a 
derelict. And to think that maybe I would never see her again, to think 
that this might be the last impression of me she would retain! Her own 
father crouching in a doorway, spying on her like a kidnaper. It was like a
horrible cheap movie.

Suddenly I recalled my promise to Ulric—to see Maude and talk things 
over. Now it was impossible, utterly impossible. Why? I couldn’t say. I 
knew only that is was so. I would never see Maude again, not if I could 
help it. As for the little one—I would pray, yes, pray to God, to give me 
once more chance. I must see her and talk to her. When, though? Well, some 
day. Some day when she would be able to see things in a better light. I 
begged God not to let her hate me… above all, not to let her fear me. “It’s
too horrible, too horrible,” I kept mumbling to myself. “I love you so, my 
little one. I love you so much, so much… “

The train came along, and as the doors slid open, I began to sob. I 
pulled a handkerchief out of my pocket and stuffed it over my mouth. I 
almost ran to the vestibule where I hid myself in a corner, hoping the 
noise of the grinding wheels would drown my convulsive sobs.

I must have been standing there like that a few minutes, unconscious of 
anything but my aching misery, when I felt a hand gently pressing my 
shoulder. Still holding the handkerchief to my mouth, I turned around. An 
elderly lady dressed all in black was looking at me with a most 
compassionate smile.

“My dear man,” she began, in a soft, soothing voice. “My dear man, what 
on earth has happened to you?”

With that I literally howled. The tears were blinding me. All I could see
was a compassionate blur in front of me.

“Please, please,” she begged, “try to control yourself!”

I continued to weep and sob. And then the train came to a halt. Some 
passengers entered and we were crowded against the door.

“Have you lost some one dear to you?” she asked. Her voice was so gentle,
so soothing.

I shook my head by way of answer.

“Poor, dear man, I know what it is.” Again I felt the pressure of her 
hand.

The doors were about to close. Suddenly I dropped the handkerchief, 
pushed my way through the crowd, and got out. I ran up the steps at top 
speed and began walking like a madman. It had begun to rain. I walked into 
the rain with head down, laughing and crying. I jostled into people and was
jostled back. Some one gave me a shove which sent me spinning into the 
gutter. I never even looked around. I kept on with head down, the rain 
running down my back. I wanted to be soaked through and through. I wanted 
to be cleansed of all iniquity. Yes, that’s how I put It to myself—cleansed
of my iniquity. I wanted to be soaked through and through, then stabbed, 
then thrown into the gutter, then flattened out by a heavy truck, then 
ground down into the muck and mire, obliterated, annihilated for good and 
all.

CHAPTER TEN

With the turn of the solstice a new phase of existence has opened for 
us—not in the sunny South but in Greenwich Village. The first stage of the 
underground life.

To run a speakeasy, which is what we are doing, and to live in it at the 
same time, is one of those fantastic ideas which can only arise in the 
minds of thoroughly impractical individuals.

I blush when I think of the story I concocted to wheedle the money which 
we required to open the place from my mother.

Ostensibly I’m the manager of this joint. I also wait on tables, fill 
short orders, empty the garbage, run errands, make the beds, clean house 
and in general make myself as useful as possible. (The one thing I shall 
never be able to do is to clear the rooms of smoke. The windows have to be 
kept closed during operations, for reasons soon to be disclosed.) The 
place—a typical basement flat in the poor section of the Village—is 
composed of three small rooms, one of them a kitchen. The windows are 
heavily curtained, so that even in daytime the light scarcely filters 
through. No doubt about it, if the enterprise proves a success we’ll have 
tuberculosis. Our intention is to open toward evening and close when the 
last customer leaves, which will probably be toward dawn.

There’ll be no writing done here, I can see that. I’ll be lucky if I can 
find time to stretch my legs once a day.

Only our most Intimate friends are to know that we live here—and that we 
are married. Everything is to be veiled in secrecy. Which means that if the
bell rings and Mona happens to be out, I am not to answer it. I’m to sit 
quiet in the shadows until the person has gone away. If possible I am to 
peek out and see who It is—just in case. In case what? In case it’s a 
detective or a bill collector. Or one of the more recent, hence ignorant 
and intrepid, lovers…

Such is the set-up, in brief. The most we shall get out of it, I know in 
advance, is fret and worry. Mona, of course, is full of dreams about 
retiring in a few months and buying a house in the country. Pipe dreams. 
I’m so inoculated with them, however, that I’m immune. The only way to 
burst the bubble is to go through with the deal. I have another flock of 
dreams, but I’ve sense enough to keep them under my hat.

It’s amazing the number of friends we have, all of whom have promised to 
be on hand for the opening night. Some who were mere names to me before—all
from Mona’s retinue—have been helping us put things to rights. Cedric Ross,
I discover, is a fop with a monocle who pretends to be a pathobiologist; 
Roberto de Sundra, one of the “heavy lovers,” is a Chilean student reputed 
to be fabulously rich; George Innes, am artist who indulges in opium bouts 
occasionally, is a superb fencer; Jim Driscoll, whom I have seen in the 
ring, is a wrestler with intellectual pretensions; Trevelyan, an English 
writer with a past, is a remittance man; Caccicacci, whose parents are 
supposed to own a marble quarry in Italy, is a clown with a flair for 
telling incredible stories.

And then there’s Baronyi, the most ingratiating of all, who simply cannot
do enough to make the venture a success. A publicity man, he styles 
himself.

To my great surprise, the night before the opening, two ancient lovers 
appeared simultaneously, neither knowing the other, of course. I mean 
Carruthers and that man Harris who had paid a princely sum for the 
privilege of breaking my wife’s hymen. The latter arrived in a Rolls Royce 
with a chorus girl on either arm. Carruthers also had two girls with him, 
both former friends of Mona’s.

Of course all my old cronies have sworn to be on hand the opening night, 
including O’Mara who has just returned from the South. Cromwell is also 
expected, though he may only be able to stay for a few minutes. As for 
Rothermel, Mona is trying to persuade him to stay away—he blabbers too 
much. I’m wondering if Sheldon will show up—just by chance. Certainly one 
or two of the millionaires will make an appearance—the shoe manufacturer 
possibly, or the lumber king.

Will be have enough liquor to go round?—that’s our primary concern. 
Majorie has promised to let us tap her private stock—in a pinch.

The understanding, between Mona and myself, is this—should either of us 
happen to get drunk the other will remain sober. Of course neither of us is
a booze artist, but just the same… The chief problem will be how to get rid
of the drunks. The cops will be sitting on our necks, no use fooling 
ourselves about that. The natural thing, under the circumstances, would be 
to put something aside for hush money. But Mona is certain we can get 
better, bigger protection. Talks about Rothermel’s friends from the swamp 
lands—judges, politicians, bankers, ammunition makers.

That Rothermel! I’m dying to set eyes on him…

There’s one little detail about the new establishment which pleases me no
end and that’s the ice-box. It’s filled with delicious edibles, and it’s 
got to be kept filled no matter what happens. I keep opening and closing 
the damned contraption just to gaze at all the wonderful good things to 
eat. The bread is excellent too—Jewish bread from the East Side. When I get
bored I’ll sit down all by my lonesome and enjoy a little snack. What 
better than a caviar sandwich on black bread smeared with sweet butter—at 
2:00 A.M.? With a glass of Chablis or Riesling to wash it down, certes. And
to round it off, perhaps a dish of strawberries floating in sour cream, or 
if not strawberries then blackberries or huckleberries or blueberries or 
raspberries. I see Halvah and Baklava too. Goody goody! And on the shelf 
Kirschwasser, Strega, Benedictine, Chartreuse Verte. As for the whiskey—we 
have a dozen different brands—it leaves me cold. The beer likewise. Beer 
and whiskey—they’re for the dogs. C’est-ardire—les clients. We also have on
hand, I notice, an excellent stock of cigars, all choice brands. For the 
customers. Now and then I enjoy a cigar myself—a fine Havana, say. But I 
can also do without them. To really enjoy a cigar one has to be at peace 
with the world, that’s my belief. However, I’m sure the customers will be 
stuffing my pockets with them.

No, we won’t lack for food and drink, that’s certain. But exercise, fresh
air… ? I’m already feeling pale about the gills.

All we lack, frankly, is a cash register. I see myself running to the 
bank daily with a satchel full of bills and coins…

The opening night came off with a bang. We must have taken in close to 
five hundred dollars. For the first time in my life I was really lousy with
money: every pocket, including my vest pockets, was stuffed with bills. 
Carruthers, who arrived with two new girls this time, must have passed away
a good hundred dollars, standing treat to all our friends. Two of the 
millionaires showed up also, but they kept to themselves and left early. 
Steve Romero, whom I hadn’t seen for ages, showed up with his wife; he 
looked as good as ever, the Spanish bull through and through. From Steve I 
got an earful about my cosmodemonic friends, most of them still on the job 
apparently, and all playing the horses on the side to make ends meet. I was
delighted to hear that Spivak had fallen from favor, been transferred to 
some dinky place in South Dakota. Hymie, I learned, had become an insurance
agent; he’d be down some night soon, some quiet night when we could have a 
good talk, the three of us. As for Costigan, the knuckle-duster, the poor 
bugger was in a sanatorium—had been taken down suddenly with galloping 
consumption.

Around midnight, MacGregor arrived, had a few drinks on the house, and 
left in short order. Wasn’t at all impressed. Couldn’t understand, he said,
how a man of my intelligence could fall for such a dumb racket. “Too lazy 
to take a job but doesn’t mind serving drinks all night… ha ha! ha ha!” On 
leaving he stuck a card in my mitt. “If you get in a jam, remember, I’m a 
lawyer. Don’t go hiring some shyster who’s full of promises!”

We informed each one as he left that if he sent any friends around he was
to give them the password: Fratres Semper. (Naturally none of them 
remembered it.) We also warned each one all over again to park his car a 
block or two away.

The first thing I discovered about the new job was that it was hard on 
the feet—and on the eyes. The smoke was unbearable: by midnight my eyes 
were like two burnt cinders. When we finally got to bed and pulled back the
blankets the smell of beer, wine and tobacco was overpowering. In addition 
to smoke and liquor I thought I detected the odor of smelly feet. However, 
we fell into a trance immediately. In my sleep I was still serving drinks 
and sandwiches, still making change for the customers.

I had intended to get up at noon the next day, but it was almost four 
o’clock when we tumbled out of bed, more dead than alive. The joint looked 
like the wreck of the Hesperus.

“You’d better take a walk and eat your breakfast out,” I urged. “I’ll fix
myself something as soon as I’ve tidied up a bit.”

It took me about an hour and a half to create even a semblance of order. 
By then I was too weary to think of making breakfast for myself. I poured 
myself a glass of orange juice, lit a cigarette, and waited for Mona to 
return. The customers would be showing up any minute now. It seemed to me 
that the last one had left only a few minutes ago. Outdoors it was already 
dark.

The rooms still reeked of stale smoke and stale drinks.

I opened the windows back and front to create a draught, only to find 
myself coughing fit to bust a lung. The toilet was the place to repair to. 
I took the orange juice with me, sat down on the toilet seat, and lit 
another cigarette. I felt used up.

Presently there was a knock on the toilet door. Mona, of course.

“What’s wrong with you?” she cried. I had resumed my seat, the glass in 
one hand, the cigarette in the other.

“I’m resting,” I said. “Besides, it’s too draughty out there.”

“Get your things on and take a good walk. I’ll take over now. Here are 
some strudels for you and a charlotte russe. I’ll have breakfast ready for 
you when you get back.”

“Breakfast!” I yelled. “Do you know what time it is? It’s time for 
dinner, not breakfast. Jesus, I’m all topsy-turvy.”

“You’ll get used to it. It’s lovely out… hurry! So soft and balmy. Like a
second spring.”

I made ready to go. It seemed crazy to set out for a morning walk just as
the moon was coming up.

Suddenly I thought of something. “You know what? It’s too late to go to 
the bank.”

“The bank?” She stared at me vacantly.

“The bank, yes! That’s where to put the money we rake in.”

“Oh that! I forgot all about the money.”

“Well I’ll be damned, you forgot about that! That’s just like you.”

“Go on, take your walk. You can bank the money tomorrow—or the day after.
It won’t melt.”

Strolling along I kept fingering the money. It made me itchy. Finally, 
like a thief I made for a quiet spot where I could disgorge. Almost five 
hundred dollars did I say? I had over five hundred! So elated was I that I 
almost ran back to show it to Mona.

Instead of running, however, I sauntered along at an easy pace. I forgot 
for a little while that I was in search of breakfast. After a time I 
decided that I must have miscalculated. Keeping my eyes peeled, I stopped 
in the shadow of an abandoned house and fished the money out again. This 
time I counted it out very extra careful, as they say. It came to exactly 
five hundred and forty three dollars and sixty-nine cents. It was 
electrified. And a bit frightened, too, walking around in the dark with a 
sum like that on me. Better make for the bright lights, I told myself. Keep
moving, man, or somebody will sneak up on you from behind!

Money! And they talk about benzedrine… For a shot in the arm give me 
money any time!

I kept myself on the move. My feet weren’t touching the ground: I was 
rolling along on roller-skates, my eyes peeled, my ears laid well back 
against the sides of my head. I was that dizzy, that full of pep, that I 
could have counted up to a million and back without missing a digit.

Gradually a feeling of hunger overtook me. A powerful hunger it was. I 
broke into a dog trot as I headed back for the joint, one hand pressed 
against my breast pocket where the wallet was stowed away. My menu was 
already composed for me: a light omelette with cold lox, some cream cheese 
and jam, some Jewish rolls with bird-seed covered with slabs of sweet 
butter, coffee and thick fresh cream, a dish of strawberries with or 
without sour cream…

At the front door I found I had forgotten the key. I rang the bell, my 
mouth watering with the thought of the breakfast coming. It took several 
minutes for Mona to answer the bell. She came to the door with a finger 
over her lips. “Shhhhhh! Rothermel’s inside. Wants to speak to me alone. 
Come back in about an hour.” She scooted off.

Dinner hour—for ordinary people—was well advanced and here I was looking 
for breakfast. In despair I went to a lunch wagon and ordered ham and eggs.
That down, I strolled over to Washington Square, flopped on a bench and 
dreamily watched the pigeons gobbling up crumbs. A panhandler came along 
and without thinking I gave him a dollar bill. He was so astounded that he 
stood there, right in front of me, examining the bill as if it were 
counterfeit money. Convinced finally that it was the real thing, he thanked
me warmly and—just like a sparrow—hopped away.

I killed a good hour and then some before returning—just to make certain 
the coast was clear. “You’d better get some ice,” were the first words that
greeted me. I set off again, to look for ice.

“When,” I asked myself, “is the day going to begin?”

It took some scouting around to find the ice man. He lived in a cellar 
near Abingdon Square. A big surly brute of a Pole he was. Said he had made 
two attempts to deliver the ice but no one had answered the bell. Then he 
looked me up and down, as if to say—“how will you get it home?” His 
attitude told me clearly enough—crystal clear, in fact—that he had no 
intention of helping me deliver it a third time.

With five hundred bucks in my pockets I saw no reason why I shouldn’t 
hail a cab, ice and all…

During the brief trip back to the house I had some strange recollections,
thoroughly irrelevant too. At any rate, there in my mind, as clear and 
vivid as could be, was Mr. Meyer, an old friend of my parents. He was 
standing at the top of the stairs waiting to greet us. Looked exactly as I 
had known him when I was a boy of eight or nine. Only now I realized what I
had never suspected then—that he was the image of “Gloomy Gus” from the 
comic strip.

We shake hands, exchange greetings, and enter. Now Mr. Meyer’s wife 
enters the picture. She is coming out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on 
the spotless white apron she wears. A frail little woman, neat, quiet, 
orderly. She speaks to my parents in German, a more refined, more pleasing 
German than I am accustomed to hearing at home. What I can’t get over is 
the fact that she is old enough to be Mr. Meyer’s mother. They stand there 
arm in arm, exactly like mother and son. As a matter of fact she was Mr. 
Meyer’s mother-in-law before she married him. Yes, even as a boy, that fact
had registered deep. Katie, her daughter, had been a beautiful young woman.
Mr. Meyer had fallen in love with the daughter and married her. A year 
later Katie died, quietly and quickly. Mr. Meyer couldn’t get over it. But 
a year later he married his wife’s mother. And to all effects they got 
along beautifully. Briefly, that was the situation. But there was something
else connected with this remembrance which stirred me even more deeply. Why
was it that every time we visited the Meyers I had the conviction that it 
was in their living room I once sat in a high chair reciting German verses,
while above me in a cage near the window a nightingale sang? My mother 
always insisted that this was impossible. “It must have been some other 
place, Henry!” Yet each time we visited the Meyers I walked instinctively 
to a certain spot in the living room, where the bird cage had once hung, 
and tried to reconstruct the original scene. To this very day, if I but 
close my eyes and concentrate, I am able to relive this unforgettable 
moment.

However, as Strindberg says in his Inferno—“there is nothing I dislike 
more than calf’s head with brown butter.” Mrs. Meyer always served parsnips
with these meals. From the very first I disliked parsnips, especially 
buttered parsnips. Every time I taste one now I think of Mr. Meyer sitting 
opposite me at the head of the table, his face wreathed in melancholy 
resignation. My mother used to say of him that he was such a good man, so 
quiet, thoughtful and considerate. To me he always smelled of the grave. 
Never once did I see him smile. Twiddling his thumbs, he would sit 
motionless and expressionless with hands folded in his lap. When he spoke 
it was as if from far off and deep down in the bowels of the earth. He must
have been like that even when he was in love with Katie, his wife’s 
daughter.

Ah, but he was indeed a strange man! Peaceful and serene as their home 
life appeared to be, nevertheless one day this lugubrious soul up and 
disappeared. Never a word from him. Not a trace did he leave behind. 
Naturally, everyone thought he had committed suicide. Not I. I thought 
then, as I do now, that he simply wanted to be alone with his sorrow. The 
only thing he had taken with him was the photograph of his Katie which used
to stand on the dresser. Not a stitch of clothing… not even a handkerchief.

Strange recollection. Followed immediately by another, equally baroque. 
Now it’s my father’s sister, the one who married my Uncle Dave. Aunt Millie
is lying on a couch in the middle of the room, their parlor. I am sitting 
on the piano stool, only a foot of two away from her, with a fat music roll
on my lap. (My mother has sent me to New York to play for my Aunt Millie 
who is dying of cancer.) Like all of my father’s sisters, Aunt Millie has a
sweet, beautiful nature. I ask her what she would like me to play for her. 
She says—

“Anything.” I pick out a sheaf of music—“The Orange Blossom Waltz”—and I 
play it for her. When I turn around she is gazing up at me with a beatific 
smile. “That was lovely, Henry,” she says. “Won’t you play another?” I pick
out “The Midnight Fire Alarm,” and I rattle that off. Again the same warm 
look of appreciation, the same plea to continue. I go through my whole 
repertoire—“The Chariot Race,”

“Poet and Peasant,”

“The Burning of Rome,” and so on. What drivel to be hammering out to 
someone dying of cancer! But Aunt Millie is in rapture. She thinks I’m a 
genius. “You will be a great musician some day,” she whispers when I am 
leaving.

It’s at this point that the cab stops and I unload the ice. The genius! 
(“Il est Vaffection et Vavenir”) Eight P.M. and the genius is just about to
begin the day’s work—serving drinks and sandwiches. In a good mood, 
however. Somehow, the recollection of these odd incidents from the warm 
past awakens the thought that I am still a writer. I may not have time to 
set them down on paper now, but I will one day.

(It’s now a good twenty years later. The “genius” never forgets. “II est 
Vamour et Veternitd.”) I am obliged to make two trips through the rooms 
with a block of ice on my shoulder. To the customers—there are eight or ten
an hand—it seems amusing. One of them offers to help me. It’s Baronyi, the 
promoter. Says he must have a long talk with me soon. Buys me a drink to 
cement the deal. We stand there in the kitchen chatting, my eyes riveted to
a spot just above his head where I have pasted a snapshot of my daughter, 
her head set off by a little bonnet trimmed with fur. Baronyi drones away. 
I nod my head and throw him a smile now and then. What is she doing at this
moment, I wonder? Has she been tucked to bed already? And Maude, still 
practicing like a madwoman, I suppose. Liszt, always Liszt, to warm her 
fingers up… Someone asks for a pastrami sandwich on rye bread. Baronyi 
immediately dives into the ice-box and gets out the pastrami. Then he 
slices the bread. I’m still riveted to the spot.

From far away I hear him telling me that he’d like to play me a game of 
chess some night. I nod and absentmindedly make myself a sandwich which I 
begin to much between sips of Dubonnet.

Now Mona stick her head in. Wants to tell me that George Innes would like
a few words with me—when I can spare the time. He’s sitting in the bedroom 
with his friend Roberto, the Chilean.

“What’s on his mind?” I ask. “Why does everyone want to talk to me?”

“Because you’re a writer, I guess.” (What an answer!) In a corner, near 
the front window, Trevelyan and Caccicacci are huddled. They are having a 
furious argument. Trevelyan has the features of a vulture. The other is 
like a clown out of the Italian opera. A strange pair to be hobnobbing 
together.

In another corner sit Manuel Siegfried and Cedric Ross, two discarded 
lovers. They stare at each other gloomily. Now Marjorie comes bouncing in, 
her arms loaded with packages. Immediately things brighten up. In a few 
minutes, like trains pulling in, Ned arrives, then O’Mara, then Ulric 
himself. The old club spirit, what! Fratres Semper!

Everyone has now become acquainted with his neighbor. All talking at 
once. And drinking! That’s my job, to see that no one is without a fresh 
glass. Now and then I sit down to have a little chat with someone. But what
I enjoy most is waiting on the customers, running to and fro, lighting 
their cigars, making up short orders, uncorking the bottles, emptying the 
ash trays, passing the time of the day with them and that sort of thing. 
The constant activity enables me to enjoy my own private thoughts. Seems 
I’m due to write another big book in my head. I study eyebrows, the curve 
of a lip, gestures, intonations. It’s as though I’m rehearsing a play and 
the customers ad-libbing. Catching a little phrase on my way to the 
kitchen, I round it out into a sentence, a paragraph, a page. If someone 
asks a question of his neighbor I answer it for him—in my head. Droll 
effects. Really exciting. Now and then I have a little drink or another 
sandwich on the q.t.

The kitchen is my realm. In there I dream away whole passages of destiny 
and causality.

“Well, Henry,” says Ulric, cornering me at the sink, “how goes it? This 
is your success!” He raises his glass and downs it. “Good stuff! You must 
give me the address of your bootlegger later.” We have a little drink 
together while I fill a couple of orders. “Golly,” he says, “it sure does 
look funny to see you with that carving knife in your hand.”

“Not a bad way to pass the time,” I remark. “Gives me a chance to think 
of what I will write some day.”

“You don’t mean it!”

“Of course I do. It’s not me making these sandwiches—it’s someone else. 
This is like sleep-walking… How about a nice piece of salami? You can have 
the Jewish kind or the Italian. Here, try these olives—Greek olives, what! 
You know, if I were simply a bartender I’d be miserable.”

“Henry,” he says, “you couldn’t be miserable no matter what you were 
doing. You’ll always find life interesting, even when you’re at the bottom.
You know, you’re like those mountain climbers who, when they fall into a 
deep crevasse, see the stars twinkling overhead… in broad daylight. You see
stars where others see only warts or blackheads.”

He gave me one of those knowing, tender smiles, then suddenly assumed a 
serious mein. “I thought I ought to tell you something,” he began. “It’s 
about Ned. I don’t know if he’s told you, but he lost his job recently. 
Drink. He can’t take It. I tell you this so that you’ll keep an eye on him.
He thinks the world of you, as you know, and he’ll probably be here 
frequently. Try to keep him in hand, won’t you? Alcohol is poison to him…

“By the way,” he continued, “do you suppose I might bring my chess set 
down some evening? I mean, when things quiet down a bit. There’ll be nights
when nobody will turn up. Just give me a ring. By the way, I’ve been 
reading that book you lent me—on the history of the game. An astonishing 
book. We must go one day to the Museum and have a look at those medieval 
chess boards, eh?”

“Sure,” I said, “if we ever manager to get up by noon!”

One by one my friends filed into the kitchen to chat with me. Often they 
served the customers for me. Sometimes the customers came to the kitchen 
themselves to ask for a drink, or just to see what was going on.

O’Mara, of course, anchored himself in the kitchen. He talked incessantly
about his adventures in the sunny South. Thought it might be a good idea to
go back there, all three of us, and make a new start. “Too bad you haven’t 
got an extra bed here,” he said. He scratched his head thoughtfully. “Maybe
we could put a couple of tables together and spread a mattress over them?”

“Later, maybe.”

“Sure, sure,” said O’Mara. “Any time. It was just a thought. Anyway, it’s
good to see you again. You’ll like it down South. Good clean air there, for
one thing… This is some dump! What a come down from that other place! By 
the way, do you still see that crazy gink—what’s his name again?”

“You mean Sheldon?”

“Yeah, Sheldon, that’s the guy. He’ll pop up again, just wait! You know 
what they’d do with a pest like that down South? They’d grab him by the 
seat of his pants and run him over the line—or else lynch him.

“By the way,” he continued, clutching my sleeve, “who’ that dame in the 
corner over there? Ask her In here, will you? I haven’t had a good lay now 
in two weeks. She’s not a Yid, is she? Not that I give a damn… only they 
cling too much. You know.” He gave a dirty little laugh and helped himself 
to a brandy.

“Henry, I’ll have to tell you sometime about the gals I fooled around 
with down there. It was like a passage out of the History of European 
Morals. One of them, with a big colonial house and a retinue of flunkeys, 
was all set to hook me for life. I almost fell for it too—she was that 
pretty. That was in Petersburg. In Chattanooga I ran across a nymphomaniac.
She nearly sucked me dry. They’re all a bit queer, I tell you. Faulkner’s 
got the low-down on them, no gainsaying it. They’re full of death—or 
something. The worst of it is, they spoil you. I was pampered to death. 
That’s why I came back. I’ve got to do something. Christ, but New York 
looks like a morgue! People must be crazy to stay here all their lives… “

The girl in the corner, whom he had been eyeing steadily, gave him a 
sign. “Excuse me, Henry,” he said, “this is it,” and off he skedaddled.

It was when Arthur Raymond started coming regularly that things began to 
take a dramatic turn. He was usually accompanied by his bosom pal, Spud 
Jason, and Alameda, the latter’s “paramour.” Arthur Raymond liked nothing 
better than to argue and dispute, and, if possible, to consummate these 
sessions on the floor, with toe-holds and arm-locks. Nothing gave him more 
pleasure than to twist someone’s arm or wrench it out of its socket. His 
idol was Jim Driscoll, who had lately turned professional. Perhaps it was 
because Jim Driscoll had once studied to be an organist that he adored him 
so.

As I say, Arthur Raymond was always itching for trouble. If he was unable
to inveigle the others into an argument and disputation he fell back on his
comrade Spud Jason. The latter was a thorough-going Bohemian, a painter of 
considerable talent, who was going to seed. He was always ready to drop his
work on the slightest excuse. His place was a pig-sty in which he and his 
little spit-lire, Alameda, wallowed. One could knock at his door any hour 
of the day or night. He was an excellent cook, always in good humor, 
amenable to any suggestion or proposal, no matter how fantastic. Too, he 
always had a bit of cash on him which he lent freely.

Mona didn’t care for Spud Jason at all. And she detested “the little 
Spanish bitch,” as she called Alameda. However, they usually brought three 
or four other customers with them when they came. - Certain people usually 
left when this gang arrived—Tony Maurer, for instance, Manuel Siegfried and
Cedric Ross. Caccicacci and Trevelyan, on the other hand, always welcomed 
them with open arms. For them it meant free drinks and a spot of food. 
Besides, they enjoyed argument and dispute. They revelled in it.

Posing as a Florentine, though he had not seen Italy since he was two 
years old, Caccicacci could tell marvelous anecdotes about the great 
Florentines—all pure inventions, to be sure. Some of these anecdotes he 
repeated, with alterations and elaborations, the extent of these depending 
on the indulgence of his listeners.

One of these “inventions” had to do with a robot of the twelfth century, 
the creation of a medieval scholar whose name he could never recall. 
Originally, Caccicacci was content to describe this mechanical freak (which
he insisted was hermaphroditic) as a sort of tireless drudge, capable of 
performing all sorts of menial tasks, some of them rather droll. But as he 
continued to embellish the tale, the robot—which he always referred to as 
Picodiribibi—gradually came to assume powers and propensities which were, 
to say the least, astounding. For example, after being taught to imitate 
the human voice, Picodiribibi’s master instructed his mechanical drudge in 
certain arts and sciences which were useful to the master—to wit, the 
memorizing of weights and measures, of theorems and logarithms, of certain 
astronomical calculations, of the names and positions of the constellations
at any season for the previous seven hundred years. He also instructed him 
in the use of the saw, the hammer and chisel, the compass, the sword and 
pike, as well as certain primitive musical instruments. Picodiribibi, 
consequently, was not only a sort of femme de manage, sergeant-at-arms, 
amanuensis and compendium of useful information, but a soothing spirit who 
could lull his master to sleep with weird melodies in the Doric mode. 
However, like the parrot in the cage, Picodiribibi developed a fondness for
speech which was beyond all bounds. At times his master had difficulty in 
suppressing this proclivity. The robot, who had been taught to recite 
lengthy poems in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and other tongues, would sometimes 
take it into his head to recite his whole repertoire without pausing for 
breath and, of course, with no consideration for his master’s peace of 
mind. And, since fatigue was utterly meaningless to him, he would 
occasionally ramble on in this senseless, faultless fashion, reeling off 
weights and measures, logarithmic tables, astronomical dates and figures, 
and so on, until his master, beside himself with rage and irritation, would
flee the house. Other curious eccentricities manifested themselves in the 
course of time. Adept in the art of self-defense, Picodiribibi would engage
his master’s guests in combat upon the slightest provocation, knocking them
about like ninepins, bruising and battering them mercilessly. Almost as 
embarrassing was the habit he had developed of joining in a discussion, 
suddenly flooring the great scholars who had come to sit at the master’s 
feet by propounding intricate questions, in the form of conundrums, which 
of course were unanswerable.

Little by little, Picodiribibi’s master became jealous of his own 
creation. What infuriated him above all, curiously enough, was the robot’s 
tirelessness. The latter’ ability to keep going twenty-four hours of the 
day, his gift for perfection, meaningless though it was, the ease and 
rapidity with which he modulated from one feat of skill to another—these 
qualities or aptitudes soon transformed “the idiot,” as he now began to 
call his invention, into a menace and a mockery. There was scarcely 
anything any more which “the idiot” could not do better than the master 
himself. There remained only a few faculties the monster would never 
possess, but of these animal functions the master himself was not 
particularly proud. It was obvious that, if he were to recapture his peace 
of mind, there was only one thing to be done—destroy his precious creation!
This, however, he was loath to do. It had taken him twenty years to put the
monster together and make him function. In the whole wide world there was 
nothing to equal the bloody idiot. Moreover, he could no longer recall by 
what intricate, complicated and mysterious processes he had brought his 
labors to fruition. In every way Picodiribibi rivaled the human being whose
simulacrum he was. True, he would never be able to reproduce his own kind, 
but like the freaks and sports of human spawn, he would undoubtedly leave 
in the memory of man a disturbing, haunting image.

To such a pass had the great scholar come that he almost lost his mind. 
Unable to destroy his invention, he racked his brain to determine how and 
where he might sequester him. For a time he thought of burying him in the 
garden, in an iron casket. He even entertained the idea of locking him up 
in a monastery. But fear, fear of loss, fear of damage or deterioration, 
paralyzed him. It was becoming more and more clear that, inasmuch as he had
brought Picodiribibi into being, he would have to live with him forever. He
found himself pondering how they could be buried together, secretly, when 
the time came. Strange thought! The idea of taking with him to the grave a 
creature which was not alive, and yet in many ways more alive than himself,
terrified him. He was convinced that, even in the next world, this prodigy 
to which he had given birth would plague him, would possibly usurp his own 
celestial privileges. He began to realize that, in assuming the powers of 
the Creator, he had robbed himself of the blessing which death confers upon
even the humblest believer. He saw himself as a shade flitting forever 
between two worlds—and his creation pursuing him. Ever a devout man, he now
began to pray long and fervently for deliverance. On his knees he begged 
.the Lord to intercede, to lift from his shoulders the awesome burden of 
responsibility which he had unthinkingly assumed. But the Almighty ignored 
his pleas.

Humiliated, and in utter desperation, he was at last obliged to appeal to
the Pope. On foot he made the journey with his strange companion—from 
Florence to Avignon. By the time he arrived a veritable horde had been 
attracted in his wake. Only by a miracle had he escaped being stoned to 
death, for by now all Europe was aware that the Devil himself was seeking 
audience with his Holiness. The Pope, however, himself a learned man and a 
master of the occult sciences, had taken great pains to safeguard this 
curious pilgrim and his offspring. It was rumored that his Holiness had 
intentions of adopting the monster himself, if for no other reason than to 
make of him a worthy Christian. Attended only by his favorite Cardinal, the
Pope received the penitent scholar and his mysterious ward in the privacy 
of his chamber. What took place in the four and a half hours which elapsed 
nobody knows. The result, if it can be called such, was that the day after,
the scholar died a violent death. The following day his body was publicly 
burned and the ashes scattered sous le pont d’Avignon.

At this point in his narrative Caccicacci paused, waiting for the 
inevitable question–“And what happened to Picodiribibi f” Caccicacci put on
a mysterious baiting smile, raised his empty glass appealingly, coughed, 
cleared his throat, and, before resuming, inquired if he might have another
sandwich.

“Picodiribibi! Ah, now you ask me something! Have any of you ever read 
Occam—or the Private Papers of Albertus Magnus?”

No on had, needless to say.

“Every now and then,” he continued, the question being wholly rhetorical,
“one hears of a sea monster appearing off the coast of Labrador or some 
other outlandish place. What would you say if tomorrow it were reported 
that a weird human monster had been glimpsed roaming through Sherwood 
Forest? You see, Picodiribibi was not the first of his line. Even in 
Egyptian times legends were in circulation attesting to the existence of 
androids such as Picodiribibi. In the great museums of Europe there are 
documents which describe in detail various androids or robots, as we now 
call them, which were made by the wizards of old. Nowhere, however, is 
there any record of the destruction of these man-made monsters. In fact, 
all the source material we have on the subject leads to the striking 
conclusion that these monsters always succeeded in escaping from the hands 
of their masters… “

Here Caccicacci paused again and looked about inquiringly.

“I am not saying it is so,” he resumed, “but there is respectable 
evidence to support the view that in some remote and inaccessible spot 
these Satanic creatures continue their unnatural existence. It is highly 
probable, in fact, that by this time they have established a veritable 
colony. Why not? They have no age, they are immune to disease—and they are 
ignorant of death. Like that sage who defied that great Alexander, they may
indeed boast of being indestructible. Some scholars maintain that by now 
these lost and imperishable relics have probably created their own unique 
method of communication—more, that they have even learned to reproduce 
their own kind, mechanically, of course.

They hold that if the human being evolved from the dumb brute why could 
these pre-fabricated creatures not do likewise—and in less time? Man is as 
mysterious in his way as is God. So is the creature world. And so is the 
inanimate world, if we but reflect on it. If these androids had the wisdom 
and the ingenuity to escape from their vigilant masters, from their 
horrible condition of servitude, might they not have the ability to protect
themselves indefinitely, become sociable with their own kind, increase and 
multiply? Who can say with certitude that there does not exist somewhere on
this globe a fabulous village—perhaps a resplendent city!—populated 
entirely by these soulless specimens, many of them older than the mightiest
sequoia?

“But I am forgetting about Picodiribibi… The day his master came to a 
violent end he disappeared. All over the land a hue and cry went up, but in
vain. Not a trace of him was ever found. Now and then there were reports of
mysterious deaths, of inexplicable accidents and disasters, all attributed 
to the missing Picodiribibi. Many scholars were persecuted, some put to the
stake, because they were thought to have harbored the monster. It was even 
rumored that the Pope had ordered a ‘replica’ of Picodiribibi to be 
manufactured, and that he had made dark use of this spurious one. All rumor
and conjecture, to be sure. Nevertheless, it is a fact that, hidden in the 
archives of the Vatican, are descriptions of other robots more or less 
contemporaneous; none of these, however, is credited with possessing 
anything approaching the functional range of Picodiribibi. Today, of 
course, we have all sorts of robots, one of them, as you know, drawing his 
first breath of life, so to speak, from the radiance of a distant star. Had
it been possible to do this in the early Middle Ages, I think, try to 
think, of the havoc which would have ensued. The inventor would have been 
accused of employing black magic. He would have been burned at the stake, 
would he not? But there may have been another result, another outcome, 
dazzling and sinister at the same time. Instead of machines, perhaps we 
would now be using these star-driven menials. Perhaps the work of the world
would be done entirely by these expert work-hungry slaves… “

Here Caccicacci stopped short, smiled as if bemused, then suddenly burst 
out with this: “And who would arise to emancipate them f You laugh. But do 
we not regard the machine as our slave? And do we not suffer just as 
indubitably from this false relationship as did the wizards of old with 
their androids? Back of our deep-rooted desire to escape the drudgery of 
work lies the longing for Paradise. To the man of today Paradise means not 
only freedom from sin but freedom from work, for work has become odious and
degrading. When man ate of the Tree of Knowledge he elected to find a 
shortcut to Godhood. He attempted to rob the Creator of the divine secret, 
which to him spelled power. What has been the result? Sin, disease, death. 
Eternal warfare, eternal unrest. The little we know we use for our own 
destruction. We know not how to escape the tyranny of the convenient 
monsters we have created. We delude ourselves into believing that, by means
of them, we shall one day enjoy leisure and bliss, but all we accomplish, 
to be truthful, is to create more work for ourselves, more distress, more 
enmity, more sickness, more death. By our ingenious inventions and 
discoveries we are gradually altering the face of the earth—until it 
becomes unrecognizable in its ugliness. Until life itself becomes 
unbearable… That little beam of light from a remote star—I ask you, if that
imperishable ray of light could thus affect a nonhuman being, why can it 
not do as much for us? With all the stars in the heavens lavishing their 
radiant powers on us, with the aid of the sun, the moon and all the 
planets, how is it that we continue to remain in darkness and frustration? 
Why do we wear out so quickly, when the elements of which we are composed 
are indestructible? What is it that wears out? Not that of which we are 
made, that is certain. We wither and fade away, we perish, because the 
desire to live is extinguished. And why does this most potent flame die 
out? For lack of faith. From the time we are born we are told that we are 
mortal. From the time we are able to understand words we are taught that we
must kill in order to survive. In season and out we are reminded that, no 
matter how intelligently, reasonably or wisely we live, we shall become 
sick and die. We are inoculated with the idea of death almost from birth. 
Is it any wonder that we die?”

Caccicacci drew a deep breath. There was something he was struggling to 
convey, something beyond words, one might say. It was evident that he was 
being carried away by his narrative. One felt that he was trying to 
convince himself of something. The impression I got was that he had told 
this story over and over—in order to arrive at a conclusion beyond the 
limits of his own comprehension. Perhaps he knew, deep down, that the tale 
had a significance which eluded him only because he lacked the courage to 
pursue it to the end. A man may be a story teller, a fabulist, a downright 
liar, but embedded in all fiction and falsehood there is a core of truth. 
The inventor of Picodiribibi was a story teller too, in his way. He had 
created a fable or legend mechanically instead of verbally. He had 
defrauded our senses as much as any story teller. However…

“Sometimes,” said Caccicacci, solemnly now and with all the sincerity he 
was capable of mustering, “I am convinced that there is no hope for mankind
unless we begin to think differently and live differently. I know its 
sounds banal… it has been said thousands of times and nothing has happened.
You see, I keep thinking of the great suns which surround us, of these vast
solar bodies in the heavens of which no one knows anything, except that 
they exist. From one of them it is admitted that we draw our sustenance. 
Some include the moon as a vital factor in our earthy existence. Others 
speak of the beneficent or maleficent influence of the planets. But, if you
stop to think, everything—and when I say everything I mean 
everything!—whether visible or invisible, known or unknown, is vital to our
existence. We live amidst a network of magnetic forces which, in a variety 
of ways incalculable and indescribable, are ceaselessly operative. We 
created none of these ourselves. A few we have learned to harness, to 
exploit, as it were. And we are puffed up with pride because of our petty 
achievements. But even the boldest, even the proudest among our latter-day 
magicians, is bound to concede that what we know is infinitesimal compared 
to what we do not know. I beg you, stop a moment and reflect! Does any one 
here honestly believe that one day we shall know all? I go farther… I ask 
in all sincerity—do you believe that our salvation depends on knowing? 
Assuming for a moment that the human brain is capable of cramming into its 
mysterious fibers the sum total of the secret processes which govern the 
universe, what then? Yes, what then? What would we do, we humans, with this
unthinkable knowledge? What could we do? Have you ever asked yourself that 
question? Everyone seems to take it for granted that the accumulation of 
knowledge is a good thing. No one ever says—‘And what shall I do with it 
when I have it?’ No one dares believe any longer that, in the span of one 
short lifetime, it is possible to acquire even a minute fraction of the sum
of all existent human knowledge… ” Another breathing spell. We were all 
ready with the bottle this time. Caccicacci was laboring. He had derailed. 
It was not knowledge, or the lack of it, that he was so desperately 
concerned with. I was aware of the silent effort he was making to retrace 
his steps; I could feel him floundering about in his struggle to get back 
to the main line.

“Faith! I was talking about faith a moment ago. We’ve lost it. Lost it 
completely. Faith in anything, I mean. Yet faith is the only thing man 
lives by. Not knowledge, which is admittedly inexhaustible and in the end 
futile or destructive. But faith. Faith too is inexhaustible. Always has 
been, always will be. It is faith which inspires deeds, faith which 
overcomes obstacles—literally moves mountains, as the Bible says. Faith is 
what? Just faith. Faith is everything, if you like. Perhaps a better word 
would be acceptance. But acceptance is even more difficult to understand 
than faith. Immediately you utter the word, there is an inquisitioner which
says: ‘Evil toot’ And if one says yes, then the way is barred. You are 
laughed out of countenance, shunned like a leper. Good, you see, may be 
questioned, but evil—and this is a paradox—evil, though we struggle 
constantly to eliminate it, is always taken for granted. No one doubts the 
existence of evil, though it is only an abstract term for that which is 
constantly changing in character and which, on close analysis, is often 
found to be good. No one will accept evil at its face value. It is, and it 
is not. The mind refuses to accept it unconditionally. It would really seem
as if it existed only to be converted into its opposite. The simplest and 
readiest way to accomplish this is, of course, to accept it. But who is 
wise enough to adopt such a course?

“I think of Picodiribibi again. Was there anything ‘evil’ about his 
appearance or existence? Yet he was held in dread by the world in which he 
found himself. He was regarded as a violation of nature. But is man himself
not a violation of nature? If we could fashion another Picodiribibi, or one
even more marvelous in his functioning, would we not be in ecstasy? But 
suppose that, instead of a more marvelous robot, we were suddenly 
confronted by a genuine human being whose attributes were so incomparably 
superior to our own that he resembled a god? This is a hypothetical 
question, to be sure, yet there are, and always have been, individuals who 
maintain, and persist in maintaining, despite reason and ridicule, that 
they have had witness of such divine beings. We can all summon suitable 
names. Myself, I prefer to think of a mythical being, some one nobody has 
ever heard of, or seen, or will know in this life. Some one, in brief, who 
could exist and fulfill the requirements I speak of… “

Here Caccicacci digressed. He was forced to confess that he did not know 
what had prompted him to make such a statement, nor where he was heading. 
He kept rubbing his poll and murmuring over and over: “Strange, strange, 
but I thought I had something there.”

Suddenly his face lit up with joy. “Ah yes, I know now. I’ve got it. 
Listen… Suppose this being, universally admitted to be superior to us in 
every way, should take it to address the world in this fashion: ‘Stop where
you are, O men and women, and give heed! You are on the wrong track You are
headed for destruction.’ Suppose that everywhere on this globe the billions
which make up humanity did stop what they were doing and listened. Even if 
this god like being said nothing more than what I’ve just put in his mouth,
what do you suppose the effect would be? Has the entire world ever stopped 
to listen in unison to words of wisdom? Imagine, if you can, a total, 
drastic silence, all ears cocked to catch the fatal words! Would it even be
necessary to utter the words f Can you not imagine that everyone, in the 
silence of his heart, would supply the answer himself? There is only one 
response that humanity longs to give—and it can be voiced in one little 
monosyllable: Love. That little word, that mighty thought, that perpetual 
act, positive, unambiguous, eternally effective—if that should sink in, 
take possession of all mankind, would it not transform the world instantly?
Who could resist, if love became the order of the day? Who would want power
or knowledge—if he were bathed in the perpetual glory of love?

“It is said, as you know, that in the fastnesses of Tibet there actually 
exists a small band of men so immeasurably superior to us that they are 
called ‘The Masters.’ They live in voluntary exile from the rest of the 
world. Like the androids I spoke of earlier, they too are ageless, immune 
to disease, and indestructible. Why do they not mingle with us, why do they
not enlighten and ennoble us by their presence? Have they chosen to remain 
isolate—or is it we who keep them at a distance? Before you attempt to 
answer, ask yourself another question—what have we to offer them which they
do not already know, possess, or enjoy? If such beings exist, and I have 
every reason to believe they do, then the only possible barrier is 
consciousness. Degrees of consciousness, to be more exact. When we reach to
deeper levels of thought and being they will be there, so to speak. We are 
still unready, unwilling, to mingle with the gods. The men of olden times 
knew the gods: they saw them face to face. Man was not removed, in 
consciousness, from either the higher or the lower orders of creation. 
Today man is cut off. Today man lives as a slave. Worse, we are slaves to 
one another. We have created a condition hitherto unknown, a condition 
altogether unique: we have become the slaves of slaves. Doubt it not, the 
moment we truly desire freedom we shall be free. Not a whit sooner! Now we 
think like machines, because we have become helpless victims of power… The 
day we learn to express love we shall know love and have love—and all else 
will fall away. Evil is a creation of the human mind. It is powerless when 
accepted at face value. Because it has no value in itself. Evil exists only
as a threat to that eternal kingdom of love we but dimly apprehend. Yes, 
men have had visions of a liberated humanity. They have had visions of 
walking the earth like the gods they once were. Those whom we call ‘The 
Masters’ undoubtedly found the road back. Perhaps the androids have taken 
another road. All roads, believe it or not, lead eventually to that 
life-giving source which is the center and meaning of creation. As Lawrence
said with dying breath—‘For man, the vast marvel is to be alive. For man, 
as for flower, beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, 
most perfectly, alive… In this sense, Picodirbibi was never alive. In this 
sense, none of us is alive. Let us become fully alive, that is what I have 
been trying to say.”

Exhausted by this unintended flight, Caccicacci took leave abruptly in 
embarrassment and confusion. We who had listened in silence remained seated
in the corner by the window. No one seemed able to summon breath for a few 
minutes. Arthur Raymond, usually immune to such disquisitions, looked from 
one to another defiantly, ready to pounce upon the slightest provocation. 
Spud Jason and his “consort” were already three sheets to the wind. No 
argument coming from that quarter! Finally it was Baronyi who broke the 
ice, remarking in a gentle, perplexed voice that he had never imagined 
Caccicacci to be so serious. Trevelyan groaned, as if to say—“You don’t 
know the half of it!” Then, to our stupefaction, without the slightest 
preliminary, he launched into a long monologue about his own private 
troubles. He began by telling how his wife, who was not only pregnant but 
mad, mad as a hatter, had tried to strangle him in bed while he was asleep 
just the night before. He confessed, in his bland, suppressed, underdone 
way—he was British to the core—that he had certainly treated her 
abominably. He made it painfully clear that from the very beginning he had 
loathed her. He had married her out of pity, because the man who had made 
her with child had run out on her. She was a poetess and he thought highly 
of her work. What he couldn’t abide was her moods. She would sit for hours,
knitting woolen socks which he never wore, and never a peep out of her. Or 
she would sit in the rocker, doing absolutely nothing, and while swaying 
back and forth would hum, hum for hours. Or she would suddenly get a 
talking jag, corner him in the kitchen or the bedroom, and fill him with 
dreamy stuff which she called inspiration.

“What do you mean—dreamy stuff?” asked O’Mara, grinning maliciously.

“Oh,” said Trevelyan, “it might be about fog, fog and rain… how the trees
and bushes looked when the fog suddenly drifted away. It might be about the
color of fog, all the shades of gray which she could discern with her 
cat-like eyes. She had lived on the coast of Cornwall during her 
childhood—they’re all a bit loony there—and she would relive her walks in 
the fog, her experiences with goats and cats, or with the village idiot. In
these moods she talked another language—I don’t mean a dialect, I mean a 
language of her own which no one could understand. It used to give me the 
creeps. It was a sort of cat language, as best I can describe it. She 
yowled now and then, a real yowl that made your blood curdle. Sometimes she
imitated the wind, all kinds of wind, from a gentle breeze to a ripping 
gale. And then she would snuffle and weep, trying to convince me that she 
mourned the flowers which had been cut down—the pansies and the lilies 
particularly, they were so helpless, so defenseless. Before you knew it she
would be walking through strange places, describing them intimately, as if 
she had lived there all her life. Places like Trinidad, Curacao, 
Mozambique, Guadeloupe, Madras, Cawnpore and such like. Eerie f I’ll tell 
you, I thought for a while she had second sight… By the way, couldn’t we 
have another drink? I haven’t a farthing, as you probably know…

“She’s a queer one, all right. And a bloody, obstinate cuss, too. Get in 
an argument with her and you’re doomed. She knows how to block all the 
exits. You’re trapped, once you start in with that one. I never realized 
that women could be so utterly logical. It wouldn’t matter what you were 
discussing—odors, vegetation, diseases or sun spots. Hers is always the 
last word, no matter what the subject. Add to all that a mania for detail, 
a mania for minutae. She’ll sit at the breakfast table, for example, with a
broken petal in her hand, and she’ll examine it for an hour. She’ll ask you
to concentrate on a minute piece of this petal no bigger than the merest 
sliver of a splinter. Claims she can see all sorts of curious and wondrous 
things in this piece of nothingness. All with the naked eye, mind you. Her 
eyes are not human eyes, by God. She can see in the dark, of course, even 
better than a cat. She can see with her eyes closed, believe it or not. She
demonstrated that to my own satisfaction one night. But what she can’t see 
is the other person! She looks right through you when she talks to you. She
sees only what she is talking about, whether it’s fog, cats, idiots, remote
cities, floating islands or floating kidneys. In the beginning I used to 
grab her by the arm and shake her—I thought perhaps she was in a trance. 
Nothing of the sort! Just as wide-awake as you or I. Even more awake, I’d 
say. Nothing escapes her. ‘Did you hear that?’ she says sometimes, right in
the middle of a sentence. ‘Hear what? Maybe a cake of ice slipped just the 
fraction of an inch in the ice-box. Maybe a leaf just fell to the ground in
the back yard. Maybe a drop of water dripped from the kitchen faucet. ‘Did 
you hear that?’ I’d jump whenever she said it. After a while I began to 
think I was growing deaf—she gave such importance to these inaudible 
nothings. ‘It’s nothing,’ she’d say, ‘it’s just your nerves.’ And with all 
that she has absolutely no ear for music. All she hears is the scratching 
of the needle: her pleasure is derived solely from detecting whether the 
record is an old one or a fairly new one, and how new, or how old. She 
can’t tell the difference between Mozart, Puccini and Satie. She likes 
hymns. Dingy, melancholy hymns. Which she always hums with a seraphic 
smile, as if she were already among the angels. No, really, she’s the most 
detestable bitch imaginable. There’s not a spark of joy or gaiety in her. 
If you tell her a funny story she’s bored. If you laugh she’s outraged. If 
you sneeze you have bad manners. If you indulge in a drink you’re a sot… 
We’ve had intercourse—if you can call it that—about three times, I guess. 
She closes her eyes, lies rigid as a pole, and begs you to get done with it
as quickly as possible. Worse than raping a martyr. When it’s over she gets
a pad, props herself up in bed, and writes a poem. To purify herself, I 
suppose. I could kill her sometimes… “

“What about the brat?” O’Mara piped up. “Does she want the child?”

“Search me!” said Trevelyan. “She never mentions the subject. It might 
just as well be a tumor, for all it seems to matter. Now and then she says 
she’s getting too stout… she wouldn’t say ‘fat,’ that’s too coarse. Stout. 
As though it were strange to be blowing up like a balloon when you’re seven
months along!”

“How do you know she is pregnant?” asked Spud Jason sleepily. “Sometimes 
it’s only imaginary.”

“Imaginary, huh! I only wish to Christ it were; She’s pregnant all right…
I’ve felt it moving inside her.”

“It could be wind,” said someone.

“Wind doesn’t have arms and legs,” said Trevelyan, getting irritated. 
“Wind doesn’t roll over or have conniption fits.”

“Let’s get out of here,” said Spud Jason. “You’ll be giving this one 
ideas.” And with this he gave his side-kick a poke in the ribs that almost 
knocked her off the chair.

As if it were a game they played time and again, Alameda rose quietly, 
walked round him, then gave him a resounding thwack on the face with the 
palm of her hand.

“So that’s it?” cried Spud Jason, leaping from his chair and twisting her
arm. With his other hand he grabbed her long mane and pulled vigorously. 
“Behave yourself, or I’ll blacken your eyes for you!”

“You will, will you?” Alameda was brandishing an empty bottle.

“Get out of here, the two of you!” shouted Mona. “And don’t come back 
again, please!”

“How much do I owe you?” said Spud Jason sheepishly.

“You don’t owe anything,” said Mona, “Just get out and stay out!”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

To my surprise, MacGregor dropped in one night, ordered a drink, and paid
for it without a murmur. He seemed unusually mellow. Inquired solicitously 
how we were doing, what the prospects were, did we need any help—legal 
help—and so on. I couldn’t make out what had come over him.

Suddenly, when Mona had turned her back, he said: “Couldn’t you pull 
yourself away for a few hours some night?”

Without waiting for me to say yes or no, he went on to tell me that he 
was in love again, head over heels, in fact. “Guess you can tell it, can’t 
you?” She was a funny gal, in a way, he explained. A divorcee, with two 
kids on her hands. “How do you like that?” He then said that he wanted to 
impart something very confidential. He knew it was hard for me to keep my 
trap shut, but just the same… “Tess, you know, doesn’t suspect a thing. I 
wouldn’t hurt her for the world. Damn it! Don’t laugh! I say it only 
because you might spill the beans some night in one of your chivalrous 
moods.”

I grinned.

So that was the set-up. Trix, the new one, lived in the Bronx. “To hell 
and gone,” as he put it. He was out every night till three, four or five in
the morning. “Tess thinks I’m gambling. The way the money’s going I might 
just as well be out shooting crap every night. But that’s neither here nor 
there. What I’m asking you is—can you steal away some night, just for a few
hours?” I said nothing, just grinned again. “I’d like you to look her over…
tell me if I’m cuckoo or not.” Here he paused a minute, as if embarrassed. 
‘To focus it a little better for you, Hen, let me tell you this: every 
night after dinner she gets the kids to sit in my lap, one on each knee. 
And what do you think I do? Tell them bedtime stories! Can you picture 
that?” He burst out into a loud guffaw. “You know, Hen, I can hardly 
believe it myself. But it’s a fact. I couldn’t be more considerate of them 
if they were my own kids. Christ, I’ve already bought them a whole 
menagerie of toys. You know, if Tess hadn’t had her insides cleaned out, we
would have had three or four brats ourselves. Maybe that’s one of the 
reasons why we’ve drifted apart. You know Tess, Henry—she’s got a heart of 
gold. But she’s not much to talk to. Interested in her law work and that’s 
about all. If I stay home of a night I fall asleep. Or else I get drunk. 
Why the hell I ever married her I don’t know. You, you bastard, you never 
said a word: you let me sail straight into it. Thought it would do me good,
didn’t you? Well, I’m drifting… You know, sometimes, listening to myself, I
hear my old man talking. He can’t stick to the point longer than two 
minutes. Mother’s the same way… How about another drink? I’m paying for 
them, don’t worry.”

There was silence for a few moments, then I asked him point-blank just 
why he was so eager to have me meet his new gal. “I know damned well,” I 
added, “that you don’t want my approval.”

“No, Hen,” and he looked down at the table top, “to be serious about it, 
I wanted you to come for dinner some night when the kids are eating with us
and… “

“And what?”

“And give me some pointers about these damned fairy tales. Kids take 
these things seriously, you know. I have a feeling I’m doing it 
ass-backwards. Maybe I’m telling them things they oughtn’t to hear till 
they’re five years older… “

“So that’s it?” I blurted out. “Well, I’ll be damned! And what makes you 
think I know anything about this business?”

“Well, you had a kid of your own, didn’t you? Besides, you’re a writer. 
You’re up on this crap, I’m not. I start a story and I don’t know how to 
finish it. I’m all at sea, I tell you.”

“Haven’t you any imagination?”

“Are you kidding? Listen, you know me. All I know is law, and maybe not 
too much of that. I’ve got a single-track mind. Anyway, it’s not just for 
that I want you to come… I want you to meet Trix. I think you’ll like her. 
Boy, she’s some cook! Tess, by the way—well, I don’t have to tell you—but 
Tess can’t even fry an egg This one’ll make you think you’re dining at the 
Ritz. She does it with class. She has a bit of a cellar, too—maybe that 
will get you. Listen, what are you hemming and hawing about? I’d like you 
to have a good time, that’s all. You’ve got to have a change once in a 
while. O’Mara can take over for a few hours, can’t he? That is, if you 
trust him! Personally, I wouldn’t trust him out of my sight… “

Just then Tony Maurer popped in, carrying a thick book under his arm. As 
usual, he was extremely cordial. Took a seat at the table alongside of us 
and asked if we wouldn’t join him in a drink. He held the book up in order 
for me to read the title: Decline of the West.

“Never heard of it,” I said.

“You will before long,” he answered. “A great work. Prophetic… “

MacGregor burst in under his breath: “Forget it! You have no time to read
anyway.”

“May I borrow it when you’re through?” I asked.

“Of course,” said Tony Maurer. “I’ll make you a present of it.”

MacGregor, to excuse himself, inquired if it were a mystical work. He 
wasn’t a damned bit interested, of course, but he saw that Tony Maurer was 
not an idiot.

Told that it was a philosophy of history, he mumbled: “It’s all yours!”

We had a couple of drinks with Tony Maurer, and by this time I was 
feeling rather high. It was just dawning on me that we might have a very 
good evening, or dinner at least, chez Trix. Trix Miranda was the full 
name. I liked the sound of it.

“Which bedtime story do they like best?” I asked. “Something about the 
three bears.”

“You mean Goldilocks and the Three Bears? Why, Jesus, I know that thing 
backwards. You know, I’m just thinking… how would the night after next do?”

“Now you’re talking, Henry. I knew you wouldn’t let me down. By the way, 
you don’t have to, of course, but if you could bring a bottle of wine 
along, Trix would appreciate it. A French wine, if you can.”

“Easiest thing in the world! I’ll bring two or three.” He got up to go, 
and as he shook hands with me he said: “Do me a favor, will you? Don’t get 
tight before we put the kids to bed.”

“It’s a bargain. And now I’ll ask you a favor. Let me tell them the story
about the three bears, eh?”

“O.K., Henry—but no dirty work!”

*

Two nights later I’m having dinner with MacGregor and Trix—in a remote 
corner of the Bronx. The kids are in fine fettle. The boy is five and the 
girl about three and a half. Charming youngsters but rather precocious. I’m
doing my best not to get tight before the kids are put to bed. But we’ve 
had three Martinis while waiting for dinner and now we’re sampling the 
Chambertin which I brought along.

Trix is a good scout, as MacGregor would say. Not a beauty, but easy to 
look at. Has a jovial disposition. The only drawback I detect so far is 
that she’s hysterical.

Everything has been proceeding smoothly. I feel at home with the kids. 
They keep on reminding me that I’ve promised to tell them the story of the 
three bears.

“You’re in for it, Henry,” says MacGregor.

Truth to tell, I haven’t the least desire now to reel off that bedtime 
story. I stretch the meal out as long as I can. I’m a bit groggy. I can’t 
remember how the damned story begins.

Suddenly Trix says: “You must tell it now, Henry. It’s long past their 
bedtime.”

“All right!” I groan. “Get me another black coffee and I’ll begin.”

“I’ll start it for you,” says the boy.

“You won’t do anything of the sort!” says Trix. “Henry is going to tell 
this story—from beginning to end. I want you to listen carefully. Now shut 
up!”

I swallowed some black coffee, choked on it, sputtered and stuttered.

“Once there was a big black bear… “

“That’s not how it begins,” piped the little girl.

“Well, how does it begin then?”

“Once upon a time… “

“Sure, sure… how could I forget? All right, are you listening? Here goes…
Once upon a time there were three bears—a polar bear, a grizzly bear, and a
Teddy bear… “

(Laughter and derision from the two kids.) “The polar bear had a pelt of 
long white fur—to keep him warm, of course. The grizzly bear was… “

“That’s not the way it goes, Mommy!” screamed the little girl.

“He’s making it up,” said the boy .

“Be quiet, you two!” cried Trix.

“Listen, Henry,” said MacGregor, “don’t let them rattle you. Take your 
time. Remember, easy does it. Here, have another drop of cognac, it’ll oil 
your palate.”

I lit a fat cigar, took another sip of cognac, and tried to work myself 
back into the groove. Suddenly it struck me that there was only one way to 
tell it and that was fast as lightning. If I stopped to think I’d be sunk.

“Listen, folks,” I said, “I’m going to start all over again. No more 
interruptions, eh? I winked at the little girl and threw the boy a bone 
which still had some meat on it.

“For a man with your imagination you’re certainly having a hard time,” 
said MacGregor. “This ought to be a hundred dollar story, with all the 
preliminaries you’re going through. You’re sure you don’t want an aspirin?”

“This is going to be a thousand dollar story,” I replied, now in full 
possession of all my faculties. “But don’t interrupt me!”

“Come on, come on, stop diddling! Once upon a time—that’s the way it 
begins,” bawled MacGregor.

“O.K… Once upon a time.. Yeah, that’s It, Once upon a time there were 
three bears: a polar bear, a grizzly bear, and a Teddy bear… “

“You told us that before,” said the boy.

“Be quiet, you!” cried Trix.

“The polar bear was absolutely bare, with long white fur which reached to
the ground. The grizzly bear was just as tough as a sirloin steak, and he 
had lots of fat between his toes. The Teddy bear was just right, neither 
too fat nor too lean, neither tough nor tender, neither hot nor cold… “

Titters from the kids.

“The polar bear ate nothing but ice, ice-cold ice, fresh from the ice 
house. The grizzly bear thrived on artichokes, because artichokes are full 
of burrs and nettles… “

“What’s burrs, mommy?” piped up the little girl.

“Hush!” said Trix.

“As for the Teddy bear, why he drank only skimmed milk. He was a grower, 
you see, and didn’t need vitamins. One day the grizzly bear was out 
gathering wood for the fire. He had nothing on but his bearskin and the 
flies were driving him mad. So he began to run and run and run. Soon he was
deep in the forest. After a while he sat down by a stream and fell asleep… 
“

“I don’t like the way he tells it,” said the boy, “he’s all mixed up.”

“If you don’t keep quiet, I’ll put you to bed!”

“Suddenly little Goldilocks entered the forest. She had a lunch basket 
with her and it was filled with all sorts of good things, including a 
bottle of Blue Label Ketchup. She was looking for the little house with the
green shutters. Suddenly she heard some one snoring, and between snores a 
big booming voice was shouting: ‘Acorn pie for me! Acorn pie for me!’ 
Goldilocks looked first to the right and then to the left. She saw no one. 
So she got out her compass and, facing due west, she followed her nose. In 
about an hour, or perhaps it was an hour and a quarter, she came to a 
clearing in the woods. And there was the little house with the olive drab 
shutters.”

“Green shutters!” cried the boy.

“With the green shutters, right!” And then what do you think happened? A 
great big lion came dashing out of the woods, followed by a little man with
a bow and arrow. The lion was very shy and playful. What did he do but jump
on the roof and wrap himself around the chimney. The little man with the 
dunce cap began crawling on all fours—until he got to the doorway. Then he 
got up, danced a merry jig, and ran inside… “

“I don’t believe it,” said the little girl. “It ain’t true.”

“It is, too,” I said, “and if you’re not careful I’ll box your ears.” 
Here I took a deep breath, wondering what next. The cigar was out, the 
glass was empty. I decided to make haste.

“From here on it goes still faster,” I said, resuming the narrative.

“Don’t go too fast,” said the boy, “I don’t want to miss anything.”

“O.K… Now then, once inside, Goldilocks found everything in apple pie 
order: the dishes were all washed and stacked, the clothes mended, the 
pictures neatly framed. On the table there was an atlas and an unabridged 
dictionary, in two volumes. Somebody had been moving the chess pieces 
around in Teddy bear’s absence. Too bad, because he would have mated in 
eight more moves. Goldilocks, however, was too fascinated by all the toys 
and gadgets, especially the new can opener, to worry about chess problems. 
She had been doing trigonometry all morning and her little brain was too 
weary to puzzle out gambits and that sort of thing. She was dying to ring 
the cow bell which hung over the kitchen sink. To get at it she had to use 
a stool. The first stool was too low; the second one was too high; but the 
third stool was just right. She rang the bell so loud that the dishes fell 
out of the racks. Goldilocks was frightened at first, but then she thought 
it was funny, so she rang the bell again. This time the lion unwound 
himself and slid off the roof, his tail twisted into forty knots. 
Goldilocks thought this was even funnier, so she rang the bell a third 
time. The little man with the dunce cap came running out of the bedroom, 
all a-quiver, and without a word, he began turning somersaults. He flipped 
and flopped, just like an old cart wheel, and then he disappeared into the 
woods… “

“You’re not losing the thread, I hope?” said MacGregor.

“Don’t interrupt!” shouted Trix.

“Mommy, I want to go to bed,” said the little girl.

“Be quiet!” said the boy, “I’m getting interested.”

“And now,” I continued, having caught my breath, “it suddenly began to 
thunder and lightning. The rain came down in buckets. Little Goldilocks was
really frightened. She fell head over heels off the stool, twisting her 
ankle and spraining her wrist. She wanted to hide somewhere until it was 
all over. ‘Nothing easier,’ came a tiny little voice from the far corner of
the room, where the Winged Victory stood. And with that the closet door 
opened itself. I’ll run in there, thought Goldilocks, and she made a dash 
for the closet. Now it so happened that in the closet were bottles and 
jars, heaps and heaps of bottles, and heaps and heaps of jars. Goldilocks 
opened a tiny little bottle and dabbed her ankle with arnica. Then she 
reached for another bottle, and what do you suppose was in it? Sloan’s 
Liniment! ‘Goodness Gracious!’ she said, and suiting word to action, she 
applied the liniment to her wrist. Then she found a little iodine, and 
drinking it straight, she began to sing. It was a merry little tune—about 
Fr6re Jacques. She sang in French because her mother had taught her never 
to sing in any other language. After the 27th verse she got bored and 
decided to explore the closet. The strange thing about this closet is that 
it was bigger than the house itself. There were seven rooms on the ground 
floor, and five above, with a toilet and bath in each room, to say nothing 
of a fireplace and a pier glass decked with chintz. Goldilocks forgot all 
about the thunder and lightning, the rain, the hail, the snails and the 
frogs; she forgot all about the lion and the little man with the bow and 
arrow, whose name, by the way, was Pinocchio. All she could think of was 
how wonderful it was to live in a closet like this… “

“This is going to be about Cinderella,” said the little girl.

“It is not!” snapped the boy. “It’s about the seven dwarfs.”

“Quiet, you two!”

“Go on, Henry,” said MacGregor, ‘Tm curious to see how you get out of 
this trap.”

“And so Goldilocks wandered from room to room, never dreaming that the 
three bears had come home and were sitting down to dinner. In the alcove of
the parlor floor she found a library filled with strange books. They were 
all about sex and the resurrection of the dead… “

“What’s sex?” asked the boy.

“It’s not for you,” said the little girl.

“Goldilocks sat down and began reading aloud from a great big book. It 
was by Wilhelm Reich, author of The Golden Flower or The Mystery of the 
Hormones. The book was so heavy that Goldilocks couldn’t hold it in her 
lap. So she placed it on the floor and knelt beside it. Every page was 
illustrated in gorgeous colors. Though Goldilocks was familiar with rare 
and limited editions, she had to admit to herself that never before had she
seen such beautiful illustrations. Some were by a man named Picasso, some 
by Matisse, some by Ghirlandaio, but all without exception were beautiful 
and shocking to behold… “

“That’s a funny word—behold!” cried the little boy.

“You said it! And now just take a back seat for a while, will you? 
Because now it’s getting really interesting… As I say, Goldilocks was 
reading aloud to herself. She was reading about the Saviour and how he died
on the Cross—for us—so that our sins would be washed away. Goldilocks was 
just a little girl, after all, and so she didn’t know what it was to sin. 
But she wanted very very much to know. She read and read until her eyes 
ached, without ever discovering what it was, exactly, to sin. Til run 
downstairs,’ she said to herself, ‘and see what it says in the dictionary. 
It’s an unabridged dictionary, so it must have sin in it.’ Her ankle was 
all heeled by this time, her wrist too, mirabile dictu. She went skipping 
down the stairs like a seven-day goat. When she got to the closet door, 
which was still ajar, she did a double somersault, just like the little 
fellow with the dunce cap had done… “

“Pinocchio!” cried the boy.

“And then what do you think happened? She landed right in the grizzly 
bear’s lap!”

The youngsters howled with delight.

” ‘All the better to eat you up!’ growled the big grizzly bear, smacking 
his rubbery lips. ‘Just the right size!’ said the polar bear, all white 
from the rain and hail, and he tossed her up to the ceiling. ‘She’s mine!’ 
cried the Teddy bear, giving her a hug which cracked little Goldilocks’ 
ribs. The three bears got busy at once; they undressed little Goldilocks 
and put her on the platter, ready to carve. While Goldilocks shivered and 
whimpered, the big grizzly bear sharpened his axe on the grind stone; the 
polar bear unsheathed his hunting knife, which he carried in a leather 
scabbard attached to his belt. As for Teddy bear, he just clapped his hands
and danced with glee. ‘She’s just right!’ he shouted. ‘Just right!’ Over 
and over they turned her, to see which part was the tenderest. Goldilocks 
began to scream with terror. ‘Be quiet,’ commanded the polar bear, ‘or you 
won’t get anything to eat.’ ‘Please Mr. Polar Bear, don’t eat me!’ begged 
Goldilocks. ‘Shut your trap!’ yelled the grizzly bear. We’!! eat first, and
you’ll eat afterwards.’ ‘But I don’t want to eat,’ cried Goldilocks, the 
tears streaming down her face. ‘You’re not going to eat,’ screamed the 
Teddy bear, and with that he grabbed her leg and put it in his mouth. ‘Oh 
oh!’ screamed Goldilocks. ‘Don’t eat me yet, I beg you. I’m not cooked.’ ” 
The children were getting hysterical.

” ‘Now you’re talking sensible,’ said the grizzly bear. Incidentally, the
grizzly bear had a strong father complex. He didn’t like the flesh of 
little girls unless well done. It was fortunate, indeed, for little 
Goldilocks that the grizzly bear felt this way about little girls, because 
the other two bears were ravenously hungry, and besides, they had no 
complexes whatever. Anyway, while the grizzly bear stirred the fire and 
added more logs, Goldilocks knelt in the platter and said her prayers. She 
looked more beautiful than ever now, and if the bears had been human they 
would not have eaten her alive, they would have consecrated her to the 
Virgin Mary. But a bear is always a bear, and these were no exception to 
the rule. So when the flames were giving off just the right heat, the three
bears took little Goldilocks and flung her onto the burning logs. In five 
minutes she was roasted to a crisp, hair and all. Then they put her back, 
on the platter and carved her into big chunks. For the grizzly bear a great
big chunk; for the polar bear a medium-sized chunk, and for the Teddy bear,
the cute little thing, a nice little tenderloin steak. My, but it tasted 
good. They ate every bit of her—teeth, hair, toenails, bones and kidneys. 
The platter was so clean you could have seen your face in it. There wasn’t 
even a drop of gravy left. ‘And now,’ said the grizzly bear, ‘we’ll see 
what she brought in that lunch basket. I’d just love to have a piece of 
acorn pie.’ They opened the basket and, sure enough, there were three 
pieces of acorn pie. The big piece was very big, the middlin’ piece was 
about medium, and the little piece was just a tiny, wee little snack. ‘Yum 
yum!’ sighed the Teddy bear, licking his chops. ‘Acorn pie! What did I tell
you?’ growled the grizzly bear. The polar bear had stuffed his mouth so 
full he could not grunt. When they had downed the last mouthful the polar 
bear looked around and, just as pleasant as could be, he said: ‘Now 
wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were a bottle of schnapps in that 
basket!’ Immediately the three of them began pawing through the basket, 
looking for that delicious bottle of schnapps… “

“Do we get any schnapps, mommy?” cried the little girl.

“It’s ginger snaps, you dope!” yelled the boy.

“Well at the bottom of the basket, wrapped in a wet napkin, they finally 
found the bottle of schnapps. It was from Utrecht, Holland, year 1926. To 
the three bears, however, it was just a bottle of schnapps. Now bears, as 
you know, never use corkscrews, so it was quite a job to get the cork out… 
“

“You’re wandering,” said MacGregor.

“That’s what you think,” I said. “Just hold your horses.”

“Try to finish it by midnight,” he rejoined.

“Much sooner than that, don’t worry. If you interrupt again, though, I 
will lose the thread.”

“Now this bottle,” I resumed, “was a very unusual bottle of schnapps. It 
had magic properties. When each bear in turn had taken a good swig, their 
heads began to spin. Yet, the more they drank, the more there was left to 
drink. They got dizzier and dizzier, groggier and groggier, thirstier and 
thirstier. Finally the polar bear said: ‘I’m going to drink it down to the 
last drop,’ and, holding the bottle between his two paws, he poured it down
his gullet. He drank and drank, and finally he did come to the last drop. 
He was lying on the floor, drunk as a pope; the bottle upside down, the 
neck halfway down his throat. As I say, he had just swallowed the very last
drop. Had he put the bottle down, it would have refilled itself. But he 
didn’t. He continued to hold it upside down, getting the last drop. And 
then a miraculous thing took place. Suddenly, little Goldilocks came alive,
clothes and all, just as she always was. She was doing a jig on the polar 
bear’s stomach. When she began to sing, the three bears grew so frightened 
that they fainted away, first the grizzly bear, then the polar bear, and 
then the Teddy bear… “

The little girl clapped her hands with delight.

“And now we’re coming to the end of the story. The rain had stopped, the 
sky was bright and clear, the birds were singing, just as always. Little 
Goldilocks suddenly remembered. that she had promised to be home for 
dinner. She gathered up her basket, looked around to make sure she had 
forgotten nothing, and started for the door. Suddenly she thought of the 
cow bell. ‘It would be fun to ring it just once more,’ she said to herself.
And with that, she climbed on to the stool, the one that was just right, 
and she rang with all her might. She rang it once, twice, three times—and 
then she fled as fast as her little legs would carry her. Outside, the 
little fellow with the dunce cap was waiting for her. ‘Quick, get on my 
back!’ he ordered. ‘We’ll make double time that way.’ Goldilocks hopped on 
and away they raced, up hill and down dell, over the golden meadows, 
through the silvery brooks. When they had raced this way for about three 
hours, the little man said: ‘I’m getting weary, I’m going to put you down.’
And he deposited her right there, at the edge of the woods. ‘Bear to the 
left,’ he said, ‘and you can’t miss it.’ He was off again, just as 
mysteriously as he had come… “

“It that the end?” piped the boy, somewhat disappointed.

“No,” I said, “not quite. Now listen… Goldilocks did as she was told, 
bearing to the left. In a very few minutes she was standing in front of her
own door.

“Why, Goldilocks,’ said her mother, ‘What great big eyes you have!’ ” ‘AH
the better to eat you up!’ said Goldilocks.

“‘Why, Goldilocks,’ cried her father, ‘and where in hell did you put my 
bottle of schnapps?’ ” ‘I gave it to the three bears,’ said Goldilocks 
dutifully.

” ‘Goldilocks, you’re telling me a fib,’ said her father threateningly.

“‘I’m not either,’ Goldilocks replied. ‘It’s the God’s truth.’ Suddenly 
she remembered what she had read in the big book about sin. ‘Father,’ she 
said, kneeling before him reverently, ‘I believe I’ve committed a sin.’ ” 
‘Worse than that,’ said her father, reaching for the strap, you’ve 
committed larceny.’ And without another word he began to belt and flay her.
‘I don’t mind your visiting the three bears in the woods,’ he said, as he 
plied the strap. ‘I don’t mind a little fib now and then. But what I do 
mind is not to have a wee drop of schnapps when my throat is sore and 
parched.’ He flayed her and belted her until Goldilocks was just a mass of 
welts and bruises. ‘And now,’ he said, putting in an extra lick for the 
finish, ‘I’m going to give you a treat. I’m going to tell you the story of 
the three bears—or what happened to my bottle of schnapps.’ “And that, my 
dear children, is the end.”

*

The story finished, the kids were hustled off to bed. We could now settle
down comfortably to drink and chew the fat. MacGregor liked nothing better 
than to talk of old times. We were only in our thirties but we had twenty 
years of solid friendship between us and besides, at that age one feels 
older than at fifty or sixty. Actually, both MacGregor and I were still in 
a period of prolonged adolescence.

Whenever MacGregor took up with a new girl it seemed imperative for him 
to look me up, get my approval of her, and then settle down for a long, 
sentimental talk-fest. We had done it so many times that it was almost like
playing a duet. The girl was supposed to sit there enchanted—and to 
interrupt us now and then with a pertinent question. The duet always began 
by one of us asking if the other had seen or heard anything recently of 
George Marshall. I don’t know why we instinctively chose this opening. We 
were like certain chess players who, no matter who the opponent may be, 
always open with the Scotch gambit.

“Have you seen George lately?” says I, apropos of nothing at all.

“You mean George Marshall?”

“Yeah, is seems ages since I’ve seen him.”

“No, Hen, to tell you the truth, I haven’t. I suppose he’s still going to
the Village Saturday afternoons.”

“To dance?”

MacGregor smiled. “If you want to call It that, Henry. You know George!” 
He paused, then added: “George is a queer guy. I think I know less about 
him now than ever.”

“What f”

“Just that, Henry. That guy leads a double life. You ought to see him at 
home, with the wife and kids. You wouldn’t know him.”

I confessed I hadn’t seen George since he got married. “Never liked that 
wife of his.”

“You should talk to George about, her sometime. How they manage to live 
together is a miracle. He gives her what she wants and in return he goes 
his own way. Boy, it’s like skating on dynamite when you visit them. You 
know the sort of double-talk George indulges in… “

“Listen,” I interrupted, “do you remember that night in Greenpoint, when 
we were sitting in the back of some gin mill and George began a spiel about
his mother, how the sun rose and set in her ass?”

“Jesus, Hen, you sure think of strange things. Sure, I remember. I 
remember every conversation we ever had, I guess. And the time and place. 
And whether I was drunk or sober.” He turned to Trix. “Are we boring you? 
You know, the three of us were great pals once. We had some good times 
together, didn’t we, Hen? Remember Maspeth—those athletic contests? We 
didn’t have much to worry about, did we? Let’s see, were you tied up with 
the widow then, or was that later? Get this, Trix… Here’s this guy hardly 
out of school and he falls in love with a woman old enough to be his 
mother. Wanted to marry her, too, didn’t you, Hen?”

I grinned and gave a vague nod.

“Henry always falls hard. The serious sort, though you’d never think it 
to look at him… But about George. As I was saying before, Hen, George is a 
different guy. He’s at loose ends. Hates to work, loathes his wife, and the
kids bore him to death. All he thinks of now is tail. And boy, does he 
chase it! Picks ‘em younger all the time. The last time I saw him he was in
a hell of a mess with some fifteen-year-old from his own school. (I still 
can’t picture George as a principal, can you?) It began right In his 
office, it seems. Then he takes to meeting her at the dance hall. Finally 
he has the nerve to take her to a hotel—and register as man and wife… The 
last I heard they were diddlin’ one another in a vacant lot near the ball 
grounds. Some day, Hen, that guy’s going to make the headlines. And boy, 
that won’t make pleasant reading!”

At this point I had a flash of memory, so vivid and so complete I could 
scarcely contain myself. It was like opening a Japanese fan. The picture 
was of a time when George and I were still twins, so to speak. I was then 
working for my father, which means I must have been twenty-two or three. 
George Marshall had come down with a bad case of pneumonia which had kept 
him bed-ridden for several months. When he got well enough, his parents 
shipped him to the country—somewhere in New Jersey. It all started by my 
receiving a letter from him one day saying that he was recuperating fast 
and wouldn’t I come to visit him. I was only too glad of the chance to 
steal a few days’ vacation, and so I sent him a wire saying I’d be there 
the following day.

It was late autumn. The countryside was cheerless. George met me at the 
station, with his young cousin, Herbie. (The farm was run by George’s aunt 
and uncle, that is, his mother’s sister and her husband.) The first words 
out of his mouth—as I might well have expected—were to the effect that it 
was his mother who had saved his life. He was overjoyed to see me and 
appeared to be in excellent shape. He was brown and weather-beaten.

“The grub is wonderful, Hen,” he said. “It’s a real farm, you know.”

To me it looked much like any other farm—sort of seedy, grubby and 
run-down. His aunt was a stout, kind-hearted, motherly creature whom George
worshipped, apparently, almost as much as he did his mother. Herbie, the 
son, was a bit of a zany. A blabbermouth too. But what got me at once was 
the look of wonder in his eyes. He evidently idolized George. And then the 
way we talked to one another was something new for him. It was hard to 
shake him off our heels.

The first thing we did—I remember it so well—was to have a tall glass of 
milk. Rich milk. Milk such as I hadn’t tasted since I was a boy. “Drink 
five and six of them a day,” says George. He cut me a thick slice of 
home-made bread, spread some country butter over it, and over that some 
home-made jam.

“Did you bring any old clothes with you, Hen?”

I confessed I hadn’t thought of that.

“Never mind, I’ll lend you my things. You’ve got to wear old clothes 
here. You’ll see.”

He looked pointedly at Herbie. “Eh, Herbie?”

I had arrived on the afternoon train. It was now getting on to dark. 
“Change your clothes, Hen, and we’ll take a brisk hike. Dinner won’t be 
ready till seven. Got to work up an appetite, you know.”

“Yeah,” said Herbie, “we’re going to have chicken tonight.”

And in the next breath he asked me if I were a good runner.

George gave me a sly wink. “He’s crazy about games, Hen.”

When I met them at the foot of the stairs I was handed a big stick. 
“Better wear your gloves,” said Herbie.

He threw me a big woolen muffler.

“All set?” says George. “Come on, let’s hurry.” And he starts off at a 
record-breaking clip.

“Why the hurry?” said I. “Where are we going?”

“Down by the station,” said Herbie.

“And what’s down there?”

“You’ll see. Won’t he George?”

The station was a dismal, forlorn affair. A line of freight cars was 
standing there, waiting for milk cans, no doubt.

“Listen,” said George, slowing up a bit to keep in step with me, “the 
idea is to take the lead. You know .what I mean!” He talked rapidly, 
mumbling the words, as if there were something secretive connected with our
actions. “Up to now there’s been just Herbie and me: we’ve had to make our 
own fun. Nothing to worry about, Hen. You’ll get on to it quick enough. 
Just follow me.”

I was more than ever baffled by this Quixotic piece of information. As we
hopped along Herbie became positively electrified. He gabbled like an old 
turkey cock.

George opened the door of the station softly, stealthily, and peered 
inside. An old drunk was snoozing away on the bench. “Here,” said George, 
grabbing my hat and stuffing an old cap in my hand, “wear this!” He shoves 
a crazy looking contraption on his own head and pins a badge on his coat. 
“You stay here,” he commands, “and I’ll open shop. Do just as Herbie does 
and you’ll be all right.”

As George ducks into the office and opens the ticket window Herbie pulls 
me by the hand. “This is it, Hen,” says he, going up to the window where 
George is already standing, pretending to make up the train schedule.

“Sir, I would like to buy a ticket,” says Herbie in a timid voice.

“A ticket to where?” says George, frowning. “We’ve got all kinds of 
tickets here. Do you want first, second, or third class? Let’s see, the 
Weehawken Express pulls out of here in about eight minutes. She’s making a 
connection with the Denver and Rio Grande at Omaha Junction. Any baggage?”

“Please, sir, I don’t know where I want to go yet.”

“Whaddaya mean, you don’t know where you want to go? What do you think 
this is—a lottery? Who’s that man behind you? Any relation of yours?”

Herbie turns round to look at me and blinks.

“He’s my great uncle, sir. Wants to go to Winnipeg, but he’s not sure 
when.”

“Tell him to step up here. What’s the matter with him—is he deaf or just 
hard of hearing?”

Herbie pushed me in front of him. We look at each other, George Marshall 
and I, as if we had never seen each other before.

“I just came from Winnipeg,” says I. “Isn’t there some other place I 
could go to?”

“I could sell you a ticket to New Brunswick, but there wouldn’t be much 
in it for the company. We’ve got to make ends meet, you know. Now here’s a 
nice looking ticket for Spuyten Duyvil—how would that suit you? Or would 
you like something more expensive?”

“I’d like to go by way of the Great Lakes, if you could arrange it.”

“Arrange it? That’s my business! How many in the party? Any cats or dogs?
You know the lakes are frozen now, don’t you? But you can catch the iceboat
this side of Canandaigua. I don’t have to draw a map for you, do I?”

I leaned forward as if to communicate something private and confidential.

“Don’t whisper!” he shouted, banging a ruler against the counter. “It’s 
against the rules… Now then, what is it you wished to convey to me? Speak 
clearly and pause for your commas and semicolons.”

“It’s about the coffin,” I said.

“The coffin? Why didn’t you mention that right off? Hold on a minute, 
I’ll have to telegraph the dispatch master.” He went over to the machine 
and tapped the keys. “Got to get a special routing. Livestock and corpses 
take the deferred route. They spoil too quickly… Anything in the coffin 
besides the body?”

“Yes, sir, my wife.”

“Get the hell out of here before I call the police!” Down came the window
with a bang. And then an infernal racket inside the coop, as if the new 
station master had run amok.

“Quick,” says Herbie, “let’s get out of here. I know a short cut, come 
on!” And grabbing my hand, he pulls me out by the other door, around by the
water tank. “Flop down, quick,” he says, “or they’ll spy you.” We flopped 
in a puddle of dirty water under the tank. “Shhhhh!” says Herbie, putting 
his finger over my lips. “They might hear you.”

We lay there a few minutes, then Herbie got up on all fours, cautiously, 
looking about as if we were already trapped. “You lay here a minute and 
I’ll run up the ladder and see if the tank’s empty.”

“They’re nuts,” I said to myself. Suddenly I asked myself why I should be
lying in that cold dirty water. Herbie called softly: “Come on up, the 
coast is clear. We can hide in here a while.” As I gripped the iron rungs I
felt the wind go through me like an icy blast. “Don’t fall in,” says 
Herbie, “the tank’s half-full.” I climbed to the top and hung from the 
inside of the tank with frozen hands. “How long do we stay this way?” I 
asked after a few minutes. “Not long,” says Herbie. “They’re changing the 
watch now. Hear ‘em? George’ll be waiting for us in the caboose. He’ll have
a nice warm stove going.”

It was dark when we clambered out of the tank and raced across the yard 
to the end of the freight train standing on the siding. I was frozen 
through and through. Herbie was right. As we opened the door of the caboose
there was George sitting before a hot stove, warming his hands.

“Take your coat off, Hen,” he says, “and dry yourself.” Then he reaches 
up to a little closet and gets down a flask of whiskey. “Here, take a good 
pull—this is dynamite.” I did as instructed, passed the flask to George who
took a good swig himself, and then to little Herbie.

“Did you bring any provisions?” says George to Herbie.

“A chippie and a couple of potatoes,” says Herbie, fishing them out of 
his pockets.

“Where’s the mayonnaise?”

“I couldn’t find it, honest” says Herbie.

“Next time I want mayonnaise, understand?” thunders George Marshall. “How
the hell do you expect me to eat roast potatoes without mayonnaise?” Then, 
without transition, he continues: “Now the idea is to crawl under the cars 
until we’re near the engine. When I whistle, the two of you crawl from 
under and run as fast as you can. Take the short cut down to the river. 
I’ll meet you under the bridge. Here, Hen, better take another gulp of 
this… it’s cold down there. Next time I’ll offer you a cigar—but don’t take
it! How do you feel now?” I felt so good I couldn’t see the sense of 
leaving in a hurry. But evidently their plans had to be executed in strict 
timing.

“How about that chippie and the potatoes?” I ventured to ask.

“That’s for next time,” says George. ‘We can’t afford to be trapped 
here.” He turns to Herbie. “Have you got the gun?”

Herbie nodded and opened his jacket enough to reveal a rusty old Colt 
revolver in a holster stuck under his belt.

Off again, scrambling around under the freight trains as if we were 
outlaws. I was glad Herbie had given me the woolen muffler. At a given 
signal Herbie and I flung ourselves face downward under the car, waiting 
for George’s whistle.

“What’s the next move?” I whispered.

“Shhhhh! Some one may hear you.”

In a few minutes we heard a low whistle, crawled out from under, and ran 
as fast as our legs would carry us down the ravine toward the bridge. There
was George again, sitting under the bridge, waiting. “Good work,” he says. 
“We gave ‘em the slip all right. Now listen, we’ll rest a minute or two and
then we’ll make for that hill over there, do you see?” He turned to Herbie.
“Is the gun loaded?”

Herbie examined his rusty old Colt, nodded, then shoved it back in the 
holster.

“Remember,” says George, “don’t shoot unless it’s absolutely necessary. I
don’t want you to be killing any more children accidentally, you 
understand?”

There was a gleam in Herbie’s eyes as he shook his head.

“The idea, Hen, is to get to the foot of that hill before they give the 
alarm. Once we get there we’re safe. We’ll make a detour home by way of the
swamp.”

We started off on a trot, crouching low. Soon we were in the bullrushes 
and the water coming over our shoe tops. “Keep an eye open for traps,” 
muttered George. We got to the foot of the hill without detection, rested 
there a few moments, then set off at a brisk pace to skirt the swamp. 
Finally we reached the road and settled down to a leisurely walk.

“We’ll be home in a few minutes,” says George. “We’ll go in the back way 
and change our clothes. Mum’s the word.”

“Are you sure we shook them off?” I asked.

“Reasonably sure,” says George.

“The last time they followed us right to the bam,” says Herbie.

“What happens if we get caught?”

Herbie drew the side of his hand across his throat.

I mumbled something to the effect that I wasn’t sure I wanted to be 
involved.

“You’ve got to be,” says Herbie. “It’s a feud.”

“We’ll explain it in detail tomorrow,” says George.

In the big room upstairs there were two beds, one for me, and one for 
Herbie and George. We made a fire at once in the big-bellied stove, and 
began changing our clothes.

“How would you like to give me a rubdown?” says George, stripping off his
undershirt. “I get a rubdown twice a day. First alcohol and then goose fat.
Nothing like it, Hen.”

He lay down on the big bed and I went to work. I rubbed until my hands 
ached.

“Now you lie down,” says George, “and Herbie’ll fix you up. Makes a new 
man of you.”

I did as instructed. It sure felt good. My blood tingled, my flesh 
glowed. I had an appetite such as I hadn’t known in ages.

“You see why I came here,” says George. “After supper we’ll play a round 
of pinochle—just to please the old man—and then we’ll turn in.”

“By the way, Hen,” he added, “watch your tongue. No cursing or swearing 
in front of the old man. He’s a Methodist. We say grace before we eat. Try 
not to laugh!”

“You’ll have to do it too some night,” says Herbie. “Say any goddamned 
thing that comes to mind. Nobody listens anyway.”

At table I was introduced to the old man. He was the typical farmer—big 
homy hands, unshaven, smelling of clover and manure, spare of speech, 
wolfing his food, belching, picking his teeth with the fork and complaining
about his rheumatism. We ate enormous quantities, all of us. There were at 
least six or seven vegetables to go with the roast chicken, followed by a 
delicious bread pudding, fruits and nuts of all kinds. Everyone but myself 
drank milk with his food. Then came coffee with real cream and salted 
peanuts. I had to open my belt a couple of notches.

As soon as the meal was over the table was cleared and a pack of greasy 
playing cards was produced. Herbie had to help his mother with the dishes 
while George, the old man and I played a three-handed game of pinochle. The
idea was, as George had already explained, to throw the game to the old 
man, otherwise he became grouchy and surly. I seemed to draw nothing but 
excellent hands, which made it difficult for me to lose. But I did my best,
without being too obvious about it. The old man won by a narrow margin. He 
was highly pleased with himself. “With your hands,” he remarked, “I would 
have been out in three deals.”

Before we went upstairs for the night, Herbie put on a couple of Edison 
phonograph records. One of them was “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” It 
sounded like something from another incarnation.

“Where’s that laughing record, Herbie?” says George.

Herbie dug into an old hat box and with two fingers dexterously extracted
an old wax cylinder. It was a record I’ve never heard the like of. Nothing 
but laughter—laughter of a loon, a crackpot, a hyena. I laughed so hard my 
stomach ached.

“That’s nothing,” says George, “wait till you hear Herbie laugh!”

“Not now,” I begged. “Save it for tomorrow.”

I no more than hit the pillow and I was sound asleep. What a bed! Nothing
but soft, downy feathers—tons of them, it seemed. It was like slipping back
into the womb, swinging in limbo. Bliss. Perfect bliss.

“There’s a piss-pot under the bed, if you need it,” were George’s last 
words. But I couldn’t see myself getting out of that bed, not even to take 
a crap.

In my sleep I heard the maniacal laugh of the loon. It was echoed by the 
rusty door knobs, the green vegetables, the wild geese, the slanting stars,
the wet clothes flapping on the line. It even included Herbie’s old man, 
the part of him that gave way sometimes to melancholy mirth. It came from 
far away, deliciously off-key, absurd and unreasonable. It was the laugh of
aching muscles, of food passing through the midriff, of time foolishly 
squandered, of millions of nothings all harmoniously fitting together in 
the great jig-saw puzzle and making extraordinary sense, extraordinary 
beauty, extraordinary wellbeing. How fortunate that George Marshall had 
fallen ill and almost died! In my sleep I praised the grand cosmocrator for
having arranged everything so sublimely. I slid from one dream to another, 
and from dream to a stone-like slumber more healing than death itself.

I awoke before the others, content, refreshed, motionless except for a 
pleasure waggle of the fingers. The farm-yard cacophany was music to my 
ears. The rustling and scraping, the banging of pails, the 
cock-adoodle-doo, the pitter patter, the calls of the birds, the cackling 
and grunting, the squealing, the neighing and whinnying, the chug-chug of a
distant locomotive, the crunch of hard snow, the slap and gust of the wind,
a rusty axle turning, a log wheezing under the saw, the thud of heavy boots
trudging laboriously—all combined to make a symphony familiar to my ear. 
These homely ancient sounds, these early morning notes born of the stir of 
everyday life, these calls, cackles, echoes and reverberations of the 
barnyard filled me with an earthling’s joy. A starveling and a changeling, 
I heard again the immemorial chant of early man. The old, old song—of ease 
and abundance, of life where you find it, of blue sky, running waters, 
peace and gladness, of fertility and resurrection, and life everlasting, 
life more abundant, life superabundant. A song that starts in the very 
bowels, pervades the veins, relaxes the limbs and all the members of the 
body. Ah, but it was indeed good to be alive—and horizontal. Fully awake, I
once again gave thanks to the Heavenly Father for having stricken my twin, 
George Marshall. And, whilst rendering devout thanks, praising the divine 
works, extolling all creation, I allowed my thoughts to drift toward the 
breakfast which was doubtless under way, and toward the long, lazy stretch 
of hours, minutes, seconds before the day would draw to a close. It 
mattered not how we filled the day, nor if we left it empty as a gourd; it 
mattered only that time was ours and that we could do with it as we wished.

The birds were calling more lustily now. I could hear them winging from 
tree top to tree top, fluttering against the window pains, swooshing about 
under the eaves of the roof.

“Morning, Hen! Morning, Hen!”

“Morning, George! Morning, Herbie!”

“Don’t get up yet, Hen… Herbie’ll make the fire first.”

“O.K. Sounds wonderful.”

“How did you sleep?”

“Like a top.”

“You see why I don’t want to get well too quick.”

“Lucky guy, you. Aren’t you glad you didn’t die?”

“Hen, I’m never going to die. I promised myself that on my death-bed. 
It’s just too wonderful to be alive.”

“You said it. I say, George, let’s fool them all and live forever, what 
f” Herbie got up to make the fire, then crawled back into bed and began 
chuckling and cooing.

“What do we do now?” I asked. “Lie here till the bell rings?”

“Exactly,” said Herbie.

“I say, Hen, wait till you taste those com muffins his mother makes. They
melt in your mouth.”

“How do you like your eggs?” said Herbie. “Boiled, fried or scrambled?”

“Any old way, Herbie. Who gives a damn? Eggs are eggs. I can suck them 
raw too.”

“The bacon, Hen, that’s the thing. Thick as your thumb.”

Thus the second day began, to be followed by a dozen more, all of the 
same tenor. As I said before, we were twenty-two or three at the time, and 
still in our adolescence. We had nothing on our minds but play. Each day it
was a new game, full of hair-raising stunts. “To take the lead,” as George 
had put it, was as easy as drawing one’s breath. Between times we skipped 
rope, threw quoits, rolled marbles, played leap-frog. We even played tag. 
In the toilet, which was an outhouse, we kept a chess board on which a 
problem was always waiting for us. Often the three of us took a shit 
together. Strange conversations in that outhouse! Always some fresh tid-bit
about George’s mother, what she had done for him, what a saint she was, and
so on. Once he started to talk about God, how there must be one, since only
God could have pulled him through. Herbie listened reverently—he worshipped
George.

One day George drew me aside to tell me something confidential. We were 
to give Herbie the slip for an hour or so. There was a young country girl 
he wanted me to meet. We could find her down near the bridge, toward dark, 
with the right signal.

“She looks twenty, though she’s only a kid,” said George, as we hastened 
toward the spot. “A virgin, of course, but a dirty little devil. You can’t 
get much more than a good feel, Hen. I’ve tried everything, but it’s no 
go.”

*

Kitty was her name. It suited her. A plain-looking girl, but full of sap 
and curiosity. Hump for the monkeys.

“Hello,” says George, as we sidle up to her. “How’s tricks? Want you to 
meet a friend of mine, from the city.”

Her hand was tingling with warmth and desire. It seemed to me she was 
blushing, but it may have been simply the abundant health which was 
bursting through her cheeks.

“Give him a hug and squeeze.”

Kitty flung her arms about me and pressed her warm body tight to mine. In
a moment her tongue was down my throat. She bit my lips, my ear lobes, my 
neck. I put my hand under her skirt and through the slit in her flannel 
drawers. No protest. She began to groan and murmur. Finally she had an 
orgasm.

“How was it, Hen? What did I tell you?”

We chatted a while to give Kitty a breathing spell, then George locked 
horns with her. It was cold and wet under the bridge, but the three of us 
were on fire. Again George tried to get it in, but Kitty managed to wriggle
away.

The most he could do was put it between her legs where she held it like a
vise.

As we were walking back toward the road Kitty asked if she couldn’t visit
us sometime—when we got back to the city. She had never been to New York.

“Sure,” said George, “let Herbie bring you. He knows his way around.”

“But I won’t have any money,” said Kitty.

“Don’t worry about that,” said big-hearted George, “we’ll take care of 
you.”

“Do you think your mother would trust you?” I asked.

Kitty replied that her mother didn’t give a damn what she did. “It’s the 
old man: he tries to work me to the bone.”

“Never mind,” said George, “leave it to me.”

In parting she lifted her dress, of her own accord, and invited us to 
give her a last good feel.

“Maybe I won’t be so shy,” she said, “when I get to the city.” Then, 
impulsively, she reached into our flies, took out our cocks, and kissed 
them—almost reverently. “I’ll dream about you tonight,” she whispered. She 
was almost on the point of tears.

“See you tomorrow,” said George, and we waved goodbye.

“See what I mean, Hen? Boy, if you could get that you’d have something to
remember.”

“My balls are aching.”

“Drink lots of milk and cream. That helps.”

“I think I’d rather jerk off.”

“That’s what you think now. Tomorrow you’ll be panting to see her. I 
know. She’s in my blood, the little bitch… Don’t let Herbie know about 
this, Hen. He’d be horrified. He’s just a kid compared to her. I think he’s
in love with her.”

“What will we tell him when we get back?”

“Leave that to me.”

“And her old man—don’t you ever think of that?”

“You said it, Hen. If he ever caught us I think he’d cut our balls off.”

“That’s cheering.”

“You’ve got to take a chance,” said George. “Here in the country all the 
gals are dying for it. They’re much better than city tripe, you know that. 
They smell clean. Here, smell my fingers—ain’t that delicious?”

*

Childish amusements… One of the funniest things was taking turns riding 
an old tricycle which had belonged to Herbie’s dead sister. To see George 
Marshall, a grown man, pushing the pedals of that ridiculous vehicle was a 
sight for sore eyes. His fanny was so big he had to be squeezed into the 
seat with might and main. Steering with one hand, he energetically rang a 
cow bell with the other. Now and then a car stopped, thinking he was a 
cripple in trouble: George would allow the occupants to get out and escort 
him to the other side of the road, pretending that he was indeed a 
paralytic. Sometimes he would bum a cigarette or demand a few pennies. 
Always in a strong Irish brogue, as if he had just arrived from the old 
country.

One day I espied an old baby carriage in the bam. It struck me that it 
would be still funnier if we took George Marshall out for a walk in that. 
George didn’t give a shit. We got a bonnet with ribbons and a big horse 
blanket to cover him. But try as we would, we couldn’t get him into the 
carriage. So Herbie was elected. We dressed him up like a kewpie doll, 
stuck a clay pipe in his mouth, and started down the road. At the station 
we ran into an elderly spinster waiting for the train. As usual, George 
took the lead.

“I say, ma’am,” touching his cap, “but would you be tellin’ us where we 
might get a little nip? The boy’s almost frozen.”

“Dear me,” said the spinster automatically. Then suddenly getting the 
drift of his words, she squeaked: “What‘8 that you said, young man f” Again
George touched his cap respectfully, pursing his lips and squinting like an
old spaniel. “Just a wee nip, that’s all. He’s nigh on to eleven but it’s a
terrible thirst he has.”

Herbie was sitting up now, puffing vigorously at the short clay pipe. He 
looked like a gnome.

At this point I felt like taking the lead myself. The spinster had a look
of alarm which I didn’t like.

“I beg pardon, ma’am,” said I, touching my cap, “but the two of them are 
dotty. You know… ” I tapped my skull.

“Dear me, dear me,” she wheezed, “how perfectly dreadful.”

“I do my best to keep them in good spirits. They’re quite a trial. Quite.
Especially the little one. Would you like to hear him laugh?”

Without giving her a chance to answer, I beckoned Herbie to go to it. 
Herbie’s laugh was really insane. He did it like a ventriloquist’s dummy, 
beginning with an innocent little smile which slowly broadened into a grin,
then a chuckle and a cooing followed by a low gurgling, and finally a belly
laugh which was irresistible. He could keep it up indefinitely. With the 
pipe in one hand and the rattle which he waved frantically in the other, he
was a picture out of a Swiss joke book. Every now and then he paused to 
hiccough violently, then leaned over the side of the carriage and spat. To 
make the situation still more ludicrous, George Marshall had taken to 
sneezing. Pulling out a large red handkerchief with huge holes in it, he 
vigorously blew his nose, then coughed, then sneezed some more.

“The tantrums,” I said, turning to the spinster. “There’s no harm they be
doing. Wonderful boys, the two of ‘em—except they be queer.” Then, on the 
impulse, I added: “Fact is, ma’am,” touching my cap reverently, “we’re all 
screwballs. You wouldn’t know where we might stop for the night, seein’ the
condition we’re in? If only you had a drop of brandy—just a thimbleful. Not
for meself, you understand, but for the little ones.”

Herbie broke into a crying fit. He was so gleefully hysterical he didn’t 
know what he was doing. He waved the rattle so assiduously that suddenly he
lurched too far and the carriage tipped over.

“Goodness gracious, goodness gracious!” wailed the spinster.

George quickly pulled Herbie loose. The latter now stood up, in his 
jacket and long pants, the bonnet still wreathed around his head. He 
clutched the rattle like a maniac. Goofy was no word for it.

Says George, touching his cap, “No hurt, ma’am. He’s got a thick skull.” 
He takes Herbie by the arm and pulls him close. “Say something to the lady!
Say something nice!” And he gives him a god-awful box on the ears.

“You bastard!” yells Herbie.

“Naughty, naughty!” says George, giving him another cuff. “What do you 
say to ladies? Speak up now, or I’ll have to take your pants down.”

Herbie now assumed an angelic expression, raised his eyes heavenward, and
with great deliberation, delivered himself thus: “Gentle creature of God, 
may the angels deliver you! There are nine of us in all, not counting the 
goat. My name is O’Connell, ma’am. Terence O’Connell. We were going to 
Niagara Falls, but the weather… “

The old cluck refused to hear any more. “You’re a public disgrace, the 
three of you,” she cried. “Now stay here, all of you, while I look for the 
constable.”

“Yes, ma’am,” says George, touching his cap, “we’ll stay right here, 
won’t we, Terence?” With this he gives Herbie a sound slap in the face.

“Ouch!” yells Herbie.

“Stop that, you fool!” screams the spinster. “And you!” she says to me, 
“why don’t you do something? Or are you crazy too?”

“That I am,” says I, and so saying, I put my fingers to my nose and began
bleating like a nanny goat.

“Stay right here! I’ll be back in a minute!” She ran toward the station 
master’s office.

“Quick!” says George, “let’s get the hell out of here!” The two of us 
grabbed the handle of the baby carriage and started running. Herbie stood 
there a moment, unfastening his bonnet; then he took to his heels.

“Good work, Herbie,” said George, when we got safely out of sight. “Let’s
rehearse this tonight. Hen’ll give you a new spiel, won’t you, Hen?”

“I don’t want to be the baby any more,” said Herbie.

“All right,” said George amiably, “we’ll let Hen ride in the carriage.”

“If I can squeeze in, you mean.”

“We’ll squeeze you in, if we have to use a sledgehammer.”

But after dinner that night we got new ideas, better ones, we thought. We
lay awake till midnight discussing plans and projects.

Just as we were dozing off, George Marshall suddenly sat up.

“Are you awake, Hen?” he says.

I groaned.

“There’s something I forgot to ask you.”

“What’s that?” I mumbled, fearing to wake myself up.

“Una… Una Gifford! You haven’t said a word about her all this time. 
What’s the matter, aren’t you in love with her any more?”

“Jesus!” I groaned, “what a thing to ask me in the middle of the night.”

“I know, Henry, I’m sorry. I just want to know if you still love her.”

“You know the answer,” I replied.

“Good, I thought so. O.K., Hen, good night!”

“Good night!” said Herbie.

“Good night!” said I.

I tried to fall back to sleep but it was impossible. I lay there staring 
at the ceiling and thinking of Una Gifford. After a while I decided to get 
it out of my system.

“Are you awake, George?” I called softly.

“You want to know if I saw her lately, don’t you?” he said.

He hadn’t closed his eyes, obviously.

“Yeah, I would. Tell me anything. Any little crumb will do.”

“I wish I could, Hen, I know how you feel, but there just isn’t anything 
to tell.”

“Christ, don’t say that! Make up something!”

“All right, Hen, I’ll do that for you. Hold on a minute. Let me think… “

“Something simple,” I said. “I don’t want a fantastic story.”

“Listen, Hen, this is no lie: I know she loves you. I can’t explain how I
know, but I do.”

“That’s good,” I said. ‘Tell me a little more.”

“The last time I saw her I tried to pump her about you. She pretended to 
be absolutely indifferent. But I could tell she was dying to hear about 
you… “

“What I’d like to know,” I broke in, “is this: has she taken up with 
someone else?”

“There is somebody, Hen, I can’t deny that. But it’s nothing to worry 
about. He’s just a fill-in.”

“What’s his name?”

“Carnahan or something like that. Forget about him! What worries Una is 
the widow. That hurt her, you know.”

“She can’t know very much about that!”

“She knows more than you think. Where she gets it, I don’t know. Anyway, 
her pride’s hurt.”

“But I’m not going with the widow any more, you know that.”

“Tell it to her!” says George.

“I wish I could.”

“Hen, why don’t you make a clean breast of it? She’s big enough to take 
it.”

“I can’t do it, George. I’ve thought and thought about it, but I can’t 
screw up the courage.”

“Maybe I can help you,” said George.

I sat up with a bang. “You think so? Really? Listen, George, I’d swear my
life away to you if you could patch it up. I know she’d listen to you… When
are you going bach?”

“Not so fast, Hen. Remember, it’s an old sore. I’m not a wizard.”

“But you’ll try, you promise me that?”

“Of course, of course. Fratres Semper!”

I thought hard and fast for a few moments, then I said: “I’ll write her a
letter tomorrow, saying I’m with you and that we’ll both be back soon. That
might prepare the way.”

“Better not,” said George promptly. “Better spring a surprise on her. I 
know Una.”

Maybe he was right. I didn’t know what to think. I felt elated and 
depressed at the same time. Besides, there was no prodding him into quick 
action.

“Better go to sleep,” said George. “We’ve got lots of time to hatch up 
something.”

“I’d go back tomorrow, if I could get you to go with me.”

“You’re crazy, Hen. I’m still convalescing. She won’t get married in a 
hurry, if that’s what’s eating you up.”

The very thought of her marrying someone else petrified me. Somehow I had
never visualized that. I sank back on the pillow like a dying man. I 
actually groaned with anguish.

“Hen… “

“Yes?”

“Before I go to sleep I want to tell you something… You’ve got to stop 
taking this so seriously. Sure, if we can patch it up, fine! I’d like 
nothing better than to see you get her. But you won’t if you let it get 
under your skin. She’s going to make you miserable just as long as she can.
That’s her way of getting back at you. She’s going to say no because you 
expect her to say no. You’re off balance. You’re licked before you start… 
If you want a bit of advice, I’d say drop her for a while. Drop her cold. 
It’s a risk, certainly, but you’ve got to take it. As long as she’s got the
upper hand you’re going to dance like a puppet. No woman can resist doing 
that. She’s not an angel, even if you think she is. She’s a swell-looking 
girl and she’s got a big heart. I’d marry her myself, if I thought I stood 
a chance… Listen, Hen, there’s plenty to pick from. For all you know, there
may even be better ones than Una. Have you ever thought of that?”

“You’re talking drivel,” I replied. “I wouldn’t care if she were the 
worst bitch in creation… she’s the one I want—and no one else.”

“O.K., Hen, it’s your funeral. I’m going to sleep… “

I lay awake a long while, revolving all manner of memories. They were 
delicious thoughts, filled with Una’s presence. I was certain George would 
patch It up for me. He liked to be coaxed, that was all. Through a slit in 
the window shade I could see a brilliant blue star. Seemed like a good 
omen. I wondered, calf-like, if she were also lying awake, mooning about 
me. I concentrated all my powers, hoping to wake her if she were asleep. 
Under my breath I softly called her name. It was such a beautiful name. It 
suited her perfectly.

Finally I began to doze. The words of an olden song came to my lips…

I wonder as I wander out under the sky

How Jesus our Saviour did come for to die

For poor orn’ry people like you and like I

I wonder as I wander out under the sky.

Forget all about her? How easy to say that! I could never, never forget 
Una, not even if I lived to have nine wives and forty-six children. George 
was really a sap. He would never know what it was to be in love—he was too 
clear-headed. I made up my mind to find out all about that guy Carnahan as 
soon as I got back. Taking no chances. I wondered some more as I wandered 
out under the sky. Then blotto—like a sheet of lead falling.

The next day it rained. We cooped ourselves up in the barn the whole day,
playing one game after another—euchre, whist, backgammon, checkers, 
dominoes, lotto, parchesi… We even played jacks. Toward evening George 
suggested that we try out the organ which was in the parlor. It was an 
ancient, wheezy contraption, just made for melancholy hymns. George and I 
took turns playing. We sang with full lungs, lustily, like Christian 
martyrs. Our favorite, which we jazzed up finally, was—“Will There be any 
Stars in my Crown?” Herbie could sing it to perfection, with tears in his 
eyes. His mother, never dreaming that we were clowning it, came in, took a 
seat in the corner, and murmured now and then: “How beautiful!”

Finally the old man appeared. He too joined in the singing. Said it made 
him feel good. Hoped we boys would continue to live and act like good 
Christians. At dinner he thanked God for having inspired us to sing His 
praises so beautifully. He thanked Him heartily for all the blessings He 
had showered on them throughout the years.

It was a smoked tenderloin of pork this time, with sauerkraut and mashed 
potatoes, red cabbage, boiled onions, apple sauce and stewed pears. For 
dessert we had a cheese cake which was still warm. And, of course, the 
usual glass of milk rich with cream.

Oddly enough, the old man was talkative for a change. He had been reading
a book, the same book, for over a year now. It was called In Tune with the 
Infinite. He wondered if George or I had ever read it. George avoided the 
issue, but gave me a sidelong glance which meant—“Take the lead!”

Since we had to talk, I felt we might just as well make an evening of it 
on a subject dear to the old man’s heart. I began by pretending that I 
wasn’t certain I had understood everything the author meant to convey. The 
old man was pleased by this show of modesty. He probably had understood 
very little himself, if the truth were known.

“I had a friend once.” I began, “who could explain all manner of things. 
He carried this very book about with him night and day, wherever he went. 
George knows who I mean, don’t you, George?”

“Sure,” says George, “you mean Abercrombie.” (There was no such person, 
of course.) “Yes, that’s the name.”

“He lisped a bit, didn’t he?” said George.

“No, he limped.”

The old man signalled to get on with the story. He didn’t care what the 
man’s name was nor whether he limped or stuttered.

“I met him out in California, about three years ago, it was. He was 
studying to be a minister of the gospel then. I say then, because he 
discovered a gold mine shortly after we met and he forgot all about God 
pretty quick.”

“Didn’t he meet with an accident?” says George. “No, that was his 
brother—or his half-brother, rather.”

The old man didn’t relish George’s interruptions, I could see that 
plainly. I decided to make haste.

“It was at the edge of the Mojave Desert we happened to meet,” I 
continued. “I had been looking for a job with the borax people. Abercrombie
says to me: ‘You don’t want a job, Henry, what you need is to find God. 
I’ve come to help you.’ He called me Henry, mind you, though I had never 
told him my name. He says: ‘I had a dream about you back in Barstow the 
other night. I knew you were in trouble, so I came just as quickly as I 
could.’ His talk made me just a little uneasy. I had never before met any 
one who had second sight or who could communicate telepathically. I thought
at first he might be spoofing me. But he was dead serious, as I soon 
discovered.”

“You say he had this book with him?” the old man asked, looking somewhat 
puzzled.

“Yes, sir… it was by Ralph Waldo Trine, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right,” said the old man. “Go on now, I’m interested.”

“I hardly know where to begin,” I faltered. “Seems like so many things 
happened at once.”

“Take your time,” said the old man, “this is very interesting indeed. 
Mom, let’s have some more of that coffee, will you—and another cut of 
cheese cake.”

I was glad to have a breather because I actually didn’t know what was 
coming next. I had started a story without any idea of how it would end. I 
had expected George Marshall to fill in, to help me over the humps.

“As I was saying, we were alone out there in the desert. He had come to 
me in the middle of the night, and he was standing there talking to me as 
if he had known me all his life. In fact, I might say that he seemed to 
know me better than my most intimate friends. He kept saying, ‘You’re in 
trouble, let me help you.’ Now the strange thing is I didn’t know I was in 
trouble, not any special trouble, at any rate. All I wanted was a job, and 
that wasn’t so difficult. But the next day I realized that he knew what he 
was talking about, because in the afternoon I got a telegram from a friend 
of mine saying my mother was very ill and that I should return at once. I 
didn’t have more than a couple of dollars in my pocket. Of course, 
Abercrombie knew what was in the telegram–I didn’t have to read it aloud to
him. ‘What’ll I do?’ I says, and he answers: ‘Get down on your knees and 
pray!’ So I got down, and he got down too, right beside me, and we prayed a
long time. I immediately felt better, I must say. It was as though a load 
had been lifted off me. That very evening a stranger knocked at our door. 
He was a cattle man from Wyoming. He wanted to know if we could put him up 
for the night. Well, we got to talking and before long he too knew all 
about my circumstances. We went to bed and the next morning this stranger 
pulls me aside. ‘How much would it take to get you back home?’ he asks me 
straight off. I was flabbergasted. I didn’t know what to say. ‘Here, take 
this,’ he says, and he shoves two bills in my hand. They were fifty dollar 
bills. ‘I guess that’ll see you through,’ he says, giving me a warm, 
friendly smile. ‘I’ll pay you back as soon as I can,’ I said gratefully. 
‘Don’t worry about that, son,’ he says, ‘I’ve got more than I need. Take it
and give it to somebody else in need when the time comes.’ “When he left, 
Abercrombie says to me:

” ‘Your prayer was answered. Never doubt again. I’m going back to 
Barstow. If you’re ever in need again, send for me.’ ” ‘But where and how?’
I asked.

” ‘Send out a call, that’s all. I’ll get it wherever you are. Just 
believe.’ “About six months late I was in trouble again. This time over a 
woman. I was desperate. And then suddenly I remembered Abercrombie’s words,
and I sent out a call. Three days later he showed up at my home—all the way
from Colorado.”

The old man leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his head buried in 
his hands. “That is remarkable, Henry,” he said. “And did he help you the 
second time?”

“He did indeed,” I answered. “I didn’t have to do a thing, except pray. 
This time, when he left, Abercrombie says to me: ‘You’ll never have to send
for me again, Henry. By now you must realize that it is not I who has the 
power, but God. Trust Him and your prayers will be answered. I’ll probably 
never see you again—but I’ll always be near you, in spirit.’ And I never 
did see him again. But, as he said, I know he’s always near. I’d know it if
he were to die, for instance.”

“Well, George,” says the old man, “what have you to say for yourself? Did
you ever have an experience like that?”

“No,” says George, “but I’d like to ask Hen a question.” He turned to me 
with a perfectly straight face, and said: “Isn’t it true, Hen, that this 
Abercrombie was a jail-bird once?”

(Pure invention, of course, but I had to take it up.) “Yes,” I replied, 
“he had been in prison for ten years on a charge of manslaughter. I never 
knew whether he was guilty or not.”

“But how did he happen to commit the crime?”

I had to think fast.

“He was convicted of killing a man in self-defense. There were no 
witnesses.”

“But didn’t Abercrombie have a strange reputation—before the killing?”

“Ye-e-s,” I admitted, not knowing what George’s next move might be.

“Did it ever strike you, Hen, that Abercrombie was a bit queer? I don’t 
mean crazy, but he must have had a loose tile. Didn’t you tell me once that
he believed he could fly?”

“Yes, he did say that—once. But he never repeated it. He wasn’t boasting,
either, when he said it. He was telling me of the extraordinary powers God 
sometimes grants us mortals when we have need of His protection. That isn’t
so queer, is it?”

“Maybe not, Hen… but there were other things.”

“Like what?”

“You said he could see in the dark, like a cat, that he heard things 
other people couldn’t possibly hear, that he had a phenomenal memory. I 
think you said once that he claimed to have two fathers. What did he mean 
by that f” This last really stumped me. I had to admit I couldn’t answer 
the question.

“Listen, Hen, there were a lot of things about Abercrombie that were 
shady. I never said anything at the time, because you believed in him so 
implicitly. You said before that he discovered a gold mine. Are you dead 
sure of that?”

“No,” I said, “I heard that from his half-brother.”

“Who was a notorious liar,” says George quickly.

The old man signified that he wasn’t taking kindly to George’s grilling.

“But Hen’s gullible,” George insisted. “He believes anything and 
everything.”

“Belief is God-like,” said the old man curtly.

“But it’s got to be within reason,” said George. “One can’t believe 
anything and everything!”

“George,” said the old man, “you’re like your father. You’re a doubting 
Thomas.”

“Now, now,” said George’s aunt, “don’t say things like that!”

“I will too!” said the old man, thumping the table with his fist. 
“George’s father is a good man, but he has no faith. He never did have 
any—not an ounce. He’ll die in sin, like he was born.”

The old man’s wrath was rising.

“He’s been good to me,” said George stubbornly, not because he cared 
about his father, but just to make the old man angrier.

“That doesn’t matter,” said the old man, “it’s his duty to treat you 
right, he deserves no credit for that. What is he doing for God? That’s 
what I want to know.”

George couldn’t answer that. The old man continued to rant and rail. His 
wife tried to calm him down but succeeded only in fanning his ire. These 
bursts of temper obviously took the place of a good souse.

I don’t know what would have happened had not little Herbie had an 
inspiration. Suddenly he began to sing—one of those sweet, sticky Christian
hymns which make the tears flow. He sang like an angel, with eyes closed, 
and in a falsetto voice. We were all so astounded no one dared say a word. 
When he had finished, he leaned forward, bowed his head, and murmured a 
prayer. He begged God to restore peace and harmony in the bosom of the 
family, to forgive his father for losing his temper, to ease his mother’s 
burdens, and finally with great sanctimoniousness, to look after Cousin 
George who had been grievously stricken. When he lifted his face the tears 
were streaming down his cheeks.

The old man was visibly moved. Apparently Herbie had never put on an act 
like this before.

“You’d better go to bed now, son,” he said, his voice quivering. 
“Tomorrow I’m going to get you that bicycle you’ve been asking for.”

“Bless you, father,” said Herbie. “And you, too, mother. May God keep us 
all and preserve us from harm!”

I noticed that his mother looked rather apprehensive.

“You’re not ill, are you, Herbie?” she inquired solicitously.

“No, ma, I’m just fine.”

“Well, have a good sleep,” she said, “and don’t worry too much.”

“George,” said the old man, putting his arm around George’s shoulder, 
“forgive my hasty words. Your father is a good man. He’ll find his way to 
God some day.”

“We’re all sinners before the Lord,” said Herbie.

I was beginning to find it difficult to keep a straight face.

“Let’s take a little walk before we turn in,” I suggested.

“You go straight to bed,” said the old man to Herbie. “It’s getting 
late.”

Outside George and I started walking rapidly toward the river. When we 
got a convenient distance away from the house we exploded with laughter.

“That little Herbie’s a comedian,” I said. “I don’t know how the hell I 
managed to keep a straight face.”

“He sure knows how to take the lead,” said George. “I wonder if Kitty’s 
still up?” he added impulsively.

“Jesus, don’t try that!” I cautioned. “It’s too late.”

“You never know,” says George. “I’d like to twine my fingers around that 
rose-bush before going to bed, wouldn’t you?”

“I’d like a good drink, if you ask me,” said I.

“That’s an idea. Let’s go to the caboose and see what’s there.”

We took the long way around, skirting Kitty’s house. The lights were out,
but George insisted on giving the signal—two low whistles—just in case. “If
she’s not dead to the world,” said George, “she’ll sneak out and follow 
us.” We strolled leisurely to the caboose.

We put the lantern on the stove, opened the flask which still contained a
few drops, and sat there with ears cocked.

“You’re taking a hell of a chance, George. You can get twenty years for 
this.”

“If I could only get it in,” he replied, “it would be worth it.”

“You can have her,” I said, “I’m clearing out.”

“Don’t do that, Hen. Wait a few minutes and I’ll go with you.”

I waited a few minutes, then got up.

“Maybe she’s down by the bridge, waiting for us,” said George.

We strolled down to the bridge. Sure enough, there she was. “Oh, George,”
she cried, “I thought you’d never come.” She flung her arms about him 
passionately. I walked away, saying I’d keep watch. I stood at the 
crossroads for almost a half-hour. I had doused the lantern, of course. 
“The fool!” I thought to myself. “He won’t be happy until he knocks her 
up.”

Finally I heard them coming. “Well, any luck this time?” I asked, after 
we had seen Kitty off.

George groaned. “Let’s go down to the river. I think I’ve got blood all 
over me.”

“Oi yoi!” I whistled. “So that’s it! Now you’re really in for it.”

“Guess we’ll have to go back to the city soon,” said George.

“What? Are you going to leave her in the ditch?”

“She won’t tell on me. I made her promise.”

“I’m not thinking of you, you bastard. I’m thinking of her.”

“Oh, we can fix it up when she comes to the city,” said George. “I know a
medical student who’ll do the trick.”

“Supposing she gets a hemorrhage?”

“She won’t,” said George. “She’s too healthy.”

We didn’t speak for a while.

“About Una,” says George suddenly. “I’ve been thinking it over, Hen. I 
think the best thing is for you to see her yourself. I might only make a 
mess of it.”

“You bastard!”

Another streak of silence.

“I think I’ll leave in a day or two,” I said, as we neared the house.

“Might be a good idea,” said George. “You don’t want to wear out your 
welcome.”

“I’d like to pay something for my board,” I said. “You can’t do that, 
Hen, they’d be insulted.”

“Well, I’ll buy them something, then.”

“O.K.,” said George.

After a pause, he added: “Don’t think I’m not grateful for all you’ve 
done.”

“It was nothing,” I said. “Some day you can take care of me.”

“I’m sorry about Una… I really don’t… “

I cut him short. “Forget it!”

“It would be a shame to lose her, Hen.”

“Don’t let that worry you. I’m not giving her up.”

“This Carnahan… she’s engaged to him, you know.”

“What? Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” said George.

“So that’s it? Listen, I’m leaving tomorrow by the first train.”

“Don’t get panicky, Hen! They’ve been engaged for three months now.”

“What? Jesus, it beats me how you could keep such a thing quiet.”

“I thought it would blow over. I’m sure she’s not in love with him.”

“But she might marry him just to spite me,” I retorted.

“That’s true… But she’d regret it for the rest of her life, if she did.”

“And what good would that do me? Listen, you’re a chump, do you know 
that?”

“Don’t get sore, Hen. What could I do? If I had told you, you’d have been
miserable. Besides, we hadn’t seen one another for a long while.”

“Why not be honest about it? You simply don’t give a shit one way or the 
other, isn’t that it?”

“Come on now, don’t be foolish!”

“George,” I said, “I like you just as much as ever; I can’t help liking 
you, we’ve been so close all these years. But I’ll never trust you again. 
You had no right not to let me know.”

“All right, Hen, have it your own way.”

We said no more. We went to bed in silence—after George had washed 
himself thoroughly. I half hoped he’d get a good dose of clap.

In the morning I said goodbye to everyone. When I got to New York I 
stopped at a shop and sent the folks a huge box of chocolates, not knowing 
what the hell would please them.

From then on, George Marshall was no longer my twin brother…

*

“So that’s how you lost Una?” said MacGregor. “Yep! When I got back I 
found that she was married. Had married just three days before.”

“Well, Hen, it was all for the best, I guess.”

“That sounds just like George.”

“No, seriously, why try to buck Fate? Suppose you had married her? In a 
year or two you’d have separated—if I know you.”

“Better to separate than never to marry.”

“Hen, you’re a chump! To hear you, I’d say you were still in love with 
her.”

“Maybe I am.”

“You’re nuts. If you were to run into her tomorrow, in the street, you’d 
probably run away from her.”

“Maybe I would. But that has nothing to do with it.”

“You’re hopeless, Hen.” He turned to Trix. “Did you ever hear the like of
it? And he calls himself a writer! Wants to write about life but doesn’t 
know human nature.” He turned square around. “When you get ready to write 
the great American novel, Hen, see me! I’ll give you a few facts of life to
set you straight.”

I laughed outright.

“All right, wise guy, go head and laugh. When your smoke dreams clear 
away, come to me and I’ll untangle the mess for you. I’ll give you two more
years with this… this what’s her name… yeah, Mona. Mona, Una… sort of go 
together, don’t they? Why don’t you choose a gal with an ordinary name, 
like Mary, Jane or Sal?”

Having delivered himself of this, MacGregor felt a little mellower. 
“Hen,” he began, “we’re all saps. You’re not the worst guy in the world, 
not by a long shot. The trouble is, we all had big ideals. But once your 
eyes are opened you realize that you can never change the set-up. Sure, you
can make minor changes—revolutions and all that—but they don’t mean a 
thing. People remain what they are, whether Royalists, Communists, or just 
plain Democrats. Everyone for himself, that’s the game. When you’re young 
it’s disheartening. You can’t quite believe it. The more faith you have, 
the greater the disillusionment. It’ll take another fifty thousand years—or
more—before there’s any fundamental change in humanity. Meanwhile we’ve got
to make the best of it, isn’t that so?”

“You talk exactly like your old man.”

“That’s true enough, Henry.”

He said it soberly. “Shows you that we’re not as original as we thought 
we were. We’re getting old, do you realize that?”

“You may be—I’m not!” I said bluntly.

Even Trix had to laugh at this. “You’re just kids, the two of you,” she 
said.

“Don’t fool yourself, sister,” said MacGregor, going over to her and 
fondling her. “Because I still have a pair of balls doesn’t make me a 
youngster. I’m a disillusioned old man, believe it or not.”

“Then why do you want to marry me?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said MacGregor wearily. “Maybe just to have a 
change.”

“I like that,” said Trix, slightly offended.

“You know what I mean,” said MacGregor. “Jesus, do we have to become 
romantic—just to please this guy? I want a home, a real home, that’s what! 
I’m sick of running around.”

Trix looked at me dumbly. She shook her head. “Don’t take him seriously,”
said I comfortingly. “He always puts things in the worst light.”

“That’s it,” chirped MacGregor. “Now let me hear you say something nice 
about me. Tell her not to worry, I’ll settle down soon enough. Prove to her
what a good husband I’ll make… No, hold on! Better not say anything. You 
have the god-damndest way of gumming things up.”

“Let him talk!” said Trix. “I’m curious to know what your friend Henry 
really thinks of you.”

“You don’t think he’d tell you the truth, do you? That guy’s as slippery 
as an eel. He talks of George Marshall but… well, if I didn’t know him so 
long and so well I’d have dropped him ages ago.”

“Henry,” said Trix, “do you really think I should marry him?”

“Don’t ask me to answer that, please.” I tried to laugh it off.

“You see,” said MacGregor. “He couldn’t say yes or no, just like that. 
Now what do you mean, Henry? Is it Yes or No?”

I held my tongue.

“That means no,” said MacGregor.

“Don’t be so quick!” said Trix.

“Well, Henry, nothing like being honest,” said MacGregor. “I guess you 
know me too well.”

“I haven’t said one thing or another,” said I. “Why jump to conclusions? 
By the way, what time is it?”

“There you are! Now he wants to know the time. That’s Henry to a T.”

“It’s only two-thirty,” said Trix. “Let me fix you some coffee before you
go.”

“Fine,” said I. “And is there any cake left?”

“See, now he’s all alert. Always wide awake when you mention food. Jesus,
Hen, you’ll never change. I guess maybe that’s what I like about you—you’re
incorrigible.” He sat down close beside me, flicked the ash off his cigar, 
and proceeded to unburden himself.

“Tess has all sorts of connections, you know. She’d like to see me on the
bench. The thing is, I can’t run for judge and start divorce 
proceedings—see what l meant Besides, I’m not so sure I want to be a judge.
Even on the bench you can’t keep your skirts clean, you know that. Still, 
I’m not much good as a lawyer, to be frank with you. Can’t work up any 
enthusiasm… “

“Why don’t you pull out and try something else?”

“Like what—selling tires? What can you do, Henry? One job’s as bad as 
another.”

“But isn’t there anything you’re keen about?”

“Frankly, Hen, no! I’m just a lazy bugger at heart. I want to float along
with the least effort.”

“Then float!” I said.

“That’s no answer. Now, if I had a hankering to write, it would be 
different. But I don’t. I’m not an artist. And I’m not a politician. I’m 
not a ball of fire either.”

“Then you’re licked,” I said.

“I don’t know, Hen, I wouldn’t say that. There must be lots of things a 
fellow can do without getting all heated up.”

“The trouble with you is,” I said, “you always want some one to make up 
your mind for you.”

“Now you’re talking,” said MacGregor, suddenly more cheerful, though why,
I couldn’t understand. “That’s why I want to marry Trix. I need some one to
steady me. Tess is like a wet sponge. Instead of putting some backbone in 
me, she lets me fall apart.”

“When are you going to grow up?” said I.

“Come on now, Henry, don’t hand me that line. You’re just a big boy 
yourself. Running a speakeasy, think of it! And you were going to set the 
world on fire. Ho ho! Ho ho!”

“Give me time. I may fool you yet. At least, I know what I’d like to do. 
That’s something.”

“Can you do it T That’s the question.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“Henry, you’ve been trying to write ever since I knew you. Other writers 
your age have had at least a half-dozen books published already. You 
haven’t even finished your first book—or have you? Come, come, get wise to 
yourself!”

“Maybe I won’t begin till I’m forty-five,” I said jokingly.

“Make it sixty, Henry. By the way, who was that English writer who began 
at seventy?”

I couldn’t remember his name either at the moment.

Trix appeared with the coffee and cake. We moved back to the table.

“Well, Hen,” he began again, helping himself to a huge slice of cake, 
“all I’ve got to stay is—don’t weaken! You may yet be a writer. Whether 
you’ll be a great one, I can’t predict. You’ve got a hell of a lot to 
learn.”

“Don’t pay any attention to him,” said Trix.

“Nothing bothers him,” said MacGregor. “He’s even more obstinate than I 
am, and that’s saying a lot. The truth is, it hurts me to see him wasting 
his time.”

“Wasting his time?” echoed Trix. “And what about you?”

“Me? I’m lazy. That’s different.” He gave her a broad grin.

“If you’re thinking to marry me,” she rejoined, “you’ll have to get on 
your toes. You don’t think I’m going to support you, do you?”

“Will you listen to that, Henry,” howled MacGregor, chuckling as if it 
were a great joke. “Now who said anything about wanting to be supported?”

“Well, how unit we live? Not on what you earn, I’m sure.”

“Tush tush!” said MacGregor. “Honey, I haven’t begun to work yet. Just 
wait till the divorce is granted, then I’ll get down to brass tacks.”

“I’m not so sure I want to marry you,” said Trix. This in dead 
seriousness.

“Now, do you hear that?” said MacGregor. “How do you like that? Well, 
honey, it’s your loss. In ten years I may be sitting on the Supreme Court 
bench.”

“But in the meantime?”

“Don’t cross any bridges before you come to them, that’s my motto.”

“He can always make a living as a public stenographer,” said I.

“And a damned good living at that,” said MacGregor.

“I don’t want to marry a public stenographer.”

“You’re marrying me,” said MacGregor. “Who knows what I am?”

“Right now you’re just a misfit,” said Trix.

“That’s true, honey,” said MacGregor lightly, “but so were lots of men 
before they climbed to the top of the ladder.”

“But you’re not a climber!”

“Right again,” said MacGregor. “I was only using a figure of speech. 
Look, you two, you don’t honestly think I’m a failure, do you? I’m only 
working on two cylinders now. I need inspiration. I need a good wife, a 
home, and one or two real friends. Like this bloke, for example. How about 
it, Henry, am I talking sense?”

Without waiting for a reply, he continued: “You see, Trix, guys like 
Henry and me are out of the common run. We’ve got quality. If you get me 
for a husband, you’re getting a jewel. I’m the most tolerant guy in the 
world. Henry will vouch for that. I can work as hard as any one… if I have 
to! Only I don’t see the sense of killing myself. It’s stupid. Now, I 
haven’t told you anything about this, but I’ve got several bright schemes 
up my sleeve. More than that—I’m actually carrying them out. I didn’t want 
to tell you until they panned out successfully. If only one of them comes 
through, we can sit back and breathe easy for the next ten years. How does 
that strike you?”

“You’re a dear,” said Trix, suddenly melting.

I don’t think she believed in his schemes one bit, but she was eager to 
clutch at any straw.

“There!” said MacGregor, beaming, “you see how simple it is?”

*

On my way home, an hour or so later, I got to thinking of all the wild 
projects he had hatched, beginning from the time I first knew him—when he 
was still going to prep school. How he had always complicated his life 
trying to make things easier for himself. I thought of the hours he had 
spent doing drudge work, so that “later” he might be free to do as he 
pleased, though he never did know precisely what it was he would do when he
would be able to do only what he pleased. To do nothing at all, which he 
always pretended was the summum bonum, was thoroughly out of the question. 
If we went to the beach for a holiday he was sure to bring his notebook 
along, and a law book or two, or even a few pages from the unabridged 
dictionary which he had been reading, a page at a time, for years. If we 
flung ourselves into the water he would have to race some one to the raft 
or propose that we swim around the point or suggest we play water polo. 
Anything but float quietly on our backs. If we stretched out in the sand he
would suggest we shoot craps or play cards. If we started a pleasant 
conversation he would turn it into an argument. He was never able to do 
anything in peace or contentment. His mind was always on the next thing, 
the next move.

Another peculiar thing I remembered about him was that he always had a 
bad cold—“a chest cold,” as he put it. Winter or summer, it made no 
difference. A summer cold was worse, he always said. With the colds he 
often got hay fever. In short, he was usually in a miserable condition, 
always ailing, griping, sneezing, and always blaming it on the cigarettes 
which he swore he would cut out next week or next month, and which 
sometimes he did do, to my great amazement, but only to go back to them, 
only to smoke more heavily. Sometimes it was the drinking which he felt was
putting him “on the bum,” and he would lay off the stuff for a while, maybe
six or eight months, but only to return to it, only to drink still more 
heavily. He did everything in this on-and-off fashion. When he studied he 
studied for eighteen and twenty hours a day, until he almost got congestion
of the brain. He might break the study routine by playing cards with the 
boys, which he considered relaxation. But he played cards in the same way 
he studied, smoked and drank—always to excess. He was a bad loser, 
moreover. As for the women—if he was chasing a girl he would keep after 
her, no matter how many times she refused him, until he almost drove her 
crazy. The moment she relented, or succumbed, he was through with her. Then
no more women for a period. Taboo. Absolutely. It was better to live 
without women; it was saner and healthier: he ate better, slept better, 
felt better; he’d rather have a good shit than a good fuck. And so on—to 
ninety-six decimal places. Until he ran into another girl, some one simply 
too irresistible for words. Then it would be another long goose chase, 
night and day, week after week, until he got his end in, and then she was 
just like all the rest, not a bit better, not a bit worse. “Just cunt, Hen…
just cunt!”

There were always twenty or more hefty tomes stacked up on his desk: he 
would read them as soon as he could get around to it. Often years went by 
before he ever opened one, and by then of course the book had lost all its 
flavor. He would try to sell me them at half price; if I refused he would 
reluctantly make me a present of them. “But you’ve got to promise you’ll 
read them!” he would say. He had copies of magazines ten and fifteen years 
old, and newspapers too, which were treated in the same manner. 
Occasionally he would take a batch of these with him, open them up on the 
trolley or the train, skim through them rapidly, then fling them out of the
window. “That’s that!” he would say, smiling ruefully. He had cleared his 
conscience.

Now and then, meeting me accidentally, he’d say: “Why don’t we go to the 
theater? I hear there’s a good play on at the Orpheum.” We’d get to the 
theater a half-hour late, stay a few minutes, then rush out as if the very 
atmosphere were poisonous. “That’s five bucks gone to hell,” he’d say. “How
much have you on you, Hen? Oh shit, don’t bother to look, I know the 
answer. When will you ever have any money in your pocket?” Then he’d steer 
me to a bar up some dismal side street, a bar where he knew the proprietor 
or the waiter or some one, and he’d try to borrow a few dollars; if he 
couldn’t get the money he’d make them stand us treat for a few rounds. 
“Have you got a nickel at least?” he’d ask petulantly. “I want to phone 
that little bastard Woodruff—he owes me a few bucks. I don’t care if he’s 
in bed or not. We’ll take a taxi and make him pay for it, what say?” He’d 
make one telephone call after another. Finally he’d think of some girl he 
had thrown over years ago, some good-natured slob, as he put it, who would 
be only too glad to see him again. “We’ll have a few drinks and beat it. 
Maybe I can make a touch. But don’t start any funny work—she’s always 
getting over the clap.” Thus the night would pass, running from place to 
place, getting nowhere, getting tired, getting crotchety, getting 
disgusted. Eventually we would wind up in Greenpoint, at his parents’ home,
where there was sure to be some beer on the ice. It had to be filched 
stealthily, noiselessly, because he was always on the outs with his old 
man, or else with his ma, and sometimes with the whole family. “They don’t 
have much love for you, Henry, I don’t mind telling you. I don’t know why 
it is, but they’ve got it in for you. I guess that business with the widow 
was just too much for them. To say nothing of that dose of clap you used to
brag about.”

Though he had left home years ago, his room was always there for him, 
exactly as he had left it, which is to say, in thorough disorder and 
smelling as if a corpse were rotting in it. “You’d think they’d have the 
decency to clean it up occasionally, wouldn’t you?” he’d say, throwing open
the windows. “I suppose they’re still trying to teach me a lesson, the 
damned idiots. You know, Henry, no one could have more stupid parents than 
you and me. No wonder we don’t get anywhere. We got off to a bad start.” 
After rummaging around a bit he’d add: “I suppose I could clean it up 
myself, but I never get around to it. I guess I am a lazy son-of-a-bitch. 
Just the same… ” And he’d trail off with oaths and curses.

Over a bottle of beer… “Do you remember, Hen, when we put that 
advertising campaign over for your old man? Right in this room, wasn’t it? 
Imagine, writing a thousand letters by hand! But we had a good time, didn’t
we? I can still see all those bottles standing on the floor beside us. We 
must have consumed a truck-load of beer. We never got paid for the job, 
either—that’s what I can’t forget. Jesus, I can see what a chip off the old
block you are! Never a cent on you. By the way, how is the old boy these 
days? Has he still the same twelve customers—or have they all died off? 
What a goofy business that was! I’m glad my old man was nothing but an iron
moulder. Wonder how we’ll wind up, eh? You’ll probably be begging in the 
street in your old age. Your old man had some pride, but you, Jesus, you 
haven’t an ounce of pride, faith, loyalty or anything, as far as I can see.
Just day by day, that’s it, eh Hen? What a life!”

He could ramble on this way indefinitely. Even when we turned in, the 
lights out, the covers over our heads, he would carry on. Often he lay in 
bed with a cigar in his mouth and a beer in his hand, talking, talking, 
flitting from memory to memory, like the ghost of a butterfly.

“Don’t you ever brush your teeth?” I would ask. He liked such 
interruptions.

“Hell no! I used to, Hen, but it’s too much bother. They’ll fall out 
anyway some day.”

“But don’t you have a bad taste in your mouth?”

“Of course I do. Terrible! But I’m used to it.” (Chuckling softly to 
himself.) “Sometimes it’s so bad I can hardly stand it myself. Now and then
I’ve had a girl remind me of it. That makes you feel a bit ashamed, of 
course. But you get over it. You’ve got to keep their minds concentrated on
the other thing. Once you get it in, it doesn’t matter what your breath 
smells like. Right t” Lighting his stale cigar and sitting bolt upright… 
“What does bother me, though, I’ll tell you honestly, is to have a dirty 
crotch. I don’t know, Hen, but I have the bad habit of wearing my shorts 
until they fall off. You know how often I take a bath! Once in a blue 
moon.” He chuckled. “I guess I don’t know how to wipe my ass. There’s 
always something clinging to the short hairs—dilberries, I guess. Sometimes
I clip them off with the scissors.”

Still running on… “We should have come home early and had a good talk, 
instead of running around that way. What’s the matter with me, do you 
suppose? I’ve been chasing around like this since I was a kid. Sometimes I 
get so feverish I think I’ve got St. Vitus’ dance. It gives me the jitters.
I tell you, I can tremble like a dipso. Now and then I stutter too. That 
scares the shit out of me… How about some more beer f”

“Let’s sleep, for Christ’s sake!”

“Why, Hen? You’ll sleep a long time when you’re dead.”

“Save something for tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow! Did you ever think, Henry, that there may be no tomorrow? You 
may die in your sleep—ever think of that?”

“So what?”

“Well, think of all you’d be missing.”

“I won’t miss a damned thing,” I said irritably. “All I ask is a good ten
hours’ sleep—and a good breakfast when I wake up! Did you ever think of 
breakfast in heaven?”

“There you go—thinking of breakfast already. And who’s to buy it, tell me
that?”

“We’ll worry about that tomorrow.”

Silence for a while.

“I say, Hen, just how much have you in your pocket? Tell me, will you, 
I’m curious.”

“I don’t know… fifteen or twenty cents maybe.”

“You’re sure it’s not thirty-five?”

“It could be. Why? Do you want to borrow some?”

“Borrow from you! Christ no! You’re a pauper. No, Hen, I was just 
curious, like I said. You start out with fifteen or twenty cents in your 
pocket—and not a wrinkle in your brow. You bump into someone—like me, for 
instance—and you go to the theater, you drink, you take taxis, you make 
telephone calls… “

“So what?”

“And it never disturbs you… I’m not speaking for myself, Hen. But 
supposing it were someone else?”

“What a thing to worry about!”

“I suppose it’s all a matter of temperament. If it were me, I’d be 
miserable.”

“You like to feel miserable.”

“I guess you’re right there. I must have been born that way.”

“And you’ll die that way.”

He coughed violently, then reached for a box of cigars. “What about a 
cigar, Hen? They’re a bit dry but they’re Havanas.”

“You’re mad. I’m going to sleep. Good night!”

“O.K. You don’t mind if I read a while, do you?” He held up a few large 
pages tom from the dictionary. My eyes were closed, I was almost out, but I
could hear him droning away.

“I’m on page 1504 now,” he was saying. “The unabridged. Mandelic. What a 
word! If I live to be another Methuselah maybe I’ll make use of a word like
that sometime. Are you asleep? It’s queer, though, what you do retain out 
of all this shit and verbiage. Sometimes the simplest words are the 
strangest. A word like corpse, for instance. Cadaver is natural and easy, 
but corpse! Or take Easter—I’ll bet you never thought where that comes 
from. English is a crazy language, do you know that? Imagine words like 
Michaelmas and Whitsuntide—or wassail or syndrome or nautch or whangdoodle.
Wait a minute, here’s a funnier one—prepollent. Or parlous—isn’t that a 
strange one? Or take acne or cirrhosis—it’s hard to imagine anyone 
inventing words like that, what? Language is sheer mystery. The more 
etymological I get the less I know. Are you awake? Listen, Hen, you were 
always a stickler for words. I’m surprised you haven’t read the dictionary 
through yet. Or have you? I know you tried to read the Bible through. The 
dictionary’s more fun, I think. It’s even crazier than the Bible… You know,
just to look at some words, just to roll them around in your mouth, makes 
you feel good. Here’s a few off-hand—old favorites: anacoluthon, 
sesquipedalian, apotheosis, which, by the way, you always mispronounce. 
It’s apotheosis. Some mean exactly what they look like or how they sound; 
gimcrack, thingamajig, sockdolager, gazebo, yammer. The Angles and the 
Jutes were responsible for the worst ones, I guess. Did you ever have a 
look at a Swedish book? There’s a mad language for you! And to think we 
once talked that way… Listen, I don’t want to keep you awake all night. 
Forget it! I have to do this every night because I promised myself I would.
It won’t get me anywhere, I know that goddamn well. But there’s one thing 
about this job, Hen—when I’m through, I’m through. Yes sir! When I finish a
page I wipe my ass with it. How do you like that? It’s like putting Finis 
to a book… “

CHAPTER TWELVE

It doesn’t take long for the speakeasy to become a sort of private club 
and recreation center. On the kitchen wall is a long list of names. Beside 
the names are chalked up the sums owed us by friends, our only steady 
customers.

Roberto and George Inness sometimes come to fence in the afternoon. If 
not, O’Mara, Ned and I play chess in the back room near the window. Should 
an important client, like Mathias, turn up, we duck through the window into
the back yard, hop the fence and out into the next street through a narrow 
lane. Occasionally Rothermel comes for a couple of hours in the late 
afternoon, to talk to Mona privately. He pays her ten or twenty dollars for
the privilege.

If it’s an off night, we drive the paying customers out early, put the 
tables together, and settle down to play pingpong. We hold regular 
tournament bouts. Cold snacks in between of course. Always washed down with
beer, gin or wine. If we run out of liquor we go to Allen Street for 
sacramental wine. Usually the “championship matches” are between Arthur 
Raymond and myself. We run up fantastic scores. In the end I usually throw 
the game to him because he’s a hard loser… Always daybreak before we turn 
in.

One evening Rothermel turns up with several of his bosom pals from the 
Jersey swamps. All judges and politicians. They order best of everything, 
of course. Everything was going smoothly until Tony Maurer turned up with a
beautiful model. For some reason Rothermel instantly took a violent dislike
to him, partly because his hair was cropped close, partly because, in 
Rothermel’s opinion, he was too glib. I happened to be serving Tony Maurer 
when Rothermel left his table in the back room, determined to pick a 
quarrel. He was already quite crocked, to be sure. A nasty bird, even when 
sober. I stood to one side for a while, observing with admiration the cool 
way in which Tony Maurer parried Rothermel’s thrusts. But when the latter 
grew outrageously insulting I decided it was time to intervene.

“You’d better get back to your table,” I said quietly and firmly.

“Who are you?” he snarled.

Boiling inside but outwardly cool as a cucumber, I said: “Me? I’m the 
boss here.”

Rothermel sniffed and snorted. I took him by the arm and turned him 
round, in the direction of the other room. “Don’t manhandle me!” he yelled.

Fortunately at this juncture his friends came to my rescue. They dragged 
him back to the other room, as if he were a sack of wood. Then they 
returned to make apologies to Tony Maurer and to Mona.

“We’ll get them all our of here soon,” I whispered to Tony Maurer.

“Please don’t!” he begged. “I can handle the situation. I’m used to it, 
you know. He thinks I’m a Hun, that’s what bothers him. Sit down a moment, 
won’t you? Have a drink. You mustn’t let these things disturb you.” Here he
tailed off into a long anecdote about his experience during the war—first 
as an intelligence officer, then as a spy. As I listened to him I could 
hear Rothermel’s voice rising higher and shriller. It sounded as if he were
having the tantrums. I signalled to Ned and O’Mara to quiet him. Where is 
that bitch? I’ll fuck her yet, by Christ!”

I rushed to his table and shook him, none too gently.

I looked quickly at his friends to see if they were going to make 
trouble. They seemed embarrassed and disconcerted.

“We’ll have to get him out of here,” I explained.

“Certainly,” said one of them. ‘Why don’t you call a cab and send him 
home? He’s a disgrace.”

Ned, O’Mara and myself bundled him into his overcoat and pushed him out 
into the street. A light sleet had fallen; it was now covered with a thin 
coat of snow. Rothermel was unable to stand without support. While Ned went
in search of a cab, O’Mara and I half-dragged, half-shoved him toward the 
corner. He was fuming and cussing; he was particularly venomous toward me, 
naturally. In the scramble he lost his hat. “You don’t need a hat,” said 
O’Mara. ‘We’ll use it to piss in.” Rothermel was now blind with rage. He 
tried to unhitch his arms in order to take a swing at us, but we held him 
tight. Suddenly and instinctively we both let go at once. Rothermel stood 
swaying lightly, not daring to make a move for fear his legs would give 
way. We retreated a few steps and then, moved by a common impulse, we began
dancing around him like goats, making faces at him, taunting him, thumbing 
our noses, scratching’ our behinds like monkeys, capering and cavorting 
like zanies. The poor bugger was beside himself. He was actually bellowing 
now. Fortunately the street was deserted. Finally he could stand it no 
longer. He made a lunge for us, lost his footing and slid into the gutter. 
We picked him up, stood him safely on the sidewalk, and repeated our 
antics, this time to the tune of a little ditty in which we made shameful 
use of his name.

The cab pulled up and we bundled him in. We told the driver that he had 
the D.T.‘s, gave him a phony address in Hoboken, and waved goodbye. When we
returned his friends thanked us and apologized all over again. “He belongs 
in the asylum,” said one of them. With that he ordered a round of drinks 
and insisted on buying us steak sandwiches. “If you ever have any trouble 
with the flat-footed guys, just call on us,” said the bald-headed 
politician. He handed me his card. Then he suggested the name of a 
bootlegger from whom we could get credit, if we ever needed credit. And so 
we had a second round and a third round, always of the best Scotch, which 
could have been horse piss for all I cared about it.

Shortly after they left, Arthur Raymond fell into a violent quarrel with 
some young chap whom I had never seen before, insisting that the latter had
insulted Mona. Duffy was the lad’s name. Seemed like a decent chap, even if
a little under the weather. “He’ll have to apologize publicly,” Arthur 
Raymond kept insisting. Duffy thought this a great joke. At last Arthur 
Raymond could stand it no longer. He got up, twisted Duffy’s arm, and threw
him on the floor. Then he sat on Duffy’s chest and banged his head against 
the floor. “Will you or won’t you?” he repeated, banging the poor fellow’s 
head mercilessly. A1 last Duffy mumbled a thick apology and Arthur Raymond 
lifted him to his feet. There was a dead silence, an unpleasant one for 
Arthur Raymond. Duffy searched for his coat and hat, paid his bill, and 
left—without a word. Arthur Raymond sat alone at his table, head down, 
looking glum and shamefaced. In a few moments he got up and stalked out.

It was not until a few nights later, when he showed up with a pair of 
black eyes, that we learned that Duffy had waited for him outside and given
him a good beating. Oddly enough, Arthur Raymond appeared to be happy over 
the trouncing he had received. It turned out that after the fracas Duffy 
and he had become good friends. With his usual false modesty he added that 
he had been somewhat at a disadvantage, always was when it came to 
fisticuffs, because he couldn’t afford to ruin his hands. Anyway, it was 
the first time in his life that he had taken a beating. It had given him a 
thrill. With a touch of malice he concluded: “Everybody seems to be happy 
about it. Maybe I deserved it.”

“Maybe it will teach you to mind your own business,” said Mona.

Arthur Raymond made no reply.

“And when are you going to pay your bill?” she added.

To everyone’s astonishment, Arthur Raymond replied: “How much is it?” 
Fishing into his pocket he brought up a roll of bills and peeled off the 
amount due.

“Didn’t expect that, did you?” he said, looking around like a bantam 
cock. He got up, went to the kitchen, and crossed his name off the list.

“And now I’ve got another surprise for you,” he said, requesting that 
drinks be served all around. “A month from today I’m giving a concert. 
Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Ravel, Prokofiev and Stravinsky. You’re all 
invited to come—it’s on me. My last appearance, so to say. After that I’m 
going to work for the Communist party. And I don’t care what happens to my 
hands. I’m through with this sort of life. I’m going to do something 
constructive. From now on I disown you all.”

As he sailed out he turned around to deliver this: “Don’t forget the 
concert! I’ll send you seats up front.”

From the time that Arthur Raymond delivered himself of this declaration 
things took a definite turn for the worse. All our creators seemed to 
descend on us at once, and not only the creditors but the police and the 
lawyer whom Maude had engaged to collect the back alimony. It would begin 
in the early morning, with the iceman pounding furiously on our door and us
pretending to be sound asleep or out. Afternoons it would be the grocer, 
the delicatessen man or one of the bootleggers rapping on the front window.
In the evening, trying to pass himself off as a client, would come a 
process server or a plainclothes man. Finally the landlord began to dun us 
for the rent, threatening to hail us to court if we didn’t pay up. It was 
enough to give one the jitters. Sometimes we felt so done up that we would 
close the joint and go to a movie.

One night the old trio—Osiecki, O’Shaughnessy and Andrews—arrived with 
three girls from the Follies. This was toward midnight and they were 
already lit up like ocean liners. It was one of those nights when just our 
intimate friends were on hand. The Follies girls, beautiful, brittle, and 
extraordinary vulgar, insisted on putting the tables together so that they 
could dance on the table tops, do the split, and that sort of thing. 
Osiecki, imagining himself to be a Cossack, kept spinning like a top, to 
our utter amazement. Hadn’t improved a whit in the interim, of course. But 
he was jollier than usual, and for some queer reason fancied himself to be 
an acrobat. After a few chairs had been broken and some crockery smashed, 
it was suddenly decided that we all go to Harlem. Mona, Osiecki and I got 
into a cab with Spud Jason and his Alameda, who was carrying on her lap a 
mangy little dog called Fifi. By the time we reached Harlem it had peed 
over everyone. Finally Alameda peed in her pants from excitement.

At Small’s, which was then the rage, we drank champagne, danced with the 
colored folk and ate huge steaks smothered with onions. Dr. Kronski was in 
the party and seemed to be enjoying himself hugely. Who was paying for it 
all, I had no idea. Probably Osiecki. Anyway, we got home toward dawn and 
tumbled into bed exhausted. Just as we were falling asleep Alan Cromwell 
rapped at the window, begging to be allowed in. We paid no attention to 
him. “It’s me—Alan—let me in!” he kept shouting. He raised his voice until 
it sounded as if he were screaming. Obviously he was soused to the gills 
and in a bad way. Finally a cop came along and dragged him away, giving him
a few love taps with his night stick as he did so. Kronski and O’Mara, who 
were sleeping on the tables, thought it a hell of a good joke. Mona was 
worried. However, we soon fell back into a dead slumber.

The next evening Ned, O’Mara and myself hatched an idea. We had taken to 
sitting in the kitchen with a ukulele, humming and talking softly while 
Mona took care of the customers. It was the time of the Florida boom. 
O’Mara, always restless, always itching to strike it rich, got the idea 
that the three of us ought to light out for Miami. It was his belief that 
we could make enough in a few weeks to send for Mona and lead a new life. 
Since none of us had money to invest in real estate we would have to get it
from those who had made it. We would offer our services as waiters or 
bellhops. We were even willing to shine shoes. Anything for a start. The 
weather was still good, and it would get better the farther south we 
travelled O’Mara always knew how to make the bait attractive.

Naturally Mona wasn’t very keen about our project. I had to promise that 
I would telephone her every night, no matter where we might be. All I 
needed was a nickel to drop in the slot; the charges could be reversed. By 
the time the telephone bill arrived the speakeasy would be closed and she 
would be with us.

Everything was set to decamp in a few days. Unfortunately, two days 
before starting, the landlord served us with summons. In desperation I 
tried to raise at least part of the money we owed him. On an impulse I 
looked up the son of one of my father’s bosom friends. He was quite a young
man but making good in the steamship business. I don’t know what on earth 
possessed me to tackle him; it was like grasping at a straw. The moment I 
mentioned money he turned me down cold. He even had the cheek to ask me why
I had singled him out. He had never asked me for any favors, had he? 
(Already a hard-boiled businessman. In a few years he would be a 
“success.”) I swallowed my pride and bored in. Finally, after being 
thoroughly humiliated, I succeeded in extracting a ten-spot from him. I 
offered to write out a promissory note but he spumed this derisively. When 
I got back to the joint I felt so wretched, so beaten, that I almost set 
fire to the place. However…

*

It was a Saturday afternoon when O’Mara and I set forth for Miami. It was
high time. The air was thick with wet, heavy snowflakes—the first snowfall 
of the season. Our plan was to get on the highway outside Elizabeth, there 
to catch a car as far as Washington where we were to meet Ned. For some 
reason of his own Ned was going to Washington by train. He was taking the 
ukulele along—for morale.

It was almost dark when we bundled into a car outside Elizabeth. There 
were five darkies in the car and they were all liquored up. We wondered why
in hell they were driving so fast. Before long we found out—the car was 
full of dope and the Federal men were on their tail. Why they had stopped 
to pick us up we couldn’t figure out. We felt vastly relieved when a little
this side of Philadelphia they slowed down and dumped us out.

The snow was falling heavily now, and a stiff gale was blowing, an icy 
gale. Moreover, it was pitch dark. We walked a couple of miles, our teeth 
chattering, until we struck a gas station. It was hours before we got 
another lift, and then only as far as Wilmington. We decided to spend the 
night in that Godforsaken hole.

Mindful of my promise I called Mona. She held me on the phone for almost 
fifteen minutes, the operator butting in every so often to remind us that 
the toll was rising. Things were pretty black at her end: she was to appear
in court the following day.

When I hung up I had such a fit of remorse that I was of a mind to turn 
back in the morning.

“Come on,” said O’Mara, “don’t let it get you down. You know Mona; she’ll
find a way out.”

I knew that myself but it didn’t make me feel any better.

“Let’s get started bright and early tomorrow,” I Said. “We can be in 
Miami in three days, if we try.”

The next day, around noon, we walked in on Ned who had installed himself 
in a broken-down hotel for a dollar a night. His room was like the setting 
for Gorki’s Night Lodging. Every other window pane was broken; some were 
stuffed with rags, some with newspapers.

The faucets didn’t work, the bed had a straw mattress, and the springs 
had completely given way. There were cobwebs hanging everywhere. The smell 
of dust was so thick it almost choked us. And this was a hotel for “white 
people.” In our glorious capital, no less.

We bought some cheese, wine and salami, a good loaf of bread and some 
olives, and moved across the bridge, into Virginia. Once across the line, 
we sat down on the grass under a shady tree and filled our bellies. Then we
stretched out in the warm sunshine, smoked a cigarette or two, and finally 
sang a little tune. This tune was to become our theme song—something about 
looking for a friendly face.

We were in high spirits when we got on our hind legs. The South looked 
good—warm, inviting, gracious, spacious. We were already in another world.

Entering the South is always inspiring. By the time one hits Maryland and
starts going over the roller coaster curves everything has undergone 
moderation, softening. When you come to the “Old Dominion” you are 
definitely in a new world, no mistaking it. People have manners, grace, 
dignity. The state that gave us most Presidents, or at least the best ones,
was a great state in its day. It still is, in many ways.

Many time I left New York, not caring in what direction I was wafted, so 
long as I could put some distance between myself and the city I loathed. 
Often I wound up in North Carolina or Tennessee. Passing through Virginia 
was like rehearsing a motif from a familiar symphony or quartet. 
Occasionally I would stop in a little burg and ask for a job because I 
liked the looks of the place. Of course I never took the job. I would 
linger for a while in an effort to imagine what It would be like to pass 
the rest of my days there. Hunger always routed me out of my reverie…

From Washington we got to Roanoke; not without difficulty, since we were 
three; not many drivers are willing to pick up three vagabonds, especially 
from the North. We decided that night that it would be better to split up. 
We looked at the map and decided that we would all meet the next evening at
the Post Office in Charlotte, N.C. The plan worked out beautifully. One by 
one we arrived at our destination, the last one only a half-hour later than
the first. Here we again changed plans, since Ned had discovered that he 
might have gone all the way through to Miami with the man who had picked 
him up. We decided that our next rendezvous would be in Jacksonville. 
O’Mara and I were to stick together; Ned would travel alone. It was a 
drizzling rain we faced next morning, shortly after dawn, standing on the 
highway outside of Charlotte. For an hour or more no one gave us a tumble. 
Fed up, we decided to stand in the middle of the road. It worked. The next 
car in sight came to a stop with a screech.

“What in Christ’s name’s the matter with you?”

shouted the driver.

“Where are you headed?” we shouted.

“Jacksonville!”

The door opened and we tumbled in. We were off again, at a 
record-breaking clip. Not a word out of the driver for several minutes. 
When he did open his trap it was to say—“Lucky I didn’t run you down.” We 
said nothing. “I didn’t know whether to shoot or to run you over,” he 
continued. O’Mara and I exchanged glances. “Where are you from?” he asked. 
“What’s your racket?” We told him. He looked at us searchingly, decided, I 
suppose, that we were speaking the truth, then slowly, painfully, related 
to us that he had accidentally killed a friend of his at a bar in a drunken
brawl. He had hit him over the head with a bottle, in self-defense. 
Terrified and panic-stricken, he had fought his way out of the place, piled
into his car, and skipped. He had two guns in his pockets and was ready to 
use them should any one attempt to bar his way. “You had a narrow escape,” 
he said.

After a while he confided hat he was making for Tampa, where he could 
safely hide away for a while. At least he thought he could. “I’ll probably 
go back and take what’s coming to me. I’ve got to collect myself first,” he
said. Again and again he repeated: “It wasn’t my fault, I never meant to 
kill him.” Once he broke down and wept like a child.

When we stopped for lunch he insisted on paying the bill. He paid for 
dinner too. In Macon (Georgia) we took a room with two beds, for which he 
also footed the bill. At the far end of the wide hall, seated in a rocker 
under a red light, sat a whore. As we were undressing, our friend laid his 
revolvers out on the dresser, together with his wallet, remarking quietly 
that whoever got to them first would be the lucky man.

Early next morning we set out again. Our friend should have gone straight
on to Tampa but no, he insisted on depositing us first in Jacksonville. Not
only that, but we had to accept the ten dollar bill he handed us—“for good 
luck.”

“You’d better get the lay of the land before you go any farther,” he 
warned. “I have a hunch the boom is over.” We wished him good luck and 
watched him take off again, wondering how long it would be before the law 
caught up with him. He was a simple, honest chap with a good heart, a 
mechanic by trade. One of those people of whom one says—“He wouldn’t hurt a
fly.”

It was indeed fortunate for us that we had met up with him. Aside from 
the ten dollars he had handed us we had just about four dollars between us.
Ned had most of the money and he had forgotten to divvy up. Well, we went 
to the Post Office, as agreed upon. Sure enough, there was Ned. Had been 
there some two hours or more. The man who picked him up in Charlotte had 
driven him straight through, and what’s stranger still, he had also paid 
for his meals and put him up in the same room with him.

All in all we hadn’t done so bad. The next thing was to get the feel of 
the land.

It didn’t take us long to find out what the situation was. Jacksonville 
was filled to overflowing with poor dopes like ourselves, all returning 
from the boom country below. If we had had any sense we would have turned 
about immediately and trekked homeward, but pride made us determined to 
stick it out for a while. “There must be something we can do,” we kept 
telling one another. But there was not only nothing to do, there wasn’t 
even a place to sleep. In the daytime we hung around at the Y.M.C.A., which
had come to resemble a Salvation Army shelter No one seemed to be making 
any effort to find work. Every one was waiting for a letter or a telegram 
from the folks back home. Waiting for a train ticket, a money order, or 
just a plain dollar bill. It went on like that for days. We slept in the 
park (until the cops caught up with us), or on the floor of the jail, in 
the company of a hundred or more filthy bodies wrapped in newspapers, some 
vomiting, some shitting in their pants. Now and then, in an effort to 
create work, we would wander off to a neighboring village and try to invent
a job which would at least keep us in food. On one of these forays, not 
having eaten for thirty-six hours and having walked eight miles to the 
mythical job, we had to walk back again on empty bellies, our legs 
creaking, our guts rumbling, so dog-tired, so utterly weary and dejected 
that, like Indians, we walked single file, one behind the other, heads 
down, tongues hanging out. That night we tried to storm the Salvation Army.
Useless. One had to have a quarter to be allowed to sleep on the floor. In 
the toilet there my guts began to fall out. The pain was so great I keeled 
over. Ned and O’Mara had to carry me out of the place. We inched our way to
the railroad yards where the freight trains were loaded with rotting fruit 
for the North. There we ran into a sheriff who drove us away with a gun in 
our backs. He wouldn’t even permit us to gather a few rotten oranges which 
were lying on the ground. “Get back where you belong!” Always the same cry.

By great luck the next day Ned ran into a weird old chap named Fletcher 
whom he had known in the advertising business in New York. The man was a 
commercial artist, had a studio, as he called It, and though utterly broke,
promised to make us a meal that evening. It seems he was celebrating his 
silver anniversary. For the occasion he had managed to get his wife 
released from the insane asylum.

“It won’t be very merry,” he informed Ned, “but we’ll make it as cheerful
as we can. She’s a sweet creature, perfectly harmless. She’s been this way 
for the last fifteen years.”

It was one of the longest days I ever put in, waiting for that promised 
meal. I lolled about the Y.M.C.A. the whole day, trying to conserve my 
energies. Most of the fellows passed the time playing cards or 
checkers—dice was forbidden. I read the newspapers, the Christian Science 
magazines, and all the other trash that was lying about. If a revolution 
had broken out in New York it wouldn’t have excited me in the least. I had 
only one thought—food!

The moment I set eyes on poor Fletcher I felt an immense sympathy for 
him. He was a man approaching seventy, with watery blue eyes and a big 
moustache. He looked for all the world like Buffalo Bill. On the walls were
examples of his work—from the old days—when he had been handsomely paid to 
do ponies and cowboys for the magazine covers. A small pension helped him 
to eke out a bare existence. He lived in hope of getting a fat commission 
some day. Between times he painted little signs for tradespeople, anything 
that would bring in a few pennies. He was thankful to be living in the 
South where the days at least were warm.

To our surprise he brought out two bottles, one half-filled with gin, the
other containing about a fingerful of rye. With the help of a lemon, some 
orange peels and a generous quantity of water, we managed to make his stock
go a few rounds. His wife meanwhile was reposing in the next room. Fletcher
said he would bring her out when it came time to eat. “It makes no 
difference to her,” he said. “She has her own world and her own rhythm. She
doesn’t remember me any more, so don’t be surprised at what she says. She’s
usually very quiet—and fairly cheerful, as you’ll see.”

He then set about preparing the table. The dishes were broken and 
chipped, nothing matched of course, and the cutlery was of tin. He laid the
“couvert” on the bare table, and in the center of the table he placed an 
immense bowl of flowers. “It’ll only be a cold snack,” he said 
apologetically, “but it may help to quiet the wolf.” He put out a bowl of 
potato salad, some rat cheese, some bologna and liverwurst, together with a
loaf of white bread and some margarine. There were a few apples and nuts, 
for dessert. Not an orange in sight. After he had set a glass of water at 
each place he put a pot of coffee up to boil.

“I guess we’re about ready now,” he said, looking toward the other room. 
“Just a minute and I’ll bring Laura in.”

The three of us stood in silence as we waited for the two of them to 
issue from the next room. We could hear him rousing her from her slumber; 
he was speaking to her softly, gently, as he helped her to her feet.

“Well,” he said, smiling desperately through his tears, as he led her to 
the table, “here we are at last. Laura, these are my friends—your friends 
too. They’re going to eat with us—isn’t that lovely?”

We approached in turn, shook hands first with her, then with him. We were
all in tears as we raised the water glasses and drank to their twenty-fifth
anniversary.

“Well, this is almost like old times,” said Fletcher, looking first at 
his poor demented wife, then at us. “Do you remember, Laura, that funny old
studio I had in the Village years ago? We weren’t very rich then either, 
were we?” He turned to us. “I won’t say grace, though tonight I would like 
to. I’ve lost the habit. But I want to tell you how grateful I am that you 
are sharing this little celebration with us. It might have been very sad, 
just the two of us alone.” He turned to his wife.

“Laura, you’re still beautiful, do you know it?” He chucked her under the
chin. Laura looked up wistfully and gave the flicker of a smile. “You see?”
he exclaimed. “Ah yes, Laura was the belle of New York once. Weren’t you, 
Laura?”

It didn’t take us long to plough through the victuals, including the 
apples and nuts and a few stale cookies which Fletcher had dug up by chance
while searching for the canned milk. Over a second cup of Java Ned got out 
the ukulele and we took to singing, Laura too. We sang homely ditties, such
as “O Susanna,”

“A bull-frog sat on a railroad track,”

“Annie Laurie,”

“Old Black Joe”… Suddenly Fletcher rose and said he would sing “Dixie,” 
which he did with gusto, ending up with the blood-curdling Rebel yell. 
Laura, highly pleased with the performance, demanded that he sing another 
tune. He got up again and sang “The Arkansas Traveler,” topping it off with
a little jig. My, but we were merry. It was pathetic.

After a time I got hungry again. I asked if there wasn’t any stale bread 
around. “We might make French pancakes,” I said.

We searched high and low but there wasn’t even a crust to be found. We 
did find some moldy zwieback though and, dipping this in the coffee, we got
a new lease of energy.

If it weren’t for the vacant look in her eyes one wouldn’t have thought 
Laura to be insane. She sang heartily, responded to our quips and jokes, 
and ate her food with relish. After a while, however, she dozed off, just 
like a child. We carried her into the bedroom and put her back to bed. 
Fletcher leaned over her and kissed her brow.

“If you boys will wait a few minutes,” he said, “I think I may be able to
dig up a wee bit more gin. I’m going to see my next-door neighbor.”

In a few minutes he was back with a half-bottle of bourbon. He also had a
little bag of cakes in his hand. We put up another pot of coffee, poured 
the bourbon, and began to chat. Now and then we threw a short log into the 
old pot-bellied stove. It was the first comfortable, cheery evening we were
spending in Jacksonville.

“I was in the same fix when I came here,” said Fletcher. “It takes time 
to get acquainted… Ned, why don’t you go down to the newspaper office? I’ve
got a friend there, he’s one of the editors. Maybe he can dig up something 
for you.”

“But I’m not a writer,” said Ned.

“Hell, Henry will write your stuff for you,” said O’Mara.

“Why don’t you both go?” said Fletcher.

We were so elated with the prospect of getting a job that we all did a 
jig in the middle of the room.

“Let’s have that one about looking for a friendly face,” begged Fletcher.
We took to humming and singing again, not too loud because of Laura.

“You mustn’t worry about her,” said Fletcher, “she sleeps like an angel. 
In fact, she is an angel. I honestly think that’s why she’s—you know. She 
didn’t fit in our world. Sometimes I think it’s a blessing she’s the way 
she is.”

He showed us some of his work which he had stored away in big trunks. It 
wasn’t too bad. At least he was a good draftsman. He had been all over 
Europe in his youth—Paris, Munich, Rome, Prague, Budapest, Berlin. He had 
even won a few prizes.

“If I had my life to live all over again,” he said, “I’d do nothing at 
all. I’d keep tramping around the world. Why don’t you fellows go west? 
There’s still lots of room in that part of the world.”

That night we slept on the floor of Fletcher’s studio. Next morning Ned 
and I went to see the newspaper man. After a few words I was voted out. But
Ned was given a chance to write a series of articles. Naturally, I would do
the dirty work.

All we had to do now was to pull our belts in until pay day. Pay day was 
only two weeks off.

That same day O’Mara led me round to the home of an Irish priest whose 
address some one had given him. We immediately got the cold shoulder from 
the Sister who opened the door. Descending the stoop we noticed the good 
Father easing his Packard out of the garage. O’Mara tried to plead with 
him. For encouragement he got a puff of heavy smoke from the Father’s 
Havana cigar. “Be off with yer and don’t be disturbin’ the peace!” That was
all Father Hoolihan deigned to say.

That evening I wandered off by my lonesome. Passing a big synagogue I 
heard the choir singing. It was a Hebrew prayer and it sounded enchanting. 
I stepped inside and took a seat far back. As soon as the service was over 
I went up front and collared the rabbi. “Reb,” I wanted to say, “I’m in a 
bad way… ” But he was a solemn looking cuss, utterly devoid of bonhomie. I 
told him my story in a few words, winding up with an appeal for food, or 
meal tickets, and a place to flop, if possible. I didn’t dare mention that 
we were three.

“But you’re not a Jew, are you?” said the Reb. He squinted as if he 
couldn’t make me out clearly.

“No, but I’m hungry. What difference does it make what I am?”

“Why don’t you try the Christian churches?”

“I have,” I replied. “Besides, I’m not a Christian either. I’m just a 
Gentile.”

Grudgingly he wrote a few words on a slip of paper, saying that I was to 
present the message to the man at the Salvation Army. I went there 
immediately, only to be told that they had no room.

“Can you give me something to eat?” I begged.

I was informed that the dining room had been closed hours ago.

“I’ll eat anything,” I said, clinging to the man at the desk. “Haven’t 
you got a rotten orange or a rotten banana?”

He looked at me strangely. He was unmoved.

“Can you give me a dime—just a dime?” I begged.

Disgustedly he fished into his pocket and flung me the dime.

“Now clear out of here!” he said. “You loafers belong up North where you 
came from.”

I turned my heel and walked away without a word. On the main street I saw
a pleasant looking fellow selling newspapers. Something about his looks 
encouraged me to address him.

“Hullo,” I said, “how goes it?”

“Not too bad, buddy. Where are you from—New York?”

“Yeah, and you?”

“Jersey City.”

“Shake!”

A few moments later I was hawking the few papers he had given me. It took
me about an hour to get rid of them. But I had earned a few pennies. I 
hurried back to the “Y” and found O’Mara dozing behind a newspaper in a big
arm-chair.

“Let’s go and eat,” I said, shaking him vigorously.

“Yeah,” he responded derisively, “let’s go to Delmonico’s.”

“No, seriously,” I said, “I just made a few cents, enough for coffee and 
doughnuts. Come on.”

At once he was on his feet. As we hurried along I told him briefly what 
had happened.

“Let’s find that guy,” he said, “he sounds like a friend. From Jersey 
City, eh? Swell!”

Mooney was the name of the newsie. He knocked off to have a bite with us.

“You can sleep in my room,” said Mooney. “I’ve got an extra couch. It’s 
better than sleeping in the jail.”

The next day, toward noon, we followed his advice and went to the rear of
the newspaper office to get a bundle of papers. Our friend Mooney of course
had lent us the money to buy papers. There were about fifty kids milling 
around, all trying to get their bundles first. I had to bend over a window 
sill and haul them out through the iron bars. Suddenly I felt some one 
crawling up my back. It was a little darkie, trying to reach over my head 
for his bundle. I got him off my back and he crawled between my legs. The 
kids were all laughing and jeering. I had to laugh myself. Anyway, we were 
soon loaded and marching up the main street. It was the hardest thing in 
the world for me to open my mouth and yell. I tried shoving the papers at 
the passers-by. That didn’t work at all.

I was standing there, looking rather foolish, I suppose, when Mooney came
along. “That’s no way to sell papers,” he said. “Here, watch me!” And with 
this he whirls around, flashing the paper and yelling “Extra! Extra! All 
about the big broo… siiis… ” I wondered what the great news was, unable to 
catch the important word at the end of his phrase. I looked at the front 
page to see what the headline was. There was no headline. There didn’t seem
to be any news at all, in fact.

“Yell anything,” said Mooney, “but yell it at the top of your lungs! And 
don’t stand in one spot. Keep moving! You’ve got to hustle if you want to 
get rid of them before the next edition is out.”

I did my best. I hustled up and down the main street, then ducked into 
the side streets. Soon I found myself in the park. I had sold only three or
four papers. I put the bundle on the ground and sat down on a bench to 
watch the ducks swimming in the pond. All the invalids, recuperationists 
and valetudinarians were out sunning themselves. The park seemed more like 
the recreation grounds of an Old Soldiers’ Home. An old codger beside me 
asked to borrow a paper to see what the weather report was like. I waited 
drowsily and blissfully while he read the paper from front to back. When he
handed it back to me I tried to fold it neatly so that it wouldn’t look 
shopworn.

On my way out of the park a cop stopped me to buy a paper. That almost 
unnerved me.

By the time the next edition was due on the streets I had sold exactly 
seven papers. I hunted up O’Mara. He had done a little better, but nothing 
to brag about.

“Mooney’s going to be disappointed,” he said.

“I know it. I guess we’re not cut out to peddle papers. It’s a job for 
kids—or for a hustler like Mooney.”

“You said it, Henry.”

We had coffee and doughnuts again. Better than nothing. It was food and 
food was what we needed. All that walking up and down, and with a heavy 
bundle, gave one a furious appetite. I wondered just how long I would be 
able to stick it out.

Later in the day we ran into Mooney again. We apologized for our 
inability to do better.

“Forget about it,” he said. “I understand. Listen, let me lend you five 
bucks. Scout around for something better. You’re not cut out for this kind 
of thing. I’ll see you tonight at the lunch counter. O.K.?” He hustled off,
waving his hand cheerily.

“That’s what you call a swell guy,” said O’Mara. “Now, b’Jesus, we’ve 
really got to land something. Come on, let’s strike out!”

We set off straight ahead, neither of us having the faintest notion what 
we were looking for or how to find it. A few blocks farther on we met up 
with a cheerful-looking guy who tried to hit us up for a dime, He was a 
coal miner from Pennsylvania. Trapped, like us. Over coffee and doughnuts 
we got to exchanging ideas.

“Tell you what,” he said, “let’s go down to the redlight district 
tonight. You’re always welcome if you can buy a drink. You don’t have to go
upstairs with the gals. Anyway, it’s cosy and comfortable—and you can hear 
some music. Damned sight better than sitting around in the morgue.” 
(Meaning the “Y”).

That evening, over a few drinks, he asked us whether we had ever been 
converted.

Converted? We wondered what he was driving at.

He explained. Seems there were always a few guys hanging around “the 
morgue” who were eager to win converts to the church. Even the Mormons had 
their scouts out. The thing was, he explained, to listen innocently and 
appear interested. “If the fool thinks he’s hooking you, you can worm a 
meal out of him easy as pie. Try it sometime. They’re on to me—I can’t work
it any more.

We stayed in the whorehouse as long as we possibly could. Every so often 
a new girl showed up, made a few passes at us, and gave up.

“It’s not exactly Paradise for them,” said our friend. “A dollar a crack,
and the house gets the best part of it. Still, some of them don’t look so 
bad, do they?”

We looked them over appraisingly: A pathetic bunch, even more pathetic 
looking than the Salvation Army lassies. All of them chewing gum, humming, 
whistling, trying to look appealing. One or two, I noticed, were yawning, 
rubbing their bleary eyes.

“At least they eat regularly.” This from O’Mara.

“Yeah, there’s something to that,” said our friend. “I’d rather go 
hungry, myself.”

“I don’t know,” said I. “If I had to choose… if I were a woman… I’m not 
sure but what I’d take a crack at it. At least till I got fattened up a 
bit.”

“You think so,” said our friend, “but you’re mistaken. You don’t get fat 
on this job, let me tell you that.”

“How about that one?” said O’Mara, pointing out a ton of lard.

“She was born fat, anyone can see that. Besides she’s a booze artist.”

That night, on the way back to nowhere, I got to wondering about Mona. 
Only one little note from her since our arrival. True, she wasn’t much of a
letter writer. Nor was she ever very explicit about anything. All I had 
gleaned from her note was that she was going to be dispossessed any day. 
And then what? I wondered.

The next day I hung around the “Y” most of the day, hoping, or praying 
rather, that some one would start working on me. I was ready and willing to
be converted to anything, even to Mormonism. But no one gave me a tumble. 
Toward evening I got a bright idea. It was so simple a stunt that I 
wondered why it hadn’t occurred to me sooner. However, one has to get truly
desperate before one thinks of such simple solutions.

What was the bright idea? To go from shop to shop asking only for 
foodstuffs which they were ready to throw out: stale bread, spoiled fruit, 
sour milk… I never realized at the time how similar was my plan to the 
begging tactics of St. Francis. He too had demanded only what was unfit to 
eat. The difference was, of course, that he had a mission to perform. I was
merely trying to keep afloat. A grand difference!

Nevertheless, it worked like a charm. O’Mara took one side of the street,
I the other. By the time we met at the end of the block our arms were full.
We rushed over to Fletcher’s place, got hold of Ned, and prepared for a 
feast.

To be truthful, the scraps and the waste which we had gathered were far 
from being repugnant. We had all eaten tainted meat before, though not 
intentionally; the vegetables needed only to be trimmed; the stale bread 
made excellent toast; the sour milk gave the overripe fruit a delicious 
quality. A Chinese coolie would have regarded our repast as a luxurious 
one. All that lacked was a bit of wine to wash down the stale rat cheese. 
However, there was coffee on hand and a bit of condensed milk. We were 
elated. We ate like wolves.

“Too bad we didn’t think of inviting Mooney,” said O’Mara.

“Who’s Mooney?” asked Ned.

We explained. Ned listened with mouth open. “Jesus, Henry,” he said, “I 
can’t get over it. And me sitting upstairs in the front office all the 
while. Selling your stuff under my name—and you guys peddling papers! I’ll 
have to tell Ulric about it… By the way, have you seen the stuff you wrote?
They think it’s pretty good, did I tell you?”

I had forgotten all about the articles. Perhaps I read them, during those
comas at the “Y”, and never realized that it was I who wrote them.

“Henry,” said Fletcher, “you ought to get back to New York. It’s all 
right for these lads to waste their time, but not you. I have a hunch 
you’re cut out for something big.”

I blushed and tried to pass it off.

“Come,” said Fletcher, “don’t be so modest. You’ve got qualities, anyone 
can see that. I don’t know what you’re going to become—saint, poet, or 
philosopher. But you’re an artist, that’s definite. And what’s more, you’re
unspoiled. You have a way of forgetting yourself that tells me a lot about 
you.”

Ned, who was still feeling guilty, applauded Fletcher warmly. As soon as 
I get my check, Henry,” he said, “I’ll give you the train fare back home. 
That’s the least I can do. O’Mara and I will stick it out. Eh, Ted? You’re 
a veteran: you’ve been on the bum since you were ten years old.”

O’Mara grinned. Now that he had found a way to get food his spirits rose.

Besides, there was Mooney, to whom he had taken quite a fancy. He was 
certain that between them they could cook up something.

“But who’ll write the articles for the paper?”

“I’ve already taken care of that,” said Ned. “They’re making me layout 
man next week. That’s right up my alley. The chances are I’ll be making 
real dough soon.”

“Maybe you’ll be able to throw something my way,” said Fletcher.

“I’ve thought of that too.” said Ned. “If Ted here will take care of the 
food problem I’ll answer for the rest. It’s only a few days now till pay 
day.”

Again we slept at Fletcher’s place. I passed a sleepless night, not 
because the floor was hard but because of Mona. Now that there was a chance
to return I couldn’t get back quickly enough. The whole night long I racked
my brain to find a quick way but. Toward dawn it occurred to me that 
possibly the old man would send me part of the fare at least. If only I got
as far as Richmond it would help.

Bright and early I went to the telegraph office to wire the old man. By 
nightfall the money had arrived–for a full trip. I borrowed an extra five 
bucks from Mooney, so as to eat, and that same evening I was off.

The moment I boarded the train I felt like a new man. Before half an hour
had passed I had completely forgotten Jacksonville. What luxury to doze off
in an upholstered seat! The strange thing was that I found myself writing 
again—in my head. Yes, I was positively itching to get to the machine. It 
seemed like a century ago that I had written the last line… I wondered 
vaguely, dreamily, where I would find Mona, what we would do next, where we
would live, and so on. Nothing was of too great consequence. It was so 
damned good to be sitting in that comfortable coach—with a five dollar bill
in my pocket… Maybe a guardian angel was looking after me! I thought of 
Fletcher’s parting words. Was I really an artist? Of course I was. But I 
had yet to prove it… Finally I congratulated myself on having had such a 
bitter experience. “Experience is golden,” I kept repeating to myself. It 
sounded a bit silly, but it lulled me into a peaceful slumber.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Back to the old homestead, or to put it another way—back to the street of
early sorrows. Mona lives with her family, I with mine. The only way—pro 
tern—to solve the economic problem. As soon as I’ve sold a few stories 
we’ll find a place of our own again.

From the time the old man leaves for the tailor shop until he returns for
dinner I’m hard at it—every day. Every day we talk to each other, Mona and 
I, over the phone; sometimes we meet at noon to have a bite together in 
some cheap restaurant. Not often enough, however, to please Mona. She’s 
going mad with fear, doubts, jealousy. Simply can’t believe that I’m 
writing day in and day out from mom to dusk.

Now and then, of course, I knock off to do “research work.” I have a 
hundred different ideas to exploit, all of them demanding investigation and
documentation. I’m running on all eight cylinders now: when I sit down to 
the machine it just flows off my fingers.

At the moment I’m putting the finishing touches to a self-portrait which 
I’m calling “The Failure.” (I haven’t the remotest suspicion that a man 
named Papini, a man living in Italy, will soon produce a book by this very 
title.) I wouldn’t say it was an ideal place to work—my parents’ home. I 
sit at the front window, hidden by the lace curtains, one eye open for 
callers. The rule of the house is—if you see a visitor coming, duck! And 
that’s exactly what I do each time—duck into the clothes closet, with 
typewriter, books, papers and everything. Fantastic! (I call myself “the 
family skeleton.”) Sometimes I get brilliant ideas, hidden away in the dark
folds of the clothes closet—induced no doubt by the acrid smell of camphor 
balls. My thoughts come so fast that it is almost unbearable to wait until 
the visitor leaves. In utter darkness I make illegible notes on odd bits of
paper. (Just key words and phrases.) As for breathing, no trouble at all. I
can hold my breath for three hours, if necessary.

Coming out of the hole my mother is sure to exclaim: “You shouldn’t smoke
so much!” The smoke has to be explained, you see. Her line is: “Henry was 
just here.” Hearing her give this feeble explanation to a caller I 
sometimes stuff my mouth with a coat sleeve for fear of breaking loose with
a chortle.

Now and then she hands me this: “Can’t you make your stories shorter?” 
Her though—poor soul!—is that the sooner I finish them the quicker I will 
be paid. She doesn’t want to hear about rejection slips. Acts almost as 
though she didn’t believe in them.

“What are you writing about now?” she asks one morning.

“Numismatics,” I tell her.

“What’s that?”

I explain in a few words.

“Do you think people really want to read such things?”

I wonder to myself what she would say if I were to tell her the truth, 
tell her about “The Failure.”

The old man is more amenable. I sense that he doesn’t expect anything to 
come of all this nonsense, but he’s curious and at least pretends to be 
interested in what I’m doing. He doesn’t quite know what to make of the 
fact that he has a son, twice-married and the father of a child, who sits 
in the dining room day after day tapping away on a typewriter. At bottom he
has confidence in me. He knows I’ll get somewhere some day, somehow. He’s 
not uneasy in his soul.

Around the corner, where I trot each morning to get the paper and a pack 
of cigarettes, is a little store run by a newcomer—a Mr. Cohen. He’s the 
only person, this Mister Cohen, who seems at all interested in my doings. 
He thinks it remarkable that he has a writer, even if only an embryonic 
one, for a customer. All the other tradespeople, be it said, know me of 
old; not one of them suspects that I’ve grown a new soul. To them I am 
still the little boy with the corn-colored hair and the innocent smile.

Mister Cohen, however, is of another world, another epoch. He doesn’t 
“belong” any more than I. In fact, being a Yid, he’s still suspect. 
Especially to the old-timers. One bright and lovely morning the dear Mister
Cohen confesses to me that he too once had ambitions to be a writer. With 
genuine feeling he informs me how much our little conversations mean to 
him. It is a privilege, he says, to know some one who is “on the bias.” (Of
the same stripe, I suppose he meant.) Lowering his voice, he confides with 
huge disgust his low opinion of the neighboring shop-keepers. Ah, dear 
Mister Cohen, darling Mister Cohen, come forth, come forth, wherever you 
are, and let me kiss your waxen brow! What was it, now, we had in common? A
few dead authors, fear and hatred of the police, scorn for the Gentiles and
a passion for the aroma of a good cigar. You were no virtuoso, and neither 
was I. But your words came to me as if they were played on the celesta. 
Step forth, pale sprite, step forth from the divine telesma and let me 
embrace you once again!

My mother, of course, is not only surprised but shocked to discover that 
I have become friends with “that little Jew.” What on earth do we talk 
about? Books? Does he read? Yes, mother dear, he reads in five languages. 
Her head swings back and forth unbelievingly, and again back and forth 
disapprovingly. Anyway, Hebrew and Yiddish, which are one and the same to 
her, don’t count: only Jews understand such gibberish. (Ech! Ech!) Nothing 
of importance, says she, could possibly be written in such outlandish 
tongues. And the Bible, mother dear? She shrugs her shoulders. She meant 
books, not the Bible. (Sic.) What a world! Not one of my old pals left. I 
used to wonder if I wouldn’t run into Tony Marella some day. His father 
still sat by the window mending shoes. Every time I passed the shop I 
greeted him. But I never had the courage to inquire about Tony. One day, 
however, reading the local newspaper—The Chat—I discovered that my old 
friend was running for alderman in another district, where he now lived. 
Maybe he would become President of the United States one day! That would be
something, what!—a President out of our obscure little neighborhood. 
Already we could boast of a colonel and a rear-admiral. The Grogan 
brothers, no less. They had lived only a few doors away from us. “Grand 
boys!” as the neighbors all said. (A little later and, by God! one of them 
actually becomes a general; as for the other, the rear-admiral, blast me if
he isn’t sent to Moscow on a special mission—and by none other than the 
President of our Holy Roller Empire. Not so bad for our little 
insignificant Van Voorhees Street!) And now, thinks I to myself (de la part
des voisins), we have little Henry with us. Who knows? Maybe he’ll become 
another O’Henry. If Tony Marella is slated to be a President one day, 
surely Henry, our little Henry, can become a famous writer. Dixit.

Just the same—a slightly different key now—it was too bad we hadn’t 
produced at least one good prizefighter. The Laski brothers had faded out. 
Lacked the stuff that champs are made of. No it wasn’t the neighborhood to 
breed John L. Sullivans or James J. Corbetts. The old 14th Ward, to be 
sure, had turned out a dozen good pugilists, not to speak of politicians, 
bankers, and good old “con” men. I had the feeling that, were I back in the
old neighborhood, I would be writing more vividly. If only I could say 
hello to chaps like Lester Reardon, Eddie Carney, Johnny Paul, I’d feel 
like a new man.

“Shit!” I said to myself, rapping my bare knuckles against the iron spike
of a fence, “I’m not done for yet. Not by a long shot… “

And so one morning I woke up full of piss and vinegar. Decided to bust 
out into the world and make my presence felt. No set plan or project in 
mind. Tucking a sheaf of manuscripts under my arm, I made a dash for the 
street.

Playing a hunch, I make my way into the inner sanctum of an editorial 
office where I find myself face to face with one of the editors of a 
five-cent magazine. My thought is to ask for an editorial position.

The curious thing is that the man is one of the Miller tribe. Gerald 
Miller, no less. A good omen!

I don’t have to exercise my charms because he’s already predisposed in my
favor. “No doubt about it,” says he, “you’re a born writer.” In front of 
him is a slew of manuscripts; he’s glanced here and there, enough to 
convince himself that I have the goods.

“So you would like a job on the magazine? Well, it’s just possible I can 
make room for you. One of the editors is leaving in a week or so; I’ll 
speak to the boss and see what can be done. I’m certain you could fill the 
bill, even if you’ve had no training for it.” Follows this up with a few 
discerning compliments.

Then, apropos of nothing, he suddenly says: “Why don’t you write 
something for us meanwhile? We pay well, you know. I imagine you could use 
a check for $250.00, couldn’t you?”

Without waiting for a reply, he continues: “Why don’t you write about 
words? I don’t have to read very far to see that you’re in love with words…
“

I wasn’t sure I understood what exactly he wished me to say on this 
subject, especially to a five-cent audience.

“I don’t quite know myself,” he said. “Use your imagination. Don’t make 
it too long, either. Say five thousand words. And remember, our readers are
not all college professors!”

We sat there a while, chinning, and then he escorted me to the elevator. 
“See me in about a week,” he said. Then, diving into his pocket, he fished 
out a bill and stuffed it in my fist. “You might need that to hold you 
over.” He smiled. It was a twenty dollar bill, as I discovered when I hit 
the street. I felt like running back and thanking him again, but then I 
thought no, perhaps they’re used to treating their writers that way.

*

“The snow was softly falling all over Ireland… ” The words were running 
like a refrain through my head as I skipped lightly over the cobblestones 
homeward bound. Then came another line—why, I had no idea: “In my Father’s 
house are many mansions… ” They blended perfectly, the snow falling gently,
softly, steadily (all over Ireland), and the jeweled mansions of bliss, of 
which the Father kept an infinite number. It was St. Patrick’s day for me, 
and no snakes in sight. For some weird reason I felt Irish to the core. A 
bit of Joyce, a bit of the Blarney Stone, a few shenanigans—and Erin Go 
Bragh. (Every time the teacher’s back was turned one of us would steal to 
the blackboard and scrawl out in flaming chalk: Erin Go Bragh!) It’s 
Brooklyn I’m walking through and the snow is softly falling. I must ask 
Ulric to recite the passage for me again. He’s got just the voice for it, 
has he. It’s a beautiful melodious voice. And that he has, Ulric!

“The snow was softly falling all over Ireland… “

Nimble as a goat, thin as air, wistful as a faun, I wend my way over the 
lovely bubbly cobblestones.

If only I knew what to write! Two hundred and fifty dollars was not to be
sneezed at. And an editorial position to boot! My, but I had risen 
suddenly! Mister Cohen must hear of this. (Sholem Aleichem!) Five thousand 
words. A cinch. Once I knew what to say I could write it at one sitting. 
Words, words…

Believe it or not, I can’t put a damned word to paper. My favorite 
subject and here I am, tongue-tied. Curious. Worse than that—depressing.

Maybe I ought to do a little research work first. After all, what do I 
know about the English language? Almost nothing. To use it is one thing; to
write about it intelligently quite another.

I have it! Why not go straight to the source? Why not call on the 
editor-in-chief of the famous unabridged dictionary? Which one? Funk & 
Wagnal’s. (The only one I ever used.) Next morning bright and early I’m 
sitting in the ante-room, waiting for Dr. Vizetelly himself to appear. 
(It’s like asking Jesus Christ to help you, think I to myself.) However, 
the cards are on the table. All I pray for is not to make a damned fool of 
myself, as I did years ago when I called on a famous writer and asked 
straight out:

“How does one begin to write?” (The answer is: “By writing.” That’s 
exactly what he said, and that was the end of the interview.) Dr. Vizetelly
is standing before me. A live, genial man, full of sparkle and verve. Puts 
me at ease immediately. Urges me to unburden myself. Draws up a comfortable
chair for himself, listens attentively, then begins…

For a full hour or more this kind, gracious soul, to whom I shall always 
feel indebted, delivers himself of all that he thinks may serve me. He 
speaks so rapidly and fulgently that I haven’t the chance to make a single 
note. My head Is spinning. How will I remember even a fraction of all this 
exciting information? It’s as though I had put my head under a fountain.

Dr. Vizetelly, conscious of my dilemma, comes to the rescue. He orders a 
page to bring me folders and pamphlets. Urges me to look them over at my 
leisure. “I’m certain you’ll write an excellent article,” he says, beaming 
at me like a godfather. Then he asks if I will be good enough to show him 
what I’ve written before submitting it to the magazine.

Without warning he now puts me a few direct questions about myself: how 
long have I been writing? what else have I done? what books do I read? what
languages do I know? One after another—tic, tac, toe. I feel like less than
nobody, or as they say in Hebrew—efes efasim. What indeed have I done? What
indeed do I know? Smoked out at last, what is there to do but humbly 
confess my sins and omissions. I do so, exactly as I would to a priest, 
were I a Catholic and not the miserable spawn of Calvin and Luther.

What a virile, magnetic individual, this man! Who would ever dream, 
meeting him in the street, that he was the editor of a dictionary? The 
first erudite to inspire me with confidence and admiration. This is a man. 
I say it over and over to myself. A man with a pair of balls as well as a 
think-tank. Not a mere fount of wisdom but a living, rushing, roaring 
cataract. Every particle of his being vibrates with an electric ardor. He 
not only knows every word in the English language (including those in “cold
storage,” as he put it) but he knows wines, horses, women, food, birds, 
trees; he knows how to wear clothes, knows how to breathe, knows how to 
relax. And he also knows enough to take a drink once in a while. Knowing 
all, he loves all. Now we touch him! A man rushing forward—on all fours, I 
almost said—to greet life. A man with a song on his lips. Thank you, Dr. 
Vizetelly! Thank you for being alive!

In parting he said to me—how can I ever forget his words?—“Son, you have 
all the makings of a writer, I’m sure of it. Go along now and do what you 
can. Call on me if you need me.” He placed one hand on my shoulder 
affectionately and with the other gave me a warm hand-clasp. It was the 
benediction. Amen!

No longer falls the soft white snow. It is raining, raining deep inside 
me. Down my face the tears stream—tears of joy and gratitude. I have beheld
at last the face of my true father. I know now what it means—the Paraclete.
Goodbye, Father Vizetelly, for I shall never see you again. May thy name be
hallowed forever more!

The rain ceases. Just a thin drizzle now—down there under the heart—as if
a cess-pool were being strained through fine gauze. The whole thoracic 
region is saturated with the finest particles of this substance called H20 
which, when it falls on the tongue, tastes salty. Microscopic tears, more 
precious than fat pearls. Sifting slowly into the great cavity ruled over 
by the tear ducts. Dry eyes, dry palms. The face absolutely relaxed, open 
as the great plains, and ripening with joy.

(“Is it snowing again, Mr. Conroy?”) It’s wonderful to speak one’s own 
idiom, to have it rebound in your face, become again the universal 
language. Of the 450,000 words locked up in the unabridged dictionary, Dr. 
Vizetelly had assured me I must know at least 50,000. Even the shit-pumper 
has a vocabulary of at least 5,000 words. To prove it, all one had to do 
was to go home, sit down, and look around. Door, knob, chair, handle, wood,
iron, curtain, window, sill, button, legs, bowl… In any room there were 
hundreds of things with names, not to mention the adjectives, the adverbs, 
the prepositions, the verbs and participles that accompanied them. And 
Shakespeare had a vocabulary hardly bigger than a moron’s of today!

So what does it add up to? What will we do with more words?

(“And haven’t you your own language to keep in touch with?”) Aye, the own
language! Langue d’oc. Or—huic, huic, huic. In Hebrew one says “How are 
you?” in at least ten different ways, according to whether one is 
addressing a man, a woman, men, women, or men and women, and so on. To a 
cow or a goat nobody in his right senses says “How are you?”

Wending homeward, toward the street of early sorrows. Brooklyn, city of 
the dead. Return of the native…

(“And haven’t you your own land to visit?”) Aye, dismal Brooklyn I have, 
and the neighboring terrain—the swamps, the dumps, the stinking canals, the
ever vacant lots, the cemeteries… Native heath.

And I am neither fish nor fowl…

The drizzle ceases The innards are lined with wet lard. The cold drifts 
down from the north. Ah, but it’s snowing again!

And now it comes to me, fresh from the grave, that passage which Ulric 
could recite like a born Dubliner… “It had begun to snow again. He. watched
sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the 
lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. 
Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was 
falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, 
falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling 
into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part 
of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay
thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the
little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the 
snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the 
descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

In this snowy realm, with language chanting its own sweet litany, I sped 
homeward, ever homeward. Between the covers of the giant lexicon, amid 
ablatives and gerundives, I curled up and fell fast asleep. Between Adam 
and Eve I lay, surrounded by a thousand reindeer. My warm breath, cooled by
living waters, enveloped me in a refulgent mist. In la belle langue d’Oc, I
was out to the world. The caul was about my neck, strangling me, but ever 
so gently. And the name of the caul was Nemesh…

*

It took me a solid month or more to write the article for my namesake, 
Gerald Miller. When I finished I found that I had written fifteen thousand 
words instead of five. I squeezed out half and brought it to the editorial 
offices. A week later I had my check. The article, by the way, was never 
published. “Too good,” was the verdict. Nor did the editorial job ever 
materialize. I never found out why. Probably because I was “too good.”

However, with the two hundred and fifty we were able to resume life 
together once more. We picked ourselves a furnished room on Hancock Street,
Brooklyn, city of the dead, the near dead, and the deader than the dead. A 
quiet, respectable street: row after row of the same nondescript frame 
houses, all adorned with high stoops, awnings, grass plots and iron 
railings. The rent was modest; we were permitted to cook over gas-burners 
tucked away in an alcove next to an old-fashioned sink. Mrs. Henniker, the 
landlady, occupied the ground floor; the rest of the house was let out to 
roomers.

Mrs. Henniker was a widow whose husband had grown rich in the saloon 
business. She had a mixture of Dutch, Swiss, German, Norwegian and Danish 
blood. Full of vitality, idle curiosity, suspicion, greed and malice. Could
pass for a whorehouse keeper.

Always telling risqu6 stories and giggling over them like a schoolgirl. 
Very strict with her roomers. No monkey business! No noise! No beer 
parties! No visitors! Pay on the dot or you go!

It took this old geezer some time to get used to the idea that I was a 
writer. What stupefied her was the way the keys clicked. She had never 
believed anyone could write at such speed. But above all she was worried, 
worried for fear that, being a writer, I would forget to pay the rent after
a few weeks. To allay her fears we decided to give her a few weeks’ rent in
advance. Incredible how a little move like that can solidify one’s 
position!

At frequent intervals she would knock at the door, offer some flimsy 
excuse for interrupting me, then stand at the threshold for an hour or more
pumping me. Obviously it excited her to think that any one could pass the 
whole day at the machine, writing, writing, writing. What could I be 
writing? Stories? What kind of stories? Would I permit her to read one some
day? Would I this and would I that? It was inconceivable the questions the 
woman could ask.

After a time she began dropping in on me in order, as she said, to give 
me ideas for my stories: fragments out of her life in Hamburg, Dresden, 
Bremen, Darmstadt. Innocent little doings which to her were daring, 
shocking, so much so that sometimes her voice dropped to a whisper. If I 
were to make use of these incidents I was to be sure to change the locale. 
And of course give her a different name. I led her on for a while, glad to 
receive her little offerings—cheese cake, sausage meat, a left-over stew, a
bag of nuts. I wheedled her into making us cinnamon cake, streusel kuchen, 
apple cake—all in approved German style. She was ready to do most anything 
if only she might have the pleasure of reading about herself some day in a 
magazine.

One day she asked me point-blank if my stories really sold. Apparently 
she had been reading all the current magazines she could lay hands on and 
had not found my name in one of them. I patiently explained to her that 
sometimes one had to wait several months before a story was accepted, and 
after that another few months before one got paid. I at once added that we 
were living on the proceeds of several stories which I had sold the year 
before—at a handsome figure. Whereupon, as though my words had no effect 
whatever upon her, she said flatly: “If you get hungry you can always eat 
with me. I get lonely sometimes.” Then, heaving a deep sigh: “It’s no fun 
to be a writer, is it?”

It sure wasn’t. Whether she suspected it or not, we were always hungry as
wolves. No matter how much money came in, it always melted like snow. We 
were always trotting about, looking up old friends with whom we could eat, 
borrow carfare, or persuade to take us to a show. At night we rigged up a 
wash line which we stretched across the bed.

Mrs. Henniker, always overfed, could sense that we were in a perpetual 
state of hunger. Every so often she repeated her invitation to dine with 
her—“if you’re ever hungry.” She never said: “Won’t you have dinner with me
this evening, I have a lovely rabbit stew which I made expressly for you.” 
No, she took a perverse pleasure in trying to force us to admit that we 
were ravenous. We never did admit it of course. For one thing, to give in 
meant that I would have to write the sort of stories Mrs. Henniker wanted. 
Besides, even a hack writer has to keep up a front.

Somehow we always managed to borrow the rent money in time. Dr. Kronski 
sometimes came to the rescue, and so did Curley. But it was a tussle. When 
we were really desperate we would walk to my parent’s house—a good hour’s 
walk—and stay until we had filled our bellies. Often Mona fell asleep on 
the couch immediately after dinner. I would do my utmost to keep up a 
running conversation, praying to God that Mona wouldn’t go on sleeping 
until the last horn.

These post-prandial conversations were sheer agony. I tried desperately 
to talk of everything but my work. Inevitably, however, there would come 
the moment when either my father or my mother would ask—“How is the writing
going? Have you sold anything more since we saw you last?” And I would lie 
shamefacedly:

“Why yes, I sold two more recently. It’s going fine, really.” Then would 
come a look of joy and astonishment and they would ask simultaneously: “To 
which magazines did you sell them?” And I would give them names at random. 
“We’ll be watching for them, Henry. When do you think they will appear?” 
Nine months later they would remind me that they were still on the lookout 
for those stories I said I had sold to this and that magazine.) Toward the 
end of the evening, my mother, as if to say “Let’s get down to earth!” 
would ask me solemnly if I didn’t think it would be wiser to drop the 
writing and look for a job. “That was such a wonderful position you had 
with… How could you ever have given it up? It takes years to become a good 
writer—and maybe you will never succeed at it.” And so on and so forth. I 
used to weep for her. The old man, on the other hand, always pretended to 
believe that I would come through with flying colors. He fervently hoped 
so, that I was certain of. “Give him time, give him time!” he would say. To
which my mother would reply—“But how will they live in the meantime?” Then 
it was my cue. “Don’t worry, mother. I know how to get along. I’ve got 
brains, you know that. You don’t think we’re going to starve, do you?” Just
the same, my mother thought, and she would repeat it over and over, as if 
to herself, that it would really be wiser to take a job and do the writing 
on the side “Well, they don’t look as though they were starving, do they?” 
This was the old man’s way of telling me that, if we really were starving, 
all I had to do was to call on him at the tailor shop and he’d lend me what
he could. I understood and he understood. I would thank him silently and he
would acknowledge my thanks silently. Of course I never called on him. Not 
for money. Now and then, out of a clear sky, I would drop in on him just to
cheer him up. Even when he knew I was lying—I told him outrageous 
cock-and-bull stories—he never let on. “Glad to hear it, son,” he’d say. 
“Great! You’ll be a best-seller yet, I’m sure of it.” Sometimes, on leaving
him, I would be in tears. I wanted so much to help him. There he sat in the
back of the shop, a sort of collapsed wreck, his business shot to hell, no 
hopes whatever, and still acting cheerful, still talking optimistically. 
Perhaps he hadn’t seen a customer for several months, but still “a boss 
tailor.” The frightful irony of it! “Yes,” I would say to myself, walking 
down the street, “the first story I sell I’m going to hand him a few 
greenbacks.” Whereupon I myself would wax optimistic, persuaded by some 
crazy logic that some editor would take a fancy to me and write out a 
check, in advance, for five hundred or a thousand dollars. By the time I 
reached home, however, I’d be willing to settle for a five-spot. I’d settle
for anything, in fact, that meant another meal, or more postage, or just 
shoe laces.

“Any mail today?” That was always my cry on entering. If there were fat 
envelopes waiting for me I knew it was my manuscripts coming home to roost.
If they were thin envelopes it meant rejection slips, with a request to 
forward postage for the return of the scripts. Or else it was bills. Or a 
letter from the lawyer, addressed to some ancient address and forwarded to 
me in miraculous fashion.

The back alimony was piling up. I would never be able to foot the bill, 
never. It looked more them ever certain that I would end my days in Raymond
Street jail.

“Something will turn up, you’ll see.”

Whenever anything did turn up it was always by her contrivance. It was 
Mona who ran into the editor of “Scurrilous Stories,” and got a commission 
to write a half-dozen stories for them. Just like that. I wrote two, under 
her name, with great effort, with heroic effort really; then I got the 
bright idea to look up their old files, take their own published stories, 
change the names of the characters, the beginnings and endings, and serve 
them up rehashed. It not only worked—they were enthusiastic about these 
forgeries. Naturally, since they had already savored the stew. But I soon 
grew tired of making potpourris. Just so much time wasted, it seemed to me.
“Tell them to go to hell,” I said one day. She did. But the kick-back was 
wholly unanticipated. From being “our editor,” his nibs now became a heavy 
lover. We got five times the money we used to get for the damned stories. 
What he got I don’t know. To believe Mona, all he demanded was a half hour 
of her time in a public place, usually a tea room. Fantastic! More 
fantastic still was this—he confessed one day that he was still a virgin. 
(At the age of 49!) What he omitted to say was that he was also a pervert. 
The subscribers to the bloody magazine, we learned, included a respectable 
number of perverted souls—ministers, rabbis, doctors, lawyers, teachers, 
reformers, congressmen, all sorts of people whom one would never suspect of
being interested in such trash. The vice crusaders were undoubtedly the 
most avid of their readers.

As a reaction to this phony slush I wrote a story about a killer. I wrote
it as if I had known the man intimately, but the truth is I had gleaned all
the facts from little Curley who had spent a night in Central Park with 
this “Butch” or whatever he was called. The night Curley told me the story 
I had one of those bad dreams in which you are pursued endlessly and 
relentlessly, escaping certain death only by coming awake.

What interested me about this “Butch” was the discipline he imposed on 
himself in plotting his holdups. To plot a job accurately required the 
combined powers of a mathematician and a yogi.

There he was, right in Central Park, and the whole nation searching high 
and low for him. Telling his story, like a fool, to a young lad like 
Curley. Even divulging a few sensational aspects of the job he was then 
plotting.

He might as well have stood on the corner of Times Square as prowl about 
Central Park late at night.

A reward of fifty thousand dollars was coming to the man who got him, 
dead or alive.

According to Curley, the man had locked himself in his room for weeks; he
had spent hours upon hours lying on the bed with a bandage over his eyes, 
rehearsing in detail every step, every move that was to be made. Everything
had been thought out thoroughly, even the most trifling details. But, like 
an author or a composer, he would not undertake the execution of his plans 
until they were perfect. He not only took into account all possibilities of
error and accident, but like an engineer, he allowed a margin of safety to 
meet unexpected stress and strain. He might be dead certain himself, he 
might have tested the ability and the loyalty of his confederates, but in 
the end he could count only on himself, on his own brains, his own 
foresight. He was alone against thousands. Not only was every copper in the
country on the alert, but so were the civilians throughout the land. One 
careless little move and the jig was up. Of course he never intended to let
himself be caught alive. He would shoot it out. But there were his pals—he 
couldn’t let them down.

Perhaps, when he strolled out to get a breath of air that evening, he was
so chock full of ideas, so certain that nothing could go amiss, that he 
simply couldn’t contain himself any longer. He would collar the first comer
and spill the beans, trusting to the fact that his victim would be reduced 
to such a state of terror that he would be paralyzed. Perhaps he enjoyed 
the thought of brushing elbows with the guardians of the law, asking them 
for a light, maybe, or for directions, looking them straight in the eye, 
touching them, thanking them, and they none the wiser. Maybe he needed such
a thrill to steady himself, to get the cold feel of things—because it’s one
thing to think it out intensely all by yourself, securely locked in a room,
and quite another thing to start moving about outdoors, with every pair of 
eyes examining you, with every man’s hand raised against you. Athletes have
to warm up first. Criminals probably have to do something similar… Butch 
was the sort who enjoyed courting danger He was an A-l criminal, a guy who 
might have made a great general, or a wily corporation lawyer. Like so many
of his kind, he had assured Curley, not once but several times, that he had
always given his man a fair chance. He was not a coward, neither was he a 
sneak, and certainly not a traitor. He was against Society, that was all. 
Playing a lone hand, he had reason to be proud of his success. Like a movie
star, he was vain about his following. Fans? He had millions of them. Now 
and then he had done something off the record, just to let them know his 
calibre. Playing to the gallery. Sure. Why not? One had to get a little fun
out of it too. He didn’t particularly relish the killings, though he didn’t
have a bad conscience about them either. What he liked more than anything 
was to put it over on the soft-shoe blokes.

They always thought themselves so goddamned smart!

Curley was still trembling with excitement, fear, anguish, admiration and
God knows what. He could talk of nothing else. He urged us to watch the 
papers. It would be a sensational affair. Even to us he refused to reveal 
the nature of it. He was still frightened, still hypnotized. “His eyes!” he
exclaimed over and over. “I felt as if I were turning to stone.”

“But you met in the dark.”

“Doesn’t matter. They glowed like coals They gave off sparks!”

“Don’t you think maybe you imagined it, knowing he was a killer?”

“Not me. I’ll never forget those eyes. They’ll haunt me to my dying day.”
He shuddered.

“Do you really think, Curley,” asked Mona, “that a criminal’s eyes are 
different from other people’s?”

“Why not?” said Curley “Everything else about them is different. Why not 
their eyes? Don’t you think eyes change when the personality changes? They 
all have ‘other’ personalities. I mean, they’re not themselves. They’re 
something plus—or less, I don’t know which. They’re another breed, that’s 
all I can say. Even before he told me who he was I felt it. It was like 
getting a vibration from another world. His voice was unlike any human 
voice I know. When he shook hands with me I thought I had hold of an 
electric current. I got a shock, I can tell you—I mean a physical shock. I 
would have run away from him, then and there, but those eyes kept me rooted
to the spot. I couldn’t budge, couldn’t lift a finger… I begin to 
understand now what people mean when they talk of the Devil There was a 
strange smell about him—did I mention that? Not sulphur and brimstone. More
like some concentrated acid. Maybe he had been working with chemicals. But 
I don’t think it was that. It was something in his blood… “

“Do you think you would recognize him if you saw him again?”

Here Curley paused, to my surprise. He seemed baffled.

“Frankly,” he answered, and with great hesitation, “I don’t think I 
would. Strong as his personality was, it also had the power to erase itself
from one’s consciousness. Does that sound fishy? Let me put it another 
way.” (Here I was genuinely astounded. Curley had indeed made strides.) 
“Suppose St. Francis appeared before you tonight in this very room. Suppose
he spoke to you. Would you remember what he looked like tomorrow or the day
after? Wouldn’t his presence be so overwhelming as to wipe out all 
remembrance of his features? Maybe you’ve never thought of such an 
eventuality. I have because I knew someone once who had visions. I was only
a kid at the time but I can remember the look on the person’s face when she
told me of her experiences. I know that she saw more than the physical 
being. When someone comes to you from above he brings something of heaven 
with him—and that’s blinding. Anyway, that’s how it seems to me… Butch gave
me a similar feeling, only I knew he didn’t come from above. Wherever he 
came from, it was all about him. You could sense It. And it was 
terrifying.” He paused again, his face brightened. “Listen, you’re the one 
who urged me to read Dostoievsky. You know what it is, then, to be dragged 
into a world of unmitigated evil. Some of his characters talk and act as if
they inhabited a world absolutely unknown to us. I wouldn’t call it Hell. 
Something worse. Something more complex, more subtle than Hell. Nothing 
physical can describe it. You sense it from their reactions. They have an 
unpredictable approach to everything. Until he wrote about them, we’d never
known people who thought as his characters do. And that reminds me—with him
the criminal, the idiot, the saint are not very far apart, are they? How do
you figure that out? Did Dostoievsky mean that we’re all of one substance? 
What is evil, and what divine? Maybe you know… I don’t.

“Curley, you really surprise me,” said I. “I mean it.”

“You think I’m so very different now?”

“Different? No, not so very, but certainly more mature.”

“What the hell, you don’t remain a kid all your life.”

“True… Tell me honestly, Curley, if you could get away with it, would you
be tempted to lead the life of a criminal?”

“Possibly,” he answered, lowering his head ever so little.

“You like danger, don’t you?”

He nodded.

“And you don’t have many scruples either, when the other fellow gets in 
your way?”

“I guess not.” He smiled. A rather twisted smile. “And you still hate 
your step-father?”

Without waiting for a reply I added: “Enough to kill him, if you could 
get away with it?”

“Right!” said Curley. “I’d kill him like a dog.”

“Why? Do you know why? Now think, don’t answer me straight off.”

“I don’t have to think,” he barked. “I know. I’d kill him because he 
stole my mother’s love. It’s as simple as that.”

“Doesn’t that sound slightly ridiculous to you?”

“I don’t give a damn if it does. It’s the truth. I can’t forget it and, 
what’s more, I’ll never forgive him. There’s a criminal for you, if you 
want to know.”

“Maybe you’re right, Curley, but the law doesn’t recognize him as one.”

“Who cares about the law? Anyway, there are other laws—and more important
too. We don’t live by legal codes.”

“Right you are!”

“I’d be doing the world a service,” he continued heatedly. “His death 
would purify the atmosphere.

He’s of no use to any one. Never was. I ought to be honored for doing 
away with him and his kind. If we had an intelligent society, I would be. 
In literature men who commit such crimes are regarded as heroes. Books are 
as much a part of life as anything else. If authors can think such 
thoughts, why not me or the other fellows? My grievances are real, not 
imaginary… “

“Are you so sure of that, Curley?” It was Mona who spoke.

“Dead sure,” said he.

“But if you were the central character in a book,” said she, “the 
important thing would be what happened to you, not your step-father. A man 
who kills his father—in a book—doesn’t become a hero just on that account. 
It’s the way he behaves that counts, the way he faces the problem—and 
resolves it. Any one can commit a crime, but some crimes are of such 
stupendous import that the doer becomes something more than a criminal. Do 
you see what I’m getting at?”

“I follow you all right,” said Curley, “but I don’t give a damn about all
those subtleties and complexities. That’s literature! I’m telling you 
honestly that I still hate his guts, that I’d kill him without compunction,
if I could get away with it.”

“I see one big difference already… ” Mona began.

“What do you mean?” he snapped.

“Between you and the hero of a book.”

“I don’t want to be a hero.”

“I know,” said Mona gently, “but you do want to remain a human being, 
don’t you? If you go on thinking this way, who knows, some day you may get 
your wish. Then what?”

“Then I’d be happy. No, not happy exactly, but relieved.”

“Because he wag out of the way, you mean?”

“No! Because I had done away with him. There’s a difference there.”

Here I felt impelled to break In. “Look, Curley, Mona got off the track. 
I think I know what she meant to say. It’s this—the difference between a 
criminal who commits a crime and the hero of a book who commits the same 
crime is that the latter doesn’t care whether he will get away with it or 
not. He’s not concerned about what happens to him afterward. He must 
accomplish his purpose, that’s all.”

“Which only proves,” said Curley, “that I’ll never make a hero.”

-“Nobody’s asking you to become a hero. But if you see the distinction 
between the two then you’ll realize that you’re hardly much better than the
man you hate and despise so much.”

“Even if that’s true I don’t give a damn!”

“Let’s forget it then. The probabilities are that he’ll die a peaceful 
death and that you’ll end up on a ranch in sunny California.”

“Maybe it’ll be the griffs and the grinds—how do you know?”

“Maybe. And maybe not.”

Before he left that night Curley imparted a piece of information which 
gave us quite a shock. Tony Maurer, he told us, had committed suicide. He 
had hanged himself in the bathroom during the course of a party he was 
giving his friends. They had found him with a sardonic smile on his lips 
and a pipe hanging from his mouth. No one, apparently, knew why he had done
it. He was never in lack of money and he was deeply in love with the woman 
he lived with, a beautiful Javanese girl. Some said he had done it out of 
sheer boredom. If so, it was in keeping with his character.

The news affected me strangely. I kept thinking what a pity it was that I
had not gotten to know Tony Maurer more intimately. He was the sort of man 
I would have been proud to call a friend. But I was too bashful to make 
advances, and he was too surfeited to recognize my need. I always felt a 
little uncomfortable in his presence. Like a schoolboy, to be precise. 
Everything I wanted to do he had done al; ready… Perhaps there was 
something else which had drawn me to him all unconsciously: his German 
blood. For once in my life I had had the pleasure of knowing a German who 
did not remind me of all the other Germans I knew. The truth is, he wasn’t 
really a German—he was a cosmopolite. The perfect example of that “late city man” whom Spengler has so well described. His roots were not in German
soil, German blood, German tradition, but in those end periods which 
distinguished the late-city man of Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, India. He 
was rootless and “at home” everywhere—that is, where there was culture and 
civilization. He might just as well have fought on the Italian, French, 
Hungarian or Rumanian side as ours. He had a sense of loyalty without being
patriotic. No wonder he had spent six months (by accident) in a French 
prison camp—and enjoyed it. He liked the French even more than the 
Germans—or the Americans. He liked good conversation, that was it.

All these aspects of the man, plus the fact that he was debonair, adroit,
thoroughly sophisticated, utterly tolerant and forgiving, had endeared him 
to me. Not one of my friends possessed these qualities. They had better and
worse traits, traits all too familiar to me. They were too much like myself
au fond, my friends. All my life I had wanted, and still crave, as a matter
of fact, friends whom I could look upon as being utterly different from 
myself. Whenever I succeeded in finding one I also discovered that the 
attraction necessary to maintain a vital relationship was lacking. None of 
these individuals ever became more than “potential” friends.

Anyway, that night I dreamed. An interminable dream, as I said before, 
and full of hair-raising escapades. In the dream Butch and Tony Maurer had 
exchanged personalities. In some mysterious way I was in league with them, 
or him, for sometimes this mysterious, baffling confederate of mine would 
split into two distinct personalities, never however being clearly Tony 
Maurer or clearly Butch, but always a composite of the two, even when 
split. This sort of double play was sufficient in itself to cause me 
extreme anguish, to say nothing of the fact that I was never certain 
whether he or they were with me or against me.

The theme of this disturbing dream centered about a job we were pulling 
off in some strange city which I had never visited, a remote place like 
Sioux Falls, Tonopah or Ludlow. I played the role of stooge, a most 
uncomfortable role, since I was always exposed, always left in the lurch. 
Over and over again it was impressed on me that one false move, one little 
mistake, and I would be so much horse meat. The instructions were always 
garbled, always given in a code which it took me hours to decipher. Of 
course the job was never pulled off. Instead we were on the run 
continuously, driven from pillar to post, badgered like wild game. When we 
were obliged to hide away—in caves, cellars, swamps, mineshafts—we played 
cards or rolled dice. The stakes were always for grand sums. We paid one 
another off in I.O.U’s, or else in Confederate money which we had seized in
rifling a bank. This Butch-Maurer wore a monocle, wore it even in public, 
despite all my entreaties. His language was a mixture of thieves’ argot and
Oxford slang. Even when explaining the devious complexities of a perilous 
undertaking he had a bad habit of wandering off the track, of telling 
stories which were long-winded and pointless. It was excruciating to follow
him. Eventually the three of us were cornered, or pocketed rather, in a 
narrow defile (in the Far West, it seemed) by a band of vigilantes. We were
all killed outright, shot down like wild boars. I only realized that I was 
still alive when I came awake.

Even then I could scarcely believe it. I was already sprouting wings.

Such was the gist of the dream. I tried to condense this raw material 
into a tale of pursuit, with a strict plot and a definite locale. The 
manhunt part of it I captured quite well, I thought, but the choppy, 
fantastic, episodic dream substance of flight and incident refused to be 
converted into intelligible narrative. I fell between two stools. Still, it
was a brave attempt, and it gave me the courage to tackle more imaginative 
stories. Perhaps I might have succeeded, in this latter vein, had we not 
received a telegram from O’Mara urging us to join him in North Carolina, 
the seat of another big real estate boom. As usual, he intimated that he 
was holding down a big job: “they” had need of me on the publicity end.

I wired back immediately to send us the train fare and advise what my 
salary would be. The answer I received read as follows:

“Don’t worry everything jake borrow the fare.”

Mona immediately suspected the worst. It was just like him, she thought, 
to be vague, noncommittal and utterly unreliable. It was nothing more than 
lonesomeness that had made him wire us.

Defending him instinctively, I worked myself up to such a pitch of 
enthusiasm that, despite the fact that I had a sinking feeling about the 
whole business, I could no longer back out.

“Well,” she said, “and where will we get the fare?”

I was stumped. For a minute only. Suddenly I had a bright idea. “The 
money? Why, from that little Lesbian you met the other day in the 
department store, remember. The Tansy perfume girl. That’s where.”

“Preposterous!” That was her first reaction.

“Come, come,” I said, “she’ll probably bless you for asking her.”

She continued to assert that it was out of the question, but it was 
obvious that she was revolving the suggestion in her mind. By the morrow I 
was certain she’d display a different attitude.

“I tell you what,” said I, as if to dismiss the subject, “let’s go to a 
show tonight, what do you say? Let’s see something funny.”

She thought it an excellent idea. We ate out, picked a good show—at the 
Palace—and came home laughing our heads off. We laughed so much in fact 
that it took us hours to fall asleep.

The next morning, as I had anticipated, she was off to see her little 
Lesbian friend. No .trouble at all borrowing fifty smackers. Her difficulty
had been to shake the girl off.

I suggested that we hitch-hike instead of taking the train. That would 
leave something over on arriving. “You never know about O’Mara. It may be 
all a smoke dream.”

“You talked differently yesterday,” said Mona.

“I know, but now it’s today. I’d rather play safe.”

She acquiesced readily enough. Agreed that we would probably see more of 
the country by hitch-hiking. Besides, with a woman by one’s side it was 
always easier to get a lift.

The landlady was a bit put out by the suddenness of our decision, but 
when I explained that I had been commissioned to do a book she took it with
seeming good nature and wished us well.

“What sort of book?” she asked, clutching my hand in farewell.

“About the Cherokee Indians,” I said, quickly closing the door behind us.

We got lifts easily enough, but to my amazement Mona registered nothing 
but disappointment. By the time we reached Harper’s Ferry she was plainly 
disgusted—with the landscape, the towns, the people we met, the meals and 
everything.

It was late afternoon when we reached Harper’s Ferry. We sat high up on a
rock overlooking three States. Below us the Shenandoah and the Potomac. A 
hallowed spot, if for no other reason than the fact that here John Brown, 
the great Liberator, met his fate. Mona, however, wasn’t at all interested 
in the historic aspects of the place. As for the splendor of the vista, 
that she couldn’t repudiate. But it filled her with desolation. To tell the
truth, I felt much the same, but for different reasons. It was impossible 
to pull myself away. Too much had happened here to permit the obtrusion of 
one’s private worries. I read with moist eyes what Thomas Jefferson had 
said of this particular spot: the words were carved on a tablet fastened to
the rock. There was sublimity in Jefferson’s words. But there was even more
sublimity in the actions of John Brown and his faithful followers. “No man 
in America,” said Thoreau, “has ever stood up so persistently for the 
dignity of human nature, knowing himself for man and equal of any and all 
governments.” A fanatic? Possibly. Who else but a just man could plan to 
overthrow the stable, conservative government of these United States with a
mere handful of men? Glory to John Brown! Glory on high! “I believe in the 
Golden Rule, sir, and the Declaration of Independence. I think they both 
mean the same thing. Better that a whole generation should pass off the 
face of the earth—men, women and children—by a violent death, than that one
jot of either should fall in this country.” (The words of John Brown in the
year 1857.) Let us not forget that the number of Liberators who took 
possession of the town of Harper’s Ferry was only twenty-two, of whom 
seventeen were whites. “A few men in the right, and knowing they are, can 
overturn a king.” said John Brown. With twenty men in the Alleghanies he 
was certain he could smash Slavery in two years. “Who would be free, 
themselves must strike the blow.” There you have John Brown in a nut shell.
A fanatic?

More than likely. The sort who said: “A man dies when his time comes, and
a man who fears is born out of time.” If he was indeed a fanatic, he was a 
unique one. Is this the language of a fanatic?—“Do not allow anyone to say 
that I acted from revenge. I claim no man has a right to revenge himself. 
It is a feeling that does not enter into my heart. What I do, I do for the 
cause of human liberty, and because I regard it as necessary.”

Compromise was not in his nature. Nor palliation. He was a man of vision.
And it was a great, great vision which inspired his “mad” behavior. Had 
John Brown taken over the helm the slaves would really be free today—not 
only the black slaves but the white slaves and the slaves of the slaves, 
which is to say, the slaves of the machine The ironic thing is that the 
great Liberator came to a disastrous end because of his overwhelming sense 
of consideration for the enemy. (That was where his real madness lay!) 
After forty days in chains, after a mock trial during which he lay on the 
floor of the court-room in his blood-soaked, saber-torn clothes, he went to
the gallows, with head erect, standing there on the trap blindfolded, 
waiting, (though his one and only request had been to get done with it 
quickly) while the gallant military men of Virginia performed their 
interminable and asinine parade maneuvers.

To those who had written him toward the end, asking how they might aid 
him, John Brown had replied: “Please send fifty cents a year to my wife in 
North Elba, New York.” As he made his way to the gallows he shook hands in 
turn with each of his comrades, handing them each a quarter with his 
blessing. That’s how the great Liberator went to meet his Maker…

The gateway to the South is Harper’s Ferry. You enter the South by the 
way of the Old Dominion. John Brown had entered the Old Dominion to pass 
into life eternal. “I acknowledge no master in human form,” he said. Glory!
Glory be!

One of his contemporaries, almost as famous in his own way, said of John 
Brown: “He could not have been tried by his peers, for his peers did not 
exist.” Amen! Alleluia! And may his soul go marching on!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I’m now going to sing of “The Seven Great Joys.” This is the refrain:

Come all ye out of the wilderness

And glory be.

Father, Son and the Holy Ghost

Through all eternity.

We will sing it often as we writhe like snakes in the sultry bosom of the
South…

Asheville. Thomas Wolfe, who was born here, was probably composing Look 
Homeward, Angel! at the time of our entry. I had not even heard of Thomas 
Wolfe. A pity, because I might have looked at Asheville with different 
eyes. No matter what anyone says of Asheville, the setting is magnificent. 
In the very heart of the Great Smokies. Ancient Cherokee land. To the 
Cherokees it must have been Paradise. It is still a Paradise, if you can 
view it with a clear conscience.

O’Mara was there to usher us into Heaven. But once again we were too 
late. Things had taken a bad turn. The real estate boom was over. There was
no publicity job awaiting me. No job of any sort. To tell the truth, I felt
relieved. Learning that O’Mara had put a little money aside, enough to tide
us over a few weeks, I decided that it was as good a place as any to stay a
while and write. The only drawback was Mona. The South was not to her 
liking. I had hopes however, that she would adjust herself. After all, she 
had rarely set foot outside New York.

According to O’Mara, there was a ranger’s cabin which we could make use 
of indefinitely, rent free, if we liked the place. An ideal spot, he 
thought, for me to write in. Only a short distance out of town it was, up 
in the hills. He seemed eager to see us move in immediately.

It was nightfall when we got to the foot of the hill, where we were to 
obtain the keys for the cabin. With the aid of an overgrown idiot we rode 
up on muleback, in pitch darkness. Just Mona and myself rode, that is. As 
we slowly and laboriously ascended we listened to the roar of the mountain 
torrent rushing beside us. It was that dark you couldn’t see your hand in 
front of you. It took us almost an hour to get to the clearing where the 
cabin stood. Hardly had we dismounted when we were assailed by swarms of 
flies and mosquitoes. The idiot, a gangling, gawky lad who never opened his
mouth, pushed the door in and hung the lantern on a cord dangling from a 
rafter. Obviously the place hadn’t been inhabited for years. It was not 
only filthy, it was infested with rats, spiders and all manner of vermin.

We stretched out on the two cots side by side; the idiot lay on the floor
at our feet. I was aware of the unpleasant sound of bats swooping about 
over our heads. The flies and mosquitoes, disturbed by our intrusion, 
attacked us mercilessly.

Despite everything, however, we succeeded in falling asleep.

It seemed to me I had hardly closed my eyes when I felt Mona clutching my
arm.

“What is it?” I muttered.

She leaned over and whispered in my ear.

“Nonsense,” I said, “you were probably dreaming.”

I tried to fall back to sleep. In an instant I felt her clutching me 
again.

“It’s him,” she whispered, “I’m sure of it. He’s feeling my leg.”

I got up, struck a match, and took a good look at the idiot. He was lying
on his side, his eyes closed, still as a stick.

“You’re imagining things,” I said, “he’s sound asleep.”

Just the same I thought it better to be on the alert. A dumb gawk like 
that had the strength of a brute. I struck another match and took a quick 
look about to see what I might use as a weapon should he really get out of 
hand.

At daybreak we were all wide awake and scratching like mad. The heat was 
already stifling. We sent the boy to fetch a pail of water, dressed 
hurriedly, and decided without delay to clear out. While waiting for the 
goon to pack we inspected the spot more closely. The cabin was literally 
smothered by trees and brush. No view whatever. Just the sound of running 
water and the insane twittering of birds. I recalled O’Mara’s parting words
when we started up the goat path—“Just the place for you… an ideal 
retreat!”

Descending, again on muleback, we observed with a shudder what a narrow 
escape we had had. One little slip and we would have been done for. Before 
we had gone very far we dismounted and followed on foot. Even thus it was a
ticklish feat to keep from slipping.

At the bottom we were presented to all the members of the family. There 
were over a dozen kids running about, most of them half-naked. We inquired 
if we might have breakfast with them. We were told to wait, they’d call us 
when ready. We sat down on the steps of the porch and waited glumly. By 
now—it was not yet seven—the heat was almost intolerable.

When they called us in we found the whole family congregated about the 
table. For a moment I could scarcely believe my eyes: all those black spots
that peppered the food, were they really flies? At each end of the table 
stood two youngsters busily engaged in brushing away the flies with dirty 
towels. We sat down, all together, and the flies settled in our ears, eyes,
noses, hair and teeth. We sat in silence for a moment while the venerable 
patriarch said grace.

The very first blessing that Mary had

Hit was the blessing of one,

To think her little Jesus

Was God’s only Son,

Was God’s only Son.

The repast was a bounteous one—grits, bacon and eggs, com bread, coffee, 
ham, flapjacks, stewed pears. All for twenty-five cents per head. No extra 
charge for the flies.

O’Mara was a bit put out to see us back so quick. “No guts,” he said 
glumly.

“You know I hate flies,” was all I could say.

As luck would have it, we went to a restaurant that evening which had 
just opened. In West Asheville. The owner, Mr. Rawlins, had been a school 
teacher. For some reason he took a fancy to us instantly. On leaving he 
gave us a letter of introduction to a man and wife who had a comfortable 
room to let and at a very small sum. We paid a week’s rent in advance and 
the next day turned over to Mr. Rawlins sufficient to pay for a week’s 
supply of meals.

From this point on we saw almost nothing of O’Mara. No quarrel. Going 
different ways, that’s all. I borrowed a typewriter from Mr. Rawlins, who 
displayed a touching eagerness to be of service to “a man of letters.” To 
be sure, I had handed him quite a line regarding the books I had written, 
as well as about the magnum opus which was in progress. We ate well in his 
cosy little restaurant. There were all sorts of side dishes which he thrust
upon us gratis, in further recognition, no doubt, of “the man of letters.” 
Now and then he put a good cigar in my breast pocket or insisted that we 
accept a pint of ice cream, to eat when we got home.

It turned out that Rawlins had been a professor of English at the local 
high school. Which explains the royal sessions we held over the Elizabethan
writers. But what endeared me to him most, I do believe, was my love of the
Irish writers. The fact that I had read Yeats, Synge, Lord Dunsany, Lady 
Gregory, O’Casey, Joyce, led him to accept me as a boon companion. He was 
dying to read my work, but I had sense enough to keep it out of sight. 
Besides, there was really nothing to show him.

At the rooming house we struck up an acquaintance with a lumber man from 
West Virginia. Matthews was his name. He was a Scot through and through, 
but a gallant one. It gave him the utmost pleasure, a sincere pleasure, to 
drive us about the country in his beautiful car on his off days. He had a 
liking for good food and good wines, and he knew where they were to be 
found. It was at Chimney Rock one day that he blew us to a meal of which I 
can truthfully say that only twice since have I enjoyed anything like it. I
must say this of Matthews, that from the very beginning he divined our true
situation; from the very beginning of our relationship he made it clear 
that, whenever we were with him, we were never to put our hands into our 
pockets.

To say only this about him would be to give a false impression of the 
man. He was not a wealthy man, nor was he what we call a “sucker.” He was a
sensitive, highly intelligent individual who knew almost nothing about 
books, music or painting. But he knew life—and of nature, animals 
particularly, he was extremely fond. I said that he was not wealthy. Had he
wished to, he could have become a millionaire in no time. But he had no 
desire to become rich. He was one of those rare Americans who is content 
with his lot. To be in his company was like being with your own brother. 
Often, in the evening, we sat on the front porch and talked for five and 
six hours at a stretch. Easy talk. Restful talk…

But the writing… Somehow it wouldn’t come. To finish a simple story, a 
bad one at that, took me several weeks. The heat had something to do with 
it. (In the South the heat explains almost everything, except lynching.) 
Before I could get two lines written my clothes would be drenched with 
perspiration. I’d sit at the window and stare at the chain gang—all 
Negroes—working away with pick and shovel, chanting as they worked, the 
sweat rolling down their backs in rivulets. The harder they worked the less
effort I was able to make. The singing got into my blood. But what 
disturbed me even more was the looks of the guards; just to glance into the
faces of these human bloodhounds sent the shivers up my spine.

To vary the monotony Mona and I would make an excursion on our own 
occasionally, selecting some distant spot, any old spot, which we would get
to by hitch-hiking. We made these excursions merely to kill time. (In the 
South time flies like lead.) Sometimes we took the first car that came 
along, not caring which direction it was taking. Like that, observing one 
day that we were headed for South Carolina, I suddenly recollected the name
of an old school chum who, from last reports, was teaching music in a 
little college in South Carolina. I decided that we would pay him a visit. 
It was a long ride and, as usual, we had not a cent in our pockets. I was 
sure, however, that we could count on having a good lunch with my old 
friend.

It was a good twenty years since I had last seen this good old chum. He 
had left school ahead of us in order to study music in Germany. He became a
concert pianist, traveled all over Europe, and then returned to America to 
accept an insignificant post in this little Southern town. I had had a few 
cards from him—and then silence. As I mused I began to wonder if he could 
have forgotten who I was. Twenty years is a long time.

Every day, on our way home from school, I would stop at his home to 
listen to him play. He played all the compositions I was later to hear in 
concert halls, and he played them (to my youthful mind) as well as the 
maestros. He had the size and the reach to command attention. On his 
forehead was a budding growth which, when he grew inspired, looked almost 
like a short horn. He towered over me by a good foot. He looked like a 
foreigner and he spoke like a European of the upper class who had learned 
English with his mother tongue. Add to this that he usually wore striped 
trousers and a soft black coat. It was in the German class that we struck 
up a friendship. He had taken German, which he knew perfectly, in order to 
have that much less to study. The teacher, a delightful, flirtatious young 
woman with a keen sense of humor, was really taken with him. She pretended,
however, to be annoyed with him. Every now and then she gave him a sly dig.
One day, incensed by the perfect translation he had just delivered aloud 
and without preparation, she asked him why he hadn’t chosen to learn some 
other language. Hadn’t he any desire to learn something new? And so on. 
Putting on a malicious smile, he replied that he had better things to do 
with his time.

“Oh you have, have you? Like what, may I ask?”

“I have my music.”

“So! You’re a musician? A pianist—or perhaps a composer?”

“Both,” he said.

“And what have you composed thus far?”

“Sonatas, concerts, symphonies and operas… plus a few quartets.”

The class burst into an uproar “You’re even more of a genius than I 
thought you were,” she said, after the hubbub had died down.

Before the lesson was over he handed me a note which he had hastily 
scribbled and folded up. I had no more than read it when I was ordered up 
front. I handed it to her face open. She read the message, blushed crimson,
and threw it into the waste basket. All it said was: “Sie ist wie eine 
Blume.”

I thought of other things in connection with this “genius.” How he 
despised everything American, for example; how he detested our literature, 
how he mimicked the professors, how he loathed any form of exercise. But 
above all, I remembered the freedom he enjoyed in his own home and the 
respect shown him by his parents and brothers. There wasn’t another chap 
like him in the whole school. How delighted I was when I got my first 
letter from him, dated Heidelberg. He was thoroughly at home, he wrote, 
even more of a German than the Germans. Why was I staying in America? Why 
didn’t I join him and become a good German poet?

I was just thinking how odd it would be if he should say—“I don’t 
remember you”—when I realized that we had entered the town. It took less 
than no time to learn that my old friend had left the day before to tour 
the East. What luck! We were famished, it being long after noon. In 
desperation I held on to the Dean, a brittle, querulous old lady, trying to
impress upon her the fact that we had made a tremendous detour, on our way 
to Mexico—our car having broken down some miles away—expressly for the 
purpose of greeting my dear boyhood friend of long ago. By dint of holding 
on, chewing her ear off, I managed to get across to her (telepathically) 
that we were in need of refreshment. With bad grace she eventually ordered 
up tea and scones for us.

We walked to the edge of the town, to stretch our legs. There we caught a
lift homeward in a battered Ford. The driver, a veteran and somewhat 
cracked, also a bit spifflicated—in the South everyone drinks like a 
fish—said he would be passing through Asheville. He didn’t seem to know 
very definitely where he was going, except northward. The conversation 
which we carried on during the long ride back to Asheville was absolutely 
crazy. The poor devil had not only been banged up in the war, had not only 
lost his wife to his best friend, but had been in several bad accidents 
since. To make it worse, he was a dunce and a bigot, one of those ornery 
cusses who become even more ornery when they happen to be Southerners. We 
flitted from subject to subject like grasshoppers, nothing apparently being
of interest to him except his own woes and miseries. As we neared Asheville
he became more cantankerous than ever. He made it plain that he thoroughly 
and heartily disliked everything about us, including our manner of speech. 
When he finally deposited us on the sidewalk in Asheville he was fuming.

We stuck out our hands to thank him for the lift and, without wasting 
words, said—“Goodbye!”

“Goodbye!” he cried. “Aren’t you going to pay me?”

Pay? I was dumbfounded. Whoever heard of paying for a ride?

“You didn’t expect to ride for nothing, did you?” he shouted. “What about
the gas and oil I bought?” He leaned out of the car belligerently.

I had to do some tall explaining, and fast. He looked at us 
incredulously, then shook his head and mumbled: “I thought as much when I 
set eyes on you.” As an afterthought: “I’ve a good mind to run you in.” 
Then something I would never have expected happened: he burst into tears. I
leaned forward to say a comforting word, my heart completely melted. “Go 
away from me!” he yelled. “Go way!” We left him sitting huddled up over the
steering wheel, his head in his arms, weeping to break his heart.

“What in Christ’s name do you make of that?” I said, somewhat shaken.

“You were lucky he didn’t pull a knife on you,” said Mona. The experience
confirmed the conviction she had always held about Southerners—that they 
were absolutely unpredictable. It was time we thought of returning home, 
she thought.

The next day, as I sat at the machine with a vacant stare, I began to 
wonder how much longer we could carry on in sunny Carolina. Several weeks 
had passed since we last paid a cent toward our room. What we owed the good
Mr. Rawlins for meals I didn’t dare think.

The following day, however, to our utter astonishment we received a 
telegram from Kronski informing us that he and his wife were on their way, 
would see us that very evening. A windfall!

Sure enough, just a little before dinner time they blew in.

Come all ye out of the wilderness

And glory be, the

Father, Son and Holy Ghost

Through all eternity.

Almost the first thing we asked, disgraceful as it sounds, was whether 
they had any money to spare.

“Is that all that’s eating yez?” Kronski was fairly beaming. “That’s 
easy. How much would you like? Will fifty do?”

We hugged one another for joy. “Money,” he said—“why didn’t you wire me?”
And in the next breath—“Do you really like it here? Kinda scares me, to 
tell you the truth. This ain’t no country for niggers—nor for the Jews. 
Makes me creepy…

Over the meal he wanted to know what I had written, whether I had sold 
anything, and so on. He had suspected, so he said, that things weren’t 
going well with us. “That’s why we hopped down sort of sudden like. I’ve 
got thirty-six hours to spend with you.” He said this with a smile which 
meant—you won’t have to put up with me a minute longer.

Mona was all for going back with them, but for some perverse reason I 
insisted that we stick it out a little longer. We argued about this rather 
heatedly but got nowhere.

“The hell with that question,” said Kronski. “Now that we’re here, what 
can you show us before we leave?”

Promptly I replied: “Lake Junaleska.” I didn’t know why I said it, it 
just popped out of my mouth. But then suddenly I did know. It was because I
wanted to see Waynesville again.

“Every time I get near this place—Waynesville—I feel as though I would 
like to settle down. I don’t know what it is about the place, but it gets 
me.”

“You’ll never settle down in the South,” said Kronski. “You’re a born New
Yorker. Listen, why don’t you stop roaming through the hinterland and go 
abroad? The place for you is France, don’t you know that?”

Mona agreed most enthusiastically.

“You’re the only one who talks sense to him.” said she.

“If it were me,” said Kronski, “I’d pick Russia, but I don’t have the 
wanderlust. I don’t find New York so bad, would you believe that?” Then, in
characteristic fashion, he added: “Once I set up practice I’ll stake you 
two to a trip to Europe. I’m serious about it. I’ve had the thought many a 
time. You’re getting stale here. You don’t belong In this country, neither 
of you. It’s too small, too petty… it’s too goddamned prosaic, that’s what.
As for you, Mister Miller, quit writing those damned things for the 
magazines, do you hear me? You’re not meant to write that stuff. You’re cut
out to write books. Write a book, why don’t you? You can do it… “

The next day we went to Waynesville and to Lake Junaleska. Neither place 
made the least impression on any of them.

“Funny,” said I, as we were riding back, “you can’t picture a guy like me
spending the rest of his days in a spot like that—like Waynesville, I mean.
Why? Why does it seen so fantastic?”

“You don’t belong, that’s all.”

“I don’t, eh?” Where do I belong, I asked myself. France? Maybe. Maybe 
not. Forty million Frenchmen was a lot to swallow in one dose. If anything,
I preferred Spain. I took instinctively to Spaniards, as I did to Russians.

Somehow the conversation had got me to pondering the economic question 
again. That was always a nightmare. In a weak moment I found myself 
wondering if we hadn’t better return to New York after all.

The next day, however, I was of a different mind. We accompanied Kronski 
and his wife to the edge of the town where they quickly got a lift. We 
stood there a moment waving goodbye, then I turned to Mona and mumbled 
thickly: “He’s a good egg, that Kronski.”

“The best friend you’ve got,” she said quick as a flash.

With the fifty from Kronski we paid something on our debts, and, trusting
that Kronski would send us a little more when he got back to New York, we 
made another stab at it. By sheer force of will I succeeded in finishing 
another story. I tried to begin another, but it was hopeless: I hadn’t an 
idea in my bean. So instead I wrote letters to all and sundry, including 
that kind editor who had once offered to give me a job as his assistant. I 
also looked up O’Mara, but found him in such a despondent mood that I 
didn’t have the heart to mention money.

There was no doubt about it, the South was getting us down. The landlord 
and his wife did everything to make us comfortable; Mr. Rawlins, too, did 
his best to encourage us. Never a word from any of them about the money we 
still owed them. As for Matthews, his trips to West Virginia were becoming 
more frequent and more protracted. Besides, we simply couldn’t bring 
ourselves to borrow from him.

The heat, as I have already said, had a great deal to do with our lowered
morale. There is a heat which warms and vitalizes, and there’s another kind
which enervates one, saps one’s strength, one’s courage, even one’s desire 
to live. Our blood was too thick, I suppose. The general apathy of the 
natives only added to our own apathy. It was like somnolescing in a vacuum.
Never did one hear the word art; it was absent from the vocabulary of these
people. I had the feeling that the Cherokees had produced more art than 
these poor devils ever would. One missed the presence of the Indian whose 
land, after all, it was. One felt the overpowering presence of the Negro. A
heavy, disturbing presence. The “tarheel,” as the native is called, is 
certainly no nigger-lover. He’s not much of anything, in fact. As I say, it
was a vacuum, a hot, smoldering vacuum, if one can imagine such a thing.

It made me itchy at times to walk up and down the desolate streets. 
Walking the road was no fun either. On every side a gorgeous setting 
presented itself to the eye, yet inwardly one felt nothing but despair and 
desolation. The beauty of the surroundings only served to ravage one. God 
had certainly meant for man to lead a different life here. The Indian had 
been much closer to God. As for the Negro, he would have thrived here had 
the white man given him a chance. I used to wonder, and I wonder still, 
whether eventually the Indian and the Negro will not get together, drive 
the white man out, and reestablish Paradise in this land of milk and honey.
Ah well—

The very next blessing that Mary had

Hit was the blessing of two

To think her little Jesus

Could read the Bible through

Read the Bible through.

A few contributions dribbled in—pin money, no more!–as a result of the 
letters I had sent out “to all and sundry.” Not a word from Kronski, 
though.

We held out a few more weeks, then totally discouraged, we decided one 
night to get up at the crack of dawn and sneak away. We had only two little
grips to lug. After a sleepless night we rose with the first streak of 
light and, carrying our shoes in one hand and a grip in the other, we eased
out as noiseless as mice. We walked several miles before a car came along. 
It was noon by the time we reached Winston-Salem, where I decided to send 
my father a collect message asking for a few dollars. I suggested he wire 
the money to Durham, where we planned to spend the night.

Toward evening we entered Durham. A telegram was waiting for me, sure 
enough. It read: “Sorry son but I haven’t a cent in the bank.” I felt like 
weeping, not over our plight but because of the humiliation it must have 
caused the old man to send a message like that.

Thanks to a stranger, we had had a sandwich and coffee around noon. We 
were now famished, more famished than ordinary, of course, because of the 
impossible distance still to go on an empty stomach. There was nothing to 
do but take to the road again, which we did—like automatons.

As we were standing on the highway, too tired and defeated to trudge 
another step, as we stood there blankly watching the sun go down like a 
burst tomato, all of a sudden a rather snazzy car pulled up and a cheery 
voice called out—“Want a lift?” It was a couple headed for some little town
about two hours distant. The man was from Alabama, and spoke with the 
accent of a man of the deep South, the woman was from Arkansas. They were 
cheerful, lively individuals who seemed not to have a care in the world.

On the way we had car trouble, one little thing after another. Instead of
making it in two hours it took almost five. By the time we reached our 
destination, thanks to the delays, we had become firm friends. We had told 
them the truth about ourselves, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, 
and it had gone straight to their hearts. I shall never, never forget the 
way that good woman, immediately we entered the house, rushed to the 
bathroom, filled the tub with hot water, laid out the soap and towels, and 
begged us to relax while she scared up a meal. When we reappeared, clothed 
in their bathrobes, the table was set; we sat down at once to an excellent 
meal of hash and fried eggs with hot muffins, coffee, preserves, fruit and 
pie. It was about three in the morning when we turned in. At their request 
we slept in their bed, never realizing until we awoke that our kind hosts 
had improvised a bed for themselves by removing the seats from the car.

When we got up, around noon, we had a hearty breakfast, after which the 
man showed me around his huge back yard where the remains of cars were 
strewn about. Wrecks were his livelihood. He was certainly a happy-go-lucky
sort of fellow, and his wife even more so. Our unexpected visit seemed to 
make them slap-happy. Why we didn’t stay with them a few days, as they 
begged us to do, I don’t know.

As we made ready to leave, the woman took Mona to one side and furtively 
pressed a few bills into her hand, while the husband shoved a carton of 
cigarettes under my arm. They insisted on driving us out of town a little 
distance so that we might get a lift more easily. When we finally parted 
they had tears in their eyes.

It was getting on and we were bent on making Washington that day. We 
would have made it, too, were it not for the fact that we got nothing but 
short hauls. By the time we sailed into Richmond it was nightfall. And 
again we were broke. The few dollars the woman had given us had 
disappeared—Mona’s purse with it. Had someone robbed us of those miserable 
few dollars?

If so, it was a grim joke. However, we felt too good, too near our goal, 
to be depressed over the loss of our little fortune.

Time to eat again…

With a calculating eye we scanned the various restaurants and finally 
decided on a Greek one. We would eat first, then explain our predicament. 
We put away a good meal with extra helpings of dessert, and then gently 
broke the news to the proprietor. Our story made no impression on him 
whatever, or rather, it made the wrong impression. All he could think 
of—hardly a solution!—was to call the police. In a few minutes a motorcycle
cop appeared. After the usual grilling he asked us point blank what we 
intended to do about the situation. I said that if he would pay for the 
wire we would send a message to New York, that undoubtedly the money would 
be forthcoming in the morning. He thought this a reasonable idea and 
volunteered to put us up in a hotel nearby. He then turned to the Greek and
informed him that he would be responsible for us. All of which struck me as
damned decent.

I dispatched a message to Ulric, not without misgivings. The cop escorted
us to our room and said he would be round to see us early the next morning.
Despite the fact that we were from New York, he showed us uncommon 
consideration. A New York cop, I couldn’t help but reflect, was a horse of 
another color.

During the night I got up to make sure the proprietor hadn’t locked us 
in. I found it impossible to close my eyes. As the night wore on I felt 
more and more certain that there would be no answer to our telegram.

To slip out without the night clerk spying us was impossible. I got up, 
went to the window, and looked out. It was a drop of about six feet to the 
ground. That settled it: we’d leave by the window at dawn.

As the sun came up we were again standing on the highway, a mile or two 
outside the town. We still had our two little grips. Instead of making a 
bee-line for Washington we headed for Tappahannock—just in case the cop 
might be on our trail. As luck would have it we got a lift in jig time. No 
breakfast, of course, and no lunch. En route we ate a few green apples, 
which gave us the colic.

A little distance out of Tappahannock a lawyer en route to Washington 
picked us up. A charming fellow, Well read, easy to talk to. We gave him an
earful in the time allotted us. It must have taken effect because, as we 
were saying goodbye to him in Washington, he insisted on lending us twenty 
dollars. He said he was “lending” it, but what he meant very plainly was 
that we were to spend it and forget about it. As he toyed with the brake he
mumbled over his shoulder: “I once tried to be a writer myself.”

We were so elated we couldn’t get home fast enough. Around midnight we 
landed in the big city. The first thing we did was to phone Kronski. Could 
he put us up for the night? Certainly. We dove into the subway and made for
the Bronx, where he was again living.

The subway was a doleful sight to our eyes. We had forgotten how pale and
worn the people looked, we had forgotten what a stench the city gave off. 
The treadmill. Trapped again.

Well, at least we were on familiar ground. Maybe some one would be glad 
to see us after the lapse of a few months. Maybe I’d look for a job in real
earnest.

The sixth joy goes like this—how appropriate!

The very next joy

Mary had It teas the joy of six

To see her little Jesus On the crucifix.

And here is Dr. Kronski…

“Well well! Back again! I told you so. But don’t think you can camp out 
on us. No sir! You can stay the night, but that’s all. Have you eaten? I’ve
got to get up early. There are no clean towels, don’t ask for any. You’ll 
have to sleep in the raw. And don’t expect your breakfast served in bed. 
Good night!” All in one breath.

We cleared the cots of medical books and scraps of food, pulled back the 
gray sheets, noticed the blood stains but said nothing, and crawled in.

O COME ALL YE OUT OF THE WILDERNESS AND GLORY BE!

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

In a Buddhist magazine not long ago I read something like this: “If we 
could only get what we want when we think we need it life would present no 
problem no mystery, and no meaning.” I was a trifle indisposed the morning 
I read this. I had decided to spend the day in bed. Reading these words, 
however, I began to howl with laughter. In less than no time I was up and 
out of bed, chirping away as merrily as usual.

If I had come across this piece of wisdom in the period I am writing of I
doubt if it would have had any effect upon me. It was just impossible for 
me to take a detached view of things. The day was full of problems, full of
complications. There was mystery in everything, irritating mystery. The 
mystery surrounding the universe—that was sheer intellectual luxury. The 
whole meaning of life was wrapped up in the solution of how to keep afloat.
It sounds simple, but we knew how to complicate even such a simple problem.

Disgusted with our haphazard way of life, I made up my mind to take a 
job. No more gold-digging.

No more chasing rainbows. I was determined to earn sufficient for the 
daily necessities, come what may. I knew it would be a blow to Mona. The 
very thought of my taking a job was anathema to her. Worse than that, it 
was sheer black treachery.

Her response, when I broached my resolution, was characteristic. “You’re 
undermining everything I’ve done!”

“I don’t care,” I answered, “I’ve got to do it.”

“Then I’ll take a job too,” said she. And that very day she hired herself
out as a waitress at The Iron Cauldron.

“You’re going to regret this,” she informed me. By this she meant that it
was fatal ever to leave one another’s side.

I had to promise her that while looking for work I would have my meals at
The Iron Cauldron twice a day. I went once, for lunch, but the sight of her
waiting on tables discouraged me so that I couldn’t go back again.

To get regular employment in an office was out of the question. In the 
first place there was nothing I could really do well, and in the second 
place I knew I would never be able to stand the routine. I had to find 
something which would give me the semblance of freedom and independence. 
There was only one job I could think of which filled the bill—and that was 
the book racket. Though it wouldn’t offer me a regular salary, my time 
would be my own, and that meant a great deal to me. To get up every morning
on the dot and punch a clock was out of the question.

I couldn’t go back to work for the Encyclopedia Britannica again—my 
record was to shady. I’d have to find another encyclopedia to handle. It 
didn’t take long to discover the loose-leaf encyclopedia. The sales 
manager, to whom I had applied for a job, didn’t have much difficulty 
convincing me that it was the best encyclopedia on the market. He seemed to
think I had excellent possibilities. As a favor he gave me some of his own 
personal leads to start with. They were “pushovers,” he assured me. I left 
the office with a briefcase filled with specimen pages, various types of 
binding, and the usual paraphernalia which the book salesman always carries
about with him. I was to go home and study all this crap and then start 
out. I was never to take “No” for an answer. Soit.

I made two sales the first day, netting me quite a handsome commission 
since I had managed to sell my customers the most expensively bound sets. 
One of my victims was a Jewish physician, a charming, considerate 
individual who not only insisted on my staying to dinner with the family 
but who gave me the names of several good friends of his whom he was 
certain I could sell. The next day I sold three sets, thanks to this kind 
Jew. The sales manager was secretly elated but pretended that I had the 
usual beginner’s luck. He warned me not to let this quick success go to my 
head.

“Don’t be satisfied because you sell two or three a day. Try to sell five
or six. We have men who sell as many as twelve sets a day.”

“You’re full of shit,” I thought to myself. “A man who can sell twelve 
sets of encyclopedias a day wouldn’t be selling encyclopedias, he’d be 
selling the Brooklyn Bridge.”

Nevertheless I went about my work conscientiously. I followed up every 
lead religiously, even though it meant journeying to such outlandish towns 
as Passaic, Hoboken, Canarsie and Maspeth. I had sold three of those 
“personal” leads the sales manager had given me. He thought I should have 
sold the entire seven, the idiot. Each time we met he became more friendly,
more conciliatory. The publishers were going to have a big show at the 
Garden soon, he informed me one day. If I kept on my toes he might arrange 
to have me work with him in the booth which the firm was renting. He 
implied that there, at the Garden, the sales fell into your lap like ripe 
plums. It would be a clean-up. He added that he had been studying me; he 
liked the way I spoke. “Stick with me,” he added, “and we may give you a 
big piece of territory to handle—out West, perhaps. You’ll have a car and a
crew of men under you. How does that appeal to you?”

“Marvelous!” I said, though the mere thought of it terrified me. I didn’t
want to be that successful. I was quite content to sell one a day—if I 
could.

Any one who tries to sell books soon learns that there is one type of 
individual who takes the wind out of your sails. This is the fellow who 
seems so pliant and yielding that you almost feel sorry for him when first 
you sink your hooks into him. You feel certain that he’ll not only buy a 
set for himself but that he’ll bring you signed orders from his friends in 
a day or two. He agrees with everything you say, and goes you one better. 
He marvels that every intelligent person in the land is not already in 
possession of the books. He has innumerable questions to ask, and the 
answers always incite him to greater enthusiasm. When it comes to the last 
touch—the bindings—he fingers them lovingly, dwelling with exasperating 
elaboration on the relative advantages of each. He even shows you the niche
in the wall where he believes the set will show up to best advantage. A 
dozen times you make ready to hand him the pen in order to sign on the 
dotted line. Sometimes you rouse these birds to such a pitch that nothing 
will do but call up a neighbor and have him look at the books too. If the 
friend comes, as he usually does, you rehearse the program all over again. 
The day wears on and you find yourself still talking, still expounding, 
still marveling over the wonders contained in this beautiful and 
practicable set of books. Finally you make a desperate effort to pull in 
the line. And then you get something like this: “Oh, but I can’t buy the 
books now—I’m out of work at the moment. I sure would love to own a set, 
though… ” Even at this point you feel so certain the guy is sincere that 
you offer to stake him to the first installment. “You can pay me later, 
when you get a job. Just sign here!” But even here the type I speak of will
manage to squirm out. Any bare-faced excuse serves him. Only at this point 
do you realize that he never had the least intention of buying the books, 
it was just a way of passing the time. He may even tell you blandly, as you
take leave, that he never enjoyed anything so much as hearing the way you 
talked…

The French have an expression which sums it up neatly: “il n’est pas 
serieux.”

It’s a great business, the book racket. You learn something about human 
nature if nothing else. It’s almost worth the time wasted, the sore feet, 
the heartaches. One of the striking features about the game, though, is 
this—once you’re in It you can think of nothing else. You talk 
encyclopedias—if that happens to be the line—from mom to midnight; you talk
it every chance you get, and when there is no one else to talk to you talk 
to yourself. Many’s the time I sold myself a set in an off moment. It 
sounds preposterous, if you’re not in the grind, but actually you get to 
believe that every one on God’s earth must possess the precious boon you 
have been given to dispense. Every one, you tell yourself, has need of more
knowledge. You look at people with just one thought in your mind—is he a 
prospect or not? You don’t give a damn whether the person will ever make 
use of the damned set: you think only of how you can convince him that what
you have to offer is a sine qua non. As for other commodities—shoes, socks,
shirts, etc.—what fun would there be in selling a man something he has to 
have? No sir, you want your victim to have a sporting chance. You’d almost 
prefer him to turn his back on you—then you could really put on your song 
and dance with gusto. A good salesman doesn’t enjoy taking money from a 
“pushover.” He wants to earn his money. He wants to delude himself that, if
he were really put to it, he could sell books to an illiterate—or to a 
blind man!

It’s a game, moreover, which throws interesting characters across your 
path, some of them having tastes similar to your own, some being more alien
than the heathen Chinese, some admitting that they have never owned a book,
and so on. Sometimes I came home so elated, so hilarious, that I couldn’t 
sleep a wink. Often we lay awake the whole night talking about these truly 
“droll” characters whom I had encountered.

The ordinary salesman, I observed, had sense enough to clear out quick 
when he saw that there was little prospect of making a sale. Not me. I had 
a hundred different reasons for clinging to my man. Any crackpot could hold
me till the wee hours of the morning, recounting the history of his life, 
spinning out his crazy dreams, explaining his mad projects and inventions. 
Many of these witless ones reminded me strongly of my cosmococcic messenger
boys; some, I discovered, had actually been in the service. We understood 
one another perfectly. Often, in parting, they would make me little gifts, 
absurd trifles which I usually threw away before reaching home.

Naturally I was bringing in less and less orders. The sales manager was 
at a loss to understand: according to him, I had all the requisites for 
making an A-l salesman. He even offered to take a day off and make the 
rounds with me, to prove how simple it was to get orders. But I always 
managed to dodge the issue. Occasionally I hooked a professor, a priest or 
a prominent lawyer. These strikes tickled him pink. “That’s the sort of 
clientele we’re after,” he would say. “Get more like them!”

I complained that he rarely gave me a decent lead. Most of the time he 
was handing me children or imbeciles to call on. He pretended it didn’t 
matter much what the intelligence or station in life of the prospect might 
be—the important thing, the only thing, was to get inside the house and 
stick. If it was a child who had fallen for the ad, then I was to talk to 
the parents, convince them that it was for the child’s good. If it was a 
nitwit who had written in for information, so much the better—a moron had 
no resistance. And so on. He had an answer for everything, that guy. His 
idea of a good salesman was one who could sell books to inanimate objects. 
I began to loathe him with all my heart.

Anyway, the whole damned business was nothing more than an excuse to keep
active, a means of bolstering the pretense that I was struggling to make a 
living. Why I bothered to pretend I don’t know, unless it was guilt which 
prompted me. Mona was earning more than enough to keep the two of us. In 
addition she was constantly bringing home gifts, either of money or of 
objects which could be converted into cash. The same old game. People 
couldn’t resist thrusting things on her. They were all “admirers,” of 
course. She preferred to call them “admirers” rather than “lovers”. I 
wondered very often what it was they admired in her, particularly since she
handed out nothing but rebuffs. To listen to her carry on about these 
“dopes” and “saps” you would think that she never even smiled at them.

Often she kept me awake nights telling me about this new swarm of 
hangers-on. An odd lot, I must say. Always a millionaire or two among them,
always a pugilist or wrestler, always a nut, usually of dubious sex. What 
these queer ones saw in her, or hoped to get out of her, I could never 
fathom. There were to be plenty of them, as time went on. Right now it was 
Claude. (Although, to be truthful, she never referred to Claude as an 
admirer.) Anyway, Claude. Claude what? Just Claude. When I inquired what 
this Claude did for a living she became almost hysterical. He was only a 
boy! Not a day over sixteen. Of course he looked much older. I must meet 
him some day. She was certain I would adore him.

I tried to register indifference, but she paid no heed. Claude was 
unique, she insisted. He had roamed all over the world—on nothing. “You 
should hear him talk,” she babbled on. “You’ll open your eyes. He’s wiser 
than most men of forty. He’s almost a Christ… “

I couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing. I had to laugh in her face.

“All right, laugh! But wait till you meet him, you’ll sing a different 
tune.”

It was from Claude, I learned, that she had received the beautiful Navaho
rings, bracelets and other adornments. Claude had spent a whole summer with
the Navahos. He had even learned to talk their language. Had he wished it, 
she said he could have lived the rest of his life with the Navahos.

I wanted to know where he came from originally, this Claude. She didn’t 
know for sure herself. From the Bronx, she thought. (Which only made him 
all the more unique.) “Then he’s Jewish?” I said.

Again she wasn’t sure. One couldn’t tell a thing about him from his 
looks. He didn’t look anything. (A strange way to put it, I thought.) He 
might pass for an Indian—or for a pure Aryan. He was like the 
chameleon—depended when and where you met him, the mood he was in, the 
people surrounding him, and so on.

“He was probably born in Russia,” I said, taking a wide swing.

To my surprise she said:

He speaks Russian fluently, if that means anything. But then he speaks 
other languages too—Arabic, Trukish, Armenian, German, Portugese, 
Hungarian… “

“Not Hungarian!” I cried. “Russian, O.K. Armenian, O.K. Turkish ditto, 
though that’s a bit hard to swallow. But when you say Hungarian, I balk. 
No, by crickey. I’ll have to hear him talk Hungarian before I believe that 
one.”

“All right,” she said, “come down some night and see for yourself. 
Anyway, how could you tell—you don’t know Hungarian.”

“Right! But I know this much—any one who can talk Hungarian is a wizard. 
It’s the toughest language in the world—except for the Hungarians, of 
course. Your Claude may be a bright boy, but don’t tell me he speaks 
Hungarian! No, you don’t ram that one down my throat.”

My words hadn’t made a dent in her, obviously, because the next thing out
of her mouth was—“I forgot to tell you that he also knows Sanskrit, Hebrew,
and… “

“Listen,” I exclaimed, “he’s not almost a Christ, he is the Christ. 
Nobody but Christ Almighty could master all those tongues at his age. It’s 
a wonder to me he hasn’t invented the universal tongue. I’ll be down there 
mighty soon, don’t fret. I want to see this phenomenon with my own eyes. I 
want him to talk six languages at once. Nothing less will impress me.”

She looked at me as if to say—“You poor doubting Thomas!”

The steadiness of her smile finally nettled me. I said: “Why do you smile
like that?”

She hesitated a full minute. “Because, Val… because I was wondering what 
you’d say if I were to tell you that he also had the power to heal.”

For some queer reason this sounded more plausible and consonant with his 
character than anything she had told me about him. But I had to maintain my
attitude of doubt and mockery.

“How do you know this?” I said. “Have you seen him heal any one?”

She refused to answer the question squarely. She insisted, however, that 
she could vouch for the truth of her statement.

To taunt her I said: “What did he cure—a sick headache?”

Again she took her time in responding. Then, rather solemnly, almost too 
solemnly, she replied: “He’s cured cancer, if that means anything.”

This made me furious. “For Christ’s sake,” I yelled, “don’t stand there 
and tell me a thing like that! Are you a gullible idiot? You might just as 
well tell me he’s raised the dead.”

The flicker of a smile passed over her countenance. In a voice no longer 
solemn, but grave, she said: “Well, Val, believe it or not, he’s done that 
too. Among the Navahos. That’s why they love him so… “

“O.K. girlie, that’s enough for tonight. Let’s change the subject. If you
tell me any more I’ll think you’ve got a screw loose.”

Her next words took me completely by surprise. I nearly jumped out of my 
skin.

“Claude says he has a rendezvous with you. He knows all about you… knows 
you inside-out, in fact. And don’t go thinking I told him, because I 
didn’t! Do you want to hear more?” She went right on. “You have a 
tremendous career ahead of you: you’ll be a world figure one day. According
to Claude, you’re playing blind man’s buff now. You’re spiritually blind, 
as well as dumb and deaf… “

“Claude said that?” I was thoroughly sober now. “All right, tell him, 
I’ll keep the rendezvous. Tomorrow night, how’s that? But not at that 
damned joint of yours!”

She was overjoyed by my complete surrender. “Leave it to me,” she said, 
“I’ll choose a quiet spot where the two of you can be alone.”

Of course I couldn’t resist inquiring how much he had told her about me. 
“You’ll learn all that tomorrow,” she kept repeating. “I wouldn’t want to 
spoil it for you.”

I fell asleep with difficulty. Claude kept reappearing, like a vision, 
each time in a different aspect. Though he always had the figure of a boy, 
his voice sounded like the voice of the ancient one. No matter what 
language he spoke I was able to follow him. I wasn’t the least amazed, 
curiously enough, to hear myself talking Hungarian. Nor was I amazed to 
find myself riding a horse, riding bareback with bare feet. Often we 
carried on our discussions in foreign lands, in remote places such as 
Judea, the Nubian desert, Trukestan, Sumatra, Patagonia. We made use of no 
vehicles; we were always there where our thoughts roamed, without effort, 
without the use of the will. Aside from certain sexual dreams, I don’t 
believe I had ever had such a pleasant dream. It was more than pleasant—it 
was instructive in the highest sense. This Claude was more like an alter 
ego, even though at times he did strikingly resemble the Christ. He brought
me great peace. He gave me direction. More than that—he gave me reason for 
being. I was at last something in my own right and no need to prove it to 
anyone. I was securely in the world yet not a victim. I was participating 
in a wholly new way, as only a man can who is free from conflict. 
Strangely, the world had grown much smaller than I thought it to be. More 
intimate, more understandable. It was no longer something against which I 
was pitted; it was like a ripe fruit which I was inside of, which nourished
me, and which was inexhaustible. I was one with it, one with 
everything—that’s the only way I can put it.

As luck would have it, I failed to meet Claude the next night. It so 
happened that I was in Newark or some such place when evening came on, 
talking to a prospect whom I found fascinating. He was a black man who was 
working his way through law school as a stevedore. He had been out of work 
for several weeks and was in a receptive mood to listen to me expound the 
advantages of the loose-leaf encyclopedia. Just as he was on the verge of 
signing his demi-quivers for a set his aged mother poked her head through 
the doorway and begged me to stay for dinner. She apologized for intruding 
on us, explaining that they were going to a meeting after dinner and that 
she had to remind her son to change his clothes. The latter dropped the pen
which he had been holding and escaped to the bathroom.

Waiting for him to reappear my eye fell upon an announcement. It was to 
the effect that the great Negro leader, W. E. Brughardt Dubois, was to 
speak in the town hall that very evening. I could hardly wait for the lad 
to return. I paced up and down the room in a fever. Well I knew this 
Dubois. Years ago, when I was keen about attending lectures, I had heard 
Dubois speak on the great heritage of the black race. It was in some little
hall on the lower East Side; the audience, oddly enough was mostly Jewish. 
I had never forgotten the man. He was handsome, thoroughly Aryan in 
features, and of an imposing figure; he wore a goatee then, if I remember 
rightly. I learned later that he had been born in New England; his 
ancestors were of mixed blood, French, Dutch and other strains. What I 
remembered best about him was his impeccable diction and his vast 
erudition. He had a challenging, straightforward way of speaking which won 
me over to him immediately. He struck me at once as a superior being. And 
was it not he, I thought to myself, who had accepted and published the 
first article of mine ever to appear in print?

At the dinner table I met the other members of the family. The sister, a 
young woman of about twenty-five, was strikingly beautiful. She had decided
to go to the lecture too. That settled it for me—Claude could wait. When I 
made known to them that I had heard Dubois before and that I had an 
unbounded admiration for him, they insisted that I come along as their 
guest. The young man now suddenly recalled that he had not signed his name 
on the dotted line; he begged me to let him do so before he forgot a second
time. I felt embarrassed, as though I had tricked him.

“Think it over first,” I said. “If you really want the books you can mail
me the slip later.”

“No, no!” cried his mother and sister at once. “He’ll sign up right now, 
‘cause if he don’t he never will. You know how we folks are.”

Now the sister was becoming interested in the subject. I had to explain 
the whole business to her hurriedly.

“Sounds wonderful,” she said. “Leave me some blanks, I think I can get 
you a few orders.”

We hurried through the meal, then piled into their car. A good-looking 
car, it seemed to me. On the way to the hall they told me of Dubois’ 
activities since I had last heard of him. He had assumed an educational 
post in the South, a world not too congenial for one of his temperament and
upbringing. He had grown somewhat bitter, they thought, and more caustic in
his speech. Impulsively I told them that he reminded me in some strange, 
undefinable way, of Rabindranath Tagore, whom I also had heard years ago. 
What I was thinking of probably was that neither of these men minced words 
when it came to telling the truth.

By the time we reached the hall I was in the midst of a long drawn-out 
rhapsody about another Negro, my quondam idol Hubert Harrison. I was 
telling them of all I had learned standing at the foot of his soap-box in 
Madison Square in the days when one could discuss anything freely and 
publicly. There was no one in those days, I told them candidly, who could 
hold a candle to Hubert Harrison. With a few well-directed words he had the
ability to demolish any opponent. He did it neatly and smoothly too, “with 
kid gloves,” so to speak. I described the wonderful way he smiled, his easy
assurance, the great sculptured head which he carried on his shoulder like 
a lion. I wondered aloud if he had not come of royal blood, if he had not 
been the descendant of some great African monarch. Yes, he was a man who 
electrified one by his mere presence. Beside him the other speakers, the 
white ones, looked like pygmies, not only physically but culturally, 
spiritually. Some of them, the ones who were paid to foment trouble, 
carried on like epileptics, always wrapped in the stars and stripes, to be 
sure. Hubert Harrison, on the other hand, no matter what the provocation, 
always retained his self-possession, his dignity. He had a way of placing 
the back of his hand on his hip, his trunk tilted forward, his ears cocked 
to catch every last word the questioner, or the heckler, put to him. Well 
he knew how to bide his time! When the tumult had subsided there would come
that broad smile of his, a broad, good-natured grin, and he would answer 
his man—always to the point, always fair and square, always full on, like a
broadside. Soon every one would be laughing, every one but the poor 
imbecile who had dared to put the question…

I was rattling on in this vein as we entered the hall. The place was 
crowded; this time the audience was mainly Negro. As every white man who’s 
not prejudiced can testify, it’s a privilege to be with a crowd of Negroes.
The atmosphere is always supercharged. At intervals there are hearty 
guffaws, weird ejaculations, genuine peals of laughter such as you never 
hear from the throats of white people. White people lack spontaneity. When 
they laugh it seldom comes from the guts. Usually it’s a mocking sort of 
laughter. The black man’s laugh comes to him as easily as breathing.

It was quite a time before Dubois appeared on the platform. When he did 
it was with the air of a sovereign mounting his throne. The very majesty of
the man silenced any would-be demonstration. There was nothing of the 
rabble-rouser in this leonine figure—such tactics were beneath him. His 
words, however, were like cold dynamite. Had he wanted to, he could have 
set off an explosion that would rock the world. But it was obvious that he 
had no intention of rocking the world—not yet, at any rate. As I listened 
to his speech I pictured him addressing a body of scientists in much this 
same way. I could imagine him unleashing the most devastating truths, but 
in such a manner that one would be left stunned rather than moved to 
action.

What a pity, I thought, that a man of his ability, his powers, should be 
obliged to narrow his range. Because of his blood he was doomed to 
segregate himself, to restrict his horizon, his activities. He could have 
remained in Europe, where he was freely accepted and honored; he could have
made a bigger place for himself there. But he had elected to remain with 
his own kinsmen, to raise them up, and, if possible, to make a better world
for them to live in. He must have known from the beginning that it was a 
hopeless task, that nothing of any importance could be accomplished for his
brethren in the space of one short lifetime. He was too intelligent a man 
to have any illusions on the subject. I didn’t know whether to admire or 
deplore his vain, courageous, stubborn persistence. Involuntarily I was 
making comparisons in my mind between him and John Brown. One had 
intelligence, the other blind faith. John Brown, in his passionate hatred 
of injustice and intolerance, had not hesitated to set himself up against 
the holy government of these United States. Had there been just a few 
hundred souls like himself in this big broad land, I doubt not but that he 
would have overthrown the existent government of these United States. When 
John Brown was executed a commotion pervaded this country which has never 
truly subsided. It is possible that John Brown may have set back the cause 
of the Negro in America. The fiasco at Harper’s Ferry may have made it 
forever impossible for the Negro to obtain his just rights by direct 
action. The amazing deeds of the great Liberator may have made any form of 
insurrection unthinkable—in the minds of later generations. (Just as the 
memory of the French Revolution makes a Frenchman quake.) Since John 
Brown’s day it seems to be silently agreed that the only way to permit a 
Negro to take his place in our world is through a long and dolorous 
education. That this is only a pretext for delaying the true event, no one 
wishes to face. Imagine Jesus the Christ advocating such a policy!

The blessing of freedom! Are we to wait forever until we are fit for it 
before we receive it? Or is freedom something to be wrested from those who 
tyrannically withhold it? Is there anyone great enough, wise enough, to say
how long a man should remain a slave?

Dubois was no rabble-rouser. No, but to a man like myself it was all too 
obvious that what his words implied were—“Assume the spirit of liberty and 
you will be free!” Education t As I saw and felt it, he was saying almost 
bluntly: “I am telling you that it is your own fear and ignorance which 
keep you in slavery. There is only one kind of education, that which leads 
you to assert and maintain your own freedom.” What other purpose could he 
have had, in citing all the marvelous examples of African culture, before 
the white man’s intrusion, than to indicate the Negroes’ own 
self-sufficiency? What need had the Negro of the white man? None. What 
difference was there between the two races, what real, fundamental, vital 
difference? None. The paramount fact, the only fact worth consideration was
that the white man, despite all his grand words, all his tortuous 
principles, was still holding the Negro in subjection… I am not quoting his
words. I am recording my reactions, my interpretation of his speech. “First
get off our backs!” that’s what I could hear him screaming—though he 
scarcely raised his voice, though he made no dramatic gestures, though he 
never said anything of the kind. “I’m telling you tonight about the glories
of the past, of your past, of our common past, as Negroes. What of the 
future? Are you going to wait until the white man has sucked your blood 
dry? Will you wait meekly until he has filled your veins with his own 
poisonous blood? Already you are nothing but half-baked imitations of the 
white man. You ridicule him and you mimic him, at the same time. With every
day that passes you are losing your own precious heritage. You are 
forfeiting it to your keepers who have not the least intention of granting 
you equality. Educate yourselves, if you wish. Improve your lot, if you 
can. But remember this—until you stand free and equal with your white 
neighbors nothing will avail. Don’t delude yourselves that the white man is
your superior in any way. He isn’t. His skin may be white, but his heart is
black. He is guilty before God and before his fellow man. He is bringing 
the world down about his ears in his pride and arrogance. The day is coming
when he will rule no more. He has sown hatred throughout the world. He has 
pitted brother against brother. He has denied his own God. No, this 
miserable specimen of humanity is not the superior of the black man. This 
breed of man is doomed. Awake, my brothers! Awake and sing! Shout the white
man down! Shut him out of your sight! Seal his lips, bind his limbs, bury 
him where he belongs—on the dung heap!”

I repeat, nothing of the sort passed Dubois’ lips. He would undoubtedly 
have held me in contempt had I voiced such an interpretation of his speech.
But words mean little. What’s back of them—that’s what counts. I almost 
felt ashamed of Dubois for using other words than the ones I heard in my 
mind. Had his words created a bloody insurrection he would have been the 
most bewildered man in the whole Negro community. And yet I persisted in 
believing that in his heart the message I have just given was recorded, 
recorded in blood and tears. If he were truly a whit less ardent he would 
not, could not, be the noble figure he was. I blushed to think that a man 
of such gifts, such powers, such insight, should be obliged to muffle his 
voice, to throttle his own true feelings. I admired him for all that he had
done, for all that he was, and it was indeed much—but if only he possessed 
a spark of that passionate spirit of John Brown! If only he had a touch of 
the fanatic! To speak of injustice and to remain cool—only a sage can act 
thus. (It must be granted, however, that where the ordinary man sees 
injustice the sage perhaps detects another kind of justice.) The just man 
is hard, merciless, inhuman. The just man will set fire to the world, will 
destroy it with his own hands, if he can, rather than see injustice 
perpetuated. John Brown was that sort of man. History has forgotten him.

Lesser men have come forward, have upset the world, thrown it into a 
panic—and for nothing even approaching that which we call justice… Give him
a little more time and the white man will destroy himself and the 
pernicious world he has created. He has no solutions for the ills he has 
foisted upon the world. None whatever. He is empty, disillusioned, without 
a grain of hope. He pines for his own miserable end.

Will the white man drag the Negro down with him? I doubt it. All those 
whom he has persecuted and enslaved, degenerated and emasculated, all whom 
he has vampirized will, I believe, rise, up against him on the fateful day 
of judgment. There will be no succor for him, not one friendly alien hand 
raised to avert his doom. Neither will he be mourned. Instead there will 
come from all corners of the earth, like the gathering of a whirlwind, a 
cry of exultation. “White man, your day is over! Perish like the worm! And 
may the memory of your stay on earth be effaced!”

Curiously enough, it was only quite recently that I discovered that 
Dubois had written a book on John Brown in which he predicted much that has
already befallen the white race and much that has yet to come to pass. 
Strange that, knowing nothing of his passion and admiration for the great 
Liberator, I should have linked their names…

*

The next morning, as I was having breakfast in a coffee shop on Pineapple
Street, I felt a hand on my shoulder. A voice from behind was quietly 
asking if I was not Henry Miller. I looked up to find Claude at my elbow. 
Not a possible doubt that it could be anyone else.

“I was told you usually took breakfast here,” he said. “Too bad you 
didn’t come last night; I had a friend with me whom you would have enjoyed 
meeting. He was from Teheran.”

I offered apologies and urged him to have a second breakfast with me. It 
was nothing for Claude to eat two or three breakfasts in a row.

He was like a camel—he tanked up whenever he had the chance.

“You are a Capricorn, aren’t you?” he asked. “December 26th, is that 
right? About noon?”

I nodded.

“I don’t know too much about astrology,” he continued. “It’s simply a 
point of departure for me. I’m like Joseph in the Bible—I have dreams. 
Prophetic dreams, sometimes.”

I smiled indulgently.

“You’re going to travel soon—perhaps in a year or two. An important 
voyage. Your life will be radically altered.” He paused a moment to gaze 
out of the window, as if trying to concentrate. “But that’s not important 
now. I wanted to see you for another reason.” He paused again. “You’ll have
a harrowing time of it, this next year or so. I mean, before you begin your
journey. It will take all your courage to survive. If I didn’t know you so 
well I would say there was a danger of your going mad… “

“Excuse me,” I interrupted, “but how do you happen to know me so well?”

It was Claude’s turn to smile. Then, without the slightest hesitation, he
answered:—

“I’ve known you for a long while—in my dreams. You come back again and 
again. Of course I didn’t know it was you until I met Mona. Then I realized
it could be no other.”

“Strange,” I murmured.

“Not so very,” said Claude. “Many men have had the same experience. Once 
when I was in a little village in China, a man met me on the street and 
taking me by the arm, he said:

“I’ve been waiting for you to come. You arrived exactly on time.’ He was 
a magician. He practiced the black arts.”

“Are you a magician too?” I asked jokingly.

“Hardly,” said Claude. And in the same tone he added: “I practice 
divination. It’s a gift I was born with.”

“But it doesn’t help you much, does it?”

“True,” he replied, “but it permits me to help others. That is, if they 
wish to be helped.”

“And you want to help met”

“If I can.”

“Before you go any further,” said I, “suppose you tell me a little about 
yourself. Mona has told me something of your life, but it all sounds rather
confusing. Tell me this, if you don’t mind—do you know where you were born 
and who your father and mother were?”

Claude looked straight into my eyes. “That’s what I’m trying to find 
out,” he said. “Perhaps you can be of help. You wouldn’t have appeared in 
my dreams so often if you weren’t of importance in my life.”

“Your dreams? Tell me, how do I appear to you in a dream?”

“In various roles,” said Claude promptly. “Sometimes as a father, 
sometimes as a devil, and sometimes as a ministering angel. Whenever you 
appear it’s to the strains of music. Celestial music, I would say.”

I was at a loss what to say to this.

“You are aware, of course,” Claude continued, “that you have power over 
others. Great power. You seldom employ it, however. When you do you usually
misuse it. You’re ashamed of your better self, if I may put it that way. 
You’d rather be thought wicked than good. And you are wicked at 
times—wicked and cruel—especially to those who are fond of you. That’s what
you’ve got to work out… But you’ll soon be put to the test!”

“There’s something eerie about you, Claude. I begin to suspect that you 
do have second sight, or whatever you choose to call it.”

To this Claude replied:

“You’re essentially a man of faith. A man of great faith. The skeptic in 
you is a transitory phenomenon, a heritage from the past, from some other 
life. You’ve got to throw off your doubts—self doubts, above all—they’re 
suffocating you. A being like yourself has only to throw himself on the 
world and he will float like a cork. Nothing truly evil will ever touch you
or affect you. You were made to walk through the fires. But if you shun 
your true role, and you alone know what that is, you will be burned to a 
cinder. That’s the clearest thing I know about you.”

I admitted quite frankly that what he had just said was neither vague nor
unfamiliar to me. “I’ve had inklings of such things a number of times. At 
the moment, however, nothing is altogether clear to me. Go on, if you will,
I’m all ears.”

“What’s brought us together,” said Claude, “is that we are both seeking 
our true parents. You asked me where I was born. I was a foundling: my 
parents left me on a stoop somewhere in the Bronx. I have a suspicion that 
my parents, whoever they were, came from Asia. Mongolia perhaps. When I 
look into your eyes I am almost convinced of it. You have Mongol blood, 
beyond a doubt. Has no one ever remarked it before?”

I now took a deep look at the young man who was telling me all this. I 
took him in as you would a tall drink of water when you’re very thirsty. 
Mongol blood! Of course I had heard it before! And always from the same 
sort of people. Whenever the word Mongol came up it registered on me like a
password. “We’re on to you!” is what is usually conveyed.

Whether I admitted or denied it, I was “one of them.”

The Mongol business was, of course, more symbolical than genealogical. 
The Mongols were the bearers of secret tidings. At some remote period in 
the past, when the world was one and when its real rulers kept their 
identity hidden, “we Mongols” were there. (Strange language? Mongols talk 
only this way.) There was something physical, or physiological, or 
physiognomical at least, which characterized all who belonged to this 
strange clan. What distinguished them from “the rest of humanity” was the 
expression about the eyes. It was neither the color, shape or look of the 
eye: it was the way the eyes were set off, or set in, the way they swam in 
their mysterious sockets. Veiled ordinarily, in talk these veils peeled 
off, one after another, until one had the impression of peering into a deep
black hole.

Studying Claude, my gaze came to rest on the two black holes in the 
centers of his eyes. They were fathomless. For a full minute or two not 
another word was exchanged. Neither of us felt embarrassed of 
uncomfortable. We simply stared at each other like two lizards. The Mongol 
look of mutual recognition.

It was I who broke the spell. I told him that he reminded me slightly of 
Deerslayer—of Deerslayer and Daniel Boone combined. With just a touch of 
Nebuchadnezzar!

He laughed. “I’ve passed for many things,” he said. “The Navahos thought 
I had Indian blood in my veins. Maybe I have too… “

“I’m sure you have a drop of Jewish blood,” said I. “Not because of the 
Bronx!” I added.

“I was raised by Jews,” said Claude. “Until I was eight years of age I 
heard nothing but Russian and Yiddish. At ten I ran away from home.”

“Where was that—what you call home?”

“A little village in the Crimea, not far from Sevastopol. I had been 
transplanted there when I was six months old.” He paused a moment. He 
started to say something about memory, then dropped it. “When I first heard
English,” he resumed, “I recognized it as a familiar tongue, though I had 
heard it only during the first six months of my life. I learned English 
almost instinctively, in less than no time. As you notice, I speak it 
without trace of accent. Chinese also came easy to me, though I really 
never became proficient in it… “

“Excuse me,” I interrupted, “but how many languages do you speak, would 
you mind telling me?”

He hesitated a moment, as if making a quick calculation. “Frankly,” he 
replied, “I can’t tell. I know at least a dozen, certainly. It’s nothing to
be proud of; I have a natural flair for language. Besides, when you knock 
about the world you can’t help but pick up languages.”

“But Hungarian!” I exclaimed. “Surely that didn’t come easy to you!”

He gave me an indulgent smile. “I don’t know why people think Hungarian 
is so difficult. There are Indian tongues right here in North America which
are far more difficult—from the standpoint of pure linguistics, I mean. But
no language is difficult if you’re living it. To know Turkish, Hungarian, 
Arabic or the Navaho tongue you have to become as one of them, that’s all.”

“But you’re so young! How could you have had time to…?”

“Age means nothing,” he interrupted. “It isn’t age which makes us wise. 
Nor even experience, as people pretend. It’s the quickness of the spirit. 
The quick and the dead… You, of all people, should know what I mean. There 
are only two classes in this world—and in every world—the quick and the 
dead. For those who cultivate the spirit nothing is impossible. For the 
others, everything is impossible, or incredible, or futile. When you live 
day after day with the impossible you begin to wonder what the word means. 
Or rather, how it ever came to mean what it does. There’s a world of light,
in which everything is clear and manifest, and there’s a world of 
confusion, where all is murky and obscure. The two worlds are really one. 
Those in the world of darkness get a glimpse now and then of the realm of 
light, but those in the world of light know nothing of darkness. The men of
light cast no shadow. Evil is unknown to them. Nor do they harbor 
resentment. They move without chains or fetters. Until I returned to this 
country I associated only with such men. In some ways my life is stranger 
than you think. Why did I go among the Navahos? To find peace and 
understanding. If I had been born in another time I might have been a 
Christ or a Buddha. Here I’m a bit of a freak. Even you have difficulty not
to think that way about me.”

Here he gave a mysterious smile. For a full moment I felt as though my 
heart had stopped.

“Did you feel something strange then?” said Claude, his smile now 
transformed into a more human one.

“I did indeed,” said I, unconsciously placing a hand over my heart.

“Your heart stopped beating for a moment, that was all,” said Claude. 
“Imagine, if you can, what it would be like if your heart began to beat 
with a cosmic rhythm. Most people’s hearts don’t even beat with a human 
rhythm… There will come a time when man will no longer distinguish between 
man and god. When the human being is raised to his full powers he will be 
divine—his human consciousness will have fallen away. What is called death 
will have disappeared. Everything will be altered, permanently altered. 
There will be no further need for change. Man will be free, that’s what I 
mean. Once he becomes the god which he is, he will have realized 
everything. Freedom converts everything to its basic nature, which is 
perfection. Don’t think I am talking religion or philosophy. I disclaim 
them both, utterly. They are not even stepping stones, as people like to 
think. They must be huddled, at one jump. If you put something outside you,
or above you, you become victimized. There is only the one thing, spirit. 
It’s all, everything, and when you realize it you’re it. You’re all there 
is, there is nothing more… do you understand what I’m saying?”

I nodded my head affirmatively. I was a little dazed.

“You understand,” said Claude, “but the reality of it escapes you. 
Understanding is nothing. The eyes must be kept open, constantly. To open 
your eyes you must relax, not strain. Don’t be afraid of falling backward 
into a bottomless pit. There is nothing to fall into. You’re in it and of 
it, and one day, if you persist, you will be it. I don’t say you will have 
it, please notice, because there’s nothing to possess. Neither are you to 
be possessed, remember that! You are to liberate yourself. There are no 
exercises, physical or spiritual, to practice. All such things are like 
incense—they awaken a feeling of holiness. We must be holy without 
holiness. We must be whole… complete. That’s being holy. Any other kind of 
holiness is false, a snare and a delusion…

“Excuse me for talking to you this way,” said Claude, hastily swallowing 
another mouthful of coffee, “but I have the feeling that time is short. The
next time we meet it will most likely be in some remote part of the world. 
Your restlessness may lead you to the most unexpected places. My movements 
are more determined; I know the pattern set down for me.” He paused to take
another tack. “Since I’ve gone this far let me add a few more words.” He 
leaned forward, and his face took on a most earnest expression. “Right now,
Henry Miller, nobody in this country knows anything about you. Nobody—and I
mean it literally—knows your true identity. At this moment I know more 
about you than I shall probably ever know again. What I know, however, is 
only of importance for me. This is what I wanted to tell you—that you 
should think of me when you are in distress. Not that I can help you, don’t
think that! Nobody can. Nobody will, probably. You—(and here he spaced his 
words)—you will have to solve your own problems. But at least you will 
know, when thinking of me, that there is one person in this world who knows
you and believes in you. That always helps. The secret, however, lies in 
not caring whether any one, not even the Almighty, has confidence in you. 
You must come to realize, and you will undoubtedly, that you need no 
protection. Nor should you hunger after salvation, for salvation is only a 
myth. What is there to be saved? Ask yourself that! And if saved, saved 
from what f Have you thought of these things? Do! There is no need for 
redemption, because what men call sin and guilt have no ultimate meaning. 
The quick and the dead’.—just remember that! When you reach to the quick of
things you will find neither acceleration nor retardation, neither birth 
nor death.

There is and you ore—that’s it in a nutshell. Don’t break your skull over
it, because to the mind it makes no sense. Accept it and forget it—or it 
will drive you mad… “

*

When I walked away I was floating in the clouds. I had my briefcase with 
me, as usual, but all thought of calling on prospects was gone. I got into 
the subway automatically and out again automatically—at Times Square. 
Whenever I had no set destination I would get out automatically at Times 
Square. There I always came upon the rambla, the Nevsky Prospekt, the souks
and bazaars of the damned.

The thoughts and emotions which possessed me were almost frighteningly 
familiar. They were the same which I experienced when I first heard my old 
friend Roy Hamilton talk, when first I listened to Benjamin Fay Mills, the 
Evangelist, when first I glanced at that strange book, Esoteric Buddhism, 
when I read at one gulp the Tao Teh Ch’ing, or—whenever I picked up The 
Possessed, The Idiot, or The Brothers Karamazov. The cowbells which I 
carried under my ribs began clanking wildly; in the belfry above, it was as
if all the stars in the heavens had come together to make a celestial 
bonfire. There was no weight to my body, none whatever. I was at the “six 
extremes” simultaneously.

There was a language which never failed to set me off—and it was always 
the same language. Boiled to the size of a lentil, its whole scope and 
purport could be expressed in two words: Know thyself! Alone with myself, 
and not only alone but disconnected, discalibrated, I ran up and down the 
harmonica, talking the one and only language, breathing only the pure 
ineffable spirit, looking upon everything with new eyes and in an 
absolutely new way. No birth, no death! Of course not! What more, what 
else, could there be than was at this moment? Who said that everything was 
fucked up? Where? When? On the seventh day God rested from his labors. And 
He saw that all was good. D’accord. How could it have been otherwise? 
According to reason, that fat wingless slug, humanity was slowly, slowly 
evolving from the primordial slime. A million years hence we would begin 
faintly to resemble the angels. What rot! Is the mind encysted, then, in 
the asshole of creation? When Roy Hamilton spoke, though he possessed not a
shred of learning, he spoke with the sweet authority of the angels. He was 
all instantaneity. The wheel flashed and you were immediately at the hub, 
in the center of that empty space without which not even the constellations
can wheel and flash their secret codes. Ditto for Benjamin Fay Mills, who 
was not an Evangelist but a hero who had abandoned Christianity in order to
be a Christ. And Nirvana? Not tomorrow but now, forever and eternally now…

This language was ever bright and clear to me. The language of reason, 
which is not even the language of common sense, spelled gibberish. When God
lets go the arm that holds the pen the author no longer knows what he is 
writing. Jacob Boehme used a language all his own, a language direct from 
the Maker. Scholars read it one way, men of God another. The poet speaks 
only to the poet. Spirit answereth spirit. The rest is hog-wash.

A hundred voices are speaking at once. I am still on the Nevsky Prospekt,
still toting the briefcase. I could as well be in limbo. I am most 
assuredly “there,” wherever that may be, and nothing can derail me. 
Possessed, yes. But by the great manitou this time.

Now I’ve gotten below the rambla. I’m approaching the old Haymarket. 
Suddenly a name juts out from a billboard, cuts my eyeball just as clean as
a razor blade. I have just passed a theater which I thought had been torn 
down long ago. Nothing remains in the retina but a name, her name, an 
utterly new name: MIMI AGUGLIA. This is the important thing, her name. Not 
that she is Italian, not that the play is an immortal tragedy. Just her 
name:

MIMI AGUGLIA. Though I keep walking steadily ahead, and then round and 
about, though I keep scudding through the clouds like a three-quarter moon,
her name will draw me back punctually at 2:15 P.M. From the celestial realm
I slide to a comfortable seat in the third row orchestra. I am about to 
witness the greatest performance I shall probably ever witness. And in a 
language of which I know not a word.

The theater is packed—and with Italians exclusively. An awesome hush 
precedes the rising of the curtain. The stage is semi-dark. For a full 
minute not a word is spoken. Then a voice is heard: the voice of Mimi 
Aguglia.

Only a few moments ago my head was seething with thought; now all is 
still, the great swarm gathered in a honeycomb at the base of the skull. 
Not even a buzz issues from the hive. My senses, sharpened to a diamond 
point, are fully concentrated on the strange creature with the oracular 
voice. Even were she to speak a language I know, I doubt that I could 
follow her. It is the sound she makes, the immense gamut of sound, which 
enthralls me. Her throat is like an ancient lyre. So very, very ancient. It
has the ring of man before he ate of the tree of knowledge. Her gestures 
and movements are mere accompaniments to the voice. The features, 
monolithic in repose, express the most subtle modulations with her 
ceaseless changes of mood. When she throws her head back the oracular music
from her throat plays over her features like lightning playing over a bed 
of mica. She seems to express with ease emotions which we can only simulate
in dreams. All is primordial, effulgent, annihilating. A moment ago she was
sitting in a chair. It is no longer a chair; it has become a thing, an 
animated thing. Wherever she moves, whatever she touches, things become 
altered. Now she stands before a tall mirror, ostensibly to catch her own 
reflection. Illusion! She is standing before a gap in the cosmos, answering
the Titan’s yawn with an inhuman shriek. Her heart, suspended in a crevice 
of ice, suddenly glows—until her whole being shoots forth flames of ruby 
and sapphire. Another instant and the monolithic head turns to jade. The 
serpent confronting chaos. Marble returning in horror to the void. 
Nothingness…

She is pacing back and forth, back and forth, and in her wake a 
phosphorescent glow. The very atmosphere thickens, impregnated by the 
impending horror. She is unveiling now, but as if in warm oil, as if .still
drugged by the fumes of the sacrificial altar. A phrase gurgles from her 
tortured lips, a strangled phrase which causes the man beside me to groan. 
Blood oozes from a burst vein in her temple. Petrified, I am unable to make
a sound, though I am screaming at the top of my lungs. It is no longer 
theater, it is the nightmare. The walls close in, twisting and twining like
the dread labyrinth. The Minotaur is breathing upon us with hot and evil 
breath. At precisely this moment, and as if a thousand chandeliers had been
shattered at once, her mad, fiendish laugh splits the ear. She is no longer
recognizable. One sees only a human wreck, a tangle of arms and limbs, a 
mass of twisted hair, a gory mouth, and this, this thing, gropes, staggers,
grapples blindly, suddenly, toward the wings…

Hysteria sweeps the audience. Men with jaws locked are hanging limp in 
their seats. Women scream, faint, or tear their hair convulsively. The 
whole auditorium has become like the bottom of the sea—and pandemonium 
struggling like a crazed gorilla to remove the heavy liquid stone of 
fright. The ushers gesticulate like puppets, their shouts smothered in the 
screeching roar which gradually swells like a typhoon. And all this in 
total darkness, because something has gone wrong with the lights. Finally 
from the pit comes the sound of music, a blare and a blast, which is met by
an angry roar of protest. The music fades out, silenced as if by a hammer. 
The curtain rises slowly to reveal a stage still in darkness. Suddenly she 
comes forth from the wings, a lighted taper in her hand, bowing, bowing, 
bowing. She is mute, absolutely mute. From the boxes, from the balconies, 
from the pit itself flowers rain upon the stage. She is standing in a sea 
of flowers, the taper burning brightly. Suddenly the theater is flooded 
with light. The crowd is screaming her name—MIMI… MIMI… MIMI AGUGLIA. In 
the midst of the uproar she calmly blows the taper out and walks swiftly 
back to the wings…

With the briefcase still under my arm I start ploughing through the 
rambla again. I feel as if I had come down from Mt. Sinai by parachute. All
about me are my brothers, humanity, as they say, still marching on all 
fours. I have an overpowering desire to kick out in all directions, speed 
the poor buggers into Paradise. Just at this “precise chronological moment”
when I’m fizzing like champagne, a man tugs at my sleeve and shoves a dirty
post card under my nose. I keep walking straight ahead with him clinging to
me, and as we move on, trance-like, he keeps changing the cards and 
muttering under his breath: “A honey, what! Dirt cheap. Take the whole 
pack—for two bits.” Suddenly I stop dead in my tracks; I begin to laugh, a 
frightening laugh which grows louder and louder. I let the cards slide from
my fingers, like snowflakes. A crowd begins to gather, the peddler takes to
his heels. People are beginning to pick up the cards; they keep crowding in
on me, closer and closer, curious to know what made me laugh so. In the 
distance I spy a cop approaching. Pivoting round abruptly, I yell: “He’s 
gone in there. Get him!” Pointing to a shop near the corner I push forward 
eagerly with the crowd; as they press forward and ahead of me I turn 
quickly and walk as fast as my legs will carry me in the opposite 
direction. At the corner I swing round, moving like a kangaroo now, until I
come to a gin-mill.

At the bar two men are in the midst of a violent dispute. I order a beer 
and make myself as inconspicuous as possible.

“I tell you he’s off his nut!”

“You’d be too if you had had your balls cut out. But he’ll make you look 
like a horse’s ass.”

“The Pope’s ass he will!”

“Look, who made the world? Who made the stars, the sun, the raindrops? 
Answer me that!”

“You answer it, since you’re so bloody learned. You tell me who made the 
world, the rainbows, the piss-pots and all the other cocksucking devices.”

“You’d like to know, lad? Well, let me say this—it wasn’t made in a 
cheese factory. And it wasn’t evolution made it either.”

“Oh no? What was it then?”

“It was the Almighty Jehovah himself, Lord of Creation, Begetter of the 
Blessed Mary, and the Redeemer of lost souls. That’s a fair answer for you.
Now what have you to say?”

“I still say he’s nuts.”

“You’re a dirty infidel, that’s what. You’re a pagan.”

“I’m not neither. I’m Irish through and through. And what’s more, I’m a 
Mason… yeah, a bloody Mason. Like George Abraham Washington and the Marquis
of Queensbury… “

“And Oliver Cromwell and Bloody Bonesapart. Sure, I know your breed. It 
was a black snake that homed you and it’s his black venom you’ve been 
spreading ever since.”

“We’ll never take orders from the Pope. Put that in your pipe and light 
it!”

“And this for you! You’ve made a Bible out of Darwin’s crazy preachings. 
You make a monkey of yourself and you call it evolution.”

“I still say he’s nuts.”

“Can I ask you a simple question? Can I now?”

“That you can. Fire away! I’ll answer anything that has sense to it.”

“Perfect!… Now what makes worms crawl and birds to fly? What makes the 
spider spin his crazy web? What makes the kangaroo…?”

“Hold it, man! One question at a time. Now which is it—the bird, the 
worm, the spider or the kangaroo?”

“Why do two and two make four? Maybe you can answer that! I don’t ask you
to be an anthroposophagist, or whatever the devil they’re called. Plain 
arithmetic… two plus two equals four. WHY? Answer that and I’ll say you’re 
an honest Roman. Go on, now give it to me!”

“Bugger the Romans! I’d rather be a monkey with Darwin b’Jasus! 
Arithmetic! Bah! Why don’t you ask me if red-eyed Mars ever wobbled in her 
funicular orbit?”

“The Bible answered that long ago. So did Parnell!”

“In the pig’s ass he did!”

“There isn’t a question but was answered once and for all—by somebody or 
other.”

“You mean the Pope!”

“Man, I’ve told you a hundred times—the Pope is but a Pontifical 
interlocutor. His Holiness never asserted that he was the risen Christ.”

“Lucky for him, because I’d deny it to his treacherous face. We’ve had 
enough of Inquisitions. What the sad, weary world needs is a bit of common 
sense. You can rave all you like about spiders and kangaroos, but who’s 
going to pay the rent? Ask your friend that!”

“I told you that he joined the Dominicans.”

“And I said that he was nuts.”

At this point the bartender, thinking to quiet them, was about to offer 
drinks on the house when who walks in but a blind man playing a harp. He 
sang in a tremulous falsetto which was woefully false. He wore dark blue 
glasses and over his left arm was slung a white cane.

“Come give us a bawdy song!” cried one of the disputants.

“And none of your shenanigans!… ” cried the other.

The blind man removed his glasses, slung the harp and cane over a peg in 
the wall, and shuffled to the bar with an alacrity that was amazing.

“Just a wee drop to wet the palate,” he whined.

“Give him a drop of Irish whiskey,” said the one.

“And a bit of brandy,” said the other.

“To the men of Dublin and County Kerry,” said the blind man, raising both
glasses at once. “Down with all Orangemen!” He looked around, bright as a 
bob-o-link, and took a swallow from each of the tumblers.

“When will you get any shame in you?” said the one.

“He’s wallowing in gold,” said the other.

“It’s loike this,” said the blind man, brushing his lips with his sleeve,
“when me owld mother died I promised her I’d never do another stroke of 
work. I’ve kept to me bargain, and so has she. Every time I pluck the 
strings she calls to me softly: ‘Patrick, are you there? It’s grand, me 
boy, it’s grand.’ Before I can ask her a question she’s gone again. The 
fair grounds, I call it. She’s been there for thirty years now—and she’s 
kept to her bargain.”

“You’re dotty, man. What bargain?”

“It’s long to explain and me throat’s parched… “

“Another brandy and whiskey for the scoundrel!”

“You’re kind, the two of you. Gentlemen, that’s what you are!” Again he 
raises both glasses. “To the Blessed Mary and her prodigal son!”

“Did you hear that now? That’s blasphemy or I’ll eat me hat.”

“It’s not either. Tush tush!”

“The Blessed Mary had only one son—and by the holy Patrick he was no 
prodigal! He was the Prince of Paupers, that’s what he was. I’ll take an 
oath on It.”

“This is no court. Easy with your oaths! Go on. man, tell us of your 
bargain!”

The blind man pulled his nose meditatively. Again he looked about—bright 
and merry, chipper as could be. Like an oily sardine.

“It’s loike this… ” he began.

“Don’t say that, man! On with yer! Out with it!”

“It’s a long, long story. And me throat’s still dry, if yer don’t mind me
saying so.”

“Get on with it, man, or we’ll be fleecing your bottom!”

The blind man cleared his throat, then rubbed his eyes.

“It’s loike I wuz sayin’… Me owld mother had the gift of sight. She could
see through a door, her gimlicks were that strong. Wanst, when the dadda 
was late for supper… “

“Your dadda be damned! You’re a creepy old counterfeiter!”

“I am that too,” screeched the blind man. “I’ve every little weakness.”

“And a throat that’s always parched.”

“And a pocketful of gold, eh, you rascal!” Suddenly the blind man became 
terrified. His face blanched.

“No, no!” he screamed, “not me pockets. You wouldn’t do that to me? You 
wouldn’t do that… ” The two cronies began to laugh uproariously. Pinning 
his arms to his sides, they went through his pockets—pants, coat and vest. 
Dumping the money on the bar, they piled it neatly in bills and coins of 
every denomination, putting the bad money to one side. It was a stunt they 
had evidently rehearsed more than once.

“Another brandy!” called the one.

“Another Irish whiskey—the best!” called the other.

They dished out some coins from the pile, and then a few more, to make a 
generous tip for the barman.

“And is your throat still parched?” they asked solicitously.

“And what will you have?” says the one.

“And you?” says the other.

“My throat’s getting dryer and dryer.”

“Aye, and so is mine.”

“And did you ever hear about the bargain Patrick made with his owld 
mother?”

“It’s a long story.” says the other, “but I’ve a mind to hear it to the 
end. Would you tell it now, while I down a goblet to your health and 
virility?”

The other, raising his goblet: “I could tell it till the Day of Judgment,
it’s that good. A corkin’ yam. But let me wet me throat first.”

“They’re a bunch of thieves, the three of ‘em.” said the barkeep, as he 
filled my glass. Would you believe it, one of ‘em was a priest once. He’s 
the biggest faker of the lot. Can’t put ‘em out—they own the building. See 
what I mean?”

He busied himself with the empty glasses, rinsed them, wiped them, 
polished them, lit himself a cigarette. Then he ambled over to me again.

“All shandy-gaff,” he mumbled confidentially. “They can talk sense, if 
they want to. They’re as smart as steel traps. Like to put on an act, 
that’s all. Beats me why they pick this place to do it in.” He leaned back 
to spit a gob in the spittoon beside his feet. “Ireland! They never saw 
Ireland, none of them. They were born and raised a block away from here. 
They love to put it on… You’d never think it, would you, but the blind 
fellow was a great little fighter once. Until he got knocked cold by Terry 
McGovern. He’s got the eyes of an eagle, that bird. Comes in here to count 
his money every day. It bums him up to get wooden money. You know what he 
does with the bad coins? Passes them off on real blind men. Ain’t that 
nice!” He left me a moment to beg them to quiet down. The liquor was 
beginning to have its effect.

“Know what the big news is now? They’re planning to hire a hansom and 
take a ride through Central Park. Time to feed the pigeons, they say. How’s
that for you?” He leaned back again to use the cuspidor. “That’s another 
one of their acts—feeding the pigeons. They throw out some crumbs or 
peanuts, and when they’ve collected a crowd they begin throwing away the 
wooden money. Gives them a great kick. After that Blind Ben does a little 
number and they pass the hat around. As if they hadn’t a cent in the world!
I’d like to be there sometime and put a nice lump of shit in the kitty… “

He looked around to eye them disdainfully. Turns back to me again and 
starts spouting.

“Maybe you thought they were really arguing about something? I’ve 
listened time and again to find out how it begins—but I never can. Before 
you know it they’re in the thick of it. They say any old thing—to get wound
up. It’s gab they like. The argumentation is just dirt in the eye. The 
Pope, Darwin, kangaroos—you heard it all. It never makes sense, no matter 
what they’re talking about. Yesterday it was hydraulic engineering and how 
to cure constipation. The day before it was the Easter Rebellion. All mixed
up with a lot of horse shit—the bubonic plague, the Sepoy mutiny, Roman 
aqueducts and horse feathers.

Words, words… It drives me nuts sometimes. Every night I’m arguin’ in my 
sleep. The hell of it is I don’t know what I’m arguin’ about. Just like 
them. Even my day off is ruined. I keep wondering if they’re goin’ to show 
up somewhere… Some people think they’re funny. I’ve seen guys split their 
sides laughing at ‘em. It ain’t funny to me, no sir! By the time I finish 
here I’m standing on my head… Listen—I did a stretch once—for six 
months—and a colored guy had the cell next to mine… Can I’ freshen it up 
for you?… He sang all day long, and nights too. Got me so made I wanted to 
throttle him. Funny, hah? Shows you how sensitive you can get… Brother, if 
I ever get out of this racket I’m headin’ for the Sierra Nevadas. What I 
need is peace and quiet. I don’t even want to look at a cow. It might go 
MOO-000-00—see what I meant Trouble was, when I got back my wife was gone. 
Yeah! Ran out on me—and with my best friend, of course. Just the same, I 
can’t forget that month of peace and quiet. It was worth everything that 
happened afterward… You get sensitive, working like a slave all day long. I
was cut out for somethin’ else. Never could find out what. I’ve been off 
beat for a long time… Can I freshen it up for you? It’s on the house, what 
the hell! You see… now I’m talkin’ a blue streak. That’s what happens to 
you. You see a sympathetic puss and you spill the beans… I haven’t told you
anything yet.” He reached up and took down a bottle of gin. Poured himself 
a thimbleful, a good one. “Here’s how! And let’s hope they get the hell out
of here soon. Where was It Yeah, the bad news… What do you think my parents
wanted me to be? An insurance agent. Can you beat that? They thought it was
refined like. The old man was a hod-carrier, you see. From the old country,
sure enough. A brogue as thick as mulligatawney. Yeah, the insurance 
racket. Can you picture me goin’ through a routine like that? So I joins 
the Marines. After that the horses. Lost everything. Then I take up 
plumbing. No go. Too clumsy. Besides, I hate filth, believe it or not. So 
what? Well, I bummed around a bit, got wise to myself and borrowed a little
from the old man so as 1 could open a hash joint. Then I make the mistake 
of gettin’ hitched up. A battle royal from the day we were spliced. Except 
for that vacation I was telling you about. So help me God, one experience 
wasn’t enough. Before you know it, I’m hooked up with another one—a cute 
little bitch too. Then the real agony starts. She was a screwball, this 
last one. She got me so bitched up I didn’t know whether I was goin’ or 
comin’. That’s how I landed in the clink. When I came out I was that low I 
was ready for religion. Yes sir, those six months in the clink put the fear
of Christ in me. I was ready to toe the line… ” He poured himself another 
thimbleful of gin, spat again, and resumed where he had left off. “Listen, 
I was that careful you could have offered me a gold ingot and I wouldn’t 
touch it. That’s how I got inter this business. I asked for somethin’ to 
keep me busy. It was the old man who got me the job.” He leaned over to 
whisper the words: “He coughed up five hundred clams to get me this break! 
That’s kindness, what!”

Here I begged off to take a leak.

When I came out the bar was full.

The trio had disappeared, I noticed. I shook myself like a dog and headed
back for the Gay White Way. Everything had fallen back into its normal 
aspect. It was Broadway once again, not the rambla, not the Nevsky 
Prospekt. A typical New York throng, no different from what it was in the 
year One. I bought a paper at Times Square and ducked into the subway. The 
workers were wending their weary ways homeward. Not a spark of life in the 
whole train. Only the switchboard in the motorman’s compartment was alive, 
crackling with electricity. You could add up all the thoughts that were 
being thought, put a decimal in front of them, and add twenty-six digits to
make it even less than nothing.

On the seventh day God rested from His labor and saw that all was good. 
Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

I wondered vaguely about the pigeons. And from that to the Sepoy mutiny. 
Then I dozed off. I fell into such a stupor that I never woke up till we 
got to Coney Island. The briefcase was gone. So was my wallet. Even the 
newspaper was gone… Nothing to do but stay in the train and ride back 
again. I felt hungry. Voraciously hungry. And in excellent spirits. I 
decided I might as well eat at The Iron Cauldron. It seemed as if I hadn’t 
seen my wife for ages.

Fine! Giddy-ap, horsey! To the Village!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Iron Cauldron was one of the landmarks of the Village. Its clientele 
was drawn from far and near. Among the many interesting characters who 
frequented the place were the inevitable freaks and eccentrics who made the
Village notorious.

To believe Mona, it would seem that all the nuts congregated at her 
tables. Almost every day I heard of some new figure, each one, of course, 
more extravagant that the last.

The latest was Anastasia. She had blown in from the Coast and was having 
a time of it to keep going. She had had a few hundred dollars with her on 
arriving in New York but it had vanished like smoke. What she hadn’t given 
away had been stolen. According to Mona, she was an extraordinary-looking 
person. She had long black hair which she wore like a mane, violet blue 
eyes, beautiful strong hands, and large sturdy feet. She called herself 
Anastasia simply. Her last name, Annapolis, she had invented. Apparently 
she had wandered into The Iron Cauldron in search of work. Mona had 
overheard her talking to the proprietor and had come to her rescue. 
Wouldn’t hear of her washing dishes or even waiting on tables. She had 
divined at once that this was an unusual person, had invited her to sit 
down and eat, and after a long conversation had loaned her some money.

“Imagine, she was walking around in overalls! She had no stockings and 
her shoes were worn through. People were making fun of her.”

“Describe her again, will you?”

“I really can’t,” said Mona, whereupon she launched into an extravagant 
description of her friend. The way she said “my friend” gave me a queer 
feeling. I had never heard her refer to any of her other acquaintances in 
quite this way. There was a fervor to her words which suggested veneration,
adoration and other undefinable things. She had made of this meeting with 
her new-found friend an event of the first magnitude.

“How old is she?” I ventured to ask.

“How old? I don’t know. Maybe twenty-two or three. She has no age. You 
don’t think of such things when you look at her. She’s the most 
extraordinary being I’ve ever met—outside of yourself, Val.”

“An artist, I suppose?”

“She’s everything. She can do anything.”

“Does she paint?”

“Of course! She paints, sculpts, makes puppets, writes poetry, dances—and
with it all she’s a clown. But a sad clown, like you.”

“You don’t think she’s nuts?”

“I should say not! She does queer things, but only because she’s unusual.
She’s about as free a person as I’ve ever seen, and tragic to boot. She’s 
really unfathomable.”

“Like Claude, I suppose.”

She smiled. “In a way,” she said. “Funny you mentioned him. You ought to 
see the two of them together. They look as if they hailed from another 
planet.”

“So they know each other?”

“I introduced them to one another. They get along splendidly, too. They 
talk their own private language. And do you know, they even resemble one 
another physically.”

“I suppose she’s a bit on the mannish side, this Anapopoulos or whatever 
it is?”

“Not really,” said Mona, her eyes glistening. “She prefers to dress in 
men’s clothes because she feels more comfortable that way. She’s more than 
a mere female, you see. If she were a man, I’d speak the same way. There’s 
some added quality in her which is beyond sexual distinction. Sometimes she
reminds me of an angel, except that there’s nothing ethereal or remote 
about her. No, she’s very earthy, almost coarse at times… The only way to 
explain it to you, Val, is to say that she’s a superior being. You know how
you felt about Claude? Well… Anastasia is a tragic buffoon. She doesn’t 
belong in this world at all. I don’t know where she belongs, but certainly 
not here. The very tone of her voice will tell you that. It’s an 
extraordinary voice, more like a bird’s than a human being’s. But when she 
gets angry it becomes frightening.”

“Why, does she fly into rages frequently?”

“Only when people insult her or make fun of her.”

“Why do they do that?”

“I told you—because she’s different. Even her walk is unique. She can’t 
help it, it’s her nature. But it makes me furious to see the way she’s 
treated. There never was a more generous, reckless soul. Of course she has 
no sense of reality. That’s what I love about her.”

“What do you mean by that exactly?”

“Just what I said. If some one came along who needed a shirt she’d take 
hers off—right in the street—and give it to the person. She’d never think 
about the fact that she was indecently exposed. She’d take her pants off 
too, if necessary.”

“You don’t call that mad?”

“No, Val, I don’t. For her it’s the natural, sane thing to do. She never 
stops to think of consequences; she doesn’t care what people think of her. 
She’s genuine through and through. And she’s as sensitive and delicate as a
flower.”

“She must have had a strange bringing-up. Did she tell you anything about
her parents, anything about her childhood?”

“A little.”

I could see that she knew more than she cared to reveal.

“She was an orphan, I believe. She said the people who adopted her were 
very kind to her. She had everything she wanted.”

“Well, let’s get to bed, what do you say?”

She went to the bathroom to go through the usual interminable routine. I 
got in bed and waited patiently. The door to the bathroom was open.

“By the way,” I said, thinking to divert her mind, “How is Claude these 
days? Anything new?”

“He’s leaving town in a day or two.”

“Where to?”

“He wouldn’t say. I have a notion he’s heading for Africa.”

“Africa! Why would he be going there?”

“Search me! It wouldn’t surprise me, though, if he said he were going to 
the moon. You know Claude… “

“You’ve said that several times now, and always the same way. No, I don’t
know Claude, not like you mean. I know only what he chooses to tell, 
nothing more. He’s an absolute conundrum to me.”

I heard her chuckling to herself.

“What’s so funny about that?” I asked.

“I thought you understood one another perfectly.”

“No one will ever get to understand Claude,” said I. “He’s an enigma, and
he’ll remain an enigma.”

“That’s just the way I feel about my friend.”

“Your friend,” said I a little testily. “You hardly know her and you 
speak of her as if she were a lifelong friend.”

“Don’t be silly. She is my friend—the only friend I’ve ever had.”

“You sound as if you were infatuated… “

“I am! She appeared at the right moment.”

“Now what does that mean?”

“That I was desperate, lonely, miserable. That I needed some one I could 
call a friend.”

“What’s come over you anyway? Since when have you needed a friend? I’m 
your friend. Isn’t that enough for you?” I said it mockingly, but I was 
half in earnest.

To my astonishment she replied: “No, Val, you’re not my friend any more. 
You’re my husband, and I love you… I couldn’t live without you, but… “

“But what?”

“I had to have a friend, a woman friend. Some one I can confide in, some 
one who understands me.”

“Well I’ll

be damned!

So that’s it?

And you mean you can’t confide in me?”

“Not like

I can

in a

woman. There

are some things you just can’t tell a man, even if you love him. Oh, 
they’re not big things, don’t worry. Sometimes little

things

are

more important

than big things, you

know

that.

Besides, look

at you…

you’ve got loads of friends. And when you’re with your friends you’re a 
different person entirely. I used to envy you sometimes. Maybe I was 
jealous of your friends. Once I thought that I could be everything to you. 
But I see I was wrong. Anyway, now I have a friend—and I’m going to keep 
her.”

Half teasingly, half seriously, I said:

“Now you want to make me jealous, is that it?”

She came out of the bathroom, knelt beside the bed and put her head in my
arms. “Val,” she murmured, “you know that isn’t true. But this friendship 
is something very dear and very precious to me. I don’t want to share her 
with any one, not even with you. Not for a while, at least.”

“All right,” I said. “I get it.” My voice sounded a trifle husky, I 
noticed.

Gratefully she burbled: “I knew you’d understand.”

“But what is there to understand? I asked. I said it softly and gently.

“That’s it,” she answered, “nothing, nothing. It’s only natural.” She 
bent forward and kissed me affectionately on the lips.

As she got to her feet to put out the lights I said impulsively:

“You poor girl! Wanting a friend all this time and I never knew it, never
suspected it. I guess I must be a dumb, insensitive bugger.”

She switched off the lights and crawled into bed. There were twin beds 
but we used only one.

“Hold me tight,” she whispered. “Val, I love you more than ever. Do you 
hear me?”

I said nothing, just held her tight.

“Claude said to me the other day—are you listening?—that you were one of 
the few.”

“One of the elect, is that it?” I said jokingly. “The only man in the 
world for me.”

“But not a friend… “

She put a hand over my mouth.

*

Every night it was the same theme song—“My friend ‘Stasia.” Varied, of 
course, to add a little spice, with tall tales of the annoying attentions 
lavished upon Mona by an incongruous quartet. One of them—she didn’t even 
know his name—owned a string of book stores; another was the wrestler, Jim 
Driscoll; the third was a millionaire, a notorious pervert, whose name—it 
sounded incredible—was Tinkelfels; the fourth was a mad individual who was 
also somewhat of a saint. Ricardo, this last-named, appealed to me warmly, 
assuming that her description of him tallied with reality. A quiet, sober 
individual who spoke with a strong Spanish accent, he had a wife and three 
children whom he loved dearly, was extremely poor but made lavish gifts, 
was kind and gentle—“tender as a lamb”—wrote metaphysical treatises which 
were unpublishable, gave lectures to audiences of ten or twelve, et patati 
et patata. What I liked about him was this—each time he accompanied her to 
the subway, each time he said good night, he would clutch her hands and 
murmur solemnly: “If I can’t have you, nobody will. I will kill you.”

Mona came back to Ricardo again and again, saying how much he thought of 
Anastasia, how “beautifully” he treated her, and so forth. And each time 
she brought up his name she would repeat his threat, laughing over it as if
It were a great joke. Her attitude began to annoy me.

“How do you know he won’t keep his word some day?” I said one night.

She laughed even harder at this.

“You think it’s so impossible do you?”

“You don’t know him,” said she. “He’s one of the gentlest creatures on 
earth.”

“That’s precisely why I think he’s capable of doing it. He’s serious. 
You’d better watch yourself with him.”

“Oh, nonsense! He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Maybe not. But he sounds passionate enough to kill the woman he loves.”

“How can he be in love with met It’s silly. I don’t show him any 
affection. I hardly listen to him, in fact. He talks to Anastasia more than
to me.”

“You don’t have to do anything, you only need to be. He’s got a fixation.
He isn’t mad. Unless it’s madness to fall in love with an image. You’re the
physical image of his ideal, that’s obvious. He doesn’t need to plumb you, 
or even to get a response from you. He wants to gaze at you 
eternally—because you’ve incarnated the woman of his dreams.”

“That’s just the way he talks,” said Mona, somewhat taken aback by my 
words. “You two would get on wonderfully together. You speak the same 
language. I know he’s a sensitive creature, and a most intelligent one, 
too. I like him enormously, but he gets in my hair. He has no sense of 
humor, none whatever. When he smiles he looks even sadder than usual. He’s 
a lonely soul.”

“It’s a pity I don’t know him,” I said. “I like’ him more than any one 
you’ve talked about. He sounds like a real human being. Besides, I like 
Spaniards. They’re men… “

“He’s not a Spaniard—he’s Cuban.”

“Same thing.”

“No, it isn’t, Val. Ricardo told me so himself. He despises the Cubans.”

“Well, no matter. I’d like him even if he were a Turk.”

“Maybe I could introduce him to you,” said Mona suddenly. “Why not?”

I reflected a moment before answering.

“I don’t think you’d better,” said I. “You couldn’t fool a man like that.
He’s not a Cromwell. Besides, even Cromwell isn’t the fool you take him to 
be.”

“I never said he was a fool!”

“But you tried to make me believe so, you can’t deny that.”

“Well, you know why.” She gave me one of her faun-like smiles.

“Listen, sister, I know so much more about you and your wiles than you’d 
ever give me credit for that it hurts to even mention the subject.”

“You have a great imagination, Val. That’s the reason why I sometimes 
tell you so little. I know how you build things up.”

“But you must admit I build on a firm foundation!”

Again the faun-like smile.

Then she busied herself with something, in order to hide her face.

A pleasant sort of pause Intervened. Then, out of a clear sky I suddenly 
remarked—“I suppose women are obliged to lie… it’s in their nature. Men lie
too, of course, but so differently. Women seem to have an unholy fear of 
the truth. You know, if you could stop lying, if you could stop playing 
this foolish, unnecessary game with me, I think… “

I noticed that she had halted whatever it was she was pretending to be 
doing. Maybe she’ll really listen I thought to myself. I could see only the
side of her face. The expression was one of intense alertness. Of wariness 
too. Like an animal.

“I think I would do anything you asked of me. I think I would even 
surrender you to another man, if that was what you wished.”

These unexpected words of mine gave her intense relief, or so it seemed. 
What it was she had imagined I would say I don’t know. A weight had fallen 
off her shoulders. She came over to me—I was sitting on the edge of the 
bed—and sat beside me. She put a hand on mine. The look which stole into 
her eyes was one of utter sincerity and devotion.

“Val,” she began, “you know I would never make such a demand of you. How 
could you say such a thing? Maybe I do tell you fibs now and then, but not 
lies. I couldn’t keep anything vital from you—it would give me too much 
pain. These little things… these fibs… I make them up because I don’t want 
to hurt you. There are situations sometimes which are so sordid that, even 
to relate them to you, I feel would soil you. It doesn’t matter what 
happens to me. I’m made of coarser fiber. I know what the world is like. 
You don’t. You’re a dreamer. And an idealist. You don’t know, nor will you 
ever suspect, much less believe, how wicked people are. You see only the 
good side of everyone. You’re pure, that’s what. And that’s what Claude 
meant when he said you were one of the few. Ricardo is another pure soul. 
People like you and Ricardo should never be involved in j ugly things. I 
get involved now and then—because I’m not afraid of contamination. I’m of 
the world. With you I behave like another being. I want to be what you’d 
like me to be. But I’ll never be like you, never.”

“I wonder now,” said I, “what people would think—people like Kronski, 
O’Mara, Ulric, for example—if they heard you talking this way.”

“It doesn’t matter what other people think, Val.

I know you. I know you better than any of your friends do, no matter how 
long they’ve known you.

I know how sensitive you are. You’re the tenderest creature alive.”

“I’m beginning to feel frail and delicate, with all this.”

“You’re not delicate,” said she feelingly. “You’re tough—like all 
artists. But when it comes to the world, I mean dealing with the world, 
you’re just an infant. The world is vicious through and through. You’re in 
it, all right, but you’re not of it. You lead a charmed life. If you meet 
with a sordid experience you convert it into something beautiful.”

“You talk as if you knew me like a book.”

“I’m telling you the truth, am I not? Can you deny it?”

She put her arm around me lovingly and brushed her cheek against mine.

“Oh Val, maybe I’m not the woman you deserve, but I do know you. And the 
more I know you the better I love you. I’ve missed you so much lately. 
That’s why it means so much to me to have a friend. I was really getting 
desperate—without you.”

“O.K. But we were beginning to behave like two spoiled children, do you 
realize that? We expected everything to be handed to us on a platter.”

“I didn’t!” she exclaimed. “But I wanted you to have the things you 
craved. I wanted you to have a good life—so’ that you could do all the 
things you dream about. You can’t be spoiled! You take only what you need, 
no more.”

“That’s true,” I said, moved by this unexpected observation. “Not many 
people realize that. I remember how angry my folks got when I came home 
from Church one Sunday morning and told them enthusiastically that I was a 
Christian Socialist. I had heard a coal miner speak from the pulpit that 
morning and his words had struck home. He called himself a Christian 
Socialist. I immediately became one too. Anyway, it ended up with the usual
nonsense… the folks saying that Socialists were concerned only with giving 
away other people’s money. ‘And what’s wrong with that?’ I demanded. The 
answer was: ‘Wait till you’ve earned your own money, then talk!’ That 
seemed a silly argument. What did it matter, I asked myself, whether I 
earned money or didn’t earn money? The point was that the good things of 
life were unjustly distributed. I was quite willing to eat less, to have 
less of everything, if those who had little might be better off. Then and 
there it occurred to me how little one really needs. If you’re content you 
don’t need material treasures… Well, I don’t know why I got off on that! Oh
yes! About taking only what I need… I admit, my desires are great. But I 
also can do without. Though I talk a lot about food, as you know, I really 
don’t require much. I want just enough to be able to forget about food, 
that’s what I mean. That’s normal, don’t you think?”

“Of course, of course!”

“And that’s why I don’t want all the things you seem to think would make 
me happy, or make me work better. We don’t need to live the way we were. I 
gave in to please you. It was wonderful while it lasted, sure. So is 
Christmas. What I dislike more than anything is this perpetual borrowing 
and begging this using people for suckers. You don’t enjoy it either, I’m 
sure of it. Why should we deceive each other about it then? Why not put an 
end to it?”

“But I have!”

“You stopped doing it for me, but now you’re doing it for your friend 
Anastasia. Don’t lie to me, I know what I’m saying.”

“It’s different in her case, Val. She doesn’t know how to earn money. 
She’s even more of a child than you.”

“But you’re only helping her to remain a child—by aiding her the way you 
do. I don’t say that she’s a leech. I say this—you’re robbing her of 
something. Why doesn’t she sell her puppets, or her paintings, or her 
sculpture?”

“Why?” She laughed outright at this. “For the same reason that you can’t 
sell your stories. She’s too good an artist, that’s why.”

“But she doesn’t have to sell her work to art dealers—let her sell direct
to individuals. Sell them for a song! Anything to keep afloat. It would do 
her good. She’d really feel better for it.”

“There you go again! Shows how little you know the world. Val, you 
couldn’t even give her work away, that’s how things are. If you ever get a 
book published you’ll have to beg people to accept copies gratis. People 
don’t want what’s good, I tell you. People like you and Anastasia—or 
Ricardo—you have to be protected.”

“To hell with writing, if that’s how it is… But I can’t believe it! I’m 
no writer yet, I’m nothing but a tyro. I may be better than editors think I
am, .but I’ve a long way to go yet. When I really know how to express 
myself people will read me. I don’t care how bad the world is. They will, I
tell you. They won’t be able to ignore me.”

“And until then?”

“Until then I’ll find some other way of making a living.”

“Selling encyclopedias? Is that a way?”

“Not much of a one, I admit, but it’s better than begging and borrowing. 
Better than having your wife prostitute herself.”

“Every penny I make I earn,” said Mona heatedly. “Waiting on tables is no
cinch.”

“All the more reason why I should do my share. You don’t like to see me 
selling books. I don’t like to see you waiting on tables. If we had more 
sense we’d be doing other things. Surely there must be some kind of work 
that isn’t degrading.”

“Not for us! We weren’t cut out to do the work of the world.”

“Then we ought to learn.” I was getting carried away with my own 
righteous attitude.

“Val, this is all talk. You know you’ll never hold down an honest-to-God 
job. Never. And I don’t want you to. I’d rather see you dead.”

“All right, you win. But Jesus, isn’t there something a man like me can 
do without feeling like a fool or a dolt?” Here a thought which was forming
itself on my lips caused me to laugh. I laughed good and hard before I got 
it out. “Listen,” I managed to say, “do you know what I was just thinking? 
I was thinking that I might make a wonderful diplomat. I ought to be an 
ambassador to a foreign country—how does that strike you? No, seriously. 
Why not? I’ve got brains, and I know how to deal with people. What I don’t 
know I’d make up for with my imagination. Can you see me as ambassador to 
China?”

Oddly, she didn’t think the idea so absurd. Not in the abstract, at any 
rate.

“Certainly you would make a good ambassador, Val. Why not, as you say? 
But you’ll never get the chance. There are certain doors that will never be
opened to you. If men like you were directing the world’s affairs we 
wouldn’t be worrying about the next meal—or how to get stories published. 
That’s why I say you don’t know the world!”

“Damn it, I do know the world. I know it only too well. But I refuse to 
make terms with it.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“No it isn’t! It’s the difference between ignorance—or blindness—and 
aloofness. Something like that. If I didn’t know the world how could I be a
writer?”

“A writer has his own world.”

“I’ll be damned! I never expected you to say that! Now you’ve got me 
stumped… ” I was silenced for a moment.

“It’s dead true what you say,” I continued. “But it doesn’t obviate what 
I just said. Maybe I can’t explain it to you, but I know I’m right. To have
your own world, and to live in it, doesn’t mean that you are necessarily 
blind to the real world, so-called. If a writer weren’t familiar with the 
everyday world, if he hadn’t been so steeped in it that he revolted against
it, he wouldn’t have what you call his own world. An artist carries all 
worlds within him. And he’s just as vital a part of this world as any one 
else. In fact, he’s more thoroughly of it and in it than other people, for 
the simple reason that he’s creative. The world is his medium. Other men 
are content with their little corner of the world—their own little job, 
their own little tribe, their own little philosophy, and so on. Damn it, 
the reason why I’m not a great writer, if you want to know, is because I 
haven’t taken the whole wide world unto me yet. It isn’t that I don’t know 
about evil. It isn’t that I’m blind to people’s viciousness, as you seem to
think. It’s something other than that. What it is I don’t know myself. But 
I will know, eventually. And then I’ll become a torch. I’ll light up the 
world. I’ll expose it down to its very marrow… But I won’t condemn it! I 
won’t because I know too well that I am part and parcel of it, a 
significant cog in the machinery.” I paused. “We haven’t touched bottom 
yet, you know. What we’ve suffered is nothing. Flea-bites, that’s all. 
There are worse things to endure than lack of food and such things. I 
suffered much more when I was sixteen, when I was only reading about life. 
Or else I’m deceiving myself.”

“No, I know what you mean.” She nodded thoughtfully.

“You do? Good. Then you realize that without participating in life you 
can suffer the pangs of the martyrs… To suffer for others—that’s a 
wonderful kind of suffering. When you suffer because of your own ego, 
because of lack or because of misdeeds, you experience a kind of 
humiliation. I loathe that sort of suffering. To suffer with others, or for
others, to be all in the same boat, that’s different. Then one feels 
enriched. What I dislike about our way of life is that it’s so restricted. 
We ought to be up and about, getting bruised and battered for reasons that 
matter.”

I went on and on in this vein, sliding from one subject to another, often
contradicting myself, uttering the most extravagant statements, then 
brushing them aside, struggling to get back to terra firma.

It was beginning to happen more and more frequently now, these 
monologues, these harangues. Perhaps it was because I was no longer 
writing. Perhaps because I was alone most of the day. Perhaps, too, because
I had a feeling that she was slipping out of my hands. There was something 
desperate about these explosions. I was reaching out for something, 
something which I could never pin down in words. Though I seemed to be 
censuring her I was really upbraiding myself. The worst of it was that I 
could never come to any concrete resolution. I saw clearly what we ought 
not to do, but I could not see what we should do. Secretly, I relished the 
thought of being “protected.” Secretly I had to admit that she was right—I 
would never fit in, never make the groove. And so I let it out in talk. I 
rambled backward and forward, rehearsing the glorious days of childhood, 
the miserable days of adolescence, the clownish adventures of youth. It was
all fascinating, every iota. If only that man McFarland had been present, 
with his stenographer! What a story for his magazine! (Later it occurred to
me how strange it was that I could talk my life out but could never get it 
down on paper. The moment I sat down before the machine I became 
self-conscious. It hadn’t occurred to me at that time to use the pronoun I.
Why, I wonder? What inhibited me? Perhaps I hadn’t yet become the “I of my 
I”.) I not only intoxicated her with these talks, I intoxicated myself. It 
would be almost dawn before we would fall asleep. Dozing off I had the 
feeling that I had accomplished something. I had gotten it off my chest. 
It! What was that if? I couldn’t say myself. I knew only this, and from it 
I seemed to derive an unholy satisfaction: I had assumed my true role.

Perhaps, too, these scenes were just to prove that I could be as exciting
and “different” as that Anastasia whom I was getting tired of hearing 
about. Perhaps. Possibly I was a wee bit jealous already. Though she had 
known Anastasia only a few days, you might say, the room was already full 
of her friend’s things. All the latter needed to do now was move in. Over 
the beds were two stunning Japanese prints, a Utamaro and a Hiroshige. On 
the trunk was a puppet which Anastasia had made expressly for Mona. On the 
chiffonier was a Russian icon, another gift from Anastasia. To say nothing 
of the barbaric bracelets, the amulets, the embroidered moccasins, and so 
on. Even the perfume she was’ using—a most pungent one!—Anastasia had given
her. (Probably out of Mona’s own money.) With Anastasia you never could 
tell what was what. While Mona was worrying about the clothes her friend 
needed, the cigarettes, the art materials, et cetera, Anastasia was getting
money from home and doling it out to her hangers-on. Mona saw nothing 
incongruous in this. Whatever her friend did was right and natural, even if
she stole from her purse. Anastasia did steal now and then. Why not? She 
stole not for herself but to aid those in distress. She had no scruples or 
compunctions about such matters. She wasn’t a bourgeois, oh no! This word 
“bourgeois” began to pop up frequently now that Anastasia was on the scene.
Whatever was no good was “bourgeois”. Even caca could be “bourgeois,” 
according to Anastasia’s way of looking at things. She had such a wonderful
sense of humor, when you got to know her. Of course, some people couldn’t 
see it. Some people are just devoid of humor. To wear two different shoes, 
which Anastasia sometimes did absentmindedly—or did she do it 
absentmindedly?—that was screamingly funny Or to carry a douche-bag through
the streets. Why wrap such things up? Besides, Anastasia never used one 
herself—it was always for a friend who was in trouble.

The books that were lying around… all loaned her by Anastasia. One of 
them was called Down There—by some “decadent” French writer. It was one of 
Anastasia’s favorites, not because it was “decadent” but because it told of
that extraordinary figure in French history—Gilles de Rais. He had been a 
follower of Jeanne d’Arc. He had murdered more children—he had depopulated 
whole villages, in fact. One of the most enigmatic figures in French 
history. Mona begged me to glance at it sometime. Anastasia had read it in 
the original. She could read not only French and Italian but German, 
Portuguese and Russian. Yes, in the convent school she had also learned to 
play the piano divinely. And the harp.

“Can she blow the trumpet?” I asked derisively.

She gave me the horse laugh. Then followed this revelation: “She can play
the drums, too. But she has to be a little high first.”

“You mean drunk?”

“No, hopped up. Marijuana. There’s no harm in it. It’s not 
habit-forming.”

Whenever the subject came up—drugs—I was sure to get an earful. In Mona’s
opinion (probably Anastasia’s) every one ought to become acquainted with 
the effects of different drugs. Drugs weren’t half as dangerous as liquor. 
And the effects were more interesting. Yes, she was going to try them 
someday. There were lots of people in the Village—respectable people, 
too—who used drugs. There was that Mexican drug which exalted the sense of 
color, for example. Perfectly harmless. We ought to try it sometime. She’d 
see if she couldn’t get some from that phony poet what’s-his-name. She 
loathed him, he was filthy, and so on, but Anastasia maintained that he was
a good poet. And Anastasia ought to know…

“I’m going to borrow one of her poems one day and read it aloud to you. 
You’ve never heard anything like it, Val.”

“O.K.” I said, “but if it stinks I’m going to tell you so.”

“Don’t worry! She couldn’t write a bad poem if she tried.”

“I know—she’s a genius.”

“She is indeed, and I’m not joking. She’s a real genius.”

I couldn’t resist remarking that it was too bad geniuses always had to be
freaks.

“There you go! Now you’re talking just like everyone else. I’ve explained
to you again and again that she’s not like the other freaks in the 
Village.”

“No, she’s a genuine freak!”

“She’s mad maybe, but like Strindberg, like Dostoievsky, like Blake… “

“That’s putting her rather high, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t say she had their talent. All I mean is that if she’s queer, 
she’s queer in the same way they were. She’s not insane—and she’s not a 
fraud. Whatever she is, it’s real. I’ll stake my life on it.”

“The only thing I have against her,” I blurted out, “is that she needs so
damned much looking after.”

“That’s cruel!”

Is it? Look… she got along all right until you came along, didn’t she?”

“I told you what a condition she was in when I met her.”

“I know you did, but that doesn’t impress me. Maybe if you hadn’t nursed 
her along she would have picked herself up and stood on her own two legs.”

“We’re back where we started. How many times must I explain to you that 
she simply doesn’t know how to take care of herself?”

“Then let her learn!”

“How about yourself? Have you learned yet?”

“I was getting along all right until you came along. I not only took care
of myself, I took care of a wife and child.”

“That’s unfair of you. Maybe you did take care of them, but at what a 
price! You wouldn’t want to live that way forever, would you?”

“Of course not! But I’d have found a way out—eventually.”

“Eventually! Val, you haven’t got too much time! You’re in your thirties 
now—and you have yet to make a name for yourself. Anastasia’s just a girl, 
but see what she’s accomplished already.”

“I know. But then she’s a genius… “

“Oh, stop it! We won’t get anywhere talking this way. Why don’t you quit 
thinking about her? She doesn’t interfere with your life—why should you 
interfere with hers? Can’t I have one friend? Why must you be jealous of 
her? Be just, won’t you?”

“All right, let’s drop it. But stop talking about her, will you? Then I 
won’t say anything to hurt you.” Though she hadn’t explicitly asked me not 
to visit The Iron Cauldron, I kept away out of consideration for her 
wishes. I suspected that Anastasia spent much of her time there daily, that
during Mona’s swings the two were always together somewhere. In roundabout 
ways I would hear of their visits to the museums and art galleries, to the 
studios of Village artists, of their expeditions to the waterfront, where 
Anastasia made sketches of boats and skyline, of the hours they spent at 
the library doing research. In a way the change was good for Mona. Gave her
something new to think about. She had little knowledge of painting, and 
Anastasia apparently was delighted to act as her mentor. There were veiled 
references occasionally to the portrait Anastasia intended to make of Mona.

She had never done a realistic portrait of any one, it seems, and she was
especially reluctant to do a resemblance of Mona.

There were days when Anastasia was incapable of doing a thing, when she 
was prostrate and had to be nursed like an infant. Any trifling event could
bring them on, these fits of malaise. Sometimes they occurred because Mona 
had spoken foolishly or irreverently of one of Anastasia’s beloved idols. 
Modigliani and El Greco, for example, were painters about whom she ‘would 
allow no one, not even Mona, to say the wrong thing. She was very fond of 
Utrillo, too, but she did not venerate him. He was “a lost soul,” like 
herself: still on the “human” level. Whereas Giotto, Grunewald, the Chinese
and the Japanese masters, these were on a different level, represented a 
higher order. (Not so bad, her taste!) She had no respect whatever for 
American artists, I gathered. Except for John Marin, whom she described as 
limited but profound. What almost endeared her to me was the discovery that
she always carried with her Alice in Wonderland and the Tao Teh Ching. 
Later she was to include a volume of Rimbaud. But of that later…

I was still making the rounds, or going through the motions. Now and then
I sold a set of books without trying. I worked at it only four or five 
hours a day, always ready to knock off when dinner time came. Usually I 
would look over the cards and choose a prospect who lived a good distance 
away, in some run-down suburb, some bleak and barren hole in New Jersey or 
out on Long Island. I did this partly to kill time and partly to get 
completely off the track. Always, when heading for some dingy spot (which 
only a dotty book salesman would think of visiting!), I found that I would 
be assailed by the most unexpected memories of dear, beloved places I had 
known as a boy. It was a sort of inverse law of association at work. The 
more drab and commonplace the milieu, the more bizarre and wonderful were 
these unbidden associations. I could almost wager that if I headed of a 
morning for Hackensack or Canarsie, or some rabbit hole on Staten Island, 
by evening, I would find myself at Sheepshead Bay, or Bluepoint, or Lake 
Pocotopaug. If I didn’t have the carfare to make a long haul I would 
hitch-hike, trusting to luck that I would run into some one—“some friendly 
face”—who would stake me to a meal and the fare back. I rode with the tide.
It didn’t matter where I ended up nor when I got home, because Mona would 
be sure to arrive after me. I was writing things down in my head again, not
feverishly, as before, but calmly, evenly, like a reporter or correspondent
who had oodles of time and a generous expense account. It was wonderful to 
let things happen as they would. Now and then, sailing along on even keel, 
I would blow into some outlandish town, pick a shop at random plumber or 
undertaker, it made no difference—and launch into my sales talk. I hadn’t 
the least thought of making a sale, nor even of “keeping my hand in,” as 
they say. No, I was merely curious to see the effect my words would have on
a complete nobody. I had the feeling that I was a man descended from 
another planet. If the poor victim felt disinclined to discuss the merits 
of our loose-leaf encyclopedia I would talk his language, whatever it was, 
even if it were nothing but cold corpses. Like that I often found myself 
lunching with a congenial soul with whom I hadn’t a thing in common. The 
farther away from myself I got the more certain I was to have an 
inspiration. Suddenly, perhaps in the midst of a sentence, the decision 
would be made and off I’d scoot. Off searching for that spot which I had 
known in the past, a very definite, a very marvelous past. The trick was to
get back to that precious spot and see if I could reconstitute the being I 
once was. A queer game—and full of surprises. Sometimes I returned to our 
room as a little boy dressed in men’s clothes. Yes, sometimes I was little 
Henry through and through, thinking like him, feeling like him, acting like
him.

Often, talking to utter strangers out there on the fringe of the world, 
there would suddenly leap to mind an image of the two of them, Mona and 
‘Stasia, parading through the Village or swinging through the revolving 
door of a museum with those crazy puppets in their arms. And then I would 
say a curious thing to ‘myself—sotto voce, of course. I would say, and 
smile wanly as I did so: “And where do I come in?” Moving around on the 
bleak periphery, among zombies and dodoes, I had gotten the idea that I was
cut off. Always, in closing a door, I had the impression that the door was 
locked behind me, that I would have to find another way to get back. Get 
back where f There was something ridiculous and grotesque about this double
image which obtruded at the most unexpected moments. I saw the two of them 
garbed in outlandish fashion—‘Stasia in her overalls and hobnailed boots 
and Lady Precious Stream in her fluttering cape, her hair streaming loose 
like a mane. They were always talking simultaneously, and about utterly 
different things; they made strange grimaces and wild gesticulations; they 
walked with two utterly different rhythms, one like an auk, the other like 
a panther.

Whenever I went deep enough into my childhood I was no longer outside, on
the fringe, but snugly inside, like a pit in the fleshy heart of a ripe 
piece of fruit. I might be standing in front of Annie Meinken’s candy shop,
in the old 14th Ward, my nose pressed against the window-pane, my eyes 
a-glitter at the sight of some chocolate-covered soldiers. That abstract 
noun, “the world,” hadn’t yet penetrated my consciousness. Everything was 
real, concrete, individuated, but neither fully named nor wholly 
delineated. I was and things were. Space was limitless, time was not yet. 
Annie Meinken was a person who always leaned far over the counter to put 
things in my hand, who patted me on the head, who smiled at me, who said I 
was such a good little fellow, and sometimes ran out into the street to 
kiss me goodbye, though we lived only a few doors away.

I honestly think that at times, out there on the fringe, when I got very 
quiet and still, I half expected some one to behave toward me exactly as 
Annie Meinken used to. Maybe I was running off to those far-away places of 
my childhood just to receive again that piece of candy, that smile, that 
embarrassing parting kiss. I was indeed an idealist. An incurable one. (An 
idealist is one who wants to turn the wheels back. He remembers too well 
what was given him; he doesn’t think of what he himself might give. The 
world sours imperceptibly, but the process begins virtually from the moment
one thinks in terms of “the world.”) Strange thoughts, strange 
meanderings—for a book salesman. In my portfolio was locked the key to all 
human knowledge. Presumably. And wisdom, like Winchester, only forty miles 
away. Nothing in all the world so dead as this compendium of knowledge. To 
spiel it off about the Foramenifera, about the infrared rays, about the 
bacteria that lie bedded in every cell—what a baboon I must have been! 
Naturally a Picodiribibi would have done far better! So might a dead 
jackass with a phonograph in its guts. To read in the subway, or on an open
trolley, about Prust the founder of Prussia—what a profitless pastime! Far 
better, if one had to read, to listen to that madman who said: “How sweet 
it is to hate one’s native land and eagerly await its annihilation.”

Yes, in addition to the dummies, the bindings, and all the other 
paraphernalia which crammed my briefcase, I usually carried a book with me,
a book so removed from the tenor of my daily life that it was more like a 
tattoo mark on the sole of a convict’s left foot. “WE HAVE NOT YET DECIDED 
THE QUESTION OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD AND YOU WANT TO EAT!” A sentence like 
this jumping out of a book in the dreary wasteland could decide the whole 
course of my day. I cam see myself all over again slamming the book shut, 
jumping up like a startled buck, and exclaiming aloud: “Where in hell are 
we?” And then bolting. It might have been the edge of a swamp where they 
had let me off, it might have been the beginning of one of those 
interminable rows of all-look-alike suburban homes, or the very portals of 
an insane asylum. No matter—on, on, head down, jaws working feverishly, 
grunts, squeals of delight, ruminations, discoveries, illuminations. 
Because of that blitz phrase. Especially the “and you want to eat!” part of
it. It was ages before I discovered who had originated this marvelous 
exclamation. All I knew then, all that mattered, was that I was back in 
Russia, that I was with kindred spirits, that I was completely possessed by
such an esoteric proposition as the debatable existence of God.

Years later, did I say? Why yes—only yesterday, so to speak, I found out 
who the author was. At the same time I learned that another man, a 
contemporary, had written thus of his nation, the great Russian nation:

“We belong to the number of those nations which, so to speak, do not 
enter into the structure of mankind but exist only in order to teach the 
world an important lesson of some sort.”

But I am not going to speak of yesterday or the day before yesterday. I 
am going to speak of a time which has no beginning nor end, a time moreover
which with all the other kinds of time that filled the empty spaces of my 
days…

The way of ships, and of men in general, is the zigzag path. The drunkard
moves in curves, like the planets. But the man who has no destination moves
in a time and space continuum which is uniquely his own and in which God is
ever present. “For the time being”—inscrutable phrase!—he is always there. 
There with the grand cosmocrator, so to speak. Clear? Very well, it is 
Monday, let us say. “And you want to eat?” Instantly the stars begin to 
chime, the reindeer paw the turf; their blue icicles sparkle in the noonday
sun. Whooshing it through the Nevsky Prospekt, I make my way to the inner 
circle, the briefcase under my arm. In my hand is a little bag of candy, a 
gift from Annie Meinken. A solemn question has just been propounded.

“We have not yet decided the question of the existence of God… “

It is at this point I always enter. I’m on my own time now. God’s time, 
in other words. Which is always “for the time being.” To hear me you would 
think I was a member of the Holy Synod—the Holy Philharmonic Synod. It 
isn’t necessary for me to tune in: I’ve been in tune since the dawn of 
time. Utter clarity is what marks my performance. I am of the order whose 
purpose is not to teach the world a lesson but to explain that school is 
over.

The comrades are relaxed and at ease. No bomb will go off until I give 
the order. On my right is Dostoievsky; on my left the Emperor Anathema. 
Every member of the group has distinguished himself in some spectacular 
manner. I am the only one “without portfolio.” I am the Uitlander; I hail 
from “the fringe,” that is to say, from the trouble-bubble cauldron.

“Comrades, it is said that a problem confronts us… ” (I always begin with
this stock phrase.) I look about me; calm, self-possessed, before launching
into my plaidoyer. “Comrades, let us rivet our most concentrated attention 
for a moment on that wholly ecumenical question—”

“Which ist” barks the Emperor of Anathema.

“Which is nothing less than this: If there were no God, would we be 
here?”

Above the cries of Rot! and Rubbish! I follow with ease the sound of my 
own voice intoning the sacred texts buried in my heart. I am at ease 
because I have nothing to prove. I have only to recite what I learned by 
rote in off moments. That we are together and privileged to discuss the 
existence of God, this in itself is conclusive evidence for me that we are 
basking in the sunshine of His presence. I do not speak “as if” He were 
present, I speak “because” He is present. I am back in that eternal 
sanctuary where the word “food” always comes up. I am back because of that.

“And you want to eat f” I address the comrades passionately now. “Why 
not?” I begin. “Do we insult our Maker by eating what He has provided for 
us? Do you think He will vanish because we fill our bellies? Eat, I beg 
you, Eat heartily! The Lord our God has all time in which to reveal 
himself. You pretend that you wish to decide the matter of His existence. 
Useless, dear comrades, it was decided long ago, before there even was a 
world. Reason alone informs us that if there be a problem there must be 
something real which brings it to birth. It is not for us to decide whether
or not God exists, it is for God to say whether or not we exist.” (“Dog! 
Have you anything to say?” I shouted in the Emperor Anathema’s ear.) 
“Whether to eat or not before deciding the issue, is that, I ask you, a 
metaphysical question? Does a hungry man debate whether he is to eat or 
not? We are all famished: we hunger and thirst for that which gave us life,
else we would not be assembled here. To imagine that by giving a mere Yes 
or No the grand problem will be settled for eternity is sheer madness. We 
have not… ” (I paused and turned to the one on my right. “And you, Fyodor 
Mihailovich, have you nothing to say?”) “We have not come together to 
settle an absurd problem. We are here, comrades, because outside this room,
in the world, as they call it, there is no place in which to mention the 
Holy Name. We are the chosen ones, and we are united ecumenically. Does God
loish to see children suffert Such a question may be asked here. Is evil 
necessary f That too may be asked. It may also be asked whether we have the
right to expect a Paradise here and now, or whether eternality is 
preferable to immortality. We may even debate whether Our Lord Jesus Christ
is of one divine nature only or of two consubstantially harmonious natures,
human and divine. We have all suffered more than is usual for mortal beings
to endure. We have all achieved an appreciable degree of emancipation. Some
of you have revealed the depths of the human soul in a manner and to a 
degree never before heard of. We are all living outside our time, the 
forerunners of a new era, of a new order of mankind. We know that nothing 
is to be hoped for on the present world level. The end of historical man is
upon us. The future will be in terms of eternity, and of freedom, and of 
love. The resurrection of man will be ushered in with our aid; the dead 
will rise from their graves clothed in radiant flesh and sinew, and we 
shall have communion, real everlasting communion, with all who once were; 
with those who made history and with those who had no history. Instead of 
myth and fable we shall have everlasting reality. All that now passes for 
science will fall away; there will be no need to search for the clue to 
reality because all will be real and durable, naked to the eye of the soul,
transparent as the waters of Shiloh. Eat, I beg you, and drink to your 
heart’s content. Taboos are not of God’s making. Nor murder and lust. Nor 
jealousy and envy. Though we are assembled here as men, we are bound 
through the divine spirit. When we take leave of one another we shall 
return to the world of chaos, to the realm of space which no amount of 
activity can exhaust. We are not of this world, nor are we yet of the world
to come, except in thought and spirit. Our place is on the threshold of 
eternity; our function is that of prime movers. It is our privilege to be 
crucified in the name of freedom. We shall water our graves with our own 
blood. No task can be too great for us to assume. We are the true 
revolutionaries since we do not baptize with the blood of others but with 
our own blood, freely shed. We shall create no new covenants, impose no new
laws, establish no new government. We shall permit the dead to bury the 
dead. The quick and the dead will soon be separated. Life eternal is 
rushing back to fill the empty cup of sorrow. Man will rise from his bed of
ignorance and suffering with a song on his lips. He will stand forth in all
the radiance of his godhood. Murder in every form will disappear forever. 
For the time being… “

The moment this inscrutable phrase rose to my lips the inner music, the 
concordance, ceased. I was back in double rhythm again, aware of what I was
doing, analyzing my thoughts, my motives, my deeds. I could hear 
Dostoievsky speaking, but I was no longer there with him, I was getting 
only the overtones. What’s more, I could shut him off whenever I pleased. I
was no longer running in that parallel timeless time. Now the world was 
indeed empty, drab, woebegone. Chaos and cruelty ran hand in hand. I was as
grotesque and ridiculous now as those two lost sisters who were presumably 
running through the Village with puppets in their arms.

By the time night falls, and I start to trek it back, an overpowering 
loneliness has gripped me. It does not surprise me in the least to find, on
returning to the room, a telephone message from Mona saying that her dear 
“friend” is ill and that she must stay with her the night. Tomorrow it will
be another story, and the day after another.

Everything is happening to ‘Stasia at once. One day she is ordered to 
move because she talks too loudly in her sleep; another day, in another 
room, she is visited by a ghost and forced to flee in the night. On another
occasion a drunkard attempts to rape her. Or else she is grilled by a 
plainclothes man at three in the morning. It is inevitable that she should 
think of herself as a marked woman. She takes to sleeping in the daytime 
and roaming the streets by night; she passes long hours at a cafeteria 
which never closes, writing her poems on the marble-topped table, a 
sandwich in her hand and a plate of untouched food beside her. Some days 
she is the Slav, speaking with genuine Slavic accent; other days she is the
boy-girl from Montana’s snowy peaks, the nymph who must straddle a horse, 
even if only in Central Park. Her talk becomes more and more incoherent, 
and she knows it, but in Russian, as she always says it, “nothing matters.”
At times she refuses to use the toilet—insists on doing her little jobs in 
the chamber pot, which of course she forgets to empty. As for the portrait 
of Mona which she had begun, it now resembles the work of a maniac. (It is 
Mona herself who confesses this,) She is almost beside herself, Mona. Her 
friend is deteriorating under her own eyes. But it will pass. All will be 
well again, provided she stands by her faithfully, nurses her, soothes her 
tortured spirit, wipes her ass, , if need be. But she must never allow her 
to feel that she is deserted. What matter, she asks, if she has to remain 
three or four nights a week with her friend? Is not Anastasia the all in 
all?

“You trust me, don’t you, Val?”

I nod a silent assent. (It’s not an “ecumenical” question.) When the tune
switches, when I learn from her own lips that it was not Anastasia she 
spent the night with but her own mother—mothers too get ill—I know what any
idiot would have known long before, viz, that there’s something rotten in 
Denmark.

What harm, I ask myself, would there be in talking to her mother—over the
telephone? None whatever. The truth is always enlightening.

So, impersonating the lumber king, I pick up the receiver and, amazed 
that it is a mother speaking to me, I inquire in the most casual tone of 
voice if Mona is there; if so, I would like to talk to her.

She is not there. Very definitely not.

“Have you seen her lately?” (Still the noncommittal gentleman inquiring 
after the lady fair.) Not a sign of her in months. The poor woman sounds 
distressed. She forgets herself to the extent of asking me, a perfect 
stranger, if her daughter could possibly be dead. She virtually implores me
to inform her should I by chance get wind of her daughter’s whereabouts.

“But why don’t you write her husband?”

“Her husband?” There follows a prolonged silence in which nothing 
registers except the ocean’s deep hum. Then, in a weak, toneless voice, as 
if addressing blank space, comes this: “So she really did get married?”

“Why certainly she’s married. I know her husband well… “

“Excuse me,” comes the far off voice, followed by the click of the 
receiver being hung up.

I allow several nights to pass before broaching the subject to the guilty
one. I wait until we are in bed, the lights out. Then I nudge her gently.

“What is it? What are you poking me for?”

“I was talking to your mother yesterday.”

No answer.

“Yes, and we had quite a long conversation… “

Still no answer.

“The funny thing is, she says she hasn’t seen you for ages. She thinks 
maybe you’re dead.”

How much longer can she hold out? I wonder. Just as I am about to let out
another mouthful I feel her spring to a sitting position. Then comes one of
those drawn-out, uncontrollable fits of laughter, the sort that makes me 
shudder inwardly. Between spasms she blurts out. “My mother! Ho ho! You 
were talking to my mother! Hah, hah, hah! It’s too good, just too good for 
words. Hee, hee hee! Val, you poor sap, my mother is dead. I have no 
mother. Ho ho ho!”

“Calm yourself!” I beg her.

But she can’t stop laughing. It’s the funniest, the craziest thing she’s 
ever heard.

“Listen, didn’t you tell me you stayed with her the other night, that she
was very ill? Was it your mother or wasn’t it?”

Peals of laughter.

“Maybe it was your step-mother then?”

“You mean my aunt.”

“Your aunt then, if that’s who your mother is.” More laughter.

“It couldn’t have been my aunt because she knows I’m married to you. It 
was probably a neighbor. Or my sister maybe. It would be like her to talk 
that way.”

“But why would they want to deceive me?”

“Because you’re a stranger. If you had said you were my husband, instead 
of impersonating some one else, they might have told you the truth.”

“It didn’t sound to me as if your aunt—or your sister, as you say—were 
putting it on. It sounded thoroughly genuine.”

“You don’t know them.”

“Damn it all, then maybe it’s time I got acquainted with them.”

Suddenly she looked serious, very serious.

“Yes,” I continued, “I’ve a good notion to run over there one evening and
introduce myself.”

She was angry now. “If you ever do a thing like that, Val, I’ll never 
speak to you again. I’ll run away, that’s what I’ll do.”

“You mean that you don’t ever want me to meet your folks?”

“Exactly. Never!”

“But that’s childish and unreasonable. Even if you did tell me a few lies
about your family… “

“I’ve never admitted anything of the kind,” she broke in.

“Come, come, don’t talk like that. You know damned well that that’s the 
only reason why you don’t want me to meet them.” I allowed a significant 
pause to intervene, then said: “Or maybe you fear that I will find your 
real mother… “

She was angrier than ever now but the word mother got her to laughing 
again.

“You won’t believe me, will you? Very well, one day I’ll take you there 
myself. I promise you.”

“That wouldn’t do any good. I know you too damned well. The stage would 
be all set for me. No sir, if there’s any going I go alone.”

“Val, I warn you… if you dare do that… “

I interrupted her. “If I ever do it you won’t know about it.”

“So much the worse,” she answered. “You could never do that without my 
hearing about it sooner or later.”

She was pacing up and down now, puffing nervously at the cigarette which 
dangled from her lips. She was growing frantic, it seemed to me.

“Look here,” I said finally, “forget about it. I’ll… “

“Val, promise me you won’t do it. Promise me!”

I was silent a few moments.

She got down on her knees beside me, looked up at me imploringly.

“AH right,” I said, as if reluctantly, “I promise.”

I hadn’t the slightest intention, of course, of keeping my word. In fact,
I was more than ever determined to get to the bottom of the mystery. 
However, there was no need to hurry. I had the feeling that when the right 
moment came I would find myself face to face with her mother—and it would 
be her real mother.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“And now, finally, I feel urged to name once more those to whom I owe 
practically everything: Goethe and Nietzsche. Goethe gave me method. 
Nietzsche the questioning faculty, and if I were asked to find a formula 
for my relation to the latter I should say that I had made of his ‘outlook’
(Ausblick) an ‘overlook’ (Uberblick). But Goethe was, without knowing it, a
disciple of Leibnitz in his whole mode of thought. And, therefore, that 
which has at last (and to my own astonishment) taken shape in my hands I am
able to regard and, despite the misery and disgust of these years, proud to
call a German philosophy.” (Blankenburg am Harz, December, 1922.) These 
lines from the preface to The Decline of the West are to haunt me for many 
a year. It happens that I have taken to reading the book during the lonely 
vigils which have begun. Every evening after dinner I return to the room, 
make myself snug and cosy, then settle down to gnaw at this immense tome in
which the panorama of human destiny is unrolled. I am fully aware that the 
study of this great work represents another momentous event in my life. For
me it is not a philosophy of history nor a “morphological” creation, but a 
world-poem. Slowly, attentively, savoring each morsel as I chew it, I 
burrow deeper and deeper. I drown myself in it. Often I break .the siege by
pacing to and fro, to and fro. Sometimes I find myself sitting on the bed, 
staring at the wall. I look right through the wall: I look deep into a past
which is alive and fathomless. Occasionally a line or phrase comes with 
such impact that I am forced out of the nest, flung headlong into the 
street, where I wander like a somnambulist. Now and then I find myself in 
Joe’s restaurant at Borough Hall, ordering a big meal; with each mouthful I
seem to be swallowing another mighty epoch of the past. Unconsciously I 
stoke the furnace in order to gird myself for another wrestling bout with 
the omnivorous one. That I am of the borough of Brooklyn, one of the 
natives, seems preposterous. How can a mere Brooklyn boy ingest all this? 
Where is his passport to the distant realms of science, philosophy, history
et cetera? All that this Brooklyn boy knows has been acquired through 
osmosis. I am the lad who hated to study. I am the charming fellow who 
consistently rejected all systems of thought. Like a cork tossed about on 
an angry sea I follow in the wake of this morphological monster. It 
mystifies me that I should be able to follow him even distantly. Am I 
following or am I being sucked under by a vortex? What is it that enables 
me to read with understanding and delight? Whence the training, the 
discipline, the percipience which this monster demands? His thought is 
music to my ears; I recognize all the hidden melodies. Though I am reading 
him in English, it is as if I were reading the language he wrote in. His 
vehicle is the German language, which I thought I had forgotten. But I see 
I have forgotten nothing, not even the curricula I once planned to follow 
but never did.

From Nietzsche the questioning faculty! That little phrase sets me 
dancing…

Nothing is so inspiring to one who is trying to write as to come upon a 
thinker, a thinker who is also a poet, a thinker who looks for the soul 
which animates things. I see myself again as a mere youth, asking the 
librarian, or the minister sometimes, to lend me certain profound 
works—“deep” I called them then. I see the astonished looks on their faces 
when I mention the titles of these formidable books. And then the 
inevitable—“But why do you want those books?” to which I always rejoined: 
“And why shouldn’t I want those books?” That I was too young, that I hadn’t
read enough to cope with such works, meant nothing to me. It was my 
privilege to read what I wanted when I wanted. Was I not a born American, a
free citizen? What did age matter? Later, however, I had to secretly admit 
that I did not understand what these “deep” works were about. Or rather, I 
understood that I did not want the “abscesses” which accompanied the 
knowledge they secreted. How I yearned to grapple with the mysteries! I 
wanted all that had soul in it and meaning. But I also demanded that the 
author’s style match the mystery he was illuminating. How many books 
possess this quality? I met my Waterloo at the very threshold of life. I 
retained my ignorance, dreaming that is was bliss.

The questioning faculty! That I never abandoned. As is known, the habit 
of questioning everything leads one to become either a sage or a skeptic. 
It also leads to madness. Its real virtue, however, consists in this, that 
it makes one think for himself, makes one return to the source.

Was it so strange that in reading Spengler I began to appreciate all over
again what truly wonderful thinkers we were as boys? Considering our age 
and our limited experience of life, we nevertheless managed to propound to 
one another the most profound and vital questions. We tackled them 
manfully, too, with our whole being. Years of schooling destroyed the art. 
Like chimpanzees, we learned to ask only the right questions—the ones the 
teachers could answer. It is on this sort of chicanery that the whole 
social structure is reared. “The university of life!” Only the desperate 
ones choose this curriculum. Even the artist is apt to go astray, because 
he too is obliged, sooner or later, to observe on which side his bread is 
buttered.

The Decline of the West! I can never forget the thrill which ran up my 
spine when I first heard this title. It was like Ivan Karamazov saying—“I 
want to go to Europe. Maybe I know that I shall go only to a cemetery, but 
it will be the dearest of cemeteries.”

For many a year I had been aware that I was participating in a general 
decline. We all knew it, all felt it, only some succeeded in forgetting 
about it more quickly than others. What we hadn’t understood so clearly, 
most of us, was that we were part of this very “West,” that the West 
included not only Europe but North America. To us America had always been a
chancy place—one day hot, one day cold, one day barren, one day fertile. In
short, according to how you struck it, it was either all myrrh and 
frankincense or plain undiluted horse manure. It was not our way to think 
in terms of historical destiny. Our history had begun only a few years 
back—and what there was of it was dull and boring. When I say “we” I mean 
we boys, we youths, we young men who were trying to sprout long pants under
our skirts. Mamma’s boys, all of us, and if we had a destiny it was to 
become cracker-jack salesmen, cigar store clerks or chain store managers.

The wild ones joined the Army or Navy. The incorrigible ones got 
themselves safely stowed away in Dannemora or Sing Sing. No one pictured 
himself as a plodding engineer, plumber, mason, carpenter, farmer, 
lumberman. One could be a trolley car conductor one day and an insurance 
agent the next day. And tomorrow or the day after one might wake up and 
find himself an alderman. Order, discipline, purpose, goal, destiny? 
Unknown terms. America was a free country, and nothing one did could ruin 
it—ever. That was our world outlook. As for an “Uberlick,” that led to the 
bughouse. “What are you reading, Henry f” If I showed the book to my 
questioner he was sure to say: “You’ll go nuts reading that sort of junk.” 
This “junk,” incidentally, was usually the world’s choice literature. No 
matter. To “them” or “us” such books were of prehistoric vintage.

No, no one was thinking consciously and deliberately in terms of a world 
decline. The decline was none the less real, and it was hollowing us out. 
It revealed itself in unsuspected ways. For example, nothing was worth 
getting excited about. Nothing. Or, one job was as good as another, one man
the equal of another. And so on. All baloney, naturally.

Nietzsche, my first great love, hadn’t seemed very German to me. He 
didn’t even seem Polish. He was like a fresh-minted coin. But Spengler 
immediately impressed me as being German to the core. The more abstruse and
recondite his language, the easier I followed him; A prenatal language, 
his. A lullaby. What is erroneously called his “pessimism” struck me as 
nothing more than cold Teutonic realism. The Teutons have been singing the 
swan song ever since they entered the ranks of history. They have always 
confounded truth with death. Let us be honest. In the whole metaphysic of 
Europe has there ever been any truth but this sad German truth which, of 
course, is a lie? Suddenly, thanks to this historical maestro, we glean 
that the truth of death need not be sad, particularly when, as happens, the
whole “civilized” world is already part of it. Suddenly we are asked to 
look into the depths of the tomb with the same zeal and joy with which we 
first greeted life.

“Alles Vergangliche ist nur ein Gleichnis.”

Try as I might, I could never finish a chapter without succumbing to the 
temptation to glance at the succeeding chapters. The headings of these 
chapters obsessed me. They were enchanting. They belonged to a grimoire 
rather than to a philosophy of history. The Magian World: Act and Portrait:
On the Form of the Soul: Physiognomic and Systematic: Historic 
Pseudomorphoses… And the last chapter of all, what else could it be but 
MONEY? Had anyone ever written of Money in this fascinating language? The 
modem mystery: MONEY.

From “The Meaning of Numbers” to “Money”—a thousand large, dense pages, 
all written out in three years. A bomb that failed to go off because 
another bomb (World War One) had blown the fuse.

And what footnotes! To be sure, the Germans love footnotes. Was it not 
about the same time that Otto Rank, one of the twelve disciples of Freud, 
was busy appending his fascinating footnotes to his studies of the Incest 
Motif, Don Juan, Art and Artist?

Anyway, from the footnotes to the index in the back of the book—like a 
journey from Mecca to Lhassa, on foot. Or from Delphi to Timbuctoo, and 
back again. Who but Spengler, moreover, would have grouped such figures as 
Pythagoras, Mohammed and Cromwell? Who other than this man would have 
looked for homologies in Buddhism, Stoicism and Socialism? Who had dared to
speak of the glorious Renaissance as a “contretemps”?

Walking the streets, my head spinning with all the dazzling references, I
get to thinking of similar periods, periods in the distant past, it now 
seems, when I was completely absorbed in books. One period especially comes
back to me vividly. It is the period when I first got to know Maxie 
Schnadig. There he is, dressing the show window of a haberdashery store not
far from Kosciusko Street, where he lived. Hello Dostoievsky! Hoorah! Back 
and forth through the winter snows—with Dostoievsky, Pushkin, Tolstoy, 
Andreyev, Chekov, Artzibashev… And Oblomov! A new calendar of time for’ me.
New friends, new perspectives, new sorrows. One of these new friends proves
to be none other than Maxie’s cousin. He is a man much older than us, a 
physician from Novgorod. That is to say a Russian Jew, but a Russian just 
the same. And because he is bored with family life he suggests to us that 
we form a little study group, the three of us, to while the evenings away. 
And what do we choose to study? The sociology of Lester F. Ward. But Lester
F. Ward is only a springboard for the good doctor. He literally bounces 
into those subjects which represent the missing links in our lamentable 
scheme of knowledge—magic, symbols, herbology, crystalline forms, the 
prophets of the old Testament, Karl Marx, the technique of revolution, and 
so on. A samovar always on the boil, tasty sandwiches, smoked herring, 
caviar, fine teas. A skeleton dangling from the chandelier. He is happy 
that we are acquainted with the Russian dramatists and novelists, delighted
that we have read Kropotkin and Bakunin, but—do we know the real Slavic 
philosophers and thinkers? He reels off a string of names which are utterly
unknown to us. We are given to understand that in all Europe there never 
were such daring thinkers as the Russians. According to him, they were all 
visionaries and Utopists. Men who questioned everything. Revolutionaries 
all of them, even the reactionary ones. Some had been fathers of the 
Church, some peasants, some criminals, some veritable saints. But they had 
all endeavored to formulate a new world, usher in a new way of life. “And 
if you consult the Encyclopedia Britannica,” I recall him saying, “you will
discover nothing about them. They are not even mentioned.” What these 
Russians were striving for, he emphasized, was not the creation of a rich 
cultural life but “the perfect life.” He would discourse at length about 
the great wealth of the Russian language, how superior it was even to the 
language of the Elizabethans. He would read Pushkin aloud to us in his own 
tongue, then throw the book down with a sigh and exclaim: “What’s the use? 
We’re in America now. A kindergarten.” He was bored, supremely bored with 
the American scene. His patients were nearly all Jewish, but American Jews,
and he had little in common with them. To him America meant apathy. He 
missed the talk of revolution. To be truthful, I think he also missed the 
horrors of the pogrom. He felt that he was rotting away in the hollow tomb 
of democracy. “Sometime you must ask me about Fedorov,” he remarked once. 
But we never got that far. We got bogged down in Lester F. Ward’s 
sociology. It was too much for Maxie Schnadig. Poor Maxie was already 
poisoned by the American virus. He wanted to go ice-skating, wanted to play
handball, tennis, golf. And so, after a few months the study group 
dissolved. Never once since have I heard mention of Lester F. Ward. Nor 
have I ever again seen a copy of his great work. As compensation, perhaps, 
I took to reading Herbert Spencer. More sociology! Then one day I fell upon
his Autobiography, and I devoured it. There was indeed a mind. A lame one, 
but it served its purpose. A mind dwelling alone on an arid plateau. Not a 
hint of Russia, of revolution, of the Marquis de Sade, of love. Not a hint 
of anything but problems. “The brain rules, because the soul abdicates.”

“As soon as Life is fatigued,” says Spengler, “as soon as a man is put on
to the artificial soil of great cities—which are intellectual worlds to 
themselves—and needs a theory in which suitably to present Life to himself,
morale turns into a problem.”

There are phrases, sentences, sometimes whole paragraphs from The Decline
of the West which seem to be engraved in my brain-pan. The first reading 
went deep. Since then I have read and re-read, copied and re-copied the 
passages which obsess me. Here are a few at random, as inexpungible as the 
letters of the alphabet…

“To bring up, out of the web of world-happening, a millennium of organic 
culture-history as an entity and person, and to grasp the conditions of its
inmost spirituality—such is the aim.”

“Only the insight that can penetrate into the metaphysical is capable of 
experiencing in dates the symbols of that which happened, and so of 
elevating an Incident into a Destiny. And he who is to himself a Destiny 
(like Napoleon) does not need this insight, since between himself as a fact
and the other facts there is a harmony of metaphysical rhythm which gives 
his decisions their dreamlike certainty.”

“To look at the world, no longer from the heights as Aeschylus, Plato, 
Dante and Goethe did, but from the standpoint of oppressive actualities is 
to exchange the bird’s perspective for the frog’s.”

“The classical spirit, with its oracles and its omens, wants only to know
the future, but the Westerner would shape it. The Third Kingdom is the 
Germanic ideal. From Joachim of Floris to Nietzsche and Ibsen… every great 
man has linked his life to an eternal morning. Alexander’s life was a 
wondrous paroxysm, a dream which conjured up the Homeric ages from the 
grave. Napoleon’s life was an immense toil, not for himself nor for France,
but for the Future.”

“From the high and distant standpoint it matters very little what 
‘truths’ thinkers have managed to formulate in words within their 
respective schools, for here as in every great art, it is the schools, 
conventions and repertory of forms that are the basic elements. Infinitely 
more important than the answers are the questions—the choice of them, the 
inner form of them… “

“With the Name comes a new world-outlook… The Name grazes the meaning of 
consciousness and the source of fear alike. The world is not merely 
existent, a secret is felt in it… Man names that which is enigmatic. It is 
the beast that knows no enigmas… With the name the step is taken from the 
everyday physical of the beast to the metaphysical of man. It was the 
greatest turning-point in the history of the human soul.”

“A true system of thoughts emphatically cannot exist, for no sign can 
replace actuality. Profound and honest thinkers are always brought to the 
conclusion that all cognition is conditioned a priori by its own form and 
can never reach that which the words mean… And this ignorabimus is in 
conformity also with the intuition of every true sage, that abstract 
principles of life are acceptable only as figures of speech, trite maxims 
of daily use underneath which life flows, as It has always flowed, onward. 
Race, in the end, is stronger than languages, and thus it is that, under 
all the great names, it has been thinkers—who are personalities—and not 
systems, which are mutable, that have taken effect upon life.”

“For the sake of the machine, human life becomes precious. Work becomes 
the great word of ethical thinking: in the 18th Century it loses its 
derogatory implication in all languages. The machine works and forces the 
man to co-operate. The entire Culture reaches a degree of activity such 
that the earth trembles under it… And these machines become in their forms 
less and ever less human, more ascetic, mystic, esoteric… Man has felt the 
machine to be devilish, and rightly. It signifies in the eyes of the 
believer the deposition of God. It delivers sacred Causality over to man 
and by him, with a sort of foreseeing omniscience, is set in motion, silent
and irresistible… “

“A power can be overthrown only by another power, not by a principle, and
no power that can confront money is left but this one. Money is overthrown 
and abolished only by blood. Life is alpha and omega, the cosmic onflow in 
microcosmic form. It is the fact of facts within the world-as-history… Ever
in History it is life and life only—race-quality, the triumph of the 
will-to-power—and not the victory of truths, discoveries, or money that 
signifies. World-history is the world court, and it has ever decided in 
favor of the stronger, fuller, and more self-assured life—decreed to it, 
namely, the right to exist, regardless of whether its rights would hold 
before a tribunal of waking-consciousness. Always it has sacrificed truth 
and justice to might and race, and passed doom of death upon men and 
peoples in whom truth was more than deeds, and justice than power. And so 
the drama of a high Culture—that wondrous world of deities, arts, thoughts,
battles, cities—closes with the return of the pristine facts of the blood 
eternal that is one and the same as the ever-encircling cosmic flow… “

“For us, however, whom a Destiny has placed in this Culture and at this 
moment of its development—the moment when money is celebrating its last 
victories, and the Caesarium that is to succeed approaches with quiet, firm
step—our direction, willed and obligatory at once, is set for us within 
narrow limits, and on any other terms life is not worth the living. We have
not the freedom to reach to this or to that, but the freedom to do the 
necessary or to do nothing… “

“What really signifies is not that an individual or a people is ‘in 
condition,’ well-nourished and fruitful, but for what he or it is so… It is
only with the coming of the Civilization, when the whole form-world begins 
to ebb, that mere life-preserving begins to outline itself, nakedly and 
insistently—this is the time when the banal assertion that “hunger and 
love” are the driving forces of life ceases to be ashamed of itself; when 
life comes to mean, not a waxing in strength for the task, but a matter of 
‘happiness of the greatest number,’ of comfort and ease, of ‘panem et 
circenses’; and when, in the place of grand politics, we have economic 
politics as an end in itself… “

I could go on and on, do as I have done time and again—quote and quote 
until a veritable handbook accumulates. Almost twenty-five years since I 
made the first reading! And the magic is still there. For those who pride 
themselves on being always in the van, all that I have quoted, as well as 
all that lies between the quotes, is now “old hat.” What matter? For me 
Oswald Spengler is still alive and kicking. He enriched and uplifted me. As
did Nietzsche, Dostoievsky, Elie Faure.

Perhaps I am somewhat of a juggler, since I am able to balance such 
incongruous ponderables as The Decline of the West and the Too Teh Ching. 
The one Is made of granite or porphyry and weighs a ton; the other is light
as a feather and runs through my fingers like water. In eternity, where 
they meet and have their being, they cancel one another out. An exile like 
Hermann Hesse understands this sort of juggling perfectly. In the book 
called Siddhartha he presents two Buddhas, the known and the unknown. Each 
perfect in his way. They are opposites—in the sense of Systematic and 
Physiognomic. They do not destroy one another. They meet and part. Buddha 
is one of those names which “grazes the meaning of consciousness.” The real
Buddhas are without name. In short, the known and the unknown balance 
perfectly. Jugglers understand…

When I think of it now, how remarkably this “Untergang” music 
corresponded with my “underground” life! Strange, too, that virtually the 
only person with whom I could then speak of Spengler was Osiecki. It must 
have been in Joe’s restaurant, during one of my promenades nocturnes, that 
we met again. He had not lost that weird gnomic grin—the teeth all loose 
and rattling louder than ever. As far as “actualities” went he was still 
off the beam. But he could take in the Spenglerian music with the same ease
and understanding as he did the music of Dohnanyi, for whom he had 
conceived a passion. To while away the long, weary nights he had taken to 
reading in bed. All that related to number, engineering, architecture (in 
Spengler) he had swallowed like pre-digested food. And money, I should add.
Of this subject he had an uncanny knowledge. Strange to what ends the 
“unfit” develop their faculties! Listening to Osiecki, I used to think how 
sweet it would be to be locked up in the bughouse with him—and Oswald 
Spengler. What marvelous discussions we would have held! Out in the cold 
world all this grand music went to waste. If critics and scholars were 
interested in the Spenglerian view of things it was not at all in the way 
we were. For them it was but another bone to gnaw at. A juicer bone than 
usual, perhaps, but a bone nevertheless. To us it was life, the elixir of 
life. We got drunk on it every time we met. And of course we developed our 
own mutual “morphological” sign language. With each other we could cover 
huge tracts of thought in jig time, because of this code language. As soon 
as a stranger entered the discussion we got bogged down. To him our talk 
was not only unintelligible, it was sheer nonsense.

With Mona I developed another kind of language.

By dint of listening to my monologues she soon picked up the glittering 
tag ends, all the (to her) “fantastic” terminology—definitions, meanings, 
and, so to speak, “morphological excreta.” She often read a page or two 
while sitting on the stool. Just sufficient to emerge with a mouthful of 
phrases and outlandish references. In short, she had learned to bounce the 
ball back to me, which was pleasant and (for me) stimulating. All I ever 
required of a listener, when wound up, was a semblance of understanding. 
Long practice had developed in me the art of Instructing my listener in the
fundamentals, of giving him just enough of a stance to permit me to wash 
over him like a fountain. Thus at one and the same time I instructed or 
informed him—and mystified him. When I sensed that he felt himself on firm 
ground I would sweep the ground away from him. (Does not the Zen master 
endeavor to rob his disciple of every foothold he has ever had—in order to 
supply him with one that is really no foothold?) With Mona this was 
infuriating. Naturally. But then I would have the delicious opportunity of 
reconciling my contradictory statements; this meant expansion, elaboration,
distillation, condensation. In this wise I stumbled on some remarkable 
conclusions, not only about Spengler’s dicta but about thought in general, 
about the thought process itself. Only the Chinese, it seemed to me, had 
understood and appreciated “the game of thought.” Passionate as I was about
Spengler, the truth of his utterances never seemed so important to me as 
the wonderful play of his thought… Today I think what a pity it is that, as
a frontispiece to this phenomenal work, there is not reproduced the 
horoscope of the author. A clue of this sort is absolutely requisite to an 
understanding of the character and nature of this intellectual giant. When 
one thinks of the significance with which Spengler weights the phrase—“man 
as intellectual nomad”—one begins to realize that, in pursuing his high 
task, he came close to being a modem Moses. How much more frightful is this
wilderness in which our “intellectual nomad” is forced to dwell! No 
Promised Land in sight. Nothing on the horizon but empty symbols.

That gulf between the dawn man, who participated mystically, and 
contemporary man, who is unable to communicate except through sterile 
intellect, can only be bridged by a new type of man, the man with a cosmic 
consciousness. The sage, the prophet, the visionary, they all spoke in 
Apocalyptic terms. From earliest times the “few” have been attempting to 
break through. Some undoubtedly have broken through—and will remain forever
outside the rat trap.

A morphology of history, valid, exciting, inspiring though it may be, is 
still a death science. Spengler was not concerned with what lies beyond 
history. I am. Others are. Even if Nirvana be only a word, it is a pregnant
word, it contains a promise. That “secret” which lies at the heart of the 
world may yet be dragged into the open. Even ages ago it was pronounced to 
be an “Open” secret.

If the solution to life is the living of it, then let us live, live more 
abundantly! The masters of life are not found in books. They are not 
historical figures. They are situated in eternity, and they beseech us 
unceasingly to join them, in eternity.

At my elbow, as I write these lines, is a photograph tom from a book, a 
photograph of an unknown Chinese sage who is living today. Either the 
photographer did not know who he was or he withheld his name. We know only 
that he is from Peking: that is all the information which is vouchsafed. 
When I turn my head to look at him, it is as though he were right here in 
my room. He is more alive—even in a photograph—than any one I know. He is 
not simply “a man of spirit”—he is all spirit. He is Spirit itself, I might
say. All this is concentrated in his expression. The look which he gives 
forth is completely joyous and luminous. It says without equivocation: 
“Life is bliss!”

Do you suppose that, from the eminence on which he is poised—serene, 
light as a bird, with a wisdom all-embracing—a morphology of history would 
mean anything to him? No question here of exchanging the perspective of the
frog for that of the bird. Here we have the perspective of a god. He is 
“there” and his position is unalterable. Instead of perspective he has 
compassion. He does not preach wisdom—he sheds light.

Do you suppose that he is unique? Not I. I believe that all over the 
world, and in the most unsuspected places (naturally), there are men—or 
gods—like this radiant being. They are not enigmatic, they are transparent.
There is no mystery about them whatever: they are out in the open, 
perpetually “on view.” If we are removed from them it is only because we 
cannot accept their divine simplicity. “Illumined being,” we say, yet never
ask with what it is they are illumined. To be aflame with spirit (which is 
life), to radiate unending joy, to be serene above the chaos of the world 
and still be part of the world, human, divinely human, closer than any 
brother—how is it we do not yearn to be thus? Is there a role which is 
better, deeper, richer, more compelling? Then shout it from the roof-tops! 
We want to know. And we want to know immediately.

I do not need to wait for your response. I see the answer all about me. 
It is not really an answer—it is an evasion. The illustrious one at my 
elbow looks straight at me: he fears not to gaze upon the face of the 
world. He has neither rejected the world nor renounced it: he is part of 
it, just as stone, tree, beast, flower and star are part of it. In his 
being he is the world, all there can ever be of it… When I look at those 
around me I see only the profiles of averted faces. They are trying not to 
look at life—it is too terrible or too horrible, too this or too that. They
see only the awesome dragon of life, and they are impotent before the 
monster. If only they had the courage to look straight into the dragon’s 
jaws!

In many ways what is called history seems to me nothing more than a 
manifestation of this same fearsome attitude toward life. It is possible 
that what we call “the historical” would cease to be, would be erased from 
consciousness, once we performed that simple soldierly movement of “Eyes 
Front!” What is worse than a backward glance at the world is an oblique 
one.

When we speak of men “making history” we mean to say that they have in 
some measure altered the course of life. But the man at my elbow is beyond 
such silly dreams. He knows that man alters nothing—not even his own self. 
He knows that man can do one thing only, and that that is his sole aim in 
life—open the eyes of the soul! Yes, man has this choice—to let in the 
light or to keep the shutters closed. In making the choice man acts. This 
is his part vis-a-vis creation.

Open the eyes wide and the stir must die down. And when the stir dies 
down then commences the real music.

The dragon snorting fire and smoke from his nostrils is only expelling 
his fears. The dragon does not stand guard at the heart of the world—he 
stands at the entrance to the cave of wisdom. The dragon has reality only 
in the phantasmal world of superstition.

The homeless, homesick man of the big cities. What heart-rending pages 
Spengler devotes to the plight of “the intellectual nomad”! Rootless, 
sterile, skeptical, soulless—and homeless and homesick to boot.

“Primitive folk can loose themselves from the soil and wander, but the 
intellectual nomad never. Homesickness-for the great city is keener than 
any other nostalgia. Home is for him any one of these giant cities, but 
even the nearest village is alien territory. He would sooner die upon the 
pavement than go ‘back’ to the land.”

Let me say it unequivocally—after a “reading” nothing in the world of 
actualities had meaning or importance for me. The daily news was about as 
remote as the dog star. I was in the very center of the transformative 
process. All was “death and transfiguration.”

There was only one headline which still had power to excite me, and that 
was—THE END OF THE WORLD IS IN SIGHT! In that imaginary phrase I never 
sensed a menace to my own world, only to “the” world. I was closer to 
Augustine than to Jerome. But I had not yet found my Africa. My point of 
repair was a stuffy little furnished room. Alone in it I experienced a 
strange sort of peace. It was not the “peace that passeth understanding.” 
Ah no! It was an intermittent sort, the augur of a greater, a more enduring
peace. It was the peace of a man who was able to reconcile himself with the
condition of the world in thought.

Still, it was a step. The cultured individual seldom gets beyond this 
stage.

“Eternal life is not life beyond the grave, but the true spiritual life,”
said a philosopher. What a time it’ has taken me to realize the full import
of such a statement!… A whole century of Russian thought (the 19th) was 
preoccupied with this question of “the end,” of the establishment on earth 
of the Kingdom of God. But in North America it was as if that century, 
those thinkers and searchers after the true reality of life, had never 
existed. True, now and then a rocket exploded in our midst. Now and then we
did receive a message from some distant shore. Such events were regarded 
not only as mysterious, bizarre, outlandish, but as occult. This last label
meant that they were no longer serviceable or applicable to daily life.

Reading Spengler was not precisely a balm. It was more of a spiritual 
exercise. The critique of Western thought underlying his cyclical pattern 
had the same effect upon me as the Koans have for the Zen disciple. Again 
and again I arrived at my own peculiar Western state of Satori. Time and 
again I experienced those lightning flashes of illumination which herald 
the breakthrough. There came excruciating moments when, as if the universe 
were an accordion, I could view it as an infinitesimal speck or expand it 
infinitely, so that only the eye of God could encompass it. Gazing at a 
star outside my window, I could magnify it ten thousand times; I could roam
from star to star, like an angel, endeavoring all the while to grasp the 
universe in these super-telescopic proportions. I would then return to my 
chair, look at my fingernail, or rather at an almost invisible spot on the 
nail, and see into it the universe which the physicist endeavors to create 
out of the atomic web of nothingness. That man could ever conceive of 
“nothingness” always astounded me.

For so long now the conceptual world has been man’s whole world. To name,
to define, to explain… Result: unceasing anguish. Expand or contract the 
universe ad infinitum—a parlor game. Playing the god instead of trying to 
be as God. Godding, godding—and at the same time believing in nothing. 
Bragging of the miracles of science, yet looking upon the world about as so
much shit. Frightening ambivalence! Electing for systems, never for man. 
Denying the miracle men through the systems erected in their names.

On lonely nights, pondering the problem—only one ever!—I could see so 
very clearly the world as It is, see what it Is and why it is the way it 
is. I could reconcile grace with evil, divine order with rampant ugliness, 
imperishable creation with utter sterility. I could make myself so finely 
attuned that a mere zephyr would blow me to dust. Instant annihilation or 
enduring life—it was one and the same to me. I was at balance, both sides 
so evenly poised that a molecule of air would tip the scales.

Suddenly a most hilarious thought would shatter the whole set-up. An idea
such as this: “However deep one’s knowledge of abstruse philosophy, it is 
like a piece of hair flying in the vastness of space.” A Japanese thought, 
this. With it came a return to a more ordinary sort of equilibrium. Back to
that frailest of all footholds—solid earth. That solid earth which we now 
accept as being as empty as space.

“In Europe it was I, and I alone with my yearning for Russia, who was 
free,” said Dostoievsky somewhere. From Europe, like a true Evangel, he 
spread the glad tidings. A hundred, two hundred years hence, the full 
import of this utterance may be realized. What is to be done meanwhile? A 
question I propounded to myself over and over.

In the early pages of the chapter called “Problems of the Arabian 
Culture,” Spengler dwells at some length upon the eschatological aspect of 
Jesus’ utterances. The whole section called “Historic Pseudomorphoses” is a
paean to the Apocalyptic. It opens with a tender, sympathetic portrait of 
Jesus of Nazareth vis-k-vis the world of his day. “The incomparable thing 
which lifted the infant Christianity out above all religions of this rich 
Springtime is the figure of Jesus.” So begins this section. In Jesus’ 
utterances, he points out, there were no sociological observations, 
problems, debatings. “No faith yet has altered the world, and no fact can 
ever rebut a faith. There is no bridge between the course of history and 
the existence of a divine world order… “

Then follows this: “Religion is metaphysic and nothing else—‘Credo quia 
absurdum’—and this metaphysic is not the metaphysic of knowledge, argument,
proof (which is mere philosophy or learnedness), but lived and experienced 
metaphysic—that is, the unthinkable as a certainty, the supernatural as a 
fact, life as existence in a world that is non-actual, but true. Jesus 
never lived one moment in any other world but this. He was no moralizer, 
and to see in moralizing the final aim of religion is to be ignorant of 
what religion is… His teaching was the proclamation, nothing but the 
proclamation, of those Last Things with whose images he was constantly 
filled: the dawn of the New Age, the advent of heavenly envoys, the Last 
Judgment, a new heaven and a new earth. Any other conception of religion 
was never in Jesus’ nor in any truly deep-feeling period of history… ‘My 
kingdom is not of this world,’ and only he who can look into the depths 
that this flash illumines can comprehend the voices that come out of them.”

It is at this point that Spengler voices his scorn for Tolstoy who 
“elevated primitive Christianity to the rank of a social revolution.” It is
here he makes a pointed allusion to Dostoievsky who “never thought about 
social ameliorations.” (“Of what profit would it have been to a man’s soul 
to abolish property 7”) Dostoievsky and his “freedom”…

Was it not in that same time of Tolstoy and Dostoievsky that another 
Russian asked—“Why is it stupid to believe in the Kingdom of Heaven but 
intelligent to believe in an earthly Utopia?”

Perhaps the answer to this conundrum was inadvertently given by Belinsky 
when he said: “The fate of the subject, of the individual, of the person is
more important than the fate of the whole world and the wellbeing of the 
Chinese Emperor.”

At any rate, it was definitely Fedorov who quietly remarked: “Each person
is answerable for the whole world and for all men.”

A strange and exciting period in “the land of holy miracles” nineteen 
centuries after the birth and death of Jesus the Christ! One man writes The
Apology of a Madman; another writes a Revolutionary Catechism; another The 
Metaphysics of Sex. Each one is a revolution in himself. Of one figure I 
learn that “he was a conservative, a mystic, an anarchist, an orthodox, an 
occultist, a patriot, a Communist—and ended his life in Rome as a Catholic 
and a Fascist.” Is this a period of “historic pseudomorphosis”? Certainly 
it is an Apocalyptic one.

My misfortune, metaphysically speaking, is that I was born neither in the
time of Jesus nor in holy Russia of the nineteenth century. I was born in 
the megalopolis at the tail-end of a great planetary conjunction. But even 
in the suburb of Brooklyn, by the time I had come of age, one could be 
stirred by the repercussions of that Slavic ferment. One World War had been
“fought and won.” Sic! The second one was in the making. In that same 
Russia I speak of Spengler had a precursor whom you will scarcely find 
mention of even today. Even Nietzsche had a Russian precursor!

Was it not Spengler who said that Dostoievsky’s Russia would eventually 
triumph? Did he not predict that from this ripe soil a new religion would 
spring? Who believes this today t The Second World War has also been 
“fought and won” (!!!) and still the Day of Judgment seems remote. Great 
autobiographies, masquerading in one form or another, reveal the life of an
epoch, of a whole people, aye, of a civilization. It is almost as if our 
heroic figures had built their own tombs, described them intimately, then 
buried themselves in their mortuary creations. The heraldic landscape has 
vanished. The air belongs to the giant birds of destruction. The waters 
will soon be ploughed by Leviathans more fearful to behold than those 
described in the good book. The tension increases, increases, increases. 
Even in villages the inhabitants become more and more, in feeling and 
spirit, like the bombs they are obliged to manufacture.

But history will not end even when the grand explosion occurs. The 
historical life of man has still a long span. It doesn’t take a 
metaphysician to arrive at such a conclusion. Sitting in that little hole 
in the wall back in Brooklyn twenty-five years or so ago I could feel the 
pulse of history throbbing as late as the 32nd Dynasty of Our Lord.

Nevertheless, I am immensely grateful to Oswald Spengler for having 
performed this strange feat of skill—describing to a nicety the unholy 
atmosphere of arterio sclerosis which is ours, and at the same time 
shattering the whole rigid thought-world which envelops us, thus liberating
us—at least in thought. On every page, virtually, there is an assault upon 
the dogmas, conventions, superstitions and mode of thinking which have 
characterized the last few hundred years of “modernity.” Theories and 
systems are battered about like ninepins. The whole conceptual landscape of
modem man is devastated. What emerges are not the scholarly ruins of the 
past but freshly recreated worlds in which one may “participate” with one’s
ancestors, live again the Spring, the Fall, the Summer, even the Winter, of
man’s history. Instead of stumbling through glacial deposits one is carried
along on a tide of sap and blood. Even the firmament gets reshuffled. This 
is Spengler’s triumph—to have made Past and Future live in the Present. One
is again at the center of the universe, warmed by solar fires, and not at 
the periphery fighting off vertigo, fighting off fear of the unspeakable 
abyss.

Does it matter so much that we are men of the tail-end and not of the 
beginning? Not if we realize that we are part of something in eternal 
process, in eternal ebullition. Undoubtedly there is something far more 
comforting for us to apprehend, if we persist in searching. But even here, 
on the threshold, the shifting landscape acquires a more pregnant beauty. 
We glimpse a pattern which is not a mould. We learn all over again that the
death process has to do with men-in-life and not with corpses in varying 
stages of decomposition. Death is a “counter-symbol.” Life is the all, even
In the end periods. Nowhere is there any hint of life coming to a 
standstill.

Yes, I was a fortunate man to have found Oswald Spengler at that 
particular moment in time. In every crucial period of my life I seem to 
have stumbled upon the very author needed to sustain me. Nietzsche, 
Dostoievsky, Elie Faure, Spengler: what a quartet! There were others, 
naturally, who were also important at certain moments, but they never 
possessed quite the amplitude, quite the grandeur, of these four. The four 
horsemen of my own private Apocalypse! Each one expressing to the full his 
own unique quality: Nietzsche the iconoclast; Dostoievsky the grand 
inquisitor; Faure the magician; Spengler the pattern-maker. What a 
foundation!

In the days to come, when it will seem as if I were entombed, when the 
very firmament threatens to come crashing down upon my head, I shall be 
forced to abandon everything except what these spirits implanted in me. I 
shall be crushed, debased, humiliated. I shall be frustrated in every fiber
of my being. I shall even take to howling like a dog. But I shall not be 
utterly lost! Eventually a day is to dawn when, glancing over my own life 
as though it were a story or history, I can detect in it a form, a pattern,
a meaning. From then on the word defeat becomes meaningless.

It will be impossible ever relapse.

For on that day I become and I remain one with my creation.

On another day, in a foreign land, there will appear before me a young 
man who, aware of the change which has come over me, will dub me “The Happy
Rock.” That is the moniker I shall tender when the great Cosmocrator 
demands—“Who art thou?” Yes, beyond a doubt I shall answer: ‘The Happy 
Rock!”

And if it be asked—“Didst thou enjoy thy stay on earth?”—I shall reply:

“My life was one long rosy crucifixion.”

As to the meaning of this, if it is not already clear, it shall be 
elucidated. If I fail then am I but a dog in the manger.

Once I thought that I had been wounded as no man ever had. Because I felt
thus I vowed to write this book. But long before I began the book the wound
had healed. Since I had sworn to fulfill my task I reopened the horrible 
wound.

Let me put it another way… Perhaps in opening the wound, my own wound, I 
closed other wounds, other people’s wounds. Something dies, something 
blossoms. To suffer in ignorance is horrible. To suffer deliberately, in 
order to understand the nature of suffering and abolish it forever, is 
quite another matter. The Buddha had one fixed thought in mind all his 
life, as we know. It was to eliminate human suffering.

Suffering is unnecessary. But one has to suffer before he is able to 
realize that this is so. It is only then, moreover, that the true 
significance of human suffering becomes clear. At the last desperate 
moment—when one can suffer no more!—something happens which is in the 
nature of a miracle. The great open wound which was draining the blood of 
life closes up, the organism blossoms like a rose. One is “free” at last, 
and not “with a yearning for Russia,” but with a yearning for ever more 
freedom, ever more bliss. The tree of life is kept alive not by tears but 
by the knowledge that freedom is real and everlasting.


THE END
