GC-107 The Rosy Crucifixion Nexus Book I
by Henry Miller


How simple and clear it all seems now! A few words tell the whole story: 
I had lost the power to love. A cloud of darkness enveloped me. The fear of
losing her made me blind. I could easier have accepted her death.

Lost and confused, I roamed the darness which I had created as if pursued
by a demon. In my bewilderment I sometimes got down on all fours and with 
bare hands strangled, maimed, crushed whatever threatened to menace our 
lair. Sometimes it was the puppet I clutched in a frenzy, sometimes only a 
dead rat. Once it was nothing more than a piece of stale cheese. Day and 
night I murdered. The more I murdered, the more my enemies and assailants 
increased.

How vast is the phantom world! How inexhaustible!


CHAPTER ONE

Woof! Woof woof! Woof! Woof!

Barking in the night. Barking, barking. I shriek but no one answers. I 
scream but there’s not even an echo.

“Which do you want—the East of Xerxes or the East of Christ?”

Alone—with eczema of the brain.

Alone at last. How marvelous! Only it is not what I expected it to be. If
only I were alone with God! Woof! Woof woof!

Eyes closed, I summon her image. There it is, floating in the dark, a 
mask emerging from the spindrift: the Tilla Durieux bouche, like a bow; 
white, even teeth; eyes dark with mascara, the lids a viscous, glistening 
blue; hair streaming wild, black as ebony. The actress from the Carpathians
and the roof-tops of Vienna. Risen like Venus from the flatlands of 
Brooklyn.

Woof! Woof woof! Woof! Woof!

I shout, but it sounds for all the world like a whisper.

My name is Isaac Dust. I am in Dante’s fifth heaven. Like Strindberg in 
his delirium, I repeat: “What does it matter? Whether one is the only one, 
or whether one has a rival, what does it matter?”

Why do these bizarre names suddenly come to mind? All classmates from the
dear old Alma Mater: Morton Schnadig, William Marvin, Israel Siegel, 
Bernard Pistner, Louis Schneider, Clarence Donohue, William Overend, John 
Kurtz, Pat McCaffrey, William Korb, Arthur Convissar, Sally Liebowitz, 
Frances Glanty… Not one of them has ever raised his head. Stricken from the
ledger. Scotched like vipers.

Are you there, comrades?

No answer.

Is that you, dear August, raising your head in the gloom? Yes, it is 
Strindberg, the Strindberg with two horns protruding from his forehead. Le 
cocu magnifique.

In some happy time—when? how distant? what planet?—I used to move from 
wall to wall greeting this one and that, all old friends: Leon Bakst, 
Whistler, Lovis Corinth, Breughel the Elder, Botticelli, Bosch, Giotto, 
Cimabue, Piero della Francesca, Grunewald, Holbein, Lucas Cranach, Van 
Gogh, Utrillo, Gaugin, Piranesi, Utamaro, Hokusai, Hiroshige—and the 
Wailing Wall, Goya, too, and Turner. Each one had something precious to 
impart. But particularly Tilla Durieux, she with the eloquent, sensual lips
dark as rose petals.

The walls are bare now. Even if they were crowded with masterpieces I 
would recognize nothing. Darkness has closed in. Like Balzac, I live with 
imaginary paintings. Even the frames are imaginary.

Isaac Dust, born of the dust and returning to dust. Dust to dust. Add a 
codicil for old times’ sake.

Anastasia, alias Hegoroboru, alias Bertha Filigree of Lake Tahoe-Titicaca
and the Imperial Court of the Czars, is temporarily in the Observation 
Ward. She went there of her own accord, to find out if she were in her 
right mind or not. Saul barks in his delirium, believing he is Isaac Dust. 
We are snow-bound in a hall bedroom with a private sink and twin beds. 
Lightning flashes intermittently. Count Bruga, that darling of a puppet, 
reposes on the bureau surrounded by Javanese and Tibetan idols. He has the 
leer of a madman quaffing a bowl of sterno. His wig, made of purple 
strings, is surmounted by a miniature hat, k la Boteme, imported from la 
Galerie Dufayel. His back rests against a few choice volumes deposited with
us by Stasia before taking off for the asylum. From left to right they 
read—

The Imperial Orgy, The Vatican Swindle, A Season in Hell, Death in 
Venice, Anathema, A Hero of our Time, The Tragic Sense of Life, The Devil’s
Dictionary, November Boughs, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Lysistrata, 
Marius the Epicurean, The Oolden Ass, Jude the Obscure, The Mysterious 
Stranger, Peter Whiffle, The Little Flowers, Virginibus Puerisque, Queen 
Mab, The Great God Pan, The Travels of Marco Polo, Songs of Bilitis, The 
Unknown Life of Jesus, Tristram Shandy, The Crock of Gold, Black Bryony, 
The Root and the Flower.

*

Only a single lacuna: Rozanov’s Metaphysics of Sex.

In her own handwriting (on a slip of butcher’s paper) I find the 
following, a quotation, obviously, from one of the volumes: “That strange 
thinker, N. Federov, a Russian of the Russians, will found his own original
form of anarchism, one hostile to the State.”

Were I to show this to Kronski he would run immediately to the bughouse 
and offer it as proof. Proof of what? Proof that Stasia is in her right 
mind.

Yesterday was it? Yes, yesterday, about four in the morning, while 
walking to the subway station to look for Mona, who should I spy sauntering
leisurely through the drifting snow but Mona and her wrestler friend Jim 
Driscoll. You Would think, to see them, that they were looking for violets 
in a golden meadow. No thought of snow or ice, no concern for the polar 
blasts from the river, no fear of God or man. Just strolling along, 
laughing, talking, humming. Free as meadow larks.

*

Hark, hark, the lark at heaven’s gate sings!

*

I followed them a distance, almost infected myself by their utter 
nonchalance. Suddenly I took an oblique left turn in the direction of 
Osiecki’s flat. His “chambers”, I should say. Sure enough, the lights were 
on and the pianola softly giving out morceaux chaoisis de Dohnanyi.

“Hail to you, sweet lice,” I thought, and passed on. A mist was rising 
over toward Gowanus Canal. Probably a glacier melting.

Arriving home I found her creaming her face.

“Where in God’s name have you been?” she demands, almost accusingly.

“Are you back long?” I counter.

“Hours ago.”

“Strange. I could have sworn that I left here only twenty minutes ago. 
Maybe I’ve been walking in my sleep. It’s funny, but I had a notion I saw 
you and Jim Driscoll walking arm in arm… “

“Val, you must be ill.”

“No, just inebriated. I mean… hallucinated.”

She puts a cold hand on my brow, feels my pulse. Everything normal, 
apparently. It baffles her. Why do I invent such stories? Just to torment 
her? Isn’t there enough to worry about, with Stasia in the asylum and the 
rent overdue? I ought to have more consideration.

I walk over to the alarm clock and point to the hands. Six o’clock.

“I know,” she says.

“So it wasn’t you I saw just a few minutes ago?”

She looks at me as if I were on the verge of dementia.

“Nothing to worry about, dearie,” I chirp. “I’ve been drinking champagne 
all night. I’m sure now it wasn’t you I saw—it was your astral body.” 
Pause. “Anyway, Stasia’s O.K. I just had a long talk with one of the 
internes… “

“You…?”

“Yes, for want of anything better to do I thought I’d run over and see 
how she was getting along. I brought her some charlotte russe.”

.“You should get to bed, Val, you’re exhausted.” Pause. “If you want to 
know why I’m so late I’ll tell you. I just left Stasia. I got her out about
three hours ago.” She began to chuckle—or was it to cackle? “I’ll tell you 
all about it tomorrow. It’s a long story.” To her amazement I replied: 
“Don’t bother, I heard all about it a little while ago.”

We switched out the lights and crawled into bed. I could hear her 
laughing to herself.

As a good-night fillip I whispered: “Bertha Filigree of Lake Titicaca.”

*

Often, after a session with Spengler or Elie Faure, I would throw myself 
on the bed fully clothed and, instead of musing about ancient cultures, I 
would find myself groping through a labyrinthine world of fabrications. 
Neither of them seems capable of telling the truth, even about such a 
simple matter as going to the toilet. Stasia, an essentially truthful soul,
acquired the habit in order to please Mona. Even in that fanciful tale 
about being a Romanoff bastard there was a grain of truth. With her it’s 
never a lie out of the whole cloth, as with Mona. Moreover, should one 
confront her with the truth, she does not throw an hysterical fit or stalk 
out of the room on stilts. No, she simply breaks into a broad grin which 
gradually softens into the pleasing smile of an angelic child. There are 
moments when I believe I can get somewhere with Stasia. But just when I 
sense that the time is ripe, like an animal protecting her cub, Mona whisks
her off.

One of the strangest blanks in our intimate conversations, for now and 
then we have the most prolonged, seemingly sincere talk-fests, one of these
unaccountable gaps, I say, has to do with childhood. How they played, 
where, with whom, remains a complete mystery. From the cradle, apparently, 
they sprang into womanhood. Never is there mention of a childhood friend or
of a wonderful lark they enjoyed; never do they talk of a street they loved
or a park they played in or a game they enjoyed. I’ve asked them 
point-blank: “Do you know how to skate? Can you swim? Did you ever play 
jacks?” Yes indeedy, they can do all these things and more. Why not? Yet 
they never permit themselves to slip back into the past. Never do they 
suddenly, as happens in animated conversation, recall some strange or 
wonderful experience connected with childhood. Now and then one or the 
other will mention that she once broke an arm or sprained an ankle, but 
where, when? Again and again I endeavor to lead them back, gently, 
coaxingly, as one might lead a horse to the stable, but in vain. Details 
bore them. What matter, they ask, when it happened or where? Very well, 
then, about face! I switch the talk to Russia or Roumania, hoping to detect
a glint or a gleam of recognition. I do it skillfully too, beginning by way
of Tasmania or Patagonia and only gradually and obliquely working my way 
toward Russia, Roumania, Vienna and the flatlands of Brooklyn. As if they 
hadn’t the slightest suspicion of my game, they too will suddenly begin 
talking about strange places, Russia and Roumania included, but as though 
they were recounting something which had been related to them by a stranger
or picked up in a travel book. Stasia, a little more artful, may even 
pretend to give me a clue. She may take it into her head, for example, to 
relate some spurious incident out of Dostoievsky, trusting that I have a 
weak memory or that, even if it be a good one, I cannot possibly remember 
the thousands of incidents which crowd Dostoievsky’s voluminous works. And 
how can I myself be certain that she is not giving me the genuine 
Dostoievsky? Because I have an excellent memory for the aura of things 
read. It is impossible for me not to recognize a false Dostoievskian touch.
However, to draw her out, I pretend to recall the incident she is relating;
I nod my head in agreement, laugh, clap my hands, anything she wishes, but 
I never let on that I know she is falsifying. Now and then, however, I will
remind her, in the same spirit of play, of a trifle she has glossed over or
a distortion she has created; I will even argue about it at length if she 
pretends that she has related the incident faithfully. And all the while 
Mona sits there, listening attentively, aware neither of truth nor falsity,
but happy as a bird because we are talking about her idol, her god, 
Dostoievsky.

What a charming, what a delightful world it can be, this world of lies 
and of falsification, when there is nothing better to do, nothing at stake.
Aren’t we wonderful, we jolly, bloody liars? “A pity Dostoievsky himself 
isn’t with us!” Mona will sometimes exclaim. As if he invented all those 
mad people, all those crazy scenes which flood his novels. I mean, invented
them for his own pleasure, or because he was a natural born fool and liar. 
Never once does it dawn on them that they may be the “mad” characters in a 
book which life is writing with invisible ink.

Not strange therefore that nearly every one, male or female, whom Mona 
admires is “mad”, or that every one she detests is a “fool”. Yet, when she 
chooses to pay me a compliment she will always call me a fool. “You’re such
a dear fool, Val.” Meaning that I am great enough, complex enough, in her 
estimation at least, to belong to the world of Dostoievsky. At times, when 
she gets to raving about my unwritten books, she will even go so far as to 
say that I am another Dostoievsky. A pity I can’t throw an epileptic fit 
now and then. That would really give me the necessary standing. What 
happens, unfortunately, what breaks the spell, is that I all too quickly 
degenerate into a “bourgeois”. In other words I become too inquisitive, too
picayune, too intolerant. Dostoievsky, according to Mona, never displayed 
the least interest in “facts”. (One of those near-truths which make one 
wince sometimes.) No, to believe her, Dostoievsky was always in the 
clouds—or else buried in the depths. He never bothered to swim on the 
surface. He took no thought of gloves or muffs or overcoats. Nor did he pry
into women’s purses in search of names and addresses. He lived only in the 
imagination.

Stasia, now, had her own opinion about Dostoievsky, his way of life, his 
method of working. Despite her vagaries, she was, after all, a little 
closer to reality. She knew that puppets are made of wood or papier-mache, 
not just “imagination”. And she was not too certain but that Dostoievsky 
too might have had his “bourgeois” side. What she relished particularly in 
Dostoievsky was the diabolical element. To her the Devil was real. Evil was
real. Mona, on the other hand, seemed unaffected by the evil in 
Dostoievsky. To her it was just another element of his “imagination”. 
Nothing in books frightened her. Almost nothing in life frightened her 
either, for that matter. Which is why, perhaps, she walked through fire 
unharmed. But for Stasia, when visited by a strange mood, even to partake 
of breakfast could be an ordeal. She had a nose for evil; she could detect 
its presence even in cold cereals. To Stasia the Devil was an omnipresent 
Being ever in wait for his victim.

She wore amulets to ward off the evil powers; she made certain signs on 
entering a strange house, or repeated incantations in strange tongues. All 
of which Mona smiled on indulgently, thinking it “delicious” of Stasia to 
be so primitive, so superstitious. “It’s the Slav in her,” she would say.

*

Now that the authorities had placed Stasia in Mona’s hands it behooved us
to view the situation with greater clarity, and to provide a more certain, 
a more peaceful mode of life for this complicated creature. According to 
Mona’s tearful story, it was only with the greatest reluctance that Stasia 
was released from confinement. What she told them about her friend—as well 
as about herself—only the Devil may hope to know. Over a period of weeks, 
and only by the most adroit maneuvering, did I succeed in piecing together 
the jigsaw puzzle which she had constructed of her interview with the 
physician in charge. Had I nothing else to go on I would have said that 
they both belonged in the asylum. Fortunately I had received another 
version of the interview, and that unexpectedly, from none other than 
Kronski. Why he had interested himself in the case I don’t know. Mona had 
no doubt given the authorities his name—as that of family physician. 
Possibly she had called him up in the middle of the night and, with sobs in
her voice, begged him to do something for her beloved friend. What she 
omitted telling me, at any rate, was that it was Kronski who had secured 
Stasia’s release, that Stasia was in nobody’s care, and that a word from 
him (to the authorities) might prove calamitous. This last was pish-posh, 
and I took it as such. The truth probably was that the wards were full to 
overflowing. In the back of my head was the resolution to visit the 
hospital myself one fine day and find out precisely what occurred. (Just 
for the record.) I was in no great hurry. I felt that the present situation
was but a prelude, or a presage, of things to come.

In the interim I took to dashing over to the Village whenever the impulse
seized me. I wandered all over the place, like a stray dog. When I came to 
a lamp post I lifted my hind leg and pissed on it. Woof woof! Woof!

Thus it was that I would often find myself standing outside the Iron 
Cauldron, at the railing which fenced off the mangy grass-plot now 
knee-deep with black snow, to observe the comings and goings. The two 
tables nearest the window were Mona’s. I watched her as she trotted back 
and forth in the soft candle light, passing out the food, a cigarette 
always glued to her lips, her face wreathed in smiles as she greeted her 
clients or accepted their orders. Now and then Stasia would take a seat at 
the table, her back always to the window, elbows on the table, head in 
hands. Usually she would continue to sit there after the last client had 
left. Mona would then join her. Judging from the expression on the latter’s
face, it was always an animated conversation they were conducting. 
Sometimes they laughed ,so heartily they were doubled up. If, in such a 
mood, one of their favorites attempted to join them, he or she would be 
brushed off like a bottle fly.

Now what could these two dear creatures be talking about that was so 
very, very absorbing? And so excruciatingly humorous? Answer me that and I 
will write the history of Russia for you in one sitting.

The moment I suspected they were making ready to leave I would take to my
heels. Leisurely and wistfully I’d meander, poking my head into one dive 
after another, until I came to Sheridan Square. At one corner of the 
Square, and always lit up like an old-fashioned saloon, was Minnie 
Douchebag’s hangout. Here I knew the two of them would eventually wind up. 
All I waited for was to make sure they took their seats. Then a glance at 
the clock, estimating that in two or three hours one of them at least would
be returning to the lair. It was comforting, on casting a last glance in 
their direction, to observe that they were already the center of solicitous
attention. Comforting—what a word!—to know that they would receive the 
protection of the dear creatures who understood them so well and ever 
rallied to their support. It was amusing also to reflect, on entering the 
subway, that with a Slight rearrangement of clothing even a Bertillon 
expert might have difficulty deciding which was boy and which girl. The 
boys were always ready to die for the girls—and vice versa. Weren’t they 
all in the same rancid piss-pot to which every pure and decent soul is 
consigned? Such dearies they were, the whole gang. Darlings, really. The 
drags they could think up, gracious! Every one of them, the boys 
particularly, was a born artist. Even those shy little creatures who hid in
a corner to chew their nails.

Was it from contact with this atmosphere in which love and mutual 
understanding ruled that Stasia evolved the notion that all was not well 
between Mona and myself? Or was it due to the sledge-hammer blows I 
delivered in moments of truth and candor?

“You shouldn’t be accusing Mona of deceiving you and lying to you,” she 
says to me one evening. How we happened to be alone I can’t imagine. 
Possibly she was expecting Mona to appear any moment.

“What would you rather have me accuse her of?” I replied, wondering what 
next.

“Mona’s not a liar, and you know it. She invents, she distorts, she 
fabricates… because it’s more interesting. She thinks you like her better 
when she complicates things. She has too much respect for you to really lie
to you.”

I made no effort to reply.

“Don’t you know that?” she said, her voice rising. “Frankly, no!” said I.

“You mean you swallow all those fantastic tales she hands you?”

“If you mean that I regard it all as an innocent little game, no.”

“But why should she want to deceive you when she loves you so dearly? You
know you mean everything to her. Yes, everything.”

“Is that why you’re jealous of me?”

“Jealous? I’m outraged that you should treat her as you do, that you 
should be so blind, so cruel, so… ” I raised my hand. “Just what are you 
getting at?” I demanded. “What’s the game?”

“Gamef Gamef” She drew herself up in the manner of an indignant and 
thoroughly astounded Czarina. She was utterly unaware that her fly was 
unbuttoned and her shirt-tail hanging out.

“Sit down,” I said. “Here, have another cigarette.” She refused to sit 
down. Insisted on pacing back and forth, back and forth.

“Now which do you prefer to believe,” I began. “That Mona loves me so 
much that she has to lie to me night and day? Or that she loves you so much
that she hasn’t the courage to tell me? Or that you love her so much that 
you can’t stand seeing her unhappy? Or, let me ask this first—do you know 
what love is f Tell me, have you ever been in love with a man? I know you 
once had a dog you loved, or so you told me, and I know you have made love 
to trees. I also know that you love more than you hate, hut—do you know 
what love is? If you met two people who were madly in love with one 
another, would your love for one of them increase that love or destroy it? 
I’ll put it another way. Perhaps this will make it clearer. If you regarded
yourself only as an object of pity and some one showed you real affection, 
real love, would it make any difference to you whether that person was a he
or a she, married or unmarried? I mean, would you, or could you, be content
merely to accept that love? Or would you want it exclusively for yourself?”

Pause. Heavy pause.

“And what,” I continued, “makes you think you’re worthy of love? Or even 
that you are loved? Or, if you think you are, that you’re capable of 
returning it? Sit down, why don’t you? You know, we could really have an 
interesting talk. We might even get somewhere. We might arrive at truth. 
I’m willing to try.” She gave me a strange, startled look. “You say that 
Mona thinks I like complicated beings. To be very honest with you, I don’t.
Take you now, you’re a very simple sort of being… all of a piece, aren’t 
you? Integrated, as they say. You’re so securely at one with yourself and 
the whole wide world that just to make sure of it, you deliver yourself up 
for observation. Am I too cruel? Go ahead, snicker if you will. Things 
sound strange when you put them upside down. Besides, you didn’t go to the 
observation ward on your own, did you? Just another one of Mona’s yams, 
what! Of course, I swallowed it hook, line and sinker—because I didn’t want
to destroy your friendship for one another. Now that you’re out, thanks to 
my efforts, you want to show me your gratitude. Is that it? You don’t want 
to see me happy, especially when I’m living with some one near and dear to 
you.”

She began to giggle despite the fact that she was highly incensed.

“Listen, if you had asked me if I were jealous of you, much as I hate to 
admit it, I would have said yes. I’m not ashamed to confess that it 
humiliates me to think some one like you can make me jealous. You’re hardly
the type I would have chosen for a rival. I don’t like morphodites any more
than I like people with double-jointed thumbs. I’m prejudiced. Bourgeois, 
if you like. I never loved a dog, but I never hated one either. I’ve met 
fags who were entertaining, clever, talented, diverting, but I must say I 
wouldn’t care to live with them. I’m not talking morals, you understand, 
I’m talking likes and dislikes. Certain things rub me the wrong way. It’s 
most unfortunate, to put it mildly, that my wife should feel so keenly 
drawn to you. Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Almost literary. It’s a 
goddamned shame, is what I mean to say, that she couldn’t have chosen a 
real man, if she had to betray me, even if he were some one I despised. But
you… why shit! it leaves me absolutely defenseless. I wince at the mere 
thought of some one saying to me—‘What’s wrong with you?” Because there 
must be something wrong with a man—at least, so the world reasons—when his 
wife is violently attracted to another woman. I’ve tried my damnedest to 
discover what’s wrong with me, if there is anything wrong, but I can’t lay 
a finger on it. Besides, if a woman is able to love another woman as well 
as the man she’s tied to, there’s nothing wrong with that, is there? She’s 
not to be blamed if she happens to be endowed with an unusual store of 
affection, isn’t that so? Suppose, however, that as the husband of such an 
extraordinary creature, one has doubts about his wife’s exceptional ability
to love, what then? Suppose the husband has reason to believe that there is
a mixture of sham and reality connected with this extraordinary gift for 
love? That to prepare her husband, to condition him, as it were, she slyly 
and insidiously struggles to poison his mind, invents or concocts the most 
fantastic tales, all innocent, of course, about experiences with girl 
friends prior to her marriage. Never openly admitting that she slept with 
them, but implying it, insinuating, always insinuating, that it could have 
been so. And the moment the husband… me, in other words… registers fear or 
alarm, she violently denies anything of the sort, insists that it must be 
one’s imagination which invoked the picture… Do you follow me? Or is it 
getting too complicated?”

She sat down, her face suddenly grave. She sat on the edge of the bed and
looked at me searchingly. Suddenly she broke into a smile, a Satanic sort 
of smile, and exclaimed: “So this is your game! Now you want to poison my 
mind!” With this the tears gushed forth and she took to sobbing.

As luck would have it, Mona arrived in the very thick of it.

“What are you doing to her?” Her very first words. Putting an arm around 
poor Stasia, she stroked her hair, comforted her with soothing words.

Touching scene. A little too genuine, however, for me to be properly 
moved.

The upshot—Stasia must not attempt to go home. She must stay and get a 
good night’s rest.

Stasia looks at me questioningly.

“Of course, of course!” I say. “I wouldn’t turn a dog out on a night like
this.”

The weirdest part of the scene, as I look back on it, was Stasia’s 
turnout in a soft, filmy nightgown. If only she had had a pipe in her 
mouth, it would have been perfect.

*

To get back to Feodor… They got me itchy sometimes with their everlasting
nonsense about Dostoievsky. Myself, I have never pretended to understand 
Dostoievsky. Not all of him, at any rate. (I know him, as one knows a 
kindred soul.) Nor have I read all of him, even to this day. It has always 
been my thought to leave the last few morsels for death-bed reading. I am 
not sure for instance, whether I read his Dream of the Ridiculous Man or 
heard tell about it.

Neither am I at all certain that I know who Marcion was, or what 
Marcionism is. There are many things about Dostoievsky, as about life 
itself, which I am content to leave a mystery. I like to think of 
Dostoievsky as one surrounded by an impenetrable aura of mystery. For 
example, I can never picture him wearing a hat—such as Swedenborg gave his 
angels to wear. I am, moreover, always fascinated to learn what others have
to say about him, even their views make no sense to me. Only the other day 
I ran across a note I had jotted down in a notebook. Probably from 
Berdyaev. Here it is: “After Dostoievsky man was no longer what he had been
before.” Cheering thought for an ailing humanity.

As for the following, certainly no one but Berdyaev could have written 
this: “In Dostoievsky there was a complex attitude to evil. To a large 
extent it may look as though he was led astray. On the one hand, evil is 
evil, and ought to be exposed and must be burned away. On the other hand, 
evil is a spiritual experience of man. It is man’s part. As he goes on his 
way, man may be enriched by the experience of evil, but it is necessary to 
understand this in the right way. It is not the evil itself that enriches 
him; he is enriched by that spiritual strength which is aroused in him for 
the Overcoming of evil. The man who says ‘I will give myself up to evil for
the sake of the enrichment’ never is enriched; he perishes. But it is evil 
that puts man’s freedom to the test… ” And now one more citation (from 
Berdyaev again) since it brings us one step nearer to Heaven…

“The Church is not the Kingdom of God; the Church has appeared in history
and it has acted in history; it does not mean the transfiguration of the 
world, the appearance of a new heaven and a new earth. The kingdom of God 
is the transfiguration of the world, not only the transfiguration of the 
individual man, but also the transfiguration of the social and the cosmic; 
and that is the end of this world, of the world of wrong and ugliness, and 
it is the principle of a new world, a world of right and beauty. When 
Dostoievsky said that beauty would save the world he had in mind the 
transfiguration of the world and the coming of the Kingdom of God, and this
is the eschatological hope… ” Speaking for myself, I must say that had I 
ever had any hopes, eschatological or otherwise, it was Dostoievsky who 
annihilated them. Or perhaps I should modify this by saying that he 
“rendered nugatory” those cultural aspirations engendered by my Western 
upbringing. The Asiatic part, in a word, the Mongolian in me, has remained 
intact and will always remain intact. This Mongolian side of me has nothing
to do with culture or personality; it represents the root being whose sap 
runs back to some ageless ancestral limb of the genealogical tree. In this 
unfathomable reservoir all the chaotic elements of my own nature and of the
American heritage have been swallowed up as the ocean swallows the rivers 
which empty into it. Oddly enough, I have understood Dostoievsky, or rather
his characters and the problems which tormented them, better, being 
American-born, than had I been a European. The English language, it seems 
to me, is better suited to render Dostoievsky (if one has to read him in 
translation) than French, German, Italian, or any other non-Slavic tongue. 
And American life, from the gangster level to the intellectual level, has 
paradoxically tremendous affinities with Dostoievsky’s multilateral 
everyday Russian life. What better proving grounds can one ask for than 
metropolitan New York, in whose conglomerate soil every wanton, ignoble, 
crack-brained idea flourishes like a weed? One has only to think of winter 
there, of what it means to be hungry, lonely, desperate in that labyrinth 
of monotonous streets lined with monotonous homes crowded with monotonous 
individuals crammed with monotonous thoughts. Monotonous and at the same 
time unlimited!

Though millions among us have never read Dostoievsky nor would even 
recognize the name were it pronounced, they are nevertheless, millions of 
them, straight out of Dostoievsky, leading the same weird “lunatical” life 
here in America which Dostoievsky’s creatures lived in the Russia of his 
imagining. If yesterday they might still have been regarded as having a 
human existence, tomorrow their world will possess a character and 
lineament more fantastically bedeviled than any or all of Bosch’s 
creations. Today they move beside us elbow to elbow, startling no one, 
apparently, by their antediluvian aspect. Some, indeed, continue to pursue 
their callings—preaching the Gospel, dressing corpses, ministering to the 
insane—quite as if nothing of any moment had taken place. They have not the
slightest inkling of the fact that “man is no longer what he had been 
before.”

CHAPTER TWO

Ah, the monotonous thrill that comes of walking the streets on a winter’s
morn, when iron girders are frozen to the ground and the milk in the bottle
rises like the stem of a mushroom. A septentrional day, let - us say, when 
the most stupid animal would not dare poke a nose out of his hole. To 
accost a stranger on such a day and ask him for alms would be unthinkable. 
In the biting, gnawing cold, the icy wind whistling through the glum, 
canyoned streets, no one in his right mind would stop long enough to reach 
into his pocket in search of a coin. On a morning like this, which a 
comfortable banker would describe as “clear and brisk,” a beggar has no 
right to be hungry or in need of carfare. Beggars are for warm, sunny days,
when even the sadist at heart stops to throw crumbs to the birds.

It was on a day such as this that I would deliberately gather together a 
batch of samples in order to sally forth and call on one of my father’s 
customers, knowing in advance that I would get no order, but driven by an 
all-consuming hunger for conversation.

There was one individual in particular I always elected to visit on such 
occasions, because with him the day might end, and usually did end, in most
unexpected fashion. It was seldom, I should add, that this individual ever 
ordered a suit of clothes, and when he did it took him years to settle the 
bill. Still, he was a customer. To the old man I used to pretend that I was
calling on John Stymer in order to make him buy the full dress suit which 
we always assumed he would eventually need. (He was forever telling us that
he would become a judge one day, this Stymer.) What I never divulged to the
old man was the nature of the un-sartorial conversations I usually had with
the man.

“Hello! What do you want to see me for?”

That’s how he usually greeted me.

“You must be mad if you think I need more clothes. I haven’t paid you for
the last suit I bought, have I? When was that—five years ago?”

He had barely lifted his head from the mass of papers in which his nose 
was buried. A foul smell pervaded the office, due to his inveterate habit 
of farting—even in the presence of his stenographer. He was always picking 
his nose, too. Otherwise—outwardly, I mean—he might pass for Mr. Anybody. A
lawyer, like any other lawyer.

His head still buried in a maze of legal documents, he chirps: “What are 
you reading these days?” Before I can reply he adds: “Could you wait 
outside a few minutes? I’m in a tangle. But don’t run away… I want to have 
a chat with you.” So saying he dives into his pocket and pulls out a dollar
bill. “Here, get yourself a coffee while you wait. And come back in an hour
or so… we’ll have lunch together, what!”

In the anteroom a half-dozen clients are waiting to get his ear. He begs 
each one to wait just a little longer. Sometimes they sit there all day.

On the way to the cafeteria I break the bill to buy a paper. Scanning the
news always gives me that extrasensory feeling of belonging to another 
planet. Besides, I need to get screwed up in order to grapple with John 
Stymer.

Scanning the paper I get to reflecting on Stymer’s great problem. 
Masturbation. For years now he’s been trying to break the vicious habit. 
Scraps of our last conversation come to mind. I recall how I recommended 
his trying a good whorehouse—and the wry face he made when I voiced the 
suggestion. “What! Me, a married man, take up with a bunch of filthy 
whores?” And all I could think to say was: “They’re not all filthy!”

But what was pathetic, now that I mention the matter, was the earnest, 
imploring way he begged me, on parting, to let him know if I thought of 
anything that would help… anything at all. “Cut it off!” I wanted to say.

An hour rolled away. To him an hour was like five minutes. Finally I got 
up and made for the door. It was that icy outdoors I wanted to gallop.

To my surprise he was waiting for me. There he sat with clasped hands 
resting on the desk top, his eyes fixed on some pinpoint in eternity. The 
package of samples which I had left on his desk was open. He had decided to
order a suit, he informed me.

“I’m in no hurry for it,” he said. “I don’t need any new clothes.”

“Don’t buy one, then. You know I didn’t come here to sell you a suit.”

“You know,” he said, “you’re about the only person I ever manage to have 
a real conversation with. Every time I see you I expand… What have you got 
to recommend this time? I mean in the way of literature. That last one, 
Oblomov, was it? didn’t make much of an impression on me.”

He paused, not to hear what I might have to say in reply, but to gather 
momentum.

“Since you were here last I’ve been having an affair. Does that surprise 
you? Yes, a young girl, very young, and a nymphomaniac to boot. Drains me 
dry. But that isn’t what bothers me—it’s my wife.

It’s excruciating the way she works over me. I want to jump out of my 
skin.”

Observing the grin on my face he adds: “It’s not a bit funny, let me tell
you.”

The telephone rang. He listens attentively. Then, having said nothing but
Yes, No, I think so, he suddenly shouts into the mouthpiece: “I want none 
of your filthy money. Let him get some one else to defend him.”

“Imagine trying to bribe me,” he says, slamming up the receiver. “And a 
judge, no less. A big shot, too.” He blew his nose vigorously. “Well, where
were we?” He rose. “What about a bite to eat? Could talk better over food 
and wine, don’t you think?”

We hailed a taxi and made for an Italian joint he frequented. It was a 
cozy place, smelling strongly of wine, sawdust and cheese. Virtually 
deserted, too.

After we had ordered he said: “You don’t mind if I talk about myself, do 
you? That’s my weakness, I guess. Even when I’m reading, even if it’s a 
good book, I can’t help but think about myself, my problems. Not that I 
think I’m so important, you understand. Obsessed, that’s all.

“You’re obsessed too,” he continued, “but in a healthier way. You see, 
I’m engrossed with myself and I hate myself. A real loathing, mind you. I 
couldn’t possibly feel that way about another human being. I know myself 
through and through, and the thought of what I am, what I must look like to
others, appalls me. I’ve got only one good quality: I’m honest. I take no 
credit for it either… it’s a purely instinctive trait. Yes, I’m honest with
my clients—and I’m honest with myself.”

I broke in. “You may be honest with yourself, as you say, but it would be
better for you if you were more generous. I mean, with yourself. If you 
can’t treat yourself decently how do you expect others to?”

“It’s not in my nature to think such thoughts,” he answered promptly. 
“I’m a Puritan from way back. A degenerate one, to be sure. The trouble is,
I’m not degenerate enough. You remember asking me once if I had ever read 
the Marquis de Sade? Well, I tried, but he bores me stiff. Maybe he’s too 
French for my taste. I don’t know why they call him the divine Marquis, do 
you?”

By now we had sampled the Chianti and were up to our ears in spaghetti. 
The wine had a limbering effect. He could drink a lot without losing his 
head. In fact, that was another one of his troubles—his inability to lose 
himself, even under the influence of drink.

As if he had divined my thoughts, he began by remarking that he was an 
out-and-out mentalist. “A mentalist who can even make his prick think. 
You’re laughing again. But it’s tragic. The young girl I spoke of—she 
thinks I’m a grand fucker. I’m not. But she is. She’s a real fuckaree. Me, 
I fuck with my brain. It’s like I was conducting a cross-examination, only 
with my prick instead of my mind. Sounds screwy, doesn’t it? It is, too. 
Because the more I fuck the more I concentrate on myself. Now and then—with
her, that is—I sort of come to and ask myself who’s on the other end. Must 
be a hangover from the masturbating business. You follow me, don’t you? 
Instead of doing it to myself some one does it for me. It’s better than 
masturbating, because you become even more detached. The girl, of course, 
has a grand time. She can do anything she likes with me. That’s what 
tickles her… excites her. What she doesn’t know—maybe it would frighten her
if I told her—is that I’m not there. You know the expression—to be all 
ears. Well, I’m all mind. A mind with a prick attached to it, if you can 
put it that way… By the way, sometime I want to ask you about yourself. How
you feel when you do it… your reactions… and all that. Not that it would 
help much. Just curious.”

Suddenly he switched. Wanted to know if I had done any writing yet. When 
I said no, he replied: “You’re writing right now, only you’re not aware of 
it. You’re writing all the time, don’t you realize that?” Astonished by 
this strange observation, I exclaimed: “You mean me—or everybody?”

“Of course I don’t mean everybody! I mean you, you.” His voice grew 
shrill and petulant. “You told me once that you would like to write. Well, 
when do you expect to begin?” He paused to take a heaping mouthful of food.
Still gulping, he continued: “Why do you think I talk to you the way I do? 
Because you’re a good listener? Not at all! I can blab my heart out to you 
because I know that you’re vitally disinterested. It’s not me, John Stymer,
that interests you, it’s what I tell you, or the way I tell it to you. But 
I am interested in you, definitely. Quite a difference.”

He masticated in silence for a moment.

“You’re almost as complicated as I am,” he went on. “You know that, don’t
you? I’m curious to know what makes people tick, especially a type like 
you. Don’t worry, I’ll never probe you because I know in advance you won’t 
give me the right answers. You’re a shadow-boxer. And me, I’m a lawyer. 
It’s my business to handle cases. But you, I can’t imagine what you deal 
in, unless it’s air.”

Here he closed up like a clam, content to swallow and chew for a while. 
Presently he said: “I’ve a good mind to invite you to come along with me 
this afternoon. I’m not going back to the office. I’m going to see this gal
I’ve been telling you about. Why don’t you come along? She’s easy to look 
at, easy to talk to. I’d like to observe your reactions.” He paused a 
moment to see how I might take the proposal, then added: “She lives out on 
Long Island. It’s a bit of a drive, but it may be worth it. We’ll bring 
some wine along and some Strega. She likes liqueurs. What say?”

I agreed. We walked to the garage where he kept his car. It took a while 
to defrost it. We had only gone a little way when one thing after another 
gave out. With the stops we made at garages and repair shops it must have 
taken almost three hours to get out of the city limits. By that time we 
were thoroughly frozen. We had a run of sixty miles to make and it was 
already dark as pitch.

Once on the highway we made several stops to warm up. He seemed to be 
known everywhere we stopped, and was always treated with deference. He 
explained, as we drove along, how he had befriended this one and that. “I 
never take a case,” he said, “unless I’m sure I can win.”

I tried to draw him out about the girl, but his mind was on other things.
Curiously, the subject uppermost in his mind at present was immortality. 
What was the sense in a hereafter, he wanted to know, if one lost his 
personality at death? He was convinced that a single lifetime was too short
a period in which to solve one’s problems. “I haven’t started living my own
life,” he said, “and I’m already nearing fifty. One should live to be a 
hundred and fifty or two hundred, then one might get somewhere. The real 
problems don’t commence until you’ve done with sex and all material 
difficulties. At twenty-five I thought I knew all the answers. Now I feel 
that I know nothing about anything. Here we are, going to meet a young 
nymphomaniac. What sense does it make?” He lit a cigarette, took a puff or 
two, then threw it away. The next moment he extracted a fat cigar from his 
breast pocket.

“You’d like to know something about her. I’ll tell you this first off—if 
only I had the necessary courage I’d snatch her up and head for Mexico. 
What to do there I don’t know. Begin all over again, I suppose. But that’s 
what gets me… I haven’t the guts for it. I’m a moral coward, that’s the 
truth. Besides, I know she’s pulling my leg. Every time I leave her I 
wonder who she’ll be in bed with soon as I’m out of sight. Not that I’m 
jealous—I hate to be made a fool of, that’s all. I am a chump, of course. 
In everything except the law I’m an utter fool.”

He traveled on in this vein for some time. He certainly loved to run 
himself down. I sat back and drank it in.

Now it was a new tack. “Do you know why I never became a writer?”

“No,” I replied, amazed that he had ever entertained the thought.

“Because I found out almost immediately that I had nothing to say. I’ve 
never lived, that’s the long and short of it. Risk nothing, gain nothing. 
What’s that Oriental saying? ‘To fear is not to sow because of the birds.’ 
That says it. Those crazy Russians you give me to read, they all had 
experience of life, even if they never budged from the spot they were born 
in. For things to happen there must be a suitable climate. And if the 
climate is lacking, you create one. That is, if you have genius. I never 
created a thing. I play the game, and I play it according to the rules. The
answer to that, in case you don’t know it, is death. Yep, I’m as good as 
dead already. But crack this now: it’s when I’m deadest that I fuck the 
best. Figure it out, if you can! The last time I slept with her, just to 
give you an illustration, I didn’t bother to take my clothes off. I climbed
in—coat, shoes, and all. It seemed perfectly natural, considering the state
of mind I was in. Nor did it bother her in the least. As I say, I climbed 
into bed with her fully dressed and I said: ‘Why don’t we just lie here and
fuck ourselves to death?’ a strange idea, what? Especially coming from a 
respected lawyer with a family and all that. Anyway, the words had hardly 
left my mouth when I said to myself: ‘You dope! You’re dead already. Why 
pretend?’ How do you like that f With that I gave myself up to it… to the 
fucking, I mean… ” Here I threw in a teaser. Had he ever pictured himself, 
I asked, possessing a prick… and using it!… in the hereafter?

“Have I?” he exclaimed. “That’s just what bothers me, that very thought. 
An immortal life with an extension prick hooked to my brain is something I 
don’t fancy in the least. Not that I want to lead the life of an angel 
either. I want to be myself, John Styrtier, with all the bloody problems 
that are mine. I want time to think things out… a thousand years or more. 
Sounds goofy, doesn’t it? But that’s how I’m built. The Marquis de Sade, he
had loads of time on his hands. He thought out a lot of things, I must 
admit, but I can’t agree with his conclusions. Anyway, what I want to say 
is–it’s not so terrible to spend your life in prison… if you have an active
mind. What is terrible is to make a prisoner of yourself. And that’s what 
most of us are—self-made prisoners. There are scarcely a dozen men in a 
generation who break out. Once you see life with a clear eye it’s all a 
farce. A grand farce. Imagine a man wasting his life defending or 
convicting others! The business of law is thoroughly insane. Nobody is a 
whit better off because we have laws. No, it’s a fool’s game, dignified by 
giving it a pompous name. Tomorrow I may find myself sitting on the bench. 
A judge, no less. Will I think any more of myself because I’m called a 
judge? Will I be able to change anything? Not on your life. I’ll play the 
game again… the judges’ game. That’s why I say we’re licked from the start.
I’m aware of the fact that we all have a part to play and that all any one 
can do, supposedly, is to play his part to the best of his ability. Well, I
don’t like my part. The idea of playing a part doesn’t appeal to me. Not 
even if the parts be interchangeable. You get me? I believe it’s time we 
had a new deal, a new set-up. The courts have to go, the laws have to go, 
the police have to go, the prisons have to go. It’s insane, the whole 
business. That’s why I fuck my head off. You would too, if you could see it
as I do.” He broke off, sputtering like a firecracker.

After a brief silence he informed me that we were soon there. “Remember, 
make yourself at home. Do anything, say anything you please. Nobody will 
stop you. If you want to take a crack at her, it’s O.K. with me. Only don’t
make a habit of it!”

The house was shrouded in darkness as we pulled into the driveway. A note
was pinned to the dining room table. From Belle, the great fuckaree. She 
had grown tired of waiting for us, didn’t believe we would make it, and so 
on.

“Where is she, then?” I asked.

“Probably gone to the city to stay the night with a friend.”

He didn’t seem greatly upset, I must say. After a few grunts… “the bitch 
this” and “the bitch that”… he went to the refrigerator to see what there 
was in the way of leftovers.

“We might as well stay the night here,” he said. “She’s left us some 
baked beans and cold ham, I see. Will that hold you?”

As we were polishing off the remnants he informed me that there was a 
comfortable room upstairs with twin beds. “Now we can have a good talk,” he
said.

I was ready enough for bed but not for a heart-to-heart talk. As for 
Stymer, nothing seemed capable of slowing down the machinery of his mind, 
neither frost nor drink nor fatigue itself.

I would have dropped off immediately on hitting the pillow had Stymer not
opened fire in the way he did. Suddenly I was as wide awake as if I had 
taken a double dose of Benzedrine. His first words, delivered in a steady, 
even tone, electrified me.

“There’s nothing surprises you very much, I notice. Well, get a load of 
this… ” That’s how he began.

“One of the reasons I’m such a good lawyer is because I’m also something 
of a criminal. You’d hardly think me capable of plotting another person’s 
death, would you? Well, I am. I’ve decided to do away with my wife. Just 
how, I don’t know yet. It’s not because of Belle, either. It’s just that 
she bores me to death. I can’t stand it any longer. For twenty years now I 
haven’t had an intelligent word from her. She’s driven me to the last 
ditch, and she knows it. She knows all about Belle; there’s never been any 
secret about that. All she cares about is that it shouldn’t leak out. It’s 
my wife, God damn her! who turned me into a masturbator. I was that sick of
her, almost from the beginning, that the thought of sleeping with her made 
me ill. True, we might have arranged a divorce. But why support a lump of 
clay for the rest of my life? Since I fell in with Belle I’ve had a chance 
to do a little thinking and planning. My one aim is to get out of the 
country, far away, and start all over again. At what I don’t know. Not the 
law, certainly. I want isolation and I want to do as little work as 
possible.”

He took a breath. I made no comments. He expected none.

“To be frank with you, I was wondering if I could tempt you to join me. 
I’d take care of you as long as the money held out, that’s understood. I 
was thinking it out as we drove here. That note from Belle—I dictated the 
message. I had no thought of switching things when we started, please 
believe me. But the more we talked the more I felt that you were just the 
person I’d like to have around, if I made the jump.” He hesitated a second,
then added: “I had to tell you about my wife because… because to live in 
close quarters with some one and keep a secret of that sort would be too 
much of a strain.”

“But I’ve got a wife too!” I found myself exclaiming. “Though I haven’t 
much use for her, I don’t see myself doing her in just to run off somewhere
with you.”

“I understand,” said Stymer calmly. “I’ve given thought to that too.”

“So?”

“I could get you a divorce easily enough, and see to it that you don’t 
have to pay alimony. What do you say to that?”

“Not interested,” I replied. “Not even if you could provide another woman
for me. I have my own plans.”

“You don’t think I’m a queer, do you?”

“No, not at all. You’re queer, all right, but not in that way. To be 
honest with you, you’re not the sort of person I’d want to be around for 
long. Besides, it’s all too damned vague. It’s more like a bad dream.” He 
took this with his habitual unruffled calm. Whereupon, impelled to say 
something more, I demanded to know what it was that he expected of me, what
did he hope to obtain from such a relationship?

I hadn’t the slightest fear of being tempted into such a crazy adventure,
naturally, but I thought it only decent to pretend to draw him out. 
Besides, I was curious as to what he thought my role might be.

“It’s hard to know where to begin,” he drawled. “Suppose… just suppose, I
say… that we found a good place to hide away. A place like Costa Rica, for 
example, or Nicaragua, where life is easy and the climate agreeable. And 
suppose you found a girl you liked… that isn’t too hard to imagine, is it? 
Well then… You’ve .told me that you like… that you intend… to write one 
day. I know that I can’t. But I’ve got ideas, plenty of them, I can tell 
you. I’ve not been a criminal lawyer for nothing. As for you, you haven’t 
read Dostoievsky and all those other mad Russians for nothing either. Do 
you begin to get the drift? Look, Dostoievsky is dead, finished with. And 
that’s where we start. From Dostoievsky. He dealt with the soul; we’ll deal
with the mind.”

- He was about to pause again. “Go on,” I said, “it sounds interesting.”

“Well,” he resumed, “whether you know it or not, there is no longer 
anything left in the world that might be called soul. Which partly explains
why you find it so hard to get started, as a writer. How can one write 
about people who have no souls? I can, however. I’ve been living with just 
such people, working for them, studying them, analyzing them. I don’t mean 
my clients alone. It’s easy enough to look upon criminals as soulless. But 
what if I tell you that there are nothing but criminals everywhere, no 
matter where you look? One doesn’t have to be guilty of a crime to be a 
criminal. But anyway, here’s what I had in mind… I know you can write. 
Furthermore, I don’t mind in the least if some one else writes my books. 
For you to come by the material that I’ve accumulated would take several 
lifetimes. Why waste time? Oh yes, there’s something I forgot to mention… 
it may frighten you off. It’s this… whether the books are ever published or
not is all one to me. I want to get them out of my system, nothing more. 
Ideas are universal. I don’t consider them my property… ” He took a drink 
of ice water from the jug beside the bed.

“All this probably strikes you as fantastic. Don’t try to come to a 
decision immediately. Think it over! Look at it from every angle. I 
wouldn’t want you to accept and then get cold feet in a month or two. But 
let me call your attention to something. If you continue in the same groove
much longer you’ll never have the courage to make the break. You have no 
excuse for prolonging your present way of life. You’re obeying the law of 
inertia, nothing more.”

He cleared his throat, as if embarrassed by his own remarks. Then clearly
and swiftly he proceeded.

“I’m not the ideal companion for you, agreed. I have every fault 
imaginable and I’m thoroughly self-centered, as I’ve said many times. But 
I’m not envious or jealous, or even ambitious, in the usual sense. Aside 
from working hours—and I don’t intend to run myself into the ground—you’d 
be alone most of the time, free to do as you please. With me you’d be 
alone, even if we shared the same room. I don’t care where we live, so long
as it’s in a foreign land. From now on it’s the moon for me. I’m divorcing 
myself from my fellow man. Nothing could possibly tempt me to participate 
in the game. Nothing of value, in my eyes at least, can possibly be 
accomplished at present. I may not accomplish anything either, to be 
truthful. But at least I’ll have the satisfaction of doing what I believe 
in… Look, maybe I haven’t expressed too clearly what I mean by this 
Dostoievsky business. It’s worth going into a little further, if you can 
bear with me. As I see it, with Dostoievsky’s death the world entered upon 
a complete new phase of existence. Dostoievsky summed up the modem age much
as Dante did the Middle Ages. The modem age—a misnomer, by the way—was just
a transition period, a breathing spell, in which man could adjust himself 
to the death of the soul. Already we’re leading a sort of grotesque lunar 
life. The beliefs, hopes, principles, convictions that sustained our 
civilization are gone.

And they won’t be resuscitated. Take that on faith for the time being. 
No, henceforth and for a long time to come we’re going to live in the mind.
That means destruction… self-destruction. If you ask why, I can only 
say—because man was not made to live by mind alone. Man was meant to live 
with his whole being. But the nature of this being is lost, forgotten, 
buried. The purpose of life on earth is to discover one’s true being—and to
live up to it! But we won’t go into that. That’s for the distant future. 
The problem is—meanwhile. And that’s where I come in. Let me put it to you 
as briefly as possible… All that we have stifled, you, me, all of us, ever 
since civilization began, has got to be lived out. We’ve got to recognize 
ourselves for what we are. And what are we but the end product of a tree 
that is no longer capable of bearing fruit. We’ve got to go underground, 
therefore, like seed, so that something new, something different, may come 
forth. It isn’t time that’s required, it’s a new way of looking at things. 
A new appetite for life, in other words. As it is, we have but a semblance 
of life. We’re alive only in dream. It’s the mind in us that refuses to be 
killed off. The mind is tough—and far more mysterious than the wildest 
dreams of theologians. It may well be that there is nothing but mind… not 
the little mind we know, to be sure, but the great Mind in which we swim, 
the Mind which permeates the whole universe. Dostoievsky, let me remind 
you, had amazing insight not only into the soul of man but into the mind 
and spirit of the universe. That’s why it’s impossible to shake him off, 
even though, as I said, what he represents is done for.”

Here I had to interrupt. “Excuse me,” I said, “but what did Dostoievsky 
represent, in your opinion?”

“I can’t answer that in a few words. Nobody can. He gave us a revelation,
and it’s up to each one of us to make what he can of It. Some lose 
themselves in Christ. One can lose himself in Dostoievsky too. He takes you
to the end of the road… Does that mean anything to you?”

“Yes and no.”

“To me,” said Stymer, “it means that there are no possibilities today 
such as men imagine. It means that we are thoroughly deluded—about 
everything. Dostoievsky explored the field in advance, and he found the 
road blocked at every turn. He was a frontier man, in the profound sense of
the word. He took up one position after another, at every dangerous, 
promising point, and he found that there was no issue for us, such as we 
are. He took refuge, finally, in the Supreme Being.”

“That doesn’t sound exactly like the Dostoievsky I know,” said I. “It has
a hopeless ring to it.”

“No, it’s not hopeless at all. It’s realistic—in a superhuman sense. The 
last thing Dostoievsky could possibly have believed in is a hereafter such 
as the clergy give us. All religions give us a sugar-coated pill to 
swallow. They want us to swallow what we never can or will swallow—death. 
Man will never accept the idea of death, never reconcile himself to it… But
I’m getting off the track. You speak of man’s fate. Better than any one, 
Dostoievsky understood that man will never accept life unquestioningly 
until he is threatened with extinction. It was his belief, his deep 
conviction, I would say, that man may have everlasting life if he desires 
it with his whole heart and being. There is no reason to die, none 
whatever. We die because we lack faith in life, because we refuse to 
surrender to life completely… And that brings me to the present, to life as
we know it today. Isn’t it obvious that our whole way of life is a 
dedication to death? In our desperate efforts to preserve ourselves, 
preserve what we have created, we bring about our own death. We do not 
surrender to life, we struggle to avoid dying. Which means not that we have
lost faith in God but that we have lost faith in life itself. To live 
dangerously, as Nietzche put it, is to live naked and unashamed. It means 
putting one’s trust in the life force and ceasing to battle with a phantom 
called death, a phantom called disease, a phantom called sin, a phantom 
called fear, and so on. The phantom world! That’s the world which we have 
created for ourselves. Think of the military, with their perpetual talk of 
the enemy. Think of the clergy, with their perpetual talk of sin and 
damnation. Think of the legal fraternity, with their perpetual talk of fine
and imprisonment. Think of the medical profession, with their perpetual 
talk of disease and death. And our educators, the greatest fools ever, with
their parrotlike rote and their innate inability to accept any idea unless 
it be a hundred or a thousand years old. As for those who govern the world,
there you have the most dishonest, the most hypocritical, the most deluded 
and the most unimaginative beings imaginable. You pretend to be concerned 
about man’s fate. The miracle is that man has sustained even the illusion 
of freedom. No, the road is blocked, whichever way you turn. Every wall, 
every barrier, every obstacle that hems us in is our own doing. No need to 
drag in God, the Devil or Chance. The Lord of all Creation is taking a cat 
nap while we work out the puzzle. He’s permitted us to deprive ourselves of
everything but mind. It’s in the mind that the life force has taken refuge.
Everything has been analyzed to the point of nullity. Perhaps now the very 
emptiness of life will take on meaning, will provide the clue.”

He came to a dead stop, remained absolutely immobile for a space, then 
raised himself on one elbow. “The criminal aspect of the mind! I don’t know
how or where I got hold of that phrase, but it enthralls me absolutely. It 
might well be the over-all title for the books I have in mind to write. The
very word criminal shakes me to the foundations. It’s such a meaningless 
word today, yet it’s the most—what shall I say?—the most serious word in 
man’s vocabulary. The very notion of crime is an awesome one. It has such 
deep, tangled roots. Once the great word, for me, was rebel. When I say 
criminal, however, I find myself utterly baffled. Sometimes, I confess, I 
don’t know what the word means. Or, if I think I do, then I am forced to 
look upon the whole human race as one indescribable hydra-headed monster 
whose name is CRIMINAL. I sometimes put it another way to myself—man his 
own criminal. Which is almost meaningless. What I’m trying to say, though 
perhaps it’s trite, banal, oversimplified, is this… if there is such a 
thing as a criminal, then the whole race is tainted. You can’t remove the 
criminal element in man by performing a surgical operation on society. 
What’s criminal is cancerous, and what’s cancerous is unclean. Crime isn’t 
merely coeval with law and order, crime is pre-natal, so to speak. It’s in 
the very consciousness of man, and it won’t be dislodged, it won’t be 
extirpated, until a new consciousness is born. Do I make it clear? The 
question I ask myself over and over is—how did man ever come to look upon 
himself, or his fellow man, as a criminal? What caused him to harbor guilt 
feelings? To make even the animals feel guilty? How did he ever come to 
poison life at the source, in other words? It’s very convenient to blame it
on the priesthood. But I can’t credit them with having that much power over
us. If we are victims, they are too. But what are we the victims off What 
is it that tortures us, young and old alike, the wise as well as the 
innocent? It’s my belief that that is what we are going to discover, now 
that we’ve been driven underground. Rendered naked and destitute, we will 
be able to give ourselves up to the grand problem unhindered. For an 
eternity, if need be. Nothing else is of importance, don’t you see? Maybe 
you don’t. Maybe I see it so clearly that I can’t express it adequately in 
words. Anyway, that’s our world perspective… ” At this point he got out of 
bed to fix himself a drink, asking as he did so if I could stand any more 
of his drivel. I nodded affirmatively.

“I’m thoroughly wound up, as you see,” he continued. “As a matter of 
fact, I’m beginning to see it all so clearly again, now that I’ve 
unlimbered to you, that I almost feel I could write the books myself. If I 
haven’t lived for myself I certainly have lived other people’s lives. 
Perhaps I’ll begin to live my own when I begin writing. You know, I already
feel kindlier toward the world, just getting this much off my chest. Maybe 
you were right about being more generous with myself. It’s certainly a 
relaxing thought. Inside I’m all steel girders. I’ve got to melt, grow 
fiber, cartilage, lymph and muscle. To think that any one could let himself
grow so rigid… ridiculous, what! That’s what comes from battling all one’s 
life.”

He paused long enough to take a good slug, then raced on.

“You know, there isn’t a thing in the world worth fighting for except 
peace of mind. The more you triumph in this world the more you defeat 
yourself. Jesus was right. One has to triumph over the world. ‘Overcome the
world,’ I think was the expression. To do that, of course, means acquiring 
a new consciousness, a new view of things. And that’s the only meaning one 
can put on freedom. No man can attain freedom who is of the world. Die to 
the world and you find life everlasting. You know, I suppose, that the 
advent of Christ was of the greatest importance to Dostoievsky. Dostoievsky
only succeeded in embracing the idea of God through conceiving of a 
man-god. He humanized the conception of God, brought Him nearer to us, made
Him more comprehensible, and finally, strange as it may sound, even more 
Godlike… Once again I must come back to the criminal. The only sin, or 
crime, that man could commit, in the eyes of Jesus, was to sin against the 
Holy Ghost. To deny the spirit, or the life force, if you will. Christ 
recognized no such thing as a criminal. He ignored all this nonsense, this 
confusion, this rank superstition with which man has saddled himself for 
millennia. “He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone!” Which 
doesn’t mean that Christ regarded all men as sinners. No, but that we are 
all imbued, dyed, tainted with the notion of sin. As I understand his 
words, it is out of a sense of guilt that we created sin and evil. Not that
sin and evil have any reality of their own. Which brings me back again to 
the present impasse. Despite all the truths that Christ enunciated, the 
world is now riddled and saturated with sinfulness. Every one behaves like 
a criminal toward his fellow man. And so, unless we set about killing one 
another off—world-wide massacre—we’ve got to come to grips with the demonic
power which rules us. We’ve got to convert it into a healthy, dynamic force
which will liberate not us alone—we are not so important!—but the life 
force which is dammed up in us. Only then will we begin to live. And to 
live means eternal life, nothing less. It was man who created death, not 
God. Death is the sign of our vulnerability, nothing more.”

He went on and on and on. I didn’t get a wink of sleep until near dawn. 
When I awoke he was gone. On the table I found a five dollar bill and a 
brief note saying that I should forget everything we had talked about, that
it was of no importance. “I’m ordering a new suit just the same,” he added.
“You can choose the material for me.”

Naturally I couldn’t forget it, as he suggested. In fact, I couldn’t 
think of anything else for weeks but “man the criminal,” or, as Stymer had 
put it, “man his own criminal.”

One of the many expressions he had dropped plagued me interminably, the 
one about “man taking refuge in the mind.” It was the first time, I do 
believe, that I ever questioned the existence of mind as something apart. 
The thought that possibly all was mind fascinated me. It sounded more 
revolutionary than anything I had heard hitherto.

It was certainly curious, to say the least, that a man of Stymer’s 
calibre should have been obsessed by this idea of going underground, of 
taking refuge in the mind. The more I thought about the subject the more I 
felt that he was trying to make of the cosmos one grand, stupefying 
rat-trap. When, a few months later, upon sending him a notice to call for a
fitting, I learned that he had died of a hemorrhage of the brain, I wasn’t 
in the least surprised. His mind had evidently rejected the conclusions he 
had imposed upon it. He had mentally masturbated himself to death. With 
that I stopped worrying about the mind as a refuge. Mind is all. God is 
all. So what?

CHAPTER THREE

When a situation gets so bad that no solution seems possible there is 
left only murder or suicide. Or both. These failing, one becomes a buffoon.

Amazing how active one can become when there is nothing to contend with 
but one’s own desperation. Events pile up of their own accord. Everything 
is converted to drama… to melodrama.

The ground began to give way under my feet with the slow realization that
no show of anger, no threats, no display of grief, tenderness or remorse, 
nothing I said or did, made the least difference to her. What is called “a 
man” would no doubt have swallowed his pride or grief and walked out on the
show. Not this little Beelzebub!

I was no longer a man; I was a creature returned to the wild state. 
Perpetual panic, that was my normal state. The more unwanted I was, the 
closer I stuck. The more I was wounded and humiliated, the more I craved 
punishment. Always praying for a miracle to occur, I did nothing to bring 
one about. What’s more, I was powerless to blame her, or Stasia, or any 
one, even myself, though I often pretended to. Nor could I, despite natural
inclination, bring myself to believe that it had just “happened.” I had 
enough understanding left to realize that a condition such as we were in 
doesn’t just happen. No, I had to admit to myself that it had been 
preparing for quite a long while. I had, moreover, retraced the path so 
often that I knew it step by step. But when one is frustrated to the point 
of utter despair what good does it do to know where or when the first fatal
misstep occurred? What matters—and how it matters, Oh God!—is only now.

How to squirm out of a vise?

Again and again I banged my head against the wall trying to crack that 
question. Could I have done so, I would have taken my brains out and put 
them through the wringer. No matter what I did, what I thought, what I 
tried, I could not wriggle out of the strait jacket.

Was it love that kept me chained?

How answer that? My emotions were so confused, so kaleidoscopic. As well 
ask a dying man if he is hungry.

Perhaps the question might be put differently. For example: “Can one ever
regain that which is lost?”

The man of reason, the man with common sense, will say no. The fool, 
however, says yes.

And what is the fool but a believer, a gambler against all odds.

Nothing was ever lost that cannot be redeemed.

Who says that? The God within us. Adam, who survived fire and flood. And 
all the angels.

Think a moment, scoffers! If redemption were impossible, would not love 
itself disappear? Even self-love?

Perhaps this Paradise I sought so desperately to recover would not be the
same… Once outside the magic circle the leaven of time works with 
disastrous rapidity.

What was it, this Paradise I had lost? Of what was it fashioned? Was it 
merely the ability to summon a moment of bliss now and then? Was it the 
faith with which she inspired me? (The faith in myself, I mean.) Or was it 
that we were joined like Siamese twins?

How simple and clear it all seems now! A few words tell the whole story: 
I had lost the power to love. A cloud of darkness enveloped me. The fear of
losing her made me blind. I could easier have accepted her death.

Lost and confused, I roamed the darkness which I had created as if 
pursued by a demon. In my bewilderment I sometimes got down on all fours 
and with bare hands strangled, maimed, crushed whatever threatened to 
menace our lair. Sometimes it was the puppet I clutched in a frenzy, 
sometimes only a dead rat. Once it was nothing more than a piece of stale 
cheese. Day and night I murdered. The more I murdered, the more my enemies 
and assailants increased.

How vast is the phantom world! How inexhaustible!

Why didn’t I murder myself? I tried, but it proved a fiasco. More 
effective, I found, was to reduce life to a vacuum.

To live in the mind, solely in the mind… that is the surest way of making
life a vacuum. To become the victim of a machine which never ceases to spin
and grate and grind.

The mind machine.

“Loving and loathing: accepting and rejecting: grasping and disdaining; 
longing and spurning: this is the disease of the mind.”

Solomon himself could not have stated it better.

“If you give up both victory and defeat,” so it reads in the Dhammapada, 
“you sleep at night without fear.”

The coward, and such I was, prefers the ceaseless whir of the mind. He 
knows, as does the cunning master he serves, that the machine has but to 
stop for an instant and he will explode like a dead star.

Not death… annihilation!

Describing the Knight Errant, Cervantes says: “The Knight Errant searches
all the corners of the world, enters the most complicated labyrinths, 
accomplishes at every step the impossible, endures the fierce rays of the 
sun in uninhabited deserts, the inclemency of wind and ice in winter; lions
cannot daunt him nor demons affright, nor dragons, for to seek assault, and
overcome, such is the whole business of his life and true office.”

Strange how much the fool and the coward have in common with the Knight 
Errant. The fool believes despite everything; he believes in face of the 
impossible. The coward braves all dangers, runs every risk, feats nothing, 
absolutely nothing, except the loss of that which he strives impotently to 
retain.

It is a great temptation to say that love never made a coward of any one.
Perhaps true love, no. But who among us has known true love? Who is so 
loving, trusting and believing that he would not sell himself to the Devil 
rather than see his loved one tortured, slain or disgraced? Who is so 
secure and mighty that he would not step down from his throne to claim his 
love? True, there have been great figures who have accepted their lot, who 
have sat apart in silence and solitude, and eaten out their hearts. Are 
they to be admired or pitied? Even the greatest of the lovelorn was never 
able to walk about jubilantly and shout—“All’s well with the world!”

“In pure love (which no doubt does not exist at all except in our 
imagination)” says one I admire, “the giver is not aware that he gives nor 
of what he gives, nor to whom he gives, still less of whether it is 
appreciated by the recipient or not.”

With all my heart I say “D’accord!” But I have never met a being capable 
of expressing such love. Perhaps only those who no longer have need of love
may aspire to such a role.

To be free of the bondage of love, to burn down like a candle, to melt in
love, melt with love—what bliss! Is it possible for creatures like us who 
are weak, proud, vain, possessive, envious, jealous, unyielding, 
unforgiving? Obviously not. For us the rat race—in the vacuum of the mind. 
For us doom, unending doom. Believing that we need love, we cease to give 
love, cease to be love.

. But even we, despicably weak though we be, experience something of this
true, unselfish love occasionally. Which of us has not said to himself in 
his blind adoration of one beyond his reach—“What matter if she be never 
mine! All that matters is that she be, that I may worship and adore her 
forever!” And even though it be untenable, such an exalted view, the lover 
who reasons thus is on firm ground. He has known a moment of pure love. No 
other love, no matter how serene, how enduring, can compare with it.

Fleeting though such a love may be, can we say that there has been a 
loss? The only possible loss—and how well the true lover knows it!—is the 
lack of that undying affection which the other inspired. What a drab, 
dismal, fateful day that is when the lover suddenly realizes that he is no 
longer possessed, that he is cured, so to speak of his great love! When he 
refers to it, even unconsciously, as a “madness”. The feeling of relief 
engendered by such an awakening may lead one to believe in all sincerity 
that he has regained his freedom. But at what a price! What a 
poverty-stricken sort of freedom! Is it not a calamity to gaze once again 
upon the world with everyday sight, everyday wisdom? Is it not 
heartbreaking to find oneself surrounded by beings who are familiar and 
commonplace? Is it not frightening to think that one must carry on, as they
say, but with stones in one’s belly and gravel in one’s mouth? To find 
ashes, nothing but ashes, where once were blazing suns, wonders, glories, 
wonders upon wonders, glory beyond glory, and all freely created as from 
some magic fount?

If there is anything which deserves to be called miraculous, is it not 
love? What other power, what other mysterious force is there which can 
invest life with such undeniable splendor?

The Bible is full of miracles, and they have been accepted by thinking 
and unthinking individuals alike. But the miracle which every one is 
permitted to experience some time in his life, the miracle which demands no
intervention, no intercessor, no supreme exertion of will, the miracle 
which is open to the fool and the coward as well as the hero and the saint,
is love. Born of an instant, it lives eternally. If energy is imperishable,
how much more so is love! Like energy, which is still a complete enigma, 
love is always there, always on tap. Man has never created an ounce of 
energy, nor did he create love. Love and energy have always been, always 
will be. Perhaps in essence they are one and the same. Why not? Perhaps 
this mysterious energy which is identified with the life of the universe, 
which is God in action, as some one has said, perhaps this secret, 
all-invasive force is but the manifestation of love. What is even more 
awesome to consider is that, if there be nothing in our universe which is 
not informed with this unseizable force, then what of love? What happens 
when love (seemingly) disappears? For the one is no more indestructible 
than the other. We know that even the deadest particle of matter is capable
of yielding explosive energy. And if a corpse has life, as we know it does,
so has the spirit which once made it animate. If Lazarus was raised from 
the dead, if Jesus rose from his tomb, then whole universes which now cease
to exist may be revived, and doubtless will be revived, when the time is 
ripe. When love, in other words, conquers over wisdom.

How then, if such things be possible, are we to speak, or even to think, 
of losing love? Succeed though we may for a while in closing the door, love
will find the way. Though we become as cold and hard as minerals, we cannot
remain forever indifferent and inert. Nothing truly dies. Death is always 
feigned. Death is simply the closing of a door.

But the Universe has no doors. Certainly none which cannot be opened or 
penetrated by the power of love. This the fool at heart knows, expressing 
his wisdom quixotically. And what else can the Knight Errant be, who seeks 
assault in order to overcome, if not a herald of love? And he who is 
constantly exposing himself to insult and injury, what is he running away 
from if not the invasion of love?

*

In the literature of utter desolation there is always and only one symbol
(which may be expressed mathematically as well as spiritually) about which 
everything turns: minus love. For life can be lived, and usually is lived, 
on the minus side rather than the plus. Men may strive forever, and 
hopelessly, once they have elected to rule love out. That “high 
unfathomable ache of emptiness into which all creation might be poured and 
still it would be emptiness,” this aching for God, as it has been called, 
what is it if not a description of the soul’s loveless state?

Into something bordering on this condition of being I had now entered, 
fully equipped with rack and wheel. Events piled up of their own accord, 
but alarmingly so. There was something insane about the momentum with which
I now slid downward and backward. What had taken ages to build up was 
demolished in the twinkling of an eye. Everything crumbled to the touch.

To a thought machine it makes little difference whether a problem is 
expressed in minus or plus terms. When a human being takes to the toboggan 
it is virtually the same. Or almost. The machine knows no regret, no 
remorse, no guilt. It shows signs of disturbance only when it has not been 
properly fed. But a human being endowed with the dread mind machine is 
given no quarter. Never, no matter how unbearable the situation, may he 
throw in the sponge. As long as there is a flicker of life left he will 
offer himself as victim to whatever demon chooses to possess him. And if 
there be nothing, no one, to harass, betray, degrade or undermine him, he 
will harass, betray, degrade or undermine himself.

To live in the vacuum of the mind is to live “this side of Paradise.” but
so thoroughly, so completely, that even the rigor of death seems like a St.
Vitus’ Dance. However somber, dreary and stale everyday life may be, never 
does it approach the aching quality of this endless void through which one 
drifts and slithers in full, waking consciousness. In the sober reality of 
every day there is the sun as well as the moon, the blossom as well as the 
dead leaf, sleep as well as wakefulness, dream as well as nightmare. But in
the vacuum of the mind there is only a dead horse running with motionless 
feet, a ghost clasping an unfathomable nothingness.

And so, like a dead horse whose master never tires of flogging him, I 
kept galloping to the farthest corners of the universe and nowhere finding 
peace, comfort or rest. Strange phantoms I encountered in these headlong 
flights! Monstrous were the resemblances we presented, yet never the 
slightest rapport. The thin membrane of skin which separated us served as a
magnetic coat of armor through which the mightiest current was powerless to
operate.

*

If there is one supreme difference between the living and the dead, it is
that the dead have ceased to wonder.

But, like the cows in the field, the dead have endless time to ruminate. 
Standing knee-deep in clover, they continue to ruminate even when the moon 
goes down. For the dead there are universes upon universes to explore. 
Universes of nothing but matter. Matter devoid of substance. Matter through
which the mind machine ploughs as if it were soft snow.

I recall the night I died to wonder. Kronski had come and given me some 
innocent white pills to swallow. I swallowed them and, when he had gone, I 
opened wide the windows, threw off the covers, and lay stark naked. 
Outside, the snow was whirling furiously. The icy wind whistled about the 
four corners of the room as if in a ventilating machine.

Peaceful as a bedbug I slept. Shortly after dawn I opened my eyes, amazed
to discover that I was not in the great beyond. Yet I could hardly say that
I was still among the living. What had died I know not. I know only this, 
that everything which serves to make what is called “one’s life” had faded 
away. All that was left me was the machine… the mind machine. Like the 
soldier who finally gets what he’s been praying for, I was dispatched to 
the rear. “Aux autres de faire la guerre!”

Unfortunately no particular destination had been pinned to my carcass. 
Back, back, I moved, often with the speed of a cannon ball.

Familiar though everything appeared to be, there was never a point of 
entry. When I spoke my voice sounded like a tape played backward. My whole 
being was out of focus.

*

ET HAEC OLIM MEMINISSE IUVABIT

*

I was sufficiently clairvoyant at the time to inscribe this unforgettable
line from the Aeneid on the toilet box which was suspended above Stasia’s 
cot.

Perhaps I have already described the place. No matter. A thousand 
descriptions could never render the reality of this atmosphere in which we 
lived and moved. For here, like the prisoner of Chillon, like the divine 
Marquis, like the mad Strindberg, I lived out my madness. A dead moon which
had ceased struggling to present its true face.

It was usually dark, that is what I remember most. The chill dark of the 
grave. Taking possession during a snowfall, I had the impression that the 
whole world outside our door would remain forever carpeted with a soft 
white felt. The sounds which penetrated to my addled brain were always 
muffled, muffled by the everlasting blanket of snow. It was a Siberia of 
the mind I inhabited, no doubt about it. For companions I had wolves and 
jackals, their piteous howling interrupted only by the tinkling of sleigh 
bells or the rumble of a milk truck destined for the land of motherless 
babes.

Toward the wee hours of the morning I could usually count on the two of 
them appearing arm in arm, fresh as daises, their cheeks glistening with 
frost and the excitement of an eventful day. Between whiles a bill 
collector would appear, rap loud and long, then melt into the snow. Or the 
madman, Osiecki, who always tapped softly at the windowpane. And always the
snow kept falling, sometimes in huge, wet flakes, like melting stars, or in
whirling gusts choked with stinging hypodermic needles.

While waiting I tightened my belt. I had the patience not of a saint nor 
even of a tortoise, but rather the cold, calculating patience of a 
criminal.

Kill time! Kill thought! Kill the pangs of hunger! One long, continuous 
killing… Sublime!

If, peering through the faded curtain, I recognized the silhouette of a 
friend, I might open the door, more to get a breath of fresh air than to 
admit a kindred soul.

The opening dialogue was always the same. I became so accustomed to it 
that I used to play it back to myself when they were gone. Always a Ruy 
Lopez opening. “What are you doing with yourself?”

“Nothing.”

“Working?”

“Met You’re crazy!”

“But what do you do all day?”

“Nothing.”

Followed the inevitable grubbing of a few cigarettes and a bit of loose 
change, then a dash for a cheese cake or a bag of doughnuts. Sometimes I’d 
propose a game of chess.

Soon the cigarettes would give out, then the candles, then the 
conversation.

Alone again, I would be invaded by the most delicious, the most 
extraordinary recollections—of persons, places, conversations. Voices, 
grimaces, gestures, pillars, copings, cornices, meadows, brooks, mountains…
they would sweep over me in waves, always desynchronized, disjected… like 
clots of blood dripping from a clear sky. There they were in extenso, my 
mad bedfellows: the most forlorn, whimsical, bizarre collection any man 
could gather. All displaced, all visitors from weird realms. Uitlanders, 
each and all. Yet how tender and lovable! Like angels temporarily 
ostracized, their wings discreetly concealed beneath their tattered 
dominoes.

*

Often it was in the dark, while rounding a bend, the streets utterly 
deserted, the wind whistling like mad, that I would happen upon one of 
these nobodies. He may have hailed me to ask for a light or to bum a dime. 
How come that instantly we locked arms, instantly we fell into that jargon 
which only derelicts, angels and outcasts employ?

Often it was a simple, straightforward admission on the stranger’s part 
which set the wheels in motion. (Murder, theft, rape, desertion—they were 
dropped like calling cards.) “You understand, I had to… “

“Of course!”

“The ax was lying there, the war was on, the old man always drunk, my 
sister on the bum… Besides, I always wanted to write… You understand?”

“Of course!”

“And then the stars… autumn stars. And strange, new horizons. A world so 
new and yet so old. Walking, hiding, foraging. Seeking, searching, praying…
shedding one skin after another. Every day a new name, a new calling. 
Always fleeing from myself. Understand?”

“Of course!”

“Above the Equator, under the Equator… no rest, no surcease. Never 
nothing nowhere. Worlds so bright, so full, so rich, but linked with 
concrete and barbed wire. Always the next place, and the next. Always the 
hand stretched forth, begging, imploring, beseeching. Deaf, the world. 
Stone deaf. Rifles cracking, cannons booming, and men, women and children 
everywhere lying stiff in their own dark blood. Now and then a flower. A 
violet, perhaps, and a million rotting corpses to fertilize it. You follow 
me?”

“Of course!”

“I went mad, mad, mad.”

“Naturally!”

So he takes the ax, so sharp, so bright, and then he takes to chopping… 
here a head, there an arm or leg, then fingers and toes. Chop, chop, chop. 
Like chopping spinach. And of course they’re looking for him. And when they
find him they’ll run the juice through him. Justice will be served. For 
every million slaughtered like pigs one lone wretched monster is executed 
humanely.

Do I understand? Perfectly.

What is a writer but a fellow criminal, a judge, an executioner? Was I 
not versed in the art of deception since childhood? Am I not riddled with 
traumas and complexes? Have I not been stained with all the guilt and sin 
of the medieval monk?

What more natural, more understandable, more human and forgivable than 
these monstrous rampages of the isolated poet?

As inexplicably as they entered my sphere they left, these nomads.

Wandering the streets on an empty belly puts one on the qui vive. One 
knows instinctively which way to turn, what to look for: one never fails to
recognize a fellow traveler.

When all is lost the soul steps forth…

I referred to them as angels in disguise. So they were, but I usually 
awoke to the fact only after they had departed. Seldom does the angel 
appear trailing clouds of glory. Now and then, however, the drooling 
simpleton one stops to gaze at suddenly fits the door like a key. And the 
door opens.

It was the door called Death which always swung open, and I saw that 
there was no death, nor were there any judges or executioners save in our 
imagining. How desperately I strove then to make restitution! And I did 
make restitution. Full and complete. The rajah stripping himself naked. 
Only an ego left, but an ego puffed and swollen like a hideous toad. And 
then the utter insanity of it would overwhelm me. Nothing can be given or 
taken away; nothing has been added or subtracted; nothing increased or 
diminished. We stand on the same shore before the same mighty ocean. The 
ocean of love. There it is—in perpetuum. As much in a broken blossom, the 
sound of a waterfall, the swoop of a carrion bird as in the thunderous 
artillery of the prophet. We move with eyes shut and ears stopped; we smash
walls where doors are waiting to open to the touch, we grope for ladders, 
forgetting that we have wings; we pray as if God were deaf and blind, as if
He were in a space beyond space. No wonder the angels in our midst are 
unrecognizable. One day it will be pleasant to remember these things.

CHAPTER FOUR

And so, moving about in the dark or standing for hours like a hat rack in
a corner of the room, I fell deeper and deeper into the pit. Hysteria 
became the norm. The snow never melted.

While hatching the most diabolical schemes to drive Stasia really mad, 
and thus do away with her for good, I also dreamed up the most asinine plan
of campaign for a second courtship. In every shop window I passed I saw 
gifts which I wanted to buy her. Women adore gifts, especially costly ones.
They also love little nothings, dependent on their moods. Between a pair of
antique earrings, very expensive, and a large black candle, I could spend 
the whole livelong day debating which to get her. Never would I admit to 
myself that the expensive object was out of reach. No, were I able to 
convince myself that the earrings would please her more, I could also 
convince myself that I could find the way to purchase them. I could 
convince myself of this, I say, because in the bottom of my heart I knew I 
would never decide on either. It was a pastime. True, I might better have 
passed the time debating higher issues, whether, for example, the soul was 
corruptible or incorruptible, but to the mind-machine one problem is as 
good as another. In this same spirit I could work up the urge to walk five 
or ten miles in order to borrow a dollar, and feel just as triumphant if I 
succeeded in scrounging a dime or even a nickel. What I might have hoped to
do with a dollar was unimportant; it was the effort I was still capable of 
making which counted. It meant, in my deteriorated view of things, that I 
still had one foot in the world.

Yes, it was truly important to remind myself of such things occasionally 
and not carry on like the Akond of Swot. It was also good to give them a 
jolt once in a while, to say when they came home at three A.M. 
empty-handed: “Don’t let it bother you, I’ll go buy myself a sandwich.” 
Sometimes, to be sure, I ate only an imaginary sandwich. But it did me good
to let them think that I was not altogether without resources. Once or 
twice I actually convinced them that I had eaten a steak. I did it to rile 
them, of course. (What business had I to eat a steak when they had passed 
hours away sitting in a cafeteria waiting for some one to offer them a 
bite?) Occasionally I would greet them thus: “So you did manage to get 
something to eat?”

The question always seemed to disconcert them.

“I thought you were starving,” I would say.

Whereupon they would inform me that they were not interested in starving.
There was no reason for me to starve either, they were sure to add. I did 
it only to torment them.

If they were in a jovial mood they would enlarge on the subject. What new
deviltry was I planning? Had I seen Kronski lately? And then the smoke 
screen talk would begin–about their new-found friends, the dives they had 
discovered, the side trips to Harlem, the studio Stasia was going to rent, 
and so on and so forth. Oh yes, and they had forgotten to tell me about 
Barley, Stasia’s poet friend, whom they had run across the other night. He 
was going to drop in some afternoon. Wanted to meet me.

One evening Stasia took to reminiscing. Truthful reminiscences, as far as
I could gather. About the trees she used to rub herself against in the 
moonlight, about the perverted millionaire who fell in love with her 
because of her hairy legs, about the Russian girl who tried to make love to
her but whom she repulsed because she was too crude. Besides, she was then 
having an affair with a married woman and, to throw dust in the husband’s 
eyes, she used to let him fuck her… not that she enjoyed it but because the
wife, whom she loved, thought it was the thing to do.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you all these things,” she said. “Unless… ”
Suddenly she remembered why. It was because of Barley. Barley was an odd 
sort. What the attraction was between them she couldn’t understand. He was 
always pretending he wanted to lay her, but nothing ever happened. Anyhow, 
he was a very good poet, that she was sure of. Now and then, she said, she 
would compose a poem in his presence. Then she supplied a curious 
commentary: “I could go on writing while he masturbated me.”

Titters.

“What do you think of that?”

“Sounds like a page out of Krafft-Ebing.” I volunteered.

A long discussion now ensued regarding the relative merits of 
Krafft-Ebing, Freud, Forel, Stekel, Weininger et alia, ending with Stasia’s
remark that they were all old hat.

“You know what I’m going to do for you?” she exclaimed. “I’m going to let
your friend Kronski examine me.”

“How do you mean—examine you?”

“Explore my anatomy.”

“I thought you meant your head.”

“He can do that too,” she said, cool as a cucumber.

“And if he finds nothing wrong with you, you’re just polymorph perverse, 
is that it?”

The expression, borrowed from Freud, tickled them no end. Stasia liked it
so much, indeed, that she swore she would write a poem by that title.

True to her word, Kronski was summoned to come and make due examination. 
He arrived in good humor, rubbing his hands and cracking his knuckles.

“What’s it this time, Mister Miller? Any vaseline handy? A tight job, if 
I know my business. Not a bad idea, though. At least we’ll know if she’s a 
hermaphrodite or not. Maybe we’ll discover a rudimentary tail… ” Stasia had
already removed her blouse and was displaying her lovely coral-tipped 
breasts.

“Nothing wrong with them,” said Kronski, cupping them. “Now off with your
pants!”

At this she balked. “Not here!” she cried.

“Wherever you like,” said Kronski. “How about the toilet?”

‘Why don’t you conduct your examination in her room?” said Mona. “This 
isn’t an exhibition performance.”

“Oh no?” said Kronski, giving them a dirty leer. “I thought that was the 
idea.”

He went to the next room to fetch his black bag.

“To make it more official I brought my instruments along.”

“You’re not going to hurt her?” cried Mona.

“Not unless she resists,” he replied. “Did you find the vaseline? If you 
haven’t any, olive oil will do… or butter.”

Stasia made a wry face. “Is all that necessary?” she demanded.

“It’s up to you,” said Kronski. “Depends on how touchy you are. If you 
lie still and behave yourself there’ll be no difficulty. If it feels good I
may stick something else in.”

“Oh, no you don’t!” cried Mona.

“What’s the matter, are you jealous?”

“We invited you here as a doctor. This isn’t a bordel.”

“You’d be better off if it were a fancy house,” said Kronski sneeringly. 
“She would, at least… Come on, let’s get it over with!”

With this he took Stasia by the hand and led her into the little room 
next to the toilet. Mona wanted to go along, to be certain that no harm 
came to Stasia. But Kronski wouldn’t hear of it.

“This is a professional visit,” he said. He rubbed his hands gleefully. 
“As for you, Mister Miller,” and he gave me a knowing look, “if I were you 
I’d take a little walk.”

“No, stay!” begged Mona. “I don’t trust him.”

So we remained, Mona and I, pacing up and down the long room with never a
word exchanged.

Five minutes passed, then ten. Suddenly from the adjoining room there 
came a piercing scream. “Help! Help! He’s raping me!”

We burst into the room. Sure enough, there was Kronski with his pants 
down, his face red as a beet. Trying to mount her. Like a tigress, Mona 
pounced on him and pulled him off the bed. Then Stasia bounded out of bed 
and threw herself on him, straddling him. With all her might she clawed and
pummeled him. The poor devil was so bewildered by the onslaught that he was
scarcely able to defend himself. If I hadn’t intervened they would have 
scratched his eyes out.

“You bastard!” screamed Stasia.

“Sadist!” screamed Mona.

They made such a din I thought the landlady would be down with a cleaver.

Staggering to his feet, his pants still down around his ankles, Kronski 
finally managed to splutter: “What’s all the fuss about? She’s normal, just
as I thought.

In fact, she’s too normal. That’s what got me excited. What’s wrong with 
that?”

“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?” I chimed in, looking from one to the 
other.

“Shoo him out of here!” they yelled.

“Easy now! Take it easy!” said Kronski, putting a little soothing syrup 
into his voice. “You asked me to examine her, and you knew as well as I 
that there’s nothing wrong with her physically. It’s her belfry that needs 
looking into, not her private parts. I can do that too, but it takes time. 
And what would you have me prove? Answer that, if you can! Do you want to 
know something? I could have the three of you locked up.” He snapped his 
fingers in our faces. “Like that!” he Said, snapping his fingers again. 
“For what? Moral turpitude, that’s what. You wouldn’t have a leg to stand 
on, none of you.”

He paused a full moment to let this sink in.

“I’m not mean enough, however, to do a thing like that. I’m too good a 
friend, aren’t I, Mister Miller? But don’t try to throw me out for doing 
you a good turn.”

Stasia was standing there stark naked, her pants slung over her arm. 
Finally she became self-conscious and started slipping into her trousers. 
In doing so she slipped and fell. Mona immediately rushed to her aid, only 
to be vigorously pushed aside.

“Leave me alone!” cried Stasia. “I can help myself. I’m not a child.” So 
saying, she picked herself up. She stood upright a moment, then bending her
head forward, she looked at herself, at the very center of her anatomy. 
With that she burst into a laugh, a demented sort of laugh.

“So I’m normal,” she said, laughing still harder. “What a joke! Normal, 
because there’s a hole here big enough to stick something into. Here, give 
me a candle! I’ll show you how normal I am.”

With this she began making the most obscene gestures, contorting her 
pelvis, writhing as if in the throes of an orgasm.

“A candle!” she screamed. “Get a big, fat black one! I’ll show you how 
normal I am!”

“Please, Stasia, stop it, I beg you!” cried Mona.

“Yes, cut it!” said Kronski sternly. “You don’t need to give us an 
exhibition.”

The word exhibition seemed only to incense her more.

‘“This is my exhibition,” she screamed. “And it’s gratis this time. 
Usually I get paid for making an ass of myself, don’t I?” She turned on 
Mona. “Don’t If” she hissed. “Or haven’t you told them how we raise the 
rent money?”

“Please, Stasia, please!” begged Mona. She had tears in her eyes.

But nothing could halt Stasia now. Grabbing a candle from the bureau top,
she stuck it up her crotch, and as she did so she rolled her pelvis 
frantically.

“Isn’t that worth fifty dollars?” she cried. “What’s-his-name would pay 
even more, but then I would have to let him suck me off, and I don’t like 
being sucked off. Not by a pervert, anyway.”

“Stop it! Stop it, or I’ll run away!” From Mona.

She quieted down. The candle fell to the floor. A new expression now came
over her countenance. As she slipped into her blouse she said very quietly,
addressing her words to me: “You see, Val, if any one must be injured or 
humiliated, it’s me, not your dear wife. I have no moral sense. I have only
love. If money is needed, I’m always ready to put on an act. Since I’m 
crazy, it doesn’t matter.” She paused, then turned to the dresser in the 
other corner of the room. Opening a drawer, she pulled out an envelope. 
“See this?” she said, waving the envelope in the air. “There’s a check in 
this sent by my guardians. Enough to pay next month’s rent. But”–and she 
calmly proceeded to tear the envelope to bits—“we don’t want that kind of 
money, do we? We know how to make our own way… giving exhibitions… 
pretending that we’re Lesbians… pretending that we’re make-believe 
Lesbians. Pretending, pretending… I’m sick of it. Why don’t we pretend that
we’re just human beings?”

It was Kronski who now spoke up.

“Of course you’re a human being, and a most unusual one. Somewhere along 
the line you got bitched up—how, I don’t know. What’s more, I don’t want to
know. If I thought you would listen to me I’d urge you to get out of here, 
leave these two.” He threw a contemptuous look at Mona and myself. “Yes, 
leave them to solve their own problems. They don’t need you, and you 
certainly don’t need them. You don’t belong in a place like New York. 
Frankly, you don’t fit anywhere… But what I want to say is this… I came 
here as a friend. As for these two, they don’t know the meaning of the 
word. Of the three you’re probably the healthiest. And you have genius as 
well… ” I thought he would continue indefinitely. Suddenly, however, he 
recalled aloud that he had an urgent visit to make and made an abrupt 
departure.

Later that evening—they had decided not to go out—a curious thing 
happened. It was just after dinner, in the midst of a pleasant 
conversation. The cigarettes had given out, and Mona had asked me to look 
in her bag. Usually there was a stray one to be found in the bottom of the 
bag. I rose, went to the dresser where the bag lay and, as I opened the 
bag, I noticed an envelope addressed to Mona in Stasia’s hand. In a second 
Mona was at my side. If she hadn’t shown such panic I might have ignored 
the presence of the envelope. Unable to restrain herself, she made a grab 
for the envelope. I snatched it out of her hand.

She made another grab for it and a tussle ensued in which the envelope, 
now torn, fell to the floor. Stasia fastened on it, then handed it back to 
Mona.

“Why all the fuss?” I said, unconsciously repeating Kronski’s words.

The two of them replied at once: “It’s none of your business.”

I said nothing more. But my curiosity was thoroughly aroused. I had a 
hunch the letter would turn up again. Better to pretend complete lack of 
interest.

Later that same evening, on going to the toilet, I discovered bits of the
envelope floating in the bowl. I chuckled. What a flimsy way of telling me 
that the letter had been destroyed! I wasn’t being taken in that easily. 
Fishing the pieces of envelope out of the bowl I examined them carefully. 
No part of the letter adhered to any of the pieces. I was certain now that 
the letter itself had been preserved, that it had been stashed away 
somewhere, some place I would never think to look.

A few days later I picked up a curious piece of information. It fell out 
during the course of a heated argument between the two of them. They were 
in Stasia’s little room, where they usually repaired to discuss secret 
affairs. Unaware of my presence in the house, or perhaps too excited to 
keep their voices down, words were bandied about that should never have 
reached my ears.

Mona was raising hell with Stasia, I gathered, because the latter had 
been throwing her money around like a fool. What money? I wondered. Had she
come into a fortune? What made Mona furious, apparently, was that Stasia 
had given some worthless idiot—I couldn’t catch the name—a thousand 
dollars. She was urging her to make some effort to recover part of the 
money at least. And Stasia kept repeating that she wouldn’t think of it, 
that she didn’t care what the fool did with her money.

Then I heard Mona say: “If you don’t watch out you’ll be waylaid some 
night.”

And Stasia innocently: “They’ll be out of luck. I don’t have any more.”

“You don’t have any more?”

“Of course not! Not a red cent.”

“You’re mad!”

“I know I am. But what’s money good for if not to throw away?”

I had heard enough. I decided to take a walk. When I returned Mona was 
not there.

“Where did she go?” I asked, not alarmed but curious.

For reply I received a grunt.

“Was she angry?”

Another grunt, followed by—“I suppose so. Don’t worry, she’ll be back.”

Her manner indicated that she was secretly pleased. Ordinarily she would 
have been upset, or else gone in search of Mona.

“Can I make you some coffee?” she asked. It was the first time she had 
ever made such a suggestion.

“Why not?” said I, affable as could be.

I sat down at the table, facing her. She had decided to drink her coffee 
standing up.

“A strange woman, isn’t she?” said Stasia, skipping all preliminaries. 
“What do you really know about her? Have you ever met her brothers or her 
mother or her sister? She claims her sister is far more beautiful than she 
is. Do you believe that? But she hates her. Why? She tells you so much, 
then leaves you dangling. Everything has to be turned into a mystery, have 
you noticed?”

She paused a moment to sip her coffee.

“We have a lot to talk about, if we ever get the chance. Maybe between us
we could piece things together.”

I was just about to remark that it was useless even to try when she 
resumed her monologue.

“You’ve seen her on the stage, I suppose?”

I nodded.

“Know why I ask? Because she doesn’t strike me as an actress. Nor a 
writer either. Nothing fits with anything. Everything’s part of a huge 
fabrication, herself included. The only thing that’s real about her is her 
make believe. And—her love for you.”

The last gave me a jolt. “You really believe that, do you?”

“Believe it?” she echoed. “If she didn’t have you, there would be no 
reason for her to exist. You’re her life… “

“And you? Where do you fit in?”

She gave me a weird smile. “Me? I’m just another piece of the unreality 
she creates around her. Or a mirror, perhaps, in which she catches a 
glimpse of her true self now and then. Distorted, of course.” Then, veering
to more familiar ground, she said: “Why don’t you make her stop this 
gold-digging? There’s no need for it. Besides, it’s disgusting the way she 
goes at it. What makes her do it I don’t know. It’s not money she’s after. 
Money is only the pretext for something else. It’s as though she digs at 
some one just to awaken interest in herself. And the moment one shows a 
sign of real interest she humiliates him. Even poor Ricardo had to be 
tortured; she had him squirming like an eel… We’ve got to do something, you
and I. This has to stop.”

“If you were to take a job,” she continued, “she wouldn’t have to go to 
that horrible place every night and listen to all those filthy-mouthed 
creatures who fawn on her. What’s stopping you? Are you afraid she would be
unhappy leading a humdrum existence? Or perhaps you think I’m the one who’s
leading her astray? Do you? Do you think I like this sort of life? No 
matter what you think of me, you must surely realize that I have nothing to
do with all this.”

She stopped dead.

“Why don’t you speak. Say something!”

Just as I was about to open my trap in walks Mona—with a bunch of 
violets. A peace offering.

Soon the atmosphere became so peaceful, so harmonious, that they were 
almost beside themselves. Mona got out her mending and Stasia her paint 
box. I took it all in as if it were happening on the stage.

In less than no time Stasia had made a recognizable portrait of me—on the
wall which I was facing. It was me in the image of a Chinese mandarin, 
garbed in a Chinese blue jacket, which emphasized the austere, sage-like 
expression I had evidently assumed.

Mona thought it ravishing. She also commended me in a motherly way for 
sitting so still and for being so sweet to Stasia. She had always known we 
would one day get to know one another, become firm friends. And so on.

She was so happy that in her excitement she inadvertently spilled the 
contents of her purse on the table—looking for a cigarette—and out fell the
letter. To her astonishment I picked it up and handed it to her, without 
the slightest attempt to scan a line or two.

“Why don’t you let him read it?” said Stasia.

“I will,” she said, “but not now. I don’t want to spoil this moment.”

Said Stasia: “There’s nothing in it to be ashamed of.”

“I know that,” said Mona.

“Forget about it,” said I. “I’m no longer curious.”

“You’re wonderful, the two of you! How could any one help loving you? I 
love you both, dearly.”

To this outburst Stasia, now in a slightly Satanic mood, replied: “Tell 
us, whom do you love more?”

Without the slightest hesitation came the reply. “I couldn’t possibly 
love either of you more. I love you both. My love for one has nothing to do
with my love for the other. The more I love you, Val, the more I love 
Stasia.”

“There’s an answer for you,” said Stasia, picking up her brush to resume 
work on the portrait.

There was silence for a few moments, then Mona spoke up. “What on earth 
were you two talking about while I was gone?”

“About you, of course,” said Stasia. “Weren’t we, Val?”

“Yes, we were saying what a wonderful creature you are. Only we couldn’t 
understand why you try to keep things from us.”

She bristled immediately. “What things? What do you mean?”

“Let’s not go into it now,” said Stasia, plying the brush.

“But soon we ought to sit down, the three of us, and get things straight,
don’t you think?” With this she turned around and looked Mona full in the 
face.

“I have no objection,” was Mona’s cold response.

“See, she’s peeved,” said Stasia.

“She doesn’t understand,” said I.

Again a flare-up. “What don’t I understand? What is this? What are you 
driving at, the two of you?”

“We really didn’t have much to say while you were gone,” I put in. “We 
were talking about truth and truthfulness mostly… Stasia, as you know, is a
very truthful person.”

A faint smile spread over Mona’s lips. She was about to say something, 
but I cut in.

“It’s nothing to worry about. We’re not going to put you through a 
cross-examination.”

“We only want to see how honest you can be,” said Stasia.

“You talk as if I were playing a game with you.”

“Exactly,” said Stasia.

“So that’s it! I leave the two of you alone for a few minutes and you rip
me up the back. What have I done to deserve such treatment?”

At this point I lost track of the conversation. All I could think of was 
that last remark—what have I done to deserve such treatment? It was my 
mother’s favorite phrase when in distress. Usually she accompanied it with 
a backward tilt of the head, as if addressing her words to the Almighty. 
The first time I heard it—I was only a child—it filled me with terror and 
disgust. It was the tone of voice more than the words which roused my 
resentment. Such self-righteousness! Such self-pity! As if God had singled 
her out, her, a model of a creature, for wanton punishment.

Hearing it now, from Mona’s lips, I felt as if the ground had opened 
beneath my feet. “Then you are guilty,” I said to myself. Guilty of what I 
made no effort to define. Guilty, that was all.

*

Now and then Barley dropped in of a afternoon, closeted himself with 
Stasia in her little room, laid a few eggs (poems), then fled 
precipitously. Each time he called, strange sounds emanated from the hall 
bedroom. Animal cries, in which fear and ecstasy were combined. As if we 
had been visited by a stray alley cat.

Once Ulric called, but found the atmosphere so depressing I knew he would
never repeat the visit. He spoke as if I were going through another 
“phase”. His attitude was—when you emerge from the tunnel, look me up! He 
was too discreet to make any comment on Stasia. All he dropped was: “A rum 
one, that!”

To further the courtship I decided one day to get thickets for the 
theater. It was agreed that we would meet outside the theater. The evening 
came. I waited patiently a half-hour after the curtain had risen, but no 
Mona. Like a schoolboy, I had bought a bunch of violets to present her. 
Catching a reflection of myself in a shop window, the violets in my mitt, I
suddenly felt so foolish that I dropped the violets and walked away. 
Nearing the corner, I turned around just in time to catch sight of a young 
girl in the act of recovering the violets. She raised them to her nostrils,
took a deep whiff, then threw them away.

On reaching the house I noticed that the lights were on full blast. I 
stood outside a few minutes, bewildered by the burst of song from within. 
For a moment I wondered if there were visitors. But no, it was just the two
of them. They were certainly in high spirits.

The song which they were singing at the top of their lungs was—“Let Me 
Call You Sweetheart.”

“Let’s sing it again!” said I, as I walked in.

And we did, all three of us.

“Let me call you sweetheart, I’m in love with you… ” Again we sang it, 
and again. The third time around I put up my hand.

“Where were you?” I bawled.

“Where was I?” said Mona. “Why, right here.”

“And our date?”

“I didn’t think you were serious.”

“You didn’t?” With that I gave her a sound slap in the puss. A real 
clout.

“Next time, my lady, I’ll drag you there by the tail.”

I sat down at the gut table and took a good look at them. My anger fell 
away.

“I didn’t mean to hit you so hard,” said I, removing my hat. “You’re 
unusually gay this evening. What’s happened?”

They took me by the arm and escorted me to the rear of the place, where 
the laundry tubs used to stand.

“That’s what,” said Mona, pointing to a pile of groceries. “I had to be 
here when they arrived. There was no way to let you know in time. That’s 
why I didn’t meet you.”

She dove into the pile and extracted a bottle of Benedictine. Stasia had 
already selected some black caviar and biscuits.

I didn’t bother to ask how they had come by the loot. That would leak out
of itself, later.

“Isn’t there any wine?” I asked.

Wine? Of course there was. What would I like—Bordeaux, Rhine wine, 
Moselle, Chianti, Burgundy… ?

We opened a bottle of Rhine wine, a jar of lachs, and a tin of English 
biscuits—the finest. Resumed our places around the gut table.

“Stasia’s pregnant,” said Mona. Like she might have said—“Stasia’s got a 
new dress.”

“Is that what you were celebrating?”

“Of course not.”

I turned to Stasia. “Tell us about it,” I said, “I’m all ears.”

She turned red and looked helplessly at Mona. “Let her tell you,” she 
said.

I turned to Mona. ‘Well?”

“It’s a long story, Val, but I’ll make it short. She was attacked by a 
bunch of gangsters in the Village. They raped her.”

“They? How many?”

“Four,” said Mona. “Do you remember the night we didn’t come home? That 
was the night.”

“Then you don’t know who the father is?”

“The father?” they echoed. ‘We’re not worrying about the father.”

“I’d be glad to take care of the brat,” said I. “All I need to learn is 
how to produce milk.”

“We’ve spoken to Kronski,” said Mona. “He’s promised to take care of 
things. But first he wants to examine her.”

“Again?”

“He’s got to be certain.”

“Are you certain?”

“Stasia is. She’s stopped menstruating.”

“That means nothing,” said I. “You’ve got to have better evidence than 
that.”

Stasia now spoke up. “My breasts are getting heavy.” She unbuttoned her 
blouse and took one out. “See!” She squeezed it gently. A drop or two of 
what looked like yellow pus appeared. “That’s milk,” she said.

“How do you know?”

“I-tasted it.”

I asked Mona to squeeze her breasts and see what would happen, but she 
refused. Said it was embarrassing.

“Embarrassing? You sit with your legs crossed and show us everything 
you’ve got, but you won’t take your boobies out. That’s not embarrassing, 
that’s perverse.”

Stasia burst out laughing. “It’s true,” she said. “What’s wrong with 
showing us your breasts?”

“You’re the one who’s pregnant, not I,” said Mona. “When is Kronski 
coming?”

“Tomorrow.”

I poured myself another glass of wine and raised it on high. “To the 
unborn!” I said. Then lowering my voice, I inquired if they had notified 
the police.

They ignored this. As if to tell me the subject was closed, they 
announced that they were planning to go to the theater shortly. They’d be 
glad to have me come along, if I wished.

“To see what?” I asked.

“The Captive,” said Stasia. “It’s a French play. Everybody’s talking 
about it.”

During the conversation Stasia had been trying to cut her toenails. She 
was so awkward that I begged her to let me do it for her. When I had 
finished the job I suggested that she let me comb her hair. She was 
delighted.

As I combed her hair she read aloud from The Drunken Boat. Since I had 
listened with evident pleasure she jumped up and went to her room to fetch 
a biography of Rimbaud. It was Carry’s Season in Hell. Had events not 
conspired to thwart it, I would have become a devotee of Rimbaud then and 
there.

It wasn’t often, I must say, that we passed an evening together in this 
manner, or ended it on such a good note.

With Kronski’s arrival next day and the results of the examination 
negative, things commenced to go awry in earnest. Sometimes I had to vacate
the premises while they entertained a very special friend, usually a 
benefactor who brought a supply of groceries or who left a check on the 
table. Conversing before me they often indulged in double talk, or 
exchanged notes which they wrote before my eyes. Or they would lock 
themselves in Stasia’s room and there keep up a whispered conversation for 
an ungodly while. Even the poems Stasia wrote were becoming more and more 
unintelligible. At least, those she deigned to show me. Rimbaud’s 
influence, she said. Or the toilet-box, which never ceased gurgling.

By way of relief there were occasional visits from Osiecki, who had 
discovered a nice speak-easy, over a funeral parlor, a few blocks away. I’d
have a few beers with him—until he got glassy-eyed and started scratching 
himself. Sometimes I’d take it into my head to go to Hoboken and, while 
wandering about forlornly, I’d try to convince myself that it was an 
interesting burg. Weehawken was another God-forsaken place I’d go to 
occasionally, usually to see a burlesque show. Anything to escape the loony
atmosphere of the basement, the continual chanting of love songs—they had 
taken to singing in Russian, German, even Yiddish!—the mysterious confabs 
in Stasia’s rooms, the barefaced lies, the dreary talk of drugs, the 
wrestling matches…

-Yes, now and then they would stage a wrestling match for my benefit. 
Were they wrestling matches? Hard to tell. Sometimes, just to vary the 
monotony, I would borrow brush and paints and do a caricature of Stasia.

Always on the walls. She would answer in kind. One day I painted a skull 
and crossbones on her door. The next day I found a carving knife hanging 
over the skull and bones.

One day she produced a pearl-handled revolver. “Just in case,” she said.

They were accusing me now of sneaking into her room and going through her
things.

*

One evening, wandering by my lonesome through the Polish section of 
Manhattan, I stumbled into a pool-room where, to my great surprise, I found
Curley and a friend of his shooting pool. He was a strange youngster, this 
friend, and only recently released from prison. Highly excitable and full 
of imagination. They insisted on returning to the house with me and having 
a gab fest.

In the subway I gave Curley an earful about Stasia. He reacted as if the 
situation were thoroughly familiar to him.

“Something’s got to be done,” he remarked laconically.

His friend seemed to be of the same mind.

They jumped when I turned on the lights.

“She must be crazy!” said Curley.

His friend pretended to be frightened by the paintings. He couldn’t take 
his eyes off them.

“I’ve seen them before,” he said, meaning in the booby hatch.

“Where does she sleep?” said Curley.

I showed them her room. It was in a state of complete disorder—books, 
towels, panties, pieces of bread scattered over the bed and on the floor.

“Nuts! Plain nuts!” said Curley’s friend.

Curley meanwhile had begun to poke around. He busied himself opening one 
drawer after another, pulling the contents out, then shoving them back in.

“What is it you’re looking for?” I asked.

He looked at me and grinned. “You never know,” he said.

Presently he fixed his eyes on the big trunk in the corner under the 
toilet box.

“What’s in there?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Let’s find out,” he said. He unfastened the hasps, but the lid was 
locked. Turning to his friend, he said: “Where’s that gimmick of yours? Get
busy! I’ve got a hunch we’re going to find something interesting.”

In a moment his friend had pried open the lock. With a jerk they threw 
back the lid of the trunk. The first object that greeted our eyes was a 
little iron casket, a jewelry box, no doubt. It wouldn’t open. The friend 
again produced his gimmick. It was the work of a moment to unlock the 
casket.

Amidst a heap of billets-doux—from friends unknown—we discovered the note
which had supposedly been flushed down the toilet. It was in Mona’s 
handwriting, sure enough. It began thus: “Desperate, my lover… “

“Hold on to it,” said Curley, “you may need it later on.” He began 
stuffing the other letters back into the casket. Then he turned to his 
friend and advised him to make the lock look as it should. “See that the 
trunk lock works right too,” he added. “They mustn’t suspect anything.”

Then, like a pair of stage hands, they proceeded to restore the room to 
its original state of disorder, even down to the distribution of the bread 
crumbs. They argued a few minutes as to whether a certain book had been 
lying on the floor open or unopened. As we were leaving the room, the young
man insisted that the door had been ajar, not closed.

“Fuck it!” said Curley. “They wouldn’t remember that.”

Intrigued by this observation, I said: “What makes you so sure?”

“It’s just a hunch,” he replied. “You wouldn’t remember, would you, 
unless you had a reason for leaving the door partly open. What reason could
she have had? None. It’s simple.”

“It’s too simple,” I said. “One remembers trivial things without reason 
sometimes.”

His answer was that any one who lived in a state of filth and disorder 
couldn’t possibly have a good memory. “Take a thief,” he said, “he knows 
what he’s doing, even when he makes a mistake. He keeps track of things. He
has to or he’d be shit out of luck. Ask this guy!”

“He’s right,” said his friend. “The mistake I made was in being too 
careful.” He wanted to tell me his story, but I urged them to go. “Save it 
for next time,” I said.

Sailing into the street, Curley turned to inform me that I could count on
his aid any time. “We’ll fix her,” he said.

CHAPTER FIVE

It was getting to be like sequences in a coke dream, what with the 
reading of entrails, the unraveling of lies, the bouts with Osiecki, the 
solo ramblings along the waterfront at night, the encounters with the 
“masters” at the public library, the wall paintings, the dialogues in the 
dark with my other self, and so on. Nothing could surprise me any more, not
even the arrival of an ambulance. Some one, Curley most likely, had thought
up that idea to rid me of Stasia. Fortunately I was alone when the 
ambulance pulled up. There was no crazy person at this address, I informed 
the driver. He seemed disappointed. Some one had telephoned to come and get
her. A mistake, I said.

Now and then the two Dutch sisters who owned the building would drop in 
to see if all was well. Never stayed but a minute or two. I never saw them 
except unkempt and bedraggled. The one sister wore blue stockings and the 
other pink and white striped stockings. The stripes ran spirally, like on a
barber’s pole.

But about “The Captive”… I went to see the play on my own, without 
letting them know. A week later they went to see it, returning with violets
and full of song. This time it was—“Just a Kiss in the Dark.”

Then one evening—how did it ever happen?—the three of us went to eat in a
Greek restaurant. There they spilled the beans, about “The Captive,” what a
wonderful play it was and how I ought to see it some time, maybe it would 
enlarge my ideas. “But I have seen it!” I said. “I saw it a week ago.” 
Whereupon a discussion began as to the merits of the play, capped by a 
battle royal because I failed to see eye to eye with them, because I 
interpreted everything in a prosaic, vulgar way. In the midst of the 
argument I produced the letter filched from the little casket. Far from 
being crestfallen or humiliated, they sailed into me with such venom, 
raised such a howl and stink, that soon the whole restaurant was in an 
uproar and we were asked, none too politely, to leave.

As if to make amends, the following day Mona suggested that I take her 
out some night, without Stasia. I demurred at first but she kept insisting.
I thought probably she had a reason of her own, one which would be 
disclosed at the proper time, and so I agreed. We were to do it the night 
after next.

The evening came but, just as we were about to leave, she grew 
irresolute. True, I had been ragging her about her appearance—the lip 
rouge, the green eyelids, the white powdered cheeks, the cape that trailed 
the ground, the skirt that came just to her knees, and above all, the 
puppet, that leering, degenerate-looking Count Bruga, which she was hugging
to her bosom and which she meant to take along.

“No,” I said, “not that, by God!”

“Why?”

“Because… goddamn it, no!”

She handed the Count to Stasia, removed her cape, and sat down to think 
it over. Experience told me that that was the end of our evening. To my 
surprise, however, Stasia now came over, put both arms around us—just like 
a great big sister—and begged us not to quarrel. “Go!” she said. “Go and 
enjoy yourselves! I’ll clean house while you’re gone.” She fairly pushed us
out, and as we marched off she kept shouting—“Have a good time! Enjoy 
yourselves!”

It was a lame start but we had decided to go through with it. As we 
hastened our steps—why? where were we rushing?—I felt as if I would 
explode. But I couldn’t get a word out, I was tongue-tied. Here we were, 
rushing along arm in arm “to enjoy ourselves,” but nothing definite had 
been planned. Were we just taking the air?

Presently I realized that we were headed for the subway. We entered, 
waited for a train, got in, sat down. Not a word as yet had passed between 
us. At Times Square we rose, like robots tuned to the same wave length, and
tripped up the stairs. Broadway. Same old Broadway, same old neon hell’s 
afire. Instinctively we headed north. People stopped in their tracks to 
stare at us. We pretended not to notice.

Finally we arrived in front of Chin Lee’s. “Shall we go up?” she asked. I
nodded. She walks straight to the booth we had occupied that first night—a 
thousand years ago.

The moment the food is served her tongue loosens. Everything floods back:
the food we ate, the way we faced each other, the airs we listened to, the 
things we said to one another… Not a detail overlooked.

As one recollection followed another we grew more and more sentimental. 
“Falling in love again… never wanted to… what am I to do…?” It was as if 
nothing had happened in between—no Stasia, no cellar life, no 
misunderstandings. Just we two, a pair of shoulder birds, with life 
everlasting.

A full dress rehearsal, that’s what it was. Tomorrow we would play our 
parts—to a packed house.

Were I asked which was the true reality, this dream of love, this 
lullaby, or the copper-plated drama which inspired it, I would have 
said—“This. This is it!”

Dream and reality—are they not interchangeable?

Beyond ourselves, we gave our tongues free rein, looked at one another 
with new eyes, more hungry, greedy eyes than ever before, believing, 
promising, as if it were our last hour on earth. We had found one another 
at last, we understood one another, and we would love one another forever 
and ever.

Still dewy, still reeling from the fumes of bliss, we left arm in arm and
started wandering through the streets. No one stopped to look at us.

In a Brazilian coffee house we sat down again and resumed the duologue. 
Here the current showed signs of fluctuating. Now came halting admissions 
tinged with guilt and remorse. All that she had done, and she had done 
worse things than I imagined, had been done through fear of losing my love.
Simpleton that I was, I insisted that she was exaggerating, I begged her to
forget the past, declared it was of no importance whether true or false, 
real or imagined. I swore that there could never be any one but her.

The table at which we were seated was shaped like a heart. It was to this
onyx heart that we addressed our vows of everlasting fealty.

Finally I could stand no more of it. I had heard too much. “Let’s go,” I 
begged.

We rolled home in a cab, too exhausted to exchange another word.

We walked in on a scene transformed. Everything was in order, polished, 
gleaming. The table was laid for three. In the very center of the table 
stood a huge vase from which an enormous bouquet of violets sprouted.

All would have been perfect had it not been for the violets. Their 
presence seemed to outweigh all the words which had passed between us. 
Eloquent and irrefutable was their silent language. Without so much as 
parting their lips they made it clear to us that love is something which 
must be shared. “Love me as I love you.” That was the message.

Christmas was drawing nigh and, in deference to the spirit of the season,
they decided to invite Ricardo for a visit. He had been begging permission 
for this privilege for months; how they had managed to put off such a 
persistent suitor so long was beyond me.

Since they had often mentioned my name to Ricardo—I was their eccentric 
writer friend, perhaps a genius! r—it was arranged that I should pop in 
soon after he arrived. There was a double purpose in this strategy, but the
principal idea was to make sure that Ricardo left when I left.

I arrived to find Ricardo mending a skirt. The atmosphere was that of a 
Vermeer. Or a Saturday Evening Post cover depicting the activity of the 
Ladies’ Home Auxiliary.

I liked Ricardo immediately. He was all they said of him plus something 
beyond reach of their antennae. We began talking at once as if we had been 
friends all our lives. Or brothers. They had said he was Cuban, but I soon 
discovered that he was a Catalonian who had emigrated to Cuba as a young 
man. Like others of his race, he was grave, almost somber, in appearance. 
But the moment he smiled one detected the childlike heart. His thick 
guttural accent made his words thrum. Physically he bore a strong 
resemblance to Casals. He was profoundly serious, but not deadly serious, 
as they had given me to believe.

Observing him bent over his sewing, I recalled the speech Mona had once 
made about him. Particularly those words he had spoken so quietly: “I will 
kill you one day.”

He was indeed a man capable of doing such a thing. Strangely enough, my 
feeling was that anything Ricardo might decide to do would be entirely 
justifiable.

To kill, in his case, could not be called a crime; it would be an act of 
justice. The man was incapable of doing an impure thing. He was a man of 
heart, all heart, indeed.

At intervals he sipped the tea which they had poured for him. Had it been
firewater he would have sipped it in the same calm, tranquil way, I 
thought. It was a ritual he was observing. Even his way of talking gave the
impression of being part of a ritual. In Spain he had been a musician and a
poet; in Cuba he had become a cobbler. Here he was nobody. However, to be a
nobody suited him perfectly. He was nobody and everybody. Nothing to prove,
nothing to achieve. Fully accomplished, like a rock.

Homely as sin he was, but from every pore of his being there radiated 
only kindness, mercy and forbearance. And this was the man for whom they 
imagined they were doing a great favor! How little they suspected the man’s
keen understanding! Impossible for them to believe that, knowing all, he 
could still give nothing but affection. Or, that he expected nothing more 
of Mona than the privilege of further inflaming his mad passion.

“One day,” he says quietly, “I will marry you. Then all this will be like
a dream.”

Slowly he raises his eyes, first to Mona, then to Stasia, then to me. As 
if to say—“You have heard, me.”

“What a lucky man,” he says, fixing me with his steady, kindly gaze. 
“What a lucky man you are to enjoy the friendship of these two. I have not 
yet been admitted to the inner circle.”

Then, veering to Mona, he says: “You will soon tire of being forever 
mysterious. It is like standing before the mirror all day. I see you from 
behind the mirror. The mystery is not in what you do but in what you are. 
When I take you out of this morbid life you will be naked as a statue. Now 
your beauty is all furniture. It has been moved around too much. We must 
put it back where it belongs—on the rubbish pile. Once upon a time I 
thought that everything had to be expressed poetically, or musically. I did
not realize that there was a place, and a reason, for ugly things. For me 
the worst was vulgarity. But vulgarity can be honest, even pleasing, as I 
discovered. We do not need to raise everything to the level of the stars. 
Everything has its foundation of clay. Even Helen of Troy. No one, not even
the most beautiful of women, should hide behind her own beauty… ” While 
speaking thus, in his quiet, even way, he continued with his mending. Here 
is the true sage, I thought to myself. Male and female equally divided; 
passionate, yet calm and patient; detached, yet giving fully of himself; 
seeing clearly into the very soul of his beloved, steadfast, devoted, 
almost idolatrous, yet aware of even her slightest defects. A truly gentle 
soul, as Dostoievsky would say.

And they had thought I would enjoy meeting this individual because I had 
a weakness for fools!

Instead of talking to him they plied him with questions, silly questions 
which were intended to reveal the absurd innocence of his nature. To all 
their queries he replied in the same vein. He answered them as if he were 
replying to the senseless remarks of children. While thoroughly aware of 
their abysmal indifference to his explanations, which he purposely drew 
out, he spoke as the wise man so often does when dealing with a child: he 
planted in their minds the seeds which later would sprout and, in 
sprouting, would remind them of their cruelty, their willful ignorance, and
the healing quality of truth.

In effect they were not quite as callous as their conduct might have led 
one to believe. They were drawn to him, one might even say they loved him, 
in a way which to them was unique. No one else they knew could have 
elicited such sincere affection, such deep regard. They did not ridicule 
this love, if such it was. They were baffled by it. It was the sort of love
which usually only an animal is capable of evoking. For only animals, it 
would seem, are capable of manifesting that total acceptance of humankind 
which brings about a surrender of the whole being—an unquestioning 
surrender, moreover, such as is seldom rendered by one human to another.

To me it was more than strange that such a scene should occur around a 
table where so much talk of love was constantly bandied. It was because of 
these continual eruptions, indeed, that we had come to refer to it as the 
gut table. In what other dwelling, I often wondered, could there be this 
incessant disturbance, this inferno of emotion, this devastating talk of 
love, resolved always on a note of discord? Only now, in Ricardo’s 
presence, did the reality of love show forth. Curiously enough, the word 
was scarcely mentioned. But it was love, nothing else, that shone through 
all his gestures, poured through all his utterances.

Love, I say. It might also have been God.

This same Ricardo, I had been given to understand, was a confirmed 
atheist. They might as well have said—a confirmed criminal. Perhaps the 
greatest lovers of God and of man have been confirmed atheists, confirmed 
criminals. The lunatics of love, so to say.

What one took him to be mattered not at all to Ricardo. He could give the
illusion of being whatever one desired him to be. Yet he was forever 
himself.

If I am never to meet him again, thought I, neither shall I ever forget 
him. Though it may be given us only once in a lifetime to come into the 
presence of a complete and thoroughly genuine being, it is enough. More 
than enough. It was not difficult to understand why a Christ or a Buddha 
could, by a single word, a glance, or a gesture, profoundly affect the 
nature and the destiny of the twisted souls who moved within their spheres.
I could also understand why some should remain impervious.

In the midst of these reflections it occurred to me that perhaps I had 
played a similar role, though in a far lesser degree, in those 
unforgettable days when, begging for an ounce of understanding, a sign of 
forgiveness, a touch of grace, there poured into my office a steady stream 
of hapless men, women and youngsters of all descriptions. From where I sat,
as employment manager, I must have appeared to them either as a beneficent 
deity or a stem judge, perhaps even an executioner. I had power not only 
over their own lives but over their loved ones. Power over their very 
souls, it seemed. Seeking me out after hours, as they did, they often gave 
me the impression of convicts sneaking into the confessional through the 
rear door of the church. Little did they know that in begging for mercy 
they disarmed me, robbed me of my power and authority. It was not I who 
aided them at such moments, it was they who aided me. They humbled me, made
me compassionate, taught me how to give of myself.

How often, after a heart-rending scene, I felt obliged to walk over the 
Bridge—to collect myself. How unnerving, how shattering it was, to be 
regarded as an all-powerful being! How ironic and absurd too that, in the 
performance of my routine duties, I should be obliged to play the role of a
little Christ! Halfway across the span I would stop and lean over the rail.
The sight of the dark, oily waters below comforted me. Into the rushing 
stream I emptied my turbulent thoughts and emotions.

Still more soothing and fascinating to my spirit were the colored 
reflections which danced over the surface of the waters below. They danced 
like festive lanterns swaying in the wind; they mocked my somber thoughts 
and illuminated the deep chasms of misery which yawned within me. Suspended
high above the river’s flow, I had the feeling of being detached from all 
problems, relieved of all cares and responsibilities. Never once did the 
river stop to ponder or question, never once did it seek to alter its 
course. Always onward, onward, full and steady. Looking back toward the 
shore, how like toy blocks appeared the skyscrapers which overshadowed the 
river’s bank! How ephemeral, how puny, how vain and arrogant! Into these 
grandiose tombs men and women muscled their way day in and day out, killing
their souls to earn their bread, selling themselves, selling one another, 
even selling God, some of them, and toward night they poured out again, 
like ants, choked the gutters, dove into the underground, or scampered 
homeward pitter-patter to bury themselves again, not in grandiose tombs now
but, like the worn, haggard, defeated wretches they were, in shacks and 
rabbit warrens which they called “home.” By day the graveyard of senseless 
sweat and toil; by night the cemetery of love and despair. And these 
creatures who had so faithfully learned to run, to beg, to sell themselves 
and their fellow men, to dance like bears or perform like trained poodles, 
ever and always belying their own nature, these same wretched creatures 
broke down now and then, wept like fountains of misery, crawled like 
snakes, uttered sounds which only wounded animals are thought to emit. What
they meant to convey by these horrible antics was that they had come to the
end of their rope, that the powers above had deserted them, that unless 
some one spoke to them who understood their language of distress they were 
forever lost, broken, betrayed. Some one had to respond, some one 
recognizable, some one so utterly inconspicuous that even a worm would 
hesitate to lick his boots.

And I was that kind of worm. The perfect worm. Defeated in the place of 
love, equipped not to do battle but to suffer insult and injury, it was I 
who had been chosen to act as Comforter. What a mockery that I who had been
condemned and cast out, I who was unfit and altogether devoid of ambition, 
should be allotted the judge’s seat, made to punish and reward, to act the 
father, the priest, the benefactor—or the executioner! I who had trotted up
and down the land always under the sting of the lash, I who could take the 
Woolworth stairs at a gallop—if it was to bum a free lunch—I who had 
learned to dance to any tune, to pretend all abilities, all capabilities, I
who had taken so many kicks in the pants only to return for more, I who 
understood nothing of the crazy set-up except that it was wrong, sinful, 
insane, I now of all men was summoned to dispense wisdom, love and 
understanding. God himself could not have picked a better goat. Only a 
despised and lonely member of society could have qualified for this 
delicate role. Ambition, did I say a moment ago? At last it came to me, the
ambition to save what I could from the wreck. To do for these miserable 
wretches what had not been done for me. To breathe an ounce of spirit into 
their deflated souls. To set them free from bondage, honor them as human 
beings, make them my friends.

And while these thoughts (as of another life) were crowding my head, I 
could not help but compare that situation, so difficult as it then seemed, 
with the present one. Then my words had weight, my counsels were listened 
to; now nothing I said or did carried the least weight. I had become the 
fool incarnate. Whatever I attempted, whatever I proposed, fell to dust. 
Even were I to writhe on the floor protestingly, or foam at the mouth like 
an epileptic, it would be to no avail. I was but a dog baying at the moon.

Why had I not learned to surrender utterly, like Ricardo? Why had I 
failed to reach a state of complete humility? What was I holding out for in
this lost battle?

As I sat watching this farce which the two of them were enacting for 
Ricardo’s benefit, I became more and more aware of the fact that he was not
the least taken in. My own attitude I made clear each time I addressed him.
It was hardly necessary, indeed, for I could sense that he knew I had no 
desire to deceive him. How little she suspected, Mona, that It was our 
mutual love for her which united us and which made this game ridiculously 
absurd.

The hero of love, I thought to myself, can never be deceived or betrayed 
by his bosom friend. What have they to fear, two brotherly spirits? It is 
the woman’s own fear, her own self-doubt, which alone can jeopardize such a
relation. What the loved one fails to comprehend is that there can be no 
taint of treachery or disloyalty on the part of her lovers. She fails to 
realize that it is her own feminine urge to betray which unites her lovers 
so firmly, which holds their possessive egos in check, and permits them to 
share what they never would share were they not swayed by a passion greater
than the passion of love. In the grip of such a passion the man knows only 
total surrender. As for the woman who is the object of such love, to uphold
this love she must exercise nothing short of spiritual legerdemain. It is 
her inmost soul which is called upon to respond. And it grows, her soul, in
the measure that it is inspired.

*

But if the object of this sublime adoration be not worthy! Seldom is it 
the man who is afflicted by such doubts. Usually it is the one who inspired
this rare and overpowering love who falls victim to doubt. Nor is it her 
feminine nature which is solely at fault, but rather some spiritual lack 
which, until subjected to the test, had never been in evidence. With such 
creatures, particularly when endowed with surpassing beauty, their real 
powers of attraction remain unknown: they are blind to all but the lure of 
the flesh. The tragedy, for the hero of love, resides in the awakening, 
often a brutal one, to the fact that beauty, though an attribute of the 
soul, may be absent in everything but the lines and lineaments of the loved
one.

CHAPTER SIX

For days the aftereffects of Ricardo’s visit hung over me. To add to my 
distress, Christmas was almost upon us. It was the season of the year I not
only loathed but dreaded. Since attaining manhood I had never known a good 
Christmas. No matter how I fought against it, Christmas day always found me
in the bosom of the family—the melancholy knight wrapped in his black 
armor, forced like every other idiot in Christendom to stuff his belly and 
listen to the utterly empty babble of his kin.

Though I had said nothing as yet about the coming event—if only it were 
the celebration of the birth of a free spirit!—I kept wondering under what 
circumstances, in what condition of mind and heart, the two of us would 
find ourselves on that festive doomsday.

A most unexpected visit from Stanley, who had discovered our whereabouts 
by accident, only increased my distress, my inner uneasiness. True, he 
hadn’t stayed long. Just long enough, however, to leave a few lacerating 
barbs in my side.

It was almost as if he had come to corroborate the picture of failure 
which I always presented to his eyes. He didn’t even bother to inquire what
I was doing, how we were getting on, Mona and I, or whether I was writing 
or not writing. A glance about the place was sufficient to tell him the 
whole story. “Quite a comedown!” was the way he summed it up.

I made no attempt to keep the conversation alive.

I merely prayed that he would leave as quickly as possible, leave before 
the two of them arrived in one of their pseudo-ecstatic moods.

As I say, he made no attempt to linger. Just as he was about to leave, 
his attention was suddenly arrested by a large sheet of wrapping paper 
which I had tacked on the wall near the door. The light was so dim that it 
was impossible to read what was written.

“What’s that?” he said, moving closer to the wall and sniffing the paper 
like a dog.

“That? Nothing,” I said. “A few random ideas.”

He struck a match to see for himself. He lit another and then another. 
Finally he backed away.

“So now you’re writing plays. Hmmm.”

I thought he was going to spit.

“I haven’t even begun,” I said shamefacedly. “I’m just toying with the 
idea. I’ll probably never write it.”

“My thought exactly,” he said, assuming that ever ready look of the 
grave-digger. “You’ll never write a play or anything else worth talking 
about. You’ll write and write and never get anywhere.”

I ought to have been furious but I wasn’t. I was crushed. I expected him 
to throw a little fat on the fire—a remark or two about the new “romance” 
he was writing. But no, nothing of the sort. Instead he said: “I’ve given 
up writing. I don’t even read any more. What’s the use?” He shook a leg and
started for the door. Hand on the knob, he said solemnly and pompously: “If
I were in your boots I’d never give up, not if everything was against me. I
don’t say you’re a writer, but… ” He hesitated a second, to frame it just 
right. “But Fortune’s in your favor.”

There was a pause, just enough to fill the phial with vitriol. Then he 
added: “And you’ve never done a thing to invite it.”

“So long now,” he said, slamming the gate to.

“So long,” said I.

And that was that.

If he had knocked me down I couldn’t have felt more flattened. I was 
ready to bury myself then and there. What little armature had been left me 
melted away. I was a grease spot, nothing more. A stain on the face of the 
earth.

Reentering the gloom I automatically lit a candle and, like a 
sleepwalker, planted myself in front of my idea of a play. It was to be in 
three acts and for three players only. Needless to say who they were, these
strolling players.

I scanned the project I had drawn up for scenes, climaxes, background and
what not. I knew it all by heart. But this time I read as if I had already 
written the play out. I saw what could be done with the material. (I even 
heard the applause which followed each curtain fall.) It was all so clear 
now. Clear as the ace of spades. What I could not see, however, was myself 
writing it. I could never write it in words. It had to be written in blood.

When I hit bottom, as I now had, I spoke in monosyllables, or not at all.
I moved even less. I could remain in one spot, one position, whether 
seated, bending or standing, for an incredible length of time.

It was in this inert condition they found me when they arrived. I was 
standing against the wall, my head against the sheet of wrapping paper. 
Only a tiny candle was guttering on the table. They hadn’t noticed me 
there, glued to the wall, when they burst in. For several minutes they 
bustled about in silence. Suddenly Stasia spied me. She let out a shriek.

“Look!” she cried. “What’s the matter with him?”

Only my eyes moved. Otherwise I might have been a statue. Worse, a stiff!

She shook my arm, which was hanging limp. It quivered and twitched a 
little. Still not a peep out of me.

“Come here!” she called, and Mona came on the gallop.

“Look at him!”

It was time to stir myself. Without moving from the spot or changing my 
position, I unhinged my jaw and said—but like the man in the iron mask—: 
“There’s nothing wrong, dearies. Don’t be alarmed. I was just… just 
thinking.”

“Thinking?” they shrieked.

“Yes, little cherubs, thinking. What’s so strange about that?”

“Sit down!” begged Mona, and she quickly drew up a chair. I sank into the
chair as if into a pool of warm water. How good to make that little move! 
Yet I didn’t want to feel good. I wanted to enjoy my depression.

Was it from standing there glued to the wall that I had become so 
beautifully stilled? Though my mind was still active, it was quietly 
active. It was no longer running away with me. Thoughts came and went, 
slowly, lingeringly, allowing me time to cuddle, fondle them. It was in 
this delicious slow drift that I had reached the point, a moment before 
their arrival, of dwelling with clarity on the final act of the play. It 
had begun to write itself out in my head, without the least effort on my 
part.

Seated now, with my back half turned to them, as were my thoughts, I 
began to speak in the manner of an automaton. I was not conversing, merely 
speaking my lines, as it were. Like an actor in his dressing room, who 
continues to go through the motions though the curtain has fallen.

They had grown strangely quiet, I sensed. Usually they were fussing with 
their hair or their nails. Now they were so still that my words echoed back
from the walls. I was able to speak and to listen to myself at the same 
time. Delicious. Pleasantly hallucinated, so to speak.

I realized that if I stopped talking for one moment the spell would be 
broken. But it gave me no anxiety to think this thought. I would continue, 
as I told myself, until I gave out. Or until “it” gave out.

Thus, through the slit in the mask, I continued on and on, always in the 
same even, measured, hollow tone. As one does with mouth closed on 
finishing a book which is too unbelievably good.

Reduced to ashes by Stanley’s heartless words, I had come face to face 
with the source, with authorship itself, one might say. And how utterly 
different “this was, this quiet flow from the source, than the strident act
of creation which is writing! “Dive deep and never come up!” should be the 
motto for all who hunger to create in words. For only in the tranquil 
depths is it granted us to see and hear, to move and be. What a boon to 
sink to the very bottom of one’s being and never stir again!

In coming to I wheeled slowly around like a great lazy cod and fastened 
them with my motionless eyes. I felt exactly like some monster of the deep 
who has never known the world of humans, the warmth of the sun, the 
fragrance of flowers, the sound of birds, beasts or men. I peered at them 
with huge veiled orbs accustomed only to looking inward. How strangely 
wondrous was the world in this instant! I saw them and the room in which 
they were seated with eyes unsated: I saw them in their everlastingness, 
the room too, as if it were the only room in the whole wide world; I saw 
the walls of the room recede and the city beyond it melt to nothingness; I 
saw fields ploughed to infinity, lakes, seas, oceans melt into space, a 
space studded with fiery orbs, and in the unfading limitless light there 
whirred before my eyes radiant hosts of godlike creatures, angels, 
archangels, seraphim, cherubim.

As if a mist were suddenly blown away by a strong wind, I came to with 
both feet and with this absolutely irrelevant thought uppermost in my 
mind—that Christmas was on us.

“What are we going to do?” I groaned.

“Just go on talking,” said Stasia. “I’ve never seen you this way before.”

“Christmas!” I said. “What are we going to do about Christmas?”

“Christmas?” she yelled. For a moment she thought I was speaking 
symbolically. When she realized that I was no longer the person who had 
enchanted her she said: “Christ! I don’t want to hear another word.”

“Good,” said I, as she ducked into her room. “Now we can talk.”

“Wait, Val, wait!” cried Mona, her eyes misty. “Don’t spoil it, I beg 
you.”

“It’s over,” I replied. “Over and done with. There is no more. Curtain.”

“Oh, but there is, there must be!” she pleaded. “Look, just be quiet… sit
there… let me get you a drink.”

“Good, get me a drink! And some food! I’m famished. Where’s that Stasia? 
Come on, let’s eat and drink and talk our heads off. Fuck Christmas! Fuck 
Santa Claus! Let Stasia be Santa Claus for a change.”

The two of them now hustled about to do me pleasure. They were so 
terribly eager to satisfy my least whim… it was almost as if an Elijah had 
appeared to them from out of the sky.

“Is there any of that Rhine wine left?” I yelled. ‘Trot it out!”

I was extraordinarily hungry and thirsty. I could scarcely wait for them 
to set something before me.

“That damned Polak!” I muttered.

“What?” said Stasia.

‘What was I talking about anyway? It’s all like a dream now… What I was 
thinking—is that what you wanted to know?—is that… is how wonderful it 
would be… if… “

“If what?”

“Never mind… I’ll tell you later. Hurry up and sit down!”

Now I was electrified. Fish, was I? An electric eel, rather. All 
a-sparkle. And famished. Perhaps that’s why I glittered and sparkled so. I 
had a body again. Oh how good it was to be back in the flesh! How good to 
be eating and drinking, breathing, shouting!

“It’s a strange thing,” I began, after I had wolfed some victuals, “how 
little we reveal of our true selves even when at our best. You’d like me to
carry on where I left off, I suppose? Must have been exciting, all that 
stuff I dredged up from the bottom. Only the aura of it remains now. But 
one thing I’m sure of—I know that I wasn’t out of myself. I was in, in 
deeper than I’ve ever, ever been… I was spouting like a fish, did you 
notice? Not an ordinary fish, either, but the sort that lives on the ocean 
floor.”

I took a good gulp of wine. Marvelous wine, Rhine wine.

“The strange thing is that it all came about because of that skeleton of 
a play on the wall over there. I saw and heard the whole thing. Why try to 
write it, eh? There was only one reason why I ever thought of doing it, and
that was to relieve my misery. You know how miserable I am, don’t you?”

We looked at one other. Static.

“It’s funny, but in that state I was in, everything seemed entirely as it
should be. I didn’t have to make the least effort to understand: everything
was meaningful, justifiable and everlastingly real. Nor were you the devils
I sometimes take you for. You weren’t angels either, because I had a 
glimpse of real ones. They were something else again. I can’t say as I’d 
want to see things that way all the time. Only statues… ” Stasia broke in. 
What way f she wanted to know.

“Everything at once,” I said. “Past, present, future; earth, air, fire 
and water. A motionless wheel. A wheel of light, I feel like saying. And 
the light revolving, not the wheel.”

She reached for a pencil, as if to make a note.

“Don’t” I said. “Words can’t render the reality of it. What I’m telling 
you is nothing. I’m talking because I can’t help it, but it’s only a 
talking about. What happened I couldn’t possibly tell you… It’s like that 
play again. The play I saw and heard, no man could write. What one writes 
is what one wants to happen. Take us, we didn’t happen, did we? No one 
thought us up. We are, that’s all. We always were. There’s a difference, 
what?”

I turned directly to Mona. “I’m really going to look for a job soon. You 
don’t suppose I’m ever going to write living this kind of life, do you? 
Let’s whore it, that’s my idea now.”

A murmur escaped her lips, as if she were about to protest, but it died 
immediately.

“Yes, as soon as the holidays are over I’ll strike out. Tomorrow I’ll 
telephone the folks to let them know we’ll be there for Christmas. Don’t 
let me down, I beg you. I can’t go there alone. I won’t. And try to look 
natural for once, will you? No make-up… no drag. Christ, it’s hard enough 
to face them under the best of conditions.”

“You come too,” said Mona to Stasia.

“Jesus, no!” said Stasia.

“You’ve got to!” said Mona. “I couldn’t go through with it without you.”

“Yes,” I chimed in, “do come along! With you around we won’t be in danger
of falling asleep. Only, do wear a dress or a skirt, will you? And put your
hair up in a bun, if you can.”

This made them mildly hysterical. What, Stasia acting like a lady? 
Preposterous!

“You’re trying to make a clown of her,” said Mona.

“I just ain’t a lady,” groaned Stasia.

“I don’t want you to be anything but your own sweet self,” said I. “But 
don’t get yourself up like a horse and buggy, that’s all.”

*

Just as I expected, about three in the morning Christmas day the two of 
them staggered in dead drunk. The puppet, which they had dragged about with
them, looked as if he had taken a beating. I had to undress them and tuck 
them between the sheets. When I thought they were sound asleep, what must 
they do but make pipi. Reeling and staggering, they groped their way to the
john. In doing so they bumped into tables and chairs, fell down, picked 
themselves up again, screamed, groaned, grunted, wheezed, all in true 
dipsomaniac style. There was even a bit of vomiting, for good measure. As 
they piled into bed again I warned them to hurry and catch what sleep they 
could. The alarm was set for 9:30, I informed them.

I hardly got a wink of sleep myself; I tossed and fumed the whole night 
long.

Promptly at 9:30 the alarm went off. It went off extra loud, it seemed to
me. At once I was on my feet. There they lay, the two of them, like dead. I
pushed and prodded and pulled; I ran from one to the other, slapping them, 
pulling off the bed clothes, cursing them royally, threatening to belt them
if they didn’t stir.

It took almost half an hour to get them on their feet and sufficiently 
roused not to collapse on my hands.

“Take a shower!” I yelled. “Hurry! I’ll make the coffee.”

“How can you be so cruel?” said Stasia.

“Why don’t you telephone and say we’ll come this evening, for supper?” 
said Mona.

“I can’t!” I yelled back. “And I won’t! They expect us at noon, at one 
sharp, not tonight.”

“Tell them I’m ill,” begged Mona.

“I won’t do it. You’re going through with it if it kills you, do you 
understand?”

Over the coffee they told me what they had bought for gifts. It was the 
gifts that caused them to get drunk, they explained. How was that? Well, in
order to raise the money with which to buy the gifts they had had to tag 
around with some benevolent slob who was on a three-day bender. Like that 
they got stinko. Not that they wanted to. No, they had hoped to duck him 
soon as the gifts were purchased, but he was a sly old bastard and he 
wasn’t to be hoodwinked that easy. They were lucky to get home at all, they
confessed.

A good yam and probably half true. I washed it down with the coffee.

“And now,” I said, “what is Stasia going to wear?”

She gave me such a helpless, bewildered look that I was on the point of 
saying “Wear any damned thing you please!”

“I’ll attend to her,” said Mona. “Don’t worry. Leave us in peace for a 
few minutes, won’t you?”

“O.K.” I replied. “But one o’clock sharp, remember!”

The best thing for me to do, I decided, was to take a walk. I knew it 
would take a good hour, at least, to get Stasia into presentable shape. 
Besides, I needed a breath of fresh air.

“Remember,” I said, as I opened the door to go, “you have just one hour, 
no more. If you’re not ready then we’ll leave as you are.”

It was clear and crisp outdoors. A light snow had fallen during the 
night, sufficient to make it a clean, white Christmas. The streets were 
almost deserted. Good Christians and bad, they were all gathered about the 
evergreen tree, unwrapping their gift packages, kissing and hugging one 
another, struggling with hangovers and pretending that everything was just 
ducky. (“Thank God, it’s over with!”) I strolled leisurely down to the 
docks to have a look at the ocean-going vessels ranged side by side like 
chained dogs. All quiet as the grave here. The snow, sparkling like mica in
the sunlight, clung to the rigging like so much cottonwood. There was 
something ghostly about the scene.

Heading up toward the Heights, I made for the foreign quarter. Here it 
was not only ghostly but ghastly. Even the Yuletide spirit had failed to 
give these shacks and hovels the look of human habitations. Who cared? They
were heathens, most of them: dirty Arabs, slit-faced Chinks, Hindus, 
greasers, niggers… The guy coming toward me, an Arab most likely. Dressed 
in light dungarees, a battered skull cap and a pair of worn-out carpet 
slippers. “Allah be praised!” I murmur in passing. A bit farther and I come
upon a pair of brawling Mexicans, drunk, much too drunk to get a blow in. A
group of ragged children surround them, egging them on. Sock him! Bust his 
puss in! And now out of the side door of an old-fashioned saloon a pair of 
the filthiest looking bitches imaginable stagger into the bright, clear 
sunlight of a clean white Christmas day. The one bends over to pull up her 
stockings and falls flat on her face; the other looks at her as if it 
couldn’t be, and stumbles on, one shoe on, one shoe off. Serene in her 
cockeyed way, she hums a ditty as she ambles on.

A glorious day, really. So clear, so crisp, so bracing! If only it 
weren’t Christmas! Are they dressed yet, I wonder. My spirits are reviving.
I can face it, I tell myself, if only they don’t make utter fools of 
themselves. All sorts of fibs are running through my head—yarns I’ll have 
to spin to put the folks at ease, always worried as they are about what’s 
happening to us. Like when they ask—“Are you writing these days?” and I’ll 
say: “Certainly. I’ve turned out dozens of stories. Ask Mona.” And Mona, 
how does she like her job? (I forget. Do they know where she’s working? 
What did I say last time?) As for Stasia, I don’t know what the hell I’ll 
trump up there. An old friend of Mona’s, maybe. Some one she knew at 
school. An artist.

I walk in, and there’s Stasia with tears in her eyes, trying to squeeze 
into a pair of high-heeled shoes. Naked to the waist, a white petticoat 
from Christ knows where, garters dangling, hair a mess.

“I’ll never make it,” she groans. “Why do I have to go?”

Mona seems to think it uproariously funny. Clothes are lying all over the
floor, and combs and hair pins.

“You won’t have to walk,” she keeps saying. “We’ll take a taxi.”

“Must I wear a hat too?”

“We’ll see, dear.”

I try to help them but I only make things worse.

“Leave us alone,” they beg.

So I sit in a corner and watch the proceedings. One eye on the clock. 
(It’s going on twelve already.) “Listen,” I say, “don’t try too hard. Just 
get her hair done up and throw a skirt over her.”

They’re trying on earrings and bracelets. “Stop it!” I yell. “She looks 
like a Christmas tree.”

It’s about twelve-thirty when we saunter out to hail a taxi. None in 
sight, naturally. Start walking. Stasia is limping. She’s discarded the hat
for a beret. Looks almost legitimate now. Rather pathetic, too. It’s an 
ordeal for her.

Finally we manage to run down a cab. “Thank God, we’ll be only a few 
minutes late,” I murmur to myself.

In the cab Stasia flicks off her shoes. They get to giggling. Mona wants 
Stasia to use a dash of lipstick, to make her look more feminine.

“If she looks any more feminine,” I warn, “they’ll think she’s a fake.”

“How long must we stay?” asks Stasia.

“I can’t say. We’ll get away just as soon as we can. By seven or eight, I
hope.”

“This evening?”

“Yes, this evening. Not tomorrow morning.”

“Jesus!” she whistles. “I’ll never be able to hold out.”

Approaching our destination I tell the cabby to stop at the corner, not 
in front of the house.

“Why?” from Mona.

“Because.”

The cab pulls up and we pile out. Stasia is in her stocking feet, 
carrying her shoes.

“Put them on!” I yell.

There’s a large pine box outside the undertaker’s at the corner. “Sit on 
that and put them on,” I command. She obeys like a child. Her feet are wet,
of course, but she doesn’t seem to mind. Struggling to get the shoes on, 
her beret tumbles off and her hair comes undone. Mona frantically endeavors
to get it back in shape but the hairpins are nowhere to be found.

“Let it go! What’s the difference?” I groan.

Stasia gives her head a good shake, like a sportive filly, and her long 
hair falls down over her shoulders. She tries to adjust the beret but it 
looks ridiculous now no matter at what angle it’s cocked.

“Come on, let’s get going. Carry it!”

“Is it far?” she asks, limping again.

“Just halfway down the block. Steady, now.”

Thus we march three abreast down The Street of Early Sorrows. A rum trio,
as Ulric would say. I can feel the piercing eyes of the neighbors staring 
at us from behind their stiff, starched curtains. The Millers’ son. That 
must be his wife. Which one?

My father is standing outside to greet us. “A little late, as usual,” he 
says, but in a cheery voice.

“Yes, how are you? Merry Christmas!” I lean forward to kiss him on the 
cheek, as I always did.

I present Stasia as an old friend of Mona’s. Couldn’t leave her by 
herself, I explain.

He gives Stasia a warm greeting and leads us into the house. In the 
vestibule, her eyes already filled with tears, stands my sister.

“Merry Christmas, Lorette! Lorette, this is Stasia.”

Lorette kisses Stasia affectionately. “Mona!” she cries, “and how are 
you? We thought you’d never come.”

“Where’s Mother?” I ask.

“In the kitchen.”

Presently she appears, my mother, smiling her sad, wistful smile. It’s 
crystal clear what’s running through her head: “Just like always. Always 
late. Always something unexpected.”

She embraces each of us in turn. “Sit down, the turkey’s ready.” Then, 
with one of her mocking, malicious smiles, she says: “You’ve had breakfast,
I suppose?”

“Of course, Mother. Hours ago.”

She gives me a look which says—“I know you’re lying”—and turns on her 
heel.

Mona, meanwhile, is handing out the gifts.

“You shouldn’t have done it,” says Lorette. It’s a phrase she’s picked up
from my mother. “It’s a fourteen pound turkey,” she adds. Then to me: “The 
minister wants to be remembered to you, Henry.”

I cast a quick glance at Stasia to see how she’s taking it. There’s only 
the faintest trace of a good-natured smile on her face. She seems genuinely
touched.

“Wouldn’t you like a glass of Port first?” asks my father. He pours out 
three full glasses and hands them to us.

“How about yourself?” says Stasia.

“I gave it up long ago,” he replies. Then, raising an empty glass, he 
says—“Prosit!”

Thus it began, the Christmas dinner. Merry, merry Christmas, everybody, 
horses, mules, Turks, alcoholics, deaf, dumb, blind, crippled, heathen and 
converted. Merry Christmas! Hosanna in the highest! Hosanna to the Highest!
Peace on earth—and may ye bugger and slaughter one another until Kingdom 
Come!

(That was my silent toast.) As usual I began by choking on my own saliva.
A hangover from boyhood days. My mother sat opposite me, as she always did,
carving knife in hand. On my right sat my father, whom I used to glance at 
out of the corner of my eye, apprehensive lest in his drunken state he 
would explode over one of my mother’s sarcastic quips. He had been on the 
wagon now for many a year, but still I choked, even without a morsel of 
food in my mouth. Everything that was said had been said, and in exactly 
the same way, in exactly the same tone, a thousand times. My responses were
the same as ever, too. I spoke as if I were twelve years old and had just 
learned to recite the catechism by heart. To be sure, I no longer 
mentioned, as I did when a boy, such horrendous names as Jack London, Karl 
Marx, Balzac or Eugene V. Debs. I was slightly nervous now because, though 
I myself knew all the taboos by heart, Mona and Stasia were still “free 
spirits” and who knows, they might behave as such. Who could say at what 
moment Stasia might come up with an outlandish name—like Kandinsky, Marc 
Chagall, Zadkine, Brancusi or Lipschitz? Worse, she might even invoke such 
names as Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekan and/or Gautama the Buddha. I prayed 
with all my heart that, even in her cups, she would not mention such names 
as Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman or Prince Kropotkin.

Fortunately, my sister was busy reeling off the names of news 
commentators, broadcasters, crooners, musical comedy stars, neighbors and 
relatives, the whole roll call connected and interconnected with a spate of
catastrophes which invariably caused her to weep, drool, dribble, sniffle 
and snuffle.

She’s doing very well, our dear Stasia, I thought to myself. Excellent 
table manners too. For how long?

Little by little, of course, the heavy food plus the good Moselle began 
to tell on them. Mona was already struggling to suppress the yawns which 
were rising like waves.

Said the old man, aware of the situation: “I suppose you got to bed 
late?”

“Not so very,” said I brightly. “We never get to bed before midnight, you
know.”

“I suppose you write at night,” said my mother.

I jumped. Usually she never made the slightest reference to my 
scribbling, unless it was accompanied by a reproof or a sign of disgust.

“Yes,” I said, “that’s when I do my work. It’s quiet at night. I can 
think better.”

“And during the day?”

I was going to say, “Work, of course!” but realized immediately that to 
mention a job would only complicate matters. So I said: “I generally go to 
the library… research work.”

Now for Stasia. What did she do?

To my utter amazement, my father blurted out: “She’s an artist, any one 
can see that!”

“Oh?” said my mother, as if the very sound of the word frightened her. 
“And does it pay?”

Stasia smiled indulgently. Art was never rewarding… in the beginning… she
explained most graciously. Adding that fortunately her guardians sent her 
little sums from time to time.

“I suppose you have a studio?” fired the old man.

“Yes,” she said. “I have a typical garret over in the Village.”

Here Mona took over, to my distress, and in her usual way began 
elaborating. I shut her off as best I could because the old man, who was 
swallowing it hook, line and sinker, intimated that he would look Stasia 
up—in her studio—some day. He liked to see artists at work, he said.

I soon diverted the conversation to Homer Winslow, Bougereau, Ryder and 
Sisley. (His favorites) Stasia lifted her eyebrows at the mention of these 
incongruous names. She looked even more astonished when the old man started
reeling off the names of famous American painters whose works, as he 
explained, used to hang in the tailor shop. (That is, before his 
predecessor sold out.) For Stasia’s sake, since the game was on, I reminded
him of Ruskin… of The Stones of Venice, the only book he had ever read. 
Then I got him to reminiscing about P. T. Barnum, Jenny Lind and other 
celebrities of his day.

During a lull Lorette remarked that an operetta would be given over the 
radio at three-thirty… would we like to hear it?

But it was now time for the plum pudding to be served—with that delicious
hard sauce—and Lorette forgot, momentarily, about the operetta.

The mention of “three-thirty” reminded me that we still had a long 
session to put in. I wondered how on earth we would manage to keep the 
conversation going until it was time to go. And when would it be possible 
to take leave without seeming to rush off? Already my scalp was itching.

Musing thus, I became more and more aware that Mona and Stasia were heavy
with sleep. It was obvious that they could scarcely keep their, eyes open. 
What subject could I bring up which would excite them without at the same 
time causing them to lose their heads? Something trivial, yet not too 
trivial. (Wake up, you louts!) Something, perhaps, about the ancient 
Egyptians? Why them? To save my life, I couldn’t think of anything better. 
Try! Try!

Suddenly I realized that all was silence. Even Lorette had clammed up. 
How long had this been going on? Think fast! Anything to break the 
deadlock. What, Rameses again? Fuck Rameses! Think quick, idiot! Think! 
Anything!

“Excuse me,” said Mona, rising heavily and knocking the chair over as she
did so, “but do you mind if I were to lie down for just a few minutes? I’ve
got a splitting headache.”

The couch was only a foot or two away. Without further ado she sank onto 
it and closed her eyes.

(For Christ’s sake, don’t snore immediately!) “She must be worn out,” 
said my father. He looked at Stasia. “Why don’t you take a little snooze 
too? It will do you good.”

She needed no coaxing, Stasia. In a jiffy she stretched herself out 
beside the lifeless Mona.

“Get a blanket,” said my mother to Lorette. “That thin one upstairs in 
the closet.”

The couch was a bit too narrow to hold the two of them comfortably. They 
turned and twisted, groaned, giggled, yawned disgracefully. Suddenly, 
bango! the springs gave way and onto the floor tumbled Stasia. To Mona it 
was excruciatingly funny. She laughed and laughed. Much too loudly to suit 
me. But then, how could she know that this precious couch which had held up
nigh on to fifty years might have lasted another ten or twenty years with 
proper care? In “our” house one didn’t laugh callously over such a mishap.

*

Meanwhile my mother, stiff as she was, had got down on hands and knees to
see how and where the couch had given way. (The sofa, they called it.) 
Stasia lay where she had fallen, as if waiting for instructions. My mother 
moved round and about her much as a beaver might work about a fallen tree. 
Lorette now appeared with the blanket. She watched the performance as if 
stupefied. (Nothing like this should ever have happened.) The old man, on 
the other hand, never any good at fixing anything, had gone to the back 
yard in search of bricks. “Where’s the hammer?” my mother was saying. The 
sight of my father with an armful of bricks roused her scorn. She was going
to fix it properly—and immediately.

“Later,” said the old man. “They want to snooze now.” With that he got 
down on all fours and shoved the bricks under the sagging springs.

Stasia now raised herself from the floor, just sufficiently to slide back
onto the couch, and turned her face to the wall. They lay spoon fashion, 
peaceful as exhausted chipmunks. I took my seat at the table and watched 
the ritual of clearing the table. I had witnessed it a thousand times, and 
the manner of doing it never varied. In the kitchen it was the same. First 
things first…

“What cunning bitches!” I thought to myself. It was they who should be 
clearing the table and washing the dishes. A headache! As simple as that. 
Now I would have to face the music alone. Better that way, maybe, since I 
knew all the moves. Now it wouldn’t matter what came up for discussion—dead
cats, last year’s cockroaches, Mrs. Schwabenhof’s ulcers, last Sunday’s 
sermon, carpet sweepers, Weber and Fields or the lay of the last minstrel. 
I would keep my eyes open no matter if it lasted till midnight. (How long 
would they sleep, the sots?) If they felt rested on waking perhaps they 
wouldn’t mind too much how long we stayed. I knew we would have to have a 
bite before going. One couldn’t sneak away at five or six o’clock. Not on 
Christmas day. Nor could we get away without gathering around the tree and 
singing that ghastly song—O Tannenbaum!” And that was sure to be followed 
by a complete catalogue of all the trees we ever had and how they compared 
with one another, of how eager I was, when a boy, to see what gifts were 
piled up for me beneath the Christmas tree. (Never any mention of Lorette 
as a girl.) What a wonderful boy I was! Such a reader, such a good piano 
player! And the bikes I had and the roller skates. And the air rifle. (No 
mention of my revolver.) Was it still in the drawer where the knives and 
forks were kept? That was a really bad moment she gave us, my mother, the 
night she went for the revolver. Fortunately there wasn’t a cartridge in 
the barrel. She probably knew as much. Just the same…

*

No, nothing had changed. At the age of twelve the clock had stopped. No 
matter what any one whispered in their ears, I was always that darling 
little boy who would one day grow up to be a full-fledged merchant tailor. 
All that nonsense about writing… I’d get over it sooner or later. And this 
bizarre new wife… she’d fade away too, in time. Eventually I would come to 
my senses. Every one does, sooner or later. They weren’t worried that, like
dear old Uncle Paul, I would do myself in. I wasn’t the sort. Besides, I 
had a head on me. Sound at bottom, so to say. Wild and wayward, nothing 
more. Read too much… had too many worthless friends. They would take care 
not to mention the name, but soon, I knew, would come the question, always 
furtively, always in smothered tones, eyes right, eyes left—“And how is the
little one?” Meaning my daughter. And I, who hadn’t the slightest idea, who
wasn’t even sure that she was still alive, would reply in a calm, 
matter-of-fact way: “Oh, she’s fine, yes.”

“Yes?” my mother would say, “And have you heard from them?” Them was by 
way of including my ex-wife. “Indirectly,” I would reply. “Stanley tells me
about them now and then.”

“And how is he, Stanley?”

“Just fine… ” How I wish I might talk to them about Johnny Paul. But that
they would think strange, very strange. Why, I hadn’t seen Johnny Paul 
since I was seven or eight. True enough. But what they had never suspected,
particularly you, my dear mother, was that all these years I had kept his 
memory alive. Yes, as the years roll on, Johnny Paul stands out brighter 
and brighter. Sometimes, and this is beyond all your imagining, sometimes I
think of him as a little god. One of the very few I have ever known. You 
don’t remember, I suppose, that Johnny Paul had the softest, gentlest voice
a man could have? You don’t know that, though I was only a tike at the 
time, I saw through his eyes what no one else ever revealed to me? He was 
just the coal man’s son to you: an immigrant boy, a dirty little Italian 
who didn’t speak English too well but who tipped his hat politely whenever 
you passed. How could you possibly dream that such a specimen should be as 
a god to your darling son? Did you ever know anything that passed through 
the mind of your wayward son? You approved neither of the books he read, 
nor the companions he chose, nor the girls he fell in love with, nor the 
games he played, nor the things he wanted to be. You always knew better, 
didn’t you? But you didn’t press down too hard. Your way was to pretend not
to hear, not to see. I would get over all this foolishness in due time. But
I didn’t! I got worse each year. So you pretended that at twelve the clock 
had stopped. You simply couldn’t recognize your son for what he was. You 
chose the me which suited you. The twelve-year-old. After that the deluge…

And next year, at this same ungodly season of the year, you will probably
ask me all over again if I am still writing and I will say yes and you will
ignore it or treat it like a drop of wine that was accidentally spilled on 
your best tablecloth. You don’t want to know why I write, nor would you 
care if I told you why. You want to nail me to the chair, make me listen to
the shit-mouthed radio. You want me to sit and listen to your insane gossip
about neighbors and relatives. You would continue to do this to me even if 
I were rash enough, or bold enough, to inform you in the most definite 
terms that everything you talk about is so much horse shit to me. Here I 
sit and already I’m in it up to the neck, this shit. Maybe I’ll try a new 
tack—pretend that I’m all agog, all a-twitter. “What’s the name of that 
operetta? Beautiful voice. Just beautiful! Ask them to sing it again… and 
again… and again!” Or I may sneak upstairs and fish out those old Caruso 
records. He had such a lovely voice, didn’t he now? (“Yes, thank you, I 
will have a cigar.”) But don’t offer me another drink, please. My eyes are 
gathering sand; it’s only age-old rebellion that keeps me awake at all. 
What I wouldn’t give to steal upstairs to that tiny, dingy hall bedroom 
without a chair, a rug or a picture, and sleep the sleep of the dead! How 
many, many times, when I threw myself on that bed, I prayed that I would 
never more open my eyes! Once, do you remember, my dear mother, you threw a
pail of cold water over me because I was a lazy, good-for-nothing bum. It’s
true, I had been lying there for forty-eight hours. But was it laziness 
that kept me pinned to the mattress? What you didn’t know, mother, was that
it was heartbreak. You would have laughed that off, too, had I been fool 
enough to confide in you. That horrible, horrible little bedroom! I must 
have died a thousand deaths there. But I also had dreams and visions there.
Yes, I even prayed in that bed, with huge, wet tears rolling down my 
cheeks. (How I wanted her, and only her!) And when that failed, when at 
long last I was ready and able to rise and face the world again, there was 
only one dear companion I could turn to: my bike. Those long, seemingly 
endless spins, just me and myself, driving the bitter thoughts into my arms
and legs, pushing, plugging away, slithering over the smooth graveled paths
like the wind, but to no avail. Every time I dismounted her image was 
there, and with it the backwash of pain, doubt, fear. But to be in the 
saddle, and not at work, that was indeed a boon. The bike was part of me; 
it responded to my wishes. Nothing else ever did.

No, my dear, blind, heartless parents: nothing you ever said to me, 
nothing you did for me, ever gave me the joy and the comfort which that 
racing machine did. If only I could take you apart, as I did my bike, and 
oil and grease you lovingly!

“Wouldn’t you like to take a walk with Father?”

It was my mother’s voice which roused me from my reverie. How I had 
drifted to the arm-chair I couldn’t remember. Maybe I had snoozed a bit 
without knowing it. Anyway, at the sound of her voice I jumped.

Rubbing my eyes, I observed that she was proffering me a cane. It was my 
grandfather’s. Solid ebony with a silver handle in the form of a fox—or 
perhaps it was a marmoset.

In a jiffy I was on my feet and bundling into my overcoat. My father 
stood ready, flourishing his ivory-knobbed walking stick. “The air will 
brace you up,” he said.

Instinctively we head for the cemetery. He liked to walk through the 
cemetery, not that he was so fond of the dead but because of the trees and 
flowers, the birds, and the memories which the peace of the dead always 
evoked. The paths were dotted with benches where one could sit if one 
liked. I didn’t have to strain myself to keep up conversation with my 
father; he was used to my evasive, laconic replies, my weak subterfuges. He
never tried to pump me. That he had some one beside him was enough.

On the way back we passed the school I had attended as a boy. Opposite 
the school was a row of mangy-looking flats, all fitted out with shop 
fronts as alluring as a row of decayed teeth. Tony Marella had been reared 
in one of these flats. For some reason my father always expected me to 
become enthusiastic at the mention of Tony Marella’s name. He never failed 
to inform me, when mentioning the name of each new rise on the ladder of 
fame which this dago’s son was making. Tony had a big job now in some 
branch of the Civil Service; he was also running for office, as a 
congressman or something. Hadn’t I read about it? It would be a good thing,
he thought, if I were to look Tony up some time… never could tell what it 
might lead to.

Still nearer home we passed the house belonging to the Gross family. The 
two Gross boys were also doing well, he said. One was a captain in the 
Army, the other a commodore. Little did I dream, as I listened to him 
ramble on, that one of them would one day become a general. (The idea of a 
general born to that neighborhood, that street, was unthinkable.) “What 
ever became of the crazy guy who lived up the street?” I asked. “You know, 
where the stables were.”

“He had a hand bitten off by a horse and gangrene set in.”

“You mean he’s dead?”

“A long time,” said my father. “In fact, they’re all dead, all the 
brothers. One was struck by lightning, another slipped on the ice and broke
his skull… Oh yes, and the other had to be put in a strait jacket-died of a
hemorrhage soon after. The father lived the longest. He was blind, you 
remember. Toward the end he became a bit dotty. Did nothing but make 
mouse-traps.”

Why, I asked myself, had I never thought of going from house to house, up
and down this street, and writing a chronicle of the lives of its denizens?
What a book it would Have made! The Book of Horrors. Such familiar horrors,
too. Those everyday tragedies which never quite make the front page. De 
Maupassant would have been in his element here.

We arrived to find every one wide awake and chatting amiably. Mona and 
Stasia were sipping coffee. They had probably asked for it; my mother would
never dream of serving coffee between meals. Coffee was only for breakfast,
card parties and kaffee-klatches. However…

“Did you have a good walk?”

“Yes, Mother. We strolled through the cemetery.”

“That’s nice. Were the graves in good condition?”

She was referring to the family burial place. More particularly her 
father’s grave.

“There’s a place for you too,” she said. “And for Lorette.”

I stole a glance at Stasia to see if she were keeping a straight face. 
Mona now spoke up. A most inopportune remark it was, too.

“He’ll never die,” were her words.

My mother made a wry face, as if she had bitten into a tart plum. Then 
she smiled compassionately, first at Mona, then at me. Indeed she was 
almost at the point of laughter when she answered: “Don’t worry, he’ll go 
like all of us. Look at him—he’s already bald and he’s only in his 
thirties. He doesn’t take care of himself. Nor you either.” Her look now 
changed to one of benevolent reproof.

“Val’s a genius,” said Mona, putting her foot in still deeper. She was 
about to amplify but my mother stalled her.

“Do you have to be a genius to write stories?” she asked. There was an 
ominous challenge in her tone.

“No,” said Mona, “but Val would be a genius even if he didn’t write.”

“Tsch tsch! He certainly is no genius at making money.”

“He shouldn’t think about money,” came Mona’s quick reply. “That’s for me
to worry about.”

“While he stays home and scribbles, is that it?” The venom had started to
flow. “And you, a handsome young woman like you, you have to go out and 
take a job. Times have changed. When I was a girl my father sat on the 
bench from morning till night. He earned the money. He didn’t need 
inspiration… nor genius. He was too busy keeping us children alive and 
happy. We had no mother… she was in the insane asylum. But we had him—and 
we loved him dearly. He was father and mother to us. We never lacked for 
anything.” She paused a moment, to take a good aim. “But this fellow,” and 
she nodded in my direction, “this genius, as you call him, he’s too lazy to
take a job. He expects his wife to take care of him—and his other wife and 
child. If he earned anything from his writing I wouldn’t mind. But to go on
writing and never get anywhere, that I don’t understand.”

“But, Mother… ” Mona started to say.

“Look here,” said I, “hadn’t we better drop the subject? We’ve been all 
over this dozens of times. It’s no use. I don’t expect you to understand. 
But you should understand this… Your father didn’t become a first-class 
coat maker over night, did he? You told me yourself that he served a long, 
hard apprenticeship, that he traveled from town to town, all over Germany, 
and finally, to avoid the Army, he went to London. It’s the same with 
writing. It takes years to acquire mastery. And still more years to attain 
recognition. When your father made a coat there was some one ready to wear 
it; he didn’t have to peddle it around until some one admired it and bought
it… “

“You’re just talking,” said my mother. “I’ve heard enough.” She rose to 
go to the kitchen.

“Don’t go!” begged Mona. “Listen to me, please. I know Val’s faults. But 
I also know what’s in him. He’s not an idle dreamer, he really works. He 
works harder at his writing than he possibly could at any job. That is his 
job, scribbling, as you call it. It’s what he was born to do. I wish to God
I had a vocation, something I could pursue with all my heart, something I 
believed in absolutely. Just to watch him at work gives me joy. He’s 
another person when he’s writing. Sometimes even I don’t recognize him. 
He’s so earnest, so full of thoughts, so wrapped up in himself… Yes, I too 
had a good father, a father I loved dearly. He also wanted to be a writer. 
But his life was too difficult. We were a big family, immigrants, very 
poor. And my mother was very exacting. I was drawn to my father, much more 
than to my mother. Perhaps just because he was a failure. He wasn’t a 
failure to me, understand. I loved him. It didn’t matter to me what he was 
or what he did. At times, just like Val here, he would make a clown of 
himself… ” Here my mother gave a little start, looked at Mona with curious 
eyes, and said—“Oh?” Evidently, no one had ever expatiated on this aspect 
of my personality before.

“I know he has a sense of humor,” she said, “but… a clown?”

“That’s only her way of putting it,” the old man threw in.

“No,” said Mona doggedly, “I mean just that… a clown.”

“I never heard of a writer being a clown too,” was my mother’s 
sententious, asinine remark.

At this point any one else would have given up. Not Mona. She amazed me 
by her persistence. This time she was all earnestness. (Or was she 
exploiting this opportunity to convince me of her loyalty and devotion?) 
Anyway, I decided to let her have full swing. Better a good argument, 
whatever the risk, than the other sort of lingo. It was revivifying, if 
nothing more.

“When he acts the buffoon,” said Mona, “it’s usually because he’s been 
hurt. He’s sensitive, you know. Too sensitive.”

“I thought he had a pretty thick hide,” said my mother.

“You must be joking. He’s the most sensitive being alive. All artists are
sensitive.”

“That’s true,” said my father. Perhaps he was thinking of Ruskin—or of 
that poor devil Ryder, whose landscapes were morbidly sensitive.

“Look, Mother, it doesn’t matter how long it takes for Val to be 
recognized and given his due. He’ll always have me. And I won’t let him 
starve or suffer.” (I could feel my mother freezing up again.) “I saw what 
happened to my father; it’s not going to happen to Val. He’s going to do as
he likes. I have faith in him. And I’ll continue to have faith in him even 
if the whole world denies him.” She paused a long moment, then even more 
seriously she continued: “Why it is you don’t want him to write is beyond 
me. It can’t be because he isn’t earning a living at it. That’s his worry 
and mine, isn’t it? I don’t mean to hurt you by what I say, but I’ve got to
say this—if you don’t accept him as a writer you’ll never have him as a 
son. How can you understand him if you don’t know this side of him? Maybe 
he could have been something else, something you like better, though it’s 
hard to see what once you know him… at least, as I know him. And what good 
would it do for him to prove to you or me or any one that he can be like 
any one else? You wonder if he’s a good husband, a good father, and so on. 
He is, I can tell you that. But he’s so much more! What he has to give 
belongs to the whole world, not merely to his family, his children, his 
mother or his father. Perhaps this sounds strange to you. Or cruel?”

“Fantastic!” said my mother, and it cut like a whip. “All right, 
fantastic then. But that’s how it is. One day you may read what he’s 
written and be proud of having him for a son.”

“Not I!” said my mother. “I’d rather see him digging ditches.”

“He may have to do that too—some day,” said Mona. “Some artists commit 
suicide before they’re recognized. Rembrandt finished his life in the 
streets, as a beggar. And he was one of the greatest… “

“And what about Van Gogh?” chirped Stasia.

“Who’s that?” said my mother. “Another scribbler?”

“No, a painter. A mad painter, too.” Stasia’s ruff was rising.

“They all sound like crackpots to me,” said my mother.

Stasia burst out laughing. Harder and harder she laughed. “And what about
me?” she cried. “Don’t you know that I’m also a crackpot?”

“But an adorable one,” said Mona.

“I’m plumb crazy, that’s what!” said Stasia, chortling some more. “Every 
one knows it.”

I could see that my mother was frightened. It was .all right to banter 
the word crackpot about, but to confess to being mad, that was another 
matter.

It was my father who saved the situation. “One’s a clown,” said he, “the 
other’s a crackpot, and what are you?” He was addressing himself to Mona. 
“Isn’t there anything wrong with you?” She smiled and answered blithely: 
“I’m perfectly normal. That’s what’s the trouble with me.”

He now turned to my mother. “Artists are all alike. They have to be a 
little mad to paint—or to write. What about our old friend John Imhof?”

“What about him?” said my mother, glaring at him uncomprehendingly. “Did 
he have to run away with another woman, did he have to desert his wife and 
children to prove that he was an artist?”

“That’s not what I mean at all.” He was getting more and more irritated 
with her, knowing only too well how stubborn and obtuse she could be. 
“Don’t you remember the look on his face when we would surprise him at his 
work? There he was, in that little room, painting water colors after every 
one had gone to bed.” He turned to Lorette. “Go upstairs and fetch that 
painting that hangs in the parlor, will you? You know, the one with the man
and woman in the rowboat… the man has a bundle of hay on his back.”

“Yes,” said my mother pensively, “he was a good man, John Imhof, until 
his wife took to drink. Though I must say he never showed much interest in 
his children. He thought of nothing but his art.”

“He was a good artist,” said my father. “Beautiful work. Do you remember 
the stained glass windows he made for the little church around the corner? 
And what did he get for his labor? Hardly anything. No, I’ll always 
remember John Imhof, no matter what he did. I only wish we had more of his 
work.”

Lorette now appeared with the painting. Stasia took it from her and 
examined it, apparently with keen interest. I was fearful lest she say 
something about it being too academic, but no, she was all tact and 
discretion. She remarked that it was beautifully executed… very skillful.

“It’s not an easy medium,” she said. “Did he ever do oils? I’m not a very
good judge of water colors. But I can see that he knew what he was about.” 
She paused. Then, as if she had divined the right tack, she said: “There’s 
one water colorist I really admire. That’s—”

“John Singer Sargent!” exclaimed my father.

“Right!” said Stasia. “How did you know that? I mean, how did you know I 
had him in mind?”

“There’s only one Sargent,” said my father. It was a pronouncement he had
heard many times from the lips of his predecessor, Isaac Walker. “There’s 
only one Sargent, just as there’s only one Beethoven, one Mozart, one da 
Vinci… Right?”

Stasia beamed. She felt emboldened to speak her mind now. She gave me a 
look, as she opened her mouth, which said—“Why didn’t you tell me these 
things about your father?”

“I’ve studied them all,” she said, “and now I’m trying to find myself. 
I’m not quite as mad as I pretended a moment ago. I know more than I can 
ever digest, that’s all. I have talent but not genius. Without genius, 
nothing matters. And I want to be a Picasso… a female Picasso. Not a Marie 
Laurencin. You see what I mean?”

“Certainly!” said my father. My mother, incidentally, had left the room. 
I could hear her fiddling around with the pots and pans. She had suffered a
defeat.

“He copied that from a famous painting,” said my father, indicating John 
Imhof’s water color.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Stasia. “Many artists have copied the works of 
the men they loved… But what did you say happened to him… this John Im—?”

“He ran away with another woman. Took her to Germany, where he had known 
her as a boy. Then the war came and we heard no more from him. Killed, 
probably.”

“How about Raphael, do you like his work?”

“No greater draftsman ever,” said my father promptly. “And 
Correggio—there was another grand painter. And Corot! You can’t beat a good
Corot, can you? Gainsborough I never cared much for. But Sisley… “

“You seem to know them all,” said Stasia, ready now to play the game all 
night. “How about the moderns… do you like them too?”

“You mean John Sloan, George Luks… those fellows?”

“No,” said Stasia, “I mean men like Picasso, Miro, Matisse, Modigliani… “

“I haven’t kept up with them,” said my father. “But I do like the 
Impressionists, what I’ve seen of their work. And Renoir, of course. But 
then, he’s not a modem, is he?”

“In a way, yes,” said Stasia. “He helped pave the way.”

“He certainly loved paint, you can see that,” said my father. “And he was
a good draftsman. All his portraits of women and children are strikingly 
beautiful; they stick with you. And then the flowers and the costumes… 
everything so gay, so tender, so alive. He painted his time, you’ve got to 
admit that. And it was a beautiful period—Gay Paree, picnics along the 
Seine, the Moulin Rouge, lovely gardens… “

“You make me think of Toulouse-Lautrec,” said Stasia.

“Monet, Pissaro… “

“Poincaro!” I put in.

“Strindberg!” This from Mona.

“Yeah, there was an adorable madman,” said Stasia.

Here my mother stuck a head in. “Still talking about madmen? I thought 
you had finished with that subject.” She looked from one to the other of 
us, saw that we were enjoying ourselves, and turned tail. Too much for her.
People had no right to be merry talking art. Besides, the very mention of 
these strange, foreign names offended her. Un-American.

Thus the afternoon wore on, far better than I had expected, thanks to 
Stasia. She had certainly made a hit with the old man. Even when he 
good-naturedly remarked that she should have a man, nothing was made of it.

When the family album was suddenly produced she became almost ecstatic. 
What a galaxy of screwballs! Uncle Theodore from Hamburg: a sort of 
dandified prick. George Schindler from Bremen: a sort of Hessian Beau 
Brummel who clung to the style of the 1880’s right up to the end of the 
first World War. Heinrich Muller, my father’s father, from Bavaria: a 
ringer for the Emperor Franz Joseph. George Insel, the family idiot, who 
stared like a crazy billy goat from behind a huge pair of twirling 
moustaches, k la Kaiser Wilhelm. The women were more enigmatic. My mother’s
mother, who had spent half of her life in the insane asylum, might have 
been a heroine out of one of Walter Scott’s novels. Aunt Lizzie, the 
monster who had slept with her own brother: a merry looking harridan with 
bloated rats in her hair and a smile that cut like a knife. Aunt Annie, in 
a bathing suit of prewar vintage, looking like a Mack Sennett zany ready 
for the doghouse. Aunt Amelia, my father’s sister: an angel with soft brown
eyes… all beatitude. Mrs. Kicking, the old housekeeper: definitely screwy, 
ugly as sin, her mug riddled with warts and carbuncles…

Which brought us to the subject of genealogy… In vain I plied them with 
questions. Beyond their own parents all was vague and dubious.

But hadn’t their parents ever talked of their kin? Yes, but it was all 
dim now.

“Were any of them painters?” asked Stasia.

Neither my mother nor my father thought so. “But there were poets and 
musicians,” said my mother.

“And sea captains and peasants,” said my father. “Are you sure of that?” 
I asked.

“Why are you so interested in all that stuff?” said my mother. “They’ve 
all been dead a long time.”

“I want to know,” I replied. “Some day I’ll go to Europe and find out for
myself.”

“A wild goose chase,” she retorted.

“I don’t care. I’d like to know more about my ancestors. Maybe they 
weren’t all German.”

“Yes,” said Mona, “maybe there’s some Slavic blood in the family.”

“Sometimes he looks very Mongolian,” said Stasia innocently.

This struck my mother as utterly ridiculous. To her a Mongolian was an 
idiot.

“He’s an American,” she said. “We’re all Americans now.”

“Yes,” Lorette piped up.

“Yes, what?” said my father.

“He’s an American too,” said Lorette. Adding: “But he reads too much.”

We all burst out laughing.

“And he doesn’t go to church any more.”

“That’s enough,” said my father. “We don’t go to church either, but we’re
Christians just the same.”

“He has too many Jewish friends.”

Again a laugh all around.

“Let’s have something to eat,” said my father. “I’m sure they’ll want to 
be getting home soon. Tomorrow’s another day.”

Once again the table was spread. A cold snack, this time, with tea and 
more plum pudding. Lorette sniffled throughout.

And hour later we were bidding them good-bye.

“Don’t catch cold,” said my mother. “It’s three blocks to the L station.”
She knew we would take a taxi, but it was a word, like art, which she hated
to mention.

“Will we see you soon?” asked Lorette at the gate.

“I think so,” said I.

“For New Year’s?”

“Maybe.”

“Don’t make it too long,” said my father gently. “And good luck with the 
writing!”

At the corner we hailed a taxi.

“Whew!” said Stasia, as we piled in.

“Not too bad, was it?” said I.

“No-o-o. Thank God, I have no relatives to visit.”

We settled back in our seats. Stasia kicked off her shoes.

“That album!” said Stasia. “I’ve never seen such a collection of 
half-wits. It’s a miracle you’re sane, do you realize that?”

“Most families are like that,” I replied. “The tree of man is nothing but
a huge Tannenbaum glistening with ripe, polished maniacs. Adam himself must
have been a lopsided, one-eyed monster… What we need is a drink. I wonder 
if there’s any Kummel left?” “I like your father,” said Mona. “There’s a 
lot of him in you, Val.”

“But his mother!” said Stasia.

“What about her?” said I.

“I’d have strangled her years ago,” said Stasia.

Mona thought this funny. “A strange woman,” she said. “Reminds me a 
little of my own mother. Hypocrites. And stubborn as mules. Tyrannical too,
and narrow-minded. No love in them, not an ounce.”

“I’ll never be a mother,” said Stasia. We all laughed. “I’ll never be a 
wife either. Jesus, it’s hard enough to be a woman. I hate women! They’re 
all nasty bitches, even the best of them. I’ll be what I am—a female 
impersonator. And don’t ever make me dress like this again, please. I feel 
like an utter fool—and a fraud.”

Back in the basement, we got out the bottles. There was Kummel all right,
and brandy, rum, Benedictine, Cointreau. We brewed some strong black 
coffee, sat down at the gut table, and took to chatting like old friends. 
Stasia had removed her corset. It hung over the back of her chair, like a 
relic from the museum.

“If you don’t mind,” she said, “I’m going to let my breasts hang out.” 
She fondled them lovingly. “They’re not bad, do you think? Could be a 
little fuller perhaps… I’m still a virgin.”

“Wasn’t that strange,” she said, “his mentioning Correggio? Do you think 
he really knows anything about Correggio?”

“It’s possible,” I said. “He used to attend the auctions with that Isaac 
Walker, his predecessor. He might even be acquainted with Cimabue or 
Carpaccio. You should hear him on Titian sometime! You’d think he had 
studied with him.”

“I’m all mixed up,” said Stasia, dosing herself with another brandy. 
“Your father talks painters, your sister talks music, and your mother talks
about the weather. Nobody knows anything about anything, really. They’re 
like mushrooms talking together… That must have been a weird walk you had, 
through the cemetery. I’d have gone out of my mind.”

“Val doesn’t mind it,” said Mona. “He can take it.”

“Why?” said Stasia. “Because he’s a writer? More material, is that it?”

“Maybe,” said I. “Maybe you have to wade through rivers of shit to find a
germ of reality.”

“Not me,” said Stasia. “I prefer the Village, faky as it is. At least you
can air your views there.”

Mona now spoke up. She had just had a bright idea. “Why don’t we all go 
to Europe?”

“Yes,” said Stasia airily, “why don’t we?”

“We can manage it,” said Mona.

“Certainly,” said Stasia. “I can always borrow the passage money.”

“And how would we live, once there?” I wanted to know.

“Like we do here,” said Mona. “It’s simple.”

“And what language would we speak?”

“Everybody knows English, Val. Besides, there are loads of Americans in 
Europe. Especially in France.”

“And we’d sponge on them, is that it?”

“I didn’t say that. I say if you really want to go, there’s always a 
way.”

“We could model,” said Stasia. “Or Mona could. I’m too hairy.”

“And me, what would I do?”

“Write!” said Mona. “That’s all you can do.”

“I wish it were true,” said I. I rose and began to pace the floor.

“What’s eating you?” they asked.

“Europe! You dangle it in front of me like a piece of raw bait. You’re 
the dreamers, not me! Sure, I’d like to go. You don’t know what it does to 
me when I hear the word. It’s like a promise of new life. But how to make a
living there? We don’t know a word of French, we’re not clever… all we know
is how to fleece people. And we’re not even good at that.”

“You’re too serious,” said Mona. “Use your imagination!”

“Yes,” said Stasia, “you’ve got to take a chance. Think of Gauguin!”

“Or of Lafcadio Hearn!” said Mona.

“Or Jack London!” said Stasia. “One can’t wait until everything’s rosy.”

“I know, I know.” I took a seat and buried my head in my hands.

Suddenly Stasia exclaimed: “I have it… we’ll go first, Mona and I, and 
send for you when things are lined up. How’s that?”

To this I merely grunted. I was only half listening. I wasn’t following 
them, I had preceded them. I was already tramping the streets of Europe, 
chatting with passers-by, sipping a drink on a crowded terrace. I was alone
but not the least bit lonely. The air smelled different, the people looked 
different. Even the trees and flowers were different. How I craved 
that—something different! To be able to talk freely, to be understood, to 
be accepted. A land of true kinfolk, that’s what Europe meant to me. The 
home of the artist, the vagabond, the dreamer. Yes, Gauguin had had a rough
time of it, and Van Gogh even worse. There were thousands, no doubt, whom 
we never knew of, never heard of, who went down, who faded out of sight 
without accomplishing anything…

I rose wearily, more exhausted by the prospect of going to Europe, even 
if only in the mind, than by the tedious hours spent in the bosom of the 
family.

“I’ll get there yet,” said I to myself as I made ready for bed. “If they 
could do it, so can I.” (By “they” I meant both the illustrious ones and 
the failures.) “Even the birds make it.”

Carried away by the thought, I had a picture of myself as another Moses, 
leading my people out of the wilderness. To stem the tide, reverse the 
process, start a grand march backward, back toward the source! Empty this 
vast wilderness called America, drain it of all its pale faces, halt the 
meaningless hustle and bustle… hand the continent back to the Indians… what
a triumph that would be! Europe would stand aghast at the spectacle. Have 
they gone mad, deserting the land of milk and honey? Was it only a dream, 
then, America? Yes! I would shout. A bad dream at that. Let us begin all 
over again. Let us make new cathedrals, let us sing again in unison, let us
make poems not of death but of life! Moving like a wave, shoulder to 
shoulder, doing only what is necessary and vital, building only what will 
last, creating only for joy. Let us pray again, to the unknown God, but in 
earnest, with all our hearts and souls. Let the thought of the future not 
make us into slaves. Let the day be sufficient unto itself. Let us open our
hearts and our homes. No more melting pots! Only the pure metals, the 
noblest, the most ancient. Give us leaders again, and hierarchies, guilds, 
craftsmen, poets, jewelers, statesmen, scholars, vagabonds, mountebanks. 
And pageants, not parades. Festivals, processions, crusades. Talk for the 
love of talk; work for the love of work; honor for the love of honor…

The word honor brought me to. It was like an alarm clock ringing in my 
ears. Imagine, the louse in his crevice talking honor! I sank deeper into 
the bed and, as I dozed off, I saw myself holding a tiny American flag and 
waving it: the good old Stars and Stripes. I held it in my right hand, 
proudly, as I set forth in search of work. Was it not my privilege to 
demand work, I, a full-fledged American citizen, the son of respectable 
parents, a devout worshiper of the radio, a democratic hooligan committed 
to progress, race prejudice and success? Marching toward the job, with a 
promise on my lips to make my children even more American than their 
parents, to turn them into guinea pigs, if need be, for the welfare of our 
glorious Republic. Give me a rifle to shoulder and a target to shoot at! 
I’ll prove whether I’m a patriot or not. America for Americans, forward, 
march’. Give me liberty or give me death! (What’s the difference?) One 
nation, indivisible, et cetera, et cetera. Vision 20-20, ambition 
boundless, past stainless, energy inexhaustible, future miraculous. No 
disease, no dependents, no complexes, no vices. Born to work like a Trojan,
to fall in line, to salute the flag—the American flag—and ever ready to 
betray the enemy. All I ask, mister, is a chance.

“Too late!” comes a voice from the shadows.

“Too late? How’s that?”

“Because! Because there are 26,595,493 others ahead of you, all 
full-blown catalepts and of pure stainless steel, all one hundred per cent 
to the backbone, each and every one of them approved by the Board of 
Health, the Christian Endeavor Society, the Daughters of the Revolution and
the Ku Klux Klan.”

“Give me a gun!” I beg. “Give me a shotgun so that I may blow my head 
off! This is ignominious.”

And it was indeed ignominious. Worse, it was so much certified horse 
shit.

“Fuck you!” I squeaked. “I know my rights.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

The thought that they could leave me behind like a dog while they 
explored Europe on their own ate into me, made me irritable, more erratic 
than ever, and sometimes downright diabolical in my behavior. One day I 
would go out to search for a job, determined to stand on my own two feet, 
and the next I would stay home and struggle with the play. Nights, when we 
gathered around the gut table, I would make notes of their conversation.

“What are you doing that for?” they would ask.

“To check your lies,” I might answer. Or—“Some of this I may use in a 
play.”

These remarks served to put spice into their dialogues. They did 
everything to put me off the track. Sometimes they talked like Strindberg, 
sometimes like Maxwell Bodenheim. To add to the confusion I would read them
disturbing bits from the notebook which I now carried with me on my 
peregrinations in the Village. Sometimes it was a conversation (verbatim) 
that I had overheard outside a cafeteria or a night club, sometimes it was 
a descriptive account of the goings-on that took place in these dives. 
Cleverly interspersed would be fragmentary remarks I had overheard, or 
pretended to have overheard, about the two of them. They were usually 
imaginary, but they were also real enough to cause them concern or make 
them blurt out the truth, which is exactly what I was gunning for.

Whenever they lost their self-control they contradicted one another and 
revealed things I was not supposed to hear about. Finally I pretended to be
really absorbed in the writing of the play and begged them to take 
dictation from me: I had decided, I said, to write the last act first—it 
would be easier. My true motive, of course, was to show them how this 
manage a trois would end. It meant a bit of acting on my part, and quick 
thinking.

Stasia had decided that she would take notes while Mona listened and made
suggestions. The better to act the dramaturge, I paced the floor, puffed 
endless cigarettes, took a swig of the bottle now and then, while 
gesticulating like a movie director, acting out the parts, imitating them 
by turns and of course throwing them into hysterics, particularly when I 
touched on pseudo-amorous scenes in which I depicted them as only 
pretending to be in love with each other. I would come to an abrupt stop 
occasionally to inquire if they thought these scenes too unreal, too 
far-fetched, and so on. Sometimes they would stop me to comment on the 
accuracy of my portrayals or my dialogue, whereupon they would vie with one
another to furnish me with further hints, clues, suggestions, all of us 
talking at once and acting out our parts, each in his own fashion, and 
nobody taking notes, no one able to remember, when we had calmed down, what
the other had said or done, what came first and what last. As we progressed
I gradually introduced more and more truth, more and more reality, 
cunningly recreating scenes at which I had never been present, stupefying 
them with their own admissions, their own clandestine behavior. Some of 
these shots in the dark so confounded and bewildered them, I observed, that
they had no recourse but to accuse one another of betrayal. Sometimes, 
unaware of the implication of their words, they accused me of spying on 
them, of putting my ear to the keyhole, and so on. At other times they 
looked blankly at each other, unable to decide whether they had really said
and done what I imputed to them or not. But, regardless of how much they 
detested my interpretation of their doings, they were excited, they wanted 
more, more. It was as if they saw themselves on the stage enacting their 
true roles. It was irresistible.

At the boil I would deliberately let them down, pretending a headache or 
that I had run out of ideas, or else that the damned thing was no good, 
that it was futile to waste further time on it. This would really put them 
in a dither. To soften me up they would come home loaded with good things 
to eat and drink. They would even bring me Havana cigars.

To vary the torment, I would pretend, just as we had started to work, 
that I had met with some extraordinary experience earlier that day and, as 
if absent-minded, I would digress into an elaborate account of a mythical 
adventure. One night I informed them that we would have to postpone work on
the play for a while because I had taken a job as an usher in a burlesque 
house. They were outraged. A few days later I informed them that I had 
given up that job to become an elevator operator. That disgusted them.

*

One morning I awoke with the firm intention of gunning for a job, a big 
job. I had no clear idea what kind of job, only that it must be something 
worthwhile, something important. While shaving I got the notion that I 
would pay a visit to the head of a chain store organization, ask him to 
make a place for me.

I would say nothing about previous employments; I would dwell on the fact
that I was a writer, a free lance writer, who desired to put his talents at
their disposal. A much-traveled young man, weary of spreading himself all 
over the lot; eager to make a place for himself, a permanent one, with an 
up-and-coming organization such as theirs. (The chain stores were only in 
their infancy.) Given the chance, I might demonstrate… here I allowed my 
imagination free fancy.

While dressing I embellished the speech I intended to make to Mr. W. H. 
Higginbotham, president of the Hobson and Holbein Chain Stores. (I prayed 
that he wouldn’t turn out to be deaf!) I got off to a late start, but full 
of optimism and never more spruce and spry. I armed myself with a 
brief-case belonging to Stasia, not bothering to examine the contents of 
it. Anything to look “businesslike.” -It was a bitter cold day and the head
office was in a warehouse not far from the Gowanus Canal. It took ages to 
get there and, on descending the trolley, I took it on the run. I arrived 
at the entrance to the building with rosy cheeks and frosty breath. As I 
glided through the grim entrance hall I noticed a huge sign over the 
directory board saying: “Employment Office closes at 9:30 A.M.” It was 
already eleven o’clock. Scanning the board I noticed that the elevator 
runner was eyeing me peculiarly. On entering the lift he nodded toward the 
sign and said: “Did you read that?”

“I’m not looking for a job,” I said. “I have an appointment with Mr. 
Higginbotham’s secretary.”

He gave me a searching look, but said no more. He slammed the gate to and
the lift slowly ascended. “The eighth floor, please!”

“You don’t have to tell me! What’s your errand?” The elevator, which was 
inching upward, groaned and squealed like a sow in labor. I had the 
impression that he had deliberately slowed it up.

He was glaring at me now, waiting for my reply. “What’s eating him?” I 
asked myself. Was it simply that he didn’t like my looks?

“It’s difficult,” I began, “to explain my errand in a few words.” 
Terrified by the horrible scowl he was giving me, I pulled myself up short.
I did my best to return his gaze without flinching. “Yes,” I resumed, “it’s
rather dif… “

“Stop it!” he yelled, bringing the lift to a halt—between two floors. “If
you say another word… ” He raised a hand as if to say—“I’ll throttle you!”

Convinced that I had a maniac to deal with, I kept my mouth shut.

“You talk too much,” he said. He gave the lever a jerk and the lift 
started upward again, shuddering.

I kept quiet and looked straight ahead. At the eighth floor he opened the
gate and out I stepped, gingerly too, as if expecting a kick in the pants.

Fortunately the door facing me was the one I sought. As I lay my hand on 
the knob I was aware that he was observing me. I had the uncomfortable 
presentiment that he would be there to catch me when they threw me out like
an empty bucket. I opened the door and walked in. I came face to face with 
a girl standing in a cage, who received me smilingly.

“I came to see Mr. Higginbotham,” I said. By now my speech had flown and 
my thoughts were knocking about like bowling pins.

To my amazement she asked no questions. She simply picked up the 
telephone and spoke a few inaudible words into the mouthpiece. When she put
the receiver down she turned and, in a voice all honey, said: “Mr. 
Higginbotham’s secretary will see you in a moment.”

In a moment the secretary appeared. He was a middle-aged man of pleasant 
mien, courteous, affable. I gave him my name and followed him to his desk, 
which was at the end of a long room studded with desks and machines of all 
kinds. He took a seat behind a large, polished table which was almost bare,
and indicated a comfortable chair opposite him into which I dropped with a 
momentary feeling of relief.

“Mr. Higginbotham is in Africa,” he began. “He won’t be back for several 
months.”

“I see,” said I, thinking to myself, this is my way out, can’t confide in
any one but Mr. Higginbotham himself. Even as I did so I realized that it 
would be unwise to exit so quickly—the elevator runner would be expecting 
precisely such an eventuality.

“He’s on a big game hunt,” added the secretary, sizing me up all the 
while and wondering, no doubt, whether to make short shrift of me or feel 
the ground further. Still affable, however, and obviously waiting for me to
spill the beans.

“I see,” I repeated. “That’s too bad. Perhaps I should wait until he 
returns… “

“No, not at all—unless it’s something very confidential you have to tell 
him. Even if he were here you would have to deal first with me. Mr. 
Higginbotham has many irons in the fire; this is only one of his interests.
Let me assure you that anything you wish conveyed to him will receive my 
earnest attention and consideration.”

“Well, sir,” I began hesitatingly, but breathing a little more freely, 
“it’s not altogether easy to explain the purpose of my visit.”

“Excuse me,” he put in, “but may I ask what firm it is you represent?”

He leaned forward as if expecting me to drop a card in his hand .

“I’m representing myself… Mr. Larrabee, was it? I’m a writer… a free 
lance writer. I hope that doesn’t put you off?”

“Not at all, not at all!” he replied (Think fast now! Something 
original!) “You didn’t have in mind an advertising campaign, did you? We 
really… “

“Oh no!” I replied. “Not that! I know you have plenty of capable men for 
that.” I smiled weakly. “No, it was something more general… more 
experimental, shall I say?”

I lingered a moment, like a bird in flight hovering over a dubious perch.
Mr. Larrabee leaned forward, ears cocked to catch this “something” of 
moment.

“It’s like this,” I said, wondering what the hell I would say next. “In 
the course of my career I’ve come in contact with all manner of men, all 
manner of ideas. Now and then, as I move about, an idea seizes me… I don’t 
need to tell you that writers sometimes get ideas which practical-minded 
individuals regard as chimerical. That is, they seem chimerical until they 
have been tested.”

“Quite true,” said Mr. Larrabee, his bland countenance open to receive 
the impress of my idea, whether chimerical or practicable.

It was impossible to continue the delaying tactics any longer. “Out with 
it!” I commanded myself. But out with what?

At this point, most fortunately, a man appeared from an adjoining office,
holding a batch of letters in his hand. “I beg pardon,” he said, “but I’m 
afraid you’ll have to stop a moment and sign these. Quite important.”

Mr. Larrabee took the letters, then presented me to the man. “Mr. Miller 
is a writer. He has a plan to present to Mr. Higginbotham.”

We shook hands while Mr. Larrabee proceeded to bury his nose in the file 
of correspondence.

“Well,” said the man—his name was McAuliffe, I believe—“well, sir, I must
say we don’t see many writers around these parts.” He pulled out a 
cigarette case and offered me a Benson and Hedges. “Thank you,” I said, 
permitting him to light the cigarette for me. “Sit down, won’t you?” he 
said. “You don’t mind if I chat with you a moment, I hope? One doesn’t get 
a chance to meet a writer every day.”

A few more polite parries and then he asked: “Do you write books or are 
you a newspaper correspondent, by chance?”

I pretended to have done a little of everything. I put it that way as if 
modesty compelled it.

“I see, I see,” said he. “How about novels?”

Pause. I could see he wanted more.

I nodded. “Even detective stories occasionally. My specialty,” I added, 
“is travel and research.”

His spine suddenly straightened up. “Travel! Ah, I’d give my right arm to
have a year off, a year to go places. Tahiti! That’s the place I want to 
see! Ever been there?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” I replied. “Though not for long. A few weeks,
that’s all. I was on my way back from the Carolines.”

“The Carolines?” He seemed electrified now. “What were you doing there, 
may I ask?”

‘“A rather fruitless mission, I’m afraid.” I went on to explain how I had
been cajoled into joining an anthropological expedition. Not that I was in 
any way qualified. But it was an old friend of mine—an old classmate—who 
was in charge of the expedition, and he had persuaded me to go along. I was
to do as I pleased. If there was a book in it, fine. If not… and so on. 
“Yes, yes! And what happened?”

“In a few weeks we were all taken violently ill. I spent the rest of my 
time in the hospital.”

The phone on Mr. Larrabee’s desk rang imperiously. “Excuse me,” said Mr. 
Larrabee, picking up the receiver. We waited in silence while he carried on
a lengthy conversation about imported teas. The conversation finished, he 
jumped to his feet, handed Mr. McAuliffe the signed correspondence and, as 
if charged with an injection, said: “Now then, Mr. Miller, about your plan…
” I rose to shake hands with the departing Mr. McAuliffe, sat down again, 
and without more ado launched into one of my extravaganzas. Only this time 
I was bent on telling the truth. I would tell the truth, nothing but the 
truth, then good-bye.

Rapid and condensed as was this narrative of my earthly adventures and 
tribulations, I realized nevertheless that I was genuinely imposing on Mr. 
Larrabee’s time, not to mention his patience. It was the way he listened, 
all agog, like a frog peering at you from the mossy edge of a pond, that 
urged me on. All about us the clerks had vanished; it was well into the 
lunch hour. I halted a moment to inquire if I wasn’t preventing him from 
lunching. He waved the question aside. “Go on,” he begged, “I’m completely 
yours.”

And so, after I had brought him up to date, I proceeded to make 
confession. Not even if Mr. Higginbotham had suddenly and unexpectedly come
back from Africa could I stop now.

“There’s absolutely no excuse for having wasted your time.” I began. “I 
really have no plan, no project to propose. However, it wasn’t to make a 
fool of myself that I barged in here. There come times when you simply must
obey your impulses. Even if it sounds strange to you… after all I’ve told 
you about my life… I nevertheless believe that there must be a place for 
one like me in this world of industry. The usual procedure, when one tries 
to break down the barrier, is to ask for a place at the bottom. It’s my 
thought, however, to begin near the top. I’ve explored the bottom—it leads 
nowhere. I’m talking to you, Mr. Larrabee, as if I were talking to Mr. 
Higginbotham himself. I’m certain I could be of genuine service to this 
organization, but in what capacity I can’t say. All I have to offer, I 
suppose, is my imagination—and my energy, which is inexhaustible. It’s not 
a matter of a job altogether, it’s an opportunity to solve my immediate 
problem, a problem which is purely personal, I grant you, but of desperate 
importance to me. I could throw myself into anything, particularly if it 
made demands on my ingenuity. This checkered career, which I’ve briefly 
outlined, I feel it must have been to some purpose. I’m not an aimless 
individual, nor am I unstable. Quixotic perhaps, and rash at times, but a 
born worker. And I work best when in harness. What I’m trying to convey to 
you, Mr. Larrabee, is that whoever created a place for me would never 
regret it. This is a tremendous organization, with wheels within wheels. As
a cog in a machine I’d be worthless. But why make me part of a machine? Why
not let me inspire the machine? Even if I have no plan to submit, as I 
fully admit, that is not to say that tomorrow I might not come up with one.
Believe me, it’s of the utmost importance that at this juncture some one 
should put a show of confidence in me. I’ve never betrayed a trust, take my
word for it. I don’t ask you to hire me on the spot, I merely suggest that 
you hold out a little hope, that you promise to give me a chance, if it is 
at all possible, to prove to you that all I say is not mere words.”

I had said all I wanted to say. Rising to my feet, I extended my hand. 
“It was most kind of you,” I said.

“Hold on,” said Mr. Larrabee. “Let me catch up with you.”

He gazed out the window a good full moment, then turned to me.

“You know,” he said, “not one man in ten thousand would have had the 
courage, or the effrontery, to engage me in such a proposition. I don’t 
know whether to admire you or—. Look here, vague as it ail is, I promise 
you I will give thought to your request. Naturally, I can’t do a thing 
until Mr. Higginbotham returns. Only he could create a place for you… ” He 
hesitated before resuming. “But I want to tell you this, for my own part. I
know little about writers or writing, but it strikes me that only a writer 
could have spoken as you did. Only an exceptional individual, I will add, 
would have had the audacity to take a man in my position into his 
confidence. I feel indebted to you; you make me feel that I’m bigger and 
better than I thought myself to be. You may be desperate, as you say, but 
you’re certainly not lacking in resourcefulness. A person like you can’t go
under. I’m not going to forget you easily. Whatever happens, I hope you 
will regard me as a friend. A week from now I suspect that this interview 
will be ancient history to you.”

I was blushing to the roots of my hair. To get such a response suited me 
far better than finding a niche in the Hobson and Holbein enterprises.

“Would you do me a last favor?” I asked. “Do you mind escorting me to the
elevator?”

“Did you have trouble with Jim?”

“So you know, then?”

He took me by the arm. “He has no business running that elevator. He’s 
absolutely unpredictable. But the boss insists on keeping him. He’s a war 
veteran and distantly related to the family, I believe. A real menace, 
though.”

He pressed the button and the lift slowly ascended. Jim, as he called the
maniac, seemed surprised to see the two of us standing there. As I stepped 
into the lift Mr. Larrabee extended his hand once again and said, obviously
for Jim’s benefit—“Don’t forget, if you’re ever”—and he stressed the 
ever—“in this neighborhood again, stop in to see me. Maybe next time we can
have lunch together. Oh yes, I’ll be writing Mr. Higginbotham this evening.
I’m sure he’ll be deeply interested. Good-bye now!”

“Good-bye,” I said, “and all my thanks!”

As the lift made its weary descent I kept my eyes riveted straight ahead.
I had a look on my face as if rapt in thought. There was only one thought 
in my mind, however, and that was—when will he explode? I had a hunch that 
he was even more venomous toward me now—because I had been so cunning. I 
was as wary and alert as a cat. What, I wondered, would I do… what could I 
do… if suddenly, between floors, he shut the power off and turned on me? 
Not a peep, not a stir, out of him. We reached bottom, the gate slid open, 
and out I stepped… a Pinocchio with both legs burned off.

The hallway was deserted, I noticed. I made for the door, some yards 
away. Jim remained at his post, as if nothing had ever happened. At least, 
I felt that that was his attitude. Halfway to the door I turned, on the 
impulse, and headed back. The inscrutable expression on Jim’s face told me 
that he had expected me to do just that. Coming closer I saw that his face 
was truly a blank. Had he retired into his stone-like self—or was he lying 
in ambush?

“Why do you hate me?” I said, and I looked him square in the eye.

“I don’t hate anybody,” was the unexpected answer. Nothing but the 
muscles of his mouth had moved; even his eyeballs were fixed.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and made a half turn as if to march away.

“I don’t hate you,” he said, suddenly coming to life. “I pity you! You 
don’t fool me. Nobody does.”

An inner terror gripped me. “How do you mean?” I stammered.

“Don’t give me words,” he said. “You know what I mean.”

A cold shiver now ran up and down my spine. It was as if he had said: “I 
have second sight, I can read your mind like a book.”

“So what?” I said, amazed at my impudence.

“Go home and put your mind in order, that’s what!”

I was stunned. But what followed, as Mr. Larrabee had put it, was 
absolutely unpredictable.

Hypnotized, I watched him pull up his sleeve to reveal a horrible scar; 
he pulled up his pants leg and there were more horrible scars; then he 
unbuttoned his shirt. At the sight of his chest I almost fainted.

“It took all that,” he said, “to open my eyes. Go home and set your mind 
straight. Go, before I strike you dead!”

I turned at once and started for the door. It took all my courage not to 
break into a run. Some one was coming from the street. He wouldn’t strike 
me now—or would he? I moved at the same pace, quickening it as I neared the
door.

Whew! Outside I dropped the brief-case and lit myself a cig. The sweat 
was oozing from all pores. I debated what to do. It was cowardly to run off
with my tail between my legs. And it was suicidal to return. Veteran or 
not, crazy or not, he meant what he said. What’s more, he had my number. 
That’s what burned me up.

I moved away, mumbling to myself as I trudged along. Yeah, he had me dead
to rights: a time waster, a faker, a glib talker, a no good son-of-a-bitch.
No one had ever brought me so low. I felt like writing Mr. Larrabee a 
letter telling him that no matter how my words had impressed him everything
about me was false, dishonest, worthless. I became so indignant with myself
that my whole body broke out in a rash. Had a worm appeared before me and 
repeated Jim’s words, I would have bowed my head in shame and said: “You’re
absolutely right, Mr. Worm. Let me get down beside you and grovel in the 
earth.”

*

At Borough Hall I grabbed a coffee and sandwich, then made instinctively 
for “The Star,” an old-time burlesque house that had seen better days. The 
show had already started but no matter: there was never anything new either
in the way of jokes or in the way of ass. As I entered the theater the 
memory of my first visit to it came back. My old friend Al Burger and his 
bosom pal, Frank Schofield, had invited me to go with them. We must have 
been nineteen or twenty at the time. What I particularly recollected was 
the warmth of friendship which this Frank Schofield exuded. I had met him 
only two or three times before. To Frank I was something very, very 
special. He loved to hear me talk, hung on every word I uttered. In fact, 
everything I said fascinated him for some reason. As for Frank, he was one 
of the world’s most ordinary fellows, but brimming with affection. He had a
mammoth figure—weighed then almost three hundred pounds—drank like a fish 
and was never without a cigar in his mouth. He laughed easily, and when he 
did his stomach shook like Jello. “Why don’t you come and live with us?” he
used to say. ‘We’ll take care of you. It makes me feel good just to look at
you.” Simple words, but honest and sincere. Not one of my boon companions 
at that time possessed his homely qualities. No worm had eaten into his 
soul yet. He was innocent, tender, generous to a fault.

But why was he so fond of me? That’s what I asked myself as I groped my 
way to a seat in the pit. Rapidly I went over the roster of my bosom 
friends, asking myself what each and every one of them really thought of 
me. And then I thought of a schoolmate, Lester Faber, whose lips would curl
into a sneer each time we met, which was every day. No one in the class 
liked him, nor the teachers either. He was born sour. Fuck him! I thought. 
Wonder what he does for a living now? And Lester Prink, what had become of 
him? Suddenly I saw the whole class, as we looked in that photo taken on 
graduation day. I could recall every one of them, their names, height, 
weight, standing, where they lived, how they spoke, everything about them. 
Strange that I never ran into any of them…

The show was frightful; I almost fell asleep in the middle of it. But it 
was warm and cozy. Besides, I was in no hurry to get anywhere. There were 
seven, eight or nine hours to kill before the two of them would return.

The cold had moderated when I stepped out of the theater. A light flurry 
of snow was falling. Some inexplicable urge directed my steps toward a gun 
shop up the street. There was one revolver in the window which I invariably
stopped to look at when passing. It was a thoroughly murderous-looking 
weapon.

In customary fashion I stopped and pressed my nose against the show 
window. A hearty slap on the back made me jump. I thought a gun had gone 
off. As I turned around a hearty voice exclaimed: “What in the devil are 
you doing here? Henry, my boy, how are you?”

It was Tony Marella. He had a long extinct cigar in his mouth, his soft 
hat was jauntily pitched, and his small, beady eyes were twinkling as of 
old.

Well, well, and all that. The usual exchanges, a few tender 
reminiscences, then the question: “And what are you doing now?”

In a few words I emptied my bag of woes. “That’s too bad, Henry. Jesus, I
never suspected you were up against it. Why didn’t you let me know? I’m 
always good for a touch, you know.” He put an arm around me. “What do you 
say we have a little drink? Maybe I can be of help.”

I tried to tell him that I was beyond helping. “You’d only be wasting 
your time,” I said.

“Come, come, don’t give me that,” said he. “I know you from way back. 
Don’t you know that I always admired you—and envied you? We all have our 
ups and downs. Here, here’s a friendly little joint. Let’s go in and get 
something to eat and drink.”

It was a bar (hidden from the street) where he was evidently well known 
and in good standing. I had to be introduced all around, even to the 
shoeshine boy. “An old schoolmate,” he said, as he presented me to one 
after another. “A writer, by God! What do you know?” He hands me a 
champagne cocktail. “Here, let’s drink on it! Joe, what about a nice roast 
beef sandwich, with lots of gravy… and some raw onions. How does that 
sound, Henry? Christ, you don’t know how glad I am to see you again. I’ve 
often wondered about you, what you were doing. Thought maybe you had 
skipped to Europe. Funny, eh? And you’ve been hiding out right under my 
nose.”

He went on like this, happy as a lark, passing out more drinks, buying 
cigars, inquiring about the racing results, greeting newcomers and 
introducing me afresh, borrowing cash of the bartender, making telephone 
calls, and so on. A little dynamo. A good egg, any one could see that at a 
glance. The friend of every man, and bubbling over with joy and kindness.

Presently, with one elbow on the bar and an arm around my shoulder, he 
said, dropping’ his voice: “Listen, Henry, let’s get down to brass tacks. 
I’ve got a cushy job now. If you like I could make a place for you. It’s 
nothing to get steamed up about but it may do to tide you over. Till you 
find something better, I mean. What do you say?”

“Sure,” I said. “What is it?”

A job in the Park Department, he explained. He was secretary to the 
commissioner. Which meant that he, Tony, took care of the routine while the
big shot made the rounds. Politics. A dirty game, he confided. Some one 
always waiting to stab you in the back. “It won’t be tomorrow or the next 
day,” he continued. “I have to play the game, you know. But I’ll put you on
the list immediately. It may take a month before I send for you. Can you 
hold out that long?”

“I think so,” said I.

“Don’t worry about money,” he said. “I can lend you whatever you need 
till then.”

“Don’t!” I said. “I’ll manage all right… “

“You’re a funny guy,” he said, squeezing my arm. “You don’t have to be 
shy with me. With me it comes and goes… like that! In this racket you’ve 
got to be well heeled. There are no poor politicians, you know that. How we
get it, that’s another matter. So far, I’ve been on the level. Not easy, 
either… Okay, then. If you won’t take anything now, you know where I am 
when you want it. Any time, remember that!”

I grasped his hand.

“How about another drink before we go?”

I nodded.

“Oh, there’s something I overlooked. I may have to put you down as a 
grave digger… to begin with. Do you mind? Just for a week or so. You won’t 
have to break your back, I’ll see to that. Then I’ll move you into the 
office. You’ll take a load off my back. Say, but won’t I be able to make 
good use of you’. You’re a born letter writer—and that’s half my job.”

On the way out… “Stick to the writing, Henry. You were born to it. I’d 
never be in this racket if I had your talent. I had to fight for everything
I got. You know, ‘the little dago.’” We’re shaking hands… “You won’t let me
down now? Promise! And say hello to your dad for me. So long now!”

“So long, Tony!”

I watched him hail a cab and hop in. I waved again.

What luck! Tony Marella, no less. And just when I thought the earth was 
ready to receive me!

CHAPTER EIGHT

Strange how things fall out sometimes. You may curse and pray, gibber and
whimper, and nothing happens. Then, just when you’re reconciled to the 
inevitable, a trap door opens, Saturn slinks off to another vector, and the
grand problem ceases to be. Or so it seems.

It was in this simple, unexpected way that Stasia informed me one day, 
during Mona’s absence, that she was going to leave us. If I hadn’t had it 
from her own lips I wouldn’t have believed it.

I was so stunned, and so delighted at the same time, that I didn’t even 
inquire why she was leaving. And she, apparently, was in no hurry to 
volunteer the information. That she was fed up with Mona’s theatrical ways,
as she hinted, was hardly sufficient reason for this sudden break.

“Would you mind taking a walk with me?” she asked. “I’d like to say a few
things to you in private before I go. My bag is packed.”

As we left the house she asked if I had any objection to strolling across
the Bridge. “None at all,” I replied. I would have consented to walk to 
White Plains, if she had suggested it.

The fact that she was leaving awakened my sympathies. She was a strange 
creature, but not a bad one. Stopping to light a cigarette, I sized her up,
detachedly. She had the air of a Confederate soldier back from the war. 
There was a forlorn look in her eyes, but it was not devoid of courage. She
belonged nowhere, that was obvious.

We walked in silence for a block or two. Then, as we made the approach to
the Bridge, it oozed out of her. Softly she spoke, and with feeling. Simple
talk, for a change. As if confiding in a dog. Her gaze was fixed straight 
ahead, as if blazing a trail.

She was saying that, all in all, I hadn’t been as cruel as I might have 
been. It was the situation which was cruel, not me. It would never have 
worked out, not even if we were a thousand times better than we were. She 
should have known better. She admitted that there had been a lot of 
play-acting, too. She loved Mona, yes, but she wasn’t desperately in love. 
Never had been. It was Mona who was desperate. Besides, it wasn’t love that
bound them as much as a need for companionship. They were lonely souls, 
both of them. In Europe it might have worked out differently. But it was 
too late for that now. Some day she would go there on her own, she hoped.

“But where will you go now?” I asked.

“To California, probably. Where else?”

“Why not to Mexico?”

That was a possibility, she agreed, but later. First she had to pull 
herself together. It hadn’t been easy for her, this chaotic bohemian life. 
Fundamentally she was a simple person. Her one problem was how to get along
with others. What had disturbed her most about our way of life, she wanted 
me to know, was that it gave her little chance to work. “I’ve got to do 
things with my hands,” she blurted out. “Even if it’s digging ditches. I 
want to be a sculptor, not a painter or a poet.” She hastened to add that I
should not judge her by the puppets she had turned out—she had made them 
only to please Mona.

Then she said something which sounded to my ears like high treason. She 
said that Mona knew absolutely nothing about art, that she was incapable of
distinguishing between a good piece of work and a bad one. “Which doesn’t 
really matter, or rather wouldn’t matter, if only she had the courage to 
admit it. But she hasn’t. She must pretend that she knows everything, 
understands everything. I hate pretense. That’s one of the reasons why I 
don’t get along with people.”

She paused to let this sink in. “I don’t know how you stand it! You’re 
full of nasty tricks, you do vile things now and then, and you’re terribly 
prejudiced and unfair sometimes, but at least you’re honest. You never 
pretend to be other than you are. Whereas Mona… well, there’s no telling 
who she is or what she is. She’s a walking theater. Wherever she goes, 
whatever she’s doing, no matter whom she’s talking to, she’s on stage. It’s
sickening… But I’ve told you all this before. You know it as well as I do.”

An ironic smile slid over her face. “Sometimes… ” She hesitated a moment.
“Sometimes I wonder how she behaves in bed. I mean, does she fake that 
too?”

A strange query, which I ignored.

“I’m more normal than you would ever think,” she continued. “My defects 
are all on the surface. At the bottom I’m a shy little girl who never grew 
up. Maybe it’s a glandular disturbance. It would be funny, wouldn’t it, if 
taking a few hormones daily should turn me into a typical female? What is 
it that makes me hate women so much? I was always that way. Don’t laugh 
now, but honestly, it makes me sick to see a woman squat to pee. So 
ridiculous… Sorry to hand you such trivia. I meant to tell you about the 
big things, the things that really bother me. But I don’t know where to 
begin. Besides, now that I’m leaving, what’s the point?”

We were now halfway over the Bridge. In a few minutes we would be among 
the pushcart vendors, passing shops whose show windows were always stacked 
with smoked fish, vegetables, onion rolls, huge loaves of bread, great 
cartwheels of cheese, salted pretzels and other inviting edibles. In 
between would be wedding gowns, full dress suits, stovepipe hats, corsets, 
lingerie, crutches, douche pans, bric-a-brac galore.

I wondered what it was she wanted to tell me—the vital thing, I mean.

“When we get back,” I said, “there’ll undoubtedly be a scene. If I were 
you, I’d pretend to change my mind, then sneak away the first chance you 
get. Otherwise she’ll insist on going with you, if only to see you home 
safely.”

An excellent idea, she thought. It made her smile. “Such a thought would 
never have occurred to me,” she confessed. “I have no strategic sense 
whatever.”

“All the better for you,” said I.

‘Talking of strategy, I wonder if you could help me raise a little money?
I’m flat broke. I can’t hitchhike across the country with a trunk and a 
heavy valise, can I?”

(No, I thought to myself, but we could send them to you later.) “I’ll do 
what I can,” I said. “You know I’m not very good at raising money. That’s 
Mona’s department. But I’ll try.”

“Good,” she said. “A few days more or less won’t matter.”

We had come to the end of the span. I spotted an empty bench and steered 
her to it.

“Let’s rest a bit,” I said.

“Couldn’t we get a coffee?”

“I’ve only got seven cents. And just two more cigarettes.”

“How do you manage when you’re by yourself?” she asked.

“That’s different. When I’m alone, things happen.”

“God takes care of you, is that it?”

I lit a cigarette for her.

“I’m getting frightfully hungry,” she said, her wings drooping.

“If it’s that bad, let’s start back.”

“I can’t, it’s too far. Wait a while.”

I fished out a nickel and handed it to her. “You take the subway and I’ll
walk. It’s no hardship for me.”

“No,” she said, “we’ll go back together… I’m afraid to face her alone.”

“Afraid t”

“Yes, Val, afraid. She’ll weep all over the place and then I’ll weaken.”

“But you should weaken, remember? Let her weep… then say you’ve changed 
your mind. Like I told you.”

“I forgot,” she said.

We rested our weary limbs a while. A pigeon swooped down and settled on 
her shoulder.

“Can’t you buy some peanuts?” she said. “We could feed the birds and have
a bit for ourselves too.”

“Forget it!” I replied. “Pretend that you’re not hungry. It’ll pass. I’ve
hardly ever walked the Bridge on a full stomach. You’re nervous, that’s 
all.”

“You remind me of Rimbaud sometimes,” she said. “He was always famished… 
and always walking his legs off.”

“There’s nothing unique in that,” I replied. “He and how many million 
others?”

I bent over to fix my shoelaces and there, right under the bench, were 
two whole peanuts. I grabbed them.

“One for you and one for me,” I said. “You see how Providence looks after
one?”

The peanut gave her the courage to stretch her legs. We rose stiffly and 
headed back over the Bridge.

“You’re not such a bad sort,” she said, as we climbed forward. “There was
a time when I positively loathed you. Not because of Mona, not because I 
was jealous, but because you didn’t give a damn about any one but your own 
sweet self. You struck me as ruthless. But I see you really have a heart, 
don’t you?”

“What put that into your head?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Nothing in particular. Maybe it’s that I’m beginning 
to see things in a new light now. Anyway, you no longer look at me the way 
you used to. You see me now. Before you used to look right through me. You 
might just as well have stepped on me… or over me.”

“I’ve been wondering,” she mused, “how the two of you will get along, 
once I’m gone. In a way it’s I who have held you together. If I were more 
cunning, if I really wanted her all to myself, I would go away, wait for 
the two of you to separate, then come back and claim her.”

“I thought you were through with her,” said I. I had to admit to myself, 
however, that there was logic in her observation.

“Yes,” she said, “all that’s past. What I want to do now is to make a 
life for myself. I’ve got to do the things I like to do, even if I fail 
miserably… But what will she do? That’s what I wonder. Somehow I can’t see 
her doing anything of consequence. I feel sorry for you. Believe me, I mean
it sincerely. It’s going to be hell for you when I leave. Maybe you don’t 
realize it now, but you will.”

“Even so,” I replied, “it’s better this way.”

“You’re certain I’ll go, eh? No matter what happens?”

“Yes,” I said, “I’m sure. And if you don’t go of your own accord, I’ll 
drive you away.”

She gave a weak laugh. “You’d kill me if you had to, wouldn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t say that. No, what I mean is that the time has come… “

“Said the walrus to—”

“Right! What happens when you leave is my affair. The thing is to leave. 
No back-bending!”

She swallowed this as one does a lump in the throat. We had come to the 
summit of the arch, where we paused to view the retreating skyline.

“How I hate this place!” she said. “Hated it from the moment I arrived. 
Look at those beehives,” she said, indicating the skyscrapers. “Inhuman, 
what!” With arm extended she made a gesture as if to sweep them away. “If 
there’s a single poet in that mass of stone and steel I’m a crazy Turk. 
Only monsters could inhabit those cages.” She moved closer to the edge and 
spat over the rail into the river. “Even the water is filthy. Polluted.”

We turned away and resumed our march.

“You know,” she said, “I was brought up on poetry. Whitman, Wordsworth, 
Amy Lowell, Pound, Eliot. Why, I could recite whole poems once upon a time.
Especially Whitman’s. Now all I can do is gnash my teeth. I’ve got to get 
out West again, and as soon as possible. Joaquin Miller… did you ever read 
him? The poet of the Sierras. Yes, I want to go naked again and rub against
trees. I don’t care what any one thinks… I can make love to a tree, but not
to those filthy things in pants who crawl out of those horrid buildings. 
Men are all right—in the open spaces. But here—my God! I’d rather 
masturbate than let one of them crawl into bed with me. They’re vermin, all
of them. They stink!”

She seemed on the point of working herself into a lather. Of a sudden, 
however, she grew quiet. Her whole expression changed. Indeed, she looked 
almost angelic.

“I’ll get myself a horse,” she was saying now, “and I’ll hide away in the
mountains. Maybe I’ll learn to pray again. As a girl I used to go off by my
lonesome, often for days at a stretch. Among the tall redwoods I would talk
to God. Not that I had any specific image of Him; He was just a great 
Presence. I recognized God everywhere, in everything. How beautiful the 
world looked to me then! I was overflowing with love and affection. And I 
was so aware. Often I got down on my knees—to kiss a flower. ‘You’re so 
perfect!” I would say. ‘So self-sufficient. All you need are sun and rain. 
And you get what you need without asking. You never cry for the moon, do 
you, little violet? You never wish to be different than you are.’ That’s 
how I talked to the flowers. Yes, I knew how to commune with Nature. And it
was all perfectly natural. Real. Terribly real.”

She stopped to give me a searching look. She looked even more angelic now
than before. Even with a crazy hat on she would have looked seraphic. Then,
as she began to unburden herself in earnest, her countenance changed again.
But the aureole was still about her.

What derailed her, she was trying to tell me, was art. Some one had put 
the bug in her head that she was an artist. “Oh, that’s not altogether 
true,” she exclaimed. “I always had talent, and it cropped out early. But 
there was nothing exceptional in what I did. Every sincere person has a 
grain of talent.”

She was trying to make clear to me how the change came about, how she 
became conscious of art and of herself as an artist. Was it because she was
so different from those about her? Because she saw with other eyes? She 
wasn’t sure. But she knew that one day it happened. Overnight, as it were, 
she had lost her innocence. From then on, she said, everything assumed 
another aspect. The flowers no longer spoke to her, nor she to them. When 
she looked at Nature she saw it as a poem or a landscape. She was no longer
one with Nature. She had begun to analyze, to recompose, to assert her own 
will.

“What a fool I was! In no time I had grown too big for my own shoes. 
Nature wasn’t enough. I craved the life of the city. I regarded myself as a
cosmopolitan spirit. To rub elbows with fellow artists, to enlarge my ideas
through discussion with intellectuals, became imperative. I was hungry to 
see the great works of art I had heard so much about, or rather read about,
for no one I knew ever talked about art. Except one person, that married 
woman I told you about once. She was a woman in her thirties and worldly 
wise. She hadn’t an ounce of talent herself, but she was a great lover of 
art and had excellent taste. It was she who opened my eyes, not only to the
world of art but to other things as well. I fell in love with her, of 
course. How could I not do so? She was mother, teacher, patron, lover all 
in one. She was my whole world, in fact.”

She interrupted herself to inquire if she was boring me.

“The strange thing is,” she resumed, “That it was she who pushed me out 
into the world. Not her husband, as I may have led you to believe. No, we 
got along well, the three of us. I would never have gone to bed with him if
she hadn’t urged me to. She was a strategist, like you. Of course, he never
really got anywhere with me; the best he could manage was to hold me in his
arms, press his body to mine. When he tried to force me I pulled away. 
Evidently it didn’t bother him too much, or else he pretended it didn’t. I 
suppose it sounds strange to you, this business, but it was all quite 
innocent. I’m destined to be a virgin, I guess. Or a virgin at heart.

“Oof! What a story I’m making of it! Anyway, the point of it all is that 
it was they, the two of them, who gave me the money to come East. I was to 
go to art school, work hard, and make a name for myself.”

She stopped abruptly.

“And now look at me! What am I? What have I become? I’m a sort of bum, 
more of a fake than your Mona, really.”

“You’re no fake,” said I. “You’re a misfit, that’s all.”

“You don’t need to be kind to me.”

For a moment I thought she was going to burst into tears.

“Will you write to me some time?”

“Why not? If it would give you pleasure, why of course.”

Then, like a little girl, she said: “I’ll miss you both. I’ll miss you 
terribly.”

“Well,” I said, “it’s over with. Look forward, not backward.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You’ll have her. I’ll… “

“You’ll be better off alone, believe me. It’s better to be alone than 
with some one who doesn’t understand you.”

“You’re so right.” said she, and she gave a shy little laugh. “Do you 
know, once I tried to get a dog to mount me. It was so ludicrous. He 
finally bit me in the thigh.”

“You should have tried a donkey—they’re more amenable.”

We had reached the end of the Bridge. “You will try to raise some money 
for me, won’t you?” she said.

“Of course I will. And don’t you forget to pretend to change your mind 
and stay. Otherwise we’ll have a frightful scene.”

*

There was a scene, as I predicted, but the moment Stasia relented it 
ended like a spring shower. To me, however, it was not only depressing but 
humiliating to observe Mona’s grief. On arriving we found her in the 
toilet, weeping like a pig. She had found the valise packed, the trunk 
locked, and Stasia’s room in a state of wild disorder. She knew it was 
quits this time.

It was only natural for her to accuse me of inspiring the move. 
Fortunately Stasia denied this vehemently. Then why had she decided to go? 
To this Stasia lamely replied that she was weary of it all. Then bang bang,
like bullets, came Mona’s reproachful queries. How could you say such a 
thing? Where would you go? What have I done to turn you against me? She 
could have fired a hundred more shots like that. Anyway, with each reproach
her hysteria mounted; her tears turned to sobs and her sobs to groans.

That she would have me all to herself was of no importance. It was 
obvious that I didn’t exist, except as a thorn in her side.

As I say, Stasia finally relented, but not until Mona had stormed and 
raged and pleaded and begged. I wondered why she had permitted the scene to
last so long. Was she enjoying it? Or was she so disgusted that she had 
become fascinated? I asked myself what would have happened had I not been 
at her side.

It was I who couldn’t take any more, I who turned to Stasia and begged 
her to reconsider.

“Don’t go yet,” I begged. “She really needs you. She loves you, can’t you
see?”

And Stasia answers: “But that’s why I should go.”

“No,” said I, “if any one should leave, it’s me.”

(At the moment I really meant it, too.) “Please,” said Mona, “don’t you 
go too! Why does either of you have to go? Why? Why? I want you both. I 
need you. I love you.”

“We’ve heard that before,” said Stasia, as if still adamant.

“But I mean it,” said Mona. “I’m nothing without you. And now that you’re
friends at last, why can’t we all live together in peace and harmony? I’ll 
do anything you ask. But don’t leave me, please’.” Again I turned to 
Stasia. “She’s right,” I said. “This time it may work out. You’re not 
jealous of me… why should I be jealous of you? Think it over, won’t you? If
it’s me you’re worried about, put your mind at ease. I want to see her 
happy, nothing more. If keeping you with us will make her happy, then I say
stay’. Maybe I’ll learn to be happy too. At least, I’ve grown more 
tolerant, don’t you think?” I gave her a queer smile. “Come now, what do 
you say? You’re not going to ruin three lives, are you?”

She collapsed onto a chair. Mona knelt at her feet and put her head in 
her lap, then slowly raised her eyes and looked at Stasia imploringly. “You
will stay, won’t you?” she pleaded.

Gently Stasia pushed her away. “Yes,” she said, “I’ll stay. But on one 
condition. There must be no more scenes.”

Their eyes were now focused on me. After all, I was the culprit. It was I
who had instigated all the scenes. Was I going to behave? That was their 
mute query.

“I know what you’re thinking,” said I. “All I can say is that I will do 
my best.”

“Say more!” said Stasia. “Tell us how you really feel now.”

Her words set me back on my heels. I had the uneasy feeling that she had 
been taken in by her own acting. Was it necessary for me to be put on the 
grill—at this point? What I really felt like, if I dared to speak my mind, 
was a scoundrel. An utter scoundrel. To be sure, it had never occurred to 
me, in making the suggestion, that we would be obliged to carry the farce 
to such lengths. For Stasia to weaken was one thing, and in keeping with 
our bargain, but to be exacting solemn promises of me, to be searching my 
very heart, was something else. Maybe we had never been anything but 
actors, even when we thought we were sincere. Or the other way round. I was
getting confused. It struck me with force, suddenly, that Mona, the 
actress, was probably the most sincere of all. At least she knew what she 
wanted.

All this ran through my head like lightning.

My reply, and it was the truth, was—“To be honest, I don’t know how I 
feel. I don’t think I have any feelings left. Anyway, I don’t want to hear 
any more about love, ever… ” Like that it ended, in a fizzle. But Mona was 
thoroughly content. Stasia too, it seemed.

None of us had been too badly damaged. Veterans, that’s what we were.

And now I’m trotting around like a bloodhound to raise money, presumably 
so that Stasia may take off. I’ve already visited three hospitals, in an 
effort to sell my blood. Human blood is at twenty-five dollars the pint 
now. Not long ago it was fifty dollars, but now there are too many hungry 
donors.

Useless to waste more time in that direction. Better to borrow the money.
But from whom? I could think of no one who would offer me more than a buck 
or two. She needed at least a hundred dollars. Two hundred would be still 
better.

If only I knew how to reach that millionaire pervert! I thought of 
Ludwig, the mad ticket-chopper—another pervert!—but with a heart of gold, 
so Mona always said. But what to tell him?

I was passing Grand Central Station. Would run down to the sub-basement, 
where the messengers were herded, and see if any one was there who 
remembered me. (Costigan, the old reliable, had passed away.) I sneaked 
down and looked over the crew. Not a soul I could recognize.

Climbing the ramp to the street I recalled that Doc Zabriskie was 
somewhere in the neighborhood. In a jiffy I was leafing the telephone 
directory. Sure enough, there he was—on West 45th Street. My spirits rose. 
Here was a guy I could surely count on. Unless he was broke. That was 
hardly likely, now that he had set up an office in Manhattan. My pace 
quickened. I didn’t even bother to think what kind of cock and bull story I
would trump up… In the past, when I would visit him to have a tooth filled,
it was he who would ask me if I wasn’t in need of a little dough. Sometimes
I would say no, ashamed of myself for imposing on such good nature. But 
that was back in the 18th century.

Hurrying along, I suddenly recalled the location of his old office. It 
was that three-story red brick building where I once lived with the widow, 
Carlotta. Every morning I hauled the ash cans and the garbage pails from 
the cellar and placed them at the curb. That was one of the reasons he had 
taken such a fancy to me, Doc Zabriskie—because I wasn’t ashamed to soil my
hands. It was so Russian, he thought. Like a page out of Gorky… How he 
loved to chat with me about his Russian authors! How elated he was when I 
showed him that prose poem I had written on Jim Londos, Londos the little 
Hercules, as he was called. He knew them all—Strangler Lewis, Zbysko, Earl 
Caddock, Farmer what’s-his-name… all of them. And here I was writing like a
poet—he couldn’t get over my style!—about his great favorite, Jim Londos. 
That afternoon, I remember, he stuffed a ten dollar bill in my hand as I 
was leaving. As for the manuscript, he insisted on keeping it—in order to 
show it to a sports writer he knew. He begged me to show him more of my 
work. Had I written anything on Scriabin? Or on Alekhine, the chess 
champion? “Come again soon,” he urged. “Come any time, even if your teeth 
don’t need attention.” And I would go back from time to time, not just to 
chew the fat about chess, wrestlers and pianoforte, but in the hope that he
would slip me a fiver, or even a buck, on leaving.

I was trying to recall, as I entered the new office, how many years it 
was since I had last talked to him. There were only three clients in the 
waiting room. Not like the old days when there was standing room only, and 
women with shawls sat red-eyed, holding their swollen jaws, some with brats
in their arms, and all of them poor, meek, down-trodden, capable of sitting
there for hours on end. The new office was different. The furniture looked 
brand new and luxuriously comfortable, there were paintings on the 
wall—good ones—and all was noiseless, even the drill. No samovar, though.

I had hardly seated myself when the door of the torture chamber opened to
evacuate a client. He came over to me at once, shook hands warmly, and 
begged me to wait a few minutes. Nothing serious? he hoped. I told him to 
take his time. A few cavities, nothing more. I sat down again and picked up
a magazine. Poring over the illustrations I decided that the best thing to 
say was that Mona had to undergo an operation. A tumor in the vagina, or 
something like that.

With Doc Zabriskie a few minutes usually meant an hour or two. Not this 
time, however. Everything was running smoothly and efficiently now.

I sat down in the big chair and opened wide my mouth. There was only one 
little cavity; he would fill it immediately. As he drilled away he plied me
with questions: how were things going? was I still writing? did I have any 
children? why hadn’t I looked him up before? how was So-and-so? did I still
ride the bike? To all of which I replied with grunts and a roll of the 
eyes.

Finally it was over. “Don’t run away!” he said. “Have a little drink with
me first!” He opened a cabinet and got out a bottle of excellent Scotch, 
then pulled a stool up beside me. “Now tell me all about yourself!”

I had to make quite a preamble before coming to the issue. That is, where
we stood at the present moment, financially and otherwise. At last I 
blurted it out—the tumor. Immediately he informed me that he had a good 
friend, an excellent surgeon, who would do the job for nothing. That 
stumped me. All I could say was that arrangements had already been made, 
that I had already advanced a hundred dollars toward the cost of the 
operation.

“I see,” he said. “That’s too bad.” He thought a moment, then asked: 
“When must you have the balance?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

“I tell you what,” he said, “I’ll give you a post-dated check. Right now 
my bank balance is low, very low. How much is it you need exactly?”

I said two hundred and fifty dollars.

“That’s a shame,” he said. “I could have saved you all that expense.”

I was suddenly struck with remorse. “Listen,” I said, “forget about it! I
don’t want to take your last penny.” He wouldn’t listen to me. People were 
slow in paying their bills, that’s all, he explained. He got out a big 
ledger, began thumbing through it. “By the end of the month I should take 
in over three thousand dollars. You see,” he grinned, “I’m not exactly 
poor.” The check safely in my pocket, I lingered a while to save face. When
at last he escorted me to the elevator—I already had one foot in—he said: 
“Better ring me up before depositing that check… just to make sure it’s 
covered. Do that, will you?”

“I’ll do that,” I said, and waved good-bye.

The same good-hearted fellow, thought I to myself as the elevator 
descended. Too bad I hadn’t thought to get a little cash too. A coffee and 
a piece of pie was what I needed now. I felt in my pocket. Just a few 
pennies short. Same old story.

Approaching the library at Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street I found 
myself weighing the pros and cons of setting up as a bootblack. What ever 
could have put such a thought in my head? I wondered. Going on forty and 
thinking about shining other people’s shoes. How the mind wanders!

Abreast of the esplanade guarded by the placid stone lions, the impulse 
seized me to visit the library. Always pleasant and cozy up in the big 
reading room. Besides, I had suddenly developed a curiosity to see how it 
had fared, at my age, with other men of letters. (There was also a 
possibility of running into an acquaintance and still getting that pie and 
coffee.) One thing was certain, there was no need to delve into the private
lives of such as Gorky, Dostoievsky, Andreyev or any of their ilk. Nor 
Dickens either. Jules Verne! There was a writer about whose life I knew 
absolutely nothing. Might be interesting. Some authors, it seemed, never 
had a private life; everything went into their books. Others, like 
Strindberg, Nietzsche, Jack London… their lives I knew almost as well as my
own.

What I really hoped for, no doubt, was to come upon one of those lives 
which begin nowhere, which lead us through marshes and salt flats, 
trickling away, seemingly, without plan, purpose or goal, and then suddenly
emerge, gushing like geysers, and never cease gushing, even in death. What 
I wanted to lay hold of—as if one could ever come to grips with such 
impalpables!—was that crucial point in the evolution of a genius when the 
hard, dry rock suddenly yields water. As the heavenly vapors are eventually
collected in vast watersheds and there converted into streams and rivers, 
so in the mind and soul, I felt, there must ever exist this reservoir 
waiting to be transformed into words, sentences, books, to be drowned again
in the ocean of thought.

Only through trial and tribulation, it is said, are we opened up. Was 
that what I would find—nothing more?—in scanning the pages of biography? 
Were the creative ones tormented beings who found salvation only through 
wrestling with the media of art? In man’s world beauty was linked with 
suffering and suffering with salvation. Nothing of the sort obtained in 
Nature.

I took a seat in the reading room with a huge biographical dictionary 
before me. After reading here and there I fell into a reverie. To pursue my
own thoughts proved more exciting than to pry into the lives of successful 
failures. Could I trace my own meanderings, beneath the roots, perhaps I 
might stumble on the stream which would lead me into the open. Stasia’s 
words came to mind—the need to meet a kindred spirit, in order to grow, to 
give forth fruit. To hold converse (on writing) with the lovers of 
literature was fruitless. There were many I had already met who could talk 
more brilliantly on the subject than any writer. (And they would never 
write a line.) Was there any one, indeed, who could speak discerningly 
about the secret processes?

The great question was that eternal, seemingly unanswerable one: what 
have I to tell the world which is so desperately important? What have I to 
say that has not been said before, and thousands of times, by men 
infinitely more gifted? Was it sheer ego, this coercive need to be heard? 
In what way was I unique? For if I was not unique then it would be like 
adding a cipher to an incalculably astronomic figure.

From one thing to another—a delicious Traumerei!—until I found myself 
pondering this most absorbing aspect of the writer’s problem: openings. The
way in which a book opened—there in itself lay a world. How vastly 
different, how unique, were the opening pages of the great books! Some 
authors were like huge birds of prey; they hovered above their creation, 
casting immense, serrated shadows over their words. Some, like painters, 
began with delicate, unpremeditated touches, guided by some sure instinct 
whose purpose would become apparent later in the application of mass and 
color. Some took you by the hand like dreamers, content to linger at the 
edges of dream, and only slowly, tantalizingly permitted themselves to 
reveal what was obviously inexpressible. There were others who, as if 
perched in signal towers, derived intense enjoyment from pulling switches, 
blinking lights; with them everything was delineated sharply and boldly, as
though their thoughts were so many trains pulling into the station yard. 
And then there were those who, either demented or hallucinated, began at 
random with hoarse cries, jeers and curses, stamping their thoughts not 
upon but through the page, like machines gone wild. Varied as they were, 
all these methods of breaking the ice were symptomatic of the personality, 
not expositions of thought-out techniques. The way a book opened was the 
way an author walked or talked, the way he looked at life, the way he took 
courage or concealed his fears. Some began by seeing clear to the end; 
others began blindly, each line a silent prayer leading to the next. What 
an ordeal, this lifting of the veil! What a shuddering risk, this laying 
bare the mummy! No one, not even the greatest, could be certain what he 
might be called upon to present to the profane eye. Once engaged, anything 
could happen. It was as if, by taking pen in hand, the “archons” were 
summoned. Yes, the archons! Those mysterious entities, those cosmic 
enzymes, who are at work in every seed, who engineer the creation, 
structural and aesthetic, of every flower, every plant, every tree, every 
universe. The powers within. An everlasting ferment from which stemmed law 
and order.

And while these invisible ones went about their task, the author—what a 
misnomer!—lived and breathed, performed the duties of a householder, a 
prisoner, a vagabond, whatever the role, and as the days passed, or the 
years, the scroll unrolled, the tragedy (his own and his characters’) 
spelled itself out, his moods varying like the weather from day to day, his
energies rising and sinking, his thoughts seething like a maelstrom, the 
end ever approaching, a heaven which even if he has not earned it he must 
force, because what is begun must be finished, consummated, even if on the 
cross.

What need, eh, to read the pages of biography? What need to study the 
worm or the ant? Think, for just a moment, of such willing victims as 
Blake, Boehme, Nietzsche, of Holderlin, Sade, Nerval, of Villon, Rimbaud, 
Strindberg, of Cervantes or Dante, or even of Heine or Oscar Wilde! And I, 
was I to add my name to this host of illustrious martyrs? To what further 
depths of degradation had I to sink before acquiring the right to join the 
ranks of these scapegoats?

As on those interminable walks to and from the tailor shop, I was 
suddenly seized with a fit of writing. All in the head, to be sure. But 
what marvelous pages, what magnificent phraseology! My eyes half closed, I 
slumped deeper into the seat and listened to the music welling up from the 
depths. What a book this was! If not mine, whose then? I was entranced. 
Entranced, yet saddened, humbled, chastened. Of what use to summon these 
invisible workers? For the pleasure of drowning in the ocean of creation? 
Never, through conscious effort, never, with pen in hand, would I be able 
to invoke such thoughts! Everything to which I would eventually sign my 
name would be marginal, peripheral, the maunderings of an idiot striving to
record the erratic flight of a butterfly… Yet it was comforting to know 
that one could be as a butterfly.

To think that all this wealth, this wealth of the primeval chaos, must be
infused, to be palatable and potable, with the Homeric minutiae of the 
daily round, with the repetitious drama of petty humans whose sufferings 
and aspirations have, even to mortal ears, the monotonous hum of windmills 
whirring in remorseless space. The petty and the great: separated by 
inches. Alexander dying of pneumonia in the desolate reaches of Asia; 
Caesar in all his purple proved mortal by a pack of traitors; Blake singing
as he passed away; Damien torn on the wheel and screaming like a thousand 
twisted eagles… what did it matter and to whom? A Socrates hitched to a 
nagging wife, a saint plagued with a thousand woes, a prophet tarred and 
feathered… to what end? All grist for the mill, data for historians and 
chroniclers, poison to the child, caviar for the schoolmaster. And with 
this and through this, weaving his way like an inspired drunkard, the 
writer tells his tale, lives and breathes, is honored or dishonored. What a
role! Jesus protect us!

CHAPTER NINE

No coffee, no apple pie. It was dark and the avenue deserted when I hit 
the air. I was famished. With the few cents I had I bought a candy bar and 
walked home. A horrendous jaunt, particularly on an empty stomach. But my 
head was buzzing like a beehive. For company I had the martyrs, those gay, 
self-willed birds who had long since been devoured by the worms.

I dove straight into bed. Why wait up for them, even though there was a 
promise of food? Anything from their lips would be so much gibberish after 
the biographical fling I had enjoyed.

I waited a few days before breaking the news to Stasia. She was 
dumbfounded when I handed her the check. Never believed it possible of me. 
But wasn’t I rushing her a bit? And the check, could she be certain it 
wouldn’t bounce?

Such questions! I said nothing about Doc Zabriskie’s request to call him 
before cashing the check. No use running the risk of hearing something 
disagreeable. Cash it first, then worry—that was my thought.

It never entered my head to inquire if she had changed her mind about 
going. I had done my part, it was up to her to fulfill hers. Ask nobody 
nothing, it’s too risky. Forward, at all costs!

A few days later, however, came the bad news. It was like a 
double-barreled shotgun going off. First, as I might have known, the check 
bounced. Second, Stasia had decided against leaving—for a while anyway. On 
top of it I got hell from Mona for trying to get rid of Stasia. I had 
broken my word again. How could they ever trust me? And so on. My hands 
were tied, or my tongue rather. Impossible to tell her what Stasia and I 
had agreed upon in private. That would only have made me more of a traitor.

When I asked who had cashed the check I was told it was none of my 
business. I suspected it was some one who could well afford the loss. (That
filthy millionaire most likely.) What to say to Doc Zabriskie? Nothing. I 
hadn’t the courage to face him again. Indeed, I never did see him again. 
One more name to scratch off my list.

While things were simmering down a bizarre episode took place. Knocking 
softly on the windowpane one evening, looking his same queasy, quirky, 
disreputable self, stands Osiecki. It’s his birthday, he informs -me. The 
few drinks he had stowed away had not had too baleful an effect. He was 
slightly out of focus, to be sure, still mumbling in his whiskers, still 
scratching himself, but, if one could express it thus, in a more winsome 
fashion than usual.

I had refused his invitation to do a little quiet celebrating with him. I
made some weak excuses which failed to penetrate the fog in which he was 
wrapped. He had such a hangdog look that instead of turning him loose I 
permitted him to break down my resistance. Why not go along, after all? Did
it matter that my shirt was unironed and frayed, my pants wrinkled and my 
coat full of spots? As he said, “Nonsense!” It was his idea to go to the 
Village, have a few friendly drinks, and get back early. Just for old 
times’ sake. It wasn’t fair to ask a man to celebrate his birthday all by 
himself. He jiggled the coins in his pocket as if to tell me that he was 
well-heeled. We weren’t going to any fancy joints, he assured me. “Maybe 
you’d like to catch a bite first?” he said. He grinned with all his loose 
teeth.

So I gave in. At Borough Hall I put away a sandwich and a coffee, one, 
two, three. Then we dove into the subway. He was muttering and mumbling to 
himself, as of yore. Now and then I caught a distinct phrase. What it 
sounded like, in the roar of the tube, was—“Ah yes, yes, once in a while 
indulge… spree and pee… a look at the girls and a brawl… not too bloody… 
ring around the rosie… you know… shake the bugs out of the rug.”

-At Sheridan Square we hopped out. No trouble finding a joint. The whole 
Square seemed to be belching tobacco smoke; from every window there came 
the blare of jazz, the screams of hysterical females wading in their own 
urine; fairies, some in uniform, walked arm in arm, as if along the 
Promenade des Anglais, and in their wake a trail of perfume strong enough 
to asphyxiate a cat. Here and there, just like in Old England, a drunk lay 
sprawled out on the sidewalk, hiccoughing, puking, cursing, babbling the 
usual maudlin fuck-you-all shit. Prohibition was a wonderful thing. It made
every one thirsty, rebellious and cantankerous. Especially the female 
element. Gin brought the harlot out. What filthy tongues they had! Filthier
than an English whore’s.

Inside a stompin’ hell-on-wheels sort of joint we edged our way to the 
bar, near enough, at least, to give our order. Gorillas with mugs in their 
paws were swilling it all over the place. Some were trying to dance, some 
were squatting as if taking a crap, some rolled their eyes and did the 
breakdown, some were on all fours under the tables, sniffing like dogs in 
heat, others were calmly buttoning or unbuttoning their flies. At one end 
of the bar stood a cop in shirtsleeves and suspenders, his eyes 
half-closed, his shirt sticking out of his pants. The holster, with the 
revolver in it, lay on the bar, covered by his hat. (To show that he was on
duty, possibly.) Oscieki, observing his helpless state, wanted to take a 
crack at him.

I pulled him away only to see him flop on a table top smeared with swill.
A girl put her arms around him and started dancing with him, rooted to the 
spot, of course. He had a far-off look in his eye, as if he were counting 
sheep.

We decided to quit the joint. It was noisy. We went down a side street 
ornamented with ash cans, empty crates and the garbage of yesteryear. 
Another joint. The same thing, only worse. Here, so help me God, there were
nothing but cocksuckers. The sailors had taken over. Some of them were in 
skirts. We squeezed our way out amidst the jeers and catcalls.

“Strange,” said Osiecki, “how the Village has changed. One great big 
asshole, ain’t it though?”

“What about going uptown?”

He stood a moment and scratched his bean. He was thinking, evidently.

“Yeah, I remember now,” he bumbled, switching his hand from his head to 
his crotch. “There’s a nice quiet place I went to once… a dance floor, soft
lights… not too expensive either.”

Just then a cab came along. Pulled up right beside us.

“Looking for a place?”

“Yeah,” said Osiecki, still scratching, still thinking.

“Hop in!”

We did. The cab started off like a rocket. No address had been given. I 
didn’t like being whizzed off that way—to a destination unknown.

I nudged Osiecki. “Where are we going?”

It was the driver who answered. “Take it easy, you’ll find out. And you 
can take my word for it, it’s no gyp joint.”

“Maybe he’s got something,” said Osiecki. He acted as if he had been 
charmed.

We pulled up to a loft building in the West Thirties. Not so far away, it
flashed through my head, from the French whorehouse where I got my first 
dose of clap. It was a desolate neighborhood—drugged, frozen, 
shell-shocked. Cats were prowling about half dead on their feet. I looked 
the building up and down. Couldn’t hear any soft music coming through the 
blind windows.

“Ring the bell and tell the doorman I sent you,” said the driver, and he 
handed us his card to present.

He demanded an extra buck for tipping us off. Osiecki wanted to argue the
point. Why? I wondered.

.What matter an extra buck? “Come on,” I said, “we’re losing time. This 
looks like the real thing.”

“It’s not the place I had in mind,” said Osiecki, staring at the 
departing cab and that extra buck.

“What’s the difference? It’s your birthday, remember?”

We rang the bell, the doorman appeared, we presented the card. (Just like
two suckers from the steppes of Nebraska.) He led us to the elevator and up
we went—about eight or ten stories. (No jumping out of windows now!) The 
door slid open noiselessly, as if greased with ghee. For a moment I was 
stunned. Where were we—in God’s blue heaven? Stars everywhere—walls, 
ceiling, doors, windows. The Elysian fields, so help me. And these gliding,
floating creatures in tulle and gauze, ravenous and diaphanous, all with 
arms outstretched to welcome us. What could be more enchanting? Houris they
were, with the midnight stars for background. Was that music which caught 
my ears or the rhythmic flutter of seraphic wings? From afar it seemed to 
come—discreet, subdued, celestial. This, I thought to myself, this is what 
money can buy, and how wonderful it is to have money, any kind of money, 
anybody’s money. Money, money… My blue heaven.

Escorted by two of the most Islamic of the houris—such as Mahomet himself
might have chosen—we boopy-dooped our way to the place of merriment, where 
everything swam in a dusky blue, like the light of Asia coming through a 
splintered fish bowl. A table was waiting for us; over it was spread a 
white damask tablecloth in the very center of which stood a vase containing
pale pink roses, real ones. To the sheen of the cloth was added the 
gleaming reflection of the stars above. There were stars in the eyes of the
houris too, and their breasts, only lightly veiled, were like golden pods 
bursting with star-juice. Even their talk was starry—vague yet intimate, 
caressing but remote. Scintillating mush, flavored with the carobs and 
aloes of the book of etiquette. And in the midst of it I caught the word 
champagne. Some one was ordering champagne. Champagne? What were we then, 
dukes? I ran a finger lightly over my frayed collar.

“Of course,” Osiecki was saying. “Champagne, why not?”

“And perhaps a little caviar?” murmured the one on the left of him.

“Of course! And caviar too!”

*

The cigarette girl now appeared, as if from a trap door. Though I still 
had a few loose cigarettes in my pocket, and though Osiecki smoked only 
cigars, we bought three packs of gold-tipped cigarettes because the gold 
matched the stars, the soft lights, the celestial harps playing somewhere 
behind or around us, God only knew where, it was all so dusky and husky, so
discreet, so ultra-ethereal.

I had only had a taste of the champagne when I heard the two of them ask 
simultaneously, as if through the larynx of a medium—“Won’t you dance?”

Like trained seals we rose to our feet, Osiecki and I. Of course we would
dance, why not? Neither of us knew which foot to put forward first. The 
floor was so highly polished I thought I was moving on casters. They danced
slowly, very slowly, their warm, dewy bodies—all pollen and 
stardust—pressed tight to ours, their limbs undulating like rubber plants. 
What an intoxicating perfume emanated from their smooth, satiny members! 
They weren’t dancing, they were swooning in our arms.

We returned to the table and had some more of the delicious bubbling 
champagne. They put a few polite questions to us. Had we been in town long?
What were we selling? Then—“Wouldn’t you like something to eat?”

Instantly, it seemed, a waiter in full dress was at our side. (No 
snapping of fingers here, no beckoning with head or fingers: everything 
worked by radar.) A huge menu now stared us in the face. He had put one in 
each of our mitts, then stood back at attention. The two damsels also 
surveyed the menu. They were hungry, apparently. To make us more 
comfortable, they ordered for us as well as themselves.

They had a nose for food, these soft-spoken creatures. Delicious-looking 
comestibles, I must say. Oysters, lobsters, more caviar, cheeses, English 
biscuits, seeded rolls—a most inviting spread.

Osiecki, I noticed, had a strange look on his face. It grew even stranger
when the waiter reappeared with a fresh bucket of champagne (ordered by 
radar). This was even more refreshing, more sparkling, than the first 
magnum.

Was there anything else we would like? This from a voice to the rear. A 
suave, cultured voice trained from the cradle.

No one spoke. Our mouths were stuffed. The voice retreated into the 
Pythagorean shadows.

In the midst of this dainty repast one of the girls excused herself. She 
had a number to do. She reappeared in the center of the floor under an 
orange spotlight. A human jackknife. How she managed it, the contortions, 
with the lobster, the caviar and the champagne rolling around in her tripe 
basket, I couldn’t figure out. She was a boa constrictor devouring itself.

While this performance was going on the one at the table plied us with 
questions. Always in that soft, subdued, milk and honey voice, but each 
question more direct, more succinct, I observed. What she was gunning for, 
apparently, was the key to our wealth. What did we do, precisely, for a 
living? Her eyes wandered tellingly over our apparel. There was a 
discrepancy which intrigued her, if one could put it that way. Or was it 
that we were too blissfully content, too heedless of the mundane factors 
which entered into the situation? It was Osiecki, his grin (non-committal),
his casual, off-hand replies that nettled her.

I devoted my attention to the contortionist. Let Osiecki handle the 
question-and-answer department.

The act had now reached that crucial point where the orgasm had to be 
simulated. In a refined way, of course. I had the goblet of champagne in 
one hand and a caviar sandwich in the other. Everything was proceeding 
smoothly, even the orgasm on the floor. Same stars, same dusky blue, same 
smothered sex from the orchestra, same waiter, same tablecloth. Suddenly it
was over. A faint sound of applause, another bow, and here she was 
returning to the festive board. More champagne, no doubt, more caviar, more
drumsticks. Ah, if only life could be lived this way twenty-four hours of 
the day! I was perspiring freely now. Had an urge to remove my tie. 
(“Mustn’t do that!” said a wee small voice inside me.) She was standing at 
the table now. “Won’t you excuse me?” she said. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

Naturally we excused her. After a number like that she undoubtedly had to
make wee-wee, powder her face, freshen up a bit. The food would keep. (We 
weren’t wolves.) And the champagne. And us.

The music started up again, somewhere in the blue of midnight, discreet, 
intimate, a haunting, whispering appeal. Spectral music wafted from the 
upper reaches of the gonads. I half rose to my feet and moved my lips. To 
my surprise she didn’t budge, our lone angel. Said she wasn’t in the mood. 
Osiecki tried his charm. Same reply. Even more laconic. The food too had 
lost its appeal for her. She lapsed into a dead silence.

Osiecki and I continued to eat and drink. The waiters had ceased to 
bother us. No more buckets of champagne appeared out of nowhere. The tables
about us were gradually deserted. The music died away completely.

The silent one now rose abruptly and dashed off, without even excusing 
herself.

“The bill will be coming soon,” Osiecki remarked, almost as if to 
himself.

“Then what?” I said. “Have you enough on you to pay?”

“That depends,” he said, smiling through his teeth.

Sure enough, just as he had said, the waiter in full dress now appeared, 
the bill in his hand. Osiecki took it, looked at it long and lingeringly, 
added it aloud several times, then said to the waiter: “Where can I find 
the manager?”

“Just follow me,” said the waiter, his expression unchanged.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” said Osiecki, waving the bill like an 
important dispatch from the front.

In a minute or in an hour, what difference did it make? I was a partner 
in the crime. No exit. The jig was up.

I was trying to figure out how much they had soaked us. Whatever it was, 
I knew Osiecki didn’t have it. I sat there like a gopher in his hole, 
waiting for the trap to be sprung. I got thirsty. I put an arm out to reach
for the champagne when another waiter, in shirtsleeves, came along and 
started clearing the table. He grabbed the bottle first. Then he cleared 
away the remnants. Not so much as a crumb did he overlook. Finally he 
snatched the tablecloth away too.

For a moment I wondered if someone would whisk the chair from under me—or
put a broom in my hand and command me to get to work.

When you’re stumped, take a leak. A good idea, I told myself. That way, 
maybe I’d catch a glimpse of Osiecki.

I found the toilet at the end of the hall, just beyond the elevator. The 
stars had faded out. No more blue heaven. Just plain, everyday reality—with
a growth of beard. On the way back I caught a glimpse of four or five chaps
huddled together in a corner. They looked terror-stricken. Towering above 
them was a hulk of a brute in uniform. He had all the appearance of an 
accomplished bruiser.

No sign of Osiecki, however.

I returned to the table and sat down. I was even more thirsty now. A 
glass of plain tap water would have satisfied me, but I didn’t dare ask. 
The blue dusk had faded to cinders. I could distinguish objects more 
clearly now. It was like the end of a dream, where the edges fray out.

“What’s he doing?” I kept asking myself. “Is he trying to talk his way 
out?”

I shuddered to think what would happen to us if that monster in the 
uniform should take us in tow.

It was a good half-hour before Osiecki reappeared. He looked none the 
worse for the grueling I suspected he had undergone. In fact, he was half 
smiling, half chuckling.

“Let’s go,” he said. “It’s all settled.”

I sprang to my feet. “How much?” I asked, as we scurried to the cloak 
room.

“Guess!”

“I can’t.”

“Almost a hundred,” he said.

“No!”

“Wait,” he said. “Wait till we get outside.”

The place looked like a coffin factory now. Only specters were roaming 
about. In full sunshine it probably looked worse. I thought of the guys I 
had seen huddled in the corner. I wondered how they would look—after the 
treatment.

It was dawning when we stepped outdoors. Nothing in sight except 
overstuffed garbage cans. Even the cats had disappeared. We headed swiftly 
for the nearest subway station.

“Now tell me,” I said, “how in hell did you manage it?”

He chuckled. Then he said: “It didn’t cost us a penny.”

He began explaining what took place in the manager’s office. “For a crazy
man,” I thought to myself, “you’re as adroit as a quirt!”

Here’s what happened… After he had fished out what cash he had on him—a 
mere twelve or thirteen dollars—he offered to write a check for the 
balance. The manager, of course, laughed in his face. He asked Osiecki if 
he had noticed anything on his way to the office. Osiecki knew damned well 
what he meant. “You mean those guys in the corner?” Yeah, they too had 
offered to pay with rubber checks. He pointed to the watches and rings 
lying on his desk. Osiecki understood that too. Then, innocent as a lamb, 
he suggested that they hold the two of us until the banks opened up. A 
phone call would verify whether his check was good or not. A grilling 
followed. Where did he work? At what? How long had he lived in New York? 
Was he married? Did he have a savings account as well? And so on.

What really turned the tide in his favor, Osiecki thought, was the 
calling card which he presented to the manager. That and the checkbook, 
both of which bore the name of a prominent architect, one of Osiecki’s 
friends. From then on the pressure weakened. They handed him his checkbook 
and Osiecki promptly wrote out a check—including a generous tip for the 
waiter! “Funny,” he said, “but that little touch—the tip—impressed them. It
would have made me suspicious.” He grinned, the usual one, plus a little 
spittle this time. “That’s all there was to it.”

“But what will your friend say when he discovers that you signed his name
to a check?”

“Nothing,” was the calm reply. “He’s dead. It happened just two days 
ago.”

Naturally, I was going to ask him how he happened to be in possession of 
his friend’s checkbook, but then I said to myself—.“Shit! A guy who’s nuts 
and cunning at the same time can explain anything. Forget it!”

So I said instead: “You know your onions, don’t you?”

“Have to,” he replied. “In this town, anyway.” Rolling through the tube 
he leaned over and shouted in my deaf ear—“Nice birthday party, wasn’t it? 
Did you like the champagne? Those guys were simple… anybody could take 
them.”

At Borough Hall, where we rose to the air again, he stood looking at the 
sky, his face one broad beam of pleasure and contentment. “Cock a-doodle-doo!” he crowed, and then he jingled the coins in his pocket. 
“What about breakfast at Joe’s?”

“Fine,” I said. “Bacon and eggs would go good with me.”

As we were stepping inside the restaurant—“So you think it was pretty 
clever of me, do you? That was nothing. You should have known me in 
Montreal. When I ran the whorehouse, I mean.”

Suddenly I panicked. Money… who had the money? I wasn’t going through 
that performance a second time.

“What’s eating you?” he said. “Sure, I’ve got money.”

“I mean cash. Didn’t you tell me you doled out the bills you had in your 
pocket?”

“Shucks,” he said, “they gave ‘em back to me when I signed the check.”

I sucked my breath in. “Cripes,” I said, “that beats everything. You’re 
not clever, you’re a wizard.”

Our talk is of nothing but Paris now. Paris will solve all our problems. 
Meanwhile every one must get busy. Stasia will turn out puppets and death 
masks; Mona will sell her blood, seeing as mine is worthless.

Meanwhile, busy leeches that we are, new suckers are offering to be bled.
One of them is an Indian, a Cherokee. A no-good Indian—always drunk and 
nasty. When drunk, however, he throws his money away… Some one else has 
promised to pay the rent each month. He left the first installment in an 
envelope, under the gate, while we were sound asleep a few nights ago. Then
there is a Jewish surgeon, also of a mind to help, who is a judo expert. 
Rather odd for one of his standing, it strikes me. He’s good for a last 
minute touch. And then there’s the ticket chopper whom they’ve resurrected.
All he asks in return for his offerings is an occasional sandwich on which 
one of them must make a little pipi.

During this new burst of frenzy the walls have been redecorated: the 
place looks like madame Tussaud’s now. Nothing but skeletons, death masks, 
degenerate harlequins, tombstones and Mexican gods—all in lurid colors.

Now and then, whether from excitement or from their frenetic exertions, 
they get vomiting spells. Or the trots. One thing after another, as in The 
Ramayana.

Then one day, disgusted with all this senseless activity, a bright idea 
visited me. Just for the hell of it, I decided I would get in touch with 
Mona’s brother—not the West Pointer, the other, the younger one. She had 
always described him as being very sincere, very straightforward. He didn’t
know how to lie, that’s how she put it once.

Yes, why not have a heart-to-heart talk? A few plain facts, a few cold 
truths would make a pleasant parenthesis in the steady stream of fantasy 
and clabberwhorl.

So I call him up. To my astonishment, he is only too eager to come and 
see me. Says he has long wanted to pay us a visit but Mona would never hear
of it. Sounds bright, frank, altogether sympathique over the phone. 
Boyish-like, he tells me that he hopes to be a lawyer soon.

One look at the freak museum we inhabit and he’s aghast. Walks around in 
a trance, staring at this and that, shaking his head disapprovingly. “So 
this is how you live?” he repeats again and again. “Her idea, no doubt. 
God, but she’s a queer one.”

I offer him a glass of wine but he informs me that he never touches 
liquor. Coffee? No, a glass of water would do.

I ask if she had always been this way. For answer he tells me that no one
in the family knew much about her. She was always on her own, always 
secretive, always pretending that things were other than they were. Nothing
but lies, lies, lies.

“But before she went to college—how was she then?”

“College? She never finished high school. She left home when she was 
sixteen.”

I insinuated as tactfully as I could that conditions at home were 
probably depressing. “Maybe she couldn’t get along with a step-mother,” I 
added.

“Step-mother? Did she say she had a step-mother? The bitch!”

“Yes,” I said, “she always insisted that she couldn’t get along with her 
step-mother. Her father, on the other hand, she loved dearly. So she says. 
They were very close.”

“What else?” His lips were compressed with anger.

“Oh, a lot of things. For one thing, that her sister hated her. Why she 
never knew.”

“Don’t say any more,” he said. “Stop! It’s the other way around. Exactly 
the opposite. My mother was as kind as a mother can be. She was her real 
mother, not her step-mother. As for my father, he used to get so furious 
with her that he would beat her unmercifully. Chiefly because of her lying…
Her sister, you say. Yes, she’s a normal, conventional person, very 
handsome, too. There never was any hate in her. On the contrary, she did 
everything in her power to make life easier for all of us. But no one could
do anything with a bitch like this one. She had to have everything her own 
way. When she didn’t, she threatened to run away.”

“I don’t understand,” said I. “I know she’s a born liar, but… Well, to 
twist things absolutely upside down, why? What can she be trying to prove?”

“She always considered herself above us,” he replied. “We were too 
prosaic, too conventional, for her taste. She was somebody—an actress, she 
thought. But she had no talent, none whatever. She was too theatrical, if 
you understand what I mean. But I must admit, she always knew how to make a
favorable impression on others. She had a natural gift for taking people 
in. As I told you, we know little or nothing of her life from the time she 
flew the coop. We see her once a year, maybe, if that often. She always 
arrives with an armful of gifts, like a princess. And always a pack of lies
about the great things she’s doing. But you can never put a finger on what 
it is she is doing.”

“There’s something I must ask you about,” I said. “Tell me, aren’t you 
people Jewish?”

“Of course,” he replied. “Why? Did she try to make you believe she was a 
Gentile? She was the only one who resented being Jewish. It used to drive 
my mother crazy. I suppose she never told you our real name? My father 
changed it, you see, on coming to America. It means Death, in Polish.”

He had a question now to put to me. He was puzzling how to frame it. 
Finally he came out with it, but blushingly.

“Is she giving you trouble? I mean, are you having marital difficulties?”

“Oh,” I replied, “we have our troubles… like every married couple. Yes, 
plenty of trouble. But that’s not for you to worry about.”

“She’s not running around with… with other men, is she?”

“No-o-o, not exactly.” God, if he only knew!

“She loves me and I love her. No matter what her faults, she’s the only 
one—for me.”

“What is it then?”

I was at a loss how to put it without shocking him too deeply. It was 
hard to explain, I said.

“You don’t have to hold back,” he said. “I can take it.”

“Well… you see, there are three of us living here. That stuff you see on 
the walls—that’s the other one’s work. She’s a girl about the same age as 
your sister. An eccentric character whom your sister seems to idolize.” (It
sounded strange saying “your sister”.) “Sometimes I feel that she thinks 
more of this friend than she does of me. It gets pretty thick, if you know 
what I mean.”

“I get it,” he said. “But why don’t you throw her out?”

“That’s it, I can’t. Not that I haven’t tried. But it won’t work. If she 
leaves, your sister will go too.”

“I’m not surprised,” he said. “It sounds just like her. Not that I think 
she’s a Lesbian, you understand. She likes involvements. Anything to create
a sensation.”

“What makes you so sure she might not be in love with this other person? 
You say yourself you haven’t seen much of her these last few years… “

“She’s a man’s woman,” he said. “That I know.”

“You seem awfully sure.”

“I am. Don’t ask me why. I just am. Don’t forget, whether she admits it 
or not, she’s got Jewish blood in her veins. Jewish girls are loyal, even 
when they’re strange and wayward, like this one. It’s in the blood… “

“It’s good to hear,” I said. “I only hope it’s true.”

“Do you know what I’m thinking? You should come to see us, have a talk 
with my mother. She’d be only too happy to meet you. She has no idea what 
sort of person her daughter married. Anyway, she’d set you straight. It 
would make her feel good.”

“Maybe I’ll do that,” I said. “The truth can’t hurt. Besides, I am 
curious to know what her real mother looks like.”

“Good,” he said, “let’s fix a date.”

I named one, for a few days later. We shook hands.

As he was closing the gate behind him he said: “What she needs is a sound
thrashing. But you’re not the kind to do it, are you?”

*

A few days later I knocked at their door. It was evening and the dinner 
hour was past. Her brother came to the door. (He was hardly likely to 
remember that a few years ago, when I had called to see if Mona really 
lived there or if it was a fake address, he had slammed the door in my 
face.) Now I was inside. I felt somewhat quaky. How often I had tried to 
picture this interior, this home of hers, frame her in the midst of her 
family, as a child, as a young girl, as a grown woman!

Her mother came forward to greet me. The same woman I had caught a 
glimpse of years ago—hanging up the wash. The person I described to Mona, 
only to have her laugh in my face. (“That was my aunt!”) It was a sad, 
care-worn looking countenance the mother presented. As if she hadn’t 
laughed or smiled in years. She had something of an accent but the voice 
was pleasant. However, it bore no resemblance to her daughter’s. Nor could 
I detect any resemblance in their features.

It was like her—why I couldn’t say—to come straight to the point. Was she
the real mother or the step-mother? (That was the deep grievance.) Going to
the sideboard, she produced a few documents. One was her marriage 
certificate. Another was Mona’s birth certificate. Then photos—of the whole
family.

I took a seat at the table and studied them intently. Not that I thought 
they were fakes. I was shaken. For the first time I was coming to grips 
with facts.

I wrote down the name of the village in the Carpathians where her mother 
and father were born. I studied the photo of the house they had lived in in
Vienna. I gazed long and lovingly at all the photos of Mona, beginning with
the infant in swaddling clothes, then to the strange foreign child with 
long black ringlets, and finally to the fifteen-year-old Rejane or Modjeska
whose clothes seemed grotesque yet succeeded somehow in setting off her 
personality. And there was her father—who loved her so! A handsome, 
distinguished-looking man. Might have been a physician, a chancellor of the
exchequer, a composer or a wandering scholar. As for that sister of hers, 
yes, she was even more beautiful than Mona, no gainsaying it. But it was a 
beauty lost in placidity. They were of the same family, but the one 
belonged to her race while the other was a wild fruit sired by the wind.

When at last I raised my eyes I found the mother weeping.

“So she told you I was her step-mother? What ever made her say such a 
thing? And that I was cruel to her… that I refused to understand her. I 
don’t understand… I don’t.”

She wept bitterly. The brother came over and put his arms around her.

“Don’t take it so hard, mother. She was always strange.”

“Strange, yes, but this… this is like treason. Is she ashamed of me? What
did I do, tell me, to cause such behavior?”

I wanted to say something comforting but I couldn’t find words.

“I feel sorry for you,” said her mother. “You must have a hard time of it
indeed. If I hadn’t given birth to her I might believe that she was some 
one else’s child, not mine. Believe me, she wasn’t like this as a girl. No,
she was a good child, respectful, obedient, eager to please. The change 
came suddenly, as if the Devil had taken possession of her. Nothing we said
or did suited her any more. She became like a stranger in our midst. We 
tried everything, but it was no use.”

She broke down again, cupped her head in her hands and wept. Her whole 
body shook with uncontrollable spasms.

I was for getting away as fast as possible. I had heard enough. But they 
insisted on serving tea. So I sat there and listened. Listened to the story
of Mona’s life, from the time she was a child. There was nothing unusual or
remarkable about any of it, curiously enough. (Only one little detail 
struck home. “She always held her head high.”) In a way, it was rather 
soothing to know these homely facts. Now I could put the two faces of the 
coin together… As for the sudden change, that didn’t strike me as so 
baffling. It had happened to me too, after all. What do mothers know about 
their offspring? Do they invite the wayward one to share his or her secret 
longings? Do they probe the heart of a child? Do they ever confess that 
they are monsters too? And if a child is ashamed of her blood, how is she 
to make that known to her own mother?

Looking at this woman, this mother, listening to her, I could find 
nothing in her which, had I been her offspring, would have attracted me to 
her. Her mournful air alone would have turned me from her. To say nothing 
of her sense of pride. It was obvious that her sons had been good to her; 
Jewish sons usually are. And the one daughter, Jehovah be praised, she had 
married off successfully. But then there was the black sheep, that thorn in
her side. The thought of it filled her with guilt. She had failed. She had 
brought forth bad fruit. And this wild one had disowned her. What greater 
humiliation could a mother suffer than to be called step-mother?

No, the more I listened to her, the more she wept and sobbed, the more I 
felt that she had no real love for her daughter. If she had ever loved her 
it was as a child. She never did make an effort to understand her daughter.
There was something false about her protestations. What she wanted was for 
her daughter to return and on bended knee beg her forgiveness.

“Do bring her here,” she entreated as I was bidding them good night. “Let
her stand here in your presence and repeat these evil things, if she dares.
As your wife, she ought to grant you that favor at least.”

I suspected from the way she spoke that she was not at all convinced that
we were man and wife. I was tempted to say, “Yes, when we come I will bring
the marriage certificate along too.” But I held my tongue.

Then, pressing my hand, she amended her speech. “Tell her that everything
is forgotten,” she murmured.

Spoken like a mother, I thought. But hollow just the same.

I circumnavigated the neighborhood on my way to the “L” station. Things 
had changed since we last made the rounds here, Mona and I. I had 
difficulty locating the house where I once stood her up against the wall. 
The vacant lot, where we had fucked our heads off in the mud, was no longer
a vacant lot. New buildings, new streets, everywhere. Still I kept milling 
around. This time it was with another Mona—the fifteen-year-old tragedienne
whose photo I had seen for the first time a few minutes ago. How striking 
she was, even at that awkward age! What purity in her gaze! So frank, so 
searching, so commanding!

I thought of the Mona I had waited for outside the dance hall. I tried to
put the two together. I couldn’t. I wandered through the dismal streets 
with one on either arm. Neither of them existed any longer. Nor did I, 
perhaps.


THE END
