1

IN her tight-fitting Persian dress, with turban to match, she looked ravishing. Spring had come and she had donned a pair of long gloves and a beautiful taupe fur slung carelessly about her full, columnar neck. We had chosen Brooklyn Heights in which to search for an apartment, thinking to get as far away as possible from every one we knew, particularly from Kronski and Arthur Raymond. Ulric was the only one to whom we intended giving our new address. It was to be a genuine vita nuova for us, free of intrusions from the outside world.

The day we set out to look for our little love-nest we were radiantly happy. Each time we came to a vestibule and pushed the door-bell I put my arms around her and kissed her again and again. Her dress fitted like a sheath. She never looked more tempting. Occasionally the door was opened on us before we had a chance to unlock. Sometimes we were requested to produce the wedding ring or else the marriage license. Towards evening we encountered a broad-minded, warm-hearted Southern woman who seemed to take to us immediately. It was a stunning place she had to rent, but far beyond our means. Mona, of course, was determined to have it; it was just the sort of place she had always dreamed of living in. The fact that the rent was twice what we had intended to pay didn’t disturb her.

I was to leave everything to her—she would manage it. The truth is I wanted the place just as much as she did, but I had no illusions about managing the rent. I was convinced that if we took it we would be sunk.

The woman we were dealing with had no suspicion, of course, that we were a poor risk. We were comfortably seated in her flat upstairs, drinking sherry. Presently her husband arrived. He too seemed to find us a congenial couple. From Virginia he was, and a gentleman from the word go. My position in the Cosmodemonic world evidently impressed them. They expressed sincere amazement that one as young as myself should be holding such a responsible position. Mona, to be sure, played this up for all it was worth. To hear her, I was already in line for a superintendent’s job, and in a few more years a vice-presidency. Isn’t that what Mr. Twilliger told you? she said, obliging me to nod affirmatively.

The upshot was that we put down a deposit, a mere ten-spot, which looked a little ridiculous in view of the fact that the rent was to be ninety dollars a month. How we would raise the balance of that first month’s rent, to say nothing of the furniture and other paraphernalia we needed, I hadn’t the slightest idea. I looked upon the deposit as ten dollars lost. A face-saving gesture, nothing more. That Mona would change her mind, once we were out of their ingratiating clutches, I was certain.

But I was wrong, as usual. She was determined to move in. The other eighty dollars? That we got from one of her devoted admirers, a room clerk at the Broztell. And who is he? I ventured to ask, never having heard his name mentioned before. Don’t you remember? I introduced you to him only a couple of weeks ago—when you and Ulric met us on Fifth Avenue. He’s perfectly harmless.

Seemingly they were all perfectly harmless. It was her way of informing me that never would they think of embarrassing her by suggesting that she spend a night with them. They were all gentlemen, and usually nit-wits to boot. I had quite a job recalling what this particular duffer looked like. All I could recollect was that he was rather young and rather pale. In brief, nondescript. How she ever managed to prevent these gallant lovers from looking her up, ardent and impetuous as some of them were, was a mystery to me. No doubt, as she had once done with me, she gave them to believe that she was living with her parents, that her mother was a witch and her father bed-ridden, dying of cancer. Fortunately, I rarely took much interest in these gallant suitors. (Better not pry too deeply, I always said to myself.) The important thing to bear in mind was—perfectly harmless.

One had to have something more than the rent money to set up house. I discovered, of course, that Mona had thought of everything. Three hundred dollars she had extracted from the poor sap. She had demanded five hundred but he had protested that his bank account was almost exhausted. For being so improvident she had made him buy her an exotic peasant dress and a pair of expensive shoes. That would teach him a lesson!

Since she was obliged to go to a rehearsal that afternoon I decided to select the furniture and other things myself. The idea of paying cash for these items, when the very principle of our country was founded on the installment plan, seemed foolish to me. I thought at once of Dolores, now a buyer for one of the big department stores on Fulton Street. Dolores, I was certain, would take care of me.

It took me less than an hour to choose all that was necessary to furnish our luxurious dove-cote. I chose with taste and discretion, not forgetting to include a handsome writing desk, one with plenty of drawers. Dolores was unable to hide a measure of concern regarding our ability to meet the monthly payments, but I overcame this by assuring her that Mona was doing extraordinarily well at the theatre. Besides, was I not still on the job at the Cosmococcic whorehouse?

Yes, but the alimony, she murmured.

Oh that! I won’t be paying that much longer, I replied smilingly.

You mean you’re going to run out on her?

Something of the sort, I admitted. We can’t have a millstone round our necks forever, can we?

She thought this typical of me, bastard that I was. She said it, however, as if she thought bastards were likable people. As we were parting she added: I suppose I ought to know better than to trust you.

Tut rat! said I. If we don’t pay they’ll call for the furniture. Why worry?

I’m not thinking of the store, she said, I’m thinking of myself.

Come, come! I won’t let you down, you know that.

Of course I did let her down, but unintentionally. At the time, despite my first misgivings, I really and sincerely believed that everything would turn out beautifully. Whenever I became a victim of doubt or despair I could always rely on Mona to give me a hypodermic. Mona lived entirely on the future. The past was a fabulous dream which she distorted at will. One was never to draw conclusions from the past—it was a thoroughly unreliable way of gauging things. The past, in so far as it spelled failure and frustration, simply did not exist.

It took no time to feel perfectly at home in our stunning new quarters. We learned that the house had been owned formerly by a wealthy judge who had remodeled it to suit his fancy. He must have been a man of excellent taste, and something of a Sybarite. The floors were of inlaid wood, the wall panels of rich walnut; there were rose silk tapestries and book cases roomy enough to be converted into sleeping bunks. We occupied the front half of the first floor, looking out onto the most sedate, aristocratic section in all Brooklyn. Our neighbors all had limousines, butlers, expensive dogs and cats whose meals made our mouths water. Ours was the only house in the block which had been broken up into apartments.

Back of our two rooms, and separated by a rolling door, was one enormous room to which had been added a kitchenette and a bath. For some reason it remained unrented. Perhaps it was too cloistral. Most of the day, owing to the stained glass windows, it was rather sombre in there, or should I say—subdued. But when the late afternoon sun struck the windows, throwing fiery patterns on the highly polished floor, I enjoyed going in there and pacing back and forth in a meditative mood. Sometimes we would strip off our clothes and dance in there, marveling at the riant patterns which the stained glass made on our naked bodies. In more exalted moods I would shuffle into a pair of slippery slippers and give an imitation of an ice-skating star, or I would walk on my hands whilst singing falsetto. Sometimes, after a few drinks, I would try to repeat the antics of my favorite zanies from the burlesque stage.

The first few months, during which all our needs were met providentially, it was just ducky. No other word for it. Not a soul popped in on us unexpectedly. We lived exclusively for each other—in a warm, downy nest. We had need of no one, not even the Almighty. Or so we thought. The wonderful Montague Street Library, a morgue of a place but filled with treasures, was hard by. While Mona was at the theatre I read. I read whatever pleased my fancy, and with a double awareness. Often it was impossible to read—the place was just too wonderful. I can see myself all over again closing the book, rising slowly from the chair, and wandering serenely and meditatively from room to room, filled with absolute contentment. Truly, I wanted nothing, unless it were a continuous, uninterrupted muchness of the sameness. Everything I owned, everything I used, everything I wore, was a gift from Mona: the silk bathrobe, which was more suited for a matinee idol than yours truly, the beautiful Moroccan slippers, the cigarette holder which I never used except in her presence. When I flicked the ashes on to the tray I would stoop over to admire it. She had bought three of them, all unique, exotic, exquisite. They were so beautiful, so precious, we almost worshiped them.

The neighborhood itself was a remarkable one. A short walk in any direction brought me to the most diverse districts: to the fantastic area beneath the fretwork of the Brooklyn Bridge; to the sites of the old ferries where Arabs, Turks, Syrians, Greeks and other peoples of the Levant had flocked; to the docks and wharves where steamers from all over the world lay at anchor; to the shopping centre near Borough Hall, a region which at night was phantasmal. In the very heart of this Columbia Heights stood stately old churches, club houses, mansions of the rich, all part of a solid, ancient core which was gradually being eaten into by the invading swarms of foreigners, derelicts and bums from the outer edge…

As a boy I had often come here to visit my aunt who lived over a stable attached to one of the more hideous old mansions. A short distance away, on Sackett Street, had once lived my old friend Al Burger, whose father was captain of a tug-boat. I was about fifteen when I first met Al Burger—on the banks of the Neversink River. It was he who taught me how to swim like a fish, dive in shallow water, wrestle Indian fashion, shoot with bow and arrow, use my dukes, run without tiring, and so on. Al’s folks were Dutch and, strange to say, they all had a marvelous sense of humor, all but his brother Jim, who was an athlete, a dandy, and a vain, stupid fool. Unlike their ancestors, however, they kept a disgracefully slovenly house. Each one, it seemed, went his own sweet way. There were also two sisters, both very pretty, and a mother who was rather sluttish in her ways but also beautiful, and what’s more, very jolly, very indolent, and very generous. She had been an opera singer once. As for the old man, the captain, he was seldom to be seen. When he did appear he was usually three sheets to the wind. I have no recollection of the mother ever cooking us a decent meal. When we got hungry she would fling us some change and tell us to go shop for ourselves. We always bought the same bloody victuals—frankfurters, potato salad, pickles, pie and crullers. Ketchup and mustard were used liberally.

The coffee was always weak as dishwater, the milk stale, and never a clean plate, cup, or knife and fork in the house. But they were jolly meals and we ate like wolves. It was the life in the streets that I remember best and enjoyed most. Al’s friends seemed to belong to another species of boys from the ones I knew. A greater warmth, a greater freedom, a greater hospitality reigned in Sackett Street. Though they were about the same age as myself, his friends gave me the impression of being more mature, as well as more independent. Parting from them I always had the feeling of being enriched. The fact that they were from the waterfront, that their families had lived here for generations, that they were a more homogeneous group than ours, may have had something to do with the qualities which endeared them to me. There was one among them I still remember vividly, though he is long dead. Frank Schofield. At the time we met, Frank was only seventeen, but already man size. There wasn’t anything at all that we had in common, as I look back on our strange friendship.

What drew me to him was his easy, relaxed, jovial manner, his utter flexibility, his unequivocal acceptance of whatever was offered him, whether it was a cold frankfurter, a warm handclasp, an old penknife, or a promise to see him again next week. He grew up into a great hulking figure, tremendously overweight, and capable in some queer, instinctive way, enough so to become the right hand man of a very prominent newspaper man with whom he traveled far and wide and for whom he performed all manner of thankless tasks. I probably never saw him more than three or four times after the good old days in Sackett Street. But I had him always in mind. It used to do me good just to revive his image, so warm he was, so good-natured, so thoroughly trusting and believing. All he ever wrote were post-cards. You could hardly read his scrawl. Just a line to say he was feeling fine, the world was grand, and how the hell were you?

Whenever Ulric came to visit us, which was usually on a Saturday or Sunday, I would take him for long walks through these old neighborhoods. He too was familiar with them from childhood. Usually he brought a sketch pad along with him, to make a few notes, as he put it. I used to marvel then at his facility with pencil and brush. It never once occurred to me that I might be doing the same myself one day. He was a painter and I was a writer—or at least I hoped to be one some day. The world of paint appeared to me to be a realm of pure magic, one utterly beyond my reach.

Though he was never, in the intervening years, to become a celebrated painter, Ulric nevertheless had a marvelous acquaintance with the world of art. About the painters he loved no man could talk with more feeling and understanding. To this day I can hear the reverberations of his long, felicitous phrases concerning such men as Cimabue, Uccello, Piero della Francesca, Botticelli, Vermeer and others. Sometimes we would sit and look at a book of reproductions—always of the great masters, to be sure. We could sit and talk for hours—he could, at least—about a single painting. It was undoubtedly because he himself was so utterly humble and reverent, humble and reverent in the true sense, that Ulric could talk so discerningly and penetratingly about the masters. In spirit he twos a master himself. I thank God that he never lost this ability to revere and adore. Rare indeed are the born worshipers.

Like O’Rourke, the detective, he had the same tendency to become, at the most unexpected moments, absorbed and enrapt. Often during our walks along the waterfronts he would stop to point out some particularly decrepit facade or broken-down wall, expatiating on its beauty in relation to the background of skyscrapers on the other shore or to the huge hulls and masts of the ships lying at anchor in their cradles. It might be zero weather and an icy gale blowing, but Ulric seemed not to mind. At such moments he would shamefacedly extract a faded little envelope from his pocket and, with the stub of what had been once a pencil, endeavor to make a few more notes. Little ever came of these note takings, I must say. Not in those days, at least. The men who doled out commissions—to make bananas,: tomato cans, lamp shades, etc—were always hard on his heels.

Between jobs he would get his friends, more especially his women friends, to pose for him. He worked furiously during these intervals, as if preparing for an exhibition at the Salon. Before the easel he had all the gestures and mannerisms of the maestro. It was almost terrifying to witness the frenzy of his attack. The results, strange to say, were always disheartening. Damn it all, he would say, I’m nothing but an illustrator. I can see him now standing over one of his abortions, sighing, wheezing, spluttering, tearing his hair. I can see him reach for an album of Cezanne, turn to one of his favorite paintings, then look with a sick grin at his own work. Look at this, will you? he would say, pointing to some particularly successful area of the Cezanne. Why in hell can’t I capture something like that—just once? What’s wrong with me, do you suppose? Oh well … And he’d heave a deep sigh, sometimes a veritable groan. Let’s have a snifter, what say? Why try to be a Cezanne? I know, Henry, what it is that’s wrong. It’s not just this painting, or the one before, it’s my whole life that’s wrong. A man’s work reflects what he is, what he’s thinking the livelong day. isn’t that it? Looking at it in that light, I’m just a piece of stale cheese, eh what? Well, here’s how! Down the hatch! Here he would raise his glass with a queer, wry twist of the mouth which was painfully, too painfully, eloquent.

If I adored Ulric because of his emulation of the masters, I believe I really revered him for playing the role of the failure. The man knew how to make music of his failings and failures. In fact, he had the wit and the grace to make it seem as though, next to success, the best thing in life is to be a total failure.

Which is probably the truth. What redeemed Ulric was a complete lack of ambition. He wasn’t hankering to be recognized: he wanted to be a good painter for the sheer joy of excelling. He loved all the good things of life, and only the good things. He was a sensualist through and through. In playing chess he preferred to play with Chinese pieces, no matter how poor his game might be. It gave him the keenest pleasure merely to handle the ivory pieces. I remember the visits we made to museums in search of old chess boards. Could Ulric have played on a board that once adorned the wall of a medieval castle he would have been in seventh heaven, nor would he have cared ever again whether he won or lost. He chose everything he used with great care—clothes, valises, slippers, lamps, everything. When he picked up an object he caressed it. Whatever could be salvaged was patched or mended or glued together again. He talked about his belongings as some people do about their cats; he gave them his full admiration, even when alone with them. Sometimes I have caught him speaking to them, addressing them, as if they were old friends. What a contrast to Kronski, when I think of it. Kronski, poor, wretched devil, seemed to be living with the discarded bric-a-brac of his ancestors.

Nothing was precious to him, nothing had meaning or significance for him. Everything went to pieces in his hands, or became ragged, torn, splotched and sullied. Yet one day—how it came about I never learned—this same Kronski began to paint. He began brilliantly, too. Most brilliantly. I could scarcely believe my eyes. Bold, brilliant colors he used, as if he had just come from Russia. Nor were his subjects lacking in daring and originality. He went at it for eight and ten hours at a stretch, gorging himself before and after, and always singing, whistling, jiggling from one foot to another, always applauding himself. Unfortunately it was just a flash in the pan. Petered out after a few months. After that never a word about painting. Forgot, apparently, that he had ever touched a brush…

It was during the period when things were going serenely with us that I made the acquaintance of a rum bird at the Montague Street Library. They knew me well there because I was giving them all kinds of trouble asking for books they didn’t have, urging them to borrow rare or expensive books from other libraries, complaining about the poverty of their stock, the inadequacy of their service, and in general making a nuisance of myself. To make it worse I was always paying huge fines for books overdue or for books lost (which I had appropriated for my own shelves), or for missing pages. Now and then I received a public reprimand, as if I were still a schoolboy, for underlining passages in red ink or for writing comments in the margins. And then one day, searching for some rare books on the circus— why, God knows—I fell into conversation with a scholarly looking man who turned out to be one of the staff. In the course of conversation I learned that he had been to some of the famous circuses of Europe. The word Medrano escaped his lips. It was virtually Greek to me, but I remembered it. Anyway, I took such a liking to the fellow that there and then I invited him to visit us the next evening. As soon as I got out of the library I called Ulric and begged him to join us. Did you ever hear of the Cirque Medrano? I asked.

To make it short, the next evening was given over almost exclusively to the Cirque Medrano. I was in a daze when the librarian left. So that’s Europe! I muttered aloud, over and over. Couldn’t get over it. And that guy was there … he saw it all. Christ!

The librarian came quite frequently, always with some rare books under his arm which he thought I would like to glance at. Usually be brought a bottle along too. Sometimes he would play chess with us, seldom leaving before two or three in the morning. Each time he came I made him talk about Europe: it was his admission fee. In fact, I was getting drunk on the subject; I could talk about Europe almost as if I had been there myself. (My father was the same. Though he had never set foot outside of New York, he could talk about London, Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen, Rome as if he had lived abroad all his life.)

One night Ulric brought over his large map of Paris (the Metro map) and we all got down on hands and knees to wander through the streets of Paris, visiting the libraries, museums, cathedrals, flower stalls, slaughter-houses, cemeteries, whorehouses, railway stations, bals musette, les magasins and so on. The next day I was so full up, so full of Europe, I mean, that I couldn’t go to work. It was an old habit of mine to take a day off when I felt like it. I always enjoyed stolen holidays best. It meant getting up at any old hour, loafing about in pajamas, playing records, dipping into books, strolling to the wharf and, after a hearty lunch, going to a matinee. A good vaudeville show was what I liked best, an afternoon in which I would burst my sides laughing. Sometimes, after one of these holidays, it was still more difficult to return to work. In fact, impossible. Mona would conveniently call the boss to inform him that my cold had gotten worse. And he would always say:

Tell him to stay in bed another few days. Take good care of him!

I should think they would be on to you by this time, Mona would say.

They are, honey. Only I’m too good. They can’t do without me.

Some day they’ll send some one over here to see if you’re really ill.

Never answer the door bell, that’s all. Or tell them I’ve gone to see the doctor.

Wonderful while it lasted. Just ducky. I had lost all interest in my job. All I thought of was to begin writing. At the office I did less and less, grew more and more slack. The only applicants I bothered to interview were the suspects. My assistant did the rest. As often as possible I would clear out of the office on the pretext of inspecting the branch offices. I would call on one or two in the heart of town—just to establish an alibi—then duck into a movie. After the movie I would drop in on another branch manager, report to headquarters, and then home. Sometimes I spent the afternoon in an art gallery or at the 42nd Street Library. Sometimes I called on Ulric or else visited a dance hall. I got ill more and more often, and for longer stretches at a time. Things were definitely riding to a fall.

Mona encouraged my delinquency. She had never liked me in the role of employment manager. You should be writing, she would say. Fine, I would retort, secretly pleased but putting up a battle to salve my conscience. Fine! but what will we live on?

Leave that to me!

But we can’t go on swindling and bamboozling people forever.

‘Swindling! Anybody I borrow from can well afford to lend the money. I’m doing them a favor.

I couldn’t see it her way but I would give in. After all, I had no better solution to offer. To wind up the argument I would always say: Well, I’m not quitting yet.

Now and then, on one of these stolen holidays, we would end up on Second Avenue, New York. It was amazing the number of friends I had in this quarter. All Jews, of course, and most of them cracked. But lively company. After a bite at Papa Moskowitz’s we would go to the Cafe Royal. Here you were sure to find any one you were looking for.

One evening as we were strolling along the Avenue, just as I was about to peer into a bookshop window to have another look at Dostoievsky—his photo had been hanging in this same window for years—who should greet us but an old friend of Arthur Raymond. Nahoum Yood, no less. Nahoum Yood was a short, fiery man who wrote in Yiddish. He had a face like a sledgehammer. Once you saw it you never forgot it. When he spoke it was always a rush and a babble; the words literally tripped over one another. He not only sputtered like a fire-cracker but he dribbled and drooled at the same time. His accent, that of the Litvak, was atrocious. But his smile was golden—like Jack Johnson’s. It gave his face a sort of Jack-o’-Lantern twist.

I never saw him in any other condition but effervescent. He had always just discovered something wonderful, something marvelous, something unheard of. In unloading himself he always gave you a spritz bath, gratis. But it was worth it. This fine spray which he emitted between his front teeth had the same stimulating effect that a needle bath has. Sometimes with the spritz bath came a few caraway seeds.

Snatching the book which I was carrying under my arm, he shouted: What are you reading? Ah, Hamsun. Good! Beautiful writer. He hadn’t even said How are you yet. We must sit down somewhere and talk. Where are you going? Have you had dinner? I’m hungry.

Excuse me, I said, but I want to have a look at Dostoievsky.

I left him standing there talking excitedly to Mona with both hands (and feet). I plunked myself in front of Dostoievsky’s portrait, as I had done before many a time, to study his familiar physiognomy anew. I thought of my friend Lou Jacobs who used to doff his hat every time he passed a statue of Shakespeare. It was something more than a bow or salute I made to Dostoievsky. It was more like a prayer, a prayer that he would unlock the secret of revelation. Such a plain, homely face, he had. So Slavic, so moujik-like. The face of a man who might pass unnoticed in a crowd. (Nahoum Yood looked much more the writer than did the great Dostoievsky.) I stood there, as always, trying to penetrate the mystery of the being lurking behind the doughy mass of features. All I could read clearly was sorrow and obstinacy. A man who obviously preferred the lowly life, a man fresh from prison. I lost myself in contemplation. Finally I saw only the artist, the tragic, unprecedented artist who had created a veritable pantheon of characters, figures such as had never been heard of before and never would be again, each one of them more real, more potent, more mysterious, more inscrutable than all the mad Czars and all the cruel, wicked Popes put together.

Suddenly I felt Nahoum Yood’s heavy hand on my shoulder. His eyes were dancing, his mouth ringed with saliva. The battered derby which he wore indoors and out had come down over his eyes, giving him a comical and an almost maniacal look.

Mysterium! he shouted. Mysterium! Mysterium!

I looked at him blankly.

You haven’t read it? he yelled. What looked like a crowd began to gather round us, one of those crowds which spring up from nowhere as soon as a hawker begins to advertise his wares.

What are you talking about? I asked blandly.

About your Knut Hamsun. The greatest book he ever wrote—Mysterium it is called, in German.

He means Mysteries said Mona.

Yes, Mysteries, cried Nahoum Yood.

He’s just been telling me all about it, said Mona. It does sound wonderful.

More wonderful than A Wanderer Plays an Muted Strings?

Nahoum Yood burst in: That, that is nothing. For Growth of the Soil they gave him the Nobel Prize. For Mysterium nobody even know about it. Look, let me explain … He paused, turned half-way round and spat. No, better not to explain. Go to your Carnegie chewing gum library and ask for it. How do you say it in English? Mysteries? Almost the same—but Mysterium. is better. More mysterischer, nicht? He gave one of his broad trolley track smiles and with that the brim of his hat fell over his eyes.

Suddenly he realized that he had collected an audience. Go home! he shouted, raising both arms to shoo the crowd away. Are we selling shoe laces here? What is it with you? Must I rent a hall to speak a few words in private to a friend? This is not Russia. Go home … shool And again he brandished his arms.

No one budged. They simply smiled indulgently. Apparently they knew him well, this Nahoum Yood. One of them spoke up in Yiddish. Nahoum Yood gave a sad complacent sort of smile and looked at us helplessly.

They want that I should recite to them something in Yiddish.

Fine, I said, why don’t you?

He smiled again, sheepishly this time. They are like children, he said. Wait, I will tell them a fable. You know what is a fable, don’t you? This is a fable about a green horse with three legs. I can only tell it in Yiddish … you will excuse me.

The moment he began talking Yiddish his whole countenance changed. He put on such a serious, mournful look that I thought he would burst into tears any moment. But when I looked at his audience I saw that they were chuckling and giggling. The more serious and mournful his expression, the more jovial his listeners grew. Finally they were doubled up with laughter. Nahoum Yood never so much as cracked a smile. He finished with a dead pan look in the midst of gales of laughter.

Now, he said, turning his back on his audience and grasping us each by the arm, now we will go somewhere and hear some music. I know a little place on Hester Street, in a cellar. Roumanian gypsies. We will have a little wine and some

Mysterium, yes? You have money? I have only twenty-three cents. He smiled again, this time like a huge cranberry pie. On the way he was constantly tipping his hat to this one and that. Sometimes he would stop and engage a friend in earnest conversation for a few minutes. Excuse me, he would say, running back to us breathless, but I thought maybe I could borrow a little money. That was the editor of a Yiddish paper—but he’s even broker than I am. You have a little money, yes? Next time I will treat.

At the Roumanian place I ran into one of my ex-messengers, Dave Olinski. He used to work as a night messenger in the Grand Street office. I remembered him well because the night the office was robbed and the safe turned upside down, Olinski had been beaten to within an inch of his life. (As a matter of fact, I had taken it for granted that he was dead.) It was at his own request that I had put him in that office; because it was a foreign quarter, and because he could speak about eight languages, Olinski thought he would earn a lot in tips. Everybody detested him, including the men he worked with. Every time I ran into him he would chew my ear off about Tel Aviv. It was always Tel Aviv and Boulogne-sur-Mer. (He carried about with him post cards of all the ports the boast had stopped at. But most of the cards were of Tel Aviv.) Anyway, before the accidents, I once sent him to Canarsie, where there was a plage. I use the word plage because every time Olinski spoke of Boulogne-sur-Mer, he mentioned the bloody plage where he had gone bathing.

Since he left our employ, he was telling me, he had become an insurance salesman. In fact, we hadn’t exchanged more than a few words when he began trying to sell me a policy. Much as I disliked the fellow, I made no move to shut him off. I thought it might do him good to practise on me. So, much to Nahoum Yood’s disgust, I let him babble on, pretending that perhaps I would also want accident, health and fire insurance too. Meanwhile, Olinski had ordered drinks and pastry for us. Mona had left the table to engage the proprietress in conversation. In the midst of it a lawyer named Mannie Hirsch walked in—another friend of Arthur Raymond. He was passionate about music, and particularly passionate about Scriabin. It took Olinski, who had been drawn into the conversation against his will, quite a while to understand who it was we were talking about. When he learned that it was only a composer he showed profound disgust. Shouldn’t we go maybe to a quieter place, he wondered. I explained to him that that was impossible, that he should hurry up and explain everything to me quickly before we left. Mannie Hirsch hadn’t stopped talking from the time he sat down. Presently Olinski launched into his routine talk, switching from one policy to another; he had to talk quite loudly in order to drown out Mannie Hirsch’s voice. I listened to the two of them at the same time. Nahoum Yood was trying to listen with one ear cupped. Finally he broke into an hysterical fit of laughter. Without a word he began reciting one of his fables—in Yiddish. Still Olinski kept on talking, this time very low, but even faster than before, because every minute was precious. Even when the whole place began to roar with laughter Olinski kept on selling me one policy after another.

When I at last told him that I would have to think it over, he acted as if he had been mortally injured. But I have explained everything clearly, Mr. Miller, he whined.

But I already have two insurance policies, I lied.

That’s all right, he retorted, We will cash them in and get better ones.

That’s what I want to think about, I countered.

But there is nothing to think about, Mr. Miller.

I’m not sure that I understood it all, I said. Maybe you’d better come to my home tomorrow night, and therewith I wrote down a false address for him.

You’re sure you will be home, Mr. Miller?

If I’m not I will telephone.

But I have no telephone, Mr. Miller.

Then I will send you a telegram.

But I already made two appointments. for tomorrow evening.

Then make it the next night, I said, thoroughly unperturbed by all this palaver. Or, I added maliciously, you could come to see me after midnight, if that’s convenient. We’re always up till two or three in the morning.

I’m afraid that would be too late, said Olinski, looking more and more disconsolate.

Well, let’s see, I said, looking meditative and scratching my head. Supposing we meet right here a week from to-day? Say half-past nine sharp.

Not here, Mr. Miller, please.

O.K. then, wherever you like. Send me a postcard in a day or so. And bring all the policies with you, yes?

During this last chit-chat Olinski had risen from the table and was holding my hand in parting. When he turned round to gather up his papers he discovered that Mannie Hirsch was drawing animals on them. Nahoum Yood was writing a poem—in Yiddish—on another. He was so disturbed by this unexpected turn of events that he began shouting at them in several languages at once. He was getting purple with rage. In a moment the bouncer, who was a Greek and an ex-wrestler, had Olinski by the seat of the pants and was giving him the bum’s rush. The proprietress shook her fist in his face as he went through the doorway head first. In the street the Greek went through his pockets, extracted a few bills, brought them to the proprietress who made change for him and threw the remaining coins at Olinski who was now on his hands and knees, behaving as if he had the cramps.

That’s a terrible way to treat a person, said Mona.

It is, but he seems to invite it, I replied.

You shouldn’t have egged him on—it was cruel.

I admit it, but he’s a pest. It would have happened anyway. Thereupon I began to narrate my experience with Olinski. I explained how I had humored him by transferring him from one office to another. Everywhere it was the same story. He was always being abused and mistreated—for no reason at all, as he always put it. They don’t like me there, he would say.

You don’t seem to be liked anywhere, I finally told him one day. Just what is it that’s eating you up? I remember well the look he gave me when I fired that at him. Come on, I said, tell me, because this is your last chance.

To my amazement, here is what he said: Mr. Miller, I have too much ambition to make a good messenger. I should have a more responsible position. With my education I would make a good manager. I could save the company money. I could bring in more business, make things more efficient.

Wait a minute, I interrupted. Don’t you know that you haven’t a chance in the world to become a manager of a branch office? You’re crazy. You don’t even know how to speak English, let alone those eight other languages you’re always talking about. You don’t know how to get along with your neighbor. You’re a nuisance, don’t you understand that? Don’t tell me about your grand ideas for the future … tell me just one thing … how did you happen to become what you are … such a damned unholy pest, I mean.

Olinski blinked like an owl at this … Mr. Miller, he began you must know that I am a good person, that I try hard to…

Horseshit! I exclaimed. Now tell me honestly, why did you ever leave Tel Aviv?

Because I wanted to make something of myself, that’s the truth.

And you couldn’t do that in Tel Aviv—or Boulogne-sur-Mer?

He gave a wry smile. Before he could put in a word I continued: Did you get along with your parents? Did you have any close friends there? Wait a minute—I held up my hand to head off his answer—did anybody in the whole world ever tell you that he liked you? Answer me that!

He was silent. Not crushed, just baffled.

You know what you should be? I went on. A stool pigeon.

He didn’t know what the word meant. Look, I explained, a stool pigeon makes his money by spying on other people, by informing on them—do you understand that?

And I should be a stool-pigeon? he shrieked, drawing himself up and trying to look dignified.

Exactly, I said, not batting an eyelash. And if not that, then a hangman. You know—and I made a grim circular motion with my hand—the man who strings them up.

Olinski put on his hat and made a few steps towards the door. Suddenly he wheeled around, walked calmly back to my desk. He took off his hat and held it with his two hands. Excuse me, he said, but could I have another chance—in Harlem? This in a tone of voice as if nothing untoward had occurred.

Why certainly, I replied briskly, of course I’ll give you another chance, but it’s the last one, remember that. I’m beginning to like you, do you know that?

This baffled him more than anything I had said before. I was surprised that he didn’t ask me why.

Listen, Dave, I said, leaning towards him as if I had something very confidential to propose, I’m putting you in the worst office we have. If you can get along up there you will be able to get along anywhere. There’s one thing I have to warn you about … don’t start any trouble in that office or else—and here I drew my hand across my throat—you understand?

Are the tips good up there, Mr. Miller? he asked, pretending not to be affected by my last remark.

No one gives a tip in that neighborhood, my good friend. And don’t try to extract one either. Thank God each night when you go home that you’re still alive. We’ve lost eight messengers in that office in the last three years. Figure it out for yourself.

Here I got up, grasped him by the arm and escorted him to the stairs. Listen, Dave, I said, as I shook hands with him, maybe I’m a friend of yours and you don’t know it. Maybe you’ll thank me one day for putting you in the worst office in New York. You’ve got so much to learn that I don’t know what to tell you first. Above all, try to keep your mouth shut. Smile once in a while, even if it’s painful. Say thank you even if you don’t get a tip. Speak just one language and as little of that as possible. Forget about becoming a manager. Be a good messenger. And don’t tell people that you came from Tel Aviv because they won’t know what the hell you’re talking about. You were born in the Bronx, do you understand? If you can’t act decently, be a dope, a Schlemiel, savvy? Here’s something to go the movies with. See a funny picture for a change. And don’t let me hear from you again! Walking to the subway that night with Nahoum Yood brought back vivid memories of my midnight explorations with O’Rourke. It was to the East Side I always came when I wanted to be stirred to the roots. It was like coming home. Everything was familiar in a way beyond all knowing. It was almost as if I had known the world of the ghetto in a previous incarnation. The quality that got me most of all was the pullulation. Everything was struggling towards the light in glorious profusion. Everything burgeoned and gleamed, just as in the murky canvases of Rembrandt. One was constantly being surprised, often by the homeliest trifles. It was the world of my childhood wherein common everyday objects acquired a sacred character. These poor despised aliens were living with the discarded objects of a world which had moved on. For me they were living out a past which had been abruptly stifled. Their bread was still a good bread which one could eat without butter or jam. Their kerosene lamps gave their rooms a holy glow. The bed always loomed large and inviting, the furniture was old but comfortable. It wag a constant source of wonder to me how clean and orderly were the interiors of these hideous edifices which seemed to be crumbling to bits. Nothing can be more elegant than a bare poverty-stricken home which is clean and fully of peace. I saw hundreds of such homes in my search for vagrant boys. Many of these unexpected scenes we came upon in the dead of night were like illustrated pages from the Old Testament. We entered, looking for a delinquent boy or a petty thief, and we left feeling that we had broken bread with the sons of Israel. The parents had no knowledge whatever, usually, of the world which their children had penetrated ill joining the messenger force. Hardly any of them had ever set foot in an office building. They had been transferred from one ghetto to another without even glimpsing the world in between. The desire sometimes seized me to escort one of these parents to the floor of an Exchange where he could observe his son running back and forth like a fire engine amid the wild pandemonium created by the crazy stock brokers, an exciting and lucrative game which sometimes permitted the boy to make seventy-five dollars in a single week. Some of these boys still remained boys though they had reached the age of thirty or forty and were the possessors, some of them, of blocks of real estate, farms, tenement houses or packs of gilt-edge bonds. Many of them had bank accounts running above ten thousand dollars. Yet they remained messenger boys, would remain messenger boys until they died … What an incongruous world for an immigrant to be plunged into! I could scarcely make head or tail of it myself. With all the advantages of an American upbringing had I not (in my twenty-eighth year) been obliged to seek this lowest of all occupations? And was it not with extreme difficulty that I succeeded in earning sixteen or seventeen dollars a week? Soon I would be leaving this world to make my way as a writer, and as such I would become even more helpless than the lowliest of these immigrants. Soon I would be begging furtively in the streets at night, in the very purlieus of my own home. Soon I would be standing in front of restaurant windows, looking enviously and desperately at the good things to eat. Soon I would be thanking newsboys for handing me a nickel or a dime to get a cup of coffee and a cruller.

Yes, long before it came to pass I was thinking of just such eventualities. Perhaps the reason I loved the new love nest so much was because I knew it could not last for long. Our Japanese love nest, I called it. Because it was bare, immaculate, the low divan placed in the very center of the room, the lights just right, not one object too many, the walls glowing with a subdued velvety fire, the floor gleaming as if it had been scraped and polished every morning. Unconsciously we did everything in ritualistic fashion. The place impelled one to behave thus. Made for a rich man, it was tenanted by two devotees who had only an inner wealth. Every book on the shelves had been acquired with a struggle, devoured with gusto, and had enriched our lives. Even the tattered Bible had a history behind it…

One day, feeling the need for a Bible, I had sent Mona out to search for one. I cautioned her not to buy one. Ask some one to make you a present of his copy. Try the Salvation Army or go to one of the Rescue Missions. She had done as I asked and been refused everywhere. (Damned strange! I thought to myself.) Then, as if in answer to a prayer, who pops up out of a clear sky but Crazy George! There he is, waiting for me, when I arrive home one Saturday afternoon. And Mona serving him tea and cake. I thought I was looking at an apparition.

Mona of course didn’t know that it was Crazy George, a figure out of my childhood. She had seen a man with a vegetable wagon standing on the dashboard preaching the word of God. The children were jeering at him, throwing things in his face, and he was blessing them (with whip in hand), saying: Suffer the little children to come unto me … Blessed are the meek and lowly…

George, I said, don’t you remember me? You used to bring us coal and wood. I’m from Driggs Avenue—the 14th Ward.

I remember all God’s children, said George. Even unto the third and fourth generation. Bless you, my son, may the Holy Spirit abide with you forever.

Before I could say another word George had begun to pontificate in the old fashion. I am one that bears witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me … Amen! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!

I got up and put my arms around George. He had become an old man, a cracked, peaceful, lovable old man, the last man in the world I expected to see seated in my own home. He had been a terrifying figure to us boys, always cracking that long whip in our faces, and threatening eternal damnation, fire and brimstone. Lashing his horse furiously when it slipped on the icy pavement, raising his fist to heaven and imploring God to punish us for our wickedness. What misery we inflicted on him in those days! Crazy George! Crazy George! we shouted until we were blue in the face. Then we would fling snow-balls at him, icy, packed snow-balls, which sometimes struck him between the eyes and made him dance with rage. And while he chased one of us like a demon another would steal his vegetables or fruit, or dump a sack of potatoes into the gutter. Nobody knew how he had become that way. He had been preaching the word of God from his wagon ever since he was born, it seemed. He was like one of the prophets of old, and as filthy as some of the great Biblical prophets.

Twenty years had passed since I last saw George Denton. And here he was again, telling me about Jesus, the Light of the world. And He that sent me, said George, is with me! the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please Him … Ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free. Amen, brother! May God’s grace abide in you and protect you!

There was little sense asking a man like George what had happened to him during all these years. His days had probably passed like a dream. It was plain to see that he took no thought for the morrow. He was still roaming about the city with his horse and wagon, quite as if the automobile did not exist. The whip was lying beside him on the floor—it was inseparable from him.

I thought I would offer him a cigarette. Mona had a bottle of Port in her hand.

The kingdom of God, said George, raising his hand in protest, is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost … It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.

Pause whilst Mona and myself take a sip of Port.

Continuing as if he saw not nor heard not, George spouted: Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? Ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God s. Amen! Amen!

Not derisively but softly and easily I began to laugh—out of intoxication with the Holy Writ. George didn’t mind. He went on babbling, just as of old. Never addressed us as persons but rather as vessels into which he was pouring the blessed milk of the Holy Virgin. Of the material objects which surrounded him his eyes saw nothing. One room was like another to him, and none any better than the stable to which he led his horses. (He probably slept with them.) No, he had a mission to fulfill and it brought him joy and forgetfulness. From morn to midnight he was busy spreading God’s word. Even in buying his produce he continued to spread the Gospel.

What a beautiful, untrammeled existence, I thought to myself. Mad? Sure he was mad, mad as a bedbug. But in a good way. George never really hurt any one with that whip. He loved to crack it, just to convince nasty little urchins that he was not altogether a helpless old idiot.

Resist the devil, said George, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double-minded … Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up.

George, I said, quelling the bubble of laughter, you make me feel good. It’s so long…

Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb … Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.

O.K.! Listen, George, do you remem…

They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. The Lamb which is in the midst of the Throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

With this George took out a huge, filthy red poker-dot kerchief and wiped his eyes, then blew his nose vigorously. Amen! Praise God for His saving and keeping power!

He got up and went to the fireplace. On the mantel there was lying an unfinished manuscript weighted down by a figurine representing a dancing Hindu goddess. George veered round quickly and spake: Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not … In the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God shall be finished, as He hath declared to His servants and the prophets.

Just then I thought I heard the horses stirring outside. I went to the window to see what was up. George had raised his voice. It was almost a shout now which went up from his throat. Who shall not hear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? for Thou only art holy.

The horses were tugging the wagon off, the urchins screaming with delight and helping themselves as of yore to the fruit and vegetables-. I beckoned to George to come to the window. He was still shouting … The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. And the ten horns…

Better hurry, George, or they’ll get away from you!

Quick as a flash George ducked for his whip and dashed out into the street. Whoa there, Jezebel, I heard him shout. Whoa there!

He was back in a jiffy offering us a basket of apples and some cauliflower. Accept the blessings of the Lord, he said. Peace be with you! Amen, brother! Glory, sister! Glory to God in the Highest! Then he made for his wagon, flicked the horses with his long whip, and waved blessings in all directions.

It was only after he had been gone some time that I discovered the worn-out Bible which he had forgotten. It was greasy, thumb-marked, fly-bitten; the covers were gone and pages were missing here and there. I had asked for the Bible and I had received it. Seek and ye shall find. Ask and it shall be given unto you. Knock and it shall be opened. I began spouting a bit myself. The Scriptures are headier than the strongest wines. I opened the Book at random and it fell open to one of my favorite passages:

And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus; and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath th seven heads and ten horns.

The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

Listening to religious zealots always makes me hungry and thirsty—I mean for the so-called good things of life. A full spirit creates an appetite throughout all parts and members of the body. George had no sooner left than I began to wonder where in this bloody aristocratic quarter I could find a bakery that sold streusel kuchen or jelly doughnuts (Pfann Kuchen) or a good rich cinnamon cake which would melt in one’s mouth. After a few more glasses of Port I began to think of more substantial comestibles, such as sauerbraten and potato dumplings with fried bread crumbs swimming in a rich spicy black gravy; I thought of a tender roast shoulder of pork with fried apples on the side, of scallops and bacon as an hors d’oeuvre, of crepes Suzette, of Brazil nuts and pecans, of charlotte russe, such as they make only in Louisiana. I would have relished anything at that moment which was rich, succulent and savoury. Sinful food, that was what I craved. Sinful food and wines that were aphrodisiac. And some excellent Kummel to top it off.

I tried to think of some one at whose house we could be certain of getting a good meal. (Most of my friends ate out.) The ones that came to mind lived too far away or else were not the sort you could bust in on unannounced. Mona of course was all for eating in some excellent restaurant, eating until we were ready to burst, after which I was to sit and wait until she could find some one to pay for the meal. I didn’t relish the idea at all. Had done it too often. Besides, it had happened to me once or twice to sit like that all night waiting for some one to show up, with the dough. No sir, if we were going to eat well I wanted the money for it right in my pocket.

How much have we, anyway? I asked. Have you looked everywhere?

About seventy-two cents was all that could be mustered, it seemed. Pay day was six days off. I was in no mood—and too hungry—to start making the rounds of the telegraph offices just to gather in a few shekels.

Let’s go to the Scotch bakery, said Mona. They serve food there. It’s very simple but it’s substantial. And cheap.

The Scotch bakery was near Borough Hall. A dismal place, with marble table tops and sawdust on the floor. The owners were dour Presbyterians from the old country. They spoke with an accent which reminded me unpleasantly of MacGregor’s parents. Every syllable they uttered had the clink of small coin, the resonance of the bone-yard. Because they were civil and proper one was supposed to be grateful for the service they rendered.

We had a concoction of horse’s hocks and bloated porridge with buttered scones on the side and a thin leaf of unseasoned lettuce to garnish it. There was no taste to the food whatever; it had been cooked by a sour-faced spinster who had never known a day of joy. I would rather have had a bowl of barley soup with some matzoth balls in it. Or fried frankfurters and potato salad, such as Al Burger’s family indulged in.

The meal had a most sobering effect. But it left me with the aura of intoxication. Somehow I began to get that light, extra-clearheaded feeling, that hollow bones and transparent veins set-up, in which I knew an insouciance that was always extraordinary. Every time the door opened a hideous jangle and jumble assailed our ears. There were two sets of trolley tracks in front of the door, a phonograph shop and a radio shop just opposite, and at the corner a perpetual congestion of traffic. The lights were just going on as we rose to leave. I had a toothpick in the corner of my mouth which I was chewing complacently, my hat was cocked over one ear, and as I stepped towards the curb I was aware that it was a wonderfully balmy evening, one of the last days of Summer. Queer fragments of thought assailed me. For example, I kept harking back to a Summer’s day about fifteen years previous when, at that very corner where all was now pandemonium, I had boarded a street car with my old friend MacGregor. It was an open trolley and we were headed for Sheepshead Bay. Under my arm was a copy of Sanine. I had finished the book and was about to lend it to my friend MacGregor. As I was ruminating on the pleasurable shock which this forgotten book had made upon me I caught a burst of strangely familiar music from the loudspeaker in the radio shop across the way. I stood there as if rooted to the spot. It was Cantor Sirota singing one of the old synagogue tunes. I knew it only too well because I had listened to it dozens of times. Once I had owned every record of his which was available. And I had purchased them at a price!

I looked at Mona to see what effect the music had produced. Her eyes were moist, her face strained. Quietly I took her hand and held it. We stood thus for several minutes after the music had ceased, neither of us attempting to say a word.

Finally I mumbled—You recognize that?

She made no answer. Her lips were quivering. I saw a tear roll down her cheek.

Mona, dear Mona, why hold it back? I know everything. I’ve known for a long time … Did you think I would be ashamed of you?

No, no Val. I just couldn’t tell you. I don’t know why.

But didn’t it ever occur to you, my dear Mona, that I love you more just because you are a Jew? Why I say this I don’t know either, but it’s a fact. You remind me of the women I knew as a boy—in the Old Testament. Ruth, Naomi, Esther, Rachel, Rebecca … I always wondered as a child why no one I knew was called by such names. They were golden names to me.

I put my arm around her waist. She was half sobbing now. Don’t let’s go yet. There’s something more I want to say. What I tell you now I mean, I want you to know that. I’m speaking from the bottom of my heart. It isn’t something that’s just occurred to me, it’s something I’ve wanted to broach for a long time.

Don’t say it, Val. Please don’t say any more. She put her hand over my mouth to stop me. I permitted it to rest there a few moments, then I gently withdrew it.

Let me, I begged. It won’t hurt you. How could I possibly hurt you or wound you now?

But I know what you’re going to say. And … And I don’t deserve it.

Nonsense! Now listen to me … You remember the day we got married … in Hoboken? You remember that filthy ceremony? I’ve never forgotten it. Hasten, here’s what I’ve been thinking … Supposing I become a Jew—Don’t laugh! I mean it. What’s so strange about it? Instead of becoming a Catholic or a Mohammedan I’ll become a Jew. And for the best reason in the world.

And that is? She looked up into my eyes as if completely mystified.

Because you’re a Jew and I love you—isn’t that reason enough? I love everything about you … why shouldn’t I love your religion, your race, your customs and traditions? I’m no Christian, you know that. I’m nothing. I’m not even a Goy … Look, why don’t we go to a rabbi and get married in true orthodox style?

She had begun to laugh as if her sides would burst. Somewhat offended, I said: You don’t think I’m good enough, is that it?

Stop it! she cried. You’re a fool, a clown, and I love you. I don’t want you to become a Jew … you could never be one anyhow. You’re too … too something or other. And anyway, my dear Val, I don’t want to be a Jew either. I don’t want to hear anything about the subject. I beg you, don’t ever mention it again. I’m not a Jew. I’m not anything. I’m just a woman—and to hell with the rabbi! Come, let’s go home…

We walked home in absolute silence, not a hostile silence but a rueful one. The wide, handsome street on which we lived seemed more than ever prim and respectable, a thoroughly bourgeois Gentile street such as only Protestants could inhabit. The big brownstone stoops, some with heavy stone balustrades, some with delicate wrought iron banisters, gave a solemn, pompous touch to the buildings.

I was deep in thought as we entered the love nest. Rachel, Esther, Ruth, Naomi—those wonderful old Biblical names kept flitting through my head. Some ancient memory was stirring at the base of my skull, trying to voice itself … Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. The words rang in my ears, but I couldn’t place them. The Old Testament has this peculiar lilt, this repetitive quality so seductive to the Anglo-Saxon ear.

Suddenly there came this phrase: Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldst take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger?

With this I saw myself again as a tiny boy seated in a little chair by the window in the old neighborhood. I had been ill and was slowly recuperating. One of the relatives had brought me a large, thin book with striking illustrations. It was called Stories from the Bible. There was one I read over and over again—about Daniel in the lions’ den.

I see myself once more, a little older now, wearing short pants still, sitting up front in the Presbyterian Church where I had learned to be a soldier. The minister is a very old man named the Reverend Dr. Dawson. A Scot, but a warm, tender-hearted soul beloved of his flock. He reads long passages from the good book to his congregation before starting his sermon. He takes a long time to begin, too, first blowing his nose vigorously, then tucking the handkerchief away in the tail of his frock coat, then taking a deep draught of water from the pitcher beside the lectern, then clearing his throat and looking heavenward, and so on and so forth. He is not much of an orator any more. He is aging and he rambles a good deal. When he loses the thread, he picks up the Bible and rereads a verse or two to refresh his memory. I am very conscious of his failings; I twitch and turn in my seat during his moments of forgetfulness. I encourage him silently as best I can. But now, sitting in the soft light of the immaculate love nest, I suddenly realize where all these phrases which have come to my lips stem from. I go to the bookcase and get out the battered old Bible which Crazy George left with us. I skim the pages absentmindedly, thinking tenderly of old man Dawson, thinking of my little pal, Jack Lawson, who died so young and such a horrible death, thinking of the basement of the old Presbyterian Church and the dust we raised drilling in squads and battalions every night, all fitted up with stripes and chevrons, with epaulettes, with swords, leggings, flags, the drums deafening us, the bugles splitting our ear-drums. And as these memories pass to and fro there ring in my ears the melodious verses from the Bible which the Reverend Mr. Dawson spooled off like an eight-reel film.

The book is lying open on the table, and behold, it is open at the chapter called Ruth. In large letters it reads: THE BOOK OF RUTH. And just above it, the last and 25th verse of Judges, a glorious verse whose source lies far behind childhood, so far back into the past that no man can remember anything but the wonder of it:

In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

In what days? I ask myself. When ever was this glorious period and why had man forgotten it?

In those days there was no king in Israel. This is not from the history of the Jews, this is out of the history of Man. That is how man began, in high estate, in dignity, honor and wisdom. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Here in a few words is the secret of a decent, happy human society. Once upon a time the Jews knew such a condition of life. Once upon a time the Chinese knew it, too, and the Minoans, and the Hindus, and the Polynesians, and the Africans, and the Eskimos.

I began reading The Book of Ruth, wherein it speaks of Naomi and of the Moabites. At the twentieth verse I was electrified: And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. And in the 21st verse it continues: I went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty…

I called to Mona, who had once been Mara, but there was no answer. I looked for her but she was not there … I sat down again, with tears in my eyes, thumbing through the worn and tattered pages. There would be no bridge, no heavenly synagogue music … not even an ephah of barley. Call me not Naomi, call me Mara! And Mara had disowned her people, had disowned the very name they had given her. It was a bitter name, but she had not even known what it meant. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. She had left the fold and had been afflicted by the Lord.

I got up and walked about. The atmosphere of the place was one of elegance, simplicity and serenity. I was deeply roused but not in the least sad. I felt like the chambered nautilus walking the sands of time. I threw back the rolling doors which separated our apartment from the vacant one in the rear. I lit a candelabra at the far end of the vacant apartment. The stained glass windows gave off a smouldering glow. I moved about in the shadows, letting my mind wander freely. My heart was at rest. Now and then I wondered dreamily where she had gone. I knew she would return soon and be at ease. I hoped that she would remember to rustle up a bit of food. I was in a mood to break bread again and sip a little wine. It was in such a mood, I thought to myself, that one ought to sit down to write. I was mellow and open, fluid, solvent. I could see how easy it was, given the right ambiance, to pass from the life of a paid employee, a hack, a slave, to that of an artist. It was such a delicious thing to be alone, to revel in one’s thoughts and emotions. It hardly occurred to me that I would have to write about something; all I thought of was that one day, in just such a mood as this, I would write. The important thing was to be perpetually what I now was, to feel as I did, to make music. From childhood on that had been my dream, to sit still and make music. It was just dawning on me that to make music one had first to make himself into an exquisite, sensitive instrument. One had to stop living and breathe. One had to take off the roller skates. One had to unhitch all connections with the world outside. One had to speak privately, with God as his witness. Oh yes, that was it. Indeed yes. Suddenly I became unalterably certain of what I had just quietly realized … For the Lord thy God is a jealous God…

The strange thing was, I reflected, that most everybody I knew already considered me a writer, though I had done little to prove it. They assumed I was not only because of my behavior, which had always been eccentric and unpredictable, but because of my passion for language. From the time I learned to read I was never without a book. The first person to whom I ventured to read aloud was my grandfather; I used to sit at the edge of his work bench where he sat sewing coats. My grandfather was proud of me but he was also somewhat alarmed. I remember him warning my mother that she would do better to take the books away from me … Only a few years later and I am reading aloud to my little friends, Joey and Tony, on my visits to them in the country. Sometimes I read to a dozen or more children gathered around me. I would read and read until they fell asleep one by one. If I took the trolley or the subway I would read standing up, even outside on the platform of the elevated train. Leaving the train I would still be reading … reading faces, reading gestures, reading gaits, reading architecture, reading streets, passions, crimes. Everything, yes everything, was noted, analyzed, compared and described—for future use. Studying an object, a face, a facade, I studied it the way it was to be written down (later) in a book, including the adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, parentheses and what not. Before I had even planned the first book my mind was teeming with hundreds of characters. I was a walking, talking book, an encyclopaedic compendium which kept swelling like a malignant tumor. If I bumped into a friend or an acquaintance, or even a stranger, I would continue the writing while conversing with him. It was the work of only a few seconds to steer the conversation into my own groove, to fix my victim with a hypnotic eye and inundate him. If it were a woman I encountered I could do it even more easily. Women responded to this sort of thing better than men, I noticed. But with a foreigner it went best of all. My language always intoxicated the alien, first because I made an effort to speak clearly and simply to him, second because his greater tolerance and sympathy brought out the best in me. I always spoke to a foreigner as if I were acquainted with the ways and customs of his country; I always left him with the impression that I valued his country more than my own, which was usually the truth. And I always planted in him a desire to become better acquainted with the English language, not because’ I deemed it the best language in the world but because no one I knew used it with its full potency.

If I were reading a book and happened to strike a wonderful passage I would close the book then and there and go for a walk. I hated the thought of coming to the end of a good book. I would tease it along, delay the inevitable as long as possible. But always, when I hit a great passage, I would stop reading immediately. Out I would go, rain, hail, snow or ice, and chew the cud. One can become so full with the spirit of another being as to be literally afraid of bursting. Every one, I presume, has had the experience. This other being, let me observe, is always a sort of alter ego. It isn’t a mere matter of recognizing a kindred soul, it is a matter of recognizing oneself. To come suddenly face to face with yourself! What a moment! Closing the book you continue the act of creation. And this procedure, this ritual, I should say, is always the same: a communication on all fronts at once. No more barriers. More alone than ever, you are nevertheless glued to the world as never before. Incorporated in it. Suddenly it becomes clear to you, that when God made the world He did not abandon it to sit in contemplation—somewhere in limbo. God made the world and He entered into it: that is the meaning of creation.

2

It was only a few months of bliss we enjoyed in the Japanese love nest. Once a week I paid my visit to Maude and the child, brought the alimony, went for a stroll in the park. Mona had her job in the theatre and from her earnings took care of her mother and two healthy brothers. About once every ten days I ate at the French-Italian grocery, usually without Mona because she had to be at the theatre early. Occasionally I visited Ulric to play a quiet game of chess with him. The session usually ended in a discussion of painters and how they painted. Sometimes I simply went for a stroll in the evening, generally to the foreign quarters. Often I stayed home and read or played the gramophone. Mona usually arrived home about midnight; we would have a little snack, talk for a few hours, and then to bed. It was getting more and more difficult to get up in the morning. To say good-bye to Mona was always a tussle. Finally it came about that I remained away from the office three days handrunning. It was just a sufficient break to make it impossible for me to return. Three glorious days and nights, doing exactly what I pleased, eating well, sleeping long, enjoying every minute of the day, feeling immeasurably rich inside, losing all ambition to battle with the world, itching to begin my own private life, confident of the future, done with the past, how could I go back into harness? Besides, I felt that I had been doing Clancy, my boss, a great injustice. If I had any loyalty or integrity I ought to tell him that I was fed up. I knew that he was constantly defending me, constantly making excuses for me to his boss, the right holy Mr. Twilliger. Sooner or later, Spivak, always on my trail, would get the goods on me. Of late he had been spending a great deal of time in Brooklyn, right in my own precincts. No, the jig was up. It was time to make a clean breast of it.

On the fourth day I got up early as if in preparation for work. I waited almost until ready to leave before broaching my thought to Mona. She was so delighted at the idea that she begged me to resign at once and be back for lunch. It seemed to me likewise that the quicker it was over the better. Spivak would undoubtedly find another employment manager in jig time.

When I got to the office there was an unusual swarm of applicants waiting for me. Hymie was at his post, his ear glued to the telephone, frantically operating the switchboard as usual. There were so many new vacancies that if he had had an army of waybills to manipulate he would still have been helpless, I went to my desk, emptied it of my private effects, gathered them up in a brief-case, and beckoned Hymie to approach.

Hymie, I’m quitting, I said. I’ll leave it to you to notify Clancy or Spivak.

Hymie looked at me as if I had taken leave of my wits. There was an awkward pause and then in a matter of fact tone he asked me what I was going to do about my pay. Let them keep it, I said.

What? he yelled. This time, I could see, he knew definitely I was nuts.

I haven’t got the heart to ask for my pay since I’m leaving without notice, don’t you see? I’m sorry to leave you in the lurch, Hymie. But you won’t be here long either, I take it. A few more words and I was off. I stood outside the big show window a few moments to observe the applicants stewing and milling about. It was over with. Lake a surgical operation. It didn’t seem possible to me that I had spent almost five years in the service of this heartless corporation. I understood how a soldier must feel on being mustered out of the army.

Free! Free! Free!

Instead of ducking immediately into the subway I strolled up Broadway, just to see how it felt to be on one’s own and at large at that hour of the morning. My poor fellow-workers, there they were scurrying to their jobs, all with that grim, harried look I knew so well. Some were already grinding the pavement, hopeful even at that early hour of receiving an order, selling an insurance policy, or placing an ad. How stupid, meaningless, idiotic it appeared now, the rat race. It always had seemed crazy to me, but now it appeared diabolical as well.

If only I were to run into Spivak! If only he were to ask me what I was doing strolling about so leisurely!

I walked about aimlessly for the sheer thrill of tasting my new-found freedom; it gave me a perverse pleasure to watch the slaves fulfilling their appointed rounds. A whole lifetime lay ahead of me. In a few months I would be thirty-three years of age—and my own master absolute. Then and there I made a vow never to work for any one again. Never again would I take orders. The work of the world was for the other blokes—I would have no part in it. I had talent and I would cultivate it. I would become a writer or I would starve to death.

On the way home I stopped off at a music shop and bought an album of records—a Beethoven quartet, if I remember rightly. On the Brooklyn side I bought a bunch of flowers and wangled a bottle of Chianti out of the private stock of an Italian friend. The new life would begin with a good lunch—and music. It would take a lot of good living to wipe out all remembrance of the days, months, years I had wasted in the cosmococcic tread-mill. To do absolutely nothing for a stretch, to idle the days away, what a heavenly pastime that would be!

It was the glorious month of September; the leaves were turning and there was the smell of smoke in the air. It was hot and cool at the same time. One could still go to the beach for a swim. There were so many things I wanted to do all at once that I was almost jumping out of my skin. First of all I would get a piano and start playing again. Perhaps I would even take up painting. Letting my mind roam at will, suddenly it came to rest on a beloved image. The bike! How wonderful it would be if I could get my old racing wheel back again! It was only about two years ago that I had sold it to my cousin who lived nearby. Perhaps he would sell it back to me. It was a special model which I had picked up from a German cyclist at the end of a six-day race. Made in Chemnitz, Bohemia. Ah, but it was a long time since I had taken a spin to Coney Island. Autumn days! Just made for cycling. I prayed that my fool cousin hadn’t changed the saddle; it was a Brooks saddle and well broken in. (And those straps that fitted round the toe-clips, I hoped he hadn’t discarded them.) Recalling the feel of my foot slipping into the toe-clip, I re-experienced the most delicious sensations. Riding now along the gravel path under the archway of trees that runs from Prospect Park to Coney Island, my rhythm one with the machine, my brain thoroughly emptied, only the sensation of rushing through space, fast or slow, according to the dictates of the chronometer inside me. The landscape to either side falling away like the leaves of a calendar. No thoughts, no sensations even. Just everlasting movement I forward into space, one with the machine … Yes, I would go cycling again—every morning—just to get my blood up. A spin to Coney Island and back, a shower and rub-down, a delicious breakfast, and then to work. At my writing desk, of course. Not work, but play. A whole lifetime ahead of me and nothing to do but write. How wonderful! It seemed to me that all I had to do was to sit down, turn on the tap, and out it would flow. If I could write twenty and thirty page letters without a halt, surely I could write books with the same ease. Everybody recognized the writer in me: all I had to do was to make it a fact.

As I hurried up the stoop I caught a glimpse of Mona moving about in her kimono. The big window with the stone ledge was wide open. I swung myself over the balustrade and entered by the window.

Well, I did it! I exclaimed, handing her the flowers, the wine, the music. To-day we begin a new life. I don’t know what we’re going to live on, but we’re going to live. Is the typewriter in good shape? Have you food for lunch? Should I ask Ulric to come over? I’m bursting with effervescence. To-day I could go through a trial by ordeal and come out of it in ecstasy. Let me sit down and look at you. Go on, move about as you were a minute ago. I want to see how it feels to sit here and do nothing.

A pause to give Mona a chance to collect herself. Then spilling over again.

You weren’t sure I would do it, were you? I never would have if it weren’t for you. You know, it’s easy to go to work every day. What’s difficult is to stay free. I thought of everything under the sun that I would like to do, now that I’m footloose and free. I want to do things. It seems to me I’ve been standing still for five years.

Mona began to laugh quietly. Do things? she echoed. Why, you’re the most active person in creation. No, dear Val, what you need is to do nothing. I don’t want you to even think about writing … not until you’ve had a long rest. And don’t worry about how we’re going to get along. Leave that to me. If I can keep that lazy family of mine I can certainly keep you and me. Anyway, don’t let’s think of such things now.

There’s a wonderful bill at the Palace, she added in a moment. Roy Barnes is there. He’s one of your favorites, isn’t he? And there’s that comedian who used to be in burlesque—I forget his name. It’s just a suggestion.

I sat there in a daze, my hat on, my feet sprawled out in front of me. Too good to be true. I felt like King Solomon. Better than King Solomon, in fact, because I had cast off all responsibilities. Sure I would go to the theatre. What better than a matinee on a lazy day? I’d call Ulric later on and ask him to have dinner with us. A red letter day like this had to be shared with some one, and what better than to share it with a good friend? (I knew too what Ulric would say. You don’t think that maybe it would have been better…? Oh, what the hell am I saying? You know best … Et cetera.) I was prepared for anything from Ulric. His dubiety, his cautiousness, would be refreshing. I was almost certain that before the evening ended he would be saying—Maybe I’ll throw up the sponge myself! Not meaning it, of course, but toying with it, flirting with it, just to titivate me. As though to say that if he, Ulric, the greatest stick-in-the-mud ever, could entertain such a notion why then it was self-evident that a man like his friend Henry Val Miller must act on it, that not to act would be suicidal.

Do you think we might be able to afford to buy my bicycle back? This out of a clear sky.

Why of course, Val, she answered, without a moment’s hesitation.

You don’t think it funny, do you? I’ve got a tremendous desire to ride the bike again. I gave it up just before I met you, you know.

It was the most natural desire in the world, she thought. But it made her laugh, just the same. You’re still a boy, aren’t you? she couldn’t resist saying.

Yep! But it’s damned sight better than being a zombie, what?

After a few moments I spoke up again. Do you know what? There’s another thing I thought of this morning…

What’s that?

A piano. I’d like to get a piano and start playing again.

That would be wonderful, she said. I’m sure we can rent one cheaply—and a good one, too. Would you take lessons again?

No, not that. I want to amuse myself, that’s all.

Maybe you could teach me to play.

Of course! If you really want to learn.’

It’s always good to know, especially in the theatre.

Nothing easier. Just get me the piano.

Suddenly, getting up to stretch, I burst out laughing. And what are you going to get out of this new life?

You know what I’d like, said Mona.

No I don’t. What?

She came over to me and put her arms around me. All I would like is for you to become what you want to be—a writer. A great writer.

And that’s all you would like?

Yes, Val, that’s all, believe me.

And what about the theatre? Don’t you want to become a great actress some day?

No, Val, I know I’ll never be that. I haven’t enough ambition. I took up the theatre because I thought it would please you. I don’t really care what I do—so long as it makes you happy.

But you won’t make a good actress if you think that way, I said. Really, you must think about yourself. You must do what you like best, no matter what I do. I thought you were crazy about the theatre.

I’m only crazy about one thing, you

Now you’re acting, I said.

I wish I were, it would be easier.

I chucked her under the chin. Well, I drawled, you’ve got me now for good and all. We’ll see how you like it a month from now. Maybe you’ll be sick of seeing me around before then.

Not I, she said. I’ve prayed for this ever since I met you. I’m jealous of you, do you know that? I want to watch your every move. She came very close and as she spoke she tapped my forehead lightly. Sometimes I wish I could get inside there and know what you’re thinking about. You seem so far away at times. Especially when you’re silent. Ill be jealous of your writing too—because I know you won’t be thinking of me then.

I’m already in a spot, I said laughingly. Listen, what are we doing? What’s the use of all this—the day is slipping by. To-day is one day we don’t try to read the future. To-day we’re going to celebrate … Where’s that Jewish delicatessen you were telling me about? In think I’ll go and get some good black bread, some olives and cheese, some pastrami, some sturgeon, if they have any—and what else? This is a wonderful wine I bought—it needs good food to go with it. I’ll get some pastry too—how about apple strudel? Oh, have you any money—I’m cleaned out. Fine. A five dollar bill? I hope you’ve got more? To-morrow we’ll think things out, yes? You know, the spondulix: how and where to get it.

She put her hand over my mouth. Please, Val, don’t talk about it. Not even jokingly. You’re not to think about money … not ever, do you understand?

There exists a curious book by an American anarchist, Benjamin R. Tucker, entitled INSTEAD OF A BOOK BY A MAN TOO BUSY TO WRITE ONE.

The title describes my new-found situation to a T. My creative energy suddenly released, I spilled over in all directions at once. Instead of a book, the first thing I sat down to write was a prose poem about Brooklyn’s back-yard. I was so in love with the idea of being a writer that I could scarcely write. The amount of physical energy I possessed was unbelievable. I wore myself out in preparation. It was impossible for me to sit down quietly and just turn on the flow; I was dancing inside. I wanted to describe the world I knew and be in it at the same time. It never occurred to me that with just two or three hours of steady work a day I could write the thickest book imaginable. It was my belief then that if a man sat down to write he should remain glued to his seat for eight or ten hours at a stretch. One ought to write and write until he dropped from exhaustion. That was how I imagined writers went about their task. If only I had known then the program which Cendrars describes in one of his books! Two hours a day, before dawn, and the rest of the day to one’s self. What a wealth of books he has given the world, Cendrars! All en marge. Employing a similar procedure—two or three hours a day regularly every day of one’s life—Remy de Gourmont had demonstrated, as Cendrars points out, that it is possible for a man to read virtually everything of value which has ever been written.

But I had no order, no discipline, no set goal. I was completely at the mercy of my impulses, my whims, my desires. My frenzy to live the life of the writer was so great that I overlooked the vast reservoir of material which had accumulated during the years leading up to this moment. I felt impelled to write about the immediate, about what was happening outside my very door. Something fresh, that’s what I was after. To do this was compulsive because, whether I was aware of it or not, the material which I had stored up had been chewed to a frazzle during the years of frustration, doubt and despair when everything I had to say was written out in my head. Add to this that I felt like a boxer or wrestler getting ready for the big event. I needed a work-out. These first efforts then, these fantasies and fantasias, these prose poems and rambling divagations of all sorts, were like a grand tuning up of the instrument. It satisfied my vanity (which was enormous) to set off Roman candles, pin-wheels, sputtering fire-crackers. The big cannon crackers I was reserving for the night of the Fourth of July. It was morning now, a long, lazy morning of a holiday that was to last forever. I had elected to occupy a choice seat in Paradise. It was definite and certain. I could therefore afford to take my time, could afford to dawdle away the glorious hours ahead of me during which I would still be part of the world and its senseless routine. Once I ascended to the heavenly seat I would join the chorus of angels, the seraphic choir which never ceases to give forth hymns of joy.

If I had long been reading the face of the world with the eyes of a writer, I now read it anew with, even greater intensity. Nothing was too petty to escape my attention. If I went for a walk—and I was constantly seeking excuses to take a walk, to explore, as I put it—it was for the deliberate purpose of transforming myself into an enormous eye. Seeing the common, everyday things in this new light I was often transfixed. The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnified world in itself. Almost an unrecognizable world. The writer waits in ambush for these unique moments. He pounces on his little grain of nothingness like a beast of prey. It is the moment of full awakening, of union and absorption, and it can never be forced. Sometimes one makes the mistake or commits the sin, shall I say, of trying to fix the moment, trying to pin it down in words. It took me ages to understand why, after having made exhaustive efforts to induce these moments of exaltation and release, I should be so incapable of recording them. I never dreamed that it was an end in itself, that to experience a moment of pure bliss, of pure awareness, was the end all and be all.

Many is the mirage I chased. Always I was overreaching myself. The oftener I touched reality, the harder I bounced back to the world of illusion, which is the name for everyday life. Experience! More experience! I clamored. In a frantic effort to arrive at some kind of order, some tentative working program, I would sit down quietly now and then and spend long, long hours mapping out a plan of procedure. Plans, such as architects and engineers sweat over, were never my forte. But I could always visualize my dreams in a cosmogonic pattern. Though I could never formulate a plot I could balance and weigh opposing forces, characters, situations, events, distribute them in a sort of heavenly lay-out, always with plenty of space between, always with the certitude that there is no end, only worlds within worlds ad infinitum, and that wherever one left off one had created a world, a world finite, total, complete.

Like a finely trained athlete, I was easy and uneasy’ at the same time. Sure of the final outcome, but nervous, restless, impatient, fretful. And so, after I had set off a few fireworks, I began to think in terms of light artillery. I began to align my pieces, so to speak. First of all, I reasoned, to have any effect my voice must be heard. I would have to find some outlet for my work—in newspapers, magazines, almanacs or house organs. Somewhere, somehow. What was my range, what my firing power? Though I wasn’t one to bore my friends with private readings, now and then in moments of unbridled enthusiasm I was guilty of such misconduct. Rare as they were, these lapses, they had a tonic effect upon me. It was seldom, I noticed, that any of my friends grew intoxicated over my efforts.

This silent criticism which friends often give is, I believe, worth infinitely more than the belabored, hostile shafts of the paid critic. The fact that my friends failed to laugh uproariously at the right moment, the fact that they did not applaud vociferously when I terminated my readings, conveyed more than a torrent of words. Sometimes, to be sure, I salved my pride by thinking of them as obtuse or too reserved. Not often, however. To Ulric’s appraisals I was particularly sensitive. It was foolish of me, perhaps, to give such keen attention to his comments, since our tastes (in literature) were widely different, but he was so very, very close to me, the one friend I had whom it was imperative to convince of my ability. He was not easy to please either, my Ulric. What he enjoyed most was the fireworks, that is to say, the unusual words, the striking references, the fine brocades, the senseless jeremiads. Often he would thank me, in parting, for the string of new words I had added to his vocabulary. Sometimes we would spend another evening, an entire evening, looking up these bizarre words in the dictionary. Some we never found—because I had made them up.

But to get back to the grand plan … Since I was convinced that I could write about anything under the sun, and excitingly, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to make up a list of themes which I thought of interest and submit them to editors of magazines in order that they might select what appealed to them. This entailed writing dozens and dozens of letters. Long, fatuous letters they were, too. It also meant keeping files, as well as observing the idiotic rules and regulations of a hundred and one editorial bodies. It involved altercations and disputes, fruitless errands to editorial offices, vexation, disgruntlement, rage, despair, ennui. And postage stamps! After weeks of turmoil and effervescence there might appear one day a letter from an editor saying that he would condescend to read my article if and if and if and but. Never daunted by the ifs and buts, I would regard such a letter as a bona fide pledge, a commission. Good! So I was at liberty, let us say, to write something about Coney Island in winter. If they liked it it would appear in print, my name would be signed to it, and I could show it to my friends, carry it about with me, put it under my pillow at night, read it surreptitiously, over and over, because the first time you see yourself in print you’re beside yourself, you’ve at last proved to the world that you really are a writer, and you must prove it to the world, at least once in your life, or you will go mad from believing it all by yourself.

And so to Coney Island on a wintry day. Alone, of course. It wouldn’t do to have one’s reflections and observations diverted by a trivial-minded friend. A new pad in my pocket and a sharp pencil.

It’s a long, dreary ride to Coney Island in midwinter. Only convalescents and invalids, or demented ones, seem to be trekking there. I feel as though I were slightly mad myself. Who wants to hear about a Coney Island which is all boarded up? I must have put this theme down in a moment of exaltation, believing that nothing could be more inspiring than a picture of desolation.

Desolate is hardly the word for it. As I walk along the boardwalk, the icy wind whistling through my breeches, everything closed tight, it dawns on me that I couldn’t possibly have chosen a more difficult subject to write about. There is absolutely nothing to take note of, unless it be the silence. I see it better through Ulric’s eyes than my own. An illustrator might have a good time of it here, what with the bleak, crazy, tumbling edifices, the snarling piles and planks, the still, empty Ferris wheel, the noiseless roller coasters, rusting under a feeble sun. Just to assure myself that I am on the job, I make a few notes about the crazy look of the razzle-dazzle, the yawning mouth of George C. Tilyou, and so forth … A hot frankfurter and a cup of steaming hot coffee would do me good, I think. I find a little booth open on a side street off the boardwalk. There is a shooting gallery open a few doors away. Not a customer in sight: the owner is shooting at the clay pigeons himself, for practise, no doubt. A drunken sailor comes lurching along; a few feet away from me he doubles up and lets go. (No need to take note of this.) I go down to the beach and watch the sea gulls. I’m looking at the sea gulls and thinking about Russia. A picture of Tolstoy seated at a bench mending shoes obsesses me. What was the name of his abode again? Yasna Polyana? No, Yasnaya Polyana. Well, anyway, what the hell am I speculating on this for? Wake up! I shake myself and push forward into the icy gale. Driftwood lying all about. Fantastic forms. (So many stories about bottles with messages inside them.) I wish now I had thought to ask MacGregor to come along. That idiotic, pseudo-serious line of his sometimes stimulated me in a perverse way. How he would laugh to see me pacing the beach in search of material! Well, you’re working anyhow, I can hear him chirping. That’s something. But why in hell did you have to pick this for a subject? You know damned well nobody will be interested in it. You probably just wanted a little outing. Now you’ve got a good excuse, haven’t you? Jesus, Henry, you’re just the same as ever—nuts, completely nuts.

As I board the train to go home I realize that I have made just three lines of notes. I haven’t the slightest idea what I shall say when I sit down to the machine. My mind is a blank. A frozen blank. I sit staring out the window and not even the tremor of a thought assails me. The landscape itself is a frozen blank. The whole world is locked in snow and ice, mute, helpless. I’ve never known such a bleak, dismal, gruesome, lack-lustre day.

That night I went to bed rather chastened and humbled. Doubly so, because before retiring I had picked up a volume of Thomas Mann (in which there was the Tonio Kruger story) and had been overwhelmed by the flawless quality of the narrative. To my astonishment, however, I awoke the next day full of piss and vinegar. Instead of going for my usual morning stroll—to get my blood up—I sat down at the machine immediately after breakfast. By noon I had finished my article on Coney Island. It had come without effort. Why? Because instead of forcing it out I had gone to sleep—after due surrender of the ego, certes. It was a lesson in the futility of struggle. Do your utmost and let Providence do the rest! A petty victory, perhaps, but most illuminating.

The article, of course, was never accepted. (Nothing was ever accepted.) It went the rounds from one editor to another. Nor did it make the rounds alone. Week after week I was turning them out, sending them forth like carrier pigeons, and week after week they came back, always with the stereotyped rejection slip. Nevertheless, nothing daunted, as they say, always merry and bright, I adhered rigidly to my program. There it was, the program, on a huge sheet of wrapping paper, tacked up on the wall. Beside it was another big sheet of paper on which were listed the exotic words I was endeavoring to annex to my vocabulary. The problem was how to hitch these words to my texts without having them stick out like sore thumbs. Often I tried them out beforehand, in letters to my friends, in letters to all and sundry. The letter writing was for me what shadow boxing is to a pugilist. But imagine a pugilist spending so much time fighting his shadow that when he hooks up with a sparring partner he has no fight left! I could spend two or three hours writing a story, or article, and another six or seven explaining them to my friends by letter. The real effort was going into the letter writing, and perhaps it was best so, now that I look back on it, because it preserved the speed and naturalness of my true voice. I was far too self-conscious, in the early days, to use my own voice. I was the literary man through and through. I made use of every device I discovered, employed every register, assumed a thousand different stances, always confusing the mastery of technique with creation. Experience and technique, those were the two goads that drove me on. To triumph in the world of experience, as I formulated it, I would have to live at least a hundred lives. To acquire the right, or shall I say the complete, technique, I would have to live to be a hundred, not a day less.

Some of my more honest friends, brutally candid as they often were, would occasionally remind me that in talking to them I was always myself but that in writing I was not. Why don’t you write like you talk? they would say. At first blush the idea struck me as absurd. In the first place I never considered myself a remarkable talker, though they insisted I was. In the second place, the written word seemed so much more eloquent to me than the spoken one. When you talk you can’t stop to polish a phrase, to search for precisely the right word, nor can you go back and expunge a word, a phrase, a whole paragraph. It seemed like an insult to have them tell me, who was struggling for mastery of the word, that I succeeded better without thought than with thought. Poisonous as the idea was, though, it bore fruit. Now and then, after an exhilarating evening with my friends, after I had spouted my head off, had made them drunk with my speeches, I would sneak home and silently review the performance. The words had tumbled out of my mouth in perfect order and with telling effect; there was not only continuity, form, climax and denouement, but rhythm, volume, sonority, aura and magic in the performance. If I stumbled or faltered I went ahead nevertheless, later to double back on my tracks, erase the wrong word, expunge the inept phrase, magnify the sense of a swelling cadence through repetition, innuendo and implication, through detour and parenthesis. It was like juggling: the words were alive like balls, could be recalled, could be made to obey, could be changed for other balls, and so on. Or, it was like writing on an invisible slate. One heard the words instead of seeing them. They did not disappear because they had never truly appeared. Hearing them, one had an even keener sense of appreciation, of participation rather, as if viewing a sleight of hand performance. The memory of the ear was just as reliable as the memory of the eye. One might not be able to reproduce a lengthy harangue, even three minutes afterwards, but one could detect a false note, a wrong emphasis.

Often I have wondered, after reading about evenings with Mallarme, or with Joyce, or with Max Jacob, let us say, how these sessions of ours compared. To be sure, none of my companions of those days ever dreamed of becoming a figure in the world of art. They loved to discuss art, all the arts, but they themselves had no thought of becoming artists. Most of them were engineers, architects, physicians, chemists, teachers, lawyers. But they had intellect and they had enthusiasm, and they were all so sincere, so avid, that sometimes I wonder if the music we made might not have rivalled the chamber music which issued from the sacred quarters of the masters. Certainly there was never anything pompous or ordained about these sessions. One spoke as he pleased, was criticized freely, and never bothered his head to wonder if what he had said would please the master.

There was no master among us: we were equals, and we could be sublime or idiotic, as we pleased. What brought us together was a mutual hunger for the things we felt deprived of. We had no burning desire to reform the world. We were seeking to enrich ourselves, that was all. In Europe such gatherings often have a political, cultural, or aesthetic background. The members of the group perform their exercises, so to speak, in order later to spread the leaven among the masses. We never thought of the masses—we were too much a part of them. We talked of music, painting, literature because, if one is at all intelligent and sensitive, one naturally ends up in the world of art. We did not come together expressly to talk about such matters, it simply happened thus.

I was probably the only one in the group who took himself seriously. That is why I became such a cantankerous idiot of a pest at times. Secretly I did hope to reform the world. Secretly I was an agitator. It was just this little difference between myself and the rest which made our evenings so lively. In every sentence I uttered there was always an extra ounce of sincerity, an extra grain of truth. It wasn’t playing cricket. I would stir them up—expressly, it seemed—to draw heaps of coal on my head. No one ever fully agreed with me. No matter how I worded my thought, what I said always struck them as far-fetched. They would confess, at moments, that they just loved to hear me talk. Yes, I would say, but you never listen. This would provoke a titter. Then some one would say: You mean we don’t always agree with you. More titters. Shit! I would answer, I don’t expect you to agree with me always … I want you to think … to think for yourselves. Hear! Hear! Look, I would say, making ready to deliver another long tirade, look…

Go on, some one would pipe up, go on, give it to us! Blow your top! Here I would sit down, sullen, silent, apparently squelched. Come on now, don’t take it to heart, Henry. Here’s a fresh drink. Come on, get it off your chest! Knowing what they wanted of me, yet hoping that by some extraordinary effort I might alter their attitude, I would give in, melt, then deliver a veritable fusillade. The more desperate and sincere I grew the more they enjoyed themselves. Realizing that the game was up I would slide off into a burlesque performance. I’d say any bloody thing that came into my head, the more absurd and fantastic, the better. I’d insult them royally—but no one took offense. It was like fighting phantoms. Shadow-boxing again…

(I doubt, of course, that anything like this ever went on in the rue de Rome or the rue Ravignan.)

Following out the plan I had laid down for myself I was busier than the busiest executive in the industrial world. Some of the articles I had elected to write demanded considerable research work, which was never an ordeal for me because I loved going to the library and have them dig up books that were hard to find. How many wonderful days and nights I spent at the 42nd Street Library, seated at a long table, one among thousands, it seemed, in that main reading room. The tables themselves excited me. It was always my desire to own a table of extraordinary dimensions, a table so large that I could not only sleep on it but dance on it, even skate on it. (There was a writer, once, who worked at such a table, which he had placed in the center of a huge, barren room—my ideal as a work place. His name was Andreyev, and needless to add, he was one of my favorites.)

Yes, it gave one a good felling to be working amidst so many other industrious students in a room the size of a cathedral, under a lofty ceiling which was an imitation of heaven itself. One left the library slightly dazed, often with a holy feeling. It was always a shock to plunge into the crowd at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street; there was no connection between that busy thoroughfare and the peaceful world of books. Often, while waiting for the books to come up from the mysterious depths of the library, I would stroll along the outer aisles glancing at the titles of the amazing reference books which lined the walls. Thumbing those books was enough to set my mind racing for days. Sometimes I sat and meditated, wondering what question I could put to the genius which presided over the spirit of this vast institution that it could not answer. There was no subject under the sun, I suppose, which had not been written about and filed in those archives. My omnivorous appetite pulled me one way, my fear of becoming a book-worm the other way.

It was also enjoyable to make a trip to Long Island City, that most woe-begone hole, to see at first hand how chewing gum was manufactured. Here was a world of sheer lunacy—efficiency, it is usually called. In a room filled with a choking powder of sickenly sweet stench hundreds of moronic girls worked like butterflies packing the slabs of gum in wrappers; their nimble fingers, I was told, worked more accurately and skilfully than any machine yet invented. I went through the plant, a huge one, under an escort, each wing as it opened up to view presenting the aspect of another section of hell. It was only when I threw out a random query about the chicle, which is the base of chewing gum, that I stumbled on to the really interesting phase of my research. The chicleros, as they are called, the men who toil in the depths of the jungles ‘of Yucatan, are a fascinating breed of men. I spent weeks at the library reading about their customs and habits. I got so interested in them, indeed, that I almost forgot about chewing gum. And, of course, from a study of the chicleros I was drawn into the world of the Mayans, thence to those fascinating books about Atlantis and the lots continent of Mu, the canals which ran from one side of South America to another, the cities which were lifted a mile high when the Andes came into being, the sea traffic between Easter Island and the western slope of South America, the analogies and affinities between the Amerindian culture and the culture of the Near East, the mysteries of the Aztec alphabet, and so on and so forth until, by some strange detour I came upon Paul Gauguin in the center of the Polynesian archipelago and went home reeling with Noa Noa under my arm. And from the life and letters of Gauguin, which I had to read at once, to the life and letters of Vincent Van Gogh was but a step.

No doubt it is important to read the classics; it is perhaps even more important to first read the literature of one’s own time, which is enormous in itself. But more valuable than either of these, to a writer at least, is to read whatever comes to hand, to follow his nose, as it were. In the musty tomes of every great library there are buried articles by obscure or unknown individuals on subjects ostensibly of no importance, but saturated with data, ideas, fancies, moods, whims, portents of such a calibre that they can only be likened, in their effect, to rare drugs. The most exciting days often began with the search for the definition of a new word. One little word, which the ordinary reader is content to pass over unperturbed, may prove (for a writer) to be a veritable gold mine. From the dictionary I usually went to the encyclopaedia, not just one encyclopaedia but several; from the encyclopaedia, to all manner of reference books; from reference books to hand-books, and thence to a nine day debauch. A debauch of digging and ferreting, digging and ferreting. In addition to the reams of notes I made I copied out pages and pages of excerpts. Sometimes I simply tore out the pages I needed most. Between times I would make forays on the museums. The officials with whom I dealt never doubted for a moment that I was engaged in writing a book which would be a contribution to the subject. I talked as if I knew vastly more than I cared to reveal. I would make casual, oblique references to books I had never read or hint of encounters with eminent authorities I had never met. It was nothing, in such moods, to give myself scholastic degrees which I had not even dreamed of acquiring. I spoke of distinguished leaders in such fields as anthropology, sociology, physics, astronomy, as though I had been intimately associated with them. When I saw that I was getting in too deep I had always the wit to excuse myself and pretend to go to the toilet, which was my word for exit. Once, deeply interested in genealogy, I thought it a good idea to take a job for a space in the genealogy division of the public library. It so happened that they were short a man in this division the day I called to make application for a job. They needed a man so badly that they put me to work immediately, which was more than I had bargained for. The application blank which I had left with the director of the library was a marvel of falsification. I wondered, as I listened to the poor devil who was breaking me in, how long it would take for them to get on to me. Meanwhile my superior was climbing ladders with me, pointing out this and that, bending over in dark corners to extract documents, files, and such like, calling in other employees to introduce me, explaining hurriedly as best he could (whilst messengers came and went as in a Shakespearean play) the most salient features of my supposed routine. Realizing in a short time that I was not in the least interested in all this jabberwocky, and thinking of Mona waiting for me to lunch with her, I suddenly interrupted him in the midst of a lengthy exposition of something or other to ask where the toilet was. He looked at me rather strangely, wondering, no doubt, why I hadn’t the decency to hear him out before running to the lavatory, but with the aid of a few grimaces and gestures, which conveyed most patently that I had been caught short, might do it right there on the floor or in the waste basket, I managed to get out of his clutches, grab my had and coat which fortunately were still lying on a chair near the door, and run as fast as I could out of the building…

The dominant passion was the acquisition of knowledge, skill, mastery of technique, inexhaustible experience, but like a sub-dominant chord there existed steadily in the back of my head vibration which meant order, beauty, simplification, enjoyment, appreciation. Reading Van Gogh’s letters I identify myself with him in the struggle to lead a simple life, a life in which art is all. How glowingly he writes about this dedication to art in his letters from Aries, a place I am destined to visit later though reading about it now I don’t even dream of ever seeing it. To give a more musical expression to one’s life—that is how he puts it. Over and over again he makes reference to the austere beauty and dignity of the life of the Japanese artist, dwelling on their simplicity, their certitude, their naturalness. It is this Japanese quality which I find in our love-nest; it is this bare, simple beauty, this stark elegance, which sustain and comfort me. I find myself drawn to Japan more than to China. I read of Whistler’s experience and fall in love with his etchings. I read Lafcadio Hearn, everything he has written about Japan, especially what he gives of their fairy tales, which tales impress me to this day more than those of any other people. Japanese prints adorn the walls; they hang in the bathroom as well. They are even under the glass on my writing table. I know nothing about Zen yet, but I am in love with the art of Jujitsu which is the supreme art of self-defense. I love the miniature gardens, the bridges and lanterns, the temples, the beauty of their landscapes. For weeks, after reading Loti’s Madame Chrysanthemum, I really feel as if I were living in Japan. With Loti I travel from Japan to Turkey, thence to Jerusalem. I become so infatuated with his

Jerusalem that I finally persuade the editor of a Jewish magazine to let me write something about Solomon’s Temple. More research! Somewhere, somehow, I succeeded in finding a model of the temple, showing its evolution, its changes—until the final destruction. I remember reading this article I wrote on the Temple to my father one evening; I recall his amazement that I should possess such a profound knowledge of the subject … What an industrious worm I must have been!

My hunger and curiosity drive me forward in all directions at once. At one and the same time I am interested and absorbed in Hindu music (having become acquainted with a Hindu composer I met in an Indian restaurant), in the ballet russe, in the German expressionist movement, in Scriabins’ piano compositions, in the art of the insane (thanks to Prinzhorn), in Chinese chess, in boxing and wrestling bouts, in hockey matches, in medieval architecture, in the mysteries connected with the Egyptian and Greek underworlds, in the cave drawings of the Cro-Magnon man, in the trade guilds of former times, in everything pertaining to the new Russia, and so on and so forth, from one thing to another, sliding from one level to another as naturally and easily as if I were using an escalator. But was it not in this fashion that the artists of the Renaissance acquired the knowledge and material for their amazing creations? Were they not reaching out into all avenues of life at once? Were they not insatiable and devouring? Were they not journeymen, tramps, criminals, warriors, adventurers, scientists, explorers, poets, painters, musicians, sculptors, architects, fanatics and devotees all in the same stride? Naturally I had read Cellini, Vasari’s Lives, the history of the Inquisition, the lives of the Popes, the story of the Medici family, the Italian, German and English dramas of incest, the writings of John Addington Symonds, Jacob Buckhardt, Funck-Brentano, all on the Renaissance, but never did I read that curious little book by Balzac, called Sur Catherine de Medici. There was one book I was constantly dipping into, in moments of peace and quiet: Walter Pater’s book on the Renaissance. Much of it I read aloud to Ulric, marveling over Pater’s sensitive use of the language. Glorious evenings these, especially when having finished a long passage I would close the book and listen to Ulric expatiate lovingly on the painters he adored. The mere sound of their names put me in ecstasy: Taddeo Gaddi, Signorelli, Fra Lippo Lippi, Piero della Francesca, Mantegna, Uccello, Cimabue. Piranesi, Fra Angelico, and such like. The names of towns and cities were of equal fascination: Ravenna, Mantua, Siena, Pisa, Bologna, Tiepolo, Firenze, Milano, Torino. Thus one evening, continuing our festal bouts on the splendors of Italy at the French-Italian grocery, Ulric and I, joined later by Hymie and Steve Romero, got into such a state of exaltation that two Italians who were seated at the end of the table stopped conversing with each other and listened in open-mouthed admiration as we moved rapidly from one figure to another, one town to another. Hymie and Romero, equally intoxicated by a language which was as foreign to them as it was to the two Italians, remained silent, contenting themselves, with replenishing the drinks. Exhausted finally, and about to pay up, the two Italians suddenly began to clap their hands. Bravo! Bravo! they exclaimed. So beautiful! We were embarrassed. The situation demanded another round of drinks. Joe and Louis joined us, offering us a choice liqueur. Then we began to sing. Fat Louis, moved to the guts, began to weep joyously. He begged us to stay a little longer, promising to fix us a beautiful rum omelette with some caviar on the side. In the midst of it who should walk in but that extraordinary Senegalese, Battling Siki, who was also a client of the establishment. He was a bit high and playful in a dangerous way. He amused us by doing little tricks with matches, cards, saucers, cane, napkins. He was jolly and disgruntled at the same time. Something was irking him. It took the greatest finesse on the part of the proprietors to prevent him, in his playfulness, from wrecking the place. They had to ply him with drinks, stroke his back, salve him with compliments. He sang and danced, all by himself, applauding himself, slapping his thighs, patting us on the shoulder—playful little pats that jolted our vertebrae and made our heads spin. Then, for no reason at all, he suddenly scooted off, knocking over a few cases of beer in his boyish enthusiasm. With his departure every one breathed more easily. Came the omelette and the caviar. Some whitefish too, washed down with a golden white wine, followed by some excellent black coffee and another rare liqueur. Louis was in ecstasy. Have some more! he kept saying. Nothing too good for you, Mr. Miller. And Joe: When you go to Europe, Mr. Miller? You no stay here long, I see it. Ah, Fiesole! By God, one day I go back too!

I rolled home in a cab, singing like a man under anaesthesia. Unable to navigate the stoop, I sat on the bottom steps laughing to myself, hiccoughing, mumbling and muttering crazily, orating to the birds, the alley cats, the telephone poles. Finally I made my way up the steps, slowly, painfully, sliding back a step or two and starting up again, reeling from one side to the other. A veritable Sisyphian ordeal. Mona hadn’t come home yet. I fell on the bed fully dressed and went sound asleep. Towards dawn I felt Mona tugging away at me. I awoke to find myself in a pool of vomit. Phew! What a stench! The bed had to be remade, the floor scrubbed, my clothes removed. Still groggy, I staggered and reeled about. I was still laughing to myself, disgusted yet happy, remorseful but gay. To stand under the shower was a feat requiring the most extraordinary skill. What amazed me throughout was Mona’s gentle acceptance. Not a word of complaint from her. She moved about like a ministering angel. The one pleasurable thought which kept recurring to mind, as I made ready to go to bed again, was that I would not have to go to work when I got up. No more excuses. No remorse. No guilt. I was a free-wheeler. I could sleep as long as I pleased. There would be a good breakfast awaiting me and, if I were still groggy, I could go back to bed and sleep the rest of the day. As I closed my eyes I had a vision of Fat Louis standing at the blazing stove, his eyes wet with tears, his heart pouring out into that omelette. Capri, Sorrento, Amalfi, Fiesole, Paestum, Taormina … Funiculi, funicula … And Ghirlandajo … And the Campo Santo … What a country! What a people! You bet I’d go there one day. Why not? Long live the Pope! (But I’ll be damned if I kiss his ass!) Week-ends took a different tenor. The usual visit to Maude, a stroll in the park with her and the child, perhaps a round on the caroussel, or rigging up a kite, or a row in the lake. Chit-chat, gossip, trivialities, recriminations. She was growing a bit daffy, it seemed to me. The alimony which we raked up with such effort was being pissed away on trifles. Worthless knick-knacks everywhere. Drivel about sending the child to a private school, the public school being unfit for our little princess. Piano lessons, dancing lessons, painting lessons. The price of butter, turkey, sardines, apricots. Melanie’s varicose veins. No parrot any more, I noticed. Not pet poodle, no dog biscuits, no Edison phonograph. More and more furniture piling up, more empty candy boxes lying on the floor of the closet. Leaving her, it was the same old tug of war. Frightful scenes. The child screaming and clinging to me, begging me to stay and sleep with mamma. Once, in the park, seated on a beautiful knoll with the child, watching her fly the kite I had bought her, Maude meanwhile meandering about on her own in the offing, the child suddenly came up to me and put her arms around my neck, began kissing me tenderly, calling me daddy, dear daddy, and so on. In spite of all my efforts, a sob broke loose, then another and another, and with it a flood of tears fit to drown a horse. I staggered to my feet, the child clinging to me for dear life, and looked blindly about for Maude. People stared at me in horror and walked on. Grief, grief, unbearable grief. The more so because all about me there was nothing but beauty, order, tranquillity. Other children were playing with their parents. They were happy, radiant, bursting with joy. Only we were miserable, alienated, forever alienated. Every week the child was growing older, more comprehending, more sensitive, more reproachful in her own silent way. It was criminal to live thus.

Under another system we might have continued to live together, all of us, Mona, Maude, the child, Melanie, the dogs, cats, umbrellas, everything. At least so I thought in moments of desperation. Any situation was better than these heart-rending reunions. We were all being wounded, lacerated, Mona as much as Maude. The more difficult it got to raise the weekly alimony, the more guilty I felt towards Mona who was bearing the brunt of it all. What good was it to lead the life of a writer if it entailed such sacrifices? What good was it to live a life of bliss with Mona if my own flesh and blood had to suffer? At night, awake or in dream, I could feel the child’s little arms about my neck, pulling me towards her, pulling me homeward. Often I wept in my sleep, groaned and whimpered, reliving these scenes of anguish. You were weeping in your sleep last night, Mona would say. And I would say: Was I? I don’t remember. She knew I was lying. It made her miserable to think that her presence alone was not sufficient to make me happy. Often I would protest, though she hadn’t said a word. I am happy, can’t you see? I don’t want a blessed thing. She would be silent. Awkward pauses. You don’t think I’m worried about the child, do you? I would blurt out. And she would answer: You haven’t been there for several weeks now, do you know that? It was true. I had taken to staving off the regular weekly visits, would send the money by mail or by messenger boy. I think you ought to go this week Val. After all, she’s your own child.

I know, I know, I would say. Yes, I’ll go. And then I would give a groan. And still another groan when I’d hear her say: I bought something for the little one for you to take this time. Why did I not buy anything myself? Often I stood looking into shop windows, choosing in my mind all the things I would like to buy, not just for the child, but for Mona, for Melanie, even for Maude. But I didn’t think it was right of me to buy things when I wasn’t earning anything myself. The money Mona earned at the theatre was not enough for our needs, not nearly enough. She was constantly gold-digging, week in and week out. Sometimes she came home with staggering gifts for me, after an unusual touch, I suppose. I begged her not to get me things. I have everything, I said. And it was true. (Except for the bicycle and the piano. Somehow, I had forgotten all about these items.) Things piled up so fast, that even if I had received them, I doubt that I would have used them. It would have been more sensible to give me a mouth organ and a pair of roller skates…

Sometimes strange nostalgic fits assailed me. I might wake up with the hang-over of a dream and decide that it was most imperative to revive certain strong recollections, as of that fat tub I called Uncle Charlie, who used to sit me on his lap and regale me with stories of his exploits during the Spanish-American war. It meant a long ride, by elevated line and trolley, to a little place called Glendale, where Joey and Tony had once lived. (Uncle Charlie was their uncle, not mine.) After all the years which had passed, the sleepy little hamlet still wore a quaint air to me. The houses where my little friends had lived were still standing, hardly altered, fortunately. The tavern with its stables, where friends and relatives used to gather of a Summer’s evening, were also there. I could recall running from table to table as a tiny tot, sipping the dregs from the beer mugs, or collecting pennies and dimes from the tipsy revelers. Even the maudlin German songs, which they sang with iron lungs, ran in my ears: Lauderbach, lauderbach, hab’ ich mein Strumpf verlor’n. I see them suddenly sobered, dead serious now, gathered in hollow square, like the last remnants of a gallant regiment, men, women and children, shoulder to shoulder, all members of the Kunst Verein (a nucleus of the great ancestral Saengerbund), waiting solemnly for the leader to sound the tuning fork. Like faithful warriors standing at the border of a foreign land, their chests heaving, their eyes bright and liquid, they raise their powerful voices in a heavenly choir, intoning some deeply moving Lied which stirs them to the depths of their souls … Moving along. Now the little Catholic church where Mr. Imhof, the father of Tony and Joey (the first artist I was to meet in the flesh) had made the stained glass windows, the frescoes on the walls and ceiling, and the carved pulpit. Though his children were fearful of him, though he was stern, tyrannical, aloof, I was always strongly drawn to this sombre man. At bed-time we were always led to his study in the garret to bid him good-night. Invariably he was sitting at his table, painting water colors. A student’s lamp threw a soft light on the table, leaving the rest of the room in chiaroscuro. He looked so earnest and tender then, distraught, and ever remote. I used to wonder what impelled him to remain long hours of the night glued to his work table. But what registered most of all was that he was different: he was of another breed … Still strolling about. At the railroad tracks now, where we used to play in the ravine: a sort of no man’s land between the edge of the village and the cemeteries on the other side of the tracks. Somewhere hereabouts there had lived a distant relative whom I called Tante Grussy, a youngish woman of great beauty, with large gray eyes and black hair, who even then, even though I was but a child, I sensed to be an unusual person. No one had ever known her to raise her voice in anger; no one had ever heard her speak ill of another; no one had ever asked her for help in vain. She had a contralto voice, and when she sang she accompanied herself on the guitar; sometimes she dressed in masquerade and danced to the tambourine, fluttering a long Japanese fan. Her husband became a drunkard; he used to beat her up, it was said. But Tante Grussy only became sweeter, gentler, more compassionate, more charming and gracious. And them, after a time, it began to be rumored about that she had become religious—this was always said in whispers, as if to imply that she had gone mad. I wanted so much to see her again. I searched and searched for the house but no one seemed to have any knowledge of her. It was hinted that she may have been committed to the asylum … Strange thoughts, strange remembrances, walking about in the sleepy village of Glendale. This adorable, this saintly Tante Grussy, and the jovial sensual tub of flesh whom I called Uncle Charlie—I loved them both. The one spoke of nothing but torturing and killing the Igorotes, of tracking down Aguinaldo in the swamps and mountain fastnesses of the Philippines; the other hardly spoke at all, she was a presence, a goddess in earthly guise who had elected to stay with us and illumine our lives through the divine radiance which she shed.

When he left for the Philippines as a lance corporal, this Charlie boy was a normal sized individual. Some eight years later, when he returned as commissary sergeant, he weighed almost four hundred pounds and was constantly perspiring. I remember vividly a gift he made me one day—six dumdum bullets for which he had had a blue linen case made. These, he maintained, had been taken from one of Aguinaldo’s men; for being guilty of using these bullets (which the Germans had furnished the Filipinos) they had executed the rebel and stuck his head on a pole. Stories such as this, together with horripilating tales about the water-cure which our soldiers administered to the Filipinos, made me sympathize with Aguinaldo. I used to pray every night that the Americans would never capture him. Unwittingly, Uncle Charlie had made him my hero.

Thinking of Aguinaldo, I suddenly recalled a banner day on which I was dressed in my best Lord Fauntleroy outfit and taken early in the morning to a beautiful brown stone house on Bedford Avenue, where, from a balcony, we were to watch the parade. The first contingent of our heroes had just returned from the Philippines. Teddy Roosevelt was there—up front—leading his Rough Riders. There was tremendous excitement over this event; people wept and cheered, flags and bunting everywhere, flowers showered from the windows. People kissed one another and shouted Alleluias. I had a grand time, but it was a bit confusing to me. I couldn’t grasp the reason for such extravagant emotions. What impressed me were the uniforms—and the horses. That evening a cavalry officer and an artillery man came to our home for dinner. This was the beginning of a romance for my two aunts. Nipped in the bud, however, because my grandfather, who hated the military, wouldn’t hear of having them for sons-in-law. I can still remember his scorn and contempt for the whole Philippine campaign. To him it was just a skirmish. It should have been over in thirty days, he snorted. And then he talked of Bismarck and Von Moltke, of the battle of Waterloo and the siege of Austerlitz. He had come to America during the days of our Civil War. That was a war, he kept asserting. To lick helpless savages, anybody could do that. Just the same, he was obliged to give a toast to Admiral Dewey, the hero of Manila Bay. You’re an American now, said some one. And I’m a good American, I can hear my grandfather saying. But that doesn’t mean that I like to kill. Put away the uniforms, get back to work!

This grandfather, Valentin Nieting, was a man whom everybody respected and admired. He had spent ten years in London as a master tailor, had acquired a beautiful English accent there, and always spoke affectionately of the English. He said the were a civilized people. All his life he retained many English mannerisms. His crony, whom he met on Saturday nights at a saloon on Second Avenue, run by my Uncle Paul, was a skinny, fiery sort of man named Mr. Crow, an Englishman from Birmingham. No one in our family liked Mr. Crow, except grandfather. The reason was that Mr. Crow was a Socialist. He was always making speeches, too, and full of vitriol. My grandfather, whose memory extended back to the days of ‘48, relished and applauded these speeches. He too was against the bosses. And of course against the military. It’s strange, when I think back, what an unholy fear the word Socialism inspired in those days. None of our family would have anything to do with a man calling himself a Socialist; he was worse than a Catholic or a Jew. America was a free country, the land of opportunity, and it was one’s duty to become successful and rich. My father, who hated his own boss—a bloody, blimey Englishman, he always called him—was soon to become a boss tailor himself. My grandfather had to accept work from my father. But he never lost that dignity, that assurance and integrity which always made him a trifle superior to my father. Before long all the boss tailors were to become woefully impoverished, forced to band together to share expenses, to keep in steady employment a small crew of workmen. The wages of the workmen—cutter, bushelman, coat maker, pants maker—would continue to rise, would represent more per week than the boss’s own share. Eventually—last act in the drama—these little workmen, all foreigners, usually despised, but envied too sometimes, would be lending the bosses money in order to keep their businesses going. Maybe all this was the result of those pernicious Socialist doctrines which agitators like Mr. Crow had sponsored. Maybe not. Maybe there was something inherently disastrous in that Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford doctrine with which the young men of my generation had been inoculated.

My grandfather died before the first World War broke out. He left a sizeable estate, as did the other emigres in that old neighborhood, all of whom had come to America at the same time and from all parts of Europe. They did far, far better in this glorious land of the free than did their sons and daughters. They had started from scratch, like that butcher boy from Germany, my namesake—Henry Miller the cattle king—who ended by owning an enormous slice of California. It’s true, there may have been more opportunity in those days, but there was also the fact that these men were made of sterner stuff, that they were more industrious, more persevering, more resourceful, more disciplined. They began in some humble trade—butcher, carpenter, tailor, shoemaker—and the money they saved they earned by the sweat of their brow. They lived modestly always, and quite comfortably, despite the absence of all the comforts, all the labor-saving devices now deemed indispensable. I remember the toilet in my grandfather’s home. First it was just an outhouse in the yard; later he had a cubbyhole built in upstairs. But even after gas had been introduced there was no illumination in that toilet except for a little taper floating in sweet oil. My grandfather would never have considered it of importance to have a gas light in the toilet. His children ate well and were clothed; they were taken to the theatre occasionally, they went with him to outings and picnics—glorious affairs!—and they sang with him when he attended the reunions of the Saengerbund. A simple, wholesome life, and far from dull. In winter, when the snow and ice came, he would sometimes take them for a ride in an open sleigh drawn by horse. He himself would go ice-boating occasionally. And in Summer there would be those unforgettable trips, by excursion boat, to places like Glen Island, for example, or New Rochelle. I can think of nothing offered the child today which can rival those outings. Nor can I think of anything to rival the magical festival grounds of Glen Island. The only thing approaching it is the atmosphere of certain paintings of Renoir and Seurat. Here again we have that golden ambiance, that gayety and ripeness, that plushy, carnal opulence so characteristic of the somnolescent, yawning, indolent period between the end of the Franco-Prussian war and the outbreak of the first World War. Undoubtedly it was a bourgeois efflorescence, infected with the taint of a rotting order, but the men who epitomized it, the men who glorified it in word and pigment, were not tainted. I can never think of my grandfather as being tainted, nor can I think of Renoir and Seurat in that way. I think that my grandfather, in his way of life, had more affinities with Seurat and Renoir than with the new American way of life which was then germinating. I think he would have understood these men and their art, had he been permitted. My parents never. Nor the boys I grew up with in the street.

I ramble on, touched by memories of old. It was thus my mind wandered as I made the rounds of the old haunts. No wonder the days were so full, so savoury. Starting out for Glendale I would finish up in the old neighborhood. Couldn’t resist walking by the old ancestral house again. Wouldn’t dream, however, of calling on my relatives, who still lived there. On the other side of the street I would take a stand—look up to the third floor where we once lived, try to recreate the image of the world I had known as a boy of five or six. That front window, where I used to sit, will go with me into the beyond, will frame the memories which I shall relive while waiting to be born into a new body. I recall the panic and terror that invaded me when my mother first forced me to wash the windows for her; sitting on the sill, my body hanging outside, three stories from the pavement—an immense height to a child of seven or eight—my knees gripping the sill for dear life. The window rested on my legs like a leaden weight. Fear of raising the window, fear of losing my grip. My mother insisting that there were still some specks of dirt to be washed off. (Later, when quite grown up, my mother would tell me how I loved to wash the windows for her. Or how I loved to hang the awnings. How I loved this, how I loved that … All bloody lies!)

Standing there in a deep reverie, I wonder to myself if perhaps I hadn’t been a bit of a sissy in those days. No boy in the neighborhood was better dressed than I. No one had better manners. No one was more alert and intelligent. I won all the prizes, got all the applause. So certain were they that I knew how to take care of myself, it never dawned on my parents that my playmates were already steeped in sin and vice. Even the fondest mother should have been able to detect in little Johnnie Ludlow the makings of a criminal. Even the most negligent parent should have been able to discern that little Alfie Betcha was already a gangster and a hoodlum. The pride of the Sunday School, such as I was, always chose for his boon companions the worst urchins in the neighborhood. Wasn’t my darling mother aware of this? Able to recite the catechism backwards, intelligent little monkey that I was, I had also, when with my comrades, a tongue that could reel off such filth, abuse and malediction as would do honor to a gallows bird. It was the older boys who instructed us, to be sure. Not overtly or deliberately either. We were always hanging about, listening in on their arguments and disputes. They were not so much older than us, either, when I think of it. Twelve years of age at the most, they were. But words like whore, bitch, cock-sucker, bastard, shit-ass, fuck, prick, and so forth were constantly on their lips. When we younger ones employed these words they would laugh hilariously. I remember one day, elated by some new vocable I had acquired, going up to a girl of fifteen or so, and calling her vile names. When she got hold of me to spank me I swore at her like a trooper. I probably bit her hand too, and kicked her in the shanks. At any rate, I remember that she was boiling with rage and mortification. I’ll teach you, you little brat, she said, and with that she took me by the ear and dragged me to the police station around the corner. Led me right up the big steps, opened the door, and shoved me into the center of the room. There I was, a tiny urchin, facing the desk sergeant seated high above me, only his head visible above the desk top.

What’s the meaning of this? His stern, thundering voice scared the wits out of me.

Tell him, commended the girl. Tell him what you called me!

I was too terrified to open my mouth. I just gasped.

I see, said the sergeant, raising his bushy black eyebrows and glaring at me threateningly. He’s been using dirty language, has he?

Yes, your honor, said the girl.

Well, we’ll see about that. He rose from his throne and made as if to descend.

I began to whimper, then to bellow. He’s really a good boy, said the girl, coming over to me and patting my head affectionately. His name is Henry Miller.

Henry Miller? said the sergeant. Why I know his father and his grandfather. You don’t mean to tell me this little shaver is using bad language?

With this he came down from his high place and, stooping over me, he took me by the hand. Henry Miller, he said, I’m surprised at you. Why…

(The mention of my name in this public place, in the police station of all places, had a tremendous effect upon me. I already regarded myself as a criminal, saw my name being heralded all over the street, printed in headlines five feet tall. I trembled to think what my parents would say when I got home, for I surmised that the news would have traveled ahead of me. Perhaps the sergeant had already detailed a man to inform my mother of the predicament. Perhaps she would have to come to bail me out. Together with such fears and forebodings there was a certain pride, too, in hearing my name ring out in that empty police station. I had a status now. No one had ever called me by both names at once. I was always just Henry. Now I had become Henry Miller, a full-fledged personage. The man would write my name and address down in the big book. They would have a record of me … I grew ten years older in that fearful moment.)

A few minutes later, safe on my own street, the girl having released me with a promise never to use such words again, I felt heroic. I sensed that it was all a game, that no one had any intention of prosecuting me, or even of telling my parents. I was ashamed of myself for bawling like a sissy in front of the sergeant. The fact that he was such a good friend of my father and grandfather meant that he would never do me harm. Instead of thinking of him as some one to be feared, I began to look upon him as my protector and confidential ally. It had impressed me enormously that my family was in good standing with the police, perhaps on intimate terms with them. Then and there I developed a contempt for the powers that be-Before tearing myself away from the old haunts I just had to sneak through the hall and out into the backyard where the outhouse had once stood. On the side where the old smoke house used to be was a figure—painted on the fence—of a woman leading a little dog. It had been done in black paint and tar. It was almost obliterated now. This crude piece of art haunted me as a child. It was so to speak, my private Egyptian tomb painting. (Curiously, later on, when I myself took up painting, I often made figures which reminded me of this stark delineation. Instinctively my hand traced the same stiff outline; for years, it seemed, I could never do anything full on, but always in this same archaic profile. My heads always had a hawk or witch-like expression; people thought I was deliberately trying to be nightmarish but I wasn’t, it was the only way I could represent the human figure.)

Returning to the street I involuntarily raised my eyes, as if to greet Mrs. O’Melio, who used to harbor all the stray cats of the neighborhood on her flat roof. There were over a hundred which she fed twice daily. She lived alone, and my mother always hinted that she must be cracked. Such Gargantuan solicitude was beyond my mother’s comprehension.

I walk slowly towards the South side where I will catch the crosstown trolley for home. Every store front is rich with memories. After twenty-five years, despite all the changes, all the work of demolition, the old dwellings are still there. Faded, ill-kept, crumbling, like sturdy old teeth they still do their work. The light that once animated them, the radiance they once shed, are gone. It was in Summer that they were especially redolent: they actually perspired, like human beings. The owners felt a pride in keeping their homes neat and trim; the glow of fresh paint, the deep shadows thrown by the awnings, were the reflections of their own humble spirits. The homes of the physicians were always a little better than the others, a little more pretentious. In the Summer one entered the doctor’s office through beaded curtains which tinkled as one swished through. The doctor always seemed to be a connoisseur of art; on the walls there were usually sombre oil paintings framed in heavy gilt. The subject matter of these paintings was thoroughly alien to me. We had nothing like these on our walls; our pictures were given us by tradesmen at holiday times, bright, vile chromos which we looked at every day and forgot instantly. (Whenever my mother felt obliged to give something away to some poor neighbor she always chose a picture from the wall. Thank God we’re rid of that, she would murmur. Sometimes I would run to her with an offering of my own, a bright new toy, a pair of boots, a drum, because I too was surfeited with possessions. Oh no, Henry, not that! I can hear her say. That’s too new!

But I don’t want it any more, I would insist. Don’t talk that way, she would answer, or God will punish you.

Passing the old Presbyterian Church. At two o’clock the Sunday School class used to meet. How delightfully cool it was down there in the’ basement where we congregated! Outside the heat danced from the pavement. Big flies buzzed away, darting in and out of the shadows. When I think of what Summer then meant to me, the tangible, earth-born Summer which shimmered and vibrated throughout the long, festive days, I think of Debussy’s music. Was he a lion of the Midi, I wonder? Did he have an African strain in his blood? Or were those plangent melodies studded with clustered chords an expression of yearning for a sun he had never known?

Every joyous period I have known seems to be connected with the sun. Thinking of Mr. Roberts, our Sunday School superintendent, I think not only of that blazing orb in the sky but of the celestial warmth which this queer old Englishman radiated. His long flowing moustache, the color of corn, his cheery, ruddy face, what health and confidence they imparted! He always appeared in the same cutaway suit with gray spats and an ascot under his chin. Like the minister and the deacons of the church, he was a wealthy man. They ought to have moved to better quarters long ago, but they were attached to the old neighborhood and, besides, they enjoyed patronizing the poor and humble. At Christmas time they were truly bountiful with their gifts. My mother was frightfully impressed by this largesse; it was probably on this account that I grew up a Presbyterian instead of a Lutheran.

That evening, rehearsing my boyhood days with Mona, it suddenly occurred to me that it would be a good touch to send the old minister, who was still alive, a sample of my work. I thought it might make him feel good to know that one of his little boys was now a writer. God knows what it was I sent him but it had anything but the desired effect. Almost by return mail I received my manuscript back together with a letter couched in impeccable English, telling me of his sorrow and bewilderment. That I, who had been nurtured in the shelter of the fold, should descend to such crude, realistic means of expression, pained him. There was something in his letter about the garbage can, I remember. That riled me. Without wasting time, I sat down and replied in the most abusive terms, informing him that he was a fool and a dotard, that my one aim in life was to, live down the stupid nonsense he had tried to implant. I added something about our Lord and Saviour which, though apt, was intended to upset him still more. As a crowning insult, I advised him to clear out of the old neighborhood, which he did not and never had belonged to. I added that I hoped to see the star of David supplanting the Cross next time I passed the venerable old edifice. (My wish, incidentally, was soon thereafter gratified. The place did become a synagogue And the rectory, where our dear minister once lived, was taken over by an aged rabbi with a flowing white beard.)

After I sent the letter I was of course repentant. What a silly thing to do! Still playing the bad boy. It was just like me, though, to revere the past and to spit on it. I was doing the same thing with friends—and with authors. I accepted and cherished out of the past only what I could convert to creative ends…

Did I mention Van Gogh whose Letters I was then reading and recently reread after a lapse of twenty years? What excited me was Vincent’s flaming desire to live the life of an artist, to be nothing but the artist, come what may. With men of his stripe art becomes a religion. Christ long dead to the Church is born again. The passionate Vincent redeems the world through the miraculous use of pigment. The despised and forsaken dreamer re-enacts the drama of crucifixion. He rises from his grave to triumph over the unbelievers.

Over and over again Van Gogh speaks of desiring nothing more than to lead the simple life. He is extravagant only in the use of his materials. Everything goes into his art. It is such a thorough sacrifice that, by comparison, the lives of most painters seem pale and worthless. Van Gogh knows that he will never be recognized in his lifetime; he knows that he will never reap the harvest of his toil. But the artists to come—perhaps his renunciation will make it easier for them! That is his most profound wish. In a thousand different ways he says: For myself I expect nothing. We. are doomed. We live outside our time.

How he sweats and struggles to get together fifty good canvases which his brother is to exhibit to a scornful, contemptuous world! The last few years of his life he is truly a madman. But a madman in the proper sense of the word. All flame and spirit, he overflows with creative energy. He is the cup which runneth over. And he is alone.

It is difficult to get women to pose, at Aries. His painting are atrocious, people say. They are just full of paint! I laugh and weep when I read this. Full of point! How terrifyingly true! How ironic that this wonderful thing which had come to pass (the saturation of canvas with color, with pure riotous color), that this dream of all the great painters (at last realized) should be used against him! Poor Van Gogh! Rich Van Gogh! Almighty Van Gogh! What a cruel, blasphemous jest! As if to say of a man of God—But he it too full of God!

I should like to paint in such a way, says Van Gogh, that every one who has eyes may see clearly what is there. It was in this way that Jesus spoke and lived. But the blind and the deaf are with us always. Only they see, only they hear, only they act who are filled with the precious holy spirit.

We know that for a long time Van Gogh abstained from using color, that he forced himself to work with pencil, charcoal, ink. We know too that he began by studying the human figure, that he sought to learn from Nature. Yes, he was training himself to read what was hidden beneath the shell. He consorted with the poor and humble, with down-trodden workers, with outcasts. He adored the peasant, extolling him, rather than the man of culture. He studied the shapes of things, the feel of objects. He familiarized himself with all that was common and everyday so that later, when he would have acquired the necessary skill and technique, he could render this world of the ordinary, the commonplace, the everyday in the light of a reality divine. What Van Gogh desired was to make this all too familiar world familiar in a new sense—in an everlasting sense, so to speak. He wanted to show that it was not clothed in evil and ugliness, that it was never dull or boring, that we have only to look at it with loving eyes to recognize its splendor and magnificence. And when he had accomplished this, when he had given us a new earth, he found that he was no longer able to cope with the world: he voluntarily sought out an asylum.

It took almost fifty years for the man in the street to realize that a Christ, manifesting himself as painter, had lately been in our midst. Suddenly, due to the immense popularity of a sensational book, thousands upon thousands take to visiting the museums and galleries; they converge like a Niagara upon the intoxicating masterpieces of that despised and forlorn genius, Vincent Van Gogh. Reproductions of his work are to be seen everywhere; they sprout in the most unexpected places. Van Gogh at last arrives. At last the great failure comes into his own. His faith was justified, apparently. His sacrifice was not in vain. For, not only does he reach the masses, what is more important, he influences the painters.

In one of the letters—back in 1888!—he writes: Painting promises to become more subtle—more musical and less sculptural—enfin elle promet la cow-leur. He underlines the word color. How prophetic his insight! What is modern painting if not a hymn to color? Tantamount to revelation, the free, audacious use of color precipitated a liberation undreamed of. Centuries of painting are annihilated overnight. Unbelievable vistas open up.

In those wonderful letters in which Van Gogh relates his discoveries about the laws of color (most of which were formulated by Delacroix), he dwells at some length on the use of black and white. One should not eschew the use of black, he writes. There is black and there is black. Did not Rembrandt and Franz Hals employ black, he asks. And Velasquez too? Not just black either, but twenty-seven different kinds of black. It all depends what kind of black, and how one employs it. The same for white. (Soon Utrillo uses it to demonstrate the validity of Van Gogh’s apperceptions. Is not his white period still the best?)

I speak of black and white because it was inevitable that this revolutionary in the world of color should dwell on first and last things. In this he reminds us of those true sons of God who fear not evil or ugliness but embrace and incorporate them in their world of goodness and beauty.

When the nineteenth century crumbled on the field of Armageddon the old barriers were burst asunder. The demonic artists who dominated that century contributed as much to the undermining of the past as did the statesmen and militarists, the financiers and industrialists, the revolutionaries and the propagandists who had paved the way for the debacle. The war of 1914 seemed like the end of something; it was however only the culmination of something long overdue.

Actually, it opened up vast new horizons. Through its work of demolition it afforded outlet to vast new fields of energy. The period between the first and second World Wars is rich in artistic production. It is in this period, when the world is about to be shaken to its foundations a second time, that I was taking form. It was a difficult period primarily because one had to rely so exclusively upon himself, upon his own unique powers. Society, torn by all manner of dissension, offered the artist even less support and encouragement than in Van Gogh’s time. The very existence of the artist was challenged. But was not every one’s existence menaced?

Emerging from the second World War, there is a vague feeling that the earth itself is threatened with extinction. We have entered into another Apocalyptic era. The spirit of man is being convulsed as was the earth itself in ancient geologic periods. It is death we are shaking off—the rigidity of death. We deplore the spirit of violence which is prevalent, but to burst the bonds of death the spirit of man must be riven. The most dazzling possibilities enfold us. We are infused and invested with powers and energies heretofore undreamed of. We are about to live again as human beings, in the full majesty which the word human implies. The heroic work of our forerunners seems now like the work of sacrificial victims. It is not necessary for us to repeat their sacrifices. It is for us to enjoy the fruits. The past lies in ruins, the future yawns invitingly. Take this everyday world and embrace it! That is what the spirit urges. What better world can there be than this in which we have full responsibility, each and every one of us? Labor not for the men to come! Cease laboring altogether, and create! For creation is play, and play is divine.

That is the message I get whenever I read the life of Van Gogh. His final despair, ending in madness and suicide, could be interpreted as divine impatience.

The Kingdom of Heaven is here, he was shouting. Why do ye not enter?

We weep crocodile tears over his lamentable end, forgetting the burst of splendor which preceded it. Do we weep when the sun sinks into the ocean? The full magnificence of the sun is revealed to us only in the few moments preceding and following its disappearance. It will appear again at dawn, another magnificence, another sun perhaps. All during the day it nourishes and sustains us, but we scarcely give heed to it. We know it is there, we count on it, but we offer no thanks, no devotion. The great luminaries, like Nietzsche, like Rimbaud, like Van Gogh, are human suns which suffer the same fate as the celestial orb. It is only when they are sinking, or have sunk from sight, that we become aware of the glory that was theirs. In mourning their passing we blind our eyes to the existence of other new suns. We look backwards and forwards but never does our gaze pierce direct to the heart of reality. If we do occasionally worship the solar body which gives us warmth and light we reflect not on the suns which have been blazing since eternity. We accept unthinkingly the fact that all space is studded with suns.

Verily, the universe swims in. light. Everything is alive and alight. Man too is the recipient of inexhaustible radiant energy. Strange, only in the mind of man is there darkness and paralysis.

A little too much light, a little too much energy (here on earth), and one is rendered unfit for human society. The reward of the visionary is the mad-house or the cross. A gray, neutral world is our natural habitat, it would seem. It has been so for a long time now. But that world, that condition of things, is passing. Like it or not, with blinkers-and-blinders or without, we stand on the threshold of a new world. We shall be forced to understand and accept—because the great luminaries whom we cast out of our midst have convulsed our vision. We shall be witness to splendors and horrors, alternately and simultaneously. We shall see with a thousand eyes, likes the goddess Indra. The stars are moving in on us, even the most distant ones.

With our instruments we now detect worlds of whose existence ancient man had not the slightest inkling. We are able to plot realms of worlds beyond our present ken, because our minds are already receptive to the light which emanates from them. At the same time we are also able to visualize our own wholesale destruction. But are we frozen in our tracks? No. Our faith is greater than were dare admit. We sense the magnificence of that life eternal which is man’s and which we have ever denied. Despite all our pride and vanity, we behave as if we knew nothing of our true heritage. We protest that we are only human, all-too-human. But if we were truly human we would be capable of all things, ready for all exigencies, know all conditions of being. We ought to remind ourselves daily, repeat it like a litany, that in our being lies concealed the whole gamut of existence. We should cease worshiping and inspire worship. Above all, we should cease postponing the act of becoming what in fact and essence we are.

I prefer, wrote Van Gogh, to paint men’s eyes than to paint cathedrals, because there is something in men’s eyes which is not in cathedrals, however majestic and imposing the latter may be…

3

It is only for a few brief months that this heavenly period lasts. Soon it will be nothing but trouble, nothing but want, nothing but frustration. Until I get to Paris only three short scripts will ever be published—the first in a magazine dedicated to the advancement of the colored people, the second in a magazine sponsored by a friend and which has but one issue, and the third in a magazine revived by good old Frank Harris.

Thereafter everything I submit for publication will bear my wife’s signature. (Only one freakish exception, of which more later.) It is agreed that I can do nothing on my own. I am simply to write and leave the rest to Mona. Her job at the theatre has already petered out. The rent has been long overdue. My visits to Maude have become less and less regular and the alimony is paid only now and then, when we make a haul. Soon Mona’s wardrobe gives out, and I, like a dolt, make vain efforts to beg a dress or a suit of my old sweethearts. When it gets bitter cold she wears my overcoat.

Mona is for taking a job in a cabaret, but I refuse to hear of it. With each mail I look forward to a letter of acceptance accompanied by a check. I must have between twenty and thirty manuscripts floating about; they come and go like trained carrier pigeons.

It is getting to be a problem to raise the money for the postage. Everything is becoming a problem.

In the midst of this first set-back we are rescued for a brief spell by the arrival of my old friend O’Mara who, after quitting the Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company, had gone on a long cruise with some fishermen in the Caribbean. The adventure had earned him some money.

We had hardly embraced one another when, in characteristic fashion, O’Mara emptied his. pockets, placing the money in a heap on the table. The kitty, he called it. It was to be for our common use. A few hundred dollars in all, enough either to pay our debts or to live on for a month or two.

Have you anything to drink around here? No? Let me run out and get something.

He came back with a few bottles and a bag full of food. Where’s the kitchen here? I don’t seem to see it.

There is no kitchen; we’re not supposed to cook.

What? he yelled. No kitchen? What do you pay for this joint?

When we told him he said we were crazy, plumb crazy. Mona didn’t relish that in the least.

How the hell do you manage, then? he asked, scratching his head.

To be frank, I said, we don’t.

Mona was almost in tears now.

Neither of you working? he continued.

Val’s working, was Mona’s prompt reply.

You mean writing, I suppose, said O’Mara, implying that that was just a pastime.

Certainly, said Mona with asperity, what would you want him to do?

I? I don’t want him to do anything. I was just wondering how you lived … you know, where you got the dough?

He was silent a moment, then he said: By the way, that chap who let me in, was he the landlord? Looked like a swell guy.

He is, too, I said. He’s a Virginian. Never pesters us for the rent. A real gentleman, I’ll say.

You ought to treat him right, said O’Mara. Listen, why don’t we let him have something on account?

No, said Mona quickly, don’t do that, please. He won’t mind waiting a little longer. Besides, I expect to have some money soon.

You do? said I, ever suspicious of these rash statements.

Well, the hell with that, said O’Mara, pouring out the Sherry. Let’s sit down and have a drink. I brought some ham and eggs, and some good cheese. Too bad we have to throw it away.

What do you mean, throw it away? said Mona. We have a little two-burner gas stove in the bathroom.

Is that where you cook? Christ!

No, we just keep it there, out of sight.

But they must smell the cooking upstairs, don’t they? By they O’Mara meant the landlord and his wife.

Of course they do, I said, but they’re discreet. They pretend that they smell nothing.

Wonderful people, said O’Mara. He meant by this that only Southerners could display such tact.

The next moment he was suggesting that we look for a cheaper place, with conveniences. That money’s going to vanish in no time the way you people live. I’ll look around for a job, of course, but you know me. Anyway, I’d like to take it easy for a while.

I smiled. Don’t worry, I said, everything will be hunky dory. Just having you around will make things easier.

But where will he sleep? asked Mona, not too pleased with this idea.

We can buy a cot, can’t we? I pointed to the money lying on the table. But the landlord?

We won’t tell him right away. Besides, we’re privileged to have a guest, aren’t we? He doesn’t need to know that Ted is a boarder.

I can sleep just as well on the floor, said O’Mara.

I wouldn’t dream of it! We’ll go out after lunch and get a second-hand cot. We’ll sneak it in after dark, eh?

I saw that it was time to say something to Mona. She hadn’t taken so well to O’Mara, that was obvious. He was a little too blunt and forthright.

Listen, Mona, I began, you’re going to like Ted when you get to know him. We’ve known each other since we were kids, isn’t that right, Ted?

But I have nothing against him, said Mona. I don’t want him telling us what we should do, that’s all.

She’s right, Ted, I said, you are a bit forward, you know that. A lot of things have happened since I last saw you. We’re in a different world now. It’s been wonderful until just recently. All due to Mona. Listen, if you two don’t get to like one another it’s going to be too bad.

I’ll clear out any time you give the sign, said O’Mara.

I’m sorry, said Mona, if I gave the wrong impression. If Val says you’re a friend there must be something to you…

What’s this Val business? said O’Mara, interrupting her.

Oh, she prefers Val to Henry, that’s all. You’ll get used to it.

The hell I will. You’re Henry to me.

I can see we’re going to get along swell, I chuckled. I got up to inspect the food. Do you suppose we could have lunch soon? I asked.

It’s only eleven o’clock, said Mona.

I know, but I’m getting hungry. Ham-and-eggs sounds enticing. Besides, we haven’t had too much to eat lately. Let’s make up for lost time.

O’Mara couldn’t restrain himself. As long as I’m around you’re going to eat well. If we only had a regular kitchen! I could dish up some swell meals.

Mona knows how to cook, I said. We have wonderful meals—when we eat.

You mean to say you don’t eat every day?

He exaggerates, said Mona. If he misses one meal he thinks he’s starving.

That’s true, I said, pouring out another glass of Sherry. I’m thinking of the future all the time. Something tells me it’s going to be a long, hard grind.

Haven’t you sold anything yet? asked O’Mara.

I shook my head.

That’s really tough, he said. Listen, (an afterthought) let me look at your stuff later, will you? Maybe I can peddle it for you—if it’s any good.

If it’s any good? Mona blazed. What do you mean?

O’Mara burst out laughing. Oh, I know he’s a genius. That’s what’s wrong, perhaps. You can’t give it to ‘em straight, you know. It’s got to be watered down. I know Henry.

With every crack he made O’Mara put his foot in deeper. I had a presentiment things were not going to work out at all. However, as long as the money held out we would enjoy a respite. After that he’d probably get a job and fend for himself.

Ever since I knew O’Mara he had been making these sorties and coming back with a little jack which he always divvied up with me. There never had been a period when he had found me in good straits. Our friendship dated from the time we were seventeen or eighteen. We met for the first time in the dark at a railway station in New Jersey. Bill Woodruff and I were spending a vacation on the shores of a beautiful lake. Alec Walker, their boss, who had come to visit us, had brought O’Mara along as a surprise. It was a long drive from the station to the farm house where we were boarding. (We were travelling by horse and carriage.) About midnight we got back to the farm house. No one felt like going to bed immediately. O’Mara wanted to see the lake we had talked so much about. We got into a row-boat and headed toward the center of the lake, which was about three miles across. It was black as pitch. On an impulse O’Mara peeled off his clothes. Said he wanted to have a swim. In a jiffy he had dived overboard. It seemed an endless time before he came up to the surface; we couldn’t see him, we could only hear his voice. He was panting and puffing like a walrus. What happened? we asked. I got stuck in the bulrushes, he said. He turned over on his back and floated a while to get his breath. Then he started swimming, with strong, vigorous strokes. We followed in his wake, calling to him from time to time, begging him to get back in the boat before he got cold and exhausted.

That was how we met. His performance made a deep impression on me. His manliness and fearlessness won my admiration. During the week we spent together at the farm house we got to know one another inside out. Woodruff seemed more than ever a sissy to me now. He was not only full of qualms and misgivings but he was mercenary too. O’Mara, on the other hand, always gave recklessly. He was a born adventurer. At ten he had run away from the orphan asylum. Somewhere in the South, while working in a carnival, he had run across Alec Walker who immediately took a fancy to him and brought him North to work for him. Later Woodruff was also taken into the office. We were to see and hear a lot of Alec Walker soon. He was to become the sponsor of our club, our patron saint virtually. But I am getting ahead of myself … What I wanted to say was that it was impossible for me to ever refuse O’Mara anything. He gave all and he expected all. Among friends this was the natural, spontaneous way to behave, he believed. As for morals, be had no moral sense whatever. If he were hard up for a woman he would ask you if he couldn’t sleep with your wife—that is, until he found himself a piece of tail. If he lacked the money to help you out in a pinch he would do a little thieving on the side or he would forge a check. He had no scruples, no compunctions whatever. He liked to eat well and sleep long. He hated work but when he undertook something he went at it whole-heartedly. He always wanted to make money quickly. Make a haul and clear out, that was the way he put it. He was fond of all the sports and loved to hunt and fish. When it came to cards he was a shark: he played a mean game, entirely out of keeping with his character. His excuse was that he never played for the fun of it. He played to win, to make a killing. He was not above cheating either, if he felt he could get away with it. He had formed a romantic notion of himself as a clever gambler.

Best of all was his talk. To me, at least. Most of my friends found him tiresome. But I could listen to O’Mara without ever desiring to open my own trap. All I did was to ply him with questions. I suppose the reason his talk was so stimulating to me was because it dealt with worlds I had never entered. He had been over a good part of the globe, had lived a number of years in the Orient, particularly China, Japan and the Philippines. I liked the picture he drew of Oriental women. He always spoke of them with tenderness and reverence. I liked too the way he spoke about fish, big fish, the monsters of the deep. Or about snakes, which he handled like pets. Trees and flowers also figured heavily in his talks: he knew every variety, it seemed to me, and he could dwell on their particularities endlessly. Then too he had been a soldier, even before the war broke out. A top sergeant, no less. He could talk about the qualities of a top sergeant in a way that would make one believe this little tyrant to be far more important than a colonel or a general. Officers he always spoke of with contempt and derision, or else with bitter hatred. They tried to push me up the ladder, he said once, but I wouldn’t hear of it. As top sergeant I was king, and I knew it. Any horse’s ass can become a lieutenant. You have to be good to be top sergeant.

He gave himself plenty of elbow room when talking. Never in a hurry to finish. Not O’Mara. Talked just as well when sober as when drunk. Of course he had a wonderful listener in me. An ideal listener. All anyone had to do in those days was merely to mention China, Java or Borneo, and I was all ears. Mention anything foreign and remote and I was a willing victim.

The surprising thing about a guy like O’Mara was that he also read a great deal. Almost the first thing he would do, on looking me up, would be to survey the books on hand. One by one he would go through them, savouring them slowly and delectably. The books also entered into our talks. Somehow I preferred O’Mara’s impressions of a book to those of my other friends who were more widely read or more critical. Like myself, O’Mara was all appreciation, all enthusiasm. He had no critical sense. If the book held his interest it was a good book, or a great book, or a marvelous book. We would live as vividly in the books we devoured together as in Our imaginary peregrinations through China, India, Africa. It was at the dinner table these jags often began. Over the coffee O’Mara would suddenly recall some incident out of his checkered past. We would egg him on. At two or three in the morning we would still be sitting there at table. By that time we would be ready for a little snack—to revive ourselves. Then a bit of a walk to get some clean fresh air into our lungs, as he always phrased it. Of course the next day was always shot. None of us thought of stirring out of bed before noon. Breakfast and lunch combined was always a leisurely affair. None of us was geared to start going first thing out of bed. And, since the day was already shot, we would immediately begin thinking about the theatre or a movie.

As long as the money lasted it was wonderful…

I suppose it was O’Mara’s practical turn of mind which gave me the idea one day of getting my little prose poems printed and selling them myself. After looking through my stuff, O’Mara was of the opinion that I would never get an editor to take them. I knew he was right. I began to turn it over in my mind. I had loads of friends and acquaintances, and they were all eager to help me, so they said. Why not sell my work direct to them, to begin with? I broached the idea to O’Mara. He thought it excellent. I would sell by mail and he would go around on foot, from one office building to another. Besides, he had lots of friends. Well, we found a little printer who gave us a very reasonable estimate; he had a good quantity of stiff colored paper which he would use for the purpose. I was to bring out one a week, printing five hundred at a time. Mezzotints we called them, owing to the influence of Whistler. Signed: Henry V. Miller.

The most amazing thing, when I look back on it now, is that the first prose poem I wrote for this project was inspired by the Bowery Savings Bank. It was the architecture of their new building, not the gold in the vaults, which kindled my enthusiasm. The Bowery Phoenix, I called it. My friends weren’t very enthusiastic but they coughed up. After all, it was only the price of a meal I was charging for these dithyrambs. Had we sold the five hundred we would have made a tidy little sum.

Among other things we tried to get yearly subscriptions, at a reduced rate. A half dozen subscriptions per week and our problem would have been solved. But even my best friends were dubious that I could keep it up for a year. They knew me well. In a month or two I would be broaching another scheme. At best I was able to persuade them to take a month’s subscription—mere chicken feed. O’Mara was incensed with my friends, said he could do better with utter strangers. Every morning he got up early and began plugging for me. He went all over town—Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island—wherever he had a hunch that he would be welcome. He was trying to bag subscriptions.

After I had turned out two pr three Mezzotints Mona came forward with another plan. She would sign her name to them and peddle them from place to place in the Village. The night spots, she meant. People who were half-drunk weren’t very critical, she thought. Besides, it would be hard to resist a beautiful looking woman. O’Mara didn’t take to her scheme—it was too unbusinesslike for him—but Mona insisted that there was no harm in trying. We had an assortment of back issues, all in different colors; my name had to be blacked out and hers printed below it. No one would know the difference.

The first week she did famously. They went like hot cakes. Some bought the whole series, others paid her triple and quintuple for a single Mezzotint. It seemed as though she had hit on the right idea. Now and then we got orders in the mail. Now and then O’Mara got a subscription, for six months or for a year. I had all sorts of ideas for the coming issues. The hell with editors—we could do better on our own.

While Mona made the rounds of the Village nightly, O’Mara and I went in search of material. We couldn’t have gone about our task more energetically had we been hired by a big syndicate. We went everywhere, looked into everything. One night we would be sitting in the press box at the Six Day Bike Race, the next night we would have ringside seats at a wrestling bout. Some nights we would start out on foot, to explore Chinatown more thoroughly, or the Bowery, or we would go to Hoboken or some other God-forsaken town in New Jersey, just for a change … One afternoon, while O’Mara was plugging away for me in the Bronx, I called up Ned and induced him to go with me to the Burlesk on Houston Street, to write it up. I wanted Ned as my illustrator. We invented a yarn, of course, about the magazine which had requested the article. Cleo was no longer there, unfortunately, but there was a young, racy-looking blonde, who had replaced her, who was a seething mass of sex from head to foot. After a little chat with her in the wings we persuaded her to have a drink with us after the show. She was one of those witless-shitless bitches who grow up in places like Newark or Sandusky. Had the laugh of a hyena. She had promised to introduce me to the comedian, who was her boy friend, but he never turned up. A few of the girls from the chorus straggled in, looking even more horrible with their clothes on, poor wretches. I got into conversation with one of them at the bar. Discovered that she was studying to be a violinist, of all things. She was as homely as sin, hadn’t an ounce of sex in her, but was intelligent and sympathetic. Ned went to work on the blonde, hoping against hope to get her to go to the studio with him for a quick one…

To make a Mezzotint of an afternoon like that was like working out a jig-saw puzzle. It would take me days to whittle my prose-poem down to the required length. Two-hundred and fifty words was the maximum that could be printed. I used to write two or three thousand, then reach for the axe.

Mona, of course, never got home till about two in the morning. It was a bit wearing on her, I thought.

Not the hours, but the atmosphere of the night clubs. Now and then, to be sure, she ran into an interesting person. Like Alan Cromwell, for example, who claimed to be a banker from Washington, D. C. A man of this calibre always invited her to sit down and talk to him. In Mona’s opinion this Cromwell was a cultured individual. He had begun by buying everything she had with her. Seventy-five or eighty dollars he had handed over for a pile of Mezzotints, and in leaving he had forgotten to take them with him, purposely no doubt. A gentleman, what! He had to come to New York on business once every ten days or so. Was always to be found at the Golden Eagle or at Tomtit’s Nest. Though he drank heavily he was ever the perfect gentleman. Never parted from her without leaving a fifty dollar bill in her palm. Just for keeping him company. There were lots of lonely souls like Alan Cromwell floating about, Mona maintained. All these lonely souls were well heeled, what’s more. Soon I would hear of the others, like that lumber king who kept a suite of rooms the year round at the Waldorf; like Moreau, the professor from the Sorbonne, who took her to the most exotic places whenever they happened to meet; like Neuberger, the oil man from Texas, who had so little conception of the value of money that, whether it was a long haul or a short haul, he always tipped the taxi-driver a five spot. Then there was the retired brewer from Milwaukee, who was passionate about music. He always notified Mona in advance of his coming so that she might accompany him to the concert which he came expressly from Milwaukee to hear. The little tributes which Mona exacted of these types represented so much more than anything we might have hoped to earn legitimately that O’Mara and I stopped thinking about subscriptions altogether. Any Mezzotints which were left over at the end the week we sent out gratis to people we thought would like to read them. Sometimes we sent them to editors of newspapers and magazines, or to the members of the Senate at Washington. Sometimes we sent them to the heads of large industrial organizations—just for the fun of it, just to see what might happen. Sometimes, and this was even more fun, we would go through the telephone book and pick out names at random. Once we telegraphed the contents of a Mezzotint to the director of an insane asylum on Long Island. We signed a fishy name, of course. A crazy name, like Aloysius Pentecost Omega. Just to throw him off the track (!).

An idea like this last would come to us after an evening with Osiecki who had now become a frequent visitor. He was an architect who lived in the neighborhood; we had met him at a bar one evening just as it was closing. In the beginning his talk was fairly rational—the usual humdrum stuff about life in a big architect’s office. Fond of music, he had bought himself a beautiful player piano and, after getting quietly soused all by himself, he would start playing his records—until the neighbors pounded at the door.

Nothing unusual about such behavior. We used to visit him now and then and help him listen to his bloody records. He always had a good supply of liquor in the house. Little by little, however, we observed a strange note creeping into his conversation. It was his hatred for his boss. Or rather, his suspicions about the boss.

It required a little coaxing at first to draw him out. He was coy about revealing the full extent of his misgivings. But when he saw that we swallowed his remarks without a murmur of surprise or disapproval, he unlimbered remarkably fast.

Apparently the boss wanted to get rid of him. But since he had nothing on Osiecki, he was at a loss how to do it.

So that’s why he puts the lice in your desk every night, eh? piped O’Mara, slipping me the horse wink.

I don’t say that he does it. All I know is that they’re there every morning, and with this our friend would begin scratching himself.

He doesn’t have to do it himself, of course, said I. Maybe he pays the janitor to do it for him.

I’m not saying who does it. I’m not making any accusations, not publicly anyway. All I know is that it’s a dirty trick. If he were a man he would hand me my walking papers and be rid of me.

Why don’t you turn the tables on him? said O’Mara maliciously.

How do you mean?

Why, just this … put the lice in his desk, see!

I’m in enough trouble, said poor Osiecki.

But you’re going to lose your job anyway.

Don’t be too sure of that. I’ve got a good lawyer who’s promised to defend me.

You’re certain you’re not imagining all this? I asked quite innocently.

Imagining it? Listen, see those glass cups under your chairs? He’s got them running around in here now.

I looked casually around. Even the piano legs were standing in glass cups filled with kerosene.

Jesus, said O’Mara, I’m getting itchy myself. You’ll go cuckoo if you don’t quit that job soon.

All right, said Osiecki smoothly and tonelessly, all right, I’ll go cuckoo then. But I won’t give him the satisfaction of handing in my resignation. Never.

Man, I said, you must be a bit nuts already to talk like that.

I am, said Osiecki. Who wouldn’t be? Can you lie awake all night scratching yourself and act normal the next day?

There was no answer to make to that. On the way home O’Mara and I began to discuss ways and means of helping the poor devil. Let’s talk to his girl, said O’Mara. That might help. We agreed that we would get Osiecki to introduce us to his girl friend. We’d invite them both for dinner one evening.

Maybe she’s nuts too, I thought to myself.

It was by accident we made the acquaintance shortly thereafter of Osiecki’s bosom friends, Andrews and O’Shaughnessy, also architects. Andrews, a Canadian, was a short, cocky little fellow, well mannered, highly intelligent, and a loyal friend, as we soon discovered. He had known Osiecki since boyhood. O’Shaughnessy was quite another type, big, brawny, full of health and vitality, reckless, carefree, happy-go-lucky. Always looking for a good time. Always ready to go on a drinking bout. He had a mind, too, but he suppressed it. He liked to talk about food, women, horses, suspension bridges. The three of them at a bar were quite a sight—like something out of Du Maurier or Alexandre Dumas. Inseparable companions. Always took good care of one another. The reason we hadn’t met them before was because Andrews and O’Shaughnessy had been away on a business trip.

They were quite pleased, it turned out, to learn that Osiecki had made friends with us. They were worried about him, but had been unable to decide what to do about the situation. The boss was a fine chap, they said. Couldn’t understand what had got into their friend to change him so—unless it was his girl.

What’s the matter with her? we asked.

Andrews, who was doing the talking, was reluctant to say much about her. I know her only a short time, he said. There’s something fishy about her, that’s all I can say. She gives me the creeps. And with that he shut up. O’Shaughnessy simply laughed heartily over the whole affair. He’ll come out of it, he said. He’s drinking too much, that’s all. After you’ve seen snakes and cobras climbing into your bed the itch is nothing. I’ll admit, though, I’d almost rather go to bed with a cobra than with that gal of his! There’s something inhuman about her. I think she’s a succubus, if you know what I mean. Here he gave a hearty guffaw. In plain English—a blood-sucker. Do you get it?

While it lasted it was wonderful. I mean the walks, the talks, the books we read, the food we ate, the excursions and explorations, the characters we bumped into, the plans we made. Everything was fizzing, or else purring like a smooth-running machine. Nights when nobody showed up, nights when it was mean outdoors or we were a little short of dough, O’Mara and I would get into one of those conversations which would last the whole night. Sometimes it began over a book we had just read, such as The Imperial Purple or The Eternal Husband. Or that wonderful story about a carrier pigeon—Gay Neck.

Around midnight O’Mara always got a bit nervous and fidgety. He was concerned about Mona, what she was doing, where she was, could she take care of herself.

Don’t worry, I would say, she knows how to take care of herself. She’s had lots of experience.

I know, he would say, but Jesus…

Listen, Ted, if I were to start worrying about such things I’d go nuts.

You sure have a lot of confidence in her.

Why shouldn’t I?

O’Mara would hem and haw. Well, all I can say is, if she were my wife…

You’ll never have a wife, so what the hell’s the use of talking? She’ll be home at ten after one sharp, wait till you see. Come on, forget about it.

Sometimes I couldn’t refrain from smiling to myself. You would think, b’Jesus that it was his wife and not mine, the way he took it to heart. My friends were always behaving in this fashion with me. They always did the worrying. The way to get him off the subject was to get him reminiscing. O’Mara was the greatest reminiscer ever. He went to it like a cow chewing its cud. Whatever lay in the past was fodder.

The person he loved most to talk about was Alec Walker, the man who had picked him up during a carnival at Madison Square Garden and put him to work in his office. Alec Walker always remained a mystery to O’Mara. He spoke of him affectionately, with admiration and with gratitude, but there was something in Alec Walker’s make up which baffled him. One night I tried to get to the bottom of it with him. Apparently, what bothered O’Mara most was that Alec Walker seemed to have no use for women. And he was such a handsome man! He could have had any woman he laid eyes on.

You said you didn’t think he was queer. If he’s not queer then he’s a celibate, that’s all there is to it. The way I see it, he’s a saint who’s missed his calling.

O’Mara wasn’t at all satisfied with this cut-and-dried explanation.

The only thing that bothers me, I added, is the way he allowed Woodruff to twist him about his fingers. If you ask me, there’s something fishy there.

Oh, that’s nothing, said O’Mara quickly, Alec’s a softy. Anybody can twist him about his little finger. He’s got too big a heart.

Listen, I said, determined to have done with the subject once and for all I want you to tell me the truth … did he ever make a pass at you?

O’Mara have a loud guffaw. A pass at me? You don’t know Alec at all or you’d never ask a question like that. Why, even if he were a queer, Alec would never do a thing like that, don’t you realize that?

No, I don’t. Unless you mean he’s too much of a gentleman—. Is that it?

No, no, not at all, said O’Mara vehemently. I mean that if Alec Walker were starving to death he would never ask you for a crust of bread.

Then it’s pride, I said.

It’s not pride either. It’s a martyr complex. He enjoys suffering.

It’s lucky for him he’s not poor.

He’ll never be poor, said O’Mara. He’d steal first.

That’s quite a statement. What gives you that idea?

O’Mara hesitated a few moments. I’ll tell you something, he blurted out, but don’t ever tell it to a soul. Alec Walker once stole a big sum of money from his brother; his brother, who’s a real son of a bitch, was going to send him up the river. But Sister what’s her name paid it back. Where she got it I have no idea. It was a considerable sum.

I said not a word to this. I was floored.

And you know who got him into that scrape, don’t you? O’Mara continued.

I looked at him blankly.

That little rat, Woodruff.

You don’t say!

I always told you that Woodruff was no good, didn’t I?

Yeah, but I don’t get it. You mean to tell me that Alec Walker squandered all that money on our little friend Bill Woodruff?

That’s exactly what I mean. Look, you remember that little tart Woodruff was so crazy about? He married her later, didn’t he?

You mean Ida Verlaine?

That’s it, Ida. Christ, it was Ida this and Ida that all day long. I remember because we were working together at the time. You haven’t forgotten that trip to Europe Alec and Woodruff took?

You mean Alec was jealous of the girl?

Christ no! How could Alec be jealous of a little slut like that? He was trying to save Woodruff from himself, that’s all. He saw that she was a no-good bitch and he tried to break it up. And Woodruff, the bastard, never satisfied with anything—I don’t have to tell you what he’s like!—had Alec running all over Europe. Just to keep his dirty little heart from breaking.

Go on, I said, it’s getting interesting.

The long and the short of it is that when they got to Monte Carlo Woodruff began to gamble—with Alec’s money, of course. Alec never said a word. It went on for weeks, Woodruff losing steadily. That little bout cost Alec a fortune. He was cleaned out. But Woodruff wasn’t ready to go home. He wanted to see the Queen of Roumania’s winter palace; he wanted to visit the Pyramids; he wanted to go skiing at Chamonix. I tell you, Henry, when I talk about that guy my blood boils. You think women are gold-diggers. Listen, that guy Woodruff is worse than any whore I ever met. He’d take the pennies off a dead man’s eyes.

In spite of it all he went back to his Ida—that’s the best part of it, I commented.

Yeah and she fucked him good and proper, I hear.

I laughed. Suddenly I stopped laughing. A thought struck me.

You know what just occurred to me, Ted? I think Woodruff was queer.

You think he was! I know he was. I can forgive him that, but not his meanness, not his miserliness.

I’ll be damned, I muttered. That explains why he made such a mess of it with his Ida. Well, well! To think I’ve known him all these years and never suspected it … And you still don’t think that there’s anything queer about Alec?

I know there isn’t, said O’Mara. He’s crazy about women. He trembles when they come within reach of him.

Beats me.

I told you before that he’s ascetic. He once studied for the priesthood. Then he fell in love with a girl who jilted him. He never got over it … I’ll tell you something else about him you never suspected. Get this! You never saw him angry, did you? You wouldn’t think he could get angry, eh? So soft, so suave, so gentle, so considerate. He’s made of steel, that guy. Always in trim, always in fighting condition. I saw him clean up a whole bar one night, single-handed. He was magnificent. Of course we had to run for it, but once we got out reach he was as cool and collected as could be. Asked me to brush him off while he fixed his tie. There wasn’t a scratch on him. We went to a hotel where he smoothed his hair and washed his hands. Then he suggested having a bite to eat—at Reisenweber’s, I think it was. He looked immaculate, as always, and talked in a calm, steady voice as though we had just come from the theatre. It wasn’t pose either: he was really calm, really quiet inside.

I remember the meal too—just the sort of spread that Alec knew how to order. We dawdled over that meal for hours, it seems to me. Alec was in a mood to talk. He was trying to make me understand what a truly Christ-like figure St. Francis was. He hinted that he had once aspired to be a sort of St. Francis himself. I used to make fun of Alec, you know, for being so damned pious. I used to call him a dirty Catholic—to his face, I mean. No matter what I said, though, I could never rile him. He would give me that sort of wistful, comprehending smile—you know what I mean—and I would grow ashamed of myself.

I never could dope out that smile, I interrupted. It always made me uncomfortable. I never knew whether he was being superior or playing the innocent one.

Righto! said O’Mara. In a way he knew he was superior—not just to us kids, but to most people. In another way he felt himself to be less than any one. His humility was tinged with arrogance. Or was it elegance? You remember how he wore his clothes. And then the way he spoke—that soft Irish tongue of his, the impeccable English he used … no slouch, that guy! But when he grew silent, that was something. If anything could make me uncomfortable it was the way he could shut up like a clam. It used to give me the creeps. He was always silent, if you noticed, when other people were ready to explode. He’d shut up at the critical moment and leave you suspended in mid-air. It was a way of letting you blow yourself up, know what I mean? Then’s when I spotted the monk in him.

Listen, Ted, I said, cutting him short, I still can’t figure out what made him take to a guy like Woodruff.

That’s easy, was O’Mara’s airy rejoinder. He wanted to redeem the poor sap. It gave him pleasure to work on a worthless little prick like Woodruff. It was a test of his powers. Don’t think he didn’t know Woodruff. He had him figured out to a hair. What appealed to him most about Woodruff, strangely enough, was the mercenary streak. Like the martyr he was, he just kept shelling out and shelling out, until there was nothing left … Woodruff never knew that Alec had stolen for him. He wouldn’t believe it, if you told him it, the little rat.

Did I tell you I ran into Woodruff lately? Yeah, going down Broadway.

What’s he doing now?

I never asked him.

Probably a pimp, said O’Mara.

But I do know what happened to Ida. She’s an actress now. Saw the billboards with her name plastered all over them. We ought to go and see her some time, what?

Not me, said O’Mara. I’ll see her in hell first … Listen, the hell with her and the hell with Woodruff! I don’t know what set me to talking about such shits. Tell me, have you seen anything of O’Rourke lately?

O’Rourke? No, I haven’t. Strange you should think of him. No, to tell the truth, I haven’t even thought of him since I quit the job…

Henry, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. O’Rourke is a prince. I don’t see how you could possibly forget a man like that. Why shit, he was a real father to you—and to me too. I’d certainly like to know what’s become of him.

We could look him up some night, that wouldn’t be hard.

I’d like nothing better, said O’Mara. It would give me a clean feeling just to be in his presence again.

You’re a funny guy, I said. Towards some people you’re almost worshipful. It’s like you’re looking for your father all the time.

That’s just what I am doing—you hit it on the head. That son of a bitch who calls himself my father, you know what I think of him! Know what he’s afraid of, that crud? That I’m going to rape my own sister one day. We’re too close, he says. And that’s the bastard who had me sent to the orphan asylum. He’s another guy, talking of no-good pricks like Woodruff, whose balls I could bite off with relish. Except I’ll bet he hasn’t got any! Tries to palm himself off as a Russian. He’s just a kike from Galicia. Sure, if I had had a father like O’Rourke I’d have made something of myself by this time. As it is, I don’t know what I’m cut out for. I’m just drifting. Fighting the Church all the time … By the way, I almost did put the boots to my sister, that’s a fact. It was the old man who put the idea in my head. What the hell, it was only natural; I hadn’t seen her for twelve years. She wasn’t a sister any more, she was just a good-looking dame, very lovable and very lonely. I don’t know what the hell held me back. I must look her up some time. She got married not long ago, I hear. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad now—I mean to have a whack at it … Jesus, Alec would be horrified if he heard me talking this way.

We went on in this fashion, from one reminiscence to another, until one ten sharp when, just as I had predicted, Mona walked in. She had a bundle of good things to eat in one arm and a bottle of Benedictine in the other. It was one of those kindly souls again who had bestowed his favors upon her. This time a retired baker from Weehawken, of all places. A man of culture too. Somehow, all her admirers had a tinge of culture, whether they were lumbermen, ex-pugilists, tanners or retired bakers from Weehawken.

Immediately Mona entered our talk became dispersed. O’Mara had a way of grinning at her, when she began her yarns, which irritated her. In the beginning he used to interrupt her frequently. He could ask the most insultingly straightforward questions. You mean he didn’t even try to put his arms around you? Things like that, which were strictly taboo with Mona. But by now he had learned to hold his tongue and listen. Only occasionally would he come out with some sly remark, some subtle innuendo, which Mona took no notice of whatever. Now and then her exaggerations were so absurd that the two of us would burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. The curious thing was that Mona would also laugh her head off. Even stranger than her laughter, though, was her way of picking up again right where she had left off, as though nothing unusual had occurred.

Sometimes she would ask me to corroborate one of her outlandish statements, which I would do with a straight face, to O’Mara’s astonishment. I would even embellish her statement with some fanciful facts of my own. To this she would nod her head gravely, as if it were God’s truth I were recounting, as if we had spoken of it time and again—or as though we had rehearsed it together.

In the realm of make-believe she was thoroughly at home. She not only believed her own stories, she acted as if the fact that she had related them were proof of their veracity. Whereas, of course, everybody assumed quite the opposite. Everybody, I say. Which only made her more secure in her ways. Hers was distinctly a non-Euclidian logic.

I spoke of laughter. There was only one sort of laughter she ever indulged in—an hysterical laughter. Actually, she was almost devoid of humor. Those who aroused her sense of humor were usually people who were themselves devoid of humor. With Nahoum Yood, who was truly a humorist, she smiled. It was a good-natured smile, indulgent, affectionate, the sort one gives to a wayward child. Her smile, as a matter of fact, was quite a different thing from her laugh. Her smile was genuine and warming. It sprang from her sympathetic nervous system. Her laugh, on the other hand, was off-key, raucous, disconcerting. The effect was harsh. I had known her for a long time before I ever heard her laugh. Between her laughter and her weeping there was scarcely any difference. At the theatre she had learned how to laugh artificially. A terrifying thing to hear! It used to send shudders up my spine.

You know what you two remind me of sometimes? said O’Mara, snickering. You remind me of a pair of confederates. All that’s lacking is the old shell game.

It’s nice and toasty here though, eh what? I answered.

Listen, said O’Mara, his face utterly serious, if we could stick it out here for a year or two I’d say it was worth while. We’re in clover now, and don’t I know it! I haven’t relaxed this way for years. The funny thing is, I feel as if I were hiding away, as if I had committed a crime which I can’t remember. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if one day the police knocked at the door.

Here we all laughed uproariously. The police! Too funny for words.

Once I was rooming with a guy, said O’Mara, beginning one of his never-ending stories, and he was plain cuckoo. I didn’t know it until some one from the asylum called for him. I swear to God he was the most normal-looking person you ever saw, and he talked normal, and acted normal. In fact, that’s what was the matter with him—he was too god-damned normal. I was on my uppers at the time, too disheartened to even look for work. He had a job as a motorman—on the Reid Avenue carline. On his swings he’d come back to the room and rest up. He’d always bring a bag of doughnuts along and soon as he took off his things he’d make coffee. He never said much. Mostly he’d sit by the window and manicure his nails. Sometimes he’d take a shower and a rub down. If he was in high spirits he’d suggest playing a game of pinochle. We’d always play for small stakes and he’d always let me win, though he knew I was cheating him. I never asked him any questions about his past and he never volunteered anything on his own. Every day was a new day. If it was cold he talked about the weather, how cold it was; if it was warm, he talked about how warm it was. He never complained about a thing, not even when his pay was reduced. That in itself ought to have made me suspicious, but it didn’t. He was so kind and considerate, so unobtrusive and delicate, that the worst I could think of him was to call him dull. Yet I couldn’t very well complain about that, seeing as how he was taking care of me. Never once did he suggest that I ought to be up and stirring. All he ever wanted to know was if I were comfortable or not. I understood that he needed me, that he couldn’t live alone—but that didn’t make me suspicious either. Lots of people hate to live alone. Anyway, and why the hell I’m telling you all this I don’t know, anyway, as I was saying before, one day there came a knock at the door and there stood the man from the asylum. Not a bad sort either, I must say. He mouseyed in quiet-like, sat down, and started talking to my friend. In that quiet, easy way he says—Are you ready to go back with me? Eakins, that was the guy’s name, says Yes, of course, in the same easy, quiet way. After a few minutes Eakins excused himself to go to the bathroom and pack his things. The officer, or whatever the hell he was, didn’t seem at all uneasy about letting the fellow out of sight. He started talking to me. (It was the first time he had addressed a word to me.) It took me a few minutes to realize that he took me for a nut too. I got wise when he began asking me all sorts of funny, queasy questions—Do you like it here? Does he feed you well? Are you sure you’re comfortable? And so on. I was taken so unawares that I fell into the part as if it were made for me. Eakins had been in the bathroom a good fifteen minutes. I was getting fidgety, wondering how I would prove myself sane should the officer decide to take me along too. Suddenly the bathroom door opens softly. I look up and there’s Eakins stark naked, his hair completely shaved off and a douche bag hanging from his neck. He had a grin on his face that I had never seen before. I got a cold chill instanter.

Ready, sir, he says, just as smooth as butter.

Come now, Eakins, said the officer, you know better than to dress that way.

But I’m not dressed, says Eakins blandly.

That’s what I mean, said the officer. Now go back and put your clothes on. That’s a good fellow.

Eakins didn’t budge, didn’t move a muscle.

What suit would you like me to wear? he asks.

The one you had on, «aid the officer tartly.

But it’s all torn, says Eakins, and with that he steps inside the bathroom. In a jiffy he’s back in the doorway, holding the suit in his hands. It’s in shreds.

That’s all right, said the officer, trying not to appear disturbed, your friend here will lend you a suit, I’m sure.

He turns to me. I explain that the only suit I’ve got is the one I’m wearing.

That will do nicely, he chirps.

What? I yelled. What am I goin’ to wear?

A fig leaf, he says, and see that it don’t shrink!

Just at this point there came a tapping on the window pane.