orward. I don't
have the feeling of being an American citizen any more. The part of America
I came from, where I had some rights, where I felt free, is so far behind me
that it's beginning to get fuzzy in my memory. I feel as though some one's
got a gun against my back all the time. Keep moving, is all I seem to hear.
If a man talks to me I try not to seem too intelligent. I try to pretend
that I am vitally interested in the crops, in the weather, in the elections.
If I stand and stop they look at me, whites and blacks - they look me
through and through as though I were juicy and edible. I've got to walk
another thousand miles or so as though I had a deep purpose, as though I
were really going somewhere. I've got to look sort of grateful, too, that
nobody has yet taken a fancy to plug me. It's depressing and exhilarating at
the same time. You're a marked man - and nobody pulls the trigger. They let
you walk unmolested right into the Gulf of Mexico where you can drown
yourself.
Yes sir, I reached the Gulf of Mexico and I walked right into it and
drowned myself. I did it gratis. When they fished the corpse out they found
it was marked F.O.B. Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn; it was returned C.O.D. When I
was asked later why I had killed myself I could only think to say - because
I wanted to electrify the cosmos! I meant by that a very simple thing -The
Delaware, Lackawanna and Western had been electrified, the Seaboard Air Line
had been electrified, but the soul of man was still in the covered wagon
stage. I was born in the midst of civilization and I accepted it very
naturally - what else was there to do? But the joke was that nobody else was
taking it seriously. I was the only man in the community who was truly
civilized. There was no place for me - as yet. And yet the books I read, the
music I heard assured me, that there were other men in the world like
myself. I had to go and drown myself in the Gulf of Mexico in order to have
an excuse for continuing this pseudo-civilized existence. I had to delouse
myself of my spiritual body, as it were.
When I woke up to the fact that as far as the scheme of things goes I
was less than dirt I really became quite happy. I quickly lost all sense of
responsibility. And if it weren't for the fact that my friends got tired of
lending me money I might have gone on indefinitely pissing the time away.
The world was like a museum to me: I saw nothing to do but eat into this
marvellous chocolate layer cake which the men of the past had dumped on our
hands. It annoyed everybody to see the way I enjoyed myself. Their logic was
that art was very beautiful, oh yes, indeed, but you must work for a living
and then you will find that you are too tired to think about art. But it was
when I threatened to add a layer or two on my own account to this marvellous
chocolate layer cake that they blew up on me. That was the finishing touch.
That meant I was definitely crazy. First I was considered to be a useless
member of society; then for a time I was found to be a reckless,
happy-go-lucky corpse with a tremendous appetite; now I had become crazy.
(Listen, you bastard, you find yourself a job... we're through with you!) In
a way it was refreshing this change of front. I could feel the wind blowing
through the corridors. At least "we" were no longer becalmed. It was war,
and as a corpse I was just fresh enough to have a little fight left in me.
War is revivifying. War stirs the blood. It was in the midst of the world
war, which I had forgotten about, that this change of heart took place. I
got myself married overnight, to demonstrate to all and sundry that I didn't
give a fuck one way or the other. Getting married was O.K. in their minds. I
remember that, on the strength of the announcement, I raised five bucks
immediately. My friend MacGregor paid for the licence and even paid for the
shave and haircut which he insisted I go through with in order to get
married. They said you couldn't go without being shaved; I didn't see any
reason why you couldn't get hitched up without a shave and haircut, but
since it didn't cost me anything I submitted to it. It was interesting to
see how everybody was eager to contribute something to our maintenance. All
of a sudden, just because I had shown a bit of sense, they came flocking
around us - and couldn't they do this and couldn't they do that for us? Of
course the assumption was that now I would surely be going to work, now I
would see that life is serious business. It never occurred to them that I
might let my wife work for me. I was really very decent to her in the
beginning. I wasn't a slave driver. All I asked for was carfare -to hunt for
the mythical job - and a little pin money for cigarettes, movies, et cetera.
The important things, such as books, music albums, gramophones, porterhouse
steaks and such like I found we could get on credit, now that we were
married. The instalment plan had been invented expressly for guys like me.
The down payment was easy - the rest I left to Providence. One has to live,
they were always saying. Now, by God, that's what I said to myself - One has
to live I Live first andpay afterwards. If I saw an overcoat I liked I went
in and bought it. I would buy it a little in advance of the season too, to
show that I was a serious-minded chap. Shit, I was a married man and soon I
would probably be a father - I was entitled to a winter overcoat at least,
no? And when I had the overcoat I thought of stout shoes to go with it - a
pair of thick cordevans such as I had wanted all my life but never could
afford. And when it grew bitter cold and I was out looking for the job I
used to get terribly hungry sometimes - it's really healthy going out like
that day after day prowling about the city in rain and snow and wind and
hail - and so now and then I'd drop in to a cosy tavern and order myself a
juicy porterhouse steak with onions and French fried potatoes. I took out
life insurance and accident insurance too - it's important, when you're
married, to do things like that, so they told me. Supposing I should drop
dead one day - what then? I remember the guy telling me that, in order to
clinch his argument. I had already told him I would sign up, but he must
have forgotten it. I had said, yes, immediately, out of force of habit, but
as I say, he had evidently overlooked it - or else it was against the code
to sign a man up until you had delivered the full sales talk. Anyway, I was
just getting ready to ask him how long it would take before you could make a
loan on the policy when he popped the hypothetical question: Supposing you
should drop dead one day - what then? I guess he thought I was a little off
my nut the way I laughed at that. I laughed until the tears rolled down my
face. Finally he said - "I don't see that I said anything so funny." "Well,"
I said, getting serious for a moment, "take a good look at me. Now tell me,
do you think I'm the sort of fellow who gives a fuck what happens once he's
dead?" He was quite taken aback by this, apparently, because the next thing
he said was: "I don't think that's a very ethical attitude. Mr. Miller. I'm
sure you wouldn't want your wife to ..." "Listen," I said, "supposing I told
you I don't give a fuck what happens to my wife when I die - what then?" And
since this seemed to injure his ethical susceptibilities still more I added
for good measure - "As far as I'm concerned you don't have to pay the
insurance when I croak - I'm only doing this to make you feel good. I'm
trying to help the world along, don't you see? You've got to live, haven't
you? Well, I'm just putting a little food in your mouth, that's all. If you
have anything else to sell, trot it out. I buy anything that sounds good.
I'm a buyer not a seller. I like to see people looking happy - that's why I
buy things. Now listen, how much did you say that would come to per week?
Fifty-seven cents? Fine. What's fifty-seven cents? You see that piano - that
comes to about 39 cents a week, I think. Look around you ... everything you
see costs so much a week. You say, if I should die, what then ? Do you
suppose I'm going to die on all these people? That would be a hell of a
joke. No, I'd rather have them come and take the things away - if I can't
pay for them, I mean..." He was fidgeting about and there was a rather
glassy stare in his eye, I thought. "Excuse me," I said, interrupting
myself, "but wouldn't you like to have a little drink - to wet the policy?"
He said he thought not, but I insisted, and besides, I hadn't signed the
papers yet and my urine would have to be examined and approved of and all
sorts of stamps and seals would have to be affixed -1 knew all that crap by
heart - so I thought we might have a little snifter first and in that way
protract the serious business, because honestly, buying insurance or buying
anything was a real pleasure to me and gave me the feeling that I was just
like every other citizen, a man, what! and not a monkey. So I got out a
bottle of sherry (which is all that was allowed me), and I poured out a
generous glassful for him, thinking to myself that it was fine to see the
sherry going because maybe the next time they'd buy something better for me.
"I used to sell insurance too once upon a time," I said, raising the glass
to my lips. "Sure, I can sell anything. The only thing is - I'm lazy. Take a
day like to-day - isn't it nicer to be indoors, reading a book or listening
to the phonograph? Why should I go out and hustle for an insurance company?
If I had been working to-day you wouldn't have caught me in -isn't that so?
No, I think it's better to take it easy and help people out when they come
along... like with you, for instance. It's much nicer to buy things than to
sell them, don't you think? If you have the money, of course! In this house
we don't need much money. As I was saying, the piano comes to about 39 cents
a week, or forty-two maybe, and the ..."
"Excuse me, Mr Miller," he interrupted, "but don't you think we ought
to get down to signing these papers?"
"Why, of course," I said cheerfully. "Did you bring them all with you?
Which one do you think we ought to sign first? By the way, you haven't got a
fountain pen you'd like to sell me, have you?"
"Just sign right here," he said, pretending to ignore my remarks. "And
here, that's it. Now then, Mr. Miller, I think I'll say good day - and
you'll be hearing from the company in a few days."
"Better make it sooner," I remarked, leading him to the door, "because
I might change my mind and commit suicide."
"Why, of course, why yes, Mr. Miller, certainly we will. Good day now,
good day!"
Of course the instalment plan breaks down eventually, even if you're an
assiduous buyer such as I was. I certainly did my best to keep the
manufacturers and the advertising men of America busy, but they were
disappointed in me it seems. Everybody was disappointed in me. .But there
was one man in particular who was more disappointed in me than any one and
that was a man who had really made an effort to befriend me and whom I had
let down. I think of him and the way he took me on as his assistant - so
readily and graciously - because later, when I was hiring and firing like a
42 horse calibre revolver, I was betrayed right and left myself, but by that
time I had become so inoculated that it didn't matter a damn. But this man
had gone out of his way to show me that he believed in me. He was the editor
of a catalogue for a great mail order house. It was an enormous compendium
of horse-shit which was put out once a year and which took the whole year to
make ready. I hadn't the slightest idea what it was all about and why I
dropped into his office that day I don't know, unless it was because I
wanted to get warm, as I had been knocking about the docks all day trying to
get a job as a checker or some damned thing. It was cosy in his office and I
made him a long speech so as to get thawed out. I didn't know what job to
ask for - just a job, I said. He was a sensitive man and very kind- hearted.
He seemed to guess that I was a writer, or wanted to be a writer, because
soon he was asking me what I liked to read and what was my opinion of this
writer and that writer. It just happened that I had a list of books in my
pocket - books I was searching for at the public library - and so I brought
it out and showed it to him. "Great Scott!" he exclaimed, "do you really
read these books?" I modestly shook my head in the affirmative, and then as
often happened to me when I was touched off by some silly remark like that,
I began to talk about Hamsun's Mysteries which I had just been reading. From
then on the man was like putty in my hands. When he asked me if I would like
to be his assistant he apologized for offering me such a lowly position; he
said I could take my time learning the ins-and-outs of the job, he was sure
it would be a cach(?) for me. And then he asked me if he couldn't
lend me some money, out of his own pocket until I got paid. Before I could
say yes or no he had fished out a twenty dollar bill and thrust it in my
hand. Naturally I was touched. I was ready to work like a son of a bitch for
him. Assistant editor - it sounded quite good, especially to the creditors
in the neighbourhood. And for a while I was so happy to be eating roast beef
and chicken and tenderloins of pork that I pretended I liked the job.
Actually it was difficult for me to keep awake. What I had to learn I had
learned in a week's time. And after that? After that I saw myself doing
penal servitude for life. In order to make the best of it I whiled away the
time writing stories and essays and long letters to my friends. Perhaps they
thought I was writing up new ideas for the company, because for quite a
while nobody paid any attention to me. I thought it was a wonderful job. I
had almost the whole day to myself, for my writing, having learned to
dispose of the company's work in about an hour's time. I was so enthusiastic
about my own private work that I gave orders to my underlings not to disturb
me except at stipulated moments. I was sailing along like a breeze, the
company paying me regularly and the slave-drivers doing the work I had
mapped out for them, when one day, just when I am in the midst of an
important essay on The Anti-Christ, a man whom I had never seen before walks
up to my desk, bends over my shoulder, and in a sarcastic tone of voice
begins to read aloud what I had just written. I didn't need to inquire who
he was or what he was up to - the only thought in my head was, and that I
repeated to myself frantically - Will I get an extra week's pay ? When it
came time to bid good-bye to my benefactor I felt a little ashamed of
myself, particularly when he said, right off the bat like - "I tried to get
you an extra week's pay but they wouldn't hear of it. I wish there was
something I could do for you - you're only standing in your own way, you
know. To tell the truth, I still have the greatest faith in you - but I'm
afraid you're going to have a hard time of it, for a while. You don't fit in
anywhere. Some day you'll make a great writer, I feel sure of it. Well,
excuse me," he added, shaking hands with me warmly, "I've got to see the
boss. Good luck to you!"
I felt a bit cut up about the incident. I.wished it had been possible
to prove to him then and there that his faith was justified. I wished I
could have justified myself before the whole world at that moment: I would
have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge if it would have convinced people that I
wasn't a heartless son of a bitch. I had a heart as big as a whale, as I was
soon to prove, but nobody was examining into my heart. Everybody was being
let down hard - not only the instalment companies, but the landlord, the
butcher, the baker, the gas, water and electricity devils, everybody. If
only I could get to believe in this business of work! To save my life I
couldn't see it. I could only see that people were working their balls off
because they didn't know any better. I thought of the speech I had made
which won me the job. In some ways I was very much like Herr Nagel myself.
No telling from minute to minute what I would do. No knowing whether I was a
monster or a saint Like so many wonderful men of our time. Herr Nagel was a
desperate man - and it was this very desperation which made him such a
likeable chap. Hamsun didn't know what to make of this character himself: he
knew he existed, and he knew that there was something more to him than a
mere buffoon and a mysrifier. I think he loved Herr Nagel more than any
other character he created. And why? Because Herr Nagel was the
unacknowledged saint which every artist is - the man who is ridiculed
because his solutions, which are truly profound, seem too simple for the
world. No man wants to be an artist - he is driven to it because the world
refuses to recognize his proper leadership. Work meant nothing to me,
because the real work to be done was being evaded. People regarded me as
lazy and shiftless, but on the contrary I was an exceedingly active
individual. Even if it was just hunting for a piece of tail, that was
something, and well worth while, especially if compared to other forms of
activity -such as making buttons or turning screws, or even removing
appendixes. And why did people listen to me so readily when I applied for a
job? Why did they find me entertaining? For the reason, no doubt, that I had
always spent my time profitably. I brought them gifts - from my hours at the
public library, from my idle ramblings through the streets, from my intimate
experiences with women, from my afternoons at the burlesque, from my visits
to the museum and the art galleries. Had I been a dud, just a poor honest
bugger who wanted to work his balls off for so much a week, they wouldn't
have offered me the jobs they did, nor would they have handed me cigars or
taken me to lunch or loaned me money as they frequently did. I must have had
something to offer which perhaps unknowingly they prized beyond horsepower
or technical ability. I didn't know myself what it was, because I had
neither pride, nor vanity, nor envy. About the big issues I was dear, but
confronted by the petty details of life I was bewildered. I had to witness
this same bewilderment on a colossal scale before I could grasp what it was
all about Ordinary men are often quicker in sizing up the practical
situation: their ego is commensurate with the demands made upon it: the
world is not very different from what they imagine it to be. But a man who
is completely out of step with the rest of the world is either suffering
from a colossal inflation of his ego or else the ego is so submerged as to
be practically non-existent. Herr Nagel had to dive off the deep end in
search of his true ego; his existence was a mystery, to himself and to every
one else. I couldn't afford to leave things hanging in suspense that way -
the mystery was too intriguing. Even if I had to rub myself like a cat
against every human being I encountered, I was going to get to the bottom of
it. Rub long enough and hard enough and the spark will come!
The hibernation of animals, the suspension of life practised by certain
low forms of life, the marvellous vitality of the bedbug which lies in wait
endlessly behind the wallpaper, the trance of the Yogi, the catalepsy of the
pathologic individual, the mystic's union with the cosmos, the immortality
of cellular life, all these things the artist learns in order to awaken the
world at the propitious moment. The artist belongs to the X root race of
man; he is the spiritual microbe, as it were, which carries over from one
root race to another. He is not crushed by misfortune, because he is not a
part of the physical, racial scheme of things. His appearance is always
synchronous with catastrophe and dissolution; he is the cyclical being which
lives in the epicycle. The experience which he acquires is never used for
personal ends; it serves the larger purpose to which he is geared. Nothing
is lost on him, however trifling. If he is interrupted for twenty-five years
in the reading of a book he can go on from the page where he left off as
though nothing had happened in between. Everything that happens in between,
which is "life" to most people, is merely an interruption in his forward
round. The eternality of his work, when he expresses himself, is merely the
reflection of the automatism of life in which he is obliged to lie dormant,
a sleeper on the back of sleep, waiting for the signal which will announce
the moment of birth. This is the big issue, and this was always dear to me,
even when I denied it. The dissatisfaction which drives one on from one word
to another, one creation to another, is simply a protest against the
futility of postponement. The more awake one becomes, an artistic microbe,
the less desire one has to do anything. Fully awake, everything is just and
there is no need to come out of the trance. Action, as expressed in creating
a work of art, is a concession to the automatic principle of death. Drowning
myself in the Gulf of Mexico I was able to partake of an active life which
would permit the real self to hibernate a until I was ripe to be born. I
understood it perfectly, though I acted blindly and confusedly. I swam back
to the stream of human activity until I got to the source of all action and
there muscled in, calling myself personnel director of a telegraph company,
and allowed the tide of humanity to wash over me like great white-capped
breakers. All this active life, preceding the final act of desperation, led
me from doubt to doubt, blinding me more and more to the real self which,
like a continent choked with the evidences of a great and thriving
civilization, had already sunk beneath the surface of the sea. The colossal
ego was submerged, and what people observed moving frantically above the
surface was the periscope of the soul searching for its target. Everything
that came within range had to be destroyed, if I were ever to rise again and
ride the waves. This monster which rose now and then to fix its target with
deadly aim, which dove again and roved and plundered ceaselessly would, when
the time came, rise for the last time to reveal itself as an ark, would
gather unto itself a pair of each kind and at last, when the floods abated,
would settle down on the summit of a lofty mountain peak thence to open wide
its doors and return to the world what had been preserved from the
catastrophe.
If I shudder now and then, when I think of my active life, if I have
nightmares, possibly it is because I think of all the men I robbed and
murdered in my day sleep. I did everything which my nature bade me to do.
Nature is eternally whispering in one's ear - "if you would survive you must
kill!" Being human, you kill not like the animal but automatically, and the
killing is disguised and its ramifications are endless, so that you kill
without even thinking about it, you kill without need. The men who are the
most honoured are the greatest killers. They believe that they are serving
their fellowmen, and they are sincere in believing so, but they are
heartless murderers and at moments, when they come awake, they realize their
crimes and perform frantic, quixotic acts of goodness in order to expiate
their guilt. The goodness of man stinks more than the evil which is in him,
for the goodness is not yet acknowledged, not an affirmation of the
conscious self. Being pushed over the precipice, it is easy at the last
moment to surrender all one's possessions, to turn and extend a last embrace
to all who are left behind. How are we to stop the blind rush? How are we to
stop the automatic process, each one pushing the other over the precipice?
As I sat at my desk, over which I had put up a sign reading "Do not
abandon all hope ye who enter here!" - as I sat there saying Yes, No, Yes,
No, I realized, with a despair that was turning to white frenzy, that I was
a puppet in whose hands society had placed a gatling gun. If I performed a
good deed it was no different, ultimately, than if I had performed a bad
deed. I was like an equals sign through which the algebraic swarm of
humanity was passing. I was a rather important, active equals sign, like a
general in time of war, but no matter how competent I were to become I could
never change into a plus or a minus sign. Nor could any one else, as far as
I could determine. Our whole life was built up on this principle of
equation. The integers had become symbols which were shuffled about in the
interests of death. Pity, despair, passion, hope, courage - these were the
temporal refractions caused by looking at equations from varying angles. To
stop the endless juggling by turning one's back on it, or by facing it
squarely and writing about it, would be no help either. In a hall of mirrors
there is no way to turn your back on yourself. I will not do this... I will
do some other thing I Very good. But can you do nothing at all? Can you stop
thinking about not doing anything? Can you stop dead, and without thinking,
radiate the truth which you know? That was the idea which lodged in the back
of my head and which burned and burned, and perhaps when I was most
expansive most radiant with energy, most sympathetic, most willing, helpful,
sincere, good, it was this fixed idea which was shining through, and
automatically I was saying - "why, don't mention it ... nothing at all, I
assure you ... no, please don't thank me. it's nothing," etc. etc. From
firing the gun so many hundreds of times a day perhaps I didn't even notice
the detonations any more; perhaps I thought I was opening pigeon traps and
filling the sky with milky white fowl. Did you ever see a synthetic monster
on the screen, a Frankenstein realized in flesh and blood? Can you imagine
how he might be trained to pull a trigger and see pigeons flying at the same
time? Frankenstein is not a myth: Frankenstein is a very real creation born
of the personal experience of a sensitive human being. The monster is always
more real when it does not assume the proportions of flesh and blood. The
monster of the screen is nothing compared to the monster of the imagination;
even the existent pathologic monsters who find their way into the police
station are but feeble demonstrations of the monstrous reality which the
pathologist lives with. But to be the monster and the pathologist at the
same time - that is reserved for certain species of men who, disguised as
artists, are supremely aware that sleep is an even greater danger than
insomnia. In order not to fall asleep, in order not to become victims of
that insomnia which is called "living", they resort to the drug of putting
words together endlessly. This is not an automatic process, they say,
because there is always present the illusion that they can stop it at will.
But they cannot stop; they have only succeeded in creating an illusion,
which is perhaps a feeble something, but it is far from being wide awake and
neither active nor inactive. I wanted to be wide awake without talking or
writing about it, in order to accept life absolutely. I mentioned the
archaic men in the remote places of the world with who, I was communicating
frequently. Why did I think these "savages" more capable of understanding me
than the men and women who surrounded me? Was I crazy to believe such a
thing? I don't think so in the least. These "savages" are the degenerate
remnants of earlier races of man who, I believe, must have had a greater
hold on reality. The immortality of the race is constantly before oar eyes
in these specimens of the past who linger on in withered splendour. Whether
the human race is immortal or not is not my concern, but the vitality of the
race does mean something to me, and that it should be active or dormant
means even more. As the vitality of the new race banks down the vitality of
the old races manifests itself to the waking mind with greater and greater
significance. The vitality of the old races lingers on even in death, but
the vitality of the new race which is about to die seems already non-
existent. If a man were taking a swarming hive of bees to the river to drown
them... That was the image I carried about in me. If only I were the man,
and not the bee! In some vague, inexplicable way I knew that I was the man,
that I would not be drowned in the hive, like the others. Always, when we
came forwards in a group I was signalled to stand apart; from birth I was
favoured that way, and, no matter what tribulations I went through, I knew
they were not fatal or lasting. Also, another strange thing took place in me
whenever I was called to stand forth. I knew that I was superior to the man
who was summoning me! The tremendous humility which I practised was not
hypocritical but a condition provoked by the realization of the fateful
character of the situation. The intelligence which I possessed, even as a
stripling, frightened me; it was the intelligence of a "savage", which is
always superior to that of civilized men in that it is more adequate to the
exigencies of circumstance. It is a life intelligence, even though life has
seemingly passed them by. I felt almost as if I had been shot forward into a
round of existence which for the rest of mankind had not yet attained its
full rhythm. I was obliged to mark time if I were to remain with them and
not be shunted off to another sphere of existence. On the other hand, I was
in many ways lower than the human beings about me. It was as though I had
come out of the fires of hell not entirely purged. I had still a tail and a
pair of horns, and when my passions were aroused I breathed a sulphurous
poison which was annihilating. I was always called a "lucky devil". The good
that happened to me was called "luck", and the evil was always regarded as a
result of my shortcomings. Rather, as the fruit of my blindness. Rarely did
any one ever spot the evil in me! I was as adroit, in this respect, as the
devil himself. But that I was frequently blind, everybody could see that.
And at such times I was left alone, shunned, like the devil himself. Then I
left the world, returned to the fires of hell - voluntarily. These comings
and goings are as real to me, more real, in fact, than anything that
happened in between. The friends who think they know me know nothing about
me for the reason that the real me changed hands countless times. Neither
the men who thanked me, nor the men who cursed me, knew with whom they were
dealing. Nobody ever got on to a solid footing with me, because I was
constantly liquidating my personality. I was keeping what is called the
"personality" in abeyance for the moment when, leaving it to coagulate, it
would adopt a proper human rhythm. I was hiding my face until the moment
when I would find myself in step with the world. All this was, of course, a
mistake. Even the role of artist is worth adopting, while marking time.
Action is important, even if it entails futile activity. One should not say
Yes, No, Yes, No, even seated in the highest place. One should not be
drowned in the human tidal wave, even for the sake of becoming a Master. One
must beat with his own rhythm - at any price. I accumulated thousands of
years of experience in a few short years, but the experience was wasted
because I had no need of it. I had already been crucified and marked by the
cross; I had been born free of the need to suffer - and yet I knew no other
way to struggle forward than to repeat the drama. All my intelligence was
against it. Suffering is futile, my intelligence told me over and over, but
I went on suffering voluntarily. Suffering has never taught me a thing; for
others it may still be necessary, but for me it is nothing more than an
algebraic demonstration of spiritual inadaptability. The whole drama which
the man of today is acting out through suffering does not exist for me: it
never did, actually. All my Calvaries were rosy crucifixions,
pseudo-tragedies to keep the fires of hell burning brightly for the real
sinners who are in danger of being forgotten.
Another thing ... the mystery which enveloped my behaviour grew deeper
the nearer I came to the circle of uterine relatives. The mother from whose
loins I sprang was a complete stranger to me. To begin with, after giving
birth to me she gave birth to my sister, whom I usually refer to as my
brother. My sister was a sort of harmless monster, an angel who had been
given the body of an idiot. It gave me a strange feeling, as a boy, to be
growing up and developing side by side with this being who was doomed to
remain all her life a mental dwarf. It was impossible to be a brother to her
because it was impossible to regard this atavistic hulk of a body as a
"sister". She would have functioned perfectly, I imagine, among the
Australian primitives. She might even have been raised to power and eminence
among them, for, as I said, she was the essence of goodness, she knew no
evil. But so far as living the civilized life goes she was helpless; she not
only had no desire to kill but she had no desire to thrive at the expense of
others. She was incapacitated for work, because even if they had been able
to train her to make caps for high explosives, for example, she might
absent-mindedly throw her wages in the river on the way home or she might
give them to a beggar in the street. Often in my presence she was whipped
like a dog for having performed some beautiful act of grace in her
absent-mindedness, as they called it. Nothing was worse, I learned as a
child, than to do a good deed without reason. I had received the same
punishment as my sister, in the beginning, because I too had a habit of
giving things away, especially new things which had just been given me. I
had even received a bearing once, at the age of five, for having advised my
mother to cut a wart off her finger. She had asked me what to do about it
one day and, with my limited knowledge of medicine, I told her to cut it off
with scissors, which she did, like an idiot. A few days later she got blood
poisoning and then she got hold of me and she said - "you told me to cut it
off, didn't you?" and she gave me a sound thrashing. From that day on I knew
that I was born in the wrong household. From that day on I learned like
lightning. Talk about adaptation! By the time I was ten I had lived out the
whole theory of evolution. And there I was, evolving through all the phases
of animal life and yet chained to this creature called my "sister" who was
evidently a primitive being and who would never, even at the age of ninety,
arrive at a comprehension of the alphabet Instead of growing up like a
stalwart tree I began to lean to one side, in complete defiance of the law
of gravity. Instead of shooting out limbs and leaves I grew windows and
turrets. The whole being, as it grew, was turning into stone, and the higher
I shot up the more I defied the law of gravity. I was a phenomenon in the
midst of the landscape, but one which attracted people and elicited praise.
If the mother who bore us had only made another effort perhaps a marvellous
white buffalo might have been born and the three of us might have been
permanently installed in a museum and protected for life. The conversations
which took place between the leaning tower of Pisa, the whipping post, the
snorting machine and the pterodactyl in human flesh were, to say the least,
a bit queer. Anything might be the subject of conversation - a bread crumb
which the "sister" had overlooked in brushing the tablecloth or Joseph's
coat of many colours which, in the old man's tailoring brain, might have
been either double-breasted or cutaway or frock. If I came from the ice
pond, where I had been skating all afternoon, the important thing was not
the ozone which I had breathed free of charge, nor the geometric
convolutions which were strengthening my muscles, but the little spot of
rust under the clamps which, if not rubbed off immediately, might
deteriorate the whole skate and bring about the dissolution of some
pragmatic value which was incomprehensible to my prodigal turn of thought.
This little rust spot, to take a trifling example, might entrain the most
hallucinating results. Perhaps the "sister", in searching for the kerosene
can, might overturn the jar of prunes which were being stewed and thus
endanger all our lives by robbing us of the required calories in the
morrow's meal. A severe beating would have to be given, not in anger,
because that would disturb the digestive apparatus, but silently and
efficiently, as a chemist would beat up the white of an egg in preparation
for a minor analysis. But the "sister", not understanding the prophylactic
nature of the punishment, would give vent to the most bloodcurdling screams
and this would so affect the old man that he would .go out for a walk and
return two or three hours later blind drunk and, what was worse, scratching
a little paint off the rolling doors in his blind staggers. The little piece
of paint that had been chipped off would bring on a battle royal which was
very bad for my dream life, because in my dream life I frequently changed
places with my sister, accepting the tortures inflicted upon her and
nourishing them with my supersensitive brain. It was in these dreams, always
accompanied by the sound of glass breaking, of shrieks, curses, groans and
sobs, that I gathered an unformulated knowledge of the ancient mysteries, of
the rites of initiation, of the transmigration of souls and so on. It might
begin with a scene from real life - the sister standing by the blackboard in
the kitchen, the mother towering over her with a ruler, saying two and two
makes how much? and the sister screaming five. Bang! no, seven. Bang! no,
thirteen, eighteen as twenty! I would be sitting at the table, doing my
lessons, just in real life during these scenes, when by a slight twist or
squirm, perhaps as I saw the ruler come down on the sister's face, suddenly
I would be in another realm where glass was unknown, as it was unknown to
the Kickapoos or the Lenni-Lenapi. The faces of those about me were familiar
- they were my uterine relatives who, for some mysterious reason, failed to
recognize me in this new ambiance. They were garbed in black and the colour
of their skin was ash grey, like that of the Tibetan devils. They were all
fitted out with knives and other instruments of torture; they belonged to
the caste of sacrificial butchers. I seemed to have absolute liberty and the
authority of a god, and yet by some capricious turn of events the end would
be that I'd be lying on the sacrificial block and one of my charming uterine
relatives would be bending over me with a gleaming knife to cut out my
heart. In sweat and terror I would begin to recite "my lessons" in a high,
screaming voice, faster and faster, as I felt the knife searching for my
heart. Two and two is four, five and five is ten, earth, air, fire, water,
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, Meocene, Pleocene,
Eocene, the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, Asia, Africa, Europe,
Australia, red, blue, yellow, the sorrel, the persimmon, the pawpaw, the
catalpa .. .faster and faster... Odin, Wotan,