by Henry Miller
There are moments when the elixir of life rises to such over-brimming splendor that the soul spills over. In the seraphic smile of the Madonnas the soul is seen to flood the psyche. The moon of the face becomes full; the equation is perfect. A minute, a half-minute, a second later, the miracle has passed. Something intangible, something inexplicable, was given out—and received. In the life of a human being it may happen that the moon never comes to the full. In the lives of some human beings it would seem, indeed, that the only mysterious phenomenon observable is that of perpetual eclipse. In the case of those afflicted with genius, whatever the form it may take, we are almost frightened to observe that there is nothing but a continuous waxing and waning of the moon. Rarer still are the anomalous ones who, having come to the full, are so terrified by the wonder of it that they spend the rest of their lives endeavoring to stifle that which gave them birth and being. The war of the mind is the story of the soul-split. When the moon was at full there were those who could not accept the dim death of diminution; they tried to hang full-blown in the zenith of their own heaven. They tried to arrest the action of the law which was manifesting itself through them, through their own birth and death, in fulfillment and transfiguration. Caught between the tides they were sundered; the soul departed the body, leaving the simulacrum of a divided self to fight it out in the mind. Blasted by their own radiance they live forever the futile quest of beauty, truth and harmony. Depossessed of their own effulgence they seek to possess the soul and spirit of those to whom they are attracted. They catch every beam of light; they reflect with every facet of their hungry being. Instantly illumined, when the light is directed towards them, they are also as speedily extinguished. The more intense the light which is cast upon them the more dazzling—and blinding—they appear. Especially dangerous are they to the radiant ones; it is always towards these bright and inexhaustible luminaries that they are most passionately drawn....
She lay in an argent light, the lips slightly parted in a mysterious smile. Her body seemed extraordinarily light, as if floating in the distilled vapors of a drug. The glow which always emanated from her flesh was still there, but it was detached, suspended all about her, hovering over her like some rare condensation waiting to be reabsorbed by the flesh.
A strange idea took possession of me, as I lost myself in contemplation. Was it mad to think that in trying to extinguish herself she had discovered that she already was extinct? Had death rolled back on her, refusing to be cheated? Was that strange glow, which was collecting about her like the breath on a mirror, the reflection of another death?
She was always so intensely alive. Supernaturally alive, one might say. She never rested, except in sleep. And her sleep was that of a stone.
Don't you ever dream? I had asked her once. She couldn't remember—it was so long ago since she had had a dream.
But everybody dreams, I insisted. You make no effort to remember, that's all.
Soon thereafter she made known to me in a too obviously casual way that she was beginning to dream again. They were extraordinary dreams. Utterly different from her talk. At first she pretended to be shy about revealing them, but then, when she saw from my queries how remarkable they were, she elaborated at great length.
One day, in recounting one of them to Kronski, giving it to him as my own and pretending that I was perplexed and mystified, I was dumbfounded to hear him say: There's nothing original about that, Mister Miller! Are you trying to trip me up?
Trip you up? I repeated with genuine astonishment.
It might sound original to a writer, he sneered, but to a psychologist it's phoney. You can't invent dreams like you can stories, you know. Dreams have their mark of authenticity just as stories do.
I allowed him to demolish the dream and admitted, to shut him up, that I had invented it.
A few days later, browsing through Dr. Onirifick's library, I came across a ponderous tome dealing with depersonalization. Skimming the pages I found an envelope with my own name and address on the back of it. It was just the flap of the envelope, but the hand writing was indubitably my own. There was only one explanation: it had been left there by Mona.
The pages which I raced through like an ant-eater were devoted to the dreams recorded by a psychiatrist. The dreams were the walking dreams of a somnambulist, with a dimorphic personality. I found myself following them with a disturbing sense of familiarity. I recognized them only in spots.
Finally I became so absorbed that I made notes of the recognizable fragments. Where the other elements had come from I would discover in due time. I yanked out a number of books, searching for place-mark, but found none.
The process, however, I had caught on to. She had extracted only the most dramatic elements—and then joined them together. It made no difference to her that one fragment was the dream of a sixteen year old female and another fragment the dream of a male drug addict.
I thought it a good idea to put the piece of torn envelope in another section of the book before returning it to the shelf.
A half hour later I had a still better idea. I took down the book, consulted my notes, and then carefully underlined the fragmentary passages she had plagiarized. I realized, of course, that with her I might never hear the truth of the matter till years later—perhaps never. But I was content to wait.
A depressing thought followed in the wake of this reflection. If she could fake her dream life, what about her waking life? If I were to begin investigating her past ... The enormity of that task was in itself enough to dissuade me from any immediate attempt in that direction. However, one could always prick up his ears. That was not a cheerful thought either. One can't go through life with ears cocked. Curiously enough, I had no more than told myself this when I recalled the way she had dismissed a certain subject. It was strange how she had succeeded in making me forget that little item. In disabusing me of the idea that I had caught a glimpse of her mother in the backyard, on my first inspection of her home precincts, she had skillfully buried the suspicion by dwelling with artful sincerity on the traits and qualities of the woman I had imagined to be her mother, the woman she insisted must have been her aunt. It was such a commonplace ruse of the liar that I was annoyed at myself, thinking back on it, to have been taken in so easily. This at least was something I could investigate in the near future. I was so positive that I was right that I almost decided to forego te mechanical task of corroboration. It would be more enjoyable, I thought to myself, not to go there just yet, but to trap her by some clever verbal maneuvering. If I could develop the art of laying traps it would save a lot of useless footwork.
Above all, I concluded, it was imperative never to let her suspect that I was on to her lies. Why was that so imperative? I asked myself almost immediately. To have the pleasure of uncovering more and more untruths? Was that a pleasure? And then another question popped into my head. If you were married to a dipsomaniac, would you pretend that the mania for alcohol was perfectly harmless? Would you keep up the pretence that everything was lovely in order to study the effects of this particular vice upon the person of the one you loved?
If there were any legitimacy in abetting the appetites of curiosity then it were better to get at the root of the thing, to discover why she lied so flagrantly. The effects of this malady were not altogether obvious to me—yet. A little thought and I should have perceived instantly that this first and most disastrous effect is—alienation. The shock of detection, which the discovery of the first lie brings, has almost the same emotional outlines as the shock which accompanies the knowledge that one is confronted by an insane, person. Treachery, the fear of it, has its roots in the universal fear of loss of personality. It must have required aeons of time for humanity to raise truth to such a supreme level, to make it the fulcrum, as it were, of individuality.
The moral aspect was merely a concomitant, a coverall for some deeper, almost forgotten purpose. That histoire should be story, lie and history all in one, was of a significance not to be despis
ed. And that a story, given out as the invention of a creative artist, should be regarded as the most effective material for getting at the truth about its author, was also significant. Lies can only be imbedded in truth. They have no separate existence; they have a symbiotic relationship with truth. A good lie reveals more than the truth can ever reveal. To the one, that is, who seeks truth. To such a person there could never be cause for anger or recrimination when confronted with the lie. Not even pain, because all would be patent, naked and revelatory.
I was quite amazed to discern the lengths to which such philosophic detachment could bring me. I made a note to resume the experiment again. It might bear fruit.
VOLUME FOUR
12
I had just left Clancy's office. Clancy was the general manager of the Cosmodemonic Cocksucking Corporation. He was the Cocksucker in Chief, so to speak. He said Sir to his inferiors as well as his superiors.
My respect for Clancy had touched zero. For over six months I had avoided calling on him, though it had been understood between us that I was to drop in once a month or so—to have a little chat. To-day he had summoned me to his office. He had expressed disappointment in me. He had virtually intimated that I had failed him.
The poor cluck! If I hadn't been so disgusted I might have felt sorry for him. He was in a spot, I could see that. But he had angled to put himself in that spot for twenty years or more.
Clancy's model of behavior was the soldier, the man who can take orders and give them, if necessary. Blind obedience was his motto. Clearly I was a poor soldier. I had been an excellent tool so long as I had been given a free hand, but now that the reins were being tightened he was chagrined to learn that I was not responsive to the behests of those to whom he himself, Clancy, the General Manager, had to bow deferentially. He was pained to hear that I had been insulting to one of Mr. Twilliger's henchmen. Twilliger was the vice-president, a man with a heart of cement who had risen from the ranks, just as Clancy himself had.
I had swallowed such a lot of shit in that brief interview with my superior that I was regurgitating. The conversation had terminated on a most unpleasant note, to wit, that I was to learn to cooperate with Mr. Spivak who had now definitely become Mr. Twilliger's go-between.
How can you cooperate with a rat? Especially with a rat whose sole function is to spy on you?
Spivak's entrance upon the scene, I reflected, as I stepped into a bar to have a drink, had only preceded by a few months my resolution to walk out on the old life. His coming had precipitated that event, or conspired to bring it about, I now felt. The turning point in my cosmococcic life had come at the moment of plenitude. Just when I had put everything in order, when the machine was working like a clock, Twilliger had summoned Spivak from another city and installed him as an efficiency expert. And Spivak had taken the pulse of the cosmococcic machine and found that it was beating too slowly.
Since that fatal day they had moved me around like a chess piece. As if to threaten me, they had first changed my quarters to the main office. Twilliger had his sanctum in the same building, about fifteen floors above me. No shenanigans now, as in the old messenger bureau with the dressing booths in the rear and the zinc-covered table, where now and then I had knocked off a fugitive piece of tail. I was in an airless cage now, surrounded by infernal contraptions that buzzed and rang and gleamed every time a client put in a call for a messenger. In a space just big enough for a double desk and a chair on either side (for the applicants), I had to sweat and shout at the top of my lungs to make myself heard. Three times, in the course of a few months, I had lost my voice. Each time I reported to the company doctor upstairs. Each time he shook his head in perplexity.
Say Ah!
Ah!
Say E-e-e-e!
E-e-e-e e!
He'd shove a smooth stick, like a suds duster, down my throat.
Open your mouth wide.
I'd open it wide as I could. He'd swab it out, spray it if he felt like it.
Feel better now?
I'd to say yes but the best I could do was to give him a vocable piece of phlegm. Ooogh!
There's nothing wrong with your throat that I can see, he would say. Come back in a few days and I'll have another look. It may be the weather.
It never occurred to him to ask what I did with my throat all day long. And of course, once I realized that to lose my voice was to enjoy a few day's vacation, I felt that it was just as well to leave him in ignorance of the cause of my affliction.
Spivak however suspected that I was malingering. I enjoyed talking to him in an almost inaudible whisper long after I had recovered my voice.
What did you say? he would rasp.
Choosing the moment when the din was at its height I would repeat some highly unimportant piece of information in the same inaudible whisper.
Oh that!—he would say, highly irritated, exasperated that I made not the slightest effort to strain my voice.
When do you think you'll get your voice back?
I don't know, I would say, looking him straight in the eye and letting my voice die out.
Then he would talk to the call clerk, pump him behind my back to find out if I were putting it on. As soon as he had gone I would resume my natural tone of voice. If the telephone rang, however, I would have my assistant answer it. Mr. Miller can't use the phone—his voice is gone. I kept that up in order to foil Spivak. It was just like him to leave my office, go out the front door, step into a booth and ring me up. He would have been jubilant to catch me off guard.
It was all such a lot of shit, though. Child's play. In every big corporation these games go on. It's the only outlet for one's human side. It's like civilization. Everything geared up to function smoothly in order to destroy it with a little bon-fire. Just when your impulses have been given a shine, a manicure and a tailor-made suit, a rifle is stuck in your hand and in six lessons you're expected to learn the art of sticking a bayonet through a sack of wheat. It's bewildering, to say the least. And if there's no panic, no war, no revolution, you go on rising from one cock-sucking vantage point to another until you become the Big Prick himself and blow your brains out.
I swallowed another drink and took a glance at the big clock on the Metropolitan Tower. Funny that that clock had inspired the one and only poem I had ever written. That was shortly after they had moved me uptown from the main office. The tower framed itself in the window from which I looked out on to the street. In front of me sat Valeska. It was because of Valeska that I had written the poem. I recalled the excitement that had come over me the Sunday morning I began the poem. It was unbelievable—a poem. I had to call Valeska on the telephone and tell her the good news. A couple of months later she was dead.
That was one time, however, that Curley had managed to get his end in. I had learned that only recently. Seems he used to take her to the beach. He did it, by God, in the water, standing up. The first time, that is. Afterwards it was just fuck, fuck, fuck—in the car, in the bath room, along the waterfront, on the excursion boat.
In the midst of these pleasant reminiscences I saw a tall figure dressed in uniform passing the window. I ran out and hailed him.
I don't know whether I ought to come in, Mr. Miller. I'm on duty, you know.
That doesn't matter. Come in a minute and have one drink with me. I'm glad to see you.
It was Colonel Sheridan, the head of the messenger brigade which Spivak had organized. Sheridan was from Arizona. He had come to me in search of work and I had put him on the night force. I liked Sheridan. He was one of the few dozen clean souls I had raked in among all the thousands I had put to work on the messenger force. Everybody liked him, even that piece of animated cement, Twilliger.
Sheridan was absolutely guileless. He had been born in a clean environment, had been given no more education than he needed, which was very little, and had no ambition except to be what he was, which was a plain, simple, ordinary individual accepting life as he found it. He was one in a million, so fa
r as my observation of human nature went.
I inquired how he was getting on as drill-master. He said it was discouraging. He was disappointed—the boys showed no spirit, no interest in military training.
Mr. Miller, he exclaimed, I never met such boys in all my life. They have no sense of honor...
I burst out laughing. No honor, God!
Sheridan, I said, haven't you learned yet that you're dealing with the scum of the earth? Besides, boys aren't born with a sense of honor. City boys especially. These boys are incipient gangsters. Have you ever been to the Mayor's office? Have you seen the crowd that hangs out there? Those are grownup messenger boys. If you were to put them behind the bars you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between them and the real convicts. The whole goddamned city is made up of nothing but crooks and gangsters. That's what a city is—a breeding place for crime.
Sheridan gave me a puzzled look.
But you're not like that, Mr. Miller, he said, grinning sheepishly.
I had to laugh again. I know, Sheridan. I'm one of the exceptions. I'm just killing time here. Some day I'm going out to Arizona, or some place where it's quiet and empty. I've told you, haven't I, that I went to Arizona years ago? I wish I had had the sense to stay there ... Tell me, what was it you did back there ... you weren't a sheep-herder, were you?
It was Sheridan's turn to smile. No, Mr. Miller, I told you, don't you remember, that I was a barber.
A barber!
Yes, said Sheridan, and a darned good one too.
But you know how to ride, don't you? You didn't spend your life in a barber shop, I hope?
Oh no, he answered quickly. I did a little of everything, I guess. I've earned my own living ever since I was seven.
