Belfrage also told us about the novel he is starting, about the undertaking business, here in Los Angeles. At one time, rabid anti-New Dealers all began buying cemetery space—because money spent in this way isn’t liable to taxation, and they grudged the administration every cent. Flaherty, who has to cap every story, described how, when one of the big U.S. airships was carried away in a storm, the rival morticians rushed about New Jersey following its course in their cars, and arguing about prices as they waited for it to crash.
December 27. Decided to give up smoking—at any rate for the day. But giving up smoking is a whole-time occupation in itself. I spent the entire morning sitting in a chair, jittering with disintoxication. At 11:25 there was a slight earthquake.
December 28. Second morning of disintoxication. Not so severe as yesterday, but very insidious. Desire to smoke came in sudden, strong puffs—like treacherous wind-gusts when you are sailing, taking you unawares. I felt I had to eat a Good Humor, and walked up to the top of the Palisades, looking for the ice-cream car. A glorious morning. The seashore almost deserted. The bland winter sunshine makes itself felt much more consciously than the full blaze of summer. During the summer days, you are plunged deep in the element itself. You are part of the weather. Now, you stand aside from it. These autumn-spring mornings have an extraordinary purity and pathos—like poetry in the great classical tradition.
It is as if you had been tossing in a delirium of newspaper headlines, film plots, philosophical riddles, metaphysical doubts, wish-dreams, recurring nightmares. Suddenly, you are conscious of the flowers, the gardens, the dry rustle of the palms, the mild, healing vastness of the light and air washing softly upon all your senses, as the ocean washes the sand. Just as a patient, drowsing and muttering in high fever, suddenly becomes aware of a figure standing beside his bed. A stranger? No—he recognizes her: it is his kind, beloved, familiar nurse. But where has she been—he reproachfully asks—why did she desert him? And the nurse smiles—her smile is the sunshine—and answers: “Silly—I’ve been here. I’ve been with you all the time.”
Yes—she has been with me. But, lately, I’ve been aware of her so seldom. “I must have been very ill, haven’t I, nurse?” “Yes. Very ill indeed.” She smiles—but her smile isn’t in the least reassuring. “Nurse—” I begin to get seriously alarmed, “am I going to die?” She nods: “Yes, you are going to die. Like everyone else. I have never saved a patient.” She draws the warm blanket of the air around my limbs: “And now, do try to relax. Try to get some rest—even if it’s only for a moment. You’re only making things harder for yourself. Don’t you know that?”
From the top of the Palisade cliffs you can look down into the courtyards of the luxury villas which stand along the shore. Many of their secrets, invisible from the street below, are revealed. One yard, for instance, contains a little swimming pool within its walls. And, on the surface of this pool, a boy was floating in a tiny rubber boat—only a few yards from the ocean itself. A perfect symbol of the private, artificially staged childhood of the very rich.
Lunch with Berthold and Uhse. Uhse is going to Mexico soon. And Berthold talks of leaving for New York. Uhse says that most of the Washington news experts are convinced that America will enter the war in another three months.
An earthquake in neutral Turkey has caused, so far, the biggest loss of life anywhere since the war began. Russia is said to be preparing a big new offensive against Finland. Washington experts announce that they can find no conclusive proof that the Athenia was torpedoed. [Edward] Murrow, speaking from London, tells us that a club has been founded to discuss peace aims on the basis of federal union. But the majority are doubtful of the value of any such “high-sounding ideals.” France has “the right to demand” that Germany shall be kept in her place. This kind of talk makes me tremble with rage. Murrow succeeded very well in conveying what he thought of it, himself.
December 29. Ellis St. Joseph has arrived here, to see Walter Huston, who is going to play the leading part in Passenger to Bali. The play is being produced in New York very soon.
It is difficult to find anything charitable to say about Ellis—he is a mystery-monger with a bogus English accent, a Proustian conscience and a magazine-story style of conversation—yet I don’t dislike him. Perhaps merely because he likes me—or, at any rate, is sincerely jealous of my writing. If only he would stop being so intimate, so brilliantly clairvoyant! He says he knows everything about a person after he has been with him for five minutes—and I dare say he does. So what? We drove down to Santa Monica together, and he analyzed, with masochistic Proustian acumen, his relationships with various friends. While he is talking, he watches your face so closely for a reaction that you soon feel as exhausted as if you had been playing poker.
December 31. A grey, cloudy, lifeless day. Lunch at the Viertels’—that non-stop debating society. Today, the chief subjects discussed were: “Is Pirandello a great dramatist?” “The significance of Peer Gynt.” “Gone with the Wind.” “What contribution has China to make to a future world-culture?”
Salka takes the “plus ça change …” line. According to her, there will be no progress, no new world-order. “All these words are simply shit!” Berthold explained to me later that Salka’s cynicism comes from Gottfried Reinhardt. Gottfried, says Berthold, is cynical because his life is a vacuum. He is negative.
Berthold himself is now in a state of the greatest confusion. He has heard from New York that Erika and Klaus Mann want to conduct some kind of purge of the German refugee organization. All those in opposition to the war must go. Berthold feels that, if this rumor is true, he had perhaps better not travel East. Once he is there, he will never be able to keep his mouth shut—and there will be a battle royal. Meanwhile, he looks around feverishly for moral support. How far will he be able to go with Heard, or with Auden? Where can he find something positive, something constructive? I listen to all this without expressing an opinion—because I know that Berthold will never accept Gerald’s ideas unless he discovers and edits and annotates them for himself.
1940
January 1. Last night, I went to a New Year’s party at the Viertels’, where I got full of punch, whisky and vodka. Peter had to bring me home and put me to bed. Today, the worst hangover I’ve had in years.
Went to tea with Berthold and Salka, who told me that my behavior had caused a sensation. I made violent love to that Russian girl whom Wystan and I first met in New York last spring, at Christiane Toller’s apartment. Uhse, equally drunk, tried to stop me—because, he said, he was sure she didn’t really care for me and was only leading me on; and he wouldn’t see a dear comrade of his ruined by any woman. He then glared severely at the girl and muttered: “German Youth Movement. Typical.” Later, on the way home, he jumped out of a moving car—apparently as a protest against the conversation of the other passengers. He wasn’t hurt.
Salka got drunk quite early in the evening, as she was mixing the punch. She called me over to her. “Christopher—come here, darling. I want to drink blood brotherhood with you.” We crossed arms, drank and embraced. “And now, darling,” said Salka, “I am going to tell you a very important secret. If a man wants a woman enough, he can have her. Absolutely. It’s only a question of time and place.” Carl Zuckmayer50 overheard her. He came up to us, sweating and snorting like a little bull. “You really mean that Salka? You mean that for yourself, too?” Salka laughed recklessly: “Certainly I do! Any man. Any man on earth!” She paused, considered for a moment: “Except Louis B. Mayer.”
Berthold tells me that I was very much upset because I have to collaborate with Robert Thoeren on this picture for Gottfried Reinhardt at MGM. I met Thoeren for the first time, last night, and wandered around for the rest of the evening muttering: “Der Mann ist ein gemeiner Schauspieler!”51 Toward the end of the party I also told Berthold: “I’m so tired I can’t stop smiling.”
Garbo was at tea with us today. I think Peter is right when he says she’s “a dumb cl
uck.” She actually didn’t know who Daladier was.52 If you watch her for a quarter of an hour, you see every one of her famous expressions. She repeats them, quite irrelevantly. There is the iron sternness of Ninotchka, the languorous open-lipped surrender of Camille, Mata Hari’s wicked laugh, Christina’s boyish toss of the head, Anna Christie’s grimace of disgust. She is so amazingly beautiful, so noble, so naturally compelling and commanding, that her ridiculous artificiality, her downright silliness can’t spoil the effect.
After tea, Garbo, Salka and Mercedes de Acosta53 (dressed in a kind of leather uniform) went out for a walk. I went with them as far as our house. They were going to the Uplifters’, and I knew they’d have to return along Mesa Road. I kept a lookout, because I wanted Vernon to meet Garbo. When they finally appeared, I ran down the hill, explaining, quite unnecessarily, that I’d “happened” to see them go past. This didn’t fool Garbo for a minute. She laughed, and said, with slightly sadistic amusement, “You were waiting for me, weren’t you?” But she came back with me. Vernon, out of shyness, was very grand. When Garbo suggested we all three go on the beach, he declined, saying he was too busy.
Today, Garbo was playing the wayward little girl even more energetically than usual. Her dread of being recognized is coupled with a perverse desire to draw attention to herself. She stood on the fence, at the corner of Mabery Road, high above the shore, and theatrically extended her arms toward the sea. She waved at a goodlooking boy who was passing. She threw her arms around my neck. She skipped along the beach, darting at the waves to gather foam in her hands. Several people recognized her—and soon our path was continually being crossed by casually strolling groups. But nobody tried to speak to her, and she didn’t seem to care.
Specimens of conversation with Garbo:
She (taking my hand, and letting go of it again immediately): We must not do that. This is New Year’s Day. It might become a habit.
Me (politely): Well, it would be a very good habit—as far as I’m concerned.
She (in her Hedda Gabler voice): How can you say that? You do not know me at all. I do not know you. We might make a terrible mistake.
Me (gallant): I’m willing to risk that.
She (raising tragic-ironic eyebrows): Ah! You are a very brave young man!
As we were walking along the beach, she asked me how I had met Vernon. I told her.
She: And when you came back to New York he was waiting for you? How wonderful! Nobody ever waited for me!
Me (not knowing the answer to this one): Look at that bird diving under the wave. What kind is it?
She (the whimsical little girl): A duck.
Me: And those big birds flying over there?
She: Big ducks.
Me: They’re pelicans.
She: No! They are all ducks. And the people who live in that beautiful house—they, too, are ducks … You know, I am not surprised that people wait for you. You have a funny face.
Me: Thank you.
She: Tell me, are you never sad? Never melancholic?
Me: I used to be sad, but I’ve given it up. (etc. etc.)
January 2. From The Los Angeles Times’s account of the Rose Bowl game at Pasadena yesterday: “Like so many white-shirted specters, Southern California’s powerful gridsters slashed their way through the gloom-glutted Rose Bowl yesterday and, before the dusk of this dark afternoon had blotted out the playing field entirely, the South’s mighty Tennessee had been trampled under foot, 14 to o.”
Went to the studio, to watch Chaplin acting in his new Dictator picture. Meltzer had arranged it.
(Meltzer was a young man I’d met at the Book of the Day—a bookstore on La Brea which was, at that time, a meeting place for pink intellectuals, particularly left-wing movie writers. They stayed open late, for evening lectures and discussions. I once gave a talk there myself, on Auden, Spender and the others.
The manager, whose name was Larry Edmunds, later opened another store, on Cahuenga. Just before he was due to be inducted into the army, he killed himself. Meltzer, also, got killed in the war. But, in those days, an aggressive isolationism was the watchword, and the Book of the Day posted its door with the slogan: “The Yanks are not coming.”
Chaplin had met Meltzer at some holiday resort, I believe; taken a fancy to him and asked him to collaborate on the script of his new picture. Meltzer had had very little experience, but that didn’t bother Chaplin, who always knows exactly what he wants, and merely demands an appreciative audience.)
Today, the set was a banqueting chamber—a table covered with a black velvet cloth and set with immense silver goblets and dishes. The meal is over. Chaplin, as Hitler, makes a speech to the guests in the nonsense language he has invented (actually, it sounds much more like Danish than German), hunts through a box of medals, and pins one of them on “Herring’s” breast. “Herring” is so much moved that he bursts into tears.
Chaplin’s technique is amazing. His timing is so perfect that even the corniest gags—such as spitting in Herring’s eye, or pricking him with the medal pin, seem startlingly brilliant and funny. His fluency in the nonsense language is unbelievable.
Making this picture, says Meltzer, is a tremendous strain on Chaplin. He is no longer young, and he has to do everything: he is star, director, writer and producer. If Chaplin relaxes for a moment, the whole machine comes to a stop, for there is very little discipline. He is not the sort of man who inspires awe. He is wooing everybody; we are all his public. Even between shots, he feels that he must keep us amused. He sings snatches of imaginary Russian and Italian songs, imitates famous actors. While his voice is being played back, he strolls around, watching our faces. He is his own most anxious critic.
Meltzer told me that Chaplin bought some land in the valley, to shoot exteriors for the picture. But the permission of the neighbors had first to be obtained, and a bundist of German descent organized an opposition. Permission was refused. Chaplin, in revenge, threatens to present the land to the Okie migrant workers.
When the picture went into production, he got a lot of threatening letters, and became so morbid about them that he would even stop shooting when a plane flew overhead, imagining sabotage. Paulette Goddard gives him a lot of trouble, too. There are violent fights—during which everybody else has to leave the stage.
Chaplin came over to talk to us—strutting with his funny little cock-of-the-dunghill air, very erect in his stiff tight-collared uniform. His hair is dyed brown for the part, and this makes him still look almost boyish. Henry Daniell, who plays “Garbage,” joined us. We talked about the newly announced British draft—up to twenty-seven. Daniell said that no British actor in Hollywood wanted to go home, despite all the patriotism of the British colony before war was declared. Poor David Niven had been unwillingly propelled back to England by the momentum of his own publicity. “Thank God I’m fifty,” said Chaplin: “I’m prepared to sacrifice my last relative that democracy shall not die.” He laughed heartily, as he always does at his own jokes. This I find very sympathetic. Only the self-conscious humorist, the carefully built-up bogus personality, doesn’t laugh. Chaplin inhabits the element of humor. He is enjoying himself, not just being funny for a living. He is constantly experimenting. He burns with a kind of amateur eagerness. He is an amateur, in the best sense of the word.
It is odd how English Chaplin has remained, after all these years of Hollywood. Not merely that his accent is British. His gaiety and enthusiasm are of an English kind. It isn’t the gaiety of the British ruling class. He is still the cheeky, cocky East End boy.
January 3. This morning I woke up feeling terrible, after a night of violent dreams. Burning pains when I urinated and a slight discharge. I felt sure I’d got gonorrhea again, though I couldn’t imagine how. Or maybe it never was properly cured, last time.
I called Gerald, who advised me to go to his friend, Dr. Kolisch—also a pupil of the Swami. Dr. Kolisch is from Vienna. He has a bald, egg-shaped, agnostic head, with aggressively bushy eyebrows. Hi
s diagnosis is of the clairvoyant type: “Mm, yes … thirty-five years old. You have a lot of gas, don’t you? It wakes you up in the night—about two-thirty? And your memory’s not so good as it was? I thought so … You have pains in your left arm and around the shoulders—just here? No? They’ll come later. Acute fits of melancholy, of course? Yes …”
However, there was no trace of gonorrhea, chronic or otherwise. And Kolisch is very doubtful if I ever had it at all. He explained to me, in a nearly incomprehensible mixture of medical jargon, broken English and Viennese German, that some part of my nervous system is liable to “simulate” all kinds of symptoms—this being a peculiarity of my general condition. To hear him talk, you would think I was Oswald in [Ibsen’s] Ghosts; the ruined victim of debauched and degenerate ancestors. I couldn’t help smiling when I thought how this would infuriate M.
Kolisch examined me all over—heart, lungs, blood pressure, reflexes, eyes, teeth. “It amuses me,” he said: “I like to know my patients.” He despises specialists, who “know more and more about less and less.” I am to come again the day after tomorrow.
January 4. Lectured to an English class at the Beverly Hills High, on expressionist drama. The teachers were rather depressing—hanging on to Culture by their eyelids. The pupils, in their casual, friendly way, were quite responsive. You could catch their attention for about a quarter of a minute at a time. The girls are powdered and painted, elaborately dolled up. The boys dress like tramps—in a gaudy, ragbag assortment of sweatshirts, lumberjackets, jeans and cords. There is no discipline whatsoever, in the European sense. The lecturer is merely allowed, by courtesy, to speak a little louder than the class. But—having seen the beautifully planned classrooms, the wonderfully equipped theater, the swimming baths, the gymnasium and the library—one can’t help wondering; how long will this strange homage to education continue at all? The barbarian students are so much more vital than the culture they are supposed to be acquiring. This place is simply a temple to a dead religion. Study has become a cult, fossilized in ritual. Most of the questions they asked me were basically economic in interest. For example: “Can the theater compete with the movies?” When the bell rang, they stopped me instantly, by clapping.
Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1 Page 18
