July 22. Thoeren wants to do a film about China: the migration of a university into the interior, to escape the Japs. Went up to his house to discuss it with him. Beautiful Mrs. Thoeren lurked in the background, embarrassed because she is so pregnant. She has an affected baby voice. Thoeren in shorts, hairy and fat. The patio of their house is lovely, with mimosa and great fruity cactus. But the brown hills all around, unwatered, awaiting the realtors, are ugly and dull. Below is the vast sprawling city—so dreary by day, so exciting and sparkling by night. Thoeren and I walked a little way along the ridge. Under a bush lay a pair of blue silk panties, stained and looking very forlorn. “A complete short story,” said Robert. On the way back, we found a colony of red ants. One of them stung me, very painfully, raising a lump on my thigh.
I mentioned the red ant to Miss Whelan, the ladylike nurse at Dr. Kolisch’s, adding that I should have whipped off my trousers immediately, if Mrs. Thoeren hadn’t been present, and drawing the moral that the conventions are stronger than our fear of being poisoned. “As far as I’m concerned,” said Miss Whelan primly, “I never notice if someone has his pants on or not.”
Hugh Chisholm took me to dinner at the Dietz house. Constance Bennett was there. She is the old-fashioned sort of film star—languid, overdressed, foulmouthed, “a good sort”—if you keep on the right side of her. The thin, anxious hands so much older than the pouting, blue-eyed baby face. “Well, I’ll be Goddamned,” she kept repeating.
But she was very amusing, telling stories about Mrs. Patrick Campbell, who came out to Hollywood at the very end of her career, when she was old and forgotten, and fought everybody who tried to help her: “‘The Fighting Téméraire’ firing on her rescuers.”74 At the end of a dull party, she wrote in the visitors’ book: “Quoth the raven—” On hearing that a friend had been buried in a casket which cost five thousand dollars, she said: “From what I know of B—, he’d much rather have been given the five thousand and been buried in a brown paper bag.”
July 23. Lunch with Gerald. He told me how eager he is for death. His greatest temptation is suicide. He gets so weary of the Ego, perpetually teasing him with questions when he is meditating, like Baby Snooks:75 “Look at that fly on the ceiling. Shall we kill it? There’s Chris [Wood]—playing that tune again. Chris has a new car. He hasn’t asked us to ride in it yet. Why hasn’t he asked us to ride in it?” and so on. When Gerald is doing these imitations, his face is quite indescribable. He seems actually to become a tiresome, inquisitive little subhuman being, poking out his nose, screwing up one eye, twisting sideways in his chair. We talked about Chris, Daily and the Swami. Gerald says that Daily appeals to Chris’s childhood fantasies of being a criminal. He doesn’t think that Chris will remain impressed by Daily for long, however, because Chris demands a faultless hero. As soon as he meets anybody he respects, he begins looking for the weak spot. I am glad to say that this isn’t one of my own difficulties. In fact, the process works the other way around: it is only when I have laid my finger on the weak spot that I can really admire anybody. Gerald is, as far as I’m concerned, simply a means to knowledge; and I love him because he’s imperfect, because he’s still struggling with quite glaring faults. I’ve even felt much more at ease with the Swami since I noticed his flashy shoes.
Dined with the Huxleys at Anita Loos’s house on the beach—to discuss Lady Chatterley. We didn’t get very far; but it’s clear that Clifford and Mellors must somehow be given symbolic stature, they must clearly represent different points of view—as they do in the Lawrence novel—otherwise it’s just a dirty little intrigue.
Anita had knitted a “peter heater” to send to Adele Astaire76 in England, to cheer her up. It is a kind of woollen glove for the sex organs, suitably tipped with red. With it, go instructions: “The Peter Heater, knitted by an old maid—from memory. Before having a party, remove the heater, or you might become the father of a rag doll. Do not starch the heater—as you will only be fooling yourself.”
Ray Goetz77 was there. He is immensely fat, and very sympathetic, because he loves Anita so dearly. He had bought her and Maria little pots of syrup, in which were fish and water plants cut out of orange peel and cinnamon. On leaving, he asked wistfully: “Are you tired, dear?” Anita said she was. He kissed her on the cheek, and she submitted like a little girl being kissed by her uncle. She wore a startling red dress, with a white draped shawl and a clasp on the shoulder inscribed, “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.”
July 24. Down to RKO to see Stevenson, that smiling young renaissance cardinal, and Lipscomb,78 the actor-cricketer. We discussed the final details of the horror story for the British Relief picture.
In the afternoon, I lay on the beach among the crowd. The old lady telling her sister what the rabbi said about her talented grandson; the youths bribing their kid brother with a candy bar to ask an attractive girl the time; the boys turning somersaults with an inner tube as a springboard, watched admiringly by an elderly man and his wife; the handball players, jostling and cursing; the lifeguard’s Newfoundland dog; the Japanese brothers wrestling, with vague, oriental smiles; Nellie, who keeps the hot-dog stand and was born in Sheffield; the kids with their tough talk: “Aw—what the heck. Park the junk here.” No one is excluded. We are all welcome to the sunshine, and the dirty ocean with its dazzling surf, full of seaweed and last night’s discarded rubbers.
Dinner with van Druten. Johnny says he feels that he will soon come to the end of his writing. He would like to do something about the spiritual life, but is held back by financial responsibilities, to Carter and Auriol Lee. He will find it very difficult, I think. His Christian Science has reduced him to a state of the most dangerous, woolly optimism. Carter’s astrology hasn’t helped, either. And the theatrical world keeps wooing him back with deadly, flattering smiles. It is easier for a hardened criminal than for a thoroughly nice, harmless, well-meaning man to enter the kingdom of God. Like me, Johnny is soft.
July 25. Worked all day writing an outline of our murder story for Stevenson.
To the Swami’s class in the evening, by myself. One very smartly dressed lady, who looked as if she’d arrived to attend a charity garden party, came in and began whispering to her neighbor with an English accent. Suddenly becoming aware of disapproving glances, she exclaimed: “Oh dear—is this a moment of meditation?”
The Swami began by defining immortality. It does not mean mere continued existence. That we shall have anyway, pleasantly or unpleasantly, according to our life on earth. Immortality means getting beyond time and causation. The Ego is an effect of the Self working on the chitta (the mind-stuff). When the Ego is dissolved, the Self is freed from the chitta. If this happens during mortal life, then the body returns to its elements at death and the Self is free. But, if freedom is not attained, the Self has to carry its bundle of desires and fears into other lives and other worlds. The free Self is finally absorbed into the Universal Self, beyond time. Certain great souls decide not to become absorbed. They return to the earth as teachers. Ramakrishna once asked Vivekananda what he wanted most. Vivekananda replied that he wanted to attain the higher samadhi and become one with God. Ramakrishna exclaimed: “Shame on you! I thought you were greater than that!” And he told Vivekananda that he would “lock the door and keep the key.” By this he meant that Vivekananda should return to the world and teach. In order to teach, you must have a measure of ignorance. Otherwise—seeing God in every human being and in yourself—you would be unable either to teach or to learn.
Someone mentioned the Holy Ghost. The Swami was asked to explain It, and said that he couldn’t, he wasn’t a Christian. So everybody present had a try, and the difference in our definitions was a sufficient comment on the muddle of Christian theology. To every suggestion, the Swami replied: “No—that is too far-fetch-ed.” At last he sent one of the girls out for Webster’s Dictionary. Some of the class were quite scandalized. “You won’t find it there,” they told him. But the Swami was quite confident. “Webster’s Dict
ionary can tell you everything.” He was wrong, however. Webster said only: “Comforter, Paraclete.” The Swami promised to “ask Mr. Hard.” He seems to have great confidence in Gerald.
July 28. This morning, Gerald told me a story, about a Quaker. He was visited by a prominent English government official who was rapidly becoming a confirmed drunkard and wanted to be cured. The Quaker said: “I won’t ask you to stop drinking, but you must promise to come and tell me each time you do it.” For a while, the drunkard drank and confessed, getting more and more discouraged. At last, he came to the Quaker and asked to be released from his promise. The Quaker refused. The drunkard went away in a desperate state and didn’t show up again for a year. When the Quaker saw him next, he was completely cured. The promise had done it.
Gerald had come down with me to the Hunters’ church, to hear Dr. Fritz Kunkel79 preach. A plump little man, with a German accent and only one arm. His lavish gestures and mixed metaphors reminded me of Berthold. He compared the young, inexperienced, “classic” type of human being to a giant sequoia. When life begins to educate the human being by suffering, the sequoia is inverted through the lens of experience and becomes “gothic.” In order to have the true perspective, you must see both images—gothic and classic. I suppose this meant something very profound—Kunkel is obviously intelligent and sincere—but listening to him made me feel that I mustn’t listen to too many lectures. If I sit at the feet of a lot of different masters, I shall be aware only of their mannerisms, and waste my time in an Athenian craze for novelty. I had better stick to yoga and the Swami, and not attempt too big a synthesis.
Drove Gerald to lunch with the Rodakiewiczs. Chris was there and Vernon came in later. I always feel happy in their house. Derek was jumping about screaming for recognition—he had cut his lip boxing with Ben and now wouldn’t be able to eat salad dressing, which he hates. Welmoet, as usual, was sisterly and possessive with Vernon, bossing him around. The boys say that she has fallen for a waiter at the Colonial Drive-In on the Sunset Strip. When Vernon and I played badminton, the family backed me, because Vernon is regarded as one of themselves.
Am reading Lawrence and Brett.80 What a horrifying book! The sudden screaming quarrels, the hate, the sulks. No wonder they all suffered from poisoning and feverish colds. Lawrence becoming religiously ecstatic over a hummingbird one minute, chopping off the head of a hen (because it wouldn’t stop brooding) the next.
July 29. Terrific Nazi air raids on Dover.
Went to see the Swami. He told me to meditate on the real Self. “Imagine that there is a cavity within you. In the middle of this cavity there is a throne, in the form of a red lotus. In the middle of the lotus, a golden light is burning. Approach this light and say, ‘Oh Self, reveal Yourself to me.’”
My imagination revolts from this: it sounds like a stage scene at the Radio City Music Hall. But I shall try to do it. I have put myself into the Swami’s hands and I must follow his instructions, just as I follow Dr. Kolisch’s. We always want to choose our own medicine. A rose, for example, wouldn’t seem nearly so silly to me. But perhaps the lotus is better, just because I don’t like it. A very subtle aversion is mixed up with this question. Maybe, even, a certain racial snobbery, against anything Indian. For me, one of the most significant things in the Old Testament is the story of Elisha and Naaman. “Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean?”81
July 31. Lunch at the Huxleys’. Aldous told me he is stuck in his novel. Advised him to start a journal. He said he thought he would. He joked about the Mann family—he’d been dining there. The German cult of the “Poet-Prince,” coupled with a terrific appetite for food.
He also talked about meditation, said he couldn’t see the use of Ramakrishna’s painstaking efforts to conjure up the various gods and divine incarnations. Krishnamurti (whose teaching is much more to Aldous’s taste) never meditates on objects. He even believes that it may lead to insanity. Aldous seems to think Ramakrishna himself was a borderline case. He is particularly shocked by the story of how Ramakrishna dressed up as a woman, because he thought of his attitude to God as that of a loving wife. This conversation disturbed me very much. Suppose Gerald is barking up the wrong tree? But I’m also well aware that these doubts are not quite candid; they are being promoted by the Ego as part of its sabotage effort.
With Vernon to dinner at the Chisholms’. Bridget and Vernon began talking New York scandal, and listing “the nastiest people in the world.” This kind of chatter degrades everybody who touches it. I felt deeply ashamed for both of them, and ashamed of myself, because I’ve so often talked in exactly the same way. How hard and vulgar their voices sounded; and yet Bridget is really sweet tempered and gentle. Left as soon as possible.
August 1. Woke in a muddled state, with cramps in the back. A feeling of complete bewilderment, as though I had lost the thread of life. I could no longer remember even the intellectual reasons why one should believe God exists, or try to be good. Meditation seemed longer than ever before.
Drove out to the airport to meet Wystan, who is paying us a flying visit. His plane was delayed and didn’t arrive till the early evening. Wystan began questioning me at once about Kolisch. The idea of a diet shocks him profoundly. He would rather see me take to dope than become a vegetarian.
Returned home to find Metro rang up. I’m to go back to work tomorrow. I feel very disgusted.
August 2. To Metro, to report. I’m to start right away on a picture for Victor Saville. A remake of a Swedish film called A Woman’s Face. Ingrid Bergman played it originally. This is for Joan Crawford. They want it in three weeks. Lesser Samuels, a fat, unhappy-looking man, is writing the screenplay already, and has nearly finished. I’m just to polish the dialogue.
Lunch with Salka. She told me that Garbo is terrified of cancer. Her sister died of it.
A row in the afternoon between Saville and Samuels: two fat men shouting at each other without the least intention of physical violence. Later, Saville was apologetic. He said: “I’m a man of quick decisions.”
Wystan, Vernon and I dined at the Huxleys’. Far too many people, as usual. Maria added our handprints to her remarkable collection. The crazy hand of Robert Nichols82—like the bed of a dried-up salt lake, cracked in every direction.
August 3. At the Broox Randall office, when I went to pay the car insurance, they told me that more people have taken out earthquake policies during the past week than normally during an entire year. Someone has predicted a big earthquake for tomorrow, either here or in Japan.
Drove Wystan up to Palos Verdes for tea. “No one can be a pacifist,” he said, “who isn’t trying to live Gerald’s life. The truth is, I want to kill people.” If the U.S. gets into war, he’ll let himself be drafted. As for going to England, he’ll leave that to the authorities. If he’s called, he’ll go. But, like me, he’s taken out his citizenship papers.
Wystan is suspicious of Gerald’s ideas, because Gerald thinks Time is evil. Wystan likes Time, and the material world—at any rate, his corner of it. “I’m not going to go about pretending I’m unhappy here. I’m very happy indeed.” But I noticed that he said this rather aggressively, as if to reassure himself. I am quite sure that he is very homesick for England.
He has a whole new lingo of Christian theology, very abstruse. He said how much he disliked Sanskrit words. I told him I feel just the opposite. Wystan says that some basis of belief is particularly necessary in America, where no one has any roots.
August 7. Wystan left today. It has been an unsatisfactory visit: we’ve had hardly any time for a proper talk. In any case, we are both too much disturbed to be able to talk properly. We have agreed to do nothing about going to England without consulting each other first.
Toiled all day long at the script. Then to Kolisch’s, and dinner at Perino’s—simply because it is near his office, we often eat there: a stupidly expensive meal, which might as well be at a drugstore
as far as I’m concerned. Kolisch has made it impossible for me to enjoy my food. Vernon is as miserable as I am, but he imagines all will be well if we own a house, bees, a violin, a phonograph, a python, two dogs and two bathrooms.
August 8. Saw [Hans] Rameau at the studio today. He is having an affair with Marlene Dietrich. Nothing could be more autohypnotic. He bulges with pride. The slogan is “Garbo next.”
August 9. To see the Swami. Sat in the temple while he and several of the “holy women” who live there finished their evening rites. The bottoms of the women were enormous, as they bowed down to adore. Could concentrate on nothing else.
The Swami called me into his study afterwards. He gave me new and much more elaborate instructions:
First, I am to think of people all over the world—all kinds of people, at all kinds of occupations. In each one of them, and in all matter, is this Reality, this Atman, which is also inside myself. And what is “myself”? Am I my body? Am I my mind? Am I my thoughts? What can I find inside myself which is eternal? Let me examine my thoughts and see how they reflect this Reality—for I can only know it by its reflection. And now let me think of this Reality as seated in the top of my head, throned in a white lotus. I am infinite existence, infinite knowledge, infinite happiness. Finally, I approach the red lotus, in the heart. I look into this chamber, in which the light is burning. I say: “Reveal yourself to me.”
Dinner with Gerald. He is rather worried about Wystan’s new activities. “I’ve no use for theology,” he said, “if it can’t produce saints.”
August 10. Took Bud Bayley out to dinner at Chasen’s. It was supposed to be a tremendous treat for him. Mrs. Bayley has been building it up for days: she supervised his dressing this evening as if he were going to meet the president. I’m afraid he was badly disappointed. We ate snails. Bud told me his great ambition—to start a phonograph shop, where people can gather and form a little nucleus of culture. He was very enthusiastic and touching, and kept apologizing for using the wrong words. I wanted so much to give him something—some little gift out of my experience; but there was nothing I could find to say. And Bud waited devoutly all evening for the Word that wasn’t spoken. I felt such a horrible old fake.
Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1 Page 24
