Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1

by Christopher Isherwood

  1941

  January 1. I must really try to keep this journal more regularly. It will be invaluable to me if I do. Because this year is going to be one of the most decisive periods of the twentieth century—and even the doings and thoughts of the most remote and obscure people will reflect the image of its events.

  That’s a hell of a paragraph to start off with. Why are we all so pompous on New Year’s Day? Come off it—you’re not Hitler or Churchill. Nobody called on you to make a statement. As a matter of fact, what did you actually do?

  Last night, you went up to see Tony Bower and Chris Wood and Dwight Ripley.85 They were rather drunk. Dwight and Tony were preparing for a bar crawl. You talked to Tony’s half sister, Jean, about Al Mannheimer, whom she likes, but who fails to kiss her, although he often stays till four a.m. Then you went on to the temple, where the Swami, wrapped in a blanket, read aloud from the sayings of Ramakrishna, the Vedas and the Bible, until a quarter past midnight. Then you came home and couldn’t sleep, so you reread most of Wells’s First Men in the Moon. In the morning you meditated for an hour, not very successfully, then had breakfast, wrote to your mother and balanced your accounts. Vernon slept till one. He had been out all night. You discovered that a big tooth had split in half and would have to be extracted. In the afternoon, you drove with Vernon up to Mount Wilson. There were crowds of cars on the roads, and you squabbled most of the way, and it was cold, and the telescopes weren’t on view. You came back and had early supper at A Bit of Sweden, and Vernon played the violin, and you read a translation of Rilke’s Malte Laurids Brigge, and then you went to bed without doing an evening sit.

  Nearly everybody is now convinced that we shall be “in it” very soon. Being “in it” is envisaged as sending munitions, planes (with or without fliers) and warships (with or without crews). But the government still insists that, “Not one American boy shall ever—etc.” Just exactly how the war is to be won is a question they leave carefully vague. Is it still seriously supposed that the Germans will revolt? Tom Treanor (whom I trust merely because I like his face, and because he’s not a professional war correspondent) writes from Belgrade that even non-Nazis are behind the regime. They feel they must support Hitler, despite the defects in his system and despite his own political record. Many Englishmen feel the same way about Churchill. In a war, there are two sides. On each, the mass of average decent people deplore the bad characteristics of their regime, and decide, nevertheless, to cooperate with it, because of the worse characteristics of the opposing regime. Aerial bombardment cements this cooperation.

  War is only possible because people lack imagination and charity, and are so morally lazy that they prefer compromise with the lesser evil to the absolutes of right and wrong dictated by their own consciences. If one country is overthrown by force or overrun without resistance, it then becomes a question which way of life is spiritually stronger—that of the conquerors, or that of the conquered. People, on the whole, are ready to sacrifice their bodies in war, but most of them lack the other kind of courage—the courage by which the spirit survives—because they haven’t been trained to it. Here, yoga comes in. It offers a technique of spiritual training. Pacifist propaganda is useless in itself, a mere political gesture, and an ineffective one. You can’t make propaganda for the spiritual values. You can only demonstrate them by being. And you can only make such a demonstration after you have been properly trained. No use rushing unarmed into the struggle and trusting to luck. Gerald and the Swami are so right about this. “At the moment of action, no man is free.” Why do we fool ourselves that we can suddenly behave like heroes and saints after a lifetime of cowardly thinking, daydreaming and hate? The acts of 1941 will be the thoughts of the past ten years.

  January 2. The day went pretty well at the studio. Managed to read some of Vivekananda’s book on jnana yoga, the discipline of discrimination. “The Real Nature of Man” is one of his best lectures. Even to read it gives you something personal, a contact.

  We are now working on the last scenes of the picture. Van Dyke goes back to his marines at the weekend, and Gottfried will have to find another director.

  (Gottfried had a tough time with Rage in Heaven. Sinclair started to direct it but had to be taken off. He was weak and undecided, and utterly unable to handle Robert Montgomery. Montgomery sulked from the beginning. He disliked the script—chiefly, I think, because Gottfried hadn’t invited him to sit in on our story conferences. This was a pity, anyway, quite aside from tactical considerations: Lesser Samuels told me that Montgomery had a lot of helpful ideas when they were working on The Earl of Chicago. I urged Gottfried to consult him, but for some reason he wouldn’t.

  When the front office ordered Montgomery to play in the picture, on pain of suspension, he became sullen, snooty and obstructive. He did all his scenes deadpan, speaking in a dull, weary voice. When Sinclair tried to remonstrate with him, he snapped back: “What do you expect me to do? Chew up the scenery?” Finally, Arnold, the president of the Actors’ Guild, was called in to see the rushes. His verdict was, “Sure, that son of a bitch is sabotaging you, but you’d have a hard job pinning it on him legally.” Gottfried wanted to release Montgomery from his role, but the front office was mad by this time and insisted that he stay, even if the picture could never be shown.

  Meanwhile, “Woody” Van Dyke was called in. Van Dyke was one of those hard-drinking, melodramatic Hollywood “characters.” He had been down in San Diego, having just rejoined the marines, in which he was a reserve officer. He returned to us on leave, with all the glamor and authority of the military machine behind him. We all felt relieved. It was as though a dictatorship had been declared. We were certain Van Dyke would be able to handle Montgomery, but, actually, he didn’t do much better than Sinclair. He directed about half of the picture, at top speed, as though it were farce, and then returned to his barracks.

  So we switched to a third director, Dick Thorpe. Thorpe was very relaxed, slow-spoken and easygoing: he always worked with his hat on. He had directed Night Must Fall, and Montgomery liked him: he even used to come and sit on Thorpe’s lap. However, his performance didn’t improve. After the sneak preview, we had to have a lot of retakes. Thoeren and I had the idea of writing in a scene in which the psychiatrist, describing Montgomery, says: “At first, you might think he is quite normal, quite sane. But, if you watch him carefully, you’ll notice things—a curious lack of expression in the face, a tonelessness in the voice, an air of listless fatigue—” This speech served a double purpose. It explained away Montgomery’s bad performance and made it seem deliberate. (So effectively that many people told me they thought his underacting was simply brilliant.) And it was our private message to Montgomery himself. It told him exactly what we thought of him. The picture was actually quite a fair success. As Gottfried put it, “We escaped with a black eye.”

  The psychiatrist was played by Oscar Homolka. It was a small part, but he developed it into a one-man circus. He is the most outrageous of all hams. In one scene, with Ingrid Bergman, he had an umbrella. He handled it in such a way that it filled the entire set. Whenever Bergman had a speech, Homolka would contrive to get the umbrella between her and the camera. Once, he opened it and drove her right off the stage.

  But Bergman could take care of herself. She was good-humored throughout, but severely professional. She studied her lines comma by comma, with unsmiling Swedish thoroughness, and always demanded some little change. I used to look into her dressing room every day and ask, “Any complaints, Miss Bergman?” She had an elocution teacher, with whom she worked whenever she wasn’t actually on the set. The moment a scene was finished, she walked away into a corner, murmuring “oo, ee, ah, ay, eu.”

  She wasn’t beautiful like Garbo, but she was radiantly appetizing. When she appeared, everybody brightened. Her presence was like breakfast on a sunny morning—a clean tablecloth, freshly made coffee, rich cream, deliciously crisp toast. I was absolutely fascinated by her. I hung around her like a high
-school boy, gaping. The fat, thick-necked movie men came into her dressing room and tried to treat her like any other young actress. They called her “baby” and pinched her fanny. She laughed—but it was like pinching the Venus de Milo. They merely looked silly.

  George Sanders was the most human of the cast. He asked riddles, made foolish jokes, and read a German book on sexual science in his dressing room. At Christmastime, he told us, he had been much perplexed, “wondering what to give my three mistresses.”

  I had a secretary named Joan Keating—a homely sunburnt girl of whom I’d become quite fond. We used to hang out of the window of my office, discussing the boys who went past and arguing as to which of them was the most attractive. (Later, Joan got herself a very nice and extremely goodlooking husband.) At this time, she fell violently in love with George Sanders. So Thoeren and I promised to get her his autograph. She was very embarrassed, and made us promise not to tell Sanders who had asked for it. Thoeren had an idea. Just before a scene was to be shot, he said to Sanders, “George—I’ve got a new game. I’m going to tell your fortune. All you have to do is to sign your name … Miss Keating, will you please lend us your script?” Rather mystified, Sanders signed, and, before he could ask what it was all about, Thorpe called him onto the set. By the time the scene was finished, Sanders had forgotten all about “the game.” Joan tore out the signed page of the script and framed it. Later, when we told Sanders the story, he gave her a signed photograph as well—but the trick was typical of Thoeren’s love of mystery. By now, he and I had become firm friends.

  The weeks we spent on the stage, shooting the picture, were the happiest of my time at Metro. In a minor capacity, I was able to indulge my frustrated desire to be a movie director. I would far rather direct films than write them—and I shall always secretly believe that I could. On one occasion, I actually saved the studio a good deal of money. Snooping around the next day’s set, one evening, I discovered what nobody else had noticed—that it would be physically impossible to play the scene on it as written. The doors were all in the wrong places. I forget whether we altered the scene or the doors—but I felt very pleased with myself.)

  M. just sent me a pamphlet by Forster, called Nordic Twilight. It makes me sad to see Morgan writing this kind of thing. Not that it isn’t decent and frank and honorable. He begins, “This pamphlet is propaganda. I believe that if the Nazis won they would destroy our civilization. I want to say why I think this …” And he goes on to describe how Hitler suppressed “decadent art,” burned the books and is now ruthlessly interfering with the cultural life of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, etc.—which is all very true.

  But what is this “civilization”? For Morgan, it means the right to freedom of self-expression. “To feel free is not enough. It may be enough for the mystic, who can function alone and can shut himself up and concentrate even in a concentration camp. The writer, the artist, needs something more: freedom to tell other people what he is feeling.”

  Morgan fully admits that this self-expression may take political forms; yet he seems amazed that it should be countered by political means, i.e., violence. Talking and writing, like any other acts, produce results in the external world. It is absurd to be surprised by this fact. You can’t just plump for irresponsible, anarchic freedom of expression, and then sit back and say you are “civilized.” The communists, at least, don’t make this mistake. It is the classic fallacy of liberalism.

  Certainly, life would be ten thousand times worse under the Nazis. Churchill, from his point of view, is absolutely right when he says this, and absolutely right to fight Hitler. But from Morgan, our philosopher, we expect something more. Somebody, in the midst of this turmoil, has got to keep his head, preserve his judgment, and see the war as a whole, as a tragedy for which we are all responsible.

  There are plenty of people able and willing to sound the call to battle. To stand up for the half-truths and the relative values. To preach the doctrine of the Lesser Evil. That is not Forster’s function. He may fire an anti-aircraft gun, if he likes, to protect his house and his old mother, but he has no business to “take sides” in the ordinary sense. He must see this war more disinterestedly, more completely. If he doesn’t, if the few people like him don’t, then “civilization” is lost, no matter what the outcome. A country is no better than its philosophers. Usually, it is far, far worse. But a philosopher has his duty. Most of all at a time when he is unlikely to be listened to.

  Dear Morgan, how can you write, “‘Cracow’ has become for me the symbol of Nazi bullying on the continent, and I can hardly see the name without trembling with rage?” I should like to read aloud to you the scene from Howards End, when the boy dies of heart failure and Miss Avery comes out of the house with the sword. It was you who taught us the futility of hate.

  When “peace” returns, let me never again forget that suffering is always with us. This war is not unique. During the gayest periods of my life, people were being killed and starving and dying in agony. When you are personally involved, don’t be provincial and exclaim, “This is the Big Thing!” That kind of talk is for journalists and businessmen, who rate the bombing of London above the bombing of Chungking because the real estate is more highly insured.

  January 5. To the temple. The Swami lectured on the universality of religion, against sects and fanaticism. Today, he looked very young, and sounded vigorous and political. I could picture him in the days before he joined the monastery, as a young student agitator and terrorist, fighting for a free India. He kept thumping his fist on the pulpit. As usual, he worked in a little nationalism—the Hindus were tolerant, the Christians and Mohammedans were not.

  Lunch with the Chisholms. Bridget looked beautiful, pale and slim again, and somehow mysterious, like Mother Earth. We went in to see the baby. It was screaming desperately, in spasms, and plucking frantically at its mouth, as if fighting to express something—and it couldn’t, it couldn’t. The effort was almost as painful to watch as a death agony. Such a bitter struggle at the beginning of life. Such a superhuman effort: one can’t believe that this little wrinkled crimson creature will survive it. But it forces its way, on and on, grimly, into time-consciousness—fighting and resting and fighting again. We stood awed and silent at the foot of the bed, unable to help—till the lady nurse bustled in, exclaiming, “Isn’t he cute? Isn’t he? And doesn’t he want his milk? I’ll say he does!”

  Then Hugh entered, fresh and dapper from his bath. He looked so ridiculous—the absurd little rooster who had graciously donated his valuable semen for this creative act. Bridget said she’d been told that male sperm and female ovaries can now be introduced into the body of another woman, who will then be able to bear the child. Under these circumstances, the child still inherits everything from its parents, not the foster mother. We imagined a society lady introducing “Miss Jones—our carrier.” And Miss Jones would refer casually to her clientele: “Last spring, when I was carrying for the Duchess of Devonshire …”

  To Gottfried’s in the afternoon. He wanted to finish off a scene. Salka came in, in tears. Peter has just given her a note—to avoid discussion—saying that he has absolutely made up his mind to leave for Canada in five days and enlist in the anti-aircraft ambulance unit. Salka is determined to stop him—if necessary, by informing the border police that Peter is still a minor, and goes without her consent. Gottfried tried to persuade her to be more cunning—to appeal to sentiment, to point out that he is the future breadwinner of the family, etc. etc. But Salka’s Polish blood is up. She is going to make a big row.

  Poor Peter is the hero-victim of the refugees here. For their hate, he must risk his life. Bruno Frank will approve—and all the other old war-horses who fight Hitler from Beverly Hills. Of course, it’ll probably all end happily—Peter will have some exciting adventures in the best Hemingway manner, and come home to be our best postwar novelist. But that doesn’t make the others less guilty.

  Again I ask myself: should I go, too? The answer, afte
r these last months, is much more decidedly, No. I’ve chosen to solve my problems here. And here I must stay. I wish I could get into that C.O. camp at once. Then everything would be simple and clear.

  (The C.O. camp was the Civilian Public Service camp at Tanbark Flats—usually called the San Dimas camp. It had belonged to the Forestry Service and was used by the C.C.C.86 boys. Then, when the draft started, they moved conscientious objectors into it, under the supervision of the Forest Rangers. Their job was to fight fires and work on various forestry projects. I made up my mind to go there as a volunteer, as soon as it opened. Why? Chiefly because I wanted to commit myself to the C.O. position, on which I had now definitely decided. Although I was over draft age, I felt pretty sure I’d be called in the event of war. If you can volunteer for the armed forces, I argued, then why not for civilian public service?

  But I had another motive, also. I wanted to put an end to the life I was leading. I knew that Vernon and I had to separate; but I could only imagine myself doing this if I forced my own hand.)

  January 6. Sometimes I feel that my whole day depends on the first ten minutes after I wake up. Which kinds of waves will first break the surface of undifferentiated consciousness? The war, resentment against Vernon, my health, the studio, the weather—anxiety, resentment, depression—they wait just outside the illuminated field of thought, ready to move in and impose their ugly, vulgar little pattern, the pattern of the day. But suppose one puts some other arrangement of one’s own, consciously, in the middle of the field? Then they cannot combine.