Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1

by Christopher Isherwood

  I feel bored, sullen, resentful. Envious of Denny, who told me the other night in a bar, “I’ve decided to hold on to the things I can see.” Must I be the only one of my friends to follow this way of life? Well, that’s where Vernon comes in. If it works out.

  Sudhira came up here with Alfredo this morning. I didn’t know, until I saw her leaving. Maybe she wanted just to see me. I’d have run down the steps and waved—but Swami was there. Somehow, that stopped me; because it’s my day of silence, and he wouldn’t understand.

  Denny says he’s sure I’ll be out of here in six months.

  Something is sore in my left eyelid. I’m getting old: my hips are fat.

  3:30 p.m. Did half an hour in the shrine. Ate bread and honey, and peaches with sour cream. Outlook on life a little brighter, but still quite unconstructive. Swami is gay and excited, because they’ve found a big property on the Pacific Palisades which would do for the new center. It costs $35,000; but this amount can probably be raised by selling off the outer lots to various members of the congregation who want to build homes there.

  5:15. Just spent an hour in the temple. This much I have doped out: I would never leave Ivar Avenue on X.’s account.

  10:00 Finished vespers. Ate a sardine supper. Put in a final fifteen minutes, to make up seven hours. I feel a kind of stolid, forlorn satisfaction; nothing more. Terribly tired. I’m like a nursemaid who has been dragged around all day by a spoilt child, full of energy and whims and demands. The child is asleep at last; but he’ll be awake at crack of dawn and rarin’ to go. Oh God, I am so sick of him, and his complaints, and his damned love affair. He needs a sound whipping.

  June 14. Got up at 4:15 and did three hours in the shrine. Merely in order to have it over with, and be able to run away and play in Santa Monica.

  Before breakfast, in the living room, Swami said, “Take away God, and what is left? Ash cans!” Two other Prabhavananda sayings: “The shrimp is a kind of vegetable.” “Krishnamurti is transhient, I am etarnal.”

  When I got down to Entrada Drive, there was nobody at home. Denny was out on the beach. This happens quite often. Whenever I haven’t seen Denny for some time and find his apartment empty, I walk around it like a detective—alert for clues to his visitors and any new developments. Today, the place was very tidy: that must mean they had a big party and made such a mess that Denny couldn’t bear it and had to clean house. In the kitchen, a dirty plate with broken crackers and a bit of stinking camembert: that must be the fat boy who works at the garage. No new snapshots over the desk or postcards stuck in the mirror. The frame of the Picasso is a bit more chipped. A fight? An unfamiliar pair of trunks on the shower curtain rail above the bath tub: Johnny Goodwin must be here. On the whole, I’m satisfied. The indications are not alarming.

  June 15. At vespers, a sudden thought: a way of leaving this place without abandoning everything. Why couldn’t Vernon and I live together, somewhere in the neighborhood, not too much involved with Ivar Avenue but keeping all the rules? I hate the present setup, because my chief motive for abstaining from sex is merely guilt; and this is hypocritical, even when my conscience is clear. I must have a stricter check on my life than Swami. I need someone like Vernon—someone who’d have a stake in my life; so that my failures would be his failures, and vice versa. This worked for a short time with Denny, in 1941: we really relied upon each other. But Denny is now going along a different road. His discipline is all built on his studying, which I can’t share. Vernon is the only person who really needs me right now; and by the same token he’s the only person I really need. I wonder if Swami would understand? He must. I’ll make him, somehow.

  We have just heard definitely that the Pacific Palisades property is already sold.

  June 16. To see Sudhira at the Sabatos’. She is alarmingly sick, and the doctor doesn’t seem to know what’s the matter with her. She runs terrific temperatures and keeps lapsing into coma: her face turns quite blue. For a few minutes, I really thought she was going to die, right before my eyes. Then she recovered surprisingly, and talked quite logically for half an hour. Something is terribly wrong with her, but obviously it has nothing to do with the threatened cancer, and so, in a quite irrational way, I feel reassured.

  June 20. Tomorrow will be the longest day, but it’s still not real summer weather. There’s a breeze, and a coolness under the heat—like cold water seeping into a very hot bath.

  The page proofs of the Gita are corrected and it’s practically ready to print. Marcel Rodd is going to take over the distribution, and publish the next edition. (He used to keep the London Bookshop on Hollywood Boulevard: Denny worked there for a while last year. He’s a strange, pale, little shrimp of a man, with great dark eyes, full of a sort of sly, boyish impudence. He’s English—with Levantine blood; a Jew, I think. He makes Swami become much more oriental than usual: they meet, as it were, at a halfway house in the Near East, and sit bargaining and giggling, understanding each other perfectly. Marcel is a slippery customer, with a taste for pornography, but I think we shall be able to get along with him because he is terribly anxious to become a respectable publisher, and the Gita, with Aldous’s introduction, represents prestige.)

  Two days ago, I finished my draft of the movie story I’m writing with Aldous. Prater Violet will be ready, in its first draft, after four or five more working days. There is the usual stack of letters. And then I have to start thinking about a book of selections from Vivekananda’s writings. Calm. Don’t strain. Go quietly ahead. Do each job as it comes to hand. These jitters, this gnawing anxiety—they get you nowhere. You know how to stop them. And yet you daydream, smoke and idle. You chatter and spill what should be secret. You long for Santa Monica. You are so restless—for what? You don’t want X., really. I’m not sure you need Vernon, either. Only your weakness needs him. And the needs of weakness turn quickly into hatred. Grow like a tree, and let the birds come to you or stay away, as they feel inclined.

  June 21. Woke at 2:15, with a scalding sore throat. Tried to go into the temple, but someone had locked it. Today I’m feeling lousy.

  Now I feel sure I’m going to leave Ivar Avenue. The only question is—when? I feel sure I’m not going to be a member of the Ramakrishna Order, or any kind of monk, or anything outward. I’ve got to be C. Isherwood, and that’s that. The spiritual life has to turn inward completely. A rationalization? Certainly. But that’s the way things are going to be. Meanwhile watch and wait your chance.

  June 22. I still have a temperature. This is one of the bad spots. Sudhira tried to escape from the Sabatos’ this morning. She got her clothes on when no one was around, and slipped out of the house with a high fever. Alfredo caught her, and Swami saw her later and persuaded her to stay till she’s better. She said she wanted to go to her mother.

  A long talk with Kolisch. He believes that everybody who tries to lead the religious life is sure to get sick; it’s part of the process of renunciation, “dying to the world.” If you persist, you snap out of it again and your health improves. He may be a quack and a crank, but there’s something wonderful about him; a kind of calm strength. He sat on the bed, smiling and holding my pulse, and I began to feel better immediately.

  June 23. Denny and Johnny Goodwin visited me. They are planning to go to San Francisco—chiefly because of a very dreary intrigue involving one of Johnny’s friends. Denny, of course, was thoroughly enjoying himself, and I found myself laughing too. But why? All lies, all cheating, all disagreements are against our deepest human interests. They hurt us all. What is there to gloat over? Of course, my own motives are simple: if Denny goes away, I can move down into his apartment for a few days, and be alone with X. For what? What do I hope will happen? But the Ego doesn’t answer questions like that.

  Sudhira has been moved to the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. She fainted and fell, badly hurting her head. However, it seems that the possibility of cancer is definitely out. They’re afraid something may be wrong with her kidneys.

  June
30. I got back from Santa Monica yesterday, after spending four days.

  Denny called early this morning, having flown down from San Francisco last night and been landed in Palmdale because of the fog. He had a black eye, and his ribs are hurt. He got into a terrific drunken fight with a sailor, who knocked him out. The sailor was about to steal Denny’s billfold when he found the blood-donor’s card, and immediately became very remorseful and sentimental, because he had a buddy in the Pacific whose life was saved by a blood transfusion. So, instead, he helped Denny to a doctor.

  After breakfast, I went into Swami’s study and told him everything—all about my relations with X. Swami rose to the occasion, as he always does. “Once you have come to Ramakrishna, you will be taken care of,” he said: “I promise you that. Even if you eat mud, you will be all right.”

  I also told him about my plans for Vernon. I said we would want to live separately, maybe around the corner. Swami agreed to everything, but of course I can see he wants to get Vernon into the family, right from the start. He said, “I don’t want you to leave here, Chris. I want you to stay with me as long as I’m alive. I think you’d be all right, even if you left here. But I want you … I think you have the makings of a saint.”

  I laughed. I was really staggered. “No,” said Swami, “I mean it. You have devotion. You have the driving power. And you are sincere. What else is there?”

  July 4. Have been in bed again, with a temperature; my usual reaction to being fussed. Peggy came to see me, and suggested her usual remedy—for me to go up there and stay. Swami didn’t want this—so I didn’t go—largely because I didn’t specially want to, myself, and didn’t think it worth making an issue of. Peggy was offended, of course. She has decided that Swami dislikes her because she criticized the Gita, which is fantastic. But the fact remains that Swami does disapprove of her influence over me; I don’t quite know why—but maybe he’s right. I really shouldn’t run to these elder sisters, nannies and mummies. Dodie is different. I never cry on her shoulder and I never could. I think of her more as a colleague, another man, almost.

  Today I’m still tired and empty, and feel dry and depressed but stronger, because I’ve done some work. Vernon plans to arrive at the beginning of August, and that, at present, simply makes me feel weary. I have nothing for him—no strength, no encouragement. But that’s just a mood and will pass. It’s actually far better not to be too enthusiastic in advance.

  July 8. Sudhira has been here. She left this morning, to visit her mother. Last night she told me that, on the day she was moved to the Cedars of Lebanon, she took three cc’s of typhoid vaccine—thirty times the maximum dose. She figured it would kill her and no one would know it was suicide—she can’t understand why she didn’t die. Rabwin knows she did it; no one else.

  Later … I’ve just had a talk with Swami, alone. I told him that I feel so frustrated whenever there are any rules to follow. He said that there weren’t any rules; you were just to do what you felt you had to. I said I felt bothered by pujas. He said, well then, don’t come to them.

  He told me how tired he sometimes gets, and how badly he feels when he seems to lose all control over people. The only way he can help them is by prayer, and sometimes it appears not to work. They go “hay-weird,” as he calls it. He recommends japam, and talking about God, continually, to everybody—in whatever terms each one will accept. I do do this quite a lot, actually, with nearly all my friends, and it’s surprisingly easy and natural. You can express the same basic idea in terms of art, or science, or politics, or even sex. In fact, one never need talk about anything else.

  Denny, that sourest of all critics, refuses to be impressed when I tell him about Swami’s tolerance and open-mindedness. According to Denny, Swami is bound to accept me on any terms, because I’m so useful to the Vedanta Society as an editor and translator. I get very angry with him when he talks like this, and I think it’s utterly unjust to Swami. But the fact remains that he is much more lenient towards me than he is toward the others. I don’t think this proves anything either way, except that I’m much more tiresome and demanding. Maybe, also, that Swami realizes what a lot of karmas I dragged into Ivar Avenue out of the past. With Sarada, who’s young and has a real vocation, he can afford to be strict; and, in many ways, I think he’s fonder of her than of any of us. It’s really no compliment to be let off lightly: it merely means that I am too weak to be disciplined.

  July 10. My day of silence. Asit and I had late breakfast together, after my first session in the shrine room. Yogini came in and asked me questions which I answered with signs and written sentences on a scribbling pad. As usual, it turned into a game. Asit said, “If you shek your haid so vylently, you will injoor it.” I wrote, “That’s one thing you need never be afraid of,” and handed it to Yogini, who replied, “I take aspirin sometimes.” I wrote, “Show-off!” I record this conversation because it’s typical of the nicer aspect of my life in this house.

  The proofs of the Gita arrived. In the afternoon, Marcel Rodd called, and Swami had to release me from my silence, to discuss business. Rodd was much amused. I could see him thinking that religious people are all alike: God is forgotten as soon as there’s any money involved.

  Here’s a hymn to Ramakrishna—my latest effort to amuse the family. To the tune of “Bye, Bye, Blackbird.”

  There was a man lived in Bengal,

  He had no ego, none at all—

  Ramakrishna.

  Never wore a derby hat,

  Taught his devotees, “Thou art that”—

  Krishna, jai, jai!

  For he’d prayed and prayed and prayed so hard, he

  Kept on going right into samadhi.

  You could yell in his ear and tickle his toe

  And pull his beard, but he’d never know—

  Krishna, jai, jai!

  G. C. Ghosh192—he was no monk—

  Showed up one evening stinking drunk,

  So Ramakrishna

  Said, “Why waste dough on liquor, you fool,

  When the Bliss of God’s got a kick like a mule?”

  Krishna, jai, jai!

  In came Naren,193 as fresh as paint,

  Said, “My! your old superstitions are quaint!”

  Then Ramakrishna

  Put his foot on his chest and began to press

  Till the kid didn’t know his home address—

  Krishna, jai, jai!

  Keshab194 said, “I wish you’d been

  With me in London when I met the Queen,”

  But Ramakrishna

  Said, “Listen, old boy, and don’t get cross—

  I don’t have to meet her, ’cause I know her Boss—”

  Krishna, jai, jai!

  M.195 wrote down his words for publication,

  Now they’re read throughout the Hindu nation,

  And in fifty more years—we are such dopes—

  We’ll have built him a church, with priests and popes.

  Krishna, jai, jai!

  July 11. Drove out with Swami, Sister and Dr. Manchester for a land hunt on Palos Verdes. It was so beautiful there that I felt more depressed than ever. The dreadful hungry boredom of not being with the person you love. The name of a street, Hobart Avenue; and a phrase of Manchester’s to the house agent, “Now I’ll let Swami take over”—rang hollow with X.’s absence. The people we love illuminate whole territories by their presence: for them, the oleander has fragrance, the ocean shines. Without them, the sunlight is in vain. The house agent was very cagey: no, they had hardly anything—times were so uncertain—it would be too expensive, etc. etc. Then he took Manchester aside and murmured something, and Manchester shook his head violently. The house agent’s manner changed at once: well—after all, there were some excellent lots, a real bargain, just what we wanted. … Later, Manchester explained to us that he’d thought Swami was a Negro. An East Indian, of course, is altogether different; almost a white man. We all agreed that we didn’t want to have a center in a restricted
area.

  On the way home, I argued with Manchester (who is prissy and academic, and teaches English at Occidental College) and made stupid generalizations: “Whitman and Jefferson are the two greatest Americans” etc. etc.

  If Vernon doesn’t come, it will be necessary to invent him.

  Master—if Vernon isn’t to come, if our film story is not to be sold, if the X. situation is to continue—and I wouldn’t put it past you—then please, please dream up something else.

  July 27. Well, I finally finished the rough draft of Prater Violet three days ago. It’s very confused, but I feel that a jinx is broken. Seventy-four pages of writing! That’s a triumph in itself.

  Vernon wired today that he hopes to start Monday or Tuesday. Before this, he’d proposed waiting six months and earning some more money, but I told him not to bother. Was this a mistake? I don’t think so, but we shall see.

  Dhruva got hit by an automobile, and now limps around, enjoying Sister’s attentions. Today she told one of the girls, “Take Dhruva out into the garden, but be sure to bring him back in good time for the reading. He’d hate to miss that!”

  A woman named Meta Evans, who often comes up and helps with the laundry, was talking to a colored girl whom she knows. The girl asked who Meta worked for, and Meta, not wanting to go into a lot of explanations about Swami, said, “A minister.” How many children did he have, the girl asked. “Twelve,” said Meta. The girl was shocked: “Twelve! And him a minister!”

  July 30. Cycled to and from the Beesleys’. Alec tried to show me how to dive properly: I never straighten my legs. The charm of their garden, with the whole city spreading away into the hazy distance below. Talking literature and writing-shop to Dodie under the tree above the pool; the endless fun of playing with ideas. And Dodie, the ever-enthusiastic and encouraging, exclaiming, “Oh, write it, Chris!” More than anybody else, she has helped me struggle through Prater Violet. Every time we meet, she asks firmly, “How many pages?”