Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1

by Christopher Isherwood

  Impressions of Bermuda: The number of churches. The beauty of old weather-stained red walls. The unbecoming length of the shorts. The accent—neither quite British nor American. The bicycles with engines on the front wheel. The absence of U.S. advertising. The friendliness and good looks of the Negroes. The large number of houses one would love to live in, overlooking the sea. The sense of the past is much stronger than I had expected; and yet, perhaps, there is an ultimate smugness, a boring, insipid atmosphere of a “model colony” which would become tiresome—if one stayed long, or wasn’t with someone one was fond of. As I am not, and am—I’m not really conscious of this however.

  March 22. It still warbles on, this daydream experience, like the very best of Mozart. La-de-da-da-da, la-de-da. After all, it is possible, under optimum conditions, and within a time limit, for human beings to behave like angels.

  The roofs of the houses here are covered with lime, to purify the rainwater as it runs off them into the tanks.

  The Guinness house, with his83 collection of music boxes. Kate Sadler, the girl who played in Burgess Meredith’s production of The Playboy of the Western World, thought they were babies’ coffins. (Later we found out that some of them were: Guinness had had them converted.)

  March 24. Thurber, whom we met last night. Very tall, handsome, white haired, with a single black streak, due, he thinks, to shots of vitamin B1, after a nervous breakdown. He is so nearly blind that he sees only the flame of a match or a cigarette lighter; but he gives none of the impression of blindness. He talks, drinks, eagerly—and is full of anecdotes.

  Well, we’re off this afternoon. I’ll have more to say about this trip later, perhaps. Right now, I don’t know what I feel. I move blindly into the future. This island—including the cove where we swam, with its blighted cedar woods and dried Portuguese man-of-war—is only a token, or symbol of experience. What I need, I suppose, more than anything, are long long periods of meditation. Slowly, I have to calm myself.

  Even if Sam were a toad-headed, hateful fiend; even if it had rained; even if I had been bored to death—I should still owe him one huge debt of gratitude, because I have restarted my novel here. Work, calm, self-purification. A new try—and always with humility and gratitude. Stop defining your relationships. That’s for Art, not Life.

  Oh Lord, help me to wake from this extraordinary dream. For it is a dream. That much I know. That’s all I know.

  May 12. From the Inferno:

  “Tristi fummo

  nell’ aer dolce che dal sol s’allegra,

  portando dentro accidioso fummo;

  or ci attristiam nella belletta negra.” (vii. 121–24)

  and:

  chè non è impresa da pigliare a gabbo

  descriver fondo a tutto l’universo,

  nè da lingua che chiami mamma e babbo. (xxxii. 7–9)84

  At Trabuco. I’ve been here since the 4th and plan to stay till the 21st. The Patanjali aphorisms are practically finished. Now I’m trying to finish part one of my novel before I leave here.

  I feel very calm and in a way unwilling to leave this place. But I don’t consider seriously for a moment the idea of becoming a monk again. I don’t consider anything except getting my novel done. My only worries are connected with money—how much must I set aside for income tax?—and what is to be done with Sam Costidy. But I must just wait for these problems to solve themselves.

  “Six individualists,” is how John [Schenkel] describes this group, “all going different ways.” Yet they’re wonderfully harmonious on the whole, and all likable. I’m fond of Mike and am becoming increasingly fond of John, who feels about Swami (“the old man” they call him, in distinction to “Swami A.”85) much as I do. Everything centering on him. John says that, “Too many people around here are scared of the old man, or they’ve got him figured all wrong.” John says of him that, “He’s the only person I ever met in my life I like everything about.”

  Ken [Critchfield] is grouchy and Phil [Griggs?] is a fussbudget, but I feel a deep sympathy for them. And Dell is a really good boy, I’m sure, though he’s so solitary—after eight years in the air force—that you only get glimpses of him. And no one could help liking Rich; he’s such a good-natured eager beaver.

  I try to fit in unobtrusively, and not get in the way of their routine. Am not getting much—or indeed anything—consciously—out of the meditation periods. But I often feel very happy. Hardly any trouble with sex, yet. I think that’s mostly middle age. Anyhow, I certainly needed the rest!

  May 13. Drove Dell into Santa Ana, to catch a train to Los Angeles, where he has to stay overnight, in order to sell his car. We passed El Toro Marine Air Base, where he was stationed for some time, quite unaware of Trabuco or Vedanta. He went to Ashokananda’s lectures while stationed up at San Francisco, and visited the Olima Monastery, but didn’t like the life there—only one period of meditation a day, in the morning, and they all sleep together in one room. Dell hates this, after his life in the service. He needs privacy.

  On the way home, in Tustin, I went to the barber’s and, on an impulse, got my hair cropped short. I look very strange—like a rather crazy old man.

  Still no sensible satisfaction from the meditations. In fact, I can’t meditate, even for a moment. I just make japam and my thoughts race around. I think about my novel (which I’ve started again). About Sam Costidy, Tom Wright. Money (the “take” on Camera is down again). Where I’ll live when I leave here. I feel sympathy and liking for these boys—but their problems aren’t very real to me. Because this situation is so utterly different from mine. I’m only like a war correspondent visiting the front for one day. I can’t know how it feels to be stuck in this place.

  The pleasure of working in the blazing sun, pulling weeds out of the vines or raking the kitchen garden. The somehow secret stillness of the hot courtyard, with the dark-leaved fruit trees. At night, we look through the telescope, at Saturn and the ranger station on the top of the mountain. Nothing seems disturbing here. I actually like to hear Mike playing his organ even when I’m writing.

  May 14. A little stirring of sex today. Not much. It occurs to me that, of all the sensual pleasures, sex is the only one which depends partly on reciprocation. That’s its power. Imagine if an orange said: “Darling, I was just longing for you to eat me. I was so afraid that horrible old man would. He’s not at all my type.”

  Fog coming down—threatening poor Dell’s much-looked-forward-to party on the beach tomorrow. But it’s beautiful here; with the rays of light shining through the archway into it.

  Felt, in the shrine tonight, that I’d just as soon stay here all summer. Would I, really? Probably not. But the immediate prospect of going back into “the world” isn’t particularly attractive.

  Today I finished chapter three of my novel, and hence part one.

  May 19. Brutally stuffed and fat after a big lunch I gave the Swamis and boys and Chris Wood at The Happy Ranch. Squab and birthday cake for Dell and ice cream.

  Jim Charlton has been down in Laguna for the weekend. Chris says he thinks Jim is seriously gone in drinking and won’t be able to stop. Jim went to hear Gerald lecture at Ivar Avenue. Don’t know what he thought of it.

  The day after tomorrow, back to Santa Monica. Back to the problem of finding a place to live. And the problem of Sam Costidy. I don’t know how he’ll react to the news that Gerry Lansing has a job and isn’t coming out here. I’m deeply fond of him, and find him often companionable and always touching and sometimes acutely exasperating. But every instinct tells me to live alone, and work quietly and regularly at the book. It is really rolling along now and I’m excited. I mustn’t miss the tide. If I can get part two drafted, even roughly, then I know I’ll finish the whole thing.

  I’ve done wonders of work since I arrived here, on the 4th. Finished Patanjali, finished part one of the novel and made a promising start on part two, worked over some Vedic prayers Swami wanted, written lots of letters, and pulled lots of weeds out of v
ines. In the shrine, I’ve been quite dry and emotionless, but with a certain sense of contact reestablished. I must keep up japam and try to meditate at least once a day, when I leave here.

  When I typed out the title page of the Patanjali this morning, I put “by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood,” and Swami said, “Why put and, Chris? It separates us.” It’s impossible to convey the sweetness and meaning with which he said this. All day long, he fairly shines with love. It was the same when he was here at the beginning of my stay, and told us: “If you have a friend and do good things for him for years and years—and then do one bad thing; he’ll never forgive you. But if you do bad things to God for years and years, and only one good thing—that He never forgets.” It’s his complete assurance, and his smiling, almost sly air of having a private source of information.

  May 25. Well, I left Trabuco and came to Santa Monica and got settled three days ago into this tacky but clean apartment house called the Mermira, on 2nd Street, behind the Miramar Hotel. Lots of noise, above and all around. A plaintive neighbor woman next door was heard saying: “Well, what do you want me to do?” And her much more plaintive companion answered: “I don’t know, but you could do it differently, somehow.”

  I am committed to the Hookers’ garden house. Jim is going to redecorate it. It’ll cost me most of my savings, I fear.

  Sam Costidy is sometimes so sweet he moves me to tears. And then again I feel he’s an expensive nuisance and a burden. When he finally stops bothering me to live with him and settles on someone else, I shall be terribly miserable and relieved.

  The novel must go on. That’s what matters.

  A woman called to a neighbor: “Sorry to interrupt you in the middle of your hair.”

  June 8. Just two months since I arrived back here from Reno. What is there to report?

  Well, the novel is coming along. Not as quickly as I could wish, but definitely coming. I’ve practically finished a fairly adequate rough draft of chapter one, part two, and arrived at page sixty-one. I could go much faster, if it weren’t for psychic sloth-blocks. Must devise techniques to remove these.

  Am still in this noisy little apartment, and have gotten so used to it that I hardly care to move until the Hooker garden house is finished. That certainly won’t be till well into July. Jim has sloth blocks, too. I get irritated with him sometimes. But the way to overcome this, and to speed him up, is to improve our personal relationship. This, goodness knows, I’m more than happy to do. I have neglected him—and for what? He is really one of my dearest friends. And I’d do better to concentrate on my friends and take the time off from acquaintances.

  Sam Costidy is only an acquaintance, and let’s recognize that fact. I spoke to him unkindly, brutally, yesterday morning—which I shouldn’t have—about his cadging, gimme attitude; but it’s true. He never comes here without a motive, even if it’s only to borrow the car. And he has to realize this about himself, or he’ll become very unpopular. He is pleasant to be with, and potentially a decent, intelligent person: but he has to face this.

  I feel very good about Caskey. He visited here for his birthday, and everything went perfectly, and I feel that our relationship is permanently established—though there’ll be many more fights, I don’t doubt. You’ve got Caskey. You could have Jim. What more do you want? Everything else is just vanity.

  I find I like being alone, much of the time, and I must cultivate that feeling. I must bring my life “in the world” closer to the Ivar Avenue part of it. That’s the only happiness.

  I feel as though I were being given a second chance—only it isn’t the second, it’s about the two hundredth. Come on, now. Work hard. Organize your time. Give up vanity, window shopping, yearning for those greener pastures. You’re much older than you think.

  I’m wonderfully indifferent to alcohol, thank goodness. Even at Ivan [Moffat]’s farewell party for Boon and Henrietta Ledebur, last night, I drank only two glasses of wine with soda water. I didn’t even want whiskey or martinis. I smoke too much, though.

  How nice Gottfried Reinhardt is! He forced himself to climb ladders to a catwalk in the studio, because he has to direct a picture about acrobats. Silvia [Reinhardt] is much concerned about the Lillian Ross articles in The New Yorker.86 Harry Brown sitting apart, staring at a plant—isolated in our midst by his love for Marguerite Lamkin, Speed’s sister, whom he’ll marry in the fall. Iris imitating a woman who’d had her husband “fixed”; then annoyed with me because I wouldn’t go on, at 1:00 a.m., to Jim Agee’s.87 (But I must stop doing things I don’t want to, out of mere weakness. There’s no virtue in that; and it breeds resentment later.)

  I don’t know why I’m reminded of this, suddenly. But the other day I asked Swami how it is that he can always end a meditation period so punctually. He said it’s like being able to sleep and wake up at a certain time, no matter how deeply you become absorbed. The notion that meditation periods should be of varying length, according to mood, is “romantic,” he said.

  I’ve smoked eight cigarettes this morning, so far. That’s up to midday. Tomorrow, I’ll try cutting each cigarette in half, and see if that automatically makes a difference.

  June 30. This evening, Sam Costidy and Tom Wright left together in Tom Wright’s car for Wright’s home, Monroe, Louisiana. I was glad to see them go, I’m afraid. Costidy, certainly. He has been an increasing nuisance. But now he has gone I shall be able to remember the good parts of our relationship—the time on Bermuda. I must always be grateful to him for that.

  I’ve been bad about my novel—slothful and slow. I must get on, and lick this second chapter of part two. Then I’ll be really deep in the wood. I only wish I knew a technique for cheating my own sloth.

  Have been drinking again. This is fatal. Well—I must stop it.

  Bad relations with Jim. I blame him for his selfishness—but the truth is, I must demand less, I must demand nothing at all. I must be stronger than ever. This is no time for props.

  Ben and Jo are being helpful, simply by existing. A peaceful evening with them tonight, talking about the old days.

  July 12. Bad things that have happened:

  The play is about to close on Broadway.

  The garden house is taking longer and is to cost more than I’d expected.

  I’ve been drinking, oversmoking, and hence am practically stuck in the novel.

  Am mad at Jim, very mad at myself.

  Well—do you want to hear my comments? No—I thought you didn’t.

  September 13. A dream:

  My father, in uniform, at a table. I’m sitting beside him.

  “Are you lonely here, Daddy?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  “So am I. But never mind. You get used to it.”

  I pat him on the shoulder, rather deliberately, never having done this before but feeling that it’s right. A very strong feeling of rapport, between us.

  Woke happy. This was a good dream.

  November 30. The Day of the Dead.88 Late, after a supper at Salka’s, with John Collier soon to leave permanently to go and live in Mexico, and Gottfried Reinhardt, complaining that Hemingway lives in an unreal world of his own. “He goes to Venice—Venice of all places—and what does he do? He hunts duck! Duck! Can you imagine! I never heard of any duck in Venice. It’s fantastic!” Gottfried’s voice keeps rising into squeaks of protest. He loves talking like this.

  Finished chapter three, part two a few days ago. This must be the all-time slowness record. Usual resolutions. Push ahead fast, somehow, anyhow. You know you never regret when you do. No one ever had less excuse to idle than you have.

  Sadness about Billy. Our relations are all right—since that awful scene driving back from Nogales89 on the 21st, and the weepy aftermath, when he told me that my moving into the garden house was “ruthless.” But I’m sad it’s not better between us, since he’s going away so soon. I feel sad and lonely. He’s up at Hayden and Rod’s. When he leaves for San Francisco, I’ll go to Trabuco for a
while. It’s best for me there right now. I feel tense and restless and dissatisfied here.

  December 1. Got started, today, on chapter four. I’m making another effort to bust this “writer’s block” by just going ahead. I wrote a page and a half, very rough, but with some quite promising ideas.

  Heavy rain, on and off. A regular stream is running through the garden. Jack Mershon brought a Canadian named Lucas, a lawyer, to talk or rather be talked to about Vedanta. We lunched at Ted’s.90 What can I say to anybody about Vedanta that’s the least impressive, as long as I’m what I am? Never mind that, though. Get on with your job.

  Up at Hayden and Rod’s, Bill Caskey told the story (told him by Bill Harris) of how a huge Negro rode all the way from São Paulo to Rio for the Carnival on the train dressed as a swan.

  A wonderful letter from Morgan, saying how he’d been rereading my old letters to him—“Dear Christopher oh you have been a good friend.”

  Actual physical vertigo induced by rereading Whymper’s account of the Matterhorn disaster.91 I felt quite sick.

  1953

  January 6. This is one of those real low-ebb days, when the whole day is like 3:00 a.m. of a sleepless night. After several days of perfect, brilliant weather, it has drizzled since dawn. Bill Caskey spent the night here and left in his car for San Francisco, saying, “Pray for me sometimes.” He has never been gentler or sweeter, ever since our trip to Ensenada at Christmas. Kindness is the most heartbreaking thing in the world. I think he must have come to some decision within himself.

  My nerves are all shot—this is the thirteenth, and so far worst, day without smoking—and I can’t write. I’m in such a mess. Salka’s old mother is dead, and I was down to see Salka. And Collier has just had a bad operation for a polyp—not malignant. And Maria Huxley may have to have one, for a recurrence of the breast cancer.

  I’m going to Trabuco as soon as possible. I must relax and work.

  The other night I was struck by the beauty of the phrase “Flos Campi” (it’s actually the title of a work by Vaughan Williams).92 “Flower of the Field”—I think of the Bible, and then, perhaps because of the association with campagna, with Rome, about Piranesi; and it seems wonderfully romantic. Such things are inexplicable. Notes that make the whole being vibrate—but only for a limited time. Flos Campi—already it has lost its power.