Here Caccicacci digressed. He was forced to confess that he did not know what had prompted him to make such a statement, nor where he was heading. He kept rubbing his poll and murmuring over and over: “Strange, strange, but I thought I had something there.”
Suddenly his face lit up with joy. “Ah yes, I know now. I’ve got it. Listen . . . Supposing this being, universally admitted to be superior to us in every way, should take it to address the world in this fashion: ‘Stop where you are, O men and women, and give heed! You are on the wrong track. You are headed for destruction.’ Supposing that everywhere on this globe the billions which make up humanity did stop what they were doing and listened. Even if this godlike being said nothing more than what I’ve just put in his mouth, what do you suppose the effect would be? Has the entire world ever stopped to listen in unison to words of wisdom? Imagine, if you can, a total drastic silence, all ears cocked to catch the fatal words! Would it even be necessary to utter the words? Can you not imagine that everyone, in the silence of his heart, would supply the answer himself? There is only one response that humanity longs to give—and it can be voiced in one little monosyllable: Love. That little word, that mighty thought, that perpetual act, positive, unambiguous, eternally effective—if that should sink in, take possession of all mankind, would it not transform the world instantly? Who could resist, if love became the order of the day? Who would want power or knowledge—if he were bathed in the perpetual glory of love?
“It is said, as you know, that in the fastnesses of Tibet there actually exists a small band of men so immeasurably superior to us that they are called ‘The Masters.’ They live in voluntary exile from the rest of the world. Like the androids I spoke of earlier, they too are ageless, immune to disease, and indestructible. Why do they not mingle with us, why do they not enlighten and ennoble us by their presence? Have they chosen to remain isolate—or is it we who keep them at a distance? Before you attempt to answer, ask yourself another question—what have we to offer them which they do not already know, possess, or enjoy? If such beings exist, and I have every reason to believe they do, then the only possible barrier is consciousness. Degrees of consciousness, to be more exact. When we reach to deeper levels of thought and being they will be there, so to speak. We are still unready, unwilling, to mingle with the gods. The men of olden times knew the gods: they saw them face to face. Man was not removed, in consciousness, from either the higher or the lower orders of creation. Today man is cut off. Today man lives as a slave. Worse, we are slaves to one another. We have created a condition hitherto unknown, a condition altogether unique: we have become the slaves of slaves. Doubt it not, the moment we truly desire freedom we shall be free. Not a whit sooner! Now we think like machines, because we have become as machines. Craving power, we are the helpless victims of power . . . The day we learn to express love we shall know love and have love—and all else will fall away. Evil is a creation of the human mind. It is powerless when accepted at face value. Because it has no value in itself. Evil exists only as a threat to that eternal kingdom of love we but dimly apprehend. Yes, men have had visions of a liberated humanity. They have had visions of walking the earth like the gods they once were. Those whom we call ‘The Masters’ undoubtedly found the road back. Perhaps the androids have taken another road. All roads, believe it or not, lead eventually to that life-giving source which is the center and meaning of creation. As Lawrence said with dying breath—‘For man, the vast marvel is to be alive. For man, as for flower, beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly, alive . . .’ In this sense, Picodiribibi was never alive. In this sense, none of us is alive. Let us become fully alive, that is what I have been trying to say.”
REUNION IN BROOKLYN
(FROM SUNDAY AFTER THE WAR)
I can’t recall where I wrote this, whether in New York or in Beverly Glen, California. I think the latter place, though when I read it over it would seem as if I wrote it immediately after the experience. What I can’t forget is the miraculous advent of the bookseller (in New York) who made it possible for me to aid my parents in this crucial period. His name was Barnet B. Ruder. I have never heard from him since leaving New York to come to California. I trust he is still alive and will read these words, know that I have never forgotten him.
Certainly this was one of the worst periods in my life, this homecoming. The narrative reflects my misery at that time. It is truthful to a fault.
I arrived at the dock in practically the same condition in which I had left, that is, penniless. I had been away exactly ten years. It seemed much longer, more like twenty or thirty. What sustained me more than anything else during my residence abroad was the belief that I would never be obliged to return to America.
I had of course kept up a correspondence with the family during this period; it was not a very fulsome correspondence and I am sure it gave them very little idea of what my life really was like. Towards the end of my stay in Paris I received a letter informing me of my father’s illness; the nature of it was such that I entertained little hope of finding him alive on my return.
What plagued me all the time I was away, and with renewed force as I was crossing the ocean, was the realization that I could give them no help. In the fifteen years which had elapsed since I began my career I had not only proved incapable of supporting myself by my efforts but I had substantially increased my debts. I was not only penniless, as when I left, but I was further in the hole, so that actually my position was far worse than on leaving the country. All I had to my credit were a few books which more than likely will never be published in this country, at least not as they were written. The few gifts which I had brought with me I was obliged to leave at the Customs because I lacked the money to pay the necessary duty.
As we were going through the immigration formalities the officer asked me jokingly if I were the Henry Miller, to which I replied in the same vein that the one he meant was dead. He knew that, of course. Asked as to what I had been doing in Europe all that time I said—“enjoying myself”—an answer which had the double merit of being true and of forestalling further questions.
Almost the first words out of my mother’s mouth, after we had greeted each other, were: “Can’t you write something like Gone With the Wind and make a little money?” I had to confess I couldn’t. I seem to be congenitally incapable of writing a bestseller. At Boston, where we first put in, I remember my astonishment on wandering through the railway station when I saw the staggering heaps of books and magazines for sale. (It was my first glimpse of America and I was rather dazzled and bewildered.) Gone With the Wind was all over the place, apparently, in a cheap movie edition which looked more interesting to me, accustomed to the paper-covered books of France, than the original format. I wondered vaguely how many millions of dollars had been put in circulation by this book. I noticed that there were other women writers whose works were displayed among the best-sellers. They all seemed to be huge tomes capable of satisfying the most voracious reader. It seemed perfectly natural to me that the women writers of America should occupy such a prominent place. America is essentially a woman’s country—why shouldn’t the leading novelists be women?
How I had dreaded this moment of returning to the bosom of my family! The thought of walking down this street again had always been a nightmare to me. If any one had told me when in Greece that two months hence I would be doing this I would have told him he was crazy. And yet, when I was informed at the American Consulate in Athens that I would be obliged to return to America I made no effort to resist. I accepted their unwarranted interference as if I were obeying the voice of Fate. Deep down, I suppose, was the realization that I had left something unfinished in America. Moreover, when the summons came I must confess that I was morally and spiritually stronger than I had ever been in my life. “If needs be,” I said to myself, “I can go back to America,” much as one would say, “I feel strong enough to face anything now!”
Nevertheless, once back in N
ew York it took me several weeks to prepare myself for the ordeal. I had, of course, written my folks that I was on my way. They very naturally expected me to telephone them immediately on my arrival. It was cruel not to do so but I was so intent on easing my own pain that I postponed communicating with them for a week or more. Finally, I wrote them from Virginia, where I had fled almost at once, unable to bear the sight of my native city. What I was hoping for above all, in trying to gain a little time, was a sudden turn of fortune, the advent of a few hundred dollars from a publisher or editor, some little sum with which to save my face. Well, nothing turned up. The one person whom I had vaguely counted on failed me. I mean my American publisher. He hadn’t even been willing to assist me in getting back to America, so I learned. He feared that if he sent me the passage money I would squander it on drink or in some other foolish way. He probably means well and he certainly writes well about honoring the artist in our midst, giving him food and drink and that sort of thing. “Welcome home, Henry Miller. . . .” I often thought of that phrase of his which he inserted in the preface of my book as I turned about in the rat trap. It’s easy to write such things, but to substantiate words with deeds is quite another matter.
It was towards evening when I set out to visit the folks. I came up out of the new Eighth Avenue subway and, though I knew the neighborhood well, immediately proceeded to lose my bearings. Not that the neighborhood had changed much; if anything it was I who had changed. I had changed so completely that I couldn’t find my way any more in the old surroundings. I suppose too that getting lost was a last unconscious effort to avoid the ordeal.
As I came down the block where the house stands it seemed to me as if nothing had changed. I was infuriated, in fact, to think that this street which I loathe so much had been so impervious to the march of time. I forget. . . . There was one important change. On the corner where the German grocery store had been, and where I had been horsewhipped as a boy, there now stood a funeral parlor. A rather significant transformation! But what was even more striking is the fact that the undertaker had originally been a neighbor of ours—in the old 14th Ward which we had left years ago. I recognized the name at once. It gave me a creepy feeling, passing his place. Had he divined that we would shortly be in need of his services?
As I approached the gate I saw my father sitting in the armchair by the window. The sight of him sitting there, waiting for me, gave me a terrible pang. It was as though he had been sitting there waiting all these years. I felt at once like a criminal, like a murderer.
It was my sister who opened the iron gate. She had altered considerably, had shrunk and withered like a Chinese nut. My mother and father were standing at the threshold to greet me. They had aged terribly. For the space of a moment I had the uncomfortable sensation of gazing at two mummies who had been removed from the vault and galvanized into a semblance of life. We embraced one another and then we stood apart in silence for another fleeting moment during which I comprehended in a flash the appalling tragedy of their life and of my own life and of every animate creature’s on earth. In that moment all the strength which I had accumulated to fortify myself was undone; I was emptied of everything but an overwhelming compassion. When suddenly my mother said, “Well, Henry, how do we look to you?” I let out a groan followed by the most heart-rending sobs. I wept as I had never wept before. My father, to conceal his own feelings, withdrew to the kitchen. I hadn’t removed my coat and my hat was still in my hand. In the blinding flood of tears everything was swimming before my eyes. “God Almighty!” I thought to myself, “what have I done? Nothing I thought to accomplish justifies this. I should have remained, I should have sacrificed myself for them. Perhaps there is still time. Perhaps I can do something to prove that I am not utterly selfish. . . .” My mother meanwhile said nothing. Nobody uttered a word. I stood there in the middle of the room with my overcoat on and my hat in my hand and I wept until there were no more tears left. When I had collected myself a bit I dried my eyes and looked about the room. It was the same immaculate place, showing not the least sign of wear or tear, glowing a little brighter, if anything, than before. Or did I imagine it because of my guilt? At any rate, I thanked God, it did not seem poverty-stricken as I had feared it might look. It was the same modest, humble place it had always been. It was like a polished mausoleum in which their misery and suffering had been kept brightly burning.
The table was set; we were to eat in a few moments. It seemed natural that it should be thus, though I hadn’t the slightest desire to eat. In the past the great emotional scenes which I had witnessed in the bosom of the family were nearly always associated with the table. We pass easily from sorrow to gluttony.
We sat down in our accustomed places, looking somewhat more cheerful, if not actually merry, than we had a few moments ago. The storm had passed; there would only be slight and distant reverberations henceforth. I had hardly taken the spoon in my hand when they all began to talk at once. They had been waiting for this moment a long time; they wanted to pour out in a few minutes all that had been accumulating for ten years. Never have I felt so willing to listen. Had they poured it out for twenty-four hours on end I would have sat patiently, without a murmur, without a sign of restlessness, until the last word had been uttered. Now at last they had me and could tell me everything. They were so eager to begin, so beside themselves with joy, that it all came out in a babble. It was almost as if they feared that I would run off again and stay away another ten years.
It was about time for the war news and so they turned the radio on, thinking that I would be interested. In the midst of the babble and confusion, boats going down, ammunition works blasted, and the same smooth dentifricial voice switching from calamities to razor blades without a change of intonation or inflection, my mother interrupted the hubbub to tell me that they had been thinking about my homecoming and had planned that I should share a bed with my father. She said she would sleep with my sister in the little room where I had slept as a boy. That brought on another choking fit. I told them there was no need to worry about such things, that I had already found a place to stay and that everything was jake. I tried to tell them jokingly that I was now a celebrity, but it didn’t sound very convincing either to them or to myself.
“Of course,” said my mother, ignoring what I had just said, “it may be a little inconvenient for you; Father has to get up now and then during the night—but you’ll get used to it. I don’t hear him any more.”
I looked at my father. “Yes,” he said, “since the operation, the last one, I’m lucky if I get three or four hours’ sleep.” He drew aside his chair and pulled up the leg of his trousers to show me the bag which was strapped to his leg. “That’s what I have to wear now,” he said. “I can’t urinate any more the natural way. It’s a nuisance, but what can you do? They did the best they could for me.” And he went on hurriedly to tell me of how good the doctor had been to him, though he was a perfect stranger and a Jew to boot. “Yes,” he added, “they took me to the Jewish hospital. And I must say I couldn’t have had better treatment anywhere.”
I wondered how that had come about—the Jewish hospital—because my mother had always been scared to death of anything remotely connected with the Jews. The explanation was quite simple. They had outlived the family doctor and all the other doctors in the neighborhood whom they once knew. At the last moment some one had recommended the Jewish doctor, and since he was not only a specialist but a surgeon they had acquiesced. To their astonishment he had proved to be not only a good doctor but an entirely kind and sympathetic person. “He treated me as if he were my own son,” said my father. Even my mother had to admit that they couldn’t have found a better man. What seemed to impress them most about the hospital, I was amazed to learn, was the wonderful grub which they served there. One could eat à la carte apparently—and as much as one cared to. But the nurses were not Jewish, they wanted me to know. They were Scandinavian for the most part. The Jews don’t like such jobs, they explained. �
��You know, they never like to do the dirty work,” said my mother.
In the midst of the narrative, hardly able to wait for my mother to finish, my father suddenly recalled that he had made a note of some questions he wished to put to me. He asked my sister to get the slip of paper for him. Whereupon, to my surprise, my sister calmly told him to wait, that she hadn’t finished her meal yet. With that he gave me a look, as much as to say—“you see what I have to put up with here!” I got up and found the piece of paper on which he had listed the questions. My father put on his spectacles and began to read.
“Oh, first of all,” he exclaimed, “what pier did you dock at?”
I told him.
“That’s what I thought,” he said. “Now, what was the grub like on board the boat? Was it American cooking or Greek?”
The other questions were in a similar vein. Had we received the wireless news every day? Did I have to share my cabin with others? Did we sight any wrecks? And then this—which took me completely by surprise: “What is the Parthenon?”
I explained briefly what the Parthenon was.
“Well, that’s all right,” he said, as though to say—“no need to go into that any further.” “I only asked,” he added, looking up over the top of his spectacles, “because Mother said she thought it was a park. I knew it wasn’t a park. How old did you say it was again?” He paused a moment to hmmn. “The place must be full of old relics,” he added. Well, anyway, it must have been very interesting in Greece, that’s what he thought. As for himself he had always wanted to see Italy—and London. He asked about Savile Row where the merchant tailors have their shops. “You say the tailors (meaning the workmen on the bench) are all English? No Jews or Italians, eh?” “No,” I said, “they all seemed to be English, from their looks anyway.” “That’s queer,” he reflected. “Must be a strange place, London.”
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