Heretofore I have been trying to save my precious hide, trying to preserve the few pieces of meat that hid my bones. I am done with that. I have reached the limits of endurance. My back is to the wall; I can retreat no further. As far as history goes I am dead. If there is something beyond I shall have to bounce back. I have found God, but he is insufficient. I am only spiritually dead. Physically I am alive. Morally I am free. The world which I have departed is a menagerie. The dawn is breaking on a new world, a jungle world in which the lean spirits roam with sharp claws. If I am a hyena I am a lean and hungry one: I go forth to fatten myself.
A t one-thirty I called on Van Norden, as per agreement. He had warned me that if he didn't answer it would mean that he was sleeping with some one, probably his Georgia cunt.
Anyway, there he was, tucked away comfortably, but with an air of weariness as usual. He wakes up, cursing himself, or cursing the job, or cursing life.
He wakes up utterly bored and discomfited, chagrined to think that he did not die overnight.
I sit down by the window and give him what encouragement I can. It is tedious work. One has to actually coax him out of bed. Mornings--he means by mornings anywhere between one and five p.m.--mornings, as I say, he gives himself up to reveries. Mostly it is about the past he dreams. About his "cunts." He endeavors to recall how they felt, what they said to him at certain critical moments, where he laid them, and so on. And as he lies there, grinning and cursing, he manipulates his fingers in that curious, bored way of his, as though to convey the impression that his disgust is too great for words. Over the bedstead hangs a douche-bag which he keeps for emergencies--for the virgins whom he tracks down like a sleuth. Even after he has slept with one of these mythical creatures he will still refer to her as a virgin, and almost never by name. "My virgin," he will say, just as he says "my Georgia cunt." When he goes to the toilet he says:
"If my Georgia cunt calls tell her to wait. Say I said so. And listen, you can have her if you like. I'm tired of her."
He takes a squint at the weather and heaves a deep sigh. If it's rainy he says: "God damn this fucking climate, it makes one morbid." And if the sun is shining brightly he says: "God damn that fucking sun, it makes you blind." As he starts to shave he suddenly remembers that there is no clean towel. "God damn this fucking hotel, they're too stingy to give you a clean towel every day!" No matter what he does or where he goes things are out of joint. Either it's the fucking country or the fucking job, or else it's some fucking cunt who's put him on the blink.
"My teeth are all rotten," he says, gargling his throat. "It's the fucking bread they give you to eat here." He opens his mouth wide and pulls his lower lip down. "See that? Pulled out six teeth yesterday. Soon I'll have to get another plate. That's what you get working for a living. When I was on the bum I had all my teeth, my eyes were bright and clear. Look at me now!
It's a wonder I can make a cunt any more. Jesus, what I'd like is to find some rich cunt--like that cute little prick, Carl. Did he ever show you the letters she sends him? Who is she, do you know? He wouldn't tell me her name, the bastard ... he's afraid I might take her away from him." He gargles his throat again and then he takes a long look at the cavities.
"You're lucky," he says ruefully. "You've got friends, at least. I haven't anybody, except that cute little prick who drives me bats about his rich cunt."
"Listen," he says, "do you happen to know a cunt by the name of Norma? She hangs around the Dome all day. I think she's queer. I had her up here yesterday, tickling her ass. She wouldn't let me do a thing. I had her on the bed ... I even had her drawers off ... and then I got disgusted. Jesus, I can't bother struggling that way any more. It isn't worth it. Either they do or they don't--it's foolish to waste time wrestling with them. While you're struggling with a little bitch like that there may be a dozen cunts on the terrasse just dying to be laid. It's a fact. They all come over here to get laid. They think it's sinful here ... the poor boobs! Some of these school-teachers from out West, they're honestly virgins ... I mean it! They sit around on their can all day thinking about it. You don't have to work over them very much. They're dying for it. I had a married woman the other day who told me she hadn't had a lay for six months. Can you imagine that? Jesus, she was hot! I thought she'd tear the cock off me. And groaning all the time. 'Do you? Do you?' She kept saying that all the time, like she was nuts. And you know what that bitch wanted to do? She wanted to move in here. Imagine that!
Asking me if I loved her. I didn't even know her name. I never know their names ... I don't want to. The married ones! Christ, if you saw all the married cunts I bring up here you'd never have any more illusions. They're worse than the virgins, the married ones. They don't wait for you to start things--they fish it out for you themselves. And then they talk about love afterwards. It's disgusting. I tell you, I'm actually beginning to hate cunt!"
He looks out the window again. It's drizzling. It's been drizzling this way for the last five days.
"Are we going to the Dome, Joe?" I call him Joe because he calls me Joe.
When Carl is with us he is Joe too. Everybody is Joe because it's easier that way. It's also a pleasant reminder not to take yourself too seriously.
Anyway, Joe doesn't want to go to the Dome--he owes too much money there.
He wants to go to the Coupole. Wants to take a little walk first around the block.
"But it's raining, Joe."
"I know, but what the hell! I've got to have my constitutional. I've got to wash the dirt out of my belly." When he says this I have the impression that the whole world is wrapped up there inside his belly, and that it's rotting there.
As he's putting on his things he falls back again into a semi-comatose state. He stands there with one arm in his coat sleeve and his hat on ass-ways and he begins to dream aloud--about the Riviera, about the sun, about lazing one's life away. "All I ask of life," he says, "is a bunch of books, a bunch of dreams, and a bunch of cunt." As he mumbles this meditatively he looks at me with the softest, the most insidious smile. "Do you like that smile?" he says. And then disgustedly--"Jesus, if I could only find some rich cunt to smile at that way!"
"Only a rich cunt can save me now," he says with an air of utmost weariness.
"One gets tired of chasing after new cunts all the time. It gets mechanical.
The trouble is, you see, I can't fall in love. I'm too much of an egoist.
Women only help me to dream, that's all. It's a vice, like drink or opium.
I've got to have a new one every day; if I don't I get morbid. I think too much. Sometimes I'm amazed at myself, how quick I pull it off--and how little it really means. I do it automatically like. Sometimes I'm not thinking about a woman at all, but suddenly I notice a woman looking at me and then bango! it starts all over again. Before I know what I'm doing I've got her up to the room. I don't even remember what I say to them. I bring them up to the room, give them a pat on the ass, and before I know what it's all about it's over. It's like a dream ... Do you know what I mean?"
He hasn't much use for the French girls. Can't stand them. "Either they want money or they want you to marry them. At bottom they're all whores. I'd rather wrestle with a virgin," he says. "They give you a little illusion.
They put up a fight at least." Just the same, as we glance over the terrasse there is hardly a whore in sight whom he hasn't fucked at some time or other. Standing at the bar he points them out to me, one by one, goes over them anatomically, describes their good points and their bad.
"They're all frigid," he says. And then begins to mould his hands, thinking of the nice, juicy virgins who are just dying for it.
In the midst of his reveries he suddenly arrests himself, and grabbing my arm excitedly he points to a whale of a woman who is just lowering herself into a seat. "There's my Danish cunt," he grunts. "See that ass?
Danish. How that woman loves it! She just begs me for it. Come over here ... look at her now, from the side! Look at that ass, will you? It's enormous. I tell you, when she climbs over me I can hardly get my arms around it. It blots out the whole world. She makes me feel like a little bug crawling inside her I don't know why I fall for her--I suppose it's that ass. It's so incongruous like. And the creases in it! You can't forget an ass like that. It's a fact ... a solid fact. The others, they may bore you, or they may give you a moment's illusion, but this one--with her ass!--zowie, you can't obliterate her ... it's like going to bed with a monument on top of you."
The Danish cunt seems to have electrified him. He's lost all his sluggishness now. His eyes are popping out of his head. And of course one thing reminds him of another. He wants to get out of the fucking hotel because the noise bothers him. He wants to write a book too so as to have something to occupy his mind. But then the goddamned job stands in the way. "It takes it out of you, that fucking job! I don't want to write about Montparnasse ... I want to write my life, my thoughts. I want to get the dirt out of my belly ... Listen, get that one over there! I had her a long time ago. She used to be down near Les Halles. A funny bitch. She lay on the edge of the bed and pulled her dress up. Ever try it that way? Not bad. She didn't hurry me either. She just lay back and played with her hat while I slugged away at her. And when I come she says sort of bored like--Are you through? Like it didn't make any difference at all. Of course, it doesn't make any difference, I know that god-damn well ... but the cold blooded way she had ... I sort of liked it ... it was fascinating, you know? When she goes to wipe herself she begins to sing. Going out of the hotel she was still singing. Didn't even say Au revoir! Walks off swinging her hat and humming to herself like. That's a whore for you! A good lay though. I think I liked her better than my virgin. There's something depraved about screwing a woman who doesn't give a fuck about it. It heals your blood ..."
And then, after a moment's meditation--"Can you imagine what she'd be like if she had any feelings?"
"Listen," he says, "I want you to come to the Club with me tomorrow afternoon ... there's a dance on." "I can't tomorrow, Joe. I promised to help Carl out..." "Listen, forget that prick! I want you to do me a favor.
It's like this"--he commences to mould his hands again. "I've got a cunt lined up ... she promised to stay with me on my night off. But I'm not positive about her yet. She's got a mother you see ... some shit of a painter, she chews my ear off every time I see her. I think the truth is, the mother's jealous. I don't think she'd mind so much if I gave her a lay first. You know how it is ... Anyway, I thought maybe you wouldn't mind taking the mother ... she's not so bad ... if I hadn't seen the daughter I might have considered her myself. The daughter's nice and young, fresh like, you know what I mean? There's a clean smell to her ..."
"Listen, Joe, you'd better find somebody else ..." "Aw, don't take it like that! I know how you feel about it. It's only a little favor I'm asking you to do for me. I don't know how to get rid of the old hen. I thought first I'd get her drunk and ditch her--but I don't think the young one'd like that. They're sentimental like.
They come from Minnesota or somewhere. Anyway, come around tomorrow and wake me up, will you? Otherwise I'll oversleep. And besides, I want you to help me find a room. You know I'm helpless. Find me a room in a quiet street, somewhere near here. I've got to stay around here ... I've got credit here.
Listen, promise me you'll do that for me. I'll buy you a meal now and then.
Come around anyway, because I go nuts talking to these foolish cunts. I want to talk to you about Havelock Ellis. Jesus, I've had the book out for three weeks now and I haven't looked at it. You sort of rot here. Would you believe it, I've never been to the Louvre--nor the Comedie Francaise. Is it worth going to those joints? Still, it sort of takes your mind off things, I suppose. What do you do with yourself all day? Don't you get bored? What do you do for a lay? Listen ... come here! Don't run away yet ... I'm lonely.
Do you know something--if this keeps up another year I'll go nuts. I've got to get out of this fucking country. There's nothing for me here. I know it's lousy now, in America, but just the same ... You go queer over here ... all these cheap shits sitting on their ass all day bragging about their work and none of them is worth a stinking damn. They're all failures--that's why they come over here. Listen, Joe, don't you ever get homesick? You're a funny guy ... you seem to like it over here. What do you see in it... I wish you'd tell me. I wish to Christ I could stop thinking about myself. I'm all twisted up inside ... it's like a knot in there ... Listen, I know I'm boring the shit out of you, but I've got to talk to someone. I can't talk to those guys upstairs ... you know what those bastards are like ... they all take a by-line. And Carl, the little prick, he's so god-damned selfish. I'm an egotist, but I'm not selfish. There's a difference. I'm a neurotic, I guess. I can't stop thinking about myself. It isn't that I think myself so important.... I simply can't think about anything else, that's all. If I could fall in love with a woman that might help some. But I can't find a woman who interests me. I'm in a mess, you can see that can't you? What do you advise me to do? What would you do in my place? Listen, I don't want to hold you back any longer, but wake me up tomorrow--at one-thirty--will you? I'll give you something extra if you'll shine my shoes. And listen, if you've got an extra shirt, a clean one, bring it along, will you? Shit, I'm grinding my balls off on that job, and it doesn't even give me a clean shirt. They've got us over here like a bunch of niggers. Ah, well, shit! I'm going to take a walk ... wash the dirt out of my belly. Don't forget, tomorrow'."
For six months or more it's been going on, this correspondence with the rich cunt, Irene. Recently I've been reporting to Carl every day in order to bring the affair to a head, because as far as Irene is concerned this thing could go on indefinitely. In the last few days there's been a perfect avalanche of letters exchanged; the last letter we dispatched was almost forty pages long, and written in three languages. It was a pot-pourri. the last letter--tag ends of old novels, slices from the Sunday supplement,. reconstructed versions of old letters to Llona and Tania, garbled transliterations of Rabelais and Petronius--in short, we exhausted ourselves. Finally Irene decides to come out of her shell. Finally a letter arrives giving a rendez-vous at her hotel. Carl is pissing in his pants. It's one thing to write letters to a woman you don't know; it's another thing entirely to call on her and make love to her. At the last moment he's quaking so that I almost fear I'll have to substitute for him.
When we get out of the taxi in front of her hotel he's trembling so much that I have to walk him around the block first. He's already had two Pernods, but they haven't made the slightest impression on him. The sight of the hotel itself is enough to crush him: it's a pretentious place with one of those huge empty lobbies in which Englishwomen sit for hours with a blank look. In order to make sure that he wouldn't run away I stood by while the porter telephoned to announce him. Irene was there, and she was waiting for him. As he got into the lift he threw me a last despairing glance, one of those mute appeals which a dog makes when you put a noose around its neck. Going through the revolving door I thought of Van Norden ...
I go back to the hotel and wait for a telephone call. He's only got an hour's time and he's promised to let me know the results before going to work. I look over the carbons of the letters we sent her. I try to imagine the situation as it actually is, but it's beyond me. Her letters are much better than ours--they're sincere, that's plain. By now they've sized each other up. I wonder if he's still pissing in his pants.
The telephone rings. His voice sounds queer, squeaky, as though he were frightened and jubilant at the same time. He asks me to substitute for him at the office. "Tell the bastard anything! Tell him I'm dying ..."
"Listen, Carl ... can you tell me ...?"
"Hello! Are you Henry Miller?" It's a woman's voice. It's Irene. She's saying hello to me. Her voice sounds beautiful over the phone ... beautiful.
For a moment I'm in a perfect panic. I don't know what to say to her. I'd like to say: "Listen, Irene, I think you're beautiful ... I think you're wonderful." I'd like to say one true thing to her, no matter how silly it would sound, because now that I hear her voice everything is changed. But before I can gather my wits Carl is on the phone again and he's saying in that queer squeaky voice: "She likes you, Joe. I told her all about you ..."
At the office I have to hold copy for Van Norden. When it comes time for the break he pulls me aside. He looks glum and ravaged.
"So he's dying, is he, the little prick? Listen, what's the low-down on this?"
"I think he went to see his rich cunt," I answer calmly.