after another, one staircase after another. I wandered in and out
of the buildings searching frantically for the refectory. Passed a long
line of youngsters marching in a column to God knows where; they moved along
like a chain-gang, with a slave-driver at the head of the column. Finally I
saw an energetic-looking individual, with a derby, heading towards me. I
stopped him to ask the way to the refectory. Happened I stopped the right
man. It was M. le Proviseur, and he seemed delighted to have stumbled on
me. Wanted to know right away if I were comfortably settled, if there was
anything more he could do for me. I told him everything was O. K. Only it
was a bit chilly, I ventured to add. He assured me that it was rather
unusual, this weather. Now and then the fogs came on and a bit of snow, and
then it became unpleasant for a while, and so on and so forth. All the while
he had me by the arm, guiding me towards the refectory. He seemed like a
very decent chap. A regular guy, I thought to myself. I even went so far as
to imagine that I might get chummy with him later on, that he'd invite me to
his room on a bitter cold night and make a hot grog for me. I imagined all
sorts of friendly things in the few moments it required to reach the door of
the refectory. Here, my mind racing on at a mile a minute, he suddenly shook
hands with me and, doffing his hat, bade me good night. I was so bewildered
that I tipped my hat also. It was the regular thing to do, I soon found out.
Whenever you pass a prof, or even M. l'Econome, you doff the hat. Might pass
the same guy a dozen times a day. Makes no difference. You've got to give
the salute, even though your hat is worn out. It's the polite thing to do.

Anyway, I had found the refectory. Like an East Side clinic it was, with
tiled walls, bare light, and marble-topped tables. And of course a big stove
with an elbow-pipe. The dinner wasn't served yet. A cripple was running in
and out with dishes and knives and forks and bottles of wine. In a corner
several young men conversing animatediy. I went up to them and introduced
myself. They gave me a most cordial reception. Almost too cordial, in fact.
I couldn't quite make it out. In a jiffy the room began to fill up; I was
presented from one to the other quickly. Then they formed a circle about me
and, filling the glasses, they began to sing....

"L'autre soir l'idee m'est venue Cre nom de Zeus d'enculer un pendu;
Le vent se leve sur la potence, Voila. mon pendu qui se balance, J'ai du
l'enculer en sautant, Cre nom de Zeus, on est jamais content.

"Baiser dans un con trop petit, Cre nom de Zeus, on s'ecorche le vit;
Baiser dans un con trop large, On ne sail pas oil l'on decharge;
Se branler etant bien emmerdant, Cre nom de Zeus, on est jamais content."

With this, Quasimodo announced the dinner. They were a cheerful group, <i>les
surveillants.</i> There was Kroa who belched like a pig and always let out a
loud fart when he sat down to table. He could fart thirteen times in
succession, they informed me. He held the record. Then there was Monsieur le
Prince, an athlete who was fond of wearing a tuxedo in the evening when he
went to town; he had a beautiful complexion, just like a girl, and never
touched the wine nor read anything that might tax his brain. Next him sat
Petit Paul, from the Midi, who thought of nothing but cunt all the time; he
used to say every day -- <i>"a partir de jeudi je ne parlerai plus de
femmes."</i> He and Monsieur le Prince were inseparable. Then there was
Passeleau, a veritable young scallywag who was studying medicine and who
borrowed right and left; he talked incessantly of Ronsard, Villon and
Rabelais. Opposite me sat Mollesse, agitator and organizer of the
<i>pions,</i> who insisted on weighing the meat to see if it wasn't short a
few grams. He occupied a little room in the infirmary. His supreme enemy was
Monsieur l'Econome, which was nothing particularly to his credit since
everybody hated this individual. For companion Mollesse had one called Le
Penible, a dour-looking chap with a hawk-like profile who practised the
strictest economy and acted as money-lender. He was like an engraving by
Albrecht Durer -- a composite of all the dour, sour, morose, bitter,
unfortunate, unlucky and introspective devils who compose the pantheon of
Germany's medieval knights. A Jew, no doubt. At any rate, he was killed in an
automobile accident shortly after my arrival, a circumstance which left me
twenty-three francs to the good. With the exception of Renaud who sat beside
me, the others have faded out of my memory; they belonged to that category of
colorless individuals who make up the world of engineers, architects,
dentists, pharmacists, teachers, etc. There was nothing to distinguish them
from the clods whom they would later wipe their boots on. They were zeros in
every sense of the word, ciphers who form the nucleus of a respectable and
lamentable citizenry. They ate with their heads down and were always the
first to clamor for a second helping. They slept soundly and never
complained; they were neither gay nor miserable. The indifferent ones whom
Dante consigned to the vestibule of Hell. The upper-crusters.

It was the custom after dinner to go immediately to town, unless one was on
duty in the dormitories. In the center of town were the cafes -- huge, dreary
halls where the somnolent merchants of Dijon gathered to play cards and
listen to music. It was warm in the cafes, that is the best I can say for
them. The seats were fairly comfortable, too. And there were always a few
whores about who, for a glass of beer or a cup of coffee, would sit and chew
the fat with you. The music, on the other hand, was atrocious. Such music! On
a winter's night, in a dirty hole like Dijon, nothing can be more harassing,
more nerve-racking, than the sound of a French orchestra. Particularly one of
those lugubrious female orchestras with everything coming in squeaks and
farts, with a dry, algebraic rhythm and the hygienic consistency of
tooth-paste. A wheezing and scraping performed at so many francs the hour --
and the devil take the hindmost! The melancholy of it! As if old Euclid had
stood up on his hind legs and swallowed Prussic acid. The whole realm of Idea
so thoroughly exploited by the reason that there is nothing left of which to
make music except the empty slats of the accordion, through which the wind
whistles and tears the ether to tatters. However, to speak of music in
connection with this outpost is like dreaming of champagne when you are in
the death-cell. Music was the least of my worries. I didn't even think of
cunt, so dismal, so chill, so barren, so gray was it all. On the way home the
first night I noticed on the door of a cafe an inscription from the
<i>Gargantua.</i> Inside the cafe it was like a morgue. However,
<i>forward</i>!

I had plenty of time on my hands and not a sou to spend. Two or three hours
of conversational lessons a day, and that was all. And what use was it,
teaching these poor bastards English? I felt sorry as hell for them. All
morning plugging away on <i>John Gilpin's Ride,</i> and in the afternoon
coming to me to practise a dead language. I thought of the good time I had
wasted reading Vergil or wading through such incomprehensible nonsense as
<i>Hermann und Dorotea.</i> The insanity of it! Learning, the empty
bread-basket! I thought of Carl who can recite <i>Faust</i> backwards, who
never writes a book without praising the shit out of his immortal,
incorruptible Goethe. And yet he hadn't sense enough to take on a rich cunt
and get himself a change of underwear. There's something obscene in this
love of the past which ends in bread-lines and dug-outs. Something obscene
about this spiritual racket which permits an idiot to sprinkle holy water
over Big Berthas and dreadnoughts and high explosives. Every
man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race.

Here was I, supposedly to spread the gospel of Franco-American amity -- the
emissary of a corpse who, after he had plundered right and left, after he
had caused untold suffering and misery, dreamed of establishing universal
peace. Pfui! What did they expect me to talk about, I wonder? About
<i>Leaves of Grass,</i> about the tariff walls, about the Declaration of
Independence, about the latest gang war? What? Just what, I'd like to know.
Well, I'll tell you -- I never mentioned these things. I started right off the
bat with a lesson in the physiology of love. How the elephants make
love -- that was it! It caught like wildfire. After the first day there were
no more empty benches. After that first lesson in English they were standing
at the door waiting for me. We got along swell together. They asked all
sorts of questions, as though they had never learned a damned thing. I let
them fire away. I taught them to ask still more ticklish questions. <i>Ask
anything! -- </i>that was my motto. I'm here as a plenipotentiary from the
realm of free spirits. I'm here to create a fever and a ferment. "In some
way," says an eminent astronomer, "the material universe appears to be
passing away like a tale that is told, dissolving into nothingness like a
vision." That seems to be the general feeling underlying the empty
bread-basket of learning. Myself, I don't believe it. I don't believe a
fucking thing these bastards try to shove down our throats.

Between sessions, if I had no book to read, I would go upstairs to the
dormitory and chat with the <i>pions.</i> They were delightfully ignorant of
all that was going on -- especially in the world of art. Almost as ignorant
as the students themselves. It was as if I had gotten into a private little
madhouse with no exit signs. Sometimes I snooped around under the arcades,
watching the kids marching along with huge hunks of bread stuck in their
dirty mugs. I was always hungry myself, since it was impossible for me to
go to breakfast which was handed out at some ungodly hour of the morning,
just when the bed was getting toasty. Huge bowls of blue coffee with chunks
of white bread and no butter to go with it. For lunch, beans or lentils with
bits of meat thrown in to make it look appetizing. Food fit for a chain-gang,
for rock-breakers. Even the wine was lousy. Things were either diluted or
bloated. There were calories, but no cuisine. M. l'Econome was responsible
for it all. So they said. I don't believe that, either. He was paid to keep
our heads just above the water line. He didn't ask if we were suffering from
piles or carbuncles; he didn't inquire if we had delicate palates or the
intestines of wolves. Why should he? He was hired at so many grams the plate
to produce so many kilowatts of energy. Everything in terms of horse power.
It was all carefully reckoned in the fat ledgers which the pasty-faced clerks
scribbled in morning, noon and night. Debit and credit, with a red line down
the middle of the page.

Roaming around the quadrangle with an empty belly most of the time I got to
feel slightly mad. Like Charles the Silly, poor devil -- only I had no Odette
Champsdivers with whom to play stink-finger. Half the time I had to grub
cigarettes from the students, and during the lessons sometimes I munched a
bit of dry bread with them. As the fire was always going out on me I soon
used up my allotment of wood. It was the devil's own time coaxing a little
wood out of the ledger clerks. Finally I got so riled up about it that I
would go out in the street and hunt for firewood, like an Arab. Astonishing
how little firewood you could pick up in the streets of Dijon. However,
these little foraging expeditions brought me into strange precincts: Got to
know the little street named after a M. Philibert Papillon -- a dead musician,
I believe -- where there was a cluster of whorehouses. It was always more
cheerful hereabouts; there was the smell of cooking, and wash hanging out to
dry. Once in a while I caught a glimpse of the poor half-wits who lounged
about inside. They were better off than the poor devils in the center of
town whom I used to bump into whenever I walked through a department store.
I did that frequently in order to get warm. They were doing it for the same
reason, I suppose. Looking for someone to buy them a coffee. They looked a
little crazy, with the cold and the loneliness. The whole town looked a bit
crazy when the blue of evening settled over it. You could walk up and down
the main drive any Thursday in the week till doomsday and never meet an
expansive soul. Sixty or seventy thousand people -- perhaps more -- wrapped in
woolen underwear and nowhere to go and nothing to do. Turning out mustard by
the carload. Female orchestras grinding out <i>The Merry Widow.</i> Silver
service in the big hotels. The ducal palace rotting away, stone by stone,
limb by limb. The trees screeching with frost. A ceaseless clatter of wooden
shoes. The University celebrating the death of Goethe, or the birth, I don't
remember which. (Usually it's the deaths that are celebrated.) Idiotic
affair, anyway. Everybody yawning and stretching.

Coming through the high driveway into the quadrangle a sense of abysmal
futility always came over me. Outside bleak and empty; inside, bleak and
empty. A scummy sterility hanging over the town, a fog of book-learning.
Slag and cinders of the past. Around the interior courts were ranged the
class rooms, little shacks such as you might see in the North woods, where
the pedagogues gave free rein to their vices. On the black-board the futile
abracadabra which the future citizens of the republic would have to spend
their lives forgetting. Once in a while the parents were received in the big
reception room just off the driveway, where there were busts of the heroes
of antiquity, such as Moliere, Racine, Corneille, Voltaire, etc., all the
scarecrows whom the cabinet ministers mention with moist lips whenever an
immortal is added to the waxworks. (No bust of Villon, no bust of Rabelais,
no bust of Rimbaud.) Anyway, they met here in solemn conclave, the parents
and the stuffed shirts whom the State hires to bend the minds of the young.
Always this bending process, this landscape gardening to make the mind more
attractive. And the youngsters came too, occasionally -- the little sunflowers
who would soon be transplanted from the nursery in order to decorate the
municipal grassplots. Some of them were just rubber plants easily dusted
with a torn chemise. All of them jerking away for dear life in the
dormitories as soon as night came on. The dormitories! where the red lights
glowed, where the bell rang like a fire-alarm, where the treads were
hollowed out in the scramble to reach the educational cells.

Then there were the profs! During the first few days I got so far as to shake
hands with a few of them, and of course there was always the salute with the
hat when we passed under the arcades. But as for a heart-to-heart talk, as
for walking to the corner and having a drink together, nothing doing. It was
simply unimaginable. Most of them looked as though they had had the shit
scared out of them. Anyway, I belonged to another hierarchy. They wouldn't
even share a louse with the likes of me. They made me so damned irritated,
just to look at them, that I used to curse them under my breath when I saw
them coming. I used to stand there, leaning against a pillar, with a
cigarette in the corner of my mouth and my hat down over my eyes, and when
they got within hailing distance I would let squirt a good gob and up with
the hat I didn't even bother to open my trap and bid them the time of the
day. Under my breath I simply said: "Fuck you, Jack!" and let it go at that.

After a week it seemed as if I had been here all my life. It was like a
bloody, fucking nightmare that you can't throw off. Used to fall into a coma
thinking about it. Just a few days ago I had arrived. Nightfall. People
scurrying home like rats under the foggy lights. The trees glittering with
diamond-pointed malice. I thought it all out, a thousand times or more.
From the station to the Lycee it was like a promenade through the Danzig
Corridor, all deckle-edged, crannied, nerve-ridden. A lane of dead bones, of
crooked, cringing figures buried in shrouds. Spines made of sardine bones.
The Lycee itself seemed to rise up out of a lake of thin snow, an inverted
mountain that pointed down toward the center of the earth where God or the
Devil works always in a strait-jacket grinding grist for that paradise which
is always a wet dream. If the sun ever shone I don't remember it. I remember
nothing but the cold greasy fogs that blew in from the frozen marshes over
yonder where the railroad tracks burrowed into the lurid hills. Down near
the station was a canal, or perhaps it was a river, hidden away under a
yellow sky, with little shacks pasted slap-up against the rising ledge of
the banks. There was a barracks too somewhere, it struck me, because every
now and then I met little yellow men from Cochin-China -- squirmy, opium-faced
runts peeping out of their baggy uniforms like dyed skeletons packed in
excelsior. The whole god-damned medievalism of the place was infernally
ticklish and restive, rocking back and forth with low moans, jumping out at
you from the eaves, hanging like broken-necked criminals from the gargoyles.
I kept looking back all the time, kept walking like a crab that you prong
with a dirty fork. All those fat little monsters, those slab-like effigies
pasted on the facade of the Eglise St. Michel, they were following me down
the crooked lanes and around corners. The whole facade of St. Michel seemed
to open up like an album at night, leaving you face to face with the horrors
of the printed page. When the lights went out and the characters faded away
flat, dead as words, then it was quite magnificent, the facade; in every
crevice of the old gnarled front there was the hollow chant of the nightwind
and over the lacy rubble of cold stiff vestments there was a cloudy
absinthe-like drool of fog and frost.

Here, where the church stood, everything seemed turned hind side front. The
church itself must have been twisted off its base by centuries of progress
in the rain and snow. It lay in the Place Edgar-Quinet, squat against the
wind, like a dead mule. Through the Rue de la Monnaie the wind rushed like
white hair streaming wild: it whirled around the white hitching posts which
obstructed the free passage of omnibuses and twenty-mule teams. Swinging
through this exit in the early morning hours I sometimes stumbled upon
Monsieur Renaud who, wrapped in his cowl like a gluttonous monk, made
overtures to me in the language of the 16th century. Falling in step with
Monsieur Renaud, the moon busting through the greasy sky like a punctured
balloon, I fell immediately into the realm of the transcendental. M. Renaud
had a precise speech, dry as apricots, with a heavy Brandenburger base. Used
to come at me full tilt from Goethe or Fichte, with deep base notes that
rumbled in the windy corners of the <i>Place</i> like claps of last year's
thunder. Men of Yucatan, men of Zanzibar, men of Tierra del Fuego, save me
from this glaucous hog-rind! The North piles up about me, the glacial fjords,
the blue-tipped spines, the crazy lights, the obscene Christian chant that
spread like an avalanche from Aetna to the Aegean. Everything frozen tight as
scum, the mind locked and rimed with frost, and through the melancholy bales
of chitterwit the choking gargle of louse-eaten saints. White I am and
wrapped in wool, swaddled, fettered, ham-strung, but in this I have no part.
White to the bone, but with a cold alkali base, with saffron-tipped fingers.
White, aye, but no brother of learning, no Catholic heart. White and
ruthless, as the men before me who sailed out of the Elbe. I look to the sea,
to the sky, to what is unintelligible and distantly near.

The snow under foot scurries before the wind, blows, tickles, stings, lisps
away, whirls aloft, showers, splinters, sprays down. No sun, no roar of
surf, no breaker's surge. The cold north wind pointed with barbed shafts,
icy, malevolent, greedy, blighting, paralyzing. The streets turn away on
their crooked elbows; they break from the hurried sight, the stem glance.
They hobble away down the drifting lattice-work, wheeling the church hind
side front, mowing down the statues, flattening the monuments, uprooting
the trees, stiffening the grass, sucking the fragrance out of the earth.
Leaves dull as cement; leaves no dew can bring to glisten again. No moon will
ever silver their listless plight. The seasons are come to a stagnant stop,
the trees blench and wither, the wagons roll in the mica ruts with slithering
harp-like thuds. In the hollow of the white-tipped hills, lurid and boneless
Dijon slumbers. No man alive and walking through the night except the
restless spirits moving southward towards the sapphire grids. Yet I am up and
about, a walking ghost, a white man terrorized by the cold sanity of this
slaughter house geometry. Who am I? What am I doing here? I fall between the
cold walls of human malevolence, a white figure fluttering, sinking down
through the cold lake, a mountain of skulls above me. I settle down to the
cold latitudes, the chalk steps washed with indigo. The earth in its dark
corridors knows my step, feels a foot abroad, a wing stirring, a gasp and a
shudder. I hear the learning chaffed and chuzzled, the figures mounting
upward, bat-slime dripping aloft and clanging with pasteboard golden wings; I
hear the trains collide, the chains rattle, the locomotive chugging,
snorting, sniffing, steaming and pissing. All things come to me through the
clear fog with the odor of repetition, with yellow hangovers and gadzooks and
whettikins. In the dead center, far below Dijon, far below the hyperborean
regions, stands God Ajax, his shoulders strapped to the mill wheel, the
olives crunching, the green marsh water alive with croaking frogs.

The fog and snow, the cold latitude, the heavy learning, the blue coffee,
the unbuttered bread, the soup and lentils, the heavy pork-packer beans, the
stale cheese, the soggy chow, the lousy wine has put the whole penitentiary
into a state of constipation. And just when everyone has become shit-tight
the toilet pipes freeze. The shit piles up like ant-hills; one has to move
down from the little pedestals and leave it on the floor. It lies there
stiff and frozen, waiting for the thaw. On Thursdays the hunchback comes
with his little wheelbarrow, shovels the cold, stiff turds with a broom and
pan, and trundles off dragging his withered leg. The corridors are littered
with toilet paper; it sticks to your feet like fly-paper. When the weather
moderates the odor gets ripe; you can smell it in Winchester forty miles
away. Standing over that ripe dung in the morning, with a toothbrush, the
stench is so powerful that it makes your head spin. We stand around in red
flannel shirts, waiting to spit down the hole; it is like an aria from one
of Verdi's operas -- an anvil chorus with pulleys and syringes. In the night,
when I am taken short, I rush down to the private toilet of M. le Censeur,
just off the driveway. My stool is always full of blood. His toilet doesn't
flush either but at least there is the pleasure of sitting down. I leave my
little bundle for him as a token of esteem.

Towards the end of the meal each evening the <i>veilleur de nuit</i> drops in
for his bit of cheer. This is the only human being in the whole institution
with whom I feel a kinship. He is a nobody. He carries a lantern and a bunch
of keys. He makes the rounds through the night, stiff as an automaton. About
the time the stale cheese is being passed around, in he pops for his glass of
wine. He stands there, with paw outstretched, his hair stiff and wiry, like a
mastiff's, his cheeks ruddy, his moustache gleaming with snow. He mumbles a
word or two and Quasimodo brings him the bottle. Then, with feet solidly
planted, he throws back his head and down it goes, slowly in one long
draught. To me it's like he's pouring rubies down his gullet. Something about
this gesture which seizes me by the hair. It's almost as if he were drinking
down the dregs of human sympathy, as if all the love and compassion in the
world could be tossed off like that, in one gulp -- as if that were all that
could be squeezed together day after day. A little less than a rabbit they
have made him. In the scheme of things he's not worth the brine to pickle a
herring. He's just a piece of live manure. And he knows it. When he looks
around after his drink and smiles at us, the world seems to be falling to
pieces. It's a smile thrown across an abyss. The whole stinking civilized
world lies like a quagmire at the bottom of the pit, and over it, like a
mirage, hovers this wavering smile.

It was the same smile which greeted me at night when I returned from my
rambles. I remember one such night when, standing at the door waiting for the
old fellow to finish his rounds, I had such a sense of well-being that I
could have waited thus forever. I had to wait perhaps half an hour before he
opened the door. I looked about me calmly and leisurely, drank everything in,
the dead tree in front of the school with its twisted rope branches, the
houses across the street which had changed color during the night, which
curved now more noticeably, the sound of a train rolling through the Siberian
wastes, the railings painted by Utrillo, the sky, the deep wagon-ruts.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, two lovers appeared; every few yards they stopped
and embraced, and when I could no longer follow them with my eyes I followed
the sound of their steps, heard the abrupt stop, and then the slow,
meandering gait. I could feel the sag and slump of their bodies when they
leaned against a rail, heard their shoes creak as the muscles tightened for
the embrace. Through the town they wandered, through the crooked streets,
towards the glassy canal where the water lay black as coal. There was
something phenomenal about it. In all Dijon not two like them.

Meanwhile the old fellow was making the rounds; I could hear the jingle of
his keys; the crunching of his boots, the steady, automatic tread. Finally I
heard him coming through the driveway to open the big door, a monstrous,
arched portal without a moat in front of it. I heard him fumbling at
<i>the</i> lock, his hands stiff, his mind numbed. As the door swung open I
saw over his head a brilliant constellation crowning the chapel. Every door
was locked, every cell bolted. The books were closed. The night hung close,
dagger-pointed, drunk as a maniac. There it was, the infinitude of emptiness.
Over the chapel, like a bishop's mitre, hung the constellation, every night,
during the winter months, it hung there low over the chapel. Low and bright,
a handful of dagger points, a dazzle of pure emptiness. The old fellow
followed me to the turn of the drive. The door closed silently. As I bade him
good night I caught that desperate, hopeless smile again, like a meteoric
flash over the rim of a lost world. And again I saw him standing in the
refectory, his head thrown back and the rubies pouring down his gullet. The
whole Mediterranean seemed to be buried inside him -- the orange groves, the
cypress trees, the winged statues, the wooden temples, the blue sea, the
stiff masks, the mystic numbers, the mythological birds, the sapphire skies,
the eaglets, the sunny coves, the blind bards, the bearded heroes. Gone all
that. Sunk beneath the avalanche from the North. Buried, dead forever. A
memory. A wild hope.

For just a moment I linger at the carriageway. The shroud, the pall, the
unspeakable, clutching emptiness of it all. Then I walk quickly along the
gravel path near the wall, past the arches and columns, the iron staircases,
from one quadrangle to the other. Everything is locked tight. Locked for the
winter. I find the arcade leading to the dormitory. A sickish light spills
down over the stairs from the grimy, frosted windows. Everywhere the paint
is peeling off. The stones are hollowed out, the bannister creaks; a damp
sweat oozes from the flagging and forms a pale, fuzzy aura pierced by the
feeble red light at the head of the stairs. I mount the last flight, the
turret, in a sweat and terror. In pitch darkness I grope my way through the
deserted corridor, every room empty, locked, moulding away. My hand slides
along the wall seeking the keyhole. A panic comes over me as I grasp the
door-knob. Always a hand at my collar ready to yank me back. Once inside the
room I bolt the door. It's a miracle which I perform each night, the miracle
of getting inside without being strangled, without being struck down by an
axe. I can hear the rats scurrying through the corridor, gnawing away over my
head between the thick rafters. The light glares like burning sulphur and
there is the sweet, sickish stench of a room which is never ventilated. In
the corner stands the coal-box, just as I left it. The fire is out. A silence
so intense that it sounds like Niagara Falls in my ears.

Alone, with a tremendous empty longing and dread. The whole room for my
thoughts. Nothing but myself and what I think, what I fear. Could think the
most fantastic thoughts, could dance, spit, grimace, curse, wail -- nobody
would ever know, nobody would ever hear. The thought of such absolute
privacy is enough to drive me mad. It's like a clean birth. Everything cut
away. Separate, naked, alone. Bliss and agony simultaneously. Time on your
hands. Each second weighing on you like a mountain. You drown in it.
Deserts, seas, lakes, oceans. Time beating away like a meat-axe.
Nothingness. The world. The me and the not-me. <i>Oomaharamooma.</i>
Everything has to have a name. Everything has to be learned, tested,
experienced. <i>Faites comme chez. vous, cheri.</i>

The silence descends in volcanic chutes. Yonder, in the barren hills,
rolling onward towards the great metallurgical regions, the locomotives are
pulling their merchant products. Over steel and iron beds they roll, the
ground sown with slag and cinders and purple ore. In the baggage car, kelps,
fishplate, rolled iron, sleepers, wire rods, plates and sheets, laminated
articles, hot rolled hoops, splints and mortar carriages, and Zores ore. The
wheels U-80 millimetres or over. Pass splendid specimens of Anglo-Norman
architecture, pass pedestrians and pederasts, open hearth furnaces, basic
Bessemer mills, dynamos and transformers, pig iron castings and steel
ingots. The public at large, pedestrians and pederasts, gold-fish and
spun-glass palm trees, donkeys sobbing, all circulating freely through
quincuncial alleys. At the Place du Bresil a lavender eye.

Going back in a flash over the women I've known. It's like a chain which I've
forged out of my own misery. Each one bound to the other. A fear of living
separate, of staying born. The door of the womb always on the latch. Dread
and longing. Deep in the blood the pull of Paradise. The beyond. Always the
beyond. It must have all started with the navel. They cut the umbilical cord,
give you a slap on the ass, and presto! you're out in the world, adrift, a
ship without a rudder. You look at the stars and then you look at your navel.
You grow eyes everywhere -- in the armpits, between your lips, in the roots
of your hair, on the soles of your feet. What is distant becomes near, what
is near becomes distant. Inner-outer, a constant flux, a shedding of skins, a
turning inside out. You drift around like that for years and years, until you
find yourself in the dead center, and there you slowly rot, slowly crumble to
pieces, get dispersed again. Only your name remains.

                                <b>* * *</b>

It was spring before I managed to escape from the penitentiary, and then
only by a stroke of fortune. A telegram from Carl informed me one day that
there was a vacancy "upstairs;" he said he would send me the fare back if I
decided to accept. I telegraphed back at once and as soon as the dough
arrived I beat it to the station. Not a word to M. le Proviseur or anyone.
French leave, as they say.

I went immediately to the hotel at 1 <i>bis,</i> where Carl was staying. He
came to the door stark naked. It was his night off and there was a cunt in
the bed as usual. "Don't mind her," he says, "she's asleep. If you need a lay
you can take her on. She's not bad." He pulls the covers back to show me what
she looks like. However, I wasn't thinking about a lay right away. I was too
excited. I was like a man who has just escaped from jail. I just wanted to
see and hear things. Coming from the station it was like a long dream. I felt
as though I had been away for years.

It was not until I had sat down and taken a good look at the room that I
realized I was back again in Paris. It was Carl's room and no mistake about
it. Like a squirrel-cage and shit-house combined. There was hardly room on
the table for the portable machine he used. It was always like that, whether
he had a cunt with him or not. Always a dictionary lying open on a gilt-edged
volume of <i>Faust, </i>always a tobacco pouch, a beret, a bottle of <i>vin
rouge,</i> letters, manuscripts, old newspapers, water colors, teapot, dirty
socks, toothpicks, Kruschen Salts, condoms, etc. In the <i>bidet</i> were
orange peels and the remnants of a ham sandwich.

"There's some food in the closet," he said. "Help yourself! I was just
going to give myself an injection."

I found the sandwich he was talking about and a piece of cheese that he had
nibbled at beside it. While he sat on the edge of the bed, dosing himself
with his argyrol, I put away the sandwich and cheese with the aid of a
little wine.

"I liked that letter you sent me about Goethe," he said, wiping his prick
with a dirty pair of drawers.

"I'll show you the answer to it in a minute -- I'm putting it in my book. The
trouble with you is that you're not a German. You have to be German to
understand Goethe. Shit, I'm not going to explain it to you now. I've put it
all in the book ... By the way, I've got a new cunt now -- not this one --
this one's a half-wit. At least, I had her until a few days ago. I'm not sure
now whether she'll come back or not. She was living here with me all the time
you were away. The other day her parents came and took her away. They said
she was only fifteen. Can you beat that? They scared the shit out of me
too...."

I began to laugh. It was like Carl to get himself into a mess like that.

"What are you laughing for?" he said. "I may go to prison for it. Luckily, I
didn't knock her up. And that's funny, too, because she never took care of
herself properly. But do you know what saved me? So I think, at least. It
was <i>Faust.</i> Yeah! Her old man happened to see it lying on the table.
He asked me if I understood German. One thing led to another and before I
knew it he was looking through my books. Fortunately I happened to have the
Shakespeare open too. That impressed him like hell. He said I was evidently
a very serious guy."

"What about the girl -- what did <i>she</i> have to say?"

"She was frightened to death. You see, she had a little watch with her when
she came; in the excitement we couldn't find the watch, and her mother
insisted that the watch be found or she'd call the police. You see how
things are here. I turned the whole place upside down -- but I couldn't find
the god-damned watch. The mother was furious. I liked her too, in spite of
everything. She was even better-looking than the daughter. Here -- I'll show
you a letter I started to write her. I'm in love with her..."

"With the mother?"

"Sure. Why not? If I had seen the mother first I'd never have looked at the
daughter. How did I know she was only fifteen? You don't ask a cunt how old
she is before you lay her. do you?"

"Joe, there's something funny about this. You're not shitting me, are you?"

"Am I shitting you? Here -- look at this!" And he shows me the water colors
the girl had made -- cute little things -- a knife and a loaf of bread, the
table and teapot, everything running uphill. "She was in love with me," he
said. "She was just like a child. I had to tell her when to brush her teeth
and how to put her hat on. Here -- look at the lollypops! I used to buy her a
few lollypops every day -- she liked them."

"Well, what did she do when her parents came to take her away? Didn't she
put up a row?"

"She cried a little, that's all. What <i>could</i> she do? She's under
age.... I had to promise never to see her again, never to write her either.
That's what I'm waiting to see now -- whether she'll stay away or not. She was
a virgin when she came here. The thing is, how long will she be able to go
without a lay? She couldn't get enough of it when she was here. She almost
wore me out."

By this time the one in bed had come to and was rubbing her eyes. She
looked pretty young to me, too. Not bad looking, but dumb as hell. Wanted to
know right away what we were talking about.

"She lives here in the hotel," said Carl. "On the third floor. Do you want
to go to her room? I'll fix it up for you."

I didn't know whether I wanted to or not, but when I saw Carl mushing it up
with her again I decided I did want to. I asked her first if she was too
tired. Useless question. A whore is never too tired to open her legs. Some of
them can fall asleep while you diddle them. Anyway, it was decided we would
go down to her room. Like that I wouldn't have to pay the <i>patron</i> for
the night.

In the morning I rented a room overlooking the little park down below where
the sandwich-board men always came to eat their lunch. At noon I called for
Carl to have breakfast with him. He and Van Norden had developed a new habit
in my absence -- they went to the Coupole for breakfast every day. "Why the
Coupole?" I asked. "Why the Coupole?" says Carl. "Because the Coupole serves
porridge at all hours and porridge makes you shit." -- "I see," said I.

So it's just like it used to be again. The three of us walking back and forth
to work. Petty dissensions, petty rivalries. Van Norden still belly-aching
about his cunts and about washing the dirt out of his belly. Only now he's
found a new diversion. He's found that it's less annoying to masturbate. I
was amazed when he broke the news to me. I didn't think it possible for a guy
like that to find any pleasure in jerking himself off. I was still more
amazed when he explained to me how he goes about it. He had "invented" a new
stunt, so he put it. "You take an apple," he says, "and you bore out the
core. Then you rub some cold cream on the inside so as it doesn't melt too
fast. Try it some time! It'll drive you crazy at first. Anyway, it's cheap
and you don't have to waste much time."

"By the way," he says, switching the subject, "that friend of yours,
Fillmore, he's in the hospital. I think he's nuts. Anyway, that's what his
girl told me. He took on a French girl, you know, while you were away. They
used to fight like hell. She's a big, healthy bitch -- wild like. I wouldn't
mind giving her a tumble, but I'm afraid she'd claw the eyes out of me. He
was always going around with his face and hands scratched up. She looks
bunged up too once in a while -- or she used to. You know how these French
cunts are -- when they love they lose their minds."

Evidently things had happened while I was away. I was sorry to hear about
Fillmore. He had been damned good to me. When I left Van Norden I jumped a
bus and went straight to the hospital.

They hadn't decided yet whether he was completely off his base or not, I
suppose, for I found him upstairs in a private room, enjoying all the
liberties of the regular patients. He had just come from the bath when I
arrived. When he caught sight of me he burst into tears. "It's all over," he
says immediately. "They say I'm crazy -- and I may have syphilis too. They say
I have delusions of grandeur." He fell over onto the bed and wept quietly.
After he had wept a while he lifted his head up and smiled -- just like a
bird coming out of a snooze. "Why do they put me in such an expensive room?"
he said. "Why don't they put me in the ward -- or in the bughouse? I can't
afford to pay for this. I'm down to my last five hundred dollars."

"That's why they're keeping you here," I said. "They'll transfer you quickly
enough when your money runs out. Don't worry."

My words must have impressed him, for I had no sooner finished than he
handed me his watch and chain, his wallet, his fraternity pin, etc. "Hold on
to them," he said. "These bastards'll rob me of everything I've got." And
then suddenly he began to laugh, one of those weird, mirthless laughs which
makes you believe a guy's goofy whether he is or not. "I know you'll think
I'm crazy," he said, "but I want to atone for what I did. I want to get
married. You see, I didn't know I had the clap. I gave her the clap and then
I knocked her up. I told the doctor I don't care what happens to me, but I
want him to let me get married first. He keeps telling me to wait until I
get better -- but I know I'm never going to get better. This is the end."

I couldn't help laughing myself, hearing him talk that way. I couldn't
understand what had come over him. Anyway, I had to promise him to see the
girl and explain things to her. He wanted me to stick by her, comfort her.
Said he could trust me, etc. I said yes to everything in order to soothe
him. He didn't seem exactly nuts to me -- just caved-in like. Typical
Anglo-Saxon crisis. An eruption of morals. I was rather curious to see the
girl, to get the lowdown on the whole thing.

The next day I looked her up. She was living in the Latin Quarter. As soon as
she realized who I was she became exceedingly cordial. Ginette she called
herself. Rather big, raw-boned, healthy, peasant type with a front tooth
half-eaten away. Full of vitality and a kind of crazy fire in her eyes. The
first thing she did was to weep. Then, seeing that I was an old friend of her
Jo-Jo -- that was how she called him -- she ran downstairs and brought back a
couple of bottles of white wine. I was to stay and have dinner with her --
she insisted on it. As she drank she became by turns gay and maudlin. I
didn't have to ask her any questions -- she went on like a self-winding
machine. The thing that worried her principally was -- would he get his job
back when he was released from the hospital? She said her parents were well
off, but they were displeased with her. They didn't approve of her wild ways.
They didn't approve of him particularly -- he had no manners, and he was an
American. She begged me to assure her that he would get his job back, which I
did without hesitancy. And then she begged me to know if she could believe
what he said -- that he was going to marry her. Because now, with a child
under her belt, and a dose of clap besides, she was in no position to strike
a match -- with a Frenchman anyway. That was clear, wasn't it? Of course, I
assured her. It was all clear as hell to me -- except how in Christ's name
Fillmore had ever fallen for her. However, one thing at a time. It was my
duty now to comfort her, and so I just filled her up with a lot of baloney,
told her everything would turn out all right and that I would stand godfather
to the child, etc. Then suddenly it struck me as strange that she should have
the child at all -- especially as it was likely to be born blind. I told her
that as tactfully as I could. "It doesn't make any difference," she said. "I
want a child by him."

"Even if it's blind?" I asked.

"<i>Mon Dieu, ne dites pas ca!</i>" she groaned. "<i>Ne dites pas ca!</i>"

Just the same, I felt it was my duty to say it. She got hysterical and began
to weep like a walrus, poured out more wine. In a few moments she was
laughing boisterously. She was laughing to think how they used to fight when
they got in bed. "He liked me to fight with him," she said. "He was a brute."

As we sat down to eat a friend of hers walked in -- a little tart who lived
at the end of the hall. Ginette immediately sent me down to get some more
wine. When I came back they had evidently had a good talk. Her friend,
Yvette, worked in the police department. A sort of stool pigeon, as far as I
could gather. At least that was what she was trying to make me believe. It
was fairly obvious that she was just a little whore. But she had an obsession
about the police and their doings. Throughout the meal they were urging me to
accompany them to a <i>bal musette. </i>They wanted to have a gay time -- it
was so lonely for Ginette with Jo-Jo in the hospital. I told them I had to
work, but that on my night off I'd come back and take them out. I made it
clear too that I had no dough to spend on them. Ginette, who was really
thunderstruck to hear this, pretended that that didn't matter in the least.
In fact, just to show what a good sport she was, she insisted on driving me
to work in a cab. She was doing it because I was a friend of Jo-Jo's. And
therefore I was a friend of hers. "And also," thought I to myself, "if
anything goes wrong with your Jo-Jo you'll come to me on the double-quick.
Then you'll see what a friend I can be!" I was as nice as pie to her. In
fact, when we got out of the cab in front of the office, I permitted them to
persuade me into having a final Pernod together. Yvette wanted to know if she
couldn't call for me after work. She had a lot of things to tell me in
confidence, she said. But I managed to refuse without hurting her feelings.
Unfortunately I did unbend sufficiently to give her my address.

<i>Unfortunately,</i> I say. As a matter of fact, I'm rather glad of it when
I think back on it. Because the very next day things began to happen. The
very next day, before I had even gotten out of bed, the two of them called
on me. Jo-Jo had been removed from the hospital -- they had incarcerated him
in a little chateau in the country, just a few miles out of Paris. The
<i>chateau,</i> they called it. A polite way of saying "the bughouse." They
wanted me to get dressed immediately and go with them. They were in a panic.

Perhaps I might have gone alone -- but I just couldn't make up my mind to go
with these two. I asked them to wait for me downstairs while I got dressed,
thinking that it would give me time to invent some excuse for not going.
But they wouldn't leave the room. They sat there and watched me wash and
dress, just as if it were an everyday affair. In the midst of it, Carl
popped in. I gave him the situation briefly, in English, and then we hatched
up an excuse that I had some important work to do. However, to smooth things
over, we got some wine in and we began to amuse them by showing them a book
of dirty drawings. Yvette had already lost all desire to go to the
chateau. She and Carl were getting along famously. When it came time to go
Carl decided to accompany them to the chateau. He thought it would be funny
to see Fillmore walking around with a lot of nuts. He wanted to see what it
was like in the nuthouse. So off they went, somewhat pickled, and in the
best of humor.

All the time that Fillmore was at the chateau I never once went to see him.
It wasn't necessary, because Ginette visited him regularly and gave me all
the news. They had hopes of bringing him around in a few months, so she
said. They thought it was alcoholic poisoning -- nothing more. Of course, he
had a dose -- but that wasn't difficult to remedy. So far as they could see,
he didn't have syphilis. That was something. So, to begin with, they used
the stomach pump on him. They cleaned his system out thoroughly. He was so
weak for a while that he couldn't get out of bed. He was depressed, too. He
said he didn't want to be cured -- he wanted to die. And he kept repeating
this nonsense so insistently that finally they grew alarmed. I suppose it
wouldn't have been a very good recommendation if he had committed suicide.
Anyway, they began to give him mental treatment. And in between times they
pulled out his teeth, more and more of them, until he didn't have a tooth
left in his head. He was supposed to feel fine after that, yet strangely he
didn't. He became more despondent than ever. And then his hair began to fall
out. Finally he developed a paranoid streak -- began to accuse them of all
sorts of things, demanded to know by what right he was being detained, what
he had done to warrant being locked up, etc. After a terrible fit of
despondency he would suddenly become energetic and threaten to blow up the
place if they didn't release him. And to make it worse, as far as Ginette
was concerned, he had gotten all over his notion of marrying her. He told
her straight up and down that he had no intention of marrying her, and that
if she was crazy enough to go and have a child then she could support it
herself.

The doctors interpreted all this as a good sign. They said he was coming
round. Ginette, of course, thought he was crazier than ever, but she was
praying for him to be released so that she could take him to the country
where it would be quiet and peaceful and where he would come to his right
senses. Meanwhile her parents had come to Paris on a visit and had even gone
so far as to visit the future son-in-law at the chateau. In their canny way
they had probably figured it out that it would be better for their daughter
to have a crazy husband than no husband at all. The father thought he could
find something for Fillmore to do on the farm. He said that Fillmore wasn't
such a bad chap at all. When he learned from Ginette that Fillmore's parents
had money he became even more indulgent, more understanding.

The thing was working itself out nicely all around. Ginette returned to the
provinces for a while with her parents. Yvette was coming regularly to the
hotel to see Carl. She thought he was the editor of the paper. And little by
little she became more confidential. When she got good and tight one day,
she informed us that Ginette had never been anything but a whore, that
Ginette was a blood-sucker, that Ginette never had been pregnant and was not
pregnant now. About the other accusations we hadn't much doubt, Carl and I,
but about not being pregnant, that we weren't so sure of.

"How did she get such a big stomach, then?" asked Carl.

Yvette laughed. "Maybe she uses a bicycle pump," she said. "No, seriously,"
she added, "the stomach comes from drink. She drinks like a fish, Ginette.
When she comes back from the country, you will see, she will be blown up
still more. Her father is a drunkard. Ginette is a drunkard. Maybe she had
the clap, yes -- but she is not pregnant."

"But why does she want to marry him? Is she really in love with him?"

<i>"Love?</i> Pfoboh! She has no heart, Ginette. She wants someone to look
after her. No Frenchman would ever marry her -- she has a police record. No,
she wants him because he's too stupid to find out about her. Her parents
don't want her any more -- she's a disgrace to them. But if she can get
married to a rich American, then everything will be all right.... You think
maybe she loves him a little, eh? You don't know her. When they were living
together at the hotel, she had men coming to her room while he was at work.
She said he didn't give her enough spending money. He was stingy. That fur
she wore -- she told him her parents had given it to her, didn't she?
Innocent fool! Why, I've seen her bring a man back to the hotel right while
he was there. She brought the man to the floor below. I saw it with my own
eyes. And what a man! An old derelict! He couldn't get an erection!"

If Fillmore, when he was released from the chateau, had returned to Paris,
perhaps I might have tipped him off about his Ginette. While he was still
under observation I didn't think it well to upset him by poisoning his mind
with Yvette's slanders. As things turned out, he went directly from the
chateau to the home of Ginette's parents. There, despite himself, he was
inveigled into making public his engagement. The banns were published in the
local papers and a reception was given to the friends of the family. Fillmore
took advantage of the situation to indulge in all sorts of escapades. Though
he knew quite well what he was doing he pretended to be still a little daffy.
He would borrow his father-in-law's car, for example, and tear about the
countryside all by himself; if he saw a town that he liked he would plank
himself down and have a good time until Ginette came searching for him.
Sometimes the father-in-law and he would go off together -- on a fishing
trip, presumably -- and nothing would be heard of them for days. He became
exasperatingly capricious and exacting. I suppose he figured he might as well
get what he could out of it.

When he returned to Paris with Ginette he had a complete new wardrobe and a
pocketful of dough. He looked cheerful and healthy, and had a fine coat of
tan. He looked sound as a berry to me. But as soon as we had gotten away
from Ginette he opened up. His job was gone and his money had all run out.
In a month or so they were to be married. Meanwhile the parents were
supplying the dough. "Once they've got me properly in their clutches," he
said, "I'll be nothing but a slave to them. The father thinks he's going to
open up a stationery store for me. Ginette will handle the customers, take
in the money, etc., while I sit in the back of the store and write -- or
something. Can you picture me sitting in the back of a stationery store
for the rest of my life? Ginette thinks it's an excellent idea. She likes to
handle money. I'd rather go back to the chateau than submit to such a
scheme."

For the time being, of course, he was pretending that everything was
hunky-dory. I tried to persuade him to go back to America but he wouldn't
hear of that. He said he wasn't going to be driven out of France by a lot of
ignorant peasants. He had an idea that he would slip out of sight for a
while and then take up quarters in some outlying section of the city where
he'd not be likely to stumble upon her. But we soon decided that that was
impossible: you can't hide away in France as you can in America.

"You could go to Belgium for a while," I suggested. "But what'll I do for
money?" he said promptly. "You can't get a job in these god-damned
countries."

"Why don't you marry her and get a divorce, then?" I asked.

"And meanwhile she'll be dropping a kid. Who's going to take care of the
kid, eh?"

"How do you know she's going to have a kid?" I said, determined now that the
moment had come to spill the beans.

"How do I know?" he said. He didn't quite seem to know what I was
insinuating.

I gave him an inkling of what Yvette had said. He listened to me in complete
bewilderment. Finally he interrupted me. "It's no use going on with that," he
said. "I know she's going to have a kid, all right. I've felt it kicking
around inside. Yvette's a dirty little slut. You see, I didn't want to tell
you, but up until the time I went to the hospital I was shelling out for
Yvette too. Then when the crash came I couldn't do any more for her. I
figured out that I had done enough for the both of them.... I made up my mind
to look after myself first. That made Yvette sore. She told Ginette that she
was going to get even with me.... No, I wish it were true, what she said.
Then I could get out of this thing more easily. Now I'm in a trap. I've
promised to marry her and I'll have to go through with it. After that I don't
know what'll happen to me. They've got me by the balls now."

Since he had taken a room in the same hotel with me I was obliged to see them
frequently, whether I wanted to or not. Almost every evening I had dinner
with them, preceded, of course, by a few Pernods. All through the meal they
quarrelled noisily. It was embarrassing because I had sometimes to take one
side and sometimes the other. One Sunday afternoon, for example, after we had
had lunch together, we repaired to a cafe on the corner of the Boulevard
Edgar-Quinet. Things had gone unusually well this time. We were sitting
inside at a little table, one alongside the other, our backs to a mirror.
Ginette must have been passionate or something for she had suddenly gotten
into a sentimental mood and was fondling him and kissing him in front of
everybody, as the French do so naturally. They had just come out of a long
embrace when Fillmore said something about her parents which she interpreted
as an insult. Immediately her cheeks flushed with anger. We tried to mollify
her by telling her that she had misunderstood the remark and then, under his
breath, Fillmore said something to me in English -- something about giving
her a little soft soap. That was enough to set her completely off the handle.
She said we were making fun of her. I said something sharp to her which
angered her still more and then Fillmore tried to put in a word. "You're too
quicktempered," he said, and he tried to pat her on the cheek. But she,
thinking that he had raised his hand to slap her face, she gave him a sound
crack in the jaw with that big peasant hand of hers. For a moment he was
stunned. He hadn't expected a wallop like that, and it stung. I saw his face
go white and the next moment he raised himself from the bench and with the
palm of his hand he gave her such a crack that she almost fell off her seat.
"There! that'll teach you how to behave!" he said -- in his broken French.
For a moment there was a dead silence. Then, like a storm breaking, she
picked up the cognac glass in front of her and hurled it at him with all her
might. It smashed against the mirror behind us. Fillmore had already grabbed
her by the arm, but with her free hand she grabbed the coffee glass and
smashed it on the floor. She was squirming around like a maniac. It was all
we could do to hold her down. Meanwhile, of course, the <i>patron </i>had
come running in and ordered us to beat it. "Loafers!" he called us. "Yes,
loafers; That's it!" screamed Ginette. "Dirty foreigners! Thugs! Gangsters!
Striking a pregnant woman!" We were getting black looks all around. A poor
Frenchwoman with two American toughs. Gangsters. I was wondering how the hell
we'd ever get out of the place without a fight. Fillmore, by this time, was
as silent as a clam. Ginette was bolting it through the door, leaving us to
face the music. As she sailed out she turned back with fist upraised and
shouted; "I'll pay you back for this, you brute! You'll see! No foreigner can
treat a decent Frenchwoman like that! Ah, no! Not like that!"

Hearing this the <i>patron,</i> who had now been paid for his drinks and his
broken glasses, felt it incumbent to show his gallantry toward a splendid
representative of French motherhood such as Ginette, and so, without more
ado, he spat at our feet and shoved us out of the door. "Shit on you, you
dirty loafers!" he said, or some such pleasantry.

Once in the street and nobody throwing things after us, I began to see the
funny side of it. It would be an excellent idea, I thought to myself, if
the whole thing were properly aired in court. <i>The whole thing!</i> With
Yvette's little stories as a side dish. After all, the French have a sense
of humor. Perhaps the judge, when he heard Fillmore's side of the story,
would absolve him from marriage.

Meanwhile, Ginette was standing across the street brandishing her fist and
yelling at the top of her lungs. People were stopping to listen in, to take
sides, as they do in street brawls. Fillmore didn't know what to do --
whether to walk away from her, or to go over to her and try to pacify her.
He was standing in the middle of the street with his arms outstretched,
trying to get a word in edgewise. And Ginette still yelling: <i>"Gangster!
Brute! Tu verras, salaud</i>!" and other complimentary things. Finally
Fillmore made a move towards her and she, probably thinking that he was
going to give her another good cuff, took it on a trot down the street.
Fillmore came back to where I was standing and said: "Come on, let's follow
her quietly." We started off with a thin crowd of stragglers behind us.
Every once in a while she turned back towards us and brandished her fist.
We made no attempt to catch up with her, just followed her leisurely down
the street to see what she would do. Finally she slowed up her pace and we
crossed over to the other side of the street. She was quiet now. We kept
walking behind her, getting closer and closer. There were only about a dozen
people behind us now -- the others had lost interest. When we got near the
corner she suddenly stopped and waited for us to approach. "Let me do the
talking," said Fillmore, "I know how to handle her."

The tears were streaming down her face as we came up to her. Myself, I
didn't know what to expect of her. I was somewhat surprised therefore when
Fillmore walked up to her and said in an aggrieved voice: "Was that a nice
thing to do? Why did you act that way?" Whereupon she threw her arms around
his neck and began to weep like a child, calling him her little this and her
little that. Then she turned to me imploringly. "You saw how he struck me,"
she said. "Is that the way to behave towards a woman?" I was on the point of
saying yes when Fillmore took her by the arm and started leading her off.
"No more of that," he said. "If you start again I'll crack you right here in
the street."

I thought it was going to start up all over again. She had fire in her eyes.
But evidently she was a bit cowed, too, for it subsided quickly. However, as
she sat down at the cafe she said quietly and grimly that he needn't think
it was going to be forgotten so quickly; he'd hear more about it later on
... perhaps to-night.

And sure enough she kept her word. When I met him the next day his face and
hands were all scratched up. Seems she had waited until he got to bed and
then, without a word, she had gone to the wardrobe and, dumping all his
things out on the floor, she took them one by one and tore them to ribbons.
As this had happened a number of times before, and as she had always sewn
them up afterwards, he hadn't protested very much. And that made her
angrier than ever. What she wanted was to get her nails into him, and she
did, to the best of her ability. Being pregnant she had a certain advantage
over him.

Poor Fillmore! It was no laughing matter. She had him terrorized. If he
threatened to run away she retorted by a threat to kill him. And she said it
as if she meant it. "If you go to America," she said, "I'll follow you! You
won't get away from me. A French girl always knows how to get vengeance."
And the next moment she would be coaxing him to be "reasonable," to be
<i>"sage,"</i> etc. Life would be so nice once they had the stationery store.
He wouldn't have to do a stroke of work. She would do everything. He could
stay in back of the store and write -- or whatever he wanted to do.

It went on like this, back and forth, a seesaw, for a few weeks or so. I was
avoiding them as much as possible, sick of the affair and disgusted with the
both of them. Then one fine summer's day, just as I was passing the Credit
Lyonnais, who comes marching down the steps but Fillmore. I greeted him
warmly, feeling rather guilty because I had dodged him for so long. I asked
him, with more than ordinary curiosity, how things were going. He answered
me rather vaguely and with a note of despair in his voice.

"I've just gotten permission to go to the bank," he said, in a peculiar,
broken, abject sort of way. "I've got about half an hour, no more. She keeps
tabs on me." And he grasped my arm as if to hurry me away from the spot.

We were walking down towards the Rue de Rivoli. It was a beautiful day,
warm, clear, sunny -- one of those days when Paris is at its best. A mild
pleasant breeze blowing, just enough to take that stagnant odor out of your
nostrils. Fillmore was without a hat. Outwardly he looked the picture of
health -- like the average American tourist who slouches along with money
jingling in his pockets.

"I don't know what to do any more," he said quietly. "You've got to do
something for me. I'm helpless. I can't get a grip on myself. If I could
only get away from her for a little while perhaps I'd come round all right.
But she won't let me out of her sight. I just got permission to run to the
bank -- I had to draw some money. I'll walk around with you a bit and then I
must hurry back -- she'll have lunch waiting for me."

I listened to him quietly, thinking to myself that he did need someone to
pull him out of the hole he was in. He had completely caved in, there wasn't
a speck of courage left in him. He was just like a child -- like a child who
is beaten every day and doesn't know any more how to behave, except to cower
and cringe. As we turned under the colonnade of the Rue de Rivoli he burst
out into a long diatribe against France. He was fed up with the French. "I
used to rave about them," he said, "but that was all literature. I know them
now ... I know what they're really like. They're cruel and mercenary. At
first it seems wonderful, because you have a feeling of being free. After a
while it palls on you. Underneath it's all dead: there's no feeling, no
sympathy, no friendship. They're selfish to the core. The most selfish people
on earth! They think of nothing but money, money, money. And so god-damned
respectable, so bourgeois! That's what drives me nuts. When I see her mending
my shirts I could club her. Always mending, mending. Saving, saving. <i>Faut
faire des economies!</i> That's all I hear her say all day long. You hear it
everywhere. <i>Sois raisonnable, mon cheri! Sois raisonnable!</i> I don't
want to be reasonable and logical. I hate it! I want to bust loose, I want to
enjoy myself. I want to <i>do</i> something. I don't want to sit in a care
and talk all day long. Jesus, we've got our faults -- but we've got
enthusiasm. It's better to make mistakes than not do anything. I'd rather be
a bum in America than to be sitting pretty here. Maybe it's because I'm a
Yankee. I was born in New England and I belong there, I guess. You can't
become a European overnight. There's something in your blood that makes you
different. It's the climate -- and everything. We see things with different
eyes. We can't make ourselves over, however much we admire the French. We're
Americans and we've got to remain Americans. Sure, I hate those puritanical
buggers back home -- I hate 'em with all my guts. But I'm one of them myself.
I don't belong here. I'm sick of it."

All along the arcade he went on like this. I wasn't saying a word. I let
him spill it all out -- it was good for him to get it off his chest. Just the
same, - I was thinking how strange it was that this same guy, had it been a
year ago, would have been beating his chest like a gorilla and saying:
"What a marvellous day! What a country! What a people!" And if an American
had happened along and said one word against France Fillmore would have
flattened his nose. He would have died for France -- a year ago. I never saw
a man who was so infatuated with a country, who was so happy under a foreign
sky. It wasn't natural. When he said <i>France</i> it meant wine, women,
money in the pocket, easy come, easy go. It meant being a bad boy, being on
a holiday. And then, when he had had his fling, when the tent-top blew off
and he had a good look at the sky, he saw that it wasn't just a circus, but
an arena, just like everywhere. And a damned grim one. I often used to
think, when I heard him rave about glorious France, about liberty and all
that crap, what it would have sounded like to a French workman, could he
have understood Fillmore's words. No wonder they think we're all crazy. We
<i>are</i> crazy to them. We're just a pack of children. Senile idiots.
What we call life is a five-and-ten-cent store romance. That enthusiasm
underneath -- what is it? That cheap optimism which turns the stomach of any
ordinary European? It's illusion. No, illusion's too good a word for it.
Illusion means something. No, it's not that -- it's <i>delusion.</i> It's
sheer delusion, that's what. We're like a herd of wild horses with blinders
over our eyes. On the rampage. Stampede. Over the precipice. Bango! Anything
that nourishes violence and confusion. On! On! No matter where. And foaming
at the lips all the while. Shouting Hallelujah! <i>Hallelujah!</i> Why? God
knows. It's in the blood. It's the climate. It's a lot of things. It's the
end, too. We're pulling the whole world down about our ears. We don't know
why. It's our destiny. The rest is plain shit....

At the Palais Royal I suggested that we stop and have a drink. He hesitated
a moment. I saw that he was worrying about her, about the lunch, about the
bawling out he'd get.

"For Christ's sake," I said, "forget about her for a while. I'm going to
order something to drink and I want you to drink it. Don't worry, I'm going
to get you out of this fucking mess." I ordered two stiff whiskies.

When he saw the whiskies coming he smiled at me just like a child again.

"Down it!" I said, "and let's have another. This is going to do you good. I
don't care what the doctor says -- this time it'll be all right. Come on,
down with it!"

He put it down all right and while the <i>garcon</i> disappeared to fetch
another round he looked at me with brimming eyes, as though I were the last
friend in the world. His lips were twitching a bit, too. There was something
he wanted to say to me and he didn't quite know how to begin. I looked at
him easily, as though ignoring the appeal and, shoving the saucers aside, I
leaned over on my elbow and I said to him earnestly: "Look here, Fillmore,
what is it you'd <i>really</i> like to do? Tell me!"

With that the tears gushed up and he blurted out: "I'd like to be home with
my people. I'd like to hear English spoken." The tears were streaming down
his face. He made no effort to brush them away. He just let everything gush
forth. Jesus, I thought to myself, that's fine to have a release like that.
Fine to be a complete coward at least once in your life. To let go that way.
Great! Great! It did me so much good to see him break down that way that I
felt as though I could solve any problem. I felt courageous and resolute. I
had a thousand ideas in my head at once.

"Listen," I said, bending still closer to him, "if you mean what you said
why don't you do it ... why don't you go? Do you know what I would do, if I
were in your shoes? I'd go to-day. Yes, by Jesus, I mean it ... I'd go right
away, without even saying good-bye to her. As a matter of fact that's the
only way you can go -- she'd never let you say good-bye. You know that."

The <i>garcon</i> came with the whiskies. I saw him reach forward with a
desperate eagerness and raise the glass to his lips. I saw a glint of hope
in his eyes -- far-off, wild, desperate. He probably saw himself swimming
across the Atlantic. To me it looked easy, simple as rolling off a log. The
whole thing was working itself out rapidly in my mind. I knew just what each
step would be. Clear as a bell, I was.

"Whose money is that in the bank?" I asked. "Is it her father's or is it
yours?"

"It's mine!" he exclaimed. "My mother sent it to me. I don't want any of her
god-damned money."

"That's swell!" I said. "Listen, suppose we hop a cab and go back there. Draw
out every cent. Then we'll go to the British Consulate and get a visa. You're
going to hop the train this afternoon for London. From London you'll take the
first boat to America. I'm saying that because then you won't be worried
about her trailing you. She'll never suspect that you went via London. If she
goes searching for you she'll naturally go to Le Havre first, or
Cherbourg.... And here's another thing -- you're not going back to get your
things. You're going to leave everything here. Let her keep them. With that
French mind of hers she'll never dream that you scooted off without bag or
baggage. It's incredible. A Frenchman would never dream of doing a thing like
that ... unless he was as cracked as you are."

"You're right!" he exclaimed. "I never thought of that. Besides, you might
send them to me later on -- if she'll surrender them! But that doesn't matter
now. Jesus, though, I haven't even got a hat!"

"What do you need a hat for? When you get to London you can buy everything
you need. All you need now is to hurry. We've got to find out when the train
leaves."

"Listen," he said, reaching for his wallet, "I'm going to leave everything
to you. Here, take this and do whatever's necessary. I'm too weak.... I'm
dizzy."

I took the wallet and emptied it of the bills he had just drawn from the
bank. A cab was standing at the curb. We hopped in. There was a train
leaving the Gare du Nord at four o'clock, or thereabouts. I was figuring it
out -- the bank, the Consulate, the American Express, the station. Fine! Just
about make it.

"Now buck up!" I said, "and keep your shirt on! Shit, in a few hours you'll
be crossing the channel. Tonight you'll be walking around in London and
you'll get a good bellyful of English. tomorrow you'll be on the open sea --
and then, by Jesus, you're a free man and you needn't give a fuck what
happens. By the time you get to New York this'll be nothing more than a bad
dream."

This got him so excited that his feet were moving convulsively, as if he were
trying to run inside the cab. At the bank his hand was trembling so that he
could hardly sign his name. That was one thing I couldn't do for him -- sign
his name. But I think, had it been necessary, I could have sat him on the
toilet and wiped his ass. I was determined to ship him off, even if I had to
fold him up and put him in a valise.

It was lunch hour when we got to the British Consulate, and the place was
closed. That meant waiting until two o'clock. I couldn't think of anything
better to do, by way of killing time, than to eat. Fillmore, of course,
wasn't hungry. He was for eating a sandwich. "Fuck that!" I said. "You're
going to blow me to a good lunch. It's the last square meal you're going to
have over here -- maybe for a long while." I steered him to a cosy little
restaurant and ordered a good spread. I ordered the best wine on the menu,
regardless of price or taste. I had all his money in my pocket -- oodles of it,
it seemed to me. Certainly never before had I had so much in my fist at one
time. It was a treat to break a thousand-franc note. I held it up to the
lights first to look at the beautiful watermark. Beautiful money! One of the
few things the French make on a grand scale. Artistically done, too, as if
they cherished a deep affection even for the symbol.

The meal over, we went to a cafe. I ordered Chartreuse with the coffee. Why
not? And I broke another bill -- a five-hundred-franc note this time. It was a
clean, new, crisp bill. A pleasure to handle such money. The waiter handed me
back a lot of dirty old bills that had been patched up with strips of gummed
paper; I had a stack of five and ten-franc notes and a bagful of chicken
feed. Chinese money, with holes in it. I didn't know in which pocket to stuff
the money any more. My trousers were bursting with coins and bills. It made
me slightly uncomfortable also, hauling all that dough out in public. I was
afraid we might be taken for a couple of crooks.

When we got to the American Express, there wasn't a devil of a lot of time
left. The British, in their usual fumbling, farting way, had kept us on
pins and needles. Here everybody was sliding around on castors. They were so
speedy that everything had to be done twice. After all the checks were
signed and clipped together in a neat little holder, it was discovered that
he had signed in the wrong place. Nothing to do but start all over again. I
stood over him, with one eye on the clock, and watched every stroke of the
pen. It hurt to hand over the dough. Not all of it, thank God -- but a good
part of it. I had roughly about 2,500 francs in my pocket. Roughly, I say. I
wasn't counting by francs any more. A hundred, or two hundred, more or
less -- it didn't mean a god-damned thing to me. As for him, he was going
through the whole transaction in a daze. He didn't know how much money he
had. All he knew was that he had to keep something aside for Ginette. He
wasn't certain yet how much -- we were going to figure that out on the way to
the station.

In the excitement we had forgotten to change all the money. We were already
in the cab, however, and there wasn't any time to be lost. The thing was to
find out how we stood. We emptied our pockets quickly and began to whack it
up. Some of it was lying on the floor, some of it was on the seat. It was
bewildering. There was French, American and English money. And all that
chicken feed besides. I felt like picking up the coins and chucking them out
of the window -- just to simplify matters. Finally we sifted it all out; he
held on to the English and American money, and I held on to the French
money.

We had to decide quickly now what to do about Ginette -- how much to give her,
what to tell her, etc. He was trying to fix up a yam for me to hand her --
didn't want her to break her heart and so forth. I had to cut him short.

"Never mind what to tell her," I said. "Leave that to me. How much are you
going to <i>give</i> her, that's the thing? Why give her anything?"

That was like setting a bomb under his ass. He burst into tears. Such tears!
It was worse than before. I thought he was going to collapse on my hands.
Without stopping to think, I said: "All right, let's give her all this
French money. That ought to last her for a while."

"How much is it?" he asked feebly. "I don't know -- about 2,000 francs or so.
More than she deserves anyway."

"Christ! Don't say that!" he begged. "After all, it's a rotten break I'm
giving her. Her folks'll never take her back now. No, give it to her. Give
her the whole damned business.... I don't care what it is."

He pulled a handkerchief out to wipe the tears away. "I can't help it," he
said. "It's too much for me." I said nothing. Suddenly he sprawled himself
out full length -- I thought he was taking a fit or something -- and he said:

"Jesus, I think I ought to go back. I ought to go back and face the music. If
anything should happen to her I'd never forgive myself." That was a rude jolt
for me. "Christ!" I shouted, "you can't do that! Not now. It's too late.
You're going to take the train and I'm going to tend to her myself. I'll go
see her just as soon as I leave you. Why, you poor boob, if she ever thought
you had tried to run away from her she'd murder you, don't you realize that?
You can't go back any more. It's settled."

Anyway, what <i>could</i> go wrong? I asked myself. Kill herself? <i>Tant
mieux.</i>

When we rolled up to the station we had still about twelve minutes to kill.
I didn't dare to say good-bye to him yet. At the last minute, raided as he
was, I could see him jumping off the train and scooting back to her.
Anything might swerve him. A straw. So I dragged him across the street to a
bar and I said: "Now you're going to have a Pernod -- your <i>last</i> Pernod
and I'm going to pay for it ... with <i>your</i> dough."

Something about this remark made him look at me uneasily. He took a big
gulp of the Pernod and then, turning to me like an injured dog, he said: "I
know I oughtn't to trust you with all that money, but... but.... Oh, well,
do what you think best. I don't want her to kill herself, that's all."

<i>"Kill herself?"</i> I said. "Not her! You must think a hell of a lot of
yourself if you can believe a thing like that. As for the money, though I
hate to give it to her, I promise you I'll go straight to the post office
and telegraph it to her. I wouldn't trust myself with it a minute longer
than is necessary." As I said this I spied a bunch of post cards in a
revolving rack. I grabbed one off -- a picture of the Eiffel Tower it was --
and made him write a few words. "Tell her you're sailing now. Tell her you
love her and that you'll send for her as soon as you arrive.... I'll send it
by <i>pneumatique</i> when I go to the post office. And tonight I'll see her.
Everything'll be Jake, you'll see."

With that we walked across the street to the station. Only two minutes to
go. I felt it was safe now. At the gate I gave him a slap on the back and
pointed to the train. I didn't shake hands with him -- he would have slobbered
all over me. I just said: "Hurry! She's going in a minute." And with that I
turned on my heel and marched off. I didn't even look round to see if he was
boarding the train. I was afraid to.

        x x x

I hadn't really thought, all the while I was bundling him off, what I'd do
once I was free of him. I had promised a lot of things -- but that was only
to keep him quiet. As for facing Ginette, I had about as little courage for
it as he had. I was getting panicky myself. Everything had happened so
quickly that it was impossible to grasp the nature of the situation in full.
I walked away from the station in a kind of delicious stupor -- with the post
card in my hand. I stood against a lamp-post and read it over. It sounded
preposterous. I read it again, to make sure that I wasn't dreaming, and then
I tore it up and threw it in the gutter.

I looked around uneasily, half expecting to see Ginette coming after me with
a tomahawk. Nobody was following me. I started walking leisurely towards
the Place Lafayette. It was a beautiful day, as I had observed earlier.
Light, puffy clouds above, sailing with the wind. The awnings flapping.
Paris had never looked so good to me; I almost felt sorry that I had shipped
the poor bugger off. At the Place Lafayette I sat down facing the church and
stared at the clock tower; it's not such a wonderful piece of architecture,
but that blue in the dial face always fascinated me. It was bluer than ever
to-day. I couldn't take my eyes off it.

Unless he were crazy enough to write her a letter, explaining everything,
Ginette need never know what had happened. And even if she did learn that he
had left her 2,500 francs or so she couldn't prove it. I could always say
that he imagined it. A guy who was crazy enough to walk off without even a
hat was crazy enough to invent the 2,500 francs, or whatever it was. How much
was it, anyhow, I wondered. My pockets were sagging with the weight of it. I
hauled it all out and counted it carefully. There was exactly 2,875 francs
and 35 centimes. More than I had thought. The 75 francs and 35 centimes had
to be gotten rid of. I wanted an even sum -- a clean 2,800 francs. Just then
I saw a cab pulling up to the curb. A woman stepped out with a white poodle
dog in her hands; the dog was peeing over her silk dress. The idea of taking
a dog for a ride got me sore. I'm as good as her dog, I said to myself, and
with that I gave the driver a sign and told him to drive me through the Bois.
He wanted to know where exactly. "Anywhere," I said. "Go through the Bois, go
all around it -- and take your time, I'm in no hurry." I sank back and let
the houses whizz by, the jagged roofs, the chimney pots, the colored walls,
the urinals, the dizzy <i>carrefours.</i> Passing the Rond-Point I thought
I'd go downstairs and take a leak. No telling what might happen down there. I
told the driver to wait. It was the first time in my life I had let a cab
wait while I took a leak. How much can you waste that way? Not very much.
With what I had in my pocket I could afford to have two taxis waiting for me.

I took a good look around but I didn't see anything worth while. What I
wanted was something fresh and unused -- something from Alaska or the Virgin
Islands. A clean fresh pelt with a natural fragrance to it. Needless to say,
there wasn't anything like that walking about. I wasn't terribly
disappointed. I didn't give a fuck whether I found anything or not. The
thing is, never to be too anxious. Everything comes in due time.

We drove on past the Arc de Triomphe. A few sightseers were loitering
around the remains of the Unknown Soldier. Going through the Bois I looked
at all the rich cunts promenading in their limousines. They were whizzing
by as if they had some destination. Do that, no doubt, to look important -- to
show the world how smooth run their Rolls Royces and their Hispano Suizas.
Inside me things were running smoother than any Rolls Royce ever ran. It was
just like velvet inside. Velvet cortex and velvet vertebrae. And velvet axle
grease, what! It's a wonderful thing, for half an hour, to have money in
your pocket and piss it away like a drunken sailor. You feel as though the
world is yours. And the best part of it is, you don't know what to do with
it. You can sit back and let the meter run wild, you can let the wind blow
through your hair, you can stop and have a drink, you can give a big tip,
and you can swagger off as though it were an everyday occurrence. But you
can't create a revolution. You can't wash <i>all</i> the dirt out of your
belly.

When we got to the Porte d'Auteuil I made him head for the Seine. At the
Pont de Sevres I got out and started walking along the river, toward the
Auteuil Viaduct. It's about the size of a creek along here and the trees come
right down to the river's bank. The water was green and glassy, especially
near the other side. Now and then a scow chugged by. Bathers in tights were
standing in the grass sunning themselves. Everything was close and
pal-pitant, and vibrant with the strong light.

Passing a beer garden I saw a group of cyclists sitting at a table. I took a
seat nearby and ordered a <i>demi.</i> Hearing them jabber away I thought
for a moment of Ginette. I saw her stamping up and down the room, tearing
her hair, and sobbing and bleating, in that beast-like way of hers. I saw
his hat on the rack. I wondered if his clothes would fit me. He had a raglan
that I particularly liked. Well, by now he was on his way. In a little while
the boat would be rocking under him. English! He wanted to hear English
spoken. What an idea!

Suddenly it occurred to me that if I wanted I could go to America myself. It
was the first time the opportunity had ever presented itself. I asked
myself -- "do you want to go?" There was no answer. My thoughts drifted out,
towards the sea, towards the other side where, taking a last look back, I
had seen the skyscrapers fading out in a flurry of snowflakes. I saw them
looming up again, in that same ghostly way as when I left. Saw the lights
creeping through their ribs. I saw the whole city spread out, from Harlem to
the Battery, the streets choked with ants, the elevated rushing by, the
theatres emptying. I wondered in a vague way what had ever happened to my
wife.

After everything had quietly sifted through my head a great peace came over
me. Here, where the river gently winds through the girdle of hills, lies a
soil so saturated with the past that however far back the mind roams one can
never detach it from its human background. Christ, before my eyes there
shimmered such a golden peace that only a neurotic could dream of turning
his head away. So quietly flows the Seine that one hardly notices its
presence. It is always there, quiet and unobtrusive, like a great artery
running through the human body. In the wonderful peace that fell over me it
seemed as if I had climbed to the top of a high mountain; for a little while
I would be able to look around me, to take in the meaning of the landscape.

Human beings make a strange fauna and flora. From a distance they appear
negligible; close up they are apt to appear ugly and malicious. More than
anything they need to be surrounded with sufficient space -- space even more
than time.

The sun is setting. I feel this river flowing through me -- its past, its
ancient soil, the changing climate. The hills gently girdle it about: its
course is fixed.

                                Bibliography

Chadwick, Whitney and de Courdvron, Isabelle, eds. <i>Significant Others:
Creativity & Intimate Partnership</i> (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1993).

Dearborn, Mary V. <i>Henry Miller: A Biography</i> (New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1991).

DeSalvo, Louise. <i>Conceived with Malice: Literature as Revenge in the
Lives and Works of Virginia and Leonard Woolf, D. H. Lawrence, Djuna
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