Sexus (The Rosy Crucifixion, book 1)

the bill I found I had about three dollars left over. I decided to beat it without saying a word to anybody. They could sit there till Kingdom Come—I had had enough of it.

I started walking uptown. Soon I was on Broadway. At Thirty-Fourth Street I quickened my pace. It was decided—I would go to the dance hall. At Forty-Second Street I had to elbow my way through the pack. The crowd excited me: there was always the danger of running into some one and getting diverted from one's goal. Soon I was standing in front of the joint, a little out of breath and wondering if it were the right thing to do. At the Palace opposite, Thomas Burke of the Covent Garden Opera was being featured as the headliner. The name «Covent Garden» stuck in my crop as I turned to ascend the stairs. London—it would be swell to take her to London. I must ask her if she would like to hear Thomas Burke...

She was dancing with a young-looking old man as I entered. I watched her a few minutes before she espied me. Dragging her partner by the hand she came over to me with a radiant flush. «I want you to meet an old friend of mine,» she said, presenting me to the white-haired Mr. Carruthers. We greeted one another cordially and stood chatting for several minutes. Then Florrie came along and whisked Carruthers off.

«He seems like a fine chap, «I said. «One of your admirers, I suppose?»

«He's been very good to me—he nursed me when I was ill. You mustn't make him jealous. He likes to pretend that he's in love with me.»

«To pretend?» I said.

«Let's dance», she said. «I'll tell you about him some other time.»

While we were dancing she took the rose she was wearing and stuck it in my buttonhole. «You must have been enjoying yourself to-night,» she said, getting a whiff of the booze. A birthday party, I explained, leading her towards the balcony to have a few words with her in private.

«Do you think you could get away to-morrow night —go to the theatre with me?»

She squeezed my arm by way of assent. «You look more beautiful than ever to-night,» I said, holding her close.

«Be careful what you do,» she murmured, looking stealthily over her shoulder. «We mustn't stay here long. I can't explain it now but you see, Carruthers is very jealous and I can't afford to make him angry. Here he comes now... I'll leave you.»

I purposely refrained from looking round though I was dying to study Carruthers more closely. I hung over the flimsy iron rail of the balcony and became absorbed in the sea of faces below. Even from this low height the crowd took on that dehumanized appearance which comes with weight and number. If there were not this thing called language there would be little to differentiate this maelstrom of flesh from other forms of animal life. Even that, even the divine gift of speech, hardly served to make a distinction. What was their talk? Could one call it language? Birds and dogs have a language too, probably just as adequate as that of the mob. Language only begins at the point where communication is endangered. Everything these people are saying to one another, everything they read, everything they regulate their lives by is meaningless. Between this hour and a thousand other hours in a thousand different pasts there is no fundamental difference. In the ebb and tide of planetary life this stream goes the way of all other streams past and future. A minute ago she was using the word jealous. A queer word, especially when you are looking at a mob, when you see the haphazard mating, when you realize that those who are now locked arm in arm will most likely be separated a little while hence. I didn't give a fuck how many men were in love with her as long as I was included in the circle. I felt sorry for Carruthers, sorry that he should be a victim of jealousy. I had never been jealous in my life. Maybe I had never cared enough. The one woman I had desperately wanted I had relinquished of my own free will. To have a woman, to have anything, as a matter of fact, is nothing: it's the living with a person that matters, or the living with possessions. Can you go on forever being in love with persons or things? She could just as well admit that Carruthers was madly in love with her—what difference would it make in my love? If a woman is capable of inspiring love in one man she must be capable of inspiring it in others. To love or be loved is no crime. The really criminal thing is to make a person believe that he or she is the only you could ever love.

I went inside. She was dancing with some one else. Carruthers was standing alone in a corner. Impelled by a desire to give him a little consolation I went up to him and engaged him in conversation. If he were in the throes of jealousy he certainly didn't show it. He treated me rather cavalierly, I thought. I wondered was he really jealous or was she only trying to make me think that in order to conceal something else. The illness she had spoken of—if it were so serious then it was strange that she hadn't mentioned it before. The way she had alluded to it made me think it was a fairly recent event. He had nursed her. Where? Not at her home surely. Another little item came to mind: she had strongly urged me never to write to her at her home. Why? Maybe she had no home. That woman in the yard hanging up clothes—that was not her mother, she said. Who was it then? It might have been a neighbor, she tried to insinuate. She was touchy about the subject of her mother. It was her aunt who read my letters, not her mother. And the young man who answered the door—was he her brother? She said he was, but he certainly didn't resemble her. And where was her father all day, now that he was no longer breeding race horses or flying kites from the roof? She evidently didn't like her mother very much. She had even let out a broad hint once that she wasn't sure whether it was her mother.

«Mara's a strange girl, isn't she?» I said to Carruthers after a lull in our rather brittle conversation.

He gave a short shrill laugh and, as though to put me at ease about her, replied: «She's just a child, you know. And of course you can't believe a word she says.»

«Yes, that's just the impression she gives me.» said I.

«She hasn't a thing on her mind except having a good time,» said Carruthers.

Just then Mara came along. Carruthers wanted to dance with her. «But I promised this one to him,» she said, taking my hand.

«No, that's all right, dance with him! I've got to go anyway. I'll see you soon, I hope.» I sailed out before she had a chance to protest.

The following evening I was at the theatre ahead of time. I bought seats down front. There were several other favorites of mine on the program, among them Trixie Friganza, Joe Jackson, and Roy Barnes. It must have been an all-star bill.

I waited half an hour beyond the appointed time and still no sign of her. I was so eager to see the show I decided not to wait any longer. Just as I was wondering what to do with the extra ticket a rather handsome Negro passed me to approach the box office. I intercepted him to inquire if he wouldn't accept my ticket. He seemed surprised when I refused to accept money from him. «I thought you were a speculator,» he said.

After the intermission Thomas Burke appeared before the footlights. He made a tremendous impression upon me, for reasons which I shall never be able to fathom. A number of curious coincidences are connected with his name and with the song which he sang that night—-«Roses of Picardy.» Let me jump seven years from the moment the night before when I stood hesitantly at the foot of the steps leading to the dance hall....

Covent Garden. It is to Covent Garden I go a few hours after landing in London, and to the girl I single out to dance with I offer a rose from the flower market. I had intended to go direct to Spain, but circumstances obliged me to go straight to London. A Jewish insurance agent from Baghdad, of all places, is the one to lead me to the Covent Garden Opera which has been converted into a dance hall for the time being. The day before leaving London I pay a visit to an English astrologer who lives near the Crystal Palace. We have to pass through another man's property in order to get to his house. As we are walking through the grounds he informs me casually that the place belongs to Thomas Burke, the author of Limehouse Nights. The next time I attempt to go to London, unsuccessfully, I return to Paris via Picardy and in travelling through that smiling land I stand up and weep with joy. Suddenly, recalling the disappointments, the frustrations, the hopes turned to despair, I realized for the first time the meaning of «voyage». She had made the first journey possible and the second one inevitable. We were never to see each other again. I was free in a wholly new sense— free to become the endless voyager. If any one thing may be said to be accountable for the passion which seized me and which held me in its grip for seven long years then it is Thomas Burke's rendering of this sentimental ditty. Only the night before I had been commiserating Carruthers. Now, listening to the song. I was suddenly stricken with fear and jealousy. It was about the one rose that dies not, the rose that one keeps in one's heart. As I listened to the words I had a premonition that I would lose her. I would lose her because I loved her too much, that was how the fear shaped itself. Carruthers, despite his nonchalance, had put a drop of poison in my veins. Carruthers had brought her roses; she had given me the rose he had pinned to her waist. The house is bursting with applause. They are throwing roses on the stage. He is going to give an