looked on askance, unable to comprehend what had happened to me. Sometimes, in spite of his austerity, his «code» and other detracting psychological elements, he would break out into a laugh which would prolong itself to the verge of hysteria. Once he asked me if I was having «trouble at home». He feared that the next step would be drink, I suppose.
As a matter of fact, I did begin to indulge rather freely about this time what with one thing and another. It was a harmless sort of drinking, which began only at the dinner table. By sheer accident I had discovered a French- Italian restaurant in the back of a grocery store. The atmosphere was most convivial. Every one was a «character», even the police sergeants and the detectives who gorged themselves disgracefully at the proprietor's expense.
I had to have some place to while away the evenings, now that Mona had sneaked into the theatre by the back door. Whether Monahan had found her the job or whether, as she said, she had just lied her way in. I was never able to discover. At any rate, she had given herself a new name, one that would suit her new career, and with it a complete new history of her life and antecedents. She had become English all of a sudden, and her people had been connected with the theatre as far back as she could remember, which was often amazingly far. It was in one of the little theatres which then flourished that she made her entrance into that world of make believe which so well suited her. Since they paid her scarcely anything they could afford to act gullible.
Arthur Raymond and his wife were at first inclined to disbelieve the news. Another one of Mona's inventions, they thought. Rebecca, always poor at dissembling, practically laughed in Mona's face. But when she came home with the script of a Schnitzler play one evening and seriously began to rehearse her role their incredulity gave way to consternation. They foresaw nothing but disaster ahead. And when Mona, by some inexplicable legerdemain, succeeded in attaching herself to the Theatre Guild, the atmosphere of the household became supersaturated with envy, spite and malevolence. The play was becoming too real—there was a very real danger now that Mona might become the actress she pretended to be.
The rehearsals were endless, it seemed. I never knew what hour Mona would return home. When I did spend an evening with her it was like listening to a drunk. The glamour of the new life had completely intoxicated her. Now and then I would stay in of an evening and try to write, but it was no go. Arthur Raymond was always there, lying in wait like an octopus. «What do you want to write for?» he would say. «God, aren't there enough writers in the world?» And then he would begin to talk about writers, the writers he admired, and I would sit before the machine, as if ready to resume my work the moment he left me. Often I would do nothing more than write a letter—to some famous author, telling him how greatly I admired his work, hinting that, if he had not already heard of me, he would soon. In this way it fell about one day that I received an astonishing letter from that Dostoievski of the North, as he was called: Knut Hamsun. It was written by his secretary, in broken English, and for a man who was shortly to receive the Nobel Prize, it was to say the least a puzzling piece of dictation. After explaining that he had been pleased, even touched, by my homage, he went on to say (through his wooden mouthpiece) that his American publisher was not altogether satisfied with the financial returns from the sale of his books. They feared that they might not be able to publish any more of his books—unless the public were to show a more lively interest. His tone was that of a giant in distress. He wondered vaguely what could be done to retrieve the situation, not so much for himself as for his dear publisher who was truly suffering because of him. And then, as the letter progressed, a happy idea seemed to take hold of him and forthwith he gave expression to it. It was this—once he had received a letter from a Mr. Boyle, who also lived in New York and whom I doubtless knew (!). He thought perhaps Mr. Boyle and myself might get together, rack our brains over the situation, and quite possibly come to some brilliant solution. Perhaps we could tell other people in America that there existed in the wilds and fens of Norway a writer named Knut Hamsun whose books had been conscientiously translated into English and were now languishing on the shelves of his publisher's stock room. He was sure that if he could only increase the sales of his books by a few hundred copies his publisher would take heart and have faith in him again. He had been to America, he said, and though his English was too poor to permit him to write me in his own hand, he was confident that his secretary could make clear his thoughts and intentions. I was to look up Mr. Boyle whose address he no longer remembered. Do what you can, he urged. Perhaps there were several other people in New York who had heard of his work and with whom we could operate. He closed on a dolorous but majestic note.... I examined the letter carefully to see if perhaps he hadn't shed a few tears over it. If the envelope hadn't born the Norwegian postmark, if the letter itself hadn't been signed in his own scrawl, which I later confirmed, I would have thought it a hoax. Tremendous discussions ensued amid boisterous laughter. It was considered that I had been royally paid out for my foolish hero worship. The idol had been smashed and my critical faculties reduced to zero. No one could possibly see how I could ever read Knut Hamsun again. To tell the honest truth, I felt like weeping. Some terrible miscarriage had occurred, just how I couldn't fathom, but despite the evidence to the contrary, I simply could not bring myself to believe that the author of
No, I was thoroughly disillusioned in my god. I purposely re-read some of his books and, naive soul that I was, I wept again over certain passages. I was so deeply impressed that I began to wonder if I had dreamed the letter.
The repercussions from this «miscarriage» were quite extraordinary. I became savage, bitter, caustic. I became a wanderer who played on muted strings of iron. I impersonated one after another of my idol's characters. I talked sheer rot and nonsense; I poured hot piss over everything. I became two people—myself and my impersonations, which were legion.
The divorce trial was impending. That made me even more savage and bitter, for some inexplicable reason. I hated the farce which has to be gone through in the name of justice. I loathed and despised the lawyer whom Maude had retained to protect her interests. He looked like a corn-fed Romain Holland, a chauve-souris without a crumb of humor or imagination. He seemed to be charged with moral indignation; he was a prick through and through, a coward, a sneak, a hypocrite. He gave me the creeps.
We had it out about him the day of the outing. Lying in the grass somewhere near Mineola. The child running about gathering flowers. It was warm, very warm, and there was a hot dry wind blowing which made one nervous and rooty. I had taken my prick out and put it in her hand. She examined it shyly, not wishing to be too clinical about it and yet dying to convince herself that there was nothing wrong. After a while she dropped it and rolled over on her back, her knees up, and the warm wind licking her bottom. I jockeyed her into a favorable position, made her pull her panties off. She was in one of her protesting moods again. Didn't like being mauled like that in an open field. But there's not a soul around, I insisted. I made her spread her legs farther apart; I ran my hand up her cunt. It was gooey.
I pulled her to me and tried to get it in. She balked. She was worried about the child. I looked around. «She's all right,» I said, «she's having a good time. She's not thinking about us.»
«But supposing she conies back... and finds us...»
«She'll think we're sleeping. She won't know what we're doing....»
With this she pushed me away violently. It was outrageous. «You'd take me in front of your own child! It's horrible.»
«It's not horrible at all. You're the one who's horrible. I tell you, it's innocent. Even if she should remember it—when she's grown up—she'll be a woman then and she'll understand. There's nothing dirty about it. It's your dirty mind, that's all.»
