Sexus (The Rosy Crucifixion, book 1)

She was just about to sit down. I sprang up suddenly, my eyes full of tears, and I put my arms around her. «Now I can tell you honestly and sincerely,» I said, «that I do love you.» I made no attempt to kiss her—I just embraced her. I released her of my own accord, sat down, picked up the glass of wine and finished it off.

«You're an actor,» she said. «In the real sense of the word, of course. I don't wonder that people are frightened of you sometimes.»

«I know, I get frightened of myself sometimes. Especially if the other person responds. I don't know where the proper limits are. There are no limits, I suppose. Nothing would be bad or ugly or evil—if we really let ourselves go. But it's hard to make people understand that. Anyway, that's the difference between the world of imagination and the world of common sense, which isn't common sense at all but sheer buggery and insanity. If you stop still and look at things... I say look, not think, not criticize... the world looks absolutely crazy to you. And it is crazy, by God! It's just as crazy when things are normal and peaceful as in times of war or revolution. The evils are insane evils, and the panaceas are insane panaceas. Because we're all driven like dogs. We're running away. From what? We don't know. From a million nameless things. It's a rout, a panic. There's no ultimate place to retreat to—unless, as I say, you stand stock still. If you can do that, and not lose your balance, not be swept away in the rush, you may be able to get a grip on yourself... be able to act, if you know what I mean. You know what I'm driving at... From the time you wake up until the moment you go to bed it's all a lie, all a sham and a swindle. Everybody knows it, and everybody collaborates in the perpetuation of the hoax. That's why we look so god-damned disgusting to one another. That's why it's so easy to trump up a war, or a pogrom, or a vice crusade, or any damned thing you like. It's always easier to give in, to bash somebody's puss in, because what we all pray for is to get done in, but done in proper and no come back. If we could still believe in a God, we'd make him a God of Vengeance. We'd surrender to him with a full heart the task of cleaning things up. It's too late for us to pretend to clean up the mess. We're in it up to the eyes. We don't want a new world... we want an end to the mess we've made. At sixteen you can believe in a new world... you can believe anything, in fact... but at twenty you're doomed, and you know it. At twenty you're well in harness, and the most you can hope for is to get off with arms and legs intact. It isn't a question of fading hope... Hope is a baneful sign; it means impotence. Courage is no use either: everybody can muster courage—for the wrong thing.

I don't know what to say—unless I use a word like vision. And by that I don't mean a projected picture of the future, of some imagined ideal made real. I mean something more flexible, more constant—a permanent super- sight, as it were... something like a third eye. We had it once. There was a sort of clairvoyance which was natural and common to all men. Then came the mind, and that eye which permitted us to see whole and round and beyond was absorbed by the brain, and we became conscious of the world, and of one another, in a new way. Our pretty little egos came into bloom: we became self-conscious, and with that came conceit, arrogance, blindness, a blindness such as was never known before, not even by the blind.»

«Where do you get these ideas?» said Rebecca suddenly. «Or are you making it up on the spur of the moment? Wait a minute... I want you to tell me something. Do you ever put your thoughts down on paper? What do you write about anyway? You've never showed me a thing. I haven't the least idea what you're doing.»

«Oh that,» I said, «it's just as well you haven't read anything. I haven't said anything yet. I can't seem to get started. I don't know what the hell to put down first, there's so much to say.»

«But do you write the way you talk? That's what I want to know.»

«I don't think so,» I said, blushing. «I don't know anything about writing yet. I'm too self-conscious, I guess.»

«You shouldn't be,» said Rebecca. «You're not self-conscious when you talk, and you don't act self- consciously either.»

«Rebecca,» I said, proceeding slowly and deliberately, «if I really knew what I was capable of I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you. I feel sometimes as though I'm going to burst. I really don't give a damn about the misery of the world. I take it for granted. What I want is to open up. I want to know what's inside me. I want everybody to open up. I'm like an imbecile with a can-opener in his hand, wondering where to begin—to open up the earth. I know that underneath the mess everything is marvelous. I'm sure of it. I know it because I feel so marvelous myself most of the time. And when I feel that way everybody seems marvelous... everybody and everything... even pebbles and pieces of cardboard... a match stick lying in the gutter... anything... a goat's beard, if you like. That's what I want to write about—but I don't know how... I don't know where to begin. Maybe it's too personal. Maybe it would sound like sheer rubbish... You see, to me it seems as though the artists, the scientists, the philosophers were grinding lenses. It's all a grand preparation for something that never conies off. Some day the lens is going to be perfect and then we're all going to see clearly, see what a staggering, wonderful, beautiful world it is. But in the meantime we go without glasses, so to speak. We blunder about like myopic, blinking idiots. We don't see what is under our nose because we're so intent on seeing the stars, or what lies beyond the stars. We're trying to see with the mind, but the mind sees only what it's told to see. The mind can't open wide its eyes and look just for the pleasure of looking. Haven't you ever noticed that when you stop looking, when you don't try to see, vow suddenly see? What is it you see? Who is it that sees? Why is it all so different —so marvelously different—in such moments? And which is more real, that kind of vision or the other? You see what I mean.... When you have an inspiration your mind takes a vacation; you turn it over to some one else, some invisible, unknowable power which takes possession of you, as we so aptly say. What the hell does that mean—if it makes sense at all? What happens when the machinery of the mind slows down, , or comes to a standstill? Whatever or however you I choose to look upon it, this other modus operandi is I of another order. The machine runs perfectly, but its object and purpose seem purely gratuitous. It makes another kind of sense... grand sense, if you accept it unquestioningly, and nonsense—or not nonsense, but madness—it you try to examine into it with the other machinery... Jesus, I guess I'm getting off the track.»

Little by little she steered me back to the story she wanted to hear. She was avidly curious about the details. She laughed a great deal—that low, earthy laugh which was provocative and approving at the same time.

«You pick the strangest women,» she said. «You seem to choose with your eyes shut. Don't you ever think beforehand what it's going to mean to live with them?»

She went on like this for a space and then suddenly I was aware that she had veered the conversation to Mona. Mona—that puzzled her. What did we have in common, she wanted to know. How could I stand her lies, her pretences—or didn't I care about such things? Surely there had to be firm ground somewhere... one couldn't build on quicksands. She had thought about us a great deal, even before she met Mona. She had heard about her, from different sources, had been curious to know her, to understand what the great attraction was.... Mona was beautiful, yes—ravishingly beautiful—and perhaps intelligent too. But God, so theatrical! There was no getting to grips with her; she eluded one like a phantom. «What do you really know about her?» she asked challengingly. «Have you met her parents? Do you know anything about her life before she met you?»

I confessed that I knew almost nothing. Perhaps it was better that I didn't know, I averred. There was something attractive about the mystery which surrounded her.

«Oh, nonsense!» said Rebecca scathingly. «I don't think there's any great mystery there. Her father's probably a rabbi.»

«What! What makes you say that? How do you know she's Jewish? I don't even know it myself.»

«You don't want to know it, you mean. Of course I don't know either, except that she denies it so vehemently—that always makes one suspicious. Besides, does she look like the average American type? Come, come, don't tell me you haven't suspected as much—you're not as dumb as all that.»

What surprised me more than anything, as regards these remarks, was the fact that Rebecca had succeeded in discussing the subject with Mona. Not a hint of it had reached my ears. I would have given anything to have been behind a screen during that encounter.

«If you really want to know something,» I said, «I'd rather that she were a Jewess than anything else. I never pump her about that, of course. Evidently it's a painful subject. She'll come out with it one day, you'll see....»

«You're so damned romantic,» said Rebecca. «Really, you're incurable. Why should a Jewish girl be any different from a Gentile? I live in both worlds... I don't find anything strange or marvelous about either.»

«Naturally,» I said. «You're always the same person. You don't change from one milieu to another. You're honest and open. You could get along anywhere with any group or class or race. But most people aren't that way. Most people are conscious of race, color, religion, nationality, and so on. To me all peoples