and thither like the unlettered wretches of the workaday world? Were their daemons not as heartless and ruthless as any slave driver? Did not everything conspire—the grand, the noble, the perfect works as well as the low, the sordid, the mean—to render life more unlivable each day? Of what use the poems of death, the maxims and counsels of the sage ones, the codes and tablets of the law-givers, of what use leaders, thinkers, men of art, if the very elements that made up the fabric of life were incapable of being transformed?
Only to one who has not yet found his way is it permitted to ask all the wrong questions, to tread all the wrong paths, to hope and pray for the destruction of all existent modes and forms. Puzzled and perplexed, yanked this way and that, muddled and befuddled, striving and cursing, sneering and jeering, small wonder that in the midst of a thought, a perfect jewel of a thought, I sometimes caught myself staring’ straight ahead, mind blank, like a chimpanzee in the act of mounting another chimpanzee. It was in this wise that Abel begot Bogul and Bogul begot Mogul. I was the last of the line, a dog of a Zobel with a bone between my jaws which I could neither chew nor grind, which I teased and worried, and spat on and shat on. Soon I would piss on it and bury it. And the name of the bone was Babel.
A grand life, the literary life. Never would I have it better. Such tools! Such technic! How could any one, unless he hugged me like a shadow, know the myriads of waste places I frequented in my search for ore? Or the varieties of birds that sang for me as I dug my pits and shafts? Or the cackling, chortling gnomes and elves who waited on me as I labored, who faithfully tickled my balls, rehearsed my lines, or revealed to me the mysteries hidden in pebbles, twigs, fleas, lice and pollen? Who could possibly know the confidences revealed by my idols who were ever sending me night messages, or the secret codes imparted to me whereby I learned to read between the lines, to correct false biographical data and make light of gnostic commentaries? Never was there a more solid terra firma beneath my feet than when grappling with this shifting, floating world created by the vandals of culture on whom I finally learned to turn my ass.
And who, I ask, who but a master of reality could imagine that the first step into the world of creation must be accompanied with a loud, evil smelling fart, as if experiencing for the first time the significance of shell-fire? Advance always! The generals of literature sleep soundly in their cosy bunks. We, the hairy ones, do the fighting. From that trench which must be taken there is no returning. Get thee behind us, ye laureates of Satan I If it be cleavers we must fight with, let us use them to full advantage. Faugh a balla! Get those greasy ducks! Avanti, avanti!
The battle is endless. It had no beginning, nor will it know an end. We who babble and froth at the mouth have been at it since eternity. Spare us further instruction! Are we to make green lawns as we advance from trench to trench? Are we landscape artists as well as butchers? Must we storm to victory perfumed like whores? For whom are we mopping up?
How fortunate that I had only one reader! Such an indulgent one, too. Every time I sat down to write a page for him I readjusted my skirt, primped my hair-do and powdered my nose. If only he could see me at work, dear Pop! If only he knew the pains I took to give his novel the proper literary cast. What a Marius he had in me! What an Epicurean!
Somewhere Paul Valery has said: What is of value to us alone (meaning the poets of literature) has no value. This is the law of literature. Iss dot so now? Tsch, tsch! True, our Valery was discussing the art of poetry, discussing the poet's task and purpose, his raison d'etre. Myself, I have never understood poetry as poetry. For me the mark of the poet is everywhere, in everything. To distil thought until it hangs in the alembic of a poem, revealing not a speck, not a shadow, not a vaporous breath of the impurities from which it was decocted, that for me is a meaningless, worthless pursuit, even though it be the sworn and solemn function of those midwives who toil in the name of Beauty, Form, Intelligence, and so on.
I speak of the poet because I was then, in my blissful embryonic state, more nearly that than ever since. I never thought, as did Diderot, that my ideas are my whores. Why would I want whores? No, my ideas were a garden of delights. An absent-minded gardener I was, who, though tender and observing, did not attach too much importance to the presence of weeds, thorns, nettles, but craved only the joy of frequenting this place apart, this intimate domain peopled with shrubs, blossoms, flowers, bees, birds, bugs of every variety. I never walked the garden as a pimp, nor even in a fornicating frame of mind. Neither did I invest it as a botanist, an entomologist or a horticulturist. I studied nothing, not even my own wonder. Nor did I christen any blessed thing. The look of a flower was enough, or its perfume. How did the flower come to be? How did anything come to be? If I questioned, it was to ask—Are you there, little friend? Are the dewdrops still clinging to your petals?
What could be more considerate—better manners!—than to treat thoughts, ideas, inspirational flashes, as flowers of delight? What better work habits than to greet them with a smile each day or walk among them musing on their evanescent glory? True, now and then I might make so bold as to pluck one for my buttonhole. But to exploit it, to send it out to work like a whore or a stock broker—unthinkable. For me it was enough to have been inspired, not to be perpetually inspired. I was neither a poet nor a drudge. I was simply out of step. Heimatlos. My only reader ... Later I will exchange him for the ideal reader, that intimate rascal, that beloved scamp, to whom I may speak as if nothing had any value but to him—and to me. Why add—to me? Can he be any other, this ideal reader, than my alter ego? Why create a world of one's own if it must also make sense to every Tom, Dick and Harry? Have not the others this world of everyday, which they profess, to despise yet cling to like drowning rats? Is it not strange how they who refuse, or are too lazy, to create a world of their own insist on invading ours? Who is it tramples the flower beds at night? Who is it leaves cigarette stubs in the bird bath? Who is it pees on the blushing violets and wilts their bloom? We know how you ravage the pages of literature in search of what pleases you. We discover the footprints of your blundering spirit everywhere. It is you who kill genius, you who cripple the giants. You, you, whether through love and adoration or through envy, spite and hatred. Who writes for you writes his own death warrant.
Little sparrow,
Mind, mind out of the way,
Mr. Horse is coming.
Issa-San wrote that. Tell me its value!
17
It was about ten A.M. of a Saturday, just a few minutes after Mona had taken off for the city, when Mrs. Skolsky knocked on the door. I had just taken my seat at the machine and was in a mood to write.
Come in! I said. She entered hesitantly, paused respectfully, then said: There's a gentleman downstairs wants to see you. Says he's a friend of yours.
What's his name?
He wouldn't give his name. Said not to bother you if you were busy.
(Who the hell could it be? I had given no one our address.)
