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Authors: Henry Miller
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convince myself that I could find the way to purchase them. I could convince myself of this, I say, because in the bottom of my heart I knew I would never decide on either. It was a pastime. True, I might better have passed the time debating higher issues, whether, for example, the soul was corruptible or incorruptible, but to the mind-machine one problem is as good as another. In this same spirit I could work up the urge to walk five or ten miles in order to borrow a dollar, and feel just as triumphant if I succeeded in scrounging a dime or even a nickel. What I might have hoped to do with a dollar was unimportant; it was the effort I was still capable of making which counted. It meant, in my deteriorated view of things, that I still had one foot in the world.
Yes, it was truly important to remind myself of such things occasionally and not carry on like the Akond of Swot. It was also good to give them a jolt once in a while, to say when they came home at three A.M. empty-handed: Don’t let it bother you, I’ll go buy myself a sandwich. Sometimes, to be sure, I ate only an imaginary sandwich. But it did me good to let them think that I was not altogether without resources. Once or twice I actually convinced them that I had eaten a steak. I did it to rile them, of course. (What business had I to eat a steak when they had passed hours away sitting in a cafeteria waiting for some one to offer them a bite?)
Occasionally I would greet them thus: So you did manage to get something to eat?
The question always seemed to disconcert them.
I thought you were starving, I would say.
Whereupon they would inform me that they were not interested in starving. There was no reason for me to starve either, they were sure to add. I did it only to torment them.
If they were in a jovial mood they would enlarge on the subject. What new deviltry was I planning? Had I seen Kronski lately? And then the smoke screen talk would begin—about their new-found friends, the dives they had discovered, the side trips to Harlem, the studio Stasia was going to rent, and so on and so forth. Oh yes, and they had forgotten to tell me about Barley, Stasia’s poet friend, whom they had run across the other night. He was going to drop in some afternoon. Wanted to meet me.
One evening Stasia took to reminiscing. Truthful reminiscences, as far as I could gather. About the trees she used to rub herself against in the moonlight, about the perverted millionaire who fell in love with her because of her hairy legs, about the Russian girl who tried to make love to her but whom she repulsed because she was too crude. Besides, she was then having an affair with a married woman and, to throw dust in the husband’s eyes, she used to let him fuck her … not that she enjoyed it but because the wife, whom she loved, thought it was the thing to do.
I don’t know why I’m telling you all these things, she said. Unless…
Suddenly she remembered why. It was because of Barley. Barley was an odd sort. What the attraction was between them she couldn’t understand. He was always pretending he wanted to lay her, but nothing ever happened. Anyhow, he was a very good poet, that she was sure of. Now and then, she said, she would compose a poem in his presence. Then she supplied a curious commentary: I could go on writing while he masturbated me.
Titters.
What do you think of that?
Sounds like a page out of Krafft-Ebing, I volunteered.
A long discussion now ensued regarding the relative merits of Krafft-Ebing, Freud, Forel, Stekel, Weininger et alia, ending with Stasia’s remark that they were all old hat.
You know what I’m going to do for you? she exclaimed. I’m going to let your friend Kronski examine me.
How do you mean—examine you?
Explore my anatomy.
I thought you meant your head.
He can do that too, she said, cool as a cucumber.
And if he finds nothing wrong with you, you’re just polymorph perverse, is that it?
The expression, borrowed from Freud,
Yes, it was truly important to remind myself of such things occasionally and not carry on like the Akond of Swot. It was also good to give them a jolt once in a while, to say when they came home at three A.M. empty-handed: Don’t let it bother you, I’ll go buy myself a sandwich. Sometimes, to be sure, I ate only an imaginary sandwich. But it did me good to let them think that I was not altogether without resources. Once or twice I actually convinced them that I had eaten a steak. I did it to rile them, of course. (What business had I to eat a steak when they had passed hours away sitting in a cafeteria waiting for some one to offer them a bite?)
Occasionally I would greet them thus: So you did manage to get something to eat?
The question always seemed to disconcert them.
I thought you were starving, I would say.
Whereupon they would inform me that they were not interested in starving. There was no reason for me to starve either, they were sure to add. I did it only to torment them.
If they were in a jovial mood they would enlarge on the subject. What new deviltry was I planning? Had I seen Kronski lately? And then the smoke screen talk would begin—about their new-found friends, the dives they had discovered, the side trips to Harlem, the studio Stasia was going to rent, and so on and so forth. Oh yes, and they had forgotten to tell me about Barley, Stasia’s poet friend, whom they had run across the other night. He was going to drop in some afternoon. Wanted to meet me.
One evening Stasia took to reminiscing. Truthful reminiscences, as far as I could gather. About the trees she used to rub herself against in the moonlight, about the perverted millionaire who fell in love with her because of her hairy legs, about the Russian girl who tried to make love to her but whom she repulsed because she was too crude. Besides, she was then having an affair with a married woman and, to throw dust in the husband’s eyes, she used to let him fuck her … not that she enjoyed it but because the wife, whom she loved, thought it was the thing to do.
I don’t know why I’m telling you all these things, she said. Unless…
Suddenly she remembered why. It was because of Barley. Barley was an odd sort. What the attraction was between them she couldn’t understand. He was always pretending he wanted to lay her, but nothing ever happened. Anyhow, he was a very good poet, that she was sure of. Now and then, she said, she would compose a poem in his presence. Then she supplied a curious commentary: I could go on writing while he masturbated me.
Titters.
What do you think of that?
Sounds like a page out of Krafft-Ebing, I volunteered.
A long discussion now ensued regarding the relative merits of Krafft-Ebing, Freud, Forel, Stekel, Weininger et alia, ending with Stasia’s remark that they were all old hat.
You know what I’m going to do for you? she exclaimed. I’m going to let your friend Kronski examine me.
How do you mean—examine you?
Explore my anatomy.
I thought you meant your head.
He can do that too, she said, cool as a cucumber.
And if he finds nothing wrong with you, you’re just polymorph perverse, is that it?
The expression, borrowed from Freud,
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