until we are fit for it before we receive it? Or is freedom something to be wrested from those who tyrannically withhold it? Is there anyone great enough, wise enough, to say how long a man should remain a slave? Dubois was no rabble-rouser. No, but to a man like myself it was all too obvious that what his words implied were—Assume the spirit of liberty and you will be free! Education? As I saw and felt it, he was saying almost bluntly: I am telling you that it is your own fear and ignorance which keep you in slavery. There is only one kind of education, that which leads you to assert and maintain your own freedom. What other purpose could he have had, in citing all the marvelous examples of African culture, before the white man’s intrusion, than to indicate the Negroes’ own self-sufficiency? What need had the Negro of the white man? None. What difference was there between the two races, what real, fundamental, vital difference? None. The paramount fact, the only fact worth consideration, was that the white man, despite all his grand words, all his tortuous principles, was still holding the Negro in subjection … I am not quoting his words. I am recording my reactions, my interpretation of his speech. First get off our backs! that’s what I could hear him screaming—though he scarcely raised his voice, though he made no dramatic gestures, though he never said anything of the kind. I’m telling you tonight about the glories of the past, of your past, of our common past, as Negroes. What of the future? Are you going to wait until the white man has sucked your blood dry? Will you wait meekly until he has filled our veins with his own poisonous blood? Already you are nothing but half-baked imitations of the white man. You ridicule him and you mimick him, at the same time. With every day that passes you are losing your own precious heritage. You are forfeiting it to your keepers who have not the least intention of granting you equality. Educate yourselves, if you wish. Improve your lot, if you can. But remember this—until you stand free and equal with your white neighbors nothing will avail.

Don’t delude yourselves that the white man is your superior in any way. He isn’t. His skin may be white, but his heart is black. He is guilty before God and before his fellowman. He is bringing the world down about his ears in his pride and arrogance. The day is coming when he will rule no more. He has sown hatred throughout the world. He has pitted brother against brother. He has denied his own God. No, this miserable specimen of humanity is not the superior of the black man. This breed of man is doomed. Awake, my brothers! Awake and sing! Shout the white man down! Shut him out of your sight! Seal his lips, bind his limbs, bury him where he belongs—on the dung heap!

I repeat, nothing of the sort passed Dubois’ lips. He would undoubtedly have held me in contempt had I voiced such an interpretation of his speech. But words mean little. What’s back of them—that’s what counts. I almost felt ashamed of Dubois for using other words than the ones I heard in my mind. Had his words created a bloody insurrection he would have been the most bewildered man in the whole Negro community. And yet I persisted in believing that in his heart the message I have just given was recorded, recorded in blood and tears. If he were truly a whit less ardent he would not, could not, be the noble figure he was. I blushed to think that a man of such gifts, such powers, such insight, should be obliged to muffle his voice, to throttle his own true feelings. I admired him for all that he had done, for all that he was, and it was indeed much—but if only he possessed a spark of that passionate spirit of John Brown! If only he had a touch of the fanatic! To speak of injustice and to remain cool—only a sage can act thus. (It must be granted, however, that where the ordinary man sees injustice the sage perhaps detects another kind of justice.) The just man is hard, merciless, inhuman. The just man will set fire to the world, will destroy it with his own hands, if he can, rather than see injustice perpetuated. John Brown was that sort of man. History has forgotten him. Lesser men have come forward, have upset the world, thrown it into a panic—and for nothing even approaching that which we call justice … Give him a little more time and the white man will destroy himself and the pernicious world he has created. He has no solutions for the ills he has foisted upon the world. None whatever. He is empty, disillusioned, without a grain of hope. He pines for his own miserable end.

Will the white man drag the Negro down with him? I doubt it. All those whom he has persecuted and enslaved, degenerated and emasculated, all whom he has vampirized will, I believe, rise up against him on the fateful day of judgment. There will be no succor for him, not one friendly alien hand raised to avert his doom. Neither will he be mourned. Instead there will come from all corners of the earth, like the gathering of a whirlwind, a cry of exultation. White man, your day is over! Perish like the worm! And may the memory of your stay on earth be effaced!
Curiously enough, it was only quite recently that I discovered that Dubois had written a book on John Brown in which he predicted much that has already befallen the white race and much that has yet to come to pass. Strange that, knowing nothing of his passion and admiration for the great Liberator, I should have linked their names…

The next morning, as I was having breakfast in a coffee shop on Pineapple Street, I felt a hand on my shoulder. A voice from behind was quietly asking if I was not Henry Miller. I looked up to find Claude at my elbow. Not a possible doubt that it could be anyone else.
I was told you usually took breakfast here, he said. Too bad you didn’t come last night; I had a friend with me whom you would have enjoyed meeting. He was from Teheran.
I offered apologies and urged him to have a second breakfast with me. It was nothing for Claude to eat two or three breakfasts in a row.
He was like a camel—he tanked up whenever he had the chance.
You are a Capricorn, aren’t you? he asked. December 26 th, is that right? About noon?
I nodded.

I don’t know too much about astrology, he continued. It’s simply a point of departure for me. I’m like Joseph in the Bible—I have dreams. Prophetic dreams, sometimes.
I smiled indulgently.
You’re going to travel soon—perhaps in a year or two. An important voyage. Your life will be radically altered. He paused a moment to gaze out of the window, as if trying to concentrate. But that’s not important now. I wanted to see you for another reason. He paused again. You’ll have a harrowing time of it, this next year or so. I mean, before you begin your journey. It will take all your courage to survive. If I didn’t know you so well I would say there was a danger of your going mad…
Excuse me, I interrupted, but how do you happen to know me so well?
It was Claude’s turn to smile. Then, without the slightest hesitation, he answered:—

I’ve known you for a long while—in my dreams. Yon come back again and again. Of course I didn’t know it was you until I met Mona. Then I realized it could be no other.
Strange, I murmured.
Not so very, said Claude. Many men have had the same experience. Once, when I was in a little village in China, a man met me on the street and, taking me by the arm, he said: ‘I’ve been waiting for you to come. You arrived exactly on time.’ He was a magician. He practised the black arts.
Are you a magician too? I asked jokingly.
Hardly, said Claude. And in the same tone he added: I practise divination. It’s a gift I was born with.
But it doesn’t help you much, does it?
True, he replied, but it permits me to help others. That is, if they wish to be helped.
And you want to help me?
If I can.

Before you go any further, said I, supposing you tell me a little about yourself. Mona has told me something of your life, but it all sounds rather confusing. Tell me this, if you don’t mind—do you know where you were born and who your father and mother were?
Claude looked straight into my eyes. That’s what I’m trying to find out, he said. Perhaps you can be of help. You wouldn’t have appeared in my dreams so often if you weren’t of importance in my life.
Your dreams? Tell me, how do I appear to you in dream?
In various roles, said Claude promptly. Sometimes as a father, sometimes as a devil, and sometimes as a ministering angel. Whenever you appear it’s to the strain of music. Celestial music, I would say.
I was at a loss what to say to this.

You are aware, of course, Claude continued, that you have power over others. Great power. You seldom employ it, however. When you do you usually misuse it. You’re ashamed