He chose everything he used with great care—clothes, valises, slippers, lamps, everything. When he picked up an object he caressed it. Whatever could be salvaged was patched or mended or glued together again. He talked about his belongings as some people do about their cats; he gave them his full admiration, even when alone with them. Sometimes I have caught him speaking to them, addressing them, as if they were old friends. What a contrast to Kronski, when I think of it. Kronski, poor, wretched devil, seemed to be living with the discarded bric-a-brac of his ancestors.
Nothing was precious to him, nothing had meaning or significance for him. Everything went to pieces in his hands, or became ragged, torn, splotched and sullied. Yet one day—how it came about I never learned—this same Kronski began to paint. He began brilliantly, too. Most brilliantly. I could scarcely believe my eyes. Bold, brilliant colors he used, as if he had just come from Russia. Nor were his subjects lacking in daring and originality. He went at it for eight and ten hours at a stretch, gorging himself before and after, and always singing, whistling, jiggling from one foot to another, always applauding himself. Unfortunately it was just a flash in the pan. Petered out after a few months. After that never a word about painting. Forgot, apparently, that he had ever touched a brush…
It was during the period when things were going serenely with us that I made the acquaintance of a rum bird at the Montague Street Library. They knew me well there because I was giving them all kinds of trouble asking for books they didn’t have, urging them to borrow rare or expensive books from other libraries, complaining about the poverty of their stock, the inadequacy of their service, and in general making a nuisance of myself. To make it worse I was always paying huge fines for books overdue or for books lost (which I had appropriated for my own shelves), or for missing pages. Now and then I received a public reprimand, as if I were still a schoolboy, for underlining passages in red ink or for writing comments in the margins. And then one day, searching for some rare books on the circus— why, God knows—I fell into conversation with a scholarly looking man who turned out to be one of the staff. In the course of conversation I learned that he had been to some of the famous circuses of Europe. The word Medrano escaped his lips. It was virtually Greek to me, but I remembered it. Anyway, I took such a liking to the fellow that there and then I invited him to visit us the next evening. As soon as I got out of the library I called Ulric and begged him to join us. Did you ever hear of the Cirque Medrano? I asked.
To make it short, the next evening was given over almost exclusively to the Cirque Medrano. I was in a daze when the librarian left. So that’s Europe! I muttered aloud, over and over. Couldn’t get over it. And that guy was there … he saw it all. Christ!
The librarian came quite frequently, always with some rare books under his arm which he thought I would like to glance at. Usually be brought a bottle along too. Sometimes he would play chess with us, seldom leaving before two or three in the morning. Each time he came I made him talk about Europe: it was his admission fee. In fact, I was getting drunk on the subject; I could talk about Europe almost as if I had been there myself. (My father was the same. Though he had never set foot outside of New York, he could talk about London, Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen, Rome as if he had lived abroad all his life.)
One night Ulric brought over his large map of Paris (the Metro map) and we all got down on hands and knees to wander through the streets of Paris, visiting the libraries, museums, cathedrals, flower stalls, slaughter-houses, cemeteries, whorehouses, railway stations, bals musette, les magasins and so on. The next day I was so full up, so full of Europe, I mean, that I couldn’t go to work. It was an old habit of mine to take a day off when I felt like it. I always enjoyed stolen holidays best. It meant getting up at any old hour, loafing about in pajamas, playing records, dipping into books, strolling to the wharf and, after a hearty lunch, going to a matinee. A good vaudeville show was what I liked best, an afternoon in which I would burst my sides laughing. Sometimes, after one of these holidays, it was still more difficult to return to work. In fact, impossible. Mona would conveniently call the boss to inform him that my cold had gotten worse. And he would always say:
Tell him to stay in bed another few days. Take good care of him!
I should think they would be on to you by this time, Mona would say.
They are, honey. Only I’m too good. They can’t do without me.
Some day they’ll send some one over here to see if you’re really ill.
Never answer the door bell, that’s all. Or tell them I’ve gone to see the doctor.
Wonderful while it lasted. Just ducky. I had lost all interest in my job. All I thought of was to begin writing. At the office I did less and less, grew more and more slack. The only applicants I bothered to interview were the suspects. My assistant did the rest. As often as possible I would clear out of the office on the pretext of inspecting the branch offices. I would call on one or two in the heart of town—just to establish an alibi—then duck into a movie. After the movie I would drop in on another branch manager, report to headquarters, and then home. Sometimes I spent the afternoon in an art gallery or at the 42nd Street Library. Sometimes I called on Ulric or else visited a dance hall. I got ill more and more often, and for longer stretches at a time. Things were definitely riding to a fall.
Mona encouraged my delinquency. She had never liked me in the role of employment manager. You should be writing, she would say. Fine, I would retort, secretly pleased but putting up a battle to salve my conscience. Fine! but what will we live on?
Leave that to me!
But we can’t go on swindling and bamboozling people forever.
‘Swindling! Anybody I borrow from can well afford to lend the money. I’m doing them a favor.
I couldn’t see it her way but I would give in. After all, I had no better solution to offer. To wind up the argument I would always say: Well, I’m not quitting yet.
Now and then, on one of these stolen holidays, we would end up on Second Avenue, New York. It was amazing the number of friends I had in this quarter. All Jews, of course, and most of them cracked. But lively company. After a bite at Papa Moskowitz’s we would go to the Cafe Royal. Here you were sure to find any one you were looking for.
One evening as we were strolling along the Avenue, just as I was about to peer into a bookshop window to have another look at Dostoievsky—his photo had been hanging in this same window for years—who should greet us but an old friend of Arthur Raymond. Nahoum Yood, no less. Nahoum Yood was a short, fiery man who wrote in Yiddish. He had a face like a sledgehammer. Once you saw it you never forgot it. When he spoke it was always a rush and a babble; the words literally tripped over one another. He not only sputtered like a fire-cracker but he dribbled and drooled at the same time. His accent, that of the Litvak, was atrocious. But his smile was golden—like Jack Johnson’s. It gave his face a sort of Jack-o’-Lantern twist.
I never saw him in any other condition but effervescent. He had always just discovered something wonderful, something marvelous, something unheard of. In unloading himself he always gave you a spritz bath, gratis. But it was worth it. This fine spray which he emitted between his front teeth had the same stimulating effect that a needle bath has. Sometimes with the spritz bath came a few caraway seeds.
Snatching the book which I was carrying under my arm, he shouted: What are you reading? Ah, Hamsun. Good! Beautiful writer. He hadn’t even said How are you yet. We must sit down somewhere and talk. Where are you going? Have you had dinner? I’m hungry.
Excuse me, I said, but I want to have a look at Dostoievsky.
I left him standing there talking excitedly to Mona with both hands (and feet). I plunked myself in front of Dostoievsky’s portrait, as I had done before many a time, to study his familiar physiognomy anew. I thought of my friend Lou Jacobs who used to doff his hat
