Suddenly there came this phrase: Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldst take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger?
With this I saw myself again as a tiny boy seated in a little chair by the window in the old neighborhood. I had been ill and was slowly recuperating. One of the relatives had brought me a large, thin book with striking illustrations. It was called Stories from the Bible. There was one I read over and over again—about Daniel in the lions’ den.
I see myself once more, a little older now, wearing short pants still, sitting up front in the Presbyterian Church where I had learned to be a soldier. The minister is a very old man named the Reverend Dr. Dawson. A Scot, but a warm, tender-hearted soul beloved of his flock. He reads long passages from the good book to his congregation before starting his sermon. He takes a long time to begin, too, first blowing his nose vigorously, then tucking the handkerchief away in the tail of his frock coat, then taking a deep draught of water from the pitcher beside the lectern, then clearing his throat and looking heavenward, and so on and so forth. He is not much of an orator any more. He is aging and he rambles a good deal. When he loses the thread, he picks up the Bible and rereads a verse or two to refresh his memory.
I am very conscious of his failings; I twitch and turn in my seat during his moments of forgetfulness. I encourage him silently as best I can. But now, sitting in the soft light of the immaculate love nest, I suddenly realize where all these phrases which have come to my lips stem from. I go to the bookcase and get out the battered old Bible which Crazy George left with us. I skim the pages absentmindedly, thinking tenderly of old man Dawson, thinking of my little pal, Jack Lawson, who died so young and such a horrible death, thinking of the basement of the old Presbyterian Church and the dust we raised drilling in squads and battalions every night, all fitted up with stripes and chevrons, with epaulettes, with swords, leggings, flags, the drums deafening us, the bugles splitting our ear-drums. And as these memories pass to and fro there ring in my ears the melodious verses from the Bible which the Reverend Mr. Dawson spooled off like an eight-reel film.
The book is lying open on the table, and behold, it is open at the chapter called Ruth. In large letters it reads: THE BOOK OF RUTH. And just above it, the last and 25th verse of Judges, a glorious verse whose source lies far behind childhood, so far back into the past that no man can remember anything but the wonder of it:
In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
In what days? I ask myself. When ever was this glorious period and why had man forgotten it?
In those days there was no king in Israel. This is not from the history of the Jews, this is out of the history of Man. That is how man began, in high estate, in dignity, honor and wisdom. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Here in a few words is the secret of a decent, happy human society. Once upon a time the Jews knew such a condition of life. Once upon a time the Chinese knew it, too, and the Minoans, and the Hindus, and the Polynesians, and the Africans, and the Eskimos.
I began reading The Book of Ruth, wherein it speaks of Naomi and of the Moabites. At the twentieth verse I was electrified: And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. And in the 21st verse it continues: I went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty…
I called to Mona, who had once been Mara, but there was no answer. I looked for her but she was not there … I sat down again, with tears in my eyes, thumbing through the worn and tattered pages. There would be no bridge, no heavenly synagogue music … not even an ephah of barley. Call me not Naomi, call me Mara! And Mara had disowned her people, had disowned the very name they had given her. It was a bitter name, but she had not even known what it meant. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. She had left the fold and had been afflicted by the Lord.
I got up and walked about. The atmosphere of the place was one of elegance, simplicity and serenity. I was deeply roused but not in the least sad. I felt like the chambered nautilus walking the sands of time. I threw back the rolling doors which separated our apartment from the vacant one in the rear. I lit a candelabra at the far end of the vacant apartment. The stained glass windows gave off a smouldering glow. I moved about in the shadows, letting my mind wander freely. My heart was at rest. Now and then I wondered dreamily where she had gone. I knew she would return soon and be at ease. I hoped that she would remember to rustle up a bit of food. I was in a mood to break bread again and sip a little wine. It was in such a mood, I thought to myself, that one ought to sit down to write. I was mellow and open, fluid, solvent. I could see how easy it was, given the right ambiance, to pass from the life of a paid employee, a hack, a slave, to that of an artist. It was such a delicious thing to be alone, to revel in one’s thoughts and emotions. It hardly occurred to me that I would have to write about something; all I thought of was that one day, in just such a mood as this, I would write. The important thing was to be perpetually what I now was, to feel as I did, to make music. From childhood on that had been my dream, to sit still and make music. It was just dawning on me that to make music one had first to make himself into an exquisite, sensitive instrument. One had to stop living and breathe. One had to take off the roller skates. One had to unhitch all connections with the world outside. One had to speak privately, with God as his witness. Oh yes, that was it. Indeed yes. Suddenly I became unalterably certain of what I had just quietly realized … For the Lord thy God is a jealous God…
The strange thing was, I reflected, that most everybody I knew already considered me a writer, though I had done little to prove it. They assumed I was not only because of my behavior, which had always been eccentric and unpredictable, but because of my passion for language. From the time I learned to read I was never without a book. The first person to whom I ventured to read aloud was my grandfather; I used to sit at the edge of his work bench where he sat sewing coats. My grandfather was proud of me but he was also somewhat alarmed. I remember him warning my mother that she would do better to take the books away from me … Only a few years later and I am reading aloud to my little friends, Joey and Tony, on my visits to them in the country. Sometimes I read to a dozen or more children gathered around me. I would read and read until they fell asleep one by one. If I took the trolley or the subway I would read standing up, even outside on the platform of the elevated train. Leaving the train I would still be reading … reading faces, reading gestures, reading gaits, reading architecture, reading streets, passions, crimes. Everything, yes everything, was noted, analyzed, compared and described—for future use. Studying an object, a face, a facade, I studied it the way it was to be written down (later) in a book, including the adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, parentheses and what not. Before I had even planned the first book my mind was teeming with hundreds of characters. I was a walking, talking book, an encyclopaedic compendium which kept swelling like a malignant tumor. If I bumped into a friend or an acquaintance, or even a stranger, I would continue the writing while conversing with him. It was the work of only a few seconds to steer the conversation into my own groove, to fix my victim with a hypnotic eye and inundate him. If it were a woman I encountered I could do it even more easily. Women responded to this sort of thing better than men, I noticed. But with a foreigner it went best of all. My language always intoxicated the alien, first because I made an effort to speak clearly and simply to him, second because his greater tolerance
