What aborted me in my beginnings, what almost proved to be a tragedy, was that I could find no one who believed in me implicitly, either as a person or as a writer. There was Mara, it is true, but Mara was not a friend, hardly even another person, so closely did we unite. I needed some one outside the vicious circle of false admirers and envious denigrators. I needed a man from the blue.
Ulric did his best to understand what had come over me, but he hadn’t it in him then to perceive what I was destined to become. How can I forget the way he received the news about Mara? It was the day after we had gone to the beach. I had gone to the office as usual in the morning, but by noon I was so feverishly inspired that I took a trolley and rode out into the country. Ideas were pouring into my head. As fast as I jotted them down others came crowding in. At last I reached that point where you abandon all hope of remembering your brilliant ideas and you simply surrender to the luxury of writing a book in your head. You know that you’ll never be able to recapture these ideas, not a single line of all the tumultuous and marvellously dove-tailed sentences which sift through your mind like sawdust spilling through a hole. On such days you have for company the best companion you will ever have—the modest, defeated, plodding workaday self which has a name and which can be identified in public registers in case of accident or death. But the real self, the one who has taken over the reins, is almost a stranger. He is the one who is filled with ideas; he is the one who is writing in the air; he is the one who, if you become too fascinated with his exploits, will finally expropriate the old, worn-out self, taking over your name, your address, your wife, your past, your future. Naturally, when you walk in on an old friend in this euphoric state he doesn’t wish to concede immediately that you have another life, a life apart in which he has no share. He says quite naively—«Feeling rather high to-day, eh?» And you nod your head almost shamefacedly.
«Look, Ulric,» I said, bursting in on him in the midst of a Campbell’s Soup design, «I’ve got to tell you something, I’m bursting with it.»
«Sure, fire away,» he said, dipping his water color brush in the big pot on the stool beside him. «You don’t mind if I go on with this bloody thing, do you? I’ve got to finish it by tonight.»
I pretended I didn’t mind but I was disconcerted. I pitched my voice lower in order not to disturb him too much. «You remember the girl I was telling you about—the girl I met at the dance hall? Well I met her again. We went to the beach together last night…»
«How was it… good going?»
I could see from the way he slid his tongue over his lips that he was priming himself for a juicy yarn.
«Listen, Ulric, do you know what it is to be in love?»
He didn’t even deign to look up in answer to this. As he deftly mixed his colors in the tin tray he mumbled something about being possessed with normal instincts.
I went on unabashed. «Do you think you might meet a woman some day who would change your whole life?»
«I’ve met one or two who’ve tried—not with entire success, as you can see,» he responded.
«Shit! Drop that stuff a moment, will you? I want to tell you something… I want to tell you that I’m in love, madly in love. I know it sounds silly, but this is different—I’ve never been like this before. You wonder if she’s a good piece of tail. Yes, magnificent. But I don’t give a shit about that…»
«Oh, you don’t? Well, that’s something new.»
«Do you know what I did to-day?»
«You went to the Houston Street Burlesk maybe.»
«I went to the country. I was walking around like a madman….»
«What do you mean—has she given you the gate already?»
«No. She told me she loved me… I know, it sounds childish, doesn’t it?»
«I wouldn’t say that exactly. You might be temporarily deranged, that’s all. Everybody acts a bit queer when he falls in love. In your case it’s apt to last longer. I wish I didn’t have this damned job on my hands—I might listen more feelingly. You couldn’t come back a little later, could you? Perhaps we could eat together, yes?»
«All right, I’ll come back in an hour or so. Don’t run out on me, you bastard, because I haven’t a cent on me.»
I blew down the stairs and headed for the park. I was riled. It was silly to get all steamed up before Ulric. Always cool as a cucumber, that guy. How can you make another person understand what is really happening inside you? If I were to break a leg he would drop everything. But if your heart is breaking with joy—well, it’s a bit boring, don’t you know. Tears are easier to put up with than joy. Joy is destructive: it makes others uncomfortable. «Weep and you weep alone»—what a lie that is! Weep and you will find a million crocodiles to weep with you. The world is forever weeping. The world is drenched in tears. Laughter, that’s another thing. Laughter is momentary—it passes. But joy, joy is a kind of ecstatic bleeding, a disgraceful sort of super-contentment which overflows from every pore of your being. You can’t make people joyous just by being joyous yourself. Joy has to be generated by oneself: it is or it isn’t. Joy is founded on something too profound to be understood and communicated. To be joyous is to be a madman in a world of sad ghosts.
I couldn’t remember ever seeing Ulric positively joyous. He could laugh readily enough, a good healthy laugh, too, but when he subsided he was always a bit below par. As for Stanley, the nearest semblance to mirth he could produce was a carbolic acid grin. There wasn’t a soul I knew who was really gay inside, or even resilient. My friend Kronski, who was now an interne, would act as though he were alarmed if he found me in an effervescent mood. He spoke of joy and sadness as if they were pathological conditions—opposite poles in the manic-depressive cycle.
When I got back to the studio I found it crowded with friends of his who had arrived unexpectedly. They were what Ulric called fine young blades from the South. They had come up from Virginia and North Carolina in their trim racing cars and they had brought with them a few jugs of peach brandy. I didn’t know any of them and I felt a bit uncomfortable at first, but after a drink or two I limbered up and began talking freely. To my amazement they seemed not to understand what I was talking about.
They excused their ignorance in a sly and embarrassing way by saying that they were just common country folk who knew more about horses than books. I wasn’t aware of having mentioned any books, but that was their way, as I soon discovered, of telling me off. I was definitely an intellectual, say what I would. And they were very definitely country gentlemen, with boots and spurs. The situation was getting rather tense, despite my efforts to talk their language. And then of a sudden it became ridiculous, owing to a stupid remark about Walt Whitman which one of them had chosen to address to me. I had been exalted for the better part of the day; the enforced promenade had sobered me up somewhat, but with the peach brandy flowing and the conversation all at loose ends I had gradually become exhilarated again. I was in a mood to combat these fine young blades from the South, more particularly because what I had on my chest to get off was being squelched by the senseless hilarity. So when the cultured young gent from Durham tried to cross swords with me about my favorite American writer I was at him hammer and tongs. As usual in such circumstances I overshot the mark.
The place was in an uproar. Apparently they had never seen any one so earnest about an unimportant matter. Their laughter made me furious. I accused them of being a bunch of drunken sots, of being idle sons of bitches, ignorant, prejudiced, the product of good for nothing whore-mongers, et cetera,
