What I really wanted, you see, was that every one should behave as I behaved, or thought I would behave. I wanted a world made in my own image, a world that would breathe my spirit. I made myself God, since there was nothing to hinder me..,»
I paused for breath. I noticed that she was listening with the utmost seriousness.
«Should I go on? You’ve probably heard this sort of thing a thousand times.»
«Do go on,» she said softly, placing a hand on my arm. «I’m beginning to see another you. I like you better in this vein.»
«Didn’t you forget the cheese? By the way, the wine isn’t bad at all. A little sharp, maybe, but not bad.»
«Listen, Henry, eat, drink, smoke, do anything you want, as much as you want. I’ll give you everything we have in the house. But don’t stop talking now… please.»
She was just about to sit down. I sprang up suddenly, my eyes full of tears, and I put my arms around her. «Now I can tell you honestly and sincerely,» I said, «that I do love you.» I made no attempt to kiss her—I just embraced her. I released her of my own accord, sat down, picked up the glass of wine and finished it off.
«You’re an actor,» she said. «In the real sense of the word, of course. I don’t wonder that people are frightened of you sometimes.»
«I know, I get frightened of myself sometimes. Especially if the other person responds. I don’t know where the proper limits are. There are no limits, I suppose. Nothing would be bad or ugly or evil—if we really let ourselves go. But it’s hard to make people understand that. Anyway, that’s the difference between the world of imagination and the world of common sense, which isn’t common sense at all but sheer buggery and insanity. If you stop still and look at things… I say look, not think, not criticize… the world looks absolutely crazy to you. And it is crazy, by God! It’s just as crazy when things are normal and peaceful as in times of war or revolution. The evils are insane evils, and the panaceas are insane panaceas. Because we’re all driven like dogs. We’re running away. From what? We don’t know. From a million nameless things. It’s a rout, a panic. There’s no ultimate place to retreat to—unless, as I say, you stand stock still. If you can do that, and not lose your balance, not be swept away in the rush, you may be able to get a grip on yourself… be able to act, if you know what I mean. You know what I’m driving at… From the time you wake up until the moment you go to bed it’s all a lie, all a sham and a swindle. Everybody knows it, and everybody collaborates in the perpetuation of the hoax. That’s why we look so god-damned disgusting to one another. That’s why it’s so easy to trump up a war, or a pogrom, or a vice crusade, or any damned thing you like. It’s always easier to give in, to bash somebody’s puss in, because what we all pray for is to get done in, but done in proper and no come back. If we could still believe in a God, we’d make him a God of Vengeance. We’d surrender to him with a full heart the task of cleaning things up. It’s too late for us to pretend to clean up the mess. We’re in it up to the eyes. We don’t want a new world… we want an end to the mess we’ve made. At sixteen you can believe in a new world… you can believe anything, in fact… but at twenty you’re doomed, and you know it. At twenty you’re well in harness, and the most you can hope for is to get off with arms and legs intact. It isn’t a question of fading hope… Hope is a baneful sign; it means impotence. Courage is no use either: everybody can muster courage—for the wrong thing.
I don’t know what to say—unless I use a word like vision. And by that I don’t mean a projected picture of the future, of some imagined ideal made real. I mean something more flexible, more constant—a permanent super-sight, as it were… something like a third eye. We had it once. There was a sort of clairvoyance which was natural and common to all men. Then came the mind, and that eye which permitted us to see whole and round and beyond was absorbed by the brain, and we became conscious of the world, and of one another, in a new way. Our pretty little egos came into bloom: we became self-conscious, and with that came conceit, arrogance, blindness, a blindness such as was never known before, not even by the blind.»
«Where do you get these ideas?» said Rebecca suddenly. «Or are you making it up on the spur of the moment? Wait a minute… I want you to tell me something. Do you ever put your thoughts down on paper? What do you write about anyway? You’ve never showed me a thing. I haven’t the least idea what you’re doing.»
«Oh that,» I said, «it’s just as well you haven’t read anything. I haven’t said anything yet. I can’t seem to get started. I don’t know what the hell to put down first, there’s so much to say.»
«But do you write the way you talk? That’s what I want to know.»
«I don’t think so,» I said, blushing. «I don’t know anything about writing yet. I’m too self-conscious, I guess.»
«You shouldn’t be,» said Rebecca. «You’re not self-conscious when you talk, and you don’t act self-consciously either.»
«Rebecca,» I said, proceeding slowly and deliberately, «if I really knew what I was capable of I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you. I feel sometimes as though I’m going to burst. I really don’t give a damn about the misery of the world. I take it for granted. What I want is to open up. I want to know what’s inside me. I want everybody to open up. I’m like an imbecile with a can-opener in his hand, wondering where to begin—to open up the earth. I know that underneath the mess everything is marvelous. I’m sure of it. I know it because I feel so marvelous myself most of the time. And when I feel that way everybody seems marvelous… everybody and everything… even pebbles and pieces of cardboard… a match stick lying in the gutter… anything… a goat’s beard, if you like. That’s what I want to write about—but I don’t know how… I don’t know where to begin. Maybe it’s too personal. Maybe it would sound like sheer rubbish… You see, to me it seems as though the artists, the scientists, the philosophers were grinding lenses. It’s all a grand preparation for something that never conies off. Some day the lens is going to be perfect and then we’re all going to see clearly, see what a staggering, wonderful, beautiful world it is. But in the meantime we go without glasses, so to speak. We blunder about like myopic, blinking idiots. We don’t see what is under our nose because we’re so intent on seeing the stars, or what lies beyond the stars. We’re trying to see with the mind, but the mind sees only what it’s told to see. The mind can’t open wide its eyes and look just for the pleasure of looking. Haven’t you ever noticed that when you stop looking, when you don’t try to see, vow suddenly see? What is it you see? Who is it that sees? Why is it all so different —so marvelously different—in such moments? And which is more real, that kind of vision or the other? You see what I mean…. When you have an inspiration your mind takes a vacation; you turn it over to some one else, some invisible, unknowable power which takes
