to something happening, some intrinsic event that would alter my life, and now suddenly, inspired by the absolute hopelessness of everything, I felt relieved, felt as though a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders. At dawn I parted company with the young Hindu, after touching him for a few francs, enough for a room. Walking toward Montparnasse I decided to let myself drift with the tide, to make not the least resistance to fate, no matter in what form it presented itself. Nothing that had happened to me thus far had been sufficient to destroy me; nothing had been destroyed except my illusions. I myself was intact. The world was intact. Tomorrow there might be a revolution, a plague, an earthquake; tomorrow there might not be left a single soul to whom one could turn for sympathy, for aid, for faith. It seemed to me that the great calamity had already manifested itself, that I could be no more truly alone than at this very moment. I made up my mind that I would hold on to nothing, that I would expect nothing, that henceforth I would live as an animal, a beast of prey, a rover, a plunderer. Even if war were declared, and it were my lot to go, I would grab the bayonet and plunge it, plunge it up to the hilt. And if rape were the order of the day then rape I would, and with a vengeance. At this very moment, in the quiet dawn of a new day, was not the earth giddy with crime and distress? Had one single element of man’s nature been altered, vitally, fundamentally altered, by the incessant march of history? By what he calls the better part of his nature, man has been betrayed, that is all. At the extreme limits of his spiritual being man finds himself again naked as a savage. When he finds God, as it were, he has been picked clean: he is a skeleton. One must burrow into life again in order to put on flesh. The word must become flesh; the soul thirsts. On whatever crumb my eye fastens, I will pounce and devour. If to live is the paramount thing, then I will live, even if I must become a cannibal. Heretofore I have been trying to save my precious hide, trying to preserve the few pieces of meat that hid my bones. I am done with that. I have reached the limits of endurance. My back is to the wall; I can retreat no further. As far as history goes I am dead. If there is something beyond I shall have to bounce back. I have found God, but he is insufficient. I am only spiritually dead. Physically I am alive. Morally I am free. The world which I have departed is a menagerie. The dawn is breaking on a new world, a jungle world in which the lean spirits roam with sharp claws. If I am a hyena I am a lean and hungry one: I go forth to fatten myself.

At one-thirty I called on Van Norden, as per agreement. He had warned me that if he didn’t answer it would mean that he was sleeping with someone, probably his Georgia cunt.
Anyway, there he was, tucked away comfortably, but with an air of weariness as usual. He wakes up cursing himself, or cursing the job, or cursing life. He wakes up utterly bored and discomfited, chagrined to think that he did not die overnight.
I sit down by the window and give him what encouragement I can. It is tedious work. One has to actually coax him out of bed. Mornings — he means by mornings anywhere between one and five p.m. — mornings, as I say, he gives himself up to reveries. Mostly it is about the past he dreams. About his «cunts.» He endeavors to recall how they felt, what they said to him at certain critical moments, where he laid them, and so on. As he lies there, grinning and cursing, he manipulates his fingers in that curious, bored way of his, as though to convey the impression that his disgust is too great for words. Over the bedstead hangs a douche bag which he keeps for emergencies — for the virgins whom he tracks down like a sleuth. Even after he has slept with one of these mythical creatures he will still refer to her as a virgin, and almost never by name. «My virgin,» he will say, just as he says «my Georgia cunt.» When he goes to the toilet he says: «If my Georgia cunt calls tell her to wait. Say I said so. And listen, you can have her if you like. I’m tired of her.»
He takes a squint at the weather and heaves a deep sigh. If it’s rainy he says: «God damn this fucking climate, it makes one morbid.» And if the sun is shining brightly he says: «God damn that fucking sun, it makes you blind!» As he starts to shave he suddenly remembers that there is no clean towel. «God damn this fucking hotel, they’re too stingy to give you a clean towel every day!» No matter what he does or where he goes things are out of joint. Either it’s the fucking country or the fucking job, or else it’s some fucking cunt who’s put him on the blink.
«My teeth are all rotten,» he says, gargling his throat. «It’s the fucking bread they give you to eat here.» He opens his mouth wide and pulls his lower lip down. «See that? Pulled out six teeth yesterday. Soon I’ll have to get another plate. That’s what you get working for a living. When I was on the bum I had all my teeth, my eyes were bright and clear. Look at me now! It’s a wonder I can make a cunt any more. Jesus, what I’d like is to find some rich cunt — like that cute little prick, Carl. Did he ever show you the letters she sends him? Who is she, do you know? He wouldn’t tell me her name, the bastard… he’s afraid I might take her away from him.» He gargles his throat again and then takes a long look at the cavities. «You’re lucky,» he says ruefully. «You’ve got friends, at least. I haven’t anybody, except that cute little prick who drives me bats about his rich cunt.»
«Listen,» he says, «do you happen to know a cunt by the name of Norma? She hangs around the Dôme all day. I think she’s queer. I had her up here yesterday, tickling her ass. She wouldn’t let me do a thing. I had her on the bed… I even had her drawers off… and then I got disgusted. Jesus, I can’t bother struggling that way any more. It isn’t worth it. Either they do or they don’t — it’s foolish to waste time wrestling with them. While you’re struggling with a little bitch like that there may be a dozen cunts on the terrasse just dying to be laid. It’s a fact. They all come over here to get laid. They think it’s sinful here… the poor boobs! Some of these schoolteachers from out West, they’re honestly virgins… I mean it! They sit around on their can all day thinking about it. You don’t have to work over them very much. They’re dying for it. I had a married woman the other day who told me she hadn’t had a lay for six months. Can you imagine that? Jesus, she was hot! I thought she’d tear the cock off me. And groaning all the time. «Do you? Do you?» She kept saying that all the time, like she was nuts. And do you know what that bitch wanted to do? She wanted to move in here. Imagine that! Asking me if I loved her. I didn’t even know her name. I never know their names… I don’t want to. The married ones! Christ, if you saw all the married cunts I bring up here you’d never have any more illusions. They’re worse than the virgins, the married ones. They don’t wait for you to start things — they fish it out for you themselves. And then they talk about love afterwards. It’s disgusting. I tell you, I’m actually beginning to hate cunt!»
He looks out the window again. It’s drizzling. It’s been drizzling this way for the last five days.
«Are we going to the Dôme, Joe?» I call him Joe be cause he calls me Joe. When Carl is with us he is Joe too. Everybody is Joe because it’s easier that way. It’s also a pleasant reminder not to take yourself too seriously. Anyway, Joe doesn’t want to go the Dôme — he owes too much money there. He wants to go to the Coupole. Wants to take a little walk first around the block.
«But it’s raining, Joe.»
«I know, but what the hell! I’ve got to have my consititutional. I’ve got to wash the dirt out of my belly.» When he says this I have the impression that the whole world is wrapped up there inside his belly, and that it’s rotting there.
As he’s putting on his things he falls back again into a semi-comatose state. He stands there with one arm in his coat sleeve and his hat on assways and he begins to dream aloud — about the Riviera, about the sun, about lazing one’s life away. «All I ask of life,» he says, «is a bunch of books, a bunch of dreams,