I mean that. For a few seconds afterwards I have a fine spiritual glow… and maybe it would continue that way indefinitely — how can you tell? — if it weren’t for the fact that there’s a woman beside you and then the douche bag and the water running… all those little details that make you desperately selfconscious, desperately lonely. And for that one moment of freedom you have to listen to all that love crap… it drives me nuts sometimes… I want to kick them out immediately… I do now and then. But that doesn’t keep them away. They like it, in fact. The less you notice them the more they chase after you. There’s something perverse about women… they’re all masochists at heart.»
«But what is it you want of a woman, then?» I demand.
He begins to mold his hands; his lower lip droops. He looks completely frustrated. When eventually he succeeds in stammering out a few broken phrases it’s with the conviction that behind his words lies an overwhelming futility. «I want to be able to surrender myself to a woman,» he blurts out. «I want her to take me out of myself. But to do that, she’s got to be better than I am; she’s got to have a mind, not just a cunt. She’s got to make me believe that I need her, that I can’t live without her. Find me a cunt like that, will you? If you could do that I’d give you my job. I wouldn’t care then what happened to me: I wouldn’t need a job or friends or books or anything. If she could only make me believe that there was something more important on earth then myself. Jesus, I hate myself! But I hate these bastardly cunts even more — because they’re none of them any good.
«You think I like myself,» he continues. «That shows how little you know about me. I know I’m a great guy… I wouldn’t have these problems if there weren’t something to me. But what eats me up is that I can’t express myself. People think I’m a cunt-chaser. That’s how shallow they are, these high brows who sit on the terrasse all day chewing the psychologic cud… That’s not so bad, eh — psychologic cud? Write it down for me. I’ll use it in my column next week… By the way, did you ever read Stekel? Is he any good? It looks like nothing but case histories to me. I wish to Christ I could get up enough nerve to visit an analyst… a good one, I mean. I don’t want to see these little shysters with goatees and frock coats, like your friend Boris. How do you manage to tolerate those guys? Don’t they bore you stiff? You talk to anybody, I notice. You don’t give a goddamn. Maybe you’re right. I wish I weren’t so damned critical. But these dirty little Jews who hang around the Dôme, Jesus, they give me the creeps. They sound just like textbooks. If I could talk to you every day maybe I could get things off my chest. You’re a good listener. I know you don’t give a damn about me, but you’re patient. And you don’t have any theories to exploit. I suppose you put it all down afterward in that notebook of yours. Listen, I don’t mind what you say about me, but don’t make me out to be a cunt-chaser — it’s too simple. Some day I’ll write a book about myself, about my thoughts. I don’t mean just a piece of introspective analysis… I mean that I’ll lay myself down on the operating table and I’ll expose my whole guts… every goddamned thing. Has anybody ever done that before? — What the hell are you smiling at? Does it sound naïf?»
I’m smiling because whenever we touch on the subject of this book which he is going to write some day things assume an incongruous aspect. He has only to say «my book» and immediately the world shrinks to the private dimensions of Van Norden and Co. The book must be absolutely original, absolutely perfect. That is why, among other things, it is impossible for him to get started on it. As soon as he gets an idea he begins to question it. He remembers that Dostoevski used it, or Hamsun, or somebody else. «I’m not saying that I want to be better than them, but I want to be different,» he explains. And so, instead of tackling his book, he reads one author after another in order to make absolutely certain that he is not going to tread on their private property. And the more he reads the more disdainful he becomes. None of them are satisfying; none of them arrive at that degree of perfection which he has imposed on himself. And forgetting completely that he has not written as much as a chapter he talks about them condescendingly, quite as though there existed a shelf of books bearing his name, books which everyone is familiar with and the titles of which it is therefore superfluous to mention. Though he has never overtly lied about this fact, nevertheless it is obvious that the people whom he buttonholes in order to air his private philosophy, his criticism, and his grievances, take it for granted that behind his loose remarks there stands a solid body of work. Especially the young and foolish virgins whom he lures to his room on the pretext of reading to them his poems, or on the still better pretext of asking their advice. Without the least feeling of guilt or selfconsciousness he will hand them a piece of soiled paper on which he has scribbled a few lines — the basis of a new poem, as he puts it — and with absolute seriousness demand of them an honest expression of opinion. As they usually have nothing to give by way of comment, wholly bewildered as they are by the utter senselessness of the lines, Van Norden seizes the occasion to expound to them his view of art, a view, needless to say, which is spontaneously created to suit the event. So expert has he become in this role that the transition from Ezra Pound’s cantos to the bed is made as simply and naturally as a modulation from one key to another; in fact, if it were not made there would be a discord, which is what happens now and then when he makes a mistake as regards those nitwits whom he refers to as «push-overs.» Naturally, constituted as he is, it is with reluctance that he refers to these fatal errors of judgment. But when he does bring himself to confess to an error of this kind it is with absolute frankness; in fact, he seems to derive a perverse pleasure in dwelling upon his inaptitude. There is one woman, for example, whom he has been trying to make for almost ten years now — first in America, and finally here in Paris. It is the only person of the opposite sex with whom he has a cordial, friendly relationship. They seem not only to like each other, but to understand each other. At first it seemed to me that if he could really make this creature his problem might be solved. All the elements for a successful union were there — except the fundamental one. Bessie was almost as unusual in her way as himself. She had as little concern about giving herself to a man as she has about the dessert which follows the meal. Usually she singled out the object of her choice and made the proposition herself. She was not bad-looking, nor could one say that she was good-looking either. She had a fine body, that was the chief thing — and she liked it, as they say.
They were so chummy, these two, that sometimes, in order to gratify her curiosity (and also in the vain hope of inspiring her by his prowess), Van Norden would arrange to hide her in his closet during one of his seances. After it was over Bessie would emerge from her hiding place and they would discuss the matter casually, that is to say, with an almost total indifference to everything except «technique.» Technique was one of her favorite terms, at least in those discussions which I was privileged to enjoy. «What’s wrong with my technique?» he would say. And Bessie would answer: «You’re too crude. If you ever expect to make me you’ve got to become more subtle.»
There was such a perfect understanding between them, as I say, that often when I called for Van Norden at one-thirty, I would find Bessie sitting on the bed, the covers thrown back and Van Norden inviting her to stroke his penis… «just a few silken strokes,» he would say, «so as I’ll have the courage to get up.» Or else he would urge her to blow on it, or failing that, he would grab hold of himself and shake it like a dinner bell, the two of them laughing fit to die. «I’ll never make this bitch,» he would say. «She has no respect for me. That’s what I get for taking her into my confidence.» And then abruptly he might add: «What do you make of that blonde I showed you yesterday?» Talking to Bessie, of course. And Bessie would jeer at him, telling him he had no taste. «Aw, don’t give me that line,» he would say. And then playfully, perhaps for the thousandth time,