ny it. I havehealth, good solid, animal health. The only thing that
stands betweenme and a future is a meal. another meal.
    As for Carl,he's not himself these days. He's upset, his nerves are
jangled. Hesays he's ill. and I believe him, but I don't feel badly about it.
    I can't.In fact. it makes me laugh. And that offends him, of course.
Everythingwounds him _ my laughter, my hunger, my persistence, my
insouciance,everything. One day he wants to blow his brains out because
hecan't stand this lousy hole of a Europe any more; the next day he talksof
going to Arizona "where they look you square in the eye. "
    "Do it! " I say."Do one thing or the other, you bastard, but don't try
to cloud my healthyeye with your melancholy breath! "
    But that's justit! In Europe one gets used to doing nothing. You sit on
your ass andwhine all day. You get contaminated. You rot.
    FundamentallyCarl is a snob, an aristocratic little prick who lives in a
dementiapraecox kingdom all his own. "I hate Paris! " he whines. "All
thesestupid people playing cards all day. . . look at them! And the
writing!What's the use of putting words together? I can be a writer
withoutwriting, can't I? What does it prove if I write a book? What do we
wantwith books anyway? There are too many books already. ..."
    My eye. but I'vebeen all over that ground _ years and years ago. I've
lived out my melancholyyouth. I don't give a fuck any more what's behind me,
or what's aheadof me. I'm healthy. Incur-ably healthy. No sorrows, no regrets.
No past,no future. The present is enough for me. Day by day. Today! Le
belaujourd'hui!
    He has one daya week off, Carl. and on that day he's more miserable, if
you can imagineit, than on any other day of the week. Though he professes to
despisefood, the only way he seems to enjoy himself on his day off is to
ordera big spread. Perhaps he does it for my benefit _ I don't know, andI
don't ask. If he chooses to add martyrdom to his list of vices, lethim _
it's . K. with me. Anyway, last Tuesday, after squandering whathe had on a
big spread, he steers me to the Dome, the last place inthe world I would
seek on my day off. But one not only gets acquiescenthere _ one gets supine.

    Standing at theDome bar is Marlowe, soused to the ears. He's been on a
bender, as hecalls it, for the last five days. That means a continuous drunk,
a peregrinationfrom one bar to another, day and night without interruption,
and finallya layoff at the American Hospital. Marlowe's bony emaciated face
isnothing but a skull perforated by two deep sockets in which there
areburied a pair of dead clams. His back is covered with sawdust _ he
hasjust had a little snooze in the water closet. In his coat pocket arethe
proofs for the next issue of his review, he was on his way to theprinter
with the proofs, it seems, when some one inveigled him to havea drink. He
talks about it as though it happened months ago. He takesout the proofs and
spreads them over the bar; they are full of coffeestains and dried spittle.
He tries to read a poem which he had writtenin Greek, but the proofs are
undecipherable. Then he decides to delivera speech, in French, but the
gerant puts a stop to it. Marloweis piqued: his one ambition is to talk a
French which even the garymwill understand. Of Old French he is a master; of
the surrealistshe has made excellent translations; but to say a simple thing
like "getthe hell out of here, you old prick! " _ that is beyond him.
Nobodyunderstands Marlowe's French, not even the whores. For that
matter,it's difficult enough to understand his English when he's under
theweather. He blabbers and spits like a confirmed stutterer. . . no
sequenceto his phrases. "You pay! " that's one thing he manages to getout
clearly.
    Even if he isfried to the hat some fine preservative instinct always
warns Marlowewhen it is time to act. If there is any doubt in his mind as to
howthe drinks are going to be paid he will be sure to put on a stunt.
Theusual one is to pretend that he is going blind. Carl knows all his
tricksby now, and so when Marlowe suddenly claps his hands to his templesand
begins to act it out Carl gives him a boot in the ass and says:"Come out of
it. you sap! You don't have to do that with me! "
    Whether it isa cunning piece of revenge or not, I don't know, but at any
rate Marloweis paying Carl back in good coin. Leaning over us confidentially
herelates in a hoarse, croaking voice a piece of gossip which he pickedup in
the course of his peregrinations from bar to bar. Carl looks upin amazement.
He's pale under the gills. Marlowe repeats the story withvariations. Each
time Carl wilts a

    little more."But that's impossible! " he finally blurts out. "No it
ain't!" croaksMarlowe. "You're gonna lose your job... I got it straight. "
Carl looksat me in despair. "Is he shitting me, that bastard?" he murmurs in
myear. And then aloud _ "What am I going to do now? I'll never find
anotherjob. It took me a year to land this one."
    This, apparently,is all that Marlowe has been waiting to hear. At last
he has found someoneworse off than himself. "They be hard times! " he croaks,
and his bonyskull glows with a cold, electric fire.
    Leaving the DomeMarlowe explains between hiccups that he's got to return
to San Francisco.He seems genuinely touched now by Carl's helplessness. He
proposes thatCarl and I take over the review during his absence. "I can
trust you,Carl, " he says. And then suddenly he gets an attack, a real one
thistime. He almost collapses in the gutter. We haul him to a bistroat the
Boulevard Edgar-Quinet and sit him down. This time he's reallygot It _ a
blinding headache that makes him squeal and grunt and rockhimself to and fro
like a dumb brute that's been struck by a sledgehammer. We spill a couple of
Fernet-Brancas down his throat, lay himout on the bench and cover his eyes
with his muffler. He lies theregroaning. In a little while we hear him
snoring.
    "What about hisproposition?" says Carl. "Should we take it up? He says
hell give mea thousand francs when he comes back. I know he won't, but what
aboutit?" He looks at Marlowe sprawled out on the bench, lifts the
mufflerfrom his eyes, and puts it back again. Suddenly a mischievous grin
lightsup his face. "Listen, Joe, " he says, beckoning me to move closer,
"we'lltake him up on it. We'll take his lousy review over and we'll fuck
himgood and proper. "
    "What do youmean by that?"
    "Why well throwout all the other contributors and well fill it with our
own shit _that's what! "
    "Yeah, but whatkind of shit?"
    "Any kind. .. he won't be able to do anything about it. We'll fuck him
good andproper. One good number and after that the magazinell be finished.
Areyou game, Joe?"
    Grinning andchuckling we lift Marlowe to his feet and haul

    him to Carl'sroom. When we turn on the lights there's a woman in the bed
waitingfor Carl. "I forgot all about her, " says Carl. We turn the cunt
looseand shove Marlowe into bed. In a minute or so there's a knock at thedoor.
It's Van Norden. He's all aflutter. Lost a plate of false teeth_ at the Bal
Negre, he thinks. Anyway, we get to bed, the four of us.Marlowe stinks like
a smoked fish.
    In the morningMarlowe and Van Norden leave to search for the false teeth.
Marloweis blubbering. He imagines they are his teeth.

    -_-t is my lastdinner at the dramatist's home. They have just rented a
new piano, aconcert grand. I meet Sylvester coming out of the florist's with
a rubberplant in his arms. He asks me if I would carry it for him while he
goesfor the cigars. One by one I've fucked myself out of all these freemeals
which I had planned so carefully. One by one the husbands turnagainst me, or
the wives. As I walk along with the rubber plant in myarms I think of that
night a few months back when the idea first occurredto me. I was sitting on
a bench near the Coupole, fingering the weddingring which I had tried to
pawn off on a garym at the Dome. Hehad offered me six francs for it and I
was in a rage about it. But thebelly was getting the upper hand. Ever since
I left Mona I had wornthe ring on my pinkie. It was so much a part of me
that it had neveroccurred to me to sell it. It was one of those
orangeblossom affairsin white gold. Worth a dollar and a half once, maybe
more. For threeyears we went along without a wedding ring and then one day
when I wasgoing to the pier to meet Mona I happened to pass a jewelry window
onMaiden Lane and the whole window was stuffed with wedding rings. WhenI got
to the pier Mona was not to be seen. I waited for the last passengerto
descend the gangplank, but no Mona. Finally I asked to be shown thepassenger
list. Her name was not on it. I slipped the wedding ring onmy pinkie and
there it stayed. Once I left it in a public bath, butthen I got it back again.
One of the orange blossoms had fallen off.Anyway, I was sitting there on the
bench with my head down, twiddlingthe ring, when suddenly someone clapped me
on the back. To make it brief,I got a meal and a few francs besides. And
then it occurred to me, likea flash, that no one would refuse a man a meal
if only he had the courageto demand it. I went immediately to a cafe and
wrote a dozen letters."Would you let me have dinner with you once a week?
Tell me what dayis most convenient for you. " It worked like a charm. I was
not onlyfed. . . I was feasted. Every night I went home drunk. They
couldn'tdo enough for me, these generous once-a-week souls. What happened
tome

    between timeswas none of their affair. Now and then the thoughtful ones
presentedme with cigarettes, or a little pin money. They were all obviously
relievedwhen they realized that they would see me only once a week. And
theywere still more relieved when I said _ "it won't be necessary any more."
They never asked why. They congratulated me, and that was all. Oftenthe
reason was I had found a better host; I could afford to scratchoff the ones
who were a pain in the ass. But that thought never occurredto them. Finally
I had a steady, solid program _ a fixed schedule. OnTuesdays I knew it would
be this kind of a meal and on Fridays thatkind. Cronstadt, I knew. would
have champagne for me and homemade applepie. And Carl would invite me out,
take me to a different restauranteach time. order rare wines, invite me to
the theater afterward or takeme to the Cirque Medrano. They were curious
about one another, my hosts.Would ask me which place I liked best, who was
the best cook, etc. Ithink I liked Cronstadt's joint best of all, perhaps
because he chalkedthe meal up on the wall each time. Not that it eased my
conscience tosee what I owed him. because I had no intention of paying him
back norhad he any illusions about being requited. No, it was the odd
numberswhich intrigued me. He used to figure it out to the last centime. IfI
was to pay in full I would have had to break a sou. His wife was amarvelous
cook and she didn't give a fuck about those centimes Cronstadtadded up. She
took it out of me in carbon copies. A fact! If I hadn'tany fresh carbons for
her when I showed up, she was crestfallen. Andfor that I would have to take
the little girl to the Luxembourg nextday, play with her for two or three
hours, a task which drove me wildbecause she spoke nothing but Hungarian and
French. They were a queerlot on the whole, my hosts. .. .
    At Tania's Ilook down on the spread from the balcony. Moldorf is there,
sittingbeside his idol. He is warming his feet at the hearth, a monstrous
lookof gratitude in his watery eyes. Tania is running over the adagio.
Theadagio says very distinctly: no more words of love! I am at the
fountainagain, watching the turtles pissing green milk. Sylvester has just
comeback from Broad-way with a heart full of love. All night I was lyingon a
bench outside the mall while the globe was sprayed with warm turtlepiss and
the horses stiffened with priapic fury galloped like mad withoutever
touching the ground.All night long I smell the lilacs in the little dark
room where sheis taking down her hair, the lilacs that I bought for her as
she wentto meet Sylvester. He came back with a heart full of love, she
said,and the lilacs are in her hair, her mouth, they are choking her
armpits.The room is swimming with love and turtle piss and warm lilacs and
thehorses are galloping like mad. In the morning dirty teeth and scum onthe
windowpanes;
    the little gatethat leads to the mall is locked. People are going to
work and the shuttersare rattling like coats of mail. In the bookstore
opposite the fountainis the story of Lake Chad, the silent lizards, the
gorgeous gambogetints. All the letters I wrote her, drunken ones with a
blunt stub,crazy ones with bits of charcoal, little pieces from bench to
bench,firecrackers, doilies, tutti-frutti i they will be going over them
now.together, and he will compliment me one day. He will say, as he
flickshis cigar ash; "Really, you write quite well. Let's see. you're a
surrealist,aren't you?" Dry, brittle voice, teeth full of dandruff, solo for
solarplexus, g for gaga.
    Upon the balconywith the rubber plant and the adagio going on down below.
The keys areblack and white, then black, then white, then white and black.
And youwant to know if you can play something for me. Yes, play something
withthose big thumbs of yours. Play the adagio since that's the only
goddamnedthing you know. Play it, and then cut off your big thumbs.
    That adagio!I don't know why she insists on playing it all the time. The
old pianowasn't good enough for her; she had to rent a concert grand _ for
theadagio! When I see her big thumbs pressing the keyboard and that
sillyrubber plant beside me I feel like that madman of the North who
threwhis clothes away and, sitting naked in the wintry boughs, threw
nutsdown into the her-ringfrozen sea. There is something exasperating
aboutthis movement, something abortively melancholy about it, as if it
hadbeen written in lava. as if it had the color of lead and milk mixed.And
Sylvester, with his head cocked to one side like an auctioneer,Sylvester says:
"Play that other one you were practicing today. " It'sbeautiful to have a
smoking jacket, a good cigar and a wife who playsthe piano. So relaxing. So
lenitive. Between the acts you go out fora smoke and a breath of fresh air.
Yes, her fingers are very

    supple, extraordinarysupple. She does batik work too. Would you like to
try a Bulgarian cigarette?I say, pigeon breast, what's that other movement I
like so well? Thescherzo! Ah, yes, the scherzo! Excellent, the scherzo!
Count Waldemarvon Schwisseneinzug speaking. Cool, dandruff eyes. Halitosis.
Gaudysocks. And croutons in the pea soup, if you please. We always have
peasoup Friday nights. Won't you try a little red wine? The red wine
goeswith the meat. you know. A dry, crisp voice. Have a cigar, won't you?Yes.
I like my work, but I don't attach any importance to it. My nextplay will
involve a pluralistic conception of the universe. Revolvingdrums with
calcium lights. 'Neill is dead. I think, dear. you shouldlift your foot from
the pedal more frequently. Yes. that part is verynice. . . very nice, don't
you think? Yes, the characters goaround with microphones in their trousers.
The locale is in Asia, becausethe atmospheric conditions are more conducive.
Would you like to trya little Anjou? We bought it especially for you. . . .
    All through themeal this patter continues. It feels exactly as if he had
taken outthat circumcised dick of his and was peeing on us. Tania is
burstingwith the strain. Ever since he came back with a heart full of love
thismonologue has been going on. He talks while he's undressing, she tellsme
_ a steady stream of warm piss. as though his bladder had been
punctured.When I think of Tania crawling into bed with this busted bladder
getenraged. To think that a poor. withered bastard with those cheap
Broadwayplays up his sleeve should be pissing on the woman I love. Calling
forred wine and revolving drums and croutons in his pea soup. The cheekof him!
To think that he can lie beside that furnace I stoked for himand do nothing
but make water! My God, man, you ought to get down onyour knees and thank me.
Don't you see that you have a womanin your house now? Can't you see she's
bursting? You telling me withthose strangulated adenoids of yours _ "well now.
Ill tell you. . .there's two ways of looking at that. ..." Fuck your two
ways of lookingat things! F'uck your pluralistic universe, and your Asiatic
acoustics!Don't hand me your red wine or your Anjou. . . hand her over.. .
she belongs to me! You go sit by the fountain, and let mesmell the lilacs!
Pick the dandruff out of your eyes. . . and take thatdamned adagio and wrap
it in a pair of flannel pants! And the otherlittle movement too. . . all the
little movements that you

    make with yourweak bladder. You smile at me so confidently, so
calculatingly. I'mflattering the ass off you, can't you tell? While I listen
to your crapshe's got her hand on me _ but you don't see that. You think I
liketo suffer _ that's my role, you say. . K. Ask her about it! She'll
tellyou how I suffer. "You're cancer and delirium, " she said over the
phonethe other day. She's got it now, the cancer and delirium, and soon
you'llhave to pick the scabs. Her veins are bursting, I tell you, and
yourtalk is all sawdust. No matter how much you piss away you never plugup
the holes. What did Mr. Wren say? Words are loneliness. Ileft a couple of
words tor you on the tablecloth last night _ you coveredthem with your elbows.
    He's put a fencearound her as if she were a dirty, stinking bone of a
saint. If he onlyhad the courage to say "Take her! " perhaps a miracle would
occur. Justthat. Take her! and I swear everything would come out all
right.Besides, maybe I wouldn't take her _ did that ever occur to him, I
wonder?Or I might take her for a while and hand her back, improved.But
putting up a fence around her, that won't work. You can't put afence around
a human being. It ain't done any more. . . . You think,you poor, withered
bastard, that I'm no good for her, that I might polluteher, desecrate her.
You don't know how palatable is a polluted woman,how a change of semen can
make a woman bloom! You think a heart fullof love is enough, and perhaps it
is, for the right woman, but you haven'tgot a heart any more. . . you are
nothing but a big, empty bladder.You are sharpening your teeth and
cultivating your growl. You run ather heels like a watchdog and you piddle
everywhere. She didn't takeyou for a watchdog. .. she took you for a poet.
You were a poet once,she said. And now what are you? Courage, Sylvester,
courage! Take themicrophone out of your pants. Put your hind leg down and
stop makingwater everywhere. Courage, I say, because she's ditched you
already.She's contaminated, I tell you, and you might as well take down
thefence. No use asking me politely if the coffee doesn't taste like
carbolicacid:
    that won't scareme away. Put rat poison in the coffee, and a little
ground glass.Make some boiling hot urine and drop a few nutmegs

    It is a communallife I have been living for the last few weeks. I have
had to sharemyself with others, principally with some crazy Russians, a
drunkenDutchman, and a big Bulgarian woman named Oiga. Of the Russians
thereare chiefly Eugene and Anatole.
    It was just afew days ago that Olga got out of the hospital where she
had her tubesburned out and lost a little excess weight. However she doesn't
lookas if she had gone through much suffering. She weighs almost as muchas a
camel-backed locomotive! she drips with perspiration, has halitosis,and
still wears her Circassian wig that looks like excelsior. She hastwo big
warts on her chin from which there sprouts a clump of littlehairs; she is
growing a mustache.
    The day afterOlga was released from the hospital she commenced making
shoes again.At six in the morning she is at her bench; she knocks out two
pairsof shoes a day. Eugene complains that Olga is a burden, but the truthis
that Olga is supporting Eugene and his wife with her two pairs ofshoes a day.
If Olga doesn't work there is no food. So everyone endeavorsto pull Olga to
bed on time, to give her enough food to keep going,etc.
    Every meal startsoff with soup. Whether it be onion soup. tomato soup,
vegetable soup.or what not, the soup always tastes the same. Mostly it
tastes as ifa dish rag had been stewed in it _ slightly sour, mildewed,
scummy.I see Eugene hiding it away in the commode after the meal. It
staysthere, rotting away, until the next meal. The butter, too, is
hiddenaway in the commode; after three days it tastes like the big toe ofa
cadaver.
    The smell ofrancid butter frying is not particularly appetizing,
especially whenthe cooking is done in a room in which there is not the
slightest formof ventilation. No sooner than I open the door I feel ill. But
Eugene,as soon as he hears me coming, usually opens the shutters and
pullsback the bedsheet which is strung up like a fishnet to keep out
thesunlight. Poor Eugene! He looks about the room at the few sticksof
furniture, at the dirty bedsheets and the wash basin with the dirtywater
still in it, and he says: "I am a slave! " Every day he says it,not once,
but a dozen times. And then he takes his guitar from the walland sings.
    But about thesmell of rancid butter. . . . There are good associations
too. WhenI think of this rancid butter I see myself standing