Perhaps Sergemakes deliveries here too. But nobody is scratching himself,
thank God.A faint odor of perfume. .. very faint. Even before the music
beginsthere is that bored look on people's faces. A polite form of
self-imposedtorture, the concert. For a moment, when the conductor raps with
hislittle wand, there is a tense spasm of concentration followed
almostimmediately by a general slump, a quiet vegetable sort of repose
inducedby the steady, uninterrupted drizzle from the orchestra. My mind
iscuriously alert; it's as though my skull had a thousand mirrors insideit.
My nerves are taut. vibrant! the notes are like glass balls dancingon a
million jets of water. I've never been to a concert before on suchan empty
belly. Nothing escapes me, not even the tiniest pin falling.It's as though I
had no clothes on and every pore of my body was a windowand all the windows
open and the light flooding my gizzards. I can feelthe light curving under
the vault of my ribs and my ribs hang thereover a hollow nave trembling with
reverberations. How long this lastsI have no idea; I have lost all sense of
time and place. After whatseems like an eternity there follows an interval
of semi-consciousnessbalanced by such a calm that I feel a great lake inside
me. a lake ofiridescent sheen, cool as jelly; and over this lake. rising in
greatswooping spirals, there emerge flocks of birds of passage with longslim
legs and brilliant plumage. Flock after flock surge up from thecool, still
surface of the lake and, passing under my clavicles, losethemselves in the
white sea of space. And then slowly, very slowly,as if an old woman in a
white cap were going the rounds of my body,slowly the windows are closed and
my organs drop back into place. Suddenlythe lights flare up and the man in
the white box whom I had taken fora Turkish officer turns out to be a woman
with a flowerpot on her head.
    There is a buzznow and all those who want to cough, cough to their
heart's content.There is the noise of feet shuffling and seats slamming, the
steady,frittering noise of people moving about aimlessly, of people
flutteringtheir programs and pretending to read and then dropping their
programsand scuffling under their seats, thankful for even the slightest
accidentwhich will prevent them from asking themselves what they were
thinkingabout because if they knew they were thinking about nothing they
wouldgo mad. In the harsh glare of the lights they look at each other
vacuously

    and there isa strange tenseness with which they stare at one another.
And the momentthe conductor raps again they fall back into a cataleptic
state _ theyscratch themselves unconsciously or they remember suddenly a
show windowin which there was displayed a scarf or a hat; they remember
every detailof that window with a-mazing clarity, but where it was exactly,
thatthey can't recall; and that bothers them, keeps them wide awake,
restless,and they listen now with redoubled attention because they are wide
awakeand no matter how wonderful the music is they will not lose
consciousnessof that show window and that scarf that was hanging there, or
the hat.
    And this fierceattentiveness communicates itself; even the orchestra
seems galvanizedinto an extraordinary alertness. The second number goes off
like a top_ so fast indeed that when suddenly the music ceases and the
lightsgo up some are stuck in their seats like carrots, their jaws
workingconvulsively, and if you suddenly shouted in their ear Brahms.
Beethoven.Mendeleev, Herzegovina, they would answer without thinking _ ,,.
    By the time weget to the Debussy number the atmosphere is completely
poisoned. I findmyself wondering what it feels like. during intercourse, to
be a woman_ whether the pleasure is keener. etc. Try to imagine something
penetratingmy groin, but have only a vague sensation of pain. I try to focus,
butthe music is too slippery. I can think of nothing but a vase
slowlyturning and the figures dropping off into space. Finally there is
onlylight turning. and how does light turn. I ask myself. The man next tome
is sleeping soundly. He looks like a broker, with his big paunchand his
waxed mustache. I like him thus. I like especially that bigpaunch and all
that went into the making of it. Why shouldn't he sleepsoundly? If he wants
to listen he can always rustle up the price ofa ticket. I notice that the
better dressed they are the more soundlythey sleep. They have an easy
conscience, the rich. If a poor man dozesoff. even for a few seconds, he
feels mortified; he imagines that hehas committed a crime against the
composer.
    In the Spanishnumber the house was electrified. Everybody sat on the
edge of his seat_ the drums woke them up. I thought when the drums started
it wouldkeep up forever. I expected to see people tall out of the boxes or
throwtheir hats away. There was

    something heroicabout it and he could have driven us stark mad, Ravel,
if he had wantedto. But that's not Ravel. Suddenly it all died down. It was
as if heremembered, in the midst of his antics, that he had on a cutaway
suit.He arrested himself. A great mistake. in my humble opinion. Art
consistsin going the full length. If you start with the drums you have to
endwith dynamite, or TNT. Ravel sacrificed something for form, for a
vegetablethat people must digest before going to bed.
    My thoughts arespreading. The music is slipping away from me, now that
the drums haveceased. People everywhere are composed to order. Under the
exit lightis a Werther sunk in despair;
    he is leaningon his two elbows, his eyes are glazed. Near the door,
huddled in abig cape. stands a Spaniard with a sombrero in his hand. He
looks asif he were posing for the "Balzac" of Rodin. From the neck up he
suggestsBuffalo Bill. In the gallery opposite me, in the front row, sits a
womanwith her legs spread wide a-parti she looks as though she had
lockjaw,with her neck thrown back and dislocated. The woman with the red
hatwho is dozing over the rail _ marvelous if she were to have a
hemorrhage!if suddenly she spilled a bucketful on those stiff shirts below.
Imaginethese bloody no-accounts going home from the concert with blood on
theirdickies!
    Sleep is thekeynote. No one is listening any more. Impossible to think
and listen.Impossible to dream even when the music itself is nothing but a
dream.A woman with white gloves holds a swan in her lap. The legend is
thatwhen Leda was fecundated she gave birth to twins. Everybody is
givingbirth to something _ everybody but the Lesbian in the upper tier.
Herhead is uptilted, her throat wide open; she is all alert and tinglingwith
the shower of sparks that burst from the radium symphony. Jupiteris piercing
her ears. Little phrases from California, whales with bigfins, Zanzibar, the
Alcazar. When along the Guadalquivir there werea. thousand mosques ashimmer.
Deep in the icebergs and the daysall lilac. The Money Street with two white
hitching posts. The gargoyles.. . the man with the Jaworski nonsense. . .
the river lights. . . the.. .

    -In America Ihad a number of Hindu friends, some good, some bad, some
indifferent.Circumstances had placed me in a position where fortunately I
couldbe of aid to them; I secured jobs for them, I harbored them, and I
fedthem when necessary. They were very grateful, I must say; so much so,in
fact that they made my life miserable with their attentions. Twoof them were
saints, if I know what a saint is; particularly Gupte whowas found one
morning with his throat cut from ear to ear. In a littleboarding house in
Greenwich Village he was found one morning stretchedout stark naked on the
bed, his flute beside him, and his throat gashed,as I say. from ear to ear.
It was never discovered whether he had beenmurdered or whether he had
committed suicide. But that's neither herenor there. . . .
    I'm thinkingback to the chain of circumstances which has brought me
finally to Nanantatee'splace. Thinking how strange it is that I should have
forgotten all aboutNanantatee until the other day when lying in a shabby
hotel room onthe Rue Cels. I'm lying there on the iron bed thinking what a
zero Ihave become, what a cipher, what a nullity, when bango! out pops
theword: NONENTITY! That's what we called him in New York _ Nonentity.Mister
Nonentity.
    I'm lying onthe floor now in that gorgeous suite of rooms he boasted of
when hewas in New York. Nanantatee is playing the good Samaritan; he has
givenme a pair of itchy blankets, horse blankets they are, in which I curlup
on the dusty floor. There are little jobs to do every hour of theday _ that
is, if I am foolish e-nough to "remain indoors. In the morninghe wakes me
rudely in order to have me prepare the vegetables for hislunch: onions,
garlic, beans, etc. His friend. Kepi, warns me not toeat the food _ he says
it's bad. Bad or good what difference? Food!That's all that matters. For a
little food I am quite willing to sweephis carpets with a broken broom, to
wash his clothes and to scrape thecrumbs off the floor as soon as he has
finished eating. He's becomeabso-

    lutely immaculatesince my arrival: everything has to be dusted now, the
chairs must bearranged a certain way, the clock must ring, the toilet must
flush properly.... A crazy Hindu if ever there was one! And parsimonious as
a stringbean. Ill have a great laugh over it when I get out .of his
clutches,but just now I'm a prisoner, a man without caste, an untouchable. ..
.
    If I fail tocome back at night and roll up in the horse blankets he says
to me onarriving: "Oh, so you didn't die then? I thought you had died. "
Andthough he knows I'm absolutely penniless he tells me every day aboutsome
cheap room he has just discovered in the neighborhood. "But I can'ttake a
room yet, you know that. " I say. And then, blinking his eyeslike a Chink,
he answers smoothly : "Oh, yes, I forgot that you hadno money. I am always
forgetting, Endree. . . . But when the cable comes.. . when Miss Mona sends
you the money, then you will come with me tolook for a room, eh? " And in
the next breath he urges me to stay aslong as I wish _ "six months. . .
seven months. Endree. . . you arevery good for me here. "
    Nanantatee isone of the Hindus I never did anything for in America. He
representedhimself to me as a wealthy merchant, a pearl merchant, with a
luxurioussuite of rooms on the Rue Lafayette. Paris, a villa in Bombay, a
bungalowin Darjeeling. I could see from first glance that he was a
half-wit,but then halfwits sometimes have the genius to amass a fortune. I
didn'tknow that he paid his hotel bill in New York by leaving a couple offat
pearls in the proprietor's hands. It seems amusing to me now thatthis little
duck once swaggered about the lobby of that hotel in NewYork with an ebony
cane, bossing the bellhops around, ordering luncheonsfor his guests, calling
up the porter for theater tickets, renting ataxi by the day. etc. . etc..
all without a sou in his pocket. Justa string of fat pearls around his neck
which he cashed one by one astime wore on. And the fatuous way he used to
pat me on the back, thankme for being so good to the Hindu boys _ "they are
all very intelligentboys, Endree. . . very intelligent! " Telling me that
the good lordso-and-so would repay me for my kindness. That explains now why
theyused to giggle so, these intelligent Hindu boys, when I suggested
thatthey touch Nanantatee for a five-spot.
    Curious now howthe good lord so-and-so is requiting me for

    my benevolence.I'm nothing but a slave to this fat little duck. I'm at
his beck andcall continually. He needs me here _ he tells me so to my face.
Whenhe goes to the crap-can he shouts: "Endree. bring me a pitcher of
water,please. I must wipe myself. " He wouldn't think of using toilet
paper.Nanantatee. Must be against his religion. No, he calls for a pitcherof
water and a rag. He's delicate. the fat little duck. Sometimeswhen I'm
drinking a cup of pale tea in which he has dropped a rose leafhe comes
alongside of me and lets a loud fart. right in my face. Henever says "Excuse
me! " The word must be missing from his Gujaratidictionary.
    The day I arrivedat Nanantatee's apartment he was in the act of
performing his ablutions,that is to say, he was standing over a dirty bowl
trying to work hiscrooked arm around toward the back of his neck. Beside the
bowl wasa brass goblet which he used to change the water. He requested me
tobe silent during the ceremony. I sat there silently, as I was bidden,and
watched him as he sang and prayed and spat now and then into thewashbowl. So
this is the wonderful suite of rooms he talked about inNew York! The Rue
Lafayette! It sounded like an important street tome back there in New York.
I thought only millionaires and pearl merchantsinhabited the street. It
sounds wonderful, the Rue Lafayette, when you'reon the other side of the
water. So does Fifth Avenue, when you're overhere. One can't imagine what
dumps there are on these swell streets.Anyway, here I am at last. sitting in
the gorgeous suite of rooms onthe Rue Lafayette. And this crazy duck with
his crooked arm is goingthrough the ritual of washing himself. The chair on
which I'm sittingis broken, the bedstead is falling apart, the wallpaper is
in tatters,there is an open valise under the bed crammed with dirty wash.
Fromwhere I sit I can glance at the miserable courtyard down below wherethe
aristocracy of the Rue Lafayette sit and smoke their clay pipes.I wonder now,
as he chants the doxology. what that bungalow in Darjeelinglooks like. It's
interminable, his chanting and praying.
    He explains tome that he is obliged to wash in a certain prescribed way
_ his religiondemands it. But on Sundays he takes a bath in the tin tub _
the GreatI AM will wink at that. he says. When he's dressed he goes to the
cupboard,kneels before a little i-dol on the third shelf, and repeats the
mumbojumbo. If you pray

    like that everyday, he says, nothing will happen to you. The good lord
what's his namenever forgets an obedient servant. And then he shows me the
crookedarm which he got in a taxi accident on a day doubtless when he had
neglectedto rehearse the complete song and dance. His arm looks like a
brokencompass; it's not an arm any more. but a knucklebone with a shank
attached.Since the arm has been repaired he has developed a pair of swollen
glandsin the armpit _ fat little glands, exactly like a dog's testicles.
Whilebemoaning his plight he remembers suddenly that the doctor had
recommendeda more liberal diet. He begs me at once to sit down and make up a
menuwith plenty of fish and meat. "And what about oysters, Endree _ forIe
petit frere?" But all this is only to make an impression onme. He hasn't the
slightest intention of buying himself oysters, ormeat. or fish. Not as long
as I am there, at least. For the time beingwe are going to nourish ourselves
on lentils and rice and all the dryfoods he has stored away in the attic.
And the butter he bought lastweek, that won't go to waste either. When he
commences to cure the butterthe smell is unbearable. I used to run out at
first, when he startedfrying the butter, but now I stick it out. He'd be
only too delightedif he could make me vomit up my meal _ that would be
something elseto put away in the cupboard along with the dry bread and the
moldy cheeseand the little grease cakes that he makes himself out of the
stale milkand the rancid butter.
    For the lastfive years, so it seems, he hasn't done a stroke of work,
hasn't turnedover a penny. Business has gone to smash. He talks to me about
pearlsin the Indian ocean _ big fat ones on which you can live for a
lifetime.The Arabs are ruining the business, he says. But meanwhile he
praysto the lord so-and-so every day, and that sustains him. He's on a
marvelousfooting with the deity: knows just how to cajole him. how to
wheedlea few sous out of him. It's a pure commercial relationship. In
exchangetor the flummery before the cabinet every day he gets his ration
ofbeans and garlic, to say nothing of the swollen testicles under hisarm. He
is confident that everything will turn out well in the end.The pearls will
sell again some day, maybe five years hence, maybe twenty_ when the Lord
Boomaroom wishes it. "And when the business goes, Endree,you will get ten
per cent _ for writing the

    letters. Butfirst Endree, you must write the letter to find out if we
can get creditfrom India. It will take about six months for an answer, maybe
sevenmonths. . . the boats are not fast in India. " He has no conceptionof
time at all, the little duck. When I ask him if he has slept wellhe will say:
"Ah, yes, Endree, I sleep very well... I sleep sometimesninety-two hours in
three days. "
    Mornings he isusually too weak to do any work. His arm! That poor broken
crutch ofan arm! I wonder sometimes when I see him twisting it around the
backof his neck how he will ever get it into place again. If it weren'tfor
that little paunch he carries he'd remind me of one of those
contortionistsat the Cirque Medrano. All he needs is to break a leg. When he
seesme sweeping the carpet, when he sees what a cloud of dust I raise,
hebegins to cluck like a pygmy. "Good! Very good, Endree. And now I willpick
up the knots. " That means that there are a few crumbs of dustwhich I have
overlooked; it is a polite way he has of being sarcastic.
    Afternoons thereare always a few cronies from the pearl market dropping
in to pay hima visit. They're all very suave, butter -tongued bastards with
soft.doelike eyes; they sit around the table drinking the perfumed tea witha
loud hissing noise while Nananta-tee jumps up and down like a
jack-in-the-boxor points to a crumb on the floor and says in his smooth
slippery voice_ "Will you please to pick that up, Endree. " When the guests
arrivehe goes unctuously to the cupboard and gets out the dry crusts of
breadwhich he toasted maybe a week ago and which taste strongly now of
themoldy wood. Not a crumb is thrown away. If the bread gets too sour
hetakes it downstairs to the concierge who, so he says. has been verykind to
him. According to him, the concierge is delighted to get thestale bread _
she makes bread pudding with it.
    One day my friendAnatole came to see me. Nanantatee was delighted.
Insisted that Anatolestay for tea. Insisted that he try little grease cakes
and the stalebread. "You must come every day, " he says, "and teach me
Russian. Finelanguage. Russian. . . I want to speak it. How do you say that
again,Endree _ borsht? You will write that down for me. please, Endree...."
And I must write it on the typewriter, no less, so that he canobserve my
technique.  He bought the typewriter, afterhe had collected on the bad arm,
because the doctor recommended it asa good exercise. But he got tired of the
typewriter shortly _ it wasan English typewriter.  When he learnedthat
Anatole played the mandolin he said:
    "Very good! Youmust come every day and teach me the music. I will buy a
mandolin assoon as business is better. It is good for my arm. " The next day
heborrows a phonograph from the concierge. "You will please teach me todance,
Endree. My stomach is too big. " I am hoping that he will buya porterhouse
steak some day so that I can say to him: "You will pleasebite it for me.
Mister Nonentity. My teeth are not strong! "
    As I said a momentago. ever since my arrival he has become
extraordinarily meticulous."Yesterday. " he says, "you made three mistakes,
Endree. First, youforgot to close the toilet door and so all night it makes
boom-boom; second, you left the kitchen window open and so the window is
crackedthis morning. And you forgot to put out the milk bottle! Always
youwill put out the milk bottle please, before you go to bed. and in
themorning you will please bring in the bread. "
    Every day hisfriend Kepi drops in to see if any visitors have arrived
from India.He waits for Nanantatee to go out and then he scurries to the
cupboardand devours the sticks of bread that are hidden away in a glass
jar.The food is no good, he insists, but he puts it away like a rat. Kepiis
a scrounger, a sort of human tick who fastens himself to the hideof even the
poorest compatriot. From Kepi's standpoint they are allnabobs. For a Manila
cheroot and the price of a drink he will suck anyHindu's ass. A Hindu's.
mind you, but not an Englishman's. He has theaddress of every whorehouse in
Paris, and the rates. Even from the tenfranc joints he gets his little
commission. And he knows the shortestway to any place you want to go. He
will ask you first if you want togo by tax-i, if you say no, he will suggest
the bus, and if that istoo high then the streetcar or the metro. Or he will
offer to walk youthere and save a franc or two, knowing very well that it
will be necessaryto pass a tabac on the way and that you will please be so
goodas to buy me a little cheroot.
    Kepi is interesting,in a way. because he has absolutely no ambition
except to get a fuckevery night. Every penny he makes, and

    they are damnedfew. he squanders in the dance halls. He has a wife and
eight childrenin Bombay, but that does not prevent him from proposing
marriage toany little femme de chat-fibre who is stupid and credulous
enoughto be taken in by him. He has a little room on the Rue Condorcet
forwhich he pays sixty francs a month. He papered it all himself. Veryproud
of it. too. He uses violet-colored ink in his fountain pen becauseit lasts
longer. He shines his own shoes, presses his own pants, doeshis own laundry.
For a little cigar, a cheroot, if you please, he willescort you all over
Paris. If you stop to look at a shirt or a collarbutton his eyes flash.
"Don't buy it here, " he will say. "They asktoo much. I will show you a
cheaper place. " And before you have timeto think about it he will whisk you
away and deposit you before anothershow window where there are the same ties
and shirts and collar buttons_ maybe it's the very same store! but you don't
know the difference.When Kepi hears that you want to buy something his soul
becomes animated.He will ask you so many questions and drag you to so many
places thatyou are bound to get thirsty and ask him to have a drink,
whereuponyou will discover to your amazement that you are again standing in
atahac _ maybe the same tabac! _ and Kepi is saying againin that small
unctuous voice: "Will you please be so good as to buyme a little cheroot?"
No matter what you propose doing, even it it'sonly to walk around the corner.
Kepi will economize for you. Kepi willshow you the shortest way, the
cheapest place, the biggest dish, becausewhatever you have to do you must
pass a tabac, and whetherthere is a revolution or a lockout or a quarantine
Kepi must be at theMoulin Rouge or the Olympia or the Ange Rouge when the
music strikesup.
    The other dayhe brought a book for me to read. It was about a famous
suit betweena holy man and the editor of an Indian paper. The editor, it
seems hadopenly accused the holy man of leading a scandalous life; he went
further,and accused the holy man of being diseased. Kepi says it must have
beenthe great French pox. but Nanantatee avers that it was the Japaneseclap.
For Nanantatee everything has to be a little exaggerated. At anyrate. says
Nanantatee cheerily: "You will please tell me what it says,Endree. I can't
read the book _ it hurts my arm. " Then, by way of encouragingme _ "it is a
fine book about the fucking, Endree. Kepi has

    brought it foryou. He thinks about nothing but the girls. So many girls
he fucks _just like Krishna. We don't believe in that business. Endree. ..."
    A little laterhe takes me upstairs to the attic which is loaded down
with tin cansand crap from India wrapped in burlap and firecracker paper.
"Here iswhere I bring the girls, " he says. And then rather wistfully:"!
amnot a very good fucker, Endree. I don't screw the girls any more. Ihold
them in my arms and I say the words. I like only to say the wordsnow. " It
isn't necesary to listen any further: I know that he is goingto tell me
about his arm. I can see him lying there with that brokenhinge dangling from
the side of the bed. But to my surprise he adds:"I am no good for the fucking,
Endree. I never was a very good fucker.My brother, he is good! Three times a
day, every day! And Kepi, he isgood _ just like Krishna. "
    His mind is fixednow on the "fucking business. " Downstairs. in the
little room wherehe kneels before the open cabinet, he explains to me how it
was whenhe was rich and his wife and the children were here. On holidays
hewould take his wife to the House of All Nations and hire a room forthe
night. Every room was appointed in a different style. His wife likedit there
very much. "A wonderful place for the fucking, Endree. I knowall the rooms.
..."
    The walls ofthe little room in which we are sitting are crammed with
photographs.Every branch of the family is represented, it is like a cross
sectionof the Indian empire. For the most part the members of this
genealogicaltree look like withered leaves:
    the women arefrail and they have a startled, frightened look in their
eyes: the menhave a keen, intelligent look, like educated chimpanzees. They
are allthere, about ninety of them, with their white bullocks, their dung
cakes,their skinny legs, their old-fashioned spectacles) in the
background,now and then, one catches a glimpse of the parched soil, of a
crumblingpediment, of an idol with crooked arms, a sort of human centipede.
Thereis something so fantastic, so incongruous about this gallery that oneis
reminded inevitably of the great spawn of temples which stretch fromthe
Himalayas to the tip of Ceylon, a vast jumble of architecture, staggeringin
beauty and at the same time monstrous, hideously monstrous becausethe
fecundity which seethes and ferments in the myriad

    ramificationsof design seems to have exhausted the very soil of India
itself. Lookingat the seething hive of figures which swarm the facades of
the templesone is overwhelmed by the potency of these dark. handsome peoples
whomingled their mysterious streams in a sexual embrace that has
lastedthirty centuries or more. These frail men and women with piercing
eyeswho stare out of the photographs seem like the emaciated shadows ofthose
virile, massive figures who incarnated themselves in stone andfresco from
one end of India to the other in order that the heroic mythsof the races who
here intermingled should remain forever entwined inthe hearts of their
countrymen. When I look at only a fragment of thesespacious dreams of stone,
these toppling, sluggish edifices studdedwith gems. coagulated with human
sperm. I am overwhelmed by the dazzlingsplendor of those imaginative flights
which enabled half a billion peopleof diverse origins to thus incarnate the
most fugitive expressions oftheir longing.
    It is a strange,inexplicable medley of feelings which assails me now as
Nanantatee prattleson about the sister who died in childbirth. There she is
on the wall.a frail, timid thing of twelve or thirteen clinging to the arm
of adotard. At ten years of age she was given in wedlock to this old rouewho
had already buried five wives. She had seven children, only oneof whom
survived her. She was given to the aged gorilla in order tokeep the pearls
in the family. As she was passing away. so Nanantateeputs it, she whispered
to the doctor:"! am tired of this fucking. ...I don't want to fuck any more,
doctor. " As he relates this to me hescratches his head solemnly with his
withered arm. "The fucking businessis bad. En-dree, " he says. "But I will
give you a word that will alwaysmake you lucky i you must say it every day,
over and over, a milliontimes you must say it. It is the best word there is,
Endree. . . sayit now... OOMAHARUMOOMA! "
    "OOMARABOO...."
    "No, Endree.. . like this. . . OOMAHARUMOOMA! "
    "OOMAMABOOMBA...."
    "No. Endree.. . like this. ..."
    . . . But whatwith the murky light, the botchy print, the tattered cover,
the jigjaggedpage, the fumbling fingers, the fox-trotting fleas, the
lie-a-bed lice.the scum on his tongue, the drop in