his eye. thelump in his throat, the drink in his pottle, the itch in his
palm, thewail of his wind, the grief from his breath, the fog of his
brainfag,the tic of his conscience, the height of his rage. the gush of his
fundament,the fire in his gorge, the tickle of his tail. the rats in his
garret,the hullabaloo and the dust in his ears, since it took him a month
tosteal a march, he was hard-set to memorize more than a word a week.
    I suppose I wouldnever have gotten out of Nanantatee's clutches if fate
hadn't intervened.One night, as luck would have it. Kepi asked me if I
wouldn't take oneof his clients to a whorehouse nearby. The young man had
just come fromIndia and he had not very much money to spend. He was one of
Gandhi'smen, one of that little band who made the historic march to the
seaduring the salt trouble. A very gay disciple of Gandhi's I must
say.despite the vows of abstinence he had taken. Evidently he hadn't
lookedat a woman for ages. It was all I could do to get him as far as theRue
Laferriere; he was like a dog with his tongue hanging out. And apompous,
vain little devil to boot! He had decked himself out in a corduroysuit, a
beret, a cane. a Windsor tie; he had bought himself two fountainpens, a kodak,
and some fancy underwear. The money he was spending wasa gift from the
merchants of Bombay;
    they were sendinghim to England to spread the gospel of Gandhi.
    Once inside MissHamilton's joint he began to lose his sang-froid. When
suddenlyhe found himself surrounded by a bevy of naked women he looked at
mein consternation. "Pick one out. " I said. "You can have your choice." He
had become so rattled that he could scarcely look at them. "Youdo it for me.
" he murmured, blushing violently. I looked them overcoolly and picked out a
plump young wench who seemed full of feathers.We sat down in the reception
room and waited for the drinks. The madamwanted to know why I didn't take a
girl also. "Yes, you take one too," said the young Hindu. "I don't want to
be alone with her. " So thegirls were brought in again and I chose one for
myself, a rather tall,thin one with melancholy eyes. We were left alone, the
four of us, inthe reception room. After a few moments my young Gandhi leans
over andwhispers something in my ear. "Sure, if you like her better. take
her," I said. and so, rather awkwardly and considerably

    embarrassed,I explained to the girls that we would like to switch. I saw
at oncethat we had made a faux pas, but by now my young friend had becamegay
and lecherous and nothing would do but to get upstairs quickly andhave it
over with.
    We took adjoiningrooms with a connecting door between. I think my
companion had in mindto make another switch once he had satisfied his sharp,
gnawing hunger.At any rate, no sooner had the girls left the room to prepare
themselvesthan I hear him knocking on the door. "Where is the toilet,
please?"he asks. Not thinking that it was anything serious I urge him to
doin the bidet. The girls return with towels in their hands. Ihear him
giggling in the next room.
    As I'm puttingon my pants suddenly I hear a commotion in the next room.
The girl isbawling him out, calling him a pig, a dirty little pig. I can't
imaginewhat he has done to warrant such an outburst. I'm standing there
withone foot in my trousers listening attentively. He's trying to explainto
her in English, raising his voice louder and louder until it becomesa shriek.
    I hear a doorslam and in another moment the madam bursts into my room,
her face asred as a beet, her arms gesticulating wildly. "You ought to be
ashamedof yourself, " she screams, "bringing a man like that to my place!
He'sa barbarian. . . he's a pig. . . he's a . . . ! " My companion is
standingbehind her, in the doorway, a look of utmost discomfiture on his
face"What did you do?" I ask.
    "What did hedo?" yells the madam. "Ill show you. . . . Come here! " And
grabbingme by the arm she drags me into the next room. "There! There! "
shescreams, pointing to the bidet.
    "Come on, let'sget out. " says the Hindu boy.
    "Wait a minute,you can't get out as easily as all that.
    The madam isstanding by the bidet, fuming and spitting. The girls are
standingthere too, with towels in their hands. The five of us are standing
therelooking at the bidet. There are two enormous turds floating inthe water.
The madam bends down and puts a towel over it. "Frightful!Frightful!" she
wails. "Never have I seen anything like this! A pig!A dirty little pig! "
    The Hindu boylooks at me reproachfully. "You should have told me! " he
says. "I didn'tknow it wouldn't go down. I asked you  where to go and you
told me touse that. " He is almost in tears.
    Finally the madamtakes me to one side. She has become a little more
reasonable now. Afterall, it was a mistake. Perhaps the gentlemen would like
to come downstairsand order another drink _ for the girls. It was a great
shock to thegirls. They are not used to such things. And if the good
gentlemen willbe so kind as to remember the femme de chambre.... It is notso
pretty for the femme de chambre _ that mess, that ugly mess.She shrugs her
shoulders and winks her eye. A lamentable incident. Butan accident. If the
gentlemen will wait here a few moments the maidwill bring the drinks. Would
the gentlemen like to have some champagne?Yes?
    "I'd like toget out of here, " says the Hindu boy weakly.
    "Don't feel sobadly about it, " says the madam. "It is all over now.
Mistakes willhappen sometimes. Next time you will ask for the toilet. " She
goeson about the toilet _ one on every floor, it seems. And a bathroom
too."I have lots of English clients, " she says. "They are all gentlemen.The
gentleman is a Hindu? Charming people, the Hindus. So intelligent.So handsome.
"
    When we get intothe street the charming young gentleman is almost weeping.
He is sorrynow that he bought a corduroy suit and the cane and the fountain
pens.He talks about the eight vows that he took, the control of the
palate,etc. On the march to Dandi even a plate of ice cream it was
forbiddento take. He tells me about the spinning wheel _ how the little
bandof Satyagrahists imitated the devotion of their master. He relates
withpride how he walked beside the master and conversed with him. I havethe
illusion of being in the presence of one of the twelve disciples.
    During the nextfew days we see a good deal of each other; _ there are
interviews tobe arranged with the newspaper men and lectures to be given to
the Hindusof Paris. It is amazing to see how these spineless devils order
oneanother about; amazing also to see how ineffectual they are in all
thatconcerns practical affairs. And the jealousy and the intrigues, thepetty,
sordid rivalries. Wherever there are ten Hindus together thereis India with
her sects and schisms, her racial, lingual, religious,political antagonisms.
In the person of Gandhi they are experiencingfor a brief moment the miracle
of unity, but when he goes there willbe a crash, an utter relapse  into that
strife and chaos socharacteristic of the Indian people.
    The young Hindu,of course, is optimistic. He has been to America and he
has been contaminatedby the cheap idealism of the Americans, contaminated by
the ubiquitousbathtub, the five-and-ten-cent store bric-a-brac, the bustle,
the efficiency,the machinery, the high wages, the free libraries, etc., etc.
His idealwould be to Americanize India. He is not at all pleased with
Gandhi'sretrogressive mania. Forward, he says, just like a YMCA man.As I
listen to his tales of America I see how absurd it is to expectof Gandhi
that miracle which will deroute the trend of destiny. India'senemy is not
England, but America. India's enemy is the time spirit.the hand which cannot
be turned back. Nothing will avail to offset thisvirus which is poisoning
the whole world. America is the very incarnationof doom. She will drag the
whole world down to the bottomless pit.
    He thinksthe Americans are a very gullible people. He tells me about the
creduloussouls who succored him there _ the Quakers, the Unitarians, the
Theosophists.the New Thoughters, the Seventh-day Adventists, etc. He knew
where tosail his boat. this bright young man. He knew how to make the
tearscome to his eyes at the right moment f he knew how to take upa
collection, how to appeal to the minister's wife, how to make loveto the
mother and daughter at the same time. To look at him you wouldthink him a
saint. And he is a saint, in the modern fashion; a contaminatedsaint who
talks in one breath of love. brotherhood, bathtubs, sanitation,efficiency,
etc.
    The last nightof his sojourn in Paris is given up to "the fucking
business. " He hashad a full program all day _ conferences, cablegrams,
interviews, photographsfor the newspapers, affectionate farewells, advice to
the faithful,etc. , etc. At dinner time he decides to lay aside his troubles.
Heorders champagne with the meal, he snaps his fingers at the garymand
behaves in general like the boorish little peasant that he is. Andsince he
has had a bellyful of all the good places he suggests now thatI show him
something more primitive. He would like to go to a very cheapplace, order
two or three girls at once. I steer him along the Boulevardde la Chapelle,
warning him all the while to be careful of his pocketbook.Around
Aubervilliers we duck into a cheap dive and immediately we'vegot a

    flock of themon our hands. In a few minutes he's dancing with a naked
wench, a hugeblonde with creases in her jowls. I can see her ass reflected a
dozentimes in the mirrors that line the room _ and those dark, bony
fingersof his clutching her tenaciously. The table is full of beer
glasses,the mechanical piano is wheezing and gasping. The girls who are
unoccupiedare sitting placidly on the leather benches, scratching themselves
peacefullyjust like a family of chimpanzees. There is a sort of subdued
pandemoniumin the air, a note of repressed violence, as if the awaited
explosionrequired the advent of some utterly minute detail, something
microscopicbut thoroughly unpremeditated, completely unexpected. In that
sort ofhalf-reverie which permits one to participate in an event and yet
remainquite aloof, the little detail which was lacking began obscurely
butinsistently to coagulate, to assume a freakish, crystalline form. likethe
frost which gathers on the windowpane. And like those frost patternswhich
seem so bizarre, so utterly free and fantastic in design, butwhich are
nevertheless determined by the most rigid laws, so this sensationwhich
commenced to take form inside me seemed also to be giving obedienceto
ineluctable laws. My whole being was responding to the dictates ofan
ambiance which it had never before experienced; that which I couldcall
myself seemed to be contracting, condensing, shrinking from thestale,
customary boundaries of the flesh whose perimeter knew only themodulations
of the nerve ends.
    And the moresubstantial, the more solid the core of me became, the more
delicateand extravagant appeared the close, palpable reality out of which
Iwas being squeezed. In the measure that I became more and more metallic,in
the same measure the scene before my eyes became inflated. The stateof
tension was so finely drawn now that the introduction of a singleforeign
particle, even a microscopic particle, as I say, would haveshattered
everything. For the fraction of a second perhaps I experiencedthat utter
clarity which the epileptic, it is said, is given to know.In that moment I
lost completely the illusion of time and space: theworld unfurled its drama
simultaneously along a meridian which had noaxis. In this sort of
hair-trigger eternity I felt that everything wasjustified, supremely
justified; I felt the wars inside me that had leftbehind this pulp and wrack;
I felt the crimes that were seething hereto e-

    merge tomorrowin blatant screamers; I felt the misery that was grinding
itself outwith pestle and mortar, the long dull misery that dribbles away in
dirtyhandkerchiefs. On the meridian of time there is no injustice: thereis
only the poetry of motion creating the illusion of''truth and drama.If at
any moment anywhere one comes face' to face with the absolute,that great
sympathy which makes men like Gautama and Jesus seem divinefreezes away; the
monstrous thing is not that men have created rosesout of this dung heap. but
that. for some reason or other, they shouldwant roses. For some reason or
other man looks for the miracle,and to accomplish it he will wade through
blood. He will debauch himselfwith ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow
if for only one secondof his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness
of reality. Everythingis endured _ disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war. crime,
ennui_ in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle,
whichwill render life tolerable. And all the while a meter is running
insideand there is no hand that can reach in there and shut it off. All
thewhile someone is eating the bread of life and drinking the wine,
somedirty fat cockroach of a priest who hides away in the cellar guzzlingit.
while up above in the light of the street a phantom host touchesthe lips and
the blood is pale as water. And out of the endless tormentand misery no
miracle comes forth, no microscopic vestige even of relief.Only ideas, pale.
attenuated ideas which have to be fattened by slaughter; ideas which come
forth like bile, like the guts of a pig when the carcassis ripped open.
    And so I thinkwhat a miracle it would be if this miracle which man
attends eternallyshould turn out to be nothing more than these two enormous
turds whichthe faithful disciple dropped in the bidet. What if at the
lastmoment, when the banquet table is set and the cymbals clash, there
shouldappear suddenly, and wholly without warning, a silver platter on
whicheven the blind could see that there is nothing more. and nothing
less,than two enormous lumps of shit. That, I believe would be more
miraculousthan anything which man has looked forward to. It would be
miraculousbecause it would be undreamed of. It would be more miraculous than
eventhe wildest dream because anybody could imagine the possibilitybut
nobody ever has, and probably nobody ever again will.

    Somehow the realizationthat nothing was to be hoped for had a salutary
effect upon me. Forweeks and months, for years, in fact, all my life I had
been lookingforward to something happening, some extrinsic event that would
altermy life, and now suddenly, inspired by the absolute hopelessness
ofeverything, I felt relieved, felt as though a great burden had beenlifted
from my shoulders. At dawn I parted company with the young Hindu,after
touching him for a few francs, enough for a room. Walking towardMontparnasse
I decided to let myself drift with the tide, to make notthe least resistance
to fate, no matter in what form it presented itself.Nothing that had
happened to me thus far had been sufficient to destroyme; 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 whomone could turn for sympathy, for aid,
for faith. It seemed to me thatthe great calamity had already manifested
itself, that I could be nomore truly alone than at this very moment. I made
up my mind that Iwould hold on to nothing, that I would expect nothing, that
henceforthI would live as an animal, a beast of prey, a rover, a plunderer.
Evenif war were declared, and it were my lot to go, I would grab the
bayonetand plunge it, plunge it up to the hilt. And if rape were the orderof
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 anddistress? Had
one single element of man's nature been altered, vitally,fundamentally
altered, by the incessant march of history? By what hecalls the better part
of his nature, man has been betrayed, that isall. At the extreme limits of
his spiritual being man finds himselfagain naked as a savage. When he finds
God, as it were, he has beenpicked clean: he is a skeleton. One must burrow
into life again in orderto put on flesh. The word must become flesh; the
soul thirsts. On whatevercrumb my eye fastens, I will pounce and devour. If
to live is the paramountthing, then I will live, even if I must become a
cannibal. HeretoforeI have been trying to save my precious hide, trying to
preserve thefew pieces of meat that hid my bones. I am done with that. I
have reachedthe 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
shallhave to bounce

    back. I havefound God, but he is insufficient. I am only spiritually dead.
PhysicallyI am alive. Morally I am free. The world which I have departed is
amenagerie. The dawn is breaking on a new world, a jungle world in whichthe
lean spirits roam with sharp claws. If I am a hyena I am a leanand hungry one:
I go forth to fatten myself.

    ^_t one-thirtyI called on Van Norden, as per agreement. He had warned me
that if hedidn't answer it would mean that he was sleeping with someone,
probablyhis Georgia cunt.
    Anyway, therehe was, tucked away comfortably, but with an air of
weariness as usual.He wakes up cursing himself, or cursing the job, or
cursing life. Hewakes up utterly bored and discomfited, chagrined to think
that he didnot die overnight.
    I sit down bythe 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
morningsanywhere between one and five p. m. _ mornings, as I say, he gives
himselfup 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
certaincritical moments, where he laid them. and so on. And as he lies
there,grinning and cursing, he manipulates his fingers in that curious,
boredway of his. as though to convey the impression that his disgust is
toogreat for words. Over the bedstead hangs a douche bag which he keepsfor
emergencies _ for the virgins whom he tracks down like asleuth. Even after
he has slept with one of these mythical creatureshe will still refer to her
as a virgin, and almost never by name. "Myvirgin. " he will say, just as he
says "my Georgia cunt. " When he goesto the toilet he says: "If my Georgia
cunt calls tell her to wait. SayI said so. And listen, you can have her if
you like. I'm tired of her."
    He takes a squintat the weather and heaves a deep sigh. If it's rainy he
says: "God damnthis fucking climate, it makes one morbid. " And if the sun
is shiningbrightly 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
cleantowel every day! " No matter what he does or where he goes things
areout of joint. Either it's the fucking country or the fucking job, orelse
it's some fucking cunt who's put him on the blink.

    "My teeth areall rotten. " he says, gargling his throat. "It's the
fucking breadthey give you to eat here. " He opens his mouth wide and pulls
his lowerlip down. "See that? Pulled out six teeth yesterday. Soon have to
getanother plate. That's what you get working for a living. When was onthe
bum I had all my teeth, my eyes were bright and clear. Look at menow! It's a
wonder I can make a cunt any more. Jesus, what I'd likeis to find some rich
cunt _ like that cute little prick, Carl. Did heever show you the letters
she sends him? Who is she, do you know? Hewouldn't tell me her name, the
bastard. . . he's afraid I might takeher away from him. " He gargles his
throat again and then takes a longlook at the cavities. "You're lucky, " he
says ruefully. "You've gotfriends, at least. I haven't anybody, except that
cute little prickwho drives me bats about his rich cunt. "
    "Listen, " hesays. "do you happen to know a cunt by the name of Norma?
She hangsaround the Dome 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. Eitherthey 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 adozen cunts on the
ter-rasse 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 canall 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 meshe hadn't had a lay for six months. Can you imagine that?
Jesus, shewas hot! I thought she'd tear the cock off me. And groaning all
thetime. "Z)o you? Do you?" She kept saying that all the time. likeshe was
nuts. And do you know what that bitch wanted to do? She wantedto move in here.
Imagine that! Asking me if I loved her. I didn't evenknow her name. I never
know their names. . . I don't want to. The marriedones! Christ, if you saw
all the married cunts I bring up here you'dnever have any more illusions.
They're worse than the virgins, the marriedones. They don't wait for you to
start things _ they fish it out foryou themselves. And then they talk about
love

    afterwards. It'sdisgusting. I tell you, I'm actually beginning to hate
cunt! "
    He looks outthe window again. It's drizzling. It's been drizzling this
way for thelast five days.
    "Are we goingto the Dome, Joe?" I call him Joe because he calls me Joe.
When Carlis with us he is Joe too. Everybody is Joe because it's easier
thatway. It's also a pleasant reminder not to take yourself too
seriously.Anyway, Joe doesn't want to go to the Dome _ he owes too much
moneythere. He wants to go to the Coupole. Wants to take a little walk
firstaround the block.
    "But it's raining,Joe. "
    "I know, butwhat the hell! I've got to have my constitutional. I've got
to washthe dirt out of my belly. " When he says this I have the
impressionthat the whole world is wrapped up there inside his belly, and
thatit's rotting there.
    As he's puttingon his things he falls back again into a semi-comatose
state. He standsthere with one arm in his coat sleeve and his hat on assways
and hebegins to dream aloud _ about the Riviera, about the sun, about
lazingone's life away. "All I ask of life, " he says, "is a bunch of books,a
bunch of dreams, and a bunch of cunt. " As he mumbles this meditativelyhe
looks at me with the softest, the most insidious smile. "Do you likethat
smile?" he says. And then disgustedly _ "Jesus, if I could onlyfind some
rich cunt to smile at that way! "
    "Only a richcunt can save me now, " he says with an air of utmost
weariness. "Onegets tired of chasing after new cunts all the time. It gets
mechanical.The trouble is, you see, I can't fall in love. I'm too much of an
egoist.Women only help me to dream, that's all. It's a vice, like drink
oropium. I've got to have a new one every day; if I don't I get morbid.I
think too much. Sometimes I'm amazed at myself, how quick I pull itoff _ and
how little it really means. I do it automatically like. SometimesI'm not
thinking about a woman at all, but suddenly I notice a womanlooking at me
and then, bango! it starts all over again. Before I knowwhat I'm doing I've
got her up to the room. I don't even remember whatI say to them. I bring
them up to the room, give them a pat on the ass,and before I know what it's
all about it's over. It's like a dream.... Do you know what I mean?"