, "a <i>higher</i> plane," as he put it. I was ready to move on
to any plane he designated, provided that one didn't eat less or drink less.
He chewed my head off about the "threadsoul," the "causal body," "ablation,"
the Upanishads, Plodnus, Krishnamurti, "the Karmic vestiture of the soul,"
"the nirvanic consciousness," all that flapdoodle which blows out of the East
like a breath from the plague. Sometimes he would go into a trance and talk
about his previous incarnations, how he imagined them to be, at least. Or he
would relate his dreams which, so far as I could see, were thoroughly
insipid, prosaic, hardly worth even the attention of a Freudian, but, for
him, there were vast esoteric marvels hidden in their depths which I had to
aid him to decipher. He had turned himself inside out, like a coat whose nap
is worn off.

Little by little, as I gained his confidence, I wormed my way into his heart.
I had him at such a point that he would come running after me, in the street,
to inquire if he could lend me a few francs. He wanted to hold me together in
order to survive the transition to a higher plane. I acted like a pear that
is ripening on the tree. Now and then I had relapses and I would confess my
need for more earthly nourishment -- a visit to the Sphinx or the Rue St.
Apolline where I knew he repaired in weak moments when the demands of the
flesh had become too vehement.

As a painter he was nil; as a sculptor less than nil. He was a good
housekeeper, that I'll say for him. And an economical one to boot. Nothing
went to waste, not even the paper that meat was wrapped in. Friday nights he
threw open his studio to his fellow artists; there was always plenty to
drink and good sandwiches, and if by chance there was anything left over I
would come round the next day to polish it off.

Back of the Bal Bullier was another studio I got into the habit of
frequenting -- the studio of Mark Swift. If he was not a genius he was
certainly an eccentric, this caustic Irishman. He had for a model a Jewess
whom he had been living with for years; he was now tired of her and was
searching for a pretext to get rid of her. But as he had eaten up me dowry
which she had originally brought with her, he was puzzled as to how to
disembarrass himself of her without making restitution. The simplest thing
was to so antagonize her that she would choose starvation rather than support
his cruelties.

She was rather a fine person, his mistress; the worst that one could say
against her was that she had lost her shape, <i>and</i> her ability to
support him any longer. She was a painter herself and, among those who
professed to know, it was said that she had far more talent than he. But no
matter how miserable he made life for her she was just; she would never allow
anyone to say that he was not a great painter. It was because he really has
genius, she said, that he was such a rotten individual. One never saw her
canvases on the wall -- only his. Her things were stuck away in the kitchen.
Once it happened, in my presence, that someone insisted on seeing her work.
The result was painful. "You see this figure," said Swift, pointing to one of
her canvases with his big foot. "The man standing in the doorway there is
just about to go out for a leak. He won't be able to find his way back
because his head is on wrong ... Now take that nude over there ... It was all
right until she started to paint the cunt. I don't know what she was thinking
about, but she made it so big that her brush slipped and she couldn't get it
out again."

By way of showing us what a nude ought to be like he hauls out a huge canvas
which he had recently completed. It was a picture of <i>her,</i> a splendid
piece of vengeance inspired by a guilty conscience. The work of a madman --
vicious, petty, malign, brilliant. You had the feeling that he had spied on
her through the keyhole, that he had caught her in an off moment, when she
was picking her nose absent-mindedly, or scratching her ass. She sat there
on the horsehair sofa, in a room without ventilation, an enormous room
without a window; it might as well have been the anterior lobe of <i>the</i>
pineal gland. Back of her ran the zigzag stairs leading to the balcony; they
were covered with a bilious-green carpet, such a green as could only emanate
from a universe that had been pooped out. The most prominent thing was her
buttocks, which were lop-sided and full of scabs; she seemed to have slightly
raised her ass from the sofa, as if to let a loud fart. Her face he had
idealized: it looked sweet and virginal, pure as a cough-drop. But her bosom
was distended, swollen with sewer-gas; she seemed

to be swimming in a menstrual sea, an enlarged foetus with the dull, syrupy
look of an angel.

Nevertheless one couldn't help but like him. He was an indefatigable worker,
a man who hadn't a single thought in his head but paint. And cunning as a
lynx withal. It was he who put it into my head to cultivate the friendship
of Fillmore, a young man in the diplomatic service who had found his way
into the little group that surrounded Kruger and Swift. "Let him help you,"
he said. "He doesn't know what to do with his money."

When one spends what he has on himself, when one has a thoroughly good time
with his own money, people are apt to say "he doesn't know what to do with
his money." For my part, I don't see any better use to which one can put
money. About such individuals one can't say that they're generous or stingy.
They put money into circulation -- that's the principal thing. Fillmore knew
that his days in France were limited; he was determined to enjoy them. And
as one always enjoys himself better in the company of a friend it was only
natural that he should turn to one like myself, who had plenty of time on
his hands, for that companionship which he needed. People said he was a
bore, and so he was, I suppose, but when you're in need of your food you can
put up with worse things than being bored. After all, despite the fact that
he talked incessantly, and usually about himself or the authors whom he
admired slavishly -- such birds as Anatole France and Joseph Conrad -- he
nevertheless made my nights interesting in other ways. He liked to dance, he
liked good wines, and he liked women. That he liked Byron also, and Victor
Hugo, one could forgive; he was only a few years out of college and he had
plenty of time ahead of him to be cured of such tastes. What he had that I
liked was a sense of adventure.

We got even better acquainted, more intimate, I might say, due to a peculiar
incident that occurred during my brief sojourn with Kruger. It happened just
after the arrival of Collins, a sailor whom Fillmore had got to know on the
way over from America. The three of us used to meet regularly on the
<i>terrasse of</i> the Rotonde before going to dinner. It was always
Pernod, a drink which put Collins in good humor and provided a base, as it
were,
for the wine and beer <i>and fines,</i> etc., which had to be guzzled
afterwards. All during Collins's stay in Paris I lived like a duke; nothing
but fowl and good vintages and desserts that I hadn't even heard of before.
A month of this regimen and I should have been obliged to go to Baden-Baden
or Vichy or Aix-les-Bains. Meanwhile Kruger was putting me up at his studio.
I was getting to be a nuisance because I never showed up before three a.m.
and it was difficult to rout me out of bed before noon. Overtly Kruger never
uttered a word of reproach but his manner indicated plainly enough that I
was becoming a bum.

One day I was taken ill. The rich diet was taking effect upon me. I don't
know what ailed me, but I couldn't get out of bed. I had lost all my
stamina, and with it whatever courage I possessed. Kruger had to look after
me, had to make broths for me, and so on. It was a trying period for him,
more particularly because he was just on the verge of giving an important
exhibition at his studio, a private showing to some wealthy connoisseurs
from whom he was expecting aid. The cot on which I lay was in the studio;
there was no other room to put me in.

The morning of the day he was to give his exhibition, Kruger awoke
thoroughly disgruntled. If I had been able to stand on my feet I know he
would have given me a clout in the jaw and kicked me out. But I was
prostrate, and weak as a cat. He tried to coax me out of bed, with the idea
of locking me up in the kitchen upon the arrival of his visitors. I realized
that I was making a mess of it for him. People can't look at pictures and
statues with enthusiasm when a man is dying before their eyes. Kruger
honestly thought I was dying. So did I. That's why, despite my feeling of
guilt, I couldn't muster any enthusiasm when he proposed calling for the
ambulance and having me shipped to the American Hospital. I wanted to die
there, comfortably, right in the studio; I didn't want to be urged to get up
and find a better place to die in. I didn't care where I died, really, so
long as it wasn't necessary to get up.

When he heard me talk this way Kruger became alarmed. Worse than having a
sick man in his studio should the visitors arrive, was to have a dead man.
That would completely ruin his prospects, slim as they were. He didn't
put it that way to me, of course, but I could see from his agitation that
that was what worried him. And that made me stubborn. I refused to let him
call the hospital. I refused to let him call a doctor. I refused everything.

He got so angry with me finally that, despite my protestations, he began to
dress me. I was too weak to resist. All I could do was to murmur
weakly -- "you bastard, you!" Though it was warm outdoors I was shivering like
a dog. -- After he had completely dressed me he flung an overcoat over me and
slipped outside to telephone. "I won't go! I won't go!" I kept saying but he
simply slammed the door on me. He came back in a few minutes and, without
addressing a word to me, busied himself about the studio. Last minute
preparations. In a little while there was a knock on the door. It was
Fillmore. Collins was waiting downstairs, he informed me.

The two of them, Fillmore and Kruger, slipped their arms under me and
hoisted me to my feet. As they dragged me to the elevator Kruger softened
up. "It's for your own good," he said. "And besides, it wouldn't be fair to
me. You know what a struggle I've had all these years. You ought to think
about me too." He was actually on the point of tears.

Wretched and miserable as I felt, his words almost made me smile. He was
considerably older than I, and even though he was a rotten painter, a rotten
artist all the way through, he deserved a break -- at least once in a
lifetime.

"I don't hold it against you," I muttered. "I understand how it is."

"You know I always liked you," he responded. "When you get better you can
come back here again ... you can stay as long as you like."

"Sure, I know ... I'm not going to croak yet," I managed to get out.

Somehow, when I saw Collins down below my spirits revived. If ever any one
seemed to be thoroughly alive, healthy, joyous, magnanimous, it was he. He
picked me up as if I were a doll and laid me out on the seat of the cab --
gently too, which I appreciated after the way Kruger had manhandled me.

When we drove up to the hotel -- the hotel that Collins was stopping at --
there was a bit of a discussion with the proprietor, during which I lay
stretched out on the sofa in the bureau. I could hear Collins saying to the
<i>patron</i> that it was nothing ... just a little breakdown ... be all
right in a few days. I saw him put a crisp bill in the man's hands and then,
turning swiftly and lithely, he came back to where I was and said: "Come on,
buck up! Don't let him think you're croaking." And with that, he yanked me to
my feet and, bracing me with one arm, escorted me to the elevator.

<i>Don't let him think you're croaking!</i> Obviously it was bad taste to
die on people's hands. One should die in the bosom of his family, in
private, as it were. His words were encouraging. I began to see it all as a
bad joke. Upstairs, with the door closed, they undressed me and put me
between the sheets. "You can't die now, god-damn it!" said Collins warmly.
"You'll put me in a hole ... Besides, what the hell's the matter with you?
Can't stand good living? Keep your chin up! You'll be eating a porterhouse
steak in a day or two. You think you're ill! Wait, by Jesus until you get a
dose of syphilis! That's something to make you worry ..." And he began to
relate, in a humorous way, his trip down the Yangtsze-Kaing, with hair
falling out and teeth rotting away. In the feeble state that I was in, the
yam that he spun had an extraordinarily soothing effect upon me. It took me
completely out of myself. He had guts, this guy. Perhaps he put it on a bit
thick, for my benefit, but I wasn't listening to him critically at the
moment. I was all ears and eyes. I saw the dirty yellow mouth of the river,
the lights going up at Hankow, the sea of yellow faces, the sampans shooting
down through the gorges and the rapids flaming with the sulphurous breath of
the dragon. What a story! The coolies swarming around the boat each day,
dredging for the garbage that was flung overboard, Tom Slattery rising up on
his death-bed to take a last look at the lights of Hankow, the beautiful
Eurasian who lay in a dark room and filled his veins with poison, the
monotony of blue jackets and yellow faces, millions and millions of them
hollowed out by famine, ravaged by disease, subsisting on rats and dogs and
roots, chewing the grass off the earth, devouring their own children. It was
hard to imagine that this man's body had once been a mass of sores, that he
had been shunned like a leper; his voice was so quiet and gentle, it was as
though his spirit had been cleansed by all the suffering he had endured. As
he reached for his drink his face grew more and more soft and his words
actually seemed to caress me. And all the while China hanging over us like
Fate itself. A China rotting away, crumbling to dust like a huge dinosaur,
yet preserving to the very end the glamor, the enchantment, the mystery, the
cruelty of her hoary legends.

I could no longer follow his story; my mind had slipped back to a Fourth of
July when I bought my first package of firecrackers and with it the long
pieces of punk which break so easily, the punk that you blow on to get a
good red glow, the punk whose smell sticks to your fingers for days and
makes you dream of strange things. The Fourth of July the streets are
littered with bright red paper stamped with black and gold figures and
everywhere there are tiny firecrackers which have the most curious
intestines; packages and packages of them, all strung together by their
thin, flat, little gutstrings, the color of human brains. All day long there
is the smell of powder and punk and the gold dust from the bright red
wrappers sticks to your fingers. One never thinks of China, but it is there
all the time on the tips of your fingers and it makes your nose itchy; and
long afterwards, when you have forgotten almost what a firecracker smells
like, you wake up one day with gold-leaf choking you and the broken pieces
of punk waft back their pungent odor and the bright red wrappers give you a
nostalgia for a people and a soil you have never known, but which is in your
blood, mysteriously there in your blood, like the sense of time or space, a
fugitive, constant value to which you turn more and more as you get old,
which you try to seize with your mind, but ineffectually, because in
everything Chinese there is wisdom and mystery and you can never grasp it
with two hands or with your mind but you must let it rub off, let it stick
to your fingers, let it slowly infiltrate your veins.

A few weeks later, upon receipt of a pressing invitation from Collins who had
returned to Le Havre, Fillmore and I boarded the train one morning, prepared
to spend the week-end with him. It was the first time I had been outside of
Paris since my arrival here. We were in fine fettle, drinking Anjou all the
way to the coast. Collins had given us the address of a bar where we were to
meet; it was a place called Jimmie's Bar, which everyone in Le Havre was
supposed to know.

We got into an open barouche at the station and started on a brisk trot for
the rendez-vous; there was still a half bottle of Anjou left which we
polished off as we rode along. Le Havre looked gay, sunny; the air was
bracing, with that strong salty tang which almost made me homesick for New
York. There were masts and hulls cropping up everywhere, bright bits of
bunting, big open squares and high-ceilinged cafes such as one only sees in
the provinces. A fine impression immediately; the city was welcoming us with
open arms.

Before we ever reached the bar we saw Collins coming down the street on a
trot, heading for the station, no doubt, and a little late as usual.
Fillmore immediately suggested a Pernod; we were all slapping each other on
the back, laughing and spitting, drunk already from the sunshine and the
salt sea air. Collins seemed undecided about the Pernod at first. He had a
little dose of clap, he informed us. Nothing very serious -- "a strain" most
likely. He showed us a bottle he had in his pocket -- "Venetienne" it was
called, if I remember rightly. The sailors' remedy for clap.

We stopped off at a restaurant to have a little snack before repairing to
Jimmie's place. It was a huge tavern with big, smoky rafters and tables
creaking with food. We drank copiously of the wines that Collins
recommended. Then we sat down on a <i>terrasse</i> and had coffee and
liqueurs. Collins was talking about the Baron de Charlus, a man after his
own heart, he said. For almost a year now he had been staying at Le Havre,
going through the money that he had accumulated during his bootlegging days.
His tastes were simple -- food, drink, women and books. And a private bath!
That he insisted on.

We were still talking about the Baron de Charlus when we arrived at Jimmie's
Bar. It was late in the afternoon and the place was just beginning to fill
up. Jimmie was there, his face red as a beet, and beside him was his
spouse, a fine, buxom Frenchwoman with glittering eyes. We were given a
marvellous reception all around. There were Pernods in front of us again,
the gramophone was shrieking, people were jabbering away in English and
French and Dutch and Norwegian and Spanish, and Jimmie and his wife, both of
them looking very brisk and dapper, were slapping and kissing each other
heartily and raising their glasses and clinking them -- altogether such a
bubble and blabber of merriment that you felt like pulling off your clothes
and doing a war dance. The women at the bar had gathered around like flies.
If we were friends of Collins that meant we were rich. It didn't matter that
we had come in our old clothes; all <i>Anglais </i>dressed like that. I
hadn't a sou in my pocket, which didn't matter, of course, since I was the
guest of honor. Nevertheless I felt somewhat embarrassed with two
stunning-looking whores hanging on my arms waiting for me to order
something. I decided to take the bull by the horns. You couldn't tell any
more which drinks were on the house and which were to be paid for. I had to
be a <i>gentleman,</i> even if I didn't have a sou in my pocket.

Yvette -- that was Jimmie's wife -- was extraordinarily gracious and friendly
with us. She was preparing a little spread in our honor. It would take a
little while yet.<b> </b>We were not to get too drunk -- she wanted us to
enjoy the meal. The gramophone was going like wild and Fillmore had begun to
dance with a beautiful mulatto who had on a tight velvet dress that revealed
all her charms. Collins slipped over to my side and whispered a few words
about the girl at my side. "The <i>madame</i> will invite her to dinner,"
he said, "if you'd like to have her." She was an ex-whore who owned a
beautiful home on the outskirts of the city. The mistress of a sea captain
now. He was away and there was nothing to fear. "If she likes you she'll
invite you to stay with her," he added.

That was enough for me. I turned at once to Marcelle and began to flatter the
ass off her. We stood at the corner of the bar, pretending to dance, and
mauled each other ferociously. Jimmie gave me a big horse-wink and nodded his
head approvingly. She was a lascivious bitch, this Marcelle, and pleasant at
the same time. She soon got rid of the other girl, I noticed, and then we
settled down for a long and intimate conversation which was interrupted
unfortunately by the announcement that dinner was ready.

There were about twenty of us at the table, and Marcelle and I were placed
at one end opposite Jimmie and his wife. It began with the popping of
champagne corks and was quickly followed by drunken speeches, during the
course of which Marcelle and I played with each other under the table. When
it came my turn to stand up and deliver a few words I had to hold the napkin
in front of me. It was painful and exhilarating at the same time. I had to
cut the speech very short because Marcelle was tickling me in the crotch all
the while.

The dinner lasted until almost midnight. I was looking forward to spending
the night with Marcelle in that beautiful home up on the cliff. But it was
not to be. Collins had planned to show us about and I couldn't very well
refuse. "Don't worry about her," he said. "You'll have a bellyful of it
before you leave. Tell her to wait here for you until we get back."

She was a bit peeved at this, Marcelle, but when we informed her that we
had several days ahead of us she brightened up. When we got outdoors
Fillmore very solemnly took us by the arm and said he had a little
confession to make. He looked pale and worried.

"Well, what is it?" said Collins cheerfully. "Spit it out!"

Fillmore couldn't spit it out like that, all at once. He hemmed and hawed
and finally he blurted out -- "Well, when I went to the closet just a minute
ago I noticed something ..."

"Then you've got it!" said Collins triumphantly, and with that he flourishes
the bottle of "Venetienne."

"Don't go to a doctor," he added venomously.
"They'll bleed you to death, the greedy bastards. And don't stop drinking
either. That's all hooey. Take this twice a day ... shake it well before
using. And nothing's worse than worry, do you understand? Come on now. I'll
give you a syringe and some permanganate when we get back."

And so we started out into the night, down towards the waterfront where there
was the sound of music and shouts and drunken oaths, Collins talking quietly
all the while about this and that, about a boy he had fallen in love with,
and the devil's time he had to get out of the scrape when the parents got
wise to it. From that he switched back to the Baron de Charlus and then to
Kurtz who had gone up the river and got lost. His favorite theme. I liked the
way Collins moved against this background of literature continuously; it was
like a millionaire who never stepped out of his Rolls Royce. There was no
intermediate realm for him between reality and ideas. When we entered the
whorehouse on the Quai Voltaire, after he had flung himself on the divan and
rung for girls and for drinks, he was still paddling up the river with Kurtz,
and only when the girls had flopped on the bed beside him and stuffed his
mouth with kisses did he cease his divagations. Then, as if he had suddenly
realized where he was, he turned to the old mother who ran the place and gave
her an eloquent spiel about his two friends who had come down from Paris
expressly to see the joint. There were about half a dozen girls in the room,
all naked and all beautiful to look at, I must say. They hopped about like
birds while the three of us tried to maintain a conversation with the
grandmother. Finally the latter excused herself and told us to make ourselves
at home. I was altogether taken in by her, so sweet and amiable she was, so
thoroughly gentle and maternal. And what manners! If she had been a little
younger I would have made overtures to her. Certainly you would not have
thought that we were in a "den of vice," as it is called.

Anyway we stayed there an hour or so, and as I was the only one in condition
to enjoy the privileges of the house, Collins and Fillmore remained
downstairs chattering with the girls. When I returned I found the two of
them stretched out on the bed; the girls had formed a semi-circle about the
bed and were singing with the most angelic voices the chorus of <i>Roses in
Picardy.</i> We were sentimentally depressed when we left the house --
Fillmore particularly. Collins swiftly steered us to a rough joint which was
packed with drunken sailors on shore leave and there we sat awhile enjoying
the homosexual rout that was in full swing. When we sallied out we had to
pass through the red-light district where there were more grandmothers with
shawls about their necks sitting
on the doorsteps fanning themselves and nodding pleasantly to the
passersby. All such good-looking, kindly souls, as if they were keeping
guard over a nursery. Little groups of sailors came swinging along and
pushed their way noisily inside the gaudy joints. Sex everywhere: it was
slopping over, a neap-tide that swept the props from under the city. We
piddled along at the edge of the basin where everything was jumbled and
tangled; you had the impression that all these ships, these trawls and
yachts and schooners and barges, had been blown ashore by a violent storm.

In the space of forty-eight hours so many things had happened that it seemed
as if we had been in Le Havre a month or more. We were planning to leave
early Monday morning, as Fillmore had to be back on the job. We spent Sunday
drinking and carousing, clap or no clap. That afternoon Collins confided to
us that he was thinking of returning to his ranch in Idaho; he hadn't been
home for eight years and he wanted to have a look at the mountains again
before making another voyage East. We were sitting in a whorehouse at the
time, waiting for a girl to appear; he had promised to slip her some
cocaine. He was fed up with Le Havre, he told us. Too many vultures hanging
around his neck. Besides, Jimmie's wife had fallen in love with him and she
was making things hot for him with her jealous fits. There was a scene
almost every night. She had been on her good behavior since we arrived, but
it wouldn't last, he promised us. She was particularly jealous of a Russian
girl who came to the bar now and then when she got tight. A troublemaker. On
top of it all he was desperately in love with this boy whom he had told us
about the first day. "A boy can break your heart," he said. "He's so damned
beautiful! And so cruel!" We had to laugh at this. It sounded preposterous.
But Collins was in earnest.

Around midnight Sunday Fillmore and I retired; we had been given a room
upstairs over the bar. It was sultry as the devil, not a breath of air
stirring. Through the open windows we could hear them shouting downstairs and
the gramophone going continually. All of a sudden a storm broke -- a regular
cloudburst. And between the thunderclaps and the squalls that lashed the
window-panes there came to our ears the sound of another storm raging
downstairs at the bar. It sounded frightfully close and sinister; the women
were shrieking at the tops of their lungs, bottles were crashing, tables were
upset and there was that familiar, nauseating thud that the human body makes
when it crashes to the floor.

About six o'clock Collins stuck his head in the door. His face was all
plastered and one arm was stuck in a sling. He had a big grin on his face.

"Just as I told you," he said. "She broke loose last night. Suppose you
heard the racket?"

We got dressed quickly and went downstairs to say good-bye to Jimmie. The
place was completely demolished, not a bottle left standing, not a chair
that wasn't broken. The mirror and the show-window were smashed to bits.
Jimmie was making himself an egg-nog.

On the way to the station we pieced the story together. The Russian girl had
dropped in after we toddled off to bed and Yvette had insulted her promptly,
without even waiting for an excuse. They had commenced to pull each other's
hair and in the midst of it a big Swede had stepped in and given the Russian
girl a sound slap in the jaw -- to bring her to her senses. That started the
fireworks. Collins wanted to know what right this big stiff had to interfere
in a private quarrel. He got a poke in the jaw for an answer, a good one that
sent him flying to the other end of the bar. "Serves you right!" screamed
Yvette, taking advantage of the occasion to swing a bottle at the Russian
girl's head. And at that moment the thunderstorm broke loose. For a while
there was a regular pandemonium, the women all hysterical and hungry to seize
the opportunity to pay off private grudges. Nothing like a nice bar-room
brawl ... so easy to stick a knife in a man's back or club him with a bottle
when he's lying under a table. The poor Swede had found himself in a hornet's
nest; everyone in the place hated him, particularly his shipmates. They
wanted to see him done in. And so they locked the door and pushing the tables
aside they made a little space in front of the bar where the two of them
could have it out. And they had it out! They had to carry the poor devil to
the hospital when it was over. Collins had come off rather lucky -- nothing
more than a sprained wrist and a couple of fingers out of joint, a bloody
nose and a black eye. Just a few scratches, as he put it. But if he ever
signed up with that Swede he was going to murder him. It wasn't finished yet.
He promised us that.

And that wasn't the end of the fracas either. After that Yvette had to go
out and get liquored up at another bar. She had been insulted and she was
going to put an end to things. And so she hires a taxi and orders the driver
to ride out to the edge of the cliff overlooking the water. She was going to
kill herself, that's what she was going to do. But then she was so drunk
that when she tumbled out of the cab she began to weep and before any one
could stop her she had begun to peel her clothes off. The driver brought her
home that way, half-naked, and when Jimmie saw the condition she was in he
was so furious with her that he took his razorstrop and he belted the piss
out of her, and she liked it, the bitch that she was. "Do it some more!" she
begged, down on her knees as she was and clutching him around the legs with
her two arms. But Jimmie had enough of it. "You're a dirty old sow!" he said
and with his foot he gave her a shove in the guts that took the wind out of
her and -- a bit of her sexy nonsense too.

It was high time we were leaving. The city looked different in me early
morning light. The last thing we talked about, as we stood there waiting for
the train to pull out, was Idaho. The three of us were Americans. We came
from different places, each of us, but we had something in common -- a whole
lot, I might say. We were getting sentimental, as Americans do when it comes
time to part. We were getting quite foolish about the cows and sheep and the
big open spaces where men are men and all that crap. If a boat had swung
along instead of the train we'd have hopped aboard and said good-bye to it
all. But Collins was never to see America again, as I learned later; and
Fillmore ... well, Fillmore had to take his punishment too, in a way that
none of us could have suspected then. It's best to keep America just like
that, always in the background, a sort of picture post-card which you look
at in a weak moment. Like that, you imagine it's always there waiting for
you, unchanged, unspoiled, a big patriotic open space with cows and sheep and
tenderhearted men ready to bugger everything in sight, man, woman or beast.
It doesn't exist, America. It's a name you give to an abstract idea ...

        x x x



Paris is like a whore. From a distance she seems ravishing, you can't wait
until you have her in your arms. And five minutes later you feel empty,
disgusted with yourself. You feel tricked.

I returned to Paris with money in my pocket -- a few hundred francs, which
Collins had shoved in my pocket just as I was boarding the train. It was
enough to pay for a room and at least a week's good rations. It was more
than I had had in my hands at one time for several years. I felt elated, as
though perhaps a new life was opening before me. I wanted to conserve it
too, so I looked up a cheap hotel over a bakery on the Rue du Chateau, just
off the Rue de Vanves, a place that Eugene had pointed out to me once. A few
yards away was the bridge that spans the Montparnasse tracks. A familiar
quarter.

I could have had a room here for a hundred francs a month, a room without
any conveniences to be sure -- without even a window -- and perhaps I would
have taken it, just to be sure of a place to flop for a while, had it not
been for the fact that in order to reach this room I would have been obliged
to first pass through the room of a blind man. The thought of passing his
bed every night had a most depressing effect upon me. I decided to look
elsewhere. I went over to the Rue Cels, just behind the cemetery, and I
looked at a sort of rat-trap there with balconies, running around the
court-yard. There were bird-cages suspended from the balcony too, all along
the lower tier. A cheerful sight perhaps, but to me it seemed like the
public ward in a hospital. The proprietor didn't seem to have all his wits
either. I decided to wait for the night, to have a good look around, and
then choose some attractive little joint in a quiet side street.
At dinner time I spent fifteen francs for a meal, just about twice the
amount I had planned to allot myself. That made me so wretched that I
wouldn't allow myself to sit down for a coffee, even despite the fact that
it had begun to drizzle. No, I would walk about a bit and then go quietly to
bed, at a reasonable hour. I was already miserable, trying to husband my
resources this way. I had never in my life done it; it wasn't in my nature.

Finally it began to come down in bucketsful. I was glad. That would give me
the excuse I needed to duck somewhere and stretch my legs out. It was still
too early to go to bed. I began to quicken my pace, heading back towards the
Boulevard Raspail. Suddenly a woman comes up to me and stops me, right in
the pouring rain. She wants to know what time it is. I told her I didn't
have a watch. And then she bursts out, just like this: "Oh, my good sir, do
you speak English by chance?" I nod my head. It's coming down in torrents
now. "Perhaps, my dear good man, you would be so kind as to take me to a
cafe. It is raining so and I haven't the money to sit down anywhere. You
will excuse me, my dear sir, but you have such a kind face ... I knew you
were English right away." And with this she smiles at me, a strange,
half-demented smile. "Perhaps you could give me a little advice, dear sir.
I am all alone in the world ... my God, it is terrible to have no money ..."

This "dear sir" and "kind sir" and "my good man," etc., had me on the verge
of hysteria. I felt sorry for her and yet I had to laugh. I did laugh. I
laughed right in her face. And then she laughed too, a weird, high-pitched
laugh, off-key, an altogether unexpected piece of cachinnation. I caught her
by the arm and we made a bolt for it to the nearest cafe. She was still
giggling when we entered the <i>bistrot.</i> "My dear good sir," she began
again, "perhaps you think I am not telling you the truth. I am a good girl
... I come of a good family. Only" -- and here she gave me that wan, broken
smile again -- "only I am so misfortunate as not to have a place to sit down."
At this I began to laugh again. I couldn't help it -- the phrases she used,
the strange accent, the crazy hat she had on, that demented smile ...
"Listen," I interrupted, "what nationality are you?"
"I'm English," she replied. "That is, I was born in Poland, but my father
is Irish."

"So that makes you English?"

"Yes," she said, and she began to giggle again, sheepishly, and with a
pretense of being coy.

"I suppose you know a nice little hotel where you could take me?" I said
this, not because I had any intention of going with her, but just to spare
her the usual preliminaries.

"Oh, my dear sir," she said, as though I had made the most grievous error,
"I'm sure you don't mean that! I'm not that kind of a girl. You were joking
with me, I see that. You're so good ... you have such a kind face. I would
not dare to speak to a Frenchman as I did to you. They insult you right away
..."

She went on in this vein for some time. I wanted to break away from her. But
she didn't want to be left alone. She was afraid -- her papers were not in
order. Wouldn't I be good enough to walk her to her hotel? Perhaps I could
"lend" her fifteen or twenty francs, to quiet the <i>patron?</i> I walked
her to the hotel where she said she was stopping and I put a fifty francs
bill in her hand. Either she was very clever, or very innocent -- it's hard to
tell sometimes -- but, at any rate, she wanted me to wait until she ran to
the <i>bistrot</i> for change. I told her not to bother. And with that she
seized my hand impulsively and raised it to her lips. I was flabbergasted. I
felt like giving her every damned thing I had. That touched me, that crazy
little gesture. I thought to myself, it's good to be rich once in a while,
just to get a new thrill like that. Just the same, I didn't lose my head.
Fifty francs! That was quite enough to squander on a rainy night. As I
walked off she waved to me with that crazy little bonnet which she didn't
know how to wear. It was as though we were old playmates. I felt foolish and
giddy. "My dear kind sir ... you have such a gentle face ... you are so
good, etc." I felt like a saint.

When you feel all puffed up inside it isn't so easy to go to bed right away.
You feel as though you ought to atone for such unexpected bursts of
goodness. Passing the "Jungle" I caught a glimpse of the dance floor; women
with bare backs and ropes of pearls choking them -- or so it looked -- were
wiggling their beautiful bottoms at me. Walked right up to the bar and
ordered a <i>coupe of</i> champagne. When the music stopped, a beautiful
blonde -- she looked like a Norwegian -- took a seat right beside me. The place
wasn't as crowded or as gay as it had appeared from outside. There were only
a half dozen couples in the place -- they must have all been dancing at once. I
ordered another <i>coupe of</i> champagne in order not to let my courage
dribble away.

When I got up to dance with the blonde there was no one on the floor but us.
Any other time I would have been self-conscious, but the champagne and the
way she clung to me, the dimmed lights and the solid feeling of security
which the few hundred francs gave me, well ... We had another dance
together, a sort of private exhibition, and then we fell into conversation.
She had begun to weep -- that was how it started. I thought possibly she had
had too much to drink, so I pretended not to be concerned. And meanwhile I
was looking around to see if there was any other timber available. But the
place was thoroughly deserted.

The thing to do when you're trapped is to breeze -- at once. If you don't,
you're lost. What retained me, oddly enough, was the thought of paying for a
hat check a second time. One always lets himself in for it because of a
trifle.

The reason she was weeping, I discovered soon enough, was because she had
just buried her child. She wasn't Norwegian either, but French, and a
midwife to boot. A chic midwife, I must say, even with the tears running
down her face. I asked her if a little drink would help to console her,
whereupon she very promptly ordered a whisky and tossed it off in the wink
of an eye. "Would you like another?" I suggested gently. She thought she
would, she felt so rotten, so terribly dejected. She thought she would like
a package of Camels too. "No, wait a minute," she said, "I think I'd rather
have <i>les </i>Pall Mall." Have what you like, I thought, but stop weeping,
for Christ's sake, it gives me the willies. I jerked her to her feet for
another dance. On her feet she seemed to be another person. Maybe grief makes
one more lecherous, I don't know. I murmured something about breaking away.
"Where to?" she said eagerly. "Oh, anywhere. Some quiet place where we can
talk."

I went to the toilet and counted the money over again. I hid the hundred
franc notes in my fob pocket and kept a fifty franc note and the loose
change in my trousers pocket. I went back to the bar determined to talk
turkey.

She made it easier for me because she herself introduced the subject. She
was in difficulties. It was not only that she had just