Sexus (20 page)

He stopped just long enough to light a fresh cigar, then went on again.

“There's just one more thing I'd like to say. I know now what started me off. It's this—I feel sorry for the guy who's born a writer. That's why I razz this bird so much; I try to discourage him because I know what he's up against. If he's really any good he's cooked. A painter can knock out a half-dozen paintings in a year—so I'm told. But a writer—why sometimes it takes him ten years to do a book, and if it's good, as I say, it takes another ten years to find a publisher for it, and after that you've got to allow at least fifteen to twenty years before it's recognized by the public. It's almost a lifetime—for one book, mind you. How's he going to live meanwhile? Well, he lives like a dog usually. A panhandler leads a royal life by comparison. Nobody would undertake such a career if he knew what lay in store for him. To me the whole thing is cockeyed. I say flatly that it's not worth it. Art was never meant to be produced this way. The point is that art is a luxury nowadays. I could get along without ever reading a book or looking at a painting. We've got too many other things—we don't need books and paintings. Music yes—music we'll always need. Not good music necessarily—but
music. Nobody writes good music any more anyway. . . . The way I see it, the world is going to the dogs. You don't need much intelligence to get along, as things go. In fact, the less intelligence you have the better off you are. We've got it so arranged now that things are brought to you on a platter. All you need to know is how to do one little thing passably well; you join a union, you do as little work as possible, and you get pensioned off when you come of age. If you had any aesthetic leanings you wouldn't be able to go through the stupid routine year in and year out. Art makes you restless, dissatisfied. Our industrial system can't afford to let that happen—so they offer you soothing little substitutes to make you forget that you're a human being. Soon there won't be any art at all, I tell you. You'll have to pay people to go to a museum or listen to a concert. I don't say it'll go on like that forever. No, just when they've got it down pat, everything running smooth as a whistle, nobody squawking any more, nobody restless or dissatisfied, the thing'll collapse. Man wasn't intended to be a machine. The funny thing about all these utopian systems of government is that they're always promising to make man free—but first they try to make him run like an eight-day clock. They ask the individual to become a slave in order to establish freedom for mankind. It's rum logic. I don't say that the present system is any better. As a matter of fact, it would be difficult to imagine anything worse than what we've got now. But I know it's not going to be improved by giving up what little rights we now have. I don't think we want more rights—I think we want larger ideas. Jesus, when I see what lawyers and judges are trying to preserve it makes me puke. The law hasn't any relation to human needs; it's a racket carried on by a syndicate of parasites. Just take up a lawbook and read a passage (anywhere) aloud. It sounds insane, if you're in your right senses. It
is
insane, by God, I
know
it! But Jesus, if I begin to question the law I've got to question other things too. I'd go off my nut if I looked at things with a clear eye. You can't do it—not if you want to keep in step. You've got to squint as you go along; you've got to pretend that it makes sense; you've got to let people suppose that you know what you're doing.
But nobody knows what he's doing!
We don't get up in the morning and
think
what we're about. No sir! We get up in a fog and shuffle through a dark tunnel with a hangover. We play the game. We know it's a dirty lousy fake but we can't help it—there's no choice. We're born into a certain setup, we're conditioned to it: we can tinker with it a little here and there, like you would with a leaky boat, but there's no making it over, there's no time for it, you've got to get to port, or you imagine you have to. We'll never get there, of course. The boat'll go down first, take my word for it. . . . Now if I were Henry here, if I felt as sure as he does that I was an artist, do you think I'd bother to prove it to the world?
Not me!
I wouldn't put a line down on paper; I'd just think my thoughts, dream my dreams, and let it go at that. I'd take any kind of job, anything that would keep me alive, and I'd say to the world: ‘Fuck you, Jack, you're not putting anything over on
me!
You ain't making me starve to prove that I'm an artist. No sirree—I know what I know and nobody can tell me different.' I'd just worm my way through life, doing just as little as possible. If I had good, rich, juicy ideas I'd enjoy them all to myself. I wouldn't try to ram them down people's throats. I'd act dumb most of the time. I'd be a yes man, a rubber stamp. I'd let them walk over me if they wanted to. Just so long as I knew in my heart and soul that I really was somebody. I'd retire right in the midst of life; I wouldn't wait till I was old and decrepit, until they had first hammered the shit out of me and then salved me with the Nobel prize. . . . I know this sounds a bit cockeyed. I know that ideas have to be given form and substance. But I'm talking about knowing and being rather than doing. After all, you only become something in order to
be
it—there wouldn't be any fun in just becoming all the time, would there? Well, supposing you say to yourself—the hell with becoming an artist, I know I am one, I'll just
be
it—
what then?
What does it mean, to be an artist? Does it mean that you have to write books or make pictures? That's secondary, I take it—that's the mere evidence of the fact that you
are one. . . .
Supposing, Henry, you had written the greatest book ever written and you lost the manuscript just after you had completed it? And supposing nobody
knew that you had been writing this great book, not even your closest friend? In that case you'd be just where I am who haven't put a stroke on paper, wouldn't you? If we were both to die suddenly, at that point, the world would never know that either of us was an artist. I would have had a good time of it and you would have wasted your whole life.”

At this point Ulric couldn't stand it any longer. “It's just the contrary,” he protested. “An artist doesn't enjoy life by evading his task. You're the one who would be wasting his life. Art isn't a solo performance; it's a symphony in the dark with millions of participants and millions of listeners. The enjoyment of a beautiful thought is nothing to the joy of giving it expression—
permanent
expression. In fact, it's almost a sheer impossibility to refrain from giving expression to a great thought. We're only instruments of a greater power. We're creators by permission, by grace, as it were. No one creates alone, of and by himself. An artist is an instrument that registers something already existent, something which belongs to the whole world and which, if he
is
an artist, he is compelled to give back to the world. To keep one's beautiful ideas to oneself would be like being a virtuoso and sitting in an orchestra with hands folded.
You couldn't do it!
As for that illustration you gave, of an author losing his life's work in manuscript, why I'd compare such a person to a wonderful musician who had been playing with the orchestra all the time, only in another room, where nobody heard him. But that wouldn't make him any the less a participant, nor would it rob him of the pleasure to be had in following the orchestra leader or hearing the music which his instrument gave forth. The greatest mistake you make is in thinking that enjoyment is something unearned, that if you know you can play the fiddle, well, it's just the same as playing it. It's so silly that I don't know why I bother to discuss it. As for the reward, you're always confusing recognition with reward. They're two different things. Even if you don't get paid for what you do, you at least have the satisfaction of doing. It's a pity that we lay such emphasis on being paid for our labors—it really isn't necessary, and nobody knows it better than the artist. The reason why he has such a miserable time of it is because he
elects to do his work gratuitously. He forgets, as you say, that he has to live. But that's really a blessing. It's much better to be preoccupied with wonderful ideas than with the next meal, or the rent, or a pair of new shoes. Of course when you get to the point where you must eat, and you haven't anything to eat, then to eat becomes an obsession. But the difference between an artist and the ordinary individual is that when the artist does get a meal he immediately falls back into his own limitless world, and while he's in that world he's a king, whereas your ordinary duffer is just a filling station with nothing in between but dust and smoke. And even supposing you're not an ordinary chap, but a wealthy individual, one who can indulge his tastes, his whims, his appetites: do you suppose for one minute that a millionaire enjoys food or wine or women like a hungry artist does? To enjoy anything you have to make yourself ready to receive it; it implies a certain control, discipline,
chastity,
I might even say. Above all, it implies desire, and desire is something you have to nourish by right living. I'm speaking now as if I were an artist, and I'm not really. I'm just a commercial illustrator, but I do know enough about it to say that I envy the man who has the courage to be an artist—I envy him because I know that he's infinitely richer than any other kind of human being. He's richer because he spends himself, because he gives
himself
all the time, and not just labor or money or gifts. You couldn't possibly be an artist, in the first place, because you lack faith. You couldn't possibly have beautiful ideas because you kill them off in advance. You deny what it takes to make beauty, which is love, love of life itself, love of life for its own sake. You see the flaw, the worm, in everything. An artist, even when he detects a flaw, makes it into something flawless, if I may put it that way. He doesn't try to pretend that a worm is a flower or an angel, but he incorporates the worm into something bigger. He knows that the world isn't full of worms, even if he sees a million or a billion of them. You see a tiny worm and you say—'Look, see how rotten everything is!' You can't see beyond the worm. . . . Well, excuse me, I didn't mean to put it so caustically or so personally. But I hope you see what I'm driving at. . . .”

“That's quite all right,” said MacGregor briskly and cheerily. “It's good to have the other fellow's opinion once in a while. Maybe you're right. Maybe I am unduly pessimistic. But that's how I'm built. I think I'd be a lot happier if I could see it your way—but I can't. Besides, I must confess I've really never met a good artist. It would be a pleasure to talk to one sometime.”

“Well,” said Ulric, “you've been talking to one all your life without knowing it. How are you going to recognize a good artist when you meet one if you can't recognize one in your friend here?”

“I'm glad you said that,” piped MacGregor. “And now that you've pushed me to the ropes I'll admit I do think he's an artist. I've always thought so. As for listening to him, well I do that too, and quite seriously. But then I also have my doubts. You see, if I listened to him long enough he'd undermine me. I know he's right, but it's like I told you before—if you want to get along, if you want to live, you just can't permit yourself such thoughts. Sure he's right! I'd change places with him any day, the lucky dog. What have I got for all my struggles? I'm a lawyer.
So what?
I might just as well be a piece of shit. Sure, you bet I'd like to change places. Only I'm not an artist, as you said. I guess the trouble with me is that I can't swallow the fact that I'm just another nobody. . . .”

Back in town I found a note on Ulric's bell, from Mara. She had arrived shortly after we left. Had been sitting on the steps waiting for me, waiting for hours, if I were to believe her words. A postscript informed me that she was off to Rockaway with her two friends. I was to call her there as soon as I could.

I arrived at dusk and found her waiting for me at the station; she was in a bathing suit over which she had thrown a mackintosh. Florrie and Hannah were sleeping it off again at the hotel; Hannah had lost her beautiful new set of false teeth and was in a state of nervous prostration. Florrie, she said, was going back to the woods again; she had fallen hard for Bill, one of the backwoodsmen. But first she had to have an abortion performed. It was nothing—not for Florrie anyway. The only thing that bothered her was that she seemed to grow larger down there with each abortion; soon she wouldn't be able to take on anything but niggers.

She led me to another hotel where we were to pass the night together. We sat talking awhile in the lugubrious dining room over a glass of beer. She looked queer in that mackintosh—like a person who's been driven out of the house by fire in the middle of the night. We were itching to get to bed but in order not to arouse suspicion we had to pretend to be in no great hurry. I had lost all sense of place: it seemed as if we had made a rendezvous in a dark room by the Atlantic Ocean in the wake of an exodus. Two or three other couples slipped in noiselessly, sipped their drinks, and chatted furtively in subdued whispers. A man walked through with a bloody meat cleaver, holding a decapitated chicken by the legs; the blood dripped on the floor, leaving a zigzag trail—like the passage of a drunken whore who is menstruating freely.

Finally we were shown to a cell at the end of a long corridor. It was like the terminus of a bad dream, or the missing half of a Chirico painting. The corridor formed the axis of two wholly unrelated worlds; if you were to go left instead of right you might never find your way back again. We undressed and fell on the iron cot in a sexual sweat. We went at it like a pair of wrestlers who have been left to untangle themselves in an empty arena after the lights are out and the crowd dispersed. Mara was struggling frantically to bring on an orgasm. She had somehow become detached from her sexual apparatus; it was night and she was lost in the dark; her movements were those of a dreamer desperately struggling to re-enter the body which had begun the act of surrender.
I got up to wash myself, to cool it off with a little cold water. There was no sink in the room. In the yellow light of an almost extinct bulb I saw myself in a cracked mirror; I had the expression of a Jack the Ripper looking for a straw hat in a pisspot. Mara lay prone on the bed, panting and sweating; she had the appearance of a battered odalisque made of jagged pieces of mica. I slipped into my trousers and staggered through the funnel-like corridor in search of the washroom. A bald-headed man, stripped to the waist, stood before a marble basin washing his trunk and armpits. I waited patiently until he had finished. He snorted like a walrus in performing his ablutions; when he had done he opened a can of talcum powder and sprinkled it generously over his torso, which was creased and caked like an elephant's hide.