Henry Miller - NEXUS

Do you really think that, Hen? His tone was wistful rather than reproachful.

Listen, I said, once we were as close as peas in a pod, you, George Marshall and me. We were like brothers. That was a long, long time ago. Things happened. Somewhere the link snapped. George settled down, like a reformed crook. His wife won out...

And me?

You buried yourself in your law work, which you despise. One day you'll be a judge, mark my words. But it won't change your way of life. You've given up the ghost. Nothing interests you any more—unless it's a game of poker. And you think my way of life is cock-eyed. It is, I'll admit that. But not in the way you think.

His reply surprised me somewhat. You're not so far off the track, Hen. We have made a mess of it, George and myself. The others too, for that matter. (He was referring to the members of the Xerxes Society.) None of us has amounted to a damn. But what's all that got to do with friendship? Must we become important figures in the world to remain friends? Sounds like snobbery to me. We never pretended, George or I, that we were going to burn up the world. We're what we are. Isn't that good enough for you ?

Look, I replied, it wouldn't matter to me if you were nothing but a bum; you could still be my friend and I yours. You could make fun of everything I believed in, if you believed in something yourself. But you don't. You believe in nothing. To my way of thinking one's got to believe in what he's doing, else all's a farce. I'd be all for you if you wanted to be a bum and became a bum with all your heart and soul. But what are you? You're one of those meaningless souls who filled us with contempt when we were younger ... when we sat up the whole night long discussing such thinkers as Nietzsche, Shaw, Ibsen. Just names to you now. You weren't going to be like your old man, no sir! They weren't going to lasso you, tame you. But they did. Or you did. You put yourself in the strait-jacket. You took the easiest way. You surrendered before you had even begun to fight.

And you? he exclaimed, holding a hand aloft as if to say Hear, hear! Yeah, you, what have you accomplished that's so remarkable? Going on forty and nothing published yet. What's so great about that?

Nothing, I replied. It's deplorable, that's what.

And that entitles you to lecture me. Ho ho!

I had to hedge a bit. I wasn't lecturing you, I was explaining that we had nothing in common any more.

!From the looks of it we're both failures. That's what we have in common, if you'll face it squarely.

I never said I was a failure. Except to myself, perhaps. How can one be a failure if he's still struggling, still fighting? Maybe I won't make the grade. Maybe I'll end up being a trombone player. But whatever I do, whatever I take up, it'll be because I believe in it. I won't float with the tide. I'd rather go down fighting ... a failure, as you say. I loathe doing like every one else, falling in line, saying yes when you mean no.

He started to say something but I waved him down.

I don't mean senseless struggle, senseless resistance. One should make an effort to reach clear, still waters. One has to struggle to stop struggling. One has to find himself, that's what I mean.

Hen, he said, you talk well and you mean well, but you're all mixed up. You read too much, that's your trouble.

And you never stop to think, I rejoined. Nor will you accept your share of suffering. You think there's an answer to everything. It never occurs to you that maybe there isn't, that maybe the only answer is you yourself, how you regard your problems. You don't want to wrestle with problems, you want them eliminated for you. The easy way out, that's you. Take this girl of yours ... this life and death problem ... doesn't it mean something to you that she sees nothing in you? You ignore that, don't you? I want her! I've got to have her! That's all you've got to answer. Sure you'd change your ways, you'd make something of yourself ... if some one were kind enough to stand over you with a sledgehammer. You like to say—'Hen, I'm an ornery sort of bastard,’ but you won't raise a finger to make yourself a wee bit different. You want to be taken as you are, and if one doesn't like you the way you are, fuck him! Isn't that it?

He cocked his head to one side, like a judge weighing the testimony presented, then said: Maybe. Maybe you're right.

For a few moments we walked on in silence. Like a bird with a burr in his craw, he was digesting the evidence. Then, his lips spreading into an impish grin, he said: Sometimes you remind me of that bastard, Challacombe. God, how that guy could rile me I Always talking down from his pedestal. And you fell for all that crap of his. You believed in him ... in that Theosophical shit...

I certainly did! I answered with heat. If he had never mentioned anything more than the name Swanii Vivekananda I would have felt indebted to him the rest of my life. Crap, you say. To me it was the breath of life, I know he wasn't your idea of a friend. A little too lofty, too detached, for your taste. He was a teacher, and you couldn't see him as a teacher. Where did he get his credentials and all that? He had no schooling, no training, no nothing. But he knew what he was talking about. At least, I thought so. He made you wallow in your own vomit, and you didn't like that. You wanted to lean on his shoulder and puke all over him—then he would have been a friend. And so you searched for flaws in his character, you found his weaknesses, you reduced him to your own level. You do that with every one who's difficult to understand. When you can jeer at the other fellow as you do at yourself you're happy ... then everything comes out even ... Look, try to understand this. Everything's wrong with the world. Everywhere there's ignorance, superstition, bigotry, injustice, intolerance. It's been so since the world began most likely. It will be so to-morrow and the day after. So what? Is that a reason to feel defeated, to go sour on the world? Do you know what Swami Vivekananda said once? He said: There is only one sill. That is weakness ... Do not add one lunacy to another. Do not add your weakness to the evil that is going to come ... Be strong!

I paused, waiting for him to make mince meat of this. Instead he said: Go on, Hen, give us some more! It sounds good.

It is good, I replied. It will always be good. And people will go on doing the very opposite. The very ones who applauded his words betrayed him the instant he stopped speaking. That goes for Vivekananda, Socrates, Jesus, Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Krishnamurti ... name them yourself! But what am I telling you all this for anyway? You won't change. You refuse to grow. You want to get by with the least effort, the least trouble, the least pain. Every one does. It's wonderful to hear tell about the masters, but as for becoming a master, shit! Listen, I was reading a book the other day ... to be honest, I've been reading it for a year or more. Don't ask me the title, because I'm not giving it to you. But here's what I read, and no master could have put it better. The sole meaning, purpose, intention, and secret of Christ, my dears, is not to understand Life, or mould it, or change it, or even to love it, but to drink of its undying essence.

Say it again, will you, Hen?

I did.

To drink of its undying essence, he mumbled. Damned good. And you won't tell me who wrote it?

No.

Okay, Hen. Go on! What else have you got up your sleeve this morning?

This ... How are you making out with your Guelda?

Forget it! This is much better.

You're not giving her up, I hope?

She's giving me up. For good, this time.

And you're reconciled to it?

Don't you ever listen to me? Of course not! That's why I was laying in wait for you. But, as you say, each one has to follow his own path. Don't you think I know that? Maybe we haven't anything in common any more. Maybe we never did, have you ever thought that? Maybe it was something more than that which held us together. I can't help liking you, Hen, even when you rake me over the coals. You're a heartless son of a bitch sometimes. If any one's ornery it's you, not me. But you've got something, if you can only bring it out. Something for the world, I mean, not for me. You shouldn't be writing a novel, Hen. Any one can do that. You've got more important things to do. I'm serious. I'd rather see you lecture on Vivekananda—or Mahatma Gandhi.