I once covered more than three hundred blocks in one day, on foot. Why? I was out for a walk. I generally go almost everywhere on foot. Out of my $278 a month I begrudge spending fifty cents to ride anywhere, especially since my sorties have no set destination, or the destination is indefinite. For example, a place to buy myself a notebook of a particular format. They don't have it at Woolworth's or at another Woolworth's or at Alexander's, and I march down to the sidewalk markets on Canal Street to scrounge up the right notebook. All other formats irritate me.
I am very fond of tramping around. Really, without exaggeration, I probably walk more than anybody else in New York. Unless there's some tramp who walks more than I do, but I doubt it. So far as I can see, bums are all immobile, more apt to lie still or putter sluggishly about in their rags.
I walked a great deal in March and April, my most terrible months. In the mornings my leg muscles were locked, every step caused me hellish pain, I would have to walk in this pain for half an hour before it wore off. The pain would have been less, of course, had I worn shoes with lower heels, but I would never consent to make that concession – I have always worn nothing but high heels, and I ask to be laid in my grave, if I have one, wearing incredible shoes of some kind, high heels without fail.
I was visiting the individual neighborhoods of New York in expectation of some sort of encounter. Sometimes I clearly sensed this and walked especially purposefully to seize the opportunity, to be favored with an encounter. Most of the time I walked as if just for fun, as if it were my heart's desire to take a stroll, yet in fact my goal was the same, to be honored with an encounter. In my faraway childhood, my nowremote past, I tramped the main street of my provincial hometown the same way, waiting to encounter someone who would take me and lead me into another life. Whom did I hope to meet? A man? A woman? A friend, or love? Oh, the image I had in mind was very nonspecific, but I waited, tremblingly waited. How many empty evenings there were, how many sad and lonely homecomings, how many terrible reflections before sleep, until I encountered Anna and from an ordinary lad, with her help, created a poet.
I walk that same way now. Again I have nothing. I have established my poetic fate, whether or not it will last is no longer the issue, it's done, it exists, in Russia my life is already legend, and now I walk free, empty, and terrible in the Great City, amusing, saving, and distracting myself with its streets, and I seek the encounter that will begin my new fate.
From Kierkegaard, who lived in the nineteenth century, I learned that only a man who has despaired can properly appreciate life. He is at once the unhappiest and the happiest of men. Oh, I have appreciated life, how I have appreciated it, I howl and weep over life and do not fear it. On every little street I peer attentively at the people: is it he, is it she, is it they? To hope is folly, but I hope. Again and again I go out on the streets, the streets of my great, boundless city – of course it is mine, since my life is happening here – I seek, watch, peer… and return to the hotel. Often I fall face down on the bed and weep, and only malice gives me the strength to get up every day at eight in the morning, clench my teeth, read the American newspapers. I curse and damn everything in the world, but I live, and oh, although love has betrayed me, I shall never cease to seek love. But it will not be a love for one person, who would betray me again, no, no more, I want no more betrayals, it will be a different love.
What do I seek? Either a brotherhood of stern men, revolutionaries and terrorists, in love and devotion to whom my soul could rest at last; or I seek a religious sect preaching love, people's love for one another, love at all costs.
My darling, where will you find it, such love?
My darling, where will you find it, this sect where they will comfort and caress you, lay your head in their laps. Sleep, my weary darling, sleep. Nowhere in the world is there such a sect. Once it was in Elena's lap. Where is there such a sect now? Why am I not surrounded by its affectionate inmates? Mimi the ballerina will playfully stand on her head, Pascalino will tousle my hair, and George will kiss my knee. "You have come to us, you are weary, here are wine and bread, and we will wash your feet. Poor weary darling, be with us as long as you like, and we won't go off to work and leave you alone tomorrow like Papa and Mama, like a wife, or like children going to school. We'll be with you a long, happy time, and perhaps later – once in a while this happens – you will leave, when you want to, and the glint of our old buildings will be in your eye…"
Brotherhood and people's love – that is what I dreamed of, that is what I wanted to encounter.
None of it is easy to find. I've been walking for six months now, and how much longer will I walk? God knows…
I walk around New York – my great house – lightly clad, not much overburdened with clothes, and almost never carry anything with me, never encumber my hands. I know all the street people of New York. I know where they can be found, and the spot where each of them curls up to sleep, whether it's the stone floor under the arch of the boarded-up church at Third Avenue and Thirtieth Street, or in the revolving door of the bank at Lexington and Sixtieth. Certain bums prefer to sleep on the steps of Carnegie Hall, to be closer to art. I know the dirtiest, hairiest, fattest bum in New York. I think he's crazy because he always wears a weird smile. By day he usually makes himself comfortable on a bench in Central Park, not far from the entrance. In the evening he moves to Sixth Avenue in the Forties. Once I found him reading – guess what – Russkoe Delo, the newspaper I used to work on. Moreover, he was holding it the right way, not upside down. Could he be Russian?
I know a place where, at various times of the day, you can see a red-bearded man in the costume of a Scottish highlander, playing the bagpipes.
I am familiar with all of New York's blind men and their dogs. The black man who sits on Fifth Avenue with his rabbit, usually across from St. Patrick's, gives me a friendly hello and a smile.
I am acquainted with a bearded artist and his wife who sell paintings of wild animals – lions, tigers, and other lovable beasts of prey. I say hello to them and they answer me. Admittedly I can't buy anything from them.
I know the man who sells shashlik in Central Park. I know well the Italian drummer who often pounds a drum near Carnegie Hall.
I am acquainted with a black saxophonist and a fellow who plays the violin at the doors of Broadway theaters.
I know by sight the joint-sellers in Central Park, at the Public Library, and in Washington Square.
I know a young fellow with stubby legs and an athletic torso. In the summer he is always dressed in shorts and a weirdly cut undershirt. His time is divided between the Public Library and the distribution of advertising flyers near the arch in Washington Square.
If I wanted to enumerate them all, describe their clothes and faces, I could go on and on; it would take a lot of time.
I have in my memory knowledge of another type too.
I know, for example, where you can find, any place in New York, a liquor store that stays open late at night; or which way the tiniest little street in SoHo, the Village, or Chinatown turns.
I live in a neighborhood where the world's most expensive companies – General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, and others – have their offices, but I roam along the dirty Bowery, boring Lafayette Street, I dig up all sorts of shit in the sidewalk markets on Canal Street.
I know where you can take a leak, if need be, anywhere in New York. I know the safe places. Walking toward Chinatown along Canal Street, for example, you can go in the nearest entrance of the courthouse, and on the second floor, up the stairway to the left, you can take a wonderful leak in the stinking men's room.