It was long after midnight when I finished. Thoroughly exhausted, I lay down on the floor and went to sleep. I awoke early, walked to the Village again for a little nourishment, then strolled leisurely back to resume work for the day.
Later that day I read what I had written during the night. There were only a few insertions to be made. How did I ever remember so accurately the thousand and one details I had recorded? And, if these telegraphic notes were to be expanded into a book, would it not require several volumes to do justice to the subject? The very thought of the immensity of this task staggered me. When would I ever have the courage to tackle a work of such dimensions?
Musing thus, an appalling thought suddenly struck me. It was this—our love is ended. That could be the only meaning for planning such a work. I refused, however, to accept this conclusion. I told myself that my true purpose was merely to relate—merely!—the story of my misfortunes. But is it possible to write of one's sufferings while one is still suffering? Abelard had done it, to be sure. A sentimental thought now intruded. I would write the book for her—to her—and in reading it she would understand, her eyes would be opened, she would help me bury the past, we would begin a new life, a life together ... true togetherness.
How naive! As if a woman's heart, once closed, can ever be opened again!
I squelched these inner voices, these inner promptings which only the Devil could inspire. I was more hungry than ever for her love, more desperate far than ever I had been. There came then the remembrance of a night years before when seated at the kitchen table (my wife upstairs in bed), I had poured my heart out to her in a desperate, suicidal appeal. And the letter had had its effect. I had reached her. Why then would a book not have an even greater effect? Especially a book in which the heart was laid bare? I thought of that letter which one of Hamsun's characters had written to his Victoria, the one he penned with God looking over his shoulder. I thought of the letters which had passed between Abelard and Heloise and how time could never dim them. Oh, the power of the written word!
That evening, while the folks sat reading the papers, I wrote her a letter such as would have moved the heart of a vulture. (I wrote it at that little desk which had been given me as a boy.) I told her the plan of the book and how I had outlined it all in one uninterrupted session. I told her that the book was for her, that it was her. I told her that I would wait for her if it took a thousand years.
It was a colossal letter, and when I had finished I realized that I could not dispatch it—because she had forgotten to give me her address. A fury seized me. It was as if she had cut out my tongue. How could she have played such a scurvy trick on me? Wherever she was, in whomever's arms, couldn't she sense that I was struggling to reach her? In spite of the maledictions I heaped upon her my heart was saying I love you, I love you, I love you...
And as I crept into bed, repeating this idiotic phrase, I groaned. I groaned like a wounded grenadier.
11
The following day, while rummaging through the waste basket in search of a missing letter, I ran across a crumpled letter which the Commissioner had obviously tossed there in disgust. The handwriting was thin and shaky, as if written by an old man, but legible despite the elaborate curlicues he delighted in employing. I took one glance at it, then slipped it into my pocket to read at leisure.
It was this letter, ridiculous and pathetic in its way, which saved me from eating my heart out. If the Commissioner had thrown it there then it must have been at the bidding of my guardian angel.
"Honourable Sir ... it began, and with the very next words a weight was lifted from me. I found not only that I could laugh as of old, I found that I could laugh at myself, which was vastly more important.
Honourable Sir: I hope that you are well and enjoying good health during this very changeable weather that we are now having. I am quite well myself at the present time and I am glad to say so.
Then, without further ado, the author of this curious document launched into his arborico-solipsistic harangue. Here are his words...
I wish that you would do me a very kind-hearted and a very special favor and kindly have the men of the Park Department go around now and start by the Borough Lines of Queens and King's Counties and work outward easterly and back westerly and likewise northerly and southerly and remove the numerous dead and dying trees, trees all open at the base part and in the trunk part and trees bending and leaning over and ready to fall down and do damage to human life, limb and property, and to give all the good trees both large and small sizes an extra good, thorough, proper, systematic and symmetrical pruning, trimming and paring off from the base to the very top parts and all through.
I wish that you would do me a very kind-hearted and very special favor and kindly have the men of the Park Department greatly reduce all the top-heavy and overgrown trees in height to a height of about 25 feet high and to have all the long boughs and branches shortened considerably in the length and all parts of the trees greatly thinned out from the base to the very top parts and thereby give a great deal more light, more natural light, more air, more beauty, and very much more safety to the pedestrians, the general thoroughfares and to the surroundings along by the streets, avenues, places, roadways, roads, highways, boulevards, terraces, parkways (streets called courts, lanes, etc.) and by the Parks inside and outside.
I would greatly, kindly and very urgently request that the boughs and branches be pruned, trimmed and pared off at a distance of from twelve to fifteen feet from the front, side and rear walls of all houses and other buildings of every description and not allow them to come in contact with them as a great many of them are very much marred by them coming in contact with them, and thereby give a great deal more light, more natural light, more air, more beauty and very much more safety.
I wish that you would kindly have the men of the Park Department prune, trim and pare off the boughs and branches at a distance of from twelve to sixteen feet above the sidewalks, flaggings, grounds, curbs, etc. and not allow them to keep drooping away down low as a great many of them are now doing and thereby give plenty of height to walk beneath the same...
It went on and on in this vein, always detailed and explicit, the style never varying. One more paragraph—. I wish that you would kindly have the boughs and branches pruned, trimmed and pared off and down considerably below the roofs of the houses and other buildings and not allow them to protrude over, lap over, lay over, cross over or come in contact with the houses and other buildings and to have the boughs and branches greatly separated between each and every tree and not allow the boughs and branches to lap over, lay over, cross over, entwine, hug, cluster or come in contact with the adjoining trees and thereby give a great deal more light, more natural light, more air, more beauty and very much more safety to the pedestrians, the thoroughfares and to the general surroundings around by all parts of Queens County, New York...
As I say, upon finishing the letter I felt thoroughly relaxed, at ease with the world, and extremely indulgent toward my own precious self. It was as if some of that light—that more natural light—had invaded my being. I was no longer enveloped in a fog of despair. There was more air, more light, more beauty to all the surroundings: my inner surroundings.
Come Saturday noon therefore, I made straight for Manhattan Isle; at Times Square I rose to the surface, snatched a quick bite at the Automat, then swung my prow round in the direction of the nearest all out dance hall. It didn't occur to me that I was repeating a pattern which had brought me to my present low state. Only when I pushed my way through the immense portals of the Itchigumi Dance Palace on the ground floor of a demented looking building this side of the Cafe Mozambique did it come over me that it was in a mood similar to the one which now claimed me that I had staggered up the steep rickety stairs of another Broadway dance hall and there found the beloved. Since those days my mind was utterly free of these pay as you go joints and the angels of mercy who soberly fleece their sex-starved patrons. All I thought of now was a few hours of escape from boredom, a few hours of forgetfulness—and to get it as cheaply as possible. There was no fear in me of falling in love again or even of getting a lay, though that I needed bad. I merely craved to become like any ordinary mortal, a jelly-fish, if you like, in the ocean of drift. I asked for nothing more than to be swished and sloshed about in an eddying pool of fragrant flesh under a subaqueous rainbow of subdued and intoxicating lights.