Henry Miller - Tropic of Capricorn

Tropic of
Capricorn

OTHER BOOKS BY HENRY MILLER
I'"hlisll('d hv Crovc I'n'ss

Black Spring
Quid Days in (~lichy alld
The World or Sex
The Rosy ('rucifixion
Sexus
PIeXllS

Nexus
(Three Volumes)

Tropic of Cancer
Under the Roofs of Paris
(Opus Pistorum)

HENRY fVlILLER
~

Tropic of
Capricorn

~
*URYH3UHVV
C rove Press

Copyright © 1961 by Grove Press, Inc.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including
mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without prior written permission ofthe publisher.
Grove Press
841 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publ ication Data
Miller, Henry, 1891-1980
Tropic of Capricorn.
I. Title.
PS3525.15454T8 1987
813'.52
86-33510
ISBN 0-8021-5182-5
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Evergreen Edition 1965

Tropic of
Capricorn

o

nee you have given up the ghost,. everything follows
with dead certainty, even in the midst of chaos. From the
beginning it was never anything but chaos: it was a
fluid which rnvcloped me, which I breathed in through
the gills. In the substrata, where the moon shone steady
and opaque, it was smooth and fecundating; above it was
a jangle and a discord. In everything I (plickly saw the
opposite, the contradiction, and between the real and
the unreal the irony, the paradox. I was my own worst
enemy. There was nothing I wished to do which I could
just as well not do. Even as a child, when I lacked for
nothing, I wanted to die: I wanted to surrender because
I saw no sense in struggling. I felt that nothing would be
proved, substantiated, added or subtracted by continuing
an existence which I had not asked for. Everybody
around me was a failure, or if not a failure, ridiculous.
Especially the successful ones. The successful ones bored·
me to tears. I was sympathetic to a fault, but it was not
sympathy that made me so. It was a purely negative quality, a weakness which blossomed at the mere sight of
human misery. I never helped anyone expecting that it
would do any good; I helped because I was helpless to do
otherwise. To want to change the condition of affairs
seemed futile to me; nothing would be altered, I was convinced, except by a change of heart, and who could
change the hearts of men? Now and then a friend was
converted: it was something to make me puke. I had no
more need of God than He had of me, and if there were
one, I often said to myself, I would meet Him calmly and
spit in. His face.
What was most annoying was that at first blush people

10
Tropic of Capricorn
usually took me to be good, to be kind, generous, loyal,
faithful. Perhaps I did possess these virtues but if so it
was because I was indiHerent: I could aHord to be good,
kind, generous, loyal, and so forth, since I was free of
envy. Envy was the one thing I was never a victim of. I
have never envied anybody or anything. On the contrary,
I have only felt pity for everybody and everything.
From the very beginning I must have trained myself
not to want anything too badly. From the very beginning
I was independent, in a false way. I had need of nobody
because I wanted to be free, free to do and to give only
as my whims dictated. The moment anything was expected or demanded of me I balked. That was the form
my independence took. I was corrupt, in other words,
corrupt from the start. It's as though my mother fed me a
poison, and though I was weaned young thc poison never
left my system. Even when she weaned me it seemed that
I was completely indiHerent; most children rebel, or
make a pretense of rebelling, but I didn't give a damn.
I was a philosopher when still in swaddling clothes. I
was against life, on principle. What prinCiple? The principle of futility. Everybody around me was struggling. I
myself never made an eHort. If I appeared to be making
an eHort it was only to please someone else; at bottom I
didn't give a rap. And if you can tell me why this should
have been so I will deny it, because I was born with a
cussed streak in me and nothing can eliminate it. I heard
later, when I had grown up, that they had a hell of a
time hringinf!; me out of the womb. I can understand that
perfectly. Why budge? Why come out of a niee warm
place, a cosy retreat in which everything is oHered you
gratis? The earliest remembrance I have is of the cold,
the snow and ice in the gutter, the frost on the window
panes, the chill of the sweaty green walls in the kitchen.
Why do people live in outlandish climates in the temperate zones, as they are miscalled? Because people are
naturally idiots, naturally sluggards, naturally cowards.
Until I was about ten years old I never realized that

Tropic of Capricorn
11
I here were "warm" countries, places where you didn't
have to sweat for a living, nor shiver and pretend that it
was tonic and exhilarating. Wherever there is cold there
are people who work themselves to the bone and when
they produce young they preach to the young the gospel
of work-which is nothing, at bottom, but the doctrine of
inertia. My people were entircly Nordic, which is to say
idiots. Every wrong idea which has ever been expounded
was theirs. Among them was the doctrine of cleanliness,
to say nothing of righteousness. They were painfully
clean. But inwardly they stank. Never once had they
opened the door which leads to the soul; never once did
they dream of taking a blind leap into the dark. After
dinner the dishes were promptly washed and put in the
closet; after the paper was read it was neatly folded and
laid away on a shelf; after the clothes were washed they
were ironed and folded and then tucked away in the
drawers. Everything was for tomorrow, but tomorrow
never came. The present was only a bridge and on this
bridge they are still groaning, as the world groans, and
not one idiot ever thinks of blowing up the bridge.
In my bitterness I often search for reasons to condemn them, the better to condemn myself. For I am like
them too, in many ways. For a long while I thought I had
escaped, but as time goes on I see that I am no better, that
I am even a little worse, because I saw more clearly than
they ever did and yet remained powerless to alter my
life. As I look back on my life it seems to me that I never
did anything of my own volition but always through
the pressme of others. People often think of me as an
advenhlrous fellow; nothing could be farther from the
truth. My adventmes were always adventitious, always
thrust on me, always endured rather than undertaken. I
am of the very essence of that proud, boastful Nordic
people wllo have never had the least sense of advenhue
but who nevertheless have scoured the earth, turned it
upside down, scattering relics and ruins everywhere. Restless spirits, but not adventurous ones. Agonizing spirits,

12
Tropic of Capricorn
incapable of living in the present. Disgraceful cowards,
all of them, myself included. For there is only one great
adventure and that is inward toward the self, and for that,
time nor space nor even deeds matter.
Once every few years I was on the verge of making
this discovery, but in characteristic fashion I always managed to dodge the issue. If I try to think of a good excuse
I can think only of the environment, of the streets I knew
and the people who inhabited them. I can think of no
street in America, or of people inhabiting such a street,
capable of leading one on toward the discovery of the
self. I have walked the streets in many countries of the
world but nowhere have I felt so degraded and humiliated
as in America. I think of all the streets in America oombined as forming a huge cesspool, a cesspool of the spirit
in which everything is sucked down and drained away to
everlasting shit. Over this cesspool the spirit of work
weaves a magic wand; palaces and factories spring up
side by side, and munition plants and chemical works
and steel mills and sanatoriums and prisons and insane
asylums. The whole continent is a nightmare producing
the greatest misery of the greatest number. I was one, a
single entity in the midst of the greatest jamboree of
wealth and happiness (statistical wealth, statistical happiness) but I never met a man who was truly wealthy or
truly happy. At least I knew that I was unhappy, unwealthy, out of whack and out of step. rThat was my only
solace, my only joy. But it was hardly enough. It would
have been better for my peace of mind, for my soul, if I
had expressed my rebellion openly, if I had gone to jail
for it, if I had rotted there and died. It would have been
better if, like the mad Czolgosz, I had shot some good
President McKinley, some gentle, insignificant soul like
that who had never done anyone the least harm. Because
in the bottom of my heart there was murder: I wanted to
see America destroyed, razed from top to bottom. I wanted
to see this happen purely out of vengeance, as atonement
for the crimes that were committed against me and

Tropic of Capricorn
13
against others like me who have never been able to lift
their voices and express their hatred, their rebellion, their
legitimate blood lust.
I was the evil product of an evil soil. If the self were
not imperishable, the 'T' I write ahout would have been
destroyed long ago. To some this may seem like an invention, but whatever I imagine to have happened did
actually happen, at least to me. History may deny it,
since I have played no part in the history of my people,
but even if everything 1 say is wrong, is prejudiced, spiteful, malevolent, even if I am a liar and a poisoner, it is
nevertheless the truth and it will have to be swallowed.
As to what happened ...
Everything that happens, when it has significance, is in
the nature of a contradiction. Until the one for whom this
is written came along I imagined that somewhere outside,
in life, as they say, lay the solution to all things. I thought,
when I came upon her, that I was seizing hold of life,
seizing hold of something whieh I could bite into. Instead I lost hold of life completely. I reached Ollt for something to attach myself to-and. I found nothing. But in
reaching out, in the effort to grasp, to attach myself, left
high and dryas I was, I nevertheless found something
I had not looked for-myself. I found that what I had
desired all my life was not to live-if what others are
doing is called living-but to express myself. I realized
that I had never the least interest in living, but only in
this which I am doing now, something which is parallel
to life, of it at the same time, and beyond it. What is true
interests me scarcely at all, nor even what is real; only
that interests me which I imagine to be, that which I had
stifled every day in order to live. Whether I die today or
tomorrow is of no importance to me, never has been, but
that today even, after years of effort, I cannot say what I
think and feel-that bothers me, that rankles. From childhood on I can see myself on the track of this specter, en-

14
Tropic of Capricorn
joying nothing, desiring nothing but this power, this ability. Everything else is a lie-everything I ever did or
said which did not bear upon this. And that is pretty
much the greater part of my life.
I was a contradiction in essence, as they say. People
took me to be serious and high-minded, or to be gay and
reckless, or to be sincere and earnest, or to be negligent
and carefree. I was all these things at once-and beyond
that I was something else, something which no one suspected, least of all myself. As a boy of six or seven I used
to sit at my grandfather's workbench and read to him
while he sewed. I remember him vividly in those moments
when, pressing the hot iron against the seam of a coat, he
would stand with one hand over the other and look out
of the window dreamily. I remember the expression on
his face, as he stood there dreaming, better than the
contents of the books I read, better than the conversations
we had or the games which I played in the street. I used
to wonder what he was dreaming of, what it was that
drew him out of himself. I hadn't learned yet how to
dream wide-awake. I was always lucid, in the moment,
and all of a piece. His daydreaming fascinated me. I
knew that he had no connection with what he was doing,
not the least thought for any of us, that he was alone and
being alone he was free. I was never alone, least of aJ]
when I was by myself. Always, it seems to me, I was
accompanied: I was like a little crumb of a hig cheese,
which was the world, I suppose, though I never stopped
to think about it. But I know I never existed separately,
never thought myself the big cheese, as it were. So that
even when I had reason to be miserable, to complain, to
weep, I had the illusion of participating in a common, a
universal misery. When I wept the whole world was
weeping-so I imagined. I wept very seldom. Mostly J
was happy, I was laughing, I was having a good time.
I had a good time because, as I said before, I really
didn't give a fuck about anything. If things were wrong

Tropic of Capricorn
15
with me they were wrong everywhere, I was convinced
of it. And things were wrong usually only when one cared
too much. That impressed itself on me very early in life.
For example, I remember the case of my young friend
Jack Lawson. For a whole year he lay in bed, suffering
the worst agonies. He was my best friend, so people said
at any rate. Well, at first I was probably sorry for him
and perhaps now and then I called at his house to inquire about him; but after a month or two had elapsed
I grew quite callous about his suffering. I said to myself
he ought to die and the sooner he dies the better it will
be, and having thought thus I acted accordingly: that is
to say, I promptly forgot about him, abandoned him to
his fate. I was only about twelve years old at the time
and I remember being proud of my decision. I remember
the funeral too-what a disgraceful affair it was. There
they were, friends and relatives all congregated about
the bier and all of them bawling like sick monkeys. The
mother especially gave me a pain in the ass. She was
such a rare, spiritual creature, a Christian Scientist, I
believe, and though she didn't believe in disease and
didn't believe in death either, she raised such a stink
that Christ himself would have risen from the grave. But
not her beloved Jack! No, Jack lay there cold as icc and
rigid and unbeekonable. He was dead and there were
no two ways about it. I knew it and I was glad of it. I
didn't waste any tears over it. I couldn't say that he was
better off because after all the "he" had vanished. He
was gone and with him the sufferings he had endured and
the suffering he had unwittingly inflicted on others.
Amen!, I said to myself, and with that, being slightly hysterical, I let a loud fart-right beside the coffin.
This caring too much-I remember that it only developed with me about the time I first fell in love. And
even then I didn't care enough. If I had really cared I
wouldn't be here now writing about it: I'd have died of
a broken heart, or d have swung for it. It was a bad
experience because it taught me how to live a lie. It

r

16
Tropic of Capricorn
taught me to smile when I didn't want to smile, to work
when I didn't beJieve in work, to live when I had no
reason to go on living. Even when I had forgotten her I
still retained the trick of doing what I didn't believe in.
It was all chaos from the beginning, as I have said.
But sometimes I got so close to the center, to the very
heart of the confusion, that it's a wonder things didn't
explode around me.
lt is customary to blame everything on the war. I say
the war had nothing to do with me, with my life. At a
time when others were getting themselves comfortable
berths I was taking one miserable job after another, and
never enough in it to keep body and soul together. Almost as quickly as I was hired I was fired. I had plenty
of intelligence but I inspired distrust. Wherever I went
I fomented discord-not because I was idealistic bllt because I was like a searchlight exposing the stupidity and
futility of everything. Besides, I wasn't a good ass Hcker.
That marked me, no doubt. People could toll at once
when I asked for a job that I really didn't give a damn
whether I got it or not. And of eourse I generally didn't
get it. But after a time the mere looking for a job became
an activity, a pastime, so to speak. I would go in and ask
for most anything. It was a way of killing time-no
worse, as far as I could see, than work itself. I was my
own boss and I had my own hours, but unlike other bosses
I entrained only my own ruin, my own bankruptcy. I was
not a corporation or a trust or a state or a federation or a
polity of nations-I was more like God, if anything.
This went on from about the middle of the war until
. . . well, until one day I was trapped. Finally the day
came when I did desperately want a job. I needed it.
Not having another minute to lose, I decided that I would
take the last job on earth, that of messenger boy. I walked
into the employment bureau of the telegraph companythe Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company of North America-toward the close of the day, prepared to go through
with it. I had just come from the public library and I had

Tropic of Capricorn
17
under my arm some fat books on economics and metaphysics. To my great amazement I was refused the job.
The guy who turned me down was a little runt who ran
the switchboard. He seemed to take me for a college
student, though it was clear enough from my application
that I had long left school. I had even honored myself on
the application with a Ph.D. degree from Columbia University. Apparently that passed unnoticed, or else was
suspiciously regarded by this runt who had turned me
down. I was furious, the more so because for once in my
life I was in earnest. Not only that, but I had swallowed
my pride, which in certain poculiar ways is rather large.
My wife of course gave me the usual leer and sneer. I had
done it as a gesture, she said. I went to bed thinking
about it, still smarting, getting angrier and angrier as
the night wore on. The fact that I had a wife and child
to support didn't bother mc so much; people didn't offer
you johs because you had a family to support, that much
I understood only too well. No, what rankled was that
they had rejected me, Henry V. Miller, a competent,
superior individual who had asked for the lowest job in
the world. That burned me up. I couldn't get over it.
In the morning I was up bright and early, shaved, put
on my hest clothes and hotfooted it to the subway. I went
immediately to the main offices of the telegraph company ... up to the twenty-fifth floor or wherever it was
that the president and the vice-presidents had their
cubicles. I asked to see the president. Of course the
president was either out of town or too busy to see me,
but wouldn't J care to see thc vice-president, or his secretary rather. I saw the vice-presidenfs secretary, an
intelligent, considerate sort of chap, and I gave him an
earful. I did it adroitly, without too much heat, but letting him understand all the while that I wasn't to be
put out of the way so easily.
When he picked up the telephone and demanded the
general manager I thought it was just a gag, that they
were going to pass me around like that from one to the

18
Tropic of Capricorn
other until I'd get fed up. But the moment I heard him
talk I changed my opinion. When I got to the general
manager's office, which was in another building uptown,
they were waiting for me. I sat down in a comfortable
leather chair and accepted one of the big cigars that
were thrust forward. This individual seemed at once to
be vitally concerned about the matter. He wanted me to
tell him all about it, down to the last detail, his big
hairy ears cocked to catch the least crumb of information
which would justify something or other which was formulating itself inside his dome. I realized that by some accident I had really been instrumental in doing him a service. I let him wheedle it out of me to suit his fancy,
observing all the time which way the wind was blowing.
And as the talk progressed I noticed that he was warming
up to me more and more. At last some one was showing a
little confidence in me! That was all I required to get
started on one of my favorite lines. For, after years of job
hunting I had naturally become quite adept: I knew not
only what not to say, but I knew also what to imply, what
to insinuate. Soon the assistant general manager was
called in and asked to listen to my story. By this time I
knew what the story was. I understood that lIymie-"that
little kike," as the general manager called him-had no
business pretending that he was the employment manager. Hymie had usurped his prerogative, that much was
clear. It was also clear that Hymie was a Jew and that
Jews were not in good odor with the general manager, nor
with Mr. Twilliger, the vice-president, who was a thorn
in the general manager's side.
Perhaps it was Hymie, "the dirty little kike," who was
responsible for the high percentage of Jews on the messenger force. Perhaps Hymie was really the one who was
doing the hiring at the employment office-at Sunset
Place, they called it. It was an excellent opportunity, I
gathered, for Mr. Clancy, the general manager, to take
down a certain Mr. Burns who, he inform~d me, had

Tropic of Capricorn
19
been the employment manager for some thirty years now
and who was evidently getting lazy on the job.
The conference lasted several hours. Before it was
terminated Mr. Clancy took me aside and informed me
that he was going to make me the boss of the works.
Before putting me into office, however, he was going to
ask me as a special favor, and also as a sort of apprenticeship which would stand me in good stead, to work as a
special messenger. I would receive the salary of employment manager, but it would be paid me out of a separate
account. In short I was to float from office to office and
observe the way alhjrs were conducted hy all and sundry.
I was to make a little report from time to time as to how
things were gOing. And once in a while, so he suggested,
I was to visit him at his home on the q.t. and have a
little chat about the conditions in the hundred and one
branches of the Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company in
New York City. In other words I was to be a spy for a
few months and after that I was to have the run of the
joint. Maybe they'd make me a general manager too one
day, or a vice-president. It was a tempting offer, even if
it was wrapped up in a lot of horses hit. I said Yes.
In a few months I was sitting at Sunset: Place hiring
and firing like a demon. It was a slaughterhouse, so help
me God. The thing was senseless from the hottom up.
A waste of men, material and effort. A hideous farce
against a hackdrop of sweat and misery. But just as I had
accepted the spying so I accepted the hiring and firing
and all that went with it. 1 said Yes to everything. If the
vice-president decreed that no cripples were to be hired
I hired no cripples. If the vice-president said that all
messengers over forty-five were to be fired without notice
I fired them without notice. I did everything they instructed me to do, hut in such a way that they had to
pay for it. When there was a strike I folded my arms
and waited for it to blow over. But 1 first saw to it that
it cost them a good penny. The whole system was so rotten, so inhuman, so lousy, so hopelessly corrupt and

20
Tropic of Capricorn
complicated, that it would have taken a genius to put
any scnse or order into it, to say nothing o~ human kindness or consideration. I was up against the whole system
of American labor, which is rottcn at both ends. I was
the fifth wheel on the wagoJl and neither side had any
use for me, except to exploit mc. In fact, everybody was
being exploited-the president and his gang by the unseen powers, the employees hy the officials, and so on and
around, in and Ollt and through the whole works. From
my little perch at Sunset Place I had a bird's eye view
of the whole American society. It was like a page out
of the telophone book. AlphabcticaJIy, numerically, stastitically, it made sense. But when you looked at it up
close, when you examined the pages separately, or the
parts separately, when you examined one lone individual
and what constituted him, examined the air hc breathed,
the life he led, the chances he risked, you saw something
so foul and degrading, so low, so miserable, so utterly
hopeless and senseless, that it was worse than looking
into a volcano. You could see the whole American lifeeconomically, politically, morally, spiritually, artistically,
statistically, pathologically. It looked like a grand chancre
on a worn-out cock. It looked worse than that, really, because you couldn't even see anything resembling a cock
any more. Maybc in the past this thing had life, did produce something, did at least give a moment's pleasure, a
moment's thrill. But looking at it from where I sat it
looked rottener than the wormiest cheese. The wonder
was that the stench of it didn't carry'em off.... I'm using
the past tense all the time, but of course it's the same now,
maybe even a bit worse. At least now we're getting it full
stink.
By the time Valeska arrived on the scene I had hired
several army corps of messengers. My office at Sunsct
Place was like an open sewer, and it stank like one. I
had dug myself into the first-line trench and I was getting
it from all directions at once. To begin with, the man
I had ousted died of a broken heart a few weeks after

Tropic of Capricorn
21
my arrival. He held out just long enough to break me in
and then he croaked. Things happened so fast that I
didn't have a chance to feel guilty. From the moment I
arrived at the office it was one long uninterrupted pandemonium. An hour before my arrival-I was always late
-the place was already jammed with applicants. I had
to elbow my way up the stairs and literally force my
way in to get to my desk. Before I could take my hat off
I had to answer a dozen telephone calls. There were
three telephones on my desk and they all rang at once.
They were bawling the piss out of me before I had even
sat down to work. There wasn't even time to take a crap
-until five or six in the afternoon. Hymie was worse off
than I because he was tied to the switchboard. He sat
there from eight in the morning until six, moving waybills
around. A waybill was a messenger loaned by one office
to another office for the day or a part of the day. None
of the hundred and one offices ever had a full staff;
Hymie had to play chess with the waybills while I worked
like a madman to plug up the gaps. If by a miraele I succeeded of a day in filling all the vacancies, the next morning would /lnel the situation exactly the same-or worse.
Perhaps twenty per cent of the force was steady; the rest
was driftwood. The steady ones drove the new ones away.
The steady ones earned forty to fifty dollars a week, sometimes sixty or seventy-five, sometimes as much as a hundred dollars a week, which is to say that they earned far
more than the clerks and often more than their own
managers. As for the new ones, they found it difficult
to earn ten dollars a week. Some of them worked
an hour and quit, often throwing a batch of telegrams in the garbage can or down the sewer. And whenever they quit they wanted their pay immediately, which
was impossihle, because in the complicated bookkeeping
which ruled no one could say what a messenger had
earned until at least ten days later. In the beginning I invited the applicant to sit down beside me and I explained
everything to him in detail. I did that until I lost my voice.

22
Tropic of Capricorn
Soon I learned to save my strength for the grilling that
was necessary. In the first place, every other boy was a
born liar, if not a crook to boot. Many of them had already
been hired and fired a number of times. Some found it an
excellent way to find another job, because their duty
brought them to hundreds of offices which normally they
would never have set foot in. Fortunately McGovern, the
old trusty who guarded the door and handed out the
application blanks, had a camera eye. And then there
were the big ledgers behind me, in which there was a
record of every applicant who had ever passed through
the mill. The ledgers were very much like a police record;
they were full of red ink marks, signifying this or that
delinquency. To judge from the evidence I was in a
tough spot. Every other name involved a theft, a fraud, a
brawl, or dementia or perversion or idiocy. "Be carefulso-and-so is an epileptic!" "Don't hire this man-he's a
nigger!" "Watch out-X has been in Dannemora--or else
in Sing Sing."
If I had been a stickler for etiquette nobody would
ever have been hired. I had to learn quickly, and not from
the records or from those about me, but from experience.
There were a thousand and one details by which to judge
an applicant: I had to take them all in at once, and
quickly, because in one short day, even if you are as
fast as Jack Robinson, you can only hire so many and no
more. And no matter how many I hired it was never
enough. The next day it would begin all over again. Some
I knew would last only a day, but I had to hire them
just the same. The system was wrong from start to finish,
but it was not my place to criticize the system. It was mine
to hire and fire. I was in the center of a revolving disk
wbich was whirling so fast that nothing could stay put.
What was needed was a mechanic, but according to the
logic of the higher-ups there was nothing wrong with the
mechanism, everything was fine and dandy except that
things were temporarily out of order. And things being
tempor::J.rily out of order brought on epilepsy, theft, van-

Tropic of Capricorn
23
dalism, perversion, niggers, Jews, whores and whatnotsometimes strikes and lockouts. Whereupon, according
to this logic, you took a big broom and you swept the
stable clean, or you took clubs and guns and you beat
sense into the poor idiots who were suffering from the
illusion that things were fundamentally wrong. It was
good now and then to talk of God, or to have a little community sing-maybe even a bonus was justifiable now
and then, that is when things were getting too terribly
bad for words. But on the whole, the important thing was
to keep hiring and firing; as long as there were men and
ammunition we were to advance, to keep mopping up the
trenches. Meanwhile Hymie kept taking cathartic pillsenough to blowout his rear end if he had had a rear
end, but he hadn't one any more, he only imagined he was
taking a crap, he only imagined he was shitting on his
can. Actually the poor bugger was in a trance. There were
a hundred and one offices to look after and each one had
a staff of messengers which was mythical, if not hypothetical, and whether the messengers were real or unreal,
tangible or intangible, Hymie had to shuffle them about
from morning to night while I plugged up the holes,
which was also imaginary because who could say when
a recruit had been dispatched to an office whether he
would arrive there today Or tomorrow or never. Some of
them got lost in the subway or in the labyrinths under the
skyscrapers; some rode around on the elevated line all
day becanse with a uniform it was a free ride and perhaps
they had never enjoyed riding around all day on the
elevated lines. Some of them started for Staten Island and
ended up in Canarsie, or else were brought back in a
coma by a cop. Some forgot where they lived and disappeared completely. Some whom we hired for New York
turned up in Philadelphia a month later, as though it were
normal and according to Hoyle. Some would start for
their destination and on the way decide that it was easier
to sell newspapers and they would sell them, in the uniform we had given them, until they were picked up. Some

Tropic of Capricorn
24
went straight to the observation ward, moved by some
strange preservative instinct.
When he arrived in the morning Hymie first shalpmed
his pencils; he did this religiously no matter how many
calls were coming in, because, as he explained to me later,
if he didn't sharpen the pencils first thing off the bat they
would never get sharpened. The next thing was to take
a glance out the window and see what the weather
was like. Then, with a freshly sharpened pencil he made
a little box at the head of the slate which he kept beside
him and in it he gave the weather report. This, he also informed me, often turned out to be a useful alibi. If the
snow were a foot thick or the ground covered with sleet,
even the devil himself might be excused for not shufHing
the waybills around more speedily, and the employment
manager might also be excused for not filling up the holes
on such days, no? But why he didn't take a crap first instead of plugging in on the switchboard soon as his pencils were sharpened was a mystery to me. That too he
explained to me later. Anyway, the day always broke with
confusion, complaints, constipation and vacancies. It also
began with loud smelly farts, with bad breaths, with
ragged nerves, with epilepsy, with meningitis, with low
wages, with back pay that was overdue, with worn-out
shoes, with corns and bunions, with flat feet and broken
arches, with pocketbooks missing and fountain pens lost
or stolen, with telegrams floating in the sewer, with
threats from the vice-president and advice from the managers, with wrangles and disputes, with cloudbursts and
broken telegraph wires, with new methods of efficiency
and old ones that had been discarded, with hope for
better times and a prayer for the bonus which never
came. The new messengers were going over the top and
getting machine-gunned; the old ones were digging in
deeper and deeper, like rats in a cheese. Nobody was satisfied, especially not the public. It took ten minutes to
reach San Francisco over the wire, but it might take a year

Tropic of Capricorn
25
to get the message to the man whom it was intended foror it might never reach him.
The Y. M. C. A., eager to improve the morale of working boys everywhere in America, was holding meetings at
noon hour and wouldn't I like to send a few spruce-looking boys to hear William Carnegie Astcrbilt Junior give
a five-minute talk on service. Mr. Mallory of the Welfare
League would like to know if I could spare a few minutes
some time to tell me about the model prisoners who were
on parole and who would be glad to serve in any capacity,
even as messengers. Mrs. Guggenhoffer of the Jewish
Charities would be very grateful if I would aid her in
maintaining some broken-down homes which had broken
down because everybody was either infirm, crippled or
disabled in the family. Mr. Haggerty of the Runaway
Home for Boys was sure he had just the right youngsters
for me, if only I would give them a chancc; all of them
had bcen mistreated by their stepfathers or stepmothers.
The Mayor of New York would appreciate it if I would
give my personal attention to the bearer of said letter
whom he could vouch for in every way-but why the hen
he didn't give said bearer a job himself was a mystery.
M an leaning over my shoulder hands me a slip of paper
on which he has just written-"Me understand everything
but me no hear the voices." Luther Winifred is standing
beside him, his tattered coat fastened together with safety
pins. Luther is two-sevenths pure Indian and five-sevenths
German-American, so he explains. On the Indian side he
is a Crow, one of the Crows from Montana. His last job
was putting IIp window shades, but there is no ass in his
pants and he is ashamed to climb a ladder in front of a
lady. He got out of the hospital the other day and so he is
still a little weak, but he is not too weak to carry messages,
so he thinks.
And then there is Ferdinand Mish-how could I have
forgotten him? He has been waiting in line all morning
to get a word with me. I never answered the letters he
sent me. Was that just? he asks me blandly. Of cOurse

26
Tropic of Capricorn
not. I remember vaguely the last letter which he sent
me from the Cat and Dog Hospital on the Grand Concourse, where he was an attendant. He said he repented
that he had resigned his post "but it was on account of his
father bcing too strick over him, not giving him any recreation or outside pleasure." "I'm twenty-five now," he
wrote, "and I don't think I should ought to be sleeping no
more with my father, do you? I know you are said to be a
very fine gentleman and I am now self-dependent, so I
hope ... " McGovern, the old trusty, is standing by Ferdinand's side waiting for me to give him the sign. He wants
to give Ferdinand the bum's rush-he remembers him
from five years ago when Ferdinand lay down on the sidewalk in front of the main office in full uniform and threw
an epileptic fit. No, shit, I can't do it! I'm going to give
him a chance, the poor bastard. Maybe I'll send him to
Chinatown where things are fairly quiet. Meanwhile,
while Ferdinand is changing into a uniform in the back
room, I'm getting an earful from an orphan boy who
wants to "help make the company a success." He says that
if I give him a chance he'll pray for me every Sunday
when he goes to church, except the Sundays when he has
to report to his parole officer. He didn't do nothing, it
appears. He just pushed the fellow and the fellow fell
on his head and got killed. Next: An ex-consul from Gibraltar. Writes a beautiful hand-too beautifu1. I ask him
to see me at the end of the day-something fishy about
him. Meanwhile Ferdinand's thrown a fit in the dressing
room. Lucky break! If it had happened in the subway,
with a number on his hat and everything, I'd have been
canned. Next: A guy with one arm and mad as hell because McGovern is showing him the door. "What the
hell~ I'm strong and healthy, ain't I?" he shouts, and to
prove it he picks up a chair with his good ann and smashes
it to bits. I get back to the desk and there's a telegram
lying there for mc. I open it. It's from George Blasini, exmessenger No. 2459 of S.W. office. "I am sorry that I had
to quit so soon, but t!lC job was not fitted for my character

Tropic of Capricorn
27
idleness and I am a true lover of labor and frugality but
many a time we be unable to control or subdue our personal pride." Shit I
In the beginning I was enthusiastic, despite the damper
above and the clamps below. I had ideas and I executed
them, whether it pleased the vice-president or not. Every
ten days or so I was put on the carpet and lectured for
having "too big a heart." I never had any money in my
pocket but I used other people's money freely. As long
as I was the boss I had credit. I gave money away right
and left; I gave my clothes away and my linen, my books,
everything that was superfluous. If I had had the power
I would have given the company away to the poor buggers who pestered me. If I was asked for a dime I gave a
half dollar, if I was asked for a dollar I gave five. I didn't
give a fuck how much I gave away, because it was easier
to borrow and give than to refuse the poor devils. I never
saw such an aggregation of misery in my life, and I hope
I'll never see it again. Men are poor everywhere-they
always have been and they always will be. And beneath
the terrible poverty there is a flame, usually so low that
it is almost invisible. But it is there and if one has the courage to blow on it it can become a conflagration. I was
constantly urged not to be too lenient, not to be too sentimental, not to be too charitable. Be firm! Be hard! they
cautioned me. Fuck that! I said to myself, I'll be generous,
pliant, forgiving, tolerant, tender. In the beginning I
heard every man _to the end; if I couldn't give him a job
I gave him money, and if I had no money I gave him
cigarettes or I gave him courage. But I gave! The effect
was dizzying. Nobody can estimate the results of a good
deed, of a kind word_ I was swamped with gratitude, with
good wishes, with invitations, with pathetic, tender little
gifts. If I had had real power instead of being the fifth
wheel on a wagon, God knows what I might not have accomplished. I could have used the Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company of North America as a base to bring all
Immanity to God; I could have transformed North and

28
Tropic of Capricorn
South America alike, and the Dominion of Canada too. I
had the secret in my hand: it was to be generous, to be
kind, to be patient. I did the work of five men. I hardly
slept for three years. I didn't own a whole shirt and often
I was so ashamed of borrowing from my wife, or robbing
the kid's bank, that to get the carfare to go to work in the
morning I would swindle the blind newspaperman at the
subway station. lowed so much money all around that if
I were to work for twenty years I would not have been
able to pay it back. I took from those who had and I gave
to those who needed, and it was the right thing to do,
and I would do it all over again if I were in the same
position.
I even accomplished the miracle of stopping the crazy
turnover, something that nobody had dared to hope for.
Instead of supporting my efforts they undermined me.
According to the logic of the higher-ups the turnover had
ceased because the wages were too high. So they cut the
wages. It was like kicking the bottom out of a bucket. The
whole edifice tumbled, collapsed on my hands. And, just
as though nothing had happened they insisted that the
gaps be plugged up immediately. To soften the blow a
bit they intimated that I might even increase the percentage of Jews, I might take on a cripple now and then, if
he were capable, I might do this and that, all of which
they had infonned me previously was against the code.
I was so furious that I took on anything and everything;
I would have taken on broncos and gorillas if I could
have imbued them with the modicum of intelligence
which was necessary to deliver messages. A few days
previously there had been only five or six vacancies at
closing time. Now there were three hundred, four hundred, five hundred-they were running out like sand. It
was marvelous. I sat there and without asking a question
I took them on in carload lots-niggers, Jews, paralytics,
cripples, ex-convicts, whores, maniacs, perverts, idiots,
any fucking bastard who could stand on two legs and
hold a telegram in his hand. The managers of the hundred

Tropic of Capricorn
29
and one offices were frightened to death. I laughed. I
laughed all day long thinking what a fine stinking mess
I was making of it. Complaints were pouring in from all
parts of the city. The service was crippled, constipated,
strangulated. A mule could have gotten there faster than
some of the idiots I put into harness.
The best thing about the new day was the introduction
of female messengers. It changed the whole atmosphere
of the joint. For Hymie especially it was a godsend. He
moved his switchboard around so that he could watch
me while juggling the waybills back and forth. Despite
the added work he had a permanent erection. He came to
work with a smile and he smiled all day long. He was in
heaven. At the end of the clay I always had a Jist of five
or six who were worth trying out. The game was to keep
them on the string, to promise them a job but to get a free
fllck first. Usually it was only necessary to throw a feed
into them in order to bring them back to the office at night
and lay them out on the zinc-covered table in the dressing
room. If they had a cosy aparbnent, as they sometimes
did, we took them home and finished it in bed. If they
liked to drink Hymie would bring a bottle along. If they
were any good and really needed some dough Hymie
would flash his roll and peel off a five spot or a ten spot,
as the case might be. It makes my mouth water when I
think of that roll he carried about with him. Where he got
it from I never knew, because he was the lowest-paid man
in the joint. But it was always there, and no matter what
I asked for I got. And once it happened that we did get
a bonus and I paid Hymie back to the last penny-which
so amazed him that he took me out that night to Delmonico's and spent a fortune on me. Not only that, but
the next day he insisted on buying me a hat and shirts and
gloves. He even insinuated that I might come home and
fuck his wife, if I liked, though he warned me that she
was having a little trouble at present with her ovaries.
In addition to Hymie and McGovern I had as assistants
a pair of beautiful blondes who often accompanied us

30
Tropic of Capricorn
to dinner in the evening. And there was O'Mara, an old
friend of mine who had just returned from the Philippines and whom I made my chief assistant. There was
also Steve Romero, a prize bull whom I kept around in
case of trouble. And O'Hourke, the company detective,
who reported to me at the close of day when he began
his work. Finally I added another man to the staffKronski, a young medical student, who was diabolically
interested in the pathological cases of which we had
plenty. We were a merry crew, united in our desire to
fuck the company at all costs. And while fucking the
company we fucked everything in sight that we could
get hold of, O'Rourke excepted, as he had a certain dignity to maintain, and besides he had trouble with his
prostate and had lost all interest in fucking. But O'Rourke
was a prince of a man, and generous beyond words. It was
O'Rourke who often invited us to dinner in the evening
and it was O'Rourke we went to when we were in trouble.
That was how it stood at Sunset Place after a collple of
years had rolled by. I was saturated with humanity, with
experiences of one kind and another. In my sober
moments I made notes which I intended to make use of
later if ever I should have a chance to record my experiences. I was waiting for a breathing spell. And then
by chance one day, when I had been put on the carpet
for some wanton piece of negligence, the vice-president
let drop a phrase which stuck in my crop. He had said that
he would like to see some one write a sort of Horatio
Alger book about the messengers; he hinted that perhaps
I might be the one to do such a job. I was furious to
think what a ninny he was and delighted at the same
time hecause secretly I was itching to get the thing off
my chest. I thought to myself-you poor old futzer, you,
just wait until I get it off my chest. ... I'll give you an
Horatio Alger book ... just you wait! My head was in
a whirl leaving his office. I saw the army of men, women
and children that had passed through my hands, saw

Tropic of Capricorn
31
them weeping, begging, beseeching, imploring, cursing,
spitting, fuming, threatening. I saw the tracks they left
on the highways, the freight trains lying on the floor, the
parents in rags, the coal box empty, the sink running over,
the walls sweating and between the cold beads of sweat
the cockroaches running like mad; I saw them hobbling
along like twisted gnomes or falling backwards in the
epileptic frenzy, the mouth twitching, the slaver pouring
from the lips, the limbs writhing; I saw the walls giving
way and the pest pouring out like a winged fluid, and
the men higher up with their ironclad logic, waiting for
it to blow over, waiting for everything to be patched up,
waiting contentedly, smugly, with big cigars in their
mouths and their feet on the desk, saying things were
temporarily out of order. I saw the Horatio Alger hero,
the dream of a sick America, mounting higher and higher,
first messenger, thcn operator, then manager, then chief,
then superintendent, then vice-president, then president,
then trust magnate, then beer baron, then Lord of all the
Americas, the money god, the god of gods, the clay of
clay, nullity on high, zero with ninety-seven thousand
decimals fore and aft. You shits, I said to myself, I will
give you the picture of twelve little men, zeros without
decimals, ciphers, digits, the twelve uncrushable worms
who are hollowing out the base of your rotten edifice. I
will give you Horatio Alger as he looks the day after the
Apocalypse, when all the stink has cleared away.
From all over the earth they had come to me to be
succored. Except for the primitives there was scarcely a
race which wasn't represented on the force. Except for the
Ainus, the Maoris, the Papuans, the Vedda-s, the Lapps,
the Zulus, the Patagonians, the Igorots, the Hottentots,
the Tuaregs, except for the lost Tasmanians, the lost
Grimaldi men, the lost Atlanteans, J had a representative
of almost every species under the sun. I had two brothers
who were still sun-worshipers, two Nestorians from the
old Assyrian world; I had two Maltese twins from Malta
and a descendant of the Mayas from Yucatan; I had a few

32
Tropic of Capricorn
of our little brown brothers from the Philippines and
some Ethiopians from Abyssinia; I had men from the
pampas of Argentina and stranded cowboys from Montana; I had Grceks, Letts, Poles, Croats, Slovenes, Ruthenians, Czechs, Spaniards, Welshmen, Finns, Swcdcs,
Russians, Danes, Mexicans, Puerto Hicans, Cubans,
Uruguayans, Brazilians, Australians, Persians, Japs, Chinese, Javanese, Egyptians, Africans from the Gold Coast
and the Ivory Coast, Hindus, Armenians, Turks, Arabs,
Germans, Irish, English, Canadians-and plenty of Italians and plenty of Jews. I had only one Frenchman that
I can rccall and he lasted about three hours. I had a few
American Indians, Cherokees mostly, but no Tibetans,
and no Eskimos: I saw names I could never have imagined
and handwriting which ranged from cuneifonn to the
sophisticated and astoundingly beautiful calligraphy of
thc Chinese. I heard men beg for work who had been
Egyptologists, botanists, surgeons, gold miners, professors of Oriental languages, musicians, engineers, physicians, astronomers, anthropologists, chemists, mathematicians, mayors of cities and governors of states, prison
wardens, cowpunchers, lumberjacks, sailors, oyster pirates, stevedores, riveters, dentists, painters, sculptors,
plumbers, architects, dope peddlers, abortionists, white
slavers, sea divers, steeplejacks, farmers, cloak and suit
salesmen, trappers, lighthouse keepers, pimps, aldennen,
senators, every bloody thing under the sun, and all of
them down and out, begging for work, for cigarettes, for
carfare, for a chance, Christ Almighty, ;ust another
chance! I saw and got to knf)w men who were saints, if
there are saints in this world; I saw and spoke to savants,
crapulous and uncrapulous ones; I listened to men who
had the divine fire in their bowels, who could have convinced God Almighty that they were worthy of another
chance, but not the vice-president of thc Cosmococcic
Telegraph Company. I sat riveted to my desk and I
traveled around the world at lightning speed, and I
learned that everywhere it is the same-hunger, humilia-

Tropic of Capricorn
33
tion, ignorance, vice, greed, extortion, chicanery, torture,
despotism: the inhumanity of man to man: the fetters, the
harness, the halter, the bridle, the whip, the spurs. The
finer the caliber the worse off the man. Men werc walking
the streets of New York in that bloody, degrading outfit,
the despised, the lowest of the low, walking around like
auks, like penguins, like oxen, like trained seals, like
patient donkeys, like big jackasses, like crazy gorillas, like
docile maniacs nibbling at the dangling bait, like waltzing
mice, like guinea pigs, like squirrels, like rabbits, and
many and many a one was fit to govern the world, to
write the greatest book ever written. When I think of
some of the Persians, the Hindus, the Arabs I knew, when
I think of the character they revealed, their grace, their
tenderness, their intelligence, their holiness, I spit on the
white conquerors of the world, the degenerate British,
the pigheaded Germans, the smug, self-satisfied French.
The earth is one great sentient being, a planet saturated
through and through with man, a live planet expressing
itself falteringly and stutteringly; it is not the home of the
while race or the black race or the yellow race or the
lost blue race, but the home of man and all men are equal
before God and will have their chance, if not now then a
million years hence. The little brown brothers of the
Philippines may bloom again one day and the murdered
Indians of America north and south may also COJTI(, alive
one day to ride the plains where now the cities stand
helching fire and pestilence. Who has the last say? Man!
The earth is his hecause he is the earth, its fire, its water,
its air, its mineral and vegetable matter, its spirit which is
cosmic, which is imperishahle, which is the spirit of all
fhe planets, which transforms itself through him, through
endless signs and symhols, through endless manifestations. Wait, you cosmoeoccic telegraphic shits, you de1I)0ns on high waiting for the plumbing to be repaired,
wait, you dirty white conquerors who have sullied the
earth with your cloven hoofs, your instruments, your
weapons, your disease germs, wait, all you who are sitting

34
Tropic of Capricorn
in clover and counting your coppers, it is not the end. The
last man will have his say before it is finished. Down to
the last sentient molecule justice must be done--and will
be done! Nobody is getting away with anything, least of
all the cosmococcic shits of North America.
When it came time for my vacation-I hadn't taken one
for three years, I was so eager to make the company a
success!-I took three weeks instead of two and I wrote
the book about the twelve little men. I wrote it straight
off, five, seven, sometimes eight thousand words a day. I
thought that a man, to be a writer, must do at least five
thousand words a day. I thought he must say everything
all at once-in one book-and collapse afterwards. I
didn't know a thing about writing. I was scared shitless.
But I was determined to wipe Horatio Alger out of the
North American consciousness. I suppose it was the worst
book any man has ever written. It was a colossal tome and
faulty from start to finish. But it was my first book and
1 was in love with it. If I had had the money, as Gide had,
I would have published it at my own expense. If I had
had the courage that "Whitman had, I would have peddled
it from door to door. Everybody I showed it to said it
was terrible. I was urged to give IIp the idea of writing.
I had to learn, as Balzac did, that one must write volumes
before signing one's own name. I had to learn, as I soon
did, that one must give up everything and not do anything else but write, that one must write and write and
write, even if everybody in the world advises you against
it, even if nobody believes in you. Perhaps one does it
just because nobody believes; perhaps the real secret lies
in making people believe. That the book was inadequate,
faulty, bad, terrihle, as they said, was only natural. I was
attempting at the start what a man of genius would have
undertaken only at the end. I wanted to say the last
word at the beginning. It was absurd and pathetic. It was
a crushing defeat, but it put iron in my backbone and
sulphur in my blood. I knew at least what it was to fail.
I knew what it was to attempt something big. Today,

Tropic of Capricorn

35

when I think of the circumstances under which I wrote
that book, when I think of the overwhelming material
which I tried to put into form, when I think of what I
hoped to encompass, I pat myself on the back, I give myself a douhle A. I am proud of the fact that I made such
a miserable failure of it; had I succeeded I would have
been a monster. Sometimes, when I look over my notebooks, when I look at the names alone of those whom I
thought to write about, I am seized with vertigo. Each
man came to me with a world of his own; he came to mc
and unloaJed it on my desk; he expected mc to pick it up
and put it on my shoulders. I had no time to make a
world of my own: I had to stay fixed like Atlas, my feet on
the elephant's back and the elephant on the tortoise's
back. To inquire on what the tortoise stood would be to
go mad.
I didn't dare to think of anything then except the
"facts." To get beneath the facts I would have had to be
an artist, and one doesn't become an artist overnight. First
YOll have to be crushed, to have your conflicting pOints of
view annihilated. YOll have to be wiped out as a human
being in order to be born again an individual. You have
to be carbonized and mineralized in order to work upwards from the last common denominator of the self.
You have to get beyond pity in order to feel from the very
roots of your being. One can't make a new heaven and
earth with "facts." There are no "facts"-there is only
the fact that man, every man everywhere in the world,
is on his way to ordination. Some men take the long route
and some take the short route. Every man is working out
his destiny in his own way and nobody can be of help
(~xcept by being kind, generous and patient. In my enI husiasm certain things were then inexplicable to me
which now are clear. I think, for example, of Carnahan,
one of the twelve little men I had chosen to write about.
lIe was what is called a model messenger. He was a gradllate of a prominent university, had a sound intelligence
:111(1 was of exemplary character. He worked eighteen and

36
Tropic of Capricorn
twenty hours a day and earned more than any messenger
on the force. The clients whom he served wrote letters
about him, praising him to the skies; he was offered good
positions which he refused for one reason or another. He
lived frugally, sending the best part of his wages to his
wife and children who lived in another city. He had two
vices-drink and the desire to succeed. He could go for
a year without drinking, but if he took one drop he was
off. He had cleaned up twice in Wall Street and yet,
before coming to me for a job, he had gotten no further
than to be a sexton of a church in some little town. He
had been fired from that joh hecause he had broken into
the sacramental wine and rung the bells all night long.
He was truthful, sincere, earnest. I had implicit confidence in him and my confidence was proven by the record
of his service which was without a blemish. Nevertheless
he shot his wife and children in cold blood and then he
shot himself. Fortunately none of them died; they all lay
in the hospital together and they all recovered. I went to
see his wife, after they had transferred him to jail, to get
her help. She refused categorically. She said he was the
meanest, cruelest son of a bitch that ever walked on two
legs-she wanted to see him hanged. I pleaded with her
for two days, but she was adamant. I went to the jail and
talked to him through the mesh. J found that he had
already made himself popular with the authorities, had
already been granted special privileges. He wasn't at all
dejected. On the contrary, he was looking forward to
making the best of his time in prison by "studying up" on
salesmanship. He was going to be the best salesman in
America after his release. I might almost say that he
seemed happy. He said not to worry about him, he would
get along all right. He said everybody was swell to him
and that he had nothing to complain about. I left him
somewhat in a daze. I went to a nearby beach and decided to take a swim. I saw everything with new eyes. I
almost forgot to return 11Ome, so absorbed had I become
in my speculations about this chap. Who could say that

Tropic of Capricorn
37
everything that happened to him had not happened for
the best? Perhaps he might leave the prison a fuJI-fledged
evangelist instead of a salesman. Nobody could predict
what he might do. And nobody could aid him because he
was \\lorking out his destiny in his own private way.
There was another chap, a Hindu named Guptal. He
was not only a model of good behavior-he was a saint.
He had a passion for the flute wbicb he played all by
himself in his miserable little room. One day he was
fouml naked, his tbroat slit from ear to ear, and beside
him on thc bed was his flute. At the funeral there were a
dozen women who wept passionate tears, including the
wife of tIle janitor who had murdered him. I could write a
hook about this young man who was the gentlest and the
holiest man I ever met, who had never offended anybody
and never taken anything from anybody, but who had
made the cardinal mistake of coming to America to
spread peace and love.
There was Dave Olinski, another faithful, industrious
messenger who thought of nothing but work. He had one
fatal weakness-he talked too much. When he came to
loe he had already been around the globe several times
and wbat he hadn't done to make a living isn't worth
Idling about. He knew about twelve languages and he
was rather proud of bis linguistic ability. He was on"e of
Ihose men whose very willingness and enthusiasm is their
lIndoing. He wanted to help everybody along, show e
'verybody how to slIcceed. He wanted more work than
we could give him--hc was a glutton for work. Perhaps
I should have warned him, when I sent him to his office
(III the East Side, that IIC was going to work in a tough
Iwighborhood, but he pretended to know so much and
II(~ was so insistent on working in that locality (because
,., his linguistic ability) that I said nothing. I thought to
Illyself-you'll find out quickly enough for yourself. And
',llre enolJgh, he was only there a short time when he
I',O( into trouble. A tough Jewboy from the neighborhood
\Val ked in one day and asked for a blank. Dave, the

38
Tropic of Capricorn
messenger, was behind the desk. He didn't like the
way the man asked for the blank. He told him he ought
to be more polite. For that he got a box in the ears. That
made him wag his tongue some more, whereupon he got
such a wallop that his teeth flew down his throat and his
jawbone was broken in three places. Still he didn't know
enough to hold his trap. Like the damned fool that he
was he goes to the police station and registers a complaint. A week later, while he's sitting on a bench snoozing, a gang of roughnecks break into the place and beat
him to a pulp. His head was so battered that his brains
looked like an omelette. For good measure they emptied
the safe and turned it upside down. Dave died on the
way to the hospital. They found five hundred dollars
hidden away in the toe of his sock. . . . Then there was
Clausen and his wife Lena. They came in together when
he applied for the job. Lena had a baby in her arms and
he had two little ones by the hand. They were sent to me
by some relief agency. I put him on as a night messenger
so that he'd have a fixed salary. In a few days I had a
letter from him, a batty letter in which he asked me to
excuse him for being absent as he had to report to his
parole officer. Then another letter saying that his wife had
refused to sleep with him because she didn't want any
more babies and would I please come to see them and try
to persuade her to sleep with him. I went to his home-a
cellar in the Italian quarter. It looked like a bughouse.
Lena was pregnant again, about seven months under way,
and on the verge of idiocy. She had taken to sleeping on
the roof because it was too hot in the cellar, also because
she didn't want him to touch her any more. When I said
it wouldn't make any difference now she just looked at me
and grinned. Clausen had been in the war and maybe
the gas had made him a bit goofy-at any rate he was
foaming at the mouth. He said he would brain her if she
didn't stay off that roof. He insinuated that she was sleeping up there in order to carry on with the coal man who
lived in the attic. At this Lena smiled again with that

Tropic of Capricorn
39
i1'1 II less batrachian grin. Clausen lost his temper and
);;.vc her a swift kick in the ass. She went out in a huff takIng the brats with her. He told her to stay out for good.
'1'11('11 he opened a drawer and pulled out a big Colt. He
was keeping it in case he needed it some time, he said. He
-;laowed me a few knives, too, and a sort of blackjack
wllich he had made himself. Then he began to weep. He
-;aid his wife was making a fool of him. He said he was
';ick of working for her because she was sleeping with
,·vcrybody in the neighborhood. The kids weren't his
I wcause he couldn't make a kid any more even if he
wanted to. The very next day, while Lena was out marketIng, he took the kids up to the roof and with the blacklack he had shown me he beat their brains out. Then he
pimped off the roof head first. When Lena came home and
';;IW what happened she went off her nut. They had to
pllt her in a strait jacket and call for the ambulance .
. . There was Schuldig, the rat who had spent twenty
\,cars in prison for a crime he had never committed. He
I.ad been beaten almost to death before he confessed;
I hen solitary confinement, starvation, torture, perversion,
(lope. When they finally released him he was no longer a
Illlman being. He described to me one night his last thirty
days in jail, the agony of waiting to be released. I have
never heard anything like it; I didn't think a human being
could survive such anguish. Freed, he was haunted by the
fear that he might be obliged to commit a crime and be
sent back to prison again. He complained of being followed, spied on, perpetually tracked. He said "they" were
tempting him to do things he had no desire to do. "They"
were the dicks who were on his trail, who were paid to
hring him back again. At night, when he was asleep, they
whispered in his ear. He was powerless against them because they mesmerized him first. Sometimes they placed
dope under his pillow, and with it a revolver or a knife.
They wanted him to kill some innocent person so that
they would have a solid case against him this time. He got
worse and worse. One night, after he had walked around
III

40
Tropic of Capricorn
for hours with a batch of telegrams in his pocket, he went
up to a cop and asked to be locked up. He couldn't remember his name or address or even the office he was
working for. He had completely lost his identity. He
repeated over and over-'Tm innocent. ... I'm innocent."
Again they gave him the third degree. Suddenly he jumped
up and shouted like a madman-'Tn confess ... I'll confess"-and with that he began to reel off one crime after
another. He kept it up for three hours. Suddenly, in the
midst of a harrowing confession, he stopped short, gave a
quick look about, like a man who has suddenly come to,
and then, with the rapidity and the force which only a
madman can summon he made a tremendous leap across
the room and crashed his skull against the stone wall .
. . . I relate these incidents briefly and hurriedly as they
flash through my mind; my memory is packed with thousands of such details, with a myriad faces, gestures, tales,
confessions all entwined and interlaced like the stupendous reeling fac;ade of some Hindu temple made not of
stone but of the experience of human flesh, a monstrous
dream edifice built entirely of reality and yet not reality
itself but merely the vessel in which the mystery of the
human being is contained. My mind wanders to the
clinic where in ignorance and good will I brought some
of the younger ones to be cured. I can think of no more
evocative image to convey the atmosphere of this place
than the painting by Hieronymus Bosch in which the
magician, after the manner of a dentist extracting a live
nerve, is represented as the deliverer of insanity. All the
trumpery and quackery of our scientific practitioners
came to apotheosis in the person of the suave sadist who
operated this clinic with the full concurrence and connivance of the law. He was a ringer for Caligari, except that
he was minus the dunce cap. Pretending that he understood the secret regulations of the ~lands, invested with
the power of a medieval monarch, oblivious of the pain
he inflicted, ignorant of everything but his medical knowledge, he went to work on the human organism like a

Tropic of Capricorn
41
plumber sets to work on the underground drainpipes.
III addition to the poisons he threw into the patient's
,>\,stem he had recourse to his fists or his knees as the case
In i ght be. Anything justified a "reaction." If the victim
were lethargic he shouted at him, slapped him in the
Ll<'c, pinched his arm, cuffed him, kicked him. If on the
"lIltrary the victim were too energetic he employed the
.:lIne methods, only with redoubled zest. The feelings of
Ills subject were of no importance to him; whatever re:Idion he succeeded in obtaining was merely a demon'.1 ration or manifestation of the Jaws regulating the operalion of the internal glands of secretion. The purpose of
Ilis treatment was to render the subject fit for society.
Bnt no matter how fast he worked, no matter whether he
was successful or not successful, society was turning out
"lore and more misfits. Some of them were so marvelously
IIlaladapted that when, in order to get the proverbial reaclion, he slapped them vigorously on the cheek they re.ponded with an uppercut or a kick in the balls. It's true,
most of his subjects were exactly what he described them
it) he-incipient criminals. The whole continent ,vas on
Ille slide-is still on the slide-and not only the glands
1I(~ed regulating but the hall bearings, the armatme, the
"keletal structure, the cerebrum, the cerebellum, the coc"yx, the larynx, the pancreas, the liver, the upper intestine
:md the lower intestine, the heart, the kidneys, the testicles,
i he womb, the Fallopian tubes, the whole goddamned
works. The whole country is lawless, violent, explOSive,
demoniacal. It's in the air, in the elimatr, in the ultra-gran(Hose landscape, in the stone forests that are lying horizonI aI, in the torrential rivers that bite through the rocky canyons, in the supra-normal distances, the supernal arid
wastes, the over-lush crops, the monstrous fruits, the mixture of quixotic bloods, the fatras of cults, sects, beliefs, the
opposition of laws and languages, the contradictoriness of
temperaments, principles, needs, requirements. The continent is full of buried violence, of the hones of antediluvian monsters and of lost races of man, of mysteries which

42
Tropic of Capricorn
are wrapped in doom. The atmosphere is at times so
electrical that the soul is summoned out of its boJy and
runs amok. Like the rain everything comes in bucketsful
-or not at all. The whole continent is a huge volcano
whose crater is temporarily concealed by a moving panorama which is partly dream, partly fear, partly despair.
From Alaska to Yucatan it's the same story. Nature dominates. Nature wins out. Everywhere the same fundamental urge to slay, to ravage, to plunder. Outwardly they
seem like a fine, upstanding people-healthy, optimistic,
courageous. Inwardly they are filled with worms. A tiny
spark and they blow up.
Often it happens, as in Russia, that a man came in with
a chip on his shoulder. He woke up that way, as if struck
by a monsoon. Nine times out of ten he was a good fellow,
a fellow whom everyone liked. But when the rage came
on nothing could stop him. He was like a horse with the
blind staggers and the best thing you could do for him
was to shoot him on the spot. It always happens that way
with peaceable people. One day they run amok. In
America they're constantly running amok. What they
need is an outlet for their energy, for their blood lust.
Europe is bled regularly by war. America is pacifistic and
cannibalistic. Outwardly it seems to be a beautiful honeycomb, with all the drones crawling over each other in a
frenzy of work; inwardly it's a slaughterhouse, each man
killing off his neighbor and sucking the juice from his
bones. Superficially it looks like a bold, masculine world;
actually it's a whorehouse nm by women, with the native
sons acting as pimps and the bloody foreigners selling
their flesh. Nobody knows what it is to sit on his ass
and be content. That happens only in the fi1ms where
everything is faked, even the fires of hell. The whole continent is sound asleep and in that sleep a grand nightmare is taking place.
Nobody could have slept more soundly than I in the
midst of this nightmare. The war, when it came along,
made only a sort of faint rumble in my ears. Like my

Tropic of Capricorn
43
('()mpatriots, I was pacifistic and cannibalistic. The milliolls who were put away in the carnage passed away in a
cloud, much like the Aztecs passed away, and the Incas
;111<1 the red Indians and the buffaloes. People pretended
10 be profoundly moved, but they weren't. They were
simply tossing fitfully in their sleep. No one lost his appetite, no one got up and rang the fire alarm. The day I
/irst realized that there had been a war was about six
lIlonths or so after the armistice. It was in a street car
Oil the 14th Street crosstown line. One of our heroes, a
Texas lad with a string of medals across his chest, happened to see an officer passing on the sidewalk. The sight
of the officer enraged him. He was a sergeant himself and
II(' probably had good reason to be sore. Anyway, the
-;ight of the officer enraged him so that he got up from his
\I'at and began to bawl the shit out of the government, the
army, the civilians, the passengers in the car, everybody
:I lid everything. He said if there was ever another war they
couldn't drag him to it with a twenty-mule team. He said
he'd see every son of a bitch killed before he'd go again
himself; he said he didn't give a fuck about the medals
Iltey had decorated him with and to show that he meant
it he ripped them off and threw them out the window; he
';aid if he was ever in a trench with an officer again he'd
~hoot him in the back like a dirty dog, and that held good
lor General Pershing or any other general. He said a lot
more, with some fancy cuss words that he'd picked up
over tlwre, and nobody opened his trap to gainsay him.
i\nd when he got through T felt for the first time that there
had really been a war and that the man I was listening
10 had been in it and that despite his bravery the war
had made him a coward and that if he did any more killing
it wOl!ld he wide-awake and in cold blood, and nobody
would have the guts to send him to the elcctric chair because he 11ad performed his duty toward his fellow men,
which was to deny his o'."n sacred instincts and so everything was just and fair because one crime washes away
the other in the name of God, country and humanity,

44
Tropic of Capricorn
peace be with you all. And the second time I experienced
the reality of war was when ex-sergeant Griswold, one of
our night messengers, flew off the handle one day
and smashed the office to bits at one of the railway
stations. They sent him to me to give him the gate,
but I didn't have the heart to fire him. He had performed such a beautiful piece of destruction that I felt
more like hugging and squeezing him; I was only hoping to
Christ he would go up to the twenty-fifth floor, or whereever it was that the president and the vice-presidents had
their offices, and mop up the whole bloody gang. But in the
name of discipline, and to uphold the bloody farce it was,
I had to do something to punish him or be punished for
it myself, and so not knowing what less I could do I took
him off the commission basis and put him back on a salary
basis. He took it pretty badly, not realizing exactly where
I stood, either for him or against him, and so I got a letter
from him pronto, saying that he was going to pay me a
visit in a day or two and that r d better watch out because
he was going to take it out of my hide. He said he'd come
up after office hours and that if I was afraid r d better
have some strong-arm men around to look after me. I
knew he meant every word he said and I fe1t pretty
damned quaky when I put the letter down. I waited in
for him alone, however, feeling that it would be even more
cowardly to ask for protection. It was a strange experience. He must have realized the moment he laid eyes on
me that I was a son of a bitch and a lying, stinking hypocrite, as hc had called me in his letter. I was only that because he was what he was, which wasn't a hell of a lot
better. He must have realized immediately that we were
both in the same boat and that the bloody boat was
leaking pretty badly. I could see something like that
going on in him as he strode forward, outwardly still
furious, still foaming at the mouth, but inwardly all spent,
all soft and feathery. As for myself, what fear I had
vanished the moment I saw him enter. Just being there
quiet and alone, and being less strong, less capable of

Tropic of Capricorn
45
defending myself, gave me the drop on him. Not that I
wanted to have the drop on him either. But it had turned
nut that way and I took advantage of it, naturally. The
moment he sat down he went soft as putty. He wasn't a
man any more, but just a big child. There must have
heen millions of them like him, big children with machine
guns who could wipe out whole regiments without batting
an eyelash; but back in the work trenches, without a
weapon, without a clear, visible enemy, they were helpless as ants. Everything revolved about the question of
food. The food and the rent-that was all there was to
fight about-but there was no way, no clear, visible way,
to fight for it. It was like seeing an army strong and well
('quipped, capable of licking anything in sight, and yet
ordered to retreat every day, to retreat and retreat and
retreat because that was the strategic thing to do, even
though it meant lOSing ground, losing guns, losing ammunition, losing food, losing sleep, losing courage, losing
life itself finally. Wherever there were men fighting for
food and rent there was this retreat going on, in the fog,
in the night, for no earthly reason except that it was the
~ITategic thing to do. It was eating the heart out of him.
To fight was easy, but to fight for food and rent was like
lighting an army of ghosts. All you could do was to reI reat, and while you retreated you watched your own
hrothers getting popped off, one after the other, silently,
mysteriously, in the fog, in the dark, and not a thing to
(10 about it. He was so damned confused, so perplexed, so
hopelessly muddled and beaten, that he put his head in
his arms and wept on my desk. And while he's sobbing like
(hat suddenly the telephone rings and its the vice-pres ident's office-never the vice-president himself, but always
his office-and they want this man Griswold fired immediately and I say Yes Sir! and I hang up. I don't say
anything to Griswold about it but I walk home with him
and I have dinner with him and his wife and kids. And
when I leave him I say to myself that if I have to fire that
guy somebody's going to pay for it-and anyway I want

46
Tropic of Capricorn
to know Hrst where the order comes from and why. And
hot and sullen I go right up to the vice-president's office in
the morning and I ask to see the vice-president himself
and did you give the order I ask-and why? And before
he has a chance to deny it, or to explain his reason for it,
I give him a little war stuff straight from the shoulder
and where he don't like it and can't take it-and if you
don't like it, Mr. Will Twilldilliger, you can take the job,
my job and his job and you can shove them up your assand like that I walk out on him. I go back to the slaughterhouse and I go about my work as usual. I expect, of course,
that I'll get the sack before the day's over. But nothing of
the kind. No, to my amazement I get a telephone call from
the general manager saying to take it easy, to just calm
down a bit, yes, just go easy, don't do anything hasty,
we'll look into it, etc. I guess they're still looking into it
because Griswold went on working just as always-in
fact, they even promoted him to a clerkship, which was a
dirty deal, too, because as a clerk he earned less money
than as a messenger, but it saved his pride and it also took
a little more of the spunk out of him too, no doubt. But
that's what happens to a guy when he's just a hero in his
sleep. Unless the nightmare is strong enough to wake you
up you go right on retreating, and either you end up on a
bench or YOIl end up as vice-president. It's all one and
the same, a bloody fucking mess, a farce, a fiasco from
start to finish. I know it as was in it, because I woke up.
And when I woke up I walked out on it. I walked out by
the same door that I had walked in-without as much as
a by-your-leave, sir!
Things take place instantaneollsly, hut there's a long
process to he gone through first. What you get when
something happens is only the explosion, and the second
before that the spark. But everything happens according
to law-and with the full consent and collaboration of
the whole cosmos. Before I could get up and explode
the bomb had to be properly prepared, properly primed.
After putting things in order for the bastards up aJbove

Tropic of Capricorn
47
had to be taken down from my high horse, had to be
kicked around like a football, had to be stepped on,
squelched, humiliated, fettered, manacled, made impotent as a jellyfish. All my life I have never wanted for
friends, but at this particular period they seemed to
spring up around me like mushrooms. I never had a
moment to myself. If I wcnt home of a night, hoping to
take a rest, somebody would be there waiting to see me.
Sometimes a gang of them would be there and it didn't
seem to make much difference whether I came or not.
Each set of friends I made despised the other set. Stanley,
for example, despised the whole lot. Ulric too was rather
scornful of the others. Hc had just come back from Europe after an absence of several years. We hadn't seen
much of each other since boyhood and then one day,
(luite by accident, we met on thc street. That day was
an important day in my life because it opened up a new
world to me, a world J had often dreamed about but
never hoped to see. I remember vividly that we were
standing on the corner of Sixth Avenue and 49th Street
loward dusk. I remember it because it seemed utterly
incongruous to be listening to a man talking about Mt.
Aetna and Vesuvius and Capri and Pompeii and Morocco
and Paris on the corner of Sixth Avenue and 49th Street,
Manhattan. I remember the way he looked about as he
talked, like a man who hadn't quite realized what he was
in for but who vaguely sensed that he had made a horrihIe mistake in rchIrning. His eyes seemed to be saying
all the time-this has no value, no value whatever. He
(]idn't say that however, but just this over and over: ''I'm
sure you'd like it! I'm sure it's just the place for you."
When he left me I was in a daze. I couldn't get hold of
him again quickly enough. I wanted to hear it all over
again, in minute detail. Nothing that I had read about
Europe seemed to match this glowing account from my
friend's own lips. It seemed all the morc miraculous to
me in that we had spnmg out of the same environment.
He had managed it because he had rich friends-and

48
Tropic of Capricorn
because he knew how to save his money. I had never
known anyone who was rich, who had traveled, who
had money in the bank. All my friends were like myself,
drifting from day to day, and never a thought for the
future. O'Mara, yes, he had traveled a bit, almost all over
the world-but as a bum, or else in the army, which was
even worse than being a bum. My friend Ulric was the
first fellow I had ever met who I could truly say had
traveled. And he knew how to talk about his experiences.

As a result of that chance encounter on the street we
met frequently thereafter, for a period of several months.
He used to call for me in the evening after dinner and
we would stroll through the park which was nearby.
What a thirst I had! Every slightest detail about the
other world fascinated me. Even now, years and years
since, even now, when I know Paris like a book, his picture of Paris is still before my eyes, still vivid, still real.
Sometimes, after a rain, riding swiftly through the city
in a taxi, I catch fleeting glimpses of this Paris he described; just momentary snatches, as in passing the Tuileries, perhaps, or a glimpse of Montmartre, of the Sacre
Creur, through the Rue Laffitte, in the last flush of twilight. Just a Brooklyn boy! That was an expression he
used sometimes when he felt ashamed of his inability to
express himself more adequately. And I was just a
Brooklyn boy, too, which is to say one of the last and
the least of men. But as I wander about, rubbing elbows
with the world, seldom it happens that I meet anyone
who can describe so lovingly and faithfully what he has
seen and felt. Those nights in Prospect Park with myoId
friend Ulric are responsible, more than anything else, for
my being here today. Most of the places he described
for me I have still to see; some of them I shall perhaps
never see. But they live inside me, warm and vivid, just
as he created them in our rambles through the park.
Interwoven with this talk of the other wor1d was the
whole body and texture of Lawrence's work. Often, when

Tropic of Capricorn
49
the park had long been emptied, we were still sitting on a
bench discussing the nature of Lawrence's ideas. Looking
back on these discussions now I can see how confused
I was, how pitifully ignorant of the true meaning of
Lawrence's words. Had I really understood, my life could
never have taken the course it did. Most of us live the
greater part of our lives submerged. Certainly in my
own case I can say that not until I left America did I
emerge above the surface. Perhaps America had nothing
to do with it, but the fact remains that I did not open my
eyes wiele and full and clear until I struck Paris. And perhaps that was only because I had renounced America,
renounced my past.
My friend Kronski used to twit me about my "euphorias." It was a sly way he had of reminding me, when I was
extraordinarily gay, that the morrow would find me depressed. It was true. I had nothing but ups and downs.
Long stretches of gloom and melancholy followed by
extravagant bursts of gaiety, of trancelike inspiration.
Never a level in which I was myself. It sounds strange
to say so, yet I was never myself. I was either anonymous or the person called Henry Millcr raised to the nth
degree. In the latter mood, for instance, I could spill out
a whole book to IIymie while riding a trolley car. Hymic,
who never suspected me of being anything but a good
employment manager. I can see his eyes now as he looked
at me one night when I was in one of my states of
"euphoria." We had boarded the trolley at the Brooklyn
Bridge to go to some Hat in Greenpoint where a couple
of trollops were waiting to receive us. Hymie had started
to talk to me in his usual way about his wife's ovaries.
In the first place he didn't know precisely what ovaries
meant and so I was explaining it to him in crude and
simple fashion. In the midst of my explanation it suddenly seemed so profoundly tragic and ridiculous that
Hymie shouldn't know what ovaries were that I became
drunk, as drunk I mean as if I had had a quart of whisky
under my belt. From the idea of diseased ovaries there

50
Tropic of Capricorn
germinated in one lightning-like flash a sort of tropical
growth made up of the most heterogeneous assortment
of odds and ends in the midst of which, securely lodged,
tenaCiously lodged, I might say, were Dante and Shakespeare. At the same instant I also suddenly recalled my
whole private train of thought which had begun about
the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge and which suddenly
the word "ovaries" had broken. I realized that everything
Hymie had said up till the word "ovaries" had sieved
through me like sand. What I had begun, in the middle
of the Brooklyn Bridge, was what I had begun time and
time again in the past, usually when walking to my
father's shop, a performance which was repf'ated day in
and day out as if in a trance. What I had begun, in brief,
was a book of the hours, of the tedium and monotony of
my life in the midst of a ferocious activity. Not for years
had I thought of this book which I used to write every
day on my way from Delancey Street to \1urray Hill.
But going over the bridge, the sun setting, the skyscrapers gleaming like phosphorescent cadavers, the remembrance of the past set in ... remembrance of going
back and forth over the bridge, going to a job which was
death, rehIming to a home which was a morgue, memorizing Faust looking down into the cemetery, spitting
into the cemetery from the elevated train, the same guard
on the platform every morning, an imbecile, the other
imbeciles reading their newspapers, new skyscrapers going up, new tombs to work in and die in, the boats passing
below, the Fall River Line, the Albany Day Line, why
am I going to work, what will I do tonight, the warm
cllnt beside me and can I work my knuckles into her
groin, run away and become a cowboy, try Alaska, the
gold mines, get off and tum around, don't die yd, wait
another day, a stroke of luck, river, end it, down, down,
like a corkscrew, head and shoulders in the mud, legs
free; fish will come and bite, tomorrow a new life, where,
anywhere, why begin again, the same thing everywhere,
death, death is the solution, but don't die yet, wait an-

Tropic of Capricorn
51
other day, a stroke of luck, a new face, a new friend, millions of chances, you're too young yet, you're melancholy,
vou don't die yet, wait another day, a strokc of luck, fuck
anyway, and so on over the bridge into the glass shed,
(~verybody glued together, worms, ants, crawling out of a
dead tree and their thoughts crawling out the same
way .... Maybe, being up high between the two shores,
suspended above the traffic, above life and death, on each
~ide the high tombs, tombs blazing with dying sunlight,
Ihe river flowing heedlessly, flowing on like time itself,
Inaybe each time I passed up there, something was tugging away at me, urging me to take it in, to announce myself; anyway each time I passed on high I was truly alone
;llId whenever that happened the book commenced to
write itself, screaming the things which I never breathed,
file thoughts I never uttered, the conversations I never
held, the hopes, the dreams, the dolusions I never adIllitted. If this then was the true self it was marvelous,
:llld what's more it seemed never to change but always to
pick up from the last stop, to continue in the same vein, a
\'I~in I had struck when I was a child and went down in
Ille street for the first time alone and there frozen into the
dirty ice of the gutter lay a dead cat, the first time I had
looked at death and grasped it. From that moment I
kllew what it was to be isolated: every object, every livIlig thing and every dead thing led its independent exI\tcnee. My thoughts too led an independent existence.
Suddenly, looking at lIymie and thinking of that strange
word "ovaries," now stranger than any word in my whole
vocabulary, this feeling of icy isolation came over me
:lIId Hymie sitting beside me was a bullfrog, absolutely
.1 bullfrog and nothing more. I was jumping from the
Ilridge head first, down into the primeval ooze, the legs
(-lear and waiting for a bite; like that Satan had plunged
I hrough the hea~ens, through the solid core of the earth,
Ilcad down and ramming through to the very hub of the
(';lrth, the darkest, densest, hottest pit of hell. I was walking through the Mojave Desert and the man beside me

52
Tropic of Capricorn
was waiting for nightfall in order to fall on me and slay
me. I was walking again in Dreamland and a man was
walking above me on a tightrope and above him a man
was sitting in an airplane spelling letters of smoke in the
sky. The woman hanging on my arm was pregnant and
in six or seven years the thing she was carrying inside
her would be able to read the letters in the sky and he
or she or it would know that it was a cigarette and later
would smoke the cigarette, perhaps a package a day. In
the womb nails formed on every finger, every toe; you
could stop right there, at a toenail, the tiniest toenail
imaginable, and you could break your head over it, trying
to figure it out. On one side of the ledger are the books
man has written, containing such a hodgepodge of wisdom and nonsense, of truth and falsehood, that if one
lived to be as old as Methuselah one couldn't disentangle
the mess; on the other side of the ledger things like toenails, hair, teeth, blood, ovaries, if you will, all incalculable and an written in another kind of ink, in another
script, an incomprehensible, undecipherable script. The
bullfrog eyes were trained on me like two collar buttons
stuck in cold fat; they were stuck in the cold sweat of the
primeval ooze. Each collar button was an ovary that had
come unglued, an illustration out of the dictionary without benefit of lucubration; lackluster in the cold yellow
fat of the eyeball each buttoned ovary produced a subterranean chill, the skating rink of hell where men stood
upside down in the ice, the legs free and waiting for a
bite. Here Dante walked unaccompanied, weighed down
by his vision, and through endless circles gradually moving heavenward to be enthroned in his work. Here Shakespeare with smooth brow fell into the bottomless reverie
of rage to emerge in elegant quartos and innuendoes. A
glaucous frost of non-comprehension swept clear by gales
of laughter. From the hub of the bullfrog's eye radiated
clean white spokes of sheer lucidity not to be annotated
or categorized, not to be numbered or defined, but revolving sightless in kaleidoscopic change. I1ymie the

Tropic of Capricorn
53
hullfrog was an ovarian spud generated in the high passage between two shores: for him the skyscrapers had
heen built, the wilderness cleared, the Indians massacred,
I he buffaloes exterminated; for him the twin cities had
heen joined by the Brooklyn Bridge, the caissons sunk,
the cables strung from tower to tower; for him men sat
upside down in the sky writing words in fire and smoke;
for him the anesthetic was invented and the high forceps
and the Big Bertha which could destroy what the eye
eould not see; for him the molecule was broken down and
the atom revealed to be without substance; for him each
night the stars were swept with telescopes and worlds
coming to birth photographed in the act of gestation;
for him the barriers of time and space were set at nought
and all movement, be it the flight of birds or the revolution of the planets, expounded irrefutably and incontestahly by the high priests of the depossessed cosmos. Then,
as in the middle of the bridge, in the middle of a walk,
in the middle always, whether of a book, a conversation,
or making love, it was horne in on me again that I
had never done what I wanted and out of not doing what
r wanted to do there grew up inside me this creation
which was nothing but an obsessional plant, a sort of coral
growth, whieh was expropriating everything, including
life itself, until lif~ itself hecame this which was denied
hut which constantly asserted itself, making life and killing life at the same time. I could see it going on after
death, like hair growing on a corpse, people saying
"death" but the hair still testifying to life, and finally no
death but this life of hair and nails, the body gone, the
spirit quenched, but in the death something still alive,
expropriating space, causing time, creating endless movement. Through love this might happen, or sorrow, or being born with a club foot; the cause nothing, the event
everything. In the beginning was the Word . ... Whatever this was, the Word, disease or creation, it was still
running rampant; it would run on and on, outstrip time
and space, outlast the angels, unseat God, unhook the un i-

54

Tropic of Capricorn
verse. Any word contained all words-for him who had
become detached through love or sorrow or whatever
the cause. In every word the current ran back to the
beginning which was lost and which would never be
found again since there was neither beginning nor end
but only that which expressed itself in beginning and
end. So, on the ovarian trolley there was this voyage of
man and bullfrog composed of identical stuff, neither
better nor less than Dante but infinitely different, the one
not knOwing precisely the meaning of anything, the other
knowing too precisely the meaning of everything, hence
both lost and confused through beginnings and endings,
finally to be deposited at Java or India Street, Greenpoint, there to be carried back into the current of life,
so-called, by a couple of sawdust molls with twitching
ovaries of the well-known gastropod variety.
What strikes me now as the most wonderful proof of
my fitness, or unfitness, for the times is the fact that
nothing people were writing or talking about had any
real interest for me. Only the object haunted me, the
separate, detached, insignificant thing. It might be a part
of the human body or a staircase in a vaudevil1e house;
it might be a smokestack or a button I had found in the
gutter. Whatever it was it enabled me to open up, to
surrender, to attach my signature. To the life about mc,
to the people who made up the world I knew, I could
not attach my signature. I was as definitely outside their
world as a cannibal is outside the bounds of civilized
society. I was filled with a perverse love of the thing-initself-not a philosophic attachment, but a passionate,
desperately passionate hunger, as if in this discarded,
worthless thing which everyone ignored there was contained the secret of my own regeneration.
Living in the midst of a world where there was a plethora of the new I attached myself to the old. In every object there was a minute particle which particularly
claimed my attention. I had a microscopic eye for the
blemish, for the grain of ugliness which to me constituted

Tropic of Capricorn
55
lite sale beauty of the object. Whatever set the object
apart, or made it unserviceable, or gave it a date, atI racted and endeared it to me. If this was perverse it was
also healthy, considering that I was not destined to belong to this world which was springing up about me.
Soon I too would become like these objects which I
venerated, a thing apart, a non-useful member of society.
I was definitely dated, that was certain. And yet I was
ahle to amuse, to instruct, to nourish. But never to be
accepted, in a genuine way. When I wished to, when
I had the itch, I could single out any man, in any stratum
of society, and make him listen to me. I could hold him
spellbound, if I chose, but, like a magican, or a sorcerer,
ollly as long as the spirit was in me. At bottom I sensed
ill others a distrust, an uneasiness, an antagonism which,
because it was instinctive, was irremediable. I should
have been a clown; it would have afforded me the widest
range of expression. But I underestimated the profession.
I rad I become a clown, or even a vaudeville entertainer,
I would have been famous. People would have appreciated me precisely because they would not have understood; but they would have understood that I was not to
he understood. That would have been a relief, to say the
Icast.
It was always a source of amazement to me how easily
people could become riled just listening to me talk. Perhaps my speech was somewhat extravagant, though often
it happened when I was holding myself in with main
force. The tum of a phrase, the choice of an unfortunate
arljective, the facility with which the words came to my
lips, the allusions to subjects which were taboo-everyI hing conspired to set me off as an outlaw, as an enemy
.. f society. No matte~ how well things began sooner or
later they smelled me Ciht. If I were modest and humble,
for example, then I ,vas too modest, too humble. If I
v,ere gay and spontaneous, hold and reckless, then I was
100 free, too gay. I could never get myself quite au pOint
with the individual I happened to be talking to. If it

56
Tropic of Capricorn
were not a question of life and death-everything was
life and death to me then-if it was merely a question of
passing a pleasant evening at the home of some acquaintance, it was the same thing. There were vibrations emanating from me, overtones and undertones, which
charged the atmosphere unpleasantly. Perhaps the whole
evening they had been amused by my stories, perhaps
I had them in stitches, as it often happened, and everything seemed to augur well. But sure as fate something
was bound to happen before the evening came to a close,
some vibration set loose which made the chandelier ring
or which reminded some sensitive soul of the pisspot
under the bed. Even while the laughter was still dying
off the venom was beginning to make itself felt. "Hope to
see you again some time," they would say, but the wet,
limp hand which was extended would belie the words.
Persona non grata! Jesus, how clear it seems to me now!
No pick and choice possible: I had to take what was to
hand and learn to like it. I had to learn to live with the
scum, to swim like a sewer rat or be drowned. If you elect
to join the herd you are immune. To be accepted and
appreciated you must nullify yourself, make yourself
indistinguishable from the herd. You may dream, if you
dream alike. But if you dream something different you
are not in America, of America American, but a Hottentot
in Africa, or a Kalmuck, or a chimpanzee. The moment
youhave a "different" thought you cease to be an American. And the moment you become something different
you find yourself in Alaska or Easter Island or Iceland.
Am I saying this with rancor, with envy, with malice?
Perhaps. Perhaps I regret not having been able to become an American. Perhaps. In my zeal now, which is
again American, I am about to give birth to a monstrollS
edifice, a skyscraper, which will last undoubtedly long
after the other skyscrapers have vanished, but which will
vanish too when that which produced it disappears.
Everything American will disappear one day, more

Tropic of Capricorn
57
completely than that which was Greek, or Roman, or
Egyptian. This is one of the ideas which pushed me outside the warm, comfortable bloodstream where, buffaloes
all, we once grazed in peace. An idea that has caused
me infinite sorrow, for not to belong to something enduring is the last agony. But I am not a buffalo and I have no
desire to be one, I am not even a spiritual buffalo. I have
~;lipped away to rejoin an older stream of consciousness, a
race antecedent to the buffaloes, a race that will survive
the buffalo.
All things, all objects animate or inanimate that are
different, are veined with ineradicable traits. What is
me is ineradicable, because it is different. This is a sky~(Taper, as I said, but it is different from the usual
skyscraper l'americaine. In this skyscraper there are no
elevators, no seventy-third-story windows to jump from.
H you get tired of climbing you are shit out of luck. There
is no slot directory in the main lobby. If you are searching for somebody you will have to search. If you want a
(lrink you will have to go out and get it; there are no
soda fountains in this building, and no cigar stores, and
no telephone hooths. All the other skyscrapers have what
you want! this one contains nothing but what I want,
what I like. And somewhere in this skyscraper Valeska
has her being, and we're going to get to her when the
spirit move me. For the time being she's all right, Valeska,
secing as how she's six feet under and by now perhaps
picked clean by the worms. When she was in the flesh
she was picked clean too, by the human worms who have
110 respect for anything which has a different tint, a
(lifferent odor.
The sad thing about Valeska was the fact that she had
nigger blood in her veins. It was depressing for everyhody around her. She made you aware of it whether
you wished ~o be or no. Thc nigger blood, as I say, and
t he fact that her mother was a trollop. The mother was
white, of course. Who the father was nobody knew, not
(~ven Valeska herself.

a

58

Tropic of Capricorn
Everything was going along smoothly until the day
an officious little Jew from the vice-president's office happened to espy her. He was horrified, so he informed me
confidentially, to think that I had employed a colored
person as my secretary. He spoke as though she might
contaminate the messengers. The next day I was put on
the carpet. It was exactly as though I had committed
sacrilege. Of eourse I pretended that I hadn't observed
anything unusual about her, except that she was extremely intelligent and extremely capable. Finally the
president himself stepped in. There was a short interview
between him and Valeska during which he very diplomatically proposed to give her a better position in Havana. No talk of the blood taint. Simply that her services
had been altogether remarkable and that they would like
to promote her-to Havana. Valeska came back to the
office in a rage. When she was angry she was magnificent.
She said she wouldn't budge. Steve Romero and Hymie
were there at the time and we all went out to dinner
together. During the course of the evening we got a bit
tight. Valeska's tongue was wagging. On the way home
she told me that she was going to put up a fight; she
wanted to know if it would endanger my job. I told her
quietly that if she were fired I would quit too. She pretended not to believe it at first. I said I meant it, that I
didn't care what happened. She seemed to be unduly
impressed; she took me by the two hands and she held
them very gently, the tears rolling down her cheeks.
That was the beginning of things. I think it was the
very next day that I slipped her a note saying that I was
crazy about her. She read the note sitting opposite me
and when she was through she looked me square in the
eye and said she didn't believe it. But we went to dinner
again that night and we had more to drink and we danced
and while we were dancing she pressed herself against
me lasciviously. It was just the time, as luck would have
it, that my wife was getting ready to have another abortion. I was telling Valeska about it as we danced. On the

Tropic of Capricorn
59
way home she suddenly said-"Why don't you let me
lend you a hundred dollars?" The next night I brought
her home to dinner and I let her hand the wife the hundred dollars. I was amazed how well the two of them
got along. Before the evening was over it was agreed
upon that Valeska would come to the house the day of
the abortion and take care of the kid. The day came and I
gave Valeska the afternoon off. About an hour after she
had left I suddenly decided that I would take the afterIloon off also. I started toward the burlesque on Fourteenth Street. When I was about a block from the theater
I suddenly changed my mind. It was just the thought that
if anything happened-if the wife were to kick off-I
wouldn't feel so damned good having spent the afternoon
at the burlesque. I walked around a bit, in and out
of the penny arcades, and then I started homeward.
It's strange how things turn out. Trying to amuse the
kid I suddenly remembered a trick my grandfather had
shown me when I was a child. You take the dominoes and
you make tall battleships out of them; then you gently
pull the tablecloth on which the battleships are floating
IIntil they come to the edge of the table when suddenly
you give a brisk tug and they fall onto the floor. We tried
it over and over again, the three of us, until the kid got
so sleepy that she toddled off to the next room and fell
asleep. The dominoes were lying all over the floor and
fhe tablecloth was on the floor too. Suddenly Valeska was
leaning against the table, her tongue halfway down my
throat, my hand betwecn her legs. As I laid her back on
the table she twined her legs around me. I could feel one
of the dominoes under my feet-part of the fleet that we
had destroyed a dozen times or more. I thought of my
grandfather sitting on the bench, the way he had warned
my mother one day that I was too young to be reading
so much, the pensive look in his eyes as he pressed the
I lot iron against the wet seam of a coat; I thought of the
:dtack on San Juan Hill which the Rough Riders had
made, the picture of Teddy charging at the head of his

Tropic of Capricorn
volunteers in the big book which I used to read beside
the workbench; I thought of the battleship "Maine" that
floated over my bed in the little room with the ironbarred window, and of Admiral Dewey and of Schley and
Sampson; I thought of the trip to the Navy Yard which I
never made because on the way my father suddenly remembered that we had to call on the doctor that afternoon and when I left the doctor's office I didn't have any
more tonsils nor any more faith in human beings .... We
had hardly finished when the bell rang and it was my
wife coming home from the slaughterhouse. I was still
buttoning my fly as I went through the hall to open the
gate. She was as white as flour. She looked as though
she'd never be able to go through another one. We put
her to bed and then we gathered up the dominoes and
put the tablecloth back on the table. Just the other night
in a bistro, as I was going to the toilet, I happened to
pass two old fellows playing dominoes. I had to stop a
moment and pick up a domino. The feeling of it immediately brought back the battleships, the clatter they
made when they fell on the floor. And with the battleships my lost tonsils and my faith in human beings gone.
So that every time I walked over the Brooklyn Bridge
and looked down toward the Navy Yard I felt as though
my guts were dropping out. Way up there, suspended
between the two shores, I felt always as though I were
hanging over a void; up there everything that had ever
happened to me seemed unreal, and worse than unrealunnecessary. Instead of joining me to life, to men, to the
activity of men, the bridge seemed to break all connections. If I walked toward the one shore or the other it
made no difference: either way was hell. Somehow I had
managed to sever my connection with the world that human hands and human minds were creating. Perhaps my
grandfather was right, perhaps I was spoiled in the bud
by the books I read. But it is ages since books have claimed
me. For a long time now I have practically ceased to read.
But the taint is still there. Now people are books to me.
60

Tropic of Capricorn
61
r read them from cover to cover and toss them aside. I
devour them, one after the other. And the more I read,
the more insatiable I become. There is no limit to it.
There could be no end, and there was none, until inside
me a bridge began to form which united me again with
the current of life from which as a child I had been
separated.
A terrible sense of desolation. It hung over me for
years. If I were to believe in the stars I should have to believe that I was completely under the reign of Saturn.
Everything that happened to me happened too late to
mean much to me. It was even so with my birth. Slated
for Christmas I was born a half hour too late. It always
seemed to me that I was meant to be the sort of individual
that one is destined to be by virtue of being born on the
25th day of December. Admiral Dewey was born
on that day and so was Jesus Christ ... perhaps Krishnamurti too, for all I know. Anyway that's the sort of guy
r was intended to be. But due to the fact that my mother
had a clutching womh, that she held me in her grip like
an octopus, I came 01lt under another configurationwith a bad setup in other words. They say-the astrologers, I mean-that it will get bettcr and better for me
as I go on; the future, in fact, is supposed to be quite
glorious. But what do I care about the future? It would
have been better if my mother had tripped on the stairs
the morning of the 25th of Dccember and broken
her neck: that would have given me a fair start! When I
try to think, therefore, of where the break occurred I
keep putting it back fmther and further, until there is no
other way of accounting for it than by the retarded hour
of birth. Even my mother, with her caustic tongue,
seemed to understand it somewhat. "Always dragging
hehind, like a cow's tailH-that's how she characterized
me. But is it my fault that she held me locked inside her
until the hour had passed? Destiny had prepared me to
he such and such a person; the slars were in the right
conjunction and I was right with the stars and kicking

62
Tropic of Capricorn
to get out. But I had no choice about thc mother who
was to deliver me. Perhaps I was lucky not to have been
born an idiot, considering all the circumstances .. One
thing seems clear, however-and this is a hangover from
the 25th-that I was born with a crucifixion complex.
That is, to be more precise, I \vas born a fanatic. Fanatic!
I remembcr that word being hurled at me from early
childhood on. By my parents especially. What is a fanatic? One who believes passionately and acts desperately
upon what he believes. I was always believing in something and so getting into trouble. The more my hands
were slapped the more firmly I believed. I believed-and
the rest of the world did not! If it were only a question of
enduring punishment one could go on believing till the
end; but the way of the world is more insidious than that.
Instead of being punished you are undermined, hollowed
out, the ground taken from under your feet. It isn't even
treachery, what I have in mind. Treachery is understandable and combatable. No, it is something worse, something less than treachery. It's a negativism that causes
you to overreach yourself. You are perpetually spending
your energy in the act of balancing yourself. You are
seized with a sort of spiritual vertigo, you totter on the
brink, your hair stands on end, you can't believe that
bencath your feet lies an immeasurable abyss. It comes
about through excess of enthusiasm, through a passionate
desire to embrace people, to show them your love. The
more you reach out toward the world the more the world
retreats. Nobody wants real love, real hatred. Nobody
wants you to put your hand in his sacred entrails-that's
only for the priest in the hour of sacrifice. While you Jive,
while the blood's still warm, you are to pretend that there
is no such thing as blood and no such thing as a skeleton
beneath the covering of flesh. Keep off the grass! That's
the motto by which people live.
If you continue this balancing at the edge of the abyss
long enough you become very very adept: no matter
which way you are pushed you always right yourself. Be-

Tropic of Capricorn
63
ing in constant trim you develop a ferocious gaiety, an
unnatural gaiety, I might say. There are only two p~oples
in the world today who understand the meaning of such
a statement-the Jews and the Chinese. If it happens
that you are neither of these you find yourself in a strange
predicament. You are always laughing at the wrong
moment; you are considered cruel and heartless when in
reality you are only tough and durable. But if you would
laugh when others laugh and weep when they weep then
you must be prepared to die as they die and live as they
live. That means to be right and to get the worst of it at
the same time. It means to be dead while you are alive
and alive only when you are dead. In this company the
world always wears a normal aspect, even under the most
abnormal conditions. Nothing is right or wrong but thinking makes it so. You no longer believe in reality but in
thinking. And when you are pushed off the dead end
your thoughts go with you and they are of no use to you.
In a way, in a profound way, I mean, Christ was never
pushed off the dead end. At the moment when he was
tottering and swaying, as if by a great recoil, this negative backwash rolled up and stayed his death. The whole
negative impulse of humanity seemed to eoil IIp into a
monstrous inert mass to create the human integer, the
figure one, one and indivisible. There was a resurrection
which is inexplicahle unless we accept the fact that men
have always been willing and ready to deny their own
destiny. The earth rolls on, the stars roll on, but men,
the great body of men which makes up the world, are
caught in the image of the one and only one.
If one isn't crucified, like Christ, if one manages to
survive, to go on living above and beyond the sense of
desperation and futility, then another curious thing happens. It's as though one had actually died and actually
been resurrected again; one lives a supernormal life, like
the Chinese. That is to say, one is unnaturally gay, unnaturally healthy, unnaturally indifferent. The tragic
sense is gone: one lives on like a flower, a rock, a tree,

64
Tropic of Capricorn
one with Nature and against Nature at the same time.
If your best friend dies you don't even bother to go to
the funeral; if a man is run down by a streetcar right
before your eyes you keep on walking just as though nothing had happened; if a war llTeaks out you let your
friends go to the front but you yourself take no interest in
the slaughter. And so on and so on. Life becomes a spectacle and, if you happen to he an artist, you record the
passing show. Loneliness is abolished, because all values,
your own included, are destroyed. Sympathy alone flourishes, hut it is not a human sympathy, a limited sympathy
-it is something monstrous and evil. You care so little that
you can afford to sacrifice yourself for anybody or anything. At the same time your interest, your curiosity, develops at an outrageous pace. This too is suspect, since
it is capable of attaching YOll to a collar button just as
well as to a causc. There is no fundamental, unalterable
diffcrence between things: all is flux, all is perishable. The
surface of your being is constantly crumbling; within
however you grow hard as a diamond. And perhaps it is
this hard, magnetic core inside you which attracts others
to you willy-nilly. One thing is certain, that when you die
and are resurrected you belong to the earth and whatever
is of the earth is yours inalienahly. You become an anomaly
of nature, a being without shadow; you will never die
again but only pass away like the phenomena about you.
Nothing of this which I am now recording was known
to me at the time that I was going through the great
change. Everything I endured was in the nature of a preparation for that moment when, putting on my hat one
evening, I walked out of the office, out of my hitherto
private life, and sought the woman who was to liberate
me from a living death. In the light of this I look back now
upon my nocturnal rambles through the streets of New
York, the white nights when I walked in my sleep and
saw the city in which I was born as one sees things in a
mirage. Often it was O'Rourke, the company detective,
whom I accompanied through the silent streets. Often

Tropic of Capricorn
65
the snow was on the ground and the air chill and frosty.
And O'Rourke talking interminably about thefts, about
murders, about love, about human nature, about the
Colden Age. He had a habit, when he was well launched
upon a subject, of stopping suddenly in the middle of the
street and planting his heavy foot between mine so that
I couldn't hudge. And then, seizing the lapel of my coat,
he would bring his face to mine and talk into my eyes,
each word boring in like the turn of a gimlet. I can see
again the two of us standing in the middle of a street at
four in the morning, the wind howling, the snow blowing
down, and O'Rourke oblivious of everything but the story
he had to get oft his chest. Always as he talked I remember taking in the surroundings out of the corner
of my eye, hcing aware not of what he was saying but of
the tvvo of us standing in Yorkville or on Allen Street or on
Broadway. Always it seemed a little crazy to me, the
earnestness with which lJe recounted his banal murder
stories in the midst of the greatest muddle of architecture
that man had ever created. While he was talking about
fingerprints I might be taking stock of a coping or a
cornice on a little red brick huilding just back of his black
hat; I would get to thinking of the day the cornice had
been installed, who might he the man who had desi~ed
it and why had he made it so ugly, so like every other
lousy, rotten cornice which we had passed from the East
Side up to Harlem and beyond JJ adem, if we wanted to
push on, beyond New York beyond the Mississippi, beyond the Grand Canyon, beyond the Mojave Desert,
everywhere in America where there are buildings for
man and woman. It seemed absolutely crazy to me that
each day of my life I had to sit and listen to other people's
stories, the banal tragedies of poverty and distress, of
love and death, of yParning and disillusionment. If, as it
happened, there came to me each day at least fifty men,
each pouring out his tale of woe, and with each one J had
to be silent and "receive," it was only natural that at
some point along the line I had to close my ears, had to

66
Tropic of Capricorn
harden my heart. The tiniest little morsel was sufficient
for me; I could chew on it and digest it for days and weeks.
Yet I was obliged to sit there and be inundated, to get out
at night again and receive more, to sleep listening, to
dream listening. They streamed in from all over the world,
from every stratum of society, speaking a thousand different tongues, worshiping different gods, obeying different
laws and customs. The tale of the poorest among them was
a huge tome, and yet if each and everyone were written
out at length it might all be compressed to the size or the·
Ten Commandments, it might all be recorded on the
back of a postage stamp, like the Lord's Prayer. Each day
I was so stretched that my hide seemed to cover the whole
world; and when I was alone, when I was no longer
obliged to listen, I shrank to thc size of a pinpoint. The
greatest delight, and it was a rare one, was to walk the
streets alone ... to walk the streets at night when no one
was abroad and to reflect on the silence that surrounded
me. Millions lying on their backs, dead to the world, their
mouths wide open and nothing but snores emanating from
them. Walking amidst the craziest architecture ever invented, wondering why and to what end, if every day
from these wretched hovels or magnificent palaces there
had to stream forth an anny of men itching to unravel their
tale of misery. In a year, reckoning it modestly, I received
twenty-five thousand tales; in two years fifty thousand; in
four years it would be a hundred thousand; in ten years
I would be stark mad. Already I knew enough people to
populate a good-sized town. \Vhat a town it would be,
if only thpy could be gathcrpc1 together! Would they want
skyscrapers? Would they want museums? Would they
want libraries? Would they too build sewers and bridges
and tracks and factories? Would they make the same
little cornices of tin, one likp another, on, on, ad infinitum,
from Battpry Park to the Goklen Bay? I doubt it. Only
the lash of lmnger could stir them. The empty belly, the
wild look in the eye, the fear, the fear of worse, driving
them on. One after the other, all the same, all goaded to

Tropic of Capricorn
67
desperation, out of the goad and whip of hunger building the loftiest skyscrapers, the most redoutable dreadnoughts, making the finest steel, the flimsiest lace, the
most delicate glassware. Walking with O'Rourke and
hearing nothing but theft, arson, rape, homicide was like
listening to a little motif out of a grand symphony. And
just as one can whistle an air of Bach and be thinking of
a woman he wants to sleep with, so, listening to O'Rourke,
I wOll1d be thinking of the moment when he would stop
talking and say "whafll you have to eat?" In the midst
of the most gruesome murder I could think of the pork
tenderloin which we would be sure to get at a certain
place farther up the line, and wonder too what sort of
vegetables they would have on the side to go with it, and
whether I would order pie afterwards or a custard pudding. It was the same when I slept with my wife now and
then; while she was moaning and gibbering I might be
wondering if she had emptied the grounds in the coffee
pot, because she had the bad habit of letting things
slide-the important things, I mean. Fresh coffee was important-and fresh bacon with the eggs. If she were
knocked IIp again that would be bad, serious in a way, but
more important than that was fresh coffee in the morning
and the smell of bacon and eggs. I could plIt up with
heartbreaks and abortions and busted romances, but
I had to have something under my belt to carryon, and I
wanted something nourishing, something appetizing. I
felt exactly like Jesus Christ would have felt if he had
been taken down from the cross and not permitted to die
in the flesh. I am sure that the shock of crucifixion would
have been so great that he would have suffered a complete amnesia as regards humanity. I am certain that after
his wounds had healed he wouldn't have given a damn
about the tribulations of mankind but would have fallen
with the greatest relish upon a fresh cup of coffee and a
slice of toast, assuming he could have had it.
Whoever, through too great love, which is monstrous
after all, dies of his misery, is born again to know neither

68

Tropic of Capricorn

love nor hate, but to enjoy. And this joy of living, because it is unnaturally acquired, is a poison which eventually vitiates the whole world. Whatever is created beyond
the normal limits of human suffering, acts as a boomerang
and brings about destruction. At night the streets of
New York reflect the crucifixion and death of Christ.
When the snow is on the ground and there is the utmost
silence there comes out of the hideous buildings of New
York a music of such sullen despair and bankruptcy
as to make the flesh shrivel. No stone was laid upon·
another with love or reverence; no street was laid for
dance or joy. One thing has been added to another in a
mad scramble to fill the belly, and the streets smell of
empty bellies and full bellies and bellies half full. The
streets smell of a hunger which has nothing to do with
love; they smell of thc belly which is insatiable and of
the creations of the cmpty helly which are null and void.
In this null and void, in this zero whiteness, I learned
to enjoy a sandwich, or a collar button. I could study a
cornice or a coping with the greatest curiosity while
pretending to listen to a tale of human woe. I can remember the dates on certain buildings and the names of the
architects who designed them. I can remember the temperature and the velocity of the wind, standing at a certain corner; the tale that accompanied it is gone. T can
remember that I was even then remembering something
else, and I can tell you what it was that I was then remembering, but of what usc? There was one man in me which
had died and all that was left were his remembranccs;
there was another man who was alive, and that man was
supposed to be me, myself, but he was alive only as a
tree is alive, or a rock, or a beast of the field. Just as the
city itself had become a huge tomb in which men struggled
to earn a decent death so my own life came to resemble a
tomb which I was constructing out of my own death. I
was walking around in a stone forest the center of which
was chaos; sometimes in the dead center, in the very hcart
of chaos, I danced or drank myself silly, or I made love, or

Tropic of Capricorn
69
I befriended some one, or I planned a new life, but it was
all chaos, all stone, and all hopeless and bewildering. Until
the time when I would encounter a force strong enough
to whirl me out of this mad stone forest no life would be
possible for me nor COlI 1cl one page be written which
would have meaning. Perhaps in reading this, one has
still the impression of chaos hut this is written from a
live center and what is chaotic is merely peripheral, the
tangential shreds, as it wcre, of a world which no longer
concerns me. Only a few months ago I was standing in the
streets of New York looking about me as years ago I had
looked about me; again I found myself studying the architecture, studying the minute details which only the dislocated eye takes in. But this time it was like coming down
from Mars. What race of men is this, I asked myself. What
does it mean? And there was no remembrance of suffering or of the life that was snuffed out in the gutter, only
that I was looking upon a strange and incomprehensible
world, a world so rcmO\"('() from me that I had the sensation of belonging to anotlwr planet. From the top of the
Empire State Building I looked down one night upon the
city which I knew from below: there they were, in true
perspective, the human ants with whom I had crawled,
the human liee with whom I had struggled. They were
moving along at a snail's pace, each one doubtless fulfilling his microcosmic destiny. In their fruitless desperation they had reared this colossal edifice which was their
pride and boast. And from the topmost ceiling of this
colossal edifice they had suspended a string of cages in
which the imprisoned canaries warbled their senseless
warhle. At the very summit of their ambition
there were these little spots of beings warbling away for
dear life. In a hundred years, 1 thought to myself, perhaps
they would be caging live human beings, gay, demented
ones, who would sing about the world to come. Perhaps
they would breed a race of warblers who would warble
while the others worked. Perhaps in every cage there
would be a poet or a musician so that life below might

70
Tropic of Capricorn
flow on unimpeded, one with the stone, one with the
forest, a rippling creaking chaos of null and void. In a
thousand years they might all be demented, workers and
poets alike, and everything fall back to ruin as has happened again and again. Another thousand years, or five
thousand, or ten thousand, exactly where I am standing
now to survey the scene, a little boy may open a book in a
tongue as yet unheard of and about this life now passing,
a life which the man who wrote thc book never experienced, a life with deducted form and rhythm, with beginning and end, and the boyan closing the hook will think
to himself what a great race the Americans were, what a
marvelous life there had once been on this continent
which he is now inhabiting. But no race to come, except
perhaps the race of blind poets, will ever be abJe to
imagine the seething chaos out of which this future history was composed.
Chaos! A howling chaos! No need to choose a particular
day. Any day of my life-back there-would suit. Every
day of my life, my tiny, microscosmic life, was a reflection
of the outer chaos. Let me think back. ... At seven-thirty
the alarm went off. I didn't bounce out of bed. I lay there
till eight-thirty, trying to gain a Httle more sleep. Sleephow could I sleep? In the back of my mind was an image
of the office where I was already due. I could see H ymie
arriving at eight sharp, the switchboard already buzzing
with demands for help, the applicants climbing up the
wide wooden stairway, the strong smell of camphor from
the dreSSing room. \Vhy get up and repeat yesterday's
song and dance? As fast as I hired them they dropped
out. \Vorking my halls off and not even a clean
shirt to wear. ~1ondays I got my allowance from
the wife-carfare and lunch money. I was always in debt
to her and she was in debt to the grocer, the butcher, the
landlord, and so on. I couldn't be bothered shaving-there
wasn't time enough. I put on the torn shirt, gobble up
the breakfast, and borrow a nickel for the subway. If she
were in a bad mood I would swindle the money from the

Tropic of Capricorn
71
newsdealer at the subway. I get to the office out of breath,
an hour behind time and a dozen calls to make before I
even talk to an applicant. While I make one call there are
three other calls waiting to be answered. I use two telephones at once. The switchboard is buzzing. Hymie is
sharpening his pencils between calls. McGovern thc doorman is standing at my elbow to give me a word of advice
about one of the applicants, probably a crook, who is
trying to sneak hack under a false name. Behind me
the cards and ledgers containing the name of every applicant who had ever passed through the machine. The
bad ones are starred in red ink; some of them have six
aliases after their names. Meanwhile the room is crawling
like a hive. The room stinks with sweat, dirty feet, old
uniforms, camphor, lysol, had breaths. Half of them will
have to be turned away-not that we don't need them,
but that even under the worst conditions they just won't
do. The man in front of my desk, standing at thc rail
with palsied hands and bleary cyes, is an ex-mayor of
New York City. He's scventy now and would he glad
to take anything. lIe has wonderful letters of recommendation, h1lt we can't take anyone over forty-five years of
age. Forty-five in New York is the deadline. The telephone rings and it's a smooth secretary from the Y.~1.C.A.
Wouldn't I make an exception for a hoy who has just
walked into his office-a boy who was in the reformatory
for a year or so. What did he do'? He tried to rape his
sister. An Italian, of course. O'Mara, my assistant, is putting an applicant through the third degree. He suspects
him of being an epileptic. Finally he succeeds and for
good measure the boy throws a fit right there in the office.
One of the women faints. A beautiful looking young
woman with a handsome fur around her neck is trying to
persuade me to take her on. She's a whore clean through
and I know if I put her on therel1 be hell to pay. She
wants to work in a certain huilding uptown-because it
is ncar home, she says. Nearing lunch time and a few
cronies are heginning to drop in. They sit around watch-

72

Tropic of Capricorn
ing me work, as if it were a vaudeville performance.
Kronski, the medical student, arrives; he says one of the
boys I've just hired has Parkinson's disease. I've been so
busy I haven't had a chance to go to the toilet. All the
telegraph operators, all the managers, suffer from hemorrlloids, so O'Rourke tells me. He's been having electrical
massages for the last two years, but nothing works. Lunch
time and there are six of us at the table. Some one will .
have to pay for me, as usual. We gulp it down and rush
back. More calls to make, more applicants to interview.
The vice-president is raising hell because we can't keep
the force up to normal. Every paper in New York and
for twenty miles outside New York carries long ads demanding help. All the schools have been canvassed for
part-time messengers. All the charity bureaus and relief
societies have been invoked. They drop out like flies.
Some of them don't even last an hour. It's a human Hour
mill. And the saddest thing about it is that it's totally
unnecessary. But that's not my concern. Mine is to do
or die, as Kipling says. I plug on, through one victim
after another, the telephone ringing like mad, the place
smelling more and more vile, the holes getting bigger
and bigger. Each one is a human being asking for a crust
of bread; I have his height, weight, color, religion, education, experience, etc. All the data will go into a ledger
to be filed alphabetically and then chronologically.
Names and dates. Fingerprints too, if we had the time
for it. So that what? So that the American people may
enjoy the fastest form of communication known to man,
so that they may sell their wares more quickly, so that the
moment you drop dead in the street your next of kin may
be apprised immediately, that is to say, within an hour,
unless the messenger to whom the telegram is entrusted
decides to throw up the job and throw the whole batch
of telegrams in the garbage can. Twenty million Christmas blanks, all wishing you a Merry Christmas and a
Happy New Year, from the directors and president and
vice-president of the Cosmo demonic Telegraph Com-

Tropic of Capricorn
73
pany, and maybe the telegram reads ":\10ther dying,
come at once," but the clerk is too busy to notice the
message and if you sue for damages, spiritual damages,
there is a legal department trained expressly to meet
such emergencies and so you can be sure that your
mother will die and you will have a Merry Christmas
and Happy New Year just the same. The clcrk, of course,
will be fired and after a month or so he will come back
for a messenger's job and he will be taken on and put
on the night shift near the docks where nobody will
recognize him, and his wife will come with the brats to
thank the general manager, or perhaps the vice-president
himself, for the kindness and consideration s1l0Wll. And
then one day everybody will be heartily surprised that
said messenger robbcd the till and O'Hourke will be
asked to take the night train for Cleveland or Detroit
and to track him down cven if it costs ten thousand dollars. And then the vice-president will issue an order
that no more Jews are to be hired, but after three or
four days he will lct up a bit because there are nothing
but Jews coming for the job. And because it's getting so
very tough and thc timber so damned scarce I'm on the
point of hiring a midget from the circus and I probably
would have hired him if he hadn't broken down and
confessed that he was a she. And to make it worse Valeska takes "it" under her wing, takes "it" home that night
and under pretense of sympathy gives "it" a thorough examination, including a vaginal exploration with the index
finger of the right hand. And the midget becomes vcry
amorous and finally very jealous. It's a trying day and
on the way home I bump into the sister of one of my
friends and she insists on taking me to dinner. After
dinner we go to a movie and in the dark we begin to
play with each other and finally it gets to such a point
that we leave the movie and go back to the office where
I lay her out on the zinc-covered table in the dressing
room. And when I get home, a little after midnight,
there's a telephone call from Valeska and she wants me

74
Tropic of Capricorn
to hop into the subway immediately and come to her
house, it's very urgent. It's an hour's ride and I'm dead
weary, but she said it was urgent and so I'm on the way.
And when I get there I meet her cousin, a rather attractive young woman, who, according to her own story, had
just had an affair with a strange man because she was
tired of being a virgin. And what was an the fuss about?
Why this, that in her eagerness she had forgotten to take
the usual precautions, and maybe now she was pregnant
and then what? They wanted to know what I thought
should be done and I said: "Nothing." And then Valeska
takes me aside and she asks me if I wouldn't care to
sleep with her cousin, to break her in, as it were, so that
there wouldn't be a repetition of that sort of thing.
The whole thing was cockeyed and we were all laughing hysterically and then we began to drink-the only
thing they had in the house was kummel and it didn't
take much to put us under. And then it got more cockeyed because the two of them began to paw me and
neither one would let the other do anything. The result
was I undressed them both and put them to bed and they
fell asleep in each other's arms. And when I walked out,
toward five A.M., I discovered I didn't have a cent in my
pocket and I tried to bum a nickel from a taxi driver but
nothing doing so fInally I took off my fur-lined overcoat
and I gave it to him-for a nickel. When I got home my
wife was awake and sore as hell because I had stayed out
so long. We had a hot discussion and finally I lost my
temper and I clouted her and she fell on the Roar and
began to weep and sob and then the kid woke up and
hearing the wife bawling she got frightened and began
to scream at the top of her lungs. The girl upstairs came
running down to see what was the matter. She was in
her kimono and her hair was hanging down her back. In
the excitement she got close to me and things happened
without either of us intending anything to happen. We
put the wife to bed with a wet towel around her forehead and while the girl upstairs was bending over her I

Tropic of Capricorn
75
stood behind her and lifting her kimono I got it into her
and she stood there a long time talking a lot of foolish,
soothing nonsense. Finally I climbed into bed with the
wife and to my utter amazement she began to cuddle up
to me and without saying a word we locked horns and we
stayed that way until dawn. I should have been worn out,
but instead I was wide-awake, and I lay there beside her
planning to take the day off and look up the whore with
the beautiful fur whom I was talking to earlier in the day.
After that I began to think about another woman, the
wife of one of my friends who always twitted me about
my indifference. And then I began to think about one
after the other-all those whom I had passed up for one
reason or another-until finally I fell sound asleep and
in the midst of it I had a wet dream. At seven-thirty the
alarm went off as usual and as usual I looked at my torn
shirt hanging over the chair and I said to myself what's
the use and I turned over. At eight o'clock the telephone
rang and it was Bymie. Better get over quickly, he said,
because there's a strike on. And that's how it went, day
after day, and there was no reason for it, except that the
whole country was cockeyed and what I relate was going
on everywhere, either OIl a smaller scale or a larger
scale, but the same thing everywhere, because it was all
chaos and all meaningless.
It went on and on that way, day in and day out for
almost five solid years. The continent itself perpetually
wracked bv
cvclones,
tornadoes, tidal waves, floods,
,
-'
droughts,' blizzards, heat waves, pests, strikes, hold-ups,
assassinations, suicides ... a continuous fever and torment, an eruption, a whirlpool. I was like a man sitting
in a lighthouse: below me the wild waves, the rocks, the
reefs, the debris of shipwrecked fleets. I could give the
danger signal but I was powerless to avert catastrophe. I
breathed danger and catastrophe. At times the sensation
of it was so strong that it belched like fire from my
nostrils. I longed to be free of it all and yet I was irresist-

76
Tropic of Capricorn
ibly attracted. I was violent and phlegmatic at the same
time. I was like the lighthouse itself-secure in the midst
of the most turbulent sea. Beneath me was solid rock,
the same shelf of rock on which the towering skyscrapers
were reared. My foundations went deep into the earth
and the armature of my body was made of steel riveted
with hot bolts. Above all I was an eye, a huge searchlight
which scoured far and wide, which revolved ceaselessly,
pitilessly. This eye so wide-awake seemed to have made
all my other faculties dormant; all my powers were used
up in the effort to see, to take in the drama of the world.
1£ I longed for destruction it was merely that this eye
might be extinguished. I longed for an earthquake, for
some cataclysm of nature which would plunge the lighthouse into the sea. I wanted a metamorphosis, a change
to :6.sh, to leviathan, to destroyer. I wanted the earth to
open up, to swallow everything in one engulfing yawn. I
wanted to see the eity buried fathoms deep in the bosom
of the sea. I wanted to sit in a cave and read by candlelight. I wanted that eye extinguished so that I might have
a chance to know my own body, my own desires. I wanted
to be alone for a thousand years in order to reflect on
what I had seen and heard-and in order to forget. I
wanted something of the earth which was not of man's
doing, something absolutely divorced from the human
of which I was surfeited. I wantcd something purely terrestrial and absolutely divestpd of idea. I wanted to feel
the blood running back into my veins, even at the cost
of annihilation. I wanted to shake the stone and the light
out of my system. I wanted the dark fecundity of nature,
the deep well of the womb, silence, or else the lapping
of the black waters of death. I wanted to be that night
which the rcmorseless eye illuminated, a night diapered
with stars and trailing comets. To be of night so frighteningly silent, so utterly incomprehensible and eloqucnt at
the same time. Never more to speak or to listen or to
think. To be englobed and encompassed and to encom-

Tropic of Capricorn
77
pass and to englobe at the same time. No more pity, no
more tenderness. To be human only terrestrially, like a
plant or a worm or a brook. To be decomposed, divested
of light and stone, variable as the molecule, durable as
the atom, heartless as the earth itself.

It

was just about a week before Valeska committed
suicide that I ran into Mara. The week or two preceding
that event was a veritable nightmare. A series of sudden
deaths and strange encounters with women. First of all
there was Pauline Janowski, a little J ewess of sixteen or
seventeen who was without a home and without friends
or relatives. She came to the office looking for a job. It
was toward closing time and I didn't have the heart to
turn her down cold. For some reason or other I took it
into my head to bring her home for dinner and if possible
try to persuade the wife to put her up for a while. What
attracted me to her was her passion for Balzac. All the
way home she was talking to me about Lost Illusions.
The car was packed and we were jammed so tight together that it didn't make any difference what we were
talking about because we were both thinking of only one
thing. My wife of course was stupefied to see me standing
at the door with a beautiful young girl. She was polite
and courteous in her frigid way but I could see immediately that it was no use asking her to put the girl up.
It was about all shc could do to sit through the dinner
with us. As soon as we had finished she excused herself
and went to the movies. The girl startcd to weep. W c
were still sitting at the table, the dishes piled up in front
of us. I went over to her and I put my arms around her.
I felt genuinely sorry for her and I was perplexed as to
what to do for her. Suddenly she threw her arms around
my neck and she kissed me paSSionately. We stood there
a long while embracing each other and then I thought
to myself no, it's a crime, and besides maybe the wife
didn't go to the movies at all, maybe she'll be ducking
back any minute. I told the kid to pull herself together,
that we'd take a trolley ride somewhere. I saw ,the child's

78

Tropic of Capricorn

79

bank lying on the mantelpiece and I took it to the toilet
and emptied it silently. There was only about seventy-five
cents in it. We got on a trolley and went to the beach.
Finally we found a deserted spot and we lay down in
the sand. She was hysterically passionate and there was
nothing to do but to do it. I thought she would reproach
me afterwards, but she didn't. We lay there a while and
she began talking about Balzac again. It seems she had
ambitions to be a writer herself. I asked her what she
was going to do. She said she hadn't the least idea.
When we got up to go she' asked me to put her on the
highway. Said she thought she would go to Cleveland or
some place. It was after midnight when I left her standing in front of a gas station. Shc had about thirty-five
cents in her pocketbook. As I started homeward I began
cursing my wife for the mean bitch that she was.
I wished to Christ it was she whom I had left standing on
the highway with no place to go to. I knew that when I
got back she wouldn't even mention the girl's name.
I got back and she was waiting up for me. I thought
she was going to give me hell again. But no, she had
waited up because there was an important message from
O'Rourke. I was to telephone him soon as I got home.
However, I decided not to telephone. I decided to get
undressed and go to bed. Just when I had gotten comfortably settled the telephone rang. It was O'Rourke.
There was a telegram for me at the office-he wanted
to know if he should open it and read it to me. I said of
course. The telegram was signed Monica. It was from
Buffalo. Said she was arriving at the Grand Central in
the morning with her mother's body. I thanked him and
went back to bed. No questions from the wife. I lay there
wondering what to do. If I were to comply with the request that would mean starting things all over again. I
had just been thanking my stars that I had gotten rid
of Monica. And now she was coming back with her
mother's corpse. Tears and reconciliation. No, I didn't
like the lJrospect at all. Supposing I didn't show up?

80
Tropic of Capricorn
What then? There was always somebody around to take
care of a corpse. Especially if the bereaved were an attractive young blonde with sparkling blue eyes. I wondered if she'd go back to her job in the restaurant. If she
hadn't known Greek and Latin I would never have been
mixed up with her. But my curiosity got the better of me.
And then she was so goddamned poor, that too got me.
Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if her hands hadn't
smelled greasy. That was the fly in the ointment-the
greasy hands. I remember the first night I met her and we
strolled through the park. She was ravishing to look at,
and she was alert and intelligent. It was just the time
when women were wearing short skirts and she wore
them to advantage. I used to go to the restaurant night
after night just to watch her moving around, watch her
bending over to serve or stooping down to pick up a fork.
And with the beautiful legs and the bewitching eyes a
marvelous line about Homer, with the pork and sauerkraut a verse of Sappho's, the Latin conjugations, the
odes of Pindar, with the dessert perhaps The Rubaiyat
or Cynara. But the greasy hands and the frowsy bed in
the hoarding house opposite the marketplace-Whew! I
couldn't stomach it. The more I shunned her the more
clinging she became. Ten-page letters about love with
footnotes on Thus Spake Zarathustra. And then suddenly
silence and me congratulating myself heartily. No, I
couldn't bring myself to go to the Grand Central Station
in the morning. I rolled over and I fell sound asleep. In
the morning I would get the wife to telephone the office
and say I was ill. I hadn't heen ill now for over a weekit was coming to me.
At noon I find Kronski waiting for me outside the office.
He wants me to have lunch with him . . . there's an
Egyptian girl he wants me to meet. The girl turns out to
he a Jewess, but she came from Egypt and she looks like
an Egyptian. She's hot stuff and the two of us are working
on her at once. As I was supposed to be ill I decided not
to return to the office but to take a stroll through the East

Tropic of Capricorn
81
Side. Kronski was going back to cover me up. We shook
hands with the girl and we each went our separate ways.
I headed toward the river where it was cool, having forgotten about the girl almost immediately. I sat on the
edge of the pier with my legs dangling over the stringpiece. A scow passed with a load of red bricks. Suddenly
Monica came to my mind. Monica arriving at the Grand
Central Station with a corpse. A corpse f. o. b. New York!
It seemed so incongruous and ridiculous that I burst out
laughing. What had she done with it? Had she checked it
or had she left it on a siding? No doubt she was cursing
me out roundly. T wondered what she would really think
if she could have imagined me sitting there at the dock
with my legs dangling over the stringpiece. It was warm
and sultry despite the breeze that was blowing off the
river. T began to snooze. As I dozed off Pauline came to
my mind. I imagined hcr walking along the highway with
her hand up. She was a brave kid, no doubt about it.
Funny that she didn't seem to worry ahout getting
knocked up. Maybe she was so desperate she didn't care.
And Balzac! That too was highly incongruous. Why Balzac? Well, that was her affair. Anyway she'd have enough
to eat with, llntil she met another guy. But a kid like that
thinking abont hecoming a writer! Wen, why not? Everybody had illusions of one sort or another. Monica too
waY{ted to he a writer. Everybody was becoming a writer.
A writer! Jesus, how futile it seemed!

I dozed off ... When I woke up I had an erection. The
Slln seemed to he burning right into my fly. I got up and
I washed my face at the drinking fountain. It was still as
hot and sultry as ever. The asphalt was soft as mush, the
flies were biting, the garbage was rotting in the gutter.
I walked about between the pushcarts and looked at
things with an empty eye. I had a sort of lingering hard
on all the while, hut no definite object in mind. It was
only when I got hack to Second Avenue that I suddenly
remembered the Egyptian Jewess from lunch time. I

82

Tropic of Capricorn

remembered her saying that she lived over the Russian
restaurant near Twelfth Street. Still I hadn't any definite
idea of what I was going to do. Just browsing about, killing time. My feet nevertheless were dragging me northward, toward Fourteenth Street. When I got abreast of
the Russian restaurant I paused a moment and then I
ran up the stairs three at a time. The hall door was open.
I climbed up a couple of flights scanning the names on
the doors. She was on the top floor and there was a
man's name under hers. I knocked softly. No answer. I
knocked again, a little harder. This time I heard some
one moving about. Then a voice close to the door, asking
who is it and at the same time the knob turning. I pushed
the door open and stumbled into the darkened room.
Stumbled right into her arms and felt her naked under
the half-opened kimono. She must have come out of a
sound sleep and only half realized who was holding her
in his arms. When she realized it was me she tried to
break away but I had her tight and I began kissing her
passionately and at the same time backing her up toward
the couch near the window. She mumbled something
about the door being open but I wasn't taking any chance
on letting her slip out of my arms. So I made a slight detour and little by little I edged her toward the door and
made her shove it to with her ass. I locked it with my one
free hand and then I moved her into the center of the
room and with the free hand I unbuttoned my fly and got
my peeker out and into position. She was so drugged with
sleep that it was almost like working on an automaton. I
could see too that she was enjoying the idea of being
fucked half asleep. The only thing was that every time
I made a lunge she grew more wide-awake. And as she
grew more conscious she became more frightened. It was
difficult to know how to put her to sleep again without
losing a good fuck. I managed to tumble her on to the
couch without losing ground and she was hot as hel1
now, twisting and squirming like an eel. From the time I
had started to maul her I don't think she had opened

Tropic of Capricorn
83
her eyes once. I kept saying to myself-"an Egyptian
fuck . , . an Egyptian fuck"-and so as not to shoot off
immediately I deliberately began thinking about the
corpse that Monica had dragged to the Grand Central
Station and about the thirty-five cents that I had left with
Pauline on the highway. Then bango! A loud knock on
the door and with that she opens her eyes wide and looks
at me in utmost terror. I started to pull away quickly but
to my surprise she held me tight "Don't move," she
whispered in my ear. "Wait!" There was another loud
knock and then I heard Kronski's voice saying "It's me,
Thelma . . . it's me, Izzy." At that I almost burst out
laughing. We slumped back again into a natural position
and as her eyes softly closed· I moved it around inside
her, gently, so as not to wake her up again. It was one of
the most wonderful fucks I ever had in my life. I thought
it was going to last forever. Whenever I felt in danger of
going off I would stop moving and think-think for example of where I would like to spend my vacation, if I
got onc, or think of the shirts lying in the bureau drawer,
or the patch in the bedroom carpet just at the foot of the
bed. Kronksi was still standing at the door-I could hear
him changing about from one position to another. Every
time I became aware of him standing there I jibbed her a
little for good measure and in her half sleep she
answered back, humorously, as though she understood
what I meant by this put-and-take language. I didn't
dare to think what she might be thinking or I'd have
come immediately. Sometimes I skirted dangerously
close to it, but the saving trick was always Monica and
the corpse at the Grand Central Station. The thought of
that, the humorousness of it, I mean, acted like a cold
douche.
When it was all over she opened her eyes wide and
stared at me, as though she were taking me in for the first
time. I hadn't a word to say to her; the only thought in
my head was to get out as quickly as possible. As we were
washing up I noticed a note on the floor near the door.

Tropic of Capricorn
84
It was from Kronski. His wife had just been taken to the
hospital-he wanted her to meet him at the hospital. I
felt relieved! It meant that I could break away without
wasting any words.
The next day I had a telephone call from Kronski. His
wife had died on the operating table. That evening I went
home for dinner; we were still at the table when the bell
rang. There was Kronski standing at the gate looking absolutely sunk. It was always difficult for me to offer words
of condolence; with him it was absolutely impossible. I
listened to my wife uttering her trite words of sympathy
and I felt more than ever disgusted with her. "Let's get
out of here," I said.
We walked along in absolute silence for a while. At
the park we turned in and headed for the meadows.
There was a heavy mist which made it impossible to see
a yard ahead. Suddenly, as we were swimming along, he
began to sob. I stopped and turned my head away. When
I thought he had finished I looked around and there he
was staring at me with a strange smile. "It's funny," he
said, "how hard it is to accept death." I smiled too now
and put my hand on his shoulder. "Go on," I said, "talk
your head off. Get it off your chest." We started walking
again, up and down over the meadows, as though we
were walking under the sea. The mist had become so
thick that 1 could just barely discern his features. He was
talking quietly and madly. "I knew it would happen," he
said. "It was too beautiful to last." The night before she
was taken ill he had had a dream. He dreamt that he had
lost his identity. "I was stumbling around in the dark
calling my own name. 1 remember coming to a bridge,
and looking down into the water I saw myself drowning.
I jumped off the bridge head first and when 1 came up I
saw Yetta floating under the bridge. She was dead." And
then suddenly he added: "You were there yesterday
when 1 knocked at the door, weren't you? 1 knew you
were there and I couldn't go away. 1 knew too that Yetta
was dying and 1 wanted to be with her, but 1 was afraid

Tropic of Capricorn

85

to go alone." I said nothing and he rambled on. "The first
girl 1 ever loved died in the same way. I was only a kid
and I couldn't get over it. Every night I used to go to
the cemetery and sit by her grave. People thought I was
out of my mind. I guess I was out of my mind. Yesterday,
when I was standing at the door, it all came back to me.
I was back in Trenton, at the grave, and the sister of the
girl J loved was sitting beside me. She said it couldn't go
on that way much longer, that I would go mad. I thought
to myself that I really was mad and to prove it to myself I decided to do something mad and so I said to her
it isn't her I love, it's '1011, anc! I pulled her over me and
we lay there kissing each other and finally I screwed her,
right beside the grave. And I think that cured me because I never went back there again and I never thought
about her any more-until yesterday when I was standing at the door. If I eould have gotten hold of you yesterday I would have strangled yon. I don't know why I felt
that way but it seemed to me that you had opened up a
tomb, that you were violating the dead body of the girl
I loved. That's crazy, isn't it? And why did I come to
see you tonight? Maybe it's because you're absolutely indifferent to me ... because you're not a Jew and I can
talk to yOIl ... because you don't give a damn, and you're
right. ... Did you ever read The Revolt of the Angels?"
We had just arrived at the bicycle path which encircles
the park. The lights of the boulevard were swimming in
the mist. I took a good look at him and I saw that he was
out of his head. I wondered if I could make him laugh. I
was afraid, too, that if he once got started laughing- he
would never stop. So I began to talk at random, ~n:out
Anatole France at first, and then about other writers, and
finally, when I felt that I was losing him, I suddenly
switched to General Ivolgin, and with that he began to
laugh, not a laugh either, but a cackle, a hideous cackle,
like a rooster with its head on the block. It got him so
badly that he had to stop and hold his guts; the tears
were streaming down his eyes and between the cackles

86

Tropic of Capricorn

he let out the most terrible, heartrending sobs. "I knew
you would do me good," he blurted out, as the last
outbreak died away. "I always said you were a crazy son
of a bitch . . . . You're a Jew bastard yourself, only you
don't know it. ... Now tell me, you bastard, how was it
yesterday? Did YOll get your end in? Didn't I tell you
she was a good lay? And do you know who she's living
with? Jesus, you were lucky you didn't get caught. She's
living with a Russian poet-you know the guy, too. I
introduced you to him once at the Cafe Royal. Better not
let him get wind of it. He'll beat your brains out ... and
then hell write a beautiful poem about it and send it to
her with a bunch of roses. Sure, r knew him ant in
Stelton, in the anarchist colony. His old man was a
Nihilist. The whole family's crazy. By the way, you'd
better take care of yourself. I meant to tell you that the
other day, but I didn't think you would act so quickly.
You know she may have syphilis. I'm not trying to scare
you. I'm just telling you for your own good .... "
This outburst seemed to really assuage him. He was
trying to tell me in his twisted Jewish way that he liked
me. To do so he had to first destroy everything around
me-the wife, the job, my friends, the "nigger wench,"
as he called Valeska, and so on. "I think some day you're
going to be a great writer," he said. "But," he added
maliciously, "first you'll have to suffer a bit. I mean
really suffer, because you don't know what the word
means yet. You only think you've suffered. You've got to
fall in love first. That nigger wench now . . . you don't
really suppose that you're in love with her, do you? Did
you ever take a good look at her ass ... how it's spreading, I mean? In five years she'll look like Aunt Jemima.
You11 make a swcll couple walking down the avenlle witl)
a string of pickaninnies trailing behind you. Jesus, I'd
rather see you marry a Jewish girl. You wouldn't appreciate her, of course, but she'd be good for you. You need
something to steady yourself. You're scattering your
energies. Listen, why do you run around with all these

Tropic of Capricorn
87
dumb bastards you pick up? You seem to have a genius
for picking up the wrong people. Why don't you throw
yourself into something useful? You don't belong in that
job-you could be a big guy somewhere. Maybe a labor
leader ... I don't know what exactly. But first you've
got to get rid of that hatchet-faced wife of yours. Ugh!
when I look at her I could spit in her face. I don't see
how a guy like you could ever have married a bitch like
that. What was it-just a pair of steaming ovaries? Listen,
that's what's the matter with you-you've got nothing
but sex on the brain .... No, I don't mean that either.
You've got a mind and you've got passion and enthusiasm
... but you don't seem to give a damn what you do or
what happens to you. If you weren't such a romantic
bastard I'd almost swear that you were a Jew. It's different with mc-I never had anything to look forward to.
But you've got something in you-only you're too
damned Jazy to bring it out. Listen, when I hear you talk
sometimes I think to myself-if only that guy would put
it down on paper! \Vhy you could write a book that
would make a guy like Drciscr hang his head. You're
different from the Americans I know; somehow you don't
belong, and it's a damned good thing you don't. You're
a little cracked, too-I suppose you know that. But in a
good way. Listen, a little while ago, if it had been anybody else who talked to me that way I'd have murdered
him. I think J like you better because you didn't try to
give me any sympnthy. I know beller than to expect
sympathy from YOIl. If you had said one false word tonight I'd have really gone mad. I know it. I was on the
very edge. When YOIl started in about General Ivolgin I
thought for a minute it was all up with me. That's what
makes me think you've got something in you . . . that
was rcal cnnlling! And now let me tell you something ...
if YOll don't pull yourself together soon you're going to
he screwy. You've got something inside you that's eating
you lip. J don't know what it is, but you can't put it over
on me. I know you from the bottom up. I know there's

88

Tropic of Capricorn
something griping you-and it's not just your wife, nor
your job, nor even that nigger wench whom you think
you're in love with. Sometimes I think you were born
in the wrong time. Listen, I don't want you to think I'm
making an idol of you but there's something to what I
say ... if you had just a little more confidence in yourself
you could be the biggest man in the world today. You
wouldn't even have to be a writer. You might become
another Jesus Christ for all I know. Don't laugh-I mean
it. You haven't the slightest idea of your own possibilities
... you're absolutely blind to everything except your own
desires. You don't know \vhat you want. You don't know
because you never stop to think. You're letting people use
you up. You're a damned fool, an idiot. If I had a tenth
of what you've got I could turn the world upside down.
You think that's crazy, eh? Well, listen to me ... I was
never more sanc in my life. When I came to sec you tonight I thought I was about ready to commit suicide. It
doesn't make much difference whether I do it or not. But
anyway, I don't see much point in doing it now. That
won't hring her hack to me. I was born unlucky. \Vherever I go I seem to bring disaster. But I don't want to
kick off yet ... I want to do some good in the world first.
That may sound silly to you, but it's true. I'd like tc do
something for others .... "
He stopped abruptly and looked at me again with that
strange wan smile. It was the look of a hopeless Jew in
whom, as with all his race, the life instinct was so strong
that, even though there was absolutely nothing to hope
for, he was powerless to kill himself. That hopelessness
was somethi:Jg quite alien to me. I thought to myselfif only we could change skins! Why, I could kill myself
for a bagatelle! And what got me more than anything was
the thought that he wouldn't even enjoy the funeral-his
own wife's funeral! God knows, the funerals we had were
sorry enough affairs, but there was always a bit of food
and drink afterwards, and some good obscene jokes and
some hearty belly laughs. Maybe I was too young to

Tropic of Capricorn
89
appreciate the sorrowful aspects, though I saw plainly
enough how they howled and wept. But that never meant
much to me because after the funeral, sitting in the beer
garden next to the cemetery, there was always an ahnosphere of good cheer despite the black garments and the
crepes and the wreaths. It seemed to me, as a kid then, that
they were really trying to establish some sort of communion with the dead person. Something almost Egyptian-likc, whcn I think back on it. Once upon a time I
thought they were just a bunch of hypocrites. But they
weren't. They were just stupid, healthy Germans with a
lust for life. Death was somcthing outside their ken,
strange to say, because if you wcnt only by what they
said you would imagine that it occupied a good deal of
their thoughts. But they really didn't grasp it at all-not
the way the Jew does, for example. They talked about the
life hereafter but they never reany believed in it. And
if anyone were so bereaved as to pine away they looked
upon that person suspiciollsly, as you would look upon
an insane person. There were limits to sorrow as there
were limits to joy, that was the impression they gave me.
And at the extreme limits there was always the stomach
which had to be filled-with limburgcr sandwiches and
beer and kiimmel and turkey legs if there were any about.
They wept in their beer, like children. And the next
minute they were laughing, laughing over some curious
quirk in the dead person's character. Even the way they
used the past tense had a curious effect upon me. An
hour after he was shoveled under they were saying of
the defunct-"he was always so good-natured"-as
though the person in mind \vere dead a thousand years,
a character in history, or a personage out of the Nibelungenlicd. TIle thing was that he was dead, definitely
dead for all time, and they, the living, were cut off from
him now and forever, and today as well as tomorrow must
be lived through, the clothe; washed, the dinner prepared, and when the next one was stmck down there
would be a eoffin to select and a squabble about the will,

90

Tropic of Capricorn

but it would be all in the daily routine and to take time
off to grieve and sorrow was sinful because God, if there
was a God, had ordained it that way and we on earth
had nothing to say about it. To go beyond the ordained
limits of joy or grief was wicked. To threaten madness
was the high sin. They had a terrific animal sense of
adjustment, marvelous to behold if it had been truly
animal, horrible to witness when you realized that it was
nothing more than dull German torpor, insensitivity. And
yet, somehow, I preferred these animated stomachs to
the hydra-headed sorrow of the Jew. At bottom I couldn't
feel sorry for Kronski-I would have to feel sorry for his
whole tribe. The death of his wife was only an item, a
trifle, in the history of his calamities. As he himself had
said, he was born unlucky. He was born to see things go
wrong--because for five thousand years things had been
going wrong in the blood of the race. They came into the
world with that sunken, hopeless leer on their faces and
they would go out of the world the same way. They left
a bad smell behind them-a pOison, a vomit of sorrow.
The stink they were trying to take out of the world was
the stink they themselves had brought into the world. I
reflected on all this as I listened to him. I felt so well
and clean inside that when we parted, after I had turned
down a side street, I began to whistle and hum. And then
a terrible thirst came upon me and I says to meself in me
best Irish brogue-shure and it's a bit of a drink ye should
be having now, me lad-and saying it I stumbled into a
hole in the wall and I ordered a big foaming stein of beer
and a thick hamburger sandwich with plenty of onions.
I had another mug of beer and then a drop of brandy and
I thought to myself in my callous way-if the poor bastard
hasn't got brains enough to enjoy his own wife's funeral
then I'll enjoy it for him. And the more I thought about it,
the happier I grew, and if there was the least bit of grief
or envy it was only for the fact that I couldn't change
places with her, the poor dead Jewish sou], because death
was something absolutely beyond the grip and compre-

Tropic of Capricorn

91

hension of a dumb goy like myself and it was a pity to
waste it on the likes of them as knew all about it and
didn't need it anyway. I got so damned intoxicated with
the idea of dying that in my drunken stupor I was mumbling to the God above to kill me this night, kill me, God,
and let me know what it's all about. I tried my stinking
best to imagine what it was like, giving up the ghost, but
it was no go. The best I could do was to imitate a death
rattle, but on that I nearly choked, and then I got so
damned frightened that I almost shit in my pants. That
wasn't death, anyway. That was just choking. Death was
more like what we went through in the park: two people
walking side by side in the mist, rubbing against trees
and bushes, and not a word between them. It was something emptier than the name itself and yet right and
peaceful, dignified, if you like. It was not a continuation
of life, but a leap in the dark and no possibility of ever
coming back, not even as a grain of dust. And that was
right and beautiful, I said to myself, because why would
one want to come back. To taste it once is to taste it forever-life or death. Whichever way the coin Hips is right,
so long as you ,hold no stakes. Sure, it's tough to choke
on your own spittle-it's disagreeable more than anything else. And besides, one doesn't always die choking
to death. Sometimes one goes off in his sleep, peaceful
and quiet as a lamb. The Lord comes and gathers you up
into the fold, as they say. Anyway, you stop breathing.
And why the hell should one want to go on breathing
forever? Anything that would have to be done interminably would he torture. The poor human bastards that we
are, we ought to be glad that somebody devised a way
out. We don't quibble about going to sleep. A third of
our lives we snore away like drunken rats. What about
that? Is that tragic? Well then, say three-thirds of drunken
ratlike sleep. Jesus, if we had any sense we'd be dancing
with glee at the thought of it! We could all die in bed
tomorrow, without pain, without suffering-if we had
fhe sense to take advantage of our remedies. We don't

92
Tropic of Capricorn
want to die, that's the trouble with us. That's why God
and the whole shooting match upstairs in our crazy dustbins. General Ivolgin! That got a cackle out of him ...
and a few dry sobs. I might as well have said limburger
cheese. But General Ivolgin means something to him ...
something crazy. Limburger cheese would be too sober,
too banal. It's all limburger cheese, however, including
General Ivolgin, the poor drunken sap. General Ivolgin
was evolved out of Dostoevski's limburger cheese, his
own private brand. That means a certain flavor, a certain
label. So people recognize it when they smell it, taste it.
But what made this General Ivolgin limburger cheese?
Why, whatever made limburger cheese, which is x and
therefore unknowable. And so therefore? Therefore
nothing ... nothing at all. Full stop-or else a leap in the
dark and no coming back.
As I was taking my pants off I suddenly remembered
what the bastard had told me. I looked at my cock and it
looked just as innocent as ever. "Don't tell me you've got
the syph," I said, holding it in my hand and squeezing it
a bit as though I might see a bit of pus squirting out. No,
I didn't think there was much chance of having the syph.
I wasn't born under that kind of star. The clap, yes, that
was possible. Everybody had the clap sometime or other.
But not syphl I knew he'd wish it on me if he could, just
to make me realize what suffering was. But I couldn't be
bothered obliging him. I was born a dumb but lucky goy.
I yawned. It was an so much goddamned limburger
cheese that syph or no syph, I thought to myself, if she's
up to it I'll tear off another piece and call it a day. But
evidently she wasn't up to it. She was for turning her ass
on me. So I just lay there with a stiff prick up against her
ass and I gave it to her by mental telepathy. And by
Jesus, she must have gotten the message sound asleep
though she was, because it wasn't any trouhle going in by the stable door and besides I didn't have to look
at her face which was one hell of a relief. I thought to
myself, as I gave her the last hook and whistle-"me lad,

Tropic of Capricorn
93
it's limburger cheese and now you can turn over and
snore ...."
It seemed as if it would go on forever, the sex and
death chant. The very next afternoon at the office I received a telephone call from my wife saying that her
friend Arline had just been taken to the insane asylum.
They were friends from the convent school in Canada
where they had both studied music and the art of masturbation. I had met the whole flock of them little by
little, including Sister Antolina who wore a truss and who
apparently was the high priestess of the cult of onanism.
They had all had a crush on Sister Antolina at one time
or another. And Arline with the chocolate eclair mug
wasn't the first of the little group to go to the insane
ayslum. I don't say it was masturbation that drove them
there but certainly the atmosphere of the convent had
something to do with it. They were all spoiled in the egg.
Before the afternoon was over myoId friend MacGregor walked in. He arrived looking glum as usual and
complaining about tl'le advent of old age, though he was
hardly past thirty. When 1 told him about Arline he
seemed to liven up a bit. He said he always knew there
was something wrong with her. Why? Because when he
tried to force her one night she began to weep hysterically. It wasn't the weeping as much as what she said. She
said she had sinned against the Holy Ghost and for that
she would have to lead a life of continence. Recalling the
incident he began to laugh in his mirthless way. "I said
to her-well you don't need to do it if you don't want ...
just hold it in your hand. Jesus, when 1 said that 1
thought she'd go clean off her nut. She said 1 was trying
to soil her innocence-that's the way she put it. And at
the same time she took it in her hand and she squeezed
it so hard 1 damned near fainted. Weeping all the while,
too. And still harping on the Holy Ghost and her 'innocence,' 1 remembered what you told me once and so 1
gave her a sound slap in the jaw. It worked like magic.
She quieted down after a bit, enough to let me slip it in,

Tropic of Capricorn
and then the real fun commenced. Listen, did you ever
fuck a crazy woman? It's something to experience. From
the instant I got it in she started talking a blue streak. I
can't describe it to you exactly, but it was almost as
though she didn't know I was fucking her. Listen, I don't
know whether you've ever had a woman eat an apple
while you were doing it ... well, you can imagine how
that affects you. This one was a thousand times worse. It '
got on my nerves so that I began to think I was a little
queer myself.... And now here's something youll hardly
believe, but I'm telling you the truth. You know what
she did when we got through? She put her arms around
me and she thanked me.... Wait, that isn't all. Then she
got out of bed and she knelt down and offered up a prayer
for my soul. Jesus, I remember that so well. 'Please make
Mac a better Christian,' she said. And me lying there
with a limp cock listening to her. I didn't know whether
I was dreaming or what. 'Please make Mac a better
Christian!' Can you beat that?"
"What are you doing tonight?" he added cheerfully.
"Nothing special," I said.
'then come along with me. I've got a gal I want you
to meet. ... Paula. I picked her up at the Roseland a
few nights ago. She's not crazy-she's just a nymphomaniac. I want to see you dance with her. Itl1 be a treat
. . . just to watch you. Listen, if you don't shoot off in
your pants when she starts wiggling, well then I'm a
son of a bitch. Come on, close the joint. What's the use
of farting around in this place?"
There was a lot of time to kill before going to the Roseland so we went to a little hole in the wall over near
Seventh Avenue. Before the war it was a French joint;
now it was a speakeasy run by a couple of wops. There
was a tiny bar near the door and in the back a little room
with a sawdust floor and a slot machinc for music. The
idea was that we were to have a couple of drinks and
then eat. That was the idea. Knowing him as I did, however, I wasn't at all sure that we would be going to the
94

Tropic of Capricorn
95
Roseland together. If a woman should come along who
pleased his fancy-and for that she didn't have to be
either beautiful or sound of wind and limb-I knew he'd
leave me in the lurch and beat it. The only thing that
concerned me, when I was with him, was to make sure in
advance that he had enough money to pay for the drinks
we ordered. And, of course, never let him out of my sight
until the drinks were paid for.
The first drink or two always plunged him into reminiscence. Reminiscences of cunt to be sure. His reminiscences were reminiscent of a story he had told me once
and which made an indelib1e impression upon me. It
was about a Scotchman on his deathbed. Just as he was
about to pass away his wife, seeing him struggling to say
something, bends over him tenderly and says-"What is
it, Jock, what is it ye're trying to say?" And Jock, with a
last effort, raises himself wearily and says: "Just cunt ...
cunt ... cunt."
That was always the opening theme, and the ending
theme, with MacGregor. It was his way of sayingfutility. The leitmotif was disease, because between fucks,
as it were, he worried his head off, or rather he worried
the head off his cock. It was the most natural thing in the
world, at the end of an evening, for him to say-"come on
upstairs a minute, I want to show you my cock." From
taking it out and looking at it and washing it and scrubbing it a dozen times a day naturally his cock was always
swollen and inflamed. Every now and then he went to the
doctor and he had it sounded. Or, just to relieve him, the
doctor would give him a little box of salve and tell him
not to drink so much. This would cause no end of debate,
hecause as he would say to me, "if the salve is any good
why do I have to stop drinking?" Or, "if I stopped drinking altogether do you think I would need to use the
salve?" Of course, whatever I recommended went in one
ear and out the other. He had to worry about something
and the penis was certainly good food for worry. Sometimes he worried about his scalp. He had dandruff, as

Tropic of Capricorn
96
most everybody has, and when his cock was in good
condition he forgot about that and he worried about
his scalp. Or else his chest. The moment he thought about
his chest he would start to cough. And such coughing!
As though he were in the last stages of consumption. And
when he was running after a woman he was as nervous
and irritable as a cat. He couldn't get her quickly enough .•
The moment he had her he was worrying about how to
get rid of her. They all had something wrong with them,
some trivial little thing, usually, which took the edge off
his appetite.
He was rehearsing all this as we sat in the gloom of
the back room. After a couple of drinks he got up, as
usual, to go to the toilet, and on his way he dropped a
coin in the slot machine and the jiggers began to jiggle
and with that he perked up and pointing to the glasses
he said: "Order another round." He came baek from the
toilet looking extraordinarily complacent, whether because he had relieved his bladder or because he had run
into a girl in the hallway, I don't know. Anyhow, as he
sat down, he started in on another tack-very composed
now and very serene, almost like a philosopher. "You
know, Henry, we're getting on in years. You and I
oughtn't to be frittering our time away like this. If we're
ever going to amount to anything it's high time we started
in .... " I had been hearing this line for years now and I
knew what the upshot would be. This was just a little
parenthesis while he calmly glanced about the room and
decided which bimbo was the least sottish-looking. While
he discoursed about the miserable failure of our lives his
feet were dancing and his eyes were getting brighter and
brighter. It would happen as it always happened that just
as he was saying-"Now you take Woodruff, for instance.
He'l1 never get ahead because he's just a natural mean
scnmging son of a bitch ... "-just at such a moment, as
I say, it would happen that some drunken cow in passing
the table would catch his eye and without the slightest
pause he would interrupt his narrative to say "hello kid,

Tropic of Capricorn
97
why don't you sit down and have a drink with us?" And
as a drunken bitch like that never travels alone, but always in pairs, why she'd respond with a "Certainly, can I
hring my friend over?" And MacGregor, as though he
were the most gallant chap in the world, would say "Why
sure, why not? What's her name?" And then, tugging at
my sleeve, he'd bend over and whisper: "Don't you beat
it on me, do you hear? We'll give 'em one drink and get
rid of them, see?"
And, as it always happened, one drink led to another
and the hill was getting too high and he couldn't see
why he should waste his money on a couple of bums so
you go out first, Henry, and pretend you're buying some
medicine and I'll follow in a few minutf's ... but wait for
me, you son of a hitch, don't leave me in the lurch like
you did the last time. And like I always did, when I got
outside I walked away as fast as my legs would carry me,
laughing to myself and thanking my lucky stars that I
had gotten away from him as easily as I had. With all
those drinks under my belt it didn't matter much where
my feet were dragging me. Broadway lit up just as
crazy as ever and the crowd thick as molasses. Just fling
yourself into it like an ant and let yourself get pushed
along. Everybody doing it, some for a good reason and
some for no reason at all. All this push and movement
representing action, success, get ahead. Stop and look at
shoes or fancy shirts, the new fall overcoat, wedding rings
at ninety-eight cents apiece. Every other joint a food
emporium.
Every time I hit that runway toward dinner hour a
fever of expectancy seized me. It's only a stretch of a few
blocks, from Times Square to Fiftieth Street, and when
one says Broadway that's al1 that's really meant and it's
really nothing, just a chicken run and a lousy one at that,
but at seven in the evening when everybody's rushing
for a table there's a sort of electrical crackle in the air
and your hair stands on end like antennae and if you're
receptive you not only get every flash and flicker but

98

Tropic of Capricorn

you get the statistical itch, the quid pro quo of the interactive, interstitial, ectoplasmatic quantum of bodies
jostling in space like the stars which compose the Milky
Way, only this is the Gay White Way, the top of the
world with no roof above and not even a crack or a hole
under your feet to fall through and say it's a lie. The
absolute impersonality of it brings you to a pitch of warm
human delirium which makes you run forward like a
blind nag and wag your delirious ears. Everyone is so
utterly, confoundedly not himself that you become automatically the personification of the whole human race,
shaking hands with a thousand human hands, cackling
with a thousand different human tongues, cursing, applauding, whistling, crooning, soliloquizing, orating, gesticulating, urinating, fecundating, wheedling, cajoling,
whimpering, bartering, pimping, caterwauling, and so on
and so forth. You are all the men who ever lived up to
Moses. and beyond that you are a woman buying a hat,
or a bird cage, or just a mouse trap. You can lie in wait in
a show window, like a fourteen-carat gold ring, or you can
climb the side of a building like a human fly, but nothing
will stop the procession, not even umbrellas flying at
lightning speed, nor double-decked walruses marching
calmly to the oyster banks. Broadway, such as I see it
now and have seen it for twenty-five years, is a ramp that
was conceived by St. Thomas Aquinas while he was yet
in the womb. It was meant originally to be used only by
snakes and lizards, by the horned toad and the red heron,
but when the great Spanish Armada was sunk the human
kind wriggled out of the ketch and slopped over, creating
by a sort of foul, ignominious squirm and wiggle the
cuntlike cleft that runs from the Battery south to the golf
links north through the dead and wormy center of Manhattan Island. From Times Square to Fiftieth Street all
that St. Thomas Aquinas forgot to include in his magnum opus is here included, which is to say, among other
things, hamburger sandwiches, collar buttons, poodle
dogs, slot machines, gray bowlers, typewriter ribbons,

Tropic of Capricorn
99
mange sticks, free toilets, sanitary napkins, mint jujubes,
hilliard balls, chopped onions, crinkled doilies, manholes,
.·hewing gum, sidecars and sourballs, cellophane, cord
I ires, magnetos, horse liniment, cough drops, feenamint,
alld that feline opacity of the hysterically endowed
('uJluch who marches to the soda fountain with a sawedoff shotgun between his legs. The before-dinner atmosphere, the blend of patchouli, warm pitchblende, iced
electricity, sugared sweat and powdered urine drives one
on to a fever of delirious expectancy. Christ will never
more come down to earth nor will there be any lawgiver,
nor will murder cease, nor theft, nor rape, and yet . , .
and yet one expects something, something terrifyingly
marvelous and absurd, perhaps a cold lobster with mayonnaise served gratis, perhaps an invention, like the electric light, like television, only more devastating, more
soul-rending, an invention unthinkable that will bring a
shattering calm and void, not the calm and void of death
but of life such as the monks dreamed, such as is dreamed
still in the Himalayas, in Tibet, in I,ahore, in the Aleutian
Islands, in Polynesia, in Easter Island, the dream of men
before the flood, before the word was written, the dream
of cave men and anthropophagists, of those with double
sex and short tails, of those who are said to be crazy and
have no way of defending themselves because they are
outnumbered by those who are not crazy. Cold energy
trapped by cunning brutes and then set free like explosive
rockets, wheels intricately interwheeled to give the illusion of force and speed, some for light, some for power,
some for motion, words wired by maniacs and mounted
like false teeth, perfect, and repulsive as lepers, ingratiating, soft, slippery, nonsensical movement, vertical, horizontal, circular, between walls and through walls, for
pleasure, for barter, for crime, for sex; all light, movement, power impersonally conceived, generated, and distributed throughout a choked, cuntlike cleft intended
to dazzlc and awe the savage, the yokel, the alien, but
nobody dazzled or awed, this one hungry, that one lecher-

100
Tropic of Capricorn
ous, all one and the same and no different from the
savage, the yokel, the alien, except for odds and ends, brica-brae, the soapsuds of thought, the sawdust of the mind.
In the same cunty cleft, trapped and undazzled, millions
have walked before me, among them one, Blaise Cendrars,
who afterwards flew to the moon, thence back to earth
and up the Orinoco impersonating a wild man but ac- •
tually sound as a button, though no longer vulnerable,
no longer mortal, a splendiferous hulk of a poem dedicated to the archipelago of insomnia. Of those wHh fever
few hatched, among them myself still unhatched, but
pervious and maculate, knowing with quiet ferocity the
ennui of ceaseless drift and movement. Before dinner the
slat and chink of sky light softly percolating through
the bounded gray dome, the vagrant hemispheres
spored with blue-egged nuclei coagulating, ramifying, in
the one basket lobsters, in the other the germination of
a world antiseptically personal and absolute. Out of the
manholes, gray with the underground life, men of the
future world saturated with shit, the iced electricity
biting into them like rats, the day done in and darkness
coming on like the cool, refreshing shadows of the sewers.
Like a soft prick slipping out of an overheated cunt I,
the still unhatched, making a few abortive wriggles, but
either not dead and soft enough or else sperm-free and
skating ad astra, for it is still not dinner and a perdaltic
frenzy takes possession of the upper colon, the hypogastric
region, the umbilical and the postpineal lobe. Boiled alive,
the lobsters swim in ice, giving no quarter and asking no
quarter, simply motionless and unmotivated in the icewatered ennui of death, life drifting by the show window
muffled in desolation, a sorrowful scurvy eaten away by
ptomaine, the frozen glass of the window cutting like a
jackknife, clean and no remainder.
Life drifting by the show window ... I too as much
a part of life as the lobster, the fourteen-carat ring, the
horse liniment, but very difficult to establish the fact, the
fact being that life is merchandise with a bill of lading

Tropic of Capricorn
101
al tached, what 1 choose to eat being more important than
I the eater, each one eating the other and consequently
(':tling, the verb, ruler of the roost. In the act of eating the
host is violated and justice defeated temporarily. The
plate and what's on it, through the predatory power of
Ill(' intestinal apparatus, commands attention and unines
I he spirit, first hypnotizing it, then slowly swallowing it,
Ihen masticating it, then absorbing it. The spiritual part of
I he heing passes off like a scum, leaves absolutely no evidence or trace of its passage, vanishes, vanishes even more
completely than a point in space after a mathematical dis("ourse. The fevcr, which may return tomorrow, bears
the same relation to life as the mercury in a thermometer
hears to heat. Fever will not make life heat, which is
what was to have been proved and thus consecrates the
meat balls and spaghetti. To chew while thousands chew,
each chew an act of murder, gives the necessary social
cast from which you look out the window and see that
even human kind can be slaughtered justly, or maimed, or
starved, or tortured hecause, while chewing, the mere
advantage of sitting in a chair with clothes on, wiping the
mouth with a napkin, enables you to comprehend what
the wisest men have never been able to comprehend,
namely that there is no other way of life possible, said
wise men often disdaining to lise chair, clothes or napkin.
Thus men scurrying through a cunty cleft of a street called
Broadway every day at regular hours, in search of this or
that, tend to establish this and that, whieh is exactly the
metlJOd of mathematicians, logicians, physicists, astronomers and such like. The proof is the fact and the fact
has no meaning except what is given to it by those who
establish the facts.
The meat balls devoured, the paper napkin carefully
Ihrown on the floor, belching a trifle and not knowing
why or whither, I step out into the twenty-four-carat
sparkle and fall in with the theater pack. This time I
wander through the side streets following a blind man
with an accordion. Now and then I sit on a stoop and listen

102

Tropic of Capricorn
to an aria. At the opera, the music makes no sense; here
in the street it has just the right demented touch to give it
poignancy. The woman who accompanies the blind man
holds a tin cup in her hands; he is a part of life too, like
the tin cup, like the music of Verdi, like the Metropolitan
Opera House. Everybody and everything is a part of
life, but when they have all been added together, still
somehow it is not life. When is it life, 1 ask myself, and
why not now? The blind man wanders on and 1 remain
sitting on the stoop. The meat balls were rotten, the coffee
was lousy, the butter was rancid. Everything I look at is
rotten, lousy, rancid. The street is like a bad breath; the
next street is the same, and the next and the next. At the
corner the blind man stops again and plays "Home to Our
Mountains." I Rnd a piece of chewing gum in my pocket
- I chew it. I chew for the sake of chewing. There is
absolutely nothing better to do unless it were to make a
decision, which is impossible. The stoop is comfortable
and nobody is bothering me. 1 am part of the world, of
life, as they say, and 1 belong and I don't belong.
I sit on the stoop for an hour or so, mooning. I come to
the same conclusions I always come to when I have a
minute to think for myself. Either I must go home immediately and start to write or I must run away and start a
wholly new life. The thought of beginning a book terrifies me: there is so much to tell that I don't know where
or how to begin. rThe thought of running away and beginning all over again is equally terrifying: it means working like a nigger to keep body and soul together. For a
man of my temperament, the world being what it is,
therc is absolutely no hope, no solution. Even if I could
write the book 1 want to write nobody would take it-I
know my compatriots only too well. Even if I could begin
again it would be no usc, because fundamentally I have
no desire to work and no desire to become a usef\ll member of society. 1 sit there staring at the house across the
way. It seems not only ugly and senseless, like all the
other houses on the street, but from staring at it so

Tropic of Capricorn
103
intently, it has suddenly become absurd. The idea of con.'it rueting a place of shelter in that particular way strikes
Ill(' as absolutely insane. The city itself strikes me as a
piece of the highest insanity, everything about it, sewers,
elevated lines, slot machines, newspapers, telephones,
cops, doorknobs, flophouses, screens, toilet paper, everyI hing. Everything could just as well not be and not only
Ilothing lost but a whole universe gained. I look at the
people brushing by me to see if by chance one of them
might agree with me. Supposing I intercepted one of
them and just asked him a simple question. Supposing I
just said to him suddenly: "Why do you go on living the
way you do?" He would probably call a cop. I ask myself
---does anyone ever talk to himself the way I do? I ask
myself if there isn't something wrong with me. The only
conclusion I can come to is that I am different. And that's
a very grave matter, view it how you will. Henry, I say to
myself, rising slowly from the stoop, stretching myself,
hrushing my trousers and spitting out the gum, Henry, I
say to myself, you are young yet, you arc just a spring
chicken and if YOll let them get you by the balls you're an
idiot because you're a better man than any of them only
you need to get rid of your false notions about humanity.
You have to realize, Henry me hoy, that you're dealing
with cutthroats, with cannibals, only they're dressed up,
shaved, perfumed, but that's all they are-cutthroats, cannibals. The best thing for you to do now, Henry, is to go
and get yourself a frosted chocolate and when you sit
at the soda fountain keep your eyes peeled and forget
about the destiny of man because you might still find
yourself a nice lay and a good lay will clean your ballbearings out and leave a good taste in your mouth whereas this
only brings on dyspepSia, dandmff, halitosis, encephalitis.
And while I'm soothing myself thus a guy comes up to me
to bum a dime and I hand him a quarter for good measure
thinking to myself that if I had had a little more sense I'd
hllve had a juicy pork chop with that instead of the lousy
meat balls but what's the difference now it's all food and

104

Tropic of Capricorn

food makcs energy and energy is what makes the world
go round. Instead of the frosted chocolate I keep walking
and soon I'm exactly where I intended to be all the time,
which is in front of the ticket window of the Roseland.
And now, Henry, says I to myself, if you're lucky your
old pal MacGregor will be herc and first he'll hawl the shit
out of you for running away and then he'll lend you a
five spot, and if you just hold your breath while climbing
the stairs maybe you'll see the nymphomaniac too and
you'll get a dry fuck. Enter very calmly, Henry, and keep
your eyes peeled! And I entcr as per instructions on velvet
toes, checking my hat and urinating a little as a matter of
course, then slowly redescending the stairs and sizing
up the taxi girls all diaphanously gowned, powdered,
perfumed, looking fresh and alert but probably bored as
hell and leg weary. Into eaeh and everyone of them, as
I shuffle about, I throw an imaginary fuck. The place is
just plastered with cunt and fuck and that's why I'm
reasonably sure to find myoId friend MacGregor here.
The way I no longer think about the condition of the
world is marvelous. I mention it because for a moment,
just while I was studying a juicy ass, I had a
relapse. I almost went into a trance again. I was thinking, Christ help me, that maybe I ought to beat it and
go home and begin the book. A terrifying thought! Once I
spent a whole evening sitting in a chair and saw nothing
and heard nothing. I must have written a good-sized
book before I woke up. Better not to sit down. Better to
keep circulating. Henry, what you ought to do is to
come here some time with a lot of dough and just see how
far it'll take you. I mean a hundred or two hundred bucks,
and spend it like water and say yes to everything. The
haughty looking one with the statuesque figure, I bet
she'd squirm like an eel if her palm were well greased.
Supposing she said-twenty bucks! and you could say
Sure! Supposing you could say-Listen, I've got a car
downstairs ... let's run down to Atlantic City for a few

Tropic of Capricorn
105
.I.IYS. Henry, there ain't no car and there ain't no twenty
1'lIcks. Don't sit down . .. keep moving.

the rail which fences off the floor I stand and watch
sailing around. This is no harmless recreation ...
I1II S is serious business. At each end of the floor there is a
'.11',11 reading "No Improper Dancing Allowed." 'Well and
!',Dod. No harm in placing a sign at each end of the floor.
III Pompeii they probably hung a phallus up. This is the
Allwrican way. It means the same thing, I mustn't think
.Ii Hint Pompeii or I'll be sitting down and writing a book
<',~~ain. Keep moving, Hcnry. Keep your mind on the music.
I keep struggling to imagine what a lovely time I would
Ilave if I had the price of a string of tickets, but the more
I struggle the morc I slip back. Finally I'm standing knee
deep in the lava beds and the gas is choking me. It wasn't
I he lava that killed the Pompeians, it was the poison gas
Illat precipitated the eruption. That's how the lava caught
them in such queer poses, with their pants down, as it
were. If suddenly all New York were caught that waywhat a museum it would makel ~Iy friend MacGregor
standing at the sink scrubbing his cock ... the abortionists
on the East Side caught red-handed ... the nuns lying in
hed and masturbating one another . . . the allctioneer
with an alarm clock in his hand ... the telephone girls at
the switchboard ... J. P. Morganana sitting on the toilet
bowl placidly wiping his ass ... clicks with rubher hoses
giving the third degree ... strippers giving the last strip
and tease ....
Standing knee deep in the lava beds and my eyes
choked with sperm: J. P. Morganana is placidly wiping
his ass while the telephone girls plug the switchboards,
while dicks with rubber hoses practice the third degree,
while myoId friend MacGregor scrubs the germs out
of his cock and sweetens it and examines it under the
microscope. Everybody caught with his pants down, including the strip teasers who wear no pants, no beards,
no mustaches, just a little patch to cover their twinkling
Hale cunts. Sister Antolina lying in the convent bed, her
AI

Ilwlll

106
Tropic of Capricorn
guts trussed up, her arms akimbo and waiting for the
Resurrection, waiting, waiting for life without hernia,
without intercourse, without sin, without evil, meanwhile
nibbling a few animal crackers, a pimento, some fancy
olives, a little headcheese. The Jewboys on the East Side,
in Harlem, the Bronx, Canarsie, Brownsville, opening
and closing the trapdoors, pulling out arms and legs,
turning the sausage machine, clogging up the drains,
working like fury for cash down and if you let a peep
out of you out you go. With eleven hundred tickets in
my pocket and a Rolls Royce waiting for me downstairs
I could have the most excruciatingly marvelous time,
throwing a fuck into each and everyone respectively regardless of age, sex, race, religion, nationality, birth or
breeding. There is no solution for a man like myself, I
being what I am and the world being what it is. The
world is divided into three parts of which two parts are
meat balls and spaghetti and the other part a huge syphilitic chancre. The haughty one with the statuesque figure
is probably a cold turkey fuck, a sort of con anonyme
plastered with gold leaf and tin foil. Beyond despair and
disillusionment there is always the absence of worse
things and the emoluments of ennui. Nothing is lousier
and emptier than the midst of bright gaiety clicked by
the mechanical eye of the mechanical epoch, life maturating in a black box, a negative tickled with acid and
yielding a momentaneous simulacrum of nothingness. At
the outermost limit of this momentaneous nothingness
my friend MacGregor arrives and is standing by my side
and with him is the one he was talking about, the nymphomaniac called Paula. She has the loose, jaunty swing
and perch of the double-barreled sex, all her movements
radiating from the groin, always in equilibrium, always
ready to flow, to wind and twist and clutch, the eyes going tic-toe, the toes twitching and twinkling, the flesh
rippling like a lake furrowed by a breeze. This is the incarnation of the hallucination of sex, the sea nymph
squirming in the maniac's arms. I watch the two of them

Tropic of Capricorn
107
as they move spasmodically inch by inch around the floor;
they move like an octopus working up a rut. Between
the dangling tentacles the music shimmers 'and flashes,
now breaks in a cascade of sperm and rose water, forms
again into an oily spout, a column standing erect without
feet, collapses again like chalk, leaving the upper part
of the leg phosphorescent, a zebra standing in a pool of
golden marshmallow, onc leg striped, the other molten.
A golden marshmallow octopus with rubber hinges and
molten hoofs, its sex undone and twisted into a knot. On
the sea floor the oysters are doing the St. Vitus dance,
some with lockjaw, some with double-jointed knees, The
music is sprinkled with rat poison, with the rattlesnake's
venom, with the fetid breath of the gardenia, the spittle
of the sacred yak, the bolloxed sweat of the muskrat, the
leper's sugar-coated nostalgia. The music is a diarrhea, a
lake of gasoline, stagnant with cockroaches and stale
horse piss. The drooling notes are the foam and dribble
of the epileptic, the night sweat of the fornicating nigger
frigged by the Jew. All America is in the trombone's
smear, that frazzled brokcndown whinny of the gangrened sea cows stationed off Point Lorna, Pawtucket,
Cape Hatteras, Labrador, Canarsie and intermediate
points. The octopus is dancing like a rubber dick-the
rhumba of Spuyten Duyvil ineciit. Laura the nympho is
doing the rhumha, her sex exfoliated and twisted like a
cow's tail. In the helly of the tromhone lies the American
soul farting its contented heart out. Nothing goes to
waste-not the least spit of a fart. In the golden marshmallow dream of happiness, in the dance of the sodden
piss and gasoline, the great soul of the American continent gallops like an octopus, all the sails unfurled, the
hatches down, thc engine whirring like a dynamo. The
great dynamic soul caught in the click of the camera's
eye, in the heat of rut, bloodless as a fish, slippery as
mucus, the soul of the people miscegenating on the sea
floor, pop eyed with longing, harrowed with lust. The
dance of Saturday night, of cantaloupes rotting in the

Tropic of Capricorn
garbage pail, of fresh green snot and slimy unguents for
the tender parts. The dance of the slot machine and the
monsters who invent them. The dance of the gat and the
slugs who use them. The dance of the blackjack and the
pricks who batter brains to a polypous pulp. The dance
of the magneto world, the spark that unsparks, the soft
purr of the perfect mechanism, the velocity race on a
turntable, the dollar at par and the forests dead and
mutilated. The Saturday night of the soul's hollow dance,
each jumping jigger a functional unit in the St. Vitus
dance of the ringworm's dream. Laura the nympho
brandishing her cunt, her sweet rose-petal lips toothed
with ballbearing clutches, her ass balled and socketed.
Inch by inch, millimeter by millimeter they shove the
copulating corpse around. And then crash! Like pulling a
switch the music suddenly stops and with the stoppage
the dancers come apart, arms and legs intact, like tea
leaves dropping to the bottom of the cup. Now the air is
blue with words, a slow sizzle as of fish on the griddle.
The chaff of the empty soul rising like monkey chatter in
the topmost branches of the trees. The air blue with
words passing out through the ventilators, coming back
again in sleep through corrugated funnels and smokestacks, winged like the antelope, striped 1ike the zebra,
now lying quiet as the mollusk, now spitting flame. Laura
the nympha cold as a statue, her parts eaten away, her
hair musically enraptured. On the brink of sleep Laura
stands with muted lips, her words falling like pollen
through a fog. The Laura of Petrarch seated in a taxi,
each word ringing through the cash register, then sterilized, then cauterized. Laura the basilisk made entirely of
asbestos, walking to the fiery stake with a mouth full of
gum. Hunkydory is the word on her lips. The heavy
fluted lips of the sea shell, Laura's lips, the lips of lost
Uranian love. All floating shadowward through the slanting fog. Last murmuring dregs of shell-like iips slipping
off the Labrador coast, oozing eastward with the mud
tides, easing starward in the iodine drift. Lost Laura,

108

Tropic of Capricorn
109
last of the Petrarchs, slowly fading on the brink of sleep.
Not gray the world, but lackluster, the light bamboo sleep
()I spoon-backed innocence.
And this in the black frenzied nothingness of the hollow of absence leaves a gloomy feeling of saturated
(Icspondency not unlike the topmost tip of desperation
which is only the gay juvenile maggot of death's exquisite
rupture with life. From this inverted cone of ecstasy life
will rise again into prosaic skyscraper eminence, dragging
IIIC by the hair and teeth, lousy with howling empty joy,
lite animated fetus of the unborn death maggot lying in
wait for rot and putrefaction.
Sunday morning the telephone wakes me up. It's my
friend Maxie Schnadig announcing the death of our
friend Luke Ralston. Maxie has assumed a truly sorrowful tone of voice which rubs me the wrong way. He says
Luke was such a swell guy. That too sounds the wrong
note for me because while Luke was all right, he was only
so-so, not precisely what you might call a swell guy. Luke
was an ingrown fairy and finally, when I got to know him
intimately, a big pain in the ass. I told Maxie that over
the telephone; I could tell from the way he answered me
that he didn't like it very much. He said Luke had always
been a friend to me. It was true enough, but it wasn't
enough. The truth was that I was really glad Luke had
kicked off at the opportune moment: it meant that I could
forget about the hundred and fifty dollars which lowed
him. In fact, as I hung up the receiver I really felt joyous.
It was a tremendolls relief not to have to pay that debt.
As for Luke's demise, that didn't disturb me in the least.
On the contrary, it would enable me to pay a visit to his
sister, Lottie, whom I always wanted to lay but never
could for one reason or another. Now I could see myself
going up there in the middle of the day and offering her
my condolences. Her husband would be at the office and
there would be nothing to interfere. I saw myself putting
my arms around her and comforting her; nothing like

110

Tropic of Capricorn
tackling a woman when she is in sorrow. I could see her
opening her eyes wide-she had beautiful, large gray
eyes-as I moved her toward the couch. She was the sort
of woman who would give you a fuck while pretending
to be talking music Or some such thing. She didn't like
the naked reality, the bare facts, so to speak. At the same
time she'd have enough presence of mind to slip a towel
under her so as not to stain the couch. I knew her inside
out. I knew that the best time to get her was now, now
while she was running up a little fever of emotion over
dear dead Luke-whom she didn't think much of, by the
way. Unfortunately it was Sunday and the husband
would be sure to be home. I went back to bed and I lay
there thinking first about Luke and all that he had done
for me and then about her, Lottie. Lottie Somers was her
name-it always seemed a beautiful name to me. It
matched her perfectly. Luke was stiff as a poker, with a
sort of skull and bones face, and impeccable and just
beyond words. She was just the opposite-soft, round,
spoke with a drawl, caressed her words, moved languidly,
used her eyes effectively. One would never take them for
brother and sister. I got so worked up thinking about her
that I tried to tackle the wife. But that poor bastard, with
her Puritanical complex, pretended to be horrified. She
liked Luke. She wouldn't say that he was a swell guy,
because that wasn't like her, but she insisted that he was
genuine, loyal, a true friend, etc. I had so many loyal,
genuine, true friends that that was all horseshit to me.
Finally we got into such an argument over Luke that she
got an hysterical attack and began to weep and sob-in
bed, mind you. That made me hungry. The idea of weeping before breakfast seemed monstrous to me. I went
downstairs and I fixed myself a wonderful breakfast, and
as I put it away I was laughing to myself, about Luke,
about the hundred and fifty bucks that his sudden death
had wiped off the slate, about Lottie and the way she
would look at me when the moment came ... and finany,
the most absurd of all, I thought of Maxie, Maxie Schna-

Tropic of Capricorn
III
dig, the faithful friend of Luke, standing at the grave
with a big wreath and perhaps throwing a handful of
(~;lfth on the coffin just as they were lowering it. Somehow
Ihat seemed just too stupid for words. I don't know why
it should seem so ridiculous, but it did. Maxie was a
simpleton. I tolerated him only because he was good for
a touch now and then. And then too there was his sister
Hita. I used to let him invite me to his home occasionally,
pretending that I was interested in his brother who was
deranged. It was always a good meal and the half-witted
hrother was real entertainment. He looked like a chimpanzee and he talked like one too. Maxie was too simple
to suspect that I was merely enjoying myself; he thought
[ took a genuine interest in his brother.
It was a beautiful Sunday and I had as usual about a
C]uarter in my pocket. I walked along wondering where
Lo go to make a touch. Not that it was difficult to scrape
up a little dough, no, but the thing was to get the dough
and beat it without being bored stiff. I could think of a
dozen guys right in the neighborhood, guys who would
fork it out without a murmur, but it would mean a long
conversation afterwards-about art, religion, politics.
Another thing I could do, which I had done over and over
again in a pinch, was to visit the telegraph offices, pretending to pay a friendly visit of inspection and then, at the
last minute, suggest that they rifle the till for a buck
or so until the morrow. That would involve time and even
worse conversation. Thinking it over coldly and calculatingly I decided that the best bet was my little friend
Curley up in Harlem. If Curley didn't have the money
he would filch it from his mother's purse. I knew I could
rely on him. He would want to accompany me, of course,
but I could always find a way of ditching him before the
evening was over. He was only a kid and I didn't have to
be too delicate with him.
What I liked about Curley was that, although only a
kid of seventeen, he had absolutely no moral sense, no
scruples, no shame. He had come to me as a boy of four-

112

Tropic of Capricorn

teen looking for a job as messenger. His parents, who
were then in South America, had shipped him to New
York in care of an aunt who seduced him almost immediately. He had never been to school because the
parents were always traveling; they were carnival people
who worked "the griffs and the grinds," as he put it. The
father had been in prison several times. He was not his
real father, by the way. Anyway, Curley came to me as
a mere lad who was in need of help, in need of a friend
more than anything. At first I thought I could do something for him. Everybody took a liking to him immediately, especially the women. He became the pet
of the office. Before long, however, I realized that
he was incorrigible, that at the best he had the
makings of a clever criminal. I liked him, however,
and I continued to do things for him, but I never trusted
him out of my sight. I tllink I liked him particularly because he had absolutely no sense of honor. He would do
anything in the world for me and at the same time betray
me. I couldn't reproach him for it ... it was amusing to me.
The more so because he was frank about it. He just
couldn't help it. His Aunt Sophie, for instance. He said
she had seduced him. True enough, but the curious thing
was that he let himself be seduced while they were reading the Bible together. Young as he was he seemed to
realize that his Aunt Sophie had need of him in that way.
So he let himself be seduced, as he said, and then, after
I had known him a little while he offered to put me next
to his Aunt Sophie. He even went so far as to blackmail
her. When he needed money badly he would go to the
aunt and wheedle it out of her-with sly threats of exposure. With an innocent face, to be sure. He looked
amazingly like an angel, with big liquid eyes that seemed
so frank and sincere. So ready to do things for you-almost like a faithful dog. And then cunning enough, once
he had gained your favor, to make you humor his little
whims. Withal extremely intelligent. The sly intelligence
of a fox and-the utter heartlessness of a jackal.

Tropic of Capricorn
113
It wasn't at all surprising to me, consequently, to learn
that afternoon that he had been tinkering with Valeska.
After Valeska he tackled the cousin who had already
heen deflowered and who was in need of some male
whom she could rely upon. And from her finally to the
midget who had made herself a pretty little nest at Valeska's. The midget interested him because she had a perfectly normal cunt. He hadn't intended to do anything
with her because, as he said, she was a repulsive little
Lesbian, but one day he happened to walk in on her as
she was taking a bath, and that started things off. It was
getting to be too much for him, he confessed, because
the three of them were hot on his trail. He liked the
cousin best because she had some dough and she wasn't
reluctant to part with it. Valeska was too cagey, and besides she smelled a little too strong. In fact, he was getting
sick of women. He said it was his Aunt Sophie's fault.
She gave him a bad start. While relating this he busies
himself going through the bureau drawers. The father is
a mean son of a hitch who ought to be hanged, he says,
not finding anything immediately. He shows me a revolver with a pearl handle ... what would it fetch? A
gun was too good to use on the old man ... he'd like to
dynamite him. Trying to find out why he hated the old
man so, it developed that the kid was really stuck on his
mother. He couldn't bear the thought of the old man going
to bed with her. You don't mean to say that you're jealous
of your old man, I ask. Yes, he's jealous. If I wanted to
know the truth it's that he wouldn't mind sleeping with
his mother. Why not? That's why he had permitted his
Aunt Sophie to seduce him ... he was thinking of his
mother all the time. But don't you feel bad when you go
through her pocketbook, I asked. He laughed. It's not her
money, he said, it's his. And what have they done for me?
They were always farming me out. The first thing they
taught me was how to cheat people. That's a hell of a way
to raise a kid. . . .
There's not a red cent in the house. Curley's idea of a

114
Tropic of Capricorn
way out is to go with me to the office where he works
and while I engage the manager in conversation go
through the wardrobe and clean out all the loose change.
Or, if I'm not afraid of taking a chance, he will go through
the cash drawer. They'll never suspect us, he says. Had
he ever done that before, I ask. Of course ... a dozen or
more times, right under the manager's nose. And wasn't
there any stink about it? To be sure ... they had fired a
few clerks. Why don't you borrow something from your
Aunt Sophie, I suggest. That's easy enough, only it means
a quick diddle and he doesn't want to diddle her any
more. She stinks, Aunt Sophie. What do you mean, she
stinks? Just that ... she doesn't wash herself regularly.
Why, what's the matter with her? Nothing, just religious.
And getting fat and greasy at the same time. But she
likes to be diddled just the same? Does she? She's crazier
than ever about it. It's disgusting. It's like going to bed
with a sow. What does your mother think about her?
Her? She's sore as hell at her. She thinks Sophie's trying
to seduce the old man. Well, maybe she is! No, the old
man's got something else. I caught him red-handed one
night, in the movies, mushing it up with a young girl.
She's a manicurist from the Astor Hotel. He's probably
trying to squeeze a little dough out of her. That's the
only reason he ever makes a woman. He's a dirty, mean
son of a bitch and I'd like to see him get the chair some
day! You'll get the chair yourself some day if you don't
watch out. Who, me? Not me! I'm too clever. You're clever
enough but you've got a loo'ie tongue. I'd be a little more
tight-lipped if I were you. You know, I added, to give
him an extra jolt, O'Rourke is wise to you; if you ever fall
out with O'Rourke it's all up with you . . . . Well, why
doesn't he say something if he's so wise? I don't believe
you.
I explain to him at some length that O'Rourke is one
of those people, and there are damned few in the world,
who prefer not to make trouble for another person if they
can help it. O'Rourke, I say, has the detective's instinct

Tropic of Capricorn
US
only in that he likes to know what's going on around him;
. people's characters are plotted out in his head, and filed
I here permanently, just as the enemy's terrain is fixed in
liJC minds of army leaders. People think that O'Rourke
goes around snooping and spying, that he derives a special pleasure in performing this dirty work for the company. Not so. O'Rourke is a born student of human
nature. He picks things up without effort, due, to be sure,
to his peculiar way of looking at the world. Now about
you ... I have no doubt that he knows everything about
you. I never asked him, I admit, but I imagine so from
the questions he poses now and then. Perhaps he's just
giving you plenty of rope. Some night he'll run into you
accidentally and perhaps he'll ask you to stop off somewhere and have a bite to eat with him. And out of a clear
sky he'll suddenly say-you remember, Curley, when you
were working up in SA office, the time that little Jewish
clerk was fired for tapping the till? I think you were
working overtime that night, weren't you? An interesting
case, that. You know, they never discovered whether the
clerk stole the money or not. They had to fire him, of
course, for negligence, but we can't say for certain that
he really stole the money. I've been thinking about that
little affair now for quite some time. I have a hunch as
to who took that money, but I'm not absolutely sure ....
And then he']] probably give you a beady eye and
abruptly change the conversation to something else. He'll
probably tell you a little story about a crook he knew
who thought he was very smart and getting away
with it. He'll draw that story out for you until you feel
as though you were sitting on hot coals. By that time
you'll be wanting to beat it, but just when you're ready
to go he'll suddenly be reminded of another very interesting little case and hell ask you to wait just a little
longer while he orders another dessert. And he'll go on
like that for three or four hours at a stretch, never making
the least overt insinuation, but studying you closely all
the time, and finally, when you think you're free. just

Tropic of Capricorn
116
when you're shaking hands with him and breathing a sigh
of relief, he'll step in front of you and, planting his big
square feet between your legs, he'll grab you by the lapel
and, looking straight through you, he'll say in a soft,
winsome voice-now look here, my lad, don't you think.
you had better come clean? And if you think he's only
trying to browbeat you and that you can pretend innocence and walk away, you're mistaken. Because at that
point, when he asks you to come clean, he means business
and nothing on earth is going to stop him. When it gets
to that point r d recommend you to make a clean sweep
of it, down to the last penny. He won't ask me to fire you
and he won't threaten you with jail-he'll just quiet1y
suggest that you put aside a little bit each week and turn
it over to him. Nobody will be the wiser. He probably
won't even ten me. No, he's very delicate about these
things, you'll see.
"And supposing," says Curley suddenly, "that I tell him
1 stole the money in order to help you out? What then?"
He began to laugh hysterically.
"I don't think O'Rourke would believe that," I said
calmly. "You can try it, of course, if you think it will help
you to clear your own skirts. But I rather think it will
have a bad effect. O'Rourke knows me ... he knows I
wouldn't let you do a thing like that."
"But you did let me do it!"
"I didn't tell you to do it. You did it without my
knowledge. That's quite different. Besides, can you prove
that I accepted money from you? Won't it seem a little
ridiculous to accuse me, the one who befriended you, of
putting you up to a job like that? Who's going to believe
you? Not O'Rourke. Besides, he hasn't trapped you yet.
Why worry about it in advance? Maybe you could begin
to return the money little by little before he gets after you.
Do it anonymously."
By this time Curley was quite used up. There was a
little schnapps in the cupboard which his old man kept
in reserve and I suggested that we take a little to brace

Tropic of Capricorn

117

up. As we were drinking the schnapps it suddenly oc("\\fred to me that Maxie had said he would be at Luke's
house to pay his respects. It was just the moment to get
1\1axie. He would be full of slobbering sentiments and I
could give him any old kind of cock-and-bull story. I
could say that the reason I had assumed such a hardhoiled air on the phone was because I was harassed, because I didn't know where to turn for the ten dollars
which I needed so badly. At the same time I might be
ahle to make a date with Lottie. I began to smile thinking
about it. If Luke could only see what a friend he had in
me! The most difficult thing would be to go up to the bier
and take a sorrowful look at Luke. Not to laugh!
I explained the idea to Curley. He laughed so heartily
I hat the tears were rolling down his face. Which convinced me, by the way, that it would be safer to leave
Curley downstairs while I made the touch. Anyway, it
was decided on.
They were just sitting down to dinner when I walked
in, looking as sad as I could possibly make myself look.
Maxie was there and almost shocked by my sudden appearance. Lottie had gone already. That helped me to
keep up the sad look. I asked to be alone with Luke a few
minutes, but Maxie insisted on accompanying me. The
others were relieved, I imagine, as they had been conducting the mourners to the bier all afternoon. And like
the good Germans they were they didn't like having their
dinner interrupted. As I was looking at Luke, still with
that sorrowful expression I had mustered, I became
aware of Maxic's eyes fixed on me inquisitively. I looked
up and smiled at him in my usual way. He seemed absolutely nonplussed at this. "Listen, Maxie," I said, "are
you sure they won't hear us'?" He looked still more
puzzled and grieved, but nodded reassuringly. "It's like
this, Maxie ... I came up here purposely to see you ...
to borrow a few bucks. I know it seems lousy but you can
imagine how desperate I must be to do a thing like this."
He was shaking his head solemnly as I spit this out, his
liS

Tropic of Capricorn
118
mouth fonning a big 0 as if he were trying to frighten
the spirits away. "Listen, Maxie," 1 went on rapidly and
trying to keep my voice down sad and low, "this is no time
to give me a sermon. If you want to do something for me
lend me ten bucks now, right away ... slip it to me right ~
here while 1 look at Luke. You know, 1 really liked Luke.
1 didn't mean all that over the telephone. You got me at
a bad moment. The wife was tearing her hair out. We're
in a mess, Maxie, and I'm counting on you to do something. Come out with me if you can and I'll tell you morc
about it. ... " Maxie, as 1 had expected, couldn't come out
with me. He wouldn't think of deserting them at such a
moment . . . . "Well, give it to me now," I said, almost
savagely. "111 explain the whole thing to you tomorrow.
I'll have lunch with you downtown."
"Listen, Henry," says Maxie, fishing around in his
pocket, embarrassed at the idea of being caught with a
wad in his hand at that moment, "listen," he said, "I don't
mind giving you the money, but couldn't you have found
another way of reaching me? It ish't because of Luke ...
it's ...." He began to hem and haw, not knowing really,
what he wanted to say.
"For Christ's sake," I muttered, bending over Luke
more closely so that if anyone walked in on us they
would never suspect what I was up to ... "for Christ's
sake, don't argue about it now ... hand it over and be ,
done with it. ... I'm desperate, do you hear me?" Maxie
was so confused and flustered that he couldn't disengage
a bill without pulling the wad out of his pocket. Leaning
over the coffin reverently 1 peeled off the topmost bill
from the wad which was peeping out of his pocket. I
couldn't tell whether it was a single or a ten spot. I didn't
stop to examine it but tucked it away as rapidly as possible and straightened myself up. Then I took Maxie by
the arm and returned to the kitchen where the family
were eating solemnly but heartily. They wanted me to
stay for a bite, and it was awkward to refuse, but I re-

Tropic of Capricorn
119
fused as best I could and beat it, my face twitching now
with hysterical laughter.
At the corner, by the lamppost, Curley was waiting for
me. By this time I couldn't restrain myself any longer. I
grabbed Curley by the arm and rushing him down the
street I began to laugh, to laugh as I have seldom laughed
in my life. I thought it would never stop. Every time I
opened my mouth to start explaining the incident I had
an attack. Finally I got frightened. I thought maybe I
might laugh myself to death. After I had managed to
quiet down a bit, in the midst of a long silence, Curley
suddenly says: "Did you get it?" That precipitated another attack, even more violent than before. I had to lean
against a rail and hold my guts. I had a terrific pain in
the guts but a pleasurable pain.
What relieved me more than anything was the sight
of the bill I had filched from Maxie's wad. It was a
twenty-dollar bill! That sobered me up at once. And at
the same time it enraged me a bit. It enraged me to
think that in the pocket of that idiot, Maxie, there were
still more bills, probably more twenties, more tens, more
fives. If he had come out with me, as I suggested, and if
I had taken a good look at that wad I would have felt no
remorse in blackjacking him. I don't know why it should
have made me feel so, but it enraged me. The most immediate thought was to get rid of Curley as quickly as
possible~a five spot would fix him up-and then go on a
little spree. What I particularly wanted was to meet some
low-down, filthy cunt who hadn't a spark of decency in
her. Where to meet one like that ... just like t/wt? Well,
gct rid of Curley first. Curley, of course, is hurt. He had
expected to stick with me. He pretends not to want the
five bucks, but when he sees that I'm willing to take it
back, he quickly stows it away.
Again the night, the incalculably barren, cold,
mechanical night of New York in which there is no peace,
no refuge, no intimacy. The immense, frozen solitude of
the million-footed mob, the cold, waste fire of the elec-

120

Tropic of Capricorn

trical display, the overwhelming meaninglessness of the
perfection of the female who through perfection has
crossed the frontier of sex and gone into the minus sign, .
gone into the red, like the electricity, like the neutral
energy of the males, like planets without aspect, like
peace programs, like love over the radio. To have money
in the pocket in the midst of white, neutral energy, to
walk meaningless and unfecundated through the bright
glitter of the calcimined streets, to think aloud in full
solitude on the edge of madness, to be of a city, a great
city, to be of the last moment of time in the greatest city
in the world and feel no part of it, is to become oneself
a city, a world of dead stone, of waste light, of unintelligible motion, of imponderables and incalculables, of the
secret perfection of all that is minus. To walk in money
through the night crowd, protected by money, lulled by
money, dulled by money, the crowd itself a money, the
breath money, no least single object anywhere that is not
money, money, money everywhere and still not enough, ,
and then no money or a little money or less money or
more money, but money, always money, and if you have
money or you don't have money it is the money that
counts and money makes money, but what makes
money make money?
Again the dance hall, the money rhythm, the love that
comes over the radio, the impersonal, wingless touch of
the crowd. A despair that reaches down to the very soles
of the boots, an ennui, a desperation. In the midst of the
highest mechanical perfection to dance without joy, to be
so desperately alone, to be almost inhuman because you
are human. If there were life on the moon what more
nearly perfect, joyless evidence of it could there be than
this? If to travel away from the sun is to reach the chill
idiocy of the moon, then we have arrived at our goal and
life is but the cold, lunar incandescence of the sun. This
is the dance of ice-cold life in the hollow of an atom, and
the more we dance the colder it gets.

Tropic of Capricorn
121
So we dance, to an ice-cold frenzied rhythm, to short
waves and long waves, a dance on the inside of the cup
(,f nothingness, each centimeter of lust running to dollars
aud cents. We taxi from one perfect female to another
seeking the vulnerable defect, but they are flawless and
impermeable in their impeccabie lunar consistency. This
is the icy white maidenhead of love's logic, the web of
lite ebbed tide, the fringe of absolute vacuity. And on this
fringe of the virginal logic of perfection I am dancing the
soul dance of white desperation, the last white man pulling the trigger on the last emotion, the gorilla of despair
heating his breast with immaculate gloved paws. I am
t Ite gorilla who feels his wings growing, a giddy gorilla in
the center of a satin-like emptiness; the night too grows
like an electrical plant, shooting white-hot buds into velvet black space. I am the black space of the night in
which the buds break with anguish, a starfish swimming
on the frozen dew of the moon. I am the germ of a new
insanity, a freak dressed in intelligible language, a sob
that is buried like a splinter in the quick of the soul. I am
dancing the very sane and lovely dance of the angelic
gorilla. These are my brothers and sisters who are insane and unangelic. We are dancing in the hollow of
the cup of nothingness. We are of one flesh, but separated
like stars.
In the moment all is clear to me, clear that in this logic
there is no redemption, the city itself being the highest
form of madness and each and every part, organic or inorganic, an expression of this same madness. I feel absurdly and humbly great, not as megalomaniac, but as
human spore, as the dead sponge of life swollen to saturation. I no longer look into the eyes of the woman I hold
in my arms but I swim through, head and arms and legs,
and I see that behind the sockets of the eyes there is a
region unexplored, the world of futurity, and here there
is no logic whatever, just the still germination of events
unbroken by night and day, by yesterday and tomorrow.
The eye, accustomed to concentration on points in space,

122

Tropic of Capricorn
now concentrates on points in time; the eye sees forward •
and backward at will. The eye which was the I of the
self no longer exists; this selfless eye neither reveals nor
illuminates. It travels along the line of the horizon, a
ceaseless, uninformed voyager. Trying to retain the lost
body I grew in logic as the city, a point digit in the anatomy of perfection. I grew beyond my own death, spiritually bright and hard. I was divided into endless yesterdays, endless tomorrows, resting only on the cusp of the
event, a wall with many windows, but the house gone. I
must shatter the walls and windows, the last shell of the
lost body, if I am to rejoin the present. That is why I no
longer look into the eyes or through the eyes, hut by the
legerdemain of will swim through the eyes, head and
arms and legs, to explore the curve of vision. I see around
myself as the mother who bore me once saw round the
corners of time. I have broken the wall created by birth
and the line of voyage is round and unbroken, even as the
navel. No form, no image, no architecture, only concen-.
tric flights of sheer madness. I am the arrow of the
dream's substantiality. I verify by flight. I nullify by
dropping to earth.
Thus moments pass, veridic moments of time without
space when I know all, and knowing all I collapse beneath the vault of the selfless dream.
Between these moments, in the interstices of the dream,
life vainly tries to build up, but the scaffold of the city's
mad logiC is no support. As an individual, as flesh and
blood, I am leveled down each day to make the fleshless, bloodless city whose perfection is the sum of all
logic and death to the dream. I am struggling against an
oceanic death in which my own death is but a drop of
water evaporating. To raise my own individual life but a
fraction of an inch above this sinking sea of death I must
have a faith greater than Christ's, a wisdom deeper than
that of the greatest seer. I must have the ability and the
patience to formulate what is not contained in the language of our time, for what is now intelligible is mean-

Trupic of Capricorn
123
ingless. My eyes are useless, for they render back only
the image of the known. My whole body must become a
constant beam of light, moving with an ever greater
rapidity, never arrested, never looking back, never
dwindling. The city grows like a cancer; I must grow
like a sun. The city eats deeper and deeper into the red;
it is an insatiable white louse which must die eventually
of inanition. I am going to starve the white louse which
is eating me up. I am going to die as a city in order to
become again a man. Therefore I close my ears, my eyes,
my mouth.
Before I shall have become quite a man again I shall
probably exist as a park, a sort of natural park in which
people come to rest, to while away the time. What they
say or do will be of little matter, for they will bring only
their fatigue, their boredom, their hopelessness. I shall be
a buffer between the white louse and the red corpuscle. I
shall be a ventilator for removing the poisons accumulated through the effort to perfect that which is imperfedible. I shall be law and order as it exists in nature, as
it is projected in dream. I shall be the wild park in the
midst of the nightmare of perfection, the still, unshakeable dream in the midst of frenzied activity, the random
shot on the white hilliard tahle of logic, I shall know
neither how to weep nor protest, but I shall be there always in ahsolute silence to receive and to restore. I shall
say nothing until the time comes again to he a man. I shall
make no effort to preserve, no effort to destroy. I shall
make no judgments, no criticisms. Those who have had
enough will come to me for reflection and meditation;
those who have not had enough will die as they lived, in
disorder, in desperation, in ignorance of the truth of redemption. If one says to me, you must be religious, I shall
make no answer. If one says to me, I have no time now,
there's a cunt waiting for me, I shall make no answer. Or
even if there be a revolution brewing, I shall make no
answer. There will always be a cunt or a revolution around
the corner, but the mother who bore me turned many a

124

Tropic of Capricorn

corner and made no answer, and finaHy she turned hcr- ,
self inside out and I am the answer.
Out of such a wild mania for perfection naturally no
one would have expected an evolution to a wild park, not
even I myself, but it is infinitely better, while attending
death, to live in a state of grace and natural bewilderment. Infinitely better, as life moves toward a deathly
perfection, to be just a bit of breathing space, a stretch
of green, a little fresh air, a pool of water. Better also to
receive men silently and to enfold them, for there is no
answer to make while they are still frantically rushing
to turn the corner.
I'm thinking now about the rock fight one summer's
afternoon long long ago when I was staying with my
Aunt Caroline up near Hell Gate. My cousin Gene and I
had been corralled by a gang of boys while we were
playing in the park. We didn't know which side we were
fighting for but wc wcre fighting in dead earnest amidst
the rock pile by thc river bank. We had to show even,
more courage than the other boys because we were suspected of being sissies. That's how it happened that we
killed one of the rival gang. Just as they were charging
us my cousin Gene let go at the ringleader and caught
him in the guts with a handsome-sized rock. I let go almost at the same instant and my rock caught him in the
temple and when he went down he lay there for good
and not a peep out of him. A few minutes later the cops
came and the boy was found dead. He was eight or nine
years old, about the same age as lIS. What they would
have done to us if they had caught us I don't know. Anyway, so as not to arouse any suspicion we hurried home; we
had cleaned up a bit on the way and had combed our
hair. We walked in looking almost as immaculate as
when we had left the house. Aunt Caroline gave us our
usual two big slices of sour rye with fresh butter and a
little sugar over it and we sat there at the kitchen table
listening to her with an angelic smile. It was an extremely
hot day and she thought we had better stay in the house,

Tropic of Capricorn
125
in the big front room where the blinds had been pulled
down, and play marbles with our little friend Joey Kasselbaum. Joey had the reputation of being a little backward and ordinarily we would have trimmed him, but
that afternoon, by a sort of mute understanding, Gene
and I allowed him to win everything we had. Joey was
so happy that he took liS down to his cellar later and
made his sister pull up her dress and show us what
was underneath. Weesie, they called her, and I remember that she was stuek on me instantly. I came from another part of the city, so far away it seemed to them, that
it was almost like coming from another country. They
even seemed to think that I talked differently from them.
Whereas the other urchins used to pay to make Weesie
lift her dress up, for us it was done with love. After a
while we persuaded her not to do it any more for the
other boys-we were in love with her and we wanted
her to go straight.
When I left my cousin the end of the summer I didn't
see him again for twenty years or more. When we did
meet what deeply impressed me was the look of innocence he wore-the same expression as the day of the
rock fight. When I spoke to him about the fight I was still
more amazed to discover that he had forgotten that it was
we who had killed the boy; he remembered the boy's
death but he spoke of it as though neither he nor I had
any part in it. When I mentioned Weesie's name he had
difficulty in placing her. Don't you remember the cellar
next door . . . Joey Kcssclbaum? At this a faint smile
passed over his face. He thought it extraordinary that I
should rememher SUell things. He was already married,
a father, and working in a factory making fancy pipe
cases. He considered it extraordinary to rememher events
that had happened so far back in the past.
On leaving him that evening I felt terribly despondent.
It was as though he had attempted to eradicate a precious part of my life, and himself with it. He seemed
more attached to the tropical fish which he was collecting

126

Tropic of Capricorn
than to the wonderful past. As for me I recollect everything, everything that happened that summer, and particularly the day of the rock fight. There are times, in fact,
when the taste of that big slice of sour rye which his
mother handed me that afternoon is stronger in my
mouth than the food I am actually tasting. And the sight
of Weesie's little bud almost stronger than the actual
feel of what is in my hand. The way the boy lay there
after we downed him, far far more impressive than the
history of the World War. The whole long summer, in
fact, seems like an idyll out of the Arthurian legends. I
often wonder what it was about this particular summer
which makes it so vivid in my memory. I have only to
close my eyes a moment in order to relive each day. The
death of the boy certainly caused me no anguish-it was
forgotten before a week had elapsed. The sight of Weesie
standing in the gloom of the cellar with her dress lifted
up, that too passed easily away. Strangely enough, the
thick slice of rye bread which his mother handed me each·
day seems to possess more potency than any other image
of that period. I wonder about it ... wonder deeply. Perhaps it is that whenever she handed me the slice of bread
it was with a tenderness and a sympathy that I had never
known before. She was a very homely woman, my Aunt
Caroline. Her face was marked by the pox, but it was a
kind, winsome face which no disfigurement could mar.
She was enormously stout and she had a very soft, a very
caressing voice. When she addressed me she seemed to
give me even more attention, more consideration, than
her own son. I would like to have stayed with her always: I would have chosen her for my own mother had
I been permitted. I remember distinctly how when my
mother arrived on a visit she seemed peeved that I was
so contented with my new life. She even remarked that
I was ungrateful, a remark I never forgot, because then
I realized for the first time that to be ungrateful was
perhaps necessary and good for one. If I close my eyes
now and I think about it, about the slice of bread, I

Tropic of Capricorn

127

think almost at once that in this house I never knew
what it was to be scolded. I think if I had told my Aunt
Caroline that I had killed a boy in the lot, told her just
how it happened, she would have put her arms around
me and forgiven me-instantly. That's why perhaps that
summer is so precious to me. It was a summer of tacit
and complete absolution. That's why I can't forget Weesic either. She was full of a natural goodness, a child who
was in love with me and who made no reproaches. She
was the first of the other sex to admire me for being
different. After Weesie it was the other way round. I was
loved, but I was hated too for being what I was. Weesie
made an effort to understand. The very fact that I came
from a strange country, that I spoke another language,
drew her closer to mc. The way her eyes shone when she
presented me to her little friends is something I will
never forget. Her eyes seemed to be bursting with love
and admiration. Sometimes the three of lIS would walk
to the riverside in the evening and sitting on the bank
we would talk as children talk when they are out of
sight of their elders. \Ve talked then, I know it now so
well, marc sanely and morc profoundly than our parents.
To give us that thick slice of bread each day the parents
had to pay a heavy pcnalty. The worst penalty was that
they became estranged from us. For, with each slice they
fed us we became not only more indifferent to them, but
we hecame more and more superior to them. In our ungratefulness was our strength and our beauty. Not being
devoted we were innocent of all crime. The hoy whom I
saw drop dead, who lay there motionless, without making the slightest sound or whimper, the killing of that
hoy seems almost like a clean, healthy performance. The
struggle for food, on the other hand, seems foul and degrading and when we stood in the presence of our parents
we sensed that they had come to us unclean and for that
we could never forgive them. The thick slice of bread
in the afternoons, precisely because it was not earned,
tasted delicious to us. Never again will bread taste this

128

Tropic of Capricorn

way. Never again will it be given this way. The day of the
murder it was even tastier than ever. It had a slight taste
of terror in it which has been lacking ever since. And it
was received with Aunt Caroline's tacit but complete
absolution.
There is something about the rye bread which I am
trying to fathom-something vaguely delicious, terrifying
and liberating, something associated with first discoveries.
I am thinking of another slice of sour rye which was connected with a still earlier period, when my little friend
Stanley and I used to rifle the icebox. That was ~tolen
bread and consequently even more marvelous to the palate than the bread which was given with love. But it was
in the act of eating the rye bread, the walking around with
it and talking at the same time, that something in the nature of revelation occurred. It was like a state of grace, a
state of complete ignorance, of self-abnegation. \Vhatever
was imparted to me in these moments I seem to have re-'
tained intact and there is no fear that I shall ever lose the
knowledge that was gained. It was just the fact perhaps
that it was not knowledge as we ordinarily think of it. It
was almost like receiving a truth, though truth is almost too
precise a word for it. The important thing about the sour
rye discussions is that they always took place away from
home, away from the eyes of our parents whom we feared
hut never respected. Left to ourselves there were no limits
to what we might imagine. Facts had little importance for
us; what we demanded of a subject was that it allow us
opportunity to expand. What amazes me, when I look
hack on it, is how well we understood one another, how
well we penetrated to the essential character of each and
everyone, young or old. At seven years of age we knew
with dead certainty, for example, that such a fellow would
end up in prison, that another would be a drudge, and
another a good for nothing, and so on. We were absolutely
correct in our diagnoses, much more correct, for example,
than our parents, or our teachers, more correct, indeed,
than the so-called psychologists. Alfie Betcha turned out

Tropic of Capricorn
1
to be an absolute bum; Johnny Gerhardt went to t
penitentiary; Bob Kunst became a work horse. Infallible
predictions. The learning we received only tended to obscure our vision. From the day we went to school we
learned nothing; on the contrary, we were made obtuse,
we were wrapped in a fog of words and abstractions.
With the sour rye the world was what it is essentially,
a primitive world ruled by magic, a world in which fear
plays the most important role. The boy who could inspire
the most fear was the leader and he was respected as long
as he could maintain his power. There were other boys
who were rebels, and they were admired, but they never
became the leader. The majority were clay in the hands
of the fearless ones; a few could be depended on, but
the most not. The air was full of tension-nothing could
be predicted for the morrow. This loose, primitive nucleus
of a society created sharp appetites, sharp emotions, sharp
curiosity. Nothing was taken for granted; each day demanded a new test of power, a new sense of strength or
of failure. And so, up until the age of nine or ten, we had
a real taste of life-we were on our own. That is, those of
us who were fortunate enough not to have been spoiled by
our parents, those of us who were free to roam the streets
at night and to discover things with our own eyes.
What I am thinking of, with a certain amount of regret
and longing, is that this thoroughly restricted life of
early boyhood seems like a limitless universe and the life
which followed upon it, the life of the adult, a constantly
diminishing realm. From the moment when one is put
in school one is lost; one has the feeling of having a halter
put around his neck. The taste goes out of the bread as it
goes out of life. Getting the bread becomes more important than the eating of it. Everything is calculated and
everything has a price upon it.
\1y cousin Gene became an absolute nonentity; Stanley
became a first-rate failure. Besides these two boys, for
whom I had the greatest affection, there was another,
Joey, who has since become a letter carrier. I could weep

· 130
Tropic of Capricorn
when I think of what life has made them. As boys they
were perfect, Stanley least of all because Stanley was
more temperamental. Stanley went into violent rages
now and then and there was no telling how you stood with
him from day to day. But Joey and Gene were the essence
of goodness; they were friends in the old meaning
of the word. I think of Joey often when I go out into the
country because he was what is called a country boy. That
meant, for one thing, that he was more loyal, more sincere,
more tender, than the boys we knew. I can see Joey,
now coming to meet me; he was always running with arms
wide open and ready to embrace me, always breathless
with adventures that he was planning for my participation, always loaded with gifts which he had saved for
my coming. Joey received me like the monarchs of old
received their guests. Everything I looked at was mine.
We had innumerable things to tell each other and nothing
was dull or boring. The difference between our respective
worlds was enormous. Though I was of the city too, still,
when I visited my cousin Gene, I became aware of an
even greater city, a city of New York proper in which my
sophistication was negligible. Stanley knew no excursions
from his own neighborhood, but Stanley had come from
a strange land over the sea, Poland, and there was always
between us the mark of the voyage. The fact that he spoke
another tongue also increased our admiration for him.
Each one was surrounded by a distinguishing aura, by a
well-defined identity which was preserved inviolate. With
the entrance into life these traits of difference fell away'
and we all became more or less alike and, of course, most
unlike our own selves. And it is this loss of the peculiar
self, of the perhaps unimportant individuality, which saddens me and makes the rye bread stand out glowingly.
The wonderful sour rye went into the making of our
individual selves; it was like the communion loaf in which
all participate but from which each one receives only
according to his peculiar state of grace. Now we are eating
of the same bread, but without benefit of communion,

Tropic of Capricorn
131
without grace. We are eating to fill our bellies and our
hearts are cold and empty. We are separate but not individual.
There was another thing about the sour rye and that
was that we often ate a raw onion with it. I remember
standing with Stanley in the late afternoons, a sandwich
in hand, in front of the veterinary's which was just opposite my home. It always seemed to be late afternoon when
Dr. McKinney elected to castrate a stallion, an operation
which was done in public and which always gathered a
small crowd. I remember the smell of the hot iron and the
(Iuivering of the horse's legs, Dr. McKinney's goatee, the
taste of the raw onion and the smell of the sewer gas just
behind us where they were laying in a new gas main. It
was an olfactory performance through and through and,
as Abelard so well describes it, practically painless. Not
knowing the reason for the operation we used to hold
long discussions afterwards which usually ended in a
brawl. Nobody liked Dr. McKinney either; there was a
smell of iodoform about him and of stale horse piss. Sometimes the gutter in front of his office was filled with blood
and in the wintertime the blood froze into the ice and
gave a strange look to his sidewalk. Now and then the
big two-wheeled cart came, an open cart which smelled
like the devil, and they whisked a dead horse into it.
Rather it was hoisted in, the carcass, by a long ehain whieh
made a creaking noise like the dropping of an anchor. The
smell of a bloated dead horse is a foul smell and our
street was full of foul smells. On the comer was Paul
Sauer's place where raw hides and trimmed hides were
stacked up in the street; they stank frightfully too. And
then the acrid odor coming from the tin factory behind
the house-like the smell of modern progress. The smell
of a dead horse, whieh is almost unbearable, is still a
thousand times better than the smell of burning chemicals.
And the sight of a dead horse with a bullet hole in the
temple, his head lying in a pool of blood and his asshole
bursting with the last spasmic evacuation, is still a better

132

Tropic of Capricorn

sight than that of a group of men in blue aprons coming
out of the arched doorway of the tin factory with a hand
truck loaded with bales of fresh-made tin. Fortunalely for
us there was a bakery opposite the tin factory and from
the back door of the bakery, which was only a grill, we
could watch the bakers at work and get the sweet, irresistible odor of bread and cake. And if, as I say, the gas
mains were being laid there was another strange medley
of smells-the smell of earth just turned up, of rotted
iron pipes, of sewer gas, and of the onion sandwiches
which the Italian laborers ate whilst reclining against
the mounds of upturned earth. There were other smells
too, of course, but less striking; such, for instance, as the
smell of Silverstein's tailor shop where there was always
a great deal of pressing going on. This was a hot, fetid
stench which can be best apprehended by imagining that
Silverstein, who was a lean, smelly Jew himself, was
cleaning out the farts which his customers had left behind
in their pants. Next door was the candy and stationery
shop owned by two daffy old maids who were religious;
here there was the almost sickeningly sweet smell of taffy,
of Spanish peanuts, of jujubes and Sen-Sen and of Sweet
Caporal cigarettes. The stationery store was like a beautiful cave, always cool, always full of intriguing objects;
where the soda fountain was, which gave off another
distinct odor, ran a thick marble slab which turned sour
in the summertime and yet mingled pleasantly, the sourness, with the slightly ticklish, dry smell of the carbonated
water when it was fizzed into the glass of ice cream.
With the refinements that come with maturity the smells
faded out, to be replaced by only one other distinctly
memorable, distinctly pleasurable smell-the odor of the
cunt. More particularly the odor that lingers on the fingers
after playing with a woman, for, if it has not been noticed
before, this smell is even more enjoyable, perhaps because it already carries with it the perfume of the past
tense, than the odor of the cunt itself. But this odor,
which belongs to maturity, is but a faint odor compared

133
with the odors attaching to childhood. It is an odor which
evaporates, almost as quickly in the mind's imagination,
as in reality. One can remember many things about the
woman one has loved but it is hard to remember the
smell of her cunt-with anything like certitude. The
smell of \vet hair, on the other hand, a woman's wet hair,
is much more powerful and lasting-why, I don't know.
r can remember even now, after almost forty years, the
smell of my Aunt Tillie's hair after she had taken a
shampoo. This shampoo was performed in the kitchen
which was always overheated. Usually it was a late Saturday afternoon, ill preparation for a ball, which meant
again another singular thing-that there would appear
a cavalry sergeant with very beautiful yellow stripes, a
singlliarly handsome sergeant who even to my eyes was
far too graciolIs, manly and intelligent for an imbecile
such as my Aunt Tillie. But anyway, there she sat on a
little stool hy the kitchen table drying her hair with a
towel. Beside her was a little lamp with a smoked chimney and beside the lamp two curling irons the very sight
of which fillcd me with an inexplicable loathing. Generally she had a little mirror propped up on the table; I
can see her now making wry faces at herself as she
squeezed the blackheads out of her nose. She was a
stringy, ugly, imbecilic creature with two enormous buck
teeth which gave her a horsey look whenever her lips
drew back in a smile. She smelled sweaty,
too, even after
-'
a bath. But the smell of her hair-that smell I can never
forget, because somehow the smell is associated with my
hatred and contempt for her. This smell, when the hair
was jllst drying, was like the smell that comes up from the
bottom of a marsh. There were two smells-one of the
wet hair and another of the same hair when she threw
it into the stove and it burst into flame. There were always curled knots of hair which came from her comb,
and they were mixed with dandruff and the sweat of her
scalp which was greasy and dirty. I used to stand by her
side and watch her, wondering what the ball would be

Tropic of Capricorn

134

Tropic of Capricorn

like and wondering how she would behave at the ball.
\Vhen she was all primped up she would ask me if she
didn't look beautiful and if I didn't love her, and of
course I would tell her yes. But in the water closet later,
which was in the hall just next to the kitchen, I would·
sit in the flickering light of the burning taper which was
placed on the window ledge, and I would say to myself
that she looked crazy. After she was gone I would pick
up the curling irons and smell them and squeeze them.
They were revolting and fascinating-like spiders.
Everything about this kitchen was fascinating to me.
Familiar as I was with it I never conquered it. It was at
once so public and so intimate. Here I was given my bath,
in the big tin tub, on Saturdays. Here the three sisters
washed themselves and primped themselves. Here my
grandfather stood at the sink and washed himself to the
waist and later handed me his shoes to be shined. Here
I stood at the window in the winter time and watched
the snow fall, watched it dully, vacantly, as if I were in
the womb and listening to the water running while my
mother sat on the toilet. It was in the kitchen where the
secret confabulations were held, frightening, odious sessiems from which they always reappeared with long, grave
faces or eyes red with weeping. Why they ran to the
kitchen I don't know. But it was often while they stood
thus in secret conference, haggling about a will or deciding how to dispense with some poor relative, that the
door was suddenly opened and a visitor would arrive,
whereupon the atmosphere immediately changed.
Changed violently, I mean, as though they were relieved
that some outside force had intervened to spare them
the horrors of a protracted secret session. I remember
now that, seeing that door open and the face of an
unexpected visitor peering in, my heart would leap with
joy. Soon I would be given a big glass pitcher and asked
to run to the comer saloon where I would hand the
pitcher in, through the little window at the family entrance, and wait until it was returned brimming with

Tropic of Capricorn
135
foamy suds. This little run to the corner for a pitcher
of beer was an expedition of absolutely incalculable proportions. First of all there was the barber shop just below us, where Stanley's father practiced his profession.
Time and again, just as I was dashing out for something,
I would see the father giving Stanley a drubbing with
the razor strop, a sight that made my blood boil. Stanley
was my best friend and his father was nothing but a
drunken Polack. One evening, however, as I was dashing
out with the pitcher, I had the intense pleasure of seeing
another Polack go for Stanley's old man with a razor. I
saw his old man coming through the door backwards,
the blood running down his neck, his face white as a
sheet. Hc fell on the sidewalk in front of the shop, twitching and moaning, and I remember looking at him for a
minute or two and walking on feeling absolutely contented and happy about it. Stanley had sneaked out
during the scrimmage and was accompanying me to the
saloon door. He was glad too, though he was a bit
frigl1tened. \Vhen we got back the ambulance was there
in front of the door and they were lifting him in on the
stretcher, his face and neck covered with a sheet. Sometimes it happened that Father Carroll's pet choirboy
strolled by the house just as I \vas hitting the air. This
was an event of primary importance. The hoy was older
than any of us and he was a sissy, a fairy in the making.
His very walk used to enrage us. As soon as he was
spotted the news went out in every direction and before
h(' had rcached thc corner he was surrounded by a gang
of boys all mnch smaller than himself who taunted him
and ~imicked him until he burst into tears. Then we
would pounce on him, like a pack of wolves, pull him to
the ground anel tear the clothes off his hack. It was a
disgraceful performance bllt it made us feel good. N 0body knew yet v,,'hat a fairy was, hut whatever it was
we were against it. In the same way we wcre against
the Chinamen. There was one Chinaman, from the laundry up the street, who used to pass frequently and, like

136

Tropic of Capricorn

the sissy from Father Carroll's church, he too had to
run the gantlet. He looked exactly like the picture of a
coolie which one sees in the schoolbooks. He wore a sort
of black alpaca coat with braided button holes, slippers
wit hout heels, and a pigtail. lJ sually he walked with his
hands in his sleeves. It was his walk which I remcmber
best, a sort of sly, mincing, feminine walk which was
utterly foreign and menacing to us. We wcre in mortal
dread of him and we hated him because he was absolutely indifferent to our gibes. We thought he was too
ignorant to notice our insults. Then one day when we
entered the laundry he gave us a little surprise. First he
handed us the package of laundry; then he reached
down below the counter and gathered a handful of lichee
nuts from the big bag. He was smiling as he came from
behind the counter to open the door. He was still smiling
as he caught hold of Alfie Betcha and pulled his cars;
he caught hold of each of us in turn and pulled our ears,
still smiling. Then he made a ferocious grimace and,
swift as a cat, he ran behind the counter and picked up
a long, ugly-looking knife which he hrandished at us.
We fell over ourselves getting out of the place. When
we got to the corner and looked around we saw him
standing in the doorway with an iron in his hand looking very calm and peaceful. After this incident nobody
would go to the laundry any more; we had to pay little
Louis Pirossa a nickel each week to collect the laundry
for us. Louis's father owned the fruit stand on the corner.
He used to hand us the rotten bananas as a token of his
affection. Stanley was especially fond of the rotten
bananas as his aunt used to fry them for him. The fried
bananas were considered a delicacy in Stanley's home.
Once, on his hirthday, there was a party given for Stanley and the whole neighborhood was invited. Everything went beautifully until it came to the fried bananas.
Somehow nobody wanted to touch the bananas, as this
was a dish known only to Polacks like Stanley's parcnts.
It was considered disgusting to eat fried bananas. In the

Tropic of Capricorn
137
midst of the embarrassment some bright youngster suggested that crazy Willic Maine should be given the
fried bananas. Willie Maine was older than any of us
but unable to talk. He said nothing but Bjork! B;ork! He
said this to everything. So when the bananas were passed
to him he said Bjork! and he reached for them with two
hands. But his brother George was there and George felt
insulted that they should have palmed off the rotten
bananas on his crazy brother. So George started a fight
and Willie, seeing his brother attacked, began to fight
also, screaming Bjork! Bjork! Not only did he strike
out at the other boys but at the girls too, which created
a pandemonium. Finally Stanley's old man, hearing the
noise, came up from the barber shop with a strop in his
hand. He look crazy Willie Maine by the scruff of the
neck and began to lambast him. Meanwhile his brother
George had sneaked off to can Mr. Maine senior. The
latter, who was also a bit of a drunkard, arrived in his
shirt sleeves and seeing poor Willie being beaten by
the drunken harber, he went for him with two stout fists
and beat him lip unmercifully. Willie, who had gotten
free meanwhile, was on his hands and knees, gobbling up
the fried bananas which had fallen on the floor. He was
stuffing them away like a bil1y goat, fast as he could
find them. When the old man saw him there chewing
away like a goat he became furiolls and picking up the
strop he went after Willie with a vengeance. Now Willie
began to howl-Bjork! Bjork!-and suddenly everybody
began to laugh. That took the steam out of Mr. ~1aine
and he relented. Finally he sat down and Stanley's aunt
brought him a glass of wine. Hearing the racket some of
the other neighbors came in and there was more wine
and then beer and then schnapps and soon everybody
was happy ancI singing and whistling and even the kids
got drunk and then crazy ·Willie got drunk and again
he got down on the floor like a billy goat and he yelled
Bjork! Biork! and Alfie Betcha, who was very drunk
though only eight years old, bit crazy Willie Maine in

138
T Topic of Capricorn
the backside and then Willie bit him and then we all
started biting each other and the parents stood by
laughing and screaming with glee and it was very very
merry and there were more fried bananas and everybody ate them this time and then there were speeches
and more bumpers downed and crazy Willie Maine tried
to sing for us but could only sing Bjork! Bjork! It was a
stupendous success, the birthday party, and for a week
or more no one talked of anything but the party and what
good Polacks Stanley's people were. The fried bananas,
too, were a success and for a time it was hard to get any
rotten bananas from Louis Pirossa's old man because
they were so much in demand. And then an event occurred which cast a pall over the entire neighborhoodthe defeat of Joe Gerhardt at the hands of Joey Silverstein. The latter was the tailor's son; he was a lad of
fifteen or sixteen, rather qlliet and studious looking, who
was .shunned by the other older boys because he was a
Jew. One day as he was delivering a pair of pants to
Fillmore Place he was accosted by Joey Gerhardt who
was about the same age and who considered himself a
rather superior being. There was an exchange of words
and then Joe Gerhardt pulled the pants away from the
Silverstein boy and threw them in the gutter. Nobody
had ever imagined that young Silverstein would reply
to such an insult by recourse to his fists and so when he
struck out at Joe Gerhardt and cracked him square in
the jaw everybody was taken aback, most of all Joe
Gerhardt himself. There was a fight which lasted ahout
twenty minutes and at the end Joe Gerhardt lay on the
sidewalk unable to get up. Whereupon the Silverstein
boy gathered up the pair of pants and walked quietly
and proudly back to his father's shop. Nobody said a
word to him. The affair was regarded as a calamity.
Who had ever heard of a Jew beating up a Gentile? It
was something inconceivable, and yet it had happened,
right before everyone's eyes. Night after night, sitting on
the curb as we used to, the situation was discussed from

Tropic of Capricorn
139
every angle, but without any solution until . . . wen
until Joe Gerhardt's younger brother, Johnny, became so
wrought up about it that he decided to settle the matter
himself. Johnny, though younger and smaller than his
brother, was as tough and invincible as a young puma.
He was typical of the shanty Irish who made up the
neighborhood. His idea of getting even with young Silverstein was to lie in wait for him one evening as the
latter was stepping out of the store and trip him up.
\Vhen he tripped him up that evening he had provided
himself in advance with two little rocks which he concealed in his fists and when poor Silverstein went down
he pounced on him and then with the two handsome
little rocks he pounded poor Silverstein's temples. To his
amazement Silverstein offered no resistance; even when
he got up and gave him a chance to get to his feet Silverstein never so mnch as budged. Then Johnny got frightened and ran away. lIe must have been thoroughly
frightened because he never came back again; the next
that was heard of him was that he had been picked IIp
out West somewhere and sent to a reformatory. His
mother, \vho was a slatternly, jolly Irish bitch, said that
it served him right and she hoped to God she'd never
lay eyes on him again. When the hoy Silverstein recovered he was not the same any more; people said the
beating had affected his brain, that he \vas a little (laffy.
Joe Gerhardt, on the other hand, rose to prominence
again. It seems that he had gone to see the Silverstein
boy while he lay in bed and had made a deep apology
to him. This again was something that had never been
heard of hefore. It was something so strange, so unusual,
that Joe Gerhardt was looked upon almost as a knight
errant. Nobody had approved of the way Johnny behaved, and yet nohody would have thought of going to
young Silverstein and apologizing to llim. That was an
act of such delicacy, such elegance, that Joe Gerhardt
was lookr'c1 upon as a real gentleman--the first and only
gentleman in the neighborhood. It was a word that had

140

Tropic of Capricorn

never been used among us and now it was on everybody's lips and it was considered a distinction to be a
gentleman. This sudden transformation of the defeated
Joe Gerhardt into a gentleman I remember made a deep
impression upon me. A few years later, when I moved
into another neighborhood and encountered Claude de
Lorraine, a French boy, I was prepared to understand
and accept "a gentleman." This Claude was a boy such
as I had never laid eyes on before. In the old neighborhood he would have been regarded as a sissy; for one
thing he spoke too well, too correctly, too politely, and
for another thing he was too considerate, too gentle, too
gallant. And then, while playing with him, to hear him
suddenly break into French as his mother or father came
along, provided us with something like a shock. German'
we had heard and German was a permissible transgression, but French! why to talk French, or even to understand it, was to be thoroughly alien, thoroughly aristocratic, rotten, distingue. And yet Clallde was one of us,
as good as us in every way, even a little bit better, we
had to admit secretly, But there was a blemish-his
French! It antagonized us. He had no right to be living
in our neighborhood, no right to be as capahle and
manly as he was. Often, when his mother called him in
and we had said good-by to him, we got together in the
lot and we discussed the Lorraine family backwards
and forwards. We wondered what they ate, for example,
because being French they must have different customs
than ours, No one had ever set foot in Claude de Lorraine's home either-that was another suspicious and
repugnant fact. Why? What were they concealing? Yet
when they passed us in the street they were always
very cordial, always smiled, always spoke in English
and a most excellent English it was. They used to make
us feel rather ashamed of ourselves-they were superior,
that's what it was. And there was still another bafHing
thing-with the other boys a direct question brought a
direct answer, but with Claude de Lorraine there was

Tropic of Capricorn
141
never any direct answer. He always smiled very charmingly before replying and he was very cool, collected,
employing an irony and a mockery which was beyond
us. He was a thorn in our side, Claude de Lorraine, and
when finally he moved out of the neighborhood we all
breathed a sigh of relief. As for myself, it was only
maybe ten or fifteen years later that I thought about this
boy and his strange, elegant behavior. And it was then
that I felt I had made a bad blunder. For suddenly one
day it occurred to me that Claude de Lorraine had come
up to me on a certain occasion obviously to win my
friendship and I had treated him rather cavalierly. At
the time I thought of this incident it suddenly dawned
on me that Claude de Lorraine must have seen something
different in me and that he had meant to honor me by
extending the hand of friendship. But back in those days
I had a code of honor, such as it was, alld that was to
run with the herd. Had I become a bosom friend of
Claude de Lorraine I would have been betraying the
othcr boys. No matter what advantages lay in the wake
of such a friendship they were not for me; I was one of
the gang and it was my duty to remain aloof from such
as Claude de Lorraine. I remembered this incident once
again, I must say, after a still greater int(~rval-after I
had been in France a few months and the word raisonnable had come to acquire a wholly new significance for
me. Suddenly one day, overhearing it, r thought of
Claude de 1,orraine's overtures on the street in front of
his house. I recalled vividlv that he had used the word
reasorwhic. lie had probably asked me to be reasonable,
a word which then would never have crossed my lips as
there was no need for it in my vocahulary. It was a word,
like gentleman, which was rarely brought out and then
only with great discretion and circumspection. Tt was a
word which might cause others to laugh at you. There
were lots of words like that---really, for example. No one
I knew had ever lIsed the word really-until Jack Lawson came along. He used it because his parents were

142

Tropic of Capricorn

English and, though we made fun of him, we forgave
him for it. Really was a word which reminded me immediately of little Carl Ragner from the old neighborhood. Carl Ragner was the only son of a politician who
lived on the rather distinguished little street called Fillmore Place. He lived near the end of the street in a little
red brick house which was always beautifully kept. I
remember the house because passing it on my way to
school I used to remark how beautifully the brass knobs
on the door were polished. In fact, nobody else had
brass knobs on their doors. Anyway, little Carl Ragner
was one of those boys who was not allowed to associate
with other boys. He was rarely seen, as a matter of fact. '
Usually it was a Sunday that we caught a glimpse of
him walking with his father. Had his father not been
a powerful figure in the neighborhood Carl would have
been stoned to death. He was really impossible, in his
Sunday garb. Not only did he wear long pants and patent
leather shoes, but he sported a derby and a cane. At
six years of agc a boy who would allow himself to be
dressed up in this fashion must be a ninny-that was
the consensus of opinion. Some said he was sickly, as
though that were an excuse for his eccentric dress. The
strange thing is that I never once heard him speak. He
was so elegant, so refined, that perhaps he had imagined
it was bad manners to speak in public. At any rate, I used
to lie in wait for him Sunday mornings just to see him
pass with his old man. I watched him with the same
avid curiosity that I would watch the firemen cleaning
the engines in the firehouse. Sometimes on the way home
he would be carrying a little box of ice cream, the smallest size they had, probably just enough for him, for his
dessert. Dessert was another word which had somehow
become familiar to us and which we used derogatorily
when referring to the likes of little Carl Ragner and his
family. \Ve could spend hours wondering what thcse
people ate for dessert, our pleasure consisting principally
in bandying about this new-found word, desserf, which

Tropic of Capricorn
143
had probably been smuggled out of the Ragner household. It must also have been about this time that Santos
Dumont came into fame. For us there was something
grotesque about the name Santos Dumont. About his
exploits we were not much concerned-just the name.
For most of us it smelled of sugar, of Cuban plantations,
of the strange Cuban flag which had a star in the corner
and which was always highly regarded by those who
saved the little cards which were given away with
Sweet Caporal cigarettes and on which there were represented either the flags of the different nations or the leading soubrettes of the stage or the famous pugilists. Santos Dumont, then, was something delightfully foreign,
in contradistinction to the usual foreign person or object,
such as the Chinese laundry, or Claude de Lorraine's
haughty French family. Santos Dumont was a magical
word which suggested a beautiful flowing mustache, a
sombrero, spurs, something airy, delicate, humorous,
quixotic. Sometimes it brought up the aroma of coffee
heans and of straw mats, or, because it was so thoroughly
outlandish and quixotic, it would entail a digression concerning the life of the Hottentots. For there were among
us, older boys who were beginning to read and who
would entertain us by the hour with fantastic tales which
they had gleaned from books such as Aljesha or Ouida's
Under Tu:o Flags. The real flavor of knowledge is most
definitely associated in my mind with the vacant lot at
the corner of the new neigllborhood where I was transplanted at about the age of ten. Here, when the fall days
came on and we stood about the bonfire roasting chippies and raw potatoes in the little cans which we carried, there ensued a new type of discussion which differed
from tIlt' old discussions I had known in that the origins
were always bookish. Some one had just read a book of
adventure, or a hook of science, and forthwith the whole
street hecame animated by the introduction of a hitherto
unknown subject. It might be that one of these boys
had just discovered that there was such a thing as the

144

Tropic of Capricorn

Japanese current and he would try to explain to us how
the Japanese current came into existence and what the
purpose of it was. This was the only way we learned
things-against the fence, as it were, while roasting
chippies and raw potatoes. These bits of knowledge sunk
deep-so deep, in fact, that later, confronted with a more
accurate knowledge it was often difficult to dislodge the
older knowledge. In this way it was explained to us one
day by an older boy that the Egyptians had known about
the circulation of the blood, something which seemed so
natural to us that it was hard later to swallow the story
of the discovery of the circulation of the blood by an'
Englishman named Harvey. Nor does it seem strange to
me now that in those days most of our conversation was
about remote places, such as China, Peru, Egypt, Africa,
Iceland, Greenland. We talked about ghosts, about God,
about the transmigration of souls, about Hell, about
astronomy, about strange birds and fish, about the formation of precious stones, about rubber plantations,
about methods of torture, about the Aztecs and the Incas, about marine life, about volcanoes and earthquakes,
about burial rites and wedding ceremonies in various
parts of the earth, about languages, about the origin of
the American Indian, about the buffaloes dying out,
about strange diseases, about cannibalism, about wizardry, about trips to the moon and what it was like there,
about murderers and highwaymen, about the miracles
in the Bible, about the manufacture of pottery, about a
thousand and one subjects which were ncver mentioned
at home or in school and which were vital to us because
we were starved and the world was full of wonder and
mystery and it was only when we stood shivering in the
vacant lot that we got to talking seriously and felt a need
for communication which was at once pleasurable and
terrifying.
The wonder and the mystery of life-which is
throttled in us as we become responsible members of
society! Until we were pushed out to work the world

Tropic of Capricorn
145
was very small and we were living on the fringe of it,
on the frontier, as it were, of the unknown. A small
Greek world which was nevertheless deep enough to
provide all manner of variation, all manner of adventure
and speculation. Not so very small either, since it held in
reserve the most boundless potentialities. I have gained
nothing by the enlargement of my world; on the contrary, I have lost. I want to become more and more
childish and to pass beyond childhood in the opposite
direction. I want to go exactly contrary to the normal line
of development, pass into a superinfantile realm of being
which will be absolutely crazy and chaotic but not crazy
and chaotic as the world about me. I have been an adult
and a father and a responsihle member of society. I have
earned my daily bread. I have adapted myself to a world
which never was mine. I want to break through this enlarged world and stand again on the frontier of an unknown world which will throw this pale, unilateral world
into shadow. I want to pass beyond the responsibility of
fatherhood to the irresponsibility of the anarchic man
who cannot be coerced nor wheedled nor cajoled nor
bribed nor traduced. I want to take as my guide Oberon
the nightrider who, under the spread of his black wings,
eliminates both the beauty and the horror of the past; I
want to flee toward a perpetual dawn with a swiftness
and relentlessness that leaves no room for remorse, regret, or repentance. I want to outstrip the inventive man
who is a curse to the earth in order to stand once again
before an impassable deep which not even the strongest
wings will enable me to traverse. Even if I must become
a wild and natural park inhabited only by idle
dreamers I must not stop to rest here in the ordered
fatuity of responsible, adult life. I must do this in remembrance of a life beyond all comparison with the life
whieh was promised me, in remembrance of the life of a
child who was strangled and stifled by the mutual consent of those who had surrendered. Everything which
the fathers and the mothers created I disown. I am going

146

Tropic of Capricorn

back to a world even smaller than the old Hellenic world,
going back to a world which I can always touch with
outstretched arms, the world of what I know and see
and recognize from moment to moment. Any other world
is meaningless to me, and alien and hostile. In retraversing the first bright world which I knew as a child I wish
not to rest there but to muscle hack to a still brighter
world from which I must have escaped. What this world
is like I do not know, nor am I even sure that] will find
it, but it is my world and nothing else intrigues me.
The first glimpse, the first realization, of the bright new
world came through my meeting Roy Hamilton. I was
in my twenty-first year, probably the worst year of my
whole life. I was in such a state of despair that I had decided to leave home. I thought and spoke only of California where I had planned to go to start a new life. So
violently did I dream of this new promised Jand that
later, when I had returned from California, I scarcely
remembered the California I had seen but thought and
spoke only of the California whieh I had known in my
dreams. It was just prior to my leave-taking that I met
Hamilton. He was a dubious half brother to myoId
friend MacGregor; they had only recently made each
other's acquaintance, as Roy, who had lived most of
his life in California, had been under the impression all
along that his real father was Mr. Hamilton and not
Mr. MacGregor. As a matter of fact it was in order to
disentangle the mystery surrounding his parentage that
he had come East. Living with the MacGregors had apparently brought him no nearer to a solution of the
mystery. Indeed he seemed to be more perplexed than
ever after getting acquainted with the man who he had
concluded must be his legitimate father. He was perplexed, as he later admitted to me, because in neither
man could he find any resemblance to the man he considered himself to be. It was probably this haraSSing
problem of deciding whom to take for a father which
had stimulated the development of his own character. I

Tropic of Capricorn
147
say this, because immediately upon being introduced to
him, I felt that I was in the presence of a being such as
I had never known before. I had been prepared, through
MacGregor's description of him, to meet a rather "strange"
individual, "strange" in MacGregor's mouth meaning
slightly cracked. He was indeed strange, but so sharply
sane that I at once felt exalted. For the first time I was
talking to a man who got behind the meaning of words
and went to the very essence of things. I felt that I was
talking to a philosopher, not a philosopher such as I had
encountered through books, but a man who philosophized constantly-and who lived this philosophy which
he expounded. That is to say, he had no theory at all,
except to penetrate to the very essence of things and, in
the light of each fresh revelation to so live his life that
there would be a minimum of discord between the truths
which were revealed to him and the exemplification of
these truths in action. Naturally his behavior was strange
to those ahout him. It had not, however, been strange to
those who knew him out on the Coast where, as he said,
he was in his own element. There apparently he was
regarded as a superior being and was listened to with the
utmost respect, even with awe.
I came upon him in the midst of a struggle which I
only appreciated many years later. At the time I couldn't
see the importance which he attached to finding his real
father; in fact, I used to joke about it because the role
of the father meant little to me, or the role of the mother,
for that matter. III Hoy Hamilton I saw the ironic struggle
of a man who had already emancipated himself and yet
was seeking to estahlish a solid biological link for which
he had ahsolutcly no need. This conflict over the real
father had, para~loxically, made him a superfather. He
was a teacher and an exemplar; he had only to open his
mouth for me to realize that I was listening to a wisdom
which was utterly different from anything which I had
heretofore associated with that word. It would be easy
to dismiss him as a mystic, for a mystic he undoubtedly

148

Tropic of Capricorn

was, but he was the first mystic I had ever encountered
who also knew how to keep his feet on the ground. He
was a mystic who knew how to invent practical things,
among them a drill such as was badly needed for the oil
industry and from which he later made a fortune. Because of his strange metaphysical talk, however, nobody
at the time gave much heed to his very practical invention. It was regarded as another one of his cracked ideas.
lIe was continually talking about himself and his relation to the world about, a quality which created the unfortunate impression that he was simply a blatant egotist.
It was even said, which was true enough as far as it
went, that he seemed more concerned about the truth
of Mr. MacGregor's fatherhood than about Mr. MacGregor, the father. The implication was that he had no
real love for his new-found father but was simply deriving a strong personal gratification from the truth of the
discovery, that he was exploiting his discovery in his
usual self-aggrandizing way. It was deeply true, of
course, because Mr. MacGregor in the flesh was infinitely less than Mr. MacGregor as symbol of the lost
father. But the MacGregors knew nothing about symbols
and would never have understood even had it heen explained to them. They were making a contradictory
effort to at once embrace the long lost son and at the
same time reduce him to an understandable level on
which they could seize him not as the "long lost" but
simply as the son. Whereas it was obvious to anyone
with the least intelligence that this son was not a son at
all but a sort of spiritual father, a sort of Christ, I might
say, who was making a most valiant effort to accept as
blood and flesh what he had already all too clearly freed
himself from.
I was surprised and Battered, therefore, that this
strange individual whom I looked upon with the warmest
admiration should elect to make me his confidant. By
comparison I was very bookish, intellectual, and worldly
in a wrong way. But almost immediately 1 discarded this

Tropic of Capricorn
149
side of my nature and allowed myself to bask in thc
warm, immediate light which his profound and natural
intuition of things created. To come into his presence
gave me the sensation of being undressed, or rather
peeled, for it was much more than mere nakedness which
he demanded of the person he was talking to. In talking
to me he acldressecl himself to a me whose existence I
had only dimly suspected, the me, for example, which
emerged \vhcn, suddenly, rcacling a book, I realized
that I had been dreaming. Few books had this faculty
of putting me into a trance, this trance of utter lucidity
in which, unknown to oneself, one makes the deepest
resolutions. Roy Hamilton's conversation partook of this
(juality. It made me more than ever alert, preternaturally
alert, without at the same time crumbling the fabric of
dream. He was appealing in other words, to the germ of
the self, to the being who would eventually outgrow the
naked personality, the synthetic individuality, and leave
me truly alone and solitary in order to work out my own
proper destiny.
Our talk was like a secret language in the midst of
which the others went to sleep or faded away like ghosts.
For my friend MacGregor it was baffling and irritating;
he knew me more intimately than any of the other fellows but he had never found anything in me to cor~
respond to the character which I now presented him
with. He spoke of Roy Hamilton as a bad influence,
which again was deeply true since this unexpected
meeting with his half brother served more than anything
else to alienate us. Hamilton opened my eyes and gave
me new values, and though later I was to lose the vision
which he had bequeathed me, nevertheless I could never
again sec the world, or my friends, as I had seen them
prior to his coming. Hamilton altered me profoundly, as
only a rare book, a rare personality, a rare experience,
can alter one. For the first time in my life I understood
what it was to experience a vital friendship and yet not
to feel enslaved or attached because of the experience.

150

Tropic of Capricorn

Never, after we parted, did I feel the need of his actual
presence; he had given himself completely and I possessed him without being possessed. It was the first
clean, whole experience of friendship, and it was never
duplicated by any other friend. Hamilton was friendship itself, rather than a friend. He was the symbol personified and consequently entirely satisfactory, hence no
longer necessary to me. He himself understood this
thoroughly. Perhaps it was the fact of having no father
that pushed him along the road toward the discovery
of the self, which is the final process of identification
with the world and the realization consequently of the
uselessness of ties. Certainly, as he stood then, in the full
plenitude of self-realization, no one was necessary to
him, least of all the father of flesh and blood whom he
vainly sought in Mr. MacGregor. It must have been in
the nature of a last test for him, his coming East and
seeking out his real father, for when he said good-by,
when he renounced Mr. MacGregor and Mr. Hamilton
also, he was like a man who had purified himself of all
dross. Never have I seen a man look so single, so utterly
alone and alive and confident of the future as Roy Hamilton looked when he said good-by. And never have
I seen such confusion and misunderstanding as he left
behind with the MacGregor family. It was as though he
had died in their midst, had been resurrected, and was
taking leave of them as an utterly new, unknown individual. I can see them now standing in the areaway,
their hands sort of foolishly, helplessly empty, weeping
they knew not why, unless it was because they were
bereft of something they had never possessed. I like to
think of it in just this way. They were bewildered and
bereft, and vaguely, so very vaguely aware that somehow a great opportunity had been offered them which
they had not the strength Or the imagination to seize. It
was this which the foolish, empty fluttering of the hands
indicated to me; it was a geshue more painful to witness
than anything I can imagine. It gave me the feeling of

Tropic of Capricorn
151
the horrihle inadequacy of the world when brought face
to face with truth. It gave me the feeling of the stupidity
of the blood tie and of the love which is not spiritually
imbued.
I look hack rapidly and I see myself again in California. I am alone and I am working like a slave in the
orange grove at Chula Vista. Am I coming into my own'?
I think not. I am a very wretched, forlorn, miserable
person. I seem to have lost everything. In fact, I am
hardly a person-I am more nearly an animal. A11 day
long I am standing or walking behind the two jackasses
which are hitched to my sledge. I have no thoughts, no
dreams, no dcsires. I am thorollghly healthy and empty.
I am a nonmtity. I am so thoroughly alive and healthy
that I am like the luscious deceptive fruit which hangs
on the Californian trees. One more ray of sun and I will
be rotten. "Pourri avant d'r1tre mud!"
Is it really me that is rotting in this hright California
sunshine? Is there nothing left of me, of all that I was up
to this moment? Let me think a hit .... There was Arizona. I remember now that it was already night when I
first set foot on Arizona soil. Just light enough to catch
the last glimpse of a fading mesa. I am walking through
the main street of a little town whose name is lost. What
am I doing here on this street, in this town? VVhy, I am
in love with Ari/.ona, an Arizona of the mind which I
search for in vain with my two good eyes. In the train
there was still with me the Arizona which I had brought
from New York-even after we had crossed the state
line. Was there not a hridge over a canyon which had
startled me out of my reverie? A hridge such as I had
never seen hefore, a natural bridge created by a cataclysmic eruption thousands of years ago? And over this
bridge I had seen a man crossing, a man who looked like
an Indian, and he was riding a horse and there was a long
saddlehag hanging beside the stirrup. A natural millenary bridge which in the dying SlIn with air so clear looked
like the youngest, newest bridge imaginable. And over

152

Tropic of Capricorn

that bridge so strong, so durahle, there passed, praise be
to God, just a man and a horse, nothing more. This then
was Arizona, and Arizona was not a figment of the
imagination but the imagination itself dressed as a horse
and rider. And this was even more than the imagination
itself because there was no aura of ambiguity but only'
sharp and dead isolate the thing itself which was the
dream and the dreamer himself seated on horseback.
And as the train stops I put my foot down and my foot
has put a deep hole in the dream; I am in the Arizona
town which is listed in the timetable and it is only the
geographical Arizona which anybody can visit who has
the money. I am walking along the main street with a
valise and I see hamburger sandwiches and real estate
offices. I feel so terribly deceived that I begin to weep.
It is dark now and I stand at the end of a street, where
the desert begins, and I weep like a fool. Which me is
this weeping? Why it is the new little me which had
begun to germinate back in Brooklyn and which is now
in the midst of a vast desert and doomed to perish. Now,
Roy Hamilton, I need you! I need you for one moment,
just one little moment, while I am falling apart. I need
you because I was not quite ready to do what I have
done. And do I nut remember your telling me that it
was unnecessary to make the trip, but to do it if I must?
Why didn't you persuade me not to go? Ah, to persuade
was never his way. And to ask advice was never my way.
So here I am, bankrupt in the desert, and the bridge
which was real is behind me and what is unreal is before
me and Christ only knows I am so puzzled and bewildered that if I could sink into the earth and disappear
I would do so.
I look back rapidly and I see another man who was
left to perish quietly in the bosom of his family-my
father. I understand better what happened to him if I
go back very, very far and think of such streets as
Maujer, Conselyea, Humboldt ... Humboldt particularly.
These streets belonged to a neighborhood which was not

Tropic of Capricorn
153
far removed from our neighborhood but which was different, more glamorous, more mysterious. I had been on
Humboldt Street only once as a child and I no longer
remem ber the reason for that excursion unless it was to
visit some sick relative languishing in a German hospital.
But the street itself made a most lasting impression upon
me; why I have not the faintest idea. It remains in my
memory as the most mysterious and the most promising
street that ever I have seen. Perhaps when we were making ready to go my mother had, as usual, promised something spectacular as a reward for accompaoying her. I
was always being promised things which never materialized. Perhaps then, when I got to Humboldt Street and
looked upon this new world with astonishment, perhaps
I forgot completely what had been promised me and
the street itself became the reward. I remember that it
was very wide and that there were high stoops, s11eh as
I had never seen before, on either side of the street. I
remember too that in a dressmaker's shop on the first
floor of one of these strange houses there was a bust in
the window with a tape measure slung around the neck
and I know that I was greatly moved by this sight. There
was snow on the ground but the sun was out strong and
I recall vividlv how about the bottoms of the ash harrels
which had been frozen into the ice there was then a
little pool of water left by the melting snow. The whole
street seemed to he melting in the radiant winter's sun.
On the bannisters of the high stoops the mounds of snow
which had formed snch beautiful white pads were now
beginning to slide, to disintegrate, leaving dark patches
of the brownstone which was then much in vogue. The
little glass signs of the dentists and physicians, tucked
away in the corners of the windows, gleamed briJliantly
in the noonday sun and gave me the feeling for the first
time that these offices were perhaps not the torture
chambers which I knew them to be. I imagined, in my
childish way, that here in this neighborhood, in this street
particularly, people were more friendly, more expansive,

154

Tropic of Capricorn
and of course infinitely more wealthy. I must have expanded greatly myself though.only a tot, because for the
first time I was looking upon a street which seemed devoid of terror. It was the sort of street, ample, luxurious"
gleaming, melting which later, when I began reading
Dostoevski, I associated with the thaws of St. Petersburg.
Even the churches here were of a different style of
architecture; there was something semi-Oriental about
them, something grandiose and warm at the same time,
which both frightened me and intrigued me. On this
broad, spacious street I saw that the houses were set well
back from the sidewalk, reposing in quiet and dignity,
and unmarred by the intercalation of shops and factories
and veterinary stables. I saw a street composed of nothing
but residences and I was filled with awe and admiration.
All this I remember and no doubt it influenced me
greatly, yet none of this is sufficient to account for the
strange power and attraction which the very mention of
Humboldt Street still evokes in me. Some years later I
went back in the night to look at this street again, and I
was even more stirred than when I had looked upon it
for the first time. The aspect of the street of course had
changed, but it was night and the night is always less
cruel than the day. Again I experienced the strange delight of spaciousness, of that luxuriousness which was
now somewhat faded but still redolent, still assertive in
a patchy way as once the brownstone bannisters had
asserted themselves through the melting snow. Most distinct of all, however, was the almost voluptuous sensation
of being on the verge of a discovery. Again I was strongly
aware of my mother's presence, of the big puffy sleeves
of her fur coat, of the cruel swiftness with which she had
whisked me through the street years ago and of the stubborn tenacity with which I had feasted my eyes on all
that was new and strange. On the occasion of this second
visit I seemed to dimly recall another character out of
my childhood, the old housekeeper whom they called
by the outlandish name of Mrs. Kicking. I could not recall

Tropic of Capricorn
155
her being taken ill but I did seem to recall the fact that

we were paying her a visit at the hospital where she was
dying and that this hospital must have been near Humboldt Street which was not dying but which was radiant
in the melting snow of a winter's noon. What then had
my mother promised me that I have never since been
able to recall? Capable as she was of promising anything,
perhaps that day, in a fit of abstraction, she had promised
something so preposterous that even I with all my
childish credulity could not quite swallow it. And yet,
if she had promised me the moon, though I knew it
was out of the question, I would have struggled to invest
her promise with a crumb of faith. I wanted desperately
everything that was promised me, and if, upon reflection I realized that it was clearly impossible, I nevertheless tried in my own way to grope for a means of making
these promises realizable. That people could make promises witho\lt ever having the least intention of fulfilling
them was something unimaginable to me. Even when I
was most cruelly deceived I still believed; I believed that
something extraordinary and quite beyond the other person's power had intervened to make the promise null and
void.
This question of belief, this old promise that was never
fulfilled, is what makes me think of my father who was
descrted at the moment of his greatest need. Up to the
time of his illness neither my father nor my mother had
ever shown any religious inclinations. Though always upholding the church to others, they themselves never set
foot in a church from the time that they were married.
Those who attended church too regularly they looked
upon as being a bit daffy. The very way they said-"so
and so is religious"-was enough to convey the scorn and
contempt, or else the pity, which they felt for such individuals. If now and then, because of us children, the
pastor called at the house unexpectedly, he was treated
as one to whom they were obliged to defer out of ordinary
politeness but whom they had nothing in common with,

156

Tropic of Capricorn

whom they were a little suspicious of, in fact, as representative of a species midway between a fool and a:
charlatan. To us, for example, they would say "a lovely
man," but when their cronies came round and the gossip
began to fly, then one would hear an entirely different
brand of comment, accompanied usually by peals of
scornful laughter and sly mimicry.
My father fell mortally ill as a result of swearing off
too abruptly. All his life he had been a jolly hail fellow
well met: he had put on a rather becoming paunch, his
cheeks were well filled out and red as a beet, his manners
were easy and indolent, and he seemed destined to live
on into a ripe old age, sound and healthy as a nut. But
beneath this smooth and jolly exterior things were not at
all well. His affairs were in bad shape, the debts were
piling up, and already some of his older friends were beginning to drop him. My mother's attitude was what
worried him most. She saw things in a black light and
she took no trouble to conceal it. Now and then she became hysterical and w('nt at him hammer and tongs,
swearing at him in the vilest language and smashing the
dishes and threatening to run away for good. The upshot of it was that he arose one morning determined
never to touch another drop. Nobody helieved that he
meant it seriously; there had been others in the fami1y
who swore off, who went on the water wagon, as they
used to say, but who quickly tumbled off again. No one
in the family, and they had all tried at different times,
had ever become a successful teetotaler. But myoId man
was different. Where or how he got the strength to maintain his resolution, God only knows. It seems incredible
to me, because had I heen in his boots myself I would
have drunk myself to death. Not the old man, however.
This was the nrst time in his life he had ever shown any
resolution about anything. My mother was so astounded
that, idiot that she was, she began to make fun of him,
to quip him about his strength of will which had heretofore been so lamentably weak. Still he stuck to his guns.

Tropic of Capricorn

157

His drinking pals faded away rather quickly. In short,
he soon found himself almost completely isolated. That
must have cut him to the quick, for before very many
weeks had passed, he became deathly ill and a consultation was held. lIe recovered a bit, enough to get out of
bed and walk about, but still a very sick man. He was
supposed to be suffering from ulcers of the stomach,
though nobody was quite sure exactly what ailed him.
Everybody understood, however, that he had made a
mistake in swearing off so abruptly. It was too late, however, to return to a temperate mode of living. His stomach
was so weak that it wouldn't even hold a plate of soup.
In a couple of months he was almost a skeleton. And old.
He looked like Lazarus raised from the grave.
One day my mother took me aside and with tears in
her eyes begged me to go visit the family doctor and
Jearn the truth about my father's condition. Dr. Rausch
had been the family physician for years. He was a typical
"Dutchman" of the old school, rather weary and crachety
now after years of practicing and yet unable to tear himself completely away from his patients. In his stupid
Teutonic way he tried to scare the less serious patients
away, tried to argue them into health, as it were. When
you walked into his office he didn't even bother to look
up at you, but kept on writing or whatever it might be
that he was doing while firing random questions at you
in a perfunctory and insulting manner. He behaved so
rudely, so sllspiciously, that ridiculous as it may sound, it
almost appeared as though he expected his patients to
bring with them not only their ailments, but the proof
of their ailments. II e made one feel that there was not
only something wrong physically but that there was also
something wrong mentally. "You only imagine it" was
his favorite phrase, which he flung out with a nasty,
leering gibe. Knowing him as I did, and detesting him
heartily, I came prepared, that is, with the laboratory
analysis of my father's stool. I had also an analysis of his

158

Tropic of Capricorn
urine in my overcoat pocket, should he ~emand further
proofs.
When I was a boy Dr. Rausch had shown some affection for me, but ever since the day I went to him with a
dose of clap he had lost confidence in me and always
showed a sour puss when I stuck my head through the
door. Like father like son was his motto, and I was
therefore not at all surprised when, instead of giving me
the information which I demanded, he began to lecture
me and the old man at the same time for our way of
living. "You can't go against Nature," he said with a
wry, solemn face, not looking at me as he uttered the
words but making some useless notation in his big ledger.
I walked quietly up to his desk, stood beside him a
moment without making a sound, and then, when he
looked up with his usual aggrieved, irritated expression,
I said-"I didn't come here for moral instruction . . . I
want to know what's the matter with my father." At
this he jumped up and turning to me with his most
severe look, he said, like the stupid, brutal Dutchman
that he was: "Your father hasn't a chance of recovering;
he'll be dead in less than six months." I said "Thank you,
that's all I wanted to know," and I made for the door.
Then, as though he felt that he had committed a blunder,
he strode after me heavily and, putting his hand on my
shoulder, he tried to modify the statement by hemming
and hawing and saying I don't mean that it is absolutely
certain he will die, etc., which I cut short by opening the
door and yelling at him, at the top of my lungs, so that
his patients in the anteroom would hear it-"I think
you're a goddamned old fart and I hope you croak, good
. ht l"
mg
.
When I got home I modified the doctor's report somewhat by saying that my father's condition was very
serious but that if he took good care of himself he would
pull through all right. This seemed to cheer the old man
up considerably. Of his own accord he took to a diet of
milk and zwieback which, whether it was the best thing

Tropic of Capricorn
159
or not, certainly did him no harm. He remained a sort
of semi-invalid for about a year, becoming more and
more calm inwardly as time went on and apparently determined to lct nothing disturb his peace of mind,
nothing, no matter if everything went to hell. As he grew
stronger he took to making a daily promenade to the
cemetery which was nearby. There he would sit on a
bench in the slln and watch the old people potter around
the graves. The proximity to the grave, instead of rendering him morbid, seemed to cheer him up. He seemed,
if anything, to have become reconciled to the idea of
eventual death, a fact which no doubt he had heretofore
refused to look in the face. Often he came home with
flowers which he had picked in the cemetery, his face
beaming with a quiet, serene joy, and seating himself
in the armchair he would recount the conversation which
he had had that morning with one of the other valetudinarians who frequented the cemetery. It was obvious
after a time that he was really enjoying his sequestration,
or rather not just enjoying it, but profiting deeply from
the expericnce in a way that was beyond my mother's
intelligence to fathom. He was getting lazy, was the way
she expressed it. Sometimes she put it even more extremely, tapping her head with her forefinger as she
spoke, but not saying anything overtly because of my
sister who was without question a little wrong in the
head.
And then one day, through the courtesy of an old
widow who used to visit her son's grave every day and
was, as my mother would say, "religious," he made the
acquaintance of a minister belonging to one of the
neighboring churches. This was a momentous event in
the old man's life. SlIddenly he blossomed forth and that
little sponge of a soul which had almost atrophied
through lack of nourishment took on such astounding
proportions that he was almost unrecognizable. The man
who was responsible for this extraordinary change in the
old man was in no way unusual himself; he was a Con-

160
Tropic of Capricorn
gregationalist minister attached to a modest little parish
which adjoined our neighborhood. His one virtue was
that he kept his religion in the background. The old man
(luickly fell into a sort of boyish idolatry; he talked of
nothing but this minister whom he considered his friend.
As he had never looked at the Bible in his life, nor any
other book for that matter, it was rather startling, to say
the least, to hear him say a little prayer before eating.
He performed this little ceremony in a strange way,
much the way one takes a tonic, for example. If he
recommended me to read a certain chapter of the Bible
he would add very seriously-"it will do you good." It
was a new medicine which he had discovered, a sort of
quack remedy which was guaranteed to cure all ills and
which one might take even if he had no ills, because in
any case it could certainly do no harm. He attended all
the services, all the functions which wcre held at the
church, and between times, when out for a stroll, for
example, he would stop off at the minister's home and
have a little chat with him. If the minister said that the
president was a good soul and should be re-elected the
old man wOllld repeat to everyone exactly what the minister had said and urge them to vote for the president's
re-election. 'Whatever the minister said was right and
just and nobody could gainsay him. There's no doubt
that it was an education for the old man. If the minister
had mentioned the pyramids in the course of his sermon
the old man immediately began to inform himself about
the pyramids. He would talk about the pyramids as
though everyone owed it to himself to become acquainted with the subject. The minister had said that the
pyramids were one of the crowning glories of man, ergo
not to know about the pyramids was to be disgracefully
ignorant, almost sinful. Fortunately the minister didn't
dwell much on the subject of sin; he was of the modern
type of preacher who prevailed on his flock more by
arousing their curiosity than by appealing to their conscience. His semlons were more like a night-school ex-

Tropic of Capricorn
161
tension course and for such as the old man, therefore,
highly entertaining and stimulating. Every now and then
the male members of the congregation were invited to a
little blowout which was intended to demonstrate that
the good pastor was just an ordinary man like themselves and could, on occasion, enjoy a hearty meal and
even a glass of beer. Moreover it was observed that he
even sang-not religious hymns, but jolly little songs of
the popular variety. Putting two and two together one
might even infer from such jolly behavior that now and
then he enjoyed getting a little piece of tail-always in
moderation, to be sure. That was the word that was
balsam to the old man's lacerated soul-"moderation." It
was like discovering a new sign in the zodiac. And though
he was still too ill to attempt a return to even a moderate
way of living, nevertheless it did his soul good. And so,
when Uncle Ned, who was continually going on the
water wagon anel continually falling off it again, came
round to the house one evening the old man delivered
him a little lecture on the virtue of moderation. Uncle
Ned was, at that moment, on the water wagon and so,
when the old man, moved by his own words, suddenly
went to the sideboard to fetch a decanter of wine every
one was shocked. No one had ever dared invite Uncle
Ned to drink when he had sworn off; to venture such a
thing constituted a serious breach of loyalty. But the old
man did it with such conviction that no one could take
offense, and the result was that Uncle Ned took a small
glass of wine and went home that evening without stopping off at a saloon to quench his thirst. It was an extraordinary happening and there was much talk about it
for days after. In fact, Uncle Ned began to act a bit queer
from that day on. It seems that he went the next day to
the wine store and bought a bottle of sherry which he
emptied into the decanter. He placed the decanter on the
sideboard, just as he had seen the old man do, and, instead of polishing it off in one swoop, he contented himself with a glassful at a time-"just a thimbleful," as he

162

Tropic of Capricorn

put it. His behavior was so remarkable that my aunt, who
was unable to quite believe her eyes, came one day to
the house and held a long conversation with the old man.
She asked him, among other things, to invite the minister
to the house some evening so that Unclc Ned might have
the opportunity of falling under his beneficent influence.
The long and short of it was that Ned was soon taken
into the fold and, like the old man, seemed to be thriving
under the experience. Things went fine until the day of
the picnic. That day, unfortunately, was an unusually
warm day and, what with the games, the excitement, the
hilarity, Uncle Ned developed an extraordinary thirst.
It was not until he was three sheets to the wind that
some one observed the regularity and the frequency with
which he was running to the beer keg. It was then too
late. Once in that condition he was unmanageable. Even
the minister could do nothing with him. Ned broke away
from the picnic quietly and went on a little rampage
which lasted for three days and nights. Perhaps it would
have lasted longer had he not gotten into a fist fight down
at the waterfront where he was found lying unconscious
by the night watchman. He was taken to the hospital
with a concussion of the brain from which he never recovered. Returning from the funeral the old man said
with a dry eye-"Ned didn't know what it was to be
temperate. It was his own fault. Anyway, he's better off
now .... "
And as though to prove to the minister that he was
not made of the same stuff as Uncle Ned he became even
more assiduous in his churchly duties. He had gotten
himself promoted to the position of "elder," an office of
which he was extremely proud and by grace of which
he was permitted during the Sunday services to aid in
taking up the collection. To think of myoId man marching up the aisle of a Congregational church with a collection box in his hand; to think of him standing reverently
before the altar with this collection box while the minister blessed the offering, seems to me now something so

Tropic of Capricorn
163
incredible that I scarcely know what to say of it. I like
to think, by contrast, of the man he was when I was just
a kid and I would meet him at the ferry house of a Saturday noon. Surrounding the entrance to the ferry house
there were then three saloons which of a Saturday noon
were filled with men who had stopped off for a little
hite at the free lunch counter and a schooner of beer. I
can see the old man, as he stood in his thirtieth year, a
healthy, genial soul with a smile for every one and a
pleasant quip to pass the time of day, see him with his
arm resting on the bar, his straw hat tipped on the back
of his head, his left hand raised to down the foaming
suds. My eye was then on about a level with his heavy
gold chain which was spread crosswise over his vest; I
remember the shepherd plaid suit which he wore in
midsummer and the distinction it gave him among the
other men at the bar who were not lucky enough to have
heen born tailors. I remember the way he would dip his
hand into the big glass bowl on the free lunch counter
and hand me a few pretzels, saying at the same time that
I ought to go and have a look at the scoreboard in the
window of the Brooklyn Times nearby. And perhaps, as
I ran out of the saloon to see who was winning, a string
of cyclists would pass close to the curb, holding to the
little strip of asphalt which had been laid down expressly
for them. Perhaps the ferry boat was just coming into
the dock and I would stop a moment to wateh the men
in uniform as they pulled away at the big wooden wheels
to which the chains were attached. As the gates were
thrown open and the planks laid down a mob would
rush through the shed and make for the saloons which
adorned the nearest corners. Those were the days when
the old man knew the meaning of "moderation," when
he drank because he was truly thirsty, and to down a
schooner of heer by the ferry house was a man's prerogative. Then it was as Melville has so well said: "Feed all
things with food convenient for them-that is, if the food
be procurable. The food of thy soul is light and space;

164
Tropic of Capricorn
feed it then on light and space. But the food of the body
is champagne and oysters; feed it then on champagne
and oysters; and so shall it merit a joyful resurrection, if
there is any to be." Yes, then it seems to me that the old
man's soul had not yet shrivelled up, that it was endlessly
bounded by light and space and that his body, heedless
of the resurrection, was feeding on all that was convenient and procurable-if not champagne and oysters,
at least good lager beer and pretzels. Then his body had
not been condemned, nor his way of living, nor his
absence of faith. Nor was he yet surrounded by vultures,
but only by good comrades, ordinary mortals like himself
who looked neither high nor low but straight ahead, the
eye always fixed on the horizon and content with the
sight thereof.
And now, as a battered wreck, he has made himself
into an elder of the church and he stands before the altar,
gray and bent and withered, while the minister gives his
blessing to the measly collection which will go to make a
new bowling alley. Perhaps it was necessary for him to
experience the birth of the soul, to feed this spongelike
growth with that light and space which the Congregational church offered. But what a poor substitute for a
man who had known the joys of that food which the
body craved and which, without the pangs of conscience,
had flooded even his spongelike soul with a light and
space that was ungodly but radiant and terrestrial. I
think again of his seemly little "corporation" over which
the thick gold chain was strung and I think that with that
death of his paunch there was left to survive only the
sponge of a soul, a sort of appendix to his own bodily
death. I think of the minister who had swallowed him
up as a sort of inhuman sponge eater, the keeper of a
wigwam hung with spiritual scalps. I think of what
subsequently ensued as a kind of tragedy in sponges, for
though he promised light and space, no sooner had he
passed out of my father's life than the whole airy edifice
came tumbling down.

Tropic of Capricorn

165

It all came about in the most ordinary lifelike way.
One evening, after the customary men's meeting, the old
man came home with a sorrowful countenance. They had
been informed that evening that the minister was taking
leave of them. He had been offered a more advantageous
position in the township of New Rochelle and, despite
his great reluctance to desert his flock, he had decided
to accept the offer. He had of course accepted it only
after much meditation-as a duty, in other words. It
would mean a better income, to be sure, but that was
nothing compared to the grave responsibilities which he
was about to assume. They had need of him in New
Rochelle and he was obeying the voice of his conscience.
All this the old man related with the same unctuousness
that the minister had given to his words. But it was immediately apparent that the old man was hurt. He
couldn't see why New Rochelle could not find another
minister. He said it wasn't fair to tempt the minister with
a bigger salary. We need him here, he said ruefully, with
such sadness that I almost felt like weeping. He added
that he was going to have a heart-to-heart talk with the
minister, that if anybody could persuade him to remain
it was he. In the days that followed he certainly did his
best, no doubt much to the minister's discomfiture. It was
distressing to see the blank look on his face when he returned from these conferences. He had the expression of
a man who was trying to grasp at a straw to keep from
drowning. Naturally the minister remained adamant.
Even when the old man broke down and wept before
him he could not be moved to change his mind. That was
the turning paint. From that moment on the old man
underwent a radical change. He seemed to grow bitter
and querulous. He not only forgot to say grace at the
table hut he abstained from going to church. He resumed
his old habit of going to the cemetery and basking on a
bench. He became morose, then melancholy, and finally
there grew into his face an expression of permanent sadness, a sadness encrusted with disillusionment, with des-

166

Tropic of Capricorn
pair, with futility. He never again mentioned the man's
name, nor the church, nor any of the elders with whom
he had once associated. If he happened to pass them in
the street he hade them the time of day without stopping
to shake hands. He read the newspapers diligently, from
back to front, without comment. Even the ads he read,
everyone, as though trying to block up a huge hole whieh
was constantly before his eyes. I never heard him laugh
again. At the most he would give us a sort of weary, hopeless smile, a smile which faded instantly and left us with
the spectacle of a life extinct. He was dead as a crater,
dead beyond all hope of resurrection. And not even had
he been given a new stomach, or a tough new intestinal
tract, would it have been possible to restore him to life
again. He had passed beyond the lure of champagne and
oysters, beyond the need of light and space. He was like
the dodo which buries its head in the sand and whistles
out of its asshole. When he went to sleep in the Morris
chair his lower jaw dropped like a hinge that has become unloosened; he had always been a good snorer but
now he snored louder than ever, like a man who was in
truth dead to the world. His snores, in fact, wcre very
much like the death rattle, except that they were punctuated hy an intermittent long drawn out whistling of
the peanut stand variety. He seemed, when he snored,
to be chopping the whole universe to bits so that we who
succeeded him would have enough kindling wood to last
a lifetime. It was the most horrible and fascinating snoring that I have ever listened to: it was stertorous and
stentorian, morbid and grotesque; at times it was like an
accordion collapsing, at other times like a frog croaking
in the swamps; after a prolonged whistle there sometimes
followed a frightful wheeze as if he were giving up the
ghost, then it would settle back again into a regular rise
and fall, a steady hollow chopping as though he stood
stripped to the waist, with ax in hand, before the accumulated madness of all the bric-a.-brac of this world.
What gave these performances a slightly crazy quality

Tropic of Capricorn
167
was the mummy-like expression of the face in which the
big blubber lips alone came to life; they were like the gills
of a shark snoozing on the surface of the still ocean. Blissfully he snored away on the bosom of the deep, never
disturbed by a dream or a draught, never fitful, never
plagued by an unsatisfied desire; when he closed his eyes
and collapsed, the light of the world went out and he was
alone as before birth, a cosmos gnashing itself to bits.
He sat there in his Morris chair as Jonah must have sat in
the body of the whale, secure in the last refuge of a
black hole, expecting nothing, desiring nothing, not dead
but buried alive, swallowed whole and unscathed, the
big blubber lips gently flapping with the flux and reflux
of the white breath of emptiness. He was in the land of
Nod searching for Cain and Abel but encountering no
living soul, no word, no sign. He drove with the whale
and scraped the icy black bottom; he covered furlongs
at top speed, guided only by the fleecy manes of undersea
beasts. He was the smoke that curled out of the chimney
tops, the heavy layers of cloud that obscured the moon,
the thick slime that made the slippery linoleum floor of
the ocean depths. He was deader than dead because alive
and empty, beyond all hope of resurrection in that he
had traveled beyond the limits of light and space and
securely nestled himself in the black hole of nothingness.
He was more to be envied than pitied, for his sleep was
not a lull or an interval but sleep itself which is the deep
and hence sleeping ever deepening, deeper and deeper in
sleep sleeping, the slet:p of the deep in deepest sleep, at
the nethermost depth full slept, the deepest and sleepest
sleep of sleep's sweet sleep. He was asleep. He is asleep.
He will be asleep. Sleep. Sleep. Father, sleep, I beg you,
for tve who are awake are boiling in horror . ...
With the world fluttering away on the last wings of a
hollow snore I see the door opening to admit Grover
Watrous. "Christ be with you!" he says, dragging his
clubfoot along. He is quite a young man now and he has
found God. There is only one God and Grover Watrous

168

Tropic of Capricorn
has found Him and so there is nothing more to say except
that everything has to be said over again in Grover
Watrous' new God-language. This bright new language
which God invented especially for Grover Watrous intrigues me enormously, first because I had always considered Grover to be a hopeless dunce, second because
I notice that there are no longer any tobacco stains on
his agile fingers. When we were boys Grover lived next
door to us. He would visit me from time to time in order to
practice a duet with me. Though he was only fourteen
or fifteen he smoked like a trooper. His mother could do
nothing against it because Grover was a genius and a
genius had to have a little liberty, particularly when he
was also unfortunate enough to have been born with a
clubfoot. Grover was the kind of genius who thrives on
dirt. He not only had nicotine stains on his fingers but he
had filthy black nails which would break under hours of
practicing, imposing upon young Grover the ravishing
obligation of tearing them off with his teeth. Grover used
to spit out broken nails along with the bits of tobacco
which got caught in his teeth. It was delightful and stimulating. The cigarettes burned holes into the piano and,
as my mother critically observed, also tarnished the keys.
When Grover took leave the parlor stank like the baekroom of an undertaker's establishment. It stank of dead
cigarettes, sweat, dirty linen, Grover's oaths and the
dry heat left by the dying notes of Weber, Berlioz, Liszt
and Co. It stank too of Grover's running ear and of his
decaying teeth. It stank of his mother's pampering and
whimpering. His own home was a stable divinely suited
to his genius, but the parlor of our home was like the
waiting room of a mortician's office and Grover was a
lout who didn't even know enough to wipe his feet. In
the wintertime his nose ran like a sewer and, Grover being
too engrossed in his music to bother wiping his nose, his
cold snot was left to trickle down until it reached his lips
where it was sucked in by a very long white tongue. To
the flatulent music of Weber, Berlioz, Liszt and Co. it

Tropic of Capricorn
169
added a piquant sauce which made those empty devils
palatable. Every other word from Grover's lips was an
oath, his favorite expression being-"I can't get the fucking thing right!" Sometimes he grew so annoyed that he
would take his fists and pound the piano like a madman. It
was his genills coming out the wrong way. His mother, in
fact, used to attach a great deal of importance to these
fits of anger; they convinced her that he had something
in him. Other people simply said that Grover was impossible. Much was forgiven, however, because of his
clubfoot. Grover was sly enough to exploit this bad foot;
whenever he wanted anything badly he developed pains
in the foot. Only the piano seemed to have no respect
for this maimed member. The piano therefore was an
object to be cursed and kicked and pounded to bits. If
he were ill good form, on the other hand, Grover would
remain at the piano for hours on end; in fact, you couldn't
drag him away. On such occasions his mother would go
stand in the grass plot in front of the house and waylay
the neighbors in order to squeeze a few words of praise
out of them. She would be so carried away by her son's
"divine" playing that she would forget to cook the evening meal. The old man, who worked in the sewers, usually came home grumpy and famished. Sometimes he
would march directly upstairs to the parlor and yank
Grover off the piano stool. He had a rather foul vocabulary
himself and when he let loose on his genius of a son there
wasn't mnch left for Grover to say. In the old man's opinion Growr was just a lazy son of a bitch who could make a
lot of noise. Now and then he threatened to chuck the
fucking piano out of the window-and Grover with it. If
the mother were rash enough to interfere during these
scenes he would give her a clout and tell her to go piss up
the end of a rope. He had his moments of weakness too,
of course, and in such a mood he might ask Grover what
the hell he was rattling away at, and if the latter said, for
example, "why the Sonata Pathetique," the old buzzard
wou Id say-"What the hell does that mean? Why in

170
Tropic of Capricorn
Christ's name don't they put it down in plain English?"
The old man's ignorance was even harder for Grover to
bear than his brutality. He was heartily ashamed of his
old man and when the latter was out of sight he would
ridicule him unmercifully. When he got a little older he
used to insinuate that he wouldn't have been born with a
clubfoot if the old man hadn't been such a mean bastard.
He said that the old man must have kicked his mother in
the belly when she was pregnant. This alleged kick in the
belly must have affected Grover in diverse ways, for when
he had grown up to be quite a young man, as I was saying, he suddenly took to God with such a passion that
there was no blowing your nose before him without first
asking God's permission.
Grover's conversion followed right upon the old man's
deRation, which is why I am reminded of it. Nobody had
seen the Watrouses for a number of years and then, right
in the midst of a bloody snore, you might say, in pranced
Grover scattering benedictions and calling upon God as
his witness as he rolled up his sleeves to deliver us from
evil. What I noted first in him was the change in his personal appearance; he had been washed clean in the blood
of the Lamb. He was so immaculate, indeed, that there
was almost a perfume emanating from him. His speech
too had been cleaned up; instead of wild oaths there were
now nothing but blessings and invocations. It was not a
conversation which he held with us but a monologue in
which, if there were any questions, he answered them himself. As he took the chair which was offered him he said
with the nimbleness of a jack rabbit that God had given
his only beloved Son in order that we might enjoy life
everlasting. Did we really want this life everlasting--or
were we simply going to wallow in the joys of the flesh
and die without knowing salvation? The incongruity of
mentioning the "joys of the flesh" to an aged couple, one
of whom was sound asleep and snoring, never struck him,
to be sure. He was so alive and jubilant in the first Rush
of God's merciful grace that he must have forgotten that

Tropic of Capricorn
171
my sister was dippy, for, without even inqumng how
she had been, he began to harangue her in this newfound spiritual palaver to which she was entirely impervious because, as I say, she was minus so many buttons
that if he had been talking about chopped spinach it
would have been just as meaningful to her. A phrase like
"the pleasures of the flesh" meant to her something like
a beautiful day with a red parasol. I could see by the way
she sat on the edge of her chair and bobbed her head that
she was only waiting for him to catch his breath in order
to inform him that the pastor-her pastor, who was an
Episcopalian-had just returned from Europe and that
they were going to have a fair in the basement of the
church where she would have a little booth fitted up with
doilies from the five-and-ten-cent store. In fact, no sooner
had he paused a moment than she let loose-about the
canals of Venice, the snow in the Alps, the dog carts in
Brussels, the beautiful liverwurst in Munich. She was not
only religious, my sister, but she was clean daffy. Grover
had just slipped in something about having seen a new
heaven and a new earth ... for the first heaven and the
first earth were passed away, he said, mumbling the words
in a sort of hysterical glissando in order to unburden himself of an oracular message about the New Jerusalem
which God had established on earth and in which he,
Grover Watrous, once foul of speech and marred by a
twisted foot, had found the peace and the calm of the
righteous. "There shall be no more death . .. " he started
to shout when my sister leaned forward and asked him
very innocently if he liked to bowl because the pastor
had just installed a beautiful new bowling alley in the
basement of the church and she knew he would be pleased
to sec Grover because he was a lovely man and he was
kind to the poor. Grover said that it was a sin to bowl and
that he belonged to no church because the churches were
godless; he had even given up playing the piano because
God needed him for higher things. "He that overcometh
shall inherit all things," he added, "and I will be his God,

172

Tropic of Capricorn
and he shall be my son." He paused again to blow his nose
in a beautiful white handkerchief, whereupon my sister
took the occasion to remind him that in the old days he
always had a running nose but that he never wiped it.
Grover listened to her very solemnly and then remarked
that he had been cured of many evil ways. At this point
the old man woke up and, seeing Grover sitting beside him
large as life, he was quite startled and for a moment
or two he was not sure, it seemed, whether Grover was a
morbid phenomenon of dream or an hallucination, but
the sight of the clean handkerchief brought him quickly
to his wits. "Oh, it's you!" he exclaimed. "The Watrous
boy, what? Well, what in the name of all that's L)ly
are you doing here?"
"I came in the name of the Holy of Holies," said Grover
unabashed. "I have been purified by the death of Calvary
and I am here in Christ's sweet name that ye may be redeemed and walk in light and power and glory."
The old man looked dazed. "Well, what's come over
you?" he said, giving Grover a feeble, consolatory smile.
My mother had jllSt come in from the kitchen and had
taken a stand behind Grover's chair. By making a wry
grimace with her mouth she was trying to convey to the
old man that Grover was cracked. Even my sister seemed
to realize that there was something wrong with him,
especially when he had refused to visit the new bowling
alley which her lovely pastor had expressly installed for
young men such as Grover and his likes.
What was the matter with Grover? Nothing, except
that his feet were solidly planted on the fifth foundation
of the great wall of the Holy City of Jerusalem, the fifth
foundation made entirely of sardonyx, whence he commanded a view of a pure river of the water of life issuing
from the throne of God. And the sight of this river of life
was to Grover like the bite of a thousand fleas in his lower
colon. Not until he had run at least seven times around
the earth would he be able to sit quietly on his ass and
observe the blindness and the indifference of men with

Tropic of Capricorn
173
something like equanimity. He was alive and purged,
and though to the eyes of the sluggish, sluttish spirits
who are sane he was "cracked," to me he seemed infinitely
better off this way than before. He was a pest who could
do you no harm. If you listened to him long enough you
became somewhat purged yourself, though perhaps unconvinced. Grover's bright new language always caught
me in the midriff and through inordinate laughter cleansed
me of the dross accumulated by the sluggish sanity about
me. He was alive as Ponce de Leon had hoped to be alive;
alive as only a few men have ever been. And being unnaturally alive he didn't mind in the least if YOIl laughed
in his face, nor would he have minded if you had stolen
the few possessions which were his. He was alive and
empty, which is so close to Godhood that it is crazy.
With his feet solidly planted on the great wall of the
New Jerusalem Grover knew a joy which is incommensurable. Perhaps if he had not heen born with a clubfoot
he would not have known this incredible joy. Perhaps it
was well that his father had kicked the mother in the belly
while Grover was still in the womb. Perhaps it was that
kick in the belly which had sent Grover soaring, which
made him so thoroughly alive and awake that even in
his sleep he was delivering Cod's messages. 111e harder
he labored the less he was fatigued. He had no more
worries, no regrets, no clawing memories. He recognized
no duties, no obligations, except to God. And what did
God expect of him? Nothing, nothing ... except to sing
His praises. God only asked of Grover Watrous that he
reveal himself alive in the flesh. He only asked of him
to be more and more alive. And when fully alive Grover
was a voice and this voice was a flood which made all dead
things into chaos and this chaos in turn became the mouth
of the world in the very center of which was the verb
to be. In the beginning there was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the word was God. So God was this
strange little infinitive which is all there is-and is it not
enough? For Grover it was more than enough: it was

174

Tropic of Capricorn
everything. Starting from this Verb what difference did
it make which road he traveled? To leave the Verb was to
travel away from the center, to erect a Babel. Perhaps God
had deliberately maimed Grover Watrous in order to hold
him to the center, to the Verb. By an invisible cord God
held Grover Watrous to his stake which ran through the
heart of the world and Grover became the fat goose
which laid a golden egg every day ....
Why do I write of Grover Watrous? Because I have
met thousands of people and none of them were alive in
the way that Grover was. Most of them were more intelligent, many of them were brilliant, some of them were
even famous, but none were alive and empty as Grover
was. Grover was inexhaustible. He was like a bit of radium
which, even if buried under a mountain does not lose its
power to give off energy. I had seen plenty of so-called
energetic people before-is not America filled with them?
-but never in the shape of a human being, a reservoir
of energy. And what created this inexhaustible reservoir of
energy? An illumination. Yes, it happened in the twinkling
of an eye, which is the only way that anything important
ever does happen. Overnight all Grover's preconceived
values were thrown overboard. Suddenly, just like that,
he ceased moving as other people move. He put the brakes
on and he kept the motor running. If once, like other
people, he had thought it was necessary to get somewhere now he knew that somewhere was anywhere and
therefore right here and so why move? Why not park the
car and keep the motor running? Meanwhile the earth
itself is turning and Grover knew it was turning and knew
that he was turning with it. Is the earth getting anywhere?
Grover must undoubtedly have asked himself this question and must undoubtedly have satisfied himself that it
was not getting anywhere. Who, then, had said that we
must get somewhere? Grover would inquire of this one
and that where they were heading for and the strange
thing was that although they were all heading for their
individual destinations none of them ever stopped to re-

Tmpic of Capricorn
17.5
fleet that the one inevitable destination for all alike was
the grave. This puzzled Grover because nobody could
convince him that death was not a certainty, whereas anybody could cOllvince anybody else that any other destination was an uncertainty. Convinced of the dead certainty of death Grover suddenly became tremendously
and overwhelmingly alive. For the first time in his life
he began to live, and at the same time the clubfoot
dropped completely out of his consciousness. This is a
strange thing, too, when you come to think of it, because
the clubfoot, just like death, was another ineluctable fact.
Yet the clubfoot dropped out of mind, or, what is more
important, all that had been attached to the clubfoot. In
the same way, having accepted death, death too dropped
out of Grover's mind. Having seized on the single certainty of dcath all the uncertainties vanished. The rest
of the world was now limping along with clubfooted uncertainties and Grover Watrous alone was free and unimpeded. Grover Watrous was the personification of certainty. He may have been wrong, but he was certain.
And what good does it do to he right if one has to limp
along with a clubfoot? Only a few men have evcr realized
the truth of this and their names have become very great
names. Grover Watrous wiH probably never be known,
but he is very great just the same. This is probably the
reason why I write about him-just the fact that I had
enough sense to realize that Grover had achieved greatness even though nobody else will admit it. At the time
I simply thought that Grover was a harmless fanatic, yes,
a little "cracked," as my mother insinuated. But every man
who has caught the truth of certitude was a little cracked
and it is only these men who have accomplished anything
for the world. Other men, other great men, have destroyed
a little here and there, but these few whom I speak of,
and among whom I include Grover Watrous, were capable of destroying everything in order that the truth
might live. Usually these men were born with an impediment, with a clubfoot, so to speak, and by a strange irony

176

Tropic of Capricorn

it is only the clubfoot which men remember. If a man like
Grover becomes dcpossessed of his clubfoot, the world
says that he has become "possessed." This is the logic
of incertitude and its fruit is misery. Grover was the only
truly joyous being I ever met in my life and this, therefore, is a little monument which I am erecting in his
memory, in the memory of his joyous certitude. It is a
pity that he had to use Christ for a crutch, but then what
does it matter how one comes by the truth so long as one
pounces upon it and lives by it?
AN INTERLUDE

Confusion is a word we have invented for an order
which is not understood. I like to dwell on this period
when things were taking shape because the order, if it
were understood, must have been dazzling. In the first
place there was Hymie, Hymie the bullfrog, and there
were also his wife's ovaries which had been rotting away
for a considerable time. Hymie was completely wrapped
up in his wife's rotting ovaries. It was the daily topic of
conversation; it took precedence now over the cathartic
pills and the coated tongue. Hymie dealt in "sexual proverbs," as he called them. Everything he said began from
or led up to the ovaries. Despite everything he was still
nicking it off with the wife-prolonged snakelike copulations in which he would smoke a cigarette or two before
uncunting. He would endeavor to explain to me how the
pus from the rotting ovaries put her in heat. She had
always been a good fuck, but now she was better than
ever. Once the ovaries were ripped out there'd be no
telling how she'd take it. She seemed to realize that too.
Ergo, fuck away! Every night, after the dishes were
cleared away, they'd strip down in their little birdlike
apartment and lie together like a couple of snakes. He
tried to describe it to me on anum ber of occasions-the
way she fucked. It was like an oyster inside, an oyster with

T Topic of C apTicorn
177
soft teeth that nibbled away at him. Sometimes it felt as
though he were right inside her womb, so soft and fluffy
it was, and those soft teeth biting away at his peeker and
making him delirious. They used to lie scissors-fashion
and look up at the ceiling. To keep from coming he would
think about the office, about the little worries which
plagued him and kept his bowels tied up in a knot. In
between orgasms he would let his mind dwell on someone
else, so that when she'd start working on him again he
might imagine he was having a brand new fuck with a
brand new clint. He used to arrange it so that he could
look out the window while it was going on. He was getting
so adept at it that he could undress a woman on the
boulevard there under his window and transport her to
the bed; not only that, but he could actually make her
change places with his wife, all without un-cunting. Sometimes he'd fuck away like that for a couple of hours and
never even hot her to shoot off. \Vhy waste it! he would say.
Steve Homero, on the other hand, had a hell of a time
holding it in. Steve was built like a bull and he scattered
his seed freely. \Ve used to compare notes sometimes
sitting in the cll0P suey joint around the corner from the
office. It was a strange atmosphere. Maybe it was because there was no wine. Maybe it was the funny little
black mnshrooms they served us. Anyway it wasn't difficult to get started on the subject. By the time Steve met
us he would already have had his workout, a shower
and a rubdown. He was clean inside and out. Almost a
perfect specimen of a man. Not very bright, to be sure,
but a good egg, a companion. Hymie, on the other hand,
was like a toad. He seemed to come to the table direct
from the swamps where he had passed a mucky day. Filth
rolled off his lips likc honey. In fact, you couldn't call it
filth, in his case, because there wasn't any other ingredient
with which you might compare it. It was all one fluid,
a slimy, sticky substance made entirely of sex. When he
looked at his food he saw it as potential sperm; if the
weather were warm he would say it was good for the

178
Tropic of Capricorn
balls; if he took a trolley ride he knew in advance that
the rhythmic movement of the trolley would stimulate his
appetite, would give him a slow, "personal" hard on, as
he put it. Why "personal" I never found out, but that was
his expression. He liked to go out with us because we
were always reasonably sure of picking up something
decent. Left to himself he didn't always fare so well. With
us he got a change of meat-Gentile cunt, as he put it.
He liked Gentile cunt. Smelled sweeter, he said. Laughed
easier too . . . . Sometimes in the very midst of things.
The one thing he couldn't tolerate was dark meat. It
amazed and disgusted him to see me traveling around
with Valeska. Once he asked me if she didn't smell kind
of extra strong like. I told him I liked it that way-strong
and smelly, with lots of gravy around it. He almost blushed
at that. Amazing how delicate he could be about some
things. Food for example. Very finicky about his food.
Perhaps a racial trait. Immaculate about his person, too.
Couldn't stand the sight of a spot on his clean cuffs. Constantly brushing himself off, constantly taking his pocket
mirror out to see if there was any food between his teeth.
If he found a crumb he would hide his face behind the
napkin and extract it with his pearlhandled toothpiCk. The
ovaries of course he couldn't see. Nor could he smell
them either, because his wife too was an immaculate bitch.
Douching herself all day long in preparation for the evening nuptials. It was tragic, the importance she gave to
her ovaries.
Up until the day she was taken to the hospital she was
a regular fucking block. The thought of never being
able to fuck again frightened the wits out of her. Hymie of
course told her it wouldn't make any difference to him one
way or the other. Glued to her like a snake, a cigarette in
his mouth, the girls passing below on the boulevard, it
was hard for him to imagine a woman not being able to
fuck any more. He was sure the operation would be
successful. Successful! That's to say that she'd fuck even
better than before. He used to tell her that, lying on his

Tropic of Capricorn
179
back looking up at the ceiling. "You know I'll always love
you," he would say. "Move over just a little bit, will you .
. . . there, like that. ... that's it. What was I saying? Oh yes
... why sure, why should you worry about things like that?
Of course I'll be true to you. Listen, pull away just a little
bit ... yeah, that's it .... that's fine." He used to tell us
about it in the chop suey joint. Steve would laugh like hell.
Steve couldn't do a thing like that. He was too honestespecially with women. That's why he never had any luck.
Little Curley, for example-Steve hated Curley-would
always get what he wanted . . . . He was a born liar, a
born deceiver. Hymie didn't like Curley much either.
He said he was dishonest, meaning of course dishonest
in money matters. About such things Hymie was scrupulous. What he disliked especially was the way Curley
talked about his aunt. It was bad enough, in Hymic's
opinion, that he should be screwing the sister of his own
mother, but to make her out to he nothing but a piece of
stale cheese, that was too much for Hymie. One ought to
have a bit of respect for a woman, provided she's not a
whore. If she's a whore that's different. Whores are not
women. Whores are whores. That was how Hymie looked
at things.
The real reason for this dislike, however, was that whenever they went out together Curley always got the best
choice. And not only that, but it was usually with Hymie's
money that Curley managed it. Even the way Curley
asked for money irritated Hymie-it was like extortion, he
said. He thought it was partly my fault, that I was too
lenient with the kid. "He's got no moral character," Hymie
would say. "And what about you, your moral character?"
I would ask. "Oh me! Shit, I'm too old to have any moral
character. But Curley's only a kid."
"You're jealous, that's what," Steve would say.
"Me? Me jealous of him?" And he'd try to smother
the idea with a scornful little laugh. It made him wince, a
jab like that. "Listen," he would say, turning to me, "did
I ever act jealous toward you? Didn't I always turn a

180
Tropic of Capricorn
girl over to you if you asked me? What about that redhaired girl in SU office ... you remember ... the one
with the big teats? Wasn't that a nice piece of ass to turn
over to a friend? But I did it, didn't I? I did it because you
said you liked big teats. But I wouldn't do it for Curley.
He's a little crook. Let him do his own .digging."
As a matter of fact, Curley was digging away very industriously. He must have had five or six on the string at
one time, from what I could gather. There was Valeska,
for example-he had made himself pretty solid with her.
She was so damned pleased to have some one fuck her
without blushing that when it came to sharing him with
her cousin and then with the midget she didn't put up
the least objection. What she liked best was to get in
the tub and let him fuck her under water. It was fine until
the midget got wise to it. Then there was a nice rumpus
which was finally ironed out on the parlor floor. To listen
to Curley talk he did everything bllt climb the chandeliers.
And always plenty of pocket money to boot. Valeska was
generous, but the cousin was a softy. If she came within
a foot of a stiff prick she was like putty. An unbuttoned
fly was enough to put her in a trance. It was almost shameful the things Curley made her do. He took pleasure in
degrading her. I could scarcely blame him for it, she was
such a prim, priggish bitch in her street clothes. You'd
almost swear she didn't own a cunt, the way she carried
herself in the street. Naturally, when he got her alone
he made her pay for her highfalutin' ways. He went at it
coldbloodedly. "Fish it out!" he'd say, opening his fly a
little. "Fish it out with your tongue!" (He had it in for the
whole bunch because, as he put it, they were sucking
one another off behind his hack.) Anyway, once she got
the taste of it in her mouth you could do anything with
her. Sometimes he'd stand her on her hands and push her
around the room that way, like a wheelbarrow. Or else
he'd do it dog fashion, and while she groaned and
squirmed he'd nonchalantly light a cigarette and blow the
smoke between her legs. Once he played her a dirty trick

Tropic of Capricorn
181
doing it that way. He had worked her up to such a state
that she was beside herself. Anyway, after he had almost
polished the ass off her with his back-scuttling he pulled
out for a second, as though to cool his cock off, and then
very slowly and gently he shoved a big long carrot up her
twat. "That, Miss Abercrombie," he said, "is a sort of
Doppelganger to my regular cock," and with that he unhitches himself and yanks up his pants. Cousin Abercrombie was so bewildered by it all that she let a tremendous fart and out tumbled the carrot. At least, that's how
Curley related it to me. He was an outrageous liar, to be
sure, and there may not be a grain of truth in the yarn, but
there's no denying that he had a flair for such tricks. As
for Miss Abercrombie and her high-tone Narragansett
ways, well, with a cunt like that one can always imagine
the worst. By comparison Hymie was a purist. Somehow
Hymie and his fat circumcised dick were two different
things. When he got a personal hard on, as he said, he
really meant that he was irresponsible. He meant that
Nature was asserting itself-through his, Hymie Laubscher's, fat circumcised dick. It was the same with his
wife's cunt. It was something she wore between her legs,
like an ornament. It was a part of Mrs. Laubscher bllt it
wasn't Mrs. Laubscher personally, if yOll get what I mean.
Well, all this is simply by way of leading up to the
general sexllal confusion which prevailed at this time. It
was like taking a flat in the Land of Fuck. The girl upstairs, for instance ... she used to come down now and
then, when the wife was giving a recital, to look after the
kid. She was so obviously a simpleton that I didn't give
her any notice at first. Rut like all the others she had a
cunt too, a sort of impersonal personal cunt which she was
unconsciously conscious of. The oftener she came down
the morc conscious she got, in her unconscious way. One
night, whcn she was in the bathroom, after she had been
in there a suspiciously long while, she got me to thinking
of things. I decided to take a peep through the keyhole
and see for myself what was what. Lo and behold, if she

182

Tropic of Capricorn
isn't standing in front of the mirror stroking and petting
her little pussy. Almost talking to it, she was. I was so
excited I didn't know what to do first. I went back into the
big room, turned out the lights, and lay there on the
couch waiting for her to come out. As I lay there I could
still see that bushy cunt of hers and the fingers strumming
it like. I opened my fly to let my pecker twitch about in
the cool of the dark. I tried to mesmerize her from the
couch, or at least I tried letting my peeker mesmerize her.
"Come here, you bitch," I kept saying to myself, "come
in here and spread that cunt over me." She must have
caught the message immediately, for in a jiffy she had
opened the door and was groping about in the dark to find
the couch. I didn't say a word, I didn't make a move. I
just kept my mind riveted on her cunt moving quietly
in the dark like a crab. Finally she was standing beside the
couch. She didn't say a word either. She just stood there
quietly and as I slid my hand up her legs she moved one
foot a little to open her crotch a bit more. I don't think
I ever put my hand into such a juicy crotch in all my life.
It was like paste running down her legs, and if there had
been any billboards handy I could have plastered up a
dozen or more. After a few moments, just as naturally
as a cow lowering its head to graze, she bent over and
put it in her mouth. I had my whole four fingers inside
her, whipping it up to a froth. Her mouth was stuffed
full and the juice pouring down her legs. Not a word
out of us, as I say. Just a couple of quiet maniacs working
away in the dark like gravediggers. It was a fucking Paradise and I knew it, and I was ready and willing to fuck
my brains away if necessary. She was probably the best
fuck I ever had. She never once opened her trap-not
that night, nor the next night, nor any night. She'd steal
down like that in the dark, soon as she smelled me there
alone, and plaster her cunt all over me. It was an enormous
cunt, too, when I think back on it. A dark, subterranean
labyrinth fitted up with divans and cosy corners and rubber teeth and syringas and soft nestles and eiderdown

Tropic of Capricorn
183
and mulberry leaves. I used to nose in like the solitary
worm and bury myself in a little cranny where it was
absolutely silent, and so soft and restful that I lay like a
dolphin on the oyster banks. A slight twitch and 1'd be
in the Pullman reading a newspaper or else up an impasse
where there were mossy round cobblestones and little
wicker gates which opened and shut automatically. Sometimes it was like riding the shoot-the-shoots, a steep
plunge and then a spray of tingling sea crabs, the bulrushes swaying feverishly and the gills of tiny fishes lapping against me like harmonica stops. In the immense
black grotto there was a silk-and-soap organ playing a predaceous black music. When she pitched herself high, when
she turned the juice on full, it made a violaceous purple,
a deep mulberry stain like twilight, a ventriloqual twilight
such as dwarfs and cretins enjoy when they menstruate.
It made me think of cannibals cheWing flowers, of Bantus running amuck, of wild unicorns rutting in rhododendron beds. Everything was anonymous and unformulated, John Doe and his wife Emmy Doe; above us the
gas tanks and below the marine life. Above the belt, as
I say, she was batty. Yes, absolutely cuckoo, though still
abroad and afloat. Perhaps that was what made her cunt
so marvelously impersonal. It was one cunt out of a million, a regular Pearl of the Antilles, such as Dick Osborn
discovered when reading Joseph Conrad. In the broad
Pacific of sex she lay, a gleaming silver reef surrounded
with human anemones, human starfish, human madrepores. Only an Osborn could have discovered her, given
the proper latitude and longitude of cunt. Meeting her in
the daytime, watching her slowly going daft, it was like
trapping a weasel when night came on. All I had to do
was to lie down in the dark with my fly open and wait.
She was like Ophelia suddenly resurrected among the
Kaffirs. Not a word of any language could she remember,
especially not English. She was a deaf-mute who had
lost her memory, and with the loss of memory she had
lost her frigidaire, her curling irons, her tweezers and

184

Tropic of Capricorn
handbag. She was even more naked than a fish, except for
the tuft of hair between her legs. And she was even
slipperier than a fish because after all a fish has scales
and she had none. It was dubious at times whether I was
in her or she in me. It was open warfare, the newfangled
Pancrace, with each one biting his own ass. Love among
the newts and the cutout wide open. Love without gender
and without lysol. Incubational love, such as the wolverines practice above the tree line. On the one side the
Arctic Ocean, on the other the Gulf of Mexico. And
though we never referred to it openly there was always
with us King Kong, King Kong asleep in the wrecked
hull of the Titanic among the phosphorescent bones of
millionaires and lampreys. No logic could drive King
Kong away. He was the giant truss that supports the
soul's fleeting anguish. He was the wedding cake with
hairy legs and anns a mile long. He was the revolving
screen on which the news passes away. He was the
muzzle of the revolver that never went off, the leper
armed with sawed-off gonococci.
It was here in the void of hernia that I did all my
quiet thinking via the penis. There was first of all the binomial theorem, a phrase which had always puzzled me:
I put it under the magnifying glass and studied it from
X to Z. There was Logos, which somehow I had always
identified with breath: I found that on the contrary it
was a sort of obsessional stasis, a machine which went
on grinding com long after the granaries had been filled
and the Jews driven out of Egypt. There was Bucephalus,
more fascinating to me perhaps than any word in my
whole vocabulary: I would trot it out whenever I was in
a quandary, and with it of course Alexander and his
entire purple retinue. What a horse! Sired in the Indian
Ocean, the last of the line, and never once matcd, except
to the Queen of the Amazons during the Mesopotamian
adventure. There was the Scotch Gambit! An amazing
expression which had nothing to do with chess. It came
to me always in the shape of a man on stilts, page 2,498

Tropic of Capricorn

185

of Funk and Wagnall's Unabridged Dictionary. A gambit
was a sort of leap in the dark with mechanical legs. A
leap for no purpose-hence gambit! Clear as a bell and
perfectly simple, once you grasped it. Then there was
Andromeda, and the Gorgon Medusa, and Castor and
Pollux of heavenly origin, mythological twins, eternally
fixed in the ephemeral stardust. There was lucubration, a
word distinctly sexual and yet sllggesting such cerebral
connotations as to make me uneasy. Always "midnight
lucubrations," the midnight being ominously significant.
And then arras. Somebody some time or other had been
stabbed "behind the arras." I saw an altar cloth made of
asbestos and in it was a grievous rent such as Caesar himself might have made.
It was very quiet thinking, as I say, the kind that the
men of the Old Stone Age must have indulged in. Things
were neither absurd nor explicable. It was a jigsaw puzzle which, when you grew tired, you could push away
with two feet. Anything could be put aside with ease,
even the Himalaya mountains. It was just the opposite
kind of thinking from Mahomet's. It led absolutely nowhere and was hence enjoyable. The grand edifice
which you might construct throughout the course of a
long fuck could be toppled over in the twinkling of an
eye. It was the fuck that counted and not the construction
work. It was like living in the Ark during the Flood,
everything provided for down to a screwdriver. What
need to commit murder, rape or incest when all that was
demanded of you was to kill time? Rain, rain, rain, but
inside the Ark everything dry and toasty, a pair of every
kind and in the larder fine 'Westphalian hams, fresh eggs,
olives, pickled onions, Worcestershire sauce and other
delicacies. God had chosen me, ;..Joah, to establish a new
heaven and a new earth. He had given me a stout boat
with all seams caulked and properly dried. He had given
me also the knowledge to sail the stormy seas. Maybe
when it stopped raining there would be other kinds of
knowledge to acquire, but for the present a nautical

186

Tropic of Capricorn
knowledge sufficed. The rest was chess in the Cafe
Royal, Second Avenue, except that I had to imagine a
partner, a clever Jewish mind that would make the game
last until the rains ceased. But, as I said before, I had no
time to be bored; there were myoId friends, Logos,
Bucephalus, arras, lucubration and so on. Why play
chess?
Locked up like that for days and nights on end I began
to realize that thinking, when it is not masturbative, is
lenitive, healing, pleasurable. The thinking that gets you
nowhere takes you everywhere; all other thinking is done
on tracks and no matter how long the stretch, in the end
there is always the depot or the roundhouse. In the end
there is always a red lantern which says STOP! But when
the penis gets to thinking there is no stop or let: it is
a perpetual holiday, the bait fresh and the fish always
nibbling at the line. Which reminds me of another cunt,
Veronica something or other, who always got me thinking the wrong way. With Veronica it was always a tussle
in the vestibule. On the dance floor you'd think she was
going to make you a permanent present of her ovaries,
but as soon as she hit the air she'd start thinking, thinking
of her hat, of her purse, of her aunt who was waiting up
for her, of the letter she forgot to mail, of the job she
was going to lose-all kinds of crazy, irrelevant thoughts
which had nothing to do with the thing in hand. It was
like she had suddenly switched her brain to her cuntthe most alert and canny cunt imaginable. It was almost
a metaphysical cunt, so to speak. It was a cunt which
thought out problems, and not only that, but a special
kind of thinking it was, with a metronome going. For this
species of displaced rhythmic lucubration a peculiar dim
light was essential. It had to be just about dark enough
for a bat and yet light enough to find a button if one happened to come undone and roll on the floor of the vestibule. You can see what I mean. A vague yet meticulous
precision, a steely awareness that simulated absent-mindedness. And fluttery and fluky at the same time, so that

Tropic of Capricorn

187

you could never determine whether it was fish or fowl.
What is this 1 hold in my hand? Fine or superfine? The
answer was always duck soup. If you grabbed her by
the boobies she would squawk like a parrot: if you got
under her dress she would wriggle like an eel; if you
held her too tight she would bite like a ferret. She
lingered and lingered and lingered. Why? What was she
after? Would she give in after an hour or two? Not a
chance in a million. She was like a pigeon trying to fly
with its legs caught in a steel trap. She pretended she
had no legs. But if you made a move to set her free she
would threaten to moult on you.
Because she had such a marvelous ass and because it
was also so damned inaccessible I used to think of her
as the Pons Asinorum. Every schoolboy knows that the
Pons Asinorum is not to be crossed except by two white
donkeys led by a blind man. I don't know why it is so,
but that's the rule as it was laid down by old Euclid. He
was so full of knowledge, the old buzzard, that one day
- I suppose purely to amuse himself-he built a bridge
which no living mortal could ever cross. He called it
the Pons Asinorum because he was the owner of a pair
of beautiful white donkeys, and so attached was he to
these donkeys that he would let nobody take possession
of them. And so he conjured a dream in which he, the
blind man, would one day lead the donkeys over the
bridge and into the happy hunting grounds for donkeys.
Well, Veronica was very much in the same boat. She
thought so much of her beautiful white ass that she
wouldn't part with it for anything. She wanted to take
it with her to Paradisc when the time came. As for her
cunt-which by the way she never referred to at all-as
for her cllnt, I say, well that was just an accessory
to be brought along. In the dim light of the vestibule,
without cver referring overtly to her two prob Jems, she
somehow made you uncomfortably aware of them. That
is, she made you aware in the manner of a prestidigitator.
You were to take a look or a feel only to be finally

188
Tropic of Capricorn
deceived, only to be shown that you had not seen and
had not felt. It was a very subtle sexual algebra, the midnight lucubration which would earn you an A or a B next
day, but nothing more. You passed your examinations,
you got your diploma, and then you were turned loose.
In the meantime you used your ass to sit down and your
cunt to make water with. Between the textbook and the
lavatory there was an intermediate zone which you were
never to enter because it was labeled fuck. You might
diddle and piddle, but you might not fuck. The light was
never completely shut off, the sun never streamed in.
Always just light or dark enough to distinguish a bat.
And just that little eerie flicker of light was what kept
the mind alert, on the lookout, as it were, for bags, pencils, buttons, keys, ct cetera. You couldn't really think
because your mind was already engaged. The mind was
kept in readiness, like a vacant seat at the theater on
which the owner has left his opera hat.
Veronica, as I say, had a talking cunt, which was bad
because its sole function seemed to be to talk one out of
a fuck. Evelyn, on the other hand, had a laughing cunt.
She lived upstairs too, only in another house. She was
always trotting in at mealtimes to tell us a new joke. A
comedienne of the first water, the only really funny
woman I ever met in my life. Everything was a joke, fuck
included. She could even make a stiff prick laugh, which
is saying a good deal. They say a stiff prick has no conscience, but a stiff prick that laughs too is phenomenal.
The only way I can describe it is to say that when she got
hot and bothcred, Evelyn, she put on a ventriloqual act
with her cunt. You'd be ready to slip it in when suddenly
the dummy between her legs would let out a guffaw. At
the same time it would reach out for you and give you
a playful little tug and squeeze. It could sing too, this
dummy of a cunt. In fact it behaved just like a trained
seal.
Nothing is more difficult than to make love in a circus.
Putting on the trained seal act all the time made her

Tropic of Capricorn
189
more inaccessible than if she had been trussed up with
iron thongs. She could break down the most "personal"
hard on in the world. Break it down with laughter. At
the same time it wasn't quite as humiliating as one might
he inclined to imagine. There was something sympathetic
about this vaginal laughter. The whole world seemed to
Hnroll like a pornographic film whose tragic theme is
impotence. You could visualize yourself as a dog, or a
weasel, or a white rabbit. Love was something on the
side, a dish of caviar, say, or a wax heliotrope. You could
see the ventriloquist in you talking about caviar or heliotropes, but the real person was always a weasel or a
white rabbit. Evelyn was always lying in the cabbage
patch with legs spread open offering a bright green leaf
to the first comer. But if you made a move to nibble it
the whole cabbage patch would explode with laughter,
a bright, dewy, vaginal laughter such as Jesus H. Christ
and Immanuel Pussyfoot Kant never dreamed of, because
if they had the world would not be what it is today and
besides there would have been no Kant and no Christ
Almighty. The female seldom laughs, but when she does
it's volcanic. When the female laughs the male had better
scoot to the cyclone cellar. Nothing will stand up under
that vaginating chortle, not even ferroconcrete. The female, when her risibility is once aroused, can laugh down
the hyena or the jackal or the wildcat. Now and then one
hears it at a lynching bee, for example. It means that the
lid is off, that everything goes. It means that she will
forage for herself-and watch out that you don't get your
balls cut off! It means that if the pest is coming SHE is
coming first, and with huge spiked thongs that will flay
the living hide off you. It means that she will lay not
only with Tom, Dick and Harry, but with Cholera,
Meningitis, Leprosy; it means that she will lay herself
down on the altar like a mare in rut and take on
all comers, including the Holy Ghost. It means that
what it took the poor male, with his logarithmic cunning, five thousand, ten thousand, twenty thousand years

190
Tropic of Capricorn
to build, she will pull down in a night. She will pull it
down and pee on it, and nobody will stop her once she
starts laughing in earnest. And when I said about Veronica
that her laugh would break down the most "personal"
hard on imaginable I meant it: she would break down
the personal erection and hand you back an impersonal
one that was like a red-hot ramrod. You might not get
very far with Veronica herself, but with what she had to
give you could travel far and no mistake about it. Once
you came within earshot of her it was like you had gotten
an overdose of Spanish fly. Nothing on earth could bring
it down again, unless you put it under a sledge-hammer.
It was going on this way all the time, even though every
word I say is a lie. It was a personal tour in the impersonal world, a man with a tiny trowel in his hand
digging a tunnel through the earth to get to the other
side. The idea was to tunnel through and find at last the
Culebra Cut, the ne plus ultra, of the honeymoon of flesh.
And of course there was no end to the digging. The best
I might hope for was to get stuck in the dead center of
the earth, where the pressure was strongest and most
even all around, and stay stuck there forever. That would
give me the feeling of Ixion on the wheel, which is one
sort of salvation and not entirely to be sneezed at. On the
other hand I was a metaphysician of the instinctivist sort:
it was impossible for me to stay stuck anywhere, even in
the dead center of the earth. It was most imperative to
find and to enjoy the metaphysical fuck, and for that I
would be obliged to come out on to a wholly new tableland, a mesa of sweet alfalfa and polished monoliths,
where the eagles and the vultures flew at random.
Sometimes sitting in the park of an evening, especially
a park littered with papers and bits of food, I would see
one pass by, one that seemed to be going toward Tibet,
and I would follow her with the round eye, hoping that
suddenly she would begin to fly, for if she did that, if
she would begin to fly, I knew I would be able to fly
also, and that would mean an end to the digging and

Tropic of Capricorn
191
the wallowing. Sometimes, probably because of twilight
or other disturbances, it seemed as though she actually
did fly on rounding a corner. That is, she would suddenly
be lifted from the ground for the space of a few feet, like
a plane too heavily loaded; but just that sudden involuntary lift. whether real or imaginary it didn't matter, gave
me hope, gave me courage to keep the still round eye
riveted on the spat.
There were megaphones inside which yelled "Go on,
keep going, stick it out," and all that nonsense. But why?
To what end? Whither? Whence? I would set the alarm
clock in order to be up and about at a certain hour, hut
why up and about? Why get up at all? With that little
trowel in my hand I was working like a galley slave
~md not the slightest hope of reward involved. Were I to
continue straight on I would dig the deepest hole any
man had ever dug. On the other hand, if I had truly
wanted to get to the other side of the earth, wouldn't it
have been much simpler to throwaway the trowel and
just board an airplane for China? But the body follows
after the mind. The simplest thing for the body is not always easy for the mind. And when it gets particularly
difficult and embarrassing is that moment when the two
start going in opposite directions.
Laboring with the trowel was bliss: it left the mind
completely free and yet there was never the slightest
danger of the two being separated. If the she-animal
suddenly began groaning with pleasure, if the she-animal
suddenly began to throw a pleasurable conniption fit, the
jaws moving like old shoelaces, the chest wheezing and
the ribs creaking, if the she-bugger suddenly started to
faB apart on the floor, to the collapse of joy and overexasperation, just at the moment, not a second this side
or that, the promised tableland would heave in sight like
a ship coming up out of a fog and there would be nothing
to do but plant the stars and stripes on it and claim it in
the name of Uncle Sam and all that's holy. These misadventures happened so frequently that it was impossible

192

Tropic of Capricorn
not to believe in the reality of a realm which was called
Fuck, because that was the only name which might be
given to it, and yet it was more than fuck and by fucking
one only began to approach it. Everybody had at one time
or another planted the flag in this territory, and yet nobody
was able to lay claim to it permanently. It disappeared
overnight-sometimes in the twinkling of an eye. It was
No Man's Land and it stank with the litter of invisible
deaths. If a truce were declared you met in this terrain
and shook hands or swapped tobacco. But the truces
never lasted very long. The only thing that seemed to
have permanency was the "zone between" idea. Here
the bullets flew and the corpses piled up; then it would
rain and finally there would be nothing left but a stench.
This is all a figurative way of speaking about what is
unmentionable. What is unmentionable is pure fuck and
pure cunt: it must be mentioned only in de luxe editions,
otherwise the world will fall apart. What holds the world
together, as I have learned from bitter experience, is
sexual intercourse. But fuck, the real thing, cunt, the real
thing, seems to contain some unidentified element which
is far more dangerous than nitroglycerin. To get an idea
of the real thing you must consult a Sears Roebuck catalogue endorsed by the Anglican Church. On page twentythree you will find a picture of Priapus juggling a corkscrew on the end of his weeny; he is standing in the
shadow of the Parthenon by mistake; he is naked except
for a perforated jock-strap which was loaned for the
occasion by the Holy Rollers of Oregon and Saskatchewan. Long distance is on the wire demanding to know
if they should sell short or long. He says go fuck yourself
and hangs up the receiver. In the background Rembrandt
is studying the anatomy of our Lord Jesus Christ who, if
you remember, was crucified by the Jews and then taken
to Abyssinia to be pounded with quoits and other objects.
The weather seems to be fair and warmer, as usual, except for a slight mist rising up out of the Ionian; this is
the sweat of Neptune's balls which were castrated by the

Tropic of Capricorn
193
early monks, or perhaps it was by the Manicheans in the
time of the Pentecostal plague. Long strips of horsemeat
are hanging out to dry and the flies are everywhere, just as
Homer describes it in ancient times. Hard by is a McCormick threshing machine, a reaper and binder with a thirtysix horsepower engine and no cutout. The harvest is in and
the workers are counting their wages in the distant fields.
This is the flush of dawn on the first day of sexual intercourse in the old Hellenistic world, now faithfully reproduced for us in color thanks to the Zeiss Brothers and
other patient zealots of industry. But this is not the way
it looked to the men of Homer's time who were on the
spot. Nobody knows how the god Priapus looked when
he was reduced to the ignominy of balancing a corkscrew
on the end of his weeny. Standing that way in the
shadow of the Parthenon he undoubtedly fell a-dreaming
of far-off cunt; he must have lost consciousness of the
corkscrew and the threshing and reaping machine; he
must have grown very silent within himself and finally
he must have lost even the desire to dream. It is my idea,
and of course I am willing to be corrected if I am wrong,
that standing thus in the rising mist he suddenly heard
the Angelus peal and 10 and behold therc appeared before his very eyes a gorgeous green marshland in which
the Choctaws were making merry with the Navajos; in
the air above were the white condors, their ruffs festooned
with marigolds. lIe saw also a huge slate on which was
written the body of Christ, the body of Absalom and the
evil which is lust. He saw the sponge soaked with frogs'
blood, the eyes which Augustine had sewn into his skin,
the vest which was not big enough to cover our iniquities.
He saw these things in the whilomst moment when the
Navajos were making merry with the Choctaws and he
was so taken by surprise that suddenly a voice issued
from between his legs, from the long thinking reed which
he had lost in dreaming, and it was the most inspired, the
most shrill and piercing, the most jubilant and ferocious
cachinnating sort of voice that had ever wangled up from

194
Tropic of Capricorn
the depths. He began to sing through that long cock of
his with such divine grace and elegance that the white
condors came down out of the sky and shat huge purple
eggs all over the green marshland. Our Lord Christ got
up from his stone bed and, marked by the quoit though
he was, he danced like a mountain goat. The fellaheen
came out of Egypt in their chains, followed by the warlike Igorots and the snail-eating men of Zanzibar.
This is how things stood on the first day of sexual intercourse in the old Hellenistic world. Since then things
have changed a great deal. It is no longer polite to sing
through your weeny, nor is it pennitted even to condors
to shit purple eggs all over the place. All this is scatological, eschatological and ecumenical. It is forbidden.
Verboten. And so the Land of Fuck becomes ever more receding: it becomes mythological. Therefore am I constrained to speak mythologically. I speak with extreme
unction, and with precious unguents too. I put away the
clashing cymbals, the tubas, the white marigolds, the oleanders and the rhododendrons. Up with the thorns and the
manacles! Christ is dead and mangled with quoits. The
fellaheen are bleaching in the sands of Egypt, their wrists
loosely shackled. The vultures have eaten away every decomposing crumb of flesh. All is quiet, a million golden
mice nibbling at the unseen cheese. The moon is up and
the Nile ruminates on her riparian ravages. The earth
belches silently, the stars twitch and bleat, the rivers slip
their banks. It's like this .... There are cunts which laugh
and cunts which talk; there arc crazy, hysterical cunts
shaped like ocarinas and there are planturous, seismographic cunts which register the rise and fall of sap; there
are cannibalistic cunts which open wide like the jaws of
the whale and swallow alive; there are also masochistic
cunts which close up like the oyster and have hard shells
and perhaps a pearl or two inside; there are dithyrambic
cunts which dance at the very approach of the penis and go
wet all over in ecstasy; there are the porcupine cunts which
unleash their quills and wave little flags at Christmas

Tropic of Capricorn
195
time; there are telegraphic cunts which practice the
Morse code and leave the mind full of dots and dashes;
there arc the political cunts which are saturated with
ideology and which deny even the menopause; there are
vegetative cunts which make no response unless you pull
them up by the roots; there are the religious cunts which
smell like Seventh Day Adventists and are full of beads,
worms, clamshells, sheep droppings and now and then
dried bread crumbs; there are the mammalian cunts
which are lined with ottcr skin and hibernate during the
long winter; there are cruising cunts fitted out like yachts,
which are good for solitaries and epileptics; there are
glacial cunts in which you can drop shooting stars without causing a flicker; there are miscellaneous cunts which
defy category or description, which you stumble on once
in a lifetime and which leave you seared and branded;
there are cunts made of pure joy which have neither
name nor antecedent and these are the best of all, but
whither have they flown?
And then there is the one cunt which is all, and this we
shall call the super-cunt, since it is not of this land at all
but of that bright country to which we were long ago
invited to fly. Here the dew is ever sparkling and the
tall reeds bend with the wind. It is herc that the great
father of fornication dwells, Father Apis, the mantic
bull who gored his way to heaven and dethroned the
gelded deities of right and wrong. From Apis sprang the
race of unicorns, that ridiculous beast of ancient writ
whose learned brow lengthened into a gleaming phallus,
and from the unicorn by gradual stages was derived the
late-city man of which Oswald Spengler speaks. And
from the dead cock of this sad specimen arose the giant
skyscraper with its cxprcss elevators and observation
towers. We are the last decimal point of sexual calculation; the world turns like a rotten egg in its crate of straw.
Now for the aluminum wings with which to fly to that
far-off place, the bright country where Apis, the father
of fornication, dwells. Everything goes forward like oiled

196

Tropic of Capricorn
clocks; for each minute of the dial there are a million noiseless clocks which tick off the rinds of time. We are traveling faster than the lightning calculator, faster than starlight, faster than the magician can think. Each second is
a universe of time. And each universe of time is but a
wink of sleep in the cosmogony of speed. When speed
comes to its end we shall be there, punctual as always
and blissfully undenominated. We shall shed our wings,
our clocks and our mantelpieces to lean on. We will rise
up feathery and jubilant, like a colurrm of blood, and there
will be no memory to drag us down again. This time I
call the realm of the super-cunt, for it defies speed, calculation or imagery. Nor has the penis itself a known size or
weight. There is only the sustained feel of fuck, the fugitive in full flight, the nightmare smoking his quiet cigar.
Little Nemo walks around with a seven-day hard on and
a wonderful pair of blue balls bequeathed by Lady
Bountiful. It is Sunday morning around the corner from
Evergreen Cemetery.
It is Sunday morning and I am lying blissfully dead to
the world on my bed of ferroconcrete. Around the corner
is the cemetery, which is to say-the world of sexual intercourse. My balls ache with the fucking that is going on,
but it is all going on beneath my window, on the boulevard where Hymie keeps his copulating nest. I am thinking of one woman and the rest is blotto. I say I am thinking of her, but the truth is I am dying a stellar death.
I am lying there like a sick star waiting for the light to go
out. Years ago I lay on this same bed and I waited and
waited to be born. Nothing happened. Except that my
mother, in her Lutheran rage, threw a bucket of water
over me. My mother, poor imbecile that she was, thought
I was lazy. She didn't know that I had gotten caught in
the stellar drift, that I was being pulverized to a black extinction out there on the farthest rim of the universe. She
thought it was sheer laziness that kept me riveted to the
bed. She threw the bucket of water over me: I squirmed
and shivered a bit, but I continued to lie there on my

Tropic of Capricorn
197
ferroconcrete bed. I was immovable. I was a burned-out
meteor adrift somewhere in the neighborhood of Vega.
And now I'm on the same bed and the light that's in
me refuses to be extinguished. The world of men and
women are making merry in the cemetery grounds. They
are having sexual intercourse, God bless them, and I am
alone in the Land of Fuck. It seems to me that I hear the
clanking of a great machine, the linotype bracelets passing
through the wringer of sex. Hymie and his nymphomaniac of a wife are lying on the same level with me,
only they are across the river. The river is called Death
and it has a bitter taste. I have waded through it many
times, up to the hips, but somehow I have neither been
petrified nor immortalized. I am still burning brightly
inside, though outwardly dead as a planet. From this
bed I have gotten up to dance, not once but hundreds,
thousands of times. Each time I came away I had the
conviction that I had danced the skeleton dance on a
terrain vague. Perhaps I had wasted too much of my substance on suffering; perhaps I had the crazy idea that I
would be the first metallurgical bloom of the human
species; perhaps I was imbued with the notion that I was
both a sub-gorilla and a super-god. On this bed of ferroconcrete I remember everything and everything is in rock
crystal. There are never any animals, only thousands and
thousands of human beings all talking at once, and for
each word they utter I have an answer immediately, sometimes before the word is out of their mouths. 'fhere is
plenty of killing, but no blood. The murders are perpetrated with cleanliness, and always in silence. But even
if everyone were killed there would still be conversation,
and the conversation would be at once intricate and easy
to follow. Because it is I who create it! I know it, and
that is why it never drives me mad. I have conversations
which may take place only twenty years hence, when I
meet the right person, the one whom I shall create, let
us say, when the proper time comes. All these talks take
place in a vacant lot which is attached to my bed like a

198

Tropic of Capricorn
mattress. Once I gave it a name, this terrain vague: I
called it Ubiguchi, but somehow Ubiguchi never satisfied
me, it was too intelligible, too full of meaning. It would
be better to keep it just terrain vague, which is what I
intend to do. People think that vacuity is nothingness, but
it is not so. Vacuity is a discordant fullness, a crowded
ghostly world in which the soul goes reconnoitering. As a
boy I remember standing in the vacant lot as if I were a
very lively soul standing naked in a pair of shoes. The
body had been stolen from me because I had no particular
need of it. I could exist with or without a body then. If
I killed a little bird and roasted it over the fire and ate it,
it was not because I was hungry but because I wanted to
know about Tim buktu or Tierra del Fuego. I had to stand
in the vacant lot and eat dead birds in order to create a
desire for that bright land which later I would inhabit
alone and people with nostalgia. I expected ultimate
things of this place, but I was deplorably deceived. I
went as far as one could go ill a statc of complete deadness, and then by a law, which must be the law of creation, I suppose, I suddenly flared up and began to live
inexhaustibly, like a star whose light is unquenchable.
H ere began the real cannibalistic excursions which have
meant so much to me: no more dead chippies picked
from the bonfire, but live human meat, tender, succulent
human flesh, secrets like fresh bloody livers, confidences
like swollen tumors that have been kept on ice. I learned
not to wait for my victim to die, but to eat into him while
he was talking to me. Often when I walked away from an
unfinished meal I discovered that it was nothing more
than an old friend minus an arm or a leg. I sometimes left
him standing there-a trunk full of stinking intestines.
Being of the city, of the only city in the world and no
place like Broadway anywhere, I used to walk up and
down staring at the floodlit hams and other delicacies. I
was a schizerino from the sole of my boots to the tips of my
hair. I lived exclusively in the gerundive, which I understood only in Latin. Long before I had read of her in thc

Tropic of Capricorn
199
nlack Book I was cohabiting with Hilda, the giant cauliflower of my dreams. We traversed all the morganatic diseases together and a few which were ex cathedra. We
(Iwelt in the carcass of the instincts and were nourished by
gallglionic memories. There was never a universe, but millions and billions of universes, all of them put together no
Iligger than a pinhead. It was a vegetal sleep in the wilderness of the mind. It was the past, which alone comprises
eternity. Amidst the fauna and flora of my dreams I would
hear long distance calling. Messages were dropped on
Illy table by the deformed and the epileptic. Hans Castorp
would call sometimes and together we would commit
illllocent crimes. Or, if it were a bright freezing day, I
would do a turn in the velodrome with my Presto bike
from Chemnitz, Bohemia ..
Best of all was the skeleton dance. I would first wash all
my parts at the sink, change my linen, shave, powder,
comb my hair, don my dancing pumps. Feeling abnormally light inside and out I would wind in and out of the
crowd for a time to get the proper human rhythm, the
weight and substance of flesh. Then I would make a beeline for the dance floor, grab a hunk of giddy flesh and
hegin the autumnal pirouette. It was like that I walked
into the hairy Greek's place one night and ran smack into
her. She seemed blue-black, white as chalk, ageless. There
was not just the flow to and from, but the endless chute,
the voluptuousness of intrinsic restlessness. She was
mercurial and at the same time of a savory weight. She
had the marmoreal stare of a faun embedded in lava. The
time has come, I thought, to wander back from the periphery. I made a move toward the center, only to find the
ground shifting from under my feet. The earth slid rapidly
beneath my bewildered feet. I moved again out of the
earth belt and behold, my hands were fu]] of meteoric
flowers. I reached for her with two flaming hands but she
was more elusive than sand. I thought of my favorite
nightmares, but she was unlike anything which had made
me sweat and gibber. In my delirium I began to prance

200
Tropic of Capricorn
and neigh. I bought frogs and mated them with toads. I
thought of the easiest thing to do, which is to die, but I did
nothing. I stood still and began to petrify at the extremities. That was so wonderful, so healing, so eminently
sensible, that I began to laugh way down inside the
viscera, like a hyena crazed with rut. Maybe I would turn
into a rosetta stone! I just stood still and waited. Spring
came, and fall, and then winter. I renewed my insurance
policy automatically. I ate grass and the roots of deciduous
trees. I sat for days on end looking at the same film. Now
and then I brushed my teeth. If you fired an automatic
at me the bullets glanced off and made a queer tat-a-tat
ricocheting against the walls. Once up a dark street,
felled by a thug, I felt a knife go clean through me. It felt
like a spritz bath. Strange to say, the knife left no holes
in my skin. Th~ experience was so novel that I went home
and stuck knives into all parts of my body. More needle
baths. I sat down, pulled all the knives out, and again I
marveled that there was no trace of blood, no holes, no
pain. I was just about to bite into my arm when the telephone rang. It was long distance calling. I never knew
who put in the calls because no one ever came to the
phone. However, the skeleton dance ....
Life is drifting by the show window. I lie there like a
floodlit ham waiting for the ax to fall. As a matter of fact,
there is nothing to fear, because everything is cut neatly
into fine little slices and wrapped in cellophane. Suddenly
all the lights of the city are extinguished and the sirens
sound their warning. The city is enveloped in pOison gas,
bombs are bursting, mangled bodies flying through the
air. There is electricity everywhere, and blood and
splinters and loudspeakers. The men in the air are full of
glee; those below are screaming and bellowing. \Vhen the
gas and the flames have eaten all the flesh away the skeleton dance begins. I watch from the show window which
is now dark. It is better than the sack of Rome because
there is more to destroy.
\Vhy do the skeletons dance so ecstatically, I wonder.

Tropic of Capricorn
201
Is it the fall of the world? Is it the dance of death which
has been so often heralded? To see millions of skeletons
dancing in the snow while the city founders is an awesome sight. Will anything ever grow again? Will babes
come out of the womb? Will there be food and wine?
There are men in the air, to be sure. They will come down
to plunder. There will be cholera and dysentery and those
who were above and triumphant will perish like the rest.
I have the sure feeling that I will be the last man on earth.
I will emerge from the show window when it is all over
and walk calmly amidst the ruins. I will have the whole
earth to myself.
Long distance calling! To inform me that I am not
utterly alone. 11wn the destruction was not complete?
It's discouraging. Man is not even able to destroy himself;
he can only destroy others. I am disgusted. What a malicious cripple! What cruel delusions! So there are more of
the species about and they will tidy up the mess and begin
again. God will come down again in flesh and blood and
take up the burden of guilt. They will make music and
build things in stone and write it all down in little books.
Pfui! What blind tenacity, what clumsy ambitions!
I am on the bed again. The old Greek world, the dawn
of sexual intercourse-and Hymie! Hymie Laubscher
always on the same level, looking down on the boulevard
across the river. There is a lull in the nuptial feast and
the clam fritters are brought in. Move over just a little, he
says. There, like that, that's it! I hear frogs croaking in the
swamp outside my window. Big ccmetery frogs nourished
by the dead. They are all huddled together in sexual intercourse; they are croaking with sexual glee.
I realize now how Hymie was conceived and brought
into being. Hymie thc bullfrog! His mother was at the
bottom of the pack and Hymie, then an embryo, was hidden away in her sac. It was in the early days of sexual
intercourse and there were no Marquis of Queensbury
rules to hinder. It was fuck and be fucked-and the devil
take the hindmost. It has been that way ever since the

202

Tropic of Capricorn

Greeks-a blind fuck in the mud and then a quick spawn
and then death. People are fucking on different levels
but it's always in a swamp and the litter is always destined
for the same end. When the house is torn down the bed
is left standing: the cosmosexual altar.
I was polluting the bed with dreams. Stretched out
taut on the ferroconcrete my soul would leave its body
and roam from place to place on a little trolley such as
is used in department stores for making change. I made
ideological changes and excursions; I was a vagabond in
the country of the brain. Everything was absolutely clear
to me because done in rock crystal; at every egress there
was written in big letters ANNIHILATION. The fright
of extinction solidified me; the body became itself a piece
of ferroconcrete. It was ornamented by a permanent
erection in the best taste. I had achieved that state of
vacuity so earnestly desired by certain devout members
of esoteric cults. I was no more. I was not even a personal
hard on.
It was about this time, adopting the pseudonym Samson Lackawanna, that I began my depredations. The criminal instinct in me had gotten the upper hand. Whereas
heretofore I had been only an errant soul, a sort of Gentile
Dybbuk, now I became a flesh-filled ghost. I had taken
the name which pleased me and I had only to act instinctively. In Hong Kong, for instance, I made my entry as
a book agent. I carried a leather purse filled with Mexican
dollars and I visited religiously all those Chinese who were
in need of further education. At the hotel I rang for women
like you would ring for whisky and soda. Mornings I
studied Tibetan in order to prepare for the journey to
Lhasa. I already spoke Yiddish fluently, and Hebrew too.
I could count two rows of figures at once. It was so easy
to swindle the Chinese that I went back to Manila in
disgust. There I took a Mr. Rico in hand and taught him
the art of selling books with no handling charges. All the
profit came from ocean freight rates, but it was sufficient
to keep me in luxury while it lasted.

Tropic of Capricorn
203
The breath had become as much a trick as breathing.
Things were not dual merely, but multiple. I had became a cage of mirrors reflecting vacuity. But vacuity
once stoutly posited I was at home and what is called
creation was merely a job of filling up holes. The trolley
conveniently carried me about from place to place and in
each little side pocket of the great vacuum I dropped a
ton of poems to wipe out the idea of annihilation. I had
ever before me boundless vistas. I began to live in the
vista, like a microscopic speck on the lens of a giant telescope. There was no night in which to rest. It was perpetual starlight on the arid surface of dead planets. Now
and then a lake black as marble in which I saw myself
walking amidst brilliant orbs of light. So low hung the
stars and so dazzling was the light they shed, that it
seemed as if the universe were only about to be born.
What rendered the impression stronger was that I was
alone; not only were there no animals, no trees, no other
beings, but there was not even a blade of grass, not even
a dead root. In that violet incandescent light without
even the suggestion of a shadow, motion itself seemed to
be absent. It was like a blaze of pure consciousness,
thought become God. And God, for the first time in my
knowledge, was clean-shaven. I was also clean-shaven,
flawless, deadly accurate. I saw my image in the marble
black lakes and it was diapered with stars. Stars, stars ...
like a clout between the eyes and all remembrance fast
run out. I was Samson and I was Lackawanna and I was
dying as one being in the ecstasy of full consciousness.
And now here I am, sailing down the river in my little
canoe. Anything you would like to have me do I will do
for you-gratis. This is the Land of Fuck, in which there
are no animals, no trees, no stars, no problems. Here the
spermatazoon reigns supreme. Nothing is determined in
advance, the future is absolutely uncertain, the past is
non-existent. For every million born 999,999 are doomed
to die and never again be born. But the one that makes
a home run is assured of life eternal. Life is squeezed into

204
Tropic of Capricorn
a seed, which is a soul. Everything has soul, including
minerals, plants, lakes, mountains, rocks. Everything is
sentient, even at the lowest stage of consciousness.
Once this fact is grasped there can be no more despair.
At the very bottom of the ladder, chez the spermatozoa,
there is the same condition of bliss as at the top, chez
God. God is the summation of all the spermatozoa come
to full consciousness. Between the bottom and the top
there is no stop, no halfway station. The river starts somewhere in the mountains and flows on into the sea. On this
river that leads to God the canoe is as serviceable as the
dreadnought. From the very start the journey is homeward.
Sailing down the river .... Slow as the hookworm, but
tiny enough to make every bend. And slippery as an eel
withal. What is your name? shouts someone. My name?
Why just call me God-God the embryo. I go sailing on.
Somebody would like to buy me a hat. What size do you
wear, imbecile! he shouts. What size? Why size X! (And
why do they always shout at me? Am I supposed to be
deaf?) The hat is lost at the next cataract. Tant pis-for
the hat. Does God need a hat? God needs only to become
God, more and more God. All this voyaging, all thcse pitfalls, the time that passes, the scenery, and against the
scenery man, trillions and trillions of things called man,
like mustard seeds. Even in embryo God has no memory.
The backdrop of consciousness is made up of infinitesimally minute ganglia, a coat of hair soft as wool. The
mountain goat stands alone amidst the Himalayas; he
doesn't question how he got to the summit. He grazes
quietly amidst the decor; when the time comes he will
travel down again. He keeps his muzzle to the ground,
grubbing for the sparse nourishment which the mountain
peaks afford. In this strange Capricornian condition of
embryosis God the he-goat ruminates in stolid bliss among
the mountain peaks. The high altitudes nourish the germ
of separation which will one day estrange him completely
from the soul of man, which will make him a desolate,

Tropic of Capricorn
205
rocklike father dwelling forever apart in a void which
is unthinkable. But first come the morganatic diseases, of
which we must now speak....
There is a condition of misery which is irremediablebecause its origin is lost in obscurity. Bloomingdale's,
for example, can bring about this condition. All department stores are symbols of sickness and emptiness, but
Bloomingdale's is my special sickness, my incurable obscure malady. In the chaos of Bloomingdale's there is an
order, but this order is absolutely crazy to me: it is the
order which I would find on the head of a pin if I were
to put it undcr the miscroscope. It is the order of an accidental serics of accidents accidentally conceived. This
order has, above all, an odor-and it is the odor of
Bloomingdale's which strikes terror into my heart. In
Bloomingdale's I fall apart completely: I dribble onto thc
floor, a helpless mess of gilts and bones and cartilage.
There is the smell, not of decomposition, but of misalliance. Man, the miserable alchemist, has welded together, in a million forms and shapes, substances and
essences which have nothing in common. Because in
his mind there is a tumor which is eating him away insatiably; he has left the little canoe which was taking
him blissfully down the river in order to construct a bigger, safer boat in which there may be room for evcryone.
His labors take him so far afield that he has lost all remembrance of why he left the little canoe. The ark is
so full of bric-a-brac that it has become a stationary building above a subway in which the smell of linoleum prevails and predominates. Gather together all the significance hidden away in the interstitial miscellany of Bloomingdale's and put it on the hcad of a pin and you will
have left a universe in which the grand constellations
move without the slightest danger of collision. It is this
microscopic chaos which brings on my morganatic ailments. In the street I began to stab horses at random, or
I lift a skirt here and there looking for a letter box, or I
put a postage stamp across a mouth, an eye, a vagina. Or

206
Tropic of Capricorn
I suddenly decide to climb a tall building, like a fly, and
once having reached the roof I do fly with real wings and
I fly and fly and fly, covering towns like Weehawken,
Hoboken', Hackensack, Canarsie, Bergen Beach in the
twinkling of an eye. Once you become a real schizerino
flying is the easiest thing in the world; the trick is to fly
with the etheric body, to leave behind in Bloomingdale's
your sack of bones, guts, blood and cartilage; to fly only
with your immutable self which, if you stop a moment to
reflcct, is always equipped with wings. Flying this way,
in full daylight, has advantages over the ordinary nightflying which everybody indulges in. You can leave off
from moment to moment, as quick and decisive as stepping
on a brake; there is no difficulty in finding your other self,
because the moment you leave off you are your other self,
which is to say, the so-called whole self. Only, as the
Bloomingdale experience goes to prove, this whole self,
about which so much boasting has been done, falls apart
very easily. The smell of linoleum, for some strange
reason, will always make me fall apart and collapse on
the floor. It is the smell of all the unnatural things which
were glued together in me, which were assembled, so to
say, by negative consent.
It is only after the third meal that the morning gifts,
bequeathed by the phony alliance of the ancestors, begin to drop away and the true rock of the self, the happy
rock sheers up out of the muck of the soul. With nightfall
the pinhead universe begins to expand. It expands organically, from an infinitesimal nuclear speck, in the way that
minerals or star clusters form. It eats into the surrounding
chaos like a rat boring through store cheese. All chaos
could be gathered together on a pinhead, but the self,
microscopical at the start, works up to a universe from
any point in space. This is not the self about which books
are written, but the ageless self which has been farmed out
through millenary ages to men with names and dates,
the self which begins and ends as a worm, which is the
worm in the cheese called the world. Just as the slightest

Tropic of Capricorn
207
breeze can set a vast forest in motion so, by some unfathomable impulse from within, the rocklike self can
begin to grow, and in this growth nothing can prevail
against it. It's like Jack Frost at work, and the whole
world a windowpane. No hint of labor, no sound, no
struggle, no rest; relentless, remorseless, unremitting, the
growth of the self goes on. Only two items on the bill of
fare: the self and the not-self. And an eternity in which to
work it out. In this eternity, which has nothing to do with
time or space, there are interludes in which something like
a thaw sets in. The form of the self breaks down, but the
self, like climate, remains. In the night the amorphous
matter of the self assumes the most fugitive forms; error
seeps in through the portholes and the wanderer is unlatched from his door. This door which the body wears,
if opened out onto the world, leads to annihilation. It is
the door in every fable out of which the magician steps;
nobody has ever read of him returning home through the
selfsame door. If opened inward there are infinite doors,
all resembling trapdoors: no horizons are visible, no airlines, no rivers, no maps, no tickets. Each cauche is a
halt for the night only, be it five minutes or ten thousand
years. The doors have no handles and they never wear
out. Most important to note-there is no end in sight.
All these halts for the night, so to speak, are like abortive
explorations of a myth. One can feel his way about, take
bearings, observe passing phenomena; one can even feel
at home. But there is no taking root. Just at the moment
when one begins to feel "established" the whole terrain
founders, the soil underfoot is afloat, the constellations
are shaken loose from their moorings, the whole known
universe, including the imperishable self, starts moving
silently, ominously, shudderingly serene and unconcerned,
toward an unknown, unseen destination. All the doors
seem to be opening at once; the pressure is so great that
an implosion occurs and in the swift plunge the skeleton
bursts asunder. It was some such gigantic collapse which
Dante must have experienced when he situated himself in

Tropic of Capricorn
208
Hell; it was not a bottom which he touched, but a core,
a dead center from which time itself is reckoned. Here
the comedy begins, from here it is seen to be divine.
All this by way of saying that in going through the
revolving door of the Amarillo Dance Hall one night,
some twelve or fourteen years ago, the great event took
place. '!be interlude which I think of as the Land of Fuck,
a realm of time more than of space, is for me the equivalent of that Purgatory which Dante has described in nice
detail. As I put my hand on the brass rail of the revolving door to leave the Amarillo Dance Hall, all that I had
previously been, was, and about to be foundered. There
was nothing unreal about it; the very time in which I
was born passed away, carried off by a mightier stream.
Just as I had previously been bundled out of the womb,
so now I was shunted back to some timeless vector where
the process of growth is kept in abeyance. I passed into
the world of effects. There was no fear, only a feeling of
fatality. My spine was socketed to the node; I was up
against the coccyx of an implacable new world. In the
plunge the skeleton blew apart, leaving the immutable
ego as helpless as a squashed louse.
If from this point I do not begin, it is because there
is no beginning. If I do not fly at once to the bright land
it is because wings are of no avail. It is zero hour and
the moon is at nadir ....

Why I think of Maxie Schnadig I don't know, unless
it is because of Dostoevski. The night I sat down to read
Dostoevski for the first time was a most important event
in my life, even more important than my first love. It
was the first deliberate, conscious act which had significance for me; it changed the whole face of the world.
Whether it is true that the clock stopped that moment
when I looked up after the first deep gulp I don't know
any more. But the world stopped dead for a moment,
that I know. It was my first glimpse into the soul of a man,
or shall I say simply that Dostoevski was the first man to

Tropic of Capricorn
209
reveal his soul to me? Maybe I had been a bit queer
before that, without realizing it, but from the moment
that I dipped into Dostoevski I was definitely, irrevocably,
contentedly queer. The ordinary, waking, workaday world
was finished for me. Any ambition or desire I had to write
was also killed-for a long time to come. I was like those
men who have been too long in the trenches, too long
under fire. Ordinary human suffering, ordinary human
jealousy, ordinary human ambitions-it was just so much
shit to me.
I can visualize best my condition when I think of my
relations with Maxie and his sister Rita. At the time Maxie
and I used to go swimming together a great deal, that
I remember well. Often we passed the whole day and
night at the beach. I had only met Maxie's sister once or
twice; whenever I brought up her name Maxie would
rather frantically begin to talk about something else.
That annoyed me because I was really bored to death
wit1s Maxie's company, tolerating him only because he
loaned me money readily and bought me things which I
needed. Every time we started for the beach I was in
hopes his sister would turn up unexpecredly. But no,
he always managed to keep her out of reach. Well, one
day as we were undressing in the bathhouse and he
was showing me what a fine tight scrotum he had, I
said to him right out of the blue-"Listen, Maxie, that's
all right about your nuts, they're fine and dandy, and
there's nothing to worry about but where in hell is Rita
all the time, why don't you bring her along some time
and let me take a good look at her quim ... yes, quim,
you know what I mean." Maxie, being a Jew from Odessa,
had never heard the word quim before. He was deeply
shocked by my words and yet at the same time intrigued
by this new word. In a sort of daze he said to me"Jesus, Henry, you oughtn't to say a thing like that to
me!" "Why not?" I answered. "She's got a cunt, your
sister, hasn't she?" I was about to add something else
when he broke into a terrific fit of laughter. That saved

210
Tropic of Capricorn
the situation, for the time being. But Maxie didn't like
the idea at all deep down. All day long it bothered him,
though he never referred to our conversation again. No,
he was very silent that day. The only form of revenge he
could think of was to urge me to swim far beyond the
safety zone in the hope of tiring me out and letting me
drown. I could see so clearly what was in his mind that
I was possessed with the strength of ten men. Damned if
I would go drown myself just heeause his sister like all
other women happened to have a cunt.
It was at Far Rockaway where this took place. After we
had dressed and eaten a meal I suddenly decided that I
wanted to be alone and so, very abruptly, at the corner
of a street, I shook hands and said good-by. And there I
was! Almost instantaneously I felt alone in the world,
alone as one feels only in moments of extreme anguish. I
think I was picking my teeth absentmindedly when this
wave of loneliness hit me full on, like a tornado. I stood
there on the street corner and sort of felt myself all over
to see if I had been hit by something. It was inexplicable, and at the same time it was very wonderful, very
exhilarating, like a double tonic, I might say. When I say
that I was at Far Rockaway I mean that I was standing
at the end of the earth, at a place called Xanthos, if there
be such a place, and surely there ought to be a word
like this to express no place at all. If Rita had come
along then I don't think I would have recognized her.
I had become an absolute stranger standing in the very
midst of my own people. They looked crazy to me, my
people, with their newly sunburned faces and their flannel trousers and their clockwork stockings. They had been
bathing like myself because it was a pleasant, healthy
recreation and now like myself they were full of sun and
food and a little heavy with fatigue. Up until this loneliness hit me I too was a bit weary, but suddenly, standing
there completely shut off from the world, I woke up with
a start. I became so electrified that I didn't dare move for
fear I would charge like a bull or start to climb the wall

Tropic of Capricorn
211
of a building or else dance and scream. Suddenly I
realized that all this was because I was really a brother
to Dostoevski, that perhaps I was the only man in all
America who knew what he meant in writing those books.
Not only that, but I felt all the books I would one day
write myself germinating inside me: they were bursting
inside like ripe cocoons. And since up to this time I had
written nothing but fiendishly long letters about everything and nothing, it was difficult for me to realize that
there must come a time when I should begin, when I
should put down the first word, the first real word. And
this time was now! That was what dawned on me.
I used thc word Xanthos a moment ago. I don't know
whether there is a Xanthos or not, and I real1y don't care
one way or another, but there must be a place in the
world, perhaps in the Grecian islands, where you come
to the cnd of the known world and you are thoroughly
alone and yet you are not frightened of it but rejoice,
because at this dropping off place you can feel the old ancestral world which is eternally young and new and
fecundating. You stand there, wherever the place is, like
a newly hatched chick beside its eggshell. This place is
Xanthos, or as it happened in my case, Far Rockaway.
There I was! It grew dark, a wind came up, the streets
became deserted, and finally it began to pour cats and
dogs. Jesus, that finished me! When the rain came down,
and I got it smack in the face staring at the sky, I suddenly
began to bellow with joy. I laughed and laughed and
laughed, exactly like an insane man. Nor did I know
what I was laughing about. I wasn't thinking of a thing.
I was just overwhelmed with joy, just crazy with delight
in finding myself absolutely alone. If then and there a
nice juicy quim had been handed me on a platter, if all
tlw qllims in the world had been offered me for to
make my choice, I wOlddn't have batted an eyelash. I
had what no quim could give me. And just ahout at that
point, thoroughly drenched but still exultant, I thought of
the most irrelevant thing in the world--carfare! Jeslls,

212
Tropic of Capricorn
the bastard Maxie had walked off without leaving me a
sou. There I was with my fine budding antique world
and not a penny in my jeans. Herr Dostoevski Junior
had now to begin to walk here and there peering into
friendly and unfriendly faces to see if he could pry loose
a dime. He walked from one end of Far Rockaway to
the other but nobody seemed to givc a fuck about handing out carfare in the rain. Walking about in that heavy
animal stupor which comes with begging I got to thinking of Maxie the window trimmer and how the first
time I spied him he was standing in the show window
dressing a mannikin. And from that in a few minutes to
Dostoevski, then the world stopped dead, and then, like
a great rosebush opening in the night, his sister Rita's
warm, velvety flesh.
Now this is what is rather strange .... A few minutes
after I thought of Rita, her private and extraordinary
quim, I was in the train, bound for New York and dozing
off with a marvelous languid erection. And stranger still,
when I got out of the train, when I had walked but a block
or two from the station, whom should 1 bump into rounding a corner but Rita herself. And as though she had been
informed telepathically of what was going on in my brain,
Rita too was hot under the whiskers. Soon we were sitting
in a chop suey joint, seated side by side in a little booth, behaving exactly like a pair of rabbits in rut. On the dance
floor we hardly moved. We were wedged in tightly and we
stayed that way, letting them jog and jostle us about as
they might. I could have taken her home to my place, as I
was alone at the time, but no, I had a notion to bring her
back to her own home, stand her up in the vestibule and
give her a fuck right under Maxie's nose-which I did. In
the midst of it I thought again of the mannikin in the show
window and of the way he had laughed that afternoon
when I let drop the word quim. I was on the point of laughing aloud when suddenly I felt she was coming, one of
those long drawn out orgasms such as you get now and
then in a Jewish cunt. I had my hands under her buttocks,

213
the tips of rny fingers just inside her cunt, in the lining, as it
were; as she began to shudder I lifted her from the ground
and raised her gently up and down on the end of my cock. I
thought she would go off her nut completely, the way she
began to carryon. She mllst have had four or five orgasms
like that in the air, before I pllt her feet down on the
ground. I took it out without spilling a drop and made her
lie down in the vestibule. Her hat had rolled off into a
corner and her handbag had spilled open and a few coins
had tumbled out. I note this because just before I gave it
to her good and proper I made a mental note to pocket
a few coins for my carfare home. Anyway, it was only a
few hours since I had said to Maxie in the bathhouse that
I would like to take a look at his sister's quim, and here
it was now smack up against me, sopping wet and throwing out one squirt after another. If she had been fucked
before she had never been flicked properly, that's a
cinch. And I mvself was never in such a fine cool collected
scientific fram~ of mind as now lying on the floor of the
vestibule right under Maxie's nose, pumping it into the
private, sacred, and extraordinary quim of his sister Rita.
I could have held it in indefinitely-it was incrcdible how
detached I was and yet thoroughly aware of every quiver
and jolt she made. But somebody had to pay for making
me walk around in the rain grubbing a dime. Somebody
had to pay for the ecstasy produced by the germination of
all those unwritten books inside me. Somebody had to
verify tIle authenticity of this private, concealed cunt
which had been plaguing me for weeks and months.
Who better qualified than I? I thought so hard and fast
between orgasms that my cock must have grown another
inch or two. Finally I decided to make an end of it by
turning her over and back-scuttling her. She balked a
bit at first, but when she felt the thing slipping out of her
she nearly went crazy. "Oh yes, oh yes, do it, do it!" she
gibbered, and with that I really got excited, I had hardly
slipped it into her when I felt it coming, one of those long
agonizing spurts from the tip of the spinal column. I
Tropic of Capricorn

214
Tropic of Capricorn
shoved it in so deep that I felt as if something had given
way. We fell over, exhausted, the both of us, and panted
like dogs. At the same time, however, I had the presence
of mind to feel around for a few coins. Not that it was
necessary, because she had already loaned me a few
dollars, but to make up for the carfare which I was lacking
in Far Rockaway. Even then, by Jesus, it wasn't finished.
Soon I felt her groping about, 6rst with her hands, then
with her mouth. I had still a sort of semi hard on. She got it
into her mouth and she began to caress it with her tongue.
I saw stars. The next thing I knew her feet were around my
neck and my tongue up her twat. And then I had to get
over her again and shove it in, up to the hilt. She squirmed
around like an eel, so help me God. And then she began to
come again, long, drawn out, agonizing orgasms, with a
whimpering and gibbering that was hallucinating. Finally
I had to pull it out and tell her to stop. What a quim! And I
had only asked to take a look at it!
Maxie with his talk of Odessa revived something which
I had lost as a child. Though I had never a very clear
picture of Odessa the aura of it was like the little neighborhood in Brooklyn whieh meant so much to me and
from which I had been torn away too soon. I get a very
de6nite feeling of it every time I see an Italian painting
without perspective; if it is a picture of a funeral procession, for example, it is exactly the sort of experience
which I knew as a child, one of intense immediacy. If it
is a picture of the open street, the women sitting in the
windows are sitting on the street and not above it and
away from it. Everything that happens is known immediately by everybody, just as among primitive people.
Murder is in the air, chance rules.
Just as in the Italian primitives this perspective is lacking, so in the little old neighborhood from which I was
uprooted as a child there were these parallel vertical
planes on which everything took place and through
which, from layer to layer, everything was communicated,
as if by osmosis. The frontiers were sharp, clearly de6ned,

Tropic of Capricorn
215
but they were not impassable. I lived then, as a boy, close
to the boundary between the north and the south side.
r was just a little bit over on the north side, just a few
steps from a broad thoroughfare called North Second
Street, which was for me the real boundary line between
the north and the south side. The actual bOl,lndary was
Grand Street, which led to Broadway Ferry, but this
street meant nothing to me, except that it ~q.s already
beginning to be filled with] cws. No, North Sedmd Street
was the mystery street, the frontier between t\~o worlds.
I was living, therefore, between two boundaries, the one
real, the other imaginary-as I have lived all my life.
There was a little street, just a block long, which lay between Grand Street and North Second Street, called Fillmore Place. This little street was obliquely opposite the
housc my grandfather owncd and in which we lived. It
was the most enchanting street I have ever seen in all
my life. It was the ideal street-for a boy, a lover, a
maniac, a drunkard, a crook, a lecher, a thug, an astronomer, a musician, a poet, a tailor, a shoemaker, a politician. In fact this was just the sort of street it was, containing just such representatives of the human race, each
one a world unto himself and all living together harmoniously and inharmoniously, but together, a solid corporation, a close knit human spore which cOllld not
disintegrate unless the street itself disintegrated.
So it seemed, at least. Until the Williamshurg Bridge
was opened, whereupon there followed the invasion of
the Jews from Delancey Street, New York. This hrought
about the disintegration of our little world, of the little
street called Fillmore Place, which like the name itself
was a street of value, of dignity, of light, of surprises.
The Jews came, as I say, and like moths they began to
cat into the fabric of our lives until there was nothing
left hut this moth like presence which they hrollght with
them everywhere. Soon the street began to smell bad,
soon the real people moved away, soon the houses began
to deteriorate and even the stoops fell away, Hke the

216
Tropic of Capricorn
paint. Soon the street looked like a dirty mouth with
all the prominent teeth missing, with ugly charred stumps
gaping here and there, the lips rotting, the palate gone.
Soon the garbage was knee deep in the gutter and the
fire escapes filled with bloated bedding, with cockroaches, with dried blood. Soon the kosher sign appeared
on the shop windows and there was poultry everywhere
and lox and sour pickles and enormous loaves of bread.
Soon there were baby carriages in every areaway and on
the stoops and in the little yards and before the shop
fronts. And with the change the English language also
disappeared; one heard nothing but Yiddish, nothing but
this sputtering, choking, hissing tongue in which God
and rotttn vegetables sound alike and mean alike.
We were among the first families to move away, following the invasion. Two or three times a year I came back
to the old neighborhood, for a birthday or for Christmas
or Thanksgiving. With eaeh visit I marked the loss of
something I had loved and cherished. It was Hke a bad
dream. It got worse amI worse. The house in which my
relatives still lived was like an old fortress going to
ruin; they were stranded in one of the wings of the
fortress, maintaining a forlorn, island life, beginning
themselves to look sheepish, hunted, degraded. They
even began to mak~ distinctions between their Jewish
neighbors, finding some of them quite human, quite decent, clean, kind, sympathetic, charitable, etc. etc. To me
it was heartrending. I could have taken a machine gun
and mowed the whole neighborhood down, Jew and
Gentile together.
It was about the time of the invasion that the authorities
decided to change the name of North Second Street to
Metropolitan Avenue. This highway, which to the Gentiles had been the road to the cemeteries, now became
what is called an artery of traffic, a link between two
ghettos. On the New York side the river front was rapidly
being transformed owing to the erection of the skyscrapers. On our side, the Brooklyn side, the ware-

217
Tropic of Capricorn
houses were piling up and the approaches to the various
new bridges created plazas, comfort stations, poolrooms,
stationery shops, icc-cream parlors, restaurants, clothing
stores, hock shops, etc. In short everything was becoming
metropolitan, in the ouious sense of the word.
As long as we lived in the old neighborhood we never
referred to Metropolitan Avenue: it was always North
Second Street, despite the official change of name. Perhaps it was eight or ten years later, when I stood one
winter's day at the corner of the street facing the river
arid noticed for the first time the great tower of the
Metropolitan Life Insurance Building, that I realized
that North Second Street was no more. The imaginary
boundary of my world had changed. My glance traveled
now far beyond the cemeteries, far beyond the rivers, far
beyond the city of New York or the State of New York,
beyond the whole United States indeed. At Point Lorna,
California, I had looked out upon the broad Pacific and
I had felt something there which kept my face permanently screwed in another direction. I came back to the
old neighborhood, I remember, one night with myoId
friend Stanley who had just come out of the army, and
we walked the streets sadly and wistfully. A European
can scarcely know what this feeling is like. Even when
a town becomes modernized, in Europe, there are still
vestiges lJf the old. In America, though there are vestiges,
they arc effaced, wiped out of the consciousness, trampled
upon, obliterated, nullified by the new. The new is, from
day to day, a moth which eats into the fabric of life,
leaving nothing finally but a great hole. Stanley and I,
we were walking through this terrifying hole. Even a war
docs not bring this kind of desolation and destruction.
Through war a town may be reduced to ashes and the
entire population wiped out, but what springs up again
resembles the old. Death is fecundating, for the soil as
well as for the spirit. In America the destruction is complete, annihilating. There is no rebirth, only a cancerous

218

Tropic of Capricorn
growth, layer upon layer of new, poisonous tissue, each
one uglier than the previous one.
We were walking through this enormous hole, as I
say, and it was a winter's night, clear, frosty, sparkling,
and as we came through the south side toward the boundary line we saluted all the old relics or the spots where
things had onee stood and where there had been once
something of ourselves. And as we approached North
Second Street, between Fillmore Place and North Second
Street-a distance of only a few yards and yet such a
rich, full area of the globe-before Mrs. O'Melio's shanty
I stopped and looked up at the house where I had known
what it was to really have a being. Everything had shrunk
now to diminutive proportions, including the world
which lay beyond the boundary line, the world which
had been so mysterious to me and so terrifyingly grand, so
delimited. Standing there in a trance I suddenly recalled
a dream which I have had over and over, which I still
dream now and then, and which] hope to dream as long
as I live. It was the dream of passing the boundary line.
As in all dreams the remarkable thing is the vividness of
the reality, the fact that one is in reality and not dreaming. Across the line I am unknown and absolutely alone.
Even the language has changed. In fact, I am always
regarded as a stranger, a foreigner. I have unlimited time
on my hands and I am absolutely content in sauntering
through the streets .. There is only one street, I must say
--the continuation of the street on which I lived. I come
finally to an iron bridge over the railroad yards. It is
always nightfall when I reach the bridge, though it is
only a short distance from the boundary line. Here I look
down upon the webbed tracks, the freight stations, the
tenders, the storage sheds, and as I gaze down upon
this cluster of strange moving substances a process of
metamorphosis takes place, just as in a dream. With
the transformation and deformation I become aware that
this is the old dream which I have dreamed so often. I
have a wild fear that I shall wake up, and indeed I know

Tropic of Capricorn
219
that I will wake up shortly, just at the moment when in
the midst of a great open space I am about to walk into
the house which contains something of the greatest importance for me. Just as I go toward this house the lot
on which I am standing begins to grow vague at the
edges, to dissolve, to vanish. Space rolls in on me like
a carpet and swallows me up, and with it of course the
house which I never succeed in entering.
There is absolutely no transition from this, the most
pleasurable dream I know, to the heart of a book called
Creative Evolution. In this book by Henri Bergson, which
I came to as naturally as to the dream of the land beyond
the boundary, I am again quite alone, again a foreigner,
again a man of indeterminate age standing on an iron
bridge observing a peculiar metamorphosis without and
within. If this book had not fallen into my hands at the
precise moment it did, perhaps I \,,'(mld have gone mad.
It came at a moment when another huge world was
crumbling on my hands. If I had never understood a
thing which was written in this book, if I have preserved
only the memory of one word, creative, it is quite sufficient. This word was my talisman. With it I was able to
defy the whole world, and especially my friends.
There are times when one must break with one's
friends in order to understand the meaning of friendship.
It may seem strange to say so, but the discovery of this
book was equivalent to the discovery of a weapon, an
implement, wherewith I might lop off all the friends who
surrounded me and who no longer meant anything to me.
This hook became my friend because it taught me that I
had no need of friends. It gave me the courage to stand
alone, and it enabled me to appreciate loneliness. I have
never understood the book; at times I thought I was on
the point of understanding, but I never really did lmderstand. It was more important for me not to llnderstand.
\Vith this book in my hands, reading alolld to my friends,
qnestioning them, explaining to them, I was made clearly
to understand that I had no friends, that I was alone

Tropic of Capricorn
220
in the world. Because in not understanding the meaning
of the words, neither I nor my friends, one thing became
very clear and that was that there were ways of not
understanding and that the difference between the nonunderstanding of one individual and the non-understanding of another created a world of terra firma even more
solid than differences of understanding. Everything
which once I thought I had understood crumbled, and
I was left with a clean slate. My friends, on the other
hand, entrenched themselves more solidly in the little
ditch of understanding which they had dug for themselves. They died comfortably in their little bed of understanding, to become useful citizens of the world. I
pitied them, and in short order I deserted them one by
one, without the slightest regret.
What was there then in this book which could mean
so much to me and yet remain obscure? I come back to
the word creative. I am sure that the whole mystery lies
in the realization of the meaning of this word. When I
think of the book now, and the way I approached it, I
think of a man going through the rites of initiation. The
disorientation and reorientation which comes with the
initiation into any mystery is the most wonderful experience which it is possible to have. Everything which
the brain has labored for a lifetime to assimilate, categorize and synthesize has to be taken apart and reordered.
Moving day for the soul! And of course it's not for a day,
but for weeks and months that this goes on. You meet a
friend on the street by chance, one whom you haven't seen
for several weeks, and he has become an absolute stranger
to you. You give him a few signals from your new perch
and if he doesn't cotton you pass him up-for good. It's
exactly like mopping up a battlefield: all those who are
hopelessly disabled and agonizing you dispatch with one
swift blow of your club. You move on, to new fields of
battle, to new triumphs or defeats. But you move! And
as you move the world moves with you, with terrifying
exactitude. You seek out new fields of operation, new

Tropic of Capricorn
221
specimens of the human race whom you patiently instruct
and equip with the new symbols. You choose sometimes
those whom you would never have looked at before. You
try everybody and everything within range, provided
they are ignorant of the revelation.
It was in this fashion that I found myself sitting in the
busheling room of my father's establishment, reading
aloud to the Jews who were working there. Reading to
them from this new Bihle in the way that Paul must have
talked to the disciples. With the added disadvantage,
to be sure, that these poor Jew bastards could not read
the English language. Primarily I was directing myself
toward Bunchek the cutter, who had a rahbinical mind.
Opening the book I wou1d pick a passage at random and
read it to them in a transposed English almost as primitive as pidgin English. Then T would attempt to explain,
choosing for example and analogy the things they were
familiar with. It was amazing to me how well they understood, how much hetter they understood, let me say, than
a college professor or a literary man or any educated
man. Naturally what they understood had nothing to do
finally with Bergson's book, as a book, but was not that
the purpose of such a book as this? My IInderstanding
of the meaning of a book is that the book itself disappears
from sight, that it is chewed alive, digested and incorporated into the system as flesh and blood which in
tum creates new spirit and reshapes the world. It was a
great communion feast which we shared in the reading
of this book and the outstanding feature of it was the
chapter on Disorder which, having penetrated me
through and through, has endowed me with such a
marvelous sense of order that if a comet suddenly struck
the earth and jarred everything out of place, stood everything upside down, turned everything inside out, I could
orient myself to the new order in the twinkling of an
eye. I have no fear or illusions about disorder any more
than I have of death. The labyrinth is my happy hunting

222

Tropic of Capricorn

ground and the deeper I burrow into the maze the more
oriented I become.
With Creative Evolution under my arm I board the
elevated line at the Brooklyn Bridge after work and I
commence the journey homeward toward the cemetery.
Sometimes I get on at Delancey Street, the very heart of
the ghetto, after a long walk through the crowded streets.
I enter the elevated line below the ground, like a worm
being pushed through the intestines. I know each time I
take my place in the crowd which mills about the platform that I am the most unique individual down there. I
look upon everything which is happening about me like a
spectator from another planet. My language, my world,
is under my arm. I am the guardian of a great secret; if I
were to open my mouth and talk I would tie up traffic.
What I have to say, and what I am holding in every
night of my life on this journey to and from the office,
is absolute dynamite. I am not ready yet to throw my
stick of dynamite. I nibble at it meditatively, ruminatively, cogently. Five more years, ten more years perhaps, and I will wipe these people out utterly. If the train
in making a curve gives a violent lurch I say to myself
fine! jump the track, annihilate them! I never think of
myself as being endangered should the train jump the
track. We're wedged in like sardines and all the hot flesh
pressed against me diverts my thoughts. I become conscious of a pair of legs wrapped around mine. I look down
at the girl sitting in front of me, I look her right in the
eye, and I press my knees still further into her crotch.
She grows uneasy, fidgets about in her seat, and finally
she turns to the girl next to her and complains that I am
molesting her. The people about look at me hostilely. I
look out of the window blandly and pretend I have
heard nothing. Even if I wished to I can't remove my
legs. Little by little though, the girl, by a violent pushing
and squiggling, manages to unwrap her legs from mine.
I find myself almost in the same situation with the girl
next to her, the one she was addressing her complaints

223
Tropic of Capricorn
to. Almost at once I feel a sympathetic touch and then, to
my surprise, I hear her tell the other girl that one can't
help these things, that it is really not the man's fault but
the fault of the company for packing us in like sheep. And
again] feel the quiver of her legs against mine, a warm,
human pressure, like squeezing one's hand. With my one
free hand I manage to open my book. My object is twofold: first I want her to see the kind of book I read, secoml, 1 want to he able to carryon the leg language without attracting attention. It works beautifully. By the time
the train empties a bit I am able to take a seat beside
her and converse with her-about the book, naturally.
She's a voluptuous Jewess with enormous liquid eyes and
the frankness which comes from sensuality. vVhen it comes
time to get off we walk arm in arm through the streets,
toward her home. I am almost on the confines of the
old neighborhood. Everything is familiar to me and yet
repulsively strange. I have not walked these streets for
years and now I am walking with a Jew girl from the
ghetto, a beautiful girl \cvith a strong Jewish accent. I
look incongruolls walking beside her. I can sense that
people are staring at us behind our backs. I am the intruder, the goy who has come down into the neighborhood to pick off a nice ripe cunt. She on the other hand
seems to be proud of her conquest; she's showing me
off to her friends. This is what I picked up in the train,
an educated goy, a refined goy! I can almost hear her
think it. Walking slowly I'm getting the lay of the land,
all the practical details which will decide whether I call
for her after dinner or not. There's no thought of asking
her to dinner. It's a question of what time and where to
meet and how will we go about it, because, as she lets
drop just before we reach the door, she's got a husband
who s a traveling salesman and she's got to be careful.
I agree to come back and to meet her at the corner in
front of the candy store at a certain hour. If I want to
bring a friend along she'll bring her girl friend. No, I
decide to see her alone. It's agreed. She squeezes my hand

224
Tropic of Capricorn
and darts off into a dirty hallway. I beat it quickly back
to the elevated station and hasten home to gulp down the
meal.
It's a summer's night and everything flung wide open.
Riding back to meet her the whole past rushes up kaleidoscopically. This time I've left the book at home. It's cunt
I'm out for now and no thought of the book is in my
head. I am back again this side of the boundary line,:
each station whizzing past making my world grow more
diminutive. I am almost a child by the time I reach the
destination. I am a child who is horrified by the metamorphosis which has taken place. What has happened
to me, a man of the Fourteenth Ward, to be jumping
off at this station in search of a Jewish cunt? Supposing
I do give her a fuck, what then? What have I got to say
to a girl like that? What's a fuck when what I want is
love? Yes, suddenly it comes over me like a tornado ....
Una, the girl I loved, the girl who lived here in this
neighborhood, Una with big blue eyes and flaxen hair,
Una who made me tremble just to look at her, Una whom
I was afraid to kiss or even to touch her hand. Where is
Una? Yes, suddenly, that's the burning question: where
is Una? In two seconds I am completely unnerved, completely lost, desolate, in the most horrible anguish and
despair. How did I ever let her go? Why? What happened? When did it happen? I thought of her like a
maniac night and day, year in and year out, and then,
without even noticing it, she drops out of my mind, like
that, like a penny falling through a hole in your pocket.
Incredible, monstrous, mad. Why all I had to do was to
ask her to marry me, ask her hand-that's all. If I had
done that she would have said yes immediately. She loved
me, she loved me desperately. Why yes, I remember now,
I remember how she looked at me the last time we
met. I was saying good-by because I was leaving that
night for California, leaving everybody to begin a new
life. And I never had any intention of leading a new
life. I intended to ask her to marry me, but the story

Tropic of Capricorn

225

I had framed like a dope came out of my lips so naturally
that I believed it myself, and so I said good-by and I
walked off, and she stood there looking after me and I
felt her eyes pierce me through and through, I heard
her howling inside, but like an automaton I kept on walking and finally I turned the corner and that was the
end of it. Good-by! Like that. Like in a coma. And I
meant to say come to me! Come to me because I can't

live any more without you!

I am so weak, so rocky, that I can scarcely climb down
the EI steps. Now I know what's happened-I've crossed
the boundary line! This Bible that I've been carrying
around with me is to instruct me, initiate me into a new
way of life. The world I knew is no more, it is dead,
finished, cleaned up. And everything that I was is
cleaned up with it. I am a carcass getting an injection of
new life. I am bright and glittery, rabid with new discoveries, but in the center it is still leaden, still slag. I
begin to weep-right there on the El stairs. I sob aloud,
like a child. Now it dawns on me with full clarity: you are
alone in the world! You are alone . . . alone . . . alone.
It is bitter to be alone ... bitter, bitter, bitter, bitter.
There is no end to it, it is unfathomable, and it is the lot
of every man on earth, but especially mine ... especially
mine. Again the metamorphosis. Again everything totters
and careens. I am in the dream again, the painful, delirious, pleasurable, maddening dream of beyond the boundary. I am standing in the center of the vacant lot, but my
home I do not see. I have no home. The dream was a
mirage. There never was a house in the midst of the
vacant lot. That's why I was never able to enter it. My
home is not in this world, nor in the next. I am a man
without a home, without a friend, without a wife. I am a
monster who belongs to a reality which does not exist yet.
Ah, but it does exist, it will exist, I am surc of it. I
walk now rapidly, head down, muttering to myself. I've
forgotten about my rendezvous so completely that I never
even noticed whether I walked past her or not. Probably

226

Tropic of Capricorn

I did. Probably I looked right at her and didn't recognize
her. Probably she didn't recognize me either. I am mad,
mad with pain, mad with anguish. I am desperate. But
I am not lost. No, there is a reality to which I belong. It's
far away, very far away. I may walk from now till doomsday with head down and never find it. But it is there, I
am sure of it. I look at people murderously. If I could
throw a bomb and blow the whole neighborhood to
smithereens I would do it. I would be happy seeing them
fly in the air, mangled, shrieking, torn apart, annihilated.
I want to annihilate the whole earth. I am not a part of
it. It's mad from start to finish. The whole shooting match. It's a huge piece of stale cheese with maggots
festering inside it. Fuck it! Blow it to hell! Kill, kill, kill:
Kill them all, Jews and Gentiles, young and old, good
and bad ....
I grow light, light as a feather, and my pace becomes
more steady, more calm, more even. What a beautiful
night it is! The stars shining so brightly, so serenely, so
remotely. Not mocking me precisely, but reminding me
of the futility of it all. Who are you, young man, to be
talking of the earth, of blowing things to smithereens?
Young man, we have been hanging here for millions and
billions of years. We have seen it all, everything, and
still we shine peacefully every night, we light the way,
we still the heart. Look around you, young man, see how
still and beautiful· everything is. Do you see, even the
garbage lying in the gutter looks beautiful in this light.
Pick up the little cabbage leaf, hold it gently in your
han(1. I bend down and pick up the cabbage leaf lying
in the gutter. It looks absolutely new to me, a whole universe in itself. I break a little piece off and examine that.
Still a universe. Still unspeakably beautiful and mysterious. I am almost ashamed to throw it back in the gutter.
I bend down and deposit it gently with the other refuse.
I become very thoughtful, very, very calm. I love everybody in the world. I know that somewhere at this very
moment there is a woman waiting for me and if only I

Tropic of Capricorn
227
proceed very calmly, very gently, very slowly, I will
come to her. She will be standing on a corner perhaps
and when I come in sight she will recognize me-immediately. I believe this, so help me God! I believe that
everything is just and ordained. My home? Why it is
the world-the whole world! I am at home everywhere,
only I did not know it before. But I know now. There is
no boundary line any more. There never was a boundary
line: it was I who made it. I walk slowly and blissfully
through the streets. The beloved streets. Where everybody walks and everybody suffers without showing it.
\"hen I stand and lean against a lamppost to light my
cigarette even the lamppost feels friendly. It is not a
thing of iron-it is a creation of the human mind, shaped
a certain way, twisted and formed by human hands,
blown on with human breath, placed by human hands
and feet. I turn round and rub my hand over the iron
surface. It almost seems to speak to me. It is a human
lamppost. It belongs, like the cabbage leaf, like the torn
socks, like the mattress, like the kitchen sink. Everything
stands in a certain way in a certain place, as our mind
stands in relation to God. The world, in its visible, tangible
substance, is a map of our love. Not Goo. but life is love.
Love, love, love. And in the midmost midst of it walks
this young man, myself, who is none other than Gottlieb
Leberecht Muller.

Gottlieb Leberecht Muller! This is the name of a man
who lost his identity. Nobody could tell him who he was,
where he came from or what had happened to him. In the
movies, where I first made the acquaintance of this indidual, it was assumed that he had met with an accident
in the war. But when I recognized myself on the screen,
knowing that I had never been to the war, I realized that
the author had invented this little piece of fiction in
order not to expose me. Often I forget which is the real
me. Often in my dreams I take the draught of forgetfulness, as it is called, and I wander forlorn and desperate,

Tropic of Capricorn
228
seeking the body and the name which is mine. And sometimes between the dream and reality there is only the
thinnest line. Sometimes while a person is talking to me
I step out of my shoes and, like a plant drifting with the
current, I begin the voyage of my rootless self. In this
condition I am quite capable of fulfilling the ordinary
demands of life-of finding a wife, of becoming a father,
of supporting the household, of entertaining friends, of
reading books, of paying taxes, of performing military
service, and so on and so forth. In this condition I am
capable, if needs be, of killing in cold blood, for the sake
of my family or to protect my country, or whatever it
may be. I am the ordinary, routine citizen who answers to
a name and who is given a number in his passport.
I am thoroughly irresponsible for my fate.
Then one day, without the slightest warning, I wake
up and looking about me I understand absolutely nothing
of what is going on about me, neither my own behavior
nor that of my neighbors, nor do I understand why the
governments are at war or at peace, whichever the case
may be. At such moments I am born anew, born and
baptized by my right name: Gottlieb Leberecht Muller!
Everything I do in my right name is looked upon as
crazy. People make furtive signs behind my back, sometimes to my face even. I am forced to break with friends
and family and loved ones. I am obliged to break camp.
And so, just as naturally as in dream, I find myself once
again drifting with the current, usually walking along a
highway, my face set toward the sinking sun. Now all my
faculties become alert. I am the most suave, silky, cunning animal-and I am at the same time what might
be called a holy man. I know how to fend for myself. I
know how to avoid work, how to avoid entangling relationships, how to avoid pity, sympathy, bravery, and all
the other pitfalls. I stay in place or with a person just
long enough to obtain what I need, and then I'm off
again. I have no goal: the aimless wandering is sufficient
unto itself. I am free as a bird, sure as an equilibrist.

Tropic of Capricorn
229
Manna falls from the sky; I have only to hold out my hands
and receive. And everywhere I leave the most pleasant
feeling hehiml me, as though, in accepting the gifts that
are showered upon me, I am doing a real favor to others.
Even my dirty linen is taken care of by loving hands.
Because everybody loves a right-living man! Gottlieb!
What a beautiful name it is! Gottlieb! I say it to myself
over and over. Gottlieb Lebcrecht Muller!
In this condition I have always fallen in with thieves
and rogues and murderers, and how kind and gentle they
have been with me! As though they were my brothers.
And are they not, indeed? Have I not been guilty of
every crime, and suffered for it? And is it not just because of my crimes that I am united so closely to my fellowman? Always, when I see a light of recognition in
the other person's eyes, I am aware of this secret bond.
It is only the just whose eyes never light up. It is
the just who have never known the secret of human fellowship. It is the just who are committing the crimes
against man, the just who are the real monsters. It is the
just who demand our fingerprints, who prove to us that
we have died even when we stand before them in the
flesh. It is the just who impose upon us arbitrary names,
false names, who put false dates in the register and hury
us alive. I prefer the thieves, the rogues, the murderers,
unless I can find a man of my own stature, my own
quality.
I have never found SHch a man! I have never found a
man as generous as myself, as forgiving, as tolerant, as
carefree, as reckless, as clean at heart. I forgive myself
for every crime I have committed. I do it in the name
of humanity. I know what it means to be human, the weakness and the strength of it. I suffer from this knowledge
and I revel in it also. If I had the chance to be God I
would reject it. If I had the chance to be a star I would
reject it. The most wonderful opportunity which life offers
is to be human. It embraces the whole universe. It in-

230
Tropic of Capricorn
eludes the knowledge of death, which not even God enjoys.
At the point from which this book is written I am the
man who baptized himself anew. It is many years since
this happened and so much has come in between that it
is difficult to get back to that moment and retrace the
journey of Gottlieb Leberecht Muller. However, perhaps
I can give the clue if I say that the man which I now am
was born out of a wound. That wound went to the heart.
By all man-made logic I should have been dead. I was
in fact given up for dead by all who once knew me; I
walked about like a ghost in their midst. They used the
past tense in referring to me, they pitied me, they shoveled
me under deeper and deeper. Yet I remember how I used
to laugh then, as always, how I made love to other women,
how I enjoyed my food and drink, and the soft bed which
I clung to like a Df'nd. Something had killed me, and yet
I was alive. But I was alive without a memory, without a
name; I was cut off from hope as well as from remorse
or regret. I had no past and I would probably have no
future; I was huried alive in a void which was the wound
that had been dealt me. I was the wound itself.
I have a friend who talks to me from time to time
about the Miracle of Golgotha of which I understand
nothing. But I do know something about the miraculous
wound which I received, the wound which killed me in
the eyes of the world and out of which I was born anew
and rebaptized. I know something of the miracle of this
wound which I lived and which healed with my death.
I tell it as of something long past, but it is with me always.
Everything is long past and seemingly invisible, like a
constellation which has sunk forever beneath the horizon.
What fascinates me is that anything so dead and
buried as I was could be resuscitated, and not just once,
but innumerable times. And not only that, but each time
I faded out I plunged deeper than ever into the void,
so that with each resuscitation the miracle becomes
greater. And never any stigmata! The man who is reborn

Tropic oj Capricorn
231
is always the same man, more and more himself with
each rebirth. He is only shedding his skin each time, and
with his skin his sins. The man whom God loves is truly
a right-living man. The man whom God loves is thc onion
with a million skins. To shed the first layer is painful
beyond words; the next layer is less painful, the next still
less, until finally the pain becomes pleasurable, more and
more pleasurable, a delight, an ecstasy. And then there
is neither pleasure nor pain, but simply darkness yielding
before the light. And as the darkness falls away the
wound comes out of its hiding place: thc wound which
is man, man's love, is bathed in light. The identity which
was lost is recovered. Man walks forth from his open
wound, from the grave which he had carried about with
him so long.
In the tomb which is my memory I see her buried now,
the one I loved bettcr than all else, bctter than the world,
better than God, hctter than my own flesh and blood. I
see her festering there in that bloody wound of love, so
close to me that I could not distinguish her from the
wound itself. I see her struggling to free herself, to make
herself clean of love's pain, and with each struggle sinking back again into the wound, mired, suHocated, writhing in blood. I see the terrible look in her eyes, the mute
piteous agony, the look of the beast that is trapped. I
see her opening her legs for deliverance and each orgasm
a groan of anguish. I hear the walls falling, the walls caving in on us and the house going up in flames. I hear them
calling us from the street, the summons to work, the summons to arms, but we are nailed to the floor and the rats
are biting into us. The grave and womb of love entombing us, the night filling our bowels and the stars shimmering over the black bottomless lake. I lose the memory
of words, of her name even which I pronounce like a
monomaniac. I forgot what she looked like, what she
felt like, what she smelt like, what she fueked like, piercing deeper and deeper into the night of the fathomless
cavern. I followed her to the deepest hole of her being,

232

Tropic of Capricorn
to the charnel house of her soul, to the breath which had
not yet expired from her lips. I sought relentlessly for her
whose name was not written anywhere, I penetrated to
the very altar and found-nothing. I wrapped myself
around this hollow shell of nothingness like a serpent with
fiery coils; I lay still for six centuries without breathing
as world events sieved through to the bottom forming a
slimy bed of mucus. I saw the constellations wheeling
about the huge hole in the ceiling of the universe; I saw
the outer planets and the black star which was to deliver
me. I saw the Dragon shaking itself free of dharma and
karma, saw the new race of man stewing in the yolk of
futurity. I saw through to the last sign and symbol, but I
could not read her face. I could see only the eyes shining
through, huge, fleshy-like luminous breasts, as though I
were swimming behind them in the electric effiuvia of
her incandescent vision.
How had she come to expand thus beyond all grip
of consciousness? By what monstrous law had she spread
herself thus over the face of the world, revealing everything and yet concealing herself? She was hidden in the
face of the sun, like the moon in eclipse; she was a mirror
which had lost its quicksilver, the mirror which yields
both the image and the horror. Looking into the backs
of her eyes, into the pulpy translucent flesh, I saw the
brain structure of all formations, all relations, all evanescence. I saw the. brain within the brain, the endless
machine endlessly turning, the word Hope revolving on
a spit, roasting, dripping with fat, revolving ceaselessly
in the cavity of the third eye. I heard her dreams mumbled
in lost tongues, the stifled screams reverberating in minute
crevices, the gasps, the groans, the pleasurable sighs, the
swish of lashing whips. I heard her call my own name
which I had not yet uttered, I heard her curse and shriek
with rage. I heard everything magnified a thousand times,
like a homunculus imprisoned in the belly of an organ. I
caught the mumed breathing of the world, as if fixed in
the very crossroads of sound.

Tropic of Capricorn
233
Thus we walked and slept and ate together, the Siamese twins whom Love had joined and whom Death
alone could separate.
\Ve walked upside down, hand in hand, at the neck
of the bottle. She dressed in black almost exclusively,
except for patches of purple now and then. She wore no
underclothes, just a simple sheath of black velvet saturated
with a diabolical perfume. We went to bed at dawn and
got up just as it was darkling. We lived in black holes
with drawn curtains, we ate from black plates, we read
from black books. We looked out of the black hole of
our life into the black hole of the world. The sun was
permanently blacked out, as though to aid us in our continuous internecine strife. For sun we had Mars, for
moon Saturn; we lived permanently in the zenith of the
underworld. The earth had ceased to revolve and through
the hole in the sky above us there hung the black star
which never twinkled. Now and then we had fits of
laughter, crazy, batrachian laughter which made the
neighbors shudder. Now and then we sang, delirious,
off key, full tremolo. We were locked in throughout the
long dark night of the soul, a period of incommensurable
time which began and ended in the manner of an eclipse.
We revolved about our own egos, like phantom satellites.
'rVe were drunk with our own image which we saw
when we looked into each other's eyes. How then did
we look to others? As the beast looks to the plant, as the
stars look to the beast. Or as God would look to man if
the devil had given him wings. And with it all, in the
fixed, close intimacy of a night without end she was
radiant, jubilant, an ultra-black jubilation streaming from
her like a steady flow of sperm from the Mithraic Bull.
She was double barreled. like a shotgun, a female bull
with an acetylene torch in her womb. In heat she focused
on the grand cosmocrator, her eyes rolled back to the
whites, her lips a-slaver. In the blind hole of sex she
waltzed like a trained mouse, her jaws unhinged like a
snake's, her skin horripilating in barbed plumes. She

234
Tropic of Capricorn
had the insatiable lust of a unicorn, the itch that laid the
Egyptians low. Even the hole in the sky through which
the lackluster star shone down was swallowed up in
her fury.
We lived glued to the ceiling, the hot rancid fumes of
the everyday life steaming up and suffocating us. We lived
at marble heat, the ascending glow of human flesh warming the snakelike coils in which we were locked. We lived
riveted to the nethermost depths, our skins smoked to
the color of a gray cigar by the fumes of worldly passion.
Like two heads carried on the pikes of our executioners
we circled slowly and fixedly over the heads and shoulders
of the world below. What was life on the solid earth to us
who were decapitated and forever jOined at the genitals?
We were the twin snakes of Paradise, lucid in heat
and cool as chaos itself. Life was a perpetual black fuck
about a fixed pole of insomnia. Life was Scorpio conjunction Mars, conjunction Mercury, conjunction Venus,
conjunction Saturn, conjunction Pluto, conjunction
Uranus, conjunction quicksilver, laudanum, radium, bismuth. The grand conjunction was every Saturday night,
Leo fornicating with Draco in the house of brother and
sister. The great malheur was a ray of sunlight stealing
through the curtains. The great curse was Jupiter, king of
the fishes, that he might flash a benevolent eye.
The reason why it is difficult to tell it is because I remember too much. I remember everything, but like a
dummy sitting on the lap of a ventriloquist. It seems
to me that throughout the long, uninterrupted connubial
solstice I sat on her lap (even when she was standing)
and spoke the lines she had taught me. It seems to me that
she must have commanded God's chief plumber to keep
the black star shining through the hole in the ceiling,
must have bid him to rain down perpetual night and
with it all the crawling torments that move noiselessly
about in the dark so that the mind becomes a twirling
awl burrowing frantically into black nothingness. Did
I only imagine that she talked incessantly, or had I be-

Tropic of Capricom
235
come such a marvelously trained dummy that I intercepted the thought before it reached the lips? The lips
were finely parted, smoothed down with a thick paste of
dark blood; I watched them open and close with the
utmost fascination, whether they hissed a viper's hate
or cooed like a turtle dove. They were always close up,
as in the movie stills, so that I knew every crevice, every
pore, and when the hysterical slavering began I watched
the spittle fume and foam as though I were sitting in a
rocking chair under Niagara Falls. I learned what to do
just as though I were a part of her organism; I was better
than a ventriloquist's dummy because I could act without
being violently jerked by strings. Now and then I did
things impromptu like, which sometimes pleased her
enormously; she would pretend, of course, not to notice
these irruptions, but I could always tell when she was
pleased by the way she preened herself. She had the gift
for transformation; almost as quick and subtle she was as
the devil himself. Next to the panther and the jaguar
she did the bird stuff best: the wild heron, the ibis, the
Hamingo, the swan in rut. She had a way of swooping
suddenly, as if she had spotted a ripe carcass, diving right
into the bowels, pouncing immediately on the tidbitsthe heart, the liver, or the ovaries-and making off again
in the twinkling of an eye. Did someone spot her, she
would lie stone quiet at the base of a tree, her eyes not
quite closed but immovable in that fixed stare of the
basilisk. Prod her a bit and she would become a rose, a
deep black rose with the most velvety petals and of a
fragrance that was overpowering. It was amazing how
marvelously I learned to take my cue; no matter how
swift the metamorphosis I was always there in her lap,
bird lap, beast lap, snake lap, rose lap, what matter: the
lap of laps, the lip of lips, tip to tip, feather to feather,
the yoke in the egg, the pearl in the oyster, a cancer
clutch, a tincture of sperm and cantharides. Life was
Scorpio conjunction Mars, conjunction Venus, Saturn,
Uranus, et cetera; love was conjunctivitis of the mandi-

236
Tropic of Capricorn
bles, clutch this, clutch that, clutch, clutch, the mandibular
clutch-clutch of the mandala wheel of lust. Come food
time I could already hear her peeling the eggs, and inside
the egg cheep-cheep, blessed omen of the next meal to
come. I ate like a monomaniac: the prolonged dreamlit
voracity of the man who is thrice breaking his fast. And
as I ate she purred, the rhythmic predatory wheeze of the
succubus devouring her young. What a blissful night of
love! Saliva, sperm, succubation, sphincteritis all in one:
the conjugal orgy in the Black Hole of Calcutta.
Out there where the black star hung, a Pan-Islamic
silence, as in the cavern world where even thc wind is
stilled. Out there, did I dare to brood on it, the spectral
quietude of insanity, the world of men lulled, exhausted
by centuries of incessant slaughter. Out there one gory
encompassing membrane within which all activity took
place, the hero-world of lunatics and maniacs who had
quenched the light of the heavens with blood. How
peaceful our little dove-and-vulture life in the dark! Flesh
to bury in with teeth or penis, abundant odorous flesh
with no mark of knife or scissors, no scar of exploded
shrapnel, no mustard burns, no scalded lungs. Save for the
hallucinating hole in the ceiling, an almost perfect womb
life. But the hole was there-like a fissure in the bladder
-and no wadding could plug it permanently, no urination could pass off with a smile. Piss large and freely,
aye, but how forget the rent in the belfry, the silence
unnatural, the imminence, the terror, the doom of the
"other" world? Eat a bellyful, aye, and tomorrow another
bellyful, and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow-but
finally, what then? Finally! What was finally? A changE'
of ventriloquist, a change of lap, a shift in the axis, another
rift in the vault ... what? what? I'll tell you-sitting in her
lap, petrified by the still, pronged beams of the black
star, horned, snaffled, hitched and trepanned by the
telepathic acuity of our interacting agitation, I thought of
nothing at aB, nothing that was outside the cell we inhabited, not even the thought of a crumb on a white

Tmpic of Capricorn
237
tablecloth. I thought purely within the walls of our
amoebic life, the pure thought such as Immanuel Pussyfoot Kant gave us and which only a ventriloquist's dummy
could reproduce. I thought out every theory of science,
every theory of art, every grain of truth in every cockeyed system of salvation. I calculated everything out to
a pinpoint with gnostic decimals to boot, like primes
which a drunk hands out at the finish of a six-day race.
But everything was calculated for another life which
somebody elsc would live some day-perhaps. We were
at the very neck of the bottle, her and 1, as they say, but
the neck of the bottle had been broken off and the bottle
was only a fiction.
I remember how the second time I met her she told me
that she had never expected to see me again, and the next
time I saw her she said she thought I was a dope fiend,
and the next time she called me a god, and after that she
tried to commit suicide and then I tried and then she tried
again, and nothing worked except to bring us closer together, so close indeed that we interpenetrated, exchanged
personalities, name, identity, religion, father, mother,
brother. Even her body went through a radical change,
not once but several times. At first she was big and velvety,
like the jaguar, with that silky, deceptive strength of the
feline species, the crouch, the spring, the pounce; then
she grew emaciated, fragile, delicate, almost like a cornflower, and with each change thereafter she went through
the suhtlest modulations-of skin, muscle, color, posture,
odor, gait, gesture, et cetera. She changed like a chameleon. Nobody could say what she really was like beeause
with each one she was an entirely different person. After
a time she didn't even know herself what she was like.
She had begun this process of metamorphosis before I
met her, as I later discovered. Like so many women who
think themselves ugly she had willed to make herself
beautiful, dazzlingly beautiful. To do this she first of
all renounced her name, then her family, her friends,
everything which might attach her to the past. With all

Tropic of Capricorn
her wits and faculties she devoted herself to the cultivation of her beauty, of her charm, which she already
possessed to a high degree but which she had been made
to believe were nonexistent. She lived constantly before
the mirror, studying every movement, every gesture, every
slightest grimace. She changed her whole manner of
speech, her diction, her intonation, her accent, her phraseology. She conducted herself so skilfully that it was impossible even to broach the subject of origins. She was
constantly on her guard, even in her sleep. And, like a
good general, she discovered quickly enough that the best
defense is attack. She never left a single position unoccupied; her outposts, her scouts, her sentinels were
stationed everywhere. Her mind was a revolving searchlight which was never dimmed.
Blind to her own heauty, hcr own charm, her own
personality, to say nothing of her identity, she launched
her full powers toward the fabrication of a mythical
creature, a Helen, a Juno, whose charms neither man
nor woman would be able to resist. Automatically, without
the slightest knowledge of legend, she began to create
little by little the ontological background, the mythic
sequence of events preceeding the conscious birth. She
had no need to remember her lies, her fictions-she had
only to bear in mind her role. There was no lie too monstrous for her to utter, for in her adopted role she was
absolutely faithful to herself. She did not have to invent a
past: she remembered the past which belonged to her.
She was never outRanked by a direct question since she
never presented herself to an adversary except obliquely.
She presented only the angles of the ever-turning facets,
the blinding prisms of light which she kept constantly
revolving. She was never a being, such as might finally
be caught in repose, but the mechanism itself, relentlessly
operating the myriad mirrors which would reflect the
myth she had created. She had no poise whatsoever; she
was eternally poised above her multiple identities in
the vacuum of the self. She had not intended to make her-

238

Tropic of Capricorn
239
self a legendary figure, she had merely wanted her beauty
to be recognized. But in the pursuit of beauty, she soon
forgot her quest entirely, became the victim of her own
creation. She became so stunningly beautiful that at times
she was frightening, at times positively uglier than the
ugliest woman in the world. She could inspire horror and
dread, especially when her charm was at its height: It was
as though the will, blind and uncontrollable, shone
through the creation, exposing the monster which it is.
In the dark, locked away in the black hole with no
world looking on, no adversary, no rivals, the blinding
dynamism of the will slowed down a bit, gave her a molten
copperish glow, the words coming out of her mouth like
lava, her flesh clutching ravenously for a hold, a perch on
something solid and substantial, something in which to
reintegrate and repose for a few moments. It was like
a frantic long-distance message, an S 0 S from a sinking
ship. At first I mistook it for passion, for the ecstasy produced by flesh rubbing against flesh. I thought I had
found a living volcano, a female Vesuvius. I never thought
of a human ship going down in an ocean of despair, in a
Sargasso of impotence. Now I think of that black star
gleaming through the hole in the ceiling, that fixed star
which hung above our conjugal cell, more fixed, more
remote than the Absolute, and I know it was her, emptied
of all that was properly herself: a dead black sun without aspect. I know that we were conjugating the verb
love like two maniacs trying to fuck through an iron grate.
I said that in the frantic grappling in the dark I sometimes
forgot her name, what she looked like, who she was. It's
true. I overreuched myself in the dark. I slid off the flesh
rails into the endless space of sex, into the channel-orbits
established by this one and that one: Georgiana, for
instance, of only a brief afternoon, Thelma, the Egyptian
whore, Carlotta, Alannah, Una, Mona, Magda, girls of six
or seven; waifs, will-o'-the-wisps, faces, bodies, thighs, a
subway brush, a dream, a memory, a desire, a longing. I
could start with Georgiana of a Sunday afternoon near

240

Tropic of Capricorn
the railroad tracks, her dotted Swiss dress, her swaying
haunch, her Southern drawl, her lascivious mouth, her
molten breasts; I could start with Georgiana, the myriad
branched candelabra of sex, and work outwards and upwards through the ramification of cunt into the nth dimension of sex, world without end. Georgiana was like the
membrane of the tiny little ear of an unfinished monster
called sex. She was transparently alive and breathing in
the light of the memory of a brief afternoon on the avenue,
the first tangible odor and substance of the world of fuck
which is in itself a being limitless and undefinable, like
our world the world. The whole world of fuck like unto the
ever-increasing membrane of the animal we call sex,
which is like another being growing into our own being
and gradually displacing it, so that in time the human
world will be only a dim memory of this new, all-inclusive,
all-procreative being which is giving birth to itself.
It was precisely this snakelike copulation in the dark,
this double-jointed, double-barreled hookup, which put
me in the strait jacket of doubt, jealousy, fear, loneliness. If I began my hemstitching with Georgiana and the
myriad-branched candelabra of sex I was certain that she
too was at work building membrane, making ears, eyes,
toes, scalp and whatnot of sex. She would begin with the
monster who had raped her, assuming there was truth in
the story; in any case she too began somewhere on a
parallel track, working upwards and outwards through
this multiform, uncreated being through whose body we
were both striving desperately to meet. Knowing only
a fraction of her life, possessing only a bag of lies, of inventions, of imaginings, of obsessicns and delusions,
putting together tag ends, coke dreams, reveries, unfinished sentences, jumbled dream talk, hysterical ravings,
ill-disguised fantasies, morbid desires, meeting now and
then a name become flesh, overhearing stray bits of conversation, observing smuggled glances, half-arrested gestures, I could well credit her with a pantheon of her own
private fucking gods, of only too vivid flesh and blood

Tropic of Capricorn
241
creatures, men of perhaps that very afternoon, of perhaps
only an hour ago, her cunt perhaps still choked with the
sperm of the last fuck. The more submissive she 'was, the
more passionately she behaved, the more abandoned she
looked, the more uncertain I became. There was no beginning, no personal, individual starting point; we met like
experienced swordsmen on the field of honor now crowded
with the ghosts of victory and defeat. We were alert and
responsive to the least thrust, as only the practiced can be.
We came together under cover of dark with our armies
and from opposite sides we forced the gates of the citadel.
There was no resisting our bloody work; we askcd for no
quarter and we gave none. We came together swimming
in blood, a gory, glaucous reunion in the night with all
the stars extinguished save the fixed black star hanging
like a scalp above the hole in the ceiling. If she were
properly coked she would vomit it forth like an oracle,
everything that had happened to her during the day,
yesterday, the day before, the year before last, everything,
down to the day she was born. And not a word of it was
true, not a single detail. Not a moment did she stop, for
if she had, the vacuum she created in her flight would
have brought about an explosion fit to sunder the world.
She was the world's lying machine in microcosm, geared
to the same unending, devastating fear which enables men
to throw all their energies into creation of the death apparatus. To look at her one would think her fearless,
one would think her the personification of courage and
she was, so long as she was not obliged to turn in her
traces. Behind her lay the calm fact of reality, a colossus
which dogged her every step. Every day this colossal
reality took on new proportions, every day it became more
terrifying, more paralyzing. Every day she had to grow
swifter wings, sharper jaws, more piercing, hypnotic eyes.
It was a race to the outermost limits of the world, a race
lost from the start, and no one to stop it. At the edge of
the vacuum stood Truth, ready in one lightning-like sweep
to recover the stolen ground. It was so simple and obvious

242
Tropic of Capricorn
that it drove her frantic. Marshal a thousand personalities,
commandeer the biggest guns, deceive the greatest minds,
make the longest detour-still the end would be defeat.
In the final meeting everything was destined to fall apart
-the cunning, the skill, the power, everything. She would
be a grain of sand on the shore of the biggest ocean, and,
worse than anything, she would resemble each and every
other grain of sand on that ocean's shore. She would be
condemned to rocognize her unique self everywhere until
the end of time. What a fate she had chosen for herself!
That her uniqueness should be engulfed in the universal!
That her power should be reduced to the utmost node of
passivity! It was maddening, hallucinating. It could not
be! It must not be! Onward! Like the black legions. Onward! Through every degree of the ever-widening circle.
Onward and away from the self, until the last substantial
particle of the soul be stretched to infinity. In her panicstricken flight she seemed to bear the whole world in
her womb. We were being driven out of the confines of the
universe toward a nebula which no instrument could
visualize. We were being rushed to a pause so still, so
prolonged, that death by comparison seems a mad
witches' revel.
In the morning, gazing at the bloodless crater of her
face. Not a line in it, not a wrinkle, not a single blemish!
The look of an angel in the arms of the Creator. Who killed
Cock Robin? Who massacred the Iroquois? Not I, my
lovely angel could say, and by God, who, gazing at that
pure, blameless face, could deny her? Who could see in
that sleep of innocence that one half of the face belonged
to God and the other half to Satan? The mask was smooth
as death, cool, lovely to the touch, waxen, like a petal open
to the faintest breeze. So alluringly still and guileless
was it that one could drown in it, one could go down
into it, body and all, like a diver, and nevermore return.
Until the eyes opened upon the world she would lie like
that, thoroughly extinguished and gleaming with a reflected light, like the moon itself. In her deathlike trance

Tropic of Capricorn
243
of innocence she fascinated even more; her crimes dissolved, exuded through the pores, she lay coiled like a
sleeping serpent riveted to the earth. The body, strong,
lithe, muscular, seemed possessed of a weight unnatural;
she had a more than human gravity, the gravity, one
might almost say, of a warm corpse. She was like one
might imagine the beautiful Nefertiti to have been after
the first thousand years of mummification, a marvel of
mortuary perfection, a dream of flesh preserved from
mortal dccay. She lay coiled at the base of a hollow pyramid, enshrined in the vacuum of her own creation
like a sacred relic of the past. Even her breathing
seemed stopped, so profound was her slumber. She had
droppcd below the human sphere, below the animal
sphere, below the vegetative sphere even: she had sunk
down to the level of the mineral world where animation is
just a notch above death. She had so mastered the art
of deception that even the dream was powerless to betray
her. She had learned how not to dream: when she coiled
up in sleep she automatically switched off the current.
If one could have caught her thus and opened up the skull
one would have found it absolutely void. She kept no
disturbing secrets; everything was killed off which could
be humanly killed. She might live on endlessly, like the
moon, like any dead planet, radiating an hypnotic effulgence, creating tides of passion, engulfing the world in
madness, discoloring all earthly substances with her magnetic, metallic rays. Sowing her own death she brought
everyone about her to fever pitch. In the heinous stillness of her sleep she renewed her own magnetic death by
union with the cold magma of the lifeless planetary
worlds. She was magically intact. Her gaze fell upon one
with a transpiercing fixity: it was the moon-gaze through
which the dead dragon of life gave off a cold fire. The
one cye was a warm brown, the color of an autumn leaf;
the other was hazel, the magnetic eye which flickered
like a compass needle. Even in sleep this eye continued

244
Tropic of Capricorn
to flicker under the shutter of the lid; it was the only
apparent sign of life in her.
The moment she opened her eyes she was wide awake.
She awoke with a violent start, as if the sight of the world
and its human paraphernalia were a shock. Instantly she
was in full activity, lashing about like a great python.
What annoyed her was the light! She awoke cursing the
sun, cursing the glare of reality. The room had to be
darkened, the candles lit, the windows tightly shut to
prevent the noise of the street from penetrating the room.
She moved about naked with a cigarette dangling from
the corner of her mouth. Her toilet was an affair of great
preoccupation; a thousand trifling details had to be attended to before she could so much as don a bathrobe.
She was like an athlete preparing for the great event of
the day. From the roots of her hair, which she studied
with keen attention, to the shape and length of her toenails, every part of her anatomy was thoroughly inspected
before sitting down to breakfast. I,ike an athlete I said
she was, but in fact she was more 1ike a mechanic overhauling a fast plane for a test flight. Once she slipped on
her dress she was launched for the day, for the flight
which might end perhaps in Irkutsk or Teheran. She
would take on enough fuel at breakfast to last the entire
trip. The breakfast was a prolonged affair: it was the one
ceremony of the day over which she dawdled and lingered.
It was exasperatingly prolonged, indeed. One wondered
if she would ever take off, one wondered if she had forgotten the grand mission which she had sworn to accomplish each day. Perhaps she was dreaming of her itinerary,
or perhaps she was not dreaming at all but simply
allowing time for the functional processes of her marvelous
machine so that once embarked there would be no turning back. She was very calm and self-possessed at this
hour of the day; she was like a great bird of the air
perched on a mountain crag, dreamily surveying the terrain below. It was not from the breakfast table that she
would suddenly swoop and .__dive to pounce upon her

Tropic of Capricorn
245
prey. No, from the early morning perch she would take
off slowly and majestically, synchronizing her every movement with the pulse of the motor. All space lay before
her, her direction dictated only by caprice. She was almost the image of freedom, were it not for the Saturnian
weight of her body and the abnormal span of her wings.
However poised she seemed, especially at the take-off,
one sensed the terror which motivated the daily flight.
She was at once obedient to her destiny and at the same
time frantically eager to overcome it. Each morning she
soared aloft from her perch, as from some Himalayan
peak; she seemed always to direct her flight toward some
uncharted region into which, if all went well, she would
disappear forever. Each morning she seemed to carry aloft
with her this desperate, last-minute hope; she took leave
with calm, grave dignity, like one about to go down into
the grave. Never once did she circle about the flying
field; never once did she cast a glance backward toward
those whom she was abandoning. Nor did she leave the
slightest crumb of personality behind her; she took to the
air with all her belongings, with every slightest scrap of
evidence which might testify to the fact of her existence.
She didn't even leave the breath of a sigh behind, not
even a toenail. A clean exit, such as the Devil himself
might make for reasons of his own. One was left with a
great void on his hands. One was deserted, and not only
deserted, but betrayed, inhumanly betrayed. One had no
desire to detain her nor to call her back; one was left with
a curse on his lips, with a black hatred which darkened
the whole day. Later, moving about the city, moving
slowly in pedestrian fashion, crawling like the worm, one
gathered rumors of her spectacular flight; she had been
seen rounding a certain point, she had dipped hcre or
there for what reason no one knew, she had done a tailspin elsewhere, she had passed like a comet, she had
written letters of smoke in thc sky, and so on and so forth.
Everything she had done was enigmatic and exasperating,
done apparently without purpose. It was like a symbolic

246

Tropic of Capricorn
and ironic commentary on human life, on the behavior of
the antlike creature man, viewed from another dimension.
Between the time she took off and the time she returned I lived the life of a full-blooded scruzerino. It was
not an eternity which elapsed, because somehow eternity
has to do with peace and with victory, it is something
man made, something earned: no, I experienced an
entr'acte in which every hair turns white to the roots, in
which every millimeter of skin itches and bums until the
whole body becomes a running sore. I see myself sitting
before a table in the dark, my hands and feet growing
enormous, as though elephantiasis were overtaking me
at a gallop. I hear the blood rushing up to the brain and
pounding at the eardrums like Himalayan devils with
sledge-hammers; I hear her flapping her huge wings, even
in Irkutsk, and I know she is pushing on and on, ever
further away, ever further beyond reach. It is so quiet
in the room and so frightfully empty that I shriek and
howl just to make a little noise, a little human sound. I
try to lift myself from the table but my feet are too
heavy and my hands have become like. the shapeless feet
of the rhinoceros. The heavier my body becomes the
lighter the atmosphere of the room; I am going to spread
and spread until I fill the room with one solid mass of
stiff jelly. I shall fill up even the cracks in the wall; I shall
grow through the wall like a parasitic plant, spreading
and spreading until the whole house is an indescribable
mass of flesh and hair and nails. I know that this is death,
but I am powerless to kill the knowledge of it, or the
knower. Some tiny particle of me is alive, some speck of
consciousness persists, and, as the inert carcass expands,
this flicker of life becomes sharper and sharper and gleams
inside me like the cold fire of a gem. It lights up the whole
gluey mass of pulp so that I am like a diver with a torch
in the body of a dead marine monster. By some slender
hidden filament I am still connected with the life above the
surface of the deep, but it is so far away, the upper world,
and the weight of the corpse so great that, even if it were

247
Tropic of Capricorn
possible, it would take years to reach the surface. I move
around in my own dead body, exploring every nook and
cranny of its huge, shapeless mass. It is an endless exploration, for with the ceaseless growth the whole topography changes, slipping and drifting like the hot magma
of the earth. Never for a minute is there terra firma, never
for a minute does anything remain still and recognizable:
it is a growth without landmarks, a voyage in which the
destination changes with every least move or shudder. It
is this interminable filling of space which kills all sense
of space or time; the more the body expands the tinier
becomes the world, until at last I feel that everything is
concentrated on the head of a pin. Despite the floundering
of tbis enormous dead mass which I have become, I feel
that what sustains it, the world out of which it grows, is no
bigger than a pinhead. In the midst of pollution, in the
very heart and gizzard of death, as it were, I sense the
seed, the miraculolls, infinitesimal lever which balances
the world. I have overspread the world like a syrup and
the emptiness of it is terrifying, but there is no dislodging
the seed; the seed has become a little knot of cold fire
which roars like a sun in the vast hollow of the dead
carcass.
\Vhen the great plunder-bird returns exhausted from
her flight she will find me here in the midst of my nothingness, I, the imperishable schizerino, a blazing seed hidden
in the heart of death. Every day she thinks to find another
means of sllstenance, but there is no other, only this
eternal secd of light which by dying each day I rediscover
for her. Fly, 0 devouring bird, fly to the limits of the universe! Here is your nourishment glowing in the sickening
emptiness YOll have created! You will come back to perish
once more in the hlack hole; you will corne back again
and again, for you have not the wings to carry you out
of the world. This is the only world you can inhabit, this
tomb of the snake where darkness reigns.
And suddenly for no reason at all, when I think of her
returning to her nest, I remember Sunday mornings in

248

Tropic of Capricorn

the little old house near the cemetery. I remember sitting
at the piano in my nightshirt, working away at the pedals
with bare feet, and the folks lying in bed toasting themselves in the next room. The rooms opened one on the
other, telescope fashion, as in the good old American
railroad flats. Sunday mornings one lay in bed until one
was ready to screech with well-being. Toward cleven or
so the folks used to rap on the wall of my room for me to
come and play for them. I would dance into the room
like the Fratellini Brothers, so full of flame and feathers
that I could hoist myself like a derrick to the topmost
limb of the tree of heaven. I could do anything and everything singlehanded, being double-jointed at the same
time. The old man called me "Sunny Jim," because I was
full of "Force," full of vim and vigor. First I would do a few
handsprings for them on the carpet before the bed; then
I would sing falsetto, trying to imitate a ventriloquist's
dummy; then I would dance a few light fantastic steps
to show which way the wind lay, and zoom! like a breeze
I was on the piano stool and doing a velocity exercise. I
always began with Czerny, in order to limber up for the
performance. The old man hated Czerny, and so did I, but
Czerny was the plat du jour on the bill of fare then, and
so Czerny it was until my joints were rubber. In some
vague way Czerny reminds me of the great emptiness
which came upon me later. What a velocity I would
work up, riveted to the piano stool! It was like swallowing
a bottle of tonic at one gulp and then having someone
strap you to the bed. After I had played about ninetyeight exercises I was ready to do a little improvising. I
used to take a fistful of chords and crash the piano from one
end to the other, then sullenly modulate into "The Burning
of Rome" or the "Ben Hur Chariot Race" which everybody liked because it was intelligible noise. Long before
I read Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophiws I
was composing the music to it, in the key of sassafras. I
was learned then in science and philosophy, in the history
of religions, in inductive and deductive logic, in liver

Tmpic of Capricorn
249
mantic, in the shape and weight of skulls, in pharmacopeia
and metallurgy, in all the useless branches of learning
which give you indigestion and melancholia before your
time. This vomit of learned truck was stewing in my
guts the whole week long, waiting for it to come Sunday
to be set to music. In between "The Midnight Fire Alarm"
and "Marche Militaire" I would get my inspiration, which
was to destroy all the existent forms of harmony and
create my own cacophony. Lmagine Uranus well aspected
to l\Jars, to Mercury, to the Moon, to Jupiter, to Venus.
It's hard to imagine because Uranus functions best when
it is badly aspected, when it is "afflicted," so to speak. Yet
that music which I gave orr Sunday mornings, a music of
well-being and of well-nourished desperation, was born
of an illogically well-aspected Uranus firmly anchored in
the Seventh House. I didn't know it then, I didn't know
that Uranus existed, and lucky it was that I was ignorant.
But I can see it now, because it was a fluky joy, a phony
well-bcing, a destructive sort of fiery creation. The greater
my euphoria the more tranquil the folks became. Even
my sister who was dippy became calm and composed.
The neighbors used to stand outside the window and
listen, and now and then I would hear a burst of applause,
and then bang, zip! like a rocket I was off again-Velocity
Exercise No. 917)2. If I happened to espy a cockroach
crawling up the wall I was in bliss: that would lead me
without the slightest modulation to Opus Izzit of my
sadly corrugated clavichord. One Sunday, just like that,
I composed aIle of the loveliest scherzos imaginable-to
a louse. It was spring and we were all getting the sulphur
treatment; I had been poring all week over Dante's
Inferno in English. Sunday came like a thaw, the birds
driven so crazy hy the sudden heat that they flew in and
out of the window, immune to the music. One of the
German relatives had just arrived from Hamburg, or
Bremen, a maiden aunt who looked like a hull-dyker. Just
to be near her was sufficient to throw me into a fit of
rage. She used to pat me on the head and tell me I would

250

Tropic of Capricorn

be another Mozart. I hated Mozart, and I hate him still,
and so to get even with her I would play badly, play all
the sour notes I knew. And then came the little louse, as
I was saying, a real louse which had gotten buried in my
winter underwear. I got him out and I put him tenderly
on the tip of a black key. Then I began to do a little gigue
around him with my right hand; the noise had probably
deafened him. He was hypnotized, it seemed, by my
nimble pyrotechnic. This trancelike immobility finally got
on my nerves. I decided to introduce a chromatic scale,
coming down on him full force with my third finger. I
caught him fair and square, but with such force that
he was glued to my fingertip. That put the St. Vitus Dance
in me. From then on the scherzo commenced. It was a
potpourri of forgotten melodies spiced with aloes and,
the juice of porcupines, played sometimes in three keys at
once and pivoting always like a waltzing mouse around
the immaculate conception. Later, when I went to hear
Prokofiev, I understood what was happening to him; T
understood Whitehead and Russell and Jeans and Eddington and Rudolf Eucken and Frobenius and Link Gillespie;
I understood why, if there had never been a hinominal
theorem, man would have invented it; I understood why
electricity and compressed air, to say nothing of Spmdel
baths and fango packs. I understood very clearly, I must
say, that man has a dead louse in his blood, and that
when you're handed a symphony or a fresco or a high
explosive you're really getting an ipecac reaction which
was not included in the predestined bill of fare. 1 understood too why I had failed to become the musician I was.
All the compositions I had created in my head, all these
private and artistic auditions which were permitted me,
thanks to St. Hildegarde or St. Bridget, or John of the
Cross, or God knows whom, were written for an age to
come, an age with less instruments and stronger antennae,
stronger eardrums too. A different kind of suffering has to
be experienced before such music can be appreciated.
Beethoven staked out the new territory-one is aware of

Tropic of Capricorn

251

its presence when he erupts, when he breaks down in the
very core of his stillness. It is a realm of new vibrationsto us only a misty nebula, for we have yet to pass beyond
our own conception of suffering. We have yet to ingest
this nebulous world, its travail, its orientation. I was
permitted to hear an incredible music lying prone and
indifferent to the sorrow about me. I heard the gestation
of the new world, the sound of torrential rivers taking
their course, the sound of stars grinding and chafing, of
fountains clotted with blazing gems. All music is still
governed by the old astronomy, is the product of the
hothouse, a panacea for Weltschmerz. Music is still the
antidote for the nameless, but this is not yet music.
Music is planetary fire, an irreducible which is all sufficient; it is the slate-writing of the gods, the abracadabra
which the learned and the ignorant alike muff because the axle has he en unhooked. Look to the bowels, to
the unconsolable and ineluctable! Nothing is determined,
nothing is settled or solved. All this that is going on, all
music, all architecture, all law, all government, all invention, all discovery-all this is velocity exercises in the
dark, Czerny with a capital Zed riding a crazy white horse
in a bottle of mucilage.
One of the reasons why I never got anywhere with the
bloody music is that it was always mixed up with sex.
As soon as I was able to play a song the cunts were
around me like flies. To begin with, it was largely Lola's
fault. Lola was my first piano teacher. Lola Niessen. It
was a ridiculous name and typical of the neighborhood
we were living in then. It sounded like a stinking bloater,
or a wormy cunt. To tell the truth, Lola was not exactly a
beauty. She looked somewhat like a Kalmuck or a Chinook, with sallow complexion and bilious-looking eyes.
She had a few warts and wens, not to speak of the
mustache. What excited me, however, was her hairiness;
she had wonderful long fine black hair which she arranged in ascending and descending buns on her Mongolian skull. At the nape of the neck she curled it up in a

252

Tropic of Capricorn

serpentine knot. She was always late in coming, being a
conscientious idiot, and by the time she arrived I was
always a bit enervated from masturbating. As soon as
she took the stool beside me, however, I became excited
again, what with the stinking perfume she soused her
armpits with. In the summer she wore loose sleeves and
I could see the tufts of hair under her arms. The sight of
it drove me wild. I imagined her as having hair all over,
even in her navel. And what I wanted to do was to roll
in it, bury my teeth in it. I could have eaten Lola's hair
as a delicacy, if there had been a bit of flesh attached to
it. Anyway she was hairy, that's what I want to say, anq
being hairy as a gorilla she got my mind off the music
and on to her cunt. I was so damned eager to see that
cunt of hers that finally one day I bribed her little brother
to let me have a peep at her while she was in the bath.
It was even more wonderful than I had imagined: she
had a shag that reached from the navel to the crotch,
an enormous thick tuft, a sporran, rich as a hand-woven
rug. When she went over it with the powder puff I
thought I would faint. The next time she came for the
lesson I left a couple of buttons open on my fly. She didn't
seem to notice anything amiss. The following time I left
my whole fly open. This time she caught on. She said,
"I think you've forgotten something, Henry." I looked at
her, red as a beet, and I asked her blandly what? She pretended to look away while pointing to it with her left
hand. Her hand came so close that I couldn't resist grabbing it and pushing it in my fly. She got up quickly, looking pale and frightened. By this time my prick was out of
my fly and quivering with delight. I closed in on her and
I reached up under her dress to get at that hand-woven
rug I had seen through the keyhole. Suddenly I got a
sound box on the ears, and then another and then she took
me by the ear and leading me to a corner of the room
she turned my face to the wall and said, "Now button up
your fly, you silly boy!" We went back to the piano in a
few moments-back to Czemy and the velocity exercises.

Tropic of Capricorn
253
I couldn't see a sharp from a flat any more, but I continued to play because I was afraid she might tell my
mother of the incident. Fortunately it was not an easy
thing to tell one's mother.
The incident, embarrassing as it was, marked a decided
change in our relations. I thought ~hat the next time she
came she would be severe with me, but on the contrary,
she seemed to have dolled herself up, to have sprinkled
more perfume over herself, and she was even a bit gay,
which was unusual for Lola because she was a morose,
withdrawn type. I didn't dare to open my fly again, but
I would get an erection and hold it throughout the lesson,
which she must have enjoyed because she was always
stealing sidelong glances in that direction. I was only
fifteen at the time, and she was easily twenty-five or
twenty-eight. It was difficult for me to know what to
do, unless it was to deliberately knock her down one day
while my mother was out. For a time I actually shadowed
her at night, when she went out alone. She had a habit
of going out for long walks alone in the evening. I used
to dog her steps; hoping she would get to some deserted
spot near the cemetery where I might try some rough
tactics. I had a feeling sometimes that she knew I was
following her and that she enjoyed it. I think she was
waiting for me to waylay her-I think that was what she
wanted. Anyway, one night I was lying in the grass near
the railroad tracks; it was a sweltering summer's night
and people were lying about anywhere and everywhere,
like panting dogs. I wasn't thinking of Lola at all-I was
just mooning there, too hot to think about anything.
Suddenly I see a woman coming along the narrow cinderpath. I'm lying sprawled out on the embankment and
nobody around that 1 can notice. The woman is coming
along slowly, head down, as though she were dreaming.
As she gets close I recognize her. «Lola!" I call. «Lola!"
She seems to be really astonished to see me there. 'Why,
what are you doing here?" she says, and with that she
sits down beside me on the embankment. I didn't bother

254
Tropic of Capricorn
to answer her, I didn't say a word-I just crawled over
her and flattened her. "Not here, please," she begged, but
I paid no attention. I got my hand between her legs, all
tangled up in that thick sporran of hers, and she was sopping wet, like a horse slavering. It was my first fuck, by
Jesus, and it had to be that a train would come along and
shower hot sparks over us. Lola was terrified. It was her
first fuck too, I guess, and she probably needed it more
than I, but when she felt the sparks she wanted to tear
loose. It was like trying to hold down a wild mare. I
couldn't keep her down, no matter how I wrestled with
her. She got up, shook her clothes down, and adjusted
the bun at the nape of her neck. "You must go home," she
says. "I'm not going home," I said, and with that I took
her by the arm and started walking. We walked along in
dead silence for quite a distance. Neither of us seemed
to be noticing where we were going. Finally we were out
on the highway and up above us were the reservoirs and
near the reservoirs was a pond. Instinctively I headed
toward the pond. We had to pass under some low-hanging trees as we neared the pond. I was helping Lola to
stoop down when suddenly she slipped, dragging me
with her. She made no effort to get up; instead she caught
hold of me and pressed me to her, and to my complete
amazement I also felt her slip her hand in my fly. She
caressed me so wonderfully that in a jiffy I came in
her hand. Then she took my hand and put it between
her legs. She lay back completely relaxed and opened
her legs wide. I bent over and kissed every hair on her
cunt; I put my tongue in her navel and licked it clean.
Then I lay with my head between her legs and lapped
up the drool that was pouring from her. She was moaning
now and clutching wildly with her hands; her hair had
come completely undone and was lying over. her bare
abdomen. To make it short, I got it in again, and I held
it a long time, for which she must have been damned
grateful because she came I don't know how many times
-it was like a pack of firecrackers going off, and with it

Tropic of Capricorn
255
all she sunk her teeth into me, bruised my lips, clawed
me, ripped my shirt and what the hell not. I was branded
like a steer when I got home and took a look at myself in
the mirror.
It was wonderful while it lasted, but it didn't last long.
A month later the Niessens moved to another city, and I
never saw Lola again. But I hung her sporran over the bed
and I prayed to it evcry night. And whenever I began the
Czerny stuff I would get an erection, thinking of Lola
lying in the grass, thinking of her long black hair, the
bun at the nape of her neck, the groans she vented and
the juice that poured out of her. Playing the piano was
just one long vicarious fuck for me. I had to wait another
two years beforc I would get my end in again, as thcy
say, and thcn it wasn't so good because I got a beautiful
dose with it, and besides it wasn't in the grass and it
wasn't summer, and thcre was no heat in it but just a
cold mechanical fuck for a buck in a dirty little hotel
room, the bastard trying to pretend she was coming and
not coming any more than Christmas was coming. And
maybe it wasn't her that gave me the clap, but her pal
in the next room who was laying up with my friend Simmons. It was like this-l had finished so quick with my
mechanical fuck that I thought r d go in and see how it
was going with my friend Simmons. Lo and behold, they
were still at it, and they were going strong. Shc was a
Czech, his girl, and a bit sappy; she hadn't been at it
very long, apparently, and she used to forget herself and
enjoy the act. Watching her hand it out, I decided to wait
and have a go at her myself. And so I did. And before
the week was out I had a discharge, and after that I
figured it would be blueballs or rocks in the groin.
Anothcr year or so and J was giving lessons myself,
and as luck would have it, the mother of the girl I'm
teaching is a slut, a tramp and a trollop if ever there was
one. She was living with a nigger, as I later found out.
Seems she couldn't get a prick big enough to satisfy her.
Anyway, every time I started to go home she'd hold me

256
Tropic of Capricorn
up at the door and rub it up against me. I was afraid of
starting in with her because rumor had it that she was
full of syph, but what the hell are you going to do when
a hot bitch like that plasters her cunt up against you and
slips her tongue halfway down your throat. I used to
fuck her standing up in the vestibule, which wasn't so
difficult because she was light and I could hold her in my
hands like a doll. And like that I'm holding her one night
when suddenly I hear a key being fitted into the lock, and
she hears it too and she's frightened stiff. There's nowhere
to go. Fortunately there's a portiere hanging at the doorway and I hide behind that. Then I hear her black buck
kissing her and saying how are yer, honey? and she's
saying how she had been waiting up for him and better
come right upstairs because she can't wait and so on.
And when the stairs stop squeaking I gently open the
door and sally out, and then by God I have a real
fright because if that black buck ever finds out I'll have
my throat slit and no mistake about it. And so I stop
giving lessons at that joint, but soon the daughter is after
me-just turning sixteen-and won't I come and give her
lessons at a friend's house? \Ve begin the Czerny exercises
all over again, sparks and everything. It's the first smell
of fresh cunt I've had, and it's wonderful, like newmown
hay. We fuck our way through one lesson after another
and in between lessons we do a little extra fucking. And
then one day it's the sad story-she's knocked up and
what to do about it? I have to get a Jewboy to help me
out, and he wants twenty-five bucks for the job and I've
never seen twenty-five bucks in my life. Besides, she's
under age. Besides, she might have blood poisoning. I
give him five bucks on account and beat it to the Adirondacks for a couple of weeks. In the Adirondacks I meet
a schoolteacher who's dying to take lessons. More velocity
exercises, more condoms and conundrums. Every time I
touched the piano I seemed to shake a cunt loose.
If there was a party I had to bring the fucking music
roll along; to me it was just like wrapping my penis in a

Tropic of Capricorn
257
handkerchief and slinging it under my arm. In vacation
time, at a farmhouse or an inn, where there was always
a surplus of cunt, the music had an extraordinary effect.
Vacation time was a period I looked forward to the whole
year, not because of the cunts so much as because it
meant no work. Once out of harness I became a clown.
I was so chock-full of energy that I wanted to jump out
of my skin. I remember one summer in the Catskills
meeting a girl named Francie. She was beautiful and
lascivious, with strong Scotch teats and a row of white
even teeth that was dazzling. It began in the river where
we were swimming. We were holding on to the boat and
one of her boobies had slipped out of bounds. I slipped
the other one out for her and then I undid the shoulder
straps. She ducked under the boat coyly and I followed
and as she was coming up for air I wiggled the bloody
bathing suit off her and there she was floating like a
mermaid with her big strong teats bobbing up and down
like bloated corks. I wriggled out of my tights and we
began playing like dolphins under the side of the boat.
In a little while her girl friend came along in a canoe. She
was a rather hefty girl, a sort of strawberry bJrmde with
agate-colored eyes and full of freckles. She was rather
shocked to find us in the raw, but we soon tumbled her
out of the canoe and stripped her. And then the three
of us began to play tag under the water, but it was hard
to get anywhere with them because they were slippery as
eels. After we had had enough of it we ran to a little
bathhouse which was standing in the field like an
abandoned sentry box. \Ve had brought our clothes along
and we were going to get dressed, the three of us, in this
little box. It was frightfully hot and sultry and the clouds
were gathering for a storm. Agnes-that was Francie's
friend-was in a hurry to get dressed. She was beginning
to be ashamed of herself standing there naked in front
of us. Francie, on the other hand, seemed to be perfectly
at ease. She was sitting on the bench with her legs crossed
and smoking a cigarette. Anyway, just as Agnes was pull-

258

Tropic of Capricorn
ing on her chemise there came a Hash of lightning and a
terrifying clap of thunder right on the heels of it. Agnes
screamed and dropped her chemise. There came another
flash in a few seconds an,d again a peal of thunder, dangerously close. The air got blue all around us and the flies
began to bite and we felt nervous and itchy and a bit
panicky too. Especially Agnes who was afraid of the
lightning and even more afraid of being found dead
and the three of us stark naked. She wanted to get her
things on and run for the house, she said. And just as
she got that off her chest the rain came down, in bucketsful. We thought it would stop in a few minutes and so
we stood there naked looking out at the steaming river
through the partly opened door. It seemed to be raining
rocks and the lightning kept playing around us incessantly. We were all thoroughly frightened now and in a
quandary as to what to do. Agnes was wringing her hands
and praying out loud; she looked like a George Grosz
idiot, one of those lopsided bitches with a rosary around
the neck and yellow jaundice to boot. I thought she was
going to faint on us or something. Suddenly I got the
bright idea of doing a war dance in the rain-to distract
them. Just as I jump out to commence my shindig a streak
of lightning flashes and -splits open a tree not far off. I'm
so damned scared that I lose my wits. Always when I'm
frightened I laugh. So I laughed, a wild, bloodcurdling
laugh which made the girls scream. When I heard them
scream, I don't know why, but I thought of the velocity
exercises, and with that I felt that I was standing in the
void and it was blue all around and the rain was beating
a hot-and-eold tattoo on my tender flesh. All my sensations had gathered on the surface of the skip.. and underneath the outennost layer of skin I was empty, light as a
feather, lighter than air or smoke or talcum or magnesium
or any goddamned thing you want. Suddenly I was a
Chippewa and it was the key of sassafras again <Uld I
didn't give a fuck whether the girls were screaming or
fainting or shitting in their pants, which they were minus

Tropic of Capricorn
259
anyway. Looking at crazy Agnes with the rosary around
her neck and her big breadbasket blue with fright I got
the notion to do a sacrilegious dance, with one hand cupping my balls and the other hand thumbing my nose at
the thunder and lightning. The rain was hot and cold and
the grass seemed full of dragonflies. I hopped about like
a kangaroo and I yelled at the top of my lungs-"O
Father, you wormy old son of a bitch, pull in that fucking
lightning or Agnes won't believe in you any more! Do you
hear me, you old prick up there, stop the shenanigans
... you're driving Agnes nutty. Hey you, are you deaf,
you old futzer?" And with a continuous rattle of this
defiant nonsense on my lips I danced around the bathhouse, leaping and bounding like a gazelle and using the
most frightful oaths I could summon. When the lightning
cracked I jumped higher and when the thunder clapped
I roared like a lion and then I did a handspring and then
I rolled in the grass like a cub and I chewed the grass
and spit it out for them and I pounded my chest like a
gorilla and all the time I could see the Czerny exercises
resting on the piano, the white page full of sharps and
flats, and the fucking idiot, think I to myself, imagining
that that's the way to learn how to manipulate the welltempered clavichord. And suddenly I thought that
Czerny might be in heaven by now and looking down
on me and so I spat up at him high as I could spit and
when the thunder rolled again I yelled with all my might
-"You bastard, Czerny, you up there, may the lightning
twist your balls off ... may you swallow your own crooked
tail and strangle yourself ... do you hear me, you crazy
prick?"
But in spite of all my good efforts Agnes was getting
more delirious. She was a dumb Irish Catholic and she
had never heard God spoken to that way before. Suddenly,
while I was dancing about in the rear of the bathhouse
she bolted for the river. I heard Francie scream-"Bring
her back, she'll drown herself! Bring her back!" I started
after her, the rain still coming down like pitchforks, and

260
Tropic of Capricorn
yelling to her to come back, but she ran on blindly as
though possessed of the devil, and when she got to the
water's edge she dove straight in and made for the boat.
I swam after her and as we got to the side of the boat,
which I was afraid she would capsize, I got hold of her
round the waist with my one hand and I started to talk
to her calmly and soothingly, as though I was talking to
a child. "Go away from me," she said, "you're an atheist!"
Jesus, you could have knocked me over with a fcather, so
astonished I was to Pear that. So that was it? All that
hysteria because I was insulting the Lord Almighty. I
felt like batting her one in the eye to bring her to her
senses. But we were out over our heads and I had a fear
that she would do some mad thing like pulling the
boat over our heads if I didn't handle her right. So I pretended that I was terribly sorry and I said I didn't mean
a word of it, that I had been scared to death, and so on
and so forth, and as I talked to her gently, soothingly, I
slipped my hand down from her waist and I gently
stroked her ass. That was what she wanted all right.
She was talking to me blubberingly about what a good
Catholic she was and how she had tried not to sin, and
maybe she was so wrapped up in what she was saying
she didn't know what I was doing, but just the same
when I got my hand in her crotch and said all the beautiful things I could think of, about God, about love, about
going to church and confessing and all that crap, she
must have felt something because I had a good three
fingers inside her and working them around like drunken
bobbins. "Put your arms around me, Agnes," I said softly,
slipping my hand out and pulling her to me so that I
could get my legs between hers .... "There, that's a girl
... take it easy now ... it'll stop soon." And still talking
about the church, the confessional, God, love, and the
whole bloody mess I managed to get it inside of her.
"You're very good to me," she said, just as though she
didn't know my prick was in her, "and I'm sorry I acted
like a foo1." "I know, Agnes," I said, "it's al1 right . . .

Tropic of Capricorn
261
listen, grab me tighter ... yeah, that's it." 'Tm afraid the
boat's going to tip over," she says, trying her best to keep
her ass in position by paddling with her right hand. "Yes,
let's get back to the shore," I said, and I start to pull away
from her. "Oh don't leave me," she says, clutching me
tighter. "Don't leave me, I'll drown." Just then Francie
comes running down to the water. "Hurry," says Agnes,
"hurry . . . I'll drown."
Francie was a good sort, I must say. She certainly
wasn't a Catholic and if she had any morals they were
of the reptilian order. She was one of those girls who
are born to fuck. She had no aims, no great desires,
showed no jealousy, held no grievances, was constantly
ehecrful and not at all unintelligent. At nights when we
were sitting on the porch in the dark talking to the guests
she would come over and sit on my lap with nothing on
underneath her dress and 1 would slip it into her as she
laughed and talked to the others. I think she would have
brazened it out before the Pope if she had been given a
chance. Back in the city, when I called on her at her
home, she pulled the same stunt off in front of her mother
whose sight, fortunately, was growing dim. If we went
dancing and she got too hot in the pants she would drag
me to a telephone booth and, queer girl that she was,
she'd actually talk to some one, some one like Agnes, for
example while pulling off the trick. She seemed to get a
special pleasure out of doing it under people's noses; she
said there was more fun in it if you didn't think about it
too hard. In the crowded subway, coming home from the
beach, say, she'd slip her dress arollnd so that the slit
was in the middle and take my hand and put it right on
her clint. If the train was tightly packed and we were
safely wedged in a corner she'd take my cock out of my
fly and hold it in her two hands, as though it were a bird.
Sometimes she'd get playful and hang her hag on it, as
though to prove that there wasn't the least danger. Another thing about her was that she didn't pretend that I
was the only guy she had on the string. Whether she told

262

Tropic of Capricorn

me everything I don't know, but she certainly told me
plenty. She told me about her affairs laughingly, while
she was climbing over me or when I had it in her, or just
when I was about to come. She would tell me how they
went about it, how big they were or how small, what they
said when they got excited and so on and so forth, giving
me every possible detail, just as though I were going to
write a textbook on the subject. She didn't ~eem to have
the least feeling of sacredness about her own body or
her feelings or anything connected with herself. "Francie,
you bloody fucker," I used to say, "you've got the morals
of a clam." "But you like me, don't you?" she'd answer.
"Men like to fuck, and so do women. It doesn't harm anybody and it doesn't mean you have to love everyone you
fuck, does it? I wouldn't want to be in love; it must be
terrible to have to fuck the same man all the time, don't
you think? Listen, if you didn't fuck anybody but me all
the time you'd get tired of me quick, wouldn't you? Sometimes it's nice to be fucked by some one you don't know
at all. Yes, I think that's the best of all," she added"there's no complications, no telephone numbers, no love
letters, no scraps, what? Listen, do you think this is very
bad? Once I tried to get my brother to fuck me; you
know what a sissy he is-he gives everybody a pain. I
don't remember exactly how it was any more, but anyway
we were in the house alone and I was passionate that
day. He came into my bedroom to ask me for something.
I was lying there with my dress up, thinking about it and
wanting it terribly, and when he came in I didn't give a
damn about his being my brother, I just thought of him
as a man, and so I lay there with my skirt up and I told
him I wasn't feeling well, that I had a pain in my stomach.
He wanted to run right out and get something for me but
I told him no, just to rub my s~omach a bit, that would
do it good. I opened my waist and made him rub my bare
skin. He was trying to keep his eyes on the wall, the big
idiot, and rubbing me as though I were a piece of wood.
<It's not there, you chump,' I said, 'it's lower down ...

Tropic of Capricorn
263
what are you afraid of?' And I pretended that I was in
agony. Finally he touched me accidentally. 'There! that's
it!' I shouted. 'Oh do rub it, it feels so good!' Do you know,
the big sap actually massaged me for five minutes without realizing that it was all a game? I was so exasperated
that I told him to get the hell out and leave me alone.
'You're a eunuch: I said, but he was such a sap I don't
think he knew what the word meant." She laughed, thinking what a ninny her brother was. She said he probably
still had his maiden. What did I think about it-was it
so terribly bad? Of course she knew I wouldn't think
anything of the kind. "Listen, Francie," I said, "did you
ever tell that story to the cop you're going with?" She
guessed she hadn't. "I guess so too," I said. "He'd beat
the piss out of you if he ever heard that yam." "He's
socked me already," she answered promptly. "What?" I
said, "you let him beat you up?" "I don't ask him to," she
said, "but you know how quick-tempered he is. I don't
let anybody else sock me but somehow coming from him
I don't mind it so much. Sometimes it makes me feel good
inside .... I don't know, maybe a woman ought to get
beaten up once in a while. It doesn't hurt so much, if you
really like a guy. And afterwards he's so damned gentleI almost feel ashamed of myself...."
It isn't often you get a cunt who'll admit such things
-I mean a regular cunt and not a moron. There was Trix
Miranda, for example, and her sister, Mrs. Costello. A
fine pair of birds they were. Trix, who was going with
my friend MacGregor, tried to pretend to her own sister,
with whom she was living, that she had no sexual relations with MacGregor. And the sister was pretending to
all and sundry that she was frigid, that she couldn't
have any relations with a man even if she wanted to,
because she was "built too small." And meanwhile my
friend MacGregor was fucking them silly, both of them,
and they both knew about each other but still they lied
like that to each other. Why? I couldn't make it out. The
Costello bitch was hysterical; whenever she felt that she

264

Tropic of Capricorn

wasn't getting a fair percentage of the lays that MacGregor was handing out she'd throw a pseudo-epileptic
fit. That meant throwing towels over her, patting her
wrists, opening her bosom, chafing her legs and finally
hOisting her upstairs to bed where my friend MacGregor
would look after her as soon as he had put the other
one to sleep. Sometimes the two sisters would lie down
together to take a nap of an afternoon; if MacGregor
were around he would go upstairs and lie between them.
As he explained it to me laughingly, the trick was for
him to pretend to go to sleep. He would lie there breathing heavily, opening now one eye, now the other, to see
which one was really dozing off. As soon as he was
convinced that one of them was asleep he'd tackle the
other. On such occasions he seemed to prefer the hysterical sister, Mrs. Costello, whose husband visited her about
once every six months. The more risk he ran, the more
thrill he got out of it, he said. If it were with the other
sister, Trix, whom he was supposed to be courting, he
had to pretend that it would be terrible if the other one
wcre to catch them like that, and at the same time, he
admitted to me, he was always hoping that the other one
would wake up and catch them. But the married sister,
the one who was "built too small," as she used to say, was
a wily bitch and besides she felt guilty toward her sister
and if her sister had ever caught her in the act she'd
probably have pretended that she was having a fit and
didn't know what she was doing. Nothing on earth could
make her admit that she was actually permitting herself
the pleasure of being fucked by a man.
I knew her quite well because T was giving her lessons
for a time, and I used to do my damnedest to make her
admit that she had a normal cunt and that she'd enjoy
a good fuck if she could get it now and then. I used to
tell her wild stories, which were really thinly disguised
accounts of her own dOings, and yet she remained adamant. I had even gotten her to the point one day-and this
beats everything-where she let me put my finger inside

Tropic of Capricorn
265
her. I thought sure it was settled. It's true she was dry
and a bit tight, but I put that down to her hysteria. But
imagine getting that far with a cunt and then having
her say to your face, as she yanks her dress down violently
-"you see, I told you 1 wasn't built right!" "I don't see
anything of the kind," 1 said angrily. "What do you expect me to do-use a microscope on you?"
"1 like that," she said, pretending to get on her high
horse. "What a way of talking to me!"
"You know damned well you're lying," 1 continued.
"Why do you lie like that? Don't you think it's human
to have a cunt and to use it once in a while? Do you want
it to dry up on you?"
"Such languagc!" she said, biting hcr underlip and
reddening like a bect. "I always thought you were a
gentleman."
"'V ell, you're no lady," 1 retorted, "because even a lady
admits to a fuck now and then, and besides ladies don't
ask gentlemen to stick their fingers up inside them and
see how small they're built."
"I never asked you to touch me," she said. "1 wouldn't
think of asking you to put your hand on me, on my
private parts anyway."
"Maybe you thought I was going to swab your ear
for you, is that it?'
"I thought of you like a doctor at that moment, that's
all 1 can say," she said stiffiy, trying to freeze me out.
"Listen," 1 said, taking a wild chance, "let's pretend
that it was all a mistake, that nothing happened, nothing
at all. I know you too well to think of insulting you like
that. 1 wouldn't think of doing a thing like that to youno, damned if 1 would. I was just wondering if maybe
you weren't right in what you said, if maybe you aren't
built rather small. You know, it all went so quick 1
couldn't tell what 1 felt ... I don't think I even put my
finger inside you. I must have just touched the outsidethat's about all. Listen, sit down here on the couch ...
let's be friends again." 1 pulled her down beside me-

266
Tropic of Capricorn
she was melting visibly-and I put my ann around her
waist, as though to console her more tenderly. "Has it
always been like that?" I asked innocently, and I almost
laughed the next moment, realizing what an idIotic
question it was. She hung her head coyly, as though we
were touching on an unmentionable tragedy. "Listen,
maybe if you sat on my lap ... " and I hoisted her gently
on to my lap, at the same time delicately putting my hand
under her dress and resting it lightly on her knee . . .
"maybe if you sat a moment like this, you'd feel better
... there, that's it, just snuggle back in my arms ... are
you feeling better?" She didn't answer, but she didn't
resist either; she just lay back limply and closed her eyes.
Gradually and very gently and smoothly I moved my
hand up her leg, talking to her in a low, soothing voice all
the time. When I got my fingers into her crotch and
parted the little lips she was as moist as a dishrag. I
massaged it gently, opening it up more and more, and
still handing out a telepathic line about women sometimes being mistaken about themselves and how sometimes they think they're very small when really they're
quite normal, and the longer I kept it up the juicier she
got and the more she opened up. I had four fingers inside
her and there was room inside for more if I had had more
to put in. She had an enonnous cunt and it had been well
reamed out, I could feel. I looked at her to see if she was
still keeping her eyes shut. Her mouth was open and
she was gasping but her eyes were tight shut, as though
she were pretending to herself that it was all a dream.
I could move her about roughly now-no danger of the
slightest protest. And maliciously perhaps, I jostled her
about unnecessarily, just to see if she would come to. She
was as limp as a feather pillow and even when her
head struck the arm of the sofa she showed no sign of
irritation. It was as though she had anesthetized herself
for a gratuitous fuck. I pulled all her clothes off and
threw them on the Hoor, and after I had given her a bit of
a workout on the sofa I slipped it out and laid her on thc

Tropic of Capricorn
267
floor, on her clothes; and then I slipped it in again and
she held it tight with that suction valve she used so skillfully, despite the outward appearance of coma.
It seems strange to me that the music always passed

off into sex. Nights, if I went out alone for a walk, I was
sure to pick up someone-a nurse, a girl coming out of a
dance hall, a salesgirl, anything with a skirt on. If I went
out with my friend MacGregor in his car-just a little
spin to the beach, he would say-I would find myself
by midnight sitting in some strange parlor in some queer
neighborhood with a girl on my lap, usually one I didn't
give a damn about because MacGregor was even less
selective than I. Often, stepping in his car I'd say to him
-"listen, no cunts tonight, what?" And he'd say-"Jesus,
no, I'm fed up ... just a little drive somewhere ... maybe
to Sheepshead Bay, what do you say?" We wouldn't have
gone more than a mile when suddenly he'd pull the car
up to the curb and nudge me. "Get a look at that," he'd
say, pointing to a girl strolling along the sidewalk. "Jesus,
what a legl" Or else-"Listen, what do you say we ask
her to come along? Maybe she can dig up a friend." And
before I could say another word he'd be hailing her and
handing out his usual patter, which was the same for
everyone. And nine times out of ten the girl came along.
And before we'd gone very far, feeling her up with his
free hand, he'd ask her if she didn't have a friend she
could dig up to keep us company. And if she put up a
fuss, if she didn't like being pawed over that way too
quickly, he'd say-"All right, get the hell out then ...
we can't waste any time on the likes of you!" And with
that he'd slow up and shove her out. "We can't be
bothered with cunts like that, can we Henry?" he'd say,
chuckling softly. "You wait, I promise you something
good before the night's over." And if I reminded him that
we were going to layoff for one night he'd answer: 'Well,
just as you like .... I was only thinking it might make
it more pleasant for you." And then suddenly the brakes

268

Tropic of Capricorn

would pull us up and he'd be saying to some silky
silhouette looming out of the dark-"hello sister, what
yer doing-taking a little stroll?" And maybe this timeit would be something exciting, a dithery little bitch with
nothing else to do but pull up her skirt and hand it to you.
Maybe we wouldn't even have to buy her a drink, just
haul up somewhere on a side road and go at it, one
after the other, in the car. And if she was an emptyheaded
bimbo, as they usually were, he wouldn't even bother
to drive her home. "We're not going that way," he'd say,
the bastard that he was. "You'd better jump out here,"
and with that he'd open the door and out with her.
His next thought was, of course, was she clean? That
would occupy his mind all the way back. "Jesus, we ought
to be more careful," he'd say. "You don't know what
you're getting yourself into picking them up like that.
Ever since that last one-you remember, the one we
picked up on the Drive-I've been itchy as hell. Maybe
it's just nervousness ... I think about it too much. Why
can't a guy stick to one cunt, tell me that, Henry. You
take Trix, now, she's a good kid, you know that. And I
like her too, in a way, but ... shit, what's the use of talking
about it? You know me-I'm a glutton. You know, I'm
getting so bad that sometimes when I'm on my way to a
date-mind you, with a girl I want to fuck, and everything fixed too-as I say, sometimes I'm rolling along
and maybe out of the comer of my eye I catch a flash of
a leg crossing the street and before I know it I've got her
in the car and the hell with the other girl. I must be cuntstruck, I guess ... what do you think? Don't tell me," he
would add quickly. " I know you, you bugger ... you'll
be sure to tell me the worst." And then, after a pause"you're a funny guy, do you know that? I never notice
you refusing anything, but somehow you don't seem to
be worrying about it all the time. Sometimes you strike
me as though you didn't give a damn one way or the
other. And you're a steady bastard too-almost a monogamist, I'd say. How you can keep it up so long with one

Tropic of Capricorn
269
woman beats me. Don't you get bored with them? Jesus,
I know so well what they're going to say. Sometimes I
feel like saying ... you know, just breeze in on 'em and
say: 'Listen, kid, don't say a word ... just fish it out and
open your legs wide.' " He laughed heartily. "Can you
imagine the expression on Trix's face if I pulled a line
like that on her? I'll tell you, once I came pretty near
doing it. I kept my hat and coat on. Was she sore! She
didn't mind my keeping my coat on so much, but the hat!
I told her I was afraid of a draught ... of course there
wasn't any draught. The truth is, I was so damned impatient to get away that I thought if I kept my hat on I'd be
off quicker. Instead I was there all night with her. She put
up such a row that I couldn't get her quiet.... But listen,
that's nothing. Once I had a drunken Irish bitch and this
one had some queer ideas. In the first place, she never
wanted it in bed ... always on the table. You know, that's
all right once in a while, but if you do it often it wears you
out. So one night-I was a little tight, I guess-I says to
her, no, nothing doing, you drunken bastard ... you're
gonna go to bed with me tonight. I want a real fuck-in
bed. You know, I had to argue with that bitch for
an hour almost before I could persuade her to go to
bed with me, and then only on the agreement that I was
to keep my hat on. Listen, can you picture me getting
over that stupid bitch with my hat on? And stark naked
to boot! I asked her ... I said, 'why do you want me to
keep my hat on?' You know what she said? She said it
seemed more genteel. Can you imagine what a mind that
cunt had? I used to hate myself for going with that bitch.
I never went to her sober, that's one thing. I'd have to
be tanked up first and kind of blind and batty-you
know how I get sometimes ...."
I knew very well what he meant. He was one of my
oldest friends and one of the most cantankerons bastards
I ever knew. Stubborn wasn't the word for it. He was
like a mule-a pigheaded Scotchman. And his old man
was even worse. When the two of them got into a rage it

270

Tropic of Capricorn
was a pretty sight. The old man used to dance, positively
dance with rage. If the old lady got between she'd get
a sock in the eye. They used to put him out of the house
regularly. Out he'd go, with all his belongings, including
the furniture, including the piano too. In a month or so
he'd be back again-because they always gave him credit
at home. And then he'd come home drunk some night
with a woman he'd picked up somewhere and the rumpus
would start all over again. It seems they didn't mind so
much his coming home with a girl apd keeping her all
night, but what they did object to was the cheek of him
asking his mother to serve them breakfast in bed. If his
mother tried to bawl him out he'd shut her up by saying
-"What are you trying to tell me? You wouldn't have
been married yet if you hadn't been knocked up." The old
lady would wring her hands and say-"What a son! What
a son! God help me, what have 1 done to deserve this?" To
which he'd remark, "Aw forget it! You're just an old
prune!" Often as not his sister would come up to try and
smopth matters out. "Jesus, \Vallie," she'd say, "it's none
of my business what you do, but can't you talk to your
mother more respectfully?" Whereupon MacGregor would
make his sister sit on the bed and start coaxing her to
bring up the breakfast. Usually he'd have to ask his bedmate what her name was in order to present her to his
sister. "She's not a bad kid," he'd say, referring to his
sister. "She's the only decent one in the family .... Now
listen, Sis, bring up some grub, will yer? Some nice bacon
and eggs, eh, what do you say? Listen, is the old man
around? What's his mood today? I'd like to borrow a
couple of bucks. You try and worm it out of him, will
you? I'll get you something nice for Christmas." Then, as
though everything wcre settled, he'd pull back the covers
to expose the wench beside him. "Look at her, Sis, ain't
she beautiful? Look at that leg! Listen, you ought to get
yourself a man ... you're too skinny. Patsy here, I bet
she doesn't go begging for it, eh Patsy?" and with that a
sound slap on the rump for Patsy. "Now scram, Sis, I want

Tropic of Capricorn
271
some coHee ... and don't forget, make the bacon crisp!
Don't get any of that lousy store bacon ... get something
extra. And be quick about it!"
What I liked about him were his weaknesses; like all
men who practice will power he was absolutely flabby
inside. There wasn't a thing he wouldn't do-out of
weakness. He was always very busy and he was never
really doing anything. And always boning up on something, always trying to improve his mind. For example,
he would take the unabridged dictionary and, tearing
out a page each day, would read it through religiously on
his way back and forth from the office. He was full or
facts, and the more absurd and incongruous the facts, the
more pleasure he derived from them. He seemed to be
bent on proving to all and sundry that life was a farce,
that it wasn't worth the game, that one thing canceled out
another, and so on. He was brought up on the North Side,
not very far from the neighborhood in which I had spent
my childhood. He was very much a product of the North
Side, too, and that was one of the reasons why I liked him.
The way he talked, out of the corner of his mouth, for
instance, the tough air he put on when talking to a cop,
the way he spat in disgust, the peculiar curse words he
used, the sentimentality, the limited horizon, the passion
for playing pool or shooting craps, the staying up all night
swapping yarns, the contempt for the rich, the hobnobbing
with politicians, the curiosity about worthless things, the
respect for learning, the fascination of the dance hall,
the saloon, the burlesque, talking about seeing the world
and never budging out of the city, idolizing no matter
whom so long as the person showed "spunk," a thousand
and one little traits or peculiarities of this sort endeared
him to me because it was precisely such idiosyncrasies
which marked the fellows I had known as a child. The
neighborhood was composed of nothing, it seemed,
but lovable failures. The grownups behaved like children
and the children were incorrigible. Nobody could rise
very far above his neighbor or he'd be lynched. It was

272

Tropic of Capricorn
amazing that anyone ever became a doctor or a lawyer.
Even so, he had to be a good fellow, had to pretend to
talk like everyone else, and he had to vote the Democratic
ticket. To hear MacCregor talk about Plato or Nietzsche,
for instance, to his buddies was something to remember.
In the first place, to even get permission to talk about such
things as Plato or Nietzsche to his companions, he had
to pretend that it was only by accident that he had run
across their names; or perhaps he'd say that he had met an
interesting drunk one night in the back room of a saloon
and this drunk had started talking about these guys
Nietzsche and Plato. He would even pretend he didn't
quite know how the names were pronounced, Plato wasn't
such a dumb bastard, he would say apologetically, Plato
had an idea or two in his bean, yes sir, yes siree. He'd
like to see one of those dumb politicians at Washington
trying to lock horns with a guy like Plato. And he'd go
on, in this roundabout, matter of fact fashion to explain
to his crapshooting friends just what kind of a bright
bird Plato was in his time and how he measured up
against other men in other times. Of course, he was
probably a eunuch, he would add, by way of throwing a
little cold water on all this erudition. In those days, as
he nimbly explained, the big guys, the philosophers,
often had their nuts cut off-a factI-so as to be out of
all temptation. The other guy, Nietzsche, he was a real
case, a case for the bughouse. He was supposed to be in
love with his sister. Hypersensitive like. Had to live in
a special climate-in N ice, he thought it was. As a rule he
didn't care much for the Germans, but this guy Nietzsche
was different. As a matter of fact, he hated the Germans,
this Nietzsche. He claimed he was a Pole or something
like that. He had them dead right, too. He said they
were stupid and swinish, and by God, he knew what he
was talking about. Anyway, he showed them up. He said
they were full of shit, to make it brief, and by God, wasn't
he right though? Did you see the way those bastards
turned tail when they got a dose of their own medicine?

Tropic of Capricorn
273
"Listen, I know a guy who cleaned out a nestful of them
in the Argonne region-he said they were so goddamned
low he wouldn't shit on them. He said he wouldn't even
waste a bullet on them-he just bashed their brains in
with a club. I forget this guy's name now, but anyway
he told me he saw aplenty in the few months he was there.
He said the best fun he got out of the whole fucking
business was to pop off his own major. Not that he had
any special grievance against him-he just didn't like his
mug. He didn't like the way the guy gave orders. Most
of the officers that were killed got it in the back, he said.
Served them right, too, the pricks! He was just a lad
from the North Side. I think he runs a poolroom now
down near Walla bout Market. A quiet fellow, minds his
own business. But if you start talking to him about the
war he goes off the handle. He says he'd assassinate the
President of the United States if they ever tried to start
another war. Yeah, and he'd do it too, I'm telling you ....
But shit, what was that I wanted to tell you about Plato?
Oh yeah ...."
When the others were gone he'd suddenly shift gears.
"You don't believe in talking like that, do you?," he'd
begin. I had to admit I didn't. "You're wrong," he'd continue. "You've got to keep in with people, you don't know
when you may need one of these guys. You act on the assumption that you're free, independent! You act as though
you were superior to these people. Well, that's where you
make a big mistake. How do you know where you'll be
five years from now, or even six months from now? You
might be blind, you might be run over by a truck, you
might be put in the bughouse; you can't tell what's going
to happen to you. Nobody can. You might be as helpless
as a baby .. , ,"
"So what?" I would say.
"Well, don't you think it would be good to have a friend
when you need one? You might be so goddamned helpless you'd be glad to have some one help you across the
street. You think these guys are worthless; you think I'm

274

Tropic of Capricorn

wasting my time with them. Listen, you never know
what a man might do for you some day. Nobody gets
anywhere alone .... "
He was touchy about my independence, what he called
my indifference. If I was obliged to ask him for a little
dough he was delighted. That gave him a chance to deliver a little sermon on friendship. "So you have to
have money, too?" he'd say, with a big satisfied grin
spreading all over his face. "So the poet has to eat too?
Well, well .... It's lucky you came to me, Henry me boy,
because I'm easy with you, I know you, you heartless
SO!} of a bitch. Sure, what do you want? I haven't got
very much, but I'll split it with you. That's fair enough,
isn't it? Or do you think, you bastard, that maybe I
ought to give you it all and go out and borrow something
for myself? I suppose you want a good meal, eh? Ham
and eggs wouldn't be good enough, would it? I suppose
you'd like me to drive you to the restaurant too, eh?
Listen, get up from that chair a minute-I want to put
a cushion under your ass. Well, well, so you're broke!
Jesus, you're always broke-I never remember seeing
you with money in your pocket. Listen, don't you ever feel
ashamed of yourself? You talk about those bums I hang
out with ... well listen, mister, those guys never come and
bum me for a dime like you do. They've got more pridethey'd rather steal it than come and grub it off me. But
you, shit, you're full of highfalutin' ideas, you want to reform the world and all that crap-you don't want to
work for money, no, not you ... you expect somebody to
hand it to you on a silver platter. Huh! Lucky there's guys
like me around that understand you. You need to get
wise to yourself, Henry. You're dreaming. Everybody
wants to eat, don't you know that? Most people are willing to work for it-they don't lie in bed all day like you
and then suddenly pull on their pants and run to the
first friend at hand. Supposing I wasn't here, what would
you have done? Don't answer ... I know what you're
going to say. But listen, you can't go on all your life like

Tropic of Capricorn
275
that. Sure, you talk fine-it's a pleasure to listen to you.
You're the only guy I know that I really enjoy talking to,
but where's it going to get you? One of these days they'll
lock you up for vagrancy. You're just a bum, don't you
know that? You're not even as good as those other bums
you preach about. Where are you when I'm in a jam?
You can't be found. You don't answer my letters, you
don't answer the telephone, you even hide sometimes
when I come to see you. Listen, I know-you don't have to
explain to me. I know you don't want to hear my stories
all the time. But shit, sometimes I really have to talk to
you. A fucking lot you care though. So long as you're
out of the rain and putting another meal under your belt
you're happy. You don't think about your friends-until
you're desperate. That's no way to behave, is it? Say no
and I'll give you a buck. Goddamn it, Henry, you're the
only real friend I've got, but you're a son of a bitch of a
mucker if I know what I'm talking about. You're just a
born good for nothing son of a bitch. You'd rather starve
than turn your hand to something useful. ..."
Naturally I'd laugh and hold my hand out for the buck
he had promised me. That would irritate him afresh.
"You're ready to say anything, aren't you, if only I give you
the buck I promised you? What a guy! Talk about morals
-Jesus, you've got the ethics of a rattlesnake. No, I'm not
giving it to you yet, by Christ. I'm going to torture you a
little more first. I'm going to make you earn this money, if
I can. Listen, what about shining my shoes--do that for
me, will you? They'll never get shined if you don't do it
now." I pick up the shoes and ask him for the brush.
I don't mind shining his shoes, not in the least. But that too
seems to incense him. "You're going to shine them, are
you? Well, by Jesus, that beats all hell. Listen, where's
your pride-didn't you ever have any? And you're the guy
that knows everything. It's amazing. You know so goddamned much that you have to shine your friend's shoes
to worm a meal out of him. A fine pickle I Here, you

276
Tropic of Capricorn
bastard, here's the brush! Shine the other pair too while
you're at it."
A pause. He's washing himself at the sink and humming
a bit. Suddenly, in a bright, cheerful tone-"How is it
out today, Henry? Is it sunny? Listen, I've got just the
place for you. What do you say to scallops and bacon with
a little tartar sauce on the side? It's a little joint down near
the inlet. A day like today is just the day for scallops and
bacon, eh what, Henry? Don't tell me you've got something to do . . . if I haul you down there you've got to
spend a little time with me, you know that, don't you?
Jesus, I wish I had your disposition. You just drift along,
from minute to minute. Sometimes I think you're a damned
sight better off than any of us, even if you are a stinking
son of a bitch and a traitor and a thief. When I'm with
you the day seems to pass like a dream. Listen, don't you
see what I mean when I say I've got to see you sometimes?
I go nuts being all by myself all the time. Why do I go
chasing around after cunt so much? Why do I play cards
all night? Why do I hang out with those bums from the
Point? I need to talk to someone, that's what."
A little later at the bay, sitting out over the water, with a
shot of rye in him and waiting for the sea food to be served
up .... "Life's not so bad if you can do what you want, eh
Henry? If I make a little dough I'm going to take a trip
around the world-and you're coming along with me. Yes,
though you don't deserve it, I'm going to spend some real
money on you one day. I want to see how you'd act if I
gave you plenty of rope. I'm going to give you the money,
see. . . . I won't pretend to lend it to you. We'll see
what'll happen to your fine ideas when you have some
dough in your pocket. Listen, when I was talking about
Plato the other day I meant to ask you something: I meant
to ask you if you ever read that yam of his about Atlantis.
Did you? You did? Well, what do you think of it? Do
you think it was just a yam, or do you think there might
have been a place like that once?"
I didn't dare to tell him that I suspected there were

Tropic of Capricorn
277
hundreds and thousands of continents whose existence
past or future we hadn't even begun to dream about, so
I simply said I thought it quite possible indeed that such
a place as Atlantis might once have been.
"Well, it doesn't matter much one way or the other, I
suppose," he went on, "but I'll tell you what I think. I
think there must have been a time like that once, a
time when men were different. I can't believe that they
always were the pigs they are now and have been for the
last few thousand years. I think it's just possible that
there was a time when men knew how to live, when they
knew how to take it easy and to enjoy life. Do you know
what drives me crazy? It's looking at myoId man. Ever
since he's retired he sits in front of the fire all day long
and mopes. To sit there like a broken-down gorilla, that's
what he slaved for all his life. Well shit, if I thought
that was going to happen to me I'd blow my brains out
now. Look around you ... look at the people we know .
. . . do you know one that's worth while? What's all the
fuss about, I'd like to know? We've got to live, they say.
Why? that's what I want to know. They'd all be a damned
sight better off dead. They're all just so much manure.
When the war broke out and I saw them go off to the
trenches I said to myself good, maybe they'll come back
with a little sense! A lot of them didn't come back, of
course. But the others!-listen, do you suppose they got
more human, more considerate? Not at all! They're all
butchers at heart, and when they're up against it they
squeal. They make me sick, the whole fucking lot of 'em.
I see what they're like, bailing them out every day. I see
it from both sides of the fence. On the other side it stinks
even worse. Why, if I told you some of the things I knew
about the judges who condemn these poor bastards you'd
want to slug them. All you have to do is look at their
faces. Yes sir, Henry, I'd like to think there was once a
time when things were different. We haven't seen any real
life--and we're not going to see any. This thing is going
to last another few thousand years, if I know anything

278

Tropic of Capricorn
about it. You think I'm mercenary. You think I'm cuckoo
to want to earn a lot of money, don't you? Well I'll tell
you, I want to earn a little pile so that I can get my feet
out of this muck. r d go off and live with a nigger wench
if I could get away from this atmosphere. I've worked my
balls off trying to get where I am, which isn't very far.
I don't believe in work any more than you do--I was
trained that way, that's all. If I could put over a deal, if
I could swindle a pile out of one of these dirty bastards
I'm dealing with, I'd do it with a clear conscience. I know
a little too much about the law, that's the trouble. But
I'll fool them yet, you'll see. And when I put it over 111
put it over big.... "
Another shot of rye as the sea food's coming along
and he starts in again. «I meant that about taking you
on a trip with me. I'm thinking about it seriously. I suppose you'll tell me you've got a wife and a kid to' look
after. Listen when are you going to break off with that
battle-ax of yours? Don't you know that you've got to
ditch her?" He begins to laugh softly. "Ho! Ho! To think
that 1 was the one who picked her out for you! Did 1 ever
think you'd be chump enough to get hitched up to her?
I thought I was recommending you a nice piece of tail
and you, you poor slob, you marry her. Ho hot Listen to
me, Henry, while you've got a little sense left: don't let
that sour-balled puss muck up your life for you, do you
get me? I don't care what you do or where you go. I'd hate
to see you leave town .... I'd miss you, I'm telling you that
frankly, but Jesus, if you have to go to Africa, beat it,
get out of her clutches, she's no good for you. Sometimes
when 1 get hold of a good cunt I think to myself now
there's something nice for Henry-and I have in mind
to introduce her to you, and then of course I forget. But
Jesus, man, there's thousands of cunts in the world you
can get along with. To think that you had to pick on a
mean bitch like that.... Do you want more bacon? You'd
better eat what you want now, you know, there won't be
any dough later. Have another drink, eh? Listen, if you

Tropic of Capricorn
279
try to run away from me today I swear I'll never lend you
a cent. . . . What was I saying? Oh yeah, about that
screwy bitch you married. Listen, are you going to do it
or not? Every time I see you you tell me you're going to
run away, but you never do it. You don't think you're
supporting her, I hope? She don't need you, you sap, don't
you see that? She just wants to torture you. As for the
kid .... well, shit, if I were in your boots I'd drown it.
That sounds kind of mean, doesn't it, but you know what
I mean. You're not a father. I don't know what the hell
you are ... I just know you're too goddamned good a
felJow to be wasting your life on them. Listen, why don't
you try to make something of yourself? You're young yet
and you make a good appearance. Go off somewhere, way
the hell off, and start all over again. If you need a little
money I'll raise it for you. It's like throwing it down a
sewer, I know, hut I'll do it for you just the same. The
truth is, Henry, I like you a hell of a lot. I've taken more
from you than I would from anybody in the world. I
guess we have a lot in common, earning from the old
neighborhood. Funny I didn't know you in those days.
Shit, I'm getting sentimental. ... "
The day wore on like that, with lots to eat and drink,
the sun out strong, a car to tote us around, cigars in between, dozing a little on the heach, studying the cunts
passing hy, talking, laughing, singing a bit too-one of
many, many days I spent like that with MacGregor. Days
like that really seemed to make the wheel stop. On the
surface it was jolly and happy-go-lucky; time passing like
a sticky dream. But underneath it was fatalistic, premonitory, leaving me the next day morbid and restless. I knew
very wcl1 I'd llave to make a break some day; I knew
very well I was pissing my time away. But I knew also
that there was nothing I could do about it-yet. Something had to happen, something big, something that
would sweep me off my feet. All I needed was a push,
but it had to be some force outside my world that could
give me the right push, that I was certain of. I couldn't

280

Tropic of Capricorn

eat my heart out, because it wasn't in my nature. All my
life things had worked out all right-in the end. It wasn't
in the cards for me to exert myself. Something had to be
left to Providence-in my case a whole lot. Despite all
the outward manifestations of misfortune or mismanagement I knew that I was born with a silver spoon in my
mouth. And with a double crown, too. The external situation was bad, admitted-but what bothered me more
was the internal situation. I was really afraid of myself,
of my appetite, my curiosity, my flexibility, my permeability, my malleability, my geniality, my powers of adaptation. No situation in itself could frighten me: I somehow
always saw myself sitting pretty, sitting inside a buttercup, as it were, and sipping the honey. Even if I were
flung in jail I had a hunch r d enjoy it. It was because
I knew how not to resist, I suppose. Other people wore
themselves out tugging and straining and pulling; my
strategy was to float with the tide. \Vhat people did to
me didn't bother me nearly so much as what they were
doing to others or to themselves. I was really so damned
well off inside that I had to take on the problems of the
world. And that's why I was in a mess all the time. I
wasn't synchronized with my own destiny, so to speak.
I was trying to live out the world destiny. If I got home
of an evening, for instance, and there was no food in
the house, not even for the kid, I would turn right around
and go looking for the food. But what I noticed about
myself, and that was what puzzled me, was that no sooner
outside and hustling for the grub than I was baek at the
Weltanschauung again. I didn't think of food for us exclusively, I thought of food in general, food in all its
stages, everywhere in the world at that hour, and how
it was gotten and how it was prepared and what people
did if they didn't have it and how maybe there was a way
to fix it so that everybody would have it when they
wanted it and no more time wasted on such an idiotically
simple problem. I felt sorry for the wife and kid, sure,
but I also felt sorry for the Hottentots and the Australian

Tropic of Capricorn
281
bushmen, not to mention the starving Belgians and the
Turks and the Armenians. I felt sorry for the human race,
for the stupidity of man and his lack of imagination.
Missing a meal wasn't so terrible-it was the ghastly
emptiness of the street that disturbed me profoundly.
All those bloody houses, one like another, and all so
empty and cheerless looking. Fine paving stones under
foot and asphalt in the middle of the street and beautifully-hideously-elegant brownstone stoops to walk up,
and yet a guy could walk about all day and all night
on this expensive material and be looking for a crust of
bread. That's what got me. The incongruousness of it.
If one could only dash out with a dinner bell and yell
"Listen, listen, people, I'm a guy what's hungry. Who
wants shoes shined? Who wants the garbage brought
out? Who wants the drainpipes cleaned out?" If you could
only go out in the street and put it to them clear like that.
But no, you don't dare to open your trap. If you tell a
guy in the street you're hungry you scare the shit out of
him, he runs like hell. That's something I never understood. I don't understand it yet. The whole thing is so
simple--you just say Yes when some one comes up to
you. And if you can't say Yes you can take him by the
arm and ask some other bird to help you out. \Vhy you
have to don a uniform and kill men you (lon't know, just
to get that crust of bread, is a mystery to me. That's what
I think about, more than about whose trap it's going
down or how much it costs. \Vhy should I give a fuck
about what anything costs? I'm here to live, not to calculate. And that's just what the bastards don't want you
to do--to live! They want you to spend your whole life
adding up figures. That makes sense to them. That's
reasonable. That's intelligent. If I werc running the boat
things wouldn't be so orderly perhaps, bllt it would be
gayer, by Jesusl You wouldn't have to shit in your pants
over trifles. Maybe there wouldn't be macadamized roads
and streamlined cars and loudspeakers and gadgets of a
million billion varieties, maybe there wouldn't even be

282
Tropic of Capricorn
glass in the windows, maybe you'd have to sleep on the
ground, maybe there wouldn't be French cooking and
Italian cooking and Chinese cooking, maybe people
would kill each other when their patience was exhausted
and maybe nobody would stop them because there
wouldn't be any jails or any cops or judges, and there
certainly wouldn't be any cabinet ministers or legislatures because there wouldn't be any goddamned laws to
obey or disobey, and maybe it would take months and
years to trek from place to place, but you wouldn't need
a visa or a passport or a carte tIidentite because you
wouldn't be registered anywhere and you wouldn't bear
a number and if you wanted to change your name every
week you could do it because it wouldn't make any difference since you wouldn't own anything except what
you could carry around with you and why would you
want to own anything when everything would be free?
During this period when I was drifting from door to
door, job to job, friend to friend, meal to meal, I did try
nevertheless to rope off a little space for myself which
might be an anchorage; it was more like a life buoy in
the midst of a swift channel. To get within a mile of me
was to hear a huge dolorous bell tolling. Nobody could
see the anchorage-it was buried deep in the bottom of
the channel. One saw me bobbing up and down on the
surface, rocking gently sometimes or else swinging backwards and forwards agitatedly. What held me down
safely was the big pigeonholed desk which I put in the
parlor. This was the desk which had been in the old man's
tailoring establishment for the last fifty years, which had
given birth to many bills and many groans, which had
housed strange souvenirs in its compartments, and which
finally I had filched from him when he was ill and away
from the establishment; and now it stood in the middle
of the floor in our lugubrious parlor on the third Hoar of a
respectable brownstone house in the dead center of the
most respectable neighborhood in Brooklyn. I had to
fight a tough battle to install it there, but I insisted that

Tropic of Capricorn
283
it be there in the midmost midst of the shebang. It was
like putting a mastodon in the center of a dentist's office.
But since the wife had no friends to visit her and since
my friends didn't give a fuck if it were suspended from
the chandelier, I kept it in the parlor and I put all the
extra chairs we had around it in a big circle and then I
sat down comfortably and I put my feet up on the desk
and dreamed of what I would write if I could write. I had
a spittoon alongside of the desk, a big brass one from
the same establishment, and I would spit in it now and
then to remind myself that it was there. All the pigeonholes were empty and all the drawers were empty; there
wasn't a thing on the desk or in it except a sheet of white
paper on which I found it impossible to put so much as
a pothook.
'When I think of the titanic efforts I made to canalize
the hot lava which was bubbling inside me, the efforts
I repeated thousands of times to bring the funnel into
place and capture a word, a phrase, I think inevitably of
the men of the old stone age. A hundred thousand, two
hundred thousand years, three hundred thousand years
to arrive at the idea of the paleolith. A phantom struggle,
because they weren't dreaming of such a thing as the
paleolith. It came without effort, born of a second, a
miracle you might say, except that everything which
happens is miraculous. Things happen or they don't happen, that's all. Nothing is accomplished by sweat and
struggle. Nearly everything which we call life is just
insomnia, an agony because we've lost the habit of falling
asleep. We don't know how to Jet go, We're like a Jackin-the-box perched on top of a spring and the more we
struggle the harder it is to get back in the hox.
I think if I had been crazy I couldn't have hit upon a
better scheme to consolidate my anchorage than to install
this Neanderthal object in the middle of the parlor. With
my feet on the desk, picking up the current, and my
spinal column snugly socketed in a thick leather cushion,
I was in an ideal relation to the Botsam and jetsam

284

Tropic of Capricorn
which was whirling about me, and which, because
they were crazy and part of the flux, my friends were
trying to convince me was life. I remember vividly the
first contact with reality that I got through my feet, so
to speak. The million words or so which I had written,
mind you, well ordered, well connected, were as nothing
to me-crude ciphers from the old stone age-because
the contact was through the head and the head is a useless appendage unless you're anchored in midchannel
deep in the mud. Everything I had written before was
museum stuff, and most writing is still museum stuff and
that's why it doesn't catch fire, doesn't inflame thc world.
I was only a mouthpiece for the ancestral race which was
talking through me; even my dreams were not authentic,
not bona fide Henry Miller dreams. To sit still and think
one thought which would come up out of me, out of the
life buoy, was a Herculean task. I didn't lack thoughts
nor words nor the power of expression-I lacked something much more important: the lever which would shut
off the juice. The bloody machine wouldn't stop, that was
the difficulty. I was not only in the middle of the current
but the current was running through me and I had no
control over it whatever.
I remember the day I brought the machine to a dead
stop and how the other mechanism, the one that was
signed with my own initials and which I had made with
my own hands and my own blood slowly began to function. I had gone to the theater nearby to see a vaudevil1e show; it was the matinee and I had a ticket for the
balcony. Standing on line in the lobby, I already experienced a strange feeling of consistency. It was as
though I were coagulating, becoming a recognizable
consistent mass of jelly. It was like the ultimate stage
in the healing of a wound. I was at the height of normality, which is a very abnormal condition. Cholera might
come and blow its foul breath in my mouth-it wouldn't
matter. I might bend over and kiss the ulcers of a leprous
hand, and no harm could possibly come to me. There was

Tropic of Capricorn
285
not just a balance in this constant warfare between health
and disease, which is all that most of us may hope for,
but there was a plus integer in the blood which meant
that, for a few moments at least, disease was completely
routed. If one had the wisdom to take root in such a
moment, one would never again be ill or unhappy or even
die. But to leap to this conclusion is to make a jump
which would take one back further than the old stone
age. At that moment I wasn't even dreaming of taking
root; I was experiencing for the first time in my life the
meaning of the miraculous. I was so amazed when I
heard my own cogs meshing that I was willing to die
then and there for the privilege of the experience.
What happened was this .... As I passed the doorman
holding the torn stub in my hand the lights were dimmed
and the curtain went up. I stood a moment slightly dazed
by the sudden darkness. As the curtain slowly rose I had
the feeling that throughout the ages man had always
been mysteriously stilled by this brief moment which
preludes the spectacle. I could feel the curtain rising in
man. And immediately I also realized that this was a
symbol which was being presented to him endlessly in
his sleep and that if he had been awake the players would
never have taken the stage but he, Man, would have
mounted the boards. I didn't think this thought-it was
a realization, as I say, and so simple and overwhelmingly
clear was it that the machine stopped dead instantly and
I was standing in my own presence bathed in a luminous
reality. I turned my eyes away from the stage and beheld
the marble staircase which I should take to go to my
seat in the balcony. 1 saw a man slowly mounting the
steps, his hand laid across the balustrade. The man
could have been myself, the old self which had been
sleepwalking ever since I was born. My eye didn't take
in the entire staircase, just the fews steps which the man
had climbed or was climbing in the moment that I took
it all in. The man never reached the top of the stairs and
his hand was never removed from the marble balustrade.

286

Tropic of Capricorn

I felt the curtain descend, and for another few moments
I was behind the scenes moving amidst the sets, like the
property man suddenly roused from his sleep and not
sure whether he is still dreaming or looking at a dream
which is being enacted on the stage. It was as fresh and
green, as strangely new as the bread and cheese lands
which the Biddenden maidens saw every day of their
long life joined at the hips. I saw only that which was
alive! the rest faded out in a penumbra. And it was in
order to keep the world alive that I rushed home without
waiting to see the performance and sat down to describe
the little patch of staircase which is imperishable.
It was just about this time that the Dadaists were in
full swing, to be followed shortly by the surrealists. I
never heard of either group until some ten years later; I
never read a French book and I never had a French idea.
I was perhaps the unique Dadaist in America, and I
didn't know it. I might just as well have been living in the
jungles of the Amazon for all the contact I had with the
outside world. Nobody understood what I was writing
about or why I wrote that way. I was so lucid that they
said I was daffy. I was describing the New World-unfortunately a little too soon because it had not yet been
discovered and nobody could be persuaded that it existed. It was an ovarian world, still hidden away in the
Fallopian tubes. Naturally nothing was clearly formulated: there was only the faint suggestion of a backbone visible, and certainly no arms or legs, no hair, no
nails, no teeth. Sex was the last thing to be dreamed
of; it was the world of Chronos and his ovicular progeny.
It was the world of the iota, each iota being indispensable, frighteningly logical, and absolutely unpredictable.
There was no such thing as a thing, because the concept
"thing" was missing.
I say it was a New World I was describing, but like
the New World which Columbus discovered it turned
out to be a far older world than any we have known. I

Tropic of Capricorn
287
saw beneath the superficial physiognomy of skin and
bone the indestructible world which man has always
carried within him; it was neither old nor new, really, but
the eternally true world which changes from moment to
moment. Everything I looked at was palimpsest and there
was no layer of writing too strange for me to decipher.
When my companions left me of an evening I would
often sit down and write to my friends the Australian
bushmen or the Mound Builders of the Mississippi Valley
or to the Igorots in the Philippines. I had to write English,
naturally, because it was the only language I spoke, but
between my language and the telegraphic code employed
by my bosom friends there was a world of difference.
Any primitive man would have understood me, any man
of archaic epochs would have understood me: only those
about me, that is to say, a continent of a hundred million
people, failed to understand my language. To write intelligibly for them I would have been obliged first of all
to kill something, secondly, to arrest time. I had just
made the realization that life is indestructible and that
there is no such thing as time, only the present. Did they
expect me to deny a truth which it had taken me all my
life to catch a glimpse of? They most certainly did. The
one thing they did not want to hear about was that life
is indestructible. \Vas not their precious new world reared
on the destruction of the innocent, on rape and plunder
and torture and devastation? Both continents had been
violated; both continents had been stripped and plundered of all that was precious-in things. No greater
humiliation, it seems to me, was meted out to any man
than to Montezuma; no race was ever more ruthlessly
wiped out than the American Indian; no land was ever
raped in the foul and bloody way that California was
raped by the gold diggers. I blush to think of our originsour hands are steeped in blood and crime. And there is
no letup to the slaughter and the pillage, as I discovered
at first hand traveling throughout the length and breadth
of the land. Down to the closest friend every man is a

288

Tropic of Capricorn

potential murderer. Often it wasn't necessary to bring
out the gun or the lasso or the branding iron-they had
found subtler and more devilish ways of torturing and
killing their own. For me the most excruciating agony
was to have the word annihilated before it had even left
my mouth. I learned, by bitter experience, to hold my
tongue; 1 learned to sit in silence, and even smile, when
actually I was foaming at the mouth. I learned to shake
hands and say how do you do to all these innocent-looking
fiends who were only waiting for me to sit down in order
to suck my blood.
How was it possible, when I sat down in the parlor at
my prehistoric desk, to use this code language of rape
and murder? I was alone in this great hemisphere of
violence, but I was not alone as far as the human raee
was concerned. I was lonely amidst a world of things lit
up by phosphorescent flashes of crtIdty. I was delirious
with an energy which could not be unleashed except in
the service of death and futility. I could not begin with a
full statement-it would have meant the strait jacket
or the electric chair. I was like a man who had been too
long incarcerated in a dungeon-I had to feel my way
slowly, falteringly, lest I stumble and be run over. I had
to accustom myself gradually to the penalties which freedom involves. I had to grow a new epidermis which
would protect me from this burning light in the sky.
The ovarian world is the product of a life rhythm. The
moment a child is born it becomes part of a world in
which there is not only the lifc rhythm but the death
rhythm. The frantic de~ire to live, t~ live at any cost, is
not a result of the life rhythm in us, but of the death
rhythm. There is not only no need to keep alive at any
price, but, if life is undesirahlc, it is absolutely wrong.
This keeping oneself alive, out of a blind urge to defeat
death, is in itself a means of sowing death. Everyone
who has not fully accepted life, who is not incrementing
life, is helping to fill the world with death. To rnake the
simplest gesture with the hand can convey the utmost

Tropic of Capricorn
289
sense of life; a word spoken with the whole being can give
life. Activity in itself means nothing: it is often a sign
of death. By simple external pressure, by force of surroundings and example, by the very climate which activity engeuders, one can become part of a monstrous death
machine, such as America, for example. What does a
dynamo know of life, of peace, of reality? What does any
individual American dynamo know of the wisdom and
energy, of the life abundant and eternal possessed by a
ragged beggar sitting under a tree in the act of meditation? What is energy? What is life? One has only to read
the stupid twaddle of the scientific and philosophic textbooks to realize how less than nothing is the wisdom of
these energetic Americans. Listen, they had me on the
run, these crazy horsepower fiends; in order to brcak their
insane rhythm, their death rhythm, I had to resort to a
wave length which, until I found the proper sustenance
in my own bowels, would at least nullify the rhythm
they had set up. Certainly I did not need this grotesque,
cumbersome, antediluvian desk which I had installed in
the parlor; certainly I didn't need twelve empty chairs
placed around it in a semicircle; I needed only elbow
room in which to write and a thirteenth chair which
would take me out of the zodiac they were using and
put me in a heaven beyond heaven. But when you drive
a man almost crazy and when, to his own surprise perhaps,
he finds that he still has some resistance, some powers of
his own, then you are apt to find such a man acting very
much like a primitive being. Such a man is apt not only
to become stubborn and dogged, but superstitious, a
believer in magic and a practicer of magic. Such a man
is beyond religion-it is his religiousness he is suffering
from. Such a man becomes a monomaniac, bent on doing
one thing only and that is to break the evil spell which
has been put upon him. Such a man is beyond throwing
bombs, beyond revolt; he wants to stop reacting, whether
inertly or ferociously. This man, of all men on earth,
wants the act to be a manifestation of !ife. If, in the

290
Tropic of Capricorn
realization of his terrible need, he begins to act regressively, to become unsocial, to stammer and stutter, to
prove so utterly unadapted as to be incapable of earning
a living, know that this man has found his way back to
the womb and source of life and that tomorrow, instead
of the contemptible object of ridicule which you have
made of him, he will stand forth as a man in his own
right and all the powers of the world will be of no avail
against him.
Out of the crude Cipher with which he communicates
from his prehistoric desk with the archaic men of the
world a new language builds up which cuts through the
death language of the day like wireless through a storm.
There is no magic in this wave length any more than there
is magic in the womb. Men are lonely and out of communication with one another because all their inventions
speak only of death. Death is the automaton which rules
the world of activity. Death is silent, because it has no
mouth. Death has never expressed anything. Death is
wonderful too-after life. Only one like myself who has
opened his mouth and spoken, only one who has said
Yes, Yes, Yes, and again Yes! can open wiele his arms to
death and know no fear. Death as a reward, yes! Death
as a result of fulfillment, yes! Death as a crown and
shield, yes! But not death from the roots, isolating men,
making them bitter and fearful and lonely, giving them
fruitless energy, filling them with a will which can only
say No! The flrst word any man writes when he has found
himself, his own rhythm, which is the life rhythm, is Yes!
Everything he writes thereafter is Yes, Yes, Yes-Yes in
a thousand million ways. No dynamo, no matter how
huge-not even a dynamo of a hundred million dead
souls-can combat one man saying Yes!
The war was on and men were being slaughtered, one
million, two million, five million, ten million, twenty
million, finally a hundred million, then a billion, everybody, man, woman and child, down to the last one. "No!"
they were shouting, "No! they shall not pass!" And yet

Tropic of Capricorn
291
everybody passed; everybody got a free pass, whether
he shouted Yes or No. In the midst of this triumphant
demonstration of spiritually destructive osmosis I sat
with my feet planted on the big desk trying to communicate with Zeus the Father of Atlantis and with his lost
progeny, ignorant of the fact that Apollinaire was to die
the day before the Armistice in a military hospital, ignorant of the fact that in his "new writing" he had penned
these indelible lines:
Be forbearing when you compare us
With those who were the perfection of order.
We who everywhere seek adventure,
Weare not your enemies.
We would give you vast and strange domains
Where flowering mystery waits for him would pluck it.

Ignorant that in this same poem he had also written:
Have compassion on us who are always fighting on the frontiers
Of the boundless future,
Compassion for our errors, compassion for our sins.

I was ignorant of the fact that there were men then
living who went by the outlandish names of Blaise Cendrars, Jacques Vache, Louis Aragon, Tristan Tzara,
Rene Crevel, Henri de MontherIant, Andre Breton, Max
Ernst, Georges Grosz; ignorant of the fact that on July
14, 1916, at the Saal Waag, in Zurich, the first Dada
Manifesto had been proclaimed-"manifesto by Monsieur Antipyrine"-that in this strange document it was
stated: "Dada is life without slippers or parallel . . .
severe necessity without discipline or morality and we
spit on humanity." Ignorant of the fact that the Dada
Manifesto of 1918 contained these lines: "I am writing
a manifesto and I want nothing, yet I say certain things,
and I am against manifestoes as a matter of principle, as
I am also against principles .... I write this manifesto to
show that one may perform opposed actions together, in
a single fresh respiration; I am against action; for continual contradiction, for affirmation also, I am neither for
nor against and I do not explain for I hate good sense ....

292

Tropic of Capricorn
There is a literature which does not reach the voracious
mass. The work of creators, sprung from a real necessity
on the part of the author, and for himself. Consciousness
of a supreme egotism where the stars waste away. . . .
Each page must explode, either with the profoundly serious and heavy, the whirlwind, dizziness, the new, the
eternal, with the overwhelming hoax, with an enthusiasm
for principles or with the mode of typography. On the
one hand a staggering fleeing world, affianced to the
jinglebells of the infernal gamut, on the other hand: new
beings . ... "
Thirty-two years later and I am still saying Yes! Yes,
Monsieur Antipyrine! Yes, Monsieur Tristan Bustanoby
Tzara! Yes, Monsieur Max Ernst Geburt! Yes! Monsieur
Rene Crevel, now that you are dead by suicide, yes, the
world is crazy, you were right. Yes, Monsiuer Blaise Cendrars, you were right to kill. Was it the day of the Armistice that you brought out your little book-J'ai tui? Yes,
"keep on my lads, humanity . . . ." Yes, Jacques Vache,
quite right-"Art ought to be something funny and a
trifle boring." Yes, my dear dead Vachc, how right you
were and how funny and how boring and touching and
tender and true: "It is of the essence of symbols to be
symbolic." Say it again, from the other world! Have you
a megaphone up there? Have you found all the arms and
legs that were blown off during the melee? Can you put
them together again? Do you remember the meeting at
Nantes in 1916 with Andre Breton? Did you celebrate the
birth of hysteria together? Had he told you, Breton, that
there was only the marvelous and nothing but the marvelous and that the marvelous is always marvelous-and
isn't it marvelous to hear it again, even though your ears
are stopped? I want to include here, before passing on,
a little portrait of you by Emile Bouvier for the benefit
of my Brooklyn friends who may not have recognized me
then but who will now, I am sure ....
" ... he was not all crazy, and could explain his conduct
when occasion required. His actions, none the less, were

Tropic of Capricorn
293
as disconcerting as Jarry's worst eccentricities. For example, he was barely out of hospital when he hired himself out as a stevedore, and he thereafter passed his afternoons in unloading coal on the quays along the Loire.
In the evening, on the other hand, he would make the
rounds of the cafes and cinemas, dressed in the height of
fashion and with many variations of costume. What was
more, in time of war, he would strut forth sometimes
in the uniform of a lieutenant of hussars, sometimes in
that of an English officer, of an aviator or of a surgeon.
In civil life, he was quite as free and easy, thinking
nothing of introducing Breton under the name of Andre
Salmon, while he took unto himself, but quite without
vanity, the most wonderful titles and adventures. He
never said good morning nor good evening nor good-by,
and never took any notice of letters, except those from
his mother, when he had to ask for money. He did not
recognize his best friends from one day to another...."
Do you recognize me, lads? Just a Brooklyn boy communicating with the red-haired albinos of the Zuni region. Making ready, with feet on the desk, to write
"strong works, works forever incomprehensible," as my
dead comrades were promising. These "strong works"would you recognize them if you saw them? Do you know
that of the millions who were killed not one death was necessary to produce "the strong work?" New beings, yes!
We have need of new beings still. We can do without the
telephone, without the automobile, without the highclass bombers-but we can't do without new beings. If
Atlantis was submerged beneath the sea, if the Sphinx
and the Pyramids remain an eternal riddle, it is because
there were no more new beings being born. Stop the
machine a moment! Flash back! Flash hack to 1914, to
the Kaiser sitting on his horse. Keep him sitting there
a moment with his withered arm clutching the bridle
rein. Look at his mustache! Look at his h:.mghty air of
pride and arrogance! Look at his cannon fodder lined
up in strictest discipline, all ready to obey the word, to

294

Tropic of Capricorn

get shot, to get disemboweled, to be burned in quicklime. Hold it a moment, now, and look at the other side:
the defenders of our great and glorious civilizatiun, the
men who will war to end war. Change their clothes,
change their uniforms, change horses, change flags,
change terrain. My, is that the Kaiser I see on a white
horse? Are those the terrihle Huns? And where is Big
Bertha? Oh, I see-I thought it was pointing toward
Notre-Dame? Humanity, me lads, humanity always
marching in the van .... And the strong works we were
speaking of? \Vhere are the strong works? Call up the
Western Union and dispatch a messenger fleet of foot
-not a cripple or an octogenarian, but a young one! Ask
him to find the great work and bring it back. We need
it. We have a brand-new museum ready waiting to house
it-and cellophane and the Dewey decimal system to file
it. All we need is the name of the author. Even if he has
no name, even if it is an anonymous work, we won't kick.
Even if it has a little mustard gas in it we won't mind.
Bring it back dead or alive-there's a twenty-five thousand dollar reward for the man who fetches it.
And if they tell you that these things had to be, that
things could not have happened otherwise, that France
did her best and Germany her best and that little Liberia
and little Ecuador and all the other allies also did their
best, and that since the war everybody has been doing
his best to patch things up or to forget, tell them that
their best is not good enough, that we don't want to hear
any more this logic of "doing the hest one can," tell them
we don't want the best of a bad bargain, we don't believe
in bargains good or bad, nor in war memorials. We don't
want to hear about the logic of events-or any kind of
logiC. "Je ne parle pas logique," said Montherlant, "ie
parle generosite." I don't think you heard it very well,
since it was in French. I'll repeat it for you, in the Queen's
own language: "I'm not talking logic, I'm talking generosity." That's bad English, as the Queen herself might
speak it, but it's clear. Generosity-do you hear? You

295
Tropic of Capricorn
never practice it, any of you, either in peace or in war.
You don't know the meaning of the word. You think to
supply guns and ammunition to the winning side is generosity; you think sending Red Cross nurses to the front,
or the Salvation Army, is generosity. You think a bonus
twenty years too late is generosity; you think a little pension and a wheel chair is generosity; you think if you give
a man his old job back it's generosity. You don't know
what the fucking word means, you bastards! To be generous is to say Yes before the man even opens his mouth.
To say Yes you have to be first a surrealist or a Dadaist,
because you have understood what it means to say No.
You can even say Yes and No at the same time, provided
you do more than is expected of you. Be a stevedore in
the daytime and a Beau Brummel in the nighttime. Wear
any uniform so long as it's not yours. When you write
your mother ask her to cough up a little dough so that
you may have a clean rag to wipe your ass with. Don't be
disturbed if you see your neighbor going after his wife
with a knife: he probably has good reason to go after
her, and if he kills her you may be sure he had the satisfaction of knowing why he did it. If you're trying to
improve your mind, stop it! There's no improving the
mind. Look to your heart and gizzard-the brain is in
the heart.
Ah yes, if 1 had known then that these birds existedCendrars, Vach(\ Grosz, Ernst, Apollinaire-if I had
known that then, if I had known that in their own way
they were thinking exactly the same things as I was, I
think I'd have blown up. Yes, I think I'd have gone off
like a homb. But I was ignorant. Ignorant of the fact
that almost fifty years previously a crazy Jew in South
America had givcn birth to such startlingly marvelous
phra~es as "doubt's duck with the vermouth lips" or "I
have scen a fig eat an onager"-that about the same time
a Frenchman, who was only a boy, was saying: "Find
flowers that are chairs" ... "my hunger is the hlack air's
hits" ... "his heart, amber and spunk." Maybe at the same

Tropic of Capricorn
time, or thereabouts, while J arry was saying "in eating the
sound of moths," and Apollinaire repeating affer him
"near a gentleman swallowing himself," and Breton murmuring softly "night's pedals move uninterruptedly,"
perhaps "in the air beautiful and black" which the lone
Jew had found under the Southern Cross another man,
also lonely and exiled and of Spanish origin, was preparing to put down on paper these memorable words: "I seek,
all in all, to console myself for my exile, for my exile from
eternity, for that unearthing (destierro) which 1 am fond
of referring to as my unheavening.... At present, I think
that the best way to write this novel is to tell how it
should be written. It is the novel of the novel, the creation
of creation. Or God of God, Deus de Deo." Had 1 known
he was going to add this, this which follows, I would
surely have gone off like a bomb . . . . "By being crazy
is understood losing one's reason. Reason, but not the
truth, for there are madmen who speak truths while
others keep silent ... ," Speaking of these things, speaking of the war and the war dead, I cannot refrain from
mentioning that some twenty years later I ran across
this in French by a Frenchman. 0 miracles of miracles! "il
faut Ie dire, il y a des cadavres que Ie ne respecte qu'a
moitiC." Yes, yes, and again yes! 0, let us do some rash
thing-for the sheer pleasure of it! Let us do something
live and magnificent, even if destructive! Said the mad
cobbler: "All things are generated out of the grand
mystery, and proceed out of one degree into another.
Whatever goes forward in its degree, the same receives
no abominate."
Everywhere in all times the same ovarian world announcing itself. Yet also, parallel with these announcements, these prophecies, these gynecological manifestoes,
parallel and contemporaneous with them new totem poles,
new taboos, new war dances. While into the air so black
and beautiful the brothers of man, the poets, the diggers
of the future, were spitting their magic lines, in this
same time, 0 profound and perplexing riddle, other men
296

Tropic of Capricorn
297
were saying: "Won't you please come and take a job in our
ammunition factory. We promise you the highest wages,
the most sanitary and hygienic conditions. The work is
so easy that even a child could do it." And if you had a
sister, a wife, a mother, an aunt, as long as she could
manipulate her hands, as long as she could prove that she
had no bad habits, you were invited to bring her or them
along to the ammunition works. If you were shy of soiling your hands they would explain to you very gently
and intelligently just how these delicate mechanisms
operated, what they did when they exploded, and why you
must not waste even your garbage because ... et ipso facto
e pluribus unum. The thing that impressed me, going the
rounds in search of work, was not so much that they made
me vomit every day (assuming I had been lucky enough
to put something into my guts), but that they always
demanded to know if you were of good habits, if you
were steady, if you were sober, if you were industrious, if
you had ever worked before and if not why not. Even
the garbage, which I had gotten the job of collecting for
the municipality, was precious to them, the killers. Standing knee deep in the muck, the lowest of the low, a
coolie, an outcast, still I was part of the death racket. I
tried reading the Inferno at night, but it was in English
and English is no language for a Catholic work. "Whatever enters in itself into its selfhood, viz., into its own lubet .... " [,ubet! If I had had a word like that to conjure
with then, how peacefully I might have gone about my
garbage collecting! How sweet, in the night, when Dante
is out of reach and the hands smcll of muck and slime, to
take unto oneself this word which in the Dutch means
"lust" and in Latin "lubitum" or the divine bencplacitum.
Standing knee deep in the garbage I said one day what
Meister Eckhart is reported to have said long ago: "I truly
have need of God, but God has need of me too." There was
a job waiting for me in the slaughterhouse, a nice liltle job
of sorting entrails, but I couldn't raise the fare to get
to Chicago. I remained in Brooklyn, in my own palace of

298

Tropic of Capricorn
entrails, and turned round and round on the plinth of the
labyrinth. I remained at home seeking the "germinal
vesicle," "the dragon castle on the Hoor of the sea," "the
Heavenly Heart," "the field of the square inch," "the house
of the square foot," "the dark pass," "the space of former
Heaven." I remained locked in, a prisoner of Forculus, god
of the door, of Cardea, god of the hinge, and of Limentius,
god of the threshold. I spoke only with their sisters, the
three goddesses called Fear, Pallor and Fever. I saw
no "Asian luxury," as had St. Augustine, or as he imagined
he had. Nor did I see "the two twins born, so near together,
that the second held the first by the heel." But I saw a
street called Myrtle Avenue, which runs from Borough
Hall to Fresh Pond Road, and down this street no saint
ever walked (else it would have crumbled), down this
street no miracle ever passed, nor any poet, nor any
species of human genius, nor did any Hower ever grow
there, nor did the sun strike it squarely, nor did the rain
ever wash it. For the genuine Inferno which I had to
postpone for twenty years I give you Myrtle Avenue, one
of the innumerable bridlepaths ridden by iron monsters
which lead to the heart of America's emptiness. If you
have only seen Essen or Manchester or Chicago or Levallois-Perret or Glasgow or Hoboken or Canarsie or Bayonne
you have seen nothing of the magnificent emptiness of
progress and enlightenment. Dear reader, you must see
Myrtle Avenue before you die, if only to realize how far
into the future Dante saw. You must believe me that on
this street, neither in the houses which line it, nor the
cobblestones which pave it, nor the elevated structure
which cuts it atwain, neither in any creature that bears a
name and lives thereon, neither in any animal, bird or
insect passing through it to slaughter or already slaughtered, is there hope of <1ubet," "sublimate" or "abominate."
It is a street not of sorrow, for sorrow would be human and
recognizable, but of sheer emptiness: it is emptier than
the most extinct volcano, emptier than a vacuum, emptier
than the word God in the mouth of an unbeliever.

Tropic of Capricorn
299
I said I did not know a word of French then, and it is
true, but I was just on the brink of making a great discovery, a discovery which would compensate for the
emptiness of Myrtle Avenue and the whole American
continent. I had almost reached the shore of that great
French ocean which goes by the name of Elie Faure, an
ocean which the French themselves had hardly navigated
and which they had mistaken, it seems, for an inland sea.
Reading him even in such a withered language as English
has become I could see that this man who had described
the glory of the human race on his cuff was Father Zeus
of Atlantis whom I had been searching for. An ocean I
called him, but he was also a world symphony. He was
the first musician the French have produced; he was
exalted and controlled, an anomaly, a Gallic Beethoven,
a great physician of the soul, a giant lightning rod. He
was also a sunflower turning with the sun, always drinking in the light, always radiant and blazing with vitality.
He was neither an optimist nor a pessimist, any more than
one can say that the ocean is beneficent or malevolent.
He was a believer in the human race. He added a cubit
to the race, by giving it back its dignity, its strength, its
need of creation. He saw everything as creation, as solar
joy. He didn't record it in orderly fashion, he recorded it
musically. He was indifferent to the fact that the French
have a tin ear-he was orchestrating for the whole world
simultaneously. What was my amazement then, when
some years later I arrived in France, to find that there
were no monuments erected to him, no streets named after
him. Worse, during eight whole years I never once heard
a Frenchman mention his name. He had to die in order
to be put in the pantheon of French deities-and how
sickly must they look, his deific contemporaries, in the
presence of this radiant sun! If he had not he en a physician, and thus permitted to earn a livelihood, what might
not have happened to him! Perhaps another ahle hand
for the garbage trucks! The man who made the Egyptian
frescoes come alive in all their flaming colors, this man

300
Tropic of Capricorn
could just as well have starved to death for all the public
cared. But he was an ocean and the critics drowned in
this ocean, and the editors and the publishers and the
public too. It will take aeons for him to dry up, to evaporate. It will take about as long as for the French to acquire
a musical ear.
If there had been no music I would have gone to the
madhouse like Nijinsky. (It was just about this time that
they discovered that Nijinsky was mad. He had been found
giving his money away to the poor-always a bad sign!)
My mind was filled with wonderful treasures, my taste
was sharp and exigent, my muscles were in excellent condition, my appetite was strong, my wind sound. I had
nothing to do except to improve myself, and I was going
crazy with the improvements I made every day. Even if
there were a job for me to fill I couldn't accept it, because
what I needed was not work but a life more abundant. I
couldn't waste time being a teacher, a lawyer, a physician,
a politician or anything else that society had to offer. It
was easier to accept menial jobs because it left my mind
free. After I was fired from the garbage trucks I remember
taking up with an Evangelist who seemed to have great
confidence in me. I was a sort of usher, collector and
private secretary. He brought to my attention the whole
world of Indian philosophy. Evenings when I was free I
would meet with my friends at the home of Ed Bauries
who lived in an aristocratic section of Brooklyn. Ed
Bauries was an eccentric pianist who couldn't read a note.
He had a bosom pal called George Neumiller with whom
he often played duets. Of the dozen or so who congregated
at Ed Bauries' home nearly everyone of us could play the
piano. We were all between twenty-one and twenty-five
at the time; we never brought any women along and we
hardly ever mentioned the subject of woman during these
sessions. We had plenty of beer to drink and a whole big
house at our disposal, for it was in the summertime, when
his folks were away, that we held our gatherings. Though
there were a dozen other homes like this which I

Tropic of Capricorn
301
could speak of, I mention Ed Bauries' place because it was
typical of something I have never encountered elsewhere
in the world. Neither Ed Bauries himself nor any of his
friends suspected the sort of books I was reading then nor
the things which were occupying my mind. When I blew
in I was greeted enthusiastically-as a clown. It was expected of me to start things going. There were about four
pianos scattered throughout the big house, to say nothing
of the celesta, the organ, guitars, mandolins, fiddles and
what not. Ed Bauries was a nut, a very affable, sympathetic and generous one too. The sandwiches were always
of the best, the beer plentiful, and if you wanted to stay
the night he could fix you up on a divan just as pretty
as you liked. Coming down the street-a big, wide street,
somnolent, luxurious, a street altogether out of the world
-I could hear the tinkle of the piano in the big parlor on
the first Hoor. The windows were wide open and as I got
into range I could see Al Burger or Connie Grimm sprawling in their big easy chairs, their feet on the window sill,
and big beer mugs in their hands. Probably George Neumiller was at the piano, improvising, his shirt peeled off
and a big cigar in his mouth. They were talking and laughing while George fooled around, searching for an opening.
Soon as he hit a theme he would call for Ed and Ed would
sit beside him, studying it out in his unprofessional way,
then suddenly pouncing on the keys and giving tit for tat.
Maybe when I'd walk in somebody would be trying to
stand on his hands in the next room-there were three
big rooms on the first Hoor which opened one on to the
other and back of them was a garden, an enormous garden, with flowers, fruit trees, grape vines, statues, fountains and everything. Sometimes when it was too hot they
brought the celesta or the little organ into the garden
(and a keg of beer, naturally) and we'd sit around in the
dark laughing and singing-until the neighbors forced us
to stop. Sometimes the music was going on all through
the house at once, on every Hoor. It was really crazy
then, intoxicating, and if there had been women around

302
Tropic of Capricorn
it would have spoiled it. Sometimes it was like watching
an endurance contest-Ed Bauries and George Neumiller
at the grand piano, each trying to wear the other out,
changing places without stopping, crossing hands, sometimes falling away to plain chopsticks, sometimes going
like a Wurlitzer. And always something to laugh about
all the time. Nobody asked what you did, what you
thought about, and so forth. When you arrived at Ed
Bauries' place you checked your identification marks.
Nobody gave a fuck what size hat you wore or how
much you paid for it. It was entertainment from the word
go-and the sandwiches and the drinks were on the house.
And when things got going, three or four pianos at once,
the celesta, the organ, the mandolins, the guitars, beer
running through the halls, the mantelpieces full of sandwiches and cigars, a breeze coming through from the
garden, George Neumiller stripped to the waist and modulating like a fiend, it was better than any show I've ever
seen put on and it didn't cost a cent. In fact, with the
dressing and undressing that went on, I always came
away with a little extra change and a pocketful of good
cigars. I never saw any of them between times~nly
Monday nights throughout the summer, when Ed held
open house.
Standing in the garden listening to the din I could
scarcely believe that it was the same city. And if I had
ever opened my trap and exposed my guts it would have
been all over. Not one of these bozos amounted to anything, as the world reckons. They were just good eggs,
children, fellows who liked music and who liked a good
time. They liked it so much that sometimes we had to
call the ambulance. Like the night Al Burger twisted
his knee while showing us one of his stunts. Everybody
so happy, so full of music, so lit up, that it took him an
hour to persuade us he was really hurt. We try to carry
him to a hospital but it's too far away and besides, it's
such a good joke, that we drop him now and then and
that makes him yell like a maniac. So finally we telephone

Tropic of Capricorn
303
for help from a police box, and the ambulance comes and
the patrol wagon too. They take Al to the hospital and the
rest of us to the hoosegow. And on the way we sing at the
top of our lungs. And after we're bailed out we're still
feeling good and the cops are feeling good too, and so
we all adjourn to the basement where there's a cracked
piano and we go on singing and playing. All this is like
some period B.C. in history which ends not because there's
a war but because even a joint like Ed Bauries' is not
immune to the poison seeping in from the periphery. Because every street is becoming a Myrtle Avenue, because
emptiness is filling the whole continent from the Atlantic
to the Pacific. Because, after a certain time, you can't
enter a single house throughout the length and breadth of
the land and find a man standing on his hands singing. It
just ain't done any more. And there ain't two pianos
going at once anywhere, nor are there two men anywhere willing to play all night just for the fun of it. Two
men who can play like Ed Bauries and George Neumiller are hired by the radio or the movies and only a
thimbleful of their talent is used and the rest is thrown
into the garbage can. Nobody knows, judging from public
spectacles, what talent is disposable in the great American
continent. Later on, and that's why I used to sit around
on doorsteps in Tin Pan Alley, I would while away the
afternoons listening to the professionals mugging it out.
That was good too, but it was different. There was no fun
in it, it was a perpetual rehearsal to bring in dollars and
cents. Any man in America who had an ounce of humor
in him was saving it up to put himself across. There were
some wonderful nuts among them too, men I'll never
f()rget, men who left no name behind them, and they were
the best we produced. I remember an anonymous performer on the Keith circuit who was probably the craziest
man in America, and perhaps he got fifty dollars a week
for it. Three times a day, every day in thc week, he came
out and held the audience spellbound. He didn't have an
act-he just improvised. He never repeated his jokes or

304

Tropic of Capricorn

his stunts. He gave himself prodigally, and I don't think
he was a hop fiend either. He was one of those guys who
are born in the com crakes and the energy and the joy in
him was so fierce that nothing could contain it. He could
play any instrument and dance any step and he could
invent a story on the spot and string it out till the bell
rang. He was not only satisfied to do his own act but he
would help the others out. He would stand in the wings
and wait for the right moment to break into the other
guy's act. He was the whole show and it was a show that
contained more therapy than the whole arsenal of modem
science. They ought to have paid a man like this the
wages which the President of the United States receives.
They ought to sack the President of the United States and
the whole Supreme Court and set up a man like this as
ruler. This man could cure any disease on the calendar.
He was the kind of guy, moreover, as would do it for
nothing, if you asked him to. This is the type of man which
empties the insane asylums. He doesn't propose a curehe makes everybody crazy. Between this solution and a
perpetual state of war, which is civilization, there is only
one other way out-and that is the road we will all take
eventually because everything else is doomed to failure.
The type that represents this one and only way bears a
head with six faces and eight eyes; the head is a revolving
lighthouse, and instead of a triple crown at the top, as
there might well be, there is a hole which ventilates what
few brains there are. There is very little brain, as I say, because there is very little baggage to carry about, because
living in full consciousness, the gray matter passes off into
light. This is the only type of man one can place above
the comedian; he neither laughs nor weeps, he is beyond
suffering. We don't recognize him yet because he is too
close to us, right under the skin, as a matter of fact. When
the comedian catches us in the guts this man, whose name
might be God, I suppose, if he had to use a name, speaks
up. When the whole human race is rocking with laughter,
laughing so hard that it hurts, I mean, everybody then

Tropic of Capricorn
305
has his foot on the path. In that moment everybody can
just as well be God as anything else. In that moment you
have the annihilation of dual, triple, quadruple and multiple consciousness, which is what makes the gray matter
coil up in dead folds at the top of the skull. At that moment
you can really feel the hole in the top of the head; you
know that you once had an eye there and that this eye
was capable of taking in everything at once. The eye is
gone now, but when you laugh until the tears How and
your bellyaches, you are really opening the skylight and
ventilating the brains. Nobody can persuade you at that
moment to take a gun and kill your enemy; neither can
anybody persuade you to open a fat tome containing the
metaphysical truths of the world and read it. If you know
what freedom means, absolute freedom and not a relative
freedom, then you must recognize that this is the nearest
to it you will ever get. If I am against the condition of the
world it is not because I am a moralist-it is because I
want to laugh more. I don't say that God is one grand
laugh: I say that you've got to laugh hard before you can
get anywhere near God. My whole aim in life is to get
near to God, that is, to get nearer to myself. That's why it
doesn't matter to me what road I take. But music is very
important. Music is a tonic for the pineal gland. Music
isn't Bach or Beethoven; music is the can opener of the
soul. It makes you terribly quiet inside, makes you aware
that there's a roof to your being.
The stabbing horror of life is not contained in calamities
and disasters, because these things wake one up and one
gets very familiar and intimate with them and finally
they become tame again ... no, it is more like heing in a
hotel room in Hoboken, let us say, and just enough money
in one's pocket for another meal. You are in a city that
you never expect to be in again and you have only to pass
the night in your hotel room, but it takes all the courage
and pluck you possess to stay in that room. There must
be a good reason why certain cities, certain places, inspire
such loathing and dread. There must be some kind of

Tropic of Capricorn
perpetual murder going on in these places. The people
are of the same raee as you, they go about their business
as people do anywhere, they build the same sort of
house, no better, no worse, they have the same system
of education, the same currency, the same newspapersand yet they are absolutely different from the other people
you know, and the whole atmosphere is different, and the
rhythm is different and the tension is different. It's almost
like looking at yourself in another incarnation. You know,
with a most disturbing certitude, that what governs life is
not money, not politics, not religion, not training, not race,
not language, not customs, but something else, something
you're trying to throttle all the time and which is really
throttling you, because otherwise you wouldn't be terrified all of a sudden and wonder how you were going to
escape. Some cities you don't even have to pass a night
in-just an hour or two is enough to unnerve you. I
think of Bayonne that way. I came on it in the night with
a few addresses that had been given me. I had a brief
case under my arm with a prospectus of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica. I was supposed to go under cover of dark and
sell the bloody encyclopedia to some poor devils who
wanted to improve themselves. If I had been dropped off
at Helsingfors I couldn't have felt more ill at ease than
walking the streets of Bayonne. It wasn't an American
city to me. It wasn't a city at all, but a huge octopus
wriggling in the dark. The first door I came to looked
so forbidding I didn't even bother to knock; I went like
that to several addresses before I could summon the
courage to knock. The first face I took a look at frightened
the shit out of me. I don't mean timidity or embarrassment
-I mean fear. It was the face of a hod carrier, an ignorant
mick who would as lief fell you with an ax as spit in
your eye. I pretended I had the wrong name and hurried
on to the next address. Each time the door opened I saw
another monster. And then I came at last to a poor simp
who reany wanted to improve himself and that broke me
down. I felt truly ashamed of myself, of my country, my

306

Tropic of Capricorn
307
race, my epoch. I had a devil of a time persuading him
not to buy the damned encyclopedia. He asked me irmocently what then had brought me to his home-and without a minute's hesitation I told him an astounding lie, a lie
which was later to prove a great truth. I told him I was
only pretending to sell the encyclopedia in order to meet
people and write about them. That interested him enormously, even more than the encyclopedia. He wanted to
know what I would write about him, if I could say. It's
taken me twenty years to answer that question, but here
it is. If you would still like to know, John Doe of the
City of Bayonne, this is it. ... lowe you a great deal
because after that lie I told you I left your house and I
tore up the prospectus furnished me by the Encyclopaedia
Britannica and I threw it in the gutter. I said to myself
I will never again go to people under false pretenses
even if it is to give them the Holy Bible. I will never
again sell anything, even if I have to starve. I am going
home now and I will sit down and really write about
people. And if anybody knocks at my door to sell me
something I will invite him in and say "why are you doing
this?" And if he says it is because he has to make a living
I will offer him what money I have and beg him once
again to think what he is doing. I want to prevent as
many men as possible from pretending that they have to
do this or that because they must earn a living. It is not
true. One can starve to death-it is much better. Every
man who voluntarily starves to death jams another cog
in the automatic process. I would rather see a man take
a gun and kill his neighbor, in order to get the food he
needs, than keep up the automatic proccss hy pretending that he has to earn a living. That's what I want to say,
Mr. John Doe.
I pass on. Not the stabbing horror of disaster and calamity, I say, but the automatic throwback, the stark panorama of the soul's atavistic struggle. A hridge in North
Carolina, near the Tennessee border. Coming ont of lush
tobacco fields, low cabins everywhere and the smell of

308

Tropic of Capricorn

fresh wood burning. The day passed in a thick lake of
waving green. Hardly a soul in sight. Then suddenly a
clearing and I'm over a big gulch spanned by a rickety
wooden bridge. This is the end of the world! How in God's
name I got here and why I'm here I don't know. How am
I going to eat? And if I atc the biggest meal imaginable I
would still be sad, frightfully sad. I don't know where to
go from here. This bridge is the end, the end of me, the
end of my known world. This bridge is insanity: there is
no reason why it should stand there and no reason why
people should cross it. I refuse to budge another step, I
balk at crossing that crazy bridge. Nearby is a low wall
which I lie against trying to think what to do and where to
go. I realize quietly what a terribly civilized person I amthe need I have for people, conversation, books, theatcr,
music, cafes, drinks, and so forth. It's terrible to be civilized, because when you come to the end of the world you
have nothing to support the terror of loneliness. To be civilized is to have complicated needs. And a man, when he is
full blown, shouldn't need a thing. All day I had been
moving through tobacco fields, and growing more and
more uneasy. What have I to do with all this tobacco?
What am I heading into? People everywhere are producing crops and goods for other people-and I am like
a ghost sliding between all this unintelligible activity.
I want to find some kind of work, but I don't want to be
a part of this thing, this infernal automatic process. I
pass through a town and I look at the ne\vspaper telling
what is happening in that town and its environs. It seems
to me that nothing is happening, that the clock has stopped
but that these poor devils are unaware of it. I have a
strong intuition, moreover, that there is murder in the
air. I can smell it. A few days back I passed the imaginary
line which divides the North from the South. I wasn't
aware of it until a darky came along driving a team;
when he gets alongside of me he stands up in his seat and
doffs his hat most respectfully. He had snow-white hair
and a face of great dignity. That made me feel horrible: it

Tropic of Capricorn
309
made me realize that there are still slaves. This man had
to tip his hat to me-because I was of the white race.
Whereas I should have tipped my hat to him! I should
have saluted him as a survivor of all the vile tortures the
white men have inflicted on the black. I should have
tipped my hat first, to let him know that I am not a part of
this system, that I am begging forgiveness for all my white
brethren who are too ignorant and cruel to make an honest
overt gesture. Today I feel their eyes on me all the time;
they watch from behind doors, from behind trees. All very
quiet, very peaceful, seemingly. Nigger never say nuthin'.
Nigger he hum all time. White man think nigger learn his
place. Nigger learn nuthin'. Nigger wait. Nigger watch
everything white man do. Nigger no say nuthin', no sir, no
siree. BUT JUST THE SAME THE NIGGER IS KILLING THE
WHITE MAN OFF! Every time the nigger looks at a white
man he's putting a dagger through him. It's not the heat,
it's not the hookworm, it's not the bad crops that's killing
the South off-it's the nigger! The nigger is giving off a
poison, whether he means to or not. The South is coked
and doped with nigger poison.
Pass on .... Sitting outside a barber shop by the James
River. I'll be here just ten minutes, while I take a load
off my fcet. There's a hotel and a few stores opposite me;
it all tails off quickly, ends like it began-for no reason.
From the bottom of my soul I pity the poor devils who
are born and die here. There is no earthly reason why this
place should exist. There is no reason why anybody should
cross the street and get himself a shave and haircut, or
even a sirloin steak. Men, buy yourselves a gun and kill
each other off! Wipe this street out of my mind foreverit hasn't an ounce of meaning in it.
The same day, after nightfall. Still plugging on, digging deeper and deeper into the South. I'm coming away
from a little town by a short road leading to the highway.
Suddenly I hear footsteps behind me and soon a young
man passes me on the trot, breathing heavily and cursing with all his might. I stand there a moment, wondering

310

Tropic of Capricorn

what it's all about. I hear another man coming on the
trot; he's an older man and he's carrying a gun. He
breathes fairly easy, and not a word out of his trap. Just
as he comes in view the moon breaks through the clouds
and I catch a good look at his facc. He's a manhunter. I
stand back as the others corne up behind him. I'm trembling with fear. It's the sheriff, I hear a man say, and
he's going to get him. Horrible. J move on toward the highway waiting to hear the shot that will end it all. I hear
nothing-just this heavy breathing of the young man
and the quick, eager steps of the mob following behind
the sheriff. Just as I get near the main road a man steps
out of the darkness and comes over to me very quietly.
"Where yer goin', son?" he says, quiet like and almost
tenderly. I stammer out something about the next town.
"Better stay right here, son," he says. T didn't say another
word. I let him take me baek into town and hand me over
like a thief. I lay on the floor with about fifty other blokes.
I had a marvelous sexual dream which ended with the
guillotine.
I plug on .... It's just as hard to go baek as to go forward. I don't have the feeling of being an Americar citizen any more. The part of America' I came from, where I~
had some rights, where I felt free, is so far behind me that'
it's beginning to get fuzzy in my memory. I feel as
though someone's got a gun against my back all the time.
Keep moving, is an I seem to hear. If a man talks to me I
try not to seem too intelligent. I try to pretend that I am
vitally interested in the crops, in the weather, in the
elections. If I stand and stop they look at me, whites and
blacks-they look me through and through as though I
were juicy and edible. I've got to walk another thousand
miles or so as though I had a deep purpose, as though I
were really going somewhere. I've got to look sort of grateful, too, that nobody has yet taken a fancy to plug me. It's
depressing and exhilarating at the same time. You're a
marked man-and yet nobody pulls the trigger. They let

Tropic of Capricorn
311
you walk unmolested right into the Gulf of Mexico where
you can drown yourself.
Yes sir, I reached the Gulf of Mexico and I walked
right into it and drowned myself. I did it gratis. When
they fished the corpse out they found it was marked
F.O.B. Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn; it was returned C.O.D.
When I was asked later why I had killed myself I could
only think to say-because I wanted to electrify the
cosmos! I meant by that a very simple thing-The
Delaware, Lackawanna and Western had been electrified,
the Seaboard Air Line had been electrified, but the soul
of man was still in the covered wagon stage. I was born in
the midst of civilization and I accepted it very naturally
-what else was there to do? But the joke was that
nobody else was taking it seriously. I was the only man in
the community who was truly civilized. There was no
place for me-as yet. And yet the books I read, the music
I heard assured me that there were other men in the world
like myself. I had to go and drown myself in the Gulf of
Mexico in order to have an excuse for continuing this
pseudo-civilized existence. I had to delouse myself of
my spiritual body, as it were.
When I woke up to the fact that as far as the scheme
of things goes I was less than dirt I really became quite
happy. I quickly lost all sense of responsibility. And if it
weren't for the fact that my friends got tired of lending me
money I might have gone on indefinitely pissing the time
away. The world was like a museum to' me; I saw nothing to do but eat into this marvelous chocolate layer
cake which the men of the past had dumped on our hands.
It annoyed everybody to see the way I elljoyed myself.
Their logic was that art was very beautiflll, oh yes, indeed,
but you must work for a Jiving and then you will find that
you are too tired to think about art. But it was when I
threatened to add a layer or two on my 0\'111 account to
this marvelous chocolate layer cake that they hlew up on
me. That was the finishing touch. That mcant I was
definitely crazy. First I was considered to be a useless

312

Tropic of Capricorn
member of society; then for a time I was found to be a
reckless, happy-go-lucky corpse with a tremendous appetite; now I had become crazy. (Listen, you bastard, ljou
find yourself a job . .. we're through with you!) In a way
it was refreshing, this change of front. I could feel the
wind blowing through the corridors. At least "we" were
no longer becalmed. It was war, and as a corpse I was
just fresh enough to have a little fight left in me. War is
revivifying. War stirs the blood. It was in the midst of
the world war, which I had forgotten about, that this
change of heart took place. I got myself married overnight, to demonstrate to all and sundry that I didn't give
a fuck one way or th,~ other. Getting married was O.K.
in their minds. I remember that, on the strength of the
announcement, I raised five bucks immediately. My friend
MacGregor paid for the license and even paid for the
shave and haircut which he insisted I go through with in
order to get married. They said you couldn't go without
being shaved; I didn't see any reason why you couldn't get
hitched up without a shave and haircut, but since it
didn't cost me anything I submitted to it. It was interesting to see how everybody was eager to contribute something to our maintenance. All of a sudden, just because I
had shown a bit of sense, they came flocking around usand couldn't they do this and couldn't they do that for us?
Of course the assumption was that now I would surely be
going to work, now I would see that life is serious
business. It never occurred to them that I might let my
wife work for me. I was really very decent to her in the
beginning. I wasn't a slave driver. All I asked for was carfare-to hunt for the mythical job-and a little pin money
for cigarettes, movies, et cetera. The important things,
such as books, music albums, gramophones, porterhouse
steaks and such like I found we could get on credit, now
that we were married. The installment plan had been invented expressly for guys like me. The down payment
was easy-the rest I left to Providence. One has to live,
they were always saying. Now, by God, that's what I said

Tropic of Capricorn
313
to myself-One has to live! Live first and pay afterwards.
If I saw an overcoat I liked I went in and bought it. 1
would buy it a little in advance of the season too, to show
that 1 was a serious-minded chap. Shit, I was a married
man and soon I would probably be a father-I was entitled to a winter overcoat at least, no? And when I had
the overcoat I thought of stout shoes to go with it-a pair
of thick cordovans such as 1 had wanted all my life but
never could afford. And when it grew bitter cold and I
was out looking for the job I used to get terribly hungry
sometimes-it's realJy healthy going out like that day
after day prowling about the city in rain and snow and
wind and hail-and so now and then I'd drop in to a
cosy tavern and order myself a juicy porterhouse steak
with onions and french fried potatoes. 1 took out life insurance and accident insurance too-it's important, when
you're married, to do things like that, so they told me.
Supposing I should drop dead one day-what then? I
remember the guy telling me that, in order to clinch his
argument. 1 had already told him 1 would sign up, but
he must have forgotten it. I had said, yes, immediately,
out of force of habit, but as I say, he had evidently overlooked it-or else it was against the code to sign a man
up until you had delivered the full sales talk. Anyway,
I was just getting ready to ask him how long it would
take before you could make a loan on the policy when
he popped the hypothetical question: Supposing you
should drop dead one day-what then? I guess he thought
I was a little off my nut the way I laughed at that. I
laiJghed until the tears rolled down my face. Finally he
said-"I don't see that I said anything so funny." "Well,"
I said, getting serious for a moment, "take a good look
at me. Now tell me, do you think I'm the sort of fellow
who gives a fuck what happens once he's dead?" He was
quite taken aback by this, apparently, because the next
thing he said was: "I don't think that's a very ethical
attitude, Mr. Miller. I'm sure you wouldn't want your
wife to . . ." "Listen," I said, "supposing I told you I

314

Tropic of Capricorn
don't give a fuck what happens to my wife when 1 diewhat then?" And since this seemed to injure his ethical
susceptibilities still more 1 added for good measure-"As
far as I'm concerned you don't have to pay the insurance
when 1 croak-I'm only doing this to make you feel good.
I'm trying to help the world along, don't you see? You've
got to live, haven't you? Well, I'm just putting a little food
in your mouth, that's all. If you have anything else to
sell, trot it out. 1 buy anything that sounds good. I'm a
buyer not a seller. 1 like to see people looking happythat's why 1 buy things. Now listen, how much did you
say that would come to per week? Fifty-seven cents?
Fine. What's fifty-seven cents? You see that piano-that
comes to about thirty-nine cents a week, 1 think. Look
around you ... everything you see costs so much a week.
You say, if I should die, what then? Do you suppose I'm
going to die on all these people? That would be a hell
of a joke. No, I'd rather have them come and take the
things away-if 1 can't pay for them, 1 mean . . . ." I Ie
was fidgeting about and there was a rather glassy stare in
his eye, 1 thought. "Excuse me," 1 said, interrupting myself, "but wouldn't you like to have a little drink-to wet
the policy?" He said he thought not, but 1 insisted, and
besides, 1 hadn't signed the papers yet and my urine would
have to be examined and approved of and all sorts of
stamps and seals would have to be affixed-I knew all
that crap by heart-so 1 thought we might have a little
snifter first and in that way protract the serious business,
because honestly, buying insurance or buying anything
was a real pleasure to me and gave me the feeling that 1
was just like every other citizen, a rrwn, what! and
not a monkey. So 1 got out a bottle of sherry (which is
all that was allowed me) and 1 poured out a generous
glassful for him, thinking to myself that it was fine to
see the sherry going because maybe the next time they'd
buy something better for me. "I used to sell insurance too
once upon a time," 1 said, raising the glass to my lips.
"Sure, 1 can sell anything. The only thing is-I'm lazy.

Tropic of Capricorn
315
Take a day like today-isn't it nicer to be indoors, reading
a book or listening to the phonograph? \Vhy should I go
out and hustle for an insurance company? If I had been
working today you wouldn't have caught me in-isn't that
so? No, I think it's better to take it easy and help people
out when they come along, .. like with you, for instance.
It's much nicer to buy things than to sell them, don't
you think? If you have the money, of course! In this
house we don't need much money. As I was saying, the
piano comes to about thirty-nine cents a week, or fortytwo maybe, and the .... "
"Excuse me, Mr. Miller," he interrupted, "but don't
you think we ought to get clown to signing thesc papers?"
"Why, of course." I said cheerfully. "Did you bring
them all with you? \Vhich one do you think we ought to
sign first? By the way, you haven't got a fountain pen
you'd like to sell me, have you?"
"J nst sign right here," he said, pretending to ignore
my remarks. "And here, that's it. Now then, Mr. Miller,
I think I'll say good day-and you'll be hearing from the
company in a few days."
"Better make it sooner," I remarked, leading him to
the door, "because I might change my mind and commit
suicide."
"Why, of course, why yes, Mr. Miller, certainly we
will. Good day now, good day!"
Of course the installment plan breaks down eventllally,
even if you're an assiduous buyer such as I was. I certainly
did my hest to keep the manufacturers and the advertising
men of America busy, but they were disappointed in me
it seems. Everybody was disappointed in me. But there
was one man in particular who was morc disappointed in
me than anyone and that was a man who had really made
an effort to befriend me and whom I had let down. I
think of him and the way he took me on as his assistantso readily and graciously-because later, when I was
hiring and firing like a forty-two horse caliher revolver,
I was betrayed right and left myself, but by that time I

316

Tropic of Capricorn
had become so inoculated that it didn't matter a damn.
But this man had gone out of his way to show me that
he believed in me. He was the editor of a catalogue for a
great mail order house. It was an enormous compendium
of horseshit which was put out once a year and which took
the whole year to make ready. I hadn't the slightest idea
what it was all about and why I dropped into his office
that day I don't know, unless it was because I wanted
to get warm, as I had been knocking about the docks
all day trying to get a job as a checker or some damned
thing. It was cosy in his office and I made him a long
speech so as to get thawed out. I didn't know what job to
ask for-just a job, I said. He was a sensitive man and
very kindhearted. He seemed to guess that I was a writer,
or wanted to be a writer, because soon he was asking me
what I 1iked to read and what was my opinion of this writer
and that writer. It just happened that J had a list of
books in my pocket-books I was searching for at the
public library-and so I brought it out and showed it to
him. "Great Scott!" he exclaimed, "do you really read
these books?" I modestly shook my head in the affirmative,
and then as often happened to me when I was touched
off by some silly remark like that, I began to talk about
Hamsun's Jlysteries which I had just been reading. From
then on the man was like putty in my hands. When he
asked me if I would like to be his assistant he apologized
for offering me such a lowly position; he said I could take
my time learning the ins and outs of the job, he was sure
it would be a cinch for me. And then he asked me if he
couldn't lend me some money, out of his own pocket, until
I got paid. Before I could say yes or no he had fished out
a twenty-dollar bill and thrust it in my hand. Naturally
I was touched. I was ready to work like a son of a bitch
for him. Assistant editor-it sounded quite good, especially to the creditors in the neighborhood. And for a
while I was so happy to be eating roast beef and chicken
and tenderloins of pork that I pretended I liked the job.
Actually it was difficult for me to keep awake. What I had

Tropic of Caprtcorn
317
to learn I had learned in a week's time. And after that?
After that I saw myself doing penal servitude for life.
In order to make the best of it I whiled away the time
writing stories and essays and long letters to my friends.
Perhaps they thought I was writing up new ideas for
the company, because for quite a while nobody paid any
attention to me. I thought it was a wonderful job. I had
almost the whole day to myself, for my writing, having
learned to dispose of the company's work in about an
hour's time. I was so enthusiastic about my own private
work that I gave orders to my underlings not to disturb
me except at stipulated moments. I was sailing along
like a breeze, the company paying me regularly and the
slave drivers doing the work I had mapped out for them,
when one day, just when I am in the midst of an important
essay on The Anti-Christ, a man whom I had never seen
before walks up to my desk, bends over my shoulder, and
in a sarcastic tone of voice begins to read aloud what I
had just written. I didn't need to inquire who he was or
what he was up to-the only thought in my head was,
and that I repeated to myself frantically-Will I get an
extra week's pay? When it came time to bid good-by to
my benefactor I felt a little ashamed of myself, particularly
when he said, right off the bat like-"I tried to get you an
extra week's pay but they wouldn't hear of it. I wish there
was something I could do for you-you're only standing
in your own way, you know. To tell you the truth, I still
have the greatest faith in you-but I'm afraid you're
going to have a hard time of it, for a while. You don't
fit in anywhere. Some day you'll make a great writer, I
feel sure of it. Well, excuse me," he added, shaking hands
with me warmly, "I've got to see the boss. Good luck to
you!"
I felt a bit cut up about the incident. I wished it had
been possible to prove to him then and there that his
faith was justified. I wished I could have justified myself
before the whole world at that moment: I would have
jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge if it would have con-

318

Tropic of Capricorn
vinced people that I wasn't a heartless son of a bitch. I
had a heart as big as a whale, as I was soon to prove, but
nobody was examining into my heart. Everybody was
being let down hard-not only the installment companies,
but the landlord, the butcher, the baker, the gas, water
and electricity devils, everybody. If only I could get to
believe in this business of work! To save my life I couldn't
see it. I could only see that people were working their balls
off because they didn't know any better. I thought of the
speech I had made which won me the job. In some ways
I was very much like Herr Nagel myself. No telling from
minute to minute what I would do. No knowing whether
I was a monster or a saint. Like so many wonderful men
of our time, Herr Nagel was a desperate man-and it was
this very desperation which made him such a likable chap.
Hamsun didn't know what to make of this character
himself: he knew he existed, and he knew that there was
something more to him than a mere buffoon and a mystiner. I think he loved Herr Nagel more than any other
character he created. And why? Because Herr Nagel was
the unacknowledged saint which every artist is-the
man who is ridiculed because his solutions, which are
truly profound, seem too simple for the wodel. No man
wants to be an artist-he is driven to it because the world
refuses to recognize his proper leadership. Work meant
nothing to me, because the real work to be done was
being evaded. People regarded me as lazy and shiftless, but on the contrary I was an exceedingly active
individual. Even if it was just hunting for a piece of
tail, that was something, and well worth while, especially if compared to other forms of activity-such as
making buttons or turning screws, or even removing appendixes. And why did people listen to me so readily
when I applied for a job? Why did they nnd me entertaining? For the reason, no doubt, that I had always spent
my time prontably. I brought them gifts-from my hours
at the public library, from my idle ramblings through the
streets, from my intimate experiences with women, from

Tropic of Capricorn
319
my afternoons at the burlesque, from my visits to the
museum and the art galleries. Had I been a dud, just a
poor honest bugger who wanted to work his balls off for
so much a week, they wouldn't have offered me the jobs
they did, nor would they have handed me cigars or taken
me to lunch or lent me money, as they frequently did.
I must have had something to offer which perhaps unknowingly they prized beyond horsepower or technical ability. I didn't know myself what it was, because I
had neither pride, nor vanity, nor envy. About the big
issues I was clear, but confronted by the petty details
of life I was bewildered. I had to witness this same bewilderment on a colossal scale before I could grasp what
it was all about. Ordinary men are often quicker in
sizing up the practical situation: their ego is commensurate with the demands made upon it: the world is not
very different from what they imagine it to be. But a man
who is completely out of step with the rest of the world
is either suffering from a colossal inflation of his ego
or else the ego is so submerged as to be practically nonexistent. Herr Nagel had to dive off the deep end in
search of his true ego; his existence was a mystery, to
himself and to everyone else. I couldn't afford to leave
things hanging in suspense that way-the mystery was
too intriguing. Even if I had to rub myself like a cat
against every human being I encountered, I was going to
get to the bottom of it. Rub long enough and hard
enough and the spark will come!
The hibernation of animals, the suspension of life
practiced by certain low forms of life, the marvelous
vitality of the bedbug which lies in wait endlessly behind the wa1lpaper, the trance of the Yogi, the catalepsy
of the pathologic individual, the mystie's union with
the cosmos, the immortality of cellular life, all these
things the artist learns in oroer to awaken the wor1d
at the propitious moment. The artist belongs to the X
root race of man; he is the spiritual microbe, as it were,
which carries over from one root race to another. He is

320

Tropic of Capricorn
not crushed by misfortune, because he is not a part of
the physical, racial scheme of things. His appearance is
always synchronous with catastrophe and dissolution;
he is the cyclical being which lives in the epicycle. The
experience which he acquires is never used for personal
ends; it serves the larger purpose to which he is geared.
Nothing is lost on him, however triRing. If he is interruptcd for twenty-five years in the reading of a book he
can go on from the page where he left off as though
nothing had happened in between. Everything that happens in between, which is "life" to most people, is merely
an interruption in his forward round. The eternality of
his work, when he expresses himself, is merely the reRection of the automatism of life in which he is obliged
to lie dormant, a sleeper on the back of sleep, waiting
for the signal which will announce the moment of birth.
This is the big issue, and this was always clear to me,
even when I denied it. The dissatisfaction which drives
one on from one word to another, one creation to another,
is simply a protest against the futility of postponement.
The more awake one becomes, as artistic microbe, the
less desire one has to do anything. Fully awake, everything is just and there is no need to come out of the
trance. Action, as expressed in creating a work of art,
is a concession to the automatic principle of death. Drowning myself in the Gulf of Mexico I was able to partake
of an active life which would permit the real self to hibernate until I was ripe to be born. I understood it perfectly,
though I acted blindly and confusedly. I swam back into
the stream of human activity until I got to the source of
all action and there I muscled in, calling myself personnel director of a telegraph company, and allowed the tide
of humanity to wash over me like great white-capped
breakers. All this active life, preceding the final act of
desperation, Jed me from doubt to doubt, blinding me
more and more to the real self which, like a continent
choked with the evidences of a great and thriving civilization, had already sunk beneath the surface of the sea.

Tropic of Capricorn
321
The colossal ego was submerged, and what people observed moving frantically above the surface was the
periscope of the soul searching for its target. Everything
that came within range had to be destroyed, if I were ever
to rise again and ride the waves. This monster which
rose now and then to fix its target with deadly aim,
which dove again and roved and plundered ceaslessly
would, when the time came, rise for the last time to
reveal itself as an ark, would gather unto itself a pair of
each kind and at last, when the floods abated, would
settle down on the summit of a lofty mountain peak
thence to open wide its doors and return to the world
what had been preserved from the catastrophe.
If I shudder now and then, when I think of my active
life, if I have nightmares, possibly it is because I think
of all the men I robbed and murdered in my day sleep. I
did everything which my nature bade me to do. Nature
is eternally whispering in one's ear-"if you would survive you must kill!" Being human, you kill not like the
animal but automatically, and the killing is disguised
and its ramifications are endless, so that you kill without
even thinking about it, you kill without need. The men
who are the most honored are the greatest killers. They
believe that they are serving their fellowmen, and they
are sincere in believing so, but they are heartless murderers and at moments, when they come awake, they realize
their crimes and perform frantic, quixotic acts of goodness in order to expiate their guilt. The goodness of man
stinks more than the evil which is in him, for the goodness
is not yet acknowledged, not an affirmation of the conscious self. Being pushed over the precipice, it is easy at
the last moment to surrender all one's possessions, to
tum and extend a last embrace to all who are left behind.
How are we to stop the blind rush? How are we to stop
the automatic process, each one pushing the other over
the precipice?
As I sat at my desk, over which I had put up a sign
reading "Do not abandon all hope ye who enter here!"-

322

Tropic of Capricorn
as I sat there saying Yes, No, Yes, No, I realized, with a
despair that was turning to white frenzy, that I was a
puppet in whose hands society had placed a Gatling gun.
If I performed a good deed it was no different, ultimately,
than if I had performed a had deed. I was like an equals
sign through which the algebraic swarm of humanity was
passing. I was a rather important, active equals sign,
like a general in time of war, but no matter how competent I were to become I could never change into a plus
or a minus sign. Nor could anyone else, as far as I could
determine. Our whole life was built up on this principle
of equation. The integers had become symbols which
were shuffled about in the interests of death. Pity, despair,
passion, hope, courage-these were the temporal refractions caused by looking at equations from varying angles.
To stop the endless juggling by turning one's back on it,
or by facing it squarely and writing about it, would be
no help either. In a hall of mirrors there is no way to turn
your back on yourself. I will not do this. I will do some
other thing! Very good. But can you do nothing at all?
Can you stop thinking about not doing anything? Can
you stop dead, and without thinking, radiate the truth
which you know? That was the idea which lodged in the
back of my head and which burned and burned, and
perhaps when I was most expansive, most radiant with
energy, most sympathetic, most willing, helpful, sincere,
good, it was this fixed idea which was shining through,
and automatically I was saying-"why, don't mention
it.... nothing at all, I assure you .... no, please don't
thank me, it's nothing," etc. etc. From firing the gun so
many hundreds of times a day perhaps I didn't even
notice the detonations any more; perhaps I thought I was
opening pigeon traps and filling thc sky with milky white
fowl. Did you ever see a synthetic monster on the screen,
a Frankenstein realized in flesh and blood? Can you imagine how he might be trained to pull a trigger and see
pigeons flying at the same time? Frankenstein is not a
myth: Frankenstein is a very real creation born of the

Tropic of Capricorn
323
Jersonal experience of a sensitive human being. The
nonster is always more real when it does not assume the
)roportions of flesh and blood. The monster of the screen
.s nothing compared to the monster of the imagination;
~ven the existent pathologic monsters who find their way
nto the police station arc but feeble demonstrations of
:he monstrous reality which the pathologist lives with.
But to be the monster and the pathologist at the same
:ime-that is reserved for certain species of men who,
3isguised as artists, are supremely aware that sleep is an
~ven greater danger than insomnia. In order not to fall
lsleep, in order not to become victims of that insomnia
Nhich is called "living," they resort to the drug of putting
Nords together endlessly. This is not an automatic process,
:hey say, because there is always present the illusion that
~hey can stop it at will. But they cannot stop; they have
)nly succeeded in creating an illusion, which is perhaps
l feeble something, but it is far from being wide awake
md neither active nor inactive. I wanted to be wide
'Jwake without talking or writing about it, in order to
'Jccept life absolutely. I mentioned the archaic men in
the remote places of the world with whom I was commurlicating frequently. Why did I think these "savages"
310re capable of understanding me than the men and
women who surrounded me? Was I crazy to believe such
a thing? I don't think so in the least. These "savages" arc
the degenerate remnants of earlier races of man who, I
believe, must have had a greater hold on reality. The
immortality of the race is constantly before our eyes in
these specimens of the past who linger on in withered
splendor. Whether the human race is immortal or not is
not my concern, but the vitality of the race does mean
something to me, and that it shollld be active or dormant
means even more. As the vitality of th(~ new race banks
down the vitality of the old races manifests itself to the
waking mind with greater and greater significance. The
vitality of the old races lingers on even in death, but the
vitality of the new race which is about to die seems al-

Tropic of Capricorn
324
ready nonexistent. If a man were taking a swarming hive
of bees to the river to drown them. . . . That was the
image I carried about in me. If only I were the man, and
not the bee! In some vague, inexplicable way I knew that
I was the man, that I would not be drowned in the hive,
like the others. Always, when we came forward in a
group, I was signaled to stand apart; from birth I was
favored that way, and, no matter what tribulations I went
through, I knew they were not fatal or lasting. Also, another strange thing took place in me whenever I was
called to stand forth. I knew that I was superior to the
man who was summoning me! The tremendous humility
which I practiced was not hypocritical but a condition
provoked by the realization of the fateful character of the
situation. The intelligence which I possessed, even as a
stripling, frightened me; it was the intelligence of a
"savage," which is always superior to that of civilized
men in that it is more adequate to the exigencies of circumstance. It is a life intelligence, even though life has
seemingly passed them by. I felt almost as if I had been
shot forward into a round of existence which for the rest
of mankind had not yet attained its full rhythm. I was
obliged to mark time if I were to remain with them and
not be shunted off to another sphere of existence. On the
other hand, I was in many ways lower than the human
beings about me. It was as though I had come out of
the fires of hell not entirely purged. I had still a tail
and a pair of horns, and when my passions were aroused
I breathed a sulphurous pOison which was annihilating.
I was always called a "lucky devil." The good that happened to me was called "luck," and the evil was always·
regarded as a result of my shortcomings. Rather, as the
fruit of my blindness. Rarely did anyone ever spot the
evil in me! I was as adroit, in this respect, as the devil
himself. But that I was frequently blind, everybody could
see that. And at such times I was left alone, shunned, like
the devil himself. Then I left the world, returned to the
fires of hell-voluntarily. These comings and gOings are

Tropic of Capricorn
325
~al to me, more real, in fact, than anything that hap~d in between. The friends who think they know me
1\1 nothing about me for the reason that the real me
1ged hands countless times. Neither the men who
Iked me, nor the men who cursed me, knew with
m they were dealing. Nobody ever got on to a solid
ing with me, because I was constantly liquidating my
onality. I was keeping what is called the "personality"
)eyance for the moment when, leaving it to coagulate,
ould adopt a proper human rhythm. I was hiding my
until the moment when I would find myself in step
I the world. All this was, of course, a mistake. Even
role of artist is worth adopting, while marking time.
on is important, even if it entails futile activity. One
lId not say Yes, No, Yes, No, even seated in the highest
e. One should not be drowned in the human tidal
e, even for the sake of becoming a Master. One must
. with his own rhythm-at any price. I accumulated
lsands of years of experience in a few short years, but
experience was wasted because I had no need of it.
d already been crucified and marked by the cross; I
been born free of the need to suffer-and yet I knew
)ther way to struggle forward than to repeat the
na. All my intelligence was against it. Suffering is
e, my intelligence told me over and over, but I went
uffering voluntarily. Suffering has never taught me a
g; for others it may still be necessary, but for me it is
ling more than an algebraic demonstration of spiritual
aptability. The whole drama which the man of today
~ting out through suffering does not exist for me: it
~r did, actually. All my Calvaries were rosy crucifix, pseudo-tragedies to keep the Bres of hell burning
htly for the real sinners who are in danger of being
otten.
nother thing ... the mystery which enveloped my beor grew deeper the nearer I came to the circle of
ine relatives. The mother from whose loins I sprang
a complete stranger to me. To begin with, after

326
Tropic of Capricorn
giving birth to me she gave birth to my sister, whom I
usually refer to as my brother. My sister was a sort of
harmless monster, an angel who had been given the body
of an idiot. It gave me a strange feeling, as a boy, to be
growing up and developing side by side with this being
who was doomed to remain all her life a mental dwarf.
It was impossible to be a brother to her because it was
impossible to regard this atavistic hulk of a body as a
"sister." She would have functioned perfectly, I imagine,
among the Australian primitives. She might even have
been raised to power and eminence among them, for, as
I said, she was the essence of goodness, she knew no evil.
But so far as living the civilized life goes she was helpless;
she not only had no desire to kill but she had no desire
to thrive at the expense of others. She was incapacitated
for work, because even if they had been able to train her
to make caps for high explosives, for example, she might
absent-mindedly throw her wages in the river on the way
home or she might give them to a beggar in the street.
Often in my presence she was whipped like a dog for
having performed some beautiful act of grace in her
absent-mindedness, as they called it. Nothing was worse,
I learned as a child, than to do a good deed without
reason. I had received the same punishment as my sister,
in the beginning, because I too had a habit of giving
things away, espeCially new things which had just been
given me. I had even received a beating once, at the age
of five, for having advised my mother to eut a wart off
her finger. She had asked me what to do about it one
day and, with my limited knowledge of medicine, I told
her to cut it off with the scissors, which she did, like an
idiot. A few days later she got blood poisoning and then
she got hold of me and she said-"you told me to cut it off,
didn't you?" and she gave me a sound thrashing. From
that day on I knew that I was born in the wrong household. From that day on I learned like lightning. Talk
about adaptation! By the time I was ten I had lived
out the whole theory of evolution. And there I was, evolv-

Tropic of Capricorn
327
ng through all the phases of animal life and yet chained
o this creature called my "sister" who was evidently a
)rimitive being and who would never, even at the age
)f ninety, arrive at a comprehension of the alphabet. Intead of growing up like a stalwart tree I began to lean to
me side, in complete defiance of the law of gravity.
nstead of shooting out limbs and leaves I grew windows
md turrets. The whole being, as it grew, was turning into
:tone, and the higher I shot up the more I defied the law
)f gravity. I was a phenomenon in the midst of the landcape, but one which attracted people and elicited praise.
J the mother who bore us had only made another effort
lerhaps a marvelous white buffalo might have been born
md the three of us might have been permanently in:talled in a museum and protected for life. The conversaions which took place between the leaning tower of Pisa,
he whipping post, the snoring machine and the pterolactyl in human flesh were, to say the least, a bit queer.
\.nything might be the subject of conversation-a bread
:rumb which the "sister" had overlooked in brushing the
:ablecloth or Joseph's coat of many colors which, in the
)]d man's tailoring brain, might have been either double)reasted or cutaway or frock. If I came from the ice
)ond, where I had been skating all afternoon, the im)ortant thing was not the ozone which I had breathed
:ree of charge, nor the geometric convolutions which were
;trengthening my muscles, but the little spot of rust under
:he clamps which, if not rubbed off immediately, might
:leteriorate the whole skate and bring about the dissolution
)f some pragmatic value which was incomprehensible to
ny prodigal turn of thought. This little rust spot, to take a
:rifling example, might entrain the most hallucinating remIts. Perhaps the "sister," in searching for the kerosene
~an, might overturn the jar of prunes which were being
,tewed and thus endanger all our lives by robbing us of
the required calories in the morrow's meal. A severe beating would have to be given, not in anger, because that
would disturb the digestive apparatus, but silently and

328

Tropic of Capricorn

efficiently, as a chemist would beat up the white of an
egg in preparation for a minor analysis. But the "sister,"
not understanding the prophylactic nature of the punishment, would give vent to the most bloodcurdling screams
and this would so affect the old man that he would go
out for a walk and return two or three hours later blind
drunk and, what was worse, scratching a little paint off
the rolling doors in his blind staggers. The little piece of
paint that had been chipped off would bring on a battle
royal which was very bad for my dream life, because in
my dream life I frequently changed places with my sister,
accepting the tortures inflicted upon her and nourishing
them with my supersensitive brain. It was in these dreams,
always accompanied by the sound of glass breaking, of
shrieks, curses, groans and sobs, that I gathered an unformulated knowledge of the ancient mysteries, of the
rites of initiation, of the transmigration of souls and so on.
It might begin with a scene from real life-the sister
standing by the blackboard in the kitchen, the mother
towering over her with a ruler, saying two and two
makes how much? and the sister screaming five. Bang!
no, seven, Bang! no, thirteen, eighteen, twenty! I would
be sitting at the table, doing my lessons, just as in real
life during these scenes, when by a slight twist or squirm,
perhaps as I saw the ruler come down on the sister's
face, suddenly I would be in another realm where glass
was unknown, as it was unknown to the Kickapoos or the
Lenni-Lenape. The faces of those about me were familiar
-they were my uterine relatives who, for some mysterious reason, failed to recognize me in this new ambiance.
They werc garbed in black and the color of their skin
was ash gray, like that of the Tibetan devils. They were
all fitted out with knives and other instruments of torture:
they belonged to the caste of sacrificial butchers. I
seemed to have absolute liberty and the authority of a
god, and yet by some capricious tum of events the end
would be that I'd be lying on the sacrificial block and one
of my charming uterine relatives would be bending over

Tropic of Capricorn
329
me with a gleaming knife to cut out my heart. In sweat
and terror I would begin to recite "my lessons" in a high,
screaming voice, faster and faster, as I fclt the knife
searching for my heart. Two and two is four, five and
five is ten, earth, air, fire, water, Monday, Tllesday,
Wednesday, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, Meocene, PIeocene, Eocene, the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, Asia,
Africa, Europe, Australia, red, blue, yellow, the sorrel,
the persimmon, the pawpaw, the catalpa ... fMter and
faster . .. Odin, Wotan, Parsifal, King Alfred, Frederick
the Great, the Hanseatic League, the Battle of Hastings,
Thermopylae, 1492, 1776, 1812, Admiral Farragut, Pickett's charge, The Light Brigade, we are gathered here
today, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not, one and indivisible, no, 16, no, 27, help! murder! police!-and yelling louder and louder and going faster and faster I go
completely off my nut and there is no more pain, no more
terror, even though they are piercing me everywhere with
knives. Suddenly I am absolutely calm and the body
which is lying on the block, which they are still gouging
with glee and ecstasy, feels nothing because I, the owner
of it, have escaped. I have become a tower of stone
which leans over the scene and watches with scientific
interest. I have only to succumb to the law of gravity and
I will fall on them and obliterate them .. But I do not succumb to the law of gravity because I am too fascinated
by the horror of it all. I am so fascinated, in fact, that I
grow more and more windows. And as the light penetrates
the stone interior of my being I can feel that my roots,
which are in the earth, are alive and that I shall one day
be able to remove myself at will from this trance in which
I am fixed.
So much for the dream, in which I am helplessly
rooted. But in actuality, when the dear uterine relatives
come, I am as free as a bird and darting to and fro
like a magnetic needle. If they ask me a question I give
them five answers, each of which is better than the other;
if they ask me to playa waltz I play a double-breasted

330
Tropic of Capricorn
sonata for the left hand; if they ask me to help myself
to another leg of chicken I clean up the plate, dressing
and all; if they urge me to go out and play in the street
I go out and in my enthusiasm I cut my cousin's head
open with a tin can; if they threaten to give me a thrashing I say go to it, I don't mindl If they pat me on the head
for my good progress at school I spit on the floor to show
that I have still something to learn. I do everything they
wish me to do plus. If they wish me to be quiet and say
nothing I become as quiet as a rock: I don't hear when
they speak to me, I don't move when I'm touched, I
don't cry when I'm pinched, I don't budge when I'm
pushed. If they complain that I'm stubborn I become as
pliant and yielding as rubber. If they wish me to get
fatigued so that I will not display too much energy I let
them give me all kinds of work to do and I do the jobs
so thoroughly that I collapse on the floor finally like a
sack of wheat. If they wish me to be reasonable I become
ultra-reasonable, which drives them crazy. If they wish
me to obey I obey to the letter, which causes endless
confusion. And all this because the molecular life of
brother-and-sister is incompatible with the atomic
weights which have been allotted us. Because she doesn't
grow at all I grow like a mushroom; because she has no
personality I become a colossus; because she is free of
evil I become a thirty-two-branched candelabra of evil;
because she demands nothing of anyone I demand every- .
thing; because she inspires ridicule everywhere I inspire
fear and respect; because she is humiliated and tortured
I wreak vengeance upon everyone, friend and foe alike;
because she is helpless I make myself all-powerful. The
gigantism from which I suffered was simpl)' the result
of an effort to wipe out the little stain of rust which had
attached itself to the family skate, so to speak. That
little stain of rust under the clamps made me a champion
skater. It made me skate so fast and furiously that even
when the ice had melted I was still skating, skating
through mud, through asphalt, through brooks and rivers

Tropic of Capricorn
331
and melon patches and theories of economics and so
forth. I could skate through hell, I was that fast and
nimble.
But all this fancy skating was of no use-Father Coxcox, the pan-American Noah, was always calling me hack
to the Ark. Every time I stopped skating there was a
cataclysm-the earth opened up and swallowed me. I
was a brother to every man and at the same time a traitor
to myself. I made the most astounding sacrifices, only to
find that they were of no value. Of what use was it to
prove that I could be what was expected of me when
I did not want to be any of these things? Every time you
come to the limit of what is demanded of you, you are
faced with the same problem-to be yourself! And with
the first step you make in this direction you realize that
there is neither plus nor minus; you throw the skates
away and swim. There is no suffering any more because
there is nothing which can threaten your security. And
there is no desire to be of help to oth~rs even, because
why rob them of a privilege which must be earned?
Life stretches out from moment to moment in stupendous
infinitude. Nothing can be more real than what you suppose it to be. Whatever you think the cosmos to be it is
and it could not possibly be anything else as long as you
are you and I am I. You live in the fruits of your action
and your action is the harvest of your thought. Thought
and action are one, because swimming you are in it and
of it, and it is everything you desire it to be, no more,
no less. Every stroke counts for eternity. The heating and
cooling system is one system, and Cancer is separated
from Capricorn only by an imaginary line. You don't become ecstatic and you are not plunged into violent grief;
you don't pray for rain, neither do you dance a jig. You
live like a happy rock in the midst of the ocean: you are
fixed while everything about you is in turbulent motion.
You are fixed in a reality which permits the thought that
nothing is fixed, that even the happiest and mightiest rock

Tropic of Capricorn
will one day be utterly dissolved and fluid as the ocean
from which it was born.
This is the musical life which I was approaching by
first skating like a maniac through all the vestibules and
corridors which lead from the outer to the inner. My
struggles never brought me near it, nor did my furious
activity, nor my rubbing elbows with humanity. All that
was simply a movement from vector to vector in a circle
which, however the perimeter expanded, remained withal
parallel to the realm I speak of. The wheel of destiny can
be transcended at any moment because at every point
of its surface it touches the real world and only a spark
of illumination is necessary to bring about the miraculous,
to transform the skater to a swimmer and the swimmer
to a rock. The rock is merely an image of the act which
stops the futile rotation of the wheel and plunges the
being into full consciousness. And full consciousness is
indeed like an inexhaustible ocean which gives itself to
sun and moon and also includes the sun and moon. Everything which is is born out of the limitless ocean of light
-even the night.
Sometimes, in the ceasless revolutions of the wheel, I
caught a glimpse of the nature of the jump which it was
necessary to make. To jump clear of the clockwork-that
was the liberating thought. To be something more, somcthing different, than the most brilliant maniac of the
earth! The story of man on earth bored me. Conquest,
even the conquest of cvil, bored me. To radiate goodness
is marvelous, because it is tonic, invigorating, vitalizing.
But just to be is still more marvelous, because it is endless and requires no demonstration. To be is music, which
is a profanation of silence in the interest of silence, and
therefore beyond good and evil. Music is the manifestation of action without activity. It is the pure act of creation swimming on its own bosom. Music neither goads
nor defends, neither seeks nor explains. Music is the noiseless sound made by the swimmer in the ocean of consciousness. It is a reward which can only be givcn by
332

Tropic of Capricorn
333
oneself. It is the gift of the god which one is hecause he
has ceased thinking about God. It is an augur of tIle god
which everyone will become in due time, whclI all that is
will be beyond imagination.
CODA

Not long ago I was walking the streets of New York.
Dear old Broadway. It was night and the sky was an
Oriental blue, as blue as the gold in the ceiling of the
Pagode, rue de Babylone, when the machine starts clicking. I was passing exactly below the place where we first
met. I stood there a moment looking up at the red lights
in the windows. The music sounded as it always sounded
-light, peppery, enchanting. I was alone and there were
millions of people around me. It came over me, as I stood
there, that I wasn't thinking of her any more; I was thinking of this book which I am writing, and the hook had
become more important to me than her, than all that had
happened to us. Will this book he t he truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me Cod? Plunging into the crowd again I wrestled with this question of
"truth." For years I have been trying to tell this story and
always the question of truth has weighed upon me like a
nightmare. Time and again I have related to others the
circumstances of our life, and I have always told the
truth. But the truth can also be a lie. The truth is not
enough. Truth is only the core of a totality which is
inexhaustible.
I remember that the first time we were ever separated
this idea of totality seized me by the hair. She pretended,
when she left me, or maybe she believed it herself, that
it was necessary for our welfare. I knew in my heart that
she was trying to be free of me, but I was too cowardly
to admit it to myself. But when I realized that she could
do without me, even for a limited time, the truth which
I had tried to shut out began to grow with alarming rapid-

334

Tropic of Capricorn

ity. It was more painful than anything I had ever experienced before, but it was also healing. When I was
completely emptied, when the loneliness had reached
such a paint that it could not be sharpened any further,
r suddenly felt that, to go on living, this intolerable truth
had to be incorporated into something greater than the
frame of personal misfortune. r felt that r had made an
imperceptible switch into another realm, a realm of
tougher, more elastic fiber, which the most horrible truth
was powerless to destroy. I sat down to write her a letter
telling her that I was so miserable over the thought of
losing her that I had decided to begin a book about her,
a book which would immortalize her. It would be a book,
I said, such as no one had ever seen before. r rambled on
ecstatically, and in the midst of it I suddenly broke off
to ask myself why I was so happy.
Passing beneath the dance hall, thinking again of this
book, r realized suddenly that our life had come to an
end: I realized that the book I was planning was nothing
more than a tomb in which to bury her-and the me
which had belonged to her. That was some time ago,
and ever since I have been trying to write it. Why is it so
difficult? 'Why? Because the idea of an "end" is intolerable
to mc.
Truth lies in this knowledge of the end which is ruthless and remorseless. We can know the truth and accept
it, or we can refuse the knowledge of it and neither die
nor be born again. In this manner it is possible to live
forever, a negative life as solid and complete, or as dispersed and fragmentary, as the atom. And if we pursue
this road far enough, even this atomic eternity can yield
to nothingness and the universe itself fall apart.
For years now I have been trying to tell this story; each
time I have started out r have chosen a different route.
r am like an explorer who, wishing to circumnavigate
the globe, deems it unnecessary to carry even a compass.

Tropic of Capricorn
335
Moreover, from dreaming over it so long, the story itself
has come to resemble a vast, fortified city, and I who
dream it over and over, am outside the city, a wanderer,
arriving before one gate after another too exhausted to
enter. And as with the wanderer, this city in which my
story is situated eludes me perpetually. Always in sight
it nevertheless remains unattainable, a sort of ghostly
citadel floating in the clouds. From the soaring, crenelated
battlements Hocks of huge white geese swoop down in
steady, wedge-shaped formation. With the tips of their
blue-white wings they brush the dreams that dazzle my
vision. My feet move confusedly; no sooner do I gain
a foothold than I am lost again. I wander aimlessly, trying
to gain a solid, unshakable foothold whence I can command a view of my life, but behind me there lies only a
welter of crisscrossed tracks, a groping, confused, encircling, the spasmodic gambit of the chicken whose head
has just been lopped off.
Whenever I try to explain to myself the peculiar pattern which my life has taken, when I reach back to the
first cause, as it were, I think inevitably of the girl I first
loved. It seems to me that everything dates from that
aborted affair. A strange, masochistic affair it was, ridiculous and tragic at the same time. Perhaps I had the
pleasure of kissing her two or three times, the sort of
kiss one reserves for a goddess. Perhaps I saw her alone
several times. Certainly she could never have dreamed that
for over a year I walked past her home every night hoping to catch a glimpse of her at the window. Every night
after dinner I would get up from the table and take the
long route which led to her home. She was ncver at the
window when I passed and I never had the courage to
stand in front of the house and wait. Back and forth I
passed, back and forth, but never hide nor hair of her.
Why didn't I write her? Why didn't I call her up? Once I
remember summoning enough pluck to invite her to the
theater. I arrived at her home with a bunch of violets,
the first and only time I ever bought flowers for a woman.

Tropic of Capricorn
336
As we were leaving the theater the violets dropped from
her corsage, and in my confusion I stepped on them. I
begged her to leave them there, but she insisted on gathering them up. I was thinking how awkward I was-it was
only long afterwards that I recalled the smile she had
given me as she stooped down to pick up the violets.
It was a complete fiasco. In the end I ran away.
Actually I was running away from another woman, but
the day before leaving town I decided to see her once
again. It was midafternoon and she came out to talk to
me in the street, in the little areaway which was fenced
off. She was already engaged to another man; she pretended to be happy about it but I could see, blind as I
was, that she wasn't as happy as she pretended to be. If
I had only said the word I am sure she would have
dropped the other fellow; perhaps she would even have
gone away with me. I preferred to punish myself. I said
good-by nonchalantly and I went down the street like a
dead man. The next morning I was bound for the Coast,
determined to start a new life.
The new life was also a fiasco. I ended up on a ranch
in Chula Vista, the most miserable man that ever walked
the earth. There was this girl I loved and there was the
other woman, for whom I felt only a profound pity. I had
been living with her for two years, this other woman, but
it seemed like a lifetime. I was twenty-one and she admitted to be thirty-six. Every time I looked at her I said
to myself-when I am thirty she will be forty-five, when
I am forty she will be fifty-five, when I am fifty she will
be sixty-five. She had fine wrinkles under the eyes, laughing wrinkles, but wrinkles just the same. When I kissed
her they were magnified a dozen times. She laughed
easily, but her eyes were sad, terribly sad. They were
Armenian eyes. Her hair, which had been red once, was
now a peroxide blonde. Otherwise she was adorable-a
Venusian body, a Venusian soul, loyal, lovable, grateful,
everything a woman should be, except that she was fifteen
years older. The fifteen years' difference drove me crazy.

Tropic of Capricorn
337
When I went out with her I thought only-how will it he
ten years hence? Or else, what age does she seem to
have now? Do I look old enough for her? Once we got
back to the house it was all right. Climbing the stairs I
would run my finger up her crotch, which Ilsed to make
her whinny like a horse. If her son, who was almost my
age, were in bed we would close the doors and lock
ourselves in the kitchen. She'd lie on the narrow kitchen
table and I'd slough it into her. It was marvelous. And
what made it more marvelous was that with each performance I would say to myself-Th:s is the last time . ..
tomorrow I will beat it! And then, since she was the
janitress, I would go down to the cellar and roll the ash
barrels out for her. In the morning, when the son had
left for work, I would climb up to the roof and air the
bedding. Both she and the son had T.B .... Sometimes
there were no table bouts. Sometimes the hopelessness
of it all got me by the throat and I would put on my
things and go for a walk. Now and then I forgot to return.
And when I did that I was more miserable than ever,
because I knew that she would be waiting for me with
those large sorrowful eyes. I'd go back to her like a man
who had a sacred duty to perform. r d lie down on the
bed and let her caress me; I'd study the wrinkles under
her eyes and the roots of her hair which were turning red.
Lying there like that, I would often think about the other
one, the one I loved, would wonder if she were lying
down for it too, or. .. Those long walks I took three
hundred and sixty-five days of the yearl-I would go over
them in my mind lying beside the other woman. How
many times since have I relived these walks! The dreariest, bleakest, ugliest streets man ever created. In anguish
I relive these walks, these streets, these first smashed
hopes. The window is there, but no Melisande; the garden
too is there, but no sheen of gold. Pass and repass, the
window always vacant. The evening star hangs low;
Tristan appears, then Fidelio, and then Oberon. The
hydra-headed dog barks with all his mouths and though

338

Tropic of Capricorn

there are no swamps I hear the frogs croaking everywhere. Same houses, same car lines, same everything. She
is hiding behind the curtain, she is waiting for me to pass,
she is doing this or doing that. ... but she is not there,
never, never, never. Is it a grand opera or is it a hurdygurdy playing? It is Amato bursting his golden lung; it
is the Rubaiyat, it is Mount Everest, it is a moonless night,
it is a sob at dawn, it is a boy making believe, it is Puss
in the Boot, it is Mauna Loa, it is fox or astrakhan, it is
of no stuff and no time, it is endless and it begins over
and over, under the heart, in the back of the throat, in
the soles of the feet, and why not just once, just once,
for the love of Christ, just a shadow or a rustle of the
curtain, or a breath on the windowpane, something once,
if only a lie, something to stop the pain, to stop this
walking up and down, up and down .... \Valking homeward. Same houses, same lampposts, same everything. I
walk past my own home, past the cemetery, past the gas
tanks, past the car barns, past the reservoir, out into the
open country. I sit beside the road with my head in my
hands and sob. Poor bugger that I am, I can't contract
my heart enough to burst the veins. I would like to suffocate with grief but instead I give birth to a rock.
Meanwhile the other one is waiting. I can see her again
as she sat on the low stoop waiting for me, her eyes large
and dolorous, her face pale and trembling with eagerness.
Pity I always thought it was brought me back, but now
as I walk toward her and see the look in her eyes I don't
know any more what it is, only that we will go inside and
lie together and she will get up half weeping, half laughing, and she will grow very silent and watch me, study
me as I move about, and never ask me what is torturing
me, never, never, because that is the one thing she
fears, the one thing she dreads to know. I don't love
you! Can't she hear me screaming it? I don't love you!
Over and over I yell it, with lips tight, with hatred in my
heart, with despair, with hopeless rage. But the words
never leave my lips. I look at her and I am tongue-tied.

Tropic of Capricorn
339
I can't do it. ... Time, time, endless time on our hands
and nothing to fill it but lies.
Well, I don't want to rehearse the whole of my life
leading up to the fatal moment-it is too long and too
painful. Besides, did my life really lead up to this culminating moment? I doubt it. I think there were innumerable moments when I had the chance to make a beginning, but I lacked the strength and the faith. On the evening in question I deliberately walked out on myself: I
walked right out of the old life and into the new. There
wasn't the slightest effort involved. I was thirty then. I
had a wife and child and what is called a "responsible"
position. These are the facts and facts mean nothing. The
truth is my desire was so great it became a reality. At
such a moment what a man does is of no great importance,
it's what he is that counts. It's at such a moment that a
man becomes an angel. That is precisely what happened
to me; I became an angel. It is not the purity of an angel
which is so valuable, as the fact it can fly. An angel can
break the pattern anywhere at any moment and find its
heaven; it has the power to descend into the lowest matter
and to extricate itself at will. The night in question I understood it perfectly. I was pure and inhuman, I was detached, I had wings. I was depossessed of the past and I
had no concern about the future. I was beyond ecstasy.
When I left the office I folded my wings and hid them
beneath my coat.
The dance hall was just opposite the side entrance of
the theater where I used to sit in the afternoons instead
of looking for work. It was a street of theaters and I used
to sit there for hours at a time dreaming the most violent
dreams. The whole theatrical life of New York was concentrated in that one street, so it seemed. It was Broadway, it was success, fame, glitter, paint, the asbestos
curtain and the hole in the curtain. Sitting on the steps
of the theater I used to stare at the dance hall opposite,
at the string of red lanterns which even in the summer
afternoons were lit up. In every window there was a

Tropic of Capricorn
spinning ventilator which seemed to waft the music into
the street, where it was broken by the jangled din of
traffic. Opposite the other side of the dance hall was a
comfort station and here too I used to sit now and then,
hoping either to makc a woman or make a touch. Above
the comfort station, on the street level, was a kiosk with
foreign papers and magazines; the very sight of these
papers, of the strange languages in which they were
printed, was sufficient to dislocate me for the day.
Without the slightest premeditation I climbed the stairs
to the dance hall, went directly to the little window of
the hooth wherc Nick, the Greek, sat with a roll of
tickets in front of him. Like the urinal below and the steps
of the theater, this hand of the Greek now seems to me a
separate and detached thing-the enormous hairy hand
of an ogre borrowed from some horrible Scandinavian
fairy tale. It was the hand which spoke to me always,
the hand which said "Miss Mara will not be here tonight,"
or "Yes, Miss Mara is coming late tonight." It was this
hand which I dreamt of as a child when I slept in the
bedroom with the barred window. In my fevered sleep
suddenly this window would light up, to reveal the ogre
clutching at the bars. Night after night the the hairy
monster visited me, clutching at the bars and gnashing its
teeth. I would awake in a cold sweat, the house dark, the
room absolutely silent.
Standing at the edge of the dance floor I notice her
coming toward me; she is coming with sails spread, the
large full face beautifully balanced on the long, columnar
neck. I see a woman perhaps eighteen, perhaps thirty,
with blue-black hair and a large white face, a full white
face in which the eyes shine brilliantly. She has on a
tailored blue suit of duvetecn. T remember distinctly now
the fullness of her body, and that her hair was fine and
straight, parted on the side, like a man's. I remember the
smile she gave me-knowing, mysterious, fugitive-a
smile that sprang up suddenly, like a puff of wind.
The whole being was concentrated in the face. I could

340

Tropic of Capricorn
341
have taken just the head and walked home with it; I could
have put it beside me at night, on a pillow, and made
love to it. The mouth and the eyes, when they opened up,
the whole being glowed from them. There was an illumination which came from some unknown source, from a
center hidden deep in the earth. I could think of nothing
but the face, the strange, womb like quality of the smile,
the engulfing immediacy of it. TIle smile was so painfully
swift and fleeting that it was like the flash of a knife. This
smile, this face, was borne aloft on a long white neck, the
sturdy, swanlike neck of the medium-and of the lost and
the damned.
I stand on the corner under the red lights, waiting for
her to come down. It is about two in the morning and she
is signing off. I am standing on Broadway with a flower
in my buttonhole, feeling absolutely clean and alone. Almost the whole evening we have been talking about
Strindbcrg, about a character of his named Henriette. I
listened with such tense alertness that I fell into a trance.
It was as if, with the opening phrase, we had started on a
race-in opposite directions. Henriette! Almost immediately the name was mentioned she began to talk about
herself, without ever quite losing hold of Henriette. Henriette was attached to her by a long, invisible string which
she manipulated imperceptibly with one finger, like the
street hawker who stands a little removed from the black
cloth on the sidewalk, apparently indifferent to the little
mechanism which is jiggling on the cloth, but betraying
himself by the spasmodic movement of the little finger
to which the black thread is attached. llenriette is me,
my real self, she seemed to be saying. She wanted me to
believe that Henriette was really the incarnation of evil.
She said it so naturally, so innocently, with an almost subhuman candor-how was I to believe that she meant it? I
could only smile as though to show her I was convinced.
Suddenly I feel her coming. I turn my head. Yes, there
she is coming full on, the sails spread, the eyes glowing.
For the first time I see now what a carriage she has.

342
Tropic of Capricorn
She comes forward like a bird, a human bird wrapped in
a soft fur. The engine is going full steam: I want to shout,
to give a blast that will make the whole world cock its
ears. What a walk! It's not a walk, it's a glide.
Tall, stately, full-bodied, self-possessed, she cuts the
smoke and jazz and red-light glow like the queen
mother of all the slippery Babylonian whores. On the
corner of Broadway just opposite the comfort station, this
is happening. Broadway-it's her realm. This is Broadway, this is New York, this is America. She's America
on foot, winged and sexed. She is the lubet, the abominate
and the sublimate-with a dash of hydrochloric acid,
nitroglycerin, laudanum and powdered onyx. Opulence
she has, and magni6cence; it's America right or wrong,
and the ocean on either side. For the 6rst time in my life
the whole continent hits me full force, hits me between
the eyes. This is America, buffaloes or no buffaloes, America the emery wheel of hope and disillusionment. Whatever made America made her, bone, blood, muscle, eyeball, gait, rhythm, poise, confidence, brass and hollow
gut. She's almost on top of me, the full face gleaming like
calcium. The big soft fur is sHpping from her shoulder.
She doesn't notice it. She doesn't seem to care if her
clothes should drop off. She doesn't give a fuck about
anything. It's America moving like a streak of lightning
toward the glass warehouse of red-blooded hysteria.
Amurrica, fur or no fur, shoes or no shoes. Amurrica
C.O.D. And scram, you bastards, before we plug you!
It's got me in the guts, I'm quaking. Something's coming
to me and there's no dodging it. She's coming head on,
through the plate glass window. If she would only stop a
second, if she would only let me be for just one moment.
But no, not a single moment does she grant me. Swift,
ruthless, imperious, like Fate itself she is on me, a sword
cutting me through and through. . . .
She has me by the hand, she holds it tight. I walk
beside her without fear. Inside me the stars are twinkling;

Tropic of Capricorn

343
lside me a great blue vault where a moment ago the
ngines were pounding furiously.
One can wait a whole lifetime for a moment like this.
'he woman whom you never hoped to meet now sits beJre you, and she talks and looks exactly like the person
ou dreamed about. But strangest of all is that you never
ealized before that you had dreamed about her. Your
\Thole past is like a long sleep which would have been
orgotten had there been no dream. And the dream too
night have been forgotten had there been no memory,
mt remembrance is there in the blood and the blood is
ike an ocean in which everything is washed away but
hat which is new and more substantial even than life:
LEALITY.

We are seated in a little booth in the Chinese restaurant
lcross the way. Out of the corner of my eye I catch the
licker of the illuminated letters running up and down the
kyo She is still talking about Henriette, or maybe it is
lbout herself. Her little black bonnet, her bag and fur
lre lying beside her on the bench. Every few minutes she
ights a fresh cigarette which burns away as she talks.
[here is no beginning nor end; it spurts out of her like a
lame and consumes everything within reach. No knowing
lOW or where she began. Suddenly she is in the midst
)f a long narrative, a fresh one, but it is always the same.
~Ier talk is as formless as dream: there are no grooves, no
walls, no exits, no stops. I have the feeling of being
drowned in a deep mesh of words, of crawling painfully
back to the top of the net, of looking into her eyes and
trying to fin;:l there some reflection of the significance of
her words-but I can find nothing, nothing except my
own image wavering in a bottomless well. Though she
speaks of nothing but herself I am unable to form the
slightest image of her being. She leans forward, with elbows on the table, and her words inundate me; wave
after wave rolling over me and yet nothing builds up
inside me, nothing that I can seize with my mind. She's
telling me about her father, about the strange life they

344

Tropic of Capricorn

led at the edge of Sherwood Forest where she was born,
or at least she was telling me about this, but now it's
about Henriette again, or is it Dostoevski?-I'm not sure
-but anyway, suddenly I realize that she's not talking
about any of these any more but about a man who took
her home one night and as they stood on the stoop saying
good-night he suddenly reached down and pulled up
her dress. She pauses a moment as though to reassure me
that this is what she means to talk about. I look at her
bewilderedly. I can't imagine by what route we got to this
point. What man? What had he been saying to her? I let
her continue, thinking that she will probably come back
to it, but no, she's ahead of me again and now it seems
the man, this man, is already dead, a suicide, and she is
trying to make me understand that it was an awful blow
to her, but what she really seems to convey is that she is
proud of the fact that she drove a man to suicide. I can't
picture the man as dead; I can only think of him as he
stood on her stoop lifting her dress, a man without a
name but alive and perpetually fixed in the act of bending
down to lift up her dress. There is another man who was
her father and I see him with a string of race horses, or
sometimes in a little inn just outside Vienna; rather I see
him on the roof of the inn flying kites to while the time
away. And hetween this man who was her father and the
man with whom she was madly in love I can make no
separation. He is someone in her life about whom she
would rather not talk, but just the same she comes back
to him all the time, and though I'm not sure that it was
not the man who lifted up her dress neither am I sure
that it wasn't the man who committed suicide. Ilerhaps
it's the man whom she started to talk about when we sat
down to eat. Just as we were sitting down I remember
now that she began to talk rather hectically about a man
whom she had just seen entering the cafeteria. She even
mentioned his name, but I forgot it immediately. But I
remember her saying that she had lived with him and
that he had done something which she didn't like-she

Tropic of Capricorn
345
didn't say what-and so she had walked out on him, left
him flat, without a word of explanation. And then, just as
we were entering the chop suey joint, they ran into each
other and she was still trembling over it as we sat down
in the little booth.... For one long moment I have the
most uneasy sensation. Maybe every word she uttered
was a lie! Not an ordinary lie, no, something worse, something indescribable. Only sometimes the truth comes out
like that too, especially if you think you're never going to
see the person again. Sometimes you can tell a perfect
stranger what you would never dare reveal to your most
intimate friend. It's like going to sleep in the midst of a
party; you become so interested in yourself that you go
to sleep. And when you're sound asleep you begin to talk
to someone, someone who was in the same room with you
all the time and therefore understands everything even
though you begin in the middle of a sentence. And perhaps this other person goes to sleep also, or was always
asleep, and that's why it was so easy to encounter him,
and if he doesn't say anything to disturb you then you
know that what you are saying is real and true and that
you are wide-awake and there is no other reality except
this being wide-awake asleep. Never before have I been
so wide-awake and so sound asleep at the same time. If
the ogre in my dreams had really pushed the bars aside
and taken me by the hand I would have been frightened
to death and consequently now dead, that is, forever
asleep and therefore always at large, and nothing would
be strange any more, nor untrue, even if what happened
did not happen. "Vhat happened must have happened
long ago, in the night undoubtedly. And what is now
happening is also happening long ago, in the night, and
this is no more true than the dream of the ogre and the
bars which would not give, except that now the bars are
broken and she whom I feared has me by the hand and
there is no difference between that which I feared and
what is, because I was asleep and now I am wide-awake
asleep and there is nothing more to fear, nor to expect,

346

Tropic of Capricorn

nor to hope for, but just this which is and which knows
no end.
She wants to go. To go . . . . Again her haunch, that
slippery glide as when she came down from the dance
hall and moved into me. Again her words ... "suddenly
for no reason at all, he bent down and lifted up my dress."
She's slipping the fur around her neck; the little black
bonnet sets her face off like a cameo. The round, full face,
with Slavic cheekbones. How could I dream this, never
having seen it? How could I know that she would rise like
this, close and full, the face full white and blooming like a
magnolia? I tremble as the fullness of her thigh brushes
me. She seems even a little taller than I, though she is
not. It's the way she holds her chin. She doesn't notice
where she's walking. She walks over things, on, on, with
eyes wide open and staring into space. No past, no future.
Even the present seems dubious. The self seems to have
left her, and the body rushes forward, the neck full and
taut, white as the face, full like the face. The talk goes
on, in that low, throaty voice. No beginning, no end. I'm
aware not of time nor the passing of time, but of timelessness. She's got the little womb in the throat hooked
up to the big womb in the pelvis. The cab is at the curb
and she is still chewing the cosmological chaff of the
ollter ego_ T pick up the speaking tube and connect with
the double uterus. Hello, hello, are you there? Let's go!
Let's get on with it-cabs, boats, trains, naphtha launches;
beaches, bedbugs, highways, byways, ruins; relics, old
world, new world, pier, jetty; the high forceps, the
swinging trapeze, the ditch, the delta, the alligators, the
crocodiles, talk, talk, and more talk; then roads again and
more dust in the eyes, more rainbows, more cloudbursts,
more breakfast foods, morc creams, more lotions. And
when all the roads have been traversed and there is left
only the dust of our frantic feet there will still remain
the memory of your large full face so white, and the wide
mouth with fresh lips parted, the teeth chalk white and

Tropic of Capricorn
347
each one perfect, and in this remembrance nothing can
possibly change because this, like your teeth, is perfect ....

It is Sunday, the first Sunday of my new life, and I am
wearing the dog collar you fastened around my neck. A
new life stretches before me. It begins with the day of
rest. I lie back on a broad green leaf and I watch the sun
bursting in your womb. What a clabber and clatter it
makes! All this expressly for me, what? If only you had a
million suns in you! If only I could lie here forever enjoying the celestial fireworks!
I lie suspended over the surface of the moon. The
world is in a womblike trance: the inner and the outer
ego are in equilibrium. You promised me so much that if
I never come out of this it will make no difference. It
seems to me that it is exactly 25,960 years since I have
been asleep in the black womb of sex. It seems to me
that I slept perhaps 365 years too many. But at any
rate I am now in the right house, among the sixes, and
what lies behind me is well and what lies ahead is well.
You come to me disguised as Venus, but you are Lilith,
and I know it. My whole life is in the balance; I will
enjoy the luxury of this for one day. Tomorrow I shall
tip the scales. Tomorrow the equilibrium will be finished;
if I ever find it again it will be in the blood and not in the
stars. It is well that you promise me so much. I need to be
promised nearly everything, for I have lived in the shadow
of the sun too long. I want light and chastity-and a
solar fire in the guts. I want to be deceived and disillusioned so that I may complete the upper triangle
and not be continually Hying off the planet into space. I
believe everything you tell me, but I know also that it
will all turn out differently. I take you as a star and a
trap, as a stone to tip the scales, as a judge that is blindfolded, as a hole to fall into, as a path to walk, as a cross
and an arrow. Up to the present I traveled the opposite
way of the sun; henceforth I travel two ways, as sun
and as moon. Henceforth I take on two sexes, two hemi-

Tropic of Capricorn
348
spheres, two skies, two sets of everything. Henceforth I
shall be double-jointed and double-sexed. Everything
that happens will happen twice. I shall be as a visitor
to this earth, partaking of its blessings and carrying off
its gifts. I shall neither serve nor be served. I shall seek
the end in myself.
I look out again at the sun-my first full gaze. It is
blood-red and men are walking about on the rooftops.
Everything above the horizon is clear to me. It is like
Easter Sunday. Death is behind me and birth too. I am
going to live now among the life maladies. I am going
to live the spiritual life of the pygmy, the secret life of the
little man in the wilderness of the bush. Inner and outer
have changed places. Equilibrium is no longer the goal
-the scales must be destroyed. Let me hear you promise
again all those sunny things you carry inside you. Let
me try to believe for one day, while I rest in the open,
that the sun brings good tidings. Let me rot in splendor
while the sun bursts in your womb. I believe all your
lies implicitly. I take you as the personification of evil,
as the destroyer of the soul, as the maharanee of the night.
Tack your womb up on my wall, so that I may remember
you. We must get going. Tomorrow, tomorrow....
September, 1938
Villa S(~urat, Paris