Godlike
10-03-2000, 10:47 AM
First Love
In my minds eye I can see her today just as vividly as when I
first met her, which was in one of the corridors of Eastern
District High School (Brooklyn) as she was going from one class-
room to another. She was just a little shorter than I, well built,
that is to say rather buxom, radiant, bursting with health, head
high, glance at once imperious and saucy, concealing a shyness in
which was disconcerting. She had a warm, generous mouth filled
with rather large, dazzling white teeth. But it was her hair and
eyes which drew one first. Light golden hair it was, combed up
stiff in the form of a conch. A natural blonde such as one seldom
sees except in an opera. Her eyes, which were extremely limpid,
were full and round. They were China blue, and they matched
her golden hair and her apple-blossom complexion. She was only
sixteen, of course, and not very sure of herself, though she
seemed to give the impression that she was. She stood out from all the
other girls in the school, like someone with blue blood in her veins.
Blue blood and icy, I am tempted to say.
That first glance she gave me swept me off my feet.
I was not only impressed by her beauty but intimidated as well. How I
ever managed to approach her and mumble a few meaningless
words I can no longer recall. I know it took weeks after the first
encounter to do such a brave thing. I recall vividly how she
blushed each time we came within striking distance of one another.
Naturally, what conversation must have been of a telegraphic nature.
She never dropped a word or a phrase that took root in my memory.
As I say, these encounters always took place in the corridors, going
from one class room to another. She must have been a class or two
behind me, though of same age. For me, of course, these little nothings were
filled with pregnant significance.
It was only after we had graduated from high school that we
exchanged a few letters. During the summer holidays she remained
at Asbury Park, New Jersey, while I continued my daily
drudgery as a clerk in the offices of the Atlas Portland Cement
any. Every evening, on returning from work, I rushed to
the mantelpiece over the fireplace, where the mail was always
deposited, to see if there was a letter from her. If I received one
throughout the long vacation season I was lucky. My impression
of this strange courtship is one of utter frustration. Now and then,
rarely, I met her at a dance. Twice, I think, I took her to the theater.
I didn't even possess a photo of her that I might carry in my
wallet and look at secretly.
But I had no need for photographs. Her image was constantly in my
mind; her absence was a perpetual torment which served to keep her
image alive. I carried her inside me, as it were. Alone, I would
often speak to her, either silently or aloud. Often, walking home at
night, after having made a tour of her house, I would her name aloud,
imploringly, as if to beg her to grant me the of an audience from on
high. She was always up there high above me, like some goddess
whom I had discovered and regarded as my very own. It was I, idiot
that I was, prevented her from descending to the level of other mortals.
This, to be sure, had been determined from the instant I met her: no choice.
The strange thing is that she never gave me any indication hostile or
indifferent. Who knows-perhaps she for her part was pleading silently
with me to show her a more human attention, to woo her like a man,
to take her, forcibly if need be. Perhaps two or three times a year we
would come together at a party, one of those teen-age affairs which last
until dawn with and dancing and silly games such as "Kiss the Pillow,"
or “Post Office,” the game which permits one to call for the creature
of one's choice and embrace her furtively in a dark. Even then,
when we might have kissed and embraced unrestrainedly, our shyness
prevented us from sharing anything the most innocent pleasure.
If I danced with her, I trembled from head to toe, much to her
embarrassment.
All I could do was to play the piano--play and jealously watch her
dance with my friends. She never came behind to put her
arms around me and whisper some silly nothing. After such
evenings I would lie abed and gnash my teeth, or weep like a
fool, or pray to a God I no longer believed in, beg Him to have me
find favor in her eyes.
And all throughout these five or six years she remained what she had
been from the first-a flaming image. I knew nothing of her mind,
her hopes or dreams, her aspirations. She was complete blank on
which I fatuously inscribed what I wished
No doubt I was the same to her.
Finally there came the day I said good-by to her. The day
was leaving I for the Wild West, to become a cowboy, so I thought.
I went to her home and timidly rang the bell. (It was but second or
third time I had ventured to ring her doorbell.) came to the door
looking thinner, older, more careworn than I ever I had seen her.
We were twenty-one now, and I had been going with widow"
for two or three years. That was why I was running to the
Far West-to cure myself of a fatal infatuation. Instead of inviting me in,
she stepped outdoors and escorted me to gate which opened onto the
sidewalk, and there we stood perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes
exchanging pointless remarks. I had, of course, warned her of my
coming and related briefly my plans for the future. What I omitted
to say was that I would one day send for her-and all that nonsense.
Whatever I may have secretly hoped, by now I knew that the
situation was irremediable. She knew that I loved her---everyone
knew i the affair with "the widow" had put me definitely out of
her pale It was something she could not understand, much less forgive.
What a sorry figure I must have cut! Even then, had I been courageous
and resolute enough, I might have won her. At least so it seemed to
me, reading the pained, lost expression in h eyes. (Yet rambling on
fatuously, blindly, about the glorious Golden West.) Even though I
felt it might be the last time would see her I lacked the courage to
fling my arms around her a last, passionate kiss. instead, we shook
hands politely, mumbled some awkward words of adieu, and off I walked.
Though I never once turned my head, I had the firm conviction was
still standing at the gate, following me with her eyes. Did she wait
until I had rounded the comer before rushing room, flinging herself
on the bed, and sobbing fit to break her heart? I will never know,
neither in this world nor the next. a year later, when I had returned
from the West, sadder to return to the arms of "the widow" from
whom I had we met again by chance. The last meeting. It was on
streetcar, and fortunately I was with an old chum who knew her
well, else I would have bolted. After a few words my friend
suggested that she invite us up to her flat. She was married,
incredible as it may seem, was living just back house in which
the widow lived. We tripped up the high and entered her apartment.
She took us from one room finishing with the bedroom. Then, in
her embarrassment she let slip an idiotic phrase which went through me like .
"This," she said, pointing to the big double bed, "is we sleep."
With those words it was as if an iron curtain fell between us.
It was the end for me. And yet not an end. In all the years which
since elapsed she remains the woman I loved and lost, the one.
In her China-blue eyes, so cold and inviting, so and mirror-like,
I see myself forever and ever as the ridiculous man, the lonely
soul, the wanderer, the restless frustrated the man in love with
love, always in search of the absolute, seeking the unattainable.
Behind the iron curtain remains fresh and vivid as of yore, and
nothing, it can tarnish it or cause it to fade away.
- Henry Miller
------------------
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the Beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed,
the hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
In my minds eye I can see her today just as vividly as when I
first met her, which was in one of the corridors of Eastern
District High School (Brooklyn) as she was going from one class-
room to another. She was just a little shorter than I, well built,
that is to say rather buxom, radiant, bursting with health, head
high, glance at once imperious and saucy, concealing a shyness in
which was disconcerting. She had a warm, generous mouth filled
with rather large, dazzling white teeth. But it was her hair and
eyes which drew one first. Light golden hair it was, combed up
stiff in the form of a conch. A natural blonde such as one seldom
sees except in an opera. Her eyes, which were extremely limpid,
were full and round. They were China blue, and they matched
her golden hair and her apple-blossom complexion. She was only
sixteen, of course, and not very sure of herself, though she
seemed to give the impression that she was. She stood out from all the
other girls in the school, like someone with blue blood in her veins.
Blue blood and icy, I am tempted to say.
That first glance she gave me swept me off my feet.
I was not only impressed by her beauty but intimidated as well. How I
ever managed to approach her and mumble a few meaningless
words I can no longer recall. I know it took weeks after the first
encounter to do such a brave thing. I recall vividly how she
blushed each time we came within striking distance of one another.
Naturally, what conversation must have been of a telegraphic nature.
She never dropped a word or a phrase that took root in my memory.
As I say, these encounters always took place in the corridors, going
from one class room to another. She must have been a class or two
behind me, though of same age. For me, of course, these little nothings were
filled with pregnant significance.
It was only after we had graduated from high school that we
exchanged a few letters. During the summer holidays she remained
at Asbury Park, New Jersey, while I continued my daily
drudgery as a clerk in the offices of the Atlas Portland Cement
any. Every evening, on returning from work, I rushed to
the mantelpiece over the fireplace, where the mail was always
deposited, to see if there was a letter from her. If I received one
throughout the long vacation season I was lucky. My impression
of this strange courtship is one of utter frustration. Now and then,
rarely, I met her at a dance. Twice, I think, I took her to the theater.
I didn't even possess a photo of her that I might carry in my
wallet and look at secretly.
But I had no need for photographs. Her image was constantly in my
mind; her absence was a perpetual torment which served to keep her
image alive. I carried her inside me, as it were. Alone, I would
often speak to her, either silently or aloud. Often, walking home at
night, after having made a tour of her house, I would her name aloud,
imploringly, as if to beg her to grant me the of an audience from on
high. She was always up there high above me, like some goddess
whom I had discovered and regarded as my very own. It was I, idiot
that I was, prevented her from descending to the level of other mortals.
This, to be sure, had been determined from the instant I met her: no choice.
The strange thing is that she never gave me any indication hostile or
indifferent. Who knows-perhaps she for her part was pleading silently
with me to show her a more human attention, to woo her like a man,
to take her, forcibly if need be. Perhaps two or three times a year we
would come together at a party, one of those teen-age affairs which last
until dawn with and dancing and silly games such as "Kiss the Pillow,"
or “Post Office,” the game which permits one to call for the creature
of one's choice and embrace her furtively in a dark. Even then,
when we might have kissed and embraced unrestrainedly, our shyness
prevented us from sharing anything the most innocent pleasure.
If I danced with her, I trembled from head to toe, much to her
embarrassment.
All I could do was to play the piano--play and jealously watch her
dance with my friends. She never came behind to put her
arms around me and whisper some silly nothing. After such
evenings I would lie abed and gnash my teeth, or weep like a
fool, or pray to a God I no longer believed in, beg Him to have me
find favor in her eyes.
And all throughout these five or six years she remained what she had
been from the first-a flaming image. I knew nothing of her mind,
her hopes or dreams, her aspirations. She was complete blank on
which I fatuously inscribed what I wished
No doubt I was the same to her.
Finally there came the day I said good-by to her. The day
was leaving I for the Wild West, to become a cowboy, so I thought.
I went to her home and timidly rang the bell. (It was but second or
third time I had ventured to ring her doorbell.) came to the door
looking thinner, older, more careworn than I ever I had seen her.
We were twenty-one now, and I had been going with widow"
for two or three years. That was why I was running to the
Far West-to cure myself of a fatal infatuation. Instead of inviting me in,
she stepped outdoors and escorted me to gate which opened onto the
sidewalk, and there we stood perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes
exchanging pointless remarks. I had, of course, warned her of my
coming and related briefly my plans for the future. What I omitted
to say was that I would one day send for her-and all that nonsense.
Whatever I may have secretly hoped, by now I knew that the
situation was irremediable. She knew that I loved her---everyone
knew i the affair with "the widow" had put me definitely out of
her pale It was something she could not understand, much less forgive.
What a sorry figure I must have cut! Even then, had I been courageous
and resolute enough, I might have won her. At least so it seemed to
me, reading the pained, lost expression in h eyes. (Yet rambling on
fatuously, blindly, about the glorious Golden West.) Even though I
felt it might be the last time would see her I lacked the courage to
fling my arms around her a last, passionate kiss. instead, we shook
hands politely, mumbled some awkward words of adieu, and off I walked.
Though I never once turned my head, I had the firm conviction was
still standing at the gate, following me with her eyes. Did she wait
until I had rounded the comer before rushing room, flinging herself
on the bed, and sobbing fit to break her heart? I will never know,
neither in this world nor the next. a year later, when I had returned
from the West, sadder to return to the arms of "the widow" from
whom I had we met again by chance. The last meeting. It was on
streetcar, and fortunately I was with an old chum who knew her
well, else I would have bolted. After a few words my friend
suggested that she invite us up to her flat. She was married,
incredible as it may seem, was living just back house in which
the widow lived. We tripped up the high and entered her apartment.
She took us from one room finishing with the bedroom. Then, in
her embarrassment she let slip an idiotic phrase which went through me like .
"This," she said, pointing to the big double bed, "is we sleep."
With those words it was as if an iron curtain fell between us.
It was the end for me. And yet not an end. In all the years which
since elapsed she remains the woman I loved and lost, the one.
In her China-blue eyes, so cold and inviting, so and mirror-like,
I see myself forever and ever as the ridiculous man, the lonely
soul, the wanderer, the restless frustrated the man in love with
love, always in search of the absolute, seeking the unattainable.
Behind the iron curtain remains fresh and vivid as of yore, and
nothing, it can tarnish it or cause it to fade away.
- Henry Miller
------------------
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the Beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed,
the hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.