NEXUS

2

Ah, the monotonous thrill that comes of walking the streets on a winter's morn, when iron girders are frozen to the ground and the milk in the bottle rises like the stem of a mushroom. A septentrional day, let us say, when the most-stupid animal would not dare poke a nose out of his hole. To accost a stranger on such a day and ask him for alms would be unthinkable. In that biting, gnawing cold, the icy wind whistling through the glum, canyoned streets, no one in his right mind would stop long enough to reach into his pocket in search of a coin. On a morning like this, which a comfortable banker would describe as clear and brisk, a beggar has no right to be hungry or in need of carfare. Beggars are for warm, sunny days, when even the sadist at heart stops to throw crumbs to the birds.

It was on a day such as this that I would deliberately gather together a batch of samples in order to sally forth and call on one of my father's customers, knowing in advance that I would get no order but driven by an all consuming hunger for conversation.

There was one individual in particular I always elected to visit on such occasions, because with him the day might end, and usually did end, in most unexpected fashion. It was seldom, I should add, that this individual ever ordered a suit of clothes, and when he did it took him years to settle the bill. Still, he was a customer. To the old man I used to pretend that I was calling on John Stymer in order to make him buy the full dress suit which we always assumed he would eventually need. (He was forever telling us that he would become a judge one day, this Stymer.)

What I never divulged to the old man was the nature of the un-sartorial conversations I usually had with the man.

Hello! What do you want to see me for?

That's how he usually greeted me.

You must be mad if you think I need more clothes. I haven't paid you for the last suit I bought, have I? When was that—five years ago?

He had barely lifted his head from the mass of papers in which his nose was buried. A foul smell pervaded the office, due to his inveterate habit of farting—even in the presence of his stenographer. He was always picking his nose too. Otherwise—outwardly, I mean—he might pass for Mr. Anybody. A lawyer, like any other lawyer.

His head still buried in a maze of legal documents, he chirps: What are you reading these days? Before I can reply he adds: Could you wait outside a few minutes? I'm in a tangle. But don't run away ... I want to have a chat with you. So saying he dives into his pocket and pulls out a dollar bill. Here, get ourself a coffee while you wait. And come back in an hour or so ... we'll have lunch together, what!

In the ante-room a half-dozen clients are waiting to get his ear. He begs each one to wait just a little longer. Sometimes they sit there all day.

On the way to the cafeteria I break the bill to buy a paper. Scanning the news always gives me that extrasensory feeling of belonging to another planet. Besides, I need to get screwed up in order to grapple with John Stymer.

Scanning the paper I get to reflecting on Stymer's great problem. Masturbation. For years now he's been trying to break the vicious habit. Scraps of our last conversation come to mind. I recall how I recommended his trying a good whorehouse—and the wry face he made when I voiced the suggestion. What! Me, a married man, take up with a bunch of filthy whores? And all I could think to say was: They're not all filthy!

But what was pathetic, now that I mention the matter, was the earnest, imploring way he begged me, on parting, to let him know if I thought of anything that would help ... anything at all. Cut if off! I wanted to say.

An hour rolled away. To him an hour was like five minutes. Finally I got up and made for the door. It was that icy outdoors I wanted to gallop.

To my surprise he was waiting for me. There he sat with clasped hands resting on the desk top, his eyes fixed on some pin point in eternity. The package of samples which I had left on his desk was open. He had decided to order a suit, he informed me.

I'm in no hurry for it, he said. I don't need any new clothes.

Don't buy one, then. You know I didn't come here to sell you a suit.

You know, he said, you're about the only person I ever manage to have a real conversation with. Every time I see you I expand ... What have you got to recommend this time? I mean in the way of literature. That last one, Oblomov, was it? didn't make much of an impression on me.

He paused, not to hear what I might have to say in reply, but to gather momentum.

Since you were here last I've been having an affair. Does that surprise you? Yes, a young girl, very young, and a nymphomaniac to boot. Drains me dry. But that isn't what bothers me—it's my wife. It's excruciating the way she works over me. I want to jump out of my skin.

Observing the grin on my face he adds: It's not a bit funny, let me tell you.

The telephone rang. He listens attentively. Then, having said nothing but Yes, No, I think so, he suddenly shouts into the mouthpiece: I want none of your filthy money. Let him get some one else to defend him.

Imagine trying to bribe me, he says, slamming up the receiver. And a judge, no less. A big shot, too. He blew his nose vigorously. Well, where were we? He rose. What about a bite to eat? Could talk better over food and wine, don't you think?

We hailed a taxi and made for an Italian joint he frequented. It was a cosy place, smelling strongly of wine, sawdust and cheese. Virtually deserted too.

After we had ordered he said: You don't mind if I talk about myself, do you? That's my weakness, I guess. Even when I'm reading, even if it's a good book, I can't help but think about myself, my problems. Not that I think I'm so important, you understand. Obsessed, that's all.

You're obsessed too, he continued, but in a healthier way. You see, I'm engrossed with myself and I hate myself. A real loathing, mind you. I couldn't possibly feel that way about another human being. I know myself through and through, and the thought of what I am, what I must look like to others, appals me. I've got only one good quality: I'm honest. I take no credit for it either ... it's a purely instinctive trait. Yes, I'm homiest with my clients—and I'm honest with my self.

I broke in. You may be honest with yourself, as you say, but it would be better for you if you were more generous. I mean, with yourself. If you can't treat yourself decently how do you expect others to?

It's not in my nature to think such thoughts, he answered promptly. I'm a Puritan from way back. A degenerate one, to be sure. The trouble is, I'm not degenerate enough. You remember asking me once if I had ever read the Marquis de Sade? Well, I tried, but he bores me stiff. Maybe he's too French for my taste. I don't know why they call him the divine Marquis, do you?

By now we had sampled the Chianti and were up to our ears in spaghetti. The wine had a limbering effect. He could drink a lot without losing his head. In fact, that was another one of his troubles—his inability to lose himself, even under the influence of drink.

As if he had divined my thoughts, he began by remarking that he was an out and out mentalist. A mentalist who can even make his prick think. You're laughing again. But it's tragic. The young girl I spoke of—she thinks I'm a grand fucker. I'm not. But she is. She's a real fuckaree. Me, I fuck with my brain. It's like I was conducting a cross-examination, only with my prick instead of my mind. Sounds screwy, doesn't it? It is too. Because the more I fuck the more I concentrate on myself. Now and then—with her, that is—I sort of come to and ask myself who's on the other end. Must be a hang-over from the masturbating business. You follow me, don't you? Instead of doing it to myself some one does it for me. It's better than masturbating, because you become even more detached. The girl, of course, has a grand time. She can do anything she likes with me. That's what tickles her ... excites her. What she doesn't know—maybe it would frighten her if I told her—is that I'm not there. You know the expression—to be all ears. Well, I'm all mind. A mind with a prick attached to it, if you can put it that way ... By the way, sometime I want to ask you about yourself. How you feel when you do it ... your reactions ... and all that. Not that it would help much. Just curious.

Suddenly he switched. Wanted to know if I had done any writing yet. When I said no, he replied: You're writing right now, only you're not aware of it. You're writing all the time, don't you realize that?

Astonished by this strange observation, I exclaimed:

You mean me—or everybody?

Of course I don't mean everybody! I mean you, you. His voice grew shrill and petulant. You told me once that you would like to write. Well, when do you expect to begin? He paused to take a heaping mouthful of food. Still gulping, he continued: Why do you think I talk to you the way I do? Because you're a good listener? Not at all! I can blab my heart out to you because I know that you're vitally uninterested. It's not me, John Stymer, that interests you, it's what I tell you, or the way I tell it to you. But I am interested in you, definitely. Quite a difference.

He masticated in silence for a moment.

You're almost as complicated as I am, he went on. You know that, don't you? I'm curious to know what makes people tick, especially a type like you. Don't worry, I'll never probe you because I know in advance you won't give me the right answers. You're a shadow-boxer. And me, I'm a lawyer. It's my business to handle cases. But you, I can't imagine what you deal in, unless it's air.

Here he closed up like a clam, content to swallow and chew for a while. Presently he said: I've a good mind to invite you to come along with me this afternoon. I'm not going back to the office. I'm going to see this gal I've been telling you about. Why don't you come along? She's easy to look at, easy to talk to. I'd like to observe your reactions. He paused a moment to see how I might take the proposal, then added: She lives out on Long Island. It's a bit of a drive, but it may be worth it. We'll bring some wine along and some Strega. She likes liqueurs. What say?

I agreed. We walked to the garage where he kept his car. It took a while to defrost it. We had only gone a little ways when one thing after another gave out. With the stops we made at garages and repair shops it must have taken almost three hours to get out of the city limits. By that time we were thoroughly frozen. We had a run of sixty miles to make and it was already dark as pitch.

Once on the highway we made several stops to warm up. He seemed to be known everywhere we stopped, and was always treated with deference. He explained, as we drove along, how he had befriended this one and that. I never take a case, he said, unless I'm sure I can win., I tried to draw him out about the girl, but his mind was on other things. Curiously, the subject uppermost in his mind at present was immortality. What was the sense in an hereafter, he wanted to know, if one lost his personality at death? He was convinced that a single lifetime was too short a period in which to solve one's problems. I haven't started living my own life, he said, and I'm already nearing fifty. One should live to be a hundred and fifty or two hundred, then one might get somewhere. The real problems don't commence until you've done with sex and all material difficulties. At twenty-five I thought I knew all the answers. Now I feel that I know nothing about anything. Here we are, going to meet a young nymphomaniac. What sense does it make? He lit a cigarette, took a puff or two, then threw it away. The next moment he extracted a fat cigar from his breast pocket.

You'd like to know something about her. I'll tell you this first off—if only I had the necessary courage I'd snatch her up and head for Mexico. What to do there I don't know. Begin all over again, I suppose. But that's what gets me ... I haven't the guts for it. I'm a moral coward, that's the truth. Besides, I know she's pulling my leg. Every time I leave her I wonder who she'll be in bed with soon as I'm out of sight. Not that I'm jealous—I hate to be made a fool of, that's all. I am a chump, of course. In everything except the law I'm an utter fool.

He traveled on in this vein for some time. He certainly loved to run himself down. I sat back and drank it in.

Now it was a new tack. Do you know why I never became a writer?

No, I replied, amazed that he had ever entertained the thought.

Because I found out almost immediately that I had nothing to say. I've never lived, that's the long and short of it. Risk nothing, gain nothing. What's that Oriental saying? ‘To fear is not to sow because of the birds.’ That says it. Those crazy Russians you give me to read, they all had experience of life, even if they never budged from the spot they were born in. For things to happen there must be a suitable climate. And if the climate is lacking, you create one. That is, if you have genius. I never created a thing. I play the game, and I play it according to the rules. The answer to that, in case you don't know it, is death. Yep, I'm as good as dead already. But crack this now: it's when I'm deadest that I fuck the best. Figure it out, if you can! The last time I slept with her, just to give you an illustration, I didn't bother to take my clothes off. I climbed in—coat, shoes, and all. It seemed perfectly natural, considering the state of mind I was in. Nor did it bother her in the least. As I say, I climbed into bed with her fully dressed and I said:Why don't we just lie here and fuck ourselves to death? A strange idea, what? Especially coming from a respected lawyer with a family and all that. Anyway, the words had hardly left my mouth when I said to myself: ‘You dope! You're dead already. Why pretend?)—How do you like that? With that I gave myself up to it ... to the fucking, I mean.

Here I threw in a teaser. Had he ever pictured himself, I asked, possessing a prick ... and using ill ... in the hereafter?

Have I? he exclaimed. That's just what bothers me, that very thought. An immortal life with an extension prick hooked to my brain is something I don't fancy in the least. Not that I want to lead the life of an angel either. I want to be myself, John Stymer, with all the bloody problems that are mine. I want time to think things out ... a thousand years or more. Sounds goofy, doesn't it? But that's how I'm built. The Marquis de Sade, he had loads of time on his hands. He thought out a lot of things, I must admit, but I can't agree with his conclusions. Anyway, what I want to say is—it's not so terrible to spend your life in prison ... if you have an active mind. What is terrible is to make a prisoner of yourself. And that's what most of us are—self-made prisoners. There are scarcely a dozen men in a generation who break out. Once you see life with a clear eye it's all a farce. A grand farce. Imagine a man wasting his life defending or convicting others! The business of law is thoroughly insane. Nobody is a whit better off because we have laws. No, it's a fool's game, dignified by giving it a pompous name. To-morrow I may find myself sitting on the bench. A judge, no less. Will I think any more of myself because I'm called a judge? Will I be able to change anything? Not on your life. I'll play the game again ... the judges’ game. That's why I say we're licked from the start. I'm aware of the fact that we all have a part to play and that all any one can do, supposedly, is to play his part to the best of his ability. Well, I don't like my part. The idea of playing a part doesn't appeal to me. Not even if the parts be interchangeable. You get me? I believe it's time we had a new deal, a new set-up. The courts have to go, the laws have to go, the police have to go, the prisons have to go. It's insane, the whole business. That's why I fuck my head off.. You would too, if you could see it as I do. He broke off, sputtering like a Bre-cracker.

After a brief silence he informed me that we were soon there. Remember, make yourself at home. Do anything, say anything you please. Nobody will stop you. If you Want to take a crack at her, it's O.K. with me. Only don't make a habit of it!

The house was shrouded in darkness as we pulled into the driveway. A note was pinned to the dining room table. From Belle, the great fuckaree. She had grown tired of waiting for us, didn't believe we would make it, and so on.

Where is she, then? I asked.

Probably gone to the city to stay the night with a friend.

He didn't seem greatly upset, I must say. After a few grunts ... the bitch this and the bitch that ... he went to the refrigerator to see what there was in the way of leftovers.

We might as well stay the night here, he said. She's left us some baked beans and cold ham, I see. Will that hold you?

As we were polishing off the remnants he informed me that there was a comfortable room upstairs with twin beds. Now we can have a good talk, he said.

I was ready enough for bed but not for a heart to heart talk. As for Stymer, nothing seemed capable of slowing down the machinery of his mind, neither frost nor drink nor fatigue itself.

I would have dropped off immediately on hitting the pillow had Stymer not opened fire in the way he did. Suddenly I was as wide awake as if I had taken a double dose of benzadrine. His first words, delivered in a steady, even tone, electrified me.

There's nothing surprises you very much, I notice. Well, get a load of this...

That's how be began.

One of the reasons I'm such a good lawyer is because I'm also something of a criminal. You'd hardly think me capable of plotting another person's death, would you? Well, I am. I've decided to do away with my wife. Just how, I don't know yet. It's not because of Belle, either. It's just that she bores me to death. I can't stand it any longer. For twenty years now I haven't had an intelligent word from her. She's driven me to the last ditch, and she knows it. She knows all about Belle; there's never been any secret about that. All she cares about is that it shouldn't leak out. It's my wife, God damn her! who turned me into a masturbator, I was that sick of her, almost from the beginning, that the thought of sleeping with her made me ill. True, we might have arranged a divorce. But why support a lump of clay for the rest of my life? Since I fell in with Belle I've had a chance to do a little thinking and planning. My one aim is to get out of the country, far away, and start all over again. At what I don't know. Not the law, certainly. I want isolation and I want to do as little work as possible.

He took a breath. I made no comments. He expected none.

To be frank with you, I was wondering if I could tempt you to join me. I'd take care of you as long as the money held out, that's understood. I was thinking it out as we drove here. That note from Belle—I dictated the message, I had no thought of switching things when we started, please believe me. But the more we talked the more I felt that you were just the person I'd like to have around, if I made the jump.

He hesitated a second, then added: I had to tell you about my wife because ... because to live in close quarters with some one and keep a secret of that sort would be too much of a strain.

But I've got a wife too! I found myself exclaiming.

Though I haven't much use for her, I don't see myself doing her in just to run off somewhere with you.

I understand, said Stymer calmly, I've given thought to that too.

So?

I could get you a divorce easily enough and see to it that you don't have to pay alimony. What do you say to that?

Not interested, I replied. Not even if you could provide another woman for me. I have my own plans.

You don't think I'm a queer, do you?

No, not at all. You're queer, all right, but not in that way. To be honest with you, you're not the sort of person I'd want to be around for long. Besides, it's all too damned vague. It's more like a bad dream.

He took this with his habitual unruffled calm. Whereupon, impelled to say something more, I demanded to know what it was that he expected of me, what did he hope to obtain from such a relationship?

I hadn't the slightest fear of being tempted into such a crazy adventure, naturally, but I thought it only decent to pretend to draw him out. Besides, I was curious as to what he thought my role might be.

It's hard to know where to begin, he drawled. Supposing ... just suppose, I say ... that we found a good place to hide away. A place like Costa Rica, for example, or Nicaragua, where life is easy and the climate agreeable. And suppose you found a girl you liked ... that isn't too hard to imagine, is it? Well then ... You've told me that you like ... that you intend ... to write one day. I know that I can't. But I've got ideas, plenty of them, I can tell you. I've not been a criminal lawyer for nothing. As for you, you haven't read Dostoievsky and all those other mad Russians for nothing either. Do you begin to get the drift? Look, Dostoievsky is dead, finished with. And that's where we start. From Dostoievsky. He dealt with the soul; we'll deal with the mind.

He was about to pause again. Go on, I said, it sounds interesting.

Well, he resumed, whether you know it or not, there is no longer anything left in the world that might be called soul. Which partly explains why you find it so hard to get started, as a writer. How can one write about people who have no souls? I can, however. I've been living with just such people, working for them, studying them, analyzing them. I don't mean my clients alone. It's easy enough to look upon criminals as soulless. But what if I tell you that there are nothing but criminals everywhere, no matter where you look? One doesn't have to be guilty of a crime to be a criminal. But anyway, here's what I had in mind ... I know you can write. Furthermore, I don't mind in the least if some one else writes my books. For you to come by the material that I've accumulated would take several lifetimes. Why waste more time? Oh yes, there's something I forgot to mention ... it may frighten you off. It's this ... whether the books are ever published or not is all one to me. I want to get them out of my system, nothing more. Ideas are universal: I don't consider them my property...

He took a drink of ice water from the jug beside the bed.

All this probably strikes you as fantastic. Don't try to come to a decision immediately. Think it over I Look at it from every angle. I wouldn't want you to accept and then get cold feet in a month or two. But let me call your attention to something. If you continue in the same groove much longer you'll never have the courage to make the break. You have no excuse for prolonging your present way of life. You're obeying the law of inertia, nothing more.

He cleared his throat, as if embarrassed by his own remarks. Then clearly and swiftly he proceeded.

I'm not the ideal companion for you, agreed. I have every fault imaginable and I'm thoroughly self-centered, as I've said many times. But I'm not envious or jealous, or even ambitious, in the usual sense. Aside from working hours—and I don't intend to run myself into the ground—you'd be alone most of the time, free to do as you please. With me you'd be alone, even if we shared the same room. I don't care where we live, so long as it's in a foreign land. From now on it's the moon for me. I'm divorcing myself from my fellow-man. Nothing could possibly tempt me to participate in the game. Nothing of value, in my eyes at least, can possibly be accomplished at present. I may not accomplish anything either, to be truthful. But at least I'll have the satisfaction of doing what I believe in ... Look, maybe I haven't expressed too clearly what I mean by this Dostoievsky business. It's worth going into a little further, if you can bear with me. As I see it, with Dostoievsky's death the world entered upon a complete new phase of existence. Dostoievsky summed up the modern age much as Dante did the Middle Ages. The modern age—a misnomer, by the way—was just a transition period, a breathing spell, in which man could adjust himself to the death of the soul. Already we're leading a sort of grotesque lunar life. The beliefs, hopes, principles, convictions that sustained our civilization are gone. And they won't be resuscitated. Take that on faith for the time being. No, henceforth and for a long time to come we're going to live in the mind. That means destruction ... self-destruction. If you ask why I can only say—because man was not made to live by mind alone. Man was meant to live with his whole being. But the nature of this being is lost, forgotten, buried. The purpose of life on earth is to discover one's true being—and to live up to it! But we won't go into that. That's for the distant future. The problem is—meanwhile. And that's where I come in. Let me put it to you as briefly as possible ... All that we have stifled, you, me, all of us, ever since civilization began, has got to be lived out. We've got to recognize ourselves for what we are. And what are we but the end product of a tree that is no longer capable of bearing fruit. We've got to go underground, therefore, like seed, so that something new, something different, may come forth. It isn't time that's required, it's a new way of looking at things. A new appetite for life, in other words. As it is, we have but a semblance of life. We're alive only in dream. It's the mind in us that refuses to be killed off. The mind is tough—and far more mysterious than the wildest dreams of theologians. It may well be that there is nothing but mind ... not the little mind we know, to be sure, but the great Mind in which we swim, the Mind which permeates the whole universe. Dostoievsky, let me remind you, had amazing insight not only into the soul of man but into the mind and spirit of the universe. That's why it's impossible to shake him off, even though, as I said, what he represents is done for.

Here I had to interrupt. Excuse me, I said, but what did Dostoievsky represent, in your opinion?

I can't answer that in a few words. Nobody can. He gave us a revelation, and it's up to each one of us to make what he can of it. Some lose themselves in Christ. One can lose himself in Dostoievsky too. He takes you to the end of the road ... Does that mean anything to you?

Yes and no.

To me, said Stymer, it means that there are no possibilities to-day such as men imagine. It means that we are thoroughly deluded—about everything. Dostoievsky explored the field in advance, and he found the road blocked at every turn. He was a frontier man, in the profound sense of the word. He took up one position after another, at every dangerous, promising point, and he found that there was no issue for us, such as we are. He took refuge finally in the Supreme Being.

That doesn't sound exactly like the Dostoievsky I know, said I. It has a hopeless ring to it.

No, it's not hopeless at all. It's realistic—in a superhuman sense. The last thing Dostoievsky could possibly have believed in is a hereafter such as the clergy give us.

All religions give us a sugar-coated pill to swallow. They want us to swallow what we never can or will swallow—death. Man will never accept the idea of death, never reconcile himself to it ... But I'm getting off the track. You speak of man's fate. Better than any one, Dostoievsky understood that man will never accept life un-questioningly until he is threatened with extinction. It was his belief, his deep conviction, I would say, that man may have everlasting life if he desires it with his whole heart and being. There is no reason to die, none whatever. We die because we lack faith in life, because we refuse to surrender to life completely ... And that brings me to the present, to life as we know it to-day. Isn't it obvious that our whole way of life is a dedication to death? In our desperate efforts to preserve ourselves, preserve what we have created, we bring about our own death. We do not surrender to life, we struggle to avoid dying. Which means not that we have lost faith in God but that we have lost faith in life itself. To live dangerously, as Nietzsche put it, is to live naked and unashamed. It means putting one's trust in the life force and ceasing to battle with a phantom called death, a phantom called disease, a phantom called sin, a phantom called fear, and so on. The phantom world! That's the world which we have created for ourselves. Think of the military, with their perpetual talk of the enemy. Think of the clergy, with their perpetual talk of sin and damnation. Think of the legal fraternity, with their perpetual talk of fine and imprisonment. Think of the medical profession, with their perpetual talk of disease and death. And our educators, the greatest fools ever, with their parrot-like rote and their innate inability to accept any idea unless it be a hundred or a thousand years old. As for those who govern the world, there you have the most dishonest, the most hypocritical, the most deluded and the most unimaginative beings imaginable. You pretend to be concerned about man's fate. The miracle is that man has sustained even the illusion of freedom.

No, the road is blocked, whichever way you turn. Every wall, every barrier, every obstacle that hems us in is our own doing. No need to drag in God, the Devil or Chance. The Lord of all Creation is taking a cat nap while we work out the puzzle. He's permitted us to deprive ourselves of everything but mind. It's in the mind that the life force has taken refuge. Everything has been analyzed to the point of nullity. Perhaps now the very emptiness of life will take on meaning, will provide the clue.

He came to a dead stop, remained absolutely immobile for a space, then raised himself on one elbow.

The criminal aspect of the mind! I don't know how or where I got hold of that phrase, but it enthralls me absolutely. It might well be the over all title for the books I have in mind to write. The very word criminal shakes me to the foundations. It's such a meaningless word today, yet it's the most—what shall I say?—the most serious word in man's vocabulary. The very notion of crime is an awesome one. It has such deep, tangled roots. Once the great word, for me, was rebel. When I say criminal, however, I find myself utterly baffled. Sometimes, I confess, I don't know what the word means. Or, if I think I do, then I am forced to look upon the whole human race as one indescribable hydro-headed monster whose name is CRIMINAL. I sometimes put it another way to myself—man his own criminal. Which is almost meaningless. What I'm trying to say, though perhaps it's trite, banal, over-simplified, is this ... if there is such a thing as a criminal, then the whole race is tainted. You can't remove the criminal element in man by performing a surgical operation on society. What's criminal is cancerous, and what's cancerous is unclean. Crime isn't merely coeval with law and order, crime is pre-natal, so to speak. It's in the very consciousness of man, and it won't be dislodged, it won't be extirpated, until a new consciousness is born. Do I make it clear? The question I ask myself over and over is—how did man ever come to look upon himself, or his fellow-man, as a criminal? What caused him to harbor guilt feelings? To make even the animals feel guilty? How did he ever come to poison life at the source, in other words? It's very convenient to blame it on the priesthood. But I can't credit them with having that much power over us. If we are victims, they are too. But what are we the victims of? What is it that tortures us, young and old alike, the wise as well as the innocent? It's my belief that that is what we are going to discover, now that we've been driven underground. Rendered naked and destitute, we will be able to give ourselves up to the grand problem unhindered. For an eternity, if need be. Nothing else is of importance, don't you see? Maybe you don't. Maybe I see it so clearly that I can't express it adequately in words. Anyway, that's our world perspective...

At this point he got out of bed to fix himself a drink, asking as he did so if I could stand any more of his drivel. I nodded affirmatively.

I'm thoroughly wound up, as you see, he continued. As a matter of fact, I'm beginning to see it all so clearly again, now that I've unlimbered to you, that I almost feel I could write the books myself. If I haven't lived for myself I certainly have lived other people's lives. Perhaps I'll begin to live my own when I begin writing. You know, I already feel kindlier toward the world, just getting this much off my chest. Maybe you were right about being more generous with myself. It's certainly a relaxing thought. Inside I'm all steel girders. I've got to melt, grow fibre, cartilage, lymph and muscle. To think that any one could let himself grow so rigid ... ridiculous, what! That's what comes from battling all one's life.

He paused long enough to take a good slug, then raced on.

You know, there isn't a thing in the world worth fighting for except peace of mind. The more you triumph in this world the more you defeat yourself. Jesus was right. One has to triumph over the world. Overcome the world, I think was the expression. To do that, of course, means acquiring a new consciousness, a new view of things. And that's the only meaning one can put on freedom. No man can attain freedom who is of the world. Die to the world and you find life everlasting. You know, I suppose, that the advent of Christ was of the greatest importance to Dostoievsky. Dostoievsky only succeeded in embracing the idea of God through conceiving of a man-god. He humanized the conception of God, brought Him nearer to us, made him more comprehensible, and finally, strange as it may sound, even more God-like ... Once again I must come back to the criminal. The only sin, or crime, that man could commit, in the eyes of Jesus, was to sin against the Holy Ghost. To deny the spirit, or the life force, if you will. Christ recognized no such thing as a criminal. He ignored all this nonsense, this confusion, this rank superstition with which man has saddled himself for millenia. He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone! Which doesn't mean that Christ regarded all men as sinners. No, but that we are all imbued, dyed, tainted with the notion of sin. As I understand his words, it is out of a sense of guilt that we created sin and evil. Not that sin and evil have any reality of their own. Which brings me back again to the present impasse. Despite all the truths that Christ enunciated, the world is now riddled and saturated with sinfulness. Every one behaves like a criminal toward his fellow-man. And so, unless we set about killing one another off—world-wide massacre—we've got to come to grips with the demonic power which rules us. We've got to convert it into a healthy, dynamic force which will liberate not us alone—we are not so important!—but the life force which is damned up in us. Only then will we begin to live. And to live means eternal life, nothing less. It was man who created death, not God. Death is the sign of our vulnerability, nothing more.

He went on and on and on. I didn't get a wink of sleep until near dawn. When I awoke he was gone. On the table I found a five dollar bill and a brief note saying that I should forget everything we had talked about, that it was of no importance. I'm ordering a new suit just the same, he added. You can choose the material for me.

Naturally I couldn't forget it, as he suggested. In fact, I couldn't think of anything else for weeks but man the criminal, or, as Stymer had put it, man his own criminal.

One of the many expressions he had dropped plagued me interminably, the one about man taking refuge in the mind. It was the first time, I do believe, that I ever questioned the existence of mind as something apart. The thought that possibly all was mind fascinated me. It sounded more revolutionary than anything I had heard hitherto.

It was certainly curious, to say the least, that a man of Stymer's calibre should have been obsessed by this idea of going underground, of taking refuge in the mind. The more I thought about the subject the more I felt that he was trying to make of the cosmos one grand, stupefying rat-trap. When, a few months later, upon sending him a notice to call for a fitting, I learned that he had died of a haemorrhage of the brain, I wasn't in the least surprised. His mind had evidently rejected the conclusions he had imposed upon it. He had mentally masturbated himself to death. With that I stopped worrying about the mind as a refuge. Mind is all. God is all. So what?