rid, to divest myself, of the horrible wounds I had allowed to fester
in me."

Many of our best writers have written about the dilemma of the artist in
America. Henry has written of it anew in that collection of "Open Letters"
entitled: *The Plight of the Creative Artist in the United States of America.
His own story is a success story that dwarfs all tales of the bright boy who
"brings home the bacon" (Local Boy Makes Good). "Just a Brooklyn boy",
he says of himself in *The Colossus of Maroussi*, in one of those extravagant
passages of which no Brooklyn boy ever dreamed. (I wonder, in the years to
come, if Brooklyn will disown her prodigal son, or will she proudly erect a
monument to him in one of those quaint, woe-begone public squares which are
like no place on earth.)

No spiritual cripple here, but a whole man, as more than one writer has
testified. "A free spirit", Keyserling calls him. Yes, his is a success story
such as our captains of push and hustle have no conception of. The man who
only the other day wrote me, "It's either make water-colors or die," knows a
success of which he will see only the opening phases. It is a cumulative suc-
cess which will fecundate the oncoming generations.

A friend of mine once asked me if I thought the ordeal Henry had gone
through had undermined his health. I said I'd be more concerned over the
state of his physical and spiritual being if he had been protected, had led the
routine life of the "successful American". (Can you imagine him commuting
to "a large property"?) It's true he had work for a while, an essential job
for him, one might say. Nothing could have given him a deeper insight into
life's problems than this position which he held for almost five years. Another
man would have cracked in six months under the strain. People from every
walk of life, every country, every race almost, came to him for succor. I saw
some of those derelicts with my own eyes, and I saw too what he did for them.
It's a job that he has immortalized in the *Tropic of Capricorn*. (Don't, for
God's sake, miss this description of the "Cosmodemonic-Cosmococcic Tele-
graph Co!") It was a destined task, a phase in his evolution as creative artist.
I honestly don't see how he could have become the man we know him to be to-
day had he not accepted this strange rôle of employment manager, father con-
fessor, and benefactor at large to all sorts and conditions of men.

And here I must say another thing . . . He did not go to Paris because he
failed to gain recognition here, as has been said. Had he been able to, he
would have gone there long before—or to Zanzibar and Samarkand, and all
those strange-sounding places he loves to list. He went where his desires beck-
oned—to ordeals and orgies, to famines followed by feasts, to strange cities
and stranger experiences, but always toward a maximum of living and, above
all, a maximum of being. He found it good to make the world his home.

What would we have if Henry had been cared for, I ask? Would there
have been the pangs of death and re-birth? How often has he had to cast off
dead experience to emerge at another level? How often has he been forced to
confront all that we dread? A man who has been face to face with direct ex-
tremes, and who has lived through them, is free from that terror. And being

[ 23 ]

Jean Hélion's

Un Coup de Chapeau, 1944

sat on a terrace overlooking the palace of Francis I. Then we argued about how many horses one could drive abreast up the crazy stairs of the palace. But we both got bored and began to drive back to Paris. We had a big breakfast at the Dôme."

"What a wonderful life!" I said.

"That's how it is," said Miller. "Other friends come up. They look high and low for me. There's Osman the banker, who always treats me to sparkling Mousseux. I shake hands with people all day long. Even Link Gillespie once bought me a drink. Montparnasse is a great place. Everyone likes to help a fellow who is broke. A couple of days ago, a girl I hardly knew stopped me on the street. I told her about my status, so she took me home with her and sewed a couple of buttons on my coat and trousers. People are swell, do you see what I mean? They worry about you."

I am reporting our conversation very faithfully. Miller is not a son of badinage. He is a legitimate child of Montparnasse, the salt of the Quarter. He represents its classic color that has not faded since Murder and other optimists. A good word is *esprit*. I told him that.

"You have *esprit*," I said, lighting his cigar butt. Then he said:

"Can you give me an alarm clock?"

"What for?"

"Well, you see, Joe,"—(he always calls me Joe. He calls everybody Joe.)—"I am having such a good time that I hate to miss any of it. I like to get up early to enjoy every available hour."

Suddenly Miller staggered and fell back against the wall of a building. "What's the matter," I said. His voice was frail and I could read between the lines of his face.

"What you need is food," I said, reaching in my pocket. "I'm your friend, too. Get yourself some food," I said, and handed him a franc. Montparnasse is that way.

Paris
France

WAMBLY BALD

[ 27 ]

things of life, or describes something which stirred him profoundly.

No one, nothing, is safe from him in the act of creation. Everything, everybody that comes under his eye, is material, grist for the mill. There is something frightful, and at the same time overwhelming, about such a person. The Dadaists are mere playboys compared with this sledge-hammer fiend. To him our age is chaos, complete and irrevocable. Only beauty, a beauty that includes terror, cruelty and brutality, only the beauty created by art or snatched from life through the eternal idol: before woman he immolates himself, worshiping at her shrine and placing flowers upon the altar of love. Yet, however gentle, generous or chivalrous he may be, however devoted, self-sacrificing and romantic he may seem (in her service) he is always sure of himself, always rises triumphant in the act of creating.

It is a winter evening and I am just coming home from work. Miller is there beside his typewriter. Of the little antics I enact (largely for his benefit), he says nothing except to laugh or smile ingratiatingly. He is too engrossed in his omnivorous notebook containing a Proustian minutiae of details and observations which he will later use. He knows how to talk well enough but he usually prefers to hold his tongue discreetly and write instead. Then, there is no pity, or mercy, only the cruel goad and frenzy of his titanic passion.

It is winter, I say, and the raw, mean rain which occasionally turns to snow and sleet bites to the bone, as only winter weather in Paris can do. I walk into the room, my hat on the back of my head and a bottle of Anjou under each arm. I also have Porto for apéritifs and a bottle of Rhum Negrita for hot grogs which we will take as a night cap. The studio is enveloped in a steamy vapor, but outside the window panes are glazed with ice. The heavy brown plush curtains are pulled partially to in order to keep out the draughts. I throw more coal into the red hot stove and open the draft full blast. We must keep warm for it is the holiday season with sweeping winds from the Seine, a fine powder of snow about and Christmas carols floating up from the Russian mosque below.

Our friend John Nichols, the painter, is there. He is almost finished with the portrait he has made of Miller at the typewriter. (He claims it is intended to be a caricature.) Miller looks like a glorified baboon in the portrait, his myopic eyes bulging from their sockets. Still, there is something striking and original about the painting, as there is in all of Nichols' work.

I pour out the Anjou and we gulp it down with appraising smacks. Nichols' great red beard, gold-rimmed glasses, and the Cézanne sombrero, which he wears when he paints, flash in the light, turning the beautiful Anjou to gold. He smacks his sensual cherry red lips with satisfaction as he drinks. His is a fine, sensitive face, like that of D. H. Lawrence, or A. E. Nichols has an egotism which touches the stars; it is only exceeded by my own, according to Miller. I have the impression that we are both clowns and jackasses, in his mind. As we stand looking at the painting with critical eyes suddenly Nichols, turning toward me as if to address me but eyeing Miller askance the while, launches into one of those dissertations for which, apart from certain disturbing eccentricities, he is famous. The man would undoubtedly make a great art critic, should he choose to exercise this medium of expression, but he pro-

Mr. Rosy Crucifixion

Mad Characters

Crazy George Deaton

Crazy Sheldon

Roland

Sleaco

Hoblitzell

Howell French

Urbanski

Jacques Dunn

Bite

Haridas Keaymudar

Dr. Krouski-Conason

Herman Dircks

Shukrullah

Jean Krouski

Dare' (Serena)

Helen Sullivan

Elevator man-Palston's

Howard (detective)

Stanley Borowski

"Sid" Harris

* Peza

Eccentrics

Hilan - W. H.

Joe Haylon (one-lip)

Mimie Bouchebag

Evelyn La Zerr

Harry Martin

Jockey (Elevator - 3rd St.)

Fuchs-Glandale

Marder

Nahom Good

Paul Luttinger

Agnes (B's friend)

Mrs. Schwindt (Davon)

Melanie (awst)

Homer Reed

Clarence

Frank Reilly

Allen Keel

Ed Barries

Bill Troy

Sleaco's girl

Mimie Induf (O'Siecki)

Richie Zietjen

Cinque & Peckover

(Boudard et Pécuche)

* Ton Jacobs

Hans Stengel

Anastasia = Resurrection

Athenasia = Immortality

[ 30 ]