MILLER, Henry

Tropic of Cancer

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My world of human beings had perished; I was utterly alone in the world and for friends I had the streets, and the streets spoke to me in that sad, bitter language compounded of human misery, yearning, regret, failure, wasted effort. Passing under the viaduct along the Rue Broca, one night after I had been informed that Mona was ill and starving, I suddenly recalled that it was here in the squalor and gloom of this sunken street, terrorized perhaps by a premonition of the future, that Mona clung to me and with a quivering voice begged me to promise that I would never leave her, never, no matter what happened. And, only a few days later, I stood on the platform of the Gare St. Lazare and I watched the train pull out, the train that was bearing her away; she was leaning out of the window, just as she had leaned out of the window when I left her in New York, and there was that same, sad, inscrutable smile on her face, the last-minute look which is intended to convey so much, but which is only a mask that is twisted by a vacant smile. Only a few days before, she had clung to me desperately and then something happened, something which is not even clear to me now, and of her own volition she boarded the train and she was looking at me again with that sad, enigmatic smile which baffles me, which is unjust, unnatural, which I distrust with all my soul. And now it is I, standing in the shadow of the viaduct, who reach out for her, who cling to her desperately and there is that same inexplicable smile on my lips, the mask that I have clamped down over my grief. I can stand here and smile vacantly, and no matter how fervid my prayers, no matter how desperate my longing, there is an ocean between us; there she will stay and starve, and here I shall walk from one street to the next, the hot tears scalding my face.

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Nexus
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Still more soothing and fascinating to my spirit were the colored reflections which danced over the surface of the water below. They danced like festive lanterns swaying in the wind; they mocked my somber thoughts and illuminated the deep chasms of misery which yawned within me. Suspended high above the river’s flow, I had the feeling of being detached from alle problems, relieved of all cares and responsibilities. Never once did the river stop to ponder or question, never once did it seek to alter its course. Always onward, onward, full and steady. Looking back toward the shore, how like toy blocks appeared the skyscrapers which overshadowed the river’s bank! How ephemeral, how puny, how vain and arrogant! Into these grandiose tombs men and women muscled their way day in and day out, killing their souls to earn their bread, selling themselves, selling one another, even selling God, some of them, and toward night they poured out again, like ants, choked the gutters, dove into the underground, or scampered homeward pitter-patter to bury themselves again, not in grandiose tombs now, like the worn, haggard, defeated wretches they were, in shacks and rabbit warrens which they called “home”.

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