...of a detente

Marianna paused for an instant in her account of the horrors of war: she had noticed at last that Roman Bogdanovich, a dignified man with a beard, wanted to put in a word, holding it in his mouth like a huge caramel. He had no luck, however, for Smurov was quicker.
“When ‘harking to the horrors of the war,’” said Smurov misquoting with a smile from a famous poem, “I feel sorry ‘neither fro the friend, nor for the friend’s mother,’ but for those who have never been to war. It is difficult to put into words the musical delight that the singing of bullets gives you… Or, when you are flying at full gallop to the attack - -“
“War is always hideous,” tersely interrupted Marianna. “I must have been brought up differently from you. A human being who takes another’s life is always a murderer, be he an executioner or a cavalry officer.”
“Personally - -“ began Smurov, but she interrupted again:
“Military gallantry is a vestige of the past. In my medical practice I have had many occasions to see people who have been crippled or had their lives wrecked by war. Nowadays humanity aspires to new ideals. There is nothing more debasing than to serve as cannon fodder. Perhaps a different upbringing - -“
“Personally - -“ said Smurov.
“A different upbringing,” she went on rapidly, “in regard to ideas of humaneness and general cultural interests, makes me look at war through different ideas than you. I have never blazed away at people or driven a bayonet into anyone. Rest assured that among my medical colleagues you will find more heroes than on the battlefield - -“
“Personally, I - -“ said Smurov.
“But enough of this,” said Marianna. “I can see neither of us is going to convince the other. The discussion is closed.”
A brief silence followed. Smurov sat calmly stirring his tea. Yes, he must be a former officer, a daredevil who liked to flirt with death, and it is only out of modesty that he says nothing about his adventures.

[The Eye, Nabokov, V.]

...of on the precipice of change

Nevertheless, I felt an odd restlessness. As I read aloud mechanically, I kept wondering who this guest might be. A new arrival from Russia? I vaguely went through the faces and voices I knew - alas, they were not many - and I stopped for some reason at a student named Ushakov. The memory of my single university year in Russia, and of my loneliness there, hoarded this Ushakov like a treasure. When, during a conversation, I would assume a knowing, faintly dreamy expression at the mention of the festive song “Gaudeamus igitur” and reckless student days, it meant I was thinking of Ushakov, even though, God knows, I had only had a couple of chats with him (about political or other trifles, I forget what). It was hardly likely, though, that he would be so mysterious over the telephone. I lost myself in conjecture, imagining now a Communist agent, now an eccentric millionaire in need of a secretary.
The doorbell. Again the boys dashed headlong into the hall. I put down my book and strolled after them. With great gusto and dexterity they drew the little steel bolt, fiddled with some gadget, and the door opened.
A strange recollection… Even now, now that many things have changed, my heart sinks when I summon up that strange recollection, like a dangerous criminal from his cell. It was then that a whole wall of my life crumbled quite noiselessly, as on a silent screen. I understood that something catastrophic was about to happen, but there was undoubtedly a smile on my face, and, if I am not mistaken, an ingratiating one; and my hand, reaching out, doomed to meet a void, and anticipating that void, nevertheless sought to complete the gesture (associated in my mind with the ring of the phrase “elementary courtesy”.

[The Eye, Nabokov, V.]

...of solitude in the woods

Marvelous opening moment in fact of the first afternoon I’m left alone in the cabin and I make up my first meal, wash my first dishes, nap, and wake up to hear the rapturous ring of silence or Heaven even within and throughout the gurgle of the creek - When you say AM ALONE and the cabin is suddenly home only because you made one meal and washed your first-meal dishes - Then nightfall, the religious vestal lighting of the beautiful kerosene lamp after careful washing of the mantle by the creek and careful drying with toilet paper, which spoils it by specking it so you again wash it in the creek this time just let the mantle drip dry in the sun, the late afternoon sun that disappears so quickly behind those giant steep canyon walls - Nightfall, the kerosene lamp casts a glow in the cabin, I go out and pick some ferns like the ferns of the Lankavatara Scripture, those hairnet ferns, ‘Look sirs,  beautiful hairnet!’ - Late afternoon fog pours in over the canyon walls, sweep, cover the sun, it gets cold, even the flies on the porch are so sad as the fog on the peaks - As daylight retreats the flies retreat like polite Emily Dickinson flies and when its dark they’re all asleep in trees or someplace - At high noon they’re in the cabin with you but edging further towards the open doorsill as the afternoon lengthens, how strangely gracious - There’s the hum of the bee drone two blocks away the racket of it you’d think it was right over the roof, when the bee drone swirls nearer and nearer (gulp again) you retreat into the cabin and wait, maybe they got a message to come and see you all two thousand of em - But getting used to the bee drone finally which seems to happen like a big party once a week - And so everything eventually marvelous.

[Big Sur, Kerouac, J.]

...of peeking society

‘Can it be that Ron and all these other guys, Dave and McLear or somebody, the other guys earlier are all a bunch of witches to make me go mad?’ I seriously consider this - Remembering that childhood revery I always had, which I used to ponder seriously as I walked home from St Joseph’s Parochial School or sat in the parlor of my home, that everybody is making fun of mooney me and I don’t know it because everytime I turn around to see who’s behind me they snap back into place with regular expressions, but soon’s I look away again they dart up my nape of neck and all whisper there giggling and plotting evil, silently, you can’t hear them, and when I turn to catch them they’ve already snapped back perfectly in place and are saying ‘Now the proper way to cooks eggs is’ or they’re singing Chet Baker songs looking the other way or they’re saying ‘Did I ever tell you about Jim that time?’ - But my childhood revery also included the fact that everybody in the world was making fun of me because they were all members of an eternal secret society or Heaven society that knew the secret of the world and were seriously fooling me so that I’d wake up and see the light (i.e., become enlightened, in fact) - So that I, ’Ti Jean’, was the LAST Ti Jean left in the world, the last poor holy fool, those people at my neck were the devils of the earth among whom God had cast me, and angel baby, as tho I was the last Jesus in fact! and all these people were waiting for me to realize it and wake up and catch them peeking and we’d all laugh in Heaven suddenly - But animals werent doing that behind my back, my cats were always adornments licking their paws sadly, and Jesus, he was a sad witness to this, somewhat like the animals - He wasn’t peeking down my neck - There lies the root of my belief in Jesus - So that actually the only reality in the world was Jesus and the lambs (the animals) and my brother Gerard who had instructed me - Meanwhile some of the peekers were kindly and sad, like my father, but had to go along with everybody in the same boat - But my waking up would take place and then everything would vanish except Heaven, which is God - And that was why later in life after these rather strange you must admit childhood reveries, after I had that fainting vision of the Golden Eternity and others before and after it including Samadhis during Buddhist meditations in the woods, I conceived of myself as a special solitary angel sent down as a messenger from Heaven to tell everybody or show everybody by example that their peeking society was actually the Satanic Society and they were all on the wrong track.

[Big Sur, Kerouac, J.]

...of a beatnik city

Billie and her gang in fact, with all that fancy rigamarole about spiritual matters I wonder if it isn’t just a big secret hustler outfit tho I also realise that I’ve noticed it before in San Francisco a kind of ephemeral hysteria that hides in the air over the rooftops among certain circles there leading always to suicide and maim - Me just an innocent lost hearted meditator and Goop among strange intense criminal agitators of the heart - It reminds me in fact of a nightmare I had just before coming out to the Coast, in the dream I’m back in San Francisco but there’s something funny going on: there’s dead silence throughout the entire city: men like printers and office executives and housepainters are all standing silently in second floor windows looking down on the empty streets of San Francisco: once in a while some beatniks walk by below, also silent: they’re being watched but not only by the authorities but by everybody: the beatniks seem to have the whole street system to themselves: but nobody’s saying anything: and in this intense silence I take a ride on a self propelled platform right downtown and out to the farms where a woman running a chicken farm invites me to join her and live with her - The little platform rolling quietly as the people are watching from windows in groups of profile like the profiles in old Van Dyck paintings, intense, suspicious, momentous - This Billie business reminding me of that but because to me the only thing that matters is the conception in my own mind, there has to be no reality anyway to what I suppose is going on - But this also an indication of the coming madness in Big Sur.

[Big Sur, Kerouac, J.]

...of exasperation

The meeting is not eventful, of course, both girls keep their silence and hardly look at each other so it’s all me and Dave Wain carrying on with the usual boloney and I see that Cody is really very sick and tired of me bringing gangs arbitrarily to his place, running off with his mistress, getting drunk and thrown out of family plays, hundred dollars or no hundred dollars he probably feels I’m just a fool now anyway and hopelessly lost forever but I don’t realize that myself because I’m feeling good - I want us to resume down that road singing bawdier and darker songs till we’re negotiating narrow mountain roads at the pitch of the greatest songs.
I try to ask Cody about Perry and all the other strange characters who visit Billie in the City but he just looks at me out of the corner eye and says ‘Ah, yah, hm,’ - I don’t know and I never will know what he’s up to anyway in the long run: I realize I’m just a silly stranger goofing with other strangers for no reason far away from anything that ever mattered to me whatever that was - Always an ephemeral ‘visitor’ to the Coast never really involved with anyone’s lives there because I’m already ready to fly across the country but not to any life of my own on the other end either, just a travelling stranger like Old Bull Balloon, an exemplar of the loneliness of Doren Coit actually waiting for the only real trip, to Venus, to the mountain of Mien Mo - Tho when I look out of Cody’s livingroom window just then I do see my star still shining for me as it’s done all those 38 years over crib, out ship windows, jail windows, over sleepingbags only now it’s dummier and dimmer and getting blurreder damnit as tho my own star be now fading away from concern for me as I from concern for it - In fact we’re all strangers with strange eyes sitting in a midnight livingroom for nothing - And small talk at that, like Billie saying ‘I always wanted a nice fireplace’ and I’m yelling ‘Don’t worry we got one at the cabin hey Dave? and all the wood’s chopped!’ and Evelyn:- ‘What does Monsanto think of you using his cabin all summer, weren’t you supposed to go there alone in secret?’ - ‘It’s too late now!’ I sing swigging from the bottle without which I’d only drop with shame face flat on the floor or on the gravel driveway - And Dave and Romana look a little uneasy finally so we all get up to go, zoom, and that’s the last time I see Cody or Evelyn anyway.

[Big Sur, Kerouac, J.]

...of a conspiratorial air

But I say ‘Dave, look, as if all this wasn’t enough’ and I point out the moon to him, there’s dead silence in the trees and also amongst us inside, there she is, vast lugubrious fullmoon that frights madmen and makes waters wave, she’s got one or two treetops silhouetted and’s got that whole side of the canyon lit up in silver - Dave just looks at the moon with his tired madness eyes (over-excited eyes, my mother’d said) and says nothing - I go out to the creek and drink water and come back and wonder about the moo and suddenly the four shadows in the cabin are all dead silent as tho they had conspired with the moon.

[Big Sur, Kerouac, J.]