Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (31 page)

Time passed. While on a vacation in Europe (1953), my wife
Eve and I stopped off at the Guilde du Livre in Lausanne to meet the director, Albert
Mermoud, with whom I had been corresponding for several years. During a pause in the midst of
a protracted conversation, Monsieur Mermoud, exactly like that friend of Raoul Bertrand,
suddenly asked me if there was anything he could do for me while we were in Lausanne. And,
just as in the other instance, I replied without a moment’s hesitation and without previous
thought—“Yes! Find me a book called
Les Clefs de l’Apocalypse
by Milosz!” I explained
that I had been told by various friends that a definitive edition of Milosz’s works had been
published in Switzerland.

Mermoud gave me a strange smile and replied at once: “Nothing easier. I’ll
telephone the publisher immediately. He’s a friend of mine, he lives here in Lausanne.”

He picked up the receiver, got his friend whose name I failed to catch, and
launched into an explanation for making his strange request. I heard him repeat my name
several times—“Yes, he’s sitting right here in my office!”—then he looked at me grinningly as
if to say, “He knows you!” and went on talking. It was a lengthy conversation. Not to
embarrass him, I turned to the friends who had come with us and began conversing with them in
low tones.

After a time I became aware that the conversation over the telephone was
unusually drawn out. Mermoud had ceased to talk; he was merely nodding and grunting now. He
seemed to be listening most intently.

Finally he hung up, turned to me, and said: “I’m sorry. I can get you any of
Milosz’ books except the one you want.”

He sat back in his chair and began giving me a lengthy account of the
publisher’s life, a most unusual one, and of the latter’s relations with the poet. It appeared
that the publisher had been not only a great friend but a genuine benefactor. If I am not
mistaken, he himself had begun writing poetry as a result of reading Milosz. Yes, he had
printed everything Milosz had ever written, including the book in question. But of this
work—
The
Keys to the Apocalypse
—he had printed only
one
copy,
which was exclusively for himself. He would not even let anyone borrow it. He did not want
anyone to read it. Not even Henry Miller, whom he adored
(sic)
. Why this attitude?
Because he regarded the book as unworthy of the author. I had the impression, from Mermoud’s
words, that there had been a disagreement between the two regarding the religious aspect of
the work. I could be mistaken about this, because there was so much he rattled off and with
such speed that I was left somewhat dazed.

A few months later, seated in a modest restaurant near the Senate (Paris), a
man came up to our table and introduced himself as Czeslaw Milosz, the same who had written me
from Washington. How he recognized me I can’t explain; perhaps he had overheard my name. At
any rate, after making apologies for something of no consequence which he had written in one
of his letters, he sat down and engaged us in conversation. The Lausanne incident still fresh
in my mind, I proceeded to relate what had occurred at the office of the Guilde du Livre. He
seemed thoroughly nonplussed, shook his head several times as if it were beyond all
comprehension, then exclaimed: “Why, it’s ridiculous! I can get you the book. But I doubt that
you will want to read it.”

“Why?” said I.

“Because it’s not really a book … it’s only a page and a half long!”

You might have pushed me over with a feather. All this folderol over a page
and a half! I was stunned.

“Do get it for me,” I begged. “Now I want more than ever to read it.”

He sssured me that he would, at the very first opportunity. To date it has not
shown up. Will it ever? And what will that page and a half contain?

Restif de la Bretonne is a horse of quite another color! For years the name
had been familiar to me, largely because of references made to his work by the French
Surrealists, André Breton in particular.
Why I never made an effort to
read him I cannot say. The name itself was so intriguing, perhaps I feared to be deceived.
Every now and then his name would crop up in a review of my own work. (At various times the
critics have bracketed my name with such as Petronius, Rabelais, Swift, Sade, Whitman,
Dostoevsky—and Restif de la Bretonne.)

One day I received a letter from our then minister to Ethiopia, J. Rives
Childs. It informed me that the writer had read everything of mine that was available and
thought that there were great affinities between my writings and those of the famous Restif.
Had I ever read Restif? He felt certain I must have. I replied that I had never read a line of
his. Whereupon I received a second letter, urging me to do so by all means. If I couldn’t lay
hands on the books I was to notify him and he would see to it that I received copies. He then
informed me that he had given considerable time to the study of his life and work and was now
busy compiling a bibliography of Restif.

In this letter he had urged me to make a point of reading
Monsieur
Nicolas
and
Les Nuits de Paris
. He omitted telling me the size of these works.
When I discovered that
Monsieur Nicolas
alone comprised some fourteen volumes my
enthusiasm quickly abated. Meanwhile, from Cairo, N. Y., a Dante Zaccagnini, a scholar and
voracious reader, also began to bombard me with eulogies of Restif de la Bretonne. To sharpen
my appetite, he sent me a much abridged one-volume edition, by an English publisher, of
Les Nuits de Paris
. I read it with interest but was not fired. Moreover, from this
brief taste I found only a frail connection between Restif’s literary ways and my own. I
decided, rather foolishly, that I had had enough of Restif for the time being.

Then one day the huge work on which our ambassador to Ethiopia had been
working for so long arrived in the mail. A monumental work, indeed, for which all lovers of
Restif must feel indebted. The vast range which it covered appalled me. “It’s not up my
alley,” said I to myself. Besides, I had just put myself on
record as
saying that my purpose was to read less and less, not more and more.

It may be of interest, at this point, to know that Childs himself, as he
relates in the Introduction to his vast compendium,
*
was almost discouraged in pursuing his task
to the end when he discovered that the complete works of his beloved Restif numbered over
fifty titles comprising some 200 volumes! The reading of Restif’s entire output, however,
represented only a fraction of the immense labor involved in the production of this massive
tome.

To indicate the prodigious nature of this extraordinary creature, Restif, let
me quote a few lines from Childs’ Introduction:

“Pour moi, malgré toutes ses faiblesses—et il en avait beaucoup—Restif est
un caractère sympathique pour de nombreuses raisons. Et tout d’abord une essentielle bonté
de coeur, une large humanité accompagnée d’un sens toujours présent de l’inhumanité de
l’homme envers son semblable, un désir passionné d’améliorer le sort de l’humanité, une
grande vision du monde, un but absorbant d’ètre utile à ses contemporains et, plus encore, à
la posterité, enfin une franchise foncière dans l’aveu de ses fautes. Il convient de
souligner que, dans une époque où, du moins en France, il était de mode de mépriser
Shakespeare et Jeanne d’Arc, Restif vantait leurs mérites. Il pensait élargir les horizons
intellectuels des hommes et, dans ce but, il agissait sans prudence. Son oeuvre présente
d’innombrables aspects, d’infinis méandres, de sorte qu’une seule vie suffirait à peine à en
suivre tous les contours. Imparfait comme tous les hommes, il n’a jamais eu la prétention
d’être ce qu’il n’était pas. Il était humain, peut-être trop humain, et par là nous lui
sommes redevables de grandes dettes qui deviendront de plus en plus apparentes dans les
années à venir.”
(Djeddah, Arabie Saoudite,
le
27
février
, 1948.)

Just when I thought the subject to be closed came a letter from
Cairo saying that he, Dante, had now finished reading the fourteen volumes
comprising the complete and unexpurgated French edition of
Monsieur Nicolas
—and that
he was shipping them to me that same day. In a week or so the books arrived. I felt as if I
had been shipped a coffin containing the remains of the incredible Restif!

What to do? First of all, put them in order, which I did. Then I scanned a
page or two here and there, choosing volumes at random. Then I hoisted them up to the top
shelf of my bookcase and ranged them beside the slim, unobtrusive volume called
The
Round
, by Edward Santiago, saying to myself: “I’ll dip into them some day when I’m
stricken with paralysis.” And so saying, I gathered the books which had been displaced by this
new addition to my library, threw them into a carton and, hitching the horse to the buggy, I
drove to the garbage dump which lies along the scenic route from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego
and tossed them into the ocean.

And now for the Essenes, whom I finally came to grips with in Santa Monica. I
had gone there at the invitation of my friend, Robert Fink, to see the paintings of Abe
Weiner. Here I was introduced to Weiner’s friend, Lawrence Lipton, a resident of Venice.

It was only toward the end of a long and delightful evening that I struck up a
conversation with Lawrence Lipton. As a writer of mystery stories known to all America—by pen
name, at least—he seemed the last man in the world that I would think to call upon for data
about the mysterious sect called the Essenes.

The tête-à-tête which we launched into at full gallop, and minus the usual
preliminaries, was more like an inspired game than an exchange of thought. The last time I had
entered into a similar dance was in a little village in New Hampshire. I mention it because it
is the sort of thing which happens but a few times in one’s life. The event I refer to
occurred on a winter’s day after a conference which I had attended with Professor Herbert
West, of Dartmouth, in a distant town. We were driving back to Professor
West’s home in Hanover. It was late afternoon when Herb West suddenly decided that we
ought to pay a visit to a friend of his in the village we were approaching.

He pulled up at the door of a modest house and there, standing in the doorway
waiting to greet us, was his friend. I had been told nothing about the man, nor did I catch
his name on being introduced. But the moment we greeted one another, it was as if I had known
the man all my life. We began talking, right at the doorstep, as if continuing a conversation
we had abandoned a short few thousand years ago in a previous incarnation. The only mundane
thing I am able to recall in connection with this friend of West’s is that he had served in
the British Army in India for many years.

Our stay lasted about two hours, during which time the “Major” and I covered
the most amazingly incongruous and seemingly disconnected subjects. Frequently it happened
that we would mention the title of an obscure book or the name of some little-known historical
figure or an outlandish department of knowledge, only to exchange a meaningful smile and pass
on. Never once did we press the wrong button, so to speak. It was as if we were working an
I.B.M. which threw out the correct answers without fail and without effort. Indeed, the
atmosphere was one of pushing buttons, sliding into grooves, locking and interlocking,
engaging and disengaging. The subjects touched on appeared to be nothing more than pretexts
for the unraveling of something vastly more important, though what this something might be we
never even tried to formulate.

Add this—that the man’s life had nothing whatever in common with my own. We
were from totally dissimilar worlds. Moreover, I’ve never made any attempt to communicate with
him since that meeting. No need to. When we do meet again—and are we not bound to, perhaps in
another life?—we will undoubtedly resume where we left off….

But this Lawrence Lipton…. Physically, and I was aware of it immediately, he
reminded me violently of someone I dislike
intensely. He even talked like
this person whom I still loathe and despise. Yet everything he touched on—he had a habit of
drifting from one subject to another without transition—drew me to him like a magnet. He had
already skirted a dozen themes the very mention of which always affects me like a dose of
adrenalin. Suddenly I thought I heard him pronounce the word “Essenes.” He had pronounced it
correctly, which threw me off.

“Did you say the Essenes?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “Why? Are you interested in the subject?” He seemed
surprised.

I explained that for years I had been tracking down whatever I could find
regarding their customs, rituals and way of life. I mentioned certain similarities I thought I
had discovered between their ways and those of the Albigensians. I made a passing reference to
that strange book called
The Unknown Life of Jesus
. I cited Gerald Heard’s book,
Time, Pain and Sex
, in which there is an exciting chapter dealing with this strange
sect.

Yes, yes, he seemed to say, I’m familiar with all that—and much more. But have
we time to go into it now? He was spilling over with names, dates, citations, all manner of
strange, hermetic references.

“If you would really like to know more,” he said, “I’ll have my wife copy some
of the more salient data which I’ve accumulated on the subject these last ten years or
more.”

“I wouldn’t think of it …” I began.

“It’s nothing at all,” said he. “She’ll be happy to do it, won’t you,
dear?”

She had to say Yes, of course.

A few weeks later I received the data he had promised me. Included were his
own reflections and interpretations, extremely sagacious and pertinent.

Time passed and the subject of the Essenes dropped back into its accustomed
niche. Then, just ten days ago, a physician back from Palestine, and bearing a message from my
old friend Lilik,
called my attention to an article, a lengthy one, on
“The Dead Sea Scrolls,” which he “thought” had appeared in
The New Yorker
. He said it
was a very important article, written by Edmund Wilson. I was a bit sceptical, thought he had
things mixed up. As I rarely read
The New Yorker
I knew nothing about this event, for
such it turned out to be.