78
PARTISAN REVIEW
depicted love as a naked boy. They came to the conclusion that
Eros deprives men not only of their judgment and possessions but
also of their garments.
I: I've often thought that many situations could be simplified if
persons wore no clothes.
A: Some could be simplified; some could be complicated.
I: To children clothes seem arch-encumbrances-one of those Ir–
rational, thought-up, adult conventions like tea parties, newspapers
and flattery that have no real meaning. . . . When I was very
young I stood with my uncle, once, in a doorway waiting for a
shower to stop. Involuntarily I remarked, "I
like
the rain." My
uncle sniffed, "Oh yes, I like the rain, but only if I'm dressed for
it."- This struck me as an astonishing statement.
A: Baudelaire, for instance, regarded clothes as an extension of
his real self. Ideally clothes should be that. I think a truly honest
person would never wear a hat.
I: Why?
A: Except in Arctic weather a hat serves no purpose. The miter,
the Easter bonnet, the helmet-they function as insignia of power.
I: Clothes symbolize highly personal states. Strong reasons existed
why Gautier had to wear a Spanish cloak and Baudelaire a red tie.
- And nakedness can, I believe, teach one spiritual lessons. When I
went for my army physical I stripped like everyone else and stood
for a long time in line, waiting. Cold, hopeless. I felt finally like
everyone else. We were all reduced to the lowest common denomin–
ator. One's personal history- whether one had gone to Harvard or
committed a crime or designed a bridge- did not matter. One had
become a natural person without the power of reflection. One could
hardly manage to respond to the inquiries of the psychiatrist. It may
not have been by chance that the draftee was nude during this in–
terview, for that allowed the analyst to draw deductions from such
phenomena as affective coloring, rigidity and posture. I felt my
body as a betrayal of my self. In a nude collectivity I am always
overcome by a sense of despair and non-being. Since then I have
tried to determine why that artist, Abner Dean, chooses to portray
his victims naked. It is, I think, because the nude person is visualized
as a lost consciousness surrounded by deserts of solitude and darkness.
