84
PARTISAN REVIEW
manure on a J anuary morning in Zagora where I am going next day.
The smell o f cigars. Are these rea ll y onl y a repressed sublima ting
affecti on for smell of o ur own excreti on s? Ca ramba! lL 's ha rd to beli eve.
In my poem "On Beauty" I will write next yea r I will put th a t idea to
sleep . Or let it rest, in an y case. Now if we could o pen the " An y Case."
So many things have been left there! It is so ha rd to kn ow when , and
what, to write. Should one no t do it on ho lidays? on wee kends? when
o ther peopl e are around? Is it wrong to be writing thi s journa l?
Shouldn 't I be up and about ? IL is ho t to be up and a bout. And I don 't
know where to be up and abo ut to. Everything in thi s culture seems too
structured fo r me to be merely and vaguely up and about in it. I guess I
could start a school-but a t thi s time o f ni ght ? And Pi erre Sadi-Rab
didn 't think very much of my ideas. Sans doute
iI
a la ra ison de
son cote. That doesn 't sound like compl etely correct French . Well , on–
ward !
Jan. 6. In the Western quarter o f Oua rzaza te we have di scovered it, the
Any Case.
It
is full as a bushel bas ket of clo thes.
It
has dyed-red subj ect
ma LLer. Its daffodil s cancel perceptions of a long-dryin g wa ll. IL seems
to be Morocco itself. Lo ts of children run a bo ut it excited. The children
in thi s country-happy, beautiful , excited , a lo t of them , as if they had
been spared something. Then o thers who a re begging, brui sed , as lant,
who seem deprived of something momento us. None of them like
Ameri can children who seem compa ra ti vely like lo llipop heads. The
beauty of the human race as it passes from one age to another. Golden
philosophies. Wa lking pas t the Any Case, in whi ch so many things
have gone on.
Riding my bicycle up th e hill to see J ean Johnson . Would livin g in
Arab cu lture have deprived me of everything? Who, exactl y, would I
have been ? Would th at have been " mo re rea lity"? The idea of the
degree of reality forbids and depresses me.
If
I shouted " I am I," that
would be a case of very pale identity. French writers can go on like this
for a long time-the " intima te metaph ys ics-cum deep suffering
you will never know it" style. Are they influencin g me here in
Morocco? I do no t suppose I could be influenced toni ght by Mo roccan
(Arab ) writers .
If
I were able to read them , yes. But they seem to be from
very long ago-or else to be writing a bout superfi cia l if " press ing"
questions. Is my lack of bein g " pressed " an exampl e o f some so rt of