ISAAC ROSENFELD
15
that time with Tashka, the anguish at the thought that I might be
expected to make a pass at her. How I've retrogressed! Yet what of it?–
if it's true; and perhaps it's not true. Perhaps this is the normal, the
right, by God. I would not mind some of this for myself, yet it's got to
be good, what I really want. I want to feel impelled, not lured; a cardiac
not a cerebral excitement.
"Kicks. " A sociology of the spmt. (Be it understood-not of
classes, not even of men, for that is for fiction, straight; but of souls.)
God we are an unhappy lot. The whole sexual mystery of the Village is
that with so much freedom, so much opportunity, so much
experiment-still, no result. Promiscuity-the beginning of the experi–
ment all over again, each time the same. Surely, in so many cases, one
success? And if one succeeded, wouldn't his chain of experiments come
to
an end? Can it really be that none of this effort is rewarded with
orgasm? One thing is clear: we live only for ecs tasy. "Kicks" it is called,
as if God were called "Hey-you!" -to hide from other's eyes the shame
of this great passion, the shame of our coldness. No one, I am sure, has
as yet felt the kick, the wallop, the horse's hoof. There would be the
bruise of peace to show for it. The black-and-blue peace, the yellowing,
purpling, swelling flesh, puffed with peace. Why not? I have suffered,
&
this is my reward. (Perhaps Herb has it.)
There are types in the Village whose lives are a quest, though they
have no object. Van Den Haag, Hilbert Schwartz." They can only be
thought of as investigators, inspectors, spies, owing their allegiance to
an Institute. At the end of their last report-a prayer, for mercy,
salvation, begging that they and their fellows be spared,
&
at the same
time offering themselves as hostages. Dostoevs kian ghosts who never
got into the novels.
Perhaps, as Manny# says, people don 't want
to
live with each
other.
Heard Shachtman deba te Liston Oak
&
was ashamed of myself
that I should ever have owed any allegiance-even if it was only of a
formal kind-to that man. I was nauseated, infuriated by his manner.
·Ernest Van Den Haag. Hilbert Schwartz was a Village character and a
friend of Rosenfeld's. He is most probably the main character in a late story of
Rosenfeld's entitled " George."
#Manny Farber.
