Whoever, through too great love, which is monstrous40 after all, dies of his misery, is born again to know neither love nor hate, but to enjoy. And this joy of living, because it is unnaturally41 acquired, is a poison which eventually vitiates the whole world. Whatever is created beyond the normal limits of human suffering, acts as a boomerang and brings about destruction. At night the streets of New York reflect the crucifixion and death of Christ. When the snow is on the ground and there is the utmost silence there comes out of the hideous42 buildings of New York a music of such sullen43 despair and bankruptcy44 as to make the flesh shrivel. No stone was laid upon another with love or reverence45; no street was laid for dance or joy. One thing has been added to another in a mad scramble46 to fill the belly, and the streets smell of empty bellies47 and full bellies and bellies half full. The streets smell of a hunger which has nothing to do with love; they smell of the belly which is insatiable and of the creations of the empty belly which are null and void.
In this null and void, in this zero whiteness, I learned to enjoy a sandwich, or a collar button. I could study a cornice or a coping with the greatest curiosity while pretending to listen to a tale of human woe. I can remember the dates on certain buildings and the names of the architects who designed them. I can remember the temperature and the velocity48 of the wind, standing at a certain comer; the tale that accompanied it is gone. I can remember that I was even then remembering something else, and I can tell you what it was that I was then remembering, but of what use? There was one man in me which had died and all that was left were his remembrances;
there was another man who was alive, and that man was supposed to be me, myself, but he was alive only as a tree is alive, or a rock, or a beast of the field. Just as the city itself had become a huge tomb in which men struggled to earn a decent death so my own life came to resemble a tomb which I was constructing out of my own death. I was walking around in a stone forest the centre of which was chaos49; sometimes in the dead centre, in the very heart of chaos, I danced or drank myself silly, or I made love, or I befriended some one, or I planned a new life, but it was all chaos, all stone, and all hopeless and bewildering. Until the time when I would encounter a force strong enough to whirl me out of this mad stone forest no life would be possible for me nor could one page be written which would have meaning. Perhaps in reading this, one has still the impression of chaos but this is written from a live centre and what is chaotic50 is merely peripheral51, the tangental shreds52, as it were, of a world which no longer concerns me. Only a few months ago I was standing in the streets of New York looking about me as years ago I had looked about me;
again I found myself studying the architecture, studying the minute details which only the dislocated eye takes in. But this time it was like coming down from Mars. What race of men is this, I asked myself. What does it mean? And there was no remembrance of suffering or of the life that was snuffed out in the gutter53, only that I was looking upon a strange and incomprehensible world, a world so removed from me that I had the sensation of belonging to another planet. From the top of the Empire State Building I looked down one night upon the city which I knew from below: there they were, in true perspective, the human ants with whom I had crawled, the human lice with whom I had struggled. They were moving along at a snail's pace, each one doubtless fulfilling his micro-cosmic destiny. In their fruitless desperation they had reared this colossal54 edifice55 which was their pride and boast. And from the topmost ceiling of this colossal edifice they had suspended a string of cages in which the imprisoned56 canaries warbled their senseless warble. At the very summit of their ambition there were these little spots of beings warbling away for dear life. In a hundred years, I thought to myself perhaps they would be caging live human beings, gay, demented ones who would sing about the world to come. Perhaps they would breed a race of warblers who would warble while the others worked. Perhaps in every cage there would be a poet or a musician so that life below might flow on unimpeded, one with the stone, one with the forest, a rippling57 creaking chaos of null and void. In a thousand years they might all be demented, workers and poets alike, and everything fall back to ruin as has happened again and again. Another thousand years, or five thousand, or ten thousand, exactly where I am standing now to survey the scene, a little boy may open a book in a tongue as yet unheard of and about this life now passing, a life which the man who wrote the book never experienced, a life with deducted58 form and rhythm, with beginning and end, and the boy on dosing the book will think to himself what a great race the Americans were, what a marvellous life there had once been on this continent which he is now inhabiting. No race to come, except perhaps the race of blind poets, will ever be able to imagine the seething59 chaos out of which this future history was composed.
Chaos! A howling chaos! No need to choose a particular day. Any day of my life - back there - would suit. Every day of my life, my tiny, microcosmic life, was a reflection of the outer chaos. Let me think back ... At seven-thirty the alarm went off. I didn't bounce out of bed. I lay there till eight-thirty, trying to gain a little more sleep. Sleep - how could I sleep? In the back of my mind was an image of the office where I was already due. I could see Hymie arriving at eight sharp, the switchboard already buzzing with demands for help, the applicants61 climbing up the wide wooden stairway, the strong smell of camphor from the dressing62 room. Why get up and repeat yesterday's song and dance? As fast as I hired them they dropped out. Working my balls off and not even a clean shirt to wear. Mondays I got my allowance from the wife -carfare and lunch money. I was always in debt to her and she was in debt to the grocer, the butcher, the landlord, and so on. I couldn't be bothered shaving - there wasn't time enough. I put on the torn shirt, gobble up the breakfast, and borrow a nickel for the subway. If she were in a bad mood I would swindle the money from the newsdealer at the subway. I got to the office out of breath, an hour behind time and a dozen calls to make before I even talk to an applicant60. While I make one call there are three other calls waiting to be answered. I use two telephones at once. The switchboard is buzzing. Hymie is sharpening his pencils between calls. MacGovern the doorman is standing at my elbow to give me a word of advice about one of the applicants, probably a crook63 who is trying to sneak64 back under a false name. Behind me are the cards and ledgers66 containing the name of every applicant who had ever passed through the machine. The bad ones are starred in red ink;
some of them have six aliases67 after their names. Meanwhile the room is crawling like a hive. The room stinks68 with sweat, dirty feet, old uniforms, camphor, lysol, bad breaths. Half of them will have to be turned away - not that we don't need them, but that even under the worst conditions they just won't do. The man in front of my desk, standing at the rail with palsied hands and bleary eyes, is an ex-mayor of New York City. He's seventy now and would be glad to take anything. He has wonderful letters of recommendation, but we can't take any one over forty-five years of age. Forty-five in New York is the dead line. The telephone rings and it's a smooth secretary from the Y.M.C.A. Wouldn't I make an exception for a boy who has just walked into his office - a boy who was in the reformatory for a year or so. What did he do?He tried to rape his sister. An Italian, of course. O'Mara, my assistant, is putting an applicant through the third degree. He suspects him of being an epileptic. Finally he succeeds and for good measure the boy throws a fit right there in the office. One of the women faints. A beautiful looking young woman with a handsome fur around her neck is trying to persuade me to take her on. She's a whore clean through and I know if I put her on there'll be hell to pay. She wants to work in a certain building uptown - because it is near home, she says. Nearing lunch time and a few cronies are beginning to drop in. They sit around watching me work, as if it were a vaudeville69 performance. Kronski, the medical student arrives; he says one of the boys I've just hired has Parkinson's disease. I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to go to the toilet. All the telegraph operators, all the managers, suffer from haemorrhoids, so O'Rourke tells me. He's been having electrical massages70 for the last two years, but nothing works. Lunch time and there are six of us at the table. Some one will have to pay for me, as usual. We gulp71 it down and rush back. More calls to make, more applicants to interview. The vice-president is raising hell because we can't keep the force up to normal. Every paper in New York and for twenty miles outside New York carries long ads demanding help. All the schools have been canvassed72 for part time messengers. All the charity bureaux and relief societies have been invoked73. They drop out like flies. Some of them don't even last an hour. It's a human flour mill. And the saddest thing about it is that it's totally unnecessary. But that's not my concern. Mine is to do or die, as Kipling says. I plug on, through one victim after another, the telephone ringing like mad, the place smelling more and more vile74, the holes getting bigger and bigger. Each one is a human being asking for a crust of bread; I have his height, weight, colour, religion, education, experience, etc.
All the data will go into a ledger65 to be filed alphabetically75 and then chronologically76. Names and dates. Fingerprints77 too, if we had the time for it. So that what? So that the American people may enjoy the fastest form of communication known to man, so that they may sell their wares78 more quickly, so that the moment you drop dead in the street your next of kin5 may be appraised79 immediately, that is to say within an hour, unless the messenger to whom the telegram is entrusted80 decides to throw up the job and throw the whole batch81 of telegrams in the garbage can. Twenty million Christmas blanks, all wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, from the directors and president and vice-president of the Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company, and maybe the telegram reads "Mother dying, come at once", but the clerk is too busy to notice the message and if you sue for damages, spiritual damages, there is a legal department trained expressly to meet such emergencies and so you can be sure that your mother will die and you will have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year just the same. The clerk, of course, will be fired and after a month or so he will come back for a messenger's job and he will be taken on and put on the night shift near the docks where nobody will recognize him, and his wife will come with the brats82 to thank the general manager, or perhaps the vice-president himself, for the kindness and consideration shown. And then one day everybody will be heartily83 surprised that said messenger robbed the till and O'Rourke will be asked to take the night train for Cleveland or Detroit and to track him down if it cost ten thousand dollars. And then the vice-president will issue an order that no more Jews are to be hired, but after three or four days he will let up a bit because there are nothing but Jews coming for the job. And because it's getting so very tough and the timber so damned scarce I'm on the point of hiring a midget from the circus and I probably would have hired him if he hadn't broken down and confessed that he was a she. And to make it worse Valeska takes "it" under her wing, takes "it" home that night and under pretense84 of sympathy gives "it" a thorough examination, including a vaginal exploration with the index finger of the right hand. And the nostrils85. I longed to be free of it all and yet I was irresistibly86 attracted. I was violent and phlegmatic87 at the same time. I was like the lighthouse itself - secure in the midst of the most turbulent sea. Beneath me was solid rock, the same shelf of rock on which the towering skyscrapers were reared. My foundations went deep into the earth and the armature of my body was made of steel riveted88 with hot bolts. Above all I was an eye, a huge searchlight which scoured89 far and wide, which revolved90 ceaselessly, pitilessly. This eye so wide awake seemed to have made all my other faculties91 dormant92; all my powers were used up in the effort to see, to take in the drama of the world.
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1
recording
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| n.录音，记录 | |
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liberate
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| v.解放，使获得自由，释出，放出；vt.解放，使获自由 | |
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rambles
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| （无目的地）漫游( ramble的第三人称单数 )； （喻）漫谈； 扯淡； 长篇大论 | |
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mirage
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| n.海市蜃楼，幻景 | |
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kin
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| n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的 | |
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budge
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| v.移动一点儿；改变立场 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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banal
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| adj.陈腐的，平庸的 | |
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muddle
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| n.困惑，混浊状态；vt.使混乱，使糊涂，使惊呆；vi.胡乱应付，混乱 | |
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canyon
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| n.峡谷，溪谷 | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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morsel
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| n.一口，一点点 | |
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inundated
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| v.淹没( inundate的过去式和过去分词 )；（洪水般地）涌来；充满；给予或交予（太多事物）使难以应付 | |
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strata
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| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
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pinpoint
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| vt.准确地确定；用针标出…的精确位置 | |
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emanating
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| v.从…处传出，传出( emanate的现在分词 )；产生，表现，显示 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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itching
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| adj.贪得的，痒的，渴望的v.发痒( itch的现在分词 ) | |
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unravel
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| v.弄清楚（秘密）；拆开，解开，松开 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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stark
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| adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地 | |
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skyscrapers
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| n.摩天大楼 | |
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rape
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| n.抢夺，掠夺，强奸；vt.掠夺，抢夺，强奸 | |
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sewers
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| n.阴沟，污水管，下水道( sewer的名词复数 ) | |
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lash
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| v.系牢；鞭打；猛烈抨击；n.鞭打；眼睫毛 | |
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belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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goad
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| n.刺棒，刺痛物；激励；vt.激励，刺激 | |
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goaded
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| v.刺激( goad的过去式和过去分词 )；激励；（用尖棒）驱赶；驱使（或怂恿、刺激）某人 | |
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redoubtable
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| adj.可敬的；可怕的 | |
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arson
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| n.纵火，放火 | |
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motif
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| n.(图案的)基本花纹，(衣服的)花边；主题 | |
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abortions
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| n.小产( abortion的名词复数 )；小产胎儿；（计划）等中止或夭折；败育 | |
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busted
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| adj. 破产了的，失败了的，被降级的，被逮捕的，被抓到的 动词bust的过去式和过去分词 | |
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amnesia
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| n.健忘症，健忘 | |
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tribulations
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| n.苦难( tribulation的名词复数 )；艰难；苦难的缘由；痛苦 | |
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relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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unnaturally
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| adv.违反习俗地；不自然地；勉强地；不近人情地 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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bankruptcy
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| n.破产；无偿付能力 | |
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45
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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scramble
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| v.爬行，攀爬，杂乱蔓延，碎片，片段，废料 | |
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bellies
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| n.肚子( belly的名词复数 )；腹部；（物体的）圆形或凸起部份；腹部…形的 | |
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velocity
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| n.速度，速率 | |
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chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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chaotic
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| adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的 | |
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peripheral
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| adj.周边的，外围的 | |
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shreds
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| v.撕碎，切碎( shred的第三人称单数 )；用撕毁机撕毁（文件） | |
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53
gutter
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| n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟 | |
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colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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edifice
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| n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿，教室) | |
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imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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rippling
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| 起涟漪的，潺潺流水般声音的 | |
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deducted
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| v.扣除，减去( deduct的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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seething
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| 沸腾的，火热的 | |
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applicant
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| n.申请人，求职者，请求者 | |
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applicants
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| 申请人，求职人( applicant的名词复数 ) | |
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dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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sneak
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| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
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ledger
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| n.总帐，分类帐；帐簿 | |
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ledgers
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| n.分类账( ledger的名词复数 ) | |
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aliases
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| n.别名，化名( alias的名词复数 ) | |
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68
stinks
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| v.散发出恶臭( stink的第三人称单数 )；发臭味；名声臭；糟透 | |
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vaudeville
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| n.歌舞杂耍表演 | |
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massages
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| 按摩，推拿( massage的名词复数 ) | |
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gulp
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| vt.吞咽，大口地吸（气）；vi.哽住；n.吞咽 | |
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canvassed
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| v.（在政治方面）游说( canvass的过去式和过去分词 )；调查（如选举前选民的）意见；为讨论而提出（意见等）；详细检查 | |
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invoked
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| v.援引( invoke的过去式和过去分词 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求 | |
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vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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alphabetically
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| adv.照字母顺序排列地 | |
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chronologically
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| ad. 按年代的 | |
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fingerprints
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| n.指纹( fingerprint的名词复数 )v.指纹( fingerprint的第三人称单数 ) | |
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78
wares
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| n. 货物, 商品 | |
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79
appraised
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| v.估价( appraise的过去式和过去分词 )；估计；估量；评价 | |
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80
entrusted
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| v.委托，托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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81
batch
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| n.一批(组，群)；一批生产量 | |
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82
brats
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| n.调皮捣蛋的孩子( brat的名词复数 ) | |
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83
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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84
pretense
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| n.矫饰，做作，借口 | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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phlegmatic
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| adj.冷静的，冷淡的，冷漠的，无活力的 | |
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riveted
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| 铆接( rivet的过去式和过去分词 )； 把…固定住； 吸引； 引起某人的注意 | |
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scoured
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| 走遍（某地）搜寻（人或物）( scour的过去式和过去分词 )； （用力）刷； 擦净； 擦亮 | |
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revolved
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| v.（使）旋转( revolve的过去式和过去分词 )；细想 | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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dormant
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| adj.暂停活动的；休眠的；潜伏的 | |
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