(Denny always saw to it that his guests made themselves useful.) In the 1944 journal, Christopher pays a tribute to Harris’s
“decency and generosity.” Well he may––for he treated Harris not merely as a convenience but as one of the Seven Deadly Sins, which had to be overcome by temporarily yielding to it. “Let me go to bed with you so I can get tired of you” was basically his approach. Then, later, when Vernon [Old*] reappears on the scene, Harris gets told, in effect, that he, The Carnal Love, is to stand aside because The Spiritual Love is taking over. (Christopher was going to bed with The Spiritual Love too, however; and The Carnal Love was well aware of this!) Finally, when Christopher has first satisfied and then sublimated and then temporarily lost his lust for Vernon, he reopens his affair with Harris. This he ungraciously refers to as “the X.
situation beginning again.” (There is a faint memory that the two of them had to stand very close together in a crowded trolley car going downtown, and that this was how it started.) What was Harris’s attitude to all of this? Just because he wasn’t emotionally involved, he probably found it easy to accept Christopher’s on-again, off-again, on-again behavior. Besides, he liked sex––the more of it the better––and must have found Christopher quite adequately
attractive, as well as amusing to be with. If this relationship had been represented in a ballet, the dancer playing Christopher would be repeatedly changing costumes and masks and his movements would be artificial, inhibited and tense; the dancer playing Harris would be naked and usually motionless––the only sort of tension he would display would be an eager puzzled smile as he reacted to his partner’s contortions.
In the 1944 journal, Christopher writes, “I know quite well that I shouldn’t feel guilty if I were not living at Ivar Avenue. That being true, my guilt is worthless.” Nevertheless, Christopher certainly did feel guilty––or at least embarrassed––throughout the rest of his stay at the Vedanta Center. His position was false, and several people
[* Not his real name.]
¾ 1945 ¾
7
knew this––Denny, Bill Harris, the Beesleys, John van Druten, Carter Lodge, etc. The Beesleys probably found the inconsistency of his life as a demi-monk merely amusing and cute––it seemed
“human”––it excused them from feeling awed and awkward in the presence of his faith. But for Christopher, their tolerance was humiliating.
Should he have left the center much sooner than he did? Looking back, I find that I can’t say yes. It now seems to me that Christopher’s embarrassment and guilt feelings were of little importance and his
“spiritual struggles” trivial. What mattered was that he was getting exposure to Swami, that his relations with Swami continued to be (fairly) frank, and that he never ceased to be aware of Swami’s love.
Every day that he spent at the center was a day gained. That he kept slipping away to see Bill Harris wasn’t really so dreadful. That he had lost face in the eyes of various outside observers was a good thing––or anyhow it was a hundred times better than if he had fooled everyone into thinking him a saint.
(Remembering Christopher’s position at that time makes me feel great sympathy and admiration for Franklin [Knight] at Trabuco nowadays and for Jimmie Barnett at the Hollywood monastery. Their position is, or has been, far more embarrassing and humiliating than Christopher’s ever was. And they haven’t run away from it.)
1945
Day-to-day diary, January 1, 1945: “Started work on my story.”
What story? Perhaps an early attempt to do something with the material from the journal about Christopher’s stay at the Friends Service Committee hostel at Haverford, 1941–1942. Or perhaps
another attempt to write about the character called “Paul”1 (in those days, he wasn’t yet altogether Denny Fouts) and his adventures on the Greek island, which later appeared in “Ambrose.”[*]
1 My original Paul character had nothing to do with Denny––indeed I thought of him long before Denny and I met. So what I have written [above] is misleadingly phrased. I never, as far as I remember, planned to put Denny into the Greek island story. On the contrary, I cut Paul out of it and used his name for a portrait of Denny in Paul. (An unfinished novel featuring the original Paul character is described in Christopher and His Kind, chapter eleven.)
[* In Down There on a Visit (1962).]
8
Lost Years
On January 2, Christopher took the manuscript of Vedanta and the Western World to be published by Marcel Rodd. Evidently they were still on good terms with Rodd at the Vedanta Center. Marcel is first referred to on June 20 in the 1944 journal, when he took over the distribution of the Gita,[*] which had already been set up by the printer who printed the magazine. Christopher knew him in a sort of backstairs way, as one of Vernon’s many former admirers, and Christopher flattered himself that he could do satisfactory business with Rodd and not get cheated, despite Rodd’s character. I can’t remember that Rodd ever actually cheated the Vedanta Society, but he caused a lot of annoyance and inconvenience in later years––
failing to republish but refusing to give up his rights and ignoring the letters written to him by the society’s lawyers. And for all this Christopher was responsible because he had introduced Rodd to Swami. (Though I think it was Denny who had suggested that he should do so. Denny’s advice was so often sensible but mischievous.) In the 1944 journal, it is said that Rodd “is terribly anxious to become a respectable publisher.” This suggests that Rodd had already been in trouble as the result of his dealings in pornography––maybe while he had the bookshop and was selling it under the counter. But I remember that he was prosecuted, some time after this, for
publishing or distributing sex books––one of them was called We Are Fires Unquenchable. The judge said, “I understand, Mr. Rodd, that you also publish religious literature? I strongly advise you to stick to that line in future.”
On January 3, Swami’s nephew Asit [Ghosh] was finally released from the army. (The circumstances of his induction and the legal proceedings which were taken to release him are described in the 1944 journal.) Asit came back to the center and stayed there for a while. Then he left for India.1
1 I have a vivid mental picture of Asit saying goodbye to Swami, after coming out of the temple where they had prostrated before the shrine. Right then, in full view of the street, Asit bowed down and took the dust of Swami’s feet. It is my impression that I had never before seen anyone do this. Pranams weren’t part of life at the center in those days. What makes the picture more exotic is that Asit is in U.S. Army uniform––which seems most improbable, if he had already left the army!
(Note, made June 16, 1977: As I have just discovered from rereading the journal, my memory referred to September 18, 1944, the day Asit was inducted into the army, not the day he was discharged from it. If he hadn’t yet been inducted, would he have been wearing uniform? Surely not.)
[* I.e., the Bhagavad Gita, which Isherwood and Prabhavananda had translated; see Glossary under Prabhavananda.]
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The Vivekananda Puja was celebrated on January 4, this year. (In 1944, it was on January 17.) The 1944 day-to-day diary mentions it, but I can find no reference to it in the journal. This puja––or rather, the breakfast puja which is the first part of it––became the only ritual worship which Christopher really enjoyed. This was chiefly because he had an important role in it––Swami had decided that he should be the one to read the Katha Upanishad aloud while Swamiji’s[*]