Free Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller Page A

American will disappear one day, more completely than that which was Greek, or Roman, or Egyptian. This is
one
of the ideas which pushed me outside the warm, comfortable bloodstream where, buffaloes all, we once grazed in peace. An idea that has caused me infinite sorrow, for not to belong to something enduring is the last agony. But I am not a buffalo and I have no desire to be one. I am not even
a spiritual buffalo.
I have slipped away to rejoin an older stream of consciousness, a race antecedent to the buffaloes, a race that will survive the buffalo.
    All things, all objects animate or inanimate that are
different,
are veined with ineradicable traits. What is me is ineradicable, because it is different. This is a skyscraper, as I said, but it is
different
from the usual skyscraper à l’américaine. In this skyscraperthere are no elevators, no 73rd story windows to jump from. If you get tired of climbing you are shit out of luck. There is no slot directory in the main lobby. If you are searching for somebody you will have to search. If you want a drink you will have to go out and get it; there are no soda fountains in this building, and no cigar stores, and no telephone booths. All the other skyscrapers have what you want! this one contains nothing but what
I
want, what
I
like. And somewhere in this skyscraper Valeska has her being, and we’re going to get to her when the spirit moves me. For the time being she’s all right, Valeska, seeing as how she’s six feet under and by now perhaps picked clean by the worms. When she was in the flesh she was picked clean too, by the human worms who have no respect for anything which has a different tint, a different odour.
    The sad thing about Valeska was the fact that she had nigger blood in her veins. It was depressing for everybody around her. She made you aware of it whether you wished to be or not. The nigger blood, as I say, and the fact that her mother was a trollop. The mother was white of course. Who the father was nobody knew, not even Valeska herself.
    Everything was going along smoothly until the day an officious little Jew from the vice-president’s office happened to espy her. He was horrified, so he informed me confidentially, to think that I had employed a coloured person as my secretary. He spoke as though she might contaminate the messengers. The next day I was put on the carpet. It was exactly as though I had committed sacrilege. Of course, I pretended that I hadn’t observed anything unusual about her, except that she was extremely intelligent and extremely capable. Finally the president himself stepped in. There was a short interview between him and Valeska during which he very diplomatically proposed to give her a better position in Havana. No talk of the blood taint. Simply that her services had been altogether remarkable and that they would like to promote her – to Havana. Valeska came back to the office in a rage. When she was angry she was magnificent. She said she wouldn’t budge. Steve Romero and Hymie were there at the time and we allwent out to dinner together. During the course of the evening we got a bit tight. Valeska’s tongue was wagging. On the way home she told me that she was going to put up a fight; she wanted to know if it would endanger my job. I told her quietly that if she were fired I would quit too. She pretended not to believe it at first. I said I meant it, that I didn’t care what happened. She seemed to be unduly impressed; she took me by the two hands and she held them very gently, the tears rolling down her cheeks.
    That was the beginning of things. I think it was the very next day that I slipped her a note saying that I was crazy about her. She read the note sitting opposite me and when she was through she looked me square in the eye and said she didn’t believe it. But we went to dinner again that night and we had more to drink and we danced and while we were dancing she pressed herself against me lasciviously. It was