Moloch: Or, This Gentile World by Henry Miller Page A

spoken. It’s bacon and eggs for us, I see. Well, well, our old friend, bacon and eggs. Too bad, too bad!” He wagged his head with gross solemnity.
    The apologies that Blanche endeavored to make for her husband’s conduct gave Hari Das an insight into the private life of his newfound friend. He listened with such grave sympathy, with such a respectful mien, that Blanche soon found herself apologizing for more than she had intended.
    “I never know when he’s coming home,” she rattled on, intoxicated with the variety of her husband’s peccadilloes. “He doesn’t even bother to telephone me. Sometimes he walks in on me like this with a gang … yes, a gang. And then he has impudence enough to get angry with me for not waiting on his rowdies hand and foot.” She stamped her foot feelingly. “As though I could ever welcome his queer idiots.”
    “Queer idiots?” Hari repeated after her.
    Moloch spoke up. “I told you Blanche was a gem, didn’t I?  That’s just her way of making you welcome. She means to say that you’re a gentleman—you’re not a bit like the other rough necks. Why, my dear Blanche, I should say you are entertaining a gentleman. My good friend, the maharajah, has royal blood in his veins. You’ve got to have royal blood to be a maharajah—isn’t that so, Hari? Just the same, he’s not above eating bacon and eggs, are you, Swami? And Im’ not above making them for you, either. Swami, spill a little Hindustani while I prepare the feast. But let the talk be as excellent as the bacon and eggs!”
    He dragged the two of them into the kitchen, shoved his wife into a chair, and commenced rattling the dishes in the pantry. He had forgotten to remove his hat. It was tilted over one eye.
    “Now, Hari,” he bubbled, emerging with a frying pan which he flourished like a short-order book, “you tell friend wife all about the famine and pestilence in India.”
    Blanche made a contemptuous grimace and adjusted her skirt.
    Friend husband started to caper around her with the frying pan.
    “Oh, Moon of My Delight! Gaze upon this jewel of ————*
    *Editor’s note: A line of text is missing from the only known existing manuscript.
    “Does your husband act this way … er… frequently?” Hari asked. He was at a loss to label Moloch’s conduct without giving offense, but he also wished to absolve himself of all share in this brutal baiting.
    Blanche answered in a subdued voice, “Most of the time I think I’m living with a lunatic.”
    “Poltroon, my dear, poltroon!” Moloch put in.
    “He has no sense of decency, no respect—for me, or for anything. He’s a vulgar, coarse fool.”
    She sat there stolidly, making no further attempt to prolong the conversation. It was the attitude of a dumb brute waiting for the ax to fall on its neck. A sort of grim, pathetic, God-help-me air about her. Even Moloch was touched.
    He made an attempt to kiss her which she frustrated by giving him a vigorous push.
    “You can’t undo your mischief with a kiss,” she hissed. “Leave me in peace, that’s all I ask of you.”
    This outburst pained Moloch beyond words. He was like the criminal who hears the words of the sentence that is being pronounced but is dreaming all the while of the day he went fishing thirty-seven years ago—how beautiful the stream looked in the splashing sunlight, the melody of a bird, his own innocent dreams.... What he wanted to say was this:
    “Forgive me, Blanche. I’m a wretch. Christ! I don’t want to go on hurting you, but you make me behave this way … with your coldness, your suspicions, your …”
    Instead, he asked her in a weary voice if there was any mail. “Is there nothing from Burns?”
    She shook her head passively.
    “Nothing?” he repeated.
    “There’s this,” she answered in a dull voice.
    He looked at the envelope incomprehensibly. The handwriting was unfamiliar. He tore it open. Another envelope was inside, folded up within the letter. He looked at