Tropic of Cancer - Miller, Henry [103]
All efforts are concentrated now on getting Macha into shape. Fillmore thinks if he cures her of the clap she may loosen up. A strange idea. So he's bought her a douche bag, a stock of permanganate, a whirling syringe and other little things which were recommended to him by a Hungarian doctor, a little quack of an abortionist over near the Place d'Aligre. It seems his boss had knocked up a sixteen-year-old girl once and she had introduced him to the Hungarian; and then after that the boss had a beautiful chancre and it was the Hungarian again. That's how one gets acquainted in Paris – genito-urinary friendships. Anyway, under our strict supervision, Macha is taking care of herself. The other night, though, we were in a quandary for a while. She stuck the suppository inside her and then she couldn't find the string attached to it. "My God!" she was yelling, "where is that string? My God! I can't find the string!"
"Did you look under the bed?" said Fillmore.
Finally she quieted down. But only for a few minutes. The next thing was: "My God! I'm bleeding again. I just had my period and now there are gouttes again. It must be that cheap champagne you buy. My God, do you want me to bleed to death?" She comes out with a kimono on and a towel stuck between her legs, trying to look dignified as usual. "My whole life is just like that," she says. "I'm a neurasthenic. The whole day running around and at night I'm drunk again. When I came to Paris I was still an innocent girl. I read only Villon and Baudelaire. But as I had then 300,000 Swiss francs in the bank I was crazy to enjoy myself, because in Russia they were always strict with me. And as I was even more beautiful then than I am now, I had all the men falling at my feet." Here she hitched up the slack which had accumulated around her belt. "You mustn't think I had a stomach like that when I came here… that's from all the poison I was given to drink… those horrible apéritifs which the French are so crazy to drink… So then I met my movie director and he wanted that I should play a part for him. He said I was the most gorgeous creature in the world and he was begging me to sleep with him every night. I was a foolish young virgin and so I permitted him to rape me one night. I wanted to be a great actress and I didn't know he was full of poison. So he gave me the clap… and now I want that he should have it back again. It's his fault that I committed suicide in the Seine… Why are you laughing? Don't you believe that I committed suicide? I can show you the newspapers… there is my picture in all the papers. I will show you the Russian papers some day… they wrote about me wonderfully… But darling, you know that first I must have a new dress. I can't vamp this man with these dirty rags I am in. Besides, I still owe my dressmaker 12,000 francs…"
From here on it's a long story about the inheritance which she is trying to collect. She has a young lawyer, a Frenchman, who is rather timid, it seems, and he is trying to win back her fortune. From time to time he used to give her a hundred francs or so on account. "He's stingy, like all the French people," she says. "And I was so beautiful, too, that he couldn't keep his eyes off me. He kept begging me always to fuck him. I got so sick and tired of listening to him that one night I said yes, just to keep him quiet, and so as I wouldn't lose my hundred francs now and then." She paused a moment to laugh hysterically. "My dear," she continued, "it was too funny for words what happened to him. He calls me up on the phone one day and he says: 'I must see you right away… it's very important.' And when I see him he shows me a paper from the doctor – and it's gonorrhea! My dear, I laughed in his face. How should I know that I still had the clap? 'You wanted to fuck me and so I fucked you!' That made him quiet.