NACHMAN'S PREDICAMENTS
Human Nature-Vastly Different
Writing about Hume's attack on the introduction by the Romantics of Perfection into human things, Herzog came to make the observation that one should not make a general rule about human nature, because human beings are vastly different from one another. He advised that 'a moratorium on definitions of human nature is now best'.
A Cruel Act of Bourgeois Father
In this context, he cited the example of childhood playmate Nachman. He and his wife Laura were persons of their own type. Nachman belonged to the class of poets, known for its peculiarities. As the poets are known for their asceticism and stoicism, Nachman had no desire for wealth or comforts of life. He married Laura, daughter of a rich businessman. Laura came to love Nachman and his spartan life. They travelled all over Europe, slept in ditches, read Van Gogh's letters aloud to each other, without complaining about the hardships they suffered in their life of penury. But Nachman's father-in-law could not bear to see his daughter suffering the pangs of poverty. He, therefore, spirited away his daughter, unmindful of the suffering he was inflicting upon the love-lorn couple. Nachman was in a broken state, as he could not bear separation from his dear wife.
A Childhood Friend
Nachman was a childhood playmate of Moses Herzog. They played together about forty years ago on Napolean street-the Montreal slums. Herzog recalled that Nachman's family lived in yellow tenements just opposite. Moses, when he was only five, used to cross Napolean street, climb up a wooden staircase to meet his friend. The place was littered with turds. Herzog could clearly read in the Bible, that lay open, God's words written in Hebrew characters. "The brother's blood cries out to me from the earth." When Herzog was eight, he recalled, he shared a bench in the synagogue with Nachman, and the Rabbi had snubbed them for not being able to answer his questions in a catechism. They had no refuge but W.C.
A Sudden Meeting
Thereafter the two friends were separated by a tornado of events and could not meet for a long time-"Almost certainly, Nachman ran away from the power of his old friend's memory". Nachman suddenly appeared at Herzgo's door. Herzog was installed in comfort, while Nachman was living in Arab slums. His face was wrinkled and dirty, his nose was red from weeping, his creased face was the face of a dying man." He said to Herzog haltingly, "Moses, they've taken away my wife-my little Laura... Her father. The old man from the floor-covering business. Spirited her away. The old sorcerer. She will die without me. The child can't bear life without me. And I can't live without her. I've got to get back to New York'. He further said that he was in need of money and he had no other friend that could lend money to him. Herzog gave him money to send him away to New York so that he might not come again for further loans. Herzog admitted, "In Paris, I was stuck with you. You see, I don't pretend that I was altruistic", He gave him money to make himself free from a leech-like loanee.
Laura in Asylum
Thereafter he recalled that he had gone to visit Laura in an insane asylum with Nachman on a long island, where they could reach after 'a thousand bus stops'. They found Laura with bandaged wrists, since she had cut her wrists in third attempt of suicide. Her father's inane action of separating the two lovers had led the poor girl to attempt suicides three times. Laura wanted to talk about French Literature. She sat in a corner, holding breasts in her arms in a mournful state. As they left hospital, she stood at the grill, raised her bandaged wrists, a wan hand, to say, 'Good-by, Good-by'. Nachman, a heart-broken lover as he was, said in a hoarse voice, "My innocent darling, My bride. They've put her away, the grim ones, the machers-our masters. Imprisoned her. As if to love me proved she was mad."
Class-Prejudices
In reply to Herzog's query why his in-laws had done it, Nachman explained that it was mainly due to class prejudices The bourgeois world of Westchester did not like the idea of a girl of their class falling in love with a man of lower strata. He explained that they expected "Wedding announce. ments, linens, charge accounts. The family wants to part us. In New York we were wanderers too." Nachman and Herzog had the fear that the bourgeois parents of Laura might take a drastic action to stop their billing and cooing-"In our ecstasies we had to warn each other to be more moderate. It was like a holy act-we mustn't make the gods jealous." The class-prejudice ruined the two lives. He parted from his friend Herzog with a tacit promise that he would repay the loan he had taken from Herzog.
Ran away from Herzog
After a long time he sighted Nachman on 8th street. Herzog felt that Nachman was running away from him, lest he should ask for repayment of the loan he had given to him. Herzog was sorry that his childhood playmate should feel so. He had written off the loan long back. There was no question of his asking for repayment. He wrote in the note to Nachman, "Did you think I'd ask for the money you owe me ? I wrote that off, long ago. It meant very little to me, in Paris after the war. I had it then." He concluded that Nachman's wife was dead. She had committed suicide. He guessed that Nachman had run away because he would have to tell Herzog all about it. Herzog was sorry for Nachman and his wife who, he thought, must be in the cemetery.
Bourgeois Character
When Herzog was going back to the bus after seeing Nachman's wife, Laura, in the insane asylum, he was pained to see that class prejudices had done so much of harm to the innocent, loving people. He was clear in his mind, "So back of it all is bourgeois America. This is a crude world of finery and excrement." He felt strongly against America's bourgeois class which as this instance had shown to him was cruel and insensitive even to their own children. He had faith in socialism because he was born in poverty and had seen hard days. He swore, "But I will never worship the fat gods", that is, he had no respect for such rich persons as Laura's father, living in such posh colonies as Las Vegas or Miami Beach.
The bourgeois class, he felt, had no qualms of conscience. For the false sense of dignity, they had done irreparable harm to Laura and Nachman-"They wanted Laura to catch a husband at the Fountainblue, a husband with money." Very satirically does he say, "At the edge of doom, beside the last grave of mankind, they will still be counting their paper. Praying over their balance sheets...."
He was pained to note that his childhood friend, Nachman, was a handsome child, but the tyrannies of the bourgeois class had reduced him to a skeleton-"Nachman went on with boring persistent power. He had lost teeth, his jaw was smaller, his gray cheeks were bristly."
Herzog could still see him as he had been at six. In fact he could not dismiss his vision of two Nachmans, side by side. And it was the child with his fresh face, the smiling gap in his front teeth, the buttoned blouse and the short pants that was real, not this gaunt apparition of crazy lecturing Nachman. It appeared to Herzog that Nachman had no interest left in life. He was running away from his childhood friend, as he was running away from life. Nachman seemed to say, "People wish life to end. They have polluted it. Courage, honour, frankness, friendship, duty, all made filthy. Sullied". Herzog bewailed the loss of such great human men? values. The love of money and consequent hatred for the under-dog had degraded people in America "There was a time when men were born, lived and died. But do you call these We are only creatures. Death himself must be tired of us. I can see death coming before God to say 'What shall I do? There is no more grandeur in being Death. Release me, God, from this meanness." There was no grace or dignity left in man. Therefore Death felt it ultra-dig to go to man.
Socialistic Ideas
Herzog spoke vehemently against the bourgeouis class, but he made it clear that he was not a Marxist who, he felt, were materialistic, concerned only with the physical needs of man. He was with William Blake. He said, "I'm no Marxist, you know. I keep my heart with William Blake and Rilke", whose cult of socialism rooted in abiding values of humanity.
Accept the World as it is
Herzog had the feeling that Nachman was also responsible to some extent for his sufferings. He was sore because the world was unpoetic. He, therefore, advised Nachman and persons of his ilk to accept the world as it was. He remembered having told Nachman, "It isn't as bad as you make out, Nachman. Most people are unpoetical, and you consider this a betrayal." It is, of course to be realized that one cannot change the world according to his desire. One has to accept it as it is.
Nachman's Poetic Concept
But Nachman answered that people had fixed notions about life. They are in grooves from which they cannot come out. Naturally they persist in their notions in all conditions. He termed it as 'obstinacy of the cripples', since they would not break the shackles. He further explained, "Each man is stubbornly, stubbornly himself. Above all himself, to the end of time. Each of these creatures has some secret quality, and for this quality he is prepared to do anything. He will turn the universe upside down, but he will not deliver his quality to anyone else." The poet in him wanted people to look within themselves to see if they were bound hands and feet with the hard chains of their self made notions, they hadn't had power to break the shackles. The poet in Nachman said to Herzog in desperation, "This is what my poems are about. You don't think highly of my New Pslams. You're blind, old friend." The poet's discomfiture obviously was not that the world was unpoetic as alleged by Herzog, but that the people refused obstinately to accept the poetic ideas of the new age.
Inability to Change
All the same, he said to Herzog to remain rooted in himself, because he had a good spirit, which he had inherited from his gentle mother. Her remembered, "I was hungry and she fed me. She washed my hands and sat me at the table. She was the only one who was kind to my uncle Ravitch, the drunkard. I sometimes say a prayer for her."
Herzog viewed the running away of Nachman on the 18th street in the light of this poetical concept of Nachman. Earlier, he had thought that Nachman ran away from him lest he should ask him to repay the sum he had borrowed from him. But now he thought that poet had fled from the contact of the unpoetical world represented by Herzog-"His mad sense of decency told him to shun such an encounter." Alternatively, he thought, Nachman had forgotten everything to free himself of the old notions. Herzog mused, "would he be glad to forget it." However, he knew that he would never be able to forget anything-"All the dead and the mad are in my custody, and I'm the nemesis of the would-be-forgotten. I bind others to my feelings, and oppress them." Obviously, the world would not change howsoever hard the poet tried.
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