Page:Big Sur (1963).djvu/33

RV 25 (BIG SUR25) of Dostoevsky 50 years too late (he feels tormented in a “personal hell” he calls it because he doesnt like what other people like!)—Better at noon to watch the orange and black Princeton colors on the wings of a butterfly—Best to go hear the sound of the sea at night on the shore.

Maybe I shouldna gone out and scared or bored or belabored myself so much, tho, on that beach at night which would scare any ordinary mortal—Every night around eight after supper I'd put on my big fisherman coat and take the notebook, pencil and lamp and start down the trail (sometimes passing ghostly Alf on the way) and go under that frightful high bridge and see through the dark fog ahead the white mouths of ocean coming high at me—But knowing the terrain I’d walk right on, jump the beach creek, and go to my corner by the cliff not far from one of the caves and sit there like an idiot in the dark writing down the sound of the waves in the notebook page (secretarial notebook) which I could see white in the darkness and therefore without benefit of lamp scrawl on—I was afraid to light my lamp for fear I'd scare the people way up there on the cliff eating their nightly tender supper—(later found out there was nobody up there eating tender suppers, they were overtime carpenters finishing the place in bright lights)—And Id get scared of the rising tide with its 15 foot waves yet sit there hoping in faith that Hawaii warnt sending no tidal wave I might miss seeing in the dark coming from miles away high as Groomus—One night I got scared anyway so sat on top of 10 foot cliff at the foot of the big cliff and the waves are going “Rare, he rammed the gate rare”—“Raw roo roar”—“Crowsh”—the way waves sound especially at night—The sea not speaking in sentences so much as in short lines: “Which one? the one ploshed? the same, ah Boom’ Writing down these fantastic inanities actually but yet I felt I had to do it because James Joyce wasnt about to do it now he was dead (and figuring “Next year I’ll write the different sound of the Atlantic crashing say on the