WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.830 align:middle line:90%


00:00:01.830 --> 00:00:10.950 align:middle line:84%
At the end of last year, at the
end of Christmas week in fact,

00:00:10.950 --> 00:00:13.110 align:middle line:84%
Christopher Isherwood
was dying in his 70s.

00:00:13.110 --> 00:00:16.200 align:middle line:90%


00:00:16.200 --> 00:00:18.840 align:middle line:84%
I'd known him
fairly well in a way

00:00:18.840 --> 00:00:21.390 align:middle line:84%
that a great many people
knew him fairly well.

00:00:21.390 --> 00:00:24.600 align:middle line:84%
He was very kind to me as a
young man when I was about 25.

00:00:24.600 --> 00:00:27.570 align:middle line:84%
And I thought, oh, boy, I must
be one of his best friends.

00:00:27.570 --> 00:00:30.630 align:middle line:84%
And then, I noticed that many
other people regarded him

00:00:30.630 --> 00:00:31.800 align:middle line:90%
in just the same way.

00:00:31.800 --> 00:00:34.980 align:middle line:84%
He had a very wonderful
way of seeming--

00:00:34.980 --> 00:00:37.290 align:middle line:84%
of being all attentive
to what you were saying.

00:00:37.290 --> 00:00:40.260 align:middle line:84%
Once I noticed this when I
was in a restaurant with him,

00:00:40.260 --> 00:00:42.480 align:middle line:84%
and there was a group
of us speaking to him.

00:00:42.480 --> 00:00:46.470 align:middle line:90%
And I noticed that the way--

00:00:46.470 --> 00:00:50.610 align:middle line:84%
normally, when we're
speaking to another person,

00:00:50.610 --> 00:00:52.080 align:middle line:90%
our eyes stray around a little.

00:00:52.080 --> 00:00:53.400 align:middle line:90%
We look at the person's mouth.

00:00:53.400 --> 00:00:55.400 align:middle line:90%
We look over their shoulder.

00:00:55.400 --> 00:01:00.120 align:middle line:84%
We're listening, but we
don't give all our attention

00:01:00.120 --> 00:01:01.050 align:middle line:90%
to that person.

00:01:01.050 --> 00:01:04.440 align:middle line:84%
But Isherwood, when he
was speaking to you,

00:01:04.440 --> 00:01:07.152 align:middle line:84%
devoted himself to
you, whoever you were.

00:01:07.152 --> 00:01:09.360 align:middle line:84%
That was why we all thought
we were his best friends.

00:01:09.360 --> 00:01:12.570 align:middle line:90%
[CHUCKLES]

00:01:12.570 --> 00:01:17.880 align:middle line:84%
I was very sad to hear
that he was dying.

00:01:17.880 --> 00:01:23.670 align:middle line:84%
And I-- usually, I don't write
a poem on an occasion like this

00:01:23.670 --> 00:01:25.320 align:middle line:90%
as I did.

00:01:25.320 --> 00:01:27.450 align:middle line:90%
I wrote this very soon.

00:01:27.450 --> 00:01:30.660 align:middle line:84%
And I recalled-- I'm making
reference in this poem

00:01:30.660 --> 00:01:35.250 align:middle line:84%
to famous first page of his
most famous book "The Berlin

00:01:35.250 --> 00:01:37.620 align:middle line:90%
Stories" where he's--

00:01:37.620 --> 00:01:41.160 align:middle line:84%
in 1933 or something
like that-- oh, no, 1930,

00:01:41.160 --> 00:01:46.605 align:middle line:84%
earlier than that-- he's living
in a rented room in Berlin.

00:01:46.605 --> 00:01:50.510 align:middle line:90%


00:01:50.510 --> 00:01:51.440 align:middle line:90%
"To Isherwood Dying."

00:01:51.440 --> 00:01:54.710 align:middle line:90%


00:01:54.710 --> 00:01:58.220 align:middle line:84%
"It could be, Christopher,
from your leafed-in house

00:01:58.220 --> 00:02:01.740 align:middle line:84%
in Santa Monica where
you lie and wait,

00:02:01.740 --> 00:02:09.080 align:middle line:84%
you hear outside a sound resume,
fitful, anonymous, of Berlin

00:02:09.080 --> 00:02:10.370 align:middle line:90%
50 years ago.

00:02:10.370 --> 00:02:13.760 align:middle line:90%
As autumn days got late--

00:02:13.760 --> 00:02:15.860 align:middle line:84%
The whistling to their
girls from young men

00:02:15.860 --> 00:02:20.480 align:middle line:84%
who stood in the deep dim
street below dingy facades which

00:02:20.480 --> 00:02:22.580 align:middle line:90%
crumbled like a cliff.

00:02:22.580 --> 00:02:25.940 align:middle line:84%
Behind which, in
a rented room, you

00:02:25.940 --> 00:02:30.350 align:middle line:84%
listened, wondering if by
chance one might be whistling up

00:02:30.350 --> 00:02:37.240 align:middle line:84%
for you, adding unsentimentally,
it could not possibly be.

00:02:37.240 --> 00:02:40.860 align:middle line:84%
Now, it's a stricter
vigil that you hold.

00:02:40.860 --> 00:02:44.760 align:middle line:84%
And from the canyon's
palms and crumbled gold,

00:02:44.760 --> 00:02:50.760 align:middle line:84%
it could be possibly you
hear a single whistle call,

00:02:50.760 --> 00:02:55.980 align:middle line:84%
come out, come
out into the cold.

00:02:55.980 --> 00:03:01.250 align:middle line:84%
Courting insistent
and impersonal."

00:03:01.250 --> 00:03:02.492 align:middle line:90%