Dear Hoki-San : A Collection of Henry Miller’s Letters to His Last Wife

In 1966, Henry Miller was 75, living in Pacific Palisades and finally enjoying the acclaim that had come with U.S. publication of his once-banned books. In February of that year, Miller met 28-year-old Hoki Tokuda at the home of his friend Dr. Lee Siegel . A Japanese jazz singer, Tokuda had recently arrived in America. Soon Miller began to haunt the Imperial Gardens in Hollywood, where she performed. Their relationship is chronicled in a book of Miller’s letters, edited by Joyce Howard, to be published next month.

February 22, 1966 Dear Hoki

I hope to see you one evening this week at the Imperial Gardens. Maybe I will bring my friend Joe Gray along. He wants to meet nice Japanese girl.

Henry Miller April, 1966 Dear Hoki

Tonight you looked more beautiful than ever. Every time I look at you I wonder are you happy or sad. Always there is the mask. But sometimes I think I can see behind the mask--like Alice stepping through the mirror. I would love to fall in love with you, but I know that you are only in love with love. God bless you!

Your friend,

Henry-San July 20, 1966 Hoki darling--

Every time I see you I get a little happier--and a little sadder too. Happy because I see you once again, sad because I see you for only a little while. We are moving on different levels. We are like trains that pass each other in the night. Hello! Goodbye! Till next time. Sayonara! A bientot! My ears are still filled with the sound of your voice; my eyes are still looking into yours and drowning there; I see your hair waving and I wander alone in a bamboo forest, bewitched by your smile which comes and goes like clouds racing through a summer’s sky. I feel so close to you and yet I am a thousand light-years away. I thank you for making my heart beat again--if only it would burst! The days fly, and I remain, love growing stronger all the time. Ah yes, “love is a many splendored thing!” You make me rich.

Blessings on you, my beloved Hoki! Speak to me in your dreams--I am listening.

Henry-San September, 1966 Sunday 2:30 a.m. Dear Hoki--Anata bakari! (my only one)

This morning I learned over the telephone that my last wife (Eve) had just died in her sleep after a wonderful happy day. She was the best of all my wives (and mistresses), she did everything for me, and continued to do so even after we were divorced and she remarried. And I repaid her for all her goodness by running off to Europe with a worthless young bitch whom I grew tired of in a very short time.

At noon today I was weeping and sobbing fit to break my heart. I thought it would never stop. When it did I went to the Siegels to play ping-pong--and then began an afternoon and evening during which I was as gay and alive as I have ever been. I ended up in a restaurant with four Canadian girls at my table and one on my lap. Still merry, more alive than ever, and finally dating the French waitress who happened to be one of my fans.

A few moments ago I woke up, sat like a statue, immovable--like a stone Buddha, but minus the seraphic smile--In those fifteen or twenty minutes of trance I reviewed my whole life with women. And I came to the conclusion that I am, and never was, any good for any woman.

I tell you this so that you know what I am and that you may rest easy in your soul. I shall never try to possess you, never expect anything of you, and warn you that even as a friend I may be no good.

If I love you it’s because I can’t help myself. Now I feel I can kill this love--because I know it’s a selfish love. I had deluded myself into thinking that my love, whether returned or not, would exalt you. . . .

You are a free woman and I hope you remain so. Save your love for Mah Jongg, horses, good food and the little things which cause no pain, no worry, no anxiety, no surrender of yourself. Be the sing-song girl which you are and stay with it.

Forget that you ever gave me a thought. Stay cool as a cucumber and pretend that you are happy, successful and adored by everyone. You have nothing to lose but your soul.

I may be seeing you soon again but with another eye. Life is too short to waste it in search of the impossible. I have come to realize at last that what I thought was mystery hidden in the depths of your enchanting dark eyes is nothing more than a vacuum.

Your Henry-San 12/8/66 Dear, dear Hoki--

Tonight I am crazy with joy. I feel, I know you love me. I am thinking seriously about marriage. The only reason I don’t propose immediately is because I want you to be sure you would not regret it. If you will come and live with me we would soon know if we are suited to one another. I feel that though you are now 29 years old you are still young and inexperienced. I wouldn’t want to disappoint you. I want only to make you happy, to help you become the woman you would like to be. We have different temperaments, different interests, maybe different roads to travel. . . . I am nearing the end of my life, and you are still at the beginning. I not only love you, I respect you. I honor you. I don’t want to hurt you. Could we not try living together for a while before we make the final decision? Please believe I have only the tenderest feelings for you. If we could live together harmoniously, if I felt you were truly happy and fulfilled, nothing would give me greater happiness than to ask you to be my wife.

Think it over. Be honest, as you usually are.

Henry-San On Sept. 10, 1967, Miller and Tokuda were married at Lee Siegel’s home. They honeymooned in Paris, then returned to Miller’s home in Pacific Palisades. In 1968, she visited Japan three times: once to visit her ill father, once to promote an exhibition of Miller’s paintings and a third time to pursue her recording and acting career. October, 1967 Sunday night Dear Hoki-San--

Just a little word to say that I think about you more and more every day. It seems to me that some sort of barrier between us has broken down. You seem happier, freer. Are we beginning to understand each other better?

I feel now how stupid and intolerant I was in criticizing you. I used to think that you thought only about yourself, about your little selfish pleasures. Now I see everything differently. I feel that you really are my wife, that you try to please me, make me happy.

Don’t leave me alone too long, I need you.

Your Henry-San February, 1968 Saturday afternoon

The only real, valid, valuable and most precious gift you can give me is your adorable, witty, gay, charming, insouciant, spendthrifty, happy-go-lucky self --Hoki-Sama-Sans Souci, Soy-saucy, Slap-happy, sing a while, stay a while. Tokuda of the Tokudawa period.

Your ever faithful, tender, loving devoted fool of a husband

Henry-San Evening--May 20, 1968 Dear Hoki-San--

Got your special delivery letter this morning and was happy to hear from you at last. . . . Your English is quite good now. The mistakes you make are charming--like earthquige for earthquake, or “Train has to speed down” instead of “slow down.” (You can only speed up). No matter. I dig you! . . .

Somehow, since you left women are calling me up and trying to date me. They seem to smell that you are away and don’t give a damn what I do. They all ask me if I am really happy with you? I say Yes, but they don’t believe me. There are always rumors floating about that you married me only for your own convenience. Some say that they suspect you have secret lovers-- here and in Japan !!! My answer is that whether you love me or not, I love you. (But I never tell them that my wife doesn’t want to hear about love.) . . .

I am always waiting to hear you say sincerely, with all your heart--”Henry-San, I love you. I really do!” And until I hear that from your own sweet lips I will be in misery, and nothing I have accomplished in life will have any real meaning for me. . . . My dear wife, I could go on writing you all night. But sometimes I have the dreadful suspicion that you do not read my letters through, that you get bored or in a hurry to go somewhere. What I would give to be looking over your shoulder as you read my letters! To study your face, to know what goes on in your heart! I want so much to see you happy, happy and contented. (Without being spoiled.) You’re too big a girl now, too much a woman, to ask to be spoiled all the time. Isn’t that so? If God (or whoever) were to say to you tomorrow--”Hoki-San, you can have anything and everything you like!”--would that make you happy? Or would you have sense enough to know that you don’t need anything and everything? That you could reply--”Dear God (or whoever), thank you very much, but I am happy just the way I am. Give your riches to someone who needs it!”

Enough! I talk like the Bodhidharma or Lord Krishna, when the fact is I am only Tiny Tim, the Brooklyn boy who fell in love with his soul mate from Shizuoka--by--Tokyo via the Imperial Gardens of Hollywood.

Bless you and love you.

Henry-San Sept. 8th, 1968 Dear Hoki-San--

In two days it will be one year since our first marriage. Congratulations! Weren’t you lucky to find a man like Henry Miller? Now to see if we can last the second year, eh? In the first round, to use the language of boxing, one simply feels the other person out. No hard punches, no K.O. Just sparring. Maybe the second round will be more exciting. What do you think? . . .

Henry-San In 1969, Hoki visited Hawaii and London, and in September left for a three-month trip to Japan. Friday 3:30 a.m. 1969 (date unknown) Hoki-San--

Once again I’m furious with you. You have the gall to tell me tonight that you sacrificed four nights since you came back from Hawaii--four nights of boredom, just to please me. And on top of it you say you could have stayed home and enjoyed yourself, you who never want to stay home because it bores you.

Your spoiled, selfish attitude not only makes me angry, it disgusts me. I feel that I am living with a heartless little monster. . . . Let’s go our separate ways until things get so bad that we can’t stand the sight of each other and we separate for good.

And as for going to Paris with you, or anywhere else, out of the question. Why should I make myself miserable? What can you do for me that I can’t do myself? What have you ever done to show me that you are my wife?

I don’t care what happens anymore. I’ve lost all interest in living with you. I could pick up any whore in the street and receive better treatment than I get from you.

Henry-San Oct. 27th, 1969 Dear Hoki-San--

“A Black day at Black Rock”--yet who can say, what’s good or bad for us?

This morning I got a letter from Tony (Miller’s son) telling me I have illusions about who my friends are--in Paris. If he only knew--that I have no illusions either about my friends nor my wives nor my idols. Right now I am living in that cold, clear light of truth which makes everything equal--treachery, infidelity, cheating, lying, stealing, black-mailing or double dealing. It’s all one, because people are what they are, and nobody can change them, not even God Almighty. We have to take what is handed out to us, like it or not. We have to read between the lines, whether the characters are Chinese or Japanese, whether legible or illegible, whether fact or fiction. . . .

There are a thousand things I would like to tell you, but today is not the day for it. I am too lucid and the blade of my Samurai sword is so fine that even my warm breath on it would dull the edge. . . .

I certainly don’t think it’s a good idea for you to open a dress shop or any other kind of shop. So, don’t count on me to help you out, should you decide to come back. Nor would I suggest you bring your sister to live with us. Too many people have now seen the way we live--apart, that is--and I don’t want to lose any more face. What we have to face, you and I, is whether we are going to continue living apart or begin living together. Thus far you have had everything your own way. And when things don’t go your way you fall apart, go into a tizzy, threaten to have a nervous breakdown. It means you are behaving like a child. And you can’t go on behaving like a child forever. . . . I hope to God I never tell anyone of the shame you put me to. Nor the deep humiliation, as a man, that I suffered when after our big quarrel you begged me never to have any sex life with you!

More . . . I wonder if you have forgotten how before we decided to marry--when you were wondering desperately who would take you--I suggested that you marry the Chinese boy at the restaurant (Grand Star), I said--”You can marry him, but you don’t have to sleep with him.” And you replied--”Oh no, I would never do that. I would have to sleep with him.” In other words you were ready to do for him what you would not do for me.

I have the memory of an elephant. I could tell you a hundred more similar stories--and you would answer--”But you misunderstood me!” . . .

I have spoken of the terrible things you’ve said and done. I also remember some beautiful moments--so few, so far between. Maybe only a half-dozen in all, in all the time I’ve known you. Think of it! Balzac once wrote that he could remember only three or four happy days in all his life. And I who love you can say the same.

When I put on your recording I melt. Yes, I go to pieces, just hearing your voice. It was your voice and your eyes that got me. And still does. And for that I forget all the misery you cause me. What a fool! What a romantic! Everything has been just like a “musei”--wet dream.

But I must cure myself. I can’t go on this way. It kills me.

I am not your “grandfather.” I don’t want Platonic love, I have nothing to do with hippies.

I do not want companionship alone. And, what companionship have we really had? You have treated me worse than you would an enemy. You have humiliated me before your friends and before the whole world. Me! Me, who was your one refuge, who married you even though he knew you didn’t love me. If I was a truly great soul I would have expected nothing of you. But I am not that great. I am human. I expect something of you. And if you can’t give it to me I think we should separate. Why live out a lie? You say you didn’t marry for economic reasons. Maybe you didn’t. But why did you marry? I remember how you said you would make me a good wife. But have you? Can you honestly say yes? Think about it. Ask yourself if you have been honest and fair with me. I can’t help loving you. It’s like a disease. But I won’t go on living with you unless you can show some love and affection. I’d rather kill myself than go on living this way forever.

Your Henry-San The couple separated in May, 1970. Miller died in 1980 at age 88. Hoki Tokuda now lives in Tokyo.

From “Letters From Henry Miller to Hoki Tokuda Miller.” Compiled and edited by Joyce Howard. Copyright 1986 by Joyce Howard and Hoki Tokuda Miller. To be published in November by Freundlich Books.