literary transcript
Aldous
Huxley's
EYELESS
IN
'Eyeless in
Gaza at the Mill with slaves'
_________________
CHAPTER I
The snapshots had become almost as dim as
memories. This young woman who had stood
in a garden at the turn of the century was like a ghost at cock-crow. His mother, Anthony Beavis recognized. A year or two, perhaps only a month or two,
before she died. But fashion, as he
peered at the brown phantom, fashion is a topiary art. Those swan-like loins! That long slanting cascade of bosom without
any apparent relation to the naked body beneath! And all that hair, like an ornamental
deformity on the skull! Oddly hideous
and repellent it seemed in 1933. And
yet, if he shut his eyes (as he could not resist doing), he could see his
mother languidly beautiful on her chaise-longue; or, agile, playing
tennis; or swooping like a bird across the ice of a far-off winter.
It
was the same with these snapshots of Mary Amberley, taken ten years later. The skirt was as long as ever, and within her
narrower bell of drapery woman still glided footless, as though on
castors. The breasts, it was true, had
been pushed up a bit, the redundant posterior pulled in. But the general shape of the clothed body was
still strangely improbable. A crab
shelled in whalebone. And this huge
plumed hat of 1911 was simply a French funeral of the first class. How could any man in his senses have been
attracted by so profoundly anti-aphrodisiac an appearance? And yet, in spite of snapshots, he could
remember her as the very embodiment of desirability. At the sight of that feathered crab on wheels
his heart had beaten faster, his breathing had become oppressed.
Twenty
years, thirty years after the event, the snapshots revealed only things remote
and unfamiliar. But the unfamiliar (dismal automatism!) is always the
absurd. What he remembered, on the
contrary, was the emotion felt when the unfamiliar was still the familiar, when
the absurd, being taken for granted, had nothing absurd about it. The dramas of memory are always Hamlet in
modern dress.
How
beautiful his mother had been beautiful under the convoluted wens of hair and
in spite of the jutting posterior, the long slant of bosom. And Mary, how maddeningly desirable even in a
carapace, even beneath funereal plumes!
And in his little fawn-coloured covert coat and scarlet tam-o'-shanter;
as Bubbles, in grass-green velveteen and ruffles; at school in his Norfolk suit
with the knickerbockers that ended below the knees in two tight tubes of
box-cloth; in his starched collar and his bowler, if it were Sunday, his
red-and-black school-cap on other days he too, in his own memory, was always
in modern dress, never the absurd little figure of fun these snapshots revealed. No worse off, so far as inner feeling was
concerned, than the little boys of thirty years later in their jerseys and
shorts. A proof, Anthony found himself
reflecting impersonally, as he examined the top-hatted and tail-coated image of
himself at Eton, a proof that progress can only be recorded, never
experienced. He reached out for his
notebook, opened it and wrote: 'Progress may, perhaps, be perceived by
historians; it can never be felt by those actually involved in the supposed
advance. The young are born into the
advancing circumstances, the old take them for granted within a few months or
years. Advances aren't felt as
advances. There is no gratitude only
irritation if, for any reason, the newly invented conveniences break down. Men don't spend their time thanking God for
cars; they only curse when the carburettor is choked.'
He
closed the book and returned to the top-hat of 1907.
There was a sound of footsteps and, looking
up, he saw Helen Ledwidge approaching with those long springing strides of hers
across the terrace. Under the wide hat
her face was bright with the reflection of her flame-coloured beach
pyjamas. As though she were in hell. And in fact, he went on to think, she was
there. The mind is its own place; she
carried her hell about with her. The
hell of her grotesque marriage; other hells too, perhaps. But he had always refrained from enquiring
too closely into their nature, had always pretended not to notice when she
herself offered to be his guide through their intricacies. Enquiry and exploration would land him in
heaven knew what quagmire of emotion, what sense of responsibility. And he had no time, no energy for emotions
and responsibilities. His work came
first. Suppressing his curiosity, he
went on stubbornly playing the part he had long since assigned himself the
part of the detached philosopher, of the preoccupied man of science who doesn't
see the things that to everyone else are obvious. He acted as if he could detect in her face
nothing but its external beauties of form and texture. Whereas, of course, flesh is never wholly
opaque; the soul shines through the walls of its receptacle. Those clear grey eyes of hers, that mouth with
its delicately lifted upper lip, were hard and almost ugly with a resentful
sadness.
The
hell-flush was quenched as she stepped out of the sunlight into the shadow of
the house; but the sudden pallor of her face served only to intensify the
embittered melancholy of its expression.
Anthony looked at her, but did not rise, did not call a greeting. There was a convention between them that
there should never be any fuss; not even the fuss of saying good-morning. No fuss at all. As Helen stepped through the
open glass doors into the room, he turned back to the study of his photographs.
'Well,
here I am,' she said without smiling.
She pulled off her hat and with a beautiful impatient movement of the
head shook back the ruddy-brown curls of her hair. 'Hideously hot!' She threw the hat on to the sofa and crossed
the room to where Anthony was sitting at his writing table. 'Not working?' she asked in surprise. It was so rare to find him otherwise than
immersed in books and papers.
He
shook his head. 'No sociology today.'
'What
are you looking at?' Standing by his
chair, she bent over the scattered snapshots.
'At
my old corpses.' He handed her the ghost
of the dead Etonian.
After
studying it for a moment in silence, 'You looked nice then,' she commented.
'Merci,
mon vieux!' He gave her an
ironically affectionate pat on the back of the thigh. 'At my private school they used to call me
Benger.' Between his finger-tips and the
rounded resilience of her flesh the silk interposed a dry sliding smoothness,
strangely disagreeable to the touch.
'Short for Benger's Food. Because
I looked so babyish.'
'Sweet,'
she went on, ignoring his interruption, 'you really looked sweet then. Touching.'
'But
I still am,' Anthony protested, smiling up at her.
She
looked at him for a moment in silence. Under
the thick dark hair the forehead was beautifully smooth and serene, like the
forehead of a meditative child.
Childish, too, in a more comical way, was the short, slightly tilted
nose. Between their narrowed lids the
eyes were alive with inner laughter, and there was a smile also about the
corners of the lips a faint ironic smile that in some sort contradicted what
the lips seemed in their form to express.
They were full lips, finely cut; voluptuous and at the same time grave,
sad, almost tremulously sensitive. Lips
as though naked in their brooding sensuality; without defence of their own and
abandoned to their helplessness by the small unaggressive child beneath.
'The
worst of it is,' Helen said at last, 'that you're right. You are sweet, you are
touching. God knows why. Because you oughtn't to be. It's all a swindle really, a trick for
getting people like you on false pretences.'
'Come!'
he protested.
'You
make them give you something for nothing.'
'But
at least I'm always perfectly frank about its being nothing. I never pretend it's a Grand Passion.' He rolled the r and opened the a's
grotesquely. 'Not even a Wahlverwandshaft,'
he added, dropping into German, so as to make all this romantic business of
affinities and violent emotions sound particularly ridiculous. 'Just a bit of fun.'
'Just
a bit of fun,' Helen echoed ironically, thinking, as she spoke, of that period
at the beginning of the affair, when she had stood, so to speak, at the
threshold of being in love with him on the threshold, waiting to be called
in. But how firmly (for all his silence
and studied gentleness), how definitely and decidedly he had shut the door
against her! He didn't want to be
loved. For a moment she had been on the
verge of rebellion; then, in that spirit of embittered and sarcastic
resignation with which she had learned to face the world, she accepted his
conditions. They were the more
acceptable since there was no better alternative in sight; since, after all, he
was a remarkable man and, after all, she was very fond of him; since, also, he
knew how to give her at least a physical satisfaction. 'Just a bit of fun,' she repeated, and gave a
little snort of laughter.
Anthony
shot a glance at her, wondering uncomfortably whether she meant to break the
tacitly accepted agreement between them and refer to some forbidden topic. But his fears were unjustified.
'Yes,
I admit it,' she went on after a little silence. 'You're honest all right. But that doesn't alter the fact that you're
always getting something for nothing.
Call it an unintentional swindle.
Your face is your fortune, I suppose.
Handsome is as handsome doesn't, in your case.' She bent down once more over the
photographs. 'Who's that?'
He
hesitated a moment before replying; then, with a smile, but feeling at the same
time rather uncomfortable, 'One of the not-grand passions,' he answered. 'Her name was Gladys.'
'It
would have been!' Helen wrinkled up her
nose contemptuously. 'Why did you throw
it over?'
'I
didn't. She preferred someone else. Not that I very much minded,' he was adding,
when she interrupted him.
Anthony
flushed. 'What do you mean?'
'Some
women, oddly enough, like being talked to in bed. And seeing that you didn't ... You never do,
after all.' She threw Gladys aside and
picked up the woman in the clothes of 1900.
'Is that your mother?'
Anthony
nodded. 'And that's yours,' he said,
pushing across the picture of Mary Amberley in her funereal plumes. Then, in a tone of disgust, 'All this burden
of past experience one trails about with one!' he added. 'There ought to be some way of getting rid of
one's superfluous memories. How I hate
old Proust! Really detest him.' And with a richly comic eloquence he
proceeded to evoke the vision of that asthmatic seeker of lost time squatting,
horribly white and flabby, with breasts almost female but fledged with long
black hairs, for ever squatting in the tepid bath of his remembered past. And all the stale soapsuds of countless previous
washings floated around him, all the accumulated dirt of years lay crusty on
the sides of the tub or hung in dark suspension in the water. And there he sat, a pale repellent invalid,
taking up spongefuls of his own thick soup and squeezing it over his face,
scooping up cupfuls of it and appreciatively rolling the grey and gritty liquor
round his mouth, gargling, rinsing his nostrils with it, like a pious Hindu in
the Ganges ...
You
talk about him,' said Helen, 'as if he were a personal enemy.'
Anthony
only laughed.
In
the silence that followed, Helen picked up the faded snapshot of her mother and
began to pore over it intently, as though it were some mysterious hieroglyph
which, if interpreted, might provide a clue, unriddle an enigma.
Anthony
watched her for a little; then, rousing himself to activity, dipped into the
heap of photographs and brought out his Uncle James in the tennis clothes of
1906. Dead now of cancer, poor old
wretch, and with all the consolations of the Catholic religion. He dropped that snapshot and picked up another. It showed a group in front of dim Swiss
mountains his father, his stepmother, his two half-sisters. 'Grindelwald, 1912,' was written on the back
in Mr Beavis's neat hand. All four of
them, he noticed, were carrying alpenstocks.
'And
I would wish,' he said aloud, as he put the picture down, 'I would wish my days
to be separated each from each by unnatural impiety.'
Helen
looked up from her undecipherable hieroglyph.
'Then why do you spend your time looking at old photographs?'
'I
was tidying my cupboard,' he explained.
'They came to light. Like
Tutankhamen I couldn't resist the temptation to look at them. Besides, it's my birthday,' he added.
'Your
birthday?'
'Forty-two
today.' Anthony shook his head. 'Too depressing! And since one always likes to deepen the
gloom ...' He picked up a handful of the
snapshots and let them fall again. 'The
corpses turned up very opportunely. One
detects the finger of Providence. The
hoof of chance, if your prefer it.'
'You
liked her a lot, didn't you?' Helen asked after another silence, holding out
the ghostly image of her mother for him to see.
He
nodded and, to divert conversation, 'She civilized me,' he explained. 'I was half a savage when she took me in
hand.' He didn't want to discuss his feelings
for Mary Amberley particularly (though this, no doubt, was a stupid relic of
barbarism) with Helen. 'The white
woman's burden,' he added with a laugh.
Then, picking up the alpenstock group once again, 'And this is one of
the things she delivered me from,' he said.
'Darkest Switzerland. I can never
be sufficiently grateful.'
'It's
a pity she couldn't deliver herself,' said Helen, when she had looked at the
alpenstocks.
'How
is she, by the way?'
Helen
shrugged her shoulders. 'She was better when
she came out of the nursing home this spring.
But she's begun again, of course.
The same old business. Morphia;
and drink in the intervals. I saw her in
Paris on the way here. It was
awful!' She shuddered.
Ironically
affectionate, the hand that still pressed her thigh seemed all of a sudden
extremely out of place. He let it fall.
'I
don't know which is worse,' Helen went on after a pause. 'The dirt you've no idea of the state she
lives in! - or that malice, that awful lying.'
She sighed profoundly.
With
a gesture that had nothing ironical about it, Anthony took her hand and pressed
it. 'Poor Helen!'
She
stood for a few seconds, motionless and without speech, averted; then suddenly
shook herself as though out of sleep. He
felt her limp hand tighten on his; and when she turned round on him, her face
was alive with a reckless and deliberate gaiety. 'Poor Anthony, on the contrary!' she said,
and from deep in her throat produced a queer unexpected little sound of
swallowed laughter. 'Talk of false
pretences!'
He
was protesting that, in her case, they were true, when she bent down and, with
a kind of angry violence, set her mouth against his.
CHAPTER
II
From A.B.'s diary.
Five words sum up every biography. Video meliora proboque; deteriora sequor. Like all other human beings, I know what I
ought to do, but continue to do what I know I oughtn't to do. This afternoon, for example, I went to see
poor Beppo, miserably convalescent from 'flu.
I knew I ought to have sat with him and let him pour out his complaints
about youth's ingratitude and cruelty, his terror of advancing old age and
loneliness, his awful suspicions that people are beginning to find him a bore,
no longer ΰ la page. The
Bolinskys had given a party without inviting him, Hagworm hadn't asked him to a
weekend since November ... I knew I ought to have listened sympathetically, and
proffered good advice, implored him not to make himself miserable over
inevitabilities and trifles. The advice,
no doubt, wouldn't have been accepted as usual; but still, one never knows,
therefore ought never to fail to give it.
Instead of which I squared conscience in advance by buying him a pound
of expensive grapes and told a lie about some committee I had to run off to,
almost immediately. The truth being that
I simply couldn't face a repetition of poor B's self-commiserations. I justified my behaviour, as well as my five
bob's worth of fruit, by righteous thoughts: at fifty, the man ought to know
better than continue to attach importance to love affairs and invitations to
dinner and meeting the right people. He
oughtn't to be such an ass; therefore (impeccable logic) it wasn't incumbent on
me to do what I knew I should do. And so
I hurried off after only a quarter of an hour with him leaving the poor
wretch to solitude and his festering self-pity.
Shall go to him tomorrow for at least two hours.
'Besetting
sin' can one still use the term?
No. It has too many
unsatisfactory overtones and implications blood of lamb, terrible thing to
fall into hands of living God, hell fire, obsession with sex, offences,
chastity instead of charity. (Note that poor old Beppo, turned inside out = Comstock
or St Paul.) Also 'besetting sin' has
generally implied that incessant, egotistic brooding on self which mars so much
piety. See in this context the diary of
Prince, that zealous evangelical who subsequently founded the Abode of Love
under Guidance, as the Buchmanites would say; for his long-repressed wish for
promiscuous copulation at last emerged into consciousness as a command from the
Holy Ghost (with whom in the end he came to identify himself) to 'reconcile
flesh with God.' And he proceeded to
reconcile it in public, apparently, and on the drawing-room sofa.
No,
one can't use the phrase, nor think in the terms it implies. But that doesn't mean, of course, that
persistent tendencies to behave badly don't exist, or that it isn't one's business
to examine them, objectively, and try to do something about them. That remark of old Miller's, as we were
riding to see one of his Indian patients in the mountains: 'Really and by
nature every man's a unity; but you've artificially transformed the unity into
a trinity. One clever man and two idiots
that's what you've made yourself. An
admirable manipulator of ideas, linked with a person who, so far as
self-knowledge and feeling are concerned, is just a moron; and the pair of you
associated with a half-witted body. A
body that's hopelessly unaware of all it does and feels, that has no
accomplishments, that doesn't know how to use itself or anything else. Two imbeciles and one intellectual. But man is a democracy, where the majority
rules. You've got to do something about
that majority.' This journal is a first
step. Self-knowledge an essential
preliminary to self-change. (Pure science and then applied.) That which besets
me is indifference. I can't be bothered
about people. Or rather, won't. For I avoid, carefully, all occasions for
being bothered. A necessary part of the
treatment is to embrace all the bothersome occasions one can, to got out of
one's way to create them. Indifference
is a form of sloth. For one can work
hard, as I've always done, and yet wallow in sloth, be industrious about one's
job, but scandalously lazy about all that isn't one's job. Because, of course, the job is fun. Whereas the non-job personal relations, in
my case is disagreeable and laborious.
More and more disagreeable as the habit of avoiding personal relations
ingrains itself with the passage of time.
Indifference is a form of sloth, and sloth in its turn is one of the
symptoms of lovelessness. One isn't lazy
about what one loves. The problem is: how
to love? Once more the word is suspect
greasy from being fingered by generations of Stigginses. There ought to be some way of dry-cleaning
and disinfecting words. Love, purity,
goodness, spirit a pile of dirty linen waiting for the laundress. How, then, to not 'love,' since it's an
unwashed handkerchief feel, say, persistent affectionate interest in
people? How make the anthropological
approach to them, as old Miller would say?
Not easy to answer.
April
5th.
Worked
all morning. For it would be silly not
to put my materials into shape. Into a
new shape, of course. My original
conception was of a vast Bouvard et Pιcuchet, constructed of historical
facts. A picture of futility, apparently
objective, scientific, but composed, I realize, in order to justify my own way
of life. If men had always behaved
either like half-wits or baboons, if they couldn't behave otherwise, then I was
justified in sitting comfortably in the stalls with my opera-glasses. Whereas if there were something to be done,
if the behaviour could be modified ... Meanwhile a description of the behaviour
and an account of the ways of modifying it will be valuable. Though not so valuable as to justify complete
abstention from all other forms of activity.
In
the afternoon to Miller's, where I found a parson, who takes Christianity
seriously and has started an organization of pacifists. Purchas by name. Middle-aged.
Slightly the muscular-jocular Christian manner. (How hard to admit that
a man can use clichιs and yet be intelligent!) But a very decent sort of
man. More than decent, indeed. Rather impressive.
The
aim is to use and extend Purchas's organization. The unit a small group, like the early
Christian agape, or the communist cell. (Note that all successful movements
have been built up in rowing eights or football elevens.) Purchas's groups
preface meetings with Christian devotions.
Empirically, it is found that a devotional atmosphere increases
efficiency, intensifies spirit of co-operation and self-sacrifice. But devotion in Christian terms will be
largely unacceptable. Miller believes
possible a non-theological praxis of meditation. Which he would like, of course, to couple
with training, along F.M. Alexander's lines, in use of the self, beginning with
physical control and achieving through it (since mind and body are one) control
of impulses and feelings. But this is
impracticable. The necessary teachers
don't exist. 'We must be content to do
what we can from the mental side. The
physical will let us down, of course.
The flesh is weak in so many more ways than we suppose.'
I
agreed to contribute money, prepare some literature and go round speaking to
groups. The last is the most difficult,
as I have always refused to utter in public.
When Purchas had gone, asked Miller if I should take lessons in
speaking.
Answer. 'If you take lessons before you're well and
physically co-ordinated, you'll merely be learning yet another way of using
yourself badly. Get well, achieve
co-ordination, use yourself properly; you'll be able to speak in any way you
please. The difficulties, from stage
fright to voice production, will no longer exist.'
Miller
then gave me a lesson in use of the self.
Learning to sit in a chair, to get out of it, to lean back and forward. He warned me it might seem a bit pointless at
first. But that interest and
understanding would grow with achievement.
And that I should find it the solution of the video meliora proboque,
deteriora sequor problem: a technique for translating good intentions into
acts, for being sure of doing what one knows one ought to do.
Spent
the evening with Beppo. After listening
to catalogues of miseries, suggested that there was no cure, only
prevention. Avoid the cause. His reaction was passionate anger: I was
robbing life of its point, condemning him to suicide. In answer I hinted that there was more than
one point. He said he would rather die
than give up his point; then changed his mood and wished to God he could give
it up. But for what? I suggested pacifism. But he was a pacifist already, always
been. Yes, I knew that; but a passive
pacifist, a negative one. There was such
a thing as active and positive pacifism.
He listened, said he'd think about it, thought perhaps it might be a way
out.
CHAPTER
III
April
30th 1933
From the flat roof of the house the eye was
drawn first towards the west, where the pines slanted down to the sea a blue
Mediterranean bay fringed with pale bone-like rocks and cupped between high hills,
green on their lower slopes with vines, grey with olive trees, then pine-dark,
earth-red, rock-white or rosy-brown with parched heath. Through a gap between the nearer hills, the
long straight ridge of the Sainte-Baume stood out metallically clear, but blue
with distance. To north and south, the
garden was hemmed in by pines; but eastwards, the vineyards and the olive
orchards mounted in terraces of red earth to a crest; and the last trees stood,
sometimes dark and brooding, sometimes alive with tremulous silver, against the
sky.
There
were mattresses on the roof for sun-bathing; and on one of these they were
lying, their heads in the narrow shade of the southern parapet. It was almost noon; the sunlight fell steep
out of the flawless sky; but a faint breeze stirred and died and swelled again
into motion. Lapped in that fitfully
tempered heat, skin seemed to acquire a livelier sensibility, almost an
independent consciousness. As though it
were drinking a new life from the sun.
And that strange, violent, flamy life from outer space seemed to strike
through the skin, to permeate and transmute the flesh beneath, till the whole
body was a thing of alien sun-stuff and the very soul felt itself melting out
of its proper identity and becoming something else, something of a different,
an other-than-human kind.
There
are so few possible grimaces, such a paucity, in comparison with all the
thoughts and feelings and sensations, such a humiliating poverty of reflexes,
even of consciously expressive gestures!
Still lucid in his self-estrangement, Anthony observed the symptoms of
that death-bed in which he also had his part as assassin and
fellow-victim. Restlessly she turned her
head on the cushions, this way, that way, as though seeking, but always vainly,
some relief, however slight, some respite, if only for a moment, from her
intolerable suffering. Sometimes, with
the gesture of one who prays despairingly that a cup may be removed, she
clasped her hands, and raising them to her mouth gnawed at the clenched
knuckles or pressed a wrist between her parted teeth as if to stifle her own
crying. Distorted, the face was a mask
of extremest grief. It was the face, he
suddenly perceived, as he bent down towards those tormented lips, of one of Van
der Weyden's holy women at the foot of the Cross.
And
then, from one moment to the next, there was a stillness. The victim no longer rolled her tortured head
on the pillow. The imploring hands fell
limp. The agonized expression of pain
gave place to a superhuman and rapturous serenity. The mouth became grave like that of a
saint. Behind the closed eyelids what
beatific vision had presented itself?
They
lay for a long time in a golden stupor of sunlight and fulfilled desire. It was Anthony who first stirred. Moved by the dumb unthinking gratitude and
tenderness of his satisfied body he reached out a caressing hand. Her skin was hot to touch as fruit in the
sun. He propped himself up on his elbow
and opened his eyes.
'You
look like a Gauguin,' he said after a moment.
Brown like a Gauguin and, curiously, it struck him, flat like a Gauguin
too; for the sunlight suppressed those nacreous gleams of carmine and blue and
green that give the untanned white body its peculiar sumptuousness of belief.
The
sound of his voice broke startlingly into Helen's warm delicious trance of
unconsciousness. She winced almost with
pain. Why couldn't he leave her in
peace? She had been so happy in that
other world of her transfigured body; and now he was calling her back back to
this world, back to her ordinary hell of emptiness and drought and
discontent. She left his words
unanswered and, shutting her eyes yet tighter against the menace of reality,
tried to force her way back to the paradise from which she had been dragged.
Brown
like a Gauguin, and flat ... But the first Gauguin he ever saw (and had
pretended, he remembered, to like a great deal more than he actually did) had
been with Mary Amberley that time in Paris that exciting and, for the boy of
twenty that he then was, extraordinary and apocalyptic time.
He
frowned to himself; this past of his was becoming importunate! But when, in order to escape from it, he bent
down to kiss Helen's shoulder, he found the sun-warmed skin impregnated with a
faint, yet penetrating smell, at once salty and smoky, a smell that transported
him instantaneously to a great chalk pit in the flank of the Chilterns, where,
in Brian Foxe's company, he had spent an inexplicably pleasurable hour striking
two flints together and sniffing, voluptuously, at the place where the spark
had left its characteristic tang of marine combustion.
'L-like
sm-smoke under the s-sea,' had been Brian's stammered comment when he was given
to flints to smell.
Even
the seemingly more solid fragments of present reality are riddled with
pitfalls. What could be more
uncompromisingly there, in the present, than a woman's body in the
sunshine? And yet it had betrayed
him. The firm ground of its sensual
immediacy and of his own physical tenderness and opened beneath his feet and
precipitated him into another time and place.
Nothing was safe. This living
skin, this present skin; but it was nearly twenty years since Brian's death.
A
chalk pit, a picture gallery, a brown figure in the sun, a skin, here, redolent
of salt and smoke, and here (like Mary's, he remembered) savagely musky. Somewhere in the mind a lunatic shuffled a
pack of snapshots and dealt them out at random, shuffled once more and dealt
them out in different order, again and again, indefinitely. There was no chronology. The idiot remembered no distinction between
before and after. The pit was as real
and vivid as the gallery. That ten years
separated flints from Gauguins was a fact, not given, but discoverable only on
second thoughts by the calculating intellect.
The thirty-five years of his conscious life made themselves immediately
known to him as a chaos a pack of snapshots in the hands of a lunatic. And who decided which snapshots were to be
kept, which thrown away? A frightened or
libidinous animal, according to the Freudians.
But the Freudians were victims of the pathetic fallacy, incorrigible
rationalizers always in search of sufficient reasons, of comprehensible
motives. Fear and lust are the most
easily comprehensible motives of all.
Therefore ... But psychology had no more right to be anthropomorphic, or
even exclusively zoomorphic, than any other science. Besides a reason and an animal, man was also
a collection of particles subject to the laws of chance. Some things were remembered for their utility
or their appeal to the higher faculties of the mind; some, by the presiding
animal, remembered (or else deliberately forgotten) for their emotional
content. But what of the innumerable
remembered things without any particular emotional content, without utility, or
beauty, or rational significance? Memory
in these cases seemed to be merely a matter of luck. At the time of the event certain particles
happened to be in a favourable position.
Click! the event found itself caught, indelibly recorded. For no reason whatever. Unless, it now rather disquietingly occurred
to him, unless of course the reason were not before the event, but after it, in
what had been the future. What if that picture
gallery had been recorded and stored away in the cellars of his mind for the
sole and express purpose of being brought up into consciousness at this present
moment? Brought up, today, when he was
forty-two and secure, forty-two and fixed, unchangeably himself, brought up
along with those critical years of his adolescence, along with the woman who
had been his teacher, his first mistress, and was now a hardly human creature
festering to death, alone, in a dirty burrow?
And what if that absurd childish game with the flints had had a point, a
profound purpose, which was simply to be recollected here on this blazing roof,
now as his lips made contact with Helen's sun-warmed flesh? In order that he might be forced, in this
midst of this act of detached and irresponsible sensuality, to think of Brian
and of the things that Brian had lived for; yes, and had died for died for,
another image suddenly reminded him, at the foot of just such a cliff as that
beneath which they had played as children in the chalk pit. Yes, even Brian's suicide, he now realized
with horror, even the poor huddled body on the rocks, was mysteriously implicit
in this hot skin.
One,
two, three, four counting each movement of his hand, he began to caress
her. The gesture was magical, would
transport him, if repeated sufficiently often, beyond the past and the future,
beyond right and wrong, into the discrete, the self-sufficient, the atomic
present. Particles of thought, desire
and feeling moving at random among particles of time, coming into casual
contact and as casually parting. A casino,
an asylum, a zoo; but also, in a corner, a library and someone thinking. Someone largely at the mercy of the
croupiers, at the mercy of the idiots and the animals; but still irrepressible
and indefatigable. Another two or three
years and the Elements of Sociology would be finished. In spite of everything; yes, in spite of
everything, he thought with a kind of defiant elation, and counted thirty-two,
thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five ...
CHAPTER
IV
Horns with a frizzle of orange hair
between; the pink muzzle lowered enquiringly towards a tiny cup and saucer;
eyes expressive of a more than human astonishment. 'THE OX,' it was proclaimed in six-inch
lettering, 'THE OX IN THE TEACUP.' The
thing was supposed to be a reason for buying beef extract was a
reason.
Ox in Cup.
The words, the basely comic imaged, spotted the home counties that
summer and autumn like a skin disease.
One of a score of nasty and discreditable infections. The train which carried Anthony Beavis into
Surrey rolled through mile-long eczemas of vulgarity. Pills, soaps, cough drops and more
glaringly inflamed and scabby than all the rest beef essence, the cupped ox.
'Thirty-one
... thirty-two,' the boy said to himself, and wished he had begun his counting
when the train started. Between Waterloo
and Clapham Junction there must have been hundreds of oxen. Millions.
Opposite,
leaning back in his corner, sat Anthony's father. With his left hand he shaded his eyes. Under the drooping brown moustache his lips
moved.
'Stay
for me there,' John Beavis was saying to the person who, behind his closed
lids, was sometimes still alive, sometimes the cold, immobile thing of his most
recent memories:
'Stay
for me there; I shall not fail
To
meet thee in that hollow vale.'
There
was no immortality, of course. After
Darwin, after the Fox Sisters, after John Beavis's own father, the surgeon, how
could there be? Beyond that hollow vale
there was nothing. But all the same, oh,
all the same, stay for me, stay for me, stay, stay!
'Thirty-three.'
Anthony
turned away from the hurrying landscape and was confronted by the spectacle of
that hand across the eyes, those moving lips.
That he had ever thought of counting the oxen seemed all at once
shameful, a betrayal. And Uncle James,
at the other end of the seat, was his Times and his face, as he read,
twitching every few seconds in sudden spasms of nervousness. He might at least have had the decency not to
read it now now, while they were on their way to ... Anthony refused
to say the words; words would make it all so clear, and he didn't want to know
too clearly. Reading the Times
might be shameful; but the other thing was terrible, too terrible to bear
thinking about, and yet so terrible that you couldn't help thinking about it.
Anthony
looked out of the window again, through tears.
The green and golden brightness of St. Martin's summer swam in the
obscuring iridescence. And suddenly the
wheels of the train began to chant articulately. 'Dead-a-dead-a-dead,' they shouted,
'dead-a-dead-a-dead ...' For ever. The tears overflowed, were warm for an
instant on his cheeks, then icy cold. He
pulled out his handkerchief and wiped them away, wiped the fog out of his
eyes. Luminous under the sun, the world
before him was like one vast and intricate jewel. The elms had withered to a pale gold. Huge above the fields, and motionless, they
seemed to be meditating in the crystal light of the morning, seemed to be
remembering, seemed, for the very brink of dissolution, to be looking back and
in a last ecstasy of recollection living over again, concentrated in this
shining moment of autumnal time, all the long-drawn triumph of spring and
summer.
'DEAD-A-DEAD,'
in a sudden frenzy yelled the wheels, as the train crossed a bridge,
'A-DEAD-A-DEAD!'
Anthony
tried not to listen vainly; then tried to make the wheels say something
else. Why shouldn't they say, To stop
the train pull down the chain? That
was what they usually said. With a great
effort of concentration he forced them to change their refrain.
'To
stop the train pull down the chain, to stop the chain pull down
a-dead-a-dead-a-dead ...' It was not good.
Mr
Beavis uncovered his eyes for a moment and looked out of the window. How bright, the autumnal trees! Cruelly bright they would have seemed,
insultingly, except for something desperate in their stillness, a certain
glassy fragility that, oh! invited disaster, that prophetically announced the
darkness and the black branches moving in torture among the stars, the sleet
like arrows along the screaming wind.
Uncle
James turned the page of his Times.
The Ritualists and the Kensitites were at it again, he saw; and was
delighted. Let dog eat dog. 'MR CHAMBERLAIN AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
SCHOOL.' What was the old devil up to
now? Unveiling a tablet to the Old Boys
who had been killed in the war. 'Over
one hundred young men went to the front, and twelve of them laid down their
lives for the country in South Africa (cheers).' Deluded idiots, thought Uncle James, who had
always been passionately a pro-Boer.
Painted,
among the real cows in their pasture, the enormous horns, the triangular auburn
frizz, the enquiring nostrils, the teacup.
Anthony shut his eyes against the vision.
'No,
I won't,' he said with all the determination he had previously used against the
wheels. He refused to know the horror;
he refused to know the ox. But what was
the good of refusing? The wheels were
still shouting away. And how could he
suppress the fact that this ox was the thirty-fourth, on the right, from
Clapham Junction? A number is always a
number, even on the way to ... But counting was shameful, counting was like
Uncle James's Times. Counting was
shirking, was betraying. And yet the
other thing, the thing they ought to be thinking about, was really too
terrible. Too unnatural, somehow.
'Whatever
we may have thought, or still think, as to the causes, the necessity, the
justice of the war which is now happily at an end, I think that we must all
have a feeling of profound satisfaction that when the country called its
children to arms, the manhood of the nation leaped to it in response ...' His
face twitching with exasperation, Uncle James put down the Times and
looked at his watch.
'Two
and a half minutes late,' he said angrily.
'If
only it were a hundred years late,' thought his brother. 'Or ten years early no, twelve,
thirteen. The first year of our
marriage.'
James
Beavis looked out of the window. 'And
we're still at least a mile from Lollingdon,' he went on.
As
though to a sore, to an aching tooth, his fingers travelled again to the
chronometer in his waistcoat pocket.
Time for its own sake. Always
imperiously time, categorically time time to look at one's watch and see the
time ...
The
wheels spoke more and more slowly, became at last inarticulate. The brakes screamed.
'Lollingdon,
Lollingdon,' the porter called.
But
Uncle James was already on the platform.
'Quick!' he shouted, striding, long-legged, beside the still moving
train. His hand went once more to that
mystical ulcer for ever gnawing at his consciousness. 'Quick!'
A
sudden resentment stirred in his brother's mind. They walked towards the gate, along a wall of
words and pictures. A GUINEA A BOX AND A
BLESSING TO MEN THE PICKWICK THE OWL AND KILLS MOTHS BUGS BEETLES A SPADE A
SPADE AND BRANSON'S CAMP COFFEE THE OX IN ... And suddenly here were the horns,
the expressive eyes, the cup the thirty-fifth cup 'No, I won't, I won't
but all the same, the thirty-fifth, the thirty-fifth from Clapham Junction on
the right-hand side.
The
cab smelt of straw and leather. Of straw
and leather and of the year eighty-eight, was it? yes, eighty-eight; that
Christmas when they had driven to the Champernownes' dance he and she and her
mother in the cold, with the sheepskin rug across their knees. And as though by accident (for he had not yet
dared to make the gesture deliberately) the back of his hand had brushed
against hers; had brushed, as though by accident, had casually rested. Her mother was talking about the difficulty
of getting servants and when you did get them, they didn't know anything,
they were lazy. She hadn't moved her
hand! Did that mean she didn't
mind? He took the risk; his fingers
closed over hers. They were
disrespectful, her mother went on, they were ... He felt an answering pressure
and, looking up, divined in the darkness that she was smiling at him.
'Really,'
her mother was saying, 'I don't know what things are coming to nowadays.' And he had seen, by way of silent comment,
the mischievous flash of Maisie's teeth; and that little squeeze of the hand
had been deliciously conspiratorial,
secret and illicit.
Slowly,
hoof after hoof, the old horse drew them; slowly along lanes, into the heart of
the great autumnal jewel of gold and crystal; and stopped at last at the very
core of it. In the sunshine, the church
tower was like grey amber. The clock,
James Beavis noticed with annoyance, was slow.
They passed under the lych-gate.
Startlingly and hideously black, four people were walking up the path in
front of them. Two huge women (to
Anthony they all seemed giantesses) rose in great inky cones of drapery from
the flagstones. With them, still further
magnified by their top-hats went a pair of enormous men.
'The
Champernownes,' said James Beavis; and the syllables of the familiar name were
like a sword, yet another sword, in the very quick of his brother's being. 'The
Champernownes and let's see what's the name of that young fellow their daughter
married? Anstey? Annerley?'
He glanced enquiringly at John; but John was staring fixedly in front of
him and did not answer.
'Amersham? Atherton?'
James Beavis frowned with irritation.
Meticulous, he attached an enormous importance to names and dates and
figures; he prided himself on his power to reproduce them correctly. A lapse of memory drove him to fury. 'Atherton?
Anderson?' And what made it more
maddening was the fact that the young man was so good-looking, carried himself
so well not in that stupid, stiff, military way, like his father-in-law, the
General, but gracefully, easily ... 'I shan't know what to call him,' he said
to himself; and his right cheek began to twitch, as though some living creature
had been confined beneath the skin and were violently struggling to escape.
They
walked on. It seemed to Anthony that he
had swallowed his heart swallowed it whole, without chewing. He felt rather sick, as though he were
expecting to be caned.
The
black giants halted, turned, and came back to meet them. Hats were raised, hands shaken.
'And
dear little Anthony!' said Lady Champernowne, when at last it was his
turn. Impulsively, she bent down and
kissed him.
She
was fat. Her lips left a disgusting wet
place on his cheek. Anthony hated her.
'Perhaps
I ought to kiss him too,' thought Mary Amberley, as she watched her
mother. Six months ago, when she was
still Mary Champernowne and fresh from school, it would have been unthinkable. But now ... one never knew. In the end, however, she decided that she
wouldn't kiss the boy, it would really be too ridiculous. She pressed his hand without speaking,
smiling only from the remote security of her secret happiness. She was nearly five months gone with child,
and had lived for these last two or three weeks in a kind of trance of drowsy
bliss, inexpressibly delicious. Bliss in
a world that had become beautiful and rich and benevolent out of all
recognition. The country, as they drove
that morning in the gently swaying landau, had been like paradise; and this
little plot of green between the golden trees and the tower was Eden
itself. Poor Mrs Beavis had died, it was
true; so pretty still, so young. How sad
that was! But the sadness, somehow, did
not touch this secret bliss of hers, remained profoundly irrelevant to it, as
though it were the sadness of somebody in another planet.
Anthony
looked up for a moment into the smiling face, so bright in its black setting,
so luminous with inner peace and happiness, then was overcome with shyness and
dropped his eyes.
Fascinated,
meanwhile, Roger Amberley observed his father-in-law and wondered how it was
possible for anyone to live so unfailingly in character; how one could contrive
to be a real general and at the same time to look and sound so exactly like a
general on the musical comedy stage.
Even at a funeral, even while he was saying a few well-chosen words to
the bereaved husband poor Grossmith!
Under his fine brown moustache his lips twitched irrepressibly.
'Looks
badly cut up,' the General was thinking, as he talked to John Beavis; and felt
sorry for the poor fellow, even while he still disliked him. For of course the man was an affected bore
and a prig, too clever, but at the same time a fool. Worst of all, not a man's man. Always surrounded by petticoats. Mothers' petticoats, aunts' petticoats,
wives' petticoats. A few years in the
army would have done him all the good in the world. Still, he did look most horribly cut up. And Maisie had been a sweet little
thing. Too good for him, of course ...
They
stood for a moment, then all together slowly moved towards the church. Anthony was in the midst of them, a dwarf
among the giants. Their blackness hemmed
him in, obscured the sky, eclipsed the amber tower and the trees. He walked as though at the bottom of a moving
well. Its black walls rustled all around
him. He began to cry.
He
had not wanted to know had done his best not to know, except superficially,
as one knows, for example, that thirty-five comes after thirty-four. But this black well was dark with the
concentrated horror of death. There was
no escape. His sobs broke out
uncontrollably.
Mary
Amberley, who had been lost in the rapturous contemplation of golden leaves patterned
against the pale sky, looked down for a moment at this small creature weeping
on another planet, then turned away again.
'Poor
child!' his father said to himself; and then, overbidding as it were, 'Poor
motherless child!' he added deliberately, and was glad (for he wanted to
suffer) that the words had cost him so much pain to pronounce. He looked down at his son, saw the
grief-twisted face, the full and sensitive lips so agonizingly hurt, and above
this tear-stained distortion the broad high forehead, seemingly unmoved in its
smooth purity; saw, and felt his heart wrung with an additional pain.
'Dear
boy!' he said aloud, thinking, as he spoke, how this grief would surely bring
them nearer together. It was so
difficult somehow with a child so hard to be natural, to establish a
contact. But surely, surely this
sadness, and their common memories ... He squeezed the small hand within his
own.
They
were at the church door. The well
disintegrated.
'One
might be in Tibet,' thought Uncle James as he took off his hat. 'Why not one's boots as well?'
Inside
the church was an ancient darkness, smelly with centuries of rustic piety. Anthony took two breaths of that sweet-stale
air, and felt his midriff heave with a qualm of disgust. Fear and misery had already made him swallow
his heart; and now this smell, this beastly smell that meant that the place was
full of germs.... 'Reeking with germs!'
He heard her voice her voice that always changed when she talked about
germs, became different, as though somebody else was speaking. At ordinary times, when she wasn't angry, it
sounded so soft and somehow lazy laughingly lazy, or else tiredly lazy. Germs made it suddenly almost fierce, and at
the same time frightened. 'Always spit
when there's a bad smell about,' she had told him. 'There might be typhoid germs in the
air.' His mouth, as he recalled her
words, began to water. But how could he
spit here, in church? There was nothing
to do but swallow his spittle. He
shuddered as he did so, with fear and a sickening disgust. And suppose he really should be sick in this
stinking place? The apprehension made
him feel still sicker. And what did one
have to do during the service? He had
never been to a funeral before.
James
Beavis looked at his watch. In three
minutes the hocus-pocus was timed to begin.
Why hadn't John insisted on a plain-clothes funeral? It wasn't as if poor Maisie had ever set much
store by this kind of thing. A silly
little woman; but never religiously silly.
Hers had been the plain secular silliness of mere female frivolity. The silliness of reading novels on sofas,
alternating with the silliness of tea-parties and picnics and dances. Incredibly that John had managed to put up
with this kind of foolery had even seemed to like it! Women crackling like hens round the
tea-table. James Beavis frowned with
angry contempt. He hated women was
disgusted by them. All those soft bulges
of their bodies. Horrible. And the stupidity, the brainlessness. But anyhow, poor Maisie had never been one of
the curate-fanciers. It was those awful
relations of hers. There were deans in
the family deans and deanesses. John
hadn't wanted to offend them.
Weak-minded of him. One ought to
be offensive on a matter of principle.
The
organ played. A little procession of
surplices entered through the open door.
Some men carried in what seemed a great pile of flowers. There was singing. Then silence.
And then, in an extraordinary voice, 'Now is Christ risen from the
dead,' began the clergyman; and when on and on, all about God, and death, and
beasts at Ephesus, and the natural body.
But Anthony hardly heard, because he could think of nothing except those
germs that were still there in spite of the smell of the flowers, and of the
spittle that kept flowing into his mouth and that he had to swallow in spite of
the typhoid and influenza, and of that horrible sick feeling in his
stomach. How long would it last?
'Like
a goat,' James Beavis said to himself as he listened to the intoning from the
lectern. He looked again at that young
son-in-law of the Champernownes.
Anderton, Abdy ...? What a fine,
classical profile!
His
brother sat with bent head and a hand across his eyes, thinking of the ashes in
the casket there beneath the flowers the ashes that had been her body.
The
service was over at last. 'Thank
goodness!' thought Anthony, as he spat surreptitiously into his handkerchief
and folded away the germs into his pocket, 'Thank goodness!' He hadn't been sick. He followed his father to the door and,
rapturously, as he stepped out of the twilight, breathed the pure air. The sun was still shining. He looked around and up into the pale sky. Overhead, in the church tower, a sudden
outcry of jackdaws was like the noise of a stone flung glancingly on to a
frozen pond and skidding away with a reiteration of glassy clinking across the
ice.
'But,
Anthony, you mustn't throw stones on the ice,' his mother had called to
him. 'They get frozen in, and then the
skaters ...'
He
remembered how she had come swerving round towards him, on one foot swooping,
he had thought, like a seagull; all in white: beautiful. And now ... The tears came into his eyes
again. But, oh, why had she insisted on
his trying to skate?
'I
don't want to,' he had said; and when she asked why, it had been impossible to
explain. He was afraid of being laughed
at, of course. People made such fools of
themselves. But how could he have told
her that? In the end he had cried in
front of everyone. It couldn't have been
worse. He had almost hated her that
morning. And now she was dead, and up
there in the tower the jackdaws were throwing stones on last winter's ice.
They
were at the grave-side now. Once more Mr
Beavis pressed his son's hand. He was
trying to forestall the effect upon the child's mind of these last, most
painful moments.
'Be
brave,' he whispered. The advice was
tendered as much to himself as to the boy.
Leaning
forward, Anthony looked into the hole.
It seemed extraordinarily deep.
He shuddered, closed his eyes; and immediately there she was, swooping
towards him, white, like a seagull, and white again in the satin evening-dress
when she came to say goodnight before she went out to dinner, with that scent
on her as she bent over him in bed, and the coolness of her bare arms. 'You're like a cat,' she used to say when he
rubbed his cheek against her arms. 'Why
don't you purr while you're about it?'
'Anyhow,'
thought Uncle James with satisfaction, 'he was firm about the cremation.' The Christians had been scored off
there. Resurrection of the body,
indeed! In Add 1902!
When
his time came, John Beavis was thinking, this was where he would be
buried. In this very grave. His ashes next to hers.
The
clergyman was talking again in that extraordinary voice. 'Thou knowest, Lord, the secret of our hearts
...' Anthony opened his eyes. Two men were lowering into the hole a small
terra-cotta box, hardly larger than a biscuit tin. The box touched the bottom; the ropes were
hauled up.
'Earth
to earth,' bleated the goat-like voice, 'ashes to ashes.'
'My
ashes to her ashes,' thought John Beavis.
'Mingled.'
And
suddenly he remembered that time in Rome, a year after they were married; those
June nights and the fireflies, under the trees, in the Doria Gardens, like
stars gone crazy.
'Who
shall change our vile body that it may be like unto his glorious body ...'
'Vile,
vile?' His very soul protested.
Earth
fell, one spadeful, then another. The
box was almost covered. It was so small,
so dreadfully and unexpectedly tiny ... the image of that enormous ox, that
minute teacup, rose to Anthony's imagination.
Rose up obscurely and would not be exorcized. The jackdaws cried again in the tower. Like a seagull she had swooped towards him,
beautiful. But the ox was still there,
still in its teacup, still base and detestable; and he himself yet baser, yet
more hateful.
John
Beavis released the hand he had been holding and, laying his arm round the
boy's shoulders, pressed the thin little body against his own close, close,
till felt in his own flesh the sobs by which it was shaken.
'Poor
child! Poor motherless child!'
CHAPTER
V
'You wouldn't dare,' Joyce said.
'I
would.'
'No,
you wouldn't.'
'I
tell you I would,' Helen Amberley insisted more emphatically.
Maddeningly
sensible. 'You'd be sent to prison if
you were caught,' the elder sister went on.
'No, not to prison,' she corrected herself. 'You're too young. You'd be sent to a reformatory.'
The
blood rushed up to Helen's face. 'You
and your reformatories!' she said in a tone that was meant to be contemptuous,
but that trembled with irrepressible anger.
That reformatory was a personal affront.
Prison was terrible; so terrible that there was something fine about it.
(She had visited Chillon, had crossed the Bridge of Sighs.) But a reformatory
no! that was utterly ignoble. A
reformatory was on the same level as a public lavatory or a station on the District
Railway. 'Reformatories!' she repeated. It was typical of Joyce to think of
reformatories. She always dragged
anything amusing and adventurous down into the mud. And what made it so much worse, she was
generally quite right in doing so: the mud was facts, the mud was common
sense. 'You think I wouldn't dare to do
it, because you wouldn't dare,' Helen went on. 'Well, I shall do it. Just to show you. I shall steal something from every shop we go
to. Every one. So there.
Joyce
began to feel seriously alarmed. She
glanced questioningly at her sister. A
profile, pale now and rigid, the chin defiantly lifted, was all that Helen
would let her see. 'Now, look here,' she
began severely.
'I'm
not listening,' said Helen, speaking straight ahead into impersonal space.
'Don't
be a little fool!'
There
was no answer. The profile might have
been that of a young queen on a coin.
They turned into the Gloucester Road and walked towards the shops.
But
suppose the wretched girl really meant what she said? Joyce changed her strategy. 'Of course I know you dare,' she said
conciliatorily. There was no answer.
'I'm not doubting it for a moment.' She
turned again towards Helen; but the profile continued to stare ahead with eyes
unwaveringly averted. The grocer's was
at the next corner, not twenty yards away.
There was no time to lose. Joyce
swallowed what remained of her pride.
'Now, look here, Helen,' she said, and her tone was appealing, she was
throwing herself on her sister's generosity.
'I do wish you wouldn't.' In her
fancy she saw the whole deplorable scene.
Helen caught red-handed; the indignant shopkeeper, talking louder and
louder; her own attempts at explanation and excuse made unavailing by the
other's intolerable behaviour. For, of
course, Helen would just stand there, in silence, not uttering a word of
self-justification or regret, calm and contemptuously smiling, as though she
were a superior being and everybody else just dirt. Which would enrage the shopkeeper still more. Until at last he'd send for a policeman. And then ... But what would Colin think when
he heard of it? His future sister-in-law
arrested for stealing! He might break
off the engagement. 'Oh, please, don't
do it,' she begged; 'please!' But she
might as well have begged the image of King George on a half-crown to turn
round and wink at her. Pale, determined,
a young queen minted in silver, Helen kept on.
'Please!' Joyce repeated, almost tearfully. The thought that she might lose Colin was a
torture. 'Please!' But the smell of groceries was already in her
nostrils; they were on the very threshold.
She caught her sister by the sleeve; but Helen shook her off and marched
straight in. With a sinking of the
heart, Joyce followed as though to her execution. The young man at the cheese and bacon counter
smiled welcomingly as they came in. In
her effort to avert suspicion, to propitiate in advance his inevitable
indignation, Joyce smiled back with an effusive friendliness. No, that was overdoing it. She readjusted her face. Calm; easy; perfectly the lady, but at the
same time affable; affable and (what was that word?), oh yes, gracious
like Queen Alexandra. Graciously she
followed Helen across the shop. But why,
she was thinking, why had she ever broached the subject of crime? Why, knowing Helen, had she been mad enough
to argue that, if one were properly brought up, one simply couldn't be a
criminal? It was obvious what Helen's
response would be to that. She
had simply asked for it.
It
was to the younger sister that their mother had given the shopping list. 'Because she's almost as much of a
scatterbrain as I am,' Mrs Amberley had explained, with that touch of
complacency that always annoyed Joyce so much.
People had no right to boast about their faults. 'It'll teach her to be a good housekeeper
God help her! she added with a little snort of laughter.
Standing
at the counter, Helen unfolded the paper, read, and then, very haughtily and
without a smile, as though she were giving orders to a slave, 'Coffee first of
all,' she said to the assistant. 'Two
pounds the two-and-fourpenny mixture.'
The
girl, it was evident, was offended by Helen's tone and feudal manner. Joyce felt it her duty to beam at her with a
double, compensatory graciousness.
'Do
try to behave a little more civilly,' she whispered, when the girl had gone for
the coffee.
Helen
preserved her silence, but with an effort.
Civil, indeed! To this horrible
little creature who squinted and didn't wash enough under the arms? Oh, how she loathed all ugliness and
deformity and uncleanliness! Loathed and
detested ...
'And
for heaven's sake,' Joyce went on, 'don't do anything idiotic. I absolutely forbid ...'
But
even as she spoke the words, Helen stretched out a hand and without any attempt
at concealment took the topmost of an elaborate structure of chocolate tablets
that stood, like the section of a spiral pillar, on the counter took it and
then, with the same slow deliberation of movement, put it carefully away in her
basket.
But
before the crime was fully accomplished Joyce had turned and walked away.
'I
might say I'd never seen her before,' she was thinking. But of course that wouldn't do. Everybody knew they were sisters. 'Oh, Colin,' she cried inwardly, 'Colin!'
A
pyramid of tinned lobster loomed up before her.
She halted. 'Calm,' she said to
herself. 'I must be calm.' Her heart was thumping with terror, and the
dark magenta lobsters on the labels of the tins wavered dizzily before her
eyes. She was afraid to look round; but
through the noise of her heartbeats she listened anxiously for the inevitable
outcry.
'I
don't know if you're interested in lobster, Miss,' a confidential voice almost
whispered into her left ear.
Joyce
stared violently; then managed, with an effort, to smile and shake her head.
'This
is a line we can heartily recommend, Miss.
I'm sure if you were to try a tin ...'
'And
now,' Helen was saying, very calmly and in the same maddeningly feudal tone, 'I
need ten pounds of sugar. But that you
must send.'
They
walked out of the shop. The young man at
the cheese and bacon counter smiled his farewell; they were nice-looking girls
and regular customers. With a great
effort, Joyce contrived to be gracious yet once more. But they were hardly through the door when
her face disintegrated, as it were, into a chaos of violent emotion.
'Helen!'
she said furiously. 'Helen!'
But
Helen was still the young queen on her silver florin, a speechless profile.
'Helen!'
Between the glove and the sleeve, Joyce found an inch of her sister's bare skin
and pinched, hard.
Helen
jerked her arm away, and without looking round, a profile still, 'If you bother
me any more,' she said in a low voice, 'I shall push you into the gutter.'
Joyce
opened her mouth to speak, then changed her mind and, absurdly, shut it
again. She knew that if she did say
anything more, Helen unquestioningly would push her into the gutter. She had to be content with shrugging her
shoulders and looking dignified.
The
greengrocer's was crowded. Waiting for
her turn to be served, Helen had no difficulty in bagging a couple of oranges.
'Have
one?' she proposed insultingly to Joyce as they walked out of the shop.
It
was Joyce's turn to be a profile on a coin.
At
the stationer's there were, unfortunately, no other clients to distract the
attention of the people behind the counter.
But Helen was equal to the situation.
A handful of small change suddenly went rolling across the floor; and
while the assistants were hunting for the scattered pennies, she helped herself
to a rubber and three very good pencils.
It
was at the butcher's that the trouble began.
Ordinarily Helen refused to go into the shop at all; the sight, the
sickening smell of those pale corpses disgusted her. But this morning she walked straight in. In spite of the disgust. It was a point of honour. She had said every shop, and she
wasn't going to give Joyce an excuse for saying she had cheated. For the first half-minute, while her lungs
were still full of the untainted air she had inhaled outside in the street, it
was all right. But, oh God, when at last
she had to breathe ... God! She put her handkerchief to her nose. But the sharp rasping smell of the carcases
leaked through the barrier of perfume, superimposing itself upon the sweetness,
so that a respiration that began with Quelques Fleurs would hideously
end with dead sheep or, opening in stale blood, modulated insensibly into the
key of jasmine and ambergris.
A
customer went out; the butcher turned to her.
He was an oldish man, very large, with a square massive face that beamed
down at her with a paternal benevolence.
'Like
Mr Baldwin,' she said to herself, and then, aloud but indistinctly through her
handkerchief, 'A pound and a half of rump-steak, please.'
The
butcher returned in a moment with a mass of gory flesh. 'There's a beautiful piece of meat,
Miss!' He fingered the dark, red lump
with an artist's loving enthusiasm. 'A
really beautiful piece.' It was
Mr Baldwin's fingering his Virgil, thumbing his dog's-eared Webb.
'I
shall never eat meat again,' she said to herself, as Mr Baldwin turned away and
began to cut up the meat. 'But what
shall I take?' She looked round. 'What on earth ...? Ah!' A marble shelf ran, table-high, along
one of the walls of the shop. On it, in
trays, pink or purply brown, lay a selection of revolting viscera. And among the viscera a hook a big steel S,
still stained, at one of its curving tips, with the blood of whatever drawn and
decapitated corpse had hung from it. She
glanced round. It seemed a good moment
the butcher was weighing her steak, his assistant was talking to that
disgusting old woman like a bulldog, the girl at the cash desk was deep in her
accounts. Aloof and dissociated in the doorway,
Joyce was elaborately overacting the part of one who interrogates the sky and
wonders if this drizzle is going to turn into something serious. Helen took three quick steps, picked up the
hook, and was just lowering it into her basket when, full of solicitude, 'Look
out, Miss,' came the butcher's voice, 'you'll get yourself dirty if you touch
those hooks.'
That
start of surprise was the steepest descent of the Scenic Railway
sickening! Hot in her cheeks, her eyes,
her forehead, came a rush of guilty blood!
She tried to laugh.
'I
was just looking.' The hook clanked back
on to the marble.
'I
wouldn't like you to spoil your clothes, Miss.'
His smile was fatherly. More than
ever like Mr Baldwin.
Nervously,
for lack of anything better to do or say, Helen laughed again, and, in the process,
drew another deep breath of corpse.
Ugh! She fortified her nose once
more with Quelque Fleurs.
'One
pound and eleven ounces, Miss.'
She
nodded her assent. But what could she
take? And how was she to find the
opportunity?
'Anything
more this morning?'
Yes,
that was the only thing to do to order something more. That would give her time to think, a chance
to act. 'Have you any ...' she hesitated
'... any sweetbreads?'
Yes,
Mr Baldwin did have some sweetbreads, and they were on the shelf with the other
viscera. Near the hook. 'Oh, I don't know,' she said, when he asked
her how much she needed. 'Just the
ordinary amount, you know.'
She
looked about her while he was busy with the sweetbreads, despairingly. There was nothing in this beastly shop,
nothing except the hook, that she could take. And now that he had seen her with it in her
hands, the hook was out of the question.
Nothing whatever. Unless ... That
was it! A shudder ran through her. But she frowned, she set her teeth. She was determined to go through with it.
'And
now,' when he had packed up the sweetbreads, 'now,' she said, 'I must have some
of those!' She indicated the packets of
pale sausages piled on a shelf at the other end of the shop.
'I'll
do it while his back is turned,' she thought.
But the girl at the cash desk had emerged from her accounts and was
looking round the shop. 'Oh, damn her,
damn her!' Helen fairly screamed in her imagination, and then, 'Thank
goodness!' the girl had turned away. A
hand shot out; but the averted glance returned, 'Damn her!' The hand dropped back. And now it was too late. Mr Baldwin had got the sausages, had turned,
was coming back towards her.
'Will
that be all, Miss?'
'Well,
I wonder?' Helen frowned uncertainly, playing for time. 'I can't help thinking there was something
else ... something else ...' The seconds
passed; it was terrible; she was making a fool of herself, an absolute idiot. But she refused to give up. She refused to acknowledge defeat.
'We've
some beautiful Welsh mutton in this morning,' said the butcher in that artist's
voice of his, as though he were talking of the Georgics.
Helen
shook her head: she really couldn't start buying mutton now.
Suddenly
the girl at the cash desk began to write again.
The moment had come. 'No,' she
said with decision, 'I'll take another pound of those sausages.'
'Another?' Mr Baldwin looked surprised.
No
wonder! she thought. They'd be surprised
at home too.
'Yes,
just one more,' she said, and smiled ingratiatingly, as though she were asking
a favour. He walked back towards the
shelf. The girl at the cash desk was
still writing, the old woman who looked like a bulldog had never stopped
talking to the assistant. Quickly
there was not a second to lose Helen turned towards the marble shelf beside
her. It was for one of those kidneys
that she had decided. The thing
slithered obscenely between her gloved fingers a slug, a squid. In the end she had to grab it with her whole
hand. Thank heaven, she thought, for
gloves! As she dropped it into the
basket, the idea came to her that for some reason she might have to take the
horrible thing in her mouth, raw as it was and oozy with some unspeakable
slime, take it in her mouth, bite, taste, swallow. Another shudder of disgust ran through her,
so violent this time that it seemed to tear something at the centre of her
body.
Tired
of acting the meteorologist, Joyce was standing under her umbrella looking at
the chrysanthemums in the florist's window next door. She had prepared something particularly
offensive to say to Helen when she came out.
But at the sight of her sister's white unhappy face she forgot even her
legitimate grievances.
'Why,
Helen, what is the matter?'
For
all answer Helen suddenly began to cry.
'What
is it?'
She
shook her head and, turning away, raised her hand to her face to brush away the
tears.
'Tell
me ...'
'Oh!'
Helen started and cried out as though she had been stung by a wasp. An expression of agonized repugnance wrinkled
up her face. 'Oh, too filthy, too
filthy,' she repeated, looking at her fingers.
And setting her basket down on the pavement, she unbuttoned the glove,
stripped it off her hand, and, with a violent gesture, flung it away from her
into the gutter.
CHAPTER
VI
The guard whistled, and obediently the
train began to move past Keating, at a crawl; past Branson; past Pickwick,
Owl and Waverley; past Beecham, Owbridge, Carter, Pears, in accelerated
succession; past Humphrey's Iron Buildings, past Lollingdon for Choate; past
Eno's at twenty miles an hour; past Pears, Pears, Pears, Pears, Pears and
suddenly the platform and palings dipped and were lost, swallowed in the green
country. Anthony leaned back in his
corner and sighed thankfully. It was
escape at last; he had climbed out of that black well into which they had
pushed him, and was free again. The
wheels sang cheerfully in his ears. 'To
stop the train pull down the chain penαlty for imprσper use five pσunds five
pσunds FIVE POUNDS FIVE POUNDS ...' But how perfectly awful luncheon at
Granny's had been!
'Work,'
James Beavis was saying. 'It's the only
thing at a time like this.'
His
brother nodded. 'The only thing,' he
agreed. Then, after a moment's
hesitation, 'One's had a pretty bad knock,' he added self-consciously, in that
queer jargon which he imagined to be colloquial English. John Beavis's colloquialisms mostly came out
of books. 'That 'bad knock' was a
metaphor drawn from the boxing contests he had never witnessed. 'Luckily,' he went on, 'one's got a great
deal of work on hand at the moment.' He
thought of his lectures. He thought of
his contributions to the Oxford Dictionary.
The mountains of books, the slips, his huge card index, the letters from
fellow philologists. And the exhaustive
essay on Jacobean slang. 'Not that one
wants to shirk anything,' he added, putting the colloquial word between the
audible equivalents of inverted commas.
James mustn't think that he was going to drown his grief in work. He groped for a phrase. 'It's ... it's a sacred music that one's
facing!' he brought out at last.
James
kept nodding with quick little jerks of the head, as though he knew in advance
everything his brother would or possibly could say. His face twitched with sudden involuntary
tics. He was wasted by nervous
impatience as though by a consumption, eaten away by it to the very bone. 'Quite,' he said, 'quite.' And gave one last nod. There was a long silence.
'Tomorrow,'
Anthony was thinking, 'there'll be algebra with old Jimbug.' The prospect was disagreeable; he wasn't good
at maths, and, even at the bets of times, even when he was only joking, Mr
Jameson was a formidable teacher. 'If
Jimbug gets baity with me, like that time last week ...' Remembering the scene,
Anthony frowned; the blood came up into his cheeks. Jimbug made sarcastic
remarks at him and pulled his hair. He
had begun to blub. (Who wouldn't have blubbed?) A tear had fallen on to the
equation he was trying to work out and made a huge round blot. That beast Staithes had ragged him about it
afterwards. Luckily Foxe had come to his
rescue. One laughed at Foxe because he
stammered; but he was really extraordinarily decent.
At
Waterloo, Anthony and his father took a hansom.
Uncle James preferred to work. 'I
can get to the Club in eleven minutes,' he told them. His hand went to his waistcoat pocket. He looked at his watch; then turned and
without saying another word went striding away down the hill.
'Euston!'
John Beavis called up to the cabman.
Stepping
cautiously on the smooth slope, the horse moved forward; the cab heaved like a
ship. Inaudibly, Anthony hummed the
'Washington Post.' Riding in a hansom
almost made him feel extraordinarily happy.
At the bottom of the hill, the cabby whipped his horse into a trot. They passed a smell of beer, a smell of fried
fish; drove through 'Goodbye, Dolly Gray' on a cornet and swung into the
Waterloo Bridge Road. The traffic roared
and rattled all about them. If his
father had not been there, Anthony would have sung out loud.
The
end of the afternoon was still smokily bright above the house tops. And, all at once, here was the river,
shining, with the black barges, and a tug, and St Paul's like a balloon in the
sky, and the mysterious Shot Tower.
On
the bridge, a man was throwing bread to the seagulls. Dim, almost invisible, they came sliding
through the air; turned, with a tilt of grey wings, leaning against their
speed, and suddenly flashed into brilliance, like snow against the dark fringes
of the sky; then wheeled away again out of the light, towards
invisibility. Anthony looked and stopped
humming. Swerving towards you on the
ice, a skater will lean like that.
And
suddenly, as though, disquietingly, he too had understood the significance of
those swooping birds, 'Dear boy,' Mr Beavis began, breaking a long
silence. He pressed Anthony's arm. 'Dear boy!'
With
a sinking of the heart Anthony waited for what he would say next.
'We
must stand together now,' said Mr Beavis.
The
boy made a vague noise of acquiescence.
'Close
together. Because we both ...' he
hesitated, 'we both loved her.'
There
was another silence. 'Oh, if only he'd
stop!' Anthony prayed. Vainly. His father went on.
'We'll
always be true to her,' he said. 'Never ...
never let her down? - will we?'
Anthony
nodded.
'Never!'
John Beavis repeated emphatically.
'Never!' And to himself he
recited yet once more those lines that had haunted him all these days:
'Till
age, or grief, or sickness must
Marry my body to that dust
It so much loves; and fill the room
My heart keeps empty in the tomb.
Stay for me there!'
Then
aloud and in a tone almost of defiance, 'She'll never be dead for us,' he
said. 'We'll keep her living in our
hearts won't we?'
'Living
for us,' his father continued, 'so that we can live for her live finely,
nobly, as she would want us to live.' He
paused on the brink of a colloquialism the sort of colloquialism, he intended
it to be, that a schoolboy would understand and appreciate. 'Live ... well, like a pair of regular
bricks,' he brought out unnaturally.
'And bricks,' he continued, 'extermporizing an improvement on the
original locution, 'bricks that are also pals. Real chums.
We're going to be chums now, Anthony, aren't we?'
Anthony
nodded again. He was in an agony of
shame and embarrassment. 'Chums.' It was a school-story word. The Fifth Form of St Dominic's. You laughed when you read it, you howled
derisively. Chums! And with his father! He felt himself blushing. Looking out of the side window, to hide his
discomfort, he saw one of the grey birds come swooping down, out of the sky,
towards the bridge; nearer; nearer; then it leaned, it swerved away to the
left, gleamed for a moment, transfigured, and was gone.
At
school everyone was frightfully decent.
Too decent, indeed. The boys were
so tactfully anxious not to intrude on his emotional privacy, not to insult him
with the display of their own high spirits, that, after having made a few
constrained and unnatural demonstrations of friendliness, they left him
alone. It was almost, Anthony found,
like being sent to Coventry. They could
hardly have made it worse for him if he had been caught stealing or
sneaking. Never, since the first days of
his first term, had he felt so hopelessly out of it all as he felt that
evening.
'Pity
you missed the match this afternoon,' said Thompson as they sat down to supper;
he spoke in the tone he would have used to a visiting uncle.
'Was
it a good game?' Anthony asked with the same unnatural politeness.
'Oh,
jolly good. They won, though. Three-two.'
The conversation languished.
Uncomfortably, Thompson wondered what he should say next. That limerick of Butterworth's, about the
young lady of Ealing? No, he couldn't possibly repeat that; not today, when
Beavis's mother ... Then what? A loud
diversion at the other end of the table providentially solved his problem. He had an excuse to turn away. 'What's that?' he shouted with unnecessary
eagerness. 'What's that?' Soon they were all talking and laughing
together. From beyond an invisible gulf
Anthony listened and looked on.
'Agnes!'
someone called to his maid. 'Agnes!'
'Aganeezer
Lemon-squeezer,' said Mark Staithes but in a low voice, so that she shouldn't
hear; rudeness to the servants was a criminal offence at Bulstrode, and for
that reason all the more appreciated, even soto voce. That lemon-squeezer produced an explosion of
laughter. Staithes himself, however,
preserved his gravity. To sit unsmiling
in the midst of the laughter he himself had provoked gave him an extraordinary
sense of power and superiority. Besides,
it was in the family tradition. No
Staithes ever smiled at his own joke or epigram or repartee.
Looking
round the table, Mark Staithes saw that the wretched, baby-face Benger Beavis
wasn't laughing with the rest, and for a second was filled with a passionate
resentment against this person who had dared not to be amused by his joke. What made the insult more intolerable with
the fact that Benger was so utterly insignificant. Bad at football, not much use at
cricket. The only thing he was good at
was work. Work! And did such a creature dare to sit unsmiling
when he ... Then, all of a sudden, he remembered that the poor chap had lost
his mother, and, relaxing the hardness of his face, he gave him, across the
intervening space, a little smile of recognition and sympathy. Anthony smiled back, then looked away,
blushing with an obscure discomfort as though he had been caught doing
something wrong. The consciousness of
his own magnanimity and the spectacle of Benger's embarrassment restored
Staithes to his good humour.
'Agnes!'
he shouted. 'Agnes!'
Large,
chronically angry, Agnes came at last.
'More
jam, please, Agnes.'
'Jore
mam,' cried Thompson. Everybody laughed
again, not because the joke was anything but putrid, but simply because
everybody wanted to laugh.
'And
breadney.'
'Yes,
more breaf.'
'More
breaf, please, Agnes.'
'Breaf,
indeed! said Agnes indignantly, as she picked up the empty bread-and-butter
plate. 'Why can't you say what you
mean?'
There
was a redoubling of laughter. They
couldn't say what they meant absolutely couldn't, because to say 'breaf' or
'breadney' instead of bread was a Bulstrodian tradition and the symbol of their
togetherness, the seal of their superiority to all the rest of the uninitiated
world.
'More
Pepin le Bref!' shouted Staithes.
'Pepin
le Breadney, le Breadney!'
The
laughter became almost hysterical. They
all remembered that occasion last term, when they had come to Pepin le Bref in
their European History. Pepin le Bref
le Bref! First Butterworth had
broken down, then Pembroke-Jones, then Thompson and finally the whole of
Division II, Staithes with the rest of them, uncontrollably. Old Jimbug had got into the most appalling
bait. Which made it, now, even funnier.'
'Just
a lot of silly babies!' said Agnes; and, finding them still laughing when, a
moment later, she came back with more bread, 'Just babies!' she repeated in a determined
effort to be insulting. But her stroke
did not touch them. They were beyond
her, rapt away in the ecstasy of causeless laughter.
Anthony
would have liked to laugh with them, but somehow did not dare to do more than
smile, distantly and politely, like someone in a foreign country, who does not
understand the joke, but wants to show he has no objection to other people
having a bit of fun. And a moment later,
feeling hungry, he found himself unexpectedly struck dumb above his empty
plate. For to have asked for more breaf,
or another chunk of breadney, would have been, for the sacred paria he had now
become, at once an indecency and an intrusion an indecency, because a person
who has been sanctified by his mother's death should obviously not talk slang,
and an intrusion, because an outsider has no right to use the special language
reserved to the elect. Uncertainly, he
hesitated. Then at last, 'Pass me the
bread, please,' he murmured; and blushed (the words sounded so horribly stupid
and unnatural) to the roots of his hair.
Leaning
towards his neighbour on the other side, Thompson went on with his whispered
recitation of the limerick. '... all
over the ceiling,' he concluded; and they shrieked with laughter.
Thank
goodness, Thompson hadn't heard. Anthony
felt profoundly relieved. In spite of
his hunger, he did not ask again.
There
was a stir at the high table; old Jimbug rose to his feet. A hideous noise of chair-legs scraping across
boards filled the hall, solidly, it seemed; then evaporated into the emptiness
of complete silence. 'For all that we
have received ...' The talk broke out again, the boys stampeded towards the
door.
In
the corridor, Anthony felt a hand on his arm.
'Hullo, B-benger.'
'Hullo,
Foxe.' He did not say 'Hullo, Horse-Face,'
because of what had happened this morning.
Horse-Face would be as inappropriate to the present circumstances as
Breaf.
'I've
got s-something to sh-show you,' said Brian Foxe, and his melancholy, rather
ugly face seemed suddenly to shine, as he smiled at Anthony. People laughed at Foxe because he stammered
and looked like a horse. But almost
everybody liked him. Even though he was
a bit of a swot and not much good at games.
He was rather pi, too, about smut; and he never seemed to get into trouble
with the masters. But in spite of it
all, you had to like him, because he was so awfully decent. Too decent, even; for it really wasn't right
to treat New Bugs the way he did as though they were equals. Beastly little ticks of nine the equals of
boys of eleven and twelve; imagine! No,
Foxe was wrong about the New Bugs; of that there could be no doubt. All the same, people liked old Horse-Face.
'What
have you got?' asked Anthony; and he felt so grateful to Horse-Face for
behaving towards him in a normal, natural way, that he spoke quite gruffly, for
fear the other might notice what he was feeling.
'Come
and see,' Brian meant to say; but he got no further than 'C-c-c-c ...' The long
agony of clicks prolonged itself. At
another time, Anthony might have laughed, might have shouted, 'Listen to old
Horse-Face trying to be seasick!' But
today he said nothing; only thought what awful bad luck it was on the poor
chap. In the end, Brian Foxe gave up the
attempt to say 'Come and see,' and, instead, brought out, 'It's in my
p-play-box.'
They
ran down the stairs to the dark lobby where the play-boxes were kept.
'Th-there,'
said Brian, lifting the lid of his box.
Anthony
looked, and at the sight of that elegant little ship, three-masted,
square-rigged with paper sails, 'I say,' he exclaimed, 'that's a beauty! Did you make her yourself?'
Brain
nodded. He had had the carpenter's shop
to himself that afternoon all the tools he needed. That was why she was so
professional-looking. He would have liked
to explain it all, to share his pleasure in the achievement with Anthony; but
he knew his stammer too well. The
pleasure would evaporate while he was laboriously trying to express it. Besides, 'carpenter' was a terrible
word. 'We'll t-try her to-n-night,' he
had to be content with saying. But the
smile which accompanied the words seemed at once to apologize for their
inadequacy and to make up for it.
Anthony smiled back. They
understood one another.
Carefully,
tenderly, Brian unstepped the three matchstick masts and slipped them, sails
and all, into the inner pocket of his jacket; the hull went into his
breeches. A bell rang. It was bedtime. Obediently, Brian shut his play-box. The started to climb the stairs once more.
'I
w-won f-five more g-games today with my old c-c-c ... my ch-cheeser,' he
emended, finding 'conker' too difficult.
'Five!'
cried Anthony. 'Good for the old
Horse-Face!'
Forgetting
that he was an outcast, a sacred paria, he laughed aloud. He felt warm and at home. It was only when he was undressing in his
cubicle that he remembered because of the tooth powder.
'Twice
a day,' he heard her saying, as he dipped his wet brush into the pink
carbolic-smelling dust. 'And if you
possibly can, after lunch as well.
Because of the germs.'
'But
Mother, you can't expect me to go up and clean them after lunch!'
The
wound to his vanity (did she think his teeth were so dirty?) had made him
rude. He found a retrospective excuse in
the reflection that it was against the school rules to go up into the dorms
during the day.
On
the other side of the wooden partition that separated his cubicle from
Anthony's, Brian Foxe was stepping into his pyjamas. First the left leg, then the right. But just as he was starting to pull them up,
there came to him, suddenly, a thought so terrible that he almost cried
aloud. 'Suppose my mother were to
die!' And she might die. If Beavis's mother had died, of course she
might. And at once he saw her, lying in
her bed at home. Terribly pale. And the death-rattle, that death-rattle one
always read about in books he heard it plainly; and it was like the noise of
one of those big wooden rattles that you scare birds with. Loud and incessant, as though it were made by
a machine. A human being couldn't
possibly make such a noise. But all the
same, it came out of her mouth. It was
the death-rattle. She was dying.
His
trousers still only half-way up his thighs, Brian stood there, quite still,
staring at the brown varnished partition in front of him with eyes that had
filled with tears. It was too
terrible. The coffin; and then the empty
house; and, when he went to bed, nobody to come and say goodnight.
Suddenly
shaking himself out of immobility, he pulled up his trousers and tied the
string with a kind of violence.
'But
she isn't dead!' he said to himself.
'She isn't!'
Two
cubicles away, Thompson gave vent to one of those loud and extraordinarily
long-drawn farts for which, at Bulstrode, he had such a reputation. There were shouts, a chorus of laughter. Even Brian laughed Brian who generally
refused to see that there was anything funny about that sort of noise. But he was filled at this moment with such a
sense of glad relief, that any excuse for laughter was good enough. She was still alive! And though she wouldn't have liked him to
laugh at anything so vulgar, he simply had to allow his thankfulness to
explode. Uproariously he guffawed; then,
all at once, broke off. He had thought
of Beavis. His mother was really
dead. What must he be
thinking? Brian felt ashamed of having
laughed, and for such a reason.
Later,
when the lights had been put out, he climbed on to the rail at the head of his
bed and, looking over the partition into Anthony's cubicle, 'I s-say,' he whispered,
'sh-shall we see how the new b-b-b ... the new sh-ship goes?'
Anthony
jumped out of bed and, the night being cold, put on his dressing-gown and
slippers; then, noiselessly, stepped on to his chair and from the chair
(pushing aside the long baize curtain) to the window-ledge. The curtain swung back behind him, shutting
him into the embrasure.
It
was a high narrow window, divided by a wooden transom into two parts. The lower and larger part consisted of a pair
of sashes; the small upper pane was hinged at the top and opened outwards. When the sashes were closed, the lower of
them formed a narrow ledge, half-way up the window. Standing on this ledge, a boy could conveniently
get his head and shoulders through the small square opening above. Each window each pair of windows, rather
was set in a gable, so that when you leaned out, you found the slope of the
tiles coming steeply down on either side, and immediately in front of you, on a
level with the transom, the long gutter which carried away the water from the
roof.
The
gutter! It was Brian who had recognized
its potentialities. A sod of turn
carried surreptitiously up to bed in a bulging pocket, a few stones and there
was your dam. When it was built, you
collected all the water-jugs in the dormitory, hoisted them one by one and
poured their contents into the gutter.
There would be no washing the next morning; but what of that? A long narrow sea stretched away into the
night. A whittled ship would float, and
those fifty feet of watery boundlessness invited the imagination. The danger was always rain. If it rained hard, somebody had somehow to
sneak up, at whatever risk, and break the dam.
Otherwise the gutter would overflow, and an overflow meant awkward
investigations and unpleasant punishments.
Perched
high between the cold glass and the rough hairy baize of the curtains, Brian
and Anthony leaned out of their twin windows into the darkness. A brick mullion was all that separated them;
they could speak in whispers.
'Now
then, Horse-Face,' commanded Anthony.
'Blow!'
And
like the allegorical Zephyr in a picture, Horse-Face blew. Under its press of paper sail, the boat went
gliding along the narrow waterway.
'Lovely!'
said Anthony ecstatically; and bending down till his cheek was almost touching
the water, he looked with one half-shut and deliberately unfocused eye until,
miraculously, the approaching toy was transformed into a huge three-master,
seen phantom-like in the distance and bearing down on him, silently, through
the darkness. A great ship a ship of
the line one hundred and ten guns under a cloud of canvas the North-East
Trades blowing steadily bowling along at ten knots eight bells just
sounding from ... He stared violently as the foremast came into contact with
his nose. Reality flicked back into
place again.
'It
looks just like a real ship,' he said to Brian as he turned the little boat
round in the gutter. 'Put your head down
and have a squint. I'll blow.'
Slowly
the majestic three-master travelled back again.
'It's
like the Fighting T-t-t ... You know that p-picture.'
Anthony
nodded; he never liked to admit ignorance.
'T-temeraire,'
the other brought out at last.
'Yes,
yes,' said Anthony, rather impatiently, as though he had known it all the time. Bending down again, he tried to recapture
that vision of the huge hundred-and-ten-gunner bowling before the North-East
Trades; but without success; the little boat refused to be transfigured. Still, she was a lovely ship. 'A beauty,' he said out loud.
'Only
she's a b-bit l-lopsided,' said Brian, in modest depreciation of his handiwork.
'But
I rather like that,' Anthony assured him.
'It makes her look as though she were heeling over with the wind.' Heeling over: - it gave him a peculiar
pleasure to pronounce the phrase. He had
never uttered it before only read it in books. Lovely words!
And making an excuse to repeat them, 'Just look!' he said, 'how she
heels over when it blows really hard.'
He
blew, and the little ship almost capsized.
The hurricane, he said to himself ... struck her full on the starboard
beam ... carried away the fore top-gallant sails and the spinnakers ... stove
in our only boat ... heeled till the gunwale touched the water ... But it was
tiring to go on blowing as hard as that.
He looked up from the gutter; his eyes travelled over the sky; he
listened intently to the silence. The
air was extraordinarily still; the night, almost cloudless. And what stars! There was Orion, with his feet tangled in the
branches of the oak tree. And
Sirius. And all the others whose names
he didn't know. Thousands and millions
of them.
'Gosh!'
he whispered at last.
'W-what
on earth do you s-suppose they're f-for?' said Brian, after a long silence.
'What
the stars?'
Brian
nodded.
Remembering
things his Uncle James had said, 'They're not for anything,' Anthony
answered.
'But
they m-must be,' Brian objected.
'Why?'
'Because
e-everything is for s-something.'
'I
don't believe that.'
'W-well,
th-think of b-b-bees,' said Brian with some difficulty.
Anthony
was shaken; they had been having some lessons in botany from old Bumface
making drawings of pistils and things.
Bees yes; they were obviously for something. He wished he could remember exactly what
Uncle James had said. The iron
somethings of nature. But iron whats?
'And
m-mountains,' Brian was laboriously continuing.
'It w-wouldn't r-rain properly if there w-weren't any m-mountains.'
'Well,
what do you think they're for?' Anthony asked, indicating the stars with
an upward movement of the chin.
'Perhaps
there are p-people.'
'Only
on Mars.' Anthony's certainty was
dogmatic.
There
was a silence. Then, with decision, as
though he had at last made up his mind to have it out, at any cost,
'S-sometimes,' said Brian, 'I w-wonder wh-whether they aren't really
al-live.' He looked anxiously at his
companion: was Benger going to laugh?
But Anthony, who was looking up at the stars, made no sound or movement
of derision; only nodded gravely.
Brian's shy defenceless little secret was safe, had received no
wound. He felt profoundly grateful; and
suddenly it was as though a great wave were mounting, mounting through his
body. He was almost suffocated by that
violent uprush of love and ('Oh, suppose it had been my mother!') of excruciating
sympathy for poor Benger. His throat
contracted; the tears came into his eyes.
He would have liked to reach out and touch Benger's hand; only, of
course, that sort of thing wasn't done.
Anthony
meanwhile was still looking at Sirius.
'Alive,' he repeated to himself.
'Alive.' It was like a heart in
the sky, pulsing with light. All at once
he remembered that young bird he had found last Easter holidays. It was on the ground and couldn't fly. His mother had made fun of him because he
didn't want to pick it up. Big animals
he liked, but for some reason it gave him the horrors to touch anything small
and alive. In the end, making an effort
with himself, he had caught the bird.
And in his hand the little creature had seemed just a feathered heart,
pulsing against his palm and fingers, a fistful of hot and palpitating
blood. Up there, above the fringes of
the trees, Sirius was just another heart.
Alive. But of course Uncle James
would just laugh.
Stung
by this imaginary mockery and ashamed of having been betrayed into such
childishness, 'But how can they be alive?' he asked resentfully, turning away
from the stars.
'Brian
winced. 'Why is he angry?' he
wondered. Then, aloud, 'Well,' he
started, 'if G-god's alive ...'
'But
my pater doesn't go to church,' Anthony objected.
'N-no,
b-b-but ...' How little he wanted to argue now!
Anthony
couldn't wait. 'He doesn't believe in
that sort of thing.'
'But
it's G-god that c-counts; n-not ch-church.'
Oh, if only he hadn't got this terrible stammer! He could explain it all so well; he could say
all those things his mother had said.
But somehow, at the moment, even the things that she had said were
beside the point. The point was saying;
the point was caring for people, caring until it hurt.
'My
uncle,' said Anthony, 'he doesn't even believe in God. I don't either,' he added provocatively
But
Brian did not take up the challenge. 'I
s-say,' he broke out impulsively, 'I s-say, B-b-b ...' The very intensity of
his eagerness made him stammer all the worse.
'B-benger,' he brought out at last.
It was an agony to feel the current of his love thus checked and
diverted. Held up behind the grotesquely
irrelevant impediment to its progress, the stream mounted, seemed to gather
force and was at last so strong within him that, forgetting altogether that it
wasn't done, Brian suddenly laid his hand on Anthony's arm. The fingers travelled down the sleeve, then
closed round the bare wrist; and thereafter, every time his stammer interposed
itself between his feeling and its object, his grasp tightened in a spasm
almost of desperation.
'I'm
so t-terribly s-sorry about your m-mother,' he went on. 'I d-didn't w-want to s-say it
be-before. N-not in f-front of the
o-others. You know, I was th-th-th ...'
He gripped on Anthony's wrist more tightly; it was as though he were trying to
supplement his strangled words by the direct eloquence of touch, were trying to
persuade the other of the continued existence of the stream within him, of its
force, unabated in spite of the temporary checking of the current. He began the sentence again and acquired
sufficient momentum to take him past the barrier. 'I was th-thinking just n-now,' he said, 'it
m-might have been my mother. Oh,
B-b-beavis, it m-must be too awful!'
Anthony
had looked at him, in the first moment of surprise, with an expression of
suspicion, almost of fear on his face.
But as the other stammered on, this first hardening of resistance melted
away, and now, without feeling ashamed of what he was doing, he began to cry.
Balanced
precariously in the tall embrasure of the windows, the two children stood there
for a long time in silence. The cheeks
of both of them were cold with tears; but on Anthony's wrist the grip of that
consoling hand was obstinately violent, like a drowning man's.
Suddenly,
with a thin rattling of withered leaves, a gust of wind came swelling up out of
the darkness. The little three-master
started, as though it had been woken out of sleep, and noiselessly, with an air
of purposeful haste, began to glide, stern-foremost, along the gutter.
The
servants had gone to bed; all the house was still. Slowly, in the dark, John Beavis left his
study and climbed past the mezzanine landing, past the drawing-room, stair
after stair, towards the second floor.
Outside, in the empty street, the sound of hoofs approached and again
receded. The silence closed in once more
the silence of his solitude, the silence (he shuddered) of her grave.
He
stood still, listening for long seconds to the beating of his heart; then, with
decision, mounted the last two stairs, crossed the dark landing and, opening
the door, turned on the light. His image
confronted him, staring palely from the dressing-table mirror. The silver brushes were in their usual place,
the little trays and pincushions, the row of cut-glass bottles. He looked away. One corner of the broad pink quilt was turned
back; he saw the two pillows lying cheek by cheek, and above them, on the wall,
that photogravure of the Sistine Madonna they had bought together, in the shop
near the British Museum. Turning, he saw
himself again, at full length, funereally black, in the glass of the
wardrobe. The wardrobe ... He stepped
across the room and turned the key in the lock.
The heavy glass door swung open of its own accord, and suddenly he was
breathing the very air of her presence, that faint scent of orris-root,
quickened secretly, as it were, by some sharper, warmer perfume. Grey, white, green, shell-pink, black dress
after dress. It was as though she had
died ten times and ten times been hung there, limp, gruesomely headless, but
haloed still, ironically, with the sweet, breathing symbol of her life. He stretched out his hand and touched the
smooth silk, the cloth, the muslin, the velvet; all those various
textures. Stirred, the hanging folds
gave out their perfume more strongly; he shut his eyes and inhaled her real
presence. But what was left of her had
been burnt, and the ashes were at the bottom of that pit in Lollingdon
churchyard.
'Stay
for me there,' John Beavis whispered articulately in the silence.
His
throat contracted painfully; the tears welled out between his closed
eyelids. Shutting the wardrobe door, he
turned away and began to undress.
He
was conscious, suddenly, of an overwhelming fatigue. It cost him an immense effort to wash. When he got into bed, he fell asleep almost
at once.
Towards
the morning, when the light of the new day and the noises from the street had
begun to break through the enveloping layers of his inner darkness, John Beavis
dreamed that he was walking along the corridor that led to his lecture-room at
King's College. No, not walking:
running. For the corridor had become
immensely long and there was some terribly urgent reason for getting to the end
of it quickly, for being there in time.
In time for what? He did not
know; but as he ran, he felt a sickening apprehension mounting, as it were, and
expanding and growing every moment more intense within him. And when at last he opened the door of the
lecture-room, it wasn't the lecture-room at all, but their bedroom at home,
with Maisie lying there, panting for breath, her face flushed with the fever,
dark with the horrible approach of asphyxiation, and across it, like two weals,
bluish and livid, the parted lips. The
sight was so dreadful that he started broad awake. Daylight shone pale between the curtains; the
quilt showed pink; there was a gleam in the wardrobe mirror; outside, the
milkman was calling, 'Mu-ilk, Mui-uilk!' as he went his rounds. Everything was reassuringly familiar, in its
right place. It had been no more than a
bad dream. Then, turning his head, John
Beavis saw that the other half of the broad bed was empty.
The
bell came nearer and nearer, ploughing through the deep warm drifts of sleep,
until at last it hammered remorselessly on his naked and quivering
consciousness. Anthony opened his
eyes. With a filthy row it made! But he needn't think of getting up for at
least another five minutes. The warmth
under the sheets was heavenly. Then
and it spoilt everything he remembered that early school was algebra and
Jimbug. His heart came into his
throat. Those awful quadratics! Jimbug would start yelling at him again. It wasn't fair. And he'd blub. But then it occurred to him that Jimbug
probably wouldn't yell at him today because of what, he suddenly remembered,
had happened yesterday. Horse-Face had
been most awfully decent last night, he went on to think.
But
it was time to get up. One, two, three
and, ugh, how filthily cold it was! He
was just diving upwards into his shirt when somebody tapped very softly at the
door of his cubicle. One last wriggle
brought his head through into daylight.
He went and opened. Staithes was
standing in the passage. Staithes
grinning, it was true, in apparent friendliness; but still ... Anthony was
disturbed. Mistrustfully, but with a
hypothetical smile of welcome, 'What's up?' he began; but the other put a
finger to his lips.
'Come
and look,' he whispered. 'It's
marvellous!'
Anthony
was flattered by this invitation from one who, as captain of the football
eleven, had a right to be, and generally was, thoroughly offensive to him. He was afraid of Staithes and disliked him
and for that very reason felt particularly pleased that Staithes should have
taken the trouble to come to him like this, of his own accord ...
Staithes's
cubicle was already crowded. The
conspiratorial silence seethed and bubbled with a suppressed excitement. Thompson had had to stuff his handkerchief
into his mouth to keep himself from laughing, and Pembroke-Jones was doubling
up in paroxysms of noiseless mirth.
Wedged in the narrow space between the foot of the bed and the
washstand, Partridge was standing with one cheek pressed against the
partition. Staithes touched him on the
shoulder. Partridge turned round and
came into the centre of the cubicle; his freckled face was distorted with glee
and he twitched and fidgeted as though his bladder were bursting. Staithes pointed to the place he had vacated
and Anthony squeezed in. A knot in the
wood of the partition had been prized out, and through the hole you could see
all that was going on in the next cubicle.
On the bed, wearing only a woollen undervest and his rupture appliance,
lay Goggler Ledwidge. His eyes behind
the thick glass of his spectacles were shut; his lips were parted. He looked tranquilly happy and serene, as
though he were in church.
'Is
he still there?' whispered Staithes.
Anthony
turned a grinning face and nodded; then pressed his eyes more closely to the
spy-hole. What made it so specially
funny was the fact that it should be Goggler Goggler, the school buffoon, the
general victim, predestined by weakness and timidity to inevitable persecution. This would be something new to bait him with.
'Let's
give him a fright,' suggested Staithes, and climbed up on to the rail at the
head of the bed.
Partridge,
who played centre forward for the first eleven, made a movement to follow
him. But it was to Anthony that Staithes
unexpected turned. 'Come on, Beavis,' he
whispered. 'Come up here with me.' He wanted to be specially decent to the poor
chap because of his mater. Besides, it
pleased him to be able to snub that lout, Partridge.
Anthony
accepted the flattering invitation with an almost abject alacrity and got up
beside him. The others perched
unsteadily at the foot of the bed. At a
signal from Staithes all straightened themselves up and, showing their heads
above the partition, hooted their derision.
Recalled
thus brutally from his squalidly tender little Eden of enemas and spankings (it
had, as yet, no female inhabitants), Goggler gave vent to a startled cry; his
eyes opened, frantic with terror; he went very white for a moment, then
blushed. With his two hands he pulled
down his vest; but it was too short to cover his nakedness or even his
truss. Absurdly short, like a baby's
vest. ('We'll try to make them last this one more term,' his mother had
said. 'These woollen things are so
frightfully expensive.' She had made
great sacrifices to send him to Bulstrode.)
'Pull,
pull!' Staithes shouted in sarcastic encouragement of his efforts.
'Why
wouldn't Henry VIII allow Anne Boleyn to go into his henhouse?' said
Thompson. Everyone knew the answer, of
course. There was a burst of laughter.
Staithes
lifted one foot from its perch, pulled off the leather-soled slipper, took aim
and threw. It hit Goggler on the side of
the face. He gave a cry of pain, jumped
out of bed and stood with hunched shoulders and one skinny little arm raised to
cover his head, looking up at the jeering faces through eyes that had begun to
overflow with tears.
'Buzz
yours too!' shouted Staithes to the others.
Then, seeing the new arrival standing in the open doorway of his
cubicle, 'Hello, Horse-Face,' he said, as he took off the other slipper; 'come
and have a shot.' He raised his arm; but
before he could throw, Horse-Face had jumped on to the bed and caught him by
the wrist.
'No,
s-stop!' he said. 'Stop.' And he caught also at Thompson's arm. Leaning over Staithes's shoulder, Anthony
threw as hard as he could. Goggler
ducked. The slipper thumped against the
wooden partition behind him.
'B-beavis!'
cried Horse-Face so reproachfully, that Anthony felt a sudden twinge of
shame.
'It
didn't hit him,' he said, by way of excuse; and for some queer reason found
himself thinking of that horrible deep hole in Lollingdon churchyard.
Staithes
had found his tongue again. 'I don't
know what you think you're doing, Horse-Face,' he said angrily, and jerked the
slipper out of Brian's hand. 'Why can't
you mind your own business.'
'It
isn't f-fair,' Brian answered.
'Yes,
it is.'
'F-five
against one.'
'But
you don't know what he was doing.'
'I
d-don't c-c-c ... don't m-mind.'
'You
would care, if you knew,' said Staithes; and proceeded to tell him what Goggler
had been doing as dirtily as he knew how.
Brian
dropped his eyes and his cheeks went suddenly very red. To have to listen to smut always made him
feel miserable miserable and at the same time ashamed of himself.
'Look
at old Horse-Face blushing!' called Partridge; and they all laughed none more
derisively than Anthony. For Anthony had
had time to feel ashamed of his shame; time to refuse to think about that hole
in Lollingdon churchyard; time, too, to find himself all of a sudden almost
hating old Horse-Face. 'For being so
disgustingly pi,' he would have said, if somebody had asked him to explain his
hatred. Horse-Face, it was because
Horse-Face was so extraordinarily decent; because Horse-Face had the courage of
his convictions which Anthony felt should be his convictions which,
indeed, would be his convictions if only he could bring himself to have the
courage of them. It was just because he
liked Horse-Face so much, that he now hated him. Or, rather, because there were so many
reasons why he should like him so few reasons, on the contrary, why
Horse-Face should return the liking.
Horse-Face was rich with all sorts of fine qualities that he himself
either lacked completely or else, which was worse, possessed, but somehow was
incapable of manifesting. That sudden
derisive burst of laughter was the expression of a kind of envious resentment
against a superiority which he loved and admired. Indeed, the love and the admiration in some
sort produced the resentment and the envy produced, but ordinarily kept them
below the surface in an unconscious abeyance, from which, however, some crisis
like the present would suddenly call them.
'You
should have seen him,' concluded Staithes.
Now that he felt in a better humour he laughed he could afford to
laugh.
'In
his truss,' Anthony added, in a tone of sickened contempt. Goggler's rupture was an aggravation of the
offence.
'Yes,
in his beastly old truss!' Staithes confirmed approvingly. There was no doubt about it; combined as it
was with the spectacles and the timidity, that truss made the throwing of
slippers not only inevitable, but right, a moral duty.
'He's
disgusting,' Anthony went on, warming pleasantly to his righteous indignation.
For
the first time since Staithes had started on his description of Goggler's
activities Brian looked up. 'B-but w-why
is he more disg-gusting than anyone else?' he asked in a low voice. 'A-after all,' he went on, and the blood came
rushing back into his cheeks as he spoke, 'he i-isn't the ... the o-only one.'
There
was a moment's uncomfortable silence. Of
course he wasn't the only one. But he
was the only one, they were all thinking, who had a truss, and goggles, and a
vest that was too short for him; the only one who did it in broad daylight and
let himself be caught at it. There was
a difference.
Staithes
counter-attacked on another front.
'Sermon by the Reverend Horse-Face!' he said jerkingly, and at once
recovered the initiative, the position of superiority. 'Gosh!' he added in another tone, 'it's
late. We must buck up.'
CHAPTER
VII
From A.B.'s diary.
Conditioned reflex. What a lot of satisfaction I got out of old
Pavlov when first I read him. The ultimate
de-bunking of all human pretensions. We
were all dogs and bitches together.
Bow-row, sniff the lamp-post, lift the leg, bury the bone. No nonsense about free will, goodness, truth
and all the rest. Each age had its
psychological revolutionaries. La
Mettrie, Hume, Condillac, and finally the Marquis de Sade, latest and most
sweeping of the eighteenth-century de-bunkers.
Perhaps, indeed, the ultimate and absolute revolutionary. But few have the courage to follow the
revolutionary argument to Sade's conclusions.
Meanwhile, science did not stand still.
Dix-huitiθme de-bunking, apart from Sade, proved inadequate. The nineteenth century had to begin
again. Marx and the Darwinians. Who are still with us Marx obsessively
so. Meanwhile the twentieth century has
produced yet another lot of de-bunkers Freud and, when he began to flag,
Pavlov and the Behaviourists.
Conditioned reflex: - it seemed, I remember, to put the lid of
everything. Whereas actually, of course,
it merely restated the doctrine of free will.
For if reflexes can be conditioned, then, obviously, they can be
re-conditioned. Learning to use the self
properly, when one has been using it badly what is it but re-conditioning
one's reflexes?
Lunched
with my father. More cheerful than I've
seen him recently, but old and, oddly, rather enjoying it. Make much of getting out of his chair with
difficulty, of climbing very slowly up the stairs. A way, I suppose, of increasing his sense of
importance. Perhaps also a way of
commanding sympathy whenever he happens to want it. Baby cries so that mother shall come and make
a fuss of him. It goes on from the
cradle to the grave. Miller says of old
age that it's largely a bad habit. Use
conditions function. Walk about as if
you were a martyr to rheumatism and you'll impose such violent muscular strains
upon yourself that a martyr to rheumatism you'll really be. Behave like an old man and your body will
function like an old man's, you'll think and feel as an old man. The lean and slippered pantaloon literally
a part that one plays. If you refuse to
play it and learn how to act on your refusal, you won't become a
pantaloon. I suspect this is largely
true. Anyhow, my father is playing his
present part with gusto. One of the
great advantages of being old, provided that one's economic position is
reasonably secure and one's health not too bad, is that one can afford to be
serene. The grave is near, one has made
a habit of not feeling anything very strongly; it's easy, therefore, to take
the God's-eye view of things. My father
took it about peace, for example. Yes,
men were mad, he agreed; there would be another war quite soon about 1940, he
thought. (A date, significantly, when he was practically certain to be dead!)
Much worse than the last war, yes; and would probably destroy the civilization
of Western Europe. But did it really
matter so much? Civilization would go on
in other continents, would build itself up anew in the devastated areas. Our timescale was all wrong. We should think of ourselves, not as living
in the thirties of the twentieth century, but as at a point between two ice
ages. And he ended up by quoting Goethe
ales Vergδngliche ist nur ein Gleichniss. All which is doubtless quite true, but not
the whole truth. Query: how to combine
believe that the world is to a great extent illusory with belief that it is
nonetheless essential to improve the illusion?
How to be simultaneously dispassionate and not indifferent, serene like
an old man and active like a young one?
CHAPTER
VIII
'These vile horseflies!' Helen rubbed the reddening spot on her
arm. Anthony made no comment. She looked at him for a little in silence. 'What a lot of ribs you've got!' she said at
last.
'Schizothyme
physique,' he answered from behind the arm with which he was shielding his face
from the light. ''That's why I'm
here. Predestined by the angle of my
ribs.'
'Predestined
to what?'
'To
sociology; and in the intervals to this.'
He raised his hand, made a little circular gesture and let it fall again
on the mattress.
'But
what's this?' she insisted.
'This?'
Anthony repeated. 'Well ...' He hesitated.
But it would take too long to talk about that temperamental divorce
between the passions and the intellect, those detached sensualities, those
sterilized ideas. 'Well, you,' he
brought out at last.
'Me?'
'Oh,
I admit it might have been someone else,' he said, and laughed, genuinely
amused by his own cynicism.
Helen
also laughed, but with a surprising bitterness.
'I am somebody else.'
'Meaning
what?' he asked, uncovering his face to look at her.
'Meaning
what I say. Do you think I should
be here the real I?'
'Real
I!' he mocked. 'You're talking like a
theosophist.'
'And
you're talking like a fool,' she said.
'On purpose. Because, of course,
you aren't one.' There was a long
silence. I, real I? But where, but how, but at what price? Yes, above all, at what price? Those Cavells and Florence Nightingales. But it was impossible, that sort of thing; it
was, above all, ridiculous. She frowned
to herself, she shook her head; then, opening her eyes, which had been shut,
looked for something in the external world to distract her from these useless
and importunate thoughts within. The
foreground was all Anthony. She looked
at him for a moment; then reaching out with a kind of fascinated reluctance, as
though towards some irresistibly strange but distasteful animal, she touched
the pink crumpled skin of the great scar that ran diagonally across his thigh,
an inch or two above the knee. 'Does it
still hurt?' she asked.
'When
I'm run down. And sometimes in wet
weather.' He raised his head a little
from the mattress and, at the same time bending his right knee, examined the
scar. 'A touch of the Renaissance,' he
said reflectively. 'Slashed trunks.'
Helen
shuddered. 'It must have been
awful!' Then, with a sudden vehemence,
'How I hate pain!' she cried, and her tone was one of passionate, deeply
personal resentment. 'Hate it,' she
repeated for all the Cavells and Nightingales to hear.
She
had pushed him back into the past again.
That autumn day at Tidworth eighteen years before. Bombing instruction. An imbecile recruit had thrown short. The shouts, his panic start, the blow. Oddly remote it all seemed now, and
irrelevant, like something seen through the wrong end of a telescope. And even the pain, all the months of pain,
had shrunk almost to non-existence.
Physically, it was the worst thing that had ever happened to him and
the lunatic in charge of his memory had practically forgotten it.
'One
can't remember pain,' he said aloud.
'I
can.'
'No,
you can't. You can only remember its
occasion, its accompaniments.'
Its
occasion at the midwife's in the rue de la Tombe-Issoire, its accompaniments of
squalor and humiliation. Her face
hardened as she listened to his words.
'You
can never remember its actual quality,' he went on. 'No more than you can remember the quality of
a physical pleasure. Today, for example,
half an hour ago you can't remember.
There's nothing like a re-creation of the event. Which is lucky.' He was smiling now. 'Think, if one could fully remember perfumes
or kisses! How wearisome the reality of
them would be! And what woman with a
memory would ever have more than one baby?'
Helen
stirred uneasily. 'I can't imagine how
any woman ever does,' she said in a low voice.
'As
it is,' he went on, 'the pains and pleasures are new each time they're
experienced. Brand new. Every gardenia is the first gardenia you ever
smelt. And every confinement ...'
'You're
talking like a fool again,' she interrupted angrily. 'Confusing the issue.'
'I
thought I was clarifying it,' he protested.
'And anyhow, what is the issue?'
'The
issue's me, you, real life, happiness.
And you go chattering away about things in the air. Like a fool!'
'And
what about you?' he asked. 'Are you such
a clever one at real life? Such an
expert in happiness?'
In
the mind of each of them his words evoked the image of a timorous figure,
ambushed behind spectacles.
That
marriage! What one earth could have
induced her? Old Hugh, of course, had
been sentimentally in love. But was that
a sufficient reason? And, afterwards,
what sort of disillusions? Physiological,
he supposed, for the most part. Comic,
when you thought of them in relation to old Hugh. The corners of Anthony's mouth faintly
twitched. But for Helen, of course, the
joke could only have been disastrous. He
would have liked to know the details but at second hand, on condition of not
having to ask for or be offered her confidences. Confidences were dangerous, confidences were
entangling like flypaper; yes, like flypaper ...
Helen
sighed; then, squaring her shoulders and in a tone of resolution, 'Two blacks
don't make a white,' she said. 'Besides,
I'm my own affair.'
Which
was all for the best, he thought. There
was a silence.
'How
long were you in hospital with that wound?' she asked in another tone.
'Nearly
ten months. It was disgustingly
infected. They had to operate six times
altogether.'
'How
horrible!'
Anthony
shrugged his shoulders. At least it had
preserved him from those trenches. But
for the grace of God .... 'Queer,' he added, 'what unlikely forms the grace of
God assumes sometimes! A half-witted
bumpkin with a hand-grenade. But for him
I should have been shipped out to France and slaughtered almost to a
certainty. He saved my life.' Then, after a pause, 'My freedom too,' he
added. 'I'd let myself be fuddled by
those beginning-of-war intoxications.
Honour has come back, as a king, to earth. But I suppose you're too young ever to have
heard of poor Rupert. It seemed to make
sense then, in 1914. Honour has come
back ... But he failed to mention that stupidity had come back too. In hospital, I had all the leisure to think
of that other royal progress through the earth.
Stupidity has come back, as a king no; as an emperor, as a divine
Fόhrer of all the Aryans. It was a
sobering reflection. Sobering and profoundly
liberating. And I owed it to the
bumpkin. He was one of the great
Fόhrer's most faithful subjects.' There
was a silence. 'Sometimes I feel a bit
nervous like Polycrates because I've had so much luck in my life. All occasions always seem to have conspired for
me. Even this occasion.' He touched the scar. 'Perhaps I ought to do something to allay the
envy of the gods throw a ring into the sea next time I go bathing.' He uttered a little laugh. 'The trouble is, I don't possess a ring.'
CHAPTER
IX
At Paddington, Mr Beavis and Anthony got
into an empty third-class compartment and waited for the train to start. For Anthony a railway journey was still
profoundly important, still a kind of sacrament. The male soul, in immaturity, is naturaliter
ferrovialis. This huge and god-like
green monster, for example, that now came snorting into the station and drew up
at Platform I but for Watt and Stephenson it would never have rolled thus
majestically into its metropolitan cathedral of sooty glass. But the intensity of delight which Anthony
felt as he watched the divine creature approach, as he breathed its stink of
coal smoke and hot oil, as he heard and almost unconsciously imitated the ch-ff,
ch-ff, ch-ff of its steamy panting, was a sufficient proof that the boyish
heart must have been, in some mysterious way, prepared for the advent of
Puffing Billy and the Rocket, that the actual locomotive, when it appeared,
must have corresponded (how satisfyingly!) with some dim prophetic image of a
locomotive, pre-existing in the mind of children from the beginning of
palaeolithic time. Ch-ff, ch-ff; then
silence; then the terrible, the soul-annihilating roar of escaping steam. Wonderful!
Lovely!
Bonneted,
in black, like a pair of Queen Victorias, two fat and tiny old ladies passed
slowly, looking for a compartment where they would not have their throats cut
or be compelled to listen to bad language.
Mr Beavis looked very respectable indeed. They paused, held a consultation; but, leaning
out of the window, Anthony made such a face at them that they moved away
again. He smiled triumphantly. Keeping the compartment to oneself was one of
the objects of the sacred game of travelling was the equivalent, more or
less, of a Royal Marriage at bezique; you scored forty, so to speak, each time
you left a station without a stranger in your carriage. Having lunch in the dining-car counted as
much as a Sequence two hundred and fifty.
And Double Bezique but this, as yet, Anthony had never scored was
being in a sleeping carriage.
The
guard whistled, the train began to move.
'Hurrah!'
Anthony shouted.
The
game had begun well: a Royal Marriage in the very first round. But a few minutes later he was regretting
those two old ladies. For, rousing
himself suddenly from his abstracted silence, John Beavis leaned forward and,
touching his son's knee, 'Do you remember what day of the month it is?' he
asked in a low and, to Anthony, inexplicably significant tone.
Anthony
looked at him doubtfully; then started to overact the part of the Calculator,
frowning over a difficult problem. There
was something about his father that seemed to make such overacting inevitable.
'Let
me see,' he said unnaturally, 'we broke up on the thirty-first or was it the
thirtieth? That was Saturday, and
today's Monday ...'
'Today's
the second,' said his father in the same slow voice.
Anthony
felt apprehensive. If his father knew
the date, why had he asked?
'It's
exactly five months today,' Mr Beavis went on.
Five
months? And then, with a sudden
sickening drop of the heart, Anthony realized what his father was talking
about. The Second of November, the
Second of April. It was five months
since she had died.
'Each
second of the month one tried to keep the day sacred.'
Anthony
nodded and turned his eyes away with a sense of guilty discomfort.
'Bound
each to each by natural piety,' said Mr Beavis.
What
on earth was he talking about now? And,
oh, why, why did he have to say these things?
So awful; so indecent yes, indecent; one didn't know where to
look. Like the times when Granny's
stomach made those awful bubbling noises after meals ...
Looking
into his son's averted face, Mr Beavis perceived signs of resistance and was
hurt, was saddened, and felt the sadness turn into an obscure resentment that
Anthony should not suffer so acutely as he did.
Of course the child was still very young, not yet able to realize the
full extent of his loss; but all the same, all the same ...
To
Anthony's unspeakable relief the train slowed down for its first stop. The suburbs of Slough passed slowly and ever
slowlier before his eyes. Against all
the rules of the sacred game, he prayed that somebody might get into their
compartment. And, thank heaven, somebody
did get in a gross, purple-faced man whom on any other occasion Anthony would
have hated. Today he loved him.
Shielding
his eyes with his hand, Mr Beavis retired again into a private world of
silence.
In
the carriage, on the way from Twyford station, his father added insult to
injury.
'You
must always be on your very best behaviour,' he recommended.
'Of
course,' said Anthony curtly.
'And
always be punctual,' Mr Beavis continued.
'And don't be greedy at meal-times.'
He hesitated, smiled in anticipation of what he was about to say, then
launched his colloquialism: 'however excellent the grub may be.' There was a little silence. 'And be polite to Abigail,' he added.
They
turned off the road into a drive that wound between tall shrubberies of
rhododendrons. Then, across an expanse
of tree-islanded grass, appeared a faηade of Georgian stucco. The house was not large, but solid,
comfortable and at the same time elegant.
Built, you divined, by someone who could quote Horace, aptly, on every
occasion. Rachel Foxe's father, Mr
Beavis reflected, as he looked at it, must have left quite a lot of money. Naval architecture and didn't the old boy
invent something that the Admiralty took up?
Foxe, too, had been well off: something to do with coal. (How charming
those daffodils looked in the grass there, under the tree!) But a dour, silent,
humourless man who had not, Mr Beavis remembered, understood his little
philological joke about the word 'pencil.'
Though if he'd known at the time that the poor fellow had a duedenal
ulcer, he certainly wouldn't have risked it.
Mrs
Foxe and Brian came to meet them as the carriage drew up. The boys went off together. Mr Beavis followed his hostess into the
drawing-room. She was a tall woman,
slender and very upright, with something so majestic in her carriage, so nobly
austere in the lines and expression of her face, that Mr Beavis always felt
himself slightly intimidated and ill at ease in her presence.
'It
was so very good of you to ask us,' he said.
'And I can't tell you how much it will mean for ...' he hesitated for an
instant; then (since it was the second of the month), with a little shake of
the head and in a lower tone, 'for this poor motherless little fellow of mine,'
he went on, 'to spend his holidays here with you.'
Her
clear brown eyes had darkened, as he spoke, with a sympathetic distress. Always firm, always serious, the coming
together of her full, almost floridly sculptured lips expressed more than ordinary
gravity. 'But I'm so delighted to have
him,' she said in a voice that was warm and musically vibrant with
feeling. 'Selfishly glad for Brian's
sake.' She smiled, and he noticed that
even when she smiled her mouth seemed somehow to preserve, through all its
sensibility, its profound capacity for suffering and enjoyment, that
seriousness, that determined purity which characterized it in repose. 'Yes, selfishly,' she repeated. 'Because, when he's happy, I am.'
Mr
Beavis nodded; then, sighing, 'One's thankful,' he said, 'to have as much left
to one as that the reflection of someone else's happiness.' Magnanimously, he was giving Anthony the
right not to suffer though of courser when the boy was a little older, when
he could realize more fully ...
Mrs
Foxe did not continue the conversation.
There was something rather distasteful to her in his words and manner,
something that jarred upon her sensibilities.
But she hastened to banish the disagreeable impression from her
mind. After all, the important, the
essential fact was that the poor man had suffered, was still suffering. The false note, if falsity there were, was
after the fact in the mere expression of the suffering.
She
proposed a stroll before tea, and they walked through the garden and out into
the domesticated wilderness of grass and trees beyond. In a glade of the little copse that bounded
the property to the north, three crippled children were picking primroses. With a gruesome agility they swung themselves
on their crutches from clump to clump of the pale golden flowers, yelling as
they went in shrill discordant rapture.
They
were staying, Mrs Foxe explained, in one of her cottages. 'Three of my cripples,' she called them.
At
the sound of her voice the children looked up, and at once came hopping across
the open space towards her.
'Look,
Miss, look what I found?'
'Look
here, Miss!'
'What's
this called, Miss?'
She
answered their questions, asked others in return, promised to come that evening
to see them.
Feeling
that he too ought to do something for the cripples, Mr Beavis began to tell
them about the etymology of the word 'primrose.' Primerole in Middle English,' he
explained. 'The rose crept in by
mistake.' They stared at him
uncomprehendingly. 'A mere popular blunder,'
he went on; then, twinkling, 'a howler,' he added. 'Like our old friend,' he smiled at them
knowingly, 'our friend causeway.'
There
was a silence. Mrs Foxe changed the
subject.
'Poor
little mites!' she said, when at last they let her go. 'They're so happy, they make one want to
cry. And then, after a week, one has to
pack them off again. 'Back to their
slum. It seems too cruel. But what can one do? There are so many of them. One can't keep one lot at the expense of the
others.'
They
walked on for a time in silence, and Mrs Foxe found herself suddenly thinking
that there were also cripples of the spirit.
People with emotions so lame and rickety that they didn't know how to
feel properly; people with some kind of hunch or deformity in their power of
expression. John Beavis perhaps was one
of them. But how unfair she was
being! How presumptuous too! Judge not that ye be not judged. And anyhow, if it were true, that would only
be another reason for feeling sorry for him.
'I
think it must be tea-time,' she said aloud; and, to prevent herself from
passing any more judgments, she started to talk to him about those Cripple
Schools she had been helping to organize in Notting Dale and St Pancras. She described the cripple's life at home
the parents out at work; not a glimpse of a human face from morning till night;
no proper food; no toys, no books, nothing to do but to lie still and wait
for what? Then she told him about the
ambulance that now went round to fetch the children to school, about the
special desks, the lessons, the arrangements for supplying a decent dinner.
'And
our reward,' she said, as she opened the door into the house, 'is that same
heartbreaking happiness I was speaking of just now. I can't help feeling it as a kind of
reproach, an accusation. Each time I see
that happiness, I ask myself what right I have to be in a position to give so
easily, just by spending a little money and taking a tiny bit of pleasant
trouble. Yes, what right?' Her warm clear voice trembled a little as she
uttered the question. She raised her
hands in an interrogative gesture, then let them fall again and walked quickly
into the drawing-room.
Mr
Beavis followed her in silence. A kind
of tingling warmth had expanded within him as he listened to her last
words. It was like the sensation he had
when he read the last scene of Measure for Measure, or listened to
Joachim in the Beethoven Concerto.
Mr
Beavis could only stay two nights. There
was an important meeting of the Philological Society. And then, of course, his work on the
Dictionary. 'The old familiar grind,' he
explained to Mrs Foxe in a tone of affected self-pity and with a sigh that was
hardly even meant to carry conviction.
The truth was that he enjoyed his work, would have felt lost without
it. 'And you're really sure,' he added,
'that Anthony won't be too much of a burden for you?'
'Burden? But look!'
And she pointed through the window to where the two boys were playing
bicycle polo on the lawn. 'And it's not only that,' she went on. 'I've really come to be very much attached to
Anthony in these two days. There's
something so deeply touching about him. He
seems so vulnerable somehow. In spite of
all that cleverness and good sense and determination of his. There's part of him that seems terribly at
the mercy of the world.' Yes, at its
mercy, she repeated to herself, thinking, as she did so, of that broad and
candid forehead, of those almost tremulously sensitive lips, of that slight,
unforceful chin. He could be easily
hurt, easily led astray. Each time he
looked at her, he made her feel almost guiltily responsible for him.
'And
yet,' said Mr Beavis, 'there are times when he seems strangely
indifferent.' The memory of that episode
in the train had not ceased to rankle.
For though, of course, he wanted the child to be happy, though he had
decided that the only happiness he himself could not henceforward would come
from the contemplation of the child's happiness, the old resentment still
obscurely persisted: he felt aggrieved because Anthony had not suffered more,
because he seemed to resist and reject suffering when it was brought to
him. 'Strangely indifferent,' he
repeated.
Mrs
Foxe nodded. 'Yes,' she said, 'he wears
a kind of armour. Covers up his
vulnerability in the most exposed place and at the same time uncovers it
elsewhere, so that the slighter wounds shall act as a kind of distraction, a
kind of counter-irritant. It's
self-protection. And yet' (her voice
deepened, thrillingly), 'and yet I believe that in the long run he'd be better
and spiritually healthier, yes, and happier too, if he could bring himself to
do just the opposite if he'd armour himself against the little distracting
wounds of pain, and expose his vulnerableness only to the great and piercing
blows.'
'How
true that is!' said Mr Beavis, who found that her words applied exactly to
himself.
There
was a silence. Then, harking back to her
original question, 'No, no,' said Mrs Foxe with decision, 'so far from feeling
him as a burden, I'm really enchanted to have him here. Not only for what he is in himself, but also
for what he is to Brian and incidentally for what Brian is to him. It's delightful to see them. I should like them to be together every holidays.' Mrs Foxe paused for a moment; then,
'Seriously, she went on, 'if you've made no plans for the summer, why don't you
think of this? We've taken a little
house at Tenby for August. Why shouldn't
you and Anthony find a place there too?'
Mr
Beavis thought the idea an excellent one; and the boys, when it was broached to
them, were delighted.
So
it's only goodbye till August,' said Mrs Foxe as she saw him off. 'Though of course,' she added, with a warmth
that was all the greater for being the result of a deliberate effort of
cordiality, 'of course we shall meet before then.'
The
carriage rattled away down the drive; and for a hundred yards or more Anthony
ran beside it, shouting 'Goodbye' and waving his handkerchief with a vehemence
that Mr Beavis took as the sign of a corresponding intense regret to see him
go. In fact, however, it was just a
manifestation of overflowing energy and high spirits. Circumstances had filled him, body and mind,
with the deep joy of being happily alive.
This joy required physical expression, and his father's departure gave
him an excuse for running and waving his arms.
Mr Beavis was extremely touched.
But if only, he went on sadly to think, if only there were some way of
canalizing this love, and his own for the boy, so that it might irrigate the
aridities of their daily intercourse!
Women understood these things so much better. It had been touching to see how the poor
child had responded to Mrs Foxe's affection.
And perhaps, he went on to speculate, perhaps it was just because there
had been no woman to direct his feelings that Anthony had seemed to be so
uncaring. Perhaps a child could never
adequately mourn his mother for the very reason that he was motherless. It was a vicious circle. Mrs Foxe's influence would be good, not only
in this matter, but in a thousand other ways as well. Mr Beavis sighed. If only it were possible for a man and a
woman to associate; not in marriage, but for a common purpose, for the sake of
motherless, of fatherless, children! A
good woman admirable, extraordinary even.
But in spite of that (almost because of that), it could only be an
association for a common purpose. Never
a marriage. And anyhow there was Maisie
waiting for him there; he would not fail ... But an association for the sake
of the children that would be no betrayal.
Anthony
walked back to the house whistling 'The Honeysuckle and the Bee.' He was fond of his father found, it is
true, by force of habit, as one is fond of one's native place, or its traditional
cooking but still, genuinely fond of him.
Which did nothing, however, to diminish the discomfort he always felt in
Mr Beavis's presence.
'Brian!'
he shouted, as he approached the house shouted a bit self-consciously; for it
seemed queer to be calling him Brian instead of Foxe or Horse-Face. Rather unmanly, even a shade discreditable.
Brian's
answering whistle came from the school-room.
'I
vote we take the bikes,' Anthony called.
At
school, people used to mock at old Horse-Face for his bird mania. 'I say, you fellows,' Staithes would say,
taking Horse-Face by the arm, 'guess what I saw today! Two spew-tits and a piddle-warbler.' And a great howl of laughter would go up a
howl in which Anthony always joined. But
here, where there was nobody to shame him out of being interested in
spring-migrants and nest-boxes and heronries, he took to bird-watching with
enthusiasm. Coming in, wet and muddy
from the afternoon's walk, 'Do you know what we heard, Mrs Foxe?' he would ask
triumphantly, before poor Brian had had time to get out a stammered word. 'The first whitethroat!' or 'The first willow
wren!' and Rachel Foxe would say, 'How splendid!' in such a way that he was
filled with pride and happiness. It was
as though those piddle-warblers had never existed.
After
tea, when the curtains had been drawn and the lamps brought in, Mrs Foxe would
read to them. Anthony, who had always
been bored to death by Scott, found himself following the 'Fortunes of Nigel'
with the most passionate attention.
Easter
approached, and, for the time being, 'Nigel' was put away. Mrs Foxe gave them readings, instead, from
the New Testament. 'And he saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto
death: tarry ye here, and watch. And he
went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were
possible, the hour might pass from him.
And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away
this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.' The lamplight was a round island in the
darkness of the room, and towards it, from the fire, projected a vague
promontory of luminous redness. Anthony
was lying on the floor, and from the high Italian chair beside the lamp the
words came down to him, transfigured, as it were, by that warm, musical voice,
charged with significances he had never heard or seen in them before. 'And it was the third hour, and they
crucified him.' In the ten heartbeats of
silence that followed he seemed to hear the blows of the hammer on the
nails. Thud, thud, thud ... He passed
the fingers of one hand across the smooth palm of the other; his body went
rigid with horror, and through the stiffened muscles passed a violent spasm of
shuddering.
'And
when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the
ninth hour.' Mrs Foxe lowered her
book. 'That's one of those additions I
was telling you about,' she said, 'one of those embroideries on the story. One must think of the age in which the
writers of the gospels lived. They
believed these things could happen; and, what's more, they thought they ought
to happen on important occasions. They
wanted to do honour to Jesus; they wanted to make his story seem more
wonderful. But to us, nowadays, these
things make it seem less wonderful; and we don't feel that they do him
honour. The wonderful thing for us,' she
went on, and her voice thrilled with a deep note of fervour, 'is that Jesus was
a man, no more able to do miracles and no more likely to have them done for him
than the rest of us. Just a man and
yet he could do what he did, he could be what he was. That's the wonder.'
There
was a long silence; only the clock ticked and the flame rustled silkily in the
grate. Anthony lay on his back and
stared at the ceiling. Everything was suddenly
clear. Uncle James was right; but the
other people were right too. She had
shown how it was possible for both of them to be right. Just a man and yet ... Oh, he too, he too
would do and be!
Mrs
Foxe picked up the book once more. The
thin pages crackled as she turned them.
'Now
upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the
sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with
them. And they found the stone rolled
away from the sepulchre.'
The
stone ... But at Lollingdon there was earth; and only ashes in that little box
that little box no bigger than a biscuit tin.
Anthony shut his eyes in the hope of excluding the odious vision; but
against the crimson darkness the horns, the triangular frizz of auburn curls
stood out with an intenser vividness. He
lifted his hand to his mouth, and, to punish himself, began to bite the
forefinger, harder, harder, until the pain was almost intolerable.
That
evening, when she came to say goodnight to him, Mrs Foxe sat down on the edge
of Anthony's bed and took his hand. 'You
know, Anthony,' she said after a moment of silence, 'you mustn't be afraid of
thinking about her.'
'Afraid?'
he mumbled, as though he hadn't understood.
But he had understood understood, perhaps, more than she had
meant. The blood rushed guiltily into
his cheeks. He felt frightened, as
though somehow she had trapped him, found him out frightened and therefore
resentful.
'You
mustn't be afraid of suffering,' she went on. 'Thinking about her will make you sad: that's
inevitable. And it's right. Sadness is necessary sometimes like an
operation; you can't be well without it.
If you think about her, you condemn her to a second death. The spirit of the dead lives on in God. But it also lives on in the minds of the
living helping them, making them better and stronger. The dead can only have this kind of
immortality if the living are prepared to give it them. Will you give it her, Anthony?'
Mutely,
and in tears, he nodded his answer. It
was not so much the words that had reassured him as the fact that the words
were hers and had been uttered in that compelling voice. His fears were allayed, his suspicious
resentment died down. He felt safe with
her. Safe to abandon himself to the sobs
that now mounted irresistibly in his throat.
'Poor
little Anthony!' She stroked his
hair. 'Poor little Anthony! There's no help for it; it'll always hurt
always. You'll never be able to think of
her without some pain. Even time can't
take away all the suffering, Anthony.'
She
paused, and for a long minute sat there in silence, thinking of her father,
thinking of her husband. The old man, so
massive, so majestic, like a prophet then in his wheelchair, paralyzed and
strangely shrunken, his head on one side, dribbling over his white beard,
hardly able to speak
And the man she had married, out of admiration for his
strength, out of respect for his uprightness; had married, and then discovered
that she did not, could not love. For
the strength, she had found, was cold and without magnanimity; the uprightness,
harsh and cruel uprightness. And the
pain of the long last illness had hardened and embittered him. He had died implacable, resisting her
tenderness to the last.
'Yes,
there'll always be pain and sadness,' she went on at last. 'And after all,' a warm note of pride, almost
of defiance, came into her voice, 'can one wish that it should be
otherwise? You wouldn't want to forget
your mother, would you, Anthony? Or not
to care any more? Just in order to
escape a little suffering. You wouldn't
want that?'
Sobbing,
he shook his head. And it was quite
true. At this moment he didn't want to
escape. It was in some obscure way a
relief to be suffering this extremity of sorrow. And he loved her because she had known how to
make him suffer.
Mrs
Foxe bent down and kissed him. 'Poor
little Anthony!' she kept repeating.
'Poor little Anthony!'
It
rained on Good Friday; but on Saturday the weather changed, and Easter Day was symbolically
golden, as though on purpose, as though in a parable. Christ's resurrection and the rebirth of
Nature two aspects of an identical mystery.
The sunshine, the clouds, like fragments of marbly sculpture in the pale
blue sky, seemed, in some profound and inexpressible way, to corroborate all
that Mrs Foxe had said.
They
did not go to church; but, sitting on the lawn, she read aloud, first a bit of
the service for Easter Day, then some extracts from Renan's Life of Jesus. The tears came into Anthony's eyes as he
listened, and he felt an unspeakable longing to be good, to do something fine
and noble.
On
the Monday, a party of slum children were brought down to spend the day in the
garden and the copse. At Bulstrode one
would have called them scadgers; and offensively ignored their existence. Beastly little scadgers; and when they were
older, they would grow into louts and cads.
Here, however, it was different.
Mrs Foxe transformed the scadgers into unfortunate children who would
probably never get a second glimpse of the country in all the year.
'Poor
kids!' Anthony said to her when they arrived.
But in spite of the compassion he was doing his level best to feel, in
spite of his determined goodwill, he was secretly afraid of these stunted yet
horribly mature little boys with whom he had offered to play, he feared and
disliked them. They seemed immeasurably
foreign. Their patched, stained clothes,
their shapeless boots, were like a differently coloured skin; their cockney
might have been Chinese. The mere
appearance of them made him feel guiltily self-conscious. And then there was the way they looked at
him, with a derisive hatred of his new suit and his alien manners; there was
the way the bolder of them whispered together and laughed. When they laughed at Brian for his stammer,
he laughed with them; and in a little while they laughed no more, or laughed
only in a friendly and almost sympathetic way.
Anthony, on the contrary, pretended not to notice their mockery. A gentleman, he had always been taught
explicitly as well as by constant implication and the example of his elders, a
gentleman doesn't pay any attention to that kind of thing. It is beneath his dignity. He behaved as though their laughter were
non-existent. They went on laughing.
He
hated that morning of rounders and hide-and-seek. But worse was to follow at lunchtime. He had offered to help in the serving of the
table. The work in itself was
unobjectionable enough. But the smell of
poverty when the twenty children were assembled in the dining-room was so
insidiously disgusting like Lollingdon church, only much worse that he had
to slip out two or three times in the course of the meal to spit in the
lavatory basin. 'Reeking with germs!' he
heard his mother's angrily frightened voice repeating. 'Reeking with germs!' And when Mrs Foxe asked him a question, he
could only nod and make an inarticulate noise with his mouth shut; if he spoke,
he would have to swallow. Swallow
what? It was revolting only to think of
it.
'Poor
kids!' he said once more, as he stood with Mrs Foxe and Brian watching their
departure. ''Poor kids!' and felt all
the more ashamed of his hypocrisy when Mrs Foxe thanked him for having worked
so hard to entertain them.
And
when Anthony had gone up to the schoolroom, 'Thank you too, my darling,'
she said, turning to Brian. 'You were
really splendid.'
Flushing
with pleasure, Brian shook his head. 'It
was all y-you,' he said; and suddenly, because he loved her so much, because
she was good, so wonderful, he found his eyes full of tears.
Together
they walked out into the garden. Her
hand was on his shoulder. She smelt
faintly of eau-de-Cologne, and all at once (and this also, it seemed, was part
of her wonderfulness) the sun came out from behind a cloud.
'Look
at those heavenly daffodils!' she cried, in that voice that made everything she
said seem, to Brian, truer, in some strange way, than the truth itself. ' And
now my heart with pleasure fills
Do you remember, Brian?'
Flushed
and with bright eyes, he nodded. ' And d-dances ... '
'
Dances with the daffodils. ' She
pressed him closer to her. He was filled
with an unspeakable happiness. They
walked on in silence. Her skirts rustled
at every step like the sea, Brian thought; the sea at Ventnor, that time last
year, when he couldn't sleep at night because of the waves on the beach. Lying there in the darkness, listening to the
distant breathing of the sea, he had felt afraid and, above all, sad, terribly
sad. But, associated with his mother,
the memories of that fear, that profound and causeless sadness, became
beautiful; and at the same time, in some obscure way, they seemed to reflect
their new beauty back on to her, making her seem yet more wonderful in his
eyes. Rustling back and forth across the
sunny lawn, she took on some of the mysterious significance of the windy
darkness, the tirelessly returning waves.
'Poor
little Anthony!' said Mrs Foxe, breaking the long silence. 'It's hard, it's terribly hard.' Hard also for poor Maisie, she was thinking.
That graceful creature, with her languors, her silences, her dreamy
abstractions, and then her sudden bursts of laughing activity what had such a
one to do with death? Or with birth, for
that matter? Maisie with a child to bring
up it hardly made more sense than Maisie dead.
'It
must be t-t-t
' but 'terrible' wouldn't come, 'it must be d-dreadful,' said
Brian, laboriously circumventing the obstacle, while his emotion ran on ahead
in an imaginary outburst of unuttered and unutterable words, 'n-not to have a
m-mother.'
Mrs
Foxe smiled tenderly, and, bending down, laid her cheek for a moment again his
hair. 'Dreadful also not to have a son,'
she said, and realized, as she did so, that the words were even truer than she
had intended them to be that they were true on a plane of deeper, more
essential existence that that on which she was now moving. She had spoken for the present; but if it
would be terrible not to have him now, how incomparably more terrible it would
have been then, after her father had had his stroke and during the years
of her husband's illness! In that time
of pain and utter spiritual deprivation her love for Brain had been her only
remaining possession. Ah, terrible,
terrible indeed, then, to have no son!
CHAPTER
X
June
16th 1912
Books.
The table in Anthony's room was covered with them. The five folio volumes of Bayle, in the
English edition of 1738. Rickaby's translation
of the Summa contra Gentiles. De
Gourmont's Problθme du Style. The
Way of Perfection. Dostoevsky's Notes
from Underground. Three volumes of
Byron's Letters. The works of
St John of the Cross in Spanish. The plays of Wycherley. Lee's History of Sacerdotal Celibacy.
If
only, Anthony thought as he came in from his walk, if only one had two sets of
eyes! Janus would be able to read Candide
and the Imitation simultaneously.
Life was so short, and books so countlessly many. He pored voluptuously over the table, opening
at random now one volume, now another.
'He would not lie down,' he read; 'then his neck was too large for the
aperture, and the priest was obliged to drown his exclamations by still louder
exhortations. The head was off before
the eye could trace the blow; but from an attempt to draw back the head,
notwithstanding it was held forward by the hair, the first head was cut off
close to the ears; the other two were taken off more cleanly. The first turned me quite hot and thirsty and
made me shake so that I could hardly hold the opera glass
' 'Happiness being
the peculiar good of an intelligent nature, must attach to the intelligent
nature on the side of something that is peculiar to it. But appetite is not peculiar to intelligent
nature, but is found in all things, though diversely in diverse beings. The will, as being an appetite, is not a
peculiar appurtenance of an intelligent nature, except so far as it is
dependent on the intelligence; but intelligence in itself is peculiar to an
intelligent nature. Happiness therefore
consists in an act of the intellect substantially and principally rather than
in an act of the will
' 'Even in my most secret soul I have never been able to
think of love as anything but a struggle, which begins with hatred and ends with
moral subjection
' ' I will not be a cuckold, I say; there will be a danger
in making me a cuckold. Why, wert thou
well cured of thy last clap?
' 'La
primera noche o purgaciσn es amarga y terrible para el sentido, como ahora
diremos. La segunda no tiene comparaciσn, porque es horrenda y espantable para
el espνritu
' 'I think I have read
somewhere that preciseness has been carried so far that ladies would not say, J'ai
mangι des confitures, but des fitures. At this rate, above one half of the words of
the Dictionary of the French Academy should be struck out
'
In the end, Anthony settled down to The Way
of Perfection of St Teresa. When
Brian came in, an hour later, he had got as far as the Prayer of Quiet.
'B-busy?'
Brian asked.
Anthony
shook his head.
The
other sat down. 'I c-came to s-see if
there was anything more to s-settle about to-m-morrow.' Mrs Foxe and John Thursley, Mr and Mrs Beavis
were coming down to Oxford for the day.
Brian and Anthony had agreed to entertain them together.
Hock
or Sauterne cup? Lobster mayonnaise or
cold salmon? And if it rained, what
would be the best thing to do in the afternoon?
'Are
you c-coming to the F-fabians this evening?' Brian asked, when the discussion
of the next day's plans was at an end.
'Of
course,' said Anthony. There was to be
voting, that evening, for next term's president. 'It'll be a close fight between you and Mark
Staithes. You'll need all the votes you
can
'
Interrupting
him, 'I've st-stood down,' said Brian.
'Stood
down? But why?'
'V-various
reasons.'
Anthony
looked at him and shook his head. 'Not
that I'd have ever dreamt of putting up,' he said. 'Can't imagine anything more boring than to
preside over any kind of organization.'
Even belonging to an organization was bad enough. Why should one be bullied into making choices
when one didn't want to choose; into binding oneself to a set of principles
when it was so essential to be free; into committing oneself to associate with
other people when as likely as not one would want to be alone; into promising
in advance to be at given places at given times? It was with the greatest difficulty that
Brian had persuaded him to join the Fabians; for the rest he was unattached. 'Inconceivably boring,' he insisted. 'But still, once in the running, why stand
down?'
'Mark'll
be a b-better president than I.'
'He'll
be ruder, if that's what you mean.'
'B-besides,
he was so a-awfully k-keen on g-getting elected,' Brian began; then broke off,
suddenly conscience-stricken. Anthony
might think he was implying a criticism of Mark Staithes, was assuming the
right to patronize him. 'I mean, he
kn-knows he'll do the j-job so well,' he went on quickly. 'W-whereas I
So I r-really didn't see why
'
'In
fact you thought you might as well humour him.
'No,
n-no!' cried Brian in a tone of distress.
'Not th-that.'
'Cock
of the dunghill,' Anthony continued, ignoring the other's protest. 'He's got to be cock even if it's only of
the tiniest little Fabian dunghill.' He
laughed. 'Poor old Mark! What an agony when he can't get to the top of
his dunghill! One's lucky to prefer
books.' He patted St Teresa
affectionately. 'Still, I wish you
hadn't stood down. It would have made me
laugh to see Mark trying to pretend he didn't mind when you'd beaten him. You're reading a paper, aren't you,' he went
on, 'after the voting?'
Relieved
by the change of subject, Brian nodded.
'On Syn
' he began.
'On
sin?'
'Synd-dicalism.'
They
both laughed.
'Odd,
when you come to think of it,' said Anthony when their laughter subsided, 'that
the mere notion of talking to socialists about sin should seem so
well, so
outrageous, really. Sin
socialism.' He shook his head. 'It's like mating a duck with a zebra.'
'You
could t-talk about sin if you st-started from the other end.'
'Which
end?'
'The
s-social end. O-organizing s-society so
well that the i-individual simply c-couldn't commit any sins.'
'But
do you honestly think such a society could exist?'
'P-perhaps,'
said Brian doubtfully, but reflected that social change could hardly abolish
those ignoble desires of his, couldn't even legitimate those desires, except
within certain conventional limits. He
shook his head. 'N-no, I don't kn-know,'
he concluded.
'I
can't see that you could do more than just transfer people's sins from one
plane to another. But we've done that
already. Take envy and ambition, for
example. They used to express themselves
on the plane of physical violence. Now,
we've reorganized society in such a way that they have to express themselves
for the most part in terms of economic competition.'
'Which
we're g-going to ab-abolish.'
'And
so bring physical violence back into fashion, eh?'
'Th-that's
why you h-hope, d-don't you?' said Brian; and laughing, 'You're awful!'
he added.
There
was a silence. Absently, Brian picked up
The Way of \Perfection, and, turning over the pages, read a line here, a
paragraph there. Then with a sigh he
shut the book, put it back in its place and, shaking his head, 'I c-can't
understand,' he said, 'why you read this sort of st-stuff. S-seeing that you d-don't b-believe in it.'
'But
I do believe,' Anthony insisted. 'Not in
the orthodox explanation, of course. Those
are obviously idiotic. But in the
facts. And in the fundamental
metaphysical theory of mysticism.'
'You
m-mean that you can g-get at t-truth by some s-sort of d-direct union with it?'
Anthony
nodded. 'And the most valuable and
important sort of truth only in that way.'
Brian
sat for a time in silence, his elbows on his knees, his long face between his
hands, staring at the floor. Then,
without looking up, 'It s-seems to me,' he said at last, 'that you're r-running
with the h-hare and the h-h-h
and the h-h
'
'Hunting
for the hounds,' Anthony supplied.
The
other nodded. 'Using sc-scepticism
against r-religion ag-against any s-sort of i-idealism, really,' he added,
thinking of the barbed mockery with which Anthony loved to puncture any enthusiasm
that seemed to him excessive. 'And using
th-this st-stuff' he pointed to The Way of Perfection 'a-against
s-scientific argument, when it s-suits your b-b-b
' 'book' refused to come:
'when it s-suits you bee-double-o-kay.'
Anthony
relit his pipe before answering. 'Well,
why shouldn't one make the beset of both worlds?' he asked, as he threw the
spent match into the grate. 'Of all
the worlds. Why not?'
'W-well,
c-consistency, s-single-mindedness
'
'But
I don't value single-mindedness. I value
completeness. I think it's one's duty to
develop all one's potentialities all of them. Not stupidly stick to only one. Single-minded-ness!' he repeated. 'But oysters are single-minded. Ants are single-minded.'
'S-so
are s-saints.'
'Well,
that only confirms my determination not to be a saint.'
'B-but
h-how can you d-do anything if you're not s-single-minded? It's the f-first cond-dition of any
ach-achievement.'
'Who
tells you I want to achieve anything?' asked Anthony. 'I don't.
I want to be, completely.
And I want to know. And so
far as getting to know is doing, I accept the conditions of it,
single-mindedly.' With the stem of his
pipe he indicated the books on the table.
'You
d-don't accept the c-conditions of th-that kind of kn-knowing,' Brian
retorted, pointing once more at The Way of Perfection. 'P-praying and f-fasting and all th-that.'
'Because
it isn't knowing; it's a special kind of experience. There's all the difference in the world
between knowing and experiencing.
Between learning algebra, for example, and going to bed with a woman.'
Brian
did not smile. Still staring at the
floor, 'B-but you th-think,' he said, 'that m-mystical experience b-brings one
into c-contact with truth?'
'And
so does going to bed.'
'D-does
it?' Brian forced himself to ask. He
disliked this sort of conversation, disliked it more than ever now that he was
in love with Joan in love, and yet (he hated himself for it) desiring her
basely, wrongly
'If
it's the right woman,' the other answered with an airy knowingness, as though
he had experimented with every kind of female.
In fact, though he would have been ashamed to admit it, he was a virgin.
'S-so
you needn't b-bother about the f-fasting,' said Brian, suddenly ironical.
Anthony
grinned. 'I'm quite content with only knowing
about the way of perfection,' he said.
'I
think I should w-want to exp-experience it too,' said Brian, after a pause.
Anthony
shook his head. 'Not worth the price,'
he said. 'That's the trouble of all single-minded
activity; it costs you your liberty. You
find yourself driven into a corner.
You're a prisoner.'
'But
if you w-want to be f-free, you've g-got to be a p-prisoner. It's the c-condition of freedom t-true
freedom.'
'True
freedom!' Anthony repeated in the parody of a clerical voice. 'I always love that kind of argument. The contrary of a thing isn't the contrary;
oh, dear me, no! It's the thing itself,
but as it truly is. Ask a diehard
what conservatism is; he'll tell you it's true socialism. And the brewers' trade papers; they're full
of articles about the beauty of True Temperance. Ordinary temperance is just gross refusal to
drink; but true temperance, true temperance is something much
more refined. True temperance is a
bottle of claret with each meal and three double whiskies after dinner. Personally, I'm all for true temperance,
because I hate temperance. But I like
being free. So I won't have anything to
do with true freedom.'
'Which
doesn't p-prevent it from being t-true freedom,' the other obstinately
insisted.
'What's
in a name?' Anthony went on. 'The answer
is, Practically everything, if the name's a good one. Freedom's a marvellous name. That's why
you're so anxious to make use of it. You
think that, if you call imprisonment true freedom, people will be attracted to
the prison. And the worst of it is
you're quite right. The name counts more
with most people than the thing. They'll
follow the man who repeats it most often and in the loudest voice. And of course True Freedom is actually a
better name than freedom tout court.
Truth it's one of the magical words.
Combine it with the magic of freedom and the effect's terrific.' After a moment's silence, 'Curious,' he went
on, digressively and in another tone, 'that people don't talk about true
truth,' he repeated experimentally. 'No,
it obviously won't do. It's like
beri-beri, or Wagga-Wagga. Nigger
talk. You couldn't take it
seriously. If you want to make the
contrary of truth acceptable, you've got to call it spiritual truth, or inner
truth, or higher truth, or even
'
'But
a m-moment ago you were s-saying that there w-was a k-kind of higher
truth. S-something you could only g-get
at m-mystically. You're c-contradicting
yourself.'
Anthony
laughed. 'That's one of the privileges
of freedom. Besides,' he added, more
seriously, 'there's that distinction between knowing and experiencing. Known truth isn't the same as experienced truth. There ought to be two distinct words.'
'You
m-manage to wr-wriggle out of e-everything.'
'Not
out of everything,' Anthony insisted.
'There'll always be those.' He
pointed again to the books. 'Always
knowledge. The prison of knowledge
because of course knowledge is also a prison.
But I shall always be ready to stay in that prison.'
'A-always?'
Brian questioned.
'Why
not?'
'Too
m-much of a l-luxury.'
'On
the contrary. It's a case of scorning
delights and living laborious days.'
'Which are thems-selves del-lightful.'
'Of
course. But mayn't one take pleasure in
one's work?'
Brian
nodded. 'It's not exactly th-that,' he
said. 'One doesn't w-want to exp-ploit
one's p-privileges.'
'Mine's
only a little one,' said Anthony. 'About
six pounds a week,' he added, specifying the income that had come to him from
his mother.'
'P-plus
all the r-rest.'
'Which
rest?'
'The
l-luck that you happen to l-like this sort of thing.' He reached out and touched the folio
Bayles. 'And all your g-gifts.'
'But
I can't artificially make myself stupid,' Anthony objected. 'Nor can you.'
'N-no,
but we can use what we've g-got for s-something else.'
'Something
we're not suited for,' the other suggested sarcastically.
Ignoring
the mockery, 'As a k-kind of th-thank-offering,' Brian went on with a still
intenser passion of earnestness.
'For
what?'
'For
all that we've been g-given. M-money, to
start with. And then kn-knowledge,
t-taste, the power to c-c
' He wanted to say 'create,' but had to be content
with 'to do things.' 'B-being a scholar
or an artist it's l-like purs-suing your p-personal salvation. But there's also the k-kingdom of G-god. W-waiting to be realized.'
'By
the Fabians?' asked Anthony in a tone of pretended ingenuousness.
'Am-among
others.' There was a long half-minute of
silence. 'Shall I say it?' Brian was
wondering. 'Shall I tell him?' And suddenly, as though a dam had burst, his
irresolution was swept away. 'I've
decided,' he said aloud, and the feeling with which he spoke the words was so
strong that it lifted him, almost without his knowledge, to his feet and sent
him striding restlessly about the room, 'I've decided that I shall g-go on with
ph-philosophy and l-literature and h-history till I'm thirty. Then it'll be time to do something else. S-something more dir-rect.'
'Direct?'
Anthony repeated. 'In what way?'
'In
getting at p-people. In r-realizing the
k-kingdom of G-god
' The very intensity
of his desire to communicate what he was feeling reduced him to dumbness.
Listening
to Brian's words, looking up into the serious and ardent face, Anthony felt
himself touched, profoundly, to the quick of his being
felt himself touched,
and, for that very reason, came at once under a kind of compulsion, as though
in self-defence, to react to his own emotion, and his friend's, with a piece of
derision. 'Washing the feet of the poor,
for example,' he suggested. 'And drying
them on your hair. I'll be awkward if
you go prematurely bald.'
Afterwards,
when Brian had gone, he felt ashamed of his ignoble ribaldry humiliated, at
the same time, by the unreflecting automatism with which he had brought it
out. Like those pithed frogs that twitch
when you apply a drop of acid to their skin.
A brainless response.
'Damn!'
he said aloud, then picked up his book.
He
was deep once more in The Way of Perfection, when there was a thump at
the door and a voice, deliberately harshened so as to be like the voice of a
drill-sergeant on parade, shouted his name.
'These
bloody stairs of yours!' said Gerry Watchett as he came in. 'Why the devil do you live in such a filthy
hole?'
Gerry
Watchett was fair-skinned, with small, unemphatic features and wavy
golden-brown hair. A good-looking young
man, but good-looking, in spite of is height and powerful build, almost to
girlish prettiness. For the casual
observer, there was an air about him of Arcadian freshness and innocence,
strangely belied, however, upon a closer examination, by the hard insolence in
his blue eyes, by the faint smile of derision and contempt that kept returning
to his face, by the startling coarseness of those thick-fingered, short-nailed
hands.
Anthony
pointed to a chair. But the other shook
his head. 'No, I'm in a hurry. Just rushed in to say you've got to come to
dinner tonight.'
'But
I can't.'
Gerry
frowned. 'Why not?'
'I've
got a meeting of the Fabians.'
'And
you call that a reason for not coming to dine with me?'
'Seeing
I've promised to
'
'Then
I can expect you at eight?'
'But
really
'
'Don't
be a fool! What does it matter? A mother's meeting?'
'But
what excuse shall I give?
'Any
bloody thing you like. Tell them you've
just had twins.'
'All
right, then,' Anthony agreed at last.
'I'll come.'
'Thank
you very kindly,' said Gerry, with mock politeness. 'I'd have broken your neck if you
hadn't. Well, so long.' At the door he halted. 'I'm having Bimbo Abinger, and Ted, and
Willie Monmouth, and Scroope. I wanted
to get old Gorchakov too: but the fool's gone and got ill at the last moment. That's why I had to ask you,' he added with a
quiet matter-of-factness that was far more offensive than any emphasis could
have been; then turned, and was gone.
'Do
you l-like him?' Brian had asked one day when Gerry's name came up between
them. And because the question evoked an
uneasy echo in his own consciousness, Anthony had answered, with a quite
unnecessary sharpness, that of course he liked Gerry. 'Why else do you suppose I go about with
him?' he had concluded, looking at Brian with irritable suspicion. Brian made no reply; and the question had
returned like a boomerang upon the asker.
Yes, why did he go about with Gerry? For of course he didn't like the man; Gerry
had hurt and humiliated him, was ready, he knew, to hurt and humiliate him
again on the slightest provocation. Or
rather without any provocation at all just for fun, because it amused to
humiliate people, because he had a natural talent for inflicting pain. So why, why?
Mere
snobbery, as Anthony was forced to admit to himself, was part of the
discreditable secret. It was absurd and
ridiculous; but the fact remained, nevertheless, that it pleased him to
associate with Gerry and his friends. To
be the intimate of these young aristocrats and plutocrats, and at the same time
to know himself their superior in intelligence, taste, judgment, in all the
things that really mattered, was satisfying to his vanity.
Admitting
his intellectual superiority, the young barbarians expected him to pay for
their admiration by amusing them. He was
their intimate, yes; but as Voltaire was the intimate of Fredrick the Great, as
Diderot of the Empress Catherine. The
resident philosopher is not easily distinguished from the court fool.
With
genuine appreciation, but at the same time patronizingly, offensively, 'Good
for the Professor!' Gerry would say after one of his sallies. Or, 'Anthony drink for the old Professor,' as
though he were an Italian organ-grinder, playing for pennies.
The
prick of remembered humiliation was sharp like an insect's sting. With sudden violence Anthony heaved himself out
of his chair and began to walk, frowning, up and down the room.
A
middle-class snob tolerated because of his capacities as an entertainer. The thought was hateful, wounding. 'Why do I stand it?' he wondered. 'Why am I such a damned fool? I shall write Gerry a note to say I can't
come.' But time passed; the note
remained unwritten. For, after all, he
was thinking, there were also advantages, there were also satisfactions. An evening spent with Gerry and his friends
was exhilarating, was educative.
Exhilarating and educative, not because of anything they said or thought
for they were all stupid, all bottomlessly ignorant; but because of what they
were, of what their circumstances had made them. For, thanks to their money and their
position, they were able actually to live in such freedom as Anthony had only
imagined or read about. For them, the
greater number of the restrictions which had always hedged him in did not even
exist. They permitted themselves as a
matter of course licences which he took only in theory, and which he felt
constrained even then to justify with all the resources of a carefully
perverted metaphysics, an ingeniously adulterated mystical theology. By the mere force of social and economic
circumstances, these ignorant barbarians found themselves quite naturally
behaving as he did not dare to behave even after reading all Nietzsche had said
about the Superman, or Casanova about women.
Nor did they have to study Patanjali or Jacob Boehme in order to find
excuses for their intoxications of wine and sensuality: they just got drunk and
had their girls, like that, as though they were in the Garden of Eden. They faced life, not diffidently and
apologetically, as Anthony faced it, not wistfully, from behind invisible bars,
but with the serenely insolent assurance of those who know that God intended
them to enjoy themselves and had decreed the unfailing acquiescence of their
fellows in all their desires.
True,
they also had their confining prejudices; they too on occasion were as ready as
poor old Brian to lock themselves up in the prison of a code. But code and prejudices were of their own
particular caste; therefore, so far as Anthony was concerned, without binding
force. Their example delivered him from
the chains that his upbringing had fastened upon him, but was powerless to bind
him with those other chains in which they themselves walked through life. In their company the compulsion of
respectability, the paralyzing fear of public opinion, the inhibitory maxims of
middle-class prudence fell away from him; but when Bimbo Abinger indignantly
refused even to listen to the suggestion that he should sell the monstrous old
house that was eating up three-quarters of his income, when Scroope complained
that he would have to go into Parliament, because in his family the eldest sons
had always sat in the House of Commons before coming into the title, Anthony
could only feel the amused astonishment of an explorer watching the religious
articles of a tribe of blackamoors. A
rational being does not allow himself to be converted to the cult of Mumbo
Jumbo; but he will have no objection to occasionally going a bit native. The worship of Mumbo Jumbo means the
acceptance of taboos; going native means freedom. 'True Freedom!' Anthony grinned to himself;
his good humour and equanimity had returned.
A snob, a middle-class snob. No
doubt. But there was a reason for his
snobbery, a justification. And if the
lordly young barbarians tended to regard him as a sort of high-class buffoon
well, that was the price he had to pay for their gift of freedom. There was no price to be paid for associating
with the Fabians; but then, how little they had to give him! Socialist doctrines might to some extent
theoretically liberate the intellect; but the example of the young barbarians
was a liberation in the sphere of practice.
'So
frightfully sorry,' he scribbled in his note to Brian. 'Suddenly remembered I'd booked myself for
dinner tonight.' ('Booked' was one of his father's words a word he ordinarily
detested for its affectation. Writing a
lie, he had found it coming spontaneously to his pen.) 'Alas' (that was also a
favourite locution of his father's),
'shan't be able to listen to you on sin!
Wish I could get out of this, but don't see how. Yours, A.'
By
the time their fruit was on the table they were all pretty drunk. Gerry Watchett was telling Scroope about that
German baroness he had had on the boat, on the way to Egypt. Abinger had no audience, but was reciting
limericks: the Young Lady of Wick, the Old Man of Devizes, the Young Man called
Maclean a whole dictionary of national biography. Ted and Willie were having a violent quarrel
about the best way of shooting grouse.
Alone of the party, Anthony was silent.
Speech would have compromised the delicate happiness he was then
enjoying. That last glass of champagne
had made him the inhabitant of a new world, extraordinarily beautiful and
precious and significant. The apples and
oranges in the silver bowl were like enormous gems. Each glass, under the candles, contained not
wine, but a great yellow beryl, solid and translucent. The roses had the glossy texture of satin and
the shining hardness and distinctness of form belonging to metal or glass. Even sound was frozen and crystalline. The Young Lady of Kew was the equivalent, in
his ears, of a piece of sculptured jade, and that violently futile discussion
about grouse seemed like a waterfall in winter.
Le transparent glacier des vols qui n'ont pas fui, he thought
with heightened pleasure. Everything was
supernaturally brilliant and distinct, but at the same time how remote, how
strangely irrelevant! Bright against the
outer twilight of the room, the faces grouped about the table might have been
things seen on the other side of a sheet of plate-glass, in an illuminated
aquarium. And the aquarium was not only
without, it was also, mysteriously, within him.
Looking through the glass at those sea flowers and submarine gems, he
was himself a fish but a fish of genius, a fish that was also a god. ICHTHUS Iesos
Christos theou huios soter. His
divine fish-soul hung there, poised in its alien element, gazing, gazing
through huge eyes that perceived everything, understood everything, but having
no part in what it saw. Even his own
hands lying there on the table in front of him had ceased, in any real sense,
to be his. From his aquarium
fastness he viewed them with the same detached and happy admiration as he felt
for the fruits and flowers, or those other transfigured bits of still life, the
faces of his friends. Beautiful hands!
contrived how marvellously! - to perform their innumerable functions the
pointing of double-barrelled guns at flying birds, the caressing the thighs of
German baronesses in liners, the playing of imaginary scales upon the
tablecloth, so. Enchanted, he watched
the movement of his fingers, the smooth sliding of the tendons under the
skin. Exquisite hands! But no more truly a part of himself, of the
essential fish-soul in its timeless aquarium, than the hands of Abinger peeling
that banana, the hands of Scroope carrying a match to his cigar. I am not my body, I am not my sensations, I
am not even my mind; I am that I am. I om
that I om. The sacred word OM
represents Him. God is not limited by
time. For the One is not absent from
anything, and yet is separated from all things
'Hi,
Professor!' A piece of orange-peel
struck him on the cheek. He started and
turned round. 'What the hell are you
thinking about?' Gerry Watchett was asking in the purposely harsh voice which
it amused him to put on like a hideous mask.
The
momentarily troubled waters of the aquarium had already returned to rest. A fish once more, a divine and remotely happy
Fish, Anthony smiled at him with serene indulgence.
'I
was thinking about Plotinus,' he said.
'Why
Plotinus?'
'Why
Plotinus? But, my dear sir, isn't it
obvious? Science is reason, and reason
is multitudinous.' The fish had found a
tongue; eloquence flowed from the aquarium in an effortless stream. 'But if one happens to be feeling
particularly unmultitudinous well, what else is there to think about
except Plotinus? Unless, of course, you
prefer the pseudo-Dionysius, or Eckhart, or St Teresa. The flight of the Alone to the Alone. Even St Thomas is forced to admit that no
mind can see the divine substance unless it is divorced from bodily senses,
either by death or by some rapture. Some
rapture, mark you! But a rapture is
always a rapture, whatever it's due to.
Whether it's champagne, or saying OM, or squinting at your nose, or
looking at a crucifix, or making love preferably in a boat, Gerry; I'm the
first to admit it; preferably in a boat.
What are the wild waves saying?
Rapture! Ecstasy! Fairly yelling it. Until, mark you, until, the breath of this corporeal
frame and even the motion of our human blood almost suspended, we are laid
asleep in body, and become a living soul, while with an eye made quiet
'
'There
was a Young Fellow of Burma,' Abinger suddenly declaimed.
'Made
quiet,' Anthony repeated more loudly, 'by the power of harmony
'
'Whose
betrothed had good reasons to murmur.'
'And
the deep power of joy,' shouted Anthony, 'we see
'
'But
now that they're married he's
'Been
taking cantharides
'
'We
see into the life of things. The life of
things, I tell you. The life of
things. And damn all Fabians!' he added.
Anthony
got back to his lodgings at about a quarter to midnight, and was unpleasantly
startled, as he entered the sitting-room, to see someone rising with the
violent impatience of a Jack-in-the-box from an armchair.
God,
what a fright
!'
'At
last!' said Mark Staithes. His
emphatically featured face wore an expression of angry impatience. 'I've been waiting nearly an hour.' Then, with contempt, 'You're drunk,' he
added.
'As
though you'd never been drunk!' Anthony retorted. 'I remember
'
'So
do I,' said Mark Staithes, interrupting him.
'But that was in my first year.'
In his first year, when he had felt it necessary to prove that he was
manly manlier than the toughest of them, noisier, harder-drinking. 'I've got something better to do now.'
'So
you imagine,' said Anthony.
The
other looked at his watch. 'I've got
about seven minutes,' he said. 'Are you
sober enough to listen?'
Anthony
sat down with dignity and in silence.
Short,
but square-shouldered and powerful, Mark stood over him, almost
menacingly. 'It's about Brian,' he
added.
'About
Brian?' Then with a knowing smile, 'That
reminds me,' Anthony added, 'I ought to have congratulated you on being our future
president.'
'Fool!'
said Mark angrily. 'Do you think I go
about accepting charity? When he
withdrew, I withdrew too.'
'And
let that dreary little Mumby walk into the job?'
'What
the devil do I care about Mumby?'
'What
do any of us care about anybody?' said Anthony sententiously. 'Nothing, thank god. Absolutely noth
'
'What
does he mean by insulting me like that?'
'Why? Little Mumby?'
'No;
Brian, of course.'
'He
thinks he's being nice to you.'
'I
don't want his damned niceness,' said Mark.
'Why can't he behave properly?'
'Because
it amuses him to behave like a Christian.'
'Well,
then, tell him for God's sake to try it on someone else in future. I don't like having Christian tricks played
on me.'
'You
want a cock to fight with, in fact.'
'What
do you mean?'
'Otherwise
it's no fun being on top of the dunghill.
Whereas Brian would like us all to be jolly little capons together. Well, so far as dunghills are concerned, I'm
all for Brian. It's when we come to the
question of the hens that I begin to hesitate.'
Mark
looked at his watch again. 'I must
go.' At the door he turned back. 'Don't forget to tell him what I've told you. I like Brian, and I don't want to quarrel
with him. But if he tries being
charitable and Christian again
'
'The
poor boy will forfeit your esteem for ever,' concluded Anthony.
'Buffoon!'
said Staithes, and, slamming the door behind him, hurried downstairs.
Left
alone, Anthony took the fifth volume of the Historical Dictionary and
began to read what Bayle had to say about Spinoza.
CHAPTER
XI
'Condar intra MEUM latus! It is the only place of refuge left to
us.' Anthony rolled the sheet off his
typewriter, added it to the other sheets lying before him on the table, clipped
them together and started to read through what he had written. Chapter XI of his Elements of Sociology was
to deal with the Individual and his conceptions of Personality. He had spent the day jotting down
unmethodically a few preliminary reflections.
'Cogito
ergo sum,' he read. 'But why not caco
ergo sum? Eructo ergo sum? Or, escaping solipsism, why not futuo ergo
sumus? Ribald questions. But what is personality?
'MacTaggart
knows his personality by direct acquaintance; others by description. Hume and Bradley don't know theirs at all,
and don't believe it really exists. Mere
splitting, all this, of a bald man's imaginary hairs. What matters is that Personality happens to
be a common word with a generally accepted meaning.
'People
discuss my personality. What are they
talking about? Not homo cacans,
nor homo eructans, not even, except very superficially, homo futuens. No, they are talking about homo sentiens
(impossible Latin) and homo cogitans.
And when, in public, I talk about myself, I talk about the same two homines. My personality, in the present conventional
sense of the word, is what I think and feel or, rather, what I confess to
thinking and feeling. Caco, eructo,
futuo I never admit that the first person singular of such verbs is
really me. Only when, for any
reason, they palpably affect my feeling and thinking do the processes they
stand for come within the bounds of my personality. (This censorship makes ultimate nonsense of
all literature. Plays and novels just
aren't true.)
'Thus,
the personal is the creditable, or rather the potentially creditable. Not the morally undifferentiated.
'It
is also the enduring. Very short
experiences are even less personal than discreditable or merely vegetative
experiences. They become personal only
when accompanied by feeling and thought, or when reverberated by memory.
'Matter,
analyzed, consists of empty space and electric charges. Take a woman and a
washstand. Different in kind. But their component electric charges are
similar in kind. Odder still, each of
these component electric charges is different in kind from the whole woman or
washstand. Changes in quantity, when
sufficiently great, produces changes in quality. Now, human experience is analogous to
matter. Analyze it and you find
yourself in the presence of psychological atoms. A lot of these atoms constitute normal
experience, and a selection from normal experience constitutes personality. Each individual atom is unlike normal
experience and still more unlike personality.
Conversely, each atom in one experience resembles the corresponding atom
in another. Viewed microscopically, a
woman's body is just like a washstand, and Napoleon's experience is just like
Wellington's. Why do we imagine that
solid matter exists? Because of the
grossness of our sense organs. And why
do we imagine that we have coherent experiences and personality? Because our minds word slowly and have very
feeble powers of analysis. Our world and
we who live in it are the creations of stupidity and bad sight.
'Recently,
however, thinking and seeing have been improved. We have instructions that will resolve matter
into very small parts and a mathematical technique that allows us to think
about still smaller parts.
'Psychologists
have no new instruments, only new techniques of thought. All their inventions are purely mental
techniques of analysis and observation, working hypothesis. Thanks to the novelists and professional
psychologists, we can think of our experience in terms of atoms and instants as
well as in terms of lumps and hours. To
be a tolerably good psychologist was possible, in the past, only for men of
genius. Compare Chaucer's psychology
with Gower's, even Boccaccio's. Compare
Shakespeare's with Ben Jonson's. The
difference is one not only of quality, but also of quantity. The men of genius knew more than their
merely intelligent contemporaries.
'Today,
there is a corpus of knowledge, a technique, a working hypothesis. The amount a merely intelligent man can know
is enormous more than an unlearned man of genius relying solely on intuition.
'Were
the Gowers and Jonson's hampered by their ignorance? Not at all.
Their ignorance was the standard knowledge of their times. A few monsters of intuition might know more
than they; but the majority knew even less.
'And
here a digression sociologically speaking, more important than the theme
digressed from. There are fashions in
personality. Fashions that vary in time
like crinolines and hobble skirts and fashions that vary in space like
Gold Coast loincloths and Lombard Street tailcoats. In primitive societies everyone wears, and
longs to wear, the same personality. But
each society has a different psychological costume. Among the Red Indians of the North-West
Pacific Coast the ideal personality was that of a mildly crazy egotist
competing with his rivals on the plane of wealth and conspicuous
consumption. Among the Plains Indians,
it was that of an egotist competing with others in the sphere of warlike
exploits. Among the Pueblo Indians, the
ideal personality was neither that of an egotist, nor of a conspicuous
consumer, nor of a fighter, but of the perfectly gregarious man who makes great
efforts never to distinguish himself, who knows the traditional rites and
gestures and tried to be exactly like everyone else.
'European
societies are large and racially, economically, professionally heterogeneous;
therefore orthodoxy is hard to impose, and there are several contemporaneous
ideals of personality. (Note that Fascists and Communists are trying to create
one single right ideal in other words, are trying to make industrialized
Europeans behave as though they were Dyaks or Eskimos. The attempt, in the long run, is doomed to
failure; but in the meantime, what fun they will get from bullying the
heretics!)
'In
our world, what are the ruling fashions?
There are, of course, the ordinary clerical and commercial modes
turned out by the little dressmakers round the corner. And then la haute couture. Ravissante personalitι d'intιrieur de chez
Proust. Maison Nietzsche et Kipling:
personalitι de sport. Personalitι de
nuit, crιation de Lawrence. Personalitι
de bain, par Joyce. Note the
interesting fact that, of these, the personalitι de sport is the only
one that can really count as a personality in the accepted sense of the
word. The others are to a greater or
less extent impersonal, because to a greater or less extent atomic. And this brings us back to Shakespeare and
Ben Jonson. A pragmatist would have to
say that Jonson's psychology was truer than Shakespeare's. Most of his contemporaries did in fact
perceive themselves and were perceived as Humours. It took Shakespeare to see what a lot there
was outside the boundaries of the Humour, behind the conventional mask. But Shakespeare was in a minority of one
or, if you set Montaigne beside him, of two.
Humours worked; the complex, partially atomized personalities of Shakespeare
didn't.
'In
the story of the emperor's new clothes the child perceives that the great man
is naked. Shakespeare reversed the
process. His contemporaries thought they
were just naked Humours; he saw that they were covered with a whole wardrobe of
psychological fancy dress.
'Take
Hamlet. Hamlet inhabited a world whose
best psychologist was Polonius. If he
had known as little as Polonius, he would have been happy. But he knew too much; and in this consists
tragedy. Read his parable of the musical
instruments. Polonius and the others
assumed as axiomatic that man was a penny whistle with only half a dozen
stops. Hamlet knew that, potentially at
least, he was a whole symphony orchestra.
'Mad,
Orphelia lets the cat out of the bag.
We know what we are, but know not what we may be. Polonius knows very clearly what he and the
other people are, within the ruling conventions. Hamlet knows this, but also what they may be
outside the local system of masks and humours.
'To
be the only man of one's age to know what people may be as well as what they
conventionally are! Shakespeare must
have gone through some rather disquieting quarters of an hour.
'It
was left to Blake to rationalize psychological atomism into a philosophical
system. Man, according to Blake (and,
after him, according to Proust, according to Lawrence), is simply a succession
of states. Good and evil can be
predicated only of states, not of individuals, who in fact don't exist, except
as the places where the states occur. It
is the end of personality in the old sense of the word. (Parenthetically for
this is quite outside the domain of sociology is it the beginning of a new
kind of personality? That of the total
man, unbowdlerized, unselected, uncanalized, to change the metaphor, down any
one particular drainpipe of Weltanschauung of the man, in a word, who
actually is what he may be. Such a man
is the antithesis of any kind of the variants on the fundamental Christian man
of our history. And yet in a certain
sense he is also the realization of that ideal personality conceived by the
Jesus of the Gospel. Like Jesus's ideal
personality, the total, unexpurgated, non-canalized man is (1) not pharisaic,
that is to say, not interested in convention and social position, not puffed up
with the pride of being better than other men; (2) humble, in his acceptance of
himself, in his refusal to exalt himself above his human station; (3) poor in
spirit, inasmuch as he - his ego lays no lasting claims on anything,
is content with what, for a personality
of the old type, would seem psychological and philosophical destitution; (4)
like a little child, in his acceptance of the immediate datum of experience for
its own sake, in his refusal to take thought for the morrow, in his readiness
to let the dead bury their dead; (5) not a hypocrite or a liar, since there is
no fixed model which individuals must pretend to be like.
'A
question: did the old personality ever exist?
In the year m men feel x in content z. In the year n they feel the same x
in quite a different context p.
But x is a major emotion vitally significant for
personality. And yet x is felt in
contexts that change with the changing conventions of fashion. Rather death than dishonour. But honour is like women's skirts. Worn short, worn long, worn full, worn
narrow, worn with petticoats, worn minus drawers. Up to 1750 you were expected to feel, you did
feel, mortally dishonoured if you saw a man pinching your sister's bottom. So intense was your indignation, that you had
to try to kill him. Today, our honours
have migrated from the fleshy parts of our female relations' anatomy, and have
their seats elsewhere. And so on,
indefinitely.
'So
what is personality? And what is
it not?
'It
is not our total experience. It
is not the psychological atom or instant. It is not sense impressions as such,
nor vegetative life as such.
'It
is experience in the lump and by the hour. It is feeling and thought.
'And
who makes this selection from total experience, and on what principle? Sometimes we make it whoever we
are. But as often it is made for us by
the collective unwisdom of a class, a whole society. To a great extent, personality is not even
our personal property.
'Vaguely,
but ever more widely, this fact is now coming to be realized. At the same time, ever-increasing numbers of
people are making use of the modern techniques to see themselves and others
microscopically and instantaneously, as well as in the lump and by the
hour. Moreover, having a working
hypothesis of the unconscious, increasing numbers are becoming aware of their
secret motives, and so are perceiving the large part played in their lives by
the discreditable and vegetative elements of experience. With what results? That the old conception of personality has
begun to break down. And not only the
conception, also the fact. Strong
personalities, even definite personalities, are becoming less common. Fascists have to go out of their way to
manufacture them, deliberately, by a suitable process of education. An education that is simplification,
Eskimization; that entails the suppression of psychological knowledge and the
inculcation of respect for psychological ignorance. Odious policy but, I suspect, inevitable
and, sociologically speaking, right.
For our psychological acumen is probably harmful to society. Society has need of simple Jonsonian Humours,
not of formless collections of self-conscious states. Yet another example of the banefulness of too
much knowledge and too much scientific technique.
'Once
more, Hamlet casts a light. Polonius is
much more obviously and definitely a person than the prince. Indeed, Hamlet's personality is so indefinite
that critics have devoted thousands of pages to the discussion of what it
really was. In fact, of course, Hamlet
didn't have a personality knew altogether too much to have one. He was conscious of his total experience,
atom by atom and instant by instant, and accepted no guiding principle which
would make him choose one set of patterned atoms to represent his personality
rather than another. To himself and to
others he was just a succession of more or less incongruous states. Hence that perplexity at Elsinore and among
the Shakespearean critics ever since.
Honour, Religion, Prejudice, Love all the conventional props that
shore up the ordinary personality have been, in this case, gnawed through. Hamlet is his own termite, and from a tower
has eaten himself down to a heap of sawdust.
Only one thing prevents Polonius and the rest from immediately
perceiving the fact: whatever the state of his mind, Hamlet's body is still
intact, unatomized, macroscopically present to the senses. And perhaps, after all, this is the real
reason for our belief in personality: - the existence and persistence of bodies. And perhaps whatever reality there is in the
notion of coherent individual continuity is just a function of this physical
persistence. Such hair, such a
wonderful figure! I think Mrs Jones has
a lovely poysonality. When I
heard that, in the bus going up Fifth Avenue, it made me laugh. Whereas I probably ought to have listened as
though to Spinoza. For what is
the most personal thing about a human being?
Not his mind his body. A
Hearst, a Rothermere, can mould my feelings, coerce my thinking. But no amount of propaganda can make my
digestion or metabolism become identical to theirs. Cogito, ergo Rothermere est. But caco, ergo sum.
'And
here, I suspect, lies the reason for that insistence, during recent years, on
the rights of the body. From the Boy
Scouts to the fashionable sodomites, and from Elizabeth Arden to D.H. Lawrence
(one of the most powerful personality-smashers, incidentally: there are no
characters in his books). Always and
everywhere the body. Now the body
possesses one enormous merit; it is indubitably there. Whereas the personality, as a mental
structure, may be all in bits gnawed down to Hamlet's heap of sawdust. Only the rather stupid and insentient,
nowadays, have strong and sharply defined personalities. Only the barbarians among us know what they
are, and so are incapable of knowing what, for practical, social purposes,
they actually are have forgotten how to select a personality out of their
total atomic experience. In the swamp
and welter of this uncertainty the body stands firm like a Rock of Ages.
Jesu,
pro me perforatus,
Condar
intra tuum latus.
Even faith hankers for warm caverns of
perforated flesh. How much more wildly
urgent must be the demands of a scepticism that has ceased to believe even in
its own personality! Condar intra MEUM
latus! It is the only place of
refuge left to us.
Anthony
laid the typescript down, and, tilting backwards, rocked himself precariously
on the hind legs of his chair. Not so
bad, he was thinking. But there were
obviously omissions, there were obviously unjustifiable generalizations. He had written of the world in general as
though the world in general were like himself from the desire, of course,
that it should be. For how simple it
would be if it were! How agreeable! Each man a succession of states enclosed in
the flesh of his own side. And if any
other principle of coherence were needed, there was always some absorbing and
delightful intellectual interest, like sociology, for example, to supplement the
persisting body. Condar intra meum laborem. Instead of which
He sighed. In spite of Hamlet, in spite of The
Prophetic Books, in spite of Du cotι de chez Swann and Women in
Love, the world was still full of Jonsonian Humours. Full of the villains of melodrama, the
equally deplorable heroes of films, full of Poincarιs, of Mussolinis, of
Northcliffes, full of ambitious and avaricious mischief-makers of every size
and shape.
An
idea occurred to him. He let his titled
chair fall forward and picked up his fountain-pen.
'Last
infirmity of noble mind, the primary, perhaps only, source of sin,' he
scribbled. 'Noble mind = evil mind. Tree known by fruits. What are fruits of fame-seeking, ambition,
desire to excel? Among others, war,
nationalism, economic competition, snobbery, class hatred, colour
prejudice. Comus quite right to preach
sensuality; and how foolish of Satan to tempt a, by definition, ahimsa-practising
Messiah with fame, dominion, ambition things whose inevitable fruits are
violence and coercion! Compared with
fame-seeking, pure sensuality all but harmless.
Were Freud right and sex supreme, we should live almost in Eden. Alas, only half right. Adler also half-right. Hinc illae lac.'
He
looked at his watch. Twenty past seven
and he had to be in Kensington by eight!
In his bath, he wondered what the evening would be like. It was twelve years now since he had
quarrelled with Mary Amberley. Twelve
years, during which he had seen her only at a distance in picture galleries,
once or twice; and across the drawing-room of a common friend. 'I don't ever want to speak to you again,' he
had written in that last letter to her.
And yet, a few days since, when he reconciliatory invitation had
unexpectedly appeared with the other letters on his breakfast table, he had
accepted immediately; accepted in the same tone as that in which the invitation
itself was couched casually, matter-of-factly, with no more explicit
reference to the past than a 'Yes, it's a long time since I last dined at
Number 17.' And, after all, why
not? What was the point of doing things
finally and irrevocably? What right had
the man of 1914 to commit the man of 1926?
The 1914 man had been an embodied state of anger, shame, distress,
perplexity. His state today was one of
cheerful serenity, mingled, so far as Mary Amberley was concerned, was
considerably curiosity. What would she
be like now at forty-three, was it?
And was she really as amusing as he remembered her? Or had his admiration been only one of the
fruits the absurd, delicious fruits of youthful inexperience? Would his swan turn out a goose? Or still a swan but moulted, but (poor
Mary!) middle-aged? Still wondering, he
hurried downstairs and into the street.
CHAPTER
XII
A faint rustling caressed the half-conscious
fringes of their torpor, swelled gradually, as though a shell were being
brought closer and closer to the ear, and became at last a clattering roar that
brutally insisted on attention. Anthony
opened his eyes for just long enough to see that the aeroplane was almost
immediately above them, then shut them again, dazzled by the intense blue of
the sky.
'These
damned machines!' he said. Then, with a
little laugh, 'They'll have a nice God's-eye view of us here,' he added.
Helen
did not answer; but behind her closed eyelids she smiled. Pop-eyed and with an obscene and gloating
disapproval! The vision of that heavenly
visitant was irresistibly comic.
'David
and Bathsheba,' he went on.
'Unfortunately at a hundred miles an hour
'
A
strange yelping sound punctuated the din of the machine. Anthony opened his eyes again, and was in
time to see a dark shape rushing down towards him. He uttered a cry, made a quick and automatic
movement to shield his face. With a
violent but dull and muddy impact the thing struck the flat roof a yard or two
from where they were lying. The drops of
a sharply spurted liquid were warm for an instant on their skin, and then, as
the breeze swelled up out of the west, startlingly cold. There
was a long second of silence.
'Christ!' Anthony whispered at last.
From head to foot both of them were splashed with blood. In a red pool at their feet lay the almost
shapeless carcase of a fox-terrier. The
roar of the receding aeroplane had diminished to a raucous hum, and suddenly
the ear found itself conscious once again of the shrill rasping of the cicadas.
Anthony
drew a deep breath; then, with an effort and still rather unsteadily, contrived
to laugh. 'Yet another reason for
disliking dogs,' he said, and, scrambling to his feet, looked down, his face
puckered with disgust, at his blood-bedabbled body. 'What about a bath?' he asked, turning to
Helen.
She
was sitting quite still, staring with wide-open eyes at the horribly shattered
carcase. Her face was very pale, and a
glancing spurt of blood had left a long red streak that ran diagonally from the
right side of the chin, across the mouth, to the corner of the left eye.
'You
look like Lady Macbeth,' he said, with another effort at jocularity. 'Allons.' He touched her
shoulder. 'Out, vile spot, This beastly stuff's drying on me. Like seccotine.'
For
all answer, Helen covered her face with her hands and began to sob.
For
a moment Anthony stood quite still, looking at her crouched there, in the
hopeless abjection of her blood-stained nakedness, listening to the painful
sound of her weeping. 'Like seccotine':
his own words re-echoed disgracefully in his ears. Pity stirred within him, and then an almost
violent movement of love for this hurt and suffering woman, this person,
yes, this person whom he had ignored, deliberately, as though she had no
existence except in the context of pleasure.
Now, as she knelt there sobbing, all the tenderness he had ever felt for
her body, all the affection implicit in their sensualities and never expressed,
seemed suddenly to discharge themselves, in a kind of lightning flash of
accumulated feeling, upon this person, this embodied spirit, weeping in
solitude behind concealing hands.
He
knelt down beside her on the mattress, and, with a gesture that was meant to
express all that he now felt, put an arm round her shoulder.
But
at his touch she winced away as if from a defilement. With a violent, shuddering movement she shook
her head.
'But,
Helen
' he protested, in the stupid conviction that there must be some
mistake, that it was impossible that she shouldn't be feeling what he was
feeling. It was only a question of
making her understand what had happened to him.
He laid his hand once more on her shoulder. 'But I care, I'm so fond
' Even now he
refused to commit himself to the word 'love.'
'Don't
touch me,' she cried almost inarticulately, leaning away from him.
He
withdrew his hand, but remained there, kneeling beside her, in perplexed and
miserable silence. He remembered the
time when she had wanted to be allowed to love, and how he had evaded her, had
refused to take more of the person that she was, or to give more of himself,
then the occasional and discontinuous amorousness of their bodies. She had ended by accepting his terms
accepting them so completely that now
'Helen,'
he ventured once more. She must
be made to understand.
Helen
shook her head again. 'Leave me alone,'
she said; then, as he did not move, she uncovered a face now grotesquely
smudged with blood and looked at him.
'Why can't you go away?' she asked, making an effort to express a cold
dispassionate resentment of his intrusion upon her. Then, suddenly, her tears began to flow
again. 'Oh, please go away!' she
implored. Her voice broke, and turning
aside, she once more buried her face in her hands.
Anthony
hesitated for a moment; then, realizing that he would only make things worse if
he stayed on, rose to his feet and left her.
'Give her time,' he said to himself, 'give her time.'
He
took a bath, dressed and went down to the sitting-room. The snapshots were lying as they had left
them, scattered over the table. He sat
down and methodically began to sort them out, subject by subject, into little
heaps. Mary in plumes; Mary veiled,
clambering into a pre-war Renault; Mary bathing at Dieppe in a half-sleeved
bodice and bloomers that were covered to the knee by a little skirt. His mother in a garden; feeding the pigeons
in the Piazza San Marco; and then her grave at Lollingdon churchyard. His father with an alpenstock; roped to a
guide on a snow slope; with Pauline and the two children. Uncle James on his bicycle; Uncle James
wearing a speckled straw hat; rowing on the Serpentine; talking, ten years
later, with convalescent soldiers in a hospital garden. Then Brian; Brian with Anthony's own former
self at Bulstrode; Brian in a punt with Joan and Mrs Foxe; Brian climbing in
the Lakes. That girl he had had an
affair with in New York, in 1927, was it?
His grandmother. His aunts. Half a dozen snaps of Gladys
Half
an hour later he heard Helen's steps, cautious at first and slow on the
precipitous stairs leading down from the roof, then swift along the
passage. Water splashed in the bath.
Time,
she must have time. He decided to behave
towards her as though nothing had happened.
It was almost cheerfully, therefore, that he greeted her as she entered
the room.
'Well?'
he questioned brightly, looking up from his photographs. But the sight of that pale and stonily
collected face filled him with misgiving.
'I'm
going,' she said.
'Now? Before lunch?'
She
nodded.
'But
why?'
'I
prefer it,' was all she answered.
Anthony
was silent for a moment, wondering whether he ought to protest, to insist, to
tell her the things he had tried to tell her on the roof. But the stoniness of her composure proclaimed
in advance that the attempt would be useless.
Later, when she had got over the first shock, when she had been given
time
'All right, then,' he said aloud.
'I'll drive you back to the hotel.'
Helen
shook her head. 'No, I shall walk.'
'Not
in this heat?'
'I
shall walk,' she repeated in a tone of finality.
'Well,
if you also prefer to swelter
' He tried to smile, without much success.
She
passed through the glass doors on to the terrace, and suddenly that pale stony
face was as though fire-flushed by the reflection from her pyjamas. In hell again, he said to himself, as he
followed her.
'Why
do you come out?' she asked.
'I'll
take you as far as the gate.'
'There's
no need.'
'I
prefer it.'
She
did not return his smile, but walked on without speaking.
Two
tall bushy plants of buddleia grew on either side of the steps that led down
from the terrace. On the hot air the
scent of the flowers (itself, so it seemed, intrinsically hot) was of an
intense and violent sweetness.
'Delicious,'
Anthony said aloud as they stepped into the perfumed aura of the blossoms. 'Almost too delicious. But look!' he called in another voice, and
caught her sleeve. 'Do look!'
New
from the chrysalis, bright and still untattered, a swallowtail had settled on
one of the clusters of mauve flowers.
The pale yellow wings, with their black markings, their eyes of blue and
crimson, were fully outstretched in the sunlight. Their forward edges had the curve of a sabre,
and from the tips the line slanted elegantly backwards towards the two
projecting tails of the lower wings. The
whole butterfly seemed the symbol, the hieroglyph of gay and airy speed. The spread wings were tremulous as though
from an uncontrollable excess of life, of passionate energy. Rapidly, ravenously, but with an
extraordinary precision of purposeful movement, the creature plunged its
uncoiled proboscis into the tiny trumpet-shaped flowers that composed the
cluster. A quick motion of the head and
thorax, and the probe had been thrust home, to be withdrawn a moment later and
plunged as swiftly and unerringly between the lips of another and yet another
flower, until all the blooms within striking distance had been explored and it
was necessary to hasten on towards a yet unrifled part of the cluster. Again, again, to the very quick of the
expectant flowers, deep to the sheathed and hidden sources of that hot
intoxicating sweetness! Again, again,
with what a tireless concupiscence, what an intense passion of aimed and
accurate greed!
For
a long minute they watched in silence.
Then, suddenly, Helen stretched out her hand and flicked the cluster on
which the butterfly had settled. But
before her finger had even touched the flowers, the light, bright creature was
gone. A quick flap of the wings, then a
long soaring swoop; another spurt of fluttering movement, another long catenary
of downward and upward slanting flight, and it was out of sight behind the
house.
'Why
did you do that?' he asked.
Pretending
not to have heard his question, Helen ran down the steps and along the
gravelled path. At the gate of the
garden she halted and turned back.
'Goodbye,
Anthony.'
'When
are you coming again?' he asked.
Helen
looked at him for a few seconds without speaking, then shook her head. 'I'm not coming again,' she said at last.
'Not
coming again?' he repeated. 'What do you
mean?'
But
she had already slammed the gate behind her and with long springing strides was
hurrying along the dusty road under the pine trees.
Anthony
watched her go, and knew that, for the moment at least, it was no good even
trying to do anything. It would only
make things worse if he followed her.
Later on, perhaps; this evening, when she had had time
But walking
back along the garden path, through the now unheeded perfume of the buddleias,
he wondered uneasily whether it would be much good, even later on. He knew Helen's obstinacy. And then what right had he now, after all
these months of disclaiming, of actively refusing any right whatever?'
'But
I'm a fool,' he said aloud as he opened the kitchen door, 'I'm mad.' And he made an effort to recover his sanity
by disparaging and belittling the whole incident. Unpleasant, admittedly. But not unpleasant enough to justify Helen in
behaving as though she were acting Ibsen.
Doing a slight Doll's House, he said to himself trying to reduce it
all to a conveniently ridiculous phrase when there was no doll and no house;
for she really couldn't complain that old Hugh had ever shut her up, or that he
himself had cherished any designs on her liberty. On the contrary, he had insisted on her being
free. Her liberty was also his; if she
had become his slave, he would necessarily have become hers.
As
for his own emotions, up there on the roof that uprush of tenderness, that
longing to know and love the suffering person within that all at once
irrelevantly desirable body these had been genuine, of course; were facts of
direct experience. But after all, they
could be explained, explained away, as the mere exaggerations, in a disturbing
moment, of his very natural sympathy with her distress. The essential thing was time. Given a little time, she would listen once
more to what he wanted to say, and he would no longer want to say any of the
things she had just now refused to listen to.
He
opened the refrigerator and found that Mme Cayol had prepared some cold veal
and a cucumber and tomato salad. Mme Cayol
had a vicarious passion for cold veal, was constantly giving it him. Anthony, as it happened, didn't much like it,
but he preferred eating it to discussing the bill of fare with Mme Cayol. Whole weeks would sometimes pass without the
necessity arising for him to say more than Bonjour and ΐ demain, Mme Cayol,
and Il fait beau aujourd'hui, or Quel vent!, whichever the case
might be. She came for two hours each
morning, tidied up, prepared some food, laid the table and went away
again. He was served, but almost without
being aware of the servant. The
arrangement, he considered, was as nearly perfect as any earthly arrangement
could be. Cold veal was a small price to
pay for such service.
At
the table in the shade of the great fig tree on the terrace, Anthony settled
down with determination to his food, and as he ate, turned over the pages of
his latest notebook. There was nothing,
he assured himself, like work nothing, to make oneself forget a particular and
personal feeling, so effective as a good generalization. The word 'freedom' caught his eye, and
remembering the satisfaction he had felt, a couple of months before, when he
had got those ideas safely on to paper, he began to read.
'Action
wanted to write the History of Man in terms of a History of the Idea of
Freedom. But you cannot write a History
of the Idea of Freedom without at the same time writing of the Fact of Slavery.
'The
Fact of Slavery. Or rather of
Slaveries. For, in his successive
attempts to realize the Idea of Freedom, man is constantly changing one form of
slavery for another.
'The
primal slavery is the slavery to the empty belly and the unpropitious
season. Slavery to nature, in a
word. The escape from nature is through
social organization and technical invention.
In a modern city it is possible to forget that such a thing as nature
exists particularly nature in its more inhuman and hostile aspects. Half the population of Europe lives in a
universe that's entirely home-made.
'Abolish
slavery to nature. Another form of
slavery instantly arises. Slavery to
institutions: religious institutions, legal institutions, military
institutions, economic institutions, educational, artistic and scientific
institutions.
'All
modern history is a History of the Idea of Freedom from Institutions. It is also the History of the Fact of Slavery
of Institutions.
'Nature
is senseless. Institutions, being the
work of men, have meaning and purpose.
Circumstances change quicker than institutions. What once was sense is sense no longer. An outworn institution is like a person who
applies logical reasoning to the non-existent situation created by an idιe
fixe or hallucination. A similar
state of things comes about when institutions apply the letter of the law to
individual cases. The institution would
be acting rationally if the circumstances envisaged by it really existed. But in fact they don't exist. Slavery to an institution is like slavery to
a paranoiac, who suffers from delusions but is still in possession of all his
intellectual faculties. Slavery to
nature is like slavery to an idiot who hasn't even enough mind to be able to
suffer from delusions.
'Revolt
against institutions leads temporarily to anarchy. But anarchy is slavery to nature, and to a
civilized man slavery to nature is even less tolerable than slavery to
institutions. The escape from anarchy is
through the creation of new institutions.
Sometimes there is no period of anarchy no temporary enslavement to
nature; men pass directly from one set of institutions to another.
'Institutions
are changed in an attempt to realize the Idea of Freedom. To appreciate the fact of the new slavery
takes a certain time. So it comes about
that in all revolts against institutions there is a kind of joyful honeymoon,
when people believe that freedom has at last been attained. Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive. And not only in the dawn of the French
Revolution. What undiluted happiness,
for example, in the dawn of the Franciscan movement, in the dawn of the
Reformation, in the dawn of Christianity and Islam! Even in the dawn of the Great War. The honeymoon may last for as much as twenty
or thirty years. Then the fact of the
new slavery imposes itself on men's consciousness. It is perceived that the idea of freedom was
not realized by the last change, that the new institutions are just as
enslaving as the old. What is to be
done? Change the new institutions for
yet newer ones. And when that
honeymoon is over? Change the yet newer
for newer still. And so on indefinitely,
no doubt.
'In
any given society the fact of freedom exists only for a very small number of
individuals. Propitious economic
circumstances are the condition of at least a partial freedom. But if the freedom is to be more nearly
complete, there must also be propitious intellectual, psychological,
biographical circumstances. Individuals
for whom all these circumstances are favourable are not the slaves of
institutions. For them, institutions
exist as a kind of solid framework on which they can perform whatever
gymnastics they please. The rigidity of
society as a whole makes it possible for these privileged few to wander out of
intellectual and customary moral bounds without risk either for themselves or
for the community at large. All particular
freedoms and there is no freedom that is not particular is enjoyed on the
condition of some form of general slavery.'
Anthony
shut his book, feeling that he couldn't read even one line more. Not that his words seemed any less true now
than he had done when he wrote them. In
their own way and on their particular level they were true. Why then did it all seem utterly false and
wrong? Not wishing to discuss this
question with himself, he went into the house and sat down to Usher's History
of Mechanical Inventions.
At
half-past four he suddenly remembered that dead dog. A few hours more, and in this heat
He
hurried out to the tool-house. The
ground in the untended garden was sun-baked almost to the consistency of brick;
by the time he had dug the hole he was dripping with sweat. Then, spade in hand, he went up to the
roof. There lay the dog. The bloodstains on its fur, on the parapet,
on the mattresses had turned the colour of rust. After several ineffectual attempts, he
succeeded in scooping up the carcase with his spade and throwing it, flies and
all for the flies refused to be disturbed over the parapet. He went downstairs and out into the garden;
there, as though he were obstinately competing in some hideous egg-and-spoon
race, he scooped the thing up once more and carried it, horribly dangling
across the iron of his spade, to the grave.
When he came back to the house, he felt so sick that he had to drink
some brandy. After that he went down to
the sea and took a long swim.
At
six, when he was dressed again, he took his car and drove down to the hotel to
have a talk with Helen. By this time, he
calculated, she would have got over her first shock, she would be ready to
listen to him. Forgetting all about the
Doll's House and the sanity it had been intended to preserve, he was filled, as
he drove, with an extraordinary elation.
In a few minutes he would be seeing her again. Would be telling her of the discoveries he
had suddenly made that morning: the discovery that he cared for her, the
discovery that he had been a fool and worse, unspeakably worse than a fool
It
would be difficult, it would be all but impossible to say these things about
himself; but for that very reason the thought that he was going to say them
filled him with profound happiness.
He
drew up at the door of the hotel and hurried into the hall.
'Madame
Ledwidge est-elle dans sa chambre, mademoiselle?'
'Mais
non, monsieur, Madame vient de partir.'
'Elle
vient de partir?'
'Madame
est allιe prendre le rapide ΰ Toulon.'
Anthony looked at his watch. The train had already started. In a wretched little car like his there was
no hope of getting to Marseille before it left again for Paris.
'Merci,
mademoiselle, merci,' he said, lapsing by force of habit into that excessive
politeness by means of which he protected himself from the disquieting world of
the lower classes.
'Mais
de rien, monsieur.'
He drove home again, wondering miserably
whether he oughtn't to be thankful for the deliverance. The postman had called in his absence. There was a letter from his broker, advising
him to sell at least a part of that block of gold-mining shares he had
inherited from Uncle James. There seemed
to be no likelihood of their appreciating any further; in view of which, the wisest
course would be to take advantage of the present prices and re-invest in sound
English industrials such as
He threw the letter aside. Occasions, as usual, had been conspiring for
him thrusting good fortune upon him, malignantly. Now, in the depression, he was better off
than ever before. Better off when other
people were worse off. Freer while they
were more hopelessly enslaved. The ring
of Polycrates
It looked as though the gods had already begun their vengeance.
He
went to bed early, and at two was woken by that horribly familiar dream that
had haunted his boyhood and plagued him from time to time even as a grown
man. In substance it was always the
same. Nothing much was ever visible; but
there was generally a knowledge that he was in company, surrounded by dim
presences. He took a mouthful of some
indeterminate food, and instantly it expanded between his teeth, became
progressively more rubbery and at the same time stickier, till it was like a
gag smeared with a kind of gum that dried in a thick film on the teeth, tongue,
palate. Unspeakably disgusting, this
process of asphyxiating expansion, of gluey thickening and clogging, went on
and on. He tried to swallow, tried, in
spite of the obscure but embarrassing presence of strangers, to disgorge. Without effect. In the end, he was reduced to hooking the
stuff out with his finger lump after ropy lump of it. But always in vain. For the gag continued to expand, the film to
thicken and harden. Until at last he was
delivered by starting out of sleep. This
night, the expanding mouthful had some kind of vague, but horrible connection
with the dog. He woke up
shuddering. Once awake, he was unable to
go to sleep again. A huge accumulation
of neglected memories broke through, as it were, into his awareness. Those snapshots. His mother and Mary Amberley. Brian in the chalk pit, evoked by that salty
smell of sun-warmed flesh, and again dead at the cliff's foot, among the flies
like that dog
CHAPTER
XIII
Made my second speech yesterday night. Without serious nervousness. It's easy enough, once you've made up your
mind that it doesn't matter if you make a fool of yourself. But it's depressing. There's a sense in which five hundred people
in a hall aren't concrete. One's talking
to a collective noun, an abstraction, not to a set of individuals. Only those already partially or completely
convinced of what you're saying even want to understand you. The rest are invincibly ignorant. In private conversation, you could be certain
of getting your man to make at least a grudging effort to understand you. The fact that there's an audience confirms
the not-understander in his incomprehension.
Particularly if he can ask questions after the address. Some of the reasons for this are
obvious. Just getting up and being
looked at is a pleasure in many cases, piercing to the point of pain. Excruciating orgasms of self-assertion. Pleasure is heightened if the question is
hostile. Hostility is a declaration of personal
independence. Makes it clear at the same
time that it's only an accident that the questioner isn't on the platform
himself accident or else, of course, deliberate plot on the part of ruffians
who want to keep him down. Interruptions
and questions are generally of course quite irrelevant. Hecklers (like the rest of us) live in their
own private world, make no effort to enter other people's worlds. Most arguments in public are at
cross-purposes and in different languages without interpreters.
Mark
was at the meeting, and afterwards, in my rooms, took pleasure in intensifying
my depression.
'Might
as well go and talk to cows in a field.'
The temptation to agree with him was strong. All my old habits of thinking, living,
feeling impel me towards agreement. A
senseless world, where nothing whatever can be done how satisfactory! One can go off and (seeing that there's
nothing else to do) compile one's treatise on sociology the science of human
senselessness. With Mark last nigh I
caught myself taking intense pleasure in commenting on the imbecility of my
audience and human beings at large.
Caught and checked myself.
Reflecting that seeds had been sown, that if only one were to germinate,
it would have been worthwhile to hold the meeting. Worthwhile even if none were to germinate
for my own sake, as an exercise, a training for doing better next time.
I
didn't say all this. Merely stopped
talking and, I suppose, changed my expression.
Mark, who notices everything, began to laugh. Foresaw the time when I'd preface every
mention of a person or a group with the adjective 'dear.' 'The dear Communists,' 'the dear armament
makers,' 'dear General Goering.'
I
laughed for he was comic in his best savage manner. But, after all, if you had enough love and
goodness, you could be sure of evoking some measure of answering love and
goodness from almost everyone you came in contact with whoever he or she
might be. And in that case almost
everyone would really be 'dear.' At
present, most people seem more or less imbecile or odious; the fault is at
least as much in oneself as in them.
May
24th 1934.
Put in four hours this morning at working
up my notes. Extraordinary
pleasure! How easily one could slip back
into uninterrupted scholarship and idea-mongering! In that 'higher Life' which is simply death
without tears. Peace, irresponsibility
all the delights of death here and now.
In the past, you had to go into a monastery to find them. You paid for the pleasures of death with
obedience, poverty, chastity. Now you
can have them gratis and in the ordinary world.
Death completely without tears.
Death with smiles, with nobody to bully you. Scholars, philosophers, men of science
conventionally supposed to be unpractical.
But what other class of men has succeeded in getting the world to accept
it and (more astonishing) go on accepting it as its own valuation? Kings have lost their divine right,
plutocrats look as though they were going to lose theirs. But Higher Lifers continue to be labelled as
superior. It's the fruit of
persistence. Persistently paying
compliments to themselves, persistently disparaging other people. Year in, year out, for the last sixty
centuries. We're High, you're Low; we're
of the Spirit, you're of the World.
Again and again, like Pears Soap.
It's been accepted, now, as an axiom.
But, in fact, the Higher Life is merely the better death-substitute. A more complete escape from the
responsibilities of living with alcohol or morphia or addiction to sex or property. Booze and dope destroy health. Sooner or later sex addicts get involved in
responsibilities. Property addicts can
never get all the stamps, Chinese vases, houses, varieties of lilies or
whatever it may be, that they want.
Their escape is a torment of Tantalus.
Whereas the Higher lifer escapes into a world where there's no risk to
health and the minimum of responsibilities and tortures. A world, what's more, that tradition regards
as actually superior to the world of responsible living higher. The Higher Shirker can fairly wallow in his
good conscience. For how easy to find in
the life of scholarship and research equivalents for all the moral virtues! Some, of course, are not equivalent, but
identical: perseverance, patience, self-forgetfulness and the like. Goods means to ends that may be bad. You can work hard and whole-heartedly at
anything from atomic physics to forgery and white-slaving. The rest are ethical virtues transposed into
the mental key. Chastity of
artistic and mathematical form. Purity
of scientific research. Courageousness
of thought. Intellectual humility
before the facts. All the cardinal
virtues in fancy dress. The Higher
Lifers come to think of themselves as saints saints of art and science and
scholarship. A purely figurative and
metaphorical sanctity taken au pied de la lettre.
'Blessed
are the poor in spirit.' The Higher
Lifer even has equivalents for spiritual poverty. As a man of science, he tries to keep himself
unbiased by his interests and prejudices.
But that's not all. Ethical
poverty of spirit entails taking no thought for the morrow, letting the dead
bury their dead, losing one's life to gain it.
The Higher Life can make parodies of these renunciations. I know; for I made them and actually took
credit to myself for having made them.
You live continuously and responsibly only in the other, Higher
world. In this, you detach yourself from
your past; you refuse to commit yourself in the future; you have no
convictions, but live moment by moment; you renounce your own identity, except
as a Higher Lifer, and become just the succession of your states. A more than Franciscan destitution. Which can be combined, however, with more
than Napoleonic exultations in imperialism.
I used to think I had no will to power.
Now I perceive that I vented it on thoughts, rather than people. Conquering an unknown province of
knowledge. Getting the better of a
problem. Forcing ideas to associate or
come apart. Bullying recalcitrant words
to assume a certain pattern. All the fun
of being a dictator without any risks and responsibilities.
CHAPTER
XIV
By dinner-time it was already a Story the
latest addition to Mary Amberley's repertory.
The latest, and as good, it seemed to Anthony's critically sensitive
ear, as the finest classics of the collection.
Ever since he received her invitation, he now realized, his curiosity
had been tinged with a certain vindictive hope that she would have altered for
the worse, either relatively in his own knowledgeable eyes, or else absolutely
by reason of the passage of these twelve long years; would have degenerated
from what she was, or what he had imagined her to be, at the time when he had
loved her. Discreditably enough, as he
now admitted to himself, it was with a touch of disappointment that he had
found her hardly changed from the Mary Amberley of his memories. She was forty-three. But her body was almost as slim as ever, and
she moved with all the old swift agility.
With something more than the old agility, indeed; for he had noticed
that she was now agile on purpose, that she acted the part of one who is
carried away by a youthful impulse to break into quick and violent motion
acted it, moreover, in circumstances where the impulse could not, if natural,
possibly have been felt. Before dinner,
she took him upstairs to her bedroom to see those nudes of Pascin that she had
just bought. The first half of the
flight she negotiated at a normal pace, talking as she went; then, as though
she had suddenly remembered that slowness of stairs is a sign of middle-age,
she suddenly started running no, scampering. Anthony corrected himself as he remembered
the incident: scampering was the word.
And when they returned to the drawing-room, no tomboy of sixteen could
have thrown herself more recklessly into the sofa or tucked up her legs with a
more kittenish movement. The Mary of
1914 had never behaved so youthfully as that.
Couldn't have even if she had wanted to, he reflected, in all those
skirts and petticoats. Whereas now, in
kilts
It was absurd, of course; but not yet, he judicially decided, painfully
absurd. For Mary could still claim to
look the youthful part. Only a little
worn, her face still seemed to sparkle, through the faint stigmata of fatigue,
with the old laughing vitality. And as
for her accomplishments why, this improvisation (and an improvisation it must
be, seeing that the event had occurred only that morning), this improvisation
on the theme of Helen's stolen kidney was a little masterpiece.
'I
shall have the object embalmed,' she was concluding in a mock-serious tone,
pregnant with subdued laughter.
'Embalmed and
'
But
like a suddenly opened ginger-beer bottle, bubblingly, 'I'll give you an
address for the embalming,' put in Beppo Bowles. He smiled, he blinked his eyes, he
wriggled. His whole plump and florid
person seemed to participate in what he said; he talked with every organ of his
body. 'From the Mortician's Journal.' He waved a hand and declaimed, 'Embalmers! do
your results have that unpleasant putty look?
If so
'
Mrs
Amberley had laughed a little perfunctorily, perhaps; for she did not like to
be interrupted in the middle of a story.
Beppo was a darling, of course.
So boyish, in spite of his tummy and the bald patch on the top of his
head. (So girlish, even, on occasion.) But still
She cut him short with a
'Too perfect.' Then, turning back to the
rest of the table, 'Well, as I was saying,' she continued, 'I shall have it
embalmed, and put under one of those glass domes
'
'Like
life,' Beppo could not refrain from ginger-beeringly interjecting. But nobody caught the reference to Adonis,
and he giggled alone.
'Those
domes,' repeated Mrs Amberley without looking at the interrupter, 'one finds in
lodging-houses. With birds under
them. Stuffed birds.' She lingered over the monosyllable, as though
she were a German prolonging a modified o; and the birds, the Teutonic bφ-φds,
became, for some obscure reason, extraordinarily funny.
The
voice, Anthony decided, was better than ever.
There was a faint hoarseness now, like the bloom on a fruit, like the
haze through which, on a summer's day, one sees St Paul's from Waterloo
Bridge. The interposition of that
curtain of husky gauze seemed to deepen, as it were, and enrich the beauties of
the vocal landscape lying behind it.
Listening more attentively than ever, he tried to fix the cadences of
her speech upon his memory, to analyze them into their component sounds. In his projected Elements of Sociology there
was to be a chapter on Mass Suggestion and Propaganda. One of the sections would be devoted to the
subject of Fascinating Noises. The
fascinatingly excitingly exciting noise, for example, of Savonarola, or Lloyd
George. The fascinatingly sedative noise
of Robey and Little Tich; the fascinatingly aphrodisiac noise of certain actors
and actresses, certain singers, certain sirens and Don Juans of private
life. Mary's gift, he decided, was for
making a noise that was simultaneously aphrodisiac and comic. She could emit sounds that touched the
springs of laughter and desire, but never those of sorrow, of pity, of
indignation. In moments of emotional
stress (and he recalled those horrible scenes she used to make) her voice
passed out of control into a chaos of raucous shrillness. The sounds of her words of complaint,
reproach or grief evoked in the hearer only a certain physical discomfort. Whereas with Mrs Foxe, he now went on to
think, the noise alone of what she said had been enough to compel your
acquiescence and sympathy. Hers was the
mysterious gift that hoisted Robespierre into power, that enabled Whitefield,
by the mere repetition, two or three times, of some pious exclamation, to
reduce the most hardened sceptic to tears.
There are fascinating noises capable of convincing a listener of the
existence of God.
Those
bφ-φds! They all laughed, all
simply had to laugh, at them. Even Colin
Egerton, even Hugh Ledwidge. And yet
ever since that man Beavis had come into the drawing-room, Hugh had been in a
prickle of uneasiness. Beavis whom he
always did his best to avoid
What hadn't Mary told him? For a moment he imagined it was a plot. Mary had invited Beavis on purpose to put him
to shame because she knew that the man had been a witness of his humiliations
at Bulstrode. There were to be two of
them: Staithes (for Staithes, he knew, was expected after dinner) and
Beavis. Hugh had grown accustomed to
meeting Staithes in this house, didn't mind meeting him. Staithes, there could be no doubt, had
forgotten. But Beavis whenever he met
Beavis, it always seemed to Hugh that the man looked at him in a queer
way. And now Mary had invited him, on
purpose, so that he could remind Staithes; and then the two of them would bait
him with their reminiscences their reminiscences of how he had funked at
football; of how he had cried when it was his turn at fire-drill to slide down
the rope; of how he had sneaked to Jimbug and had then been made to run the
gauntlet between two lines of them, armed with wet towels rolled up into
truncheons; of how they had looked over the partition
He shuddered. But of course, on second, saner thoughts, it
couldn't possibly be a plot. Not conceivably. All the same, he was glad when they went down
to dinner and he found himself separated from Beavis. Across Helen, conversation would be
difficult. And after dinner he would do
his best to keep at a distance
As
for Colin, he had sat all through the meal in a bewilderment that, as it grew,
as he felt himself more and more hopelessly out of it all, was mingled to an
ever-increasing extent with exasperation and disapproval, until at last he was
saying to himself (what he intended to say aloud to Joyce at the first
opportunity), was saying: 'I may be stupid and all that' and this confession
was uttered by his inward voice in a tone of firm contempt, as though it were a
confession of strength, not weakness - 'I may be stupid and all that, but at
least well, at least I do know what's within the pale and what's without.' He would say all this to Joyce, and much
more; and Joyce (he had glanced at her in the middle of one of Beppo's
outrageous stories and caught an eye that was humble, anxious, pleading
apologetic), Joyce would agree with every word he said. For the poor child was like a kind of
changeling a County changeling left by some inexplicable mistake in the arms
of a mad, impossible mother who forced her, against her real nature, to
associate with these
these
(He couldn't find the mentionable word for Beppo.) And he, Colin Egerton, he was the St George
who would rescue her. The fact that
like some poor young girl fallen among white-slavers she needed rescuing was
one of the reasons why he felt so strongly attracted to her. He loved her, among other reasons, because he
so violently loathed that ghastly degenerate (that was the word), Beppo
Bowles; and his approval of all that Joyce was and did was proportionate to his
disapproval (a disapproval strengthened by a certain terror) of Joyce's
mother. And yet, now, in spite of the
disapproval, in spite of his fear of that sharp tongue of hers, those
piercingly ironic glances, he could not help laughing with the rest. Those long-drawn bφ-φds under their glass domes were
irresistible.
For
Mrs Amberley the laughter was like champagne warming, stimulating. 'And I shall have an inscription carved on
the base,' she went on, raising her voice against the din: ' This kidney was
stolen by Helen Amberley, at the risk of her life and ... '
'Oh,
do shut up, Mummy!' Helen was blushing
with a mixture of pleasure and annoyance.
'Please!' It was certainly nice
to be the heroine of a story that everybody was listening to but then the
heroine was also a bit of an ass. She
felt angry with her mother for exploiting the assishness.
'
andin spite of a lifelong and conscientious objection to butchery,' Mrs
Amberley went on. Then 'Poor darling,'
she added in another tone. 'Smells
always were her weak point. Butchers,
fishmongers, - and shall I ever forget that one and only time I took her to
church!'
('One
and only time,' thought Colin. 'No
wonder she goes and does things like this!')
'Oh,
I do admit,' cried Mrs Amberley, 'that a village congregation on a wet Sunday
morning well, frankly, it stinks.
Deafeningly! But still
'
'It's
the odour of sanctity,' put in Anthony Beavis: and turning to Helen, 'I've
suffered from it myself. And did your
mother make you spit when there were bad smells about? Mine did.
It made things very difficult in church.'
'She
didn't spit,' Mrs Amberley answered for her daughter. 'She was sick. All over Lady Worplesdon's astrakhan
coat. I was never able to show my face
in respectable society again. Thank
God!' she added.
Beppo
sizzled a protest against her implied imputations. Switched off kidneys, the conversation rolled
away along another line.
Helen
sat unnoticed, in silence. Her face had
suddenly lost all its light; 'I'll never touch meat again,' she had said. And here she was, with a morsel of that
gruesome red lump of cow impaled on her fork.
'I'm awful,' she thought. Pas
sιrieuse, old Mme Delιcluze had pronounced.
And though as a professional girl-finisher the old beast could hardly be
expected to say anything else, yet it was true; at bottom it was quite true. 'I'm not serious. I'm not
'
But suddenly she was aware that the voice which had been sounding,
inarticulately and as though from an immense distance, in her right ear was
addressing itself to her.
'Proust,'
she heard it saying, and realized that it had pronounced the same syllable at
least twice before. She looked round,
guiltily, and saw, red with embarrassment, the face of Hugh Ledwidge turned,
waveringly and uncertainly, towards her.
He smiled foolishly; his spectacles flashed; he turned away. She felt doubly confused and ashamed.
'I'm
afraid I didn't quite catch
' she contrived to mumble.
'Oh,
it doesn't matter,' he mumbled back.
'It's really of no importance.'
Of no importance; but it had taken him the best part of five minutes to
think of that gambit about Proust. 'I
must say something to her,' he had decided, when he saw Beavis safely involved
in intimate talk with Mary Amberley and Beppo.
'Must say something.' But
what? What did one say to young girls of
eighteen? He would have liked to say
something personal, something even a bit gallant. About her frock, for example. 'How nice!'
No, that was a bit vague and unspecific.
'How it suits your complexion, your eyes!' (What colour were they, by
the way?) Or he might ask her about parties. Did she go to many? With (very archly) boyfriends? But that, he knew, was too difficult for
him. Besides, he didn't much like to
think of her with boyfriends preferred her virginal: du bist wie eine
Blume
Or else, seriously but with a smile, 'Tell me,' he might say, 'tell
me, Helen, what are young people really like nowadays? What do they think and feel about
things?' And Helen would plant her
elbows on the table and turn sideways and tell him, exactly, all he wanted to
know about that mysterious world, the world where people danced and went to
parties and were always having personal relations with one another; would tell
him everything, everything or else, more likely, nothing, and he would just
be made to feel an impertinent fool. No,
no; this wouldn't do, wouldn't do at all.
This was just fancy, this was just wish-fulfilment. It was then that the question about Proust
had occurred to him. What did she think
of Proust? It was a comfortingly
impersonal question one that he could ask without feeling awkward and
unnatural. But its impersonality could
easily be made to lead to a long discussion always in the abstract, always,
so to speak, in a test-tube of the most intimately emotional, even (no, no,
but still, one never knew; it was revolting; and yet
) even physiological
matters. Talking of Proust, it would be
possible to say everything everything, but always in terms of a strictly
literary criticism. Perfect! He had turned towards Helen.
'I
suppose you're as keen on Proust as everybody else.' No answer.
From the end of the table came wafts of Mrs Amberley's conversation with
Anthony and Beppo: they were discussing the habits of their friends. Colin Egerton was in the middle of a tiger
hunt in the Central Provinces. He
coughed, then, 'You're a Proustian, I take it?
Like the rest of us,' he repeated.
But the lowered and melancholy profile gave no sign of life. Feeling more uncomfortably a fool, Hugh
Ledwidge tried once more.
'I
wish you'd tell me,' he said in a louder voice, that sounded, he thought,
peculiarly unnatural, 'what you think about Proust?'
Helen
continued to stare at some invisible object on the table, just in front of her
plate. Pas sιrieuse. She was thinking of all the unserious things
she had ever done in her life, all the silly, the mean, the awful things. A kind of panic embarrassment overwhelmed
Hugh Ledwidge. He felt as he might feel
if his trousers were to start coming down in Piccadilly lost. Anybody else, of course, would just touch her
arm and say, 'A penny for your thoughts, Helen!' How simple this would be, how sensible! The whole incident would at once be turned
into a joke a joke, moreover, at her expense. He would establish once and for all a
position of teasing superiority. 'Day-dreaming
in the middle of a dinner! About
what? About whom?' Very knowing and arch. And she would blush, would giggle at his
behest, in response to his command.
Like a skilled matador, he would wave his little red flag, and she would
go plunging here, go charging there, making an absurd and ravishing exhibition
of herself, until at last, raising his sword
But simple and sensible and
strategically advantageous as all this would be, Hugh Ledwidge found it quite
impossible to make the first move. There
was her bare arm, thin like a little girl's; but somehow he could not bring
himself to put out his hand and touch it.
And the jocular offer of that penny it couldn't be made; his vocal
cords would not do it. Thirty seconds
passed seconds of increasing embarrassment and uncertainty. Then suddenly, as though waking from sleep,
she had looked round at him. What had he
said? But it was impossible to repeat
that question again.
'It's
of no importance. No importance.' He turned away. But why, or why was he such a fool, so
ridiculously incompetent? At
thirty-five. Nel mezzo del cammin. Imagine Dante in the circumstances! Dante, with his steel profile, ploughing
forward, like a spiritual battleship.
And meanwhile, what on earth should he say to her in place of that now
impossible remark about Proust? What in
the name of heaven
?
It
was she who finally touched his arm.
'I'm so sorry,' she said with a real contrition. She was trying to make up for her awfulness,
for having so frivolously eaten Mr Baldwin's well-thumbed cow. Besides, she liked old Hugh. He was nice.
He had taken the trouble to show her the Mexican things at the
Museum. 'I have an appointment with Mr
Ledwidge,' she had said. And the
attendants had all been delightfully deferential. She had been led to his private room - the private room of the Assistant Director of
the Department as though she were some distinguished personage. One eminent archaeologist visiting
another. It had really been
extraordinarily interesting. Only, of
course and this was another symptom of her awful unseriousness she had
forgotten most of the things he had told her.
'So awfully sorry,' she repeated; and it was genuinely true. She knew what he must be feeling. 'You see,' she explained, 'Granny's
deaf. I know how awful it is when I have
to repeat something. It sounds so
idiotic. Like Mr Shandy and the clock,
somehow, if you see what I mean. Do
forgive me.' She pressed his arm
appealingly, then, planting her elbows on the table and turning sideways
towards him in just the confidential attitude he had visualized, 'Listen,
Hugh,' she said, 'you're serious, aren't you?
You know, sιrieux.'
'Well,
I suppose so,' he stammered. He had just
seen, rather belatedly, what she meant by that reference to Mr Shandy, and the
realization had come as something of a shock.
'I
mean,' she went on, 'you could hardly be at the Museum if you weren't serious.'
'No,'
he admitted, 'I probably couldn't.' But,
after all, he was thinking, still preoccupied by Mr Shandy, there's such a
thing as theoretical knowledge. (And
didn't he know it? Only too well.) Theoretical knowledge corresponding to no
genuine experience, unrealized, not lived through. 'Oh God!' he inwardly groaned.
'Well,
I'm not serious,' Helen was saying.
She felt a great need to unburden herself, to ask for help. There were moments and they recurred
whenever, for one reason or another, she felt doubtful of herself moments
when everything round her seemed terribly vague and unreliable. Everything but in practice, of course, it
all boiled down to the unreliability of her mother. Helen was very fond of her mother, but at the
same time she had to admit to herself that she was no use. 'Mummy's like a very bad practical joke,' she
had once said to Joyce. 'You think
you're going to sit on it; but the chair's whisked away and you come down with
a horrible bump on your bottom.' But all
that Joyce had said was: 'Helen, you simply mustn't use those words.' Ass of a girl! Though, of course, it had to be admitted,
Joyce was a chair that could be sat on.
But an inadequate chair, a chair only for unimportant occasions and
what was the good of that? Joyce was too
young; and even if she'd been much older, she wouldn't really have understood
anything properly. And now that she was
engaged to Colin, she seemed to understand things less and less. God, what a fool that man was! But all the same, there, if you liked, was
a chair. A chair like the rock of
ages. But so shaped, unfortunately, that
it forced you to sit in the most grotesquely uncomfortable position. However, as Joyce didn't seem to mind the
discomfort, that was all right.
Chairless in an exhausting world, Helen almost envied her. Meanwhile there was old Hugh. She sat down, heavily.
'What's
wrong with me,' she went on, 'is that I'm so hopelessly frivolous.'
'I
can't really believe that,' he said; though why he said it he couldn't
imagine. For, obviously, he ought to be encouraging
her to make confession, not assuring her that she had no sins to confess. It was as though he were secretly afraid of
the very thing he had wished for.
'I
don't think you're
'
But
fortunately nothing he said could put her off.
She insisted on using him as a chair.
'No,
no, it's quite true,' she said. 'You
can't imagine how frivolous I am. I'll
tell you
'
Half
an hour later, in the back drawing-room, he was writing out for her a list of
the books she ought to read. Burnet's Early
Greek Philosophers; Phaedrus, Timaeus, The Apology, and The
Symposium in Jowett's translation; the Nicomachean Ethics;
Cornford's little anthology of the Greek moralists; Marcus Aurelius; Lucretius
in any good translation; Inge's Plotinus. His manner, as he spoke, was easy, confident,
positively masterful. He was like a
creature suddenly restored to its proper element.
'Those
will give you some idea of the way the ancients thought about things.'
She
nodded. Her face as she looked at the
pencilled list was grave and determined.
She had decided that she would wear spectacles, and have a table brought
up to her bedroom, so that she could sit undisturbed, with her books piled up
and her writing materials in front of her.
Notebooks or, better, a card index.
It would be a new life a life with some meaning in it, some
purpose. In the drawing-room somebody
started up the gramophone. As though on
its own initiative, her foot began to beat out the rhythm. One two three, one two three it was a
waltz. But what was she thinking
of? She frowned and held her foot still.
'As
for modern thought,' Hugh was saying, 'well, the two indispensable books, from
which every modern culture must start, are' his pencil hurried across the
paper 'Montaigne's Essays and the Pensιes of Pascal. Indispensable, these.' He underlined the names. 'Then you'd better glance at the Discourse
on Method.'
'Which
method?' asked Helen.
But
Hugh did not hear the question. 'And
take a look at Hobbes, if you have the time,' he went on with ever-increasing
power and confidence. 'And then
Newton. That's absolutely
essential. Because if you don't know the
philosophy of Newton, you don't know why science has developed as it has
done. You'll find all you need in Burt's
Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science.' There was a little silence while he
wrote. Tom had arrived, and Eileen and
Sybil. Helen could hear them talking in
the other room. But she kept her eyes
determinedly fixed on the paper. 'Then
there's Hume,' he continued. 'You'd
better begin with the Essays.
They're superb. Such sense, such
an immense sagacity!'
'Sagacity,'
Helen repeated, and smiled to herself with pleasure. Yes, that was exactly the word she'd been
looking for exactly what she herself would like to be: sagacious, like an
elephant, like an old sheep-dog, like Hume, if you preferred it. But at the same time, of course,
herself. Sagacious, but young;
sagacious, but lively and attractive; sagacious, but impetuous and
'I
won't inflict Kant on you,' said Hugh indulgently. 'But I think' (he brought the pencil into
play again), 'I think you'll have to read one or two of the modern
Kantians. Vaihinger's Philosophy of
As If, for example, and von Uexkόll's Theoretical Biology. You see, Kant's behind all our
twentieth-century science. Just as
Newton was behind all the science of the eighteenth and nineteenth
'
'Well,
Helen!'
They
started and looked up looked up into the smiling, insolently handsome face of
Gerry Watchett. Brilliantly blue against
the sunburnt skin, the eyes glanced from one to the other with a kind of
mockery. Coming a step nearer, he laid
his hand familiarly on Helen's shoulder.
'What's the fun? Crossword
puzzles?' He gave the shoulder two or
three little pats.
'As
though she were his horse,' Hugh said to himself indignantly. And, in effect, that was what the man looked
like a groom. That crisply waving,
golden-brownish hair, that blunt-featured face, at once boyish and tough they
were straight from the stable, straight from Epsom downs.
Helen
smiled a smile that was intended to be contemptuously superior an
intellectual's smile. 'You would
think it was crosswords!' she said.
Then, 'By the way,' she added in another tone, 'you know each other,
don't you?' she looked enquiringly from Gerry to Hugh.
'We
do,' Gerry answered: and still keeping his right hand on Helen's shoulder, he
raised his left in the derisive caricature of a military salute. 'Good evening, Colonel.'
Sheepishly,
Hugh returned the salute. All his power
and confidence had vanished with his forced return from the world of books to
that of personal life; he felt like an albatross on dry land helplessly
awkward, futile, ugly. And yet how easy
it should have been to put on a knowing smile, and say significantly, 'Yes, I
know Mr Watchett very well know him, the tone would imply, for what he is:
the gentleman share-pusher, the professional gambler and the professional
lover. Mary Amberley's lover at the
moment, so it was supposed. 'Know him
very well indeed!' That was what
it would have been easy to say. But he
didn't say it: he only smiled and rather foolishly raised his hand to his
forehead.
Gerry,
meanwhile, had sat down on the arm of the sofa, and through the smoke of his
cigarette was staring at Helen with a calm and easy insolence, appraising her,
so it seemed, point by point hocks, withers, quarters, barrel. 'Do you know, Helen,' he said at last,
'you're getting prettier and prettier every day.'
Blushing,
Helen threw back her head and laughed; then suddenly stiffened her face into an
unnatural rigidity. She was angry
angry with Gerry for his damned impertinence, angry above all with herself for
having been pleased by the damned impertinence, for having reacted with such a
humiliatingly automatic punctuality to that offensive flattery. Going red in the face and giggling like a
schoolgirl! And that Philosophy of As
If, those horn-rimmed spectacles, and the new life, and the card index
? A man said, 'You're pretty,' and it was as
though they had never been so much as thought of. She turned towards Hugh; turned for
protection, for support. But her eyes
had no sooner met his than he looked away.
His face took on an expression of meditative absence; he seemed to be
thinking of something else. Was he angry
with her, she wondered? Had he been
offended because she had been pleased by Gerry's compliment? But it had been like blinking at the noise of
a gun something you couldn't help doing.
He ought to understand, ought to realize that she wanted to lead that
new life, was simply longing to be sagacious.
Instead of which, he just faded out and refused to have anything to do
with her. Oh, it wasn't fair!
Behind
that cold detached mask of his, Hugh was feeling more than ever like
Baudelaire's albatross.
Ce
voyageur ailι, comme il est gauche et veule!
Lui,
naguθre si beau, qu'il est comique et laid!
Ah, those strong and majestic swoopings in
the neo-Kantian azure!
From
the next room the gramophone was trumpeting, 'Yes, sir, she's my Baby.' Gerry whistled a couple of bars; then 'What
about a spot of fox-trotting, Helen?' he suggested. 'Unless, of course, you haven't finished with
the Colonel.' He glanced mockingly at Hugh's
averted face. 'I don't want to interrupt
'
It
was Helen's turn to look to Hugh. 'Well
' she began doubtfully.
But
without looking up, 'Oh, not at all, not at all,' Hugh made haste to say; and
wondered, even as he did so, what on earth had induced him to proclaim his own
defeat before even there had been a battle.
Leaving her to that groom! Fool,
coward! Still, he told himself cynically,
she probably preferred the groom. He got
up, mumbled something about having to talk to someone about some point that had
turned up, and moved away towards the door that gave on to the landing and the
stairs.
'Well,
if he doesn't want to stay,' Helen thought resentfully, 'if he doesn't think
it's worth his while to keep me.' She
was hurt.
'Exit
the Colonel,' said Gerry. Then, 'What
about that spot of dancing?' He rose,
came towards her and held out his hand.
Helen took it and pulled herself up from the low chair. 'No, sir, don't say maybe,' he sang as he put
his arm about her. They stepped out into
the undulating stream of the music.
Zigzagging between chairs and tables, he steered towards the door that
led into the other room.
CHAPTER XV
June
1903 January 1904
It had become a rite, a sacrament (that was
how John Beavis described it to himself): a sacrament of communion. First, the opening of the wardrobe door, the
handling of her dresses. Closing his
eyes, he breathed the perfume they exhaled, the faint sweet essence of her body
from across the widening abyss of time.
Then there were the drawers.
These three, on the left, contained her linen. The lavender bags were tied with pale blue
ribbon. This lace on the nightgown he
now unfolded had touched
Even in thought, John Beavis avoided the
pronunciation of the words 'her breasts,' but only imagined the rounded flesh
softly swelling and sinking under the intricacies of the patterned thread; then
recalled those Roman nights; and finally thought of Lollingdon and the hollow
vale, the earth, the terrible dark silence.
The nightgown refolded and once more shut away, it was the turn of the
two small drawers on the right of the gloves that had encased her hands, the
belts that had girdled her body and that now he wound round his wrist or
tightened like a phylactery about his temples.
And the rite concluded with the reading of her letters those
touchingly childish letters she had written during their engagement. That consummated the agony for him; the rite
was over and he could go to bed with yet another sword in his heart.
But
recently, it seemed, the sword had grown blunter. It was as though her death, till now so
poignantly alive, had itself begun to die.
The rite seemed to be losing its magic: consummation became increasingly
difficult of achievement, and, when achieved, was less painful and, for that
reason, less satisfying. For the thing
which had made life worth living all these months was precisely the pain of his
bereavement. Desire and tenderness had
suddenly been deprived of their object.
It was an amputation agonizing.
And now this pain and it was all of her that was left him this
precious anguish was slipping away from him, was dying, even as Maisie herself
had died.
Tonight
it seemed to have vanished altogether.
He buried his face in the scented folds of her dresses, he spread out
the lace and lawn she had worn next her skin, he blew into one of her gloves
and watched the gradual deflation of this image of her hand dying, dying,
till the skin hung limp again and empty of even the pretence of life. But the rites were without effect; John
Beavis remained unmoved. He knew that
she was dead and that his bereavement was terrible. But he felt nothing of this bereavement
nothing except a kind of dusty emptiness of spirit.
He
went to bed unfulfilled, somehow humiliated.
Magic rites justify themselves by success; when they fail to produce
their proper emotional results, the performer feels that he has been betrayed
into making a fool of himself.
Dry,
like a mummy, in the dusty emptiness of his own sepulchre, John Beavis lay for
a long time, unable to sleep. Twelve;
one; two; and then, when he had utterly despaired of it, sleep came, and he was
dreaming that she was there beside him; and it was Maisie as she had been in
the first year of their marriage, the round flesh swelling and subsiding
beneath the lace, the lips parted and, oh, innocently consenting. He took her in his arms.
It
was the first time since her death that he had dreamed of her except as dying.
John
Beavis woke to a sense of shame; and when, later in the day, he saw Miss
Gannett evidently waiting for him, as usual, in the corridor outside his
lecture-room, he pretended not to have noticed her, but hurried past with
downcast eyes, frowning, as though preoccupied by some abstruse, insoluble
problem in the higher philology.
But
the next afternoon found him at his old Aunt Edith's weekly At Home. And of course though he expressed a perhaps
excessive surprise at seeing her of course Miss Gannett was there, as he knew
she would be; for she never missed one of Aunt Edith's Thursdays.
'You
were in a terrible hurry yesterday,' she said, when his surprise had had time
to die down.
'Me? When?'
He pretended not to know what she meant.
'At
the College, after your lecture.'
'But
were you there? I didn't see you.'
'Now
he thinks I shirked his lecture,' she wailed to some non-existent third
party. Even since, two months before,
she had first met him in Aunt Edith's drawing-room, Miss Gannett had faithfully
attended every one of his public lectures.
'To improve my mind,' she used to explain. 'Because,' with a jocularity that was at the
same time rather wistful, 'it does so need improving!'
Mr
Beavis protested. 'But I didn't say
anything of the kind.'
'I'll
show you the notes I took.'
'No,
please don't do that!' It was his turn
to be playful. 'If you knew how my own
lectures bored me!'
'Well,
you nearly ran me over in the corridor, after the lecture.'
'Oh,
then!'
'I
never saw anyone walk so fast.'
He
nodded. 'Yes, I was in a hurry;
it's quite true. I had a Committee. Rather a special one,' he added impressively.
She
opened her eyes at him very wide, and, from playful, her tone and expression
became very serious. 'It must be rather
a bore sometimes,' she said, 'to be such a very important person isn't it?'
Mr
Beavis smiled down at the grave and awestruck child before him at the
innocent child who was also a rather plump and snubbily pretty young woman of
seven and twenty smiled with pleasure and stroked his moustache. 'Oh, not quite so important as all that,' he
protested. 'Not quite such
' he
hesitated for a moment; his mouth twitched, his eyes twinkled; then the
colloquialism came out: 'not quite such a howling toff as you seem to
imagine.'
There
was only one letter that morning. From
Anthony, Mr Beavis saw as he tore open the envelope.
'BULSTRODE, June 26th.
'DEAREST FATHER, - Thank you for your letter. I thought we were going to Tenby for the
holidays. Did you not arrange it with
Mrs Foxe? Foxe says she expects us, so
perhaps we ought not to go to Switzerland instead as you say we are doing. We had two matches yesterday, first eleven v.
Sunny Bank, second v. Mumbridge, we won both which was rather
rippling. I was playing in the second
eleven and made six not out. We have
begun a book called Lettres de mon Moulin in French, I think it is rotten. There is no more news, so with much love
Your loving son,
'ANTHONY.
'P.S.
- Don't forget to write to Mrs Foxe, because Foxe says he knows she thinks we
are going to Tenby.'
Mr Beavis frowned as he read the letter,
and when breakfast was over, sat down at once to write an answer.
'EARL'S COURT
SQUARE,
27.vi.03.
'DEAREST ANTHONY,
- I am disappointed that you
should have received what I had hoped was a piece of very exciting news with so
little enthusiasm. At your age I should
certainly have welcomed the prospect of going abroad, especially to
Switzerland, with unbounded delight. The
arrangements with Mrs Foxe were always of the most indeterminate nature. Needless to say, however, I wrote to her as
soon as the golden opportunity for exploring the Bernese Oberland in congenial
company turned up, as it did only a few days since, and made me decide to
postpone the realization of our vague Tenby plans. If you want to see exactly where we are
going, take your map of Switzerland, find Interlaken and the Lake of Brienz,
move eastward from the end of the Lake to Meiringen and thence in a southerly
direction towards Grindelwald. We shall
be staying at the foot of the Scheideck Pass, at Rosenlaui, almost in the
shadow of such giants as the Jungfrau, Weisshorn and Co. I do not know the spot, but gather from all
accounts that it is entirely spiffing and paradisal.
'I
am delighted to hear you did so creditably in your match. You must go on, dear boy, from strength to
strength. Next year I shall hope to see
you sporting the glories of the First Eleven colours.
'I
cannot agree with you in finding Daudet rotten. I suspect that his rottenness mainly consists
in the difficulties he presents to a tyro.
When you have acquired a complete mastery of the language, you will come
to appreciate the tender charm of his style and the sharpness of his wit.
'I
hope you are working your hardest to make good your sad weakness in
maths. I confess that I never shone in
the mathematical line myself, so am able to sympathize with your difficulties. But hard work will do wonders, and I am sure
that if you really put your back into algebra and geometry, you can easily
get up to scholarship standards by this time next year. - Ever your most
affectionate father,
J.B.'
'It's too sickening!' said Anthony, when he
had finished reading his father's letter.
The tears came into his eyes; he was filled with a sense of intolerable
grievance.
'W-what
does he s-say?' Brian asked.
'It's
all settled. He's written to your mater
that we're going to some stinking hole in Switzerland instead of Tenby. Oh, I really am too sick about it!' He crumpled up the letter and threw it angrily
on the ground, then turned away and tried to relieve his feelings by kicking
his play-box. Too sick, too sick!' he
kept repeating.
Brian
was sick too. They were going to have
had such a splendid time at Tenby; it had all been imaginatively foreseen,
preconstructed in the most luxuriant detail; and now, crash! the future good
time was in bits.
'S-still,'
he said at last, after a long silence, 'I exp-pect you'll enj-joy yourself in
S-switzerland.' And, moved by a sudden
impulse, for which would have found it difficult to offer an explanation, he
picked up Mr Beavis's letter, smoothed out the crumpled pages and handed it
back to Anthony. 'Here's your l-letter,'
he said.
Anthony
looked at it for a moment, opened his mouth as though to speak, then shut it
again, and taking the letter, put it away in his pocket.
The
congenial company in which they were to explore the Bernese Oberland turned
out, when they reached Rosenlaui, to consist of Miss Gannett and her old
schoolfriend Miss Louie Piper. Mr Beavis
always spoke of them as 'the girls,' or else, with a touch of that mock-heroic
philological jocularity to which he was so partial, 'the damsels' dominicellae,
double diminutive of domina. The
teeny weeny ladies! He smiled to himself
each time he pronounced the word. To Anthony
the damsels seemed a pair of tiresome and already elderly females. Piper, the thin one, was like a
governess. He preferred fat old Gannett,
in spite of that awful mooey, squealing laugh of hers, in spite of the way she
puffed and sweated up the hills. Gannett
at least was well-meaning. Luckily,
there were two other English boys in the hotel.
True, they came from Manchester and spoke rather funnily, but they were
decent chaps, and they knew an extraordinary number of dirty stories. Moreover, in the woods behind the hotel they
had discovered a cave, where they kept cigarettes. Proudly, when he got back to Bulstrode,
Anthony announced that he had smoked every day of the hols.
One
Saturday in November Mr Beavis came down to Bulstrode for the afternoon. They watched the football for a bit, then
went for a depressing walk that ended, however, at the King's Arms. Mr Beavis ordered crumpets 'and buttered eggs
for this young stalwart' (with a conspiratorial twinkle at the waitress, as
though she also knew that the word meant 'foundation-worthy'), 'and cherry jam
to follow isn't cherry the favourite?'
Anthony
nodded. Cherry was the
favourite. But so much solicitude made
him feel rather suspicious. What could
it all be for? Was he going to say something
about his work? About going in for the
scholarship next summer? About
? He blushed.
But after all, his father couldn't possibly know anything about that. Not possibly.
In the end he gave it up; he couldn't imagine what it was.
But
when, after an unusually long silence, his father leaned forward and said,
'I've got an interesting piece of news for you, dear boy,' Anthony knew, in a
sudden flash of illumination, exactly what was coming.
'He's
going to marry the Gannett female,' he said to himself.
And
so he was. In the middle of December.
'A
companion for you,' Mr Beavis was saying.
That youthfulness, those fresh and girlish high spirits! A companion as well as a second mother.'
Anthony
nodded. But 'companion' what did he
mean? He thought of the fat old Gannett,
toiling up the slopes behind Rosenlaui, red-faced, smelling of sweat, reeking
And suddenly his mother's voice was sounding in his ears.
'Pauline
wants you to call her by her Christian name,' Mr Beavis went on. 'It'll be
well, jollier, don't you think?'
Anthony
said 'Yes,' because there was obviously nothing else for him to say, and helped
himself to more cherry jam.
'Third
person singular aorist of τίθημι?'
questioned Anthony.
Horse-Face
got it wrong. It was Staithes who
answered correctly.
'Second
plural pluperfect of έρχομαι?'
Brian's
hesitation was due to something graver than his stammer.
'You're
putrid tonight, Horse-Face,' said Anthony and pointed his finger at Staithes,
who gave him the right answer again. 'Good
for you, Staithes.' And repeating
Jimbug's stalest joke, 'The sediment sinks to the bottom, Horse-Face,' he
rumbled in a parody of Jimbug's deep voice.
'Poor
old Horse-Face!' said Staithes, slapping the other on the back. Now that Horse-Face had given him the
pleasure of knowing less Greek grammar than he did, Staithes almost loved him.
It
was nearly eleven, long after lights-out, and the three of them were crowded
into the w.c., Anthony in his capacity of examiner sitting majestically on the
seat, and the other two squatting on their heels below him, on the floor. The May night was still and warm; in less
than six weeks they would be sitting for their scholarship examinations, Brian
and Anthony at Eton, Mark Staithes at Rugby.
It was after the previous Christmas holidays that Staithes had come back
to Bulstrode with the announcement that he was going in for a scholarship. Astonishing news and, for his courtiers and
followers, appalling! That work was
idiotic, and that those who worked were contemptible, had been axiomatic among
them. And now here was Staithes going in
for a schol with the other swots with Benger Beavis, with old Horse-Face,
with that horrible little tick, Goggler Ledwidge. It had seemed a betrayal of all that was most
sacred.
By
his words first of all, and afterwards, more effectively, by his actions,
Staithes had reassured them. The
scholarship idea was his Pater's. Not
because of the money, he had hastened to add.
His Pater didn't care a damn about the money. But for the honour and glory, because it was
a tradition in the family. His Pater
himself and his Uncles, his Fraters they had all got schols. It wouldn't do to let the Family down. Which didn't change the fact that swotting
was a stinking bore and that all swotters who swotted because they liked it, as
Horse-Face and Beavis seemed to do, were absolute worms. And to prove it he had ragged old Horse-Face
about his stammer and his piddle-warblers, he had organized a campaign against
Goggler for funking at football, he had stuck nibs into Beavis's bottom during
prep; and, though working very hard himself, he had made up for it by playing
harder than ever and by missing no opportunity of telling everyone how beastly
swotting was, how he had absolutely no chance whatever of getting a schol.
When
face had been sufficient saved, he had changed his tactics towards Beavis and
Horse-Face, and after showing himself for some time progressively more friendly
towards them, had ended by proposing the creation of a society of mutual
assistance in school swotting. It was he
who, at the beginning of the summer term, had suggested the nightly sessions in
the w.c. Brian had wanted to include
Goggler in these reading-parties; but the other two had protested; and anyhow,
the w.c. was demonstrably too small to contain a fourth. He had to be content with helping Goggler in
occasional half-hours during the day.
Night and the lavatory were reserved for the triumvirate.
To
explain this evening's failure with Greek verbs, 'I'm rather t-t-t
' Brian
began; then, forced into apparent affectation, 'rather weary to-n-night,' he
concluded.
His
pallor and the blue transparency under his eyes testified to the truth of his words;
but for Mark Staithes they were obviously an excuse by means of which
Horse-Face hoped to diminish a little the sting of his defeat at the hands of
one who had been swotting, not for years, as his rivals had, but only a few
months. It was an implied confession of
inferiority. Triumphing, Staithes felt
that he could be magnanimous. 'Hard
luck!' he said solicitously. 'Let's have
a bit of a rest.'
From
the pocket of his dressing-gown Anthony produced three ginger-nuts, rather
soft, it was true, with age, but nonetheless welcome.
For
the thousandth time since it had been decided that he should go in for a
scholarship, 'I wish I had the ghost of a chance,' said Staithes.
'You've
g-got a very g-good one.'
'No,
I haven't. It's just a crazy idea of my
Pater's. Crazy!' he repeated, shaking
his head. But in fact it was with a
tingling, warm sensation of pride, of exultation, that he remembered his
father's words. 'We Staitheses
When
one's a Staithes
You've got as good brains as the rest of us, and as much
determination
' He forced a sigh, and, aloud, 'Not a ghost of a chance,' he
insisted.
'Yes,
you h-have, honestly.'
'Rot!' He refused to admit even the possibility of
the thing. Then, if he failed, he could
laughingly say, 'I told you so'; and if he succeeded, as he privately believed
he would, the glory would be all the greater.
Besides, the more persistently he denied his chances, the oftener they
would repeat their delicious assurances of his possible, his probable,
success. Success, what was more, in
their own line; success, in spite of his consistent refusal, till the beginning
of last term, ever to take this ridiculous swotting seriously.
It
was Benger who brought the next tribute.
'Jimbug thinks you've got a chance,' he said. 'I heard him talking to old Jacko about it
yesterday.'
'What
does that old fool Jimbug know about it?'
Staithes made a disparaging grimace; but through the mask of contempt
his brown eyes shone with pleasure. 'And
as for Jacko
'
A
sudden rattling of the door-handle made them all start. 'I say, you chaps,' came an imploring whisper
through the keyhole, 'do buck up! I've
got the most frightful bellyache.'
Brian
rose hastily from the floor. 'We must
l-let him in,' he began.
But
Staithes pulled him down again. 'Don't
be a fool!' he said; then, turning towards the door, 'Go to one of the rears
downstairs,' he said, 'we're busy.'
'But
I'm in a most frightful hurry.'
'Then
the quicker you go, the better.'
'You're
a swine!' protested the whisper. Then
'Christ!' it added, as they heard the sound of slippered feet receding in a
panic rush down the stairs.
Staithes
grinned. 'That'll teach him,' he
said. 'What about another go at the
Greek grammar?'
Outraged
in advance, James Beavis had felt his indignation growing with every minute he
spent under his brother's roof. The
house positively reeked of matrimony. It
was asphyxiating! And there sat John,
fairly basking in those invisible radiations of dark female warmth, inhaling
the stuffiness with a quivering nostril, deeply contented, revoltingly
happy! Like a marmot, it suddenly
occurred to James Beavis, a marmot with its female, crowded fur to fur in their
subterranean burrow. Yes, the house was
just a burrow a burrow, with John like a thin marmot at one end of the table
and that soft, bulging marmot-woman at the other, and between them, one on
either side, himself, outraged and nauseated, and that unhappy little Anthony,
like a changeling from the world of fresh air, caught and dragged down and
imprisoned in the marmot-warren.
Indignation begot equally violent pity and affection for this unhappy
child, begot at the same time a retrospective feeling of sympathy for poor
Maisie. In her lifetime he had always
regarded Maisie as just a fool hopelessly silly and frivolous. Now, John's marriage and the oppressive
connubiality which enveloped the all too happy couple made him forget his
judgments on the living Maisie and think of her as a most superior woman (at
least, she had had the grace to be slim), posthumously martyred by her husband
for the sake of this repulsively fleshy female marmot. Horrible!
He did well to be angry.
Pauline
meanwhile had refused a second helping of the chocolate soufflι.
'But
my dear, you must,' John Beavis insisted.
Pauline
heaved the conscious imitation of a sigh of repletion. 'I couldn't.'
'Not
even the favourite chocolatl?' Mr Beavis always spoke of chocolate in
the original Aztec.
Playfully,
Pauline eyed the dish askance. 'I shouldn't,'
she said, implicitly admitting that the repletion was not complete.
'Yes,
you should,' he wheedled.
'Now
he's trying to make me fat!' she wailed with mock reproach. 'He's leading me into temptation!'
'Well,
be led.'
This
time, Pauline's sigh was a martyr's.
'All right, then,' she said submissively. The maid, who had been waiting impassively
for the outcome of the controversy, presented the dish once again. Pauline helped herself.
'There's
a good child,' said Mr Beavis, in a tone and with a twinkle that expressed a sportive
mock-fatherliness. 'And now, James, I
hope you'll follow the good example.'
James's
disgust and anger were so intense that he could not trust himself to speak, for
fear of saying something outrageous. He
contented himself with curtly shaking his head.
'No
chocolatl for you?' Mr Beavis
turned to Anthony. 'But I'm sure you'll
take pity on the pudding!' And when
Anthony did, 'Ah, that's good!' he said.
'That's the way
' - he hesitated for a fraction of a second - '
the
way to tuck-in!'
CHAPTER
XVI
Anthony's fluency, as they walked to the
station, was a symptom of his inward sense of guilt. By the profusion of his talk, by the
brightness of his attention, he was making up to Brian for what he had done the
previous evening. It was not as though
Brian had uttered any reproaches; he seemed, on the contrary, to be taking
special pains not to hint at yesterday's offence. His silence served Anthony as an excuse for
postponing all mention of the disagreeable subject of Mark Staithes. Some time, of course, he would have to talk
about the whole wretched affair (what a bore people were, with their
complicated squabbles!); but, for the moment, he assured himself, it would be
best to wait
to wait until Brian himself referred to it. Meanwhile, his uneasy conscience constrained
him to display towards Brian a more than ordinary friendliness, to make a
special effort to be interesting and to show himself being interested. Interested in the poetry of Edward Thomas as
they walked down Beaumont Street, in Bergson opposite Worcester; crossing Hythe
Bridge, in the nationalization of coal mines; and finally, under the viaduct
and up the long approach to the station, in Joan Thursley.
'It's
ext-traordinary,' said Brian, breaking, with what was manifestly an effort, a
rather long preparatory silence, 'that you sh-shouldn't ever have met her.'
'Dis
aliter visum,' Anthony answered in his father's best classical style. Though, of course, if he had accepted Mrs
Foxe's invitations to stay at Twyford, the gods, he reflected, would have
changed their minds.
'I
w-want you to l-like one another,' Brian was saying.
'I'm
sure we shall.'
'She's
not frightfully c-c-c
' Patiently he began again: 'frightfully c-clever. N-not on the s-surface. You'd th-think she was o-only interested in
c-c-c
' But 'country life' wouldn't allow itself to be uttered; Brian was
forced into seemingly affected circumlocution: 'in rural m-matters,' he brought
out at last. 'D-dogs and b-birds and all
that.'
Anthony
nodded and, suddenly remembering those spew-tits and piddle-warblers of the
Bulstrode days, imperceptibly smiled.
'But
w-when you g-get to kn-know her better,' Brian went on laboriously, 'you f-find
there's a lot m-more in her than you th-thought. She's g-got ext-traordinary feeling for p-p-p
for v-verse. W-wordsworth and
M-meredith, for example. I'm always
ast-astonished how g-good her j-judgments are.'
Anthony
smiled to himself sarcastically. Yes, it
would be Meredith!
The
other was silent, wondering how he should explain, whether he should even try
to explain. Everything was against him
his own physical disability, the difficulty of putting what he had to say into
words, the possibility that Anthony wouldn't even want to understand what he
said, that he would produce his alibi of cynicism and just pretend not to be
there at all.
Brian
thought of their first meeting. The
embarrassing discovery of two strangers in the drawing-room when he came in,
flushed and his hair still wet with the rain, to tea. His mother pronounced a name: 'Mrs
Thursley.' The new vicar's wife, he
realized, as he shook hands with the thin dowdy woman. Her manners were so ingratiating that she
lisped as she spoke; her smile was deliberately bright.
'And
this is Joan.'
The
girl held out her hand, and as he took
it, her slender body swayed away from his alien presence in a movement of
shyness that was yet adorably graceful, like the yielding of a young tree
before the wind. That movement was the
most beautiful and at the same time the most touching thing he had ever seen.
'We've
been hearing you're keen on birds,' said Mrs Thursley, with an oppressive
politeness and intensifying that all too bright, professionally Christian smile
of hers. 'So's Joan. A regular ornithologist.'
Blushing,
the girl muttered a protest.
'She
will be pleased to have someone to talk to about her precious
birds. Won't you, Joanie?'
Joan's
embarrassment was so great that she simply couldn't speak.
Looking
at her flushed, averted face, Brian was filled with compassionate
tenderness. His heart began to beat very
hard. With a mixture of fear and
exultation he realized that something extraordinary, something irrevocable had happened.
And
then, he went on to think, there was that time, some four or five months later,
when they were staying together at her uncle's house in East Sussex. Away from her parents, she was as though
transformed not into another person; into her own fundamental self, into the
happy, expansive girl that it was impossible for her to be at home. For at home she lived under constraint. Her father's chronic grumblings and
occasional outbursts of bad temper oppressed her with fear. And though she loved her, she felt herself
the prisoner of her mother's affection, with dimly conscious of somehow being
exploited by means of it. And finally
there was the cold numbing atmosphere of the genteel poverty in which they
lived, the unremitting tension of the struggle to keep up appearances, to preserve
social superiority. At home, it was
impossible for Joan to be fully herself; but there, in that spacious house at
Iden, among its quiet, easy-going inhabitants, she was liberated into a
transfiguring happiness. Dazzled, Brain
fell in love with her all over again.
He
though of the day when they had gone walking in Winchelsea marshes. The hawthorn was in bloom; dotted here and
there on the wide, flat expanse of grass, the sheep and the lambs were like
white constellations; overhead, the sky was alive with white clouds gliding in
the wind. Unspeakably beautiful! And suddenly it seemed to him that they were
walking through the image of their love.
The world was their love, and their love the world; and the world was
significant, charged with depth beyond depth of mysterious meaning. The proof of God's goodness floated in those
clouds, crept in those grazing sheep, shone from every burning bush of
incandescent blossom and, in himself and Joan, walked hand in hand across the
grass and was manifest in their happiness.
His love, it seemed to him, in that apocalyptic moment, was more than
merely his; it was in some mysterious way the equivalent of this wind
and sunshine, these white gleams against the green and blue of spring. His feeling for Joan was somehow implicit in
the world, had a divine and universal significance. He loved her infinitely, and for that reason
was able to love everything in the world as much as he loved her.
The
memory of that experience was precious to him, all the more so now, since the
quality of his feelings had undergone a change.
Transparent and seemingly pure as spring water, that infinite love of
his had crystallized out, with the passage of time, into specific desires.
Et
son bras et sa jambe, et sa cruisse et ses reins,
Polis
comme de l'huile, onduleux comme un cygne,
Passaient
devant mes yeux clairvoyants et sereins,
Et
son ventre et ses seins, ces grappes de ma vigne.
Ever since Anthony had first made him read
the poem, those lines had haunted his imagination; impersonally, at first; but
later, they had come to associate themselves, definitely, with the image of
Joan. Polis comme de l'huile,
onduleux comme un cygne. There was
no forgetting. The words had remained
with him, indelibly, like a remorse, like the memory of a crime.
They
entered the station and found that there were nearly five minutes to wait. The two young men walked slowly up and down
the platform.
In
an effort to lay the shameful phantom of those breasts, that oil-smooth belly,
'My m-mother likes her a l-lot,' Brian went on at last.
'That's
very satisfactory,' said Anthony; but felt, even as he uttered the
words, that he was rather overdoing the approval. If he fell in love, he most certainly
wouldn't take the girl to be inspected by his father and Pauline. On approval!
But it wasn't their business to approve or disapprove, for that
matter. Mrs Foxe was different, of
course; one could take her more seriously than Pauline or his father. But, all the same, one wouldn't want even Mrs
Foxe to interfere indeed, he went on to reflect, would probably dislike the
interference even more intensely than other people's, just because of that
superiority. For the superiority
constituted a kind of claim on one, gave her certain rights. One wouldn't be able so easily to ignore her
opinion as one could ignore Pauline's, for example. He was very fond of Mrs Foxe, he respected
and admired her; but for that very reason he felt her as potentially a menace
to his freedom. For she might indeed,
if she knew it, she certainly would object to his way of looking at
things. And though her criticisms would
be based on the principles of that liberal Christianity of hers, and though, of
course, such modernism was just as preposterous and, in spite of its pretensions
to being 'scientific', just as hopelessly beyond the pale of rationality as the
most extravagant fetishism nevertheless, her words, beings hers, would
carry weight, would have to be considered.
Which was why he did his best not to place himself in the position of
having to listen to them. It was more
than a year now since he had accepted one of her invitations to come and stay
with them in the country. Dis aliter
visum. But he looked forward rather
nervously to his impending encounter with her.
The
train came roaring in; and there, a minute later, they all were, at the other
end of the platform Mr Beavis in a grey suit, and Pauline beside him, very
large in mauve, her face apoplectically flushed by the shadow of her mauve
parasol, and behind them Mrs Foxe, straight and queenly, and a tall girl in a
big flopping hat and a flowered dress.
Mr
Beavis adopted for his greetings a humorously mock-heroic manner that Anthony
found particularly irritating. 'Six
precious souls,' he quoted, as he patted his son's shoulder, 'or rather only four
precious souls, but all agog to dash through thick and thin. And what a hot dash what a dashed hot
dash!' he emended, twinklingly.
'Well,
Anthony.' Mrs Foxe's voice was musically
rich with affection. 'It's an age since
I saw you.'
'Yes,
an age.' He laughed rather
uncomfortably, trying, as he did so, to remember those elaborate reasons he had
given for not accepting her invitations.
At all costs he mustn't contradict himself. Was it at Easter or at Christmas that the
necessity of working at the British Museum had kept him in London? He felt a touch on his arm, and thankful for
any excuse to break off the embarrassing conversation, turned quickly away.
'J-joan,'
Brian was saying to the girl in the flowered dress, 'h-here's A-anthony.'
'Awfully
glad,' he mumbled. 'Heard such a lot
about you from
' Nice hair, he thought; and the hazel eyes were beautifully
bright and eager. But the profile was
too emphatic; and though the lips were well cut, the mouth was too wide. A bit dairymaidish, was his conclusion; and
her clothes were really too homemade. He
himself preferred something rather more urban.
'Well,
lead on, Macduff,' said Mr Beavis.
They
left the station, and slowly, on the shady side of the street, walked towards
the centre of the town. Still merrily
Gilpinesque, as though (and this particularly irritated Anthony) today's
expedition were his first holiday jaunt for twenty years, Mr Beavis expatiated
in waggish colloquialisms on the Oxford of his own undergraduate days. Mrs Foxe listened, smiled at the appropriate
moments, asked pertinent questions.
Pauline complained from time to time of the heat. Her face shone; and, walking in gloomy
silence beside her, Anthony remarked with distaste the rather rank
intensification of her natural odour.
From behind him, he could hear snatches of the conversation between
Brian and Joan. '
a great big hawk,'
she was saying. Her speech was eager and
rapid. 'It must have been a
harrier.' 'D-did it have b-bars on its
t-t-t
on its tail?' 'That's it. Dark bars on a light grey ground.' 'Th-then it was a f-female,' said Brian. 'F-females have b-bars on their t-tails.' Anthony smiled to himself sarcastically.
They
were passing the Ashmolean, when a woman who was coming very slowly and as though
disconsolately out of the museum suddenly waved her hand at them and, calling
out first Mr Beavis's name and then, as they all turned round to look at her,
Mrs Foxe's, came running down the steps towards them.
'Why,
it's Mary Champernowne,' said Mrs Foxe.
'Mary Amberly, I should say.' Or
perhaps, she reflected, should not say, now that the Amberleys were
divorced.
The
name, the familiar face, evoked in Mr Beavis's mind only a pleasant sensation
of surprised recognition. Raising his
hat with a self-consciously comic parody of an old-world flourish, 'Welcome,'
he said to the new arrival. 'Welcome,
dear lady.'
Mary
Amberley took Mrs Foxe's hand. 'Such
luck,' she exclaimed breathlessly. Mrs
Foxe was surprised by so much cordiality.
Mary's mother was her friend; but Mary had always held aloof. And anyhow, since her marriage she had moved
in a world that Mrs Foxe did not know, and of which, on principle, she
disapproved. 'Such marvellous luck!' the
other repeated as she turned to Mr Beavis.
'The
luck is ours,' he said gallantly. 'You
know my wife, don't you? And the young
stalwart?' His eyes twinkled; the
corners of his mouth, under the moustache, humorously twitched. He laid a hand on Anthony's arm. 'The young foundation-worthy?'
She
smiled at Anthony. A strange smile, he
noticed; a crooked smile of unparted lips that seemed as though secretly
significant. 'I haven't seen you for
years,' she said. 'Not since
' Not
since the first Mrs Beavis's funeral, as a matter of fact. But one could hardly say so. 'Not since you were so high!' And lifting a gloved hand to the level of her
eye, she measured, between the thumb and forefinger, a space of about an inch.
Anthony
laughed nervously, intimidated, even while he admired, by so much prettiness
and ease and smartness.
Mrs
Amberley shook hands with Joan and Brian; then, turning back to Mrs Foxe, 'I
was feeling like Robinson Crusoe,' she said, explaining that abnormal
cordiality. 'Marooned.' She lingered with comical insistence over the
long syllable. 'Absolutely
marooned. Monarch of all I
surveyed.' And while they slowly walked
on across St Giles's, she launched out into a complicated story about a stray
in the Cotswolds; about an appointment to meet some friends on the way home, at
Oxford, on the eighteenth; about her journey from Chipping Campden; about her
punctual arrival at the meeting-place, her waiting, her growing impatience, her
rage, and finally her discovery that she had come a day too early: it was the
seventeenth. 'Too typical of me.'
Everybody
laughed a great deal. For the story was
full of unexpected fantasies and extravagances; and it was told in a voice that
modulated itself with an extraordinary subtlety to fit the words a voice that
knew when to hurry breathlessly and when to drawl, when to fade out into an
inaudibility rich with unspoken implications.
Even
Mrs Foxe, who didn't particularly want to be amused because of that divorce
found herself unable to resist the story.
For
Mary Amberley, their laughter was like champagne; it warmed her, it sent a
tingling exhilaration through her body.
They were bores, of course; they were philistines. But the applause even of bores and
philistines is still applause and intoxicating.
Her eyes shone, her cheeks flushed.
'Too hopelessly typical of me!' she wailed, when their laughter had
subsided; but the gesture of despairing self-disparagement was a caricature;
she was really proud of her incompetence, regarded it as part of her feminine
charm. 'Well, anyhow,' she concluded,
'there I was shipwrecked. All alone on
a desert island.'
They
walked for a moment in silence. The
thought that she would have to be asked to lunch was in all their minds a
thought tinged in Mrs Foxe's case with vexation, in Anthony's with embarrassed
desire. The lunch was being given in his
rooms; as the host, he ought to ask her.
And he wanted to ask her violently wanted it. But what would the others say? Oughtn't he somehow to consult them
first? Mr Beavis solved the problem for
him by making the suggestion on his own account.
'I
think' he hesitated; then, twinkling, 'I think our festal spread,' he went
on, 'will run to another guest, won't it, Anthony?'
'But
I can't impose myself,' she protested, turning from the father to the son. He seemed a nice boy, she thought, sensitive
and intelligent. Pleasant-looking too.
'But
I assure you
' Anthony was earnestly and incoherently repeating, 'I assure you
'
'Well,
if it's really all right
' She thanked him with a smile of sudden intimacy,
almost of complicity as though there were some bond between them, as though,
of all the party, they two were the only ones who understood what was what.
After
lunch, Joan had to be shown the sights of Oxford; and Mr Beavis had an
appointment with a philological colleague in the Woodstock Road; and Pauline
thought she would like to take things quietly till tea-time. Anthony was left to entertain Mary
Amberley. The responsibility was
deliciously alarming.
In
the hansom that was taking them to Magdalen Bridge Mrs Amberley turned to him a
face that was bright with sudden mischief.
'Free
at last,' she said.
Anthony
nodded at her and smiled back, understandingly, conspiratorially. 'They were rather heavy,' he
said. 'Perhaps I ought to apologize.'
'I've
often thought of founding a league for the abolition of families,' she went
on. 'Parents ought never to be allowed
to come near their children.'
'Plato
thought so too,' he said, rather pedantically.
'Yes,
but he wanted children to be bullied by the state instead of by their fathers
and mothers. I don't want them to be
bullied by anyone.'
He
ventured a personal question. 'Were you
bullied?' he asked.
Mary
Amberley nodded. 'Horribly. Few children have been more loved than I
was. They fairly bludgeoned me with
affection. Made me a mental
cripple. It took me years to get over
the deformity.' There was a silence. Then, looking at him with an embarrassingly
appraising glance, as though he were for sale, 'Do you know,' she said, 'the
last time I saw you was at your mother's funeral.'
The
subterranean association between this remark and what had gone before made him
blush guiltily, as though at an impropriety in mixed company. 'Yes, I remember,' he mumbled, and was
annoyed with himself for feeling so ashamed that he had allowed even this
remotely implied comment upon his mother to pass without some kind of protest,
that he had felt so little desire to make a protest.
'You
were a horrible, squalid little boy then,' she went on, still looking at him
judicially. 'How awful little boys
always are! It seems incredible that
they should ever turn into presentable human beings. And of course,' she added, 'a great many of
them don't. Dismal, don't you find? -
the way most people are so hideous and stupid, so utterly and abysmally
boring!'
Making
a violent effort of will, Anthony emerged from his embarrassment with a
creditable dash. 'I hope I'm not one of
the majority?' he said, lifting his eyes to hers.
Mrs
Amberley shook her head, and with a serious matter-of-factness, 'No,' she
answered. 'I was thinking how
successfully you'd escaped from the horrors of boyhood.'
He
blushed again, this time with pleasure.
'Let's
see, how old are you now?' she asked.
'Twenty
nearly twenty-one.'
'And
I shall be thirty this winter. Queer,'
she added, 'how these things change their significance. When I saw you last, those nine years were a
great gulf between us. Uncrossable, it
seemed then. We belonged to different species. And yet here we are, sitting on the same side
of the gulf as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Which indeed it is, now.' She turned and smiled at him that secret and
significant smile of unparted lips. Her
dark eyes were full of dancing brightness.
'Ah, there's Magdalen,' she went on, leaving him (to his great relief;
for in his excited embarrassment he would not have known what to say) no time
to comment on her words. 'How dreary
that late Gothic can be! So mean! No wonder Gibbon didn't think much of the
Middle Ages!' She was suddenly silent,
remembering the occasion when her husband had made that remark about
Gibbon. Only a month of two after their
marriage. She had been shocked and
astonished by his airy criticisms of things she had been brought up to regard
as sacredly beyond judgment shocked, but also thrilled, also delighted. For what fun to see the sacred things knocked
about! And in those days Roger was still
adorable. She sighed; then, with a touch
of irritation, shook off the sentimental mood and went on talking bout that
odious architecture.
The
cab drew up at the bridge; they dismounted and walked down to the
boat-house. Lying back on the cushions
of the punt, Mary Amberley was silent.
Very slowly, Anthony poled his way upstream. The green world slid past her half-shut
eyes. Green darkness of trees
overarching the olive shadows and tawny-glaucous lights of water; and between
the twilight stretches of green vaulting, the wide gold-green meadows, islanded
with elms. And always the faint weedy
smell of the river; and the air so soft and warm against the face that one was
hardly aware any longer of the frontiers between self and not-self, but lay
there, separated by no dividing surfaces, melting, drowsily melting into the
circumambient summer.
Standing
at the stern, Anthony could look down on her, as from a post of vantage. She lay there at his feet, limp and
abandoned. Handling his long pole with
an easy mastery of which he was proud, he felt, as he watched her, exultantly
strong and superior. There was no gulf
between them now. She was a woman, he a
man. He lifted his trailing punt pole
and swung it forward with a movement of easy grace, of unhurried and
accomplished power. Thrust it down into
the mud, tightened his muscles against its resistance; the punt shot forward,
the end of the pole lifted from the riverbed, trailed for a moment, then
gracefully, once more, easily, masterfully was swung forward. Suddenly she lifted her eyelids and looked at
him, with that detached appraising look that had embarrassed him so much in the
cab. His manly confidence evaporated at
once.
'My
poor Anthony,' she said at last, and her face came closer, as it were, in a
sudden smile. 'It makes me hot even to
look at you.'
When
the punt had been secured, he came forward and sat down in the place she made,
drawing her skirts away, on the cushion beside her.
'I
don't suppose your father bullies you much,' she said, returning to the theme
of their conversation in the cab.
He
shook his head.
'Nor
blackmails you with too much affection, I imagine.'
Anthony
found himself feeling unexpectedly loyal to his father. 'I think he was always very fond of me.'
'Oh,
of course,' said Mrs Amberley impatiently.
'I didn't imagine he knocked you about.'
Anthony
could not help laughing. The vision of
his father running after him with a club was irresistibly comic. Then, more seriously, 'He never got near
enough to knock me about,' he said.
'There was always a great gulf fixed.'
'Yes,
one feels he has a talent for fixing gulfs.
And yet your stepmother seems to get on with him all right. So did your mother, I believe.' She shook her head. 'But, then, marriage is so odd and
unaccountable. The most obviously
incompatible couples stick together, and the most obviously compatible fly
apart. Boring, tiresome people are
adored, and charming ones are hated.
Why? God knows. But I suppose it's generally a matter of what
Milton calls the Genial Bed.' She
lingered, ludicrously, over the first syllable of 'genial'; but Anthony was so
anxious not to seem startled by the casual mention of what he had always
regarded as, in a lady's presence, the unmentionable, that he did not laugh
for a laugh might have been interpreted as a schoolboy's automatic reaction to
smut did not even smile; but gravely, as though he were admitting the truth
of a proposition in geometry, nodded his head and in a very serious and
judicial tone said, 'Yes, I suppose it generally is.'
'Poor
Mrs Foxe,' Mary Amberley went on. 'I
imagine there was a minimum of geniality there.'
'Did
you know her husband?' he asked.
'Only
as a child. One grown-up seems as boring
as another then. But my mother's often
talked to me about him. Thoroughly
beastly. And thoroughly virtuous. God preserve me from a virtuous beast! The vicious ones are bad enough; but at least
they're never beastly on principle.
They're inconsistent; so they're sometimes nice by mistake. Whereas the virtuous ones they never
forget; they're beastly all the time.
Poor woman! She had a dog's life,
I'm afraid. But she seems to be getting
it back on her son all right.'
'But
she adores Brian,' he protested. 'And
Brian adores her.'
'That's
exactly what I was saying. All the love
she never got from her husband, all the love she never gave him it's being
poured out on that miserable boy.'
'He
isn't miserable.'
'He
may not know it, perhaps. Not yet. But you wait!' Then, after a little pause, 'You're lucky,'
Mrs Amberley went on. 'A great deal
luckier than you know.'
CHAPTER
XVII
May 26th 1934
Literature for peace of what kind? One can concentrate on economics: trade
barriers, disorganized currency, impediments in the way of migration, private
interests bent on making profits at all costs.
And so on. One can concentrate on
politics: danger of the concept of the sovereign state, as a wholly immortal
being having interests irreconcilable with those of other sovereign
states. One can propose political and
economic remedies trade agreements, international arbitration, collective
security. Sensible prescriptions
following sound diagnosis. But has the
diagnosis gone far enough, and will the patient follow the treatment
prescribed?
This
question came up in the course of today's discussion with Miller. Answer in the negative. The patient can't follow the treatment
prescribed, for a good reason: there is no patient. States and Nations don't exist as such. There are only people. Sets of people living in certain areas,
having certain allegiances. Nations
won't change their national policies unless and until people change their
private policies. All governments, even
Hitler's, even Stalin's, even Mussolini's, are representative. Today's national behaviour a large-scale
projection of today's individual behaviour.
Or rather, to be more accurate, a large-scale projection of the
individual's secret wishes and intentions.
For we should all like to behave a good deal worse than our conscience
and respect for public opinion allow.
One of the great attractions of patriotism it fulfils our worst
wishes. In the person of our nation we
are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat.
Bully and cheat, what's more, with a feeling that we're profoundly
virtuous. Sweet and decorous to murder,
lie, torture for the sake of the fatherland.
Good international policies are projections of individual good
intentions and benevolent wishes, and must be of the same kind as good
inter-personal policies. Pacifist
propaganda must be aimed at people as well as their governments; must start
simultaneously at the periphery and the centre.
Empirical
facts:
One.
We are all capable of love for other human beings.
Two.
We impose limitations on that love.
Three.
We can transcend all these limitations if we choose to. (It is
a matter of observation that anyone who so desires can overcome personal
dislike, class feeling, national hatred, colour prejudice. Not easy; but it can be done, if we have the
will and know how to carry out our good intentions.)
Four.
Love expressing itself in good treatment breeds love. Hate expressing itself in bad treatment
breeds hate.
In
the light of these facts, it's obvious what inter-personal, inter-class and
international policies should be. But,
again, knowledge cuts little ice. We all
know; we almost all fail to do. It is a
question, as usual, of the best methods of implementing intentions. Among other things, peace propaganda must be
a set of instructions in the art of modifying character.
I see
The
lost are like this, and their scourge to be,
As
I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.
Hell is the incapacity to be other than the
creature one finds oneself ordinarily behaving as.
On
the way home from Miller's, dived into the public lavatory at Marble Arch, and
there ran into Beppo Bowles deep in conversation with one of those
flannel-trousered, hatless young men who look like undergraduates and are, I
suppose, very junior clerks or shop assistants.
On B.'s face, what a mingling of elation and anxiety. Happy, drunk with thrilling anticipation, and
at the same time horribly anxious and afraid.
He might be turned down unspeakably humiliation! He might not be turned down appalling dangers! Frustration of desire, if there was failure,
cruel blow to pride, wound to the very root of personality. And, if success, fear (through all the
triumph) of blackmail and police court.
Poor wretch! He was horribly
embarrassed at the sight of me. I just
nodded and hurried past. B.'s hell an
underground lavatory with rows of urinals stretching to infinity in all
directions and a boy at each. Beppo
walking up and down the rows, for ever his sweating self, but worse.
CHAPTER
XVIII
December 8th 1926
More guests kept arriving young people
mostly, friends of Joyce and Helen.
Dutifully, they crossed the drawing-room to the far corner where Mary
Amberley was sitting between Beppo Bowles and Anthony, said good-evening, then
hurried off to dance.
'They
put one in one's middle-aged place all right,' said Anthony; but either Mrs
Amberley preferred not to hear the remark, or else she was genuinely absorbed
in what Beppo was saying with such loud fizzling enthusiasm about Berlin the
most amusing place in Europe nowadays!
Where else would you find, for example, those special tarts for
masochists? In top-boots; yes, genuine
top-boots! And the Museum of Sexology:
such photographs and wax models almost too trompe l-il such
astounding objects in horn from Japan, such strange and ingenious tailoring for
exhibitionists! And all those delicious
little Lesbian bars, all those cabarets where the boys were dressed up as women
'There's
Mark Staithes,' said Mrs Amberley, interrupting him, and waved to a shortish,
broad-shouldered man who had just entered the drawing-room. 'I forget,' she said, turning to Anthony,
'whether you know him.'
'Only
for the last thirty years,' he answered, finding once again a certain malicious
pleasure in insisting, to the point of exaggeration, on his vanished
youth. If he were no longer young, then
Mary had ceased to be young nine years ago.
'But
with long gaps,' he qualified. 'During
the war and then afterwards, for all that time he was in Mexico. And I've hardly had more than a glimpse of
him since he came back. I'm delighted to
have this chance
'
'He's
a queer fish,' said Mary Amberley, thinking of the time, just after his return
from Mexico, some eighteen months before, when he had first come to her
house. His appearance, his manner, as of
some savage and fanatical hermit, had violently attracted her. She had tried all her seductions upon him
without the smallest effect. He had ignored
them but so completely and absolutely that she felt no ill-will towards him
for the rebuff, convinced, as she was, that in fact there hadn't been any
rebuff, merely a display of symptoms, either, she diagnosed judicially, of
impotence, or else, less probably (though of course one never knew, one never
knew) , of homosexuality. 'A queer
fish,' she repeated, and decided that she'd take the next opportunity of asking
Beppo about the homosexuality. He would
be sure to know. They always did know
about one another. Then, waving again,
'Come and sit with us, Mark,' she called through the noise of the gramophone.
Staithes
crossed the room, drew up a chair and sat down.
His hair had retreated from his forehead, and above the ears was already
grey. The brown face that fanatical
hermit's face which Mary Amberley had found so strangely attractive was
deeply lined. No smooth obliterating
layer of fat obscured its inner structure.
Under the skin each strip of muscle in the cheek and jaw seemed to stand
out distinct and separate like the muscles those lime-wood statues of flayed
human beings that were made for Renaissance anatomy rooms. When he smiled and each time that happened
it was as though the flayed statue had come to life and were expressing its
agony one could follow the whole mechanism of the excruciating grimace; the
upward and outward pull of the zygomaticus major, the sideways tug of the
risorius, the contraction of the great sphincters round the eyelids.
'Am
I interrupting?' he asked, looking with sharp, inquisitorial movements from one
to the other.
'Beppo
was telling us about Berlin,' said Mrs Amberley.
'I
popped over to get away from the General Strike,' Beppo explained.
'Naturally,'
said Staithes, and his face twitched in the anguish of amused contempt.
'Such
a heavenly place!' Beppo exploded irrepressibly.
'You
feel like Lord Haldane about it? Your
spiritual home?'
'Carnal,'
Anthony emended.
Only
too happy to plead guilty, Beppo giggled.
'Yes, those transvestitists!' he had to admit rapturously.
'I
was over there this winter,' said Staithes.
'On business. But of course one
has to play one's tribute to pleasure too.
That night life
'
'Didn't
you find it amusing?'
'Oh,
passionately.'
'You
see!' Beppo was triumphant.
'One
of the creatures came and sat at my table,' Staithes went on. 'I danced with it. It looked like a woman.'
'You
simply can't tell them apart,' Beppo cried excitedly, as though he were taking
personal credit for the fact.
'When
we'd finished dancing, it painted its face a bit and we drank a little
beer. Then it showed me some indecent
photographs. That rather surgical,
anti-aphrodisiac kind you know.
Damping. Perhaps that was why the
conversation flagged. Anyhow, there were
uncomfortable silences. Neither it nor I
seemed to know what to say next. We were
becalmed.' He threw out his two thin and
knotted hands horizontally, as though sliding them across an absolutely flat
surface. 'Utterly becalmed. Until, suddenly, the creature did a most
remarkable thing. One of its regular
gambits, no doubt; but never having had it played on me before, I was
impressed. Would you like to see
something? it said. I said yes, and
immediately it began to poke and pull at something under its blouse. Now, look! it said at last. I looked.
It smiled triumphantly, like a man playing the ace of trumps or rather
playing two aces of trumps; for what it plunked down on the table was a
pair. A pair of superb artificial
breasts, made of pink rubber sponge.'
'But
how revolting!' cried Mrs Amberley, while Anthony laughed and Beppo's round
face took on an expression of pained distress.
'How revolting!' she repeated.
'Yes,
but how satisfactory!' Staithes insisted, making that crooked and agonized
grimace that passed with him for a smile.
'It's so good when things happen as they ought to happen artistically,
symbolically. Two rubber breasts between
the beer mugs that's what vice ought to be.
And when that was what it actually was well, it felt as though
something had clicked into place. Inevitably, beautifully. Yes, beautifully,' he repeated. 'Beautifully revolting.'
'All
the same,' Beppo insisted, 'you must admit there's a lot to be said for a town
where that sort of thing can happen. In
public,' he added earnestly, 'in public, mind you. It's the most tolerant in the world, the
German Government. You've got to admit
that.'
'Oh,
I do,' said Staithes. 'It tolerates
everybody. Not only girls in boiled
shirts and boys with rubber breasts, but also monarchists, fascists, Junkers,
Krupps, Communists too, I'm thankful to say.
All its enemies of every colour.'
'I
think that's rather fine,' said Mrs Amberley.
'Very
fine indeed, until its enemies rise up and destroy it. I only hope the communists will get in
first.'
'But
seeing that they're tolerated, why should its enemies what to destroy it?'
'Why
not? They don't believe in
tolerance. Quite rightly,' he added.
'You're
barbarous,' Beppo protested.
'As
one should be if one lives in the Dark Ages.
You people you're survivors from the Age of the Antonines.' He looked from one to the other, smiling his
flayed smile, and shook his head.
'Imagining you're still in the first volume of Gibbon. Whereas we're well on in the third.'
'Do
you mean to say
? But, good heavens,' Mrs Amberley interrupted herself,
'there's Gerry!'
At
her words, at the sight of Gerry Watchett himself, foxtrotting in from the back
drawing-room with Helen, Anthony took out his pocket-book and quickly examined
its contents. 'Thank God!' he said. 'Only two pounds.' Gerry had caught him with ten the previous
month and, on the strength of a most improbably distressing story, borrowed
them all. He ought to have disbelieved
the story, of course, ought to have withheld the loan. Ten pounds were more than he could
afford. He had said so, but had lacked
the firmness to persist in his refusal.
It had taken more than a fortnight of strict economy to make up that
lost money. Economizing was an
unpleasant process; but to say no and to go on saying it in the teeth of
Gerry's importunities and reproaches would have been still more
unpleasant. He was always ready to
sacrifice his rights to his conveniences.
People thought him disinterested, and he would have liked, he did his
best, to accept their diagnosis of his character. But awareness of the real state of affairs
kept breaking through. When it did, he
accepted self-knowledge with a laugh. He
was laughing now. 'Only two,' he
repeated. 'Luckily I can afford
'
He
broke off. Behind Mary's back, Beppo had
tapped him on the shoulder, was making significant grimaces. Anthony turned and saw that she was still
staring intently and with knitted brows at the new arrivals.
'He
told me he wasn't coming this evening,' she said, almost as though she were
speaking to herself. Then, through the
music, 'Gerry!' she called sharply in a voice that had suddenly lost all its
charm a voice that reminded Anthony only too painfully of those distasteful
scenes in which, long since, he had played his part. So that was it, he said to himself, and felt
sorry for poor Mary.
Gerry
Watchett turned, and with the expression of one who refers to some excellent
shared joke, gave her a quick smile and even a hint of a wink, then looked down
again to go on talking to his partner.
Mrs
Amberley flushed with sudden anger.
Grinning at her like that! It was
intolerable. Intolerable too but how
typical! - to appear like this, unannounced, out of the blue casually dancing
with another woman, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. This time, it was true, the other woman was
only Helen; but that was merely because he hadn't found anyone else to dance
with, anyone worse. 'The beast!' she
thought, as she followed him round the room with her eyes. Then, making an effort, she looked away, she
forced herself to pay attention to what was going on around her.
'
a country like this,' Mark Staithes was saying, 'a country where a quarter of
the population's genuinely bourgeois and another quarter passionately longs to
be.'
'You're
exaggerating,' Anthony protested.
'Not
a bit. What does the Labour Party poll
at an election? A third of the
votes. I'm generously assuming it might
some day poll half of them. The rest's
bourgeois. Either naturally bourgeois by
interest and fear, or else artificially, by snobbery and imagination. It's childish to think you can get what you
want by constitutional methods.'
'And
what about unconstitutional ones?'
'There's
a chance.'
'Not
much of a chance,' said Anthony. 'Not
against the new weapons.'
'Oh,
I know,' said Mark Staithes, 'I know. If
they use their strength, the middle classes can obviously win. They could win, most likely, even without
tanks and planes just because they're potentially better soldiers than the
proletariat.'
'Better
soldiers?' Beppo protested, thinking of those guardsmen friends of his.
'Because
of their education. A bourgeois gets
anything from ten to sixteen years of training most of it, what's more, in a
boarding school; that's to say, in barracks.
Whereas a workman's child lives at home and doesn't get more than six or
seven years at his day school. Sixteen
years of obedience and esprit de corps.
No wonder that Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. If they'll use only half their resources use
them ruthlessly the game's theirs.'
'You
think they won't use their resources?'
Mark
shrugged his shoulders. 'Certainly the
German republicans don't seem ready to use theirs. And think of what happened here, during the
Strike? Even the majority of
industrialists were ready to compromise.'
'For
the simple reason,' Anthony put in, 'that you can't be a successful
industrialist unless you have the compromising habit. A business isn't run by faith; it's run by
haggling.'
'Anyhow,'
Mark went on, 'the fact remains that the available resources weren't used. That's what allows one to hope that a
revolution might succeed. Provided it
were carried out very quickly. For, of
course, one they realized they were seriously in danger, they'd forget their
scruples. But they might hesitate long
enough, I think, to make a revolution possible.
Even a few hours of compunction would be sufficient. Yes, in spite of tanks, there's still a
chance of success. But you must be
prepared to take a chance. Not like the
imbeciles of the T.U.C. Or the rank and
file of the Unions, for that matter. As
full of scruples as the bourgeoisie.
It's the hangover of evangelical Christianity. You've no idea what a lot of preaching and
hymn-singing there was during the Great Strike.
I was flabbergasted. But it's
good to know the worst. Perhaps the
younger generation
' He shook his head.
'But I don't feel certain even of them.
Methodism may be decaying. But
look at those spiritualist chapels that are sprouting up all over the
industrial areas! Like toadstools.'
The
next time he passed, Gerry called her name; but Mary Amberley refused to
acknowledge his greeting. Turning coldly
away she pretended to be interested only in what Anthony was saying.
'Ass
of a woman!' thought Gerry, as he looked at her averted face. Then, aloud, 'What do you say to putting on
this record another time?' he asked his partner.
Helen
nodded ecstatically.
The
music of the spheres, the beatific vision
But why should heaven be a monopoly
of ear or eye? The muscles as they move,
they too have their paradise. Heaven is
not only an illumination and a harmony; it is also a dance.
'Half
a tick,' said Gerry, when they were opposite the gramophone.
Helen
stood there as he wound up the machine, quite still, her arms hanging limp at
her sides. Her eyes were closed; she was
shutting the world away from her, shutting herself out of existence. In this still vacancy between two heavens of
motion, existence was without a point.
The
music stopped for a moment; then began again in the middle of a bar. Behind her closed eyelids, she was aware that
Gerry had moved, was standing over her, very near; then his arm encircled her
body.
'Onward,
Christian soldiers!' he said; and they stepped out once more into the music,
into the heaven of harmoniously moving muscles.
There
had been a silence. Determined not to
pay any attention to that beast, Mary Amberley turned to Staithes. 'And those scents of yours?' she asked with
an assumption of bright, amused interest.
'Flourishing,'
he answered. 'I've had to order three
new stills and take on more labour.'
Mary
Amberley smiled at him and shook her head.
'You of all people!' she said.
'It seems peculiarly ridiculous that you should be a
scent-manufacturer.'
'Why?'
'The
most unfrivolous of men,' she went on, 'the least gallant, the most implacable
misogynist!' (Either impotent or homosexual there couldn't be a doubt; and,
after his story about Berlin, almost certainly impotent, she thought.)
With
a smile of excruciated mockery, 'But hasn't it occurred to you,' Staithes
asked, 'that those might be reasons for being a scent-maker?'
'Reasons?'
'A
way of expressing one's lack of gallantry.'
In point of fact, it was entirely by chance that he had gone into the
scent business. His eye had been caught
by an advertisement in The Times, a small factory for sale, very cheap
Just luck. But now, after the event, it
heightened his self-esteem to say that he had chosen the profession
deliberately, in order to express his contempt for the women for whom he
catered. The lie, which he had willed
and by this time half believed to be the truth, placed him in a position of
superiority to all women in general and, at this moment, to Mary Amberley in
particular. Leaning forward, he took
Mary's hand, raised it as though he were about to kiss it, but, instead, only
sniffed at the skin then let it fall again.
'For example,' he said, 'there's civet in the stuff you've scented
yourself with.'
'Well,
why not?'
'Oh,
no reason at all,' said Staithes, 'no reason at all, if you happen to have a
taste for the excrement of polecats.'
Mary
Amberley made a grimace of disgust.
'In
Abyssinia,' he went on, 'they have civet farms.
Twice a week, you take a stick and go and poke the cats until they're
thoroughly angry and frightened. That's
when they secrete their stuff. Like
children wetting their knickers when they're afraid. Then you catch them with a pair of tongs, so
that they can't bite, and scrape out the contents of the little pouch attached
to their genital organs. You do it with
an egg-spoon and the stuff's a kind of yellow grease, rather like earwax. Stinks like hell when it's undiluted. We get it in London packed in buffalo
horns. Huge cornucopias full of dark
brown stinking earwax. At a hundred and
seventeen shillings the ounce, what's more.
That's one of the reasons why your scent costs so much. The poor can't afford to smear themselves
with cat's mess. They have to be content
with plain iso-eugenol and phenyl acetic aldehyde.'
Colin
and Joyce had stopped dancing and were sitting on the landing outside the
drawing-room door. Alone. It was Colin's opportunity for releasing some
of the righteous indignation that had been accumulating within him, ever since
dinner-time.
'I
must say, Joyce,' he began, 'some of your mother's guests
'
Joyce
looked at him with eyes in which there was anxiety as well as adoration. 'Yes, I know,' she apologized. 'I know,' and was abjectly in a hurry to
agree with him about Beppo's degeneracy and Anthony Beavis's cynicism. Then, seeing that he was enjoying his
indignation and that she herself rather profited than suffered by it, she even
volunteered the information that that man who had come in last and was sitting
with her mother was a Bolshevik. Yes,
Mark Staithes was a Bolshevik.
The
phrase that Colin had been meditating all the evening found utterance. 'I may be stupid and all that,' he said with
an assumption of humility that cloaked an overweening self-satisfaction in what
he regarded as the quite extraordinary quality of his ordinariness; 'I may be
ignorant and badly educated; but at least' (his tone changed, he was proudly
giving expression to his consciousness of being uniquely average), 'at least I
know well, I do know what's done.
I mean, if one's a gentleman.'
He underlined the words to make them sound slightly comic and so prove
that he had a sense of humour. To speak
seriously of what one took seriously this, precisely, was one of the things
that wasn't done. That touch of humour
proved more cogently than any emphasis could do, any emotional trembling of the
voice, that he did take these things seriously as a uniquely average
gentleman must take them. And of course
Joyce understood that he did. She
glanced at him worshippingly and pressed his hand.
Dancing,
dancing
Oh, if only, thought Helen one could go on dancing for ever! If only one didn't have to spend all that
time doing other things! Wrong things,
mostly, stupid things, things one was sorry for after they were done. Dancing, she lost her life in order to save
it; lost her identity and became something greater than herself; lost her
perplexities and self-hatreds in a bright and harmonious certitude; lost her
bad character and was made perfect; lost the regretted past, the apprehended
future, and gained a timeless present of consummate happiness. She who could not paint, could not write,
could not even sing in tune, became while she danced an artist; no, more than
an artist; became a god, the creator of a new heaven and a new earth, a creator
rejoicing in his creation and finding it good.
'
Yes, sir, she's my baby. No, sir ... '
Gerry broke off his humming. 'I won
sixty pounds at poker last night,' he said.
'Pretty good, eh?'
She
smiled up at him and nodded in a rapturous silence. Good, good everything was wonderfully good.
'And
I can't tell you,' Staithes was saying, 'how intensely I enjoy writing those
advertisements.' The muscles in his face
were working as though for an anatomical demonstration. 'The ones about bad breath and body odours.'
'Hideous!
Mrs Amberley shuddered. 'Hideous! There's only one Victorian convention I
appreciate, and that's the convention of not speaking about those things.'
'Which
is precisely why it's such fun to speak about them,' said Staithes, beaming at
her between contracted sphincters.
'Forcing humans to be fully, verbally conscious of their own and
other people's disgustingness. That's
the beauty of this kind of advertising.
It shakes them into awareness.'
'And
into buying,' put in Anthony. 'You're
forgetting the profits.'
Staithes
shrugged his shoulders. 'They're
incidental,' he said; and it was obvious, Anthony reflected, as he watched him,
it was obvious that the man was telling the truth. For him, the profits were
incidental. 'Breaking down your
protective convention,' he went on, turning again to Mary, 'that's the real
fun. Leaving you defenceless against the
full consciousness of the fact that you can't do without your fellow humans,
and that, when you're with them, they make you sick.'
CHAPTER
XIX
July 7th 1912
Mrs Foxe was looking through her engagement
book. The succession of committee
meetings, of district visitings, of afternoons at the cripples' playroom,
darkened the pages. And in between
whiles there would be calls, and tea at the vicarage and luncheon-parties in
London. And yet (she knew it in advance)
the total effect of the coming summer would be one of emptiness. However tightly crammed with activity, time
always seemed strangely empty when Brian was away. In other years there had been a wedge of
well-filled time each summer. But this
July, after only a week or two at home, Brian was going to Germany. To learn the language. It was essential. She knew that he had to go; she earnestly
wanted him to go. All the same, when the
moment actually came for his departure, it was painful. She wished she could be frankly selfish and
keep him at home.
'This
time tomorrow,' she said, when Brian came into the room, 'you'll be driving
across London to Liverpool Street.'
He
nodded without speaking and, laying a hand on her shoulder, bent down and
kissed her.
Mrs
Foxe looked up at him and smiled. Then,
forgetting for a moment that she had vowed not to say anything to him about her
feelings, 'It'll be a sadly empty summer, I'm afraid,' she said; and
immediately reproached herself for having brought that expression of distress
to his face; reproached herself even while, with a part of her being, she
rejoiced to find him so responsively loving, so sensitively concerned with her
feelings. 'Unless you fill it with your
letters,' she added by way of qualification.
'You will write, won't you?'
'Of
c-c-c
Naturally, I'll wr-write.'
Mrs
Foxe proposed a walk; or what about a little drive in the dogcart? Embarrassed, Brian looked at his watch.
'But
I'm l-lunching with the Th-Thursley's,' he answered uncomfortably. 'There w-wouldn't be much t-t-t
much
leisure' (how he hated these ridiculous circumlocutions!) 'for a drive.'
'But
how silly of me!' cried Mrs Foxe. 'I'd
quite forgotten your lunch.' It was true
that she had forgotten; and this sudden, fresh realization that for long hours,
on this last day, she would have to do without him was like a wound. She made an effort to prevent any sign of the
pain she felt from appearing on her face or sounding in her voice. 'But there'll be time at least for a stroll
in the garden, won't there?'
They
walked out through the French window and down the long green alley between the
herbaceous borders. It was a sunless
day, but warm, almost sultry. Under the
grey sky the flowers took on a brilliance that seemed somehow almost
unnatural. Still silent, they turned at
the end of the alley and walked back again.
'I'm
glad it's Joan,' said Mrs Foxe at last; 'and I'm glad you care so much. Though in a way it's a pity you met her when
you did. Because, I'm afraid, it'll be
such a weary long time before you'll be able to get married.'
Brian
nodded without speaking.
'It'll
be a testing time,' she went on.
'Difficult; not altogether happy perhaps. All the same' (and her voice vibrated
movingly), 'I'm glad it happened, I'm glad,' she repeated. 'Because I believe in love.' She believed in it, as the poor believe in a
heaven of posthumous comfort and glory, because she had never known it. She had respected her husband, admired him
for his achievements, had liked him for what was likeable in him, and,
maternally, had pitied him for his weaknesses.
But there had been no transfiguring passion, and his carnal approach had
always remained for her an outrage, hardly supportable. She had never loved him. That was why her belief in love's reality was
so strong. Love had to exist in order
that the unfavourable balance of her own personal experience might be at least
vicariously redressed. Besides, there
were the attestations of the poets; it did exist and was wonderful,
holy, a revelation. 'It's a kind of
special grace,' she went on, 'sent by God to help us, to make us stronger and
better, to deliver us from evil. Saying
no to the worst is easy when one has said yes to the best.'
Easy,
Brian was thinking in the ensuing silence, even when one hasn't said yes to the
best. The woman who had come and sat at
their table in the Cafι-Concert, when Anthony and he were learning French at
Grenoble, two years before it hadn't been difficult to resist that
temptation.
Tu
as l'air of being vicieux,' she had said to him in the first entr'acte; and
to Anthony, 'Il doit κtre terrible avec les femmes, hein?' Then she had suggested that they should come
home with her. 'Tous les deux, j'ai
une petite amie. Nous nous amuserons
bien gentiment. On vous fera voir des
choses drτles. Toi qui es si vicieux
ηa t-amusera.'
No,
that certainly hadn't been difficult to resist, even though he had never set
eyes on Joan at the time. The real
temptations were not the worst, but the best.
At Grenoble, it had been the best in literature. Et son ventre, et ses seins, ces grappes
de ma vigne
Elle se coula ΰ mon cτtι, m'appela des noms les plus tendres et
des noms les plus effroyablement grossiers, qui glissaient sur ses lθvres en
suaves murmures. Puis elle se tϋt et
commenηa ΰ me donner ces baisers qu'elle savait
The creations of the best
stylists had proved to be far more dangerously attractive, far less easily
resistible than the sordid realities of the Cafι-Concert. And now that he had said yes to the best
possible reality, the appeal of the worst was even less effective, had ceased
altogether to be anything remotely resembling a temptation. Such temptation as there was came once more
from the best. It had been impossible to
desire the low, vulgar, half-animal creature of the Cafι-Concert. But Joan was beautiful, Joan was refined,
Joan shared his interests and precisely for those reasons was desirable. Just because she was the best (and this for
him was the paradox that it was so painful and bewildering to live through), he
desired her in the wrong way, physically
'Do
you remember those lines of Meredith's?' said Mrs Foxe, breaking the
silence. Meredith was one of her
favourite authors. 'From the Woods,'
she specified, affectionately abbreviating the title of the poem almost to a
nickname. And she quoted:
'
Love, the great volcano, flings
Fires of lower earth to sky.
Love's a kind of philosopher's stone,' she
went on. 'Not only does it deliver us;
it also transforms. Dross into
gold. Earth into heaven.'
Brian
nodded affirmatively. And yet, he was
thinking, those voluptuous and faceless bodies created by the stylists had
actually come to assume Joan's features.
In spite of love, or just because of it, the succubi now had a name, a
personality.
The
stable clock struck twelve; and at the first stroke there was a noiseless
explosion of doves, like snowflakes whirling up against the clotted darkness of
the elms beyond.
'The
beauty of it!' said Mrs Foxe with a kind of muted intensity.
But
suppose, it suddenly occurred to Brian, suppose she were suddenly left with no
money at all? And if Joan were as poor
as that wretched woman at Grenoble, as hopelessly without an alternative
resource?
Slowly
the last bell note expired, and one by one the whirling doves dropped back on
to their turreted cote above the clock.
'Perhaps,'
said Mrs Foxe, 'you ought to be starting if you're going to get their
punctually.'
Brian
knew how reluctant his mother was to let him go; and this display of generosity
produced in him a sense of guilt and, along with it (since he did not want to
feel guilty), a certain resentment.
'B-but I d-don't need an hour,' he said almost angrily, 'to c-cycle
three m-miles.'
A
moment later he was feeling ashamed of himself for the note of irritation in
his voice, and for the rest of the time he was with her he showed himself more than
ordinarily affectionate.
At
half-past twelve he took his bicycle and rode over to the Thursleys'. The maid opened the nineteenth-century Gothic
front door and he stepped into a faint smell of steamed pudding flavoured with
cabbage. As usual. The vicarage always smelt of steamed pudding
and cabbage. It was a symptom, he had
discovered, of poverty and, as such, gave him a feeling of moral discomfort, as
though he had done something wrong and were suffering from an uneasy
conscience.
He
was ushered into the drawing-room.
Behaving as if he were some very distinguished old lady, Mrs Thursley
rose from her writing-table and advanced to meet him. 'Ah, dear Brian!' she cried. Her professionally Christian smile was pearly
with the flash of false teeth. 'So nice
to see you!' She took and held his
hand. 'And your dear mother how's
she? Sad because you're going to
Germany, I'm sure. We're all sad, if it
comes to that. You've got such a gift
for making people miss you,' she continued in the same complimentary strain,
while Brian blushed and fidgeted in an agony of discomfort. Saying nice things to people's faces,
particularly to the faces of the rich, the influential, the potentially useful,
was a habit with Mrs Thursley. A
Christian habit she would have called it, if she had been pressed for an
explanation. Loving one's neighbour;
seeing the good in everybody; creating an atmosphere of sympathy and
trust. But below the level of the
avowal, almost below the level of consciousness, she knew that most people were
greedy for flattery, however outrageous, and were prepared, in one way or
another, to pay for it.
'Ah,
but here's Joan,' she cried, interrupting her praise of him, and added, in a
tone that was charged with sprightly meaning, 'You won't want to go on talking
with her tiresome old mother will he, Joanie?'
The
two young people looked at one another in a speechless embarrassment.
The
door suddenly flew open and Mr Thursley hurried into the room. 'Look at this!' he cried in a voice that trembled
with rage, and held out a glass ink-pot.
'How do you expect me to do my work with an eighth of an inch of
sediment? Dipping, dipping, dipping the
whole morning. Never able to write more
than two words at a time
'
'Here's
Brian, Daddy,' said Joan in the hope, which she knew in advance was vain, that
the stranger's presence might shame him into silence.
His
pointed nose still white with rage, Mr Thursley glared at Brian, shook hands
and, turning away, at once went on with his angry complaint. 'It's always like that in this house. How can one be expected to do serious work?'
'Oh,
God,' Joan inwardly prayed, 'make him stop, make him shut up.'
'As
if he couldn't fill the pot himself!' Brian was thinking. 'Why doesn't she tell him so?'
But
it was impossible for Mrs Thursley to say or even think anything of the
kind. He had his sermons, his articles
in the Guardian, his studies in Neo-Platonism. How could he be expected to fill his own
ink-pot? For her as well as for him it
was obvious, it had become, after these five and twenty years of abjectly given
and unreflectingly accepted slavery, completely axiomatic that he couldn't do
such a thing. Besides, if she were to
suggest in any way that he wasn't perfectly right, his anger would become still
more violent. Goodness only knew what he
mightn't do or say in front of Brian!
It would be awful. She began to
make excuses for the empty ink-pot.
Abject excuses on her own behalf, on Joan's, on her servants'. Her tone was at once deprecatory and soothing;
she spoke as though she were dealing with a mixture between Jehovah and a very
savage dog that might bite at any moment.
The
gong the Thursleys had a gong that would have been audible from end to end of
a ducal mansion rumbled up to a thunderous fortissimo that reduced even the
vicar to silence. But as the sound
ebbed, he began again.
'It's
not as though I asked for very much,' he said.
'He'll
be quieter when he's had something to eat,' Mrs Thursley thought, and led the
way into the dining-room, followed by Joan.
Brian wanted the vicar to precede him; but even in his righteous anger
Mr Thursley remembered his good manners.
Laying his hand on Brian's shoulder, he propelled him towards the door,
keeping up all the time a long-range bombardment of his wife.
'Only
a little quiet, only the simplest material conditions for doing my work. The barest minimum. But I don't get it. The house is as noisy as a railway station, and
my ink-pot's neglected till I have nothing but a little black mud to write
with.'
Under
the bombardment, Mrs Thursley walked as though shrunken and with bowed
head. But Joan, Brian noticed, had gone
stiff; her body was rigid and ungraceful with excess of tension.
In
the dining-room they found the two boys, Joan's younger brothers, already
standing behind the chairs. At the sight
of them, Mr Thursley reverted from his ink-pot to the noise in the house. 'Like a railway station,' he repeated, and
the righteous indignation flared up in him with renewed intensity. 'George and Arthur have been rushing up and
down the stairs and round the garden the whole morning. Why can't you keep them in order?'
They
were all at their places now; Mrs Thursley at one end of the table, her husband
at the other; the two boys on her left; Joan and Brian on her right. They stood there, waiting for the vicar to
say grace.
'Like
hooligans,' said Mr Thursley; the flames of wrath ran through him; he was
filled with a tingling warmth, horribly delicious. 'Like savages.'
Making
an effort, he dropped his long cleft chin on his chest and was silent. His nose was still deathly pale with anger;
like marine animals in an aquarium, the nostrils contracted and expanded in a
pulse of regular but fluttering movement.
In his right hand he still held the ink-pot.
'Benedictus
benedicat, per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum,' he said at last in his
praying voice, which was deep, with the suspicion of a tremolo, and charged
with transcendental significance.
With
the noise of pent-up movement suddenly released they all sat down.
'Screaming
and howling,' said Mr Thursley, reverting from the tone of piety to his
original harshness. 'How am I expected
to do my work?' With an indignant bang,
he put the ink-pot down on the table in front of him, then unfolded his napkin.
At
the other end of the table Mrs Thursley was cutting up the mock duck with an
extraordinary rapidity.
'Pass
that to your father,' she said to the nearest boy. It was essential to get him eating as soon as
possible.
A
second or two later the parlour-maid was offering Mr Thursley the
vegetable. Her apron and cap were stiff
with starch and she was as well drilled as a guardsman. The vegetable dishes were hideous, but had been
expensive; the spoons were of heavy Victorian silver. With them, the vicar helped himself first to
boiled potatoes, then to cabbage, mashed and moulded into damp green bricks.
Still
indulging himself in the luxury of anger, 'Women simply don't understand what
serious work is,' Mr Thursley went on; then started eating.
When
she had helped the others to their mock duck, Mrs Thursley ventured a
remark. 'Brian's just off to Germany,'
she said.
Mr
Thursley looked up, chewing his food very rapidly with his front teeth, like a
rabbit. 'What part of Germany?' he
asked, darting a sharp inquisitorial look at Brian. His nose had flushed again to its normal
colour.
'M-marburg.'
'Where
there's the university?'
Brian
nodded.
Startingly,
with a noise like coke being poured down a chute, Mr Thursley burst out
laughing. 'Don't take to beer-drinking
with the students,' he said.
The
storm was over. In part out of the
thankfulness of her heart, in part to make her husband feel that she had found
his joke irresistible, Mrs Thursley also laughed. 'Oh, no,' she cried, 'don't take to that!'
Brian
smiled and shook his head.
'Water
or soda-water?' the parlour-maid asked confidentially, creaking with starch and
whalebone as she bent over him.
'W-water,
please.'
After
lunch, when the vicar had returned to his study, Mrs Thursley suggested, in her
bright, embarrassingly significant way, that the two young people should go for
a walk. The ogival front door slammed
behind them. Like a prisoner at last
restored to liberty, Joan drew a deep breath.
The
sky was still overcast, and beneath the low ceiling of grey cloud the air was
soft and as though limp with fatigue, as though weary with the burden of too
much summer. In the woods, into which
they turned from the highroad, the stillness was oppressive, like the
intentional silence of sentient beings, pregnant with unavowed thoughts and
hidden feelings. An invisible
tree-creeper started to sing; but it was as if the clear bright sound were
coming from some other time and place.
They walked on hand in hand; and between them was the silence of the
wood and at the same time the deeper, denser, more secret silence of their own
unexpressed emotions. The silence of the
complaints she was too loyal to utter and the pity that, unless she complained,
it would, he felt, be insulting for him to put into words; her longing for the
comfort of his arms and those desires he did not wish to feel.
Their
path led them between great coverts of rhododendrons, and suddenly they were in
a narrow cleft, hemmed in by high walls of the impenetrable, black-green
foliage. It was a solitude within a
solitude, the image of their own private silence visibly hollowed out of the
greater stillness of the wood.
'Almost
f-frightening,' he whispered, as they stood there listening listening (for
there was nothing else for them to hear) to their own heartbeats and each
other's breathing and all the words that hung unspoken between them.
All
at once, she could bear it no longer, 'When I think of what it'll be like at
home
' The complaint had uttered itself, against her will. 'Oh, I wish you weren't going, Brian!'
Brian
looked at her and, at the sight of those trembling lips, those eyes bright with
tears, he felt himself as it were disintegrated by tenderness and pity. Stammering her name, he put his arm about
her. Joan stood for a little while quite
still, her head bent, her forehead resting on his shoulder. The touch of her hair was electric against
his lips, he breathed its perfume. All
at once, as though waking from sleep, she stirred into motion and, drawing a
little away from him, looked up into his face.
Her regard had a desperate, almost inhuman fixity.
'Darling,'
he whispered.
Joan's
only answer was to shake her head.
But
why? What was she denying, what
implication of his endearment was she saying no to? 'But J-joan
?' There was a note of anxiety in his voice.
Still
she did not answer; only looked at him and once more slowly shook her
head. How many negations were expressed
in that single movement! The refusal to
complain; the denial for herself of the possibility of happiness; the sad
insistence that all her love and all his availed nothing against the pain of
absence; the resolution not to exploit his pity, not to elicit, however much
she longed for it, another, a more passionate avowal
Suddenly,
he took her face between his hands and, stooping, kissed her on the mouth.
But
this was what she had resolved not to extort form him, this was the gesture
that could avail nothing against her inevitable unhappiness! For a second or two she stiffened her body in
resistance, tried to shake her head again, tried to draw back. Then, vanquished by a longing stronger than
herself, she was limp in his arms; the shut, resisting lips parted and were
soft under his kisses; her eyelids closed, and there was nothing left in the
world but his mouth and the thin hard body pressed against her own.
Fingers
stirred the hair above the nape of her neck, slid round to the throat and
dropped to her breast. The strength went
out of her, she felt herself sinking deeper and deeper into that mysterious
other world, behind her eyelids, into the sightless universe of touch.
Then,
without warning, as though in precipitate obedience to some inaudible word of
command, he broke away from her. For an
instant she thought she was going to fall; but the strength came back to her
knees, just in time. She swayed
unsteadily, then recovered her balance, and with it the consciousness of the
outrage he had inflicted upon her. She
had leaned upon him with her whole being, soul as well as body, and he had
allowed her to fall, had withdrawn his lips and chest and left her suddenly
cold and horribly exposed, defenceless and as if naked. She opened hurt, reproachful eyes and saw him
standing there pale and strangely furtive; he met her glance for a moment, then
averted his face.
Her
resentful sense of outrage gave place to anxiety. 'What is it, Brian?'
He
looked at her for a moment, then turned away again. 'Perhaps we'd better go home,' he said in a
low voice.
It
was a day late in September. Under a
pale blue sky the distances were mournful, were exquisitely tender with a faint
mist. The world seemed remote and
unactual, like a memory or an ideal.
The
train came to a standstill. Brian waved
to the solitary porter, but he himself, nevertheless, got out with the heaviest
of the suitcases. By straining his
muscles he found that he was able to relieve his conscience of some of the
burden that the ability to buy a poor man's services tended, increasingly as he
grew older, to impose upon it.
The
porter came running up and almost snatched the bag out of Brian's hand. He too had his conscience. 'You leave that to me, sir,' he said, almost
indignantly.
'T-two
more in the c-c-c
inside,' he emended, long after the porter had stepped into
the unpronounceable compartment to collect the remaining pieces. 'Sh-shall I give a hand?' he offered. The man was old forty years older than
himself, Brian calculated; white-haired and wrinkled, but called him 'sir,' but
carried his bags and would be grateful for a shilling. 'Sh-shall I
?'
The
old porter did not even answer, but swung the suitcases down from the rack,
taking evident pride in his well-directed strength.
A
touch on his shoulder made Brian turn sharply round. The person who had touched him was Joan.
'In
the king's name!' she said; but the laughter behind her words was forced, and
there was an expression in her eyes of anxiety the accumulated anxiety of
weeks of bewildered speculation. All
those queer, unhappy letters he had written from Germany they had left her
painfully uncertain what to think, how to feel, what to expect of him when he
came back. In his letters, it was true,
he had reproached only himself with a violence for whose intensity she was
unable to account. But to the extent
that she was responsible for what had happened in the wood (and of course she
was partly responsible; why not? what was so wrong with just a kiss?), she felt
that the reproaches were also addressed to her.
And if he reproached her, could he still love her? What did he really feel about her, about
himself, about their relations to one another?
It was because she simply couldn't wait an unnecessary minute for the
answer that she had come, surreptitiously, to meet him at the station.
Brian
stood there speechless; he had not expected to see her so soon, and was almost
dismayed at thus finding himself, without preparation, in her presence. Automatically, he held out his hand. Joan took it and pressed it in her own, hard,
hard, as if hoping to force the reality of her love upon him; but even while
doing so, she swayed away from him in her apprehension, her embarrassed uncertainty
of what he might have become, swayed away as she would have done from a
stranger.
The
grace of that shy, uneasy movement touched him as poignantly as it had touched
him at their first meeting. It was a
grace, in spite of the embarrassment that the movement expressed, of a young
tree in the wind. That was how he had
thought of it then. And now it had
happened again; and the beauty of the gesture was again a revelation, but more
poignant than it had been the first time, because of its implication that he
was once again an alien; but an alien, against whose renewed strangeness the
pressure on his hand protested, almost violently.
Her
face, as she looked up into his, seemed to waver; and suddenly that artificial
brightness was quenched in profound apprehension.
'Aren't
you glad to see me, Brian?' she asked.
Her
words broke a spell; he was able to smile again, able to speak. 'G-glad?' he repeated; and, for answer,
kissed her hand. 'But I didn't th-think
you'd be here. It almost g-gave me a
fright.'
His
expression reassured her. During those
first seconds of silence, his still, petrified face had seemed the face of an
enemy. Now, by that smile, he was
transfigured, was once more the old Brian she had loved; so sensitive, so kind
and good; and so beautiful in his goodness, beautiful in spite of that long,
queer face, that lanky body, those loose, untidily moving limbs.
Noisily,
the train started, gathered speed and was gone.
The old porter walked away to fetch a barrow. They were alone at the end of the long
platform.
'I
thought you didn't love me,' she said after a long silence.
'But,
J-joan!' he protested. They smiled at
one another; then, after a moment, he looked away. Not love her? he was thinking. But the trouble was that he loved her too
much, loved her in a bad way, even though she was the best.
'I
thought you were angry with me.'
'But
why sh-should I be?' His face was still
averted.
'You
know why.'
'I
wasn't a-angry with you.'
'But
it was my fault.'
Brian
shook his head. 'It w-wasn't.'
'It
was,' she insisted.
At
the thought of what his sensations had been as he held her there, in the dark
cleft between the rhododendron coverts, he shook his head a second time, more
emphatically.
The
old porter was there again with his barrow and his comments on the weather, his
scraps of news and gossip. They followed
him, playing for his benefit their parts as supernumerary characters in the
local drama.
When
they were almost at the gate, Joan laid a hand on Brian's arm. 'It's all right, isn't it?' Their eyes met. 'I'm allowed to be happy?'
He
smiled without speaking and nodded.
In
the dogcart on the way to the house he kept remembering the sudden brightening
of her face in response to that voiceless gesture of his. And all he could do to repay her for so much
love was to
He thought of the rhododendron coverts again and was overcome
with shame.
When
she learned from Brian that Joan had been at the station, Mrs Foxe felt a sharp
pang of resentment. By what right? Before his own mother
And besides, what bad
faith! For Joan had accepted her
invitation to come to lunch the day after Brian's return. Which meant that she had tacitly admitted Mrs
Foxe's exclusive right to him on the day itself. But here she was, stealing surreptitiously to
the station to catch him as he stepped out of the train. It was almost dishonest.
Mrs
Foxe's passion for indignant jealousy lasted only a few seconds; its very
intensity accelerated her recognition of its wrongness, its unworthiness. No sign of what she felt had appeared on her
face, and it was with a smile of amused indulgence that she listened to Brian's
vaguely stammered account of the meeting.
Then, with a strong effort of the will, she not only shut off the
expression of her emotion, but even excluded the emotion itself from her
consciousness. All that, as it seemed,
an impersonal regard for right conduct justified her in still feeling was a
certain regretful disapproval of Joan's how should she put it? -
disingenuousness. For the girl to have
stolen that march upon her in those fine and generous aspirations of hers
why, she would be a splendid person.
Splendid, Mrs Foxed insisted to herself.
'Well,'
she said next day, when Joan came over to lunch, 'I hear you caught out migrant
on the wing before he'd even had time to settle.' The tone was playful, there was a charming
smile on Mrs Foxe's face. But Joan
blushed guiltily.
'You
didn't mind, did you?' she asked.
'Mind?'
Mrs Foxe repeated. 'But, my dear, why
should I? I only thought we'd agreed on
today. But, of course, if you felt you
absolutely couldn't wait
'
'I'm
sorry,' said Joan. But something that
was almost hatred mounted hot within her.
Mrs
Foxe laid her hand affectionately on the girl's shoulder. 'Let's stroll out into the garden,' she
suggested, 'and see if Brian's anywhere about.'
CHAPTER
XX
Tiptoeing out of the back drawing-room,
Hugh Ledwidge had hoped to find the refreshment of a little solitude; but on the
landing he was caught by Joyce and Colin.
And Colin, it appeared, was tremendously keen on natives, had always
been anxious to talk to a professional ethnologist about his experiences on
shikar. For nearly half an hour he had
to listen, while the young man poured out his illiterate nonsense about India
and Uganda. An immense fatigue
overwhelmed him. His one desire was to
escape, to get away from this parrot house of stupid chatter, back to delicious
silence and a book.
They
left him, thank God, at last, and drawing a deep breath, he braced himself for
the final ordeal of leave-taking. That
saying goodbye at the end of an evening was one of the things Hugh most
intensely disliked. To have to expose
yourself yet once more to personal contact, to be compelled, weary as you were
and thirsty for solitude, to grin again and gibber and make yet another effort
of hypocrisy how odious that could be!
Particularly with Mary Amberley.
There were evenings when the woman simply wouldn't allow you to say goodbye,
but clung to you desperately, as though she were drowning. Questions, confidences, scabrous discussions
of people's love-affairs anything to keep you a few minutes longer. She seemed to regard each successive
departure of a guest as the death of a fragment of her own being. His heart sank as he made his way across the
room towards her. 'Damned woman!' he
thought, and positively hated her; hated her, as well as for all the other
reasons, because Helen was still dancing with that groom; and now with a fresh
access of malevolence, because, as he suddenly perceived through the mists of
his dim sight, Staithes and that man Beavis were sitting with her. All his insane thoughts about the plot came
rushing back into his mind. They had
been talking about him, him and the fire-escape, him on the football field, him
when they threw the slippers over the partition of his cubicle. For a moment, he thought of turning back and
slipping out of the house without a word.
But they had seen him coming, they would suspect the reason of his
flight, they would laugh all the louder.
His common sense returned to him, it was all nonsense, there was no
plot. How could there be a plot? And even if Beavis did remember, what reason
had he to talk? But all the same, all the
same
Squaring his narrow shoulders, Hugh Ledwidge marched resolutely towards
the anticipated ambush.
To
his immense relief, Mary Amberley let him go almost without a protest. 'Must you be off, Hugh? So soon?'
That was all. She seemed to be
absent, thinking of something else.
Beppo
fizzled amiably; Staithes merely nodded; and now it was Beavis's turn. Was that smile of his what it seemed to be
just vaguely and conventionally friendly?
Or did it carry hidden significances, did it secretly imply derisive
reminders of those past shames? Hugh
turned and hurried away. Why on earth,
he wondered, did one ever go to these idiotic parties? Kept on going, what was more, again and
again, when one knew it was all utterly pointless and boring
Mark
Staithes turned to Anthony. 'You realize
who that is?' he asked.
'Who? Ledwidge?
Is he anyone special?'
Staithes
explained.
'Goggler!' Anthony laughed. 'Why, of course. Poor Goggler!
How fiendish we were to him!'
'That's
why I've always pretended I didn't know who he was,' said Staithes, and smiled
an anatomical smile of pity and contempt.
'I think it would be charitable,' he added, 'if you did the same.' Protecting Hugh Ledwidge gave him genuine
pleasure.
Utterly
pointless and boring yes, and humiliating, Hugh was thinking, humiliating as
well. For there was always some
humiliation. A Beavis smiling; a Gerry
Watchett, like an insolent groom
There
was a hurrying of feet on the stairs behind him. 'Hugh! Hugh!'
He started almost guiltily and turned round. 'Why were you slinking away without saying
goodnight to me?'
Essaying
a joke, 'You seemed so busy,' he began, twinkling up at Helen through his
spectacles; then feel silent in sudden astonishment, almost in awe.
She
was standing there, three steps above him, one hand on the banister, the
fingers of the other splayed out against the opposite wall, leaning forward as
though on the brink of flight. But what
had happened to her, what miracle? The
flushed face that hung over him seemed to shine with an inward
illumination. This was not Helen, but
some supernatural creature. In the
presence of such unearthly beauty, he blushed for the ignoble irrelevance of
his waggery, his knowing look.
'Busy?'
she echoed. 'But I was only
dancing.' And it was as though some
ingenuous and unconscious Moses had said to his bedazzled Israelites: 'I was
only talking to Jehovah.' 'You had no
excuse,' she went on. Then quickly, as though
a new and curious idea had suddenly occurred to her, 'Or were you cross with me
for some reason?' she added in another tone.
He
began by shaking his head; but felt impelled, on second thoughts, to try to
explain a little. 'Not cross,' he
distinguished, 'just
just a bit unsociable.'
The
light behind her face seemed to leap up in a quivering rush of intenser
flame. Unsociable! That was really too exquisitely funny! The dancing had made her perfect, had transformed
earth into heaven. At the idea that one
could be (preposterous word!) unsociable, that one could feel anything but an
overflowing love for everyone and everything, she could only laugh.
'You
are funny, Hugh!'
'I'm
glad you think so.' His tone was
offended. He had turned away his head.
The
silk of her dress rustled sharply; a little gust of perfume was cool on his
cheek and she was standing only one step above him, very close. 'You're not hurt because I said you were
funny?' she asked.
He
lifted his eyes again and found her face on a level with his own. Mollified by that expression of genuine solicitude
he shook his head.
'I
didn't mean funny in the horrid way,' she explained. 'I meant
well, you know: nicely funny. Funny, but a darling.'
In
threateningly personal circumstances, a well-timed foolery is a sure
defence. Smiling, Hugh raised his right
hand to his heart. 'Je suit pιnιtrι
de reconnaissance,' was what he was going to say by way of acknowledgement
for that 'darling.' The courtly jape,
the mock-heroic gesture were his immediate and automatic reaction to her
words. 'Je suit pιnιtrι
'
But
Helen gave him no time to take cover behind his dix-huitiθme
waggery. For she followed up her words
by laying her two hands on his shoulders and kissing him on the mouth.
For
a moment he was almost annihilated with surprise and confusion and a kind of
suffocating, chaotic joy.
Helen
drew back a little and looked at him. He
had gone very pale looked as though he had seen a ghost. She smiled for he was funnier than ever
then bent forward and kissed him again.
The
first time she had kissed him, it had been out of the fullness of the life that
was in her, because she was made perfect in a perfect world. But his scared face was so absurdly comic
that the sight of it somehow transformed this fullness of perfect life into a
kind of mischievous wantonness. The
second time she kissed him, it was for fun; for fun and, at the same time, out
of curiosity. It was an experiment, made
in a spirit of hilarious scientific enquiry.
She was a vivisector licensed by perfection, justified by happiness. Besides, Hugh had an extraordinarily nice
mouth. She had never kissed such full
soft lips before; the experience had been startlingly pleasurable. It was not only that she wanted to see,
scientifically, what the absurd creature would do next; she also wanted to feel
once more that cool resilience against her mouth, to experience that strange
creeping of pleasure that tingled out from her lips and ran, quick and almost
unbearable, like moths, along the surface of her body.
'You
were so sweet to take all that trouble,' she said by way of justification for
the second kiss. The moths had crept
again, deliciously, had settled with an electric tremor of vibrating wings on
her breasts. 'All that trouble about my
education.'
But
'Helen!' was all that he could whisper; and, before he had time to think, he
had put his arms about her and kissed her.
His
mouth, for the third time; and those hurrying moths along the skin
But, oh,
how quickly he drew away!'
'Helen!'
he repeated.
They
looked at one another; and now that he had had the time to think, Hugh found
himself all of a sudden horribly embarrassed.
His hands dropped furtively from her body. He didn't know what to say to her or,
rather, knew, but couldn't bring himself to say it. His heart was beating with a painful
violence. 'I love you, I want you,' he
was crying, he was positively shouting, from behind his embarrassed
silence. But no word was uttered. He smiled at her rather foolishly, and
dropped his eyes the eyes, he now reflected, that must look so hideous, like
a fish's eyes, through the thick lenses of his spectacles.
'How
funny he is,' Helen thought. But her
scientific laughter had died down. His
shyness was infectious. To put an end to
the uncomfortable situation, 'I shall read all those books,' she said. 'And that reminds me, you must give me the
list.'
Grateful
to her for supplying him with a subject about which it was possible to talk, he
looked up at her again for a moment only, because of those fish-eyes,
goggling. 'I'll fill in the gaps and
send it to you,' he said. Then, after a
second or two, he realized that in his improvidence he had exhausted the
precisely impersonal topic of books in a single sentence. The silence persisted, distressingly; and at
last, in despair, because there was
nothing else to say, he decided to say goodnight. Trying to charge his voice with an infinity
of loving significance, 'Goodnight, Helen,' he said. The words were intended to be as eloquent as
a whole speech. But would she hear the
eloquence, would she understand the depths of his implied meaning? He bent forward and kissed her again,
quickly, very lightly, a kiss of tenderly respectful devotion.
But
he had not reckoned with Helen. The
embarrassment that had momentarily clouded her wanton perfection had evaporated
at the touch of his lips; she was once more the laughing vivisector.
'Kiss
me again, Hugh,' she said. And when he
obeyed, she would not let him go; but kept his mouth pressed to hers, second
after second
The
noises of voices and music became suddenly louder; somebody had opened the
drawing-room door.
'Goodnight,
Hugh,' she whispered against his lips; then loosed her hold and ran up the
stairs two at a time.
Looking
after her, as she ran out of the room to say goodnight to old Ledwidge, Gerry
had smiled to himself complacently. Pink
in the face; with shining eyes. As
though she'd drunk a bottle of champagne.
Absolutely buffy with the dancing.
It was fun when they lost their heads like that; lost them so
enthusiastically, so ungrudgingly, so completely. Not keeping anything back, but chucking it
all out of the window, so to speak. Most
girls were so damned avaricious and calculating. They'd only lose half their heads and
carefully keep the other half to play the outraged virgin with. Mean little bitches! But with Helen you felt that the engine was
all out. She stepped on the gas and
didn't care what was in the way. He
liked that sort of thing, and liked it not only because he hoped to profit by
the lost head, but also disinterestedly, because he couldn't help admiring
people who let themselves go and didn't care two hoots about the
consequences. There was something fine
and generous and spirited about such people.
He was like that himself, when he could afford it. Guts: that was what she'd got. And the makings of a temperament, he was
thinking with an inward satisfaction, when a touch on his arm from behind made
him suddenly start. His surprise turned
almost instantaneously to anger. There
was nothing he hated more than to be taken unawares, off his guard. He turned sharply round and, seeing that the
person who had touched him was Mary Amberley, tried to readjust his face. Vainly; the hard resentful eyes belied his
smile.
But
Mary was herself too angry to notice the signs of his annoyance. 'I want to talk to you, Gerry,' she said in a
low voice that she tried to keep level and unemotional, but that trembled in
spite of all her efforts.
'Christ!'
he thought; 'a scene,' and felt angrier than ever with the tiresome woman. 'Talk away,' he said aloud; and, with an
offensive air of detachment, he took out his cigarette-case, opened and
proffered it.
'Not
here,' she said.
Gerry
pretended not to understand her.
'Sorry. I thought you didn't mind
people smoking here.'
'Fool!' Her anger broke out with sudden
violence. Then, catching him by the
sleeve, 'Come!' she commanded, and almost dragged him to the door.
Running
upstairs, Helen was in time to see her mother and Gerry mounting from the
drawing-room landing towards the higher floors of the tall house. 'I shall have to find somebody else to dance
with,' was all she thought; and a moment later she had found little Peter Quinn
and was gliding away once more into paradise.
'Talk
of floaters!' said Anthony as their hostess left the room with Gerry
Watchett. 'I didn't realize that Gerry
was the present incumbent
'
Beppo
nodded. 'Poor Mary!' he sighed.
'On
the contrary,' said Staithes, 'rich Mary!
She'll be poor later.'
'And
nothing can be done about it?' asked Anthony.
'She'd
hate you if you tried.'
Anthony
shook his head. 'These dismal
compulsions! Like cuckoos in
August. Like stags in October.'
'She
showed symptoms of having a compulsion about me,' said Staithes. 'Just after I first met her, it was. But I soon cured her of that. And then that ruffian Watchett turned up.'
'Fascinating,
the way these aristocrats can behave!'
Anthony's tone was one of scientific enthusiasm.
Staithes's
flayed face twisted itself into a grimace of contempt. 'Just a coarse, vulgar gangster,' he
said. 'How on earth you ever put up with
him at Oxford, I simply cannot imagine.'
In fact, of course, he was busily imagining that Anthony had done it out
of mere ignoble toadyism.
'Just
snobbery,' said Anthony, depriving the other of half his pleasure by the easy
confession. But, then, I insist, people
like Gerry are an essential part of any liberal education. There was something really rather magnificent
about him when he was rich. A certain
detached and disinterested recklessness.
Now
' He raised his hand and let it fall again. 'Just a gangster you're quite right. But that's the fascinating thing the ease
with which aristocrats turn into gangsters.
Very comprehensible, when you come to think of it. Here's a man brought up to believe that he
had a divine right to the best of everything.
And so long as he gets his rights it's all noblesse oblige and
honour and all the rest of it.
Inextricably mixed up with insolence, of course; but genuinely
there. Now, take away his income; the
oddest things are liable to happen.
Providence intended you to have the best of everything; therefore
intended you to have the means for procuring the best of everything; therefore
when the means don't come to you legitimately, justifies you in getting them
illegitimately. In the past, our Gerry
would have gone in for banditry or simony.
He'd have made an admirable condottiere, an almost perfect cardinal. But
nowadays the church and the army are too respectable, too professional. They've no place for amateurs. The impoverished nobleman finds himself
driven into business. Selling cars. Touting stocks and shares. Promoting dubious companies. To the accompaniment, of course, if he's
presentable, of a judicious prostitution of his body. If he has the luck to be born with a gift of
the gab, he can make a good living out of the politer forms of blackmail and
sycophancy as a gossip writer. Noblesse
oblige; but so does poverty. And
when they both oblige simultaneously well, we of the middle classes had
better start counting the silver.
Instead of which
' He shrugged his shoulders. 'Poor Mary!'
Upstairs,
in the bedroom, the torrent of Mary's reproaches and abuse streamed on,
unceasingly. Gerry did not even look at
her. Averted, he seemed absorbed in the
contemplation of the Pascin hanging over the mantelpiece. The painting showed two women lying
foreshortened on a bed, naked.
'I
like this picture,' he said with deliberate irrelevance, when Mrs Amberley had
paused for breath. 'You can see that the
man who painted it had just finished making love to those girls. Both of them.
At the same time,' he added.
Mary
Amberley went very pale; her lips trembled, her nostrils fluttered as though
with a separate and uncontrollable life of their own.
'You
haven't even been listening to me,' she cried.
'Oh, you're awful, you're horrible!'
The torrent began to flow again, more vehemently than ever.
Still
turning his back to her, Gerry went on looking at the Pascin nudes; then at
last, blowing out a final cloud of tobacco-smoke, he threw the stump of his
cigarette into the fireplace and turned round.
'When
you've quite done,' he said in a tired voice, 'we may as well go to bed.' And after a little pause, while, unable to
speak, she glared furiously in his face, 'Seeing that that's what you really
want,' he added, and, smiling ironically, advanced across the room towards
her. When he was quite near her, he
halted and held out his hands invitingly.
They were large hands, immaculately kept, but coarse, insensitive,
brutal. 'Hideous hands,' Mary thought as
she looked at them, 'odious hands!' All
the more odious now, because it was by their very ugliness and brutality that
she had first been attracted, was even at this very moment being attracted,
shamefully, in spite of all the reasons she had for hating him. 'Well, aren't you coming?' he asked in the
same bored, derisive tone.
For
answer, she hit out at his face. But he
was too quick for her, caught the flying hand in mid-air and, when she tried to
bring the other into play, caught that too.
She was helpless in his grasp.
Still
smiling down at her, and without a word, he pushed her backwards, step by step,
towards the bed.
'Beast!'
she kept repeating, 'beast!' and struggled, vainly, and found obscure pleasure
in her helplessness. He pushed her
against the end of the low divan, further and further, inexorably, and at last
she lost her balance and fell back across the counterpane (fell back, while,
with one knee on the edge of the bed, he bent over her, still smiling the same
derisive smile). 'Beast, beast!' But in fact, as she secretly admitted to
herself and the consciousness was intoxicating in its shamefulness in fact,
she really wanted to be treated as he was treating her like a
prostitute, like an animal; and in her own house, what was more, with her
guests all waiting for her, and the door unlocked, and her daughters wondering
where she was, perhaps at this very moment coming up the stairs to look for
her. Yes, she really wanted it. Still struggling, she gave herself up to the
knowledge, to the direct physical intuition that this intolerable degradation
was the accomplishment of an old desire, was a revelation marvellous as well as
horrible, was the Apocalypse, the whose Apocalypse at once, angel and beast,
plague, lamb and whore in a single divine, revolting, overwhelming experience.
'Civilization
and sexuality,' Anthony was saying: 'there's a definite correlation. The higher the one, the intenser the other.'
'My
word,' said Beppo, fizzling with pleasure, 'we must be civilized!'
'Civilization
means food and literature all round.
Beefsteaks and fiction magazines for all. First-class proteins for the body,
fourth-class love-stories for the spirit.
And this in a safe urban world, where there are no risks, no physical
fatigues. In a town like this, for
example, one can live for years at a time without being aware that there's such
a thing as nature. Everything's man-made
and punctual and convenient. But people
can have too much of convenience; they want excitement, they want risks and
surprises. Where are they going to find
them under our dispensation? In
money-making, in politics, in occasional war, in sport, and finally in
sex. But most people can't be
speculators or active politicians; and war's getting to be too much of a good
thing; and the more elaborate and dangerous sports are only for the rich. So that sex is all that's left. As material civilization rises, the intensity
and importance of sexuality also rises.
Must rise, inevitably. And since
at the same time food and literature have increased the amount of available
appetite
' He shrugged his shoulders.
'Well, you see!'
Beppo
was charmed. 'You explain it all,' he
cried. 'Tout comprendre c'est tout
pardonner.' He felt, delightedly,
that Anthony's argument gave, not only absolution, but also a plenary
indulgence to everyone (for Beppo unselfishly wanted everyone to be as happy
as he was) and for everything, everything, from the ravishing barmen at Toulon
to those top-booted tarts (so definitely not for him) on the Kurfόrstendamm.
Staithes
said nothing. If social progress, he was
thinking, just meant greater piggishness for more people, why then then,
what?
'Do
you remember that remark of Dr Johnson's?' Anthony began again with a note of
elation in his voice. It had suddenly
come to him, an unexpected gift from his memory to his discursive reason come
to enrich the pattern of his thinking, to fill out his argument and extend its
scope. His voice reflected the sudden
triumphant pleasure that he felt. 'How
does it go? A man is seldom so innocently employed as when he is making
money. Something like that.
Admirable!' He laughed
aloud. 'The innocence of those who grind
the faces of the poor, but refrain from pinching the bottoms of their
neighbours's wives! The innocence of
Ford, the innocence of Rockefeller! The
nineteenth century was the Age of Innocence that sort of innocence. With the result that we're now almost ready
to say that a man is seldom more innocently employed than when making love.'
There
was a silence. Staithes looked at his
watch. 'Time one was getting out of
here,' he said. 'But the problem,' he added,
turning round in his chair to scan the room, 'the problem is one's hostess.'
They
got up, and while Beppo hurried off to greet a couple of young acquaintances on
the other side of the room, Staithes and Anthony made their way to the door.
'The
problem,' Staithes kept repeating, 'the problem
'
On
the landing, however, they met Mrs Amberley and Gerry coming down the stairs.
'We
were looking for you,' said Anthony. 'To
say goodnight.'
'So
soon?' cried Mary with a sudden access of anxiety.
But
they were firm. A couple of minutes
later the three of them, Staithes, Gerry Watchett and Anthony, were walking up
the street together.
It
was Gerry who broke the silence. 'These
old hags,' he said in a tone of meditative rancour, and shook his head. Then more cheerfully, 'What about a game of
poker?' he suggested. But Anthony didn't
know how, and Mark Staithes didn't desire, to play poker; he had to go off
alone in search of more congenial company.
'Good
riddance,' said Mark. 'And now what
about coming to my rooms for an hour?'
It
was the most important thing, Hugh Ledwidge felt as he walked home, the most
important and also the most extraordinary, most incredible thing that had ever
happened to him. So beautiful, so young. 'Fashioned so slenderly.' (If only she had thrown herself into the
Thames and he had rescued her! 'Helen!
My poor child!' And, 'Hugh!' she would
have murmured gratefully. 'Hugh
') But even without the suicide it had been
astonishing enough. Her mouth against
his. Oh, why hadn't he shown more
courage, more presence of mind? All the
things he might have said to her, the gestures he ought to have made! And yet, in a certain sense, it was better that
he should have behaved as he did stupidly, timidly, ineptly. Better, because it proved more conclusively
that she cared for him; because it gave a higher value to her action, so young,
so pure and yet spontaneously, under no compulsion of his, in the teeth,
indeed, of what had almost been his resistance, she had stepped down, laid her
hands on his shoulders, had kissed him.
Kissed him in spite of everything, he repeated to himself with a kind of
astonished triumph that mingled strangely with his sense of shame, his
conviction of weakness and futility; in spite of everything. Non piω andrai, he hummed to himself
as he walked along; then, as though the dank London night were a morning on the
downs in spring, broke out into unequivocal singing.
Delle
belle turbando il riposo,
Narcissetto,
Adoncino d'amor
At
home, he sat down at once to his desk and began to write to her.
'Helen,
Helen
If I repeat the syllables too often, they lose their sense, become just
a noise in my silent room terrifying in their meaninglessness. But if I say the name just two or three
times, very softly, how rich it becomes, how full! Charged with echoes and reminders. Not so much, for me, of the original Greek
Helen. I can't feel that she was ever
anything but a mature woman never anything but married to Menelaus and
eloping with Paris. Never really young,
as you are exquisitely, exquisitely, like a flower. No, it's more Poe's Helen I catch sight of
through the name. The beauty that
carries the traveller back to his own native shore takes him home. Not to the obvious, worldly home of the
passions. No; to that further, rarer,
lovelier home, beyond and above them.
Beyond and above; and yet implying, yet including, even while
transcending, the passions
It
was a long letter; but he was in time, running out, to catch the midnight
post. The sense of triumph with which he
returned the second time was almost unalloyed.
Momentarily, he had forgotten his shyness, his humiliating cowardice; he
remembered only that consciousness of soaring power that had filled him while
he wrote the letter. Exalted above his
ordinary self, he forgot, when undressing, to put his truss away in the chest
of drawers, so that Mrs Brinton shouldn't see it when she came in with his
early tea in the morning. In bed, he lay
for a long time thinking tenderly, paternally, poetically, thinking at the same
time with desire, but a desire so lingeringly gentle that lasciviousness
assumed the quality of prayer, thinking of Helen's exquisite youthfulness,
fashioned so slenderly, and her innocence, her slender innocence, and those
unexpected, those extraordinary kisses.
CHAPTER
XXI
August 31st 1933
Helen rang the bell, then listened. In the silence behind the closed door,
nothing stirred. She had come straight
from the station after a night in the train; it was not yet ten; her mother
would still be asleep. She rang again;
then, after a pause, once more. Heavily
asleep unless, of course, she had stayed out all night. Where?
And with whom? Remembering that
horrible Russian she had met at her mother's flat the last time she was in
Paris, Helen frowned. She rang a fourth
time, a fifth. From within the apartment
there was suddenly an answering sound of movement. Helen sighed, partly with relief that her
mother had only been asleep, partly in apprehension of what the coming minutes
or hours held in store. The door opened
at last, opened on a twilight that smelt of cats and ether and stale food; and
there, in dirty pink pyjamas, her dyed orange hair dishevelled, and still blinking,
still strangely swollen with sleep, stood her mother. For a second the face was a mask, bloated and
middle-aged, of stupefied incomprehension; then, in a flash, it came back to
life, almost back to youth, with a sudden smile of genuine delight.
'But
what fun!' cried Mrs Amberley. 'Darling,
I'm so glad.'
If
she hadn't known by how bitter an experience! - that this mood of gaiety and
affectionateness would inevitably be followed by, at the best, a spiteful
despondency, at the worst, by a fit of insanely violent anger, Helen would have
been touched by the warmth of her mother's greeting. As it was, she merely suffered herself to be
kissed and, her face still set and stony, stepped across the threshold into the
horribly familiar nightmare of her mother's life.
This
time, she found, the nightmare had a comic element.
'It's
all because of that beastly old femme de mιnage,' Mrs Amberley explained
as they stood there in the smelly little lobby.
'She was stealing my stockings.
So I had to lock the bedroom door when I went out. And then somehow I lost the key. You know what I am,' she added complacently,
boasting by force of habit of that absent-mindedness of which she had always
been so proud. 'Hopeless, I'm
afraid.' She shook her head and smiled
that crooked little smile of hers, conspiratorially. 'When I got home, I had to smash that
panel.' She pointed to the oblong
aperture in the lower half of the door.
'You should have seen me, banging away with the flatiron!' Her voice was richly vibrant with
laughter. 'Luckily it was like
matchwood. Cheap and nasty to a
degree. Like everything in this beastly
place.
'And
you crawled through?' Helen asked.
'Like
this,' And going down on her hands and knees, Mrs Amberley pushed her head
through the hole, turned sideways so as to admit an arm and shoulder, then,
with surprising agility, pulled and pushed with a hand beyond and feet on the
hither side of the door, till only her legs remained in the lobby. First one, then the other, the legs were withdrawn,
and an instant later, as though from a dog-kennel, Mrs Amberley's face emerged,
a little flushed, through the aperture.
'You
see,' she said. 'It's as easy as
winking. And the beauty of it is that
old Madame Roget's much too fat. No
possible chance of her getting through.
I don't have to worry about my stockings any more.'
'Do
you mean to say she never goes into your bedroom?'
Mrs
Amberley shook her head. 'Not since I
lost the key; and that was three weeks ago, at least.' Her tone was one of triumph.
'But
who makes the bed and does the cleaning?'
'Well
' There was a moment's hesitation.
'Why, I do, of course,' the other replied a little irritably.
'You?'
'Why
not?' From her kennel door, Mrs Amberley
looked up almost defiantly into her daughter's face. There was a long silence; then,
simultaneously, both of them burst out laughing.
Still
smiling, 'Lets have a look,' said Helen, and went down on all fours. They stony face had softened into life; she
felt an inward warmth. Her mother had
been so absurd, peering up like that out of her kennel, so childishly
ridiculous, that suddenly she was able to love her again. To love her while she laughed at her, just
because she could laugh at her.
Mrs
Amberley withdrew her head. 'Of course
it is a bit untidy,' she admitted rather anxiously, as Helen wriggled through
the hole in the door. Still kneeling,
she pushed some dirty linen and the remains of yesterday's lunch under the bed.
On
her feet again, inside the bedroom, Helen looked round. It was filthier even than she had expected
much filthier. She made an effort to go
on smiling; but the muscles of her face refused to obey her.
Three
days later Helen was on her way back to London.
Opening the English newspaper she had bought at the Gare du Nord, she read,
with an equal absence of interest, about the depression, the test match, the
Nazis, the New Deal. Sighing, she turned
the page. Printed very large, the words
'An Exquisite First Novel,' caught her eye.
And below, in small letters, 'The Invisible Lover. By Hugh Ledwidge. Reviewed by Catesby Rudge.' Helen folded back the page to make it more
manageable and read with an intense and fixed attention.
'Just
another book, I thought, like all the rest.
And I was on the point of throwing it aside, unread. But luckily something some mystic
intuition, I suppose made me change my mind.
I opened the book. I turned over
the pages, glancing at a sentence here and there. And the sentences I found, were gems jewels
of wrought crystal. I decided to read
the book. That was at nine in the
evening. And at midnight I was still
reading, spellbound. It was nearly two
before I got to bed my mind in a whirl of enthusiasm for this masterpiece I
had just read.
'How
shall I describe the book to you? I might
call it a fantasy. And as far as it
goes, that description holds good. The
Invisible Lover is a fantasy. But a
fantasy that is poignant as well as airy; profound as well as intriguing and
light; fraught with tears as well as with smiles at once subtly humorous and of
a high, Galahad-like spirituality. It is
full of broken-hearted fun, and its laughter is dewy with tears. And throughout runs a vein of naοve and
child-like purity, infinitely refreshing in a world full of Freudians and
sex-novelists and all their wearisome ilk.
This fantasy of the invisible but ever present, ever watchful, ever
adoring lover and his child-beloved has an almost celestial innocence. If I wanted to describe the book in a single
phrase, I should say that it was the story of Dante and Beatrice told by Hans
Andersen
'
Falling
into her memories of Hugh's few ignominious attempts to make love to her, the
words produced in Helen's mind a kind of violent chemical reaction. She burst out laughing; and since the
ridiculous phrase went echoing on, since the grotesque memories kept renewing
themselves with ever heightened intensity and in ever fuller, more painfully
squalid detail, the laughter continued, irrepressibly. The story of Dante and Beatrice told by Hans
Andersen! Tears of hysterical merriment
ran down her cheeks; she was breathless, and the muscles of her throat were
contracted in a kind of agonizing cramp.
But still she went on laughing was utterly unable to stop; it was as though
she were possessed by a demon. Luckily,
she was alone in the compartment. People
would have taken her for a madwoman.
In
the cab, on the way to Hugh's flat her flat too, in spite of Dante and
Beatrice and Hans Andersen she wondered whether he'd have gone to bed
already, and just how upset he'd be to see her.
She hadn't warned him of her arrival; he would be unprepared to receive
her, unbraced against the shock of her grossly physical presence. Poor old Hugh! she thought with a derisive
pity. Enjoying his private and invisible
fun, like Dante with his phantom, and then having to suffer the trampling
intrusion of Signora Alighieri! But
tonight, she realized, as she stood at last before the door of the flat,
looking in her bag for the latchkey, that invisible solitude of his had already
been invaded. Somebody was playing the
piano; there was a sound of laughter and voices. Hugh must be having a party. And all at once Helen saw herself making a
dramatic entrance, like Banquo's ghost, and was delighted by the vision. The reading of that article had momentarily
transposed her entire being into the key of laughter. Everything was a vast, extravagant, savage
joke or if it wasn't already, should be made so. It was with a tingling sense of excited
anticipation that she opened the door and silently slipped into the hall. An assortment of strange hats hung on the
pegs, lay on the chairs a couple of rich hats, she noticed, very new and
shapely; and the rest deformed, and ancient; hats, one could see, of the
intellectual poor. There were some
letters on the marble-topped table; she bent down by mere force of habit to
look at them, and found that one was addressed to her from Anthony, she
recognized; and that too was a joke. Did
he seriously imagine that she would read his letters? Enormous ass!
She popped the envelope unopened into her bag, then tiptoed across the
passage to her room. How tidy it
was! How dead! Like a family vault under dust-sheets. She took off her coat and hat, washed, combed
her hair, made up her face, then, as silently as she had come, crept back to
the hall and stood at the door of the sitting-room, trying to guess by the
sound of their voices who were the guests.
Beppo Bowles, for one; that giggle, those squeaks and fizzlings were
unmistakable. And Mark Staithes. And then a voice she wasn't sure of, and
another, very soft and confidential, that must be old Croyland's. And who was that ridiculous foreigner who
spoke so slowly and ponderously, all on one note? She stood there at the door for a long minute,
then very gently turned the handle, drew the door gradually open, and without a
sound edged into the room. Nobody had
noticed her. Mark Staithes was seated at
the piano, and Beppo, a Beppo fatter than ever, she noticed, and balder and
more nervously agitated, and yes, beard and all! - old Croyland, standing one
on either side of him, leaning on the instrument and looking down at him while
he spoke. Hugh was on the sofa near the
fireplace, with the owner of the voice she hadn't recognized, but who turned
out to be Caldwell, the publisher the publisher, of course, of The
Invisible Lover, she reflected, and had a difficulty in checking another
uprush of mirth. With them was a young
man she had never seen before a young man with very pale flaxen hair and a
ruddy open face that wore at the moment an expression of almost child-like
seriousness. He, it was evident, had
been the foreign accent German, she supposed.
But
now the moment had come.
'Good-evening,'
she called, and stepped forward.
They
were all startled; but as for poor Hugh he jumped as though someone had fired
a cannon in his ear. And after the first
fright, with an expression of appalled dismay!
Irresistibly comic!
'Well,
Hugh,' she said.
He
looked up into her laughing face, unable to speak. Ever since the first laudatory notices of his
book had begun to come in, he had been feeling so strong, so blissfully
secure. And now here was Helen come to
humiliate him, come to bear shameful witness against him.
'I
didn't expect,' he managed to mumble incoherently. 'I mean, why did you
?'
But
Caldwell, who had a reputation for after-dinner speaking to keep up,
interrupted him. Raising the glass he
was holding, 'To the Muse,' he called out.
'The Muse and also I don't think it's an indiscretion if I say so
also the heroine of our masterpiece.'
Charmed by the felicity of his own phrasing, he beamed at Helen; then,
turning to Hugh with a gesture of affectionate proprietorship, he patted him on
the shoulder. 'You must drink too, old
man. It's not a compliment to you not
this time.' And he uttered a rich
chuckle.
Hugh
did as he was told and, averting his eyes, took a gulp of whisky-and-soda.
'Thank
you, thank you,' cried Helen. Then
laughter was seething within her, like water in a kettle. She gave one hand to Caldwell and the other
to Hugh. 'I can't tell you how thrilled
I was,' she went on. 'Dante and Beatrice
by Hans Andersen it sounds too delicious.'
Blushing,
Hugh tried to protest. 'That frightful
article
'
Cutting
him short, 'But why did you keep it up your sleeve?' she asked.
Yes
why, why? Hugh was thinking; and that he had been mad to publish the book
without first showing it to Helen. He
had always wanted to show it to her and
always, at the last moment, found the task too difficult, too
embarrassing. But the desire to publish
had remained with him, had grown stronger, until at last, senselessly, he had
taken the manuscript to Caldwell and, after its acceptance, arranged with him
that it should appear while Helen was out of the country. As though that would prevent her knowing
anything about it! Madness,
madness! And the proof that he had been
mad was her presence here tonight, with that strange wild smile on her face,
that brightness in her eyes. An uncalculating
recklessness was one of the child-beloved's most characteristic and engaging
traits; she was a celestial enfant terrible. But in the real Helen this recklessness
seemed almost fiendish. She was capable
of doing anything, absolutely anything.
'Why
did you?' she insisted.
He
made a vague apologetic noise.
'You
ought to have told me you were Dante Andersen.
I'd have tried to live up to you.
Beatrice and the Little Match Girl rolled into one. Good-evening, Beppo! And Mark!'
They had come over from the piano to greet her. 'And, Mr Croyland, how are you?'
Mr
Croyland gave a perfect performance of an old gentleman greeting a lovely young
woman benevolently, yet with a touch of playfulness, an attenuated echo of
gallantry.
'Such
an unexpected enchantment,' he breathed in the soft, deliberately ecstatic
voice he ordinarily reserved for describing quattrocento paintings or
for addressing the celebrated or the very rich.
Then, with a gesture that beautifully expressed an impulsive outburst of
affection, Mr Croyland sandwiched her hand between both of his. They were very pale, soft hands, almost
gruesomely small and dainty. By
comparison, it seemed to Helen that her own brown hand was like a
peasant's. Mr Croyland's silvery and
prophetic beard parted in a smile that ought to have been the gracious
confirmation of his words and gestures, but which, with its incongruous width
and the sudden ferocity of all its large and yellowing teeth, seemed instead to
deny all reality to the old gentleman's exquisite refinement of manner. That smile belonged to the Mr Croyland who
had traded so profitably in the Old Masters; the little white hands and their
affectionate gestures, the soft, ecstatic voice and its heartfelt words, were
the property of that other, that ethereal Croyland who only cared about Art.
Helen
disengaged her hand. 'Did you ever see
those china mugs, Mr Croyland?' she asked, 'you who know Italy so well? The ones they sell at Montecatini for
drinking the purgative waters out of?
White, with an inscription in golden letters: Io son Beatrice che ti
faccio andare.'
'But
what an outrage!' Mr Croyland exclaimed, and lifted his small hands in horror.
'But
it's the sort of joke I really enjoy. Particularly
now that Beatrice is really me
' Becoming aware that the flaxen-haired young
man was standing at attention about a yard to the west of her, evidently trying
to attract her notice, Helen interrupted herself and turned towards him,
holding out her hand.
The
young man took it, bowed stiffly from the waist and, saying 'Giesebrecht,'
firmly squeezed it.
Laughing
(it was another joke), Helen answered, 'Ledwidge'; then, as an afterthought, 'geboren
Amberley.'
Nonplussed
by this unexpected gambit, the young man bowed again in silence.
Staithes
intervened to explain that Ekki Giesebrecht was his discovery. A refugee from Germany. Not because of his nose, he added as (taking
pity on poor old Hugh) he drew her confidentially out of the group assembled
round the sofa; not because of his nose because of his politics. Aryan but communist ardently and all
along the line.
'He
believes that as soon as all incomes are equalized, men will stop being
cruel. Also that all power will
automatically find itself in the hands of the best people. And he's absolutely convinced that nobody who
obtains power will be capable of even wishing to abuse it.' Staithes shook his head. 'One doesn't know whether to admire and envy,
or to thank God for not having made one such an ass. And to complicate matters, he's such a
thoroughly good ass. An ass with the
mortal qualities of a saint. Which is
why he's such an admirable propagandist.
Saintliness is almost as good as sex-appeal.' He pulled up a chair for Helen, and himself
sat down again at the piano and began to play the first few bars of Beethoven's
Fόr Elise; then broke off and, turning back to her, 'The trouble,' he
resumed, 'is that nothing works.
Not faith, not intelligence, not saintliness, not even villainy
nothing. Faith's just organized and
directed stupidity. It may remove a
mountain or two by dint of mere obstinate butting; but it's blinkered, it can't
see that if you move mountains, you don't destroy them, you merely shove them
from one place to another. You need
intelligence to see that; but intelligence isn't much good because people can't
feel enthusiastic about it; it's at the mercy of the first Hitler or Mussolini
that comes along of anyone who can rouse enthusiasm; and one can rouse enthusiasm
for any cause however idiotic and criminal.'
Helen
was looking across the room. 'I suppose
his hair's naturally that colour?' she said, more to herself than to her
companion. Then, turning back to
Staithes, 'And what about saintliness?' she asked.
'Well,
look at history,' he answered.
'I
don't know any.'
'Of
course not. But I take it that you've
heard of someone called Jesus? And
occasionally, no doubt, you read the papers?
Well, put two and two together, the morning's news and the saint, and
draw your own conclusions.'
Helen
nodded. 'I've drawn them.'
'If
saintliness were enough to save the world,' he went on, 'then obviously the
world would have been saved long ago.
Dozens of times. But saintliness
can exist without intelligence. And though
it's attractive, it isn't more attractive than lots of other things good
food, for example, comfort, going to bed with people, bullying, feeling
superior.'
Laughing
(for this also was laughable), 'It looks,' said Helen, 'as if there were
nothing to do but throw up everything and become an invisible lover.' She helped herself to a sandwich and a
tumbler of white wine from the tray.
The
group at the other end of the room had disintegrated, and Beppo and Mr Croyland
were drifting back towards the piano.
Staithes smiled at them and, picking up the thread of the argument that
Helen's arrival had interrupted, 'Alternatively,' he said, 'one might become an
aesthete.'
'You
use the word as though it were an insult,' Beppo protested with the emphatic
peevishness that had grown upon him with age.
Life was treating him badly making him balder, making him stouter,
making young men more and more reluctant to treat him as their contemporary,
making sexual successes increasingly difficult of achievement, making that
young German of Staithes's behave almost rudely to him. 'Why should one be ashamed of living for
beauty.'
The
thought of Beppo living for beauty living for it with his bulging waistcoat
and the tight seat of his check trousers and his bald crown and Florentine
page's curls almost made Helen choke over her wine.
From
the depths of his armchair, ' Glory be to God for dappled things, '
murmured Mr Croyland. 'I've been
re-reading Father Hopkins lately. So
poignant! Like a dagger. What lovely behaviour of silk-sack clouds!
' He sighed, he pensively shook his
head. 'They're among the things that
wound one with their loveliness. Wound
and yet sustain, make life liveable.'
There
was a cathedral silence.
Then, making an effort to keep the laughter
out of her voice, 'Be an angel, Beppo,' said Helen, 'and give me some more of
that hock.'
Mr
Croyland sat remote, behind half-closed eyelids, the inhabitant of a higher
universe.
When
the clinking of the glasses had subsided, ' Ripeness is all, ' he
quoted. ' That sober certainty of
waking bliss. Waking,' he
insisted. 'Piercing conscious. And then, of course, there are pictures the
Watteaus at Dresden, and Bellini's Transfiguration, and those Raphael portraits
at the Pitti. Buttresses to shore up the
soul. And certain philosophies too. Zarathustra, the Symposium.' He waved his little hand. 'One would be lost without them lost!'
'And,
with them, I take it, you're saved?' said Mark from his seat at the piano; and,
without waiting for an answer, 'I wish I were,' he went on. 'But there seems to be so little substance in
it all. Even in the little that
intrinsically substantial. For of course most thinking has never been anything
but silly. And as for art, as for
literature well, look at the museums and the libraries. Look at them! Ninety-nine per cent. of nonsense and mere
rubbish.'
'But
the Greeks,' Mr Croyland protested, 'the Florentines, the Chinese
' He sketched in the air an exquisitely
graceful gesture, as though he were running his fingers over the flanks of a
Sung jar, round the cup-shaped navel of a High Renaissance water-nymph. Subtly, with what was meant to be the expression
of a Luini madonna, he smiled; but always, through the opening fur, his large
yellow teeth showed ferociously, rapaciously even when he talked about the
Schifanoia frescoes, even when he whispered, as though it were an Orphic
secret, the name of Vermeer of Delft.
But
nonsense, Staithes insisted, almost invariably nonsense and rubbish. And most of what wasn't nonsense or rubbish
was only just ordinarily good. 'Like
what you or I could do with a little practice,' he explained. 'And if one knows oneself the miserable
inept little self that can yet accomplish such feats well, really, one can't
be bothered to take the feats very seriously.'
Mr
Croyland, it was evident from his frown, didn't think of his own self in quite
this spirit.
'Not
but what one can enjoy the stuff for all kinds of irrelevant reasons,' Staithes
admitted. 'For its ingenuity, for
example, if one's in any way a technician or an interpreter. Steady progressions in the bass, for example,
while the right hand is modulating apparently at random. Invariably delightful! But then, so's carpentry. No; ultimately it isn't interesting, that
ordinarily good stuff. However great the
accomplishment or the talent. Ultimately
it's without value; it differs from the bad only in degree. Composing like Brahms, for example what is
it, after all, but a vastly more elaborate and intellectual way of composing
like Meyerbeer? Whereas the best
Beethoven is as far beyond the best Brahms as it's beyond the worst Meyerbeer. There's a difference in kind. One's in another world.'
'Another
world,' echoed Mr Croyland in a religious whisper. 'But that's just what I've been trying to get
you to admit. With the highest art one
enters another world.'
Beppo
fizzled with emphatic agreement.
'A
world,' Mr Croyland insisted, 'of gods and angels.'
'Don't
forget the invisible lovers,' said Helen, who was finding, as she drank her
white wine, that everything was becoming more and more uproariously amusing.
Mr
Croyland ignored the interruption. 'A
next world,' he went on. 'The great artists
carry you up to heaven.'
'But
they never allow you to stay there,' Mark Staithes objected. 'They give you just a taste of the next
world, then let you fall back, flop, into the mud. Marvellous while it lasts. But the time's so short. And even while they've actually got me in
heaven, I catch myself asking: Is that all?
Isn't there anything more, anything further? The other world isn't other enough. Even Macbeth, even the Mass in D, even
the El Greco Assumption.' He
shook his head. 'They used to satisfy
me. They used to be an escape and a
support. But now
now I find myself
wanting something more, something heavenlier, something less human. Yes, less human,' he repeated. Then the flayed face twisted itself up into
an agonized smile. 'I feel rather like
Nurse Cavell about it,' he added.
'Painting, music, literature, thought they're not enough.'
'What
is enough, then?' asked Beppo.
'Politics? Science? Money-making?' Staithes shook his head after every
suggestion.
'But
what else is there?' asked Beppo.
Still
anatomically smiling, Mark looked at him for a moment in silence, then said,
'Nothing absolutely nothing.'
'Speak
for yourself,' said Mr Croyland.
'They're enough for me.' He
dropped his eyelids once more and retired into spiritual fastnesses.
Looking
at him, Staithes was moved by a sudden angry desire to puncture the old
gentleman's balloon-like complacency to rip a hole in that great bag of
cultural gas, by means of which Mr Croyland contrived to hoist his squalid
traffickings sky-high into the rarefied air of pure aesthetics. 'And what about death? You find them adequate against death?' he
insisted in a tone that had suddenly become brutally inquisitorial. He paused, and for a moment the old man was
enveloped in a horribly significant silence the silence of those who in the
presence of a victim or an incurable tactfully ignore the impending doom. 'Adequate against life, for that matter,'
Mark Staithes went on, relenting; 'against life in any of its more unpleasant
or dangerous aspects.'
'Such
as dogs falling on one out of aeroplanes!' Helen burst out laughing.
'But
what are you talking about?' cried Beppo.
'Father
Hopkins won't keep dogs off,' she went on breathlessly. 'I agree with you, Mark. A good umbrella, any day
'
Mr
Croyland rose to his feet. 'I must go to
bed,' he said. 'And so should you, my
dear.' The little white hand upon her
shoulder was benevolent, almost apostolic.
'You're tired after your journey.'
'You
mean, you think I'm drunk,' Helen answered, wiping her eyes. 'Well, perhaps you're right. Gosh,' she added, 'how nice it is to laugh
for a change!'
When
Mr Croyland was gone, and Beppo with him, Staithes turned towards her. 'You're in a queer state, Helen.'
'I'm
amused,' she explained.
'What
by?'
'By
everything. But it began with Dante;
Dante and Hans Andersen. If you'd been
married to Hugh, you'd know why that was so extraordinarily funny. Image Europa if the bull had turned out after
all to be Narcissus!'
'I
don't think you'd better talk so loud,' said Staithes, looking across the room
to where, with an expression on his face of hopeless misery, Hugh was
pretending to listen to an animated discussion between Caldwell and the young
German.
Helen
also looked round for a moment; then turned back with a careless shrug of her
shoulders. 'If he says he's
invisible, why shouldn't I say
I'm inaudible?' Her eyes brightened
again with laughter. 'I shall write a
book called The Invisible Mistress.
A woman who says exactly what she thinks about her lovers while they're
making love to her. But they can't hear
her. Not a word.' She emptied her glass and refilled it.
'And
what does she say about them?'
'The
truth, of course. Nothing but the
truth. That the romantic Don Juan is
just a crook. Only I'm afraid that in
reality she wouldn't find that out till afterwards. Still, one might be allowed a bit of poetic
licence make the esprit d'escalier happen at the same time as the
romantic affair. The moonlight, and My
darling, and I adore you, and those extraordinary sensations and at the
same moment You're nothing but a sneak-thief, nothing but a low black-guardly
swindler. And then there'd be the
spiritual lover Hans Dante, in fact.'
She shook her head. 'Talk of
Kraft Ebbing!'
'But
what does she say to him?'
'What
indeed!' Helen took a gulp of wine. 'Luckily she's inaudible. We'd better skip that chapter and come
straight to the epicurean sage. With a
sage, she doesn't have to be quite so obscure.
You think you're a man, because you happen not to be impotent. That's what she says to him. But in fact you're not a man. You're sub-human. In spite of your sageness because of it
even. Worse than the crook in some
ways. And then, bang, like a sign from
heaven, down comes the dog!'
'But
what dog?'
'Why,
the dog Father Hopkins can't protect you from.
The sort of dog that bursts like a bomb when you drop it out of an
aeroplane. Bang!' The laughing excitement seethed and bubbled
within her, seeking expression, seeking an outlet; and the only possible
assuagement was through some kind of outrage, some violence publicly done to
her own and other people's feelings. 'It
almost fell on Anthony and me,' she went on, finding a strange relief in
speaking thus openly and hilariously about the unmentionable event. 'On the roof of his house it was. And we had no clothes on. Like the Garden of Eden. And then, out of the blue, down came that dog
and exploded, I tell you, literally exploded.' She threw out her hands in a violent
gesture. 'Dog's blood from head to
foot. We were drenched but drenched! In spite of which the imbecile goes and
writes me a letter.' She opened her bag
and produced it. 'Imagining I'd read it,
I suppose. As though nothing had
happened, as though we were still in the Garden of Eden. I always told him he was a fool. There!'
She handed the letter to Staithes.
'You open it and see what the idiot has to say. Something witty, no doubt; something airy and
casual; humorously wondering why I took it into my funny little head to go
away.' Then noticing that Mark was still
holding the letter unopened, 'But why don't you read it?' she asked.
'Do
you really want me to?'
'Of
course. Read it aloud. Read it with expression.' She rolled the r derisively.
'Very
well, then.' He tore open the envelope
and unfolded the thin sheets. ' I went to look for you at the hotel, ' he
read out slowly, frowning over the small and hurried script. ' You were gone and it was like a kind of
death. '
'Ass!'
commented Helen.
'
It's probably too late, probably useless; but I feel I must try to tell you in
this letter some of the things I meant to say to you, yesterday evening, in
words. In one way it's easier for I'm
inept when it comes to establishing a purely personal contact with
another human being. But in another way,
it's much more difficult; for these written words will just be words and no
more, will come to you, floating in a void, unsupported, without the life of my
physical presence. '
Helen
gave a snort of contemptuous laughter.
'As though that would have been a recommendation!' She drank some more wine.
'
Well, what I wanted to tell you, ' Staithes read on, ' was this: that
suddenly (it was like a conversion, like an inspiration) while you were
kneeling there yesterday on the roof, after that horrible thing had happened
... '
'He
means the dog,' said Helen. 'Why can't
he say so?'
'
... suddenly I realized ... ' Mark
Staithes broke off. 'Look here,' he
said, 'I really can't go on.'
'Why
not? I insist on your going on,' she
cried excitedly.
He
shook his head. 'I've got no right!'
'But
I've given you the right.'
'Yes,
I know. But he hasn't.'
'What
has he got to do with it? Now that I've
received the letter
'
'But
it's a love-letter.'
'A
love-letter?' Helen repeated incredulously, then burst out laughing. 'That's
too good! she cried. 'That's really
sublime! Here, give it to me.' She snatched the letter out of his hand. 'Where are we? Ah, here! ... kneeling on the roof after
that horrible thing had happened, suddenly I realized that I'd been living a
kind of outrageous lie towards you! '
She declaimed the words rhetorically and to the accompaniment of florid
gesticulations. ' I realized that in
spite of all the elaborate pretence that it was just a kind of detached
irresponsible amusement, I really loved you.
He really lo-o-oved me,' she repeated, drawing the word into a grotesque
caricature of itself. 'Isn't that
wonderful? He really lo-o-oved me.' Then, turning round in her chair, 'Hugh!' she
called across the room.
'Helen,
be quiet!'
But
the desire, the need to consummate the outrage was urgent within her.
She
shook off the restraining hand that Staithes had laid on her arm, shouted Hugh's
name again and, when they all turned towards her, 'I just wanted to tell you he
really lo-o-oved me,' she said, waving the letter.
'Oh,
for God's sake shut up!'
'I
most certainly won't shut up,' she retorted, turning back to Mark. 'Why shouldn't I tell Hugh the good
news? He'll be delighted, seeing how
much he lo-o-oves me himself. Don't you
Hughie?' She swung back again, and her face
was flushed and brilliant with excitement.
'Don't you?' Hugh made no answer,
but sat there pale and speechless, looking at the floor.
'Of
course you do,' she answered for him.
'In spite of all appearances to the contrary. Or rather,' she emended, uttering a little
laugh, 'in spite of all disappearances seeing that it was always invisible,
that love of yours. Oh yes, Hughie
darling, definitely invisible. But still
still, in spite of all disappearances to the contrary, you do lo-o-ove me,
don't you? Don't you?' she insisted,
trying to force him to answer her, 'don't you?'
Huge
rose to his feet and, without speaking a word, almost ran out of the room.
'Hugh!'
Caldwell shouted after him, 'Hugh!'
There was no answer. Caldwell
looked round at the others. 'I think
perhaps one ought to see that he's all right,' he said, with the maternal
solicitude of a publisher who sees a first-rate literary property rushing
perhaps towards suicide. 'One never
knows.' And jumping up he hurried after
Hugh. The door slammed.
There
was a moment's silence. Then,
startlingly, Helen broke into laughter.
'Don't be alarmed, Herr Giesebrecht,' she said, turning to the young
German. 'It's just a little bit of
English family life. Die Familie in
Wohnzimmer, as we used to learn at school.
Was tut die Mutter? Die Mutter
spielt Klavier. Und was tut der
Vater? Der Vater sitzt in einem
Lehnstuhl und raucht seine Pfeife.
Just that, Herr Giesebrecht, no more.
Just a typical bourgeois family.'
'Bourgeois,'
the young man repeated, and nodded gravely.
'You say better than you know.'
'Do
I?'
'You
are a victim,' he went on, very slowly, and separating word from word, 'a
victim of capitalist society. It is full
of vices
'
Helen
threw back her head and laughed again more loudly than before; then,
controlling herself with an effort, 'You mustn't think I'm laughing at you,'
she gasped. 'I think you're being sweet
to me extraordinarily decent. And
probably you're quite right about capitalist society. Only somehow at this particular moment I
don't know why it seemed rather
rather
' The laughter broke out once
more. 'I'm sorry.'
'We
must be going,' said Mark, and rose from his chair. The young German also got up and came across
the room towards them. 'Goodnight,
Helen.'
'Goodnight,
Mark. Goodnight, Mr Giesebrecht. Come and see me again, will you?' I'll behave better next time.'
He
returned her smile and bowed. 'I will
come whenever you wish,' he said.
CHAPTER
XXII
December
8th 1926
Mark lived in a dingy house off the Fulham
Road. Dark brown brick with terra-cotta
trimmings; and, within, patterned linoleum; bits of red Axminster carpet;
wallpapers of ochre sprinkled with bunches of cornflowers, of green, with
crimson roses; fumed oak chairs and tables; rep curtains; bamboo stands
supporting glazed blue pots. The
hideousness, Anthony reflected, was so complete, so absolutely unrelieved, that
it could only have been intentional.
Mark must deliberately have chosen the ugliest surroundings he could
find. To punish himself, no doubt but
why, for what offence?
'Some
beer?'
Anthony
nodded.
The
other opened a bottle, filled a single glass; but himself did not drink.
'You
still play, I see,' said Anthony, pointing in the direction of the upright
piano.
'A
little,' Mark had to admit. 'It's
consolation.'
The
fact that the Matthew Passion, for example, the Hammerklavier Sonata, had had
human authors was a source of hope. It
was just conceivable that humanity might one day and somehow be made a little
more John-Sebastian-like. If there were
no Well-Tempered Clavichord, why should one bother even to wish for
revolutionary change?
'Turning
one kind of common humanity into common humanity of a slightly different kind
well, if that's all that revolution can do, the game isn't worth the candle.'
Anthony
protested. For a sociologist it was the
most fascinating of all games.
'To
watch or to play?'
'To
watch, of course.'
A
spectacle bottomlessly comic in its grotesqueness, endlessly varied. But looking closely, one could detect the
uniformities under the diversity, the fixed rules of the endlessly shifting
game.
'A
revolution to transform common humanity into common humanity of another
variety. You find it horrifying. But that's just what I'd like to live long
enough to see. Theory being put to the
test of practice. To detect, after your
catastrophic reform of everything, the same old uniformities working themselves
out in a slightly different way I can't imagine anything more
satisfying. Like logically inferring the
existence of a new planet and then discovering it with a telescope. As for producing more John Sebastians
' He
shrugged his shoulders. 'You might as
well imagine that revolution will increase the number of Siamese twins.'
That
was the chief difference between literature and life. In books, the proportion of exceptional to commonplace
people is high; in reality, very low.
'Books
are opium,' said Mark.
'Precisely. That's why it's doubtful if there'll ever be
such a thing as proletarian literature.
Even proletarian books will deal with exceptional proletarians. And exceptional proletarians are no more
proletarian than exceptional bourgeois are bourgeois. Life's so ordinary that literature has to
deal with the exceptional. Exceptional
talent, power, social position, wealth.
Hence those geniuses of fiction, those leaders and dukes and
millionaires. People who are completely
conditioned by circumstances one can be desperately sorry for them; but one
can't find their lives very dramatic.
Drama begins where there's freedom of choice. And freedom of choice begins when social or
psychological conditions are exceptional.
That's why the inhabitants of imaginative literature have always been
recruited from the pages of Who's Who.'
'But
do you really think that people with money or power are free?'
'Freer
than the poor, at any rate. Less
completely conditioned by matter and other people's wills.'
Mark
shook his head. 'You don't know my
father,' he said, 'Or my disgusting brothers.'
At
Bulstrode, Anthony remembered, it was always, 'My pater says
' or 'My frater
at Cambridge.'
'The
whole vile brood of Staitheses,' Mark went on.
He
described the Staithes who was now a Knight Commander of St Michael and St
George and a Permanent Under-Secretary.
Pleased as Punch with it all, and serenely conscious of his own
extraordinary merits, adoring himself for being such a great man.
'As
though there were any real difficulty in getting where he's got! Anything in the least creditable about that
kind of piddling little conquest!' Mark
made a flayed grimace of contemptuous disgust.
'He thinks he's a marvel.'
And
the other Staitheses, the Staitheses of the younger generation - they also thought that they were
marvels. There was one of them at Dehli,
heroically occupied in bullying Indians who couldn't stand up for
themselves. And the other was on the
Stock Exchange and highly successful.
Successful at what? As a cunning
exploiter of ignorance and greed and the insanity of gamblers and misers. And on top of everything the man prided
himself on being an amorist, a professional Don Juan.
(Why
the poor devil shouldn't be allowed to have a bit of fun, Anthony was unable,
as he sipped his beer, to imagine.)
One
of the boys! One of the dogs! A dog among bitches what a triumph!
'And
you call them free,' Mark concluded.
'But how can a climber be free?
He's tied to his ladder.'
'But
social ladders,' Anthony objected, 'become broader as they rise. At the bottom, you can only just get your
foot on to them. At the top the rungs
are twenty yards across.'
'Well,
perhaps it's a wider perch than the bank clerk's,' Mark admitted. 'But not wide enough for me. And not high enough; above all, not clean
enough.'
The
rage they had been in when he enlisted during the war as a private! Feeling that he'd let the family down. The creatures were incapable of seeing that,
if you had the choice, it was more decent to elect to be a private than a staff
lieutenant.
'Turds
to the core,' he said. 'So they can't
think anything but turdish thoughts. And
above all, they can't conceive of anyone else thinking differently. Turd calls to turd; and, when it's answered
by non-turd, it's utterly at a loss.'
And
when the war was over, there was that job his father had taken such pains to
find him in the City with Lazarus and Coit, no less! - just waiting for him
to step into the moment he was demobilized.
A job with almost unlimited prospects for a young man with brains and
energy for a Staithes, in a word. 'A
five-figure income by the time you're fifty,' his father had insisted almost
lyrically, and had been really hurt and grieved, as well as mortally offended,
furiously angry, when Mark replied that he had no intention of taking it.
'
But why not? ' the poor old turd kept asking.
Why not? And simply couldn't
see that it was just because it was so good that I couldn't take his job. So unfairly good! So ignobly good! He just couldn't see it. According to his ideas, I ought to have
rushed at it, headlong, like all the Gadarene swine rolled into one. Instead of which I returned him his cow-pat
and went to Mexico to look after a coffee finca.'
'But
did you know anything about coffee?'
'Of
course not. That was one of the
attractions of the job.' He smiled. 'When I did know something about it, I came
back to see if there was anything doing here.'
'And
is there anything doing?'
The
other shrugged his shoulders. God only
knew. One joined the Party, one
distributed literature, one financed pressure-groups out of the profits on
synthetic carnations, one addressed meetings and wrote articles. And perhaps it was all quite useless. Perhaps, on the contrary, the auspicious
moment might some day present itself
'And
then what?' asked Anthony.
'Ah,
that's the question. It'll be all right
at the beginning. Revolution's delightful
in the preliminary stages. So long as
it's a question of getting rid of the people at the top. But afterwards, if the thing's a success
what then? More wireless sets, more
chocolates, more beauty parlours, more girls with better contraceptives.' He shook his head. 'The moment you give people the chance to be
piggish, they take it thankfully. That
freedom you were talking about just now, the freedom at the top of the social
ladder it's just the licence to be a pig; or alternatively a prig, a
self-satisfied pharisee like my father.
Or else both at once, like my precious brother. Pig and prig simultaneously. In Russia they haven't yet had the chance to
be pigs. Circumstances have forced them
to be ascetics. But suppose their
economic experiment succeeds; suppose a time comes when they're all prosperous
what's to prevent them turning into Babbitts?
Millions and millions of soft, piggish Babbitts, ruled by a small
minority of ambitious Staitheses.'
Anthony
smiled. 'A new phase of the game played
according to the old unchanging rules.'
I'm
horribly afraid you're right,' said the other.
'It's orthodox Marxism, of course.
Behaviour and modes of thought are the outcome of economic
circumstances. Reproduce Babbitt's
circumstances and you can't help reproducing his manners and customs. Christ!'
He rose, walked to the piano and, drawing up a chair, sat down in front
of it. 'Let's try to get that
taste out of our mouths.' He held his
large bony hands poised for a moment above the keyboard; the began to play
Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D. They were
in another universe, a world where Babbitts and Staitheses didn't exist, were
inconceivable.
Mark
had played for only a minute or two when the door opened and an elderly woman,
thin and horse-faced, in a brown silk dress and wearing round her neck an old
diseased brown fur, entered the room.
She walked on tiptoe, acting in elaborate pantomime the very
personification of silence, but in the process produced an extraordinary volume
and variety of disturbing noises creaking of shoes, rustling of silk, glassy
clinkings of bead necklaces, jingling of the silver objects suspended by little
chains from the waist. Mark went on
playing without turning his head.
Embarrassed, Anthony roses and bowed.
The horse-faced creature waved him back to his place, and cautiously, in
a final prolonged explosion of noise, sat down on the sofa.
'Exquisite!'
she cried when the final chord had been struck.
'Play us something more, Mark.'
But
Mark got up, shaking his head. 'I want
to introduce you to Miss Pendle,' he said to Anthony; and to the old woman,
'Anthony Beavis was at Bulstrode with me,' he explained.
Anthony
took her hand. She gave him a
smile. The teeth, which were false ones
and badly fitting, were improbably too white and bright. 'So you were at Bulstrode with Mark!' she
cried. 'Isn't that extraordinary.'
'Extraordinary
that we should still be on speaking terms,' said Mark.
'No,
no,' said Miss Pendle, and with a playfulness that Anthony found positively
ghoulish, gave him a little slap on the arm.
'You know exactly what I mean. He
always was like that, Mr Beavis, even when he was a boy do you remember?'
Anthony
duly nodded assent.
'So
sharp and sarcastic! Even before you
knew him at Bulstrode. Shocking!' She flashed her false teeth at Mark in a
sparkle of loving mock-reprobation. 'He
was my first pupil, you know,' she went on confidentially. 'And I was his first teacher.'
Anthony
rose gallantly to the occasion. 'Let me
congratulate Mark,' he said, 'and condole with you.'
Miss
Pendle looked at Mark. 'Do you think I
need his condolences?' she asked, almost archly, like a young girl,
coquettishly fishing for compliments.
Mark
did not answer, only smiled and shrugged his shoulders. 'I'll go and make some tea,' he said. 'You'd like tea, wouldn't you, Penny?' Miss Pendle nodded, and he rose and left the
room.
Anthony
was wondering rather uncomfortably what he should say to this disquietingly
human old nag, when Miss Pendle turned towards him. 'He's wonderful, Mark is; really
wonderful.' The false teeth flashed, the
words came gushingly with an incongruously un-equine vehemence. Anthony felt himself writhing with an
embarrassed distaste. 'Nobody knows how
kind he is,' she went on. 'He doesn't
like it told; but I don't mind I want people to know.' She nodded so emphatically that the beads of
her necklace rattled. 'I was ill last
year,' she went on. Her savings had
gone, she couldn't get another job. In
despair, she had written to some of her old employers, Sir Michael Staithes
among them. 'Sir Michael sent me five
pounds,' she said. 'That kept me going
for a bit. Then I had to write
again. He said he couldn't do anything
more. But he mentioned the matter to
Mark. And what do you think Mark
did?' She looked at Anthony in silence,
a horse transfigured,, with an expression at once of tenderness and triumph and
her red-lidded brown eyes full of tears.
'What
did he do?' asked Anthony.
'He
came to me where I was staying I had a room in Camberwell then he came and
he took me away with him. Straightaway,
the moment I could get my things packed up, and brought me here. I've kept house for him ever since. What do you think of that, Mr Beavis?' she
asked. Her voice trembled and she had to
wipe her eyes; but she was still triumphant.
'What do you think of that?'
Anthony
really didn't know what to think of it; but said, meanwhile, that it was
wonderful.
'Wonderful,'
the horse repeated, approvingly. 'That's
exactly what it is. But you mustn't tell
him I told you. He'd be furious with
me. He's like that text in the Gospel
about not letting your left hand know what your right hand is doing. That's what he's like.' She gave her eyes a final wipe and blew her
nose. 'There, I hear him coming,' she
said, and, before Anthony could intervene, had jumped up, darted across the
room in a storm of rustlings and rattlings, and opened the door. Mark entered, carrying a tray with the
tea-things and a plate of mixed biscuits.
Miss
Pendle poured out, said she oughtn't to eat anything at this time of night,
but, all the same, took a round biscuit with pink sugar icing on it.
'Now,
tell me what sort of a boy young Master Mark was at Bulstrode,' she said in
that playful way of hers. 'Up to all
kind of mischief, I'll be bound!' She
took another bite at her biscuit.
'He
bullied me a good deal,' said Anthony.
Miss
Pendle interrupted her quick nibbling to laugh aloud. 'You naughty boy!' she said to Mark; then the
jaws started to work again.
'Being
so good at football, he had a right to bully me.'
'Yes,
you were captain of the eleven, weren't you?'
'I
forget,' said Mark.
'He
forgets!' Miss Pendle repeated, looking triumphantly at Anthony. 'That's typical of him. He forgets!'
She helped herself to a second biscuit, pushing aside the plain ones to
select another with icing on it, and began to nibble once more with the intense
and concentrated passion of those whose only sensual pleasures have been the
pleasures of the palate.
When
she had gone to bed, the two men sat down again by the fire. There was a long silence.
'She's
rather touching,' said Anthony at last.
For
some time Mark made no comment. Then, 'A
bit too touching,' he brought out.
Anthony
looked into his face and saw there a demonstration of the anatomy of sardonic
irony. There was another silence. The clock, which was supported by two draped
nymphs in gilded bronze, ticked from its place among the imitation Dresden
figures that thronged the shelves of the elaborate overmantel. Hideous on purpose, Anthony said to himself,
as his eye took in the details of each separate outrage on good taste. And the poor old horse was she merely the
largest, the most monstrous of the knick-knacks? 'I'm surprised,' he said aloud, 'that you
don't wear a hairshirt. Or perhaps you
do?' he added.
CHAPTER
XXIII
June
1st 1934
Tonight, at dinner with Mark, saw Helen,
for the first time since my return from America.
Consider
the meaning of a face. A face can be a
symbol, signifying matter which would require volumes for its exposition in
successive detail. A vast sum, for the
person on whom it acts as a symbol, of feelings and thoughts, of remembered
sensations, impressions, judgments, experiences all rendered synthetically
and simultaneously, at a single glance.
As she came into the restaurant, it was like the drowning man's
instantaneous vision of life. A futile,
bad, unsatisfactory life; and a vision, charged with regret. All those wrong choices, those opportunities
irrevocably missed! And that sad face
was not only a symbol, indirectly expressive of my history; it was also
a directly expressive emblem of hers. A
history for whose saddening and embittering quality I was at least in part
responsible. If I had accepted the love
she wanted to give me, if I had consented to love (for I could have
loved) in return
But I preferred to be free, for the sake of my work
in other words, to remain enslaved in a world where there could be no
question of freedom, for the sake of my amusements. I insisted on irresponsible sensuality,
rather than love. Insisted, in other
words, on her becoming a mean to the end of my detached, physical satisfaction
and, conversely, of course, on my becoming a mean to hers.
Curious
how irrelevant appears the fact of having been, technically, 'lovers'! It doesn't qualify her indifference or my
feeling. There's a maxim of La
Rochefoucauld's about women forgetting the favours they have accorded to past
lovers. I used to like it for being
cynical; but really it's just a bald statement of the fact that something
that's meant to be irrelevant, i.e. sensuality, is
irrelevant. Into my present complex of
thoughts, feelings and memories, physical desire, I find, enters hardly at
all. In spite of the fact that my memories
are of intense and complete satisfactions.
Surprising, the extent to which eroticism is a matter of choice and
focus. I don't think much in erotic
terms now; but very easily could, if I wished to. Choose to consider individuals in their
capacity as potential givers and receivers of pleasure, focus attention on
sensual satisfactions: eroticism will become immensely important and great
quantities of energy will be directed along erotic channels. Choose a different conception of the
individual, another focal range: energy will flow elsewhere and eroticism seem
relatively unimportant.
Spent
a good part of the evening arguing about peace and social justice. Mark, as sarcastically disagreeable as he
knew how to be about Miller and what he called my neo-Jesus avatar. 'If the swine want to rip one another's guts
out, let them; anyhow, you can't prevent them.
Swine will be swine.' But may become
human, I insisted. Homo non nascitur,
fit. Or rather makes himself out of
the ready-made elements and potentialities of man with which he's born.
Helen's
was the usual communist argument no peace or social justice without a
preliminary 'liquidation' of capitalists, liberals and so forth. As though you could use violent, unjust means
and achieve peace and justice! Means
determine ends; and must be like the ends proposed. Means intrinsically different from the ends
proposed achieve ends like themselves, not like those they were meant to
achieve. Violence and war will produce a
peace and a social organization having the potentialities of more violence and
war. The war to end war resulted, as
usual, in a peace essentially like war; the revolution to achieve communism, in
a hierarchical state where a minority rules by police methods ΰ la Metternich-Hitler-Mussolini,
and where the power to oppress in virtue of being rich is replaced by the power
to oppress in virtue of being a member of the oligarchy. Peace and social justice, only obtainable by
means that are just and pacific. And
people will behave justly and pacifically only if they have trained themselves
as individuals to do so, even in circumstances where it would be easier to
behave violently and unjustly. And the
training must be simultaneously physical and mental. Knowledge of how to use the self and of what
the self should be used for.
Neo-Ignatius and neo-Sandow was Mark's verdict.
Put
Mark into a cab and walked, as the night was beautiful, all the way from Soho
to Chelsea. Theatres were closing. Helen brightened suddenly to a mood of
malevolent high spirits. Commenting in a
ringing voice on passers-by. As though
we were at the Zoo. Embarrassing, but
funny and acute, as when she pointed to the rich young men in top-hats trying
to look like the Dr Reszke Aristocrat, or opening and shutting cigarette-cases
in the style of Gerald du Maurier; to the women trying to look like Vogue, or
expensive advertisements (for winter cruises or fur coats), head in air,
eyelids dropped superciliously or slouching like screen vamps, with their
stomachs stuck out, as though expecting twins.
The pitiable models on which people form themselves! Once it was the Imitation of Christ now of
Hollywood.
Were
silent when we had left the crowds. Then
Helen asked if I were happy. I said yes
though didn't know if happiness was the right word. More substantial, more complete, more
interested, more aware. If not happy
exactly, at any rate having greater potentialities for happiness. Another silence. Then, 'I thought I could never see you again,
because of that dog. Then Ekki came, and
the dog was quite irrelevant. And now
he's gone, it's still irrelevant. For
another reason. Everything's irrelevant,
for that matter. Except Communism.' But that was an afterthought an expression
of piety, uttered by force of habit. I
said our ends were the same, the means adopted, different. For her, end justified means; for me, means
the end. Perhaps, I said, one day she
would see the importance of the means.'
June
3rd 1934.
At today's lesson with Miller found myself
suddenly a step forward in my grasp of the theory and practice of the
technique. To learn proper use one must
first inhibit all improper uses of the self.
Refuse to be hurried into gaining ends by the equivalent (in personal,
psycho-physiological terms) of violent revolution; inhibit this tendency,
concentrate on the means whereby the end is to be achieved; then act. This process entails knowing good and bad use
knowing them apart. By the
'feel.' Increased awareness and
increased power of control result.
Awareness and control; trivialities take on new significance. Indeed, nothing is trivial anymore or
negligible. Cleaning teeth, putting on
shoes such processes are reduced by habits of bad use to a kind of tiresome
non-existence. Become conscious,
inhibit, cease to be a greedy end-gainer, concentrate on means; tiresome
non-existence turns into absorbingly interesting reality. In Evans-Wentz's book on Tibet I find among
'The Precepts of the Gurus' the injunction: 'Constantly retain alertness of
consciousness in walking, in sitting, in eating, in sleeping.' An injunction, like most injunctions,
unaccompanied by instructions as to the right way of carrying it out. Here, practical instructions accompany injunctions;
one is taught how to become aware. And
not only that. Also how to perform
rightly, instead of wrongly, the activities of which there is awareness. Nor is this all. Awareness and power of control are
transferable. Skill acquired in getting
to know the muscular aspect of mind-body can be carried over into the
exploration of other aspects. There is
increasing ability to detect one's motives for any given piece of behaviour, to
assess correctly the quality of a feeling, the real significance of a
thought. Also, one becomes more clearly
and consistently conscious of what's going on in the outside world, and the
judgment associated with that heightened consciousness is improved. Control also is transferred. Acquire the art of inhibiting muscular bad
use and you acquire thereby the art of inhibiting more complicated trains of
behaviour. Not only this: there is
prevention as well as cure. Given proper
correlation, many occasions for behaving undesirably just don't arise. There is an end, for example, of neurotic
anxieties and depressions whatever the previous history. For note: most infantile and adolescent
histories are disastrous; yet only some individuals develop serious neurosis. Those, precisely, in whom use of the self is
particularly bad. They succumb because
resistance is poor. In practice,
neurosis is always associated with some kind of wrong use. (Note the typically bad physical posture of
neurotics and lunatics. The stooping
back, the muscular tension, the sunken head.)
Re-educated. Give back correct
physical use. You remove a keystone of
the arch constituting the neurotic personality.
The neurotic personality collapses.
And in its place is built up a personality in which all the habits of
physical use are correct. But correct
physical use entails since body-mind is indivisible except in thought
correct mental use. Most of us are
slightly neurotic. Even slight neurosis
provides endless occasions for bad behaviour.
Teaching of right use gets rid of neurosis therefore of many occasions
for bad behaviour. Hitherto preventive
ethics had been thought of as an external to individuals. Social and economic
reforms carried out with a view to eliminating occasions for bad behaviour. This is important. But not nearly enough. Belief that it is enough makes the
social-reform conception of progress nonsensical. The knowledge that it is nonsensical had
always given me pleasure. Sticking pins
in large, highly inflated balloons one of the most delightful of
amusements. But a bit childish; and
after a time it palls. So how
satisfactory to find that there seems to be a way of making sense of the
nonsense. A method of achieving progress
from within as well as from without.
Progress, not only as a citizen, a machine-minder and machine-user, but
also as a human being.
Prevention
is good; but can't eliminate the necessity for cure. The power to cure bad behaviour seems
essentially similar to the power to cure bad co-ordination. One learns this last when learning the proper
use of self. There is a
transference. The power to inhibit and
control. It becomes easier to inhibit
undesirable impulses. Easier to follow
as well as see and approve the better.
Easier to put good intentions into practice and be patient,
good-tempered, kind, unrapacious, chaste.
CHAPTER
XXIV
June
23rd and
She
couldn't afford it; but that didn't matter.
Mrs Amberley was used to doing things she couldn't afford. It was really so simple; you just sold a
little War Loan, and there you were.
There you were with your motor tour in Italy, your nudes by Pascin, you
account at Fortnum and Mason. And there,
finally, you were in Berkshire, in the most adorable little old house, smelling
of pot-pourrri, with towering lime trees on the lawn and the downs at your back
door, stretching away mile after mile in smooth green nakedness under the
sky. She couldn't afford it; but it was
so beautiful, so perfect. And after all,
what were a hundred and fifty pounds of War Loan? How much did they bring in? About five pounds a year, when the taxes had
been paid. And what were five pounds a
year? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And besides, Gerry was going to re-invest her
money for her. Her capital might have
shrunk; but her income would soon start growing. Next year she would be able to afford it; and
so, in anticipation of that happy time, here she was, sitting under the lime
trees on the lawn with her guests around her.
Propped
up on one elbow, Helen was lying on a rug behind her mother's chair. She was paying no attention to what was being
said. The country was so exquisitely
beautiful that one really couldn't listen to old Anthony holding forth about
the place of machines in history; no, the only thing one could do in such
heavenly circumstances was to play with the kitten. What the kitten liked best, she found, was
the rug game. You pushed a twig under
the corner of the rug, very slowly, till the end reappeared again on the other
side, like the head of an animal cautiously peering out from its burrow. A little way, very suspiciously; and then
with a jerk you withdrew it. The animal
had taken fright and scuttled back to cover.
Then, plucking up its courage, out it came once more, went nosing to
right and left between the grass stems, then retired to finish its meal safely
under the rug. Long seconds passed; and
suddenly out it popped like a jack-in-the-box, as though it were trying to
catch any impending danger unaware, and was back again in a flash. Then once more, very doubtfully and reluctantly
impelled only by brute necessity and against its better judgment it emerged
into the open, conscious, you felt, of being the predestined victim,
foreknowing its dreadful fate. And all
this time the tabby kitten was following its comings and goings with a bright
expressionless ferocity. Each time the
twig retired under the rug, he came creeping, with an infinity of precautions,
a few inches nearer. Nearer, nearer, and
now the moment had come for him to crouch for the final, decisive spring. The green eyes stared with an absurd
balefulness; the tiny body was so heavily overcharged with a tigerish intensity
of purpose that, not the tail only, but the whole hind-quarters shook under the
emotional pressure. Overhead, meanwhile,
the lime trees rustled in a faint wind, the round dapplings of golden light
moved noiselessly back and forth across the grass. On the other side of the lawn the herbaceous
borders blazed in the sunshine as though they were on fire, and beyond them lay
the downs like huge animals, fast asleep, with the indigo shadows of clouds
creeping across their flanks. It was all
so beautiful, so heavenly, that every now and then Helen simply couldn't stand
it any longer, but had to drop the twig and catch up the kitten, and rub her
cheek against the silky fur, and whisper meaningless words to him in baby
language, and hold him up with ridiculously dangling paws in front of her face,
so that their noses almost touched, and stare into those blankly bright green
eyes, till at last the helpless little beast began to mew so pathetically that
she had to let him go again. 'Poor
darling!' she murmured repentantly. 'Did
I torture him?' But the torturing had
served its purpose; the painful excess of her happiness had overflowed, as it
were, and left her at ease, the heavenly beauty was once more supportable. She picked up the twig. Forgivingly, for he had already forgotten
everything, the kitten started the game all over again.
The
ringing of a bicycle bell made her look up.
It was the postman riding up the drive with the afternoon delivery. Helen scrambled to her feet and, taking the
kitten with her, walked quickly but, she hoped, inconspicuously towards the
house. At the door she met the
parlour-maid coming out with the letters.
There were two for her. The first
she opened was from Joyce, from Aldershot. (She had to smile as she read the
address at the head of the paper. 'Joyce
is now living at A-aldershot,' her mother would say, lingering over the
first syllable of the name with a kind of hollow emphasis and in a tone of
slightly shocked incredulity, as though it were really inconceivable that any
daughter of hers should find herself at such a place. 'At A-aldershot, my dear.' And she managed to endow that military suburb
with the fabulous strangeness of Tibet, the horror and remoteness of darkest
Liberia. 'Living at A-aldershot
as a mem-sahib.')
'Just
a line,' Helen read, still smiling, 'to thank you for your sweet
letter. I am rather worried by what you
say about Mother's taking so many sleeping draughts. They can't be good for her. Colin thinks she ought to take more healthy exercise. Perhaps you might suggest riding. I have been having riding lessons lately, and
it is really lovely once you are used to it. We are now quite settled in, and you have no
idea how adorable our little house looks now.
Colin and I worked like niggers to get things straight, and I must say
the results are worth all the trouble. I
had to pay a lot of nerve-racking calls; but everybody has been very
nice to me and I feel quite at home now.
Colin sends his love. - Yours,
JOYCE.'
The other
letter and that was why she had gone to meet the postman was from Hugh
Ledwidge. If the letters had been
brought to Mrs Amberley on the lawn; if she had sorted them out, in public
Helen flushed with imagined shame and anger at the thought of what her mother
might have said about that letter from Hugh.
In spite of all the people sitting round; or rather because of
them. When they were alone, Helen
generally got off with a teasing word.
But when other people were there, Mrs Amberley would feel inspired by
her audience to launch out into elaborate descriptions and commentaries. 'Hugh and Helen,' she would explain, 'they're
a mixture between Socrates and Alcibiades and Don Quixote and Dulcinea.' There were moments when she hated her
mother. 'It's a case,' said the
remembered voice, 'a case of: I could
not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not ethnology more.' Helen had had to suffer a great deal on
account of those letters.
She
tore open the envelope.
'22.vi.27.
'Midsummer
Day, Helen. But you're too young, I
expect, to think much about the significance of special days. You've only been in the world for about seven
thousand days altogether; and one has got to have lived through at least ten
thousand before one begins to realize that there aren't any indefinite number
of them and that you can't do exactly what you want with them. I've been here more than thirteen thousand
days, and the end's visible, the boundless possibilities have narrowed
down. One must cut according to one's
cloth; and one's cloth is not only exiguous; it's also of one special kind
and generally of poor quality at that.
When one's young, one thinks one can tailor one's time into all sorts of
splendid and fantastic garments shakoes and chasubles and Ph.D gowns; Nijinsky's
tights and Rimbaud's slate-blue trousers and Garibaldi's red shirt. But by the time you've lived ten thousand
days, you begin to realize that you'll be lucky if you succeed in cutting one
decent workaday suit out of the time at your disposal. It's a depressing realization; and Midsummer
is one of the days that brings it home.
The longest day. One of the sixty
or seventy longest days of one's five and twenty thousand. And what have I done with this longest day
longest of so few, of so uniform, of so shoddy?
The catalogue of my occupations would be humiliatingly absurd and
pointless. The only creditable and, in
any profound sense of the word, reasonable thing I've done is to think a little
about you, Helen, and write this letter
'
'Any
interesting letters?' asked Mrs Amberley when her daughter came out again from
the house.
'Only
a note from Joyce.'
'From
our mem-sahib?'
Helen
nodded.
'She's
living at A-aldershot, you know,' said Mary Amberley to the assembled
company. 'At A-aldershot,' she insisted,
dragging out the first syllable, till the phrase became ludicrously unreal and
the fact that Joyce lived there, a fantastic and slightly indecent myth.
'You
can thank your lucky stars that you aren't living at Aldershot,' said
Anthony. 'After all, you ought to
be. A general's daughter.'
For
the first moment Mary was put out by his interruption; she had looked forward
to developing her fantastic variations on the theme of Aldershot. But her good humour returned as she perceived
the richer opportunity with which he had provided her. 'Yes, I know,' she cried eagerly. 'A general's daughter. And do you realize that, but for the grace of
God, I might at this moment be a colonel's wife? I was within an ace of marrying a
solider. Within an ace, I tell you. The most ravishingly beautiful creature. But ivory,' she rapped her forehead, 'solid
ivory. It was lucky he was such a
crashing bore. If he'd been the tiniest
bit brighter, I'd have gone out to India with him. And then what? It's unimaginable.'
'Unimaginable!'
Beppo repeated, with a little squirt of laughter.
'On
the contrary,' said Anthony, 'perfectly imaginable. The club every evening between six and eight;
parties at government house; adultery in the hot weather, polo in the cold;
incessant bother with the Indian servants; permanent money difficulties and
domestic scenes; occasional touches of malaria and dysentery; the monthly
parcel of second-hand novels from the Times Book Club; and all the time the
inexorable advance of age twice as fast as in England. If you've ever been to India, nothing's more
easy to imagine.'
'And
you think all that would have happened to me?' asked Mary.
'What
else could have happened? You
don't imagine you'd have gone about buying Pascins in Quetta.'
Mary
laughed.
'Or
reading Max Jacob in Rawalpindi? You'd
have been a mem-sahib like all the other mem-sahibs. A bit more bored and discontented than most
of them, perhaps. But still a
mem-sahib.'
'I
suppose so,' she agreed. 'But is one so
hopelessly at the mercy of circumstances?'
He
nodded.
'You
don't think I'd have escaped.'
'I
can't see why.'
'But
that means there isn't really any such thing as me. Me,' she repeated, laying a hand on
her breast. 'I don't really exist.'
'No,
of course you don't. Not in that
absolute sense. You're a chemical
compound, not an element.'
'But
if one doesn't really exist, one wonders why
' she hesitated.
'Why
one makes such a fuss about things,' Anthony suggested. 'All that howling and hurrahing and gnashing
of teeth. About the adventures of a self
that isn't really a self just the result of a lot of accidents. And of course,' he went on, 'once you start
wondering, you see at once that there is no reason for making such a
fuss. And then you don't make a fuss
that is, you're sensible. Like me,' he
added, smiling.
There
was a silence. 'You don't make a fuss,'
Mrs Amberley repeated to herself, and thought of Gerry Watchett. 'You don't make a fuss.' But how was it possible not to make a fuss,
when he was so stupid, so selfish, so brutal, and at the same time so
excruciatingly desirable like water in the desert, like sleep after
insomnia? She hated him; but the thought
that in a few days he would be there, staying in the house, sent a prickling sensation
of warmth through her body. She shut her
eyes and drew a deep breath.
Still
carrying the kitten, like a furry baby, in her arms, Helen had walked away
across the lawn. She wanted to be alone,
out of earshot of that laughter, those jarringly irrelevant voices. 'Seven thousand days,' she repeated again and
again. And it was not only the declining
sun that made everything seem so solemnly and richly beautiful; it was also the
thought of the passing days, of human limitations, of the final inescapable
dissolution. 'Seven thousand days,' she
said aloud, 'seven thousand days.' The
tears came into her eyes; she pressed the sleeping kitten closely to her
breast.
Savernake,
the White Horse, Oxford; and in between whiles the road and screech of Gerry's
Bugatti, the rush of the wind, the swerves and bumps, the sickening but at the
same time delicious terrors of excessive speed.
And now they were back again.
After an age, it seemed; and at the same time it was as though they had
never been away. The car came to a halt;
but Helen made no move to alight.
'What's
the matter?' Gerry asked. 'Why don't you
get out?'
'It
seems so terribly final,' she said with a sigh.
'Like breaking a spell. Like
stepping out of the magic circle.'
'Magic?'
he repeated questioningly. 'What
kind? White or black?'
Helen
laughed. 'Piebald. Absolutely heavenly and absolutely
awful. You know, Gerry, you ought to be
put in gaol, the way you drive. Or in a
lunatic asylum. Crazy and criminal. But I adored it,' she added, as she opened
the door and stepped out.
'Good!'
was all he answered, while he gave her a smile that was as studiedly unamorous
as he could make it. He threw the car
into gear and, in a stink of burnt castor oil, shot off round the house,
towards the garage.
Charming!
he was thinking. And how wise he had
been to take that jolly, honest-to-God, big-brother line with her! Ground bait.
Getting the game accustomed to you.
She'd soon be eating out of his hand.
The real trouble, of course, was Mary.
Tiresome bitch! he thought, with a sudden passion of loathing. Jealous, suspicious, interfering. Behaving as though he were her private
property. And greedy, insatiable. Perpetually thrusting herself upon him
thrusting that ageing body of hers. His
face, as he manoeuvred the car into the garage, was puckering into folds of
distaste. But thank God, he went on to
reflect, she'd got this chill on the liver, or whatever it was. That ought to keep her quiet for a bit, keep
her out of the way.
Without
troubling to take off her coat, and completely forgetting her mother's illness
and for the moment her very existence, Helen crossed the hall and, almost
running, burst into the kitchen.
'Where's
Tompy, Mrs Weeks?' she demanded of the cook.
The effect of the sunshine and the country and Gerry's Bugatti had been
such that it was now absolutely essential to her that she should take the
kitten in her arms. Immediately. 'I must have Tompy,' she insisted. And by way of excuse and explanation, 'I
didn't have time to see him this morning,' she added; 'we started in such a
hurry.'
'Tompy
doesn't seem to be well, Miss Helen.'
Mrs Weeks put away her sewing.
'Not
well?'
'I
put him in here,' Mrs Weeks went on, getting up from her Windsor chair and
leading the way to the scullery. 'It's
cooler. He seemed to feel the heat
so. As though he was feverish like. I'm sure I don't know what's the matter with
him,' she concluded in a tone half of complaint, half of sympathy. She was sorry for Tompy. But she was
also sorry for herself because Tompy had given her all this trouble.
The
kitten was lying in the shadow, under the sink.
Crouching down beside the basket, Helen stretched out her hand to take
him; then, with a little exclamation of horror, withdrew it, as though from the
contact of something repellent.
'But
what has happened to him?' she cried.
The
little cat's tabby coat had lost all its smoothness, all its silky lustre, and
was matted into damp uneven tufts. The
eyes were shut and gummy with a yellow discharge. A running at the nose had slimed the
beautifully patterned fur of the face.
The absurd lovely little Tompy she had played with only yesterday, the
comic and exquisite Tompy she had held up, pathetically helpless, in one hand,
had rubbed her face against, had stared into the eyes of, was gone, and in his
place lay a limp unclean little rag of living refuse. Like those kidneys, it suddenly occurred to
her with a qualm of disgust; and at once she felt ashamed of herself for having
had the thought, for having, in that first gesture of recoil, automatically
acted upon the thought even before she had consciously had it.
'How
beastly I am!' she thought. 'Absolutely
beastly!'
Tompy
was sick, miserable, dying perhaps. And
she had been too squeamish even to touch him.
Making an effort to overcome her distaste, she reached out once more,
picked up the little cat, and with the fingers of her free hand caressed (with
what a sickening reluctance!) the dank bedraggled fur. The tears came into her eyes, overflowed, ran
down her cheeks.
'It's
too awful, it's too awful,' she repeated in a breaking voice. Poor little Tompy! Beautiful, adorable, funny little Tompy! Murdered no; worse than murdered: reduced
to a squalid little lump of dirt; for no reason, just senselessly; and on this
day of all days, this heavenly day with the clouds over the White Horse, the
sunshine between the leaves in Savernake forest. And now, to make it worse, she was disgusted
by the poor little beast, couldn't bear to touch him, as though he were one of
those filthy kidneys she, who had pretended to love him, who did love him,
she insisted to herself. But it was no
good her holding him like this and stroking him; it made no difference to what
she was really feeling. She might
perform the gesture of overcoming her disgust; but the disgust was still
there. In spite of the love.
She
lifted a streaming face to Mrs Weeks.
'What shall we do?'
Mrs
Weeks shook her head. 'I never found
there was much you could do,' she said.
'Not with cats.'
'But
there must be something.'
'Nothing
except leave them alone,' insisted Mrs Weeks, with a pessimism evidently
reinforced by her determination not to be bothered. Then, touched by the spectacle of Helen's
misery, 'He'll be all right, dear,' she added consolingly. 'There's no need to cry. Just let him sleep it off.'
Footsteps
sounded on the flagstones of the stable yard, and through the open window came
the notes of 'Yes, sir, she's my baby,' whistled slightly out of tune. Helen straightened herself up from her
crouching position and, leaning out, 'Gerry!' she called; then added, in
response to his expression of surprised commiseration, 'Something awful has
happened.'
In
his large powerful hands Tompy seemed more miserably tiny than ever. But how gentle he was, and how
efficient! Watching him, as he swabbed
the little cat's eyes, as he wiped away the slime from the nostrils, Helen was
amazed by the delicate precision of his movements. She herself, she reflected with a heightened
sense of her own shameful ineptitude, had
been incapable of doing anything except stroke Tompy's fur and feel
disgusted. Hopeless, quite
hopeless! And when he asked for help in
getting Tompy to swallow half an aspirin tablet crushed in milk, she bungled
everything and spilt the medicine.
'Perhaps
I can do it better by myself,' he said, and took the spoon from her. The cup of her humiliation was full
Mary
Amberley was indignant. Here she was,
feverish and in pain, worrying herself, what was more, into higher fever, worse
pain, with the thought of Gerry's dangerous driving. And here was Helen, casually strolling into
her room after having been in the house for more than two hours more than two
hours without having had the common decency to come and see how she was, more than
two hours while her mother how mother, mind you! - had lain there, in an
agony of distress, thinking that they must have had an accident.
'But
Tompy was dying,' Helen explained. 'He's
dead now.' Her face was very pale, her
eyes red with tears.
'Well,
if you prefer a wretched cat to your mother
'
'Besides,
you were asleep. If you hadn't been
asleep, you'd have heard the car coming back.'
'Now
you're grudging me my sleep,' said Mrs Amberley bitterly. 'Aren't I to be allowed a moment's respite from
pain? Besides,' she added, 'I wasn't
asleep. I was delirious. I've been delirious several times today. Of course I didn't hear the car.' Her eyes fell on the bottle of Somnifaine
standing on the table by her bed, and the suspicion that Helen might also have
noticed it made her still more angry. 'I
always knew you were selfish,' she went on.
'But I must say I didn't think you'd be quite as bad as this.'
At
another time Helen would have flared up in angry self-defence, or else,
convicted of guilt, would have burst out crying. But today she was feeling too miserable to be
able to shed any more tears, too much subdued by shame and unhappiness to
resent even the most flagrant injustice.
Her silence exasperated Mrs Amberley still further.
'I
always used to think,' she resumed, 'that you were only selfish from
thoughtlessness. But now I see that it's
heartlessness. Plain heartlessness. Here am I having sacrificed the best years
of my life to you; and what do I get in return?' Her voice trembled as she asked the
question. She was convinced of the
reality of that sacrifice, profoundly moved by the thought of its extent, its
martyr-like enormity. 'The most cynical
indifference. I might die in a ditch;
but you wouldn't care. You'd be much
more upset about your cat. And now go
away,' she almost shouted, 'go away!' I know
my temperature's gone up. Go away.'
After
a lonely dinner for Helen was keeping to her room on the plea of a headache
Gerry went up to sit with Mrs Amberley.
He was particularly charming that evening, and so affectionately
solicitous that Mary forgot all her accumulated grounds of complaint and fell
in love with him all over again, and for another set of reasons not because
he was so handsome, so easily and insolently dominating, such a ruthless and
accomplished lover, but because he was kind, thoughtful and affectionate, was
everything, in a word, she had previously known he wasn't.
Half-past
ten struck. He rose from his chair. 'Time for your spot of shut-eye.'
Mary
protested; he was firm for her own good.
Thirty
drops were the normal dose of Somnifaine; but he measured out forty-five, so as
to make quite sure of her sleeping, make her drink, then tucked her up ('like
an old Nanny,' she cried, laughing with pleasure, as he busied himself round
the bed) and, after kissing her goodnight with an almost maternal tenderness,
turned out the light and left her.
The
clock of the village church sounded eleven how sadly, Helen thought as she
listened to the strokes of the distant bell, how lonelily! It was as though she were listening to the
voice of her own spirit, reverberated in some mysterious way from the walls of
the enclosing night. One, two, three,
four
Each sweet, cracked note seemed more hopelessly mournful, seemed to rise
from the depths of a more extreme solitude, than the last. Tompy had died, and she hadn't even been
capable of giving him a spoonful of milk and crushed aspirin, hadn't had the
strength to overcome her disgust.
Selfish
and heartless: her mother was quite right.
But lonely as well as selfish, all alone among the senseless malignities
that had murdered poor little Tompy; and her heartlessness spoke with the
despairing voice of that bell; night was empty and enormous all around.
'Helen!'
She
started and turned her head. The room
was impenetrably black.
'It's
me,' Gerry's voice continued. 'I was so
worried about you. Are you feeling
better?'
Her
first surprise and alarm had given place to a feeling of resentment that he should
intrude upon the privacy of her unhappiness.
'You needn't have bothered,' she said coldly. 'I'm quite all right.'
Enclosed
in his faint aura of Turkish tobacco, of peppermint-flavoured toothpaste and
bay rum, he approached invisibly.
Through the blanket, a groping hand touched her shin: then the springs
creaked and tilted under his weight as he sat down on the edge of the bed.
'Felt
a bit responsible,' he went on. 'All
that looping the loop!' The tone of his
voice implied the unseen smile, suggested a whimsical and affectionate
twinkling of hidden eyes.
She
made no comment; there was a long silence.
A bad start, Gerry thought, and frowned to himself in the darkness; then
began again on another tack.
'I
can't help thinking of that miserable little Tompy,' he said in a different
voice. 'Extraordinary how upsetting it
is when an animal gets ill like that. It
seems so frightfully unfair.'
In
a few minutes she was crying, and he had an excuse to console her.
Gently,
as he had handled Tompy, and with all the tenderness that had so much touched
Mrs Amberley, he stroked her hair, and later, when her sobs began to subside,
drew the fingers of his other hand along her bare arm. Again and again, with the patient regularity
of a nurse lulling her charge to sleep; again and again
Three hundred times
at least, he was thinking, before he risked any gesture that could possibly be
interpreted as amorous. Three hundred
times; and even then the caresses would have to deviate by insensible degrees,
as though by a series of accidents, till gradually, unintentionally, the hand
that was now on her arm would come at last to be brushing, with the same
maternal persistence, against her breast, while the fingers that came and went
methodically among the curls would have strayed to the ear, and from the ear
across the cheek to the lips, and would linger there lightly, chastely, but
charged with the stuff of kisses, proxies and forerunners of the mouth that
would ultimately come down on hers, through the darkness, for the reward of its
long patience.
CHAPTER
XXV
It was another 'knock.' Fitzsimmons, Jeffries, Jack Johnson,
Carpentier, Dempsey, Gene Tunney the champions came and went; but the
metaphor in which Mr Beavis described his successive bereavements remained
unaltered.
Yes,
a hard knock. And yet, it seemed to
Anthony, there was a note almost of triumph in his father's reminiscences, over
the luncheon table, of Uncle James as a schoolboy.
'Poor
James
such curly hair he had then
nos et mutamur.' The commiseration and regret were mingled
with a certain satisfaction the satisfaction of an old man who finds himself
still alive, still able to attend the funerals of his contemporaries, his
juniors.
'Two
years,' he insisted. 'There was the best
part of two years between James and me.
I was Beavis major at school.'
He
shook his head mournfully; but the old, tired eyes had brightened with an
irrepressible light. 'Poor James!' He sighed.
'We hadn't seen one another much these last years. Not since his conversion. How did he do it? It beats me.
A Catholic he of all people
'
Anthony
said nothing. But after all, he was
thinking, it wasn't so surprising. The
poor old thing had grown up as a Bradlaugh atheist. Ought to have been blissfully happy, parading
his cosmic defiance, his unyielding despair.
But had had the bad luck to be a homosexual at a time when one couldn't
avow it even to oneself. Ingrowing pederasty
it had poisoned his whole life. Had
turned the metaphysical and delightfully Pickwickian despair into real, common
or garden misery. Misery and
neurasthenia; the old man had been half mad, really. (Which hadn't prevented him from being a first-rate
actuary.) Then, during the war, the
clouds had lifted. One could be kind to
wonderful soldiers be kind pro patria and with a blameless
conscience. Anthony remembered Uncle
James's visits to him in hospital. He
had come almost every day. Loaded with gifts
for a dozen adopted nephews as well as for the real one. On his thin, melancholy face there had been,
in those days, a perpetual smile. But
happiness never lasts. The armistice had
come; and, after those four years in paradise, hell had seemed blacker than
ever. In 1923 he had turned papist. It was only to be expected.
But
Mr Beavis simply couldn't understand.
The idea of James surrounded by Jesuits, James bobbing up and down at
Mass, James going to Lourdes with his inoperable tumour, James dying with all
the consolations of religion it filled him with horrified amazement.
'And
yet,' said Anthony, 'I admire the way they usher you out of life. Dying it's apt to be an animal
process. More exclusively animal even
than seasickness.' he was silent for a
moment, thinking of poor Uncle James's last and most physiological hour. The heavy, snoring breath, the mouth
cavernously gaping, the scrabbling of the hands.
'How
wise the Church has been to turn it into a ceremonial!'
'Charades,'
said Mr Beavis contemptuously.
'But
good charades,' Anthony insisted. 'A work
of art. In itself, the event's like a
rough channel crossing only rather worse.
But they manage to turn it into something rather fine and significant. Chiefly for the spectator, of course. But perhaps also significant for the actor.'
There
was a silence. The maid changed the
plates and brought in the sweet. 'Some
apple tart?' Pauline questioned, as she cut the crust.
'Apple
pie, my dear.' Mr Beavis's tone was
severe. 'When will you learn that a
tart's uncovered? A thing with a roof is
a pie.'
They
helped themselves to cream and sugar.
'By
the way,' said Pauline suddenly, 'had you heard about Mrs Foxe?' Anthony and Mr Beavis shook their heads. 'Maggie Clark told me yesterday. She's had a stroke.'
'Dear,
dear,' said Mr Beavis. Then, reflectively,
'Curious the way people pass out of one's life,' he added. 'After being very much in it. I don't believe I've seen Mrs Foxe half a
dozen times in the last twenty years.
And yet before that
'
'She
had no sense of humour,' said Pauline, by way of explanation.
Mr
Beavis turned to Anthony. 'I don't
suppose you've
well, kept up with her very closely, not since that poor boy
of hers died.'
Anthony
shook his head, without speaking. It was
not agreeable to be reminded of all that he had done to avoid keeping up with
Mrs Foxe. Those long affectionate
letters she had written to him during the first year of the war letters which
he had answered more and more briefly, perfunctorily, conventionally; and at
last hadn't answered at all; hadn't even read.
Hadn't even read, and yet moved by some superstitious compunction
had never thrown away. At least a dozen
of the blue envelopes, addressed in the large, clear, flowing writing, were
still lying unopened in one of the drawers of his desk. There presence there was, in some obscure,
inexplicable way, a salve to his conscience.
Not an entirely effective salve.
His father's question had made him feel uncomfortable; he hastened to
change the subject.
'And
what have you been delving into recently?' he asked, in a sort of playfully
archaic language that his father himself might have used.
Mr
Beavis chuckled and began to describe his researches into modern American
slang. Such savoury locutions! Such an Elizabethan wealth of new coinages
and original metaphors! Horse feathers,
dish of dope, button up your face delicious!
'And how would you like to be called a fever frau?' he asked his younger
daughter, Diana, who had sat in silence, severely aloof, throughout the
meal. 'Or worse, a clinch pushover, my
dear?' Or I might say that you had a
dame complex, Anthony. Or refer
regretfully to your habit of smooching the sex jobs.' He twinkled with pleasure.
'It's
like so much Chinese,' said Pauline from the other end of the table. Across her round placid face mirth radiated
out in concentric waves of soft pink flesh; the succession of her chins shook
like jelly. 'He thinks he's the cat's
pyjamas, your father does.' She reached
out, helped herself to a couple of chocolate creams from the silver bowl on the
table in front of her and popped one of them into her mouth. 'The cat's pyjamas,' she repeated
indistinctly and heaved with renewed laughter.
Mr
Beavis, who had been working himself up to the necessary pitch of naughtiness,
leaned forward and asked Anthony, in a confidential whisper, 'What would you do
if the fever frau had the misfortune to be storked?'
They
were darlings, Diana was thinking; that went without saying. But how silly they could be, how
inexpressibly silly! All the
same, Anthony had no right to criticize them; and under that excessive
politeness of his he obviously was criticizing them, the wretch! She felt quite indignant. Nobody had a right to criticize them except
herself and possibly her sister. She
tried to think of something unpleasant to say to Anthony; but he had given her
no opening and she had no gift for epigram.
She had to be content with silently frowning. And anyhow it was time to go back to the lab.
Getting
up, 'I must go,' she said in her curt, abrupt way. 'I absolutely forbid you to eat all those
sweets,' she added, as she bent down to kiss her mother. 'Doctor's orders.'
'You're
not a doctor yet, darling.'
'No,
but I shall be next year.'
Tranquilly
Pauline poked the second chocolate cream into her mouth. 'And next year, perhaps, I'll stop eating
sweets,' she said.
Anthony
left a few minutes later. Walking
through South Kensington, he found his thoughts harking back to Mrs Foxe. Had the stroke, he wondered, been a bad one? Was she paralyzed? He had been so anxious to prevent his father
from talking about her, that there had been no time for Pauline to say. He pictured her lying helpless, half dead,
and was horrified to find himself feeling, along with sympathy, a certain
satisfaction, a certain sense of relief.
For, after all, she was the chief witness for the prosecution, the
person who could testify most damningly against him. Dead, or only half dead, she was out of court;
and, in her absence, there was no longer any case against him. With part of his being he was glad of
Pauline's news. Shamefully glad. He tried to think of something else, and,
meanwhile, boarded a bus so as to reach more quickly the haven of the London
Library.
He
spent nearly three hours there, looking up references to the history of the
Anabaptists, then walked home to his rooms in Bloomsbury. He was expecting Gladys that evening before
dinner. The girl had been a bit tiresome
recently; but still
He smiled to himself with anticipatory pleasure.
She
was due at six; but at a quarter-past she had not yet come. Nor yet at half-past. Nor yet at seven. Nor yet at half-past seven. At eight, he was looking at those blue
envelopes, postmarked in 1914 and 1915 and addressed in Mrs Foxe's writing
looking at them and wondering, in the self-questioning despondency that had
succeeded his first impatience and rage, whether he should open them. He was still wondering, when the telephone
bell rang, and there was Mark Staithes asking him if by any chance he was free
for dinner. A little party had formed
itself at the last moment. Pitchley
would be there, and his wife, the psychologist, and that Indian politician,
Sen, and Helen Ledwidge
Anthony put the letters back in their drawer and hurried
out of the house.
CHAPTER
XXVI
September 5th 1933
It was after two o'clock. Anthony lay on his back staring up into the
darkness. Sleep, it seemed, deliberately
refused to come, was being withheld by someone else, some malignant alien
inhabiting his own body. Outside, in the
pine trees the cicadas harped incessantly on the theme of their existence; and
at long intervals a sound of cock-crowing would swell up out of the darkness,
louder and nearer, until all the birds in the surrounding gardens were shouting
defiance back and forth, peal answering peal.
And then for no reason, first one, then another fell silent and the
outburst died away fainter and fainter into increasing distance right across
France, he fancied as he strained his ears after the receding sound, in a
hurrying wave of ragged crowing.
Hundreds of miles, perhaps. And
then somewhere, the wave would turn and roll back again as swiftly as it had
come. Back from the North Sea, perhaps;
over the battlefields; round the fringes of Paris and from bird to distant bird
through the forests; then across the plains of Beauce; up and down the hills of
Burgundy and, like another aerial river of sound, headlong down the valley of
the Rhτne; past Valence, past Orange and Avignon, past Arles and Aix and across
the bare hills of Provence; until here it was again, an hour after its previous
passage, flowing tumultuously shrill across the cicadas' loud, unremitting
equivalent of silence.
He
was reminded suddenly of a passage in Lawrence's The Man who Died, and,
thankful for an excuse to interrupt for a little his vain pursuit of sleep, he
turned on the light and went downstairs to look for the book.
Yes, here it was. 'As he came
out, the young cock crowed. It was a
diminished pinched cry, but there was that in the voice of the bird stronger
than chagrin. It was the necessity to
live and even to cry out the triumph of life.
The man who had died stood and watched the cock who had escaped and been
caught, ruffling himself up, rising forward on his toes, throwing up his head,
and parting his beak in another challenge from life to death. The brave sounds rang out, and though they
were diminished by the cord round the bird's leg, they were not cut off. The man who had died looked nakedly on life,
and saw a vast resoluteness everywhere flinging itself up in stormy or subtle
wave crests, foam-tips emerging out of the blue invisible, a black orange cock
or the green flame-tongues out of the extremes of the fig tree. They came forth, these things and creatures
of spring, glowing with desire and assertion.
They came like crests of foam, out of the blue flood of the invisible
desire, out of the vast invisible sea of strength, and they came coloured and
tangible, evanescent, yet deathless in their coming. The man who had died looked on the great
swing into existence of things that had not died, but he saw no longer their
tremulous desire to exist and to be. He
heard instead their ringing, ringing, defiant challenge to all other things
existing
'
Anthony
read on till he had finished the story of the man who had died and come to life
again, the man who was himself the escaped cock; then put away the book and
went back to bed. The foam on the waves
of that invisible sea of desire and strength.
But life, life as such, he protested inwardly it was not enough. How could one be content with namelessness of
mere energy, with the less than individuality of a power, that for all its
mysterious divineness, was yet unconscious, beneath good and evil? The cicadas sounded incessantly, and again,
at about four, the tide of cock-crowing came sweeping across the land and
passed on out of hearing, towards Italy.
Life
irrepressibly living itself out. But
there were emblems, he reflected, more vividly impressive than the crowing cock
or the young leaves breaking out from the winter fig tree's bone-white
skeleton. He remembered that film he had
seen of the fertilization of a rabbit's ovum.
Spermatozoa, a span long on the screen, ferociously struggling towards
their goal the moon-like sphere of the egg.
Countless, aimed from every side, their flagella in frantic
vibration. And now the foremost had
reached their objective, were burrowing into it, thrusting through the outer
wall of living matter, tearing away in their violent haste whole cells that
floated off and were lost. And at last
one of the invaders had penetrated to the quick of the nucleus, the act of
fertilization was consummated; and suddenly the hitherto passive sphere stirred
into movement. There was a violent spasm
of contraction; its smooth rounded surface became corrugated and in some way
resistant to the other sperms that vainly threw themselves upon it. And then the egg began to divide, bending in
its walls upon itself till they met in the centre, and there were two cells
instead of one; then, as the two cells repeated the process, four cells; then
eight, then sixteen. And within the
cells the granules of protoplasm were in continuous motion, like peas in a
boiling pot, but self-activated, moving by their own energy.
In
comparison with these minute fragments of living matter, the crowing cock, the
cicadas endlessly repeating the proclamation of their existence, were only
feebly alive. Life under the microscope
seemed far more vehement and irrepressible than in the larger world. Consolingly and at the same time appallingly
irrepressible. For, yes, it was also
appalling, the awful unconsciousness of that unconquerable, crawling
desire! And, oh, the horror of that
display of sub-mental passion, of violent and impersonal egotism! Intolerable, unless one could think of it
only as a raw material and available energy.
Yes,
raw material and a stream of energy.
Impressive for their quantity, their duration. But qualitatively they were only potentially
valuable: would become valuable only when made up into something else, only
when used to serve an ulterior purpose.
For Lawrence, the animal purpose had seemed sufficient and
satisfactory. The cock, crowing, fighting,
mating anonymously; and man anonymous like the cock. Better such mindless anonymity, he had
insisted, than the squalid relationships of human beings advanced halfway to
consciousness, still only partially civilized.
But
Lawrence had never looked through a microscope, never seen biological energy in
its basic undifferentiated state. He
hadn't wanted to look, had disapproved on principle of microscopes, fearing
what they might reveal; and had been right to fear. Those depths beneath depths of namelessness,
crawling irrepressibly they would have horrified him. He had insisted that the raw material should
be worked up but worked only to a certain pitch and no further; that the
primal crawling energy should be used for the relatively higher purposes of
animal existence, but for no existence beyond the animal. Arbitrarily, illogically. For the other, ulterior purposes and
organizations existed and were not to be ignored. Moving through space and time, the human
animal discovered them on his path, unequivocally present and real.
Thinking
and the pursuit of knowledge these were purposes for which he himself had
used the energy that crawled under the microscope, that crowed defiantly in the
darkness. Thought as an end, knowledge
as an end. And now it had become
suddenly manifest that they were only means as definitely raw material as
life itself. Raw material and he
divined, he knew, what the finished product would have to be; and with
part of his being he revolted against the knowledge. What, set about trying to turn his raw
material into life, thought, knowledge into that at his time of life,
and he a civilized human being! The mere
idea was ridiculous. One of those absurd
hangovers from Christianity like his father's terror of the more disreputable
realities of existence, like the hymn-singing of workmen during the General
Strike. The headaches, the hiccoughs of
yesterday's religion. But with another
part of his mind he was miserably thinking that he would never succeed in
bringing about the transformation of his raw material into the finished
product; that he didn't know how or where to begin; that he was afraid of
making a fool of himself; that he lacked the necessary courage, patience,
strength of mind.
At
about seven, when behind the shutters the sun was already high above the
horizon, he dropped off into a heavy sleep, and woke with a start three hours
later to see Mark Staithes beside his bed and peering at him, smiling, an
amused and inquisitive gargoyle, through the mosquito net.
'Mark?'
he questioned in astonishment. 'What on
earth
?'
'Bridal!'
said Mark, poking the muslin net.
'Positively premiθme communion!
I've been watching you sleeping.'
'For
long?'
'Oh,
don't worry,' he said, replying not to the spoken, but to the unspoken
question, implied by Anthony's tone of annoyance. 'You don't give yourself away in your
sleep. On the contrary, you take other
people in. I've never seen anyone look
so innocent as you did under that veil.
Like the infant Samuel. Too
sweet!'
Reminded
of Helen's use of the same word on the morning of the catastrophe, Anthony
frowned. Then, after a silence, 'What
have you come for?' he asked.
'To
stay with you.'
'You
weren't asked.'
'That
remains to be seen,' said Mark.
'What
do you mean?'
'I
mean, you may discover it after the event.'
'Discover
what?'
'That
you wanted to ask me. Without knowing
that you wanted it.'
'What
makes you think that?'
Mark
drew up a chair and sat down before answering.
'I saw Helen the night she got back to London.'
'Did
you?' Anthony's tone was as blankly
inexpressive as he could make it.
'Where?' he added.
'At
Hugh's. Hugh was giving a party. There were some uncomfortable moments.'
'Why?'
'Well,
because she wanted them to be uncomfortable.
She was in a queer state, you know.'
'Did
she tell you why?'
Mark
nodded. 'She even made me read your
letter. The beginning of it, at
least. I wouldn't go on.'
'Helen
made you read my letter?'
'Aloud. She insisted.
But, as I say, she was in a very queer state.' There was a long silence. 'That's why I came here,' he added at last.
'Thinking
that I'd be glad to see you?' the other asked in an ironical tone.
'Thinking
that you'd be glad to see me,' Mark answered gravely.
After
another silence, 'Well, perhaps you're not altogether wrong,' said
Anthony. 'In a way, of course, I simply
hate the sight of you.' He smiled at
Mark. 'Nothing personal intended, mind
you. I should hate the sight of anyone
just as much. But in another way I'm
glad you've come. And this is
personal. Because I think you're likely
well, likely to have some notion of what's what,' he concluded with a
noncommittal vagueness. 'If there's
anybody who can
' He was going to say 'help': but the idea of being helped was
so repugnant to him, seemed so grotesquely associated with the parson's
well-chosen words after a death in the family, with the housemaster's frank,
friendly talk about sexual temptations, that he broke off uncomfortably. 'If anybody can made a sensible remark about
it all,' he began again, on a different level of expression, 'I think it's
you.'
The
other nodded without speaking, and thought how typical it was of the man to go
on talking about sensible remarks even now!
'I
have a feeling,' Anthony went on slowly, overcoming inward resistance in order
to speak, 'a feeling that I'd like to get it over, get things settled. On another basis,' he brought out as though
under torture. 'The present one
' He shook his head. 'I'm a bit bored with it.' Then, perceiving with a sense of shame the
ludicrous inappropriateness and the worse than ludicrous falsity of the
understatement, 'It won't do,' he added resolutely. 'It's a basis that can't carry more than the
weight of a ghost. And in order to use
it, I've turned myself into a ghost.'
After a pause, 'These last few days,' he went on slowly, 'I've had a
queer feeling that I'm not really there, that I haven't been there for years
past. Ever since
well, I don't exactly
know when. Since before the war, I
suppose.' He could not bring himself to
speak of Brian. 'Not there,' he
repeated.
'A
great many people aren't there,' said Mark.
'Not as people, at any rate. Only
as animals and incarnate functions.'
'Animals
and incarnate functions,' the other repeated.
'You've said it exactly. But in
most cases they have no choice; nonentity is forced on them by
circumstance. Whereas I was free to
choose at any rate, so far as anybody is free to choose. If I wasn't there, it was on purpose.'
'And
do you mean to say that you've only just discovered the fact that you've never
been there?'
Anthony
shook his head. 'No, no, I've known it,
of course. All the time. But theoretically. In the same way as one knows
well, for
example, that there are birds that live symbiotically with wasps. A curious and interesting fact, but no
more. I didn't let it be more. And then I have my justifications. Work: too much personal life would interfere
with my work. And the need for freedom:
freedom to think, freedom to indulge my passion for knowing about the
world. And freedom for its own
sake. I wanted to be free, because it
was intolerable not to be free.'
'I
can understand that,' said Mark, 'provided that there's someone there who can
enjoy the freedom. And provided,' he
added, ' that that someone makes himself conscious of being free by overcoming
the obstacles that stand in the way of freedom.
But how can you be free, if there's no you?'
'I've
always put it the other way round,' said Anthony. 'How can you be free or rather (for one
must think of it impersonally) how can there freedom so long as the you
persists? A you has got to be
consistent and responsible, has got to make choices and commit itself. But if one gets rid of the you, one gets
rid of responsibility and the need for consistency. One's free as a succession of unconditioned,
uncommitted states without past or future, except insofar as one can't
voluntarily get rid of one's memories and anticipations.' After a silence, 'The staggering imbecility
of old Socrates!' he went on. 'Imagining
that one had only to know the correct line of conduct in order to follow
it. One practically always knows it
- and more often than not one doesn't
follow it. Or perhaps you're not like
that,' he added in another tone, looking at Mark through the mosquito net. 'One's inclined to attribute one's own
defects to everyone else. Weakness, in
my case. Not to mention timidity,' he
added with a laugh, that uttered itself automatically, so deeply ingrained was
the habit of half withdrawing, as soon as it was spoken, anything in the nature
of a personal confidence, of evoking in the listener's mind a doubt as to the
seriousness of his intention in speaking; 'timidity, and downright cowardice,
and indolence in regard to anything that isn't my work.' He laughed again as though it were all
absurd, not worth mentioning. 'One
forgets that other people may be different.
Tough-minded, firm of purpose. I
dare say you always do what you know is right.'
'I
always do it,' Mark answered. 'Whether
it's right or wrong.' He demonstrated
the anatomy of a smile.
Anthony
lay back on his pillows, his hands clasped behind his head, his eyes half
shut. Then, after a long silence, he
turned to Staithes and said abruptly: 'Don't you ever feel that you simply
can't be bothered to do what you've decided on?
Just now, for example, I found myself wondering all of a sudden why on
earth I'd been talking to you like this why I'd been thinking these things
before you came why I'd been trying to make up my mind to do something. Wondering and feeling that I simply couldn't
be bothered. Thinking that it would be
better just to evade it all and go back to the familiar routine. The quiet life. Even though the quiet life would be
fatal. Fatal, mortal, but all the same
anything for it.' He shook his
head. 'Probably if you hadn't come to
shame me into some sort of resolution, that's what I would have done escaped
from it all and gone back to the quiet life.'
He laughed. 'And perhaps,' he added,
'I shall do it even now. In spite of
you.' He sat up, lifted the mosquito net
and stepped out of bed. 'I'm going to
have my bath.'
CHAPTER
XXVII
May 27th 1914
Anthony came down to breakfast to find his
father explaining to the two children the etymology of what they were
eating. '
merely another form of
pottage. You say porridge just as
you say or rather' (he twinkled at them) 'I hope you don't say - shurrup
for shut up.'
The
two little girls went on stolidly eating.
'Ah,
Anthony!' Mr Beavis went on. 'Better
late than never. What, no pottage this
morning? But you'll have an Aberdeen
cutlet, I hope.'
Anthony
helped himself to the haddock and sat down in his place.
'Here's
a letter for you,' said Mr Beavis, and handed it over. 'Don't I recognize Brian's writing?' Anthony nodded. 'Does he still enjoy his work at Manchester?'
'I
think so,' Anthony answered. 'Except, of
course, that he does too much. He's at
the newspaper till one or two in the morning.
And then from lunch to dinner he works at his thesis.'
'Well,
it's good to see a young man who has the energy of his ambitions,' said Mr
Beavis. 'Because, of course, I needn't
work so hard. It's not as if his mother
hadn't the wherewithal.'
The
wherewithal so exasperated Anthony that, though he found Brian's action absurd,
it was with a cutting severity that he answered his father. 'He won't accept his mother's money,' he said
very coldly. 'It's a matter of
principle.'
There
was a diversion while the children put away the porridge plates and were helped
to Aberdeen cutlets. Anthony took the
opportunity to start reading his letter.
'No news of you for a long time. Here all goes on as usual, or would do, if I
were feeling a bit sprightlier. But
sleep has been none too good and internal workings not all they might be. Am slowing down, in consequence, on the
thesis, as I can't slow down on the paper.
All this makes me look forward longingly to our projected fortnight in
Langdale. Don't let me down, for
heaven's sake. What a bore one's carcase
is when it goes in the least wrong! Even
when it goes right, for that matter.
Such a lot of unmodern inconveniences.
I sometimes bitterly resent this physical predestination to scatology
and obscenity.
'Write
soon and let me know how you are, what you've been reading, whether you've met
anybody of interest. And will you do me
a kindness? Joan's in town now, staying
with her aunt and working for the Charity Organization people. Her father didn't want her to go, of course
preferred to have her at home, so that he could tyrannize her. There was a long battle, which he finally
lost; she has been in town nearly a month now.
For which I'm exceedingly thankful but at the same time, for various
reasons, feel a bit worried. If I could
get away for the weekends, I'd come myself; but I can't. And perhaps, in a certain sense, it's all for
the best. In my present mouldy condition
I should be rather a skeleton at the feast; and besides, there are certain
complications. I can't explain them in a
letter; but when you come north in July I'll try. I ought to have asked your advice before
this. You're harder in the head than I
am. Which is ultimately the reason why I
didn't talk to you about the matter the fear of being thought a fool by
you! Such is one's imbecility. But, there, we'll discuss it all later. Meanwhile, will you get in touch with her,
take her out to a meal, get her to talk, then write and tell me how you think
she's reacting to London, what she feels about life in general, and so forth. It's been a violent transition from remote
country to London, from cramping poverty to a rich house, from subject to her
father's bad-tempered tyranny to independence.
A violent transition; and, though I'm glad of it, I'm a bit nervous as
to its effects. But you'll see. - Yours,
B.'
Anthony
did see that same day. The old shyness,
he noticed, as they shook hands in the lobby of the restaurant, was still there
the same embarrassed smile, the same swaying movement of recoil. In face and body she was more of a woman
than when he had seen her last, a year
before, seemed prettier too chiefly, no doubt, because she was better
dressed.
They
passed into the restaurant and sat down.
Anthony ordered the food and a bottle of Vouvray, then began to explore
the ground.
London
how did she like London?
Adored
it.
Even
the work?
Not
the office part, perhaps. But three
times a week she helped at a crθche. 'I
love babies.'
'Even
those horrible little smelly ones?'
Joan
was indignant. 'They're adorable. I love the work with them. Besides, it allows me to enjoy all the rest
of London with a clear conscience. I
feel I've paid for my theatres and dances.'
Shyness
broke up her talk, plunged it, as it were, into alternate light and shade. At one moment she would be speaking with
difficulty, hardly opening her lips, her voice low and indistinct, her face
averted; the next, her timidity was swept aside by an uprush of strong feeling
delight, or some distress, or irrepressible mirth, and she was looking at him
with eyes grown suddenly and surprisingly bold; from almost inaudible, her
voice had become clear; the strong white teeth flashed between lips parted in a
frank expression of feeling. Then
suddenly she was as though appalled by her own daring; she became conscious of
him as a possible critic. What was he
thinking? Had she made a fool of
herself? Her voice faltered, the blood
rose to her cheeks, she looked down at her plate; and for the next few minutes
he would get nothing but short mumbled answers to his questions, nothing but
the most perfunctory of nervous laughs in response to his best efforts to amuse
her. The food, however, and the wine did
their work, and as the meal advanced, she found herself more at ease with him. They began to talk about Brian.
'You
ought to prevent him from working so hard,' he said.
'Do
you think I don't try?' Then, with
something almost like anger in her voice, 'It's his nature,' she went on. 'He's so terribly conscientious.'
'It's
your business to make him unconscientious.'
He smiled at her, expecting a return in kind. But, instead of that, she frowned; her face
took on an expression of resentful misery.
'It's easy for you to talk,' she muttered. There was a silence, while she sat with
downcast eyes sipping her wine.
They
could have married, it occurred to him for the first time, if Brian had
consented to live on his mother. Why on
earth, then, seeing how much he was in love with the girl
?
With
the peach-melba it all came out. 'It's
difficult to talk about,' she said.
'I've hardly mentioned it to anyone.
But with you it's different.
You've known Brian such a long time; you're his oldest friend. You'll understand. I feel I can tell you about it.'
Curious,
but at the same time a little disquieted, he murmured something vaguely polite.
She
failed to notice the signs of his embarrassment; for her, at the moment,
Anthony was only the heaven-sent opportunity for at last releasing in speech a
flood of distressing feelings too long debarred from expression.
'It's
that conscientiousness of his. If you
only knew
! Why has he got the idea that there's something wrong about
love? The ordinary, happy kind of love,
I mean. He thinks it isn't right; he
thinks he oughtn't to have those feelings.'
She
pushed away her plate, and, leaning forward, her elbows on the table, began to
speak in a lower, more intimate tone of the kisses that Brian had given and
been ashamed of, and those other kisses that, by way of atonement, he had
refused to give.
Anthony
listened in astonishment. 'Certain
complications,' was what Brian had written in his letter; it was putting it
mildly. That was just craziness. Tragic but also grotesque, absurd. It occurred to him that Mary would find the
story particularly ludicrous.
'He
said he wanted to be worthy of me,' she went on. 'Worthy of love. But all that happened was that it made him
feel unworthy. Unworthy of everything,
in every way. Guilty feeling I'd done
something wrong. And dirty too, if you
understand what I mean, as though I'd fallen into the mud. But, Anthony, it isn't wrong, is it?' she
questioned. 'I mean, we'd never done
anything that wasn't
well, you know: quite innocent. Why does he say he's unworthy, and make me
feel unworthy at the same time? Why does
he?' she insisted. There were tears in
her eyes.
'He
was always rather like that,' said Anthony.
'Perhaps his upbringing
His mother's a wonderful person,' he added,
dropping, as he suddenly realized, while the words were being spoken, into Mrs
Foxe's own idiom. 'But perhaps a bit
oppressive, just for that reason.'
Joan
nodded emphatically, but did not speak.
'It
may be she's made him aim a bit too high,' he went on. 'Too high all along the line, if you see what
I mean even when he's not directly following her example. That business of not wanting to take her
money, for instance
'
Joan
caught up the subject with passionate eagerness. 'Yes, why does he want to be different
from everyone else? After all, there are
other good people in the world and they don't feel it necessary to do it. Mind you,' she added, looking up sharply into
Anthony's face, as if trying to catch and quell any expression of disapproval
there, or worse, of patronizing amusement, 'mind you, I think it's wonderful of
him to do it. Wonderful!' she repeated
with a kind of defiance. Then, resuming
the critical tone which she would not allow Anthony to use, but to which it
seemed to her that her own feelings for Brian gave her a right, 'All the same,'
she went on, 'I can't see how it would hurt him to take that money. I believe it was mostly his mother's doing.'
Surprised,
'But he told me that Mrs Foxe had tried to insist on his taking it.'
'Oh,
she made it seem as though she wanted him to take it. We were there for a weekend in May to talk it
over. She kept telling him that it
wasn't wrong to take the money, and that he ought to think about me and getting
married. But then, when Brian and I told
her that I'd agreed to his not taking it, she
'
Anthony
interrupted her. 'But had you
agreed?'
Joan
dropped her eyes. 'In a way,' she said
sullenly. Then looking up again with
sudden anger, 'How could I help agreeing with him? Seeing that that was what he wanted to do,
and would have done, what's more, even if I hadn't agreed. And besides, I've told you, there was something
rather splendid and wonderful about it.
Of course, I had agreed. But
agreeing didn't mean that I really wanted him to refuse the money. And that's where his falseness came in
pretending to think that I wanted him to refuse it, and congratulating me and
him on what we'd done. Saying we were
heroic and all that. And so encouraging
him to go on with the idea. It is
her doing, I tell you. Much more than
you think.'
She
was silent, and Anthony thought it best to allow the subject to drop. Heaven only knew what she'd say if he allowed
her to go on talking about Mrs Foxe.
'Poor Brian,' he said aloud, and added, taking refuge in platitude, 'The
best is the enemy of the good.'
'Yes,
that's just it!' she cried. 'The enemy
of the good. He wants to be perfect
but look at the result! He tortures
himself and hurts me. Why should I be
made to feel dirty and criminal? Because
that's what he's doing. When I've done
nothing wrong. Nor has he, for that
matter. And yet he wants me to feel the
same about him. Dirty and
criminal. Why does he make it so
difficult for me? As difficult as he
possibly can.' Her voice trembled, the
tears overflowed. She pulled out her
handkerchief and quickly wiped her eyes.
'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I'm
making a fool of myself. But if you knew
how hard it's been for me! I've loved
him so much, I want to go on loving him.
But he doesn't seem to want to allow me to. It ought to be so beautiful; but he does his
best to make it all seem ugly and horrible.'
Then, after a pause, and in a voice that had sunk almost to a whisper,
'I sometimes wonder if I can go on much longer.'
Did
it mean, he wondered, that she had already decided to break it off had
already met someone else who was prepared to love her and be loved less
tragically, more normally than Brian?
No; probably not, he decided. But
there was every likelihood that she soon would.
In her way (it didn't happen to be exactly the way he liked) she was
attractive. There would be no shortage
of candidates; and if a satisfactory candidate presented himself, would she be
able whatever she might consciously wish to refuse?'
Joan
broke the silence. 'I dream so often of
the house we're going to live in,' she said.
'Going from room to room; and it all looks so nice. Such pretty curtains and chair covers. And vases full of flowers.' She sighed; then, after a pause, 'Do you
understand his not wanting to take his mother's money?'
Anthony
hesitated a moment; then replied noncommittally: 'I understand it; but I don't
think I should do it myself.'
She
sighed once more. 'That's how I feel
too.' She looked at her watch; then
gathered up her gloves. 'I shall have to
go.' With this return from intimacy to
the prosaic world of time and people and appointments, she suddenly woke up
again to painful self-consciousness. Had
it bored him? Did he think her a
fool? She looked into his face, trying
to divine his thoughts; then dropped her eyes.
'I'm afraid. I've been talking a
lot about myself,' she mumbled. 'I don't
know why I should burden you
'
He
protested. 'I only wish I could be of
some help.'
Joan
raised her face again and gave him a quick smile of gratitude. 'You've done a lot by just listening.'
They
left the restaurant and, when he had seen her to her bus, he set off on foot
towards the British Museum, wondering, as he went, what sort of letter he ought
to write to Brian. Should he wash his
hands of the whole business and merely scribble a note to the effect that Joan
seemed well and happy? Or should he let
out that she had told him everything, and then proceed to expostulate, warn,
advise? He passed between the huge
columns of the portico into the dim coolness within. A regular sermon, he thought with
distaste. If only one could approach the
problem as it ought to be approached as a Rabelaisian joke. But then poor Brian could hardly be expected
to see it in that light. Even though it
would do him a world of good to think for a change in Rabelaisian terms. Anthony showed his card to the attendant and
walked down the corridor to the Reading Room.
That was always the trouble, he reflected; you could never influence
anybody to be anything except himself, nor influence him by any means that he
didn't already accept the validity of.
He pushed open the door and was under the dome, breathing the faint,
acrid smell of books. Millions of
books. And all those hundreds of
thousands of authors, century after century each convinced he was right,
convinced that he could convince the rest of the world by putting it down in
black and white. When in fact, of
course, the only people anyone ever convinced were the ones that nature and
circumstances had actually or potentially convinced already. And even those weren't wholly to be relied
on. Circumstances changed. What convinced in January wouldn't
necessarily convince in August. The
attendant handed him the books that had been reserved for him, and he walked
off to his seat. Mountains of the spirit
in interminable birthpangs; and the result was what? Well, si ridiculum murem requiris,
circumspice. Pleased with his
invention, he looked about him at his fellow readers the men like walruses,
the dim females, the Indians, emaciated or overblown, the whiskered patriarchs,
the youths in spectacles. Heirs to all
the ages. Depressing, if you took it
seriously; but also irresistibly comic.
He sat down and opened his book De Lancre's Tableau de
l-Inconstance des Mauvais Anges at the place where he had stopped reading
the day before. 'Le Diable estoit en
forme de bouc, ayant une queue et au dessoubs un visage d'homme noir, oω elle
fut contrainte le baiser
' He laughed noiselessly to himself. Another one for Mary, he thought.
At
five he rose, left his books at the desk and, from Holborn, took the tube to Gloucester
Road. A few minutes later he was at Mary
Amberley's front door. The maid opened;
he smiled at her familiarly and, assuming the privilege of an intimate of the
house, ran upstairs to the drawing-room, unannounced.
'I
have a story for you,' he proclaimed, as he crossed the room.
'A
coarse story, I hope,' said Mary Amberley from the sofa.
Anthony
kissed her hand in that affected style he had recently adopted, and sat
down. 'To the coarse,' he said, 'all
things are coarse.'
'Yes,
how lucky that is!' And with that
crooked little smile of hers, that dark glitter between narrowed lids, 'A
filthy mind,' she added, 'is a perpetual feast.' The joke was old and not her own; but
Anthony's laughter pleased her none the less for that. It was wholehearted laughter, loud and
prolonged louder and longer than the joke itself warranted. But then it wasn't at the joke that he was
really laughing. The joke was hardly
more than an excuse; that laughter was his response, not to a single stimulus,
but to the whole extraordinary and exciting situation. To be able to talk freely about anything (anything,
mind you) with a woman, a lady, a genuine 'loaf-kneader', as Mr Beavis, in his
moments of etymological waggery, had been known to say, a true-blue English loaf-kneader
who was also one's mistress, had also read Mallarmι, was also a friend of
Guillaume Appolinaire; and to listen to the loaf-kneader preaching what she
practised and casually mentioning beds, water-closets, the physiology of what
(for the Saxon words still remained unpronounceable) they were constrained to call l'amour for
Anthony, the experience was still, after two years and in spite of Mary's
occasional infidelities, an intoxicating mixture of liberation and forbidden
fruit, of relief and titillation. In his
father's universe, in the world of Pauline and the Aunts, such things were
simply not there but not there with a painfully, glaringly conspicuous
absence. Like the hypnotized patient who
has been commanded to see the five of clubs as a piece of virgin pasteboard,
they deliberately failed to perceive the undesirable things, they were
conspiratorially silent about all they had been blind to. The natural functions even of the lower
quadrupeds. That goat incident, for
example it was the Exquisitely comic but how much more comic now than at
the time, nearly two years before he first met Mary, when it had actually
happened! Picnicking on that horrible
Scheideck Pass, with the Weisshorn hanging over them like an obsession and a
clump of gentians, carefully sought out by Mr Beavis, in the grass at their
feet, the family had been visited by a half-grown kid, greedy for the salt of
their hard-boiled eggs. Shrinking and a
little disgusted under their delight, his two small half-sisters had held out
their hands to be licked, while Pauline took a snapshot, and Mr Beavis, whose
interest in goats was mainly philological, quoted Theocritus. Pastoral scene! But suddenly the little creature had
straddled its legs and, still expressionlessly gazing at the Beavis family
through the oblong pupils of its large yellow eyes, had proceeded to make water
on the gentians.
'They're
not very generous with their butter,' and 'How jolly the dear old Weisshorn is
looking today,' Pauline and Mr Beavis brought out almost simultaneously the
one, as she peered into her sandwich, in a tone of complaint, the other, gazing
away far-focused, with a note in his voice of a rapture nonetheless genuinely
Wordsworthian for being expressed in terms of a gentlemanly and thoroughly
English facetiousness.
In
haste and guiltily, the two children swallowed their incipient shriek of
startled mirth and averted frozen faces from one another and the outrageous
goat. Momentarily compromised, the world
of Mr Beavis and Pauline and the Aunts had settled down again to
respectability.
'And
what about your story?' Mrs Amberley enquired, as his laughter subsided.
'You
shall hear,' said Anthony, and was silent for a little, lighting a cigarette,
while he thought of what he was about to say and the way he meant to say
it. He was ambitious about his story,
wanted to make it a good one, at once amusing and psychologically profound; a
smoking-room story that should also be a library story, a laboratory story. Mary must be made to pay a double tribute of
laughter and admiration.
'You
know Brian Foxe?' he began.
'Of
course.'
'Poor
old Brian!' By his tone, by the use of
the patronizing adjective, Anthony established his position of superiority,
asserted his right, the right of the enlightened and scientific vivisector, to
anatomize and examine. Yes, poor old
Brian! That maniacal preoccupation of
his with chastity! Chastity! - the most
unnatural of all the sexual perversions, he added paranthetically, out of Remy
de Gourmont. Mary's appreciative smile
acted on him like a spur to fresh efforts.
Fresh efforts, of course, at Brian's expense. But at the moment, that didn't occur to him.
'But
what can you expect,' Mrs Amberley put in, 'with a mother like that? One of those spiritual vampires. A regular St Monica.'
'St
Monica by Ary Scheffer,' he found himself overbidding. Not that there was a trace in Mrs Foxe of
that sickly insincerity of Scheffer's saint.
But the end of his story-telling, which was to provide Mary's laughter and
admiration, was sufficient justification for any means whatever. Scheffer was an excellent joke, too good a
joke to be neglected, even if he were beside the point. And when Mary brought out what was at the
moment her favourite phrase and talked of Mrs Foxe's 'uterine reactions,' he
eagerly seized upon the words and began applying them, not merely to Mrs Foxe,
but also to Joan and even (making another joke out of the physical absurdity of
the thing) to Brian. Brian's uterine
reactions towards chastity in conflict with his own and Joan's uterine
reactions towards the common desires it was a drama. A drama, he explained, whose existence
hitherto he had only suspected and inferred.
Now there was no more need to guess; he knew. Straight from the horse's mouth. Or rather, straight from the mare's. Poor Joan!
The vivisector laid out another specimen on the operating table.
'Like
early Christians,' was Mrs Amberley's comment, when he had finished.
The
virulent contempt in her voice made him suddenly remember, for the first time
since he had begun this story, that Brian was his friend, that Joan had been
genuinely unhappy. Too late, he wanted
to explain that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, there was nobody
he liked and admired and respected more than Brian. 'You mustn't misunderstand me,' he said to
Mary retrospectively and in imagination.
'I'm absolutely devoted to him.'
Inside his head, he became eloquent on the subject. But no amount of this interior eloquence
could alter the fact that he had betrayed confidences and been malicious
without apology or qualifying explanation.
At the time, of course, this malice had seemed to him the manifestation
of his own psychological acuteness; these betrayed confidences, the
indispensable facts without which the acuteness could not have been
exercised. But now
He
found himself all at once confused and tongue-tied with self-reproach.
'I
felt awfully sorry for Joan,' he stammered, trying to make amends. 'Promised I'd do all I could to help the poor
girl. But what? That's the question. What?'
He exaggerated the note of perplexity.
Perplexed, he was justified in betraying Joan's confidences; he had told
the story (he now began to assure himself) solely for the sake of asking Mary's
advice the advice of an experienced woman of the world.
But
the experienced woman of the world was looking at him in the most disquieting
way. Mrs Amberley's eyelids had narrowed
over a mocking brilliance; the left-hand corner of her mouth was drawn up
ironically. 'The nicest thing about
you,' she said judicially, 'is your innocence.'
Her
words were so wounding that he forgot in an instant Joan, Brian, his own
discreditable behaviour, and could think only of his punctured vanity.
'Thank
you,' he said, trying to give her a smile of frank amusement. Innocent -
she thought him innocent? After
their time in Paris. After those jokes
about uterine reactions?
'So
deliciously youthful, so touching.'
'I'm
glad you think so.' The smile had gone
all awry; he felt the blood mounting to his cheeks.
'A
girl comes to you,' Mrs Amberley went on, 'and complains because she hasn't
been kissed enough. And here you are,
solemnly asking what you ought to do to help her! And now you're blushing like a beetroot. Darling, I absolutely adore you!' Laying her hand on his arm, 'Kneel down on
the floor here,' she commanded. Rather
sheepishly, he obeyed. Mary Amberley
looked at him for a little in silence, with the same bright mocking expression
in her eyes. Then, softly, 'Shall I show
you what you can do to help her?' she asked.
'Shall I show you?'
He
nodded without speaking; but still, at arm's length, she smiled enquiringly
into his face.
'Or
am I a fool to show you?' she asked.
'Won't you learn the lesson too well?
Perhaps I shall be jealous?' She
shook her head and smiled a gay and 'civilized' smile. 'No, I don't believe in being jealous.' She took his face between her two hands and,
whispering, 'This is how you can help her,' drew him towards her.
Anthony
had felt humiliated by her almost contemptuous assumption of the dominant role;
but no shame, no resentment could annul his body's consciousness of the
familiar creepings of pleasure and desire.
He abandoned himself to her kisses.
A
clock struck, and immediately, from an upper floor, came the approaching sound
of shrill childish voices. Mrs Amberley
drew back and, laying a hand over his mouth, pushed him away from her. 'You've got to be domestic,' she said,
laughing. 'It's six. I do the fond mother at six.'
Anthony
scrambled to his feet and, with a yell like the whistle of an express train a
small round child of about five came rushing into the room and fairly hurled
herself upon her mother. Another little
girl, three or four years older than the first, came hurrying after.
'Helen!'
she kept calling, and her face, with its expression of anxious disapproval, was
the absurd parody of a governess's face.
'Helen! You mustn't. Tell her she mustn't shout like that, Mummy,'
she appealed to Mrs Amberley.
But
Mrs Amberley only laughed and ran her fingers through the little one's thick
yellow hair. 'Joyce believes in the Ten
Commandments,' she said, turning to Anthony.
'Was born believing in them.
Weren't you, darling?' She put an
arm round Joyce's shoulder and kissed her.
'Whereas Helen and I
' She shook
her head. 'Stiff-necked and
uncircumcised in heart and ears.'
'Nanny
says it's the draught that gives her a stiff neck,' Joyce volunteered, and was
indignant when her mother and Anthony, and even, by uncomprehending contagion,
little Helen, burst out laughing. 'But
it's true!' she cried; and tears of outraged virtue were in her eyes. 'Nanny said so.'
CHAPTER
XXVIII
June 25th 1934
The facility with which one could become a Stiggins
in modern dress! A much subtler, and
therefore more detestable, more dangerous Stiggins. For of course Stiggins himself was too stupid
to be either intrinsically very bad or capable of doing much harm to other
people. Whereas if I set my mind to it,
heaven knows what I mightn't achieve in the way of lies in the soul. Even with not setting my mind to it, I
could go far as I perceived, to my horror, today, when I found myself talking
to Purchas and three or four of his young people. Talking about Miller's 'anthropological
approach'; talking about peace as a way of life as well as an international
policy the way of life being the condition of any policy that had the least
hope of being permanently successful.
Talking so clearly, so profoundly, so convincingly. (The poor devils were listening with their
tongues hanging out.) Much more
convincingly than Purchas himself could have done; that
muscular-jocular-Christian style starts by being effective, but soon makes
hearers feel that they're being talked down to.
What they like is that the speaker should be thoroughly serious, but
comprehensible. Which is a trick I
happen to possess. There I was,
discoursing in a really masterly way about the spiritual life, and taking
intense pleasure in that mastery, secretly congratulating myself on being not
only so clever, but also so good when all at once I realized who I was:
Stiggins. Talking about the theory of
courage, self-sacrifice, patience, without any knowledge of the practice. Talking, moreover, in the presence of people
who had practised what I was preaching preaching so effectively that
the proper roles were reversed: they were listening to me, not I to them. The discovery of what I was doing came
suddenly. I was overcome with
shame. And yet more shameful went on
talking. Not for long, however. A minute or two, and I simply had to stop,
apologize, insist that it wasn't my business to talk.
This
shows how easy it is to be Stiggins by mistake and unconsciously. But also that unconsciousness is no excuse,
and that one's responsible for the mistake, which arises, of course, from the
pleasure one takes in being more talented than other people and in dominating
them by means of those talents. Why is
one unconscious? Because one hasn't ever
taken the trouble to examine one's motives; and one doesn't examine one's
motives, because one's motives are mostly discreditable. Alternatively, of course, one examines one's
motives, but tells oneself lies about them till one comes to believe that
they're good. Which is the conviction of
the self-conscious Stiggins. I've always
condemned showing off and the desire to dominate as vulgar, and imagined myself
pretty free of these vulgarities. But
insofar as free at all, I now perceive, only thanks to the indifference which
has kept me away from other people, thanks to the external-economic and
internal-intellectual circumstances which made me a sociologist rather than a
banker, administrator, engineer, working in direct contact with my fellows. Not to make contacts, I have realized, is
wrong; but the moment I make them, I catch myself showing off and trying to
dominate. Showing off, to make it worse,
as Stiggins would have done, trying to dominate by a purely verbal display of
virtues which I don't put into practice.
Humiliating to find that one's supposed good qualities are mainly due to
circumstances and the bad habit of indifference, which make me shirk occasions
for behaving badly or well, for that matter, seeing that it's very difficult
to behave either well or badly except towards other people. More humiliating still to find that when,
with an effort of goodwill, one creates the necessary opportunities, one
immediately responds to them by behaving badly.
Note: meditate on the virtues that are the contraries of vanity, lust
for power, hypocrisy.
CHAPTER
XXIX
May 24th 1931
The blinds were up; the sunlight lay bright
across the dressing-table. Helen, as
usual, was still in bed. The days were
so long. Lying in the soft, stupefying
warmth of her own body under the quilt, she shortened them with sleep, with
vague inconsequential thoughts, with drowsy reading. The book, this morning, was Shelley's
poems. 'Warm fragrance,' she read,
articulating the words in an audible whisper, 'seemed to fall from her light
dress
' (She saw a long-legged figure in white muslin, with sloping shoulders
and breasts high set.)
from her light dress
And
her loose hair; and where some heavy tress
The
air of her own speed was disentwined
(The
figure was running now, in square-toed pumps cross-gartered with black ribbon
over the white cotton stockings.)
The
sweetness seems to satiate the faint wind;
And
in the soul a wild odour is felt
Beyond
the sense, like fiery dews that melt
Into
the bosom of a frozen bud
The
half-opened rose gave place to Mark Staithes's strangely twisted face. Those things he had told her the other night
about perfumes. Musk, ambergris
And
Henri Quatre with his bromidrosis of the feet.
Bien vous en prend d'κtre roi; sans cela on ne vous pourrait
souffrir. Vous puez comme charogne. She made a grimace. Hugh's smell was like sour milk.
A
clock struck. Nine, ten, eleven,
twelve. Twelve! She felt guilty; then defiantly decided that
she would stay in bed for lunch. A
remembered voice it was Cynthia's sounded reproachfully in her memory. 'You ought to go out more, see more
people.' But people, Cynthia's people,
were such bores. Behind closed eyelids,
she saw her mother rapping the top of her skull: 'Solid ivory, my dear!' Hopelessly stupid, ignorant, tasteless,
slow. 'I was brought up above my mental
station,' was what she had said to Anthony the other night. 'So that now, if ever I have to be with
people as silly and uneducated as myself, it's torture, absolute torture!'
Cynthia
was sweet, of course; always had been, ever since they were at school
together. But Cynthia's husband that
retriever! And her young men, and the
young men's young women! 'My
boyfriend. My girlfriend.' How she loathed the words and, still more,
the awful way they spoke them! So coy,
such saucy implications of sleeping together!
When, in fact, most of them were utterly respectable. In the few cases where they weren't
respectable, it seemed even worse a double hypocrisy. Really sleeping together, and pretending to
be only archly pretending to do it. The
dreary, upper-class Englishness of it all!
And then they were always playing games.
'Ga-ames,' Mrs Amberley drawled out of a pre-morphia past. 'A Dear Old School in every home.' See more of those people, do more of the
things they did
She shook her head.
Spouse!
Sister! Angel! Pilot of the Fate
Whose
course has been so starless
Was it all nonsense? Or did it mean something something
marvellous she had never experienced?
But, yes, she had experienced it.
For
in the fields of Immortality
My
spirit should at first have worshipped thine,
A
divine presence in a place divine
It was humiliating, now, to admit it; but
the fact remained that, with Gerry, she had known exactly what those lines
signified. A divine presence in a place
divine. And it had been the presence in
bed of a swindler who was also a virtuoso in the art of love-making. She found a perverse pleasure in insisting,
as brutally as she could, upon the grotesque disparity between the facts and
what had then been her feelings.
I love thee; yes, I feel
That
on the fountain of my heart a seal
Is
set, to keep its waters pure and bright
For
thee
Noiselessly,
Helen laughed. The sound of the clock
chiming the quarter made her think again of Cynthia's advice. There were also the other people the people
they met when Hugh and she dined with the Museum or the University. 'Those god-fearing people' (her mother spoke
again), 'who still go on fearing God even though they've pitched him
overboard.' Fearing God on
committees. Fearing him in W.E.A.
Lecture-rooms. Fearing him through
interminable discussions of the Planned Society. But Gerry's good looks, Gerry's technique as
a lover how could those be planned out of existence? Or the foetus irrepressibly growing and
growing in the womb? 'A co-ordinated
housing scheme for the whole country.'
She remembered Frank Ditchling's eager, persuasive voice. He had a turned-up nose, and the large
nostrils stared at one like a second pair of eyes, insistently. 'Redistribution of the population
Satellite
towns
Green belts
Lifts even in working-class flats
' She had listened,
she had succumbed to the spell of his hypnotic nostrils, and at the time it had
seemed splendid, worth dying for. But
afterwards
Well, lifts were very convenient she wished there were one to
her own flat. Parks were nice to walk
in. But how would Frank Ditchling's
crusade affect any of the serious issues?
Co-ordinated housing wouldn't make her mother any less dirty, any less
hopelessly at the mercy of an intoxicated body.
And Hugh would Hugh be any different in a satellite town and with a
lift from what he was now, when he walked up four flights of stairs in
London? Hugh! She thought, derisively, of his letters all
the delicate, beautiful things he had written and then of the man as he had
been in everyday reality, as a husband.
'Show me how I can help you, Hugh.'
Arranging his papers, typing his notes, looking up references for him in
the library. But always, his eyes glassy
behind glass, he had shaken his head: either he didn't need help, or else she
wasn't capable of giving it. 'I want to
be a good wife, Hugh.' With her mother's
laughter loud in her imagination, it had been difficult to pronounce those
words. But she had meant them; she did
want to be a good wife. Darning socks,
making hot milk for him before he went to bed, reading up his subject, being sιrieuse,
in a word, for the first time and profoundly.
But Hugh didn't want her to be a good wife, didn't want her, so far as
she could see, to be anything. A divine
presence in a place divine. But the
place was his letters; she was present, so far as he was concerned, only at the
other end of the postal system. He
didn't even want her in bed or at any rate not much, not in any ordinary
way. Green belts, indeed!
It
was all beside the point. For the point
was those silences in which Hugh enclosed himself at meals. The point was that martyred expression he put
on if ever she came into his study while he was working. The point was the furtive squalor of those
approaches in the darkness, the revolting detachment and gentleness of a
sensuality, in which the part assigned to her was purely ideal. The point was that expression of dismay,
almost of horror and disgust, which she had detected that time, within the
first few weeks of their marriage, when she was laid up with the flu. He had shown himself solicitous; and at first
she had been touched, had felt grateful.
But when she discovered how heroic an effort it cost him to attend upon
her sick body, the gratitude had evaporated.
In itself, no doubt, the effort was admirable. What she resented, what she couldn't forgive
was the fact that an effort had had to be made.
She wanted to be accepted as she was, even in fever, even vomiting
bile. In that book on mysticism she had
read, there was an account of Mme Guyon picking up from the floor a horrible
gob of phlegm and spittle and putting it in her mouth as a test of will. Sick, she had been Hugh's test of will; and,
since then, each month had renewed his secret horror of her body. It was an intolerable insult and would be
no less intolerable in one of Ditchling's satellite towns, in the planned world
those god-fearing atheists were always talking about.
But
there was also Fanny Carling. 'The
mouse' was Helen's name for her she was so small, so grey, so silently
quick. But a mystical mouse. A mouse with enormous blue eyes that seemed
perpetually astonished by what they saw behind the appearances of things. Astonished, but bright at the same time with
an inexplicable happiness a happiness that to Helen seemed almost indecent,
but which she envied. 'How does one
believe in things that are obviously false?' she had asked, half in malice,
half genuinely desirous of learning a valuable secret. 'By living,' the mouse answered. 'If you live in the right way, all these
things turn out to be obviously true.'
And she went on to talk incomprehensible stuff about the love of God and
the love of things and people for the sake of God. 'I don't know what you mean.' 'Only because you don't want to, Helen.' Stupid, maddening answer! 'How do you know what I want?'
Sighing,
Helen returned to her book.
I
never was attached to that great sect,
Whose
doctrine is, that each one should select
Out
of the crowd a mistress or a friend,
('One
of my boyfriends
')
And
all the rest, though fair and wise commend
To
cold oblivion, though it is the code
Of
modern morals, and the beaten road
Which
those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread,
Who
travel to their home among the dead
By
the broad highway of the world, and so
With
one chained friend, perhaps a jealous foe,
The
dreariest and the longest journey go.
The
dreariest and the longest, she repeated to herself. But it could be as long, she thought, and as
dreary with several as with only one with Bob and Cecil and Quentin as with
Hugh.
True
Love in this differs from gold and clay,
That
to divide is not to take away.
'I don't believe it,' she said aloud; and
anyhow there hadn't been much love to divide.
For poor little Cecil she had never pretended to be more than sorry. And with Quentin it was just well, just
hygiene. As for Bob, he had genuinely
cared for her and she, on her side, had done her best to care for him. But under those charming manners of his,
under those heroic good looks there was really nothing. And as a lover, how hopelessly clumsy he had
been, how barbarous and uncomprehending!
She had broken with him after only a few weeks. And perhaps, she went on to think, that was
her fate to lose her heart only to men like Gerry, to be loved only by men
like Hugh, and Bob and Cecil. To worship
cruelty and meanness, be adored by deficiency.
The
telephone bell rang; Helen picked up the receiver.
'Hullo.'
It
was the voice of Anthony Beavis that answered.
He wanted her to dine with him tomorrow.
'I'd
love to,' she said, though she had promised the evening to Quentin.
There
was a smile on her face, as she leaned back again on the pillows. An intelligent man, she was thinking. Worth fifty of these wretched little Cecils
and Quentins. And amusing, charming,
even rather good-looking. How nice he
had been to her the other night at Mark's dinner! Had gone out of his way to be nice. Whereas that pretentious ass Pritchley had
gone out of his way to be rude and snubbing.
She had wondered at the time whether Anthony wasn't rather attracted by
her. Had wondered and rather hoped
so. Now, this invitation gave her
reasons, not only for hoping, but for thinking so as well. She hummed to herself; then, suddenly
energetic, threw back the bedclothes.
She had decided that she would get up for lunch.
CHAPTER
XXX
July
2nd 1914
So far as Mary Amberley was concerned, that
spring and early summer had been extremely dull. Anthony was a charming boy, no doubt. But two years were a long time; he had lost his
novelty. And then he was really too much
in love. It was pleasant having people
in love with you, of course, but not too violently, not if it went on too long. They became a nuisance in that case; they
began to imagine that they had rights and that you had duties. Which was intolerable. All the fuss that Anthony had made last
winter about that art critic in Paris!
Flattering, in a certain sense.
Mary had rarely seen anyone so desperately upset. And seeing that the art critic had turned
out, on a nearer acquaintance, to be a bit of a bore, she had quite enjoyed the
process of letting herself be blackmailed by Anthony's dumb miseries and
tears. But the principle was wrong. She didn't want to be loved in that
blackmailing way. Particularly if it was
a long-drawn blackmail. She liked things
to be short and sharp and exciting.
Another time, and with anyone who wasn't the art critic, she wouldn't
allow Anthony to blackmail her. But the
trouble was that, except for Sidney Gattick and she wasn't really sure if she
could tolerate Sidney's voice and manner there was nobody else in sight. The world was a place where all amusing and
exciting things seemed, all of a sudden, to have stopped happening. There was nothing for it but to make them
happen. That was why she went on at
Anthony about what she called 'Joan's treatment,' went on and on with a
persistence quiet out of proportion with any interest she felt in Joan, or in
Brian Foxe, or even in Anthony went on simply in the hope of creating a little
fun out of the boring nothingness of the time.
'How's
the treatment advancing?' she asked yet again that afternoon in July.
Anthony
replied with a long story, elaborately rehearsed, about his position at Heavy
Uncle; and how he was gradually establishing himself on a more intimate
footing, as Big Brother; how from Big Brother, he proposed to develop, almost
imperceptibly, into Sentimental Cousin; and from Sentimental Cousin into
'The
truth about being,' said Mrs Amberley, interrupting him, 'that you're doing
nothing at all.'
Anthony
protested. 'I'm going slow. Using strategy.'
'Strategy!'
she echoed contemptuously. 'It's just
funk.'
He
denied it, but with an irrepressible blush.
For of course she was half right.
The funk was there. In spite of
the two years he had spent as Mary's lover, he still suffered from shyness,
still lacked self-confidence in the presence of women. But his timidity was not the only inhibiting
force at work. There was also
compunction, also affection and loyalty.
But of these it would be all but impossible to talk to Mary. She would say that he was only disguising his
fear in a variety of creditable fancy dresses, would simply refuse to believe
in the genuineness of these other feelings of his. And the trouble was that she would have some
justification for the refusal. For,
after all, there hadn't been much sign of that compunction, that affection and
loyalty, when he originally told her the story.
How often since then, in futile outbursts of retrospective anger, he had
cursed himself for having done it! And,
trying to persuade himself that the responsibility was not exclusively his, had
also cursed Mary. Blaming her for not
having told him that he was betraying confidences out of mere wantonness and
vanity; for not having refused to listen to him.
'The
fact of the matter,' Mary now went on, implacably, 'is that you haven't got the
guts to kiss a woman. You can only put
on one of those irresistibly tender and melancholy faces of yours and silently
beg to be seduced.'
'What
nonsense!' But he was blushing more
hotly than ever.
Ignoring
the interruption, 'She won't seduce you, of course,' Mary
continued. 'She's too young. Not too young to be tempted, perhaps. Because the thing you go for is the mother
instinct, and even a child of three has got that. Even a child of three would feel her little
heart wrung for you. Absolutely
wr-wrung.' She rolled the r derisively. 'But seduction
' Mrs Amberley shook her
head. 'You can't expect that till a good
deal later. Certainly not from a girl of
twenty.'
'As
a matter of fact,' said Anthony, trying to divert her from this painful
dissection of his character, 'I've never found Joan particularly
attractive. A bit too rustic.' He emphasized the word in Mary's own style. 'Besides, she's really rather childish,' he
added, and was instantly made to regret his words; for Mary was down on him
again, like a hawk.
'Childish!'
she repeated. 'I like that. And what about you? Talk about pots and kettles! The feeding-bottle calling the diaper
childish. Though of course,' she went
on, returning to the attack at the point where she had broken through before,
'it's only natural that you should complain of her. She is too childish for you. Too childish to do the pouncing. Childish enough to expect to be pounced
on. Poor girl! she's come to the wrong
address. She'll get no more kisses out
of you than she gets out of that benighted early Christian of hers. Even though you do profess to be civilized
'
She
was interrupted by the opening of the door.
'Mr
Gattick,' the maid announced.
Large,
florid, almost visibly luminous with the inner glow of self-satisfaction and
confidence, Sidney Gattick came striding in.
His voice boomed resonantly as he spoke his greetings, enquired after
her health. A deep voice, virile as only
the voice of an actor-manager playing the part of a strong man can be
virile. And his profile, Anthony
suddenly perceived that too was an actor's: too noble to be quite true. And after all, he went on to think, with a
contempt born of jealousy and a certain envy of the other's worldly success,
what were these barristers but actors?
Clever actors, but clever with the cleverness of examination-passers;
capable of mugging up a case and forgetting it again the moment it was
finished, as one mugged up formal logic or The Acts of the Apostles for Pass
Mods or Divvers. No real intelligence,
no coherent thinking. Just the
examinee's mind lodged in the actor's body and expressing itself in the actor's
booming voice. And, for this, society
paid the creature five or six thousand pounds a year. And the creature regarded itself as
important, wise, a man of note; the creature felt itself in a position to be
patronizing. Not that it mattered,
Anthony assured himself, being patronized by this hollow, booming
mountebank. One could laugh it was so
absurd! But in spite of the absurdity,
and even while one laughed, the patronage seemed painfully humiliating. The way, for example, he now acted the
distinguished old military man, the bluff country squire, and, patting him on
the shoulder, said, 'Well, Anthony my lad!' - it was absolutely
intolerable. On this occasion, however,
the intolerableness, it seemed to Anthony, was worth putting up with. The man might be a tiresome and pretentious
fool; but at least his coming had delivered him from the assaults of Mary. In Gattick's presence she couldn't go on at
him about Joan.
But
he had reckoned without Mary and her boredom, her urgent need to make something
amusing and exciting happen. Few things
are more exciting that deliberate bad taste, more amusing than the spectacle of
someone else's embarrassment. Before Gattick had had time to finish his
preliminary boomings, she was back again on the old, painful subject.
'When
you were Anthony's age,' she began, 'did you always wait for the woman to
seduce you?'
'Me?'
She
nodded.
Recovering
from his surprise, Gattick smiled the knowing smile of an experienced Don Juan
and, in his most virile jeune premier's voice, said, 'Of course
not.' He laughed complacently. 'On the contrary, I'm afraid I used to rush
in where angels fear to tread. Got my
face slapped sometimes. But more often,
not.' He twinkled scabrously.
'Anthony
prefers to sit still,' said Mrs Amberley; 'to sit still and wait for the woman
to make the advances.'
'Oh,
that's bad, Anthony, that's very bad,' said Gattick; and his voice once more
implied the military moustaches, the country gentleman's Harris tweeds.
'Here's
a poor girl who wants to be kissed,' Mrs Amberley went on, 'and he simply
hasn't got the courage to put an arm round her waist and do it.'
'Nothing
to say in your own defence, Anthony?' Gattick asked.
Trying,
rather unsuccessfully, to pretend that he didn't care, Anthony shrugged his
shoulders. 'Only that it isn't true.'
'What
isn't true?' asked Mary.
'That
I haven't the courage.'
'But it is true that you haven't done the
kissing. Isn't it?' she insisted. 'Isn't it?'
And when he had to admit that it was true, 'I'm only drawing the obvious
inference from the facts,' she said.
'You're a lawyer, Sidney. Tell me
if it's a justifiable inference.'
'Absolutely
justifiable,' said Gattick, and the Lord Chancellor himself could not have
spoken more weightily. An aura of robes
and full-bottomed wigs hung round him.
He was justice incarnate.
Anthony
opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again.
In front of Gattick, and with Mary obstinately determined to be only
'civilized,' how could he say what he really felt? And if that were what he really felt, why
(the question propounded itself once more), why had he told her the story? And told it in that particular style - as though he were a vivisecting
comedian? Vanity, wantonness and then,
of course, the fact that he was in love with her and anxious to please, at any
cost, even at the cost of what he really felt. (And at the moment of telling,
he was forced to admit, he hadn't really felt anything but the desire to be
amusing.) But, again, that couldn't be put into words. Gattick didn't know about their affair,
mustn't know. And even if Gattick hadn't
been there, it would have been difficult, almost impossible, to explain it to
Mary. She would laugh at him for being
romantic romantic about Brian, about Joan, even about herself; would think
him absurd and ridiculous for making tragic mountains out of a simple amorous
molehill.
'People
will insist,' she used to say, 'on treating the mons Veneris as though
it were Mount Everest. Too silly!'
When
at last he spoke, 'I don't do it,' he confined himself to saying, 'because I
don't want to do it.'
'Because
you don't dare,' cried Mary.
'I
do.'
'You
don't!' Her dark eyes shone. She was thoroughly enjoying herself.
Booming,
but with a hint of laughter in his ponderousness, the Lord Chancellor let fly
once more. 'It's an overwhelming case
against you,' he said.
'I'm
ready to bet on it,' said Mary. 'Five to
one. If you do it within a month, I'll
give you five pounds.'
'But
I tell you I don't want to,' he persisted.
'No,
you can't get out of it like that. A
bet's a bet. Five pounds to you if you
bring it off within a month from today.
And if you don't, you pay me a pound.'
'You're
too generous,' said Gattick.
'Only
a pound,' she repeated. 'But I shall
never speak to you again.'
For
a few seconds they looked at one another in silence. Anthony had gone very pale. Close-lipped and crookedly, Mary was smiling;
between the half-closed lids, her eyes were bright with malicious laughter.
Why
did she have to be so horrible to him, he wondered, so absolutely beastly? He hated her, hated her all the more because
of his desire for her, because of the memory and the anticipation of those
pleasures, because of her liberating wit and knowledge, because of everything,
in a word, that made it inevitable for him to do exactly what she wanted. Even though he knew it was stupid and wrong.
Watching
him, Mary saw the rebellious hatred in his eyes, and when at last he dropped
them, the sign of her own triumph.
'Never
again,' she repeated. 'I mean it.'
At
home, as Anthony was hanging up his hat in the hall, his father called to him.
'Come
and look here, dear boy.'
'Damn!'
Anthony said to himself resentfully; it was with an aggrieved expression, which
Mr Beavis was much too busy to notice, that he entered his father's study.
'Just
having a little fun with the map,' said Mr Beavis, who was sitting at his desk
with a sheet of the Swiss ordnance survey spread out before him. He had a passion for maps, a passion due in
part to his love of walking, in part to his professional interest in place
names. 'Comballas,' he murmured to
himself, without looking up from the map.
'Chamossaire. Charming,
charming!' Then, turning to Anthony,
'It's a thousand pities,' he said, 'that your conscience won't allow you to
take a holiday and come along with us.'
Anthony,
who had made his work for the research fellowship an excuse for staying in
England with Mary, gravely nodded. 'One
really can't do any serious reading at high altitudes,' he said.
'So
far as I can see,' said Mr Beavis, who had turned back to his map, 'we ought to
have the jolliest walks and scrambled all round les Diablerets. And what a delicious name that is!' he
added parenthetically. 'Up the Col du Pillon,
for example.' He ran his finger
sinuously along the windings of a road.
'Can you see, by the way?' Perfunctorily, Anthony bent a little closer. 'No, you can't,' Mr Beavis went on. 'I cover it all up with my hand.' He straightened himself up and dipped first
into one pocket, then into another.
'Where on earth,' he said, frowning; then suddenly, as his most daring
philological joke came to his mind, he changed the frown into a sly smile.
'Where on earth is my teeny weeny penis.
Or, to be accurate, my teeny weeny weeny
'
Anthony
was so much taken aback that he could only return a blank embarrassed stare to
the knowing twinkle his father gaily shot at him.
'My
pencil,' Mr Beavis was forced to explain.
'Penecillus; diminutive of peniculus: double diminutive of
penis; which as you know,' he went on, at last producing the teeny weeny
weeny from his inside left-breast pocket, 'originally meant a tail. And now let's attack the Pillon again.' Lowering the point of the pencil to the map,
he traced out the zigzags. 'And when
we're at the top of the Col,' he continued, 'we bear north-north-west round the
flank of Mont Fornettaz until
'
It
was the first time, Anthony was thinking, that his father had ever, in his
presence, made any allusion to the physiology of sex.
CHAPTER
XXXI
September
6th 1933
'Death,' said Mark Staithes. 'It's the only thing we haven't succeeded in
completely vulgarizing. Not from any
lack of the desire to do so, of course.
We're like dogs on an acropolis.
Trotting round with inexhaustible bladders and only too anxious to lift
a leg against every statue. And mostly
we succeed. Art, religion, heroism, love
we've left our visiting-card on all of them.
But death death remains out of reach.
We haven't been able to defile that statue. Not yet, at any rate. But progress is still progressing.' He demonstrated the anatomy of smile. 'The larger hopes, the proliferating futures
' The bony hands went out in a lavish
gesture. 'One day, no doubt, some genius
of the kennel will manage to climb up and deposit a well-aimed tribute bang in
the middle of the statue's face. But
luckily progress hasn't yet got so far.
Death still remains.'
'It
remains,' Anthony repeated. 'But the
smokescreen is pretty thick. We manage
to forget it most of the time.'
'But
not all the time. It remains,
unexorcizably. Intact. Indeed,' Mark
qualified, 'more than intact. We have
bigger and better smokescreens than our fathers had. But behind the smoke the enemy is more
formidable. Death's grown, I should say,
now that the consolations and hopes have been taken away. Grown to be almost as large as it was when
people seriously believed in hell.
Because, if you're a busy film-going, newspaper-reading,
football-watching, chocolate-eating modern, then death is hell. Every time the smokescreen thins out a bit,
people catch a glimpse and are terrified.
I find that a very consoling thought.'
He smiled again. 'It makes up for
a great deal. Even for those busy little
dogs on the acropolis.' There was a
silence. Then, in another tone, 'It's a
comfort,' he resumed, 'to think that death remains faithful. Everything else may have gone; but death
remains faithful,' he repeated. 'If we
choose to risk our lives, we can risk them as completely as ever we did.' He rose, took a turn or two about the room;
then, coming to a halt in front of Anthony's chair, 'That's what I really came
to see you about,' he said.
'What?'
'About
this business of risking one's life.
I've been feeling as though I were stuck. Bogged to the neck in civilized
humanity.' He made the grimace of one
who encounters a foul smell. 'There
seemed to be only one way out. Taking
risks again. It would be like a whiff of
fresh air. I thought perhaps that you
too
' He left the sentence unfinished.
'I've
never taken a risk,' said Anthony, after a pause. 'Only had one taken for me once,' he added,
remembering the bumpkin with the hand-grenade.
'Isn't
that a reason for beginning.'
'The
trouble,' said Anthony, frowning to himself, 'the trouble is that I've always
been a coward. A moral one,
certainly. Perhaps also a physical one
I don't know. I've never really had an
opportunity of finding out.'
'I
should have thought that that was a still more cogent reason.'
'Perhaps.'
'If
it's a case of changing the basis of one's life, wouldn't it be best to change
it with a bang?'
'Bang
into a corpse?'
'No,
no. Just a risk; not suicide. It's merely dangerous, the business I'm
thinking of. No more.' He sat down again. 'I had a letter the other day,' he
began. 'From an old friend of mine in
Mexico. A man I worked with on the
coffee finca. Jorge Fuentes, by
name. A remarkable creature, in his
way.'
He
outlined Don Jorge's history. Besieged
by the revolutionaries on his estate in the valley of Oaxaca. Most of the other landowners had fled. He was one of the only men who put up a
resistance. At first he had had his two
brothers to help him. But they were
killed, one at long range, the other by machetes in an ambush among the cactuses. He had carried on the fight
single-handed. Then, one day when he was
out riding round the fields, a dozen of them managed to break into the house. He had come home to find the bodies of his
wife and their two little boys lying mangled in the courtyard. After that, the place seemed no longer worth
defending. He stayed long enough to
shoot three of the murderers, then abandoned his patrimony and went to work for
other men. It was during this period
that Mark had known him. Now he
possessed his own house again and some land; acted as agent for most of the
planters on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca state; recruited their labour for them
in the mountain villages, and was the only man the Indians trusted, the only
one who didn't try to swindle theme. Recently,
however, there had been trouble. Don
Jorge had gone into politics, become the leader of a party, made enemies and
hardly less dangerous friends. He was in
opposition now; the state governor was persecuting him and his allies. A bad man, according to Don Jorge; corrupt,
unjust unpopular too. It shouldn't be
difficult to get rid of him. Some of the
troops would certainly come over. But
before he started, Don Jorge wanted to
know if there was any prospect of Mark's being in the neighbourhood of Oaxaca
in the immediate future.
'Poor
old Jorge! He had a most touching belief
in the soundness of my judgement.' Mark
laughed. Thus to understate Don Jorge's
faith in him, thus to withhold the reasons of that faith, sent a glow of
satisfaction running through his body.
He might have told Anthony of that occasion when the old ass had gone
and let himself be caught by bandits, and of the way he had been rescued. And good story, and creditable to
himself. But not to tell it gave him
more pleasure than telling it would have done.
'True, it's better than his judgement,' Mark went on. 'But that isn't saying much. Don Jorge's brave brave as a lion; but
foolhardly. No sense of reality. He'll make a mess of his coup d'ιtat.'
'Unless
you are there to help him, I take it.
And do you propose to be there?'
Mark
nodded. 'I've written him that I'll
start as soon as I can settle my affairs in England. It occurred to me that you
' Again he left
the sentence unfinished and looked enquiringly at Anthony.
'Do
you think it's a good cause?' Anthony asked at last.
The
other laughed. 'As good as any other
Mexican politician's cause,' he answered.
'Is
that good enough?'
'For
my purpose. And anyhow, what is a good
cause? Tyranny under commissars, tyranny
under Gauleiters it doesn't seem to make much difference. A drill-sergeant is always a drill-sergeant,
whatever the colour of his shirt.'
'Revolution
for revolution's sake, then?'
'No,
for mine. For the sake of every man who
takes part in the thing. For every man
can get as much fun out of it as I can.'
'I
expect it would be good for me,' Anthony brought out after a pause.'
'I'm
sure it would be.'
'Though
I'm devilishly frightened even at this distance.'
'That'll
make it all the more interesting.'
Anthony
drew a deep breath. 'All right,' he said
at last. 'I'll come with you.' Then vehemently, 'It's the most stupid,
senseless idea I've ever heard of,' he concluded. 'So, as I've always been so clever and
sensible
' He broke off and, laughing, reached for his pipe and the tin of
tobacco.
CHAPTER
XXXII
July
29th 1934
With Helen today to hear Miller speaking at
Tower Hill, during the dinner hour. A
big crowd. He spoke well the right
mixture of arguments, jokes, emotional appeal.
The theme, peace. Peace
everywhere or no peace at all.
International peace not achievable unless a translation into policy of
inter-individual relations. Militarists
at home, in factory, and office, towards inferiors and rivals, cannot logically
expect governments which represent them to behave as pacifists. Hypocrisy and stupidity of those who advocate
peace between states, while conducting private wars in business or the
family. Meanwhile, there was much
heckling by communists in the crowd. How
can anything be achieved without revolution?
Without liquidating the individuals and classes standing in the way of
social progress? And so on. Answer (always with extraordinary good humour
and wit): means determine ends. Violence
and coercion produce a post-revolutionary society, not communistic but (like
the Russian) hierarchical, ruled by an oligarchy using secret police
methods. And all the rest.
After
about a quarter of an hour, an angry young heckler climbed on to the little
wall, where Miller was standing, and threatened to knock him off if he didn't
stop. 'Come on then, Archibald.' The crowd laughed; the young man grew still
angrier, advanced, clenched, squared up.
'Get down, you old bastard, or else
' Miller stood quite still,
smiling, hands by side, saying, All right; he had no objection to being knocked
off. The attacker made sparring
movements, brought a fist to within an inch of Miller's nose. The old man didn't budge, showed no sign of
fear or anger. The other drew back the
hand, but instead of bringing it into Miller's face, hit him on the chest. Pretty hard.
Miller staggered, lost his balance and fell off the wall into the crowd. Apologized to the people he'd fallen on,
laughed, got up again on to the wall.
Repetition of the performance.
Again the young man threatened the face, but again, when Miller didn't
lift his hands, or show either fear or anger, hit him on the chest. Miller went down and again climbed up. Got another blow. Came up once more. This time the man screwed himself up to
hitting the face, but only with the flat of his hand. Miller straightened his head and went on
smiling. 'Three shots a penny,
Archibald.' The man let out at the body
and knocked him off the wall. Up
again. Miller looked at his watch. 'Another ten minutes before you need go back
to work, Archibald. Come on.' But this time the man could only bring
himself to shake his fist and call Miller a bloodsucking old reactionary. Then turned and walked off along the wall,
pursued by derisive laughter, jokes and whistlings from the crowd. Miller went on with his speech.
Helen's
reaction was curious. Distress at the spectacle of the young man's brutality
towards the old. But at the same time
anger with Miller for allowing himself to be knocked about without
resistance. The reason for this
anger? Obscure; but I think she resented
Miller's success. Resented the fact that
the young man had been reduced, psychologically, to impotence. Resented the demonstration that there was an
alternative to terrorism and a non-violent means of combating it. 'It's only a trick,' she said. Not a very easy trick, I insisted; and that I
certainly couldn't perform it. 'Anyone
could learn it, if he tried.' 'Possibly;
wouldn't it be a good thing if we all tried?'
'No, I think it's stupid.'
Why? She found it hard to
answer. 'Because it's unnatural,' was
the reason she managed to formulate at last and proceeded to develop it in
terms of a kind of egalitarian philosophy.
'I want to be like other people.
To have the same feelings and interests.
I don't want to make myself different.
Just an ordinary person; not somebody who's proud of having learnt a
difficult trick. Like that old Miller of
yours.' I pointed out that we'd all
learned such difficult tricks as driving cars, working in offices, reading and
writing, crossing the street. Why
shouldn't we all learn this other difficult trick? A trick, potentially, so much more useful. If all were to learn it, then one could
afford to be like other people, one could share all their feelings in safety,
with the certainty that one would be sharing something good, not bad. But Helen wasn't to be persuaded. And when I suggested that we should join the
old man for a late lunch, she refused.
Said she didn't want to know him.
That the young man had been quite right; Miller was a reactionary. Disguising himself in a shroud of talk about
economic justice; but underneath just a tory agent. His insistence that changes in social
organization weren't enough, but that they must be accompanied by, must spring
from a change in personal relations what was that but a plea for
conservatism? 'I think he's pernicious,'
she said. 'And I think you're pernicious.' But she consented to have lunch with me. Which showed how little stock she set on my
powers to shake her convictions!
Arguments I might have lots of good arguments; to those she was
impervious. But Miller's action had got
between the joints of her armour. He
acted his doctrine, didn't rest content with talking it. Her confidence that I couldn't get between
the joints, as he had done, was extremely insulting. The more so as I knew it was justified.
Perseverance,
courage, endurance. All, fruits of
love. Love goodness enough, and
indifference and slackness are inconceivable.
Courage comes as to the mother defending her child; and at the same time
there is no fear of the opponent, who is loved, whatever he may do, because of
the potentialities for goodness in him.
As for pain, fatigue, disapproval they are borne cheerfully, because
they seem of no consequence by comparison with the goodness loved and
pursued. Enormous gulf separating me
from this state! The fact that Helen was
not afraid of my perniciousness (as being only theoretical), while dreading
Miller's (because his life was the same as his argument), was a painful
reminded of the existence of this gulf.
CHAPTER
XXXIII
July 18th 1914
The curtain rose, and before them was
Venice, green in the moonlight, with Iago and Roderigo talking together in the
deserted street.
'Light,
I say! Light!' Brabantio called from his window. And in an instant the street was thronged,
there was a clanking of weapons and armour, torches and lanterns burned yellow
in the green darkness...
'Horribly
vulgar scenery, I'm afraid,' said Anthony as the curtain fell after the first
scene.
Joan
looked at him in surprise. 'Was
it?' Then: 'Yes, I suppose it was,' she
added, hypocritically paying the tribute of philistinism to taste. In reality, she had thought it too
lovely. 'You know,' she confessed, 'this
is only the fifth time I've ever been in a theatre.'
'Only
the fifth time?' he repeated incredulously.
But
here was another street and more armed men and Iago again, bluff and hearty,
and Othello himself, dignified like a king, commanding in every word and
gesture; and when Brabantio came in with all his men, and the torchlight
glittering on the spears and halberds, how ironically serene! 'Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will
rust them.' A kind of anguish ran up and
down her spine as she listened, as she saw the dark hand lifted, as the
sword-points dropped, under his irresistible compulsion, towards the ground.
'He
speaks the lines all right,' Anthony admitted.
The
council chamber was rich with tapestry; the red-robed senators came and
went. And here was Othello again. Still kingly, but with a kingliness that
expressed itself, not in commands, this time, not in the lifting of a hand, but
on a higher plane than that of the real world in the calm, majestic music of
the record of his wooing.
Wherein
of antres vast and deserts idle,
Rough
quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch
heaven,
It
was my hint to speak
Her
lips moved as she repeated the familiar words after him familiar but transfigured
by the voice, the bearing of the speaker, the setting, so that, though she knew
them by heart, they seemed completely new.
And here was Desdemona, so young, so beautiful, with her neck and her
bare shoulders rising frail and slender out of the heavy magnificence of her
dress. Sumptuous brocade, and beneath
it, the lovely irrelevance of a girl's body; beneath the splendid words, a
girl's voice.
You
are the lord of duty,
I
am hitherto your daughter; but here's my husband.
She felt again that creeping anguish along
her spine. And now they were all gone,
Othello, Desdemona, senators, soldiers, all the beauty, all the nobleness
leaving only Iago and Roderigo whispering together in the empty room. 'When she is sated of his body, she will find
the error of her choice.' And then that
fearful soliloquy. Evil, deliberate and
conscious of itself
The
applause, the lights of the entre'-acte were a sacrilegious irrelevance; and
when Anthony offered to buy her a box of chocolates she refused almost
indignantly.
'Do
you think there really are people like Iago?' she asked.
He
shook his head. 'Men don't tell
themselves that the wrong they're doing is wrong. Either they do it without thinking. Or else they invent reasons for believing
it's right. Iago's a bad man who passes
other people's judgments of him upon himself.'
The
lights went down again. They were in
Cyprus. Under a blazing sun, Desdemona's
arrival; the Othello's and oh, the protective tenderness of his love!
The
sun had set. In cavernous twilight,
between stone walls, the drinking, the quarrel, the rasping of sword on sword,
and Othello again, kingly and commanding, imposing silence, calling them all to
obedience. Kingly and commanding for the
last time. For in the scenes that
followed, how terrible it was to watch the great soldier, the holder of high
office, the civilized Venetian, breaking down, under Iago's disintegrating
touches, breaking down into the African, into the savage, into the uncontrolled
and primordial beast! 'Handkerchief
confessions handkerchief!... Noses, ears, and lips! Is it possible?' And then the determination to kill. 'Do it not with poison, strangle her in bed,
even the bed she hath contaminated.' And
afterwards the horrible outburst of his anger against Desdemona, the blow
delivered in public; and in the humiliating privacy of the locked room, that
colloquy between the kneeling girl and an Othello, momentarily sane again, but
sane with the base, ignoble sanity of Iago, cynically knowing only the worst,
believing in the possibility only of what was basest.
I
cry you mercy then;
I
took you for that cunning whore of Venice
That
married with Othello.
There
was a hideous note of derision in his voice, an undertone of horrible obscene laughter. Irrepressibly, she began to tremble.
'I
can't bear it,' she whispered to Anthony between the scenes. 'Knowing what's going to happen. It's too awful. I simply can't bear it.'
Her
face was pale, she spoke with a violent intensity of feeling.
'Well,
let's go,' he suggested. 'At once.'
She
shook her head. 'No, no. I must see it to the end. Must.'
'But
if you can't bear it
?'
'You
mustn't ask me to explain. Not now.'
The
curtain rose again.
My
mother had a maid call'd Barbara;
She
was in love, and he she lov'd prov'd mad
And
did forsake her; she had a song of 'willow'.
Her heart was beating heavily; she felt
sick with anticipation. In an almost
childish voice, sweet, but thin and untrained, Desdemona began to sing.
The
poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,
Sing
all a green willow
The
vision wavered before Joan's eyes, became indistinct; the tears rolled down her
cheeks.
It
was over at last; they were out in the street again.
Joan
drew a deep breath. 'I feel I'd like to
go for a long walk,' she said. 'Miles
and miles without stopping.'
'Well,
you can't,' he said shortly. 'Not in
those clothes.'
Joan
looked at him with an expression of pained astonishment. 'You're angry with me,' she said.
Blushing,
he did his best to smile it off.
'Angry? Why on earth should I be
angry?' But she was right, of
course. He was angry angry with
everyone and everything that entered into the present insufferable situation:
with Mary for having pushed him into it; with himself for having allowed her to
push him in; with Joan for being the subject of that monstrous bet; with Brian
because he was ultimately responsible for the whole thing; with Shakespeare,
even, and the actors and this jostling crowd
'Don't
be cross,' she pleaded. 'It's been such
a lovely evening. If you knew how
marvellous it's made me feel! But I have
to be so careful with the marvellousness.
Like carrying a cup that's full to the brim. The slightest jolt and down it goes. Let me carry it safely home.'
Her
words made him feel embarrasssed, almost guilty. He laughed nervously. 'Do you think you can carry it home safely in
a hansom?' he asked.
Her
face lit up with pleasure at the suggestion.
He waved his hand; the cab drew up in front of them. They climbed in and closed the doors upon
themselves. The driver jerked his
reins. The old horse walked a few steps,
then, at the crack of the whip, broke reluctantly into a very slow trot. Along Coventry Street, through the glare of
the Circus into Piccadilly. Above the
spire of St James's the dilute blackness of the sky was flushed with a coppery
glow. Reflected in the polished darkness
of the roadway, the long recession of the lamps seems inexpressibly mournful,
like a reminder of death. But here were
the trees of the Green Park bright wherever the lamplight struck upwards into
the leaves with an unearthly, a more than spring-like freshness. There was life as well as death.
Joan
sat in silence, holding firm within herself the fragile cup of that strange
happiness that was also and at the same time intensest sadness. Desdemona was dead, Othello was dead, and the
lamps retreating forever down their narrowing vistas were symbols of the same
destiny. And yet the melancholy of these
converging parallels and the pain of the tragedy were as essential constituents
of her present joy as her delight in the splendour of the poetry, as her
pleasure in the significant and almost allegorical beauty of those illumined
leaves. For this joy of hers was not one
particular emotion exclusive of all others; it was all emotions a state, so
to speak, of general and undifferentiated movedness. The overtones and aftertones of horror, of
delight, of pity and laughter all lingered harmoniously in her mind. She sat there, behind the slowly trotting
horse, serene, but with a serenity that contained the potentiality of every
passion. Sadness, delight, fear, mirth
they were all there at once, impossibly conjoined within her mind. She cherished the precarious miracle.
A
hansom, he was thinking it was the classical opportunity. They were already at Hyde Park Corner; by
this time he ought at least to have been holding her hand. But she sat there like a statue, staring at
nothing, in another world. She would
feel outraged if he were to call her roughly back to reality.
'I
shall have to invent a story for Mary,' he decided. But it wouldn't be easy; Mary had an
extraordinary talent for detecting lies.
Reined
in, the old horse gingerly checked itself, came to a halt. They had arrived. Oh, too soon, Joan thought, too soon. She would have liked to drive on like this
for ever, nursing in silence her incommunicable joy. It was with a sigh that she stepped on to the
pavement.
'Aunt
Fanny said you were to come and say goodnight to her if she was still up.'
That
meant that the last chance of doing it had gone, he reflected, as he followed
her up the steps and into the dimly lighted hall.
'Aunt
Fanny,' Joan called softly as she opened the drawing-room door. But there was no answer; the room was dark.
'Gone
to bed?'
She
turned back towards him and nodded affirmatively. They stood there for a moment in silence.
'I
shall have to go,' he said at last.
'It
was a wonderful evening, Anthony. Simply
wonderful.'
'I'm
glad you enjoyed it.' Behind his smile,
he was thinking with apprehension that that last chance had not yet
disappeared.
'It
was more than enjoying,' she said. 'It
was
I don't know how to say what it was.'
She smiled at him, added, 'Goodnight,' and held out her hand.
Anthony
took it, said goodnight in his turn; then, suddenly deciding that it was now or
never, stepped closer, laid an arm round her shoulder and kissed her.
The
suddenness of his decision and his embarrassment imparted to his movement a clumsy
abruptness indistinguishable from that which would have been the result of a
violent impulse irrepressibly breaking through restraints. His lips touched her cheek first of all, then
found her mouth. She made as if to
withdraw, to avert her face; but the movement was checked almost before it was
begun. Her mouth came back to his, drawn
irresistibly. All the diffuse and
indefinite emotion that had accumulated within her during the evening suddenly
crystallized, as it were, round her surprise and the evidence of his desire and
this almost excruciating pleasure that, from her lips, invaded her whole body
and took possession of her mind. The
astonishment and anger of the first second were swallowed up in an apocalypse
of new sensations. It was as though a
quiet darkness were violently illuminated, as though the relaxed dumb strings
of an instrument had been wound up and were vibrating ever more shrilly and
piercingly, until at last the brightness and the tension annihilated themselves
in their own excess. She felt herself
becoming empty; enormous spaces opened up within her, gulfs of darkness.
Anthony
felt her body droop limp and heavy in his arms.
So heavy indeed, and with so unexpected a weight, that he almost lost
his balance. He staggered, then braced
himself and held her up more closely.
'What
is it, Joan?'
She
did not answer, but leaned her forehead against his shoulder. He could feel that if he were now to let her
go, she would fall. Perhaps she was ill. He would have to call for help wake up the
aunt explain what had happened
Wondering desperately what to do, he looked
about him. The lamp in the hall
projected through the open door of the drawing-room a strip of light that
revealed the end of a sofa covered with yellow chintz. Still holding her up with one arm about her
shoulders, he bent down and slid the other behind her knees; then, with an
effort (for she was heavier than he had imagined), lifted her off her feet,
carried her along the narrow path of illumination that led into the darkness,
and lowered her as gently as her weight would allow him on to the sofa.
Kneeling
on the floor beside her, 'Are you feeling better now?' he asked.
Joan
drew a deep breath, passed a hand across her forehead, then opened her eyes and
looked at him, but only for a moment; overcome by an access of timidity and
shame, she covered her face with her hands.
'I'm so sorry,' she whispered. 'I
don't know what happened. I felt so
faint all of a sudden.' She was silent
for a little; the lamps were alight again, the stretched wires were vibrating
but tolerably, not to excess. She parted
her hands once more and turned towards him, shyly smiling.
With
eyes that had grown accustomed to the faint light, he looked anxiously into her
face. Thank God, she seemed to be all
right. He wouldn't have to call the
aunt. His feeling of relief was so
profound that he took her hand and pressed it tenderly.
'You're
not cross with me, Anthony?'
'Why
should I be?'
'Well,
you have every right. Fainting like that
' Her face felt naked and exposed; withdrawing her hand from his grasp, she
once more hid her shame. Fainting like
that
The recollection humiliated her.
Thinking of that sudden, silent, violent gesture of his, 'He loves me,'
she said to herself. And Brian? But
Brian's absence seemed to have been raised to a higher power. He was not there with an unprecedented
intensity, not there to the point of never having been there. All that was really there was this living
presence beside her the presence of desire, the presence of hands and mouth,
the presence, potential but waiting to actualize itself again, of those
kisses. She felt her breast lift, though
she was unaware of having taken a deep breath; it was as though someone else
had drawn it. 'He loves me,' she
repeated; it was a justification. She
dropped her hands from her face, looked at him for a moment, then reached out
and, whispering his name, drew his head down towards her.
'Well,
what's the result?' Mary called from the sofa as he entered. By the gloomy expression on Anthony's face
she judged that it was she who had won the bet; and this annoyed her. She felt suddenly very angry with him
doubly and trebly angry; because he was so spiritless; because he hadn't cared
enough for her to win his bet in spite of the spiritlessness; because he was
forcing upon her a gesture which she didn't in the least want to make. After a day's motoring with him in the
country she had come to the conclusion that Sidney Gattick was absolutely
insufferable. By contrast, Anthony
seemed the most charming of men. She
didn't want to banish him, even temporarily.
But her threat had been solemn and explicit; if she didn't carry it out,
at least in part, all her authority was gone.
And now the wretch was forcing her to keep her word. In a tone of angry reproach, 'You've been a
coward and lost,' she said. 'I can see
it.'
He
shook his head. 'No, I've won.'
Mary
regarded him doubtfully. 'I believe you're lying.'
'I'm
not.' He sat down beside her on the
sofa.
'Well,
then, why do you look so glum? It's not
very flattering to me.'
'Why
on earth did you make me do it?' he burst out.
'It was idiotic.' It had also
been wrong; but Mary would only laugh if he said that. 'I always knew it was idiotic. But you insisted.' His voice was shrill with a complaining
resentment. 'And now God knows where
I've landed myself.' Where he'd landed
Joan and Brian, for that matter. 'God
knows.'
'But
explain,' cried Mary Amberley, 'explain!
Don't talk like a minor prophet.' Her eyes were bright with laughing
curiosity. She divined some delightfully
involved and fantastic situation.
'Explain,' she repeated.
'Well,
I did what you told me,' he answered sullenly.
'Hero!'
'There's
nothing funny about it.'
'What!
did you get your face slapped?'
Anthony
frowned angrily and shook his head.
'Then
how did she take it?'
'That's
just the trouble: she took it seriously.'
'Seriously?'
Mary questioned. 'You mean, she
threatened to tell papa?'
'I
mean, she thought I was in love with her.
She wants to break it off with Brian.'
Mrs
Amberley threw back her head and gave utterance to a peal of her clear, richly
vibrant laughter.
Anthony
felt outraged. 'It's not a joke.'
'That's
where you make your mistake.' Mary wiped
her eyes and took a deep breath. 'It's
one of the best jokes I ever heard. But
what do you propose to do?'
'I
shall have to tell her it's all a mistake.'
'That'll
be an admirable scene!'
He
shook his head. 'I shall write a
letter.'
'Courageous,
as usual!' She patted his knee. 'But now I want to hear the details. How was it that you let her go as far as she
did? To the point of thinking you were
in love with her. To the point of
wanting to break it off with Brian.
Couldn't you nip it in the bud?'
'It
was difficult,' he muttered, avoiding her inquisitive eye. 'The situation
well, it got a bit out of
control.'
'You
mean, you lost your head?'
'If
you like to put it that way,' he admitted reluctantly, thinking what a fool he
had been, what an utter fool. He ought,
of course, to have retreated when she turned towards him in the darkness; he
ought to have refused her kisses, to have made it quite clear that his own had
been lighthearted and without significance.
But instead of that he had accepted them: out of laziness and cowardice,
because it had been too much of an effort to make the necessary and necessarily
difficult explanation; out of a certain weak and misplaced kindness of heart,
because it would have hurt and humiliated her if he had said no and to
inflict a suffering he could actually witness was profoundly distasteful to
him. And having accepted, he had enjoyed
her kisses, had returned them with a fervour which he knew to be the
result only of a detached, a momentary sensuality, but which Joan, it was
obvious now (and he had known it even at the time), would inevitably regard as
being roused specifically by herself, as having her for its special and
irreplaceable object. An impartial
observer would say that he had done his best, had gone out of his way, to
create the greatest possible amount of misunderstanding in the shortest
possible time.
'How
do you propose to get out of it?' Mary asked.
He
hated her for putting the question that was tormenting him. 'I shall write her a letter,' he said. As though that were an answer!
'And
what will Brian say about it?'
'I'm
going to stay with him tomorrow,' he replied irrelevantly. 'In the Lakes.'
'Like
Wφ-φdsworth,' said Mary. 'What fun
that'll be! And what exactly do you
propose to tell him about Joan?' she went on inexorably.
'Oh,
I shall explain.'
'But
suppose Joan explains first in a different way?'
He
shook his head. 'I told her I didn't
want her to write to Brian before I'd talked to him.'
'And
you think she'll do what you ask?'
'Why
shouldn't she?'
Mary
shrugged her shoulders and looked at him, smiling crookedly, her eyes bright
between narrowed eyelids. 'Why should
she, if it comes to that?'
CHAPTER
XXXIV
March 3rd 1928
'Reorganization
' 'Readjustment
'
'Writing down of capital values in the light of existing trade condition
'
Anthony lifted his eyes from the printed page.
Propped up on her pillows, Mary Amberley was staring at him, he found,
with an embarrassing intentness.
'Well?'
she asked, leaning forward. Hennaed to
an impossible orange, a lock of tousled hair fell drunkenly across her
forehead. Her bed-jacket opened as she
moved; under soiled lace, the breasts swung heavily towards him. 'What does it mean?'
'It
means that they're going bankrupt on you?'
'Going
bankrupt?'
Paying
you six and eightpence in the pound.'
'But
Gerry told me they were doing so well,' she protested in a tone of angry
complaint.
'Gerry
doesn't know everything,' he charitably explained.
But,
of course, the ruffian had known only too well; had known, had acted on his
knowledge, had been duly paid by the people who wanted to unload their shares
before the crash came. 'Why don't you
ask him about it?' he said aloud, and in a tone that implied some of the
resentment he felt at having been dragged, this very evening of his return from
New York, into the entanglements of Mary's squalid tragedy. Everyone else, he supposed, had fled from her
since she started taking that morphia; alone of all her friends, having been
out of England for half a year, he had had as yet no opportunity and been given
no reason to flee. Absence had preserved
their friendship, as though in cold storage, in the state it was in before he
left. When she had asked him urgently to
come and see her, he had no excuse to refuse.
Besides, people exaggerated; she couldn't be as bad as they made out.
'Why
don't you ask him?' he repeated irritably.
'He's
gone to Canada.'
'Oh,
he's gone to Canada.'
There
was a silence. He laid the paper down on
the coverlet. Mrs Amberley picked it up
and re-read it for the hundredth time, in the absurd and desperate hope that
there might, this hundredth time, be something new in it, something different.
Anthony
looked at her. The lamp on the bed-table
lit up the profile she presented to him with a ruthlessly revealing
brilliance. How hollow the cheeks
were! And those lines round the mouth,
those discoloured pouches of skin beneath the eyes! Remembering how she looked when he had seen
her last, that time in Berkshire, only the previous summer, Anthony was
appalled. The drug had aged her twenty
years in half as many months. And it was
not only her body that had been ravaged; the morphia had also changed her
character, transformed her into someone else, someone (there had been no
exaggeration at all) much worse. That
engaging absence of mind, for example, that vagueness, of which, as of yet
another feminine allurement, she always used to be so irritatingly vain, had
now degenerated into almost an idiot's indifference. She forgot, she wasn't aware; above all, she
didn't care, she couldn't any longer be bothered. Grotesquely dyed (in the hope, he supposed,
of regaining some of the attractiveness which she could not help noticing that she
had lost), the hair was greasy and uncombed.
A smear of red paint, clumsily laid on, enlarged her lower lip into an
asymmetrical shapelessness. A
cigarette-end had burned a round hole in the eiderdown, and the feathers
fluttered up like snowflakes each time she moved. The pillows were smudged with rouge and yolk
of egg. There was a brown stain of
coffee on the turned-back sheet. Between
her body and the wall, the tray on which her dinner had been brought up stood
precariously tilted. Still stained with
gravy, a knife had slipped on to the counterpane.
With
a sudden movement, Mrs Amberley crumpled up the paper and threw it from
her. 'That beast!' she cried, in a voice
that trembled with rage. 'That beast! He absolutely forced me to put my money into
this. And now look what's happened!' The tears overflowed, carrying the black of
her painted eyelashes in long sooty trickles down her cheeks.
'He
did it on purpose,' she went on through her angry sobbing. 'Just in order to harm me. He's a sadist, really. He likes hurting people. He does it for pleasure.'
'For
profit,' Anthony almost said; but checked himself. She seemed to derive some consolation from
the thought that she had been swindled, not from vulgarly commercial motives,
but gratuitously, because of a fiendishness allied to and springing from the
passion of love. It would be unkind to
deprive her of that illusion. Let the
poor woman think the thoughts she found least painfully humiliating. Besides, the less she was contradicted and
diverted, the sooner, it might be hoped, would she stop. Prudently as well as considerately, he
contented himself with a non-committed nod.
'When
I think of all I did for that man!' Mary Amberley burst out. But while she recited her incoherent
catalogue of generosities and kindnesses, Anthony could not help thinking of
what the man had done for her; above all, of the terms in which Gerry was
accustomed to describe what he had done.
Gross, extravagantly cynical terms.
Terms of an incredible blackguardism.
One was startled, one was set free into sudden laughter; and one was
ashamed that such inadmissible brutalities should contain any element of
liberating truth. And yet they were
true.
'All
the most intelligent people in London,' Mrs Amberley was sobbing. 'He met them all at my house.'
'These
old hags!' Gerry Watchett's voice
sounded clearly in Anthony's memory.
'They'll do anything to get it, absolutely anything.'
'Not
that he ever appreciated them,' she went on.
'He was too stupid for that, too barbarous.'
'Not
a bad old bitch really, if she gets enough of it to keep her quiet. The problem is to give her enough. It's uphill work, I can tell you.'
The
tone changed from anger to self-pity.
'But what shall I do?' she wailed.
'What can I do? Without a
penny. Living on charity.'
He
tried to reassure her. There was still
something. Quite a decent little sum,
really. She would never starve. If she lived carefully, if she economized
'But
I shall have to give up this house,' she interrupted, and, when he agreed that
of course she would have to give it up, broke out into new and louder
lamentations. Giving up the house was
worse than being penniless and living on charity worse, because more
conceivable, a contingency nearer to the realities of her actual life. Without her pictures, without her furniture,
how could she live? She was made
physically ill by ugliness. And then
small rooms she developed claustrophobia in small rooms. And how could she possibly manage without her
books? How did he expect her to work,
when she was poor? For of course she was
going to work; had already planned to write a critical study of the modern
French novel. Yes, how did he
expect her to do that, if he deprived her of her books?
Anthony
stirred impatiently in his chair. 'I
don't expect you to do anything,' he said.
'I'm simply telling you what you'll find you've got to do.'
There
was a long silence. Then, with a little
smile that she tried to make ingratiating and appealing, 'Now you're angry with
me,' she said.
'Not
in the least. I'm merely asking you to
face the facts.' He rose, and feeling
himself in danger of being inextricably entangled in Mary's misfortune,
symbolically asserted his right to be free by walking restlessly up and down
the room. 'I ought to talk to her about
the morphia,' he was thinking; 'try to persuade her to go into a home and get
cured. For her own sake. For the sake of poor Helen.' But he knew Mary. She'd start to protest, she'd scream, she'd
fly into a rage. It would be like a
public-house brawl. Or worse, much
worse, he thought with a shudder, she'd repent, she'd make promises, she'd melt
into tears. He would find himself her
only friend, her moral support for life.
In the end, he said nothing. 'It
wouldn't do any good,' he assured himself.
'It never does do any good with these morphia cases.' 'One's got to come to terms with reality,' he
said aloud. Meaningless platitude but
what else was there to say?
Unexpectedly,
with a submissive alacrity that he found positively disquieting, she agreed with
him. Oh, absolutely agreed! It was no use crying over spilt milk. No use building castles in the air. What was needed was a plan lots of plans
serious, practical, sensible plans for the new life. She smiled at him with an air of connivance,
as though they were a pair of conspirators.
Reluctantly,
and with mistrust, he accepted here invitation to sit on the edge of the
bed. The plans unfolded themselves
serious to a degree. A little flat in
Hampstead. Or else a tiny house in one
of those slummy streets off the King's Road, Chelsea. She could still give an occasional party,
very cheaply. The real friends would
come, in spite of the cheapness wouldn't they? she insisted with a rather
pathetic anxiety to be reassured.
'Of
course,' he had to say; though it wasn't the cheapness that would put them off;
it was the dirt, the squalor, the morphia, this sickening smell of ether on the
breath.
'One
can have bottle parties,' she was saying.
'It'll be fun!' Her face
brightened. 'What sort of bottle will
you bring, Anthony?' And before he could
answer, 'We shall get infinitely tight with all those mixed drinks,' she
went on. 'Infinitely
' A moment
later she had begun to tell him about the advances that George Wyvern had taken
it into his head to make to her these days.
Rather embarrassing, in the circumstances seeing that Sally Wyvern was
also
well! She smiled that enigmatic
smile of hers, close-lipped and between half-shut eyelids. And what was really too extraordinary,
even old Hugh Ledwidge had recently shown signs
Anthony
listened in astonishment. Those
pathetically few real friends had been transformed, as though by magic, into
positively a host of eager lovers. Did
she seriously believe in her own inventions?
But anyhow, he went on to think, it didn't seem to matter whether she
believed in them or not. Even
unbelieved, these fictions evidently had power to raise her spirits, to restore
her, at least for the moment, to a state of cheerful self-confidence.
'That
time in Paris,' she was saying intimately.
'Do you remember?'
But
this was awful!
'The
Hτtel des Saints-Pθres.' Her voice
deepened and vibrated with a subterranean laughter.
Anthony
nodded without raising his head. She had
obviously wanted him to echo her hint of significant mirth, to take up the
scabrous reference to that old joke of theirs about the Holy Fathers and their
own amusements under that high ecclesiastical patronage. In their private language, 'doing a slight
Holy Father,' or, yet more idiomatically, 'doing Holiers,' had signified
'making love.' Her frowned, feeling
suddenly very angry. How did she dare
?
The
seconds passed. Making a desperate
effort to fill the icy gulf of his silence, 'We had a lot of fun,' said Mary in
a tone of sentimental reminiscence.
'A
lot,' he repeated, as unemphatically as possible.
Suddenly
she took his hand. 'Dear Anthony!'
'Oh,
God!' he thought, and tried, as politely as might be, to withdraw. But the clasp of those hot dry fingers never
relaxed.
'We
were fools to quarrel,' she went on. 'Or
rather, I was a fool.'
'Not
at all,' he said politely.
'That
stupid bet,' she shook her head. 'And
Sidney
'
'You
did what you wanted to do.'
'I
did what I didn't want to do,' she answered quickly. 'One's always doing things one doesn't want
stupidly, out of sheer perversity. One
chooses the worse just because it is the worse.
Hyperion to a satyr and therefore the satyr.'
'But
for certain purposes,' he couldn't resist saying, 'the satyr may be more satisfactory.'
Ignoring
his words, Mary sighed and shut her eyes.
'Doing
what one doesn't want,' she repeated, as though to herself. 'Always doing what one doesn't want.' She released his hand, and, clasping her own
behind her head, leaned back against the pillows in the attitude, the known and
familiar attitude, that in the Hτtel des Saints-Pθres had been so delicious in
its graceful indolence, so wildly exciting because of that white round throat
stretched back like a victim's, those proffered breasts, lifted and taut
beneath the lace. But today the lace was
soiled and torn, the breasts hung tired under their own weight, the victim
throat was no more a smooth column of white flesh, but withered, wrinkled,
hollow between starting tendons.
She
opened her eyes, and, with a start, he recognized the look she gave him as the
same, identically the same look, at once swooning and cynical, humorous and
languidly abandoned, as had invited him, irresistibly then, in Paris, fifteen
years ago. It was the look of 1913 in
the face of 1928 painfully out of its context. He stared at her for a second or two,
appalled; then managed to break the silence.
'I
shall have to go.'
But
before he could rise, Mrs Amberley had quickly leaned forward and laid her
hands on his shoulders.
'No,
don't go. You mustn't go.' She tried to repeat that laughingly
voluptuous invitation, but could not prevent a profound anxiety from showing in
her eyes.
Anthony
shook his head and, in spite of that sickening smell of ether, did his best to
smile as he lied about the supper-party he had promised to join at eleven. Gently, but with a firm and decided movement,
he lifted her confining hands and stood up by the side of the bed.
'Goodnight,
dear Mary!' The tone of his voice was
warm; he could afford to be affectionate, now.
'Bon courage!' He squeezed
her hands; then, bending down, kissed first one, then the other. Now that he was on his feet, and with the
road to freedom clear before him, he felt at liberty to plunge into almost any
emotional extravagance. But, instead of
taking the cue, Mary Amberley returned him a look that had now become fixed and
as though stony with unwavering misery.
The mask he had adjusted to be so radiant with whimsical
affectionateness seemed all of a sudden horribly out of keeping with the real
situation. He could feel its
irrelevance, physically, in the muscles of his face. Fool, hypocrite, coward! But it was almost at a run that he made
towards the door and hurried down the stairs.
'If
a woman,' Helen was reading in the Encyclopaedia, 'administers to herself any
poison or other noxious thing, or unlawfully uses any instrument or other means
to procure her own miscarriage, she is guilty of
' The sound of Anthony's feet
on the stairs caught her ear. She rose,
and quickly walked to the door and out on to the landing.
'Well?' She smiled no greeting in answer to his,
simulated no pleasure at seeing him. The
face she lifted was as tragically naked of all the conventional grimaces as her
mother's had been.
'But
what's the matter, Helen?' he was startled into exclaiming. She looked at him for a few seconds in
silence, then shook her head and began to ask him about those shares, the whole
financial position.
Obviously,
he was thinking as he answered her questions, one would expect her to find it
all very upsetting. But upsetting to
this point he looked at her again: no one wouldn't have expected that. It wasn't as if the girl had ever had a wild
devotion for her mother. In the teeth of
Mary's ferocious egotism, how could she?
And after all, it was nearly a year since that wretched woman had
started on her morphia. One would think
that by this time the horror would have lost some of its intensity. And yet he had never seen an unhappier
face. Such youth, such freshness it
wasn't right that they should be associated with an expression of so intense a
despair. The sight of her made him feel
somehow guilty guiltily responsible.
But when he made another gesture of enquiring sympathy, she only shook
her head again and turned away.
'You'd
better go,' she said.
Anthony
hesitated a moment, then went. After
all, she wanted him to go. Still feeling
guilty, but with a sense of profound relief, he closed the front door behind
him, and, drawing a deep breath, set off towards the Underground station.
Helen
went back to her volume of the Encyclopaedia '
to procure her own miscarriage,
she is guilty of felony. The punishment
for this offence is penal servitude for life, or not less than three years, or
imprisonment for not more than two years.
If the child is born alive
' But
they didn't say which the proper poisons were, nor what sort of instruments you
had to use, and how. Only this stupid
nonsense about penal servitude. Yet
another loophole of escape had closed against her. It was as though the whole world had
conspired to shut her in with her own impossibly appalling secret.
Melodiously,
the clock in the back drawing-room struck eleven. Helen rose, put the heavy volume back in its
place, and went upstairs to her mother's room.
With
an unwontedly careful precision of movement, Mrs Amberley was engaged, when her
daughter entered, in filling a hypodermic syringe from a little glass
ampoule. She started as the door opened,
looked up, made a movement as if to hide syringe and ampoule under the
bedclothes, then, fearful of spilling any of the precious liquor, checked
herself in the midst of her gesture.
'Go
away!' she called angrily. 'Why do you
come in without knocking? I won't have
you coming into my room without knocking,' she repeated more shrilly, glad of
the excuse she had discovered for her fury.
Helen
stood for a second or two in the doorway, quite still, as if incredulous of the
evidence of her own eyes; then hurried across the room.
'Give
those things to me,' she said, holding out her hand.
Mrs
Amberley shrank back towards the wall.
'Go away!' she shouted.
'But
you promised
'
'I
didn't.'
'You
did, Mummy.'
'I
did not. And, anyhow, I shall do what I
like.'
Without
speaking, Helen reached out and caught her mother by the wrist. Mrs Amberley screamed so loudly that, fearful
lest the servants should come down to see what was the matter, Helen relaxed
her grip.
Mrs
Amberley stopped screaming; but the look she turned on Helen was terrifying in
its malevolence. 'If you make me spill
any of this,' she said in a voice that trembled with rage, 'I shall kill
you. Kill you,' she repeated.
They
looked at one another for a moment without speaking. It was Helen who broke the silence. 'You'd like to kill me,' she said slowly,
'because I don't let you kill yourself.'
She shrugged her shoulders.
'Well, I suppose if you really want to kill yourself
' She left
the sentence unfinished.
Mrs
Amberley stared at her in silence. 'If
you really want
' She remembered the
words she had spoken to Anthony only a few minutes since, and suddenly the
tears ran down her cheeks. She was
overwhelmed with self-pity. 'Do you
think I want to do this?' she said brokenly. 'I hate it, I absolutely hate it. But I can't help it.'
Sitting
down on the edge of the bed, Helen put her arm round her mother's
shoulders. 'Mummy darling!' she
implored. 'Don't cry. It'll be all right.' She was profoundly moved.
'It's
all Gerry's fault,' Mrs Amberley cried; and without noticing the little
shuddering start Helen gave, 'everything's his fault,' she went on. 'Everything.
I always knew he was a beast.
Even when I cared for him most.'
As
though her mother had suddenly become a stranger whom it was not right to be
touching so intimately, Helen withdrew her encircling arm. 'You cared for him?' she whispered
incredulously. 'In that way?'
Answering
quite a different question, parrying a reproach that had never been made, 'I
couldn't help it,' Mrs Amberley replied.
'It was like this.' She
made a little movement with the hand that held the hypodermic syringe.
'You
mean,' said Helen, speaking very slowly, and as though overcoming an almost
invincible reluctance, 'you mean he was
he was your lover?'
The
strangeness of the tone aroused Mrs Amberley, for the first time since their
conversation had begun, to something like a consciousness of her daughter's
real, personal existence. Turning, she
looked at Helen with an expression of astonishment. 'You didn't know?' Confronted by that extraordinary pallor,
those uncontrollably trembling lips, the older woman was seized with a sudden
compunction. 'But, darling, I'm
sorry. I didn't imagine
You're still
so young; you don't understand. You
can't
But where are you going? Come
back! Helen!'
The
door slammed. Mrs Amberley made a move
to follow her daughter, then thought better of it, and, instead, resumed the
interrupted task of filling her hypodermic syringe.
CHAPTER
XXXV
August 4th 1934
Returned depressed from an evening with
Helen and half a dozen of her young political friends. Such a passion for 'liquidating' the people
who don't agree with them! And such a
sincere conviction that liquidation is necessary!
Revolting
but only to be expected. Regard the
problems of reform exclusively as a
matter of politics and economics, and you must approve and practise
liquidation.
Consider
recent history. Industrialism has grown pari
passu with population. Now, where
markets are expanding, the two besetting problems of all industrial societies
solve themselves. New inventions may
create technological unemployment; but expanding markets cure it as it's
made. Each individual may possess
inadequate purchasing power; but the total number of individuals is steadily
rising. Many small purchasing powers do
as much as fewer big ones.
Our
population is now stationary, will soon decline. Shrinkage instead of expansion of
markets. Therefore, no more automatic
solution of economic problems. Birth control
necessitates the use of co-ordinating political intelligence. There must be a large-scale plan. Otherwise the machine won't work. In other words, politicians will have to be
about twenty times as intelligent as heretofore. Will the supply of intelligence be equal to
the demand?
And
of course intelligence, as Miller's always insisting, isn't isolated. The act of intelligently planning modifies
the emotions of the planners. Consider
English politics. We've made plenty of
reforms without ever accepting the principles underlying them. (Compare the
king's titles with his present position.
Compare our protestations that we'll never have anything to do with
socialism with the realities of state control.)
There are no large-scale plans in English politics, and hardly any
thinking in terms of first principles.
With what results? Among others,
the English politics have been on the whole very good-natured. The reason is simple. Deal with practical problems as they arise
and without reference to first principles; politics are a matter of
higgling. Now higglers lose tempers, but
don't normally regard one another as fiends in human form. But this is precisely what men of principle
and systematic planners can't help doing.
A principle is, by definition, right; a plan, for the good of
the people. Axioms from which it
logically follows that those who disagree with you and won't help to realize
your plan are enemies of goodness and humanity.
No longer men and women, but personifications of evil, fiends
incarnate. Killing men and women is
wrong; but killing fiends is a duty.
Hence the Holy Office, hence Robespierre and the Ogpu. Men with strong religious and revolutionary
faith, men with well-thought-out plans for improving the lot of their fellows, whether
in this world or the next, have been more systematically and cold-bloodedly
cruel than any others. Thinking in terms
of first principles entails acting with machine-guns. A government with a comprehensive plan for
the betterment of society is a government that uses torture. Per contra, if you never consider
principles and have no plans, but deal with situations as they arise,
piecemeal, you can afford to have unarmed policemen, liberty of speech and habeas
corpus. Admirable. But what happens when an industrial society
leans (a) how to make technological advances at a constantly
accelerating speed, and (b) to prevent conception? Answer: it must either plan itself in
accordance with general political and economic principles, or else break
down. But governments with principles
and plans have generally been tyrannies making use of police spies and
terrorism. Must we resign ourselves to
slavery and torture for the sake of co-ordination?
Breakdown
on the one hand, Inquisition and Ogpu rule on the other. A real dilemma, if the plan is mainly
economic and political. But think in
terms of individual men, women, and children, not of States, Religions,
Economic Systems and such-like abstractions: there is then a hope of passing
between the horns. For if you begin by
considering concrete people, you see at once that freedom from coercion is a
necessary condition of their developing into full-grown human beings; that the
form of economic prosperity which consists in possessing unnecessary objects
doesn't make for individual wellbeing; that a leisure filled with passive
amusements is not a blessing; that the conveniences of urban life are bought at
a high physiological and mental price; that an education which allows you to
use yourself wrongly is almost valueless; that a social organization resulting
in individuals being forced, every few years, to go out and murder one another
must be wrong. And so on. Whereas if you start from the State, the
Faith, the Economic System, there is a complete transvaluation of values. Individuals must murder one another, because
the interests of the Nation demand it; must be educated to think of ends and
disregard means, because the schoolmasters are there and don't know of any
other method; must live in towns, must have leisure to read the newspapers and
go to the movies, must be encouraged to buy things they don't need, because the
industrial system exists and has to be kept going; must be coerced and
enslaved, because otherwise they might think for themselves and give trouble to
their rulers.
The
sabbath was made for man. But man now
behaves like the Pharisees and insists that he is made for all the things
science, industry, nation, money, religion, schools which were really made
for him. Why? Because he is so little aware of his own
interests as a human being that he feels irresistibly tempted to sacrifice
himself to these idols. There is no
remedy except to become aware of one's interests as a human being, and, having
become aware, to learn to act on that awareness. Which means learning to use the self and
learning to direct the mind. It's almost
wearisome, the way one always comes back to the same point. Wouldn't it be nice, for a change, if there
were another way out of our difficulties!
A short cut. A method requiring
no greater personal effort than recording a vote or ordering some 'enemy of
society' to be shot. A salvation from
outside, like a dose of calomel.
CHAPTER
XXXVI
July 19th 1914
In the train going north, Anthony thought
of what was in store for him. Within the
next two days, or at the outside three, Brian would have to be told about what
had happened, and a letter would have to be written to Joan. In what words? And what excuses should he make for
himself? Should he tell the whole truth
about his bet with Mary? For himself,
the truth had certain advantages; if he told it, he could throw most of the
blame for what had happened on Mary but at the risk, he went on to think, of
seeming miserably feeble. And that was
not the only disadvantage; for Joan, the truth would be intolerably
humiliating. However much blame he threw
on Mary, the insult to Joan would remain.
If only he could tell the truth to Brian and something else to Joan!
But
that wasn't possible. They would have to
be told the same story, and, for Joan's sake, a story that wasn't true. But what story? Which explanation of the facts would throw
least discredit upon himself and inflict the least humiliation on Joan? On the whole, he decided, the best thing to
say would be that he had lost his head -
been carried away by a sudden impulse, an impulse that he had
subsequently seen the madness of and regretted.
It was somebody else who had kissed her: that was what he would write to
Joan. Somebody else but not too
else. She wouldn't like it if she were
made to feel that it was a mere momentary baboon who had behaved like that in
the unlighted drawing-room. The person
who had kissed her would have to be partially himself. Enough himself to have been all the time very
fond of her, profoundly sorry for her; but someone else to the extent of
allowing the circumstances of the evening to transform the affection and
sympathy into what? Love? Desire?
No, he would have to avoid saying anything so specific; would have to
talk about confusions, temporary insanities spoiling a relationship which had
been so fine, and so forth. Meanwhile he
could only say that he was sorry and ashamed; that he felt, more strongly than
ever now, that Brian was the only man who was worthy of her, that the
difficulties that had arisen between herself and Brian were only temporary and
would soon
And all the rest.
Yes,
the letter ought to be fairly easy. The
trouble was that he would be expected to follow it up by interviews and
explanations; that he would have to bear reproaches, listen to confidences,
perhaps defend himself against declarations of passion. And in the interval there would be Brian to
talk to - and with Brian the thing would
begin with the interviews; and the more he thought about those interviews, the
harder did he find it to foresee the part that Brian would play in them. Anthony imagined himself trying to make it
clear that he wasn't in love, that Joan had only momentarily lost her head as
he had lost his, that nothing had changed, and that all Brian had to do was to
go and kiss her himself. But would he
succeed in making Brian believe him? The
man being what he was, it seemed to him probable seemed more probable the
more he thought about it that he would fail.
Brian was the sort of man who would imagine that one couldn't kiss a
woman under any compulsion less urgent than the deepest, most heartfelt
love. He would be told that Joan had
been kissed and had returned the kisses; and no amount of talk about lost heads
would persuade him that it wasn't a serious matter of love at its intensest
pitch. And then, Anthony speculated,
what would the man do then? He'd be
hurt, of course, he'd feel betrayed; but the chances were that there'd be no
recriminations. No, something much worse
might happen. Brian would probably take
all the blame on himself; would renounce all his rights, would refuse to
believe it when Anthony swore that he wasn't in love and that it had all been a
kind of bad joke; would insist, just because it would be so agonizing a
sacrifice, that Joan should go to the man she really loved and who really loved
her. And then, suppose that, on her
side, Joan agreed! And it was probable,
Anthony thought with dismay as he remembered her response to his kisses, it was
almost certain even, that she would do so.
Appalling prospect! He couldn't
face it. And why should he face it,
after all? He could borrow on his
securities enough to get out of the country and stay away; for six months,
for a year if necessary. And while the
midlands streamed past the window, he leaned back with closed eyes, picturing
himself in Italy or, if Italy wasn't far enough from England, in Greece, in
Egypt, even in India, Malaya, Java. With
Mary; for of course Mary would have to come too, at least for part of the
time. She could dump the children with
some relation; and Egypt, he reflected, practical in his daydreaming, Egypt in
the off-season was quite cheap, and this war scare of course was nothing. Was Luxor as impressive as it looked in the
photographs? And the Parthenon? And Paestum?
And what of the tropics? In
imagination he sailed from island to island in the Aegean; smoked hashish in
the slums of Cairo, ate bhang in Benares; did a slight Joseph Conrad in the
East Indies, a slight Loti even, in spite of the chromolithograph style, among
the copper-coloured girls and the gardenias, and, though he still found it
impossible to like the man as much as Mary did, a slight Gauguin in the South
Seas. These future and hypothetical
escapes were escapes also here and now,
so that for a long time in his corner of the compartment he quite forgot the
reason for his projected flight into the exotic. The memory of what had happened, the
apprehensive anticipation of what was going to happen, returned only with the
realization that the train was crossing Shap Fell, and that in less than an
hour he would be talking to Brain on the platform at Ambleside. All the old questions propounded themselves
with a more desperate urgency. What
should he say? How? On what occasion? And what would be Brian's response? What Joan's, when she got his letter? Horrible questions! But why had he put himself in the position of
having to provide or receive the answers to them? What a fool he had been not to take flight at
once! By this time he could have been at
Venice, in Calabria, on a ship in the Mediterranean. Beyond the reach of letters. Secure and happy in complete ignorance of the
results of his actions. And free. Instead of which he had stupidly stayed where
he was and consented to be made the slave of the circumstances his folly had
created. But even now, at the eleventh
hour, it wasn't too late. He could get
out at the next station, make his way back to London, raise a little money and
be off within twenty-four hours. But
when the train stopped at Kendal, he made no move. The taking of so sudden and momentous a
decision was something from which he shrank.
He hated suffering, and looked forward with dread to what the next few
days and weeks held in store for him.
But his fear of suffering was less than his fear of action. He found it easier to accept passively what
came than to make a decisive choice and act upon it.
As
the train rolled on again, he thought of all the reasons why it had been right
for him not to take that decision. Brian
was counting on him, would be so disturbed by his non-arrival that he might
easily rush down to London to find out what had happened, see Joan and learn
everything, at once. And how should he
explain things to his father? Besides,
there was no reason to think that Mary would come with him; she had made her
arrangements for the summer and wouldn't, perhaps couldn't, alter them. And while he was away, heaven only knew what
rivals would present themselves. Besides,
flight would be cowardly, he went on to assure himself, and immediately
afterwards was reflecting that he could probably escape from his difficulties
just as effectively if he stayed in England.
A little tact, a bit of passive resistance
Brian
was waiting on the platform when the train drew in, and at the sight of him
Anthony felt a sudden pang of pitying distress.
For between the man and his clothes there was a startling and painful
incongruousness. The rough homespun
jacket and breeches, the stockings, the nailed boots, the bulging rucksack were
emblems of energy and rustic good health.
But the Brian who wore these emblems was the living denial of their
significance. The long face was
emaciated and sallow. The nose seemed
larger than in the past, the eye-sockets deeper, the cheekbones more
prominent. And when he spoke, he
stammered more uncontrollably than ever.
'But
what is the matter with you?' cried Anthony, laying a hand on his friend's
shoulder. 'You look wretched.'
Half
touched by this display of a genuine solicitude (it was extraordinary, he
reflected, how charming Anthony could unexpectedly be), half annoyed by having
been, as he felt, found out, Brian shook his head and mumbled something about
being a bit tired and in need of a rest.
But
his idea of a rest, it turned out, was to walk twenty miles a day up and down
the steepest hills he could find.
Anthony
looked at him disapprovingly. 'You ought
to be lying out in a deckchair,' he said, but could see, as he spoke, that his
advice was unwelcome. With Brian it was
a kind of dogma that taking violent exercise in mountain scenery was
intrinsically good. Good, because of
Wordsworth; because, in his mother's version of Christianity, landscape took
the place of revelation.
'I
l-like w-walking,' Brian insisted.
'S-saw a d-dipper yesterday. The
p-place is f-full of nice b-birds.'
In
his distress at finding his friend so ill, Anthony had forgotten all about Joan
and the events of the last days; but those birds (those bφ-φds, those
piddle-warblers) reminded him violently of what had happened. Feeling suddenly ashamed, as though he had
been caught in some unworthy display of hypocrisy, Anthony withdrew his hand
from Brian's shoulder. They made their
way in silence along the platform and out into the street. There they halted for a discussion. Brian wanted to send the luggage by the
carrier and walk to their cottage in Langdale.
Anthony proposed that they should take a car.
'You've
no business to walk a step further today,' he said; then, when the other
protested that he hadn't yet taken enough exercise, changed ground and insisted
that it was he who was tired after the journey, and that anyhow he couldn't
walk because he was wearing unsuitable clothes and shoes. After a final plea to be allowed to walk back
to Langdale by himself, Brian was overruled and submitted to the car. They drove away.
Breaking
a long silence, 'Have you seen J-joan lately?' Brian asked.
The
other nodded without speaking.
'How
w-was she?'
'Quite
well,' Anthony found himself replying in the brightly vague tone in which one
answers questions about the health of those in whom one takes no particular
interest. The lie for it was a lie by
omission had come to him of its own accord.
By means of it, his mind had defended itself against Brian's question as
automatically and promptly as his body, by blinking, by lifting an arm, by
starting back, would have defended itself against an advancing fist. But the words were no sooner spoken than he
regretted their brevity and the casualness with which they had been uttered,
than he felt that he ought at once to qualify them with additional information,
in another and more serious tone. He
ought to rush in immediately, and without further delay make a clean breast of
everything. But time passed; he could
not bring himself to speak; and within a few seconds he had already begun to
dignify his cowardice with the name of consideration, he was already assuring
himself that it would be wrong, Brian's health being what it was, to speak out
at once, that the truly friendly thing was to wait and choose an occasion,
tomorrow perhaps or the day after, when Brian was in a better state to receive
the news.
'You
d-don't think she was w-worrying?' Brian went on. 'I m-mean ab-bout all this d-delay in our
g-getting married?'
'Well,
of course,' Anthony admitted, 'she's not altogether happy about it.'
Brian
shook his head. 'N-nor am I. But I th-think it's r-right; and I th-think
in the l-long r-run she'll see it was r-right.'
Then, after a silence, 'If only one were a-absolutely certain,' he
said. 'S-sometimes I w-wonder if it
isn't a k-kind of s-selfishness.'
'What
is?'
'St-sticking
to p-principles, reg-gardless of p-people.
P-people o-other p-people, I mean p-perhaps they're m-more
imp-portant e-even than what one kn-knows is a r-right p-principle. But if you d-don't st-stick to your
p-principles
' he hesitated, turned a puzzled and unhappy face towards
Anthony, then looked away again: 'well, where are you?' he concluded
despairingly.
'The
sabbath is made for man,' said Anthony; and thought resentfully what a fool
Brian had been not to take whatever money he could get and marry out of
hand. If Joan had been safely married,
there would have been no confidences, no bet, no kiss and none of the appalling
consequences of kissing. And then, of
course, there was poor Joan. He went on
to feel what was almost righteous indignation against Brian for not having
grasped the fundamental Christian principle that the sabbath is made for man,
not man for the sabbath. But was it made
for man, an intrusive voice suddenly began asking, to the extent of man's
having the right, for a bet, to disturb the
equilibrium of another person's feelings, to break up a long-established
relationship, to betray a friend?
Brain
meanwhile was thinking of the occasion, a couple of month before, when he and
Joan had talked over the matter with his mother.
'You
still think,' she had asked, 'that you oughtn't to take the money?' and went
on, when he told her that his opinions hadn't changed, to set forth all the
reasons why it wouldn't be wrong for him to take it. The system might be unjust, and it might be
one's duty to alter it; but meanwhile one could use one's financial advantages
to help the individual victims of the system, to forward the cause of desirable
reform.
'That's
what I've always felt about it,' his mother concluded.
And
had been right, he insisted; and that he didn't dream of criticizing what she
had done, of even thinking it criticizable.
But that was because her circumstances had been so different from
his. A man, he had opportunities to make
his own living such as she had never had.
Besides, she had been left with responsibilities; whereas he
'But
what about Joan?' she interrupted, laying her hand affectionately, as she
spoke, on Joan's arm. 'Isn't she a
responsibility?'
He
dropped his eyes and, feeling that it was not for him to answer the question,
said nothing.
There
were long seconds of an uncomfortably expectant silence, while he wondered
whether Joan would speak and what, if she didn't, he should say and do.
Then,
to his relief, 'After all,' Joan brought out at last in a curiously flat and
muffled voice, 'Brian was a child then.
But I'm grown up, I'm responsible for myself. And I'm able to understand his reasons.'
He
raised his head and looked at her with a smile of gratitude. But her face was cold and as though remote,
she met his eyes for only a moment, then looked away.
'You
understand his reasons?' his mother questioned.
Joan
nodded.
'And
you approve them?'
She
hesitated for a moment, then nodded again.
'If Brian thinks it's right,' she began, and broke off.
His
mother looked from one to the other. 'I
think you're a pair of rather heroic young people,' she said, and the tone of
her voice, so beautiful, so richly vibrant with emotion, imparted to the words
a heightened significance. He felt that
he had been confirmed in his judgment.
But
later, he remembered with a pained perplexity, later, when Joan and he were
alone together and he tried to thank her for what she had done, she turned on
him with a bitterly resentful anger.
'You
love your own ideas more than you love me.
Much more.'
Brian
sighed and, shaking himself out of his long distraction, looked at the trees by
the side of the road, at the mountains so sumptuously shadowed and illumined by
the late afternoon sunlight, at the marbly islands of cloud in the sky looked
at them, saw that they were beautiful, and found their beauty hopelessly
irrelevant.
'I
wish to G-god,' he said, 'I knew what to d-do.'
So
did Anthony, though he did not say so.
CHAPTER
XXXVII
Autumn 1933
It took longer than Mark expected to
dispose of his business, and at moments, during the long weeks that preceded
their departure, the temptation to throw up the whole ridiculous enterprise and
scuttle back into the delicious otherworld of Mediterranean sunshine and
abstract ideas became, for Anthony, almost irresistible.
'What
are you really going for?' he asked resentfully.
'Fun,'
was all the answer that Mark condescended to give.'
'And
your Don Jorge,' Anthony insisted. 'What
does he hope to achieve by this little revolution of his?'
'His
own greater glory.'
'But
the peasants, the Indians?'
'They'll
be exactly where they were before, where they always will be: underneath.'
'And
yet you think it's worthwhile to go and help this Jorge of yours?'
'Worthwhile
for me.' Mark smiled anatomically. 'And worthwhile for you. Very much worthwhile for you,' he insisted.
'But
not for the peons, I gather.'
'It
never is. What did the French peons get
out of their Revolution? Or our friends,
the Russians, for that matter? A few
years of pleasant intoxication. Then the
same old treadmill. Gilded, perhaps;
repainted. But in essentials the old
machine.'
'And
you expect me to come along with you for fun?
The thought of the Mediterranean and his books heightened Anthony's
indignation. 'It's crazy, it's abominable.'
'In
other words,' said Mark, 'you're afraid.
Well, why not? But if you are,
for God's sake say so. Have the courage
of your cowardice.'
How
he had hated Mark for telling him the home truths he knew so well! If it hadn't been for Mr Beavis, and that
interview with Helen, and finally Beppo Bowles, perhaps he would have
had the courage of his cowardice. But
they made it impossible for him to withdraw.
There was his father, first of all, still deep in the connubial burrow,
among the petticoats and the etymologies and the smell of red-haired women
but agitated, as Anthony had never seen him agitated before, hurt, indignant,
bitterly resentful. The presidency of
the Philological Society, which ought, without any question, to have come to
him, had gone instead of Jenkins.
Jenkins, if you please! A mere
ignorant popularizer, the very antithesis of a real scholar. A charlatan, a philological confidence trickster,
positively (to use an American colloquialism) a 'crook.'
Jenkins'
election had taken Mr Beavis long strides towards death. From being a man much younger than his years,
he had suddenly come to look his age. An
old man; and tired into the bargain, eroded from within.
'I'm
worried,' Pauline had confided to Anthony.
'He's making himself ill. And for
something so childish, really. I can't
make him see that it doesn't matter. Or
rather I can't make him feel it.
Because he sees it all right, but goes on worrying all the same.'
Even
in the deepest sensual burrow, Anthony reflected as he walked back to his
rooms, even in the snuggest of intellectual other-worlds, fate could find one
out. And suddenly he perceived that,
having spent all his life trying to react away from the standards of his
father's universe, he had succeeded only in becoming precisely what his father
was - a man in a burrow. With this small difference, that in his case
the burrow happened to be intermittently adulterous instead of connubial all
the time; and that the ideas were about societies and not words. For the moment, he was out of his burrow
had been chased out, as though by ferrets.
But it would be easy and was already a temptation to return. To return and be snug, be safe. No, not safe; that was the point. At any moment a Jenkins might be elected to
some presidency or other, and then, defenceless in one's burrow of thought and
sensuality, one would be at the mercy of any childish passion that might
arise. Outside, perhaps, one might learn
to defend oneself against such contingencies.
He decided to go with Mark.
But
in the succeeding days the temptation kept coming back. In spite of the spectacles of Mr Beavis's
self-destroying childishness, the quiet life seemed immensely attractive. 'Mark's mad,' he kept assuring himself. 'We're doing something stupid and wrong. And after all, my sociology is important. It'll help people to think clearly.' Wasn't it (ridiculous word!) a 'duty' to go
on with it? But then, more than six
weeks after his return to London, he saw Helen and Beppo Bowles saw them both
in the course of a single afternoon. The
meeting with Helen was a chance one. It was
in the French Room at the National Gallery.
Anthony was stooping to look closely into Cezanne's Mont Sainte Victoire, when he became
aware that two other visitors had halted just behind him. He shifted a little to one side, so as to let
them see the picture, and continued his meticulous examination of the brushwork.
A
few seconds passed; then, very slowly and with a foreign accent, a man's voice
said: 'See now here how the nineteenth-century petit bourgeois tried to escape
from industrialism. Why must he paint
such landscapes, so romantic? Because he
will forget the new methods of production.
Because he will not think of the
proletariat. That is why.'
'Yes,
I suppose that is the reason,' said another voice.
With
a start, Anthony recognized it as Helen's.
'What shall I do?' he was wondering, when the voice spoke again.
'Why,
it's Anthony!' A hand touched his arm.
He
straightened himself up and turned towards her, making the gestures and noises
appropriate to delighted astonishment.
That face, which he had last seen alternately stony and bright with
mockery, then in the rapt agony of pleasure, then dabbled with blood and
pitiably disintegrated by a grief extreme beyond expression, finally hard as it
had been at first, harder, more rigidly a stone that face was now beautifully
alive, and tender, illuminated from within by a kind of secure joy. She looked at him without the least trace of
embarrassment. It was as though the past
had been completely abolished, as though, for her, only the present existed and
were real.
'This
is Ekki Giesebrecht,' she said.
The
fair-haired young man beside her bent stiffly forwards as they shook hands.
'He
had to escape from Germany,' she was explaining. 'They would have killed him for his
politics.'
It
was not jealousy that he felt as he looked from one glad face to the other
not jealousy, but an unhappiness so acute that it was like a physical
pain. A pain that endured and that was
not in the least diminished by the solemn absurdity of the little lecture which
Helen now delivered on art as a manifestation of class interests. Listening, he could laugh to himself, he
could reflect with amusement on love's fantastic by-products in matters of
taste, political opinions, religious beliefs.
But behind the laughter, beneath the ironical reflections, that pain of
unhappiness persisted.
He
refused her invitation to have tea with them.
'I've
promised to go and see Beppo,' he explained.
'Give
him my love,' she said, and went on to ask if, since his return, he had met
Hugh.
Anthony
shook his head.
'We're
parting company, you know.'
Making
an effort to smile, 'All good wishes for the divorce,' he said, and hurried
away.
Walking
through the smoky dimness of the afternoon, he thought of that softly radiant
face of hers, and felt, along with the pain of unhappiness, a renewal of that
other, profounder pain of dissatisfaction with himself. Since his arrival in London he had led his
ordinary London life the lunches with men of learning and affairs, the
dinners where women kept the conversation more gossipy and amusing and the
easy, meaningless successes, which his talents and a certain natural charm
always allowed him to score at such gatherings, had made him all but completely
forget his dissatisfaction, had masked the pain of it, as a drug will mask
neuralgia or toothache. This meeting with
Helen had instantaneously neutralized the soothing drug and left him
defenceless against a pain no whit diminished by the temporary anodyne
rather, indeed, intensified by it. For
the realization that he had permitted himself to be soothed by an opiate of
such poor quality was a new cause for dissatisfaction added to the old. And then to think that he had been seriously
considering the idea of returning to the old quiet life! So quietly squalid, so quietly inhuman and,
for all the expense of thought it entailed, so quietly mad. Mark's enterprise might be stupid and even
disgraceful; but, however bad, it was still preferable to that quietude of work
and occasional detached sensuality beside the Mediterranean.
Standing
at the door of Beppo's flat, he heard the sound of voices Beppo's and another
man's. He rang the bell. Time passed.
The door remained unopened. The
voices talked on, inarticulately, but with shrill squeaks on Beppo's side and,
on that of the stranger, a crescendo of rough barks which proclaimed that they
were quarrelling. He rang again. There were a few more squeaks and shouts;
then the sound of hurrying feet. The
door was flung open, and there stood Beppo.
The face was flushed, the bald crown shiny with perspiration. Behind him, very upright and soldierly in his
carriage, appeared a rather coarsely handsome young man, with a small moustache
and carefully oiled wavy brown hair, dressed in a blue serge suit of extreme
and somehow improbable smartness.
'Come
in,' said Beppo rather breathlessly.
'Am
I disturbing?'
'No,
no. My friend was just going this is
Mr Simpson, by the way just going.'
'Was
he?' asked the young man in a significant voice and with a Nottinghamshire
accent. 'I hadn't known he was.'
'Perhaps
I'd better go,' Anthony suggested.
'No,
please don't, please don't.' There was a
note in Beppo's voice of almost desperate appeal.
The
young man laughed. 'He wants protection
that's what it is. Thinks he's going
to be blackmailed. And so I could if I wanted
to.' He looked at Anthony with knowing,
insolent eyes. 'But I don't want
to.' He assumed an expression that was
meant to be one of lofty moral indignation.
'I wouldn't do it for a thousand pounds.
It's a skunk's game, that's what I say.'
From being loftily general, the moral indignation came down to earth and
focused itself on Beppo. 'But a man's
got no business to be mean,' he went on.
'That's a skunk's game too.' He
pointed an accusing finger. 'A mean,
dirty swine. That's what you
are. I've said it before, and I say it
again. And I don't care who hears
me. Because I can prove it. Yes, and you know I can. A mean, dirty swine.'
'All
right, all right,' Beppo cried, in the tone of one who makes unconditional
surrender. Catching Anthony by the arm,
'Go into the sitting-room, will you,' he begged.
Anthony
did as he was told. Outside in the hall,
a few almost whispered sentences were exchanged. Then, after a silence, the front door
slammed, and Beppo, pale and distracted, entered the room. With one hand he was wiping his forehead; but
it was only after he had sat down that he noticed what he was holding in the
other. The fat white fingers were closed
round his wallet. Embarrassed, he put
the compromising object away in his breast pocket. Then, fizzling explosively in misery as he
fizzled in mirth, 'It's only money that they're after,' he burst out like an
opened ginger-beer bottle. 'You've seen
it. Why should I try to hide it? Only money.'
And he rambled on, popping, squeaking, fizzling in almost incoherent
denunciation of 'them', and commiseration for himself. Yes, he was doubly to be pitied pitied for
what he had to suffer because of 'their' mercenary attitude, when the thing he
was looking for was love for love's and adventure for adventure's sake; pitied
also for that growing incapacity to find the least satisfaction in any amorous
experience that was not wholly new.
Increasingly, repetition was becoming the enemy. Repetition killed what he called the frisson. Unspeakable tragedy. He, who so longed for tenderness, for
understanding, for companionship, was debarred from ever getting what he
wanted. To have an affair with somebody
of one's own class, somebody one could talk to, had come to be out of the
question. But how could there be real
tenderness without the sensual relationship?
With 'them,' the relationship was possible, was wildly desirable. But tenderness could no more flourish without
communication than it could flourish without sensuality. And sensuality entirely divorced from
communication and tenderness seemed now to be possible only under the stimulus
of a constant change of object. There
had to be another of 'them' each time.
For that he was to be pitied; but the situation had its romantic
side. Or at any rate might have had it
used to have it. Nowadays, Beppo
complained, 'they' had changed, were becoming mercenary, frankly rapacious,
mere prostitutes.
'You
saw just now,' he said, 'the sordidness of it, the lowness!' His misery bubbled over as though under an
inner pressure of carbonic acid gas. In
his agitation, he heaved himself out of his chair and began to walk up and down
the room, exposing to Anthony's eyes, now the bulging waistcoat, the lavish tie
from Sulka's, the face with its pendant of chins, the bald and shining crown,
now the broad seat of pale check trousers, the black jacket rising pear-like to
narrow shoulders, and below the central baldness that fuzz of pale brown hair,
like a Florentine page's, above the collar.
'And I'm not mean. God
knows, I've got plenty of other faults, but not that. Why can't they understand that it isn't
meanness, that it's a wish to
to
' he hesitated, 'well, to keep the thing on
a human basis? A basis at least of
romance, of adventure. Instead of that,
they make these awful, humiliating scenes.
Refusing to understand, absolutely refusing.'
He
continued to walk up and down the room in silence. Anthony made no comment, but wondered
inwardly how far poor old Beppo knew the truth or whether he too refused to
understand refused to understand that, to 'them,' his ageing and unpalatable
person could hardly be expected to seem romantic, that the only charm which
remained to him, outside a certain good taste, and a facile intelligence which
'they' were not in a position to appreciate, was his money. Did he know all this? Yes, of course he did; it was
unavoidable. He knew it quite well and
refused to understand. 'Like me,'
Anthony said to himself.
That
evening he telephoned to Mark to tell him definitely that he could book their
passage.
CHAPTER
XXXVIII
August 10th 1934
Today Helen talked again about Miller. Talked with a kind of resentful vehemence.
(Certain memories, certain trains of thought are like the aching tooth one must
always be touching just to make sure it still hurts). Non-violence: this time,
it was not only a mere trick, insignificant; it was also wrong. If you're convinced people are wicked, you've
no right not to try to make them behave decently. Agreed: but how are you most likely to
succeed? By violence? But violence may make people assume the forms
of good behaviour for the moment; it won't produce the reality of genuine and
permanent good behaviour. She accused me
of shirking real issues, taking refuge in vague idealism. It all boiled down at last to her vengeful
hatred for the Nazis. Peace all round,
except for Nazis and, by contagion, Fascists.
These should be punished, painfully exterminated like rats. (Note that
we're all ninety-nine percent pacifists.
Sermon on Mount, provided we're allowed to play Tamburlane or Napoleon
in our particular one percent of selected cases. Peace, perfect peace, so long as we can have
the war that suits us. Result: everyone
is the predestined victim of somebody else's exceptionally permissible
war. Ninety-nine percent pacificism is
merely another name for militarism. If
there's to be peace, there be hundred percent pacifism.)
We
exchanged a lit of arguments; then, for some time, said nothing. Finally, she began to talk about Giesebrecht. Executed after God only knew what tortures,
'Can you be surprised if I feel like this about the Nazis?' Not surprised at all any more than by the
Nazis themselves. Surprising would have
been tolerance on their part, forgiveness of hers. 'But the person who might have forgiven
vanished when Ekki vanished. I was good
while he was with me. Now I'm bad. If he were still here I might be able to
forgive them for taking him away. But
that's an impossible condition. I can't
ever forgive.' (There were answers to that, of course. But it didn't seem to me that I had any
right, being what I am, acting as I still do, to make them.) She went on to
describe what he had been to her.
Someone she didn't have to be ashamed of loving, as she had had to be
ashamed of loving Gerry. Someone she had
been able to love with her whole being 'not just occasionally and with part
of me, on a roof; or just for fun, in a studio, before dinner.' And she came back to the same point that
Ekki had made her kind, truthful, unselfish, as well as happy. 'I was somebody else while I was with
him. Or perhaps I was myself for the
first time.' Then, 'Do you remember how
you laughed at me that time on the roof, when I talked about my real
self?' Did I not remember! I hadn't even been real enough, at that
moment, to perceive my own remoteness from reality. Afterwards, when I saw her crying, when I
knew that I'd been deliberately refusing to love her, I did perceive it.
After
a silence, 'At the beginning I believe I could have loved you almost as much as
I loved Ekki.'
And
I'd done my best, of course, to prevent her.
Her
face brightened with sudden malicious derision.
Like her mother's. 'Extraordinary
how funny a tragedy is, when you look at it from the wrong side!' Then, still smiling, 'Do you imagine you care
for me now? Lo-ove me, in a word?'
Not
only imagined; did really.
She
held up a hand, like a policeman. 'No
film stuff here. I'd have to throw you
out if you began that game. Which I
don't want to do. Because, oddly enough,
I really like you. In spite of
everything. I never thought I
should. Not after that dog. But I do.'
That painful brightness came back into the face. 'All the things I thought I should never do
again! Such as eating a square meal; but
I was doing it after three days. And
wanting to make love. That seemed
inconceivably sacrilegious. And yet
within three or four months it was occurring to me, I was having dreams about
it. And one of these days, I suppose, I
shall actually be doing it. Doing it
without any obligation, as they say when they send you the vacuum-cleaner on
approval. Exactly as I did before.' She laughed again. 'Most probably with you, Anthony. Till the next dog comes down. Would you be ready to begin again?'
Not
on the old basis. I'd want to give more,
receive more.
'It
takes two to give and receive.' Then she
switched the conversation on to another line; who was I having an affair with
at the moment? and when I answered: with nobody, asked whether it was difficult
and disagreeable to be continent, and why I should want to imitate Mark
Staithes. Tried to explain that I wasn't
imitating Mark, that Mark's asceticism was undertaken for its own sake and
above all for his, that he might feel himself more separate, more
intensely himself, in a better position to look down on other people. Whereas what I was trying to do was to avoid
occasions for emphasizing individual separateness through sensuality. Hate, anger, ambition explicitly deny human
unity; lust and greed do the same indirectly and by implication by insisting
exclusively on particular individual experiences and, in the case of lust,
using other people merely as a means for obtaining such experiences. Less dangerously so than malevolence and the
passions for superiority, prestige, social position, lust is still incompatible
with pacificism; can be made compatible only when it ceases to be an end in
itself and becomes a means towards the unification through love of two separate
individuals. Such particular union, a
paradigm of union in general.
CHAPTER
XXXIX
March 25th 1928
When Helen kept her eyes closed, the red
darkness behind the lids came wildly and chaotically to life. Like a railway station, it seemed, full of hurrying
people, loud with voices; and the colours glowed, the forms stood sharply out,
jewelled, with the more than real definition of forms and colours under
limelight. It was as though the fever
had assembled a crowd inside her head, had lighted lamps and turned on the
gramophone. On the unnaturally brilliant
stage the images came and went on their own initiative and in ferocious
disregard of Helen's own wishes. Came
and went, talked, gesticulated, acted out their elaborate, insane dramas,
unceasingly, without mercy on her fatigue, without consideration for her
longing to be at rest and alone.
Sometimes, in the hope that the outer world would eclipse this scurrying
lunacy within, she opened her eyes. But
the light hurt her; and in spite of those bunched roses on the wallpaper, in
spite of the white counterpane and the knobs at the end of the bedstead, in
spite of the looking-glass, the hair brushes, the bottle of eau-de-Cologne,
those imagines on the other side of her eyes went on living that private life
of theirs, undisturbed. A vehement and
crazy life now utterly irrelevant, like a story invented by somebody else,
then all at once agonizingly to the point, agonizingly hers.
This
morning, for example, this afternoon (which was it? time was at once endless
and non-existent: but at any rate it was just after Mme Bonifay had been in to
see her stinking, stinking of garlic and dirty linen), there had been
a huge hall, with statues. Gilded
statues. She recognized Voltaire, fifty
feet high, and there was one of those Chinese camels, but enormous. People were standing in groups, beautifully
placed, like people on the stage.
Indeed, they were on the stage.
Acting a play of intrigue, a play with love-scenes and revolvers. How bright the spotlights were! how clearly
and emphatically they spoke the lines!
Each word a bell, each figure a shining lamp.
'Hands
up
I love you
If she falls into the trap
'
And yet who were they, what were they saying? And now for some extraordinary reason they
were talking about arithmetic. Sixty-six
yards of linoleum at three and eleven a yard.
And the woman with the revolver was suddenly Miss Cosmas. There was no Voltaire, no gilded camel. Only the blackboard. Miss Cosmas had always hated her because she
was so bad at maths, had always been odious and unfair. 'At three and eleven,' Miss Comas shouted,
'at three and eleven.' But Mme Bonifay's
number was eleven, and Helen was walking once again along the rue de la
Tombe-Issoire, feeling more and more sick with apprehension at every step. Walking slowlier and slowlier in the hope of
never getting there. But the houses came
rushing down towards her, like the walls of a moving staircase in the
Underground. Came rushing towards her,
and then, when number eleven drew level, stopped dead, noiselessly. 'Mme Bonifay, Sage Femme de Iθre
Classe.' She stood looking at the words,
just as she had stood in reality, two days before; then walked on, just as she
had walked on then. Only one more
minute, she pleaded with herself, till she got over her nervousness, till she
felt less sick. Walked up the street
again, and was in a garden with her grandmother and Hugh Ledwidge. It was a walled garden with a pine wood at
one end of it. And a man came running
out of the wood, a man with some awful kind of skin disease on his face. Red blotches and scabs and scurf. Horrible!
But all her grandmother said was, 'God has spat in his face,' and
everyone laughed. But in the middle of
the wood, when she went on, stood a bed, and immediately, somehow, she was
lying on it, looking at a lot more people in another play, in the same play,
perhaps. Bright under the spotlights,
with voices like bells in her ears; but incomprehensible, unrecognizable. And Gerry was there, sitting on the edge of
her bed, kissing her, stroking her shoulders, her breasts. 'But, Gerry, you mustn't! All those people they can see us. Gerry, don't!' But when she tried to push him away, he was
like a block of granite, immovable; and all the time his hands, his lips were
releasing soft moths of quick and fluttering pleasure under her skin; and the
shame, the dismay of being seen by all those people, let loose at the same time
a special physical anguish of its own a finer-footed, wildlier-fluttering
sensation that was no longer a moth, but some huge beetle, revolting to the
touch, and yet revoltingly delicious.
'Don't, Gerry, don't!' And
suddenly she remembered everything that night after the kitten had died, and
all the other nights, and then the first signs, the growing anxiety, and the
day she had telephoned to him and been told that he'd gone to Canada, and
finally the money, and that evening when her mother
'I hate you!' she cried;
but as she managed with a last violent effort to push him away, she felt a stab
of pain so excruciating that for a moment she forgot her delirium and was
wholly at the mercy of immediate, physical reality. Slowly the pain died down; the other-world of
fever closed in on her again. And it
wasn't Gerry any more, it was Mme Bonifay.
Mme Bonifay with that thing in her hand.
Je vous feria un peu mal.
And it wasn't the bed or the pine wood but the couch in Mme Bonifay's
sitting-room. She clenched her teeth,
just as she had clenched them then. Only
this time it was worse, because she knew what was going to happen. And under the limelight the people were still
there, acting their play. And lying
there on the couch she herself was part of the play, outside, and at last was
no longer her self, but someone else, someone in a bathing-dress, with enormous
breasts, like Lady Knipe's. And what was
there to prevent her breasts from getting to be like that? Bell-clear, but incomprehensible, the actors
discussed the nightmarish possibility.
The possibility of Helen with enormous breasts, of Helen with thick
rolls of fat round her hips, of Helen with creases in her thighs, of Helen with
rows and rows of children howling all the time; and that disgusting smell of
curdled milk; and their diapers. And
here, all of a sudden, was Joyce wheeling the pram along the streets of
Aldershot. Taking the baby out. Feeding him.
Half horrified, half fascinated, she watched him clinging, sucking. Flattened against the breast, the little frog
face wore an expression of determined greed that gradually relaxed, as the
stomach filled, to one of sleepy, imbecile ecstasy. But the hands those were fully human, those
were little miracles of the most delicate elegance. Lovely, exquisite little hands! Irresistible little hands! She took the baby from Joyce, she pressed him
close against her body, she bent her head so as to be able to kiss those
adorable little fingers. But the thing
she held in her arms was the dying kitten, was those kidneys at the butcher's,
was that horrible thing which she had opened her eyes to see Mme Bonifay
nonchalantly picking up and carrying away in a tin basin to the kitchen.
The
surgeon had been called in time, and Helen was now out of all danger. Reassured, Mme Bonifay had resumed the
motherly and Rabelaisian good humour that was natural to her.
It
was almost with a wink that she now talked of the operation that had saved
Helen's life. 'Ton petit curetage,'
she would say with a kind of jovial archness, as though she were talking of
some illicit pleasure. For Helen, every
tone of that fat, jolly voice was yet another insult, yet a further
humiliation. The fever had left her; her
present weakness was lucid; she inhabited the real world once more. Turning her head, she could see herself
reflected in the wardrobe mirror. It
gave her a certain satisfaction to see how thin she was, how pale, what blue
transparent shadows there were under the eyes, and the eyes themselves, how
lifelessly without lustre. She could
have powdered herself now, painted her lips a little, and rouged her cheeks,
brushed back the gloss into her dull untidy hair; but, perversely, she
preferred her sick pallor and dishevelment.
'Like the kitten,' she kept thinking.
Reduced to a dirty little rag of limp flesh, transformed from a bright
living creature into something repellent, into the likeness of kidneys, of that
unspeakable thing that Mme Bonifay
She shuddered. And now ton petit curetage in the
same tone as ton petit amoureux.
It was horrible, the final humiliation.
She loathed the beastly woman, but at the same time was glad that she
was so awful. That cheerful gross
vulgarity was somehow appropriate in keeping with all the rest. But when Mme Bonifay had left the room she
would start crying, silently, in an agony of self-pity.
Returning
unexpectedly, Mme Bonifay found her, that second morning after the petit
curetage, with the tears streaming down her face. Genuinely distressed, she offered
comfort. But the comfort smelt, as
usual, of onions. Physically disgusted
as well as resentful of the intrusion upon the privacy of her unhappiness,
Helen turned aside, and when Mme Bonifay tried to force consolation upon her,
she shook her head and told her to go away.
Mme Bonifay hesitated for a moment,
then obeyed, but with a Parthian insult in the form of a tenderly
suggestive remark about the letter she had brought and which she now laid on
Helen's pillow. From him, without
a doubt. A good heart, in spite of
everything
The
letter, it turned out, was from Hugh. 'A
holiday in Paris!' he wrote. 'From my
dingy little kennel among the bric-ΰ-brac, how I envy you, Helen! Paris in high summer. Gaily beautiful, as this place of hazy
distances can never be. London's always
mournful, even in the sunshine. One
pines for the clear, unequivocal brilliance of the Paris summer. How I wish I were there! Selfishly, first of all, for the pleasure of
being with you and out of London and the Museum. And then unselfishly, for your sake because
it worries me, the thought of your being all alone in Paris. Theoretically, with my head, I know that
nothing's likely to happen to you. But
all the same, all the same I'd like to be there, protective, but invisible,
so that you wouldn't be aware of me, never feel my devotion as an importunity,
but so that you should always have the confidence that comes from being two
instead of one. Not, alas, that I should
be a very good second in a tight corner. (How I hate myself sometimes for my
shameful inadequacy!) But better, perhaps, than nobody. And I'd never encroach, never trespass or
interfere. I'd be non-existent; except
when you needed me. My reward would be
just being in your neighbourhood, just seeing and hearing you the reward of
someone who comes out of a dusty place into a garden, and looks at the flowering
trees, and listens to the fountains.
'I've
never told you before (was afraid you'd laugh and you may laugh; I don't
mind: for after all it's your laughter), but the truth is that I sit
sometimes, spinning stories to myself stories in which I'm always with you,
as I've told you, keeping you from harm, and in return being refreshed by your
loveliness, and warmed by your fire, and dazzled by your bright purity
'
Angrily,
as though the irony in it had been intentional, Helen threw the letter aside. But an hour later she had picked it up again
and was re-reading it from the beginning.
After all, it was comforting to know that there was somebody who cared.
CHAPTER
XL
September 11th 1934
With Miller to see a show of scientific
films. Development of the sea
urchin. Fertilization, cell division,
growth. A renewal of last year's almost
nightmarish vision of a more-than-Bergsonian life force, of an ultimate Dark
God, much darker, stranger and more violent than any that Lawrence imagined. Raw material that, on its own inhuman plane,
is already a perfectly finished product.
A picture of earthworms followed.
Week-long hermaphroditic love-making, worm to worm, within a tube of
slime. Then an incredibly beautiful film
showing the life-history of the blowfly.
The eggs. The grubs on their
piece of decaying meat. Snow-white, like
a flock of sheep on a meadow. Hurrying
away from light. Then, after five days
of growth, descending to the earth, burrowing, making a cocoon. In twelve more days, the fly emerges. Fantastic process of resurrection! An organ in the head is inflated like a
balloon. Blown up so large, that the
walls of the cocoon are split. The fly
wriggles out. Positively now, instead of
negatively phototropic, as it was as a grub, towards the light. At the surface, you see it literally pumping
up its soft, wet body with air, smoothing out its crumpled wings by forcing
blood into the veins. Astonishing and
moving spectacle.
I
put the question to Miller: what will be the influence of the spread of
knowledge such as this? Knowledge of a
world incomparably more improbable and more beautiful than the imaginings of
any myth-maker. A world, only a few years
ago, completely unknown to all but a handful of people. What the effects of its general discovery by
all? Miller laughed. 'It will have exactly as much or as little
effect as people want it to have. Those
who prefer to think about sex and money will go on thinking about sex and
money. However loudly the movies
proclaim the glories of God.'
Persistence of the ingenuous notion that the response to favourable
circumstances is inevitably and automatically good. Raw material, once again, to be worked
up. One goes on believing in automatic
progress, because one wants to cherish this stupidity: it's so
consoling. Consoling, because it puts
the whole responsibility for everything you do or fail to do on somebody or
something other than yourself.
CHAPTER
XLI
December 1933
At Colon they drove in a cab, at evening,
along an esplanade. Whitish, like a vast
fish's eye, the sea lay as though dead.
Against a picture postcard of sunset the immoderately tall thin palms
were the emblems of a resigned hopelessness, and in the nostrils the hot air
was like a vapour of wool. They swam for
a little in the warm fish-eye, then returned through the deepening night to the
town.
For
the rich there were, after dinner, cabaret shows with expensive drinks and
genuinely white prostitutes at ten dollars.
For the poor, in the back streets, the mulatto women sat at doors that
opened directly on to lighted bedrooms.
'If
one were really conscientious,' said Anthony, as they walked back late that
night to the hotel, 'I suppose one would have to go and infect oneself with
syphilis.'
The
smell of sweat, the smell of alcohol, the smells of sewage and decay and cheap
perfumes; then, next morning, the Canal, the great locks, the ship climbing up
from one ocean and down again to the other.
A more than human achievement that made it possible, Mark explained,
smiling anatomically, to transport whores and whisky by water instead of
overland from Colon to Panama.
Their
ship headed northwards. Once every
couple of days they would call at a little port to pick up cargo. From among the bananas, at San Josι, a spider,
large as a fist and woolly, made its way into their cabin. Off Champerico, where the lighters came out
loaded with bags of coffee, an Indian fell into the sea and was drowned.
At
night, it was not the ship that seemed to move, but the stars. They mounted slowly, slantwise, hung at the
top of their trajectory, then swooped downwards, travelled tentatively to the
right and back to the left, then, beginning all over again, mounted once more
towards the zenith.
'Rather
sickening,' was Anthony's verdict, 'but beautiful.'
An
improvement on the ordinary celestial mechanics. One could lie there and look at them
indefinitely.
There
was a note of grim satisfaction in Staithes's voice as he replied that in two
days time they would be at Puerto San Felipe.
Puerto
San Felipe was a village of huts, with some wooden sheds, near the water, for
storing coffee. Don Jorge's agent at the
port helped them through the customs. A
pure Spaniard, half-dead with tropical diseases, but still elaborately
courteous. 'My house is yours,' he
assured them, as they climbed the steep path towards his bungalow, 'my house is
yours.'
Orchids
hung from the veranda, and, among them, cages full of incessantly screaming
green parakeets.
An
emaciated woman, prematurely old and tired, hopelessly tired, beyond the limit
of her strength, came shuffling out of the house to welcome them, to apologize
in advance for her hospitality. Puerto
San Felipe was a small place, lacked commodities; and besides, she explained,
the child was not well, not at all well.
Mark asked her what was the matter.
She looked at him with eyes expressionless with fatigue, and answered
vaguely that it was fever; fever and a pain in the head.
They
went with her into the house, and were shown a little girl lying on a camp-bed,
restlessly turning her head from side to side, as if seeking, but always
vainly, some cool place on which to rest her cheek, some position in which she
might find relief from pain. The room
was full of flies, and a smell of fried fish came from the kitchen. Looking at the child, Anthony suddenly found
himself remembering Helen, that day on the roof turning and turning her head
in the torture of pleasure.
'I
suppose it must be mastoid,' Mark was saying.
'Or meningitis, perhaps.'
As
he spoke, the child lifted thin arms from under the sheet and, clasping her
head between her hands, began to roll still more violently from side to side,
and at last broke out into a paroxysm of screaming.
In
immediate response, the noise of the parakeets on the veranda swelled up,
shriek after shriek, to a deafening maximum of intensity.
'Quiet,
quiet,' the mother kept repeating, wheedlingly at first, then with a growing
insistence, begging, exhorting, commanding the child to stop crying, to feel
less pain. The screaming continued, the
head went on rolling from side to side.
Tortured
by pleasure, tortured by pain. At the
mercy of one's skin and mucus, at the mercy of those thin threads of nerve.
'Quiet,
quiet,' the woman repeated almost angrily.
She bent over the bed and, by main force, dragged down the child's
lifted arms; then, holding the two thin wrists in one hand, laid the other on
the head in an effort to hold it unmoving on the pillows. Still screaming, the little girl struggled
under the constraint. The woman's bony
hand tightened round the wrists, rested more heavily on the forehead. If she could forcefully restrain the
manifestations of pain, perhaps the pain itself would cease, perhaps the child
would stop that screaming, would sit up perhaps, smiling, and be well again.
'Quiet,
quiet,' she commanded between clenched teeth.
With
a violent effort the child released her arms from the grasp of those claw-like
fingers; the hands flew once more to the head.
Before the woman could snatch them away again, Mark touched her on the
arm. She looked round at him.
'Better
to leave her,' he was saying.
Obediently
she straightened herself up and walked away towards the door that gave on to
the veranda. They followed her. There was nothing whatever that they could
do.
'Mi
casa es suya.'
Thank
God, it wasn't. The child's screams had
subsided; but the frying fish, the parakeets among the orchids
Politely, Mark
refused the invitation to an early luncheon.
They walked out again into the oppressive sunshine. The mozos had loaded their baggage on
to the pack-mules, and the riding animals stood in the shade of a tree, ready
saddled. They buckled on enormous spurs
and mounted.
The
track round up and up from the coast, through a jungle silvery and brownish
pink with drought. Sitting bolt upright
on his high-backed saddle, Mark read Timon of Athens from his pocket
edition of the Tragedies. Each time he
turned a page, he gave his mule the spur; and for a few yards she would climb a
little more quickly, then revert to the old, slow pace.
In
the hotel at Tapatlan, where they spent the night, Anthony was bitten for the
first time in his life by bed bugs, and the next morning it was an attack of
dysentery
On the fourth day he was well enough to go out and see the
sights. The last earthquake had almost
wrecked the church. A dense black
fruitage of bats hung, like ripe plums, from the rafters; an Indian boy, ragged
and bare-footed, was sweeping up the droppings; from the altars the baroque
saints flapped and gesticulated in a frozen paroxysm of devotion. They walked out again into the marketplace,
where, secret and as though ambushed within their dark shawls, the brown Indian
women squatted in the dust before little piles of fruit and withering vegetables. The meat on the butcher's stall was covered
with a crust of flies. Rhythmically
shaking their long ears the donkeys passed, on small quick hoofs, noiseless in
the dust. The women came and went in
silence, carrying kerosene tins of water on their heads. From under hat-brims, dark eyes regarded the
strangers with an inscrutably reptilian glitter that seemed devoid of all
curiosity, all interest, any awareness even of their presence.
'I'm
tired,' Anthony announced. They had not
walked very far; but at Tapatlan, it was an immense fatigue even to be living
and conscious. 'When I die,' he went on
after a silence, 'this is the part of hell I shall be sent to. I recognize it instantly.'
The
bar of the hotel was in a dim crypt-like room with a vaulted ceiling supported
at the centre by a pier of masonry, inordinately thick for its height, to
resist the earthquake shocks. 'The Saxon
ossuary,' Mark called it; and here, while he went to their room to fetch a
handkerchief, he left Anthony installed in a cane chair.
Propped
against the bar, a smartly dressed young Mexican in riding-breeches and an
enormous felt hat was boasting to the proprietress about the alligators he had
shot in the swamps at the mouth of the Coppalita, of his firmness in dealing
with the Indians who had come to pick the coffee on his estate, of the money he
expected to make when he sold his crop.
'A
bit tight,' Anthony reflected, listening and looking on from his chair; and was
enjoying the performance, when the young man turned, and, bowing with the grave
formality of one who is so drunk that he must do everything with a conscious
deliberation, asked if the foreign cavalier would take a glass of tequila
with him.
Fatigue
had made Anthony's Spanish more halting than usual. His efforts to explain that he had not been
well, that it would not be good for him to drink alcohol, landed him very soon
in incoherence. The young man listened,
fixing him all the time with dark eyes, bright like the Indians', but, unlike
theirs, comprehensibly expressive European eyes, in which it was possible to
read and intense and passionate interest, a focused awareness. Anthony mumbled on, and all at once those
eyes took on a new and dangerous glitter; an expression of anger distorted the
handsome face, the knuckles of the strong rapacious hands went white under a
sudden pressure. The young man stepped
forward menacingly.
'Usted
me disprecia,' he shouted.
His
movement, the violence of his tone, startled Anthony into a kind of panic
alarm. He scrambled to his feet and,
edging behind his chair, began to explain in a voice that he had meant to be
calmly conciliatory, but which, in spite of all his efforts to keep it grave
and steady, trembled into a breathless shrillness, that he hadn't dreamed of
despising anyone, that it was merely a question of he fumbled for the medical
explanation and could find nothing better than a pain in the stomach merely a
question of un dolor en mi estσmago.
For
some reason the word estσmago seemed to the young man the final, most
outrageous insult. He bellowed something
incomprehensible, but evidently abusive; his hand went back to his hip-pocket
and, as the proprietress screamed for help, came forward again, holding a
revolver.
'Don't,
don't!' Anthony cried out, without knowing what he was saying; then, with
extraordinary agility, darted out of his corner to take shelter behind the
massive pillar at the centre of the room.
For
a second the young man was out of sight.
But suppose he were to creep up on tiptoe. Anthony imagined the revolver suddenly coming
round the pillar into his face; or else from behind he would feel the muzzle
pressed against his back, would hear the ghastly explosion, and then
A fear
so intense that it was like the most excruciating physical pain possessed him
entirely; his heart beat more violently than ever, he felt as though he were
going to be sick. Overcoming terror by a
greater terror, he stuck out his head to the left. The young man was standing only two yards
away, staring with a ferocious fixity at the pillar. Anthony saw him jerk into movement, and with
a despairing shout for help jumped back to the right, looked out again and
jumped back to the left; then once more to the right.
'It
can't go on,' he was thinking. 'I can't
do it much longer.' The thought of that
pistol coming unexpectedly round the pillar forced him to look out yet again.
The
young man moved, and he darted precipitately to the left.
The
noise of the revolver going off that was what he dreaded most. The horrible noise, sudden and annihilating
like the noise of that other explosion years before. His eyelids had stiffened and were
irrepressibly trembling, ready to blink, in anticipation of the horrifying
event. The lashes flickered before his
eyes, and it was through a kind of mist that, peeping out, he saw the door open
and Mark moving swiftly across the room, Mark catching the young man by the
wrist
The pistol went off; reverberated from walls and ceiling, the report
was catastrophically loud. Anthony
uttered a great cry, as though he had been wounded, and, shutting his eyes,
flattened himself against the pillar.
Conscious only of nausea and that pain in the genitals, those gripings
of the bowels, he waited, reduced to a mere quivering embodiment of fearful anticipation, for the next
explosion. Waited for what seemed
hours. Dim voices parleyed
incomprehensibly. Then a touch on his
shoulder made him start. He shouted,
'No, don't,' and lifting eyelids that still twitched with the desire to blink,
saw Mark Staithes, demonstrating muscle by muscle a smile of friendly
amusement.
'All
clear,' he said, 'you can come out.'
Feeling
profoundly ashamed and humiliated, Anthony followed him into the open. The young Mexican was at the bar again and
already drinking. As they approached, he
turned and with outstretched arms came to meet them. 'Hombre,' he said to Anthony, as he
shook him affectionately by the hand, 'hombre!'
Anthony
felt more abjectly humiliated than ever.
CHAPTER
XLII
September 15th 1934
Have built up during the last few days a
meditation on a phrase of William Penn's.
'Force may subdue, but Love gains; and he who forgives first wins the
laurel.'
'Force
may subdue.' I visualize men using
force. First, hand to hand. With fists, knives, truncheons, whips. Weals, red or livid, across flesh. Lacerations, bruises, the broken bone
sticking in jags through the skin, faces horribly swollen and bleeding. Then try to imagine, in my own body; the pain
of a crushed finger, of blows with a stick or lash across the face, the searing
torch of red-hot iron. All the
short-range brutalities and tortures.
Then, force from a distance.
Machine-gun bullets, high explosive, gases, choking or blistering, fire.
Force,
finally, in the shape of economic coercion. Starved children, pot-bellied and with arms
and legs like sticks. Women old at
thirty. And those living corpses,
standing in silence at the street corners in Durham or South Wales, shuffling
in silence through the mud.
Yes,
force may subdue. Subdue in death,
subdue by wounds, subdue through starvation and terror. Vision of frightened faces, of abject
gestures of servility. The manager at
his desk, hectoring. The clerk cringing
under the threat of dismissal. Force
the act of violently denying man's ultimate unity with man.
'Force
may subdue, but Love gains.' I rehearse
the history of Penn himself among the Redskins.
Remember how Miller used to allay the suspicious hostility of the
Indians in the mountain villages. Think
of Pennell on the North-West Frontier; of the Quakers during the Russian
famine; of Elizabeth Fry and Damien.
Next
I consider the translations of love into terms of politics. Campbell-Bannerman's insistence that
reparation should be made in South Africa in the teeth of the protests, the
Cassandra-like prophesyings of such 'sane and practical men' as Arthur
Balfour. Love gains even in the clumsy,
distorted form of a good political constitution. 'He who forgives first wins the laurel.' In South Africa, the English forgave those
whom they had wronged which is only less difficult than forgiving those by
whom one has been wronged and so secured a prize which they couldn't have won
by continued coercion. No prize has been
won since the last war, because no combatant has yet forgiven those by whom he
has been wronged or those he has wronged.
Consistently
applied to any situation, love always gains.
It is an empirically determined fact.
Love is the best policy. The best
not only in regard to those loved, but also in regard to the one who
loves. For love is self-energizing. Produces the means whereby its policy can be
carried out. In order to go on loving,
one needs patience, courage, endurance.
But the process of loving generates these means to its own
continuance. Love gains because, for the
sake of that which is loved, the lover is patient and brave.
And
what is loved? Goodness and the
potentialities for goodness in all human beings even those most busily
engaged in refusing to actualize those potentialities for goodness in relation
to the lover himself. If sufficiently
great, love can cast out the fear even of malevolently active enemies.
I
end by holding the thought of goodness, still, as it were, before the eyes of
my mind. Goodness, immanent in its
potentialities, transcendent as a realized ideal; conceivable in its
perfection, but also susceptible of being realized in practice, of being
embodied at least partially in any situation in which we may find
ourselves. 'The thought of goodness'
it is the wrong phrase. For in reality
it is a whole system of thoughts and sentiments. It is this whole system that I hold, quite
still, perceived simultaneously in its entirety hold it without words,
without images, undiscursively, as a single, simple entity. Hold it then at last must retreat again,
back into words, back at last (but refreshed, but made conscious, but
replenished, as it were) into ordinary life.
September
17th 1934.
Was called in by Helen to help entertain
her sister and brother-in-law, back on leave from India. Had to put on evening clothes the first
time this year because Colin could not allow himself to be seen in a theatre
or at the Savoy Grill in anything but a white tie. A depressing evening. Joyce sickly and gaunt before her time. Colin furtively interested in plumper,
fresher bodies. She, jealous and
nagging; he, resentful at being tied to her and the children, blaming her for
the strictness of his own code, which doesn't allow him to be the libertine he
would like to be. Each chronically
impatient with the other. Every now and
then an outburst of bad temper, an exchange of angry or spiteful words. Colin had other grievances as well. England, it seemed, didn't show sufficient
respect to the officer and gent. Cabmen
were impertinent, the lower classes jostled him in the streets. 'They call this a white man's country.'
(This, after the second 'quick one' in the bar of the theatre, between the
acts.) 'It isn't. Give me Poona every time.'
Reflect
that we all have our Poonas, bolt-holes from unpleasant reality. The danger, as Miller is always insisting, of
meditation becoming such a bolt-hole.
Quietism can be mere self-indulgence.
Charismata like masturbations.
Masturbations, however, that are dignified, by the amateur mystics who
practise them, with all the most sacred names of religion and philosophy. 'The contemplative life.' It can be made a kind of highbrow substitute
for Marlene Dietrich: a subject for erotic musings in the twilight. Meditation valuable, not as a pleasurable
end; only as a means of effecting desirable changes in the personality and mode
of existence. To live contemplatively is
not to live in some deliciously voluptuous or flattering Poona; it is to live
in London, but to live there in a non-cockney style.
CHAPTER
XLIII
July 20th and 21st 1914
The right, the auspicious moment for
telling Brian the truth or at any rate as much of the truth as it was
expedient for him to know never seemed to present itself. That first evening had been ruled out in
advance because Anthony felt that he must treat himself to a respite, because
poor Brian was looking so ill and tired.
At supper, and after it, Anthony
kept the conversation as entertainingly impersonal as he could make it. He talked about Sorel's Rιflexions sur la
Violence uncomfortable reading for Fabians! And had Brian seen how effectively his
beloved Bergson had been punctured by Julien Benda? And what about Lascelles Abercrombie's blank
verse? And the latest Gilbert
Cannan? Next morning they set out for a
walk on the Langdale Pikes. Both were
out of training; but in spite of shortened breath and bumping heart, Brian pressed on with a kind of Spartan
determination that to Anthony seemed at first absurd, then exasperating. When they got home, late in the afternoon,
they were both thoroughly tired; but Anthony was also resentful. Rest and a meal did something to change his
mood; but he still found it impossible to behave towards Brian except as a man,
forgiving indeed, but still on his dignity; was dignity was obviously quite
incompatible with the telling of this particular truth. They spent a silent evening Anthony
reading, the other restlessly prowling about the room, as though on the watch
for an occasion to speak an occasion which Anthony's air of intense
preoccupation was deliberately intended not to give him.
In
bed the next morning Anthony found himself startled broad awake by the
uncomfortable thought that time was passing, and passing not only for himself
but also for Joan and Brian. Joan's
impatience might get the better of her promise not to write to Brian; besides,
the longer he postponed the inevitable explanation with Brian, the worse Brian
would think of him.
Inventing
a blistered heel for the occasion, he let Brian go out by himself, and having
watched him indomitably striding away up the steep slope behind the cottage,
sat down to write his letter to Joan. To
try to write it, rather; for every one of the drafts he produced displayed one
or other of two faults, and each of the two faults exposed him, he realized, to
a particular danger: the danger that, if he insisted too much on the esteem and
affection which had prepared him to lose his head on that accursed evening, she
would reply that so much esteem and affection accompanied by head-losing
amounted to love, and were his justification (since love was supposed to
justify everything) for betraying Brian; and the other danger that, if he
insisted too exclusively on the head-losing and temporary insanity, she would
feel insulted and complain to Brain, to Mrs Foxe, to her relations, raise a
regular hue and cry against him as a cad, a seducer, and heaven only knew what
else. After the expense of three hours
and a dozen sheets of paper, the best of his efforts seemed to him too
unsatisfactory to send off. He put it
angrily aside, and, in his mood of exasperation, dashed off a violent letter of
abuse to Mary. Damned woman! She was responsible for everything. 'Deliberate malice
' 'Shameless exploitation
of my love for you
' 'Treating me as though I were some sort of animal you
could torment for your private amusement
'
The phrases flowed from his pen.
'This is goodbye,' he concluded, and, with half his mind, believed in
what he was dramatically writing. 'I
never want to see you again. Never.' But a quarrel, the other half of his mind was
reflecting, can always be made up: he would give her this lesson: then,
perhaps, if she behaved well, if he felt he simply couldn't do without her
He
sealed up the letter, and at once walked briskly to the village to post
it. This act of decision did something
to restore his self-esteem. On his way
home he made up his mind, quite definitely this time, that he would have his
talk with Brian that evening, and then, in the light of his knowledge of
Brian's attitude, re-write the letter to Joan the following morning.
Brian
was back at six, triumphing in the fact that he had walked further and climbed
to the tops of more mountains than on any previous occasion in his life, but
looking, in spite of his exultations, completely exhausted. At the sight of that face he had known so
long, that face now so tragically worn and emaciated beneath the
transfigurement of the smile, Anthony felt an intenser renewal of the first
evening's emotions of anxious solicitude for an old friend, of distressed
sympathy with a human being's suffering, and along with these an excruciating
sense of guilt towards the friend, of responsibility for the human being. Instant confession might have relieved the
pain, might have allowed him at the same time to express his feelings; but he
hesitated; he was silent; and in a few seconds, by an almost instantaneous
process of psychological chemistry, the sympathy and the solicitude had
combined with the sense of guilt to form a kind of anger. Yes, he was positively angry with Brian for
looking so tired, for being already so miserable, for going to be so much more
miserable the moment he was told the truth.
'You're
mad to overtire yourself like this,' he said gruffly, and drove him into the
house to take a rest before supper.
After
the meal they went out on to the strip of terraced lawn in front of the cottage
and, spreading out a rug, lay down and looked up into a sky green at their
arrival with the last trace of summer twilight, then gradually and ever more
deeply blue.
The
time, thought Anthony, with a certain sinking of the heart, had come,
irrevocably; and through a long silence he prepared himself to begin, trying
out in his mind one opening gambit after another; hesitating between the abrupt
and precipitate clean-breast-of-it-all and a more devious strategy that would
prepared the victim gradually for the final shock.
But
before he had decided which was the best approach to his confession, the other
broke out all at once into stammering speech.
He too, it was evident, had been waiting for an opportunity to ease his
mind, and instead of acting the penitent, as he had intended, Anthony found
himself (to the relief of a part of his mind, to the dismay and embarrassment
of the inhabitant of a deeper layer of consciousness) suddenly called upon to
play the part of confessor and director of conscience; called upon to listen
all over again to the story that Joan had already told him the story that,
adorned with St Monicas and uterine reactions, he had so joyfully passed
on to Mary Amberley. He had to hear how humiliating, how painful
his friend found it to be unable to gain the mastery of his body, to banish all
the low desires unworthy of the love he felt for Joan. Or perhaps, Brian had qualified, citing
Meredith's great volcano flinging fires of earth to sky, perhaps not unworthy
when circumstances should have allowed them to take their place in the complex
whole of a perfect marriage; but unworthy at that moment when it was not yet
possible for them to find their legitimate expression, unworthy insofar as they
were able to defy the authority of the conscious mind.
'I've
had to r-run away,' he explained, 'h-had to remove my b-body to a safe
d-distance. B-because I wasn't able to
c-c-c
'; 'control' would not come; he had to be satisfied with another less
expressive word; 'to m-manage myself with my w-will. One's ash-shamed of being so weak,' Brian
continued.
Anthony
nodded. Weak in making up one's mind to
kiss, and no less weak when it came to interrupting a momentarily agreeable
experience though there had been something more than weakness there,
something positive, a perverse revelling in an action known to be stupid, dangerous,
wrong.
'But
if one kn-knows one c-can't overc-come it,' Brian was saying, 'I
s-suppose it's b-best to r-run away.
B-better than l-letting it g-get one into av-avoidable trouble.'
'Yes,
I agree,' said Anthony, wondering why he hadn't followed his impulse and turned
back to Kendal.
'And
not only ones-self, but o-other people.
G-getting th-them into trouble t-too.' There was a long silence; then, slowly and
laboriously, he set out to explain that the lovely, the splendid thing about
Joan was her naturalness. She had the
strength of natural things and their spontaneity; she was warm, like nature,
and generous and profoundly innocent.
She had the qualities of a summer landscape, of a flowering tree, of a
water-bird darting bright-eyed and glossy between the rushes. This naturalness was what he had chiefly
loved in her, because it was the complementary opposite of his own
scrupulousness and intellectualism. But
it was this same naturalness that had made it all but impossible for Joan to
understand why he had found her presence so dangerous, why he had felt it
necessary to keep away from her. She had
been hurt by his withholding of himself, had thought it was because he didn't
love her; whereas the truth was
The
truth was, Anthony said to himself, finding a kind of consolation, a renewal of
his sense of superiority, in the derisive cynicism of his thoughts, the truth
was that she was thirsty for kisses, that at his first caress her whole body
revealed itself a shuddering and palpitating protest against the continence
that had been imposed on it.
'The
t-truth,' Brian was laboriously saying, 'is that I l-love her m-more than I
e-ever did. Unspeakably much.' He was silent once more for a little; then,
looking up at Anthony, 'What shall I d-do?' he asked.
Still
in his cynical mood, Anthony scored, with the grossness of his unspoken answer,
another private triumph as short-lived, however, as it was easy; for the
first thought was succeeded almost instantaneously by the disquieting
realization that he was being faced by a choice: either to tell Brian what had
happened between himself and Joan; or else to make some anodyne and
non-committal reply to his question, and postpone the telling of the truth till
later on. By omission, the anodyne reply
would be a monstrous falsehood; and when at last he came to tell the truth,
this lie and all the other lies implied in more than two days of silence or
irrelevant chatter would inevitably be remembered against him. But to tell the truth at once, in this particular
context, would be specially painful and painful, he went on to think, not
only to himself but also, and above all, to Brian. After what Brian had been saying this
evening, to blurt out a plain account of what had happened would be sheer
cruelty and deliberate insult.
'What
o-ought I to d-do?' Brian was insisting.
'I
think,' Anthony answered softly, 'I think you ought to come to terms with
reality.'
He
had made his decision or rather, as he preferred to put it when, later on, in
the privacy of his bedroom, he thought of the events of the evening, the
decision had made itself. Looking back,
he felt that he had had nothing to do with the matter.
CHAPTER
XLIV
September 21st 1934
Remarks by St Teresa. 'Let us look at our own faults, and not at
other people's. We ought not to insist
on everyone following our footsteps, nor to take upon ourselves to give
instructions in spirituality when, perhaps, we do not even know what it is. Zeal for the good of souls, though given us
by God, may often lead us astray.' To
which add this. 'It is a great grace of
God to practise self-examination, but too much is as bad as too little, as they
say; believe me, by God's help, we shall accomplish more by contemplating the
divinity than by keeping our eyes fixed on ourselves.' God may or may not exist. But there is the empirical fact that
contemplation of the divinity of goodness in its most unqualified form is a
method of realizing that goodness to some slight degree in one's life, and
results, often, in an experience as if of help towards that realization of
goodness, help from some being other than one's ordinary self and immensely
superior to it. Christian God and the
Buddhist's primal Mind interpretations of concrete experiences, the Buddhist
being the rationalization of a state further removed from the normal than the
Christian. Christians, of course, have
often experienced that state and found great difficulties in explaining it in
orthodox terms. Both conceptions
legitimate just as both macroscopical and microscopical views of matter are
legitimate. We look at the universe with
a certain kind of physico-mental apparatus.
That apparatus can respond only to certain stimuli. Within relatively narrow limits, it is
adjustable. The nature of the facts
which each of us perceives as primary and given depends on the nature of the
individual instrument and on the adjustment we have been brought up, or
deliberately chosen, to give it. From
these data one can draw inferences.
Which may be logically sound or unsound.
And philosophy is intellectually legitimate if, one, it starts from
facts which, for the philosopher, are data and if, two, the logical
construction based on these facts is sound.
But an intellectually is not the same as a morally legitimate
philosophy. We can adjust our instrument
deliberately, by an act of the will.
This means that we can will modifications in the personal experiences
which underlie our philosophy, the data from which we argue. Problem: to build really solid logical
bridges between given facts and philosophical inferences. All but insoluble. No bullet-proof arguments for any of the main
cosmological theories. What, then, shall
we do? Stick, so far as possible, to the
empirical facts always remembering that these are modifiable by anyone who
chooses to modify the perceiving mechanism.
So that one can see, for example, either irremediable senselessness and
turpitude, or else actualizable potentialities for good whichever one likes;
it is a question of choice.
CHAPTER
XLV
April 14th 1928
Happiness inexpressible that was what her
letter should have brought him. But
Hugh's face, as he walked walked instead of having his lunch up and down
the long gallery of the Ethnographical Collection, was a mask of perplexity and
distress. The words of Helen's letter
repeated themselves in his memory.
'Nobody cares a pin whether I'm alive or dead.'
From
the Mexican case the symbol of death in crystal and that other skull inlaid
with turquoise stared out at him as he passed.
'Nobody cares
' It should have been his opportunity. He had dreamt of her unhappiness in an
agony of commiseration, but also with hope.
Unhappy, she would turn to him.
'Nobody cares
'
'Nobody
except you.' His exultant pride and
pleasure in those words had been tempered, as he read on, by the realization
that she didn't really understand how he cared, didn't appreciate the
exact quality of his feeling. 'My
mother?' she had written. 'But, after
all, ever since she started talking that horrible stuff, she's somebody else
always was somebody else really, even when she was well (though of course not so
else). Just as I was always somebody
else. How could she care? You're not selfish, Hugh. You're
' But it wasn't a question merely of
selfishness or unselfishness, he began to protest, with all the painted faces
of the Peruvian vases staring down from the right with an unwinking intensity
of frozen life. It was a question of
something different, something deeper and more spiritual. On his left the trophies of the Papuan
headhunters hung shrivelled, but fantastically painted, like the heads of
decapitated clowns. The skulls from the
Torres Straits had been given round shining eyes of mother-of-pearl. Yes, more spiritual, Hugh insisted, thinking
of what he had written about her lyrically, lyrically! - and of that subtle
analysis of his own emotions. The
unselfishness was there, but melted down, as it were, in contemplation, refined
into something aesthetic. Unselfishness
in a picture. Unselfishness by Watteau,
by Cima da Conegliano. And she herself,
the object of his contemplative and aesthetic unselfishness she too, in his
imaginings, in the accumulating pages of his manuscript, had possessed the
quality of a picture or a piece of music; something that it would be sufficient
happiness merely to look at for ever, to listen to; perhaps, occasionally, to
touch, as though she were a statue, to caress with an almost imperceptible
tenderness. And sometimes in those
imaginings was cold, was unhappy nobody cared a pin and she asked to be
comforted and made warm, she crept into his arms; into those unselfish,
contemplative, impalpable arms of his, and lay there safely, but naked, lay
there a picture, virginal, ideal, but melting, melting
Feathered like an
ambassador in full-dress uniform, with the beak of a bird, the teeth of a
shark, this wooden mask had once made its wearer feel, as he danced, that he
was more than human, akin to the gods.
'You've said you'd like to be always with me. Well, I've been thinking about it a lot
recently, and I believe that that's what I'd like too. Dear Hugh, I'm not in love with you; but I
like you more than anyone else. I think
you're nicer, kinder, gentler, less selfish.
And surely that's a good enough foundation to build on.' The words, when he read them first, had
filled him with a kind of panic; and it was with the same protesting agitation
that he now walked between New Caledonia and the Solomon Islands. In the belly of a wooden bonito fish the
Melanesian widow opened a little door, and there, like a chamber-pot, was her
husband's skull. But it was always
spiritually and aesthetically that he had wanted to be with her. Hadn't she been able to understand that? Surely he had made it clear enough? 'If you still want it, there I am I want it
too.' It was terrible, he was thinking,
terrible! She was forcing a decision on
him, making it impossible for him to say no by assuming that he had already
said yes. He felt himself hemmed in,
driving into a corner. Marriage? But he would have to change his whole way of
life. The flat wouldn't be large enough. She'd want to eat meat at night. Mrs Barton would give notice. Of the spears on his left some were tipped
with obsidian, some with the spines of stingrays, some with human bone. 'You probably think I'm a fool, and flighty
and irresponsible; and it's true, I have been up till now. I'm hopeless.
But I wasn't born hopeless I was made it, because of the kind of life
I've lived. Now I want to be something
else, and I know I can be something else. Sιrieuse. A good wife and all that, ridiculous and
embarrassing as it sounds when one puts it down on paper. But I refuse to be ashamed of goodness any
longer. I absolutely refuse.' That irresponsibility, he was thinking, was
one of the loveliest and most moving things about her. It separated her from the common world, it
promoted her out of vulgar humanity. He
didn't want her to be responsible and a good wife. He wanted her to be like Ariel, like the
delicate creature in his own manuscript, a being of another order, beyond good
and evil. Meanwhile he was walked into
Africa. The image of a Negress holding her
long pointed breasts in her two hands glistened darkly from behind the confining
glass. Her belly was tattooed, her navel
projected in a little cone. The spears
in the next case were headed with iron.
Like Ariel, he repeated to himself, like those Watteaus at Dresden, like
Debussy. For resonator, this xylophone
had, not the usual gourd, but a human skull, and there were skulls festooned
along the ivory fetish horns, thighbones around the sacrificial drum from
Ashanti. She was spoiling everything, he
said to himself resentfully. And
suddenly, lifting his eyes, he saw that she was there, hurrying along the
narrow passage between the cases to meet him.
'You?'
he managed to whisper.
But
Helen was too much perturbed to see the look of dismay, the pallor, and then
the guilty blush, too intensely preoccupied with her own thoughts to hear the
note of startled apprehension in his voice.
'I'm
sorry,' she said breathlessly, as she took his hand. 'I didn't mean to come and pester you
here. But you don't know what it's been
like this morning at home.' She shook
her head; her lips trembled. 'Mother's
been like a madwoman. I can't tell you
You're the only person, Hugh
'
Clumsily,
he tried to console her. But the reality
was profoundly different from his imagination of her unhappiness. The imagination had always been his delicious
opportunity; the reality was the menace of an unavoidable doom. Desperately, he tried the effect of changing
the subject. These things from Benin
were rather interesting. The ivory
leopard, spotted with disks of copper inlay.
The Negro warriors, in bronze, with their leaf-shaped spears and swords,
and the heads of their enemies hanging from their belts. The Europeans, bearded and aquiline, in their
high sixteenth-century morions and baggy hose, their matchlocks in their hands,
and the cross hanging round their necks.
Comic, he remarked, parenthetically, that the only thing these
blackamoors ever got out of Christianity should have been the art of crucifying
people. The punitive expedition of 1897
found the place full of crosses. And
this beautiful head of the young girl with her tapering Phrygian cap of coral
beads
'Look
at this,' Helen suddenly interrupted; and, pulling up her sleeve, she showed
him too red semi-circular marks on the skin of her forearm a few inches above
the wrist. 'That's where she bit me,
when I tried to make her go back to bed.'
Hugh
was startled into pitying indignation.
'But it's awful!' he cried. 'It's
too awful.' He took her hand. 'My poor child!' They stood for a moment in silence. Then, suddenly, his pity was shot through by
the realization that the thing had happened.
There could be no escape now. He
found himself thinking again of Mrs Barton.
If she were to give notice, what would he do?
CHAPTER
XLVI
October 30th 1934
Mark, at dinner, said he'd been re-reading Anna
Karenina. Found it good, as novels
go. But complained of the profound
untruthfulness of even the best imaginative literature. And he began to catalogue its omissions. Almost total neglect of those small
physiological events that decide whether day-to-day living shall have a
pleasant or unpleasant tone. Excretion,
for example, with its power to make or mar the day. Digestion.
And, for the heroines of novel and drama, menstruation. Then the small illnesses catarrh,
rheumatism, headache, eye-strain. The
chronic physical disabilities ramifying out (as in the case of deformity or
impotence) into luxuriant insanities.
And conversely the sudden accessions, from unknown visceral and muscular
sources, of more than ordinary health.
No mention, next, of the part played by mere sensations in producing
happiness. Hot bath, for example, taste
of bacon, feel of fur, smell of freesias.
In life, an empty cigarette-case may cause more distress than the
absence of a lover; never in books.
Almost equally complete omission of the small distractions that fill the
greater part of human lives. Reading the
papers; looking into shops; exchanging gossip; with all the varieties of
daydreaming, from lying in bed, imagining what one would do if one had the
right lover, income, face, social position, to sitting at the picture palace
passively accepting ready-made daydreams from Hollywood.
Lying
by omission turns inevitably into positive lying. The implications of
literature are that human beings are controlled, if not by reason, at least by
comprehensible, well-organized, avowable sentiments. Whereas the facts are quite different. Sometimes the sentiments come in, sometimes
they don't. All for love, or the world
well lost; but love may be the title of nobility given to an inordinate liking
for a particular person's smell or texture, a lunatic desire for the repetition
of a sensation produced by some particular dexterity. Or consider those cases (seldom published,
but how numerous, as anyone in a position to know can tell!), those cases of
the eminent statesmen, churchmen, lawyers, captains of industry seemingly so
sane, demonstrably so intelligent, publicly so high-principled; but, in
private, under irresistible compulsion towards brandy, towards young men,
towards little girls in trains, towards exhibitionism, towards gambling or
hoarding, towards bullying, towards being whipped, towards all the innumerable,
crazy perversions of the lusts for money and power and position on the one
hand, for sexual pleasure on the other.
Mere tics and tropisms, lunatic and unavowable cravings these play as
much part in human life as the organized and recognized sentiments. And imaginative literature suppresses the
fact. Propagates an enormous lie about
the nature of men and women.
'Rightly,
no doubt. Because, if human beings were
shown what they're really like, they'd either kill one another as vermin, or
hang themselves. But meanwhile, I really
can't be bothered to read any more imaginative literature. Lies don't interest me. However poetically they may be
expressed. They're just a bore.'
Agreed
with Mark that imaginative literature wasn't doing its duty. That it was essential to know everything
and to know it, not merely through scientific textbooks, but also in a form
that would have power to bring the facts home to the whole mind, not merely to
the intellect. A complete expression (in
terms of imaginative literature) leading to complete knowledge (with the whole
mind) of the complete truth: indispensable preliminary condition of any
remedial action, any serious attempt at the construction of a genuinely human
being. Construction from within, by
training in proper use of the self training simultaneously physical and
mental. Construction, at the same time,
from without, by means of social and economic arrangements devised in the light
of a complete knowledge of the individual, and of the way in which the
individual can modify himself.
Mark
only laughed, and said I reminded him of the men who go round from house to
house selling electric washing-machines.
November 4th 1934
Very
good meeting in Newcastle with Miller and Purchas. Large and enthusiastic crowds predominantly
of the dispossessed. Note the
significant fact that pacifism is in inverse ratio, generally, to
prosperity. The greater the poverty, the
longer the unemployment, the more wholehearted the determination not to fight
again, and the more complete the scepticism about the conventional idols,
Empire, National Honour and the like. A
negative attitude closely correlated with bad economic conditions. Therefore not to be relied on. Such pacifism is without autonomous
life. At the mercy, first of all, of
anyone who comes along with money and threats of war would lead to a vast increase
of employment. At the mercy, in the
second place, of anyone who comes along with an alluring positive doctrine
however crazy and criminal its positiveness may be. The mind abhors a vacuum. Negative pacifism and scepticism about
existing institutions are just holes in the mind, emptiness waiting to be
filled. Fascism or communism have
sufficient positive content to act as fillers.
Someone with the talents of Hitler may suddenly appear. The negative void will be pumped full in a
twinkling. These disillusioned pacifist
sceptics will be transformed overnight into drilled fanatics of nationalism,
class war or whatever it may be.
Question: have we time to fill the vacuum with positive pacifism? Or, having the time, have we the ability?
CHAPTER
XLVII
January 10th and 11th 1934
Ostensibly, Don Jorge's telegram was an
order for the immediate sale of six hundred bags of coffee. In fact, it announced that the moment had
come, and that he was urgently expecting them.
Mark
looked at his companion with an expression that was frankly hostile. 'Those blasted guts of yours!' he said.
Anthony
protested that he was all right again.
'You're
not fit to do the journey.'
'Yes,
I am.'
'You're
not,' Mark repeated with a solicitude that was at the same time a passionate
resentment. 'Three days on a mule across
these damned mountains. It's too much
for anyone in your condition.'
Piqued
by the other's words, and afraid, if he agreed with Mark, of seeming unwilling
to face the difficulties and dangers that lay in front of them, Anthony
insisted obstinately that he was fit for anything. Wishing to believe it, Mark soon allowed
himself to be persuaded. An answer was
dispatched to Don Jorge the six hundred bags were being sown immediately; he
might expect to hear further details on Friday and, after lunch, in the
blazing heat of the early afternoon, they set out for the finca, lying
high in the mountains above Tapatlan, where one of Don Jorge's friends would
put them up for the night. Mark produced
his pocket Shakespeare once again, and, for four hours, they spurred their
reluctant beasts, up and up, between dusty maize stubbles, and, above the
fields, through a dry leafless scrub that gave place at last to the green
darkness and golden lights of coffee plantations under their towering shade
trees. Up and up, while Mark read the
whole of Hamlet and two acts of Troilus and Cressida, and Anthony
sat wondering, in a mist of fatigue, how much longer he could stand it. But at last, as night was falling, they
reached their destination.
At
four the next morning they were in the saddle again. Under the trees there was a double night of
starless shadow; but the mules picked their way along the windings of the track
with a reassuring certainty. From time
to time they rode under invisible lemon trees, and in the darkness the scent of
the flowers was like the brief and ineffable revelation of something more than
earthly a moment's ecstasy, and then, as the mules advanced, hoof after hoof,
up the stony path, the fading of the supernatural presence, the return to a
common life symbolically represented by the smell of leather and sweat.
The
sun rose, and a little later they emerged from the cultivated forest of the
coffee plantation into an upland country of bare rocks and pine woods. Almost level, the track went winding in and
out along the buttressed and indented flank of a mountain. To the left, the ground fell steeply away
into valleys still dark with shadow. Far
off, through air made hazy by the dry season's dust and the smoke of forest
fires, a dim whiteness high up in the sky was the Pacific.
Mark
went on reading Troilus and Cressida.
A
descent so steep that they had to dismount and lead their animals brought them
in another hour to the banks of a river.
They forded it, and, in the blistering sunshine, began to climb the
slope beyond. There was no shade, and
the vast bald hills were the colour of dust and burnt grass. Nothing stirred, not even a lizard among the
stones. There was no sight or sound of
life. Hopelessly empty, the chaos of
tumbled mountains seemed to stretch away interminably. It was as though they had ridden across the
frontier of the world out into nothingness, into an infinite expanse of hot and
dusty negation.
At
eleven they halted for a meal, and an hour later, with the sun almost
perpendicularly above them, were off once more.
The path climbed, dropped fifteen hundred feet into a ravine and climbed
again. By three o'clock Anthony was so
tired that he could scarcely think or even see.
The landscape seemed to advance and retreat before his eyes, turned
black sometimes and faded away altogether.
He heard voices, and, in his mind, his thoughts began to lead a life of
their own a life that was autonomous in its mad and maddening
irrelevance. Image succeeded image in a
phantasmagoria that it was beyond his power to exorcize. It was as though he were possessed, as though
he were being forced to lead someone else's life and think with another
person's mind. But the sweat that poured
like water off his face and soaked through his shirt and cotton
riding-breeches, the intolerable aching of loins and thighs - these were his own. His own and excruciating, intolerable. He was tempted to groan, even to burst into tears. But through the other person's delirium he
remembered his assurances to Mark, his confident promise that he wouldn't be
tired. He shook his head and rode on
rode on through the illusory world of alien fancy and half-seen, vanishing
landscape, rode on through the hideous reality of his pain and fatigue.
Mark's
voice startled him out of his stupor.
'Are
you all right?'
Looking
up, and, with an effort, focusing his eyes, he saw that Mark had halted and was
waiting at the turn of the track just above him. Fifty yards further up the slope the mozo
was riding behind the baggage-mule.
'Mula-a-a-a!'
came the long-drawn shout, and along with it the dull thump of a stick on
mule-skin.
'Sorry,'
Anthony mumbled, 'I must have dropped behind.'
'You're
sure you're all right?'
He
nodded.
'There's
less than an hour to go,' said Mark.
'Stick it out if you can.' In the
shadow of the enormous straw hat, his worn face twisted itself into a smile of
encouragement.
Touched,
Anthony smiled back and, to reassure him, tried to make a joke about the
hardness of the wooden saddles on which they were riding.
Mark
laughed. 'If we get through intact,' he
said, 'we'll dedicate a pair of silver buttocks to St James of Compostella.'
He
jerked the reins and gave his mule the spur.
The animal started up the slope; then, in a slither of rolling stones,
stumbled and fell forward on its knees.
Anthony
had shut his eyes to rest them a moment from the glare. At the noise he opened them again and saw
Mark lying face downwards on the ground and the mule heaving itself, in a
series of violent spasms of movement, to its feet. The landscape snapped back into solidity, the
moving images fell still. Forgetting the
pain in his back and legs, Anthony swung himself down from the saddle and ran
up the path. As he approached, Mark
rolled over and raised himself to a sitting position.
'Hurt?'
Anthony asked.
The
other shook his head, but did not speak.
'You're
bleeding.'
The
breeches were torn at the left knee, and a red stain was creeping down the
leg. Anthony shouted to the mozo
to come back with the baggage-mule; then, kneeling down, opened his penknife,
slid the blade into the rent and sawed a long jagged slit in the tough
material.
'You're
spoiling my bags,' Mark said, speaking for the first time.
Anthony
did not answer, only tore away a wide panel of the stuff.
The
whole knee-cap and the upper part of the shin were skinless red flesh, grey,
where the blood was not oozing, with dust and grit. On the inner side of the knee was a deep cut
that bled profusely.
Anthony
frowned, and, as though the pain were his own, caught his lower lip between his
teeth. A pang of physical disgust
mingled with his horrified sympathy. He
shuddered.
Mark
had leaned forward to look at the damaged knee.
'Messy,' was his comment.
Anthony
nodded without speaking, unscrewed the stopper of his water-bottle, and wetting
his handkerchief, began to wash the dirt out of the wounds. His emotion disappeared; he was wholly
absorbed in his immediate task. Nothing
was important any more except to wash this grit away without hurting Mark in
the process.
By
this time, the mozo had come back with the baggage-mule and was standing
beside them in silence, looking down with expressionless black eyes on what was
happening.
'I
expect he thinks we're making an unnecessary fuss,' said Mark, and made an
attempt to smile.
Anthony
rose to his feet, ordered the mozo to untie the mule's load, and, from
one of the canvas bundles, pulled out the medicine-chest.
Under
the sting of the disinfectant Mark gave vent to an explosive burst of
laughter. 'No humanitarian nonsense
about iodine,' he said. 'The good
old-fashioned idea of hurting you for your own good. Like Jehovah.
Christ!' He laughed again as
Anthony swabbed another patch of raw flesh.
Then, when the knee was bandaged, 'Give me a hand,' he went on. Anthony helped him to his feet, and he took a
few steps up the path and back again.
'Seems all right.' He bent down
to look at the forelegs of his mule.
They were hardly scratched.
'Nothing to prevent us pushing on at once,' he concluded.
They
helped him to mount, and, spurring with his uninjured leg, he set off at a
brisk pace up the hill. For the rest of
the way he was, for Anthony, mostly a straight and rigid back, but sometimes
also, at the zigzags of the path, a profile, marbly in its fixed pallor the
statue of a stoic, flayed, but still alive and silently supporting his agony.
In
less than the appointed hour for Mark had chosen to keep up a pace that set
the mules blowing and sweating in the afternoon heat they rode into San
Cristobel el Alto. The thirty or forty
Indian ranchos of which the village consisted were built on a narrow
ridge between plunging gulfs, beyond which, on either side, the mountains
stretched away chaotically, range after range, into the haze.
Seeing
distinguished travellers, the village shopkeeper hurried out on to the plaza to
offer them accommodation for the night.
Mark listened to him, nodded and made a movement to dismount; then,
wincing, let himself fall back into his saddle.
Without
turning his head, 'You'll have to get me off this blasted mule,' he called in a
loud, angry voice.
Anthony
and the mozo helped him down; but, once on the ground, he refused any
further assistance.
'I
can walk by myself,' he said curtly, frowning while he spoke, as though, in
offering an arm, Anthony had meant to insult him.
Their
quarters for the night turned out to be a wooden shed, half full of coffee bags
and hides. After inspecting the place,
Mark limped out again to look at the thatched lean-to, where the mules were to
be stabled; then suggested a walk round the village, 'to see the sights,' he
explained.
Walking,
it was evident, hurt him so much that he could not trust himself to speak. It was in silence that they crossed the
little plaza, in silence that they visited the church, the school, the cabildo,
the village prison. In silence, and one
behind the other. For if they walked
abreast, Anthony had reflected, he would be able to see Mark's face, and Mark
would feel that he was being spied upon.
Whereas if he walked in front, it would be an insult, a challenge to
Mark to quicken his pace. Deliberately,
Anthony lagged behind, silent, like an Indian wife trailing through the dust
after her husband.
It
was nearly half an hour before Mark felt that he had tortured himself
sufficiently.
'So
much for the sights,' he said grimly.
'Let's go and have something to eat.'
The
night was piercingly cold, the bed merely a board of wood. It was from a restless and unrefreshing sleep
that Anthony was roused next morning.
'Wake!'
Mark was shouting to him. 'Wake!'
Anthony
sat up, startled, and saw Mark, in the other wooden bed, propped on his elbow
and looking across at him with angry eyes.
'Time
to get away,' the harsh voice continued.
'It's after six.'
Suddenly
remembering yesterday's accident, 'How's the knee?' Anthony asked.
'Just
the same.'
'Did
you sleep?'
No,
of course not,' Mark answered irritably.
Then, looking away, 'I can't manage to get out of bed,' he added. 'The thing's gone stiff on me.'
Anthony
pulled on his boots and, having opened the door of the shed to admit the light,
came and sat down on the edge of Mark's bed.
'We'd
better put on clean dressing,' he said, and began to untie the bandage.
The
lint had stuck to the raw flesh. Anthony
pulled at it cautiously, then let go.
'I'll see if they can give me some warm water at the shop,' he said.
Mark
uttered a snort of laughter, and taking a corner of the lint between his thumb
and forefinger, gave a violent jerk. The
square of pink fabric came away in his hand.
'Don't!'
Anthony had cried out, wincing at though the pain were his. The other only smiled at him
contemptuously. 'You've made it bleed
again,' he added, in another tone, finding a medical justification for his
outburst. But in point of fact, that
trickle of fresh blood was not the thing that disturbed him most when he bent
down to look at what Mark had uncovered.
The whole knee was horribly swollen and almost black with bruises, and
round the edges of the newly opened wound the flesh was yellow with puss.
'You
can't possibly go with your knee in this state,' he said.
'That's
for me to decide,' Mark answered, and added, after a moment, 'After all, you
did it the day before yesterday.'
The
words implied a contemptuous disparagement.
'If a poor creature like you can overcome pain, then surely I
' That
was what they meant to say. But the
insult, Anthony realized, was unintended.
It sprang from the depths of an arrogance that was almost child-like in
its single-minded intensity. There was
something touching and absurd about such ingenuousness. Besides, there was the poor fellow's
knee. That was not the time to resent
insults.
'I
was practically well,' he argued in a conciliatory tone. 'You've got a leg that's ready to go septic
at any moment.'
Mark
frowned. 'Once I'm on my mule I shall be
all right,' he insisted. 'It's just a
bit stiff and bruised; that's all.
Besides,' he added, in contradiction of what he had said before,
'there'll be a doctor at Miajutla. The
quicker I get this thing into his hands, the better.'
'You'll
make it ten times worse on the way. If
you waited here a day or two
'
'Don
Jorge would think I was leaving him in the lurch.'
'Damn
Don Jorge! Send him a telegram.'
'The
line doesn't go through this place. I
asked.'
'Send
the mozo, then.'
Mark
shook his head. 'I wouldn't trust him.'
'Why
not?'
'He'll
get drunk at the first opportunity.'
'In
other words, you don't want to send him.'
'Besides,
it would be too late,' Mark went on.
'Don Jorge will be moving in a day or two.'
'And
do you imagine you'll be able to move with him?'
'I
mean to be there,' said Mark.
'You
can't.'
'I
tell you, I mean to be there. I'm not
going to let him down.' His voice was
cold and harsh with restrained anger.
'And now help me up,' he commanded.
'I
won't.'
The
two men looked at one another in silence.
Then, making an effort to control himself, Mark shrugged his shoulders.
'All
right, then,' he said, 'I'll call the mozo. And if you're afraid of going on to
Miajutla,' he continued in a tone of savage contempt, 'you can ride back to
Tapatlan. I'll go on by myself.' Then, turning towards the open door, 'Juan,'
he shouted. 'Juan!'
Anthony
surrendered. 'Have it your own way. If you really want to be mad
' He left the sentence unfinished. 'But I take no responsibility.'
'You
weren't asked to,' Mark answered.
Anthony got up and went to fetch the medicine-chest. He swabbed the wounds and applied the new
dressing in silence; then, while he was trying to bandage, 'Suppose we stopped
quarrelling,' he said. 'Wouldn't that
make things easier?'
For
a few seconds Mark remained hostile and averted; then looked up and twisted his
face into a reconciliatory smile of friendliness. 'Peace,' he said, nodding affirmatively. 'We'll make peace.'
But
he had reckoned without the pain. It
began, agonizingly, when he addressed himself to the task of getting out of
bed. For it turned out to be impossible
for him, even with Anthony's assistance, to get out of bed without bending his
wounded knee; and to bend it was torture.
When at last he was on his feet beside the bed, he was pale and the
expression of his face had hardened to a kind of ferocity.
'All
right?' Anthony questioned.
Mark
nodded and, as though the other had become his worst enemy, limped out of the
shad without giving him a glance.
The
torture began again when the time came for mounting, and was renewed with every
step the mule advanced. As on the
previous day, Mark took the lead. At the
head of the cavalcade, he proved his superiority and at the same time put
himself out of range of inquisitive eyes.
The air was still cold; but from time to time, Anthony noticed, he took
out his handkerchief and wiped his face, as if he were sweating. Each time he put the handkerchief away again,
he would give the mule a particularly savage dig with his one available spur.
The
track descended, climbed again, descended through pine woods, descended,
descended. An hour passed, two hours,
three; the sun was high in the sky, it was oppressively hot. Three hours, three and a half; and now there
were clearings in the woods, steep fields, the stubble of Indian corn, a group
of huts, and an old woman carrying water, brown children silently playing in
the dust. They were on the outskirts of
another village.
'What
about stopping here for some food?' Anthony called, and spurred his animal to a
trot. 'We might get some fresh eggs,' he
continued as he drew up with the other mule.
The
face Mark turned towards him was as white as paper, and, as he parted his
clenched teeth to speak, the lower jaw trembled uncontrollably. 'I think we'd better push on,' he began in an
almost inaudible voice. 'We've still got
a long way
' Then the lids fluttered
over his eyes, his head dropped, his body seemed to collapse upon itself; he
fell forward on to the neck of his mule, slid to one side, and would have
pitched to the ground if Anthony had not caught him by the arm and held him up.
CHAPTER
XLVIII
July 23rd 1914
Anthony had dozed off again after being
called, and was late for breakfast. As he
entered the little living-room, Brian looked up with startled eyes and, as
though guiltily, folded away the letter he had been reading into his pocket,
but not before Anthony had recognized from across the room the unmistakable
characteristics of Joan's rather heavy and elaborately looped writing. Putting a specially casual note of cheeriness
into his good-morning, he sat down and proceeded to busy himself elaborately,
as though it were a complicated scientific process requiring the whole of his
attention, with pouring out his coffee.
'Should
I tell him?' he was wondering. 'Yes, I
ought to tell him. It ought to come from
me, even though he does know it already.
Bloody girl! Why couldn't she
keep her promise?' He felt righteously
indignant with Joan. Breaking her
word! And what the devil had she told
Brian? What would happen if his own
story was different from hers? And
anyhow, what a fool he would look, confessing now, when it was too late. She had robbed him of the opportunity, the
very possibility, of telling Brian what had happened. The woman had queered his pitch; and as his
anger modulated into self-pity, he perceived himself as a man full of good
intentions, maliciously prevented, at the eleventh hour, from putting them into
practice. She had stopped his mouth just
as he was about to speak the words that would have explained and made amends
for everything; and by doing so, she had made his situation absolutely
intolerable. How the devil did she expect
him to behave towards Brian, now that Brian knew? He answered the question, so far, at any
rate, as the next few minutes were concerned, by retiring behind the Manchester
Guardian. Hidden, he pretended,
while he ate his scrambled eggs, to be taking a passionate interest in all this
stuff about Russia and Austria and Germany.
But the silence, as it lengthened out, became at last intolerable.
'This
war business looks rather bad,' he said at last, without lowering his
barricade.
From
the other end of the table Brian made a faint murmur of assent. Seconds passed. Then there was the noise of a chair being
pushed back. Anthony sat there, a man so
deeply preoccupied with the Russian mobilization that he wasn't aware of what
was going on in his immediate neighbourhood.
It was only when Brian had actually opened the door that he started
ostentatiously into consciousness.
'Off
already?' he questioned, half turning, but not so far that he could see the
other's face.
'I
d-don't think I shall g-go out this m-morning.'
Anthony
nodded approvingly, like a family doctor.
'That's good,' he said, and added that he himself proposed to hire a
bicycle in the village and nip down to Ambleside. There were some things he had to buy. 'See you at lunchtime,' he concluded.
Brian
said nothing. The door closed behind
him.
By
a quarter to one Anthony had returned his borrowed bicycle and was walking up
the hill to the cottage. This time it
was settled, definitely, once and for all.
He would tell Brian everything almost everything, the very moment he
came in.
'Brian!'
he called from the doorstep.
There
was no answer.
'Brian!'
The
kitchen door opened, and old Mrs Benson, who did their cooking and cleaning,
stepped out into the narrow hall. Mr
Foxe, she explained, had started for a walk about half an hour before; wouldn't
be back for lunch, he had said, but had wanted (would you believe it?) to set
off without anything to eat; she had made him take some sandwiches and a
hard-boiled egg.
It
was with a sense of inner discomfort that Anthony sat down to his solitary
lunch. Brian had deliberately avoided
him; therefore must be angry or worse, it occurred to him, was hurt too
deeply to be able to bear his presence.
The thought made him wince; to hurt people was so horrible, so hurting
even to the hurter. And if Brian came
back from his walk magnanimously forgiving and knowing him, Anthony felt
convinced that he would what then? It
was also painful to be forgiven; particularly painful in the case of an offence
one had not oneself confessed. 'If only
I could have told him,' he kept repeating to himself, 'if only I could have
told him'; and almost contrived to persuade himself that he had been prevented.
After
lunch he walked up into the wild country behind the cottage, hoping (for it was
now so urgently necessary to speak), and at the same time (since the speaking
would be such an agonizing process) profoundly fearing, to meet Brian. But he met nobody. Resting on the crest of the hill, he managed
for a little while to forget his troubles in sarcasms at the expense of the
view. So typically and discreditably
English, he reflected, wishing that Mary were there to listen to his
comments. Mountain, valleys, lakes, but
on the pettiest scale. Miserably small
and hole-and-cornery, like English cottage architecture all inglenooks and
charming features; nothing fine or grandiose.
No hint of thirteenth-century megalomania or baroque gesticulation. A snug, smug little sublimity. It was almost in high spirits that he started
his descent.
No,
said old Mrs Benson, Mr Foxe hadn't yet come back.
He
had his tea alone, then sat on the deckchair on the lawn and read de Gourmont
on style. At six, Mrs Benson came out,
and after elaborately explaining that she had laid the table and that the cold
mutton was in the larder, wished him good-evening and walked away down the road
towards her own cottage.
Soon
afterwards the midges began to bite and he went indoors. The little bird in the Swiss clock opened its
door, cuckooed seven times and retired again into silence. Anthony continued to read about style. Half an hour later the bird popped out for a
single cry. It was supper-time. Anthony rose and walked to the back
door. Behind the cottage the hill was
bright with an almost supernatural radiance.
There was no sign of Brian. He
returned to the sitting-room, and for a change read some Santayana. The cuckoo uttered eight shrill
hiccoughs. Above the orange stain of
sunset the evening planet was already visible.
He lit the lamp and drew the curtains.
Then, sitting down again, he tried to go on reading Santayana; but those
carefully smoothed pebbles of wisdom rolled over the surface of his mind
without making the smallest impression.
He shut the book at last. The
cuckoo announced that it was half-past eight.
An
accident, he was wondering, could the fellow have had an accident? But, after all, people don't have accidents
not when they're out for a quiet walk. A
new thought suddenly came to him, and at once the very possibility of twisted
ankles or broken legs disappeared. That
walk he felt completely certain of it now had been to the station. Brian was in the train, on his way to London,
on his way to Joan. It was obvious, when
one came to think of it; it simply couldn't be otherwise.
'Christ!'
Anthony said aloud in the solitude of the little room. Then, made cynical and indifferent by the
very hopelessness of the situation, he shrugged his shoulders and, lighting a
candle, went out to the larder to fetch the cold mutton.
This
time, he decided, as he ate his meal, he really would escape. Just bolt into hiding till things looked
better. He felt no compunction. Brian's journey to London had relieved him,
in his own estimation, of any further responsibility in the matter; he felt
that he was now free to do whatever suited him best.
In
preparation for his flight, he went upstairs after supper and began to pack his
bag. The recollection that he had lent
Brian The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman to read in bed sent him, candle in
hand, across the landing. On the chest
of drawers in Brian's room three envelopes stood conspicuously propped against
the wall. Two, he could see from the
doorway, were stamped, the other was unstamped.
He crossed the room to look at them more closely. The unstamped envelope was addressed to
himself, the others to Mrs Foxe and Joan respectively. He set down the candle, took the envelope
addressed to himself, and tore it open.
A vague but intense apprehension had filled his mind, a fear of
something unknown, something he dared not know.
He stood there for a long time holding the open envelope in his hand and
listening to the heavy pulse of his own blood.
Then, coming at last to a decision, he extracted the folded sheets. There were two of them, one in Brian's
writing, the other in Joan's. Across the
top of Joan's letter Brian had written: 'Read this for yourself.' He read.
'DEAREST BRIAN, - By this time
Anthony will have told you what has happened.
And, if you know, it did just happen from outside, if you see
what I mean, like an accident, like being run into by a train. I certainly hadn't thought about it before,
and I don't think Anthony had not really; the discovery that we loved one
another just ran into us, ran over us.
There wasn't any question of us doing it on purpose. That's why I don't feel guilty. Sorry, yes more than words can say for
the pain I know I shall give you. Ready
to do all I can to make it less. Asking
forgiveness for hurting you. But not
feeling guilty, not feeling I've treated you dishonourably. I should only feel that if I had done it
deliberately; but I didn't. I tell you,
it just happened to me to us both.
Brian dear, I'm unspeakably sorry to be hurting you. You of all people. If it were a matter of doing it with
intention, I couldn't do it. No more
than you could have hurt me intentionally.
But this thing has just happened, in the same way as it just happened
that you hurt me because of that fear that you've always had of love. You didn't want to hurt me, but you did; you
couldn't help it. The impulse that made
you hurt me ran into you, ran over you, like this impulse of love that has run
into me and Anthony. I don't think it's
anybody's fault, Brian. We had bad
luck. Everything ought to have been so
good and beautiful. And then things
happened to us to you first, so that you had to hurt me; then to me. Later on, perhaps, we can still be
friends. I hope so. That's why I'm not saying goodbye to you,
Brian dear. Whatever happens, I am
always your loving friend,
JOAN.'
In
the effort to keep up his self-esteem and allay his profound disquietude,
Anthony forced himself to think with distaste of the really sickening style in
which this kind of letter was generally written. A branch of pulpit oratory, he concluded, and
tried to smile to himself. But it was no
good. His face refused to do what he
asked of it. He dropped Joan's letter
and reluctantly picked up the other sheet in Brian's handwriting.
'DEAR A., - I enclose
the letter I received this morning from Joan.
Read it; it will save me explaining.
How could he have done it? That's
the question I've been asking myself all the morning; and now I put it to
you. How could you? Circumstances may have run over her like a
train, as she says. And that, I know,
was my fault. But they couldn't have run
over you. You've told me enough about
yourself and Mary Amberley to make it quite clear that there could be no
question in your case of poor Joan's train.
Why did you do it? And why did
you come here and behave as though nothing had happened? How could you sit there and let me talk about
my difficulties with Joan and pretend to be sympathetic, when a couple of
evenings before you had been giving her the kisses I wasn't able to give? God knows, I've done all manner of bad and
stupid things in the course of my life, told all manner of lies; but I honestly
don't think I could have done what you have done. I didn't think anybody could have done
it. I suppose I've been living in a sort
of fool's paradise all these years, thinking the world was a place where this
sort of thing simply couldn't happen. A
year ago I might have known how to deal with the discovery that it can
happen. Not now. I know that, if I tried, I should just break
down into some kind of madness. This
last year has strained me more than I knew.
I realize now that I'm all broken to pieces inside, and that I've been
holding myself together by a continuous effort of will. It's as if a broken statue somehow contrived
to hold itself together. And now this
has finished it. I can't hold any
more. I know if I were to see you now
and it's not because I feel that you've done something you shouldn't have done;
it would be the same with anyone, even my mother yes, if I were to see anyone
who had ever meant anything to me, I should just break down and fall to
bits. A statue at one moment, and the
next a heap of dust and shapeless fragments.
I can't face it. Perhaps I ought
to; but I simply can't. I was angry with
you when I began to write this letter, I hated you; but now I find I don't hate
you any longer. God bless you.
Anthony put the two letters and the torn
envelope in his pocket, and, picking up the two stamped envelopes and the
candle, made his way downstairs to the sitting-room. Half an hour later, he went to the kitchen,
and in the range, which was still smouldering, set fire one by one to all the
papers that Brian had left behind him.
The two unopened envelopes with their closely folded contents burnt
slowly, had to be constantly relighted; but at last it was done. With the poker he broke the charred paper
into dust, stirred up the fire to a last flame and drew the round cover back
into place. Then he walked out into the
garden and down the steps to the road.
On the way to the village it suddenly struck him that he would never be
able to see Mary again. She would
question him, she would worm the truth out of him and, having wormed it out,
would proclaim it to the world. Besides,
would he even want to see her again now that Brian had
He could not bring
himself to say the words even to himself.
'Christ!' he said aloud. At the
entrance to the village he halted for a few moments to think what he would say
when he knocked up the policeman. 'My
friend's lost
My friend has been out all day and
I'm worried about my
friend
' Anything would do; he hurried
on, only anxious to get it over.
CHAPTER
XLIX
January 12th and 14th 1934
It was dark in the little rancho,
and from noon till sunset, stiflingly hot; then cold all through the
night. A partition divided the hut into
two compartments; in the middle of the first compartment was a hearth of rough
stones, and when the fire was lighted for cooking, the smoke filtered slowly
away through the chinks in the windowless wooden walls. The furniture consisted of a stool, two
kerosene tins for water, some earthenware cooking-pots, and a stone mortar for
grinding maize. On the further side of
the partition were a couple of plank beds on trestles. It was on one of these that they laid Mark.
By
the following morning he was delirious with fever, and, from knee to knee, the
infection had crept downwards, until the leg was swollen almost to the ankle.
For
Anthony, as he sat there in the hot twilight, listening to the mutterings and
sudden outcries of this stranger on the bed, there was, for the moment, only
one thing to decide. Should he send the mozo
to fetch a doctor and the necessary drugs from Miajutla? Or should he go himself?
It
was a choice of evils. He thought of
poor Mark, abandoned, alone in the hands of these inept and not too
well-intentioned savages. But even if he
himself were there, what could he do with the resources at his disposal? And suppose the mozo were sent and
failed to persuade the doctor to come at once, failed to bring the necessary
supplies, failed perhaps to return at all.
Miajutla, as Mark had said, was in the pulque country; there
would be oceans of cheap alcohol. Riding
hard, he himself could be back again at Mark's bedside in less than thirty
hours. A white man with money in his
pocket, he would be able to bully and bribe the doctor to bestir himself. Hardly less important, he would know what
stores to bring back with him. His mind
was made up. He rose and, going to the
door, called to the mozo to saddle his mule.
He
had ridden for less than two hours when the miracle happened. Coming round a bend in the track he saw
advancing towards him, not fifty yards away, a white man, followed by two
Indians, one mounted and one on foot, with a couple of laden baggage-mules. As they drove together, the white man
courteously raised his hat. The hair
beneath it was light brown, grizzled above the ears, and in the deeply bronzed
face the blue eyes were startlingly pale.
'Buenas
dias, caballero,' he said.
There
was no mistaking the accent.
'Good-morning,' Anthony replied.
They
reined up their beasts alongside one another and began to talk.
'This
is the first word of English I've heard for seven and a half months,' said the
stranger. He was an elderly little man,
short and spare, but with fine upright carriage that lent him a certain
dignity. The face was curiously
proportioned, with a short nose and an upper lip unusually long above a wide,
rightly shut mouth. A mouth like an inquisitor's. But the inquisitor had forgotten himself and
learned to smile; there were the potentialities of laughter in the deep folds
of skin which separated the quiveringly sensitive corners of the mouth from the
cheeks. And round the bright enquiring
eyes those intricate lines seemed the traces and hieroglyphic symbols of a constantly
repeated movement of humorous kindliness.
A queer face, Anthony decided, but charming.
'My
name is James Miller,' said the stranger.
'What's yours?' And when he had
been told, 'Are you travelling alone, Anthony Beavis?' he questioned, addressing
the other, Quaker fashion, by both his names.
Anthony
told him where he was bound and on what errand.
'I suppose you don't know anything about doctors in Miajutla,' he
concluded.
With
a sudden deepening of the hieroglyphs about the eyes, a sudden realization of
those potentialities of laughter round the mouth, the little man smiled. 'I know about doctors here,' he said,
and tapped himself on the chest. 'M.D.
Edinburgh. And a good supply of materia medica on those mules, what's
more.' Then, in another tone, 'Come on,'
he said briskly. 'Let's get back to that
poor friend of yours as quick as we can.'
Anthony
reeled his animal round, and side by side the two men set off up the track.
'Well,
Anthony Beavis,' said the doctor, 'you came to the right address.'
Anthony
nodded. 'Fortunately,' he said, 'I
hadn't been praying, otherwise I'd have had to believe in special providence
and miraculous interventions.'
'And
that would never do,' the doctor agreed.
'Not that anything ever happens by chance, of course. One takes the card the conjuror forces on one
the card which one has oneself made it inevitable that he should force on
one. It's a matter of cause and effect.' Then, without a pause, 'What's your
profession?' he asked.
'I
suppose you'd say I was a sociologist.
Was one, at any rate.'
'Indeed!
Is that so?' The doctor seemed surprised
and pleased. 'Mine's anthropology,' he
went on. 'Been living with the
Lacandones in Chiapas these last months.
Nice people when you get to know them.
And I've collected a lot of material.
Are you married, by the way?'
'No.'
'Never
been married?'
'No.'
Dr
Miller shook his head. 'That's bad,
Anthony Beavis,' he said. 'You ought to
have been.'
'What
makes you say that?'
'I
can see it in your face. Here, and
here.' He touched his lips, his
forehead. 'I was married. For fourteen years. Then my wife died. Blackwater fever it was. We were working in West Africa then. She was qualified too. Knew her job better, in some ways, than I
did.' He sighed. 'You'd have made a good husband, you
know. Perhaps you will do, even
now. How old are you?'
'Forty-three.'
'And
look younger. Though I don't like that
sallow skin of yours,' he protested with sudden vehemence. 'Do you suffer much from constipation?'
'Well,
no, Anthony answered, smiling, and wondered whether it would be agreeable if
everyone were to talk to one in this sort of way. A bit tiring, perhaps, to have to treat all
the people you meet as human beings, every one of them with a right to know all
about you; but more interesting than treating them as objects, as mere lumps of
meat dumped down beside you in the bus, jostling you on the pavements. 'Not much,' he qualified.
'You
mean, not manifestly,' said the doctor.
'Any eczema?'
'Occasional
touches.'
'And
the hair tends to be scurfy.' Dr Miller
nodded his own confirmation to this statement.
'And you get headaches, don't you?'
Anthony
had to admit that he sometimes did.
'And,
of course, stiff necks and attacks of lumbago.
I know. I know. A few years more and it'll be settled in as
sciatica or arthritis.' The doctor was
silent for a moment while he looked enquiringly into Anthony's face. 'Yes, that sallow skin,' he repeated, and
shook his head. 'And the irony, the
scepticism, the what's-the-good-of-it-all attitude! Negative really. Everything you think is negative.'
Anthony
laughed; but laughed to hide a certain disquiet. This being on human terms with everyone you
met could be a bit embarrassing.
'Oh,
don't imagine I'm criticizing!' cried the doctor, and there was a note of
genuine compunction in his voice.
Anthony
went on laughing, unconvincingly.
'Don't
get it into your head that I'm blaming you in any way.'
Stretching
out a hand, he patted Anthony affectionately on the shoulder. 'We're all of us what we are; and when it
comes to turning ourselves into what we ought to be well, it isn't easy. No, it isn't easy, Anthony Beavis. How can you expect to think in anything but a
negative way, when you've got chronic intestinal poisoning? Had it from birth, I guess. Inherited it.
And at the same time stooping, as you do. Slumped down on your mule like that it's
awful. Pressing down on the vertebrae
like a ton of bricks. One can almost
hear the poor things grinding together.
And when the spine's in that state, what happens to the rest of the
machine? It's frightful to think of.'
'And
yet,' said Anthony, feeling a little piqued by this remorseless enumeration of
his physical defects, 'I'm still alive.
I'm here to tell the tale.'
'Somebody's
here to tell the tale,' the doctor answered.
'But is he the one you'd like him to be?'
Anthony
did not answer, only smiled uncomfortably.
'And
when that somebody won't be telling the tale much longer, if you're not
careful. I'm serious,' he insisted. 'Perfectly serious. You've go to change if you want to go on
existing. And if it's a matter of
changing why, you need all the help you can get, from God's to the
doctor's. I tell you this because I like
you,' he explained. 'I think you're
worth changing.'
'Thank
you,' said Anthony, smiling this time with pleasure.
'Speaking
as a doctor, I'd suggest a course of colonic irrigation to start with.'
'And
speaking for God,' said Anthony, allowing his pleasure to overflow in
good-humoured mockery, 'a course of prayer and fasting.'
'No,
not fasting,' the doctor protested very seriously, 'not fasting. Only a proper diet. No butcher's meat; it's poison, so far as
you're concerned. And no milk; it'll
only blow you up with wind. Take it in
the form of cheese and butter; never liquid.
And a minimum of eggs. And, of
course, only one heavy meal a day. You
don't need half the stuff you're eating.
As for prayer
' He sighed and wrinkled his forehead into a pensive
frown. 'I've never really liked it, you
know. Not what's ordinarily meant by
prayer, at any rate. All that asking for
special favours and guidances and forgivenesses I've always found that it
tends to make one egotistical, preoccupied with one's own ridiculous
self-important little personality. When
you pray in the ordinary way, you're merely rubbing yourself into
yourself. You return to your own vomit,
if you see what I mean. Whereas what
we're all looking for is some way of getting beyond our own vomit.'
Some
way, Anthony was thinking, of getting beyond the books, beyond the perfumed and
resilient flesh of women, beyond fear and sloth, beyond the painful but
secretly flattering vision of the world as menagerie and asylum.
'Beyond
the piddling, twopenny-halfpenny personality,' said the doctor, 'with all its
wretched little virtues and vices, all its silly cravings and silly
pretensions. But, if you're not careful,
prayer just confirms you in the bad habit of being personal. I tell you, I've observed it clinically, and
it seems to have much the same effect on people as butcher's meat. Prayer makes you more yourself, more
separate. Just as a rump-steak does. Look at the correlation between religion and
diet. Christians eat meat, drink
alcohol, smoke tobacco; and Christianity exalts personality, insists on the
value of petitionary prayer, teaches that God feels anger and approves the
persecution of heretics. It's the same
with the Jews and the Moslems. Kosher
and an indignant Jehovah. Mutton and
beef and personal survival among the houris, avenging Allah and holy
wars. Now look at the Buddhists. Vegetables and water. And what's their philosophy? They don't exalt personality; they try to
transcend it. They don't imagine that
God can be angry; when they're unenlightened, they think he's compassionate,
and when they're enlightened, they think he doesn't exist, except as an
impersonal mind of the universal. Hence
they don't offer petitionary prayer; they meditate or, in other words, try to
merge their own minds in the universal mind.
Finally, they don't believe in special providences for individuals; they
believe in a moral order, where every event has its cause and produces its effect
where the card's forced upon you by
the conjuror, but only because your previous actions have forced the conjuror
to force it upon you. What worlds away
from Jehovah and God the Father and everlasting, individual souls! The fact is, of course, that we think as we
eat. I eat like a Buddhist, because I
find it keeps me well and happy; and the result is that I think like a Buddhist
and, thinking like a Buddhist, I'm confirmed in my determination to eat like
one.'
'And
now you're recommending me to eat like one.'
'More
or less.'
'And
do you also want me to think like one?'
'In
the long run you won't be able to avoid it.
But, of course, it's better to do it consciously.'
'Well,
as a matter of fact,' said Anthony, 'I do think like a Buddhist already. Not in all ways perhaps, but certainly in
many ways. In spite of roast beef.'
'You
think you think like a Buddhist,' said the doctor. 'But you don't. Thinking negatively isn't thinking like a
Buddhist; it's thinking like a Christian who's eating more butcher's meat than his
intestine can deal with.'
Anthony
laughed.
'Oh,
I know it sounds funny,' said the doctor.
'But that's only because you're a dualist.'
'I'm
not.'
'Not
in theory perhaps. But in practice how
can you be anything but a dualist? What
are you, Anthony Beavis? A clever man
that's obvious. But it's equally obvious
that you've got an unconscious body. An
efficient thinking apparatus and a hopelessly stupid set of muscles and bones
and viscera. Of course you're a
dualist. You live your
dualism. And one of the reasons you live
it is because you poison yourself with too much animal protein. Like millions of other people, of
course! What's the greatest enemy of
Christianity today? Frozen meat. In the past only members of the upper classes
were thoroughly sceptical, despairing, negative. Why?
Among other reasons, because they were the only people who could afford
to eat too much meat. Now there's cheap
Canterbury Lamb and Argentine chilled beef.
Even the poor can afford to poison themselves into complete scepticism
and despair. And only the most violent
stimuli will rouse them to purposive activity, and, what's worse, the only
activity they'll undertake is diabolic. They
can only be stimulated by hysterical appeals to persecute Jews, or murder
socialists, or go to war. You personally
happen to be too intelligent to be a fascist or a nationalist; but again, it's
a matter of theory, not of life. Believe
me, Anthony Beavis, your intestines are ripe for fascism and nationalism. They're making you long to be shaken out of
the horrible negativity to which they've condemned you to be shaken by
violence into violence.'
'As
a matter of fact,' said Anthony, 'that's one of the reasons why I'm here.' He waved his hand towards the tumbled chaos
of the mountains. 'Simply to be shaken
out of negativity. We were on our way to
a revolution when poor Staithes got hurt.'
The
doctor nodded. 'You see,' he said, 'you
see! And do you suppose you'd be here if
you had a healthy intestine?'
'Well,
I don't really know,' Anthony answered, laughing.
'You
know quite well that you wouldn't,' said the doctor almost severely. 'Not on that kind of lunatic's errand, at any
rate. For, of course, you might be here
as an anthropologist, say, or a teacher, a healer, whatever you like, so long
as it meant understanding people and helping them.'
Anthony
nodded his head slowly, but did not speak; and for a long way they rode along
in silence.
There
was light out of doors, and it was cleaner under the sky than in the little rancho. Dr Miller had chosen as his operating theatre
a little clearing in the woods, outside the village.
'Beyond
the range of the flies, let's hope,' he said, but without seeming too confident
of it.
A
hearth had been built by his two mozos, and on the fire stood a cauldron
of boiling water. They had borrowed a
table from the schoolmaster and some stools, with bowls for the disinfectant,
and a cotton sheet to cover the bedstead.
Dr
Miller had given him a dose of Nembutal, and when the time came, Mark was
carried out unconscious to the clearing among the pine trees. All the boys in the village escorted the
stretcher and stood round in attentive silence while the patient was lifted on
to the bed. Trousered, and in their wide
hats, with their little blankets folded over their shoulders, they seemed, not
children, but the absurd and derisive parodies of grown men.
Anthony,
who had been holding the gangrened leg, straightened himself up, and, looking
round, saw the ring of brown faces and the glitter of all those black, blank
eyes. At the sight he found his growing
apprehension abruptly transformed into uncontrollable anger.
'Go
away!' he shouted in English, and advanced towards them, waving his arms. 'Away, you little beasts, away!'
The
children retreated, but slowly, reluctantly, with the manifest intention of
returning the moment he should turn his back.
Anthony
made a quick dart and caught one small boy by the arm.
'Little
beast!'
He
shook the child violently, then, carried away by an irresistible impulse to
inflict pain, gave him a cuff over the head that sent the big hat flying
between the trees.
Uttering
no cry, the child ran away after its companions. Anthony made a last menacing gesture in their
direction, then turned and walked back towards the centre of the clearing. He had not taken more than a few steps when a
stone, well aimed, caught him full between the shoulders. He swung rung furiously, exploding into such
obscenities as he had not uttered since he was at school.
Dr
Miller, who was washing his hands at the table, looked up. 'What's the matter?' he asked.
'The
little devils are throwing stones.'
'Serve
you right,' said the doctor unsympathetically.
'Leave them alone, and come and do your duty.'
The
unfamiliarly clerical and military word startled him into the uncomfortable
realization that he had been behaving like a fool. With the realization of his discreditable
folly came the impulse to justify it. It
was in a tone of pained indignation that he spoke. 'You're not going to let them look on, are
you?'
'How
am I to prevent them looking on, if they want to?' asked the doctor, drying his
hands as he spoke. 'And now, Anthony
Beavis,' he went on sternly, 'pull yourself together. This is going to be difficult enough anyhow,
without your being hysterical.'
Silenced,
and because he was ashamed of himself, angry with Miller, Anthony washed his
hands and put on the clean shirt which had to do duty as overall.
'Now,'
said the doctor, and stepped forward. 'We
must begin by draining the leg of blood.'
'The'
leg, not 'his' leg, Anthony was thinking, as he stood beside the doctor,
looking down on the man sleeping on the bed.
Something impersonal, belonging to nobody in particular. The leg.
But Mark's face, Mark's sleeping face, now so incredibly calm, so
smooth, in spite of the emaciation, as though this death-like stupor had drawn
a new skin across the flayed and twisted muscles this could never bee merely
'the' face. It was 'his', for all its
unlikeness to that contemptuous, suffering mask through which at ordinary times
Mark looked out at the world. All the
more genuinely his, perhaps, just because of that unlikeness. He remembered suddenly what Mark had said to
him, beside the Mediterranean, only four months before, when he had woken to
see those eyes, now shut, but then wide open and bright with derision,
sardonically examining him through the mosquito net. Perhaps one really is what one seems to be in
sleep. Innocence and peace the mind's
essence, and all the rest mere accident.
'Take
his foot,' Dr Miller ordered, 'and lift the leg as nearly vertical as you can.'
Anthony
did as he was told. Raised in this
grotesque way, the horribly swollen and discoloured leg seemed more impersonal,
more a mere thing than ever. The stink
of mortified flesh was in his nostrils.
From behind them, among the trees, a voice said something
incomprehensible; there was a snicker of laughter.
'Now
leave the foot to the mozo and stand by here.' Anthony obeyed, and smelt again the resin of
the forest. 'Hold that bottle for me.'
There
was an astonished murmur of 'Amarillo!' as the doctor painted the thigh
with flavine. Anthony looked again at
his friend's face; it remained undisturbed in its serenity. Essentially still and pure. The leg with its black dead flesh' the saw
there in the bowl of permanganate solution, the knives and forceps; the
fascinated children peering out of the forest all were somehow irrelevant to
the essential Mark.
'Now
the chloroform,' said Dr Miller. 'And
the cotton wool. I'll show you how to
use it. Then you'll have to go on by
yourself.'
He
opened the bottle, and the smell of pine trees in the sunshine was overlaid by
a rasping and nauseating sweetness.
'There,
do you see the trick?' asked the doctor.
'Like that. Go on with that. I'll tell you when to stop. I've got to put on the tourniquet.'
There
were no birds in the trees, hardly, even, any insects. The wood was deathly still. This sunny clearing was a little island of
speech and movement in an ocean of silence.
And at the centre of that island lay another silence, intenser, more
complete than the silence of the forest.
The
tourniquet was in place. Dr Miller
ordered the mozo to lower the grotesquely hoisted leg. He pulled up a stool to the bedside, sat
down, then rose again and, as he washed his hands for the last time, explained
to Anthony that he would have to operate sitting down. The bed was too low for
him to be able to stand. Taking his seat
once more, he dipped into the bowl of permanganate for a scalpel.
At
the sight of those broad flaps of skin turned back, like the peel of a huge
banana, but from a red and bleeding fruit, Anthony was seized with a horrible
sensation of nausea. The saliva came
pouring into his mouth and he had to keep swallowing and swallowing to get rid
of it. Involuntarily, he gave vent to a
retching cough.
'Steady
now,' said the doctor without looking up.
With an artery forceps, he secured the end of an oozing vessel.
'Think
of it scientifically.' He made another
sweeping cut through the red flesh. 'And
if you must be sick,' he went on with sudden asperity, 'for God's sake go and
do it quickly!' Then, in another tone
the tone of the professor who demonstrates an interesting point to his
students, 'One has to but back the nerves a long way,' he said. 'There's a tremendous retraction as the
tissues heal up. Anyhow,' he added,
'he'll probably have to have a re-amputation at home. It won't be a beautiful stump, I'm afraid.'
Calm
and at peace, innocent of all craving, all malice, all ambition it was the
face of one who has made himself free, one for whom there are no more bars or
chains, no more sepulchres under a stone, and on whom the birdlime no longer
sticks. The face of one who has made
himself free
But in fact, Anthony reflected, in fact he had had his freedom
forced upon him by this evil-smelling vapour.
Was it possible to be one's own liberator? There were snares; but also there was a way
of walking out of them. Prisons; but
they could be opened. And if the
torture-chambers could never be abolished, perhaps the tortures could be made
to seem irrelevant. As completely
irrelevant as now to Mark this sound of sawing, as this revolting rasp and
squeak of the steel teeth biting into the bone, of the steel blade rubbing back
and forth in the deepening groove. Mark
lay there serene, almost smiling.
CHAPTER
L
Christmas Day 1934
God a person or not a person? Quien sabe? Only revelation can decide
such metaphysical questions. And
revelation isn't playing the game is equivalent to pulling three aces of
trumps from up your sleeve.
Of
more significance is the practical question.
Which gives a man more power to realize goodness belief in a personal
or an impersonal God? Answer: it
depends. Some minds work one way, some
another. Mine, as it happens, finds no
need, indeed, finds it impossible to think of the world in terms of
personality. Patanjali says you may
believe in a personal God, or not, according to taste. The psychological results will be the same in
either case.
For
those whose nature demands personality as a source of energy, but who find it
impossible to believe that the universe is run by a person in any sense of the
word that we can possibly understand what's the right policy? In most cases, they reject any practice which
might be called religious. But this is
throwing away the baby with the bath water.
The desired relationship with a personality can be historical, not
ontological. A contact, not with
somebody existing at present as manager of the universe, but with somebody
known to have existed at some time in the past.
The Imitation of Christ (or of any other historical character0 is just
as effective if the model be regarded as having existed there, then, as it is
if the model be conceived as existing here, now. And meditation on goodness, communication
with goodness, contemplation of goodness are demonstrably effective means of realizing
goodness in life, even when that which is meditated on, communicated with and
contemplated, is not a person, but a general mind, or even an ideal supposed to
exist only in human minds. The
fundamental problem is practical to work out systems of psychological
exercises for all types of men and women.
Catholicism has many systems of mental prayer Ignatian, Franciscan,
Liguorian, Carmelite and so on.
Hinduism, Nothern, Southern and Zen Buddhism also have a variety of
practices. There is a great work to be
done here. Collecting and collating
information from all these sources.
Consulting books and, more important, people who have actually practised
what is in the books, have had experience of teaching novices. In time, it might be possible to establish a
complete and definitive Ars Contemplativa. A series of techniques, adapted to every type
of mind. Techniques for meditating on,
communicating with and contemplating goodness.
Ends in themselves and at the same time means for realizing some of that
goodness in practice.
January
1st 1935
Machinery
and good organization modern inventions; and, like all blessings, have to be
paid for. In many ways. One item is the general belief, encouraged by
mechanical and social efficiency, that progress is automatic and can be imposed
from outside. We, as individuals, need
do nothing about it. Liquidate
undesirables, distribute enough money and goods all will be well. It is a reversion to magic, a pandering to
man's natural sloth. Note the striking
way in which this tendency runs through the whole of modern life, cropping up
at every point. There seems no obvious
connection between the Webbs and the Soviets on the one hand and Modern
Catholicism on the other. But what
profound subterranean resemblances! The
recent Catholic point of view, this is a 'sacramental age'. Magic power of sacraments regarded as
sufficient for salvation. Mental prayer
conspicuously absent. Exact analogy to
the Webbs-Soviet idea of progress from without, through machinery and efficient
organization. For English Catholics,
sacraments are the psychological equivalents of tractors in Russia.
CHAPTER
L1
February 7th 1934
Dr Miller dismounted at the open door, left
his beast with the mozo, and stepped into the hut.
Propped
up on his bed, Mark watched him enter a small, erect figure, walking briskly,
his blue eyes bright with enquiring kindness, the corners of his mouth alive
with the potentialities of laughter.
'And
how are all the little patients this evening?' Mark twisted up his pale and
still emaciated face into a ferociously sardonic smile.
From
the stool on which he was sitting beside the bed, Anthony shot a glance at him,
and remembered the serenity of that face three weeks before, in the early
morning sunshine among the pine trees.
Serene and at peace. But now life
had come back to him, now that he was safely convalescent, the peace had
departed, leaving him the embittered enemy of the whole world. There had been hatred in his eyes even before
he was strong enough to speak. Hatred
for everyone who came near him above all for old Miller.
'I
can't bear his perpetual twinkle,' was what he had said to Anthony later
on. 'Nobody has the right to go about
looking like the advertisement of a constipation cure.'
But
the real reason for Mark's dislike was different. He hated old Miller because of his dependence
upon him, because of the unflaggingly watchful efficiency of the man's
care. Poor Mark! How acutely he suffered from having to accept
a service and, still more, from being
compelled by his own physical weakness to ask for it! How bitterly he resented even affection, if
it were given by somebody to whom it was impossible for him to feel
superior! His dislike for the doctor had
been present from the first moment of his return to consciousness, had
increased with every day that the old man delayed his departure in order to
look after him.
'But
why don't you get on with your journey?' he had asked; and when the doctor
answered that he was in no hurry and intended to see him safely down to the
coast and even, since he himself was leaving, home through the Canal to
England, had protested vehemently that his leg was practically healed, that
there would be no difficulty in getting back to Puerto San Felipe, that he
himself would probably be taking the north-bound boat to Los Angeles.
But
the doctor had remained, attending to Mark and in the intervals riding out to
the neighbouring villages to treat the sick.
To the convalescent this was an additional source of irritation though
why it should have annoyed him Anthony could not rightly understand. Perhaps he resented the fact that the
benefactor of the Indians was not himself.
Anyhow, there it was; he was never tired of baiting old Miller with
those 'little patients' of his.
Then,
a fortnight after the operation, had come the new of the ignominious failure of
Don Jorge's attempt at insurrection. He
had been surprised with an insufficient guard, taken alive, summarily tried and
shot with his chief lieutenant. The
report added that the two men had cracked jokes together as they walked between
the soldiers towards the cemetery, where their graves were already dug.
'And
he died,' had been Mark's comment, 'believing that I'd taken fright at the last
moment and let him down.'
The
thought was like another wound to him.
'If
I hadn't had this blasted accident
' he kept repeating. 'If I'd been there to advise him
That crazy
rashness of his! That was why he'd asked
me to come. He mistrusted his own
judgment. And here was I lying in this
stinking pigsty, while the poor devil marches off to the cemetery
' Cracking
jokes, as he sniffed the cold morning air.
'Huele al cimentero, Don Jaime.'
He too would have cracked his joke.
Instead of which
It was just bad luck, of course, just a typical piece
of providential idiocy; but providence was not there for him to vent his
grievance on. Only Anthony and the
doctor were there. His behaviour towards
them, after the news of Don Jorge's death, had become increasingly bitter and
resentful. It was as though he regarded
them as personally responsible for what had happened. Both of them, especially the doctor.
'How's
the delicious bedside manner?' Mark now went on, in the same derisive tone in
which he had asked after the little patients.
'Wasted,
I'm afraid,' Dr Miller answered good-humouredly as he took off his hat and sat
down. 'Either they haven't got any beds
for me to be at the side of only a blanket on the floor. Or else they don't speak any Spanish, and I
don't speak their brand of Indian dialect.
And how's yourself?' he asked.
'Myself,'
said Mark, returning the doctor his expression in a tone of emphatically
contemptuous disgust, as though it were some kind of verbal ordure, 'is very
well, thanks.'
'But
doing a slight Bishop Berkeley,' Anthony interposed. 'Feeling pains in the knees he hasn't got.'
Mark
looked at him for a moment with an expression of stony dislike; then turning
away and fixing his eyes on the bright evening landscape, visible through the
open door of the hut, 'Not pains,' he said coldly, though it was as pains that
he had described them to Anthony only half an hour before. 'Just the sensation that the knee's still
there.'
'Can't
avoid that, I'm afraid.' The doctor
shook his head.
'I
didn't suppose one could,' Mark said, as though he were replying with dignity
to an aspersion on his honour.
Dr
Miller broke the uncomfortable silence by remarking that there was a good deal
of goitre in the higher valleys.
'It
has its charm,' said Mark, stroking an imaginary bulge at his throat. 'How I regret those cretins one used to see
in Switzerland when I was a child!
They've iodined them out of existence now, I'm afraid. The world's too damned sanitary these
days.' He shook his head and smiled
anatomically. 'What do they do up there
in the high valleys?' he asked.
'Grow
maize,' said the doctor. 'And kill one
another in the intervals. There's a huge
network of vendettas spread across these mountains. Everybody's involved. I've been talking to the responsible men,
trying to persuade them to liquidate all the old accounts and start afresh.'
'They'll
die of boredom.'
'No,
I'm teaching them football instead.
Matches between the villages.' He
smiled. 'I've had a lot of experience
with vendettas,' he added. 'All over the
world. They all detest them,
really. Are only too thankful for
football when they're used to it.'
'Christ!'
'Why
Christ?'
'Those
games! Can't we ever escape them?'
'But
they're the greatest English contribution to civilization,' said the
doctor. 'Much more important than
parliamentary government, or steam engines, or Newton's Principia. More important even than English poetry. Poetry can never be a substitute for war and
murder. Whereas games can be. A complete and genuine substitute.'
'Substitutes!'
Mark echoed contemptuously. 'You're all
content with substitutes. Anthony finds
his in bed or in the British Museum Reading Room. You look for yours on the football
field. God help you! Why are you so frightened of the genuine article?'
For
a little while no one spoke. Dr Miller
looked at Anthony, and, seeing that he did not propose to answer, turned back
to the other. 'It isn't a question of
being frightened, Mark Staithes,' he said very mildly. 'It's a question of choosing something right
instead of something wrong
'
'I'm
suspicious of right choices that happen to need less courage than wrong ones.'
'Is
danger your measure of goodness?'
Mark
shrugged his shoulders. 'What is
goodness? Hard to know, in most
cases. But at least one can be sure that
it's good to face danger courageously.'
'And
for that you're justified in deliberately creating dangerous situations at
other people's expense?' Dr Miller shook
his head. 'That won't do, Mark Staithes. If you want to use courage, why not use it in
a good cause.'
'Such
as teaching blackamoors to play football,' Mark sneered.
'Which
isn't so easy, very often, as it sounds.'
'They
can't grasp the offside rule, I suppose.'
'They
don't want to grasp any rule at all, except the rule of killing the people from
the next village. And when you're
between two elevens armed to the teeth and breathing slaughter at one another
' He paused; his wide mouth twitched into a smile; the almost invisible
hieroglyphs round the eyes deepened, as he narrowed the lids, into the manifest
symbols of an inner amusement. 'Well, as
I say, it isn't quite so easy as it sounds.
Have you ever found yourself faced by a lot of angry men who wanted to
kill you?'
Mark
nodded, and an expression of rather malevolent satisfaction appeared on his
face. 'Several times,' he answered. 'When I was running a coffee finca a
bit further down the coast, in Chiapas.'
'And
you faced them without arms?'
'Without
arms,' Mark repeated, and, by way of explanation, 'The politicians,' he added,
'were still talking about revolution in those days. The land for the people and all the
rest. One fine morning the villagers
came to seize the estate.'
'Which,
on your principles,' said Anthony, 'you ought to have approved of.'
'And
did approve, of course. But I could
hardly admit it not in those circumstances.'
'Why
not?'
'Well,
surely that's pretty obvious, isn't it?? There they were, marching against
me. Was I to tell them I sympathized
with their politics and then hand over the estate? No, really, that would have been a bit too
simple!'
'What
did you do, then?'
'There
were about a hundred of them the first time,' Mark explained. 'Festooned with guns and cartridge-belts like
Christmas trees, and all with their machetes.
But polite, soft spoken. They had
no particular quarrel with me, and the revolutionary idea was strange; they
didn't feel too certain of themselves.
Not that they ever made much noise,' he added. 'I've seen them killing in silence. Like fish.
It's an aquarium, this country.'
'Seems
like an aquarium,' Dr Miller emended.
'But when one has learnt how the fishes think
'
'I've
always found it more important to learn how they drink,' said Mark. 'Tequila's the real enemy. Luckily, mine were sober. Otherwise
Well, who knows what would have
happened?' After a pause, 'They were
standing on the cement drying floor,' he went on, 'and I was sitting at the
door of the office, up a few steps, above them.
Superior, as though I were holding a durbar of my loyal subjects.' He laughed; the colour had come to his
cheeks, and he spoke with a kind of gusto, as though the words had a pleasant
taste in his mouth. 'A hundred,
villainous, coffee-coloured peons, staring up at one with those beady
tortoise's eyes of theirs it wasn't reassuring. But I managed to keep my face and voice from
giving anything away. It helped a lot, I
found, to think of the creatures as some kind of rather squalid insects. Cockroaches, dung beetles. Just a hundred big, staring bugs. It helped, I say. But still my heart did beat
a bit. On its own you know the
sensation, don't you? It's as though you
had a live bird under your ribs. A bird
with its own bird-like consciousness.
Suffering from its own private fears.
An odd sensation, but exhilarating.
I don't think I was ever happier in my life than I was that day. The fact of being one against a hundred. A hundred armed to the teeth. But bugs, only bugs. Whereas the one was a man. It was a wonderful feeling.' He was silent for a little, smiling to
himself.
'And
what happened then?' Anthony asked.
'Nothing. I just gave them a little speech from the
throne. Told them the finca
wasn't mine to give away. That,
meanwhile, I was responsible for the place.
And if I caught anybody trespassing on the land, or doing any mischief
well, I should know what to do. Firm,
dignified, the real durbar touch. After
which I got up, told them they could go,
and walked up the path towards the house. I suppose I was within sight of them for
about a minute. A full minute with my
back turned to them. And there were at
least a hundred of the creatures; nobody could ever have discovered who fired
the shot. That bird under the
ribs!' Lifting a hand, he fluttered the
fingers in the air. 'And there was a new
sensation ants running up and down the spine.
Terrors but of the body only; autonomous, if you see what I mean. In my mind I knew that they wouldn't shoot, couldn't
shoot. A hundred miserable bugs it was
morally impossible for them to do it.
Bird under the ribs, ants up and down the spine; but inside the skull
there was a man; and he was confident, in spite of the body's doubts, he knew
that he game had been won. It was a long
minute, but a good one. A very good
one. And there were other minutes like
it afterwards. The only times they ever
shot at me were at evening, from out of the bushes. I was within their range, but they were out
of mine. Out of the range of my
consciousness and will. That was why
they had the courage to shoot. When the
man's away, the bugs will play. Luckily,
no amount of courage has ever taught an Indian to shoot straight. In time, of course, they might have got me by
a fluke; but meanwhile revolution went out of fashion. It never cut very much ice on the Pacific
coast.' He lit a cigarette. There was a long silence.
'Well,'
said Dr Miller at last, 'that's one way of dealing with a hostile crowd. And seeing that you're here to tell us, it's
evidently a way that sometimes succeeds.
But it's not my way. I'm an
anthropologist, you see.'
'What
difference does that make?'
'Quite
a big one,' Dr Miller replied. 'An
anthropologist is a person who studies men.
But you prefer to deal with bugs.
I'd call you an entomologist, Mark Staithes.' His smile evoked no answering sign of
friendliness. Mark's face was stony as
he met the doctor's eyes and looked away again.
'Entomologist!'
he repeated scornfully. 'That's just
stupid. Why do you play with words?'
'Because
words express thoughts, Mark Staithes; and thoughts determine actions. If you call a man a bug, it means that you
propose to treat him as a bug. Whereas
if you call him a man, it means that you propose to treat him as a man. My profession is to study men. Which means that I must always call men by
their name; always think of them as men; yes, and always treat them as
men. Because if you don't treat men as
men, they don't behave as men. But I'm
an anthropologist, I repeat. I want
human material. Not insect material.'
Mark
uttered an explosive little laugh. 'One
may want human material,' he said.
'But that doesn't mean one's going to get it. What one actually gets
' He laughed
again. 'Well, it's most plain, undiluted
bug.'
'There,'
said Dr Miller, 'you're wrong. If one
looks for men, one finds them. Very
decent ones, in a majority of cases. For
example, go among a suspicious, badly treated, savage people; go unarmed, with
your hands open.' He held out his large
square hands in a gesture of offering.
'Go with the persistent and obstinate intention of doing them some good
curing their sick, for example. I
don't care how bitter their grievance against white men may be; in the end, if
you're given time enough to make your intentions clear, they'll accept you as a
friend, they'll be human beings treating you as a human being. Of course,' he added, and the symbols of
inner laughter revealed themselves once more about his eyes, 'it sometimes happens
that they don't leave you the necessary time.
They spear you before you're well under way. But it doesn't often happen it has never
happened to me, as you see and when it does happen, well, there's always the
hope that the next man who comes will be more successful. Anthropologists may get killed; but
anthropology goes on; and in the long run it can't fail to succeed. Whereas your entomological approach
' He
shook his head. 'It may succeed at the
beginning; you can generally frighten and overawe people into submission. That's to say that, by treating them as bugs,
you can generally make them behave like bugs crawl and scuttle to cover. But the moment they have the opportunity,
they'll turn on you. The anthropologist
may get killed while establishing his first contacts; but after that, he's
safe; he's a man among men. The
entomologist may start by being safe; but he's a bug-hunter among bugs among
bugs, what's more, who resent being treated as bugs, who know they aren't bugs. His bad quarter of an hour comes later
on. It's the old story; you can do
everything with bayonets except sit on them.'
'You
don't have to sit on them,' said Mark.
'It's the other people's bottoms that get punctured, not yours. If you wielded the bayonets with a certain
amount of intelligence, I don't see why you shouldn't go on ruling
indefinitely. The real trouble is, of
course, that there isn't the necessary intelligence. Most bug-hunters are indistinguishable from
the bugs.'
'Exactly,'
Dr Miller agreed. 'And the only remedy
is for the bug-hunter to throw his bayonets away and treat the bugs as though
they were human beings.'
'But
we're talking about intelligence,' said Mark.
The tone of contemptuous tolerance implied that he was doing his best
not to get angry with the old fool for his incapacity to think. 'Being sentimental has nothing to do with
being intelligent.'
'On
the contrary,' the doctor insisted, 'it has everything to do with it. You can't be intelligent about human beings
unless your first sentimental about them.
Sentimental in the good sense, of course. In the sense of caring for them. It's the first indispensable condition of
understanding them. If you don't care
for them, you can't possibly understand them; all your acuteness will just be
another form of stupidity.'
'And
if you do care for them,' said Mark, 'you'll be carried away by your maudlin
emotions and become incapable of seeing them for what they are. Look at the grotesque, humiliating things
that happen when people care too much.
The young men who fall in love and imagine that hideous, imbecile girls
are paragons of beauty and intellect.
The devoted women who persist in thinking that their squalid little
hubbies are all that's most charming, noble, wise, profound.'
'They're
probably quite right,' said Dr Miller.
'It's indifference and hatred that are blind, not love!'
'Not
lo-ove!' Mark repeated derisively.
'Perhaps we might now sing a hymn.'
'With
pleasure,' Dr Miller smiled. 'A
Christian hymn, or a Buddhist hymn, or a Confucian whichever you like. I'm an anthropologist; and after all, what's
anthropology? Merely applied scientific
religion.'
Anthony
broke a long silence. 'Why do you only
apply it to blackamoors?' he asked.
'What about beginning at home, like charity?'
'You're
right,' said the doctor, 'it ought to have begun at home. If, in fact, it began abroad, that's merely a
historical accident. It began there
because we were imperialists and so came into contact with people whose habits
were different from ours and therefore seemed stranger than ours. An accident, I repeat. But in some ways a rather fortunate
accident. For thanks to it we've learnt
a lot of facts and a valuable technique, which we probably shouldn't have
learnt at home. For two reasons. Because it's hard to think dispassionately
about oneself, and still harder to think correctly about something that's very
complicated. Home's both these things
an elaborate civilization that happens to be our own. Savage societies are simply civilized
societies on a small scale and with the lid off. We can learn to understand them fairly
easily. And when we've learnt to
understand savages, we've learnt, as we discover, to understand the civilized. And that's not all. Savages are usually hostile and
suspicious. The anthropologist has got
to learn to overcome that hostility and suspicion. And when he's learnt that, he's learnt the
whole secret of politics.'
'Which
is
?'
'That
if you treat other people well, they'll treat you well.'
'You're
a bit optimistic, aren't you?'
'No. In the long run they'll always treat you
well.'
'In
the long run,' said Mark impatiently, 'we shall all be dead. What about the short run?'
'You've
got to take a risk.'
''But
Europeans aren't like your Sunday-school savages. It'll be an enormous risk.'
'Possibly. But always smaller than the risk you run by
treating people badly and goading them into a war. Besides, they're not worse than savages. They've just been badly handled need a bit
of anthropology, that's all.'
'And
who's going to give them the anthropology?'
'Well,
among others,' Dr Miller answered, 'I am.
And I hope you are, Mark Staithes.'
Mark
made a flayed grimace and shook his head.
'Let them slit one another's throats,' he said. 'They'll do it anyhow, whatever you tell
them. So leave them to make their
idiotic wars in peace. Besides,' he
pointed to the basketwork cage that kept the bedclothes out of contact with his
wound, 'what can I do now? Look
on, that's all. We'd much better all
look on. It won't be for long,
anyhow. Just a few years; and then
' He
paused, looked down and frowned. 'What
are those verses of Rochester's?
Yes.' He raised his head again
and recited:
'Then
old age and experience, hand in hand,
Lead
him to death, and make him understand,
After
a search so painful and so long,
That
all his life he had been in the wrong.
Huddled
in dirt the reasoning engine lies,
Who
was so proud, so witty and so wise.
Huddled in dirt,' he repeated. 'That's really admirable. Huddled in dirt. And one doesn't have to wait till one's dead
to be that. We'll find a snug little
patch of dirt and huddle together, shall we?'
He turned to Anthony. 'Huddle
together among the cow-pats and watch the doctor trying his best
anthropological bedside manner on General Goering. There'll be some hearty laughs.'
'In
spite of which,' said Anthony, 'I think I shall go and make myself ridiculous
with Miller.'
CHAPTER LII
July 24th 1914
There were four of them in the
search-party: Anthony, the policeman, an old shepherd, with the grey whiskers
and the majestic profile of a Victorian statesman, and a fair, red-faced boy of
seventeen, the baker's son. The boy was
made to carry the canvas part of the stretcher, while the shepherd and the
policeman used the long poles as staves.
They
set out from behind the cottage, walking in a line like beaters, Anthony
found himself reflecting up the slope of the hill. It was a brilliant day, cloudless and
windless. The distant hills showed as
though through veils, dim with much sunlight and almost without colour. Under their feet the grass and heather were
dusty with long drought. Anthony took
off his jacket, and then, on second thoughts, his hat. A touch of sunstroke might simplify things;
there would be no need to give explanations or answer questions. Even as it was, he felt rather sick and there
was a griping in his bowels. But that
was hardly enough. How many difficulties
would be removed if he could be really ill!
Every now and then, as they climbed slowly on, he put his hand to his
head, and each time the hair felt hot to the touch, like the fur of a cat that
has been sitting in front of the fire.
It was a pity, he thought, that his hair was so thick.
Three
hours later they had found what they were looking for. Brian's body was lying, face downwards, in a
kind of rocky bay, at the foot of a cliff above the tarn. Bracken was growing between the rocks, and in
the hot air its sweetish, oppressive scent was almost suffocatingly
strong. The place was loud with
flies. When the policeman turned the
body over, the mangled face was almost unrecognizable. Anthony looked for a moment, then turned
away. His whole body had begun to
tremble uncontrollably; he had to lean against a rock to prevent himself from
falling.
'Come,
lad.' The old shepherd took him by the
arm and, leading him away, made him sit down on the grass, out of sight of the
body. Anthony waited. A buzzard turned slowly in the sky, tracing
out the passage of time on an invisible clock-face. Then at last they came out from behind the
buttress of rock into his view. The
shepherd and the boy walked in front, each holding one pole of the stretcher,
while the policeman, behind, had to support the weight on both the poles. Brian's torn jacket had been taken off and
spread over his face. One stiffened arm
stuck out irrepressibly and, at every step the bearers took, swung and trembled
in the air. There were bloodstains on
the shirt. Anthony got up, and, in spite
of their protestations, insisted on taking half the policeman's burden. Very slowly, they made their way down towards
the valley. It was after three o'clock
when at last they reached the cottage.
Later,
the policeman went through the pockets of coat and trousers. A tobacco pouch, a pipe, Mrs Benson's packet
of sandwiches, six or seven shillings in money, and a notebook half full of
jottings about the economic history of the Roman Empire. Not the smallest hint that what had happened
had been anything but an accident.
Mrs
Foxe arrived the following evening.
Rigid at first with self-control, she listened in silence, stonily, to
Anthony's story; then, all at once, broke down, fell to pieces as it were, in a
passion of tears. Anthony stood by her
for a moment, uncertainly; then crept out of the room.
Next
morning, when he saw her again, Mrs Foxe had recovered her calm but a
different kind of calm. The calm of a
living, sentient being, not the mechanical and frozen stillness of a statue. There were dark lines under her eyes, and the
face was that of an old and suffering woman; but there was a sweetness and
serenity in the suffering, an expression of dignity, almost of majesty. Looking at her, Anthony felt himself abashed,
as though he were in the presence of something that he was not worthy, that he
had no right, to approach. Abashed and
guilty, more guilty even than he had felt the night before, when her grief had
passed beyond her control.
He
would have liked to escape once more; but she kept him with her all the
morning, sometimes sitting in silence, sometimes speaking in that slow,
beautifully modulated voice of hers. To
Anthony silence and speech were equally a torture. It was an agony to sit there, saying nothing,
listening to the clock ticking, and wondering, worrying about the future how
to get away from Joan, what to tell her about that accursed letter of hers; and
every now and then stealing a glance at Mrs Foxe and asking himself what was
going on in her mind and whether she had any knowledge, any suspicion even, of
what had really happened. Yes, her
silences were painful; but equally painful was her speech.
'I
realize,' she began, slowly and pensively, 'I realize now that I lived him in
the wrong way too possessively.'
What
was he to say? That it was true? Of course it was true. She had been like a vampire, fastened on poor
Brian's spirit. Sucking his life's
blood. (St Monica, he remembered, by Ary Scheffer.) Yes, a vampire. If anyone was responsible for Brian's death,
it was she. But his self-justificatory
indignation against her evaporated as she spoke again.
'Perhaps
that was one of the reasons why it happened, in order that I might learn that
love mustn't be like that.' Then, after
a pause, 'I suppose,' she went on, 'Brian had learnt enough. He hadn't very much to learn, really. He knew so much to start with. Like Mozart only his genius wasn't for
music; it was for love. Perhaps that was
why he could go so soon. Whereas I
'
She shook her head. I've had to have
this lesson. After all these long years
of learning, still so wilfully stupid and ignorant!' She sighed and was silent once more.
A
vampire but she knew it; she admitted her share of responsibility. There remained his share still
unconfessed. 'I ought to tell her,' he
said to himself, and thought of all that had resulted from his failure to tell
the truth to Brian. But while he was
hesitating, Mrs Foxe began again.
'One
ought to love everyone like an only son,' she went on. 'And one's own only son as one amongst
them. A son one can't help loving more
than the rest, because one has more opportunities for loving him. But the love would be different only in
quantity, not in kind. One ought to love
him as one loves all the other only sons for God's sake, not for one's own.'
The
richly vibrant voice spoke on, and, with every word it uttered, Anthony felt
more guilty more guilty and at the same time more completely and hopelessly
committed to his guilt. The longer he
delayed and the more she said in this strain of resignation, the harder it was
going to be to undeceive her with the truth.
'Listen,
Anthony,' she resumed, after another long pause. 'You know how fond of your I've always
been. Ever since that time just after
your mother's death do you remember? - when you first came to stay with
us. You were such a defenceless little
boy. And that's how I've always seen
you, ever since. Defenceless under your
armour. For, of course, you've had an
armour. You still have. To protect yourself against me, among other
dangers.' She smiled at him. Anthony dropped his eyes, blushed and mumbled
some incoherent phrase. 'Never mind why
you've wanted to protect yourself,' she went on. 'I don't want to know, unless you want to
tell me. And perhaps you'll feel you
want to protect yourself still more now.
Because I'm going to say that I'd like you to take Brian's place. The place,' she qualified, 'that Brian ought
to have had if I'd loved him in the right way.
Among all the other only sons, the one whom there's more opportunity of
loving than the rest. That's what I'd
like you to be, Anthony. But, of course,
I won't force myself on you. It's for
you to decide.'
He
sat in silence, his face averted from her, his head bent. 'Blurt it out,' a voice was crying within
him. 'Anyhow, at any price!' But if it had been difficult before, now it
was impossible. Saying she wanted him to
take Brian's place! It was she who had made
it impossible. He was shaken by a gust
of futile anger. If only she'd leave him
in peace, let him go away and be alone!
Suddenly his throat contracted, the tears came into his eyes, the
muscles of his chest tightened in spasm after violent spasm; he was
sobbing. Mrs Foxe crossed the room and,
bending over him, laid a hand on his shoulder.
'Poor
Anthony,' she whispered.
He
was pinned irrevocably to his lie.
That
evening he wrote to Joan. This horrible
accident. So unnecessary. So stupid in its tragedy. It had happened, as a matter of fact, before
he had had an opportunity for telling Brian about those events in London. And, by the way, had she written to
Brian? An envelope addressed in her
handwriting had been delivered at midday, when the poor fellow had already
started out. He was keeping it for her
and would return it personally, when he saw her next. Meanwhile, Mrs Foxe was bearing it
wonderfully; and they must all be brave; and he was always hers affectionately.
CHAPTER LIII
February 23rd 1934
Helen came into the sitting-room, holding a
frying-pan in which the bacon was still sputtering from the fire.
'Breakfast!'
she called.
'Komme
gleich' came back from the bedroom, and a moment later Ekki showed himself
at the open door in shirtsleeves, razor in hand, his fair ruddy face covered
with soapsuds.
'Almost
finished,' he said in English, and disappeared again.
Helen
smiled to herself as she sat down.
Loving him as she did, she found an extraordinary pleasure in this close
and incessant physical intimacy with him the intimacy that their poverty had
perforce imposed on them. Why do people
want large houses, separate rooms, all the private hiding-places that the rich
find indispensable? She couldn't
imagine, now. Humming to herself, out of
tune, Helen poured out the tea, helped herself to bacon, then began to sort the
morning's letters. Helen Amberley. No Mrs.
Communist frankness and informality.
She opened the envelope. The
letter was from Newcastle. Would it be
possible for her or Giesebrecht to speak to a group of young comrades on
conditions in Germany some time in March?
Well, one would have to see. Mr
E. Giesebrecht. From Switzerland;
and surely that thin spiky writing was Holtzmann's. Ekki would be pleased.
'Something
from Holtzmann,' she said as he came in.
'I wonder what news he'll have this time?'
Ekki
took the letter, and, with that methodical deliberation that characterized all
his actions, opened it; then laid it down beside his plate and cut off a piece
of bacon. He poked the bacon into his
mouth, picked up the letter again, and, slowly chewing, began to read. An expression of intent and focused gravity
came into his face; he could never do anything except thoroughly and
wholeheartedly. When he had finished, he
turned back to the first page and started reading all over again.
Helen's
impatience got the better of her at last.
'Anything interesting?' she asked.
Holtzmann was the best informed of the exiled journalists; he always had
something to communicate. 'Tell me what
he says.'
Ekki
did not answer at once, but read on in silence for a few seconds, then folded
up the letter and put it away in his pocket.
'Mach is in Basel,' he answered at last, looking up at her.
'Mach?'
she repeated. 'Do you mean Ludwig Mach?'
In
the course of these last months, the name of this most resourceful and
courageous of all the German comrades engaged in the dissemination of communist
propaganda and censored news had become, for Helen, at once familiar and
fabulous, like the name of a personage in literature or mythology. That Ludwig Mach should be at Basel seemed
almost as improbable as that Odysseus should be there, or Odin, or the Scarlet
Pimpernel. 'Ludwig Mach from Stuttgart?'
she insisted incredulously.
Ekki
nodded. 'I shall have to go and see
him. Tomorrow.'
Spoken
in that slow, emphatic, foreign way of his, the words had a strange quality of
absolute irrevocableness. Even his most
casual statements always sounded, when uttered in English, as though he had
made them on oath.
'I
shall have to go,' he repeated.
Carefully,
conscientiously pronounced, each syllable had the same value. Two heavy spondees and the first half of a
third. Whereas an Englishman, however
irrevocably he had made up his mind, would have spoken the phrase as a kind of
gobbled anapaest I-shall-have-to-go.
In another man, this way of speaking so ponderous, so Jehovah-like, as
she herself had teasingly called it would have seemed to Helen intolerably
grotesque. But, in Ekki, it was an added
attraction. It seemed somehow right and
fitting that this man, whom (quite apart from loving) she admired and respected
beyond anyone she had ever known, should be thus touchingly absurd.
'If
I couldn't laugh at him sometimes,' she explained to herself, 'it might all go
putrid. A pool of stagnant
adoration. Like religion. Like one of Landseer's dogs. The laughter keeps it aired and moving.'
Listening,
looking into his face (at once so absurdly ingenuous in its fresh and candid
gravity and so heroically determined) Helen felt, as she had so often felt
before, that she would like to burst out laughing and then go down on her knees
and kiss his hands.
'I
shall have to go too,' she said aloud, parodying his way of speaking. He thought at first that she was joking;
then, when he realized that she was in earnest, grew serious and began to raise
objections. The fatigue for they would
be travelling third-class. The
expense. But Helen was suddenly like her
mother a spoilt woman whose caprices had to be satisfied.
'It'll
be such fun,' she cried excitedly. 'Such
an adventure!' And when he persisted in
being negatively reasonable, she grew angry.
'But I will come with you,' she repeated obstinately. 'I will.'
Holtzmann
met them at the station, and, instead of being the tall, stiff, distinguished
personage of Helen's anticipatory fancy, turned out to be short and squat, with
a roll of fat at the back of his neck, and, between little pig's eyes, a soft
shapeless nose like a potato. His hand,
when she shook it, was so coldly sweaty that she felt her own defiled; surreptitiously,
when he wasn't looking, she wiped it on her skirt. But worse than even his appearance and his
sweaty hands was the man's behaviour.
Her presence, she could see, had taken him aback.
'I
had not expected
' he stammered, when Ekki presented her; and his face, for a
moment, seemed to disintegrate in agitation.
Then, recovering himself, he became effusively polite and cordial. It was gnδdige Frau, lieber Ekki,
unbeschreiblich froh all the way down the platform. As though he were meeting them on the stage,
Helen thought. And acting badly, what
was more, like someone in a third-rate touring company. And how detestable that nervousness was! A man had no business to giggle like that and
gesticulate and make grimaces. Mopping
and mowing, she said under her breath.
Walking beside him, she felt herself surrounded by a bristling aura of
dislike. This horrible creature had
suddenly spoilt all the fun of the journey.
She found herself almost wishing that she hadn't come.
'What
a loathsome man!' she managed to whisper to Ekki, while Holtzmann was engaged
in extravagantly overacting the part of one who tells the porter to be careful
with the typewriter.
'You
find him so?' Ekki asked with genuine surprise.
'I had not thought
' He left the sentence unfinished and shook his
head. A little frown of perplexity
wrinkled his smooth forehead. But a
moment later, interrupting Holtzmann's renewed protestations of affection and
delight, he was asking what Mach thought of the present situation in Germany;
and when Holtzmann replied, he listened, absorbed.
Half
angry with him for his insensitive obtuseness, half admiring him for his power
to ignore everything that, to him, was irrelevant, Helen walked in silence at
his side.
'Men
are extraordinary,' she was thinking.
'All the same, I ought to be like that.'
Instead
of which she allowed herself to be distracted by faces, by gigglings and
gestures; she wasted her feelings on pigs' eyes and rolls of fat. And all the time millions of men and women
and children were going cold and hungry, were being exploited, were being
overworked, were being treated as though they were less than human, mere beasts
of burden, mere cogs and levers; millions were being forced to live in chronic
fear and misery and despair, were being dragooned and beaten, were being
maddened with lies and cowed with threats and blows, were being herded this way
and that like senseless animals on the road to market, to an ultimate
slaughter-house. And here was she,
detesting Holtzmann, because he had sweaty hands instead of respecting him,
as she should have done, for what he had dared, what he had suffered for the
sake of those unhappy millions. His
hands might be sweaty; but he lived precariously in exile, had been persecuted
for his principles, was a champion of justice and truth. She felt ashamed of herself, but at the same
time couldn't help thinking that life, if you were like Ekki, must be strangely
narrow and limited, unimaginably without colour. A life in black and white, she reflected, hard
and clear and definite, like a Dόrer engraving.
Whereas hers hers was a vague bright Turner, a Monet, a savage
Gauguin. But 'you look like a Gauguin,'
Anthony had said, that morning on the blazing roof, and here in the chilly
twilight of Basel station she suddenly winced, as though with physical pain.
'Oh,
how awful,' she said to herself, 'how awful!'
'And
the labour camps,' Ekki was asking, intently, 'what does Mach say about the
feeling in the labour camps?'
Outside
the station they halted.
'Shall
we begin by taking our things to a hotel?' Ekki suggested.
But
Holtzmann would not hear of it. 'No, no,
you must come at once,' he insisted with a breathless emphasis. 'To my house at once. Mach is waiting there. Mach wouldn't understand it if there was any
delay.' But when Ekki agreed, he still
stood irresolute and nervous at the pavement's edge, like a swimmer afraid to
plunge.
'What's
the matter with the man?' Helen wondered impatiently; then aloud, 'Well, why
don't we take a taxi?' she asked, forgetting for the moment that the time of
taxis had long since come to an end. One
took trams now, one took buses. But
Gauguin had precipitated her into the past; it seemed natural to think of
taxis.
Holtzmann
did not answer her; but suddenly, with the quick, agitated movements of one who
has been forced by circumstances to take a disagreeable decision, caught Ekki
by the arm, and, drawing him aside, began to speak to him in a hurried whisper. Helen saw a look of surprise and annoyance
come over Ekki's face as he listened.
His lips moved, he was evidently making an objection. The other replied in smiling deprecation and
began to stroke his sleeve, as though in the hope of caressing him into
acquiescence.
In
the end Ekki nodded, and, turning back to Helen, 'Holtzmann wants you to join
us only at lunch,' he said in his abrupt, heavy way. 'He says that Mach wouldn't like it if there
is anyone besides me.'
'Does
he think I'll give him away to the Nazis?' Helen asked indignantly.
'It
isn't you,' Ekki explained. 'He doesn't
know you. If he did, it would be
different. But he is afraid. Afraid of everyone he does not know. And he is quite right to be afraid,' he
added, in that tone of dogmatic finality which meant that the argument was
closed.
Making
a great effort to swallow her annoyance and chagrin, Helen nodded her
head. 'All right then,' I'll meet you at
lunchtime. Though what the point was of
my coming here at all,' she couldn't help adding, 'I really can't imagine.'
'Dear
Miss Amberley, chθre consoeur, gnδddige Frau, comrade
' Holtzmann
overflowed with bourgeois and communist courtesies in all the languages at his
disposal. 'Es tut mir leid. So very sorry.' But here was the address of his house. At half-past twelve. And if he might advise her on the best way of
spending a morning in Basel
She
slipped the card into her bag, and without waiting to listen to his
suggestions, turned her back on the two men and walked quickly away.
'Helen!'
Ekki called after her. But she paid no
attention. He did not call again.
It
was cold; but the sky was a clear pale blue, the sun was shining. And suddenly, emerging from behind high
houses, she found herself beside the Rhine.
Leaning over the parapet, she watched the green water hurrying past,
silent, but swift and purposive, like a living thing, like life itself, like
the power behind the world, eternally, irresistibly flowing; watched it, until
at last it was as though she herself were flowing along with the great river,
were one with it, a partaker of its power.
'And shall Trelawney die? There's
twenty thousand Cornish men shall know the rea-ea-easosn why.' And suddenly it seemed certain that they
would win, that the revolution was only just round the corner there, after
that first bend in the river.
Irresistibly the flood drove on towards it. And meanwhile what a fool she had been to be
cross with Ekki, what an absolute beast!
Remorse gave place, after a little, to the ecstatically tender
anticipation of their reconcilement.
'Darling,' she would say to him, 'darling, you must forgive me. I was really too stupid and odious.' And he would put one arm round her, and with
the other hand would push back the hair from her forehead and then bend down
and kiss her
When
she walked on, the Rhine was still rushing within her, and, unburdened of her
offence towards Ekki, she felt immaterially light, felt almost as though she
were floating floating in a thin intoxicating air of happiness. The starving millions receded once more into
remote abstraction. How good everything
was, how beautiful, how exactly as it ought to be! Even the fat old women were perfect, even the
nineteenth-century Gothic houses. And
that cup of hot chocolate in the cafι how indescribably delicious! And the old waiter, so friendly and
paternal. Friendly and paternal, what
was more, in an astonishing Swiss-German that made one want to roar with
laughter, as though everything he said from his commentaries on the weather
to his complaints about the times were one huge, continuous joke. Such gutturals, such neighings! Like the language of the Houyhnhnms, she
thought, and led him on, with an unwearying delight in the performance, to
hoick and whinny yet again.
From
the cafι she went on at last to the picture gallery; and the picture gallery
turned out to be as exquisitely comic in its own way as the waiter's
German. Those Boecklins! All the extraordinary pictures one had only
seen on postcards or hanging, in coloured reproduction, on the walls of
pensions in Dresden. Mermaids and
tritons caught as though by a camera; centaurs in the stiff ungainly positions
of racehorses in a pressman's photograph.
Painted with a good faith and a laborious lack of talent that were
positively touching. And here
unspeakable joy! - was the Toteninsel.
The funereal cypresses, the white tomb-like temples, the long-robbed
figures, the solitary boat on its way across the wine-dark sea
The joke was
perfect. Helen laughed aloud. In spite of everything, she was still her
mother's daughter.
In
the room of the primitives she paused for a moment, on her way out, before a
picture of the martyrdom of St Erasmus.
An executioner in fifteenth-century costume, with a pale shell-pink
codpiece, was methodically turning the handle of a winch like Mr Mantalini at
the mangle winding the saint's intestines, yard after yard, out of a gash in
the emaciated belly, while the victim lay back, as if on a sofa, making himself
thoroughly comfortable and looking up at the sky with an expression of
unruffled equanimity. The joke here was
less subtle than in the Toteninsel, more frankly a knockabout; but
excellent, nonetheless, in its own simple way.
She was still smiling as she walked out into the street.
Holtzmann,
it turned out, lived only a few hundred yards from the gallery, in a pretty
little early nineteenth-century house (much too good for a man with sweaty
hands) set back from the road behind a little square of gravel. A large car was standing at the door. Holtzmann's? she wondered. He must be rich, the old pig! It had taken her so little time to come from
the gallery that it was hardly a quarter-past twelve as she mounted the steps. 'Never mind,' she said to herself. 'They'll have to put up with me. I refuse to wait one second longer.' The thought that, in a moment, she would see
Ekki again made her heart beat quickly.
'What a fool I am! What an
absolute fool.' But how marvellous to be
able to be a fool! She rang the bell.
It
was Holtzmann himself who opened dressed in an overcoat, she was surprised to
see, as though he were just going out.
The expression with which he had greeted her at the station reappeared
on his face as he saw her.
'You
are so soon,' he said, trying to smile; but his nervousness and embarrassment
amounted almost to terror. 'We had not
awaited you until half-one.'
Helen
laughed. 'I hadn't awaited myself,' she
explained. 'But I got her quicker than I
thought.'
She
made a movement to step across the threshold; but Holtzmann held out his
arm. 'We are not yet ready,' he
said. His face was flushed and sweating
with embarrassment. 'If you will return
in a quarter hour,' he almost implored.
'Only a quarter hour.'
'Nur
ein Viertel Stόndchen.' Helen
laughed, thinking of those embroidered cushions on the sofas where the
Geheimrats slept off the effects of noonday eating. 'But why shouldn't I wait indoors?' She pushed past him into a dark little hall
that smelt of cooking and stale air.
'Where's Ekki?' she asked, suddenly overcome by the desire to see him,
to see him at once, without another second's delay, so that she could tell him
what a beast she had been, but how loving all the same, how adoring in spite of
the beastliness, and how happy, how eager to share her happiness with him! At
the other end of the vestibule a door stood ajar. Calling his name, Helen ran towards it.
'Stop!'
Holtzmann shouted behind her.
But
she was already across the threshold.
The
room in which she found herself was a bedroom.
On the narrow iron bed Ekki was lying with all his clothes on, his head
on one side, his mouth open. His breath
came slowly in long snores; he was asleep but asleep as she had never seen
him sleeping.
'Ekki!'
she had time to cry, while a door slammed, another voice joined itself to
Holtzmann's, and the vestibule was loud with violent movement. 'My darling
'
Then
suddenly a hand closed on her shoulder from behind. She turned, saw the face of a strange man
within a few inches of her own, heard somewhere from the background Holtzmann's
'Schnell, Willy, schnell!' and the stranger almost whispering, between
clenched teeth, 'Schmutziges Frauenzimmer'; then, as she opened her
mouth to scream, received a terrible blow on the chin that brought the teeth
violently together again, and felt herself dropping into blackness.
When
she came to herself, she was in bed in a hospital ward. Some peasants had found her lying unconscious
in a little wood five or six miles from the town. An ambulance had brought her back to
Basel. It was only on the following
morning that the effects of the barbitone wore off and she remembered what had
happened. But by that time Ekeki had
been over the frontier, in Germany, for nearly twenty hours.
CHAPTER LIV
February 23rd 1935
Anthony had spent the morning at the
offices of the organization, dictating letters.
For the most part, it was a matter of dealing with the intellectual
difficulties of would-be pacifists.
'What would you do if you saw a foreign soldier attacking your sister?' Well, whatever else one did, one certainly
wouldn't send one's son to murder his second cousin. Wearisome work! But it had to be done. He dictated twenty-seven letters; then it was
time to go to lunch with Helen.
'There's
practically nothing to eat,' she said, when he came in. 'I simply couldn't be bothered to cook
anything. The unspeakable boredom of
making meals!' Her voice took on a note
of almost malevolent resentment.
They
addressed themselves to tinned salmon and lettuce. Anthony tried to talk; but the words seemed
to bounce off the impenetrable surface of her sullen and melancholy
silence. In the end, he too sat
speechless.
'It's
just a year ago today,' she brought out at last.
'What
is?'
'Just
as year since those devils at Basel
' She shook her head and was silent again.
Anthony
said nothing. Anything he could say
would be an irrelevance, he felt, almost an insult.
'I
often wish they'd killed me too,' she went on slowly. 'Instead of leaving me here, rotting away,
like a piece of dirt on a rubbish heap.
Like a dead kitten,' she added, as an afterthought. 'So much carrion.' The words were spoken with a vehement disgust.
'Why
do you say that?' he asked.
'Because
it's true. I am carrion.'
'There's
no need for you to be.'
'I
can't help it. I'm carrion by nature.'
'No,
you're not,' he insisted. 'You've said
it yourself. When Ekki was there
'
'No,
I wasn't carrion then.'
'What
you've been once, you can be again.'
'Not
without him.'
He
nodded. 'Yes, if you want to be, you
can. It's a matter of choosing. Choosing and then setting to work in the
right way.'
Helen
shook her head. 'They ought to have
killed me. If you only knew how I
disgust myself!' She screwed up her face
into a grimace. 'I'm no good. Worse than no good. Just a lump of dirt.' After a pause, 'I'm not even interested in
Ekki's work,' she went on. 'I don't like
his friends. Communists. But they're just beastly little people, like
anyone else. Stupid, vulgar, envious,
pushing. One might as well have the fun
of wearing a chinchilla coat and lunching at Claridge's. I shall probably end by selling myself to a
rich man. That is, if I can find one.' She laughed again. Then, in a tone of more bitter self-contempt,
'Only a year today,' she resumed, 'and already I'm sick of it all. Utterly sick of it and pining to get out of
it. I'm disgusting.'
'But
are you entirely to blame?'
'Of
course I am.'
Anthony
shook his head. 'Perhaps it's also the
fault of the work.'
'What
do you mean?'
'Organized
hatred it's not exactly attractive.
Not what most people feel they really want to live for.'
'Ekki
lived for it. Lots of people live for
it.'
'But
what sort of people?' he asked. 'They're
of three kinds. Idealists with an
exceptional gift for self-deception.
Either they don't know that it's organized hatred, or else they
genuinely believe that the end justifies the means, genuine imagine that the
means don't condition the end. Ekki was
one of those. They form the
majority. And then there are two
minorities. A minority of people who
know that the thing's organized hatred and rejoice in the fact. And a minority that's ambitious, that merely
uses the movement as a convenient machine for realizing its ambition. You Helen -
you're neither ambitious nor self-deceiving. And, in spite of what happened this day last
year, don't really want to liquidate people not even Nazis. And that's why the chinchillas and the
orchids seem so attractive. Not because
you actively long for them. Only because
this particular alternative is so unsatisfactory.'
There
was a silence. Helen got up, changed the
plates and set a bowl of fruit on the table.
'What is the satisfactory alternative?' she asked, as she helped
herself to an apple.
'It
begins,' he answered, 'with trying to cultivate the difficult art of loving
people.'
'But
most people are detestable.'
'They're
detestable, because we detest them. If
we liked them, they'd be likeable.'
'Do
you think that's true?'
'I'm
sure it's true.'
'And
what do you do after that?'
'There's
no after, ' he replied. 'Because, of
course, it's a lifetime's job. Any
process of change is a lifetime's job.
Every time you get to the top of a peak, you see another peak in front
of your a peak that you couldn't see from lower down. Take the mind-body mechanism, for
example. You begin to learn how to use
it better; you make an advance; from the position you've advanced to, you
discover how you can use it better still.
And so on, indefinitely. The
ideal ends recede as you approach them; they're seen to be other and more
remarkable than they seemed before the advance was begun. It's the same when one tries to change one's
relations with other people. Every step
forward reveals the necessity of making new steps forward unanticipated
steps, towards a destination one hadn't seen when one set out. Yes, it lasts a lifetime,' he repeated. 'There can't be an after. There can only be an attempt, as one goes
along, to project what one has discovered on the personal level on to the level
of politics and economics. One of the
first discoveries,' he added, 'one of the very first one makes, is that
organized hatred and violence aren't the best means for securing justice and
peace. All men are capable of love for
all other men. But we've artificially
restricted our love. By means of
conventions of hatred and violence.
Restricted it within families and clans, within classes and
nations. Your friends want to remove
those restrictions by using more hatred and violence that's to say, by using
exactly the same means as were the original causes of the restrictions.' He smiled.
'Can you be surprised if you find the work a bit unsatisfying?'
Helen
looked at him for a little in silence, then shook her head. 'I prefer my chinchillas.'
'No,
you don't.'
'Yes,
I do. I'd rather be a lump of dirt. It's easier.'
She got up. 'What about some
coffee?' In the little kitchen, as they
were waiting for the water to boil, she suddenly started to tell him about that
young man in advertising. She had met
him a couple of weeks before. Such an
amusing and intelligent creature! And he
had fallen violently in love with her.
Her face brightened with a kind of reckless, laughing malice. 'Blue eyes,' she said, cataloguing the young
man's merits, as though she were an auctioneer, 'curly hair, tremendous
shoulders, narrow hips, first-rate amateur boxer which is more than you ever
were, my poor Anthony,' she added parenthetically and in a tone of contemptuous
commiseration. 'In fact, thoroughly
bed-worthy. Or at least he looks
it. Because one never really knows till
one's tried, does one?' She laughed. 'I've a good mind to try tonight,' she went
on. 'To commemorate this
anniversary. Don't you think it would be
a good idea, Anthony?' And when he
didn't answer, 'Don't you think so?' she insisted. 'Don't you think so?' She looked into his face, trying to detect in
it the signs of anger, or jealousy, or disgust.
Anthony
smiled back at her. 'It isn't easy,
being a lump of dirt,' he said. 'In
fact, I should say it was very hard word indeed.'
The
brightness faded out of her face. 'Hard
work,' she repeated. 'Perhaps that's one
of the reasons for going on trying.'
After a pause, while she poured the water into the percolator, 'Did you
say you were having a meeting tonight?'
'In
Battersea.'
'Perhaps
I shall come and listen to you. Unless,'
she added, making an effort to laugh, 'unless, of course, I've decided to
celebrate the anniversary in the other way.'
When
they had drunk their coffee, Anthony walked back to his rooms, to put in a few
hours' work at the new pamphlet he had promised to write for Purchas. Two letters had come by the midday
delivery. One was from Miller,
describing the excellent meetings he had been having in Edinburgh and
Glasgow. The other, without an address,
was typewritten.
'SIR,' it began, 'we have been keeping an eye on you for some time past,
and have decided that you cannot be allowed to go on in your present disloyal
and treacherous way. We give you fair
warning. If you make any more of your
dirty pacifist speeches, we shall deal with you as you deserve. Appealing to the police will not do any good. We shall get you sooner or later, and it will
not be pleasant for you. It is announced
that you are speaking tonight in Battersea.
We shall be there. So we
advise you, if you value your yellow skin, to keep away. You do not deserve this warning, but we want
to behave sportingly even towards a skunk like you. - Yours faithfully,
A
GROUP OF PATRIOTIC ENGLISHMEN.'
A
joke, Anthony wondered? No probably
serious. He smiled. 'How virtuous they must be feeling!' he said
to himself. 'And how heroic! Striking their blow for England.'
But
the blow, he went on to reflect, as he sat down in front of the fire, the blow
would fall upon himself if he spoke, that was to say, if they weren't
prevented from attacking him. And, of
course, there could be no question of not speaking. No question of calling on the police for
protection. Nothing to do but practise
what he had been preaching.
But
would he have the strength of mind to see it through? Suppose they set on him, suppose they started
to knock him about? Would he know how to
stand it?
He
tried to work on the pamphlet; but the personal questions insistently recurred,
thrusting aside those remoter and impersonal problems of colonies and prestige,
markets, investment, migration. He
visualized the horrible expression of anger on the men's distorted faces, heard
in his fancy their violent insulting words, saw hands, lifted, falling. Would he be able to prevent himself from
flinching? And the pain of blows
sharp, excruciating, on the face, heavy and sickening on the body how much
would he be able to bear, for how long?
If only Miller were here to give advice and encouragement! But Miller
was in Glasgow.
Doubt
of himself grew upon him. To stand
there, letting himself be struck, without hitting back, without giving ground
he would never be able to do that.
'I
shan't have the guts,' he kept repeating, and was obsessed by the fear of being
afraid. Remembering the way he had
behaved at Tapatlan, he blushed with shame.
And, this time, the disgrace would be public. They would all know Helen with the rest.
And
this time, he went on think, this time there wouldn't be the excuse of
surprise. They had given him warning
'even to a skunk like you.' And besides,
he had been training himself for months past to cope with just such a
contingency as this. The scene had been
rehearsed. He knew by heart every cue
and gesture. But when the time actually
came, when the pain was no longer imaginary but real, would he remember his
part? What guarantee was there that he
wouldn't hopelessly break down? In front
of Helen when Helen was standing hesitant on the threshold of her own life,
perhaps also of his. Besides, if he
broke down, he would be discrediting more than himself. To break down would be to deny his
convictions, to invalidate his philosophy, to betray his friends. 'But why are you such a fool?' a small voice
began to question; 'why do you go and saddle yourself with convictions and
philosophies? And why put yourself in
the position of being able to betray anyone?
Why not go back to doing what nature meant you to do to looking on
from your private box and making comments?
Why does it all matter, after all?
And even if it matters, what can you do?
Why not quietly resign yourself to the inevitable, and in the interval
get on with the job you can do best?'
The
voice spoke out of a cloud of fatigue.
For a minute he was nothing but a dead, dry husk enclosing black
weariness and negation. 'Ring them up,'
the voice went on. 'Tell them you've got
flu. Stay in bed a few days. Then have yourself ordered to the south of
France by the doctor
'
Suddenly
he laughed aloud. From sinister, from
insidiously persuasive, that small voice had become absurd. Carried to such a pitch, expressed so
ingenuously, baseness was almost comic.
'Unity,'
he said in an articulate whisper.
He
was committed to them, as a hand is committed to an arm. Committed to his friends, committed even to
those who had declared themselves his enemies.
There was nothing he could do but would affect them all, enemies and
friends alike for good, if what he did were good, for evil if it were
wrong. Unity, he repeated. Unity.
Unity
of mankind, unity of all life, all being even.
Physical
unity, first of all. Unity even in
diversity, even in separation. Separate
patterns, but everywhere alike.
Everywhere the same constellations of the ultimate units of energy. The same on the surface of the sun as in the
living flesh warmed by the sun's radiance; in the scented cluster of buddleia
flowers as in the blue sea and the clouds on the horizon; in the drunken
Mexican's pistol as in the dark dried blood on that mangled face among the
rocks, the fresh blood spattered scarlet over Helen's naked body, the drops
oozing from the raw contusion on Mark's knee.
Identical
patterns, and identical patternings of patterns. He held the thought of them in his mind, and,
along with it, the thought of life incessantly moving among the patterns,
selecting and rejecting for its own purposes.
Life building up simpler into more complex patterns identically
complex through vast ranges of animate being.
The
sperm enters the egg, the cell divides and divides, to become at last this man,
that rat or horse. A cow's pituitary
will make frogs breed out of season.
Urine of a pregnant woman brings the mouse on heat. Sheep's thyroid transforms the axolotl from a
grilled lava into an air-breathing salamander, the cretinous dwarf into a
well-grown and intelligent human being.
Between one form of animal life and another, patterns are interchangeable. Interchangeable also between animal and
plant, plant and the inanimate world.
Patterns in seed and leaf and root, patterns built up from the simpler
patterns existent in the air and soil these can be assimilated and
transformed by insect, reptile, mammal, fish.
The
unity of life. Unity demonstrated even
in the destruction of one life by another.
Life and all being are one.
Otherwise no living thing could ever derive sustenance from another or
from the unliving substances around it. One
even in destruction, one in spite of separation. Each organism is unique. Unique and yet united with all other
organisms in the sameness of its ultimate parts; unique above a substratum of
physical identity.
And
minds minds also are unique, but unique above a substratum of mental
identity. Identity and
interchangeableness of love, trust, courage.
Fearless affection restores the lunatic to sanity, transforms the
hostile savage into a friend, tames the wild animal. The mental pattern of love can be transferred
from one mind to another and still retain its virtue, just as the physical
pattern of a hormone can be transferred, with all its effectiveness, from one
body to another.
And
not only love, but hate as well; not only trust, but suspicion; not only
kindness, generosity, courage, but also malevolence and greed and fear.
Divisive
emotions; but the fact that they can be interchanged, can be transferred from
mind to mind and retain all their original passion, is a demonstration of the
fundamental unity of minds.
Reality
of unity, but equal reality of division greater reality, indeed, of
division. No need to meditate the fact
of division. One is constantly aware of
it. Constantly aware of being unique and
separate; only sometimes, and then most often only intellectually, only as the
result of a process of discursive thought, aware of being one with other minds,
other lives and all being. Occasionally
an intuition of unity, an intuition coming at random, or sought for, step by
step, in meditation.
One,
one, one, he repeated; but one in division; united and yet separate.
Evil
is the accentuation of division; good, whatever makes for unity with other
lives and other beings. Pride, hatred,
anger the essentially evil sentiments; and essentially evil because they are
all intensifications of the given reality of separateness, because they insist
upon division and uniqueness, because they reject and deny other lives and
beings. Lust and greed are also insistences
upon uniqueness, but insistences which do not entail any negative awareness of
the others from whom the unique being is divided. Lust only says, 'I must have pleasure,' not
'You must have pain.' Greed in its pure
state is merely a demand for my satisfaction, not for your exclusion from satisfaction. They are wrong in emphasizing the separate
self; but less wrong than pride or hatred or anger, because their self-emphasis
is not accompanied by denial of others.
But
why division at all? Why, unavoidably, even
in the completest love, and, at the other end of the scale of being, even in
that which is or seems to be below right and wrong, why must the evil of
separation persist? Separation even of
saint from saint, and separation even of mere physical pattern from mere
physical pattern. One man cannot eat for
another. The best must think, must enjoy
and suffer, must touch, see, smell, hear, taste in isolation. The good man is merely a less completely
closed universe than the bad; but still closed, even as the atom is closed.
And,
of course, if there is to be existence existence as we know it being must
be organized in closed universes. Minds
like ours can only perceive undifferentiated unity as nothing. Unescapable paradox that we should desire
that n should be equal to one, but that, in fact, we should always find
that one is equal to nought.
Separation,
diversity conditions of our existence.
Conditions upon which we possess life and consciousness, know right and
wrong and have the power to choose between them, recognize truth, have
experience of beauty. But separation is
evil. Evil, then, is the condition of
life, the condition of being aware, of knowing what is good and beautiful.
That
which is demanded, that which men come finally to demand of themselves, is the
realization of union between beings who would be nothing if they were not
separate; is the actualization of goodness by creatures who, if they were not
evil, would not exist. Impossibility
but nonetheless demanded.
'Born
under one law, to another bound.'
He
himself, Anthony went on to think, he himself had chosen to regard the whole
process as either pointless or a practical joke. Yes, chosen. For it had been an act of the will. If it were all nonsense or a joke, then he
was at liberty to read his books and exercise his talents for sarcastic
comment; there was no reason why he shouldn't sleep with any presentable woman
who was ready to sleep with him. If it
weren't nonsense, if there was some significance, then he could no longer live
irresponsibly. There were duties towards
himself and others and the nature of things.
Duties with whose fulfilment the sleeping and the indiscriminate reading
and the habit of detached irony would interfere. He had chosen to think it nonsense, and
nonsense for more than twenty years the thing had seemed to be nonsense, in
spite of occasional uncomfortable intimations that there might be a point, and
that the point was precisely in what he had chosen to regard as the
pointlessness, the practical joke. And
now at last it was clear, now by some kind of immediate experience he knew that
the point was in the paradox, in the fact that unity was the beginning and
unity the end, and that in the meantime the condition of life and all existence
was separation, which was equivalent to evil.
Yes, the point, he insisted, is that one demands of oneself the
achievement of the impossible. The point
is that, even with the best will in the world, the separate, evil universe of a
person or a physical pattern can never unite itself completely with other lives
and beings, or the totality of life and being.
Even for the highest goodness the struggle is without end; for never in
the nature of present things can the shut become the wholly open; goodness can
never free itself completely from evil.
It is a test, an education searching, difficult, drawn out through a
lifetime, perhaps through long series of lifetimes. Lifetimes passed in the attempt to open up
further and a little further the closed universe that perpetually tends to
spring shut the moment that effort is relaxed.
Passed in overcoming the separating passions of hate and malice and
pride. Passed in making still the
self-emphasizing cravings. Passed in
constant efforts to realize unity with other lives and other modes of
being. To experience it in the act of
love and compassion. To experience it on
another plane through meditation, in the insight of direct intuition. Unity beyond the turmoil of separations and
divisions. Goodness beyond the possibility
of evil. But always the fact of
separation persists, always evil remains the very condition of life and
being. There must be no relaxation of
the opening pressure. But even for the
best of us, the consummation is still immeasurably remote.
Meanwhile
there are love and compassion.
Constantly obstructed. But, oh,
let them be made indefatigable, implacable to surmount all obstacles, the inner
sloth, the distaste, the intellectual scorn; and, from without, the other's
aversions and suspicions. Affection,
compassion and also, meanwhile, the contemplative approach, this effort to
realize the unity of lives and being with the intellect, and at last, perhaps,
intuitively in an act of complete understanding. From one argument to another, step by step, towards
a consummation where there is no more discourse, only experience, only
immediate knowledge, as of a colour, a perfume, a musical sound. Step by step towards the experience of being
no longer wholly separate, but united at the depths with other lives, with the
rest of being. United in peace. In peace, he repeated, in peace, in
peace. In the depth of every mind,
peace. The same peace for all,
continuous between mind and mind. At the
surface, the separate waves, the whirlpools, the spray; but below them the
continuous and undifferentiated expanse of sea, becoming calmer as it deepens,
till at last there is an absolute stillness.
Dark peace in the depths. A dark
peace that is the same for all who can descend to it. Peace that by a strange paradox is the
substance and source of the storm at the surface. Born of peace, the waves yet destroy peace;
destroy it, but are necessary; for without the storm on the surface there would
be no existence, no knowledge of goodness, no effort to allay the leaping
frenzy of evil, no rediscovery of the underlying calm, no realization that the
substance of the frenzy is the same as the substance of peace.
Frenzy
of evil and separation. In peace there
is unity. Unity with other lives. Unity with all being. For beneath all being, beneath the countless
identical but separate patterns, beneath the attractions and repulsions, lies
peace. The same peace as underlies the
frenzy of the mind. Dark peace,
immeasurably deep. Peace from pride and
hatred and anger, peace from cravings and aversions, peace from all the
separating frenzies. Peace through
liberation, for peace is achieved freedom.
Freedom and at the same time truth.
The truth of unity actually experienced.
Peace in the depths, under the storm, far down below the leaping of the
waves, the frantically flying spray.
Peace in this profound subaqueous night, peace in this silence, this
still emptiness where there is no more time, where there are no more images, no
more words. Nothing but the experience
of peace; peace as a dark void beyond all personal life, and yet itself a form
of life more intense, for all its difuseness, for all the absence of aim or
desire, richer and of finer quality than ordinary life. Peace beyond peace, focused at first, brought
together, then opening out in a kind of boundless space. Peace at the tip, as it were, of a narrowing
cone of concentration and elimination, a cone with its base in the distractions
of the heaving surface of life and its point in the underlying darkness. And in the darkness the tip of one cone meets
the tip of another; and, from a single focal-point, peace expands and expands
towards a base immeasurably distant and so wide that its circle is the ground
and source of all life, all being. Cone
reversed from the broken and shifting light of the surface; cone reversed and
descending to a point of concentrated darkness; thence, in another cone,
expanding and expanding through the darkness towards, yes! some other light,
steady, untroubled, as utterly calm as the darkness out of which it
emerges. Cone reversed into cone
upright. Passage from wide stormy light
to the still focus of darkness; and thence, beyond the focus, through widening darkness
into another light. From storm to calm
and on through yet profounder and intenser peace to the final consummation, the
ultimate light that is the source and substance of all things; source of the
darkness, the void, the submarine night of living calm; source finally of the
waves and the frenzy of the spray forgotten now. For now there is only the darkness expanding
and deepening, deepening into light; there is only this final peace, this
consciousness of being no more separate, this illumination
The
clock struck seven. Slowly and
cautiously he allowed himself to lapse out of the light, back through the
darkness into the broken gleams and shadows of everyday existence. He rose at last and went to the kitchen to
prepare himself some food. There was not
much time; the meeting was at eight, and it would take him a good half-hour to
reach the hall. He put a couple of eggs
to boil, and sat down meanwhile to bread and cheese. Dispassionately, and with a serene lucidity,
he thought of what was in store for him.
Whatever it might be, he knew now that all would be well.
EYELESS IN GAZA (polychrome version)