by Iris Murdoch
In the light of later events I was disposed to regard almost everything I did during the period so far narrated as blameworthy. I daresay human wickedness is sometimes the product of a sort of conscious leeringly evil intent. (I used to think of Christian as evil in this way, though later this seemed at least exaggerated.) But more usually it is the product of a semi – deliberate inattention, a sort of swooning relationship to time. As I said at the beginning, any artist knows that the space between the stage where the work is too unformed to have committed itself and the stage where it is too late to improve it can be as thin as a needle. Genius perhaps consists in opening out this needle – like area until it covers almost the whole of the working time. Most artists, through sheer idleness, weariness, inability to attend, drift again and again and again from the one stage straight into the other, in spite of good resolutions and the hope with which each new work begins. This is of course a moral problem, since all art is the struggle to be, in a particular sort of way, virtuous. There is an analogous transition in the everyday proceedings of the moral agent. We ignore what we are doing until it is too late to alter it. We never allow ourselves quite to focus upon moments of decision; and these are often in fact hard to find even if we are searching for them. We allow the vague pleasure – seeking annoyance – avoiding tide of our being to hurry us onward until the moment when we announce that we can no other. There is thus an eternal discrepancy between the self – knowledge which we gain by observing ourselves objectively and the self – awareness which we have of ourselves subjectively: a discrepancy which probably makes it impossible for us ever to arrive at the truth. Our self – knowledge is too abstract, our sell – awareness is too intimate and swoony and dazed. Perhaps some kind of integrity of the imagination, a sort of moral genius, could verify the scene, producing minute sensibility and control of the moment as a function of some much larger consciousness. Can there be a natutral, as it were Shakespearean felicity in the moral life? Or are Eastern sages right to set as a task to their disciples the gradual total destruction of the dreaming ego?
In fact the problem remains unclarified because no philosopher and hardly any novelist has ever managed to explain what that weird stuff, human consciousness, is really made of. Body, external objects, darty memories, warm fantasies, other minds, guilt, fear, hesitation, lies, glees, doles, breathtaking pains, a thousand things which words can only fumble at, coexist, many fused together in a single unit of consciousness. How human responsibility is possible at all could well puzzle an extra – galactic student of this weird method of proceeding through time. How can such a thing be tinkered with and improved, how can one change the quality of consciousness? Around ‘will’ it flows like water round a stone. Could constant prayer avail? Such prayer would have to be the continuous insertion into each of these multifarious units of one recurring pellet of anti – egoistic concern. (This has, of course, nothing to do with ‘God’.) There is so much grit in the bottom of the container, almost all our natural preoccupations are low ones, and in most cases the rag – bag of consciousness is only unified by the experience of great art or of intense love. Neither of these was relevant to my messy and absent – minded goings – on.
I have perhaps not even now sufficiently emphasized how much I was dominated during this time by an increasingly powerful sense of the imminence in my life of a great work of art. This pellet irradiated each of the ‘frames’ of my awareness in such a way that even when I was, for example, listening to Rachel’s voice or looking at Priscilla’s face, I was also thinking: the time has come. At least I was not thinking these words, I was not thinking anything in words: I was simply aware of a great dark wonderful something nearby in the future, magnetically connected with me: connected with my mind, connected with my body, which sometimes literally shook or swayed under that tremendous and authoritative pull. What did I imagine that the book would be like? I did not know. But I intuitively grasped both its being and its excellence. An artist in a state of power has a serene relationship to time. Fruition is simply a matter of waiting. The work announces itself, emerges often quite whole, when the moment comes, if the apprenticeship has been correct. (As the sage looks for years at the bamboo branch, then draws it quickly and without effort.) I felt that all I needed was solitude.
What the fruits of solitude are, my dearest friend, I know now very much better and more profoundly than I did then: because of my experiences and because of your wisdom. The person that I was then seems captive and blind. My instincts were true and my sense of direction was sound. Only the way turned out to be very much longer than I expected.
The following morning, that is the day after my dispiriting conversation with Rachel, I started to pack my suitcase again. I had had a disturbed night, the bed seeming to burn under me. I had decided to depart for the country. I had also decided to go to Notting Hill and see Priscilla and have a cool business – like talk with Christian. I would not attempt to see Rachel or Arnold again before I went. I would write them both long letters from my retreat. I rather looked forward to writing these letters: affectionate and steadying to Rachel, rueful and ironical to Arnold. I felt that if I could only reflect for a while I could sort out that situation, defend myself and satisfy them. For Rachel, an amitié amoureuse, for Arnold a fight.
The mind, so constantly busy with its own welfare, is always sensitively filing and sorting the ways in which self – respect (vanity) has been damaged. In doing so it is at the same time industriously discovering methods of making good the damage. I had felt chagrined and ashamed because Rachel regarded me as a failed muddler, and Arnold was posing as having, in some unspecified sense, ‘found me out’. (And, what was worse, ‘forgiven me’!) Reflection on what had happened was already repainting this picture. I was quite strong enough to ‘hold’ them both, to comfort Rachel and to ‘play’ Arnold. The sense of challenge involved already made my bruised vanity cease a little to droop.
I would console Rachel with innocent love. This resolution and the ring of the good word made me feel, on that momentous morning, a better man. But what rather preoccupied my thoughts was the image of Christian: her image rather than any definite proposition about her. These images which float in the mind’s cave (and whatever the philosophers may say the mind is a dark cave full of drifting beings) are of course not neutral apparitions but already saturated with judgement, lurid with it. I still felt in waves my old poisonous hatred of this bully. I also felt the not very edifying desire before – mentioned to erase, by a show of indifference, the undignified impression which I had made. I had displayed too much emotion. Now instead I must stare with cold curiosity. As I practised staring at her charged and glowing image it seemed to be dissolving and changing before my eyes. Was I beginning to remember at last that I had once loved her?
I shook myself and closed the suitcase and snapped the catch to. If I could only get started on the book. A day of solitude, and I could write down something, a precious pregnant something like a growing seed. With that for company I could make terms with the past. And I was not now thinking of reconciliations or even of exorcisms, but just of the shedding of the load of sheer biting remorse which I had carried with me through my life.
The telephone rang.
‘Hartbourne here.’
‘Oh hello.’
‘Why didn’t you come to the party?’
‘What party?’
‘The office party. We specially put it on a day that suited you.’
‘Oh God. Sorry.’
‘Everyone was very disappointed.’
‘I’m terribly sorry.’
‘So were we.’
‘I – er – hope it was a good party all the same – ’
‘In spite of your absence it was an excellent party.’
‘Who was there?’
‘All the old gang. Bingley and Grey – Pelham and Dyson and Randolph and Matheson and Hadley – Smith and – ’
‘Did Mrs Grey – Pelham come?’
‘No.’
‘Oh good. Hartbourne, I am sorry.’
‘Never mind, Pearson. Can we make a lunch date?’
‘I’m leaving town.’
‘Ah well. Wish I could get away. Send me a postcard.’
‘I say, I am sorry – ’
‘Not at all.’
I put the telephone down. I felt the hand of destiny heavy upon me. Even the air was thickening as if it were full of incense or rich pollen. I looked at my watch. It was time to go to Notting Hill. I stood there in my little sitting – room and looked at the buffalo lady who was lying on her side in the lacquered display cabinet. I had not dared to try to straighten out the buffalo’s crumpled leg for fear of snapping the delicate bronze. I looked where a line of sloping sun had made a flying buttress against the wall outside, making the grime stand out in lacy relief, outlining the bricks. The room, the wall, trembled with precision, as if the inanimate world were about to utter a word.
Just then the door bell rang. I went to the door. It was Julian Baffin. I looked at her blankly.
‘Bradley, you’ve forgotten! I’ve come for my Hamlet tutorial.’
‘I hadn’t forgotten,’ I said with a silent curse. ‘Come in.’ She marched before me into the sitting – room and pulled the two lyre – back chairs up to the marquetry table. She sat down and opened her book before her. She was wearing the purple boots, pink tights, and a short mauve shirt – like dress. She had combed or tossed the mass of browny gold hair back into a great coxcomb behind her head. Her face looked shiny, summery, healthy.
‘You’re wearing the boots,’ I said.
‘Yes. It’s a bit hot for them, but I wanted to show them off to you. I’m so cheered up and grateful. Are you sure you don’t mind discussing Shakespeare? You look as if you were going somewhere. Did you really remember I was coming?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Oh Bradley, you are so good for my nerves. Everybody irritates me like mad except you. I didn’t bring two texts. I suppose you’ve got one?’
‘Yes. Here.’
I sat down opposite to her. She sat side saddle on her chair, the boots side by side, very much on display. I sat astride on mine, gripping it with my knees. I opened my copy of Shakespeare in front of me on the table. Julian laughed.
‘Why are you laughing?’
‘You’re so matter – of – fact. I’m sure you weren’t expecting me. You’d forgotten I existed. Now you’re just like a school teacher.’
‘Perhaps you are good for my nerves too.’
‘Bradley, this is fun.’
‘Nothing’s happened yet. It may not be fun. What do you want to do?’
‘I’ll ask questions and you answer them.’
‘Go on then.’
‘I’ve got a whole list of questions, look.’
‘I’ve answered that one already.’
‘About Gertrude and – Yes, but I’m not convinced.’
‘You’re going to waste my time with these questions and then not believe my answers?’
‘Well, it can be a starting point for a discussion.’
‘Oh, we’re to have a discussion too, are we?’
‘If you have time. I know I’m lucky to get any of your time, you’re so busy.’
‘I’m not busy at all. I have absolutely nothing to do.’
‘I thought you were writing a book.’
‘Lies.’
‘I know you’re teasing again.’
‘Well, come on, I haven’t got all day.’
‘Why did Hamlet delay killing Claudius?’
‘Because he was a dreamy conscientious young intellectual who wasn’t likely to commit a murder out of hand because he had the impression that he had seen a ghost. Next question.’
‘But, Bradley, you yourself said the ghost was real.’
‘I know the ghost is real, but Hamlet didn’t.’
‘Oh. But there must have been another deeper reason why he delayed, isn’t that the point of the play?’
‘I didn’t say there wasn’t another reason.’
‘What is it?’
‘He identifies Claudius with his father.’
‘Oh really? So that makes him hesitate because he loves his father and so can’t touch Claudius?’
‘No. He hates his father.’
‘Well, wouldn’t that make him murder Claudius at once?’
‘No. After all he didn’t murder his father.’
‘Well, I don’t see how identifying Claudius with his father makes him not kill Claudius.’
‘He doesn’t enjoy hating his father. It makes him feel guilty.’
‘So he’s paralysed with guilt? But he never says so. He’s fearfully priggish and censorious. Think how nasty he is to Ophelia:
‘That’s part of the same thing.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘He identifies Ophelia with his mother.’
‘But I thought he loved his mother.’
‘That’s the point.’
‘How do you mean that’s the point?’
‘He condemns his mother for committing adultery with his father.’
‘Wait a minute, Bradley, I’m getting mixed.’ ‘Claudius is just a continuation of his brother on the unconscious level.’
‘But you can’t commit adultery with your husband, it isn’t logical.’
‘The unconscious mind knows nothing of logic.’
‘You mean Hamlet is jealous, you mean he’s in love with his mother?’
‘That is the general idea. A tediously familiar one I should have thought.’
‘Oh that.’
‘That.’
‘I see. But I still don’t see why he should think Ophelia is Gertrude, they’re not a bit alike.’
‘The unconscious mind delights in identifying people with each other. It has only a few characters to play with.’
‘So lots of actors have to play the same part?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t think I believe in the unconscious mind.’
‘Excellent girl.’
‘Bradley, you’re teasing again.’
‘Not at all.’
‘Why couldn’t Ophelia save Hamlet? That’s another of my questions actually.’
‘Because, my dear Julian, pure ignorant young girls cannot save complicated neurotic over – educated older men from disaster, however much they kid themselves that they can.’
‘I know that I’m ignorant, and I can’t deny that I’m young, but I do not identify myself with Ophelia!’
‘Of course not. You identify yourself with Hamlet. Everyone does.’
‘I suppose one always identifies with the hero.’
‘Not in great works of literature. Do you identify with Macbeth or Lear?’
‘No, well, not like that – ’
‘Or with Achilles or Agamemnon or Aeneas or Raskolnikov or Madame Bovary or Marcel or Fanny Price or – ’
‘Wait a moment. I haven’t heard of some of these people. And I think I do identify with Achilles.’
‘Tell me about him.’
‘Oh Bradley – I can’t think – Didn’t he kill Hector?’
‘Never mind. Have I made my point?’
‘I’m not sure what it is.’
‘Hamlet is unusual because it is a great work of literature in which everyone identifies with the hero.’
‘I see. Does that make it less good than Shakespeare’s other plays, I mean the good ones?’
‘No. It is the greatest of Shakespeare’s plays.’
‘Then something funny has happened.’
‘Correct.’
‘Well, what is it, Bradley? Look, do you mind if I write down some notes on what we were talking about earlier about Hamlet thinking his mother was committing adultery with his father, and all that. Gosh, how hot it is in here. Please may we open the window? And do you mind if I take off my boots? They’re simply baking me alive.’
‘I forbid you to take notes. You may not open
the window. You may take off your boots.’
‘For this relief much thanks.’ She unzipped the boots and revealed, in pink tights, the legs. She admired the legs, waggled the toes, undid another button at her neck, then giggled.
I said, ‘Do you mind if I take off my jacket?’
‘Of course not.’
‘You’ll see my braces.’
‘How exciting. You must be the last man in London who wears any. They’re getting as rare and thrilling as suspenders.’
I took off my jacket, revealing grey army surplus braces over a grey shirt with a black stripe. ‘Not exciting, I’m afraid. I would have put on my red ones if I’d known.’
‘So you weren’t expecting me?’
‘Don’t be silly. Do you mind if I take off my tie?’
‘Don’t be silly.’
I took off my tie and undid the top two buttons of my shirt. Then I did one of them up again. The hair on my chest is copious but grizzled. (Or if you prefer, a sable silvered.) I could feel the perspiration trickling down my temples, down the back of my neck, and winding its way through the forest on my diaphragm.
‘You aren’t sweating,’ I said to Julian. ‘How do you manage it?’
‘I am. Look.’ She thrust her fingers in under her hair and then stretched her hands towards me across the table. The fingers were long but not unduly slim. They were faintly dewy. ‘Now, Bradley, where were we. You were saying Hamlet was the only – ’
‘Let’s fold up this conversation shall we?’
