The Black Prince

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘You told – ?’

  ‘And I’m afraid I told Arnold almost straightaway. You’re not the only one who has states of mind. With my husband at any rate, I’m not very discreet. It’s a risk one runs with married people.’

  ‘When did you tell her – when – ?’

  ‘Oh, not till later. When Arnold came down to your love – nest he brought Julian a letter from me. And in that letter I told her.’

  ‘Oh Christ – she must have read that letter – after – ’

  ‘Arnold thought it might serve as an argument. He is very thorough. He thought at least she might come running back to cross – examine me.’

  ‘What did you tell her?’

  ‘And when she did get back, I must say – ’

  ‘What did you tell her?’

  ‘Simply what happened. That you appeared to be in love with me, that you started kissing me passionately, that we went to bed together and it wasn’t a great success but you swore eternal devotion and so on, and then Arnold came and you ran out without your socks on and bought Julian that pair of boots – ’

  ‘Oh God – you told her – all that – ’

  ‘Well, why not? It did happen, didn’t it? You don’t deny it, do you? It was relevant, wasn’t it? It was part of you. It would have been wrong to conceal it.’

  ‘Oh God – ’

  ‘No wonder you tried to forget it all. But, Bradley, one is responsible for one’s actions, and one’s past does belong to one. You can’t blot it out by entering a dream world and decreeing that life began yesterday. You can’t make yourself into a new person overnight, however much in love you feel you are. That sort of love is an illusion, all that “certainty” you were talking about is an illusion. It’s like being under the influence of drugs.’

  ‘No, no, no.’

  ‘Anyway, it’s over now and no harm done. You needn’t worry too much or feel remorse or anything, she had already decided it was a mistake. She has some sense. Really, you mustn’t take a young girl’s feelings so literally. You haven’t lost a pearl of great price, my dear Bradley, and you’ll appreciate this sooner than you imagine. You’ll soon be heaving a sigh of relief too. Julian is a very ordinary little girl. She’s immature, not all there yet, like an embryo. Of course there was a lo of emotion swilling around, but it didn’t really signify too much who was at the receiving end of it. It’s a very volatile time of life. There’s nothing steady or permanent or deep in any of these great crazes. She’s been “madly in love” any number of times in the last two or three years. My dear man, did you really imagine you would be the sticking point of a young girl’s passion? How could that be? A girl like Julian will have to love a hundred men before she finds the right one. I was just the same. Oh do wake up, Bradley. Look at yourself in a mirror. Come back to earth.’

  ‘And she came straight to you?’

  ‘I suppose so. She arrived pretty soon after Arnold – ’

  ‘And what did she say?’

  ‘Do stop looking like King Lear – ’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘What could she say? What could anyone say? She was crying like a maniac anyway and – ’

  ‘Oh Christ, oh Christ.’

  ‘She got me to repeat it all and give all the details and swear it was true and then she believed me.’

  ‘But what did she say? Can’t you remember anything she actually said?’

  ‘She said, “If only it had been longer ago.” I suppose she had a point there.’

  ‘She didn’t understand. It wasn’t at all like what you said. When you said that, it wasn’t true. When you used those words they conveyed something which simply wasn’t true. You implied – ’

  ‘I’m sorry! I don’t know what words you would expect me to have used! Those ones seemed to me to be pretty appropriate and accurate.’

  ‘She can’t have understood – ’

  ‘I think she did understand, Bradley. I’m sorry, but I think she did.’

  ‘You said she was crying.’

  ‘Oh madly, like a child who was going to be hanged. But she always did enjoy crying.’

  ‘How could you have told her, how could you – But she must have known it wasn’t like that, it wasn’t like that – ’

  ‘Well, I think it was like that!’

  ‘How could you have told her?’

  ‘It was Arnold’s idea. But I didn’t honestly feel at that point that I had to be discreet any more. I thought a little shock would bring Julian to her senses – ’

  ‘Why have you come here today? Did Arnold send you?’

  ‘No, not particularly. I felt you ought to be told about Julian.’

  ‘But you haven’t told me!’

  ‘About it being – well, you must have assumed it anyway – all over.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Don’t shout. And I came, you won’t care of course, but out of a sort of kindness. I wo dered if I could help you.’

  ‘I must see Julian, I must see her, I must find her, I must explain – ’

  ‘I wanted to tidy things up. Now that everything has come out right in the end. Ever since that day when Arnold telephoned you and you came over, I feel you’ve been somehow in the dark, not understanding anything, under all sorts of misapprehensions. I daresay my attempts to help you didn’t really help at all. And I did want to help you. I know you have strong emotional needs, I know you’re a very lonely person, maybe I shouldn’t have meddled. But I felt I could meddle simply because my own position was so strong. That I was all right was the assumption I stupidly thought you shared. I mean, I thought you understood how united I am with Arnold and how happy we really are. Perhaps I should have made this clearer. It’s not that I misled you, but I must somehow have let you mislead yourself, I’m sorry. When people need you, you have to be careful with them, and I just wasn’t careful enough. You see, this is one of the unfair things that married couples sometimes do, I’m afraid. They give sympathy to people, or they seek for sympathy, and then they run straight home and tell each other all about it. I’ve never deceived Arnold for a moment and he’s never deceived me. Perhaps outsiders don’t understand, perhaps they can’t. A good marriage is very strong and flexible, it’s tough. You spoke about betrayal and resentment. I’m afraid it’s rather you who have been betrayed and who may have to bear the burden of resentment. I blame myself, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed you’d understand. Married people do sometimes victimize unmarried people in this way, one is just so lucky. Arnold and I are very close, we’ve even been laughing at it all, at you, at Christian, at Julian. And, thank God, it’s all turned out reasonably well in the end. I know you feel rather sore at the moment but you’ll soon start feeling better too. It was a voyage into the absurd. It may even do you good. So do cheer up, dear Bradley. It doesn’t do to take the world too solemnly.’

  I stared at her with amazement, she was handsome, pa!e and bland, related and precise, eloquent, vibrating with dignity and purpose. ‘Rachel, I don’t think we understand each other at all.’

  ‘Well, don’t worry. You’ll feel relieved later on. Just try not to feel resentment against me or against Julian. You’ll only make yourself miserable if you do.’

  ‘We aren’t talking the same language. I feel I’m simply listening to gibberish. Sorry, I – Anyway, isn’t Arnold in love with Christian? I thought that was the point of – ’

  ‘Of course he isn’t. That was just something in Christian’s mind. She chased Arnold for a bit, you know how much energy she has. He was flattered and amused of course but he never took her seriously. Fortunately she’s a sensible woman, she soon saw she was getting nowhere. Bradley, why don’t you go and see Christian? Fundamentally she’s such a very nice person. You and she could comfort each other a lot. You see, I’m not being unkind, I do still care and want to help.’

  I got up and went to the bureau and got out Arnold’s letter. I got it out simply with the intention of making sure I had not dreamt it. Perhap
s my memory really was disturbed. There was a sort of blank over Arnold’s letter and yet I seemed to recall – I said, holding the letter in my hand, ‘Julian will come back to me. I know this. I know it just as well as I know – ’

  ‘What’s that you have there?’

  ‘A letter from Arnold.’ I began to look at the letter.

  There was a ring at the front – door bell.

  I threw the letter on to the table and ran out to the door in heart – agony.

  A postman stood outside with a very large cardboard box, which he had placed upon the floor.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Parcel for Mr Bradley Pearson.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. Is that you then ? I’ll just push it in, shall I? It weighs a ton.’ The postman nudged the big square box in through the doorway with his knee and made off. As I returned to the sitting – room I saw Francis sitting on the stairs. He had obviously been listening. He looked like an apparition, one of those ghosts that writers describe which look just like ordinary people and yet not. He smiled obsequiously. I ignored him.

  Rachel was standing by the table reading the letter. I sat down. I felt very tired.

  ‘You ought not to have shown me this letter.’

  ‘I didn’t show it to you.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’ve done. I shall never never never forgive you.’

  ‘But, Rachel, you said you and Arnold told each other everything, so surely you – ’

  ‘God, you are vile, vindictive – ’

  ‘It’s not my fault! It can’t make any difference, can it?’

  ‘You understand nothing. You are a destroyer, a black spiteful destroyer. You are the sort of person who goes around in a dream smashing things. No wonder you can’t write. You aren’t really here at all. Julian looked at you and made you real for a moment. I made you real for a moment because I was sorry for you. Now that’s all over and all that’s left of you is a sort of crazy spiteful vampire, a vindictive ghost. God, I pity you. But I shall never forgive you. And I shall never forgive myself for not keeping you where you belong, at a safe distance. You are a dangerous and awful person. You are one of those wretchedly unhappy people who want to destroy happiness wherever they see it. You did this out of foul malice to – ’

  ‘Truly, I didn’t mean you to read it, it was just a crazy accident, I didn’t mean to upset you. Anyway, Arnold has probably changed his mind by now – ’

  ‘Of course you meant me to read it. It’s your vile revenge. I hate you for this for ever. You can’t understand anything here, you can’t understand anything at all – And to think of your having that letter and gloating over it and imagining – ’

  ‘I didn’t gloat – ’

  ‘Yes, you did. Why else did you keep it except as a weapon against me, except to show it to me and hurt me because you think I deserted you – ’

  ‘Honestly, Rachel, I haven’t given you a single thought!’

  ‘Aaaaah – ’

  Rachel’s scream flamed out in the darkening room, more visible than the pale round of her face. I saw the disturbed violent agony of her eyes and her mouth. She ran at me, or perhaps she was simply running to the door. I stumbled aside and crashed my elbow against the wall. She passed me like a stampeding animal and I heard the after – sigh of – her scream. The front door flew open and through the open street door I saw lamplight reflected in the wet paving stones of the court.

  I went out slowly and closed both doors and began turning lights on. The apparition of Francis was still sitting on the stairs. He smiled an isolated irrelevant smile, as if he were a stray minor spirit belonging to some other epoch, and some other story, a sort of lost and masterless Puck, smiling a meditative cringing un – prompted affectionate smile.

  ‘You were listening.’

  ‘Brad, I’m sorry – ’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. What the hell’s this?’ I kicked the cardboard box.

  ‘I’ll open it for you, Brad.’

  I watched while Francis tore the cardboard and dragged the top off the box.

  It was full of books. The Precious Labyrinth. The Gauntlets of Power. Tobias and the Fallen Angel. A Banner with a Strange Device. Essays of a Seeker. A Skull on Fire. A Clash of Symbols. Hollows in the Sky. The Glass Sword. Mysticism and Literature. The Maid and the Magus. The Pierced Chalice. Inside a Snow Crystal.

  Arnold’s books. Dozens of them.

  I looked at the huge compact mountain of smugly printed words. I picked up one of the books and opened it at random. Rage possessed me. With a snarl of disgust I tried to tear the book down the middle, ripping the spine in two, but it was too tough, so I tore the pages out in handfuls. The next book was a paperback and I was able to tug it into two and then into four. I seized another one. Francis watched, his face brightening with sympathy and pleasure. Then he came down the stairs to help me, murmuring ‘His!’ to himself, ‘Hi!’ as he dragged the books to pieces and then pursued and tore again the white cascading sheaves of print. We worked resolutely through the contents of the box, standing sturdily with our feet apart like men working in a river, as the pile of dismembered debris rose about us. It took us just under ten minutes to destroy the complete works of Arnold Baffin.

  ‘How are you feeling now, Brad?’

  ‘All right.’

  I had fainted or something. I had eaten practically nothing since my return to London. Now I was sitting on the black woolly rug on the sitting – room floor with my back against one of the armchairs which was propped against the wall. The gas fire was flaring and popping. One lamp was alight. Francis had made some sandwiches and I had eaten some. I had drunk some whisky. In fact I felt very strange but not faint any more, no more little eruptions in my field of vision, no more heavy black canopies descending and bearing me to the ground. I was now on the ground and feeling very long and leaden. I could see Francis clearly in the flickering light, so clearly that I frowned over it, he was suddenly too close, too present. I looked down and noticed that he was holding one of my hands. I frowned over that too and removed it. .

  Francis who, as I recalled, had by now drunk a good deal of whisky, was kneeling beside me eagerly and attentively, not in an attitude of repose, as if I were something which he was making. His lips were pushed out coaxingly, the big red underlip curling over and the mucus of the mouth showing in a scarlet line. His little close eyes were sparkling with inward glee. His dispossessed hand joined his other hand, rubbing rhythmically up and down his plump thighs on the shiny shabby material of his blue suit. He made a little sympathetic chortling noise every now and then.

  I felt, for the first time since my return to London, that I was in a real place and in the presence of a real person. At the same time I felt as people feel who after much ailing become suddenly far more ill and helpless, relaxed into the awfulness of the situation. I still had wit enough to see how pleased Francis was at my collapse. I did not resent his pleasure.

  ‘Have some more whiskers, Brad, it’ll do you good. Don’t you worry then. I’ll find her for you.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘I’ll stay here, I must. She’ll come here, won’t she. This is where she’ll come to. She could come at any time. I’ll leave the front door open again tonight, like I did last night. She can come in then like a little bird coming to its place. She can come in.’

  ‘Tomorrow I’ll search for her. I’ll go to her college. I’ll go to Arnold’s publisher. I’ll pick up a clue somewhere. I’ll go first thing tomorrow morning. Don’t you grieve, Brad. She’ll be back, you’ll see. This time next week you’ll be happy.’

  ‘I know she’ll come back,’ I said. ‘It’s odd when one knows. Her love for me was an absolute word spoken. It belongs to the eternal. I cannot doubt that word, it is_the logos of all being, and if she loves me not chaos is come again. Love is knowledge, you see, like the philosophers always told us. I know her by intuition as if she were here inside my head.’

&
nbsp; ‘I know, Brad. When you really love somebody it’s as if the whole world’s saying it.’

  ‘Everything guarantees it. Like people used to think everything guaranteed God. Have you ever loved like that, Francis?’

  ‘Yes, Brad. There was a boy once. But he committed suicide. It was years ago.’

  ‘Oh my God, Priscilla. I keep forgetting about her.’

  ‘That was my fault, Brad, will you ever forgive me – ’

  ‘It was my fault. I can’t help feeling it was inevitable though, as if she were doomed by a cancer. Yet why should I doom her by thinking this? I feel as if she’s somehow inside me too, only she isn’t. She grew old and lost hope and died. She was crumbled into ashes. Perhaps it is like this with God. He imagines He is holding every little thing safe in His thought, but one day He will look closely and see that everything has died and rotted away and there’s only empty thoughts remaining. That’s why love is so important. It’s the only way of apprehending somebody that really holds them and sustains them in being. Or is this wrong? Your boy killed himself. What was his name?’

  ‘Steve. Don’t, Brad.’

  ‘Priscilla died because nobody loved her. She dried up and collapsed inside and died like a poisoned rat. God doesn’t love the world, He can’t do, look at it. But I hardly seem to care at all. I loved my mother.’

  ‘Me too, Brad.’

  ‘A very silly woman, but I loved her. I felt a sense of duty to Priscilla, but that’s not enough, is it.’

  ‘I guess not, Brad.’

  ‘Because I love Julian I ought to be able to love everybody. I will be able to one day. Oh Christ, if I could only have some happiness. When she comes back I’ll love everybody, I’ll love Priscilla.’

  ‘Priscilla’s dead, Brad.’

  ‘Love ought to triumph over time, but can it? Not time’s fool he said and he knew about love if anybody did, he was bloody crucified if anybody was. Of course one’s got to suffer. Perhaps in the end the suffering is all, it’s all contained in the suffering. The final atoms of it all are simply pain. How old are you, Francis?’