A Fairly Honourable Defeat

by Iris Murdoch

‘It’s odd, I feel suddenly released. It’s so moving. I’ve felt shut in for such a long time—shut in by nightmares and shut in by sort of—excitement. But this isn’t nightmares or excitement, it’s real, it’s something free.’

  ‘Free. I suppose if it’s free it must be good.’

  ‘Of course, that’s just what I mean. Let us be good to each other, Peter. Human beings are so mechanical, certain relations, certain situations, inevitably make one behave rottenly. This one can do the opposite. We can be a blessing to each other. We’re framed to do each other good. You do see now?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, still a little dubiously.

  ‘Then you agree? It’s a compact?’

  ‘I hope it’s not in the compact that I can’t even kiss you.’

  Morgan seized him round the neck.

  A few minutes later they were walking back hand in hand along the green grassy track towards the car.

  Morgan’s tears of joy were dry upon her cheek. She thought, this is happiness, this. I’d forgotten what it felt like. Happiness is free innocent love. It’s so different from everything else that I’ve been up to almost all of my life. The rest remains, tangled, awful, the decisions to be made, the pain to be caused and suffered, the unpredictable edicts of the gods, the machine. But this is outside the machine. This is felicity, blessing, luck, sheer wonderful utterly undeserved luck. It can come to me after all. Oh good!

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ‘I DON’T THINK you can quite wear that with that, dear,’ said Simon to Morgan.

  Morgan had called in unexpectedly. She rang up from Barons Court station and then came round. She had been at a cocktail party near by, she said, but got bored and wanted to see Simon. It was half past six and Axel was not yet home. Simon was delighted.

  Morgan was sitting beside him on the yellow sofa in the diminutive drawing room. She was rapidly consuming a glass of gin. She was flushed and perhaps faintly tipsy. She seemed to be rather elated.

  She fingered the necklace of dark amber beads. She was wearing a silk dress of a dark blue and scarlet zigzag pattern. A small tasselled blue velvet cap sat, a little awry, on the back of her head, making her steel-rimmed spectacles and her clever face seem to belong to some handsome learned Jewish boy.

  ‘The beads? I thought they’d go all right with the dress.’

  ‘With a strongly patterned dress like that you shouldn’t really wear any jewellery, darling. It just confuses the effect.’

  ‘Dearest Simon, you were always on at me about my clothes in the old days, remember? And you were always quite right of course. I haven’t really got the faintest idea how to dress.’

  ‘Let me plan your wardrobe!’

  ‘I’d love that! You are so clever at making things pretty. Look at the way you’ve arranged those artificial flowers on the mantelpiece. ’

  ‘They aren’t artificial, they’re dried.’

  ‘Well, look at them anyway. And those yellow roses in the black vase with eucalyptus and iris leaves or whatever they are. Who would have thought of that?’

  ‘Montbretia, actually. I got them from Rupert’s garden. It’s a fallacy that roses have to be by themselves.’

  ‘Darling Simon, you always make me want to laugh so. I am so glad to see you. How happy you make me feel!’ Thrusting out the hand containing the glass and spilling a little upon the carpet she leaned forward and kissed his cheek. Simon hastened to kiss her back. More gin got spilt.

  ‘I hear you took Peter to Cambridge yesterday.’

  ‘Yes. He saw his supervisor. He’s going to be good.’

  ‘You mean he’ll go back in October?’

  ‘Yes, of course he will. I don’t think he was ever serious about not going back.’

  ‘I think he was. I think you’re a miracle worker.’

  ‘No, no. Just a little sense and a little affection. I’m afraid Peter was very naughty to you the other day, wasn’t he.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve forgotten all about that.’

  ‘I doubt if you have, Simon. I wouldn’t if I were you. Shall I make Peter apologize to you? I can make him do anything I want these days.’

  ‘Oh heavens no, Morgan, let it drift. I’ll make my own peace with Peter. And I’m not such a sensitive plant as you imagine. I’ve had plenty of experience of being sneered at!’

  ‘Poor Simon.’

  ‘I’m all right. I’m fine.’

  ‘How does married bliss really suit you, Simon? Do you never yearn for the mad old hunting days? The strange adventures you used to tell me about?’

  ‘No. I’m happy now.’ It was true. The old days had their charm, but only in memory. Simon felt, as he so often felt when he thought suddenly and intensely about Axel, a sort of lifting supporting tide of love. He smiled at Morgan.

  ‘Do you think you’re really monogamous, Simon?’

  ‘With Axel, yes.’

  ‘Ah well. Time will show. Come, I don’t mean anything by that. Give me some more gin, my dear.’

  ‘You’re looking so marvellous, darling, as if something divine had happened to you.’

  ‘I feel better,’ she said. ‘Of course there’s still so much—But I feel better. I can cope. Perhaps something divine has happened to me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve made a discovery.’

  ‘Tell me! Or is it a secret?’

  ‘It is possible to love people.’

  ‘Oh. I knew that already, actually.’

  ‘No, but I mean really, securely, in innocence. Falling in love is something different, it’s a form of madness. I think I just didn’t realize that at this moment in time I was really capable of noticing other people at all or that I could come to care for people in a new way, in an unselfish unfrantic sort of way. I feel I’ve won a victory and I’m rather pleased with myself. There are good surprises after all.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I understand you,’ said Simon, ‘but it sounds splendid. I only hope that you love me. And I don’t even mind if you’re selfish or frantic!’

  ‘Of course I love you, darling. It was to tell you that that I left that stupid party.’

  ‘Oh Morgan—how marvellous—how terribly sweet of you. I must kiss you for that.’ Simon put his glass down on the carpet. He took Morgan’s glass carefully out of her hand and put it beside his own. Then he took her in his arms and kissed her, first laughingly. Then they both looked at each other and kissed again, gravely.

  ‘Dear Simon, I’ve always been terribly fond of you, you know that.’

  ‘And I of you. I so much wanted you to come home. Let’s love each other and look after each other a bit.’

  ‘How strange that you should say just that. Yes, let’s. The world is so full of violence. It’s good to find a love that’s gentle.’

  ‘Let’s meet often. No, let me keep on holding this hand. Here’s your glass.’

  ‘I doubt if Axel—Ah well. I’ve moved into digs of my own, by the way, in Fulham. I’m not with Hilda and Rupert any longer. I felt I must have a separate place where I can see people. It will do me good, it may even help me to think. You’ll come and see me in my new place?’

  ‘Of course I will!’

  ‘That’s good, Simon. I feel I’ve got to get to know you all over again. You know how one suddenly feels one must explore one’s old friends? Tell me about yourself, about your new self. I don’t even know how you got fixed up with Axel. I can’t recall your being friendly with him in the old days. I suppose you met him at Rupert’s? I remember Axel used to come to dinner occasionally. I met him there myself.’

  Simon reached behind Morgan and pushed the black Wedgwood vase of roses and eucalyptus a little further away and put his glass down on the polished surface of the table, first smoothing it across the dark blue sleeve of his jacket to make sure that there was no gin on the bottom of it. He settled himself, still holding Morgan’s hand, in the shaded warm quiet of the room. The window was open upon the sunny evening, but there was no sound from the road, only at
times came the drone of an aeroplane homing to London airport. It gave Simon an intimate happy feeling to be talking to Morgan about Axel.

  ‘Yes, I met Axel quite often at Rupert’s, but I didn’t really take him in. Axel is so terribly reserved. I can imagine people not liking him, thinking he’s proud or conceited or even unkind. I admired him rather, I must say, he’s so fearfully clever, but he made me feel uncomfortable. And of course I hadn’t the faintest idea that he was queer. I don’t think Rupert had either.’

  ‘But he might have known that you were queer,’ said Morgan. She squeezed his hand. ‘That is, if you are queer, dearest Simon!’

  Simon thought for a moment and then smiled. ‘I won’t ask you if you think I look it. I know I look it. Whereas Axel doesn’t. Oh yes, he knew. But he thought that I—’

  ‘Was hopelessly promiscuous? Forgive me!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Simon. ‘That was it.’ He had talked this through with Axel a hundred times. There was always a strange pain and a strange pleasure involved. Of course he had been promiscuous. It had taken a long time to persuade Axel that he had changed. How easily he might have missed Axel altogether. It was Simon’s great luck that Axel, absolutely against his own judgement, fell in love. Axel in the bonds of love waited, had to wait, to listen to Simon’s explanations, to hear Simon’s vows. Oh Simon had been eloquent. But it had taken a long time. And Simon had been very frightened.

  ‘Well, what suddenly brought you together?’ said Morgan.

  ‘He did.’ Simon pointed to the photograph which hung beside the fireplace, the photograph of a Greek statue of a youth.

  ‘He? However? What is he, some Greek thing?’

  ‘A kouros, a youth, an Apollo as they sometimes call them. Archaic, fifth century B.C. National Museum at Athens.’

  ‘Let me look at him,’ said Morgan. She returned to the sofa and slid her hand back into Simon’s. ‘Yes, go on.’

  ‘I was in Athens,’ said Simon, ‘by myself …’ That was pure chance too. He had intended to have a companion. But the companion developed stomach trouble and had to be left behind in Rome. Simon did not reveal this absentee’s existence to Axel until very late in proceedings. It cost him a scene.

  On his first day in Athens Simon, who had never visited the city before, went to the National Museum and noticed the kouros. Something happened at once. It is not impossible to fall in love with a statue. The kouros stood alone in a deep alcove and once inside the alcove one could be out of sight of the attendants, unless one of them should come to the corner and look in. There were, as it happened, very few other visitors. Simon had the kouros to himself. He could not resist touching it. With a fearful backward glance he drew his hand rapidly down the calf of the leg. Then he walked nonchalantly out of the alcove. But he knew even then that he was caught. He walked round the Museum, looking with ostentatious seriousness and blind eyes at the other things. Then he went back to the kouros. He returned that afternoon. He returned the next morning and the next afternoon.

  The marble was warm and golden and very slightly rough. The modelling of the figure had an exquisiteness of sensitive detail which gave itself voluptuously to the questing finger tips. The kouros, which was just about six feet high, stood on a pedestal with its navel just about level with Simon’s eyes. His hands could reach up as far as the shoulders and could just touch the serrated line of stiff curls at the back. He could not caress the face. But, coming back day after day, he caressed everything else. His fingers explored the bones of the long straight legs, the hollow of the thigh, the heavenly curve of the narrow buttocks, the flat stomach and the noble pattern of the rib cage, the pretty eye-shaped navel, the nipples of the breasts, the runnel of the back, the shoulder blades. He lightly stroked the feet, probing between the long separated toes, he reverently touched the penis. He looked up into the serene divine countenance, huge-eyed, long-nosed, so enigmatically smiling. After a while fingers were not enough. He had to worship the statue with his lips, with his tongue. He kissed the buttocks, the thighs, the hands, the penis, first hastily and then with slow adoration.

  He grew bolder and bolder. One of the attendants began to be suspicious. Simon was spending so much time in with the kouros. The attendant would come and peep suddenly round the corner. But some sixth sense always told Simon when this was going to happen and he relinquished his contact and was found staring innocently into his guide book. The relinquishment was pain. When other visitors came to see the kouros he would walk round the rest of the gallery, hastening back soon in the hope that they had gone away. In the evening when the gallery was closed he went to the Acropolis or walked dreamily in the garden near to the figure of Byron expiring in the arms of Greece. He felt blissfully happy.

  On the fifth morning he had been in the museum for some time. It was very hot. He had just been on his routine circuit of the other rooms. He came back and to his joy found the kouros alone again. He walked round to the side of the statue and laid his hand lightly in the small of the back. Then he drew it downward very slowly, outlining the curve of the buttock, and led his fingers gently in onto the interior of the thigh. At that moment he realized that someone was watching him. It was Axel.

  Axel had just come round the corner of the alcove and was regarding the little love scene with gravity. Simon recognized his intruder at once and felt an immediate pang of alarm. But for some reason he stood there paralysed and did not remove his hand from its exquisite position. After a moment Axel moved forward and with great deliberation and absolute solemnity laid his hand on top of Simon’s.

  Half an hour later they were sitting in a café drinking ouzo. Axel, after that first gesture, had retired into formality. But a faint humorous gleam in his eye declared both that he realized the magnitude of his indiscretion and that he did not care. ‘It could never have happened in the British Museum, dear boy,’ he told Simon later. They sat in the café and talked about Greek politics, about Byron, about hotels, about Axel’s journey (it was his first morning in Athens), about food and drink, about an excursion to Delphi and about the appalling rate of exchange, so unfavourable to the pound. Each casually elicited the information that the other was alone.

  From that first moment of contact Simon had known that something quite amazing had occurred. He gazed and gazed at Axel in the café. Axel looked quite different, he looked strange, he looked glorified. Simon ached to touch him. He was already in an agony of calculation about his chances. He felt sick with joy and terror. He thanked the gods that he really was alone. He prayed with the humility of true love to be favoured far far beyond his deserts. He prayed to Apollo, he prostrated himself in thought before the figure with which he had taken such strange liberties. Axel continued to talk about antiquities and Greek wine, but the humorous look remained in his eye and filled Simon with wild wild hope. They separated before lunch at Axel’s decree. Axel shook hands and departed to his hotel: but it had been agreed that they should meet in the evening. They met and drank a great deal too much retsina. Simon went back with Axel to Axel’s hotel room. Axel, still formal and distant, brought out some whisky. Simon took the bottle and the glass out of his hand. They stared at each other. Then Simon slowly slid his arms round Axel’s waist. It was his greatest moment of relief when he felt that his embrace was being returned. Then the argument started.

  Axel had lived alone for years. He hated trouble, he hated emotions. He admitted to being captivated, but he blamed himself for having shown it. He blamed the sun, the city, even the kouros which he had already visited that morning and which he had known from photographs but never seen before. He blamed the ouzo and the retsina and the whisky, which by this time they were both drinking freely. He explained lucidly to Simon, and he did not spare Simon in his explanations, that they were homosexuals of completely different types. He, Axel, was a naturally monogamous person. He wanted to live with someone in absolute fidelity and truthfulness and trust. He had done so once and he knew that it was possible. But that had been long ago an
d he had for years been resigned to doing without what he now regarded as, for him, an impossible blessing. He dwelt on his great age (forty-two) and on Simon’s extreme youth (twenty-nine). He analysed the weaknesses of Simon’s character. Simon was by nature frivolous, inconstant, evasive, impulsive, irrational, shallow. ‘Then how can you love me?’ cried Simon. ‘Love has nothing to do with merit,’ said Axel irritably. ‘Then you do love me, Axel, you’ve just admitted it!’ According to Axel however nothing followed from that. ‘But we can’t just leave each other, Axel!’ ‘Why not? I don’t want to be cut in pieces by this thing. I’ve had enough. I’m too old to suffer.’ ‘Why should you suffer, my darling? I love you.’ ‘So you imagine, but you would soon be unfaithful. And you would tell me lies. I would look into your eyes and I would know that you were lying and I would be in hell. Better to leave it here.’

  But that proved to be impossible. They were both by now too much in love. They returned to England and Axel, with loud professions of misgiving and disapproval, took the shallow frivolous inconstant irrational boy into his bed. The argument continued. ‘You’ll leave me.’ ‘I won’t, I’ll never leave you.’ ‘You’ll lie to me.’ ‘I swear I won’t.’ Simon used all the force of his great love to persuade his friend of his fidelity. At last Axel was convinced, almost.

  ‘So that was how it happened,’ said Morgan, as Simon’s story came at last to its end. ‘How extremely romantic! So a god really brought you together.’

  Simon had been quite excited and elated by telling her the story. His face was flushed and his heart was racing. He squeezed Morgan’s hand. ‘Yes, we were blessed.’

  ‘What a priceless story. I never knew, Rupert never said—’

  ‘I’ve never told Rupert, for heaven’s sake!’

  ‘Really. Have you ever told anyone else?’

  ‘No, of course not. I haven’t told anyone except you.’

  ‘That pleases me very much,’ said Morgan. ‘Simon—’

  ‘Yes, dear?’

  ‘Did you tell Axel about what happened that day at Julius’s flat?’