‘But I do believe,’ Anthony insisted. ‘Not in the orthodox explanations, 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 h-h-h . . . and h-h . . .’
‘Hunting with 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 your bee-double-o-kay.’
Anthony relit his pipe before answering. ‘Well, why shouldn’t one make the best 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-mindedness!’ 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 experiences b-brings one into c-contact with t-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 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. I suppose it sounds too queer. True truth; 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 I-literature and h-history till I’m thirty. Then it’ll be t-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. It’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 his 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 mothers’ 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 again on the slightest provocation. Or rather without any provocation at all – just for fun, because it amused him 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 Frederick the Great, as Diderot of the Empress Catherine. The resident philosopher is not easily distinguishable 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, ‘Another 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 metaphysic, 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 the 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 compulsions of respectability, the paralysing 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 fe
el the amused astonishment of an explorer watching the religious antics 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 to be 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 the 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 of the thighs of German baronesses in liners, the playing of imaginary scales upon the table-cloth, so. Enchanted, he watched the movements 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 . . .
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