Complete Poems and Plays

by T. S. Eliot

When we can go neither back nor forward? Edward!

  What can we do?

  REILLY. You have answered your own question,

  Though you do not know the meaning of what you have said.

  EDWARD. Lavinia, we must make the best of a bad job.

  That is what he means.

  REILLY. When you find, Mr. Chamberlayne,

  The best of a bad job is all any of us make of it —

  Except of course, the saints — such as those who go

  To the sanatorium — you will forget this phrase,

  And in forgetting it will alter the condition.

  LAVINIA. Edward, there is that hotel in the New Forest

  If you want to go there. The proprietor

  Who has just taken over, is a friend of Alex’s.

  I could go down with you, and then leave you there

  If you want to be alone …

  EDWARD. But I can’t go away!

  I have a case coming on next Monday.

  LAVINIA. Then will you stop at your club?

  EDWARD. No, they won’t let me.

  I must leave tomorrow — but how did you know

  I was staying at the club?

  LAVINIA. Really, Edward!

  I have some sense of responsibility.

  I was going to leave some shirts there for you.

  EDWARD. It seems to me that I might as well go home.

  LAVINIA. Then we can share a taxi, and be economical.

  Edward, have you anything else to ask him

  Before we go?

  EDWARD. Yes, I have.

  But it’s difficult to say.

  LAVINIA. But I wish you would say it.

  At least, there is something I would like you to ask.

  EDWARD. It’s about the future of … the others.

  I don’t want to build on other people’s ruins.

  LAVINIA. Exactly. And I have a question too.

  Sir Henry, was it you who sent those telegrams?

  REILLY. I think I will dispose of your husband’s problem.

  [To EDWARD] Your business is not to clear your conscience

  But to learn how to bear the burdens on your conscience.

  With the future of the others you are not concerned.

  LAVINIA. I think you have answered my question too.

  They had to tell us, themselves, that they had made their decision.

  EDWARD. Have you anything else to say to us, Sir Henry?

  REILLY. No. Not in this capacity.

  [EDWARD takes out his cheque-book. REILLY raises his hand]

  My secretary will send you my account.

  Go in peace. And work out your salvation with diligence.

  [Exeunt EDWARD and LAVINIA]

  [REILLY goes to the couch and lies down. The house-telephone rings. He gets up and answers it.]

  REILLY. Yes? … Yes. Come in.

  [Enter JULIA by side door]

  She’s waiting downstairs.

  JULIA. I know that, Henry. I brought her here myself.

  REILLY. Oh? You didn’t let her know you were seeing me first?

  JULIA. Of course not. I dropped her at the door

  And went on in the taxi, round the corner;

  Waited a moment, and slipped in by the back way.

  I only came to tell you, I am sure she is ready

  To make a decision.

  REILLY. Was she reluctant?

  Was that why you brought her?

  JULIA. Oh no, not reluctant:

  Only diffident. She cannot believe

  That you will take her seriously.

  REILLY. That is not uncommon.

  JULIA. Or that she deserves to be taken seriously.

  REILLY. That is most uncommon.

  JULIA. Henry, get up.

  You can’t be as tired as that. I shall wait in the next room,

  And come back when she’s gone.

  REILLY. Yes, when she’s gone.

  JULIA. Will Alex be here?

  REILLY. Yes, he’ll be here.

  [Exit JULIA by side door]

  [REILLY presses button. NURSE-SECRETARY shows in CELIA]

  REILLY. Miss Celia Coplestone? … Won’t you sit down?

  I believe you are a friend of Mrs. Shuttlethwaite.

  CELIA. Yes, it was Julia … Mrs. Shuttlethwaite

  Who advised me to come to you. — But I’ve met you before,

  Haven’t I, somewhere? … Oh, of course.

  But I didn’t know …

  REILLY. There is nothing you need to know.

  I was there at the instance of Mrs. Shuttlethwaite.

  CELIA. That makes it even more perplexing. However,

  I don’t want to waste your time. And I’m awfully afraid

  That you’ll think that I am wasting it anyway.

  I suppose most people, when they come to see you,

  Are obviously ill, or can give good reasons

  For wanting to see you. Well, I can’t.

  I just came in desperation. And I shan’t be offended

  If you simply tell me to go away again.

  REILLY. Most of my patients begin, Miss Coplestone,

  By telling me exactly what is the matter with them,

  And what I am to do about it. They are quite sure

  They have had a nervous breakdown — that is what they call it —

  And usually they think that someone else is to blame.

  CELIA. I at least have no one to blame but myself.

  REILLY. And after that, the prologue to my treatment

  Is to try to show them that they are mistaken

  About the nature of their illness, and lead them to see

  That it’s not so interesting as they had imagined.

  When I get as far as that, there is something to be done.

  CELIA. Well, I can’t pretend that my trouble is interesting;

  But I shan’t begin that way. I feel perfectly well.

  I could lead an active life — if there’s anything to work for;

  I don’t imagine that I am being persecuted;

  I don’t hear any voices, I have no delusions —

  Except that the world I live in seems all a delusion!

  But oughtn’t I first to tell you the circumstances?

  I’d forgotten that you know nothing about me;

  And with what I’ve been going through, these last weeks,

  I somehow took it for granted that I needn’t explain myself.

  REILLY. I know quite enough about you for the moment:

  Try first to describe your present state of mind.

  CELIA. Well, there are two things I can’t understand,

  Which you might consider symptoms. But first I must tell you

  That I should really like to think there’s something wrong with me —

  Because, if there isn’t, then there’s something wrong,

  Or at least, very different from what it seemed to be,

  With the world itself — and that’s much more frightening!

  That would be terrible. So I’d rather believe

  There is something wrong with me, that could be put right.

  I’d do anything you told me, to get back to normality.

  REILLY. We must find out about you, before we decide

  What is normality. You say there are two things:

  What is the first?

  CELIA. An awareness of solitude.

  But that sounds so flat. I don’t mean simply

  That there’s been a crash: though indeed there has been.

  It isn’t simply the end of an illusion

  In the ordinary way, or being ditched.

  Of course that’s something that’s always happening

  To all sorts of people, and they get over it

  More or less, or at least they carry on.

  No. I mean that what has happened has made me aware

  That I’ve always been alone. That one always is alone.

  Not simply the ending
of one relationship,

  Not even simply finding that it never existed —

  But a revelation about my relationship

  With everybody. Do you know —

  It no longer seems worth while to speak to anyone!

  REILLY. And what about your parents?

  CELIA. Oh, they live in the country,

  Now they can’t afford to have a place in town.

  It’s all they can do to keep the country house going:

  But it’s been in the family so long, they won’t leave it.

  REILLY. And you live in London?

  CELIA. I share a flat

  With a cousin: but she’s abroad at the moment,

  And my family want me to come down and stay with them.

  But I just can’t face it.

  REILLY. So you want to see no one?

  CELIA. No … it isn’t that I want to be alone,

  But that everyone’s alone — or so it seems to me.

  They make noises, and think they are talking to each other;

  They make faces, and think they understand each other.

  And I’m sure that they don’t. Is that a delusion?

  REILLY. A delusion is something we must return from.

  There are other states of mind, which we take to be delusion,

  But which we have to accept and go on from.

  And the second symptom?

  CELIA. That’s stranger still.

  It sounds ridiculous — but the only word for it

  That I can find, is a sense of sin.

  REILLY. You suffer from a sense of sin, Miss Coplestone?

  This is most unusual.

  CELIA. It seemed to me abnormal.

  REILLY. We have yet to find what would be normal

  For you, before we use the term ‘abnormal’.

  Tell me what you mean by a sense of sin.

  CELIA. It’s much easier to tell you what I don’t mean:

  I don’t mean sin in the ordinary sense.

  REILLY. And what, in your opinion, is the ordinary sense?

  CELIA. Well … I suppose it’s being immoral —

  And I don’t feel as if I was immoral:

  In fact, aren’t the people one thinks of as immoral

  Just the people who we say have no moral sense?

  I’ve never noticed that immorality

  Was accompanied by a sense of sin:

  At least, I have never come across it.

  I suppose it is wicked to hurt other people

  If you know that you’re hurting them. I haven’t hurt her.

  I wasn’t taking anything away from her —

  Anything she wanted. I may have been a fool:

  But I don’t mind at all having been a fool.

  REILLY. And what is the point of view of your family?

  CELIA. Well, my bringing up was pretty conventional —

  I had always been taught to disbelieve in sin.

  Oh, I don’t mean that it was ever mentioned!

  But anything wrong, from our point of view,

  Was either bad form, or was psychological.

  And bad form always led to disaster

  Because the people one knew disapproved of it.

  I don’t worry much about form, myself —

  But when everything’s bad form, or mental kinks,

  You either become bad form, and cease to care,

  Or else, if you care, you must be kinky.

  REILLY. And so you suppose you have what you call a ‘kink’?

  CELIA. But everything seemed so right, at the time!

  I’ve been thinking about it, over and over;

  I can see now, it was all a mistake:

  But I don’t see why mistakes should make one feel sinful!

  And yet I can’t find any other word for it.

  It must be some kind of hallucination;

  Yet, at the same time, I’m frightened by the fear

  That it is more real than anything I believed in.

  REILLY. What is more real than anything you believed in?

  CELIA. It’s not the feeling of anything I’ve ever done,

  Which I might get away from, or of anything in me

  I could get rid of — but of emptiness, of failure

  Towards someone, or something, outside of myself;

  And I feel I must … atone — is that the word?

  Can you treat a patient for such a state of mind?

  REILLY. What had you believed were your relations with this man?

  CELIA. Oh, you’d guessed that, had you? That’s clever of you.

  No, perhaps I made it obvious. You don’t need to know

  About him, do you?

  REILLY. No.

  CELIA. Perhaps I’m only typical.

  REILLY. There are different types. Some are rarer than others.

  CELIA. Oh, I thought that I was giving him so much!

  And he to me — and the giving and the taking

  Seemed so right: not in terms of calculation

  Of what was good for the persons we had been

  But for the new person, us. If I could feel

  As I did then, even now it would seem right.

  And then I found we were only strangers

  And that there had been neither giving nor taking

  But that we had merely made use of each other

  Each for his purpose. That’s horrible. Can we only love

  Something created by our own imagination?

  Are we all in fact unloving and unlovable?

  Then one is alone, and if one is alone

  Then lover and beloved are equally unreal

  And the dreamer is no more real than his dreams.

  REILLY. And this man. What does he now seem like, to you?

  CELIA. Like a child who has wandered into a forest

  Playing with an imaginary playmate

  And suddenly discovers he is only a child

  Lost in a forest, wanting to go home.

  REILLY. Compassion may be already a clue

  Towards finding your own way out of the forest.

  CELIA. But even if I find my way out of the forest

  I shall be left with the inconsolable memory

  Of the treasure I went into the forest to find

  And never found, and which was not there

  And perhaps is not anywhere? But if not anywhere,

  Why do I feel guilty at not having found it?

  REILLY. Disillusion can become itself an illusion

  If we rest in it.

  CELIA. I cannot argue.

  It’s not that I’m afraid of being hurt again:

  Nothing again can either hurt or heal.

  I have thought at moments that the ecstasy is real

  Although those who experience it may have no reality.

  For what happened is remembered like a dream

  In which one is exalted by intensity of loving

  In the spirit, a vibration of delight

  Without desire, for desire is fulfilled

  In the delight of loving. A state one does not know

  When awake. But what, or whom I loved,

  Or what in me was loving, I do not know.

  And if that is all meaningless, I want to be cured

  Of a craving for something I cannot find

  And of the shame of never finding it.

  Can you cure me?

  REILLY. The condition is curable.

  But the form of treatment must be your own choice:

  I cannot choose for you. If that is what you wish,

  I can reconcile you to the human condition,

  The condition to which some who have gone as far as you

  Have succeeded in returning. They may remember

  The vision they have had, but they cease to regret it,

  Maintain themselves by the common routine,

  Learn to avoid excessive expectation,

  Become tolerant of themselves and others,

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