The Polyglots

by William Gerhardie

  ‘Harry!’ uttered Aunt Teresa.

  ‘S-s-s-sh!’ Aunt Molly hissed.

  The General’s nails took away some of our appetite, and I tried, diplomatically, to propel the conversation into some such channels. ‘The Chinese,’ I remarked, ‘have extraordinarily long nails.’

  ‘It’s a sign of aristocracy,’ he replied complacently. ‘To show that they do no work.’

  ‘But they are black!’

  ‘What matter? The colour is immaterial.’

  The General confessed that he never took a bath, ‘Because,’ he said, ‘once a bath, always a bath—it opens the pores.’

  At dinner, the General with the mad eyes grew tearful and melancholy. Surveying his hands and his clothes—‘I have sunk,’ he said. ‘God! how low I have sunk! My nerves have all gone to pieces. I am pursued from one end of the world to the other.’ Tears were in his eyes.

  A war—a pre-eminently stupid business—is run by stupid people (all the wise ones having set their minds on stopping it as soon as possible); and men who ordinarily would be in the shade rise to the surface and set to organize a ‘Secret Service’ whose agents spend their time in sending one another information about all sorts of lunatics and innocents, and Vice-Consuls and so-called M.C.O.s do their level best to impede the traffic of the world years after the war is over. And some such cuckoo—I think it was Philip Brown—reported our friend the General with the mad eyes, and another cuckoo apprised the Foreign Office, and the Foreign Office notified the Admiralty and the War Office, and zealous officers had begun to send each other slips of information about this ‘dangerous revolutionary’.

  The sea was a green mirror. All the way from Shanghai to Hong-Kong it was a green mirror. Not a sound reached our ears but the impassive beat of the piston-rod: proof of the unremitting toil of the engine. The infinite sea conduces to infinite thoughts about God and Man and the Universe. There is nothing to do, so one talks. Captain Negodyaev was philosophically inclined. I did not find that out till we fell into each other’s company more intimately on board the Rhinoceros. He stood there, leaning back against the rail, a rat on its hind legs, a rat in khaki, philosophizing. ‘If you go half the way of logic,’ he said, ‘and stop there, you have come as near the truth as you are likely to get this side of the grave. But describe the circle, and you are nowhere again. I—’

  ‘You mean,’ I said (as we are in the habit of saying when we interrupt to say what we mean), ‘you mean it simply comes to this: you wander till you find a barrier. Then you allow your soul to grow mature, satiate within the barrier. (When the gruel begins to brew, make haste and set to work: write, paint, experiment.) Then, some time afterwards, the barrier will break down—and again you will begin to wander in the meadow until again you find your way to the high-road.’ We talked unostentatiously, quietly, affecting, perhaps half-consciously, the pose of people of seasoned intellect that everything was understood between us, that we took for granted on the part of each all knowledge hitherto available about all things. His attitude to life was a dark smile—the smile of one who is pleased at the opportunity of recognizing a little additional evidence of the vileness which he had all along maintained pervaded life. Fundamentally, I believed in hope, he in despair. It was as if he said, ‘Tant pis!’ ‘You say it is impossible to despair. But it is possible to despair. I believe in despair. I live on it,’ he said.

  ‘You doubt the possibility of immortality, because——’

  ‘Captain Diabologh,’ he interrupted. ‘Lend me £15. I’ll pay it back to you—upon my word of honour—when we get to England.’

  ‘You doubt it because you have a wrong idea of what is real.’

  ‘I really will.’

  ‘The external world seems real to you because you see and hear and smell and feel it. But it is because your senses are so focused and conditioned and attuned that you see and feel and hear and smell it as you do. Actually it consists merely of certain illusory vibrations marking time in nothing—a form of mathematics to sustain the figment of Time made flesh. It is merely a world of appearance in which your I has immersed, like a fallen star which has mistaken the clouds for reality and doubts its own light. As a drop of water from the ocean contains identical properties with those of the ocean itself, so that light in you—your real I—has the immortal faculties of a timeless sun.’

  Beastly, hearing our arguments, butted in with: ‘Jabbering like two old washerwomen!’

  Captain Negodyaev smiled a propitiatory smile: ‘We the philosophers of life are merely the naughty children, while the others are the good children. In the end, Mother Nature puts us all to bed.’

  Beastly nodded his head heavily and guffawed loudly as he did so. While Captain Negodyaev talked philosophy, an English dame who read a Ouida novel looked at him disapprovingly through her lorgnon. ‘You mustn’t talk quite so loud and gesticulate quite so much,’ I advised him. ‘These people think it shocking bad form to get so excited about mere God and the Universe.’

  ‘Well,’ he rejoined, ‘if it really comes to that, I never laughed so much as when I saw your English people playing cards last night. Not a sound, not a movement, as though they were in church. The monotony of it would be enough to kill any normal human being. In Russia somebody would long have jumped up, expostulated and called another a cheat and a liar. But these here—they sit like stones. Incorrigible people!’

  At first I had to share a cabin with Beastly, but unable to stand his stinks any longer, I got Uncle Emmanuel to change places with me. But he got out, holding his nose. ‘C’est assez!’ he said. ‘How I understand you!’ Nobody wanted to share a cabin with Beastly. So, in the end, the General with the mad eyes was induced to try his luck, and emerged successfully out of the experiment, remarking that to him all stinks were immaterial. But, anyhow, most of the voyage Percy Beastly was ill, and Berthe attended to him.

  In the morning we entered the harbour of Hong-Kong. The clouds mixed with the mountains, so that one could hardly tell which were the clouds and which were the mountains. Two red-tabbed staff-officers in pale khaki drill came on a white steam launch flying the Union Jack and asked: ‘Is there a General Pokhitonoff on board?’ They were informed that there was one. And the General with the mad eyes, lest he should stir the native races into rebellion against the British Crown, was not allowed to land.

  The General was a man who invariably agreed to everything—under protest; and so, having registered his protest in a letter to the Captain, he remained on board, while Sylvia and I went on shore. We took the Peak railway. And as we ascended the hill in it, ‘You look upon the Other World,’ I said, ‘as a sort of furnished flat where everything has been prepared for our arrival. I believe that world is more like music seeking its rebirth in its own inspiration; and man like a composer who awakens life to make it echo to the cadence he has plucked out of its own deep sleep, to suggest to him new secrets and new melodies.’

  ‘Darling, you speak so loud that everybody can hear you.’

  ‘I don’t care. I am speaking the truth.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bother this fly,’ she said.

  ‘There is more impudence in a fly than in many a grown man or woman.’

  ‘Do we get out here?’

  ‘Yes. This is where all the snobby people live—up hill,’ I said, stepping out. ‘And all the plain folk (the Governor excepted) live down hill, being conveniently looked down upon (the Governor excepted) by their brethren up the hill.’

  I walked arm-in-arm with Sylvia, and because I did not want the ants to climb up my trousers, I walked quicker and quicker, the ants, like all other creatures of God, having to take their level chance, some of them perishing under my heels. They ran along quickly, with a serious preoccupied air, over the stony ruins even as we humans climbed the hills—the rotting eruption of nature among which we had come to life. And, behold, a solitary beetle who, too, had come out for a walk this lovely spring day, traversed the
path, seeking indolently whom he might devour.

  ‘Darling, please don’t run so fast, please don’t pull me along—please!’

  ‘Do you want these damned things to climb up your legs?’ I slackened my pace, and at once one of the accursed creatures, who hurt out of all proportion to their size, climbed up my ankle and did his worst. I shook him off. If I could, I reflected aloud, I would come to an understanding with the ants, a modur vivendi, and let them live—while they work out their salvation, whatever it may be! But I cannot be bothered to—and so I crush them under foot rather than be incommoded. And so do we all one another. What a ludicrous world!

  Then we found ourselves in a park, with the sea stretched at our feet. What a lordly feeling! A gust of wind stirred amidst the trees and shook some green leaves from their branches; for a moment they remained tremulous. The hot sun dipped its beams into the cool green waters below, and they sparkled with enjoyment. The sky, responsively playful, sent white downy clouds chasing each other across the azure. Sylvia looked at me with that infinitely tender look reserved for the only man who really matters in the world.

  I looked at her.

  She closed her eyes and sighed. ‘Tired. I want to lie down.’

  ‘Shall we go to the hotel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  We work, I reflected, but no one knows why. ‘There,’ I said, stopping and pointing down with my stick, ‘ants also work.’

  ‘Yes, darling, they do. But what they can do isn’t worth anything, is it?’ she said, looking at me with a sweet appeal of reasonableness as if she were sorry for the fated insignificance of the ants but could not overlook it since it was manifest to all.

  ‘Isn’t worth anything—you mean to the world?’

  ‘Yes, darling.’

  ‘It isn’t a question of size. The universe in its aggregate has possibly not more, but less sense than the ants and is striving to speak through them, to realize its own soul in tangible work towards truth. The universe is awakening from sleep into life and is groping, building, that is, provisionally calculating, erecting outposts that will last for a time in order not to lapse back into the sleep where all is blurred as in a delirium. Our work here is merely the “over” which the world puts down in order not to get muddled in its calculations. But the auditor adds up, adds up without cease: He is trying to realize His full wealth, to get at last at the correct sum. For the Devil, I may tell you, is swindling Him of His possessions.’

  ‘The devil he is!’

  ‘And that is our work. That is what the ants are doing: registering the dream. But one must realize what that means and not register for registration’s sake. You must have something to register, and for that you must continually dive back into the dream to bring out the pearls.’

  ‘Darling,’ she said, ‘and you never bought me that little imitation pearl necklace after all.’

  ‘The whole trouble is that we don’t know whether the universe is directing us or we are directing the universe. Some hold that the universe is directing us to direct her. But the truth is probably that we all, the component parts of it, are propping up one another and cannot decide whither to go—as it really does not matter. The universe may not be going anywhere at all, but sensing the fatal barrenness of going anywhere in particular, for exactly the same reason is afraid of standing still. And so it is just restless. We are just restless. We do not know what it is we really want.’

  ‘But, darling, you know very well what I want. You’re only pretending you don’t.’

  ‘Perhaps when we get sick of wanting something in particular, and sick of wanting nothing in particular, we shall get sick of wanting anything at all, and then we shan’t want anything. Sooner or later we shall get sick of not wanting anything. Till we get sick of being sick.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then we shall have stepped into the shoes of God.’

  ‘You are very naughty, darling,’ she said.

  In a long room that smelt of newly polished wood, with windows overlooking the sea front, we took our siesta, and then the waiter brought up tea.

  ‘Tip him well, darling,’ Sylvia said. ‘He’s been quite good to us.’

  Leaving the hotel, she gave the lady-manager her hand. ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘my husband and I have enjoyed ourselves very much.’

  As we descended the hill in the train, the sea stretched open before us. A big steamer was coming in, finding her way carefully into the harbour; while there was another steamer just sailing out to sea; and the image of it, coupled with the humming life of the sea front vibrating in the sunlight, portended of a peace—a peace uttered long before us. I thought: I shall perish: but the Universe is mine.

  ‘If the whole world doesn’t matter, then what matters? And what is the reason, anyhow, of this “not-mattering” existing at all? For if life were there for no intelligent reason and from no intelligent cause, it would be more than ever a mystery that it was there at all. And if there were no life at all, only death—it would be no less strange and mysterious that death was—a vast sleeping Nothing.’

  ‘The world beyond—Darling, I know nothing of the world beyond, only what my little heart cries about and whines, like a baby,’ she said, ‘who is crying for milk. Will the mother turn up?’

  ‘Oh, she will! Oh, she will!’

  And when we descended into town, it swarmed with busy little people, like beetles—dark human beetles who rushed in all directions, and among the many dark ones there rushed a few white beetles, shouldering the white man’s burthen. And I hated myself.

  ‘But if we can hate ourselves and laugh at ourselves—whence this sense of humour in us? What is that in us which laughs, that will not stand solemnities, that will not be impressed by life? What portent is that safety-valve, that constant rise from certain fact into uncertain sublimation? Is that not the real God from which we cannot tire?’

  ‘You are so naughty, darling,’ she said.

  It was nearing dinner-time, and the evening air was tinged by a faint breeze that made breathing tolerable. The sinuous music that reached us from some café or dancing hall stirred our thirst for life; the shaded table lights beckoned to us to partake of their seclusion.

  ‘Let’s dine here, darling.’

  ‘No, no, maman will wonder where we are.’

  We rickshawed about; got out at the square and looked at the statue of the Duke of Connaught. Then got back into our rickshaws and drove to the shore.

  Life is wiser than reason, I thought. Life is, and so being, it has nothing to reason about: while reason is only a partial discovery of what is—incomplete and therefore inquisitive.

  ‘Darling, she’s waiting for you to step inside.’

  We stepped into the sampan.

  It was the old complaint which, when we are overworked, we put down to drudgery, or when we are lovesick we put down to love. It wasn’t drudgery. It wasn’t love. It was different. Sylvia, sitting close by my side, looked moved and gravely enchanted, and, by some mute agreement, we did not speak. Her large luminous hazel eyes gazed intently, in silent awe. Hong-Kong behind us, too, seemed in a spell of languor, stirring not, dreaming not: looking on, content just to be. There was no sound but that of the water lapping against the sides of the sampan; and the Chinese face of the woman who worked at the oar, fashioned no doubt in the image of God, was yet so different from ours. She either expected no miracles, or she took them for granted; she looked out to sea with a lethargic, expressionless stare, and worked dumbly and evenly at the oar. The Rhinoceros, with its white marble deck-house, looked like a sea-shell, translucent in the evening sunlight, wondrous and spellbound. The sturdy ship which was afraid neither of storms nor of space nor of darkness, looked moved and strangely tranquil as she lay out in midstream; like a hard-faced being melting to a cherished phrase of music, or a hardy seaman smiling at a child. And as you looked over the water at the wide expanse of sea and sky and back at the pearly city shimmering in the fading sunlight, you had a feel
ing then as if we were indeed immortal.

  ‘Jesus!’ she purled, ‘how I want to go on living for ever!’

  Tears welled up from her eyes and hung on them, which made them seem golden, like Salomé’s. She smiled, and this shook them from her lashes.

  But at dinner that night she was already laughing, drinking much wine and cooing gaily and, as always, half-audibly. Her teeth glittered as she held the glass, like a flower on a stem, and nearly spilt the wine, and because of this and her inherent gaiety, laughed more. Uncle Emmanuel and I had donned white flannels, and white almost transparent jackets—clean and crisp out of the wash—and Aunt Teresa and Aunt Molly, Berthe and Sylvia were also clad in gay white open lace; it was spring, almost summer now, and we were full of the joy of life. Aunt Molly with the children was at another table, and round the corner was Captain Negodyaev with his consort and Natàsha who kept looking round at us at intervals, laughing in her gurgling way. And suddenly she was crying softly.

  ‘What is it, Natàsha?’

  ‘What is it, dear?’

  She cried very softly.

  ‘Darling, what is it?’

  ‘A wasp,’ she sobbed.

  Harry laughed.

  During dinner Uncle Emmanuel drank much wine and talked of the Governor’s ball that night and the mistake he had made in not calling on him. ‘I would have liked to go, too.’

  ‘I’m not going: I have no dress uniform.’

  ‘It’s a great pity.’

  It transpired that Aunt Teresa, accompanied by Berthe, had also been on the Peak railway. ‘It pulled,’ she complained, ‘before I had sat down.’

  ‘That happens,’ I rejoined, ‘sometimes in sleep. One night I jumped clean out of bed.’

  ‘Oh yes, I remember!’ Sylvia cried happily.

  ‘Excuse me’—my uncle turned to her, looking suddenly like a detective—‘but how do you remember?’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, lowering her lashes.

  ‘That won’t do at all.’