I am not speaking here of the possibilities of tinkering with the genetic code. As members of the audience will well know, there has in recent years been some genetic manipulation in order to produce, in laboratory conditions, substances that are difficult to come by naturally. This has been useful for the purpose of experiment. But I do not think that molecular genetic engineering, however useful in such fields, will in the foreseeable future be able to play the part that is sometimes imagined for it — that of being able to alter, or to improve, the patterns of our species. There are technical reasons for this; as well as the commonplace difficulty of deciding what might, or might not, be an improvement —
The chanting outside had ceased. But now there had begun a shuffling, a turning of heads, within the hall itself; as if the audience might be a school of fishes; this in response to a tapping, a scraping noise, from one of the high-up windows. Something like the head of a dinosaur seemed to be trying to poke through. There was a bang; then a slight tinkle. The window was being forced. What came through, after a time, was the nozzle of a loudspeaker.
Man evolved through chance mutations in the genetic code; also through the fact that certain mutant structures occasionally had advantage in a changing environment over others that had previously been more fitted. All evolution depends on the juxtaposition of these two factors — the operation of chance, and the operation of environment so that some results of chance rather than others live. It is in this latter area that men in theory at least might now possess some organising ability —
The Professor was smiling: the head of the loudspeaker leaned so drunkenly! The old woman at the back, like Cleopatra, was smiling too. He thought — I have been so lucky with those I love! The young girl in the second row still frowned intently. He thought — She will learn that connections, for their advantage, are often witty.
The qualities of imagination and intelligence in a modern society — those qualities which might be thought necessary for the survival of such a society — while being admittedly factors of personal success are still in no way factors of genetic success: the imaginative and self-reflective, that is, are not those, statistically, who do most to reproduce. In fact, the opposite is the case; and it is modern science, with the help that it offers to the genetically unfortunate, that has helped to bring this about. This is not to say that this is not correct —
The loudspeaker was making a crackling noise. The Professor had gone on talking because, he thought, there was a better chance now that his words might fly: the disturbance in the audience was growing like a wind. There was a man with a long pole stretching up towards the window: the Professor thought — Like St George: but is not the dragon, like a woman, now on top?
But just as there is nothing that can be done about improvement of the species by genetic engineering, so, I believe, is there little more that can be done, in direct ways at least, by social engineering. This has been attempted, up to now, so far as it can be, by good and efficient people. But the benefit, the learning, that has accrued socially does not of course transfer itself to the genetic code —
He had been leafing ahead through the pages of his notes. He thought — I am stalling: I must hang on: I want it to be over: they must hurry. Then — It is right, of course, that they should object to what I say?
But since it is man’s genetic equipment that seems to contain, whatever the social conditions, some — I should not say flaw — but some piece of information or lack of it that does not allow a person to be as it were in a good and harmonious working relationship with himself —
He thought — Please God, let them start. Then — But some will hear what I say?
— which seems to result not just in his capacity to blunder but in his feeling at home as it were in his blundering —
The loudspeaker began to play Beethoven. The Professor thought — Now at last I can fly — cry — a piece of the Third Symphony, was it? dropping down, climbing — da da di dum dum, di dum dum — a formulation of — what — beauty? violence? order? knocking out thought. The students had pushed the loudspeaker through the window. They were trying to drown him: to prevent anyone hearing what he had to say. He thought — But of course, this is what I am saying: that what I say should be permitted to grow, or not, in secret.
In the past an infirm species, ill-fitted to itself or to its environment, has died. Such a catastrophe may, indeed, happen to us humans as a species. And there may then be a chance for a more fitted strain to grow. On the other hand it has been suggested that man’s consciousness might be used for the planned control or sterilisation even of the genetically unfortunate — so that we can make of ourselves a strain more fitted. But here — apart again from the difficulties, impossibilities even, of deciding what should be encouraged — it is a fact that our modern humanitarian ethic would prevent any such possibility, and of course rightly; for humanitarian ethic is as much the product of human evolution as is scientific understanding; and it can no more be jettisoned in the name of science than can the process of scientific method itself —
Nothing of what he was saying was getting through. The music banged on beautifully: like a flood, a fire: enabling men to die, he thought, grandly as if on an ice-cap coming down from the Pole. The unity that there had been in the room — the audience’s heads turning from himself towards the window like fishes — was now broken: people were standing, sitting, facing this way and that: they were like random molecules of gas, he thought: but broken up by — what? — the power, the orderliness, of music? He thought — Men played Beethoven, Mozart, before and after putting others into gas ovens.
Humans cannot tinker with the genetic code. They cannot hope for genetic improvement directly through social effort. They cannot, being sensible, plan for social or ethical catastrophe. Yet it seems necessary to have some hope of genetic adaptation for our species at a time when the split between what we know and what we can handle seems likely to destroy us —
There were people pushing to get out of the door of the hall. The door seemed blocked. St George, with his lance, was making little headway against the dragon. The Professor looked up at the old woman like Cleopatra. She had a hand over her mouth and was rocking to and fro. He remembered — Sometimes she seemed to laugh so much that her face was pulled into different patterns. He looked at the girl in the second row.
But there is still something we can do —
A boy had appeared at the very top of the auditorium. He was tall, with fair hair. He was at the top of one of the gangways near the old woman like Cleopatra. He did not seem particularly interested in the music — or the lecture. He seemed to be looking for someone in the audience.
There might be encouraged some environment in the mind by which the results of one chance mutation rather than those of others might live —
The boy was coming down the steps. The Professor thought — He is looking for the girl: between the random molecules of gas and the noise like a sun-shaft: between angels and pillars, for that fond non-virgin —
I say ‘in the mind’ because it is here that evolution has most recently taken place and it is here it would seem most likely to take place further —
The loudspeaker was being pulled away from the window from outside. The audience seemed in danger of settling down. He thought — It is I who must hurry.
An environment that would encourage a new type of thinking, person, piece of DNA: that would look on not only the world but the way we look on the world, and thus affect this —
The scene in front of him did indeed seem to be some model in reality of what he was saying: about himself, the boy, the girl, the old woman like Cleopatra: to do both with himself and with what was happening to the others: the boy searching for the girl; the girl still trying to catch his, the Professor’s words; the old woman laughing: all forming some exact brightness within the uproar —
The music stopped.
He began to collect up his papers.
The boy with fair hai
r had reached the front of the auditorium. He was looking at the girl in the second row. The girl was staring at the Professor. The old woman at the back seemed to be picking up her bag.
He thought — Of course, all this would be in code —
Then — But who will get the message?
With the ceasing of the music, the audience was settling down as if to continue to listen to his lecture.
One sheet of his notes had slipped off the lectern and had flown over the edge of the stage like a bird.
The window was closing. There were faint cries from outside. The space in the front of the auditorium was being occupied by large men with blue suits and ties.
Someone had stepped on to the rostrum and was wiping at the tomato on the Professor’s coat. He thought — My sacred heart!
The girl in the second row was picking up the page of his notes which had landed close to her.
The boy with fair hair had turned and was making a gesture to the Professor, as if he were telling him that he wanted to speak to him.
The old lady had gone.
The Professor, with his notes, stepped down from the rostrum. He walked towards the door into the courtyard.
Someone plucked at his sleeve.
He thought he would say — But I’ve said everything I wanted to say!
Then — I need not even say that.
2
The girl with dark hair, who was called Judith, had left the lecture theatre and had walked across the courtyard. She was followed by the boy with fair hair who was called Bert Anderson. She decided to ignore him. Then as she went into the street she feared that she had lost him. She thought she might pretend she had left something in the theatre, and go back.
She rummaged in her bag for — comb, notebook, mirror. Then he appeared. He was wearing his old jersey which hung like a cow bell. She walked on briskly. He came up beside her; jogging. They were moving along a street each side of which were grey stone buildings. He began to roll his head and mutter. He seemed to be acting as if he were tiring. Then he slowed, and looked at his hand as if it held a stop watch.
He said ‘Not bad. See if we can get it down to — what — ten — fifteen minutes?’
She said ‘What — .’
He said ‘Our quarrel.’
The crowd that had come out of the lecture hall was dispersing. The street ahead was empty. There was a blood-red sky above the rooftops. Anderson (Judith thought of him as Anderson because she did not, at that time, like the name Bert) was running beside her again, panting and staggering. Then he seemed to give up, and leaned with his head against a doorway.
She went a little way past him and stopped and turned.
He said ‘We’ll get it better.’
She looked up at the pediment of the doorway above his head. There was a coat-of-arms of a man with a breastplate and a short skirt leaning on a sword like an umbrella.
Anderson said, as if declaiming, ‘Judith, Juliet, I know I don’t get on with your parents! —’
She walked on. She thought — He will now do his funny walk of the drunk man with one foot in the gutter.
He called ‘— Juliet, is it because they think I’ve got one leg shorter than the other? —’
She stopped and leaned with her head against a lamp-post. She thought — Why doesn’t he grab me: is it because I could then escape him, and he is too clever?
Anderson came up beside her and said quietly ‘Do you really have to go?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I said I would.’
He moved slightly away. Then he raised both fists to the sky and declaimed ‘— I will have such revenge on you both — that all the world shall — I will do such things —’
She walked on. She thought — I like him because he is as strong as me? He knows I do not want to get away from him?
He came up beside her. He said ‘What does he want?’
‘To hear me. In his play.’
She thought he might say — At this time of night?
She looked up at the sun, which was settling above rooftops.
He said ‘Do you know why people go to plays? Because they get comfort from seeing old men being humiliated and tortured, like King Lear.’
She said ‘Where did you get that?’
He said ‘From the old woman I go to.’
She thought — How extraordinary to say — From the old woman I go to!
As she watched, the sun moved behind the chimneys of buildings. The sky became translucent as a stage set.
He said ‘And they like to see Judith, Juliet, being so adoring; nipping a chap’s balls off.’
She said ‘Is that why you like me then?’
He said ‘Because you don’t want to?’
They were coming towards a corner where the grey stone buildings gave way to a demolished area on which there were huge advertisements: there were men with guns hanging down like breasts: women with their legs apart like explosions.
She said ‘You say so exactly the same sort of things as he says!’
‘What does he say?’
‘About people liking being humiliated. About them then knowing where they are.’
‘And what does he do about it?’
‘He writes plays.’
A gang of boys were running towards them across the wasteland. They were mostly black; they wore white shirts and black trousers. They were smiling. There were blue and yellow lights as if from police cars flashing in the distance behind them. She thought — They are like fishes, being driven out of the sea.
Anderson said ‘Doesn’t he try to make things better?’
He had taken out of his pocket what appeared to be a hand grenade. As the gang of boys approached, he pulled out the pin and held the grenade outstretched between finger and thumb. With his other hand he held his nose as if he were about to jump into water. The boys made a small detour round him. One of the boys at the back, watching Anderson, suddenly doubled up with laughter: then he acted as if he had been shot, holding his stomach. Then he went on. Anderson smiled.
Judith shouted ‘I do hate it when you do that!’
Anderson put the pin back in the grenade. He put the grenade in his pocket.
He said ‘Does he make things better?’
They walked past the wasteland towards the bridge across a river. There were the sounds of bells, and sirens, in the distance.
He said ‘You can’t act goodness. You can’t act intelligence, or authority, or happiness.’
She said ‘You can act —’
‘What —’
She thought — But he, the other one, would say: You can’t talk about that.
They were going over the bridge across the river. The water moved sluggishly.
She said ‘Well what do you do.’
He put an arm around her.
She thought — Was that a body, or a whirlpool, going past in the river?
He said ‘Oh, if you show that you know that you are acting.—’
She thought — But that’s what he says. Then — You make things better?
She put her head against Anderson’s shoulder.
She thought — There is something so hard about him; like a visor.
She said ‘You show what —’
He said ‘Creation? Procreation?’
They had crossed the bridge. They were moving towards an avenue with cherry trees.
She looked up at him. She thought — The visor lets through half the light; the other half is reflected back into himself.
He stopped and let go of her. He said ‘But when you know all this —’
She thought again — What —
He said ‘How are you going to get back tonight?’
She thought — Is he, or is he not, acting?
Then — I mean, does he or does he not want me? want to stop me?
They were facing one another. They were at the edge of the avenue with cherry trees.
She thought —
But what is he protecting himself against?
He said ‘Or aren’t you going to get back tonight?’
She put a hand against his face, not hard, as if she were acting hitting him.
He put a hand up to his cheek He seemed to be feeling for something inside his mouth with his tongue.
He said ‘My God —!’
‘What —’
She thought — I must not laugh.
‘It’s that tooth I had, filled with cyanide!’
She began to laugh. She put her head against his shoulder.
He put his hand on his heart.
He said ‘Judith! Juliet!’
‘Yes?’
He said ‘I love you.’
She said ‘I love you too.’
They walked on.
She thought — Do I, or do I not, want him to come in with me?
He said ‘It all lives such a life of its own!’
She said ‘Then let it’.
Across the entrance to the avenue they had come to was a rope, which sagged. In the middle of the rope there was a sign with a diagonal bar across it. Beyond were rows of detached houses with gardens and cherry trees.
Anderson said ‘How much did you hear of that lecture?’
She said ‘He didn’t want us to hear much, did he?’
Anderson said ‘Then he’s lucky.’
They had stepped over the rope. In the avenue there were houses with corrugated iron over windows. She thought — Like matchsticks across eyes.
Anderson said, as if quoting ‘— The tanks are in the streets —’
She thought — There are people dying —
She remembered how he — the other one — had said: Language is useful not for saying what things are, but for saying what things are not.
Catastrophe Practice Page 23
