The Book and the Brotherhood

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well then, silly, shall I ring up?’

  ‘No.’

  The bell rang from below and Lily with an exasperated grunt slithered off the sofa and went to the answer-phone. ‘Who’s there?’ She covered the speaker. ‘It’s Gulliver. Shall I tell him to go to hell?’

  ‘No, no, I’m just going anyway, I must go.’

  ‘OK, come up,’ she shouted into the ’phone, then turned to Tamar. ‘Now look, child, you must come back and see me tomorrow, and tell me it’s all right to go ahead. You will, won’t you?’

  ‘All right,’ said Tamar.

  ‘Come at eleven tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  ‘Wait and say a word to Gull, he likes you, he won’t think anything, if he does I’ll tell him a cock and bull story, I’m good at that.’ She went to open the door for Gulliver. ‘Gull, Tamar’s here, she’s just going.’

  Tamar had her coat on and had pulled her brown beret well down over her brow. ‘Hello, Gull, I must run. Thanks, Lily.’

  ‘See you tomorrow, dear.’

  Tamar fled.

  ‘What’s the matter with her?’ said Gulliver. ‘She’s been crying. What have you been doing to her?’

  ‘Just helping her.’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Just boyfriend trouble. I’ve been giving sage advice.’

  ‘How you girls do stick together,’ said Gulliver affectionately. ‘Are you glad to see me?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve been thinking about you. You smell of cold and fog, it’s a nice smell.’

  ‘It’s as black as night out there.’

  ‘Well, it almost is night. I love London in winter when there’s hardly any daylight at all. Where are those side-whiskers you said you’d grow?’

  ‘I can’t grow side-whiskers in two days!’

  Gull, who had thrown his overcoat on the floor, was wearing a light grey suit with a dark green cardigan, and a white shirt with an orange yellow tie. He rubbed his cheek where the promised appendages were yet the merest stubble. He looked at Lily, who had picked up his coat, looking her up and down from her curiously sleek hair down to her small short-toed feet. He could see the ‘old doll’ look, but often now she looked to him younger. Her weak voice and tinkling laugh which had once irritated him now sounded sexy. Her sagging socks and leg-warmers looked sexy too. Dear Lily was so non-ideal, but she was there, and no one else was; and he got on so well with her, and it had occurred to him that he had rarely ever got on with anyone. His view of her had of course been considerably glorified by the skating scene, which he frequently rehearsed in waking and sleeping dreams. Last night he had dreamt that he was dancing with Lily in a palace in Japan. Well, they had danced together, in reality, at that midsummer dance, but he must have been extremely drunk and could scarcely remember.

  ‘Let’s go dancing one day,’ said Lily, throwing his coat over a chair.

  ‘You’re a thought-reader. If only I could get a job.’

  ‘You can’t postpone everything till after that. I need a man in my life.’

  ‘Well, I’m in your life –’

  ‘Don’t go away, will you.’

  ‘But I’m no good at anything.’

  ‘Let’s go and stay in a hotel. I adore hotels. It might be better in a hotel, it would be more dramatic.’

  ‘If alcohol won’t do it, I’m sure drama won’t. What have you done to your hair?’

  ‘What does sex matter anyway, it’s a mere technicality. Love is what matters.’

  Gulliver advanced on Lily and picked her up in his arms. He had never done this before. He was gratified by his success in managing it. She was very light. He held her for a moment, then let her down slowly and held her in front of him. Surprised by his swoop, she was flushed and her pale brown eyes blinked with laughter.

  ‘Suppose we were to get married,’ said Gull, ‘after I get a job?’

  ‘Don’t be silly!’

  The next moment she said, ‘Oh Gull, sometimes I feel so unhappy, there are such awful things in the world!’ And she began to cry, weeping tears for the sorrows of the world, for Tamar and for the lost children, and for her own inability to love and be loved.

  Gerard, Rose, Jenkin and Gulliver were sitting round one end of the table in the dining room at Gerard’s house. Crimond had just taken his place at the other end. It was eleven o’clock in the morning. Rain had ceased, but the sky remained pale and overcast and an east wind was blowing. The room was a little chilly, Gerard’s ideas of central heating being (by Fairfax standards that is) rather Spartan. To Gerard’s surprise, Crimond had rung up soon after their talk to suggest that it might be a good idea after all if he were to see the Gesellschaft committee and explain some of his ideas, since he felt they might be under some misapprehension about the book. Gerard was agreeably surprised by this reasonableness, and looked forward to hearing some more temperate account, now that Crimond had had time to think the matter over. The others were surprised too, Rose a little nervous, all of them curious.

  Gerard said, ‘I am sure we are all most grateful to Crimond for coming here to tell us about his book.’ After this introduction, he turned to Crimond with a gesture of invitation.

  There was an uncomfortable silence. Crimond continued to stare at Gerard. Rose and Gulliver looked at the table. Jenkin looked anxiously at Gerard. Gerard looked at Crimond with an expectant look which gradually faded.

  Gerard at last said, ‘Well –’

  At the same moment Crimond said, ‘I haven’t anything particular to say. I gathered that the Committee had questions to ask me. But if there are no questions –’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Gerard, ‘of course if you’d rather answer questions we’ll do it that way. Would anyone like to set the ball rolling?’

  He looked round at his companions. Rose and Gulliver continued to gaze at the table. Jenkin, biting his lip, had turned toward Crimond. Silence continued, and Crimond ostentatiously closed the notebook which he had opened in front of him, and shifted his chair a little.

  At last Jenkin said, ‘I wonder if you could tell us your views about trade union reform?’

  ‘You mean how to give more power to the unions?’

  ‘I mean making them more democratic and –’

  ‘Democratic?’ said Crimond, staring at Jenkin, as if he had uttered some amazing foreign word.

  ‘Of course the right to strike is fundamental –’

  ‘I am not concerned,’ said Crimond, ‘with mundane details about methods of negotiation. The trade unions are naturally one of the most potent forces in the revolutionary struggle –’

  ‘What is this “revolutionary struggle”?’ said Rose, who had been blushing as she prepared to speak.

  ‘The struggle for the revolution,’ said Crimond impatiently.

  ‘What revolution?’ said Rose.

  ‘Revolution,’ said Crimond, ‘is a Marxist concept –’

  ‘We know that!’ said Gulliver.

  ‘Which envisages a total alteration of our social structure, initially involving a shift of power from one class to another –’

  ‘You queried the word “democratic”,’ said Rose, ‘could you tell us why?’ Rose had had a haircut, and her shaggy mane, distinctly blond in the lamp light, had been thinned and reduced, revealing her brow, giving her a sterner more soldierly look. She darted, as she spoke, a glance of her dark blue eyes at Crimond, then resumed her scrutiny of the surface of the table, discovering there the faint scratches caused by Crimond’s finger nails on his previous visit.

  ‘It’s an old tired concept,’ said Crimond, ‘and at this stage a thoroughly misleading and mystifying one –’

  ‘So you don’t believe in parliamentary democracy?’ said Gulliver.

  Crimond ignored Gull, continuing to look at Rose, and went on, ‘What you call democracy is a rigid, inefficient, unjust and patently outmoded form of life, supported by an established pattern of violence which you appear
to find invisible –’

  ‘You would prefer an efficient one-party state, under a regime imposed by a single revolutionary group?’ said Rose.

  ‘The phrasing of your question betrays certain assumptions,’ said Crimond, allowing himself, perhaps out of politeness, the faintest possible smile. ‘Our present regime is “imposed”, our old liberal notion of “consent” has faded away, we know that the gross injustice and the cowardly muddle which we see everywhere in this society cannot be remedied. The democratic state cannot govern, the people are in the streets – cannot you see the future in the streets of our cities? The conception of democratic parliamentary party government is now a barrier to thought which must be got rid of. The process of change itself is bringing into being new social structures which will in time embody a more positive and effective form of government by consent. Whether or not you call this one-party government is a question which will be obsolete when the transformation has taken place. And mean-while – we shall be better prepared for the future if we see how terrible, how doomed, the present is, how much men suffer and hate, and how awful and how complete a revenge is already in preparation –’

  ‘So you approve of terrorism?’ said Gulliver.

  ‘I don’t like that emotive word,’ said Crimond frowning. ‘Our way of life rests upon violence, and invites it. Cases must be judged on their merits. Those who disapprove are usually those who don’t care.’

  ‘Well, I don’t like your not liking the word,’ said Gulliver, ‘you are simply shirking the issue, and you insult us by implying that we don’t care!’

  ‘Oh, I think you are all awfully nice people,’ said Crimond, looking not at Gull but at Gerard, ‘who imagine that the nice weather will last your life-time. I think you are wrong.’

  Gerard, adopting a calm reflective tone designed to cool the rising temperature, intervened. ‘But your kind of “transformation” has already been tried, it leads to tyranny, to arrangements which are far more rigid and unjust and inefficient! We are imperfect, but we are a free open tolerant society governed by democratic process and law, we don’t have to destroy ourselves to make changes, we are changing all the time, and mostly for the better, if you compare fifty years ago! Are we to throw all this away in return for some chimerical hypothetical utopia set up by a few activists after a violent revolution? You told me you weren’t in touch with the working-class movement, you spoke just now of “mundane details” which didn’t concern you, I think you’re a solitary theorist, having interesting ideas, but nothing to do with real problems of power, or how societies really alter –’

  ‘I don’t believe he’s out of touch,’ said Gulliver, ‘and I don’t believe he’s solitary either. He wants to smash this society. That’s the only thing his lot can do, and that’s real enough.’

  ‘Your whole picture of western civilisation is a “theory”,’ said Crimond to Gerard. ‘Your whole way of life supports poverty and injustice, behind your civilised relationships there’s a hell of misery and violence. What do dissidents do when they come to the west? They grieve, they fade, they find it all utterly hateful, they can see it. There’s something called history, I don’t just mean a concept invented by Hegel or Marx or perhaps Herodotus, I mean a deep strong relentless process of social change. That is what you simply refuse to notice. You think reality is ultimately good, and as you think you’re good too you feel safe. You value yourselves because you’re English. You live on books and conversation and mutual admiration and drink – you’re all alcoholics – and sentimental ideas of virtue. You have no energy, you are lazy people. The real heroes of our time are those who are brave enough to let go of the old dreamy self-centred self-satisfied morality and the old imperialistic moral person who was monarch of all he surveyed! For instance, we have to learn to live with machines, to think about how to live with machines, with computers, with information theory, with physics – the old complacent liberal individual is already lost, he’s a fake, he’s finished, he cannot constitute a value –’

  ‘Oh stop!’ said Rose. She was trembling with anger. ‘You’ve sold your soul to –’

  ‘Yes, I’ve sold it,’ said Crimond, ‘and I’m proud to have sold it, what’s the use of a soul, that gilded idol of selfishness! I’ve sold it, and I’m going to do something with the power which I’ve got in exchange. That is the essence of the new world and its new being. You all idolise your souls, that is yourselves. Ask whom you identify with, that will tell you your place and your class. The people of this planet are not like you, they must be served, they must be saved, the hungry sheep look up and are not fed –’

  ‘You’re poisoning them!’ said Gulliver.

  ‘Your “people” are abstractions,’ said Rose, ‘they’re just a vague idea that feeds your sense of power, your sort of Marxism is old and done for, that’s what’s finished! You’re not a new sort of person, you’re just an old-fashioned insolent power maniac who thinks he’s superman! You say the individual doesn’t exist – what about people who are starving in Africa –?’

  ‘Your morality is sentiment,’ said Crimond, ‘I don’t say it’s worthless, but it’s mainly a matter of cherishing your conscience. You’re awfully keen on ecology and helping animals, you deplore famine and you send a cheque, you deplore violence, then you can forget it for a while, you don’t want to look at the real causes of what’s wrong with the world. Why can’t we feed the planet, why are almost all human beings mere shreds of what they might be? There’s a huge human potential, a higher finer stronger human consciousness, a whole adventure of our species which hasn’t even started yet! And of course there are problems to be solved, which you don’t ever conceive of, let alone think about!’

  ‘This is too much,’ said Rose, ‘now you’re saying things simply to offend us!’

  ‘You’re not very polite to me, if it comes to that. You asked me to come here. You can’t think of any way of answering me, you can’t even engage in intelligent conversation about my ideas, so you get angry!’

  ‘You say we value being English,’ said Gull. ‘You’ve evidently got an inferiority complex about being Scottish, and not even a Highlander! I hate your ideas.’

  ‘Well, I hate yours,’ said Crimond, ‘and you seem to hate everything since you lost your boyish charm.’

  ‘Crimond –!’ said Gerard.

  Rose said, ‘I hate bullies, and you’re one!’

  Crimond said, ‘You all envy me because I can think, I can work, I can concentrate, I can write. All you can do is puff with indignation.’

  Jenkin, who had for some time been looking down at a piece of paper which Gull had passed him which read Vile hateful CHARLATAN, said, ‘Look, David, it won’t do.’

  Crimond said, ‘What won’t do? Exchanging insults? I entirely agree. I’m just going.’

  ‘No, I mean your whole position. There’s a large lie in it somewhere.’

  ‘Oh I daresay. But there are no hard surfaces in your world. To shift things you have to exaggerate a bit!’

  ‘You’ve evidently decided not to finish your book, because you know it’s no bloody good and you’re afraid to show it!’ said Gulliver.

  ‘The only one of you who’s worth tuppence ha’penny is Jenkin,’ said Crimond, getting up, ‘and he’s a fool. By the way, I had better tell you that I’ve just finished the book, so you needn’t pay me any more money, if that’s what you’re worrying about.’

  Crimond had gone. Rose was in tears. Gerard had brought in some sherry, to which Gulliver was helping himself. Jenkin was standing at the window looking out at the yellowish haze outside.

  ‘Talk about home truths!’ said Gull, who was feeling ashamed of having lost his temper and angry that he had let’ Crimond taunt him. The sherry was making him less ashamed and more angry.

  Gerard who had been walking up and down was now sitting beside Rose who had buried her mouth and nose in a handkerchief. Rose was angry with Gerard. Emerging, she chided him. ‘Why did you let that happen, why did
you let them shout at each other?’

  ‘You shouted too,’ said Gulliver.

  ‘Crimond didn’t shout,’ said Gerard, ‘he let us do that! Of course it won’t do, but he won the match.’

  ‘I don’t think he won the match,’ said Gulliver, ‘I wish I’d kicked him down the road. But fancy the book being finished! I wonder if it really is?’

  ‘Of course it is, if he says so. I must ring up and tell Duncan.’

  ‘Why did he come here then?’ said Rose. ‘He must have come simply to attack us. What extraordinary spite! Not a word of gratitude.’

  ‘I believe he really came to try to explain the book. We should have been less aggressive at the start. You’re right, Rose, it’s my fault, I should have taken charge, I should have thought out what to say, we ought to have discussed it beforehand.’

  ‘Why the hell should we –’ said Gull.

  ‘But, Gerard, you had that talk with him, you knew what kind of thing he was likely to say. Why did you get us all here so that he could throw mud at us?’

  ‘What he said today was a caricature of what he said to me. The whole thing is funny in a way.’

  ‘It’s a joke I can’t see.’

  ‘He was putting on an act, he wanted to chill our blood, he wanted to frighten us.’

  ‘Well, he didn’t frighten me, he just annoyed me very much,’ said Rose, blowing her nose, ‘And our side didn’t exactly distinguish itself. I think he was in deadly earnest. I wonder if he’s actually mad? There’s something awfully creepy about him.’

  ‘He’s certainly a fanatic,’ said Gerard. ‘His ancestors were Calvinists. He believes in magic.’

  ‘So Calvinists believe in magic?’ said Gull.

  ‘Yes. Instant salvation.’

  ‘He’s got some sort of awful death wish,’ said Rose. ‘I think he’s murderous, he’s callous, he doesn’t think people are real.’

  ‘He said to me that people are puppets or will be.’