The World in the Evening

by Christopher Isherwood

  Then Sarah would pass on to the local news and her personal problems. Everybody at 20 South 12th Street was talking about Hugh Pomeroy’s denunciation of the Philadelphia slums. The Campus was buzzing over the resignation of Dr Hotson and Dr Reitzel from Haverford College. The plans for the community centre were running into snags, and the committee had settled down to a series of meetings that might well drag on through the summer, with members of the opposition rising to announce gravely: ‘I have a stop in my mind about this’ or ‘Friends, I am not easy for this to go forward’. There were quilting-parties to be organized for the marriage of George Leeds and Margaret Partland. The Negro boys’ clubhouse needed a ping-pong table. The tent-caterpillars were stripping the leaves from the trees in the orchard, and Sarah was afraid she’d have to get their nests burned out with kerosene torches, much as she hated to do it.

  I used to listen to all this inattentively but with growing uneasiness and depression. In the past, the newspapers had never seemed to me quite as horrible and meaningless as they did now. I must have taken them more or less for granted; just as I’d taken for granted the whole outside world of people and events that didn’t directly concern me. Now I felt astonished and ashamed that I’d been so insensitive. Out there, in the world around my bed, Churchill was a real old man blinking through his spectacles as he signed papers. Hider was actually eating his vegetarian lunch, Stalin was alive and smoking his pipe and speaking Russian in the Kremlin, thousands of men were really firing guns or groaning with pain in hospitals, housewives were talking about matter-of-fact air-raids as they stood in line to buy food. The newspapers ‘covered’ all these circumstances but nevertheless missed the whole point; their despatches were like those reviews of Elizabeth’s novels, in which you could scarcely recognize the novels themselves. The reviews were meaningless because they showed no understanding of why Elizabeth had written her books; and the news-items in the papers were meaningless in exactly the same way. Even if they were about you, you wouldn’t be able to recognize yourself or your life in them. Indeed, they were far more horrible than life itself. They could never tell you anything good, because the one fact that outweighs all others—that life is bearable to most of us, most of the time, in spite of everything—is not news. Life is bearable because we know, or think we know, that it has a meaning; but the newspapers blandly presented a world without any meaning whatsoever. The meaning they pretended to impose upon it in their editorials was no meaning; just a bunch of heartless, tinny phrases about democracy, freedom, fascism, patriotism and so forth. Sarah was instinctively protesting against this when she pinned the headlines down to the reality of live human beings, but she was too deep in her own activities to have time to get indignant. Elizabeth had once said to me ‘any news is bad news’, and I’d laughed, taking it as a mild Oscar Wildean joke. Now it seemed to me that I understood what she’d really meant.

  Throughout Sarah’s morning visit, I was impatient to escape from the world of the newspapers into the world of Elizabeth. I fidgeted with eagerness to get back to the letters. The morning was the best time for them, because Sarah would be away in Philadelphia or the village and Gerda had the housework, and I would be left alone. The moment that Sarah had gone out of the room I would reach down for the file, which stood on the lower shelf of the table beside my bed, but I wouldn’t open it at once. First, I had to get into the right mood. Sometimes I’d lie quite still with my eyes closed for as much as half an hour, letting myself sink slowly into a state of reverie that was almost a trance. I found that if I did this before I began to read the letters, I could remember things more easily. As the days passed, I became able to induce this reverie fairly quickly; just as a good medium can go into a trance at will.

  The heavy drowsy spring weather helped me by deadening the sights and sounds of the present moment, making them dreamlike and vague. I seemed to be drowning in memory; it was like being drowsy-drunk or half-asleep. Only the remembering part of my mind stayed sharply clear, and all my senses were awake in the past. When Elizabeth mentioned the Schwarzsee, I could literally smell the wet lilac-bushes; when she described our trip to Khalkis, I felt a sudden intense hunger for fried squid. Now and then, these sense-impressions were so vivid that I wondered if this wasn’t something more than memory; if I wasn’t, in some way, actually reliving the original event. That day we had lunch with Rose Macaulay in Carcassonne—did I merely remember a bright green snail crawling up the table-leg or was I noticing it now for the first time?

  When the mood was strongly upon me, it persisted through all the incidents of my daily routine. Gerda bringing in my lunch didn’t interrupt it in the least. And, as my reverie-technique improved, I could even receive visitors without coming out of it altogether. Martha Chance dropped by to see me often, and there were the Harpers, and other Dolgelly neighbours. They chattered away and were quite lifelike, but no more so than Dorothea and Mr Casaubon out of Middlemarch, which Sarah read aloud to me in the afternoons. I think I was perfectly rational and answered their questions sensibly; at any rate, they never seemed to suspect that I wasn’t entirely with them. But Elizabeth remained with me throughout their visits and was much more substantially present than they were, although she’d withdrawn, as it were, to a far corner of the room.

  During the first week of my bed-life I did have one visitor, however, who startled me right out of the reverie because he was unexpected. Both Gerda and Sarah were away that morning, and I was alone in the house. I heard steps on the stairs and along the corridor, where they seemed to hesitate, and then there was a sudden impatient knock at the door. It opened before I could answer. Bob Wood came slouching into the room.

  ‘Hello,’ he said.

  ‘Hello, there.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ There was a kind of reproachful surprise in his tone.

  ‘Just lying here on my ass. Did you expect to find me tap-dancing?’

  Bob grinned. Then he seemed to lose all interest in me. He wandered restlessly around the room, picking up books and putting them down again immediately, as though he were hunting for something. I watched him, remembering how Michael Drummond used to do this too.

  ‘Aren’t you bored?’ he asked abruptly. He sounded just like Charles Kennedy.

  ‘No. That’s a funny thing—I keep expecting I will be, but I’m not.’

  ‘What do you think about, all day?’

  ‘Oh—everything.’

  ‘I’ll bet you do.’ Bob looked at me with sympathetic curiosity. ‘You know, I kind of envy you? That’s just what I need, right now; to be shut up some place where I don’t have anything to do but think.’ There was a pause. ‘Charles says you were raised as a Quaker. Like me.’

  ‘Yes. I was.’

  ‘Do you believe any of that, now?’

  ‘Well—it rather depends what you mean by—’

  ‘Oh, for Pete’s sake, Steve,’ Bob interrupted impatiently, ‘you don’t have to be cagey. You know perfectly well what I mean. To begin with, do you believe in God?’ He scowled angrily as he brought the word out, and his mouth pulled down sideways into a deprecatory grimace.

  ‘Well, yes. Yes, I guess so. Only—’

  ‘I do,’ Bob told me aggressively, as if my answer had been No. ‘But the trouble is, I just can’t stand the sort of people who do.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. We both laughed.

  ‘Oh, I’m not including you, Steve. You’re different. At least, I think you are … That’s why I went to Meeting the other day. I hadn’t been in years. I wanted to see if it was still the way I remembered.’

  ‘And was it?’

  ‘Pretty much. It was still there, this thing I used to feel—whatever it is. And I still couldn’t stand the people.’

  ‘They bothered me, too.’

  ‘They did? Good, I’m glad of that. Then you do know what I mean … Jesus, you’d think the Inner Light was something they owned! And they hate like hell to admit that anyone can get any of it without joining their cl
ub and keeping all their rules. I felt like a gatecrasher.’

  ‘No, Bob! That’s not true. I’m certain it isn’t. I used to think that, myself. But I know I was wrong.’

  ‘Well, maybe I’m exaggerating. I get a bit carried away, whenever I talk about them … How did you feel about the Meeting itself?’

  ‘The same way you did, more or less. The thing was still there.’

  ‘Isn’t it amazing, how it takes hold of you again?’

  ‘I know. I kept fighting it, though. I didn’t want it to.’

  ‘Neither did I … Charles couldn’t possibly understand any of that. You couldn’t expect him to, I guess. He doesn’t have our background … You know, Steve, you and I are kind of in the same boat?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose we are.’

  ‘That’s why I had to come and talk to you. You see, I’ve got to do an awful lot of thinking. And quick. I might be going back in the Navy, soon.’

  ‘Sarah told me.’

  ‘When I enlisted before, I was just a kid. I did it because I wanted to make a big gesture, and show the Friends what a hell of a rebel I was. Whatever they believed in, I was against, automatically. As a matter of fact, my gesture fell flat. Nobody gave a damn, either way, what I did. And I had lots of fun. But everything’s different, now … Are you a pacifist, Steve?’

  ‘Kind of. I haven’t ever thought about it properly.’

  ‘I hadn’t, until quite lately. And I’m still all mixed up. Of course, I loathe all this wishy-washy brotherly-love talk. Just the same, you know, the Friends really have got something there. If you read what Christ said—not all those alibis and double-talk about what He’s supposed to have meant—there aren’t any two ways about it … I suppose we’ll get into this War, won’t we, sooner or later?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid we will.’

  ‘It isn’t so much that I’m scared of that. Though I am, of course. But I’d be even more scared of being a conchie.’

  ‘So would I.’

  ‘What did you tell them when you registered for the draft?’

  ‘I haven’t had to, yet. I’m just over age.’

  ‘You are? You don’t look it … If I don’t go back in the Navy, I’ll be drafted. I didn’t register as a C.O. I couldn’t make up my mind to. Now I’d just have to refuse, and go to jail … Would you go to jail, Steve?’

  ‘I’d have to be awfully sure I was right, first. And, even then, I’d try to find some excuse to wriggle out of it.’

  ‘You probably don’t feel quite the same way about the Law as I do. That’s natural. After all,’ Bob’s mouth pulled down sideways again, ‘you’re not a professional criminal.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Exactly what did Sarah tell you about Charles and me?’

  ‘Not very much. Why?’

  ‘Look, you don’t have to play naïve. You’re not like those old biddies in Dolgelly who keep trying to marry Charles off to their daughters. You’ve been around. When two guys live together, you know what that means?’

  I smiled. ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘Well, in our case it does.’ Bob looked at me with a certain hostility. ‘Charles said you’d know that without being told. Only I don’t like leaving things vague.’

  ‘And what am I supposed to do now? Ask you to get out of the house?’

  Bob grinned uncertainly. ‘That’s up to you.’

  ‘Sure, I understand all about that, Bob. And I’m glad you told me. I mean, I appreciate your wanting to. I kind of guessed, but I wasn’t sure—’ I tried hard, but I couldn’t quite keep the embarrassment out of my voice. ‘Naturally, I don’t think it’s wrong, or anything. Certainly not for people like you and Charles. You’re not children. You both know what you’re doing.’

  ‘You’re pretty broad-minded, aren’t you?’

  ‘Oh, Bob, don’t be stuffy about this, please!’

  ‘That’s what you heterosexuals always say. We’ll run you out of town. We’ll send you to jail. We’ll stop you ever getting another job. But please don’t you be stuffy about it.’

  ‘I only mean don’t be so aggressive. That’s what puts people against you.’

  ‘Maybe we ought to put people against us. Maybe we’re too damned tactful. People just ignore us, most of the time, and we let them. We encourage them to. So this whole business never gets discussed, and the laws never get changed. There’s a few people right here in the village who really know what the score is with Charles and me, but they won’t admit it, not even to themselves. We’re such nice boys, they say. So wholesome. They just refuse to imagine how nice boys like us could be arrested and locked up as crooks. They’re afraid to think about it, for fear it’d trouble their tender consciences. Next thing you know, they might get a concern’—Bob’s mouth was twitching ferociously—‘and then they’d have to do something. Jesus, I’d like to take them and rub their noses in it!’

  ‘That wouldn’t help Charles much, in his position.’

  ‘Do you suppose I don’t realize that? If it wasn’t for Charles, I’d be out of this dump in five minutes, anyway.’

  ‘Let me tell you something, Bob. There was a guy I liked, once. In that way, I mean—’

  ‘Sure, I know.’ Bob grinned ironically. ‘Some kid in school. And afterwards you hated yourselves. And now he’s married and got ten children.’

  ‘No. This wasn’t in school—’

  ‘Well then, it was in some low bar in Port Said, and you were drunk, and you got picked up, and it was horrible—’

  ‘It wasn’t in Port Said, and it wasn’t in the least horrible. It didn’t just happen once, either. I told you, I liked this guy. He’s one of the best people I’ve ever known … And now, will you stop treating me like a public meeting?’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ said Bob, laughing. ‘I’m sorry. You’re all right, Steve. If everyone was like you, I wouldn’t get so mad.’

  ‘But you rather enjoy getting mad, don’t you?’

  ‘I do not. It makes me sick to my stomach. It’s the only way I seem to be able to let off steam, though. In the Service, I was always getting into fist-fights, for no reason at all. I lost a couple of teeth that way, but at least there were no hard feelings afterward. It was a lot better than saying rotten things you don’t mean and hurting someone you really care about. I do that to Charles, sometimes. I act like the filthiest little bitch. It’s a wonder he doesn’t throw me out … Jesus, it’s a bore being neurotic! Look, I’d better be going.’

  ‘Do you have to?’

  ‘You don’t want to listen to any more of this dreary crap.’

  ‘I’m in the mood for crap, today. The drearier the better.’

  ‘Well, I’m not.’

  ‘No, seriously, Bob, I just wish I could help you somehow. I mean, say something constructive.’

  ‘You don’t have to. It does me good just to talk to someone who isn’t sick in the head.’

  ‘How do you know I’m not?’

  ‘Well, if you are, I don’t want to hear about it. Don’t you ever lose your wig while I’m around. I won’t stand for it.’

  ‘I’ll keep it glued on tight … Come and see me soon again, won’t you? How about tomorrow?’

  ‘All right. If you really want me to. I’m not much of a sickbed visitor.’

  ‘You’re the kind I like best. You haven’t once said you were sorry for me.’

  ‘I’m not. I’m too busy being sorry for myself.’

  ‘That’s the spirit!’

  ‘Well—take it easy.’

  ‘You too.’

  Bob was already moving toward the door. He turned for a moment and gave me a quick smile that was both humorous and unhappy. ‘I sure wish I could,’ he said. Then he went out.

  When Charles Kennedy looked in to see me, which he did two or three times a week, it would usually be around six o’clock in the evening. The day after Bob’s visit, he appeared, bringing with him a contraption which he called a monkey-bar. It was a kind of miniatu
re trapeze hanging from a metal arm which was made to screw on to a bedstead. I could take hold of it and pull myself up in bed, whenever I’d slipped down too far.

  ‘You know Bob was in to see me yesterday?’ I asked, while he was installing it.

  ‘Yes. He told me.’ Charles spoke in his briefest staccato. He was standing at the back of the bed where I couldn’t see his face, but I knew at once that something was wrong.

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ I went on, ‘I was expecting him to come again this morning. He promised to.’

  Charles was silent.

  ‘Is there any special reason,’ I persisted, ‘why he didn’t?’

  Charles didn’t answer at once. He shook the metal arm to make sure that it was firmly attached. Then he came around the bed and sat down on the end of it, facing me.

  ‘It was probably my fault,’ he said. ‘Bob and I had a big argument, last night. One of the biggest we ever had since we’ve been together.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Well, it started about you.’ Charles grinned at me painfully. He was obviously embarrassed. ‘In fact, I suppose it was a rather ordinary kind of domestic jealousy scene. As far as I was concerned.’

  ‘Jealousy? You surely don’t mean that Bob—?’

  ‘No—it wasn’t quite as ordinary as that. But he came home and raved about you. How wonderful and sympathetic and understanding you were. Meaning that I wasn’t.’

  ‘But, Charles, that’s ridiculous! If Bob does feel that about me, it’s only because I’m a complete stranger. Strangers always seem to understand everything—until you get to know them.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I told him.’ Charles smiled in a more relaxed manner. ‘No offence to you, Stephen! I think you are an understanding person. And I think you might be very good for Bob. It was idiotic of me to get mad about it. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have. Only I happen to be under quite a bit of pressure, myself, right now.’