The Nice and the Good - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 2
Thirty-nine
'Hello, Paula. You're early.!'Hello – Richard ''So am I, I suppose. I couldn't do anything, I had to come.''Yes.''Well, hello 'Paula made no attempt to talk. She was trying to control her breathing. A long breath in, now out, in, now out. It was quite easy really. She moved a little away, looking sideways at Richard, who was leaning one arm on his knee and staring unsmilingly at her. An attendant passed by. There was no one else in the room.'Look, Paula,' said Richard, in a low voice, 'let's be businesslike, let's make a business-like start anyway. Ducane told you about this awful thing about Radeechy?''Yes.''About me and Claudia? Everything?''Yes.''Well, let's separate two issues, shall we? (a) Whether you think I ought to give myself up as it were, hand the whole issue over to the police and get myself sacked and charged with being an accessory. And () what you and I are going to do about ourselves. If you don't mind, I'd like to get (a) settled first.'God, how like Richard this is, thought Paula, and a pain. ful shaft of something, tenderness perhaps, memory, pierced through her. The black canopy had gone away and her breathing seemed likely to go on. But her heart was hurting her with its violence.'Aren't the two issues connected?' said Paula. She had found herself unable to look at him and was looking at the floor.'They're connected in the sense that you might or mightn't want to visit me in jail. Only in one of the four possible permutations of (a) and () and yes and no are they actually interdependent.'Oh Richard, Richard. 'Is John – sort of forcing you here?''No, no one's forcing me. I just want (a) settled. We can't take () first.''John seems to think it's all right' to keep it all quiet, and he ''Damn John. What do you think?'Paula had not expected this. She had been utterly appalled by the story about Claudia and Radeechy, but she had not thought that any further judgement on it would be required from her. Or rather, she had at once taken over Ducane's judgement that it was not necessary for Richard to own up. She tried to think about it now. Richard was requiring her to be objective. That in itself was extraordinary, as extraordinary as the fact that they were now sitting side by side. She looked up at the terrible figures of Truth and Time.'I don't think it's necessary, Richard. John's quite clear that his inquiry doesn't need your evidence. You can't help – the others now. You'd be punishing yourself and I see no point in it.'Richard gave a long sigh.She thought, he's relieved, oh God, and she felt the pain again. She looked back at the floor and let her gaze creep as far as to his feet. Metal limbs., Now what about (), Paula? T 'Wait, wait,' she murmured. 'Let us be, as you say, businesslike.'She moved a little further away and began to look at him. His twisted face had screwed itself further into a contorted suspicious mask of anxiety which he touched periodically with his hand as if trying to smooth it out.'Richard, do you want to come back?'He said a short clipped 'Yes'. He added, 'Do you want me back?'Paula said in the same quick tone, 'Yes'. Their two 'yesses' hovered, inconclusive and curt.'Richard, you've been living with somebody, haven't you?»'How did you know? Or did you just assume it?''I went one day – to the house – just to look – when I knew you were at the office. And I saw a rather beautiful girl let herself in with a latch key.''God. Did you do that, Paula? God. Well, there was a girl, but it's over now. She was a tart.''What sort of difference do you think that makes?''All right. None. Anyway, she's gone. She's eloped to Australia with Ducane's manservant, if you must know!''Did she write and tell you?''No, Ducane told me. Christ, you're not going to be jealous of a tart who's half-way to Australia!''There hasn't been anyone else, just lately I mean?''No. What about you? Have you had anybody?''No: 'You're not in love with Ducane, are you?''No, of course not, Richard!''Are you sure?''Yes!''Good. Well, go on interrogating me. I can't for the life of me see why you should want me back at all.''Richard, I must talk to you about Eric.''Christ, that bastard hasn't turned up again?''No, no. He wrote and said he was going to, but he changed his mind, thank heavens.''You don't love him, do you?''No, no, no.''Then can't we forget him? T 'No, we can't, that's the point. At least we can't forget – what happened. I know this sounds a bit mad, but that awful scene has remained like a sort of black lump spreading poison.''I know,' he said softly, 'I know.'Some Americans had arrived to inspect the Bronzino. They lingered, making learned comments, then glanced at the tense immobile pair upon the seat and hastily took themselves off.'Paula,' said Richard, 'we're both rational beings. Maybe we couldn't do anything about this apart, but we might be able to do something together. Something dreadful happened for which we were both to blame. It happened. You know I don't believe in God or in guilt feelings or in repentance or any stuff of that sort. The past is gone, it doesn't exist any more. However, things that do exist are responsibilities occasioned by the past and also our thoughts about it, which we may not find it very easy to control. I judge that there's nothing further we can do for Eric except try to forget the bloody fool. There are things we might do for each other to make this cloud lift, if we decided that it was worth our trying to live together again. I don't think the blank lump would poison us then. I think it would just gradually go away.'As Paula looked at him, listening to his precise high-pitched voice so familiarly explaining something, expounding something, she felt a shudder pass through her which she recognized a second later as physical desire. She wanted to hurl her arms around Richard and hold him tightly. She stiffened and closed her eyes.'What is it, Paula?''Nothing, «nothing. You may be right. Let's go on.' She opened her eyes and looked into a blue-golden blur of Bronzino. 'Richard, if you were to come to me, if, if, would you go on having love affairs with other girls from time to time?'After a short silence Richard said in a dry voice, 'Possibly.''I thought so ''please, Paula – It's hard to say. At this moment I feel – well, hell, feelings are just feelings. I don't know what I'd do. If the old pattern continues I'd probably be unfaithful now and then.I'd have to wait and see. You know it's no use my telling you I've decided anything.''I know. I expect I could stand it. Only, Richard, will you, would you, please not tell me lies?''You mean you'd want me to tell you every time I kiss my secretary?''No. But I'd want to know if you were going to bed with your secretary.'Richard was silent again for a short while, during which time a group of schoolchildren did the room with celerity. He said slowly, 'It's not at all easy to make such promises beforehand, Paula. At least it's easy to make them. It's not so easy to be sure what one will do when one is being tempted by some piece of quick trouble-free pleasure.'Paula stared at the enamel-faced figure of Deceit, and at her reversed hands and scaly tail. Was it here, after all, that everything broke down and descended into a roaring shaft of shattered masks and crumpled rose petals and bloody feathers?But as she looked, clear-eyed now, she felt, infinitely stronger than any doubt, her intention to take Richard back. She turned to him.'All right. But lies do corrupt and spoil.''I know that. I would keep them to a minimum.'The Richardesque precision and even his intent at this moment of all moments to keep the door a little bit ajar for T-NATG-N 337 Venus, Cupid and Folly, touched her to an intensity of love for him which she could hardly control.'Paula, about the twins ''What about the twins? T 'They're not anti-me?''Oh my darling, no. They've kept their love for you, nothing's touched it. I know that.'The sudden endearment, the image of the children, brought a hot rush of tears as far as her eyes. She blinked, turning away, and the thought came to her for the first time, am I still attractive to him?'Thank God for that. When can I –? I mean, have we decided anything?'Paula stared back, tears and all. 'Richard, ask yourself, ask yourself, do you really want to?»'Why, Paula, you're – Oh Paula, yes, yes, yes. Please give me your hand.'Paula moved towards him. Their hands touched, their knees touched. They were both trembling.'Oh Richard, not here – someone will – ''Ives, here.'The Americans, who had come back hoping for another look at the Bronzino, retreated rapidly.'Paula, I'm falling in love with you again, most terribly in love.''I've never been out of love with you, never for a second.''Look, Paula, do you mind if we go home at once? I want to kiss you properly, I want to 'They sprang up. Richard took a quick look at the attendant's back and approached the Bronzino. He drew luxurious fingers across the canvas, caressing the faintly touching mouths of Venus and Cupid. Then he seized Paula by the hand and pulled her after him. They left the Gallery at a run. The attendant turned about and began anxiously counting the pictures.'Have a drink,' said Ducane. 'Thanks. A little sherry.''Do you mind the fire? It's not too hot for you?', No, I like it. Are you sure you're feeling all right?''I'm feeling much better. How's Pierce?''Pierce is in splendid shape. He sends much love, by the way. He said I was to remember to say much love.''Mine to him. Do sit down. It's so nice of you to have come.' Mary Clothier dropped her coat on the floor and sat down rather awkwardly, holding her glass of sherry stiffly in front of her as if it were something she was unaccustomed to holding, such as a revolver. Her hand trembled slightly and some drops fell on to the stretched blue and white check of her dress and softly moistened her thigh. She looked around the room with curiosity. It was a restrained dignified pretty room full, to Mary's taste over-full, of intense quietly coloured trinkets.These lay about on polished surfaces looking more like toys than like ornaments. She looked out through the sun-drenched window at the cast-iron window boxes and brightly painted doors of the small neat houses opposite, and her heart sank.She thought, how little I know him.'Isn't it splendid about Richard and Paula?' she said.'Marvellous.''I'm very glad,' said Mary. 'They're so happy, just like gay children.' She sighed. 'But weren't you surprised? I had no idea they were thinking of it. Paula is so secretive.''Mmm. Was a bit quick. Just goes to show. Life can be sudden. All that.'Mary looked at Ducane who was trampling about on the other side of the room, in the space behind a tall armchair, like an animal in a stall, and leaning momently on the back of the chair to attend to her. He was wearing, and had profusely apologized for, a black silk dressing gown covered with spidery red asterisks, and dark red pyjamas underneath. The garb made him look faintly exotic, faintly Spanish, like an actor, like a dancer.'John, what was it like in the cave? Pierce won't tell me any thing. And my imagination keeps on and on. I've been having awful dreams about it. Did you think you were going to die?'Ducane said slowly, leaning over the chair, 'It's hard to say, Mary. Perhaps. Pierce was very tough and brave.''So were you, I'm sure. Can you tell me what it was like, could you describe it starting at the beginning?''Not now, Mary, if you don't mind.' He added, 'I saw your face there in the darkness, in a strange way. I'll tell you – later.'His air of authority calmed her. 'All right. So long as you will tell me. Did you make that decision, John?''What decision?''You said you had to make a decision concerning another person.''Oh yes. I decided that.''And was it the right decision? T 'Yes. I tidied that business up. I've tidied up a number of things. In fact I've tidied up nearly everything!''Good for you.''You don't know what you're talking about!' said Ducane.'Sorry. I'm still awfully nervy.'Mary smiled a little uncertainly. Then she said with a sudden random bitterness, 'I don't know anything about you.''You've known me for years.''No. We've noticed each other as familiar objects on a landscape, like houses or railway stations, things one passes on a journey. We've said the minimum of obvious things to each other.''You do us less than justice. We've communicated with each other. We are alike.''I am not like you,' she said. 'No, you belong to a different race.' She looked about the room at the toy-like trinkets. outside the window the heavy sunny evening was husky with distant sound.He looked puzzled, discouraged. 'I have a feeling that you are not complimenting me now!'She stared at his thin brown face, his narrow nose, the parti. cular fall of the dry dark hair. Their conversation sounded to her hollow, like an intermittent rhythmless drum beat. She shivered., it doesn't matter. You are different. I must go.''But you've only just come.''I only came to see if you were all right.''Perhaps I ought to have told you I'm not! You hardly flatter me by rushing away so soon. I was hoping you would have dinner with me.''I'm afraid I have an engagement.''Well, don't go yet, Mary. Have some more sherry.'He filled her glass. The black silk brushed her knee.Why have I landed myself in this absurd and terrible position, thought Mary Clothier. Why have I been such a perfectly frightful ass? Why have I, after all these years, and contrary to all sense and all hope and all reason fallen quite madly in love with my old friend John Ducane?The realization that she was in love with Ducane came to Mary quite suddenly on the day after the rescue from the cave, but it seemed to her then that she had already been in love for some time. It was as if she had for some time been under an authority the nature of which she had not understood, though she had had an inkling of it in the moment almost of violence when she had thrown her coat about the wet cold naked man.On the following day, when Ducane had already been taken back to London by Octavian, Mary felt a blackness of depression which she took to be the aftermath of terror. She was weeding the garden in the hot afternoon. With a savage selfpunishing persistence she leaned over the flowerbed, feeling the light runnels of perspiration crawling upon her cheek. She had been thinking intensely about Ducane but without thinking anything specific. It was as if she were attending to him ardently but blankly. She straightened up and went to sit down in the shade underneath the acacia tree. Her hot body went limp and she lay down flat. As she relaxed she had a vivid almost hallucinatory image of Ducane's face, together with a physical convulsion like an electric shock. She lay quite still, collecting herself.Realizing that one is in love with someone in whom one has long been interested is a curious process. What can it be said to consist of? Each human being swims within a sea of faint suggestive imagery. It is this web of pressures, currents and suggestions, something often so much less definite than pictures, which ties our fugitive present to our past and future, composing the globe of consciousness. We think with our body, with its yearnings and its shrinkings and its ghostly walkings. Mary's whole body now, limp beneath the tall twisted acacia tree, became aware of John from head to foot in a new way. She imaged him with a turning and hovering of her being, as if a wraith were plucking itself out of her towards him. She felt his absence from her as a great tearing force moving out of her entire flesh. And she shivered with a dazzled joy.Had she, then, not been in love with Willy? No, she had not been in love with Willy. She had loved Willy with her careful anxious mind and with her fretful fingertips. She had not thus adored him with her whole thought-body, her whole being of yearning. She had not been content to be for him simply herself and a woman. This was the old, the unmistakable state of being in love which she had imagined she would never experience again. Indeed as she lay pinned to the ground, looking up at the blotched sunlight moving upon the lined form of the acacia tree, she felt that she had never experienced it before. And she turned over groaning on to her face.Great love is inseparable from joy, but further thought brought to her an equal portion of pain. There was absolutely nothing that she could do with this huge emotion which she had so suddenly discovered in herself. It was not only that Ducane belonged to Kate. He was a man utterly inaccessible to herself.He had been very kind to her, but that was simply because he was a good man who was kind to everybody. His attention to her had been professional, efficient and entirely momentaryi She was far too plain an object to remain visible to him. On the whole he was used to her as one might be used to an efficient servant.Of course he must never know. How long would it take her to recover? At the thought that she had known of her condi: for twenty minutes and was already wondering about her recovery, tears brimmed over Mary's closed eyes and mingled with the sweat on her shining face and dripped down into the warm grass. No, she would not think of recovery. Indeed she felt that she would never recover. She would live with her condition.And he must never know. She must make no move, utter no breath, lift no finger.Nevertheless in two days' time, after two days of pure agony, she felt that she had to see him. She would see him briefly, utter some commonplaces, and be gone. But she felt that she had to see him or she would die. She had to make a journey towards him. Sick with emotion, she travelled to London, telephoned him, and asked if she could call upon him briefly before dinner.She sat in his presence in an ecstasy of pain and prayer. Her intense joy at being in his presence flickered through the matrix of her dullness, her stupidity, her inability to say anything which was not tedious. Oh John! she cried within herself as if for help. Oh my darling, help me to endure it!John Ducane leaned on the back of the chair and contem plate&Mary's small round head, compact as an image out of Ingres, her pale golden complexion, the very small ears behind which she had tucked her straight dark hair.John Ducane thought to himself, why have I landed myself in this absurd and terrible position? Why have I been such a perfectly frightful ass? Why have I so infelicitously, inopportunely, improperly and undeniably fallen quite madly in love with my old friend, Mary Clothier?It seemed now to Ducane that his thoughts had been already for a long time, turning to Mary, running to her instinctively like animals, like children. The moment had been important when he had thought about her, we are under the same orders.But he had known, long before he had formulated it clearly, that she was like him, morally like in some way that was. portant. Her mode of being gave him a moral, even a meta. physical confidence in the world, in the reality of goodness.No love is entirely without worth, even when the frivolous calls to the frivolous and the base to the base. But it is in the nature of love to discern good, and the best love is in some part of at any rate a love of what is good. Ducane was very conscious, and had always been conscious, that he and Mary communicated by means of what was good in both of them.Ducane's absolute respect for Mary, his trust in her, his. prehension in her virtues which he understood, made the back. ground of an affection which grew, under the complex force of his needs, into love. It is possible that at this time he idolized her, and fell in love at the moment at which he thought, she is better than me. During his gradual loss of a stiff respect he had had for himself, he had felt the need to locate in someone else the picture of an upright person. His relation with Jessica, his relation even with Kate, perhaps in a subtle way even more his relation with Kate, had left him muddled. He was a man who, unless he could think well of himself, became confused and weak of will. He had begun to need Mary when he had begun to need a better image of himself. She was the consoling counterpart of his self-abasement.Also she was of course, he realized, a mother goddess. She was the mother of Trescombe. In this light he was able to see something almost mysterious in the plainness of her role. She had already been transfigured for him by his jealousy of Willy, a jealousy which had surprised him, appearing first as an unexplained depression, a blank want of generosity. This was a jealousy very different from the jealousy of Octavian which he had momently felt at the withdrawal of Kate. Jealousy of Octavian had awakened him to a sense of his own position as improper and idiotic. Jealousy of Willy had made him feel, I want a girl of my own. And then, I want this girl of my own.It seemed to him now, and this added to his pain, that he had only urged her to marry Willy out of guilt and fear at his own failure with Willy. Of course she must never know how he felt and Willy must never know. Once they were married he would avoid them absolutely. I am out of the saga, he thought.He had a heavy sense of being left in total isolation; everyone had withdrawn from him and the person who could most have helped him was pre-empted by another.He stared at Mary. His whole body ached with his sense of how much she might have done for him. To cause himself a sharp sobering pain he said, 'How is Willy?''Oh, very well I believe. I mean, much as usual.''When are you getting married?' said Ducane.Mary put her glass down on the octagonal marble table. She flushed and snapped in a breath. 'But I'm not getting married to Willy.'Ducane came round the armchair and sat down in it. 'You said it wasn't quite fixed ''It's not happening at all. Willy doesn't want to marry. It was all a mistake.' She looked very unhappy.'I'm sorry – 'said Ducane.'I thought Kate would have told you,' said Mary. She was still red, looking hard at her glass.'No,' said Ducane. He thought, I suppose I'd better tell her.'Kate and I – well, I don't think we'll be seeing quite so much of each other – at least not like ''Did you really quarrel then?' Mary asked in a slightly breathless voice.'Not really. But – I'd better tell you, Mary, though you won't think well of me. I was formerly entangled, well in a way was entangled, with a girl in London and Kate found this out, and felt I'd been lying and I suppose I had. It was rather complicated, I'm afraid. Anyway it somehow spoilt things. It was foolish of me to imagine that I could – manage Kate.'This isn't the way to say it, he thought. It makes it sound dreadful. She'll think badly of me for ever.'I see. A girl in – I see.'He said rather stiffly, 'You must be sad about Willy. I'm sorry.''Yes. He sort of turned me down!' around her feet. 'Well, I hope you'll be happy, John, happy with – Yes.''Don't go, Mary.''I have got an appointment.'He groaned to himself. He wanted to take her in his arms, he wanted to be utterly revealed to her, he wanted her to understand.'Let me give you something before you go, something to take away with you.' He looked wildly round the room. A French glass paper-weight was lying on the desk on top of some papers. He picked it up and quickly threw it into Mary's lap.The next moment he saw that she had burst into tears.'What is it, my heart?' Ducane knelt beside her, thrusting the table away. He touched her knee.Holding the paper-weight tightly in her skirt and blowing her nose Mary said, 'John, you'll think I'm crazy and you're not to worry. There's something I've got to tell you. I can't go away out of that door without telling you. I wasn't really in love with Willy. I loved Willy dearly, I love him dearly, but it's not being in love. One knows what being in love is like and it is a very terrible thing. I shouldn't tell you this, you've got this girl, and you've been so awfully kind to me and I oughtn't to trouble you and I meant to say nothing about it, I really did, and if you hadn't – ''Mary, what on earth are you talking about?''I love you, John, I've fallen in love with you. I'm sorry, I know it's improbable, and perhaps you won't believe me, but it's true, I'm terribly sorry. I promise I'll be rational about it and not a nuisance and I wouldn't expect you to see me, well now you won't want to see me – Oh God!' She hid her face in the handkerchief.Ducane rose to his feet. He went over to the window and looked out at the beautiful geraniums and the beautiful motor cars and the blue evening sky full of beautiful aeroplanes on their way to London Airport. He tried to control his voice.There's plenty to eat in the house and I've got a bottle of wine.''There's no point in talking it over. It would only make things worse. There's nothing to say. I just love you. That's allaround her feet. 'Well, I hope you'll be happy, John, happy with – Yes.''Don't go, Mary.''I have got an appointment.'He groaned to himself. He wanted to take her in his arms, he wanted to be utterly revealed to her, he wanted her to understand.'Let me give you something before you go, something to take away with you.' He looked wildly round the room. A French glass paper-weight was lying on the desk on top of some papers. He picked it up and quickly threw it into Mary's lap.The next moment he saw that she had burst into tears.'What is it, my heart?' Ducane knelt beside her, thrusting the table away. He touched her knee.Holding the paper-weight tightly in her skirt and blowing her nose Mary said, 'John, you'll think I'm crazy and you're not to worry. There's something I've got to tell you. I can't go away out of that door without telling you. I wasn't really in love with Willy. I loved Willy dearly, I love him dearly, but it's not being in love. One knows what being in love is like and it is a very terrible thing. I shouldn't tell you this, you've got this girl, and you've been so awfully kind to me and I oughtn't to trouble you and I meant to say nothing about it, I really did, and if you hadn't – ''Mary, what on earth are you talking about? V 'I love you, John, I've fallen in love with you. I'm sorry, I know it's improbable, and perhaps you won't believe me, but it's true, I'm terribly sorry. I promise I'll be rational about it and not a nuisance and I wouldn't expect you to see me, well now you won't want to see me – Oh God!' She hid her face in the handkerchief.Ducane rose to his feet. He went over to the window and looked out at the beautiful geraniums and the beautiful motorThere's plenty to eat in the house and I've got a bottle of wine.''There's no point in talking it over. It would only make things worse. There's nothing to say. I just love you. That's all Forty 'Was that really it?»'Yes.''Are you sure you did it right?''My God, I'm sure!''Well, I don't like it.''Girls never do the first time.''Perhaps I'm a Lesbian.''Don't be silly, Barbie. You did like it a little?''Well, just the first bit.''Oh Barb, you were so wonderful, I worship you.''Something's sticking into my back.''I hope you aren't lying on my glasses.''Damn your glasses. No, it's just an ivy root.''You're marked all over with beautiful marks of ivy leaves!''You were so heavy, Pierce.''I felt heavy afterwards. I felt I was just a great contented stone lying on top of you.''Are you sure I won't have a baby?''Sure.''Do you think I'll get to like it more, to like it as much as you do?''You'll like it more. You'll never like it as much as I do, Barbie. I've been in paradise.''Well, I'm glad somebody's pleased.''Oh Barb darling ''All right, all right. Do you think we've been wicked?''No. We love each other. We do love each other, don't we, Barbie?''Yes. But it could still be wrong.', It could. I don't feel it is though. I feel as if everything in the world is with us.''I feel that too.', You don't regret it, you won't hate me?''No. It had to happen to me and I'm glad it's happened like this.''I've loved you so long, Barb ''I feel I couldn't have done it with anyone else. It's because I know you so well, you're like my brother:''Barb!''Well, you know what I mean. Darling Pierce, your body looks so different to me now and so wonderful.''I can't think why girls like men at all. We're so rough and nasty and stick-like compared with you. You're not getting cold, are you?'– 'No, I'm fine. What a hot night. How huge the moon is.'
'It looks so close, as if we could touch it.''Listen to the owl, isn't he lovely? Pierce 'Yes?''Do you think we'll either of us ever go to bed with anyone else?''No, well, Barb, you know we're quite young and – ''You're thinking about other girls already!''Barb, Barb, please don't move away, please bring your hand back again. Darling, I love you, good God, you know I love you!''Maybe I do. You were horrid enough to me.''I promise I'll never be horrid again. You were horrid too.''I know. Let's really love each other, Pierce. In a good way.''Yes, let's. It won't be difficult.''It won't be easy. Perhaps we could get married after you've taken your A levels.''Well, Barb, we mustn't be in too much of a hurry – Oh darling, please ''When are we going to do this again? Tomorrow?'We can't tomorrow. I've got to go to Geoffrey PemberSmith's place.''Can't you put it off? T 'Well, no. You see there's this chance to have the yacht ''What about me? I thought you loved me!''I do love you, darling Barb. But yachts are important too.''Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather.' The too.''What a dark horse Mary is. And after all that business with Willy.''My dear Kate, you did rather jump to conclusions about Mary and Willy. She was never too certain about it.''Maybe. But I'm sure she wasn't thinking of appropriating John.''Perhaps John appropriated her.''No, no, Octavian. It was her doing. It must have occurred to her after the thing with Willy fell through. She felt she had to have somebody. I hope they won't regret it.''I'm sure they won't.''You're being very charitable, Octavian.''Well, we must forgive him, you know.''Of course we forgive him. But it was a little sudden.''It does seem to be the mating season, doesn't it.''First Richard and Paula, and then this bombshell.''John's certainly a remarkable peacemaker.''You think he fixed up Paula and Richard? I doubt that I must say, I wouldn't be married to Richard for the world.''Paula seems pleased enough. I think they'll be happy.They know the worst, and they're terribly in love.''Your universal benevolence is beginning to depress me, Octavian.''Sorry, darling. Shall I turn out the light?''Yes, now we can see the moon properly, it's immense.''Like a huge apricot.''Listen to the owl.''Yes, isn't he lovely.''Where's Barbie? I didn't see her after dinner.''Gone to bed I think.''Thank heavens young Pierce seems to have gone off the boil II1vu…'Yes. Barb must be relieved. How long are the twins staying on?''At least another week. Paula is having the house in Chelsea redecorated.''A rite of exorcism, I imagine.''Fumigation. It probably needs it. By the way, what was the name of that chap, you remember, the chap who killed himself in your office?''Radeechy.''Didn't you say John thought Richard was involved with him somehow?''It turned out there was nothing in that, at least nothing important.I believe they both knew the same girl, or something.''Why did John resign from the office, was it because he felt he'd muffed that inquiry thing?; 'No, I don't think so. His report was a bit thin, but the whole issue was old hat anyway.''Why then?»'He wants to get on with his research, and maybe do some more teaching. He's been talking of resigning for years.''I expect he wants to make a break, a new life and all that.''I hope he'll go on coming here – I mean they will.''I suppose I hope it. Octavian, I must get another housekeeper.Can we afford it?''Yes, darling. Only don't hurt Casie's feelings.''Damn Casie. Well, no I won't. I wonder if anyone would understand if I advertised for a head parlourmaid? Oh Octavian, it's so sad, all our house seems broken apart, everyone is going.''Darling, you'll soon get other ones.''Other whats?''I mean, well, people.''I think you're being horrid.''Dear love, don't let go.''You disgraceful old hedonist. I just can't get over John and Mary. Do you think he's the sort of homosexual who has to get married to persuade himself he's normal? T 'You think he must be homosexual because he was moderately able to resist you!''Octavian, you beast. Mary is rather the mother figure isn't she?''I don't think John's queer. Mary just is his type, serious and so on.''Yes. I suppose I just wasn't his type. I feel now I made an awful ass of myself about John.''You're an affectionate girl, Kate.''Well, don't say it in that tone!''John wasn't up to it. It was too complicates for him. He didn't really understand you.''He didn't really understand me.''John's a very nice chap, but he's not the wise good man that we once thought he was.''We thought he was God, didn't we, and he turns out to be just like us after all.''Just like us after all.''Are you ready, darling?''Ready, sweetheart.''Octavian, I do love you. You cheer me up so much. Isn't it wonderful that we tell each other everything?'In fact there were a few details of Octavian's conduct, concerning long late evenings when he stayed in the office with his secretary, which Octavian did not think it necessary to divulge to Kate. However he easily forgave himself, so completely forgetting the matter as to feel blameless, and as he frequently decided that each occasion was the last he did not view himself as a deceiver of his wife. His knowledge that there was indeed nothing which she concealed from him was a profound source of happiness and satisfaction.The apricot moon shone and the night owl hooted above the rituals of love.'They are going,' said Theo.'Yes,' said Willy., you are saa.'I am always sad.', Not always. You were almost cheerful a fortnight ago. I thought you were changed.''Something happened that time in London.''What happened?''I made love to a girl.''Good heavens, Willy! I mean, with all due respect ''Yes, I was surprised too.''What was she like?''A gazelle.''And when are you seeing her again?''I'm not.''But Willy, why not? Didn't she want to?''She did. But no, no, Theo. I am a dead man.''Dead men don't make love.''That was just a miracle. But a miracle need have no consequences.It is outside causality.''I should have thought a miracle would have consequences by definition. And you admit to being changed.''I don't. You said I was changed. I am just a past with no present.''That's a cowardly lie, if ever there was one.''What can one do with the past, Theo?''Forgive it. Let it enter into you in peace.''I can't.''You must forgive Hitler, Willy. It is time.''Damn Hitler. No, I will never forgive him. But that's not the problem.''What is the problem?''Forgiving myself.''What do you mean?''It's not what he did. It's what I did.''Where?''Da unten. Ld-bas Dachau.''Willy, Willy, Willy, hang on.''I'm all right.''I mean, don't tell me.''You used to say tell me. Now you say don't.''I've gone that much more to bits, Willy. I feel so ill all the time. All right, tell me in general terms. What happened?''I betrayed two people because I was afraid, and they died.''In that inferno –. You must pity yourself too, Willy.!'They were gassed. My life wasn't even threatened.''We are clay, Willy. There is no man whose rationality and goodness cannot be broken by torment. Do not think «I did it».Think it was done.''But I did do it.!'That sense of ownership is pride.!'They were gassed, Theo.'Willy was sitting in his armchair, his lame leg extended into the soft grey powdery pile of wood ash in the fireplace. Theo was sitting with his back to the fireplace on an upright chair which he had drawn up close. He looked away past Willy's head towards the long window full of glittering blue sky. His arm lay heavily upon Willy's arm, his hand cupping and caressing the curve of the shoulder.Willy stroked back his longish white hair and relaxed his face into a bland steely calm: You might be right, but I can't think in your terms. It's not even like memory. It's all just there.!'All the time, Willy?''Every hour, every minute. And there's no machinery to shift it. No moral machinery. No psychological machinery.''We'll see, my dear. Where there's been one miracle there could be another one. Maybe you should tell me the whole thing after all.!'Yes, I think so too.'I won't listen though, thought Theo. He's not really telling it to me.Theo moved his hand upward a little, fingering the collar of Willy's shirt at the neck. He fixed his eyes upon the dazzling window. The sunlight seemed to have got inside the glass and the blue sky was visible through a sparkling screen of splintered light. As Willy's voice murmured on, Theo tried hard to think about something else. He thought about the seagull with the broken wing which the twins had found and brought to him. Henrietta was crying and carrying the seagull which was sitting on one of her hands, while she held and caressed it with the other. The twins came running to Theo across the stones. When an animal was hurt the twins became helpess and confused. Could anything be done, could the broken wing be mended, should they go to find a vet? Theo said no, there was nothing to be done with a broken wing. He would take the bird from them and drown it quickly. It was the kindest thing, the only thing. The bird would not know what was happening.He took the seagull carefully from Henrietta's outstretched hands and told the twins to go away. They ran off at once together, Edward now in tears as well. Theo did not pause to take off his shoes or roll up his trousers, he walked straight into the sea, his shoes crunching on the sunny underwater stones. The seagull lay perfectly still in his hands, its bright eyes seeming impassive, as if calm. The bird was light, light, and the grey feathers soft, soft. Theo bent down and quickly plunged the soft grey parcel of life down underneath the water. There was a faint movement in his hands. He stood there bent for a long time, with his eyes closed, feeling the hot sun upon his neck.At last he straightened himself. He did not look down at the bedraggled thing in his hands. He dared not leave it in the sea in case the twins should see it again. He mounted the shingle and walked with wet clinging trouser legs along to the far end of the beach where he knelt and dug with his hands as deep a hole as he could in the loose falling pebbles. He put the dead bird into the hole and covered it up carefully. Then he moved a little away and lay face downward on the stones.Willy's voice continued to speak and Theo, only half listening, pressed the thought of the seagull against his heart. There was silence in the room at last.'Would you like some tea?' said Theo.'Yes. Would you make it?'Theo got up and went into Willy's little kitchen. He thought, what is the point here, what is the point. What can I say to him.That one must soon forget one's sins in the claims of others.But how to forget. The point is that nothing matters except loving what is good. Not to look at evil but to look at good.Only this contemplation breaks the tyranny of the past, breaks the adherence of evil to the personality, breaks, in the end, the personality itself. In the light of the good, evil can be seen in its place, not owned, just existing, in its place. Could he explain all this to Willy? He would have to try.As he filled the kettle he could see, from the corner window, a girl in a blue dress with long loose fair hair coming up the path from the beech wood. He called out, 'You've got a visitor, Willy:''Is it Mary?''No. A girl unknown.'Willy darted up and was beside his shoulder. 'Oh my God Theo, whatever shall I do? It's Jessica.''Who's Jessica?''The gazelle.''Aren't you pleased?''However did she find-out?''You can give her tea. I'll go away.''Theo, don't abandon me! Look, Theo, I can't face it. Would you mind? I'll go and hide in the graveyard. Tell her I've left Trescombe and you don't know my address and you live here now. Will you tell her? And make her believe it. Get rid of her. Come and find me when you're certain she's gone. I'll go out the back door.'The back door banged. Theo thoughtfully made the tea.The long-legged long-haired girl came resolutely up the hill.'Hello, Jessica,' said Theo, meeting her at the door.She looked surprised. 'I wanted to see ''Yes, yes, you want Willy. He's not here at the moment but you can easily find him.' Theo gave Jessica minute instructions about how to reach the graveyard.He closed the door again and poured himself out a cup of tea. He felt sad, sad.'Why look, Mingo and Montrose are sharing the basket.''So they are. Good-bye Mingo, good-bye Montrose.''They're too lazy to get up. I do hope Casie liked her present.', of course she did, Mary. She's just miserable that you're going.''I couldn't get her to stop crying. Oh dear. Is it wicked to be so happy when someone else isn't?''No, I don't think so. It's one's duty to be happy. Especially when one's married.''Then I will be your dutiful happy wife, John. Have we got everything.''We've got a hell of a lot of things. I don't know whether we've got everything.''I'm rather relieved Octavian and Kate aren't here. Where was it they said they were going?''Petra.''Pierce and Barb got off all right. Wasn't it nice of the Pember-Smiths to invite Barb too?''Hmm. I suspect young Barb is going to keep young Pierce in order.''Oh John, I'm so happy. Could you just hold my handbag?''Your bag weighs a ton. Are you still carrying that paperweight about?''I won't be parted from that paper-weight.''Come along then, you sentimental girl.''I think that's everything. It's so quiet here now the cuckoos have gone.''Come on, the car's waiting.''Is that really your car?''Our car, sweetheart.''Our car.''You ought to recognize it by now!''It's so improbably big.'Ducane and Mary, laden with suitcases and baskets, walked out of the front door of Trescombe House and across the lawn to the sweep of the drive. The big black Bentley awaited them.A red-haired man leapt out and opened the boot and the back door of the car.'Mary,' said Ducane. 'I want you to meet my new chauffeur, Peter McGrath. He's a very useful man.''Hello, Peter,' said Mary. She shook hands with him.The bundles were stowed in the boot and Mary got into the back of the car and tucked her white dress in around her knees. McGrath got into the front. Ducane, who had supervised the loading of the boot, began to get into the front of the car too. Then recollecting himself he quickly climbed into the back beside Mary. He began to laugh.'What are you laughing at? T 'Nothing. Home, McGrath.' He said to Mary, 'Watch this.'Ducane pressed a button and a glass screen rose up silently between the front and back of the car.Ducane looked into the eyes of Mary Ducane. His married life would not be without its problems. But he could explain everything to her, everything, in time. He began to laugh again.He took his wife in his arms.'Uncle Theo, may I have that Indian stamp? T 'Yes, Edward. Here.''Edward, you pig. I did see it first!'Theo quickly tore the stamp off the corner of the envelope.The writing was unknown to him. But the postmark made him tremble.'Where are you going, twins?''Up to the top of the cliff. Like to come? T 'No, I'm just going to the meadow.'Theo thrust the letter into his pocket. He watched the twins depart. Then he walked across the lawn and through the gap in the spiraea hedge and sat down on the seat. Out to sea a small pewter-coloured cloud was coming up over the horizon.Theo squinted into the sunshine and pressed the letter, still in his pocket, against his side. Then with a sigh he slowly drew it out and opened it.The old man was dead. Theo had known this from the first moment of seeing the letter. Only to tell him this would someone else have written to him now from that place. The old man was dead. He had spoken kindly of Theo just before he died. The old man was dead with whom he might have made his peace and who alone of mortals could have given him peace.Theo had never revealed to his family that while he was in India he had taken vows in a Buddhist monastery. He had thought to end his days there. But after some years he had left, lied from it, after an incident involving a young novice. The boy was later drowned in the Ganges. Everyone who wrote to Theo about it said that it was certainly an accident.Only the old man could release me from this wheel, Theo thought as year after year he wondered if he should go back and year after year felt it all recede from him past hope, past endeavour. He saw in dreams the saffron robes, the shaven heads, the green valley where he had thought to end his days.He could not find his way back there. He remembered the doubts the old man had had at the start. 'We like to take people young,' he said, 'before they are soiled by the world,' and he had looked doubtfully at Theo. But Theo was ardent then, like a man in love. He wanted that discipline, that silence, and the thing which lay beyond it.I am sunk in the wreck of myself, thought Theo. I live in myself like a mouse inside a ruin. I am huge, sprawling, corrupt and empty. The mouse moves, the ruin moulders. This is all. Why did I ever leave them, what was I fleeing from? What spoilt scene that I could not then endure? He had fled from a broken image of himself and from the very certainty of understanding and of being drawn back into the structure which he had damaged. He had seemed to leave his past utterly behind when with a passion which seemed a guarantee of renewed life he had entered into the community of these men. To find himself even there the same being as before shocked his pride, the relentless egoism which he now saw had not suffered an iota of diminution from his gesture of giving up the world. The place was spoiled for him. He had given it his free and upright self. He could not humbly surrender to it his broken self.Perhaps he had loved the old man too much.Yet was it just this broken image, or was it something more terrible still which he had feared, and fled from, the appalling demand made upon his nature? Theo had begun to glimpse the distance which separates the nice from the good, and the vision of this gap had terrified his soul. He had seen, far off, what is perhaps the most dreadful thing in the world, the other face of love, its blank face. Everything that he was, even the best that he was, was connected with possessive self-filling human love.That blank demand implied the death of his whole being. The old man was right to say that one should start young. Perhaps it was to calm the frenzy of this fear that he had so much and so suddenly needed to hold tightly in his arms a beautiful golden-skinned boy as lithe as a puma. What happened afterwards was hideous graceless confusion, the familiar deceitful jumble of himself breaking forth again in a scene from which he thought it had disappeared for ever. He had not really changed in those years. He had experienced joy. But that was the joy of a child at play. He had played out in the open, for those years, beside the unchanged mountain of himself.How does one change? Theo wondered. He might have gone back some time and asked the old man that question. And yet he knew the answer really, or knew its beginning, and this was what his nature could not bear.Theo got up and began to walk slowly back to the house.As he came into the hall the inward smell of the house conjured up for him the image of Pierce, with his long straight strokable animal brow and nose. The kitchen was empty, except for Mingo and Montrose curled up together in the basket.The door of Casie's sitting-room was ajar and a sound came from within. Casie was watching television.Theo entered behind her in the twilight of the contained room, and taking a chair sat down beside her as he often did.He saw that she was crying and he averted his face, stroking her shoulder with a clumsy pawing movement.Casie said, mumbling into her handkerchief, 'This play's so terribly sad. You see this man was in love with this girl and he took her out in his car and crashed the car and she was crippled for life and then…'Theo kept his hold upon her shoulder, kneading it a little with his fingers. He stared into the blue flicker of the television screen. It was too late to go back. There was a hand which could never, in grace and healing, be laid upon him now.Yet was it not for that very reason, that it was too late, that he ought now to return? The old man would have understood this, the action without fruits. The image of return had been the image of a very human love. Now it was the image of that other one. Why should he stay here and rot? Perhaps the great mountain of himself would never grow less. But he could keep company with the enlightenment of others, and might regain at least the untempered innocence of a well-guarded child. And although he might never draw a single step closer to that great blankness he would know of its reality and feel more purely in the simplicity of his life the distant plucking of its magnetic power.Tears suddenly began to stream down Theo's face. Yes, perhaps he would go back. Perhaps he would die after all in that green valley.The twins lay on the cliff edge up-above Gunnar's Cave. The beautiful flying saucer, spinning like a huge noiseless top, hovered in the air not far away from them, a little higher up, over the sea, in a place where they had often seen it come before.The shallow silvery metal dome glowed with a light which seemed to emanate from itself and owe nothing to the sun, and about the slim tapering outer extremity a thin line of lambent blue flame rippled and leapt. It was difficult to discern the size of the saucer, which seemed to inhabit a space of its own, as if it were inserted or pocketed in a dimension to which it did not quite belong. In some way it defeated the attempt of the human eye to estimate and measure. It hovered in its own element, in its own silence, indubitably physical, indubitably present and-yet other. Then, as the children watched, it tilted slightly, and with that movement which they could never confidently interpret either as speed or as some sort of dematerializing or actual vanishing, was gone.The twins sighed and sat up. They never spoke when the saucer was present.'It stayed a long time today, didn't it.''A long time.''Isn't it odd how we know that it doesn't want to be photographed.''Telepathy, I expect.''I think they're good people, don't you?»'Must be. They're so clever and they don't do any harm.''I think they like us. I wonder if we shall ever see them.''We'll come back tomorrow. You haven't lost that ammonite, have you, Henrietta?''No, it's in my skirt. Oh Edward, I'm so happy about Daddy coming back.''So am I. I knew he'd come back, actually.''I did too. Oh look, Edward, it's getting quite dark, it's raining out there over the sea.''So it is. And look real breakers at last. How super!''Why it's starting to rain here now, real rain at last, lovely rain!''Come on, Henrietta. Let's go and swim in the rain.'Hand in hand the children began to run homeward through the soft warm drizzle.