by Iris Murdoch
‘Sefton, don’t be angry with me. I love you.’
After a moment Sefton said, ‘Yes. Something has happened. But I think it is a form of madness.’
‘Yes, yes, it is!’ said Harvey, now undoing his trousers and attempting to pull off his shirt and vest with one hand, since Sefton was still holding the other hand. ‘Oh Sefton, Sefton, I want you so much, I love you so.’
‘Harvey, don’t. We don’t know who we are, I’ve never felt so utterly strange to myself – we have become monsters, we are suddenly – monsters.’
‘Don’t be frightened, my darling Sefton.’
‘I’m not – frightened – I think – just – amazed, appalled – ’
‘We’re nice monsters, good monsters, oh my dear, please let me undress you a little, just a little – ’
‘No, no – ’
‘Look, I’m undressing too, just let me pull all this stuff – off.’
‘Stop, I don’t want to struggle with you, stop, please, Harvey, be guided by me – it’s all so terribly strange – and I do want it to be all right.’
‘Yes, it will be all right, Sefton I want you, I’ve never felt like this before – ’
‘Nor have I, but – ’
‘I’m overcome, I’m like – crushed, run over – I must have all of you forever – ’
‘Think how very strange your words are. Listen, Harvey, listen, this, whatever it is, has only just happened to us, it happened in seconds – ’
‘Thank God it happened to both of us – ’
‘When we were sitting on the floor, remember, it seems ages ago – ’
‘I have known you for ages, we were made for each other, millions of years ago, I have known you forever – ’
‘Harvey, it’s all beautiful – it’s something the gods dropped on us, it’s a weird awful beauty, like nothing we’ve known before, but wait, we have gone far enough now – ’
‘You mustn’t speak like that, you deny your own words, we’ve found each other, we must go on, don’t torment me.’
‘You don’t understand, I’m not denying or tormenting, we must prove this thing, we must respect it, we must try it – ’
‘Yes, let’s try it now, Sefton, I’m in agony – ’
‘Someone may come in at any moment – ’
‘Oh hang them! Just let me be with you – ’
‘Harvey, be gentle, be quiet – there’s tomorrow and tomorrow. Let us put on our shirts and look at each other like sane people. Let me go, I’m getting up.’ She slipped from him.
Harvey lay groaning, then slowly adjusted his shirt and vest, his trousers, his belt. He sat up on the edge of the bed. Sefton stood before him. He thought, who is this strange beautiful woman, her face is transfigured, it’s radiant, it’s so gentle, but was this all a dream perhaps, just this and nothing more? ‘Sefton, sit beside me, that’s right, let me just touch, do what I ask.’
She sat beside him and let him undo the buttons of her shirt. Sefton, as Spartan, wore, in the coldest weather, no brassière, no vest. Harvey touched her breasts, closing his eyes, then leaning down his heavy head against her. He did not resist her when she pulled his head up, tugging his hair like in the happy dream. They then began to kiss each other hungrily, fast. At last Sefton said, ‘You must go.’ ‘I can’t leave you.’ ‘I’ll come to you.’ ‘You’ll come to my flat?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Tonight, tomorrow?’ ‘No.’ ‘Sefton, don’t kill me, I have got to see you.’ ‘Listen, Harvey, I am older than you are, I am thousands and thousands of years older than you.’ ‘Sefton, I know that, but it is not relevant now!’ ‘Listen – let us not meet tomorrow – ’ ‘Don’t say that – ’ ‘Let us meet the day after. Harvey, this is holy, we must be worthy of it, tomorrow let us be quiet, and rest, let us be like – in penitence, in prayer-I want this, I want it like this – ’ ‘You want time to recover and tell me to go to hell.’ ‘No. I believe all this is real. Just do as I ask. And please go away now.’ ‘Well – I have to obey you – I’ll obey you to the end of the world.’ ‘I’ll come at ten, the day after tomorrow.’ ‘All right, my dear love, my dear.’
Sefton adjusted her shirt, buttoning the buttons and tucking in the tail. She rolled up the sleeves as they had been before. She opened the door.
Harvey stared at his overcoat hanging up in the hall. It was as if the overcoat didn’t know. He went out and put it on. Sefton opened the front door. It was misty outside. Cold mist moved into the house. Harvey raised his hand and went out. The door closed. He walked down the road smiling like a madman.
Sefton lay supine on the red and blue Turkey carpet, breathing in long deep breaths so slow that it seemed that between one and the next she might quietly die. She felt pinned to the floor by a gentle but insistent force. Her eyes were open, her face serene, her lips slightly parted in a faint quizzical smile. Her limbs were relaxed, strengthless, flattened as if by the passage of a vast silent wind. At intervals she framed words, holding them concealed in her mouth like sacred charms. She thought, I am now in a vacuum, I am nowhere and nothing, transparent, uncreated, substanceless, drifting in limbo, between being and non-being, where one may choose not to be. I am dissolved by fear and violence into a timeless peace. How little I have expected this overthrow, this sudden awful presence of the god. Perhaps after all not to have been born is best. How near the human soul must be to nothingness if it can be so tossed.
Moy came in. She closed the door quietly as she usually did, and went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Then she went and knocked softly on Sefton’s door, saying, ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Sef?’ She often did this. There was a silence. Then Sefton replied, ‘Thanks, dear, I’ll come.’ A few minutes later, just as Moy was making the tea, she came in.
‘What’s the matter, Sef?’
‘What do you mean, what’s the matter?’
‘You look funny.’
‘How funny?’
‘As if you were getting the ‘flu. Do you feel all right?’
‘Yes, of course! I’d love some tea. How did things go with Miss Fitzherbert?’
‘Oh very well, she’s so kind. I wonder if we could invite her round.’
‘You know we never invite anyone round.’
‘She said I’d been cowardly and must be brave and wild.’
The telephone rang. Sefton upset her tea. Moy went out into the hall.
‘Hello.’
It was Clement. ‘Hello, Moy.’
‘How did you know it was me.’
‘You have a special lovely voice.’
‘Oh. I’m afraid Louie is out, she’s gone to the clinic.’
‘Has she? Well, well.’
‘I’ll tell her you rang.’
‘Moy, don’t ring off.’
‘Sorry.’
‘I might want to talk to you. What’s the art school news?’
‘Miss Fitzherbert said I should paint more in oils. Only it means buying canvases.’
‘I’ll buy you some canvases.’
‘No, no, I don’t mean that, I wouldn’t accept them – ’
‘Don’t be silly! Just say I rang. I’ll ring again.’
Moy returned to the kitchen. Sefton was mopping the table where she had spilt the tea. Moy said, ‘It was Clement, he’ll ring again.’
Moy drank some tea. Then she went slowly upstairs. Anax used to run up the stairs in front of her, push open her door, and jump on her bed, turning to her with his wild lively always expectant foxy face. She went in and closed the door behind her. The silent room seemed full, full of something, as if all the atoms had grown and were crowding upon one another, atoms of silence. She breathed them in through her nose and mouth. Looking toward the Polish Rider she met his calm tender gentle thoughtful gaze. She thought, what he sees is the face of death. He sees the silence of the valley, its emptiness, its innocence – and beyond it the hideous field of war on which he will die. And his poor horse will die too. He is courage, he is love, he loves what is good, and will die for i
t, and his body will be trampled by horses’ hooves, and no one will know his grave. She thought, he is so beautiful, he has the beauty of goodness. I am a freak, a crippled animal, something which will be put down and out of its misery, I am a hump-backed dwarf. She turned away toward her stones, which had so much worried Anax, upon their shelf, and reached out her hand, nearer and nearer. A stone moved to her hand. She thought, my stones, oh, my stones. She warmed the cold stone in her hand, and she thought too, as this thought came suddenly at such times, of the rock upon the hillside, and its stone which she had taken away. She thought, I shall die of misery and pain. Then she thought, when I am eighteen I shall go to India where all things, even the tiniest things, are holy and sacred. And she thought, I don’t yet know what pain is. The world is full of terrible pain. He could see that too.
Soon after Moy had gone upstairs Louise returned. Sefton was still sitting in the kitchen. She sprang up. ‘Oh Louie, have some tea, I think the pot is still warm.’
‘I’ll put the kettle on just in case. Have you had tea?’
‘Yes.’ Sefton watched her mother, still with her coat on and her woollen cap pulled down over her ears, filling the kettle at the sink, and it brought back to her some memory of early childhood, and its special security, and for a moment Sefton thought about her father.
‘Where’s Moy?’
‘Upstairs.’
‘Oh dear, she must be missing Anax. Do you think we should buy her a dog?’
‘No. It would just get run over. What happened at the clinic?’
‘Nothing – it was no good.’
‘I thought so. It’s too early to start visiting. What’s the place like?’
‘Terribly grand and expensive – and terribly quiet and as it were barricaded! I didn’t get past the girl at the desk. She asked me to wait in a room full of flowering plants. Then she came and told me Peter was recovering and they would let us know when he was ready for visitors. She already had our address. She said Bellamy had called earlier and been told the same.’
‘So they know all about us.’
‘Yes, I’m rather glad of that. I asked for Dr Fonsett but they said he wasn’t available.’
‘Of course!’
‘Did anyone ring up?’
‘Clement called. Moy took the call.’
‘Oh dear, she gets so upset talking with him by telephone.’
‘And Harvey dropped in.’
‘I’m sorry I missed him. I’ll ring Clement now.’
Louise went into the hall and rang Clement’s number. No answer. She returned to the kitchen. Sefton had gone back to her own room. Louise emptied the lukewarm tea-pot, put in some more tea and poured the boiling water into the pot. She sat down at the table. She had not mentioned to Sefton a visit, equally fruitless, which she had made after leaving the clinic. She had gone again to Lucas’s house and rung the bell. No answer. She went through the gate into the garden, but did not climb the iron staircase. She returned to the front door and rang again, and called his name. Silence. She thought, he is dead. Now tears came to her once more, familiar tears. Something which Louise had never divulged to anyone was that, soon after Teddy’s death, Lucas had made her an offer of marriage.
‘What did you do yesterday?’
‘I worked as usual. I thought about you. What did you do?’
‘I couldn’t do anything, I just was – I couldn’t eat or drink or speak – I walked about London. I was in heaven and hell.’
The sun was shining into Harvey’s little room, it shone upon the bed which was extended across the room. The bed was neatly made up with a neat Indian counterpane upon it. Sefton, who had just arrived, stood by the door, Harvey was near the window beside his little writing-desk. They looked at each other across the bed.
Harvey’s left hand was holding his right hand firmly by the wrist. The sun shone upon his yellow hair, he had combed it carefully, its strands fell in very slightly curling straight lines. He was taller than Sefton. He released his right hand and stretched it out towards her across the bed. They shook hands. Then they both sat down on the bed on opposite sides, turning to see each other. Harvey thought, this is one of the most weird and dangerous moments of my life. As Sefton did not reply to him he said, ‘I suppose you wanted us to cool off.’
Sefton said, ‘I wanted us to know that it was possible that what happened the day before yesterday was an odd event which just happened once and had no sequel.’
‘Well, I want a sequel. Perhaps you don’t?’ He added, ‘Perhaps you think we don’t suit each other?’ Sefton shuddered. ‘So you do think so?’
‘No. I think your terminology is ludicrous. Whatever is between us now is far above – all that – ’
‘All what?’
‘Discussions of compatibility.’
‘Well, I don’t think much of your terminology, either. Get up, would you?’
Sefton stood up and watched Harvey tear off the counterpane and haul back the sheets and blankets. Then he began to undress, pulling off his shirt and kicking off his shoes and his trousers.
Sefton had never seen a man entirely naked. She had instinctively found the male organs, unless excused and made innocent by great art, rather pathetic and ugly. She took off her coat and dropped it on the floor. Then she sat down again on the bed and watched him. Harvey, now undressed, knelt down on the floor against his side of the bed, as if modestly hiding himself from her.
Sefton said, ‘Of course you know I’ve never done this before.’
Harvey, crossing his arms on his chest and lowering his eyes, said, ‘Neither have I really – I had an experience – which I’ll tell you about later.’
‘Well, for heaven’s sake don’t tell me now.’
‘I have taken precautions, so you needn’t fear – ’
‘I have taken precautions too.’
‘So you believed in the sequel.’
‘Yes but – you see – this might be a single occasion too – and I want it, if it happens, not to be – that’s what yesterday was about – ’
‘You haven’t said that you love me. If you don’t there’s still time to say so.’
‘I love you, Harvey.’
‘You are not to go away. I see you are wearing a skirt.’
Sefton took off her shoes and her long socks and her knickers and dropped her skirt on the floor. As she did so she saw Harvey delving into the foot of the bed and bringing out an object which turned out to be a hot water bottle. She looked at it with revulsion and horror. She began to unbutton her long shirt.
Harvey had stretched himself out on the bed. ‘Take it off, Sefton, and come to me.’
Sefton took it off and lay down beside him trembling and closing her eyes.
‘I do hope it didn’t hurt?’
‘Only for a moment.’
‘And – oh dear dear Sefton – you did like it, I did please you?’
‘Yes, yes – ’
‘You have given me such joy, like I didn’t know existed, it’s like being made into an angel, you have made me into an angel, you have made me into a god, it’s like being blinded by blazing happiness, like the sun coming down and down and one is exploding into the sun, oh Sefton you have made me so happy, so joyful, I love you forever, I worship you, I am in heaven, you are so beautiful, you are happy too, you do love me, it is wonderful for you?’
‘I love you.’
‘I feel so strange, as if I were living in a myth – ’
‘Myths are dangerous places.’
‘But we are safe, aren’t we, aren’t we, my dear dear one?’
‘Yes – be quiet, my darling – ’
‘We are good monsters, we are happy monsters, we have been changed into divine beings, we are glorified – ’
‘Yes, rest now – I am going to put some clothes on.’
Sefton rapidly put on her shirt and her knickers, then put her skirt on and buttoned it at her narrow waist. She sat on the bed, tucking her bare feet away under her skirt. �
��Harvey, put your shirt on.’ Sitting up, he put it on. They looked at each other.
‘Sef, don’t say now that you don’t like me, that you don’t want me. I shall die if you say that.’
‘I love you. That is everything. Please let us rest together now.’ They reposed, leaning upon piles of pillows, looking at each other and gently touching. Harvey unbuttoned Sefton’s shirt and put his hands upon her breasts.
‘Sef, you’re not afraid of sex? Some girls are to begin with.’
‘I’m not afraid.’
‘Fancy, I’ve just discovered sex! It’s everything they say, only far far more! Bellamy said to me once, “Be patient, it will all come to you, some god will explain it to you, it will all be clarified, it will all be easy!” And so it is!’
‘Bellamy said that to you? I’m glad.’
‘You’re thinking perhaps that Bellamy was the person – I had that experience with – it wasn’t him, it was Tessa – and it was nothing, nothing happened – I just wanted to try it on someone, I wasn’t in love with her, she was just being kind to me – I’m terribly sorry, I wish I’d waited, please don’t mind, you do forgive me, don’t you?’
‘Of course I don’t mind! And I wasn’t thinking of that about Bellamy at all – I’m just glad the god has explained it. We must do our work – ’