The Sea, the Sea

by Iris Murdoch

  Since there has been quite a lot of uninformed and not always unmalicious speculation on the subject let me now say something about my plays. They were always intended to be ephemeral, rather like pantomimes in fact; and they existed only in my direction of them. I never let anyone else touch them. Unless one is very talented indeed there is no resting place between the naive and the ironic; and the nemesis of irony is absurdity. I knew my limitations. The plays were also said to be only vehicles for Wilfred Dunning. Why ‘only’? Wilfred was a great actor. They do not make them like Wilfred any more. He started his career in the old Music Hall in the Edgware Road. He could stand motionless, not moving an eyelid, and make a theatre rock with prolonged laughter. Then he would blink and set them off again. Such power can be almost uncanny: the mystery of the human body, the human face. Wilfred had a face which glowed with spirit; he also had, with the possible exception of Peregrine Arbelow, the largest face I have ever seen. It is true that he was in a sense the only begetter of my work as a dramatist, and when he died I stopped writing. I can say without regret that my plays belong to the past and I bequeath them to no one. They were magical delusions, fireworks. Only this which I write now is, or foreshadows, what I wish to leave behind me as a lasting memorial. Someone once said that I ought to have been a choreographer and I understood the comment. People were surprised that I was so popular in Japan. But I knew why, and the Japanese knew.

  Though described as an ‘experimentalist’ I am a firm friend of the proscenium arch. I am in favour of illusion, not of alienation. I detest the endless fidgeting on the surrounded stage which dissolves the clarity of events. Equally I abhor the nonsense of ‘audience participation’. Riots and other communal activities may have their value but must not be confused with dramatic art. Drama must create a factitious spell-binding present moment and imprison the spectator in it. The theatre apes the profound truth that we are extended beings who yet can only exist in the present. It is a factitious present because it lacks the free aura of personal reflection and contains its own secret limits and conclusions. Thus life is comic, but though it may be terrible it is not tragic: tragedy belongs to the cunning of the stage. Of course most theatre is gross ephemeral rot; and only plays by great poets can be read, except as directors’ notes. I say ‘great poets’ but I suppose I really mean Shakespeare. It is a paradox that the most essentially frivolous and rootless of all the serious arts has produced the greatest of all writers. That Shakespeare was quite different from the others, not just primus inter pares but totally different in quality, was something which I discovered entirely by myself when I was still at school; and on this secret was I nourished. There are no other plays on paper, unless one counts the Greek plays. I cannot read Greek, and James tells me these are untranslatable. After looking at a number of translations I am sure he is right.

  Of course the theatre is essentially a place of hopes and disappointments and in its cyclical life one lives out in a more vivid way the cyclical patterns of the ordinary world. The thrill of a new play, the shock of a flop, the weariness of a long run, the homeless feeling when it ends: perpetual construction followed by perpetual destruction. It is to do with endings, with partings, with packings up and dismantlings and the disbanding of family groups. All this makes theatre people into nomads, or rather into the separated members of some sort of monastic order where certain natural feelings (the desire for permanence for instance) have to be suppressed. We have the ‘heartlessness’ of monks; and in this respect we suffer the changes characteristic of ordinary life with a difference, in a sublimated symbolic way. As actor, director and playwright I have of course had my full share of disappointments, of lost time and lost ways. My ‘successful’ career contains many failures, many dead ends. All my plays flopped on Broadway for instance. I failed as an actor, I ceased as a playwright. Only my fame as a director has covered up these facts.

  If absolute power corrupts absolutely then I must be the most corrupt of men. A theatre director is a dictator. (If he is not, he is not doing his job.) I fostered my reputation for ruthlessness, it was extremely useful. Actors expected tears and nervous prostration when I was around. Most of them loved it; they are masochists as well as narcissists. I well remember Gilbert Opian hysterical and enjoying every moment. Of course the girls wept all the time. (When, advanced in my career, I directed Clement, we both wept. My God, how we fought!) I was always merciless to drunks, and this did strain my relations with Peregrine Arbelow, even before the Rosina business. Perry is an Irish drunk, the worst kind. Wilfred drank like a fish, but it never showed on stage. Christ, I miss him.

  I liked that handy picture of myself as a ‘tartar’. Other publicized conceptions of me have been uglier and more misleading. I never used my power to haul girls into bed. Of course the theatre is all that my mother thought and a great deal that the poor dear could not have conceived of. Yet also it must be remembered that the theatre is a profession and many perfectly ‘typical’ actors are middle-aged men who are regularly supplied with work and who live faithfully with wives and families in suburbs. Such persons are the backbone of the trade. Of course the theatre is sex, sex, sex, but how much does the subject-matter affect the professional? My mother was upset at the thought of my ‘acting bad people’, because she thought this would corrupt me. (In fact, except in school plays, she hardly ever saw me act.) I wonder if such corruption ever occurs? The question is worth asking. To some extent one has to ‘identify’ with villains in order to portray them, but there are limits to this identification partly because wickedness is so specialized. (Every actor has a level at which he cannot portray character. He may operate above it or below it.) And we are masked figures; ideally the masks barely touch us. (Such is my view, with which some fools will differ.) I recall a story of an old actor asked to portray an old man, who said with dismay, ‘But I’ve never played an old man!’ That was professionalism.

  But to return to myself. I daresay, an unfashionable thing to say nowadays, I am not ‘very highly sexed’. I can live perfectly well without ‘sexual relations’. Some observers have even thought I must be homosexual because I did not have perpetual mistresses! I hate mess. Perhaps my morally hygienic mother somehow taught me to. And I have never liked the complicit male world of foul-mouthed talk and bawdy. Of course I have had not a few love affairs. But I never bribed a woman into bed. Someone (Rosina) once said, ‘You care about the theatre more than you care about women’ and it was true. I never (except for once when I was young) seriously considered marriage. I loved once (the same once) absolutely. Then there was Clement, eternal wonderful unclassifiable Clement. And I have been ‘madly infatuated’. And there have been, oh such sweet girls. But I am not a womanizer. I have always been a dedicated professional. I was in this respect harsh with myself as well as with others. Silly messy love affairs, especially within a closed group, interfere with serious work. I am very prone to jealousy myself, and I have mixed with very jealous people. Envy has always troubled me less. Crippling envy can be a terrible disability in the theatre, and I early realized that to overcome it was a prerequisite of success.

  Was I sorry that I never became a first-rate actor? How often I have been asked that question! Well, of course. Directors always envy actors and I suspect that almost every great director would secretly prefer to be a great actor. Some people held the view that a more successful acting career awaited me in films and television and they tried to lure me in; but in spite of many amusing excursions I never cared much for these media. I always felt real drama belonged to the live theatre. I had my ambitions, especially of course in Shakespeare; but I always funked Lear and the less said about my Hamlet the better. I think I was a good Prospero, that time when Lizzie was Ariel. That was my last great part, and now so long ago. After that I laid a certain vanity aside. Vanity receives such a battering in the theatre, one would imagine that it would tend to vanish, but most actors manage to retain theirs: not only as an occupational ailment, but perhaps actually as a n
ecessary instrument of survival. Genuine generous admiration, and there is plenty of it, always helps and heals. I looked at the good actors and the great actors, at Wilfred, at Sidney Ashe, at Marcus Henty (also one of Clement’s lovers), at Fabian Ginsberg, even at Perry, even at Al. And, as an actor, I quietly took a backseat. This was easier to do by then as I was fully absorbed in directing. I amused myself and the public by playing tiny parts in my own productions and once nearly stole the show as Jacob in The Seagull.

  Well, well, I seem to be writing everything down all at once in a sort of jumble. Perhaps I should indeed regard this diary as rough notes. I shall resist, for the present at any rate, the temptation to reminisce about my productions. I am known as a Shakespeare man but of course I have tried my hand at everything; you name it, I did it. And so—enough of boasting. These ramblings were to introduce Clement Makin. But poor Clement can wait, indeed she cannot choose but wait. That great battle of wills is finished forever. And I sit here and wonder at myself. Have I abjured that magic, drowned my book? Forgiven my enemies? The surrender of power, the final change of magic into spirit? Time will show.

  Something rather odd and distressing has just occurred. I wrote the above sitting outside on my lawn on my stone seat beside my trough of stones. As the morning sun became hot I decided to go inside and fetch my sun hat. I have a slight headache, possibly I need new glasses. I went into the house and up the stairs, blinking in the comparative gloom, and when I reached the upper landing I was at once aware that something had happened, although I could not understand what. Then I realized that my lovely big ugly vase was gone from its pedestal. It had fallen onto the floor and was broken into a great many pieces. But how? The pedestal is perfectly steady and has not moved. There has been no wind, the bead curtain is motionless. Perhaps I shifted the vase very slightly when I dusted it yesterday? Or has there been an earth tremor? I am reluctant to think that I am to blame and I am sure I am not. I liked the poor ugly thing, it was like an old dog. I picked up the pieces thinking vaguely of mending it, but of course that would be impossible. How can it have jumped off its stand? I am totally puzzled.

  ‘But all your letters are in the dog kennel, Mr Arrowby.’

  I had broken down at last and asked at the Post Office. I say broken down, not so much because I was thereby losing face with the village (though that too was in my mind) as because I was losing face with myself. Why should I now need letters or miss them or pine for them or be surprised if nobody wrote to me? I had already arranged with Miss Kaufman for business letters to be kept in London. Only letters from friends were to be sent on. And as I was explaining to myself, really I have no friends. But there was one letter which I was interested in having, which at least I was expecting. However, let us return for the moment to this dog kennel.

  ‘Dog kennel?’ I said to the Post Office lady. (She is the sister of the shop lady, the Post Office being part of the shop.)

  ‘Yes, the stone dog kennel just before you go across to your house. Mrs Chorney always had her letters put in there.’

  This object, at the road end of the causeway, pointed out to me by the house agent as the boundary of my land, I had of course noticed but not investigated. It was quite big and had indeed the form of a dog kennel, but one which in my opinion would be suitable only for a stone dog. I imagine it had originally had some other purpose, though I cannot think what.

  I protested. How was I to know? Was I supposed to guess? Why had someone not told me? Why did the postman not notice that no letters had been picked up? What happened when it rained? And so on.

  The Post Office lady repeated with dignity that Mrs Chorney had always had her mail in the dog kennel, that it saved the postman a walk, that he could not be expected to peer inside to see if letters had gone, and anyhow I might be away. And so on.

  I bought some frozen coley (much better than cod) and hurried home. Yes, the letter I was waiting for, together with various other missives, was in the dog kennel (which would be swimming with water in rainy weather) and I carried the lot into the house.

  The letter I wanted was from Lizzie Scherer, and when I transcribe it it will become clear in what respect I have been less than frank with this diary. In fact I have been disinclined to discuss Lizzie earlier because I was not sure what I felt about something which I had recently done about her. Not that I was upset or anxious. When I came here I decided that I would never be anxious any more about personal relations; such anxiety is too often a form of vanity. What I had done was to send Lizzie a letter which constituted a—what?—a sort of test, or game, or gamble. A serious game. I had always played serious games with Lizzie. Did I regret sending the letter? Do I, will I, regret it? Well, a word first perhaps about the girl herself.

  Clement Makin was, or was nearly, a great actress. Lizzie Scherer is, at the other end of the scale, very nearly not an actress at all. In so far as Lizzie was ever successful I made her so. I stretched her beyond her limits; and I may as well confess now that I took trouble with Lizzie because, in a way, I loved her. I say ‘in a way’ not only because I have only really loved once (and Lizzie was not it), but also because I found it surprisingly easy to leave her when the time came. I was never ‘mad’ about Lizzie, as I have occasionally been about other women (Rosina, Jeanne). I cared for her in a quiet rather dreamy way which was perhaps unique in my life. But I left her. She loved me far more intensely. For Lizzie I was it.

  Lizzie is Scottish, half Sephardi Jew. Although she has the most adorable breasts of any woman I ever made love to, she is not really beautiful, and never was even when she was young, but she has charm. This ‘fetching’ charm, and her youth while it lasted, took her a little way in the theatre. She was a hard worker and had a kind of steady Scottish reliability which always helped. Her appearance is not easy to describe. She has a large wide brow and a strong attractive profile. (One can fall in love with a profile.) The line of her brow runs down in a smooth line curve into a smallish pretty nose which speeds forward at the world without quite turning up. Then there is a straight line to a firm chin wherein there is the faintest dimple. Her lips are firm too, not full but well moulded and sensitively textured. (How different individual lips are.) Nature not art has painted them an attractive terracotta-pink. Her upper lip is long and beautifully indented. (Is there any language in which there is a word for that tender runnel that joins the mouth and the nose?) One would call hers a clever face if it were not for a kind of childish timidity which hangs about it. I suspect that this gentle pleading diffidence is Lizzie’s charm. Her eyes are a light dewy brown; when I kissed her how those pale eyes flashed! She is short-sighted and tends to peer. (As Peregrine once said, very few pretty women can see anything, since vanity precludes glasses.) She has almost invisible orange eyebrows which she never, under my regime, tampered with. Her complexion is healthy, rosy, rather shiny. She wears very little make-up and lacks (perhaps makes a point of lacking) the wonderful artificiality of many theatre ladies, their enamelled lacquered surfaces. This artificiality of course attracts. It attracted me. I like art in a woman’s looks, though I do not necessarily want to see all the working. Lizzie’s hair, now tinted, is a cinnamon brown, of the hyacinthine variety and copious. (It is a bit fuzzy and grows more in screwy tendrills than in curls.) When she is happy her face is conspicuously radiant and merry. (At her best on the stage, her face could make audiences sigh with pleasure.) She is still quite good-looking, though she has allowed herself to become untidy and out of condition. Any drama school teaches physical discipline; acting is a physical discipline. The ladies of the theatre tend to keep themselves sleek and youthful, and this Lizzie has failed to do. Nor was she ever smart. (I am not indifferent to the unique pleasure afforded by a smart woman.) And with advancing years she has, not to put too fine a point upon it, got fat. My God, she must now be getting on for fifty.

  Well, here, retrieved from the dog kennel, is Lizzie’s letter, which will be to some extent self-explanatory.

  My
dear, your beautiful generous letter has come, but I don’t understand it. Perhaps I don’t want to understand it. It is enough to have it. When I saw your writing I felt faint with joy and fear. But why fear? What have I ever done to you, except love you? When I read your letter I cried and cried. I wonder if you know how long it is since you wrote me anything better than a postcard? I almost feel as if I simply want to be happy ever after because you have written to me, and not to have to think about your letter or to answer it. For now I am falling into anxiety and dread.

  What do you want, Charles? Oh, you are so present to my mind as I write. But you have always been present to my mind ever since I first loved you, you live in my mind. Something about your letter that made me especially glad is that you do not doubt that I still love you. ‘Still’ hardly has meaning here. My love for you exists in a sort of eternal present, it almost is the meaning of time. I don’t protest too much. Such love can live with despair, with quietness, with resignation, with ordinariness and tiredness and silence. I love you, Charles, and I will love you till I die, and you can put that away in your heart and be utterly certain of it.