by Iris Murdoch
My intention in publishing these papers was originally twofold. First, to give to the public a work of literature. I am by nature an impresario, and this is not the first time I have been thus instrumental. Secondly, I wished to vindicate the honour of my dear friend, to clear him, briefly, of the charge of murder. That I have not been assisted in this task by either Mrs Belling or ‘Dr’ Marloe is, as I say, not surprising, though it is saddening. I have seen much of human beings over a long period, and I have learnt how little good to expect from them. In pursuance of my second objective, I had intended to write a long analysis of my own, rather like a detective’s final summing up, pointing out discrepancies, making inferences, drawing conclusions. This I have decided to omit. Partly because Bradley is dead. And death always seems to commit truth to some wider and larger court. And partly because, rereading Bradley Pearson’s story, I feel that it speaks for itself.
Two things remain. One to give some brief account of Bradley Pearson’s last days. The other to take issue (on a theoretical point only: I leave the facts to her conscience) with Mrs Belling. The latter I will do first, also briefly. Art, my dear Mrs Belling, is a very much tougher and coarser plant than you seem to be imagining in your very literary piece. Your eloquence, which verges I fear on the romantic, even the sentimental, is that of a young person. When you are older in art you will understand better. (You may even then be privileged to understand Shakespeare’s vulgarity.) About the soul we speak always in metaphors: metaphors which are best used briefly and then thrown away. About the soul perhaps we can only converse directly with our intimates. This makes moral philosophy vain. And there is no science of these things. There is no depth to which you, Mrs Belling, or any other human being, can see where you can make final distinctions about what does and what does not essentially nourish art. Why are you so anxious to divide that great blackamoor in two, what are you afraid of? (The answer to this question could tell you much.) To say that great art can be as vulgar and as pornographic as it pleases is to say but little. Art is to do with joy and play and the absurd. Mrs Baffin says that Bradley was a figure of fun. All human beings are figures of fun. Art celebrates this. Art is adventure stories. (Why do you deride adventure stories, Mrs Baffin?) Of course it is to do with truth, it makes truth. But to that anything can open its eyes. Erotic love can. Bradley’s synthesis may seem nalve; perhaps it is. Behind his unity there may be distinctions, but behind the distinctions there is unity and how far into that vista can a human being see and how far does an artist need to see? Art has its own austerity to it reserved. At an austere philosophy it can only mock.
As for music, which Mrs Belling acutely says is the image of all the arts but not their king: I am not disposed to disagree. In fact I am well placed to appreciate her argument. Known as a musician, I am in fact interested in all the arts. Music relates sound and time and so pictures the ultimate edges of human communication. But the arts form not a pyramid but a circle. They are the defensive outer barriers of language, whose elaboration is a condition of all simpler modes of communication. Without these defences men sink to beasts. That music points to silence is again an image, which Bradley used. All artists dream of a silence which they must enter, as some creatures return to the sea to spawn. The creator of form must suffer formlessness. Even risk dying of it. What would Bradley Pearson have done if he had lived? Would he have written another book, a great one? Perhaps. The human soul is full of surprises.
Bradley died well, tenderly, gently, as a man should. I so clearly recall the look upon his face of simple vulnerable surprise when (I was present) the doctor told him the worst. He looked as he had looked once when he dropped a capacious teapot and saw it break. He said ‘Oh,!’ and turned to me. The rest was fast. He soon took to his bed. The hand of death modelled him speedily, soon made his head a skull. He did not try to write. He talked with me, asked me to explain things, holding my hand. We listened to music together.
On the morning of the last day he said to me, ‘My dear fellow, I’m sorry – to be still here – so boring.’ Then he said, ‘Don’t make a fuss, will you ?’ – ‘What about ?’ – ‘My innocence. It isn’t worth it. It doesn’t matter now.’ We listened to some Mozart on Bradley’s transistor. Later he said, ‘I wish I’d written Treasure Island.’ Towards evening he was much weaker and could hardly speak. ‘My dear, tell me—’ ‘What?’ ‘That opera—’ ‘Which ?’ – ‘Rosenkavalier.’ After that he was silent for a while. Then, ‘How did it end ? That young fellow — what was his name — ?’ ‘Octavian.’ ‘Did he stay with the Marschallin or did he leave her and find a young girl of his own age?’ ‘He found a young girl of his own age and left the Marschallin.’ ‘Well, that was right, wasn’t it.’ Then after a while he turned, still holding my hand, and snuggled down as if to sleep. And slept.
I am glad to think how much I comforted his last days. I felt as if he had suffered the lack of me throughout his life; and at the end I suffered with him and suffered, at last, his mortality. I needed him too. He added a dimension to my being.
As for my own identity: I can scarcely, ‘Dr’ Marloe, be an invention of Bradley’s, since I have survived him. Falstaff, it is true, survived Shakespeare, but did not edit his plays. Nor am I, let me assure Mrs Hartbourne, in the publishing trade, though more than one publisher has reason to be grateful to me. I hear it has even been suggested that Bradley Pearson and myself are both simply fictions, the invention of a minor novelist. Fear will inspire any hypothesis. No, no. I exist. Perhaps Mrs Baffin, though her ideas are quite implausibly crude, is nearer to the truth. And Bradley existed. Here upon the desk as I write these words stands the little bronze of the buffalo lady. (The buffalo’s leg has been repaired.) Also a gilt snuff box inscribed A Friend’s Gift. And Bradley Pearson’s story, which I made him tell, remains too, a kind of thing more durable than these. Art is not cosy and it is not mocked. Art tells the only truth that ultimately matters. It is the light by which human things can be mended. And after art there is, let me assure you all, nothing.
P. A. Loxias
By the same author
Philosophy
SARTRE, ROMANTIC RATIONALIST
THE FIRE AND THE SUN
ACOSTOS: TWO PLATONIC DIALOGUES
METAPHYSICS AS A GUIDE TO MORALS
EXISTENTIALISTS AND MYSTICS
Fiction
UNDER THE NET
THE FLIGHT FROM THE ENCHANTER
THE SANDCASTLE
THE BELL
SEVERED HEAD
AN UNOFFICIAL ROSE
THE UNICORN
THE ITALIAN GIRL
THE RED AND THE GREEN
THE TIME OF THE ANGELS
THE NICE AND THE GOOD
BRUNO’S DREAM
A FAIRLY HONOURABLE DEFEAT
AN ACCIDENTAL MAN
THE BLACK PRINCE
THE SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE MACHINE
A WORD CHILD
HENRY AND CATO
THE SEA, THE SEA
NUNS AND SOLDIERS
THE PHILOSOPHER’S PUPIL
THE GOOD APPRENTICE
THE BOOK AND THE BROTHERHOOD
THE MESSAGE TO THE PLANET
THE GREEN KNIGHT
JACKSON’S DILEMMA
Plays
A SEVERED HEAD (with J. B. Priestley)
THE ITALIAN GIRL (with James Saunders)
THE THREE ARROWS
THE SERVANTS AND THE SNOW
THE BLACK PRINCE
Poetry
A YEAR OF BIRDS
(Illustrated by Reynolds Stone)
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