by David Miller
My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel – it is, before all, to make you see. That – and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you shall find there according to your deserts: encouragement, consolation, fear, charm – all you demand; and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask.
His is a superb challenge to any author, as good an explanation to any reader why anyone writes, or reads, fiction.
Twenty years ago, a friend of mine asked if I had ever read Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier and I replied, “No.” His head rose from his burning cigarette, his eyes gleaming with what I took then for dismay, the grey in his hair sprinkled like the ash he was about to flick into the street. I had misread him because he then said, almost in italics, just after taking a drag, “Oh God, I envy you,” and then he breathed out, the stub circling in the air to wherever it would land. When I asked him about the stories I was selecting here, he surprised me in knowing, bluntly, zilch. I now envy him, and – perhaps – you; if you haven’t yet read any, or many, of these stories, I trust you’ll find in most of them “that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask” as I shall continue to do so – to be endlessly surprised by, find some completion through, reading our finest form in fiction.
My thanks are due to: Jason Arthur, Paul Bailey, Roberta Borgna, Antonia Byatt, Georgina Capel, Anthony Cheetham, Sarah Churchwell, Gill Coleridge, Rachel Conway, Sam Copeland, Martijn David, Colin Field, Judith Flanders, David Flusfeder, Georgia Garrett, Robert Gottlieb, Stephen Grosz, Lisa Highton, Victoria Hislop, Amanda Hopkinson, Mathilda Imlah, Melanie Jackson, Clemence Jacquinet, Philip Gwyn Jones, Stuart Kelly, Julie Kemp, Julia Kreitman, Federica Leonardis, Fiona McMorrough, Richard Milbank, Madeleine O’Shea, Cynthia Ozick, Laura Palmer, Max Porter, Clare Reihill, Amanda Ridout, Annabel Robinson, Peter Robinson, Rob Ryan, Rebecca Servadio, Becci Sharpe, Allan H. Simmonds, Alan Simpson, Peter Straus, Bill Swainson, Scarlett Thomas, Salley Vickers, Zoë Waldie, Hannah Westland, James Wood, Romily Withington, and Frank Wynne for their help, and then impositions, outrage, puzzlement, questions, suggestions. Earlier debts of gratitude are due to Peter Brodie, Peter Newman Brooks, Lavinia Cohn-Sherbok, Eamon Duffy, Andrew Dobbin, the late George Matthewson, June Miller, Robert Milner, the late Peter Pilkington, Miri Rubin, the late Mrs. Sprott and the late Jenny Williamson, all of whom – at some stage – encouraged and showed me how to read. Blackhall Library in Edinburgh, the library in Burgess Hill, the libraries where I was at school and university and – recently – the libraries in Notting Hill, Hammersmith, and Chiswick, have also been spaces where I’ve felt hugely at home with the words of others. Perhaps my sons, Freddie and Billy Miller, and my nieces, Tamara and Mariella Coulthard, might enjoy what is here one day: we deepen our knowledge of one another by understanding what we’ve read together.
There is one name missing from the list above. John Conrad remembered his father saying that, when a friend dies, “each morning one casts a look around to see if all one’s friends are there; the older ones go on ahead, the younger ones follow behind and, if all are there, one is content. Then one is missing from his usual place – there is an unfilled space which remains for the rest of your life.” As this book neared its completion, the woman who taught me much about love, life and work but, above all, revealed to me how best I could read – and for whom and with whom I worked for half my life – died. She left that “unfilled space” in many lives but, true to form, bequeathed something intangible, yet legible, given she was a passionate, winning advocate for those she represented, as well as dozens of others: a “ghost in the machine” she helped to influence what a myriad of readers over the last fifty years could have read. Amongst other diverse enthusiasms, her devotion to championing the short story and its writer should not be forgotten, which is why this book is dedicated to Deborah Rogers.
David Miller
Chiswick, London
10 May 2014
* * *
1 There is, sadly, no evidence that Ernest Hemingway actually wrote these words.
2 In the last few years there has been the reassuring arrival of performing short plays without an interval – Richard Eyre’s recent adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts being the most splendid. Get in, get out, let the memory linger longer.
3 There is a, probably apocryphal, story that Maugham was asked to come to the school to give a talk about how to write a story to the interested boys and, due to his stutter, Maugham kept the talk short, saying each needed the following ingredients – religion, aristocracy, sex, mystery and a sense of narrative drive. He asked the boys to write a story. No sooner had he sat down than a hand shot up and a boy said, “Sir! I’ve done it!” and then, when instructed, read out his effort, as follows: “My God!” said the Duchess. “I’m pregnant! Whose is it?”
4 It seems strange that this now seems a period detail. In 1982, WHSmith stocked books by writers who won literary prizes. Indeed, V.S. Pritchett won one they sponsored in 1990. Perhaps they will stock this book – who knows?
5 At the risk of embarrassing publishers, there is a howling need for a book comprising twenty best novellas, another stupidly overlooked form. There’s also a real need for a prize for them.
THE BOOK OF JONAH
Anon.
Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote in 1982, “Although the short story is not in vogue nowadays, I still believe that it constitutes the utmost challenge to the creative writer.” He went on to praise Chekhov and Maupassant as well as “the sublime scribe of the Joseph story in the Book of Genesis,” because they “knew exactly where they were going.” Anon. (in this case) was probably writing in the late 5th or early 4th century BCE, and he – probably not, in this instance, she – also had a fine sense of irony.
Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,
“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.” But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. But the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken. Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep. So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him,
“What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not.” And they said every one to his fellow,
“Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah. Then said they unto him,
“Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us; What is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou?” And he said unto them,
I am an Hebrew; and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land. Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him.
“Why hast thou done this?” For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them. Then said they unto him,
“What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous.” And he said unto them,
“Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.” Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the land; but they could not: for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous against them. Wherefore they cried unto the LORD, and said,
“We beseech thee, O LORD, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not upon us innocent blood: for thou, O LORD, hast done as it
pleased thee.” So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging. Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the LORD, and made vows.
Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish’s belly, and said,
“I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice. For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God. When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.” And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.
And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time, saying,
“Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.” So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said,
Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying,
“Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?” And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.
But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he prayed unto the LORD, and said,
“I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.” Then said the LORD,
“Doest thou well to be angry?” So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said,
“It is better for me to die than to live.” And God said to Jonah,
“Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?” And he said,
“I do well to be angry, even unto death.” Then said the LORD,
“Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?”
THE DECEITFUL MARRIAGE
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) was a playwright, poet and the author of Don Quixote, considered by many to be the first major European novel. He fought as a soldier in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, spent five years as a slave in Algiers and then, after his release, worked buying supplies for the Spanish Armada and as a tax collector. He was born near, and died in, Madrid, and was buried on 23 April 1616, the day William Shakespeare died.
Out of the hospital of the Resurrection, which is in Valladolid beyond the Puerta del Campo, came a soldier, using his sword as a staff, and with legs so weak and his face so yellow that you could see quite clearly that, although the weather was not very hot, he must have sweated out in three weeks all the fluid he had probably got in an hour. He was tottering slowly along as if he were just getting over an illness, and as he went in through the gate of the city he spotted a friend of his coming towards him, whom he had not seen for over six months. The friend, crossing himself as if he were seeing a ghost, said when he got up to him,
“What is this, Ensign Campuzano? Are you really in this part of the world? Upon my word I thought you were trailing a pike in Flanders, not dragging your sword along here. What is the meaning of this awful colour and this weakness of yours?”
Campuzano replied, “As for my being in this part of the world or not, Licenciate Peralta, the fact that you see me in it is sufficient answer; in reply to the other questions all I have to say is that I’ve just come out of that hospital, after sweating out fourteen buboes I got from a woman whom for my sins I took to myself.”
“So you got married,” observed Peralta.
“Yes sir,” answered Campuzano.
“It must have been for love,” said Peralta, “and marriages of that kind have the path to repentance already built in.”
“I can’t say whether it was for love,” answered the ensign; “although I can assure you it was painful, because as a result of my marriage, or mismarriage, I was so afflicted with pain in both body and mind, that as far as my body is concerned, I’ve had to sweat it out forty times, and as for my mind, I can’t find any cure for the pains. But I’m not in a fit condition for long conversation in the street, so I must ask you to excuse me. Some other day I’ll tell you at leisure what has happened to me; for it is the most strange and unheard-of tale that you’ve ever come across in your whole life.”
“That won’t do,” said the Licenciate; “for I want you to come with me to my lodgings, and we’ll do penance together there. Stew is just right for invalids, and although there are only enough helpings for two, my servant can make do with a pie; and if you’re feeling sufficiently recovered, a few rashers of ham will serve as hors d’oeuvre and the good will with which I offer it to you is worth more than anything, not only on this occasion but whenever you may desire.”
Campuzano thanked him, and accepted the invitation and the offer. They went to San Lorenzo and heard Mass. Then Peralta took him off to his house, gave him what he had promised and offered him his services again, begging him as soon as he had finished to tell him the adventures he had said so much about. Campuzano was only too ready to oblige, and began as follows:
“You will remember, Licenciate Peralta, how I shared lodgings with Captain Pedro de Herrera, who is now in Flanders.”
“I remember well,” answered Peralta.
“Well one day,” Campuzano went on, “as we had just finished a meal in that inn at La Solana, where we were staying, two good-looking women came in, with two maid-servants. One of them stood by the window and began to talk to the captain, and the other sat down on a chair beside me, keeping her veil lowered to her chin, and showing only what you could see through the thin material. Although I begged her o
ut of courtesy to unveil herself, there was nothing doing, and this increased my desire to see her. It was still further increased by the fact that, whether by accident or design, she let me catch a glimpse of a snowy-white hand adorned with very fine jewels. At that time I was looking very smart, with that big chain which you must have seen me wearing, my hat with plumes and bands, my coloured army uniform so dashing, to my crazy way of thinking, that it seemed to me that I could conquer a woman just by looking at her. Anyway, I begged her to unveil herself, to which she replied, “Don’t pester me; I have a house; get a page to follow me, for although I’m a more respectable person than this answer implies, if I find you are as discreet as you are handsome, I shall be glad for you to come and see me.”
“I kissed her hands out of gratitude for the great favour she was doing me, in return for which I promised her a heap of money. The captain finished his conversation, the ladies went off, and one of my servants followed them. The captain told me that what the lady wanted him to do was to take some letters to Flanders for her for another captain, who she said was her cousin, although he knew he was only her lover. I was inflamed with passion at the sight of those snowy hands, and dying to see her face; and so the next day my servant showed me the way, and I was allowed in quite freely. I found a very well-furnished house and a woman of about thirty, whom I recognized by her hands. She was not outstandingly beautiful, but she was sufficiently so for me to fall in love with her when I heard her speak, because her voice was so soft that when she spoke she touched my very soul. I had long amorous conversations with her; I boasted, wheedled, lied, offered, promised and went through all the motions I thought necessary to win her favours, but as she was used to hearing this sort of offer and argument, and even better ones, she appeared to be listening to me but without believing a word I said. The fact is that during the few days I spent visiting her our conversation was confined to trivialities, and I didn’t manage to pick any of the fruit I desired.