by Saul Bellow
"Yes? Without the wig. She often affects a wig."
He stopped. Govinda was thinking. Presumably about the recovery of his work from the locker. Yes. He felt his blazer pockets from beneath, making certain of the keys.
"You are Polish?" he said.
"I was Polish."
"Artur?"
"Yes. Like Schopenhauer, whom my mother read. Arthur, at that period, not very Jewish, was the most international, enlightened name you could give a boy. The same in all languages. But Schopenhauer didn't care for Jews. He called them vulgar optimists. Optimists? Living near the crater of Vesuvius, it is better to be an optimist. On my sixteenth birthday my mother gave me The World as Will and Idea. Naturally it was an agreeable compliment that I could be so serious and deep. Like the great Arthur. So I studied the system, and I still remember it. I learned that only Ideas are not overpowered by the Will-the cosmic force, the Will, which drives all things. A blinding power. The inner creative fury of the world. What we see are only its manifestations. Like Hindu philosophy-Maya, the veil of appearances that hangs over all human experience. Yes, and come to think of it, according to Schopenhauer, the seat of the Will in human beings is…"
"Where is it?"
"The organs of sex are the seat of the Will."
The thief in the lobby agreed. He took out the instrument of the Will. He drew aside not the veil of Maya itself but one of its forehangings and showed Sammler his metaphysical warrant.
"And you were a friend of the famous H. G. Wells-that much is true, isn't it?"
"I don't like to claim the friendship of a man who is not alive to affirm or deny it, but at one time, when he was in his seventies, I saw him often."
"Ah, then you must have lived in London."
"So we did, in Woburn Square near the British Museum. I took walks with the old man. In those days my own ideas didn't amount to much so I listened to his. Scientific humanism, faith in an emancipated future, in active benevolence, in reason, in civilization. Not popular ideas at the moment. Of course we have civilization but it is so disliked. I think you understand what I mean, Professor Lal."
"I believe I do, yes."
"Still, you know, Schopenhauer would not have called Wells a vulgar optimist. Wells had many dark thoughts. Take a book like The War of the Worlds. There the Martians come to get rid of mankind. They treat our species as Americans treated the bison and other animals, or for that matter the American Indians. Extermination."
"Ah, extermination. I assume you have some personal acquaintance with the phenomenon?"
"I do have some, yes."
"Indeed?" said Lal. "I have seen some of it myself. As a Punjabi."
"You are a Punjabi?"
"Yes, and in nineteen forty-seven studying at the University in Calcutta and present at the terrible riots, the fighting of Hindus and Moslems. Since called the great Calcutta killing. I am afraid I have seen homicidal maniacs."
"Ah."
"Yes, and slaying with loaded sticks and sharp iron bars. And the corpses. Rape, arson, looting."
"I see."
Sammler looked at him. An intelligent and sensitive man, this was, with an expressive face. Of course such expressiveness was sometimes a sign of subjectivity and of inward mental habits. Not an outgoing imagination. He was beginning to think, however, that this Lal was, like Ussher Arkin, a man he could talk to. "Then it is not a theoretical matter to you. Nor to me. But excellent goodhearted gentlemen, Mr. Arnold Bennett, Mr. H. G. Wells, lunching at the Savoy,.. Olympians of lowerclass origin. So nice. So serious. So English, Mr. Wells. I was flattered to be chosen to listen to his monologues. I was also fond of him. Of course since Poland, nineteen thirty-nine, my judgments are different. Altered. Like my eyesight. I see you trying to observe what is behind these tinted glasses. No, no, that's quite all right. One eye is functioning. Like the old saying about the one-eyed being King in the Country of the Blind. Wells wrote a story around this. Not a good story. Anyway, I am not in the Country of the Blind, but only one-eyed. As for Wells… he was a writer. He wrote and wrote and wrote."
Sammler thought that Govinda was about to speak. When he paused, several waves of silence passed, containing tacit questions: You? No, you, sir: You speak. Lal was listening. The sensitivity of a hairy creature; the animal brown of his eyes; the good breeding of his attentive posture.
"You wish me to say more about Wells, since Wells is in a way behind all this?"
"Would you, kindly?" said Lal. "You have doubts about the value of Wells's writing."
"Yes, of course I have. Grave doubts. Through universal education and cheap printing poor boys have become rich and powerful. Dickens, rich. Shaw, also. He boasted that reading Karl Marx made a man of him. I don't know about that, but Marxism for the great public made him a millionaire. If you wrote for an elite, like Proust, you did not become rich, but if your theme was social justice and your ideas were radical you were rewarded by wealth, fame, and influence."
"Most interesting."
"Do you find it so? Excuse me, I am heavy-hearted this evening. Both heavy-hearted and talkative. And when I meet someone I like, I am apt to be garrulous at first."
"No, no, please continue this explanation."
"Explanation? I have an objection to extended explanations. There are too many. This makes the mental life of mankind ungovernable. But I have thought about the Wells matter-the Shaw matter, and about people like Marx, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Marat, Saint-Just, powerful speakers, writers, starting out with no capital but mental capital and achieving an immense influence. And all the rest, little lawyers, readers, bluffers, pamphleteers, amateur scientists, bohemians, librettists, fortune tellers, charlatans, outcasts, buffoons. A crazy provincial lawyer demanding the head of the King, and getting it, too. In the name of the people. Or Marx, a student, a fellow from the University, writing books which overwhelm the world. He was really an excellent journalist and publicist. As I was a journalist myself, I am a judge of his ability. Like many journalists, he made things up out of other newspaper articles, the European press, but he made them up extremely well, writing about India or the American Civil War, matters of which he actually knew nothing. But he was marvelously shrewd, a guesser of genius, a powerful polemicist and rhetorician. His ideological hashish was very potent. Anyhow, you see what I mean-people become authoritative and plebeians of genius elevate themselves first to nobility and then to universal glory, and all because they had what all poor children got from literacy: the ABCs, the dictionary, the grammar books, the classics. Until, soaring from their slums or their little petit-bourgeois parlors, they were addressing worldwide millions. These are the people who set the terms, who make up the discourse, and then history follows their words. Think of the wars and revolutions we have been scribbled into."
The Indian press had much responsibility for those riots, certainly," said Lal.
"One thing in Wells's favor was that because of personal disappointments he at least did not demand the sacrifice of civilization. He did not become a cult-figure, a royal personality, a grand art hero or activist leader. He did not feel disgraced by words. Many did and do."
"Meaning what, sir?"
"Well you see," said Mr. Sammler, "in the great bourgeois period, writers became aristocrats. And having become aristocrats through their skill in words, they felt obliged to go into action. Evidently it's a disgrace for true nobility to substitute words for acts. You can see this in the career of Monsieur Malraux, or Monsieur Sartre. You can see it much farther back in Hamlet when he feels that humiliation, Dr. Lal, saying, 'I… must like a whore unpack my heart with words."
"'And fall a-cursing like a very drab.'"
"Yes, that is the full quotation. Or to Polonius, 'Words, words, words. Words are for the elderly, or for the young who are old-in-heart. Of course this is the condition of a prince whose father has been murdered. But when people out of a contempt for impotence and paralyzed talk throw themselves into noble actions, do they know what they a
re doing? When they being to call for blood, and advocate terror, or proclaim a general egg- breaking to make a great historical omelet, do they know what they are calling for? When they have struck a mirror with a hammer, aiming to repair it, can they put the fragments together again? Well, Dr. Lal, I am not sure what good this examination or rebuke can do. It is not as if I were certain that human beings can be controlled at any level of complexity. I would not swear that mankind was governable. But Wells was inclined to believe that it was. He thought, most of the time, that the minority civilization could be transmitted to the great masses, and that orderly conditions for this transmission were possible. Decent, British-style, Victorian-Edwardian, nonoutcast, nonlunatic, grateful conditions. But in World War Two he despaired. He compared humankind to rats in a sack, desperately struggling and biting. Indeed it was ratlike and sacklike. Indeed so. But now I have exhausted my interest in Wells. Yours too, I hope, Dr. Lal."
"Ah, you did know the man well," said Lal. "And how clearly you put things. You are a first-rate condenser. I wish I had your talent. I lacked it sorely when I wrote my book."
"Your book, what I had time to read of it, is very clear."
"I hope you will read it all. Excuse me, Mr. Sammler, I am confused. I don't know quite where Mrs. Arkin has brought me, or where we are. You explained, but I did not follow."
"This is Westchester County, not far from New Rochelle, and the house of my nephew, Dr. Arnold Elya Gruner. At the moment, he is in the hospital."
"I see. Is he very sick?"
"There is an escape of blood in the brain."
"An aneurysm. It can't be reached for surgery?"
"It can't be reached."
"Dear, dear. And you are dreadfully disturbed."
"He will die in a day or two. He is dying. A good man. He brought us from a DP camp, Shula and me, and for twenty-two years he has taken care of us with kindness. Twenty-two years without a day of neglect, without a single irascible word."
"A gentleman."
"Yes, a gentleman. You can see that my daughter and I are not very competent. I did some journalism, until about fifteen years ago. It was never much. Recently I wrote a Polish report on the war in Israel. But it was Dr. Gruner who paid my way."
"He simply let you be a kind of philosopher?"
"If that is what I am. I am familiar with many explanations of things. To tell the truth, I am tired of most of them."
"Ah, you have an eschatological point of view, then. How Interesting."
Sammler, not much caring for the word "eschatological," shrugged. "You think we should go into space, Dr. Lal?"
"You are very sad about your nephew. Perhaps you would prefer not to talk."
"Once you begin talking, once the mind takes to this way of turning, it keeps turning, and it dips through all events. And perhaps it makes matters slightly more tolerable to let it turn. Though I can't see why they should be tolerable. It is really a frightful moment. But what can one do? The thoughts continue turning."
"Like a Ferris wheel," said fragile, black-bearded Govinda Lal. "I should say that I have done work for Worldwide Technics, in Connecticut. Mine are highly sophisticated and theoretical assignments having to do with order in biological systems, how complex mechanisms reproduce themselves. Though it will not greatly signify to you, I am associated with the bang-bang hypothesis, related to the firing of simultaneous impulses, atomic theories of cellular conductivity. As you mentioned Rousseau, man may or may not have been born free. But I can say with assurance that he would not exist without his atomistic chains. I do hope you like my jokes. I enjoy your wit. If not mutual, that would be too bad. I refer to those chain structures of the cell. These are matters of order, Mr. Sammler. Though I have not the full blueprint to present. I am not yet that universal genius. Ha, ha! In earnest, however, biological science is in an extraordinary state of progress. Oh, it is lovely, it is so beautiful! To participate is a privilege. This chemical order, which is a fundamental of life, is of great beauty. Oh, yes, very great. And what a high privilege! It occurred to me as you were speaking of another matter that to desire to live without order is to desire to turn from the fundamental biological governing principle. Which is widely presumed to be there only to free us, a platform for impulse. Are we crazy, or what? From order, from governing principle, the human being can tear himself to express his immense privilege of sheer liberty or unaccountability of impulse. The biological fundamentals are like the peasantry, the whole individual considering himself to be a prince. It is the cigale and the fourmi. The ant was once the hero, but now the grasshopper is the whole show. My father taught me maths and French. The chief anxiety of my father's life was that his students would cut up the Encyclopedia Britannica with razors and take the articles with them for home perusal. He was a simple person. Because of him, I have loved French literature. First in Calcutta, and then in Manchester, I studied it until my scientific interests matured. But as to your question about space. There is, of course, much objection to these expeditions. Accusation that it is money taken from school, slum, and so on, of course. Just as the Pentagon money is withheld from social improvements. What nonsense! It is propaganda by the social-science bureaucracy. They would hog the funds. Besides, money alone does not necessarily make the difference, does it? I think not. The Americans have always been reckless spenders. Bad, no doubt, but there is such a thing as fruitful gaspillage. Wastefulness can be justified if it permits inventiveness, originality, adventure. Unfortunately, the results are mostly and usually corrupt, making vile profits, playboy recreations, and building reactionary fortunes. As far as Washington is concerned, a moon expedition no doubt is superb PR. It is show biz. My slang may not be current."
The rich and Oriental voice was very pleasing.
"I am not a good authority."
"You know, however, what I have in mind. Circuses. Dazzlement. The U. S. becoming the greatest dispenser of science-fiction entertainments. As far as the organizers and engineers are concerned, it is a vast opportunity, but that is not of high theoretical value. Still, at the same time something serious happens within. The soul most certainly feels the grandeur of this achievement. Not to go where one can go may be stunting. I believe the soul feels it, and therefore it is a necessity. It may introduce new sobriety. Naturally the technology will impress minds more than the personalities. The astronauts may not seem so very heroic. More like superchimpanzees. Especially if they do not express themselves beautifully. But after all, this is the function of poets. If any. But even the technicians I venture to guess will be ennobled. But do you agree, sir, that we should go into space?"
"Well, why not? Up to a point, yes. Although I don't think it can be rationally justified."
"Why not? I can think of many justifications. I see it as a rational necessity. You should have finished my book."
"Then I would have found the irresistible proof?" Sammler smiled through the tinted glasses, and the blind eye attempted to participate. In the old black and neat suit, his stiff and slender body upright and his fingers, which trembled strongly under strain, lightly holding his knees. A cigarette (he smoked only three or four a day) burned between his awkward hairy knuckles.
"I simply mean you would be acquainted with my argument, which I base in part on U.S. history. After 1776 there was a continent to expand into, and this space absorbed all the mistakes. Of course I am not a historian. But if one cannot make bold guesses, one will have to surrender all to the experts. Europe after 1789 did not have the space for its mistakes. Result: war and revolution, with the revolutions ending up in the hands of the madmen."
"De Maistre said that."
"Did he? I don't know much about him."
"It may be enough to know that he agrees. Revolutions do end up in the hands of madmen. Of course there are always enough madmen for every purpose. Besides, if the power is great enough, it will make its own madmen by its own pressure. Power certainly corrupts, but that statement is humanly incomplete. Isn't it too
abstract? What should certainly be added is the specific truth that having power destroys the sanity of the powerful. It allows their irrationalities to leave the sphere of dreams and come into the real world. But there-excuse me. I am am no psychologist. As you say, however, one must be allowed to make guesses."
"Perhaps it is natural that an Indian should be supersensitive to a surplus of humanity. Calcutta is so teeming, so volcanic. A Chinese would be similarly sensitive. Any nation of vast multitudes. We are crowded in, packed in, now, and human beings must feel that there is a way out, and that the intellectual power and skill of their own species opens this way. The invitation to the voyage, the Baudelaire desire to get out-get out of human circumstances-or the longing to be a drunken boat, or a soul whose craving is to crack open a closed universe is still real, only the impulse does not have to be assigned to tiresomeness and vanity of life, and it does not necessarily have to be a death-voyage. The trouble is that only trained specialists will be able to take the trip. The longing soul cannot by direct impulse go because it has the boundless need, or the mind for it, or the suffering-power. It will have to know engineering and wear those peculiar suits, and put up with personal, organic embarrassments. Perhaps the problems of radiation will prove insuperable, or strange diseases will be contracted on other worlds. Still, there is a universe into which we can overflow. Obviously we cannot manage with one single planet. Nor refuse the challenge of a new type of experience. We must recognize the extremism and fanaticism of human nature. Not to accept the opportunity would make this Earth seem more and more a prison. If we could soar out and did not, we would condemn ourselves. We would be more than ever irritated with life. As it is, the species is eating itself up. And now Kingdom Come is directly over us and waiting to receive the fragments of a final explosion. Much better the moon.
Sammler did not think that must necessarily happen.
"Do you think the species doesn't want to live?" he said.
"Many wish to end it," said Lal.