The Black Prince (Penguin Classics)

by Murdoch, Iris

  I spoke advisedly of an ‘adolescent’ fantasy. B.P. is what might be called a ‘peter Pan’ type. He does not in his story describe his extensive past life, except for hinting that there were romances with women. He is the sort of man who likes both to hint at a past and to behave as if he were eternally twenty – five. (He speaks of himself as an ageing Don Juan, as if there were only a trivial difference between real and imagined conquests! I doubt if there were really many women in his life.) A psychiatrist would probably find him ‘retarded’. His tastes in literature were juvenile. He speaks grandly of Shakespeare and of Homer, but I doubt if he had read the former since schooldays or the latter ever. His constant reading, which of course he nowhere admits, was mediocre adventure stories by authors such as Forester and Stevenson and Mulford. He really liked boys’ stories, tales of crude adventure with no love interest, where he could identify himself with some princely hero, a man with a sword or such. My husband often commented to me about this, and once tackled B.P. directly. B.P. was upset and I can recall him actually blushing very much at the charge.

  His general picture of himself really could not have been more false. He pictures himself as ironical and sardonic and restrained and idealistic. To admit to being ‘puritanical’ sounds like self – criticism, but is just another way of asserting that he was a highprincipled man. In reality he was a person quite without dignity. His appearance was absurd. (And no one could possibly have taken him for being younger than his age.) He was a stiff, awkward man, very timid and shy, and yet at the same time he could be quite pushing. He was often, to put it bluntly, rather a bore. The pretence of being an artist was psychologically necessary to him. I am told this is so with a lot of unsuccessful people. He pretends he wrote things and tore them up, and he goes on and on about how he waited and waited and was a perfectionist. I am sure he never tore anything up in his life. (Except my husband’s books.) He was print – mad. He desperately wanted what my husband had, fame. He wanted just to be published at any price and was always going round the publishers with his stuff, he would have published anything. He even asked my husband to intercede for him with his publisher. He was not a stoical and ascetic sort of person at all, but remained like an eager boy who wants to get his little piece into the school magazine. It was quite touching in an elderly man.

  B.P. was of course a person painfully conscious of inferiority. He was an unhappy disappointed man, ashamed of his social origin and his illiteracy, and stupidly ashamed of his job which he imagined made him a figure of fun. In fact he was, though not for that reason, a figure of fun to all of us. No one, before the tragedy, could mention him without smiling a little. He must have realized this. I suppose it is possible, and it is a shocking thought, that a man might commit a serious crime just in order to stop people from laughing at him. That B.P. was a man who hated being laughed at is pretty clear throughout the story. The rather pompous self – mocking style is a defence and a sort of meeting people half – way if they decide to laugh.

  Of course he turns everything topsy – turvy in his account of his relations with our family. He says rather coyly that we needed him. The truth was that he needed us and was a sort of parasite, an awful nuisance sometimes. He was very lonely and we all felt sorry for him. And I can remember occasions too when we made absurd excuses when he wanted to see us or hid when he rang the door bell. His relations with my husband were crucial of course. His claim to have ‘discovered’ my husband is ridiculous. My husband was already quite famous when B.P. after much begging, persuaded an editor to let him review one of my husband’s books, and after that he made himself known to us and became, as I think my daughter once put it, ‘the family pussy cat’.

  B.P. cannot even in his dream – story conceal that he was very envious of my husband’s success. I think this envy was an absolute obsession with him, he was eaten up by it. He knew also that my husband, though friendly and kind to him, despised him a little and laughed at him. The idea of this caused him torment. Sometimes I felt that he thought about nothing else. He naively himself admits that he had to be friends with Arnold, and so somehow identify with him and ‘take credit’ for his writing, so as not to be driven mad with envy and hate. If an accuser is needed B.P. is his own. He admits too in a moment of candour that his picture of Arnold is prejudiced. This is putting it mildly. (He admits further to a general hatred of the human race!) Of course he never ‘helped’ Arnold, but Arnold often helped him. His relation to myself and my husband was virtually that of a child to its parents. This too might interest a psychiatrist. But I do not want to enlarge any more upon matters which are obvious and which came into the open at the trial.

  His allegations about my daughter are of course absurd, both as to his feelings and as to hers. My daughter always regarded him as a sort of ‘funny uncle’ and there is no doubt that she was very sorry for him, and pity can be mistaken for fondness and can even be a sort of fondness, and in this sort of way perhaps she was fond of him. His great ‘passion’ for her is a typical dream – up. (I will explain what I think about its origin and motives in a moment.) I believe that unfulfilled frustrated people probably spend a lot of their lives in pure fantasy – dreaming. This can I am sure be a great source of consolation though not always harmless. And a ‘good’ fantasy – dream might be to pick on some person whom you know slightly and imagine they are in love with you and picture a great love – relationship and its drama. B. P., being probably some sort of sadomasochist, of course imagines an unhappy ending, an eternal separation, terrible suffering for love, and so on. His one published novel (he implies he published more than one, but he only published one in fact) is a story of disappointed romantic love quite remarkably like this one.

  The same sort of sadomasochistic fantasizing has produced the (of course quite imaginary) scene at the beginning of his story where he alleges that he came round to our house and found me lying upstairs on my bed with a black eye, etc, etc. I noticed more than once that B.P. liked to pretend to both my husband and myself that of course he knew that we had domestic differences. We laughed together about this foible of his, not then seeing it as sinister. It may be that with the naïvety of the bachelor (which in essence he always remained) he did genuinely mistake occasional light arguments for serious disagreements. It is alas more likely that half – consciously he invented the idea of our dissensions out of pure ‘wishful thinking’. He did not want ‘papa and mama’ to be at peace with each other. He wished in his mind thus to belittle us both, and to attach each of us more closely to himself.

  There is, I feel I must now frankly admit, yet a further aspect to the matter, and one which for various reasons, many of them obvious, was glossed over at the trial. Bradley Pearson was of course in love with me. This fact had been known to me and to my husband for a number of years and was also a subject for amusement. B.P.’s fantasies of making love to me make sad reading. This unhappy love of his also explains his fiction of a passion for my daughter. This fiction is of course a smoke – screen. It is also partly a ‘substitute – idea’ and partly I am afraid a pure revenge. (It may also be relevant that the strong attachment between father and daughter, not admitted in the story, may well have preyed upon B.P. and made him feel again, as so often, miserablyexcluded.)How farB. P.’s love for me led him to perform that terrible deed is not for me to say. I am afraid that envy and jealousy were inextricably mixed up inside the bosom of that wicked and unhappy man. Of these matters, of which I would not have spoken if not forced to by confrontation with this farrago of lies, I say no more.

  It may be imagined how profoundly this document distresses me. I do not in fact blame B.P. for its proposed disgraceful publication. It is at least understandable that he should have written out this drcamy – fantasy – nonsense to console himself in a place of grimness and to distract himself from serious remorse or the effort of repentance. For the crime of publication I blame the self – styled Mr Loxias (or ‘Luxius’ as I believe he sometimes calls himself). As
several newspapers have hinted, this is a nom de guerre of a fellow – prisoner upon whom the unfortunate B.P. seems to have become distressingly fixated. The name conceals the identity of a notorious rapist and murderer, a well – known musical virtuoso, whose murder, by a peculiarly horrible method, of a successful fellow – musician made the headlines some considerable time ago. Possibly the similarity of their crime drew these two unhappy men together. Artists are notoriously an envious race.

  I would like to say this at the end, and I am sure I speak also for my daughter, with whom I am temporarily out of touch, now of course herself a well – known writer and living abroad. I bear him no malice and, in so far as he must be regarded as seriously unbalanced if not actually mad, I feel sincere pity for his undoubted sufferings.

  Rachel Baffin

  Postscript by Julian

  I have read the story. I have also seen the other postscripts, which I believe the other postscript writers have not. Mr Loxias allowed me this privilege. (For several reasons which I can guess.) However I have little to say.

  It is a sad story full of real pain. It was a dreadful time for me and I have forgotten much of it. I loved my father very dearly. This is perhaps the chief fact which I have to offer. I loved him. His violent death drove me nearly mad. I was nearly mad during Pearson’s trial. I cannot recall that period of my life except as patches in a haze, as scenes. There is a mercy in oblivion. Human beings forget much more than is usually recognized, especially when there is a shock.

  Not so many years have passed since these events. Yet in the life of a young person these are long years. Centuries separate me from these events. I see them diminished and myself there as a child. It is the story of an old man and a child. I say this, treating it as literature. Yet I acknowledge that it concerns myself. Are we what we were as children? What stuff is that which persists? I was a child: I acknowledge myself: yet also I cannot recognize myself.

  A letter for instance is quoted. Did I write this letter? (Did he keep it?) It seems inconceivable. And the things that I said. (Supposedly.) Surely they are the invention of another mind. Sometimes the reactions of the child are too childish. I think I am ‘clever’ now. Could clever me have been that child? Sometimes too there are thoughts which I could not possibly have thought. Thoughts which have leaked in from the author’s mind. (I am not a very convincing ‘character’.) Was I not muddled and frightened and without precedents? It seems like literature, yes.

  My father was quite right not to encourage me to write. And Pearson was wrong to encourage me. I see that now. It is profitless to write early, one understands nothing. One has no craft and one is the slave of emotion. Time of young days is better spent in learning. Pearson implies that my father thought little of my abilities. The contrary is the case. My father was a man who often said the opposite of what he thought. Out of modesty or fear of destiny. This is not uncommon.

  Dr Marloe describes the book as ‘cold’, and one understands him. There is a lot of theory in this book. Yet also it is a very ‘hot’ book (too hot), full of unstudied personal emotions. And of immediate judgements, sometimes not good ones. Perhaps it needs, like a poem, to be again and again reflected? Perhaps any novel needs further reflection and a truly great writer would write only one novel. (Flaubert?) My mother refers to me rightly as a writer but wrongly as well known. (I am a poet.)

  So I am careful and sparing with words. There is a ring in what Pearson says about silence. That part I liked. He may be right that an experience is richest not talked of. As between two people talk to an outsider destroys. Art is secret secret secret. But it has some speech or it would not be. Art is public public public. (But only when it is good.) Art is brief. (Not in a temporal sense.) It is not science or love or power or service. But it is the only true voice of these. It is their truth. It delves and chatters not.

  Pearson always hated music. I can remember that. I can remember his brusquely switching off my father’s record player. (A violent act.) I was a small child then. I see the scene. He hated it. Mr Loxias must be a good teacher. (Indeed I know he is: if teacher is the word.) But is there not an irony? Pearson worked hard at writing all his life. I saw his notebooks. They looked like work. There were a great many words there. Now there is music and no more words perhaps. Now there is music and beyond it silence. Why?

  I confess that I never read the books that Pearson wrote. I think there is more than one. My mother is wrong here. I did not think he was a very good critic either. I think he understood only the vulgar side of Shakespeare. But I admired what I thought of as his life. He seemed an example: a lifetime at trying and failing. It seemed remarkable to go on trying. (Sometimes it seemed stupid however.) Naturally I admired my father too. There was no conflict. Perhaps some prescient instinct made me love the idea of a small publication. (A poet who is a novelist’s child must deplore the parent’s verbosity.) The idea of the secret worker making little things. But it was only an idea. Pearson published as much as he could. If my father was the carpenter, Pearson was certainly the walrus.

  This is not a personal statement. Words are for concealment, art is concealment. Truth emerges from secrecy and laconic discipline. I want to argue about a general matter. Pearson seems to me merely sentimental when he concludes that music is the highest art. Does he believe it? He is parroting. No doubt Mr Loxias has influenced him. Music is an art and also a symbol of all art. Its most universal symbol. But the highest art is poetry because words are spirit at its most refined: its ultimate matrix. Excuse me, Mr Loxias.

  Most important of all. Pearson was wrong to identify his Eros with the source of art. Even though he says one is a ‘mere’ shadow of the other. Indeed it is the hotness of the book that I feel, not its coldness. True art is very very cold. Especially when it portrays passion. For only so can passion be portrayed. Pearson has muddied the waters. Erotic love never inspires art. Or only bad art. To be more precise. Soul – energy may be called sex down to the bottom. (Or up to the top.) That concerns me not. The deep springs of human love are not the springs of art. The demon of love is not the demon of art. Love is concerned with possession and vindication of self. Art with neither. To mix up art with Eros, however black, is the most subtle and corrupting mistake an artist can commit. Art cannot muddle with love any more than it can muddle with politics. Art is concerned neither with comfort nor with the possible. It is concerned with truth in its least pleasant and useful and therefore most truthful form. (Is it not so, you who listen?) Pearson was not cool enough. Neither was my father.

  Even this does not explain. Pearson said that every artist is a masochist to his muse. Though by now perhaps he has seen the falseness of this. (It is possibly the key to his own failure.) Nothing could be falser. The worshipping attitude concentrates on self. The worshipper kneels as Narcissus kneels to gaze into the water. Dr Marloe says artists give houseroom to the universe. Yes. But then they cannot be narcissists. And of course not all artists are homosexuals. (What nonsense!) Art is not religion or worship or the acting out of obsessions. Good art is not. The artist has no master. No, none.

  Julian Belling

  Mr Loxias who has read the above tells me I have not said whether I endorse Pearson or my mother. I have not seen or communicated with either for several years. Naturally I endorse (roughly) what my mother says. However what Pearson has to say is true in its way. As for Mr Loxias, about whom there has been speculation: I think I know who he is. He will understand when I say that I have mixed feelings about him. What does truth mean to him, I wonder?

  I feel I should in fairness add something else. I think the child I was loved the man Pearson was. But this was a love which words cannot describe. Certainly his words do not. A literary failure.

  Editor’s Postscript

  Since the foregoing documents were collected my dear friend Bradley Pearson has died. He died in prison of a quick – growing cancer, which developed soon after he finished his book. I was his only mourner.

  There i
s after all little for me to say. I had thought, as editor, to have written a long essay, criticizing and drawing morals. I had looked forward with some pleasure to having the last word. But Bradley’s death has made a lengthy commentary seem otiose. Death cannot silence art, but it can suggest spaces and pauses. So I have little to say. The reader will recognize the voice of truth when he hears it. If he does not, so much the worse for him.

  I cannot forbear to make a few remarks, most of them obvious, about the postscripts. Mrs Belling says, in part rightly, that words are for concealment. How little the postscript – writers have been able to avail themselves of this decency. These people are indeed on display. Each lady, for instance, asserts (or implies) that Bradley was in love with her. Even the gentleman asserts it. Touching. However this is a small matter and to be expected. Equally to be expected are the lies. Mrs Baffin lies to protect herself, Mrs Belling to protect Mrs Baffin. How conveniently hazy Mrs Belling’s memory has now become! This is an understandable piety, although mother and daughter have long broken off all relations. ‘Dr’ Marloe, who told the truth at the trial, pusillanimously fails to repeat it now. I am told he has been threatened by Mrs Baffin’s solicitors. ‘Dr’ Marloe is no hero. For this we must forgive him. Bradley, who never saw these sad ‘postscripts’ to his work, would have done so.

  Whatever Bradley himself would have thought or done, it is difficult not to exclaim at the small – mindedness of these writers. Each piece is self – advertisement, ranging from the vulgar to the subtle. Mrs Hartbourne advertises her salon, ‘Dr’ Marloe his pseudo – science, his ‘consulting rooms’, his book. Mrs Baffin polishes the already much publicized image of herself as a suffering widow. (Here words of comment fail.) She is at least sincere in saying that when Bradley went to prison she dismissed him from her mind. Mrs Belling advertises herself as a writer. With her carefully written little essay I will concern myself in a minute. (Would she admit that her literary style was influenced by Bradley? This too she is trying hard to conceal!) Perhaps the living can always seem to outwit the dead. But theirs is a hollow victory. The work of art laughs last.