Providence

by Anita Brookner

  ‘The preface,’ said Larter excitedly.

  ‘All right, the preface. Some think that this is the most important part of the book, although it was added some years later. Ten, to be precise. I think it might be useful if we were to translate the preface at this stage. Into the exact equivalent; no flourishes, please. Mr Mills?’

  Mr Mills donned his bifocals. ‘ “I wanted to depict the malady suffered by even the most arid hearts on account of the sufferings they cause, and the illusion that leads them to suppose that they –” ’

  ‘ “That these sufferings”,’ murmured Kitty.

  ‘ “That these sufferings are lighter or more superficial than they really are. From a distance, the image of the sorrow one causes appears vague and confused, like a cloud easy to pierce; one is encouraged by the approbation of an entirely artificial society, which replaces principles with rules and emotions with …” ’

  He stopped.

  ‘Convenances,’ said Kitty. ‘That’s a difficult one, isn’t it? Yet that is perhaps the most crucial word in the paragraph.’

  ‘Conventions?’ supplied Larter.

  ‘I think so. We’ll see. Go on, Philip.’ She always called them by their Christian names when she got carried away by the argument. She felt a closeness with them, then. Even Miss Fairchild was watching Mills, although her hands were now hidden in the sleeves of her pullover.

  ‘ “… which replaces principles with rules and emotions with conventions, and which condemns scandal as tiresome, not as immoral, because it …” ’

  ‘Society,’ said Kitty.

  ‘ “… because society is quite accommodating towards vice when there is no scandal attached; one feels …” ’

  ‘ “It is felt …” ’

  ‘ “It is felt that attachments which have been made without reflection can be broken without any harm being done”.’

  ‘Remember that sentence,’ said Kitty. ‘That is what the novel is all about.’

  Mr Mills, quite unmoved by what he was reading, looked over the top of his glasses and asked her if she meant him to go on. Kitty indicated that she did.

  ‘ “But when one sees the anguish that results from these broken attachments, the painful astonishment of a deceived soul, that defiance …” ’

  ‘Mistrust,’ murmured Kitty.

  ‘ “That mistrust that succeeds perfect confidence …” ’

  ‘ “That mistrust that succeeds perfect trust”,’ said Larter, in wonder, with an expression of pain.

  At least one of them is getting there, thought Kitty, and aloud she said, ‘Take that sentence again, please, Philip.’

  ‘ “But when one sees the anguish that results from these broken attachments, the painful astonishment of a deceived soul, that mistrust that succeeds perfect trust, and which, forced to direct itself against one being out of the whole world, spreads to that whole world, that esteem driven back on itself and not capable of being re-absorbed, one feels, then, that there is something sacred in the heart that suffers because it loves; one discovers how deep are the roots of the affection one thought to inspire without sharing it; and if one overcomes what one calls weakness, it is by destroying in oneself all that was generous, by tearing up all that was faithful, by sacrificing all that was noble and good. One stands up after such a victory, which is applauded by friends and acquaintances, having condemned to death a portion of one’s soul, tilted at sympathy, abused weakness, and outraged morality by taking it as a pretext for harshness; and one survives one’s better nature, ashamed or perverted by this sad success. This was the picture that I wanted to paint in Adolphe”.’

  They were all silent for a moment. Even through the clumsy translation they had felt the writer’s sadness. And his skill. Kitty drew a deep breath.

  ‘Now, Jane,’ she said. ‘Do you still feel that you can dismiss Ellénore’s use of the word misérable? It doesn’t mean miserable, remember. It means wretched. Wretched as in poor. One of the early meanings of misère is poverty.’

  Miss Fairchild smiled. Kitty decided to take this for assent. She cleared her throat.

  ‘We are in fact talking about a particular state of bankruptcy,’ she said. ‘And although the novel is written completely without imagery, in the driest traditions of the eighteenth-century moral tale, it lacks the buoyancy and optimism of the eighteenth century. Has it acquired anything that would have been unthinkable in the eighteenth century?’

  ‘Despair,’ said Larter.

  ‘All right,’ said Kitty. ‘What sort of despair?’

  Larter took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and for fifteen minutes gave them an almost seamless account of the Romantic dilemma. This, according to Larter, but in fact according to Chateaubriand, was due to the collapse of moral standards in the Revolution, to the repudiation of the supernatural, to the deconsecration of the churches and the exiling of the priests, to the attempt to live according to the humanitarian rules of the eighteenth century, to live without piety and belief and consolation. But God, having been lost, was difficult to find again. Romantic man, man without God, had to behave existentially, and experienced isolation.

  ‘Yes,’ said Kitty. ‘Romantic man has lost his original unity and uncovered a new complication. Even in the eighteenth century they knew that this might happen. Mme du Deffand asked Voltaire what he proposed to put in the place of the old beliefs, you remember. She sensed trouble ahead.’

  Mr Mills then objected that Existentialism could not be projected backwards into the nineteenth century.

  ‘Yes, it can,’ said Larter. ‘Existentialism is a Romantic phenomenon.’

  He then gave them ten minutes on Existentialism.

  ‘You may be right, in general,’ said Kitty. ‘But we have not yet reached the concept of the Absurd. The hero of Adolphe experiences pain through his conscience. He does not explain it as a general rule. What we have here is a moment of supreme morality. I would refer you once again to the words.’ She looked down at her text. ‘Imprudences. Règles sévères. Faiblesse. Douleur profonde. I am, at the moment, picking these up at random.’ Under the table she glanced at her watch. ‘For next week, will you please bring a full list of such words. I think we shall arrive at a better understanding of the Romantic dilemma once we have them in front of us. That will do for now.’

  She closed the book in front of her, feeling pleasantly exercised. Such afternoons, once the initial nervousness had passed, gave her no trouble. She felt that she had left her onerous daily self behind, and with it all problems of nationality, religion, identity, her place in the world, what to cook for dinner, all thoughts of eventual loneliness and illness and death. She passed, at such times, into a sphere of pure meaning, derived from words written nearly two hundred years ago, and those very words, used for her enlightenment, did in fact enlighten her.

  Mr Mills took off his bifocals and put them back in their case. Larter stretched and yawned. The air was blue with smoke and stale concentration. Miss Fairchild released her hands and closed a notebook in which she had not made a single note. She never did.

  Kitty Maule, her manner and gesture precise, wished them good afternoon and waited until they were out of earshot. With their departure came silence, a friendless silence. I am not old enough for this way of life, she said to herself, and wondered why this had occurred to her. She would have liked to join them, to go on arguing, to have walked to the bus-stop with Mills and Larter. Ideally, she would have liked to travel home with someone, with Maurice, to be precise. She did not like going home. She did not like waiting on the station platform with the lights blurring in front of her tired eyes, her mouth stale with the taste of tea from the station buffet. She never managed to read on the train.

  On this particular day, at that dwindling hour between five and six, she was tired enough to allow herself to feel quite seriously down-hearted. She took a taxi at the other end with a sense of defeat, not of earned relaxation. As she put her key in the front door she wished there were someone
inside the house. At the same time, she had to be pretty deft to avoid her neighbour Caroline, the divorcee. Caroline, always available for a chat, thought that others should be too. Caroline’s door would open seductively, and she would say, ‘Oh, Kitty, I’m so depressed. Do come and talk to me.’ ‘Just hang on a minute, Caroline,’ Kitty would say. ‘I must dump these books. I’ll ring you later.’

  Once inside her own flat, she put on the lights and telephoned her grandmother to see if she were all right. Papa answered the telephone as usual; she could hear the television in the background, blasts of sycophantic laughter, gales of applause. They always had it on too loud. And Vadim never told her exactly how things were. Everything was always for the best in the best of all possible worlds; Louise had had a good day, rain was forecast for tomorrow, so take an umbrella, they had had marvellous onion soup for lunch, and it was so easy to make – would Thérèse like him to come over and make some for her? The work of an instant, no more. No? Of course Louise was, well, a little tired, perhaps, but they were not so young, my darling, you must expect this. What was she going to eat, he asked, and waited for the answer, enthralled. Kitty, who intended to have something on toast, told him that she would have a chop and some salad. Never neglect the vegetables, said Vadim passionately. And the cheese. Not too much coffee. She agreed. ‘Can I say goodnight to Maman Louise?’ asked Kitty, to cut him short. There was a pause, the dropped telephone picking up the sounds more clearly, then a creaking of footsteps, heavy steps, then a heavy breathing. Well, ma fille, said Louise, a good day? A good day, said Kitty. You wore the blue? Yes, agreed Kitty, she had worn the blue. Hang it up immediately, advised Louise. With pleats one can never be too careful. And tissue paper in the shoes, of course. Always, Kitty said, don’t worry, I always do as you say. Louise let a pause elapse, pregnant with disbelief. Then, goodnight, my pigeon. Sleep well. Until tomorrow.

  When Kitty replaced the telephone the silence was complete. It was such a very quiet street, she thought. She had always disliked those stories which begin, ‘In the town of H——, in the province of O——’. They seemed to shut her out. The action of Adolphe takes place ‘dans la petite ville de D——’. Such a refusal to give the story its usual complement of detail turns it into a sort of parable, makes one search for universal meanings which may not be there. She thought of her grandparents. Their love did not console her, was in fact a burden. She could never eat or wear enough to conciliate them with her way of life. Nor could she bring them any news that they would have wished to hear. She could not tell them what she had been doing, for in their eyes she had been doing nothing. The moral dilemmas of Adolphe would meet with total incomprehension, and she had the grace to spare them any self-important account of her success that afternoon, for it had been a success, she told herself. One always knew. Her landscape was as bare of imagery as Adolphe itself. She could not even tell Maurice, for his world was all of a piece; success in all one did was assumed without affectation. Besides, in his world, everyone was active and united. His mother sometimes came to his lectures, and was in the habit of driving off by herself to stay with friends in Scotland or Italy. People with houses.

  It was a question of conditioning, thought Kitty Maule, as she hung up her skirt. I function well in one sphere only, but all the others must be thought through, every day. Perhaps I will graft myself on to something native here, make a unity somehow. I can learn. I can understand. I can even criticize. What I cannot do is reconcile. I must work on that.

  Into her dreams that night came the unbidden words, ‘Mais quand on voit l’angoisse qui résulte de ces liens brisés …’, but she could not remember the rest.

  FIVE

  Kitty watched Maurice lower his spoon into his lemon pudding. She watched him until he had finished it, and as he helped himself to some more. He ate seriously, his eyes cast down.

  ‘Is it all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Everything you do is all right,’ he said, scraping his plate.

  She blushed with pleasure. He had never spoken to her in this way before.

  ‘No, I mean it,’ he said. ‘Redmile is astonishingly pleased with you. You seem to have done wonders with that group of his. He can’t get over it.’

  Kitty’s pleasure dimmed a little. Professional success seemed to her of little importance compared with the risks she took in trying to please him. And anyway, teaching was something she could do on her own, with no reference to Maurice, and no need for his help, either. But with an inward sigh she took her cue from him; it was what he wanted, and he was here, after all. That was what mattered.

  ‘They’re very easy to get along with,’ she said, piling their empty plates on to a tray. ‘Larter you know, of course.’ Everyone knew Larter, who had been cautioned for loitering outside the bicycle factory and who was capable of many embarrassing misdemeanours. ‘Larter is, quite simply, brilliant. Mills will go back to his college and never be heard of again. But he’s very nice. The one that worries me is Miss Fairchild. I can’t seem to get any sense out of her. Shall we have our coffee by the window?’

  Maurice took Kitty’s cigarette out of her mouth, put it into his own, and passed it back to her.

  ‘Jane Fairchild?’ he asked. ‘My mother thinks she’s rather bright.’

  ‘Your mother?’ said Kitty in astonishment, receiving the cigarette back.

  ‘She lives quite near us, in Gloucestershire. Her parents are friends of mine.’

  ‘She’s very beautiful,’ said Kitty, digesting this news.

  ‘Quite a pretty girl, yes.’ He moved over to the sofa, stretched out his long legs, and crossing his hands behind his head, slid down until he was nearly horizontal. Kitty’s eyes lingered lovingly on the crumpled cushions, displaced by his weight; they were always pristine when he was not here, and she hated them that way.

  After a minute he turned to her and smiled. ‘Where’s that coffee?’ he said.

  Kitty made the coffee and served him. They drank in silence. After a minute, she asked him about his trip to France. ‘More or less fixed,’ he said, and patted the seat next to him for her to sit down. She waited to hear more but the subject appeared to be closed. He murmured something about the car needing to be taken into the garage the following week.

  ‘And so you’re off? When exactly?’

  ‘Oh, three or four weeks’ time. As soon as term is over. Actually, I might sneak off a bit early. And I’ll stay there till the last minute. I’m not just inspecting these cathedrals, you know. They mean more to me than that.’

  Kitty looked at him. His face, without its perpetual smile was stern, sad. She had never seen him like this before.

  ‘What is it, darling? Are you depressed?’

  ‘No, my dear. I’m never depressed.’

  Darling. My dear. Kitty registered this, their usual exchange of endearments. She registered it every time.

  ‘Never depressed?’ she asked, her voice a little false in her effort to keep her balance. ‘I very much doubt if anyone else can say that. I’m depressed most of the time, I think.’

  Maurice turned his head towards her and resumed his smile.

  ‘Kitty,’ he said. ‘Kitty. You are absolutely without faith, aren’t you?’

  ‘Why, yes,’ she said. ‘How did you know?’

  He smiled even more fully, at the look on her face. ‘If you’ve got faith, you can always spot the ones without it. You, dearest Kitty, live in a world of unbelief. It makes you tense. I can’t tell you how simple life is when you know that you are being looked after. How you can survive one blow after another.’

  ‘Does God organize the blows?’ asked Kitty, somewhat tartly.

  ‘Who knows?’

  ‘Then what exactly do you believe in?’ asked Kitty.

  Maurice took his arms from behind his neck and sat forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor.

  ‘I believe in Providence,’ he said.

  Kitty was alarmed. He seemed strange this evening, locked up even
more securely into his private world, allowing her no access. And she was aware, for the first time, that he was an adult, a man, not just a phenomenon, an unexpected visitor to her own life, but a human being whom experience had marked, who was beginning to show these marks, whose graceful body held its own inevitable diminutions.

  She laid a hand on his arm. ‘Maurice,’ she said gently. ‘You don’t sound very happy when you talk of Providence. What is wrong?’

  He took a long time answering. Then, locking his hands together between his knees, he stared at the floor, as if some image had suddenly materialized there, as if it held a fascination bordering on enchantment.

  ‘What is wrong,’ he said, ‘is that I am without the one I love.’

  Kitty sat very still. Her distress for him was almost as great as her distress for herself. The street lamp outside her window blurred for a moment; then, resolutely, she stared at it until it became clear again. ‘That’s all, folks,’ cried an ebullient voice from the radio in Caroline’s flat, followed by an injunction to the audience to take care of itself and be at the same place, same time, next week.

  She turned her head to look at him.

  ‘Won’t you tell me about it?’ she asked, and her voice was just the same as it always was.

  He still sat staring at the floor, his hands knotted, his expression bleak. After a long pause he turned to her and looked at her as if she were a stranger. When he began to speak, it was as if his voice were coming from a long distance, from far back in his skull, as if it were travelling over territories of experience which Kitty had never even glimpsed.

  ‘Tell?’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to tell.’

  ‘Oh, Maurice,’ said Kitty sadly. ‘Don’t you trust me?’

  He smiled at her briefly, then returned his gaze to the floor.

  ‘No, really,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to tell. I never talk about it. I was in love with this girl and we were looking forward to getting married but she discovered that she had a vocation. She’s working with Mother Teresa in Calcutta. That’s all.’