Progress of Stories

by Laura (Riding) Jackson

  THE FORTUNATE LIAR

  His mother and father were a good pair. His mother was good and his father was good, and you might have spoken of them separately as each good and described them as a pair in a different fashion, such as to say that they were a fortunate pair—were it not that they were such an unfortunate pair that they were nothing above a good pair. That is, they were together only what each was separately because they were only an unfortunate pair. His mother and father were a good pair. They had nothing but their own goodness, and so were unfortunate. They had nothing and they did nothing; or at least they did nothing but to tell the truth, which was that they had nothing and did nothing. They were good and they told the truth and you might add to this that they were unfortunate, although it is all one. Unfortunate we may say of them in order to say of them at all, for mere goodness and truth-telling are not imaginable, certainly not to story-lovers. And yet it is too much to say of them, though it is the least we can say of them. This discrepancy, however, is the heart of the story. It is the son.

  The son had nothing, but he did not tell the truth. He was a liar. And therefore it cannot be said that he did nothing. His parents did nothing but to tell the truth; he did everything but to tell the truth. And so he was not good like them; neither was he unfortunate. The name of this story, then, might be The Fortunate Liar; the name of the story at the start, at any rate.

  It is only a start, but better a start than a middle or a finish or, worse yet, an anticipation. Here you have for certain an immediate provocation, excuse or reason to look, attend, raise the eye, bend the ear, apply the mind—in other words, to be alive, should other provocation, excuse or reason be at the moment wanting. Here you have a beginning of The Fortunate Liar, and by the same stroke you have, if you want encouragement, a beginning of you. A good start—who wishes for more? And who, having more, does not wish all the more for a good start? I think you must grant me this. Or we shall never come to the point. And if we do not come to the point, it shall not have been a good start.

  But even before coming to the point the story might be said to somewhat begin, as it is not unreasonable to think that as a ghost may appear of a person after his death, so one may appear before his birth. And the ghost here is in the sale of a name to the good pair, and with it, you might say, a son to bear it. For until that day they had no such idea. Indeed you might say the sale of the idea of a son. Well, and who sold it to them? They said a story like the story of their son-to-be. And what did they pay for it? They said themselves, which did not at all pinch them, since they were worth nothing.

  MOLLY BARLEYWATER

  O MOLLY BARLEYWATER, this is a black world without you, a dirty world. Your motto was: 'Whatever is not another is Molly and whatever is Molly must be clean in Molly's name.' And all were sluts except you, Molly; they lay in the open road of indifference and made nameless filth of themselves. But you made everything possible clean in your name. You were a responsible creature, Molly. You were everything possible. You had a spotless mind.

  I remember the last conversation I had with you. You said: 'All is variety. And variety at its fullest opposes to itself a oneness which, because it is in opposition to variety, is outside of it. We are endowed with variety. We may attain oneness.' 'And you would add, I suppose,' I suggested, 'that men are in variety, women in oneness.' 'Yes,' she said. 'Variety is the male making, oneness is the female consistency of the making. Oneness is the progressive suspense that forces the making perpetually to repeat itself, arriving at and recoiling again and again from oneness.'

  'There is hostility then between the two?' I asked. 'Oh yes,' she replied, 'co-operative hostility.'

  'From your earnestness and high feeling, dear Molly, I should say that you were really talking about love,' I teased.

  Indeed I am,' said Molly good-naturedly. 'For love amounts to the same thing—partnership and suspense.' Tell me about it,' I said. 'Well,' she said, 'suppose love is you and me. We explore each other to the limit of exploration, we employ each other to the limit of employment, we vary each other to the limit of variety. This is partnership. It goes on and on, it is repetition, it keeps reaching a limit, beyond the limit is what? oneness, suspense. You and me become we, we becomes I, and I is beyond, it is suspense, oneness.'

  'And what of beauty?' I asked. 'Beauty,' she answered, 'is to truth as hate is to love. In the presence of any difficulty of analysis, "beautiful" springs to the mouth instead of "true." '

  'And what of hate?' I asked. Now Molly's daughter Samson, a clever bald little girl, had entered the room just before I put this question, and so she naturally answered it. 'Hate is easily a thing,' she said. 'My daughter is very anticritical,' Molly said.

  'A remarkable child,' I commented. 'And what is your anti-critical method?' I asked little Samson herself. She replied: 'When I look at something I see all. To arrive at an opinion I therefore compare what I look at with what I see.'

  'A remarkable child,' I repeated. 'Yes,' said Molly Barley- water. 'Her real name is Linen.'

  BUTTERCUP

  HAVE I a scruple against discussing Buttercup with her handy-man? I have a scruple, I answer, a scruple for discussing her, and this is why I ask the question, to discuss Buttercup with her handy-man not by discussion but by scruple. It is like this: I am discussing with her handy-man who is also the handy-man of me and his name is Bert for a handy-man's name. And we discuss in the name of Buttercup because he is a handy-man Bert. I am no handy-man me, I discuss me in the name of Buttercup with handy-man Bert. What I say says: I am not Buttercup and what he says says: Buttercup is not you. And the sense of this is Bert; that is, Bert is a way for me not to be Buttercup and for Buttercup not to be me. Bert is the not-Buttercup-being of me and the not-me-being of Buttercup. What then is the difference between me and Buttercup? The difference between me and Buttercup is Bert. The difference between me and Buttercup is Bert, or a scruple of discussion. I will be more frank. You will say: we know that I am I, but what, in short terms, is she? She, in short terms, is what I should be if my only activity were the employment of the handy-man Bert. The employment of Bert is the least of the activities of me, the employment of Bert is the greatest of the activities of her. All the activities of her end at Bert, the activities of me may be said to begin at Bert. I mean, in Bert handyness comes to an end. There is practically no need of Bert, but a need can be made by stretching a point that practically is not to be practically a point. And she stretches the point amply, she says there is practically a need of Bert, that there may be practically a need of Buttercup. Buttercup haughtily demands Bert. I without haughtiness make use of Bert. If there were no I, only a handy-man Bert (and no practical need of him)—if there were no I, only a pointlessness, instead of me would be she. And this is the meaning of her haughtiness, her red hair and the placid over-certainty of all her parts: to make an impression of reality—on the handy-man Bert, of course; who receives the impression, but is not impressed. That is, he believes in her, as she desires; he judges her, as she desires; and judges harshly, since her desire is harsh, being a constriction upon him to exist, in the name of her reality. Whereas I make no constriction upon him to exist— with me he exists or does not, as he pleases. And he does not judge me; he has no impression of me; there is practically no need of him. Yes, I have a scruple for discussing Buttercup with her handy-man. It is a kindness, to leave her fate with him, from whom she gets a harsh mercy. For mercy or harshness she gets not at all from me, who, but for Bert, would directly connote her non-existence; which shows how peace may be kept by no more than a rhetorical scruple.

  THE FABLE OF THE DICE

  THERE was once a town doomed to destruction, and the inhabitants of the town knew this, and that three months must pass until the event, and that there was no escape. But although doom was certain, they preferred to make it a matter of opinion. For they said: If we admit doom certainly, we shall have three idle and free months to use up. We shall be without fear, we shall be forced to do
as we please, to be for three months immortal, for three months to control our fate.'

  So, instead of putting the fact of themselves on one side and the fact of doom on the other, they made of these two facts a confusion and hid themselves away in it from responsibility; instead of enjoying time, they marked time. They listened reverently to misty-minded old men who argued one way or the other, to no conclusion. They played dice in order to substitute chance for certainty, confusion for order, inaccuracy for accuracy; not to trick the doom which they knew must befall them, but to trick themselves of idleness, freedom, pleasure, immortality and power.

  In this town there was but one honest and happy person, an old woman, who said: 'In three months doom shall befall us and there shall be no escape.' And she refused to argue mistily or to play dice fatalistically. She danced, and they said: 'You are a wicked old woman.' 'No,' she answered, 'that is false. I am but an accurate old woman with a sharp sense of history.' 'Some say,' they told her, 'that in three months we shall all be destroyed. Is it not mad then to dance, in case this may be so?' 'This is so,' she answered, 'and it is therefore not mad to dance.' 'But why do you dance?' they asked her. 'In three months,' she said, 'we shall all be destroyed who dwell in this town. But until then I may dance my dance safely on this pink cloud.' 'What may the name of this dance be?' they asked. 'It is the dance of doom, which will befall us in three months and which therefore has already befallen.'

  The next day this old woman was burned for a witch, having first been tortured for a mad-woman. They watched her disappear from them in a pink cloud and returned to their dice- playing and to the arguments of the old men, covering themselves with mistiness in order to be taken by surprise by that which they knew well they were of themselves approaching.

  'They have burned me because I am historical,' said the old woman to herself on her pink cloud. 'They have burned me because I declared that the doom which shall befall the town in three months could make no difference to me, and indeed it cannot. Nor, indeed, can it make any difference to them. Like Napoleon, they merely pretend this because they have not the lightness to dance or the beauty to laugh or the courage to mount a pink cloud. Hugging the earth with their haunches, they bring doom mistily upon themselves in the trembling dice, to befall them not once but perpetually, as a long rain fills the open mouths of cowards.'

  A bat flew against her. 'Old woman,' it said, 'be not against me. Like you I am a lover of accuracy. I am a scholar.' 'Foulness,' she replied, 'you are a student of dice, as a mouse is of cheese, and are destined to the trap.' This was the last she heard of them, or they of her. The inaccurate dice keep the stage.

  PERHAPS AN INDISCRETION

  THINK of it: before the advent of Enough, Insufficiency prevailed. Insufficiency prevailed, but was made tolerable by climaxes of hunger during which the accredited prophets (being those with the largest appetites and hence suffering most) had visions of Enough, by which the accredited fanciers (being those with the smallest appetites and hence suffering least) fashioned little images of Enough, which were distributed among the starving population and had a beneficial effect upon it and were called luxuries. Naturally with the advent of Enough luxuries ceased to be created.

  Now wouldn't you think that the population would have been content with Enough? Oh, I don't mean that it was greedy and hungered for More. The prevalence of Enough was general enough, if it comes to that—More, remember, is only a cynical perversion of Insufficiency. No, the complaints were in quite another vein. I shall describe that painful situation as briefly as possible, for it is not pleasant to dwell upon. Remember, I am at the heart of these apparently remote events, and forgive me if I seem serious. What could be more forgivable?

  Briefly, then, the population complained of the materialism of the new era. It was generally agreed that life had lost charm with the passing of luxuries, and two parties arose, the Insufficiency Party and the Luxury Party. The Insufficiency Party stood for an unqualified return to the statics quo. It was, of course, the popular party. The Luxury Party was composed chiefly of ex-prophets and ex-fanciers and its programme was somewhat more delicate and at the same time more practical. 'Let us not deprive ourselves,' they declared, 'of the obvious benefits of this era, but let us not on the other hand sacrifice to these benefits sensibilities that have taken ages of Insufficiency to ripen. Let us, that is, accept the new facts but retain the old state of mind.'

  As was inevitable, the Insufficiency Party lost—simply because the status quo to which they wished to return no longer existed to return to. I shall now briefly describe the consequences of the victory of the Luxury Party. You must understand that after the advent of Enough the temper of life was, or rather should have been, adequacy. But the Luxurians, who now occupied all the important administrative posts, brought about a change in this temper, and little by little it came to be agreed that the entire population was leading a life of luxury. For a time all went well. But, as was inevitable, the population grew exhausted by those emotions which attend extravagance. Although the Superfluity that prevailed was only verbal, all the usual symptoms of excess set in. Whatever might be the truth of the situation, the fact of it was that the population was glutted.

  What would you recommend? You would recommend, presumably, a new state of mind. But how may this be brought about? Surely, you would say, by a new party. And what would you call your new party? You would, would you not, call it the Sufficiency Party? And how would you describe its programme? Undoubtedly, to banish the old state of mind by forbidding the use, hitherto obligatory, of all hyperbolic expressions. I agree that the word 'very' is very detrimental to a serene temper of adequacy. Very well. Little by little the population becomes sober. It ceases to feel gratitude, wonder, joy or abandon. It ceases, we might say, to feel. Very well. But have we now a new state of mind? Have we a state of mind at all? I trust not. In fact, is a new party necessary at all? Is anything necessary besides, as always, patience? Or rather was anything necessary besides, as always, patience? Or rather will anything be necessary besides, as always, patience? Ah, forgive me if I confuse the tenses. As I said, I am speaking from the centre of these apparently remote events, and it is disconcerting to me to find that my remarks do not seem authoritative. Indeed, I fear that I must ask you to regard them at this stage as being purely confidential. At what stage? Ah, that is for you to say, not me.

  ARISTA MANUSCRIPT

  'IF you shrink away into yourself, you are a hater. If you shrink away into others, you are a lover. If you do not shrink, it is not possible to say offhand what you are. If it is possible to say offhand what you are, it is an insolence for you to be alive and thus to give Words an insufficient subject to exercise themselves upon. They will exercise themselves upon you because they cannot do otherwise, being from always in complete running order. But they will not be able to justify themselves in you because you are not a complete subject; they will as usual seem excessive.'

  Thus in a few words Arista Manuscript told how she had no opinion of lovers or haters. Another time she expressed herself less violently. She said: 'Whether a person be a hater or a lover is all one to me. Either way the result is to substitute prejudices for verities. And what are prejudices? Prejudices are little subjects that make up in animation what they lack in extent.'

  'You may think that my discourse is disjointed,' she said still another time. 'Of course my discourse is disjointed, how could it be otherwise? Bring me a complete subject and I will give you coherence.'

  'Once a long smiling fellow came to me to have me make a final pronouncement upon jokes,' she went on to say. It seemed that he had a notion that a really final pronouncement upon jokes would induce a really final revelation of truth. Now, that long smiling fellow was mistaken, but he was exactly mistaken. For a final pronouncement upon jokes would exactly put out of question a final revelation of truth. As if an imaginary contriver of living things were to say: "I have now got as far as man. Having got as far as man, I need not contrive hi
m, he is indicated." So is it with humour and knowledge. I complimented that long smiling fellow on having brought me the most exactly incomplete subject that I had ever been invited to expatiate upon.'

  It goes without saying that Arista Manuscript was powerfully attracted to stories. 'Stories,' she said, 'are artificially complete subjects. And they satisfy because they convey a comfortable impression of poverty where there is no receptive apparatus for an impression of richness. Of course no story-reader would admit this, but that is the actual ground of pleasure. A story-reader would say, an impression of adequacy.' She was also fond of critics. 'They are so gentle,' she would say. 'They defend Words fiercely against Abuses, and yet not one of them in my protracted reign of observation has ever pointed out that Good Usage differs from Good Use as Good Behaviour from Goodness. The trouble is, they do not defend Words against Abuse, but only against Abuses, and instead of demanding Good Use, they demand only Good Uses, that is, Good Usage. That is, they demand only specimens. The result is Classics.' Other people admire critics because they are fierce. Arista Manuscript was fond of them because they were gentle, she would say. 'When people do not quite succeed in an object they have not quite specified, I am fond of them,' she would say.

  Of course, the sayings of Arista Manuscript are obscure unless one keeps in mind her ruling passion—a complete subject. And so with critics. Their destiny was not to have peace until the right thing was. Their destiny was not to have peace and their function was not to give peace—until. 'Quite,' said Arista Manuscript. She agreed that she had no cause to complain of them in their manner with the wrong things, the false subjects. 'But,' she said bitterly, 'they are too anxious to be off to sleep to distinguish between a part and a whole. They allow themselves to be soothed with phrases because they are too lazy to specify—for themselves to wait upon as well as authors— entity. And so, while they keep falling asleep, they also keep waking up.'