by Iris Murdoch
‘Hitler?’
‘Yes, unpredictable, unimaginable things. Space travel. We are surrounded by a future we can’t conceive of. We’re like those natives in New Zealand who just went on fishing because they couldn’t see Captain Cook’s ship – there it was in the bay, but they couldn’t conceptualise it.’
‘I like that. But what you can’t know you can’t know.’
‘Rose, human life is too short, not just that it’s sad to spend so little time at the play, but it’s too short for serious thinking – thinking needs a long training, a long discipline, a long concentration – even geniuses must have felt they were tiring too soon, giving up when they’d just begun to understand – philosophy, perhaps human history, would be quite different if we all lived to be two hundred.’
‘Our lives are quite long enough to have some fun, do some work, love a few people and try to be good.’
‘Yes, yes, but we’ve got to, some of us have got to, try to think about what’s happening, and to fight –’
‘Against what?’
‘Against – how can I put it – against history. All right, this sounds crazy – Rose, it’s so difficult, I can’t even pick it up yet – I feel like I felt in my first term of philosophy at Oxford, as if I were crawling round and round a slippery sphere and couldn’t get inside.’
‘Why bother to get inside? That might have been worth trying when you were a student, but why bother now?’
‘You mean – well, yes, I was too young then – perhaps I’m too old now – that thought hurts terribly.’
‘I don’t mean to hurt you.’
‘You’re pouring on cold water, buckets and buckets of it, but that’s right, one must be cool, one must be cold –’
‘I don’t understand. Is Crimond on the side of history?’
‘Yes. History as a slaughterhouse, history as a wolf that wanders outside in the dark, an idea of history as something that has to be, even if it’s terrible, even if it’s deadly.’
‘I thought Marxists were optimists who thought the perfect society would soon emerge everywhere as the victory of socialism.’
‘They used to be. Some still are, others are haggard with fear but hanging on. Crimond thinks we must purify our ideas with visions of utopia during a collapse of civilisation which he thinks is inevitable.’
‘And looks forward to, no doubt! He’s a determinist, as they all are.’
‘He’s a black determinist, that’s the most dangerous and attractive kind. Marxism as despair, and as the only possible instrument of thought, the only philosophy that will be ready to look after a period of unavoidable authoritarian government.’
‘And as the ark carrying the new values. All the old bourgeois ones will be extinct.’
‘He’s trying to grasp the whole problem – Of course I don’t agree –’
‘I don’t think there is a whole problem, or that we can imagine the future, no one in the past managed it.’
‘I can’t convey it, the book is a huge interconnected argument, and it’s not just pessimistic – it’s very utilitarian, that’s always been the nicest part of Marxism! It’s about everything – there’s a lot about ecology and kindness to animals –’
‘Suitable for women!’
‘Rose, it’s a very high-minded book, about justice, about suffering –’
‘I don’t believe it. He wants to liquidate the bourgeois individual, that is the individual, and bourgeois values, that is values! He believes in the inevitability of cruelty.’
‘It’s a comprehensive attack on Marxism by a very intelligent Marxist, an attempt to think the whole thing through – you’ll see –’
‘I won’t. I might look up ecology in the index, and animals, kindness to –’
‘Rose, please don’t just mock –’
‘You seem to be overwhelmed because the book looks like “what the age requires”, a new synthesis and all that, but if it’s just Marxism rules the world and utopia beyond, that’s not new, it’s just the old dictatorship of the proletariat in modern dress – and it’s everything that you detest anyway, so why are you so impressed? I don’t believe in Crimond’s ark, his boat which is going to shoot the rapids.’
‘Well, what do you believe in?’
‘I think we’ve got to protect the good things that we have.’
‘But really – ahead – what do you see? Catastrophe? Après nous le déluge?’
Rose was silent. Gerard had got up and was leaning over the back of his chair, his face illumined by a glare of excitement which seemed to Rose something comic, an intensification of his usual zany smile. At last, unwilling to say yes, she simply nodded.
Gerard turned away and began to walk up and down the room. ‘Rose, have you got any of those chocolate biscuits?’
‘The dark ones, those very dry ones? Yes, I’ll get them.’
The table still carried their plates covered in fragments, the cheese and the plum cake, the apples in a pretty bowl.
‘I’m still hungry. I’ll have some of the cake too. Is it Annushka’s?’
As Rose, in the kitchen, found the tin with the chocolate biscuits, she reflected that what was enlivening her in this argument with her old friend was physical desire, the debate was, for her, sex, her urgent agonising wish to be in bed with him transformed into repartee, as he said into mockery, just that, and not the future of civilisation!
Gerard was eating the plum cake, now the biscuits, now attacking the cheese, walking about and dropping crumbs on the carpet. Watching him trampling in the crumbs Rose said in exasperation, ‘You keep praising this book, but you say it’s all wrong! If it’s Marxism it must be. Isn’t that the end of the matter?’
‘No – no – it’s the beginning. When you read it –’
‘I’m not going to read it! I think it’s a detestable book, I wish it didn’t exist.’
‘You’ve got to read it.’
‘Why?’
‘For reasons I’ll explain in a minute. In a way I wish it didn’t exist, it will encourage fools and knaves and have a lot of bad results, yet I’m glad it exists too, it will force its opponents to think, it shows that people can have, just in this crucial area, new thoughts.’
‘Books of new thoughts are published every week.’
‘No they aren’t, not pointed at just this spot.’
‘The revolution, the greatest in human history. It’s just sensationalism, all it will stir up is all our old ideas.’
‘Then we must have some new ones.’
‘We can’t. Oh Gerard I’m so tired.’
‘Darling, sorry, don’t get sleepy again – I want to tell you –’
‘I’m going on a cruise with Reeve and the children, a long cruise, a world cruise.’
‘Oh.’ This arrested Gerard. ‘When?’
‘At Easter. Well, not a world cruise, but longish, weeks – I can’t remember.’
‘Oh. That should be nice.’
‘I’m going to see much more of them, I’m going to change my life, I’m going to sell this flat and go and live in Yorkshire.’
‘Rose! You’re not to!’
‘Why ever not? Who’s to stop me?’
‘I am. Look, all right go on this damn cruise, see your family if you want to –’
‘Thanks!’
‘But just listen to what I’m going to say.’
‘All right, all right!’
‘Wake up.’
‘I am awake. I’m sorry to be so dismissive about Crimond’s book, I’m sure it’s no good, though it certainly seems to have done something to you, but you’ll get over it, it’s nothing to do with us.’
‘We financed it.’
‘That was an accident. You’ll soon forget it. It hasn’t changed your life.’
‘It has, actually – this is what I want to explain. This book must be answered, and it can be answered, point by point.’
‘All right, review it – only you said you wouldn’t.’
�
�It deserves more than a review.’
‘What then?’
‘An equally long book.’
‘Who will write that?’
‘I will.’
Rose stooped and picked up some crumbs from the carpet and dropped them on the table. She felt, not yet comprehensible to her, a sense of doom, as of a death sentence written in a foreign language. She said wearily, ‘Oh don’t – don’t do that.’
‘Rose, I must. It’s my duty.’
‘Gerard, it’s vanity, wanting to do this, it’s simply vanity. You can’t start a long book now, you haven’t time.’
‘I’ve got to – for Jenkin – for Sinclair – for all of us.’
‘Don’t be so romantic – sentimental –’
‘Crimond’s book is deep, and it’s fizzing with ideas – some of it’s partly right, much of it’s absolutely terrifyingly wrong.’
‘You’ll write a commentary on it.’
‘No! I must write my own book. I see how to do it now. It will mean a vast amount of reading, and thinking till one screams – but I feel now, nothing else matters – that book must not go unanswered –’
‘Funny,’ said Rose, scraping the apple parings and the minutely chopped cheese from her plate onto Gerard’s and placing his plate on top of hers, ‘I used to think that at some time, perhaps when you retired, you and I might have some sort of different happiness together, I don’t mean anything special, just like going to Venice or something. I even thought we might have some fun together. Poor Rose, she wanted to be happy, but alas it was not to be. Yes, it’s time I went to Yorkshire. I’ll go riding over the dales with Reeve and Neville and Gillian.’
‘Look, I shall need a research assistant.’
‘Try Tamar.’
‘I thought of you, we could work together.’
‘Gerard –’
‘That’s why you’ve got to read that book, you’ve got to study it – and why you mustn’t leave London. We might live close to each other, next door, even share a house – why not? I’ve thought –’
Rose began to laugh. ‘Share a house?’
‘Why ever not? I think it’s a good idea. We needn’t be in each other’s pockets. But we could meet every day –’
Rose went on laughing helplessly. ‘Oh – Gerard – you and I – share a house –’
‘Well-?’
‘No, no, it’s out of the question.’
‘All right,’ said Gerard, picking up his coat, ‘and you don’t care for the research assistant idea?’
‘No, I don’t!’
‘Well, maybe it was a silly idea. I’ll find someone. You’re tired. What the hell are you laughing at?’
Rose, sitting at the table, was laughing hysterically, covering her wet mouth and eyes with Gerard’s fine white handkerchief. ‘Oh just – you – or history – or – something!’
‘I’ll say goodnight then,’ said Gerard rather stiffly, putting on his overcoat. ‘Thank you for supper. I’m sorry I made those absurd, as you evidently think them, suggestions.’
‘Wait a minute!’ Dropping the handkerchief Rose darted to him, she seized the sleeves of his coat, still damp from the rain and shook him, pulling him for a moment off his balance so that they both nearly fell to the floor. ‘Don’t be such a fool, do you understand nothing? Of course I’ll be your research assistant, and of course we’ll share a house or live next door or whatever you want – but if this happens we’ve got to have a pact – it must be like getting married, I mean like getting married, I’m tired of having nothing, I want something at last, we must be really together, I must have some sort of security – I’ll read the book, I’ll do anything you want, but I must feel at last – or is it hopeless – oh that book – you’re not going to marry Crimond, are you?’
‘Rose, are you going mad?’
‘You’ll want to be with him, to discuss the book.’
‘I don’t want to see him yet, perhaps not for ages, he may not want to see me, I suppose we’ll meet sometime, but we can’t be friends – because –’
‘You’re not going to go away – and marry someone else – we’ll be together –’
‘Yes, yes, and you can go on your cruise, but you’re not to go and live in Yorkshire.’
‘Because you need a research assistant.’
‘Because I need you.’
‘I’m making you say these things.’
‘Rose, don’t be so exasperating, you know I love you.’
‘I don’t know, I know nothing, I live on the edge of blackness – if you follow this book idea I’ll go with you – but I must have some sort of security.’
‘You have security! You’re Sinclair’s sister, you’re my closest friend. I love you. What more can I say?’
Rose released him. ‘Indeed. What more can you say. And you remember – well, why should you remember. So we’ll live together, or next door, or nearby, and see each other often –’
‘Yes, if you want it.’
‘You suggested it.’
‘Because I want it.’
‘All right then. Now go home. I really am tired.’
‘Rose, don’t be so –’
‘Go now. I’m all right. I’ll help you with your book.’
‘Goodnight, darling. Don’t be angry with me, dearest Rose. I really do love you. I’ll make you believe it. We may even go to Venice.’
After he had gone Rose cried quietly, soaking the white handkerchief and dropping her tears onto the stained rosewood of the table. She thrust the plates away and poured out some more whisky. Oh the tears she had shed for that man, and they were certainly not yet at an end.
She felt exhausted, aware that something large had happened, but not sure what it was, whether it was something to her advantage, or a terrible mistake, the throwing away of her last card. How impeccably, she felt, she must have behaved all these years, so many of them now, to be thinking of her behaviour tonight as such an outrageous display of emotion! She felt remorseful and ashamed, she had shouted at him, she had said what she thought. She had said that she loved him and that she had got nothing in return, which was not only not true, but definitely not good form. She had seen Gerard wince at her tone and at the crudity of her formulation. These were old griefs, often privately rehearsed, concerning which she had never, that she could remember, exclaimed so to their innocuous author. What she regretted most bitterly however about the recent scene, and what left her now so limp with apprehension, was that she had actually revealed to Gerard what she had so often thought, that what she wanted from him was a promise. What of all things was more likely to alienate him, to make him cautious and aloof, than such a claim made upon him by a hysterical woman? It was just what he would dislike most that she had so thrust against him. Oh how imprudent, how perhaps fatally unwise.
It was true that what had occasioned her indiscretion was Gerard’s own suggestion that they should share a house, his use of these words which evoked what, in her modest way, she had always hoped for! He had, more precisely, said live near each other, live next door or share a house, separate flats no doubt, not in each other’s pockets. It was she who had then made conditions, demands for ‘security’, and in a turbulent manner most likely to make him tactfully withdraw. She pictured now the coolly grateful way in which she should have greeted his idea! In any case, the notion of proximity had come up as a matter of convenience, of having one’s research assistant close at hand! What on earth would that collaboration, if it came to it, be like? Would she be capable of such a demanding and such a protracted task? Would she be able to study and understand that difficult book whose ‘wrong-headedness’ she would hate and fear, settle down to hard and perhaps uncongenial work, living with the continual possibility of disappointing and displeasing Gerard? Suppose she tried it for six months and was then replaced by a competent young woman? Oh the traps and miseries which dog all human desires for happiness, one ought not to desire it! Now Gerard was excited by the book, it filled him with new
life and strength, but later perhaps, defeated by it, unable to write his great ‘reply’, it might bring him down into humiliation and despair. She might have to witness that. The whole situation was fraught with possibilities of new and awful pain, now that she was no longer young and wanted rest and peace. This wish for peace, she realised, had been wafted to her by Reeve and his children, had come to her at Fettiston, moving towards her, over the moors, out of that quiet well-remembered landscape. She was, she realised, very much looking forward to the cruise! Well, Gerard had given her leave to go. But as she became, if she became, more involved in his work, more necessary, she would increasingly disappoint her newly discovered family, who were kind enough to need her, would be bound to neglect them and hurt their feelings by being seen to be the property of Gerard. But had she not always wanted just that, to be the property of Gerard? I am a wretch, she thought, I am luckier than almost anyone in the world but I have always made myself discontented by an obsession which I ought long ago to have controlled or banished.
Rose had drunk some more whisky and eaten some more of Annushka’s rich plum cake. She had begun to feel she would have to sit up all night in a state of painful excitement going over and over these pictures of the recent past and the near future. As, to encourage herself to go to bed at last, she kicked off her shoes and undid her stockings she began to think about Crimond. She had wanted the book to be over, to be an ending, something drifting away at last and taking its author with it. Now of course, if Gerard was right about it, there would be reviews, discussions, controversies, photographs of Crimond in the papers, his voice on radio, his face on television. Crimond would be famous. This was something they had not imagined during that long time when the ‘surly dog’ had been wandering around somewhere outside in the dark. If only she could believe that there was something which would pass, pass away, like the publication date of the book itself. If only she could believe now, as she believed before, even hours ago, that they, she and Gerard, had really finished with Crimond, that he would become a name of someone who had published a book which no one read or noticed. What was now seeping into her troubled consciousness like a dark dye was the thought that Crimond could not thus belong to the past. He belonged, perhaps hugely, like his book, to the future. Gerard had said he had no plans to see Crimond. But in the nature of things, in the nature precisely of his own enterprise, he would have to. They would be drawn together. At some point, surely, he would long to argue with Crimond, to question, to persuade, to try out his own ideas upon so strong an opponent. Perhaps it was even, half-consciously, the prospect of this combat face to face which was making Gerard so excited and so passionate. Or could she believe that Gerard would cool, see the book as ordinary and his own enthusiasm as a passing mania? Did she want to believe that Gerard would calm down and lose interest and that all that ardour, that great intent, would come to nothing after all?