The Sacred and Profane Love Machine

by Iris Murdoch

  Monty had torn up the letter after one quick perusal. His mother had written him love letters when he was younger, but never since his marriage. The change of style had been designed to hurt. Now there could be love letters again. How much his dear mother must enjoy these fluxes of feeling. God is mother, mother is God. Leonie had never deeply or absolutely loved her curate husband, there had been reservations. Marriage had been a social and emotional disappointment to her. She had played earnestly at religion as now she played earnestly at Social Work. Monty had been for her the erotic, the mystical. His literary success and fame had crowned her life.

  Monty had not given up his mother. He had never disloyally assented to Sophie’s frequent criticisms of her mother-in-law, though he had laughed at Sophie’s spiteful jokes, of which the sheer joie de vivre seemed to lessen the bite. He did not feel appalled by the great machine of maternal love which, silenced, purred strongly away. Sensitive to those vibrations, he simply averted his attention, rose to no challenge, understood no hint With precocious prescience as quite a small boy he had decided that he would not let his mother kill him, as it seemed that she might easily do, by the sheer intensity of her love, like a huge sow rolling over on its young. The small boy stiffened, receded. There was a scarcely perceptible coldness. Leonie felt it and was mortally afraid and concealed her fear. Monty felt the hidden fear and learnt an enduring lesson. They eyed each other like circling adversaries. Somewhere inside that silent contest there came into being the embryo of Milo Fane.

  Monty was lying in the orchard grass. It was the afternoon. The sun, which had filled the whole sky as if attempting to blot out its blue with sheer gold, sizzled through the green leaves in sudden stars and needles of dazzling light. A very very distant cuckoo drew attention to the silence. Under the canopy of the leaves the air was hot and sultry and smelt of hay. The little haystack in the corner of the orchard exuded a damp delicious almost burning smell as if it might burst into flames at any moment. There could be thunder later but there was as yet no menace in the thick sweet air. The grass was still green and lush in its second growth. Though sun-warmed, it had a jaunty seeming of coolness. Monty, in shirt sleeves and sweating, was lying on his stomach, propping his chin. David, in flowery beach shirt over swimming trunks, was extended close by, lying on his back. They had been talking intermittently.

  ‘I dreamt that a large blue flying-fish was wandering about my room,’ David was saying, ‘it was wandering about in the air just above my head and I was terribly worried because I felt I ought to catch it and put it in water otherwise it would die, and I kept running after it with a butterfly net, and then suddenly I was in the school chapel, and the fish came down quietly like a bird and lay on the altar...’

  How beautiful the boy is, thought Monty. That glow of youth, the perfect object of desire. How bitter, the fading of the body, the absolute condemnation to the loss of the first lustre. How stupidly he had wasted his own youth, joyless, pretending, building up that cold ‘frightful’ persona which had so much impressed fools like Edgar Demarnay. His brief love affairs had been self-conscious egocentric dramas. He had not even studied with passion. Perhaps surviving Leonie had impaired his strength. Perhaps that little whiff of her terror had inspired him too early with an unholy sense of power. No wonder Milo Fane, the remorseless killer who never smiled, had been his nemesis and the grave of his talent Until Sophie he had been only half alive. Sophie’s little neat splendours, her bright-faced energy, her crazy joy had glorified him, and given him the sheer strength required to support the pain which, with the other hand, she dealt him. Sometimes he felt like a victim constantly revived in order to suffer more. If only, he felt, he had not had to be so jealous, he could have got rid of Milo, he could have let Sophie, artless, thoughtless, brilliant, transform him into a human being, into an artist. If only jealousy had not had to mar that perfect love before death ended it. If only he had somehow known how to conduct himself differently. Well, he had tried, in hours of meditation. And what a wreck he was now. Was he destined to begin his manhood as Milo Fane and to complete it as Magnus Bowles?

  ‘Dreams are rather marvellous, aren’t they,’ David was saying. ‘They can be beautiful in a special way like nothing else. Even awful things in dreams have style, not like real things which disgust one, like watching the dogs eat’

  ‘There is a fresh pure innocence about some dream images,’ said Monty, ‘only one mustn’t interrogate them too much.’

  ‘You mean like my father?’

  ‘Just let them come, visit, like birds.’

  ‘You don’t believe in "the deep dream life from which all life emerges" as my father puts it in his latest article?’

  ‘No,’ said Monty. ‘A dream is a story you feel inclined to tell at breakfast time.’

  ‘You can’t mean that! Don’t you think there are deep causes, machinery sort of, that it all means something?’

  ‘It depends what you mean by "deep".’

  ‘Is this like what you were saying earlier on about religious imagery?’

  ‘Religious imagery is partly aesthetic,’ said Monty. ‘It’s worked on. But it’s complice in the same sort of way.’

  ‘You mean –? ’

  ‘It’s all to do with the hygiene of the ego. A successfulreligion is a recipe for an innocent-feeling fantasy life and happy sex.’

  ‘Even if one’s a hermit or an ascetic on a pillar?’

  ‘Especially if one’s a hermit or an ascetic on a pillar.’

  ‘My father says religion is based on the need for self-punishment.’

  ‘Your father has his own favourite viewpoint. Some aspects of religion are self-punishment. Religion is a big business.’

  ‘You don’t believe in religion, do you, Monty?’

  ‘I don’t believe in that sort of religion.’

  ‘But you believe in some sort, in the sort that would really be "deep"?’

  Monty was silent for a while. He did not want to talk about these things to David, only David’s youth made the conversation possible, but this also made it fruitless. Monty did not want to find himself seeking gratification in uttering impressive half-truths. In fact none of this could really be explained at all. ‘Varro said that some gods died out of sheer neglect.’

  ‘So –?’

  ‘When all the gods have died of neglect real religion can begin.’

  ‘I don’t understand. What about me and Jesus Christ?’

  ‘Oh never mind about Jesus Christ,’ said Monty. ‘He’ll go away. Like a rainbow goes away.’

  ‘Well, I wish he’d be quick about it,’ said David. ‘Come to think of it, he was in that dream too. Yet how can he have been? He was the one who was trying to catch the blue flying-fish in his net, and we were in the school chapel – or was he the fish?’

  Monty was looking at David’s outstretched arm which was lying close to him in the grass. He studied the haze of short curving light-golden hairs, and the blue veins inside the elbow where the skin was delicate and almost white, and he felt a sudden impulse to lean forward and place his mouth there in the moist pit of the elbow and feel upon his lips the warm beating of the blood. Sophie is dead, thought Monty, and I am wanting to kiss a boy’s arm. Is this some first horrible signal of a mindless return to life? If so, I reject it. But no, he replied to himself, it means nothing, or rather, like David’s Jesus Christ, it doesn’t matter. I must get beyond, I must get through, or else my fate is Magnus and the white egg.

  ‘Why don’t you try putting water into it?’ said Harriet. ‘Just put more and more water in and that will gradually reduce the dose.’

  ‘I’d just drink more water to get the same amount of alcohol,’ said Edgar. ‘You see, my system knows, you can’t dupe it.’

  ‘Have you tried prayer?’

  ‘What a wonderful woman you are! Not a woman in a thousand would ask me if I’d tried prayer. Yes, as a matter of fact I have. But the effects are temporary. I’d have to make myself a better man for t
he prayer to be effective and part of becoming a better man would be giving up drink.’

  ‘Can’t you just decide to give it up?’

  ‘I’ve tried that too. The pain of it, it’s like physical agony.’

  ‘Like drug addicts have?’

  ‘Ordinary consciousness simply becomes pain. I’ve just thought of something that might work though, something that I’ve never tried before.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If you were to order me to cut it down -’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes. You see what puny faith I have, I only say cut it down, not cut it out, but if you were to order me -’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘Because – you know why – Harriet – darling —’

  ‘Oh you are silly! All right Edgar, I order you to cut down the drinking.’

  ‘Thank you. I think I’ll just have a little more now, all the same.’

  ‘No, you must forgo this drink.’

  ‘Must I? Well, good, yes, if you say so.’

  Harriet laughed. They were sitting in the kitchen at the round table. Harriet had been tailing strawberries and the thick dappled smell of the fruit hung in the room like a gaudy cloud.

  ‘What a lovely dress you’re wearing, Harriet, it’s all strawberries and cream, or more like strawberry trifle. Girls are so clever.’

  ‘I’m so glad you met Blaise and had an interesting chat about that Greek man who cured people by talking.’

  ‘Antiphon. Yes. Your husband was very kind to me.’

  ‘He’s a kind man.’

  ‘If I was your husband I should view me with suspicion.’

  ‘Why ever should he? We’re very married. I have various men friends.’

  ‘Have you? Oh dear. I hoped I was the only one.’

  ‘Well, you know there’s Monty. Fancy your having known him such a long time.’

  ‘People always go off on to Monty as soon as they know I know him.’

  ‘I’d love you to tell me what Monty was like when he was young.’

  ‘That’s exactly what Sophie said to me the day she met Monty.’

  ‘Fancy your having introduced them. It’s so historic. How did you meet Sophie?’

  ‘She was acting in a verse translation of the Agamemnon made by me. She was Clytemnestra. I got the chop all right.’

  ‘But – before Monty came – did Sophie love you?’

  ‘No,’ said Edgar thoughtfully, ‘she loved Mockingham.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘My house. Will you come and see it?’

  ‘So you brought Sophie and Monty together.’

  ‘It was fated. This was fated. There are some people who, all through their lives, seem to regulate your destiny, even if they despise you.’

  ‘Monty doesn’t despise you.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Edgar. ‘I am despicable. Why shouldn’t he despise me?’

  ‘What nonsense you talk. Monty needs you.’

  ‘I wish that was true. I think I just remind him of too many things. People can be detested for that.’

  ‘Besides you’re so clever and learned. Monty said you were a famous scholar. You still haven’t told me what you’re a scholar of.’

  ‘Oh early Greek stuff, nothing important’

  ‘But what? Tell me a little about what you know about.’

  ‘Very little is known about what I know about That’s why it’s so easy.’

  ‘Tell me some of the people you study.’

  ‘Anaxagoras. Anaximander. Anaximnenes. Antiphon. Alcman.’

  ‘I haven’t heard of any of them.’

  ‘Aristotle.’

  ‘I’ve heard of him. Why do they all begin with A?’

  ‘Because they were servants of Athena and lived at the beginning of the world. But then there was Thales.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He thought.’

  ‘What did he write?’

  ‘He wrote nothing.’

  ‘How can he be important then?’

  ‘Socrates wrote nothing. Christ wrote nothing.’

  ‘What sort of thing were they all discovering, your people?’

  ‘That the universe is ruled by laws.’

  ‘But isn’t that obvious?’

  ‘It wasn’t then. The human mind is a funny slow old thing.’

  ‘Would everything they thought seem obvious to us?’

  ‘No. Parmenides thought that nothing really existed except one changeless object. And Empedocles thought that Love could fuse everything in the universe into a spherical god which did nothing but think.’

  ‘That sounds to me like Magnus Bowles’s white egg.’

  ‘Who is Magnus Bowles? Is he one of your numerous men friends?’

  ‘No, he’s a patient of Blaise’s. I’ve never met him. A poor chap.’

  ‘You say that with such sweet pity. Won’t you pity me too? Let me be one of your poor chaps.’

  ‘I certainly don’t pity you! All right, you may have a little more, but I’m going to put a lot of water into it.’

  ‘Heraclitus said dry souls were better than wet souls. A dry soul goes up, a wet soul goes down.’

  ‘Surely your men were poets, not philosophers.’

  ‘It’s ages since I talked to a woman properly. I don’t mean I talked improperly. I mean I talked at dinner parties.’

  ‘What made you decide to be a Greek scholar?’

  ‘A man called John Beazley.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘A Greek scholar. A god. When I think about Beazley I curl up with unworthiness.’

  ‘Were you his favourite pupil?’

  ‘No! I was a worm. Unrequited love has always been my lot Look at this situation.’

  ‘There is no situation, Edgar.’

  ‘Not for you. You are the unmoved mover. Yet in a wayunrequited love is a contradiction. If it’s true love, it somehow contains its object. There’s proof of God’s existence like that.’

  ‘That sounds like your chap who thought love could roll everything up into a ball.’

  ‘Never mind. I may not know much about Empedocles, but I know quite a lot about love. Don’t you worry. Just let me love you. May I hold your hand? Would Blaise mind? I’m terribly harmless you know.’

  Harriet laughed. She did not know what to make of this big boyish clever middle-aged man who had suddenly appeared in her life. It was true that she had a few men friends, mainly people she had met through Adrian and had known for years and years. But Harriet was not a flirt and had no gift for badinage. There was nothing playful and certainly nothing unpredictable in these relationships. Edgar seemed to have come close to her in some hitherto unknown way, by some route which she did not know existed. Laughing, she let him take her hand for a moment, squeezed his, and rose. ‘Let’s go out into the garden. I want you to meet the dogs.’

  ‘I wish you’d come to Mockingham. Blaise too of course. Would you? My mother was a great gardener.’

  Harriet pushed open the garden door. Leaving the strawberry canopy behind them, they went out on to the lawa The dogs who had been sitting and lying in a group, holding a meeting, rose respectfully and advanced. Edgar stroked Ajax, then sat down on the grass and let the dogs, who suddenly became excited, climb on top of him. Chuckling explosively he lay back on the grass. Pushing each other, they began ecstatically to lick his face.

  Monty, who had just presented David with a pair of Bohemian glass finger bowls and sent him away unkissed, observed this scene from the shadow of the orchard trees. It filled him with anger. He walked slowly back towards Locketts, meditating upon this anger, its nature and its cause.

  Emily McHugh was sitting on the floor in her sitting-room. The floor was covered with newspaper. She had set out Luca’s big drawing board, pinned paper to it, laid out his coloured pencils, his poster paints, brushes, water. Sometimes he could thus be persuaded to paint. He never sought out the paints for himself. When he did paint it was often very good. E
mily had a huge multi-coloured picture of a cat pinned up in the kitchen. It was as good as Matisse. It gave her much consolation.

  This morning in Luca’s bedroom, she had found the woolly piglet which Blaise had given Luca, hanging by its neck on a string from the end of the bed. Emily released the animal.

  It was Sunday. The weather was still hot but murky, the sun shining through a haze. Pinn was out drinking with a chap, a bank manager, with whom she always went out drinking on Sunday mornings. Emily could not find the Italian cameo brooch which Blaise had given her in the first days of their love. Had vile Pinn borrowed it? Or had Emily lost it? She often lost things and forgot things now.

  She sat down on the floor with her legs stretched out, wearing her old pink quilted dressing-gown, sipping a glass of sherry, her back against the tattered chair which Richardson used as a claw sharpener. Peach and grey Richardson was lying like a long warm sausage against one of her bare legs. Little Bilham sitting on top of the bookshelves opposite, his tail curled neatly round his front paws, stared at Emily with golden unwinking eyes. How wicked cats’ faces are, thought Emily, even the faces of dear cats, one’s very own, are somehow alien and cruel. Or do I just see cruelty everywhere now? Below Little Bilham Emily’s French texts, battered and dirty, reeled on the shelves. Emily never looked at them now. She hardly read anything except the newspaper. Blaise used to bring her books once.

  Luca was kneeling on the floor and energetically making a pencil scrawl on the corner of his drawing board, not on the paper but on the board. Emily had been sitting in silence with him for some time. She often did this at weekends, or tried to. Sometimes he went away, leaving any room she entered. Sometimes there was, she thought, a kind of silent communion. At least he tolerated her presence. Emily had leamt on these occasions not to watch him too closely. As long as she looked at the cats and not at him, and above all refrained from tears, he might stay. At any sign of emotion he quietly went, leaving the room noiselessly like an animal, vanishing like a fox. So Emily sat quietly, breathlessly, rapt as if in prayer, letting her heart simply fill and brim over with pure thoughtless love for her son.