The World in the Evening

by Christopher Isherwood

  Sarah rattled on about me, and the things I’d said and done when I was a kid. You’d probably heard them all before, but you smiled and seemed to listen very attentively. I just stared at you. You were so utterly different from what I’d expected. How could I have expected you, anyway? I’d never met anyone in the least like you.

  Your rather long, amused mouth, and your grey eyes with that marvellous light in them, so alive, so aware of everything around you. Your clear thoughtful voice, that gave special shades of meaning and second meaning to even the most ordinary words. And the way you moved, making everything you did seem exactly right, as if it couldn’t be done otherwise. I thought you must be a very happy person. It made me happy, simply being in the room with you. I knew you must be about ten years older than me—in your thirties, certainly—but that wasn’t important; you could have been sixty, and I’d have felt the same. If I’d had to describe you, then, I’d have just said, ‘She’s beautiful.’

  I remember our second meeting much more clearly. It was later that same evening. I felt as if I couldn’t possibly sleep until I’d talked to you again, alone. So, after Sarah had gone to bed, I went up and knocked on your door, all ready prepared with an excuse that I wanted to borrow a book I’d noticed on your shelf. It was Cocteau’s Rappel à L’Ordre. I had a copy of it downstairs in my suitcase, but I chose it because I thought it would start an interesting discussion and because it would show you I could read French. And then you opened the door and seemed delighted, and exclaimed, ‘But this is positively telepathic! I was just wondering if I dared come down and disturb you—’ For a moment, I was struck breathless with joy and excitement. I don’t know exactly what I thought you were going to say. I suppose I expected some amazing declaration that you liked me, thought me interesting, wanted us to be friends. Or, maybe, even more than that. In the crazy state of mind I was in, nothing seemed impossible. But then you went right on to explain that you’d suddenly decided it would be better to have the sofa in front of the fireplace, instead of over by the window, and that you couldn’t move it by yourself. ‘But please don’t imagine you’re going to be victimized regularly,’ you said, just because we have a man in the house. I hate helpless females. And it’ll do quite as well in the morning. It’s late, and you must be exhausted.’ I grabbed the sofa at once, before you’d even finished speaking, and staggered right across the room with it. Is that why you write that I was ‘surprisingly strong’? I’d have done anything to show off to you. I’d even have tried controlling that ‘enormous frantic horse’!

  Then you suggested making some tea, and of course I stayed. I felt I’d got to make you realize, somehow or other, right away that I wasn’t just Sarah’s Nephew, that I was utterly different from the good little boy she’d been telling you about. I was meanly jealous of Sarah, at that moment, because you seemed to take her so seriously. I refused to believe that you really did, because that lowered my own value. I wanted you to be mercilessly penetrating in your judgment of other people, terribly fastidious in your choice of friends—and, at the same time, to choose me!

  So I started to apologize for Sarah. It was clumsy and horrible, but I couldn’t stop myself. ‘I’m afraid you must have been bored to death,’ I said. ‘When she gets on the subject of me, she’ll go on for ever. She has absolutely no consideration. It never occurs to her that you aren’t interested. The only thing to do is to snub her.’

  You burst out laughing: ‘I never heard such nonsense! Come now, you don’t really think you’re such a boring subject, do you, Stephen?’

  I blushed violently. It was the first time you’d called me by my Christian name. ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘she doesn’t understand me at all.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t agree with you there. I think she understands her part of you very well. Only I’m sure there’s a great deal more of you. That’s what I want you to tell me about.’

  So then I was happy and flattered, and I begged you to ask me anything you wanted to know. ‘Anything,’ I repeated, very significantly.

  ‘Well, first of all, tell me about the Quakers.’

  And, of course, I started in to attack them: they knew nothing about Life, I said; they were self-righteous smug hypocrites, intolerant and stupid and dull, and crazy about money for all their so-called plainness. I could see at once from your face that I was saying the wrong things; you looked disappointed and puzzled. But I’d committed myself, and I had to go on.

  ‘But, Stephen—’ you finally interrupted me. ‘What about Sarah?’

  That stopped me dead. ‘Oh, she’s different,’ I said, feeling very small. ‘She’s how they ought to be, and aren’t.’

  ‘So you don’t belong to them any more?’

  ‘Oh no,’ I said, rather grandly, ‘I broke with them, ages ago. I’m afraid I think their whole position is a little childish.’

  This sounded so idiotic that I was sure you’d laugh at me. But you didn’t. You said, simply, ‘I’m sorry, because I was hoping you’d be able to explain to me how they feel. Sarah’s told me what they believe, and I’ve tried to feel it but I can’t. I do so wish I could. I think it would be wonderful to have that kind of faith, but it seems to have been left out of me. I just can’t trust this Inner Light—in myself, I mean. I keep suspecting it’s only me, pretending to be Her Master’s Voice … But, of course, when you’re all together at the Meeting, there is something. Even I could feel that.’

  ‘Do you mean to say,’ I asked in amazement, ‘that you’ve actually been to Meeting, Elizabeth?’

  ‘Oh yes. Twice.’

  ‘But—why?’

  ‘Well, Sarah rather hinted that she’d like me to. And then, when I did go, I was simply fascinated. I’d have kept on going, but I was afraid Sarah would think I was getting converted, and that wouldn’t have been fair to her, would it?’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’

  ‘Stephen, you look almost shocked,’ you said, smiling. ‘Do you think it was wrong of me to go, as an unbeliever?’

  ‘No—no, of course not. It’s only that I just can’t imagine you there, somehow.’

  You laughed at that. ‘How do you imagine me, Stephen? Oh, please tell me!’

  I couldn’t answer that; I blushed and stammered.

  You went on gaily: ‘Now I know it must be something awful! Let me try and guess … Oh dear, I can see an exquisitely cultured, aloof female, lying on a Chinese couch and reading Mallarmé. And I’m sure she’s smoking cigarettes through a long ivory holder.’

  So then I had to confess that you’d been right about the holder; and we both laughed a lot. You were so amused that you clapped your hands, as you sometimes did. ‘But go on with what you were saying,’ you finally asked, ‘about the Quakers’ position being childish. In what way, do you mean?’

  ‘I didn’t mean anything,’ I said, feeling quite relaxed, now, and able to be frank. ‘I was just trying to sound impressive.’

  ‘Oh, Stephen, how sweet of you to want to impress me! I’m like that, too, sometimes. Isn’t it absurd? I expect we all are—except people like Sarah.’

  That was wonderful, and it seemed we were getting along splendidly. But I spoiled things again, just as we were saying Goodnight, by making a pompous, insincere little speech about your stories. I said, ‘They’re some of the most significant work anyone’s done since the War.’ And you looked suddenly weary and pained and somehow lonely, as if I’d locked you up in a room all by yourself. ‘Oh no, Stephen,’ you said. ‘They aren’t any good, really. They aren’t in the least what I wanted them to be. Please don’t let’s talk about them.’ So I went downstairs feeling dissatisfied, and I kept waking in the night to think of all the brilliant, intimate, intuitive things I ought to have said to you.

  From then on, we were together a lot; soon, it got to be almost every day. At first, I was afraid of bothering you. I even made excuses, sometimes, when you suggested our meeting and I had nothing whatever to do. But then I came to realize that you never saw me out of me
re politeness, or when you were busy. You always worked in the mornings; and I thought I could tell how the novel was going by your manner, although you didn’t care to talk about it much. You never liked talking about your work, although you’d write about it to Cecilia and others. ‘I’m always afraid I’ll talk myself right out of it,’ you explained to me, once. ‘One can, you know. In letters, it’s different; you can be careful what you tell. But somewhere, deep down inside, there’s the bud of the interest itself. If you pluck that out and show it to other people, then it’ll never unfold. It dies, and you simply don’t care to go on.’

  Sometimes, everything was perfect. Sometimes, I felt I was ruining our whole friendship. In spite of myself, I kept trying to show off. I made remarks like the one about not being able to read Meredith, and you always took them literally, so that I ended by having to confess I didn’t mean them. ‘You must say exactly what you mean,’ you told me, ‘when you’re with me. Because I’m really a very stupid person. No—that’s not mock-humility. I think it’s even a kind of saving fault. It’s my way of getting to the bottom of things.’ I tried hard to be as you wanted me to be. And, now and then, I didn’t try and was perfectly natural. Those were the best times—like the visit to the Zoo you mention. Only, it was you who started making faces at the monkeys. You were always the one who got us into that mood. Your silliness was much more spontaneous than mine.

  One day, I started telling you about my adventures in Paris and Berlin. I rather hoped I’d shock you, a little; I was still busy proving I wasn’t Sarah’s little boy. So I referred archly to the bars and the whorehouses and the Sex Museum, and hinted at my knowledge of weird perversions. I was vulgar and nasty; and you weren’t in the least shocked. You just smiled and looked indulgent and abstracted, like a mother who listens to her child telling her about the dog having puppies. But when I mentioned Marie and Annette and Trude, you were interested at once. You wanted to know all about them. You asked me dozens of questions: how they dressed, how they talked, what they thought about. I could see you were projecting yourself into their lives. You always did that. You translated everything into terms of individual human beings. You taught me so much, in those days, and so simply. I’m sure you weren’t even aware that you were doing it.

  I assumed, of course, that you’d had a glamorous love-life of your own. But you never spoke of it at that time—not until much later—and your silence made me feel petty and indiscreet. Sometimes, though, you talked about Love in a way that showed me you were remembering a personal experience. I can see you now, in the twilight of a winter afternoon, sitting with your finger-tips stretched toward the fire, looking deeply into it, and saying, ‘No, Stephen; that’s not how it begins—not by two people feeling drawn together. It’s the moment when they suddenly know they’re different from each other. Utterly, utterly different; so that it’s horribly painful—unbearable, almost. You’re like the North and South Poles. You couldn’t possibly be farther apart. And yet, at the same time, you’re more connected than any other two points on the surface of the earth. Because there’s this axis between you. And everything else turns round it.’ When you said that, I thought it was so beautiful that my eyes filled with tears. Several months later, when I read it, repeated almost word for word, in the manuscript of As Birds Do, Mother, I was somehow a bit shocked. That was very naïve of me. I suppose I wanted my private Elizabeth to be an entirely separate person from the Elizabeth who wrote your novels.

  Always, in the background of our talks, there was that question I longed to ask you and never quite dared. ‘Why do you like me? What makes you spend so much time with me? How can I possibly be of any interest to you?’ I dreaded your answer, because I felt I knew what it would be. I was afraid Sarah had predicted it only too well when she said to me innocently: ‘I’m so very glad you and Elizabeth Rydal have become such friends, Stephen dear. And I’m sure she is, too. She probably gets tired of all those grand intellectual friends of hers, and needs someone young and lively. Someone who’ll take her mind off her work.’

  Those ‘grand intellectual friends’! I was acutely conscious of their presence, around you, all the time; even though you seldom referred to them, and then only in the most casual way. Occasionally, you’d suggest taking me to see Virginia Woolf or Ethel Mayne, or ask me to come up to the flat when you were having them to tea. But I always refused. I regarded these people as my natural enemies. I imagined them looking through and through me, judging me, dismissing me; and then, when I’d gone, making some clever, sneering remark about me to you which would work in your mind like slow poison until you began to agree with them, to see me as they did; and stopped having anything to do with me. I met Hugh Walpole once, on the stairs, on his way up to visit you. He stopped and introduced himself, saying that he’d heard so much about me from you. His apple-cheeks shone with geniality and he was kind and chatty; doing everything to put me at my ease. But I refused to relax. I didn’t dare let myself trust him.

  There was one friend of yours I actually hated: Alexander Strines. Poor Strines! How incredible that seems, now, when I think of him as I last saw him in 1936, crippled with arthritis and prematurely old—a miserable, plaintive creature who claimed that all his friends had betrayed him! But, in 1926, he was still very goodlooking in a rather cold eighteenth-century style, with his hair getting becomingly grey around the temples. He was writing art-criticism, and the kind of highbrow-pastoral poetry they used to call Georgian. His book on William Beckford had just come out and made quite a sensation.

  I hated Strines because I was specially jealous of him. He visited you much more often than the others, and I knew that you went to see him, too. Also, you quoted his remarks to me from time to time; prefacing them with ‘according to Strines—’ or ‘Strines has a most extraordinary theory that—’ Your ironical tone didn’t hide the fact that you thought them clever. You always addressed him as ‘Strines’. And he called you ‘Rydal’, a bit of affection I loathed.

  I became gradually possessed by the suspicion that you were having an affair with him. The idea seemed to me horrible and yet entirely natural; trying to look at him through your eyes, I magnified his attractiveness until he appeared as irresistible as a Byron. I watched your face intendy when you spoke of him. And I used to watch his arrival at our house, from my bedroom window. I fancied I could detect in his manner the self-assurance of an accepted lover. ‘He’s going to kiss her,’ I thought. ‘He’s going to touch her. He’s going to go to bed with her.’ I trembled with hate. In my slightly crazy fantasies, he always ended by leaving you for another woman, and this gave me a reason to pick a fight with him and kill him and get hanged, with you in tears outside the prison gates waiting for them to post the notice of my execution.

  I’d been forced to meet Strines two or three times, when he looked in to see you unexpectedly, as he did now and then. I’d always found an excuse to leave you alone together within a few minutes. But at last, on that historic afternoon, the first of January, I was properly trapped. You’d invited me to tea, and we’d hardly sat down when he appeared. I was all the more disgusted because we’d just started a conversation which promised to become intimate. You’d asked me if I had any New Year resolutions for 1927, and I was excited and confused, wondering how to find a subtle way of saying ‘I’m going to get to know you better’. And then, while I was hesitating over my answer, there he stood, smiling that thin teasing smile which narrowed his lips and eyes and was really a joyless grimace. ‘Hullo, Rydal,’ he said. ‘Do I rush in where Forster fears to tread?’ ‘Certainly not,’ you said, laughing. ‘Though I wouldn’t be surprised if he does. Last time he was here he tripped over that hole in the carpet, poor man, and hurt his knee. Sit down. I’ll get another cup.’ While you were out in the kitchen, Strines condescended to notice my presence, with a mock-courtly bow. ‘I see I’ve caught you this time, Mr Monk,’ he said. ‘This is a rare privilege. You’ve been somewhat elusive, you know.’ I didn’t answer.

&n
bsp; ‘We were just talking about New Year resolutions,’ you said, coming back into the sitting-room. ‘Have you made any, Strines?’

  ‘Certainly I have. I’ve resolved to ignore the new Epsteins.’

  ‘Oh, you haven’t seen them, then? I was longing to know what you thought of them.’

  ‘Well, I confess I did lurk for an instant in the farthest possible corner of the gallery and venture one glance. They have a curiously obscene air of deflation, don’t you know; like those rubber carnival figures, when the carnival’s over and they’re beginning to wrinkle and wilt. Tellement funeste!’

  He went on like that, about Paul Nash and the Sitwells and Delius and Arnold Bennett, making all of them seem silly and little. And you enjoyed it. That was what I minded. Because, I said to myself, if I’d talked that way you’d have pulled me up at once. In your eyes, obviously, he could do no wrong. I felt you were in league with him against me.

  Then he began to talk about a literary and political weekly that was about to be launched, called the New Athenian. ‘It appears,’ he said, ‘that we’re in for another classical revival, of the most dismally provincial kind. Shaw will have to do for our Socrates, I suppose. Who do you fancy for Alcibiades? I’m very much afraid one’s reduced to Noel Coward. Unless, of course, we import one of those excessively dental American cinema stars.’ You were delighted with this game; and the two of you played it until tea was over, making the most ridiculous suggestions you could think of, including Sir Edwin Lutyens for Phidias. If Strines hadn’t been there, I’d probably have thought it all very funny. But I was in a state of scowling sulks. Whenever you asked me for my opinion—Strines didn’t, once—I merely growled, ‘I don’t know.’