Джон Пристли - The Doomsday Men

They were. But so was everything else. It was to Malcolm a journey in sunlight through an Arabian Night. Even the very rocks, so curiously veined in crimson and black and bronze, sometimes glittering as if they were crammed with precious stones, often so shaped that they looked like giants and monsters petrified at a stroke, were rocks in a fairy-tale journey to or from some enchanted castle. He told Andrea so, and she turned to nod and smile. Then, the trail being easier towards the end of the dip, she broke into a canter, he followed, and together they thundered nearly half-way up the opposite slope, where the trail became steeper and stony again. They climbed to the top at an easy walk, and then suddenly Andrea, who was then some fifteen yards ahead, turned and seemed to disappear into a tall black face of rock, as if she had cried “Open Sesame!” to it. He came up bewildered, then saw that the trail turned sharply through a cleft so narrow that one of his legs rubbed against the side of it. Night still haunted this tiny narrow gorge; the air was chilly; there was a trickle of water among the shadowy mosses; the horses rumbled and grumbled as they slipped upon the loose stones or were forced to scramble up or climb over barricades of small boulders; and they seemed to wind their way for a long time through this cavernous gloom, lost to the bright world above, like ponderous lizards moving through the rock. Andrea kept calling back, telling him to be careful in this place, to avoid that, and though her voice echoed strangely there, sometimes arriving as a shout, at others creeping along as a dying whisper, he thought he detected in it a gaiety he had never heard before. This, so far away from those crowded tennis courts, the Bristol Hotel, the hard lights strung along the Riviera, it appeared, was her own place: she was now at home. And he followed, not dissatisfied, but still wondering.

At last they came out into the open again, a whole dazzling world of sun and bright air and blue distance, and now what remained of the trail, for Malcolm could see few signs of one, went down at an easy slope on the top of a long ridge, a glistening spur of rock. Nothing moved in the whole wide scene; even the cloud shadows had vanished; and the solitude, the vastness, the silence, were immense, and had a quality of their own, were not accidental and immediate, but seemed to have endured there since the beginning of time. Or it might have been that time was not known to them, had not even begun because it could not make a beginning there, or lay along a dimension of things that either they could not recognise at all or saw in its entirety, with yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow spread out and flattened before them. But Malcolm did not lose himself in this calm and timeless immensity. To his own surprise, he found his outlook narrowing to a single glowing point of passion, his feeling for Andrea. It was as if here, where man was not known, his humanity must assert itself, but all that it could express at this moment was his passionate need for this girl, which claimed him now with astonishing force. As they went ambling down, with Andrea still in front, leading the way it seemed into blue air, he babbled silently but madly at her back, bombarding the space between them with extravagances of desire and devotion that surprised himself. In this state of mind, far removed from the dreamy consideration he had given her during these past six months, he remained until they halted, on a little platform of gravel at the very end of the spur, a look-out point sheltered on two sides by overhanging faces of iron-grey rock.

No sooner had they dismounted than he put his arms about her, feeling her warm and trembling within the thin shirt she wore; and though she cried out against it, he persisted and held her closer, and at last she relaxed within his grasp, and the kisses they exchanged had both passion and tenderness. When at last he released her, she looked at him a moment glowingly, then turned and attended to the horses, handing him the saddle-bag that contained their food. Then, still in silence, she led the way a little farther down to a still smaller sheltered platform, where she had clearly been many times before, put one hand on his shoulder, half leaning against him, and pointed with the other. “That’s the beginning of Death Valley,” she told him.

The ridges below them, running in fold after fold, were bare as a bone, but in their elaboration of light and shadow and varied rock formation they wore a thousand subtly-graded hues; far away, as before, were shining naked summits of rock and violet- or amethyst-tinted peaks; but now far below, quivering and glimmering, were the first reaches of the deepest valley in the continent, waterless miles crusted with salt, the sullen hot floor of the world. But now it seemed to lie there smiling in beauty. There was life, not death, in its vast quivering distances, its prismatic colours trembling and melting in the windless bright air, its antique stillness and silence. It was-or so it seemed to him, standing there with his love-expectant, part of a planet newly made, warm from the oven of God, eager not for more death but for life, ready to welcome eager, struggling, dreaming, foolish, love-haunted humanity. If no fruit or flowers bloomed, light itself did, light blossomed there, creating a million semi-transparent and dissolving roses, violets, daffodils, between salt-sand and the miraculous sun; yes, light itself, the first great creative principle, the beginning of all things, flowered there triumphantly. Malcolm stared down in happiness and wonder.

“You’re glad we came here?” she asked, rather shyly, as they sat down.

He told her he was, thanked her gravely for bringing him, and said how strange and beautiful it was, all of it.

“Yes, and why, why is it so beautiful?” she demanded passionately, surprising him again. “Can’t you see? Because it’s itself, just the world, just sun and air and rock and sand, and no people to spoil it.”

He sat up, regarding her wonderingly. “Do you really think people spoil the world?”

“Of course they do. Look at this, and then think of the places where people are, millions of them, your London, and New York, and Los Angeles, all crowded together, screaming and squabbling and thinking dirty little thoughts and all getting ready to murder each other again. And the more there are of them, the worse it is. Long ago, when there were only a few people-and perhaps thousands of places like this-it was all right. But now there are more and more people and ugliness and dirt and horrible things happening, and there isn’t much like this left. That’s what I believe,” and she looked at him defiantly, “and that’s why I don’t mind.”

“Don’t mind what?” he asked, astonished by this sudden outburst.

She shook her head, then brought out their food and a thermos filled with hot coffee. Determined to respect her moods until the right moment arrived, for sooner or later to-day he must ask her point-blank what lay behind all this, he ate in silence, and succeeded in setting aside his bewilderment to enjoy their picnic.

“Have you thought much about that house you’re going to build for yourself in the country?” she suddenly demanded.

He was delighted that she had remembered. “Yes, of course. But I didn’t think you’d remember.”

“I’ve tried living in it once or twice,” she told him, rather like a little girl enjoying a solemn fancy. “Only in the summer, of course. I was back here for the winter.” The dimple came and went; an enchanting glimpse.

“You often come here, I imagine, to this place-don’t you?”

She nodded. “It’s my favourite ride. Especially lately. I’ve been down here nearly every day lately. By myself, though sometimes a man comes along and talks to me-he’s camping somewhere down there”-she pointed vaguely downwards-“he brought his car up Jubilee Pass, then ran it as far up there as it would go and camps near it. He’s rather odd, with a beard-I think his name’s Mitchell-and he knows a lot about geology and stuff, and tells me all about it. He’s a nice man, though I hope he doesn’t turn up to-day.”