Джеймс Хилтон - Morning Journey

Professor Lingard met her at the parking-place, where he had apparently been waiting. Everywhere there was a vast cool silence to which the mind added its own image of height and loneliness. He greeted her warmly but seemed shyer than ever as he guided her by flashlight to the roadway. The stars were brilliant, but it was very dark under the shapes of trees.

“You’ve chosen a grand night, Miss Arundel.”

“I’m glad. I was at a party and when I left I suddenly felt in the mood.”

“I’m glad too. I really didn’t take you very seriously when you first promised you’d come. And then after I found out who you were… you must have thought me terribly stupid for not realizing…”

“Oh no. Why should it matter?”

“But it really was inexcusable. I felt so embarrassed when someone told me I’d been talking to Carey Arundel, the movie star…”

Movie star… That was evidently all he knew—even now. “But you were very nice and friendly. I enjoyed our conversation.”

“So long as you’ve forgiven me, Miss Arundel. Because before you leave I’m going to take another liberty if I may.”

“Oh, please. ANYTHING.”

“I’d like you to sign an autograph book for a friend of mine… a little girl—she’s ten—the daughter of the woman who comes in once a day to clean for me. You’ve no idea what it’ll mean to her—and when I tell her Carey Arundel’s actually BEEN here… I hope it isn’t too much to ask?”

She observed him in the faint glow that reflected back from the flashlight and wondered how far he was from reading what was in her mind.

“Of course I’ll do it… and now please stop talking about Carey Arundel. I’m a little bit tired of her and if she doesn’t mend her ways I’ve a good mind to shove her off a cliff… Is there a cliff by the way? I’m sure there must be.”

“Not just here, but you passed some steep ones on the way up. Of course you wouldn’t see them at night. Some people find the road rather frightening.”

“Not me. I love heights… Tell me what you do here.”

“Technically? I don’t think it would interest you very much, though if you really want me to I’ll—”

“No, no, I mean the way you live—are you alone all the time? Do you feel happy? Is there peace of mind on a mountain-top?”

They had reached a cabin the door of which he opened. Suddenly she felt: THIS IS HOME. There was actually a small log-fire burning and it was in the firelight that she saw the room first of all. “It gets chilly at nights even in summer,” he explained; and the warmth was indeed a pleasant thing. A couch, chairs, desk, and radio-gramophone were the main furnishings. No pictures, only a strip of matting on the floor, a few books, a map of the area pinned on the log walls, an old-fashioned telephone. “There’s also a bedroom, bathroom, and a small kitchen,” he said, noticing her interest, but not knowing—how could he know?—that whenever she entered any room (except decorators’ show pieces) her mind made an inventory as if she were looking for something lost from her own life. “Simple, Miss Arundel —primitive, I dare say it seems to you—but good enough for a bachelor… Won’t you sit down? I’ll tell my assistant to have things ready.” He made the call while she watched him. There was a green-shaded lamp he switched on over the desk—it was almost the ugliest lamp she had ever seen, but doubtless in the right position for his work and that was all he cared about.

“So you’re not alone?” she said, when he had hung up.

“He’s a student. He likes to help me on good nights… And you were asking if I’m happy… of course I am. I wouldn’t be up here if I weren’t. I could probably earn more money down below.”

“Sure. That’s where we can all earn more money.”

“You say ‘sure’ like the Irish, not like the Americans.”

“I was born in Ireland.”

“I THOUGHT there was an accent… no, not quite an accent—more a rhythm, a lilt. You can’t lose it, can you? You shouldn’t want to, anyhow. I’m from Wyoming.”

“Cowboys,” she said absently.

“Now that’s odd—because I almost was a cowboy, and it’s still what I’d rather be than anything else—except this. You like horses?”

“Love them. Near where I was born there was the Curragh—that’s the great place for horses.”

“And music? You like music too?”

“Yes. Music and horses and dogs and…”

“Classical music?”

“Yes.”

“Bach?”

Without waiting for a reply he went to the radio-gramophone, saying as he opened it: “We have a few minutes before he gets everything adjusted.” He found a record close to hand. There was something in the way he let down the needle on to the outermost groove that seemed to her one of the most exquisite movements she had ever seen, and the thought came then that Paul would have seen it like that too, would have wanted to shoot it slowly and tenderly, and that Randolph later would have cut the whole scene. “But nothing happens, Saffron! A guy starts a record on a turntable and you let him use up all that footage!”

Nothing happens… They would say that too, doubtless, of the Bach Chorale. The music just goes round and round…

She listened and felt peaceful. The little room, the firelight, Bach… the mountain outside, above the world.

Presently the record ended and he switched off the machine. He made no comment, did not even ask if she had liked it. Perhaps he feared she hadn’t, perhaps he simply didn’t care. He picked up the flashlight, toying with it, as if in hint that they should leave. She looked at him without moving. If only she could stay a while. If only he could grasp how comfortable she was where she was. If only he could guess the kind of reassurance she was seeking.

“Tell me,” she said suddenly. “What’s going to happen?”

“To happen? Where? How… how do you mean?”

“To all of us… That’s a terrible thing to ask, isn’t it? But I thought you might have some professional ideas. Will the world blow itself up one of these days?”

He smiled. “Some popular science writers have said so. I don’t know enough to contradict them.”

“But you do know something about atomic energy—Einstein— all that?”

“Not much, and even if I did it wouldn’t make me a prophet of world affairs. I’m just an astronomer.”

“I wish I knew what you really thought. If people like you don’t give us the benefit of an honest opinion, no wonder we’re all misled by people who aren’t honest.”

“But is there much value in an unqualified person’s opinion? Of course, if you ask, if I think there’ll be a third world war—THAT sort of question—I dare say my guess is no worse than anybody else’s.”

“DO you think there will be?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“And if there is, do you think the world will destroy itself?”

“You mean everything go bang all at once? I doubt that. Possibly there’ll be a breakdown of what we now call civilization.”

“You don’t think the invention of all kinds of horrible weapons will prevent the world from daring to go to war?”

“It never has done before, though that’s no proof that it couldn’t happen.”

“But on the whole you’d stick to your first guess that civilization’s on its way to suicide?”

“I don’t know that I’d put it quite like that—”

“Suicide’s an ugly word, isn’t it? It’s something hardly any of us would do individually—and yet collectively, if we take the road we’ve been warned is fatal, what else can you call it?”

“I get your point, and it’s not the ugliness of the word I’m chary of, it’s the melodrama. If nature abhors a vacuum, I should say that science also abhors a catastrophe. In a sense it’s too EASY to contemplate.”