Edward Forster - The Longest Journey

The carriage was empty. Rickie settled himself down for his little journey. First he looked at the coloured photographs. Then he read the directions for obtaining luncheon-baskets, and felt the texture of the cushions. Through the windows a signal-box interested him. Then he saw the ugly little town that was now his home, and up its chief street the Ansells' memorable facade. The spirit of a genial comedy dwelt there. It was so absurd, so kindly. The house was divided against itself and yet stood. Metaphysics, commerce, social aspirations—all lived together in harmony. Mr. Ansell had done much, but one was tempted to believe in a more capricious power—the power that abstains from "nipping." "One nips or is nipped, and never knows beforehand," quoted Rickie, and opened the poems of Shelley, a man less foolish than you supposed. How pleasant it was to read! If business worried him, if Stephen was noisy or Ansell perverse, there still remained this paradise of books. It seemed as if he had read nothing for two years. Then the train stopped for the shunting, and he heard protests from minor officials who were working on the line. They complained that some one who didn't ought to, had mounted on the footboard of the carriage. Stephen's face appeared, convulsed with laughter. With the action of a swimmer he dived in through the open window, and fell comfortably on Rickie's luggage and Rickie. He declared it was the finest joke ever known. Rickie was not so sure. "You'll be run over next," he said. "What did you do that for?"

"I'm coming with you," he giggled, rolling all that he could on to the dusty floor.

"Now, Stephen, this is too bad. Get up. We went into the whole question yesterday."

"I know; and I settled we wouldn't go into it again, spoiling my holiday."

"Well, it's execrable taste."

Now he was waving to the Ansells, and showing them a piece of soap: it was all his luggage, and even that he abandoned, for he flung it at Stewart's lofty brow.

"I can't think what you've done it for. You know how strongly I felt."

Stephen replied that he should stop in the village; meet Rickie at the lodge gates; that kind of thing.

"It's execrable taste," he repeated, trying to keep grave.

"Well, you did all you could," he exclaimed with sudden sympathy. "Leaving me talking to old Ansell, you might have thought you'd got your way. I've as much taste as most chaps, but, hang it! your aunt isn't the German Emperor. She doesn't own Wiltshire."

"You ass!" sputtered Rickie, who had taken to laugh at nonsense again.

"No, she isn't," he repeated, blowing a kiss out of the window to maidens. "Why, we started for Wiltshire on the wet morning!"

"When Stewart found us at Sawston railway station?" He smiled happily. "I never thought we should pull through."

"Well, we DIDN'T. We never did what we meant. It's nonsense that I couldn't have managed you alone. I've a notion. Slip out after your dinner this evening, and we'll get thundering tight together."

"I've a notion I won't."

"It'd do you no end of good. You'll get to know people—shepherds, carters—" He waved his arms vaguely, indicating democracy. "Then you'll sing."

"And then?"

"Plop."

"Precisely."

"But I'll catch you," promised Stephen. "We shall carry you up the hill to bed. In the morning you wake, have your row with old Em'ly, she kicks you out, we meet—we'll meet at the Rings!" He danced up and down the carriage. Some one in the next carriage punched at the partition, and when this happens, all lads with mettle know that they must punch the partition back.

"Thank you. I've a notion I won't," said Rickie when the noise had subsided—subsided for a moment only, for the following conversation took place to an accompaniment of dust and bangs. "Except as regards the Rings. We will meet there."

"Then I'll get tight by myself."

"No, you won't."

"Yes, I will. I swore to do something special this evening. I feel like it."

"In that case, I get out at the next station." He was laughing, but quite determined. Stephen had grown too dictatorial of late. The Ansells spoilt him. "It's bad enough having you there at all. Having you there drunk is impossible. I'd sooner not visit my aunt than think, when I sat with her, that you're down in the village teaching her labourers to be as beastly as yourself. Go if you will. But not with me."

"Why shouldn't I have a good time while I'm young, if I don't harm any one?" said Stephen defiantly.

"Need we discuss self."

"Oh, I can stop myself any minute I choose. I just say 'I won't' to you or any other fool, and I don't."

Rickie knew that the boast was true. He continued, "There is also a thing called Morality. You may learn in the Bible, and also from the Greeks, that your body is a temple."

"So you said in your longest letter."

"Probably I wrote like a prig, for the reason that I have never been tempted in this way; but surely it is wrong that your body should escape you."

"I don't follow," he retorted, punching.

"It isn't right, even for a little time, to forget that you exist."

"I suppose you've never been tempted to go to sleep?"

Just then the train passed through a coppice in which the grey undergrowth looked no more alive than firewood. Yet every twig in it was waiting for the spring. Rickie knew that the analogy was false, but argument confused him, and he gave up this line of attack also.

"Do be more careful over life. If your body escapes you in one thing, why not in more? A man will have other temptations."

"You mean women," said Stephen quietly, pausing for a moment in this game. "But that's absolutely different. That would be harming some one else."

"Is that the only thing that keeps you straight?"

"What else should?" And he looked not into Rickie, but past him, with the wondering eyes of a child. Rickie nodded, and referred himself to the window.

He observed that the country was smoother and more plastic. The woods had gone, and under a pale-blue sky long contours of earth were flowing, and merging, rising a little to bear some coronal of beeches, parting a little to disclose some green valley, where cottages stood under elms or beside translucent waters. It was Wiltshire at last. The train had entered the chalk. At last it slackened at a wayside platform. Without speaking he opened the door.

"What's that for?"

"To go back."

Stephen had forgotten the threat. He said that this was not playing the game.

"Surely!"

"I can't have you going back."

"Promise to behave decently then."

He was seized and pulled away from the door.

"We change at Salisbury," he remarked. "There is an hour to wait. You will find me troublesome."

"It isn't fair," exploded Stephen. "It's a lowdown trick. How can I let you go back?"

"Promise, then."

"Oh, yes, yes, yes. Y.M.C.A. But for this occasion only."

"No, no. For the rest of your holiday."

"Yes, yes. Very well. I promise."

"For the rest of your life?"

Somehow it pleased him that Stephen should bang him crossly with his elbow and say, "No. Get out. You've gone too far." So had the train. The porter at the end of the wayside platform slammed the door, and they proceeded toward Salisbury through the slowly modulating downs. Rickie pretended to read. Over the book he watched his brother's face, and wondered how bad temper could be consistent with a mind so radiant. In spite of his obstinacy and conceit, Stephen was an easy person to live with. He never fidgeted or nursed hidden grievances, or indulged in a shoddy pride. Though he spent Rickie's money as slowly as he could, he asked for it without apology: "You must put it down against me," he would say. In time—it was still very vague—he would rent or purchase a farm. There is no formula in which we may sum up decent people. So Ansell had preached, and had of course proceeded to offer a formula: "They must be serious, they must be truthful." Serious not in the sense of glum; but they must be convinced that our life is a state of some importance, and our earth not a place to beat time on. Of so much Stephen was convinced: he showed it in his work, in his play, in his self-respect, and above all—though the fact is hard to face-in his sacred passion for alcohol. Drink, today, is an unlovely thing. Between us and the heights of Cithaeron the river of sin now flows. Yet the cries still call from the mountain, and granted a man has responded to them, it is better he respond with the candour of the Greek.