Iris Murdoch - The Black Prince

«I hadn't forgotten,» I said with a silent curse. «Come in.»

«You're wearing the boots,» I said.

«Yes. It's a bit hot for them, but I wanted to show them off to you. I'm so cheered up and grateful. Are you sure you don't mind discussing Shakespeare? You look as if you were going somewhere. Did you really remember I was coming?»

«Yes, of course.»

«Oh Bradley, you are so good for my nerves. Everybody irritates me like mad except you. I didn't bring two texts. I suppose you've got one?»

«Yes. Here.»

I sat down opposite to her. She sat sidesaddle on her chair, the boots side by side, very much on display. I sat astride on mine, gripping it with my knees. I opened my copy of Shakespeare in front of me on the table. Julian laughed.

«Why are you laughing?»

«You're so matter-of-fact. I'm sure you weren't expecting me. You'd forgotten I existed. Now you're just like a schoolteacher.»

«Perhaps you are good for my nerves too.»

«Bradley, this is fun.»

«Nothing's happened yet. It may not be fun. What do you want to do?»

«I'll ask questions and you answer them.»

«Go on then.»

«I've got a whole list of questions, look.»

«I've answered that one already.»

«About Gertrude and-Yes, but I'm not convinced.»

«You're going to waste my time with these questions and then not believe my answers?»

«Well, it can be a starting point for a discussion.»

«Oh, we're to have a discussion too, are we?»

«If you have time. I know I'm lucky to get any of your time, you're so busy.»

«I'm not busy at all. I have absolutely nothing to do.»

«I thought you were writing a book.»

«Lies.»

«I know you're teasing again.»

«Well, come on, I haven't got all day.»

«Why did Hamlet delay killing Claudius?»

«Because he was a dreamy conscientious young intellectual who wasn't likely to commit a murder out of hand because he had the impression that he had seen a ghost. Next question.»

«But, Bradley, you yourself said the ghost was real.»

«I know the ghost is real, but Hamlet didn't.»

«Oh. But there must have been another deeper reason why he delayed, isn't that the point of the play?»

«I didn't say there wasn't another reason.»

«What is it?»

«He identifies Claudius with his father.»

«Oh really? So that makes him hesitate because he loves his father and so can't touch Claudius?»

«No. He hates his father.»

«Well, wouldn't that make him murder Claudius at once?»

«No. After all he didn't murder his father.»

«Well, I don't see how identifying Claudius with his father makes him not kill Claudius.»

«He doesn't enjoy hating his father. It makes him feel guilty.»

«So he's paralysed with guilt? But he never says so. He's fearfully priggish and censorious. Think how nasty he is to Ophelia.»

«That's part of the same thing.»

«How do you mean?»

«He identifies Ophelia with his mother.»

«But I thought he loved his mother.»

«That's the point.»

«How do you mean that's the point?»

«He condemns his mother for committing adultery with his fa– «Wait a minute, Bradley, I'm getting mixed.»

«Claudius is just a continuation of his brother on the conscious level.»

«But you can't commit adultery with your husband, it isn't logical.»

«The unconscious mind knows nothing of logic.»

«You mean Hamlet is jealous, you mean he's in love with his mother?»

«That is the general idea. A tediously familiar one, I should have thought.»

«Oh thai.»

«That.»

«I see. But I still don't see why he should think Ophelia is Gertrude, they're not a bit alike.»

«The unconscious mind delights in identifying people with each other. It has only a few characters to play with.»

«So lots of actors have to play the same part?»

«Yes.»

«I don't think I believe in the unconscious mind.»

«Excellent girl.»

«Bradley, you're teasing again.»

«Not at all.»

«Why couldn't Ophelia save Hamlet? That's another of my questions actually.»

«Because, my dear Julian, pure ignorant young girls cannot save complicated neurotic overeducated older men from disaster, however much they kid themselves that they can.»

«I know that I'm ignorant, and I can't deny that I'm young, but I do not identify myself with Ophelia!»

«Of course not. You identify yourself with Hamlet. Everyone does.»

«I suppose one always identifies with the hero.»

«Not in great works of literature. Do you identify with Macbeth or Lear?»

«No, well, not like that-«Or with Achilles or Agamemnon or Aeneas or Raskolnikov or Madame Bovary or Marcel or Fanny Price or-«Wait a moment. I haven't heard of some of these people. And I think I do identify with Achilles.»

«Tell me about him.»

«Oh Bradley-I can't think-Didn't he kill Hector?»

«Never mind. Have I made my point?»

«I'm not sure what it is.»

«Hamlet is unusual because it is a great work of literature in which everyone identifies with the hero.»

«I see. Does that make it less good than Shakespeare's other plays, I mean the good ones?»

«No. It is the greatest of Shakespeare's plays.»

«Then something funny has happened.»

«Correct.»

«I forbid you to take notes. You may not open the window. You may take off your boots.»

«For this relief much thanks.» She unzipped the boots and revealed, in pink tights, the legs. She admired the legs, waggled the toes, undid another button at her neck, then giggled.

I said, «Do you mind if I take off my jacket?»

«Of course not.»

«You'll see my braces.»

«How exciting. You must be the last man in London who wears any. They're getting as rare and thrilling as suspenders.»

I took off my jacket, revealing grey army-surplus braces over a grey shirt with a black stripe. «Not exciting, I'm afraid. I would have put on my red ones if I'd known.»

«So you weren't expecting me?»

«Don't be silly. Do you mind if I take off my tie?»

«Don't be silly.»

I took off my tie and undid the top two buttons of my shirt. Then I did one of them up again. The hair on my chest is copious but grizzled. (Or, if you prefer, a sable silvered.) I could feel the perspiration trickling down my temples, down the back of my neck, and winding its way through the forest on my diaphragm.

«You aren't sweating,» I said to Julian. «How do you manage it?»

«I am. Look.» She thrust her fingers in under her hair and then stretched her hands towards me across the table. The fingers were long but not unduly slim. They were faintly dewy. «Now, Bradley, where were we. You were saying Hamlet was the only-«Let's fold up this conversation shall we?»

«Oh Bradley, I knew I'd just bore you! And now I won't see you again for months, I know you!»

«Shut up. That dreary stuff about Hamlet and his ma and pa you can get out of a book. I'll tell you which one.»

«So it's not true?»

«It is true, but it doesn't matter. A sophisticated reader takes such things in his stride. You are a sophisticated reader in ovo.»

«In what?»

«Of course Hamlet is Shakespeare.»

«Whereas Lear and Macbeth and Othello are-«Aren't.»

«Bradley, was Shakespeare homosexual?»

«Of course.»

«Oh I see. So Hamlet's really in love with Horatio-«Be quiet, girl. In mediocre works the hero is the author.»

«My father is the hero of all his novels.»

«It is this that induces the reader to identify. Now if the greatest of all geniuses permits himself to be the hero of one of his plays, has this happened by accident?»

«No.»