Iris Murdoch - The Black Prince

Then Julian said, «I see that you're determined not to believe or attend to anything that I say. You seem to think that I'm still about twelve.»

«No, no,» I said. «I attended carefully to your statement and found it interesting, even touching. And remarkably well expressed considering you invented it on the spur of the moment. It was not however very detailed or very clear, nor do I yet see what implications it has if any.»

«God, Bradley, I do love you.»

«That's very kind of you.»

«I'm not inventing it, it's true.»

«I am not accusing you of insincerity. Just of not having the faintest idea what you are talking about. You admitted to being confused.»

«Did I?»

«The main source of your confusion is fairly obvious. You have liked me, or, as you are gracious enough to say, loved me, when you were a little ignorant innocent child and I was an impressive visitor, a writer, a friend of your father's and so on. Now you are an adult and I am a man, a good deal your senior, but suddenly seen as inhabiting the same adult world. Even leaving aside the little shocks which you have had this evening, you are naturally surprised, possibly a bit elated, to find that we are now somehow equals. What in this new situation do you do with your old feeling of affection for the man whom the child used to admire? Is this question important? In itself probably not. My inexcusable proceedings have made it so, just for the moment at any rate. Startled, amused and thrilled by my idiotic declaration, you have felt impelled to make a counter-statement which is totally muddled and unclear and which you will certainly regret tomorrow. That's all. Here we are at the station, thank God.»

«Was that kiss I gave you muddled and unclear?» said Julian.

«You're going home by train,» I said. «I'll say good night now.»

«Bradley, have you taken in what I said?»

«You don't know what you said. Tomorrow it will seem a bad dream.»

«We'll see about that! At least you've talked to me, you've argued.»

«There's nothing to talk about. I've just been irresponsibly prolonging the pleasure of being with you.»

«Look, I don't have to go now.»

«Yes, you do. It's finished.»

«It isn't. You won't leave London, will you, please?»

«I won't-leave London,» I said.

«You'll see me tomorrow?»

«Maybe.»

«I'll ring up about ten.»

«Good night.»

Without putting my hands on her I leaned down and brushed her lips very lightly with mine. Then I turned at once and went back up the steps into Charing Cross Road. I walked along blindly, grimacing with joy.

I slept, I suppose. I kept being nudged awake by a sort of bliss and then sinking again. My body ached with a painful delightful sensation of desire and gratified desire, somehow merged into a single mode of being. I groaned softly over myself. I was made of something else, something delicious, in which consciousness throbbed in a warm daze. I was made of honey and fudge and marzipan, and at the same time I was made of steel. I was a steel wire vibrating quietly in the midst of blue emptiness. These words do not of course convey my sensations, no words could. I did not think. I was. In so far as any stray thoughts attempted to intrude into this heaven I sent them packing.

I rose early and shaved with majestic slowness and dressed with indulgent care and spent a long time inspecting myself in the mirror. I looked about thirty-five. Well, forty. My recent regime had made me even thinner and this suited me. Faded silky grey-blond hair, straight and quite a lot of it, a large-nostrilled bony nose, not unsightly, granity blue-grey eyes, good cheekbones, a large brow, a thin mouth: an intellectual's face. The face, too, of a puritan. What of him?

I drank some water. Eating was, of course, once more out of the question. I felt sick and shuddery but the night had been heaven and the glory of it had not yet left me. I went into the sitting-room and once again perfunctorily dusted the more obvious surface which had once again become dusty. Then I sat down and let a few thoughts set themselves end to end.

I could mainly congratulate myself on having been fairly cool last night. It is true that I had been sick at her feet and had told her that I loved her in accents which, I noted, had conveyed the gravity of the situation to her at once. But after that I had behaved with dignity. (Which of course I had been enabled to do partly by the intense cozening delight of her presence.) I could not accuse myself of having then hustled her in any way. But what, oh what, was she feeling about it all by now? Suppose when she telephoned she said coldly that after all she agreed that the matter had best be dropped? I had exhorted her to be adult enough to let go. Perhaps maturer reflection had already made her see the point of this good advice. What had her speech about «love» meant? Did she know what she was talking about? Was it not just a rigmarole which she had invented because she was touched and flattered and excited by my exhibition? Would she draw back? Or if it were the case that she really loved me, what on earth would happen next? But I did not really wonder about what would happen next. If she really loved me it did not matter what happened next.

At about nine o'clock the front doorbell rang. I crept out and peered at the frosted-glass panel. It was Julian. With a quick small effort of self-control I opened the door. She flew in. I managed to kick the door to before sne pulled me into the sitting-room. She had her arms round my neck and I held her in a sort of vivid darkness and then my chattering teeth had become a laughing and crying act, and she was laughing and shuddering too and we had sat down on the floor.

«Bradley, thank C>шd> I was so afraid you might have changed your mind since yesterday, I couldn't wait till ten.»

«Don't be a fool, girl– oh-Oh-You're here-you're here-«Bradley, I do loVe you, I do, it's the real thing. I realized it for absolute certain last night after I left you. I haven't slept, I've been in a sort of mad irHnce– This is it. I've never had it before. One can't be in doubt, c>n one?»

«No,» I said. «One can't. If there is any doubt it's not it.»

«So you see-«

«What about Mr. Belling?»

«Oh Bradley, don't torment me with Mr. Belling. That was just a nervous craving H? doesn't exist, nothing exists but this-surely you see Besides l*e had no real feelings, no strength, not like you-«I've impressed y

u– You're sure you're not just impressed?»

«I love you. I fe^l shattered but at the same time I feel quite calm Doesn't that show that something extraordinary has happened that calm? I fee^ like an archangel. I can talk to you, I can convince you, you'll see everything. There's plenty of time after all, isn't there, Bradley?

Her question, which was really an assertion, touched me in the midst of my joy with a coldish finger. Time, plans, the future. «Yes, my darling, there's plenty of time.»

We were sitting I with my legs tucked sideways, she kneeling a little above me, her hands caressing my hair and neck. Then she began taking off my tie– x started to laugh.

«You've got such a beautiful head.»

«I thrust it through the curtains of your cradle.»

«And I fell in love at first sight.»

«I'd lay it under the wheels of your car.»

«I wish I could remember when I first saw you!»

It occurred to me suddenly as odd that I could probably establish from an old engagement book, for I had kept them all, what I was doing on the day Julian was born. Resolving some tax problem, lunching with Grey-Pelham.

«When did you first start feeling like this about me? We can talk about that now can't we?»

«We can talk about that now. I think it came on when we were discussing Hamlet.»