Джордж Оруэлл - Keep the Aspidistra Flying

'I mean I shall have to get a proper job—go back to the New Albion. I suppose they'd take me back.'

He felt her grow very still and knew that she had been waiting for this. Yet she was determined to play fair. She was not going to bully him or cajole him.

'I never said I wanted you to do that. I want you to marry me— yes, because of the baby. But it doesn't follow you've got to keep me.'

'There's no sense in marrying if I can't keep you. Suppose I married you when I was like I am at present—no money and no proper job? What would you do then?'

'I don't know. I'd go on working as long as I could. And afterwards, when the baby got too obvious—well, I suppose I'd have to go home to father and mother.'

'That would be jolly for you, wouldn't it? But you were so anxious for me to go back to the New Albion before. You haven't changed your mind?'

'I've thought things over. I know you'd hate to be tied to a regular job. I don't blame you. You've got your own life to live.'

He thought it over a little while longer. 'It comes down to this. Either I marry you and go back to the New Albion, or you go to one of those filthy doctors and get yourself messed about for five pounds.'

At this she twisted herself out of his grasp and stood up facing him. His blunt words had upset her. They had made the issue clearer and uglier than before.

'Oh, why did you say that?'

'Well, those ARE the alternatives.'

'I'd never thought of it like that. I came here meaning to be fair. And now it sounds as if I was trying to bully you into it— trying to play on your feelings by threatening to get rid of the baby. A sort of beastly blackmail.'

'I didn't mean that. I was only stating facts.'

Her face was full of lines, the black brows drawn together. But she had sworn to herself that she would not make a scene. He could guess what this meant to her. He had never met her people, but he could imagine them. He had some notion of what it might mean to go back to a country town with an illegitimate baby; or, what was almost as bad, with a husband who couldn't keep you. But she was going to play fair. No blackmail! She drew a sharp inward breath, taking a decision.

'All right, then, I'm not going to hold THAT over your head. It's too mean. Marry me or don't marry me, just as you like. But I'll have the baby, anyway.'

'You'd do that? Really?'

'Yes, I think so.'

He took her in his arms. Her coat had come open, her body was warm against him. He thought he would be a thousand kinds of fool if he let her go. Yet the alternative was impossible, and he did not see it any less clearly because he held her in his arms.

'Of course, you'd like me to go back to the New Albion,' he said.

'No, I wouldn't. Not if you don't want to.'

'Yes, you would. After all, it's natural. You want to see me earning a decent income again. In a GOOD job, with four pounds a week and an aspidistra in the window. Wouldn't you, now? Own up.'

'All right, then—yes, I would. But it's only something I'd LIKE to see happening; I'm not going to MAKE you do it. I'd just hate you to do it if you didn't really want to. I want you to feel free.'

'Really and truly free?'

'Yes.'

'You know what that means? Supposing I decided to leave you and the baby in the lurch?'

'Well—if you really wanted to. You're free—quite free.'

After a little while she went away. Later in the evening or tomorrow he would let her know what he decided. Of course it was not absolutely certain that the New Albion would give him a job even if he asked them; but presumably they would, considering what Mr Erskine had said. Gordon tried to think and could not. There seemed to be more customers than usual this afternoon. It maddened him to have to bounce out of his chair every time he had sat down and deal with some fresh influx of fools demanding crime–stories and sex–stories and ROmances. Suddenly, about six o'clock, he turned out the lights, locked up the library, and went out. He had got to be alone. The library was not due to shut for two hours yet. God knew what Mr Cheeseman would say when he found out. He might even give Gordon the sack. Gordon did not care.

He turned westward, up Lambeth Cut. It was a dull sort of evening, not cold. There was muck underfoot, white lights, and hawkers screaming. He had got to think this thing out, and he could think better walking. But it was so hard, so hard! Back to the New Albion, or leave Rosemary in the lurch; there was no other alternative. It was no use thinking, for instance, that he might find some 'good' job which would offend his sense of decency a bit less. There aren't so many 'good' jobs waiting for moth–eaten people of thirty. The New Albion was the only chance he had or ever would have.

At the corner, on the Westminster Bridge Road, he paused a moment. There were some posters opposite, livid in the lamplight. A monstrous one, ten feet high at least, advertised Bovex. The Bovex people had dropped Corner Table and got on to a new tack. They were running a series of four–line poems—Bovex Ballads, they were called. There was a picture of a horribly eupeptic family, with grinning ham–pink faces, sitting at breakfast; underneath, in blatant lettering:

Why should YOU be thin and white? And have that washed–out feeling? Just take hot Bovex every night— Invigorating—healing!

Gordon gazed at the thing. He drank in its puling silliness. God, what trash! 'Invigorating—healing!' The weak incompetence of it! It hadn't even the vigorous badness of the slogans that really stick. Just soppy, lifeless drivel. It would have been almost pathetic in its feebleness if one hadn't reflected that all over London and all over every town in England that poster was plastered, rotting the minds of men. He looked up and down the graceless street. Yes, war is coming soon. You can't doubt it when you see the Bovex ads. The electric drills in our streets presage the rattle of the machine–guns. Only a little while before the aeroplanes come. Zoom—bang! A few tons of T.N.T. to send our civilization back to hell where it belongs.

He crossed the road and walked on, southward. A curious thought had struck him. He did not any longer want that war to happen. It was the first time in months—years, perhaps—that he had thought of it and not wanted it.

If he went back to the New Albion, in a month's time he might be writing Bovex Ballads himself. To go back to THAT! Any 'good' job was bad enough; but to be mixed up in THAT! Christ! Of course he oughtn't to go back. It was just a question of having the guts to stand firm. But what about Rosemary? He thought of the kind of life she would live at home, in her parents' house, with a baby and no money; and of the news running through that monstrous family that Rosemary had married some awful rotter who couldn't even keep her. She would have the whole lot of them nagging at her together. Besides, there was the baby to think about. The money–god is so cunning. If he only baited his traps with yachts and race–horses, tarts and champagne, how easy it would be to dodge them. It is when he gets at you through your sense of decency that he finds you helpless.

The Bovex Ballad jungled in Gordon's head. He ought to stand firm. He had made war on money—he ought to stick it out. After all, hitherto he HAD stuck it out, after a fashion. He looked back over his life. No use deceiving himself. It had been a dreadful life— lonely, squalid, futile. He had lived thirty years and achieved nothing except misery. But that was what he had chosen. It was what he WANTED, even now. He wanted to sink down, down into the muck where money does not rule. But this baby–business had upset everything. It was a pretty banal predicament, after all. Private vices, public virtues—the dilemma is as old as the world.