William Gerhardie - The Polyglots

She was with me — altogether mine; I was assuaged; and I could think of other things. I lay still, and my soul went out to the world. That surging passion in me of a while ago was torn out by the roots, and the memory of it was now no more than of an eaten sweet. Released at last, my soul went forward with another, finer, passion of the mind, and I could see things, near and distant, with a minute acumen teeming in a pool of quivering sunlight. I suddenly perceived the difference between the subjective and objective aspects at the succeeding stages in the evolution of an attitude. And thinking of this difference between two aspects, I just as suddenly fell asleep.

‘Oh, my goodness,’ she said, waking me.

‘What?’

‘You are —you are —’

‘What?’

‘Oh! But you are leaving, Alexander, tomorrow, and — oh!’

‘The best of friends must part.’ I rubbed my eyes.

‘Perhaps we shall never see each other again.’

‘As your father says, “ Que voulez-vous? C’est la vie !” It can’t be helped. But I am awfully sleepy, you know. And tomorrow morning I must be off.’

‘Oh! You know you are —you are —’

‘What?’

‘Well, never mind,’ she said, and turned her back to me. ‘Well, if one can’t sleep then one must do the next best thing — think.’

I was silent, thinking.

‘What are you thinking of?’ she asked, without turning round.

‘Well, I was reading this evening — just before I came here — a book that, to my way of thinking, defines very clearly the difference between the subjective and objective attitudes in life and letters.’

But when I spoke to Sylvia of the confusion of the terms ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’, she looked as though she thought that it was a confusion which I succeeded in confusing further still in my painstaking efforts to elucidate the difference; and I think she felt sorry for me. The trouble was that Sylvia, with all her charm, was not an intellectual; but though I felt that my endeavour to raise the level of our conversation was doomed to failure in advance, I nevertheless went on: ‘What is the meaning of “better”, unless it be “better fitted to survive”? Obviously “better”, on this interpretation of its meaning, is in no sense a “subjective” conception, but is as “objective” as any conception can be. But yet all those who object to a subjective view of “goodness”, and insist upon its “objectivity”, would object just as strongly to this interpretation of its meaning as to any “subjective” interpretation. Obviously, therefore,’ I continued, looking at Sylvia, who only blinked repeatedly the while, ‘Obviously, what they are really anxious to contend for is not merely that goodness is “objective”, since they are here objecting to a theory which is “objective”; but something else. But something else,’ I said, looking at Sylvia.

‘Darling, talk of something else,’ she said. ‘This is difficult for me to understand.’

I am an intellectual, and I do not like to be interrupted in the midst of an elusive analysis, the less so when this analysis is none too clear even for an intellectual.

‘I’m an intellectual,’ I said. ‘A purist. I can’t be for ever kissing and cuddling.’

‘You talk to me like a teacher,’ she complained.

‘All the more reason why you should listen attentively. And so where have we left off? Ah, yes: but something else . And it is this same fact — the fact that, on any “subjective” interpretation, the very same kind of thing which, under some circumstances, is better than another, would, under others, be worse — which constitutes, so far as I can see’—(I looked at her again, and she gave me a bright, anxious gaze, as though frightened that I might lose the thread)—‘so far as I can see, the fundamental objection to all “subjective” interpretations. Is that quite clear?’

Sylvia only blinked. She looked at me sadly, as if wondering who were these subjective and objective animals that sapped my nervous force, and she had a suspicion, I daresay, that these activities of mine were in excess of life.

Then I craved for sleep. Sneaking thoughts kept creeping in, that it would be nice to have a bed to yourself and to go to sleep in it royally, as last night and all the nights before to-night. I wanted to sleep diagonally, crumpled up as I always sleep, and her presence across my path annoyed me a little. Then suddenly I began to laugh.

‘What are you laughing at?’ Sylvia looked up, surprised.

‘Because this reminds me of my grandfather when, having just joined up in the war, I visited him at Colchester, just before his death. I wanted him to notice me in my uniform, but he would talk of nothing else but his dead father and how he had fought at Waterloo — and never took any notice of my uniform.’—At which I laughed again.

‘Why are you laughing?’

‘Well, you see, there were only two beds in the house: my grandfather’s and my aunt’s. As it was contrary to custom that I should share a bed with my maiden aunt, I had perforce to share it with my maternal grandfather.’

‘But why are you telling me all that, darling?’

‘Well, because, you see, he rolled himself round twice in all the available blankets — just like you now, in fact — monopolizing the whole of the bed, so that I had to lie on the iron side-bar — just like now, in fact — and “Keep warm, George,” he said; “ah! there is nothing like keeping warm!” He died a week later. He was ninety-two, good old chap!’

Sylvia tickled me.

‘Go to sleep,’ I said tenderly.

‘Kiss me good night.’

I kissed her tenderly on the left eye. Beautiful, beautiful eye!

‘You are leaving tomorrow,’ she said woefully.

I kissed her again, close on the mouth, with considerable passion, and then said:

‘Go to sleep.’

And she purred as she curled up close to my side:

‘Mrr-mrr-mrr …’

The light was out. My thoughts went out to some imaginary girl, stranger and less obvious than Sylvia — some other girl in some other stranger and remoted place, some other place where I could lose this thing, this cursed thing, my soul. The clock on the table at my side ticked away the æons. It was dark, and I could hear the measured rhythm of Sylvia’s breathing. A black mosquito, like a black shark, swam up in the air and attacked me with a pertinacity astonishing in one so frail. But he had forgotten to silence his engine, and his buzzing announced his approach at my ear with the blare of a brass trumpet; which proved his undoing. In a flash I dispatched him back to his forefathers! Then, unnoticed, I lapsed into sleep. I dreamt that my old teacher of mathematics, whom I had hated at school, was trying to sell me a number of Corona typewriters, and that though I already had one I was constrained into buying another — and suffered deeply. If we can suffer thus in sleep — meaninglessly and unnecessarily — perhaps in life we also suffer meaninglessly and unnecessarily. And as I was suffering thus in my sleep, bemoaning the expense of a superfluous Corona , suddenly I must have jumped clean out of bed.

‘Oh, darling, I’m sorry I frightened you,’ I heard Sylvia’s voice as if coming from another world.

‘What! Where! What!’ Then, still in a trance, I got back into bed and at once fell into a sound dreamless sleep.

To wake in the morning and to see her profile; a head framed in dark locks, all locks to the shoulder, a delightful nose, ever so slightly retroussé , her eyes closed, clearly defined, thin, as if pencilled black brows; her dark head thrown into relief by the white pillow on which it rests sideways — these are the sweets of life. To hold a fragrant lovely warm body in your arms, to inhale the delicious scent of Cœur de Jeanette , to murmur sweet, tender, whispered things, and to know all the time that she is yours, your Sylvia-Ninon — oh, it was good to be born, good to be born, good to be born! Those pursed red lips, her face against your face, and when she winks you feel the impish movement of her lashes on your cheek, and without seeing it you feel her smile — oh, what a fund of secret gladnesses, of intimate delights! You roll over and kiss her closed eyes, and she, half reluctantly — for she is awfully sleepy, awfully hard to wake — smiles at you, purring the while like a kitten: ‘Mrr-mrr-mrr …’ This is meet, this is meet, I say, even for an intellectual. And her nose! That exquisitely shaped little nosy! The lovely outline of her nose as her head rests sideways on the pillow. How is it that I did not notice it before? If you cannot catch my exultation, if you needs must present a cold front of indifference, it is, I know , because not having seen it you do not know. I know: because I’ve seen it. (It is absolutely necessary that we should understand each other on this point before we can go any farther.) It was like a fairy-tale, and Sylvia, with her locks and childish face, was like a fairy child. And I felt a pang of pity at the thought that I shouldn’t have perceived its charm till that last morning when I was leaving her for ever: that the first time must needs also be the last.