William Gerhardie - The Polyglots

‘Yes. This is where all the snobby people live — up hill,’ I said, stepping out. ‘And all the plain folk (the Governor excepted) live down hill, being conveniently looked down upon (the Governor excepted) by their brethren up the hill.’

I walked arm-in-arm with Sylvia, and because I did not want the ants to climb up my trousers, I walked quicker and quicker, the ants, like all other creatures of God, having to take their level chance, some of them perishing under my heels. They ran along quickly, with a serious preoccupied air, over the stony ruins even as we humans climbed the hills — the rotting eruption of nature among which we had come to life. And, behold, a solitary beetle who, too, had come out for a walk this lovely spring day, traversed the path, seeking indolently whom he might devour.

‘Darling, please don’t run so fast, please don’t pull me along— please !’

‘Do you want these damned things to climb up your legs?’ I slackened my pace, and at once one of the accursed creatures, who hurt out of all proportion to their size, climbed up my ankle and did his worst. I shook him off. If I could, I reflected aloud, I would come to an understanding with the ants, a modur vivendi , and let them live — while they work out their salvation, whatever it may be! But I cannot be bothered to — and so I crush them under foot rather than be incommoded. And so do we all one another. What a ludicrous world!

Then we found ourselves in a park, with the sea stretched at our feet. What a lordly feeling! A gust of wind stirred amidst the trees and shook some green leaves from their branches; for a moment they remained tremulous. The hot sun dipped its beams into the cool green waters below, and they sparkled with enjoyment. The sky, responsively playful, sent white downy clouds chasing each other across the azure. Sylvia looked at me with that infinitely tender look reserved for the only man who really matters in the world.

I looked at her.

She closed her eyes and sighed. ‘Tired. I want to lie down.’

‘Shall we go to the hotel?’

‘Yes.’

We work, I reflected, but no one knows why. ‘There,’ I said, stopping and pointing down with my stick, ‘ants also work.’

‘Yes, darling, they do. But what they can do isn’t worth anything, is it?’ she said, looking at me with a sweet appeal of reasonableness as if she were sorry for the fated insignificance of the ants but could not overlook it since it was manifest to all.

‘Isn’t worth anything — you mean to the world?’

‘Yes, darling.’

‘It isn’t a question of size. The universe in its aggregate has possibly not more, but less sense than the ants and is striving to speak through them, to realize its own soul in tangible work towards truth. The universe is awakening from sleep into life and is groping, building, that is, provisionally calculating, erecting outposts that will last for a time in order not to lapse back into the sleep where all is blurred as in a delirium. Our work here is merely the “over” which the world puts down in order not to get muddled in its calculations. But the auditor adds up, adds up without cease: He is trying to realize His full wealth, to get at last at the correct sum. For the Devil, I may tell you, is swindling Him of His possessions.’

‘The devil he is!’

‘And that is our work. That is what the ants are doing: registering the dream. But one must realize what that means and not register for registration’s sake. You must have something to register, and for that you must continually dive back into the dream to bring out the pearls.’

‘Darling,’ she said, ‘and you never bought me that little imitation pearl necklace after all.’

‘The whole trouble is that we don’t know whether the universe is directing us or we are directing the universe. Some hold that the universe is directing us to direct her. But the truth is probably that we all, the component parts of it, are propping up one another and cannot decide whither to go — as it really does not matter. The universe may not be going anywhere at all, but sensing the fatal barrenness of going anywhere in particular, for exactly the same reason is afraid of standing still. And so it is just restless. We are just restless. We do not know what it is we really want.’

‘But, darling, you know very well what I want. You’re only pretending you don’t.’

‘Perhaps when we get sick of wanting something in particular, and sick of wanting nothing in particular, we shall get sick of wanting anything at all, and then we shan’t want anything. Sooner or later we shall get sick of not wanting anything. Till we get sick of being sick.’

‘And then?’

‘Then we shall have stepped into the shoes of God.’

‘You are very naughty, darling,’ she said.

In a long room that smelt of newly polished wood, with windows overlooking the sea front, we took our siesta , and then the waiter brought up tea.

‘Tip him well, darling,’ Sylvia said. ‘He’s been quite good to us.’

Leaving the hotel, she gave the lady-manager her hand. ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘my husband and I have enjoyed ourselves very much.’

As we descended the hill in the train, the sea stretched open before us. A big steamer was coming in, finding her way carefully into the harbour; while there was another steamer just sailing out to sea; and the image of it, coupled with the humming life of the sea front vibrating in the sunlight, portended of a peace — a peace uttered long before us. I thought: I shall perish: but the Universe is mine.

‘If the whole world doesn’t matter, then what matters? And what is the reason, anyhow, of this “not-mattering” existing at all? For if life were there for no intelligent reason and from no intelligent cause, it would be more than ever a mystery that it was there at all. And if there were no life at all, only death — it would be no less strange and mysterious that death was — a vast sleeping Nothing.’

‘The world beyond — Darling, I know nothing of the world beyond, only what my little heart cries about and whines, like a baby,’ she said, ‘who is crying for milk. Will the mother turn up?’

‘Oh, she will! Oh, she will!’

And when we descended into town, it swarmed with busy little people, like beetles — dark human beetles who rushed in all directions, and among the many dark ones there rushed a few white beetles, shouldering the white man’s burthen. And I hated myself.

‘But if we can hate ourselves and laugh at ourselves — whence this sense of humour in us? What is that in us which laughs, that will not stand solemnities, that will not be impressed by life? What portent is that safety-valve, that constant rise from certain fact into uncertain sublimation? Is that not the real God from which we cannot tire?’

‘You are so naughty, darling,’ she said.

It was nearing dinner-time, and the evening air was tinged by a faint breeze that made breathing tolerable. The sinuous music that reached us from some café or dancing hall stirred our thirst for life; the shaded table lights beckoned to us to partake of their seclusion.

‘Let’s dine here, darling.’

‘No, no, maman will wonder where we are.’

We rickshawed about; got out at the square and looked at the statue of the Duke of Connaught. Then got back into our rickshaws and drove to the shore.

Life is wiser than reason, I thought. Life is , and so being, it has nothing to reason about: while reason is only a partial discovery of what is —incomplete and therefore inquisitive.

‘Darling, she’s waiting for you to step inside.’

We stepped into the sampan.

It was the old complaint which, when we are overworked, we put down to drudgery, or when we are lovesick we put down to love. It wasn’t drudgery. It wasn’t love. It was different. Sylvia, sitting close by my side, looked moved and gravely enchanted, and, by some mute agreement, we did not speak. Her large luminous hazel eyes gazed intently, in silent awe. Hong-Kong behind us, too, seemed in a spell of languor, stirring not, dreaming not: looking on, content just to be. There was no sound but that of the water lapping against the sides of the sampan; and the Chinese face of the woman who worked at the oar, fashioned no doubt in the image of God, was yet so different from ours. She either expected no miracles, or she took them for granted; she looked out to sea with a lethargic, expressionless stare, and worked dumbly and evenly at the oar. The Rhinoceros , with its white marble deck-house, looked like a sea-shell, translucent in the evening sunlight, wondrous and spellbound. The sturdy ship which was afraid neither of storms nor of space nor of darkness, looked moved and strangely tranquil as she lay out in midstream; like a hard-faced being melting to a cherished phrase of music, or a hardy seaman smiling at a child. And as you looked over the water at the wide expanse of sea and sky and back at the pearly city shimmering in the fading sunlight, you had a feeling then as if we were indeed immortal.