Nicholas Mosley - Hopeful Monsters

In the outside world there were more and more ghostly figures standing unemployed on street corners. I had said to you, my beautiful German girl, 'In the end, people either will or will not destroy themselves -

— We will or will not meet each other again.' You had said 'But which?'

We had sat facing each other with our backs against trees.

It seemed to me now that this was some form of annunciation.

So — Get up and go on!

— You think you can stop thinking?

— Oh such a situation might be aesthetic!

Melvyn had a friend called Mullen who sometimes visited him in his room. Mullen was a notable figure in Cambridge: he was tall and thin with a face like a hatchet. He strode through the streets in

a long blue coachman's overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat: he seemed to expect people to get off the pavement for him. He was a poet: he was said to be writing a book about aesthetics; he was also an authority on Karl Marx. I would think — I should be cultivating people like Mullen!

— Or is it proper that I would rather, like some mad archaic god, go bumping and bouncing off walls to find my way through the maze?

Melvyn and Mullen were both members of the club, or society, known as The Apostles, the members of which felt themselves to be part of an intellectual and cultural elite. They were an apotheosis of the Cambridge tradition of it being the mark of an elite to hold everything open to question: to manipulate nihilism by sleight-of-mind. I had once said to Melvyn 'Stalin would have made a marvellous Apostle!' Melvyn had said 'But that moustache!'

I was going up my stairs one day when Melvyn called out 'Mullen wants to meet you.'

I said 'Why?'

Melvyn said 'Perhaps he thinks you're attractive, ducky.'

I thought — Perhaps I can ask him about not only Marxism but aesthetics.

I had become obsessed by the idea of liveliness residing in areas about which nothing much could be said — in physics, in philosophy; even in the way things really worked in politics. I thought — But in all these areas, there is something to do with aesthetics that might be said? I took to going at this time to the Fitzwilliam Museum to look at the paintings: I thought — Something can be looked at; found by a painter; even if it cannot be said.

In the picture gallery I became interested in two small paintings by Domenico Veneziano which hung side by side. One was of the Annunciation and was very beautiful: the Angel and Mary faced each other across a courtyard, they did not look at each other; they seemed to be intent on whatever it was in between. Behind them, and in between, there was a closed door in a garden at the back of the courtyard. The other painting depicted a group present at a miracle performed by some saint in a street: it was ugly. The people seemed to be intent on portraying dramatic emotion; as if they felt that this was required of them by some observer.

I thought — It is not exactly that this painting is ugly: it is giving some aesthetic message about what is ugly.

Then — You and I, in the Black Forest, we knew something about

that first painting, that courtyard; that doorway at the back in between?

There was a day — sometime during my second term I think — when Melvyn brought Mullen to visit me in my room. I had not thought much about what they might come to visit me for: to look me over as a possible recruit for the Apostles, for homosexual purposes, possibly because Melvyn had told Mullen of my interest in Russia? Melvyn and Mullen sat on my sofa side by side; they were like two characters in a ballet — the dancing master and his pupil — and of course they were actors! Mullen wore his long blue coat with the collar turned up at the back; Melvyn had narrow trousers tapering to small pointed shoes. I sat with my chair tipped back against a wall. I thought — They have come to do an experiment with me; but why should not that which is observed cause disturbance among the observers?

'I don't think you know Mullen, do you?'

'No, how do you do.'

'How do you do.'

'Would you like some tea?'

'No, thank you.'

'A glass of sherry?'

'No, thank you.'

Melvyn and Mullen sat side by side. I thought — Well, they have cottoned on to the idea about the stylishness of silence.

Then — I wonder who, between the two of them, it is who buggers whom?

I said to Mullen 'Can I ask you about aesthetics?'

Mullen said 'Please do.'

Mullen had cold pale eyes like the water in a goldfish bowl. I thought — somewhere far inside there might be something golden swimming around.

I said 'In the Fitzwilliam Museum there are two small paintings by Domenico Veneziano: one is of the Annunciation and is very beautiful; the other is of a saint's miracle and is not. In the Annunciation, down a garden path, there is a closed door in a wall. This seems to guard some secret. What is this secret? I mean, can it ever be said?'

Melvyn and Mullen stared at me. I thought — This scene is like what I have gathered from my mother about psychoanalysis: the analyst sits in silence until the patient, out of embarrassment, makes

a fool of himself. Then — But, after all, it is the patient who is being kind to the analyst.

I said 4 In the other painting, of the so-called "miracle", everyone seemed to be posing dramatically for the painter. But there is nothing between them or at the back of them. There is no secret.'

After a time Melvyn said 'Ducky, Mullen's subject is fourteenth-century Russian icons.'

I said 'Do you think there are two sorts of portraits? One in which people seem to be posing for the painter, and another in which they are saying "All right I see why you have to do this."'

Melvyn and Mullen said nothing.

I said 'In religious paintings I do not think people should pose for God.'

Then after a time I said 'I see this is not the way people usually talk about fourteenth-century Russian icons.'

Melvyn said 'In that you are correct.'

Mullen said 'Melvyn tells me you are a physicist.'

I said'Yes.'

Mullen said 'In physics, do you think there should be secrets?'

I thought — Oh good heavens, no wonder I have had to make a fool of myself!

I said 'I don't know.'

Melvyn said 'Ducky, we came to ask you if you'd like to join the local football fan club.'

I said 'What does the local football fan club do?'

Melvyn said 'It watches football.'

Mullen said 'But it should not be a political decision, whether physics has secrets?'

I said 'I suppose not.'

Melvyn said 'Time, gentlemen, please.'

Mullen said 'Perhaps we will see you at the football club.'

I said 'I hope so.'

After they had gone, I felt that I would rush out and obliterate their absurd footprints in the snow. I thought — I need your help, my beautiful German girl.

I remained in my sexual limbo at this time. There was a boy with whom I had once been in love at school: there was the fantasy that I had in some way been in love with my mother. I dreamed, but was still frightened, of girls. Sex took the form with me of what one did with one's dreams: dreams were of what one might meet again round some corner. I felt — My beautiful German girl will one day

rise again sword-in-hand from a lake; she will help me to slay the dragons that entrap me in dreams; that make me feel that reality is untouchable.

Sometime after my meeting with Mullen, Melvyn caught me on the stairs and said 'Ducky, I can't quite tell into what, or not, you've put your pretty foot with Mullen!'

From this I gathered that I had been some sort of success.

I thought — But in relation to what: aesthetics? Or the local football fan club?

Then — Oh but I am bored with Melvyn's riddles! They are the posing of someone who is afraid there is no painter.