Anthony Powell - The Acceptance World

Quiggin gave an annoyed laugh. Some sheets of foolscap, blue and ruled with red lines for keeping accounts, were found in a drawer. One of these large sheets of paper was set out upon a table. The experiment began with Mona, Stripling and Mrs. Erdleigh as executants, the last of whom, having once registered her protest, showed no ungraciousness in her manner of joining the proceedings, if they were fated to take place. Templer obviously felt complete scepticism regarding the whole matter, which he could not be induced to take seriously even to the extent of agreeing to participate. Quiggin, too, refused to join in, though he showed an almost feverish interest in what was going forward.

Naturally, Quiggin was delighted when, after a trial of several minutes, no results whatever were achieved. Then the rest of us, in various combinations of persons, attempted to work the board. All these efforts were unsuccessful. Sometimes the pencil shot violently across the surface of the paper, covering sheet after sheet, as a new surface was substituted, with dashes and scribbles. More often, it would not move at all.

‘You none of you seem to be getting very far,’ said Templer.

‘It may be waste of time,’ said Mrs. Erdleigh. ‘Planchette can be very capricious. Perhaps there is an unsympathetic presence in the room.’

‘I should not be at all surprised,’ said Quiggin, speaking with elaborately satirical emphasis.

He stood with his heels on the fender, his hands in his pockets — rather in the position Le Bas used to adopt when giving a lecture on wiping your boots before coming into the house — very well pleased with the course things were taking.

‘I think you are horrid,’ said Mona.

She made a face at him; in itself a sign of a certain renewed interest.

‘I don’t think you ought to believe in such things,’ said Quiggin, nasally.

‘But I do:

She smiled encouragingly. She had probably begun to feel that occult phenomena, at least by its absence, was proving itself a bore; and that perhaps she might find more fun in returning to her original project of exploring Quiggin’s own possibilities. However, this exchange between them was immediately followed by sudden development among the group resting their fingers on the board. Jean and Mona had been trying their luck with Stripling as third partner. Jean now rose from the table, and, dropping one of those glances at once affectionate and enquiring that raised such a storm within me, she said: ‘You have a go.’

I took the chair and placed my fingers lightly where hers had been. Previously, when I had formed a trio with Mrs. Erdleigh and Mona — who had insisted on being party to every session — nothing of note had happened. Now, almost at once, Planchette began to move in a slow, regular motion.

At first, from the ‘feel’ of the movement, I thought Stripling must be manipulating the board deliberately. A glassy look had come into his eye and his loose, rather brutal mouth sagged open. Then the regular, up-and-down rhythm came abruptly to an end. The pencil, as if impatient of all of us, shot off the paper on to the polished wood of the table. A sentence had been written. It was inverted from where Stripling was sitting. In fact the only person who could reasonably be accused of having written the words was myself. The script was long and sloping, Victorian in character. Mrs. Erdleigh took a step forward and read it aloud:

‘Karl is not pleased.’

There was great excitement at this. Everyone crowded round our chairs.

‘You must ask who “Karl” is,’ said Mrs. Erdleigh, smiling.

She was the only one who remained quite unmoved by this sudden manifestation. Such things no longer surprised her. Quiggin, on the other hand, moved quickly round to my side of the table. He seemed divided between a wish to accuse me of having written these words as a hoax, and at the same time an unwillingness to make the admission, obviously necessary in the circumstances, that any such deception must have required quite exceptional manipulative agility. In the end he said nothing, but stood there frowning hard at me.

‘Is it Karl speaking?’ asked Stripling, in a respectful, indeed reverential voice.

We replaced our hands on the board.

‘Who else,’ wrote Planchette.

‘Shall we continue?’

‘Antwortet er immer.’

‘Is that German?’ said Stripling.

‘What does it mean, Pete?’ Mona called out shrilly.

Templer looked a little surprised at this.

‘Isn’t it: “He always answers”?’ he said. ‘My German is strictly commercial — not intended for communication with the Next World.’

‘Have you a message? Please write in English if you do not mind.’

Stripling’s voice again trembled a little when he said this.

‘Nothing to the Left.’

This was decidedly enigmatic.

‘Does he mean we should move the coffee tray?’ Mona almost shouted, now thoroughly excited. ‘He doesn’t say whose left. Perhaps we should clear the whole table.’

Quiggin took a step nearer.

‘Which of you is faking this?’ he said roughly. ‘I believe it is you, Nick.’

He was grinning hard, but I could see that he was extremely irritated. I pointed out that I could not claim to write neat Victorian calligraphy sideways, and also upside-down, at considerable speed: especially when unable to see the paper written upon.

‘You must know “Nothing to the Left” is a quotation,’ Quiggin insisted.

‘Who said it?’

‘You got a degree in history, didn’t you?’

‘I must have missed out that bit.’

‘Robespierre, of course,’ said Quiggin, with great contempt. ‘He was speaking politically. Does no one in this country take politics seriously?’

I could not understand why he had become quite so angry.

‘Let’s get on with it,’ said Templer, now at last beginning to show some interest. ‘Perhaps he’ll make himself clearer if pressed.’

‘This is too exciting,’ said Mona.

She clasped her hands together. We tried again.

‘Wives in common.’

This was an uncomfortable remark. It was impossible to guess what the instrument might write next. However, everyone was far too engrossed to notice whether the comment had brought embarrassment to any individual present.

‘Look here—‘ began Quiggin.

Before he could complete the sentence, the board began once more to race beneath our fingers.

‘Force is the midwife.’

‘I hope he isn’t going to get too obstetric,’ said Templer.

Quiggin turned once more towards me. He was definitely in a rage.

‘You must know where these phrases come from,’ he said. ‘You can’t be as ignorant as that.’

‘Search me.’

‘You are trying to be funny.’

‘Never less.’

‘Marx, of course, Marx,’ said Quiggin testily, but perhaps wavering in his belief that I was responsible for faking the writing. ‘Das Kapital… The Communist Manifesto.’

‘So it’s Karl Marx, is it?’ asked Mona.

The name was evidently vaguely familiar to her, no doubt from her earlier days when she had known Gypsy Jones; had perhaps even taken part in such activities as selling War Never Pays!

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Quiggin, by implication including Mona in this reproof, probably more violently than he intended. ‘It was quite obvious that one of you was rigging the thing. I admit I can’t at present tell which of you it was. I suspect it was Nick, as he is the only one who knows I am a practising Marxist — and he persuaded me to come here.’

‘I didn’t know anything of the sort — and I’ve already told you I can’t write upside-down.’

‘Steady on,’ said Templer. ‘You can’t accuse a fellow guest of cheating at Planchette. Duels have been fought for less. This will turn into another Tranby Croft case unless we moderate our tone.’