Iris Murdoch - Bruno’s Dream

”I’m not being silly. I’m a servant. I’m your servant. Have you forgotten? I’m youraid employee.”

”You’ve said all this before.”

”And I was glad to be your servant, glad.”

”Oh go to bed, for Christ’s sake.”

”To think how I worshipped you! You’ll never know how I worshipped you.”

”Well, more fool you.”

”You took my love, you were glad enough to have it, and now you just call me a fool!”

”I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-“

”Anyway, I told her. I told her.”

”What on earth are you talking about?”

”I told that stuck-up bitch about you and me. You didn’t know that, did you? I told her we were lovers. I told her we’d been lovers for years. I told her to bloody well keep off.”

”Oh Christ.” Danby got up. He stood hunched, staring at the empty whisky bottle. “When was that?”

”Last week.”

”What did she say?”

”She pretended not to care.”

”Adelaide, I’m sorry you did that.”

”I’m glad you’re sorry.”

”Not that she could think any worse of me-Well, she could-Anyway it doesn’t matter.”

”You just kept mum about little me, didn’t you? Thought you could tidy me away, sweep me under the carpet-“

”Oh never mind, never mind. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.”

”I loved you so much-“

”Don’t start crying again, I can’t stand it.”

”I loved you so much and I was so happy-so happy-“

Adelaide choked in sobs.

”Go to bed-or else I’m going out-“

”I’ll kill myself. I can’t go on existing now. I’ll kill myself-“

Danby made for the door.

Suddenly there was a different sound at the window. The rattling spatter of the rain had been resolved into a steadier and more insistent tapping. Danby stood rigid. Adelaide stopped crying. The tapping came again, louder, purposive, menacing against the wailing background of the wind. Adelaide and Danby stared at each other and then at the window. Between the half-drawn curtains the space was blank, quartered with reflections. Danby strode across and dragged back the curtain, leaning forward and peering. A hand was clearly visible, pressed against the glass from without. Adelaide screamed. Danby could now see a bulky figure standing directly opposite to him in the darkness outside. The next moment there was a sound of shattering glass and Danby leapt back as the fragments of the glass pane came showering after him into the room.

Danby spun round, jumped over Adelaide’s legs, and ran up the stairs two at a time. He threw open the front door. Through the swaying curtain of the driven rain he saw a hurrying figure just reaching the corner of the road and disappearing. Danby stood for a moment on the verge of the rain, with the wet wind blowing into his face and his heart beating hard. Then as he began to close the door he saw that he was standing upon an envelope. He picked it up and went slowly back down the stairs.

Adelaide had risen. She stood clutching her blouse against her throat. The cold air was blowing in through the big jagged hole in the window pane. “Who was it?”

”I don’t know. Whoever it was he probably left this note. It’s addressed to me.” Danby ripped it open. It read as follows.

I know about your life with Adelaide. She was mine but I discard her as trash. You may keep her. Just tell the hell-bitch to stay out of my way if she wants to keep her looks. You I shall punish in my own fashion. I challenge you to a duel. The weapons will be pistols. You may select the place. If you refuse this challenge I will brand you as a coward, I will publish your degrading liaison with your servant, I will persecute you at your home and at your place of work in every way that I can devise, until I have made your life a misery. If you accept the challenge I will do my best either to kill you or to maim you.

Will Boase

Danby read this curious missive with raised eyebrows. Then he handed it to Adelaide.

Adelaide looked at it. It fell from her hands to the floor. She crushed her fingers into her mouth to stifle the issuing cry. Then her voice came bubbling forth. “I’ve lost him, I’ve lost him, I’ve lost him, the only man who ever really loved me!”

Lisa stood in the door of the drawing room dressed in her brown mackintosh with the collar turned up. A large tartan suitcase stood on the floor beside her. A sunny rainy light rilled the room with a peculiar brightness. Miles was standing by the window.

“Close the door, Lisa.” Lisa made an interrogative gesture, pointing behind her into the hall. “She’s upstairs,” said Miles. “Anyway she doesn’t suppose you’ll leave the house without seeing me!”

”I don’t want to add anything-anything-“

”To her pain? It makes no difference. What about our pain?”

”It’s better not to talk,” said Lisa. She closed the door.

”But we have talked. It was essential.”

”Maybe. But one of the good things is that we haven’t talked more than was essential.”

”You treat this thing-surgically.”

”It’s the only way.”

”It may be the right way. I’m not even sure about that. It’s certainly not the only way. It’s unnatural.”

”What is right is often unnatural.”

”God, you chill my blood, Lisa.”

”I know. I love you, Miles.” She uttered the words coldly.

”I love you. I love you terribly. I’ll love you always to the very end of my life. I shall think about you all the time.”

”Not all the time, Miles.”

”And if you imagine this is the end of the story you’re bloody mistaken. You can’t dispose of a thing of this size in this cool way.”

”I don’t feel cool, Miles. Now I am going to call Diana.”

”No, no, no, not yet.”

Miles crossed the room to the door. As he reached the door Lisa moved back into the room. They faced each other.

”Lisa, take off your coat.”

”No.”

”It’s not too late to decide something else. It will never be too late and it certainly isn’t too late now.”

”No talk,” she said, “no talk. The more we talk the more agony it will be later. And we know that we have no other course of action at all.”

”We’ve discussed it so little.”

”You know what discussion is like in a case like this.”

”Oh Lisa-we’re acting like mad things.”

”See it’s hopeless, Miles, see it. Before you loved me, all right before you knew you loved me, it was possible for me to live here. It was painful, but it was good too. It was a manageable life. But now it would be torture to me, and torture to Diana. And you know you can’t leave Diana. Anyway, you love her. And you can’t run us in two houses. I wouldn’t tolerate it even if you and Diana would. Just see it, see the pattern, see the machine. You can’t struggle against necessity.”

”Is there nothing else, nothing we haven’t thought of?”

”Nothing.”

”I could leave Diana. We haven’t really considered-“

”You couldn’t. Miles, this is just the sort of talk we mustn’t have. We’ve got to go on functioning as people and we can. No one dies of love. It’s all crazy and inflated now. But we’ll feel better in six months’ time, though people in love hate to admit this.”

”I won’t feel better in six months’ time, Lisa. I don’t think you realize how important this is for both of us. It’s something I’ve waited for all my life.”

”I have realized it, Miles. You know how much I love you. And I’ve waited too. I’ve lived for years with this love. I didn’t know it would end like this. Though even if I had known I would still have loved and waited. But we can’t run a course straight into ruin, ruin of Diana, ruin of you, ruin of me. How could we live together, abandoning her? Could you write poetry, could I go on doing any of the things that I do for people, if we were living with an action like that?”