Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood

`I had decided to give him half an hour. But when I saw him -'

`When you saw him -?'

`Well, I've known him even longer than I've known you. It wasn't a proper argument, I'm afraid he'll have rather a poor impression -'

`He'll see, one day!'

`Oh – one day – And you, my queen and empress, my little hawkling, tell me, why did Lady Rose Curtland come to see you?'

`Curiosity,' said Jean, 'and to tell me Duncan still loves me.’

`And so, are you going back to him?'

`Crimond, don't hurt me.'

`Rose has upset you.'

`Oh all right, and Gerard has upset you! Actually she annoyed me, that's all. You don't feel she's unsettled me?’

`I feel precisely that.'

`You go on and on tormenting me. Why do you do it? You can't believe -'

`Oh I don't believe-we are talking of feelings. If one had the most precious diamond in the world in your pocket wouldn’t you be afraid of losing it, wouldn't you keep putting your hand in to be sure it was still there? '

`Yes. I feel like that too. But I don't keep persecuting you with my terrible fear.'

‘ I tell you of my fear so that you can instantly reassure me. Jeanie, my life rests upon your love, you must take my fear away at every second, my consciousness depends on yours, I breathe with your breath -'

‘Oh my love – pride, rose, prince, hero of me, high priest.'

‘Tell me something that Rose Curtland said to you, something about us, she must have said something about us, something to persuade you to go back.'

‘Oh, just idiotic things.'

‘Like what?'

`She said she thought I might be bored!'

‘And are you?'

`She said I didn't seem to know much about you.'

‘What made her say that?'

‘The fact that I didn't know you'd gone to see Gerard.'

‘You told her that I hadn't told you.'

‘It came out. I'm sorry. And when she asked if you'd mind her having come, I said I didn't know. I suppose I shouldn't have said that.'

‘It doesn't matter. You don't have to conceal anything. I should be angry if I thought you'd lied to her. Whatever you say she will think we are unhappy, and hope we are doomed. But are you bored?'

‘Crimond, don't go on like that! What about our lunch? I've got the vegetable soup that you like, and I'm making a stew for this evening.'

‘You're making a stew for this evening. That sounds like real life. Sometimes I think we're playing at it.'

‘At what?'

‘Real life.'

‘Crimond,' said Jean, 'my sweet dear love, sometimes a devil gets into you that wants to undermine us. You say such destructive things, and almost as if you wanted to bring it all down. You negate our reality, and you do it wantonly.'

‘Oh Jeanie, I'm so tired, I'm so tired, I can't rest, I can't rest-‘

Jean put her arms round him, round the bundle of his shoulders and his overcoat, and drew his head down to her shoulder and stroked his hair over the crown of his head and down onto his neck under the coat collar, and looked away over his head across the chill room to the open door. His head was cold. 'You work too hard,' she said, 'I know you have so. I wish I could make you rest. I so often want to .You must teach me how. I know we rest in bed. But you don't rest any other way – and neither do I. '

Crimond lifted his head and put his cold lips gently to her cheek. 'What do people do who can rest, my angel of love?’

`I wish I were a llangel of peace. '

`You are, you are m ypeace, I have no other.'

`People who can rest read books and go for walks and arrange flowers and weed their gardens and wash their cars and listen to music and rearrange their possessions and have their friends to informal suppers and have lots of general conversation.'

`At least we read books.'

`You read work books, and poetry. I can't read at present. It'll come back.'

`Perhaps your friend Rose is r ight. She want’s us to fail. She isn't really your friend. She's spiteful. as women are.’

`And irrational, I suppose! You want to liberate the world but you still think in your heart women are inferior, you think they aren't quite real.'

`All men think that,' said Crimond, raising his head from where it had been resting, and thrusting her away a little. ‘And most women too. Why deny it, women are different, their brains are different, they're weaker, women cry and men don't, that symbolises it.'

`Have you never cried?'

`Not that I know of."

‘Perhaps you will one day.'

`Perhaps, when the world ends.'

`You're certainly not very sound on the liberation of women. Maybe after all Islam will rule the world.’

`It is a possibility I have considered.'

`So you think me irrational and inferior and unreal?’

`Not you, little one. You are not a woman. You are an errant spirit. We are both from elsewhere, we are visitors here, aliens, and by a happy chance we have met each other.'

‘No wonder we think everyone else we know is half alive.'

‘You must find something to do, something to study, you are wasting your talents.'

‘I will find something, I will, don't worry about that!'

‘I believe you are bored sometimes, you must be, Rose is right. You’ve given up so much, all your friends, your social life-‘

‘What I've given up is worthless to me. You've given up your solitude. I wonder if you sometimes regret it?'

‘No, no, my heart and my soul – it was fated. You won't leave me, will you, little falcon?'

‘How could I leave you, I amyou, I cannot tear myself out from the sheth of my limbs.'

‘You see, we do read, we do. Perhaps one day we shall go for a walk. Yes, yes, if` we are to be d ismembered we shall be dismembered together.'

‘If only you could be more quiet with me. You said I was your peace. But you are always starting away as if you'd had an electric shock.'

‘Then I shall never he it peace with you,' said Crimond, `if peace is quietness. I meant something else.' He pulled off his coat and sat, apart from her, leaning forward with his head in his hands. "Yost are my weakness, my weak point, that is part of our impossibility.’

Jean sat stiffly, frightened, as she often was. After a moment she said softly, slowly, `When the book is finished perhaps we could travel a little. I'd so much like to be with you in France and Italy. You go on about the importance of Europe. You could visit people and talk to them.'

‘When I finish the book I shall cease to be, and so will you.'

‘Sometimes you talk nonsense, deliberate tiresome nonsense.’

‘Perhaps the book will never be finished.'

‘Of course it will, andthen you'll write another.'

‘My darling, can you see us growing old together?''

‘You won't grow old.' she said. Could he, her Crimond, grow old? Then she said, 'I love you – whatever is to be we’ll be together. Oh Crimond, don't torment me with this talk-‘

`I shall be bald, your lovely live hair will be limp and grey, we shall be weak and crippled. We shall look at each other in fear as we diminish more. I don't want ever to get used to you, Jeanie dear, why should we, we carry the long mortal burden of age and decline, we who are living gods in this place? I cannot leave you behind, any more than you can leave me behind. Better to consummate our love in death.’ As he was rubbing his hands over his face and his eyes and through his hair. 'Oh I am so tired- my mind is so tired tired -‘

Jean felt afraid. He had talked like this before. ‘Yes, yes, of course, you are tired, you should stop working, rest, rest , just for a day.'

`I can't rest, you don't understand, you betray me, you don't listen to my words. I'm sorry. Sometimes I feel I am a knife poised at your heart.'