Robert Pirsig - Lila. An Inquiry Into Morals

Anyway, all this certainly answered the question of whether the Metaphysics of Quality was a foreign, cultish, deviant way of looking at things. The Metaphysics of Quality is a continuation of the mainstream of twentieth-century American philosophy. It is a form of pragmatism, of instrumentalism, which says the test of the true is the good. It adds that this good is not a social code or some intellectualized Hegelian Absolute. It is direct everyday experience. Through this identification of pure value with pure experience, the Metaphysics of Quality paves the way for an enlarged way of looking at experience which can resolve all sorts of anomalies that traditional empiricism has not been able to cope with.

Phædrus supposed he could read on into all this James material but he doubted that he would find anything different from what he had already found. There is a time for investigation and there is a time for conclusion and he had a feeling that that latter time had come. His watch showed it was only nine-thirty but he was glad the day was done. He turned down the wick on the kerosene lamp, blew it out, placed it in its wall-holder and then settled down into the sleeping bag.

Good old sleep.

He awoke to a tugging motion. There was a low sound of wind and a lapping of water. The wind must have changed direction. He hadn’t heard that for a long time. The boat was tugging a little to port, then after a time tugging back to starboard… and then after another long time another tug to port again… On and on. The portlights showed an overcast sky.

Loneliness was what he always associated with these sounds and motions of the boat. A boat out on anchor exposed to a steady wind is almost always in some lonely place, a place only boats can get to.

It was a relaxing sound. Gray skies and wind mean a kind of day when it’s pleasant not to go anywhere, just putter around the cabin fixing up things that you’ve been putting off, studying charts and harbor guides and planning where you will be going.

Then he remembered that today he was going to go into town and try to get some food.

Then he remembered Lila. Maybe today he’d find out if she was any better.

He got out of the sleeping bag. When he put his feet down on the cabin sole he didn’t get the usual shock. The cabin thermometer showed 55 degrees. Not bad.

The ocean was doing that. The lakes and canals back inland would start icing up in a month or so, but he doubted whether this water would freeze at all. The tides and currents would keep it moving. Certainly on the other side of this hook the ocean never froze, so he had escaped that danger. He could always get out. The ice couldn’t get him any more.

He stepped up the ladder, pushed open the hatch and put his head out.

It was beautiful. Gray skies. South wind. Warm wind with an ocean smell in it. The other two boats that had been at anchor were gone.

The curve of the hook concealed Manhattan and Brooklyn. All he could see across the bay to the west was a barge at anchor and a high-rise apartment from another world miles away.

He suddenly felt a wild freedom.

The change in the wind had placed his boat a little closer to shore now and he noticed something he hadn’t paid much attention to yesterday. The shore was piled with debris. There were plastic bottles, an old tire and, farther off, what looked like old creosoted telephone poles half buried in the sand next to a boat hull with its transom knocked out. Sandy Hook seemed like some final resting place for all the junk of civilization that had come down the Hudson River.

He looked at his watch. Nine o’clock. He’d really slept. He went back below, rolled up the sleeping bag and put away the books and slips from last night’s reading. He built a new fire, noting there were only about two days of charcoal left. When the fire was going he went to the chart table and opened the second drawer down. He pulled out all the Hudson River charts, gathered them into a pile and carried them to a bin above the settee berth where he stored them. He wouldn’t be needing those again. To take their place he brought out a roll of charts from Sandy Hook to Cape May and the Delaware River. At the chart table he unrolled them and studied each one.

The coast had many little criss-cross marks showing wrecks. Rigel had warned him not to get caught off the New Jersey shore in a northeaster. But it looked like an easy three days to Cape May if the weather was good, with an easy run to Manasquan Inlet and a longer one to Atlantic City.

Phædrus folded the charts and placed them in the chart table drawer. He prepared a simple breakfast for himself, ate it, and then made one for Lila.

When he brought it in she was awake. The swelling of her face didn’t seem to have gone down much but she was looking at him again, really looking at him now: making contact.

Why is the boat swinging? she said.

It’s all right, he said.

It’s making me dizzy, she said. Stop the boat from swinging.

She’s not only talking, he thought, she’s complaining. That’s real progress. How does that eye feel? he asked.

Awful.

We can put hot rags on it or something.

No.

Well, here’s breakfast, anyway.

Are we at the island?

We’re at Sandy Hook, New Jersey.

Where is everybody?

Where?

On the island, she said.

He didn’t know what she was talking about, but something told him not to ask.

It’s not an island, it’s a spit of land. There’s nobody here, at least on this part. Just a lot of junk lying around.

You know what I mean, she said.

He sensed there was a problem coming up. If he rejected what she was telling him then she’d reject him. He didn’t want that. She was trying to reach out to him now. He should try to meet her halfway.

Well, it’s almost an island, he said.

Richard is coming.

Rigel?

She didn’t say anything. He supposed she must mean Rigel. There weren’t any other Richards.

Rigel said he was going to Connecticut to sell his boat, Phædrus said. This is New Jersey now, so he won’t be coming this way.

Well, I’m ready, Lila said.

That’s good, he said. That’s very good. I’m going down the road to try to find some groceries. Do you want to come along?

No.

OK. You can rest here as long as you feel like, he said. He stepped back and closed the door.

Ready for what, he wondered, as he entered the main cabin. They want to superimpose their movie on you. It’s like talking to some religious nut. You can’t argue with her, you’ve just got to find some common ground. She was sure a lot better but there was a long way to go.

He wondered if it was safe to leave her here alone. There wasn’t much else he could do. It was a lot safer than at a dock where she might start to interact with people on other boats. God knows what would happen then.

The chart showed a road right next to shore here where he could hike or hitchhike about three miles south to a place called the Highlands of Navesink that might have a grocery store.

He got his billfold from a small drawer, filled it with twenties and from the wet locker by the chart table got out two canvas tote bags to carry the groceries. He said goodbye to Lila, and from the deck got down into the dinghy again and rowed ashore.

The beach seemed to be grayish fine sand. He stepped out onto the sand and pulled the dinghy way up on the beach, then tied it off to an iron spike sticking out from the end of a large driftwood pole. The junk he’d noticed from the boat was everywhere and he studied it as he walked to the road — some glass bottles, a lot of small bleached driftwood pieces worn round at the corners and ends, an innersole of a shoe, a box with a faded Budweiser label, some old cushions, a wooden toy locomotive.