John Fowles - The Magus

Conchis spoke. “Read the last paragraph.”

I swear by God and by all that is sacred to me that the above events have been exactly and truthfully described. I observed them all with my own eyes and I did not intervene. For this reason I condemn myself to death.

I looked up. “A good German,”

“No. Unless you think suicide is good. It is not. Despair is a disease, and as evil as Wimmel’s disease.” I suddenly remembered Blake—what was it, Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires . A text I had once often used to seduce—myself as well as others. Conchis went on. “You must make up your mind, Nicholas. Either you enlist under the kapetan , that murderer who knew only one word, but the only word, or you enlist under Anton. You watch and you despair. Or you despair and you watch. In the first case, you commit physical suicide; in the second, moral.”

“I can still feel pity for him.”

“You can . But ought you to?”

I was thinking of Alison, and I knew I had no choice. I felt pity for her as I felt pity for that unknown German’s face on a few feet of flickering film. And perhaps an admiration, that admiration which is really envy of those who have gone further along one’s own road: they had both despaired enough to watch no more. While mine was the moral suicide.

I said, “Yes. He couldn’t help himself.”

“Then you are sick, my young friend. You live by death. Not by life.”

“That’s a matter of opinion.”

“No. Of conviction. Because the event I have told you is the only European story. It is what Europe is. A Colonel Wimmel. A rebel without a name. An Anton torn between them, killing himself when it is too late. Like a child.”

“Perhaps I have no choice.”

He looked at me, but said nothing. I felt all his energy then, his fierceness, his heartlessness, his impatience with my stupidity, my melancholy, my selfishness. His hatred not only of me, but of all he had decided I stood for; something passive, abdicating, English, in life. He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm, to convert or detest. For the first time he seemed naked, without any masks; as if all that had gone before had been to bring me to this point, this last confrontation with the black summit of his life. We remained staring at each other. He could say no more to me, and I could mean no more to him.

He stood and picked up the file. “To bed.”

I stood as well. “I’ll wait a little.”

“Very well. But no one will come.”

“Good night, Mr. Conchis.”

“Good night, Nicholas.”

He gave me a last look, grave and penetrating, the eyes of a mathdor after the estocado , then disappeared indoors. I smoked one cigarette, another. There was a great stewing stillness, an oppressiveness, a silence. The gibbous moon hung over the earth, a dead thing over a dying thing. I got up and walked to the seat where we had sat before dinner.

I had not expected such a finale; the statue of stone in the laughing door. I thought again, in the gray silences of the night, not of Julie, but of Alison. Staring out to sea, I forced myself to think of her not as someone doing something at that moment, sleeping or breathing or working, somewhere, but as a shovelful of ashes, a futility, a descent out of reality, a dropping object that dwindled, dwindled, left nothing behind except a smudge like a fallen speck of soot on paper.

As something too small to mourn; the very word “mourn” was archaic and superstitious, of the age of Browne, or Hervey; yet Donne was right, her death detracted, would for ever detract, from my life. Each death laid a dreadful charge of complicity on the living; each death was incongenerous, its guilt irreducible, its sadness immortal; a bracelet of bright hair about the bone.

I did not pray for her, because prayer has no efficacy; I did not cry for her, because only extroverts cry twice; I sat in the silence of that night, that infinite hostility to man, to permanence, to love, remembering her, remembering her.

Ten o'clock. A bright wind, a Dufy day. I woke, jumped out of bed, shaved with extra care, and went down to the colonnade. I caught Maria sitting at the table, as if waiting for me. When I appeared she stood up and bobbed and started to go.

“Mr. Conchis?”

“ Kanei banjo. Tha elthi .” He’s having a swim. He’s coming.

By the wall I saw four wooden crates; it was obvious that three of them had paintings inside. I looked into the music room. The Modigliani had gone; so had the little Rodin and the Giacornetti; and I guessed, with a tinge of sadness, that the Bonnards had also come down. The decor was being dismantled.

In a minute or two Maria reappeared with coffee for me. I was drinking the first cup when Conchis appeared in his swimming trunks and water-polo cap. He stood by me, hairs on the dark brown skin still curlicued wet from the water. I saw his scars again; white puckers of flesh. He smiled. The mask was back in place.

“You have slept well?”

“Thank you.”

“I will put on my clothes. Then I will join you for coffee.”

He did not return for some twenty minutes. And when he did, it was in clothes that were somehow as incongruous as if he had been wearing fancy dress. He looked exactly like a slightly intellectual businessman; a black leather briefcase; a dark blue summer suit, a cream shirt, a discreetly polka-dotted bow tie. It was perfect for Athens; but ridiculous on Phraxos.

He looked at a wristwatch—I had never seen him wear one before—and sat down. Smiled at me; and delivered the line like a grenade.

“We have one last hour together.”

“One last hour?”

“At this time tomorrow I shall be in London.” He poured himself a cup of coffee from the new pot Maria had brought. “And wishing I was still here.”

I began to smile. The wind rattled the shimmering vegetal glass of the palm fronds. The last act was to be played presto .

“I didn’t expect the curtain quite so soon.”

“No good play has a real curtain, Nicholas. It is acted, and then it continues to act.” He analyzed my expression, no mercy, enjoying the moment. He added, a deliberate broach, “Lily is coming in a few moments. She wishes to say goodbye.”

“Kind of her.”

“She is coming with me to America.”

“With her sister?”

“No. Alone. As my secretary.” His eyes watched me remorselessly. He had spoken without the slightest suggestiveness, but in that situation the very words were suggestive. There was a pause. I drew deep on my cigarette.

“I shall see you next spring then.”

“Perhaps.”

“I have a two-year contract at the school.”

“Ah.”

“And be the butt again.”

“No more than that?”

“When one’s emotions get involved…”

“I warned you.”

“And also ensured that the temptation remained.”

“Death is the only state without temptation.”

Again I would have liked to pull out my wallet, to face him with my own recent encounter with death. But I was not in the mood to admit to him that I had lied previously about meeting Alison. I stubbed out my cigarette.

“Will she be here next year?”

“You will not see her.”

“But will she be here?”

Our eyes were locked, unconceding, like battling stags’ horns. “You will not want to see her.”

“Why won’t I want to see her?”

“Because you will understand by then how much she has deceived you.”

“I don’t mind being deceived. Especially by a girl as pretty as Julie.”

His eyes hesitated, black with suspicion, a lightning assessment; it was like playing chess with a five-second move limit. He said, “That is not her name.”