John Fowles - The Magus

“Of course.”

“So in my perfect republic it would be simple. There would be a test for all young people at the age of twenty-one. They would go to a hospital where they would throw a die. One of the six numbers would mean death. If they threw that they would be painlessly killed. No mess. No bestial cruelty. No destruction of innocent onlookers. But one clinical throw of the die.”

“Certainly an improvement on war.”

“You think so?”

“Obviously.”

“You are sure?”

“Of course.”

“You said you never saw action in the last war?”

“No.”

He took the pillbox, and shook out, of all things, six large molars; yellowish, two or three with old fillings.

“These were issued to certain German troops during the last war, for use if they were interrogated.” He placed one of the teeth on the saucer, then with a small downward jab of the shaker crushed it; it was brittle, like a liqueur chocolate. But the odor of the colorless liquid was of bitter almonds, acrid and terrifying. He hastily removed the saucer at arm’s length to the far corner of the terrace; then returned.

“Suicide pills?”

“Precisely. Hydrocyanic acid.” He picked up the die, and showed me six sides.

I smiled. “You want me to throw?”

“I offer you an entire war in one second.”

“Supposing I don’t want it?”

“Think. In a minute from now you could be saying, I risked death. I threw for life, and I won life. It is a very wonderful feeling. To have survived.”

“Wouldn’t a corpse be rather embarrassing for you?” I was still smiling, but it was wearing thin.

“Not at all. I could easily prove it was suicide.” He stared at me, and his eyes went through me like a trident through a fish. With ninety-nine persons out of a hundred, I would have known it was a bluff; but he was different, and a nervousness had hold of me before I could resist it.

“Russian roulette.”

“But less fallible. These pills work within a few seconds.”

“I don’t want to play.”

“Then you are a coward, my friend.” He leant back and watched me.

“I thought you believed brave men were fools.”

“Because they persist in rolling the die again and again. But a young man who will not risk his life even once is both a fool and a coward.”

And he had me. It was absurd, but I could not let my bluff be called.

I reached for the shaker.

“Wait.” He leant forward, and put his hand on my wrist; then placed a tooth by my side. “I am not playing at make-believe. You must swear to me that if the number is six you will take the pill.” His face was totally serious. I felt myself wanting to swallow.

“I swear.”

“By all that is most sacred to you.”

I hesitated, shrugged, and said, “By all that is most sacred to me.”

He held out the die and I put it in the shaker. I shook it loosely and quickly and threw the die. It ran over the cloth, hit the brass base of the lamp, rebounded, wavered, fell.

It was a six.

Conchis was absolutely motionless, watching me. I knew at once that I was never, never going to pick up the pill. I could not look at him. Perhaps fifteen seconds passed. Then I smiled, looked at him and shook my head.

He reached out again, his eyes still on me, took the tooth beside me, put it in his mouth and bit it and swallowed the liquid. I went red. Still watching me, he reached out, and put the die in the shaker, and threw it. It was a six. Then again. And again it was a six. He spat out the empty shell of the tooth.

“What you have just decided is precisely what I decided that morning forty years ago at Neuve Chapelle. You have behaved exactly as any intelligent human being should behave. I congratulate you.”

“But what you said? The perfect republic?”

“All perfect republics are perfect nonsense. The craving to risk death is our last great perversion. We come from night, we go into night. Why live in night?”

“But the die was loaded.”

“Patriotism, propaganda, professional honor, esprit de corps —what are all those things? Cogged dice. There is just one small difference, Nicholas. On the other table these are real.” He put the remaining teeth back in the box. “Not just ratafia in colored plastic.”

He turned out the lamp.

“The middle six hours of that day we passed in waiting. The Germans hardly shelled us at all. They had been bombarded to their knees. The obvious thing would have been to attack at once. But it takes a very brilliant general, a Napoleon, to see the obvious.

“About three o'clock the Ghurkas came alongside us and we were told an attack on the Aubers Ridge was to be launched. We were to be the first line. Just before half-past three we fixed bayonets. I was beside Captain Montague, as usual. I think he knew only one thing about himself. That he was fearless, ready to swallow the acid. He kept looking along the lines of men beside him. He scorned the use of a periscope, and stood and poked his head over the parapet. The Germans still seemed stunned.

“We began to walk forward. Montague and the sergeant major called incessantly, keeping us in line. We had to cross a cratered ploughfield to a hedge of poplars, and then, across another small field, lay our objective, a bridge. I suppose we had gone about half the distance we had to cover, and then we broke into a trot and some of the men began to shout. The Germans seemed to stop firing altogether. Montague called triumphantly. 'On, lads! Victoree!'

“They were the last words he ever spoke. It was a trap. Five or six machine guns scythed us like grass. Montague spun round and fell at my feet. He lay on his back, staring up at me, one eye gone. I collapsed beside him. The air was nothing but bullets. I pressed my face right into the mud, I was urinating, certain that at any moment I should be killed. Someone came beside me. It was the sergeant major. Some of the men were firing back, but blindly. In despair. The sergeant major, I do not know why, began dragging Montague’s corpse backwards. Feebly, I tried to help. We slipped down into a small crater. The back of Montague’s head had been blown away, but his face still wore an idiot’s grin, as if he were laughing in his sleep, mouth wide open. A face I have never forgotten. The last smile of a stage of evolution.

“The firing stopped. Then, like a flock of frightened sheep, everyone who survived began to run back towards the village. I as well. I had lost even the will to be a coward. Many were shot in the back as they ran, and I was one of the few who reached the trench we had started from unhurt—alive, even. We were no sooner there than the shelling began. Our own shells. Owing to the bad weather conditions, the artillery were shooting blind. Or perhaps still according to some plan established days before. Such irony is not a by-product of war. But typical of it.

“A wounded lieutenant was now in command. He crouched beside me, with a great gash across his cheek. His eyes burned dully. He was no longer a nice upright young Englishman, but a neolithic man. Cornered, uncomprehending, in a sullen rage. Perhaps we all looked like that. The longer one survived the more unreal it was.

“More troops came up with us, and a colonel came round. Aubers Ridge must be captured. We had to have the bridge by nightfall. But I had meanwhile had time to think.

“I saw that this cataclysm must be an expiation for some barbarous crime of civilization, some terrible human lie. What the lie was, I had too little knowledge of history or science to know then. I know now it was our believing that we were fulfilling some end, serving some plan—that all would come out well in the end, because there was some great plan over all. Instead of the reality. There is no plan. All is hazard. And the only thing that will preserve us is ourselves.”