John Fowles - The Magus

I gave myself a break to have a cigarette. Conchis, in dark blue jumper and shorts, looked sardonically down at me, hand on hips.

“Labor is man’s crowning glory.”

“Not this man’s.”

“I quote Marx.”

I raised my hands. The pickaxe handle had been rough.

“I quote blisters.”

“Never mind. You have earned your passage.”

“Tonight?”

“Tonight.” He remained staring down at me, as if I amused him; as clowns amuse philosophers; but also a little as if he felt kinder towards me.

“Your telegram was opened when it arrived. I read it. This is… ?”

I nodded curtly. “I shan’t go.”

“Of course you will go.”

“I don’t want to meet her any more. It was only loneliness before.”

He stared down at me. I was sitting against a pine trunk.

“I shall be away next weekend. We shall all be away. Otherwise I should have been very happy to invite you both.”

In spite of being warned, I felt a shock of disappointment, which I tried to hide.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“But if all goes well, we shall be here the week after.”

“In need of a seeker?”

“In need of a seeker.”

He contemplated me; reverted tacitly to Alison.

“A woman is like a keel.”

“There are keels and keels.”

“What you told me of her sounded very admirable. Very much what you should have. What you need.”

I saw that I had been neatly trapped into not asking him why in that case he had set Lily as bait for me. It could always be dismissed as persecution mania.

“It’s really my business, Mr. Conchis. My decision.”

“Of course. You are quite right. Please.” He went briskly away to get some more water, and when he came back I had set to again, expending on the job my sullen annoyance at not being invited. Half an hour later the wall was back to something like its proper shape. I carried the tools to a shed beside the cottage and we went back round the front of the house. Conchis said he was going down to check that the boat was securely moored; I would no doubt want to wash.

“Let me.”

“Very well. Thank you.”

I started off, wishing I’d kept my mouth shut, when he said my name. I turned, and he came up to me across the gravel. He gave me a powerful yet oddly paternal look.

“Go to Athens, Nicholas.” He glanced towards the trees to the east. “ Guai a chi la tocca .”

I had very little Italian, but I knew what he meant.

He moved away before I could answer; and in an odd way I knew he was saying that she was not for me because she was not for me; not because she was a schizophrenic, or a ghost, or anything else in the masque. It was a sort of ultimate warning-off; but you can’t warn off a man with gambling in his ancestry.

I went down to the jetty. The boat was already tied very carefully and securely; and he had had ten minutes with Lily, I supposed, to find out exactly what had gone on between us.

Lily did not appear before dinner, or after dinner; and I became increasingly impatient. Tense would be a better word. I was tense in expectation of a new “episode,” I was tense in expectation of Lily’s taking part in it, and I was tense in expectation of the difficulties Conchis was putting in the way of my meeting her again. I realized that he had so maneuvered me that I could not risk offending him again about the real machinery behind the “visitors” or about Lily.

The dinner was, for me, uneasily silent. The breeze made the lamp tremble and glow and fade intermittently, and this seemed to increase the general restlessness. Only Conchis seemed calm and at ease.

After the meal had been cleared he poured me a drink from a small carboy-shaped bottle. It was clear, the color of straw.

“What’s this?”

“ Raki . From Chios. It is very strong. I want to intoxicate you a little.”

All through the dinner he had also been pressing me to drink more of the heavy rosé from Antikythera.

“To make me talk?”

“To make you receptive.”

“I read your pamphlet.”

“And thought it was nonsense.”

“No. Difficult to verify.”

“Verification is the only scientific criterion of reality. That does not mean that there may not be realities that are unverifiable.”

“Did you get any response from your pamphlet?”

“A great deal. From the wrong people. From the miserable vultures who prey on the human longing for the solution of final mysteries. The spiritualists, the clairvoyants, the cosmopaths, the summerlanders, the blue-islanders, the apportists—all that galêre .” He looked grim. “They responded.”

“But not other scientists?”

“No.”

I sipped the raki ; it was like fire. Almost pure alcohol.

“But you spoke about having proof.”

“I had proof. But it was not easily communicable. And I later decided that it was better that it was not communicable, except to a few.”

“Who you elect.”

“Whom I elect. This is because mystery has energy. It pours energy into whoever seeks the answer to it. If you disclose the solution to the mystery you are simply depriving the other seekers…” he emphasized the special meaning the word now had for me… “of an important source of energy.”

“No scientific progress?”

“Of course scientific progress. The solution of the physical problems that face man—that is a matter of technology. But I am talking about the general psychological health of the species, man. He needs the existence of mysteries. Not their solution.”

I finished the raki . “This is fantastic stuff.”

He smiled, as if my adjective might be more accurate than I meant; raised the bottle. I nodded.

“One more glass. Then no more. La dive bouteille is also a poison.”

“And the experiment begins?”

“The experience begins. Now I should like you to lie in one of the lounging chairs. Just here.” He pointed behind him. I went and pulled the chair there. “Lie down. There is no hurry. I want you to look at a certain star. Do you know Cygnus? The Swan? That crossshaped constellation directly above?”

I realized that he was not going to take the other chaise longue; and suddenly guessed.

“Is this… hypnosis?”

“Yes, Nicholas. There is no need to be alarmed.”

Lily’s warning: Tonight you will understand . I hesitated, then lay back.

“I’m not. But I don’t think I’m very amenable. Someone tried it at Oxford.”

“We shall see. It is a harmony of wills. Not a contest. Just do as I suggest.”

“All right.” At least I did not have to stare into those naturally mesmeric eyes. I could not back down; but forewarned is forearmed.

“You see the Swan?”

“Yes.”

“And to the left a very bright star, one of a very obtuse triangle.”

“Yes.” I drained down the last of the raki in a gulp; almost choked, then felt it flush through my stomach.

“That is a star known as alpha Lyrae. In a minute I shall ask you to watch it closely.” The blue-white star glittered down out of the wind-cleared sky. I looked at Conchis, who was still sitting at the table, but had turned with his back to the sea to face me. I grinned in the darkness.

“I feel I’m on the couch.”

“Good. Now lie back. Contract, then relax your muscles a little. That is why I have given you the raki . It will help. Lily will not appear tonight. So clear your mind of her. Clear your mind of the other girl. Clear your mind of all your perplexities, all your longings. All your worries. I bring you no harm. Nothing but good.”

“Worries. That’s not so easy.” He was silent. “I’ll try.”