Anthony Burgess - The Clockwork Testament (Or - Enderby 's End)

"You filthy fucking-"

"Oh, this is all too American," Enderby said. "Sex and violence. What angel of regeneration sent you here?" For there was no question of mumbling and begging now. Enderbius triumphans, exultans.

This third heart attack, if that was what it had really been, did not seem to be really all that bad-a mere sketch, as to remind him of its shape. But he knew its shape intimately already, that of a Spenglerian parabola. Yet another interpretation seemed, as he sat in the toilet and excreted as quietly as he could, there being a guest in the apartment, possible, though he was fain to reject it. An inner hand showing in delicate deadly gesture the impending chop or noose. He was glad in a way that she had taken possession of the circular bed, no room for him, since bed was a place where people frequently died, sometimes in their sleep. She lay naked on her back, telling, say, ten-twenty with her arms and seven-thirty with her legs, her delicate snoring indicating that it was a fine February night and all was well. She had left her home in Poughkeepsie, it appeared, and was obviously welcome to stay here with Enderby so long as she did not go out to buy another gun. She at least knew his work. Anyway, there was no question of thinking in terms of a nice long future. These heart attacks had been as good to Enderby as a like and you know harangue from one of his students. But he did not really want the chop to come tonight and in his sleep. He fancied doing some more vigorous death-dodging in the light. There was this to be said for New York: it was not dull.

Wiped and having flushed, Enderby went out to the kitchen to make tea. There would be a hell of a row tomorrow, today that was, when that dusky bitch Priscilla came to do the chores (How come an educated man like you live in such Gadarene filth-she was, after all, a Bible scholar); but there always was a hell of a row. This time there would probably be something about fornication and Cozbi as well as dirt. Enderby ate pensively a little cold left-over stew while he waited for the water to boil: quite delicious, really. He seemed to have lost a fair amount of protein in the last few hours, perhaps cholesterol too. When the tea had sufficiently brewed or drawn (five bags only; not overtempt Providence) and had been sharply sweetened and embrowned, he took it into the living room. He piled pouffe on pouffe to make himself comfortable in order to watch for the dawn to come up. He switched on the television set, which gave him a silly film apt for these small hours. It was a college musical of the thirties ( How come that such a scholar / Can put up with such squalor? / Just gimme hafe a dollar / And I'll make it spick and span, man. There was a coincidence!) but it was made piquant with girls in peach-looking camiknicks with metallic hairdos. Enderby did some random leafing through the slim volumes she had brought for him to defile. God, what a genius, etc. The film, with interludes of advertising suspiciously cheap albums of popular music, went harmlessly on while he sipped his tea and browsed.

You went that way as you always said you would,

Contending over the cheerful cups that good

Was in the here-and-now, in, in fact, the cheerful

Cups and not in some remotish sphere full

Of twangling saints, the-pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die

Of Engels as much as angels, whereupon I…

He could not well remember having written that. Besides, the type was blurring. He saw without surprise that the film had changed to one, in very good colour too, about Augustine and Pelagius. Thank God. The thing had after all been at last artistically dealt with, no need after all for him to worry about finding an appropriate poetic form.

A man vigorously whipping his donkey, which brays in great pain. His wife comes along to tell him to desist.

WIFE: Desist, desist. The poor creature meant no harm, Fabricius.

MAN: Farted in my face, didn't it? A great noseful of foul air.

(he continues beating)

WIFE: Foul, you say? She eats only sweet grass and fresh-smelling herbs, while you-you guzzle sour horsemeat and get drunk on cheap wine.

MAN: Oh, I do, do I? Take that, you slut.

(he beats her till she bleeds)

Pelagius and Obtrincius are watching. The noise and the cries are pitiable.

OBTRINCIUS: What think you of that, O man of the northern seas? Evil, yes? It comes of the primal fetor of Adam which imbrues the world.

PELAGIUS: Ah no, my dear friend. Adam's sin was his own sin. It was not inherited by the generality of mankind.

OBTRINCIUS: But this is surely foul heresy! Why was Christ crucified except to pay, in Godflesh whose value is incomputable, for the Adamic sin we all carry? Have a care, my friend. There may be a bishop about listening.

PELAGIUS: Ah no, he came to show us the way. To teach us love. Be ye perfect, he said. He taught us that we are perfectible. That what you call evil is no more than ignorance of the way. Hi, you, my friend.

The man Fabricius has now turned on his son, who, having apparently intervened to save his mother from the vicious blows, is bloody and bowed. The mother weeps bloodily. The ass looks on, sore but impassive, also bloody.

MAN: (temporarily desisting) Huh? You address me, sir?

PELAGIUS: (cheerfully) Yes, my good man and brother in Christ.

He moves our of the shot and into:

PELAGIUS: Ah, my poor friend, you have much to learn. Sweet reason has temporarily deserted you. Take breath and then blow out your anger with it. It is a mere ghost, a phantasm, totally insubstantial.

MAN: You use fine words, sir. But try using sweet reason to stop a donkey farting in your nose.

PELAGIUS: You should keep your nose away from the er animal's posterior. Sweet reason must surely tell you that.

MAN: Oh, well, mayhap you're right, sir. Anger wastes time and uses up energy. Come, wife. Come, son. I will be reasonable, God forgive me.

(sketching a blessing, Pelagius moves out of shot) Sweet reason, my ass.

40. EXTERIOR DAY ROME: A SCENE OF UNBRIDLED REVELRY

A LS of a sort of carnival. Instruments of the fifth century A.D. are blaring and thumping, while unbridled revellers frisk about, kissing and drinking and lifting kirtles.

A group of gorgers are greasily fingering smoking haunches and swineshanks, stuffing it in, occasionally vomiting it out.

PELAGIUS (OS): My friends!

They all look in the same direction, open mouths exhibiting half-chewed greasy protein.

He stands with pilgrim's staff, looking with calm sorrow.

PELAGIUS: Does not reason tell you that such excess is unreasonable? It coarsens the soul and harms the body.

(There is a noise of lavish vomiting) There, you see what I mean.

The gorgers look somewhat abashed, but a bold fat bald one speaks up baldly and boldly.

FAT GORGER: We cannot help it, man of God, whoever you are, a stranger by your manner of speech. The seven deadly sins, of which gluttony, as thou mayhap knowest, is one, are the seven worms in the apple we ate at the great original feast which still goes on, and of which Adam and Eve are the host and the hostess.

ANOTHER GORGER: (much thinner, as with a worm, or even seven, inside him) Aye, he speaketh truly, monk, whoever thou art. We are born into sin through none of our willing, and has not Christ atoned for our sins, past, future, and to come?