Олдос Хаксли - Eyeless in Gaza

‘To stay with you.’

‘You weren’t asked.’

‘That remains to be seen,’ said Mark.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, you may discover it after the event.’

‘Discover what?’

‘That you wanted to ask me. Without knowing that you wanted it.’

‘What makes you think that?’

Mark drew up a chair and sat down before answering. ‘I saw Helen the night she got back to London.’

‘Did you?’ Anthony’s tone was as blankly inexpressive as he could make it. ‘Where?’ he added.

‘At Hugh’s. Hugh was giving a party. There were some uncomfortable moments.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, because she wanted them to be uncomfortable. She was in a queer state, you know.’

‘Did she tell you why?’

Mark nodded. ‘She even made me read your letter. The beginning of it, at least. I wouldn’t go on.’

‘Helen made you read my letter?’

‘Aloud. She insisted. But, as I say, she was in a very queer state.’ There was a long silence. ‘That’s why I came here,’ he added at last.

‘Thinking that I’d be glad to see you?’ the other asked in an ironical tone.

‘Thinking that you’d be glad to see me,’ Mark answered gravely.

After another silence, ‘Well, perhaps you’re not altogether wrong,’ said Anthony. ‘In a way, of course, I simply hate the sight of you.’ He smiled at Mark. ‘Nothing personal intended, mind you. I should hate the sight of anyone just as much. But in another way I’m glad you’ve come. And this is personal. Because I think you’re likely—well, likely to have some notion of what’s what,’ he concluded with a non–committal vagueness. ‘If there’s anybody who can … ’ He was going to say ‘help’: but the idea of being helped was so repugnant to him, seemed so grotesquely associated with the parson’s well–chosen words after a death in the family, with the housemaster’s frank, friendly talk about sexual temptations, that he broke off uncomfortably. ‘If anybody can make a sensible remark about it all,’ he began again, on a different level of expression, ‘I think it’s you.’

The other nodded without speaking, and thought how typical it was of the man to go on talking about sensible remarks—even now!

‘I have a feeling,’ Anthony went on slowly, overcoming inward resistances in order to speak, ‘a feeling that I’d like to get it over, get things settled. On another basis,’ he brought out as though under torture. ‘The present one … ’ He shook his head. ‘I’m a bit bored with it.’ Then, perceiving with a sense of shame the ludicrous inappropriateness and the worse than ludicrous falsity of the understatement, ‘It won’t do,’ he added resolutely. ‘It’s a basis that can’t carry more than the weight of a ghost. And in order to use it, I’ve turned myself into a ghost.’ After a pause, ‘These last few days,’ he went on slowly, ‘I’ve had a queer feeling that I’m really not there, that I haven’t been there for years past. Ever since … well, I don’t exactly know when. Since before the war, I suppose.’ He could not bring himself to speak of Brian. ‘Not there,’ he repeated.

‘A great many people aren’t there,’ said Mark. ‘Not as people, at any rate. Only as animals and incarnate functions.’

‘Animals and incarnate functions,’ the other repeated. ‘You’ve said it exactly. But in most cases they have no choice; nonentity is forced on them by circumstance. Whereas I was free to choose—at any rate, so far as anybody is free to choose. If I wasn’t there, it was on purpose.’

‘And do you mean to say that you’ve only just discovered the fact that you’ve never been there?’

Anthony shook his head. ‘No, no, I’ve known it, of course. All the time. But theoretically. In the same way as one knows … well, for example, that there are birds that live symbiotically with wasps. A curious and interesting fact, but no more. I didn’t let it be more. And then I had my justifications. Work: too much personal life would interfere with my work. And the need for freedom: freedom to think, freedom to indulge my passion for knowing about the world. And freedom for its own sake. I wanted to be free, because it was intolerable not to be free.’

‘I can understand that,’ said Mark, ‘provided that there’s someone there who can enjoy the freedom. And provided,’ he added, ‘that that someone makes himself conscious of being free by overcoming the obstacles that stand in the way of freedom. But how can you be free, if there’s no “you”?’

‘I’ve always put it the other way round,’ said Anthony. ‘How can you be free—or rather (for one must think of it impersonally) how can there be freedom—so long as the “you” persists? A “you” has got to be consistent and responsible, has got to make choices and commit itself. But if one gets rid of the “you”, one gets rid of responsibility and the need for consistency. One’s free as a succession of unconditioned, uncommitted states without past or future, except in so far as one can’t voluntarily get rid of one’s memories and anticipations.’ After a silence, ‘The staggering imbecility of old Socrates!’ he went on. ‘Imagining that one had only to know the correct line of conduct in order to follow it. One practically always knows it—and more often than not one doesn’t follow it. Or perhaps you’re not like that,’ he added in another tone, looking at Mark through the mosquito net. ‘One’s inclined to attribute one’s own defects to everyone else. Weakness, in my case. Not to mention timidity,’ he added with a laugh, that uttered itself automatically, so deeply ingrained was the habit of half withdrawing, as soon as it was spoken, anything in the nature of a personal confidence, of evoking in the listener’s mind a doubt as to the seriousness of his intention in speaking; ‘timidity, and downright cowardice, and indolence in regard to anything that isn’t my work.’ He laughed again as though it were all absurd, not worth mentioning. ‘One forgets that other people may be different. Tough–minded, firm of purpose. I dare say you always do what you know is right.’

‘I always do it,’ Mark answered. ‘Whether it’s right or wrong.’ He demonstrated the anatomy of a smile.

Anthony lay back on his pillows, his hands clasped behind his head, his eyes half shut. Then, after a long silence, he turned to Staithes and said abruptly: ‘Don’t you ever feel that you simply can’t be bothered to do what you’ve decided on? Just now, for example, I found myself wondering all of a sudden why on earth I’d been talking to you like this—why I’d been thinking these things before you came—why I’d been trying to make up my mind to do something. Wondering and feeling that I simply couldn’t be bothered. Thinking it would be better just to evade it all and go back to the familiar routine. The quiet life. Even though the quiet life would be fatal. Fatal, mortal, but all the same anything for it.’ He shook his head. ‘Probably if you hadn’t come to shame me into some sort of resolution, that’s what I would have done—escaped from it all and gone back to the quiet life.’ He laughed. ‘And perhaps,’ he added, ‘I shall do it even now. In spite of you.’ He sat up, lifted the mosquito net and stepped out of bed. ‘I’m going to have my bath.’

ANTHONY came down to breakfast to find his father explaining to the children the etymology of what they were eating. ‘…merely another form of “pottage”. You say “porridge” just as you say—or rather’ (he twinkled at them) ‘I hope you don’t say—“shurrup” for “shut up”.’

The two little girls went on stolidly eating.