Олдос Хаксли - Eyeless in Gaza

Yes, the letter ought to be fairly easy. The trouble was that he would be expected to follow it by interviews and explanations; that he would have to bear reproaches, listen to confidences, perhaps defend himself against declarations of passion. And in the interval there would be Brian to talk to—and with Brian the thing would begin with those interviews; and the more he thought about those interviews, the harder did he find it to foresee the part that Brian would play in them. Anthony imagined himself trying to make it clear that he wasn’t in love, that Joan had only momentarily lost her head as he had lost his, that nothing had changed, and that all Brian had to do was to go and kiss her himself. But would he succeed in making Brian believe him? The man being what he was, it seemed to him probable—seemed more probable the more he thought about it—that he would fail. Brian was the sort of man who would imagine that one couldn’t kiss a woman under any compulsion less urgent than the deepest, most heart–felt love. He would be told that Joan had been kissed and had returned the kisses; and no amount of talk about lost heads would persuade him that it wasn’t a serious matter of love at its intensest pitch. And then, Anthony speculated, what would the man do then? He’d be hurt, of course, he’d feel betrayed: but the chances were that there’d be no recriminations. No, something much worse might happen. Brian would probably take all the blame on himself; would renounce all his rights, would refuse to believe it when Anthony swore that he wasn’t in love and that it had all been a kind of bad joke; would insist, just because it would be so agonizing a sacrifice, that Joan should go to the man she really loved and who really loved her. And then, suppose that, on her side, Joan agreed! And it was probable, Anthony thought with dismay as he remembered her response to his kisses, it was almost certain even, that she would do so. Appalling prospect! He couldn’t face it. And why should he face it, after all? He could borrow on his securities—enough to get out of the country and stay away; for six months, for a year if necessary. And while the midlands streamed past the window, he leaned back with closed eyes, picturing himself in Italy or, if Italy wasn’t far enough from England, in Greece, in Egypt, even in India, Malaya, Java. With Mary; for of course Mary would have to come too, at least for part of the time. She could dump the children with some relation; and Egypt, he reflected, practical in his day–dreaming, Egypt in the off–season was quite cheap, and this war scare of course was nothing. Was Luxor as impressive as it looked in the photographs? And the Parthenon? And Paestum? And what of the tropics? In imagination he sailed from island to island in the Aegean; smoked hashish in the slums of Cairo, ate bhang in Benares; did a slight Joseph Conrad in the East Indies, a slight Loti even, in spite of the chromolithograph style, among the copper–coloured girls and the gardenias, and, though he still found it impossible to like the man as much as Mary did, a slight Gauguin in the South Seas. These future and hypothetical escapes were escapes also here and now, so that for a long time in his corner of the compartment he quite forgot the reason for his projected flight into the exotic. The memory of what had happened, the apprehensive anticipation of what was going to happen, returned only with the realization that the train was crossing Shap Fell, and that in less than an hour he would be talking to Brian on the platform at Ambleside. All the old questions propounded themselves with more desperate urgency. What should he say? How? On what occasion? And what would be Brian’s response? What Joan’s when she got his letter? Horrible questions! But why had he put himself in the position of having to provide or receive the answers to them? What a fool he had been not to take flight at once! By this time he could have been at Venice, in Calabria, on a ship in the Mediterranean. Beyond the reach of letters. Secure and happy in complete ignorance of the results of his actions. And free. Instead of which he had stupidly stayed where he was and consented to be made the slave of the circumstances his folly had created. But even now, at the eleventh hour, it wasn’t too late. He could get out at the next station, make his way back to London, raise a little money and be off within twenty–four hours. But when the train stopped at Kendal, he made no move. The taking of so sudden and momentous a decision was something from which he shrank. He hated suffering, and looked forward with dread to what the next few days and weeks held in store for him. But his fear of suffering was less than his fear of action. He found it easier to accept passively what came than to make a decisive choice and act upon it.

As the train rolled on again, he thought of all the reasons why it had been right for him not to take that decision. Brian was counting on him, would be so disturbed by his non–arrival that he might easily rush down to London to find out what had happened, see Joan and learn everything, at once. And how should he explain things to his father? Besides, there was no reason to think that Mary would come with him; she had made her arrangements for the summer and wouldn’t, perhaps couldn’t, alter them. And while he was away, heaven only knew what rivals would present themselves. Besides flight would be cowardly, he went on to assure himself, and immediately afterwards was reflecting that he could probably escape from his difficulties just as effectively if he stayed in England. A little tact, a bit of passive resistance …

Brian was waiting on the platform when the train drew in, and at the sight of him Anthony felt a sudden pang of pitying distress. For between the man and his clothes there was a startling and painful incongruousness. The rough homespun jacket and breeches, the stockings, the nailed boots, the bulging rucksack were emblems of energy and rustic good health. But the Brian who wore these emblems was the living denial of their significance. The long face was emaciated and sallow. The nose seemed larger than in the past, the eye–sockets deeper, the cheek–bones more prominent. And when he spoke, he stammered more uncontrollably than ever.

‘But what is the matter with you?’ cried Anthony, laying a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘You look wretched.’

Half touched by this display of a genuine solicitude (it was extraordinary, he reflected, how charming Anthony could unexpectedly be), half annoyed by having been, as he felt, found out, Brian shook his head and mumbled something about being a bit tired and in need of a rest.

But his idea of a rest, it turned out, was to walk twenty miles a day up and down the steepest hills he could find.

Anthony looked at him disapprovingly. ‘You ought to be out in a deck–chair,’ he said, but could see, as he spoke, that his advice was unwelcome. With Brian it was a kind of dogma that taking violent exercise in mountain scenery was intrinsically good. Good, because of Wordsworth; because, in his mother’s version of Christianity, landscape took the place of revelation.

‘I I–like w–walking,’ Brian insisted. ‘S–saw a d–dipper yesterday. The p–place is f–full of nice b–birds.’

In his distress at finding his friend so ill, Anthony had forgotten all about Joan and the events of the last days; but those birds (those bö–öds, those piddle–warblers) reminded him violently of what had happened. Feeling suddenly ashamed, as though he had been caught in some unwordly display of hypocrisy, Anthony withdrew his hand from Brian’s shoulder. They made their way in silence along the platform and out into the street. There they halted for a discussion. Brian wanted to send the luggage by the carrier and walk to their cottage in Langdale. Anthony proposed that they should take a car.