Conrad Aiken: Blue Voyage

Alas! all this is beside the point. Why is it that I cannot, in some perfectly simple and comprehensive manner, tell you exactly how I feel about you, and exactly what sort of creature I am? One wouldn’t suppose that this would present inordinate difficulties. Yet, when I set myself the task this morning, do you know what form my unfinished letter was going to take? A long, sentimental reminiscence of my childhood! Yes, I actually believed for a moment that by some such circumferential snare as that I might trap you, bring you within my range, sting, and poison you with the subtle-sweet poison of a shared experience and consciousness. That again is highly characteristic of me. It is precisely the sort of thing I am always trying to do in my writing — to present my unhappy reader with a wide-ranged chaos — of actions and reactions, thoughts, memories and feelings — in the vain hope that at the end he will see that the whole thing represents only one moment, one feeling, one person . A raging, trumpeting jungle of associations, and then I announce at the end of it, with a gesture of despair, “This is I!” … Is it any wonder that I am considered half mad, a charlatan, or, worse still, one who has failed to perceive the most elementary truth about art, namely, that its first principle is selection?… And here I struggle in the same absurd roundabout way to give you some inkling of the springs of my behavior, in a vain hope that you will think better of my failure to — what? To attract you? But I did attract you. To capture you? To avoid disgusting you? Perhaps it is that. “Here I am” (I might say), “this queer psychopathic complicated creature: honeycombed with hypocrisies and subtleties, cowardices and valors, cupidities and disgusts; on the whole, harmless …”

But let me make a new start. Am I not, at bottom, simply trying to impress you? behaving exactly like the typical male in spring? And the behavior exasperated, in my case, by the fact that I must, if possible, overcome a judgment which has already declared itself to be adverse. However, I can see no possible escape from that predicament. Any behavior, if calculated (whether consciously or unconsciously) to attract, is in its origin sexual. Why, then, be ashamed of it? You, yourself — since we last encountered — have been embraced by the male of your species; the sexual instinct has finally flowered in you and taken possession of you. Is there anything repugnant in this surrender?… To tell the truth I think there is. Whether this is a mere outcropping of Puritanism, I cannot say. It may be. Anyway, I find something essentially horrible in this complete abandonment of oneself to an instinct. Mind you, I do not for one moment deny the appalling beauty and desirability of the experience. I have known it several times, and never without ecstasy. But there is something in me which insists that this ought not to be made the center or foundation of one’s life; that it is a tyranny of the gross over the subtle; and that like every other attack on the liberty of one’s spirit it ought to be met with all the forces at one’s command. Must we be slaves to our passions? “For the poor benefit of a bewitching minute,” must we give up our freedom forever? No — and it was with all these perplexities smoldering in my eyes and heart that I first approached you, Cynthia. And more than this, I approached you with a definite and peculiar hope in my mind. Will this hope seem to you a kind of madness? Perhaps it will. What I hoped was that at last I had found a love which somehow transcended the flesh . Yes — I actually persuaded myself that I had captured the chimera; and that in Cynthia and poor William the phoenix and the turtle were met anew. A beautiful, a divine illusion! One of those heavenly beliefs which, in intensity of being, makes the solidest of our realities seem insubstantial as a shade. I am not a believer in souls, nor in immortality; I have no sentimental conception of God, no religion from which to extract, for my daily needs, color and light; yet in encountering you I felt that I could only explain what was happening to me by assuming at least a symbolic meaning and rightness in the treacherous word “soul.” For was I not at once treading a brighter star? And was I not — gross Caliban that I was — endeavoring, all of a sudden, to become an Ariel? And were we not, you and I, already partaking of a direct and profound communion from the moment that we looked at each other and spoke the first casual words of greeting? This communion was so perfect, so without barriers, and so independent of our bodies, our hands, our eyes, our speech even, that for the first time since I had become a man I found myself looking, startled, into the eyes of God — the God whom I knew as a child. Of course, the habit of criticism was too deeply engrained in me to permit any such illusion to go long unchallenged. I suppose, to tell the truth, that I never really wavered at all — unless my frequent visits to Westminster Cathedral (where, however, there was the additional motive that I hoped to encounter you) can be considered a wavering. Yet, if my mind was steadfast in its refusal to abdicate, it was also wise enough, or weak enough, to allow the soul a holiday. It observed, it recorded, it even despised, but it didn’t feel called upon to interfere. And in the end — this is what astonishes me! — it has come very near to believing that in this extraordinary holiday of the affections it might discover some sublime first principle of things by which the whole melancholy world might be explained and justified. This miraculous communion between us, Cynthia — was this perhaps an earnest of what was to come? I do not mean simply for us, for you and me, but for all mankind! Was it possible to guess, from this beautiful experience, that ultimately man would know and love his brother; that the barriers of idiosyncrasy and solipsism, the dull walls of sense, would go down before the wand of Prospero? This possibility seemed to me not merely a thing to be desired, but a necessity! And what obstacles lay between us and this divine understanding? Only one — the Will. When we sufficiently desired this communion, when at last we realized the weakness and barrenness of the self, we could be sure that we would have sufficient wisdom to accomplish the great surrender.

To what pitch of intensity this illusion, this belief, this doctrine of sublimation, was brought in me by my loss of you — if truly it can be said that I have lost you! — may be suggested to you when I tell you of a very peculiar experience which I had last night. I do not deny that I had taken a drink or two. Whisky is a useful anodyne. And after a whole day of concentrated misery it became pressingly necessary to break the continuity of my thought. I had sat too long in one place in the smoking room, keeping a watch through the half-opened window for a glimpse of your striped and diamonded Hindu jersey — and what a pang I suffered when at last I saw it, worn by your friend! Was that an intentional twist of the knife? No, of course not — it was an accident. But I had sat thus too long, and for too long I had blown round and round in one fixed vortex of thoughts and feelings. The only relief I had known all day was a talk with Silberstein, a Jew, and a fellow passenger of yours — a rather remarkable man: a seller of “chewing sweets” and a chess player. But, though I (to some extent consciously) sought release by talking of myself with reckless freedom to Silberstein, I had found no real comfort in it, nor had I found any more, at dinner, in the company of Smith and Mrs. Faubion. It is perfectly true — I may as well confess it — that Mrs. Faubion (vulgar little strumpet that she is) attracts me; and I discovered last night at dinner, with a gleam of delight which not even my prevailing misery could extinguish, that Mrs. Faubion is attracted by me . An extraordinary reflection on the deep pluralism of things, life’s contrapuntal and insoluble richness! Here, in the very crisis of a passion, a passion which is as nearly all-absorbing as a passion can be, I pause for a moment’s delicious flirtation with another woman! Nor is it so simple a thing as flirtation, either — it is darker and stronger than that, a deep current of mutual delight, which might easily, and might well, sweep us off our feet. We know this as we look at each other — we tacitly admit it. Between meals we always avoid each other, just as we always avoid any but the dullest banter, because we both know that to take any step whatever would be to be lost. Well! last night I was in no mood to be lost — lost in this sense. And when Mrs. Faubion — who was in a mood to be lost — touched my foot with hers under the table, I made no response, pretended that I thought it was an accident. Of course, it may have been an accident — but I sincerely doubt it. No, it was unmistakable … I rejected, then, this gay little overture from the pluralistic universe, not because it was in itself unattractive, but because — well, why, exactly? A psychologist might say that it was because my nervous system was at the moment too acutely in the state known as a “motor set”—a motor set which was directed to a woman named Cynthia. That is one way of putting it. My mandibles were poised, and pointed and ready to spring, but only in that one direction, and on receipt of that one stimulus. Mrs. Faubion, it is true, might have sprung the trap. I quite seriously entertained the thought. But I foresaw, or thought I foresaw, a more than usually swift disillusionment, followed by a horrible agony of self-reproach. She would satisfy, for the fleetingest of instants, the blind animal maw; but the mind, or soul, or whatever you like to call it, would be cheated, and being cheated would be even wretcheder than before. I do not pretend that I thought this out at the time as clearly as I think it out now for you. I merely felt the thing in an image or warm coalition of images, in a pang or an inkling of a pang, as I talked with Mrs. Faubion, withdrew my foot reluctantly, and met her somber eyes in a gaze a little too protracted. And I was saddened by it, and further and still more deeply saddened, when old father Smith confessed to me once more his amorous desire for her, and outlined for me the ugly little scheme by which he hoped to gain possession of her. A sinister and sorry little tangle! Demarest in hopeless pursuit of Cynthia, whose eyes were fixed on — whom? a captain in the Belgian army? while Smith desired Faubion, and Faubion (pour mieux s’amuser) rested her dark gaze on the absent-hearted Demarest. Why must things be like this? Why, Cynthia? I returned after a while to the smoking room, where men were singing smutty songs and telling smutty stories — where, in fact, as invariably occurs, the whole world was being reduced to its lowest common denominator — and drank whisky, meditating on these things. If only — I thought — we had some subtler medium than language, and if only we weren’t, all of us, little walled fortresses self-centered and oversensitive and so perpetually on the defensive! If only we could more freely give ourselves, more generously, without shame or stint!.. And it was out of these confused reflections, which were not so much reflections as feelings, that my peculiar experience developed, the peculiar little experience which I have approached in so roundabout a way, and of which in the end I shall have so absurdly little to tell you. For what did it amount to? Only this — that I had a kind of waking dream, one so vivid that it was almost a hallucination. A cynic would say of it that it was simply the result of whisky. But it was more than that, though I freely admit that whisky had broken down certain inhibitions and permitted to my unconscious a greater freedom. I was on the point of going to bed, when I decided to take a sniff of fresh air — up to the hurricane deck I went, therefore, disregarding once more the barriers; and there, as I stood in the marvelous darkness, alone in the world, alone with my ridiculous transitory little unhappiness, I indulged myself in a fantasy. I was then, suddenly, no longer alone. You were there, Cynthia, and so was Faubion, and so too were Smith and Silberstein. We were all there: but we were all changed . For when I first moved toward you, among the lifeboats, under the autumnal stars which seemed to gyrate slowly above us, I heard you — astonishing! — exchanging quotations from the Greek Anthology. Could it be true? It was true — all four of you had achieved a divine intimacy, a divine swiftness and beauty of mutual understanding and love, so that your four spirits swayed and chimed together in a unison, unhurried and calm, which made of the whole nocturnal universe a manifest wisdom and delight. I too participated in this gentle diapason, this tranquil sounding of the familiar notes, but my part was a timid one, less practiced, and I felt that I had not yet sufficiently passed out of myself to move as freely as you others among darknesses become luminous and uncertainties become certain. I still loved myself too much to love the world; too desperately struggled, still, to understand my own coils, and therefore, found the world obscure. But I did participate, a little, and I listened with joy. It was a miracle. These four utterly dissimilar beings, these four beings whose desires were in conflict, nevertheless understood each other perfectly, loved each other angelically, uttered one another’s thoughts and faintest feelings as readily as their own, and laughed together, gently, over their own profoundest griefs! What could I do but worship that vision? For the vision was indeed so vivid that for an instant I wholly forgot that all this excellence had come out of my own heart, and I could joyfully give myself to a pure worship. Only for an instant, alas! for abruptly the fantasy began to go wrong. A jarring note was sounded, a note of jeering corruption and hatred, then the clashing of individual will with will. As sometimes in a dream one is aware that one is dreaming, so I began to feel my own ugly idiosyncrasies which underlay each of these four beings, and to see that they were only projections of myself; and though I could continue the fantasy, and indeed was compelled to do so, I could no longer direct it; darker powers in my heart had taken command of it. The beautiful harmony which love and wisdom had achieved, and of which it seemed to me that they were about to make something final and perfect, became a nightmare in which my own lusts and hatreds shaped events swiftly toward a nauseating climax. The scene was a parody of the Crucifixion — and of a good deal else. I find it impossible to analyze completely, for a great deal of its meaning, at the end, was in the insupportable ugliness of its tone . In this horrible scene, I beheld you transfigured, Cynthia — turned into a stained-glass widow! What can have been the significance of that? Does it represent simply an effort to sublimate my love of you? Or was it — as I suspect — intended to show that this attempt as a sentimental sublimation could only partially succeed? Certainly, it presented you, or my conception of you, in a very unattractive light. Perhaps that is tantamount to saying that it presented me in a very unattractive light. I was pillorying myself for hypocrisy. Perhaps I was — or certain darker forces in me, a profounder and truer animal honesty — perhaps these were taking their revenge by wrecking this pretty dream of a “perfect communion.” Anyway, it is true that shortly before this waking dream I had been pondering the question of sublimation versus immersion. How can we possibly decide which is the better course to pursue? Shall we take the way of art, and lie, and try to make life as like the lie as we can — remold it nearer to the child’s desire — or shall we take the way of nature, and love ? Love, I mean, savagely with the body!.. You can call that a quibble, if you like, replying that it is not really a question as between art and nature, but between two aspects of nature — the more primitive and the less primitive. But it makes no difference how you phrase it: the problem is there, and is insoluble. At one end savagery — at the other hypocrisy? Hypocrisy fine-branching and beautiful as coral, hypocrisy become an infinitely resourceful art? Either extreme is for us unreachable, or untenable if reached. We must struggle and fluctuate in the Limbo between — saving ourselves now and then from an art of life too fine-drawn by a bath of blood; or from an awareness and control too meager by a deliberate suppressing of our lusts, a canalization of those energies … And never, at any time, knowing exactly where we stand, what we believe in, or who we are.