Kingsley Amis - Dear Illusion - Selected Stories

That has decided me; I will write to Celia to break off our engagement. I have no idea whether the tendency to bear twins, or near-twins, is inheritable through the male line, nor do I propose to find out. But I must do more. I feel that an office job is unsuitable for a healthy man, even one of forty, in wartime. When I meet Harvey for our farewell drink tomorrow, I will ask him for an introduction.

Note: Acting-Sergeant Chalmers, R.F., of the Royal rifle Regiment was killed in France in May, 1940 when, showing complete disregard for his own safety, he attacked an enemy tank with hand-grenades. He was awarded a posthumous DCM.

I — Stephen Hillier to Constance Hillier, Wheatley, England

Albergu snt. Ioanni,

Nuvakastra,

Dacia

31 August 1925

Darling Connie,

Well, I was always pretty sure I had the wisest of wives, but never has the truth of that proposition become as clear to me as this afternoon on the journey from Arelanópli. I had known in advance that there were no railways in this part of the world, and precious few motor-cars; I was quite unprepared for the roads. In many places, and almost everywhere in the foothills and higher, they simply don’t exist, except round the larger towns, which are few and far enough between. The equipage that brought me here was of a piece with them: a veritable box on wheels, iron-tyred wheels at that, a couple of scraggy horses straight out of Browning, ‘every bone a-stare’, and at the reins an unshaven fellow in a sheepskin jacket that looked as if he had made it with his own far from fair hands — and not taken it off since its first day on his back.

Our ride took us through some of the wildest and most beautiful scenery in Europe — distant peaks wreathed in cloud, great pine-forests that shut out the sun, mountain streams in white traceries down almost sheer cliffs, and sudden vistas of the green plain far below. But it was hard (or so I found it) to appreciate these delights at their true worth, or even to take them in at all, while being perpetually flung from side to side and bounced into the air only to be dropped an instant later on to an unpadded bench that grew harder with each descent. My attempts to contrive a cushion out of my travelling-rug were an utter fiasco, and when, after what seemed like many hours, I reached my destination, I had a violent headache and a sick feeling in my stomach, a dull pain racked every muscle and I could have sworn I was bruised from head to foot. Last but not least, my eyes, full of dust and pollen, stung and itched intolerably. How very wise of you to have stayed at home!

Now all my ills are a thing of the past. A bath, which incidentally revealed my almost complete bruiselessness, a change of clothes, and food and drink, have between them set me up again, and my eyes, though still a little bloodshot, have responded well to careful bathing with boracic solution. (Bless you for remembering to pop the tin into my luggage!) Although this place is nothing more than a village inn, it’s excellent of its kind — spotlessly clean, bone dry and providing quantities of plain wholesome food and the sturdy red wine of the region. Far from uncomfortable, too; I write this at a table by the window of a pleasant, light room of fair size, furnished with a handsome and ample bed, its mattress a little hard (that one expects) but commendably free from lumps. The landlord is a sterling chap with a swarthy skin and the unexpected blue eyes I’ve come across before in remote parts of the northern Balkans. He and his smiling, apple-cheeked wife have made a great fuss of me, bringing me plates of patties and bowls of fresh fruit quite unasked and providing enough hot water to bath a horse.

The first shades of dusk are here and I must pause to light my candle. With the passing of the day, what I see from this window has changed a little and goes on changing as I write. Beyond the dark-red roofs of the peasant cottages, sharply sloped against the heavy winter snows, there’s a level grassy stretch something like a mile across (though it’s hard to be precise) and bounded by an irregular line of low hills that give place to higher hills, these being in turn topped by summits of what must be pretty considerable elevation, seeing that Nuvakastra itself can’t be much less than two thousand feet up. Until a few minutes back, the expanse of the plateau, broken here and there by a farmhouse with its outbuildings, a mill, a church, at one point a tiny village of tiny houses, had a warm and inviting look, and the distant mountains, though indeed wild, seemed to offer a noble mystery, a kind of primeval innocence. But now, how remote, how lonely everything seems! Imagine what it must feel like to be a wayfarer on that exposed plain with night closing in, even more to be lost among those desolate ravines and crags, beset by strange sounds and half-fancied movements in the dark! What makes us think that hidden forces are likely to be benevolent?

Some people would say I’m overdoing it rather. Somebody called Constance or some such name would go further and accuse me of childish romancing, that old bad habit of mine. Well, it’s possible. I’ll see how I feel when I come back from this evening’s expedition. Nothing elaborate, hardly more than a stroll before dinner. I have a good hour to kill, it’s a clear evening and anyway I must get out and about. I’m so rested that I’m restless. (Can those two words really be connected?) Or perhaps I’m simply impatient to start my investigation. You must bear with me about this business, darling Connie. You must do more than that; I know (how well I know!) that you consider the whole thing to be the most perfect piffle imaginable, and you’re probably right, but do, like the sweetest as well as the wisest of wives, wish me luck in my search for the vampire.

This won’t go off till the morning (if then!) so I’ll leave it open and add any new information of interest before I finally post it. Meanwhile, I give you my love, I give you my thoughts, and my heart is joined with yours even though you are so far away.

II — Countess Valvazor’s Journal

31 August 1925 — The undirected uneasiness, the small vague fears I have been subjected to over these last weeks, sharpened tonight into foreboding: I sense the approach of danger. What kind or degree of danger still eludes me, but I hardly care if it should prove to be mortal. I take a long look at this statement now that I have committed it to paper and ask myself in all honesty whether it is true. Yes, I say, I believe it is. I am weary beyond all expression, and I have nothing to look forward to in my life. If only I could appeal to God to help me to endure! But everything is over between Him and my wretched self, and I am alone in perpetuity.

Again I reread what I have just written, and am struck equally by the self-pity in it and its quality of — what shall I call it? — determined hopelessness, refusal to consider any prospect of alleviation. In the impossible event that a stranger ever comes across these lines, he could think no differently. But, stranger, I would cry to him, these repulsive characteristics are part of my condition. They poison everything, they come between me and everything I once enjoyed: food and drink, literature, art. Here I am surrounded by beautiful objects, or so at least I regarded them at one time. Now, an abominable mist hangs over them, coarsening the outlines, tainting and muddying the colours. Poems I loved in the past are no longer intelligible; they are full of words that have lost their meaning for me, references to feelings I cannot remember. Come, whatever you are, whoever you are, do what you will with me, so long as you sweep the mist aside, make me see the way I used to see, help me to escape from myself.