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diff --git a/old/1138-0.txt b/old/1138-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1b1b8b3 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1138-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13302 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Research Magnificent, by H. G. Wells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Research Magnificent + +Author: H. G. Wells + +Posting Date: August 3, 2008 [EBook #1138] +Release Date: December, 1997 +Last Updated: March 2, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RESEARCH MAGNIFICENT *** + + + + +Produced by Donald Lainson + + + + + +THE RESEARCH MAGNIFICENT + +by H. G. Wells + +(1915) + + + +CONTENTS + + + THE PRELUDE + + ON FEAR AND ARISTOCRACY + + + THE STORY + + I. THE BOY GROWS UP + + II. THE YOUNG MAN ABOUT TOWN + + III. AMANDA + + IV. THE SPIRITED HONEYMOON + + V. THE ASSIZE OF JEALOUSY + + VI. THE NEW HAROUN AL RASCHID + + + + +THE RESEARCH MAGNIFICENT + + + + +THE PRELUDE + + + + +ON FEAR AND ARISTOCRACY + + + +1 + +The story of William Porphyry Benham is the story of a man who was led +into adventure by an idea. It was an idea that took possession of his +imagination quite early in life, it grew with him and changed with him, +it interwove at last completely with his being. His story is its story. +It was traceably germinating in the schoolboy; it was manifestly present +in his mind at the very last moment of his adventurous life. He belonged +to that fortunate minority who are independent of daily necessities, so +that he was free to go about the world under its direction. It led him +far. It led him into situations that bordered upon the fantastic, it +made him ridiculous, it came near to making him sublime. And this idea +of his was of such a nature that in several aspects he could document +it. Its logic forced him to introspection and to the making of a record. + +An idea that can play so large a part in a life must necessarily have +something of the complication and protean quality of life itself. It is +not to be stated justly in any formula, it is not to be rendered by an +epigram. As well one might show a man's skeleton for his portrait. Yet, +essentially, Benham's idea was simple. He had an incurable, an almost +innate persuasion that he had to live life nobly and thoroughly. His +commoner expression for that thorough living is “the aristocratic life.” + But by “aristocratic” he meant something very different from the +quality of a Russian prince, let us say, or an English peer. He meant an +intensity, a clearness.... Nobility for him was to get something out of +his individual existence, a flame, a jewel, a splendour--it is a thing +easier to understand than to say. + +One might hesitate to call this idea “innate,” and yet it comes soon +into a life when it comes at all. In Benham's case we might trace it +back to the Day Nursery at Seagate, we might detect it stirring already +at the petticoat stage, in various private struttings and valiant +dreamings with a helmet of pasteboard and a white-metal sword. We have +most of us been at least as far as that with Benham. And we have +died like Horatius, slaying our thousands for our country, or we have +perished at the stake or faced the levelled muskets of the firing +party--“No, do not bandage my eyes”--because we would not betray the +secret path that meant destruction to our city. But with Benham the +vein was stronger, and it increased instead of fading out as he grew +to manhood. It was less obscured by those earthy acquiescences, those +discretions, that saving sense of proportion, which have made most of +us so satisfactorily what we are. “Porphyry,” his mother had discovered +before he was seventeen, “is an excellent boy, a brilliant boy, but, I +begin to see, just a little unbalanced.” + +The interest of him, the absurdity of him, the story of him, is that. + +Most of us are--balanced; in spite of occasional reveries we do come to +terms with the limitations of life, with those desires and dreams and +discretions that, to say the least of it, qualify our nobility, we take +refuge in our sense of humour and congratulate ourselves on a certain +amiable freedom from priggishness or presumption, but for Benham that +easy declension to a humorous acceptance of life as it is did not occur. +He found his limitations soon enough; he was perpetually +rediscovering them, but out of these interments of the spirit he rose +again--remarkably. When we others have decided that, to be plain about +it, we are not going to lead the noble life at all, that the thing is +too ambitious and expensive even to attempt, we have done so because +there were other conceptions of existence that were good enough for us, +we decided that instead of that glorious impossible being of ourselves, +we would figure in our own eyes as jolly fellows, or sly dogs, or sane, +sound, capable men or brilliant successes, and so forth--practicable +things. For Benham, exceptionally, there were not these practicable +things. He blundered, he fell short of himself, he had--as you will +be told--some astonishing rebuffs, but they never turned him aside for +long. He went by nature for this preposterous idea of nobility as a +linnet hatched in a cage will try to fly. + +And when he discovered--and in this he was assisted not a little by his +friend at his elbow--when he discovered that Nobility was not the simple +thing he had at first supposed it to be, he set himself in a mood only +slightly disconcerted to the discovery of Nobility. When it dawned upon +him, as it did, that one cannot be noble, so to speak, IN VACUO, he set +himself to discover a Noble Society. He began with simple beliefs and +fine attitudes and ended in a conscious research. If he could not get +through by a stride, then it followed that he must get through by a +climb. He spent the greater part of his life studying and experimenting +in the noble possibilities of man. He never lost his absurd faith in +that conceivable splendour. At first it was always just round the corner +or just through the wood; to the last it seemed still but a little way +beyond the distant mountains. + +For this reason this story has been called THE RESEARCH MAGNIFICENT. It +was a real research, it was documented. In the rooms in Westhaven Street +that at last were as much as one could call his home, he had accumulated +material for--one hesitates to call it a book--let us say it was an +analysis of, a guide to the noble life. There after his tragic death +came his old friend White, the journalist and novelist, under a promise, +and found these papers; he found them to the extent of a crammed +bureau, half a score of patent files quite distended and a writing-table +drawer-full, and he was greatly exercised to find them. They were, +White declares, they are still after much experienced handling, an +indigestible aggregation. On this point White is very assured. When +Benham thought he was gathering together a book he was dreaming, White +says. There is no book in it.... + +Perhaps too, one might hazard, Benham was dreaming when he thought the +noble life a human possibility. Perhaps man, like the ape and the hyaena +and the tapeworm and many other of God's necessary but less attractive +creatures, is not for such exalted ends. That doubt never seems to have +got a lodgment in Benham's skull; though at times one might suppose it +the basis of White's thought. You will find in all Benham's story, +if only it can be properly told, now subdued, now loud and amazed and +distressed, but always traceable, this startled, protesting question, +“BUT WHY THE DEVIL AREN'T WE?” As though necessarily we ought to be. +He never faltered in his persuasion that behind the dingy face of this +world, the earthy stubbornness, the baseness and dulness of himself +and all of us, lurked the living jewels of heaven, the light of glory, +things unspeakable. At first it seemed to him that one had only just to +hammer and will, and at the end, after a life of willing and hammering, +he was still convinced there was something, something in the nature of +an Open Sesame, perhaps a little more intricate than one had supposed +at first, a little more difficult to secure, but still in that nature, +which would suddenly roll open for mankind the magic cave of the +universe, that precious cave at the heart of all things, in which one +must believe. + +And then life--life would be the wonder it so perplexingly just +isn't.... + + + +2 + + +Benham did not go about the world telling people of this consuming +research. He was not the prophet or preacher of his idea. It was too +living and intricate and uncertain a part of him to speak freely about. +It was his secret self; to expose it casually would have shamed him. He +drew all sorts of reserves about him, he wore his manifest imperfections +turned up about him like an overcoat in bitter wind. He was content +to be inexplicable. His thoughts led him to the conviction that this +magnificent research could not be, any more than any other research +can be, a solitary enterprise, but he delayed expression; in a mighty +writing and stowing away of these papers he found a relief from the +unpleasant urgency to confess and explain himself prematurely. So that +White, though he knew Benham with the intimacy of an old schoolfellow +who had renewed his friendship, and had shared his last days and been a +witness of his death, read the sheets of manuscript often with surprise +and with a sense of added elucidation. + +And, being also a trained maker of books, White as he read was more +and more distressed that an accumulation so interesting should be so +entirely unshaped for publication. “But this will never make a book,” + said White with a note of personal grievance. His hasty promise in their +last moments together had bound him, it seemed, to a task he now found +impossible. He would have to work upon it tremendously; and even then he +did not see how it could be done. + +This collection of papers was not a story, not an essay, not a +confession, not a diary. It was--nothing definable. It went into no +conceivable covers. It was just, White decided, a proliferation. A vast +proliferation. It wanted even a title. There were signs that Benham had +intended to call it THE ARISTOCRATIC LIFE, and that he had tried at some +other time the title of AN ESSAY ON ARISTOCRACY. Moreover, it would +seem that towards the end he had been disposed to drop the word +“aristocratic” altogether, and adopt some such phrase as THE LARGER +LIFE. Once it was LIFE SET FREE. He had fallen away more and more from +nearly everything that one associates with aristocracy--at the end only +its ideals of fearlessness and generosity remained. + +Of all these titles THE ARISTOCRATIC LIFE seemed at first most like +a clue to White. Benham's erratic movements, his sudden impulses, his +angers, his unaccountable patiences, his journeys to strange places, and +his lapses into what had seemed to be pure adventurousness, could all be +put into system with that. Before White had turned over three pages of +the great fascicle of manuscript that was called Book Two, he had found +the word “Bushido” written with a particularly flourishing capital +letter and twice repeated. “That was inevitable,” said White with the +comforting regret one feels for a friend's banalities. “And it dates... +[unreadable] this was early....” + +“Modern aristocracy, the new aristocracy,” he read presently, “has still +to be discovered and understood. This is the necessary next step for +mankind. As far as possible I will discover and understand it, and as +far as I know it I will be it. This is the essential disposition of my +mind. God knows I have appetites and sloths and habits and blindnesses, +but so far as it is in my power to release myself I will escape to +this....” + + + +3 + + +White sat far into the night and for several nights turning over papers +and rummaging in untidy drawers. Memories came back to him of his dead +friend and pieced themselves together with other memories and joined +on to scraps in this writing. Bold yet convincing guesses began to leap +across the gaps. A story shaped itself.... + +The story began with the schoolfellow he had known at Minchinghampton +School. + +Benham had come up from his father's preparatory school at Seagate. He +had been a boy reserved rather than florid in his acts and manners, a +boy with a pale face, incorrigible hair and brown eyes that went dark +and deep with excitement. Several times White had seen him excited, and +when he was excited Benham was capable of tensely daring things. On one +occasion he had insisted upon walking across a field in which was an +aggressive bull. It had been put there to prevent the boys taking +a short cut to the swimming place. It had bellowed tremendously and +finally charged him. He had dodged it and got away; at the time it had +seemed an immense feat to White and the others who were safely up +the field. He had walked to the fence, risking a second charge by his +deliberation. Then he had sat on the fence and declared his intention +of always crossing the field so long as the bull remained there. He had +said this with white intensity, he had stopped abruptly in mid-sentence, +and then suddenly he had dropped to the ground, clutched the fence, +struggled with heaving shoulders, and been sick. + +The combination of apparently stout heart and manifestly weak stomach +had exercised the Minchinghampton intelligence profoundly. + +On one or two other occasions Benham had shown courage of the same +rather screwed-up sort. He showed it not only in physical but in mental +things. A boy named Prothero set a fashion of religious discussion +in the school, and Benham, after some self-examination, professed an +atheistical republicanism rather in the manner of Shelley. This brought +him into open conflict with Roddles, the History Master. Roddles had +discovered these theological controversies in some mysterious way, and +he took upon himself to talk at Benham and Prothero. He treated them to +the common misapplication of that fool who “hath said in his heart there +is no God.” He did not perceive there was any difference between the +fool who says a thing in his heart and one who says it in the dormitory. +He revived that delectable anecdote of the Eton boy who professed +disbelief and was at once “soundly flogged” by his head master. “Years +afterwards that boy came back to thank ----” + +“Gurr,” said Prothero softly. “STEW--ard!” + +“Your turn next, Benham,” whispered an orthodox controversialist. + +“Good Lord! I'd like to see him,” said Benham with a forced loudness +that could scarcely be ignored. + +The subsequent controversy led to an interview with the head. From +it Benham emerged more whitely strung up than ever. “He said he would +certainly swish me if I deserved it, and I said I would certainly kill +him if he did.” + +“And then?” + +“He told me to go away and think it over. Said he would preach about +it next Sunday.... Well, a swishing isn't a likely thing anyhow. But +I would.... There isn't a master here I'd stand a thrashing from--not +one.... And because I choose to say what I think!... I'd run amuck.” + +For a week or so the school was exhilarated by a vain and ill-concealed +hope that the head might try it just to see if Benham would. It was +tantalizingly within the bounds of possibility.... + +These incidents came back to White's mind as he turned over the +newspapers in the upper drawer of the bureau. The drawer was labelled +“Fear--the First Limitation,” and the material in it was evidently +designed for the opening volume of the great unfinished book. Indeed, a +portion of it was already arranged and written up. + +As White read through this manuscript he was reminded of a score of +schoolboy discussions Benham and he and Prothero had had together. Here +was the same old toughness of mind, a kind of intellectual hardihood, +that had sometimes shocked his schoolfellows. Benham had been one of +those boys who do not originate ideas very freely, but who go out to +them with a fierce sincerity. He believed and disbelieved with emphasis. +Prothero had first set him doubting, but it was Benham's own temperament +took him on to denial. His youthful atheism had been a matter for secret +consternation in White. White did not believe very much in God even +then, but this positive disbelieving frightened him. It was going +too far. There had been a terrible moment in the dormitory, during a +thunderstorm, a thunderstorm so vehement that it had awakened them +all, when Latham, the humourist and a quietly devout boy, had suddenly +challenged Benham to deny his Maker. + +“NOW say you don't believe in God?” + +Benham sat up in bed and repeated his negative faith, while little +Hopkins, the Bishop's son, being less certain about the accuracy of +Providence than His aim, edged as far as he could away from Benham's +cubicle and rolled his head in his bedclothes. + +“And anyhow,” said Benham, when it was clear that he was not to be +struck dead forthwith, “you show a poor idea of your God to think he'd +kill a schoolboy for honest doubt. Even old Roddles--” + +“I can't listen to you,” cried Latham the humourist, “I can't listen to +you. It's--HORRIBLE.” + +“Well, who began it?” asked Benham. + +A flash of lightning lit the dormitory and showed him to White +white-faced and ablaze with excitement, sitting up with the bed-clothes +about him. “Oh WOW!” wailed the muffled voice of little Hopkins as the +thunder burst like a giant pistol overhead, and he buried his head still +deeper in the bedclothes and gave way to unappeasable grief. + +Latham's voice came out of the darkness. “This ATHEISM that you and +Billy Prothero have brought into the school--” + +He started violently at another vivid flash, and every one remained +silent, waiting for the thunder.... + +But White remembered no more of the controversy because he had made a +frightful discovery that filled and blocked his mind. Every time the +lightning flashed, there was a red light in Benham's eyes.... + +It was only three days after when Prothero discovered exactly the same +phenomenon in the School House boothole and talked of cats and cattle, +that White's confidence in their friend was partially restored.... + + + +4 + + +“Fear, the First Limitation”--his title indicated the spirit of Benham's +opening book very clearly. His struggle with fear was the very beginning +of his soul's history. It continued to the end. He had hardly decided to +lead the noble life before he came bump against the fact that he was +a physical coward. He felt fear acutely. “Fear,” he wrote, “is the +foremost and most persistent of the shepherding powers that keep us +in the safe fold, that drive us back to the beaten track and comfort +and--futility. The beginning of all aristocracy is the subjugation of +fear.” + +At first the struggle was so great that he hated fear without any +qualification; he wanted to abolish it altogether. + +“When I was a boy,” he writes, “I thought I would conquer fear for good +and all, and never more be troubled by it. But it is not to be done in +that way. One might as well dream of having dinner for the rest of one's +life. Each time and always I have found that it has to be conquered +afresh. To this day I fear, little things as well as big things. I have +to grapple with some little dread every day--urge myself.... Just as +I have to wash and shave myself every day.... I believe it is so with +every one, but it is difficult to be sure; few men who go into dangers +care very much to talk about fear....” + +Later Benham found some excuses for fear, came even to dealings with +fear. He never, however, admits that this universal instinct is any +better than a kindly but unintelligent nurse from whose fostering +restraints it is man's duty to escape. Discretion, he declared, must +remain; a sense of proportion, an “adequacy of enterprise,” but the +discretion of an aristocrat is in his head, a tactical detail, it has +nothing to do with this visceral sinking, this ebb in the nerves. “From +top to bottom, the whole spectrum of fear is bad, from panic fear at +one extremity down to that mere disinclination for enterprise, that +reluctance and indolence which is its lowest phase. These are things of +the beast, these are for creatures that have a settled environment, a +life history, that spin in a cage of instincts. But man is a beast of +that kind no longer, he has left his habitat, he goes out to limitless +living....” + +This idea of man going out into new things, leaving securities, habits, +customs, leaving his normal life altogether behind him, underlay all +Benham's aristocratic conceptions. And it was natural that he +should consider fear as entirely inconvenient, treat it indeed with +ingratitude, and dwell upon the immense liberations that lie beyond for +those who will force themselves through its remonstrances.... + +Benham confessed his liability to fear quite freely in these notes. His +fear of animals was ineradicable. He had had an overwhelming dread of +bears until he was twelve or thirteen, the child's irrational dread +of impossible bears, bears lurking under the bed and in the evening +shadows. He confesses that even up to manhood he could not cross a +field containing cattle without keeping a wary eye upon them--his bull +adventure rather increased than diminished that disposition--he hated a +strange dog at his heels and would manoeuvre himself as soon as possible +out of reach of the teeth or heels of a horse. But the peculiar dread of +his childhood was tigers. Some gaping nursemaid confronted him suddenly +with a tiger in a cage in the menagerie annexe of a circus. “My small +mind was overwhelmed.” + +“I had never thought,” White read, “that a tiger was much larger than +a St. Bernard dog.... This great creature!... I could not believe any +hunter would attack such a monster except by stealth and with weapons of +enormous power.... + +“He jerked himself to and fro across his cramped, rickety cage and +looked over my head with yellow eyes--at some phantom far away. Every +now and then he snarled. The contempt of his detestable indifference +sank deeper and deeper into my soul. I knew that were the cage to vanish +I should stand there motionless, his helpless prey. I knew that were he +at large in the same building with me I should be too terror-stricken +to escape him. At the foot of a ladder leading clear to escape I should +have awaited him paralyzed. At last I gripped my nurse's hand. 'Take me +away,' I whispered. + +“In my dreams that night he stalked me. I made my frozen flight from +him, I slammed a door on him, and he thrust his paw through a panel +as though it had been paper and clawed for me. The paw got longer and +longer.... + +“I screamed so loudly that my father came up from his study. + +“I remember that he took me in his arms. + +“'It's only a big sort of pussy, Poff,' he said. 'FELIS TIGRIS. FELIS, +you know, means cat.' + +“But I knew better. I was in no mood then for my father's insatiable +pedagoguery. + +“'And my little son mustn't be a coward.'... + +“After that I understood I must keep silence and bear my tigers alone. + +“For years the thought of that tiger's immensity haunted my mind. In +my dreams I cowered before it a thousand times; in the dusk it rarely +failed me. On the landing on my way to bed there was a patch of darkness +beyond a chest that became a lurking horror for me, and sometimes the +door of my father's bedroom would stand open and there was a long buff +and crimson-striped shape, by day indeed an ottoman, but by night--. +Could an ottoman crouch and stir in the flicker of a passing candle? +Could an ottoman come after you noiselessly, and so close that you could +not even turn round upon it? No!” + + + +5 + + +When Benham was already seventeen and, as he supposed, hardened against +his fear of beasts, his friend Prothero gave him an account of the +killing of an old labouring man by a stallion which had escaped out of +its stable. The beast had careered across a field, leapt a hedge and +come upon its victim suddenly. He had run a few paces and stopped, +trying to defend his head with the horse rearing over him. It beat him +down with two swift blows of its fore hoofs, one, two, lifted him up in +its long yellow teeth and worried him as a terrier does a rat--the poor +old wretch was still able to make a bleating sound at that--dropped him, +trampled and kicked him as he tried to crawl away, and went on trampling +and battering him until he was no more than a bloody inhuman bundle of +clothes and mire. For more than half an hour this continued, and then +its animal rage was exhausted and it desisted, and went and grazed at +a little distance from this misshapen, hoof-marked, torn, and muddy +remnant of a man. No one it seems but a horror-stricken child knew what +was happening.... + +This picture of human indignity tortured Benham's imagination much more +than it tortured the teller of the tale. It filled him with shame and +horror. For three or four years every detail of that circumstantial +narrative seemed unforgettable. A little lapse from perfect health and +the obsession returned. He could not endure the neighing of horses: when +he saw horses galloping in a field with him his heart stood still. And +all his life thereafter he hated horses. + + + +6 + + +A different sort of fear that also greatly afflicted Benham was due to a +certain clumsiness and insecurity he felt in giddy and unstable places. +There he was more definitely balanced between the hopelessly rash and +the pitifully discreet. + +He had written an account of a private struggle between himself and a +certain path of planks and rock edges called the Bisse of Leysin. This +happened in his adolescence. He had had a bad attack of influenza and +his doctor had sent him to a little hotel--the only hotel it was in +those days--at Montana in Valais. There, later, when he had picked up +his strength, his father was to join him and take him mountaineering, +that second-rate mountaineering which is so dear to dons and +schoolmasters. When the time came he was ready for that, but he had had +his experiences. He had gone through a phase of real cowardice. He was +afraid, he confessed, before even he reached Montana; he was afraid of +the steepness of the mountains. He had to drive ten or twelve miles +up and up the mountain-side, a road of innumerable hairpin bends and +precipitous banks, the horse was gaunt and ugly with a disposition to +shy, and he confesses he clutched the side of the vehicle and speculated +how he should jump if presently the whole turnout went tumbling over.... + +“And afterwards I dreamt dreams of precipices. I made strides over +precipices, I fell and fell with a floating swiftness towards remote +valleys, I was assailed by eagles upon a perilous ledge that crumbled +away and left me clinging by my nails to nothing.” + +The Bisse of Leysin is one of those artificial water-courses which bring +water from some distant source to pastures that have an insufficient +or uncertain supply. It is a little better known than most because of +a certain exceptional boldness in its construction; for a distance of a +few score yards it runs supported by iron staples across the front of +a sheer precipice, and for perhaps half a mile it hangs like an eyebrow +over nearly or quite vertical walls of pine-set rock. Beside it, on +the outer side of it, runs a path, which becomes an offhand gangway +of planking at the overhanging places. At one corner, which gives the +favourite picture postcard from Montana, the rocks project so sharply +above the water that the passenger on the gangway must crouch down upon +the bending plank as he walks. There is no hand-hold at all. + +A path from Montana takes one over a pine-clad spur and down a +precipitous zig-zag upon the middle of the Bisse, and thither Benham +came, fascinated by the very fact that here was something of which the +mere report frightened him. He had to walk across the cold clear rush +of the Bisse upon a pine log, and then he found himself upon one of the +gentler interludes of the Bisse track. It was a scrambling path nearly +two feet wide, and below it were slopes, but not so steep as to terrify. +At a vast distance below he saw through tree-stems and blue haze a +twisted strand of bright whiteness, the river that joins the Rhone at +Sion. It looped about and passed out of sight remotely beneath his feet. +He turned to the right, and came to a corner that overhung a precipice. +He craned his head round this corner and saw the evil place of the +picture-postcards. + +He remained for a long time trying to screw himself up to walk along the +jagged six-inch edge of rock between cliff and torrent into which the +path has shrunken, to the sagging plank under the overhanging rock +beyond. + +He could not bring himself to do that. + +“It happened that close to the corner a large lump of rock and earth +was breaking away, a cleft was opening, so that presently, it seemed +possible at any moment, the mass would fall headlong into the blue deeps +below. This impending avalanche was not in my path along the Bisse, it +was no sort of danger to me, but in some way its insecurity gave a final +touch to my cowardice. I could not get myself round that corner.” + +He turned away. He went and examined the planks in the other direction, +and these he found less forbidding. He crossed one precipitous place, +with a fall of twoscore feet or less beneath him, and found worse ahead. +There also he managed. A third place was still more disagreeable. +The plank was worn and thin, and sagged under him. He went along it +supporting himself against the rock above the Bisse with an extended +hand. Halfway the rock fell back, so that there was nothing whatever +to hold. He stopped, hesitating whether he should go back--but on +this plank there was no going back because no turning round seemed +practicable. While he was still hesitating there came a helpful +intervention. Behind him he saw a peasant appearing and disappearing +behind trees and projecting rock masses, and coming across the previous +plank at a vigorous trot.... + +Under the stimulus of a spectator Benham got to the end of this third +place without much trouble. Then very politely he stood aside for the +expert to go ahead so that he could follow at his own pace. + +There were, however, more difficulties yet to come, and a disagreeable +humiliation. That confounded peasant developed a parental solicitude. +After each crossing he waited, and presently began to offer advice and +encouragement. At last came a place where everything was overhanging, +where the Bisse was leaking, and the plank wet and slippery. The water +ran out of the leak near the brim of the wooden channel and fell in a +long shivering thread of silver. THERE WAS NO SOUND OF ITS FALL. It just +fell--into a void. Benham wished he had not noted that. He groaned, but +faced the plank; he knew this would be the slowest affair of all. + +The peasant surveyed him from the further side. + +“Don't be afraid!” cried the peasant in his clumsy Valaisian French, +and returned, returning along the plank that seemed quite sufficiently +loaded without him, extending a charitable hand. + +“Damn!” whispered Benham, but he took the hand. + +Afterwards, rather ignobly, he tried to explain in his public-school +French. “Pas de peur,” he said. “Pas de peur. Mais la tete, n'a pas +l'habitude.” + +The peasant, failing to understand, assured him again that there was no +danger. + +(“Damn!”) + +Benham was led over all the other planks, he was led as if he was an +old lady crossing a glacier. He was led into absolute safety, and +shamefacedly he rewarded his guide. Then he went a little way and sat +down, swore softly, and watched the honest man go striding and plunging +down towards Lens until he was out of sight. + +“Now,” said Benham to himself, “if I do not go back along the planks my +secret honour is gone for ever.” + +He told himself that he had not a good head, that he was not well, that +the sun was setting and the light no longer good, that he had a very +good chance indeed of getting killed. Then it came to him suddenly as a +clear and simple truth, as something luminously plain, that it is better +to get killed than go away defeated by such fears and unsteadiness as +his. The change came into his mind as if a white light were suddenly +turned on--where there had been nothing but shadows and darkness. He +rose to his feet and went swiftly and intently the whole way back, going +with a kind of temperate recklessness, and, because he was no longer +careful, easily. He went on beyond his starting place toward the corner, +and did that supreme bit, to and fro, that bit where the lump was +falling away, and he had to crouch, as gaily as the rest. Then he +recrossed the Bisse upon the pine log, clambered up through the pines to +the crest, and returned through the meadows to his own hotel. + +After that he should have slept the sleep of contentment, but instead +he had quite dreadful nightmares, of hanging in frozen fear above +incredible declivities, of ill-aimed leaps across chasms to slippery +footholds, of planks that swayed and broke suddenly in the middle and +headed him down and down.... + +The next day in the sunshine he walked the Bisse again with those dreams +like trailing mists in his mind, and by comparison the path of the Bisse +was nothing, it was like walking along a kerbstone, it was an exercise +for young ladies.... + + + +7 + + +In his younger days Benham had regarded Fear as a shameful secret and as +a thing to be got rid of altogether. It seemed to him that to feel fear +was to fall short of aristocracy, and in spite of the deep dreads +and disgusts that haunted his mind, he set about the business of its +subjugation as if it were a spiritual amputation. But as he emerged +from the egotism of adolescence he came to realize that this was +too comprehensive an operation; every one feels fear, and your true +aristocrat is not one who has eliminated, but one who controls or +ignores it. Brave men are men who do things when they are afraid to do +them, just as Nelson, even when he was seasick, and he was frequently +seasick, was still master of the sea. Benham developed two leading ideas +about fear; one that it is worse at the first onset, and far worse than +any real experience, and the other that fear is essentially a social +instinct. He set himself upon these lines to study--what can we call +it?--the taming of fear, the nature, care, and management of fear.... + +“Fear is very like pain in this, that it is a deterrent thing. It is +superficial. Just as a man's skin is infinitely more sensitive than +anything inside.... Once you have forced yourself or have been forced +through the outward fear into vivid action or experience, you feel very +little. The worst moment is before things happen. Rowe, the African +sportsman, told me that he had seen cowardice often enough in the +presence of lions, but he had never seen any one actually charged by a +lion who did not behave well. I have heard the same thing of many sorts +of dangers. + +“I began to suspect this first in the case of falling or jumping down. +Giddiness may be an almost intolerable torture, and falling nothing of +the sort. I once saw the face of an old man who had flung himself out +of a high window in Rome, and who had been killed instantly on the +pavement; it was not simply a serene face, it was glad, exalted. I +suspect that when we have broken the shell of fear, falling may be +delightful. Jumping down is, after all, only a steeper tobogganing, and +tobogganing a milder jumping down. Always I used to funk at the top +of the Cresta run. I suffered sometimes almost intolerably; I found +it almost impossible to get away. The first ten yards was like being +slashed open with a sharp sword. But afterwards there was nothing but +joyful thrills. All instinct, too, fought against me when I tried high +diving. I managed it, and began to like it. I had to give it up because +of my ears, but not until I had established the habit of stepping +through that moment of disinclination. + +“I was Challoner's passenger when he was killed at Sheerness. That was +a queer unexpected experience, you may have supposed it an agony of +terror, but indeed there was no fear in it at all. At any rate, I do not +remember a moment of fear; it has gone clean out of my memory if ever it +was there. We were swimming high and fast, three thousand feet or so, in +a clear, sweet air over the town of Sheerness. The river, with a +string of battleships, was far away to the west of us, and the endless +grey-blue flats of the Thames to the north. The sun was low behind a +bank of cloud. I was watching a motor-car, which seemed to be crawling +slowly enough, though, no doubt, it was making a respectable pace, +between two hedges down below. It is extraordinary how slowly everything +seems to be going when one sees it from such an height. + +“Then the left wing of the monoplane came up like a door that slams, +some wires whistled past my head, and one whipped off my helmet, and +then, with the seat slipping away from me, down we went. I snatched +unavailingly for the helmet, and then gripped the sides. It was like +dropping in a boat suddenly into the trough of a wave--and going on +dropping. We were both strapped, and I got my feet against the side and +clung to the locked second wheel. + +“The sensation was as though something like an intermittent electric +current was pouring through me. It's a ridiculous image to use, I can't +justify it, but it was as if I was having cold blue light squirted +through every pore of my being. There was an astonishment, a feeling +of confirmation. 'Of course these things do happen sometimes,' I told +myself. I don't remember that Challoner looked round or said anything at +all. I am not sure that I looked at him.... + +“There seemed to be a long interval of intensely excited curiosity, and +I remember thinking, 'Lord, but we shall come a smash in a minute!' +Far ahead I saw the grey sheds of Eastchurch and people strolling +about apparently unaware of our disaster. There was a sudden silence as +Challoner stopped the engine.... + +“But the point I want to insist upon is that I did not feel afraid. I +was simply enormously, terribly INTERESTED.... + +“There came a tremendous jolt and a lunge, and we were both tipped +forward, so that we were hanging forehead down by our straps, and it +looked as if the sheds were in the sky, then I saw nothing but sky, then +came another vast swerve, and we were falling sideways, sideways.... + +“I was altogether out of breath and PHYSICALLY astonished, and I +remember noting quite intelligently as we hit the ground how the green +grass had an effect of POURING OUT in every direction from below us.... + +“Then I remember a jerk and a feeling that I was flying up again. I was +astonished by a tremendous popping--fabric, wires, everything seemed +going pop, pop, pop, like a machine-gun, and then came a flash of +intense pain as my arm crumpled up. It was quite impersonal pain. As +impersonal as seeing intense colour. SPLINTERS! I remember the word came +into my head instantly. I remember that very definitely. + +“I thought, I suppose, my arm was in splinters. Or perhaps of the scraps +and ends of rods and wires flying about us. It is curious that while I +remember the word I cannot recall the idea.... + +“When I became conscious again the chief thing present in my mind was +that all those fellows round were young soldiers who wouldn't at all +understand bad behaviour. My arm was--orchestral, but still far from +being real suffering IN me. Also I wanted to know what Challoner had +got. They wouldn't understand my questions, and then I twisted round and +saw from the negligent way his feet came out from under the engine that +he must be dead. And dark red stains with bright red froth-- + +“Of course! + +“There again the chief feeling was a sense of oddity. I wasn't sorry for +him any more than I was for myself. + +“It seemed to me that it was all right with us both, remarkable, vivid, +but all right....” + + + +8 + + +“But though there is little or no fear in an aeroplane, even when it +is smashing up, there is fear about aeroplanes. There is something that +says very urgently, 'Don't,' to the man who looks up into the sky. It +is very interesting to note how at a place like Eastchurch or Brooklands +the necessary discretion trails the old visceral feeling with it, +and how men will hang about, ready to go up, resolved to go up, but +delaying. Men of indisputable courage will get into a state between +dread and laziness, and waste whole hours of flying weather on any +excuse or no excuse. Once they are up that inhibition vanishes. The man +who was delaying and delaying half an hour ago will now be cutting the +most venturesome capers in the air. Few men are in a hurry to get down +again. I mean that quite apart from the hesitation of landing, they like +being up there.” + +Then, abruptly, Benham comes back to his theory. + +“Fear, you see, is the inevitable janitor, but it is not the ruler of +experience. That is what I am driving at in all this. The bark of danger +is worse than its bite. Inside the portals there may be events and +destruction, but terror stays defeated at the door. It may be that when +that old man was killed by a horse the child who watched suffered more +than he did.... + +“I am sure that was so....” + + + +9 + + +As White read Benham's notes and saw how his argument drove on, he was +reminded again and again of those schoolboy days and Benham's hardihood, +and his own instinctive unreasonable reluctance to follow those gallant +intellectual leads. If fear is an ancient instinctive boundary that the +modern life, the aristocratic life, is bound to ignore and transcend, +may this not also be the case with pain? We do a little adventure into +the “life beyond fear”; may we not also think of adventuring into the +life beyond pain? Is pain any saner a warning than fear? May not pain +just as much as fear keep us from possible and splendid things? But why +ask a question that is already answered in principle in every dentist's +chair? Benham's idea, however, went much further than that, he was +clearly suggesting that in pain itself, pain endured beyond a certain +pitch, there might come pleasure again, an intensity of sensation +that might have the colour of delight. He betrayed a real anxiety to +demonstrate this possibility, he had the earnestness of a man who is +sensible of dissentient elements within. He hated the thought of +pain even more than he hated fear. His arguments did not in the least +convince White, who stopped to poke the fire and assure himself of his +own comfort in the midst of his reading. + +Young people and unseasoned people, Benham argued, are apt to imagine +that if fear is increased and carried to an extreme pitch it becomes +unbearable, one will faint or die; given a weak heart, a weak artery or +any such structural defect and that may well happen, but it is just as +possible that as the stimulation increases one passes through a brief +ecstasy of terror to a new sane world, exalted but as sane as normal +existence. There is the calmness of despair. Benham had made some notes +to enforce this view, of the observed calm behaviour of men already +hopelessly lost, men on sinking ships, men going to execution, men +already maimed and awaiting the final stroke, but for the most part +these were merely references to books and periodicals. In exactly the +same way, he argued, we exaggerate the range of pain as if it were +limitless. We think if we are unthinking that it passes into agony and +so beyond endurance to destruction. It probably does nothing of the +kind. Benham compared pain to the death range of the electric current. +At a certain voltage it thrills, at a greater it torments and convulses, +at a still greater it kills. But at enormous voltages, as Tesla was +the first to demonstrate, it does no injury. And following on this came +memoranda on the recorded behaviour of martyrs, on the self-torture of +Hindoo ascetics, of the defiance of Red Indian prisoners. + +“These things,” Benham had written, “are much more horrible when one +considers them from the point of view of an easy-chair”;--White gave +an assenting nod--“ARE THEY REALLY HORRIBLE AT ALL? Is it possible that +these charred and slashed and splintered persons, those Indians hanging +from hooks, those walkers in the fiery furnace, have had glimpses +through great windows that were worth the price they paid for them? +Haven't we allowed those checks and barriers that are so important a +restraint upon childish enterprise, to creep up into and distress and +distort adult life?... + +“The modern world thinks too much as though painlessness and freedom +from danger were ultimate ends. It is fear-haunted, it is troubled +by the thoughts of pain and death, which it has never met except as +well-guarded children meet these things, in exaggerated and untestable +forms, in the menagerie or in nightmares. And so it thinks the discovery +of anaesthetics the crowning triumph of civilization, and cosiness and +innocent amusement, those ideals of the nursery, the whole purpose of +mankind....” + +“Mm,” said White, and pressed his lips together and knotted his brows +and shook his head. + + + +10 + + +But the bulk of Benham's discussion of fear was not concerned with +this perverse and overstrained suggestion of pleasure reached through +torture, this exaggeration of the man resolved not to shrink at +anything; it was an examination of the present range and use of fear +that led gradually to something like a theory of control and discipline. +The second of his two dominating ideas was that fear is an instinct +arising only in isolation, that in a crowd there may be a collective +panic, but that there is no real individual fear. Fear, Benham held, +drives the man back to the crowd, the dog to its master, the wolf to the +pack, and when it is felt that the danger is pooled, then fear leaves +us. He was quite prepared to meet the objection that animals of a +solitary habit do nevertheless exhibit fear. Some of this apparent fear, +he argued, was merely discretion, and what is not discretion is the +survival of an infantile characteristic. The fear felt by a tiger cub +is certainly a social emotion, that drives it back to the other cubs, +to its mother and the dark hiding of the lair. The fear of a fully grown +tiger sends it into the reeds and the shadows, to a refuge, that must be +“still reminiscent of the maternal lair.” But fear has very little hold +upon the adult solitary animal, it changes with extreme readiness to +resentment and rage. + +“Like most inexperienced people,” ran his notes, “I was astonished at +the reported feats of men in war; I believed they were exaggerated, +and that there was a kind of unpremeditated conspiracy of silence about +their real behaviour. But when on my way to visit India for the third +time I turned off to see what I could of the fighting before Adrianople, +I discovered at once that a thousand casually selected conscripts will, +every one of them, do things together that not one of them could by any +means be induced to do alone. I saw men not merely obey orders that +gave them the nearly certain prospect of death, but I saw them exceeding +orders; I saw men leap out of cover for the mere sake of defiance, and +fall shot through and smashed by a score of bullets. I saw a number +of Bulgarians in the hands of the surgeon, several quite frightfully +wounded, refuse chloroform merely to impress the English onlooker, some +of their injuries I could scarcely endure to see, and I watched a line +of infantry men go on up a hill and keep on quite manifestly cheerful +with men dropping out and wriggling, and men dropping out and lying +still until every other man was down.... Not one man would have gone up +that hill alone, without onlookers....” + +Rowe, the lion hunter, told Benham that only on one occasion in his life +had he given way to ungovernable fear, and that was when he was alone. +Many times he had been in fearful situations in the face of charging +lions and elephants, and once he had been bowled over and carried some +distance by a lion, but on none of these occasions had fear demoralized +him. There was no question of his general pluck. But on one occasion he +was lost in rocky waterless country in Somaliland. He strayed out in the +early morning while his camels were being loaded, followed some antelope +too far, and lost his bearings. He looked up expecting to see the sun +on his right hand and found it on his left. He became bewildered. He +wandered some time and then fired three signal shots and got no reply. +Then losing his head he began shouting. He had only four or five more +cartridges and no water-bottle. His men were accustomed to his going on +alone, and might not begin to remark upon his absence until sundown.... +It chanced, however, that one of the shikari noted the water-bottle he +had left behind and organized a hunt for him. + +Long before they found him he had passed to an extremity of terror. The +world had become hideous and threatening, the sun was a pitiless glare, +each rocky ridge he clambered became more dreadful than the last, each +new valley into which he looked more hateful and desolate, the cramped +thorn bushes threatened him gauntly, the rocks had a sinister lustre, +and in every blue shadow about him the night and death lurked and +waited. There was no hurry for them, presently they would spread out +again and join and submerge him, presently in the confederated darkness +he could be stalked and seized and slain. Yes, this he admitted was real +fear. He had cracked his voice, yelling as a child yells. And then he +had become afraid of his own voice.... + +“Now this excess of fear in isolation, this comfort in a crowd, in +support and in a refuge, even when support or refuge is quite illusory, +is just exactly what one would expect of fear if one believed it to be +an instinct which has become a misfit. In the ease of the soldier fear +is so much a misfit that instead of saving him for the most part it +destroys him. Raw soldiers under fire bunch together and armies fight in +masses, men are mowed down in swathes, because only so is the courage of +the common men sustained, only so can they be brave, albeit spread out +and handling their weapons as men of unqualified daring would handle +them they would be infinitely safer and more effective.... + +“And all of us, it may be, are restrained by this misfit fear from a +thousand bold successful gestures of mind and body, we are held back +from the attainment of mighty securities in pitiful temporary shelters +that are perhaps in the end no better than traps....” + +From such considerations Benham went on to speculate how far the crowd +can be replaced in a man's imagination, how far some substitute for that +social backing can be made to serve the same purpose in neutralizing +fear. He wrote with the calm of a man who weighs the probabilities of a +riddle, and with the zeal of a man lost to every material consideration. +His writing, it seemed to White, had something of the enthusiastic +whiteness of his face, the enthusiastic brightness of his eyes. We can +no more banish fear from our being at present than we can carve out the +fleshy pillars of the heart or the pineal gland in the brain. It is deep +in our inheritance. As deep as hunger. And just as we have to satisfy +hunger in order that it should leave us free, so we have to satisfy the +unconquerable importunity of fear. We have to reassure our faltering +instincts. There must be something to take the place of lair and +familiars, something not ourselves but general, that we must carry with +us into the lonely places. For it is true that man has now not only +to learn to fight in open order instead of in a phalanx, but he has to +think and plan and act in open order, to live in open order.... + +Then with one of his abrupt transitions Benham had written, “This brings +me to God.” + +“The devil it does!” said White, roused to a keener attention. + +“By no feat of intention can we achieve courage in loneliness so long as +we feel indeed alone. An isolated man, an egoist, an Epicurean man, will +always fail himself in the solitary place. There must be something more +with us to sustain us against this vast universe than the spark of life +that began yesterday and must be extinguished to-morrow. There can be +no courage beyond social courage, the sustaining confidence of the herd, +until there is in us the sense of God. But God is a word that covers a +multitude of meanings. When I was a boy I was a passionate atheist, I +defied God, and so far as God is the mere sanction of social traditions +and pressures, a mere dressing up of the crowd's will in canonicals, I +do still deny him and repudiate him. That God I heard of first from my +nursemaid, and in very truth he is the proper God of all the nursemaids +of mankind. But there is another God than that God of obedience, God the +immortal adventurer in me, God who calls men from home and country, God +scourged and crowned with thorns, who rose in a nail-pierced body out of +death and came not to bring peace but a sword.” + +With something bordering upon intellectual consternation, White, who +was a decent self-respecting sceptic, read these last clamberings of +Benham's spirit. They were written in pencil; they were unfinished when +he died. + +(Surely the man was not a Christian!) + +“You may be heedless of death and suffering because you think you cannot +suffer and die, or you may be heedless of death and pain because you +have identified your life with the honour of mankind and the insatiable +adventurousness of man's imagination, so that the possible death is +negligible and the possible achievement altogether outweighs it.”... + +White shook his head over these pencilled fragments. + +He was a member of the Rationalist Press Association, and he had always +taken it for granted that Benham was an orthodox unbeliever. But this +was hopelessly unsound, heresy, perilous stuff; almost, it seemed to +him, a posthumous betrayal.... + + + +11 + + +One night when he was in India the spirit of adventure came upon Benham. +He had gone with Kepple, of the forestry department, into the jungle +country in the hills above the Tapti. He had been very anxious to see +something of that aspect of Indian life, and he had snatched at the +chance Kepple had given him. But they had scarcely started before the +expedition was brought to an end by an accident, Kepple was thrown by +a pony and his ankle broken. He and Benham bandaged it as well as they +could, and a litter was sent for, and meanwhile they had to wait in the +camp that was to have been the centre of their jungle raids. The second +day of this waiting was worse for Kepple than the first, and he suffered +much from the pressure of this amateurish bandaging. In the evening +Benham got cool water from the well and rearranged things better; the +two men dined and smoked under their thatched roof beneath the big +banyan, and then Kepple, tired out by his day of pain, was carried to +his tent. Presently he fell asleep and Benham was left to himself. + +Now that the heat was over he found himself quite indisposed to sleep. +He felt full of life and anxious for happenings. + +He went back and sat down upon the iron bedstead beneath the banyan, +that Kepple had lain upon through the day, and he watched the soft +immensity of the Indian night swallow up the last lingering colours of +the world. It left the outlines, it obliterated nothing, but it stripped +off the superficial reality of things. The moon was full and high +overhead, and the light had not so much gone as changed from definition +and the blazing glitter and reflections of solidity to a translucent and +unsubstantial clearness. The jungle that bordered the little encampment +north, south, and west seemed to have crept a little nearer, enriched +itself with blackness, taken to itself voices. + +(Surely it had been silent during the day.) + +A warm, faintly-scented breeze just stirred the dead grass and the +leaves. In the day the air had been still. + +Immediately after the sunset there had been a great crying of peacocks +in the distance, but that was over now; the crickets, however, +were still noisy, and a persistent sound had become predominant, an +industrious unmistakable sound, a sound that took his mind back to +England, in midsummer. It was like a watchman's rattle--a nightjar! + +So there were nightjars here in India, too! One might have expected +something less familiar. And then came another cry from far away over +the heat-stripped tree-tops, a less familiar cry. It was repeated. Was +that perhaps some craving leopard, a tiger cat, a panther?-- + +“HUNT, HUNT”; that might be a deer. + +Then suddenly an angry chattering came from the dark trees quite close +at hand. A monkey?... + +These great, scarce visible, sweeping movements through the air were +bats.... + +Of course, the day jungle is the jungle asleep. This was its waking +hour. Now the deer were arising from their forms, the bears creeping +out of their dens amidst the rocks and blundering down the gullies, +the tigers and panthers and jungle cats stalking noiselessly from their +lairs in the grass. Countless creatures that had hidden from the heat +and pitiless exposure of the day stood now awake and alertly intent upon +their purposes, grazed or sought water, flitting delicately through the +moonlight and shadows. The jungle was awakening. Again Benham heard that +sound like the belling of a stag.... + +This was the real life of the jungle, this night life, into which man +did not go. Here he was on the verge of a world that for all the stuffed +trophies of the sportsman and the specimens of the naturalist is still +almost as unknown as if it was upon another planet. What intruders men +are, what foreigners in the life of this ancient system! + +He looked over his shoulder, and there were the two little tents, +one that sheltered Kepple and one that awaited him, and beyond, in an +irregular line, glowed the ruddy smoky fires of the men. One or two +turbaned figures still flitted about, and there was a voice--low, +monotonous--it must have been telling a tale. Further, sighing and +stirring ever and again, were tethered beasts, and then a great pale +space of moonlight and the clumsy outlines of the village well. The +clustering village itself slept in darkness beyond the mango trees, +and still remoter the black encircling jungle closed in. One might have +fancied this was the encampment of newly-come invaders, were it not +for the larger villages that are overgrown with thickets and altogether +swallowed up again in the wilderness, and for the deserted temples that +are found rent asunder by the roots of trees and the ancient embankments +that hold water only for the drinking of the sambur deer.... + +Benham turned his face to the dim jungle again.... + +He had come far out of his way to visit this strange world of the +ancient life, that now recedes and dwindles before our new civilization, +that seems fated to shrivel up and pass altogether before the dry +advance of physical science and material organization. He was full of +unsatisfied curiosities about its fierce hungers and passions, its fears +and cruelties, its instincts and its well-nigh incommunicable and yet +most precious understandings. He had long ceased to believe that the +wild beast is wholly evil, and safety and plenty the ultimate good for +men.... + +Perhaps he would never get nearer to this mysterious jungle life than he +was now. + +It was intolerably tantalizing that it should be so close at hand and so +inaccessible.... + +As Benham sat brooding over his disappointment the moon, swimming on +through the still circle of the hours, passed slowly over him. The +lights and shadows about him changed by imperceptible gradations and +a long pale alley where the native cart track drove into the forest, +opened slowly out of the darkness, slowly broadened, slowly lengthened. +It opened out to him with a quality of invitation.... + +There was the jungle before him. Was it after all so inaccessible? + +“Come!” the road said to him. + +Benham rose and walked out a few paces into the moonlight and stood +motionless. + +Was he afraid? + +Even now some hungry watchful monster might lurk in yonder shadows, +watching with infinite still patience. Kepple had told him how they +would sit still for hours--staring unblinkingly as cats stare at a +fire--and then crouch to advance. Beneath the shrill overtone of +the nightjars, what noiseless grey shapes, what deep breathings and +cracklings and creepings might there not be?... + +Was he afraid? + +That question determined him to go. + +He hesitated whether he should take a gun. A stick? A gun, he knew, was +a dangerous thing to an inexperienced man. No! He would go now, even as +he was with empty hands. At least he would go as far as the end of that +band of moonlight. If for no other reason than because he was afraid. +NOW! + +For a moment it seemed to him as though his feet were too heavy to lift +and then, hands in pockets, khaki-clad, an almost invisible figure, he +strolled towards the cart-track. + +Come to that, he halted for a moment to regard the distant fires of +the men. No one would miss him. They would think he was in his tent. +He faced the stirring quiet ahead. The cart-track was a rutted path of +soft, warm sand, on which he went almost noiselessly. A bird squabbled +for an instant in a thicket. A great white owl floated like a flake of +moonlight across the track and vanished without a sound among the trees. + +Along the moonlit path went Benham, and when he passed near trees his +footsteps became noisy with the rustle and crash of dead leaves. The +jungle was full of moonlight; twigs, branches, creepers, grass-clumps +came out acutely vivid. The trees and bushes stood in pools of darkness, +and beyond were pale stretches of misty moonshine and big rocks shining +with an unearthly lustre. Things seemed to be clear and yet uncertain. +It was as if they dissolved or retired a little and then returned to +solidity. + +A sudden chattering broke out overhead, and black across the great +stars soared a flying squirrel and caught a twig, and ran for shelter. +A second hesitated in a tree-top and pursued. They chased each other and +vanished abruptly. He forgot his sense of insecurity in the interest of +these active little silhouettes. And he noted how much bigger and more +wonderful the stars can look when one sees them through interlacing +branches. + +Ahead was darkness; but not so dark when he came to it that the track +was invisible. He was at the limit of his intention, but now he saw that +that had been a childish project. He would go on, he would walk right +into the jungle. His first disinclination was conquered, and the soft +intoxication of the subtropical moonshine was in his blood.... But he +wished he could walk as a spirit walks, without this noise of leaves.... + +Yes, this was very wonderful and beautiful, and there must always be +jungles for men to walk in. Always there must be jungles.... + +Some small beast snarled and bolted from under his feet. He stopped +sharply. He had come into a darkness under great boughs, and now he +stood still as the little creature scuttled away. Beyond the track +emerged into a dazzling whiteness.... + +In the stillness he could hear the deer belling again in the distance, +and then came a fuss of monkeys in a group of trees near at hand. He +remained still until this had died away into mutterings. + +Then on the verge of movement he was startled by a ripe mango that +slipped from its stalk and fell out of the tree and struck his hand. +It took a little time to understand that, and then he laughed, and his +muscles relaxed, and he went on again. + +A thorn caught at him and he disentangled himself. + +He crossed the open space, and the moon was like a great shield of light +spread out above him. All the world seemed swimming in its radiance. The +stars were like lamps in a mist of silvery blue. + +The track led him on across white open spaces of shrivelled grass and +sand, amidst trees where shadows made black patternings upon the silver, +and then it plunged into obscurities. For a time it lifted, and then +on one hand the bush fell away, and he saw across a vast moonlit valley +wide undulations of open cultivation, belts of jungle, copses, and a +great lake as black as ebony. For a time the path ran thus open, and +then the jungle closed in again and there were more thickets, more +levels of grass, and in one place far overhead among the branches he +heard and stood for a time perplexed at a vast deep humming of bees.... + +Presently a black monster with a hunched back went across his path +heedless of him and making a great noise in the leaves. He stood quite +still until it had gone. He could not tell whether it was a boar or +hyaena; most probably, he thought, a boar because of the heaviness of +its rush. + +The path dropped downhill for a time, crossed a ravine, ascended. He +passed a great leafless tree on which there were white flowers. On the +ground also, in the darkness under the tree, there were these flowers; +they were dropping noiselessly, and since they were visible in the +shadows, it seemed to him that they must be phosphorescent. And they +emitted a sweetish scent that lay heavily athwart the path. Presently he +passed another such tree. Then he became aware of a tumult ahead of him, +a smashing of leaves, a snorting and slobbering, grunting and sucking, +a whole series of bestial sounds. He halted for a little while, and then +drew nearer, picking his steps to avoid too great a noise. Here were +more of those white-blossomed trees, and beneath, in the darkness, +something very black and big was going to and fro, eating greedily. Then +he found that there were two and then more of these black things, three +or four of them. + +Curiosity made Benham draw nearer, very softly. + +Presently one showed in a patch of moonlight, startlingly big, a huge, +black hairy monster with a long white nose on a grotesque face, and he +was stuffing armfuls of white blossom into his mouth with his curved +fore claws. He took not the slightest notice of the still man, who stood +perhaps twenty yards away from him. He was too blind and careless. He +snorted and smacked his slobbering lips, and plunged into the shadows +again. Benham heard him root among the leaves and grunt appreciatively. +The air was heavy with the reek of the crushed flowers. + +For some time Benham remained listening to and peering at these +preoccupied gluttons. At last he shrugged his shoulders, and left them +and went on his way. For a long time he could hear them, then just as he +was on the verge of forgetting them altogether, some dispute arose among +them, and there began a vast uproar, squeals, protests, comments, one +voice ridiculously replete and authoritative, ridiculously suggestive +of a drunken judge with his mouth full, and a shrill voice of grievance +high above the others.... + +The uproar of the bears died away at last, almost abruptly, and left the +jungle to the incessant night-jars.... + +For what end was this life of the jungle? + +All Benham's senses were alert to the sounds and appearances about him, +and at the same time his mind was busy with the perplexities of that +riddle. Was the jungle just an aimless pool of life that man must drain +and clear away? Or is it to have a use in the greater life of our race +that now begins? Will man value the jungle as he values the precipice, +for the sake of his manhood? Will he preserve it? + +Man must keep hard, man must also keep fierce. Will the jungle keep him +fierce? + +For life, thought Benham, there must be insecurity.... + +He had missed the track.... + +He was now in a second ravine. He was going downward, walking on silvery +sand amidst great boulders, and now there was a new sound in the +air--. It was the croaking of frogs. Ahead was a solitary gleam. He was +approaching a jungle pool.... + +Suddenly the stillness was alive, in a panic uproar. “HONK!” cried a +great voice, and “HONK!” There was a clatter of hoofs, a wild rush--a +rush as it seemed towards him. Was he being charged? He backed against a +rock. A great pale shape leaped by him, an antlered shape. It was a herd +of big deer bolting suddenly out of the stillness. He heard the swish +and smash of their retreat grow distant, disperse. He remained standing +with his back to the rock. + +Slowly the strophe and antistrophe of frogs and goat-suckers resumed +possession of his consciousness. But now some primitive instinct +perhaps or some subconscious intimation of danger made him meticulously +noiseless. + +He went on down a winding sound-deadening path of sand towards the +drinking-place. He came to a wide white place that was almost level, and +beyond it under clustering pale-stemmed trees shone the mirror surface +of some ancient tank, and, sharp and black, a dog-like beast sat on its +tail in the midst of this space, started convulsively and went slinking +into the undergrowth. Benham paused for a moment and then walked out +softly into the light, and, behold! as if it were to meet him, came +a monster, a vast dark shape drawing itself lengthily out of the +blackness, and stopped with a start as if it had been instantly changed +to stone. + +It had stopped with one paw advanced. Its striped mask was light and +dark grey in the moonlight, grey but faintly tinged with ruddiness; its +mouth was a little open, its fangs and a pendant of viscous saliva shone +vivid. Its great round-pupilled eyes regarded him stedfastly. At last +the nightmare of Benham's childhood had come true, and he was face to +face with a tiger, uncaged, uncontrolled. + +For some moments neither moved, neither the beast nor the man. They +stood face to face, each perhaps with an equal astonishment, motionless +and soundless, in that mad Indian moonlight that makes all things like a +dream. + +Benham stood quite motionless, and body and mind had halted together. +That confrontation had an interminableness that had nothing to do with +the actual passage of time. Then some trickle of his previous thoughts +stirred in the frozen quiet of his mind. + +He spoke hoarsely. “I am Man,” he said, and lifted a hand as he spoke. +“The Thought of the world.” + +His heart leapt within him as the tiger moved. But the great beast +went sideways, gardant, only that its head was low, three noiseless +instantaneous strides it made, and stood again watching him. + +“Man,” he said, in a voice that had no sound, and took a step forward. + +“Wough!” With two bounds the monster had become a great grey streak +that crackled and rustled in the shadows of the trees. And then it +had vanished, become invisible and inaudible with a kind of +instantaneousness. + +For some seconds or some minutes Benham stood rigid, fearlessly +expectant, and then far away up the ravine he heard the deer repeat +their cry of alarm, and understood with a new wisdom that the tiger had +passed among them and was gone.... + +He walked on towards the deserted tank and now he was talking aloud. + +“I understand the jungle. I understand.... If a few men die here, what +matter? There are worse deaths than being killed.... + +“What is this fool's trap of security? + +“Every time in my life that I have fled from security I have fled from +death.... + +“Let men stew in their cities if they will. It is in the lonely places, +in jungles and mountains, in snows and fires, in the still observatories +and the silent laboratories, in those secret and dangerous places where +life probes into life, it is there that the masters of the world, the +lords of the beast, the rebel sons of Fate come to their own.... + +“You sleeping away there in the cities! Do you know what it means for +you that I am here to-night? + +“Do you know what it means to you? + +“I am just one--just the precursor. + +“Presently, if you will not budge, those hot cities must be burnt about +you. You must come out of them....” + +He wandered now uttering his thoughts as they came to him, and he saw no +more living creatures because they fled and hid before the sound of his +voice. He wandered until the moon, larger now and yellow tinged, was low +between the black bars of the tree stems. And then it sank very suddenly +behind a hilly spur and the light failed swiftly. + +He stumbled and went with difficulty. He could go no further among these +rocks and ravines, and he sat down at the foot of a tree to wait for +day. + +He sat very still indeed. + +A great stillness came over the world, a velvet silence that wrapped +about him, as the velvet shadows wrapped about him. The corncrakes had +ceased, all the sounds and stir of animal life had died away, the breeze +had fallen. A drowsing comfort took possession of him. He grew more +placid and more placid still. He was enormously content to find that +fear had fled before him and was gone. He drifted into that state of +mind when one thinks without ideas, when one's mind is like a starless +sky, serene and empty. + + + +12 + + +Some hours later Benham found that the trees and rocks were growing +visible again, and he saw a very bright star that he knew must be +Lucifer rising amidst the black branches. He was sitting upon a rock at +the foot of a slender-stemmed leafless tree. He had been asleep, and it +was daybreak. Everything was coldly clear and colourless. + +He must have slept soundly. + +He heard a cock crow, and another answer--jungle fowl these must be, +because there could be no village within earshot--and then far away and +bringing back memories of terraced houses and ripe walled gardens, was +the scream of peacocks. And some invisible bird was making a hollow +beating sound among the trees near at hand. TUNK.... TUNK, and out of +the dry grass came a twittering. + +There was a green light in the east that grew stronger, and the stars +after their magnitudes were dissolving in the blue; only a few remained +faintly visible. The sound of birds increased. Through the trees he saw +towering up a great mauve thing like the back of a monster,--but that +was nonsense, it was the crest of a steep hillside covered with woods of +teak. + +He stood up and stretched himself, and wondered whether he had dreamed +of a tiger. + +He tried to remember and retrace the course of his over-night +wanderings. + +A flight of emerald parakeets tore screaming through the trees, and then +far away uphill he heard the creaking of a cart. + +He followed the hint of a footmark, and went back up the glen slowly and +thoughtfully. + +Presently he came to a familiar place, a group of trees, a sheet of +water, and the ruins of an old embankment. It was the ancient tank of +his overnight encounter. The pool of his dream? + +With doubt still in his mind, he walked round its margin to the sandy +level beyond, and cast about and sought intently, and at last found, and +then found clearly, imposed upon the tracks of several sorts of deer and +the footprints of many biggish birds, first the great spoor of the +tiger and then his own. Here the beast had halted, and here it had leapt +aside. Here his own footmarks stopped. Here his heels had come together. + +It had been no dream. + +There was a white mist upon the water of the old tank like the bloom +upon a plum, and the trees about it seemed smaller and the sand-space +wider and rougher than they had seemed in the moonshine. Then the ground +had looked like a floor of frosted silver. + +And thence he went on upward through the fresh morning, until just as +the east grew red with sunrise, he reached the cart-track from which he +had strayed overnight. It was, he found, a longer way back to the camp +than he remembered it to be. Perhaps he had struck the path further +along. It curved about and went up and down and crossed three ravines. +At last he came to that trampled place of littered white blossom under +great trees where he had seen the bears. + +The sunlight went before him in a sheaf of golden spears, and his +shadow, that was at first limitless, crept towards his feet. The dew had +gone from the dead grass and the sand was hot to his dry boots before he +came back into the open space about the great banyan and the tents. And +Kepple, refreshed by a night's rest and coffee, was wondering loudly +where the devil he had gone. + + + + + +THE STORY + + + + +CHAPTER THE FIRST ~~ THE BOY GROWS UP + + + +1 + + +Benham was the son of a schoolmaster. His father was assistant first at +Cheltenham, and subsequently at Minchinghampton, and then he became +head and later on sole proprietor of Martindale House, a high-class +preparatory school at Seagate. He was extremely successful for some +years, as success goes in the scholastic profession, and then disaster +overtook him in the shape of a divorce. His wife, William Porphyry's +mother, made the acquaintance of a rich young man named Nolan, who was +recuperating at Seagate from the sequelae of snake-bite, malaria, and a +gun accident in Brazil. She ran away with him, and she was divorced. +She was, however, unable to marry him because he died at Wiesbaden +only three days after the Reverend Harold Benham obtained his decree +absolute. Instead, therefore, being a woman of great spirit, enterprise +and sweetness, she married Godfrey Marayne, afterwards Sir Godfrey +Marayne, the great London surgeon. + +Nolan was a dark, rather melancholy and sentimental young man, and he +left about a third of his very large fortune entirely to Mrs. Benham +and the rest to her in trust for her son, whom he deemed himself to have +injured. With this and a husband already distinguished, she returned +presently to London, and was on the whole fairly well received there. + +It was upon the reverend gentleman at Seagate that the brunt of this +divorce fell. There is perhaps a certain injustice in the fact that a +schoolmaster who has lost his wife should also lose the more valuable +proportion of his pupils, but the tone of thought in England is against +any association of a schoolmaster with matrimonial irregularity. And +also Mr. Benham remarried. It would certainly have been better for him +if he could have produced a sister. His school declined and his efforts +to resuscitate it only hastened its decay. Conceiving that he could now +only appeal to the broader-minded, more progressive type of parent, +he became an educational reformer, and wrote upon modernizing the +curriculum with increasing frequency to the TIMES. He expended a +considerable fraction of his dwindling capital upon a science laboratory +and a fives court; he added a London Bachelor of Science with a Teaching +Diploma to the school staff, and a library of about a thousand volumes, +including the Hundred Best Books as selected by the late Lord Avebury, +to the school equipment. None of these things did anything but enhance +the suspicion of laxity his wife's escapade had created in the limited +opulent and discreet class to which his establishment appealed. One +boy who, under the influence of the Hundred Best Books, had quoted the +ZEND-AVESTA to an irascible but influential grandfather, was withdrawn +without notice or compensation in the middle of the term. It intensifies +the tragedy of the Reverend Harold Benham's failure that in no +essential respect did his school depart from the pattern of all other +properly-conducted preparatory schools. + +In appearance he was near the average of scholastic English gentlemen. +He displayed a manifest handsomeness somewhat weakened by disregard and +disuse, a large moustache and a narrow high forehead. His rather +tired brown eyes were magnified by glasses. He was an active man in +unimportant things, with a love for the phrase “ship-shape,” and he +played cricket better than any one else on the staff. He walked in wide +strides, and would sometimes use the tail of his gown on the blackboard. +Like so many clergymen and schoolmasters, he had early distrusted +his natural impulse in conversation, and had adopted the defensive +precaution of a rather formal and sonorous speech, which habit had made +a part of him. His general effect was of one who is earnestly keeping up +things that might otherwise give way, keeping them up by act and voice, +keeping up an atmosphere of vigour and success in a school that was +only too manifestly attenuated, keeping up a pretentious economy of +administration in a school that must not be too manifestly impoverished, +keeping up a claim to be in the scientific van and rather a flutterer +of dovecots--with its method of manual training for example--keeping up +ESPRIT DE CORPS and the manliness of himself and every one about him, +keeping up his affection for his faithful second wife and his complete +forgetfulness of and indifference to that spirit of distracting impulse +and insubordination away there in London, who had once been his delight +and insurmountable difficulty. “After my visits to her,” wrote Benham, +“he would show by a hundred little expressions and poses and acts how +intensely he wasn't noting that anything of the sort had occurred.” + +But one thing that from the outset the father seemed to have failed to +keep up thoroughly was his intention to mould and dominate his son. + +The advent of his boy had been a tremendous event in the reverend +gentleman's life. It is not improbable that his disposition to +monopolize the pride of this event contributed to the ultimate +disruption of his family. It left so few initiatives within the home to +his wife. He had been an early victim to that wave of philoprogenitive +and educational enthusiasm which distinguished the closing decade of the +nineteenth century. He was full of plans in those days for the education +of his boy, and the thought of the youngster played a large part in +the series of complicated emotional crises with which he celebrated +the departure of his wife, crises in which a number of old school and +college friends very generously assisted--spending weekends at Seagate +for this purpose, and mingling tobacco, impassioned handclasps and +suchlike consolation with much patient sympathetic listening to his +carefully balanced analysis of his feelings. He declared that his son +was now his one living purpose in life, and he sketched out a scheme of +moral and intellectual training that he subsequently embodied in five +very stimulating and intimate articles for the SCHOOL WORLD, but never +put into more than partial operation. + +“I have read my father's articles upon this subject,” wrote Benham, +“and I am still perplexed to measure just what I owe to him. Did he ever +attempt this moral training he contemplated so freely? I don't think +he did. I know now, I knew then, that he had something in his mind.... +There were one or two special walks we had together, he invited me +to accompany him with a certain portentousness, and we would go out +pregnantly making superficial remarks about the school cricket and +return, discussing botany, with nothing said. + +“His heart failed him. + +“Once or twice, too, he seemed to be reaching out at me from the school +pulpit. + +“I think that my father did manage to convey to me his belief that there +were these fine things, honour, high aims, nobilities. If I did not get +this belief from him then I do not know how I got it. But it was as if +he hinted at a treasure that had got very dusty in an attic, a treasure +which he hadn't himself been able to spend....” + +The father who had intended to mould his son ended by watching him grow, +not always with sympathy or understanding. He was an overworked man +assailed by many futile anxieties. One sees him striding about the +establishment with his gown streaming out behind him urging on the +groundsman or the gardener, or dignified, expounding the particular +advantages of Seagate to enquiring parents, one sees him unnaturally +cheerful and facetious at the midday dinner table, one imagines him +keeping up high aspirations in a rather too hastily scribbled sermon in +the school pulpit, or keeping up an enthusiasm for beautiful language in +a badly-prepared lesson on Virgil, or expressing unreal indignation and +unjustifiably exalted sentiments to evil doers, and one realizes his +disadvantage against the quiet youngster whose retentive memory was +storing up all these impressions for an ultimate judgment, and one +understands, too, a certain relief that mingled with his undeniable +emotion when at last the time came for young Benham, “the one living +purpose” of his life, to be off to Minchinghampton and the next step in +the mysterious ascent of the English educational system. + +Three times at least, and with an increased interval, the father wrote +fine fatherly letters that would have stood the test of publication. +Then his communications became comparatively hurried and matter-of-fact. +His boy's return home for the holidays was always rather a stirring time +for his private feelings, but he became more and more inexpressive. He +would sometimes lay a hand on those growing shoulders and then withdraw +it. They felt braced-up shoulders, stiffly inflexible or--they would +wince. And when one has let the habit of indefinite feelings grow upon +one, what is there left to say? If one did say anything one might be +asked questions.... + +One or two of the long vacations they spent abroad together. The last +of these occasions followed Benham's convalescence at Montana and his +struggle with the Bisse; the two went to Zermatt and did several peaks +and crossed the Theodule, and it was clear that their joint expeditions +were a strain upon both of them. The father thought the son reckless, +unskilful, and impatient; the son found the father's insistence upon +guides, ropes, precautions, the recognized way, the highest point and +back again before you get a chill, and talk about it sagely but very, +very modestly over pipes, tiresome. He wanted to wander in deserts of +ice and see over the mountains, and discover what it is to be benighted +on a precipice. And gradually he was becoming familiar with his father's +repertory of Greek quotations. There was no breach between them, but +each knew that holiday was the last they would ever spend together.... + +The court had given the custody of young William Porphyry into his +father's hands, but by a generous concession it was arranged that his +mother should have him to see her for an hour or so five times a year. +The Nolan legacy, however, coming upon the top of this, introduced +a peculiar complication that provided much work for tactful +intermediaries, and gave great and increasing scope for painful +delicacies on the part of Mr. Benham as the boy grew up. + +“I see,” said the father over his study pipe and with his glasses fixed +on remote distances above the head of the current sympathizer, “I see +more and more clearly that the tale of my sacrifices is not yet at an +end.... In many respects he is like her.... Quick. Too quick.... He must +choose. But I know his choice. Yes, yes,--I'm not blind. She's worked +upon him.... I have done what I could to bring out the manhood in him. +Perhaps it will bear the strain.... It will be a wrench, old man--God +knows.” + +He did his very best to make it a wrench. + + + +2 + + +Benham's mother, whom he saw quarterly and also on the first of May, +because it was her birthday, touched and coloured his imagination far +more than his father did. She was now Lady Marayne, and a prominent, +successful, and happy little lady. Her dereliction had been forgiven +quite soon, and whatever whisper of it remained was very completely +forgotten during the brief period of moral kindliness which followed +the accession of King Edward the Seventh. It no doubt contributed to +her social reinstatement that her former husband was entirely devoid +of social importance, while, on the other hand, Sir Godfrey Marayne's +temporary monopoly of the caecal operation which became so fashionable +in the last decade of Queen Victoria's reign as to be practically +epidemic, created a strong feeling in her favour. + +She was blue-eyed and very delicately complexioned, quick-moving, witty, +given to little storms of clean enthusiasm; she loved handsome things, +brave things, successful things, and the respect and affection of all +the world. She did quite what she liked upon impulse, and nobody ever +thought ill of her. + +Her family were the Mantons of Blent, quite good west-country people. +She had broken away from them before she was twenty to marry Benham, +whom she had idealized at a tennis party. He had talked of his work and +she had seen it in a flash, the noblest work in the world, him at +his daily divine toil and herself a Madonna surrounded by a troupe of +Blessed Boys--all of good family, some of quite the best. For a time she +had kept it up even more than he had, and then Nolan had distracted her +with a realization of the heroism that goes to the ends of the earth. +She became sick with desire for the forests of Brazil, and the Pacific, +and--a peak in Darien. Immediately the school was frowsty beyond +endurance, and for the first time she let herself perceive how +dreadfully a gentleman and a scholar can smell of pipes and tobacco. +Only one course lay open to a woman of spirit.... + +For a year she did indeed live like a woman of spirit, and it was at +Nolan's bedside that Marayne was first moved to admiration. She was +plucky. All men love a plucky woman. + +Sir Godfrey Marayne smelt a good deal of antiseptic soap, but he talked +in a way that amused her, and he trusted as well as adored her. She did +what she liked with his money, her own money, and her son's trust money, +and she did very well. From the earliest Benham's visits were to a +gracious presence amidst wealthy surroundings. The transit from the +moral blamelessness of Seagate had an entirely misleading effect of +ascent. + +Their earlier encounters became rather misty in his memory; they +occurred at various hotels in Seagate. Afterwards he would go, first +taken by a governess, and later going alone, to Charing Cross, where he +would be met, in earlier times by a maid and afterwards by a deferential +manservant who called him “Sir,” and conveyed, sometimes in a hansom cab +and later in a smart brougham, by Trafalgar Square, Lower Regent Street, +Piccadilly, and streets of increasing wealth and sublimity to Sir +Godfrey's house in Desborough Street. Very naturally he fell into +thinking of these discreet and well-governed West End streets as a part +of his mother's atmosphere. + +The house had a dignified portico, and always before he had got down +to the pavement the door opened agreeably and a second respectful +manservant stood ready. Then came the large hall, with its noiseless +carpets and great Chinese jars, its lacquered cabinets and the wide +staircase, and floating down the wide staircase, impatient to greet him, +light and shining as a flower petal, sweet and welcoming, radiating a +joyfulness as cool and clear as a dewy morning, came his mother. “WELL, +little man, my son,” she would cry in her happy singing voice, “WELL?” + +So he thought she must always be, but indeed these meetings meant very +much to her, she dressed for them and staged them, she perceived the +bright advantages of her rarity and she was quite determined to have +her son when the time came to possess him. She kissed him but not +oppressively, she caressed him cleverly; it was only on these rare +occasions that he was ever kissed or caressed, and she talked to his shy +boyishness until it felt a more spirited variety of manhood. “What have +you been doing?” she asked, “since I saw you last.” + +She never said he had grown, but she told him he looked tall; and though +the tea was a marvellous display it was never an obtrusive tea, it +wasn't poked at a fellow; a various plenty flowed well within reach of +one's arm, like an agreeable accompaniment to their conversation. + +“What have you done? All sorts of brave things? Do you swim now? I can +swim. Oh! I can swim half a mile. Some day we will swim races together. +Why not? And you ride?... + +“The horse bolted--and you stuck on? Did you squeak? I stick on, but I +HAVE to squeak. But you--of course, No! you mustn't. I'm just a little +woman. And I ride big horses....” + +And for the end she had invented a characteristic little ceremony. + +She would stand up in front of him and put her hands on his shoulders +and look into his face. + +“Clean eyes?” she would say, “--still?” + +Then she would take his ears in her little firm hands and kiss very +methodically his eyes and his forehead and his cheeks and at last his +lips. Her own eyes would suddenly brim bright with tears. + +“GO,” she would say. + +That was the end. + +It seemed to Benham as though he was being let down out of a sunlit +fairyland to this grey world again. + + + +3 + + +The contrast between Lady Marayne's pretty amenities and the good +woman at Seagate who urged herself almost hourly to forget that William +Porphyry was not her own son, was entirely unfair. The second Mrs. +Benham's conscientious spirit and a certain handsome ability about her +fitted her far more than her predecessor for the onerous duties of a +schoolmaster's wife, but whatever natural buoyancy she possessed was +outweighed by an irrepressible conviction derived from an episcopal +grandparent that the remarriage of divorced persons is sinful, and by a +secret but well-founded doubt whether her husband loved her with a truly +romantic passion. She might perhaps have borne either of these troubles +singly, but the two crushed her spirit. + +Her temperament was not one that goes out to meet happiness. She had +reluctant affections and suspected rather than welcomed the facility +of other people's. Her susceptibility to disagreeable impressions was +however very ample, and life was fenced about with protections for her +“feelings.” It filled young Benham with inexpressible indignations that +his sweet own mother, so gay, so brightly cheerful that even her tears +were stars, was never to be mentioned in his stepmother's presence, and +it was not until he had fully come to years of reflection that he began +to realize with what honesty, kindness and patience this naturally not +very happy lady had nursed, protected, mended for and generally mothered +him. + + + +4 + + +As Benham grew to look manly and bear himself with pride, his mother's +affection for him blossomed into a passion. She made him come down to +London from Cambridge as often as she could; she went about with him; +she made him squire her to theatres and take her out to dinners and +sup with her at the Carlton, and in the summer she had him with her at +Chexington Manor, the Hertfordshire house Sir Godfrey had given her. +And always when they parted she looked into his eyes to see if they were +still clean--whatever she meant by that--and she kissed his forehead and +cheeks and eyes and lips. She began to make schemes for his career, she +contrived introductions she judged would be useful to him later. + +Everybody found the relationship charming. Some of the more +conscientious people, it is true, pretended to think that the Reverend +Harold Benham was a first husband and long since dead, but that was all. +As a matter of fact, in his increasingly futile way he wasn't, either at +Seagate or in the Educational Supplement of the TIMES. But even the +most conscientious of us are not obliged to go to Seagate or read the +Educational Supplement of the TIMES. + +Lady Marayne's plans for her son's future varied very pleasantly. She +was an industrious reader of biographies, and more particularly of the +large fair biographies of the recently contemporary; they mentioned +people she knew, they recalled scenes, each sowed its imaginative crop +upon her mind, a crop that flourished and flowered until a newer growth +came to oust it. She saw her son a diplomat, a prancing pro-consul, an +empire builder, a trusted friend of the august, the bold leader of new +movements, the saviour of ancient institutions, the youngest, brightest, +modernest of prime ministers--or a tremendously popular poet. As a rule +she saw him unmarried--with a wonderful little mother at his elbow. +Sometimes in romantic flashes he was adored by German princesses +or eloped with Russian grand-duchesses! But such fancies were HORS +D'OEUVRE. The modern biography deals with the career. Every project was +bright, every project had GO--tremendous go. And they all demanded a +hero, debonnaire and balanced. And Benham, as she began to perceive, +wasn't balanced. Something of his father had crept into him, a touch +of moral stiffness. She knew the flavour of that so well. It was a +stumbling, an elaboration, a spoil-sport and weakness. She tried not to +admit to herself that even in the faintest degree it was there. But it +was there. + +“Tell me all that you are doing NOW,” she said to him one afternoon when +she had got him to herself during his first visit to Chexington Manor. +“How do you like Cambridge? Are you making friends? Have you joined that +thing--the Union, is it?--and delivered your maiden speech? If you're +for politics, Poff, that's your game. Have you begun it?” + +She lay among splashes of sunshine on the red cushions in the punt, +a little curled-up figure of white, with her sweet pale animated face +warmed by the reflection of her red sunshade, and her eyes like little +friendly heavens. And he, lean, and unconsciously graceful, sat at her +feet and admired her beyond measure, and rejoiced that now at last +they were going to be ever so much together, and doubted if it would be +possible ever to love any other woman so much as he did her. + +He tried to tell her of Cambridge and his friends and the undergraduate +life he was leading, but he found it difficult. All sorts of things that +seemed right and good at Trinity seemed out of drawing in the +peculiar atmosphere she created about her. All sorts of clumsiness and +youthfulness in himself and his associates he felt she wouldn't accept, +couldn't accept, that it would be wrong of her to accept. Before +they could come before her they must wear a bravery. He couldn't, for +instance, tell her how Billy Prothero, renouncing vanity and all social +pretension, had worn a straw hat into November and the last stages of +decay, and how it had been burnt by a special commission ceremonially in +the great court. He couldn't convey to her the long sessions of beer +and tobacco and high thinking that went on in Prothero's rooms into +the small hours. A certain Gothic greyness and flatness and muddiness +through which the Cambridge spirit struggles to its destiny, he +concealed from her. What remained to tell was--attenuated. He could +not romance. So she tried to fill in his jejune outlines. She tried to +inspire a son who seemed most unaccountably up to nothing. + +“You must make good friends,” she said. “Isn't young Lord Breeze at +your college? His mother the other day told me he was. And Sir Freddy +Quenton's boy. And there are both the young Baptons at Cambridge.” + +He knew one of the Baptons. + +“Poff,” she said suddenly, “has it ever occurred to you what you are +going to do afterwards. Do you know you are going to be quite well off?” + +Benham looked up with a faint embarrassment. “My father said something. +He was rather vague. It wasn't his affair--that kind of thing.” + +“You will be quite well off,” she repeated, without any complicating +particulars. “You will be so well off that it will be possible for you +to do anything almost that you like in the world. Nothing will tie you. +Nothing....” + +“But--HOW well off?” + +“You will have several thousands a year.” + +“Thousands?” + +“Yes. Why not?” + +“But--Mother, this is rather astounding.... Does this mean there are +estates somewhere, responsibilities?” + +“It is just money. Investments.” + +“You know, I've imagined--. I've thought always I should have to DO +something.” + +“You MUST do something, Poff. But it needn't be for a living. The world +is yours without that. And so you see you've got to make plans. You've +got to know the sort of people who'll have things in their hands. You've +got to keep out of--holes and corners. You've got to think of Parliament +and abroad. There's the army, there's diplomacy. There's the Empire. You +can be a Cecil Rhodes if you like. You can be a Winston....” + + + +5 + + +Perhaps it was only the innate eagerness of Lady Marayne which made +her feel disappointed in her son's outlook upon life. He did not choose +among his glittering possibilities, he did not say what he was going to +be, proconsul, ambassador, statesman, for days. And he talked VAGUELY of +wanting to do something fine, but all in a fog. A boy of nearly nineteen +ought to have at least the beginnings of SAVOIR FAIRE. + +Was he in the right set? Was he indeed in the right college? Trinity, +by his account, seemed a huge featureless place--and might he not +conceivably be LOST in it? In those big crowds one had to insist upon +oneself. Poff never insisted upon himself--except quite at the wrong +moment. And there was this Billy Prothero. BILLY! Like a goat or +something. People called William don't get their Christian name insisted +upon unless they are vulnerable somewhere. Any form of William stamps +a weakness, Willie, Willy, Will, Billy, Bill; it's a fearful handle for +one's friends. At any rate Poff had escaped that. But this Prothero! + +“But who IS this Billy Prothero?” she asked one evening in the walled +garden. + +“He was at Minchinghampton.” + +“But who IS he? Who is his father? Where does he come from?” + +Benham sought in his mind for a space. “I don't know,” he said at last. +Billy had always been rather reticent about his people. She demanded +descriptions. She demanded an account of Billy's furniture, Billy's +clothes, Billy's form of exercise. It dawned upon Benham that for some +inexplicable reason she was hostile to Billy. It was like the unmasking +of an ambuscade. He had talked a lot about Prothero's ideas and the +discussions of social reform and social service that went on in his +rooms, for Billy read at unknown times, and was open at all hours to any +argumentative caller. To Lady Marayne all ideas were obnoxious, a form +of fogging; all ideas, she held, were queer ideas. “And does he call +himself a Socialist?” she asked. “I THOUGHT he would.” + +“Poff,” she cried suddenly, “you're not a SOCIALIST?” + +“Such a vague term.” + +“But these friends of yours--they seem to be ALL Socialists. Red ties +and everything complete.” + +“They have ideas,” he evaded. He tried to express it better. “They give +one something to take hold of.” + +She sat up stiffly on the garden-seat. She lifted her finger at him, +very seriously. “I hope,” she said with all her heart, “that you will +have nothing to do with such ideas. Nothing. SOCIALISM!” + +“They make a case.” + +“Pooh! Any one can make a case.” + +“But--” + +“There's no sense in them. What is the good of talking about upsetting +everything? Just disorder. How can one do anything then? You mustn't. +You mustn't. No. It's nonsense, little Poff. It's absurd. And you may +spoil so much.... I HATE the way you talk of it.... As if it wasn't +all--absolutely--RUBBISH....” + +She was earnest almost to the intonation of tears. + +Why couldn't her son go straight for his ends, clear tangible ends, +as she had always done? This thinking about everything! She had never +thought about anything in all her life for more than half an hour--and +it had always turned out remarkably well. + +Benham felt baffled. There was a pause. How on earth could he go on +telling her his ideas if this was how they were to be taken? + +“I wish sometimes,” his mother said abruptly, with an unusually sharp +note in her voice, “that you wouldn't look quite so like your father.” + +“But I'm NOT like my father!” said Benham puzzled. + +“No,” she insisted, and with an air of appealing to his soberer reason, +“so why should you go LOOKING like him? That CONCERNED expression....” + +She jumped to her feet. “Poff,” she said, “I want to go and see the +evening primroses pop. You and I are talking nonsense. THEY don't have +ideas anyhow. They just pop--as God meant them to do. What stupid things +we human beings are!” + +Her philosophical moments were perhaps the most baffling of all. + + + +6 + + +Billy Prothero became the symbol in the mind of Lady Marayne for all +that disappointed her in Benham. He had to become the symbol, because +she could not think of complicated or abstract things, she had to make +things personal, and he was the only personality available. She fretted +over his existence for some days therefore (once she awakened and +thought about him in the night), and then suddenly she determined to +grasp her nettle. She decided to seize and obliterate this Prothero. +He must come to Chexington and be thoroughly and conclusively led on, +examined, ransacked, shown up, and disposed of for ever. At once. She +was not quite clear how she meant to do this, but she was quite resolved +that it had to be done. Anything is better than inaction. + +There was a little difficulty about dates and engagements, but he came, +and through the season of expectation Benham, who was now for the first +time in contact with the feminine nature, was delighted at the apparent +change to cordiality. So that he talked of Billy to his mother much more +than he had ever done before. + +Billy had been his particular friend at Minchinghampton, at least +during the closing two years of his school life. Billy had fallen into +friendship with Benham, as some of us fall in love, quite suddenly, when +he saw Benham get down from the fence and be sick after his encounter +with the bull. Already Billy was excited by admiration, but it was the +incongruity of the sickness conquered him. He went back to the school +with his hands more than usually in his pockets, and no eyes for +anything but this remarkable strung-up fellow-creature. He felt he had +never observed Benham before, and he was astonished that he had not done +so. + +Billy Prothero was a sturdy sort of boy, generously wanting in good +looks. His hair was rough, and his complexion muddy, and he walked +about with his hands in his pockets, long flexible lips protruded in +a whistle, and a rather shapeless nose well up to show he didn't care. +Providence had sought to console him by giving him a keen eye for the +absurdity of other people. He had a suggestive tongue, and he professed +and practised cowardice to the scandal of all his acquaintances. He was +said never to wash behind his ears, but this report wronged him. There +had been a time when he did not do so, but his mother had won him to a +promise, and now that operation was often the sum of his simple hasty +toilet. His desire to associate himself with Benham was so strong +that it triumphed over a defensive reserve. It enabled him to detect +accessible moments, do inobtrusive friendly services, and above all +amuse his quarry. He not only amused Benham, he stimulated him. They +came to do quite a number of things together. In the language of +schoolboy stories they became “inseparables.” + +Prothero's first desire, so soon as they were on a footing that enabled +him to formulate desires, was to know exactly what Benham thought he was +up to in crossing a field with a bull in it instead of going round, and +by the time he began to understand that, he had conceived an affection +for him that was to last a lifetime. + +“I wasn't going to be bullied by a beast,” said Benham. + +“Suppose it had been an elephant?” Prothero cried.... “A mad +elephant?... A pack of wolves?” + +Benham was too honest not to see that he was entangled. “Well, +suppose in YOUR case it had been a wild cat?... A fierce mastiff?... A +mastiff?... A terrier?... A lap dog?” + +“Yes, but my case is that there are limits.” + +Benham was impatient at the idea of limits. With a faintly malicious +pleasure Prothero lugged him back to that idea. + +“We both admit there are limits,” Prothero concluded. “But between the +absolutely impossible and the altogether possible there's the region +of risk. You think a man ought to take that risk--” He reflected. “I +think--no--I think NOT.” + +“If he feels afraid,” cried Benham, seeing his one point. “If he feels +afraid. Then he ought to take it....” + +After a digestive interval, Prothero asked, “WHY? Why should he?” + +The discussion of that momentous question, that Why? which Benham +perhaps might never have dared ask himself, and which Prothero perhaps +might never have attempted to answer if it had not been for the clash of +their minds, was the chief topic of their conversation for many months. +From Why be brave? it spread readily enough to Why be honest? Why be +clean?--all the great whys of life.... Because one believes.... But why +believe it? Left to himself Benham would have felt the mere asking of +this question was a thing ignoble, not to be tolerated. It was, as it +were, treason to nobility. But Prothero put it one afternoon in a way +that permitted no high dismissal of their doubts. “You can't build your +honour on fudge, Benham. Like committing sacrilege--in order to buy a +cloth for the altar.” + +By that Benham was slipped from the recognized code and launched upon +speculations which became the magnificent research. + +It was not only in complexion and stature and ways of thinking that +Billy and Benham contrasted. Benham inclined a little to eloquence, he +liked very clean hands, he had a dread of ridiculous outlines. Prothero +lapsed readily into ostentatious slovenliness, when his hands were dirty +he pitied them sooner than scrubbed them, he would have worn an overcoat +with one tail torn off rather than have gone cold. Moreover, Prothero +had an earthy liking for animals, he could stroke and tickle strange +cats until they wanted to leave father and mother and all earthly +possessions and follow after him, and he mortgaged a term's pocket money +and bought and kept a small terrier in the school house against all law +and tradition, under the baseless pretence that it was a stray animal +of unknown origin. Benham, on the other hand, was shy with small animals +and faintly hostile to big ones. Beasts he thought were just beasts. +And Prothero had a gift for caricature, while Benham's aptitude was for +music. + +It was Prothero's eyes and pencil that first directed Benham to the +poor indolences and evasions and insincerities of the masters. It was +Prothero's wicked pictures that made him see the shrivelled absurdity +of the vulgar theology. But it was Benham who stood between Prothero +and that rather coarsely conceived epicureanism that seemed his logical +destiny. When quite early in their Cambridge days Prothero's +revolt against foppery reached a nadir of personal neglect, and two +philanthropists from the rooms below him, goaded beyond the normal +tolerance of Trinity, and assisted by two sportsmen from Trinity Hall, +burnt his misshapen straw hat (after partly filling it with gunpowder +and iron filings) and sought to duck him in the fountain in the court, +it was Benham, in a state between distress and madness, and armed with +a horn-handled cane of exceptional size, who intervened, turned the +business into a blend of wrangle and scuffle, introduced the degrading +topic of duelling into a simple wholesome rag of four against one, +carried him off under the cloud of horror created by this impropriety +and so saved him, still only slightly wetted, not only from this +indignity but from the experiment in rationalism that had provoked it. + +Because Benham made it perfectly clear what he had thought and felt +about this hat. + +Such was the illuminating young man whom Lady Marayne decided to invite +to Chexington, into the neighbourhood of herself, Sir Godfrey, and her +circle of friends. + + + +7 + + +He was quite anxious to satisfy the requirements of Benham's people and +to do his friend credit. He was still in the phase of being a penitent +pig, and he inquired carefully into the needs and duties of a summer +guest in a country house. He knew it was quite a considerable country +house, and that Sir Godfrey wasn't Benham's father, but like most +people, he was persuaded that Lady Marayne had divorced the parental +Benham. He arrived dressed very neatly in a brown suit that had only one +fault, it had not the remotest suggestion of having been made for him. +It fitted his body fairly well, it did annex his body with only a few +slight incompatibilities, but it repudiated his hands and face. He had +a conspicuously old Gladstone bag and a conspicuously new despatch case, +and he had forgotten black ties and dress socks and a hair brush. He +arrived in the late afternoon, was met by Benham, in tennis flannels, +looking smartened up and a little unfamiliar, and taken off in a +spirited dog-cart driven by a typical groom. He met his host and hostess +at dinner. + +Sir Godfrey was a rationalist and a residuum. Very much of him, too much +perhaps, had gone into the acquirement and perfect performance of the +caecal operation; the man one met in the social world was what was +left over. It had the effect of being quiet, but in its unobtrusive way +knobby. He had a knobby brow, with an air about it of having recently +been intent, and his conversation was curiously spotted with little +knobby arrested anecdotes. If any one of any distinction was named, he +would reflect and say, “Of course,--ah, yes, I know him, I know him. +Yes, I did him a little service--in '96.” + +And something in his manner would suggest a satisfaction, or a +dissatisfaction with confidential mysteries. + +He welcomed Billy Prothero in a colourless manner, and made conversation +about Cambridge. He had known one or two of the higher dons. One he had +done at Cambridge quite recently. “The inns are better than they are at +Oxford, which is not saying very much, but the place struck me as being +changed. The men seemed younger....” + +The burden of the conversation fell upon Lady Marayne. She looked +extraordinarily like a flower to Billy, a little diamond buckle on a +black velvet band glittered between the two masses of butter-coloured +hair that flowed back from her forehead, her head was poised on the +prettiest neck conceivable, and her shapely little shoulders and her +shapely little arms came decidedly but pleasantly out of a softness and +sparkle of white and silver and old rose. She talked what sounded like +innocent commonplaces a little spiced by whim, though indeed each remark +had an exploratory quality, and her soft blue eyes rested ever and again +upon Billy's white tie. It seemed she did so by the merest inadvertency, +but it made the young man wish he had after all borrowed a black one +from Benham. But the manservant who had put his things out had put it +out, and he hadn't been quite sure. Also she noted all the little things +he did with fork and spoon and glass. She gave him an unusual sense of +being brightly, accurately and completely visible. + +Chexington, it seemed to Billy, was done with a large and costly and +easy completeness. The table with its silver and flowers was much more +beautifully done than any table he had sat at before, and in the dimness +beyond the brightness there were two men to wait on the four of them. +The old grey butler was really wonderfully good.... + +“You shoot, Mr. Prothero?” + +“You hunt, Mr. Prothero?” + +“You know Scotland well, Mr. Prothero?” + +These questions disturbed Prothero. He did not shoot, he did not hunt, +he did not go to Scotland for the grouse, he did not belong, and Lady +Marayne ought to have seen that he did not belong to the class that does +these things. + +“You ride much, Mr. Prothero?” + +Billy conceived a suspicion that these innocent inquiries were designed +to emphasize a contrast in his social quality. But he could not be sure. +One never could be sure with Lady Marayne. It might be just that she +did not understand the sort of man he was. And in that case ought he +to maintain the smooth social surface unbroken by pretending as far as +possible to be this kind of person, or ought he to make a sudden gap in +it by telling his realities. He evaded the shooting question anyhow. He +left it open for Lady Marayne and the venerable butler and Sir Godfrey +and every one to suppose he just happened to be the sort of gentleman +of leisure who doesn't shoot. He disavowed hunting, he made it appear he +travelled when he travelled in directions other than Scotland. But the +fourth question brought him to bay. He regarded his questioner with his +small rufous eye. + +“I have never been across a horse in my life, Lady Marayne.” + +“Tut, tut,” said Sir Godfrey. “Why!--it's the best of exercise. +Every man ought to ride. Good for the health. Keeps him fit. Prevents +lodgments. Most trouble due to lodgments.” + +“I've never had a chance of riding. And I think I'm afraid of horses.” + +“That's only an excuse,” said Lady Marayne. “Everybody's afraid of +horses and nobody's really afraid of horses.” + +“But I'm not used to horses. You see--I live on my mother. And she can't +afford to keep a stable.” + +His hostess did not see his expression of discomfort. Her pretty eyes +were intent upon the peas with which she was being served. + +“Does your mother live in the country?” she asked, and took her peas +with fastidious exactness. + +Prothero coloured brightly. “She lives in London.” + +“All the year?” + +“All the year.” + +“But isn't it dreadfully hot in town in the summer?” + +Prothero had an uncomfortable sense of being very red in the face. This +kept him red. “We're suburban people,” he said. + +“But I thought--isn't there the seaside?” + +“My mother has a business,” said Prothero, redder than ever. + +“O-oh!” said Lady Marayne. “What fun that must be for her?” + +“It's a real business, and she has to live by it. Sometimes it's a +worry.” + +“But a business of her own!” She surveyed the confusion of his visage +with a sweet intelligence. “Is it an amusing sort of business, Mr. +Prothero?” + +Prothero looked mulish. “My mother is a dressmaker,” he said. “In +Brixton. She doesn't do particularly badly--or well. I live on my +scholarship. I have lived on scholarships since I was thirteen. And you +see, Lady Marayne, Brixton is a poor hunting country.” + +Lady Marayne felt she had unmasked Prothero almost indecently. Whatever +happened there must be no pause. There must be no sign of a hitch. + +“But it's good at tennis,” she said. “You DO play tennis, Mr. Prothero?” + +“I--I gesticulate,” said Prothero. + +Lady Marayne, still in flight from that pause, went off at a tangent. + +“Poff, my dear,” she said, “I've had a diving-board put at the deep end +of the pond.” + +The remark hung unanswered for a moment. The transition had been too +quick for Benham's state of mind. + +“Do you swim, Mr. Prothero?” the lady asked, though a moment before she +had determined that she would never ask him a question again. But this +time it was a lucky question. + +“Prothero mopped up the lot of us at Minchinghampton with his diving and +swimming,” Benham explained, and the tension was relaxed. + +Lady Marayne spoke of her own swimming, and became daring and amusing at +her difficulties with local feeling when first she swam in the pond. +The high road ran along the far side of the pond--“And it didn't wear a +hedge or anything,” said Lady Marayne. “That was what they didn't quite +like. Swimming in an undraped pond....” + +Prothero had been examined enough. Now he must be entertained. She told +stories about the village people in her brightest manner. The third +story she regretted as soon as she was fairly launched upon it; it +was how she had interviewed the village dressmaker, when Sir Godfrey +insisted upon her supporting local industries. It was very amusing but +technical. The devil had put it into her head. She had to go through +with it. She infused an extreme innocence into her eyes and fixed them +on Prothero, although she felt a certain deepening pinkness in her +cheeks was betraying her, and she did not look at Benham until her +unhappy, but otherwise quite amusing anecdote, was dead and gone and +safely buried under another.... + +But people ought not to go about having dressmakers for mothers.... + +And coming into other people's houses and influencing their sons.... + + + +8 + + +That night when everything was over Billy sat at the writing-table of +his sumptuous bedroom--the bed was gilt wood, the curtains of the three +great windows were tremendous, and there was a cheval glass that showed +the full length of him and seemed to look over his head for more,--and +meditated upon this visit of his. It was more than he had been prepared +for. It was going to be a great strain. The sleek young manservant in +an alpaca jacket, who said “Sir” whenever you looked at him, and who had +seized upon and unpacked Billy's most private Gladstone bag without even +asking if he might do so, and put away and displayed Billy's things in +a way that struck Billy as faintly ironical, was unexpected. And it was +unexpected that the brown suit, with its pockets stuffed with Billy's +personal and confidential sundries, had vanished. And apparently a +bath in a bathroom far down the corridor was prescribed for him in +the morning; he hadn't thought of a dressing-gown. And after one had +dressed, what did one do? Did one go down and wander about the house +looking for the breakfast-room or wait for a gong? Would Sir Godfrey +read Family Prayers? And afterwards did one go out or hang about to be +entertained? He knew now quite clearly that those wicked blue eyes would +mark his every slip. She did not like him. She did not like him, he +supposed, because he was common stuff. He didn't play up to her world +and her. He was a discord in this rich, cleverly elaborate household. +You could see it in the servants' attitudes. And he was committed to a +week of this. + +Billy puffed out his cheeks to blow a sigh, and then decided to be angry +and say “Damn!” + +This way of living which made him uncomfortable was clearly an +irrational and objectionable way of living. It was, in a cumbersome way, +luxurious. But the waste of life of it, the servants, the observances, +all concentrated on the mere detail of existence? There came a rap at +the door. Benham appeared, wearing an expensive-looking dressing-jacket +which Lady Marayne had bought for him. He asked if he might talk for +a bit and smoke. He sat down in a capacious chintz-covered easy chair +beside Prothero, lit a cigarette, and came to the point after only a +trivial hesitation. + +“Prothero,” he said, “you know what my father is.” + +“I thought he ran a preparatory school.” + +There was the profoundest resentment in Prothero's voice. + +“And, all the same, I'm going to be a rich man.” + +“I don't understand,” said Prothero, without any shadow of +congratulation. + +Benham told Prothero as much as his mother had conveyed to him of the +resources of his wealth. Her version had been adapted to his tender +years and the delicacies of her position. The departed Nolan had become +an eccentric godfather. Benham's manner was apologetic, and he made +it clear that only recently had these facts come to him. He had never +suspected that he had had this eccentric godfather. It altered the +outlook tremendously. It was one of the reasons that made Benham glad to +have Prothero there, one wanted a man of one's own age, who understood +things a little, to try over one's new ideas. Prothero listened with an +unamiable expression. + +“What would you do, Prothero, if you found yourself saddled with some +thousands a year?” + +“Godfathers don't grow in Brixton,” said Prothero concisely. + +“Well, what am I to do, Prothero?” + +“Does all THIS belong to you?” + +“No, this is my mother's.” + +“Godfather too?” + +“I've not thought.... I suppose so. Or her own.” + +Prothero meditated. + +“THIS life,” he said at last, “this large expensiveness--...” + +He left his criticism unfinished. + +“I agree. It suits my mother somehow. I can't understand her living in +any other way. But--for me....” + +“What can one do with several thousands a year?” + +Prothero's interest in this question presently swamped his petty +personal resentments. “I suppose,” he said, “one might have rather a +lark with money like that. One would be free to go anywhere. To set all +sorts of things going.... It's clear you can't sell all you have and +give it to the poor. That is pauperization nowadays. You might run +a tremendously revolutionary paper. A real upsetting paper. How many +thousands is it?” + +“I don't know. SOME.” + +Prothero's interest was growing as he faced the possibilities. + +“I've dreamt of a paper,” he said, “a paper that should tell the brute +truth about things.” + +“I don't know that I'm particularly built to be a journalist,” Benham +objected. + +“You're not,” said Billy.... “You might go into Parliament as a +perfectly independent member.... Only you wouldn't get in....” + +“I'm not a speaker,” said Benham. + +“Of course,” said Billy, “if you don't decide on a game, you'll just go +on like this. You'll fall into a groove, you'll--you'll hunt. You'll go +to Scotland for the grouse.” + +For the moment Prothero had no further suggestions. + +Benham waited for a second or so before he broached his own idea. + +“Why, first of all, at any rate, Billy, shouldn't one use one's money +to make the best of oneself? To learn things that men without money and +leisure find it difficult to learn? By an accident, however unjust it +is, one is in the position of a leader and a privileged person. Why not +do one's best to give value as that?” + +“Benham, that's the thin end of aristocracy!” + +“Why not?” + +“I hate aristocracy. For you it means doing what you like. While you are +energetic you will kick about and then you will come back to this.” + +“That's one's own look-out,” said Benham, after reflection. + +“No, it's bound to happen.” + +Benham retreated a little from the immediate question. + +“Well, we can't suddenly at a blow change the world. If it isn't to be +plutocracy to-day it has to be aristocracy.” + +Prothero frowned over this, and then he made a sweeping proposition. + +“YOU CANNOT HAVE ARISTOCRACY,” he said, “BECAUSE, YOU SEE--ALL MEN ARE +RIDICULOUS. Democracy has to fight its way out from under plutocracy. +There is nothing else to be done.” + +“But a man in my position--?” + +“It's a ridiculous position. You may try to escape being ridiculous. You +won't succeed.” + +It seemed to Benham for a moment as though Prothero had got to the +bottom of the question, and then he perceived that he had only got to +the bottom of himself. Benham was pacing the floor. + +He turned at the open window, held out a long forefinger, and uttered +his countervailing faith. + +“Even if he is ridiculous, Prothero, a man may still be an aristocrat. A +man may anyhow be as much of an aristocrat as he can be.” + +Prothero reflected. “No,” he said, “it sounds all right, but it's wrong. +I hate all these advantages and differences and distinctions. A man's a +man. What you say sounds well, but it's the beginning of pretension, of +pride--” + +He stopped short. + +“Better, pride than dishonour,” said Benham, “better the pretentious +life than the sordid life. What else is there?” + +“A life isn't necessarily sordid because it isn't pretentious,” said +Prothero, his voice betraying a defensive disposition. + +“But a life with a large income MUST be sordid unless it makes some sort +of attempt to be fine....” + + + +9 + + +By transitions that were as natural as they were complicated and +untraceable Prothero found his visit to Chexington developing into a +tangle of discussions that all ultimately resolved themselves into an +antagonism of the democratic and the aristocratic idea. And his part +was, he found, to be the exponent of the democratic idea. The next day +he came down early, his talk with Benham still running through his head, +and after a turn or so in the garden he was attracted to the front door +by a sound of voices, and found Lady Marayne had been up still earlier +and was dismounting from a large effective black horse. This extorted an +unwilling admiration from him. She greeted him very pleasantly and made +a kind of introduction of her steed. There had been trouble at a gate, +he was a young horse and fidgeted at gates; the dispute was still bright +in her. Benham she declared was still in bed. “Wait till I have a mount +for him.” She reappeared fitfully in the breakfast-room, and then he was +left to Benham until just before lunch. They read and afterwards, as the +summer day grew hot, they swam in the nude pond. She joined them in the +water, splashing about in a costume of some elaboration and being very +careful not to wet her hair. Then she came and sat with them on the +seat under the big cedar and talked with them in a wrap that was pretty +rather than prudish and entirely unmotherly. And she began a fresh +attack upon him by asking him if he wasn't a Socialist and whether he +didn't want to pull down Chexington and grow potatoes all over the park. + +This struck Prothero as an inadequate statement of the Socialist project +and he made an unsuccessful attempt to get it amended. + +The engagement thus opened was renewed with great energy at lunch. +Sir Godfrey had returned to London and the inmost aspect of his +fellow-creatures, but the party of three was supplemented by a vague +young lady from the village and an alert agent from the neighbouring +Tentington estate who had intentions about a cottage. Lady Marayne +insisted upon regarding Socialism as a proposal to reinaugurate the +first French Revolution, as an inversion of society so that it would be +bottom upward, as an attack upon rule, order, direction. “And what good +are all these proposals? If you had the poor dear king beheaded, +you'd only get a Napoleon. If you divided all the property up between +everybody, you'd have rich and poor again in a year.” + +Billy perceived no way of explaining away this version of his Socialism +that would not involve uncivil contradictions--and nobody ever +contradicted Lady Marayne. + +“But, Lady Marayne, don't you think there is a lot of disorder and +injustice in the world?” he protested. + +“There would be ever so much more if your Socialists had their way.” + +“But still, don't you think--...” + +It is unnecessary even to recapitulate these universal controversies of +our time. The lunch-table and the dinner-table and the general talk of +the house drifted more and more definitely at its own level in the +same direction as the private talk of Prothero and Benham, towards +the antagonism of the privileged few and the many, of the trained +and traditioned against the natural and undisciplined, of aristocracy +against democracy. At the week-end Sir Godfrey returned to bring fresh +elements. He said that democracy was unscientific. “To deny aristocracy +is to deny the existence of the fittest. It is on the existence of the +fittest that progress depends.” + +“But do our social conditions exalt the fittest?” asked Prothero. + +“That is another question,” said Benham. + +“Exactly,” said Sir Godfrey. “That is another question. But speaking +with some special knowledge, I should say that on the whole the people +who are on the top of things OUGHT to be on the top of things. I agree +with Aristotle that there is such a thing as a natural inferior.” + +“So far as I can understand Mr. Prothero,” said Lady Marayne, “he thinks +that all the inferiors are the superiors and all the superiors inferior. +It's quite simple....” + +It made Prothero none the less indignant with this, that there +was indeed a grain of truth in it. He hated superiors, he felt for +inferiors. + + + +10 + + +At last came the hour of tipping. An embarrassed and miserable Prothero +went slinking about the house distributing unexpected gold. + +It was stupid, it was damnable; he had had to borrow the money from his +mother.... + +Lady Marayne felt he had escaped her. The controversy that should have +split these two young men apart had given them a new interest in each +other. When afterwards she sounded her son, very delicately, to see +if indeed he was aware of the clumsiness, the social ignorance and +uneasiness, the complete unsuitability of his friend, she could get no +more from him than that exasperating phrase, “He has ideas!” + +What are ideas? England may yet be ruined by ideas. + +He ought never to have gone to Trinity, that monster packet of +everything. He ought to have gone to some little GOOD college, good all +through. She ought to have asked some one who KNEW. + + + +11 + + +One glowing afternoon in October, as these two young men came over +Magdalen Bridge after a long disputatious and rather tiring walk to +Drayton--they had been talking of Eugenics and the “family”--Benham was +almost knocked down by an American trotter driven by Lord Breeze. “Whup +there!” said Lord Breeze in a voice deliberately brutal, and Benham, +roused from that abstraction which is partly fatigue, had to jump aside +and stumbled against the parapet as the gaunt pacer went pounding by. + +Lord Breeze grinned the sort of grin a man remembers. And passed. + +“Damnation!” said Benham with a face that had become suddenly very +white. + +Then presently. “Any fool can do that who cares to go to the trouble.” + +“That,” said Prothero, taking up their unquenchable issue, “that is the +feeling of democracy.” + +“I walk because I choose to,” said Benham. + +The thing rankled. + +“This equestrianism,” he began, “is a matter of time and money--time +even more than money. I want to read. I want to deal with ideas.... + +“Any fool can drive....” + +“Exactly,” said Prothero. + +“As for riding, it means no more than the elaborate study and +cultivation of your horse. You have to know him. All horses are +individuals. A made horse perhaps goes its round like an omnibus, but +for the rest....” + +Prothero made a noise of sympathetic assent. + +“In a country where equestrianism is assertion I suppose one must be +equestrian....” + +That night some malignant spirit kept Benham awake, and great +American trotters with vast wide-striding feet and long yellow teeth, +uncontrollable, hard-mouthed American trotters, pounded over his angry +soul. + +“Prothero,” he said in hall next day, “we are going to drive to-morrow.” + +Next day, so soon as they had lunched, he led the way towards Maltby's, +in Crosshampton Lane. Something in his bearing put a question into +Prothero's mind. “Benham,” he asked, “have you ever driven before?” + +“NEVER,” said Benham. + +“Well?” + +“I'm going to now.” + +Something between pleasure and alarm came into Prothero's eyes. He +quickened his pace so as to get alongside his friend and scrutinize his +pale determination. “Why are you doing this?” he asked. + +“I want to do it.” + +“Benham, is it--EQUESTRIAN?” + +Benham made no audible reply. They proceeded resolutely in silence. + +An air of expectation prevailed in Maltby's yard. In the shafts of a +high, bleak-looking vehicle with vast side wheels, a throne-like vehicle +that impressed Billy Prothero as being a gig, a very large angular black +horse was being harnessed. + +“This is mine,” said Benham compactly. + +“This is yours, sir,” said an ostler. + +“He looks--QUIET.” + +“You'll find him fresh enough, sir.” + +Benham made a complicated ascent to the driver's seat and was handed the +reins. “Come on,” he said, and Prothero followed to a less exalted seat +at Benham's side. They seemed to be at a very great height indeed. The +horse was then led out into Crosshampton Lane, faced towards Trinity +Street and discharged. “Check,” said Benham, and touched the steed with +his whip. They started quite well, and the ostlers went back into the +yard, visibly unanxious. It struck Prothero that perhaps driving was +less difficult than he had supposed. + +They went along Crosshampton Lane, that high-walled gulley, with +dignity, with only a slight suggestion of the inaccuracy that was +presently to become apparent, until they met a little old bearded don +on a bicycle. Then some misunderstanding arose between Benham and the +horse, and the little bearded don was driven into the narrow pavement +and had to get off hastily. He made no comment, but his face became like +a gargoyle. “Sorry,” said Benham, and gave his mind to the corner. There +was some difficulty about whether they were to turn to the right or the +left, but at last Benham, it seemed, carried his point, and they went +along the narrow street, past the grey splendours of King's, and rather +in the middle of the way. + +Prothero considered the beast in front of him, and how proud and +disrespectful a horse in a dogcart can seem to those behind it! +Moreover, unaccustomed as he was to horses, he was struck by the strong +resemblance a bird's-eye view of a horse bears to a fiddle, a fiddle +with devil's ears. + +“Of course,” said Prothero, “this isn't a trotter.” + +“I couldn't get a trotter,” said Benham. + +“I thought I would try this sort of thing before I tried a trotter,” he +added. + +And then suddenly came disaster. + +There was a butcher's cart on the right, and Benham, mistrusting the +intelligence of his steed, insisted upon an excessive amplitude of +clearance. He did not reckon with the hand-barrow on his left, piled +up with dirty plates from the lunch of Trinity Hall. It had been left +there; its custodian was away upon some mysterious errand. Heaven knows +why Trinity Hall exhibited the treasures of its crockery thus stained +and deified in the Cambridge streets. But it did--for Benham's and +Prothero's undoing. Prothero saw the great wheel over which he was +poised entangle itself with the little wheel of the barrow. “God!” + he whispered, and craned, fascinated. The little wheel was manifestly +intrigued beyond all self-control by the great wheel; it clung to it, it +went before it, heedless of the barrow, of which it was an inseparable +part. The barrow came about with an appearance of unwillingness, it +locked against the great wheel; it reared itself towards Prothero and +began, smash, smash, smash, to shed its higher plates. It was clear +that Benham was grappling with a crisis upon a basis of inadequate +experience. A number of people shouted haphazard things. Then, too late, +the barrow had persuaded the little wheel to give up its fancy for the +great wheel, and there was an enormous crash. + +“Whoa!” cried Benham. “Whoa!” but also, unfortunately, he sawed hard at +the horse's mouth. + +The animal, being in some perplexity, danced a little in the narrow +street, and then it had come about and it was backing, backing, on +the narrow pavement and towards the plate-glass window of a book and +newspaper shop. Benham tugged at its mouth much harder than ever. +Prothero saw the window bending under the pressure of the wheel. A sense +of the profound seriousness of life and of the folly of this expedition +came upon him. With extreme nimbleness he got down just as the window +burst. It went with an explosion like a pistol shot, and then a clatter +of falling glass. People sprang, it seemed, from nowhere, and jostled +about Prothero, so that he became a peripheral figure in the discussion. +He perceived that a man in a green apron was holding the horse, and that +various people were engaged in simultaneous conversation with Benham, +who with a pale serenity of face and an awful calm of manner, dealt with +each of them in turn. + +“I'm sorry,” he was saying. “Somebody ought to have been in charge of +the barrow. Here are my cards. I am ready to pay for any damage.... + +“The barrow ought not to have been there.... + +“Yes, I am going on. Of course I'm going on. Thank you.” + +He beckoned to the man who had held the horse and handed him +half-a-crown. He glanced at Prothero as one might glance at a stranger. +“Check!” he said. The horse went on gravely. Benham lifted out his whip. +He appeared to have clean forgotten Prothero. Perhaps presently he would +miss him. He went on past Trinity, past the ruddy brick of St. John's. +The curve of the street hid him from Prothero's eyes. + +Prothero started in pursuit. He glimpsed the dog-cart turning into +Bridge Street. He had an impression that Benham used the whip at the +corner, and that the dog-cart went forward out of sight with a startled +jerk. Prothero quickened his pace. + +But when he got to the fork between the Huntingdon Road and the +Cottenham Road, both roads were clear. + +He spent some time in hesitation. Then he went along the Huntingdon Road +until he came upon a road-mender, and learnt that Benham had passed that +way. “Going pretty fast 'e was,” said the road-mender, “and whipping 'is +'orse. Else you might 'a thought 'e was a boltin' with 'im.” Prothero +decided that if Benham came back at all he would return by way of +Cottenham, and it was on the Cottenham Road that at last he encountered +his friend again. + +Benham was coming along at that good pace which all experienced horses +when they are fairly turned back towards Cambridge display. And there +was something odd about Benham, as though he had a large circular +halo with a thick rim. This, it seemed, had replaced his hat. He was +certainly hatless. The warm light of the sinking sun shone upon the +horse and upon Benham's erect figure and upon his face, and gleams of +fire kept flashing from his head to this rim, like the gleam of drawn +swords seen from afar. As he drew nearer this halo detached itself from +him and became a wheel sticking up behind him. A large, clumsy-looking +bicycle was attached to the dog-cart behind. The expression of Benham's +golden face was still a stony expression; he regarded his friend with +hard eyes. + +“You all right, Benham?” cried Prothero, advancing into the road. + +His eye examined the horse. It looked all right, if anything it was a +trifle subdued; there was a little foam about its mouth, but not very +much. + +“Whoa!” said Benham, and the horse stopped. “Are you coming up, +Prothero?” + +Prothero clambered up beside him. “I was anxious,” he said. + +“There was no need to be.” + +“You've broken your whip.” + +“Yes. It broke.... GET up!” + +They proceeded on their way to Cambridge. + +“Something has happened to the wheel,” said Prothero, trying to be at +his ease. + +“Merely a splinter or so. And a spoke perhaps.” + +“And what is this behind?” + +Benham made a half-turn of the head. “It's a motor-bicycle.” + +Prothero took in details. + +“Some of it is missing.” + +“No, the front wheel is under the seat.” + +“Oh!” + +“Did you find it?” Prothero asked, after an interval. + +“You mean?” + +“He ran into a motor-car--as I was passing. I was perhaps a little to +blame. He asked me to bring his machine to Cambridge. He went on in the +car.... It is all perfectly simple.” + +Prothero glanced at the splinters in the wheel with a renewed interest. + +“Did your wheel get into it?” he asked. Benham affected not to hear. He +was evidently in no mood for story-telling. + +“Why did you get down, Prothero?” he asked abruptly, with the note of +suppressed anger thickening his voice. + +Prothero became vividly red. “I don't know,” he said, after an interval. + +“I DO,” said Benham, and they went on in a rich and active silence to +Cambridge, and the bicycle repair shop in Bridge Street, and Trinity +College. At the gate of Trinity Benham stopped, and conveyed rather by +acts than words that Prothero was to descend. He got down meekly enough, +although he felt that the return to Maltby's yard might have many points +of interest. But the spirit had gone out of him. + + + +12 + + +For three days the two friends avoided each other, and then Prothero +went to Benham's room. Benham was smoking cigarettes--Lady Marayne, in +the first warmth of his filial devotion, had prohibited his pipe--and +reading Webb's INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY. “Hello!” he said coldly, scarcely +looking up, and continued to read that absorbing work. + +“I keep on thinking how I jumped down from that damned dog-cart,” said +Prothero, without any preface. + +“It didn't matter in the least,” said Benham distantly. + +“Oh! ROT,” said Prothero. “I behaved like a coward.” + +Benham shut his book. + +“Benham,” said Prothero. “You are right about aristocracy, and I am +wrong. I've been thinking about it night and day.” + +Benham betrayed no emotion. But his tone changed. “Billy,” he said, +“there are cigarettes and whiskey in the corner. Don't make a fuss about +a trifle.” + +“No whiskey,” said Billy, and lit a cigarette. “And it isn't a trifle.” + +He came to Benham's hearthrug. “That business,” he said, “has changed +all my views. No--don't say something polite! I see that if one hasn't +the habit of pride one is bound to get off a dogcart when it seems +likely to smash. You have the habit of pride, and I haven't. So far as +the habit of pride goes, I come over to the theory of aristocracy.” + +Benham said nothing, but he put down Sidney and Beatrice Webb, and +reached out for and got and lit a cigarette. + +“I give up 'Go as you please.' I give up the natural man. I admit +training. I perceive I am lax and flabby, unguarded, I funk too much, I +eat too much, and I drink too much. And, yet, what I have always liked +in you, Benham, is just this--that you don't.” + +“I do,” said Benham. + +“Do what?” + +“Funk.” + +“Benham, I believe that naturally you funk as much as I do. You're more +a thing of nerves than I am, far more. But you keep yourself up to +the mark, and I have let myself get flabby. You're so right. You're +so utterly right. These last nights I've confessed it--aloud. I had +an inkling of it--after that rag. But now it's as clear as daylight. +I don't know if you mean to go on with me, after what's happened, but +anyhow I want you to know, whether you end our friendship or not--” + +“Billy, don't be an old ass,” said Benham. + +Both young men paused for a moment. They made no demonstrations. But the +strain was at an end between them. + +“I've thought it all out,” Billy went on with a sudden buoyancy. “We +two are both of the same kind of men. Only you see, Benham, you have +a natural pride and I haven't. You have pride. But we are both +intellectuals. We both belong to what the Russians call the +Intelligentsia. We have ideas, we have imagination, that is our +strength. And that is our weakness. That makes us moral light-weights. +We are flimsy and uncertain people. All intellectuals are flimsy and +uncertain people. It's not only that they are critical and fastidious; +they are weak-handed. They look about them; their attention wanders. +Unless they have got a habit of controlling themselves and forcing +themselves and holding themselves together.” + +“The habit of pride.” + +“Yes. And then--then we are lords of the world.” + +“All this, Billy,” said Benham, “I steadfastly believe.” + +“I've seen it all now,” said Prothero. “Lord! how clearly I see it! +The intellectual is either a prince or he is a Greek slave in a Roman +household. He's got to hold his chin up or else he becomes--even as +these dons we see about us--a thing that talks appointments, a toady, a +port-wine bibber, a mass of detail, a conscious maker of neat sayings, +a growing belly under a dwindling brain. Their gladness is drink or +gratified vanity or gratified malice, their sorrow is indigestion +or--old maid's melancholy. They are the lords of the world who will not +take the sceptre.... And what I want to say to you, Benham, more than +anything else is, YOU go on--YOU make yourself equestrian. You drive +your horse against Breeze's, and go through the fire and swim in the +ice-cold water and climb the precipice and drink little and sleep hard. +And--I wish I could do so too.” + +“But why not?” + +“Because I can't. Now I admit I've got shame in my heart and pride in +my head, and I'm strung up. I might do something--this afternoon. But it +won't last. YOU--you have pride in your bones. My pride will vanish at +a laugh. My honour will go at a laugh. I'm just exalted by a crisis. +That's all. I'm an animal of intelligence. Soul and pride are weak in +me. My mouth waters, my cheek brightens, at the sight of good things. +And I've got a lickerish tail, Benham. You don't know. You don't begin +to imagine. I'm secretive. But I quiver with hot and stirring desires. +And I'm indolent--dirty indolent. Benham, there are days when I splash +my bath about without getting into it. There are days when I turn back +from a walk because there's a cow in the field.... But, I spare you the +viler details.... And it's that makes me hate fine people and try so +earnestly to persuade myself that any man is as good as any man, if not +a trifle better. Because I know it isn't so....” + +“Billy,” said Benham, “you've the boldest mind that ever I met.” + +Prothero's face lit with satisfaction. Then his countenance fell again. +“I know I'm better there,” he said, “and yet, see how I let in a whole +system of lies to cover my secret humiliations. There, at least, I will +cling to pride. I will at least THINK free and clean and high. But you +can climb higher than I can. You've got the grit to try and LIVE high. +There you are, Benham.” + +Benham stuck one leg over the arm of his chair. “Billy,” he said, “come +and be--equestrian and stop this nonsense.” + +“No.” + +“Damn it--you DIVE!” + +“You'd go in before me if a woman was drowning.” + +“Nonsense. I'm going to ride. Come and ride too. You've a cleverer way +with animals than I have. Why! that horse I was driving the other day +would have gone better alone. I didn't drive it. I just fussed it. I +interfered. If I ride for ever, I shall never have decent hands, I shall +always hang on my horse's mouth at a gallop, I shall never be sure at a +jump. But at any rate I shall get hard. Come and get hard too.” + +“You can,” said Billy, “you can. But not I! Heavens, the TROUBLE of it! +The riding-school! The getting up early! No!--for me the Trumpington +Road on foot in the afternoon. Four miles an hour and panting. And my +fellowship and the combination-room port. And, besides, Benham, there's +the expense. I can't afford the equestrian order.” + +“It's not so great.” + +“Not so great! I don't mean the essential expense. But--the incidentals. +I don't know whether any one can realize how a poor man is hampered by +the dread of minor catastrophes. It isn't so much that he is afraid of +breaking his neck, Benham, as that he is afraid of breaking something he +will have to pay for. For instance--. Benham! how much did your little +expedition the other day--?” + +He stopped short and regarded his friend with round eyes and raised +eyebrows. + +A reluctant grin overspread Benham's face. He was beginning to see the +humour of the affair. + +“The claim for the motor-bicycle isn't sent in yet. The repair of +the mudguards of the car is in dispute. Trinity Hall's crockery, the +plate-glass window, the whip-lash and wheel and so forth, the hire of +the horse and trap, sundry gratuities.... I doubt if the total will come +very much under fifty pounds. And I seem to have lost a hat somewhere.” + +Billy regarded his toes and cleared his throat. + +“Depending as I do on a widowed mother in Brixton for all the +expenditure that isn't covered by my pot-hunting--” + +“Of course,” said Benham, “it wasn't a fair sample afternoon.” + +“Still--” + +“There's footer,” said Benham, “we might both play footer.” + +“Or boxing.” + +“And, anyhow, you must come with me when I drive again. I'm going to +start a trotter.” + +“If I miss another drive may I be--lost for ever,” said Billy, with the +utmost sincerity. “Never more will I get down, Benham, wherever you may +take me. Short of muffing my fellowship I'm with you always.... Will it +be an American trotter?” + +“It will be the rawest, gauntest, ungainliest brute that ever scared the +motor-bicycles on the Northampton Road. It will have the legs and stride +of an ostrich. It will throw its feet out like dealing cards. It will +lift its head and look the sun in the eye like a vulture. It will have +teeth like the English spinster in a French comic paper.... And we will +fly....” + +“I shall enjoy it very much,” said Prothero in a small voice after an +interval for reflection. “I wonder where we shall fly. It will do us +both a lot of good. And I shall insure my life for a small amount in +my mother's interest.... Benham, I think I will, after all, take a +whiskey.... Life is short....” + +He did so and Benham strolled to the window and stood looking out upon +the great court. + +“We might do something this afternoon,” said Benham. + +“Splendid idea,” reflected Billy over his whiskey. “Living hard and +thinking hard. A sort of Intelligentsia that is BLOODED.... I shall, of +course, come as far as I can with you.” + + + +13 + + +In one of the bureau drawers that White in this capacity of literary +executor was examining, there were two documents that carried back +right to these early days. They were both products of this long wide +undergraduate argumentation that had played so large a part in the +making of Benham. One recorded the phase of maximum opposition, and one +was the outcome of the concluding approach of the antagonists. They were +debating club essays. One had been read to a club in Pembroke, a club +called the ENQUIRERS, of which White also had been a member, and as he +turned it over he found the circumstances of its reading coming back to +his memory. He had been present, and Carnac's share in the discussion +with his shrill voice and stumpy gestures would alone have sufficed to +have made it a memorable occasion. The later one had been read to the +daughter club of the ENQUIRERS, the SOCIAL ENQUIRERS, in the year after +White had gone down, and it was new to him. + +Both these papers were folded flat and neatly docketed; they were rather +yellow and a little dog-eared, and with the outer sheet pencilled over +with puzzling or illegible scribblings, Benham's memoranda for his +reply. White took the earlier essay in his hand. At the head of the +first page was written in large letters, “Go slowly, speak to the man +at the back.” It brought up memories of his own experiences, of rows of +gaslit faces, and of a friendly helpful voice that said, “Speak up?” + +Of course this was what happened to every intelligent contemporary, this +encounter with ideas, this restatement and ventilation of the old truths +and the old heresies. Only in this way does a man make a view his own, +only so does he incorporate it. These are our real turning points. +The significant, the essential moments in the life of any one worth +consideration are surely these moments when for the first time he faces +towards certain broad ideas and certain broad facts. Life nowadays +consists of adventures among generalizations. In class-rooms after the +lecture, in studies in the small hours, among books or during solitary +walks, the drama of the modern career begins. Suddenly a man sees +his line, his intention. Yet though we are all of us writing long +novels--White's world was the literary world, and that is how it looked +to him--which profess to set out the lives of men, this part of the +journey, this crucial passage among the Sphinxes, is still done--when it +is done at all--slightly, evasively. Why? + +White fell back on his professionalism. “It does not make a book. It +makes a novel into a treatise, it turns it into a dissertation.” + +But even as White said this to himself he knew it was wrong, and it slid +out of his thoughts again. Was not this objection to the play of ideas +merely the expression of that conservative instinct which fights for +every old convention? The traditional novel is a love story and takes +ideas for granted, it professes a hero but presents a heroine. And to +begin with at least, novels were written for the reading of heroines. +Miss Lydia Languish sets no great store upon the contents of a man's +head. That is just the stuffing of the doll. Eyes and heart are her +game. And so there is never any more sphinx in the story than a lady may +impersonate. And as inevitably the heroine meets a man. In his own first +success, White reflected, the hero, before he had gone a dozen pages, +met a very pleasant young woman very pleasantly in a sunlit thicket; +the second opened at once with a bicycle accident that brought two young +people together so that they were never afterwards disentangled; +the third, failing to produce its heroine in thirty pages, had to be +rearranged. The next-- + +White returned from an unprofitable digression to the matter before him. + + + +14 + + +The first of Benham's early essays was written in an almost boyish hand, +it was youthfully amateurish in its nervous disposition to definitions +and distinctions, and in the elaborate linking of part to part. It was +called TRUE DEMOCRACY. Manifestly it was written before the incident of +the Trinity Hall plates, and most of it had been done after Prothero's +visit to Chexington. White could feel that now inaudible interlocutor. +And there were even traces of Sir Godfrey Marayne's assertion that +democracy was contrary to biology. From the outset it was clear that +whatever else it meant, True Democracy, following the analogy of True +Politeness, True Courage, True Honesty and True Marriage, did not mean +democracy at all. Benham was, in fact, taking Prothero's word, and +trying to impose upon it his own solidifying and crystallizing opinion +of life. + +They were not as yet very large or well-formed crystals. The proposition +he struggled to develop was this, that True Democracy did not mean an +equal share in the government, it meant an equal opportunity to share in +the government. Men were by nature and in the most various ways unequal. +True Democracy aimed only at the removal of artificial inequalities.... + +It was on the truth of this statement, that men were by nature unequal, +that the debate had turned. Prothero was passionately against the idea +at that time. It was, he felt, separating himself from Benham more and +more. He spoke with a personal bitterness. And he found his chief ally +in a rigorous and voluble Frenchman named Carnac, an aggressive Roman +Catholic, who opened his speech by saying that the first aristocrat was +the devil, and shocked Prothero by claiming him as probably the only +other sound Christian in the room. Several biologists were present, and +one tall, fair youth with a wearisome forefinger tried to pin Carnac +with questions. + +“But you must admit some men are taller than others?” + +“Then the others are broader.” + +“Some are smaller altogether.” + +“Nimbler--it's notorious.” + +“Some of the smaller are less nimble than the others.” + +“Then they have better nightmares. How can you tell?” + +The biologist was temporarily incapacitated, and the talk went on over +his prostrate attempts to rally and protest. + +A second biologist seemed to Benham to come nearer the gist of the +dispute when he said that they were not discussing the importance of +men, but their relative inequalities. Nobody was denying the equal +importance of everybody. But there was a virtue of this man and a virtue +of that. Nobody could dispute the equal importance of every wheel in a +machine, of every atom in the universe. Prothero and Carnac were angry +because they thought the denial of absolute equality was a denial of +equal importance. That was not so. Every man mattered in his place. But +politically, or economically, or intellectually that might be a lowly +place.... + +At this point Carnac interrupted with a whooping and great violence, and +a volley of obscure French colloquialisms. + +He was understood to convey that the speaker was a Jew, and did not in +the least mean what he was saying.... + + +15 + + +The second paper was an altogether maturer and more characteristic +production. It was no longer necessary to answer Prothero. Prothero had +been incorporated. And Benham had fairly got away with his great idea. +It was evident to White that this paper had been worked over on several +occasions since its first composition and that Benham had intended +to make it a part of his book. There were corrections in pencil and +corrections in a different shade of ink, and there was an unfinished +new peroration, that was clearly the latest addition of all. Yet +its substance had been there always. It gave the youth just grown +to manhood, but anyhow fully grown. It presented the far-dreaming +intellectualist shaped. + +Benham had called it ARISTOCRACY. But he was far away by now from +political aristocracy. + +This time he had not begun with definitions and generalizations, +but with a curiously subjective appeal. He had not pretended to be +theorizing at large any longer, he was manifestly thinking of his own +life and as manifestly he was thinking of life as a matter of difficulty +and unexpected thwartings. + +“We see life,” he wrote, “not only life in the world outside us, but +life in our own selves, as an immense choice of possibilities; indeed, +for us in particular who have come up here, who are not under any urgent +necessity to take this line or that, life is apparently pure choice. It +is quite easy to think we are all going to choose the pattern of life we +like best and work it out in our own way.... And, meanwhile, there is no +great hurry.... + +“I want to begin by saying that choice isn't so easy and so necessary as +it seems. We think we are going to choose presently, and in the end we +may never choose at all. Choice needs perhaps more energy than we think. +The great multitude of older people we can observe in the world outside +there, haven't chosen either in the matter of the world outside, where +they shall go, what they shall do, what part they shall play, or in +the matter of the world within, what they will be and what they are +determined they will never be. They are still in much the same state of +suspended choice as we seem to be in, but in the meanwhile THINGS HAPPEN +TO THEM. And things are happening to us, things will happen to us, while +we still suppose ourselves in the wings waiting to be consulted about +the casting of the piece.... + +“Nevertheless this immense appearance of choice which we get in the +undergraduate community here, is not altogether illusion; it is more +reality than illusion even if it has not the stable and complete reality +it appears to have. And it is more a reality for us than it was for our +fathers, and much more a reality now than it was a few centuries ago. +The world is more confused and multitudinous than ever it was, the +practicable world far wider, and ourselves far less under the pressure +of inflexible moulding forces and inevitable necessities than any +preceding generations. I want to put very clearly how I see the new +world, the present world, the world of novel choice to which our youth +and inexperience faces, and I want to define to you a certain selection +of choices which I am going to call aristocratic, and to which it is our +manifest duty and destiny as the elect and favoured sons of our race to +direct ourselves. + +“It isn't any choice of Hercules I mean, any mere alternative whether +we will be, how shall I put it?--the bridegrooms of pleasure or the +bridegrooms of duty. It is infinitely vaster and more subtly moral than +that. There are a thousand good lives possible, of which we may have +one, lives which are soundly good, or a thousand bad lives, if you like, +lives which are thoroughly bad--that's the old and perpetual choice, +that has always been--but what is more evident to me and more remarkable +and disconcerting is that there are nowadays ten thousand muddled lives +lacking even so much moral definition, even so much consistency as is +necessary for us to call them either good or bad, there are planless +indeterminate lives, more and more of them, opening out as the possible +lives before us, a perfect wilderness between salvation and damnation, +a wilderness so vast and crowded that at last it seems as though the +way to either hell or heaven would be lost in its interminable futility. +Such planless indeterminate lives, plebeian lives, mere lives, fill the +world, and the spectacle of whole nations, our whole civilization, seems +to me to re-echo this planlessness, this indeterminate confusion of +purpose. Plain issues are harder and harder to find, it is as if they +had disappeared. Simple living is the countryman come to town. We are +deafened and jostled and perplexed. There are so many things afoot that +we get nothing.... + +“That is what is in my mind when I tell you that we have to gather +ourselves together much more than we think. We have to clench ourselves +upon a chosen end. We have to gather ourselves together out of the swill +of this brimming world. + +“Or--we are lost....” + +(“Swill of this brimming world,” said White. “Some of this sounds +uncommonly like Prothero.” He mused for a moment and then resumed his +reading.) + +“That is what I was getting at when, three years ago, I made an attack +upon Democracy to the mother society of this society, an attack that I +expressed ill and failed to drive home. That is what I have come down +now to do my best to make plainer. This age of confusion is Democracy; +it is all that Democracy can ever give us. Democracy, if it means +anything, means the rule of the planless man, the rule of the unkempt +mind. It means as a necessary consequence this vast boiling up of +collectively meaningless things. + +“What is the quality of the common man, I mean of the man that is common +to all of us, the man who is the Standard for such men as Carnac, +the man who seems to be the ideal of the Catholic Democrat? He is the +creature of a few fundamental impulses. He begins in blind imitation of +the life about him. He lusts and takes a wife, he hungers and tills +a field or toils in some other way to earn a living, a mere aimless +living, he fears and so he does not wander, he is jealous and stays by +his wife and his job, is fiercely yet often stupidly and injuriously +defensive of his children and his possessions, and so until he wearies. +Then he dies and needs a cemetery. He needs a cemetery because he is so +afraid of dissolution that even when he has ceased to be, he still wants +a place and a grave to hold him together and prevent his returning to +the All that made him. Our chief impression of long ages of mankind +comes from its cemeteries. And this is the life of man, as the common +man conceives and lives it. Beyond that he does not go, he never +comprehends himself collectively at all, the state happens about him; +his passion for security, his gregarious self-defensiveness, makes him +accumulate upon himself until he congests in cities that have no +sense of citizenship and states that have no structure; the clumsy, +inconsecutive lying and chatter of his newspapers, his hoardings and +music-halls gives the measure of his congested intelligences, the +confusion of ugly, half empty churches and chapels and meeting-halls +gauge the intensity of his congested souls, the tricks and slow +blundering dishonesties of Diet and Congress and Parliament are his +statecraft and his wisdom.... + +“I do not care if this instant I am stricken dead for pride. I say here +now to you and to High Heaven that THIS LIFE IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME. +I know there is a better life than this muddle about us, a better life +possible now. I know it. A better individual life and a better public +life. If I had no other assurances, if I were blind to the glorious +intimations of art, to the perpetually widening promise of science, +to the mysterious beckonings of beauty in form and colour and the +inaccessible mockery of the stars, I should still know this from the +insurgent spirit within me.... + +“Now this better life is what I mean when I talk of Aristocracy. This +idea of a life breaking away from the common life to something better, +is the consuming idea in my mind. + +“Constantly, recurrently, struggling out of the life of the farm and +the shop, the inn and the market, the street and the crowd, is something +that is not of the common life. Its way of thinking is Science, its +dreaming is Art, its will is the purpose of mankind. It is not the +common thing. But also it is not an unnatural thing. It is not as common +as a rat, but it is no less natural than a panther. + +“For it is as natural to be an explorer as it is to be a potato grower, +it is rarer but it is as natural; it is as natural to seek explanations +and arrange facts as it is to make love, or adorn a hut, or show +kindness to a child. It is a folly I will not even dispute about, that +man's only natural implement is the spade. Imagination, pride, exalted +desire are just as much Man, as are hunger and thirst and sexual +curiosities and the panic dread of unknown things.... + +“Now you see better what I mean about choice. Now you see what I am +driving at. We have to choose each one for himself and also each one for +the race, whether we will accept the muddle of the common life, whether +we ourselves will be muddled, weakly nothings, children of luck, +steering our artful courses for mean success and tawdry honours, or +whether we will be aristocrats, for that is what it amounts to, each +one in the measure of his personal quality an aristocrat, refusing to be +restrained by fear, refusing to be restrained by pain, resolved to +know and understand up to the hilt of his understanding, resolved to +sacrifice all the common stuff of his life to the perfection of his +peculiar gift, a purged man, a trained, selected, artificial man, not +simply free, but lordly free, filled and sustained by pride. Whether +you or I make that choice and whether you or I succeed in realizing +ourselves, though a great matter to ourselves, is, I admit, a small +matter to the world. But the great matter is this, that THE CHOICE IS +BEING MADE, that it will continue to be made, and that all around us, so +that it can never be arrested and darkened again, is the dawn of human +possibility....” + +(White could also see his dead friend's face with its enthusiastic +paleness, its disordered hair and the glowing darknesses in the eyes. +On such occasions Benham always had an expression of ESCAPE. Temporary +escape. And thus would his hand have clutched the reading-desk; thus +would his long fingers have rustled these dry papers.) + +“Man has reached a point when a new life opens before him.... + +“The old habitual life of man is breaking up all about us, and for the +new life our minds, our imaginations, our habits and customs are all +unprepared.... + +“It is only now, after some years of study and living, that I begin to +realize what this tremendous beginning we call Science means to mankind. +Every condition that once justified the rules and imperatives, the +manners and customs, the sentiments, the morality, the laws and +limitations which make up the common life, has been or is being +destroyed.... Two or three hundred years more and all that life will be +as much a thing past and done with as the life that was lived in the age +of unpolished stone.... + +“Man is leaving his ancestral shelters and going out upon the greatest +adventure that ever was in space or time, he is doing it now, he is +doing it in us as I stand here and read to you.” + + + + +CHAPTER THE SECOND ~~ THE YOUNG MAN ABOUT TOWN + + + +1 + + +The oldest novel in the world at any rate, White reflected, was a story +with a hero and no love interest worth talking about. It was the story +of Tobias and how he came out from the shelters of his youth into this +magic and intricate world. Its heroine was incidental, part of the +spoil, a seven times relict.... + +White had not read the book of Tobit for many years, and what he was +really thinking of was not that ancient story at all, but Botticelli's +picture, that picture of the sunlit morning of life. When you say +“Tobias” that is what most intelligent people will recall. Perhaps you +will remember how gaily and confidently the young man strides along with +the armoured angel by his side. Absurdly enough, Benham and his dream of +high aristocracy reminded White of that.... + +“We have all been Tobias in our time,” said White. + +If White had been writing this chapter he would have in all probability +called it THE TOBIAS STAGE, forgetful that there was no Tobit behind +Benham and an entirely different Sara in front of him. + + + +2 + + +From Cambridge Benham came to London. For the first time he was to live +in London. Never before had he been in London for more than a few days +at a time. But now, guided by his mother's advice, he was to have a flat +in Finacue street, just round the corner from Desborough Street, a flat +very completely and delightfully furnished under her supervision. It had +an admirable study, in which she had arranged not only his books, but +a number of others in beautiful old leather bindings that it had +amused her extremely to buy; it had a splendid bureau and business-like +letter-filing cabinets, a neat little drawing-room and a dining-room, +well-placed abundant electric lights, and a man called Merkle whom +she had selected very carefully and who she felt would not only see to +Benham's comfort but keep him, if necessary, up to the mark. + +This man Merkle seemed quite unaware that humanity “here and now”--even +as he was engaged in meticulously putting out Benham's clothes--was +“leaving its ancestral shelters and going out upon the greatest +adventure that ever was in space or time.” If he had been told as much +by Benham he would probably have said, “Indeed, sir,” and proceeded +accurately with his duties. And if Benham's voice had seemed to call for +any additional remark, he would probably have added, “It's 'igh time, +sir, something of the sort was done. Will you have the white wesket as +before, sir, or a fresh one this evening?... Unless it's a very special +occasion, sir.... Exactly, sir. THANK you, sir.” + +And when her son was properly installed in his apartments Lady Marayne +came round one morning with a large experienced-looking portfolio and +rendered an account of her stewardship of his estate that was already +some months overdue. It was all very confused and confusing, and there +were inexplicable incidents, a heavy overdraft at the bank for example, +but this was Sir Godfrey's fault, she explained. “He never would help +me with any of this business,” she said. “I've had to add sometimes for +HOURS. But, of course, you are a man, and when you've looked through it +all, I know you'll understand.” + +He did look through it enough to see that it was undesirable that he +should understand too explicitly, and, anyhow, he was manifestly +very well off indeed, and the circumstances of the case, even as +he understood them, would have made any businesslike book-keeping +ungracious. The bankers submitted the corroborating account of +securities, and he found himself possessed of his unconditional six +thousand a year, with, as she put it, “the world at his feet.” On the +whole it seemed more wonderful to him now than when he had first heard +of it. He kissed her and thanked her, and left the portfolio open for +Merkle's entirely honest and respectful but very exact inspection, and +walked back with her to Desborough Street, and all the while he was +craving to ask the one tremendous question he knew he would never ask, +which was just how exactly this beneficent Nolan came in.... + +Once or twice in the small hours, and on a number of other occasions, +this unspeakable riddle assumed a portentous predominance in his mind. +He was forced back upon his inner consciousness for its consideration. +He could discuss it with nobody else, because that would have been +discussing his mother. + +Probably most young men who find themselves with riches at large in the +world have some such perplexity as this mixed in with the gift. Such men +as the Cecils perhaps not, because they are in the order of things, the +rich young Jews perhaps not, because acquisition is their principle, +but for most other intelligent inheritors there must be this twinge of +conscientious doubt. “Why particularly am I picked out for so tremendous +an advantage?” If the riddle is not Nolan, then it is rent, or it is the +social mischief of the business, or the particular speculative COUP that +established their fortune. + +“PECUNIA NON OLET,” Benham wrote, “and it is just as well. Or the +west-ends of the world would reek with deodorizers. Restitution is +inconceivable; how and to whom? And in the meanwhile here we are lifted +up by our advantage to a fantastic appearance of opportunity. Whether +the world looks to us or not to do tremendous things, it ought to look +to us. And above all we ought to look to ourselves. RICHESSE OBLIGE.” + + + +3 + + +It is not to be supposed that Benham came to town only with a general +theory of aristocracy. He had made plans for a career. Indeed, he had +plans for several careers. None of them when brought into contrast with +the great spectacle of London retained all the attractiveness that had +saturated them at their inception. + +They were all more or less political careers. Whatever a democratic man +may be, Prothero and he had decided that an aristocratic man is a public +man. He is made and protected in what he is by laws and the state and +his honour goes out to the state. The aristocrat has no right to be +a voluptuary or a mere artist or a respectable nonentity, or any such +purely personal things. Responsibility for the aim and ordering of the +world is demanded from him as imperatively as courage. + +Benham's deliberate assumption of the equestrian role brought him +into contact with a new set of acquaintances, conscious of political +destinies. They were amiable, hard young men, almost affectedly +unaffected; they breakfasted before dawn to get in a day's hunting, and +they saw to it that Benham's manifest determination not to discredit +himself did not lead to his breaking his neck. Their bodies were +beautifully tempered, and their minds were as flabby as Prothero's body. +Among them were such men as Lord Breeze and Peter Westerton, and that +current set of Corinthians who supposed themselves to be resuscitating +the Young England movement and Tory Democracy. Poor movements which +indeed have never so much lived as suffered chronic resuscitation. These +were days when Tariff Reform was only an inglorious possibility for the +Tory Party, and Young England had yet to demonstrate its mental quality +in an anti-socialist campaign. Seen from the perspectives of Cambridge +and Chexington, the Tory party was still a credible basis for the +adventure of a young man with an aristocratic theory in his mind. + +These were the days when the strain and extremity of a dangerous +colonial war were fresh in people's minds, when the quality of +the public consciousness was braced up by its recent response to +unanticipated demands. The conflict of stupidities that had caused +the war was overlaid and forgotten by a hundred thousand devotions, +by countless heroic deaths and sufferings, by a pacification largely +conceived and broadly handled. The nation had displayed a belated regard +for its honour and a sustained passion for great unities. It was still +possible for Benham to regard the empire as a splendid opportunity, +and London as the conceivable heart of the world. He could think of +Parliament as a career, and of a mingling of aristocratic socialism +based on universal service with a civilizing imperialism as a +purpose.... + +But his thoughts had gone wider and deeper than that.... + +Already when Benham came to London he had begun to dream of +possibilities that went beyond the accidental states and empires of +to-day. Prothero's mind, replete with historical detail, could find +nothing but absurdity in the alliances and dynasties and loyalties of +our time. “Patched up things, Benham, temporary, pretentious. All very +well for the undignified man, the democratic man, to take shelter under, +all very well for the humourist to grin and bear, all very well for the +crowd and the quack, but not for the aristocrat--No!--his mind cuts like +steel and burns like fire. Lousy sheds they are, plastered hoardings... +and such a damned nuisance too! For any one who wants to do honourable +things! With their wars and their diplomacies, their tariffs and +their encroachments; all their humbugging struggles, their bloody and +monstrous struggles, that finally work out to no end at all.... If you +are going for the handsome thing in life then the world has to be a +united world, Benham, as a matter of course. That was settled when +the railways and the telegraph came. Telephones, wireless telegraphy, +aeroplanes insist on it. We've got to mediatise all this stuff, all +these little crowns and boundaries and creeds, and so on, that stand +in the way. Just as Italy had to be united in spite of all the rotten +little dukes and princes and republics, just as Germany had to be united +in spite of its scores of kingdoms and duchies and liberties, so now +the world. Things as they are may be fun for lawyers and politicians +and court people and--douaniers; they may suit the loan-mongers and +the armaments shareholders, they may even be more comfortable for the +middle-aged, but what, except as an inconvenience, does that matter to +you or me?” + +Prothero always pleased Benham when he swept away empires. There was +always a point when the rhetoric broke into gesture. + +“We've got to sweep them away, Benham,” he said, with a wide gesture of +his arm. “We've got to sweep them all away.” + +Prothero helped himself to some more whiskey, and spoke hastily, +because he was afraid some one else might begin. He was never safe from +interruption in his own room. The other young men present sucked at +their pipes and regarded him doubtfully. They were never quite certain +whether Prothero was a prophet or a fool. They could not understand a +mixed type, and he was so manifestly both. + +“The only sane political work for an intelligent man is to get the +world-state ready. For that we have to prepare an aristocracy--” + +“Your world-state will be aristocratic?” some one interpolated. + +“Of course it will be aristocratic. How can uninformed men think all +round the globe? Democracy dies five miles from the parish pump. It will +be an aristocratic republic of all the capable men in the world....” + +“Of course,” he added, pipe in mouth, as he poured out his whiskey, +“it's a big undertaking. It's an affair of centuries....” + +And then, as a further afterthought: “All the more reason for getting to +work at it....” + +In his moods of inspiration Prothero would discourse through the tobacco +smoke until that great world-state seemed imminent--and Part Two in the +Tripos a thing relatively remote. He would talk until the dimly-lit room +about him became impalpable, and the young men squatting about it in +elaborately careless attitudes caught glimpses of cities that are still +to be, bridges in wild places, deserts tamed and oceans conquered, +mankind no longer wasted by bickerings, going forward to the conquest of +the stars.... + +An aristocratic world-state; this political dream had already taken +hold of Benham's imagination when he came to town. But it was a dream, +something that had never existed, something that indeed may never +materialize, and such dreams, though they are vivid enough in a study at +night, fade and vanish at the rustle of a daily newspaper or the +sound of a passing band. To come back again.... So it was with Benham. +Sometimes he was set clearly towards this world-state that Prothero +had talked into possibility. Sometimes he was simply abreast of the +patriotic and socially constructive British Imperialism of Breeze and +Westerton. And there were moods when the two things were confused in his +mind, and the glamour of world dominion rested wonderfully on the slack +and straggling British Empire of Edward the Seventh--and Mr. Rudyard +Kipling and Mr. Chamberlain. He did go on for a time honestly +entertaining both these projects in his mind, each at its different +level, the greater impalpable one and the lesser concrete one within it. +In some unimaginable way he could suppose that the one by some miracle +of ennoblement--and neglecting the Frenchman, the Russian, the German, +the American, the Indian, the Chinaman, and, indeed, the greater part of +mankind from the problem--might become the other.... + +All of which is recorded here, without excess of comment, as it +happened, and as, in a mood of astonished reminiscences, he came finally +to perceive it, and set it down for White's meditative perusal. + + + +4 + + +But to the enthusiasm of the young, dreams have something of the +substance of reality and realities, something of the magic of dreams. +The London to which Benham came from Cambridge and the disquisitions of +Prothero was not the London of a mature and disillusioned vision. It was +London seen magnified and distorted through the young man's crystalline +intentions. It had for him a quality of multitudinous, unquenchable +activity. Himself filled with an immense appetite for life, he was +unable to conceive of London as fatigued. He could not suspect these +statesmen he now began to meet and watch, of jaded wills and petty +spites, he imagined that all the important and influential persons in +this large world of affairs were as frank in their private lives and as +unembarrassed in their financial relationships as his untainted self. +And he had still to reckon with stupidity. He believed in the statecraft +of leader-writers and the sincerity of political programmes. And so +regarded, what an avenue to Empire was Whitehall! How momentous was the +sunrise in St. James's Park, and how significant the clustering knot of +listeners and speakers beneath the tall column that lifts our Nelson to +the windy sky! + +For a time Benham was in love with the idea of London. He got maps of +London and books about London. He made plans to explore its various +regions. He tried to grasp it all, from the conscious picturesqueness of +its garden suburbs to the factories of Croydon, from the clerk-villadoms +of Ealing to the inky streams of Bow. In those days there were passenger +steamboats that would take one from the meadows of Hampton Court past +the whole spectacle of London out to the shipping at Greenwich and the +towed liners, the incessant tugs, the heaving portals of the sea.... +His time was far too occupied for him to carry out a tithe of these +expeditions he had planned, but he had many walks that bristled with +impressions. Northward and southward, eastward and westward a dreaming +young man could wander into a wilderness of population, polite or +sombre, poor, rich, or middle-class, but all ceaselessly active, all +urgently pressing, as it seemed, to their part in the drama of the +coming years. He loved the late afternoon, when every artery is injected +and gorged with the multitudinous home-going of the daily workers, he +loved the time of lighting up, and the clustering excitements of the +late hours. And he went out southward and eastward into gaunt regions of +reeking toil. As yet he knew nothing of the realities of industrialism. +He saw only the beauty of the great chimneys that rose against the +sullen smoke-barred sunsets, and he felt only the romance of the lurid +shuddering flares that burst out from squat stacks of brickwork and lit +the emptiness of strange and slovenly streets.... + +And this London was only the foreground of the great scene upon which +he, as a prosperous, well-befriended young Englishman, was free to +play whatever part he could. This narrow turbid tidal river by which he +walked ran out under the bridges eastward beneath the grey-blue clouds +towards Germany, towards Russia, and towards Asia, which still seemed in +those days so largely the Englishman's Asia. And when you turned about +at Blackfriars Bridge this sense of the round world was so upon you +that you faced not merely Westminster, but the icy Atlantic and America, +which one could yet fancy was a land of Englishmen--Englishmen a little +estranged. At any rate they assimilated, they kept the tongue. The +shipping in the lower reaches below the Tower there carried the flags of +every country under the sky.... As he went along the riverside he met a +group of dusky students, Chinese or Japanese. Cambridge had abounded in +Indians; and beneath that tall clock tower at Westminster it seemed as +though the world might centre. The background of the Englishman's world +reached indeed to either pole, it went about the earth, his background +it was--for all that he was capable of doing. All this had awaited +him.... + +Is it any wonder if a young man with an excitable imagination came at +times to the pitch of audible threats? If the extreme indulgence of his +opportunity and his sense of ability and vigour lifted his vanity at +moments to the kingly pitch? If he ejaculated and made a gesture or so +as he went along the Embankment? + + + +5 + + +In the disquisition upon choice that opened Benham's paper on +ARISTOCRACY, he showed himself momentarily wiser than his day-dreams. +For in these day-dreams he did seem to himself to be choosing among +unlimited possibilities. Yet while he dreamt other influences were +directing his movements. There were for instance his mother, Lady +Marayne, who saw a very different London from what he did, and his +mother Dame Nature, who cannot see London at all. She was busy in his +blood as she is busy in the blood of most healthy young men; common +experience must fill the gaps for us; and patiently and thoroughly +she was preparing for the entrance of that heroine, whom not the most +self-centred of heroes can altogether avoid.... + +And then there was the power of every day. Benham imagined himself at +large on his liberating steed of property while indeed he was mounted +on the made horse of Civilization; while he was speculating whither he +should go, he was already starting out upon the round. One hesitates +upon the magnificent plan and devotion of one's lifetime and meanwhile +there is usage, there are engagements. Every morning came Merkle, the +embodiment of the established routine, the herald of all that the world +expected and required Benham to be and do. Usually he awakened Benham +with the opening of his door and the soft tinkle of the curtain rings as +he let in the morning light. He moved softly about the room, gathering +up and removing the crumpled hulls of yesterday; that done he reappeared +at the bedside with a cup of admirable tea and one thin slice of +bread-and-butter, reported on the day's weather, stood deferential for +instructions. “You will be going out for lunch, sir. Very good, sir. +White slips of course, sir. You will go down into the country in the +afternoon? Will that be the serge suit, sir, or the brown?” + +These matters settled, the new aristocrat could yawn and stretch like +any aristocrat under the old dispensation, and then as the sound of +running water from the bathroom ceased, stick his toes out of bed. + +The day was tremendously indicated. World-states and aristocracies of +steel and fire, things that were as real as coal-scuttles in Billy's +rooms away there at Cambridge, were now remoter than Sirius. + +He was expected to shave, expected to bath, expected to go in to +the bright warmth and white linen and silver and china of his +breakfast-table. And there he found letters and invitations, loaded with +expectation. And beyond the coffee-pot, neatly folded, lay the TIMES, +and the DAILY NEWS and the TELEGRAPH all with an air of requiring his +attention. There had been more fighting in Thibet and Mr. Ritchie had +made a Free Trade speech at Croydon. The Japanese had torpedoed another +Russian ironclad and a British cruiser was ashore in the East Indies. A +man had been found murdered in an empty house in Hoxton and the King +had had a conversation with General Booth. Tadpole was in for North +Winchelsea, beating Taper by nine votes, and there had been a new cut +in the Atlantic passenger rates. He was expected to be interested and +excited by these things. + +Presently the telephone bell would ring and he would hear the clear +little voice of his mother full of imperative expectations. He would be +round for lunch? Yes, he would be round to lunch. And the afternoon, had +he arranged to do anything with his afternoon? No!--put off Chexington +until tomorrow. There was this new pianist, it was really an EXPERIENCE, +and one might not get tickets again. And then tea at Panton's. It was +rather fun at Panton's.... Oh!--Weston Massinghay was coming to lunch. +He was a useful man to know. So CLEVER.... So long, my dear little Son, +till I see you.... + +So life puts out its Merkle threads, as the poacher puts his hair noose +about the pheasant's neck, and while we theorize takes hold of us.... + +It came presently home to Benham that he had been down from Cambridge +for ten months, and that he was still not a step forward with the +realization of the new aristocracy. His political career waited. He had +done a quantity of things, but their net effect was incoherence. He had +not been merely passive, but his efforts to break away into creative +realities had added to rather than diminished his accumulating sense of +futility. + +The natural development of his position under the influence of Lady +Marayne had enormously enlarged the circle of his acquaintances. He had +taken part in all sorts of social occasions, and sat and listened to +a representative selection of political and literary and social +personages, he had been several times to the opera and to a great number +and variety of plays, he had been attentively inconspicuous in several +really good week-end parties. He had spent a golden October in North +Italy with his mother, and escaped from the glowing lassitude of +Venice for some days of climbing in the Eastern Alps. In January, in an +outbreak of enquiry, he had gone with Lionel Maxim to St. Petersburg and +had eaten zakuska, brightened his eyes with vodka, talked with a number +of charming people of the war that was then imminent, listened to +gipsy singers until dawn, careered in sledges about the most silent +and stately of capitals, and returned with Lionel, discoursing upon +autocracy and assassination, Japan, the Russian destiny, and the +government of Peter the Great. That excursion was the most after his +heart of all the dispersed employments of his first year. Through the +rest of the winter he kept himself very fit, and still further qualified +that nervous dislike for the horse that he had acquired from Prothero by +hunting once a week in Essex. He was incurably a bad horseman; he rode +without sympathy, he was unready and convulsive at hedges and ditches, +and he judged distances badly. His white face and rigid seat and a +certain joylessness of bearing in the saddle earned him the singular +nickname, which never reached his ears, of the “Galvanized Corpse.” + He got through, however, at the cost of four quite trifling spills +and without damaging either of the horses he rode. And his physical +self-respect increased. + +On his writing-desk appeared a few sheets of manuscript that increased +only very slowly. He was trying to express his Cambridge view of +aristocracy in terms of Finacue Street, West. + +The artistic and intellectual movements of London had made their +various demands upon his time and energies. Art came to him with a +noble assumption of his interest and an intention that presently became +unpleasantly obvious to sell him pictures that he did not want to buy +and explain away pictures that he did. He bought one or two modern +achievements, and began to doubt if art and aristocracy had any +necessary connection. At first he had accepted the assumption that they +had. After all, he reflected, one lives rather for life and things than +for pictures of life and things or pictures arising out of life and +things. This Art had an air of saying something, but when one came to +grips with it what had it to say? Unless it was Yah! The drama, and more +particularly the intellectual drama, challenged his attention. In the +hands of Shaw, Barker, Masefield, Galsworthy, and Hankin, it, too, had +an air of saying something, but he found it extremely difficult to join +on to his own demands upon life anything whatever that the intellectual +drama had the air of having said. He would sit forward in the front row +of the dress-circle with his cheek on his hand and his brow slightly +knit. His intentness amused observant people. The drama that did not +profess to be intellectual he went to with Lady Marayne, and usually +on first nights. Lady Marayne loved a big first night at St. James's +Theatre or His Majesty's. Afterwards, perhaps, Sir Godfrey would join +them at a supper party, and all sorts of clever and amusing people would +be there saying keen intimate things about each other. He met Yeats, who +told amusing stories about George Moore, and afterwards he met George +Moore, who told amusing stories about Yeats, and it was all, he felt, +great fun for the people who were in it. But he was not in it, and he +had no very keen desire to be in it. It wasn't his stuff. He had, +though they were nowadays rather at the back of his mind, quite other +intentions. In the meanwhile all these things took up his time and +distracted his attention. + +There was, as yet, no practicable aviation to beguile a young man of +spirit, but there were times when Benham found himself wondering whether +there might not be something rather creditable in the possession and +control of a motor-car of exceptional power. Only one might smash people +up. Should an aristocrat be deterred by the fear of smashing people up? +If it is a selfish fear of smashing people up, if it is nerves rather +than pity? At any rate it did not come to the car. + + + +6 + + +Among other things that delayed Benham very greatly in the development +of his aristocratic experiments was the advice that was coming to him +from every quarter. It came in extraordinary variety and volume, but +always it had one unvarying feature. It ignored and tacitly contradicted +his private intentions. + +We are all of us disposed to be propagandists of our way of living, and +the spectacle of a wealthy young man quite at large is enough to excite +the most temperate of us without distinction of age or sex. “If I were +you,” came to be a familiar phrase in his ear. This was particularly the +case with political people; and they did it not only from the natural +infirmity of humanity, but because, when they seemed reluctant or +satisfied with him as he was, Lady Marayne egged them on. + +There was a general assumption that he was to go into Parliament, and +most of his counsellors assumed further that on the whole his natural +sympathies would take him into the Conservative party. But it was +pointed out to him that just at present the Liberal party was the party +of a young man's opportunity; sooner or later the swing of the pendulum +which would weed the Conservatives and proliferate Liberals was bound to +come, there was always more demand and opportunity for candidates on +the Liberal side, the Tariff Reformers were straining their ministerial +majority to the splitting point, and most of the old Liberal leaders had +died off during the years of exile. The party was no longer +dominated; it would tolerate ideas. A young man who took a distinctive +line--provided it was not from the party point of view a vexatious or +impossible line--might go very rapidly far and high. On the other hand, +it was urged upon him that the Tariff Reform adventure called also +for youth and energy. But there, perhaps, there was less scope for +the distinctive line--and already they had Garvin. Quite a number +of Benham's friends pointed out to him the value of working out some +special aspect of our national political interests. A very useful +speciality was the Balkans. Mr. Pope, the well-known publicist, whose +very sound and considerable reputation was based on the East Purblow +Labour Experiment, met Benham at lunch and proposed to go with him in +a spirit of instructive association to the Balkans, rub up their Greek +together, and settle the problem of Albania. He wanted, he said, a +foreign speciality to balance his East Purblow interest. But Lady Beach +Mandarin warned Benham against the Balkans; the Balkans were getting +to be too handy for Easter and summer holidays, and now that there were +several good hotels in Servia and Montenegro and Sofia, they were +being overdone. Everybody went to the Balkans and came back with a pet +nationality. She loathed pet nationalities. She believed most people +loathed them nowadays. It was stale: it was GLADSTONIAN. She was all for +specialization in social reform. She thought Benham ought to join the +Fabian Society and consult the Webbs. Quite a number of able young men +had been placed with the assistance of the Webbs. They were, she said, +“a perfect fount....” Two other people, independently of each other, +pointed out to Benham the helpfulness of a few articles in the +half-crown monthlies.... + +“What are the assumptions underlying all this?” Benham asked himself in +a phase of lucidity. + +And after reflection. “Good God! The assumptions! What do they think +will satisfy me?...” + +Everybody, however, did not point to Parliament. Several people seemed +to think Travel, with a large T, was indicated. One distant cousin of +Sir Godfrey's, the kind of man of the world who has long moustaches, was +for big game shooting. “Get right out of all this while you are young,” + he said. “There's nothing to compare with stopping a charging lion +at twenty yards. I've done it, my boy. You can come back for all this +pow-wow afterwards.” He gave the diplomatic service as a second choice. +“There you are,” he said, “first-rate social position, nothing to do, +theatres, operas, pretty women, colour, life. The best of good times. +Barring Washington, that is. But Washington, they say, isn't as bad as +it used to be--since Teddy has Europeanized 'em....” + +Even the Reverend Harold Benham took a subdued but thoughtful share in +his son's admonition. He came up to the flat--due precautions were taken +to prevent a painful encounter--he lunched at his son's new club, and he +was visibly oppressed by the contrast between the young man's youthful +fortunes and his own. As visibly he bore up bravely. “There are few men, +Poff, who would not envy you your opportunities,” he said. “You have the +Feast of Life spread out at your feet.... I hope you have had yourself +put up for the Athenaeum. They say it takes years. When I was a young +man--and ambitious--I thought that some day I might belong to the +Athenaeum.... One has to learn....” + + + +7 + + +And with an effect of detachment, just as though it didn't belong to +the rest of him at all, there was beginning a sort of backstairs and +underside to Benham's life. There is no need to discuss how inevitable +that may or may not be in the case of a young man of spirit and +large means, nor to embark upon the discussion of the temptations and +opportunities of large cities. Several ladies, of various positions and +qualities, had reflected upon his manifest need of education. There was +in particular Mrs. Skelmersdale, a very pretty little widow with hazel +eyes, black hair, a mobile mouth, and a pathetic history, who talked of +old music to him and took him to a Dolmetsch concert in Clifford's Inn, +and expanded that common interest to a general participation in +his indefinite outlook. She advised him about his probable +politics--everybody did that--but when he broke through his usual +reserve and suggested views of his own, she was extraordinarily +sympathetic. She was so sympathetic and in such a caressing way that +she created a temporary belief in her understanding, and it was quite +imperceptibly that he was drawn into the discussion of modern ethical +problems. She herself was a rather stimulating instance of modern +ethical problems. She told him something of her own story, and then +their common topics narrowed down very abruptly. He found he could help +her in several ways. There is, unhappily, a disposition on the part of +many people, who ought to know better, to regard a role played by Joseph +during his earlier days in Egypt as a ridiculous one. This point of view +became very inopportunely dominant in Benham's mind when he was lunching +TETE A TETE with Mrs. Skelmersdale at her flat.... + +The ensuing intimacy was of an entirely concealed and respectable +nature, but a certain increased preoccupation in his manner set Lady +Marayne thinking. He had as a matter of fact been taken by surprise. + +Still he perceived that it is no excuse for a man that he has been taken +by surprise. Surprises in one's own conduct ought not to happen. When +they do happen then an aristocrat ought to stick to what he had done. He +was now in a subtle and complicated relationship to Mrs. Skelmersdale, +a relationship in which her pride had become suddenly a matter of +tremendous importance. Once he had launched himself upon this affair, it +was clear to him that he owed it to her never to humiliate her. And to +go back upon himself now would be a tremendous humiliation for her. You +see, he had helped her a little financially. And she looked to him, she +wanted him.... + +She wasn't, he knew, altogether respectable. Indeed, poor dear, her +ethical problems, already a little worn, made her seem at times anything +but respectable. He had met her first one evening at Jimmy Gluckstein's +when he was forming his opinion of Art. Her manifest want of interest +in pictures had attracted him. And that had led to music. And to the +mention of a Clementi piano, that short, gentle, sad, old, little sort +of piano people will insist upon calling a spinet, in her flat. + +And so to this.... + +It was very wonderful and delicious, this first indulgence of sense. + +It was shabby and underhand. + +The great god Pan is a glorious god. (And so was Swinburne.) And what +can compare with the warmth of blood and the sheen of sunlit limbs? + +But Priapus.... + +She was the most subtle, delightful and tender of created beings. + +She had amazing streaks of vulgarity. + +And some astonishing friends. + +Once she had seemed to lead the talk deliberately to money matters. + +She loved him and desired him. There was no doubt of it. + +There was a curious effect about her as though when she went round the +corner she would become somebody else. And a curious recurrent feeling +that round the corner there was somebody else. + +He had an extraordinary feeling that his mother knew about this +business. This feeling came from nothing in her words or acts, but from +some indefinable change in her eyes and bearing towards him. But how +could she know? + +It was unlikely that she and Mrs. Skelmersdale would ever meet, and it +seemed to him that it would be a particularly offensive incident for +them to meet. + +There were times now when life took on a grey and boring quality such +as it had never had before he met Mrs. Skelmersdale, and the only +remedy was to go to her. She could restore his nervous tranquillity, his +feeling of solidity and reality, his pride in himself. For a time, that +is. + +Nevertheless his mind was as a whole pervaded by the feeling that he +ought not to have been taken by surprise. + +And he had the clearest conviction in his mind that if now he could be +put back again to the day before that lunch.... + +No! he should not have gone there to lunch. + +He had gone there to see her Clementi piano. + +Had he or had he not thought beforehand of any other possibility? + +On a point so vital his memory was curiously unsure. + + + +8 + + +The worry and disorganization of Benham's life and thoughts increased as +the spring advanced. His need in some way to pull things together became +overpowering. He began to think of Billy Prothero, more and more did it +seem desirable to have a big talk with Billy and place everything that +had got disturbed. Benham thought of going to Cambridge for a week of +exhaustive evenings. Small engagements delayed that expedition.... + +Then came a day in April when all the world seemed wrong to Benham. He +was irritable; his will was unstable; whatever presented itself to be +done presented itself as undesirable; he could settle to nothing. He had +been keeping away from Mrs. Skelmersdale and in the morning there came a +little note from her designed to correct this abstention. She understood +the art of the attractive note. But he would not decide to go to her. He +left the note unanswered. + +Then came his mother at the telephone and it became instantly certain to +Benham that he could not play the dutiful son that evening. He answered +her that he could not come to dinner. He had engaged himself. “Where?” + +“With some men.” + +There was a pause and then his mother's voice came, flattened by +disappointment. “Very well then, little Poff. Perhaps I shall see you +to-morrow.” + +He replaced the receiver and fretted back into his study, where the +notes on aristocracy lay upon his desk, the notes he had been pretending +to work over all the morning. + +“Damned liar!” he said, and then, “Dirty liar!” He decided to lunch at +the club, and in the afternoon he was moved to telephone an appointment +with his siren. And having done that he was bound to keep it. + +About one o'clock in the morning he found himself walking back to +Finacue Street. He was no longer a fretful conflict of nerves, but if +anything he was less happy than he had been before. It seemed to him +that London was a desolate and inglorious growth. + +London ten years ago was much less nocturnal than it is now. And not so +brightly lit. Down the long streets came no traffic but an occasional +hansom. Here and there a cat halted or bolted in the road. Near +Piccadilly a policeman hovered artfully in a doorway, and then came a +few belated prostitutes waylaying the passers-by, and a few youths and +men, wearily lust driven. + +As he turned up New Bond Street he saw a figure that struck him +as familiar. Surely!--it was Billy Prothero! Or at any rate it was +astonishingly like Billy Prothero. He glanced again and the likeness +was more doubtful. The man had his back to Benham, he was halting and +looking back at a woman. + +By some queer flash of intuition it came to Benham that even if this +was not Prothero, still Prothero did these things. It might very well +be Prothero even, though, as he now saw, it wasn't. Everybody did these +things.... + +It came into Benham's head for the first time that life could be +tiresome. + +This Bond Street was a tiresome place; with its shops all shut and +muffled, its shops where in the crowded daytime one bought costly +furniture, costly clothes, costly scent, sweets, bibelots, pictures, +jewellery, presents of all sorts, clothes for Mrs. Skelmersdale, sweets +for Mrs. Skelmersdale, presents for Mrs. Skelmersdale, all the elaborate +fittings and equipage of--THAT! + +“Good night, dear,” a woman drifted by him. + +“I've SAID good night,” he cried, “I've SAID good night,” and so went +on to his flat. The unquenchable demand, the wearisome insatiability +of sex! When everything else has gone, then it shows itself bare in the +bleak small hours. And at first it had seemed so light a matter! He went +to bed, feeling dog-tired, he went to bed at an hour and with a finished +completeness that Merkle would have regarded as entirely becoming in a +young gentleman of his position. + +And a little past three o'clock in the morning he awoke to a mood of +indescribable desolation. He awoke with a start to an agony of remorse +and self-reproach. + + + +9 + + +For a time he lay quite still staring at the darkness, then he groaned +and turned over. Then, suddenly, like one who fancies he hears a strange +noise, he sat up in bed and listened. “Oh, God!” he said at last. + +And then: “Oh! The DIRTINESS of life! The dirty muddle of life! + +“What are we doing with life? What are we all doing with life? + +“It isn't only this poor Milly business. This only brings it to a head. +Of course she wants money....” + +His thoughts came on again. + +“But the ugliness! + +“Why did I begin it?” + +He put his hands upon his knees and pressed his eyes against the backs +of his hands and so remained very still, a blankness beneath his own +question. + +After a long interval his mind moved again. + +And now it was as if he looked upon his whole existence, he seemed to +see in a large, clear, cold comprehensiveness, all the wasted days, the +fruitless activities, the futilities, the perpetual postponements +that had followed his coming to London. He saw it all as a joyless +indulgence, as a confusion of playthings and undisciplined desires, as +a succession of days that began amiably and weakly, that became steadily +more crowded with ignoble and trivial occupations, that had sunken now +to indignity and uncleanness. He was overwhelmed by that persuasion, +which only freshly soiled youth can feel in its extreme intensity, that +life was slipping away from him, that the sands were running out, that +in a little while his existence would be irretrievably lost. + +By some trick of the imagination he saw life as an interminable Bond +Street, lit up by night lamps, desolate, full of rubbish, full of the +very best rubbish, trappings, temptations, and down it all he drove, as +the damned drive, wearily, inexplicably. + +WHAT ARE WE UP TO WITH LIFE! WHAT ARE WE MAKING OF LIFE! + +But hadn't he intended to make something tremendous of life? Hadn't he +come to London trailing a glory?... + +He began to remember it as a project. It was the project of a great +World-State sustained by an aristocracy of noble men. He was to have +been one of those men, too fine and far-reaching for the dull manoeuvers +of such politics as rule the world to-day. The project seemed still +large, still whitely noble, but now it was unlit and dead, and in the +foreground he sat in the flat of Mrs. Skelmersdale, feeling dissipated +and fumbling with his white tie. And she was looking tired. “God!” he +said. “How did I get there?” + +And then suddenly he reached out his arms in the darkness and prayed +aloud to the silences. + +“Oh, God! Give me back my visions! Give me back my visions!” + +He could have imagined he heard a voice calling upon him to come out +into life, to escape from the body of this death. But it was his own +voice that called to him.... + + + +10 + + +The need for action became so urgent in him, that he got right out of +his bed and sat on the edge of it. Something had to be done at once. He +did not know what it was but he felt that there could be no more sleep, +no more rest, no dressing nor eating nor going forth before he came to +decisions. Christian before his pilgrimage began was not more certain of +this need of flight from the life of routine and vanities. + +What was to be done? + +In the first place he must get away and think about it all, think +himself clear of all these--these immediacies, these associations and +relations and holds and habits. He must get back to his vision, get back +to the God in his vision. And to do that he must go alone. + +He was clear he must go alone. It was useless to go to Prothero, one +weak man going to a weaker. Prothero he was convinced could help him not +at all, and the strange thing is that this conviction had come to him +and had established itself incontestably because of that figure at the +street corner, which had for just one moment resembled Prothero. By some +fantastic intuition Benham knew that Prothero would not only participate +but excuse. And he knew that he himself could endure no excuses. He +must cut clear of any possibility of qualification. This thing had to be +stopped. He must get away, he must get free, he must get clean. In the +extravagance of his reaction Benham felt that he could endure nothing +but solitary places and to sleep under the open sky. + +He wanted to get right away from London and everybody and lie in the +quiet darkness and stare up at the stars. + +His plans grew so definite that presently he was in his dressing-gown +and turning out the maps in the lower drawer of his study bureau. He +would go down into Surrey with a knapsack, wander along the North Downs +until the Guildford gap was reached, strike across the Weald country to +the South Downs and then beat eastward. The very thought of it brought +a coolness to his mind. He knew that over those southern hills one could +be as lonely as in the wilderness and as free to talk to God. And there +he would settle something. He would make a plan for his life and end +this torment. + +When Merkle came in to him in the morning he was fast asleep. + +The familiar curtain rings awakened Benham. He turned his head over, +stared for a moment and then remembered. + +“Merkle,” he said, “I am going for a walking tour. I am going off this +morning. Haven't I a rucksack?” + +“You 'ave a sort of canvas bag, sir, with pockets to it,” said Merkle. +“Will you be needing the VERY 'eavy boots with 'obnails--Swiss, I fancy, +sir--or your ordinary shooting boots?” + +“And when may I expect you back, sir?” asked Merkle as the moment for +departure drew near. + +“God knows,” said Benham, “I don't.” + +“Then will there be any address for forwarding letters, sir?” + +Benham hadn't thought of that. For a moment he regarded Merkle's +scrupulous respect with a transient perplexity. + +“I'll let you know, Merkle,” he said. “I'll let you know.” + +For some days at least, notes, telephone messages, engagements, all this +fuss and clamour about nothing, should clamour for him in vain.... + + + +11 + + +“But how closely,” cried White, in a mood of cultivated enthusiasm; “how +closely must all the poor little stories that we tell to-day follow +in the footsteps of the Great Exemplars! A little while ago and the +springtime freshness of Tobias irradiated the page. Now see! it is +Christian--.” + +Indeed it looked extremely like Christian as Benham went up across the +springy turf from Epsom Downs station towards the crest of the hill. +Was he not also fleeing in the morning sunlight from the City of +Destruction? Was he not also seeking that better city whose name is +Peace? And there was a bundle on his back. It was the bundle, I think, +that seized most firmly upon the too literary imagination of White. + +But the analogy of the bundle was a superficial one. Benham had not +the slightest desire to lose it from his shoulders. It would have +inconvenienced him very greatly if he had done so. It did not contain +his sins. Our sins nowadays are not so easily separated. It contained a +light, warm cape-coat he had bought in Switzerland and which he intended +to wrap about him when he slept under the stars, and in addition +Merkle had packed it with his silk pyjamas, an extra pair of stockings, +tooth-brush, brush and comb, a safety razor.... And there were several +sheets of the Ordnance map. + + + +12 + + +The urgency of getting away from something dominated Benham to the +exclusion of any thought of what he might be getting to. That muddle of +his London life had to be left behind. First, escape.... + +Over the downs great numbers of larks were singing. It was warm April +that year and early. All the cloud stuff in the sky was gathered +into great towering slow-sailing masses, and the rest was blue of +the intensest. The air was so clean that Benham felt it clean in the +substance of his body. The chestnuts down the hill to the right were +flowering, the beeches were luminously green, and the oaks in the +valley foaming gold. And sometimes it was one lark filled his ears, and +sometimes he seemed to be hearing all the larks for miles about him. +Presently over the crest he would be out of sight of the grand stand and +the men exercising horses, and that brace of red-jacketed golfers.... + +What was he to do? + +For a time he could think of nothing to do except to keep up and out of +the valley. His whole being seemed to have come to his surfaces to look +out at the budding of the year and hear the noise of the birds. And then +he got into a long road from which he had to escape, and trespassing +southward through plantations he reached the steep edge of the hills +and sat down over above a great chalk pit somewhere near Dorking and +surveyed all the tumbled wooded spaces of the Weald.... It is after all +not so great a country this Sussex, nor so hilly, from deepest valley to +highest crest is not six hundred feet, yet what a greatness of effect it +can achieve! There is something in those downland views which, like sea +views, lifts a mind out to the skies. All England it seemed was there to +Benham's vision, and the purpose of the English, and his own purpose in +the world. For a long time he surveyed the large delicacy of the detail +before him, the crests, the tree-protected houses, the fields and +farmsteads, the distant gleams of water. And then he became interested +in the men who were working in the chalk pit down below. + +They at any rate were not troubled with the problem of what to do with +their lives. + + + +13 + + +Benham found his mind was now running clear, and so abundantly that he +could scarcely, he felt, keep pace with it. As he thought his flow of +ideas was tinged with a fear that he might forget what he was thinking. +In an instant, for the first time in his mental existence, he could have +imagined he had discovered Labour and seen it plain. A little while ago +and he had seemed a lonely man among the hills, but indeed he was not +lonely, these men had been with him all the time, and he was free to +wander, to sit here, to think and choose simply because those men down +there were not free. HE WAS SPENDING THEIR LEISURE.... Not once but +many times with Prothero had he used the phrase RICHESSE OBLIGE. Now +he remembered it. He began to remember a mass of ideas that had been +overlaid and stifling within him. This was what Merkle and the club +servants and the entertainments and engagements and his mother and +the artistic touts and the theatrical touts and the hunting and the +elaboration of games and--Mrs. Skelmersdale and all that had clustered +thickly round him in London had been hiding from him. Those men below +there had not been trusted to choose their work; they had been given it. +And he had been trusted.... + +And now to grapple with it! Now to get it clear! What work was he going +to do? That settled, he would deal with his distractions readily enough. +Until that was settled he was lax and exposed to every passing breeze of +invitation. + +“What work am I going to do? What work am I going to do?” He repeated +it. + +It is the only question for the aristocrat. What amusement? That for +a footman on holiday. That for a silly child, for any creature that is +kept or led or driven. That perhaps for a tired invalid, for a +toiler worked to a rag. But able-bodied amusement! The arms of Mrs. +Skelmersdale were no worse than the solemn aimlessness of hunting, and +an evening of dalliance not an atom more reprehensible than an evening +of chatter. It was the waste of him that made the sin. His life in +London had been of a piece together. It was well that his intrigue had +set a light on it, put a point to it, given him this saving crisis of +the nerves. That, indeed, is the chief superiority of idle love-making +over other more prevalent forms of idleness and self-indulgence; it +does at least bear its proper label. It is reprehensible. It brings your +careless honour to the challenge of concealment and shabby evasions and +lies.... + +But in this pellucid air things took their proper proportions again. + +And now what was he to do? + +“Politics,” he said aloud to the turf and the sky. + +Is there any other work for an aristocratic man?... Science? One +could admit science in that larger sense that sweeps in History, or +Philosophy. Beyond that whatever work there is is work for which men +are paid. Art? Art is nothing aristocratic except when it is a means +of scientific or philosophical expression. Art that does not argue nor +demonstrate nor discover is merely the craftsman's impudence. + +He pulled up at this and reflected for a time with some distinguished +instances in his mind. They were so distinguished, so dignified, they +took their various arts with so admirable a gravity that the soul of +this young man recoiled from the verdicts to which his reasoning drove +him. “It's not for me to judge them,” he decided, “except in relation +to myself. For them there may be tremendous significances in Art. But +if these do not appear to me, then so far as I am concerned they do not +exist for me. They are not in my world. So far as they attempt to invade +me and control my attitudes or my outlook, or to judge me in any way, +there is no question of their impudence. Impudence is the word for it. +My world is real. I want to be really aristocratic, really brave, really +paying for the privilege of not being a driven worker. The things +the artist makes are like the things my private dream-artist makes, +relaxing, distracting. What can Art at its greatest be, pure Art that +is, but a more splendid, more permanent, transmissible reverie! The very +essence of what I am after is NOT to be an artist....” + +After a large and serious movement through his mind he came back to +Science, Philosophy or Politics as the sole three justifications for the +usurpation of leisure. + +So far as devotion to science went, he knew he had no specific aptitude +for any departmentalized subject, and equally he felt no natural call to +philosophy. He was left with politics.... + +“Or else, why shouldn't I go down there and pick up a shovel and set to +work? To make leisure for my betters....” + +And now it was that he could take up the real trouble that more than +anything else had been keeping him ineffective and the prey of every +chance demand and temptation during the last ten months. He had not been +able to get himself into politics, and the reason why he had not been +able to do so was that he could not induce himself to fit in. Statecraft +was a remote and faded thing in the political life of the time; politics +was a choice of two sides in a game, and either side he found equally +unattractive. Since he had come down from Cambridge the Tariff Reform +people had gone far to capture the Conservative party. There was little +chance of a candidature for him without an adhesion to that. And +he could find nothing he could imagine himself working for in the +declarations of the Tariff Reform people. He distrusted them, he +disliked them. They took all the light and pride out of imperialism, +they reduced it to a shabby conspiracy of the British and their colonies +against foreign industrialism. They were violent for armaments and +hostile to education. They could give him no assurance of any scheme of +growth and unification, and no guarantees against the manifest dangers +of economic disturbance and political corruption a tariff involves. +Imperialism without noble imaginations, it seemed to him, was simply +nationalism with megalomania. It was swaggering, it was greed, it was +German; its enthusiasm was forced, its nobility a vulgar lie. No. And +when he turned to the opposite party he found little that was more +attractive. They were prepared, it seemed, if they came into office, to +pull the legislature of the British Isles to pieces in obedience to the +Irish demand for Home Rule, and they were totally unprepared with any +scheme for doing this that had even a chance of success. In the twenty +years that had elapsed since Gladstone's hasty and disastrous essay in +political surgery they had studied nothing, learnt nothing, produced no +ideas whatever in the matter. They had not had the time. They had just +negotiated, like the mere politicians they were, for the Nationalist +vote. They seemed to hope that by a marvel God would pacify Ulster. Lord +Dunraven, Plunkett, were voices crying in the wilderness. The sides in +the party game would as soon have heeded a poet.... But unless Benham +was prepared to subscribe either to Home Rule or Tariff Reform there was +no way whatever open to him into public life. He had had some decisive +conversations. He had no illusions left upon that score.... + +Here was the real barrier that had kept him inactive for ten months. +Here was the problem he had to solve. This was how he had been left +out of active things, a prey to distractions, excitements, idle +temptations--and Mrs. Skelmersdale. + +Running away to shoot big game or explore wildernesses was no remedy. +That was just running away. Aristocrats do not run away. What of his +debt to those men down there in the quarry? What of his debt to the +unseen men in the mines away in the north? What of his debt to the +stokers on the liners, and to the clerks in the city? He reiterated the +cardinal article of his creed: The aristocrat is a privileged man in +order that he may be a public and political man. + +But how is one to be a political man when one is not in politics? + +Benham frowned at the Weald. His ideas were running thin. + +He might hammer at politics from the outside. And then again how? He +would make a list of all the things that he might do. For example he +might write. He rested one hand on his knee and lifted one finger and +regarded it. COULD he write? There were one or two men who ran papers +and seemed to have a sort of independent influence. Strachey, for +example, with his SPECTATOR; Maxse, with his NATIONAL REVIEW. But they +were grown up, they had formed their ideas. He had to learn first. + +He lifted a second finger. How to learn? For it was learning that he had +to do. + +When one comes down from Oxford or Cambridge one falls into the mistake +of thinking that learning is over and action must begin. But until one +perceives clearly just where one stands action is impossible. + +How is one with no experience of affairs to get an experience of affairs +when the door of affairs is closed to one by one's own convictions? +Outside of affairs how can one escape being flimsy? How can one escape +becoming merely an intellectual like those wordy Fabians, those writers, +poseurs, and sham publicists whose wrangles he had attended? And, +moreover, there is danger in the leisure of your intellectual. One +cannot be always reading and thinking and discussing and inquiring.... +WOULD IT NOT BE BETTER AFTER ALL TO MAKE A CONCESSION, SWALLOW HOME RULE +OR TARIFF REFORM, AND SO AT LEAST GET HIS HANDS ON THINGS? + +And then in a little while the party conflict would swallow him up? + +Still it would engage him, it would hold him. If, perhaps, he did not +let it swallow him up. If he worked with an eye open for opportunities +of self-assertion.... + +The party game had not altogether swallowed “Mr. Arthur.”... + +But every one is not a Balfour.... + +He reflected profoundly. On his left knee his left hand rested with +two fingers held up. By some rapid mental alchemy these fingers had now +become Home Rule and Tariff Reform. His right hand which had hitherto +taken no part in the controversy, had raised its index finger by +imperceptible degrees. It had been raised almost subconsciously. And by +still obscurer processes this finger had become Mrs. Skelmersdale. He +recognized her sudden reappearance above the threshold of consciousness +with mild surprise. He had almost forgotten her share in these problems. +He had supposed her dismissed to an entirely subordinate position.... + +Then he perceived that the workmen in the chalk pit far below had +knocked off and were engaged upon their midday meal. He understood why +his mind was no longer moving forward with any alacrity. + +Food? + +The question where he should eat arose abruptly and dismissed all other +problems from his mind. He unfolded a map. Here must be the chalk pit, +here was Dorking. That village was Brockham Green. Should he go down to +Dorking or this way over Box Hill to the little inn at Burford Bridge. +He would try the latter. + + + +14 + + +The April sunset found our young man talking to himself for greater +emphasis, and wandering along a turfy cart-track through a wilderness +mysteriously planted with great bushes of rhododendra on the Downs above +Shere. He had eaten a belated lunch at Burford Bridge, he had got some +tea at a little inn near a church with a splendid yew tree, and for the +rest of the time he had wandered and thought. He had travelled perhaps a +dozen or fifteen miles, and a good way from his first meditations above +the Dorking chalk pit. + +He had recovered long ago from that remarkable conception of an active +if dishonest political career as a means of escaping Mrs. Skelmersdale +and all that Mrs. Skelmersdale symbolized. That would be just louting +from one bad thing to another. He had to settle Mrs. Skelmersdale clean +and right, and he had to do as exquisitely right in politics as he could +devise. If the public life of the country had got itself into a stupid +antagonism of two undesirable things, the only course for a sane man of +honour was to stand out from the parties and try and get them back to +sound issues again. There must be endless people of a mind with himself +in this matter. And even if there were not, if he was the only man in +the world, he still had to follow his lights and do the right. And his +business was to find out the right.... + +He came back from these imaginative excursions into contemporary +politics with one idea confirmed in his mind, an idea that had been +indeed already in his mind during his Cambridge days. This was the +idea of working out for himself, thoroughly and completely, a political +scheme, a theory of his work and duty in the world, a plan of the +world's future that should give a rule for his life. The Research +Magnificent was emerging. It was an alarmingly vast proposal, but he +could see no alternative but submission, a plebeian's submission to the +currents of life about him. + +Little pictures began to flit before his imagination of the way in which +he might build up this tremendous inquiry. He would begin by hunting up +people, everybody who seemed to have ideas and promise ideas he would +get at. He would travel far--and exhaustively. He would, so soon as +the ideas seemed to indicate it, hunt out facts. He would learn how the +world was governed. He would learn how it did its thinking. He would +live sparingly. (“Not TOO sparingly,” something interpolated.) He would +work ten or twelve hours a day. Such a course of investigation must +pass almost of its own accord into action and realization. He need not +trouble now how it would bring him into politics. Inevitably somewhere +it would bring him into politics. And he would travel. Almost at once +he would travel. It is the manifest duty of every young aristocrat to +travel. Here he was, ruling India. At any rate, passively, through the +mere fact of being English, he was ruling India. And he knew nothing of +India. He knew nothing indeed of Asia. So soon as he returned to London +his preparations for this travel must begin, he must plot out the men to +whom he would go, and so contrive that also he would go round the world. +Perhaps he would get Lionel Maxim to go with him. Or if Maxim could not +come, then possibly Prothero. Some one surely could be found, some one +thinking and talking of statecraft and the larger idea of life. All the +world is not swallowed up in every day.... + + + +15 + + +His mind shifted very suddenly from these large proposals to an entirely +different theme. These mental landslips are not unusual when men are +thinking hard and wandering. He found himself holding a trial upon +himself for Presumptuousness, for setting himself up against the wisdom +of the ages, and the decisions of all the established men in the world, +for being in short a Presumptuous Sort of Ass. He was judge and jury +and prosecutor, but rather inexplicably the defence was conducted in an +irregular and undignified way by some inferior stratum of his being. + +At first the defence contented itself with arguments that did at least +aim to rebut the indictment. The decisions of all the established men +in the world were notoriously in conflict. However great was the gross +wisdom of the ages the net wisdom was remarkably small. Was it after all +so very immodest to believe that the Liberals were right in what they +said about Tariff Reform, and the Tories right in their criticism of +Home Rule? + +And then suddenly the defence threw aside its mask and insisted that +Benham had to take this presumptuous line because there was no other +tolerable line possible for him. + +“Better die with the Excelsior chap up the mountains,” the defence +interjected. + +Than what? + +Consider the quality Benham had already betrayed. He was manifestly +incapable of a decent modest mediocre existence. Already he had ceased +to be--if one may use so fine a word for genteel abstinence--virtuous. +He didn't ride well, he hadn't good hands, and he hadn't good hands for +life. He must go hard and harsh, high or low. He was a man who needed +BITE in his life. He was exceptionally capable of boredom. He had been +bored by London. Social occasions irritated him, several times he had +come near to gross incivilities, art annoyed him, sport was an effort, +wholesome perhaps, but unattractive, music he loved, but it excited him. +The defendant broke the sunset calm by uttering amazing and improper +phrases. + +“I can't smug about in a state of falsified righteousness like these +Crampton chaps. + +“I shall roll in women. I shall rollick in women. If, that is, I stay in +London with nothing more to do than I have had this year past. + +“I've been sliding fast to it.... + +“NO! I'M DAMNED IF I DO!...” + + + +16 + + +For some time he had been bothered by a sense of something, something +else, awaiting his attention. Now it came swimming up into his +consciousness. He had forgotten. He was, of course, going to sleep out +under the stars. + +He had settled that overnight, that was why he had this cloak in his +rucksack, but he had settled none of the details. Now he must find some +place where he could lie down. Here, perhaps, in this strange forgotten +wilderness of rhododendra. + +He turned off from the track and wandered among the bushes. One might +lie down anywhere here. But not yet; it was as yet barely twilight. He +consulted his watch. HALF-PAST SEVEN. + +Nearly dinner-time.... + +No doubt Christian during the earlier stages of his pilgrimage noticed +the recurrence of the old familiar hours of his life of emptiness +and vanity. Or rather of vanity--simply. Why drag in the thought of +emptiness just at this point?... + +It was very early to go to bed. + +He might perhaps sit and think for a time. Here for example was a mossy +bank, a seat, and presently a bed. So far there were only three stars +visible but more would come. He dropped into a reclining attitude. DAMP! + +When one thinks of sleeping out under the stars one is apt to forget the +dew. + +He spread his Swiss cloak out on the soft thick carpeting of herbs +and moss, and arranged his knapsack as a pillow. Here he would lie and +recapitulate the thoughts of the day. (That squealing might be a +young fox.) At the club at present men would be sitting about holding +themselves back from dinner. Excellent the clear soup always was at the +club! Then perhaps a Chateaubriand. That--what was that? Soft and large +and quite near and noiseless. An owl! + +The damp feeling was coming through his cloak. And this April night air +had a knife edge. Early ice coming down the Atlantic perhaps. It was +wonderful to be here on the top of the round world and feel the icebergs +away there. Or did this wind come from Russia? He wasn't quite clear +just how he was oriented, he had turned about so much. Which was east? +Anyhow it was an extremely cold wind. + +What had he been thinking? Suppose after all that ending with Mrs. +Skelmersdale was simply a beginning. So far he had never looked sex in +the face.... + +He sat up and sneezed violently. + +It would be ridiculous to start out seeking the clue to one's life and +be driven home by rheumatic fever. One should not therefore incur the +risk of rheumatic fever. + +Something squealed in the bushes. + +It was impossible to collect one's thoughts in this place. He stood up. +The night was going to be bitterly cold, savagely, cruelly cold.... + +No. There was no thinking to be done here, no thinking at all. He would +go on along the track and presently he would strike a road and so come +to an inn. One can solve no problems when one is engaged in a struggle +with the elements. The thing to do now was to find that track again.... + +It took Benham two hours of stumbling and walking, with a little fence +climbing and some barbed wire thrown in, before he got down into Shere +to the shelter of a friendly little inn. And then he negotiated a +satisfying meal, with beef-steak as its central fact, and stipulated for +a fire in his bedroom. + +The landlord was a pleasant-faced man; he attended to Benham himself and +displayed a fine sense of comfort. He could produce wine, a half-bottle +of Australian hock, Big Tree brand No. 8, a virile wine, he thought of +sardines to precede the meal, he provided a substantial Welsh rarebit +by way of a savoury, he did not mind in the least that it was nearly ten +o'clock. He ended by suggesting coffee. “And a liqueur?” + +Benham had some Benedictine! + +One could not slight such sympathetic helpfulness. The Benedictine was +genuine. And then came the coffee. + +The cup of coffee was generously conceived and honestly made. + +A night of clear melancholy ensued.... + + + +17 + + +Hitherto Benham had not faced in any detail the problem of how to break +with Mrs. Skelmersdale. Now he faced it pessimistically. She would, he +knew, be difficult to break with. (He ought never to have gone there +to lunch.) There would be something ridiculous in breaking off. In all +sorts of ways she might resist. And face to face with her he might +find himself a man divided against himself. That opened preposterous +possibilities. On the other hand it was out of the question to do the +business by letter. A letter hits too hard; it lies too heavy on the +wound it has made. And in money matters he could be generous. He must be +generous. At least financial worries need not complicate her distresses +of desertion. But to suggest such generosities on paper, in cold ink, +would be outrageous. And, in brief--he ought not to have gone there +to lunch. After that he began composing letters at a great rate. +Delicate--explanatory. Was it on the whole best to be explanatory?... + +It was going to be a tremendous job, this breaking with her. And it had +begun so easily.... + +There was, he remembered with amazing vividness, a little hollow he had +found under her ear, and how when he kissed her there it always made her +forget her worries and ethical problems for a time and turn to him.... + +“No,” he said grimly, “it must end,” and rolled over and stared at the +black.... + +Like an insidious pedlar, that old rascal whom young literary gentlemen +call the Great God Pan, began to spread his wares in the young man's +memory.... + +After long and feverish wanderings of the mind, and some talking to +himself and walking about the room, he did at last get a little away +from Mrs. Skelmersdale. + +He perceived that when he came to tell his mother about this journey +around the world there would be great difficulties. She would object +very strongly, and if that did not do then she would become extremely +abusive, compare him to his father, cry bitterly, and banish him +suddenly and heartbrokenly from her presence for ever. She had done that +twice already--once about going to the opera instead of listening to +a lecture on Indian ethnology and once about a week-end in Kent.... He +hated hurting his mother, and he was beginning to know now how easily +she was hurt. It is an abominable thing to hurt one's mother--whether +one has a justification or whether one hasn't. + +Recoiling from this, he was at once resumed by Mrs. Skelmersdale. Who +had in fact an effect of really never having been out of the room. But +now he became penitent about her. His penitence expanded until it was on +a nightmare scale. At last it blotted out the heavens. He felt like one +of those unfortunate victims of religious mania who are convinced they +have committed the Sin against the Holy Ghost. (Why had he gone there +to lunch? That was the key to it. WHY had he gone there to lunch?)... He +began to have remorse for everything, for everything he had ever done, +for everything he had ever not done, for everything in the world. In a +moment of lucidity he even had remorse for drinking that stout honest +cup of black coffee.... + +And so on and so on and so on.... + +When daylight came it found Benham still wide awake. Things crept +mournfully out of the darkness into a reproachful clearness. The sound +of birds that had been so delightful on the yesterday was now no longer +agreeable. The thrushes, he thought, repeated themselves a great deal. + +He fell asleep as it seemed only a few minutes before the landlord, +accompanied by a great smell of frying bacon, came to call him. + + + +18 + + +The second day opened rather dully for Benham. There was not an idea +left in his head about anything in the world. It was--SOLID. He walked +through Bramley and Godalming and Witley and so came out upon the purple +waste of Hindhead. He strayed away from the road and found a sunny place +of turf amidst the heather and lay down and slept for an hour or so. He +arose refreshed. He got some food at the Huts Inn on the Hindhead crest +and went on across sunlit heathery wildernesses variegated by patches of +spruce and fir and silver birch. And then suddenly his mental inanition +was at an end and his thoughts were wide and brave again. He was +astonished that for a moment he could have forgotten that he was vowed +to the splendid life. + +“Continence by preoccupation;” he tried the phrase.... + +“A man must not give in to fear; neither must he give in to sex. It's +the same thing really. The misleading of instinct.” + +This set the key of his thought throughout the afternoon--until Amanda +happened to him. + + + + +CHAPTER THE THIRD ~~ AMANDA + + + +1 + + +Amanda happened to Benham very suddenly. + +From Haslemere he had gone on to further heaths and gorse beyond +Liphook, and thence he had wandered into a pretty district beset +with Hartings. He had found himself upon a sandy ridge looking very +beautifully into a sudden steep valley that he learnt was Harting +Coombe; he had been through a West Harting and a South Harting and read +finger-posts pointing to others of the clan; and in the evening, at +the foot of a steep hill where two roads met, he sat down to consider +whether he should go back and spend the night in one of the two +kindly-looking inns of the latter place or push on over the South Downs +towards the unknown luck of Singleton or Chichester. As he sat down two +big retrievers, black and brown, came headlong down the road. The black +carried a stick, the brown disputed and pursued. As they came abreast of +him the foremost a little relaxed his hold, the pursuer grabbed at +it, and in an instant the rivalry had flared to rage and a first-class +dogfight was in progress. + +Benham detested dog-fights. He stood up, pale and distressed. “Lie +down!” he cried. “Shut up, you brutes!” and was at a loss for further +action. + +Then it was Amanda leapt into his world, a light, tall figure of a girl, +fluttering a short petticoat. Hatless she was, brown, flushed, and her +dark hair tossing loose, and in a moment she had the snarling furious +dogs apart, each gripped firmly by its collar. Then with a wriggle +black was loose and had closed again. Inspired by the best traditions of +chivalry Benham came to her assistance. He was not expert with dogs. He +grasped the black dog under its ear. He was bitten in the wrist, rather +in excitement than malice, and with a certain excess of zeal he was +strangling the brute before you could count ten. + +Amanda seized the fallen stick and whacked the dog she held, reasonably +but effectively until its yelps satisfied her. “There!” she said +pitching her victim from her, and stood erect again. She surveyed the +proceedings of her helper for the first time. + +“You needn't,” she said, “choke Sultan anymore.” + +“Ugh!” she said, as though that was enough for Sultan. And peace was +restored. + +“I'm obliged to you. But--... I say! He didn't bite you, did he? Oh, +SULTAN!” + +Sultan tried to express his disgust at the affair. Rotten business. +When a fellow is fighting one can't be meticulous. And if people come +interfering. Still--SORRY! So Sultan by his code of eye and tail. + +“May I see?... Something ought to be done to this....” + +She took his wrist in her hand, and her cheek and eyelashes came within +a foot of his face. + +Some observant element in his composition guessed, and guessed quite +accurately, that she was nineteen.... + + + +2 + + +She had an eyebrow like a quick stroke of a camel's-hair brush, she +had a glowing face, half childish imp, half woman, she had honest hazel +eyes, a voice all music, a manifest decision of character. And he must +have this bite seen to at once. She lived not five minutes away. He must +come with her. + +She had an aunt who behaved like a mother and a mother who behaved like +a genteel visitor, and they both agreed with Amanda that although Mr. +Walter Long and his dreadful muzzles and everything did seem to have +stamped out rabies, yet you couldn't be too careful with a dog bite. A +dog bite might be injurious in all sorts of ways--particularly +Sultan's bite. He was, they had to confess, a dog without refinement, +a coarse-minded omnivorous dog. Both the elder ladies insisted upon +regarding Benham's wound as clear evidence of some gallant rescue of +Amanda from imminent danger--“she's always so RECKLESS with those dogs,” + as though Amanda was not manifestly capable of taking care of herself; +and when he had been Listerined and bandaged, they would have it that he +should join them at their supper-dinner, which was already prepared and +waiting. They treated him as if he were still an undergraduate, they +took his arrangements in hand as though he was a favourite nephew. He +must stay in Harting that night. Both the Ship and the Coach and Horses +were excellent inns, and over the Downs there would be nothing for miles +and miles.... + +The house was a little long house with a verandah and a garden in front +of it with flint-edged paths; the room in which they sat and ate was +long and low and equipped with pieces of misfitting good furniture, an +accidental-looking gilt tarnished mirror, and a sprinkling of old and +middle-aged books. Some one had lit a fire, which cracked and spurted +about cheerfully in a motherly fireplace, and a lamp and some candles +got lit. Mrs. Wilder, Amanda's aunt, a comfortable dark broad-browed +woman, directed things, and sat at the end of the table and placed +Benham on her right hand between herself and Amanda. Amanda's mother +remained undeveloped, a watchful little woman with at least an eyebrow +like her daughter's. Her name, it seemed, was Morris. No servant +appeared, but two cousins of a vague dark picturesqueness and with a +stamp of thirty upon them, the first young women Benham had ever seen +dressed in djibbahs, sat at the table or moved about and attended to the +simple needs of the service. The reconciled dogs were in the room and +shifted inquiring noses from one human being to another. + +Amanda's people were so easy and intelligent and friendly, and +Benham after his thirty hours of silence so freshly ready for human +association, that in a very little while he could have imagined he had +known and trusted this household for years. He had never met such people +before, and yet there was something about them that seemed familiar--and +then it occurred to him that something of their easy-going freedom was +to be found in Russian novels. A photographic enlargement of somebody +with a vegetarian expression of face and a special kind of slouch hat +gave the atmosphere a flavour of Socialism, and a press and tools and +stamps and pigments on an oak table in the corner suggested some such +socialistic art as bookbinding. They were clearly 'advanced' people. And +Amanda was tremendously important to them, she was their light, their +pride, their most living thing. They focussed on her. When he talked to +them all in general he talked to her in particular. He felt that some +introduction of himself was due to these welcoming people. He tried +to give it mixed with an itinerary and a sketch of his experiences. He +praised the heather country and Harting Coombe and the Hartings. He +told them that London had suddenly become intolerable--“In the spring +sunshine.” + +“You live in London?” said Mrs. Wilder. + +Yes. And he had wanted to think things out. In London one could do no +thinking-- + +“Here we do nothing else,” said Amanda. + +“Except dog-fights,” said the elder cousin. + +“I thought I would just wander and think and sleep in the open air. Have +you ever tried to sleep in the open air?” + +“In the summer we all do,” said the younger cousin. “Amanda makes us. We +go out on to the little lawn at the back.” + +“You see Amanda has some friends at Limpsfield. And there they all go +out and camp and sleep in the woods.” + +“Of course,” reflected Mrs. Wilder, “in April it must be different.” + +“It IS different,” said Benham with feeling; “the night comes five hours +too soon. And it comes wet.” He described his experiences and his flight +to Shere and the kindly landlord and the cup of coffee. “And after that +I thought with a vengeance.” + +“Do you write things?” asked Amanda abruptly, and it seemed to him with +a note of hope. + +“No. No, it was just a private puzzle. It was something I couldn't get +straight.” + +“And you have got it straight?” asked Amanda. + +“I think so.” + +“You were making up your mind about something?” + +“Amanda DEAR!” cried her mother. + +“Oh! I don't mind telling you,” said Benham. + +They seemed such unusual people that he was moved to unusual +confidences. They had that effect one gets at times with strangers +freshly met as though they were not really in the world. And there was +something about Amanda that made him want to explain himself to her +completely. + +“What I wanted to think about was what I should do with my life.” + +“Haven't you any WORK--?” asked the elder cousin. + +“None that I'm obliged to do.” + +“That's where a man has the advantage,” said Amanda with the tone of +profound reflection. “You can choose. And what are you going to do with +your life?” + +“Amanda,” her mother protested, “really you mustn't!” + +“I'm going round the world to think about it,” Benham told her. + +“I'd give my soul to travel,” said Amanda. + +She addressed her remark to the salad in front of her. + +“But have you no ties?” asked Mrs. Wilder. + +“None that hold me,” said Benham. “I'm one of those unfortunates who +needn't do anything at all. I'm independent. You see my riddles. East +and west and north and south, it's all my way for the taking. There's +not an indication.” + +“If I were you,” said Amanda, and reflected. Then she half turned +herself to him. “I should go first to India,” she said, “and I should +shoot, one, two, three, yes, three tigers. And then I would see +Farukhabad Sikri--I was reading in a book about it yesterday--where the +jungle grows in the palaces; and then I would go right up the Himalayas, +and then, then I would have a walking tour in Japan, and then I would +sail in a sailing ship down to Borneo and Java and set myself up as a +Ranee--... And then I would think what I would do next.” + +“All alone, Amanda?” asked Mrs. Wilder. + +“Only when I shoot tigers. You and mother should certainly come to +Japan.” + +“But Mr. Benham perhaps doesn't intend to shoot tigers, Amanda?” said +Amanda's mother. + +“Not at once. My way will be a little different. I think I shall go +first through Germany. And then down to Constantinople. And then I've +some idea of getting across Asia Minor and Persia to India. That would +take some time. One must ride.” + +“Asia Minor ought to be fun,” said Amanda. “But I should prefer India +because of the tigers. It would be so jolly to begin with the tigers +right away.” + +“It is the towns and governments and peoples I want to see rather than +tigers,” said Benham. “Tigers if they are in the programme. But I want +to find out about--other things.” + +“Don't you think there's something to be found out at home?” said the +elder cousin, blushing very brightly and speaking with the effort of one +who speaks for conscience' sake. + +“Betty's a Socialist,” Amanda said to Benham with a suspicion of +apology. + +“Well, we're all rather that,” Mrs. Wilder protested. + +“If you are free, if you are independent, then don't you owe something +to the workers?” Betty went on, getting graver and redder with each +word. + +“It's just because of that,” said Benham, “that I am going round the +world.” + + + +3 + + +He was as free with these odd people as if he had been talking to +Prothero. They were--alert. And he had been alone and silent and full of +thinking for two clear days. He tried to explain why he found Socialism +at once obvious and inadequate.... + +Presently the supper things got themselves put away and the talk moved +into a smaller room with several armchairs and a fire. Mrs. Wilder and +the cousins and Amanda each smoked a cigarette as if it were symbolical, +and they were joined by a grave grey-bearded man with a hyphenated name +and slightly Socratic manner, dressed in a very blue linen shirt +and collar, a very woolly mustard-coloured suit and loose tie, and +manifestly devoted to one of those branches of exemplary domestic +decoration that grow upon Socialist soil in England. He joined Betty in +the opinion that the duty of a free and wealthy young man was to remain +in England and give himself to democratic Socialism and the abolition +of “profiteering.” “Consider that chair,” he said. But Benham had little +feeling for the craftsmanship of chairs. + +Under cross-examination Mr. Rathbone-Sanders became entangled and +prophetic. It was evident he had never thought out his “democratic,” he +had rested in some vague tangle of idealism from which Benham now set +himself with the zeal of a specialist to rout him. Such an argument +sprang up as one meets with rarely beyond the happy undergraduate's +range. Everybody lived in the discussion, even Amanda's mother listened +visibly. Betty said she herself was certainly democratic and Mrs. Wilder +had always thought herself to be so, and outside the circle round the +fire Amanda hovered impatiently, not quite sure of her side as yet, but +eager to come down with emphasis at the first flash of intimation. + +She came down vehemently on Benham's. + +And being a very clear-cutting personality with an instinct for the +material rendering of things, she also came and sat beside him on the +little square-cornered sofa. + +“Of course, Mr. Rathbone-Sanders,” she said, “of course the world must +belong to the people who dare. Of course people aren't all alike, and +dull people, as Mr. Benham says, and spiteful people, and narrow people +have no right to any voice at all in things....” + + + +4 + + +In saying this she did but echo Benham's very words, and all she +said and did that evening was in quick response to Benham's earnest +expression of his views. She found Benham a delightful novelty. She +liked to argue because there was no other talk so lively, and she had +perhaps a lurking intellectual grudge against Mr. Rathbone-Sanders +that made her welcome an ally. Everything from her that night that even +verges upon the notable has been told, and yet it sufficed, together +with something in the clear, long line of her limbs, in her voice, +in her general physical quality, to convince Benham that she was the +freest, finest, bravest spirit that he had ever encountered. + +In the papers he left behind him was to be found his perplexed +endeavours to explain this mental leap, that after all his efforts still +remained unexplained. He had been vividly impressed by the decision and +courage of her treatment of the dogs; it was just the sort of thing +he could not do. And there was a certain contagiousness in the petting +admiration with which her family treated her. But she was young and +healthy and so was he, and in a second mystery lies the key of the +first. He had fallen in love with her, and that being so whatever he +needed that instantly she was. He needed a companion, clean and brave +and understanding.... + +In his bed in the Ship that night he thought of nothing but her before +he went to sleep, and when next morning he walked on his way over +the South Downs to Chichester his mind was full of her image and of a +hundred pleasant things about her. In his confessions he wrote, “I felt +there was a sword in her spirit. I felt she was as clean as the wind.” + +Love is the most chastening of powers, and he did not even remember now +that two days before he had told the wind and the twilight that he would +certainly “roll and rollick in women” unless there was work for him to +do. She had a peculiarly swift and easy stride that went with him in his +thoughts along the turf by the wayside halfway and more to Chichester. +He thought always of the two of them as being side by side. His +imagination became childishly romantic. The open down about him with its +scrub of thorn and yew became the wilderness of the world, and through +it they went--in armour, weightless armour--and they wore long swords. +There was a breeze blowing and larks were singing and something, +something dark and tortuous dashed suddenly in headlong flight from +before their feet. It was an ethical problem such as those Mrs. +Skelmersdale nursed in her bosom. But at the sight of Amanda it had +straightened out--and fled.... + +And interweaving with such imaginings, he was some day to record, there +were others. She had brought back to his memory the fancies that had +been aroused in his first reading of Plato's REPUBLIC; she made him +think of those women Guardians, who were the friends and mates of men. +He wanted now to re-read that book and the LAWS. He could not remember +if the Guardians were done in the LAWS as well as in the REPUBLIC. He +wished he had both these books in his rucksack, but as he had not, he +decided he would hunt for them in Chichester. When would he see Amanda +again? He would ask his mother to make the acquaintance of these very +interesting people, but as they did not come to London very much it +might be some time before he had a chance of seeing her again. +And, besides, he was going to America and India. The prospect of an +exploration of the world was still noble and attractive; but he realized +it would stand very much in the way of his seeing more of Amanda. Would +it be a startling and unforgivable thing if presently he began to write +to her? Girls of that age and spirit living in out-of-the-way villages +have been known to marry.... + +Marriage didn't at this stage strike Benham as an agreeable aspect of +Amanda's possibilities; it was an inconvenience; his mind was running +in the direction of pedestrian tours in armour of no particular weight, +amidst scenery of a romantic wildness.... + +When he had gone to the house and taken his leave that morning it had +seemed quite in the vein of the establishment that he should be received +by Amanda alone and taken up the long garden before anybody else +appeared, to see the daffodils and the early apple-trees in blossom and +the pear-trees white and delicious. + +Then he had taken his leave of them all and made his social tentatives. +Did they ever come to London? When they did they must let his people +know. He would so like them to know his mother, Lady Marayne. And so on +with much gratitude. + +Amanda had said that she and the dogs would come with him up the hill, +she had said it exactly as a boy might have said it, she had brought him +up to the corner of Up Park and had sat down there on a heap of stones +and watched him until he was out of sight, waving to him when he looked +back. “Come back again,” she had cried. + +In Chichester he found a little green-bound REPUBLIC in a second-hand +book-shop near the Cathedral, but there was no copy of the LAWS to +be found in the place. Then he was taken with the brilliant idea of +sleeping the night in Chichester and going back next day via Harting to +Petersfield station and London. He carried out this scheme and got to +South Harting neatly about four o'clock in the afternoon. He found +Mrs. Wilder and Mrs. Morris and Amanda and the dogs entertaining Mr. +Rathbone-Sanders at tea, and they all seemed a little surprised, and, +except Mr. Rathbone-Sanders, they all seemed pleased to see him again +so soon. His explanation of why he hadn't gone back to London from +Chichester struck him as a little unconvincing in the cold light of Mr. +Rathbone-Sanders' eye. But Amanda was manifestly excited by his return, +and he told them his impressions of Chichester and described the +entertainment of the evening guest at a country inn and suddenly +produced his copy of the REPUBLIC. “I found this in a book-shop,” he +said, “and I brought it for you, because it describes one of the best +dreams of aristocracy there has ever been dreamt.” + +At first she praised it as a pretty book in the dearest little binding, +and then realized that there were deeper implications, and became +grave and said she would read it through and through, she loved such +speculative reading. + +She came to the door with the others and stayed at the door after they +had gone in again. When he looked back at the corner of the road to +Petersfield she was still at the door and waved farewell to him. + +He only saw a light slender figure, but when she came back into the +sitting-room Mr. Rathbone-Sanders noted the faint flush in her cheek and +an unwonted abstraction in her eye. + +And in the evening she tucked her feet up in the armchair by the lamp +and read the REPUBLIC very intently and very thoughtfully, occasionally +turning over a page. + + + +5 + + +When Benham got back to London he experienced an unwonted desire to +perform his social obligations to the utmost. + +So soon as he had had some dinner at his club he wrote his South Harting +friends a most agreeable letter of thanks for their kindness to him. In +a little while he hoped he should see them again. His mother, too, was +most desirous to meet them.... That done, he went on to his flat and to +various aspects of life for which he was quite unprepared. + +But here we may note that Amanda answered him. Her reply came some four +days later. It was written in a square schoolgirl hand, it covered +three sheets of notepaper, and it was a very intelligent essay upon the +REPUBLIC of Plato. “Of course,” she wrote, “the Guardians are inhuman, +but it was a glorious sort of inhumanity. They had a spirit--like sharp +knives cutting through life.” + +It was her best bit of phrasing and it pleased Benham very much. +But, indeed, it was not her own phrasing, she had culled it from a +disquisition into which she had led Mr. Rathbone-Sanders, and she had +sent it to Benham as she might have sent him a flower. + + + +6 + + +Benham re-entered the flat from which he had fled so precipitately with +three very definite plans in his mind. The first was to set out upon +his grand tour of the world with as little delay as possible, to shut +up this Finacue Street establishment for a long time, and get rid of +the soul-destroying perfections of Merkle. The second was to end his +ill-advised intimacy with little Mrs. Skelmersdale as generously and +cheerfully as possible. The third was to bring Lady Marayne into social +relations with the Wilder and Morris MENAGE at South Harting. It did not +strike him that there was any incompatibility among these projects or +any insurmountable difficulty in any of them until he was back in his +flat. + +The accumulation of letters, packages and telephone memoranda upon his +desk included a number of notes and slips to remind him that both Mrs. +Skelmersdale and his mother were ladies of some determination. Even as +he stood turning over the pile of documents the mechanical vehemence of +the telephone filled him with a restored sense of the adverse will in +things. “Yes, mam,” he heard Merkle's voice, “yes, mam. I will tell +him, mam. Will you keep possession, mam.” And then in the doorway of the +study, “Mrs. Skelmersdale, sir. Upon the telephone, sir.” + +Benham reflected with various notes in his hand. Then he went to the +telephone. + +“You Wicked Boy, where have you been hiding?” + +“I've been away. I may have to go away again.” + +“Not before you have seen me. Come round and tell me all about it.” + +Benham lied about an engagement. + +“Then to-morrow in the morning.”... Impossible. + +“In the afternoon. You don't WANT to see me.” Benham did want to see +her. + +“Come round and have a jolly little evening to-morrow night. I've got +some more of that harpsichord music. And I'm dying to see you. Don't you +understand?” + +Further lies. “Look here,” said Benham, “can you come and have a talk +in Kensington Gardens? You know the place, near that Chinese garden. +Paddington Gate....” + +The lady's voice fell to flatness. She agreed. “But why not come to see +me HERE?” she asked. + +Benham hung up the receiver abruptly. + +He walked slowly back to his study. “Phew!” he whispered to himself. +It was like hitting her in the face. He didn't want to be a brute, +but short of being a brute there was no way out for him from this +entanglement. Why, oh! why the devil had he gone there to lunch?... + +He resumed his examination of the waiting letters with a ruffled mind. +The most urgent thing about them was the clear evidence of gathering +anger on the part of his mother. He had missed a lunch party at Sir +Godfrey's on Tuesday and a dinner engagement at Philip Magnet's, quite +an important dinner in its way, with various promising young Liberals, +on Wednesday evening. And she was furious at “this stupid mystery. +Of course you're bound to be found out, and of course there will be a +scandal.”... He perceived that this last note was written on his own +paper. “Merkle!” he cried sharply. + +“Yessir!” + +Merkle had been just outside, on call. + +“Did my mother write any of these notes here?” he asked. + +“Two, sir. Her ladyship was round here three times, sir.” + +“Did she see all these letters?” + +“Not the telephone calls, sir. I 'ad put them on one side. But.... It's +a little thing, sir.” + +He paused and came a step nearer. “You see, sir,” he explained with the +faintest flavour of the confidential softening his mechanical respect, +“yesterday, when 'er ladyship was 'ere, sir, some one rang up on the +telephone--” + +“But you, Merkle--” + +“Exactly, sir. But 'er ladyship said 'I'LL go to that, Merkle,' and just +for a moment I couldn't exactly think 'ow I could manage it, sir, and +there 'er ladyship was, at the telephone. What passed, sir, I couldn't +'ear. I 'eard her say, 'Any message?' And I FANCY, sir, I 'eard 'er say, +'I'm the 'ousemaid,' but that, sir, I think must have been a mistake, +sir.” + +“Must have been,” said Benham. “Certainly--must have been. And the call +you think came from--?” + +“There again, sir, I'm quite in the dark. But of course, sir, it's +usually Mrs. Skelmersdale, sir. Just about her time in the afternoon. On +an average, sir....” + + + +7 + + +“I went out of London to think about my life.” + +It was manifest that Lady Marayne did not believe him. + +“Alone?” she asked. + +“Of course alone.” + +“STUFF!” said Lady Marayne. + +She had taken him into her own little sitting-room, she had thrown aside +gloves and fan and theatre wrap, curled herself comfortably into the +abundantly cushioned corner by the fire, and proceeded to a mixture of +cross-examination and tirade that he found it difficult to make head +against. She was vibrating between distressed solicitude and resentful +anger. She was infuriated at his going away and deeply concerned at +what could have taken him away. “I was worried,” he said. “London is too +crowded to think in. I wanted to get myself alone.” + +“And there I was while you were getting yourself alone, as you call it, +wearing my poor little brains out to think of some story to tell people. +I had to stuff them up you had a sprained knee at Chexington, and for +all I knew any of them might have been seeing you that morning. Besides +what has a boy like you to worry about? It's all nonsense, Poff.” + +She awaited his explanations. Benham looked for a moment like his +father. + +“I'm not getting on, mother,” he said. “I'm scattering myself. I'm +getting no grip. I want to get a better hold upon life, or else I do not +see what is to keep me from going to pieces--and wasting existence. It's +rather difficult sometimes to tell what one thinks and feels--” + +She had not really listened to him. + +“Who is that woman,” she interrupted suddenly, “Mrs. Fly-by-Night, or +some such name, who rings you up on the telephone?” + +Benham hesitated, blushed, and regretted it. + +“Mrs. Skelmersdale,” he said after a little pause. + +“It's all the same. Who is she?” + +“She's a woman I met at a studio somewhere, and I went with her to one +of those Dolmetsch concerts.” + +He stopped. + +Lady Marayne considered him in silence for a little while. “All men,” + she said at last, “are alike. Husbands, sons and brothers, they are all +alike. Sons! One expects them to be different. They aren't different. +Why should they be? I suppose I ought to be shocked, Poff. But I'm not. +She seems to be very fond of you.” + +“She's--she's very good--in her way. She's had a difficult life....” + +“You can't leave a man about for a moment,” Lady Marayne reflected. +“Poff, I wish you'd fetch me a glass of water.” + +When he returned she was looking very fixedly into the fire. “Put it +down,” she said, “anywhere. Poff! is this Mrs. Helter-Skelter a discreet +sort of woman? Do you like her?” She asked a few additional particulars +and Benham made his grudging admission of facts. “What I still don't +understand, Poff, is why you have been away.” + +“I went away,” said Benham, “because I want to clear things up.” + +“But why? Is there some one else?” + +“No.” + +“You went alone? All the time?” + +“I've told you I went alone. Do you think I tell you lies, mother?” + +“Everybody tells lies somehow,” said Lady Marayne. “Easy lies or stiff +ones. Don't FLOURISH, Poff. Don't start saying things like a moral +windmill in a whirlwind. It's all a muddle. I suppose every one in +London is getting in or out of these entanglements--or something of +the sort. And this seems a comparatively slight one. I wish it hadn't +happened. They do happen.” + +An expression of perplexity came into her face. She looked at him. “Why +do you want to throw her over?” + +“I WANT to throw her over,” said Benham. + +He stood up and went to the hearthrug, and his mother reflected that +this was exactly what all men did at just this phase of a discussion. +Then things ceased to be sensible. + +From overhead he said to her: “I want to get away from this +complication, this servitude. I want to do some--some work. I want to +get my mind clear and my hands clear. I want to study government and the +big business of the world.” + +“And she's in the way?” + +He assented. + +“You men!” said Lady Marayne after a little pause. “What queer beasts +you are! Here is a woman who is kind to you. She's fond of you. I could +tell she's fond of you directly I heard her. And you amuse yourself with +her. And then it's Gobble, Gobble, Gobble, Great Work, Hands Clear, Big +Business of the World. Why couldn't you think of that before, Poff? Why +did you begin with her?” + +“It was unexpected....” + +“STUFF!” said Lady Marayne for a second time. “Well,” she said, “well. +Your Mrs. Fly-by-Night,--oh it doesn't matter!--whatever she calls +herself, must look after herself. I can't do anything for her. I'm not +supposed even to know about her. I daresay she'll find her consolations. +I suppose you want to go out of London and get away from it all. I can +help you there, perhaps. I'm tired of London too. It's been a tiresome +season. Oh! tiresome and disappointing! I want to go over to Ireland and +travel about a little. The Pothercareys want us to come. They've asked +us twice....” + +Benham braced himself to face fresh difficulties. It was amazing how +different the world could look from his mother's little parlour and from +the crest of the North Downs. + +“But I want to start round the world,” he cried with a note of acute +distress. “I want to go to Egypt and India and see what is happening in +the East, all this wonderful waking up of the East, I know nothing of +the way the world is going--...” + +“India!” cried Lady Marayne. “The East. Poff, what is the MATTER with +you? Has something happened--something else? Have you been having a love +affair?--a REAL love affair?” + +“Oh, DAMN love affairs!” cried Benham. “Mother!--I'm sorry, mother! But +don't you see there's other things in the world for a man than having +a good time and making love. I'm for something else than that. You've +given me the splendidest time--...” + +“I see,” cried Lady Marayne, “I see. I've bored you. I might have known +I should have bored you.” + +“You've NOT bored me!” cried Benham. + +He threw himself on the rug at her feet. “Oh, mother!” he said, “little, +dear, gallant mother, don't make life too hard for me. I've got to do my +job, I've got to find my job.” + +“I've bored you,” she wept. + +Suddenly she was weeping with all the unconcealed distressing grief of +a disappointed child. She put her pretty be-ringed little hands in front +of her face and recited the accumulation of her woes. + +“I've done all I can for you, planned for you, given all my time for you +and I've BORED you.” + +“Mother!” + +“Don't come near me, Poff! Don't TOUCH me! All my plans. All my +ambitions. Friends--every one. You don't know all I've given up for +you....” + +He had never seen his mother weep before. Her self-abandonment amazed +him. Her words were distorted by her tears. It was the most terrible and +distressing of crises.... + +“Go away from me! How can you help me? All I've done has been a failure! +Failure! Failure!” + + + +8 + + +That night the silences of Finacue Street heard Benham's voice again. “I +must do my job,” he was repeating, “I must do my job. Anyhow....” + +And then after a long pause, like a watchword and just a little +unsurely: “Aristocracy....” + +The next day his resolution had to bear the brunt of a second ordeal. +Mrs. Skelmersdale behaved beautifully and this made everything +tormentingly touching and difficult. She convinced him she was really +in love with him, and indeed if he could have seen his freshness and +simplicity through her experienced eyes he would have known there was +sound reason why she should have found him exceptional. And when his +clumsy hints of compensation could no longer be ignored she treated him +with a soft indignation, a tender resentment, that left him soft and +tender. She looked at him with pained eyes and a quiver of the lips. +What did he think she was? And then a little less credibly, did he think +she would have given herself to him if she hadn't been in love with him? +Perhaps that was not altogether true, but at any rate it was altogether +true to her when she said it, and it was manifest that she did not for +a moment intend him to have the cheap consolation of giving her money. +But, and that seemed odd to Benham, she would not believe, just as Lady +Marayne would not believe, that there was not some other woman in the +case. He assured her and she seemed reassured, and then presently she +was back at exactly the same question. Would no woman ever understand +the call of Asia, the pride of duty, the desire for the world? + +One sort of woman perhaps.... + +It was odd that for the first time now, in the sunshine of Kensington +Gardens, he saw the little gossamer lines that tell that thirty years +and more have passed over a face, a little wrinkling of the eyelids, a +little hardening of the mouth. How slight it is, how invisible it +has been, how suddenly it appears! And the sunshine of the warm April +afternoon, heightened it may be by her determined unmercenary pose, +betrayed too the faintest hint of shabbiness in her dress. He had never +noticed these shadows upon her or her setting before and their effect +was to fill him with a strange regretful tenderness.... + +Perhaps men only begin to love when they cease to be dazzled and admire. +He had thought she might reproach him, he had felt and feared she might +set herself to stir his senses, and both these expectations had been +unjust to her he saw, now that he saw her beside him, a brave, rather +ill-advised and unlucky little struggler, stung and shamed. He forgot +the particulars of that first lunch of theirs together and he remembered +his mother's second contemptuous “STUFF!” + +Indeed he knew now it had not been unexpected. Why hadn't he left this +little sensitive soul and this little sensitive body alone? And since +he hadn't done so, what right had he now to back out of their common +adventure? He felt a sudden wild impulse to marry Mrs. Skelmersdale, in +a mood between remorse and love and self-immolation, and then a sunlit +young woman with a leaping stride in her paces, passed across his +heavens, pointing to Asia and Utopia and forbidding even another thought +of the banns.... + +“You will kiss me good-bye, dear, won't you?” said Mrs. Skelmersdale, +brimming over. “You will do that.” + +He couldn't keep his arm from her little shoulders. And as their lips +touched he suddenly found himself weeping also.... + +His spirit went limping from that interview. She chose to stay behind +in her chair and think, she said, and each time he turned back she was +sitting in the same attitude looking at him as he receded, and she had +one hand on the chair back and her arm drawn up to it. The third time he +waved his hat clumsily, and she started and then answered with her hand. +Then the trees hid her.... + +This sex business was a damnable business. If only because it made one +hurt women.... + +He had trampled on Mrs. Skelmersdale, he had hurt and disappointed +his mother. Was he a brute? Was he a cold-blooded prig? What was this +aristocracy? Was his belief anything more than a theory? Was he only +dreaming of a debt to the men in the quarry, to the miners, to the men +in the stokeholes, to the drudges on the fields? And while he dreamt he +wounded and distressed real living creatures in the sleep-walk of his +dreaming.... + +So long as he stuck to his dream he must at any rate set his face +absolutely against the establishment of any further relations with +women. + +Unless they were women of an entirely different type, women hardened and +tempered, who would understand. + + + +9 + + +So Benham was able to convert the unfortunate Mrs. Skelmersdale into a +tender but for a long time an entirely painful memory. But mothers are +not so easily disposed of, and more particularly a mother whose conduct +is coloured deeply by an extraordinary persuasion of having paid for her +offspring twice over. Nolan was inexplicable; he was, Benham understood +quite clearly, never to be mentioned again; but somehow from the past +his shadow and his legacy cast a peculiar and perplexing shadow of +undefined obligation upon Benham's outlook. His resolution to go round +the world carried on his preparations rapidly and steadily, but at the +same time his mother's thwarted and angry bearing produced a torture +of remorse in him. It was constantly in his mind, like the suit of the +importunate widow, that he ought to devote his life to the little lady's +happiness and pride, and his reason told him that even if he wanted to +make this sacrifice he couldn't; the mere act of making it would produce +so entirely catastrophic a revulsion. He could as soon have become a +croquet champion or the curate of Chexington church, lines of endeavour +which for him would have led straightly and simply to sacrilegious +scandal or manslaughter with a mallet. + +There is so little measure in the wild atonements of the young that it +was perhaps as well for the Research Magnificent that the remorses of +this period of Benham's life were too complicated and scattered for a +cumulative effect. In the background of his mind and less subdued +than its importance could seem to warrant was his promise to bring the +Wilder-Morris people into relations with Lady Marayne. They had been so +delightful to him that he felt quite acutely the slight he was putting +upon them by this delay. Lady Marayne's moods, however, had been so +uncertain that he had found no occasion to broach this trifling matter, +and when at last the occasion came he perceived in the same instant the +fullest reasons for regretting it. + +“Ah!” she said, hanging only for a moment, and then: “you told me you +were alone!”... + +Her mind leapt at once to the personification of these people as all +that had puzzled and baffled her in her son since his flight from +London. They were the enemy, they had got hold of him. + +“When I asked you if you were alone you pretended to be angry,” she +remembered with a flash. “You said, 'Do I tell lies?'” + +“I WAS alone. Until-- It was an accident. On my walk I was alone.” + +But he flinched before her accusing, her almost triumphant, forefinger. + +From the instant she heard of them she hated these South Harting people +unrestrainedly. She made no attempt to conceal it. Her valiant bantam +spirit caught at this quarrel as a refuge from the rare and uncongenial +ache of his secession. “And who are they? What are they? What sort of +people can they be to drag in a passing young man? I suppose this girl +of theirs goes out every evening--Was she painted, Poff?” + +She whipped him with her questions as though she was slashing his face. +He became dead-white and grimly civil, answering every question as +though it was the sanest, most justifiable inquiry. + +“Of course I don't know who they are. How should I know? What need is +there to know?” + +“There are ways of finding out,” she insisted. “If I am to go down and +make myself pleasant to these people because of you.” + +“But I implore you not to.” + +“And five minutes ago you were imploring me to! Of course I shall.” + +“Oh well!--well!” + +“One has to know SOMETHING of the people to whom one commits oneself, +surely.” + +“They are decent people; they are well-behaved people.” + +“Oh!--I'll behave well. Don't think I'll disgrace your casual +acquaintances. But who they are, what they are, I WILL know....” + +On that point Lady Marayne was to score beyond her utmost expectations. + +“Come round,” she said over the telephone, two mornings later. “I've +something to tell you.” + +She was so triumphant that she was sorry for him. When it came to +telling him, she failed from her fierceness. + +“Poff, my little son,” she said, “I'm so sorry I hardly know how to tell +you. Poff, I'm sorry. I have to tell you--and it's utterly beastly.” + +“But what?” he asked. + +“These people are dreadful people.” + +“But how?” + +“You've heard of the great Kent and Eastern Bank smash and the +Marlborough Building Society frauds eight or nine years ago?” + +“Vaguely. But what has that to do with them?” + +“That man Morris.” + +She stopped short, and Benham nodded for her to go on. + +“Her father,” said Lady Marayne. + +“But who was Morris? Really, mother, I don't remember.” + +“He was sentenced to seven years--ten years--I forget. He had done all +sorts of dreadful things. He was a swindler. And when he went out of the +dock into the waiting-room-- He had a signet ring with prussic acid in +it--...” + +“I remember now,” he said. + +A silence fell between them. + +Benham stood quite motionless on the hearthrug and stared very hard at +the little volume of Henley's poetry that lay upon the table. + +He cleared his throat presently. + +“You can't go and see them then,” he said. “After all--since I am going +abroad so soon--... It doesn't so very much matter.” + + + +10 + + +To Benham it did not seem to be of the slightest importance that +Amanda's father was a convicted swindler who had committed suicide. +Never was a resolved and conscious aristocrat so free from the +hereditary delusion. Good parents, he was convinced, are only an +advantage in so far as they have made you good stuff, and bad parents +are no discredit to a son or daughter of good quality. Conceivably he +had a bias against too close an examination of origins, and he held that +the honour of the children should atone for the sins of the fathers and +the questionable achievements of any intervening testator. Not half a +dozen rich and established families in all England could stand even the +most conventional inquiry into the foundations of their pride, and +only a universal amnesty could prevent ridiculous distinctions. But he +brought no accusation of inconsistency against his mother. She looked at +things with a lighter logic and a kind of genius for the acceptance +of superficial values. She was condoned and forgiven, a rescued lamb, +re-established, notoriously bright and nice, and the Morrises were +damned. That was their status, exclusion, damnation, as fixed as colour +in Georgia or caste in Bengal. But if his mother's mind worked in that +way there was no reason why his should. So far as he was concerned, he +told himself, it did not matter whether Amanda was the daughter of a +swindler or the daughter of a god. He had no doubt that she herself had +the spirit and quality of divinity. He had seen it. + +So there was nothing for it in the failure of his mother's civilities +but to increase his own. He would go down to Harting and take his leave +of these amiable outcasts himself. With a certain effusion. He would do +this soon because he was now within sight of the beginning of his world +tour. He had made his plans and prepared most of his equipment. Little +remained to do but the release of Merkle, the wrappering and locking up +of Finacue Street, which could await him indefinitely, and the buying of +tickets. He decided to take the opportunity afforded by a visit of Sir +Godfrey and Lady Marayne to the Blights, big iron people in the North of +England of so austere a morality that even Benham was ignored by it. He +announced his invasion in a little note to Mrs. Wilder. He parted from +his mother on Friday afternoon; she was already, he perceived, a little +reconciled to his project of going abroad; and contrived his arrival +at South Harting for that sunset hour which was for his imagination the +natural halo of Amanda. + +“I'm going round the world,” he told them simply. “I may be away for +two years, and I thought I would like to see you all again before I +started.” + +That was quite the way they did things. + +The supper-party included Mr. Rathbone-Sanders, who displayed a curious +tendency to drift in between Benham and Amanda, a literary youth with +a Byronic visage, very dark curly hair, and a number of extraordinarily +mature chins, a girl-friend of Betty's who had cycled down from London, +and who it appeared maintained herself at large in London by drawing for +advertisements, and a silent colourless friend of Mr. Rathbone-Sanders. +The talk lit by Amanda's enthusiasm circled actively round Benham's +expedition. It was clear that the idea of giving some years to thinking +out one's possible work in the world was for some reason that remained +obscure highly irritating to both Mr. Rathbone-Sanders and the Byronic +youth. Betty too regarded it as levity when there was “so much to be +done,” and the topic whacked about and rose to something like a +wrangle, and sat down and rested and got up again reinvigorated, with +a continuity of interest that Benham had never yet encountered in any +London gathering. He made a good case for his modern version of the +Grand Tour, and he gave them something of his intellectual enthusiasm +for the distances and views, the cities and seas, the multitudinous wide +spectacle of the world he was to experience. He had been reading about +Benares and North China. As he talked Amanda, who had been animated at +first, fell thoughtful and silent. And then it was discovered that the +night was wonderfully warm and the moon shining. They drifted out into +the garden, but Mr. Rathbone-Sanders was suddenly entangled and drawn +back by Mrs. Wilder and the young woman from London upon some technical +point, and taken to the work-table in the corner of the dining-room to +explain. He was never able to get to the garden. + +Benham found himself with Amanda upon a side path, a little isolated by +some swaggering artichokes and a couple of apple trees and so forth from +the general conversation. They cut themselves off from the continuation +of that by a little silence, and then she spoke abruptly and with the +quickness of a speaker who has thought out something to say and fears +interruption: “Why did you come down here?” + +“I wanted to see you before I went.” + +“You disturb me. You fill me with envy.” + +“I didn't think of that. I wanted to see you again.” + +“And then you will go off round the world, you will see the Tropics, you +will see India, you will go into Chinese cities all hung with vermilion, +you will climb mountains. Oh! men can do all the splendid things. Why do +you come here to remind me of it? I have never been anywhere, anywhere +at all. I never shall go anywhere. Never in my life have I seen a +mountain. Those Downs there--look at them!--are my highest. And while +you are travelling I shall think of you--and think of you....” + +“Would YOU like to travel?” he asked as though that was an extraordinary +idea. + +“Do you think EVERY girl wants to sit at home and rock a cradle?” + +“I never thought YOU did.” + +“Then what did you think I wanted?” + +“What DO you want?” + +She held her arms out widely, and the moonlight shone in her eyes as she +turned her face to him. + +“Just what you want,” she said; “--THE WHOLE WORLD! + +“Life is like a feast,” she went on; “it is spread before everybody and +nobody must touch it. What am I? Just a prisoner. In a cottage garden. +Looking for ever over a hedge. I should be happier if I couldn't look. +I remember once, only a little time ago, there was a cheap excursion to +London. Our only servant went. She had to get up at an unearthly hour, +and I--I got up too. I helped her to get off. And when she was gone I +went up to my bedroom again and cried. I cried with envy for any one, +any one who could go away. I've been nowhere--except to school at +Chichester and three or four times to Emsworth and Bognor--for eight +years. When you go”--the tears glittered in the moonlight--“I shall cry. +It will be worse than the excursion to London.... Ever since you were +here before I've been thinking of it.” + +It seemed to Benham that here indeed was the very sister of his spirit. +His words sprang into his mind as one thinks of a repartee. “But why +shouldn't you come too?” he said. + +She stared at him in silence. The two white-lit faces examined each +other. Both she and Benham were trembling. + +“COME TOO?” she repeated. + +“Yes, with me.” + +“But--HOW?” + +Then suddenly she was weeping like a child that is teased; her troubled +eyes looked out from under puckered brows. “You don't mean it,” she +said. “You don't mean it.” + +And then indeed he meant it. + +“Marry me,” he said very quickly, glancing towards the dark group at the +end of the garden. “And we will go together.” + +He seized her arm and drew her to him. “I love you,” he said. “I love +your spirit. You are not like any one else.” + +There was a moment's hesitation. + +Both he and she looked to see how far they were still alone. + +Then they turned their dusky faces to each other. He drew her still +closer. + +“Oh!” she said, and yielded herself to be kissed. Their lips touched, +and for a moment he held her lithe body against his own. + +“I want you,” he whispered close to her. “You are my mate. From the +first sight of you I knew that....” + +They embraced--alertly furtive. + +Then they stood a little apart. Some one was coming towards them. +Amanda's bearing changed swiftly. She put up her little face to his, +confidently and intimately. + +“Don't TELL any one,” she whispered eagerly shaking his arm to emphasize +her words. “Don't tell any one--not yet. Not for a few days....” + +She pushed him from her quickly as the shadowy form of Betty appeared in +a little path between the artichokes and raspberry canes. + +“Listening to the nightingales?” cried Betty. + +“Yes, aren't they?” said Amanda inconsecutively. + +“That's our very own nightingale!” cried Betty advancing. “Do you hear +it, Mr. Benham? No, not that one. That is a quite inferior bird that +performs in the vicarage trees....” + + + +11 + + +When a man has found and won his mate then the best traditions demand +a lyrical interlude. It should be possible to tell, in that +ecstatic manner which melts words into moonshine, makes prose almost +uncomfortably rhythmic, and brings all the freshness of every spring +that ever was across the page, of the joyous exaltation of the happy +lover. This at any rate was what White had always done in his novels +hitherto, and what he would certainly have done at this point had he had +the telling of Benham's story uncontrolledly in his hands. But, indeed, +indeed, in real life, in very truth, the heart has not this simplicity. +Only the heroes of romance, and a few strong simple clean-shaven +Americans have that much emotional integrity. (And even the Americans do +at times seem to an observant eye to be putting in work at the job and +keeping up their gladness.) Benham was excited that night, but not +in the proper bright-eyed, red-cheeked way; he did not dance down the +village street of Harting to his harbour at the Ship, and the expression +in his eyes as he sat on the edge of his bed was not the deep elemental +wonder one could have wished there, but amazement. Do not suppose +that he did not love Amanda, that a rich majority of his being was not +triumphantly glad to have won her, that the image of the two armour-clad +lovers was not still striding and flourishing through the lit wilderness +of his imagination. For three weeks things had pointed him to this. +They would do everything together now, he and his mate, they would scale +mountains together and ride side by side towards ruined cities across +the deserts of the World. He could have wished no better thing. But at +the same time, even as he felt and admitted this and rejoiced at it, the +sky of his mind was black with consternation.... + +It is remarkable, White reflected, as he turned over the abundant but +confused notes upon this perplexing phase of Benham's development that +lay in the third drawer devoted to the Second Limitation, how dependent +human beings are upon statement. Man is the animal that states a case. +He lives not in things but in expressed ideas, and what was troubling +Benham inordinately that night, a night that should have been devoted to +purely blissful and exalted expectations, was the sheer impossibility of +stating what had happened in any terms that would be tolerable either +to Mrs. Skelmersdale or Lady Marayne. The thing had happened with the +suddenness of a revelation. Whatever had been going on in the less +illuminated parts of his mind, his manifest resolution had been +merely to bid South Harting good-bye-- And in short they would never +understand. They would accuse him of the meanest treachery. He could see +his mother's face, he could hear her voice saying, “And so because of +this sudden infatuation for a swindler's daughter, a girl who runs about +the roads with a couple of retrievers hunting for a man, you must +spoil all my plans, ruin my year, tell me a lot of pretentious stuffy +lies....” And Mrs. Skelmersdale too would say, “Of course he just talked +of the world and duty and all that rubbish to save my face....” + +It wasn't so at all. + +But it looked so frightfully like it! + +Couldn't they realize that he had fled out of London before ever he had +seen Amanda? They might be able to do it perhaps, but they never would. +It just happened that in the very moment when the edifice of his noble +resolutions had been ready, she had stepped into it--out of nothingness +and nowhere. She wasn't an accident; that was just the point upon which +they were bound to misjudge her; she was an embodiment. If only he could +show her to them as she had first shown herself to him, swift, light, a +little flushed from running but not in the least out of breath, quick +as a leopard upon the dogs.... But even if the improbable opportunity +arose, he perceived it might still be impossible to produce the Amanda +he loved, the Amanda of the fluttering short skirt and the clear +enthusiastic voice. Because, already he knew she was not the only +Amanda. There was another, there might be others, there was this +perplexing person who had flashed into being at the very moment of their +mutual confession, who had produced the entirely disconcerting demand +that nobody must be told. Then Betty had intervened. But that sub-Amanda +and her carneying note had to be dealt with on the first occasion, +because when aristocrats love they don't care a rap who is told and who +is not told. They just step out into the light side by side.... + +“Don't tell any one,” she had said, “not for a few days....” + +This sub-Amanda was perceptible next morning again, flitting about in +the background of a glad and loving adventuress, a pre-occupied Amanda +who had put her head down while the real Amanda flung her chin up and +contemplated things on the Asiatic scale, and who was apparently engaged +in disentangling something obscure connected with Mr. Rathbone-Sanders +that ought never to have been entangled.... + +“A human being,” White read, “the simplest human being, is a clustering +mass of aspects. No man will judge another justly who judges everything +about him. And of love in particular is this true. We love not persons +but revelations. The woman one loves is like a goddess hidden in a +shrine; for her sake we live on hope and suffer the kindred priestesses +that make up herself. The art of love is patience till the gleam +returns....” + +Sunday and Monday did much to develop this idea of the intricate +complexity of humanity in Benham's mind. On Monday morning he went +up from the Ship again to get Amanda alone and deliver his ultimatum +against a further secrecy, so that he could own her openly and have no +more of the interventions and separations that had barred him from any +intimate talk with her throughout the whole of Sunday. The front door +stood open, the passage hall was empty, but as he hesitated whether he +should proclaim himself with the knocker or walk through, the door of +the little drawing-room flew open and a black-clad cylindrical clerical +person entirely unknown to Benham stumbled over the threshold, blundered +blindly against him, made a sound like “MOO” and a pitiful gesture with +his arm, and fled forth.... + +It was a curate and he was weeping bitterly.... + +Benham stood in the doorway and watched a clumsy broken-hearted flight +down the village street. + +He had been partly told and partly left to infer, and anyhow he was +beginning to understand about Mr. Rathbone-Sanders. That he could +dismiss. But--why was the curate in tears? + + + +12 + + +He found Amanda standing alone in the room from which this young man +had fled. She had a handful of daffodils in her hand, and others were +scattered over the table. She had been arranging the big bowl of flowers +in the centre. He left the door open behind him and stopped short with +the table between them. She looked up at him--intelligently and calmly. +Her pose had a divine dignity. + +“I want to tell them now,” said Benham without a word of greeting. + +“Yes,” she said, “tell them now.” + +They heard steps in the passage outside. “Betty!” cried Amanda. + +Her mother's voice answered, “Do you want Betty?” + +“We want you all,” answered Amanda. “We have something to tell you....” + +“Carrie!” they heard Mrs. Morris call her sister after an interval, and +her voice sounded faint and flat and unusual. There was the soft hissing +of some whispered words outside and a muffled exclamation. Then Mrs. +Wilder and Mrs. Morris and Betty came into the room. Mrs. Wilder came +first, and Mrs. Morris with an alarmed face as if sheltering behind her. +“We want to tell you something,” said Amanda. + +“Amanda and I are going to marry each other,” said Benham, standing in +front of her. + +For an instant the others made no answer; they looked at each other. + +“BUT DOES HE KNOW?” Mrs. Morris said in a low voice. + +Amanda turned her eyes to her lover. She was about to speak, she seemed +to gather herself for an effort, and then he knew that he did not want +to hear her explanation. He checked her by a gesture. + +“I KNOW,” he said, and then, “I do not see that it matters to us in the +least.” + +He went to her holding out both his hands to her. + +She took them and stood shyly for a moment, and then the watchful +gravity of her face broke into soft emotion. “Oh!” she cried and seized +his face between her hands in a passion of triumphant love and kissed +him. + +And then he found himself being kissed by Mrs. Morris. + +She kissed him thrice, with solemnity, with thankfulness, with relief, +as if in the act of kissing she transferred to him precious and entirely +incalculable treasures. + + + + +CHAPTER THE FOURTH ~~ THE SPIRITED HONEYMOON + + + +1 + + +It was a little after sunrise one bright morning in September that +Benham came up on to the deck of the sturdy Austrian steamboat that was +churning its way with a sedulous deliberation from Spalato to Cattaro, +and lit himself a cigarette and seated himself upon a deck chair. Save +for a yawning Greek sailor busy with a mop the first-class deck was +empty. + +Benham surveyed the haggard beauty of the Illyrian coast. The mountains +rose gaunt and enormous and barren to a jagged fantastic silhouette +against the sun; their almost vertical slopes still plunged in blue +shadow, broke only into a little cold green and white edge of olive +terraces and vegetation and houses before they touched the clear blue +water. An occasional church or a house perched high upon some seemingly +inaccessible ledge did but accentuate the vast barrenness of the land. +It was a land desolated and destroyed. At Ragusa, at Salona, at Spalato +and Zara and Pola Benham had seen only variations upon one persistent +theme, a dwindled and uncreative human life living amidst the giant +ruins of preceding times, as worms live in the sockets of a skull. +Forward an unsavoury group of passengers still slumbered amidst +fruit-peel and expectorations, a few soldiers, some squalid brigands +armed with preposterous red umbrellas, a group of curled-up human lumps +brooded over by an aquiline individual caparisoned with brass like a +horse, his head wrapped picturesquely in a shawl. Benham surveyed these +last products of the “life force” and resumed his pensive survey of the +coast. The sea was deserted save for a couple of little lateen craft +with suns painted on their gaudy sails, sea butterflies that hung +motionless as if unawakened close inshore.... + +The travel of the last few weeks had impressed Benham's imagination +profoundly. For the first time in his life he had come face to face +with civilization in defeat. From Venice hitherward he had marked with +cumulative effect the clustering evidences of effort spent and power +crumbled to nothingness. He had landed upon the marble quay of Pola and +visited its deserted amphitheatre, he had seen a weak provincial life +going about ignoble ends under the walls of the great Venetian fortress +and the still more magnificent cathedral of Zara; he had visited +Spalato, clustered in sweltering grime within the ample compass of the +walls of Diocletian's villa, and a few troublesome sellers of coins and +iridescent glass and fragments of tessellated pavement and such-like +loot was all the population he had found amidst the fallen walls and +broken friezes and columns of Salona. Down this coast there ebbed and +flowed a mean residual life, a life of violence and dishonesty, peddling +trades, vendettas and war. For a while the unstable Austrian ruled +this land and made a sort of order that the incalculable chances of +international politics might at any time shatter. Benham was drawing +near now to the utmost limit of that extended peace. Ahead beyond the +mountain capes was Montenegro and, further, Albania and Macedonia, +lands of lawlessness and confusion. Amanda and he had been warned of the +impossibility of decent travel beyond Cattaro and Cettinje but this had +but whetted her adventurousness and challenged his spirit. They were +going to see Albania for themselves. + +The three months of honeymoon they had been spending together had +developed many remarkable divergences of their minds that had not been +in the least apparent to Benham before their marriage. Then their +common resolve to be as spirited as possible had obliterated all minor +considerations. But that was the limit of their unanimity. Amanda loved +wild and picturesque things, and Benham strong and clear things; the +vines and brushwood amidst the ruins of Salona that had delighted her +had filled him with a sense of tragic retrogression. Salona had revived +again in the acutest form a dispute that had been smouldering between +them throughout a fitful and lengthy exploration of north and central +Italy. She could not understand his disgust with the mediaeval colour +and confusion that had swamped the pride and state of the Roman empire, +and he could not make her feel the ambition of the ruler, the essential +discipline and responsibilities of his aristocratic idea. While his +adventurousness was conquest, hers, it was only too manifest, was +brigandage. His thoughts ran now into the form of an imaginary +discourse, that he would never deliver to her, on the decay of states, +on the triumphs of barbarians over rulers who will not rule, on the +relaxation of patrician orders and the return of the robber and assassin +as lordship decays. This coast was no theatrical scenery for him; it was +a shattered empire. And it was shattered because no men had been found, +united enough, magnificent and steadfast enough, to hold the cities, +and maintain the roads, keep the peace and subdue the brutish hates and +suspicions and cruelties that devastated the world. + +And as these thoughts came back into his mind, Amanda flickered up from +below, light and noiseless as a sunbeam, and stood behind his chair. + +Freedom and the sight of the world had if possible brightened and +invigorated her. Her costume and bearing were subtly touched by the +romance of the Adriatic. There was a flavour of the pirate in the cloak +about her shoulders and the light knitted cap of scarlet she had stuck +upon her head. She surveyed his preoccupation for a moment, glanced +forward, and then covered his eyes with her hands. In almost the same +movement she had bent down and nipped the tip of his ear between her +teeth. + +“Confound you, Amanda!” + +“You'd forgotten my existence, you star-gazing Cheetah. And then, you +see, these things happen to you!” + +“I was thinking.” + +“Well--DON'T.... I distrust your thinking. This coast is wilder and +grimmer than yesterday. It's glorious....” + +She sat down on the chair he unfolded for her. + +“Is there nothing to eat?” she asked abruptly. + +“It is too early.” + + + +2 + + +“This coast is magnificent,” she said presently. + +“It's hideous,” he answered. “It's as ugly as a heap of slag.” + +“It's nature at its wildest.” + +“That's Amanda at her wildest.” + +“Well, isn't it?” + +“No! This land isn't nature. It's waste. Not wilderness. It's the other +end. Those hills were covered with forests; this was a busy civilized +coast just a little thousand years ago. The Venetians wasted it. +They cut down the forests; they filled the cities with a mixed mud of +population, THAT stuff. Look at it”!--he indicated the sleepers forward +by a movement of his head. + +“I suppose they WERE rather feeble people,” said Amanda. + +“Who?” + +“The Venetians.” + +“They were traders--and nothing more. Just as we are. And when they were +rich they got splendid clothes and feasted and rested. Much as we do.” + +Amanda surveyed him. “We don't rest.” + +“We idle.” + +“We are seeing things.” + +“Don't be a humbug, Amanda. We are making love. Just as they did. And +it has been--ripping. In Salona they made love tremendously. They did +nothing else until the barbarians came over the mountains....” + +“Well,” said Amanda virtuously, “we will do something else.” + +He made no answer and her expression became profoundly thoughtful. Of +course this wandering must end. He had been growing impatient for some +time. But it was difficult, she perceived, to decide just what to do +with him.... + +Benham picked up the thread of his musing. + +He was seeing more and more clearly that all civilization was an effort, +and so far always an inadequate and very partially successful effort. +Always it had been aristocratic, aristocratic in the sense that it was +the work of minorities, who took power, who had a common resolution +against the inertia, the indifference, the insubordination and +instinctive hostility of the mass of mankind. And always the set-backs, +the disasters of civilization, had been failures of the aristocratic +spirit. Why had the Roman purpose faltered and shrivelled? Every order, +every brotherhood, every organization carried with it the seeds of +its own destruction. Must the idea of statecraft and rule perpetually +reappear, reclothe itself in new forms, age, die, even as life +does--making each time its almost infinitesimal addition to human +achievement? Now the world is crying aloud for a renascence of the +spirit that orders and controls. Human affairs sway at a dizzy height of +opportunity. Will they keep their footing there, or stagger? We have +got back at last to a time as big with opportunity as the early empire. +Given only the will in men and it would be possible now to turn the +dazzling accidents of science, the chancy attainments of the nineteenth +century, into a sane and permanent possession, a new starting point.... +What a magnificence might be made of life! + +He was aroused by Amanda's voice. + +“When we go back to London, old Cheetah,” she said, “we must take a +house.” + +For some moments he stared at her, trying to get back to their point of +divergence. + +“Why?” he asked at length. + +“We must have a house,” she said. + +He looked at her face. Her expression was profoundly thoughtful, her +eyes were fixed on the slumbering ships poised upon the transparent +water under the mountain shadows. + +“You see,” she thought it out, “you've got to TELL in London. You can't +just sneak back there. You've got to strike a note of your own. With all +these things of yours.” + +“But how?” + +“There's a sort of little house, I used to see them when I was a girl +and my father lived in London, about Brook Street and that part. Not +too far north.... You see going back to London for us is just another +adventure. We've got to capture London. We've got to scale it. We've +got advantages of all sorts. But at present we're outside. We've got to +march in.” + +Her clear hazel eyes contemplated conflicts and triumphs. + +She was roused by Benham's voice. + +“What the deuce are you thinking of, Amanda?” + +She turned her level eyes to his. “London,” she said. “For you.” + +“I don't want London,” he said. + +“I thought you did. You ought to. I do.” + +“But to take a house! Make an invasion of London!” + +“You dear old Cheetah, you can't be always frisking about in the +wilderness, staring at the stars.” + +“But I'm not going back to live in London in the old way, theatres, +dinner-parties, chatter--” + +“Oh no! We aren't going to do that sort of thing. We aren't going to +join the ruck. We'll go about in holiday times all over the world. I +want to see Fusiyama. I mean to swim in the South Seas. With you. We'll +dodge the sharks. But all the same we shall have to have a house in +London. We have to be FELT there.” + +She met his consternation fairly. She lifted her fine eyebrows. Her +little face conveyed a protesting reasonableness. + +“Well, MUSTN'T we?” + +She added, “If we want to alter the world we ought to live in the +world.” + +Since last they had disputed the question she had thought out these new +phrases. + +“Amanda,” he said, “I think sometimes you haven't the remotest idea of +what I am after. I don't believe you begin to suspect what I am up to.” + +She put her elbows on her knees, dropped her chin between her hands and +regarded him impudently. She had a characteristic trick of looking up +with her face downcast that never failed to soften his regard. + +“Look here, Cheetah, don't you give way to your early morning habit of +calling your own true love a fool,” she said. + +“Simply I tell you I will not go back to London.” + +“You will go back with me, Cheetah.” + +“I will go back as far as my work calls me there.” + +“It calls you through the voice of your mate and slave and doormat to +just exactly the sort of house you ought to have.... It is the privilege +and duty of the female to choose the lair.” + +For a space Benham made no reply. This controversy had been gathering +for some time and he wanted to state his view as vividly as possible. +The Benham style of connubial conversation had long since decided for +emphasis rather than delicacy. + +“I think,” he said slowly, “that this wanting to take London by storm is +a beastly VULGAR thing to want to do.” + +Amanda compressed her lips. + +“I want to work out things in my mind,” he went on. “I do not want to +be distracted by social things, and I do not want to be distracted by +picturesque things. This life--it's all very well on the surface, but it +isn't real. I'm not getting hold of reality. Things slip away from me. +God! but how they slip away from me!” + +He got up and walked to the side of the boat. + +She surveyed his back for some moments. Then she went and leant over the +rail beside him. + +“I want to go to London,” she said. + +“I don't.” + +“Where do you want to go?” + +“Where I can see into the things that hold the world together.” + +“I have loved this wandering--I could wander always. But... Cheetah! I +tell you I WANT to go to London.” + +He looked over his shoulder into her warm face. “NO,” he said. + +“But, I ask you.” + +He shook his head. + +She put her face closer and whispered. “Cheetah! big beast of my heart. +Do you hear your mate asking for something?” + +He turned his eyes back to the mountains. “I must go my own way.” + +“Haven't I, so far, invented things, made life amusing, Cheetah? Can't +you trust the leopard's wisdom?” + +He stared at the coast inexorably. + +“I wonder,” she whispered. + +“What?” + +“You ARE that, Cheetah, that lank, long, EAGER beast--.” + +Suddenly with a nimble hand she had unbuttoned and rolled up the sleeve +of her blouse. She stuck her pretty blue-veined arm before his eyes. +“Look here, sir, it was you, wasn't it? It was your powerful jaw +inflicted this bite upon the arm of a defenceless young leopardess--” + +“Amanda!” + +“Well.” She wrinkled her brows. + +He turned about and stood over her, he shook a finger in her face and +there was a restrained intensity in his voice as he spoke. + +“Look here, Amanda!” he said, “if you think that you are going to +make me agree to any sort of project about London, to any sort of +complication of our lives with houses in smart streets and a campaign of +social assertion--by THAT, then may I be damned for an uxorious fool!” + +Her eyes met his and there was mockery in her eyes. + +“This, Cheetah, is the morning mood,” she remarked. + +“This is the essential mood. Listen, Amanda--” + +He stopped short. He looked towards the gangway, they both looked. The +magic word “Breakfast” came simultaneously from them. + +“Eggs,” she said ravenously, and led the way. + +A smell of coffee as insistent as an herald's trumpet had called a truce +between them. + + + +3 + + +Their marriage had been a comparatively inconspicuous one, but since +that time they had been engaged upon a honeymoon of great extent and +variety. Their wedding had taken place at South Harting church in the +marked absence of Lady Marayne, and it had been marred by only one +untoward event. The Reverend Amos Pugh who, in spite of the earnest +advice of several friends had insisted upon sharing in the ceremony, had +suddenly covered his face with the sleeves of his surplice and fled with +a swift rustle to the vestry, whence an uproar of inadequately smothered +sorrow came as an obligato accompaniment to the more crucial passages +of the service. Amanda appeared unaware of the incident at the time, +but afterwards she explained things to Benham. “Curates,” she said, “are +such pent-up men. One ought, I suppose, to remember that. But he +never had anything to go upon at all--not anything--except his own +imaginations.” + +“I suppose when you met him you were nice to him.” + +“I was nice to him, of course....” + +They drove away from Harting, as it were, over the weeping remains of +this infatuated divine. His sorrow made them thoughtful for a time, and +then Amanda nestled closer to her lover and they forgot about him, and +their honeymoon became so active and entertaining that only very rarely +and transitorily did they ever think of him again. + +The original conception of their honeymoon had been identical with the +plans Benham had made for the survey and study of the world, and it was +through a series of modifications, replacements and additions that it +became at last a prolonged and very picturesque tour in Switzerland, +the Austrian Tyrol, North Italy, and down the Adriatic coast. Amanda +had never seen mountains, and longed, she said, to climb. This took them +first to Switzerland. Then, in spite of their exalted aims, the devotion +of their lives to noble purposes, it was evident that Amanda had no +intention of scamping the detail of love, and for that what background +is so richly beautiful as Italy? An important aspect of the grand tour +round the world as Benham had planned it, had been interviews, inquiries +and conversations with every sort of representative and understanding +person he could reach. An unembarrassed young man who wants to know and +does not promise to bore may reach almost any one in that way, he is as +impersonal as pure reason and as mobile as a letter, but the presence of +a lady in his train leaves him no longer unembarrassed. His approach has +become a social event. The wife of a great or significant personage must +take notice or decide not to take notice. Of course Amanda was prepared +to go anywhere, just as Benham's shadow; it was the world that was +unprepared. And a second leading aspect of his original scheme had been +the examination of the ways of government in cities and the shifting +and mixture of nations and races. It would have led to back streets, and +involved and complicated details, and there was something in the fine +flame of girlhood beside him that he felt was incompatible with those +shadows and that dust. And also they were lovers and very deeply +in love. It was amazing how swiftly that draggled shameful London +sparrow-gamin, Eros, took heart from Amanda, and became wonderful, +beautiful, glowing, life-giving, confident, clear-eyed; how he changed +from flesh to sweet fire, and grew until he filled the sky. So that you +see they went to Switzerland and Italy at last very like two ordinary +young people who were not aristocrats at all, had no theory about the +world or their destiny, but were simply just ardently delighted with the +discovery of one another. + +Nevertheless Benham was for some time under a vague impression that in +a sort of way still he was going round the world and working out his +destinies. + +It was part of the fascination of Amanda that she was never what he had +supposed her to be, and that nothing that he set out to do with her ever +turned out as they had planned it. Her appreciations marched before her +achievement, and when it came to climbing it seemed foolish to toil +to summits over which her spirit had flitted days before. Their Swiss +expeditions which she had foreseen as glorious wanderings amidst the +blue ice of crevasses and nights of exalted hardihood became a walking +tour of fitful vigour and abundant fun and delight. They spent a long +day on the ice of the Aletsch glacier, but they reached the inn on its +eastward side with magnificent appetites a little late for dinner. + +Amanda had revealed an unexpected gift for nicknames and pretty fancies. +She named herself the Leopard, the spotless Leopard; in some obscure +way she intimated that the colour was black, but that was never to be +admitted openly, there was supposed to be some lurking traces of a rusty +brown but the word was spotless and the implication white, a dazzling +white, she would play a thousand variations on the theme; in moments of +despondency she was only a black cat, a common lean black cat, and +sacks and half-bricks almost too good for her. But Benham was always +a Cheetah. That had come to her as a revelation from heaven. But so +clearly he was a Cheetah. He was a Hunting Leopard; the only beast that +has an up-cast face and dreams and looks at you with absent-minded eyes +like a man. She laced their journeys with a fantastic monologue telling +in the third person what the Leopard and the Cheetah were thinking and +seeing and doing. And so they walked up mountains and over passes and +swam in the warm clear water of romantic lakes and loved each other +mightily always, in chestnut woods and olive orchards and flower-starred +alps and pine forests and awning-covered boats, and by sunset and +moonlight and starshine; and out of these agreeable solitudes they +came brown and dusty, striding side by side into sunlit entertaining +fruit-piled market-places and envious hotels. For days and weeks +together it did not seem to Benham that there was anything that mattered +in life but Amanda and the elemental joys of living. And then the +Research Magnificent began to stir in him again. He perceived that Italy +was not India, that the clue to the questions he must answer lay in the +crowded new towns that they avoided, in the packed bookshops and the +talk of men, and not in the picturesque and flowery solitudes to which +their lovemaking carried them. + +Moods began in which he seemed to forget Amanda altogether. + +This happened first in the Certosa di Pavia whither they had gone one +afternoon from Milan. That was quite soon after they were married. They +had a bumping journey thither in a motor-car, a little doubtful if +the excursion was worth while, and they found a great amazement in +the lavish beauty and decorative wealth of that vast church and its +associated cloisters, set far away from any population as it seemed in +a flat wilderness of reedy ditches and patchy cultivation. The +distilleries and outbuildings were deserted--their white walls were +covered by one monstrously great and old wisteria in flower--the soaring +marvellous church was in possession of a knot of unattractive guides. +One of these conducted them through the painted treasures of the gold +and marble chapels; he was an elderly but animated person who evidently +found Amanda more wonderful than any church. He poured out great +accumulations of information and compliments before her. Benham dropped +behind, went astray and was presently recovered dreaming in the great +cloister. The guide showed them over two of the cells that opened +thereupon, each a delightful house for a solitary, bookish and clean, +and each with a little secret walled garden of its own. He was covertly +tipped against all regulations and departed regretfully with a beaming +dismissal from Amanda. She found Benham wondering why the Carthusians +had failed to produce anything better in the world than a liqueur. “One +might have imagined that men would have done something in this beautiful +quiet; that there would have come thought from here or will from here.” + +“In these dear little nests they ought to have put lovers,” said Amanda. + +“Oh, of course, YOU would have made the place Thelema....” + +But as they went shaking and bumping back along the evil road to Milan, +he fell into a deep musing. Suddenly he said, “Work has to be done. +Because this order or that has failed, there is no reason why we should +fail. And look at those ragged children in the road ahead of us, and +those dirty women sitting in the doorways, and the foul ugliness of +these gaunt nameless towns through which we go! They are what they are, +because we are what we are--idlers, excursionists. In a world we ought +to rule.... + +“Amanda, we've got to get to work....” + +That was his first display of this new mood, which presently became a +common one. He was less and less content to let the happy hours slip +by, more and more sensitive to the reminders in giant ruin and deserted +cell, in a chance encounter with a string of guns and soldiers on their +way to manoeuvres or in the sight of a stale newspaper, of a great +world process going on in which he was now playing no part at all. And +a curious irritability manifested itself more and more plainly, whenever +human pettiness obtruded upon his attention, whenever some trivial +dishonesty, some manifest slovenliness, some spiritless failure, a +cheating waiter or a wayside beggar brought before him the shiftless, +selfish, aimless elements in humanity that war against the great dream +of life made glorious. “Accursed things,” he would say, as he flung some +importunate cripple at a church door a ten-centime piece; “why were they +born? Why do they consent to live? They are no better than some chance +fungus that is because it must.” + +“It takes all sorts to make a world,” said Amanda. + +“Nonsense,” said Benham. “Where is the megatherium? That sort of +creature has to go. Our sort of creature has to end it.” + +“Then why did you give it money?” + +“Because-- I don't want the thing to be more wretched than it is. But if +I could prevent more of them--... What am I doing to prevent them?” + +“These beggars annoy you,” said Amanda after a pause. “They do me. Let +us go back into the mountains.” + +But he fretted in the mountains. + +They made a ten days' tour from Macugnaga over the Monte Moro to Sass, +and thence to Zermatt and back by the Theodule to Macugnaga. The sudden +apparition of douaniers upon the Monte Moro annoyed Benham, and he was +also irritated by the solemn English mountain climbers at Saas Fee. +They were as bad as golfers, he said, and reflected momentarily upon +his father. Amanda fell in love with Monte Rosa, she wanted to kiss its +snowy forehead, she danced like a young goat down the path to Mattmark, +and rolled on the turf when she came to gentians and purple primulas. +Benham was tremendously in love with her most of the time, but one +day when they were sitting over the Findelen glacier his perceptions +blundered for the first time upon the fundamental antagonism of their +quality. She was sketching out jolly things that they were to do +together, expeditions, entertainments, amusements, and adventures, with +a voluble swiftness, and suddenly in a flash his eyes were opened, and +he saw that she would never for a moment feel the quality that made life +worth while for him. He saw it in a flash, and in that flash he made +his urgent resolve not to see it. From that moment forth his bearing was +poisoned by his secret determination not to think of this, not to admit +it to his mind. And forbidden to come into his presence in its proper +form, this conflict of intellectual temperaments took on strange +disguises, and the gathering tension of his mind sought to relieve +itself along grotesque irrelevant channels. + +There was, for example, the remarkable affair of the drive from +Macugnaga to Piedimulera. + +They had decided to walk down in a leisurely fashion, but with the +fatigues of the precipitous clamber down from Switzerland still upon +them they found the white road between rock above and gorge below +wearisome, and the valley hot in the late morning sunshine, and already +before they reached the inn they had marked for lunch Amanda had +suggested driving the rest of the way. The inn had a number of +brigand-like customers consuming such sustenance as garlic and salami +and wine; it received them with an indifference that bordered on +disrespect, until the landlord, who seemed to be something of a beauty +himself, discovered the merits of Amanda. Then he became markedly +attentive. He was a large, fat, curly-headed person with beautiful eyes, +a cherished moustache, and an air of great gentility, and when he had +welcomed his guests and driven off the slatternly waiting-maid, and +given them his best table, and consented, at Amanda's request, to open a +window, he went away and put on a tie and collar. It was an attention +so conspicuous that even the group of men in the far corner noticed and +commented on it, and then they commented on Amanda and Benham, +assuming an ignorance of Italian in the visitors that was only partly +justifiable. “Bellissima,” “bravissima,” “signorina,” “Inglesa,” one +need not be born in Italy to understand such words as these. Also they +addressed sly comments and encouragements to the landlord as he went to +and fro. + +Benham was rather still and stiff during the meal, but it ill becomes +an English aristocrat to discuss the manners of an alien population, and +Amanda was amused by the effusion of the landlord and a little disposed +to experiment upon him. She sat radiating light amidst the shadows. + +The question of the vehicle was broached. The landlord was doubtful, +then an idea, it was manifestly a questionable idea, occurred to him. +He went to consult an obscure brown-faced individual in the corner, +disappeared, and the world without became eloquent. Presently he +returned and announced that a carozza was practicable. It had been +difficult, but he had contrived it. And he remained hovering over the +conclusion of their meal, asking questions about Amanda's mountaineering +and expressing incredulous admiration. + +His bill, which he presented with an uneasy flourish, was large and +included the carozza. + +He ushered them out to the carriage with civilities and compliments. It +had manifestly been difficult and contrived. It was dusty and blistered, +there had been a hasty effort to conceal its recent use as a hen-roost, +the harness was mended with string. The horse was gaunt and scandalous, +a dirty white, and carried its head apprehensively. The driver had but +one eye, through which there gleamed a concentrated hatred of God and +man. + +“No wonder he charged for it before we saw it,” said Benham. + +“It's better than walking,” said Amanda. + +The company in the inn gathered behind the landlord and scrutinized +Amanda and Benham intelligently. The young couple got in. “Avanti,” said +Benham, and Amanda bestowed one last ineradicable memory on the bowing +landlord. + +Benham did not speak until just after they turned the first corner, and +then something portentous happened, considering the precipitous position +of the road they were upon. A small boy appeared sitting in the grass +by the wayside, and at the sight of him the white horse shied +extravagantly. The driver rose in his seat ready to jump. But the crisis +passed without a smash. “Cheetah!” cried Amanda suddenly. “This isn't +safe.” “Ah!” said Benham, and began to act with the vigour of one +who has long accumulated force. He rose in his place and gripped the +one-eyed driver by the collar. “ASPETTO,” he said, but he meant “Stop!” + The driver understood that he meant “Stop,” and obeyed. + +Benham wasted no time in parleying with the driver. He indicated to him +and to Amanda by a comprehensive gesture that he had business with the +landlord, and with a gleaming appetite upon his face went running back +towards the inn. + +The landlord was sitting down to a little game of dominoes with his +friends when Benham reappeared in the sunlight of the doorway. There was +no misunderstanding Benham's expression. + +For a moment the landlord was disposed to be defiant. Then he changed +his mind. Benham's earnest face was within a yard of his own, and a +threatening forefinger was almost touching his nose. + +“Albergo cattivissimo,” said Benham. “Cattivissimo! Pranzo cattivissimo +'orrido. Cavallo cattivissimo, dangerousissimo. Gioco abominablissimo, +damnissimo. Capisce. Eh?” [*] + + * This is vile Italian. It may--with a certain charity to + Benham--be rendered: “The beastliest inn! The beastliest! + The beastliest, most awful lunch! The vilest horse! Most + dangerous! Abominable trick! Understand?” + + +The landlord made deprecatory gestures. + +“YOU understand all right,” said Benham. “Da me il argento per il +carozzo. Subito?” [*] + + + * “Give me back the money for the carriage. QUICKLY!” + + +The landlord was understood to ask whether the signor no longer wished +for the carriage. + +“SUBITO!” cried Benham, and giving way to a long-restrained impulse +seized the padrone by the collar of his coat and shook him vigorously. + +There were dissuasive noises from the company, but no attempt at rescue. +Benham released his hold. + +“Adesso!” said Benham. [*] + + * “NOW!” + +The landlord decided to disgorge. It was at any rate a comfort that the +beautiful lady was not seeing anything of this. And he could explain +afterwards to his friends that the Englishman was clearly a lunatic, +deserving pity rather than punishment. He made some sound of protest, +but attempted no delay in refunding the money Benham had prepaid. +Outside sounded the wheels of the returning carriage. They stopped. +Amanda appeared in the doorway and discovered Benham dominant. + +He was a little short of breath, and as she came in he was addressing +the landlord with much earnestness in the following compact sentences. + +“Attendez! Ecco! Adesso noi andiamo con questa cattivissimo cavallo a +Piedimulera. Si noi arrivero in safety, securo that is, pagaremo. Non +altro. Si noi abbiamo accidento Dio--Dio have mercy on your sinful soul. +See! Capisce? That's all.” [*] + + * “Now we will go with this beastly horse to Piedimulera. If + we get there safely I will pay. If we have an accident, + then--” + +He turned to Amanda. “Get back into the thing,” he said. “We won't have +these stinking beasts think we are afraid of the job. I've just made +sure he won't have a profit by it if we smash up. That's all. I might +have known what he was up to when he wanted the money beforehand.” + He came to the doorway and with a magnificent gesture commanded the +perplexed driver to turn the carriage. + +While that was being done he discoursed upon his adjacent +fellow-creatures. “A man who pays beforehand for anything in this filthy +sort of life is a fool. You see the standards of the beast. They think +of nothing but their dirty little tricks to get profit, their garlic, +their sour wine, their games of dominoes, their moments of lust. They +crawl in this place like cockroaches in a warm corner of the fireplace +until they die. Look at the scabby frontage of the house. Look at the +men's faces.... Yes. So! Adequato. Aspettate.... Get back into the +carriage, Amanda.” + +“You know it's dangerous, Cheetah. The horse is a shier. That man is +blind in one eye.” + +“Get back into the carriage,” said Benham, whitely angry. “I AM GOING TO +DRIVE!” + +“But--!” + +Just for a moment Amanda looked scared. Then with a queer little laugh +she jumped in again. + +Amanda was never a coward when there was excitement afoot. “We'll +smash!” she cried, by no means woefully. + +“Get up beside me,” said Benham speaking in English to the driver but +with a gesture that translated him. Power over men radiated from +Benham in this angry mood. He took the driver's seat. The little driver +ascended and then with a grim calmness that brooked no resistance Benham +reached over, took and fastened the apron over their knees to prevent +any repetition of the jumping out tactics. + +The recovering landlord became voluble in the doorway. + +“In Piedimulera pagero,” said Benham over his shoulder and brought the +whip across the white outstanding ribs. “Get up!” said Benham. + +Amanda gripped the sides of the seat as the carriage started into +motion. + +He laid the whip on again with such vigour that the horse forgot +altogether to shy at the urchin that had scared it before. + +“Amanda,” said Benham leaning back. “If we do happen to go over on THAT +side, jump out. It's all clear and wide for you. This side won't matter +so--” + +“MIND!” screamed Amanda and recalled him to his duties. He was off the +road and he had narrowly missed an outstanding chestnut true. + +“No, you don't,” said Benham presently, and again their career became +erratic for a time as after a slight struggle he replaced the apron over +the knees of the deposed driver. It had been furtively released. After +that Benham kept an eye on it that might have been better devoted to the +road. + +The road went down in a series of curves and corners. Now and then there +were pacific interludes when it might have been almost any road. Then, +again, it became specifically an Italian mountain road. Now and then +only a row of all too infrequent granite stumps separated them from a +sheer precipice. Some of the corners were miraculous, and once they had +a wheel in a ditch for a time, they shaved the parapet of a bridge over +a gorge and they drove a cyclist into a patch of maize, they narrowly +missed a goat and jumped three gullies, thrice the horse stumbled and +was jerked up in time, there were sickening moments, and withal they +got down to Piedimulera unbroken and unspilt. It helped perhaps that the +brake, with its handle like a barrel organ, had been screwed up before +Benham took control. And when they were fairly on the level outside the +town Benham suddenly pulled up, relinquished the driving into the proper +hands and came into the carriage with Amanda. + +“Safe now,” he said compactly. + +The driver appeared to be murmuring prayers very softly as he examined +the brake. + +Amanda was struggling with profound problems. “Why didn't you drive down +in the first place?” she asked. “Without going back.” + +“The landlord annoyed me,” he said. “I had to go back.... I wish I had +kicked him. Hairy beast! If anything had happened, you see, he would +have had his mean money. I couldn't bear to leave him.” + +“And why didn't you let HIM drive?” She indicated the driver by a motion +of the head. + +“I was angry,” said Benham. “I was angry at the whole thing.” + +“Still--” + +“You see I think I did that because he might have jumped off if I hadn't +been up there to prevent him--I mean if we had had a smash. I didn't +want him to get out of it.” + +“But you too--” + +“You see I was angry....” + +“It's been as good as a switchback,” said Amanda after reflection. “But +weren't you a little careless about me, Cheetah?” + +“I never thought of you,” said Benham, and then as if he felt that +inadequate: “You see--I was so annoyed. It's odd at times how annoyed +one gets. Suddenly when that horse shied I realized what a beastly +business life was--as those brutes up there live it. I want to clear out +the whole hot, dirty, little aimless nest of them....” + +“No, I'm sure,” he repeated after a pause as though he had been +digesting something “I wasn't thinking about you at all.” + + + +4 + + +The suppression of his discovery that his honeymoon was not in the least +the great journey of world exploration he had intended, but merely +an impulsive pleasure hunt, was by no means the only obscured and +repudiated conflict that disturbed the mind and broke out upon the +behaviour of Benham. Beneath that issue he was keeping down a far more +intimate conflict. It was in those lower, still less recognized depths +that the volcanic fire arose and the earthquakes gathered strength. The +Amanda he had loved, the Amanda of the gallant stride and fluttering +skirt was with him still, she marched rejoicing over the passes, and +a dearer Amanda, a soft whispering creature with dusky hair, who took +possession of him when she chose, a soft creature who was nevertheless a +fierce creature, was also interwoven with his life. But-- But there was +now also a multitude of other Amandas who had this in common that they +roused him to opposition, that they crossed his moods and jarred upon +his spirit. And particularly there was the Conquering Amanda not so much +proud of her beauty as eager to test it, so that she was not unmindful +of the stir she made in hotel lounges, nor of the magic that may shine +memorably through the most commonplace incidental conversation. This +Amanda was only too manifestly pleased to think that she made peasant +lovers discontented and hotel porters unmercenary; she let her light +shine before men. We lovers, who had deemed our own subjugation a +profound privilege, love not this further expansiveness of our lady's +empire. But Benham knew that no aristocrat can be jealous; jealousy he +held to be the vice of the hovel and farmstead and suburban villa, and +at an enormous expenditure of will he ignored Amanda's waving flags and +roving glances. So, too, he denied that Amanda who was sharp and shrewd +about money matters, that flash of an Amanda who was greedy for presents +and possessions, that restless Amanda who fretted at any cessation of +excitement, and that darkly thoughtful Amanda whom chance observations +and questions showed to be still considering an account she had to +settle with Lady Marayne. He resisted these impressions, he shut them +out of his mind, but still they worked into his thoughts, and presently +he could find himself asking, even as he and she went in step striding +side by side through the red-scarred pinewoods in the most perfect +outward harmony, whether after all he was so happily mated as he +declared himself to be a score of times a day, whether he wasn't +catching glimpses of reality through a veil of delusion that grew +thinner and thinner and might leave him disillusioned in the face of a +relationship-- + +Sometimes a man may be struck by a thought as though he had been struck +in the face, and when the name of Mrs. Skelmersdale came into his head, +he glanced at his wife by his side as if it were something that +she might well have heard. Was this indeed the same thing as that? +Wonderful, fresh as the day of Creation, clean as flame, yet the same! +Was Amanda indeed the sister of Mrs. Skelmersdale--wrought of clean +fire, but her sister?... + +But also beside the inimical aspects which could set such doubts afoot +there were in her infinite variety yet other Amandas neither very dear +nor very annoying, but for the most part delightful, who entertained him +as strangers might, Amandas with an odd twist which made them amusing to +watch, jolly Amandas who were simply irrelevant. There was for example +Amanda the Dog Mistress, with an astonishing tact and understanding of +dogs, who could explain dogs and the cock of their ears and the droop of +their tails and their vanity and their fidelity, and why they looked up +and why they suddenly went off round the corner, and their pride in +the sound of their voices and their dastardly thoughts and sniffing +satisfactions, so that for the first time dogs had souls for Benham to +see. And there was an Amanda with a striking passion for the sleekness +and soft noses of horses. And there was an Amanda extremely garrulous, +who was a biographical dictionary and critical handbook to all the girls +in the school she had attended at Chichester--they seemed a very girlish +lot of girls; and an Amanda who was very knowing--knowing was the only +word for it--about pictures and architecture. And these and all the +other Amandas agreed together to develop and share this one quality +in common, that altogether they pointed to no end, they converged on +nothing. She was, it grew more and more apparent, a miscellany bound +in a body. She was an animated discursiveness. That passion to get all +things together into one aristocratic aim, that restraint of purpose, +that imperative to focus, which was the structural essential of Benham's +spirit, was altogether foreign to her composition. + +There were so many Amandas, they were as innumerable as the +Venuses--Cytherea, Cypria, Paphia, Popularia, Euploea, Area, +Verticordia, Etaira, Basilea, Myrtea, Libertina, Freya, Astarte, +Philommedis, Telessigamma, Anadyomene, and a thousand others to whom men +have bowed and built temples, a thousand and the same, and yet it seemed +to Benham there was still one wanting. + +The Amanda he had loved most wonderfully was that Amanda in armour who +had walked with him through the wilderness of the world along the road +to Chichester--and that Amanda came back to him no more. + + + +5 + + +Amanda too was making her observations and discoveries. + +These moods of his perplexed her; she was astonished to find he was +becoming irritable; she felt that he needed a firm but gentle discipline +in his deportment as a lover. At first he had been perfect.... + +But Amanda was more prepared for human inconsecutiveness than Benham, +because she herself was inconsecutive, and her dissatisfaction with his +irritations and preoccupation broadened to no general discontent. He had +seemed perfect and he wasn't. So nothing was perfect. And he had to +be managed, just as one must manage a dog or a cousin or a mother or a +horse. Anyhow she had got him, she had no doubt that she held him by a +thousand ties, the spotless leopard had him between her teeth, he was a +prisoner in the dusk of her hair, and the world was all one vast promise +of entertainment. + + + +6 + + +But the raid into the Balkans was not the tremendous success she had +expected it to be. They had adventures, but they were not the richly +coloured, mediaeval affairs she had anticipated. For the most part until +Benham broke loose beyond Ochrida they were adventures in discomfort. In +those remote parts of Europe inns die away and cease, and it had never +occurred to Amanda that inns could die away anywhere. She had thought +that they just became very simple and natural and quaint. And she had +thought that when benighted people knocked at a door it would presently +open hospitably. She had not expected shots at random from the window. +And it is not usual in Albania generally for women, whether they are +Christian or Moslem, to go about unveiled; when they do so it leads +to singular manifestations. The moral sense of the men is shocked and +staggered, and they show it in many homely ways. Small boys at that +age when feminine beauty does not yet prevail with them, pelt. Also +in Mahometan districts they pelt men who do not wear fezzes, while +occasionally Christians of the shawl-headed or skull-cap persuasions +will pelt a fez. Sketching is always a peltable or mobable offence, +as being contrary to the Koran, and sitting down tempts the pelter. +Generally they pelt. The dogs of Albania are numerous, big, dirty, white +dogs, large and hostile, and they attack with little hesitation. The +women of Albania are secluded and remote, and indisposed to be of +service to an alien sister. Roads are infrequent and most bridges have +broken down. No bridge has been repaired since the later seventeenth +century, and no new bridge has been made since the decline and fall of +the Roman Empire. There are no shops at all. The scenery is magnificent +but precipitous, and many of the high roads are difficult to trace. And +there is rain. In Albania there is sometimes very heavy rain. + +Yet in spite of these drawbacks they spent some splendid hours in their +exploration of that wild lost country beyond the Adriatic headlands. +There was the approach to Cattaro for example, through an arm of the +sea, amazingly beautiful on either shore, that wound its way into +the wild mountains and ended in a deep blue bay under the tremendous +declivity of Montenegro. The quay, with its trees and lateen craft, ran +along under the towers and portcullised gate of the old Venetian wall, +within clustered the town, and then the fortifications zigzagged up +steeply to a monstrous fantastic fortress perched upon a great mountain +headland that overhung the town. Behind it the rocks, slashed to and fro +with the road to Cettinje, continued to ascend into blue haze, upward +and upward until they became a purple curtain that filled half the +heavens. The paved still town was squalid by day, but in the evening it +became theatrically incredible, with an outdoor cafe amidst flowers +and creepers, a Hungarian military band, a rabble of promenaders like a +stage chorus in gorgeous costumes and a great gibbous yellow moon. + +And there was Kroia, which Benham and Amanda saw first through the +branches of the great trees that bordered the broad green track they +were following. The town and its castle were poised at a tremendous +height, sunlit and brilliant against a sombre mass of storm cloud, over +vast cliffs and ravines. Kroia continued to be beautiful through a steep +laborious approach up to the very place itself, a clustering group +of houses and bazaars crowned with a tower and a minaret, and from a +painted corridor upon this crest they had a wonderful view of the great +seaward levels, and even far away the blue sea itself stretching between +Scutari and Durazzo. The eye fell in succession down the stages of a +vast and various descent, on the bazaars and tall minarets of the town, +on jagged rocks and precipices, on slopes of oak forest and slopes of +olive woods, on blue hills dropping away beyond blue hills to the coast. +And behind them when they turned they saw great mountains, sullenly +magnificent, cleft into vast irregular masses, dense with woods below +and grim and desolate above.... + +These were unforgettable scenes, and so too was the wild lonely valley +through which they rode to Ochrida amidst walnut and chestnut trees and +scattered rocks, and the first vision of that place itself, with its +fertile levels dotted with sheep and cattle, its castle and clustering +mosques, its spacious blue lake and the great mountains rising up +towards Olympus under the sun. And there was the first view of the +blue Lake of Presba seen between silvery beech stems, and that too had +Olympus in the far background, plain now and clear and unexpectedly +snowy. And there were midday moments when they sat and ate under vines +and heard voices singing very pleasantly, and there were forest glades +and forest tracks in a great variety of beauty with mountains appearing +through their parted branches, there were ilex woods, chestnut woods, +beech woods, and there were strings of heavily-laden mules staggering up +torrent-worn tracks, and strings of blue-swathed mysterious-eyed women +with burthens on their heads passing silently, and white remote houses +and ruins and deep gorges and precipices and ancient half-ruinous +bridges over unruly streams. And if there was rain there was also +the ending of rain, rainbows, and the piercing of clouds by the sun's +incandescence, and sunsets and the moon, first full, then new and then +growing full again as the holiday wore on. + +They found tolerable accommodation at Cattaro and at Cettinje and at a +place halfway between them. It was only when they had secured a guide +and horses, and pushed on into the south-east of Montenegro that they +began to realize the real difficulties of their journey. They aimed for +a place called Podgoritza, which had a partially justifiable reputation +for an inn, they missed the road and spent the night in the open beside +a fire, rolled in the blankets they had very fortunately bought in +Cettinje. They supped on biscuits and Benham's brandy flask. It +chanced to be a fine night, and, drawn like moths by the fire, four +heavily-armed mountaineers came out of nowhere, sat down beside Benham +and Amanda, rolled cigarettes, achieved conversation in bad Italian +through the muleteer and awaited refreshment. They approved of the +brandy highly, they finished it, and towards dawn warmed to song. They +did not sing badly, singing in chorus, but it appeared to Amanda +that the hour might have been better chosen. In the morning they were +agreeably surprised to find one of the Englishmen was an Englishwoman, +and followed every accessible detail of her toilette with great +interest. They were quite helpful about breakfast when the trouble was +put to them; two vanished over a crest and reappeared with some sour +milk, a slabby kind of bread, goat's cheese young but hardened, and +coffee and the means of making coffee, and they joined spiritedly in the +ensuing meal. It ought to have been extraordinarily good fun, this camp +under the vast heavens and these wild visitors, but it was not such fun +as it ought to have been because both Amanda and Benham were extremely +cold, stiff, sleepy, grubby and cross, and when at last they were back +in the way to Podgoritza and had parted, after some present-giving +from their chance friends, they halted in a sunlit grassy place, rolled +themselves up in their blankets and recovered their arrears of sleep. + +Podgoritza was their first experience of a khan, those oriental +substitutes for hotels, and it was a deceptively good khan, indeed it +was not a khan at all, it was an inn; it provided meals, it had a kind +of bar, or at any rate a row of bottles and glasses, it possessed an +upper floor with rooms, separate rooms, opening on to a gallery. The +room had no beds but it had a shelf about it on which Amanda and Benham +rolled up in their blankets and slept. “We can do this sort of thing all +right,” said Amanda and Benham. “But we mustn't lose the way again.” + +“In Scutari,” said Benham, “we will get an extra horse and a tent.” + +The way presently became a lake and they reached Scutari by boat towards +the dawn of the next day.... + +The extra horse involved the addition of its owner, a small suspicious +Latin Christian, to the company, and of another horse for him and +an ugly almost hairless boy attendant. Moreover the British consul +prevailed with Benham to accept the services of a picturesque Arnaut +CAVASSE, complete with a rifle, knives, and other implements and the +name of Giorgio. And as they got up into the highlands beyond Scutari +they began to realize the deceitfulness of Podgoritza and the real truth +about khans. Their next one they reached after a rainy evening, and +it was a cavernous room with a floor of indurated mud and full of +eye-stinging wood-smoke and wind and the smell of beasts, unpartitioned, +with a weakly hostile custodian from whom no food could be got but a +little goat's flesh and bread. The meat Giorgio stuck upon a skewer in +gobbets like cats-meat and cooked before the fire. For drink there was +coffee and raw spirits. Against the wall in one corner was a slab of +wood rather like the draining board in a scullery, and on this the +guests were expected to sleep. The horses and the rest of the party +camped loosely about the adjacent corner after a bitter dispute upon +some unknown point between the horse owner and the custodian. + +Amanda and Benham were already rolled up on their slanting board like a +couple of chrysalids when other company began to arrive through the open +door out of the moonlight, drawn thither by the report of a travelling +Englishwoman. + +They were sturdy men in light coloured garments adorned ostentatiously +with weapons, they moved mysteriously about in the firelit darknesses +and conversed in undertones with Giorgio. Giorgio seemed to have +considerable powers of exposition and a gift for social organization. +Presently he came to Benham and explained that raki was available and +that hospitality would do no harm; Benham and Amanda sat up and various +romantic figures with splendid moustaches came forward and shook hands +with him, modestly ignoring Amanda. There was drinking, in which Benham +shared, incomprehensible compliments, much ineffective saying of “BUONA +NOTTE,” and at last Amanda and Benham counterfeited sleep. This seemed +to remove a check on the conversation and a heated discussion in tense +undertones went on, it seemed interminably.... Probably very few aspects +of Benham and Amanda were ignored.... Towards morning the twanging of a +string proclaimed the arrival of a querulous-faced minstrel with a sort +of embryonic one-stringed horse-headed fiddle, and after a brief parley +singing began, a long high-pitched solo. The fiddle squealed pitifully +under the persuasion of a semicircular bow. Two heads were lifted +enquiringly. + +The singer had taken up his position at their feet and faced them. It +was a compliment. + +“OH!” said Amanda, rolling over. + +The soloist obliged with three songs, and then, just as day was +breaking, stopped abruptly and sprawled suddenly on the floor as if he +had been struck asleep. He was vocal even in his sleep. A cock in the +far corner began crowing and was answered by another outside.... + +But this does not give a full account of the animation of the khan. +“OH!” said Amanda, rolling over again with the suddenness of accumulated +anger. + +“They're worse than in Scutari,” said Benham, understanding her trouble +instantly. + +“It isn't days and nights we are having,” said Benham a few days later, +“it's days and nightmares.” + +But both he and Amanda had one quality in common. The deeper their +discomfort the less possible it was to speak of turning back from the +itinerary they had planned.... + +They met no robbers, though an excited little English Levantine in +Scutari had assured them they would do so and told a vivid story of a +ride to Ipek, a delay on the road due to a sudden inexplicable lameness +of his horse after a halt for refreshment, a political discussion that +delayed him, his hurry through the still twilight to make up for lost +time, the coming on of night and the sudden silent apparition out of +the darkness of the woods about the road of a dozen armed men each +protruding a gun barrel. “Sometimes they will wait for you at a ford +or a broken bridge,” he said. “In the mountains they rob for arms. They +assassinate the Turkish soldiers even. It is better to go unarmed unless +you mean to fight for it.... Have you got arms?” + +“Just a revolver,” said Benham. + +But it was after that that he closed with Giorgio. + +If they found no robbers in Albania, they met soon enough with +bloodshed. They came to a village where a friend of a friend of +Giorgio's was discovered, and they slept at his house in preference to +the unclean and crowded khan. Here for the first time Amanda made the +acquaintance of Albanian women and was carried off to the woman's region +at the top of the house, permitted to wash, closely examined, shown +a baby and confided in as generously as gesture and some fragments of +Italian would permit. Benham slept on a rug on the first floor in a +corner of honour beside the wood fire. There had been much confused +conversation and some singing, he was dog-tired and slept heavily, +and when presently he was awakened by piercing screams he sat up in a +darkness that seemed to belong neither to time nor place.... + +Near his feet was an ashen glow that gave no light. + +His first perplexity gave way to dismay at finding no Amanda by his +side. “Amanda!” he cried.... + +Her voice floated down through a chink in the floor above. “What can it +be, Cheetah?” + +Then: “It's coming nearer.” + +The screaming continued, heart-rending, eviscerating shrieks. Benham, +still confused, lit a match. All the men about him were stirring or +sitting up and listening, their faces showing distorted and ugly in the +flicker of his light. “CHE E?” he tried. No one answered. Then one +by one they stood up and went softly to the ladder that led to the +stable-room below. Benham struck a second match and a third. + +“Giorgio!” he called. + +The cavasse made an arresting gesture and followed discreetly and +noiselessly after the others, leaving Benham alone in the dark. + +Benham heard their shuffling patter, one after the other, down the +ladder, the sounds of a door being unbarred softly, and then no other +sound but that incessant shrieking in the darkness. + +Had they gone out? Were they standing at the door looking out into the +night and listening? + +Amanda had found the chink and her voice sounded nearer. + +“It's a woman,” she said. + +The shrieking came nearer and nearer, long, repeated, throat-tearing +shrieks. Far off there was a great clamour of dogs. And there was +another sound, a whisper--? + +“RAIN!” + +The shrieks seemed to turn into a side street and receded. The tension +of listening relaxed. Men's voices sounded below in question and answer. +Dogs close at hand barked shortly and then stopped enquiringly. + +Benham seemed to himself to be sitting alone for an interminable time. +He lit another match and consulted his watch. It was four o'clock and +nearly dawn.... + +Then slowly and stumbling up the ladder the men began to return to +Benham's room. + +“Ask them what it is,” urged Amanda. + +But for a time not even Giorgio would understand Benham's questions. +There seemed to be a doubt whether he ought to know. The shrieking +approached again and then receded. Giorgio came and stood, a vague +thoughtful figure, by the embers of the fire. Explanation dropped from +him reluctantly. It was nothing. Some one had been killed: that was all. +It was a vendetta. A man had been missing overnight, and this morning +his brother who had been prowling and searching with some dogs had found +him, or rather his head. It was on this side of the ravine, thrown over +from the other bank on which the body sprawled stiffly, wet through, and +now growing visible in the gathering daylight. Yes--the voice was the +man's wife. It was raining hard.... There would be shrieking for nine +days. Yes, nine days. Confirmation with the fingers when Benham still +fought against the facts. Her friends and relatives would come and +shriek too. Two of the dead man's aunts were among the best keeners in +the whole land. They could keen marvellously. It was raining too hard +to go on.... The road would be impossible in rain.... Yes it was very +melancholy. Her house was close at hand. Perhaps twenty or thirty women +would join her. It was impossible to go on until it had stopped raining. +It would be tiresome, but what could one do?... + + + +7 + + +As they sat upon the parapet of a broken bridge on the road between +Elbassan and Ochrida Benham was moved to a dissertation upon the +condition of Albania and the politics of the Balkan peninsula. + +“Here we are,” he said, “not a week from London, and you see the sort +of life that men live when the forces of civilization fail. We have been +close to two murders--” + +“Two?” + +“That little crowd in the square at Scutari-- That was a murder. I +didn't tell you at the time.” + +“But I knew it was,” said Amanda. + +“And you see the filth of it all, the toiling discomfort of it all. +There is scarcely a house here in all the land that is not filthier +and viler than the worst slum in London. No man ventures far from his +village without arms, everywhere there is fear. The hills are impassable +because of the shepherd's dogs. Over those hills a little while ago a +stranger was torn to pieces by dogs--and partially eaten. Amanda, these +dogs madden me. I shall let fly at the beasts. The infernal indignity +of it! But that is by the way. You see how all this magnificent country +lies waste with nothing but this crawling, ugly mockery of human life.” + +“They sing,” said Amanda. + +“Yes,” said Benham and reflected, “they do sing. I suppose singing is +the last thing left to men. When there is nothing else you can still sit +about and sing. Miners who have been buried in mines will sing, people +going down in ships.” + +“The Sussex labourers don't sing,” said Amanda. “These people sing +well.” + +“They would probably sing as well if they were civilized. Even if they +didn't I shouldn't care. All the rest of their lives is muddle and +cruelty and misery. Look at the women. There was that party of bent +creatures we met yesterday, carrying great bundles, carrying even +the men's cloaks and pipes, while their rascal husbands and brothers +swaggered behind. Look at the cripples we have seen and the mutilated +men. If we have met one man without a nose, we have met a dozen. And +stunted people. All these people are like evil schoolboys; they do +nothing but malicious mischief; there is nothing adult about them but +their voices; they are like the heroic dreams of young ruffians in a +penitentiary. You saw that man at Scutari in the corner of the bazaar, +the gorgeous brute, you admired him--.” + +“The man with the gold inlaid pistols and the diamonds on his yataghan. +He wanted to show them to us.” + +“Yes. You let him see you admired him.” + +“I liked the things on his stall.” + +“Well, he has killed nearly thirty people.” + +“In duels?” + +“Good Lord! NO! Assassinations. His shoemaker annoyed him by sending in +a bill. He went to the man's stall, found him standing with his child +in his arms and blew out his brains. He blundered against a passer-by in +the road and shot him. Those are his feats. Sometimes his pistols go off +in the bazaar just by accident.” + +“Does nobody kill him?” + +“I wanted to,” said Benham and became thoughtful for a time. “I think I +ought to have made some sort of quarrel. But then as I am an Englishman +he might have hesitated. He would have funked a strange beast like me. +And I couldn't have shot him if he had hesitated. And if he hadn't--” + +“But doesn't a blood feud come down on him?” + +“It only comes down on his family. The shoemaker's son thought the +matter over and squared accounts by putting the muzzle of a gun into the +small of the back of our bully's uncle. It was easier that way.... You +see you're dealing with men of thirteen years old or thereabouts, the +boy who doesn't grow up.” + +“But doesn't the law--?” + +“There's no law. Only custom and the Turkish tax collector. + +“You see this is what men are where there is no power, no discipline, +no ruler, no responsibility. This is a masterless world. This is pure +democracy. This is the natural state of men. This is the world of the +bully and the brigand and assassin, the world of the mud-pelter and +brawler, the world of the bent woman, the world of the flea and the +fly, the open drain and the baying dog. This is what the British +sentimentalist thinks a noble state for men.” + +“They fight for freedom.” + +“They fight among each other. There are their private feuds and their +village feuds and above all that great feud religion. In Albania there +is only one religion and that is hate. But there are three churches for +the better cultivation of hate and cruelty, the Latin, the Greek and the +Mahometan.” + +“But no one has ever conquered these people.” + +“Any one could, the Servians, the Bulgarians, the Greeks, the Italians, +the Austrians. Why, they can't even shoot! It's just the balance of +power and all that foolery keeps this country a roadless wilderness. +Good God, how I tire of it! These men who swagger and stink, their +brawling dogs, their greasy priests and dervishes, the down-at-heel +soldiers, the bribery and robbery, the cheating over the money....” + +He slipped off the parapet, too impatient to sit any longer, and began +to pace up and down in the road. + +“One marvels that no one comes to clear up this country, one itches to +be at the job, and then one realizes that before one can begin here, one +must get to work back there, where the fools and pedants of WELT POLITIK +scheme mischief one against another. This country frets me. I can't see +any fun in it, can't see the humour of it. And the people away there +know no better than to play off tribe against tribe, sect against sect, +one peasant prejudice against another. Over this pass the foolery grows +grimmer and viler. We shall come to where the Servian plots against +the Bulgarian and the Greek against both, and the Turk, with spasmodic +massacres and indulgences, broods over the brew. Every division is +subdivided. There are two sorts of Greek church, Exarchic, Patriarchic, +both teaching by threat and massacre. And there is no one, no one, with +the sense to over-ride all these squalid hostilities. All those fools +away there in London and Vienna and St. Petersburg and Rome take sides +as though these beastly tribes and leagues and superstitions meant +anything but blank, black, damnable ignorance. One fool stands up for +the Catholic Albanians, another finds heroes in the Servians, another +talks of Brave Little Montenegro, or the Sturdy Bulgarian, or the Heroic +Turk. There isn't a religion in the whole Balkan peninsula, there isn't +a tribal or national sentiment that deserves a moment's respect from +a sane man. They're things like niggers' nose-rings and Chinese secret +societies; childish things, idiot things that have to go. Yet there is +no one who will preach the only possible peace, which is the peace of +the world-state, the open conspiracy of all the sane men in the world +against the things that break us up into wars and futilities. And here +am I--who have the light--WANDERING! Just wandering!” + +He shrugged his shoulders and came to stare at the torrent under the +bridge. + +“You're getting ripe for London, Cheetah,” said Amanda softly. + +“I want somehow to get to work, to get my hands on definite things.” + +“How can we get back?” + +She had to repeat her question presently. + +“We can go on. Over the hills is Ochrida and then over another pass is +Presba, and from there we go down into Monastir and reach a railway and +get back to the world of our own times again.” + + + +8 + + +But before they reached the world of their own times Macedonia was to +show them something grimmer than Albania. + +They were riding through a sunlit walnut wood beyond Ochrida when they +came upon the thing. + +The first they saw of it looked like a man lying asleep on a grassy +bank. But he lay very still indeed, he did not look up, he did not stir +as they passed, the pose of his hand was stiff, and when Benham glanced +back at him, he stifled a little cry of horror. For this man had no face +and the flies had been busy upon him.... + +Benham caught Amanda's bridle so that she had to give her attention to +her steed. + +“Ahead!” he said, “Ahead! Look, a village!” + +(Why the devil didn't they bury the man? Why? And that fool Giorgio and +the others were pulling up and beginning to chatter. After all she might +look back.) + +Through the trees now they could see houses. He quickened his pace and +jerked Amanda's horse forward.... + +But the village was a still one. Not a dog barked. + +Here was an incredible village without even a dog! + +And then, then they saw some more people lying about. A woman lay in +a doorway. Near her was something muddy that might have been a child, +beyond were six men all spread out very neatly in a row with their faces +to the sky. + +“Cheetah!” cried Amanda, with her voice going up. “They've been killed. +Some one has killed them.” + +Benham halted beside her and stared stupidly. “It's a band,” he said. +“It's--propaganda. Greeks or Turks or Bulgarians.” + +“But their feet and hands are fastened! And--... WHAT HAVE THEY BEEN +DOING TO THEM?...” + +“I want to kill,” cried Benham. “Oh! I want to kill people. Come on, +Amanda! It blisters one's eyes. Come away. Come away! Come!” + +Her face was white and her eyes terror-stricken. She obeyed him +mechanically. She gave one last look at those bodies.... + +Down the deep-rutted soil of the village street they clattered. They +came to houses that had been set on fire.... + +“What is that hanging from a tree?” cried Amanda. “Oh, oh!” + +“Come on....” + +Behind them rode the others scared and hurrying. + +The sunlight had become the light of hell. There was no air but horror. +Across Benham's skies these fly-blown trophies of devilry dangled +mockingly in the place of God. He had no thought but to get away. + +Presently they encountered a detachment of Turkish soldiers, very greasy +and ragged, with worn-out boots and yellow faces, toiling up the stony +road belatedly to the village. Amanda and Benham riding one behind +the other in a stricken silence passed this labouring column without a +gesture, but presently they heard the commander stopping and questioning +Giorgio.... + +Then Giorgio and the others came clattering to overtake them. + +Giorgio was too full to wait for questions. He talked eagerly to +Benham's silence. + +It must have happened yesterday, he explained. They were +Bulgarians--traitors. They had been converted to the Patriarchists by +the Greeks--by a Greek band, that is to say. They had betrayed one +of their own people. Now a Bulgarian band had descended upon +them. Bulgarian bands it seemed were always particularly rough on +Bulgarian-speaking Patriarchists.... + + + +9 + + +That night they slept in a dirty little room in a peasant's house in +Resnia, and in the middle of the night Amanda woke up with a start and +heard Benham talking. He seemed to be sitting up as he talked. But he +was not talking to her and his voice sounded strange. + +“Flies,” he said, “in the sunlight!” + +He was silent for a time and then he repeated the same words. + +Then suddenly he began to declaim. “Oh! Brutes together. Apes. Apes with +knives. Have they no lord, no master, to save them from such things? +This is the life of men when no man rules.... When no man rules.... Not +even himself.... It is because we are idle, because we keep our wits +slack and our wills weak that these poor devils live in hell. These +things happen here and everywhere when the hand that rules grows +weak. Away in China now they are happening. Persia. Africa.... Russia +staggers. And I who should serve the law, I who should keep order, +wander and make love.... My God! may I never forget! May I never forget! +Flies in the sunlight! That man's face. And those six men! + +“Grip the savage by the throat. + +“The weak savage in the foreign office, the weak savage at the party +headquarters, feud and indolence and folly. It is all one world. This +and that are all one thing. The spites of London and the mutilations +of Macedonia. The maggots that eat men's faces and the maggots that rot +their minds. Rot their minds. Rot their minds. Rot their minds....” + +To Amanda it sounded like delirium. + +“CHEETAH!” she said suddenly between remonstrance and a cry of terror. + +The darkness suddenly became quite still. He did not move. + +She was afraid. “Cheetah!” she said again. + +“What is it, Amanda?” + +“I thought--. Are you all right?” + +“Quite.” + +“But do you feel well?” + +“I've got this cold I caught in Ochrida. I suppose I'm feverish. +But--yes, I'm well.” + +“You were talking.” + +Silence for a time. + +“I was thinking,” he said. + +“You talked.” + +“I'm sorry,” he said after another long pause. + + + +10 + + +The next morning Benham had a pink spot on either cheek, his eyes were +feverishly bright, he would touch no food and instead of coffee he +wanted water. “In Monastir there will be a doctor,” he said. “Monastir +is a big place. In Monastir I will see a doctor. I want a doctor.” + +They rode out of the village in the freshness before sunrise and up long +hills, and sometimes they went in the shade of woods and sometimes in +a flooding sunshine. Benham now rode in front, preoccupied, intent, +regardless of Amanda, a stranger, and she rode close behind him +wondering. + +“When you get to Monastir, young man,” she told him, inaudibly, “you +will go straight to bed and we'll see what has to be done with you.” + +“AMMALATO,” said Giorgio confidentially, coming abreast of her. + +“MEDICO IN MONASTIR,” said Amanda. + +“SI,--MOLTI MEDICI, MONASTIR,” Giorgio agreed. + +Then came the inevitable dogs, big white brutes, three in full cry +charging hard at Benham and a younger less enterprising beast running +along the high bank above yapping and making feints to descend. + +The goatherd, reclining under the shadow of a rock, awaited Benham's +embarrassment with an indolent malice. + +“You UNCIVILIZED Beasts!” cried Benham, and before Amanda could realize +what he was up to, she heard the crack of his revolver and saw a puff +of blue smoke drift away above his right shoulder. The foremost beast +rolled over and the goatherd had sprung to his feet. He shouted with +something between anger and dismay as Benham, regardless of the fact +that the other dogs had turned and were running back, let fly a second +time. Then the goatherd had clutched at the gun that lay on the grass +near at hand, Giorgio was bawling in noisy remonstrance and also getting +ready to shoot, and the horse-owner and his boy were clattering back +to a position of neutrality up the stony road. “BANG!” came a flight +of lead within a yard of Benham, and then the goatherd was in retreat +behind a rock and Giorgio was shouting “AVANTI, AVANTI!” to Amanda. + +She grasped his intention and in another moment she had Benham's horse +by the bridle and was leading the retreat. Giorgio followed close, +driving the two baggage mules before him. + +“I am tired of dogs,” Benham said. “Tired to death of dogs. All savage +dogs must be shot. All through the world. I am tired--” + +Their road carried them down through the rocky pass and then up a long +slope in the open. Far away on the left they saw the goatherd running +and shouting and other armed goatherds appearing among the rocks. Behind +them the horse-owner and his boy came riding headlong across the zone of +danger. + +“Dogs must be shot,” said Benham, exalted. “Dogs must be shot.” + +“Unless they are GOOD dogs,” said Amanda, keeping beside him with an eye +on his revolver. + +“Unless they are good dogs to every one,” said Benham. + +They rushed along the road in a turbulent dusty huddle of horses and +mules and riders. The horse-owner, voluble in Albanian, was trying +to get past them. His boy pressed behind him. Giorgio in the rear had +unslung his rifle and got it across the front of his saddle. Far +away they heard the sound of a shot, and a kind of shudder in the air +overhead witnessed to the flight of the bullet. They crested a rise and +suddenly between the tree boughs Monastir was in view, a wide stretch of +white town, with many cypress and plane trees, a winding river with many +wooden bridges, clustering minarets of pink and white, a hilly cemetery, +and scattered patches of soldiers' tents like some queer white crop to +supplement its extensive barracks. + +As they hurried down towards this city of refuge a long string of mules +burthened with great bales of green stuff appeared upon a convergent +track to the left. Besides the customary muleteers there were, by way of +an escort, a couple of tattered Turkish soldiers. All these men watched +the headlong approach of Benham's party with apprehensive inquiry. +Giorgio shouted some sort of information that made the soldiers brighten +up and stare up the hill, and set the muleteers whacking and shouting at +their convoy. It struck Amanda that Giorgio must be telling lies about +a Bulgarian band. In another moment Benham and Amanda found themselves +swimming in a torrent of mules. Presently they overtook a small flock of +fortunately nimble sheep, and picked up several dogs, dogs that happily +disregarded Benham in the general confusion. They also comprehended a +small springless cart, two old women with bundles and an elderly Greek +priest, before their dusty, barking, shouting cavalcade reached the +outskirts of Monastir. The two soldiers had halted behind to cover the +retreat. + +Benham's ghastly face was now bedewed with sweat and he swayed in his +saddle as he rode. “This is NOT civilization, Amanda,” he said, “this is +NOT civilization.” + +And then suddenly with extraordinary pathos: + +“Oh! I want to go to BED! I want to go to BED! A bed with sheets....” + +To ride into Monastir is to ride into a maze. The streets go nowhere in +particular. At least that was the effect on Amanda and Benham. It was +as if Monastir too had a temperature and was slightly delirious. But at +last they found an hotel--quite a civilized hotel.... + +The doctor in Monastir was an Armenian with an ambition that outran his +capacity to speak English. He had evidently studied the language chiefly +from books. He thought THESE was pronounced “theser” and THOSE was +pronounced “thoser,” and that every English sentence should be taken at +a rush. He diagnosed Benham's complaint in various languages and failed +to make his meaning clear to Amanda. One combination of words he clung +to obstinately, having clearly the utmost faith in its expressiveness. +To Amanda it sounded like, “May, Ah! Slays,” and it seemed to her that +he sought to intimate a probable fatal termination of Benham's fever. +But it was clear that the doctor was not satisfied that she understood. +He came again with a queer little worn book, a parallel vocabulary of +half-a-dozen European languages. + +He turned over the pages and pointed to a word. “May! Ah! Slays!” he +repeated, reproachfully, almost bitterly. + +“Oh, MEASLES!” cried Amanda.... + +So the spirited honeymoon passed its zenith. + + + +11 + + +The Benhams went as soon as possible down to Smyrna and thence by way +of Uskub tortuously back to Italy. They recuperated at the best hotel +of Locarno in golden November weather, and just before Christmas they +turned their faces back to England. + +Benham's plans were comprehensive but entirely vague; Amanda had not so +much plans as intentions.... + + + + +CHAPTER THE FIFTH ~~ THE ASSIZE OF JEALOUSY + + + +1 + + +It was very manifest in the disorder of papers amidst which White spent +so many evenings of interested perplexity before this novel began to be +written that Benham had never made any systematic attempt at editing +or revising his accumulation at all. There were not only overlapping +documents, in which he had returned again to old ideas and restated +them in the light of fresh facts and an apparent unconsciousness of his +earlier effort, but there were mutually destructive papers, new views +quite ousting the old had been tossed in upon the old, and the very +definition of the second limitation, as it had first presented itself to +the writer, had been abandoned. To begin with, this second division +had been labelled “Sex,” in places the heading remained, no +effective substitute had been chosen for some time, but there was +a closely-written memorandum, very much erased and written over and +amended, which showed Benham's early dissatisfaction with that crude +rendering of what he had in mind. This memorandum was tacked to an +interrupted fragment of autobiography, a manuscript soliloquy in which +Benham had been discussing his married life. + +“It was not until I had been married for the better part of a year, and +had spent more than six months in London, that I faced the plain issue +between the aims I had set before myself and the claims and immediate +necessities of my personal life. For all that time I struggled not so +much to reconcile them as to serve them simultaneously....” + +At that the autobiography stopped short, and the intercalary note began. + +This intercalary note ran as follows: + +“I suppose a mind of my sort cannot help but tend towards +simplification, towards making all life turn upon some one dominant +idea, complex perhaps in its reality but reducible at last to one +consistent simple statement, a dominant idea which is essential as +nothing else is essential, which makes and sustains and justifies. This +is perhaps the innate disposition of the human mind, at least of the +European mind--for I have some doubts about the Chinese. Theology +drives obstinately towards an ultimate unity in God, science towards +an ultimate unity in law, towards a fundamental element and a universal +material truth from which all material truths evolve, and in matters of +conduct there is the same tendency to refer to a universal moral law. +Now this may be a simplification due to the need of the human mind to +comprehend, and its inability to do so until the load is lightened by +neglecting factors. William James has suggested that on account of this, +theology may be obstinately working away from the truth, that the truth +may be that there are several or many in compatible and incommensurable +gods; science, in the same search for unity, may follow divergent +methods of inquiry into ultimately uninterchangeable generalizations; +and there may be not only not one universal moral law, but no effective +reconciliation of the various rights and duties of a single individual. +At any rate I find myself doubtful to this day about my own personal +systems of right and wrong. I can never get all my life into one focus. +It is exactly like examining a rather thick section with a microscope of +small penetration; sometimes one level is clear and the rest foggy and +monstrous, and sometimes another. + +“Now the ruling ME, I do not doubt, is the man who has set his face +to this research after aristocracy, and from the standpoint of this +research it is my duty to subordinate all other considerations to +this work of clearing up the conception of rule and nobility in human +affairs. This is my aristocratic self. What I did not grasp for a long +time, and which now grows clearer and clearer to me, is firstly that +this aristocratic self is not the whole of me, it has absolutely nothing +to do with a pain in my ear or in my heart, with a scar on my hand or my +memory, and secondly that it is not altogether mine. Whatever knowledge +I have of the quality of science, whatever will I have towards right, +is of it; but if from without, from the reasoning or demonstration or +reproof of some one else, there comes to me clear knowledge, clarified +will, that also is as it were a part of my aristocratic self coming +home to me from the outside. How often have I not found my own mind +in Prothero after I have failed to find it in myself? It is, to be +paradoxical, my impersonal personality, this Being that I have in common +with all scientific-spirited and aristocratic-spirited men. This it is +that I am trying to get clear from the great limitations of humanity. +When I assert a truth for the sake of truth to my own discomfort or +injury, there again is this incompatibility of the aristocratic self and +the accepted, confused, conglomerate self of the unanalyzed man. The two +have a separate system of obligations. One's affections, compounded +as they are in the strangest way of physical reactions and emotional +associations, one's implicit pledges to particular people, one's +involuntary reactions, one's pride and jealousy, all that one might call +the dramatic side of one's life, may be in conflict with the definitely +seen rightnesses of one's higher use....” + +The writing changed at this point. + +“All this seems to me at once as old as the hills and too new to be +true. This is like the conflict of the Superior Man of Confucius to +control himself, it is like the Christian battle of the spirit with the +flesh, it savours of that eternal wrangle between the general and the +particular which is metaphysics, it was for this aristocratic self, for +righteousness' sake, that men have hungered and thirsted, and on this +point men have left father and mother and child and wife and followed +after salvation. This world-wide, ever-returning antagonism has filled +the world in every age with hermits and lamas, recluses and teachers, +devoted and segregated lives. It is a perpetual effort to get above the +simplicity of barbarism. Whenever men have emerged from the primitive +barbarism of the farm and the tribe, then straightway there has emerged +this conception of a specialized life a little lifted off the earth; +often, for the sake of freedom, celibate, usually disciplined, sometimes +directed, having a generalized aim, beyond personal successes and bodily +desires. So it is that the philosopher, the scientifically concentrated +man, has appeared, often, I admit, quite ridiculously at first, setting +out upon the long journey that will end only when the philosopher is +king.... + +“At first I called my Second Limitation, Sex. But from the outset I +meant more than mere sexual desire, lust and lustful imaginings, more +than personal reactions to beauty and spirited living, more even than +what is called love. On the one hand I had in mind many appetites that +are not sexual yet turn to bodily pleasure, and on the other there are +elements of pride arising out of sex and passing into other regions, +all the elements of rivalry for example, that have strained my first +definition to the utmost. And I see now that this Second Limitation as I +first imagined it spreads out without any definite boundary, to include +one's rivalries with old schoolfellows, for example, one's generosities +to beggars and dependents, one's desire to avenge an injured friend, +one's point of honour, one's regard for the good opinion of an aunt and +one's concern for the health of a pet cat. All these things may enrich, +but they may also impede and limit the aristocratic scheme. I thought +for a time I would call this ill-defined and miscellaneous wilderness of +limitation the Personal Life. But at last I have decided to divide this +vast territory of difficulties into two subdivisions and make one of +these Indulgence, meaning thereby pleasurable indulgence of sense or +feeling, and the other a great mass of self-regarding motives that +will go with a little stretching under the heading of Jealousy. I +admit motives are continually playing across the boundary of these +two divisions, I should find it difficult to argue a case for my +classification, but in practice these two groupings have a quite +definite meaning for me. There is pride in the latter group of impulses +and not in the former; the former are always a little apologetic. Fear, +Indulgence, Jealousy, these are the First Three Limitations of the soul +of man. And the greatest of these is Jealousy, because it can use pride. +Over them the Life Aristocratic, as I conceive it, marches to its end. +It saves itself for the truth rather than sacrifices itself romantically +for a friend. It justifies vivisection if thereby knowledge is won for +ever. It upholds that Brutus who killed his sons. It forbids devotion to +women, courts of love and all such decay of the chivalrous idea. And it +resigns--so many things that no common Man of Spirit will resign. Its +intention transcends these things. Over all the world it would maintain +justice, order, a noble peace, and it would do this without indignation, +without resentment, without mawkish tenderness or individualized +enthusiasm or any queen of beauty. It is of a cold austere quality, +commanding sometimes admiration but having small hold upon the +affections of men. So that it is among its foremost distinctions that +its heart is steeled....” + +There this odd fragment ended and White was left to resume the +interrupted autobiography. + + + +2 + + +What moods, what passions, what nights of despair and gathering storms +of anger, what sudden cruelties and amazing tendernesses are buried +and hidden and implied in every love story! What a waste is there of +exquisite things! So each spring sees a million glorious beginnings, a +sunlit heaven in every opening leaf, warm perfection in every stirring +egg, hope and fear and beauty beyond computation in every forest tree; +and in the autumn before the snows come they have all gone, of all +that incalculable abundance of life, of all that hope and adventure, +excitement and deliciousness, there is scarcely more to be found than +a soiled twig, a dirty seed, a dead leaf, black mould or a rotting +feather.... + +White held the ten or twelve pencilled pages that told how Benham and +Amanda drifted into antagonism and estrangement and as he held it he +thought of the laughter and delight they must have had together, the +exquisite excitements of her eye, the racing colour of her cheek, the +gleams of light upon her skin, the flashes of wit between them, the +sense of discovery, the high rare paths they had followed, the pools in +which they had swum together. And now it was all gone into nothingness, +there was nothing left of it, nothing at all, but just those sheets of +statement, and it may be, stored away in one single mind, like things +forgotten in an attic, a few neglected faded memories.... + +And even those few sheets of statement were more than most love leaves +behind it. For a time White would not read them. They lay neglected on +his knee as he sat back in Benham's most comfortable chair and enjoyed +an entirely beautiful melancholy. + +White too had seen and mourned the spring. + +Indeed, poor dear! he had seen and mourned several springs.... + +With a sigh he took up the manuscript and read Benham's desiccated story +of intellectual estrangement, and how in the end he had decided to +leave his wife and go out alone upon that journey of inquiry he had been +planning when first he met her. + + + +3 + + +Amanda had come back to England in a state of extravagantly vigorous +womanhood. Benham's illness, though it lasted only two or three +weeks, gave her a sense of power and leadership for which she had been +struggling instinctively ever since they came together. For a time at +Locarno he was lax-minded and indolent, and in that time she formed her +bright and limited plans for London. Benham had no plans as yet but +only a sense of divergence, as though he was being pulled in opposite +directions by two irresistible forces. To her it was plain that he +needed occupation, some distinguished occupation, and she could imagine +nothing better for him than a political career. She perceived he had +personality, that he stood out among men so that his very silences were +effective. She loved him immensely, and she had tremendous ambitions for +him and through him. + +And also London, the very thought of London, filled her with appetite. +Her soul thirsted for London. It was like some enormous juicy fruit +waiting for her pretty white teeth, a place almost large enough to give +her avidity the sense of enough. She felt it waiting for her, household, +servants, a carriage, shops and the jolly delight of buying and +possessing things, the opera, first-nights, picture exhibitions, great +dinner-parties, brilliant lunch parties, crowds seen from a point +of vantage, the carriage in a long string of fine carriages with the +lamplit multitude peering, Amanda in a thousand bright settings, in a +thousand various dresses. She had had love; it had been glorious, it +was still glorious, but her love-making became now at times almost +perfunctory in the contemplation of these approaching delights and +splendours and excitements. + +She knew, indeed, that ideas were at work in Benham's head; but she +was a realist. She did not see why ideas should stand in the way of a +career. Ideas are a brightness, the good looks of the mind. One talks +ideas, but THE THING THAT IS, IS THE THING THAT IS. And though she +believed that Benham had a certain strength of character of his own, she +had that sort of confidence in his love for her and in the power of her +endearments that has in it the assurance of a faint contempt. She had +mingled pride and sense in the glorious realization of the power over +him that her wit and beauty gave her. She had held him faint with her +divinity, intoxicated with the pride of her complete possession, and she +did not dream that the moment when he should see clearly that she could +deliberately use these ultimate delights to rule and influence him, +would be the end of their splendour and her power. Her nature, which +was just a nest of vigorous appetites, was incapable of suspecting his +gathering disillusionment until it burst upon her. + +Now with her attention set upon London ahead he could observe her. +In the beginning he had never seemed to be observing her at all, they +dazzled one another; it seemed extraordinary now to him to note how much +he had been able to disregard. There were countless times still when he +would have dropped his observation and resumed that mutual exaltation +very gladly, but always now other things possessed her mind.... + +There was still an immense pleasure for him in her vigour; there was +something delightful in her pounce, even when she was pouncing on things +superficial, vulgar or destructive. She made him understand and share +the excitement of a big night at the opera, the glitter and prettiness +of a smart restaurant, the clustering little acute adventures of a great +reception of gay people, just as she had already made him understand and +sympathize with dogs. She picked up the art world where he had laid +it down, and she forced him to feel dense and slow before he rebelled +against her multitudinous enthusiasms and admirations. South Harting had +had its little group of artistic people; it is not one of your sleepy +villages, and she slipped back at once into the movement. Those were +the great days of John, the days before the Post Impressionist outbreak. +John, Orpen, Tonks, she bought them with vigour. Artistic circles began +to revolve about her. Very rapidly she was in possession.... And among +other desirable things she had, it seemed, pounced upon and captured +Lady Marayne. + +At any rate it was clear that that awful hostile silence and aloofness +was to end. Benham never quite mastered how it was done. But Amanda +had gone in one morning to Desborough Street, very sweetly and +chastely dressed, had abased herself and announced a possible (though +subsequently disproved) grandchild. And she had appreciated the little +lady so highly and openly, she had so instantly caught and reproduced +her tone, that her success, though only temporary in its completeness, +was immediate. In the afternoon Benham was amazed by the apparition of +his mother amidst the scattered unsettled furnishings of the new home +Amanda had chosen in Lancaster Gate. He was in the hall, the door stood +open awaiting packing-cases from a van without. In the open doorway she +shone, looking the smallest of dainty things. There was no effect of her +coming but only of her having arrived there, as a little blue butterfly +will suddenly alight on a flower. + +“Well, Poff!” said Lady Marayne, ignoring abysses, “What are you up to +now, Poff? Come and embrace me....” + +“No, not so,” she said, “stiffest of sons....” + +She laid hold of his ears in the old fashion and kissed one eye. + +“Congratulations, dear little Poff. Oh! congratulations! In heaps. I'm +so GLAD.” + +Now what was that for? + +And then Amanda came out upon the landing upstairs, saw the encounter +with an involuntary cry of joy, and came downstairs with arms wide open. +It was the first intimation he had of their previous meeting. He was for +some minutes a stunned, entirely inadequate Benham.... + + + +4 + + +At first Amanda knew nobody in London, except a few people in the +Hampstead Garden suburb that she had not the slightest wish to know, and +then very quickly she seemed to know quite a lot of people. The artistic +circle brought in people, Lady Marayne brought in people; they spread. +It was manifest the Benhams were a very bright young couple; he would +certainly do something considerable presently, and she was bright and +daring, jolly to look at and excellent fun, and, when you came to talk +to her, astonishingly well informed. They passed from one hostess's hand +to another: they reciprocated. The Clynes people and the Rushtones took +her up; Mr. Evesham was amused by her, Lady Beach Mandarin proclaimed +her charm like a trumpet, the Young Liberal people made jealous +advances, Lord Moggeridge found she listened well, she lit one of the +brightest weekend parties Lady Marayne had ever gathered at Chexington. +And her descriptions of recent danger and adventure in Albania not +only entertained her hearers but gave her just that flavour of personal +courage which completes the fascination of a young woman. People in the +gaps of a halting dinner-table conversation would ask: “Have you met +Mrs. Benham?” + +Meanwhile Benham appeared to be talking. A smiling and successful young +woman, who a year ago had been nothing more than a leggy girl with a +good lot of miscellaneous reading in her head, and vaguely engaged, or +at least friendly to the pitch of engagement, to Mr. Rathbone-Sanders, +may be forgiven if in the full tide of her success she does not +altogether grasp the intention of her husband's discourse. It seemed to +her that he was obsessed by a responsibility for civilization and the +idea that he was aristocratic. (Secretly she was inclined to doubt +whether he was justified in calling himself aristocratic; at the best +his mother was county-stuff; but still if he did there was no great +harm in it nowadays.) Clearly his line was Tory-Democracy, social reform +through the House of Lords and friendly intimacy with the more spirited +young peers. And it was only very slowly and reluctantly that she +was forced to abandon this satisfactory solution of his problem. She +reproduced all the equipment and comforts of his Finacue Street study in +their new home, she declared constantly that she would rather forego +any old social thing than interfere with his work, she never made him +go anywhere with her without first asking if his work permitted it. To +relieve him of the burthen of such social attentions she even made a fag +or so. The making of fags out of manifestly stricken men, the keeping +of tamed and hopeless admirers, seemed to her to be the most natural and +reasonable of feminine privileges. They did their useful little services +until it pleased the Lord Cheetah to come to his own. That was how she +put it.... + +But at last he was talking to her in tones that could no longer be +ignored. He was manifestly losing his temper with her. There was a +novel austerity in his voice and a peculiar whiteness about his face on +certain occasions that lingered in her memory. + +He was indeed making elaborate explanations. He said that what he wanted +to do was to understand “the collective life of the world,” and that +this was not to be done in a West-End study. He had an extraordinary +contempt, it seemed, for both sides in the drama of British politics. He +had extravagant ideas of beginning in some much more fundamental way. +He wanted to understand this “collective life of the world,” because +ultimately he wanted to help control it. (Was there ever such nonsense?) +The practical side of this was serious enough, however; he was back at +his old idea of going round the earth. Later on that might be rather +a jolly thing to do, but not until they had struck root a little more +surely in London. + +And then with amazement, with incredulity, with indignation, she began +to realize that he was proposing to go off by himself upon this vague +extravagant research, that all this work she had been doing to make +a social place for him in London was as nothing to him, that he was +thinking of himself as separable from her.... + +“But, Cheetah! How can you leave your spotless leopard? You would howl +in the lonely jungle!” + +“Possibly I shall. But I am going.” + +“Then I shall come.” + +“No.” He considered her reasons. “You see you are not interested.” + +“But I am.” + +“Not as I am. You would turn it all into a jolly holiday. You don't want +to see things as I want to do. You want romance. All the world is a show +for you. As a show I can't endure it. I want to lay hands on it.” + +“But, Cheetah!” she said, “this is separation.” + +“You will have your life here. And I shall come back.” + +“But, Cheetah! How can we be separated?” + +“We are separated,” he said. + +Her eyes became round with astonishment. Then her face puckered. + +“Cheetah!” she cried in a voice of soft distress, “I love you. What do +you mean?” + +And she staggered forward, tear-blinded, and felt for his neck and +shoulders, so that she might weep in his arms.... + + + +5 + + +“Don't say we are separated,” she whispered, putting her still wet face +close to his. + +“No. We're mates,” he answered softly, with his arm about her. + +“How could we ever keep away from each uvver?” she whispered. + +He was silent. + +“How COULD we?” + +He answered aloud. “Amanda,” he said, “I mean to go round the world.” + +She disentangled herself from his arm and sat up beside him. + +“What is to become of me,” she asked suddenly in a voice of despair, +“while you go round the world? If you desert me in London,” she said, +“if you shame me by deserting me in London-- If you leave me, I will +never forgive you, Cheetah! Never.” Then in an almost breathless voice, +and as if she spoke to herself, “Never in all my days.” + + + +6 + + +It was after that that Amanda began to talk about children. There was +nothing involuntary about Amanda. “Soon,” she said, “we must begin to +think of children. Not just now, but a little later. It's good to travel +and have our fun, but life is unreal until there are children in the +background. No woman is really content until she is a mother....” And +for nearly a fortnight nothing more was said about that solitary journey +round the world. + +But children were not the only new topic in Amanda's talk. She set +herself with an ingenious subtlety to remind her husband that there +were other men in the world. The convenient fags, sometimes a little +embarrassed, found their inobtrusive services being brought into the +light before Benham's eyes. Most of them were much older men than +himself, elderly philanderers of whom it seemed to him no sane man need +be jealous, men often of forty or more, but one was a contemporary, Sir +Philip Easton, a man with a touch of Spanish blood and a suggestion of +Spanish fire, who quite manifestly was very much in love with Amanda and +of whom she spoke with a slight perceptible difference of manner that +made Benham faintly uneasy. He was ashamed of the feeling. Easton it +seemed was a man of a peculiarly fine honour, so that Amanda could trust +herself with him to an extent that would have been inadvisable with men +of a commoner substance, and he had a gift of understanding and sympathy +that was almost feminine; he could cheer one up when one was lonely and +despondent. For Amanda was so methodical in the arrangement of her time +that even in the full rush of a London season she could find an hour +now and then for being lonely and despondent. And he was a liberal and +understanding purchaser of the ascendant painters; he understood +that side of Amanda's interests, a side upon which Benham was notably +deficient.... + +“Amanda seems to like that dark boy, Poff; what is his name?--Sir Philip +Easton?” said Lady Marayne. + +Benham looked at her with a slightly hostile intelligence, and said +nothing. + +“When a man takes a wife, he has to keep her,” said Lady Marayne. + +“No,” said Benham after consideration. “I don't intend to be a +wife-herd.” + +“What?” + +“Wife-herd--same as goat-herd.” + +“Coarse, you are sometimes, Poff--nowadays.” + +“It's exactly what I mean. I can understand the kind of curator's +interest an Oriental finds in shepherding a large establishment, but +to spend my days looking after one person who ought to be able to look +after herself--” + +“She's very young.” + +“She's quite grown up. Anyhow I'm not a moral nursemaid.” + +“If you leave her about and go abroad--” + +“Has she been talking to you, mother?” + +“The thing shows.” + +“But about my going abroad?” + +“She said something, my little Poff.” + +Lady Marayne suddenly perceived that beneath Benham's indifference +was something strung very tight, as though he had been thinking +inordinately. He weighed his words before he spoke again. “If Amanda +chooses to threaten me with a sort of conditional infidelity, I don't +see that it ought to change the plans I have made for my life....” + + + +7 + + +“No aristocrat has any right to be jealous,” Benham wrote. “If he +chances to be mated with a woman who does not see his vision or +naturally go his way, he has no right to expect her, much less to compel +her to go his way. What is the use of dragging an unwilling companion +through morasses of uncongenial thought to unsought ends? What is the +use of dragging even a willing pretender, who has no inherent will to +seek and live the aristocratic life? + +“But that does not excuse him from obedience to his own call....” + +He wrote that very early in his examination of the Third Limitation. +Already he had thought out and judged Amanda. The very charm of her, +the sweetness, the nearness and magic of her, was making him more grimly +resolute to break away. All the elaborate process of thinking her +over had gone on behind the mask of his silences while she had been +preoccupied with her housing and establishment in London; it was with a +sense of extraordinary injustice, of having had a march stolen upon her, +of being unfairly trapped, that Amanda found herself faced by foregone +conclusions. He was ready now even with the details of his project. She +should go on with her life in London exactly as she had planned it. He +would take fifteen hundred a year for himself and all the rest she might +spend without check or stint as it pleased her. He was going round the +world for one or two years. It was even possible he would not go alone. +There was a man at Cambridge he might persuade to come with him, a don +called Prothero who was peculiarly useful in helping him to hammer out +his ideas.... + +To her it became commandingly necessary that none of these things should +happen. + +She tried to play upon his jealousy, but her quick instinct speedily +told her that this only hardened his heart. She perceived that she must +make a softer appeal. Now of a set intention she began to revive and +imitate the spontaneous passion of the honeymoon; she perceived for the +first time clearly how wise and righteous a thing it is for a woman to +bear a child. “He cannot go if I am going to have a child,” she told +herself. But that would mean illness, and for illness in herself or +others Amanda had the intense disgust natural to her youth. Yet even +illness would be better than this intolerable publication of her +husband's ability to leave her side.... + +She had a wonderful facility of enthusiasm and she set herself forthwith +to cultivate a philoprogenitive ambition, to communicate it to him. Her +dread of illness disappeared; her desire for offspring grew. + +“Yes,” he said, “I want to have children, but I must go round the world +none the less.” + +She argued with all the concentrated subtlety of her fine keen mind. She +argued with persistence and repetition. And then suddenly so that she +was astonished at herself, there came a moment when she ceased to argue. + +She stood in the dusk in a window that looked out upon the park, and she +was now so intent upon her purpose as to be still and self-forgetful; +she was dressed in a dinner-dress of white and pale green, that set off +her slim erect body and the strong clear lines of her neck and shoulders +very beautifully, some greenish stones caught a light from without and +flashed soft whispering gleams from amidst the misty darkness of her +hair. She was going to Lady Marayne and the opera, and he was bound for +a dinner at the House with some young Liberals at which he was to meet +two representative Indians with a grievance from Bengal. Husband and +wife had but a few moments together. She asked about his company and he +told her. + +“They will tell you about India.” + +“Yes.” + +She stood for a moment looking out across the lights and the dark green +trees, and then she turned to him. + +“Why cannot I come with you?” she asked with sudden passion. “Why cannot +I see the things you want to see?” + +“I tell you you are not interested. You would only be interested through +me. That would not help me. I should just be dealing out my premature +ideas to you. If you cared as I care, if you wanted to know as I want to +know, it would be different. But you don't. It isn't your fault that +you don't. It happens so. And there is no good in forced interest, in +prescribed discovery.” + +“Cheetah,” she asked, “what is it that you want to know--that I don't +care for?” + +“I want to know about the world. I want to rule the world.” + +“So do I.” + +“No, you want to have the world.” + +“Isn't it the same?” + +“No. You're a greedier thing than I am, you Black Leopard you--standing +there in the dusk. You're a stronger thing. Don't you know you're +stronger? When I am with you, you carry your point, because you are more +concentrated, more definite, less scrupulous. When you run beside me +you push me out of my path.... You've made me afraid of you.... And so +I won't go with you, Leopard. I go alone. It isn't because I don't love +you. I love you too well. It isn't because you aren't beautiful and +wonderful....” + +“But, Cheetah! nevertheless you care more for this that you want than +you care for me.” + +Benham thought of it. “I suppose I do,” he said. + +“What is it that you want? Still I don't understand.” + +Her voice had the break of one who would keep reasonable in spite of +pain. + +“I ought to tell you.” + +“Yes, you ought to tell me.” + +“I wonder if I can tell you,” he said very thoughtfully, and rested his +hands on his hips. “I shall seem ridiculous to you.” + +“You ought to tell me.” + +“I think what I want is to be king of the world.” + +She stood quite still staring at him. + +“I do not know how I can tell you of it. Amanda, do you remember those +bodies--you saw those bodies--those mutilated men?” + +“I saw them,” said Amanda. + +“Well. Is it nothing to you that those things happen?” + +“They must happen.” + +“No. They happen because there are no kings but pitiful kings. They +happen because the kings love their Amandas and do not care.” + +“But what can YOU do, Cheetah?” + +“Very little. But I can give my life and all my strength. I can give all +I can give.” + +“But how? How can you help it--help things like that massacre?” + +“I can do my utmost to find out what is wrong with my world and rule it +and set it right.” + +“YOU! Alone.” + +“Other men do as much. Every one who does so helps others to do so. You +see--... In this world one may wake in the night and one may resolve to +be a king, and directly one has resolved one is a king. Does that sound +foolishness to you? Anyhow, it's fair that I should tell you, though +you count me a fool. This--this kingship--this dream of the night--is +my life. It is the very core of me. Much more than you are. More than +anything else can be. I mean to be a king in this earth. KING. I'm not +mad.... I see the world staggering from misery to misery and there is +little wisdom, less rule, folly, prejudice, limitation, the good things +come by chance and the evil things recover and slay them, and it is my +world and I am responsible. Every man to whom this light has come +is responsible. As soon as this light comes to you, as soon as your +kingship is plain to you, there is no more rest, no peace, no delight, +except in work, in service, in utmost effort. As far as I can do it I +will rule my world. I cannot abide in this smug city, I cannot +endure its self-complacency, its routine, its gloss of success, its +rottenness.... I shall do little, perhaps I shall do nothing, but what I +can understand and what I can do I will do. Think of that wild beautiful +country we saw, and the mean misery, the filth and the warring cruelty +of the life that lives there, tragedy, tragedy without dignity; and +think, too, of the limitless ugliness here, and of Russia slipping +from disorder to massacre, and China, that sea of human beings, +sliding steadily to disaster. Do you think these are only things in the +newspapers? To me at any rate they are not things in newspapers; they +are pain and failure, they are torment, they are blood and dust and +misery. They haunt me day and night. Even if it is utterly absurd I will +still do my utmost. It IS absurd. I'm a madman and you and my mother +are sensible people.... And I will go my way.... I don't care for the +absurdity. I don't care a rap.” + +He stopped abruptly. + +“There you have it, Amanda. It's rant, perhaps. Sometimes I feel it's +rant. And yet it's the breath of life to me.... There you are.... At +last I've been able to break silence and tell you....” + +He stopped with something like a sob and stood regarding the dusky +mystery of her face. She stood quite still, she was just a beautiful +outline in the twilight, her face was an indistinctness under the black +shadow of her hair, with eyes that were two patches of darkness. + +He looked at his watch, lifting it close to his face to see the time. +His voice changed. “Well--if you provoke a man enough, you see he makes +speeches. Let it be a lesson to you, Amanda. Here we are talking instead +of going to our dinners. The car has been waiting ten minutes.” + +Amanda, so still, was the most disconcerting of all Amandas.... + +A strange exaltation seized upon her very suddenly. In an instant she +had ceased to plot against him. A vast wave of emotion swept her forward +to a resolution that astonished her. + +“Cheetah!” she said, and the very quality of her voice had changed, +“give me one thing. Stay until June with me.” + +“Why?” he asked. + +Her answer came in a voice so low that it was almost a whisper. + +“Because--now--no, I don't want to keep you any more--I am not trying to +hold you any more.... I want....” + +She came forward to him and looked up closely at his face. + +“Cheetah,” she whispered almost inaudibly, “Cheetah--I didn't +understand. But now--. I want to bear your child.” + +He was astonished. “Old Leopard!” he said. + +“No,” she answered, putting her hands upon his shoulders and drawing +very close to him, “Queen---if I can be--to your King.” + +“You want to bear me a child!” he whispered, profoundly moved. + + + +8 + + +The Hindu agitators at the cavernous dinner under the House of Commons +came to the conclusion that Benham was a dreamer. And over against +Amanda at her dinner-party sat Sir Sidney Umber, one of those men who +know that their judgments are quoted. + +“Who is the beautiful young woman who is seeing visions?” he asked of +his neighbour in confidential undertones.... + +He tittered. “I think, you know, she ought to seem just SLIGHTLY aware +that the man to her left is talking to her....” + + + +9 + + +A few days later Benham went down to Cambridge, where Prothero was now a +fellow of Trinity and Brissenden Trust Lecturer.... + +All through Benham's writing there was manifest a persuasion that in +some way Prothero was necessary to his mind. It was as if he looked to +Prothero to keep him real. He suspected even while he obeyed that upward +flourish which was his own essential characteristic. He had a peculiar +feeling that somehow that upward bias would betray him; that from +exaltation he might presently float off, into the higher, the better, +and so to complete unreality. He fled from priggishness and the terror +of such sublimity alike to Prothero. Moreover, in relation to so many +things Prothero in a peculiar distinctive manner SAW. He had less +self-control than Benham, less integrity of purpose, less concentration, +and things that were before his eyes were by the very virtue of these +defects invariably visible to him. Things were able to insist upon +themselves with him. Benham, on the other hand, when facts contradicted +his purpose too stoutly, had a way of becoming blind to them. He +repudiated inconvenient facts. He mastered and made his world; Prothero +accepted and recorded his. Benham was a will towards the universe where +Prothero was a perception and Amanda a confusing responsive activity. +And it was because of his realization of this profound difference +between them that he was possessed by the idea of taking Prothero with +him about the world, as a detachable kind of vision--rather like that +eye the Graiae used to hand one another.... + +After the busy sunlit streets of Maytime Cambridge, Prothero's rooms in +Trinity, their windows full of Gothic perspectives and light-soaked blue +sky, seemed cool and quiet. A flavour of scholarship pervaded them--a +little blended with the flavour of innumerable breakfasts nearly but not +completely forgotten. Prothero's door had been locked against the world, +and he had appeared after a slight delay looking a little puffy and only +apprehending who his visitor was after a resentful stare for the better +part of a second. He might have been asleep, he might have been doing +anything but the examination papers he appeared to be doing. The two men +exchanged personal details; they had not met since some months before +Benham' s marriage, and the visitor's eye went meanwhile from his host +to the room and back to his host's face as though they were all aspects +of the thing he was after, the Prothero humour, the earthly touch, the +distinctive Prothero flavour. Then his eye was caught by a large red, +incongruous, meretricious-looking volume upon the couch that had an +air of having been flung aside, VENUS IN GEM AND MARBLE, its cover +proclaimed.... + +His host followed that glance and blushed. “They send me all sorts of +inappropriate stuff to review,” he remarked. + +And then he was denouncing celibacy. + +The transition wasn't very clear to Benham. His mind had been +preoccupied by the problem of how to open his own large project. +Meanwhile Prothero got, as it were, the conversational bit between his +teeth and bolted. He began to say the most shocking things right away, +so that Benham's attention was caught in spite of himself. + +“Inflammatory classics.” + +“What's that?” + +“Celibacy, my dear Benham, is maddening me,” said Prothero. “I can't +stand it any longer.” + +It seemed to Benham that somewhere, very far away, in another world, +such a statement might have been credible. Even in his own life,--it was +now indeed a remote, forgotten stage--there had been something distantly +akin.... + +“You're going to marry?” + +“I must.” + +“Who's the lady, Billy?” + +“I don't know. Venus.” + +His little red-brown eye met his friend's defiantly. “So far as I know, +it is Venus Anadyomene.” A flash of laughter passed across his face +and left it still angrier, still more indecorously defiant. “I like her +best, anyhow. I do, indeed. But, Lord! I feel that almost any of them--” + +“Tut, tut!” said Benham. + +Prothero flushed deeply but stuck to his discourse. + +“Wasn't it always your principle, Benham, to look facts in the face? I +am not pronouncing an immoral principle. Your manner suggests I am. I +am telling you exactly how I feel. That is how I feel. I want--Venus. +I don't want her to talk to or anything of that sort.... I have been +studying that book, yes, that large, vulgar, red book, all the morning, +instead of doing any work. Would you like to see it?... NO!... + +“This spring, Benham, I tell you, is driving me mad. It is a peculiarly +erotic spring. I cannot sleep, I cannot fix my mind, I cannot attend +to ordinary conversation. These feelings, I understand, are by no means +peculiar to myself.... No, don't interrupt me, Benham; let me talk now +that the spirit of speech is upon me. When you came in you said, 'How +are you?' I am telling you how I am. You brought it on yourself. Well--I +am--inflamed. I have no strong moral or religious convictions to assist +me either to endure or deny this--this urgency. And so why should I deny +it? It's one of our chief problems here. The majority of my fellow +dons who look at me with secretive faces in hall and court and +combination-room are in just the same case as myself. The fever in +oneself detects the fever in others. I know their hidden thoughts. Their +fishy eyes defy me to challenge their hidden thoughts. Each covers his +miserable secret under the cloak of a wholesome manly indifference. A +tattered cloak.... Each tries to hide his abandonment to this horrible +vice of continence--” + +“Billy, what's the matter with you?” + +Prothero grimaced impatience. “Shall I NEVER teach you not to be a +humbug, Benham?” he screamed, and in screaming became calmer. “Nature +taunts me, maddens me. My life is becoming a hell of shame. 'Get out +from all these books,' says Nature, 'and serve the Flesh.' The Flesh, +Benham. Yes--I insist--the Flesh. Do I look like a pure spirit? Is any +man a pure spirit? And here am I at Cambridge like a lark in a cage, +with too much port and no Aspasia. Not that I should have liked +Aspasia.” + +“Mutual, perhaps, Billy.” + +“Oh! you can sneer!” + +“Well, clearly--Saint Paul is my authority--it's marriage, Billy.” + +Prothero had walked to the window. He turned round. + +“I CAN'T marry,” he said. “The trouble has gone too far. I've lost my +nerve in the presence of women. I don't like them any more. They come +at one--done up in a lot of ridiculous clothes, and chattering about +all sorts of things that don't matter....” He surveyed his friend's +thoughtful attitude. “I'm getting to hate women, Benham. I'm beginning +now to understand the bitterness of spinsters against men. I'm beginning +to grasp the unkindliness of priests. The perpetual denial. To you, +happily married, a woman is just a human being. You can talk to her, +like her, you can even admire her calmly; you've got, you see, no grudge +against her....” + +He sat down abruptly. + +Benham, upon the hearthrug before the empty fireplace, considered him. + +“Billy! this is delusion,” he said. “What's come over you?” + +“I'm telling you,” said Prothero. + +“No,” said Benham. + +Prothero awaited some further utterance. + +“I'm looking for the cause of it. It's feeding, Billy. It's port and +stimulants where there is no scope for action. It's idleness. I begin to +see now how much fatter you are, how much coarser.” + +“Idleness! Look at this pile of examination answers. Look at that filing +system like an arsenal of wisdom. Useless wisdom, I admit, but anyhow +not idleness.” + +“There's still bodily idleness. No. That's your trouble. You're stuffy. +You've enlarged your liver. You sit in this room of a warm morning after +an extravagant breakfast--. And peep and covet.” + +“Just eggs and bacon!” + +“Think of it! Coffee and toast it ought to be. Come out of it, Billy, +and get aired.” + +“How can one?” + +“Easily. Come out of it now. Come for a walk, you Pig!” + +“It's an infernally warm morning. + +“Walk with me to Grantchester.” + +“We might go by boat. You could row.” + +“WALK.” + +“I ought to do these papers.” + +“You weren't doing them.” + +“No....” + +“Walk with me to Grantchester. All this affliction of yours +is--horrid--and just nothing at all. Come out of it! I want you to come +with me to Russia and about the world. I'm going to leave my wife--” + +“Leave your wife!” + +“Why not? And I came here hoping to find you clear-headed, and instead +you are in this disgusting state. I've never met anything in my life so +hot and red and shiny and shameless. Come out of it, man! How can one +talk to you?” + + + +10 + + +“You pull things down to your own level,” said Benham as they went +through the heat to Grantchester. + +“I pull them down to truth,” panted Prothero. + +“Truth! As though being full of gross appetites was truth, and +discipline and training some sort of falsity!” + +“Artificiality. And begetting pride, Benham, begetting a prig's pride.” + +For a time there was more than the heat of the day between them.... + +The things that Benham had come down to discuss were thrust into the +background by the impassioned materialism of Prothero. + +“I'm not talking of Love,” he said, remaining persistently outrageous. +“I'm talking of physical needs. That first. What is the good of +arranging systems of morality and sentiment before you know what is +physically possible.... + +“But how can one disentangle physical and moral necessities?” + +“Then why don't we up and find out?” said Billy. + +He had no patience with the secrecy, the ignorance, the emotion that +surrounded these questions. We didn't worship our ancestors when it came +to building bridges or working metals or curing disease or studying our +indigestion, and why should we become breathless or wordless with +awe and terror when it came to this fundamental affair? Why here in +particular should we give way to Holy Fear and stifled submission to +traditional suppressions and the wisdom of the ages? “What is the wisdom +of the ages?” said Prothero. “Think of the corners where that wisdom was +born.... Flea-bitten sages in stone-age hovels.... Wandering wise +man with a rolling eye, a fakir under a tree, a Jewish sheik, an Arab +epileptic....” + +“Would you sweep away the experience of mankind?” protested Benham. + +The experience of mankind in these matters had always been bitter +experience. Most of it was better forgotten. It didn't convince. It had +never worked things out. In this matter just as in every other matter +that really signified things had still to be worked out. Nothing had +been worked out hitherto. The wisdom of the ages was a Cant. People had +been too busy quarrelling, fighting and running away. There wasn't +any digested experience of the ages at all. Only the mis-remembered +hankey-pankey of the Dead Old Man. + +“Is this love-making a physical necessity for most men and women or +isn't it?” Prothero demanded. “There's a simple question enough, and is +there anything whatever in your confounded wisdom of the ages to tell +me yes or no? Can an ordinary celibate be as healthy and vigorous as a +mated man? Is a spinster of thirty-eight a healthy human being? Can she +be? I don't believe so. Then why in thunder do we let her be? Here am I +at a centre of learning and wisdom and I don't believe so; and there is +nothing in all our colleges, libraries and roomsfull of wiseacres here, +to settle that plain question for me, plainly and finally. My life is a +grubby torment of cravings because it isn't settled. If sexual activity +IS a part of the balance of life, if it IS a necessity, well let's set +about making it accessible and harmless and have done with it. Swedish +exercises. That sort of thing. If it isn't, if it can be reduced and +done without, then let us set about teaching people HOW to control +themselves and reduce and get rid of this vehement passion. But all this +muffled mystery, this pompous sneak's way we take with it!” + +“But, Billy! How can one settle these things? It's a matter of +idiosyncrasy. What is true for one man isn't true for another. There's +infinite difference of temperaments!” + +“Then why haven't we a classification of temperaments and a moral code +for each sort? Why am I ruled by the way of life that is convenient for +Rigdon the vegetarian and fits Bowler the saint like a glove? It isn't +convenient for me. It fits me like a hair-shirt. Of course there +are temperaments, but why can't we formulate them and exercise the +elementary charity of recognizing that one man's health in these matters +is another man's death? Some want love and gratification and some don't. +There are people who want children and people who don't want to be +bothered by children but who are full of vivid desires. There are +people whose only happiness is chastity, and women who would rather +be courtesans than mothers. Some of us would concentrate upon a +single passion or a single idea; others overflow with a +miscellaneous--tenderness. Yes,--and you smile! Why spit upon and insult +a miscellaneous tenderness, Benham? Why grin at it? Why try every one +by the standards that suit oneself? We're savages, Benham, shamefaced +savages, still. Shamefaced and persecuting. + +“I was angry about sex by seventeen,” he went on. “Every year I live I +grow angrier.” + +His voice rose to a squeal of indignation as he talked. + +“Think,” he said, “of the amount of thinking and feeling about sex +that is going on in Cambridge this morning. The hundreds out of these +thousands full of it. A vast tank of cerebration. And we put none of it +together; we work nothing out from that but poor little couplings and +casual stories, patchings up of situations, misbehaviours, blunders, +disease, trouble, escapes; and the next generation will start, and the +next generation after that will start with nothing but your wisdom of +the ages, which isn't wisdom at all, which is just awe and funk, taboos +and mystery and the secretive cunning of the savage.... + +“What I really want to do is my work,” said Prothero, going off quite +unexpectedly again. “That is why all this business, this incessant +craving and the shame of it and all makes me so infernally angry....” + + + +11 + + +“There I'm with you,” cried Benham, struggling out of the thick torrent +of Prothero's prepossessions. “What we want to do is our work.” + +He clung to his idea. He raised his voice to prevent Prothero getting +the word again. + +“It's this, that you call Work, that I call--what do I call it?--living +the aristocratic life, which takes all the coarse simplicity out of +this business. If it was only submission.... YOU think it is only +submission--giving way.... It isn't only submission. We'd manage sex all +right, we'd be the happy swine our senses would make us, if we didn't +know all the time that there was something else to live for, +something far more important. And different. Absolutely different +and contradictory. So different that it cuts right across all these +considerations. It won't fit in.... I don't know what this other thing +is; it's what I want to talk about with you. But I know that it IS, in +all my bones.... YOU know.... It demands control, it demands continence, +it insists upon disregard.” + +But the ideas of continence and disregard were unpleasant ideas to +Prothero that day. + +“Mankind,” said Benham, “is overcharged with this sex. It suffocates +us. It gives life only to consume it. We struggle out of the urgent +necessities of a mere animal existence. We are not so much living as +being married and given in marriage. All life is swamped in the love +story....” + +“Man is only overcharged because he is unsatisfied,” said Prothero, +sticking stoutly to his own view. + + + +12 + + +It was only as they sat at a little table in the orchard at Grantchester +after their lunch that Benham could make head against Prothero and +recover that largeness of outlook which had so easily touched the +imagination of Amanda. And then he did not so much dispose of Prothero's +troubles as soar over them. It is the last triumph of the human +understanding to sympathize with desires we do not share, and to Benham +who now believed himself to be loved beyond the chances of life, who +was satisfied and tranquil and austerely content, it was impossible +that Prothero's demands should seem anything more than the grotesque and +squalid squealings of the beast that has to be overridden and rejected +altogether. It is a freakish fact of our composition that these most +intense feelings in life are just those that are most rapidly and +completely forgotten; hate one may recall for years, but the magic +of love and the flame of desire serve their purpose in our lives and +vanish, leaving no trace, like the snows of Venice. Benham was still not +a year and a half from the meretricious delights of Mrs. Skelmersdale, +and he looked at Prothero as a marble angel might look at a swine in its +sty.... + +What he had now in mind was an expedition to Russia. When at last he +could sufficiently release Prothero's attention, he unfolded the project +that had been developing steadily in him since his honeymoon experience. + +He had discovered a new reason for travelling. The last country we can +see clearly, he had discovered, is our own country. It is as hard to see +one's own country as it is to see the back of one's head. It is too +much behind us, too much ourselves. But Russia is like England with +everything larger, more vivid, cruder; one felt that directly one walked +about St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg upon its Neva was like a savage +untamed London on a larger Thames; they were seagull-haunted tidal +cities, like no other capitals in Europe. The shipping and buildings +mingled in their effects. Like London it looked over the heads of +its own people to a limitless polyglot empire. And Russia was an +aristocratic land, with a middle-class that had no pride in itself as a +class; it had a British toughness and incompetence, a British disregard +of logic and meticulous care. Russia, like England, was outside Catholic +Christendom, it had a state church and the opposition to that church was +not secularism but dissent. One could draw a score of such contrasted +parallels. And now it was in a state of intolerable stress, that laid +bare the elemental facts of a great social organization. It was having +its South African war, its war at the other end of the earth, with a +certain defeat instead of a dubious victory.... + +“There is far more freedom for the personal life in Russia than in +England,” said Prothero, a little irrelevantly. + +Benham went on with his discourse about Russia.... + +“At the college of Troitzka,” said Prothero, “which I understand is a +kind of monster Trinity unencumbered by a University, Binns tells me +that although there is a profession of celibacy within the walls, the +arrangements of the town and more particularly of the various hotels are +conceived in a spirit of extreme liberality.” + +Benham hardly attended at all to these interruptions. + +He went on to point out the elemental quality of the Russian situation. +He led up to the assertion that to go to Russia, to see Russia, to try +to grasp the broad outline of the Russian process, was the manifest duty +of every responsible intelligence that was free to do as much. And so he +was going, and if Prothero cared to come too-- + +“Yes,” said Prothero, “I should like to go to Russia.” + + + +13 + + +But throughout all their travel together that summer Benham was never +able to lift Prothero away from his obsession. It was the substance of +their talk as the Holland boat stood out past waiting destroyers and +winking beacons and the lights of Harwich, into the smoothly undulating +darkness of the North Sea; it rose upon them again as they sat over +the cakes and cheese of a Dutch breakfast in the express for Berlin. +Prothero filled the Sieges Allee with his complaints against nature +and society, and distracted Benham in his contemplation of Polish +agriculture from the windows of the train with turgid sexual liberalism. +So that Benham, during this period until Prothero left him and until +the tragic enormous spectacle of Russia in revolution took complete +possession of him, was as it were thinking upon two floors. Upon the one +he was thinking of the vast problems of a society of a hundred million +people staggering on the verge of anarchy, and upon the other he was +perplexed by the feverish inattention of Prothero to the tremendous +things that were going on all about them. It was only presently when the +serenity of his own private life began to be ruffled by disillusionment, +that he began to realize the intimate connexion of these two systems of +thought. Yet Prothero put it to him plainly enough. + +“Inattentive,” said Prothero, “of course I am inattentive. What is +really the matter with all this--this social mess people are in here, is +that nearly everybody is inattentive. These Big Things of yours, nobody +is thinking of them really. Everybody is thinking about the Near Things +that concern himself.” + +“The bombs they threw yesterday? The Cossacks and the whips?” + +“Nudges. Gestures of inattention. If everybody was thinking of the Res +Publica would there be any need for bombs?” + +He pursued his advantage. “It's all nonsense to suppose people think of +politics because they are in 'em. As well suppose that the passengers on +a liner understand the engines, or soldiers a war. Before men can +think of to-morrow, they must think of to-day. Before they can think +of others, they must be sure about themselves. First of all, food; the +private, the personal economic worry. Am I safe for food? Then sex, and +until one is tranquil and not ashamed, not irritated and dissatisfied, +how can one care for other people, or for next year or the Order of the +World? How can one, Benham?” + +He seized the illustration at hand. “Here we are in Warsaw--not a month +after bomb-throwing and Cossack charging. Windows have still to be +mended, smashed doors restored. There's blood-stains still on some +of the houses. There are hundreds of people in the Citadel and in the +Ochrana prison. This morning there were executions. Is it anything more +than an eddy in the real life of the place? Watch the customers in the +shops, the crowd in the streets, the men in the cafes who stare at the +passing women. They are all swallowed up again in their own business. +They just looked up as the Cossacks galloped past; they just shifted a +bit when the bullets spat....” + +And when the streets of Moscow were agog with the grotesque amazing +adventure of the Potemkin mutineers, Prothero was in the full tide of +the private romance that severed him from Benham and sent him back to +Cambridge--changed. + +Before they reached Moscow Benham was already becoming accustomed to +disregard Prothero. He was looking over him at the vast heaving trouble +of Russia, which now was like a sea that tumbles under the hurrying +darknesses of an approaching storm. In those days it looked as though it +must be an overwhelming storm. He was drinking in the wide and massive +Russian effects, the drifting crowds in the entangling streets, the +houses with their strange lettering in black and gold, the innumerable +barbaric churches, the wildly driven droshkys, the sombre red fortress +of the Kremlin, with its bulbous churches clustering up into the sky, +the crosses, the innumerable gold crosses, the mad church of St. Basil, +carrying the Russian note beyond the pitch of permissible caricature, +and in this setting the obscure drama of clustering, staring, +sash-wearing peasants, long-haired students, sane-eyed women, a thousand +varieties of uniform, a running and galloping to and fro of messengers, +a flutter of little papers, whispers, shouts, shots, a drama elusive and +portentous, a gathering of forces, an accumulation of tension going on +to a perpetual clash and clamour of bells. Benham had brought letters of +introduction to a variety of people, some had vanished, it seemed. They +were “away,” the porters said, and they continued to be “away,”--it was +the formula, he learnt, for arrest; others were evasive, a few showed +themselves extraordinarily anxious to inform him about things, to +explain themselves and things about them exhaustively. One young student +took him to various meetings and showed him in great detail the scene of +the recent murder of the Grand Duke Sergius. The buildings opposite the +old French cannons were still under repair. “The assassin stood just +here. The bomb fell there, look! right down there towards the gate; that +was where they found his arm. He was torn to fragments. He was scraped +up. He was mixed with the horses....” + +Every one who talked spoke of the outbreak of revolution as a matter of +days or at the utmost weeks. And whatever question Benham chose to +ask these talkers were prepared to answer. Except one. “And after the +revolution,” he asked, “what then?...” Then they waved their hands, and +failed to convey meanings by reassuring gestures. + +He was absorbed in his effort to understand this universal ominous drift +towards a conflict. He was trying to piece together a process, if it +was one and the same process, which involved riots in Lodz, fighting at +Libau, wild disorder at Odessa, remote colossal battlings in Manchuria, +the obscure movements of a disastrous fleet lost somewhere now in the +Indian seas, steaming clumsily to its fate, he was trying to rationalize +it all in his mind, to comprehend its direction. He was struggling +strenuously with the obscurities of the language in which these things +were being discussed about him, a most difficult language demanding new +sets of visual images because of its strange alphabet. Is it any wonder +that for a time he failed to observe that Prothero was involved in some +entirely disconnected affair. + +They were staying at the big Cosmopolis bazaar in the Theatre Square. +Thither, through the doors that are opened by distraught-looking men +with peacocks' feathers round their caps, came Benham's friends and +guides to take him out and show him this and that. At first Prothero +always accompanied Benham on these expeditions; then he began to make +excuses. He would stay behind in the hotel. Then when Benham returned +Prothero would have disappeared. When the porter was questioned about +Prothero his nescience was profound. + +One night no Prothero was discoverable at any hour, and Benham, who +wanted to discuss a project for going on to Kieff and Odessa, was +alarmed. + +“Moscow is a late place,” said Benham's student friend. “You need not +be anxious until after four or five in the morning. It will be quite +time--QUITE time to be anxious to-morrow. He may be--close at hand.” + +When Benham hunted up Prothero in his room next morning he found him +sleepy and irritable. + +“I don't trouble if YOU are late,” said Prothero, sitting up in his bed +with a red resentful face and crumpled hair. “I wasn't born yesterday.” + +“I wanted to talk about leaving Moscow.” + +“I don't want to leave Moscow.” + +“But Odessa--Odessa is the centre of interest just now.” + +“I want to stay in Moscow.” + +Benham looked baffled. + +Prothero stuck up his knees and rested his night-shirted arms upon them. +“I don't want to leave Moscow,” he said, “and I'm not going to do so.” + +“But haven't we done--” + +Prothero interrupted. “You may. But I haven't. We're not after the +same things. Things that interest you, Benham, don't interest me. I've +found--different things.” + +His expression was extraordinarily defiant. + +“I want,” he went on, “to put our affairs on a different footing. Now +you've opened the matter we may as well go into it. You were good enough +to bring me here.... There was a sort of understanding we were working +together.... We aren't.... The long and short of it is, Benham, I want +to pay you for my journey here and go on my own--independently.” + +His eye and voice achieved a fierceness that Benham found nearly +incredible in him. + +Something that had got itself overlooked in the press of other matters +jerked back into Benham's memory. It popped back so suddenly that for an +instant he wanted to laugh. He turned towards the window, picked his +way among Prothero's carelessly dropped garments, and stood for a moment +staring into the square, with its drifting, assembling and dispersing +fleet of trains and its long line of blue-coated IZVOSHTCHIKS. Then he +turned. + +“Billy,” he said, “didn't I see you the other evening driving towards +the Hermitage?” + +“Yes,” said Prothero, and added, “that's it.” + +“You were with a lady.” + +“And she IS a lady,” said Prothero, so deeply moved that his face +twitched as though he was going to weep. + +“She's a Russian?” + +“She had an English mother. Oh, you needn't stand there and look so +damned ironical! She's--she's a woman. She's a thing of kindness....” + +He was too full to go on. + +“Billy, old boy,” said Benham, distressed, “I don't want to be +ironical--” + +Prothero had got his voice again. + +“You'd better know,” he said, “you'd better know. She's one of those +women who live in this hotel.” + +“Live in this hotel!” + +“On the fourth floor. Didn't you know? It's the way in most of these big +Russian hotels. They come down and sit about after lunch and dinner. A +woman with a yellow ticket. Oh! I don't care. I don't care a rap. She's +been kind to me; she's--she's dear to me. How are you to understand? I +shall stop in Moscow. I shall take her to England. I can't live without +her, Benham. And then-- And then you come worrying me to come to your +damned Odessa!” + +And suddenly this extraordinary young man put his hands to his face +as though he feared to lose it and would hold it on, and after an +apoplectic moment burst noisily into tears. They ran between his +fingers. “Get out of my room,” he shouted, suffocatingly. “What business +have you to come prying on me?” + +Benham sat down on a chair in the middle of the room and stared +round-eyed at his friend. His hands were in his pockets. For a time he +said nothing. + +“Billy,” he began at last, and stopped again. “Billy, in this country +somehow one wants to talk like a Russian. Billy, my dear--I'm not your +father, I'm not your judge. I'm--unreasonably fond of you. It's not my +business to settle what is right or wrong for you. If you want to stay +in Moscow, stay in Moscow. Stay here, and stay as my guest....” + +He stopped and remained staring at his friend for a little space. + +“I didn't know,” said Prothero brokenly; “I didn't know it was possible +to get so fond of a person....” + +Benham stood up. He had never found Prothero so attractive and so +abominable in his life before. + +“I shall go to Odessa alone, Billy. I'll make things all right here +before I go....” + +He closed the door behind him and went in a state of profound thought to +his own room.... + +Presently Prothero came to him with a vague inopportune desire to +explain what so evidently did not need explaining. He walked about the +room trying ways of putting it, while Benham packed. + +In an unaccountable way Prothero's bristling little mind seemed to have +shrunken to something sleek and small. + +“I wish,” he said, “you could stay for a later train and have lunch and +meet her. She's not the ordinary thing. She's--different.” + +Benham plumbed depths of wisdom. “Billy,” he said, “no woman IS the +ordinary thing. They are all--different....” + + + +14 + + +For a time this affair of Prothero's seemed to be a matter as +disconnected from the Research Magnificent as one could imagine any +matter to be. While Benham went from Moscow and returned, and travelled +hither and thither, and involved himself more and more in the endless +tangled threads of the revolutionary movement in Russia, Prothero +was lost to all those large issues in the development of his personal +situation. He contributed nothing to Benham's thought except attempts at +discouragement. He reiterated his declaration that all the vast +stress and change of Russian national life was going on because it was +universally disregarded. “I tell you, as I told you before, that nobody +is attending. You think because all Moscow, all Russia, is in the +picture, that everybody is concerned. Nobody is concerned. Nobody cares +what is happening. Even the men who write in newspapers and talk at +meetings about it don't care. They are thinking of their dinners, of +their clothes, of their money, of their wives. They hurry home....” + +That was his excuse. + +Manifestly it was an excuse. + +His situation developed into remarkable complications of jealousy and +divided counsels that Benham found altogether incomprehensible. To +Benham in those days everything was very simple in this business of +love. The aristocrat had to love ideally; that was all. He had to love +Amanda. He and Amanda were now very deeply in love again, more in +love, he felt, than they had ever been before. They were now writing +love-letters to each other and enjoying a separation that was almost +voluptuous. She found in the epistolatory treatment of her surrender to +him and to the natural fate of women, a delightful exercise for her very +considerable powers of expression. Life pointed now wonderfully to the +great time ahead when there would be a Cheetah cub in the world, and +meanwhile the Cheetah loped about the wild world upon a mighty quest. In +such terms she put it. Such foolishness written in her invincibly square +and youthful hand went daily from London to Russia, and stacked up +against his return in the porter's office at the Cosmopolis Bazaar or +pursued him down through the jarring disorders of south-west Russia, or +waited for him at ill-chosen post-offices that deflected his journeyings +wastefully or in several instances went altogether astray. Perhaps they +supplied self-educating young strikers in the postal service with useful +exercises in the deciphering of manuscript English. He wrote back five +hundred different ways of saying that he loved her extravagantly.... + +It seemed to Benham in those days that he had found the remedy and +solution of all those sexual perplexities that distressed the world; +Heroic Love to its highest note--and then you go about your business. It +seemed impossible not to be happy and lift one's chin high and diffuse +a bracing kindliness among the unfortunate multitudes who stewed in +affliction and hate because they had failed as yet to find this simple, +culminating elucidation. And Prothero--Prothero, too, was now achieving +the same grand elementariness, out of his lusts and protests and general +physical squalor he had flowered into love. For a time it is true it +made rather an ineffective companion of him, but this was the mere +goose-stepping for the triumphal march; this way ultimately lay +exaltation. Benham had had as yet but a passing glimpse of this +Anglo-Russian, who was a lady and altogether unlike her fellows; he had +seen her for a doubtful second or so as she and Prothero drove past him, +and his impression was of a rather little creature, white-faced with +dusky hair under a red cap, paler and smaller but with something in her, +a quiet alertness, that gave her a touch of kinship with Amanda. And +if she liked old Prothero-- And, indeed, she must like old Prothero or +could she possibly have made him so deeply in love with her? + +They must stick to each other, and then, presently, Prothero's soul +would wake up and face the world again. What did it matter what she had +been? + +Through stray shots and red conflict, long tediums of strained anxiety +and the physical dangers of a barbaric country staggering towards +revolution, Benham went with his own love like a lamp within him +and this affair of Prothero's reflecting its light, and he was quite +prepared for the most sympathetic and liberal behaviour when he came +back to Moscow to make the lady's acquaintance. He intended to help +Prothero to marry and take her back to Cambridge, and to assist by every +possible means in destroying and forgetting the official yellow ticket +that defined her status in Moscow. But he reckoned without either +Prothero or the young lady in this expectation. + +It only got to him slowly through his political preoccupations +that there were obscure obstacles to this manifest course. Prothero +hesitated; the lady expressed doubts. + +On closer acquaintance her resemblance to Amanda diminished. It was +chiefly a similarity of complexion. She had a more delicate face than +Amanda, and its youthful brightness was deadened; she had none of +Amanda's glow, and she spoke her mother's language with a pretty halting +limp that was very different from Amanda's clear decisions. + +She put her case compactly. + +“I would not DO in Cambridge,” she said with an infinitesimal glance at +Prothero. + +“Mr. Benham,” she said, and her manner had the gravity of a woman +of affairs, “now do you see me in Cambridge? Now do you see me? Kept +outside the walls? In a little DATCHA? With no occupation? Just to amuse +him.” + +And on another occasion when Prothero was not with her she achieved +still completer lucidity. + +“I would come if I thought he wanted me to come,” she said. “But you see +if I came he would not want me to come. Because then he would have me +and so he wouldn't want me. He would just have the trouble. And I am not +sure if I should be happy in Cambridge. I am not sure I should be happy +enough to make him happy. It is a very learned and intelligent and +charming society, of course; but here, THINGS HAPPEN. At Cambridge +nothing happens--there is only education. There is no revolution in +Cambridge; there are not even sinful people to be sorry for.... And +he says himself that Cambridge people are particular. He says they are +liberal but very, very particular, and perhaps I could not always act my +part well. Sometimes I am not always well behaved. When there is music I +behave badly sometimes, or when I am bored. He says the Cambridge people +are so liberal that they do not mind what you are, but he says they are +so particular that they mind dreadfully how you are what you are.... So +that it comes to exactly the same thing....” + +“Anna Alexievna,” said Benham suddenly, “are you in love with Prothero?” + +Her manner became conscientiously scientific. + +“He is very kind and very generous--too generous. He keeps sending for +more money--hundreds of roubles, I try to prevent him.” + +“Were you EVER in love?” + +“Of course. But it's all gone long ago. It was like being hungry. Only +very fine hungry. Exquisite hungry.... And then being disgusted....” + +“He is in love with you.” + +“What is love?” said Anna. “He is grateful. He is by nature grateful.” + She smiled a smile, like the smile of a pale Madonna who looks down on +her bambino. + +“And you love nothing?” + +“I love Russia--and being alone, being completely alone. When I am dead +perhaps I shall be alone. Not even my own body will touch me then.” + +Then she added, “But I shall be sorry when he goes.” + +Afterwards Benham talked to Prothero alone. “Your Anna,” he said, “is +rather wonderful. At first, I tell you now frankly I did not like her +very much, I thought she looked 'used,' she drank vodka at lunch, she +was gay, uneasily; she seemed a sham thing. All that was prejudice. She +thinks; she's generous, she's fine.” + +“She's tragic,” said Prothero as though it was the same thing. + +He spoke as though he noted an objection. His next remark confirmed this +impression. “That's why I can't take her back to Cambridge,” he said. + +“You see, Benham,” he went on, “she's human. She's not really feminine. +I mean, she's--unsexed. She isn't fitted to be a wife or a mother any +more. We've talked about the possible life in England, very plainly. +I've explained what a household in Cambridge would mean.... It doesn't +attract her.... In a way she's been let out from womanhood, forced out +of womanhood, and I see now that when women are let out from womanhood +there's no putting them back. I could give a lecture on Anna. I see +now that if women are going to be wives and mothers and homekeepers and +ladies, they must be got ready for it from the beginning, sheltered, +never really let out into the wild chances of life. She has been. +Bitterly. She's REALLY emancipated. And it's let her out into a sort of +nothingness. She's no longer a woman, and she isn't a man. She ought +to be able to go on her own--like a man. But I can't take her back to +Cambridge. Even for her sake.” + +His perplexed eyes regarded Benham. + +“You won't be happy in Cambridge--alone,” said Benham. + +“Oh, damnably not! But what can I do? I had at first some idea of coming +to Moscow for good--teaching.” + +He paused. “Impossible. I'm worth nothing here. I couldn't have kept +her.” + +“Then what are you going to do, Billy?” + +“I don't KNOW what I'm going to do, I tell you. I live for the moment. +To-morrow we are going out into the country.” + +“I don't understand,” said Benham with a gesture of resignation. “It +seems to me that if a man and woman love each other--well, they insist +upon each other. What is to happen to her if you leave her in Moscow?” + +“Damnation! Is there any need to ask that?” + +“Take her to Cambridge, man. And if Cambridge objects, teach Cambridge +better manners.” + +Prothero's face was suddenly transfigured with rage. + +“I tell you she won't come!” he said. + +“Billy!” said Benham, “you should make her!” + +“I can't.” + +“If a man loves a woman he can make her do anything--” + +“But I don't love her like that,” said Prothero, shrill with anger. “I +tell you I don't love her like that.” + +Then he lunged into further deeps. “It's the other men,” he said, “it's +the things that have been. Don't you understand? Can't you understand? +The memories--she must have memories--they come between us. It's +something deeper than reason. It's in one's spine and under one's nails. +One could do anything, I perceive, for one's very own woman....” + +“MAKE her your very own woman, said the exponent of heroic love. + +“I shirk deeds, Benham, but you shirk facts. How could any man make her +his very own woman now? You--you don't seem to understand--ANYTHING. +She's nobody's woman--for ever. That--that might-have-been has gone for +ever.... It's nerves--a passion of the nerves. There's a cruelty in life +and-- She's KIND to me. She's so kind to me....” + +And then again Prothero was weeping like a vexed child. + + + +15 + + +The end of Prothero's first love affair came to Benham in broken +fragments in letters. When he looked for Anna Alexievna in December--he +never learnt her surname--he found she had left the Cosmopolis Bazaar +soon after Prothero's departure and he could not find whither she had +gone. He never found her again. Moscow and Russia had swallowed her up. + +Of course she and Prothero parted; that was a foregone conclusion. But +Prothero's manner of parting succeeded in being at every phase a shock +to Benham's ideas. It was clear he went off almost callously; it would +seem there was very little crying. Towards the end it was evident that +the two had quarrelled. The tears only came at the very end of all. It +was almost as if he had got through the passion and was glad to go. +Then came regret, a regret that increased in geometrical proportion with +every mile of distance. + +In Warsaw it was that grief really came to Prothero. He had some hours +there and he prowled the crowded streets, seeing girls and women happy +with their lovers, abroad upon bright expeditions and full of delicious +secrets, girls and women who ever and again flashed out some instant +resemblance to Anna.... + +In Berlin he stopped a night and almost decided that he would go back. +“But now I had the damned frontier,” he wrote, “between us.” + +It was so entirely in the spirit of Prothero, Benham thought, to let the +“damned frontier” tip the balance against him. + +Then came a scrawl of passionate confession, so passionate that it +seemed as if Prothero had been transfigured. “I can't stand this +business,” he wrote. “It has things in it, possibilities of emotional +disturbance--you can have no idea! In the train--luckily I was alone in +the compartment--I sat and thought, and suddenly, I could not help it, +I was weeping--noisy weeping, an uproar! A beastly German came and +stood in the corridor to stare. I had to get out of the train. It is +disgraceful, it is monstrous we should be made like this.... + +“Here I am stranded in Hanover with nothing to do but to write to you +about my dismal feelings....” + +After that surely there was nothing before a broken-hearted Prothero but +to go on with his trailing wing to Trinity and a life of inappeasable +regrets; but again Benham reckoned without the invincible earthliness of +his friend. Prothero stayed three nights in Paris. + +“There is an extraordinary excitement about Paris,” he wrote. “A levity. +I suspect the gypsum in the subsoil--some as yet undescribed +radiations. Suddenly the world looks brightly cynical.... None of those +tear-compelling German emanations.... + +“And, Benham, I have found a friend. + +“A woman. Of course you will laugh, you will sneer. You do not +understand these things.... Yet they are so simple. It was the strangest +accident brought us together. There was something that drew us together. +A sort of instinct. Near the Boulevard Poissoniere....” + +“Good heavens!” said Benham. “A sort of instinct!” + +“I told her all about Anna!” + +“Good Lord!” cried Benham. + +“She understood. Perfectly. None of your so-called 'respectable' women +could have understood.... At first I intended merely to talk to her....” + +Benham crumpled the letter in his hand. + +“Little Anna Alexievna!” he said, “you were too clean for him.” + + + +16 + + +Benham had a vision of Prothero returning from all this foreign travel +meekly, pensively, a little sadly, and yet not without a kind of relief, +to the grey mildness of Trinity. He saw him, capped and gowned, +and restored to academic dignity again, nodding greetings, resuming +friendships. + +The little man merged again into his rare company of discreet Benedicts +and restrained celibates at the high tables. They ate on in their mature +wisdom long after the undergraduates had fled. Presently they would +withdraw processionally to the combination room.... + +There would be much to talk about over the wine. + +Benham speculated what account Prothero would give of Moscow.... + +He laughed abruptly. + +And with that laugh Prothero dropped out of Benham's world for a space +of years. There may have been other letters, but if so they were lost +in the heaving troubles of a revolution-strained post-office. Perhaps +to this day they linger sere and yellow in some forgotten pigeon-hole in +Kishinev or Ekaterinoslav.... + + + +17 + + +In November, after an adventure in the trader's quarter of Kieff which +had brought him within an inch of death, and because an emotional wave +had swept across him and across his correspondence with Amanda, Benham +went back suddenly to England and her. He wanted very greatly to see her +and also he wanted to make certain arrangements about his property. He +returned by way of Hungary, and sent telegrams like shouts of excitement +whenever the train stopped for a sufficient time. “Old Leopard, I am +coming, I am coming,” he telegraphed, announcing his coming for the +fourth time. It was to be the briefest of visits, very passionate, the +mutual refreshment of two noble lovers, and then he was returning to +Russia again. + +Amanda was at Chexington, and there he found her installed in the utmost +dignity of expectant maternity. Like many other people he had been a +little disposed to regard the bearing of children as a common human +experience; at Chexington he came to think of it as a rare and +sacramental function. Amanda had become very beautiful in quiet, grey, +dove-like tones; her sun-touched, boy's complexion had given way to +a soft glow of the utmost loveliness, her brisk little neck that had +always reminded him of the stalk of a flower was now softened and +rounded; her eyes were tender, and she moved about the place in the +manner of one who is vowed to a great sacrifice. She dominated the +scene, and Lady Marayne, with a certain astonishment in her eyes and +a smouldering disposition to irony, was the half-sympathetic, +half-resentful priestess of her daughter-in-law's unparalleled +immolation. The MOTIF of motherhood was everywhere, and at his bedside +he found--it had been put there for him by Amanda--among much +other exaltation of woman's mission, that most wonderful of all +philoprogenitive stories, Hudson's CRYSTAL AGE. + +Everybody at Chexington had an air of being grouped about the impending +fact. An epidemic of internal troubles, it is true, kept Sir Godfrey in +the depths of London society, but to make up for his absence Mrs. Morris +had taken a little cottage down by the river and the Wilder girls were +with her, both afire with fine and subtle feelings and both, it seemed, +and more particularly Betty, prepared to be keenly critical of Benham's +attitude. + +He did a little miss his cue in these exaltations, because he had +returned in a rather different vein of exaltation. + +In missing it he was assisted by Amanda herself, who had at moments an +effect upon him of a priestess confidentially disrobed. It was as if she +put aside for him something official, something sincerely maintained, +necessary, but at times a little irksome. It was as if she was glad to +take him into her confidence and unbend. Within the pre-natal Amanda an +impish Amanda still lingered. + +There were aspects of Amanda that it was manifest dear Betty must never +know.... + +But the real Amanda of that November visit even in her most unpontifical +moods did not quite come up to the imagined Amanda who had drawn him +home across Europe. At times she was extraordinarily jolly. They had two +or three happy walks about the Chexington woods; that year the golden +weather of October had flowed over into November, and except for a +carpet of green and gold under the horse-chestnuts most of the leaves +were still on the trees. Gleams of her old wanton humour shone on him. +And then would come something else, something like a shadow across the +world, something he had quite forgotten since his idea of heroic love +had flooded him, something that reminded him of those long explanations +with Mr. Rathbone-Sanders that had never been explained, and of the +curate in the doorway of the cottage and his unaccountable tears. + +On the afternoon of his arrival at Chexington he was a little surprised +to find Sir Philip Easton coming through the house into the garden, with +an accustomed familiarity. Sir Philip perceived him with a start that +was instantly controlled, and greeted him with unnatural ease. + +Sir Philip, it seemed, was fishing and reading and playing cricket in +the neighbourhood, which struck Benham as a poor way of spending the +summer, the sort of soft holiday a man learns to take from scholars +and literary men. A man like Sir Philip, he thought, ought to have been +aviating or travelling. + +Moreover, when Sir Philip greeted Amanda it seemed to Benham that there +was a flavour of established association in their manner. But then Sir +Philip was also very assiduous with Lady Marayne. She called him “Pip,” + and afterwards Amanda called across the tennis-court to him, “Pip!” And +then he called her “Amanda.” When the Wilder girls came up to join the +tennis he was just as brotherly.... + +The next day he came to lunch. + +During that meal Benham became more aware than he had ever been before +of the peculiar deep expressiveness of this young man's eyes. They +watched him and they watched Amanda with a solicitude that seemed at +once pained and tender. And there was something about Amanda, a kind +of hard brightness, an impartiality and an air of something undefinably +suspended, that gave Benham an intuitive certitude that that afternoon +Sir Philip would be spoken to privately, and that then he would pack up +and go away in a state of illumination from Chexington. But before he +could be spoken to he contrived to speak to Benham. + +They were left to smoke after lunch, and then it was he took advantage +of a pause to commit his little indiscretion. + +“Mrs. Benham,” he said, “looks amazingly well--extraordinarily well, +don't you think?” + +“Yes,” said Benham, startled. “Yes. She certainly keeps very well.” + +“She misses you terribly,” said Sir Philip; “it is a time when a woman +misses her husband. But, of course, she does not want to hamper your +work....” + +Benham felt it was very kind of him to take so intimate an interest in +these matters, but on the spur of the moment he could find no better +expression for this than a grunt. + +“You don't mind,” said the young man with a slight catch in the breath +that might have been apprehensive, “that I sometimes bring her books and +flowers and things? Do what little I can to keep life interesting down +here? It's not very congenial.... She's so wonderful--I think she is the +most wonderful woman in the world.” + +Benham perceived that so far from being a modern aristocrat he was +really a primitive barbarian in these matters. + +“I've no doubt,” he said, “that my wife has every reason to be grateful +for your attentions.” + +In the little pause that followed Benham had a feeling that Sir Philip +was engendering something still more personal. If so, he might +be constrained to invert very gently but very firmly the bowl of +chrysanthemums over Sir Philip's head, or kick him in an improving +manner. He had a ridiculous belief that Sir Philip would probably take +anything of the sort very touchingly. He scrambled in his mind for some +remark that would avert this possibility. + +“Have you ever been in Russia?” he asked hastily. “It is the most +wonderful country in Europe. I had an odd adventure near Kiev. During a +pogrom.” + +And he drowned the developing situation in a flood of description.... + +But it was not so easy to drown the little things that were presently +thrown out by Lady Marayne. They were so much more in the air.... + + + +18 + + +Sir Philip suddenly got out of the picture even as Benham had foreseen. + +“Easton has gone away,” he remarked three days later to Amanda. + +“I told him to go. He is a bore with you about. But otherwise he is +rather a comfort, Cheetah.” She meditated upon Sir Philip. “And he's an +HONOURABLE man,” she said. “He's safe....” + + + +19 + + +After that visit it was that the notes upon love and sex began in +earnest. The scattered memoranda upon the perfectness of heroic love for +the modern aristocrat ended abruptly. Instead there came the first draft +for a study of jealousy. The note was written in pencil on Chexington +notepaper and manifestly that had been supported on the ribbed cover +of a book. There was a little computation in the corner, converting +forty-five degrees Reaumur into degrees Fahrenheit, which made White +guess it had been written in the Red Sea. But, indeed, it had been +written in a rather amateurishly stoked corridor-train on Benham's +journey to the gathering revolt in Moscow.... + +“I think I have been disposed to underrate the force of sexual +jealousy.... I thought it was something essentially contemptible, +something that one dismissed and put behind oneself in the mere effort +to be aristocratic, but I begin to realize that it is not quite so +easily settled with.... + +“One likes to know.... Possibly one wants to know too much.... In phases +of fatigue, and particularly in phases of sleeplessness, when one +is leaving all that one cares for behind, it becomes an irrational +torment.... + +“And it is not only in oneself that I am astonished by the power of this +base motive. I see, too, in the queer business of Prothero how strongly +jealousy, how strongly the sense of proprietorship, weighs with a +man.... + +“There is no clear reason why one should insist upon another human being +being one's ownest own--utterly one's own.... + +“There is, of course, no clear reason for most human motives.... + +“One does.... + +“There is something dishonouring in distrust--to both the distrusted and +the one who distrusts....” + +After that, apparently, it had been too hot and stuffy to continue. + + + +20 + + +Benham did not see Amanda again until after the birth of their child. +He spent his Christmas in Moscow, watching the outbreak, the fitful +fighting and the subsequent break-up, of the revolution, and taking +care of a lost and helpless English family whose father had gone astray +temporarily on the way home from Baku. Then he went southward to Rostov +and thence to Astrakhan. Here he really began his travels. He determined +to get to India by way of Herat and for the first time in his life +rode out into an altogether lawless wilderness. He went on obstinately +because he found himself disposed to funk the journey, and because +discouragements were put in his way. He was soon quite cut off from all +the ways of living he had known. He learnt what it is to be flea-bitten, +saddle-sore, hungry and, above all, thirsty. He was haunted by a dread +of fever, and so contrived strange torments for himself with overdoses +of quinine. He ceased to be traceable from Chexington in March, and he +reappeared in the form of a telegram from Karachi demanding news in May. +He learnt he was the father of a man-child and that all was well with +Amanda. + +He had not expected to be so long away from any communication with the +outer world, and something in the nature of a stricken conscience took +him back to England. He found a second William Porphyry in the world, +dominating Chexington, and Amanda tenderly triumphant and passionate, +the Madonna enthroned. For William Porphyry he could feel no emotion. +William Porphyry was very red and ugly and protesting, feeble and +aggressive, a matter for a skilled nurse. To see him was to ignore him +and dispel a dream. It was to Amanda Benham turned again. + +For some days he was content to adore his Madonna and listen to the +familiar flatteries of her love. He was a leaner, riper man, Amanda +said, and wiser, so that she was afraid of him.... + +And then he became aware that she was requiring him to stay at her side. +“We have both had our adventures,” she said, which struck him as an odd +phrase. + +It forced itself upon his obstinate incredulity that all those +conceptions of heroic love and faithfulness he had supposed to be so +clearly understood between them had vanished from her mind. She had +absolutely forgotten that twilight moment at the window which had seemed +to him the crowning instant, the real marriage of their lives. It +had gone, it had left no recoverable trace in her. And upon his +interpretations of that he had loved her passionately for a year. She +was back at exactly the ideas and intentions that ruled her during their +first settlement in London. She wanted a joint life in the social world +of London, she demanded his presence, his attention, the daily practical +evidences of love. It was all very well for him to be away when the +child was coming, but now everything was different. Now he must stay by +her. + +This time he argued no case. These issues he had settled for ever. Even +an indignant dissertation from Lady Marayne, a dissertation that began +with appeals and ended in taunts, did not move him. Behind these things +now was India. The huge problems of India had laid an unshakeable hold +upon his imagination. He had seen Russia, and he wanted to balance that +picture by a vision of the east.... + +He saw Easton only once during a week-end at Chexington. The young man +displayed no further disposition to be confidentially sentimental. But +he seemed to have something on his mind. And Amanda said not a word +about him. He was a young man above suspicion, Benham felt.... + +And from his departure the quality of the correspondence of these +two larger carnivores began to change. Except for the repetition of +accustomed endearments, they ceased to be love letters in any sense of +the word. They dealt chiefly with the “Cub,” and even there Benham felt +presently that the enthusiasm diminished. A new amazing quality for +Amanda appeared--triteness. The very writing of her letters changed +as though it had suddenly lost backbone. Her habitual liveliness +of phrasing lost its point. Had she lost her animation? Was she ill +unknowingly? Where had the light gone? It was as if her attention was +distracted.... As if every day when she wrote her mind was busy about +something else. + +Abruptly at last he understood. A fact that had never been stated, +never formulated, never in any way admitted, was suddenly pointed to +convergently by a thousand indicating fingers, and beyond question +perceived to be THERE.... + +He left a record of that moment of realization. + +“Suddenly one night I woke up and lay still, and it was as if I had +never seen Amanda before. Now I saw her plainly, I saw her with that +same dreadful clearness that sometimes comes at dawn, a pitiless, a +scientific distinctness that has neither light nor shadow.... + +“Of course,” I said, and then presently I got up very softly.... + +“I wanted to get out of my intolerable, close, personal cabin. I wanted +to feel the largeness of the sky. I went out upon the deck. We were off +the coast of Madras, and when I think of that moment, there comes back +to me also the faint flavour of spice in the air, the low line of the +coast, the cool flooding abundance of the Indian moonlight, the swish +of the black water against the side of the ship. And a perception of +infinite loss, as if the limitless heavens above this earth and below +to the very uttermost star were just one boundless cavity from which +delight had fled.... + +“Of course I had lost her. I knew it with absolute certainty. I knew it +from her insecure temperament, her adventurousness, her needs. I knew it +from every line she had written me in the last three months. I knew it +intuitively. She had been unfaithful. She must have been unfaithful. + +“What had I been dreaming about to think that it would not be so?” + + + +21 + + +“Now let me write down plainly what I think of these matters. Let me +be at least honest with myself, whatever self-contradictions I may +have been led into by force of my passions. Always I have despised +jealousy.... + +“Only by the conquest of four natural limitations is the aristocratic +life to be achieved. They come in a certain order, and in that order the +spirit of man is armed against them less and less efficiently. Of fear +and my struggle against fear I have told already. I am fearful. I am a +physical coward until I can bring shame and anger to my assistance, +but in overcoming fear I have been helped by the whole body of human +tradition. Every one, the basest creatures, every Hottentot, every +stunted creature that ever breathed poison in a slum, knows that the +instinctive constitution of man is at fault here and that fear is +shameful and must be subdued. The race is on one's side. And so there is +a vast traditional support for a man against the Second Limitation, the +limitation of physical indulgence. It is not so universal as the first, +there is a grinning bawling humour on the side of grossness, but common +pride is against it. And in this matter my temperament has been my help: +I am fastidious, I eat little, drink little, and feel a shivering recoil +from excess. It is no great virtue; it happens so; it is something in +the nerves of my skin. I cannot endure myself unshaven or in any way +unclean; I am tormented by dirty hands or dirty blood or dirty memories, +and after I had once loved Amanda I could not--unless some irrational +impulse to get equal with her had caught me--have broken my faith to +her, whatever breach there was in her faith to me.... + +“I see that in these matters I am cleaner than most men and more easily +clean; and it may be that it is in the vein of just that distinctive +virtue that I fell so readily into a passion of resentment and anger. + +“I despised a jealous man. There is a traditional discredit of jealousy, +not so strong as that against cowardice, but still very strong. But +the general contempt of jealousy is curiously wrapped up with the +supposition that there is no cause for jealousy, that it is unreasonable +suspicion. Given a cause then tradition speaks with an uncertain +voice.... + +“I see now that I despised jealousy because I assumed that it was +impossible for Amanda to love any one but me; it was intolerable +to imagine anything else, I insisted upon believing that she was as +fastidious as myself and as faithful as myself, made indeed after my +image, and I went on disregarding the most obvious intimations that she +was not, until that still moment in the Indian Ocean, when silently, +gently as a drowned body might rise out of the depths of a pool, that +knowledge of love dead and honour gone for ever floated up into my +consciousness. + +“And then I felt that Amanda had cheated me! Outrageously. Abominably. + +“Now, so far as my intelligence goes, there is not a cloud upon this +question. My demand upon Amanda was outrageous and I had no right +whatever to her love or loyalty. I must have that very clear.... + +“This aristocratic life, as I conceive it, must be, except accidentally +here and there, incompatible with the domestic life. It means going +hither and thither in the universe of thought as much as in the universe +of matter, it means adventure, it means movement and adventure that must +needs be hopelessly encumbered by an inseparable associate, it means +self-imposed responsibilities that will not fit into the welfare of a +family. In all ages, directly society had risen above the level of a +barbaric tribal village, this need of a release from the family for +certain necessary types of people has been recognized. It was +met sometimes informally, sometimes formally, by the growth and +establishment of special classes and orders, of priests, monks, nuns, of +pledged knights, of a great variety of non-family people, whose +concern was the larger collective life that opens out beyond the +simple necessities and duties and loyalties of the steading and of the +craftsman's house. Sometimes, but not always, that release took the form +of celibacy; but besides that there have been a hundred institutional +variations of the common life to meet the need of the special man, +the man who must go deep and the man who must go far. A vowed celibacy +ceased to be a tolerable rule for an aristocracy directly the eugenic +idea entered the mind of man, because a celibate aristocracy means the +abandonment of the racial future to a proletariat of base unleaderly +men. That was plain to Plato. It was plain to Campanelea. It was plain +to the Protestant reformers. But the world has never yet gone on to +the next step beyond that recognition, to the recognition of feminine +aristocrats, rulers and the mates of rulers, as untrammelled by domestic +servitudes and family relationships as the men of their kind. That I see +has always been my idea since in my undergraduate days I came under the +spell of Plato. It was a matter of course that my first gift to Amanda +should be his REPUBLIC. I loved Amanda transfigured in that dream.... + +“There are no such women.... + +“It is no excuse for me that I thought she was like-minded with myself. +I had no sound reason for supposing that. I did suppose that. I did not +perceive that not only was she younger than myself, but that while I +had been going through a mill of steely education, kept close, severely +exercised, polished by discussion, she had but the weak training of a +not very good school, some scrappy reading, the vague discussions +of village artists, and the draped and decorated novelties of the +'advanced.' It all went to nothing on the impact of the world.... She +showed herself the woman the world has always known, no miracle, and +the alternative was for me to give myself to her in the ancient way, to +serve her happiness, to control her and delight and companion her, or to +let her go. + +“The normal woman centres upon herself; her mission is her own charm and +her own beauty and her own setting; her place is her home. She demands +the concentration of a man. Not to be able to command that is her +failure. Not to give her that is to shame her. As I had shamed +Amanda....” + + + +22 + + +“There are no such women.” He had written this in and struck it out, and +then at some later time written it in again. There it stayed now as his +last persuasion, but it set White thinking and doubting. And, indeed, +there was another sheet of pencilled broken stuff that seemed to glance +at quite another type of womanhood. + + + +23 + + +“It is clear that the women aristocrats who must come to the remaking of +the world will do so in spite of limitations at least as great as those +from which the aristocratic spirit of man escapes. These women must +become aristocratic through their own innate impulse, they must be +self-called to their lives, exactly as men must be; there is no making +an aristocrat without a predisposition for rule and nobility. And they +have to discover and struggle against just exactly the limitations that +we have to struggle against. They have to conquer not only fear +but indulgence, indulgence of a softer, more insidious quality, and +jealousy--proprietorship.... + +“It is as natural to want a mate as to want bread, and a thousand times +in my work and in my wanderings I have thought of a mate and desired a +mate. A mate--not a possession. It is a need almost naively simple. If +only one could have a woman who thought of one and with one! Though +she were on the other side of the world and busied about a thousand +things.... + +“'WITH one,' I see it must be rather than 'OF one.' That 'of one' is +just the unexpurgated egotistical demand coming back again.... + +“Man is a mating creature. It is not good to be alone. But mating means +a mate.... + +“We should be lovers, of course; that goes without saying.... + +“And yet not specialized lovers, not devoted, ATTENDING lovers. 'Dancing +attendance'--as they used to say. We should meet upon our ways as the +great carnivores do.... + +“That at any rate was a sound idea. Though we only played with it. + +“But that mate desire is just a longing that can have no possible +satisfaction now for me. What is the good of dreaming? Life and chance +have played a trick upon my body and soul. I am mated, though I am +mated to a phantom. I loved and I love Arnanda, not Easton's Amanda, but +Amanda in armour, the Amanda of my dreams. Sense, and particularly the +sense of beauty, lies deeper than reason in us. There can be no mate +for me now unless she comes with Amanda's voice and Amanda's face and +Amanda's quick movements and her clever hands....” + + + +24 + + +“Why am I so ungrateful to her still for all the happiness she gave me? + +“There were things between us two as lovers,--love, things more +beautiful than anything else in the world, things that set the mind +hunting among ineffectual images in a search for impossible expression, +images of sunlight shining through blood-red petals, images of moonlight +in a scented garden, of marble gleaming in the shade, of far-off +wonderful music heard at dusk in a great stillness, of fairies dancing +softly, of floating happiness and stirring delights, of joys as keen and +sudden as the knife of an assassin, assassin's knives made out of tears, +tears that are happiness, wordless things; and surprises, expectations, +gratitudes, sudden moments of contemplation, the sight of a soft +eyelid closed in sleep, shadowy tones in the sound of a voice heard +unexpectedly; sweet, dear magical things that I can find no words +for.... + +“If she was a goddess to me, should it be any affair of mine that she +was not a goddess to herself; that she could hold all this that has been +between us more cheaply than I did? It does not change one jot of it for +me. At the time she did not hold it cheaply. She forgets where I do not +forget....” + + + +25 + + +Such were the things that Benham could think and set down. + +Yet for whole days he was possessed by the thought of killing Amanda and +himself. + +He did not at once turn homeward. It was in Ceylon that he dropped his +work and came home. At Colombo he found a heap of letters awaiting him, +and there were two of these that had started at the same time. They had +been posted in London on one eventful afternoon. Lady Marayne and Amanda +had quarrelled violently. Two earnest, flushed, quick-breathing women, +full of neat but belated repartee, separated to write their simultaneous +letters. Each letter trailed the atmosphere of that truncated encounter. +Lady Marayne told her story ruthlessly. Amanda, on the other hand, +generalized, and explained. Sir Philip's adoration of her was a +love-friendship, it was beautiful, it was pure. Was there no trust nor +courage in the world? She would defy all jealous scandal. She would not +even banish him from her side. Surely the Cheetah could trust her. But +the pitiless facts of Lady Marayne went beyond Amanda's explaining. The +little lady's dignity had been stricken. “I have been used as a cloak,” + she wrote. + +Her phrases were vivid. She quoted the very words of Amanda, words she +had overheard at Chexington in the twilight. They were no invention. +They were the very essence of Amanda, the lover. It was as sure as if +Benham had heard the sound of her voice, as if he had peeped and seen, +as if she had crept by him, stooping and rustling softly. It brought +back the living sense of her, excited, flushed, reckless; his +wild-haired Amanda of infinite delight.... All day those words of hers +pursued him. All night they flared across the black universe. He buried +his face in the pillows and they whispered softly in his ear. + +He walked his room in the darkness longing to smash and tear. + +He went out from the house and shook his ineffectual fists at the +stirring quiet of the stars. + +He sent no notice of his coming back. Nor did he come back with a +definite plan. But he wanted to get at Amanda. + + + +26 + + +It was with Amanda he had to reckon. Towards Easton he felt scarcely any +anger at all. Easton he felt only existed for him because Amanda willed +to have it so. + +Such anger as Easton did arouse in him was a contemptuous anger. His +devotion filled Benham with scorn. His determination to serve Amanda at +any price, to bear the grossest humiliations and slights for her, +his humility, his service and tenderness, his care for her moods and +happiness, seemed to Benham a treachery to human nobility. That rage +against Easton was like the rage of a trade-unionist against a blackleg. +Are all the women to fall to the men who will be their master-slaves and +keepers? But it was not simply that Benham felt men must be freed from +this incessant attendance; women too must free themselves from their +almost instinctive demand for an attendant.... + +His innate disposition was to treat women as responsible beings. Never +in his life had he thought of a woman as a pretty thing to be fooled and +won and competed for and fought over. So that it was Amanda he wanted +to reach and reckon with now, Amanda who had mated and ruled his senses +only to fling him into this intolerable pit of shame and jealous fury. +But the forces that were driving him home now were the forces below the +level of reason and ideas, organic forces compounded of hate and desire, +profound aboriginal urgencies. He thought, indeed, very little as he +lay in his berth or sulked on deck; his mind lay waste under a pitiless +invasion of exasperating images that ever and again would so wring him +that his muscles would tighten and his hands clench or he would find +himself restraining a snarl, the threat of the beast, in his throat. + +Amanda grew upon his imagination until she overshadowed the whole world. +She filled the skies. She bent over him and mocked him. She became a +mystery of passion and dark beauty. She was the sin of the world. One +breathed her in the winds of the sea. She had taken to herself the +greatness of elemental things.... + +So that when at last he saw her he was amazed to see her, and see that +she was just a creature of common size and quality, a rather tired and +very frightened-looking white-faced young woman, in an evening-dress of +unfamiliar fashion, with little common trinkets of gold and colour about +her wrists and neck. + +In that instant's confrontation he forgot all that had brought him +homeward. He stared at her as one stares at a stranger whom one has +greeted in mistake for an intimate friend. + +For he saw that she was no more the Amanda he hated and desired to kill +than she had ever been the Amanda he had loved. + + + +27 + + +He took them by surprise. It had been his intention to take them by +surprise. Such is the inelegance of the jealous state. + +He reached London in the afternoon and put up at a hotel near Charing +Cross. In the evening about ten he appeared at the house in Lancaster +Gate. The butler was deferentially amazed. Mrs. Benham was, he said, at +a theatre with Sir Philip Easton, and he thought some other people also. +He did not know when she would be back. She might go on to supper. It +was not the custom for the servants to wait up for her. + +Benham went into the study that reduplicated his former rooms in Finacue +Street and sat down before the fire the butler lit for him. He sent the +man to bed, and fell into profound meditation. + +It was nearly two o'clock when he heard the sound of her latchkey and +went out at once upon the landing. + +The half-door stood open and Easton's car was outside. She stood in +the middle of the hall and relieved Easton of the gloves and fan he was +carrying. + +“Good-night,” she said, “I am so tired.” + +“My wonderful goddess,” he said. + +She yielded herself to his accustomed embrace, then started, stared, and +wrenched herself out of his arms. + +Benham stood at the top of the stairs looking down upon them, +white-faced and inexpressive. Easton dropped back a pace. For a moment +no one moved nor spoke, and then very quietly Easton shut the half-door +and shut out the noises of the road. + +For some seconds Benham regarded them, and as he did so his spirit +changed.... + +Everything he had thought of saying and doing vanished out of his mind. + +He stuck his hands into his pockets and descended the staircase. When +he was five or six steps above them, he spoke. “Just sit down here,” he +said, with a gesture of one hand, and sat down himself upon the stairs. +“DO sit down,” he said with a sudden testiness as they continued +standing. “I know all about this affair. Do please sit down and let us +talk.... Everybody's gone to bed long ago.” + +“Cheetah!” she said. “Why have you come back like this?” + +Then at his mute gesture she sat down at his feet. + +“I wish you would sit down, Easton,” he said in a voice of subdued +savagery. + +“Why have you come back?” Sir Philip Easton found his voice to ask. + +“SIT down,” Benham spat, and Easton obeyed unwillingly. + +“I came back,” Benham went on, “to see to all this. Why else? I +don't--now I see you--feel very fierce about it. But it has distressed +me. You look changed, Amanda, and fagged. And your hair is untidy. It's +as if something had happened to you and made you a stranger.... You two +people are lovers. Very natural and simple, but I want to get out of it. +Yes, I want to get out of it. That wasn't quite my idea, but now I see +it is. It's queer, but on the whole I feel sorry for you. All of us, +poor humans--. There's reason to be sorry for all of us. We're full +of lusts and uneasiness and resentments that we haven't the will to +control. What do you two people want me to do to you? Would you like a +divorce, Amanda? It's the clean, straight thing, isn't it? Or would the +scandal hurt you?” + +Amanda sat crouched together, with her eyes on Benham. + +“Give us a divorce,” said Easton, looking to her to confirm him. + +Amanda shook her head. + +“I don't want a divorce,” she said. + +“Then what do you want?” asked Benham with sudden asperity. + +“I don't want a divorce,” she repeated. “Why do you, after a long +silence, come home like this, abruptly, with no notice?” + +“It was the way it took me,” said Benham, after a little interval. + +“You have left me for long months.” + +“Yes. I was angry. And it was ridiculous to be angry. I thought I wanted +to kill you, and now I see you I see that all I want to do is to help +you out of this miserable mess--and then get away from you. You two +would like to marry. You ought to be married.” + +“I would die to make Amanda happy,” said Easton. + +“Your business, it seems to me, is to live to make her happy. That you +may find more of a strain. Less tragic and more tiresome. I, on the +other hand, want neither to die nor live for her.” Amanda moved sharply. +“It's extraordinary what amazing vapours a lonely man may get into his +head. If you don't want a divorce then I suppose things might go on as +they are now.” + +“I hate things as they are now,” said Easton. “I hate this falsehood and +deception.” + +“You would hate the scandal just as much,” said Amanda. + +“I would not care what the scandal was unless it hurt you.” + +“It would be only a temporary inconvenience,” said Benham. “Every one +would sympathize with you.... The whole thing is so natural.... People +would be glad to forget very soon. They did with my mother.” + +“No,” said Amanda, “it isn't so easy as that.” + +She seemed to come to a decision. + +“Pip,” she said. “I want to talk to--HIM--alone.” + +Easton's brown eyes were filled with distress and perplexity. “But why?” + he asked. + +“I do,” she said. + +“But this is a thing for US.” + +“Pip, I want to talk to him alone. There is something--something I can't +say before you....” + +Sir Philip rose slowly to his feet. + +“Shall I wait outside?” + +“No, Pip. Go home. Yes,--there are some things you must leave to me.” + +She stood up too and turned so that she and Benham both faced the +younger man. The strangest uneasiness mingled with his resolve to be +at any cost splendid. He felt--and it was a most unexpected and +disconcerting feeling--that he was no longer confederated with Amanda; +that prior, more fundamental and greater associations prevailed over his +little new grip upon her mind and senses. He stared at husband and wife +aghast in this realization. Then his resolute romanticism came to his +help. “I would trust you--” he began. “If you tell me to go--” + +Amanda seemed to measure her hold upon him. + +She laid her hand upon his arm. “Go, my dear Pip,” she said. “Go.” + +He had a moment of hesitation, of anguish, and it seemed to Benham +as though he eked himself out with unreality, as though somewhen, +somewhere, he had seen something of the sort in a play and filled in a +gap that otherwise he could not have supplied. + +Then the door had closed upon him, and Amanda, pale and darkly +dishevelled, faced her husband, silently and intensely. + +“WELL?” said Benham. + +She held out her arms to him. + +“Why did you leave me, Cheetah? Why did you leave me?” + + + +28 + + +Benham affected to ignore those proffered arms. But they recalled in +a swift rush the animal anger that had brought him back to England. +To remind him of desire now was to revive an anger stronger than any +desire. He spoke seeking to hurt her. + +“I am wondering now,” he said, “why the devil I came back.” + +“You had to come back to me.” + +“I could have written just as well about these things.” + +“CHEETAH,” she said softly, and came towards him slowly, stooping +forward and looking into his eyes, “you had to come back to see your old +Leopard. Your wretched Leopard. Who has rolled in the dirt. And is still +yours.” + +“Do you want a divorce? How are we to fix things, Amanda?” + +“Cheetah, I will tell you how we will fix things.” + +She dropped upon the step below him. She laid her hands with a +deliberate softness upon him, she gave a toss so that her disordered +hair was a little more disordered, and brought her soft chin down to +touch his knees. Her eyes implored him. + +“Cheetah,” she said. “You are going to forgive.” + +He sat rigid, meeting her eyes. + +“Amanda,” he said at last, “you would be astonished if I kicked you away +from me and trampled over you to the door. That is what I want to do.” + +“Do it,” she said, and the grip of her hands tightened. “Cheetah, dear! +I would love you to kill me.” + +“I don't want to kill you.” + +Her eyes dilated. “Beat me.” + +“And I haven't the remotest intention of making love to you,” he said, +and pushed her soft face and hands away from him as if he would stand +up. + +She caught hold of him again. “Stay with me,” she said. + +He made no effort to shake off her grip. He looked at the dark cloud of +her hair that had ruled him so magically, and the memory of old delights +made him grip a great handful almost inadvertently as he spoke. “Dear +Leopard,” he said, “we humans are the most streaky of conceivable +things. I thought I hated you. I do. I hate you like poison. And also I +do not hate you at all.” + +Then abruptly he was standing over her. + +She rose to her knees. + +“Stay here, old Cheetah!” she said. “This is your house. I am your +wife.” + +He went towards the unfastened front door. + +“Cheetah!” she cried with a note of despair. + +He halted at the door. + +“Amanda, I will come to-morrow. I will come in the morning, in the sober +London daylight, and then we will settle things.” + +He stared at her, and to her amazement he smiled. He spoke as one who +remarks upon a quite unexpected fact.... + +“Never in my life, Amanda, have I seen a human being that I wanted so +little to kill.” + + + +29 + + +White found a fragment that might have been written within a week of +those last encounters of Benham and Amanda. + +“The thing that astonished me most in Amanda was the change in her +mental quality. + +“With me in the old days she had always been a sincere person; she had +deceived me about facts, but she had never deceived me about herself. +Her personal, stark frankness had been her essential strength. And it +was gone. I came back to find Amanda an accomplished actress, a thing +of poses and calculated effects. She was a surface, a sham, a Lorelei. +Beneath that surface I could not discover anything individual at all. +Fear and a grasping quality, such as God gave us all when he gave us +hands; but the individual I knew, the humorous wilful Spotless Leopard +was gone. Whither, I cannot imagine. An amazing disappearance. Clean out +of space and time like a soul lost for ever. + +“When I went to see her in the morning, she was made up for a scene, she +acted an intricate part, never for a moment was she there in reality.... + +“I have got a remarkable persuasion that she lost herself in this way, +by cheapening love, by making base love to a lover she despised.... +There can be no inequality in love. Give and take must balance. One must +be one's natural self or the whole business is an indecent trick, a vile +use of life! To use inferiors in love one must needs talk down to +them, interpret oneself in their insufficient phrases, pretend, +sentimentalize. And it is clear that unless oneself is to be lost, one +must be content to leave alone all those people that one can reach +only by sentimentalizing. But Amanda--and yet somehow I love her for +it still--could not leave any one alone. So she was always feverishly +weaving nets of false relationship. Until her very self was forgotten. +So she will go on until the end. With Easton it had been necessary for +her to key herself to a simple exalted romanticism that was entirely +insincere. She had so accustomed herself to these poses that her innate +gestures were forgotten. She could not recover them; she could not +even reinvent them. Between us there were momentary gleams as though +presently we should be our frank former selves again. They were never +more than momentary....” + +And that was all that this astonishing man had seen fit to tell of his +last parting from his wife. + +Perhaps he did Amanda injustice. Perhaps there was a stronger thread +of reality in her desire to recover him than he supposed. Clearly he +believed that under the circumstances Amanda would have tried to recover +anybody. + +She had dressed for that morning's encounter in a very becoming and +intimate wrap of soft mauve and white silk, and she had washed and dried +her dark hair so that it was a vapour about her face. She set herself +with a single mind to persuade herself and Benham that they were +inseparable lovers, and she would not be deflected by his grim +determination to discuss the conditions of their separation. When he +asked her whether she wanted a divorce, she offered to throw over +Sir Philip and banish him for ever as lightly as a great lady might +sacrifice an objectionable poodle to her connubial peace. + +Benham passed through perplexing phases, so that she herself began to +feel that her practice with Easton had spoilt her hands. His initial +grimness she could understand, and partially its breakdown into +irritability. But she was puzzled by his laughter. For he laughed +abruptly. + +“You know, Amanda, I came home in a mood of tremendous tragedy. And +really,--you are a Lark.” + +And then overriding her altogether, he told her what he meant to do +about their future and the future of their little son. + +“You don't want a divorce and a fuss. Then I'll leave things. I perceive +I've no intention of marrying any more. But you'd better do the straight +thing. People forget and forgive. Especially when there is no one about +making a fuss against you. + +“Perhaps, after all, there is something to be said for shirking it. +We'll both be able to get at the boy then. You'll not hurt him, and +I shall want to see him. It's better for the boy anyhow not to have a +divorce. + +“I'll not stand in your way. I'll get a little flat and I shan't come +too much to London, and when I do, you can get out of town. You must be +discreet about Easton, and if people say anything about him, send them +to me. After all, this is our private affair. + +“We'll go on about money matters as we have been going. I trust to you +not to run me into overwhelming debts. And, of course, if at any time, +you do want to marry--on account of children or anything--if nobody +knows of this conversation we can be divorced then....” + +Benham threw out these decisions in little dry sentences while Amanda +gathered her forces for her last appeal. + +It was an unsuccessful appeal, and at the end she flung herself down +before him and clung to his knees. He struggled ridiculously to get +himself clear, and when at last he succeeded she dropped prostrate on +the floor with her dishevelled hair about her. + +She heard the door close behind him, and still she lay there, a dark +Guinevere, until with a start she heard a step upon the thick carpet +without. He had come back. The door reopened. There was a slight pause, +and then she raised her face and met the blank stare of the second +housemaid. There are moments, suspended fragments of time rather than +links in its succession, when the human eye is more intelligible than +any words. + +The housemaid made a rapid apologetic noise and vanished with a click of +the door. + +“DAMN!” said Amanda. + +Then slowly she rose to her knees. + +She meditated through vast moments. + +“It's a cursed thing to be a woman,” said Amanda. She stood up. She put +her hand on the telephone in the corner and then she forgot about it. +After another long interval of thought she spoke. + +“Cheetah!” she said, “Old Cheetah!... + +“I didn't THINK it of you....” + +Then presently with the even joyless movements of one who does a +reasonable business, with something indeed of the manner of one who +packs a trunk, she rang up Sir Philip Easton. + + + +30 + + +The head chambermaid on the first floor of the Westwood Hotel in +Danebury Street had a curious and perplexing glimpse of Benham's private +processes the morning after this affair. + +Benham had taken Room 27 on the afternoon of his return to London. She +had seen him twice or three times, and he had struck her as a coldly +decorous person, tall, white-faced, slow speaking; the last man to +behave violently or surprise a head chambermaid in any way. On the +morning of his departure she was told by the first-floor waiter that the +occupant of Room 26 had complained of an uproar in the night, and almost +immediately she was summoned to see Benham. + +He was standing facing the door and in a position which did a little +obscure the condition of the room behind him. He was carefully dressed, +and his manner was more cold and decorous than ever. But one of his +hands was tied up in a white bandage. + +“I am going this morning,” he said, “I am going down now to breakfast. I +have had a few little accidents with some of the things in the room and +I have cut my hand. I want you to tell the manager and see that they are +properly charged for on the bill.... Thank you.” + +The head chambermaid was left to consider the accidents. + +Benham's things were all packed up and the room had an air of having +been straightened up neatly and methodically after a destructive +cataclysm. One or two items that the chambermaid might possibly have +overlooked in the normal course of things were carefully exhibited. For +example, the sheet had been torn into half a dozen strips and they were +lying side by side on the bed. The clock on the mantelpiece had +been knocked into the fireplace and then pounded to pieces. All the +looking-glasses in the room were smashed, apparently the electric lamp +that stood on the night table by the bedside had been wrenched off and +flung or hammered about amidst the other breakables. And there was +a considerable amount of blood splashed about the room. The head +chambermaid felt unequal to the perplexities of the spectacle and +summoned her most convenient friend, the head chambermaid on the third +floor, to her aid. The first-floor waiter joined their deliberations +and several housemaids displayed a respectful interest in the matter. +Finally they invoked the manager. He was still contemplating the scene +of the disorder when the precipitate retreat of his subordinates warned +him of Benham's return. + +Benham was smoking a cigarette and his bearing was reassuringly +tranquil. + +“I had a kind of nightmare,” he said. “I am fearfully sorry to have +disarranged your room. You must charge me for the inconvenience as well +as for the damage.” + + + +31 + + +“An aristocrat cannot be a lover.” + +“One cannot serve at once the intricacies of the wider issues of life +and the intricacies of another human being. I do not mean that one may +not love. One loves the more because one does not concentrate one's +love. One loves nations, the people passing in the street, beasts hurt +by the wayside, troubled scoundrels and university dons in tears.... + +“But if one does not give one's whole love and life into a woman's hands +I do not think one can expect to be loved. + +“An aristocrat must do without close personal love....” + +This much was written at the top of a sheet of paper. The writing ended +halfway down the page. Manifestly it was an abandoned beginning. And it +was, it seemed to White, the last page of all this confusion of matter +that dealt with the Second and Third Limitations. Its incompleteness +made its expression perfect.... + +There Benham's love experience ended. He turned to the great business +of the world. Desire and Jealousy should deflect his life no more; like +Fear they were to be dismissed as far as possible and subdued when +they could not be altogether dismissed. Whatever stirrings of blood or +imagination there were in him after that parting, whatever failures from +this resolution, they left no trace on the rest of his research, which +was concerned with the hates of peoples and classes and war and peace +and the possibilities science unveils and starry speculations of what +mankind may do. + + + +32 + + +But Benham did not leave England again until he had had an encounter +with Lady Marayne. + +The little lady came to her son in a state of extraordinary anger and +distress. Never had she seemed quite so resolute nor quite so hopelessly +dispersed and mixed. And when for a moment it seemed to him that she was +not as a matter of fact dispersed and mixed at all, then with an instant +eagerness he dismissed that one elucidatory gleam. “What are you doing +in England, Poff?” she demanded. “And what are you going to do? + +“Nothing! And you are going to leave her in your house, with your +property and a lover. If that's it, Poff, why did you ever come back? +And why did you ever marry her? You might have known; her father was a +swindler. She's begotten of deceit. She'll tell her own story while you +are away, and a pretty story she'll make of it.” + +“Do you want me to divorce her and make a scandal?” + +“I never wanted you to go away from her. If you'd stayed and watched her +as a man should, as I begged you and implored you to do. Didn't I tell +you, Poff? Didn't I warn you?” + +“But now what am I to do?” + +“There you are! That's just a man's way. You get yourself into this +trouble, you follow your passions and your fancies and fads and then +you turn to me! How can I help you now, Poff? If you'd listened to me +before!” + +Her blue eyes were demonstratively round. + +“Yes, but--” + +“I warned you,” she interrupted. “I warned you. I've done all I could +for you. It isn't that I haven't seen through her. When she came to me +at first with that made-up story of a baby! And all about loving me like +her own mother. But I did what I could. I thought we might still make +the best of a bad job. And then--. I might have known she couldn't leave +Pip alone.... But for weeks I didn't dream. I wouldn't dream. Right +under my nose. The impudence of it!” + +Her voice broke. “Such a horrid mess! Such a hopeless, horrid mess!” + +She wiped away a bright little tear.... + +“It's all alike. It's your way with us. All of you. There isn't a man +in the world deserves to have a woman in the world. We do all we can +for you. We do all we can to amuse you, we dress for you and we talk for +you. All the sweet, warm little women there are! And then you go away +from us! There never was a woman yet who pleased and satisfied a man, +who did not lose him. Give you everything and off you must go! Lovers, +mothers....” + +It dawned upon Benham dimly that his mother's troubles did not deal +exclusively with himself. + +“But Amanda,” he began. + +“If you'd looked after her properly, it would have been right enough. +Pip was as good as gold until she undermined him.... A woman can't wait +about like an umbrella in a stand.... He was just a boy.... Only of +course there she was--a novelty. It is perfectly easy to understand. She +flattered him.... Men are such fools.” + +“Still--it's no good saying that now.” + +“But she'll spend all your money, Poff! She'll break your back with +debts. What's to prevent her? With him living on her! For that's what it +comes to practically.” + +“Well, what am I to do?” + +“You aren't going back without tying her up, Poff? You ought to stop +every farthing of her money--every farthing. It's your duty.” + +“I can't do things like that.” + +“But have you no Shame? To let that sort of thing go on!” + +“If I don't feel the Shame of it-- And I don't.” + +“And that money--. I got you that money, Poff! It was my money.” + +Benham stared at her perplexed. “What am I to do?” he asked. + +“Cut her off, you silly boy! Tie her up! Pay her through a solicitor. +Say that if she sees him ONCE again--” + +He reflected. “No,” he said at last. + +“Poff!” she cried, “every time I see you, you are more and more like +your father. You're going off--just as he did. That baffled, MULISH +look--priggish--solemn! Oh! it's strange the stuff a poor woman has to +bring into the world. But you'll do nothing. I know you'll do nothing. +You'll stand everything. You--you Cuckold! And she'll drive by me, +she'll pass me in theatres with the money that ought to have been mine! +Oh! Oh!” + +She dabbed her handkerchief from one swimming eye to the other. But she +went on talking. Faster and faster, less and less coherently; more and +more wildly abusive. Presently in a brief pause of the storm Benham +sighed profoundly.... + +It brought the scene to a painful end.... + +For weeks her distress pursued and perplexed him. + +He had an extraordinary persuasion that in some obscure way he was in +default, that he was to blame for her distress, that he owed her--he +could never define what he owed her. + +And yet, what on earth was one to do? + +And something his mother had said gave him the odd idea that he had +misjudged his father, that he had missed depths of perplexed and kindred +goodwill. He went down to see him before he returned to India. But if +there was a hidden well of feeling in Mr. Benham senior, it had been +very carefully boarded over. The parental mind and attention were +entirely engaged in a dispute in the SCHOOL WORLD about the heuristic +method. Somebody had been disrespectful to Martindale House and the +thing was rankling almost unendurably. It seemed to be a relief to him +to show his son very fully the essentially illogical position of his +assailant. He was entirely inattentive to Benham's carefully made +conversational opportunities. He would be silent at times while Benham +talked and then he would break out suddenly with: “What seems to me +so unreasonable, so ridiculous, in the whole of that fellow's second +argument--if one can call it an argument--.... A man who reasons as he +does is bound to get laughed at. If people will only see it....” + + + + +CHAPTER THE SIXTH ~~ THE NEW HAROUN AL RASCHID + + + +1 + + +Benham corresponded with Amanda until the summer of 1913. Sometimes +the two wrote coldly to one another, sometimes with warm affection, +sometimes with great bitterness. When he met White in Johannesburg +during the strike period of 1913, he was on his way to see her in London +and to settle their relationship upon a new and more definite footing. +It was her suggestion that they should meet. + +About her he felt an enormous, inexorable, dissatisfaction. He could not +persuade himself that his treatment of her and that his relations to +her squared with any of his preconceptions of nobility, and yet at no +precise point could he detect where he had definitely taken an ignoble +step. Through Amanda he was coming to the full experience of life. Like +all of us he had been prepared, he had prepared himself, to take life +in a certain way, and life had taken him, as it takes all of us, in an +entirely different and unexpected way.... He had been ready for noble +deeds and villainies, for achievements and failures, and here as the +dominant fact of his personal life was a perplexing riddle. He could +not hate and condemn her for ten minutes at a time without a flow of +exoneration; he could not think of her tolerantly or lovingly without +immediate shame and resentment, and with the utmost will in the world he +could not banish her from his mind. + +During the intervening years he had never ceased to have her in his +mind; he would not think of her it is true if he could help it, but +often he could not help it, and as a negative presence, as a thing +denied, she was almost more potent than she had been as a thing +accepted. Meanwhile he worked. His nervous irritability increased, but +it did not hinder the steady development of his Research. + +Long before his final parting from Amanda he had worked out his idea and +method for all the more personal problems in life; the problems he put +together under his headings of the first three “Limitations.” He +had resolved to emancipate himself from fear, indulgence, and that +instinctive preoccupation with the interests and dignity of self which +he chose to term Jealousy, and with the one tremendous exception of +Amanda he had to a large extent succeeded. Amanda. Amanda. Amanda. +He stuck the more grimly to his Research to drown that beating in his +brain. + +Emancipation from all these personal things he held now to be a mere +prelude to the real work of a man's life, which was to serve this dream +of a larger human purpose. The bulk of his work was to discover and +define that purpose, that purpose which must be the directing and +comprehending form of all the activities of the noble life. One cannot +be noble, he had come to perceive, at large; one must be noble to +an end. To make human life, collectively and in detail, a thing more +comprehensive, more beautiful, more generous and coherent than it is +to-day seemed to him the fundamental intention of all nobility. He +believed more and more firmly that the impulses to make and help and +subserve great purposes are abundantly present in the world, that they +are inhibited by hasty thinking, limited thinking and bad thinking, and +that the real ennoblement of human life was not so much a creation as a +release. He lumped the preventive and destructive forces that keep men +dispersed, unhappy, and ignoble under the heading of Prejudice, and +he made this Prejudice his fourth and greatest and most difficult +limitation. In one place he had written it, “Prejudice or Divisions.” + That being subdued in oneself and in the world, then in the measure of +its subjugation, the new life of our race, the great age, the noble age, +would begin. + +So he set himself to examine his own mind and the mind of the world +about him for prejudice, for hampering follies, disguised disloyalties +and mischievous distrusts, and the great bulk of the papers that White +struggled with at Westhaven Street were devoted to various aspects of +this search for “Prejudice.” It seemed to White to be at once the most +magnificent and the most preposterous of enterprises. It was indeed no +less than an enquiry into all the preventable sources of human failure +and disorder.... And it was all too manifest to White also that the last +place in which Benham was capable of detecting a prejudice was at the +back of his own head. + +Under this Fourth Limitation he put the most remarkable array +of influences, race-hatred, national suspicion, the evil side of +patriotism, religious and social intolerance, every social consequence +of muddle headedness, every dividing force indeed except the +purely personal dissensions between man and man. And he developed a +metaphysical interpretation of these troubles. “No doubt,” he wrote in +one place, “much of the evil between different kinds of men is due to +uncultivated feeling, to natural bad feeling, but far more is it due to +bad thinking.” At times he seemed on the verge of the persuasion that +most human trouble is really due to bad metaphysics. It was, one must +remark, an extraordinary journey he had made; he had started from +chivalry and arrived at metaphysics; every knight he held must be a +logician, and ultimate bravery is courage of the mind. One thinks of his +coming to this conclusion with knit brows and balancing intentness +above whole gulfs of bathos--very much as he had once walked the Leysin +Bisse.... + +“Men do not know how to think,” he insisted--getting along the +planks; “and they will not realize that they do not know how to +think. Nine-tenths of the wars in the world have arisen out of +misconceptions.... Misconception is the sin and dishonour of the mind, +and muddled thinking as ignoble as dirty conduct.... Infinitely more +disastrous.” + +And again he wrote: “Man, I see, is an over-practical creature, too +eager to get into action. There is our deepest trouble. He takes +conclusions ready-made, or he makes them in a hurry. Life is so short +that he thinks it better to err than wait. He has no patience, no faith +in anything but himself. He thinks he is a being when in reality he is +only a link in a being, and so he is more anxious to be complete than +right. The last devotion of which he is capable is that devotion of +the mind which suffers partial performance, but insists upon exhaustive +thought. He scamps his thought and finishes his performance, and before +he is dead it is already being abandoned and begun all over again by +some one else in the same egotistical haste....” + +It is, I suppose, a part of the general humour of life that these words +should have been written by a man who walked the plank to fresh ideas +with the dizziest difficulty unless he had Prothero to drag him forward, +and who acted time after time with an altogether disastrous hastiness. + + + +2 + + +Yet there was a kind of necessity in this journey of Benham's from the +cocked hat and wooden sword of Seagate and his early shame at cowardice +and baseness to the spiritual megalomania of his complete Research +Magnificent. You can no more resolve to live a life of honour nowadays +and abstain from social and political scheming on a world-wide scale, +than you can profess religion and refuse to think about God. In the past +it was possible to take all sorts of things for granted and be loyal to +unexamined things. One could be loyal to unexamined things because they +were unchallenged things. But now everything is challenged. By the +time of his second visit to Russia, Benham's ideas of conscious +and deliberate aristocracy reaching out to an idea of universal +responsibility had already grown into the extraordinary fantasy that he +was, as it were, an uncrowned king in the world. To be noble is to +be aristocratic, that is to say, a ruler. Thence it follows that +aristocracy is multiple kingship, and to be an aristocrat is to partake +both of the nature of philosopher and king.... + +Yet it is manifest that the powerful people of this world are by no +means necessarily noble, and that most modern kings, poor in quality, +petty in spirit, conventional in outlook, controlled and limited, +fall far short of kingship. Nevertheless, there IS nobility, there +IS kingship, or this earth is a dustbin and mankind but a kind of +skin-disease upon a planet. From that it is an easy step to this idea, +the idea whose first expression had already so touched the imagination +of Amanda, of a sort of diffused and voluntary kingship scattered +throughout mankind. The aristocrats are not at the high table, the +kings are not enthroned, those who are enthroned are but pretenders and +SIMULACRA, kings of the vulgar; the real king and ruler is every man who +sets aside the naive passions and self-interest of the common life for +the rule and service of the world. + +This is an idea that is now to be found in much contemporary writing. It +is one of those ideas that seem to appear simultaneously at many points +in the world, and it is impossible to say now how far Benham was +an originator of this idea, and how far he simply resonated to its +expression by others. It was far more likely that Prothero, getting it +heaven knows where, had spluttered it out and forgotten it, leaving it +to germinate in the mind of his friend.... + +This lordly, this kingly dream became more and more essential to +Benham as his life went on. When Benham walked the Bisse he was just +a youngster resolved to be individually brave; when he prowled in the +jungle by night he was there for all mankind. With every year he became +more and more definitely to himself a consecrated man as kings are +consecrated. Only that he was self-consecrated, and anointed only in +his heart. At last he was, so to speak, Haroun al Raschid again, going +unsuspected about the world, because the palace of his security would +not tell him the secrets of men's disorders. He was no longer a creature +of circumstances, he was kingly, unknown, Alfred in the Camp of the +Danes. In the great later accumulations of his Research the personal +matter, the introspection, the intimate discussion of motive, becomes +less and less. He forgets himself in the exaltation of kingliness. He +worries less and less over the particular rightness of his +definite acts. In these later papers White found Benham abstracted, +self-forgetful, trying to find out with an ever increased +self-detachment, with an ever deepening regal solicitude, why there are +massacres, wars, tyrannies and persecutions, why we let famine, disease +and beasts assail us, and want dwarf and cripple vast multitudes in the +midst of possible plenty. And when he found out and as far as he found +out, he meant quite simply and earnestly to apply his knowledge.... + + + +3 + + +The intellectualism of Benham intensified to the end. His definition of +Prejudice impressed White as being the most bloodless and philosophical +formula that ever dominated the mind of a man. + +“Prejudice,” Benham had written, “is that common incapacity of the human +mind to understand that a difference in any respect is not a difference +in all respects, reinforced and rendered malignant by an instinctive +hostility to what is unlike ourselves. We exaggerate classification and +then charge it with mischievous emotion by referring it to ourselves.” + And under this comprehensive formula he proceeded to study and attack +Family Prejudice, National Prejudice, Race Prejudice, War, Class +Prejudice, Professional Prejudice, Sex Prejudice, in the most +industrious and elaborate manner. Whether one regards one's self or +others he held that these prejudices are evil things. “From the point +of view of human welfare they break men up into wars and conflicts, +make them an easy prey to those who trade upon suspicion and hostility, +prevent sane collective co-operations, cripple and embitter life. From +the point of view of personal aristocracy they make men vulgar, violent, +unjust and futile. All the conscious life of the aristocrat must be a +constant struggle against false generalizations; it is as much his duty +to free himself from that as from fear, indulgence, and jealousy; it is +a larger and more elaborate task, but it is none the less cardinal and +essential. Indeed it is more cardinal and essential. The true knight has +to be not only no coward, no self-pamperer, no egotist. He has to be a +philosopher. He has to be no hasty or foolish thinker. His judgment no +more than his courage is to be taken by surprise. + +“To subdue fear, desire and jealousy, is the aristocrat's personal +affair, it is his ritual and discipline, like a knight watching his +arms; but the destruction of division and prejudice and all their +forms and establishments, is his real task, that is the common work of +knighthood. It is a task to be done in a thousand ways; one man working +by persuasion, another by example, this one overthrowing some crippling +restraint upon the freedom of speech and the spread of knowledge, +and that preparing himself for a war that will shatter a tyrannous +presumption. Most imaginative literature, all scientific investigation, +all sound criticism, all good building, all good manufacture, all sound +politics, every honesty and every reasoned kindliness contribute to this +release of men from the heat and confusions of our present world.” + +It was clear to White that as Benham progressed with this major part of +his research, he was more and more possessed by the idea that he was not +making his own personal research alone, but, side by side with a vast, +masked, hidden and once unsuspected multitude of others; that this great +idea of his was under kindred forms the great idea of thousands, that +it was breaking as the dawn breaks, simultaneously to great numbers of +people, and that the time was not far off when the new aristocracy, the +disguised rulers of the world, would begin to realize their common +bent and effort. Into these latter papers there creeps more and more +frequently a new phraseology, such expressions as the “Invisible King” + and the “Spirit of Kingship,” so that as Benham became personally more +and more solitary, his thoughts became more and more public and social. + +Benham was not content to define and denounce the prejudices of mankind. +He set himself to study just exactly how these prejudices worked, to get +at the nature and habits and strengths of each kind of prejudice, and to +devise means for its treatment, destruction or neutralization. He had no +great faith in the power of pure reasonableness; his psychological ideas +were modern, and he had grasped the fact that the power of most of the +great prejudices that strain humanity lies deeper than the intellectual +level. Consequently he sought to bring himself into the closest contact +with prejudices in action and prejudices in conflict in order to +discover their sub-rational springs. + +A large proportion of that larger moiety of the material at Westhaven +Street which White from his extensive experience of the public patience +decided could not possibly “make a book,” consisted of notes and +discussions upon the first-hand observations Benham had made in this +or that part of the world. He began in Russia during the revolutionary +trouble of 1906, he went thence to Odessa, and from place to place in +Bessarabia and Kieff, where during a pogrom he had his first really +illuminating encounter with race and culture prejudice. His examination +of the social and political condition of Russia seems to have left him +much more hopeful than was the common feeling of liberal-minded people +during the years of depression that followed the revolution of 1906, and +it was upon the race question that his attention concentrated. + +The Swadeshi outbreak drew him from Russia to India. Here in an entirely +different environment was another discord of race and culture, and +he found in his study of it much that illuminated and corrected his +impressions of the Russian issue. A whole drawer was devoted to a +comparatively finished and very thorough enquiry into human dissensions +in lower Bengal. Here there were not only race but culture conflicts, +and he could work particularly upon the differences between men of the +same race who were Hindus, Christians and Mahometans respectively. +He could compare the Bengali Mahometan not only with the Bengali +Brahminist, but also with the Mahometan from the north-west. “If one +could scrape off all the creed and training, would one find much the +same thing at the bottom, or something fundamentally so different that +no close homogeneous social life and not even perhaps a life of just +compromise is possible between the different races of mankind?” + +His answer to that was a confident one. “There are no such natural and +unalterable differences in character and quality between any two sorts +of men whatever, as would make their peaceful and kindly co-operation in +the world impossible,” he wrote. + +But he was not satisfied with his observations in India. He found the +prevalence of caste ideas antipathetic and complicating. He went on +after his last parting from Amanda into China, it was the first of +several visits to China, and thence he crossed to America. White found a +number of American press-cuttings of a vehemently anti-Japanese quality +still awaiting digestion in a drawer, and it was clear to him that +Benham had given a considerable amount of attention to the development +of the “white” and “yellow” race hostility on the Pacific slope; but his +chief interest at that time had been the negro. He went to Washington +and thence south; he visited Tuskegee and Atlanta, and then went off at +a tangent to Hayti. He was drawn to Hayti by Hesketh Pritchard's vivid +book, WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE, and like Hesketh Pritchard he was able +to visit that wonderful monument to kingship, the hidden fastness of La +Ferriere, the citadel built a century ago by the “Black Napoleon,” the +Emperor Christophe. He went with a young American demonstrator from +Harvard. + + + +4 + + +It was a memorable excursion. They rode from Cap Haytien for a day's +journey along dusty uneven tracks through a steaming plain of luxurious +vegetation, that presented the strangest mixture of unbridled jungle +with populous country. They passed countless villages of thatched huts +alive with curiosity and swarming with naked black children, and yet all +the time they seemed to be in a wilderness. They forded rivers, they had +at times to force themselves through thickets, once or twice they +lost their way, and always ahead of them, purple and sullen, the great +mountain peak with La Ferriere upon its crest rose slowly out of the +background until it dominated the landscape. Long after dark they +blundered upon rather than came to the village at its foot where they +were to pass the night. They were interrogated under a flaring torch by +peering ragged black soldiers, and passed through a firelit crowd into +the presence of the local commandant to dispute volubly about their +right to go further. They might have been in some remote corner of +Nigeria. Their papers, laboriously got in order, were vitiated by the +fact, which only became apparent by degrees, that the commandant could +not read. They carried their point with difficulty. + +But they carried their point, and, watched and guarded by a hungry +half-naked negro in a kepi and the remains of a sky-blue pair of +trousers, they explored one of the most exemplary memorials of +imperialism that humanity has ever made. The roads and parks and +prospects constructed by this vanished Emperor of Hayti, had long +since disappeared, and the three men clambered for hours up ravines and +precipitous jungle tracks, occasionally crossing the winding traces of +a choked and ruined road that had once been the lordly approach to his +fastness. Below they passed an abandoned palace of vast extent, a palace +with great terraces and the still traceable outline of gardens, though +there were green things pushing between the terrace steps, and trees +thrust out of the empty windows. Here from a belvedere of which the +skull-like vestige still remained, the negro Emperor Christophe, after +fourteen years of absolute rule, had watched for a time the smoke of the +burning of his cane-fields in the plain below, and then, learning that +his bodyguard had deserted him, had gone in and blown out his brains. + +He had christened the place after the best of examples, “Sans Souci.” + +But the citadel above, which was to have been his last defence, he never +used. The defection of his guards made him abandon that. To build it, +they say, cost Hayti thirty thousand lives. He had the true Imperial +lavishness. So high it was, so lost in a wilderness of trees and bush, +looking out over a land relapsed now altogether to a barbarism of patch +and hovel, so solitary and chill under the tropical sky--for even the +guards who still watched over its suspected treasures feared to live in +its ghostly galleries and had made hovels outside its walls--and at the +same time so huge and grandiose--there were walls thirty feet thick, +galleries with scores of rust-eaten cannon, circular dining-halls, +king's apartments and queen's apartments, towering battlements and +great arched doorways--that it seemed to Benham to embody the power and +passing of that miracle of human history, tyranny, the helpless bowing +of multitudes before one man and the transitoriness of such glories, +more completely than anything he had ever seen or imagined in the world +before. Beneath the battlements--they are choked above with jungle grass +and tamarinds and many flowery weeds--the precipice fell away a sheer +two thousand feet, and below spread a vast rich green plain populous and +diversified, bounded at last by the blue sea, like an amethystine wall. +Over this precipice Christophe was wont to fling his victims, and below +this terrace were bottle-shaped dungeons where men, broken and torn, +thrust in at the neck-like hole above, starved and died: it was his +headquarters here, here he had his torture chambers and the means for +nameless cruelties.... + +“Not a hundred years ago,” said Benham's companion, and told the story +of the disgraced favourite, the youth who had offended. + +“Leap,” said his master, and the poor hypnotized wretch, after one +questioning glance at the conceivable alternatives, made his last +gesture of servility, and then stood out against the sky, swayed, and +with a convulsion of resolve, leapt and shot headlong down through the +shimmering air. + +Came presently the little faint sound of his fall. + +The Emperor satisfied turned away, unmindful of the fact that this +projectile he had launched had caught among the bushes below, and +presently struggled and found itself still a living man. It could +scramble down to the road and, what is more wonderful, hope for mercy. +An hour and it stood before Christophe again, with an arm broken and +bloody and a face torn, a battered thing now but with a faint flavour of +pride in its bearing. “Your bidding has been done, Sire,” it said. + +“So,” said the Emperor, unappeased. “And you live? Well-- Leap +again....” + +And then came other stories. The young man told them as he had heard +them, stories of ferocious wholesale butcheries, of men standing along +the walls of the banqueting chamber to be shot one by one as the feast +went on, of exquisite and terrifying cruelties, and his one note of +wonder, his refrain was, “HERE! Not a hundred years ago.... It makes one +almost believe that somewhere things of this sort are being done now.” + +They ate their lunch together amidst the weedy flowery ruins. The +lizards which had fled their coming crept out again to bask in the +sunshine. The soldier-guide and guard scrabbled about with his black +fingers in the ruinous and rifled tomb of Christophe in a search for +some saleable memento.... + +Benham sat musing in silence. The thought of deliberate cruelty was +always an actual physical distress to him. He sat bathed in the dreamy +afternoon sunlight and struggled against the pictures that crowded +into his mind, pictures of men aghast at death, and of fear-driven men +toiling in agony, and of the shame of extorted obedience and of cringing +and crawling black figures, and the defiance of righteous hate beaten +down under blow and anguish. He saw eyes alight with terror and lips +rolled back in agony, he saw weary hopeless flight before striding proud +destruction, he saw the poor trampled mangled dead, and he shivered in +his soul.... + +He hated Christophe and all that made Christophe; he hated pride, and +then the idea came to him that it is not pride that makes Christophes +but humility. + +There is in the medley of man's composition, deeper far than his +superficial working delusion that he is a separated self-seeking +individual, an instinct for cooperation and obedience. Every natural +sane man wants, though he may want it unwittingly, kingly guidance, a +definite direction for his own partial life. At the bottom of his heart +he feels, even if he does not know it definitely, that his life is +partial. He is driven to join himself on. He obeys decision and the +appearance of strength as a horse obeys its rider's voice. One thinks +of the pride, the uncontrolled frantic will of this black ape of all +Emperors, and one forgets the universal docility that made him possible. +Usurpation is a crime to which men are tempted by human dirigibility. +It is the orderly peoples who create tyrants, and it is not so much +restraint above as stiff insubordination below that has to be taught to +men. There are kings and tyrannies and imperialisms, simply because of +the unkingliness of men. + +And as he sat upon the battlements of La Ferriere, Benham cast off from +his mind his last tolerance for earthly kings and existing States, and +expounded to another human being for the first time this long-cherished +doctrine of his of the Invisible King who is the lord of human destiny, +the spirit of nobility, who will one day take the sceptre and rule the +earth.... To the young American's naive American response to any simply +felt emotion, he seemed with his white earnestness and his glowing eyes +a veritable prophet.... + +“This is the root idea of aristocracy,” said Benham. + +“I have never heard the underlying spirit of democracy, the real true +Thing in democracy, so thoroughly expressed,” said the young American. + + + +5 + + +Benham's notes on race and racial cultures gave White tantalizing +glimpses of a number of picturesque experiences. The adventure in Kieff +had first roused Benham to the reality of racial quality. He was caught +in the wheels of a pogrom. + +“Before that time I had been disposed to minimize and deny race. I still +think it need not prevent men from the completest social co-operation, +but I see now better than I did how difficult it is for any man to purge +from his mind the idea that he is not primarily a Jew, a Teuton, or a +Kelt, but a man. You can persuade any one in five minutes that he or she +belongs to some special and blessed and privileged sort of human +being; it takes a lifetime to destroy that persuasion. There are these +confounded differences of colour, of eye and brow, of nose or hair, +small differences in themselves except that they give a foothold and +foundation for tremendous fortifications of prejudice and tradition, in +which hostilities and hatreds may gather. When I think of a Jew's nose, +a Chinaman's eyes or a negro's colour I am reminded of that fatal little +pit which nature has left in the vermiform appendix, a thing no use in +itself and of no significance, but a gathering-place for mischief. The +extremest case of race-feeling is the Jewish case, and even here, I am +convinced, it is the Bible and the Talmud and the exertions of those +inevitable professional champions who live upon racial feeling, far more +than their common distinction of blood, which holds this people together +banded against mankind.” + +Between the lines of such general propositions as this White read little +scraps of intimation that linked with the things Benham let fall in +Johannesburg to reconstruct the Kieff adventure. + +Benham had been visiting a friend in the country on the further side +of the Dnieper. As they drove back along dusty stretches of road amidst +fields of corn and sunflower and through bright little villages, they +saw against the evening blue under the full moon a smoky red glare +rising from amidst the white houses and dark trees of the town. “The +pogrom's begun,” said Benham's friend, and was surprised when Benham +wanted to end a pleasant day by going to see what happens after the +beginning of a pogrom. + +He was to have several surprises before at last he left Benham in +disgust and went home by himself. + +For Benham, with that hastiness that so flouted his exalted theories, +passed rapidly from an attitude of impartial enquiry to active +intervention. The two men left their carriage and plunged into +the network of unlovely dark streets in which the Jews and traders +harboured.... Benham's first intervention was on behalf of a crouching +and yelping bundle of humanity that was being dragged about and kicked +at a street corner. The bundle resolved itself into a filthy little old +man, and made off with extraordinary rapidity, while Benham remonstrated +with the kickers. Benham's tallness, his very Gentile face, his good +clothes, and an air of tense authority about him had its effect, and +the kickers shuffled off with remarks that were partly apologies. But +Benham's friend revolted. This was no business of theirs. + +Benham went on unaccompanied towards the glare of the burning houses. + +For a time he watched. Black figures moved between him and the glare, +and he tried to find out the exact nature of the conflict by enquiries +in clumsy Russian. He was told that the Jews had insulted a religious +procession, that a Jew had spat at an ikon, that the shop of a cheating +Jew trader had been set on fire, and that the blaze had spread to the +adjacent group of houses. He gathered that the Jews were running out of +the burning block on the other side “like rats.” The crowd was mostly +composed of town roughs with a sprinkling of peasants. They were +mischievous but undecided. Among them were a number of soldiers, and +he was surprised to see a policemen, brightly lit from head to foot, +watching the looting of a shop that was still untouched by the flames. + +He held back some men who had discovered a couple of women's figures +slinking along in the shadow beneath a wall. Behind his remonstrances +the Jewesses escaped. His anger against disorder was growing upon +him.... + +Late that night Benham found himself the leading figure amidst a party +of Jews who had made a counter attack upon a gang of roughs in a court +that had become the refuge of a crowd of fugitives. Some of the young +Jewish men had already been making a fight, rather a poor and hopeless +fight, from the windows of the house near the entrance of the court, but +it is doubtful if they would have made an effective resistance if it +had not been for this tall excited stranger who was suddenly shouting +directions to them in sympathetically murdered Russian. It was not that +he brought powerful blows or subtle strategy to their assistance, but +that he put heart into them and perplexity into his adversaries because +he was so manifestly non-partizan. Nobody could ever have mistaken +Benham for a Jew. When at last towards dawn a not too zealous governor +called out the troops and began to clear the streets of rioters, Benham +and a band of Jews were still keeping the gateway of that court behind a +hasty but adequate barricade of furniture and handbarrows. + +The ghetto could not understand him, nobody could understand him, but it +was clear a rare and precious visitor had come to their rescue, and he +was implored by a number of elderly, dirty, but very intelligent-looking +old men to stay with them and preserve them until their safety was +assured. + +They could not understand him, but they did their utmost to entertain +him and assure him of their gratitude. They seemed to consider him as +a representative of the British Government, and foreign intervention on +their behalf is one of those unfortunate fixed ideas that no persecuted +Jews seem able to abandon. + +Benham found himself, refreshed and tended, sitting beside a wood fire +in an inner chamber richly flavoured by humanity and listening to a +discourse in evil but understandable German. It was a discourse upon the +wrongs and the greatness of the Jewish people--and it was delivered by +a compact middle-aged man with a big black beard and long-lashed but +animated eyes. Beside him a very old man dozed and nodded approval. A +number of other men crowded the apartment, including several who had +helped to hold off the rioters from the court. Some could follow the +talk and ever again endorsed the speaker in Yiddish or Russian; others +listened with tantalized expressions, their brows knit, their lips +moving. + +It was a discourse Benham had provoked. For now he was at the very heart +of the Jewish question, and he could get some light upon the mystery +of this great hatred at first hand. He did not want to hear tales of +outrages, of such things he knew, but he wanted to understand what was +the irritation that caused these things. + +So he listened. The Jew dilated at first on the harmlessness and +usefulness of the Jews. + +“But do you never take a certain advantage?” Benham threw out. + +“The Jews are cleverer than the Russians. Must we suffer for that?” + +The spokesman went on to the more positive virtues of his race. Benham +suddenly had that uncomfortable feeling of the Gentile who finds a bill +being made against him. Did the world owe Israel nothing for Philo, +Aron ben Asher, Solomon Gabriol, Halevy, Mendelssohn, Heine, Meyerbeer, +Rubinstein, Joachim, Zangwill? Does Britain owe nothing to Lord +Beaconsfield, Montefiore or the Rothschilds? Can France repudiate her +debt to Fould, Gaudahaux, Oppert, or Germany to Furst, Steinschneider, +Herxheimer, Lasker, Auerbach, Traube and Lazarus and Benfey?... + +Benham admitted under the pressure of urgent tones and gestures that +these names did undoubtedly include the cream of humanity, but was it +not true that the Jews did press a little financially upon the inferior +peoples whose lands they honoured in their exile? + +The man with the black beard took up the challenge bravely. + +“They are merciful creditors,” he said. “And it is their genius to +possess and control. What better stewards could you find for the wealth +of nations than the Jews? And for the honours? That always had been the +role of the Jews--stewardship. Since the days of Joseph in Egypt....” + +Then in a lower voice he went on to speak of the deficiencies of the +Gentile population. He wished to be just and generous but the truth was +the truth. The Christian Russians loved drink and laziness; they had no +sense of property; were it not for unjust laws even now the Jews would +possess all the land of South Russia.... + +Benham listened with a kind of fascination. “But,” he said. + +It was so. And with a confidence that aroused a protest or so from the +onlookers, the Jewish apologist suddenly rose up, opened a safe close +beside the fire and produced an armful of documents. + +“Look!” he said, “all over South Russia there are these!” + +Benham was a little slow to understand, until half a dozen of these +papers had been thrust into his hand. Eager fingers pointed, and several +voices spoke. These things were illegalities that might some day be +legal; there were the records of loans and hidden transactions that +might at any time put all the surrounding soil into the hands of the +Jew. All South Russia was mortgaged.... + +“But is it so?” asked Benham, and for a time ceased to listen and stared +into the fire. + +Then he held up the papers in his hand to secure silence and, feeling +his way in unaccustomed German, began to speak and continued to speak in +spite of a constant insurgent undertone of interruption from the Jewish +spokesman. + +All men, Benham said, were brothers. Did they not remember Nathan the +Wise? + +“I did not claim him,” said the spokesman, misunderstanding. “He is a +character in fiction.” + +But all men are brothers, Benham maintained. They had to be merciful to +one another and give their gifts freely to one another. Also they had +to consider each other's weaknesses. The Jews were probably justified +in securing and administering the property of every community into which +they came, they were no doubt right in claiming to be best fitted for +that task, but also they had to consider, perhaps more than they did, +the feelings and vanities of the host population into which they brought +these beneficent activities. What was said of the ignorance, incapacity +and vice of the Roumanians and Russians was very generally believed and +accepted, but it did not alter the fact that the peasant, for all his +incapacity, did like to imagine he owned his own patch and hovel and did +have a curious irrational hatred of debt.... + +The faces about Benham looked perplexed. + +“THIS,” said Benham, tapping the papers in his hand. “They will not +understand the ultimate benefit of it. It will be a source of anger +and fresh hostility. It does not follow because your race has supreme +financial genius that you must always follow its dictates to the +exclusion of other considerations....” + +The perplexity increased. + +Benham felt he must be more general. He went on to emphasize the +brotherhood of man, the right to equal opportunity, equal privilege, +freedom to develop their idiosyncrasies as far as possible, unhindered +by the idiosyncrasies of others. He could feel the sympathy and +understanding of his hearers returning. “You see,” said Benham, “you +must have generosity. You must forget ancient scores. Do you not see the +world must make a fresh beginning?” + +He was entirely convinced he had them with him. The heads nodded assent, +the bright eyes and lips followed the slow disentanglement of his bad +German. + +“Free yourselves and the world,” he said. + +Applause. + +“And so,” he said breaking unconsciously into English, “let us begin by +burning these BEASTLY mortgages!” + +And with a noble and dramatic gesture Benham cast his handful on the +fire. The assenting faces became masks of horror. A score of hands +clutched at those precious papers, and a yell of dismay and anger filled +the room. Some one caught at his throat from behind. “Don't kill him!” + cried some one. “He fought for us!” + + + +6 + + +An hour later Benham returned in an extraordinarily dishevelled +and battered condition to his hotel. He found his friend in anxious +consultation with the hotel proprietor. + +“We were afraid that something had happened to you,” said his friend. + +“I got a little involved,” said Benham. + +“Hasn't some one clawed your cheek?” + +“Very probably,” said Benham. + +“And torn your coat? And hit you rather heavily upon the neck?” + +“It was a complicated misunderstanding,” said Benham. “Oh! pardon! I'm +rather badly bruised upon that arm you're holding.” + + + +7 + + +Benham told the story to White as a jest against himself. + +“I see now of course that they could not possibly understand my point of +view,” he said.... + +“I'm not sure if they quite followed my German.... + +“It's odd, too, that I remember saying, 'Let's burn these mortgages,' +and at the time I'm almost sure I didn't know the German for +mortgage....” + +It was not the only occasion on which other people had failed to +grasp the full intention behind Benham's proceedings. His aristocratic +impulses were apt to run away with his conceptions of brotherhood, and +time after time it was only too manifest to White that Benham's +pallid flash of anger had astonished the subjects of his disinterested +observations extremely. His explorations in Hayti had been terminated +abruptly by an affair with a native policeman that had necessitated the +intervention of the British Consul. It was begun with that suddenness +that was too often characteristic of Benham, by his hitting the +policeman. It was in the main street of Cap Haytien, and the policeman +had just clubbed an unfortunate youth over the head with the heavily +loaded wooden club which is the normal instrument of Haytien discipline. +His blow was a repartee, part of a triangular altercation in which a +large, voluble, mahogany-coloured lady whose head was tied up in a +blue handkerchief played a conspicuous part, but it seemed to Benham an +entirely unjustifiable blow. + +He allowed an indignation with negro policemen in general that had been +gathering from the very moment of his arrival at Port-au-Prince to carry +him away. He advanced with the kind of shout one would hurl at a dog, +and smote the policeman to the earth with the stout stick that the +peculiar social atmosphere of Hayti had disposed him to carry. By the +local standard his blow was probably a trivial one, but the moral effect +of his indignant pallor and a sort of rearing tallness about him +on these occasions was always very considerable. Unhappily these +characteristics could have no effect on a second negro policeman who was +approaching the affray from behind, and he felled Benham by a blow on +the shoulder that was meant for the head, and with the assistance of his +colleague overpowered him, while the youth and the woman vanished. + +The two officials dragged Benham in a state of vehement protest to the +lock-up, and only there, in the light of a superior officer's superior +knowledge, did they begin to realize the grave fact of his British +citizenship. + +The memory of the destruction of the Haytien fleet by a German gunboat +was still vivid in Port-au-Prince, and to that Benham owed it that in +spite of his blank refusal to compensate the man he had knocked over, he +was after two days of anger, two days of extreme insanitary experience, +and much meditation upon his unphilosophical hastiness, released. + +Quite a number of trivial incidents of a kindred sort diversified his +enquiries into Indian conditions. They too turned for the most part +on his facile exasperation at any defiance of his deep-felt desire for +human brotherhood. At last indeed came an affair that refused ultimately +to remain trivial, and tangled him up in a coil that invoked newspaper +articles and heated controversies. + +The effect of India upon Benham's mind was a peculiar mixture of +attraction and irritation. He was attracted by the Hindu spirit of +intellectualism and the Hindu repudiation of brutality, and he was +infuriated by the spirit of caste that cuts the great world of India +into a thousand futile little worlds, all aloof and hostile one to the +other. “I came to see India,” he wrote, “and there is no India. There is +a great number of Indias, and each goes about with its chin in the air, +quietly scorning everybody else.” + +His Indian adventures and his great public controversy on caste began +with a tremendous row with an Indian civil servant who had turned an +Indian gentleman out of his first-class compartment, and culminated in +a disgraceful fracas with a squatting brown holiness at Benares, who had +thrown aside his little brass bowlful of dinner because Benham's shadow +had fallen upon it. + +“You unendurable snob!” said Benham, and then lapsing into the forceful +and inadvisable: “By Heaven, you SHALL eat it!...” + + + +8 + + +Benham's detestation of human divisions and hostilities was so deep in +his character as to seem almost instinctive. But he had too a very clear +reason for his hostility to all these amazing breaks in human continuity +in his sense of the gathering dangers they now involve. They had always, +he was convinced, meant conflict, hatred, misery and the destruction +of human dignity, but the new conditions of life that have been brought +about by modern science were making them far more dangerous than they +had ever been before. He believed that the evil and horror of war was +becoming more and more tremendous with every decade, and that the free +play of national prejudice and that stupid filching ambitiousness +that seems to be inseparable from monarchy, were bound to precipitate +catastrophe, unless a real international aristocracy could be brought +into being to prevent it. + +In the drawer full of papers labelled “Politics,” White found a paper +called “The Metal Beast.” It showed that for a time Benham had been +greatly obsessed by the thought of the armaments that were in those days +piling up in every country in Europe. He had gone to Essen, and at Essen +he had met a German who had boasted of Zeppelins and the great guns that +were presently to smash the effete British fleet and open the Imperial +way to London. + +“I could not sleep,” he wrote, “on account of this man and his talk and +the streak of hatred in his talk. He distressed me not because he seemed +exceptional, but because he seemed ordinary. I realized that he was more +human than I was, and that only killing and killing could come out of +such humanity. I thought of the great ugly guns I had seen, and of the +still greater guns he had talked about, and how gloatingly he thought +of the destruction they could do. I felt as I used to feel about that +infernal stallion that had killed a man with its teeth and feet, a +despairing fear, a sense of monstrosity in life. And this creature +who had so disturbed me was only a beastly snuffy little man in an +ill-fitting frock-coat, who laid his knife and fork by their tips on the +edge of his plate, and picked his teeth with gusto and breathed into +my face as he talked to me. The commonest of representative men. I went +about that Westphalian country after that, with the conviction that +headless, soulless, blood-drinking metal monsters were breeding all +about me. I felt that science was producing a poisonous swarm, a nest +of black dragons. They were crouching here and away there in France and +England, they were crouching like beasts that bide their time, mewed +up in forts, kennelled in arsenals, hooded in tarpaulins as hawks are +hooded.... And I had never thought very much about them before, and +there they were, waiting until some human fool like that frock-coated +thing of spite, and fools like him multiplied by a million, saw fit +to call them out to action. Just out of hatred and nationalism and +faction....” + +Then came a queer fancy. + +“Great guns, mines, battleships, all that cruelty-apparatus; I see it +more and more as the gathering revenge of dead joyless matter for the +happiness of life. It is a conspiracy of the lifeless, an enormous +plot of the rebel metals against sensation. That is why in particular +half-living people seem to love these things. La Ferriere was a fastness +of the kind of tyranny that passes out of human experience, the tyranny +of the strong man over men. Essen comes, the new thing, the tyranny of +the strong machine.... + +“Science is either slave or master. These people--I mean the German +people and militarist people generally--have no real mastery over the +scientific and economic forces on which they seem to ride. The monster +of steel and iron carries Kaiser and Germany and all Europe captive. It +has persuaded them to mount upon its back and now they must follow the +logic of its path. Whither?... Only kingship will ever master that beast +of steel which has got loose into the world. Nothing but the sense of +unconquerable kingship in us all will ever dare withstand it.... Men +must be kingly aristocrats--it isn't MAY be now, it is MUST be--or, +these confederated metals, these things of chemistry and metallurgy, +these explosives and mechanisms, will trample the blood and life out of +our race into mere red-streaked froth and filth....” + +Then he turned to the question of this metallic beast's release. Would +it ever be given blood? + +“Men of my generation have been brought up in this threat of a great war +that never comes; for forty years we have had it, so that it is with +a note of incredulity that one tells oneself, 'After all this war may +happen. But can it happen?'” + +He proceeded to speculate upon the probability whether a great war would +ever devastate western Europe again, and it was very evident to White +that he wanted very much to persuade himself against that idea. It was +too disagreeable for him to think it probable. The paper was dated 1910. +It was in October, 1914, that White, who was still working upon the +laborious uncertain account of Benham's life and thought he has recently +published, read what Benham had written. Benham concluded that the +common-sense of the world would hold up this danger until reason could +get “to the head of things.” + +“There are already mighty forces in Germany,” Benham wrote, “that will +struggle very powerfully to avoid a war. And these forces increase. +Behind the coarseness and the threatenings, the melodrama and the +display of the vulgarer sort there arises a great and noble people.... I +have talked with Germans of the better kind.... You cannot have a whole +nation of Christophes.... There also the true knighthood discovers +itself.... I do not believe this war will overtake us.” + +“WELL!” said White. + +“I must go back to Germany and understand Germany better,” the notes +went on. + +But other things were to hold Benham back from that resolve. Other +things were to hold many men back from similar resolves until it was too +late for them.... + +“It is preposterous that these monstrous dangers should lower over +Europe, because a certain threatening vanity has crept into the blood of +a people, because a few crude ideas go inadequately controlled.... Does +no one see what that metallic beast will do if they once let it loose? +It will trample cities; it will devour nations....” + +White read this on the 9th of October, 1914. One crumpled evening +paper at his feet proclaimed in startled headlines: “Rain of Incendiary +Shells. Antwerp Ablaze.” Another declared untruthfully but impressively: +“Six Zeppelins drop Bombs over the Doomed City.” + +He had bought all the evening papers, and had read and re-read them and +turned up maps and worried over strategic problems for which he had no +data at all--as every one did at that time--before he was able to go on +with Benham's manuscripts. + +These pacific reassurances seemed to White's war-troubled mind like +finding a flattened and faded flower, a girl's love token, between the +pages of some torn and scorched and blood-stained book picked out from a +heap of loot after rapine and murder had had their fill.... + +“How can we ever begin over again?” said White, and sat for a long time +staring gloomily into the fire, forgetting forgetting, forgetting too +that men who are tired and weary die, and that new men are born to +succeed them.... + +“We have to begin over again,” said White at last, and took up Benham's +papers where he had laid them down.... + + + +9 + + +One considerable section of Benham's treatment of the Fourth Limitation +was devoted to what he called the Prejudices of Social Position. This +section alone was manifestly expanding into a large treatise upon the +psychology of economic organization.... + +It was only very slowly that he had come to realize the important part +played by economic and class hostilities in the disordering of +human affairs. This was a very natural result of his peculiar social +circumstances. Most people born to wealth and ease take the established +industrial system as the natural method in human affairs; it is only +very reluctantly and by real feats of sympathy and disinterestedness +that they can be brought to realize that it is natural only in the sense +that it has grown up and come about, and necessary only because nobody +is strong and clever enough to rearrange it. Their experience of it is +a satisfactory experience. On the other hand, the better off one is, the +wider is one's outlook and the more alert one is to see the risks and +dangers of international dissensions. Travel and talk to foreigners open +one's eyes to aggressive possibilities; history and its warnings become +conceivable. It is in the nature of things that socialists and labour +parties should minimize international obligations and necessities, and +equally so that autocracies and aristocracies and plutocracies should be +negligent of and impatient about social reform. + +But Benham did come to realize this broader conflict between worker and +director, between poor man and possessor, between resentful humanity and +enterprise, between unwilling toil and unearned opportunity. It is a far +profounder and subtler conflict than any other in human affairs. “I can +foresee a time,” he wrote, “when the greater national and racial hatreds +may all be so weakened as to be no longer a considerable source of human +limitation and misery, when the suspicions of complexion and language +and social habit are allayed, and when the element of hatred and +aggression may be clean washed out of most religious cults, but I do not +begin to imagine a time, because I cannot imagine a method, when there +will not be great friction between those who employ, those who direct +collective action, and those whose part it is to be the rank and file in +industrialism. This, I know, is a limitation upon my confidence due +very largely to the restricted nature of my knowledge of this sort of +organization. Very probably resentment and suspicion in the mass and +self-seeking and dishonesty in the fortunate few are not so deeply +seated, so necessary as they seem to be, and if men can be cheerfully +obedient and modestly directive in war time, there is no reason why +ultimately they should not be so in the business of peace. But I do not +understand the elements of the methods by which this state of affairs +can be brought about. + +“If I were to confess this much to an intelligent working man I know +that at once he would answer 'Socialism,' but Socialism is no more a +solution of this problem than eating is a solution when one is lost in +the wilderness and hungry. Of course everybody with any intelligence +wants Socialism, everybody, that is to say, wants to see all human +efforts directed to the common good and a common end, but brought face +to face with practical problems Socialism betrays a vast insufficiency +of practical suggestions. I do not say that Socialism would not work, +but I do say that so far Socialists have failed to convince me that +they could work it. The substitution of a stupid official for a greedy +proprietor may mean a vanished dividend, a limited output and no +other human advantage whatever. Socialism is in itself a mere eloquent +gesture, inspiring, encouraging, perhaps, but beyond that not very +helpful, towards the vast problem of moral and material adjustment +before the race. That problem is incurably miscellaneous and intricate, +and only by great multitudes of generous workers, one working at this +point and one at that, secretly devoted knights of humanity, hidden +and dispersed kings, unaware of one another, doubting each his right +to count himself among those who do these kingly services, is this +elaborate rightening of work and guidance to be done.” + +So from these most fundamental social difficulties he came back to his +panacea. All paths and all enquiries led him back to his conception of +aristocracy, conscious, self-disciplined, devoted, self-examining yet +secret, making no personal nor class pretences, as the supreme need not +only of the individual but the world. + + + +10 + + +It was the Labour trouble in the Transvaal which had brought the two +schoolfellows together again. White had been on his way to Zimbabwe. +An emotional disturbance of unusual intensity had driven him to seek +consolations in strange scenery and mysterious desolations. It was as if +Zimbabwe called to him. Benham had come to South Africa to see into the +question of Indian immigration, and he was now on his way to meet Amanda +in London. Neither man had given much heed to the gathering social +conflict on the Rand until the storm burst about them. There had been +a few paragraphs in the papers about a dispute upon a point of labour +etiquette, a question of the recognition of Trade Union officials, a +thing that impressed them both as technical, and then suddenly a long +incubated quarrel flared out in rioting and violence, the burning of +houses and furniture, attacks on mines, attempts to dynamite trains. +White stayed in Johannesburg because he did not want to be stranded up +country by the railway strike that was among the possibilities of +the situation. Benham stayed because he was going to London very +reluctantly, and he was glad of this justification for a few days' +delay. The two men found themselves occupying adjacent tables in the +Sherborough Hotel, and White was the first to recognize the other. They +came together with a warmth and readiness of intimacy that neither would +have displayed in London. + +White had not seen Benham since the social days of Amanda at Lancaster +Gate, and he was astonished at the change a few years had made in him. +The peculiar contrast of his pallor and his dark hair had become more +marked, his skin was deader, his features seemed more prominent and his +expression intenser. His eyes were very bright and more sunken under his +brows. He had suffered from yellow fever in the West Indies, and these +it seemed were the marks left by that illness. And he was much more +detached from the people about him; less attentive to the small +incidents of life, more occupied with inner things. He greeted White +with a confidence that White was one day to remember as pathetic. + +“It is good to meet an old friend,” Benham said. “I have lost friends. +And I do not make fresh ones. I go about too much by myself, and I do +not follow the same tracks that other people are following....” + +What track was he following? It was now that White first heard of the +Research Magnificent. He wanted to know what Benham was doing, and +Benham after some partial and unsatisfactory explanation of his interest +in insurgent Hindoos, embarked upon larger expositions. “It is, of +course, a part of something else,” he amplified. He was writing a book, +“an enormous sort of book.” He laughed with a touch of shyness. It +was about “everything,” about how to live and how not to live. And +“aristocracy, and all sorts of things.” White was always curious about +other people's books. Benham became earnest and more explicit under +encouragement, and to talk about his book was soon to talk about +himself. In various ways, intentionally and inadvertently, he told White +much. These chance encounters, these intimacies of the train and hotel, +will lead men at times to a stark frankness of statement they would +never permit themselves with habitual friends. + +About the Johannesburg labour trouble they talked very little, +considering how insistent it was becoming. But the wide propositions +of the Research Magnificent, with its large indifference to immediate +occurrences, its vast patience, its tremendous expectations, contrasted +very sharply in White's memory with the bitterness, narrowness and +resentment of the events about them. For him the thought of that first +discussion of this vast inchoate book into which Benham's life was +flowering, and which he was ultimately to summarize, trailed with it a +fringe of vivid little pictures; pictures of crowds of men hurrying +on bicycles and afoot under a lowering twilight sky towards murmuring +centres of disorder, of startling flares seen suddenly afar off, of the +muffled galloping of troops through the broad dusty street in the night, +of groups of men standing and watching down straight broad roads, roads +that ended in groups of chimneys and squat buildings of corrugated iron. +And once there was a marching body of white men in the foreground and a +complicated wire fence, and a clustering mass of Kaffirs watching them +over this fence and talking eagerly amongst themselves. + +“All this affair here is little more than a hitch in the machinery,” + said Benham, and went back to his large preoccupation.... + +But White, who had not seen so much human disorder as Benham, felt that +it was more than that. Always he kept the tail of his eye upon that +eventful background while Benham talked to him. + +When the firearms went off he may for the moment have even given the +background the greater share of his attention.... + + + +11 + + +It was only as White burrowed through his legacy of documents that the +full values came to very many things that Benham said during these last +conversations. The papers fitted in with his memories of their long +talks like text with commentary; so much of Benham's talk had repeated +the private writings in which he had first digested his ideas that it +was presently almost impossible to disentangle what had been said and +understood at Johannesburg from the fuller statement of those patched +and corrected manuscripts. The two things merged in White's mind as he +read. The written text took upon itself a resonance of Benham's +voice; it eked out the hints and broken sentences of his remembered +conversation. + +But some things that Benham did not talk about at all, left by their +mere marked absence an impression on White's mind. And occasionally +after Benham had been talking for a long time there would be an +occasional aphasia, such as is often apparent in the speech of men who +restrain themselves from betraying a preoccupation. He would say nothing +about Amanda or about women in general, he was reluctant to speak of +Prothero, and another peculiarity was that he referred perhaps half a +dozen times or more to the idea that he was a “prig.” He seemed to be +defending himself against some inner accusation, some unconquerable +doubt of the entire adventure of his life. These half hints and hints by +omission exercised the quick intuitions of White's mind very keenly, and +he drew far closer to an understanding of Benham's reserves than Benham +ever suspected.... + +At first after his parting from Amanda in London Benham had felt +completely justified in his treatment of her. She had betrayed him and +he had behaved, he felt, with dignity and self-control. He had no doubt +that he had punished her very effectively, and it was only after he had +been travelling in China with Prothero for some time and in the light +of one or two chance phrases in her letters that he began to have doubts +whether he ought to have punished her at all. And one night at Shanghai +he had a dream in which she stood before him, dishevelled and tearful, +his Amanda, very intensely his Amanda, and said that she was dirty +and shameful and spoilt for ever, because he had gone away from her. +Afterwards the dream became absurd: she showed him the black leopard's +fur as though it was a rug, and it was now moth-eaten and mangey, the +leopard skin that had been so bright and wonderful such a little time +ago, and he awoke before he could answer her, and for a long time he +was full of unspoken answers explaining that in view of her deliberate +unfaithfulness the position she took up was absurd. She had spoilt her +own fur. But what was more penetrating and distressing in this dream was +not so much the case Amanda stated as the atmosphere of unconquerable +intimacy between them, as though they still belonged to each other, +soul to soul, as though nothing that had happened afterwards could have +destroyed their common responsibility and the common interest of their +first unstinted union. She was hurt, and of course he was hurt. He began +to see that his marriage to Amanda was still infinitely more than a +technical bond. + +And having perceived that much he presently began to doubt whether she +realized anything of the sort. Her letters fluctuated very much in tone, +but at times they were as detached and guarded as a schoolgirl writing +to a cousin. Then it seemed to Benham an extraordinary fraud on her +part that she should presume to come into his dream with an entirely +deceptive closeness and confidence. She began to sound him in these +latter letters upon the possibility of divorce. This, which he had been +quite disposed to concede in London, now struck him as an outrageous +suggestion. He wrote to ask her why, and she responded exasperatingly +that she thought it was “better.” But, again, why better? It is +remarkable that although his mind had habituated itself to the idea that +Easton was her lover in London, her thought of being divorced, no doubt +to marry again, filled him with jealous rage. She asked him to take +the blame in the divorce proceedings. There, again, he found himself +ungenerous. He did not want to do that. Why should he do that? As a +matter of fact he was by no means reconciled to the price he had paid +for his Research Magnificent; he regretted his Amanda acutely. He was +regretting her with a regret that grew when by all the rules of life it +ought to be diminishing. + +It was in consequence of that regret and his controversies with Prothero +while they travelled together in China that his concern about what he +called priggishness arose. It is a concern that one may suppose has a +little afflicted every reasonably self-conscious man who has turned from +the natural passionate personal life to religion or to public service +or any abstract devotion. These things that are at least more extensive +than the interests of flesh and blood have a trick of becoming +unsubstantial, they shine gloriously and inspiringly upon the +imagination, they capture one and isolate one and then they vanish out +of sight. It is far easier to be entirely faithful to friend or lover +than it is to be faithful to a cause or to one's country or to a +religion. In the glow of one's first service that larger idea may be as +closely spontaneous as a handclasp, but in the darkness that comes as +the glow dies away there is a fearful sense of unreality. It was in such +dark moments that Benham was most persecuted by his memories of Amanda +and most distressed by this suspicion that the Research Magnificent was +a priggishness, a pretentious logomachy. Prothero could indeed hint as +much so skilfully that at times the dream of nobility seemed an insult +to the sunshine, to the careless laughter of children, to the good light +in wine and all the warm happiness of existence. And then Amanda would +peep out of the dusk and whisper, “Of course if you could leave me--! +Was I not LIFE? Even now if you cared to come back to me-- For I loved +you best and loved you still, old Cheetah, long after you had left me to +follow your dreams.... Even now I am drifting further into lies and the +last shreds of dignity drop from me; a dirty, lost, and shameful +leopard I am now, who was once clean and bright.... You could come back, +Cheetah, and you could save me yet. If you would love me....” + +In certain moods she could wring his heart by such imagined speeches, +the very quality of her voice was in them, a softness that his ear had +loved, and not only could she distress him, but when Benham was in this +heartache mood, when once she had set him going, then his little mother +also would rise against him, touchingly indignant, with her blue eyes +bright with tears; and his frowsty father would back towards him and +sit down complaining that he was neglected, and even little Mrs. +Skelmersdale would reappear, bravely tearful on her chair looking after +him as he slunk away from her through Kensington Gardens; indeed every +personal link he had ever had to life could in certain moods pull him +back through the door of self-reproach Amanda opened and set him aching +and accusing himself of harshness and self-concentration. The very +kittens of his childhood revived forgotten moments of long-repented +hardness. For a year before Prothero was killed there were these +heartaches. That tragedy gave them their crowning justification. All +these people said in this form or that, “You owed a debt to us, you +evaded it, you betrayed us, you owed us life out of yourself, love and +services, and you have gone off from us all with this life that was +ours, to live by yourself in dreams about the rule of the world, +and with empty phantoms of power and destiny. All this was +intellectualization. You sacrificed us to the thin things of the mind. +There is no rule of the world at all, or none that a man like you +may lay hold upon. The rule of the world is a fortuitous result of +incalculably multitudinous forces. But all of us you could have made +happier. You could have spared us distresses. Prothero died because of +you. Presently it will be the turn of your father, your mother--Amanda +perhaps....” + +He made no written note of his heartaches, but he made several memoranda +about priggishness that White read and came near to understanding. In +spite of the tugging at his heart-strings, Benham was making up his mind +to be a prig. He weighed the cold uningratiating virtues of priggishness +against his smouldering passion for Amanda, and against his obstinate +sympathy for Prothero's grossness and his mother's personal pride, and +he made his choice. But it was a reluctant choice. + +One fragment began in the air. “Of course I had made myself responsible +for her life. But it was, you see, such a confoundedly energetic life, +as vigorous and as slippery as an eel.... Only by giving all my strength +to her could I have held Amanda.... So what was the good of trying to +hold Amanda?... + +“All one's people have this sort of claim upon one. Claims made by their +pride and their self-respect, and their weaknesses and dependences. +You've no right to hurt them, to kick about and demand freedom when +it means snapping and tearing the silly suffering tendrils they have +wrapped about you. The true aristocrat I think will have enough grasp, +enough steadiness, to be kind and right to every human being and still +do the work that ought to be his essential life. I see that now. +It's one of the things this last year or so of loneliness has made me +realize; that in so far as I have set out to live the aristocratic life +I have failed. Instead I've discovered it--and found myself out. I'm an +overstrung man. I go harshly and continuously for one idea. I live as I +ride. I blunder through my fences, I take off too soon. I've no natural +ease of mind or conduct or body. I am straining to keep hold of a thing +too big for me and do a thing beyond my ability. Only after Prothero's +death was it possible for me to realize the prig I have always been, +first as regards him and then as regards Amanda and my mother and every +one. A necessary unavoidable priggishness....” I do not see how +certain things can be done without prigs, people, that is to say, so +concentrated and specialized in interest as to be a trifle inhuman, so +resolved as to be rather rhetorical and forced.... All things must begin +with clumsiness, there is no assurance about pioneers.... + +“Some one has to talk about aristocracy, some one has to explain +aristocracy.... But the very essence of aristocracy, as I conceive it, +is that it does not explain nor talk about itself.... + +“After all it doesn't matter what I am.... It's just a private vexation +that I haven't got where I meant to get. That does not affect the truth +I have to tell.... + +“If one has to speak the truth with the voice of a prig, still one must +speak the truth. I have worked out some very considerable things in my +research, and the time has come when I must set them out clearly and +plainly. That is my job anyhow. My journey to London to release Amanda +will be just the end of my adolescence and the beginning of my real +life. It will release me from my last entanglement with the fellow +creatures I have always failed to make happy.... It's a detail in the +work.... And I shall go on. + +“But I shall feel very like a man who goes back for a surgical +operation. + +“It's very like that. A surgical operation, and when it is over perhaps +I shall think no more about it. + +“And beyond these things there are great masses of work to be done. So +far I have but cleared up for myself a project and outline of living. I +must begin upon these masses now, I must do what I can upon the details, +and, presently, I shall see more clearly where other men are working to +the same ends....” + + + +12 + + +Benham's expedition to China with Prothero was essentially a wrestle +between his high resolve to work out his conception of the noble life to +the utmost limit and his curiously invincible affection and sympathy for +the earthliness of that inglorious little don. Although Benham insisted +upon the dominance of life by noble imaginations and relentless +reasonableness, he would never altogether abandon the materialism of +life. Prothero had once said to him, “You are the advocate of the brain +and I of the belly. Only, only we respect each other.” And at another +time, “You fear emotions and distrust sensations. I invite them. You do +not drink gin because you think it would make you weep. But if I could +not weep in any other way I would drink gin.” And it was under +the influence of Prothero that Benham turned from the haughty +intellectualism, the systematized superiorities and refinements, the +caste marks and defensive dignities of India to China, that great +teeming stinking tank of humorous yellow humanity. + +Benham had gone to Prothero again after a bout of elevated idealism. +It was only very slowly that he reconciled his mind to the idea of an +entirely solitary pursuit of his aristocratic dream. For some time as +he went about the world he was trying to bring himself into relationship +with the advanced thinkers, the liberal-minded people who seemed to +promise at least a mental and moral co-operation. Yet it is difficult to +see what co-operation was possible unless it was some sort of agreement +that presently they should all shout together. And it was after a +certain pursuit of Rabindranath Tagore, whom he met in Hampstead, that a +horror of perfect manners and perfect finish came upon him, and he fled +from that starry calm to the rich uncleanness of the most undignified +fellow of Trinity. And as an advocate and exponent of the richness of +the lower levels of life, as the declared antagonist of caste and of +the uttermost refinements of pride, Prothero went with Benham by way of +Siberia to the Chinese scene. + +Their controversy was perceptible at every dinner-table in their +choice of food and drink. Benham was always wary and Prothero always +appreciative. It peeped out in the distribution of their time, in the +direction of their glances. Whenever women walked about, Prothero gave +way to a sort of ethnological excitement. “That girl--a wonderful racial +type.” But in Moscow he was sentimental. He insisted on going again to +the Cosmopolis Bazaar, and when he had ascertained that Anna Alexievna +had vanished and left no trace he prowled the streets until the small +hours. + +In the eastward train he talked intermittently of her. “I should have +defied Cambridge,” he said. + +But at every stopping station he got out upon the platform +ethnologically alert.... + +Theoretically Benham was disgusted with Prothero. Really he was not +disgusted at all. There was something about Prothero like a sparrow, +like a starling, like a Scotch terrier.... These, too, are morally +objectionable creatures that do not disgust.... + +Prothero discoursed much upon the essential goodness of Russians. He +said they were a people of genius, that they showed it in their faults +and failures just as much as in their virtues and achievements. He +extolled the “germinating disorder” of Moscow far above the “implacable +discipline” of Berlin. Only a people of inferior imagination, a base +materialist people, could so maintain its attention upon precision and +cleanliness. Benham was roused to defence against this paradox. “But all +exaltation neglects,” said Prothero. “No religion has ever boasted that +its saints were spick and span.” This controversy raged between them in +the streets of Irkutsk. It was still burning while they picked their way +through the indescribable filth of Pekin. + +“You say that all this is a fine disdain for material things,” said +Benham. “But look out there!” + +Apt to their argument a couple of sturdy young women came shuffling +along, cleaving the crowd in the narrow street by virtue of a single +word and two brace of pails of human ordure. + +“That is not a fine disdain for material things,” said Benham. “That is +merely individualism and unsystematic living.” + +“A mere phase of frankness. Only frankness is left to them now. The +Manchus crippled them, spoilt their roads and broke their waterways. +European intervention paralyses every attempt they make to establish +order on their own lines. In the Ming days China did not reek.... And, +anyhow, Benham, it's better than the silly waste of London....” + +And in a little while Prothero discovered that China had tried Benham +and found him wanting, centuries and dynasties ago. + +What was this new-fangled aristocratic man, he asked, but the ideal of +Confucius, the superior person, “the son of the King”? There you had the +very essence of Benham, the idea of self-examination, self-preparation +under a vague Theocracy. (“Vaguer,” said Benham, “for the Confucian +Heaven could punish and reward.”) Even the elaborate sham modesty of the +two dreams was the same. Benham interrupted and protested with heat. And +this Confucian idea of the son of the King, Prothero insisted, had been +the cause of China's paralysis. “My idea of nobility is not traditional +but expectant,” said Benham. “After all, Confucianism has held together +a great pacific state far longer than any other polity has ever lasted. +I'll accept your Confucianism. I've not the slightest objection to +finding China nearer salvation than any other land. Do but turn it round +so that it looks to the future and not to the past, and it will be the +best social and political culture in the world. That, indeed, is what +is happening. Mix Chinese culture with American enterprise and you will +have made a new lead for mankind.” + +From that Benham drove on to discoveries. “When a man thinks of the past +he concentrates on self; when he thinks of the future he radiates from +self. Call me a neo-Confucian; with the cone opening forward away from +me, instead of focussing on me....” + +“You make me think of an extinguisher,” said Prothero. + +“You know I am thinking of a focus,” said Benham. “But all your thought +now has become caricature.... You have stopped thinking. You are +fighting after making up your mind....” + +Prothero was a little disconcerted by Benham's prompt endorsement of his +Chinese identification. He had hoped it would be exasperating. He tried +to barb his offence. He amplified the indictment. All cultures must +be judged by their reaction and fatigue products, and Confucianism had +produced formalism, priggishness, humbug.... No doubt its ideals had had +their successes; they had unified China, stamped the idea of universal +peace and good manners upon the greatest mass of population in the +world, paved the way for much beautiful art and literature and living. +“But in the end, all your stern orderliness, Benham,” said Prothero, +“only leads to me. The human spirit rebels against this everlasting +armour on the soul. After Han came T'ang. Have you never read Ling Po? +There's scraps of him in English in that little book you have--what is +it?--the LUTE OF JADE? He was the inevitable Epicurean; the Omar Khayyam +after the Prophet. Life must relax at last....” + +“No!” cried Benham. “If it is traditional, I admit, yes; but if it is +creative, no....” + +Under the stimulation of their undying controversy Benham was driven to +closer enquiries into Chinese thought. He tried particularly to get to +mental grips with English-speaking Chinese. “We still know nothing of +China,” said Prothero. “Most of the stuff we have been told about this +country is mere middle-class tourists' twaddle. We send merchants from +Brixton and missionaries from Glasgow, and what doesn't remind them of +these delectable standards seems either funny to them or wicked. I admit +the thing is slightly pot-bound, so to speak, in the ancient characters +and the ancient traditions, but for all that, they KNOW, they HAVE, what +all the rest of the world has still to find and get. When they begin to +speak and write in a modern way and handle modern things and break into +the soil they have scarcely touched, the rest of the world will find +just how much it is behind.... Oh! not soldiering; the Chinese are not +such fools as that, but LIFE....” + +Benham was won to a half belief in these assertions. + +He came to realize more and more clearly that while India dreams or +wrestles weakly in its sleep, while Europe is still hopelessly and +foolishly given over to militant monarchies, racial vanities, delirious +religious feuds and an altogether imbecile fumbling with loaded +guns, China, even more than America, develops steadily into a massive +possibility of ordered and aristocratic liberalism.... + +The two men followed their associated and disconnected paths. Through +Benham's chance speeches and notes, White caught glimpses, as one might +catch glimpses through a moving trellis, of that bilateral adventure. He +saw Benham in conversation with liberal-minded mandarins, grave-faced, +bald-browed persons with disciplined movements, who sat with their hands +thrust into their sleeves talking excellent English; while Prothero +pursued enquiries of an intenser, more recondite sort with gentlemen of +a more confidential type. And, presently, Prothero began to discover and +discuss the merits of opium. + +For if one is to disavow all pride and priggishness, if one is to +find the solution of life's problem in the rational enjoyment of one's +sensations, why should one not use opium? It is art materialized. +It gives tremendous experiences with a minimum of exertion, and if +presently its gifts diminish one need but increase the quantity. +Moreover, it quickens the garrulous mind, and steadies the happiness of +love. Across the varied adventures of Benham's journey in China fell the +shadow first of a suspicion and then of a certainty.... + +The perfected and ancient vices of China wrapped about Prothero like +some tainted but scented robe, and all too late Benham sought to drag +him away. And then in a passion of disgust turned from him. + +“To this,” cried Benham, “one comes! Save for pride and fierceness!” + +“Better this than cruelty,” said Prothero talking quickly and clearly +because of the evil thing in his veins. “You think that you are the only +explorer of life, Benham, but while you toil up the mountains I board +the house-boat and float down the stream. For you the stars, for me the +music and the lanterns. You are the son of a mountaineering don, and I +am a Chinese philosopher of the riper school. You force yourself beyond +fear of pain, and I force myself beyond fear of consequences. What +are we either of us but children groping under the black cloak of our +Maker?--who will not blind us with his light. Did he not give us also +these lusts, the keen knife and the sweetness, these sensations that are +like pineapple smeared with saltpetre, like salted olives from heaven, +like being flayed with delight.... And did he not give us dreams +fantastic beyond any lust whatever? What is the good of talking? Speak +to your own kind. I have gone, Benham. I am lost already. There is +no resisting any more, since I have drugged away resistance. Why then +should I come back? I know now the symphonies of the exalted nerves; I +can judge; and I say better lie and hear them to the end than come back +again to my old life, to my little tin-whistle solo, my--effort! My +EFFORT!... I ruin my body. I know. But what of that?... I shall soon be +thin and filthy. What of the grape-skin when one has had the pulp?” + +“But,” said Benham, “the cleanness of life!” + +“While I perish,” said Prothero still more wickedly, “I say good +things....” + + + +13 + + +White had a vision of a great city with narrow crowded streets, hung +with lank banners and gay with vertical vermilion labels, and of a +pleasant large low house that stood in a garden on a hillside, a garden +set with artificial stones and with beasts and men and lanterns of white +porcelain, a garden which overlooked this city. Here it was that Benham +stayed and talked with his host, a man robed in marvellous silks and +subtle of speech even in the European languages he used, and meanwhile +Prothero, it seemed, had gone down into the wickedness of the town +below. It was a very great town indeed, spreading for miles along the +banks of a huge river, a river that divided itself indolently into three +shining branches so as to make islands of the central portion of the +place. And on this river swarmed for ever a vast flotilla of ships and +boats, boats in which people lived, boats in which they sought pleasure, +moored places of assembly, high-pooped junks, steamboats, passenger +sampans, cargo craft, such a water town in streets and lanes, endless +miles of it, as no other part of the world save China can display. In +the daylight it was gay with countless sunlit colours embroidered upon +a fabric of yellow and brown, at night it glittered with a hundred +thousand lights that swayed and quivered and were reflected quiveringly +upon the black flowing waters. + +And while Benham sat and talked in the garden above came a messenger who +was for some reason very vividly realized by White's imagination. He was +a tall man with lack-lustre eyes and sunken cheeks that made his cheek +bones very prominent, and gave his thin-lipped mouth something of the +geniality of a skull, and the arm he thrust out of his yellow robe to +hand Prothero's message to Benham was lean as a pole. So he stood out in +White's imagination, against the warm afternoon sky and the brown roofs +and blue haze of the great town below, and was with one exception the +distinctest thing in the story. The message he bore was scribbled by +Prothero himself in a nerveless scrawl: “Send a hundred dollars by this +man. I am in a frightful fix.” + +Now Benham's host had been twitting him with the European patronage of +opium, and something in this message stirred his facile indignation. +Twice before he had had similar demands. And on the whole they had +seemed to him to be unreasonable demands. He was astonished that while +he was sitting and talking of the great world-republic of the future and +the secret self-directed aristocracy that would make it possible, +his own friend, his chosen companion, should thus, by this inglorious +request and this ungainly messenger, disavow him. He felt a wave of +intense irritation. + +“No,” he said, “I will not.” + +And he was too angry to express himself in any language understandable +by his messenger. + +His host intervened and explained after a few questions that the +occasion was serious. Prothero, it seemed, had been gambling. + +“No,” said Benham. “He is shameless. Let him do what he can.” + +The messenger was still reluctant to go. + +And scarcely had he gone before misgivings seized Benham. + +“Where IS your friend?” asked the mandarin. + +“I don't know,” said Benham. + +“But they will keep him! They may do all sorts of things when they find +he is lying to them.” + +“Lying to them?” + +“About your help.” + +“Stop that man,” cried Benham suddenly realizing his mistake. But +when the servants went to stop the messenger their intentions were +misunderstood, and the man dashed through the open gate of the garden +and made off down the winding road. + +“Stop him!” cried Benham, and started in pursuit, suddenly afraid for +Prothero. + +The Chinese are a people of great curiosity, and a small pebble +sometimes starts an avalanche.... + +White pieced together his conception of the circles of disturbance that +spread out from Benham's pursuit of Prothero's flying messenger. + +For weeks and months the great town had been uneasy in all its ways +because of the insurgent spirits from the south and the disorder from +the north, because of endless rumours and incessant intrigue. The stupid +manoeuvres of one European “power” against another, the tactlessness of +missionaries, the growing Chinese disposition to meet violence and force +with violence and force, had fermented and brewed the possibility of an +outbreak. The sudden resolve of Benham to get at once to Prothero was +like the firing of a mine. This tall, pale-faced, incomprehensible +stranger charging through the narrow streets that led to the +pleasure-boats in the south river seemed to many a blue-clad citizen +like the White Peril embodied. Behind him came the attendants of +the rich man up the hill; but they surely were traitors to help this +stranger. + +Before Benham could at all realize what was happening he found his way +to the river-boat on which he supposed Prothero to be detained, barred +by a vigorous street fight. Explanations were impossible; he joined in +the fight. + +For three days that fight developed round the mystery of Prothero's +disappearance. + +It was a complicated struggle into which the local foreign traders +on the river-front and a detachment of modern drilled troops from the +up-river barracks were presently drawn. It was a struggle that was never +clearly explained, and at the end of it they found Prothero's body flung +out upon a waste place near a little temple on the river bank, stabbed +while he was asleep.... + +And from the broken fragments of description that Benham let fall, White +had an impression of him hunting for all those three days through the +strange places of a Chinese city, along narrow passages, over queer +Venetian-like bridges, through the vast spaces of empty warehouses, in +the incense-scented darkness of temple yards, along planks that passed +to the dark hulls of secret barges, in quick-flying boats that slipped +noiselessly among the larger craft, and sometimes he hunted alone, +sometimes in company, sometimes black figures struggled in the darkness +against dim-lit backgrounds and sometimes a swarm of shining yellow +faces screamed and shouted through the torn paper windows.... And +then at the end of this confused effect of struggle, this Chinese +kinematograph film, one last picture jerked into place and stopped and +stood still, a white wall in the sunshine come upon suddenly round a +corner, a dirty flagged passage and a stiff crumpled body that had for +the first time an inexpressive face.... + + + +14 + + +Benham sat at a table in the smoking-room of the Sherborough Hotel +at Johannesburg and told of these things. White watched him from an +armchair. And as he listened he noted again the intensification of +Benham's face, the darkness under his brows, the pallor of his skin, the +touch of red in his eyes. For there was still that red gleam in Benham's +eyes; it shone when he looked out of a darkness into a light. And he +sat forward with his arms folded under him, or moved his long lean hand +about over the things on the table. + +“You see,” he said, “this is a sort of horror in my mind. Things like +this stick in my mind. I am always seeing Prothero now, and it will take +years to get this scar off my memory again. Once before--about a horse, +I had the same kind of distress. And it makes me tender, sore-minded +about everything. It will go, of course, in the long run, and it's just +like any other ache that lays hold of one. One can't cure it. One has to +get along with it.... + +“I know, White, I ought to have sent that money, but how was I to know +then that it was so imperative to send that money?... + +“At the time it seemed just pandering to his vices.... + +“I was angry. I shall never subdue that kind of hastiness altogether. +It takes me by surprise. Before the messenger was out of sight I had +repented.... + +“I failed him. I have gone about in the world dreaming of tremendous +things and failing most people. My wife too....” + +He stopped talking for a little time and folded his arms tight and +stared hard in front of himself, his lips compressed. + +“You see, White,” he said, with a kind of setting of the teeth, “this +is the sort of thing one has to stand. Life is imperfect. Nothing can be +done perfectly. And on the whole--” He spoke still more slowly, “I would +go through again with the very same things that have hurt my people. If +I had to live over again. I would try to do the things without hurting +the people, but I would do the things anyhow. Because I'm raw with +remorse, it does not follow that on the whole I am not doing right. +Right doing isn't balm. If I could have contrived not to hurt these +people as I have done, it would have been better, just as it would be +better to win a battle without any killed or wounded. I was clumsy with +them and they suffered, I suffer for their suffering, but still I have +to stick to the way I have taken. One's blunders are accidents. If +one thing is clearer than another it is that the world isn't +accident-proof.... + +“But I wish I had sent those dollars to Prothero.... God! White, but +I lie awake at night thinking of that messenger as he turned away.... +Trying to stop him.... + +“I didn't send those dollars. So fifty or sixty people were killed +and many wounded.... There for all practical purposes the thing ends. +Perhaps it will serve to give me a little charity for some other fool's +haste and blundering.... + +“I couldn't help it, White. I couldn't help it.... + +“The main thing, the impersonal thing, goes on. One thinks, one learns, +one adds one's contribution of experience and understanding. The spirit +of the race goes on to light and comprehension. In spite of accidents. +In spite of individual blundering. + +“It would be absurd anyhow to suppose that nobility is so easy as to +come slick and true on every occasion.... + +“If one gives oneself to any long aim one must reckon with minor +disasters. This Research I undertook grows and grows. I believe in it +more and more. The more it asks from me the more I give to it. When I +was a youngster I thought the thing I wanted was just round the corner. +I fancied I would find out the noble life in a year or two, just what +it was, just where it took one, and for the rest of my life I would live +it. Finely. But I am just one of a multitude of men, each one going a +little wrong, each one achieving a little right. And the noble life is +a long, long way ahead.... We are working out a new way of living for +mankind, a new rule, a new conscience. It's no small job for all of us. +There must be lifetimes of building up and lifetimes of pulling down and +trying again. Hope and disappointments and much need for philosophy.... +I see myself now for the little workman I am upon this tremendous +undertaking. And all my life hereafter goes to serve it....” + +He turned his sombre eyes upon his friend. He spoke with a grim +enthusiasm. “I'm a prig. I'm a fanatic, White. But I have something +clear, something better worth going on with than any adventure of +personal relationship could possibly be....” + +And suddenly he began to tell White as plainly as he could of the faith +that had grown up in his mind. He spoke with a touch of defiance, with +the tense force of a man who shrinks but overcomes his shame. “I will +tell you what I believe.” + +He told of his early dread of fear and baseness, and of the slow +development, expansion and complication of his idea of self-respect +until he saw that there is no honour nor pride for a man until he refers +his life to ends and purposes beyond himself. An aristocrat must be +loyal. So it has ever been, but a modern aristocrat must also be +lucid; there it is that one has at once the demand for kingship and the +repudiation of all existing states and kings. In this manner he had +come to his idea of a great world republic that must replace the little +warring kingdoms of the present, to the conception of an unseen kingship +ruling the whole globe, to his King Invisible, who is the Lord of Truth +and all sane loyalty. “There,” he said, “is the link of our order, the +new knighthood, the new aristocracy, that must at last rule the earth. +There is our Prince. He is in me, he is in you; he is latent in all +mankind. I have worked this out and tried it and lived it, and I know +that outwardly and inwardly this is the way a man must live, or else be +a poor thing and a base one. On great occasions and small occasions I +have failed myself a thousand times, but no failure lasts if your faith +lasts. What I have learnt, what I have thought out and made sure, I +want now to tell the world. Somehow I will tell it, as a book I suppose, +though I do not know if I shall ever be able to make a book. But I have +away there in London or with me here all the masses of notes I have +made in my search for the life that is worth while living.... We who are +self-appointed aristocrats, who are not ashamed of kingship, must speak +to one another.... + +“We can have no organization because organizations corrupt.... + +“No recognition.... + +“But we can speak plainly....” + +(As he talked his voice was for a space drowned by the jingle and voices +of mounted police riding past the hotel.) + +“But on one side your aristocracy means revolution,” said White. “It +becomes a political conspiracy.” + +“Manifestly. An open conspiracy. It denies the king upon the stamps and +the flag upon the wall. It is the continual proclamation of the Republic +of Mankind.” + + + +15 + + +The earlier phases of violence in the Rand outbreak in 1913 were +manifest rather in the outskirts of Johannesburg than at the centre. +“Pulling out” was going on first at this mine and then that, there were +riots in Benoni, attacks on strike breakers and the smashing up of +a number of houses. It was not until July the 4th that, with the +suppression of a public meeting in the market-place, Johannesburg itself +became the storm centre. + +Benham and White were present at this marketplace affair, a confused +crowded occasion, in which a little leaven of active men stirred through +a large uncertain multitude of decently dressed onlookers. The whole +big square was astir, a swaying crowd of men. A ramshackle platform +improvised upon a trolley struggled through the swarming straw hats to a +street corner, and there was some speaking. At first it seemed as though +military men were using this platform, and then it was manifestly in +possession of an excited knot of labour leaders with red rosettes. The +military men had said their say and got down. They came close by Benham, +pushing their way across the square. “We've warned them,” said one. A +red flag, like some misunderstood remark at a tea-party, was fitfully +visible and incomprehensible behind the platform. Somebody was either +pitched or fell off the platform. One could hear nothing from the +speakers except a minute bleating.... + +Then there were shouts that the police were charging. A number of +mounted men trotted into the square. The crowd began a series of short +rushes that opened lanes for the passage of the mounted police as they +rode to and fro. These men trotted through the crowd, scattering knots +of people. They carried pick-handles, but they did not seem to be +hitting with them. It became clear that they aimed at the capture of +the trolley. There was only a feeble struggle for the trolley; it was +captured and hauled through the scattered spectators in the square +to the protection of a small impassive body of regular cavalry at the +opposite corner. Then quite a number of people seemed to be getting +excited and fighting. They appeared to be vaguely fighting the +foot-police, and the police seemed to be vaguely pushing through +them and dispersing them. The roof of a little one-story shop became +prominent as a centre of vigorous stone-throwing. + +It was no sort of battle. Merely the normal inconsecutiveness of human +affairs had become exaggerated and pugnacious. A meeting was being +prevented, and the police engaged in the operation were being pelted or +obstructed. Mostly people were just looking on. + +“It amounts to nothing,” said Benham. “Even if they held a meeting, what +could happen? Why does the Government try to stop it?” + +The drifting and charging and a little booing went on for some time. +Every now and then some one clambered to a point of vantage, began +a speech and was pulled down by policemen. And at last across the +confusion came an idea, like a wind across a pond. + +The strikers were to go to the Power Station. + +That had the effect of a distinct move in the game. The Power Station +was the centre of Johannesburg's light and energy. There if anywhere it +would be possible to express one's disapproval of the administration, +one's desire to embarrass and confute it. One could stop all sorts of +things from the Power Station. At any rate it was a repartee to the +suppression of the meeting. Everybody seemed gladdened by a definite +project. + +Benham and White went with the crowd. + +At the intersection of two streets they were held up for a time; the +scattered drift of people became congested. Gliding slowly across the +mass came an electric tram, an entirely unbattered tram with even its +glass undamaged, and then another and another. Strikers, with the +happy expression of men who have found something expressive to do, were +escorting the trams off the street. They were being meticulously careful +with them. Never was there less mob violence in a riot. They walked by +the captured cars almost deferentially, like rough men honoured by a +real lady's company. And when White and Benham reached the Power House +the marvel grew. The rioters were already in possession and going freely +over the whole place, and they had injured nothing. They had stopped +the engines, but they had not even disabled them. Here too manifestly a +majority of the people were, like White and Benham, merely lookers-on. + +“But this is the most civilized rioting,” said Benham. “It isn't +rioting; it's drifting. Just as things drifted in Moscow. Because nobody +has the rudder.... + +“What maddens me,” he said, “is the democracy of the whole thing. White! +I HATE this modern democracy. Democracy and inequality! Was there ever +an absurder combination? What is the good of a social order in which the +men at the top are commoner, meaner stuff than the men underneath, the +same stuff, just spoilt, spoilt by prosperity and opportunity and the +conceit that comes with advantage? This trouble wants so little, just +a touch of aristocracy, just a little cultivated magnanimity, just an +inkling of responsibility, and the place might rise instantly out of all +this squalor and evil temper.... What does all this struggle here amount +to? On one side unintelligent greed, unintelligent resentment on the +other; suspicion everywhere.... + +“And you know, White, at bottom THEY ALL WANT TO BE DECENT! + +“If only they had light enough in their brains to show them how. +It's such a plain job they have here too, a new city, the simplest +industries, freedom from war, everything to make a good life for men, +prosperity, glorious sunshine, a kind of happiness in the air. And +mismanagement, fear, indulgence, jealousy, prejudice, stupidity, poison +it all. A squabble about working on a Saturday afternoon, a squabble +embittered by this universal shadow of miner's phthisis that the masters +were too incapable and too mean to prevent. + +“Oh, God!” cried Benham, “when will men be princes and take hold of +life? When will the kingship in us wake up and come to its own?... Look +at this place! Look at this place!... The easy, accessible happiness! +The manifest prosperity. The newness and the sunshine. And the silly +bitterness, the rage, the mischief and miseries!...” + +And then: “It's not our quarrel....” + +“It's amazing how every human quarrel draws one in to take sides. +Life is one long struggle against the incidental. I can feel my anger +gathering against the Government here in spite of my reason. I want to +go and expostulate. I have a ridiculous idea that I ought to go off to +Lord Gladstone or Botha and expostulate.... What good would it do? +They move in the magic circles of their own limitations, an official, a +politician--how would they put it?--'with many things to consider....' + +“It's my weakness to be drawn into quarrels. It's a thing I have to +guard against.... + +“What does it all amount to? It is like a fight between navvies in +a tunnel to settle the position of the Pole star. It doesn't concern +us.... Oh! it doesn't indeed concern us. It's a scuffle in the darkness, +and our business, the business of all brains, the only permanent good +work is to light up the world.... There will be mischief and hatred +here and suppression and then forgetfulness, and then things will go on +again, a little better or a little worse....” + +“I'm tired of this place, White, and of all such places. I'm tired of +the shouting and running, the beating and shooting. I'm sick of all the +confusions of life's experience, which tells only of one need amidst an +endless multitude of distresses. I've seen my fill of wars and disputes +and struggles. I see now how a man may grow weary at last of life and +its disorders, its unreal exacting disorders, its blunders and its +remorse. No! I want to begin upon the realities I have made for myself. +For they are the realities. I want to go now to some quiet corner +where I can polish what I have learnt, sort out my accumulations, be +undisturbed by these transitory symptomatic things.... + +“What was that boy saying? They are burning the STAR office.... Well, +let them....” + +And as if to emphasize his detachment, his aversion, from the things +that hurried through the night about them, from the red flare in the +sky and the distant shouts and revolver shots and scuffling flights down +side streets, he began to talk again of aristocracy and the making of +greatness and a new great spirit in men. All the rest of his life, he +said, must be given to that. He would say his thing plainly and honestly +and afterwards other men would say it clearly and beautifully; here it +would touch a man and there it would touch a man; the Invisible King in +us all would find himself and know himself a little in this and a little +in that, and at last a day would come, when fair things and fine things +would rule the world and such squalor as this about them would be as +impossible any more for men as a Stone Age Corroboree.... + +Late or soon? + +Benham sought for some loose large measure of time. + +“Before those constellations above us have changed their shapes.... + +“Does it matter if we work at something that will take a hundred years +or ten thousand years? It will never come in our lives, White. Not soon +enough for that. But after that everything will be soon--when one comes +to death then everything is at one's fingertips--I can feel that greater +world I shall never see as one feels the dawn coming through the last +darkness....” + + + +16 + + +The attack on the Rand Club began while Benham and White were at lunch +in the dining-room at the Sherborough on the day following the burning +of the STAR office. The Sherborough dining-room was on the first floor, +and the Venetian window beside their table opened on to a verandah +above a piazza. As they talked they became aware of an excitement in the +street below, shouting and running and then a sound of wheels and the +tramp of a body of soldiers marching quickly. White stood up and looked. +“They're seizing the stuff in the gunshops,” he said, sitting down +again. “It's amazing they haven't done it before.” + +They went on eating and discussing the work of a medical mission at +Mukden that had won Benham's admiration.... + +A revolver cracked in the street and there was a sound of glass +smashing. Then more revolver shots. “That's at the big club at the +corner, I think,” said Benham and went out upon the verandah. + +Up and down the street mischief was afoot. Outside the Rand Club in +the cross street a considerable mass of people had accumulated, and +was being hustled by a handful of khaki-clad soldiers. Down the street +people were looking in the direction of the market-place and then +suddenly a rush of figures flooded round the corner, first a froth +of scattered individuals and then a mass, a column, marching with an +appearance of order and waving a flag. It was a poorly disciplined body, +it fringed out into a swarm of sympathizers and spectators upon the +side walk, and at the head of it two men disputed. They seemed to be +differing about the direction of the whole crowd. Suddenly one smote the +other with his fist, a blow that hurled him sideways, and then turned +with a triumphant gesture to the following ranks, waving his arms in +the air. He was a tall lean man, hatless and collarless, greyhaired and +wild-eyed. On he came, gesticulating gauntly, past the hotel. + +And then up the street something happened. Benham's attention was turned +round to it by a checking, by a kind of catch in the breath, on the part +of the advancing procession under the verandah. + +The roadway beyond the club had suddenly become clear. Across it a dozen +soldiers had appeared and dismounted methodically and lined out, with +their carbines in readiness. The mounted men at the club corner had +vanished, and the people there had swayed about towards this new +threat. Quite abruptly the miscellaneous noises of the crowd ceased. +Understanding seized upon every one. + +These soldiers were going to fire.... + +The brown uniformed figures moved like automata; the rifle shots rang +out almost in one report.... + +There was a rush in the crowd towards doorways and side streets, an +enquiring pause, the darting back of a number of individuals into the +roadway and then a derisive shouting. Nobody had been hit. The soldiers +had fired in the air. + +“But this is a stupid game,” said Benham. “Why did they fire at all?” + +The tall man who had led the mob had run out into the middle of the +road. His commando was a little disposed to assume a marginal position, +and it had to be reassured. He was near enough for Benham to see his +face. For a time it looked anxious and thoughtful. Then he seemed to +jump to his decision. He unbuttoned and opened his coat wide as if +defying the soldiers. “Shoot,” he bawled, “Shoot, if you dare!” + +A little uniform movement of the soldiers answered him. The small figure +of the officer away there was inaudible. The coat of the man below +flapped like the wings of a crowing cock before a breast of dirty shirt, +the hoarse voice cracked with excitement, “Shoot, if you dare. Shoot, if +you dare! See!” + +Came the metallic bang of the carbines again, and in the instant the +leader collapsed in the road, a sprawl of clothes, hit by half a dozen +bullets. It was an extraordinary effect. As though the figure had been +deflated. It was incredible that a moment before this thing had been a +man, an individual, a hesitating complicated purpose. + +“Good God!” cried Benham, “but--this is horrible!” + +The heap of garments lay still. The red hand that stretched out towards +the soldiers never twitched. + +The spectacular silence broke into a confusion of sounds, women +shrieked, men cursed, some fled, some sought a corner from which they +might still see, others pressed forward. “Go for the swine!” bawled a +voice, a third volley rattled over the heads of the people, and in +the road below a man with a rifle halted, took aim, and answered the +soldiers' fire. “Look out!” cried White who was watching the soldiers, +and ducked. “This isn't in the air!” + +Came a straggling volley again, like a man running a metal hammer very +rapidly along iron corrugations, and this time people were dropping all +over the road. One white-faced man not a score of yards away fell with +a curse and a sob, struggled up, staggered for some yards with blood +running abundantly from his neck, and fell and never stirred again. +Another went down upon his back clumsily in the roadway and lay wringing +his hands faster and faster until suddenly with a movement like a sigh +they dropped inert by his side. A straw-hatted youth in a flannel suit +ran and stopped and ran again. He seemed to be holding something red and +strange to his face with both hands; above them his eyes were round +and anxious. Blood came out between his fingers. He went right past +the hotel and stumbled and suddenly sprawled headlong at the opposite +corner. The majority of the crowd had already vanished into doorways and +side streets. But there was still shouting and there was still a remnant +of amazed and angry men in the roadway--and one or two angry women. They +were not fighting. Indeed they were unarmed, but if they had had weapons +now they would certainly have used them. + +“But this is preposterous!” cried Benham. “Preposterous. Those soldiers +are never going to shoot again! This must stop.” + +He stood hesitating for a moment and then turned about and dashed for +the staircase. “Good Heaven!” cried White. “What are you going to do?” + +Benham was going to stop that conflict very much as a man might go to +stop a clock that is striking unwarrantably and amazingly. He was going +to stop it because it annoyed his sense of human dignity. + +White hesitated for a moment and then followed, crying “Benham!” + +But there was no arresting this last outbreak of Benham's all too +impatient kingship. He pushed aside a ducking German waiter who was +peeping through the glass doors, and rushed out of the hotel. With +a gesture of authority he ran forward into the middle of the street, +holding up his hand, in which he still held his dinner napkin clenched +like a bomb. White believes firmly that Benham thought he would be able +to dominate everything. He shouted out something about “Foolery!” + +Haroun al Raschid was flinging aside all this sublime indifference to +current things.... + +But the carbines spoke again. + +Benham seemed to run unexpectedly against something invisible. He +spun right round and fell down into a sitting position. He sat looking +surprised. + +After one moment of blank funk White drew out his pocket handkerchief, +held it arm high by way of a white flag, and ran out from the piazza of +the hotel. + + + +17 + + +“Are you hit?” cried White dropping to his knees and making himself as +compact as possible. “Benham!” + +Benham, after a moment of perplexed thought answered in a strange voice, +a whisper into which a whistling note had been mixed. + +“It was stupid of me to come out here. Not my quarrel. Faults on both +sides. And now I can't get up. I will sit here a moment and pull myself +together. Perhaps I'm--I must be shot. But it seemed to come--inside +me.... If I should be hurt. Am I hurt?... Will you see to that book of +mine, White? It's odd. A kind of faintness.... What?” + +“I will see after your book,” said White and glanced at his hand because +it felt wet, and was astonished to discover it bright red. He forgot +about himself then, and the fresh flight of bullets down the street. + +The immediate effect of this blood was that he said something more about +the book, a promise, a definite promise. He could never recall his +exact words, but their intention was binding. He conveyed his absolute +acquiescence with Benham's wishes whatever they were. His life for that +moment was unreservedly at his friend's disposal.... + +White never knew if his promise was heard. Benham had stopped speaking +quite abruptly with that “What?” + +He stared in front of him with a doubtful expression, like a man who is +going to be sick, and then, in an instant, every muscle seemed to give +way, he shuddered, his head flopped, and White held a dead man in his +arms. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Research Magnificent, by H. G. 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