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diff --git a/old/old/rschm10.txt b/old/old/rschm10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aef0bec --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/rschm10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13947 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Research Magnificent, by H. G. Wells +#13 in our series by H. G. Wells + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Research Magnificent + +Author: H. G. Wells + +Release Date: December, 1997 [EBook #1138] +[This eBook was first posted on December 8, 1997] +[This update was posted on January 25, 2004] +[Note: it appears that our initial file was corrupted, perhaps +in transfer. This file is a replacement for the original.] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RESEARCH MAGNIFICENT *** + + + + +This etext was prepared by Donald Lainson, <dlainson@sympatico.ca> + + + + + +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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