IT WAS NEARLY THREE YEARS before I saw Victor again. A
few weeks after the wedding fiasco I put him in touch with a friend of
mine in the adult education movement, and in due course he was accepted
as staff tutor for extra-mural work under one of the northern
universities. I had hoped to meet him during the latter part of the
summer, but we could not arrange a date suitable to both of us.
Meanwhile I had an attractive offer of a post as teacher of English in
a school in France. Before I left the country, Victor wrote to say that
he was hard at work preparing his lectures for the winter. He was
doubtful about his capacity for the job. "Honour Mods" and "Greats",
Greek and Latin Literature and Philosophy, seemed a poor equipment for
teaching English artisans and housewives industrial history and
economics. But in those days a classical education was thought to fit
one for any kind of teaching post, certainly for the informal work
which Victor had chosen. Moreover Victor was a very attractive
candidate. His enthusiasm could not be doubted, for he had given up a
brilliant career in business for the sake of adult education; and he
obviously had a gift for personal contacts and for interesting people
ill the life of the mind. I had no doubt that he would make a success
of the job; but he was anxious, and he felt compelled to devote the
remainder of the summer to studying his new subjects. So he settled
into cheap lodgings in the great provincial town which was to be his
headquarters, and divided his time between study and making contacts
with local people connected with the movement. While I was in France I
occasionally wrote to Victor, and I received a few very brief and
uninformative notes from him. Evidently he was making a good start. The
work, he said, was "immensely stimulating, but exasperating ". We
planned to meet during the summer vacation. But when I suggested a
walking tour in the Lakes, it proved impossible to fix a date. He had
to attend summer schools where members of adult classes gathered
together to combine further education and holiday- making. "Also," he
said, "I have new ties, which I will tell you about sometime." It was clear that Victor felt no need to see me; and so, with some
disappointment, I refrained from pressing the matter. I tried to
persuade him to write to me about those "new ties", but he remained
silent. The same thing happened when I suggested a meeting during the second
summer; and again in the third. But late in the fourth summer, when I was already in London on my
way back to France, I received a note from Victor, forwarded from home
by my mother. He proposed that we should meet and have a talk about
"something important to me and interesting to you". The reasonable
reply was that unfortunately it was too late, as I was crossing the
Channel on the following day. And after all, why should I put myself
out for someone who had practically ignored me for three years? But
where Victor was concerned, 1 often found it hard to be reasonable. I
telephoned to him, saying that if he really wanted to see me, he must
come up to London on the following day. To my surprise, he agreed. I
booked a room for him at my hotel, for the one night. Then I cabled to
France postponing my arrival for a day. Next day, I met him at Euston, and we went to a modest Soho
restaurant with a Balkan flavour. When we had given our order, we
smilingly studied each other, and made small talk. I reminded him of
the 'previous occasion when we had fed together; and I asked him if he
remembered the ugly waitress. He paused for a moment as though trying
to recollect, then said, "Oh, yes, of course. Ugly, but very beautiful.
Curious how blind you are in some directions, Harry!" He fell silent,
and I waited. Over our minestrone we at first talked at random, and I studied his
appearance. He had not changed much, but he did look appreciably older.
His forehead bore upright lines above the nose. Crow's feet spread from
the corners of his eyes. But he seemed physically fit, and his eyes
were obviously the eyes of the awake Victor. There was no camel-like
droop of the eyelids, no mulish complacency about the mouth. Before we had finished our soup I brought Victor to the point by
reminding him that he wanted to discuss something. He hesitated.
"Well," he said, "I thought 1'd like to tell you a thing or two. In the
old days I often found I could straighten things out in my mind by
talking to you: You're such a damned good listener. " Then he fell
silent again, and seemed wholly intent on the flavour of his beer. I
waited some time, and then I said, "I hope your job is suiting you." He
raised his eyes to mine with an expression (I thought) of relief. "Oh,
yes," he said, " it suits me alright. Things haven't quite gone
according to plan, but they're certainly going somewhere." He poured out a long and interesting account of his work, but I
suspected that he clung to this theme in order to put off opening up
some other, more ticklish subject. He said he was kept fairly busy,
with five evening classes a week, and occasional lectures at week-ends.
Much time was occupied by travelling. One of his classes was in the
university itself, but the others were in towns ranging from thirty to
a hundred- and-fifty miles distant. He had constantly to be working up
his subjects, and he had acquired the habit of doing a lot of serious
reading and lecture-preparing in the train. "My real trouble," he said, "is that I don't feel that economics and
industrial history are the right medium for genuine education. Of
course they're very important. People who are already more or less
educated can use them, and indeed must have them; but for uneducated
people they can be the very devil. A lot of people who come to us are
simple souls who are generously aware of the rottenness of society, and
impatient for a theory about it; and eager for action. Others are badly
warped by sheer class-hatred (I don't blame them), and they simply want
to have material for proving the capitalists wicked and the workers
saints." I suggested that you could only educate people through subjects that
interested them and had some relation to their own lives. "Oh, yes! "
he said, "In theory that's fine; but if the subject is too
close to them, they can't think objectively about it at all. They have
made up their minds before they begin to study; like a certain
brass-founder in one of my classes, who was stumped by some argument of
mine, so he just looked at me with great ox-eyes, and said, 'Young man,
I don't rightly know where you're wrong, but I know you are wrong!' Victor gave me one of his boyish grins. Presently he continued, "You
see, we are supposed to be creating an educated democracy, but we
haven't really even begun to tackle that job yet; and I don't
see that we ever shall, unless we change our whole approach. We are
supposed to be giving something like a university education to the
working population of this country. But of course we can't possibly do
anything of the sort, except in a few cases. A university education
involves all sorts of things that .the members of our extra- mural
classes can't possibly bring. It involves young and supple minds full
of vigour and curiosity. It involves access to plenty of books. It
involves intensive tuition, and heaps of time for reading and writing.
But our students are mostly far from young; their minds are already
set; they come to the job after a hard day's work; they're not capable
of serious study, because they have never learnt what serious study
means; they can't read heavy books; they find great difficulty in
expressing themselves in writing; they mostly mistake asseveration for
genuine discussion. Then again, we are supposed to be appealing to
every man's latent passion to be an intelligent and responsible citizen
and a fully conscious human being; but even if Everyman unwittingly needs
culture, the need is seldom a conscious desire, let alone a passion
that will drive him to surmount the frightful difficulties that stand
in his way. The good souls we do get hold of don't really want the life
of the mind at all. They want either a little easy entertainment after
the serious part of the day is over, or the cachet of being an
educated person. Or else they come in search of data and propaganda to
use against their political opponents. Mind you, I don't blame
them for these motives. In their circumstances they were bound to want
these things. But you can't create an educated democracy on that basis.
We are supposed to be building Jerusalem in England's green and
pleasant minds (and, God, they're green all right); but we are not
going about it in the right way. Mind you, we are doing something well
worth doing, in its own little way. But we are not doing what we
pretend we are doing; because (a) we are affecting only a
minute proportion of the total population, and (b) the few that
we do catch absorb merely a smattering." Victor's tirade was interrupted by the arrival of the waiter with
our pseudo-exotic Balkan dish. To my surprise Victor asked the lean and
swarthy young man whether he had read the works of some writer with a
Slavonic name, unknown to me. The waiter froze into immobility, with my
helping of vegetables poised in the air. Then he looked down at
Victor's upturned face for a moment, and said with emphasis and a
smile, "Yes, and you?" "No," said Victor, "but I have heard of him. You
are not afraid?" The waiter replied, "Because of him I must leave my
country." He moved away. "You see," said Victor, "lots of these fellows from the backward
fringes of Europe are ready to take risks for what they regard as
education; but our people, mostly, just don't care." I protested that
the man must be unique, and I asked how Victor had spotted him as one
of the few who cared. Victor refused to admit that the man was unique.
"His sort are a minority, no doubt, but a considerable minority. How
did I spot him? Surely it's written all over his face, his walk, the
way he moves his hands. And didn't you see how he handled the book I
asked him to put aside for me?" Without waiting for my reply he continued, "What I want to know is,
why is there no such considerable minority in this country? Why are we
nearly all such bone-headed philistines, and proud of it? Is it, I
wonder, just because bad education has been forced on us at school, so
that we are hardened against the life of the mind for ever? You ought
to know, as a school- teacher. What do you really do with the little
animals when you have them in your clutches? " I pointed out that the
school was forced to concentrate on fitting the child to earn a living
in a commercial society, which involved simply drumming in the three
R's and a lot of necessary facts. "Yes," he said, " That's the snag.
But do you or don't you try to make it all come alive in their
minds? And do you help them to get some sense of life as- well, a
spiritual adventure? " I laughed, and protested that this was
impossible, in view of the mental limitations of the average child and
the economic limitations of the average home. But I claimed that some
few of us did try; and still fewer actually succeeded, in a small way,
with a few of our pupils. But most teachers themselves lacked the
vision, and anyhow they were much too hard pressed to do anything about
it. Victor sighed, and said, "Oh, yes, I know, I know. In fact we're in a vicious infinite regress. You can't educate
adults unless they have been properly educated as children; and you
can't get them properly educated as children unless you have enough
properly educated teachers, and a sound educational system, and unless
in their homes they are in contact with educated parents. In adult
education we are supposed to satisfy a native need for culture. I'm not
saying there's no such need, but simply that in this country it has
been suffocated. And so, instead of attracting millions to our adult
classes, we laboriously rope in thousands." I protested that the movement had done wonders, in spite of
everything. He replied, "Oh, no doubt, in a way, particularly in the
early days; and with quite a different sort of result from what was
intended." I asked him to explain. For some moments he ate in silence, then
said, "The pioneers of our great; movement (and it is a great movement
in spite of everything) had a romantic purpose. On the one hand were
the universities, seats of culture and refinement, on the other the
workers, unconsciously needing culture and refinement, starving for it,
though unwittingly. Or again, on the one hand, the universities could
provide the inspiration for dispassionate study and objective
investigation; on the other the workers could provide the drive for
thoroughgoing social change. Our movement, obviously, was intended to
bring the two together. What the pioneers had to do was to present
culture to the workers in the right way (not the academic way
precisely, but a warm, human, simplified wayn that was yet academically
sound), and the workers would come flocking to the movement. And so, in
time there would arise a new kind of democracy, in which the
plain man would be right-hearted, and right-headed, reasonably well
informed about society and about true values, capable of wise action
and wise voting. It was a glorious vision. At last philosophers would
rule; because power would lie with the people, and the great majority
of the people would be philosophers. Well, it's difficult enough to
produce one philosopher, let alone forty-five million." I said he was exaggerating. The aim was not to produce philosophers
but responsible citizens. I insisted that the ordinary human being had
it in him to be a responsible citizen, given decent conditions. "Oh,
quite," said Victor, "he has it in him while he is a baby, but
conditions go all wrong from then onwards." After a pause, he continued, "But that is not the whole trouble. In
fact there are two other troubles. First, the best academic brains, the
really first-class people, are (quite rightly) so intent on research,
and so hard pressed with teaching and administration in the university,
that they don't take on extramural work and do it whole-heartedly. And,
anyhow, few of them have the gift for it; for, believe me, it demands a
very special technique, which we are only just beginning to learn. So
the job has to be done largely by people who, though they may be
first-class human beings, are not quite first-class
academically; because, no matter how intelligent they may be, their
hearts are not wholly devoted to academic study and research.
What they really care about is rather kindling the masses. Take me, for
instance; though perhaps I am worse than the average, because, of
course, I simply had to cram to do the job at all." I interrupted, "But what does it matter that they're not quite
first-class academically? They have to teach the essentials not the
minutiae. It's their gift for teaching that matters. And I'm sure you
have that." "Oh, yes," he said, "the teaching-gift does matter a lot, but so
does the academic expertism. If you haven't got it, you can't always
deal properly either with honest criticism or with the propaganda
bilge; not absolutely adequately. But this is where my second
point comes in, and it's more fundamental. The whole idea of giving the
essence of culture without the details, in fact of 'university
standard' without minutiae, is impossible. It's trying to have the cake
and eat it. The result is that some of our adult students, hypnotized
by the academic ideal, plunge for thoroughness, get mental indigestion,
and are obsessed with the idea of 'seeing both sides of every
question', so that they become paralysed, and useless for the
revolution, which, after all, is the supreme goal; while others,
feeling in their bones that something is amiss, become more prejudiced
and propagandist than ever." Suddenly Victor saw that my plate was empty and his own scarcely
touched. He attacked it with fury, while I sat wondering how to bring
him to the point. When he had finished, the waiter returned to take
away our plates. Victor said to him, "Do you find time to read much
over here?" "Not much time," he answered. "Here I read only English,
difficultly." I asked him what he had read. With a deprecating shrug he
replied, "Lord Byron, Shakespeare (he is difficult), Mill (' On
Liberty'), Bertand Russell (on happiness). But why," he said with
animation, "do the English not read their own great literature?" Victor
laughed triumphantly, and said, "Because at school they are made to
hate it." I was increasingly wondering what it was that Victor had come all
the way to London to talk about; so over the sweet I challenged him to
come to the point. Instead of answering, he plunged back into the old
subject. He said, "Don't suppose I think the thing we are doing is just a
waste of time. It's quite important as a first step. We are not
creating an educated democracy, but we are creating-I was going to say
'an educated élite' within the great Labour Movement;
but I had better say, a socially informed élite who have
at least some idea of what the aim of education ought to be. I foresee
a time when the House of Commons will be dominated by a Labour Party
whose members will mostly have been mentally formed in our classes.
It's tempting to think that such a House will really get going on the
job of creating an educated democracy. But it won't be able to do it unless
it forms an adult education movement of a new kind, not giving sham
university education, but working out new aims and methods, much freer
and less formal. Yes, and if those enlightened Labour M.P.s mean
business, they will have to insist on compulsory adult
education for everyone." Here I burst in with a protest that real
education could never be compulsory. He replied, "That's an
over-simplification. The stalwarts of our movement insist on it, but
I'm beginning to doubt it. We shall have to change our minds in the
end, otherwise we shall never catch the people who need education most.
Of course, when they are compelled, we shall have to find out
how to make them glad they were compelled. People will put up with
compulsion all right if the aim of the compulsion is manifestly a good
one, and if they believe that they themselves gave power to the
compelling government. Think how much compulsion is accepted in Russia,
for the sake of the new revolutionary state." I snorted indignantly, but he carried on," Oh, yes, you'll see. What
I'm afraid of is that sooner or later some semi-political or
pseudo-religious movement, that really has the courage of its
convictions, will persuade the masses to accept compulsion for quite
wrong ends. Maybe it won't happen here, but it might quite well. happen
in some socially tormented and half-crazy country; like Germany, for
instance, when the pathetic republic has gone phut. And then!" Over the coffee I tried again to bring Victor to the point. "Do you
ever regret your old life?" I said. "Do you ever-slip back into your
old self?" "No," he answered, "I certainly never regret the old life;
and so far I have not slipped back into my old self. But- I don't feel
really secure. Sometimes I have a sort of dizzy feeling, which is a
warning. And sometimes I feel I must have more than my normal two or
three hours sleep. So I may slip away at any time. That is why every
moment is so precious. As for regretting the old life, good God, no!
There's so much more to be learnt and enjoyed in the new one,
exasperating as it is. I like the people better. Not that I have a
grudge against business people. Fundamentally they're just as good
stuff as the artisans, teachers and housewives that I deal with. But
they're under the spell of the commercial system that they run. They
can't see that it's played out. And so they're mentally backward, and
it's very hard to make any real contact with them. I don't mean they're
unintelligent. Probably on the average they're brighter than our
people. But they can't use their intelligence except within the
commercial universe of discourse. They are incredibly backward in
social, thought; and they're blinkered by a false view of human nature,
inherited from the nineteenth century, and the doctrine of economic
man. They tend to believe that man is ' fundamentally' or '
essentially' a self-regarding animal. And, of course, this is a fine
excuse for cut-throat commercialism. Even when they want to be
genuinely loyal to things other than themselves, they tend to feel
ashamed of doing so, regarding it as 'sheer sentimentality', And when
at last their nature rebels against commercialism, they tend to
flounder back into a very naïve Christianity." I said I thought all classes had come under the influence of the
false view of human nature, and that artisans and teachers were really
just as backward as clerks and business magnates. "Many of them, no doubt are," he said. "But some really are breaking
away from the old ideas and values. They can't very well help it. Their
circumstances force it on them. You see they're up against it. The men
are either actually unemployed or scared stiff of becoming unemployed.
They see and feel the system breaking up; and the old
values breaking up, too. Individualism stinks in their nostrils. And
they feel they're all members of one another, dependent on one
another. And so there's quite often a very effective social goodwill
about them; which is rare among the business people, just because
they're mentally hobbled by the commercial ideology. But, of course,
the social goodwill of the workers is often restricted to working-class
loyalty, or side-tracked by the bread-winner's desperate need to fight
individualistically in the struggle for a job. And, of course, there
are plenty of rotters, people who think nothing matters so long as one
spouts class war; people who are socialists in theory and
individualists in action. For instance, there's a man in one of my
classes, always gassing, always propaganding, always dishonest in
argument, never reads the stuff I set, never writes an essay, always
arrives late and expects to be recorded on the register as present (for
grant-earning purposes), always imputes bad motives to the secretary
(who keeps the register and doesn't falsify it), or to me, or to the
wicked capitalists. Contrast that blighter with another talkative
bloke, superficially similar, but how different! He's fat, keen,
equally doctrinaire, theoretically a hard-boiled materialist and stern
self-seeker, but ; in practice he's well above the average of
kindliness and self-sacrifice; in fact, unwittingly a worshipper of the
Christian God who is Love, whom he consciously pokes fun at on every
possible occasion, much to the annoyance of other members. Then there's
an old grey-head who is an orthodox rationalist. He keeps giving me
ribald verses about Jesus Christ and the Church, and about Queen
Victoria. One of the best men I have come across is a boiler-maker.
Sometimes I have a meal in his home. A real good type, but desperately
harassed. Likely to be sacked any day, because trade is bad, and a real
slump is coming. Wife and two children. Nice clean little
kitchen-sitting-room, overcrowded with nicknacks- china dogs, toby
jugs, bright copper kettles, antimacassars, and the proverbial
aspidistra. Last time, I noticed that the piano had gone. They didn't
refer to it, and I didn't like to be nosy, but I feel sure it has been
pawned. Bright little talkative wife, but too obviously anxious to keep
the skeleton unseen in the cupboard. Boy at the local grammar school;
girl hoping for a scholarship at the university. The father is
pathetically keen to give them both a good education, but his very real
enthusiasm for the life of the mind gets on the boy's nerves. In fact
he is reacting pretty violently against it. He obviously prefers
toughness, and is always getting into scrapes as leader of a gang of
hooligans at school." Victor paused, so I said, "And the women?" "Educationally," he said,
"they are generally below the male standard.. And it's very difficult
to get them talking. But they are certainly quite as intelligent as the
men; only less informed, and diffident." Maliciously I asked if any
attractive ones came to the classes. "What you mean," he said, "is,
have I succumbed to any of them. Of course not. It would interfere with
business. Besides, the younger ones are mostly rather dim; though a few
are quite charming in a way- sweet rosebuds blighted by a hostile
climate. The really attractive girls mostly don't come, because of
course, they have a better way of amusing themselves. Some of the women
who do come take it very seriously. But most of these are middle-aged.
There are a good many hard-working housewives, who obviously have no
time to read or write, but like to be on the fringes of intellectual
life. Then there are the inevitable spinsters who have nothing else to
do, and are apt to take the line that if only people would be kind to
each other, we shouldn't have any social problems. The more frustrated
women, of all ages, are too ready to fall in love with the class tutor,
which complicates matters. The unfrustrated ones naturally have other
fish to fry." After a pause, he added, "And so have I." He did not develop this statement, but called the waiter for the
bill. After a polite wrangle as to who should pay, in which Victor, as
usual got the best of it, I suggested that we should go to the hotel
and find a quiet corner where we could discuss whatever it was that he
had on his mind. He nodded assent as he paid the bill. I was staying in a cheap little hotel near Euston, run by a Swiss
couple, and much patronized by foreigners. As we entered the stuffy
lounge, a babel of foreign speech assailed us. I remember a middle-aged
man with hair cut en brosse, who was leaning forward earnestly
talking German to a sullen woman with smooth black hair and a
streamlined black velvet; dress. Further afield, two children were
building cardhouses, and occasionally exclaiming in French. A Nordic
god was arguing in too-correct English with a scraggy little Cockney.
Slavonic speech came from a group clustered round a table. We found a vacant couch with the leather split and horsehair
protruding, and I ordered drinks. When we had toasted each other, I
said, " Well?" "Well," said Victor, "I'm ready now. I wanted to get the background
clear for you first. And I wanted-to see how my problem felt in
your presence, before I began telling you about it. I guess you've
guessed that it's concerned with the ugly waitress, the superbly
beautiful Maggie." He then plunged into his story; but 1 shall not attempt to report it
in his words. Instead, I shall give my own account of it, based partly
on his version and partly on what I subsequently learned from Maggie
herself. Not that there was any serious discrepancy. But Maggie's
comments were often enlightening. Evidently she had had a deeper effect on him than I had supposed. He
had stayed on at his hotel for some days in order to make a secure
contact with her. Apparently his courtship was of a very eccentric
kind, and her reception of it was equally odd. On the morning after the wedding day, he had met her in a corridor.
"Good morning," he said; and she replied with her hippopotamus smile,"
Good morning, sir." He smilingly barred her way, and remarked, "You are
the loveliest thing I have ever seen." With a gasp of indignation, she
turned to retreat; but he said, "Hi! Don't run away! This is important
for us both, and you know it is." She turned and looked at him (he
said) with contempt; and he felt so abashed that he could do nothing
but stare dumbly at her. She said, "It's cruel to tell a girl she's
lovely when she has a face like mine." There were tears in her eyes as
she added, "I suppose you think you'll get me cheap because I'm ugly. I
suppose you think I'm so ugly I'll do anything for a bit of flattery."
He still gazed at her, and said nothing. (She afterwards told me that
he looked like a dog asking for a tit-bit.) Presently he said, "The
night before I came here, when I was falling asleep, I saw your
face as clearly as I do now, just for a moment, and then you were gone.
I have seen your face, between sleeping and waking, off-and on ever
since I was a child. I can't really remember the time when I didn't see
it. At first it was always the face of a very little girl, but as I
grew it grew. When I was a schoolboy, I was rather annoyed that a
silly, little, podgy girl should butt in like that. Later I got
interested, and tried to hold you longer, but you always vanished after
a few seconds. Sometimes I saw you in a brown jersey, sometimes in a
little black sou'wester." She interrupted, "It's a pretty story, but it won't do. On the first
day when you were here, you took no notice of me, except to scowl at me
as if I was a mess. What's more, you seem to forget that you have dined
here lots of times before, generally with the young lady you didn't
marry yesterday. And you never took any notice of me, except once when
you looked at me and then said something to her, and you both laughed." He answered, "I can explain all that, but it's a strange story, and
it will take some time. First, I can easily prove that I really have
seen you, in that drowsy state before sleeping. As a schoolgirl you
used to wear your hair in two heavy pigtails hanging down in front of
your shoulders. One night, about five years ago, when you were in the
late teens, I saw you with your left eye tight shut, with blood and
tears oozing out of it, and tears streaming from the other eye. After
that you used to have a black shade over the left eye. It was many
months before I saw you without it." This bit of information had startled her. In a serious voice she
said, "I fell against a fence with a big nail in it. They thought I
should lose the eye." At that moment their conversation was interrupted by someone walking
along the corridor. They parted. Later, he contrived to meet her again, and said, "About my not
noticing you on those times-" But again they were interrupted. He had
only time to say," When is your day off? I must tell you more. It's
important for both of us." She moved off without replying. However, two days later he did secure her for her free afternoon. At
her request, he took her to walk in the country. She was a country
girl; and although she had deserted the country for the town, she liked
to use her free time for fresh air and exercise. They travelled out by
bus, and she took him along one of her favourite tracks through fields
and woods. He told her about his divided personality, and explained that,
though he could have his waking dream of her in either of his two
states, yet in the somnolent state he could never remember
anything about it. Consequently, when he actually met her in that
state, she meant nothing to him, except that he felt an unreasonable
loathing of her. But in the lucid state he could remember even the
occasions when she had appeared to him in the other state. "When at
last," he said, "I (the real 'I') met you in the flesh, I recognized
you at once." After a while they rested in a meadow. She lay at full length with
her hand behind her head (so he told me), and her ample breasts (very
unfashionable in those days) rising and falling under her cheap cotton
dress. The sun was full on her face, and her eyes were shut. Her sturdy
coltish legs, in the precious black silk stockings that were then
displacing cashmere, were crossed like a crusader's on his tomb. She
was chewing a feathery grass stem. He said, " How I long to make love to you, but I won't, not yet. I
want to explain things properly first. " She turned her head and looked
at him quizzically through one screwed-up eye, because of the sun.
"Aren't you a caution!" she said "But go on, it's interesting." "Well," he said, "before I met you (before 'I' met you, not
the other blighter that I hate), I grew to get a terrific kick out of
your rare visitations. I don't quite know why. It wasn't just that I
had grown to see that you were beautiful, in a queer way that I had
never come across before; in addition I seemed to make some sort of
direct contact with your personality, simply through my visual image of
your face in all its fluctuating expression," "Don't be so pompous,"
she said. "Speak ordinary. I'm not a public meeting. And I'm not
clever." He explained his meaning in simpler words, and added, "Funny
isn't it? I don't know anything about your life; and yet I do know,
just from knowing your face so well, that you're intelligent and
sensitive, and quite able to understand anything I want to say to you,
so long as I don't use words you're not used to." Maggie told me later
that at this she was secretly pleased, because she had always wanted to
be intelligent and sensitive, and able to appreciate the subtleties of
language. But she would not tell Victor this; not at this early stage
of their acquaintance. She said, " You think you know me, but I
bet you don't really. You have told yourself a lot of pretty rubbish
about that face you used to see. And it just happens to be a bit like
my awful mug." "We shall see," he said. "And what about the damaged
eye? Anyhow, one thing I am absolutely sure about. We need each other.
Neither of us can be fully alive without the other." Laughing, she
threw her chewed grass in his face, and said, "Speak for yourself, Mr.
Stranger! I'm quite happy without you." She jumped up, like a fresh
colt, and said, "Come along! I want my tea." They continued their walk. They came to a stile; and as she was climbing over it, her foot
slipped on the mossy wood, and she fell rather heavily. She expected
him to rush to her assistance and lift her to her feet, and fuss over
her; but though he made a quick movement, he stopped, and stood with
his hands in his pockets, while she sat on the ground rubbing her knee
and grieving over her torn stocking. He merely said, "Bad luck! The
step must be slippery," and waited for her to pick herself up. She
clambered to her feet again, and limped along the path. They walked in
silence, and she deliberately maintained the limp after the knee had
recovered. She could not help being mortified at his indifference. Also
she was startled to find how disappointed she was that he had not put
his arms round her to lift her, nor even offered her an arm for
walking. A horrid thought haunted her. He was not really in love with her
at all. He was in love with his dream-pictures of her. Probably he
secretly found her repulsive, as so many other men obviously did. He
wouldn’t let himself see this fact; but when an opportunity arose to
touch her, he couldn't bring himself to do so. The thought hardened her
against him. She suddenly felt desperately lonely. As if in answer to this thought, he lightly, fleetingly, and yet
(she said) lingeringly held her hand, and murmured, "To find you at
last is to find home." "You are a queer one," she said, "not my
sort at all." He promptly answered, "Oh, yes I am. You'll see. But
there's something I must make quite clear before I- clamour for you.
You see, I earnestly want to spend all my life with you, but
the other fellow, my hateful other self, may oust me at any moment. And
he loathes you, and he would treat you horribly. So I must; make you
see the danger you are up against in loving me." She stood still and faced him. "Look here," she said," you're
forgetting something. It takes two to make a love affair, and I'm not
in love with you." "No," he said. "Thank God you're not - yet. That's
why I want to get it all clear at once. Because when you are, you will
find it hard to judge the situation dispassionately. "You and your long
words!" she said. Then she added, "I suppose it never struck you I
might have other fish to fry?" He answered, "Oh, yes, I know. Just as I
had. But you and I belong together. You will soon find that's true-
unless we nip the whole thing in the bud right now. But I don't really
think we can keep apart; we are tangled up together
fundamentally, somehow." At this she exc1aimed, "But I tell you I don't
feel the slightest need of you. I don't know you at all, except
that you are a bit cracked. And you don't know me at all." He answered,
"I know almost nothing about you, and yet I know so much. I know you
want to be- well, fully alive, awake. To experience as fully as
possible, and- to behave creatively." She sighed, and said, "I don't
even know what you mean by that. All I want is to have a good time, and
a job I can enjoy doing. I'm quite happy at the hotel for the present." They walked on in silence, for the length of a field. Then Victor
said, "Well, I'm putting my cards on the table. I'm certain we need one
another; but there's my accursed other self. Yet, in spite of that, I'm
sure it's really best for you that you should take me on. But
you must realize the danger fully, and face it calmly. So must I, on
your account. Some men in my position would just hold off, for the
girl's sake; even if they needed her as desperately as I do. And
indeed, my dear, I do need you desperately. If you won't have me, I
shall never be fully myself. I shall break up, sooner or later. But
objectively that doesn't greatly matter. The point is that for your
sake, quite as much as my own, I believe we should unite. What I offer
you is a possibility of real fullness of life, though a life that will
often be unhappy and may bring you disaster. But without me you will
certainly miss what is best in life." "Look! " she said, "I'm not in love with you, but if I was really in
love with you, I wouldn't funk it because of the danger. I'd go through
hell for you. And even now, when I don't love you, I don't say 'Keep
off, it's not fair to make love to a girl if you know you may betray
her.' No! If you can show me that you are the man for me, I'll not be
afraid. I'll take you on." She swung round, smiled squarely at him,
putout a hand, and said, "Shake on it!" Laughing, he took her hand,
shook it heartily, and held it till she took it from him.5
NEW START
From 1921 to 1924