Shadows of Ecstasy, Charles Williams [e ink epub reader .txt] 📗

of the last twenty-four hours had

worn him out. And what was the good of trying to defend the intellect

in this place of the death of the intellect? Witch-doctors were

invading Europe, and he had gone running to an ape for help…

 

“—absurd talk about possible reasons,” the Prime Minister was saying.

“The whole thing’s an example of the failure of organized thought.

No-one can find out the root of the trouble.”

 

“I wonder you ask them,” Sir Bernard said.

 

“I don’t; they tell me,” Suydler answered. “There was a man

yesterday—an ex-Governor—was talking to me. I had a kind of bet with

myself how many synonyms he’d use for guess—I think it was about

twenty-four. We may assume—not improbable—very likely—may it not

be—reasonable assumption—working hypothesis—possible surmise—news

suggests—my opinion is—better theory—never a plain straightforward

guess. Never used the word once.”

 

“It’s not a favourite, except with children; they love it,” Sir

Bernard said. “Perhaps”, he added, struck by a sudden thought, “that’s

why they’re nearer the kingdom of heaven. They’re more sincere.

However, I came here to say that I’m not certain that I didn’t dine

yesterday with the High Executive. I mean—I guess I did.”

 

“That’s fair, anyhow,” Suydler answered. “Who did you guess he was?

And—not that I mind, but as a concession to the Permanent

Officials—why did you guess him?”

 

Sir Bernard held out his papers. “It’s all there,” he said.

 

Suydler put out an enormous hand—its shadow on the carpet stretched

out, black and even more enormous-and took them. “How tidy you are,”

he said, grinning, “but you always were, weren’t you? Your operations

were always miracles of conciseness. If you’ve extracted the truth

now, that’ll be another miracle. Excuse me while I look at them.”

 

He didn’t take long over it; then he chuckled, put them down, and

leaned back. “And you’ve got this Zulu king of yours?” he asked.

“Ready to testify and identify and all that?”

 

“Certainly,” Sir Bernard said.

 

Suydler linked his fingers and stretched his arms out. “Well,” he

said, “if you like—though I’ve met Considine a few times—but if you

like to make a pattern with him in, I’m not sure that I won’t go with

you. It’ll look awfully well…‘Government discover High Executive.’

Why, as of minor interest, didn’t you come before?”

 

“Because, until I’d got the king’s opinion—guess, if you like, I

couldn’t,” Sir Bernard explained. “And he went off into a real stupor

the minute he reached Kensington—as if he had to get his own

faculties into order.”

 

“Two hundred years-” Suydler said. “But what a price to pay! No women,

no fun, no excitements. All, if I’ve got it right, squeezed back into

yourself.” He pressed a bell. “It isn’t fair to let him go on

suppressing himself and misleading others, is it? ‘A long life and a

dull one’—that’s the end of all you theorists.”

 

Sir Bernard stood up. “Well,” he said, “if you think I’m right I’ll

go.”

 

A secretary came in, but Suydler kept him waiting. “Right!” he said,

“no, I don’t think you’re right. I think your mind and his may

have—what shall I say?—coincided by chance. But there’s no such

thing as ‘right.’ It’s all a question of preferring a particular

momentary pattern of phenomena. There’s nothing more anywhere. How can

there be? At this moment the past doesn’t exist, the future doesn’t

exist, and we know nothing much about the present!”

 

Avoiding any immediate discussion of the nature of existence, Sir

Bernard got away. Walking down Downing Street he considered the

Minister. “Considine and he both look into the abyss,” he thought,

“but Considine sees it beating with passion, and Suydler sees nothing.

A chaos or a void? Black men, or men who are no longer white?” He saw

the intellect and logical reason of man no longer as a sedate and

necessary thing, but rather a narrow silver bridge passing over an

immense depth, around the high guarded entrance of which thronged

clouds of angry and malign presences. Often mistaking the causes and

often misjudging the effects of all mortal sequences, this capacity of

knowing cause and effect presented itself nevertheless to him as the

last stability of man. Always approaching truth, it could never, he

knew, be truth, for nothing can be truth till it has become one with

its object, and such union it was not given to the intellect to

achieve without losing its own nature. But in its divine and abstract

reflection of the world, its passionless mirror of the holy law that

governed the world, not in experiments or ecstasies or guesses, the

supreme perfection of mortality moved. He saluted it as its child and

servant, and dedicated himself again to it, for what remained to him

of life, praying it to turn the light of its awful integrity upon him,

and to preserve him from self-deception and greediness and infidelity

and fear. “If A is the same as B,” he said, “and B is the same as C,

then A is the same as C. Other things may be true; for all I know,

they may be different at the same time; but this at least is true. And

Considine will have to hypnotize me myself before I deny it. Suydler

is wrong—a guess may be true once and twice and a thousand times, for

man has known abstraction, and no gorilla of a politician can take it

away from him.”

 

Chapter Eight - PASSING THROUGH THE MIDST OF THEM

 

There followed a few days of uneasy quiet. The news from Africa was

vague, but more cheerfully vague. It was generally understood that

organized naval measures were being taken to overcome the submarine

forces of the enemy, which had succeeded in making the African coasts

so dangerous and had proceeded so far afield that until such measures

had been concerted and carried out the landing of fresh troops had

become impossible. It was even rumoured that attacks had been made on

certain European harbours, but if this were so the Government

concerned saw to it that no hint was allowed to appear in the Press.

Energetic operations had been planned; the more energetic movements of

the enemy seemed to have ceased, though the clearance of white troops

from North Africa appeared to be proceeding slowly but systematically.

 

The financial panic had also been stayed to some extent by Government

action. For the Prime Minister had announced that, as the simplest

means of meeting the emergency, the Administration had decided to make

loans to the federated control of any particular industry which was

seriously affected. Conditions of application, examination, payment

and repayment were to be settled by a Commission set up for the

purpose; the immediate affair was to steady the markets, and dazed

directors of innumerable companies found themselves offered millions

in order to buy up shares in their own concerns. Unfederated companies

rushed to federate; all newspapers, for example, found themselves part

of one large business, controlled by a common Board which immediately

borrowed or was offered a subsidy of some millions, with which it

repurchased the shares which Nehemiah and Ezekiel Rosenberg were

throwing before the world. It looked therefore as if these devoted

believers would secure their money as well as their jewels; and the

coming of Messias or the building of the Temple be prepared for by the

English in a general increase of taxation. Sir Bernard, as he

contemplated the world, foresaw a possibility that the whole business,

military and financial, would gradually expire, having ruined a great

number of small shareholders, increased the financial strength of the

larger, cost a great deal in armaments, and probably massacred a host

of Africans in circumstances of more or less equal fighting.

 

“I had some expectation,” he said to Caithness as they turned into the

Square, after an early afternoon walk, “of becoming a travelling

doctor in my old age—probably with a donkey cart; and going from

village to village, curing indigestion and collecting sixpences.

You know the kind of thing—‘Travers’s Pills make Stomachs

Tractable’—‘Dainty Digestions Decently Doctored.’ You might have

joined me, and we would have put stomachs and souls right together.

‘Stomachs on the right; souls on the left: Advice free: only real

cures paid for.’ But I should have stipulated for no miracles.”

 

“Then you’d have wanted an unfair advantage,” Caithness said. “I

should have to send quite a number of my patients to you; lots of them

think it’s their conscience when actually it’s their stomachs.”

 

“Still on your theory the soul’s wrong anyhow,” Sir Bernard pointed

out.

 

“Quite,” Caithness answered. “But they have to understand that, not

merely moan over their pains. However, the question isn’t likely to

arise. Things do seem to be a bit quieter now.”

 

The exertions of the Government and (presumably) of the police did

not, however, succeed in tracing either Nigel Considine or his

friends. Justified by several different kinds of warrants, an

examination of the Hampstead house was carried out but with no

results. Whatever staff or whatever servants had occupied it had

disappeared as completely as its master. Inkamasi was examined and

re-examined, but though his story was given in fuller detail, the

details did not much help. It was clear that the High Executive had

done no more than preserve him in case he should be wanted; the Zulus

themselves, who were apparently taking an active part in the war, were

(so far as news could be obtained) under the headship of another of

their race, a cousin of Inkamasi’s, less directly but still closely

connected with the great chieftain and hero, Chaka. The king was

allowed to remain in seclusion at Sir Bernard’s house, where he spent

his days reading, brooding, and talking sometimes to his host and to

Caithness. Philip rather avoided him.

 

Philip indeed had his own troubles. Apart from the complete wreck of

his purposes which the war had brought about, apart from the

agitations which his new experiences had introduced into his inner

mind, he suddenly found himself on the most extraordinarily difficult

terms with Rosamond. She refused to come near Colindale Square, she

occasionally even refused to see him when he went to Hampstead, and

when she did see him she was in a nervous and irritable mood which was

quite unlike the normal Rosamond. Philip’s own meditations on the

relations between love and Rosamond were thwarted and upset by the

discovery that Rosamond, to all intents and purposes, wasn’t there for

love to have relations with. She had always kept love in its proper

place, and had never displayed any particular interest in its more

corporeal manifestations, suggesting by her manner that such things

were a trifle silly. If he tried to explain something of the marvel

which she seemed to him, she had listened placidly and with good

humour, but without much gratification and with no kind of exaltation

at all. His own exaltation, however, had not been exactly forbidden to

thrive—until now. But now she would not have it; she shrank from and

repelled it. She wouldn’t be touched; she wouldn’t be approached.

Isabel told him that her sister was sleeping badly. But what Isabel

didn’t tell him was the dubious and unhappy cause of that broken

sleep.

 

Roger, coming in early one evening, found his wife alone. He kissed

her and flung himself down, and a silence gathered them up. Presently

Isabel stirred: “Well, darling?” she said, “what do you think about it

all?”

 

Roger said nothing at first, then he uttered, “I’ve done what I can.

I’ve thrown over a course on the probable sources of the minor

comedies of the early nineteenth century, and where Mrs. Inchbald

found her plots—Mrs. Inchbald—I ask you, Isabel! Where did Mrs.

Hemans get hers?—and I’ve talked to them for all I’m worth