By Christopher Isherwood 4 страница. high up on the wall opposite.

high up on the wall opposite.

 

"Well, to begin at the beginning, Aphrodite once caught her lover

Ares in bed with Eos, the goddess of the Dawn. (You'd better look them all

up, while you're about it.) Aphrodite was furious, of course, so she cursed

Eos with a craze for handsome mortal boys--to teach her to leave other

people's gods alone." (George gets a giggle on this line from someone and is

relieved; he has feared they would be offended by their scolding and would

sulk.) Not lowering his eyes yet, he continues, with a grin sounding in his

voice, "Eos was terribly embarrassed, but she found she just couldn't control

herself, so she started kidnapping and seducing boys from the earth.

Tithonus was one of them. As a matter of fact, she took his brother

Ganymede along too--for company--" (Louder giggles, from several parts of

the room, this time.) "Unfortunately, Zeus saw Ganymede and fell madly in

love with him." (If Sister Maria is shocked, that's too bad. George doesn't

look at her, however, but at Wally Bryant--about whom he couldn't be more

 

certain--and, sure enough, Wally is wriggling with delight.) "So, knowing

that she'd have to give up Ganymede anyway, Eos asked Zeus, wouldn't he,

in exchange, make Tithonus immortal? So Zeus said, of course, why not?

And lie did it. But Eos was so stupid, she forgot to ask him to give Tithonus

eternal youth as well. Incidentally, that could quite easily have been

arranged; Selene, the Moon goddess, fixed it up for her boy friend

Endymion. The only trouble there was that Selene didn't care to do anything

but kiss, whereas Endymion had other ideas; so she put him into an eternal

sleep to keep him quiet. And it's not much fun being beautiful for ever and

ever, when you can't even wake up and look at yourself in a mirror." (Nearly

everybody is smiling, now--yes, even Sister Maria. George beams at them.

He does so hate unpleasantness.) "Where was I? Oh yes--so poor Tithonus

gradually became a repulsively immortal old man--" (Loud laughter.) "And

Eos, with the charac-teristic heartlessness of a goddess, got bored with him

and locked him up. And he got more and more gaga, find his voice got

shriller and shriller, until suddenly one day he turned into a cicada."

 

This is a miserably weak payoff. George hasn't expected it to work,

and it doesn't. Mr. Stoessel is quite frantic with incomprehension and

appeals to Dreyer in desperate whispers. Dreyer whispers back explanations,

which cause further misunderstandings. Mr. Stoessel gets it at last and

exclaims, "Ach so--eine Zikade!" in a reproachful tone which implies that

it's George and the entire Anglo-American world who have been

mispronouncing the word. But by now George has started up again--and

with a change of attitude. He's no longer wooing them, entertaining them;

he's telling them, briskly, authoritatively. It is the voice of a judge, summing

up and charging the jury.

 

"Huxley's general reason for choosing this title is obvious. However,

you will have to ask yourselves how far it will bear application in detail to

the circumstances of the story. For example, the fifth Earl of Goniar can be

accepted as a counterpart of Tithonus, an: ends by turning into a monkey,

just as Tithonus turned into an insect. But what about Jo Stoyte? And a

Obispo? He's far more like Goethe's Mephistopheles than like Zeus. And

who is Eos? Not Virginia Maunciple, surely. For one thing, I feel sure she

doesn't up early enough." Nobody sees this joke. George sometimes throws

one away, despite all his experience, by muttering it, English style. A bit

piqued by their failure to applaud, he continues, in an almost bully tone,

"But, before we can go any further, you've got to make up your minds what

this novel actually about."

 

They spend the rest of the hour making up their minds.

 

 

At first, as always, there is blank silence. The class sits staring, as it

were, at the semantically prodigious word. About. What is it about? Well,

what George want them to say it's about? They'll say about anything he

likes, anything at all. For nearly all of them, despite their academic training,

deep, deep down still regard this about business as a tiresomely sophisticated

game. As for the minority who have cultivated the about approach until it

has become second nature, who dream of writing an about book of the own

one day, on Faulkner, James or Conrad, proving definitively that all previous

about books on that subject are about nothing--they aren't going to say

anything yet awhile. They are waiting for the moment when the can come

forward like star detectives with the solution to Huxley's crime. Meanwhile,

let the little ones flounder. Let the mud be stirred up, first.

 

The mud is obligingly stirred up by Alexander Mong. He knows what

he's doing, of course. He isn't dumb. Maybe it's even part of his philosophy

as an abstract painter to regard anything figurative as merely childish. A

Caucasian would get aggressive about this, but not Alexander. With that

beautiful Chinese smile, he says, "It's about this rich guy who's jealous

because he's: afraid he's too old for this girl of his, and he thinks this young

guy is on the make for her, only he isn't, and he doesn't have a hope, because

she and the doctor already made the scene. So the rich guy shoots the young

guy by mistake, and the doctor like covers up for them and then they all go

to England to find this Earl character who's monkeying around with a chick

in a cellar--"

 

A roar of joy at this. George smiles good-sportingly and says, "You

left out Mr. Pordage and Mr. Propter--what do they do?"

 

"Pordage? Oh yes--he's the one that finds out about the Earl eating

those crazy fish--"

 

"Carp."

 

"That's right. And Propter"--Alexander grins and scratches his head,

clowning it up a bit--"I'm sorry, sir. You'll just have to excuse me. I mean, I

didn't hit the sack till like half past two this morning, trying to figure that cat

out. Wow! I don't dig that jazz."

 

More laughter. Alexander has fulfilled his function. He has put the

case, charmingly, for the philistines. Now tongues are loosened and the

inquest can proceed.

 

Here are some of its findings: Mr. Propter shouldn't have said the ego

is unreal; this proves that he has no faith in human nature.

 

This novel is arid and abstract mysticism. What do we need eternity

for, anyway?

 

 

This novel is clever but cynical. Huxley should dwell more on the

warm human emotions.

 

This novel is a wonderful spiritual sermon. It teaches us that we aren't

meant to pry into the mysteries of life. We mustn't tamper with eternity.

 

Huxley is marvelously zany. He wants to get rid of people and make

the world safe for animals and spirits.

 

To say time is evil because evil happens in time is like saying the

ocean is a fish because fish happen in the ocean.

 

Mr. Propter has no sex life. This makes him unconvincing as a

character.

 

Mr. Propter's sex life is unconvincing.

 

Mr. Propter is a Jeffersonian democrat, an anarchist, a Bolshevik, a

proto-John-Bircher.

 

Mr. Propter is an escapist. This is illustrated by the conversation with

Pete about the Civil War in Spain. Pete was a good guy until Mr. Propter

brainwashed him and he had a failure of nerve and started to believe in God.

 

Huxley really understands women. Giving Virginia a rose-colored

motor scooter was a perfect touch.

 

And so on and so forth....

 

George stands there smiling, saying very little, letting them enjoy

themselves. He presides over the novel like an attendant at a carnival booth,

encouraging the crowd to throw and smash their targets; it's all good clean

fun. However, there are certain ground rules which must be upheld. When

someone starts in about mescaline and lysergic acid, implying that Mr.

Huxley is next door to being a dope addict, George curtly contradicts him.

When someone else coyly tries to turn the clef in the roman--Is there,

couldn't there be some connection between a certain notorious lady and Jo

Stoyte's shooting of Pete?--George tells him absolutely not; that fairy tale

was exploded back in the thirties.

 

And now comes a question George has been expecting. It is asked, of

course, by Myron Hirsch, that indefatigable heckler of the goyim. "Sir, here

on page seventy-nine, Mr. Propter says the stupidest text in the Bible is 'they

hated me without a cause.' Does he mean by that the Nazis were right to hate

the Jews? Is Huxley anti-Semitic?"

 

George draws a long breath. "No," he answers mildly.

 

And then, after a pause of expectant silence--the class is rather thrilled

by Myron's bluntness--he repeats, loudly and severely, "No--Mr. Huxley is

not anti-Semitic. The Nazis were not right to hate the Jews. But their hating

the Jews was not without a cause. No one ever hates without a cause....

 

 

"Look--let's leave the Jews out of this, shall we? Whatever attitude

you take, it's impossible to discuss Jews objectively nowadays. It probably

won't be possible for the next twenty years. So let's think about this in terms

of some other minority, any one you like, but a small one--one that isn't

organized and doesn't have any committees to defend it...."

 

George looks at Wally Bryant with a deep shining look that says, I am

with you, little minority-sister. Wally is plump and sallow-faced, and the

care he takes to comb his wavy hair and keep his nails filed and polished and

his eyebrows discreetly plucked only makes him that much less appetizing.

Obviously he has understood George's look. He is embarrassed. Never mind!

George is going to teach him a lesson now that he'll never forget. Is going to

turn Wally's eyes into his timid soul. Is going to give him courage to throw

away his nail file and face the truth of his life....

 

"Now, for example, people with freckles aren't thought of as a

minority by the non-freckled. They aren't a minority in the sense we're

talking about. And why aren't they? Because a minority is only thought of as

a minority when it constitutes some kind of a threat to the majority, real or

imaginary. And no threat is ever quite imaginary. Anyone here disagree with

that? If you do, just ask yourself, What would this particular minority do if it

suddenly became the majority overnight? You see what I mean? Well, if you

don't--think it over!

 

"All right. Now along come the liberals--including everybody in this

room, I trust--and they say, 'Minorities are just people, like us.' Sure,

minorities are people--people, not angels. Sure, they're like us--but not

exactly like us; that's the all-too-familiar state of liberal hysteria in which

you begin to kid yourself you honestly cannot see any difference between a

Negro and a Swede...." (Why, oh why daren't George say "between Estelle

Oxford and Buddy Sorensen"? Maybe, if he did dare, there would be a great

atomic blast of laughter, and everybody would embrace, and the kingdom of

heaven would begin, right here in classroom. But then again, maybe it

wouldn't.)

 

"So, let's face it, minorities are people who probably look and act and-

think differently from us and hay faults we don't have. We may dislike the

way they look and act, and we may hate their faults. And it's better if we

admit to disliking and hating them than if we try to smear our feelings over

with pseudo liberal sentimentality. If we're frank about our feelings, we have

a safety valve; and if we have a safety valve, we're actually less likely to

start persecuting. I know that theory is unfashionable nowadays. We all keep

trying to believe that if we ignore something long enough it'll just vanish....

 

 

"Where was I? Oh yes. Well, now, suppose this minority does get

persecuted, never mind why--political, economic, psychological reasons.

There always is a reason, no matter how wrong it is--that's my point. And, of

course, persecution itself is always wrong; I'm sure we all agree there. But

the worst of it is, we now run into another liberal heresy. Because the

persecuting majority is vile, says the liberal, therefore the persecuted

minority must be stainlessly pure. Can't you see what nonsense that is?

What's to prevent the bad from being persecuted by the worse? Did all the

Christian victims in the arena have to be saints?

 

"And I'll tell you something else. A minority has its own kind of

aggression. It absolutely dares the majority to attack it. It hates the majority-

-not without a cause, I grant you. It even hates the other minorities, because

all minorities are in competition: each one proclaims that its sufferings are

the worst and its wrongs are the blackest. And the more they all hate, and the

more they're all persecuted, the nastier they become! Do you think it makes

people nasty to be loved? You know it doesn't! Then why should it make

them nice to be loathed? While you're being persecuted, you hate what's

happening to You, you hate the people who are making it happen; you're in a

world of hate. Why, you wouldn't recognize love if you met it! You'd

suspect love! You'd think there was something behind it--some motive--

some trick…"

 

By this time, George no longer knows what he has proved or

disproved, whose side, if any, he is arguing on, or indeed just exactly what

he is talking about. And yet these sentences have blurted themselves out of

his mouth with genuine passion. He has meant every one of them, be they

sense or nonsense. He has administered them like strokes of a lash, to whip

Wally awake, and Estelle too, and Myron, and all of them. He who has ears

to hear, let him hear.

 

Wally continues to look embarrassed--but, no, neither whipped nor

awakened. And now George becomes aware that Wally's eyes are no longer

on his face; they are raised and focused on a point somewhere behind him,

on the wall above his head. And now, as he glances rapidly across the room,

faltering, losing momentum, George sees all the other pairs of eyes raised

also - focused on that damned clock. He doesn't need to turn and look for

himself; he knows he must be running overtime. Brusquely he breaks off,

telling them, "We'll go on with this on Monday." And they all rise instantly

to their feet, collecting their books, breaking into chatter.

 

Well, after all, what else can you expect? They have to hurry, most of

them, to get someplace else within the next ten minutes. Nevertheless,

George's feathers are ruffled. It's been a long time since last he forgot and let

 

himself get Up steam like this, right at the end of a period. How humiliating!

The silly enthusiastic old prof, rambling on, disregarding the clock, and the

class sighing to itself, He's off again! Just for a moment, George hates them,

hates their brute basic indifference, as they drain quickly out of the room.

Once again, the diamond has been offered publicly for a nickel, and they

have turned from it with a shrug and a grin, thinking the old peddler crazy.

 

So he smiles with an extra benevolence on those who have lingered

behind to ask him questions. Sister Maria merely wants to know if George,

when he sets the final examination, will require them to have read all of

those books which Mr. Huxley mentions in this novel. George thinks, How

amusing to tell her, yes, including The Days of Sodom. But he doesn't, of

course. He reassures her and she goes away happy, her academic load that

much lighter.

 

And then Buddy Sorensen merely wants to excuse himself. "I'm sorry,

sir. I didn't read the Huxley cause I thought you'd be going through it with

first." Is this sheer idiocy or slyness? George can't be bothered to find out.

"Ban the Bomb!" he says, staring at Buddy's button; and Buddy, to whom he

ha said this before, grins happily. "Yes, sir, you bet!"

 

Mrs. Netta Torres wants to know if Mr. Huxley hail an actual English

village in mind as the original of his Gonister. George is unable to answer

this. He can only tell Mrs. Torres that, in the last chapter, when Obispo and

Stoyte and Virginia are in search of the fifth Earl, they appear to be driving

out of London in a southwesterly direction. So, most likely, Gonister is

supposed to be somewhere in Hampshire or Sussex.... But now it becomes

clear that Mrs. Torres' question has been a pretext, merely. She has brought

up the subject of England in order to tell him that she spent three

unforgettable weeks there, ten years ago. Only most of it was in Scotland,

and the rest all in London. "Whenever you're speaking to us," she tells

George, as her eyes fervently probe his face, "I keep remembering that

beautiful accent. It's like music." (George is strongly tempted to ask her just

which accent she has in mind. Can it be Cockney or Gorbals?) And now

Mrs. Torres wants to know the name of his birthplace, and he tells her, and

she has never heard of it. He takes advantage of her momentary frustration

to break off their tete-a-tete.

 

AGAIN George's office comes in useful; he goes into it to escape from Mrs.

Torres. He finds Dr. Gottlieb there.

 

 

Gottlieb is all excited because he has just received from England a

new book about Francis Quarles, written by an Oxford don. Gottlieb

probably knows every bit as much about Quarles as the don does. But

Oxford, towering up in all its majesty behind this don, its child, utterly

overawes poor little Gottlieb, who was born in one of the wrong parts of

Chicago. "It makes you realize," he says, "the background you need, to do a

job like this." And George feels saddened and depressed, because Gottlieb

obviously wishes, above all else in life, that he could turn himself into that

miserable don and learn to write his spiteful-playful, tight-assed vinegar

prose.

 

Having held the book in his hands for a moment and turned its pages

with appropriate respect, George decides that he needs something to eat. As

he steps out of the building, the first people he recognizes are Kenny Potter

and Lois Yamaguchi. They are sitting on the grass under one of the newly

planted trees. Their tree is even smaller than the others. It has barely a dozen

leaves on it. To sit under it at all seems ridiculous; perhaps this is just why

Kenny chose it. He and Lois look as though they were children playing at

being stranded on a South Pacific atoll. Thinking this, George smiles at

them. They smile back, and then Lois starts to laugh, in her dainty-

shamefaced Japanese way. George passes quite close by their atoll as a

steamship might, without stopping. Lois seems to know what he caricatures;

I mean, you seem to see what each one is about, and it's very crude and

simplified. One's absurdly vain, and another is literally worrying himself

sick, and another is longing to pick a fight. And then you see a very few who

are simply beautiful, just because they aren't anxious or aggressive about

anything; they're taking life as it comes.... Oh, and everything becomes more

and more three-dimensional: Curtains get heavy and sculptured-looking, and

wood is very grainy. And flowers and plants are quite obviously alive. I

remember a pot of violets--they weren't moving, but you knew they could

move. Each one was like a snake reared up motionless on its coils.... And

then, while the thing is working full strength, it's as if the walls of the room

and everything around you were breathing, and the grain in woodwork

begins to flow, as though it were a liquid. •.. And then it all slowly dies

down again, back to normal. You don't have any hangover. Afterwards I felt

fine. I ate a huge supper."

 

"You didn't take it again after that?"

 

"No. I found I didn't want to, particularly. It was just an experience I'd

had. I gave the rest of the capsules to friends. One of them saw pretty much

what I saw, and another didn't see anything. And one told me she'd never

 

been so scared in her whole life. But I suspect she was only being polite.

Like thanking for a party--"

 

"You don't have any of those capsules left now, do you, sir?"

 

"No, Kenny, I do not! And even if I had, I wouldn't distribute them

among the student body. I can think of much more amusing ways to get

myself thrown out of this place."

 

Kenny grins. "Sorry, sir. I was only wondering.... I guess, if I really

wanted the stuff, I could get it all right. You can get most anything of that

kind, right here on campus. This friend of Lois's got it here. He claims, when

he took it, he saw God."

 

"Well, maybe he did. Maybe I just didn't take enough." is, for she

waves gaily to him exactly as one waves to a steamship, with an

enchantingly delicate gesture of her tiny wrist and hand. Kenny waves also,

but it is doubtful if he knows; he is only following Lois's example. Anyhow,

their waving charms George's heart. He waves back to them. The old

steamship and the young castaways have exchanged signals--but not signals

for help. They respect each other's privacy. They have no desire for

involvement. They simply wish each other well. Again, as by the tennis

players, George feels that his day has been brightened; but, this time, the

emotion isn't in the least disturbing. It is peaceful, radiant. George steams on

toward the cafeteria, smiling to himself, not even wanting to look back.

 

But then he hears "Sir!" right behind him, and he turns and it's Kenny.

Kenny has come running up silently in his sneakers. George supposes he

will ask some specific question such as what book are they going to read

next in class, and then leave again. But no, Kenny drops into step beside

him, remarking in a matter-of-fact voice, "I have to go down to the

bookshop." He doesn't ask if George is going to the bookshop and George

doesn't tell him that he hasn't been planning to.

 

"Did you ever take mescaline, sir?"

 

"Yes, once. In New York. That was about eight years ago. There

weren't any regulations against selling it then. I just went into a drugstore

and ordered some. They'd never heard of it, but they got it for me in a few

days."

 

"And did it make you see things--like mystical visions and stuff?"

 

"No. Not what you could call visions. At first I felt seasick. Not badly.

And scared a bit, of course. Like Dr. Jekyll might have felt after he'd taken

his drug for the first time. And then certain colors began to get very bright

and stand out. You couldn't think why everybody didn't notice them. I

remember a woman's red purse lying on a table in a restaurant--it was like a

public scandal! And people's faces turn into Kenny looks down at George.

 

He seems amused. "You know something, sir? I bet, even if you had seen

God, you wouldn't tell us."

 

"What makes you say that?"

 

"It's what Lois says. She thinks you're--well, kind of cagey. Like this

morning, when you were listening to all that crap we were talking about

Huxley--"

 

"I didn't notice you doing much talking. I don't think you opened your

mouth once."

 

"I was watching you. No kidding, I think Lois is right! You let us

ramble on, and then you straighten us out, and I'm not saying you don't teach

us a lot of interesting stuff--you do--but you never tell us all you know about

something...."

 

George feels flattered and excited. Kenny has never talked to him like

this before. He can't resist slipping into the role Kenny so temptingly offers

him.

 

"Well--maybe that's true, up to a point. You see, Kenny, there are

some things you don't even know you know, until you're asked."

 

They have reached the tennis courts. The courts are all in use now,

dotted with moving figures. But George, with the lizard-quick glance of a

veteran addict, has already noted that the morning's pair has left and that

none of these players is physically attractive. On the nearest court, a fat,

middle-aged faculty member is playing to work up a sweat, against a girl

with hair on her legs.

 

"Someone has to ask you a question," George continues meaningly,

"before you can answer it. But it's so seldom you find anyone who'll ask the

right questions. Most people aren't that much interested...."

 

Kenny is silent. Is he thinking this over? Is he going to ask George

something right now? George's pulse quickens with anticipation.

 

"It's not that I want to be cagey," he says, keeping his eyes on the

ground and making this as impersonal as he can. "You know, Kenny, so

often I feel I want to tell things, discuss things, absolutely frankly. I don't

mean in class, of course--that wouldn't work. Someone would be sure to

misunderstand...."

 

Silence. George glances quickly up at Kenny and sees that he's

looking, though without any apparent interest, at the hirsute girl. Perhaps he

hasn't even been listening. It's impossible to tell.

 

"Maybe this friend of Lois's didn't see God, after all," says Kenny

abruptly. "I mean, he might have been kidding himself. I mean, not too long

after he took the stuff, he had a breakdown. He was locked up for three

months in an institution. He told Lois that while he was having this

 

breakdown he turned into a devil and he could put out stars. I'm not kidding!

He said he could put out seven of them at a time. He was scared of the

police, though. He said the police had a machine for catching devils and

liquidating them. It was called a Mo-machine. Mo, that's Om--you know, sir,

that Indian word for God--spelled backwards."

 

"If the police liquidated devils, that would mean they were angels,

wouldn't it? Well, that certainly makes sense. A place where the police are

angels has to be an insane asylum."

 

Kenny is still laughing loudly at this when they reach the bookshop.

He wants to buy a pencil sharpener. They have them in plastic covers, red or