Hadrian the Seventh Read online

  His eyes, as they wandered round the room, met these things. He took a towel, and went downstairs to the bath-room to wash his hands. On returning he enticed Flavio with a bit of string. The cat was unwilling to play: gazed at him with innocent imperscrutable round eyes: elaborately yawned and requested permission to retire. The odour of the kitchen-dinner was perceptible. The door was opened; and shut.

  He put the butt of his cigarette in an earthenware jar on his left for future use. The maid appeared with his lunch, a basinful of bread and milk. Following some subconscious train of thought, he stretched himself, took the little mirror from the wall and went to the window.

  “It’s one of your bad days, my friend,” he commented, regarding his own image. “You look all your age, and twelve years more. Draw down those feathered brows, man. Never mind the upright furrow which makes you look stern. Draw them down; and open your eyes; and look alert. Do something to counteract the tender thin line of that mouth. You mustn’t let yourself relax like this. It brings out your wrinkles, and shews the sparseness of your hair. If you had an inch more thigh, and say a couple of inches more shin, you might look people down a little more: but with that meek subservient aspect—how Luckock used to chaff about it!—no wonder everyone takes advantage of you. What’s the good of having your fastidious mind clearly written on that fastidious mouth if you don’t insist on behaving fastidiously. Cultivate the art of looking as though you were about to say No. You always can say Yes after No. But, if you begin with Yes, as you always do, you prevent yourself from ever saying No. That’s why everyone can swindle you. You’re far too anxious to give way. Buck up a bit, you ugly little thing! Ugly as you are, you’re neither vulgar nor common-place. Straighten your back, and open your eyes wide, and pull yourself together.”

  He put the mirror in its place; and again cast a glance round the room, seeking something to read, something, anything, that was not too recent in his mind. He picked up at random one of the rejected novels. It was called Donovan. He remembered having seen (in an ex-tea-pedlar’s magazine) a print of the writer thereof. He also remembered that he had found her self-conscious pose and labial conformation intensely antipathetic. His sense of beauty was a great deal more than acute. Let his predilection (which was for reticent expert virtue in the male and for innate delicate modesty in the female) once be satisfied, and the door to his favour lay open.

  “However,” he argued with himself, “she sells her books by tens of thousands while we don’t sell ours by tens of hundreds. We’ll have a look at her work, and see how she does it.”

  He ate his bread and milk; and seriously and deliberately set himself to dissect and analyse the book.

  The manner of the portrayal of a youth, of an abnormal type of youth, the Sentient-Modest type, at once disgusted him by its inadequacy and superficiality. The male human animal is omnipresent: it is not difficult for an observant and careful writer to describe the γνωριμωτερον ϕυσει, things as they appear. But the author’s sex had prevented her from knowing, and therefore, from describing the γνωριμωτερον ήμιν, things as they are. It is doubtful whether Man ever mentally knew Woman. It is certain that Woman never knew Man: except in cases of occession—the author of The Gadfly for example. He found the image of Donovan fairly convincing: not so the real. Donovan, in his eponymous history, obviously was the creation of a good sweet-minded woman, who created him in her own image.

  The student several times was at the point of closing the book from sheer annoyance. Only the knowledge that he had nothing else to do, and the desire to gain instruction, caused him to persevere. His temper only was logical in so far as it endowed him with the faculty of pursuance. He began many things: he followed them: oftentimes the influence of Luna on his environment obliged him to pause: but invariably he returned to them—even after long years he returned to them—; and then, slowly, surely, he concluded what he had begun. He had tenacity—the feline pertinacity of vigorous untainted English blood. Cigarette after cigarette he rolled, and smoked. He frequently turned back and read a chapter over again. Flavio mewed for admittance. He took him on his knee: and continued reading, stroking the little cat meanwhile, tickling his larynx till he purred content. So the dull March afternoon passed. At five, the maid brought a tray containing black coffee and dripping toast. At half-past six, he took a bath and attended to his appearance, execrating the pain of his swollen arm and the difficulty of keeping it out of the water. He dined at half-past seven on some soup, and haricot-beans with butter, and a baked apple. Meanwhile he counted the split infinitives in the day’s Pall Mall Gazette. When he was adolescent, an Oxford tutor had said of him that he possessed a critical faculty of no mean order. At the time, he had not understood the saying perfectly: but he cultivated the faculty. He taught himself in a very bitter school, the arts of selection and discrimination, and the art of annihilating rubbish. To this perhaps was due his complete psychical detachment from other men. He trod upon so many worms. And few things are more exasperating than a man of whom it truly may be said “A chiel’s amang ye takin’ notes.” After dinner, he returned to his attic with his cup and the coffee-pot: and resumed his task. In time, he forgot the pain of his arm: he even forgot the usual terrified anticipation of the late postman’s knock, such was his faculty for concentration. He smoked cigarettes and sipped black coffee now and then, oblivious of Flavio who returned from a walk about eleven and promptly went to sleep on the foot of the bed. A little after midnight, he reached the end of the book: turned back and examined the last chapter again; and put it down.

  “Yes,” he said, “she’s a dear good woman. Her book—well—her book is cheap, awkward, vulgar,—but it’s good. It’s unpalteringly ugly and simple and good. Evidently it’s best to be good. It pays. . . . Anyhow it’s bound to pay in the long run.”

  He pushed Flavio’s chair to the wall near the door: by its side he placed the wash-stand from the left of his armchair. He disposed the armchair also against the wall, leaving a cleared space of garret-coloured drugget between the dead fire and the bed. This was his gymnasium.

  “If a book like that pays,” he reflected, “it must be that there’s a lot of people who care for books about the Good. Why not do one of that sort instead of casting folk-lore and history before publishers who turn and rend you? The pity is that the Good should be so dreadfully dowdy. Evidently το καλον and το άγαθον are just as distinct as they were in the days of the Broad-browed One. Sophisms again! Why can’t you be honest and simple instead of subtile and complex? You’re just like your own cat ambuscading a ping-pong ball as strategically and as scrupulously as though it were a mouse. For goodness’ sake don’t try to deceive yourself. It’s all very well to pose before the world: but there’s no one here to see you now. Strip, man, strip stark. You perfectly know that the Good always is admirable, whether it be dowdy or chic; and that what you call the Beautiful is no more than a matter of opinion, worth,—well, generally speaking, not worth six and eight-pence.”

  He threw all his clothes on the armchair: picked his trousers out of the heap and folded them lengthwise over the towel-rail: powdered his arm with borax and bound cotton-wool over it: looked at his dumb-bells while he brushed his hair: sprayed the room with eucalyptus; and got into bed. Extreme fatigue and pain rendered him almost hysterical. His thoughts expressed themselves in ejaculations when he had tied a handkerchief over his eyes, straightened his legs, and laid his right cheek on the pillow.

  “Yes! It pays to be good—just simple goodness pays. I know, oh I know. I always knew it.

  God, if ever You loved me, hear me, hear me. De profundis ad Te, ad Te clamavi. Don’t I want to be good and clean and happy? What desire have I cherished since my boyhood save to serve in the number of Your mystics? What but that have I asked of You Who made me?

  Not a chance do You give me—ever—ever——.

  Listen! How can I serve You? How be happy, clean, or good, while You keep me so sequeste
red?

  Oh I know of that psalm where it is written that You set apart for Yourself the godly. Am I godly? Ah no: nor even goodly. I’m Your prisoner writhing in my fetters, fettered, impotent, utterly unhappy.

  Only he, who is good and clean, is happy. I am clean, God, but neither good nor happy. Not alone can a man be good or happy. Force, which generates no one thing, is not force. All intelligence must be active, potent. I’m intelligent. So, O God, You made me. Therefore I must be active: Of my nature I must act. For the chance to act, I languish. I am impotent and inactive always. He, who wishes to be good, strives to do good. Deeds must be done to others by the doer. Therefore I, in my loneliness, am futile. Friends? And which of them have You left me faithful these twelve years of my solitude, God? Not one. Andrews, faithless; and Aubrey, faithless; Brander, faithless; Lancaster, faithless; Strages, faithless and perfidious; Scuttle also; Fareham, Roole, and Nicholas, faithless; Tatham, faithless; that detestable and deceitful Blackcote who came fawning upon me crying ‘Courage! You shall suffer no more as you have suffered!’ and then robbed me of months and years of labour. Ah! and Lawrence, my little Lawrence, faithless.

  Women? What do I know of women. Nothing.

  Fiat justitia—well, there’s Caerleon. But a bishop is very far above me; and his friendship is only condescension,—honest, genial, kind, but—condescension. Still, he wishes me well. I truly think it. But if only he would believe me, trust me, shew faith in me, and absolutely trust me,—I might do what the mouse did for the lion.

  Strong? But why do I name my splendid master. Strong of nature and Strong of name and station, Strong of body and Strong of mind, immensely my superior altogether, knowing all my weakness and all my imperfection: who, to me, is as much like You as any man can be! It is only grand indulgence and urbanity on his part which make him know me; and, when the sun lacks splendour, only then will Megaloprepes need me, only then Kalos Kagathos perchance may need me.

  Why, O God, have You made me strange, uncommon, such a mystery to my fellow-creatures, not a ‘man among men’ like other people?

  Do I want to appear like other people?

  No, no, certainly not: but—Lord God, am I such a ruffian as to merit exile?

  Oh of course I’m a sinner, vile and shameful. But, God, look at the wreck which You have let them make of me and my life. You have some purpose in it all. Oh you must have, if You are, God; and I know that You are. O God, I thank You.

  But look,—haven’t I tried and toiled and suffered? Yet You never allow me any satisfaction, any gain or reward for all my trouble. No: but You always let some shameless brigand rob me, snatching the fair fruit of my labours.

  Yes: I know how I dream of certain pleasures, certain luxuries, cleanness, whiteness, freshness, and simplicity, and the life of quiet healthful vigorous and serene well-doing, all in secret, and all unostentatious, which, when once I achieve success, I will have. I know all about that. But You know also I that never should use success in that way, if You gave it to me. Now did I ever use success for myself and not for others? No: I couldn’t endure the eternal silent wistful vision of Your Maiden-Mother.

  You know why I want freedom, power, and money—just to make a few people happy, just to put things right a bit, just to make things easy, just to straighten out tangled lives whose tangles make me rage because I myself am helpless. Is that wrong? No—I swear my aim is single and unselfish. I don’t want credit even. You well know that You made me all-denuded of the power of loving anybody, of the power of being loved by any. Self-contained, You have made me. I shall always be detached and apart from others.

  Murmur? No. I never have murmured—nor will murmur.

  Truly, though, I should like to love, to be loved: but, so long I have been alone and lonely, I suppose I must go on like that always till the end. They are frightened of me, even when they come to the very verge of loving. They are frightened because of certain labels which I frequently use to put on others: frightened lest I should fit them also some day with a label. Oh, often they have told me that they wouldn’t like me to be against them.

  I will stop that, O God, if You desire it. But, instead of it, what? I think You mean me not to waste the one talent You have given. Then, I beg of You, give me scope. I must act.

  No: I am not doing well at present—not my best. Oh, I know it, and I loathe it. All my life is a pose. Somehow or other I have taken the pose, or stolid stupids force me into the pose, of strange recondite haughty genius, very subtile, very learned, inaccessible,—everything that’s foolish. God, You know what a sham I am: how silly this is: how very little I know really. Don’t I know it too? Don’t I always tell them? Then they say that I’m modest—me—ha!—modest!

  Here’s the truth, by my One Hope of Salvation. I am frightened of all men, known and unknown; and of women I go in violent terror: though I always do say superb and hard things to the one, and all pretty gentle soft things to the other, while writing pitilessly of them both:—for I’m frightened of them, frightened; and I want to avoid them; and to keep them off me. Therefore I pose. And, therefore also, I provide an image which they can worship, like, or loathe, as it pleases, or displeases, or strikes awe—and they generally loathe it. All the time, while they manifest their feelings, I look on like a child at Punch and Judy.

  Oh, it’s wrong, very wrong, wrong altogether. But what can I do? God, tell me, clearly unmistakeably and distinctly tell me, tell me what I must do—and make me do it.”

  He got out of bed: took his rosary from his trousers’ pocket; and returned. During the fifth meditation on the Finding of The Lord in the Temple, he fell asleep.

  * * * * *

  “Dr. Courtleigh and Dr. Talacryn?” he repeated as a query, in the tone of one to whom Beelzebub and the Archangel Periel have been announced at eleven o’clock on the morning of a working day.

  “Yes,” the maid replied. “Clergymen. One is that bishop who came before.”

  “The bishop who came before! And—— What’s the other like?”

  “Oh, quite old and feeble—rather stoutish—but he’s been a fine handsome man in his day. He wears a red neck-tie under his collar.”

  “Well—J—am! . . . Thanks. I’ll be down in a minute.”

  George put his writing-board away and brushed the front of his blue linen jacket, mentally and corporeally pulling himself together.

  “Flavio, I should just like to know the meaning of this. I rather wish that I had Iulo here to back me up. If they are meditating mischief, an athletic and quarrelsome youngster, with an eye like a basilisk and a mouth full of torrential English, would be an excellent trump to play. Mischief? What nonsense! Don’t you give way to your nerves, man. Respectable epistatai do not habitually engage in mischief, as you are well aware. You have nothing to fear: so put on a mask—the superior one with a tinge of disdain in it—and brace yourself up to resist the devil; and go downstairs at once to see him flee.”

  The two visitors were in the dining-room, a confined drab and aniline room rather over-filled with indistinct but useful furniture. When George entered, they stood up—grave important men, of over forty and seventy years respectively, dark-haired and robust, white-haired and of picturesque and supercilious mien. George went straight to the younger prelate: kneeled; and kissed the episcopal ring.

  “Your Eminency will understand that I do not wish to be disrespectful,” he said to the senior, with as much quiet antipathy as could be crowded into one man’s voice: “but the Bishop of Caerleon calls himself my friend; and I am at a loss to know to what I may attribute the honour of Your Eminency’s presence, or the manner in which you will allow me to receive you.”

  “I hope, Mr. Rose, that you will accept my blessing as well as Dr. Talacryn’s,” the Cardinal-Archbishop replied in a voice where hauteur strangely struggled with timidity. He extended his hand. George instantly took it; and respectfully kneeled again, noting that this ring contained a cameo instead of the cardinalitial sapphire. Then he caused h
is guests to become seated. The atmosphere seemed to him laden with the invigorating aroma of possibilities.

  “Zmnts[1] wishes to ask you a few questions,” the young bishop began; “and he thought you would not take it amiss if I were present as your friend.”

  George shot a glance of would-be affectionate gratitude at the speaker; and turned, saying “I have been imagining Your Eminency in Rome—in the Conclave.”