The Nazi boys were getting restless; perhaps this was because the whole business of politics, let alone conventional feeling, was being treated with contempt: who cares about the storming of newspaper buildings! who cares about one's girl being made pregnant by a war profiteer! The girl and her ex-lover bumped into each other again. One of the Nazi boys put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. Then the girl and her ex-lover turned and looked at him: it was as if now they might be seeing what was happening not on a stage. The girl and her ex-lover had seemed at last to be about to go off together hand in hand: what they were looking for, they said, was a bed. Almost the last line in the play was 'Now comes bed! The great, white, wide, bed!' I thought — You mean, you and I, we should simply have gone to bed? Then — This is the code: what is the message?
This was the end of the play: people in the audience were standing
and shaking their fists; they were booing and whistling; several had advanced to the edge of the platform of the stage. They saw indeed that they had been treated with contempt. The cast — except for the girl and her old lover who had by now gone offhand-in-hand — had come on to the stage as if to take their bow: now they acted as if they had noticed the audience for the first time — it was just the girl and her lover who had previously looked amongst the audience. The cast reacted as if, yes, the audience might indeed be a crowd storming the castle or a newspaper building — well were they acting or were they not? Or was what was now going on on a different level off-stage. The light in one of the windows high up in the fagade at the back of the stage suddenly came on: framed in the window there could be seen the girl and her lover who were facing each other with their hands on each other's shoulders; they were looking at each other tenderly: well might they be on their way to bed! People in the audience, looking up, were quiet for a moment; then this vision seemed to enrage them further. The other members of the cast were backing towards a drawbridge that was across a gap between the back of the stage and the facade; they were acting (or not) as if they were fighting a rearguard action; the mob, the audience, were beginning to climb on to the stage. I thought — Well, might it not be part of an actor's expertise to produce what is real? But to what end? A large number of the audience were now on the stage; the actors had withdrawn behind the drawbridge and were pulling it up: they were shaking their fists at the audience: I thought — Well perhaps to show things as ridiculous is real.
The audience who had arrived at the gap at the back of the stage were again looking up; the girl and her lover had moved away from one window and had appeared at another: they had half undressed: they seemed to have got even nearer to bed. The other members of the cast now appeared at windows and on balconies in the faqade and began to throw down on the audience, or act as if they were throwing down — what? — arrows? boiling oil? It seemed just pieces of screwed-up paper. But no one was laughing. Franz and Minna and the Nazi boys had moved up towards the stage. I had stayed behind on the grass in the courtyard.
You know those memory theatres of the seventeenth century in which people used to act dramas to help them to try to remember what they might be about — it was difficult to remember at a time when there were so few written stories. Well, it is always difficult, perhaps, to know what one is about even when everything seems
to be happening all at once; but there seemed to be something here showing this; even if it was to do just with what turns up. You said 'Hullo.' I said 'Hullo.' I mean there you were, yes, in the courtyard, having come up beside me. I said 'I thought you had gone.' You said 'But I came back.' I thought I might say — Why? But it was as if we were the man and the girl who had come across each other again outside a newspaper building. I said 'Wasn't the play wonderful?' You said 'Yes.' You had taken me by the arm. We were standing watching the facade of the castle which was like the backdrop to a theatre. You said 'This is what you meant by what you are talking about also happening?' I said 'Yes.' I thought — And you have turned up. Then — But this is what we can't talk about: so what happens now? You said 'Shall we go?' I said 'Yes, let's.' We turned to go out of the courtyard. There was all the violence behind us on the stage. You said 'I wonder if we should just go to bed.' I said 'Oh we will sometime.' You said 'Yes.' We were going out of the castle: there was the path up into the hills; there was a path down to the village. You said 'As a matter of fact, I still do have to catch a train, but I thought it vital to see you just one more time.' I said 'Yes, I do think it is vital to know that I could see you one more time.' You said 'But it is all right now?' I said 'Yes, it is.all right now.' You said 'I have missed one or two trains.' I said 'You can catch one now.'
We had begun to walk round the outside wall of the castle towards the village. We stopped underneath a wall at the side of the castle: we were somewhere beside, or at the back of, the restored fagade where there were the actors besieged by the crowd; where there was the noise of banging and shouting. I thought — Oh it is the noise of people besieged in their own heads! I leaned with my back against a wall and you began kissing me. I thought — We will not stay with each other; we will not be apart; we will balance the world on its tightrope. There was an opening slightly above us in the wall of the castle; it was some sort of window; figures had appeared at it; they were leaning out. I thought — They are going to throw down confetti? rose-leaves? bags of flour? A voice said 'I wonder if you two could possibly be of some assistance?' We looked up. There was a man and woman leaning out of the window: they were wearing dressing-gowns. I thought — They are actors? Not-actors? They are gods looking down? You or I said 'What?' The man said 'There is someone in here who has been injured by a brick; also there is a child who has to catch a train.' I thought — There is
someone who has been injured and — . Then — This is ridiculous. The woman said 'I wonder if you could possibly take the child, and call for a doctor in the village.' I said 'I am a medical student, perhaps I can help.' The woman said 'Perhaps you can.' You said 'And as a matter of fact I am going to the station so I can take the child.' Then — 'I know this sounds ridiculous.' The man said 'That would be very kind.' I thought — Oh well, if the world is on a tightrope, things might be likely to have to turn up. I said 'How can I get in?' The man said 'We can pull you up.' The woman said 'And we can lower the child.' You said 'Abracadabra.' I thought — Oh but one day we will be used to it. Then — But didn't we think we wouldn't have a child? The man and woman had turned from the window: they reappeared with a girl of about eight or nine. The woman said 'Can you catch her?' You said 'Yes.' The girl wore a tartan skirt and long white socks. I said 'And where is the person who has been wounded?' The man said 'He is inside.' I thought — But hurry, we must hurry: it is everything making sense that is not bearable! The child was being lowered into your arms. The woman said 'She's got her fare and she knows which train to go on.' I thought — Oh of course. I raised my arms for the man and the woman to lift me up to the window. You said 'Goodbye.' I said 'Goodbye then.' You said 'Goodbye.' Then — 'This is quite like an opera.' I said 'It is not like an opera.' You said 'Oh no, it is not like an opera.' The man and the woman were pulling me so that I could get in at the window. I said 'I'll see you then.' You said 'I'll see you.' When I looked in at the window there was a dark vaulted room with a body lying on a bed: when I looked down at you, you were standing on the pathway holding the hand of the good-looking child. I thought — We have known each other a day, we have not even been to bed, and we seem to have a child.
You are right that at Cambridge we had not previously paid much attention to politics, though I remember the General Strike of 1926, which occurred during my last year at day-school. We boys were lined up and marched off in military fashion to a train which took us to help unload ships in the docks at Harwich. We took this incursion into politics as a holiday away from schooclass="underline" I think most middle- and upper-class people took the General Strike as the chance for a holiday away from school — what fun to be a docker or an engine-driver for a few days away from the ghastly restraints imposed on the middle and upper classes! At Harwich there were cranes and trolleys like huge toys; we larked about; we thought — So this is the grown-up world! At the far end of the quay a group of dockers came to watch us.