He reached for the glass that was on its side on the floor. Then he sat up and pointed to a bottle of wine that was on a table behind him. He held out the glass. I took the bottle and poured out some wine. He drank.
I said 'Have you been to Russia?'
He said 'Why, are you a policeman?'
I said 'No, but I'd like to go there.'
He said 'You know how one loves policemen!'
I moved off round the room again. On the shelves there was a set of books bound in black leather which had no titles nor lettering on the spines. I wondered — They are pornography?
I said 'Do you have contacts in Russia?'
He said 'Oh do say you are policeman!' Then — 'You're not allowed to ask a direct question.'
I came and stood by his chaise-longue again. I looked down. I thought — I am trying to find out what is his interest in Communism: he is trying to find out whether or not I am homosexual.
There was no formal Communist organisation in Cambridge at this time: the first Communist cell was set up in 1931. But I had become interested in Communism when I had been in Germany: I had talked about it with you, my beautiful German girl. You had told me something of your early life; of your mother. Of course, I had wanted to know more.
On the other hand there was an age-old and now quite open tradition of homosexuality at Cambridge. In fact it was so unfashionable not to be homosexual that people were apt to pretend
to be homosexual when they were not. I had already gathered, of course, that Melvyn was homosexual.
I sat down on the edge of Melvyn's chaise-longue. I said 'Can I have a drink?'
He said 'You come in here — you break into my room — '
I said 'You like that, do you?'
He said 'You prima donna you.'
I poured some wine into another glass. I thought — He is one of those people who like going down to the East End of London and getting themselves beaten up?
Then — This would not mean that he could not be a Communist.
I said 'I guessed The Death of Nelson. That means I can ask you a direct question.'
He said 'What do you want to ask?'
I said 'Are you a Communist?'
He said 'You think people tell the truth when they're asked a direct question?'
I said 'No. But you won't answer. And you have the stuff about Lenin on your walls.'
In the days that followed I saw quite a lot of Melvyn. In the evenings I would go for a drink in his room and enter into the game of Let-us-talk-wittily-in-riddles-because-then-we-need-never-feel-committed-to-whatever-has-been-said. But then I would remember — Did not we, you and I, say something about truth landing up in riddles?
Melvyn was such an obvious type of stage deviclass="underline" his charm was that of Mephistopheles; he played tricks with words because the only value he recognised was that of manipulation.
I would try to remember — What was it that those beautiful earnest Germans were saying about Mephistopheles and Faust? That they are manifestations of the same person? That it is in a decadent world that dark forces get split off from a person and are put into the hands of others?
— In a healthy world one would see that they are in the hands of oneself?
Melvyn did from time to time seem to talk seriously about this interest in Communism and Marxism, but still as if he were an actor performing a serious part. An actor conventionally uses his skill so that an audience will not ask questions about reality: I thought — But we, you and I, would always want to ask questions about reality.
Melvyn would say — 'But it is quite simple. There are a few people getting big money for doing almost no work. There are many people getting almost no money for doing very hard work. It is obviously in the interests of the majority therefore to introduce a system in which people are paid for the value of their work.'
I would say 'Why?*
He would say 'Why what?'
I would say 'Do you think people are interested in choosing what would rationally be to their advantage?'
He would say 'All right, irrationality indeed has hitherto been prevalent in primitive societies — *
'But now it need not be — '
'No.'
'What if the need to have a hard time is built into human nature?'
'There is no such thing as human nature. Human beings are conditioned by the nature of their work: their system of work is not conditioned by human nature.'
'Then what about you?'
'What about me?'
'Do you think everything you do is rational?'
'Don't flatter yourself, ducky, that it is in my interest that you should give me a hard time.'
Sometimes when Melvyn was bored with the company he was in, or was drunk, he would let the conversation roll along seriously for a time and then would drag it away like one of those birds pretending to trail a broken wing so that predators should not find its nest.
He would say 'Did you know Stalin was a woman?'
Someone would say 'No.'
Then he would say something like 'At the fifteenth Party Congress, when Trotsky went to have a pee, he noticed that Stalin was in the Ladies.'
I would try to think of something to say like 'Perhaps Stalin wanted a shit.'
Melvyn would say 'Oh very good, ducky, you're learning.'
I thought — But what exactly is Melvyn's nest from which he wants such conversations to be diverted?
Then there was one evening towards the end of the first term when we were on our own and Melvyn was drunk; he had spent two days in London. He did not talk to me about what he did in
London. I would think — He has got himself tied up by guardsmen? He has been making contact with his political friends?
He said 'I want to tell you that there is nothing more disgusting than innocence, ducky.'
I said 'Who is innocent?'
He said 'You and Trotsky.'
This was shortly after the time when Trotsky had been banished by Stalin from Russia and was being blamed for most of the things that were going wrong in that country. It was only just being admitted by Communists that there was anything wrong in Russia, and there had to be a scapegoat.
I said 'Why is it innocent to talk about the millions that seem to be starving in Russia?'
He said 'I hope you are not one of those people who are starry-eyed about Russia. They have only had a year or two of their five-year plan, after all. Industrial production is up three hundred percent, electrification four hundred percent, agriculture and consumer goods — well, don't be taken in by that, they're not all starving.'
I said 'But what exactly are you saying?'
He said 'What exactly am I saying! That is what I call innocence! That is what I am saying!'
I said 'They're putting the blame on to Trotsky because they know the five-year plan is going to fail.'
Melvyn said 'Of course the five-year plan is going to fail! What on earth would happen if it succeeded: have you thought of that? You think you can transform a society by a five-year plan succeeding? You can't. It has to fail. Then people can be blamed, yes: people in Russia have to be disciplined. They have to be made to be afraid. How do you think people could be made to change if the five-year plan succeeded?'
I said 'You mean, Stalin is trying to transform human nature by making people afraid?'
'In order that there will be a society in which people need not be afraid.'
'You think you can eliminate fear by making people afraid?'
'History's not so innocent as you, ducky.'
'I don't think history's innocent.'
'Good for you.'
'You think people in Russia know what they're doing?'
'Doing what — '
144
They know that they want the five-year plan to fail?'
'Who's said anything about the five-year plan going to fail? I've not said anything about a five-year plan going to fail!*
I said 'I see.'