Since the nights in the hospital room, when I saw one moment transformed into another, so that one’s feelings were astonishing, and often self-ridiculing, as they created themselves afresh, I hadn’t been certain when I could say – I shall not feel like that again.
Watching my son, I had revived much that I had thought long dead. And even when one came to the last hard core of feeling – interests worn out, both kinds of love (so far as one could believe it) now slackened – when one came to confront oneself alone, then still there was a flux of energy, of transformation, yes tantalisingly an inadmissible hope, getting in the way. I had thought, in some of the crises of my life, that if all went wrong, I should be finally, and once for all, alone. Now I knew that that was one of the shapes and sounds with which we deceived ourselves, giving our life a statuesqueness, perhaps a certain kind of dignity, that it couldn’t in fact possess. In the hospital room I had been as nearly alone as I could get. I had imagined, and spoken of, what it would be like, but what I had imagined was nothing like the here and now, the continuous creation, the thrust of looking for the next moment which belonged to oneself and spread beyond the limits of oneself. When one is as alone as one can get, there’s still no end.
The only end, maybe, was in the obituary notices: that might be an end for those who read them, but not for oneself, who didn’t know.
Whether one liked it or not, one was propelled by a process of renewal, or hope, or will, that wasn’t in the strictest sense one’s own. That was as true, so far as I could judge first-hand, for the old as well as the young. It was as true of me as it was for Charles. Whether it was true of extreme old age I couldn’t telclass="underline" but my guess was, that this particular repository of self, this ‘I’ which felt and spoke for each of us, lived in a dimension of its own.
Whether this was a consolatory thought, I couldn’t answer to myself. It was, I thought, more humbling than otherwise. It took the edge off some kinds of suffering. It took the edge also off some kinds of conceit. But yet one had to think it – and this perhaps was a consolation or even a fighting shout – because one was alive.
Through the cloud-shielded afternoon, I began to walk back the way which we had come. It was a familiar way home, the last mile in each air journey, as it had been for Margaret and me, returning from holiday, the week before her father’s attempt to kill himself. Bridge over the Serpentine, trees dense beyond: I was walking, not thinking to myself, not acting like a camera, in something like the image-drifting stupor which came before one went to sleep. I wasn’t thinking of other homecomings to that house: or to any others (some forgotten, one didn’t remember in biographical terms) to which, once known as home, I had returned.
From the park I could see our windows, no lights inside, no sun to burnish them. There was no one at home. I didn’t feel any of the anxiety that had afflicted Margaret and me at other homecomings: and which I had been possessed by, without understanding, as a child running home along the road from the parish church. For that evening, all was peace.
It was certain that, in days soon to come, I should go home, those feelings flooding back, as alive as ever in the past, as I thought of cables or telephone calls. As alive as ever in the past. That was the price of the ‘I’ which would not die.
But I had lived with that so long. I had lived with much else too, and now I could recognise it. This wasn’t an end: though, if I had thought so, looking at the house, I should have needed to propitiate fate, remembering so many others’ luck, Francis Getliffe’s and the rest, and the comparison with mine. I had lived with much else that I would have had, and begged to have again. That night would be a happy one. This wasn’t an end.
(Who would dare to look in the mirror of his future?)
There would be other nights when I should go to sleep, looking forward to tomorrow.
Announcements
1964–8
(From The Times (London), unless otherwise stated)
ELIOT On June 14, 1964, Herbert Edward Eliot, father of Lewis and Martin, aged 89.[1]
OSBALDISTON On March 16, 1965, Mary, beloved wife of Douglas Osbaldiston. No flowers, no letters.
Death of English resident George Passant of England died yesterday, July 26 (1965), at the house of Froken Jenssen, 15 Bromsagatan, aged 65.[2]
GEARY On August 7, 1965, Denis Alexander, beloved husband of Alison and dearly loved father of Jeremy and Nicolette, aged 51.[3]
DAVIDSON On January 20, 1966, Austin Sedgwick Davidson, Litt D, FBA, dearly loved father of Helen and Margaret, aged 77. Cremation private.
EDGEWORTH On June 22, 1966, in University College Hospital, after much suffering gallantly borne, Algernon Frederick Gascoyne St John Seymour (Sammikins), 14th Earl of Edgeworth, DSO, MC, much loved brother of Caroline, aged 45. Funeral St James’s Church, Houghton, 2.00 p.m. June 26. Memorial Service, Guards Chapel, July 10, noon.
ROYCE On February 7, 1967, at the Crescent Nursing Home, Hove, Lady Muriel Royce, widow of Dr Vernon Royce, mother of Joan Marshall, aged 86.
SCHIFF On September 15, 1967, victim of an accident, David, beloved and adored son of his heartbroken parents, Azik and Rosalind, Lord and Lady Schiff, aged 12 years 11 months. Funeral, Central Synagogue, 11.00 a.m. September 18.
COOKE On May 22, 1968, suddenly, Gilbert Alexander, CMG, husband of Elizabeth, aged 59.
GETLIFFE On May 27, 1968, after a long illness, at his home in Cambridge, Francis Ernest, Lord Getliffe, FRS, adored husband of Katherine and dearly loved father of Leonard, Ruth, Peter, and Penelope, aged 64. Funeral private.
Died[4] Lord (Francis) Getliffe, 64. British physicist, who was one of his country’s leading figures in radar and operational research in World War II: of lung cancer. US Medal of Merit. Adopted controversial stance over atomic warfare. Temporary difficulty (McCarthy era) over US passport, roused protests from leading US scientists. Was due to receive honorary degree, Yale commencement, on day of death.
ELIOT–CALVERT On 12 July, 1964, at St Peter’s, Eaton Square, Lewis Gregory (Pat) Eliot, son of Dr and Mrs M F Eliot, to Muriel, daughter of Mrs Azik Schiff and the late Roy Clement Edward Calvert.
ROSE–SIMPSON On November 12, 1964, in London, Sir Hector Rose, GCB, KBE, to Jane Barbara Simpson.
OSBALDISTON-HARDISTY On December 6, 1965, Sir Douglas Osbaldiston, KCB, to Stella Hardisty, daughter of Mr and Mrs Ernest Hardisty, 526 Upper Richmond Road, Putney.
MRS PENELOPE ALTSCHULER to wed DR HIMMELFARB[5] Mrs Penelope Altschuler, daughter of Lord and Lady Getliffe, of Cambridge (England), announces her engagement to Dr David Ascoli Himmelfarb, son of Dr Isaac Himmelfarb and the late Rachael Himmelfarb, of Cleveland, Ohio. Both Mrs Altschuler and Dr Himmelfarb have had previous marriages.
ELIOT–SHAW On January 4, 1967, quietly, Pat Eliot to Victoria Shaw.
HOLLIS-DOBSON[6] In London, at St Mary-the-Virgin, Bayswater, Maurice Austin Hollis, to Diana, daughter of Mr and Mrs Thomas Dobson, of 16 Inkerman Road, Salford.
GETLIFFE-MACDONELL On February 17, 1968, in Trinity College Chapel, Professor the Hon. Leonard Horace Getliffe, FRS, elder son of Professor Lord Getliffe, FRS, and Lady Getliffe, and Pauline, daughter of Professor and Mrs Macdonell, of 66 Madingly Road, Cambridge.