This book has been in some way the story of my life. But it has also been, I hope, an honest tale, a simple love story. And I would not wish it to seem at the end that I have, in my own sequestered happiness, somehow forgotten the real being of those who have figured as my characters. I will mention two. Priscilla. May I never in my thought knit up the precise and random detail of her wretchedness so as to forget that her death was not a necessity. And Julian. I do not, my darling girl, however passionately and intensely my thought has worked upon your being, really imagine that I invented you. Eternally you escape my embrace. Art cannot assimilate you nor thought digest you. I do not now know, or want to know, anything about your life. For me, you have gone into the dark. Yet elsewhere I realize, and I meditate upon this knowledge, that you laugh, you cry, you read books and cook meals and yawn and lie perhaps in someone's arms. This knowledge too may I never deny, and may I never forget how in the humble hard time-ridden reality of my life I loved you. That love remains, Julian, not diminished though changing, a love with a very clear and a very faithful memory. It causes me on the whole remarkably little pain. Only sometimes at night when I think that you live now and are somewhere, I shed tears.
Postscripts By Dramatis Personae
Christian Hartbourne
FRANCIS
It is my pleasure and privilege to add a critical epilogue to this unusual «autobiography.» I do so gladly as homage to my old friend, still languishing in «durance vile,» and I do so dutifully as a service to the cause of science. This remarkable piece of self-analysis from a talented pen deserves a thoroughly detailed commentary, for which, the publisher tells me, there is unfortunately no space in this volume. I intend however to publish in due course a lengthy book, upon which I have now been at work for some time, about the case of Bradley Pearson, and in this work the «autobiography,» a prime piece of evidence in this cause celebre, will of course be fully treated. What follows here is merely a digest of a few concise points.
It is also of course clear from the most casual scrutiny that our subject is homosexual. He has the typical narcissism of the breed. (Consider his description of himself at the beginning of the tale.) His masochism (of which more below), his eager professions of virility, his confessed lack of identity, his attitude (already mentioned) to women, the evidence of his parental relationship patterns, all these point in the same direction. And indeed his rather surprising «unconvincingness» at the trial may be laid at the same door. He did not believe in himself and so could hardly expect the judge and jury to lend him credence. Bradley Pearson connected this absence of any sense of self with his mode of existence as an artist. But here, as so many of the uninstructed, he mistook cause and symptom. Most artists are homosexual. This tender appreciative tribe, bereft of sturdy self-assertion as either man or woman, is best enabled thus to body forth the world and give it houseroom in their souls.
That «Bradley Pearson's Story» is the tale of a man in love with a woman need cause little embarrassment to our theory. Bradley himself gives us all the clues that we are in need of. When he first (in the story) catches sight of his young lady he mistakes her for a boy. He falls in love with her when he imagines her as a man. He achieves sexual intercourse with her when she has dressed up as a prince. (And who incidentally is Bradley Pearson's favourite author? The greatest homosexual of them all. What sends Bradley Pearson's fantasy soaring as high as the Post Office Tower? The idea of boys pretending to be girls pretending to be boys!) Further: who in reality is this girl? (Father-fixated of course and taking Bradley as a father-substitute, no mystery there.) The daughter of Bradley's protege, rival, idol, gadfly, friend, enemy, alter ego, Arnold Baffin. Science proclaims that this cannot be the work of accident. And science is right.
When I say that Bradley Pearson was in love with Arnold Baffin I would not be understood to be making any crude statement. We are dealing with the psychology of a complicated and refined son. Bradley's more simple, more human, affection bore perhaps upon another object. But Arnold symbolized the focus of passion and the goal of love to this unfortunate self-darkened victim. It was Arnold whom he loved and Arnold whom he hated, Arnold his own distorted image in the stream over which Narcissus leans eternally anxious, eternally enraptured. He admits, significant word, that there is something «demonic» in Arnold and also in himself. The «character» of Arnold is in a literary sense markedly «weak,» as any critic would point out. Why indeed is the whole story oddly «unconvincing» as if it were somehow hollow? Why do we feel that something is missing from it? Because Bradley does not «come clean.» He often says that he is attached to Arnold or that he is envious of Arnold or that he is obsessed by Arnold, but he does not, he dare not, body these feelings forth in the narrative. And because of this omission the tale, which should feel very hot, feels in fact very cold.
This classical misplacement is not however the chief item of interest. The case is interesting mainly because Bradley Pearson is an artist and because, before our very eyes, he is ingeniously (and often disingenuously) reflecting about his art. As he says, the psyche desperate for its survival invents deep things. That he often does not realize the significance of his reflections can make his work, with suitable expert exposition, yet more fascinating and instructive to us. That Bradley is a masochist is here a banality of criticism. (That all artists are is a further truism.) How readily recognizable to the expert eye is obsession in literature! Even the greatest cannot cover their tracks, conceal their little vices, altogether moderate the note of glee! For this the artist labours, to get this scene in, to savour this secret symbol of his secret love. But let him be never so cunning, he cannot evade the eye of science. (This is one reason why artists always fear and denigrate scientists.) Bradley is cunning, particularly in his misleading celebration of a simple heterosexual subject, but how can we not notice that what he really enjoys is being discomfited by Arnold Baffin?
Of greater interest, as psychology if not as literature, is Bradley's more poetic and more conscious embroidery upon his own theme. The mysterious title of the book, ambiguous in I cannot readily say how many senses, is, though somewhat obscurely, «explained» for us by its author. Bradley speaks of «the black Eros.» He also mentions some yet more arcane source of inspiration. What he means, taken at its face value, may be highly significant or may be pretentious rubbish. There can be no doubt however of the psychological «weight» of such a conception. It is surely more natural for a man to picture the force of love as a woman, and for a woman to picture it as a man. (It is true that both Eros and Aphrodite are the inventions of men, but it is important that the former is the child of the latter.) Yet Bradley shamelessly delights in the conception of the huge black bully (like an enormous blackamoor) who has, as he conceives it, come to discipline his life, as artist and as man. Moreover (and what do we need more to complete our theory?) should we wish to enquire further concerning the identity of this monster we have only to consider the two initial letters of his name. (Black Prince. Bradley Pearson.) As for the alleged Mr. Loxias, he too is soon seen to be our friend in a thin disguise. There is even a marked similarity of literary style. The narcissism of the deviant eats up all other characters and will tolerate only one: himself. Bradley invents Mr. Loxias so as to present himself to the world with a flourish of alleged objectivity. He says of P. Loxias, «I could have invented him.» In fact he did!