‘It’s hard to stare into the dark. Very few people do it.’
‘Do you think so poorly of my mind?’
‘No.’
‘So you do encourage me?’
‘No, I mean I don’t care a fig about your mind.’
‘My mind is full of such strange trash. Jingles and - spells - I can’t explain. Do you think I’m mad?’
‘No.’
‘You said it’s not philosophy unless it makes you tremble. You are an incurable teacher. I am trembling now. Teach me.’
‘Why do you go on worrying about philosophy? It doesn’t matter.’
‘So you admit that at last, after all those dull years!’
‘I mean think your own thoughts. Why do you want to think mine?’
‘You know why. The guards in the concentration camps realized with joy that they didnt care. They had been afraid that they would care. But they found they didn’t, they were free! Isn’t that worth thinking about?’
‘You are not thinking,’ said John Robert. ‘You are simply suffering from a nervous craving of the will. Now let us close this ridiculous conversation.’
‘You don’t want it to end. You want to go on tormenting me. I am approaching the limit. It’s strange out there. Something terrible could happen.’
‘Go and buy yourself some Nazi badges.’
‘You think I’m playing at it?’
‘Yes. You’re a fake, a faux mauvais, pretending to be wicked because you’re unhappy. You’re not mad or satanic, you’re just a fool suffering from hurt vanity. You lack imagination. What made you bad at philosophy makes you bad at being bad. It’s a game. You’re a dull dog, George, an ordinary dull mediocre egoist, you will never be anything else.’
‘Don’t try me too much.’
‘You never tried to kill your wife, you dropped the Roman glass because you were drunk, you’re just a clown. Now go away unless you want me to start feeling sorry for you.’
George moved in the room. He opened the wardrobe door and looked inside and touched John Robert’s overcoat which was hanging up. He opened the door of the bathroom and looked into the steamy pit of the bath. He closed the door again. He said:
‘What’s the matter with you? Where’s all the power you used to have? You care for no one, you are alone. I doubt if you’ve ever had a woman. You had a daughter, but who was her father? You hated her and she hated you. Who’s supposed to feel sorry for whom, I wonder? You’re old and toothless and you smell. It’s the end, you’re losing your mind, it’s vanishing day by day and you haven’t anything else. You’ve seen through philosophy, you’re vindictive and drained dry, and you are alone. No one loves you, you love no one. Isn’t all that true?’
‘Just shut up, please, and go.’
‘Don’t you care what I think about you?’
‘As far as I’m concerned you don’t exist.’
‘I existed for you once. When did I cease to exist and why? Tell me, I’ve got to know.’
‘This is a pseudo question. You remember enough philosophy to know what that is. Ask, why is the question posed? Only ask yourself, not me.’
‘Have you no advice for me?’
‘Yes, stop drinking.’
‘John Robert, I know I was very rude to you in California, and I’ve been rude to you today, I know I haven’t been what I ought to be - Christ, now I’m crawling again - but you’ve banished me long enough and punished me long enough, let it be over now.’
‘These emotive words imply a state of affairs which simply does not exist between us. Nothing exists between us.’
‘You say you think I’m — ’
‘Oh never mind what I said! I don’t think anything about you. There isn’t any structure here for communication.’
‘There is structure! How can you deny it? There is! We are human beings! You taught me philosophy and I love you.’
‘George, listen, you want me to be angry with you and even to hate you, but I can’t. Take this as a kind word and please go.’
‘Oh damn you, damn you, damn you!’
‘Get out!’ said John Robert. He stood up.
The loud hum of the sealed-off water had covered the sound of Father Bernard knocking timidly on the door. He knocked twice and then entered. He saw, and at once partly understood, the end of George’s battle with Rozanov.
Rozanov said again, but quietly, ‘Get out, go.’
George was wearing a black mackintosh, like his alter ego. The collar was still turned up as it had been when, coming in out of the slight rain, he had arrived. His uncombed hair was standing jaggedly up on end, his untidy open shirt collar and dirty vest were visible at the neck of his mackintosh. He stood, his hands in his pockets, looking with burning eyes towards the philosopher who had risen, hunched and glaring, like a huge cruel-beaked bird behind the desk.
Father Bernard had been peacefully meditating to the sound of Scott Joplin when Rozanov’s letter had arrived that morning, simply summoning him to the Rooms. None too soon for the priest had the letter come, for he had heard nothing from Rozanov since their conversational walk upon the Common. A yearning had come upon Father Bernard, a need, an obsessive desire to be with the philosopher again, to be in his presence; and with this a fear that Rozanov had, after their conversation, found him wanting in the qualities necessary for a chosen companion. Father Bernard had thought of writing to Rozanov, but after being told to wait till he was summoned, did not yet dare to. He had composed many letters in his mind, some of them polemical.
Now, seeing George in defeat, so evidently rejected, and intuiting the appeal which must have been made to so ambiguous a power, Father Bernard felt himself in danger. But he recognized too a ‘high moment’, a moment of grace such as sometimes came upon him quite suddenly, and he felt elation. He hesitated only a moment before going forward and kissing George upon the cheek. It was an odd action. It was some time since the priest had kissed anybody. Hand-holding was different.
George was evidently startled, as if unaware whether he had received a kiss or a light slap. He stepped back. Then with vague eyes and without looking the priest in the face, he circled round him and went out of the door, leaving it open. Father Bernard closed the door.
John Robert was annoyed. He was annoyed with himself, with George, and now with Father Bernard. He took the kiss as an affront to himself, even a criticism, certainly an intrusion, the striking of a deliberate false note. The incident filled him with disgust. He was cross with himself for having at the end, and possibly in a muted way earlier in the conversation, exhibited emotion. He was not as indifferent as he had feigned to be to some of George’s taunts. He found hurt feelings of that kind extremely unbecoming. He was annoyed now because he thought that Father Bernard, who stood with downcast gaze, had already intuited his whole complex of feelings.
John Robert sat down noisily, fiddling with his books and papers, and motioned the priest to a seat. The priest put two of the sofa cushions on the chintz chair and sat down, looking now at John Robert with his glowing brown eyes which could not help admitting understanding and asking for pardon.
‘I’m sorry,’ Father Bernard actually said.
‘What for?’
‘Oh - interrupting.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said John Robert. He seemed to be at a loss.
Father Bernard, his high moment still upon him, said, ‘You could help George so much. Just a little gentleness. You have so much power.’
‘Are you telling me what to do?’
‘Yes.’
‘I asked you not to speak of him.’
‘Forgive me. I would not have done so without — ’
‘Without the impression you have just received.’
‘Precisely.’
‘And what is that impression?’