Eight or ten men were dining at the top of the table, two of whom I knew well—Darrell Fergus and Erskine Singleton.
Directly I appeared, there were shouts of “Here he is!” Then several men exclaimed:
“Give us the story, Max!” But Fergus silenced them by exclaiming:
“Let the man eat! Let him eat, damn it! If he can find anything. Don’t have the vegetable pie, Max. It’s a hara-kiri disguised.”
I sat opposite Fergus and, while I looked at the menu, separate conversations flickered up, but Singleton and Fergus joined in none of them.
Fergus was about forty-five, half-Irish, and would have been a success if he had had fewer gifts. He had failed brilliantly in many fields and, recently, had become “opposite to humanity,” consequently he antagonised many influential people, with the result that he now drifted from one job to the next in almost endless succession. Fergus was sensitive as a seismograph to the convulsions of the demented modern world and lived therefore in a state of perpetual agitation. Every few months he had a solitary drinking bout, from which he emerged looking like a man just returned from a long and a terrible journey. Several of the writers and journalists at the table had a superficial cynicism, derived from too much knowledge of a racket-ridden world, but Fergus was not of them. He knew that he, like most critics of current conditions, was only the disease diagnosing itself—and he rebelled impotently against that knowledge.
It was a ravaged face. All the features, except the eyes, had surrendered unconditionally long ago—but the eyes still waged guerrilla warfare. Everything about him revealed the havoc wrought by endless interior conflict. Fergus was a battlefield and looked like one. Very different from the statuesque Singleton with his fine head; prominent “waxen” features; and dark intelligent eyes. Any one could detect the internecine strife in Fergus: no one could guess what was happening behind Singleton’s immaculate exterior.
“Before you came, Max, these——” Fergus broke off, swept his companions with a comprehensive glance, then went on: “These choice and master spirits were talking about the general disillusionment which has set in now that peace threatens luckless humanity. Hodgson says it’s caused by the discovery that the Atlantic Charter was only a moral hiccup. Carter says it’s caused by the fact that Tory ministers profess enthusiasm for policies to which they are secretly opposed—with the result that they sound about as convincing as a man making love to a woman he loathes. And, Sanders—who, as you know, brandishes the Torch of Freedom in the Daily Wire—Sanders says disillusionment is caused by the fact that people have discovered that they have not fought to end power politics, but to inaugurate total power politics. Whereas Grimes, the noblest Roman of them all, and the least expensive, asserts that people have discovered that England is going to become either a Soviet suburb—or go on the pay-roll of the United States and become a remittance nation. Of course, every one of these supermen stole their remarks from someone else—and not a single one of them cares a single damn what happens to humanity, so long as he is all right. That’s the conversational set-up, Max, and now buy me a drink for the love of God and all his angels.”
I bought him a drink, then he said:
“I’m going to ask you a question which I ask everyone. What do you think reveals the state of the modern world more clearly than anything else?”
“I’ll soon tell you that,” I replied, “because I thought it out some time ago. Nothing reveals the state of the modern world more clearly than the facts that, during the last twenty years, the word sadism has entered everyday speech—and the word remorse has become obsolete.”
Conversation became general. All sorts of guesses and theories about the state of the world shot up like fireworks. Inevitably, references to the war were frequent—and at last Fergus exclaimed in a voice rasping with irritability:
“The war! The war! Are you really so dumb as to think this is one war? There have been about eight. First, we fought for Poland, Every one’s forgotten that years ago. Except the Poles. Then we nearly fought for gallant little Finland. We ordered fifty sheepskin coats. Remember? Then we fought to stop Germany dominating Europe. Then France fell—and we fought for naked survival. England was aflame—and the world watched.”
Fergus turned to Singleton.
“That’s true, isn’t it?”
“Perfectly true,” Singleton replied in a clear incisive tone. “The issue was clear—then.”
“After that, we fought to make the world Shaef for democracy. That was a happy time. Then we discovered that we were fighting for the nightmare of nightmares—an all-powerful Russia. So then we fought for zones of influence. Not so hot! Then we decided that we were fighting for democracy—and hoped to God that Russia’s definition of that celebrated word was the same as ours. Then we remembered that we’d never defined it. And now we are fighting to make half the world safe for Totalitarianism—and the other half safe for Black Markets.”
The man next to me rose, picked up his bill, then said:
“You’re a romantic, Fergus. This war is being fought because Germany menaced the established financial system. She didn’t let lack of bankers’ money stop development when men and materials were available. The state created credit, not the banks—barter was introduced—and so on. Germany challenged Money Power. That’s why she is going to be destroyed.”
All sorts of arguments developed, but eventually Fergus dominated the table.
“Talk till you’re black! You won’t alter the fact that everyone is scared stiff of the future. That’s new. You remember, Max, that about three years ago people were saying that a new Elizabethan age was coming?”
“Of course I remember! A new Elizabethan age was coming—with Noel Coward for Shakespeare.”
Discussion roved from one subject to another, but I ceased to listen. It seemed strange to be with these men in this darkened war-damaged room. Now and again a man called for his bill, then went towards the door, instantly becoming a shadow among shadows: sometimes a newcomer entered, emerging from obscurity like an apparition. Not a sound had come from the snow-covered street. Then, suddenly, from the far distance, came a complicated reverberating roar.
“Well!” Fergus exclaimed, “why d’you stop talking? That’s only a V 2. And V 2’s are confetti compared with what’s coming.”
He looked round—like a man half-afraid of seeing a ghost—then shouted to the waiter for a drink.
Some minutes later he leaned forward and said to two men down the table:
“You’re talking about planning. But tell me this: Have you ever met the planners? I’ve interviewed ’em. Now, for real inhumanity—for unbelievable vanity—for absolute swine to their subordinates—give me the planners! There’s a prize bunch of bastards for you! Anyhow, anyhow, the only thing you can plan satisfactorily is a cemetery—because the dead don’t move.”
He turned to me, then said, as if we were alone:
“We’re brothers, Max. Brothers! The only difference between us is that you took the high road, and I took the low, but I’ll be in—shall we say, Scotland?—afore ’ee. You don’t say much, do you? Not much. Not about the war—or anything else.”
“What’s the good of talking about the war? Something utterly outside any one’s guess is happening to humanity. The war is an incident—a tiny incident, in something too tremendous to conceive.”
Then—although I did my utmost not to speak another word—I heard myself say:
“But there’s one thing. And it’s this. The psychic atmosphere is so pestilential—so super-charged with hatred, lust, fear, greed, and the stink of blood—that it’s damned nearly impossible to think a decent thought or do a decent act. And now, for Christ’s sake, leave me alone! I’ve had enough of it all! More than enough!”