The Dark Labyrinth (10 page)

They walked in silence for a quarter of a mile along the deserted Embankment, their footsteps sounding hollow in the crisp night air.

“And yet,” pursued Hogarth, “I think I see also symptoms of a purely metaphysical disturbance going on too; you are not alone, you know, in anything except the fact that it has chosen a single incident from your own life to illustrate what is common to the whole of your generation. I tell you everywhere the young men are sleeping with the night-light burning. You ask me about Böcklin and I say this is less interesting than that other feeling which you have been telling me about—what the old Abbot called ‘pins and needles of the soul' and Böcklin himself called ‘
Gleichgultigkeit
'. It seems to me that this sharpening of focus, this aridity of feeling, this sense of inner frustration, must be leading to a kind of inner growth at the end of which lies mystical experience. Now you are laughing at me again.” He placed his pork-pie hat firmly on his head and walked a few steps in silence. “It seems to me that when you have exhausted
action
(which is always destructive) and people and the material things, there comes a great empty gap. That is what you have reached—the great hurdle which stands on this side of the real joyous life of the inside self. Then comes illumination—dear, oh dear. I know it sounds nonsense, but it's the poverty of language that is at fault. What do you think the medical term for William Blake would be? A euphoric? A hysterical pycnik? It's too absurd. The next few years will be a crisis not only for you but your generation too. You are approaching spiritual puberty—the world is. It is hard going I know—but there is always worse ahead, I have found. Yet there is a merciful law by which nothing heavier than you can bear is ever put upon you. Remember it! It is not the burden which causes you pain—the burden of excessive sensibility—but the degree of your refusal to accept responsibility for it. That sets up a stress and conflict. It sounds balls, doesn't it? Well, so does St. John of the Cross, I suppose.”

They stopped at an early coffee-stall and ordered the plate of sausage and mash that Hogarth so loved to eat before he caught his last tram back to Balham. They smiled at each other over a cup of steaming coffee and wrangled good-naturedly about who should pay.

“Admit it,” said Hogarth. “I'm talking about something that you don't understand at all. Gibberish, eh?”

Baird shook his head. “It sounds like sense—with a fourth dimension added to it. It reminds me a good deal of the Californian prophets, Huxley, Maugham,
et alia.
”

“Ah,” said Hogarth, “the propaganda squad.”

“The sphere and navel group. New World Taoists.”

“Well, you are not very far wrong; for although I think some of them have the answer, it often represents little more than a retrenchment upon an original pragmatism. Dealing in revelation, they obviously lack the true illumination. Why? Because if they had the secret they could perfectly carry on with the Christian corpus—you would not need these humpty-dumpty Eastern religions to fall back on, with their athleticism.
A
mass attack on the Gita has the effect of merely getting sections of it printed in the
Reader's Digest
. To what end? It is mere non-creative theorizing. If we could get the West to study the Karma Sutra it would be more to the point. If we could unfreeze the Dutch canal of the average man's blood up here.… Hullo! My tram.”

Hogarth was always in an ecstasy of apprehension lest he miss the last tram. “No it isn't,” he said, turning back. “And while I'm on the subject of pins and needles I might ask you to tell me just what
you
want to do with your life.”

Baird shrugged his shoulders. “I wanted to write once. I was born a yeoman, I think, and pressed too early into the science of arms. You are right about my being merely typical. The whole of my generation believes in nothing beyond the aimless death-activity. We were sold into slavery—action—while we were unformed. Now we don't belong anywhere, don't want to have homes and families and roots. We are a sort of Hitler Youth, used to armies, and battles and small adventures. I thought of enlisting in this civil war in China when my time is up. If it's still on, I mean.”

“Nothing more appropriate,” said Hogarth ironically. “You evade your own civil war in order to stick your nose into someone else's. Why don't you commit suicide and have done with it?”

“I have thought of that. More than you imagine.”

“Here comes my tram,” said Hogarth for the tenth time, and launched himself into space like a goose, his neck thrust forward. It was not. He returned rather crestfallen, adjusting his crooked hat brim and dusting ash off his lapels with both hands. “I have an idea,” he said. “To what sort of merit on earth do you attach importance? Are you proud of your medals? Your prowess with women? Would you like to have children? Be a doctor and save people? At what point of your character do you flow out? No. Don't tell me,” he added hurriedly, catching sight of his Balham tram at last, “I don't give a hang. I'm trying to get you to draw your own portrait.”

He clutched the rail and boarded the groaning monster. Then, thinking of something more he wanted to say, he turned his huge body round and leaning out, shouted, “Or is it something beyond all these things?” His voice rose as the distance widened. The other passengers standing outside regarded him with concern. “Do you think it is somewhere in the region we call God? Ask yourself? Eh? Just ask yourself.” He was borne gesticulating out of earshot. The look of concern on the faces of the other passengers changed to one of relief. They looked at one another knowingly. It was clear that he was a harmless religious maniac.

It was not unlike editing a very long and very dreary film, thought Baird walking homeward across London. Immense discursive spools of recollection run through at every sitting—the greater part of it irrelevant: mocking in its irrelevance. Still the experience had done him good; he had been able to expand to the full extent in his talk at least. And, as Hogarth said, the major function of analysis seemed to consist of reliving and re-digesting experience. He felt lighter, more buoyant in himself. Only the dream of Böcklin did not vanish.

One Wednesday, Hogarth, who was very interested in painting, took him to a gallery where, among other things, he saw several of Campion's great raving canvases, and one that he recognized as Alice's; Hogarth examined the former with great attention and reverence. “The only English painter,” he said. Baird was quite charmed to see Hogarth's look of awe when he said that he knew Campion. “Another candidate for your clinic,” he said. “No doubt,” said Hogarth softly, “no doubt.” He stood back and admired the powerful landscape which has since become famous—Campion's
Tree Near Arles
. “But so long as he can keep spitting it out in pictures he's all right,” he added. He made no comment on Alice's picture.

Walking across Oxford Street Baird said: “All English women kiss with their mouths shut. Now if your psychological axiom is true …”

“What axiom?”

“The identification of the mouth with the more intimate organism—then you have a thesis.…”

“What thesis?”

“Well, it explains the abnormal sexual emphasis of the English male in his dress—old school tie, bowler-hats, large pipes—like yours, Hogarth, if I may say so—and amnion-like tobacco-pouches.”

“Young man,” said Hogarth, “it is extremely unkind of you to wing your analyst like that. According to the text-books I must represent God to you—I must be above criticism.”

“Well, I feel neither here nor there as regards God. I let you represent my father, however. If he had given me half the advice you have I'd be a more thawed-out character. Anyway, Hogarth, you've made a mess of the analysis by letting me become your friend. I see you in a context now. As a father, for example, you are charming and touching.”

Hogarth suddenly blushed scarlet. Baird was recalling that every Wednesday they had lunch together, after which Hogarth would allow him to keep him company to Balham where he lived with an only son and a middle-aged housekeeper. Together they lunched, and afterwards walked in the park each holding a small grubby hand. Hogarth was at his most endearing when he was with the child; all through the winter they would visit the shabby little park with its nude trees and crisp brown water—its three dejected ducks gabbling at their own reflections. Hogarth's son was nine and full of enthusiasm for the toy boat his father had made for him. It was a brave little cutter which bore the legend
Europa
upon its smart white breast. Hogarth himself was fascinated by the technique of sailing, and was hardly less eager than the boy to propose new ways of setting the sail, or a new run across the pond. Baird could see him now, down on one knee at the concrete margin, watching the little ship flutter and heel through the circles of still water under the willow-tree, or turn over on its side and run from one corner to the other of the pond without a fault.

“Father, it's not set properly.”

“Yes it is: be patient.”

In an ecstasy of apprehension they watch it come into the wind and hang trembling. Hogarth is making ludicrous gestures at the boat, as if trying to coax it towards them. His pipe goes so hard that the dottle gleams red. His trousers are baggy and dusty at the knee. From time to time his son slips an absent hand into his vast pockets in search of boiled sweet to suck. It is a moment of intense excitement, for the little craft has turned over on its side and threatens to sink. Hogarth and the boy squat down and begin to paddle the water with their hands in the hope of creating concentric ripples which will draw it within reach. Hogarth groans. Their attempts are useless it seems. The boy starts to take off his shoes, but his father, fearful of letting him get his feet wet, lumbers into the pond, shoes and all, and skids uncouthly out to where the boat lies, flapping hard. He comes ashore laughing and cursing at the same time. Mrs. Gregory is going to scold him again for his wet feet.

“That's the third salvage he's done this month,” says the boy, shaking the water from the flapping canvas of the
Europa
.

Afterwards, walking home to tea, their noses and fingers burned blue with cold, the father and son wrangle interminably about the boat, the one protesting that the mast is too high and the sail area too large, the other shrilly maintaining that the
Europa
would be better for a little extra lead on her keel.

Hogarth lives in one of those common-place semi-detached villas. In the cosy little front parlour a big coal fire is blazing and Mrs. Gregory has laid out an excellent tea: muffins fume in butter on the fender. They get out of their wet things and draw up chairs: and the boy, fetching a sigh, says thankfully, “It's so wonderful. I'm glad I haven't got a mother, Dad.” Hogarth looks at him indulgently. He is so secure and happy in a habit of male friendship, a male world with its triumphant relations to purpose and adventure. “Women always spoil things,” he says. Presently Mrs. Gregory will come in with her silly talk about unwashed hands and wet socks. Hogarth smiles.

“What do
you
think, Baird?” he asks.

Hogarth's own wife, whose picture stands on the mantelpiece, was much younger than he when they married. Her face is smooth and round and innocent in a Germanic way: she was a student of Hogarth's.

Now he has taken up his spectacles and placed them upon his nose. A radiant contentment shines upon his face. His feet are clad in old battered carpet-slippers, one of which has a convenient hole in the sole; convenient because he enjoys holding to the fire his slippered foot, into which a toasting fork has been cunningly lodged.

At such moments Baird is filled with envy for the elder man as he watches him taking his ease, while on the carpet at their feet the boy strips the
Europa
and sets the canvas to dry.

On April Fool's Day Hogarth gave it up. “Baird,” he said, “we've reached a point where we are over-elaborating the problem. We are indulging you and pandering to the bloody dream. I've got all the factual data I need; you've had the whole works. But somewhere I must have made a mess of it, or else you need to keep on dreaming the dream until something happens to you—I mean until you change inside. You know, the dream may be simply a sort of prompting to change inside; it's possible that it might be necessary to you—until you change. It's no good following it down the time-track any farther. Anyway, our method is not inclusive enough. Come back in a thousand years when psychology has become an adult science. Meanwhile I'm going to suggest something.”

Baird put out his cigarette and listened attentively.

“Can you get away abroad now?”

“I should think so. On sick leave. Why?”

“To Crete?”

Baird looked surprised and a trifle pained. “It is part of your system to propose long and expensive journeys to your poorer patients?” he said ironically. But Hogarth continued seriously.

“I'm suggesting something that would occur to any intelligent Hottentot. That you should return like a good murderer to the scene of your crime. Dig up Böcklin with your own hands once more. It's just an idea. I know it sounds shocking. But get him buried in a cemetery or something. Take a responsible line. It's worth it: you might come to terms with him—who knows? Besides I'm tired of indulging your maimed literary genius. Think it over.”

Baird sat for a moment in silence. They looked at each other. “It's a curious thing,” he said, “but I was offered a mission about a month ago to do precisely that. To go to Crete and try and find something out for the Intelligence people.”

Hogarth spread his hands out. “Well, there you are. What more do you want? Accept, my dear fellow.”

It was more easily said than done; the idea was rather a startling one, and Baird felt that he needed time to think it over. “And by the way,” said Hogarth, as he was putting on his mackintosh, “let me know when you are off: and don't forget you are a tenner behind with your payments—the child is going to school soon, you know.”