Chapter LXVII

by William Somerset Maugham

　　Philip looked forward to his return to London with impatience. During thetwo months he spent at Blackstable Norah wrote to him frequently, longletters in a bold, large hand, in which with cheerful humour she describedthe little events of the daily round, the domestic troubles of herlandlady, rich food for laughter, the comic vexations of herrehearsals--she was walking on in an important spectacle at one of theLondon theatres--and her odd adventures with the publishers of novelettes.Philip read a great deal, bathed, played tennis, and sailed. At thebeginning of October he settled down in London to work for the SecondConjoint examination. He was eager to pass it, since that ended thedrudgery of the curriculum; after it was done with the student became anout-patients' clerk, and was brought in contact with men and women as wellas with text-books. Philip saw Norah every day.Lawson had been spending the summer at Poole, and had a number of sketchesto show of the harbour and of the beach. He had a couple of commissionsfor portraits and proposed to stay in London till the bad light drove himaway. Hayward, in London too, intended to spend the winter abroad, butremained week after week from sheer inability to make up his mind to go.Hayward had run to fat during the last two or three years--it was fiveyears since Philip first met him in Heidelberg--and he was prematurelybald. He was very sensitive about it and wore his hair long to conceal theunsightly patch on the crown of his head. His only consolation was thathis brow was now very noble. His blue eyes had lost their colour; they hada listless droop; and his mouth, losing the fulness of youth, was weak andpale. He still talked vaguely of the things he was going to do in thefuture, but with less conviction; and he was conscious that his friends nolonger believed in him: when he had drank two or three glasses of whiskeyhe was inclined to be elegiac."I'm a failure," he murmured, "I'm unfit for the brutality of the struggleof life. All I can do is to stand aside and let the vulgar throng hustleby in their pursuit of the good things."He gave you the impression that to fail was a more delicate, a moreexquisite thing, than to succeed. He insinuated that his aloofness was dueto distaste for all that was common and low. He talked beautifully ofPlato."I should have thought you'd got through with Plato by now," said Philipimpatiently."Would you?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.He was not inclined to pursue the subject. He had discovered of late theeffective dignity of silence."I don't see the use of reading the same thing over and over again," saidPhilip. "That's only a laborious form of idleness.""But are you under the impression that you have so great a mind that youcan understand the most profound writer at a first reading?""I don't want to understand him, I'm not a critic. I'm not interested inhim for his sake but for mine.""Why d'you read then?""Partly for pleasure, because it's a habit and I'm just as uncomfortableif I don't read as if I don't smoke, and partly to know myself. When Iread a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I comeacross a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me,and it becomes part of me; I've got out of the book all that's any use tome, and I can't get anything more if I read it a dozen times. You see, itseems to me, one's like a closed bud, and most of what one reads and doeshas no effect at all; but there are certain things that have a peculiarsignificance for one, and they open a petal; and the petals open one byone; and at last the flower is there."Philip was not satisfied with his metaphor, but he did not know how elseto explain a thing which he felt and yet was not clear about."You want to do things, you want to become things," said Hayward, with ashrug of the shoulders. "It's so vulgar."Philip knew Hayward very well by now. He was weak and vain, so vain thatyou had to be on the watch constantly not to hurt his feelings; he mingledidleness and idealism so that he could not separate them. At Lawson'sstudio one day he met a journalist, who was charmed by his conversation,and a week later the editor of a paper wrote to suggest that he should dosome criticism for him. For forty-eight hours Hayward lived in an agony ofindecision. He had talked of getting occupation of this sort so long thathe had not the face to refuse outright, but the thought of doing anythingfilled him with panic. At last he declined the offer and breathed freely."It would have interfered with my work," he told Philip."What work?" asked Philip brutally."My inner life," he answered.Then he went on to say beautiful things about Amiel, the professor ofGeneva, whose brilliancy promised achievement which was never fulfilled;till at his death the reason of his failure and the excuse were at oncemanifest in the minute, wonderful journal which was found among hispapers. Hayward smiled enigmatically.But Hayward could still talk delightfully about books; his taste wasexquisite and his discrimination elegant; and he had a constant interestin ideas, which made him an entertaining companion. They meant nothing tohim really, since they never had any effect on him; but he treated them ashe might have pieces of china in an auction-room, handling them withpleasure in their shape and their glaze, pricing them in his mind; andthen, putting them back into their case, thought of them no more.And it was Hayward who made a momentous discovery. One evening, after duepreparation, he took Philip and Lawson to a tavern situated in BeakStreet, remarkable not only in itself and for its history--it had memoriesof eighteenth-century glories which excited the romantic imagination--butfor its snuff, which was the best in London, and above all for its punch.Hayward led them into a large, long room, dingily magnificent, with hugepictures on the walls of nude women: they were vast allegories of theschool of Haydon; but smoke, gas, and the London atmosphere had given thema richness which made them look like old masters. The dark panelling, themassive, tarnished gold of the cornice, the mahogany tables, gave the rooman air of sumptuous comfort, and the leather-covered seats along the wallwere soft and easy. There was a ram's head on a table opposite the door,and this contained the celebrated snuff. They ordered punch. They drankit. It was hot rum punch. The pen falters when it attempts to treat of theexcellence thereof; the sober vocabulary, the sparse epithet of thisnarrative, are inadequate to the task; and pompous terms, jewelled, exoticphrases rise to the excited fancy. It warmed the blood and cleared thehead; it filled the soul with well-being; it disposed the mind at once toutter wit and to appreciate the wit of others; it had the vagueness ofmusic and the precision of mathematics. Only one of its qualities wascomparable to anything else: it had the warmth of a good heart; but itstaste, its smell, its feel, were not to be described in words. CharlesLamb, with his infinite tact, attempting to, might have drawn charmingpictures of the life of his day; Lord Byron in a stanza of Don Juan,aiming at the impossible, might have achieved the sublime; Oscar Wilde,heaping jewels of Ispahan upon brocades of Byzantium, might have createda troubling beauty. Considering it, the mind reeled under visions of thefeasts of Elagabalus; and the subtle harmonies of Debussy mingled with themusty, fragrant romance of chests in which have been kept old clothes,ruffs, hose, doublets, of a forgotten generation, and the wan odour oflilies of the valley and the savour of Cheddar cheese.Hayward discovered the tavern at which this priceless beverage was to beobtained by meeting in the street a man called Macalister who had been atCambridge with him. He was a stockbroker and a philosopher. He wasaccustomed to go to the tavern once a week; and soon Philip, Lawson, andHayward got into the habit of meeting there every Tuesday evening: changeof manners made it now little frequented, which was an advantage topersons who took pleasure in conversation. Macalister was a big-bonedfellow, much too short for his width, with a large, fleshy face and a softvoice. He was a student of Kant and judged everything from the standpointof pure reason. He was fond of expounding his doctrines. Philip listenedwith excited interest. He had long come to the conclusion that nothingamused him more than metaphysics, but he was not so sure of their efficacyin the affairs of life. The neat little system which he had formed as theresult of his meditations at Blackstable had not been of conspicuous useduring his infatuation for Mildred. He could not be positive that reasonwas much help in the conduct of life. It seemed to him that life liveditself. He remembered very vividly the violence of the emotion which hadpossessed him and his inability, as if he were tied down to the groundwith ropes, to react against it. He read many wise things in books, but hecould only judge from his own experience (he did not know whether he wasdifferent from other people); he did not calculate the pros and cons of anaction, the benefits which must befall him if he did it, the harm whichmight result from the omission; but his whole being was urged onirresistibly. He did not act with a part of himself but altogether. Thepower that possessed him seemed to have nothing to do with reason: allthat reason did was to point out the methods of obtaining what his wholesoul was striving for.Macalister reminded him of the Categorical Imperative."Act so that every action of yours should be capable of becoming auniversal rule of action for all men.""That seems to me perfect nonsense," said Philip."You're a bold man to say that of anything stated by Immanuel Kant,"retorted Macalister."Why? Reverence for what somebody said is a stultifying quality: there'sa damned sight too much reverence in the world. Kant thought things notbecause they were true, but because he was Kant.""Well, what is your objection to the Categorical Imperative?" (They talkedas though the fate of empires were in the balance.)"It suggests that one can choose one's course by an effort of will. And itsuggests that reason is the surest guide. Why should its dictates be anybetter than those of passion? They're different. That's all.""You seem to be a contented slave of your passions.""A slave because I can't help myself, but not a contented one," laughedPhilip.While he spoke he thought of that hot madness which had driven him inpursuit of Mildred. He remembered how he had chafed against it and how hehad felt the degradation of it."Thank God, I'm free from all that now," he thought.And yet even as he said it he was not quite sure whether he spokesincerely. When he was under the influence of passion he had felt asingular vigour, and his mind had worked with unwonted force. He was morealive, there was an excitement in sheer being, an eager vehemence of soul,which made life now a trifle dull. For all the misery he had endured therewas a compensation in that sense of rushing, overwhelming existence.But Philip's unlucky words engaged him in a discussion on the freedom ofthe will, and Macalister, with his well-stored memory, brought outargument after argument. He had a mind that delighted in dialectics, andhe forced Philip to contradict himself; he pushed him into corners fromwhich he could only escape by damaging concessions; he tripped him up withlogic and battered him with authorities.At last Philip said:"Well, I can't say anything about other people. I can only speak formyself. The illusion of free will is so strong in my mind that I can't getaway from it, but I believe it is only an illusion. But it is an illusionwhich is one of the strongest motives of my actions. Before I do anythingI feel that I have choice, and that influences what I do; but afterwards,when the thing is done, I believe that it was inevitable from alleternity.""What do you deduce from that?" asked Hayward."Why, merely the futility of regret. It's no good crying over spilt milk,because all the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it."