“It was a general principle.”
“There isn’t such a thing as a general principle.”
“Do you mean”-she stared at him-“that there isn’t such a thing as absolute right and wrong?”
“No, I didn’t mean that. Of course there’s absolute right and wrong, but that’s a thing so far beyond our knowledge and comprehension, that we can only have the dimmest apprehension of it.”
“But surely one knows what is right?”
“You have been taught it by the accepted canons of the day. Or, going further, you can feel it of your own instinctive knowledge. But even that’s a long way off. People were burned at the stake, not by sadists or brutes, but by earnest and high-minded men, who believed that what they did was right. Read some of the law cases in ancient Greece, of a man who refused to let his slaves be tortured so as to get at the truth, as was the prevalent custom. He was looked upon as a man who deliberately obscured justice. There was an earnest God-fearing clergyman in the States who beat his three-year-old son, whom he loved, to death, because the child refused to say his prayers.”
“That’s all horrible!”
“Yes, because time has changed our ideas.”
“Then, what can we do?”
Her lovely bewildered face bent towards him.
“Follow your pattern, in humility-and hope.”
“Follow one’s pattern-yes, I see that, but my pattern-it’s wrong somehow.” She laughed. “Like when you’re knitting a jumper and you’ve dropped a stitch a long way back.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” he said. “I’ve never knitted.”
“Why wouldn’t you give me an opinion just now?”
“It would only have been an opinion.”
“Well?”
“And it might have influenced you…. I should think you’re easily influenced.”
Her face grew sombre again.
“Yes. Perhaps that’s what was wrong.”
He waited for a moment or two, then he said in a matter-of-fact voice:
“What exactly is wrong?”
“Nothing.” She looked at him despairingly. “Nothing. I’ve got everything any woman could want.”
“You’re generalising again. You’re not any woman. You’re you. Have you got everything you want?”
“Yes, yes, yes! Love and kindness and money and luxury, and beautiful surroundings and companionship-everything. All the things that I would have chosen for myself. No, it’s me. There’s something wrong with me.”
She looked at him defiantly. Strangely enough, she was comforted when he answered matter-of-factly:
“Oh yes. There’s something wrong with you-that’s very clear.”
3
She pushed her brandy-glass a little way away from her.
She said: “Can I talk about myself?”
“If you like.”
“Because if I did, I might just see where-it all went wrong. That would help, I think.”
“Yes. It might help.”
“It’s all been very nice and ordinary-my life, I mean. A happy childhood, a lovely home. I went to school and did all the ordinary things, and nobody was ever nasty to me; perhaps if they had been, it would have been better for me. Perhaps I was a spoiled brat-but no, I don’t really think so. And I came home from school and played tennis and danced, and met young men, and wondered what job to take up-all the usual things.”
“Sounds straightforward enough.”
“And then I fell in love and married.” Her voice changed slightly.
“And lived happily…”
“No.” Her voice was thoughtful. “I loved him, but I was unhappy very often.” She added: “That’s why I asked you if happiness really mattered.”
She paused, and then went on:
“It’s so hard to explain. I wasn’t very happy, but yet in a curious way it was all right-it was what I’d chosen, what I wanted. I didn’t-go into it with my eyes shut. Of course I idealised him-one does. But I remember now, waking up very early one morning-it was about five o’clock, just before dawn. That’s a cold, truthful time, don’t you think? And I knew then-saw, I mean-what the future would become, I knew I shouldn’t be really happy, I saw what he was like, selfish and ruthless in a gay kind of charming way, but I saw, too, that he was charming, and gay and light-hearted-and that I loved him, and that no one else would do, and that I would rather be unhappy, married to him, than smug and comfortable without him. And I thought I could, with luck, and if I wasn’t too stupid, make a go of it. I accepted the fact that I loved him more than he would ever love me, and that I mustn’t-ever-ask him for more than he wanted to give.”