That Hideous Strength (14 page)

     All the women laughed as MacPhee in a somewhat louder tone replied, "Mrs. Studdock, I have no opinions- on any subject in the world. I state the facts and exhibit the implications. If everyone indulged in fewer opinions" (he pronounced the word with emphatic disgust) " there'd be less silly talking and printing in the world."

     "I know who talks most in this house," said Mrs. Maggs, somewhat to Jane's surprise.

     The Ulsterman eyed the last speaker with an unaltered face while producing a small pewter box from his pocket and helping himself to a pinch of snuff.

     "What are you waiting for anyway?" said Mrs. Maggs. "Women's day in the kitchen to-day."

     "I was wondering," said MacPhee, " whether you had a cup of tea saved for me."

     "And why didn't you come in at the right time, then?" said Mrs. Maggs. Jane noticed that she talked to him much as she had talked to the bear. "I was busy," said the other, seating himself at one end of the table; and added after a pause, " trenching celery."

     "What is ' women's day ' in the kitchen?" asked Jane of Mother Dimble.

     "There are no servants here," said Mother Dimble,”and we all do the work. The women do it one day and the men the next. . . . What? . . . No, it's a very sensible arrangement. The Director's idea is that men and women can't do housework together without quarrelling."

     "The cardinal difficulty," said MacPhee, " in collaboration between the sexes is that women speak a language without nouns. If two men are doing a bit of work one will say to the other, ' Put this bowl inside the bigger bowl which you'll find on the top shelf of the green cupboard.' The female for this is, ' Put that in the other one in there.' There is consequently a phatic hiatus."

     "There's your tea now, and I'll go and get you a piece of cake," said Ivy Maggs, and left the room.

     Jane took advantage of this to say to Mother Dimble in a lower voice, "Mrs. Maggs seems to make herself very much at home here."

     "My dear, she is at home here."

      "As a maid, you mean?"

     "Well, no more than anyone else. She's here chiefly because her house has been taken from her. She had nowhere else to go."

     "You mean she is ... one of the Director's charities."

     "Certainly that. Why do you ask?" At that moment the door opened and a voice from behind it said, "Well, go in then, if you're going." Thus admonished, a very fine jackdaw hopped into the room, followed, firstly, by Mr. Bultitude and, secondly, by Arthur Denniston.

     "Dr. Dimble's just come back, Mother Dimble," said Denniston. "But he's had to go straight to the Blue Room. And the Director wants you to go to him, too. MacPhee."

     Mark sat down to lunch that day in good spirits. Everyone reported that the riot had gone off most satisfactorily, and he had enjoyed reading his own accounts of it in the morning papers. His morning, too, had involved a conversation with Frost, the Fairy, and Wither himself, about the future of Edgestow. All agreed that the Government would follow the almost unanimous opinion of the Nation (as expressed in the newspapers) and put it temporarily under the control of the Institutional Police. An emergency governor of Edgestow must be appointed. Feverstone was the obvious man. As a Member of Parliament he represented the Nation, as a Fellow of Bracton he represented the University, as a member of the Institute he represented the Institute; the articles on this subject which Mark was to write that afternoon would almost write themselves. And Mark had (as he would have put it) " got to know " Frost. He knew that there is in almost every organisation some quiet, inconspicuous person whom the small fry suppose to be of no importance but who is really one of the mainsprings. Even to recognise such people shows that one has made progress. There was, to be sure, a cold, fish-like quality about Frost which Mark did not like and something even repulsive about the regularity of his features. But the pleasures of conversation were coming, for Mark, to have less and less connection with his spontaneous liking of the people he talked to. He was aware of this change, and welcomed it as a sign of maturity.

     Wither had thawed in a most encouraging manner. At the end of the conversation he had taken Mark aside, spoken vaguely but paternally of the great work he was doing, and finally asked after his wife. The D.D. hoped there was no truth in the rumour which had reached him that she was suffering from-er-some nervous disorder. "Who the devil has been telling him that?" thought Mark. "Because," said Wither, " it had occurred to me, in view of the great pressure of work which rests on you at present and the difficulty, therefore, of your being at home as much as we should all (for your sake) wish, that in your case the Institute might be induced ... I am speaking in a quite informal way . . . that we should all be delighted to welcome Mrs. Studdock here."

     Until the D.D. said this Mark had not realised that there was nothing he would dislike so much as having Jane at Belbury. Her mere presence would have made all the laughter of the Inner Ring sound metallic, unreal; and what he now regarded as common prudence would seem to her, and through her to himself, mere flattery, back-biting, and toad eating. His mind sickened at the thought of trying to teach Jane that she must help to keep Wither in a good temper. He excused himself vaguely to the D.D., with profuse thanks, and got away as quickly as he could.

     That afternoon, while he was having tea, Fairy Hardcastle came and leaned over the back of his chair and said:

     "You've torn it, Studdock."

     "What's the matter now. Fairy?" said he.

     "I can't make out what's the matter with JOB. Have you made up your mind to annoy the Old Man? Because it's a dangerous game, you know."

     "What on earth are you talking about?"

     "Well, here we've all been working on your behalf, and this morning we thought we'd succeeded. He was talking about giving you the appointment originally intended for you and waiving the probationary period. Not a cloud in the sky: and then you have five minutes' chat with him, and in that time you've managed to undo it all."

     "What the devil's wrong with him this time?"

     "Well you ought to know! Didn't he say something about bringing your wife here?"

     "Yes he did. What about it?"

     "And what did you say?"

     "I said not to bother about it ... and, of course, thanked him very much and all that."

     The Fairy whistled. "Don't you see, honey," she said, gently rapping Mark's scalp with her knuckles, " that you could hardly have made a worse bloomer? It was a most terrific concession for him to make. He's never done it to anyone else. He's burbling away now about lack of confidence. Says he's ' hurt'; takes your refusal as a sign that you are not really ' settled ' here."

     "But that is sheer madness. I mean . . ."

     "Why the blazes couldn't you tell him you'd have your wife here?

     "Isn't that my own business?"

     "Don't you want to have her? You're not very polite to little wifie, Studdock. And they tell me she's a damned pretty girl."

     At that moment the form of Wither, slowly sauntering in their direction, became apparent to both, and the conversation ended.

     At dinner he sat next to Filostrato, and as they rose from the table he whispered in Mark's ear, "I would not advise the Library for you to-night. You understand ? Come and have a little conversation in my room."

     Mark followed him, glad that in this new crisis with the D.D. Filostrato was apparently still his friend. They went up to the Italian's sitting-room on the first floor. There Mark sat down before the fire, but his host continued to walk up and down the room.

     "I am very sorry, my young friend," said Filostrato, " to hear of this new trouble between you and the Deputy Director. It must be stopped, you understand? If he invite you to bring your wife here why do you not bring her?"

     "Well, really," said Mark, "I never knew he attached so much importance to it." His objection to having Jane at Belbury had been temporarily deadened by the wine he had drunk at dinner and the pang he had felt at the threat of expulsion from the library circle.

     "It is of no importance in itself," said Filostrato. "But have reason to believe it came not from Wither but from the Head himself."

     "The Head ? You mean Jules?"

     "Jules?" said Filostrato. "Why do you speak of him? As for your wife, I attach no importance to it. What have I to do with men's wives? The whole subject disgusts me. But if they make a point of it ... Look, my friend, the real question is whether you mean to be truly at one with us or no."

     "I don't quite follow," said Mark.

     "Do you want to be a mere hireling? But you have already come too far in for that. If you try to go back you will be as unfortunate as the fool Hingest. If you come really in-the world . . . bah, what do I say? ... the universe is at your feet."

     "But of course I want to come in," said Mark. A certain excitement was stealing over him.

     "The Head will have all of you, and all that is yours-or else nothing. You must bring the woman in too. She also must be one of us."

     This remark was a shock, yet at that moment, fixed with the little, bright eyes of the Professor, he could hardly make the thought of Jane real to himself.

     "You shall hear it from the lips of the Head himself," said Filostrato suddenly.

     "Is Jules here?" said Mark.

     Filostrato turned sharply from him and flung back the window curtains; the full moon stared down upon them.

     '' There is a world for you, no?" said Filostrato. '' There is cleanness, purity. Thousands of square miles of polished rock with not one blade of grass, not one fibre of lichen, not one grain of dust. Not even air."

     "Yes. A dead world," said Mark, gazing at the moon. "No!"said Filostrato. "No. There is life there."

     "Do we know that?" asked Mark.

     "Oh, yes. Intelligent life. Under the surface. A great race, further advanced than we. A pure race. They have cleaned their world, broken free (almost) from the organic."

     "But how--?"

     "They do not need to be born and breed and die; only their common people, their canaglia do that. The Masters live on. They retain their intelligence: they can keep it artificially alive after the organic body has been dispensed with-a miracle of applied biochemistry. They do not need organic food. They are almost free of Nature, attached to her only by the thinnest, finest cord."

     "Do you mean that all that," Mark pointed to the mottled white globe of the moon, " is their own doing?"

     "Why not? If you remove all the vegetation, presently you have no atmosphere, no water."

     "But what was the purpose?"

     "Hygiene. Why should they have their world all crawling with organisms?"

     "But how do we know all this?"

     "The Head has many sources of information. I speak that you may know what can be done: what shall be done here. This Institute-Dio mio, it is for something better than housing and vaccinations and curing the people of cancer. It is for the conquest of death; or for the conquest of organic life, if you prefer. They are the same thing. It is to bring out of that cocoon of organic life which sheltered the babyhood of mind, the New Man, the man who will not die, the artificial man, free from Nature."

     "And you think that some day we shall really find a means of keeping the brain alive indefinitely?"

     "We have begun already. The Head himself . . ."

     "Go on," said Mark. This at last was the real thing. "The Head himself has already survived death, and you shall speak to him this night."

     "Do you mean that Jules has died?"

     "Bah! Jules is nothing. He is not the Head."

     "Then who is?"

     At this moment there was a knock on the door. Someone came in. "Is the young man ready?" asked the voice of Straik. "Oh yes. You are ready, are you not, Mr. Studdock?"

     "Do you mean really to join us, young man?" said Straik. "The Head has sent for you. Do you understand -the Head? You will look upon one who was killed and is still alive. The resurrection of Jesus in the Bible was a symbol: to-night you shall see what it symbolised. This is real Man at last."

     "What the devil are you talking about?" said Mark.

     "My friend is quite right," said Filostrato. "Our Head is the first of the New Men-the first that lives beyond animal life. If Nature had her way his brain would now be mouldering in the grave. But he will speak to you within this hour, and-a word in your ear-you will obey."

     "But who is it?" said Mark.

     "It is Francois Alcasan," said Filostrato.

     "You mean the man who was guillotined?" gasped Mark. Both the heads nodded. Both faces were close to him: in that disastrous light they looked like masks hanging in the air.

     "You are frightened?" said Filostrato. "Ah!-if you were outside, if you were mere canaglia, you would have reason. It is the beginning of all power."

     "It is the beginning of Man Immortal and Man Ubiquitous," said Straik. "It is what all the prophecies really meant."

     "At first, of course," said Filostrato, " the power will be confined to a small number of individual men. Those who are selected for eternal life."

     "And you mean," said Mark, " it will then be extended to all men?"

     "No," said Filostrato. "I mean it will then be reduced to one man. You are not a fool, are you, my young friend? All that talk about the power of Man over Nature is only for the canaglia. You know, as I do, that Man's power over Nature means the power of some men over other men, with Nature as the instrument. There is no such thing as Man- it is a word. It is not Man who will be omnipotent, it is some one man, some immortal man. Alcasan, our Head, is the first sketch of it. The completed product may be someone else. It may be you. It may be me."

     "I don't understand, I don't understand," said Mark.