Produced by Eve Sobol THE LONGEST JOURNEY By E. M. Forster PART 1 -- CAMBRIDGE I âThe cow is there,â said Ansell, lighting a match and holding it out over the carpet. No one spoke. He waited till the end of the match fell off. Then he said again, âShe is there, the cow. There, now.â âYou have not proved it,â said a voice. âI have proved it to myself.â âI have proved to myself that she isnât,â said the voice. âThe cow is not there.â Ansell frowned and lit another match. âSheâs there for me,â he declared. âI donât care whether sheâs there for you or not. Whether Iâm in Cambridge or Iceland or dead, the cow will be there.â It was philosophy. They were discussing the existence of objects. Do they exist only when there is some one to look at them? Or have they a real existence of their own? It is all very interesting, but at the same time it is difficult. Hence the cow. She seemed to make things easier. She was so familiar, so solid, that surely the truths that she illustrated would in time become familiar and solid also. Is the cow there or not? This was better than deciding between objectivity and subjectivity. So at Oxford, just at the same time, one was asking, âWhat do our rooms look like in the vac.?â âLook here, Ansell. Iâm there--in the meadow--the cowâs there. Youâre there--the cowâs there. Do you agree so far?â âWell?â âWell, if you go, the cow stops; but if I go, the cow goes. Then what will happen if you stop and I go?â Several voices cried out that this was quibbling. âI know it is,â said the speaker brightly, and silence descended again, while they tried honestly to think the matter out. Rickie, on whose carpet the matches were being dropped, did not like to join in the discussion. It was too difficult for him. He could not even quibble. If he spoke, he should simply make himself a fool. He preferred to listen, and to watch the tobacco-smoke stealing out past the window-seat into the tranquil October air. He could see the court too, and the college cat teasing the college tortoise, and the kitchen-men with supper-trays upon their heads. Hot food for one--that must be for the geographical don, who never came in for Hall; cold food for three, apparently at half-a-crown a head, for some one he did not know; hot food, a la carte--obviously for the ladies haunting the next staircase; cold food for two, at two shillings--going to Ansellâs rooms for himself and Ansell, and as it passed under the lamp he saw that it was meringues again. Then the bedmakers began to arrive, chatting to each other pleasantly, and he could hear Ansellâs bedmaker say, âOh dang!â when she found she had to lay Ansellâs tablecloth; for there was not a breath stirring. The great elms were motionless, and seemed still in the glory of midsummer, for the darkness hid the yellow blotches on their leaves, and their outlines were still rounded against the tender sky. Those elms were Dryads--so Rickie believed or pretended, and the line between the two is subtler than we admit. At all events they were lady trees, and had for generations fooled the college statutes by their residence in the haunts of youth. But what about the cow? He returned to her with a start, for this would never do. He also would try to think the matter out. Was she there or not? The cow. There or not. He strained his eyes into the night. Either way it was attractive. If she was there, other cows were there too. The darkness of Europe was dotted with them, and in the far East their flanks were shining in the rising sun. Great herds of them stood browsing in pastures where no man came nor need ever come, or plashed knee-deep by the brink of impassable rivers. And this, moreover, was the view of Ansell. Yet Tilliardâs view had a good deal in it. One might do worse than follow Tilliard, and suppose the cow not to be there unless oneself was there to see her. A cowless world, then, stretched round him on every side. Yet he had only to peep into a field, and, click! it would at once become radiant with bovine life. Suddenly he realized that this, again, would never do. As usual, he had missed the whole point, and was overlaying philosophy with gross and senseless details. For if the cow was not there, the world and the fields were not there either. And what would Ansell care about sunlit flanks or impassable streams? Rickie rebuked his own groveling soul, and turned his eyes away from the night, which had led him to such absurd conclusions. The fire was dancing, and the shadow of Ansell, who stood close up to it, seemed to dominate the little room. He was still talking, or rather jerking, and he was still lighting matches and dropping their ends upon the carpet. Now and then he would make a motion with his feet as if he were running quickly backward upstairs, and would tread on the edge of the fender, so that the fire-irons went flying and the buttered-bun dishes crashed against each other in the hearth. The other philosophers were crouched in odd shapes on the sofa and table and chairs, and one, who was a little bored, had crawled to the piano and was timidly trying the Prelude to Rhinegold with his knee upon the soft pedal. The air was heavy with good tobacco-smoke and the pleasant warmth of tea, and as Rickie became more sleepy the events of the day seemed to float one by one before his acquiescent eyes. In the morning he had read Theocritus, whom he believed to be the greatest of Greek poets; he had lunched with a merry don and had tasted Zwieback biscuits; then he had walked with people he liked, and had walked just long enough; and now his room was full of other people whom he liked, and when they left he would go and have supper with Ansell, whom he liked as well as any one. A year ago he had known none of these joys. He had crept cold and friendless and ignorant out of a great public school, preparing for a silent and solitary journey, and praying as a highest favour that he might be left alone. Cambridge had not answered his prayer. She had taken and soothed him, and warmed him, and had laughed at him a little, saying that he must not be so tragic yet awhile, for his boyhood had been but a dusty corridor that led to the spacious halls of youth. In one year he had made many friends and learnt much, and he might learn even more if he could but concentrate his attention on that cow. The fire had died down, and in the gloom the man by the piano ventured to ask what would happen if an objective cow had a subjective calf. Ansell gave an angry sigh, and at that moment there was a tap on the door. âCome in!â said Rickie. The door opened. A tall young woman stood framed in the light that fell from the passage. âLadies!â whispered every-one in great agitation. âYes?â he said nervously, limping towards the door (he was rather lame). âYes? Please come in. Can I be any good--â âWicked boy!â exclaimed the young lady, advancing a gloved finger into the room. âWicked, wicked boy!â He clasped his head with his hands. âAgnes! Oh how perfectly awful!â âWicked, intolerable boy!â She turned on the electric light. The philosophers were revealed with unpleasing suddenness. âMy goodness, a tea-party! Oh really, Rickie, you are too bad! I say again: wicked, abominable, intolerable boy! Iâll have you horsewhipped. If you pleaseâ--she turned to the symposium, which had now risen to its feet âIf you please, he asks me and my brother for the week-end. We accept. At the station, no Rickie. We drive to where his old lodgings were--Trumpery Road or some such name--and heâs left them. Iâm furious, and before I can stop my brother, heâs paid off the cab and there we are stranded. Iâve walked--walked for miles. Pray can you tell me what is to be done with Rickie?â âHe must indeed be horsewhipped,â said Tilliard pleasantly. Then he made a bolt for the door. âTilliard--do stop--let me introduce Miss Pembroke--donât all go!â For his friends were flying from his visitor like mists before the sun. âOh, Agnes, I am so sorry; Iâve nothing to say. I simply forgot you were coming, and everything about you.â âThank you, thank you! And how soon will you remember to ask where Herbert is?â âWhere is he, then?â âI shall not tell you.â âBut didnât he walk with you?â âI shall not tell, Rickie. Itâs part of your punishment. You are not really sorry yet. I shall punish you again later.â She was quite right. Rickie was not as much upset as he ought to have been. He was sorry that he had forgotten, and that he had caused his visitors inconvenience. But he did not feel profoundly degraded, as a young man should who has acted discourteously to a young lady. Had he acted discourteously to his bedmaker or his gyp, he would have minded just as much, which was not polite of him. âFirst, Iâll go and get food. Do sit down and rest. Oh, let me introduce--â Ansell was now the sole remnant of the discussion party. He still stood on the hearthrug with a burnt match in his hand. Miss Pembrokeâs arrival had never disturbed him. âLet me introduce Mr. Ansell--Miss Pembroke.â There came an awful moment--a moment when he almost regretted that he had a clever friend. Ansell remained absolutely motionless, moving neither hand nor head. Such behaviour is so unknown that Miss Pembroke did not realize what had happened, and kept her own hand stretched out longer than is maidenly. âComing to supper?â asked Ansell in low, grave tones. âI donât think so,â said Rickie helplessly. Ansell departed without another word. âDonât mind us,â said Miss Pembroke pleasantly. âWhy shouldnât you keep your engagement with your friend? Herbertâs finding lodgings,--thatâs why heâs not here,--and theyâre sure to be able to give us some dinner. What jolly rooms youâve got!â âOh no--not a bit. I say, I am sorry. I am sorry. I am most awfully sorry.â âWhat about?â âAnsellâ Then he burst forth. âAnsell isnât a gentleman. His fatherâs a draper. His uncles are farmers. Heâs here because heâs so clever--just on account of his brains. Now, sit down. He isnât a gentleman at all.â And he hurried off to order some dinner. âWhat a snob the boy is getting!â thought Agnes, a good deal mollified. It never struck her that those could be the words of affection--that Rickie would never have spoken them about a person whom he disliked. Nor did it strike her that Ansellâs humble birth scarcely explained the quality of his rudeness. She was willing to find life full of trivialities. Six months ago and she might have minded; but now--she cared not what men might do unto her, for she had her own splendid lover, who could have knocked all these unhealthy undergraduates into a cocked-hat. She dared not tell Gerald a word of what had happened: he might have come up from wherever he was and half killed Ansell. And she determined not to tell her brother either, for her nature was kindly, and it pleased her to pass things over. She took off her gloves, and then she took off her ear-rings and began to admire them. These ear-rings were a freak of hers--her only freak. She had always wanted some, and the day Gerald asked her to marry him she went to a shop and had her ears pierced. In some wonderful way she knew that it was right. And he had given her the rings--little gold knobs, copied, the jeweller told them, from something prehistoric and he had kissed the spots of blood on her handkerchief. Herbert, as usual, had been shocked. âI canât help it,â she cried, springing up. âIâm not like other girls.â She began to pace about Rickieâs room, for she hated to keep quiet. There was nothing much to see in it. The pictures were not attractive, nor did they attract her--school groups, Wattsâ âSir Percival,â a dog running after a rabbit, a man running after a maid, a cheap brown Madonna in a cheap green frame--in short, a collection where one mediocrity was generally cancelled by another. Over the door there hung a long photograph of a city with waterways, which Agnes, who had never been to Venice, took to be Venice, but which people who had been to Stockholm knew to be Stockholm. Rickieâs mother, looking rather sweet, was standing on the mantelpiece. Some more pictures had just arrived from the framers and were leaning with their faces to the wall, but she did not bother to turn them round. On the table were dirty teacups, a flat chocolate cake, and Omar Khayyam, with an Oswego biscuit between his pages. Also a vase filled with the crimson leaves of autumn. This made her smile. Then she saw her hostâs shoes: he had left them lying on the sofa. Rickie was slightly deformed, and so the shoes were not the same size, and one of them had a thick heel to help him towards an even walk. âUgh!â she exclaimed, and removed them gingerly to the bedroom. There she saw other shoes and boots and pumps, a whole row of them, all deformed. âUgh! Poor boy! It is too bad. Why shouldnât he be like other people? This hereditary business is too awful.â She shut the door with a sigh. Then she recalled the perfect form of Gerald, his athletic walk, the poise of his shoulders, his arms stretched forward to receive her. Gradually she was comforted. âI beg your pardon, miss, but might I ask how many to lay?â It was the bedmaker, Mrs. Aberdeen. âThree, I think,â said Agnes, smiling pleasantly. âMr. Elliotâll be back in a minute. He has gone to order dinner. âThank you, miss.â âPlenty of teacups to wash up!â âBut teacups is easy washing, particularly Mr. Elliotâs.â âWhy are his so easy?â âBecause no nasty corners in them to hold the dirt. Mr. Anderson--heâs below-has crinkly noctagons, and one wouldnât believe the difference. It was I bought these for Mr. Elliot. His one thought is to save one trouble. I never seed such a thoughtful gentleman. The world, I say, will be the better for him.â She took the teacups into the gyp room, and then returned with the tablecloth, and added, âif heâs spared.â âIâm afraid he isnât strong,â said Agnes. âOh, miss, his nose! I donât know what heâd say if he knew I mentioned his nose, but really I must speak to someone, and he has neither father nor mother. His nose! It poured twice with blood in the Long.â âYes?â âItâs a thing that ought to be known. I assure you, that little room!... And in any case, Mr. Elliotâs a gentleman that can ill afford to lose it. Luckily his friends were up; and I always say theyâre more like brothers than anything else.â âNice for him. He has no real brothers.â âOh, Mr. Hornblower, he is a merry gentleman, and Mr. Tilliard too! And Mr. Elliot himself likes his romp at times. Why, itâs the merriest staircase in the buildings! Last night the bedmaker from W said to me, âWhat are you doing to my gentlemen? Hereâs Mr. Ansell come back âot with his collar flopping.â I said, âAnd a good thing.â Some bedders keep their gentlemen just so; but surely, miss, the world being what it is, the longer one is able to laugh in it the better.â Bedmakers have to be comic and dishonest. It is expected of them. In a picture of university life it is their only function. So when we meet one who has the face of a lady, and feelings of which a lady might be proud, we pass her by. âYes?â said Miss Pembroke, and then their talk was stopped by the arrival of her brother. âIt is too bad!â he exclaimed. âIt is really too bad.â âNow, Bertie boy, Bertie boy! Iâll have no peevishness.â âI am not peevish, Agnes, but I have a full right to be. Pray, why did he not meet us? Why did he not provide rooms? And pray, why did you leave me to do all the settling? All the lodgings I knew are full, and our bedrooms look into a mews. I cannot help it. And then--look here! It really is too bad.â He held up his foot like a wounded dog. It was dripping with water. âOho! This explains the peevishness. Off with it at once. Itâll be another of your colds.â âI really think I had better.â He sat down by the fire and daintily unlaced his boot. âI notice a great change in university tone. I can never remember swaggering three abreast along the pavement and charging inoffensive visitors into a gutter when I was an undergraduate. One of the men, too, wore an Eton tie. But the others, I should say, came from very queer schools, if they came from any schools at all.â Mr. Pembroke was nearly twenty years older than his sister, and had never been as handsome. But he was not at all the person to knock into a gutter, for though not in orders, he had the air of being on the verge of them, and his features, as well as his clothes, had the clerical cut. In his presence conversation became pure and colourless and full of understatements, and--just as if he was a real clergyman--neither men nor boys ever forgot that he was there. He had observed this, and it pleased him very much. His conscience permitted him to enter the Church whenever his profession, which was the scholastic, should demand it. âNo gutter in the worldâs as wet as this,â said Agnes, who had peeled off her brotherâs sock, and was now toasting it at the embers on a pair of tongs. âSurely you know the running water by the edge of the Trumpington road? Itâs turned on occasionally to clear away the refuse--a most primitive idea. When I was up we had a joke about it, and called it the âPem.ââ âHow complimentary!â âYou foolish girl,--not after me, of course. We called it the âPemâ because it is close to Pembroke College. I remember--â He smiled a little, and twiddled his toes. Then he remembered the bedmaker, and said, âMy sock is now dry. My sock, please.â âYour sock is sopping. No, you donât!â She twitched the tongs away from him. Mrs. Aberdeen, without speaking, fetched a pair of Rickieâs socks and a pair of Rickieâs shoes. âThank you; ah, thank you. I am sure Mr. Elliot would allow it.â Then he said in French to his sister, âHas there been the slightest sign of Frederick?â âNow, do call him Rickie, and talk English. I found him here. He had forgotten about us, and was very sorry. Now heâs gone to get some dinner, and I canât think why he isnât back.â Mrs. Aberdeen left them. âHe wants pulling up sharply. There is nothing original in absent-mindedness. True originality lies elsewhere. Really, the lower classes have no nous. However can I wear such deformities?â For he had been madly trying to cram a right-hand foot into a left-hand shoe. âDonât!â said Agnes hastily. âDonât touch the poor fellowâs things.â The sight of the smart, stubby patent leather made her almost feel faint. She had known Rickie for many years, but it seemed so dreadful and so different now that he was a man. It was her first great contact with the abnormal, and unknown fibres of her being rose in revolt against it. She frowned when she heard his uneven tread upon the stairs. âAgnes--before he arrives--you ought never to have left me and gone to his rooms alone. A most elementary transgression. Imagine the unpleasantness if you had found him with friends. If Gerald--â Rickie by now had got into a fluster. At the kitchens he had lost his head, and when his turn came--he had had to wait--he had yielded his place to those behind, saying that he didnât matter. And he had wasted more precious time buying bananas, though he knew that the Pembrokes were not partial to fruit. Amid much tardy and chaotic hospitality the meal got under way. All the spoons and forks were anyhow, for Mrs. Aberdeenâs virtues were not practical. The fish seemed never to have been alive, the meat had no kick, and the cork of the college claret slid forth silently, as if ashamed of the contents. Agnes was particularly pleasant. But her brother could not recover himself. He still remembered their desolate arrival, and he could feel the waters of the Pem eating into his instep. âRickie,â cried the lady, âare you aware that you havenât congratulated me on my engagement?â Rickie laughed nervously, and said, âWhy no! No more I have.â âSay something pretty, then.â âI hope youâll be very happy,â he mumbled. âBut I donât know anything about marriage.â âOh, you awful boy! Herbert, isnât he just the same? But you do know something about Gerald, so donât be so chilly and cautious. Iâve just realized, looking at those groups, that you must have been at school together. Did you come much across him?â âVery little,â he answered, and sounded shy. He got up hastily, and began to muddle with the coffee. âBut he was in the same house. Surely thatâs a house group?â âHe was a prefect.â He made his coffee on the simple system. One had a brown pot, into which the boiling stuff was poured. Just before serving one put in a drop of cold water, and the idea was that the grounds fell to the bottom. âWasnât he a kind of athletic marvel? Couldnât he knock any boy or master down?â âYes.â âIf he had wanted to,â said Mr. Pembroke, who had not spoken for some time. âIf he had wanted to,â echoed Rickie. âI do hope, Agnes, youâll be most awfully happy. I donât know anything about the army, but I should think it must be most awfully interesting.â Mr. Pembroke laughed faintly. âYes, Rickie. The army is a most interesting profession,--the profession of Wellington and Marlborough and Lord Roberts; a most interesting profession, as you observe. A profession that may mean death--death, rather than dishonour.â âThatâs nice,â said Rickie, speaking to himself. âAny profession may mean dishonour, but one isnât allowed to die instead. The armyâs different. If a soldier makes a mess, itâs thought rather decent of him, isnât it, if he blows out his brains? In the other professions it somehow seems cowardly.â âI am not competent to pronounce,â said Mr. Pembroke, who was not accustomed to have his schoolroom satire commented on. âI merely know that the army is the finest profession in the world. Which reminds me, Rickie--have you been thinking about yours?â âNo.â âNot at all?â âNo.â âNow, Herbert, donât bother him. Have another meringue.â âBut, Rickie, my dear boy, youâre twenty. Itâs time you thought. The Tripos is the beginning of life, not the end. In less than two years you will have got your B.A. What are you going to do with it?â âI donât know.â âYouâre M.A., arenât you?â asked Agnes; but her brother proceeded-- âI have seen so many promising, brilliant lives wrecked simply on account of this--not settling soon enough. My dear boy, you must think. Consult your tastes if possible--but think. You have not a moment to lose. The Bar, like your father?â âOh, I wouldnât like that at all.â âI donât mention the Church.â âOh, Rickie, do be a clergyman!â said Miss Pembroke. âYouâd be simply killing in a wide-awake.â He looked at his guests hopelessly. Their kindness and competence overwhelmed him. âI wish I could talk to them as I talk to myself,â he thought. âIâm not such an ass when I talk to myself. I donât believe, for instance, that quite all I thought about the cow was rot.â Aloud he said, âIâve sometimes wondered about writing.â âWriting?â said Mr. Pembroke, with the tone of one who gives everything its trial. âWell, what about writing? What kind of writing?â âI rather like,â--he suppressed something in his throat,--âI rather like trying to write little stories.â âWhy, I made sure it was poetry!â said Agnes. âYouâre just the boy for poetry.â âI had no idea you wrote. Would you let me see something? Then I could judge.â The author shook his head. âI donât show it to any one. It isnât anything. I just try because it amuses me.â âWhat is it about?â âSilly nonsense.â âAre you ever going to show it to any one?â âI donât think so.â Mr. Pembroke did not reply, firstly, because the meringue he was eating was, after all, Rickieâs; secondly, because it was gluey and stuck his jaws together. Agnes observed that the writing was really a very good idea: there was Rickieâs aunt,--she could push him. âAunt Emily never pushes any one; she says they always rebound and crush her.â âI only had the pleasure of seeing your aunt once. I should have thought her a quite uncrushable person. But she would be sure to help you.â âI couldnât show her anything. Sheâd think them even sillier than they are.â âAlways running yourself down! There speaks the artist!â âIâm not modest,â he said anxiously. âI just know theyâre bad.â Mr. Pembrokeâs teeth were clear of meringue, and he could refrain no longer. âMy dear Rickie, your father and mother are dead, and you often say your aunt takes no interest in you. Therefore your life depends on yourself. Think it over carefully, but settle, and having once settled, stick. If you think that this writing is practicable, and that you could make your living by it--that you could, if needs be, support a wife--then by all means write. But you must work. Work and drudge. Begin at the bottom of the ladder and work upwards.â Rickieâs head drooped. Any metaphor silenced him. He never thought of replying that art is not a ladder--with a curate, as it were, on the first rung, a rector on the second, and a bishop, still nearer heaven, at the top. He never retorted that the artist is not a bricklayer at all, but a horseman, whose business it is to catch Pegasus at once, not to practise for him by mounting tamer colts. This is hard, hot, and generally ungraceful work, but it is not drudgery. For drudgery is not art, and cannot lead to it. âOf course I donât really think about writing,â he said, as he poured the cold water into the coffee. âEven if my things ever were decent, I donât think the magazines would take them, and the magazines are oneâs only chance. I read somewhere, too, that Marie Corelliâs about the only person who makes a thing out of literature. Iâm certain it wouldnât pay me.â âI never mentioned the word âpay,ââ said Mr. Pembroke uneasily. âYou must not consider money. There are ideals too.â âI have no ideals.â âRickie!â she exclaimed. âHorrible boy!â âNo, Agnes, I have no ideals.â Then he got very red, for it was a phrase he had caught from Ansell, and he could not remember what came next. âThe person who has no ideals,â she exclaimed, âis to be pitied.â âI think so too,â said Mr. Pembroke, sipping his coffee. âLife without an ideal would be like the sky without the sun.â Rickie looked towards the night, wherein there now twinkled innumerable stars--gods and heroes, virgins and brides, to whom the Greeks have given their names. âLife without an ideal--â repeated Mr. Pembroke, and then stopped, for his mouth was full of coffee grounds. The same affliction had overtaken Agnes. After a little jocose laughter they departed to their lodgings, and Rickie, having seen them as far as the porterâs lodge, hurried, singing as he went, to Ansellâs room, burst open the door, and said, âLook here! Whatever do you mean by it?â âBy what?â Ansell was sitting alone with a piece of paper in front of him. On it was a diagram--a circle inside a square, inside which was again a square. âBy being so rude. Youâre no gentleman, and I told her so.â He slammed him on the head with a sofa cushion. âIâm certain one ought to be polite, even to people who arenât saved.â (âNot savedâ was a phrase they applied just then to those whom they did not like or intimately know.) âAnd I believe she is saved. I never knew any one so always good-tempered and kind. Sheâs been kind to me ever since I knew her. I wish youâd heard her trying to stop her brother: youâd have certainly come round. Not but what he was only being nice as well. But she is really nice. And I thought she came into the room so beautifully. Do you know--oh, of course, you despise music--but Anderson was playing Wagner, and heâd just got to the part where they sing âRheingold! âRheingold! and the sun strikes into the waters, and the music, which up to then has so often been in E flat--â âGoes into D sharp. I have not understood a single word, partly because you talk as if your mouth was full of plums, partly because I donât know whom youâre talking about.â âMiss Pembroke--whom you saw.â âI saw no one.â âWho came in?â âNo one came in.â âYouâre an ass!â shrieked Rickie. âShe came in. You saw her come in. She and her brother have been to dinner.â âYou only think so. They were not really there.â âBut they stop till Monday.â âYou only think that they are stopping.â âBut--oh, look here, shut up! The girl like an empress--â âI saw no empress, nor any girl, nor have you seen them.â âAnsell, donât rag.â âElliot, I never rag, and you know it. She was not really there.â There was a momentâs silence. Then Rickie exclaimed, âIâve got you. You say--or was it Tilliard?--no, YOU say that the cowâs there. Well--there these people are, then. Got you. Yah!â âDid it never strike you that phenomena may be of two kinds: ONE, those which have a real existence, such as the cow; TWO, those which are the subjective product of a diseased imagination, and which, to our destruction, we invest with the semblance of reality? If this never struck you, let it strike you now.â Rickie spoke again, but received no answer. He paced a little up and down the sombre roam. Then he sat on the edge of the table and watched his clever friend draw within the square a circle, and within the circle a square, and inside that another circle, and inside that another square. âWhy will you do that?â No answer. âAre they real?â âThe inside one is--the one in the middle of everything, that thereâs never room enough to draw.â II A little this side of Madingley, to the left of the road, there is a secluded dell, paved with grass and planted with fir-trees. It could not have been worth a visit twenty years ago, for then it was only a scar of chalk, and it is not worth a visit at the present day, for the trees have grown too thick and choked it. But when Rickie was up, it chanced to be the brief season of its romance, a season as brief for a chalk-pit as a man--its divine interval between the bareness of boyhood and the stuffiness of age. Rickie had discovered it in his second term, when the January snows had melted and left fiords and lagoons of clearest water between the inequalities of the floor. The place looked as big as Switzerland or Norway--as indeed for the moment it was--and he came upon it at a time when his life too was beginning to expand. Accordingly the dell became for him a kind of church--a church where indeed you could do anything you liked, but where anything you did would be transfigured. Like the ancient Greeks, he could even laugh at his holy place and leave it no less holy. He chatted gaily about it, and about the pleasant thoughts with which it inspired him; he took his friends there; he even took people whom he did not like. âProcul este, profani!â exclaimed a delighted aesthete on being introduced to it. But this was never to be the attitude of Rickie. He did not love the vulgar herd, but he knew that his own vulgarity would be greater if he forbade it ingress, and that it was not by preciosity that he would attain to the intimate spirit of the dell. Indeed, if he had agreed with the aesthete, he would possibly not have introduced him. If the dell was to bear any inscription, he would have liked it to be âThis way to Heaven,â painted on a sign-post by the high-road, and he did not realize till later years that the number of visitors would not thereby have sensibly increased. On the blessed Monday that the Pembrokes left, he walked out here with three friends. It was a day when the sky seemed enormous. One cloud, as large as a continent, was voyaging near the sun, whilst other clouds seemed anchored to the horizon, too lazy or too happy to move. The sky itself was of the palest blue, paling to white where it approached the earth; and the earth, brown, wet, and odorous, was engaged beneath it on its yearly duty of decay. Rickie was open to the complexities of autumn; he felt extremely tiny--extremely tiny and extremely important; and perhaps the combination is as fair as any that exists. He hoped that all his life he would never be peevish or unkind. âElliot is in a dangerous state,â said Ansell. They had reached the dell, and had stood for some time in silence, each leaning against a tree. It was too wet to sit down. âHowâs that?â asked Rickie, who had not known he was in any state at all. He shut up Keats, whom he thought he had been reading, and slipped him back into his coat-pocket. Scarcely ever was he without a book. âHeâs trying to like people.â âThen heâs done for,â said Widdrington. âHeâs dead.â âHeâs trying to like Hornblower.â The others gave shrill agonized cries. âHe wants to bind the college together. He wants to link us to the beefy set.â âI do like Hornblower,â he protested. âI donât try.â âAnd Hornblower tries to like you.â âThat part doesnât matter.â âBut he does try to like you. He tries not to despise you. It is altogether a most public-spirited affair.â âTilliard started them,â said Widdrington. âTilliard thinks it such a pity the college should be split into sets.â âOh, Tilliard!â said Ansell, with much irritation. âBut what can you expect from a person whoâs eternally beautiful? The other night we had been discussing a long time, and suddenly the light was turned on. Every one else looked a sight, as they ought. But there was Tilliard, sitting neatly on a little chair, like an undersized god, with not a curl crooked. I should say he will get into the Foreign Office.â âWhy are most of us so ugly?â laughed Rickie. âItâs merely a sign of our salvation--merely another sign that the college is split.â âThe college isnât split,â cried Rickie, who got excited on this subject with unfailing regularity. âThe college is, and has been, and always will be, one. What you call the beefy set arenât a set at all. Theyâre just the rowing people, and naturally they chiefly see each other; but theyâre always nice to me or to any one. Of course, they think us rather asses, but itâs quite in a pleasant way.â âThatâs my whole objection,â said Ansell. âWhat right have they to think us asses in a pleasant way? Why donât they hate us? What right has Hornblower to smack me on the back when Iâve been rude to him?â âWell, what right have you to be rude to him?â âBecause I hate him. You think it is so splendid to hate no one. I tell you it is a crime. You want to love every one equally, and thatâs worse than impossible itâs wrong. When you denounce sets, youâre really trying to destroy friendship.â âI maintain,â said Rickie--it was a verb he clung to, in the hope that it would lend stability to what followed--âI maintain that one can like many more people than one supposes.â âAnd I maintain that you hate many more people than you pretend.â âI hate no one,â he exclaimed with extraordinary vehemence, and the dell re-echoed that it hated no one. âWe are obliged to believe you,â said Widdrington, smiling a little âbut we are sorry about it.â âNot even your father?â asked Ansell. Rickie was silent. âNot even your father?â The cloud above extended a great promontory across the sun. It only lay there for a moment, yet that was enough to summon the lurking coldness from the earth. âDoes he hate his father?â said Widdrington, who had not known. âOh, good!â âBut his fatherâs dead. He will say it doesnât count.â âStill, itâs something. Do you hate yours?â Ansell did not reply. Rickie said: âI say, I wonder whether one ought to talk like this?â âAbout hating dead people?â âYes--â âDid you hate your mother?â asked Widdrington. Rickie turned crimson. âI donât see Hornblowerâs such a rotter,â remarked the other man, whose name was James. âJames, you are diplomatic,â said Ansell. âYou are trying to tide over an awkward moment. You can go.â Widdrington was crimson too. In his wish to be sprightly he had used words without thinking of their meanings. Suddenly he realized that âfatherâ and âmotherâ really meant father and mother--people whom he had himself at home. He was very uncomfortable, and thought Rickie had been rather queer. He too tried to revert to Hornblower, but Ansell would not let him. The sun came out, and struck on the white ramparts of the dell. Rickie looked straight at it. Then he said abruptly-- âI think I want to talk.â âI think you do,â replied Ansell. âShouldnât I be rather a fool if I went through Cambridge without talking? Itâs said never to come so easy again. All the people are dead too. I canât see why I shouldnât tell you most things about my birth and parentage and education.â âTalk away. If you bore us, we have books.â With this invitation Rickie began to relate his history. The reader who has no book will be obliged to listen to it. Some people spend their lives in a suburb, and not for any urgent reason. This had been the fate of Rickie. He had opened his eyes to filmy heavens, and taken his first walk on asphalt. He had seen civilization as a row of semi-detached villas, and society as a state in which men do not know the men who live next door. He had himself become part of the grey monotony that surrounds all cities. There was no necessity for this--it was only rather convenient to his father. Mr. Elliot was a barrister. In appearance he resembled his son, being weakly and lame, with hollow little cheeks, a broad white band of forehead, and stiff impoverished hair. His voice, which he did not transmit, was very suave, with a fine command of cynical intonation. By altering it ever so little he could make people wince, especially if they were simple or poor. Nor did he transmit his eyes. Their peculiar flatness, as if the soul looked through dirty window-panes, the unkindness of them, the cowardice, the fear in them, were to trouble the world no longer. He married a girl whose voice was beautiful. There was no caress in it yet all who heard it were soothed, as though the world held some unexpected blessing. She called to her dogs one night over invisible waters, and he, a tourist up on the bridge, thought âthat is extraordinarily adequate.â In time he discovered that her figure, face, and thoughts were adequate also, and as she was not impossible socially, he married her. âI have taken a plunge,â he told his family. The family, hostile at first, had not a word to say when the woman was introduced to them; and his sister declared that the plunge had been taken from the opposite bank. Things only went right for a little time. Though beautiful without and within, Mrs. Elliot had not the gift of making her home beautiful; and one day, when she bought a carpet for the dining-room that clashed, he laughed gently, said he âreally couldnât,â and departed. Departure is perhaps too strong a word. In Mrs. Elliotâs mouth it became, âMy husband has to sleep more in town.â He often came down to see them, nearly always unexpectedly, and occasionally they went to see him. âFatherâs house,â as Rickie called it, only had three rooms, but these were full of books and pictures and flowers; and the flowers, instead of being squashed down into the vases as they were in mummyâs house, rose gracefully from frames of lead which lay coiled at the bottom, as doubtless the sea serpent has to lie, coiled at the bottom of the sea. Once he was let to lift a frame out--only once, for he dropped some water on a creton. âI think heâs going to have taste,â said Mr. Elliot languidly. âIt is quite possible,â his wife replied. She had not taken off her hat and gloves, nor even pulled up her veil. Mr. Elliot laughed, and soon afterwards another lady came in, and they--went away. âWhy does father always laugh?â asked Rickie in the evening when he and his mother were sitting in the nursery. âIt is a way of your fatherâs.â âWhy does he always laugh at me? Am I so funny?â Then after a pause, âYou have no sense of humour, have you, mummy?â Mrs. Elliot, who was raising a thread of cotton to her lips, held it suspended in amazement. âYou told him so this afternoon. But I have seen you laugh.â He nodded wisely. âI have seen you laugh ever so often. One day you were laughing alone all down in the sweet peas.â âWas I?â âYes. Were you laughing at me?â âI was not thinking about you. Cotton, please--a reel of No. 50 white from my chest of drawers. Left hand drawer. Now which is your left hand?â âThe side my pocket is.â âAnd if you had no pocket?â âThe side my bad foot is.â âI meant you to say, âthe side my heart is,ââ said Mrs. Elliot, holding up the duster between them. âMost of us--I mean all of us--can feel on one side a little watch, that never stops ticking. So even if you had no bad foot you would still know which is the left. No. 50 white, please. No; Iâll get it myself.â For she had remembered that the dark passage frightened him. These were the outlines. Rickie filled them in with the slowness and the accuracy of a child. He was never told anything, but he discovered for himself that his father and mother did not love each other, and that his mother was lovable. He discovered that Mr. Elliot had dubbed him Rickie because he was rickety, that he took pleasure in alluding to his sonâs deformity, and was sorry that it was not more serious than his own. Mr. Elliot had not one scrap of genius. He gathered the pictures and the books and the flower-supports mechanically, not in any impulse of love. He passed for a cultured man because he knew how to select, and he passed for an unconventional man because he did not select quite like other people. In reality he never did or said or thought one single thing that had the slightest beauty or value. And in time Rickie discovered this as well. The boy grew up in great loneliness. He worshipped his mother, and she was fond of him. But she was dignified and reticent, and pathos, like tattle, was disgusting to her. She was afraid of intimacy, in case it led to confidences and tears, and so all her life she held her son at a little distance. Her kindness and unselfishness knew no limits, but if he tried to be dramatic and thank her, she told him not to be a little goose. And so the only person he came to know at all was himself. He would play Halma against himself. He would conduct solitary conversations, in which one part of him asked and another part answered. It was an exciting game, and concluded with the formula: âGood-bye. Thank you. I am glad to have met you. I hope before long we shall enjoy another chat.â And then perhaps he would sob for loneliness, for he would see real people--real brothers, real friends--doing in warm life the things he had pretended. âShall I ever have a friend?â he demanded at the age of twelve. âI donât see how. They walk too fast. And a brother I shall never have.â (âNo loss,â interrupted Widdrington. âBut I shall never have one, and so I quite want one, even now.â) When he was thirteen Mr. Elliot entered on his illness. The pretty rooms in town would not do for an invalid, and so he came back to his home. One of the first consequences was that Rickie was sent to a public school. Mrs. Elliot did what she could, but she had no hold whatever over her husband. âHe worries me,â he declared. âHeâs a joke of which I have got tired.â âWould it be possible to send him to a private tutorâs?â âNo,â said Mr. Elliot, who had all the money. âCoddling.â âI agree that boys ought to rough it; but when a boy is lame and very delicate, he roughs it sufficiently if he leaves home. Rickie canât play games. He doesnât make friends. He isnât brilliant. Thinking it over, I feel that as itâs like this, we canât ever hope to give him the ordinary education. Perhaps you could think it over too.â No. âI am sure that things are best for him as they are. The day-school knocks quite as many corners off him as he can stand. He hates it, but it is good for him. A public school will not be good for him. It is too rough. Instead of getting manly and hard, he will--â âMy head, please.â Rickie departed in a state of bewildered misery, which was scarcely ever to grow clearer. Each holiday he found his father more irritable, and a little weaker. Mrs. Elliot was quickly growing old. She had to manage the servants, to hush the neighbouring children, to answer the correspondence, to paper and re-paper the rooms--and all for the sake of a man whom she did not like, and who did not conceal his dislike for her. One day she found Rickie tearful, and said rather crossly, âWell, what is it this time?â He replied, âOh, mummy, Iâve seen your wrinkles your grey hair--Iâm unhappy.â Sudden tenderness overcame her, and she cried, âMy darling, what does it matter? Whatever does it matter now?â He had never known her so emotional. Yet even better did he remember another incident. Hearing high voices from his fatherâs room, he went upstairs in the hope that the sound of his tread might stop them. Mrs. Elliot burst open the door, and seeing him, exclaimed, âMy dear! If you please, heâs hit me.â She tried to laugh it off, but a few hours later he saw the bruise which the stick of the invalid had raised upon his motherâs hand. God alone knows how far we are in the grip of our bodies. He alone can judge how far the cruelty of Mr. Elliot was the outcome of extenuating circumstances. But Mrs. Elliot could accurately judge of its extent. At last he died. Rickie was now fifteen, and got off a whole weekâs school for the funeral. His mother was rather strange. She was much happier, she looked younger, and her mourning was as unobtrusive as convention permitted. All this he had expected. But she seemed
{'title': 'The Longest Journey by E. M. Forster', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}