Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner [35]
‘Yes, I have seen that,’ said Edith, sombre.
‘Then, my dear, learn to use it. You have no idea how promising the world begins to look once you have decided to have it all for yourself. And how much healthier your decisions are once they become entirely selfish. It is the simplest thing in the world to decide what you want to do – or, rather, what you don’t want to do – and just to act on that.’
‘That is true of certain things,’ said Edith. ‘But not of others.’
‘You must learn to discount the others. Within your own scope you can accomplish much more. You can be self-centred, and that is a marvellous lesson to learn. To assume your own centrality may mean an entirely new life.’
‘But if you would prefer to share your life?’ asked Edith. ‘Supposing that you were a person who was simply bored with living their own life and wanted to live somebody else’s. For the sheer pleasure of the novelty.’
‘You cannot live someone else’s life. You can only live your own. And remember, there are no punishments. Whatever they told you about unselfishness being good and wickedness being bad was entirely inaccurate. It is a lesson for serfs and it leads to resignation. And my policy, you may be surprised to hear, will ensure you any number of friends. People feel at home with low moral standards. It is scruples that put them off.’
Edith conceded his point with a judicious nod. This dangerous gospel, which she would have refuted at a lower level, seemed to accord with the wine, the brilliance of the sun, the headiness of the air. There was something wrong with it, she knew, but at the moment she was not interested in finding out what it was. More than the force of his argument, she was seduced by the power of his language, his unusual eloquence. And I thought him quiet, she marvelled.
‘That is why I so much enjoy our dear Mrs Pusey,’ Mr Neville continued. ‘There is something quite heartening about her simple greed. And one is so happy to know that she has found the means of satisfying it. And, as you see, she is in good health and spirits: altruism has not interfered with her digestion, conscience has not stopped her sleeping at nights, and she enjoys every minute of her existence.’
‘Yes, but I doubt if all this is good for Jennifer,’ said Edith. ‘Or good enough, I should say. At her age there should be more to life than buying clothes.’
‘Jennifer,’ said Mr Neville, with his fine smile. ‘I have no doubt that in her own way Jennifer is a chip off the old block.’
She leaned back in her chair and raised her face to the sun, mildly intoxicated, not so much by the wine as by the scope of this important argument. Seduced, also, by the possibility that she might please herself, simply by wishing it so. As a devil’s advocate Mr Neville was faultless. And yet, she knew, there was a flaw in his reasoning, just as there was a flaw in his ability to feel. Sitting up straight, she returned to the attack.
‘This life you advocate,’ she queried, ‘with its low moral standards. Can you recommend it? For others, I mean.’
Mr Neville’s smile deepened. ‘I daresay my wife could. And that is what you are getting at, isn’t it? Do I tolerate low moral standards in other people?’
Edith nodded.
He took a sip of his wine.
‘I have come to understand them very well,’ he replied.
Well done, thought Edith. That was a faultless performance. He knew what I was thinking and he gave me an answer. Not a satisfactory answer, but an honest one. And in its own way, elegant. I suppose Mr Neville is what was once called a man of quality. He conducts himself altogether gracefully. He is well turned out, she thought, surveying the panama hat and the linen jacket. He is even good-looking: an eighteenth-century face, fine, reticent, full-lipped, with a faint bluish gleam of beard just visible beneath the healthy skin. A heartless man, I think. Furiously intelligent. Suitable. Oh David, David.
Mr Neville, noting the minute alteration