Love Over Scotland - Alexander Hanchett Smith [45]
Antonia rose from her desk. She walked over to the window of Domenica’s study and looked out. Above the grey slated roofs, the clouds moved high across the sky, clouds from the west, from those airy islands, from the world which she had just been trying to evoke. Somewhere out there was machair, and wild flowers, and the same darkness of the spirit against which those brave, now largely forgotten men had battled. Their enemy had been very real. And ours? she thought.
30. Schadenfreude
When Stuart returned from work that evening, his one thought was to finish the crossword which he had unwisely started in an idle moment at the office. Stuart was a skilled crossword solver, having cut his teeth on The Scotsman before progressing to the heady realms of the puzzles with which the Sunday newspapers tormented their readers. These crosswords relied on additional gimmicks to add a higher level of complexity. All the words might begin with a particular letter, for example, or, when lined up in reverse sequence might make up a perfect Shakespearian sonnet; there was nothing so simple as an ordinary clue. He conquers all, a nubile tram: Tamburlaine, of course, but far too simple for this sort of puzzle.
Irene was in the sitting room when he returned, a half-finished cup of coffee on the table at her side, an open book on her lap. From within the flat somewhere, the sounds of a saxophone could be heard; a difficult scale, by the sounds of it, with numerous sharps. And then, abruptly, the scale stopped, and there could be heard the first notes of ‘Autumn Leaves’, Bertie’s new set-piece.
Irene looked up when Stuart entered the room.
“I’m reading an extremely interesting book on Schadenfreude,” she remarked. “It’s a very common emotion, you know
– pleasure in the suffering of another.”
Stuart glanced at the book on her lap. His mind was still on his unfinished crossword, and Schadenfreude was no more than a diversion. He wondered how one might conceal such a word in a crossword clue. It would lend itself to an anagram, of course; most German words were good candidates for that, and this was a gift: Freud had . . . No, that wouldn’t work. Sacred feud hen?
. . . Sudden face her?
“The question is this,” went on Irene. “Why do we feel pleasure in the suffering of others?”
“Do we?” asked Stuart.
“Yes we do,” snapped Irene. “Not you and I, of course. But ordinary people do. Look at the way they clap and cheer when 94
Schadenfreude
somebody they don’t like gets his come-uppance. Remember how the papers crowed when that man, that annoying person, was sent to prison. They loved it. Loved it. You could more or less hear the church bells in London ringing out.”
“That’s because he played such a great pantomime villain,”
said Stuart. “And anyway, that’s simply justice, isn’t it? We like to see people being punished for what they’ve done. Is that really Schadenfreude?”
Irene’s answer came quickly. “Yes. If it weren’t, then punishment would be handed out with regret.”
“This hurts me more than it hurts you?” said Stuart. “That kind of thing?”
Irene nodded. “Precisely. It’s interesting, you know. I’ve never felt the desire to punish anybody. And I’ve never felt any pleasure in the discomfort of others.”
Stuart looked at her. Crossword clues were forming in his mind. All colours out on this monument, except one (whited sepulchre). Or, more simply: Sounds like one recumbent, teller of untruths (liar).
“Are you sure?” he said mildly.
“Of course I am,” said Irene. “I, at least, know what I think.”
Stuart thought for a moment. There was much he could say to this, but there was no point in engaging with Irene when he was tired after the office. His head was reeling with the statistics with which he had wrestled during his day’s work, and there was an unfinished, and possibly unfinishable, crossword in his briefcase. He decided that he would have a shower and then he might play a card game with Bertie before dinner. Bertie always won the games because he had invented