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By Root 2384 0

” had a right to mix with the ordinary kind, and latterly he had spent more and more of his time in rather grand circles—and in fact had come almost to hate people who were not rather smart, or at least very rich. For example, I remember him describing—well, I won’t say whom, but he is a novelist who sells very well and you can probably guess the name—as “the kind of man who knows about as much about placement as to send the wife of a younger son of a marquess in to dinner before the daughter of an earl married to a commoner”. He thought a lot about such things. That was why I had been at first afraid of introducing him to Quiggin. And then—when we began discussing Cézanne—it turned out that he had been using the word “bourgeois” all the time in the Marxist sense. I didn’t know he had even heard of Marx, much less was at all familiar with his theories.’

‘I seem to remember an article he wrote describing himself as a “Gladstonian Liberal”—in fact a Liberal of the most old-fashioned kind.’

‘You do, you do,’ said Members, almost passionately. ‘I wrote it for him, as a matter of fact. You couldn’t have expressed it better. A Liberal of the most old-fashioned kind. Local Option—Proportional Representation—Welsh Disestablishment—the whole bag of tricks. That was just about as far as he got. But now everything is “bourgeois”—Liberalism, I have no doubt, most of all. As a matter of fact, his politics were the only liberal thing about him.’

‘And it began as soon as he met Quiggin?’

‘I first noticed the change when he persuaded me to join in what he called “collective action on the part of writers and artists”—going to meetings to protest against Manchuria and so on. I agreed, first of all, simply to humour him. It was just as well I did, as a matter of fact, because it led indirectly to another job when he turned his back on me. You know, what St. J. really wants is a son. He wants to be a father without having a wife.’

‘I thought everyone always tried to avoid that.’

‘In the Freudian sense,’ said Members, impatiently, ‘his nature requires a father-son relationship. Unfortunately, the situation becomes a little too life-like, and one is faced with a kind of artificially constructed OEdipus situation.’

‘Can’t you re-convert him from Marxism to psychoanalysis?’

Members looked at me fixedly.

‘St. J. has always pooh-poohed the subconscious,’ he said.

We were about to move off in our respective directions when my attention was caught by a disturbance coming from the road running within the railings of the park. It was a sound, harsh and grating, though at the same time shrill and suggesting complaint. These were human voices raised in protest. Turning, I saw through the mist that increasingly enveloped the park a column of persons entering beneath the arch. They trudged behind a mounted policeman, who led their procession about twenty yards ahead. Evidently a political ‘demonstration’ of some sort was on its way to the north side where such meetings were held. From time to time these persons raised a throaty cheer, or an individual voice from amongst them bawled out some form of exhortation. A strident shout, similar to that which had at first drawn my attention, now sounded again. We moved towards the road to obtain a better view.

The front rank consisted of two men in cloth caps, one with a beard, the other wearing dark glasses, who carried between them a banner upon which was inscribed the purpose and location of the gathering. Behind these came some half a dozen personages, marching almost doggedly out of step, as if to deprecate even such a minor element of militarism. At the same time there was a vaguely official air about them. Among these, I thought I recognised the face and figure of a female Member of Parliament whose photograph occasionally appeared in the papers. Next to this woman tramped Sillery. He had exchanged his black soft hat of earlier afternoon for a cloth cap similar to that worn by the bearers of the banner: his walrus moustache and thick strands of white hair blew furiously in the wind. From time to