The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [162]
‘As for Justine, she was surprised by the new emotions he seemed capable of provoking. Quite simple things — for example she found her love extending itself to inanimate objects concerned with him, like his old meerschaum pipe with the much basted stem. Or his old hat, so battered and weather-stained — it hung behind the door like a water-colour of the man himself. She found herself cherishing objects he had touched or thrown aside. It seemed to her an infuriating sort of mental captivity to find herself stroking one of his old notebooks as if she were caressing his body, or tracing with her finger the words he had written on the shaving-mirror with his brush (from Stendhal): “You must boldly face a little anatomy if you want to discover an unknown principle” and
“Great souls require nourishment.”
‘Once, when she discovered an Arab prostitute in his bed (while he himself was shaving in the other room and whistling an air from Donizetti) she was surprised to find that she was not jealous but curious. She sat on the bed and pinning the arms of the unfor-tunate girl to the pillow set about questioning her closely about what she had felt while making love to him. Of course, this scared the prostitute very much. “I am not angry” Justine repeated to the wailing creature, “I am puzzled. Tell me what I ask of you.”
‘Pursewarden had to come in and release his visitant and they all three sat on the bed together, Justine feeding her with crystal-lized fruit to calm her fears.
‘Shall I go on? This analysis may give you pain — but if you are a real writer you will want to follow things to their conclusion, no?
All this shows you how hard it was for Melissa….
‘If he succeeded in infuriating her it was because he could feel concern about her without any real affection. He did not always clown, or stay beyond her reach; that is what I mean by his honesty. He gave intellectual value for money — in fact he told her the real secret which lay hidden under the enigma of his behaviour. You will find it in one of his books. I know this because Clea quoted it to me as his most profound statement on human relationships. He said to her one night: “You see, Justine, I believe that Gods are men and men Gods; they intrude on each other’s lives, trying to express themselves through each other — hence such apparent confusion in our human states of mind, our intimations of powers within or beyond us…. And then (listen) I think that very few people realize that sex is a psychic and not a physical act. The clumsy coupling of human beings is simply a biological paraphrase of this truth — a primitive method of introducing minds to each other, engaging them. But most people are stuck in the physical aspect, unaware of the poetic rapport which it so clumsily tries to teach. That is why all your dull repetitions of the same mistake are simply like a boring great multiplication table, and will remain so until you get your head out of the paper bag and start to think respons ibly.”
‘It is impossible to describe the effect these words had on her: they threw her life and actions into relief in an entirely new way. She saw him all of a sudden in a new light, as a man whom one could “really love”. Alas, he had already withdrawn his favours …
‘When he next went to Cairo he elected to go alone and, made restless by his absence, she made the mistake of writing him a lon g passionate letter in which she clumsily tried to thank him for a friendship of whose real value to her he was completely unaware —
that is true of all love again. He regarded this simply as another attempt to intrude upon him and sent her a telegram. (They corresponded through me. I have it still.)
“First nobody can own an artist so be warned. Second what good is a faithful body when the mind is by its very nature unfaithful?
Third stop whining like an Arab, you know better. Fourth neurosis is
no excuse. Health must be won and earned by a battle. Lastly it is honourable if you can’ t win to hang yourself. ”
‘Once she happened upon him when he was very drunk