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By Root 2172 0

caused it, by making them eat the forbidden fruit, which he told them was the knowledge of good and evil. Thus, said Herbert Methley, insinuating that good and evil originated in those parts of the body that the shamed human beings now felt they must cover. Yet why should this be so? Are good and evil not much more— infinitely more—to be found in cruelty, in humiliation of others, in selfishness, in abuse of power, in theft—I could go on in this way, said Herbert Methley—for the rest of this little talk. Good and evil do not reside in human flesh, in which we should rejoice, about which we should not—neither men nor women—feel shame. Every day in this camp the young folk come out and perform graceful, and strenuous, and delightful bodily movements. He smiled, imagining them.

Gerald whispered to Julian, with the grave naughtiness of the Apostles, “I think he emits some kind of musk. From under his armpits. He has well-developed armpits, you can see.”

“Hush,” said Julian.

The lecturer developed the Garden metaphor. He passed on to Blake and the Garden of Love, in which a Chapel was built, with

Thou shalt not, writ over the door

So I turned to the Garden of Love

That so many sweet flowers bore

And I saw it was filled with graves

And tomb-stones where flowers should be

And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds

And binding with briars my joys and desires.

He said much of the distorting shamefastness of the world we lived in was the historical consequence of the centuries of celibate priesthood. He looked at Frank Mallett, who looked blandly back.

The novel had suffered. In England it was written to be read aloud round the fireside of a married vicar or curate, with his wife gravely listening. In France the priests took charge of the women and children, and novels were written for the separate—and often salacious—male readers.

It was not possible in a novel to describe most of the world as it really was.

It should be. We need honest novels much more than we need moralising tracts.

His own novel Mr. Wodehouse and the Wild Girl had been about a modern man of the woods, a Wodwose, who had loved a woman as men do love women.

He believed, he said, in a pagan unity of nature. We are all one life which began long before there were any gardens, or any men in black gowns. Our feelings developed subtly, over millions of years, from the feelings and stirrings of jelly in the marshes, of slow, cold-blooded reptiles in hot swamps, of beings who clambered in trees that were now coal. It was possible, he said, to make a strenuous attempt to rediscover the strong, primal joy in being. One must go back to the roots of things. He quoted Marvell

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than Empires, and more slow—

Gerald said “That’s rich. Is he doing it on purpose?”

“Oh, I think so. Do be quiet.”

Elsie’s arms were still tightly clutched around her. Her mouth was set firm. Charles/Karl wanted to pull her fingers, to unwind her, and knew he must not.

Herbert Methley’s eye wandered over the upturned faces like a bumble-bee over a flowerbed. He had a skill the younger men had not developed. He could tell which of the women were, as he put it to himself, in need, potential wild girls. Dorothy’s dark face was judging him and made him uncomfortable. Griselda, blonde and peaceful, was weighing up the arguments—there was something alive there, and the face was lovely, but not in need. Phyllis was prim and pretty and undeveloped. He did not look at Elsie, though he had glimpsed the red belt. The agitated one, the one who breathed fast, and shifted in her seat, and looked about her for something, was Florence Cain. He took note of her.

After he had finished, some people left rapidly. Others came to talk to him. Frank Mallett said

“You have not given enough attention to the remarkable persistence of shamefastness. Men must need it very much if it is so tenacious.”

“A good point.”

“Marvell also said

‘How happy was that Garden State

When Man there walked without a mate.’ ”

“Indeed. There is a time for mutual love,