The Magus - John Fowles [179]
and vivisect it out of existence, was like trying to remove all the air from atmosphere. In the creating of the vacuum it was the experimenter who died, because he was inside the vacuum. All this change in me came just when I unexpectedly found myself presented with the money and the leisure to do what I wanted in life. At that time I interpreted that last question of de Deukans as a warning. I was to look for the water, not the wave. So." We came to the seat overlooking the dark sea. "And you came to Greece?" "I did not come to Greece to... look for water. I came because my mother was dying of cancer. Like myself, she had always resisted any idea of coming here. Or rather, I learnt my unwillingness to face Greece from her. But when she knew she was dying she suddenly wanted to see it one last time. So we took a boat from Marseilles. This was in 1928. I shall never forget seeing her come on deck one morning. In brilliant sunshine. And finding herself in the Gulf of Corinth, which we had entered during the night. She stood gripping the rail. Facing the mountains of Achaia with the tears streaming down her face. Lacerated with joy. I could not feel it then. But later I did. By the end of the holiday I knew that I too had gained a homeland. Perhaps I should say a motherland. My mother died four months after we returned to Paris." "And you came here." "I came here. I told you why. But it also reminded me very much of Norway. Like Henrik Nygaard, like de Deukans, in their different ways, I have always craved for territory. I use the word in the technical ornithological sense. A fixed domaine on which no other of my species may trespass." He stared to sea. "I gave up all ideas of practising medicine. In spite of what I have just said about the wave and the water, in those years in France I am afraid I lived a selfish life. That is, I offered myself every pleasure. I travelled a great deal. I lost some money dabbling in the theatre, but I made much more dabbling on the Bourse. I gained a great many amusing friends, some of whom are now quite famous. But I was never very happy. I suppose I was fortunate. It took me only five years to discover what some rich people never discover--that we all have a certain capacity for happiness and unhappiness. And that the economic hazards of life do not seriously affect it." "When did you start your theatre here?" "Friends used to come. They were bored. Very often they bored me, because an amusing person in Paris can become insufferable on an Aegean island. We had a little fixed theatre, a stage. Where the Priapus is now. We began to write our own plays." He turned. "_Et voil�" The new-risen moon was amber, hazed, and made the sea glisten turgidly. A few crickets cheeped, but we sat before a dropsied, listless silence. Far away to the west over the black mountains of the mainland I saw the nervous, thunderless flicker of summer lightning. I sprang my question on him, out of the silence, in his own style. "Is your dislike of me a part of your part?" He was undisconcerted. "Liking is not important. Between men." I felt the _ouzo_ in me. "Even so, you don't like me." His dark eyes turned on mine. "I am to answer?" I nodded. "No. But I like very few people. And no longer any of your sex and age. Liking other people is an illusion we have to cherish in ourselves if we are to live in society. It is one I have long banished from my life. You wish to be liked. I wish simply to be. One day you will know what that means, perhaps. And you will smile. Not against me. But with me." From the house the bell rang, and we walked back slowly through the trees. Maria's shadow moved under the arches, round the whiteand-silver table. It was like a stage setting, and I had the sharp realisation that this was presumably the last dinner Conchis and I should have together. I wanted desperately to have Julie at my side, to have that situation solved; but I found myself wishing that the masque, despite all its asperities and shocks and uglinesses, could have also continued. Almost as soon as we had started eating I heard