Under The Net - Iris Murdoch [83]
Fourteen
I find that sea voyages promote reflection. Not that the ferry can strictly be called a sea voyage in the ordinary sense. A necessary element in the experience of travelling by boat is the smell; whereas one of the special features of the night ferry is that one encounters the kinaesthetic sensations of a boat combined with the olfactory sensations of a train. It was in the midst of such a d�glement de tons les seas that I now lay thinking about Hugo. My interview with Hugo could hardly be said to have been a success; on the other hand it hadn't exactly been a failure either. I had acquainted Hugo with something which he needed to know, and we had exchanged not unfriendly words. We had even had an adventure together in the course of which I had acquitted myself at least without shame. In a sense it could be said that the ice was broken between us. But it is possible to break the ice without burying the hatchet. As I had been rather busy since my meeting with Hugo I had not yet had time to brood upon my impressions. I now gathered them all together and began to turn them over one by one. I remembered vividly my first sight of Hugo, as he stood there at the top of the steps, like the tsar of all the Russias. He seemed to me now, as I lay upon my undulating pillow, an image of mystery and power. I felt more than ever certain that we had not finished with each other. To whatever effect the threads of my destiny might be interwoven with his, the tangle had yet to be unravelled. So strongly did this come upon me that I found myself regretting that I had to go to Paris and surrender, even for one day, the possibility of seeing him again. What had not been made at all clear by our interview, and from this point of view it could be said to have been a failure, were Hugo's present feelings towards me. He had not, it is true, displayed any overt hostility. His behaviour had been, if anything, rather casual. But was this a bad sign or a good sign? I recalled in detail Hugo's expression, his tone of voice, his gestures even, and compared them with earlier memories, but without reaching any conclusion. How fed up Hugo was with me still remained to be seen. I then thought about The Silencer and could not help wishing that Sadie and Sammy could have chosen some place other than Sadie's kitchen for their conspiratorial talk. I would, all things considered, have preferred to have retrieved the book and been without the information, and so been spared a great deal of trouble, past and to come; for I didn't seriously imagine that my warning to Hugo had any importance save as a gesture of good will. As for the book itself, it figured in my mind, not only as a casus belli between myself and Hugo, but as a constellation of ideas which I could no longer be so disloyal as to pretend to be discontinuous with the rest of my universe. I must reconsider what I had said. But where could I find a copy now? It occurred to me that I might perhaps take off Jean Pierre, if he still had it, the copy which I had sent him on publication and which I could be fairly certain that he had never opened. The thought of Jean Pierre led me on to thoughts of Paris, beautiful, cruel, tender, disquieting, enchanting city, and on these I slept and dreamed of Anna. Arriving in Paris always causes me pain, even when I have been away for only a short while. It is a city which I never fail to approach with expectation and leave with disappointment. There is a question which only I can ask and which only Paris can answer; but this question is something which I have never yet been able to formulate. Certain things indeed I have learnt here: for instance, that my happiness has a sad face, so sad that for years I took it for my unhappiness and drove it away. But Paris remains for me still an unresolved harmony. It is the only city which I can personify. London I know too well, and the others I do not love enough. Paris I encounter, but as one encounters a loved one, in the end and dumbly, and