There is, however, one trick in the comedy film which always gets me; the trick of making you, by a reversion of the film and turning of the handle backwards, see an aged and effete man do a standing, backward, fifteen-foot jump on to the top of a narrow wall. You see a plate that has been smashed to atoms recollect itself and become whole. You see milk that has been spilt return to the pitcher. A couple of ruffians have reduced a room in three minutes to utter ruin; the handle is turned and the room restores itself. A miracle, you say. For, although you know perfectly well that it is a trick, you cannot help for the moment being swept into credulence. After all, there, before your eyes, the thing is happening.
It is a pity, I always feel, that the producers make such little play with this device. It could be infinitely diverting. There would be no need for the broken things always to be made whole. It is amusing to see a house that has been blown to atoms rise proudly out of the débris into stately indestructibility. But it would be as amusing to see a team of builders slowly, brick by brick, unbuild a mansion. The end would always precede the start. This trick might even be made the vehicle for subtle satire. A maid, for instance, would walk backwards into a tidy drawing-room, and would litter the floor with cigarette ash, cover the shelves with dust, and disturb the papers on your desk. Nor would it be necessary for the producer to confine himself to material accidents. He could describe thus the backward development of the emotions and the sensations. Imagine, let us say, a day lived backwards, as the film would show it you.
You would rise from your bed at midnight, and wearily put on your evening clothes. You might discover that you were drunk, but though you would spend the next two hours at a table with walnuts and wine in front of you, the shells of the walnuts would become whole and the glass that you raised to your lips would be empty; while the glass that you replaced before you would be full. You would in fact rise from the table sober. You would pass through curious states of mind. You would sit down to read a book knowing the plot, the theme, the treatment; but, as you read, this knowledge would pass page by page from you. And you would rise from your armchair saying: “I’ve just got this new book by Michael Sadleir from the library. I think I shall enjoy it.” It might be the afternoon of an assignation. Languid and quiescent would you come to the arms of love; vibrant and eager-eyed would you leap from them. As the sun moved eastward, carrying you to three o’clock, you would find yourself sitting warm and comfortable in the Café Royal, the stump of a cigar between your fingers, an empty liqueur glass on the table. But in two hours’ time you would be refolding a napkin and telling your guest that you hoped he was as uncommonly hungry as you were.
And then you would be washing your hands. As you dried them they would become less dry until they were quite wet, and you would place them, white and glistening, into a basin of dirty water, and all the dirt from the water would settle upon your hands, till the water was clean and your hands were grubby: and when the water was quite clean you would take your hands from it and they would become instantly dry and dirty and uncomfortable. You would put on your coat and you would walk backwards out of the restaurant towards your office.
And so the day would pass. At your office you would forget matters that an hour earlier you had settled, and you would seek information of them from your secretary. As the sun sank eastwards you would grow less hungry. You would indeed feel increasingly comfortable till you found yourself at the breakfast table and were forced to watch your empty plate become filled with kidneys and bacon and tomatoes. Finally, after you had bathed and had shaved, and in the process had restored to your chin its rough, bristly appearance, you would be lying in bed, clear-eyed, fresh, ready for the day’s work; you would be watching the sun sink slowly behind a bank of cloud: “A glorious day,” you would say to yourself. You would watch the maid move quietly about the room; she would lower the blinds; the room would become dark. You would feel a little dazed, a little drowsy. For a moment you would wonder where you were. There would be a loud knock upon the door; you would find yourself in the bitter throes of a nightmare; its agony would pass. You would drift into a deep, untroubled sleep.
But that, you will say, is an ordinary, and on the whole rather unromantic day. It is the hour of stress, of delirium, of turmoil, that if the past is to be relived you would ask to see again. Let the operator have done, you say, with this traffic of routine. Let us be transported to something of greater matter. We must make a choice? To the hour, then, of that first dance together, to that hour of which the memory can never leave us; to that hour than which we have known nothing fresher, keener, more romantic.
So be it; you are once again in that silk-hung alcove, in your ears the sound of music and the stir of feet, in your heart a brimming ecstasy. Let the handle turn. You are sitting there alone. The grey curtain is drawn back; she steps towards you. You do not notice her partner. He bows, steps backward, leaving you together. The sound of music ceases. There is a silence. Your arms are about her neck, your lips are against hers. You draw back, you look into her eyes, deep wide eyes, hazel, below the fringe of hair: the dark brown hair that is curled in a plaited loop about her ears; you think how wonderful it would be to kiss her. Your hand slips from hers and you are talking, eagerly, happily, and she is smiling up at you and you are thinking: “If this could last for ever.” You are in the ballroom. She is in your arms. What are they playing, she asks you, although you have told her it is “Honolulu Eyes.” You have never known that a valse could be like this. Life is suddenly a very marvellous, a very precious thing. The music ceases; you stand beside her talking. You are thinking, “In a moment I shall be dancing with her. In a moment she will be in my arms.” Your hostess is beside you. Your name and hers are murmured in introduction. She is walking away, backwards, beside your hostess. You are thinking, “I am going to be introduced to her.” She is standing in the doorway of the ballroom. You are dazzled by her as she hesitates there for a moment, radiant in the black, low-waisted dress; then she turns behind the curtain. And all knowledge, all memory of her is lost. You have never met her. You are tired and dispirited; life has become a worthless, an empty thing. Nothing remains of that high ecstasy, except far down a vague resentment that no such miracle has come to you.
And you have had enough of the film. It is all very amusing, no doubt, to see one’s life lived backwards, to recover one’s old enthusiasms and prejudices and loyalties. But it is rather a cruel business, with the evening coming before dawn; friendships must end at the hour when they begin; the first kiss must always be the last; and you sit in your chair and draw uncomfortable parallels and wonder whether old age is not rather like that: the reversal of the film. Whether there will not come a time at forty-five, at fifty, or at sixty when you will find yourself sitting at the banquet, confident and happy, in harmony with yourself and with your companions, replete with the good things of life. And then slowly the wheel will turn. The scene of repose will pass. You will gradually cease to be full of good food and wine. You will grow a little cold, a little hungry. You will find yourself among strangers; you will be embarrassed and unhappy, and you will rise from the table with the mauvais quart d’heure in front of you.
A far-fetched simile, and one that will, doubtless, hardly bear examination. Morbid, too, perhaps, but then it is the privilege of youth to make “copy” of its grey hairs. It is only natural that our imagination should fly like a scout before us into the country where we must travel. Age is as real to us now as our youth will be to us when we are old. It is distant, unknown: romantic therefore. How will it come to us, we wonder, this trial which must make or break us? In what words will it address us, in what shape present itself? With what armour shall we be defended? Shall we pass petulantly, resentfully, with struggles, into middle-age? Shall we cry, as does a child in the nursery impotently over a broken toy? Shall we beat our hands against the barred gates of the enchanted garden? It is inconceivable that there should not be one such moment of rage and bitterness and of frustration. But will it be slow in passing? That is the question that we ask ourselves. Shall we find it difficult to shrug our shoulders, to say: “The wine is different, but it is still good.”
We seek our answer in the companionship of age. Venerable, white-haired gentlemen who spend their afternoons asleep in the libraries of their clubs, are messengers to us from that far country. They know the geography of the road that we must travel. They have left much behind them on the road. They, too, knew once courage and danger and ambition. But it is not pity that we bring them for the loss of this rich merchandise. We do not contrast consciously their weariness with our vigour, our hope with their resignation, their weakness with our capacity. We come in a mood of humble curiosity; is there comfort, we ask them at that last tavern: Life is a bargain; you have lost much; does the exchange content you?