Maradick at Forty: A Transition

by Hugh Walpole

The thought of the explanations troubled him very little; none of those other people really mattered. They couldn’t do very much; they could only say things. No, they didn’t matter. He didn’t mind about them, or indeed about anyone else in the world except Tony. He saw now a thousand little things that Tony had done, ways that Tony had stood, things that Tony had said, little tricks that he had; and now he had gone away.

Things could never be quite the same again. Tony had got some one else now. Everyone had got some one else, some one who especially belonged to them; he saw the world as a place where everyone—murderer, priest, king, prostitute—had his companion, and only he, Maradick, was alone. He had been rather proud of being alone before; he had rather liked to feel that he was quite independent, that it didn’t matter if people died or forgot, because he could get on as well by himself! What a fool he had been! Why, that was simply the only thing worth having, relationships with other people, intimacy, affection, giving anything that you had to some one else, taking something in return from them. Oh! he saw that now!

He had been walking vaguely, without thought or purpose. Now he saw that his feet had led him back into the town and that he was in the market-place, facing once more the town. He was determined not to go back to the hotel until he had seen Morelli, and that he could not do before the evening; but that would be the next thing. Meanwhile he would walk—no matter where—but he would get on to the road, into the air, and try and straighten out all the tangled state of things that his mind was in.

For a moment he stood and looked at the tower. It gave him again that sense of strength and comfort. He was, after all, not quite alone, whilst the world was the place that it was. Stocks and stones had more of a voice, more of a personal vital activity than most people knew. But he knew! He had known ever since he came to this strange town, this place where every tree and house and hill seemed to be alive.

And then, with the thought of the place, Mrs. Lester came back to him. He had forgotten her when he was thinking of Tony. But now that Tony was gone, now that that was, in a way, over, the other question suddenly stepped forward. Mrs. Lester with her smile, her arms, the curve of her neck, the scent that she used, the way that her eyes climbed, as it were, slowly up to his just before she kissed him. . . . Mrs. Lester . . . and it must be decided before to-night.

He started walking furiously, and soon he was out on the high road that ran above the sea. The rain had stopped; the sun was not actually shining, but there was a light through the heavy clouds as though it were not very far away, and the glints of blue and gold, not actually seen, but, as it were, trembling on the edge of visible appearance, seemed to strike the air. Everything shone and glittered with the rain. The green of trees and fields was so bright against the grey of sea and sky that it was almost dazzling; its brightness was unnatural, even a little cruel. And now he was caught up in the very heat of conflict. The battle seemed suddenly to have burst upon him, as though there were in reality two visible forces fighting for the possession of his soul. At one moment he seemed calm, resolute; Tony, Janet, his wife (and this was curious, because a few days before she would not have mattered at all), Punch, the tower, all kinds of queer bits of things, impressions, thoughts, and above all, a consciousness of some outside power fighting for him—all these things determined him. He would see Mrs. Lester to-night and would tell her that there must be nothing more; they should be friends, good friends, but there must be no more of that dangerous sentiment, one never knew where it might go. And after all, laws were meant to be kept. A man wasn’t a man at all if he could injure a woman in that sort of way. And then he had been Lester’s friend. How could he dishonour his wife?

And then suddenly it came from the other side, fierce, hot, wild, so that his heart began to beat furiously, his eyes were dim. He only saw her, all the rest of the world was swept away. They should have this one adventure, they must have their one adventure. After all they were no longer children. They had neither of them known what life was before; let them live it now, their great experience. If they missed it now they would regret it all their lives. They would look back on the things that they might have done, the things that they might have known, and see that they had passed it all simply because they had not been brave enough, because they had been afraid of convention, of old musty laws that had been made thousands of years ago for other people, people far less civilised, people who needed rules. And then the thought of her grew upon him—details, the sense of holding her, keeping her; and then, for an instant, he was primitive, wild, so that he would have done anything to seize her in the face of all the world.

But it passed; the spirit left him, and again he was miserable, wretched, penitent. He was that sort of man, a traitor to his wife, to his friends, to everything that was decent. He was walking furiously, his hair was blown by the wind, his eyes stared in front of him, and the early dusk of a grey day began to creep about his feet.

It all came to this. Was there one ethical code for the world, or must individuals make each their law for their individual case?

There were certain obvious things, such as doing harm to your neighbours, lying, cruelty, that was bad for the community and so must be forbidden to the individual; but take an instance of something in which you harmed no one, did indeed harm yourself by denying it, was that a sin even if the general law forbade it? What were a man’s instincts for? Why was he placed so carefully in the midst of his wonderful adventurous life if he were forbidden to know anything of it? Why these mists? This line of marble foam far below him? This hard black edge of the rocks against the sky? It was all strong, remorseless, inevitable; and he by this namby-pamby kind of virtue was going contrary to nature.