"So, you see, that is an excellent reason—to you it is, I believe, the incontrovertible reason—why you should once more give up and lose, and not take. But, deeper than that, to me more insurmountable than that, is the true reason, which is simply that that very thing—to lose, to do without—is your business in life, as you've said yourself. It's your profession. You are in the camp of the Have-Nots; you belong there. You can't desert. You can't step out and go over to the enemy. If you did, if you could (only you can't) it would be a betrayal. And, whatever you gained, you'd lose by it what you have at present—your fellowship with the other unfortunates. Isn't that a thing worth having? Isn't it something to be down on the ground with the poor and empty-handed, not above them, where you can't hear them crying and laughing? Would you, if you could, be one of the prosperous, who don't care? Would you, if you could, be one of those who have their joy in life ready-made and put into their hands, instead of one of the poor craftsmen who have to make their own? What's the gaiety of the saints? Not the pleasant cheerfulness of the Denis Urquharts and their kind, who have things, but the gaiety, in the teeth of circumstances, of St. Francis and his paupers, who have nothing and yet possess all things. That's your gaiety; the gaiety that plays the fool, as you put it, looking into the very eyes of agony and death; that loses and laughs and makes others laugh in the last ditch; the gaiety of those who drop all cargoes, fortune and good name and love, overboard lightly, and still spread sail to the winds and voyage, and when they're driven by the winds at last onto a lee shore, derelicts clinging to a broken wreck, find on the shore coloured shells to play with and still are gay. That's your gaiety, as I've always known it and loved it. Are you going to chuck that gaiety away, and rise up full of the lust to possess, and take and grasp and plunder? Are you going to desert the empty-handed legion, whose van you've marched in all your life, and join the prosperous?" Rodney broke off for a moment, as if he waited for an answer. He rose from his chair and began to walk about the room, speaking again, with a more alright vehemence. "Oh, you may think this is mere romance, fancy, sentiment, what you will. But it isn't. It's deadly, solid truth. You can't grasp. You can't try to change your camp. You—and Lucy too, for she's in the same camp—wouldn't be happy, to put it at its simplest. You'd know all the time that you'd shirked, deserted, been false to your business. You'd be fishes out of water, with the knowledge that you'd taken for your own pleasure something that someone else ought to have had. It isn't in either of you to do it. You must leave such work to the Haves. Why, what happens the first time you try it on? You have to send back the goods you've tried to appropriate to where they came from. It would be the same always. You don't know how to possess. Then in heaven's name leave possessing alone, and stick to the job you are good at—doing without. For you are good at that. You always have been, except just for just one short interlude, which will pass like an illness and leave you well again. Believe me, it will. I don't know when, or how soon; but I do know that sometime you will be happy again, with the things, the coloured shells, so to speak, that you find still when all the winds and storms have done their worst and all your cargoes are broken wrecks at your feet. It will be then, in that last emptiness, that you'll come to terms with disaster, and play the fool again to amuse yourself and the other derelicts, because, when there's nothing else left, there's always laughter."
Rodney had walked to the window, and now stood looking out at the dim, luminous night, wherein, shrouded, the Easter moon dwelt in the heart of shadows. From many churches, many clocks chimed the hour. Rodney spoke once more, slowly, leaning out into the shadowy night.
"Through this week," he said, "they have been watching in those churches a supreme renouncement, the ultimate agony of giving up, the last triumph of utter loss. I'm not going to talk about that; it's not my business or my right ... But it surely counts, that giving up whatever we may or may not believe about it. It shines, a terrible counsel of perfection for those who have, burning and hurting. But for those who have not, it doesn't burn and hurt; it shines to cheer and comfort; it is the banner of the leader of the losing legion, lifted up that the rest may follow after. Does that help at all?... Perhaps at this moment nothing helps at all.... Have I said enough? Need I go on?"
Peter's voice, flat and dead, spoke out of the shadow of the dim room.
"You have said enough. You need not go on."
Then Rodney turned and saw him, sitting still on the floor by the half-packed bag, with the yellow dog sleeping against him. In the dim light his face looked pale and pinched like a dead man's.
"You've done your work," the flat voice said. "You've taken it away—the new life we so wanted. You've shown that it can't be. You're quite right. And you're right too that nothing helps at all.... Because of Denis, I can't do this. But I find no good in emptiness; why should I? I want to have things and enjoy them, at this moment, more desperately than you, who praise emptiness and doing without, ever wanted anything."
"I am aware of that," said Rodney.
"You've got in the way," said Peter, looking up at the tall gaunt figure by the window; and anger shook him. "You've stepped in and spoilt it all. Yes, you needn't be afraid; you've spoilt it quite irrevocably. You knew that to mention Denis was enough to do that. I was trying to forget him; I could have, till it was too late. You can go home now and feel quite easy; you've done your job. There's to be no new life for me, or Thomas, or Lucy, or Francesco—only the same old emptiness. The same old ... oh, damn!"
Peter, who never swore, that ugly violence being repugnant to his nature, swore now, and woke Francesco, who put up his head to lick his friend's face. But Peter pushed him away, surprising him violently, and caught at his half-filled bag and snatched at the contents and flung them on the top of one another on the floor. They lay in a jumbled chaos—Thomas's clothes and Peter's socks and razor and Thomas's rabbit and Peter's books; and Francesco snuffled among them and tossed them about, thinking it a new game.