I
One evening--it is bound to happen in the evening when it does
happen--the plain man whose case I endeavoured to analyse in the
previous chapter will suddenly explode. The smouldering volcano within
that placid and wise exterior will burst forth, and the surrounding
country will be covered with the hot lava of his immense hidden
grievance. The business day has perhaps been marked by an unusual
succession of annoyances, exasperations, disappointments--but he has
met them with fine philosophic calm; fatigue has overtaken him--but it
has not overcome him; throughout the long ordeal at the office he has
remained master of himself, a wondrous example to the young and the
foolish. And then some entirely unimportant occurrence--say, an
invitation to a golf foursome which his duties forbid him to accept--a
trifle, a nothing, comes along and brings about the explosion, in a
fashion excessively disconcerting to the onlooker, and he exclaims,
acidly, savagely, with a profound pessimism:
"What pleasure do I get out of life?" And in that single abrupt
question (to which there is only one answer) he lays bare the central
flaw of his existence.
The onlooker will probably be his wife, and the tone employed will
probably imply that she is somehow mysteriously to blame for the fact
that his earthly days are not one unbroken series of joyous
diversions. He has no pose to keep up with his wife. And, moreover, if
he really loves her he will find a certain curious satisfaction in
hurting her now and then, in being wilfully unjust to her, as he would
never hurt or be unjust to a mere friend. (Herein is one of the
mysterious differences between love and affection!) She is alarmed and
secretly aghast, as well she may be. He also is secretly aghast. For
he has confessed a fact which is an inconvenient fact; and
Anglo-Saxons have such a horror of inconvenient facts that they prefer
to ignore them even to themselves. To pretend that things are not what
they are is regarded by Anglo-Saxons as a proof of strength of mind
and wholesomeness of disposition; while to admit that things are
indeed what they are is deemed to be either weakness or cynicism. The
plain man is incapable of being a cynic; he feels, therefore, that he
has been guilty of weakness, and this, of course, makes him very
cross.
"Can't something be done?" says his wife, meaning, "Can't something be
done to ameliorate your hard lot?"
(Misguided creature! It was the wrong phrase to use. And any phrase
would have been the wrong phrase. She ought to have caressed him, for
to a caress there is no answer.)
"You know perfectly well that nothing can be done!" he snaps her up,
like a tiger snapping at the fawn. And his eyes, challenging hers,
seem to say: "Can I neglect my business? Can I shirk my
responsibilities? Where would you be if I shirked them? Where would
the children be? What about old age, sickness, death, quarter-day,
rates, taxes, and your new hat? I have to provide for the rainy day
and for the future. I am succeeding, moderately; but let there be no
mistake--success means that I must sacrifice present pleasure.
Pleasure is all very well for you others, but I--" And then he will
finish aloud, with the air of an offended and sarcastic martyr:
"Something be done, indeed!"
She sighs. The domestic scene is over.
Now, he may be honestly convinced that nothing can be done. Let us
grant as much. But obviously it suits his pride to assume that nothing
can be done. To admit the contrary would be to admit that he was
leaving something undone, that he had organized his existence
clumsily, even that he had made a fundamental miscalculation in the
arrangement of his career. He has confessed to grave dissatisfaction.
It behoves him, for the sake of his own dignity and reputation, to be
quite sure that the grave dissatisfaction is unavoidable, inevitable,
and that the blame for it rests with the scheme of the universe, and
not with his particular private scheme. His rôle is that of the brave,
strong, patient victim of an alleged natural law, by reason of which
the present must ever be sacrificed to the future, and he discovers a
peculiar miserable delight in the rôle. "Miserable" is the right
adjective.