Poor Things

16. Alexandria to Gibraltar: Astley’s Bitter Wisdom

Thinking has maddened me for weeks. My one relief has been argument with Harry Astley. He says I will only find peace by embracing his bitter wisdom — and him. I want neither — except as enemies. He says cruelty to the helpless will never end because the healthy live by trampling these down. I say if this is true we must stop living so. He has given me books which he says prove this is impossible: Malthus’ Essay on Population, Darwin’s Origin of Species and Winwood Reade’s Martyrdom of Man. They make my head ache. I was changing the dressing on his hand today when he told me his wife had died a year ago, then said, “You are not legally married to Wedderburn, are you?”

“How clever of you to guess, Mr. Astley.”

“Please call me Harry.”

His hand is almost healed though the thumb is very stiff — my teeth have left a circular scar where they nearly met in the ball of it. He said thoughtfully, “That mark will be with me for ever.”

“I am afraid so, Harry.”

“May I regard it as an engagement ring? Will you marry me?”

“No, Harry. I am engaged to another.”

He asked about my fiancé so I told him of Candle. When I had finished fixing the new bandage he said he knew many women of rank and title, the Duchess of Sutherland and Princess Louise of Connaught among them, but I was the purest aristocrat he had met.

Dr. Hooker has left the boat in Morocco without saying good-bye or asking for his New Testament. He lent it to me so I could find peace in Jesus, but there is none. Jesus was as maddened by all-over cruelty and coldness as I am. He too must have hated discovering he had to make people better all by himself. He had one advantage over me — he could do miracles. I asked Dr. Hooker how Jesus would have treated my starving little daughter with the blind baby.

“Jesus made the blind to see,” said poor Dr. Hooker, looking uncomfortable.

“What would Jesus have done for them if he could NOT have made them see?” I asked. “Would he have hurried past like a bad Samaritan?”

I think that was why he left the Cut-use-off this afternoon. He does not want to live like Jesus, but unlike Harry Astley dare not say so.

Astley, Hooker, Wedder, all made miserable by one cracked Bell. The damage to Wedder was done after I returned from Alexandria. I rushed into our cabin and wed wed wed wed him, wedding and wedding and wedding until he begged me not to, said he could give no more but he could and did — it was the only thing which stopped me thinking about what I had seen. I sickened him of weddings, sickened myself too and in the end the thoughts still came back. I brooded for days without saying a word to him. Last night my silly man burst into tears, begged to be forgiven.

“For what?” says I. It seems he did not believe my tears and brooding were caused by the sight of beggars in Alexandria — he thought I was sulking because he had driven me to prostitution in Germany. I laughed out loud and told him I had done no such thing; that the money I had got for us was his own, taken when he fell asleep on the night when he won so much. At first he could not believe me, then he scowled straight ahead for a long time muttering “MY money! MY money!” I tried to cheer him up by starting to wed us again but he yelled “I SHALL NOT SERVE” and turned upside-down and the wrong way round with his back toward me and feet on the pillow. And all night long I heard the little whisper, “My money. My money,” coming from the bottom of the bunk.

Harry is bad because he enjoys how cruelly folk act and suffer, wants to persuade me bad is needed. If he succeeds he will have made me bad too. I listen to him because I need to know all he knows. He is as honest as God and teaches facts God never taught — all the things I must change, so had better note down.

WOMEN OF LEISURE— “Napoleon regarded women as the relaxation of the warrior. In England wives are treated as the public ornaments and private pleasure parks of wealthy landowners, industrialists and professional men. The joys of motherhood are closed to them, for after the pains of childbirth their offspring are caressed and cared for by servants. They are supposed to be superior to the animal pleasure of breast-feeding — supposed to be superior to the sexual act itself — yet all the time they are as much parasites, prisoners and playthings as odalisques in a Turkish harem. If an intelligent woman of this class does not find an unconventionally sensitive husband her life can be as painful as that of the women who spend years dying of slow suffocation while drudging in the Lancashire weaving-sheds. And that is why you should marry me, Bella. You will be my slave in law, but not in fact.”

EDUCATION— “Very poor children learn to beg, lie and steal from their parents — they would hardly survive otherwise. Prosperous parents tell their children that nobody should lie, steal or kill, and that idleness and gambling are vices. They then send them to schools where they suffer if they do not disguise their thoughts and feelings and are taught to admire killers and stealers like Achilles and Ulysses, William the Conqueror and Henry the Eighth. This prepares them for life in a land where rich people use acts of parliament to deprive the poor of homes and livelihoods, where unearned incomes are increased by stock-exchange gambling, where those who own most property work least and amuse themselves by hunting, horse-racing and leading their country into battle. You find the world horrifying, Bell, because you have not been warped to fit it by a proper education.”

KINDS OF PEOPLE— “There are three kinds of people. The happiest are the innocent who think everyone and everything basically good. Many children are like that and so were you until Hooker (very much against my will) showed you otherwise. The second and biggest kind are half-baked optimists: people with a mental conjuring trick which lets them look at hunger or mutilation without discomfort. They think the wretched deserve to suffer, or that their nation is curing — not causing — these miseries, or that God, Nature, History will make everything right one day. Doctor Hooker is one of that sort and I am glad his rhetoric did not blind you to the facts. The third and rarest sort know human life is an essentially painful disease which only death can cure. We have the strength to live consciously among those who live blindly. We are the cynics.”

“There must be a fourth kind,” I said, “because I am no longer innocent and hate what Dr. Hooker and what you think equally.”

“That is because you are searching for a way which does not exist.”

“I will search as long as I live rather than be a childish fool or selfish optimist or equally selfish cynic,” I told him, “and I will make my husband a searcher too.”

“You will be a tiresome couple.”

HISTORY— “Big nations are created by successful plundering raids, and since most history is written by friends of the conquerors history usually suggests that the plundered were improved by their loss and should be grateful for it. Plundering happens inside countries too. King Henry the Eighth plundered the English monasteries, the only institutions in those days which provided hospitals, schools and shelter for the poor. English historians agree King Henry was greedy, hasty and violent, but did a lot of good. They belong to a class which was enriched by the church lands.”

THE BENEFITS OF WAR— “Napoleon gave Britain our advantage as an industrial nation. To fight him all around Europe the government introduced heavier taxes which chiefly oppressed the poor, and used much of this money to buy continual supplies of uniforms, boots, guns and shipping. All kinds of factories were built. Many able-bodied men were abroad with the army, but new machines made it possible to run factories with the cheap labour of women and children. This enhanced the profits so much that we could invest in trains, iron-clads and a big new empire. We owe a lot to Boney.”

UNEMPLOYMENT— “When the Napoleonic war ended it left so many people unemployed and hungry that a parliamentary committee met to discuss the matter — the government feared a revolution. A socialist factory owner called Robert Owen suggested that every firm or business whose profits exceeded five per cent should spend the extra money on the better feeding, housing and schooling of their workers, instead of using it to undercut competitors. However, the Malthusians proved that the better you feed the poor the more they breed. Poverty, hunger and disease may drive some people to steal loaves from bakeries and dream of revolutions, but make revolutions less likely by weakening the bodies of the desperately poor and keeping down their number through infant mortalities. Do not shudder, Bell. What Britain needed — and got! — were military barracks beside every industrial city, a strong police-force, huge new jails; also poor-houses where children are divided from parents and husbands from wives — places so deliberately grim that people with a spark of self-respect spend their last few pennies on cheap gin and die of exposure in ditches rather than enter them. That is how we have organized the world’s richest industrial nation and it works very well.”

FREEDOM— “I am sure there was no word for freedom before slavery was invented. The old Greeks had every sort of government — monarchies, aristocracies, plutocracies, democracies — and argued fiercely about which system gave people most freedom, but all of them kept slaves. So did the ancient Roman republic. So did the stout squires who founded the U.S.A. Yes, the only sure definition of freedom is non-slavery. You may have heard it in a popular song:

Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves!

Britons never never never will be slaves!

In the days of Good Queen Bess we English were so disgusted by the cruel way the Spaniards enslaved the American Indians that we plundered their treasure ships whether at war with them or not. In 1562 Sir John Hawkyns (who became paymaster of the navy and hero of the Armada fight) started the British slave trade by stealing black slaves from the Portuguese in Africa and selling them to the Spaniards in the New World. Parliament made that trade a criminal offence in 1811.”

“Good!” I said, “and now the Americans have abolished it too.”

“Yes. It only profited their southern farmers. Modem industry finds it cheaper to hire hands for days or weeks — when not needed they are free to beg work from other masters. When many free men are begging for work the masters are free to lower wages.”

FREE TRADE— “Yes, our parliament has defined freedom as our ability to buy as cheap as possible and sell as dear as possible anywhere, with the help of our army and navy. This enables us to cut up countries with famines as readily as a carpenter cuts wood with a saw. Listen carefully, Bell.

“Indian weavers used to make the finest cotton cloth and muslin in the world, and only British merchants were free to sell it — the French had tried to do that, so we drove them out of India. Then we British learned how to make cloth more cheaply with machinery in our own factories, so we needed raw Indian cotton and Angora wool and could stop anyone else buying Indian cloth. Soon after one of the governors we had given to India reported that the plains of Dacca were littered with the bones of the weavers.

“Did you know that eight out of ten Irish lived on potatoes? They were peasants whose poor soil grew little else, and money they made by other means went to pay the landlords rent. The landlords were descended from English invaders and conquerors, so they owned the rich soil where corn was grown. Thirty-five years ago a sudden disease killed the potatoes and the peasants started starving. Now, in times of famine people who own big food stocks move it out of the land, because starving people are too poor to pay a good price. The British parliament debated a proposal that we shut the Irish ports until the Irish grain had been eaten by the Irish people. This was voted down because it would interfere with free trade. Instead we sent soldiers to make sure the grain reached the ships. Nearly a million starved to death: a million and a half left the country. Those who reached Britain worked for such low wages that the wages of British workers could be beaten down and our industries make more money than ever. Now go to the stern for a while.”

He knows that when I can bear no more I run to the end of the ship and lean over the rail so that the wind blows my screams and wails out to sea. This time I looked hard at him and asked if he would have voted against closing the ports if he had been in parliament. I was not going to bite him if he said yes — would have spat in his face. He said quietly, “I would not have dared vote against the proposal had I known I must face you afterwards, Bell.”

I nearly called him a cunning fiend, but that is how Wedder talks. I swallowed my spit and walked away.

EMPIRE— “No thickly peopled place has lacked an empire — Persia, Greece, Italy, Mongolia, Arabia, Denmark, Spain and France have had turns. The least warlike and biggest and longest-lasting empire was Chinese. We destroyed it twenty-five years ago because its government would not let us sell opium there. The British empire has grown rapidly, but in another two or three centuries the half-naked descendants of Disraeli and Gladstone may be diving off a broken pier of London Bridge, retrieving coins flung into the Thames by Tibetan tourists who find the sight amusing.”

SELF GOVERNMENT— I asked if there are any lands of cheerful, prosperous people who govern only themselves.

“Yes. In Switzerland several small republics with different languages and religions have lived peacefully side by side for centuries, but high mountains divide them from each other and the surrounding nations. To improve the world, Bella, you need only build a high mountain between every town and its nearest neighbour, or chop the continents into many islands of equal size.”

WORLD IMPROVERS— “Yes, I foresee that despite my teaching, Bell, you are going to become the most modern kind of half-baked optimist, the sort who wants to abolish riches and poverty by sharing out the world’s goods equally.”

“That is only common sense!” I cried.

“There are four sects who agree with you, but have different plans to bring it about.

“The SOCIALISTS want the poor to elect them into parliament, where they plan to tax the surplus of the rich and make laws to give everyone productive work in good conditions, along with good food, housing, education and health care.”

“A lovely idea!” I cried.

“Yes. Beautiful. The other world-improvers point out that parliament is an alliance of monarchs, lords, bishops, lawyers, merchants, bankers, brokers, industrialists, military men, landlords and civil servants who run it to protect their wealth AND FOR NO OTHER REASON. Socialists elected into it will therefore be outwitted by these, or bribed, or compromised into nonentity. I agree with this prediction.

“So the COMMUNISTS are forming a party of folk from every class of society who will patiently work and wait for a day when their country gets into serious financial trouble, then they will overturn it and become the government — for a short time. Having ruled the land until everybody has what they need and are able to keep it, the Communists say they will disband because neither they nor any further government will be needed.”

“Hooray!” I cried.

“Yes, hooray. The other world-improvers say that groups who come to power by violence always perpetuate themselves by more of it and become a new tyranny. I agree.

“The VIOLENT ANARCHISTS or TERRORISTS dislike those who want power as much as those who have it. Since every other class depends on those who work the land, the mines, the factories and transport, they say such workers should keep what they make to themselves — should ignore money and exchange things by barter — should use explosives to frighten off folk who will not join them yet try to boss them.”

“So they should!” I shouted.

“I agree. I also agree with those who say the police and army are better terrorists than anyone else. Besides, the middle classes hold the keys to the warehouses of food and fuel, no matter who produces it.

“So your only hope is among the PACIFISTS or PEACEFUL ANARCHISTS. They say we can only improve the world by improving ourselves and hoping others copy us. This means not fighting anyone, giving away money and either living on the free gifts of others or on the work of our own hands. Buddha, Jesus, and Saint Francis took this path and in this century Prince Kropotkin, Count Leo Tolstoï and an American bachelor farmer-author called Thoreau. The movement attracts a lot of harmless aristocrats and writers. They annoy governments by refusing to pay taxes they think evil — which is most of them, since armies and weapons are what taxes mainly pay for. However, the police only imprison and flog ordinary Pacifists. The admirers of the famous ones keep them out of serious trouble. When you go into politics, Bell, be sure to become a Pacifist Anarchist. People will love you.”

I wept and cried, “O what can I do?”

He said, “Let us go to the stem, Bell, and I will tell you.”

ASTLEY’S SOLUTION— So we leaned over a rail watching the wake of the ship slide foaming backward and out over the slow glossy moonlit waves and he said, “The tearful motherlinesss you feel toward the wretched of this earth is an animal instinct which lacks its proper object. Marry and have children. Marry me. My country estate has a farm on it and a while village — think of the power you will have. Besides caring for my children (who we will not send to public schools) you can bully me into improving the drains and lowering the rents of a whole community. I am offering you the chance to be as happy and good as an intelligent woman can be on this filthy planet.”

I said, “Your offer does not tempt me, Harry Astley, because I do not love you;¹⁹ but it is the most cunning inducement to lead a totally selfish life you could offer a woman. Thank you, but no.”

“Then please hold my hand for a moment.”

So I did and I felt for the first time who he really is — a tortured little boy who hates cruelty as much as I do but thinks himself a strong man because he can pretend to like it. He is as poor and desperate as my lost daughter, but only inside. Outside he is perfectly comfortable. Everyone should have a cosy shell round them, a good coat with money in the pockets. I must be a Socialist.

Misery stopped me thinking about good things, God, so I did not remember you until this morning. I was awakened by a noise like heavy rain and lay imagining how it would freshen the lettuces for Mopsy and Flopsy — how I would soon breakfast on poached eggs and kidneys and kippers while you ate your mash and bubbles — how we would then visit and mend the sick animals in our hospital. Having basked for many minutes in gladness and peace I opened my eyes and saw Wedderburn’s feet beside me and sunlight between the slats of the shuttered window. I remembered that the rainy noise came from a eucalyptus tree outside the hotel, a tree whose hard glossy leaves rattle and hiss against each other in the wind. But the peaceful gladness did not go away. The memory of you kept horror and weeping out because you are wiser and better than Dr. Hooker and Harry Astley put together. You never said that cruelty to the helpless is good or inevitable or unimportant. One day you will tell me how to change what I cannot yet describe without my words swelling HUGE, vowels vanishing, tears washing ink away.

Someone rapped on the bedroom door to say they had put a steaming canister of hot water on the floor outside. I had not shaved Wedder since the day we docked in Alexandria, and decided to do it now. Leaping up I swiftly washed and dressed, slipped a towel between his head and pillow and lathered his face all over. This was much easier to do with his head at the bottom of the bed. He neither spoke nor opened his eyes but I knew he was pleased, because he hates shaving himself. As I removed the bristles I reminded him that a ship bound for Glasgow by way of Lisbon and Liverpool was leaving today — that Mr. Astley was travelling on it, and had offered to book a passage for us. Still without opening his eyes Wedder said, “We are going to Paris by way of Marseilles.”

“But why, Duncan?”

“Since even a thieving trollop like you refuses to marry me only Paris remains. Take me there. Hand me over to the midinettes²⁰ and the little green fairy then marry who you like — English, American or filthy Russian ha ha ha ha ha.”

Wedder is a lot cheerier since he decided he is not a fiend and that I probably am. I said, “But Duncan, we cannot afford to stay in Paris. I have only enough money to take us home.”

This was not true. Your money is still in the lining of my travelling-coat, God, but I felt the kindest way to get rid of Wedder (who hardly ever wants to wed me now) was by returning him to his mother. He said, “Then I must stay in Gibraltar till I have managed to cash the last Consolidated Annuities in my inheritance; and know, woman, you will never again rob or cheat me of a single penny — I shall hold on to the whole amount. Since you care about money you had better abandon me today and return to Britain with your precious Astley.”

I liked that idea but could not abandon Wedder so far from home. I know nothing about the midinettes and little green fairy, but if they are kind to him he may stop with them in Paris and I will return to Glasgow alone.

As usual he wanted tea and toast in bed. I went to the dining-room, asked for these to be sent up and breakfasted for the last time with Harry Astley. Did I tell you he is a widower who guessed long ago that I am not married? Over the ham and eggs (this is a British hotel though the staff are Spanish) I saw he was going to propose again, and prevented it by saying I would only marry a world-improver. He sighed, drummed his fingers on the tablecloth then said I should beware of men who talked about improving the world — many used such talk to entrap women of my sort.

“What sort is that?” I asked, interested. He looked away from me and said coldly, “The brave and kind sort who feel generous to the miserable of every class and country — generous also to the cold, rich and selfish.”

I nearly melted. I said, “Stand up, Harry.”

He must have been taught young to obey people because although he looked startled and the dining-room was very busy he stood up at once, straight, like a soldier. I sprang to him, tied his arms to his sides with my own and kissed him until he trembled. Then I whispered, “Good-bye Harry,” and hurried upstairs to my weary old Wedder. He and Harry are much alike, though Harry has stronger nerves. In the passage from the dining-room I looked back at the last possible moment. The foreign guests were staring at me, the British were pretending nothing odd had happened. Harry Astley, obviously British, was concentrating on his breakfast.

Candle must not be jealous. That was the only kiss Harry got from me, and no talkers will trap Bell Baxter. When I come home, God, you will tell us how to improve the world, then you and me, Candle, will marry and do it.