The Collector

C. You’re like my Aunt Annie. She’s always going on about the way people behave nowadays. Not caring and all that.

M. You seem to think it’s right to be wrong.

C. Do you want your tea?

M. (superhuman effort) Look, for the sake of argument, we’ll say that however much good you tried to do in society, in fact you’d never do any good. That’s ridiculous, but never mind. There’s still yourself. I don’t think the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has much chance of actually affecting the government. It’s one of the first things you have to face up to. But we do it to keep our self-respect to show to ourselves, each one to himself or herself, that we care. And to let other people, all the lazy, sulky, hopeless ones like you, know that someone cares. We’re trying to shame you into thinking about it, about acting. (Silence—then I shouted.) Say something!

C. I know it’s evil.

M. Do something, then! (He gawped at me as if I’d told him to swim the Atlantic.) Look. A friend of mine went on a march to an American air-station in Essex. You know? They were stopped outside the gate, of course, and after a time the sergeant on guard came out and spoke to them and they began an argument and it got very heated because this sergeant thought that the Americans were like knights of old rescuing a damsel in distress. That the H-bombers were absolutely necessary—and so on. Gradually as they were arguing they began to realize that they rather liked the American. Because he felt very strongly, and honestly, about his views. It wasn’t only my friend. They all agreed about it afterwards. The only thing that really matters is feeling and living what you believe—so long as it’s something more than belief in your own comfort. My friend said he was nearer to that American sergeant than to all the grinning idiots who watched them march past on the way. It’s like football. Two sides may each want to beat the other, they may even hate each other as sides, but if someone came and told them football is stupid and not worth playing or caring about, then they’d feel together. It’s feeling that matters. Can’t you see?

C. I thought we were talking about the H-bomb.

M. Go away. You exhaust me. You’re like a sea of cotton wool.

C. (he stood up at once) I do like to hear you talk. I do think about what you say.

M. No, you don’t. You put what I say in your mind and wrap it up and it disappears for ever.

C. If I wanted to send a cheque to the . . . this lot . . . what’s the address?

M. To buy my approval?

C. What’s wrong with that?

M. We need money. But we need feeling even more. And I don’t think you’ve got any feeling to give away. You can’t win that by filling in a football coupon.

C. (there was an awkward silence) See you later, then.

(Exit Caliban. I hit my pillow so hard that it has looked reproachful ever since.)

(This evening—as I knew I would and could—I coaxed and bullied him, and he wrote out a cheque for a hundred pounds, which he’s promised to send off tomorrow. I know this is right. A year ago I would have stuck to the strict moral point. Like Major Barbara. But the essential is that we have money. Not where the money comes from, or why it is sent.)

October 19th

I have been out.

I was copying all the afternoon (Piero) and I was in the sort of mood where normally I have to go out to the cinema or to a coffee-bar, anywhere. But out.

I made him take me by giving myself to him like a slave. Bind me, I said, but take me.

He bound and gagged me, held my arm, and we walked round the garden. Quite a big one. It was very dark, I could just make out the path and some trees. And it is very lonely. Right out in the country somewhere.

Then suddenly in the darkness I knew something was wrong with him. I couldn’t see him, but I was suddenly frightened, I just knew he wanted to kiss me or something worse. He tried to say something about being very happy; his voice very strained. Choked. And then, that I didn’t think he had any deep feelings, but he had. It’s so terrible not being able to speak. My tongue’s my defence with him, normally. My tongue and my look. There was a little silence, but I knew he was pent up.

All the time I was breathing in beautiful outdoor air. That was good, so good I can’t describe it. So living, so full of plant smells and country smells and the thousand mysterious wet smells of the night.

Then a car passed. So there is a road which is used in front of the house. As soon as we heard the engine his grip tightened. I prayed the car would stop, but its lights just swept past behind the house.