Part 21 (2/2)
”Your metaphor's very lame,” said Nick. ”It's the overcrowded boat that goes to the bottom.”
”Oh I'll give it another leg or two! Boats can be big, in the infinite of s.p.a.ce, and a doctrine's a raft that floats the better the more pa.s.sengers it carries. A pa.s.senger jumps over from time to time, not so much from fear of sinking as from a want of interest in the course or the company. He swims, he plunges, he dives, he dips down and visits the fishes and the mermaids and the submarine caves; he goes from craft to craft and splashes about, on his own account, in the blue, cool water.
The regenerate, as I call them, are the pa.s.sengers who jump over in search of better fun. I jumped over long ago.”
”And now of course you're at the head of the regenerate; for, in your turn”--Nick found the figure delightful--”you all form a select school of porpoises.”
”Not a bit, and I know nothing about heads--in the sense you mean. I've grown a tail if you will; I'm the merman wandering free. It's the jolliest of trades!”
Before they had gone many steps further Nick Dormer stopped short with a question. ”I say, my dear fellow, do you mind mentioning to me whether you're the greatest humbug and charlatan on earth, or a genuine intelligence, one that has sifted things for itself?”
”I do lead your poor British wit a dance--I'm so sorry,” Nash replied benignly. ”But I'm very sincere. And I _have_ tried to straighten out things a bit for myself.”
”Then why do you give people such a handle?”
”Such a handle?”
”For thinking you're an--for thinking you're a mere _farceur_.”
”I daresay it's my manner: they're so unused to any sort of candour.”
”Well then why don't you try another?” Nick asked.
”One has the manner that one can, and mine moreover's a part of my little system.”
”Ah if you make so much of your little system you're no better than any one else,” Nick returned as they went on.
”I don't pretend to be better, for we're all miserable sinners; I only pretend to be bad in a pleasanter, brighter way--by what I can see. It's the simplest thing in the world; just take for granted our right to be happy and brave. What's essentially kinder and more helpful than that, what's more beneficent? But the tradition of dreariness, of stodginess, of dull, dense, literal prose, has so sealed people's eyes that they've ended by thinking the most natural of all things the most perverse. Why so keep up the dreariness, in our poor little day? No one can tell me why, and almost every one calls me names for simply asking the question.
But I go on, for I believe one can do a little good by it. I want so much to do a little good,” Gabriel Nash continued, taking his companion's arm. ”My persistence is systematic: don't you see what I mean? I won't be dreary--no, no, no; and I won't recognise the necessity, or even, if there be any way out of it, the accident, of dreariness in the life that surrounds me. That's enough to make people stare: they're so d.a.m.ned stupid!”
”They think you so d.a.m.ned impudent,” Nick freely explained.
At this Nash stopped him short with a small cry, and, turning his eyes, Nick saw under the lamps of the quay that he had brought a flush of pain into his friend's face. ”I don't strike you that way?”
”Oh 'me!' Wasn't it just admitted that I don't in the least make you out?”
”That's the last thing!” Nash declared, as if he were thinking the idea over, with an air of genuine distress. ”But with a little patience we'll clear it up together--if you care enough about it,” he added more cheerfully. Letting his companion proceed again he continued: ”Heaven help us all, what do people mean by impudence? There are many, I think, who don't understand its nature or its limits; and upon my word I've literally seen mere quickness of intelligence or of perception, the jump of a step or two, a little whirr of the wings of talk, mistaken for it.
Yes, I've encountered men and women who thought you impudent if you weren't simply so stupid as they. The only impudence is unprovoked, or even mere dull, aggression, and I indignantly protest that I'm never guilty of _that_ clumsiness. Ah for what do they take one, with _their_ beastly presumption? Even to defend myself sometimes I've to make believe to myself that I care. I always feel as if I didn't successfully make others think so. Perhaps they see impudence in that. But I daresay the offence is in the things that I take, as I say, for granted; for if one tries to be pleased one pa.s.ses perhaps inevitably for being pleased above all with one's self. That's really not my case--I find my capacity for pleasure deplorably below the mark I've set. This is why, as I've told you, I cultivate it, I try to bring it up. And I'm actuated by positive benevolence; I've that impudent pretension. That's what I mean by being the same to every one, by having only one manner. If one's conscious and ingenious to that end what's the harm--when one's motives are so pure? By never, _never_ making the concession, one may end by becoming a perceptible force for good.”
”What concession are you talking about, in G.o.d's name?” Nick demanded.
”Why, that we're here all for dreariness. It's impossible to grant it sometimes if you wish to deny it ever.”
”And what do you mean then by dreariness? That's modern slang and terribly vague. Many good things are dreary--virtue and decency and charity, and perseverance and courage and honour.”
”Say at once that life's dreary, my dear fellow!” Gabriel Nash exclaimed.
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