Read Online The Black Prince (Penguin Classics) by Iris Murdoch - Free Book Online

me. I felt, in relation to them, like a tutelary deity. Arnold was always grateful, even devoted, though there is no doubt that he feared my criticisms. He had perhaps, as he increasingly embraced literary mediocrity, a very similar critic inside his own breast. Often one identifies with what would otherwise prove a menace. Dislike of another’s work is a deep source of enmity in artists. We are a vain crew and can be irrevocably estranged by criticism. It is a tribute to Arnold and myself, two demonic men, that we ingeniously preserved, for whatever reason, our affection for each other.
    I should make clear that Arnold was not in any crude sense ‘spoilt’ by success. He was no tax-dodger with a yacht and a house in Malta. (We sometimes laughingly discussed tax-avoidance, but never tax-evasion.) He lived in a fairly large, but not immodest, suburban villa in a ‘good class’ housing estate in Ealing. His domestic life was, even to an irritating extent, lacking in style. It was not that he put on an act of being ‘the ordinary chap’. In some way he was ‘the ordinary chap’, and eschewed the vision which might, for better as well as worse, have made a very different use of his money. I never knew Arnold to purchase any object of beauty. He was indeed quite deficient in visual taste, though he was rather aggressively fond of music. As to his person, he continued to look like a schoolmaster, dressed shapelessly, and retained a raw shy boyish appearance. It never occurred to him to play ‘the famous writer’. Or perhaps intelligence, of which he had plenty, suggested this way of playing it. He wore steel rimmed specs, behind which his eyes were a very pale bluish-green, rather striking. His nose was pointed, his face always rather greasy, but healthy looking. There was a general lack of colour. Something of an albino? He was accounted, and perhaps was, good-looking. He was always combing his hair.
     
     
    Arnold stared at me and pointed mutely at Francis. We were standing in the hall. Arnold looked unlike himself, his face waxy, his hair jagged, his eyes without glasses crazed and vague. There was a red mark like a Chinese character upon his cheek.
    ‘This is Dr Marloe. Dr Marloe – Arnold Baffin. Dr Marloe happened to be with me when you rang up about your wife’s accident. ’ I stressed the last word.
    ‘Doctor,’ said Arnold. ‘Yes, you see – she—’
    ‘She fell?’ I suggested.
    ‘Yes. Is he – is this chap a — medical doctor?’
    ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘A friend of mine.’ This untruth at least conveyed important information.
    ‘Are you the Arnold Baffin ?’ said Francis.
    ‘Yes, he is,’ I said.
    ‘I say, I do admire your books – I’ve read – ’
    ‘What’s the situation?’ I said to Arnold. I thought he looked as if he was drunk, and immediately after I could smell drink.
    Arnold, making some sort of effort, said slowly, ‘She locked herself into our bedroom. After it – happened – She was bleeding a lot-I thought-I don’t quite know what – the injury was – At any rate – At any rate -’ He stopped.
    ‘Go on, Arnold. Look, you’d better sit down. Hadn’t he better sit down?’
    ‘Arnold Baffin,’ said Francis, to himself.
    Arnold leaned back against the hall stand. He leaned his head back into a coat that was hanging there, closed his eyes for a moment, and then went on. ‘Sorry. You see. She was sort of crying and wailing in there for a time. I mean in the bedroom. Now it’s all quiet and she doesn’t answer at all. I’m afraid she may be unconscious or—’
    ‘Can’t you break open the door?’
    ‘I tried to, I tried to, but the chisel, the – outside woodwork just broke away and I couldn’t get any—’
    ‘Sit down, Arnold, for Christ’s sake.’ I pushed him on to a chair.
    ‘And you can’t see through the keyhole because the key—’
    ‘She’s probably just upset and won’t answer out of – you know—’
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I didn’t