Read Online The Good Apprentice by Iris Murdoch - Free Book Online Page B

‘Just let me alone, will you? I’m a machine. I say the same things to myself a thousand times a day, I see the same things, I enact the same things. Nothing can help me, nothing.’ As Edward spoke these words a strange grimacing uncanny smile, not at all like his ordinary smile, came onto his face.
    Stuart shuddered. ‘Don’t make misery an end in itself. There must be something you can do, some good move that you can make — ’
    ‘I can’t move.’
    ‘You must find some refuge — ’
    ‘Oh I’m in one, it’s hatred, that’s something to do, hating everybody, hating Harry, hating you. I loathed that abominable dinner party, all false smiles and lying talk. I hated the clothes those women wore and the smell of their faces. It was true though what they were saying, there’s nothing deep, the world’s turning into nonsense, everything is coming to an end, it’ll all collapse into hell and burn and finish, and I’m glad. I’m there already, burning in hell. My soul is gone, I have no inward soul, it’s all burnt away.’
    ‘But what is this fire,’ said Stuart, ‘is it guilt, do you feel guilty?’
    Edward threw the book across the room. He shouted, ‘Go away and stop amusing yourself by hurting me! You grate on my nerves so that I could scream — everything you say is just like scraping a wound with a knife — ’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ said Stuart, ‘I just want to understand, I want a sense of direction. All this repetitive misery is bad, it’s not truth. I’m not suggesting you just try to jump out of it all, you can’t. It’s not like a riddle with a magic solution. You’ve got to think about what happened, but try to think about it in a bit of clear light. The burning has to go on, but hold onto something else too, find something good, somewhere, anywhere, keep it close to you, draw it into the fire — ’
    ‘The one thing the devil didn’t make,’ said Edward, suddenly quiet again. ‘Yes. If the devil can’t find it I’m sure I can’t. You see, nothing connects any more, nothing makes sense, in extreme pain it can’t do, there are no ways any more. Do you know what I’ve discovered? There’s no morality, no centre, since guilt can exist outside it, on its own. You don’t know what this pain is like. Words don’t help, names don’t help, guilt, shame, remorse, death, hell, at the level I’m at distinctions don’t exist, concepts don’t exist. I wake in the mornings and hear the birds singing, and for a second I forget, then I’m back in liquid blackness, everything’s black, everyone’s a devil tormenting me, all of you this evening, and his mother sending me letters and — ’
    ‘Mark’s mother?’
    ‘Yes, she sends me letters accusing me of murder, every two or three days I get one. She’d be glad if she knew how much I suffer.’
    ‘You’ve answered?’
    ‘Of course not. I hate her. I’ve stopped reading her vile letters. There’s two there I haven’t opened, by your feet. I meant to burn them. I wish I could burn her.’
    ‘You ought to read them,’ said Stuart.
    ‘To punish myself?’
    ‘No. She might have changed her mind, she might regret those letters and be writing to say so. She’s distraught with grief. She might even suddenly need you.’
    ‘You want me to pity her. She curses me. I curse her.’
    Stuart picked up one of the letters and handed it to Edward. Edward tore it open, glanced at it, and gave it to Stuart. ‘You see. This is what I live with.’
    Stuart read the beginning of the letter.
    You murdered my child whom I loved, he trusted you and you killed him, you broke his body and you shed his blood, he is dead and all my happiness and my joy is dead and will lie there broken forever, lying in blood and broken bones, and never live again, I shall never lift my head again, you have killed my joy …
     
    He put the letter back in the envelope and dropped it. ‘Yes. She’s mad with misery, like you. I expect writing this is a sort of