about animalsâall pointing to a deranged condition of mind. In a neighbouring parish thereâs a somewhat similar case, though in the dark nights of last winter he became a menace through frightening women and girls on the country roads. I donât think he actually did any of them physical harm, but there were one or two bad cases of hysteria. Country folk donât like to do anything to these men. Thereâs a feeling for them, a knowledge that they are as they are because they fought for us. I know you may think that stupid and not even fair to the men. I am not sure about it now. Yet I have a vague understanding too, as of some queer conception of guilt somewhere, and perhaps an unconscious acceptance of responsibility for the guilt, here in the country.
Anyhow, the police have found some clues at Farquharâs cottage. The policeman would not say what they are, but Aunt Phemie was given the impression that the shell-shocked man left unmistakable traces behind. His name is Gordon MacMaster. Aunt Phemie told me a lot about him, about his people, too, and it was like listening to a story in a country that was at once near yet distant, and one saw the strange river of his family blood. This hardly affected me, I saw it so clearly. To be able to see it was part of the mystery and this kept us from feeling too much. All we felt was a profound sadness for the man himself, but even that was distant, like an apprehension of fate. Now I could not leave Aunt Phemie, for if I were alone too soon a hand might touch me, something coming out from the story, and I did not want to lose my detached feeling, the calm emptiness inside me. We wondered where he could be. Aunt Phemie knows a lot about psychology, and not only as a science. She is wise. I mean while telling you about the mind she at the same time remains aware. You feel this, yet not as an intrusion. Cases of this kind, she said, have a sort of primitive cunning. With the money he gotâand he must have got someâhe may have left the countryside altogether. He would have had a clear two daysâ start. Very little whisky upset him, and as whisky is almost unobtainable here he may have set out for a city, perhaps where he used to spend a short leave in his old army days, and may be going from pub to pub when they open. If so, he should soon be found. The only alternative, said Aunt Phemie, is that he hasnât gone, and in that case he is already dead, for everyone in the countryside knew him. In a way beyond explanation we feel that he has not gone, as though in an ultimate moment of realisation he would be held, and desire to be held, by the dark matrix of his native earth. He would sink into it, or plunge. Whether we said so or not, I am not sure now. It is a little too like a dream, perhaps, and every dream, we are told, is the result of a wish-impulse. Our wish-impulse in this case. But we definitely did not discuss this. Though Aunt Phemie would certainly have done so had she thought it was between us. Perhaps it only came into my mind afterwardsâonly a moment ago, probably, for you know how old a new thought, or even a new happening, can appear sometimes.
There was one moment when I was nearly upset. I felt the dim tremor coming in the distance, but I deliberately turned from it. Aunt Phemie said: Poor man, he should have been treated somewhere. This raised the idea of an institution, and somehow I canât bear that yet. I very nearly answered with cold bitterness: I knowâjust shove him into an institution. But I stopped myself. I blacked out.
I couldnât have done it if I hadnât been cool. And I know quite well where this calm has come from. That time when I let go about intellectuals and escapism, it was really as if I had vomited something up. I look over the words I have written about it and see they convey little or nothing of the horrible spasm. And I know how open to misinterpretation they are. But words have
Anyhow, the police have found some clues at Farquharâs cottage. The policeman would not say what they are, but Aunt Phemie was given the impression that the shell-shocked man left unmistakable traces behind. His name is Gordon MacMaster. Aunt Phemie told me a lot about him, about his people, too, and it was like listening to a story in a country that was at once near yet distant, and one saw the strange river of his family blood. This hardly affected me, I saw it so clearly. To be able to see it was part of the mystery and this kept us from feeling too much. All we felt was a profound sadness for the man himself, but even that was distant, like an apprehension of fate. Now I could not leave Aunt Phemie, for if I were alone too soon a hand might touch me, something coming out from the story, and I did not want to lose my detached feeling, the calm emptiness inside me. We wondered where he could be. Aunt Phemie knows a lot about psychology, and not only as a science. She is wise. I mean while telling you about the mind she at the same time remains aware. You feel this, yet not as an intrusion. Cases of this kind, she said, have a sort of primitive cunning. With the money he gotâand he must have got someâhe may have left the countryside altogether. He would have had a clear two daysâ start. Very little whisky upset him, and as whisky is almost unobtainable here he may have set out for a city, perhaps where he used to spend a short leave in his old army days, and may be going from pub to pub when they open. If so, he should soon be found. The only alternative, said Aunt Phemie, is that he hasnât gone, and in that case he is already dead, for everyone in the countryside knew him. In a way beyond explanation we feel that he has not gone, as though in an ultimate moment of realisation he would be held, and desire to be held, by the dark matrix of his native earth. He would sink into it, or plunge. Whether we said so or not, I am not sure now. It is a little too like a dream, perhaps, and every dream, we are told, is the result of a wish-impulse. Our wish-impulse in this case. But we definitely did not discuss this. Though Aunt Phemie would certainly have done so had she thought it was between us. Perhaps it only came into my mind afterwardsâonly a moment ago, probably, for you know how old a new thought, or even a new happening, can appear sometimes.
There was one moment when I was nearly upset. I felt the dim tremor coming in the distance, but I deliberately turned from it. Aunt Phemie said: Poor man, he should have been treated somewhere. This raised the idea of an institution, and somehow I canât bear that yet. I very nearly answered with cold bitterness: I knowâjust shove him into an institution. But I stopped myself. I blacked out.
I couldnât have done it if I hadnât been cool. And I know quite well where this calm has come from. That time when I let go about intellectuals and escapism, it was really as if I had vomited something up. I look over the words I have written about it and see they convey little or nothing of the horrible spasm. And I know how open to misinterpretation they are. But words have
Similar Books
