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Authors: Anthony Burgess
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response to the slaps and truncheonings, anaesthetized by ale. He seemed also, a Neronian Nazarene set upon by tittering lions, to be singing a hymn. ‘You ought to be ashamed,’rebuked Beatrice-Joanna fiercely, ‘downright ashamed. A poor old man like that.’
‘You mind your own business,’ said one of the grey policemen peevishly. ‘Woman.’ he added with scorn. Their victim was allowed to crawl away, still singing. Very much a woman, minding her own business, socially and biologically, she shrugged and posted her letter.
Three
A LETTER for Tristram in the staff-room letter-rack, a letter from his sister Emma. It was four-thirty, hour of the half-hour luncheon break, but the bell had still to go. Dawn was coming up deliciously over the sea far beneath the staff-room window. Tristram fingered the letter with its garish Chinese stamp, its superscription Air Mail in ideograms and Cyrillic, smiling at yet another example of family telepathy. It was always happening like this – a letter from George in the West followed a day or so after by one from Emma in the East. Neither of them, significantly, ever wrote to Derek. Tristram read, still smiling, standing among his colleagues: ‘. . . The work goes on. I flew last week from Chengkiang to Hingi to Changchai to Tuyun to Shihtsien – exhausting. It’s still almost standing room only here, but really frightening measures are being taken by the Central Government since the recent change in policy began. A mass execution of offenders against the Increase in Family laws took place in Chungking onlyten days ago. This seemed to a lot of us to be going too far –’ Typical of her, that understatement; Tristram caught an image of her prim forty-five-year-old face, the thin prim lips saying it.’–But it does seem to be having a salutary effect on some who, despite everything, still cherish as a life’s ambition becoming an honourable ancestor to be worshipped by a milling mound of progeny. Such people are likely to become ancestors sooner than they expect. Curiously, ironically, there looks like being something of a famine in Fukien Province where the rice-crops – for some reason unknown – have failed . . .’ Tristram frowned and wondered. George’s report about the wheat-blight, the news about herring catches, now this. There awoke in him a faint nagging suspicion about something, he couldn’t tell what.
‘And how,’ said a young mincing niggling voice, ‘is our dear Tristram today?’ It was Geoffrey Wiltshire, the new head of the Social Studies Department, literally a blue-eyed boy, so fair as almost to look white-headed. Tristram, who was trying not to hate him too much, gave a lemony smile and said, ‘Well.’
‘I tuned in to your Sixth Form lesson,’ said Wiltshire. ‘I know you won’t mind my saying this, my dear dear Tristram.’ He brought a whiff of perfume and two sets of twittering lashes close to his colleague. ‘Saying that, in effect, you were teaching something you should not have been teaching.’
‘I don’t recollect.’ Tristram tried to master his breathing.
‘I, on the other hand, recollect rather perfectly. You said something like this: art, you said, cannot flourish in a society like ours, because, you seemed to say, art isthe product of – I think this is the term you used – paternlty lust . Wait,’ he said, ‘wait,’ to Tristram’s open mouth. ‘You also said that the materials of the arts were, in effect, fertility symbols. Now, apart from the fact, my still dear Tristram, apart from the fact that one is at a complete loss to know how exacdy this fits into the syllabus, you were quite gratuitously – and you can’t deny this–quite gratuitously teaching something which is, however you look at it, to say the least heretical.’ The bell rang for luncheon. Wiltshire put his arm round Tristram as they’ all processed to the staff dininghall.
‘But,’ said Tristram, fighting his anger, ‘damn it all, it’s
‘You mind your own business,’ said one of the grey policemen peevishly. ‘Woman.’ he added with scorn. Their victim was allowed to crawl away, still singing. Very much a woman, minding her own business, socially and biologically, she shrugged and posted her letter.
Three
A LETTER for Tristram in the staff-room letter-rack, a letter from his sister Emma. It was four-thirty, hour of the half-hour luncheon break, but the bell had still to go. Dawn was coming up deliciously over the sea far beneath the staff-room window. Tristram fingered the letter with its garish Chinese stamp, its superscription Air Mail in ideograms and Cyrillic, smiling at yet another example of family telepathy. It was always happening like this – a letter from George in the West followed a day or so after by one from Emma in the East. Neither of them, significantly, ever wrote to Derek. Tristram read, still smiling, standing among his colleagues: ‘. . . The work goes on. I flew last week from Chengkiang to Hingi to Changchai to Tuyun to Shihtsien – exhausting. It’s still almost standing room only here, but really frightening measures are being taken by the Central Government since the recent change in policy began. A mass execution of offenders against the Increase in Family laws took place in Chungking onlyten days ago. This seemed to a lot of us to be going too far –’ Typical of her, that understatement; Tristram caught an image of her prim forty-five-year-old face, the thin prim lips saying it.’–But it does seem to be having a salutary effect on some who, despite everything, still cherish as a life’s ambition becoming an honourable ancestor to be worshipped by a milling mound of progeny. Such people are likely to become ancestors sooner than they expect. Curiously, ironically, there looks like being something of a famine in Fukien Province where the rice-crops – for some reason unknown – have failed . . .’ Tristram frowned and wondered. George’s report about the wheat-blight, the news about herring catches, now this. There awoke in him a faint nagging suspicion about something, he couldn’t tell what.
‘And how,’ said a young mincing niggling voice, ‘is our dear Tristram today?’ It was Geoffrey Wiltshire, the new head of the Social Studies Department, literally a blue-eyed boy, so fair as almost to look white-headed. Tristram, who was trying not to hate him too much, gave a lemony smile and said, ‘Well.’
‘I tuned in to your Sixth Form lesson,’ said Wiltshire. ‘I know you won’t mind my saying this, my dear dear Tristram.’ He brought a whiff of perfume and two sets of twittering lashes close to his colleague. ‘Saying that, in effect, you were teaching something you should not have been teaching.’
‘I don’t recollect.’ Tristram tried to master his breathing.
‘I, on the other hand, recollect rather perfectly. You said something like this: art, you said, cannot flourish in a society like ours, because, you seemed to say, art isthe product of – I think this is the term you used – paternlty lust . Wait,’ he said, ‘wait,’ to Tristram’s open mouth. ‘You also said that the materials of the arts were, in effect, fertility symbols. Now, apart from the fact, my still dear Tristram, apart from the fact that one is at a complete loss to know how exacdy this fits into the syllabus, you were quite gratuitously – and you can’t deny this–quite gratuitously teaching something which is, however you look at it, to say the least heretical.’ The bell rang for luncheon. Wiltshire put his arm round Tristram as they’ all processed to the staff dininghall.
‘But,’ said Tristram, fighting his anger, ‘damn it all, it’s
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