The sun was in such a position that, as he walked down the hill, Pete saw two little rainbows spouting from the nipples of Giambologna’s nymph. Thoughts of Noah immediately arose in conjunction with thoughts of Virginia in her white satin bathing costume. He tried to repress the latter as incompatible with the new thoughts he was trying to cultivate about the Sister of Mercy; and since Noah was not a subject that would bear much thinking about, he proceeded instead to concentrate on that talk he had had with Mr. Propter about sex. It had begun with his own puzzled questionings as to what sort of sexual behaviour was normal—not statistically normal, of course, but normal in that absolute sense in which perfect vision or unimpaired digestion may be called normal. What sort of sexual behaviour was normal in that sense of the word? And Mr. Propter had answered: None. But there must be, he had protested. If good could be manifested on the animal level, then there must be some kind of sexual behaviour that was absolutely normal and natural, just as there was an absolutely normal and natural sort of digestive activity. But man’s sexual behaviour, Mr. Propter had answered, wasn’t on the same level as digestion.
A rat’s love making—yes, that was on the same level as digestion; for the entire process was instinctive; in other words, was controlled by the physiological intelligence of the body—the same physiological intelligence as correlated the actions of heart and lungs and kidneys, as regulated temperature, as nourished the muscles and made them do the work demanded of them by the central nervous system. Men’s bodily activities were controlled by the same physiological intelligence; and it was that intelligence which, on the animal level, manifested good. In human beings, sexual behaviour was almost completely outside the jurisdiction of this physiological intelligence. It controlled only the cellular activities which made sexual behaviour possible. All the rest was non-instinctive and took place on the strictly human level of self-consciousness. Even when men thought that they were being most exclusively animal in their sexuality, they were still on the human level. Which meant that they were still self-conscious, still dominated by words—and where there were words, there, of necessity, were memories and wishes, judgment and imagination. There, inevitably, were the past and the future, the actual and the fantastic; regret and anticipation; good and evil; the creditable and the discreditable; the beautiful and the ugly.
Among men and women, even the most apparently bestial acts of eroticism were associated with some or all of these non-animal factors—factors which were injected into every human situation by the existence of language. This meant that there was no one type of human sexuality that could be called “normal” in the sense in which one could say that there was a normality of vision or digestion. In that sense, all kinds of human sexuality were strictly abnormal. The different kinds of sexual behaviour could not be judged by referring them to an absolute, natural norm. They could only be judged in reference to ultimate aims of each individual and the results observed in each case. Thus, if an individual wanted to be well thought of in any given society, he or she could safely regard as “normal” the type of sexual behaviour currently tolerated by that local religion and approved by the “best people.” But there were some individuals who cared little for the judgment of an angry God or even of the best people. Their principal desire was for intense and reiterated stimulation of their senses and feelings.
For these, it was obvious, “normality” in sexual behaviour would be quite different from what it was for the more social-minded. Then there would be all the kinds of sexuality “normal” to those desirous of making the best of both worlds—the personal world of sensations and emotions, and the social world of moral and religious conventions. The “normalities” of Tartufe and Pecksniff; of the clergymen who can’t keep away from schoolgirls, the cabinet ministers with a secret mania for handsome youths. And finally there were those who were concerned neither to get on in society, nor to placate the local deity, nor to enjoy repeated emotional and sensuous stimulations, but whose chief preoccupation was with enlightenment and liberation, with the problem of transcending personality, of passing from the human level to the level of eternity. Their conceptions of “normality” in sexual behaviour would not resemble those of the men and women in any of the other categories.
From the concrete tennis court the children of the Chinese cook were flying kites in the shape of birds and equipped with little whistles, so that they warbled plaintively in the wind. The cheerful quacking sound of Cantonese drifted down to Pete’s ears. Across the Pacific, he reflected, millions upon millions of such children had died already or were dying. Below them, in the Sacred Grotto, stood the plaster figure of Our Lady. Pete thought of Virginia kneeling in white shorts and a yachting cap, of the abusive eloquence of Reverend Schlitz, of Dr. Obispo’s jokes, of Alexis Carrel on the subject of Lourdes, of Lee’s “History of the Inquisition,” of Tawney in the relationship between Protestantism and Capitalism, of Niemoller and John Knox and Torque-mada and that Sister of Mercy and again of Virginia and finally of Mr. Propter as the only person he knew who could make some sense out of the absurd, insane, diabolical confusion of it all.
Chapter VI
SOMEWHAT to Jeremy’s disappointment, Dr. Obispo was not at all mortified by the information that his ideas had been anticipated in the eighteenth century.
“I’d like to hear some more about your Fifth Earl,” he had said, as they glided down into the cellars with the Vermeer. “You say he lived to ninety?”
“More than ninety,” Jeremy answered. “Ninety-six or seven, I forget which. And died in the middle of a scandal, what’s more.”
“What sort of a scandal?”
Jeremy coughed and patted the top of his head. “The usual sort,” he fluted.
“You mean, the old bozo was still at it?” Dr. Obispo asked incredulously.
“Still at it,” Jeremy repeated. “There’s a passage about the affair in the unpublished papers of Greville. He died just in time. They were actually on the point of arresting him.”
“What for?”
Jeremy twinkled again and coughed. “Well,” he said slowly and in his most Cranford-like manner, “it seems that he had a tendency to take his pleasures rather homicidally.”
“You mean, he’d killed someone.”
“Not actually killed,” Jeremy answered: “just damaged.”
Dr. Obispo was rather disappointed, but consoled himself almost immediately by the reflection that, at ninety-six, even damage was pretty creditable. “I’d like to look into this a little further,” he added.
“Well, the note-book’s at your disposal,” said Jeremy politely.
Dr. Obispo thanked him. Together, they walked towards Jeremy’s work room.
“The handwriting’s rather difficult,” said Jeremy as they entered. “I think it might be easier if I read it aloud to you.”
Dr. Obispo protested that he didn’t want to waste Jeremy’s time; but as the other was anxious to find an excuse for putting off to another occasion the wearisome task of sorting papers that didn’t interest him, the protest was out-protested. Jeremy insisted on being altruistic. Dr. Obispo thanked him and settled down to listen. Jeremy took his eyes out of their native element for long enough to polish his spectacles, then began to re-read aloud the passage he had been reading that morning, when the bell rang for lunch.
“ ‘It is to be found in the Mud,’ ” he concluded, “ ‘and only awaits a skilful Angler.’ ”
Dr. Obispo chuckled. “You might almost use it as a definition of science,” he said. “What is science? Science is angling in the mud—angling for immortality and for anything else that may happen to turn up.” He laughed again and added that he liked the old bastard.
Jeremy went on reading.
“ ‘August, 1796. Today my gabbling niece, Caroline, reproached me with what she called the Inconsistency of my Conduct. A man who is humane with the Horses in his stables, the Deer in his park and the Carp in his fishponds should show his Consistency by being more sociable than I am, more tolerant of the company of Fools, more charitable towards the poor and humble. To which I answered by remarking that the word, Man, is the general Name applied to successions of inconsistent Conduct, having their source within a two-legged and feath-erless Body, and that such words as Caroline, John and the like are the proper names applied to particular successions of inconsistent Conduct within particular Bodies. The only Consistency exhibited by the mass of Mankind is a Consistency of Inconsistency. In other words, the nature of any particular succession of inconsistent Conduct depends upon the history of the individual and his ancestors. Each succession of Inconsistencies is determined and obeys the Laws imposed upon it by its own antecedent Circumstances. A Character may be said to be consistent in the sense that its Inconsistencies are predestined and cannot pass beyond the boundaries ordained for it. The Consistency demanded by such Fools as Caroline is of quite another kind. These reproach us because our successive Acts are not consistent with some arbitrarily selected set of Prejudices, or ridiculous code of rules, such as the Hebrew, the stoic, the Iroquois, the Christian. Such Consistency is not to be achieved, and
