Some observers are clearer-sighted and in some way more advantageously placed than others. The incessantly changing social conventions and moral codes of history represent the shifting axes of reference chosen by the least curious, most myopic and worst-placed observers. But the axes chosen by the best observers have always been startlingly like one another. Gotama, Jesus and Lao-tsze, for example; they lived sufficiently far from one another in space, time and social position. But their pictures of reality resemble one another very closely. The nearer a man approaches these in penetration, the more nearly will his axes of moral reference correspond with theirs. And when all the most acute observers agree in saying that indulgence in these particular amusements interferes with the exploration of the spiritual world, then one can be pretty sure it’s true. In itself, no doubt, the natural and moderate satisfaction of the sexual instincts is a matter quite indifferent to morality. It is only in relation to something else that the satisfaction of a natural instinct can be said to be good or bad. It might be bad, for example, if it involved deceit or cruelty. It is certainly bad when it enslaves a mind that feels, within itself, that it ought to be free—free to contemplate and recollect itself.’
‘No doubt,’ said Mr. Cardan. ‘But as a practical man, I can only say that it’s going to be most horribly difficult to preserve that freedom. That balancing of haunches . . .’ He waved his cigar from side to side. ‘I shall call again in six months and see how you feel about it all then. It’s extraordinary what an effect the natural appetites do have on good resolutions. Satiated, one thinks regeneration will be so easy; but when one’s hungry again, how hard it seems.’
They were silent. From the depths of the valley the smoky shadows had climbed higher and higher up the slope. The opposite hills were now profoundly black and the clouds in which their peaks were involved had become dark and menacing save where, on their upper surfaces, the sun touched them with, as it declined, an ever richer light. The shadow had climbed up to within a hundred feet of where they were sitting, soon it would envelop them. With a great jangling of bells and a clicking of small hard hoofs the six tall piebald goats came trotting down the steep path from the road. The little boy ran behind them, waving his stick. ‘Eia-oo!’ he shouted with a kind of Homeric fury; but at the sight of the three men sitting on the bench outside the house he suddenly became silent, blushed and slunk unheroically away, hardly daring to whisper to the goats while he drove them into their stable for the night.
‘Dear me,’ said Chelifer, who had followed the movements of the animals with a certain curiosity, ‘I believe those are the first goats I have seen, or smelt, in the flesh since I took to writing about them in my paper. Most interesting. One tends to forget that the creatures really exist.’
‘One tends to forget that anything or any one really exists, outside oneself,’ said Mr. Cardan. ‘It’s always a bit of a shock to find that they do.’
‘Three days hence,’ said Chelifer meditatively, ‘I shall be at my office again. Rabbits, goats, mice; Fetter Lane; the family pension. All the familiar horrors of reality.’
‘Sentimentalist!’ mocked Calamy.
‘Meanwhile,’ said Mr. Cardan, ‘Lilian has suddenly decided to move on to Monte Carlo. I go with her, of course; one can’t reject free meals when they’re offered.’ He threw away his cigar, got up and stretched himself. ‘Well, we must be getting down before it gets dark.’
‘I shan’t see you again for some time, then?’ said Calamy.
‘I shall be here again at the end of six months, never fear,’ said Mr. Cardan. ‘Even if I have to come at my own expense.’
They climbed up the steep little path on to the road.
‘Good-bye.’
‘Good-bye.’
Calamy watched them go, watched them till they were out of sight round a bend in the road. A profound melancholy settled down upon him. With them, he felt, had gone all his old, familiar life. He was left quite alone with something new and strange. What was to come of this parting?
Or perhaps, he reflected, nothing would come of it. Perhaps he had been a fool.
The cottage was in the shadow now. Looking up the slope he could see a clump of trees still glittering as though prepared for a festival above the rising flood of darkness. And at the head of the valley, like an immense precious stone, glowing with its own inward fire, the limestone crags reached up through the clouds into the pale sky. Perhaps he had been a fool, thought Calamy. But looking at that shining peak, he was somehow reassured.
The end
