Gerard too conjured up the dreadful scene, the degeneration, the collapse of the old values. He wanted to smile at Levquist's indignation, yet he also shared it.
`What do you make of it all, Hernshaw, our poor planet? Will it survive? I doubt it. What have you become, are you a stoic after all?
`No,'said Gerard, 'I'm not a stoic. You accused me of being unambitious. I'm too ambitious to be merely stoical.' `You mean morally ambitious?'
`Well – yes.'
`You are rotted by Christianity,' said Levquist. 'What you take for Platonism is the old soft masochistic Christian illusion. Your Plato has been defiled by Saint Augustine. You have no hard core. Riderhood whom you despise -'
`I don't,' said Gerard.
`Riderhood is tougher than you, he's harder. Your 'moral ambition' or whatever you call your selfish optimism, is just the old lie of Christian salvation, that you can shed your old self and become good simply by thinking about it-and as you sit and dream this dream you feel that you are changed already and have no more work to do-and so you are happy in your lie.'
Gerard, who had heard this sort of tirade before, thought, I am how exact he is, how acute, he knows I have thought all those things too. He answered flippantly, 'Well, at least I am happy, isn’t that a good thing?'
Levquist stared at him, pouting his thick lips and drawing down the corners, his face become a sneering mask.
Gerard said, 'All right.'
Levquist went on, 'I am close to death. That is no scandal,,,old age is a well-known phenomenon. But now the difference is that everyone is close to death.'
Gerard said, 'Yes.' He thought, it consoles him to think so.
'All thought which is not pessimistic is now false.'
‘But you would say it has always been?'
'Yes. Only now it is forced upon all thinking people, it is the IN possible conception. Courage, endurance, truthfulness, these are the virtues. And to recognise that of all things we are the most miserable that creep between the earth and the sky.’
‘But his cheers you up, sir!' said Gerard.
Levquist smiled. His dark blue-brown eyes gleamed out moistly from between the dry saurian wrinkles and he shook his over-large cropped head and smiled his demon's smile.
Gerard assented. He liked the image.
`But no. Man is ever mortal, he thinks by fit and start, and when he thinks, he fastens his hand upon his heart.' As he spoke Levquist lifted his big wrinkled hand to the upper pocket of his shabby corduroy jacket. Living his life amid the greatest poetry in the world, he retained a touching affection for A. E. Housman. Somebody knocked on the door.
`There is another,' said Levquist. 'You must go. Salute your father from me. And salute the Honourable Rose. This was a short talk, come again, not just on such a day, to see the old man.'
Gerard stood up. He felt, as on other occasions, a strong impulse to move round the desk and seize Levquist's hands, perhaps kiss them, perhaps even kneel down. Would the classical suppliant rite of embracing the knees enable him to carry ofl'such a gesture, make it something formal, not to be rejected as a 'soft' rush of graceless emotion? As on other occasions lie hesitated, then inhibited the impulse. Did Levquist know of his feelings, of their tenderness and strength? He was not sure. He contented himself with a bow.
Levquist growled permission to enter. Then he uttered a name.
Gerard passed a rosy-checked forty-year-old in the door- way. Aching with jealousy, and with remorse at not having managed a more affectionate farewell, he descended the stairs.
Tamar was looking for Conrad, Conrad was looking for Tamar. Rose and Jenkin were looking for Jean and Duncan and Conrad and Tamar. Gull was looking for a girl to dance with.
Tamar had wandered away from the tent, whither Conrad had rushed to see his idol, in a momentary fit of pique which she now bitterly regretted. She had come back almost at once and even approached a group of young worshippers, but could not see Conrad there. Conrad, unable to get near Crimond, had stood a while spellbound on the outside of the circle. Then, realising Tamar had not followed him, he searched the marquee, and, uncertain of the point at which he had entered, had set off on a circular track about what he thought was the place where they parted company. Tamar had then set off on a straight course toward the next marquee, the waltzing one, toward which they had been making their way when they met Gulliver. She stood for a while here staring about, saw Rose waltzing with Gerard and retired quickly. She was very fond other uncle and of Rose, but shy with them, and anxious now not to be discovered without her partner, whom she blamed herself for having lost. Soon after Tamar had faded back into the darkness Conrad arrived, also saw Rose and Gerard, and with a similar motive made himself. Tamar had meanwhile gone toward the cloisters, where there was a buttery which served sandwiches, and which Conrad had suggested they should locate just before they decided to dance first. Conrad hurried back toward the Waterbirds tent where the famous pop group were rumoured os hi, about to perform again. Tamar searched through a lot of people who were drinking and laughing beside the buttery and went into the chapel, another point mentioned by Conrad as to be visited later. She passed back through the cloisters and out toward the river just as Conrad entered from the other side.
Time mic passed, supper was over, and the dance had entered a new phase, the big expanse of grass between the glowing stripy hitters was covered with beautiful people, the handsome boys in their frilly shirts, now somewhat undone at the neck, the girls in their shimmering dresses, sleek and flouncy, now considerably less tidy, where here and there an errant shoulder strap, snapped when dancing the Gay Gordons, was being exploited by a laughing partner, and elaborately woven mounds of hair, so carefully constructed hours ago with innumerable pins, had come underdone or been demolished by eager male fingers and streamed down backs and over shoulders. Some couples in darker corners were passionately kissing each other or locked in wordless embraces, the longed-for climax of the longed- for evening. Some dresses carried tell-talc stains of grass. The rival musics continued unabated, the Waterbirds raucously shouting into a maelstrom of flashing lights and electronic din. The dancing in the various tents was slightly less dense but wilder.
Tamar had started to cry, and, attempting to compose herself, had wandered away toward the river and was standing on the bridge. Lights upon the bank strewed the water with streamers or ribbons of brightness which frisked here and there upon the surface before being suddenly darkened and plucked under. As she leaned over she could hear, under the other more distant din, the faint river sound, self-absorbed and permanent. When other people moved onto the bridge she crossed it, but turned back when she saw in the darkness the discreet forms of bowler-hatted security guards, strategically set to keep the envious rabble who had not paid for the expensive rickets from sneaking in to the glittering celebration. She went across the lawn toward the 'New Building'. A little earlier than this Conrad had run into Jenkin. Jenkin, who saw how upset the boy was, did not 'tick him off', but could not conceal his dismay that Conrad had, as he confessed, mislaid Tamar immediately on arrival and before they had even had a dance. After this encounter Conrad was even more upset, realising that his failure (for he entirely blamed himself) would now come to the cars of Gerard, even perhaps of Crimond. Mainly he felt wretched for having so deplorably, perhaps unforgivably, offended Tamar, whom he had so much looked forward to being with, dancing with, kissing, on what was to have been such a wonderful evening to which she too must have looked forward. He had not, like Tamar, framed beforehand the idea of falling in love. But now, running more frantically, randomly, from place to place, senselessly revisiting the same scenes and missing others altogether, charging across the grass and jostling young men with brimmillip, glasses and stepping on girls' dresses, tormented by contintiol hope and continual disappointment, he felt all the anguish of a frustrated lover. A little later he nerved himself to go up to Levquist's rooms where Jerikin told him (information which Gerard had so unfortunately forgotten to impart to Tamar) that there was a 'base', but when he arrived there was no one there. He stood awhile in the empty room which was scattered with bottles and glasses, too unhappy even to give himself a drink, and then, as waiting was even more painful than searching, ran off again. Tamar, exhausted, was sitting in one of the tents, bowing her head to conceal her tears and trying to make up her face. She had put down her cashmere shawl
