Those Barren Leaves

chemistry), if I were to put my hand in the fire, these molecules would uncombine themselves into their constituent atoms, which would then proceed to build themselves up again into other molecules. But this leads me on at once to a set of entirely different realities. For if I were to put my hand in the fire, I should feel pain; and unless, like Cranmer, I made an enormous effort of will to keep it there, I should withdraw it; or rather it would withdraw itself almost without my knowledge and before I was aware. For I am alive, and this hand is part of a living being, the first law of whose existence is to preserve its life. Being alive, this hand of mine, if it were burnt, would set about trying to repair itself. Seen by a biologist, it reveals itself as a collection of cells, having each its appointed function, and existing harmoniously together, never trespassing upon one another, never proliferating into wild adventures of growth, but living, dying and growing to one end⁠—that the whole which they compose may fulfil its purpose⁠—and as though in accordance with a preordained plan. Say that the hand is burnt. From all round the burn the healthy cells would breed out of themselves new cells to fill in and cover the damaged places.”

“How wonderful life is!” said Mary Thriplow. “Life⁠ ⁠…”

“Cranmer’s hand,” Calamy went on, “had done an ignoble thing. The hand is part, not merely of a living being, but of a being that knows good and evil. This hand of mine can do good things and bad things. It has killed a man, for example; it has written all manner of words; it has helped a man who was hurt; it has touched your body.” He laid his hand on her breast; she started, she trembled involuntarily under his caress. He ought to think that rather flattering, oughtn’t he? It was a symbol of his power over her⁠—of her power, alas, over him. “And when it touches your body,” he went on, “it touches also your mind. My hand moves like this, and it moves through your consciousness as well as here, across your skin. And it’s my mind that orders it to move; it brings your body into my mind. It exists in mind; it has reality as a part of my soul and a part of yours.”

Miss Thriplow couldn’t help reflecting that there was, in all this, the stuff for a very deep digression in one of her novels. “This thoughtful young writer⁠ ⁠…” would be quoted from the reviewers on the dust-cover of her next book.

“Go on,” she said.

Calamy went on. “And so these,” he said, “are some of the ways⁠—and there are plenty more, of course, besides⁠—these are some of the ways in which my hand exists and is real. This shape which interrupts the light⁠—it is enough to think of it for five minutes to perceive that it exists simultaneously in a dozen parallel worlds. It exists as electrical charges; as chemical molecules; as living cells; as part of a moral being, the instrument of good and evil; in the physical world and in mind. And from this one goes on to ask, inevitably, what relationship exists between these different modes of being. What is there in common between life and chemistry; between good and evil and electrical charges; between a collection of cells and the consciousness of a caress? It’s here that the gulfs begin to open. For there isn’t any connection⁠—that one can see, at any rate. Universe lies on the top of universe, layer after layer, distinct and separate⁠ ⁠…”

“Like a Neapolitan ice,” Mary’s mind flew at once to the fantastic and unexpected comparison. “This witty young writer⁠ ⁠…” That was already on her dust-covers.

Calamy laughed. “All right,” he agreed. “Like a Neapolitan ice, if you like. What’s true in the chocolate layer, at the bottom of the ice, doesn’t hold in the vanilla at the top. And a lemon truth is different from a strawberry truth. And each one has just as much right to exist and to call itself real as every other. And you can’t explain one in terms of the others. Certainly you can’t explain the vanilla in terms of any of the lower layers⁠—you can’t explain mind as mere life, as chemistry, as physics. That at least is one thing that’s perfectly obvious and self-evident.”

“Obvious,” Mary agreed. “And what’s the result of it all? I really don’t see.”

“Neither do I,” said Calamy, speaking through an explosion of melancholy laughter. “The only hope,” he went on slowly, “is that perhaps, if you went on thinking long enough and hard enough, you might arrive at an explanation of the chocolate and the lemon by the vanilla. Perhaps it’s really all vanilla, all mind, all spirit. The rest is only apparent, an illusion. But one has no right to say so until one has thought a long time, in freedom.”

“In freedom?”

“The mind must be open, unperturbed, empty of irrelevant things, quiet. There’s no room for thoughts in a half-shut, cluttered mind. And thoughts won’t enter a noisy mind; they’re shy, they remain in their obscure hiding-places below the surface, where they can’t be got at, so long as the mind is full and noisy. Most of us pass through life without knowing that they’re there at all. If one wants to lure them out, one must clear a space for them, one must open the mind wide and wait. And there must be no irrelevant preoccupations prowling around the doors. One must free oneself of those.”

“I suppose I’m one of the irrelevant preoccupations,” said Mary Thriplow, after a little pause.

Calamy laughed, but did not deny it.

“If that’s so,” said Mary, “why did you make love to me?”

Calamy did not reply. Why indeed? He had often asked that question himself.

“I think it would be best,” she said, after a silence, “if we were to make an end.” She would go away, she would