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‘We all want things we can’t have. Being a decent human being is accepting that.’ We all take what we can get. And if we haven’t had much most of our life we make up for it while the going’s good, I said.
You despise the real bourgeois classes for all their snobbishness and their snobbish voices and ways. You do, don’t you? Yet all you put in their place is a horrid little refusal to have nasty thoughts or do nasty things or be nasty in any way. Do you know that every great thing in the history of art and every beautiful thing in life is actually what you call nasty or has been caused by feelings that you would call nasty? By passion, by love, by hatred, by truth. Do you know that?’
Why do you keep on using these stupid words – nasty, nice, proper, right? Why are you so worried about what’s proper? You’re like a little old maid who thinks marriage is dirty and everything except cups of weak tea in a stuffy old room is dirty. Why do you take all the life out of life? Why do you kill all the beauty?’
‘Look what you could do. You could … you could collect pictures. I’d tell you what to look for, I’d introduce you to people who would tell you about art-collecting. Think of all the poor artists you could help. Instead of massacring butterflies, like a stupid schoolboy.’ Some very clever people collect butterflies, I said. ‘Oh, clever … what’s the use of that? Are they human beings?’ What do you mean? I asked. ‘If you have to ask, I can’t give you the answer.’
‘I’ve got lots of friends. Do you know why? Because I’m never ashamed of them. All sorts of people. You aren’t the strangest by a long way. There’s one who’s very immoral. But he’s a beautiful painter so we forgive him. And he’s not ashamed. You’ve got to be the same. Not be ashamed. I’ll help you. It’s easy if you try.’
To try to show you that sex – sex is just an activity, like anything else. It’s not dirty, it’s just two people playing with each other’s bodies. Like dancing. Like a game.’ She seemed to think I ought to say something, but I let her talk. ‘I’m doing something for you I’ve never done for any man. And – well, I think you owe me something.’
The things Piero says in a hand. In a fold in a sleeve. I know all this, we’ve been told it and told it and I’ve said it. But today I really felt it. I felt our whole age was a hoax, a sham. The way people talk and talk about tachism and cubism and this ism and that ism and all the long words they use – great smeary clots of words and phrases. All to hide the fact that either you can paint or you can’t.
But there’s a mysterious fourth part I can’t define. It can’t be friendship, I loathe him. Perhaps it’s just knowledge. Just knowing a lot about him. And knowing someone automatically makes you feel close to him. Even when you wish he was on another planet.
Always with that I’m-sorry expression on his face, which I begin to realize is actually contentment. The sheer joy of having me under his power, of being able to spend all and every day staring at me. He doesn’t care what I say or how I feel – my feelings are meaningless to him – it’s the fact that he’s got me.
It’s him. And it’s this weird male thing. Now I’m no longer nice. They sulk if you don’t give, and hate you when you do. Intelligent men must despise themselves for being like that. Their illogicality.
God is impotent. He can’t love us. He hates us because he can’t love us.
Ferdinand
