The Collector

by John Fowles

Stop thinking about class, she’d say. Like a rich man telling a poor man to stop thinking about money.

They all said she was pretty. There were photos. If she was ugly it would all have been two lines on the back page.

“Do you know anything about art?” she asked. Nothing you’d call knowledge. “I knew you didn’t. You wouldn’t imprison an innocent person if you did.” I don’t see the connection, I said.

“No, I can’t. I’m thinking of all the butterflies that would have come from these if you’d let them live. I’m thinking of all the living beauty you’ve ended.” You can’t tell. “You don’t even share it. Who sees these? You’re like a miser, you hoard up all the beauty in these drawers.”

I’m so superior to him. I know this sounds wickedly conceited. But I am. And so it’s Ladymont and Boadicaea and noblesse oblige all over again. I feel I’ve got to show him how decent human beings live and behave.

I hate them. I hate the uneducated and the ignorant. I hate the pompous and the phoney. I hate the jealous and the resentful. I hate the crabbed and the mean and the petty. I hate all ordinary dull little people who aren’t ashamed of being dull and little. I hate what G.P. calls the New People, the new-class people with their cars and their money and their tellies and their stupid vulgarities and their stupid crawling imitation of the bourgeoisie.

And they both have the one man’s name I really can’t stand. George. Perhaps there’s a moral in that.

What da

If Arthur Seaton saw a modern statue he didn’t like, he’d smash it. But Caliban would drape a tarpaulin round it. I don’t know which is worse. But I think Caliban’s way is.