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Jewish. The Jewish acquiescence in suffering. Except that it is everyone’s acquiescence in suffering.

What did you say was the theme of the Yiddish jokes you cut your teeth on, Solly?—I shall leave it to you to sneer, Matty, I have no comment.

‘But what on earth are we going to do with this thing?’ she said to Jack.

‘He was nuts, wasn’t he? Burn it.’

In the end she took it to Mrs Van who read it all one night, and telephoned Martha in the morning.

‘That was a very strange thing to do, copying out all that nonsense on to the flimsies.’

‘It was the nearest I could get to the original.’

‘But why on earth should you want to?’

‘But it’s not honest, otherwise.’

‘It’s a Foundation—they don’t want this sort of thing.’

‘They don’t want anthropology either—but if there’s anything in this stuff, that’s what it’s nearest to.’

‘Lose it, Matty. Drop it into the nearest well.’

‘I keep thinking of Thomas, going crazy in that village, trying to get messages out.’

The same could be said of anyone in a mental hospital. Be sensible, Matty. Next time some enthusiastic amateur like Thomas asks for money, instead of giving it, they’ll say look what happened to that maniac in Southern Zambesia.’

‘I suppose so.’

Martha wrote to the Foundation that the survey material was lost. The bundle of papers lay about the flat, with the manuscript Martha had made of it. She could not make herself throw it away. When it was the only thing left in the empty flat, after she had finished packing to go to England, she threw it into her suitcase and took it with her.

At the end everything happened quickly. The divorce was set down in the High Court two months before they expected, and a berth became available on an earlier ship.

The divorce itself was nothing but a formality, as the lawyers had promised.

Anton and Martha and their lawyers, and Marjorie and Jasmine—just up from Johannesburg to visit her parents—went to Court together. At the Court, Martha was relieved that Mr Maynard was nowhere in sight, though he might have been: he was now a High Court Judge. The appropriate lies were told, and Martha and Anton came out of the Court together to find Bettina waiting for Anton. She was apologetic about ‘intruding at such an awkward moment’, but she had been unable to get her car, parked some blocks away, to start.

‘Well, I’ll come and get everything packed later,’ Anton said to Martha. He hesitated, then kissed her on the cheek, while Bettina smiled as if to say: Of course! Quite right, don’t think that I object. The two women were so concerned to assure each other of their magnanimity, that in fact their faces were strained by smiling, and they were both relieved when Anton at last went off with Bettina.

‘What a farce,’ said Jasmine. ‘However, they made a handsome couple.’

Marjorie said: ‘Who’d have thought it! It has to be Anton who makes a suitable marriage in the end. Are you coming tonight, Matty?’

There was a meeting that night, which Jasmine and Marjorie had promised to attend. Marjorie had said: ‘It’s a crowd of new people—who knows, perhaps this time it really will achieve something?’

‘What’s the point?’ said Martha. ‘I’m leaving next week.’

‘Oh, isn’t it dreadful, no one left. Please come, for old times’ sake. There’s only me now to do anything—but of course, these new people will take over now, I expect.’ Marjorie was in tears. Ashamed, she said: ‘Yes, I know, I’m terribly tense. I’m sorry. If I don’t watch out I’ll be having a nervous breakdown—imagine, I always used to despise women like me.’

That night, Marjorie and Martha went to an ugly office not a hundred yards from their old office in Founders’ Street—now demolished.

They were a few minutes late, and as they went up the stairs they joked about their corruption—once they would never have dared to be late.

They stood in the doorway, looking around to see who they knew. No one—they were all strangers.

There was something about all these faces—what was it?—of course! They all looked such babies: they were in their early twenties, while Martha and Marjorie, six, seven years older, were a different generation.

‘Thanks for coming,’ said an intense, dark youth—‘we are glad to welcome members of the old guard.’

Luckily the two guests realized in time that this was not a joke, and refrained from either smiling or exchanging glances. But their sense of shock made them feel as if they had. The young man nodded unsmiling at an already full bench. People squeezed up: Marjorie and Martha squeezed in. As they did so, Jasmine came in, looking far too elegant. She had been at a family dinner with her parents, and yet another suitable businessman they hoped she would marry.
Jasmine found a few empty inches on the end of the opposite bench, and sat on it, having examined it carefully for dust. This made a bad impression, and eyebrows went up. Meanwhile, the intense youth continued with a speech. He was persuading them into something: he had a vision which he wished them to share—enormous sums of money were involved. When he at last mentioned the final amount, Martha felt Marjorie’s elbow in her ribs, and she looked around to see why these apparently sane young people did not throw him out as a madman. He was speaking fast and well, leaning forward, his eyes first on one face and then moving on to the next. He spoke, in intimacy, to one person, as if they two were utterly alone, and then, having established this connection in the eyes of everyone, moved on to the next. But instinctively he knew that Martha, Marjorie and Jasmine could not be absorbed into a public
tête-à-tête
—his eyes moved past them—not, however, without a small smile which said: you’d trust me if you knew me!

Jackie Bolton. Martha was so strongly transported back to that other office, that other group, she had to look around to see if Anton Hesse, Andrew McGrew, the two sensible, solid men whose task it was to calm and oppose, were sitting in their places. And how did Jasmine feel—who had after all loved Jackie Bolton? Both Marjorie and Martha looked to see: Jasmine had the wry look of one judging a younger self; and she, like them, was being careful how she directed her glances of curiosity—for, knowing Jackie Bolton, they knew how passionately this orator would resent infidelities of attention.

Yes, there they were: in a corner sat a square, bespectacled young man taking notes, and each time the orator mentioned that fantastic sum of money and spoke of a ‘nation-wide network’ he allowed himself a humorous grimace. And sitting beside the impassioned orator in the position of chairman (who should have welcomed them officially—it was not the orator’s task at all) sat another silent, judgement-reserving person, in this case a large, dark, rather beautiful girl, in style like a Turgenev heroine.

As for the others, they all leaned forward, absorbed, lost,
gone into the speaker’s fine, high-winging language. The two silent critics were a minority and knew it. So if history was repeating itself—and why not? If the dramatis personae were the same, presumably the plot was also—this group would not be in existence, these people would not sit all night on uncomfortable benches talking about nation-wide networks which would transform the country, if it had not been for the impassioned orator? He it was, presumably, who had fired them all, fused them all; he was the risk-taker, the spark, the vision-maker—and the sensible young man in the corner, and the beautiful, sensible girl might radiate a judicious calm in vain. And if they disapproved, which they did, what were they doing here at all? My dear, sensible friends! Martha found herself addressing these two silently: you imagine you are here as representatives of common sense, don’t you; and you are having ‘a restraining influence’. Well, don’t fool yourselves—he will have his way, set everything in motion, form everything, and in what he forms will be the seeds of its destruction. So you can foretell the end of what you are creating now, if you know how to look for the signs: you find them, my friends, in what you are forgiving this lovable young maniac for, in those irritating things which you meet to discuss (feeling rather disloyal to the group) and decide are not really important after all, the vision’s the thing. And, keeping your minds firmly on the vision, as if it were an entity, a thing, quite separate from the minds and personalities which created it, you overlook the lies, the exaggerations, and the sheer damned lunacy, because you know in your hearts that you haven’t the spark, you couldn’t set anything in motion. While you are sitting around saying: there isn’t the basis, there aren’t the conditions, it’s quite impossible (and you are absolutely right: there never is the basis, it is always impossible—if you leave out of account the recklessness of this inspired young idiot), he has already lit the fire, and things are in full swing, the pot’s on the boil—and the fat’s in the fire. Of course he, the inspirer, will soon have a nervous breakdown, or be ill in some way, or lose interest and go off somewhere else where, he believes, there will be
uncorrupted and whole people who can’t ruin his vision—as you are doing, he thinks. It will be you who will try to put in order (a phrase you will use continually) the mess he has left behind. You’ll say, oh, what a pity it happened like that, ‘if only’ he had not created so much dissension, offended so many people, frightened off so many because of what were obviously lies—in short, created such an atmosphere of intrigue, unpleasantness and unreality. If only, if only…then there would have been a fine, healthy organization and the nation would have been transformed. But my dear, sensible friends, without the ‘unreality’, ‘the lunacy’ (you’ll be using such phrases for years; you two will probably even get married on the strength of your disappointment over the ‘unreality’) there would never have been anything at all, that’s the point; it always happens like this; that
is
the point; the ‘if only’ which is so important to you, which you will be muttering to yourself in five, six years’ time to soften your feelings of shame, waste, nostalgia, for what-might-have-been, well, that ‘if only’ shows you never understood the first thing about what was going on. And never will.

But Martha, having reached this point in her silent address to those sympathetic figures, the beautiful, solid girl who bent her dark head over her chairman’s notes, the pleasant, bespectacled young man who was softening his criticism with a fraternal smile, understood that the orator, sensing the three visitors were absorbed in thoughts unconnected with what he was actually saying, interrupted a sentence in which the word
millions
had already occurred four times, to demand with hostile politeness: ‘Was he boring them, perhaps?’

‘Good Lord, no, far from it!’ Marjorie exclaimed, with all the energy of her frank charm. She was transformed with new enthusiasm. Martha shook her head, smiling: she knew better than to risk speech. He looked at Jasmine, who said: ‘I’m sorry I was late. But I want to know, what is this group?’

At once eyes met, communed, separated. A discreet silence.

‘Oh, well, if it’s like that,’ said Jasmine companionably, and lit a cigarette.

‘No one said it was like anything,’ said a pretty student of about eighteen. She looked with dislike at the three old women—as she clearly felt them to be.

A silence.

‘Well,’ said Marjorie warmly, her eyes shining, ‘it’s awfully nice of you people to ask us old reactionaries around anyway.’

At once eyes met again, lingered. Grimaces, silence, hostility.

Martha was remembering an incident from those dead days of eight years ago.

Jasmine had come hot-foot into the office—which? there had been so many dingy, bench-furnished, dust-smelling little offices. She had just met Mr Forrester in the street, and had stopped for a talk: ‘I was on my guard of course, he might be a spy for all
we
know!’ He had said, humorously: ‘Well, thanks at least for acknowledging the existence of an old reactionary like myself.’ ‘Imagine,’ Jasmine had said, in prim, shocked tones that nevertheless managed to suggest a sneer, ‘he wasn’t even ashamed of saying it aloud. He actually
said
it in so many words.’

Lord, Lord, thought Martha, were we really so awful, so stupid? Thank goodness she was leaving soon and would not have to forgive these young idiots for the sake of her own past.

She said, smiling with what she hoped was a benevolently neutral expression: ‘It’s particularly nice of you to invite me, because I am leaving the country soon.’

‘If people aren’t ashamed to turn their backs on the problems of this country for a soft life in England,’ said the pretty girl, bitterly.

At this, the fair, solid young man took a pipe from his pocket and begin to fill it, watching his hands at work, while he calmly smiled. Their attention attracted by this deliberate gesture, everyone waited for him to say something. Martha again felt Marjorie’s elbow against hers: ‘Remember, Andrew?’ she whispered.

‘Some people are much more interested in private conversation than in the meeting, forgive me if I’m wrong,’ said the young Indian teacher.

The pipe-filler said: ‘I’d like to remind everyone that a vote was taken as to whether members of the old groups should be invited.’ He spoke ‘humorously’ and the chairwoman said, ‘humorously’: ‘I was just about to say the same thing. I hereby bring this meeting to order. Our guests don’t even know what it is all about.’

‘Oh, yes we do!’ muttered Marjorie, smiling; but the people who had heard her, frowned.

‘This meeting,’ said the orator, ‘humorously’ but with passion, reclaiming everyone by leaning forward and sweeping them with a fire of hot, demanding, accusing glances, ‘is to establish socialism in this country—now!’

Small flattered laughs all around.

The pipe-filler said: ‘We are a group of socialists—enough said, in present conditions.’

More flattered laughter.

‘Who
are
we?—if I may ask?’ Jasmine persisted.

The chairwoman said: ‘You are quite right to ask, but at the present moment all that can be said is: we are socialists, we are feeling our way, and we are very loosely organized. You must understand that we can’t say more than that.’