The World as I Found It (49 page)

Ottoline gave him her usual pecking public kiss, but turned away when he attempted to hold her a moment, saying, I know, darling, but if it's all the same to you, I'd like to walk.

This galled him — the nerve of her, fending him off unprovoked, especially when he felt almost no desire for her. Picking along the path, dubiously dabbing the red gravel with her toe, Ottoline was in a funk, half oblivious to him as she said:

Isn't it unearthly? I feel as if we're still awaiting the results of some horrible election. Philip was so dashed when he called. He says they're mad, every one of them. Here they are, up all night debating and drafting resolutions, as if they could actually
do
anything in the face of this war lunacy. And the amazing thing is no one cares. No one will even listen now. All they want is blood.

Stopping then, Ottoline rummaged through her bag for a mint. Cracking it like a nut between her teeth, she furiously crunched it up, drawing out her lips as she continued:

I'm taking Julian away for a few days. I don't care where — the seaside or someplace. Anywhere where she won't see these ghoulish mobs celebrating. I can't stand it — the idea of being bottled up in England for God knows how long with these … these horror fanatics!

She looked at him, so self-contained and distant, smug. What I
mean
, she added, with an exasperated sigh, is that it's bound to bring down the — I don't know —
values
. And then there's no beauty left but just
ugliness
, and us standing up like targets for the mob …

Then, seeing that he didn't know
what
she was saying, she said irritably, My
point
… Yet as she struggled, her confidence fell another notch, and she said more grimly, What I
mean
… You see, my very point
is
…

But then seeing him studying her like a bug, and seeing, to her mortification, that she had lost her point, she collapsed with a groan on the next bench, weeping into her gloved hands.

He sat down and patted her hand, but it was no good. All she felt was his eely kindness, so patronizing and automatic. And his mind
was
elsewhere; he couldn't very well hide it. The day, a Tuesday, felt more like a Sunday, it was so quiet. As yet there were no mobs, no ringing bells or parades. The delirious catharsis of relief and national unity that had greeted the declarations of war in Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin and Paris would come over the next days. Nevertheless, the war was rolling. For days now on the Continent, the war's momentum had been steadily gathering, each nation following mobilization schedules that had been drawn up years in advance. Across Europe, endless trains filled with men, field pieces, provisions and pack animals were rolling toward their deployment destinations. With impeccable timing, German divisions were rushing through neutral Belgium on their way to flatten France, while Austria, with all her incompetent bluster, was in the midst of a logistical nightmare, her packed trains hopelessly snarled and delayed in an attempt to make good her threats to punish the Serbs, while rushing to check the feared Russian advance from the east. Exhorted by her ally France to strike quickly, Russia, meanwhile, was struggling to rouse her huge and disorganized forces. While the infantry tried to pull itself together, mounted Cossacks and cavalry reconnaissance units were starting to the front. To avoid the nightmare of the 1904 mobilization, there was also a temporary prohibition on the sale of vodka. Soon enough, though, the vodka would be flowing, and the czar's forces would be trampling fields huge for harvest, dressed in sweltering woolen uniforms designed for parades and expecting, as most nations did, a short, healthy blood-letting that would be over before the leaves fell.

Consoling Ottoline that day, Russell felt more rage than sorrow at what to him seemed a universal outpouring of savagery, imbecility and race hatred. Few generals were as prepared for their war as Russell was for his. His abortive, end-of-the-world
Forstice
had just been a prelude to this; if anything, Russell would come to find it oddly prophetic. Sitting beside Ottoline, he felt more resolute and incisive than he had in more than a year. Like a
deus ex machina
, the war had come to lift him out of the doldrums left in the wake of Wittgenstein's criticisms. And in a perverse way, it was a philosopher's dream. Civilization was about to murder itself, and when it did, Russell felt he would throw off the last moorings and create a better system, one not only more rational but also more just and humane.

* * *

For all his certainty about his own course, Russell had no such epiphany about Ottoline that first day of the war. Their love just petered away, hastened by world events — and by D.D., who threw her arms around Russell's neck one night when he opened the door.

Four months had passed. Russell was working against the war and living in London, having moved the week before from Mrs. Dood's to a little flat in the South End.

Oh, dearest darling, said D.D., holding him out to look at him. Thank God you're all right! I've been looking for you for weeks! Why didn't you tell me you were moving? You're not in trouble, are you?

Of course not, he said, drawing back. Nothing's the matter.

D.D. was frantic. Well, then, why didn't you leave word where I could find you? Her eyes watered over. I've been so furious — so betrayed! I went to Cambridge — I even went to your landlady, that Dood woman. She said you'd disappeared.

She told you that? He smacked his hands together with mock fury. The liar! The witch hates me. I specifically told her to give you my address.

On the verge of a hysterical outburst, D.D. faced him hungrily, trying against all logic to believe him. Her eyes were dilated, and her face was contorted in a way he had never seen.

She wasn't just
mean
, D.D. hissed. She was downright
evil
about it. She screamed at me, then threatened to call a constable. But I fixed her! Boy oh boy, did I fix that bitch but
good
by the time I left! Fixed that yappy dog of hers, too.

Well, well, he offered anxiously, trying to calm her down. The important thing is, you've found me. Sit down. When did you arrive, then? Saturday? But you did receive my letters — I sent three.
No?
But of course you know about the overseas mails being disrupted, the submarines and so forth.

D.D. wasn't buying this. Fixing him with the same unfocused glare that must have curdled Mrs. Dood, she screamed:

LIAR! You rotten, mealy-mouthed liar! I didn't get
any
thing.

Nothing?

Vainly he kept up his patter, trapped, trapped. An energetic cabman was porting up her bags. D.D., meanwhile, was pacing, sniffing for a rival and staring at the floral walls of this hovel that clearly had been let with no thought of
them
.

Cursed luck. Russell didn't even have a spare quid to pay the cabman. Eyeing him with shame, D.D. pushed some notes into the man's hand, then slammed the door, bawling, This place is a goddamned
dump
!

He was all caution and solicitude at first, washing out a cracked cup and lighting the sputtering gas ring to make tea. At first she turned up her nose, but then with a scowl she gulped the tea down. He saw that her hands were trembling, the nails deeply chewed. He thought there was something odd about her looks, too, then realized it was her hair: a still more severe slice of bangs, self-inflicted, nunnery style. And then suddenly D.D. brightened, flashing a minxing look above the upturned cup that made his bowels churn. Hoping to avert an even more excruciating scene, he was about to make his speech, but she spoke first.

Darling, she said, quite as if nothing had happened. We really can't stay here, you know. Mom and Dad will be arriving next month. Not that we have to get married right away, of course, but we can't very well have them find us here.

For some seconds he stared at her, unable to decide whether this was guile or simple lunacy. Then, as gently as he could he said, Doris — D.D., I'm afraid there's been a frightful misunderstanding. It's true I invited you to
visit
, but I never even remotely suggested that we should get
married
. Why, as yet I'm not even legally divorced.

The cup whizzed past his ear. Histrionics and tears. Fearing suicide or a lawsuit, he agreed to let her stay the night, then made the fatal mistake of coupling with her, not just once but several times. His second mistake, caused by remorse for the first, was to agree to read her latest short story,
Requiem for Father Flye
.

Gripping her knees, D.D. watched with relish as he read her story, another of the Penelope Cycle, as she now called it. This tale found the young ingenue in a convent, where she is despoiled by a philandering Jesuit, that hypocrite theologian and scholar of the Virgin Birth, Father Flye. But Penelope gets her revenge. After locking the unsuspecting priest in his confessional, she kneels and, in a disguised voice, recounts their sins before naming their penance — “
Death! Death! Death!
” — hacking open her wrists, then slashing through the screen while Father Flye howls and beats on the door. Russell didn't even pretend to finish it. Rising up, he said accusingly:

How dare you threaten me! Are
you
such a hypocrite? Who seduced whom here?

D.D. reared back as if she'd been slapped. Then she started crying, deep sucking breaths followed by loud moans of rage that nearly drove him from the room. Even when she stopped, she was nearly speechless, gasping to bring up the words:

Maybe I'm just trying to get your lousy
attention
. God knows, I don't expect your sympathy — you don't feel sympathy for anybody, Father Flye! Oh, that's you, all right. First you steal others blind, then ease your conscience by writing another book or something. At heart you're nothing but a goddamned
weasel
!

For nearly an hour, he blankly endured this abuse, hoping that she would tire of it and leave for good. But she refused to give up. With the least kindness from him, she seemed to think everything was on again, while with the least scowl or ill-chosen word, she acted as if she would kill herself.

Two days later, at the end of his wits, he finally called Ottoline, imploring her to talk to the girl. D.D. was only too happy to take her case to Ottoline, who was pained to see that the young American was far more attractive than Russell had let on. Moony as a girl describing her first love, D.D. told Ottoline everything, calmly explaining, with the eerie plausibility of fantasy, how only she, D.D., could “save” poor Bertie. Then came the kicker:

You know, D.D. confessed, I was so jealous when Bertie told me about your spiritual friendship. That was all I ever wanted with a man. She gave a windy grin. I'll bet you'll think I'm awfully impertinent for asking this. I mean, it's absolutely none of my business. But — well, didn't you ever think of having a more, uh,
physical
relationship with Bertie?

Well, no, said Ottoline, trying to pick herself off the floor. No, I suppose I always wanted to keep our little friendship on that high
spiritual
plane.

Oh! D.D. looked positively transported. You're so very lucky!

Oh, I know, my dear, I know …

In the end, it was out of sympathy for D.D. that Ottoline made the supreme effort it took to pry her loose from him — if only temporarily.

As for Russell, he was completely unrepentant — defiantly so — when Ottoline exposed his deceits. A year before, he would have begged her forgiveness, but now he just walked away, furious to be bothered with this nonsense when he was busy with weightier matters. Ottoline found his strength and distance appalling. Within a matter of weeks, the war had completely transformed him. And all the while, their relationship was undergoing a similar transformation, existing on less, then on hardly anything at all.

D.D. remained in London, where Russell heard from reliable sources that she had been jailed for prostitution and hospitalized after a suicide attempt. Violent, disheveled, bizarre, she would periodically turn up to plague him at rallies or meetings, once embarrassing him so deeply that he threatened legal action. D.D. was not an entirely isolated case: Russell encountered many confused young women like her at the height of the war. Starved for grand feelings and a cause, working long hours, as he did, at injury to their health, they followed him like enervated ghosts. And, just as lost as any of them, Russell had them — uncontrollably and indiscriminately, one after another.

Then, two years later, in the fall of 1916, Russell awoke in the middle of the night to what sounded like the squalling of a cat in heat. It was D.D., sobbing outside his door.

He was already a man besieged. German zeppelins were bombing London, and the police had him under surveillance for his activities against the war. Almost the moment he heard her, he jumped out of bed, breathing into his hand as he listened to the drunken scrabble of her nails on the door. For ten minutes she sobbed and pleaded before agreeing to leave him alone forever if he would just open the door and listen for five minutes. He set his watch on the table, unfastened the latch and gave her those five minutes. Had his flat been the last refuge on earth, he wouldn't have given her a minute more.

Time's up! he snapped, cutting her off. Thank God your time is up! And with that he shoved her out the door.

A
T THIS TIME
Russell was in the process of building his Utopia, a world where man's acquisitive, warlike impulses would be replaced by creative ones and where men and women would rule and love as equals. Yet Russell himself remained an Old World product, completely unsuited for citizenship in his new order. Columbus only discovered the New World — never did he foresee living in his own creation.

Russell was then out of step with almost everyone. Even his staunchest supporters didn't know where to pigeonhole him politically. He wasn't a Fabian or a socialist, wasn't religious, antivivisectionist or vegetarian — why, he wasn't even a true pacifist, a breed he generally found to be Sunday school types whose grand schemes reminded him of fleas proposing to build a pyramid.