MAN’S WORLD (21)
By:
November 28, 2024
HiLoBooks is pleased to serialize Charlotte Haldane’s 1926 proto-sf novel Man’s World for HILOBROW’s readers. Written by an author married to one of the world’s most prominent eugenics advocates, this ambivalent adventure anticipates both Brave New World and The Handmaid’s Tale. When a young woman rebels against her conditioning, can she break free? Reissued in 2024 (with a new introduction by Philippa Levine) by the MIT Press’s RADIUM AGE series.
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USNESS
Schau ich nicht Aug’ in Auge dir,
Und drängt nicht alles
Nach Haupt und Herzen dir,
Und webt im ewigen Geheimniss
Unsichtbar sichtbar neben dir?
Erfüll’ davon dein Herz, So gross es ist,
Und wenn du ganz in dem Gefühle selig bist,
Nenn’ es dann, wie du willst.
GOETHE — ‘FAUST.’
Arcous laid down his brush and flung himself on the floor. He rolled over on to his stomach and stayed quite still, head pillowed on arms, every muscle relaxed. Without speaking, Nicolette dropped the pose and slipped on her gown, for it was cold in the big bare studio. She was slightly stiff and stamped her feet as she walked the length of the room and back, before wriggling into a comfortable position on the divan that faced the easel.
There was a silence, during which the trickling of the rain outside sounded very loud. At last Arcous spoke.
‘No more use to-day.’
‘Well, I think we’ve done about as much as you could expect.’
‘Nicolette, I apologize. I should not have kept you so long. But you know how it is — one forgets until one absolutely drops with fatigue. It’s so glorious working like that, in a fury of concentration.’
‘I suppose it is. I wish I knew what it is like.’
‘Don’t you? Not a little?’ He came and sat beside her then, and his eyes as they scanned her held more than artistic appreciation.
‘No, not a little. I day-dream all the time I am posing,’ she answered. ‘I tell myself stories. I don’t feel bored, but I am not participating.’
‘But it’s a masterpiece,’ he pleaded, gazing now at the almost finished picture. ‘Yours as much as mine. No one has ever inspired me to work as you do. Just look at that glorious creature there. That’s you.’
‘No, Arcous, it’s more than me. It’s a symbol. If it were a portrait it could not be so wonderful. To make a work of genius you must be in touch with something much more universal than just one single person. The goddesses in themselves represent so much. Diana, Minerva, and Venus. How real they must be to you.’
‘And not to you?’
‘Oh, yes, they are. She is me, in a sense, your girl, letting go of Diana’s lovely cool hand, and turning her back on Minerva’s wisdom. I’m not sure about Venus, though.’
‘I am,’ he answered promptly. ‘Especially about her averted smile, and the eagerness of the girl’s gesture.’
‘Yes, that smile is perfect. And the indifferent way she averts her head, looking far away through the arches. What inspired you to draw her like that?’
‘The same reason that made me call it “Anticipation.” She does not anticipate — she knows; but if the girl could read her expression and realize how sure she is, it might frighten her. To get that poise, that tiptoe stretching out, I had to hide Venus’s face from her. She might have drawn back to Minerva after all, if she had seen it.’
‘Perhaps she will, even now.’
‘Ah. So you do understand her feelings a little?’
‘Possibly,’ Nicolette admitted reluctantly, realizing that he had again allowed her to set a trap for herself.
‘Well, I assure you she won’t withdraw. Look at the beautiful young man Venus is beckoning to. I don’t see why the girl should be reluctant.’
‘I like her reflection in the long mirror behind Venus.’
‘Yes, that’s a clever touch,’ he admitted with his usual frank conceit. ‘It reveals just that perfection of the girl’s face and form of which she herself is unconscious. Over her own person innocence seems to throw a misty veil, so that it does not fully reveal its beauty until seen in the mirror of Venus.’
‘I love allegory, don’t you?’
‘As a means, but not an end in itself. The great point about “Anticipation” is that it conforms to all the rules of true pictorial art as laid down by Lessing in his “Laokoön” essay. You have here the supreme moment before the climax. On either side of the outreaching girl, but behind her, you have Diana and Minerva, the goddesses who have guided her hitherto, but not sufficed her. Having thrown off the veils of childhood and the reins of tutelage, she turns towards the third — the most mysterious, the so far unknown, who does not even beckon her. Venus always waits.’
‘Yes, she certainly seems inevitable. And the young man?’
‘Do you like him?’
‘He rather surprises me.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, he’s not quite the sort of young man I should have expected you to choose.’
‘What did you expect — a self-portrait?’
He looked at her very closely, and as usual, when he did that, she felt herself blush. She returned his glance, and there was a suggestion of pleading, a humbleness in Nicolette’s eyes, that made her appear younger than ever. It was a different expression from the frank, confident look her friends were recently used to find there. Before she could speak, he continued:
‘Do not worry. I know quite well it cannot be. You have had a curious effect on me, Nicolette. You can trust me — now.’
He rose abruptly and began to walk up and down before her as he talked, speaking more easily from a height and a distance.
‘I can see quite clearly that it is impossible. Now you may know that I endeavoured by every means to make it otherwise. I wanted your body, not only for my art, but for my senses. Why should I go on, though? I detest logic. And then you would not be mine, in that way, at all. You have already given me all you ever will. In that respect no one else will have you. But there is in you such an infinite capacity for giving that the man who cannot claim all must prefer nothing. There are women like that, I know, though they are rare enough. I have never before met one, but I know. Women from whom the one they choose need ask nothing, because it would be impossible for them to withhold anything. I never ask superfluous questions. And on the whole I am glad to recognize that this cannot be. You are too adorable to be loved less than completely, and I too unyielding to make such surrender. Beware of Christopher, though.’
Nicolette had been contemplating him for the first time with real affection. She was genuinely grateful to him for his understanding, and yet now it had been said at last between them she lost completely that inexplicable interest she had always felt in him so long as she had only guessed his thoughts. The mention of Christopher, however, galvanized her attention.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, and sat up amongst the cushions.
‘Christopher’s doomed. We all know it.’
‘Who?’
‘Well, Bruin and I. There’s no chance for him. He’s lived three or four hundred years too late. Now all his ambitions are centred on you. He thinks your lover will be his friend, will see your future relationship in his way, as a gesture. He will find him his supreme enemy.’
‘If you think I shall ever desert Christopher you make a mistake,’ she announced defiantly.
‘This won’t lie in your power,’ he explained. ‘But wait. It’s futile to discuss it. Like trying to have a friendly chat with Iphigenia about Orestes. Let’s get to work again if you’re not tired.’
Nicolette rose and threw off her gown. She did not reply. ‘Where there’s honey look out for the sting,’ she thought. But she did not succeed with her pose this time, and went away, leaving Arcous to add a little more gold to the mirror of Venus.
They were all pleased to see Bruce in Nucleus. Naturally enough there were plenty of people on whom his personality jarred, for his tremendous physical and mental vigor were apt to exhaust companions of minor calibre. He had allowed himself somewhat unwillingly to be roped in and harnessed to a comparatively dull service. But once there, he got unlimited fun out of the opportunities for experiment which offered themselves, and he neglected none on the ground that it might prove embarrassing to his older colleagues. The stabilization of which St. John had complained to Nicolette was symptomatic of conditions throughout the commonwealth; but where Bruce was peace did not abide very long.
He had enough to do to keep him busy all day and all evening during the weeks he planned to stay in Nucleus, but the change of environment brought with it a change in the colouring of his mind. He could, with a little method, find time for everything, even if he commenced by doing nothing; all he appeared to want to do, as soon as he arrived, was to look up his friends. He knew quite well that his chief motive for the journey was the desire to meet Nicolette again. He had thought of her more and more frequently as time went on, but had never called her up. He had been traveling about so much that for several months he had not even seen Anna, who was busily engaged in preparing for the birth of her child. When Bruce was absorbed in his occupation he had a knack of letting other intentions rest, with no thought of the possible consequences of inertia.
He was staying in the guest-house of the college of applied psychology, where he had promised to give some lectures during his visit. He had not been there more than two hours, before he managed to evade the various people who had hospitably placed themselves at his disposal, and went in search of Nicolette, whom he naturally expected to find at her old address. The head clerk at the hall desk informed him briefly that she had changed her dwelling. ‘But you can find her certainly at this time at the Weil studio,’ she added, and gave him instructions how to reach it.
It was not until Bruce was well on his way there that he chanced to wonder why he should be seeking Nicolette in this place. He tried to remember whether she had told him her plans for the future when she had been in Centrosome, but he could not recollect having heard them. They had been together several times, but there had been so much to do and see that they had hardly discussed personal affairs at all. If he had asked, she would certainly have told him. And then he recalled that their conversation, when not concerned with the things and people around them, had been mainly of Christopher. ‘She is probably with him,’ he thought, ‘but — I wonder what she is doing and where she is living.’ For he could guess that the change of address had more than superficial significance.
It was to Arcous’s studio on the top floor that he was directed on arrival. Josef Weil was away, so the mistake of his informant was a natural one.
More and more puzzled, Bruce entered after a masculine voice had called out a curt ‘Come,’ in reply to his knock at the door. Arcous’s back was towards him, for he was bent over “Anticipation,” set on its easel in the middle of the big, bare apartment. Bruce advanced a few paces and then stopped, his glance attracted by the picture. He stood very still, with his eyes fixed on the easily recognizable central figure. Arcous turned to select another brush and saw the visitor.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he said immediately, as he came towards him. ‘I thought it was one of my pupils. What can I do for you?’
‘I must beg yours,’ replied Bruce, gazing at him with frank curiosity. ‘I am looking for Nicolette Richmond, but they must have directed me wrongly.’
‘Oh no, she is in the building, but in my father’s room; she’s his assistant. They probably thought she was sitting to me, but the picture is practically finished. Let me take you down to her.’
‘Thank you. I am Bruce Wayland. I’ve just come over from Centrosome, I had no idea she was here.’
‘Oh, so that’s who you are,’ said Arcous with one of his rare and charming smiles. ‘Come this way. She has been here for several months now.’
‘And you,’ asked Bruce, as they entered the elevator, ‘are the famous painter, surely?’
‘We both are,’ replied Arcous, pleased at the tribute, ‘that is, my father and I both work here. But he is away just now.’
‘Is Nicolette one of your pupils, then?’
‘Oh no. She has been sitting to me and she has helped my father with his plans for Reconstruction. But she can explain herself. Here we are at last.’
He opened the door of a long narrow room, crowded with shelves, books, drawings, small-scale architectural models, costumes, armour, and figures. ‘A visitor for you, Nicolette,’ he called out, and slammed the door behind him.
Bruce did not at first see Nicolette. ‘Come along here and help me down,’ she sang out, and then he spied her, perched right at the top of a librarian’s ladder between the end wall and the window. He crossed the room and stood below it, and gazed up to where she clung, struggling with an armload of heavy old books.
‘Why — it’s Bruce!’ she exclaimed. Involuntarily, surprise loosened her hold; two of the fat tomes came crashing down, missing his head by a few inches. ‘Oh, I am sorry — look out, I’m coming myself.’
He caught her off the ladder when she was eight steps from the ground, and swung her in a wide arc on to her feet.
‘Yes, I’ve found you at last,’ he answered as he took the remaining volumes from her arms, ‘and I’m all agog to know what mischief you’re up to.’
‘A perfectly respectable, if not an eminent job,’ she said demurely. ‘Sit down and talk. I thought it was Christopher. I’m expecting him almost at once. How lovely it is to see you again.’
‘And to see you. Even here. But what are you doing?’ he insisted.
‘Getting the next Reconstruction plans ready for Nucleus.’
‘And the young man upstairs?’
‘Oh, Arcous? How did you meet him? I suppose they thought I was sitting and took you up there? How stupid of them. Did you see the picture?’
‘Only long enough to recognize your portrait.’
‘Ah. Well, about three months ago I decided I would not become a mother. So I had to take the usual alternative. I had been helping old Weil for some time, and liked it.’
‘But what really happened?’
‘Nothing did. That’s the point. When I got back to Nucleus, after visiting your people, I was going to be mated. But it didn’t come off.’
‘What did Christopher have to do with it?’
‘Cute little feller!’ She smiled mischievously at him. ‘Something, no doubt, but not so much as you probably think. You don’t seem very pleased.’
‘I don’t know whether I am or not. It’s such a tremendous surprise. I’ll have to hear more about it.’
‘All right, youshall later on. How’s Anna?’
‘Flourishing. Baby’s due some time soon, I believe, but I haven’t seen her since she went to the Garden.’
‘A boy, of course?’
‘Rather.’
‘What fun.’
‘Tell me, Nicolette, what does Antonia say to this step you’ve taken. Was she surprised?’
‘You bet she was. So was I, at first. But Bruce, I don’t think you’ll mind so much when you know all about it. And’ — she looked at him curiously for a moment, and then withdrew her eyes as she added, ‘And why should you, anyway? I don’t quite understand.’
‘It’s entirely due to my stupidity, Nicolette. Somehow I imagined I had made it clear when you came over. I was only waiting till you were old enough to talk about it. In the meantime I let things be. I never imagined that you would do anything unusual. You seemed so clearly destined for motherhood. I’m a short-sighted fool, I suppose, but I never think much about anything except my job. Do forgive me.’
He got up, for like St. John he could never stay long in a chair, and tried to walk about the encumbered workroom. There was not enough space for his long strides, however, and he sat down again, uncomfortably.
‘I don’t think either of us was unjustifiably stupid,’ said Nicolette softly and slowly. ‘I made a mistake too. I’m just this minute realizing it. I couldn’t have had any one else after I’d met you, but it did not occur to me that it was you I wanted. Consciously, I was only occupied with Christopher. After all, it may be unusual, but it is not so surprising, when you remember that we both think more about things than people, and about other people rather than ourselves.’
‘Perhaps that may be the reason. At any rate, I don’t suppose I shall think much about anything but you in the next few weeks. You have grown beautiful, my dear!’
He rose from his chair brusquely, and knocked it over as he did so. But neither of them bothered about it. Nicolette’s eyes met his unflinchingly, and she smiled as he put his arms around her, and between each kiss. A picture flashed into Bruce’s mind as he pressed her to him — of a young man from Nucleus who wanted some stuff that would combine with Sp. 902, and he seemed to hear an echo of his own voice saying, ‘You can depend on me absolutely if you want assistance in any way.’
Then Christopher came in.
Bruce passed a restless night. He was hot with desire for Nicolette. Mouth, eyes, arms, the whole of his body, even the skin and the hair, desired the final intimate contact and union with this one creature. Lazily and gently, at their former meetings, something of the kind had stirred in him. But the emotion at that time had been tempered by brotherly, almost fatherly restraint. The small girl whom he had comforted and jollied with and chaperoned, the little mother of the future, had been an object of playful veneration. Now the moment of her unfolding had come, and her beauty, sheathed no longer, had aroused his desire. What he now felt was no longer an emotion of half-lights and controlled temper, but the full-blooded longing of the male who has been called and has answered.
There was more to the matter, however, than this sensual response, as he realized when he lay on his bed thinking it over. He had never tolerated the least thwarting of his ambitions; his intelligence had not only force but cunning and craft at its command; the straight way to his objective had always seemed too easy. He was never fully roused unless there was undermining and overcoming and circumventing to be done….
Here, all was obviously far from simple. He had come to claim a mate, and was to find, perhaps, only a temporary liaison. There was something grotesque about the whole situation, which had been apparent to him from the moment he had gone to seek her in the Weil studios. Nicolette’s childish explanation, her hints at a secret in the background, more explicit in her manner than in her words, revealed quite plainly the existence of a problem still to be encountered by him. He could not, just then, achieve a conscious and definite notion of the plan of it; only one clue, but that the essential one, was at present lacking — he determined to discover it forthwith. His thoughts naturally drove straight at Christopher in this connection. Their conversation had been a brief and trivial one, but again Bruce had used his eyes, finely and expertly trained as they were, to more effect than his ears. This boy was curiously, dominantly abnormal. That the cause of his condition was a sexual abnormality was plain; its sources, however, were still obscure. One would have to know more of his history.
Bruce endeavoured to recall what Nicolette had told him of Christopher long ago. He was different from other people, she had always insisted; talented, yet showing little predilection for one form or another of activity; beautiful, yet despising personal conquests; proud and reserved, yet with her unusually intimate and communicative; antagonistic to his brother Adrian; disdainful of his mother, but almost as devoted to the determined Emmeline as to herself. What else?
Nicolette had been reserved and vague on this point, but Bruce now remembered some allusions to her brother’s mysticism. This might be worth investigating. If the hypothesis Bruce was already beginning to form was appreciably correct and could be verified, the problem of Christopher would soon be solved. But he wanted more information, and decided that he would make inquiries immediately.
Admitting for the moment no more than that all was not usual with Christopher, he began to link up that obvious fact with Nicolette’s behaviour towards him. It was clearly maternal in character. Her every gesture towards him was solicitous, amusingly and prettily hen-like. There seemed a constant vigilance at the back of her glances at him. Undoubtedly he had transferred to her in some way a sense of responsibility.
Now when Bruce had put it to her, Nicolette had instantly admitted her need of himself. This moved him to gasp a little with pride and joy as he remembered how willingly she had come to his arms, how readily she had confessed her inability to mate with another, how tenderly she had tried to exonerate him from self-reproach for his tardy coming for her. But even so, if this unfulfilled desire had appeared in her consciousness masked as a refusal of maternal duties, other influences had been responsible for her further behaviour, for the definite step of immunization, for her plunge into an atmosphere obviously alien to her personality, for the intimacy of Arcous Weil with both of them. Certainly Christopher was closely concerned with all this, and his intentions had for some time been gaining an ascendant influence on her actions.
Next day he went to call on Antonia, and on the way happily met Adrian Richmond, bound in the same direction. Adrian, with advancing maturity, was beginning to grow out of his hitherto humourless suspiciousness. Responsibility during many years had armed him with a sense of proportion. He would take himself a shade too seriously until the end of his days, but almost continual contact with St. John’s mellow and philosophical mind had had its softening effect on his own. The lack of sufficient intellectual appreciation of his father’s genius was made up for by unremitting loyalty.
‘Delighted to see you,’ he said cordially as Bruce overtook and hailed him. ‘I was expecting you to look me up in the course of your affairs.’
‘I should have done so to-morrow,’ Bruce replied. ‘Just now I am “functioning socially.” Going to call on your mother.’
‘Excellent. So am I. Have you seen —’
‘Nicolette, yes,’ Bruce interrupted. ‘I intend to see her fairly frequently while I am here.’
‘Oh, Nicolette! I was going to say, St. John. And… how did you find Nicolette?’
‘Marvelously beautiful,’ he answered simply.’Don’t you?
‘Oh!’ murmured Adrian again, and glanced quickly at Bruce. ‘I suppose you knew about her decision?’
‘I did not. I was completely surprised. I am anxious to know all about it. Perhaps you can give me some information. I had unfortunately lost touch with her since she was over. You know I am rather a one-thing-at-a-time man. I was immensely attracted by her, but it never occurred to me that I had waited longer than I should have done. It looks as if I shall repent it.’
As Bruce had intended, Adrian was flattered by these abrupt and unexpected confidences. Bruce’s intimacy with other members of the family had not extended to Adrian. But they had known each other, had been colleagues on several occasions. And so he knew that shock tactics were those to which he invariably responded most readily.
‘Yes,’ said Adrain. ‘It is a pity. My mother was upset, as you can imagine. But, of course, steps should have been taken long ago to secure Nicolette against the influence of my younger brother, as I told St. John. He’s a neurotic, and I have not the slightest doubt that he has been responsible for a lot. Filled her head with some sorry nonsense, and there you are.’
‘I wonder if it is as simple as that,’ suggested Bruce.
‘Oh, my mother will not corroborate me. She puts it down to Emmeline. As you know, there is always a certain latent antagonism between the mothers and other women. Antonia is irrevocably biassed where Christopher is concerned. I’m not denying that he may become, as she believes, an effective artist. But neither am I convinced that his temperament, to use the colloquialism, is artistic. I would rather suggest a slight perversity. He is so extraordinarily hostile to our community and its laws. That is not usual with our artists, who are among the most contented types. Nearly all of them are influenced by the spirit of Reconstruction, but they are not drawn to reactionary ideas for sheer — well, cussedness.’
‘But then ——’
‘Oh, I know what you are going to say. Only, as yet Christopher has not given us sufficient indications to warrant an examination. I think myself, though, that he soon will, and I may have some inquires made. In any case, whatever you can do to withdraw my sister’s interest from him a little, will be beneficial to her.’ And then Adrian, looking straight into Bruce’s eyes, gave one of the secret signs current among those who had at one time or another been connected with the Patrol.
The matter would go no further for the present. The next move was up to Christopher.
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF: “Radium Age” is Josh Glenn’s name for the nascent sf genre’s c. 1900–1935 era, a period which saw the discovery of radioactivity, i.e., the revelation that matter itself is constantly in movement — a fitting metaphor for the first decades of the 20th century, during which old scientific, religious, political, and social certainties were shattered. More info here.
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