That Hideous Strength

IV

For some time now Mark’s waking life was divided between periods by the Sleeper’s bedside and periods in the room with the spotted ceiling. The training in objectivity which took place in the latter cannot be described fully. The reversal of natural inclination which Frost inculcated was not spectacular or dramatic, but the details would be unprintable and had, indeed, a kind of nursery fatuity about them which is best ignored. Often Mark felt that one good roar of coarse laughter would have blown away the whole atmosphere of the thing: but laughter was unhappily out of the question. There indeed lay the horror-to perform petty obscenities which a very silly child might have thought funny all under the unchangingly serious inspection of Frost, with a stop watch and a note-book and all the ritual of scientific experiment. Some of the things he had to do were merely meaningless. In one exercise he had to mount the step-ladder and touch some one spot on the ceiling, selected by Frost: just touch it with his forefinger and then come down again. But either by association with the other exercises or because it really concealed some significance, this proceeding always appeared to Mark to be the most indecent and even inhuman of all his tasks. And day by day, as the process went on, that idea of the Straight or the Normal which had occurred to him during his first visit to this room, grew stronger and more solid in his mind till it became a kind of mountain. He had never before known what an Idea meant: he had always thought till now that they were things inside one’s own head. But now, when his head was continually attacked and often completely filled with the clinging corruption of the training, this Idea towered up above him-something which obviously existed quite independently of himself and had hard rock surfaces which would not give, surfaces he could cling to.

The other thing that helped to save him was the Man in the Bed. Mark’s discovery that he really could speak English had led to a curious acquaintance with him. It can hardly be said that they conversed. Both spoke, but the result was hardly conversation as Mark had hitherto understood the term. The man was so very allusive and used gesture so extensively that Mark’s less sophisticated modes of communication were almost useless. Thus when Mark explained that he had no tobacco, the man had slapped an imaginary tobacco pouch on his knee at least six times and struck an imaginary match about as often, each time jerking his head sideways with a look of such relish as Mark had seldom seen on a human face. Then Mark went on to explain that though “they” were not foreigners, they were extremely dangerous people and that probably the Stranger’s best plan would be to preserve his silence.

“Ah,” said the Stranger jerking his head again. “Ah. Eh?” And then, without exactly laying his finger on his lips he went through an elaborate pantomime which clearly meant the same thing. And it was impossible for a long time to get him off this subject. He went back and back to the theme of secrecy. “Ah,” he said, “don’t get nothing out of me. I tell ’ee. Don’t get nothing out of me. Eh? I tell ’ee. You and me knows. Ah?” and his look embraced Mark in such an apparently gleeful conspiracy that it warmed the heart. Believing this matter to be now sufficiently clear Mark began, “But, as regards the future-” only to be met by another pantomime of secrecy, followed by the word “Eh?” in a tone which demanded an answer.

“Yes, of course,” said Mark. “We are both in considerable danger. And-“

“Ah,” said the man. “Foreigners. Eh?”

“No, no,” said Mark. “I told you they weren’t. They seem to think you are, though. And that’s why-”

“That’s right,” interrupted the man. “I know. Foreigners, I call them. I know. They get nothing out of me. You and me’s all right. Ah.”

“I’ve been trying to think out some sort of plan “said Mark.

“Ah,” said the man approvingly.

“And I was wondering,” began Mark when the man suddenly leaned forwards and said with extraordinary energy “I tell ’ee.”

“What?” said Mark.

“I got a plan.”

“What is it?”

“Ah,” said the man winking at Mark with infinite knowingness and rubbing his belly.

“Go on. What is it?” said Mark.

“How’d it be,” said the man, sitting up and applying his left thumb to his right forefinger as if about to propound the first step in a philosophical argument, “How’d it be now if you and I made ourselves a nice bit of toasted cheese?”

“I meant a plan for escape,” said Mark.

“Ah,” replied the man. “My old Dad, now. He never had a day’s illness in his life. Eh? How’s that for a bit of all right? Eh?”

“It’s a remarkable record,” said Mark.

“Ah. You may say so,” replied the other. “On the road all his life. Never had a stomach-ache. Eh?” and here, as if Mark might not know that malady, he went through a long and extraordinarily vivid dumb show.

“Open-air life suited him, I suppose,” said Mark.

“And what did he attribute his health to?” asked the man. He pronounced the word attribute with great relish, laying the accent on the first syllable. “I ask everyone, what did he attribute his health to?”

Mark was about to reply when the man indicated by a gesture that the question was purely rhetorical and that he did not wish to be interrupted.

“He attributed his health,” continued the speaker with great solemnity, “to eating toasted cheese. Keeps the water out of the stomach, that’s what it does, eh? Makes a lining. Stands to reason. Ah!”

In several later interviews Mark endeavoured to discover something of the Stranger’s own history and particularly how he had been brought to Belbury. This was not easy to do, for though the tramp’s conversation was very autobiographical, it was filled almost entirely with accounts of conversations in which he had made stunning repartees whose points remained wholly obscure. Even where it was less intellectual in character, the allusions were too difficult for Mark, who was quite ignorant of the life of the roads though he had once written a very authoritative article on Vagrancy. But by repeated and (as he got to know his man) more cautious questioning, he couldn’t help getting the idea that the Tramp had been made to give up his clothes to a total stranger and then put to sleep. He never got the story in so many words. The Tramp insisted on talking as if Mark knew it already, and any pressure for a more accurate account produced only a series of nods, winks, and highly confidential gestures. As for the identity or appearance of the person. who had taken his clothes, nothing whatever could be made out. The nearest Mark ever got to it, after hours of talk and deep potations, was some such statement as “Ah. He was a one!” or “He was a kind of eh? You know?” or “That was a customer, that was.” These statements were made with enormous gusto as though the theft of the tramp’s clothes had excited his deepest admiration.

Indeed, throughout the man’s conversation this gusto was the most striking characteristic. He never passed any kind of moral judgement on the various things that had been done to him in the course of his career, nor did he ever try to explain them. Much that was unjust and still more that was simply unintelligible seemed to be accepted not only without resentment but with a certain satisfaction provided only that it was striking. Even about his present situation he showed very much less curiosity than Mark would have thought possible. It did not make sense, but then the man did not expect things to make sense. He deplored the absence of tobacco and regarded the “Foreigners” as very dangerous people: but the main thing, obviously, was to eat and drink as much as possible while the present conditions lasted. And gradually Mark fell into line. The man’s breath, and indeed his body were malodorous, and his methods of eating were gross. But the sort of continual picnic which the two shared carried Mark back into that realm of childhood which we have all enjoyed before nicety began. Each understood perhaps an eighth part of what the other said, but a kind of intimacy grew between them. Mark never noticed until years later that here, where there was no room for vanity and no more power or security than that of “children playing in a giant’s kitchen,” he had unawares become a member of a “circle,” as secret and as strongly fenced against outsiders as any that he had dreamed of.

Every now and then their tete-a-tete was interrupted. Frost or Wither or both would come in introducing some stranger who addressed the tramp in an unknown language, failed completely to get any response, and was ushered out again. The tramp’s habit of submission to the unintelligible, mixed with a kind of animal cunning, stood him in good stead during these interviews. Even without Mark’s advice, it would never have occurred to him to undeceive his captors by replying in English. Undeceiving was an activity wholly foreign to his mind. For the rest, his expression of tranquil indifference, varied occasionally by extremely sharp looks but never by the least sign of anxiety or bewilderment, left his interrogators mystified. Wither could never find in his face the evil he was looking for: but neither could he find any of that virtue which would, for him, have been the danger signal. The tramp was a type of man he had never met. The dupe, the terrified victim, the toady, the would-be accomplice, the rival, the honest man with loathing and hatred in his eyes, were all familiar to him. But not this.

And then, one day, there came an interview that was different.