Making Things Better by Anita Brookner

Author:Anita Brookner [Brookner, Anita]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi

11

As his longing grew Herz rose earlier and earlier in the morning. Only in the dark streets, the empty unresonant air, could his inchoate feelings reach a precarious point of equilibrium. As he walked he wondered for how long he could sustain this pitch of tension, in which the past mocked him for his foolishness. He was still sufficiently aware to understand that in allowing himself this brief interlude for aberration he would be able to live out the rest of the day with a semblance of self-mastery. Occasionally he was able to mock himself for the old fool that he undoubtedly was; more usually he regained fragments of the excitement that had originally urged him towards expansion, liberation. He knew, confusedly, that something had been denied him, that he was worth more than the pale simulacrum of the life he had inherited, though that life had been based on the most sensible of precepts. He had not neglected his duty, or duties: he had made the best of what had been on offer. He had never considered himself free enough to choose. That, he saw, was the problem underlying his present dilemma. A life of observing the rules does not predispose one to reckless happiness.

Realistically he knew that he could expect nothing but the pleasant stimulus of watching a young life at close quarters, such as might be enjoyed by any parent, or rather grandparent. Unrealistically he desired pleasure for his own sake, or perhaps for its own sake, some measure of reward for all the careful years. Unsuitable images presented themselves, and were briefly but furtively enjoyed. At such moments he was grateful for the entirely ordinary aspect of the streets, undisturbed at this hour apart from mysterious young men cleaning the windows of sleeping shops. Turning once more towards home he was able to re-inhabit his usual self, and, with the aid of physical fatigue, become once more a nondescript pedestrian, at one with those others now emerging from their private unsupervised lives, and assuming the normality of those bidden to join the crowd. Even now cars were starting up, buses filling with workers; soon the business of the day would be engaged, and he would be back in his ordinary disguise. Routine would help, and he saw that routine must keep him sane. For what had threatened was surely insanity. He had never been given to feelings of such intensity. Yet even now, sober once more, he caught an echo of what had inspired them: the pure unthinking demands of the self.

A persistent admirer of Freud, Herz had a deep respect for the unconscious and its promptings and was even adept at bringing higher considerations into play. These, however, tended now to be fugitive. On approaching the house he simply wondered whether he would be likely to encounter Sophie on the stairs, or whether he was still too early for her. He was sufficiently rational to know that he must not contrive a meeting, must not

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