This Was Ivor Trent полностью

There was nothing very extraordinary in this decision. How many men are there who, being miserably unhappy at home, devote their finest energies to the creation of a great business in order that outward success shall numb the knowledge of inner failure? Why, what is our civilisation—our pride in “our dominion over Nature”—but one vast conspiracy to escape from the terrible knowledge of our emptiness? More and more we live “outside” ourselves. We blind our eyes with seeing, deafen our ears with hearing. Bigger and bigger grow our buildings, mightier and mightier our cities, in the frenzied hope that outward visible triumphs will so hypnotise us that we shall forget our inward spiritual squalor. Noise, sensation, speed—those are our gods. We, who dare not be silent, dare not think, dare not be still, lest we should see the ghosts we have become.

No, there was nothing extraordinary about my decision to live “outside” myself.

Before the publication of Two Lives and a Destiny, I had no choice. I could have gone into the world, of course, but it is one thing to be “a Mr. Trent” and quite another to be Ivor Trent.

I capitalised my background and went into the world. My novel was dramatised and the play had a considerable success in London and New York. Money surrounded me like an incoming tide. I played the part of a successful person, but, underneath, I knew I had run away from myself. I knew that my activities had no centre: they were mechanical, not organic. I was a ghost in fancy dress.

Still, I went into the world. That is, I became involved in chaos. I knew that the structure of society had collapsed. I knew that only a spiritual miracle could deliver the world from its deepening darkness—just as I knew that only a spiritual miracle could quicken life in me. A façade would not save either of us.

So, by a masterpiece of irony, I did exactly what my father had done. I presented a façade to the world, behind which shivered my empty and naked self.

Everyone accepted this façade as being the man. Everyone believed that I was what I seemed—that I had a forceful, dominating personality, and all the rest of it. I became reckless in my relations with others. I wanted to prove to myself that I had power, and I was determined to prove it.

But there was one person who knew the truth—Elsa. It was why I hated her. She was a nobody, an artist’s model, tramping from studio to studio, but she knew the real Ivor Trent whom I was denying. I never wrote to her and she did not write to me. But she knew. I had told her everything. And the fact that I had deserted her, without a word or a line, was proof conclusive that I dare not seek to justify my present type of existence to her.

She knew—and the knowledge that she knew was agony. While she lived, I should know that my mask was a mask. Her very existence was a subtle form of blackmail.

The better I became known, the greater my “triumphs’’ in the world, or with women, the more intolerable the knowledge became that Elsa was not deceived. She knew that the great Ivor Trent was a ghost; a coward who had abandoned himself and her; a fake, like his father, who deceived others with a façade. She knew—this tuppeny-ha’penny starving model in Chelsea knew my secret. And the fact that she was negligible, in the world’s eyes, only lacerated my pride more deeply. Had she been my “equal” in any way, I could have endured it. But this nobody, in her squalid room!

While I was at Potiphar Street, writing my second book, Mrs. Frazer volunteered certain information about Elsa. I learned that her life was a pretty impossible affair. Sittings became progressively scarce and she had not literally a penny outside her earnings. Mrs. Frazer was guarded in her account, but nevertheless I realised that Elsa had had to sell herself in order not to starve. I knew the types she encountered, and could guess the rest.

I had no pity for her. On the contrary, I was glad. She had remained “complete,” she was everything I was not, everything I needed to be—but the world fêted me and kicked her into the gutter. That fact gave me perverse satisfaction, for it seemed to establish my superiority.

Sometimes I saw her in the street, but, whenever possible, I avoided her. Usually, that was simple, as I only went out at night. Twice, however, we came face to face. We only exchanged commonplace remarks, but, standing before her, I endured terrible humiliation. She was wretchedly dressed, but, although the talons of necessity had gripped and tautened her features, they had not extinguished the light which illuminated them.

I did not see her again after the second of these meetings, and I never referred to her when talking to Mrs. Frazer. Gradually she became a shadow on the circumference of my memory. If I thought of her, it was only to hope that she had gone away, or married, or that she was dead.