'Why not?'
'Why should you?'
'You mean, you make up words for this.'
'Whenever you speak you make up words anyway.'
'The things might not exist.'
'Something must exist. Or how would there be the results?'
I thought — But then why not talk about how we don't know what exists; wouldn't things then seem more like being on a journey in a fairy story?
When my father bent down to kiss me goodnight, there was the impression of the roof of the cave in the jungle being in danger of caving in.
I was still on my own much of this time: my mother often went up to London. (It still did not occur to me to ask her what she did.) There was a week or so left of the summer holidays. I was considering the question: But if you are a scientist doing an experiment, then would not part of it be to see in what way you yourself are part of the experiment? I mean if you make up words for what you taste, touch, see -
— But if you see this, is not the experiment different?
Then — Do other people think like this?
One day I knocked on the door of my father's study.
'Yes?'
'You know those experiments you have been doing with salamanders — '
'Presumably.'
'I'd like to try one.'
'We're packing them up.'
'I know. I'd like to take one over.'
In his own room my father seemed smaller, more compact. He was in one of those chairs that tipped back so that he could put his feet up on his desk. I thought — With one flick, could I get him flying into the shrubbery?
He said 'You wouldn't have time.'
'I've talked to Miss Box.'
'You've talked to Miss Box?'
'Yes. I know I wouldn't have time to do the whole experiment — '
'What did you make of Miss Box?'
'I like her. I thought I could just see if I could get one or two salamanders to stay alive — '
He said 'What did you talk about with Miss Box?'
I thought — This is ridiculous.
Then — You mean, my father does carry on with Miss Box? They lie about on damp sand as if in one of their experiments -
My father said 'Sorry. You want to do some experiment — '
I said 'Yes. I just want to see if I can look after two salamanders and perhaps get them to breed. I mean, those highland salamanders in lowland conditions, or whatever it is, or vice versa.
My father said 'Nothing to do with the inheritance of acquired characteristics.'
I said 'No, nothing to do with the inheritance of acquired characteristics.'
He said 'Then try it vice versa.'
I thought — But why don't you want me to have inherited any of your characteristics?
He said 'We have got some set-up like that, as a matter of fact.'
I was going out of the door when I thought it was worthwhile stopping and saying 'But I don't see in fact how you could ever tell.'
He said 'Ever tell what?'
'What it was that was influencing things: I mean about heredity, and characteristics.'
'Why not?'
'Well, you can measure results, but you can't measure what is causing them. You can do statistics, but how can you measure what is individual?'
He said 'Who have you been talking to?'
I said 'Hans.'
He said 'Oh yes, I've been wanting to ask you about Hans.'
But my father did not, really, want to ask me about Hans. He turned away and looked out of the window. I thought — He wants me to think he wants to talk about Hans. Then — But how would anyone know what was going on in that experiment?
Anyway, it was arranged that as soon as I had got the equipment for my experiment ready, I could pick up two salamanders from Miss Box.
I had tried to keep up with what had been happening to Dr Kammerer during these two years: I knew from the papers in my father's study that he had achieved extraordinary notoriety: for a time (do you not think?) he was quite like Einstein. But there were, in spite of the difficulties, actual stars in the sky for Einstein's theories to be tested against; whereas Kammerer's specimens had died, and other experimenters had found it impossible to keep their specimens alive, so that the hostility to Kammerer that came naturally with the notoriety had nothing to stop it; it spread like fire. I gathered from my father's papers that Kammerer was in danger of falling into terrible disrepute. Perhaps it was because of this that I wanted to see if I, like he, could at least keep some salamanders alive.
I discovered that my mother had kept her own small heap of newspaper cuttings about Kammerer: they were in a drawer of her desk: she seemed to have got some psychoanalyst friend to send her them from Vienna. Some of them gave details of Kammerer's private life (I could put to good use here the German I had learned from Hans). The cuttings referred to Kammerer as a Don Juan, a Byron, a Lothario: he had left his wife, married a painter, then later his wife had taken him back. There were innumerable women, the writer suggested, who were dying for the love of Kammerer: how terrible it was to let oneself be loved thus by women!
I thought — Well, what is all this about death instinct; life instinct: was it not Kammerer's salamanders that had been able to stay alive, and other people's that were dying?
I tried to talk to my mother about this. I could not let her know that I had been going through the drawers of her desk.
'Did you ever see Dr Kammerer again?'
'No, why do you ask that?'
'I expect a lot of people fall in love with him, don't they — '
'Why do you say that too — '
'I remember your saying that you thought his salamanders must love him.'
'What I think I said, surely, was that he must love them.'
'What do you think he does to make things love him?'
'Perhaps he just makes people think he loves them!'
'But then why do people talk about dying for love — '
'Hey, hold on, what have you been reading — '
My mother had become dreamy again; glowing; as if she was listening to music round some corner.
I thought — Dr Kammerer himself couldn't have sent her those cuttings from Vienna?
Then suddenly — She couldn't have been meeting Dr Kammerer in London?
She said 'Perhaps what you think is love isn't true. Or perhaps sometimes you love, or want to love, and then there is no set-up, or framework, in which you can.'
I said 'I see.' Then — 'Can't you make a framework?'
She said 'How?'
I said 'I don't know.' Then — 'Do you think Dr Kammerer made one?'
She said 'For whom?'
I said 'For his salamanders.'
That autumn, in my evenings and weekends away from school, I set about preparing my experiment with my salamanders. My idea was: how can animals be expected to live — let alone reproduce; let alone be recipient to a chance mutation — if they are kept in glass boxes like those which contain sandwiches in a railway station. Kammerer had perhaps loved his salamanders: but what was love? I wanted to provide for my salamanders a suitable setting. Was it not something like this that my mother's psychoanalysis books were suggesting too — that settings are important, but human beings for the most part are no good at providing settings for love: they liked running things down, displaying jealousy and envy. Well perhaps I did too: but if I saw this, could I not provide at least my salamanders with some setting in which love could operate?
I obtained materials from Miss Box and constructed a glass case that was larger than the ones in which she and my father had kept
their salamanders. I went out each evening to gather objects which would be fitting for my salamanders' setting. I found clean white sand and stones shining with crystals: I picked out sticks that were shaped and polished like ivory. I put on the sand some shells and even a starfish. I thought — Why should not landlocked salamanders have a glimpse of something outlandish from the sea? I collected red earth, and alpine plants, and one or two very tiny and expensive trees: I made a shelter of wire and bark and moss and leaves and coral. I constructed a mountain stream out of Plasticine and silver paper and a hidden electric motor and a pump: I bought (with money borrowed from my mother) a lamp that shone like the sun. I was aiming to produce for my salamanders a setting that would be surpassingly etherial and strange. I looked down on my creation from above. I thought — I think I am God, and this is my Garden of Eden.