The bell rang, the doors slid softly shut, recoiled from rubber flanges, shut again more firmly, the motors began their ascending whine, and his eye rose to the long line of advertisements above the porcelain handholds. A salesgirl was saying — wash it with Ivory. When years steal away the gold, restore the golden hair of girlhood. Golden Hair Wash. Priceless the life of a child.
The detective impulse, the spying mania — it would be possible to evolve the natural history and origin of that, one could develop it ad lib., trace it from childhood up, but what would be the use, it was all quite clear, it could be seen very neatly and comprehensively in perspective: the reading of forbidden books, the exploration of forbidden streets, the cultivation of forbidden acquaintances, the special sharp delight in all duplicity, above all the really exquisite pleasure in knowing more than one was supposed to know. Reading, for instance, the doctor’s letters about Kay, the reports of the teachers and psychiatrists; watching the anxiety of father and mother; observing the subtle deterioration of Kay. More recently, his new game (and what a joke that it was Julius Toppan who had put the idea in his head) of picking out a stranger in the street and following him — but again it was sufficient simply to note this, and to see that the Jasper was the same Jasper, the same superior consciousness, the same one whose perceptions had the invisibility of extreme subtlety. It was the Jasper who loved to keep secrets, and who prevented his friends from becoming intimate: who had a kind of genius for dividing up his daily life into separate departments, so that no one individual knew anything more of him than the one department to which he had been assigned. Very satisfactory, it gave one an enormous advantage with people if one could thus play on their defeated curiosity: it gave him the whip hand with Sandbach and Gerta, even now they were beside themselves with frustration, though they didn’t like to admit it, and were clearly upset because they didn’t know what he was going to do. They felt something impending, they knew they were in the midst of a crisis, they suspected danger, but what shape it would have they couldn’t guess. Nor whether perhaps the whole thing might not turn out to be a joke.
— The post office buys the stamps?
— Yes.
— And they give the girls that space?
— Yes.
— She has three windows?
— Yes, she has to sell a hundred dollars’ worth of stamps—
— Well, I don’t know, I don’t understand it.
— Why should the post office—
— and a rake-off on every stamp she sells—
He took out his pipe, looked to see if it was empty, put it to his mouth and blew out the little bubble of caught moisture in the stem. Yes, he had them on the run, and all by the simplest turn of the wrist — a postcard to Gerta, saying dislocation number one, another to Sandbach, saying dislocation number two, and then the quick little insult to Gottlieb at the C Bookshop, in the presence of Mrs. Taber, she standing there astounded, her mouth open, the gaps in her teeth showing, the ragged little feather duster in her hand. Amateurs, you are all sickening little amateurs, not one of you has any guts, not one of you would have the guts to act alone, to take any risk by yourselves. It’s all play-acting, exactly like the tiresome tepid little immoralities of Beacon Hill and Fayette Street. No brains, no pride. Just rats. You go round together like rats.
— Say you are selling light wines—
— Well, now listen, how would it be if—
— That to me is outrageous, why should they pay that woman a rake-off, it’s the cheapest service—
Like all human situations, the thing was a composite, the elements in it were on at least two different planes, if not more; above or below his abandonment of federalist anarchism, his abandonment of the “cause” and the Boston Group, was his sharp warning to them that there was to be a personal change as well, that he had risen above them and was henceforth consigning them to a lower circle. It was this which they found painful and bewildering, their affections and pride were hurt, Gerta’s affections, Sandbach’s pride, he was hurrying them into a defensive alliance which they both found humiliating, and insofar as they had thought they possessed him they now felt exposed and defrauded. Certainly they were feeling rushed, they had been caught unaware by the sudden action, the unexpected psychic speed, it was as if he had forced them into an emotional stammer; but the question was, whether he himself could now stand outside the results of his action, avoid being caught in his own whirl, get away in time to a higher and safer ground. The question was also whether he knew quite where the hurry was going to lead, and quite why it had happened, or happened so suddenly. The sense of hurry was at any rate acute, he had felt it mounting day by day and hour by hour, as if there were somewhere a destination (a little vague) to which he must go with the utmost directness and despatch: the sense as of a map spread out before him, and a watch ticking excitedly in his hand, and nearer every moment the sound of a coming invasion. He was going to do something, he must do something, there must be the final action by which he would have set the seal on his complete freedom. To escape the company of rats, to express the profundity of his contempt — to kill a rat—!