The Alteration

       Anthony had taken off his jacket and bands and was washing at the china basin. He gave an unsmiling glance that was not at all unwelcoming. Without knowing him very well, Hubert like and trusted his brother enough to feel as little constraint as possible at what was in prospect; he hoped only that Anthony would not do as he sometimes did and say things he had just thought of and did not mean.

       'May I talk to you a little?'

       'You may continue to. About your alteration, yes?'

       Hubert was surprised. 'Papa told you?'

       First glancing at his brother and away again, Anthony said, 'I think he wanted reassurance that the action is as safe and as painless as he'd been led to believe. He must regard my learning more highly than would seem. Well, I could tell him in conscience what he wanted to hear. As I can you. You'll feel nothing and be in no danger.'

       'But what happens? Oh, I know what the action consists of, and how my voice won't change, and I shan't be able to have children, or do what's done to make children...'

       'Did papa describe to you in full what's done?'

       'No, but he went on until he could be sure from what I said that I knew enough. Not everything, but enough.'

       Now buttoning a silk shirt, Anthony nodded slowly. 'That's his way. You ask what happens. You mean inside your body?'

       'Yes, I think so.'

       'It may be easier to describe what, because of your alteration, will not happen. Elements in your blood we call conductors would in time cause your voice to become deeper, hair to grow on your face and body, and your private parts to render you capable of mating. These elements come from what will be removed from you.'

       'And the same elements would keep me thin and healthy unless I ate too much.'

       'Why do you say that?'

       'The other day at the Chapel I saw two men who'd been altered. They were fat and they didn't seem well. They...'

       'Yes?'

       Hubert had remembered how the two had looked at him, and understood now that they had been considering him as someone intended to share their condition, understood, too what the Abbot must have wanted from them that evening. But there was no reason to explain this to Anthony. 'Just that they seemed sickly. Unsound, not...'

       'That's no consequence of their alteration. Their fatness may have indeed come from overeating. It must be a temptation to them.'

       'Why?'

       'My dear Hubert, do please forgive me and sit down. Now, may I tell you anything more?'

       'Yes, Anthony, if you will. I want to know about mating.'

       'You said you knew enough.'

       'Enough for papa, not for me.'

       'Very well. Say how I can—'

       'What happens? I said that about the alteration, didn't I? This is not so different. I've been told what goes where, and that something comes, and that the something will make a baby. But what I don't understand is why-I mean, why folk do it, why they want to do it. I see that they must if the human race shall continue, which is God's will. But then, as every-body knows, they'll mate even when they must wish as hard as they can that there'll be no baby.'

       'True.' Anthony looked up from the drawerful of cravattas he was turning over. 'It's an instinct from our nature, and wonderfully strong. It doesn't touch our reason, so we can't talk of why as we do in other matters. Consider that we eat because if we fail to we die, but it isn't that that makes us eat, it's hunger, a feeling in us.'

       'Is this like hunger, a feeling in us that makes us uncomfortable? Like thirst?'

       'Well...'

       'Does it grow until we can think of nothing else?'

       'No.'

       'I shall never understand.'

       'I'm sorry, my dear, but I might as easily explain the colour red to a blind man.'

       'So it appears. We might do better with what else I have to ask, if you're not tired of questions.'

       'Of course not. Say, then.'

       'You've done it, haven't you, Anthony? You've mated? Let's be straight—you've fucked a girl? I'll say nothing to papa, by Our Lady's crown.'

       'See you keep your oath. Yes, I have.'

       'So. Try to explain to me how it is.'

       Anthony had been carefully tying a pale green cravatta at the looking-glass on his toilet-table; now he stopped doing this and turned to face his brother. 'Isn't it best that I don't?' he asked gently. 'It's a part of life that you can never meet with.'

       'Then I must discover as much as I can from one who has met with it.'

       'In Heaven's name, why? It could only—'

       'I want to know where I'm placed. As far as I can. I beg you, dear Anthony.'

       'If you must... Simply, it's the most intense pleasure the human body can feel.'

       'Pleasure?'

       'Of course pleasure. Why so surprised?'

       'I'm not surprised. At least, I've heard it said before. But I can't-'

       'No mystery there at all.' Anthony spoke sharply, but Hubert recognised that the sharpness was not directed at him. 'They do their best to keep it hidden.'

       'Who are they?'

       'Everyone in our polity. The priests, the accursed friars and monks—though they see to it they're in no ignorance themselves. The preceptors, even the surgeons. All those set in authority over us. The whole of Church and State in every land throughout the world.'

       Hubert said nothing, not wanting to prolong this unhelpful digression.

       'They conduct a tyranny and call it the Kingdom of God on Earth. Oh, let it go—there's one place they can never reach. That pleasure is safe.'

       'Does it happen all the time, the pleasure? During the...'

       'There is some all the time, but the big pleasure's at the end. When, as you said, something comes.'

       'How long does it last?'

       'A few seconds.'

       'Oh.'

       'It seems much longer. It seems to last for an indefinite time.'

       'I see.'

       Anthony was brushing his hair. 'Let me try again. What's your favourite food?'

       'Chocolate ice-cream,' said Hubert without hesitation.

       'Can you imagine an ice-cream so wonderful that it made you call aloud?'

       'I think so. And it's like that... down there.'

       'Yes. Now imagine... You've played with yourself down there, haven't you?'

       'Oh yes.'

       'And you like girls. You want to kiss them.'

       'Yes.'

       'Well, think of kissing a girl while it feels like playing with yourself but it's like the wonderful ice-cream.'

       'I must have done something like that before, many times. But it's so vague. I can't really think of a girl when I do that, and I can't think of that when I see a girl, even a very pretty one. I can't bring them together.'