Back to Methuselah Part 12

EVE. d.a.m.ned? What is that?

ADAM. The state of them that love death more than life. Go on with your spinning; and do not sit there idle while I am straining my muscles for you.

EVE [_slowly taking up her distaff_] If you were not a fool you would find something better for both of us to live by than this spinning and digging.

ADAM. Go on with your work, I tell you; or you shall go without bread.

EVE. Man need not always live by bread alone. There is something else.

We do not yet know what it is; but some day we shall find out; and then we will live on that alone; and there shall be no more digging nor spinning, nor fighting nor killing.

_She spins resignedly; he digs impatiently._

PART II

The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas

_In the first years after the war an impressive-looking gentleman of 50 is seated writing in a well-furnished s.p.a.cious study. He is dressed in black. His coat is a frock-coat; his tie is white; and his waistcoat, though it is not quite a clergyman's waistcoat, and his collar, though it b.u.t.tons in front instead of behind, combine with the prosperity indicated by his surroundings, and his air of personal distinction, to suggest the clerical dignitary. Still, he is clearly neither dean nor bishop; he is rather too starkly intellectual for a popular Free Church enthusiast; and he is not careworn enough to be a great headmaster.

The study windows, which have broad comfortable window seats, overlook Hampstead Heath towards London. Consequently, it being a fine afternoon in spring, the room is sunny. As you face these windows, you have on your right the fireplace, with a few logs smouldering in it, and a couple of comfortable library chairs on the hearthrug; beyond it and beside it the door; before you the writing-table, at which the clerical gentleman sits a little to your left facing the door with his right profile presented to you; on your left a settee; and on your right a couple of Chippendale chairs. There is also an upholstered square stool in the middle of the room, against the writing-table. The walls are covered with bookshelves above and lockers beneath.

The door opens; and another gentleman, shorter than the clerical one, within a year or two of the same age, dressed in a well-worn tweed lounge suit, with a short beard and much less style in his bearing and carriage, looks in._

THE CLERICAL GENTLEMAN [_familiar and by no means cordial_] Hallo! I didn't expect you until the five o'clock train.

THE TWEEDED GENTLEMAN [_coming in very slowly_] I have something on my mind. I thought I'd come early.

THE CLERICAL GENTLEMAN [_throwing down his pen_] What is on your mind?

THE TWEEDED GENTLEMAN [_sitting down on the stool, heavily preoccupied with his thought_] I have made up my mind at last about the time. I make it three hundred years.

THE CLERICAL GENTLEMAN [_sitting up energetically_] Now that is extraordinary. Most extraordinary. The very last words I wrote when you interrupted me were 'at least three centuries.' [_He s.n.a.t.c.hes up his ma.n.u.script, and points to it_]. Here it is: [_reading_] 'the term of human life must be extended to at least three centuries.'

THE TWEEDED GENTLEMAN. How did you arrive at it?

_A parlor maid opens the door, ushering in a young clergyman._

THE PARLOR MAID. Mr Haslam. [_She withdraws_].

_The visitor is so very unwelcome that his host forgets to rise; and the two brothers stare at the intruder, quite unable to conceal their dismay. Haslam, who has nothing clerical about him except his collar, and wears a snuff-colored suit, smiles with a frank school-boyishness that makes it impossible to be unkind to him, and explodes into obviously unpremeditated speech._

HASLAM. I'm afraid I'm an awful nuisance. I'm the rector; and I suppose one ought to call on people.

THE TWEEDED GENTLEMAN [_in ghostly tones_] We're not Church people, you know.

HASLAM. Oh, I don't mind that, if you don't. The Church people here are mostly as dull as ditch-water. I have heard such a lot about you; and there are so jolly few people to talk to. I thought you perhaps wouldn't mind. _Do_ you mind? for of course I'll go like a shot if I'm in the way.

THE CLERICAL GENTLEMAN [_rising, disarmed_] Sit down, Mr--er?

HASLAM. Haslam.

THE CLERICAL GENTLEMAN. Mr Haslam.

THE TWEEDED GENTLEMAN [_rising and offering him the stool_] Sit down.

[_He retreats towards the Chippendale chairs_].

HASLAM [_sitting down on the stool_] Thanks awfully.

THE CLERICAL GENTLEMAN [_resuming his seat_] This is my brother Conrad, Professor of Biology at Jarrowfields University: Dr. Conrad Barnabas. My name is Franklyn: Franklyn Barnabas. I was in the Church myself for some years.

HASLAM [_sympathizing_] Yes: one cant help it. If theres a living in the family, or one's Governor knows a patron, one gets shoved into the Church by one's parents.

CONRAD [_sitting down on the furthest Chippendale with a snort of amus.e.m.e.nt_] Mp!

FRANKLYN. One gets shoved out of it, sometimes, by one's conscience.

HASLAM. Oh yes; but where is a chap like me to go? I'm afraid I'm not intellectual enough to split straws when theres a job in front of me, and nothing better for me to do. I daresay the Church was a bit thick for you; but it's good enough for me. It will last my time, anyhow [_he laughs good-humoredly_].

FRANKLYN [_with renewed energy_] There again! You see, Con. It will last his time. Life is too short for men to take it seriously.

HASLAM. Thats a way of looking at it, certainly.

FRANKLYN. I was not shoved into the Church, Mr Haslam: I felt it to be my vocation to walk with G.o.d, like Enoch. After twenty years of it I realized that I was walking with my own ignorance and self-conceit, and that I was not within a hundred and fifty years of the experience and wisdom I was pretending to.

HASLAM. Now I come to think of it, old Methuselah must have had to think twice before he took on anything for life. If I thought I was going to live nine hundred and sixty years, I don't think I should stay in the Church.

FRANKLYN. If men lived even a third of that time, the Church would be very different from the thing it is.

CONRAD. If I could count on nine hundred and sixty years I could make myself a real biologist, instead of what I am now: a child trying to walk. Are you sure you might not become a good clergyman if you had a few centuries to do it in?

HASLAM. Oh, theres nothing much the matter with _me_: it's quite easy to be a decent parson. It's the Church that chokes me off. I couldnt stick it for nine hundred years. I should chuck it. You know, sometimes, when the bishop, who is the most priceless of fossils, lets off something more than usually out-of-date, the bird starts in my garden.

FRANKLYN. The bird?

HASLAM. Oh yes. Theres a bird there that keeps on singing 'Stick it or chuck it: stick it or chuck it'--just like that--for an hour on end in the spring. I wish my father had found some other shop for me.

_The parlor maid comes back._

THE PARLOR MAID. Any letters for the post, sir?

FRANKLYN. These. [_He proffers a basket of letters. She comes to the table and takes them_].

HASLAM [_to the maid_] Have you told Mr Barnabas yet?

THE PARLOR MAID [_flinching a little_] No, sir.