Episode 5

"Memsahib's gone to shoot," the boy said. "Does Bwana want?"

"Nothing."

She had gone to kill a piece of meat and, knowing how he liked to watch the game, she had gone

well away so she would not disturb this little pocket of the plain that he could see. She was always

thoughtful, he thought. On anything she knew about, or had read, or that she had ever heard.

It was not her fault that when he went to her he was already over. How could a woman know that

you meant nothing that you said; that you spoke only from habit and to be comfortable? After he no

longer meant what he said, his lies were more successful with women than when he had told them

the truth.

It was not so much that he lied as that there was no truth to tell. He had had his life and it was over

and then he went on living it again with different people and more money, with the best of the same

places, and some new ones.

You kept from thinking and it was all marvellous. You were equipped with good insides so that you

did not go to pieces that way, the way most of them had, and you made an attitude that you cared

nothing for the work you used to do, now that you could no longer do it. But, in yourself, you said

that you would write about these people; about the very rich; that you were really not of them but a

spy in their country; that you would leave it and write of it and for once it would be written by some

one who knew what he was writing of. But he would never do it, because each day of not writing, of

comfort, of being that which he despised, dulled his ability and softened his will to work so that,

finally, he did no work at all. The people he knew now were all much more comfortable when he did

not work. Africa was where he had been happiest in the good time of his life, so he had come out

here to start again. They had made this safari with the minimum of comfort. There was no hardship;

but there was no luxury and he had thought that he could get back into training that way. That in

some way he could work the fat off his soul the way a fighter went into the mountains to work and

train in order to burn it out of his body.

She had liked it. She said she loved it. She loved anything that was exciting, that involved a change

of scene, where there were new people and where things were pleasant. And he had felt the illusion

of returning strength of will to work. Now if this was how it ended, and he knew it was, he must not

turn like some snake biting itself because its back was broken. It wasn't this woman's fault. If it had

not been she it would have been another. If he lived by a lie he should try to die by it. He heard a

shot beyond the hill.

She shot very well this good, this rich bitch, this kindly caretaker and destroyer of his talent.

Nonsense. He had destroyed his talent himself. Why should he blame this woman because she kept

him well? He had destroyed his talent by not using it, by betrayals of himself and what he believed

in, by drinking so much that he blunted the edge of his perceptions, by laziness, by sloth, and by

snobbery, by pride and by prejudice, by hook and by crook. What was this? A catalogue of old

books? What was his talent anyway? It was a talent all right but instead of using it, he had traded on

it. It was never what he had done, but always what he could do. And he had chosen to make his

living with something else instead of a pen or a pencil. It was strange, too, wasn't it, that when he fell

in love with another woman, that woman should always have more money than the last one? But

when he no longer was in love, when he was only lying, as to this woman, now, who had the most

money of all, who had all the money there was, who had had a husband and children, who had taken

lovers and been dissatisfied with them, and who loved him dearly as a writer, as a man, as a

companion and as a proud possession; it was strange that when he did not love her at all and was

lying, that he should be able to give her more for her money than when he had really loved.

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