Deadlock : $b Pilgrimage, Volume 6 — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Deadlock : $b Pilgrimage, Volume 6
John Stuart Mill · en
perceived only with the body, separated and apart from everything else
in life. Men were _mind_ and _body_, separated mind and body, looking
out at women, below their unconscious men’s brows, variously moulded and
sanctified by thought, with one unvarying eye. There was no escape from
its horrible blindness, no other life in the world to live .... the leer
of a prostitute was .... reserved .... beautiful, suggesting a daily
life lived independently amongst the impersonal marvels of existence,
compared to the headlong desirous look of a man. The greed of men was
something much more awful than the greed of a prostitute. She used her
last strength to wrench herself away from the hopeless spectacle and
wandered impatient and thoughtless in a feverish void. Far away from
this barren north London, the chosen perfect stage for the last
completion of a misery as wide as the world, was her own dream world at
home in her room, her strange unfailing self, the lovely world of lovely
things seen in silence and tranquillity, the coming and going of the
light, the myriad indescribable things of which day and night, in
solitude, were full, at every moment; the marvellous forgetfulness of
sleep, followed by the smiling renewal of inexhaustible _sameness_ ....
thought flashed in, stabbing her weakness with the reminder that
solitude had failed and from its failure she had been saved by the
companionship of a man; of whom until to-day she had been proud in a
world lit by the glory and pride of achieved companionships. But it was
an illusion, fading and failing more swiftly than the real things of
solitude ..... there was no release save in madness; a suddenly
descending merciful madness, blotting everything out. She imagined
herself raging and raving through the park, through the world, attacking
the indifferent sky at last with some final outbreaking statement,
something, somewhere within her she _must_ say, or die. She gazed
defiance upwards at the cloudless blue. The distant trees flattened
themselves into dark clumps against the horizon. Swiftly she brought her
eyes back to the diminishing earth. Something must be said; not to the
sky, but in the world. She grew impatient for Mr. Shatov’s arrival. If
only she could convey to him all that was in her mind, going back again
and again endlessly to some central unanswerable assertion, the truth
would be out. Stated. At least one man brought to book, arrested and
illuminated. But what was it? That men are not worthy of women. He would
agree, and remain pleading. That men never have, never can, understand
the least thing about even the worst woman in the world? He would find
things to say. She plunged back groping for weapons of statement,
amongst the fixities of the world, there from the beginning, and
pressing at last with their mocking accomplishment, against her small
thread of existence. Long grappling in darkness against the inexorable
images, she fell back at last upon wordless repudiation, and again the