208
DORIS LESSING
school and Oxford, can we be other than grateful for this education
into the realities of nature red in beak and claw?"
"I'm not grateful," said Jimmy. "I hate this country."
"I adore it. lowe it everything. Never again will I be able to
mouth the liberal and high-minded platitudes of my democratic
education. I know better now."
Jimmy said: "I may know better, but I shall continue to mouth
high-minded platitudes. The very moment I get back to England.
It can't be too soon for me. Our education has prepared us above
all
for the long littleness of life. What else has it prepared us for?
Speaking for myself, I can't wait for the long littleness to begin.
When I get back-if I ever do get back that is
1
shall ..."
"Hallo," exclaimed Paul, "here comes another bird. No it
doesn't." A pigeon cleaved towards us, saw us, and swerved off and
away in mid-air, nearly settled on the other clump of trees, changed its
mind and sped into the distance. A group of farm laborers were
passing on the track a couple of hundred yards off. We watched them,
in silence. They had been talking and laughing until they saw us, but
now they, too, were silent, and went past with averted faces, as
if
in this way they might avert any possible evil that might come from
us, the white people.
Paul said softly: "My God, my God, my God." Then his tone
changed, and he said jauntily: "Looking at
it
objectively, with as
little reference as we can manage to Comrade Willi and his
ilk–
Comrade Willi, I'm inviting you to consider something objectively."
Willi laid down his book, prepared to show irony. "This country
is
larger than Spain. It contains one and a half million blacks,
if
one
may mention them at
all,
and one hundred thousand whites. That,
in itself, is a thought which demands two minutes silence. And what
do we see? One might imagine--one would have every excuse for
imagining, despite what you say, Comrade Willi, that this insigni–
ficant handful of sand on the beaches of time-not bad, that image?
-unoriginal, but always apt-this million.:and-a-little-over-a-half
people exist in this pretty piece of God's earth solely in order to
make each other miserable ..." Here Willi picked up his book again
and applied his attention to it. "Comrade Willi, let your eyes follow
the print but let the ears of your soul listen. For the
facts
are--the
facts-that
there's enough food here for everyone?--enough materials
