The Rebel Angels

I have no use for a woman who doesn't want to try conclusions with the Devil at some time in her life. I am no village simpleton, like poor Gretchen whom the Devil delivered over to Faust, for his pleasure; I am my own woman and even if I gained what I desired, and Hollier declared his love for me and suggested marriage or an affair, I would not expect to be subsumed in him. I know this is a bold word, for better women than I have been devoured by love, but I would hope to keep something of myself for myself, even if only to have one more thing in my power to give. In love I do not want to play the old, submissive game, nor have I any use for the ultra-modern maybe-I-will-and-maybe-I-won't-and-anyhow-you-watch-your-step game; Tadeusz's daughter and a girl part Gypsy had no time for such thin, sour finagling. Parlabane was trying to seduce me intellectually, to put me with my back on the floor and leave me gasping and rumpled, and all with words. I decided to see what luck I would have in discombobulating him.

"Brother John," I said one November afternoon when the light in Hollier's outer room was beginning to fade, "I'm going to give you a cup of tea, and a question to answer. You have been telling me about the world of philosophical scepticism, and God as the only escape from a world blighted by tragic ambiguity. But I spend my time working with the writings of men who thought otherwise, and I find them strongly persuasive. I mean Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, and my own dear François Rabelais."

"Spleeny Lutherans, every one of them," said Parlabane.

"Heretics, probably, but not Lutherans," I said. "How could such soaring spirits agree with the man who declared that society is a prison filled with sinners, in which order has to be maintained by force? You see, I know something of Luther, too. But don't try to sidetrack me with Luther. I want to talk about Rabelais, who said that a free human creature finds his rule of conduct in his sense of honour -"

"Just a minute; he didn't say 'a free human creature', he said men – 'men that are free, well born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies'."

"You don't have to give it to me in English; I know it in French – 'gens libres, bien nés, bien instruits, conversant en compagnies honnêtes' and if you can prove to me that "gens" means Men Only I should like to hear you do it. It means "people". You have the common idea of Rabelais as a woman-hater, because you have only read that gassy translation by Sir Thomas Urquhart -"

"As a matter of fact I have been rereading it because Urquhart McVarish has lent me a copy -"

"I'll lend you a French copy, and in it you'll discover that where Rabelais sets out the plan for his ideal community – one might almost call it a university – he includes lots of women."

"For entertainment, one assumes."

"Don't assume. Read – and in French."

"Molly, what a horrible old academic scissorbill you are getting to be."

"Abuse cannot shake me. Now answer my question: isn't a sense of honour a sufficient rule of conduct?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because it can be no bigger than the man – or woman, if you are going to be pernickety – who possesses it. And the honour of a fool, or a pygmy-in-spirit, or a redneck, or a High Tory, or a convinced democrat are all wholly different things and any one of them, under the right circumstances, could send you to the stake, or stop your wages, or just push you out into the cold. Honour is a matter of personal limitation. God is not."

"Well, I'd rather be François Rabelais than one of your frozen sceptics, grabbing at God as a lifebelt in an Arctic sea."

"All right; be anything you please. You are a romantic; Rabelais was a romantic. His nonsense suits your nonsense. If the lie of honour as a sole and sufficient guide to conduct suits you, well and good! You'll end up with those English idiots who used to govern their lives by what is or is not cricket."

"Come on, Parlabane, this is just hair-splitting and academic abuse. Don't you make any allowance for quality of life? Isn't the worth of what a man believes shown by what his belief makes of him? Wouldn't you rather live nobly as François Rabelais than be stuck in the deep freeze of scepticism, wondering when, and if, God is going to open the door of the fridge and thaw you out?"

"Rabelais didn't live nobly. Most of his life he was on the run from people who were more accurate reasoners than he was."

"He was a great writer, a broad and copious writer, a man of wide and hospitable mind."

"Romanticism. Sheer romanticism. You are putting forward critical opinions as if they were facts."

"O.K., you have beaten me at the academic game, but you haven't changed my mind, and so I don't admit that you've beaten me at the real game."

"Which is?"