The Rebel Angels

"Now Simon, you know I couldn't tell you his name. Not ethical at all. Sometimes we talk about doubt. He's a great doubter. Used to be a monk. The interesting thing about him is his Sheldonian type. Very rare; a 376. You follow? Very intellectual and nervy, but a fantastic physique. A dangerous man, I'd say, with a makeup like that. Could get very rough. He's abused his body just about every way that's possible and from the whiff of his buckets I think he's well into drugs right now, but although he's on the small side he's fantastically muscular and strong. He wants the money, but he isn't a big producer. Plugged. That's drugs. I don't like him, but he's a rarity, so I put up with him."

"For Maria's sake?"

"No. For my sake. Listen, you don't think I'm soft about Maria, do you? She's a nice girl right enough, but that's all."

"Not an interesting type?"

"Not from my point of view. Too well balanced."

"No chance she might turn out to be a Pyknic Practical Joke?"

"Never. She'll age well. Be a fine woman. Slumped, probably; that's inherent in the female build. But she'll be sturdy, right up to the end."

"Ozy, about these Sheldonian types; are they irrevocable?"

"How do you mean?"

"Last time I talked to you, you were very frank about me, and my tendency towards fat. Do you remember?"

"Yes; that was the first time Maria came here. What I said about you wasn't the result of an examination, of course. Just a guess. But I'd put you down as a 425 – soft, chunky, abundant energy. Big gut."

"The literary gut, I think you said."

"Lots of literary people have it. You can have a big gut without being literary, of course."

"Don't rob me of the one consolation you offered! But what I want to know is this: couldn't somebody of that type moderate his physique, by the right kind of diet and exercise, and general care?"

"To some extent. Not without more trouble than it would probably be worth. That's what's wrong with all these diets and body-building courses and so forth. You can go against your type, and probably achieve a good deal as long as you keep at it. Look at these Hollywood stars – they starve themselves and get surgeons to carve them into better shapes and all that because it's their livelihood. Every now and then one of them can't stand it any more, then it's the overdose. The body is the inescapable factor, you see. You can keep in good shape for what you are, but radical change is impossible. Health isn't making everybody into a Greek ideal; it's living out the destiny of the body. If you're thinking about yourself, I guess you could knock off twenty-five pounds to advantage, but that wouldn't make you a thin man; it'd make you a neater fat man. What the cost would be to your nerves, I couldn't even guess."

"In short, be not another if thou canst be thyself."

"What's that?"

"More Paracelsus."

"He's dead right. But it isn't simple, being yourself. You have to know yourself physiologically and people don't want to believe the truth about themselves. They get some mental picture of themselves and then they devil the poor old body, trying to make it like the picture. When it won't obey – can't obey, of course – they are mad at it, and live in it as if it were an unsatisfactory house they were hoping to move out of. A lot of illness comes from that."

"You make it sound like physiological predestination."

"Don't quote me on that. Not my field at all. I have my problem and it's all I can take care of."

"Discovering the value that lies in what is despised and rejected."

"That's what Maria says. But wouldn't I look stupid if I announced that as the theme of my Kober Lecture?"

" 'This is the stone which was set at naught of your builders, which is become the head of the corner.' "

"You don't talk that way to scientists, Simon."

"Then tell them it is the lapis exilis, the Philosopher's Stone of their spiritual ancestors, the alchemists."

"Oh, get away, get away, get away!"

Laughing, I got away.

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