PAGE 11
Between Friends
by
“Still, terms are terms–“
“Oh, yes. A truck may run over me. Even at that, I’ve enough to live life out as I am living it here–between these empty walls–and that expanse of glass overhead. That’s about all life holds for me–a sheet of glass and four empty walls–and a fistfull of wet clay.”
“Are you a trifle morbid, Drene?”
“I’m not by any means; I merely prefer to live this way. I have sufficient means to live otherwise if I wish. But this is enough of the world to suit me, Guilder–and I can go to a noisy restaurant to eat in when I’m so inclined–” He laughed a rather mirthless laugh and glanced up, catching a peculiar expression in Guilder’s eyes.
“You’re thinking,” said Drene coolly, “what a god I once set up on the altar of domesticity. I used to talk a lot once, didn’t I?–a hell of a clamor I made in eulogy of the domestic virtues. Well, only idiots retain the same opinions longer than twenty-four hours. Fixity is imbecility; the inconstant alone progress; dissatisfaction is only a synonym for intelligence; contentment translated means stagnation….. I have changed my opinion concerning the virtues of domesticity.”
Guilder said, in his even, moderate voice:
“Your logic is weird, Drene: in one breath you say you have changed your opinion; in another that you are content; in another that contentment is the fixedness of imbecility–“
Drene, reddening slightly, half rose on one elbow from his couch:
“What I meant was that I change in my convictions from day to day, without reproaching myself with inconstancy. What I believed with all my heart to be sacred yesterday I find a barrier to-day; and push it aside and go on.”
“Toward what?”
“I go on, that’s all I know–toward sanctuary.”
“You mean professionally.”
“In every way–ethically–spiritually. The gods of yesterday, too, were very real–yesterday.”
“Drene, a man may change and progress on his way toward what never changes. But standards remained fixed. They were there in the beginning; they are immutable. If they shifted, humanity could have no goal.”
“Is there a goal?”
“Where are you going, then?”
“Just on.”
“In your profession there is a goal toward which you sculptors all journey.”
“Perfection?”
Guilder nodded.
“But,” smiled Drene, “no two sculptors ever see it alike.”
“It is still Perfection. It is still the goal to the color-blind and normal alike, whatever they call it, however, they visualize it. That is its only importance; it is The Goal….. In things spiritual the same obtains–whether one’s vision embraces Nirvana, or the Algonquin Ocean of Light, or a pallid Christ half hidden in floating clouds–Drene, it is all one, all one. It is not the Goal that changes; only our intelligence concerning its existence and its immortality.”
Drene lay looking at him:
“You never knew pain–real pain, did you? The world never ended for you, did it?”
“In one manner or another we all must be reborn before we can progress.”
“That is a cant phrase.”
“No; there’s truth under the cant. Under all the sleek, smooth, canty phrases of ecclesiastic proverb, precept, axiom, and lore, there is truth worth the sifting out.”
“You are welcome to think so, Guilder.”
“You also could come to no other conclusion if you took the trouble to investigate.”
Drene smiled:
“Morals are no more than folk-ways–merely mental condition consequent upon custom. Spiritual beliefs are radically dependant upon folkways and the resultant physical and mental condition of the human brain which creates everything that has been and that is to be.”
“Physiology has proven that no idea, no thought, ever originated within the concrete and physical brain.”
“I’ve read of those experiments.”
“Then you can’t ignore a conclusion.”
“I haven’t reached a conclusion. Meanwhile, I have my own beliefs.”
“That’s all that’s necessary,” said Guilder, gravely, “–to entertain some belief, temporary or final.” He smiled slightly down at Drene’s drawn, gray visage.
“You and I have been friends of many years, Drene, but we have never before talked this way. I did not feel at liberty to assume any intimacy with you, even when I wanted to, even when–when you were in trouble–” He hesitated.