Christopher and His Kind by Christopher Isherwood Page B

Gerald’s career, I find his misdeeds tiresome rather than amusing. His dishonesty was tiresome because it was so persistent; he was like a greedy animal which you can’t leave alone in the kitchen, even for an instant. And yet, what did all his intrigues obtain for him? He used to boast coyly of his coups, to hint at having netted “a cool thou” or “a positively glacial sum”; but when you pressed him for details, he became evasive. Probably he was ashamed of the self-indulgence with which he squandered whatever money he had grabbed. Throughout his life, he was pestered by creditors. The strange truth is that he was an amateur, hopelessly unbusinesslike, romantic, and unmodern in his methods. Crime, as he practiced it, doesn’t pay. It is as demanding and unrewarding as witchcraft.
    Nevertheless, despite the anxieties amidst which he lived, Gerald genuinely enjoyed himself. And he shared his enjoyment with his friends. When the weather was dull and life was gloomy, he cheered you up by the charm of his absurdity. He would dress for some humdrum gathering as if for a brilliant social event and thus almost manage to turn it into one. He could make you feel you were at a banquet when, in fact, you were supping off scrambled eggs and vin ordinaire. He laughed at your jokes, he flattered you, he was sincerely delighted when you were pleased. He was therefore liked by many people who thoroughly disapproved of him. Others, including Frl. Thurau, adored him without any reservations. He referred to her as La Divine Thurau.
    Gerald had an Irish genius for embracing causes with passion and taking sides furiously in a dispute. The passion and the fury were often temporary, and he felt no embarrassment in changing his convictions later. At one time or another, he was a pacifist, a crusader for Irish independence (no matter what that might cost in the blood of others), a near-Communist, a right-wing extremist, a critic of the Vatican’s foreign policy, a devout Catholic. Not unnaturally, he was suspected of having ulterior motives; often, no doubt, he had. But it is difficult to find anything sinister in the hard work he did for the Fight the Famine Council and the Save the Children Fund, after the First World War. And he often wrote letters to the press, in favor of legalized abortion, prison reform, and the abolition of capital punishment, which were admirably outspoken and lucid.
    Mr. Norris fails to reveal what was the most enduring bond between Gerald and Christopher, their homosexuality. When it came to breaking the laws which had been made against the existence of their tribe, Christopher was happy to be Gerald’s fellow criminal.

FIVE
    Edward and Wystan had read The Memorial in manuscript, shortly before or after the New Year. Both had praised it, each in his own peculiar language—to which Christopher was so accustomed that he never reflected how bizarre it would look on a book jacket:
    Upward: All the trumpets spoke and a man with gray ears wept in torrents of sulphur over Charlesworth, Lily and the attempted suicide of Edward Blake.
    Auden: You alone have had the courage and the reagents to bring out the Figure in that carpet. May I also utter a word of praise for Isherwood’s weather.
    Christopher didn’t doubt the sincerity of their enthusiasm. Nevertheless, he was still worried. These were his closest friends. The relation between them and himself was essentially telepathic. Mightn’t they have understood telepathically what it was that he had wanted to express in this book and thus overlooked the fact that he had failed to express it? And, if this was so, how would the book seem to untelepathic Jonathan Cape? Cape had published Christopher’s first novel, All the Conspirators, in 1928. Now, in March 1931, he was making up his mind whether or not he should publish The Memorial. Christopher left for London on March 10, to be on the spot and get the news of Cape’s