He picked up the telephone and rang the Hatting number, but of course had no reply.
Benet’s intentions when returning to Penn had been far from clear. He wanted very much to get away from the London scene and be alone. He wanted silence, he even wanted work, the continuation of his book on Heidegger. He thought of driving over to Hatting at once but some terrible exhaustion prevented him. He would go tomorrow. He also wanted of course that all should be well, he did not know quite how, with or between Edward and Marian. He wanted passionately to run to them, to draw them together. At the same time he was keeping in mind, though he did not utter this, the possibility that Marian was dead. A murder, a suicide, an accident. No, not an accident. Benet still held in his pocket that terrible note which Edward had left with him, which he had perused so many times. Probably he did not want ever to see it again. ‘Forgive me, I am very sorry, I cannot marry you.’ What could be more final? Yet might it not be merely a sudden impulse, regretted at once, and she ashamed to say: I didn’t mean it? Benet had now recalled many times his conversation with Edward at Hatting on the day after, when Edward had said,
‘You must blame me.’ He wondered, what does Edward feel now? Perhaps he rues that little scene when we were so open to each other. By now he resents his emotion, his openness to me, yes, he is cutting himself off from all of us, cursing us even, for having led him into this morass, this pit, from which he must feel he can never now escape. His life is destroyed, he will be despised, regarded as done for, a fool, something worse, no wonder the girl left him. But have not I done it? He will curse me for all this and he will be right-that talk we had at Hatting when we embraced each other, that was our last meeting, the last moment when we spoke truth and clarity to each other, when we expressed love for each other. I have lost him, and I have lost Marian, and it is all my fault.
These were thoughts which had been continuously at work in Benet’s mind, and which were now achieving, as he drank the wine, a hideous degree of clarity. He had come to Penndean for some sort of quietness or solitude, but he was simply miserable and frightened, alone with his demons.
He left the drawing room and went to his study. There on the desk was his book about Heidegger, open at the page where he had left it such a little while ago. Benet perused the page which he had written.
Heidegger’s central concept of truth or unconcealment should be understood by tracing it back to the Pre-Socratics, and to Homer, as he explains in an essay, originally a 1943 lecture, ‘Wonder first begins with the question, “What does all this mean and how could it happen?” How can we arrive at such a beginning?’ Heidegger quotes Heraclitus Fr. 16, ‘How can one hide from that which never sets?’ What is this hiding and from what? He then quotes Clement of Alexandria who adapts Heraclitus as meaning that one (the sinner) may hide from the light perceived by the senses, but cannot hide from the spiritual light of God. Well, though we may readily understand him in that sense, the Greek was not thinking about anything like a Christian deity. Heraclitus, according to Heidegger, is not thinking of anything ‘spiritual’ or ‘moral’, but of something far more fundamental in the dawn of human consciousness. Heidegger here, as elsewhere in his writings, suggests a significant connection between aletheia (truth) and lanthano (I am concealed, or escape notice, doing or ,being something) and lethe forgetfulness or oblivion. He then engagingly quotes Homer, The Odyssey VIII 83 ff. (It is always a relief to get away into Homer.) Odysseus, after his meeting with Nausicaa, now incognito in her father’s palace, hears the minstrel singing about the Trojan War, from which Odysseus is now making his laborious way home. Verse 93. ‘Then unnoticed by all the others
Benet’s intentions when returning to Penn had been far from clear. He wanted very much to get away from the London scene and be alone. He wanted silence, he even wanted work, the continuation of his book on Heidegger. He thought of driving over to Hatting at once but some terrible exhaustion prevented him. He would go tomorrow. He also wanted of course that all should be well, he did not know quite how, with or between Edward and Marian. He wanted passionately to run to them, to draw them together. At the same time he was keeping in mind, though he did not utter this, the possibility that Marian was dead. A murder, a suicide, an accident. No, not an accident. Benet still held in his pocket that terrible note which Edward had left with him, which he had perused so many times. Probably he did not want ever to see it again. ‘Forgive me, I am very sorry, I cannot marry you.’ What could be more final? Yet might it not be merely a sudden impulse, regretted at once, and she ashamed to say: I didn’t mean it? Benet had now recalled many times his conversation with Edward at Hatting on the day after, when Edward had said,
‘You must blame me.’ He wondered, what does Edward feel now? Perhaps he rues that little scene when we were so open to each other. By now he resents his emotion, his openness to me, yes, he is cutting himself off from all of us, cursing us even, for having led him into this morass, this pit, from which he must feel he can never now escape. His life is destroyed, he will be despised, regarded as done for, a fool, something worse, no wonder the girl left him. But have not I done it? He will curse me for all this and he will be right-that talk we had at Hatting when we embraced each other, that was our last meeting, the last moment when we spoke truth and clarity to each other, when we expressed love for each other. I have lost him, and I have lost Marian, and it is all my fault.
These were thoughts which had been continuously at work in Benet’s mind, and which were now achieving, as he drank the wine, a hideous degree of clarity. He had come to Penndean for some sort of quietness or solitude, but he was simply miserable and frightened, alone with his demons.
He left the drawing room and went to his study. There on the desk was his book about Heidegger, open at the page where he had left it such a little while ago. Benet perused the page which he had written.
Heidegger’s central concept of truth or unconcealment should be understood by tracing it back to the Pre-Socratics, and to Homer, as he explains in an essay, originally a 1943 lecture, ‘Wonder first begins with the question, “What does all this mean and how could it happen?” How can we arrive at such a beginning?’ Heidegger quotes Heraclitus Fr. 16, ‘How can one hide from that which never sets?’ What is this hiding and from what? He then quotes Clement of Alexandria who adapts Heraclitus as meaning that one (the sinner) may hide from the light perceived by the senses, but cannot hide from the spiritual light of God. Well, though we may readily understand him in that sense, the Greek was not thinking about anything like a Christian deity. Heraclitus, according to Heidegger, is not thinking of anything ‘spiritual’ or ‘moral’, but of something far more fundamental in the dawn of human consciousness. Heidegger here, as elsewhere in his writings, suggests a significant connection between aletheia (truth) and lanthano (I am concealed, or escape notice, doing or ,being something) and lethe forgetfulness or oblivion. He then engagingly quotes Homer, The Odyssey VIII 83 ff. (It is always a relief to get away into Homer.) Odysseus, after his meeting with Nausicaa, now incognito in her father’s palace, hears the minstrel singing about the Trojan War, from which Odysseus is now making his laborious way home. Verse 93. ‘Then unnoticed by all the others
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