The Game by A. S. Byatt

programme.’
    ‘When that was first suggested, I remember you did not want to take part.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Julia, not sure what the issue was. ‘Yes, I know. But when I do take anything on, I like to do it thoroughly. It’s my conscience.’ She smiled, faintly.
    ‘Conscience!’ cried Thor. He struck the desk violently with a heavy fist, rattling the typewriter keys. ‘Conscience! Oh, for Christ’s sake, Julia …’
    He swore very rarely. Julia jumped at the noise and trembled. Then he was silent: one of the things about him for which Julia had initially been grateful and which she now found unnerving was his capacity to swallow abruptly any momentary anger.
    ‘Thor,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry I was stupid. I mean, I didn’t realize, I just didn’t realize how seriously you.… Look, darling, if you really want to go, that makes it different. If it’s something
you
really
want
, then I – I really don’t mean to stand in your way. I didn’t know you’d talked to Friends.…’ She swallowed nervously, believing herself partially. His face tightened.
    ‘What I want? You see it as a question of what I want? You are probably right.’
    ‘I want you to be happy.’
    ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘happy.’ He sat down on the bed. ‘Julia, I need help. I should have talked to you earlier. I keep things too much to myself. I know it’s a fault. I – I feel a need, and a duty, I don’t know – to use myself. To do something fully. Can you understand? To expend all my – my power. Julia? The world is so full of – of heavy tasks to which one man’s energy wouldmake some difference. And we leave them undone. I feel, often, I have failed. Sometimes I feel I shall go mad. I – I have always seen – heroism – as something the situation – a situation – called up. Seeking it out can be wrong. I’ve thought of that. It could come from a childish desire to assert oneself. Or a need for glamour. Or a childish need to shake off restrictions. Morality – means recognizing restrictions. One must live within the duties one acquires, I know. I know I have responsibilities which make violent action impossible. It may be that God does not intend me to live violently. I have to see that I am not called. I do see that I am not called. But, Julia, it beats in my head. It is not admirable. But —’
    He stared out of the window with an expression Julia found unnerving. She thought: how the religious man is separated for ever from the irreligious because there is a whole set of moral problems created for him by the assumption that there is a God whose meaningful intention placed him where he is.
    ‘It frightens me that you feel me and Deborah as a restriction. I didn’t know you felt that.’
    ‘You feel me and Deborah as a restriction. You write it.’
    ‘Oh, darling, yes. But I’m a woman, and women are restricted. Men have so many more choices. Almost any – except this dangerous kind. And my books do try to say we must accept things, I hope, they do come down to acceptance. Love is a prison, it’s unrealistic to suppose it’s not. Everybody’s possibilities solidify round them and become limitations. It’s common.’
    ‘Acceptance? Sometimes I think we pride ourselves too much on that. Psychologists have taught it to us. With their “normals” and so on. Their “adjustment”. Oh, never mind. Never mind.’
    ‘Thor, if you really want to go out there.…’
    ‘No, I shan’t go. You know I won’t go. What would Deborah do?’ Suddenly, without warning, his anger flared. ‘How could I leave Deborah to you?’
    ‘Thor!’
    ‘I’m sorry. You should learn to be honest. You cannot tellme you will come if I want it and then tell me I have all sorts of choices but this. It has not entered your head to come. Probably it should not. It doesn’t matter. Let it go.’
    ‘Oh, God, I feel wicked.’
    ‘You must not feel wicked. Because you are right. So there is no need.’
    Momentarily, he buried his face in