Nothing So Strange (6 page)

“Meaning,” said Julian, “that scientists don’t go for that sort of
thing?”

Brad answered that no true scientist could, or if he did, it proved he
wasn’t a true scientist. As neat as that!

“But my dear boy—” (Julian always called people “dear,” which
sounded more affected than affectionate till you got used to it, and then you
realized it was neither, but just a habit)—“my dear boy, if you ignore
all worldly success, how do you suppose you’re going to get a chance to prove
anything
? You can’t sit in a corner all on your own and just
be
a scientist—it’s not like writing an epic poem or contemplating your
navel—you need money for food, equipment that you couldn’t afford, a
room to work in that your house doesn’t have, and a job to make it worth
somebody’s while to pay you a regular salary!”

“Well, a job’s all right. There’s nothing worldly in that.”

“But unless it’s a good job you’ll wear yourself out marking papers and
teaching teen-agers to blow glass! I know, because I remember my own
schooldays.”

“There
are
good jobs.”

“And how do you suppose they are got? College heads aren’t supermen, they
don’t know much about science themselves, and because they can only judge a
reputation by the look of it, they’re human enough to favor a man who knows
how to draw attention to himself. So if he’s smart, that’s exactly what he
does. Politics is one way—though dangerous. Social success is safer.
And doing stuff on the side that attracts publicity—you Americans know
the kind of thing— pseudoscientific articles in your Sunday supplements
that aren’t
too
phony, just phony enough.” (Julian liked to use
American slang, which he said was enriching the English language at a period
when otherwise a natural impoverishment would have set in. We had another big
argument about that once.)

“So you don’t think real distinction counts, Mr. Spee?”

“I didn’t say that. Of course it counts—but it counts a good deal
more if you add salesmanship and what your Hollywood people call
glamour.”

“
Glamour
?”

“Certainly…. An interesting new theory, developed by Professor So-and-
So in Vienna … it’s like your sparkling new comedy, straight from its
phenomenal success on Broadway … even if it only ran three nights….
Vienna is the Broadway of the scientific show business…. I’d strongly
recommend a year or two there for you.”

Brad had the same trouble that I had in deciding whether Julian was
serious or not, and I could see him wondering about it now.

My father said quietly: “Might not be a bad idea at that.”

Brad was still puzzling over Julian’s epigram. “Show business, eh?” he
echoed, in a rather shocked tone. “I hope it isn’t quite so bad.”

“It’s not bad at all, my dear boy, it’s human. We live in an age of
headlines, not of hermits.”

“Someday,” said my mother, in her random way, “the hermits may make the
headlines.”

“Vienna’s a good place,” said my father. “A very good place indeed.”

It seemed to me that everyone was talking at cross-purposes. “I can’t
believe that the true scientist cares much about headlines,” Brad said.

“No?” Julian gave his rather high-pitched feminine laugh. “I could mention
the names of at least a dozen who care about them passionately. And they’re
big men, not charlatans, don’t make any mistake. They’ll give you some
competition if you go after the plums.”

“But I don’t want the plums. I’m not a bit ambitious for things like that-
-I wouldn’t enjoy the kind of thing some people call success. All I ask is
the chance to work usefully at something that seems to me worth while.” He
added, as if he had listened to his own words: “And if that sounds priggish I
can’t help it—it’s the only way I can express what I mean.”

“Oh, no—not priggish at all,” Julian assured him. “Just an honest
mistake you’re making about yourself. Do you mean to tell me you really
wouldn’t
like to head a research department of your own somewhere, to
have no more drudgery, to get yourself recognized as an equal by those whose
names in the scientific world you know and respect?… Of course you
would…. And as for scientists being worth-whilers and world-savers, let me
prick that bubble for you too. I’ve known a good many of them, and in my
experience, though some may fool themselves about it, they have one simple
and over-riding motive above all others….
Curiosity
.”

“Brad’s motive isn’t that,” my mother interrupted.

“Then by Christ, if you’ll pardon the expression, it had better be, unless
he’s a mere moralist hiding behind a rampart of test tubes!” He turned to
Brad with his easy confident smile. “Perhaps you are—perhaps you’d
really be more at home in a pulpit than a laboratory.”

“No, no, Julian,” my mother interrupted again. “That’s absurd—he’s
not a moralist, and why should he hide anywhere? He’s a real
scientist—he even defends vivisection!”

It was part of my mother’s charm that her mind flew off at tangents
usually capable of changing a subject. This time, however, both Brad and
Julian ignored her and the argument went on. “Of course, my dear boy, I’m
neither defending nor attacking—I’m just diagnosing what I’ve always
felt to be the real germ of the scientific spirit. You probably know much
more about it yourself, but my own opinion is, it’s Pandora’s box that lures,
not the Holy Grail. And I haven’t yet met a scientist who wouldn’t take a
chance of busting up the whole works rather than not find out something.
Maybe civilizations have been destroyed like that before. History covers too
small a fragment of life on earth for anyone to say it’s unthinkable. After
all, we know the Greeks excelled us in several of the arts and perhaps in one
of the sciences, that of human government—why not some earlier
civilization in engineering or medicine? Anyhow, it’s a beguiling
thought—that all the great discoveries have been made and remade over
and over again throughout the ages. What do you say, Jane? You’re the
historian.”

I said it all sounded very pessimistic and somewhat Spenglerian.

“Personally I find it more agreeable than what the last century called
progress.”

“It’s worse than pessimism,” Brad said. “It’s a sort of nihilism.”

“Coo … listen to ‘im! Sech lengwidge!” Julian mimicked banteringly.

My father, who had taken little part in the argument and had seemed to be
listening in a detached way, now intervened almost irritably. “Nihilism …
nihilism
… just a word. At various times in my life I’ve been called
an economic royalist, a communist, a fascist, and a merchant of death … so
don’t let nihilist floor you, Julian.”

“I won’t,” Julian retorted, though he looked as if my father’s sudden
support had rather startled him.

Brad was hanging on to the argument. “But at least, Mr. Spee, the peak of
each civilization could be higher than the one before?”

“Why
should
it? We don’t know. Perhaps there’ve been vast cycles of
civilizations—some upward in trend, others downward—and these
cycles, in turn, may have belonged to even vaster movements. All pure
speculation, of course. You can argue about it endlessly, just as—” and
he turned deferentially to my father—“just as your Dow-Jones theorists
do when stocks drop and they try to figure out whether it’s a real bear
market or just a dip in a boom. Wait and see’s the only solution, but if the
waiting means a few million years, what can you do? Even Spengler won’t go
that far.”

Julian laughed, but as if he had become already uneasy about the argument.
He was extremely sensitive to timing and atmosphere, and soon afterwards he
made rather abrupt excuses and left us. Brad stayed, and my father rallied
himself into an appearance of affability. But I was still at odds with his
mood; I couldn’t quite understand it, and his totally unnecessary mention of
having once been called a merchant of death was especially strange. It was
true, he had been called that, but it wasn’t true that he had been
unconcerned about it; on the contrary he had been much hurt at the time and
would have prosecuted somebody for libel if his lawyers had let him.

I also noticed that he was refilling his glass rather oftener than usual.
“Well, Brad,” he said, switching over to his side. “We certainly had him on a
soapbox, didn’t we? I hope you weren’t too impressed.”

Brad laughed. “So long as I don’t have to agree, that’s the main thing.
I’d like to think over what he said in terms of the Second Law of
Thermodynamics. Might be interesting.”

“What beats me,” my father said, “is the way that fellow knows other
people’s business…. Yours … and mine … the Dow-Jones theory … how
does he get that way?”

“Probably most of what he knows is on the surface,” Brad answered,
entirely without malice.

It was late and he looked at his watch. I think we were all a little
tired. Just before he left my father called me to the library. “Henry can
drive him back,” he said. “Why don’t you go with him for the ride?”

I was surprised at the suggestion and wondered if he thought there was
anything emotional between Brad and me—that would have been too
ridiculous.

“He’d probably rather take the tube,” I said.

“No, let Henry bring the car round.”

“He’d hate to think he’d been keeping Henry up. He’s fussy about those
things.”

“Then get a taxi and you can come back in it.”

“He doesn’t have taxis—he can’t afford them and he wouldn’t like me
to pay.”

My father’s irritation showed through again. “Well, for once he can—
because I want you to tell him something. Tell him I wasn’t joking, even if
Julian was, about the idea of him going abroad. I’ve been thinking for some
time it might not be a bad thing. Tell him that.”

“Why don’t
you
tell him?”

“I did, but I don’t think he heard me. I’m sorry Julian talked of it so
flippantly—it’s really what Brad ought to do. He’s probably got all he
can out of this London job by now…. So tell him, will you? There’s a bunch
of physicists in Vienna, if he could get fixed up with the right connections.
I might be able to help him in that.”

“
You
might?”

“Yes. I have—er—contacts there.”

“In Vienna?”

“Yes.”

“But what about the Cavendish at Cambridge? Isn’t that as good?”

“Cambridge isn’t the only place where they’re doing interesting things in
his line. The Continent would give him a different angle….”

“You mean the glamour?”

“No, no … or anyhow, that’s not the word for it. I wish Julian hadn’t
butted in with his witticisms…. Well, you talk things over with Brad. Ask
him how he’d like to spend some time working with Hugo Framm.”

“
Hugo Framm
?”

“He’ll know who Framm is. Ask him. Ask him.”

The telephone then rang; I took it, as I often did; it was New York. Those
business calls were generally very dull as well as private, so I handed him
the receiver and edged away towards the hall doorway across the room.

And then I saw Brad. His back was towards me, and in front of him, almost
hidden, was my mother. The lights in the hall were subdued, and all I could
see of her distinctly was the knuckle of her right hand as she held his
sleeve. She had been talking to him earnestly and I caught what was evidently
a final remark: “… and you mustn’t take any notice, Brad…. I’d
hate
you to be influenced at all….” Only that, whispered very
eagerly.

He said nothing in reply, then suddenly, glancing round his shoulder with
a little side movement of her head, she saw me, I think, though she pretended
not to. I stepped back into the room. Presently my father finished his
call.

“Well, as I was saying, Jane, see how he feels about it.”

I answered: “Yes, but not tonight. I’ll talk to him at the College
tomorrow. I
know
he’d rather go home by tube.”

I could have met him at lunch the next day and been sure of
not
interrupting his work, but I went straight to the lab about eleven-thirty,
committing the unforgivable sin, if it were one, with a certain gusto. After
all, he couldn’t already be working for another examination—or could
he? Anyhow, I caught him (so far as I could judge) doing that rare thing,
nothing. But he looked preoccupied and not really surprised enough; he asked
me to sit down, but I said it wouldn’t take me long to deliver a message.
Then I told him what my father had said about Vienna and Hugo Framm. His
whole manner changed. He seemed bewildered at first, then slowly and
increasingly pleased. He went to a shelf of books and showed me everything he
could find that had anything to do with Framm, who was apparently a
scientific star of magnitude. There was a paragraph about him in a recent
issue of
Discovery
, and an article by him in a German magazine.
Altogether I began to think it rather wonderful that Brad should have a
chance to work with such a man. “But I don’t see why he should even consider
me,” he kept saying. “There’s nothing I’ve done yet that could possibly
impress him.”

“But my father knows him, Brad.”

“Of course I realize your father has influence, but in a question of pure
science….”

“Perhaps it isn’t a question of pure science. Perhaps Framm’s a bit human.
Perhaps he takes notice of what his friends say about people. My father’s
opinion of you might be high enough for someone to
want
to have
you.”

“But is he such a close friend of your father?”

“I never heard his name mentioned before, but that doesn’t mean anything.
My father knows so many people everywhere. He meets them once and then
they’re on his list of—well, I suppose you could call them
distant
friends.”

“Very remarkable.”

“My father
is
remarkable.”

“So’s your mother—in a different way.”