[Revolutions 03] The Newton Letter (11 page)

Of Charlotte she makes no mention. That was only to
be expected. I brood on certain words, these emblems.
Succubus
, for instance.

What shall I do? Find that fissure in the rocks, clamber
down again into that roomy and commodious grave? I
hope not. Begin afresh, then, learn how to live up here,
in the light? Something is moving under the ice. Oh,
I'm not in despair, far from it. I feel the spring around
me, the banality of it, the heedless power. Emotions
flourish in these frozen wastes. I stop sometimes, staring
at a white hill with the tender porcelain of the sky behind
it, and I feel such a sense of . . . of something, I don't
know. All kinds of things appear on that white screen:
a house, a chestnut tree, a dark window with a face
reflected in it. Oh and other things, too many to mention.
These private showings seem an invitation. Go
back to Ferns, move in, set up house, fulfil some grand design, with Ottilie, poor Charlotte, the two boys—for
I feel it will be a boy, it must be—become a nurseryman
and wear tweeds, talk about the weather, stand around
chewing a straw? Impossible. All the same, I
shall
go
back. And in the end, it’s come to me just this moment,
in the end of course I shall take up the book and finish
it: such a renunciation is not of this world. Yet I'm wary.
Shall I have to go off again, leaving my research, my
book and everything else unfinished? Shall I awake in a
few months, in a few years, broken and deceived, in the
midst of new ruins?

Dublin–Iowa–Dublin
Summer 79–Spring 81

THE NEWTON LETTER

John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. His
first book,
Long Lankin
, was published in 1970. His other
books are
Nightspawn
,
Birchwood
,
Doctor Copernicus
(which
won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1976),
Kepler
(which was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1981),
Mefisto
,
The Book of Evidence
(which was shortlisted for
the 1989 Booker Prize and won the 1989 Guinness Peat
Aviation Award),
Ghosts
,
Athena
and
The Untouchable
.
John Banville is the literary editor of the
Irish Times
and
lives in Dublin with his wife and two sons.

ALSO BY JOHN BANVILLE

Long Lankin

Nightspawn

Birchwood

Doctor Copernicus

Kepler

Mefisto

The Book of Evidence

Ghost

Athena

The Untouchable

to Vincent Lawrence

I seem to have been only as a boy playing on the seashore,
and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother
pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst
the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

Sir Isaac Newton

This edition published in 1999 by Picador

This electronic edition published 2010 by Picador
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ISBN 978-0-330-52525-1 PDF
ISBN 978-0-330-52377-6 EPUB

Copyright © John Banville 1982

The right of John Banville to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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^*
I have since learned that this contention is mistaken; cf Polkolski, F. X.,
Interface Tribal
Situations in Southeast Ireland: a structuralist study
(M. I . T. 1980).