England, England

Итак, граждане разных стран мира открыто и прямо сообщили сэру Джеку, что, на их взгляд, является Пятьюдесятью Квинтэссенциями Самого Наианглийского:

1. Королевская семья.

2. Биг Бен/Здание Парламента.

3. Футбольный клуб «Манчестер Юнайтед».

4. Сословия/Лорды и дворецкие.

5. Пабы.

6. Малиновка на снегу.

7. Робин Гуд, его Веселые Стрелки и Шервудский лес.

8. Крикет.

9. «О, Дувра белые утесы…»

10. Империализм.

11. Флаг «Юнион Джек».

12. Снобизм.

13. «Боже, храни Королеву/Короля».

14. Би-би-си.

15. Вест-Энд.

16. Газета «Таймс».

17. Шекспир.

18. Домики с соломенными крышами.

19. Чай/Чай со сливками по-девонширски.

20. Стоунхендж.

21. Прямая спина/Флегматичность/«Темза, сэр!».

22. Магазины.

23. Пудинг.

24. Бифитеры/Лондонский Тауэр.

25. Лондонские такси.

26. Шляпа-котелок.

27. «Джейн Эйр» и другие классические телесериалы.

28. Оксфорд/Кембридж.

29. «Хэрродз».

30. Двухэтажные автобусы/Красные автобусы.

31. Лицемерие.

32. Садоводство.

33. Ненадежность/«Коварный Альбион».

34. Архитектурный стиль «фахверк».

35. Гомосексуализм.

36. «Алиса в Стране Чудес».

37. Уинстон Черчилль.

38. «Маркс-энд-Спенсер».

39. «Битва за Британию»/Подвиги англичан во Второй мировой войне.

40. Фрэнсис Дрейк.

41. Вынос знамен — парад в день рождения Королевы.

42. Пессимизм/Нытье.

43. Королева Виктория.

44. Замки.

45. Пиво/Теплое пиво.

46. Эмоциональная фригидность.

47. Стадион Уэмбли.

48. Порка/Частные школы-интернаты.

49. Нечистоплотность/Уродливое нижнее белье.

50. «Хартия вольностей».

So: a hunter heard that there was a bear on an island off the coast of Alaska. He hired a helicopter to take him over the water. After a search he found the bear, a great, big, wise old bear. He lined him up in his sights, got off a quick shot – peeeeeoooow – and made the terrible, the unforgivable mistake of merely wounding the animal. The bear ran off into the woods, with the hunter in pursuit. He circled the island, he criss-crossed it, he sought bear-tracks up hill and down dale. Perhaps Bruin had crawled off into some cave and breathed his furry last. At any event, no bear. The day was beginning to draw in, so the hunter decided that enough was enough, and made his weary way back to where the helicopter was waiting. He got to within a hundred yards or so of it and noticed the pilot waving to him in a rather excited fashion. He stopped, put down his gun to wave back, and that was the moment when the bear, with a single swipe of its extraordinary paw’ – Sir Jack sketched the gesture in case Martha could not imagine it – ‘took off the hunter’s head.’
‘And the bear lived happily ever after?’ Martha was unable to resist the jibe.
‘Well, I’ll tell you this, the hunter fucking didn’t, Miss Cochrane, the hunter fucking didn’t.’

These were some of the things she was unable to say:
—that none of it was his fault;
—that despite Dr Max’s historical scepticism, she believed in happiness;
—that when she said she ‘believed in’ it, she meant that she thought such a state existed and was worth trying to attain;
—that seekers after happiness tended to divide into two groups, those who sought it by fulfilling criteria laid down by others, and those who sought it by fulfilling their own criteria;
—that neither means of search was morally superior to the other;
—but that for her, happiness depended on being true to yourself;
—true to your nature;
—that is, true to your heart;
—but the main problem, life’s central predicament, was, how did you know your own heart?;
—and the surrounding problem was, how did you know what your nature was?;
—that most people located their nature in childhood: so their entranced self-reminiscences, the photographs they displayed of themselves when young, were ways of defining that nature;
—here was a photo of herself when young, frowning against the sun and sticking out her lower lip: was this her nature or only her mother’s poor photography?;
—but what if this nature was no more natural than the nature Sir Jack had satirically delineated after a walk in the country?;
—because if you were unable to locate your nature, your chance of happiness was surely diminished;
—or what if locating your nature was like locating a patch of wetland, whose layout remained mysterious, and whose workings indecipherable?;
—that despite favourable conditions, and lack of encumbrances, and despite the fact that she thought she might love Paul, she had not felt happy;
—that at first she thought this might be because he bored her;
—or his love bored her;
—or even that her love bored her;
—but she wasn’t sure (and not knowing her nature, how could she be?) that this was the case;
—so perhaps it was that love was not the answer for her;
—which was, after all, not an entirely eccentric position, as Dr Max would have reassured her;
—or perhaps it was the case that love had come too late for her, too late to make her lose her solitude (if that was how you tested love), too late to make her happy;
—that when Dr Max explained that in medieval times people had sought salvation rather than love, the two concepts weren’t necessarily in opposition;
—it was just that later centuries had lower ambitions;
—and when we seek happiness, perhaps we are pursuing some lower form of salvation, though we don’t dare call it by such a name;
—that perhaps her own life had been what Dr Johnson had called his, a barren waste of time;
—that she had made so little progress towards even the lowest form of salvation;
—that none of it was his fault.