Percival Character Analysis

Now I will lean sideways as if to scratch my thigh. So I shall see Percival. There he sits, upright among the smaller fry. He breathes through his straight nose rather heavily. His blue, and oddly inexpressive eyes, are fixed with pagan indifference upon the pillar opposite. He would make an admirable churchwarden. He should have a birch and beat little boys for misdemeanors. He is allied with the Latin phrases on the memorial brasses. He sees nothing; he hears nothing. He is remote from us all in a pagan universe. But look—he flicks his hand at the back of his neck. For such gestures one falls hopelessly in love for a lifetime. Dalton, Jones, Edgar and Bateman flick their hands to the backs of their necks likewise. But they do not succeed.

If I could believe […] that I should grow old in pursuit and change, I should be rid of my fear: nothing persists. One moment does not lead to another. The door opens and the tiger leaps. […] I am afraid of the shock of sensation that leaps upon me, because I cannot deal with it as you do—I cannot make one moment merge in the next. To me they are all violent, all separate […] I do not know how to run minute to minute and hour to hour, solving them by some natural force until they make the whole and indivisible mass you call life. […] And I have no face. […] I am whirled down caverns, and flap like paper against endless corridors and must press my hand against the wall to draw myself back.

But I only come into existence when the plumber, or the horse-dealers, or whoever it may be, says something which sets me alight. Then how lovely the smoke of my phrase is, rising and falling, flaunting and falling, upon red lobsters and yellow fruit, wreathing them into one beauty. But observe how meretricious the phrase is—made up of what evasions and old lies. Thus my character is in part made of the stimulus which other people provide, and is not mine, as yours are. There is some fatal streak, some wandering and irregular vein of silver, weakening it. […] I went with the boasting boys with little caps and badges, driving off in big brakes—there are some here tonight, dining together, correctly dressed before they go off in perfect concord to the music hall; I loved them. For they bring me into existence as certainly as you do.

“By applying the standards of the West, by using the violent language that is natural to him, the bullock-cart is righted in less than five minutes. The Oriental problem is solved. he rides on; the multitude cluster round him, regarding him as if he were—what indeed he is—a God,” [said Bernard.]

“[…] and look—the outermost parts of the earth […] India for instance, rise into our purview. The world that had been shrivelled, rounds itself; remote provinces are fetched up out of darkness; we see muddy roads, twisted jungle, swarms of men, and the vulture that feeds on some bloated carcass as within our scope, part of our proud and splendid province, since Percival […] advances down a solitary path, has his camp pitched among desolate trees, and sits alone, looking at the enormous mountains.”

Yes, between your shoulders, over your heads, to a landscape […] to a hollow here many-backed steep hills come down like birds’ wings folded. There, on the short, firm turf, are bushes, dark leaved, and against their darkness, I see a shape, white, but not of stone, moving, perhaps alive. But it is not you, it is not you, it is not you; not Percival, Susan, Jinny, Neville, or Louis. […] It makes no sign, it does not beckon, it does not see us. Behind it roars the sea. It is beyond our reach. Yet there I venture. There I go to replenish my emptiness, to stretch my nights and fill them fuller and fuller with dreams. And for a second now, even here, I reach my object and say, ‘Wander no more. All else is trial and make-believe. Here is the end.’

But what are stories? Toys I twist, bubbles I blow, one ring passing through another. And sometimes I begin to doubt if there are stories. What is my story? What is Rhoda’s? What is Neville’s? There are facts, as, for example: ‘The handsome young man in the grey suit, whose reserve contrasted so strangely with the loquacity of the others, now brushed the crumbs from his waistcoat and, with a characteristic gesture at once commanding and benign, made a sign to the waiter, who came instantly and returned a moment later with the bill discreetly folded upon a plate.’ That is truth; that is the fact, but beyond it all is darkness and conjecture.

Percival, by his death, has made me this gift, let me see the thing. There is a square; there is an oblong. The players take the square and place it upon he oblong. They place it very accurately; they make a perfect dwelling-place. Very little is left outside. The structure is now visible; what is inchoate is here stated; we are not so various or mean; we have made oblongs and stood them upon squares. This is our triumph; this is our consolation.

“Yet, Louis,” said Rhoda, “how short a time silence lasts. Already they are beginning to smooth their napkins by the side of their plates. ‘Who comes?’ says Jinny; and Neville sighs, remembering that Percival comes no more. Jinny has taken out her looking-glass. Surveying her face like an artist, she draws powder-puff down her nose, and after one moment of deliberation, has given precisely that red to her lips that the lips need. Susan, who feels scorn and fear at the sight of these preparations, fastens the top button of her coat, and unfastens it. What is she making ready for? For something, but something different.”

“They are saying to themselves,” said Louis, “‘it is time. I am still vigorous,’ they are saying, ‘My face shall be cut against the black of infinite space.’ They do not finish their sentence. ‘It is time,’ they keep saying.”

Life is pleasant; life is good; after Monday comes Tuesday and Wednesday follows Tuesday.

Yes, but after time with a difference. It may be that something in the look of the room one night, in the arrangement of the chairs, suggests it. […] Then it happens that two figures standing with their backs to the window appear against the branches of a spreading tree. With a shock of emotion one feels, ‘There are figures without features robed in beauty, doomed yet eternal.’

Now I will lean sideways as if to scratch my thigh. So I shall see Percival. There he sits, upright among the smaller fry. He breathes through his straight nose rather heavily. His blue, and oddly inexpressive eyes, are fixed with pagan indifference upon the pillar opposite. He would make an admirable churchwarden. He should have a birch and beat little boys for misdemeanors. He is allied with the Latin phrases on the memorial brasses. He sees nothing; he hears nothing. He is remote from us all in a pagan universe. But look—he flicks his hand at the back of his neck. For such gestures one falls hopelessly in love for a lifetime. Dalton, Jones, Edgar and Bateman flick their hands to the backs of their necks likewise. But they do not succeed.

If I could believe […] that I should grow old in pursuit and change, I should be rid of my fear: nothing persists. One moment does not lead to another. The door opens and the tiger leaps. […] I am afraid of the shock of sensation that leaps upon me, because I cannot deal with it as you do—I cannot make one moment merge in the next. To me they are all violent, all separate […] I do not know how to run minute to minute and hour to hour, solving them by some natural force until they make the whole and indivisible mass you call life. […] And I have no face. […] I am whirled down caverns, and flap like paper against endless corridors and must press my hand against the wall to draw myself back.

But I only come into existence when the plumber, or the horse-dealers, or whoever it may be, says something which sets me alight. Then how lovely the smoke of my phrase is, rising and falling, flaunting and falling, upon red lobsters and yellow fruit, wreathing them into one beauty. But observe how meretricious the phrase is—made up of what evasions and old lies. Thus my character is in part made of the stimulus which other people provide, and is not mine, as yours are. There is some fatal streak, some wandering and irregular vein of silver, weakening it. […] I went with the boasting boys with little caps and badges, driving off in big brakes—there are some here tonight, dining together, correctly dressed before they go off in perfect concord to the music hall; I loved them. For they bring me into existence as certainly as you do.

“By applying the standards of the West, by using the violent language that is natural to him, the bullock-cart is righted in less than five minutes. The Oriental problem is solved. he rides on; the multitude cluster round him, regarding him as if he were—what indeed he is—a God,” [said Bernard.]

“[…] and look—the outermost parts of the earth […] India for instance, rise into our purview. The world that had been shrivelled, rounds itself; remote provinces are fetched up out of darkness; we see muddy roads, twisted jungle, swarms of men, and the vulture that feeds on some bloated carcass as within our scope, part of our proud and splendid province, since Percival […] advances down a solitary path, has his camp pitched among desolate trees, and sits alone, looking at the enormous mountains.”

Yes, between your shoulders, over your heads, to a landscape […] to a hollow here many-backed steep hills come down like birds’ wings folded. There, on the short, firm turf, are bushes, dark leaved, and against their darkness, I see a shape, white, but not of stone, moving, perhaps alive. But it is not you, it is not you, it is not you; not Percival, Susan, Jinny, Neville, or Louis. […] It makes no sign, it does not beckon, it does not see us. Behind it roars the sea. It is beyond our reach. Yet there I venture. There I go to replenish my emptiness, to stretch my nights and fill them fuller and fuller with dreams. And for a second now, even here, I reach my object and say, ‘Wander no more. All else is trial and make-believe. Here is the end.’

But what are stories? Toys I twist, bubbles I blow, one ring passing through another. And sometimes I begin to doubt if there are stories. What is my story? What is Rhoda’s? What is Neville’s? There are facts, as, for example: ‘The handsome young man in the grey suit, whose reserve contrasted so strangely with the loquacity of the others, now brushed the crumbs from his waistcoat and, with a characteristic gesture at once commanding and benign, made a sign to the waiter, who came instantly and returned a moment later with the bill discreetly folded upon a plate.’ That is truth; that is the fact, but beyond it all is darkness and conjecture.

Percival, by his death, has made me this gift, let me see the thing. There is a square; there is an oblong. The players take the square and place it upon he oblong. They place it very accurately; they make a perfect dwelling-place. Very little is left outside. The structure is now visible; what is inchoate is here stated; we are not so various or mean; we have made oblongs and stood them upon squares. This is our triumph; this is our consolation.

“Yet, Louis,” said Rhoda, “how short a time silence lasts. Already they are beginning to smooth their napkins by the side of their plates. ‘Who comes?’ says Jinny; and Neville sighs, remembering that Percival comes no more. Jinny has taken out her looking-glass. Surveying her face like an artist, she draws powder-puff down her nose, and after one moment of deliberation, has given precisely that red to her lips that the lips need. Susan, who feels scorn and fear at the sight of these preparations, fastens the top button of her coat, and unfastens it. What is she making ready for? For something, but something different.”

“They are saying to themselves,” said Louis, “‘it is time. I am still vigorous,’ they are saying, ‘My face shall be cut against the black of infinite space.’ They do not finish their sentence. ‘It is time,’ they keep saying.”

Life is pleasant; life is good; after Monday comes Tuesday and Wednesday follows Tuesday.

Yes, but after time with a difference. It may be that something in the look of the room one night, in the arrangement of the chairs, suggests it. […] Then it happens that two figures standing with their backs to the window appear against the branches of a spreading tree. With a shock of emotion one feels, ‘There are figures without features robed in beauty, doomed yet eternal.’