My Utopian Self - Page 2

conversation at that first encounter would do very little to
develop the Modern Utopia in my mind. Inevitably, it would be
personal and emotional. He would tell me how he stood in his world,
and I how I stood in mine. I should have to tell him things, I
should have to explain things----.

No, the conversation would contribute nothing to a modern
Utopia.

And so I leave it out.

--

Section 3.

But I should go back to my botanist in a state of emotional
relaxation. At first I should not heed the fact that he, too, had
been in some manner stirred. "I have seen him," I should say,
needlessly, and seem to be on the verge of telling the untellable.
Then I should fade off into: "It's the strangest thing."

He would interrupt me with his own preoccupation. "You know," he
would say, "I've seen someone."

I should pause and look at him.

"She is in this world," he says.

"Who is in this world?"

"Mary!"

I have not heard her name before, but I understand, of course, at
once.

"I saw her," he explains.

"Saw her?"

"I'm certain it was her. Certain. She was far away across those
gardens near here--and before I had recovered from my amazement she
had gone! But it was Mary."

He takes my arm. "You know I did not understand this," he says. "I
did not really understand that when you said Utopia, you meant I was
to meet her--in happiness."

"I didn't."

"It works out at that."

"You haven't met her yet."

"I shall. It makes everything different. To tell you the truth I've
rather hated this Utopia of yours at times. You mustn't mind my
saying it, but there's something of the Gradgrind----"

Probably I should swear at that.

"What?" he says.

"Nothing."

"But you spoke?"

"I was purring. I'm a Gradgrind--it's quite right--anything you can
say about Herbert Spencer, vivisectors, materialistic Science or
Atheists, applies without correction to me. Begbie away! But now you
think better of a modern Utopia? Was the lady looking well?"

"It was her real self. Yes. Not the broken woman I met--in the real
world."

"And as though she was pining for you."

He looks puzzled.

"Look there!" I say.

He looks.

We are standing high above the ground in the loggia into which our
apartments open, and I point across the soft haze of the public
gardens to a tall white mass of University buildings that rises with
a free and