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- Джон Фоулз
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The Magus
I
was
born
in
1927
,
the
only
child
of
middle
-
class
parents
,
both
English
,
and
themselves
born
in
the
grotesquely
elongated
shadow
,
which
they
never
rose
sufficiently
above
history
to
leave
,
of
that
monstrous
dwarf
Queen
Victoria
.
I
was
sent
to
a
public
school
,
I
wasted
two
years
doing
my
national
service
,
I
went
to
Oxford
;
and
there
I
began
to
discover
I
was
not
the
person
I
wanted
to
be
.
I
had
long
before
made
the
discovery
that
I
lacked
the
parents
and
ancestors
I
needed
.
My
father
was
,
through
being
the
right
age
at
the
right
time
rather
than
through
any
great
professional
talent
,
a
brigadier
;
and
my
mother
was
the
very
model
of
a
would
-
be
major
general
’
s
wife
.
That
is
,
she
never
argued
with
him
and
always
behaved
as
if
he
were
listening
in
the
next
room
,
even
when
he
was
thousands
of
miles
away
.
I
saw
very
little
of
my
father
during
the
war
,
and
in
his
long
absences
I
used
to
build
up
a
more
or
less
immaculate
conception
of
him
,
which
he
generally
—
a
bad
but
appropriate
pun
—
shattered
within
the
first
forty
-
eight
hours
of
his
leave
.
Like
all
men
not
really
up
to
their
jobs
,
he
was
a
stickler
for
externals
and
petty
quotidian
things
;
and
in
lieu
of
an
intellect
he
had
accumulated
an
armory
of
capitalized
key
words
like
Discipline
and
Tradition
and
Responsibility
.
If
I
ever
dared
—
I
seldom
did
—
to
argue
with
him
he
would
produce
one
of
these
totem
words
and
cosh
me
with
it
,
as
no
doubt
in
similar
circumstances
he
coshed
his
subalterns
.
If
one
still
refused
to
lie
down
and
die
,
he
lost
,
or
loosed
,
his
temper
.
His
temper
was
like
a
violent
red
dog
,
and
he
always
had
it
close
to
hand
.
The
wishful
tradition
is
that
our
family
came
over
from
France
after
the
Revocation
of
the
Edict
of
Nantes
—
noble
Huguenots
remotely
allied
to
Honoré
d
’
Urfe
,
author
of
the
seventeenth
-
century
bestseller
L
’
Astrée
.
Certainly
—
if
one
excludes
another
equally
unsubstantiated
link
with
Tom
Durfey
,
Charles
II
’
s
scribbling
friend
—
no
other
of
my
ancestors
showed
any
artistic
leanings
whatever
;
generation
after
generation
of
captains
,
clergymen
,
sailors
,
squirelings
,
with
only
a
uniform
lack
of
distinction
and
a
marked
penchant
for
gambling
,
and
losing
,
to
characterize
them
.
My
grandfather
had
four
Sons
,
two
of
whom
died
in
the
First
World
War
;
the
third
took
an
unsavory
way
of
paying
off
his
atavism
(
gambling
debts
)
and
disappeared
to
America
.
He
was
never
referred
to
as
still
existing
by
my
father
,
a
youngest
brother
who
had
all
the
characteristics
that
eldest
are
supposed
to
possess
;
and
I
have
not
the
least
idea
whether
he
is
still
alive
,
or
even
whether
I
have
unknown
cousins
on
the
other
side
of
the
Atlantic
.
During
my
last
years
at
school
I
realized
that
what
was
really
wrong
with
my
parents
was
that
they
had
nothing
but
a
blanket
contempt
for
the
sort
of
life
I
wanted
to
lead
.
I
was
"
good
"
at
English
,
I
had
poems
printed
pseudonymously
in
the
school
magazine
,
I
thought
D
.
H
.
Lawrence
the
greatest
human
being
of
the
century
;
my
parents
had
certainly
never
read
Lawrence
,
and
had
probably
never
heard
of
him
except
in
connection
with
Lady
Chatterley
’
s
Lover
.
There
were
things
,
a
certain
emotional
gentleness
in
my
mother
,
an
occasional
euphoric
jolliness
in
my
father
,
I
could
have
borne
more
of
;
but
always
I
liked
in
them
the
things
they
didn
’
t
want
to
be
liked
for
.
By
the
time
I
was
eighteen
and
Hitler
was
dead
they
had
become
mere
providers
,
for
whom
I
had
to
exhibit
a
token
gratitude
,
but
for
whom
I
couldn
’
t
feel
much
else
.
I
led
two
lives
.
At
school
I
got
a
small
reputation
as
a
wartime
aesthete
and
cynic
.
But
I
had
to
join
the
regiment
—
Tradition
and
Sacrifice
pressganged
me
into
that
.
I
insisted
,
and
luckily
the
headmaster
of
my
school
backed
me
,
that
I
wanted
to
go
to
university
afterwards
.
I
went
on
leading
a
double
life
in
the
Army
,
queasily
playing
at
being
Brigadier
"
Blazer
"
Urfe
’
s
son
in
public
,
and
nervously
reading
Penguin
New
Writing
and
poetry
pamphlets
in
private
.
As
soon
as
I
could
,
I
got
myself
demobilized
.
I
went
to
Oxford
in
1948
.
In
my
second
year
at
Magdalen
,
soon
after
a
long
vacation
during
which
I
hardly
saw
them
,
my
father
had
to
fly
out
to
India
.
He
took
my
mother
with
him
.
Their
plane
crashed
,
a
high
-
octane
pyre
,
in
a
thunderstorm
some
forty
miles
east
of
Karachi
.
After
the
first
shock
I
felt
an
almost
immediate
sense
of
relief
,
of
freedom
.
My
only
other
close
relation
,
my
mother
’
s
brother
,
farmed
in
Rhodesia
,
so
I
now
had
no
family
to
trammel
what
I
regarded
as
my
real
self
.
I
may
have
been
weak
on
filial
charity
,
but
I
was
strong
on
the
discipline
in
vogue
.
At
least
,
along
with
a
group
of
fellow
odd
men
out
at
Magdalen
,
I
thought
I
was
strong
in
the
discipline
.
