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Perspectives on Development in the Middle East
and North Africa (MENA) Region

Hussein Solomon
Arno Tausch

Islamism,
Crisis and
Democratization
Implications of the World Values Survey
for the Muslim World
Perspectives on Development in the Middle
East and North Africa (MENA) Region

Series Editor
Almas Heshmati, Sogang University, Seoul, Korea (Republic of)
This book series publishes monographs and edited volumes devoted to studies on the
political, economic and social developments of the Middle East and North Africa
(MENA). Volumes cover in-depth analyses of individual countries, regions, cases
and comparative studies, and they include both a specific and a general focus on the
latest advances of the various aspects of development. It provides a platform for
researchers globally to carry out rigorous economic, social and political analyses, to
promote, share, and discuss current quantitative and analytical work on issues,
findings and perspectives in various areas of economics and development of the
MENA region. Perspectives on Development in the Middle East and North Africa
(MENA) Region allows for a deeper appreciation of the various past, present, and
future issues around MENA’s development with high quality, peer reviewed contri-
butions. The topics may include, but not limited to: economics and business, natural
resources, governance, politics, security and international relations, gender, culture,
religion and society, economics and social development, reconstruction, and Jewish,
Islamic, Arab, Iranian, Israeli, Kurdish and Turkish studies. Volumes published in
the series will be important reading offering an original approach along theoretical
lines supported empirically for researchers and students, as well as consultants and
policy makers, interested in the development of the MENA region.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13870

Hussein Solomon • Arno Tausch

Islamism, Crisis and

Democratization
Implications of the World Values Survey
for the Muslim World
Hussein Solomon Arno Tausch
University of the Free State University of Innsbruck
Bloemfontein, South Africa Innsbruck, Tirol, Austria

ISSN 2520-1239 ISSN 2520-1247 (electronic)

Perspectives on Development in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region
ISBN 978-3-030-22848-4 ISBN 978-3-030-22849-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22849-1

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the
material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
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the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2 Islam Is Religion and State? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2 Understanding Political Islam/Islamism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.3 Concluding Insights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3 “The Age of Ignorance” and the Civic Culture of Democracy:
A Multivariate Analysis Based on World Values Survey Data . . . . 23
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.2 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.2.1 The Perspectives of Economic Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.2.2 Measuring the Substance of the Islamist Analysis . . . . . . 28
3.2.3 Liberal Islam and the Civic Culture of Democracy . . . . . . 31
3.3 Methodology and Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.3.1 The Variables for the Factor Analytical Investigation . . . . 32
3.3.2 The Statistical Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.4 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.4.1 The Overall Picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.4.2 The Promax Factor Analytical Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.4.3 The Civic Culture of Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Statistical Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4 Islamism in Practice: Politicos in Power in Egypt,
Sudan and Turkey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

v
vi Contents

4.2 Egypt: Between the Ideal of Political Islam and the Reality of
Political Desolation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
4.3 Islamist Sudan: Growing Authoritarianism and Incompetence . . . 91
4.4 Turkey’s AKP’s Path from Moderation to Authoritarianism . . . . . 95
4.5 Concluding Insights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
5 Political Islam: Between Luther and Locke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.1 Drawing the Wrong Lessons? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.2 Reflecting on the Thesis of Islamic Exceptionalism . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5.3 A Muslim Martin Luther and an Islamic Reformation? . . . . . . . . 109
5.4 John Locke and an Islamic Restoration? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
5.5 Concluding Insights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
6 The Return of Religious Anti-Semitism? The Evidence from World
Values Survey Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
6.2 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
6.3 Materials and Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
6.4 Results from the Global Comparisons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
6.5 Results from the Promax Factor Analysis of World Values
Survey Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
6.6 Results from the Multiple Regression Analysis of World
Values Survey Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
6.7 Discussion on Other Drivers of Anti-Semitism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
6.8 Religion and Anti-Semitism: The Cross-National Evidence from
the ADL Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
6.9 Conclusions and Prospects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
7 Towards an Islamic Restoration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
7.2 Exploring Shari’a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
7.3 Examining the Hadith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
7.4 The Status of Non-Muslims Within an Islamic Polity . . . . . . . . . 172
7.5 Country Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
7.5.1 Tunisia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
7.5.2 Malaysia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
7.5.3 Indonesia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
7.5.4 Saudi Arabia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
7.6 Concluding Insights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Contents vii

8 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
8.2 Political Democratization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
8.3 The Role of Intellectual Dissidents and the Adoption of New
Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
8.4 Prioritizing Economic Growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
8.5 What the Empirics from Global Opinion Surveys Tell Us . . . . . . 193
8.6 Concluding Insights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Appendices: The Islamist Constraints Against Democracy in the MENA

Region. A Collection of Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Appendix A. Methods and Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Appendix B. World Values Survey Muslim Samples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Appendix C. Data Based on Various Surveys (ACRPS,
Arab Barometer, PEW . . .) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Appendix D. Terror Support Data and Iranian Regime Support Data from
Pew Research Global Attitudes Project Spring 2013 Dataset . . . . . . . . 208
Appendix E. Support for the Shari’a State Based on 2012 Pew—The
Worlds’ Muslims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Appendix F. World Values Survey Data on Global Muslims . . . . . . . . 217
Appendix G. World Values Survey Data on Occidentalism in the Muslim
World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

Further Sources and Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Index of Persons and Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Index of Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

List of Tables

Table 3.1 The Muslim samples and the general samples in the WVS . . . . . 33
Table 3.2 Muslim trust in the police . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Table 3.3 Muslim trust in the courts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Table 3.4 Muslims confronted by violent crime in their neighbourhoods . . . 44
Table 3.5 Global Muslim respondents answering the question of what is
justifiable in a society (scale ranging from 1, never, to 10,
always) ................................................................. 45
Table 3.6 The global factor analytical model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Table 3.7 Constructing an overcoming of Jahiliyyah Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Table 3.8 Overcoming of Jahiliyyah Index—global Muslim population . . . 49
Table 3.9 Overcoming of Jahiliyyah Index—global population . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Table 3.10 Comparisons of Muslims and non-Muslims in different
countries: overcoming of Jahiliyyah Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Table 3.11 Constructing a Civic Culture of Democracy Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Table 3.12 Muslim population—Civic Culture of Democracy Index . . . . . . . 53
Table 3.13 Global population—Civic Culture of Democracy Index . . . . . . . . 54
Table 3.14 The performance of Muslim communities compared to the total
country population—Civic Culture of Democracy Index . . . . . . . 56
Table 3.15 Factor structure matrix after promax rotation . .. . . .. . . . .. . . .. . . .. . 63
Table 3.16 Factor correlations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Table 3.17 Factor scores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Table 3.18 The value development indices of the overall population . . . . . . . 74
Table 3.19 The value development indices of the Muslim population . . . . . . 78
Table 3.20 Margins of error at 95% confidence level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Table 6.1 Percent of people saying that they reject to have a Jewish
neighbour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Table 6.2 Anti-Semitism by global denomination according to the World
Values Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

ix
x List of Tables

Table 6.3 Average Anti-Semitism (rejecting Jewish neighbours, scale

ranges from 0 to 1) according to the importance, attributed to
religion according to the World Values Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Table 6.4 Average Anti-Semitism (rejecting Jewish neighbours, scale
ranges from 0 to 1) according to the importance, attributed to
religion in major global denominations, according to the World
Values Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Table 6.5 Average other phobias (rejecting various types of neighbours,
scale ranges from 0 to 1) according to the importance, attributed
to religion by the global population, according to the World
Values Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Table 6.6 The variables of the promax factor analytical model . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Table 6.7 Total variance explained by the factor analytical model . .. . .. . .. 136
Table 6.8 The factor loadings of the factor analytical model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Table 6.9 Correlations between the factors . . .. . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . .. . 137
Table 6.10 Country factor scores of the analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Table 6.11 Social conditions working against Anti-Semitism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Table 6.12 Explaining global Anti-Semitism (rejection of Jewish
neighbours) according to the data of the World Values Survey by
multiple regression (standard OLS regression) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Table 6.13 Partial correlations with Anti-Semitism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Table 6.14 The drivers of global Anti-Semitism (ADL, 2014) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Table 6.15 The performance of different denominations in overcoming
Anti-Semitism—a global comparison, based on World Values
Survey data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Table 6.16 Left-right spectrum and the mean rejection rates of different
types of neighbours in the world system according to the World
Values Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Table 6.17 Margins of error at 95% confidence level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Table B.1 The Muslim samples in the World Values Survey, waves
1999–2014 . . .. . . .. . . . .. . . .. . . .. . . . .. . . .. . . . .. . . .. . . . .. . . .. . . . .. . . .. . . 205
Table C.1 ISIS/ISIL/Daesh support rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Table C.2 Supporting terror attacks against America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Table C.3 Supporting the Muslim brotherhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Table D.1 Suicide bombing/other forms of violence against civilian targets
are justified in order to defend Islam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Table D.2 Very favourable or somewhat favourable opinion of Hamas . . . 209
Table D.3 Very favourable or somewhat favourable opinion
of Hezbollah . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . 209
Table D.4 Very favourable or somewhat favourable opinion of al-Qaeda ... 210
Table D.5 Very favourable or somewhat favourable opinion of the
Taliban . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Table D.6 Islamic extremist groups are a minor threat or not a threat to the
country (countrywide data) . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . 210
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List of Tables xi

Table D.7 Unfavourable opinion of Israel (countrywide data) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

Table D.8 Iran’s nuclear program minor threat or not a threat to the country
(countrywide data) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Table E.1 Percentage favour making the Shari’a (Islamic law) the official
law of the land . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Table E.2 Percentage favour the death penalty for people who leave the
Muslim religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Table E.3 Percentage favour punishments like whippings and cutting off
of hands for crimes like theft and robbery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Table E.4 If a woman engages in premarital sex or adultery, it is often/
sometimes justified for family members to end her life in order
to protect the family’s honour (percentages in favour) . . . . . . . . . . 216
Table F.1 Percentage with a low satisfaction with life
(1–3 on a scale 1–10) . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . 217
Table F.2 Percentage with a low satisfaction with the financial situation of
the household (1–3 on a scale 1–10) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Table F.3 Percentage saying: not (very) important in life—Politics . . . . . . . 219
Table F.4 Percentage saying: not (very) important in life—Religion . . . . . . 220
Table F.5 Percentage not a member: religious organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Table F.6 Percentage not a member of a political party . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Table F.7 What democracy is all about (scales range from 1 to 10) . . . . . . . 223
Table F.8 Things done for reasons of security: carried a knife, gun or other
weapon (percentages) . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . 225
Table F.9 Percentage saying: justifiable—Violence against other people . . . 225
Table F.10 Percentage saying: on the whole, men make better political
leaders than women do . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Table F.11 Percentage saying it is justifiable for a man to beat his wife . . . . 227
Table F.12 Percentage would not like to have as neighbours: people of a
different religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Table F.13 Percentage (strongly) disagree: all religions should be taught in
public schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Table F.14 Meaning of religion: percentage say to follow religious norms
and ceremonies (vs to do good to other people) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Table F.15 Percentage (strongly) agree: the only acceptable religion is my
religion . .. . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . 231
Table G.1 Percentage Muslims rejecting neighbours of a different race . . . 232
Table G.2 Percentage Muslims rejecting neighbours: immigrants/foreign
workers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Table G.3 Percentage rejecting neighbours: people of a different religion . . . . 235
List of Graphs

Graph 6.1 The correlation between the WVS data on rejecting Jewish
neighbours and the ADL (2014) rates of Anti-Semitism. Note:
WVS scale ranging from 0.0 (¼0%) to 1.0 (¼100%) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Graph 6.2 The different phobias in the world system according to the left-
right political spectrum: rejecting to have different types of
neighbours according to respondents’ self-positioning on the left-
right political scale. Data from the World Values Survey . . . . . . . . 133
Graph 6.3 Factor loadings of Anti-Semitism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Graph 6.4 How the social conditions, defined by secularism, life satisfaction
and feminism, prevent Anti-Semitism. X-axis: Index of social
conditions preventing Anti-Semitism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Graph 6.5 The drivers of Anti-Semitism (t-test) . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . .. . . 146

xiii
List of Maps

Map 3.1 Global results for overcoming Jahiliyyah Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Map 3.2 Overcoming Jahiliyyah Index among global
Muslim communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Map 3.3 Where Muslim community overcoming Jahiliyyah is stronger or
weaker than that of overall society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Map 3.4 The civic culture of democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Map 3.5 The civic culture of democracy among global Muslim
communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Map 3.6 Where Muslim support for the civic culture of democracy is
stronger or weaker than that of overall society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Map 6.1 The ADL 100 scores of global societal Anti-Semitism. Highest:
Iraq; Yemen; Algeria; Libya and Tunisia; Lowest: Laos, the
Philippines, Sweden, the Netherlands and Vietnam . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . 127
Map 6.2 Secularism. Highest: Uruguay; Spain; Canada; Korea, South;
Bosnia; Lowest: Iraq; Egypt; Iran; Bangladesh; Zimbabwe . . . . . 140
Map 6.3 Life satisfaction. Highest: Canada; United States; Uruguay;
Spain; Chile; Lowest: Zimbabwe; Moldova; Iraq; Macedonia;
Albania . . .. . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . .. . . . . .. . . . 141
Map 6.4 Higher education younger generations. Highest: Korea, South;
Iran; Kyrgyzstan; Uganda; South Africa; Lowest: Uruguay;
Argentina; Spain; Chile; Zimbabwe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Map 6.5 Feminism. Highest: Canada; Zimbabwe; United States;
Argentina; Uganda; Lowest: Iraq; Bangladesh; Iran; Egypt;
Korea, South .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . 143
Map A.1 ISIL favourability. Data: Grinin, Korotayev, and Tausch (2018),
Tausch (2013, 2019), and Tausch and Heshmati (2013) . . . . . . . . . . 204

xv
Chapter 1
Introduction

Abstract The most recent terrifying month of global history, with the Christchurch
Mosque shootings of March 15, 2019, followed by the Sri Lanka Easter Sunday
Islamist bombings of April 21, 2019, and the Passover San Diego Synagogue
shooting of April 27, 2019 are a part of the never-ending spiral of terrorism which
brought a harvest of death also in the year 2019, and are a stark reminder to the
scholarly community, governments, security agencies, NGOs and the global public
at large to focus on the dynamics of these processes. The introduction to the present
book elaborates the background to the study and lists briefly the content of the seven
chapters.
The Islamist rejection of democracy, their intolerance and rejection of the pro-
verbial other, however, hardly suggests that the Islamist path would lead the Muslim
world out of the current morass they find themselves in.
The authors argue for a separation between religion and politics where political
elites do not seek legitimacy on religious grounds. Political democratization is not
possible unless intellectual dissidents are not only protected but also celebrated.
Liberalism and political openness, however, will not occur without economic
growth. As such business interests need to be accommodated at the political
bargaining table and the Muslim world will need to adopt new technologies and
invest in human capital and human development whilst creating the conditions for
the private sector to thrive.

Keywords Islamism · Terrorism · Muslim world · Political openness · Private sector

This book on Islamism, Crisis and Democratization: Implications of the World

Values Survey for the Muslim World is a joint continuation of research efforts,
which analysed the problem of Islamism from a similar and convergent perspective
in the past (Grinin, Korotayev, & Tausch, 2018; Hentz, & Solomon, 2018; Solomon,
2008, 2013, 2015, 2016; Tausch, 2009, 2017; Tausch, & Karoui, 2011; Tausch,
Heshmati, & Karoui, 2017).

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 1

H. Solomon, A. Tausch, Islamism, Crisis and Democratization, Perspectives on
Development in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22849-1_1
2 1 Introduction

The most recent terrifying month of global history, with the Christchurch Mosque
shootings of March 15, 2019,1 followed by the Sri Lanka Easter Sunday Islamist
bombings of April 21, 2019,2 and the Passover San Diego Synagogue shooting3 of
April 27, 2019 are a part of the never-ending spiral of terrorism which brought a
harvest of death also in 20194 and are a stark reminder to the scholarly community,
governments, security agencies, NGOs and the global public at large to focus on the
dynamics of these processes.5
There were 18,814 deaths from global terrorism in 2017. Despite its reduced
capacity, ISIL remained the deadliest terrorist group globally in 2017.6 In the MENA
region alone, there were 91,311 deaths from terrorism from 2002 to the end of 2017,
followed by 59,229 deaths in South Asia and 40,601 deaths in sub-Saharan Africa.7
During the same period, in the Asia-Pacific region, there were 6465 deaths from
terrorism, in Russia and Eurasia 3852, in Europe 2436, in South America 1658, in
North America 280 and in Central America and the Caribbean 184.8 After 2012, the
murderous share of the four most deadly Jihadist terrorist groups—Al-Shabaab,
Boko Haram, ISIL/Daesh and the Taliban—in global terrorist deaths rose dramati-
cally, reaching their peak in 2014.9
According to the study by Grinin et al. (2018) and Tausch (2017), there are at
least 5,042 monthly deaths from Islamist political violence on a global level, and
Islamist terrorism enjoys a considerable support among the general populations in
several key Muslim and especially MENA countries:
• In Egypt, Malaysia and Tunisia, more than 10% of the adult population support
suicide bombing and the following four terrorist organizations: Hamas;
Hezbollah; Al Qaeda; and the Taliban.
• In Indonesia and Jordan, there are 10% or more supporters of Hamas, Hezbollah
and Al Qaeda, and 10% or more of the resident population in addition support
either suicide bombing or the Taliban.

1
https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/christchurch-attack-new-zealand (accessed April 29, 2019).
2
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/sri-lanka-bombings-latest-updates-190421092621543.
html (accessed April 29, 2019).
3
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/28/san-diego-synagogue-shooting-attack-
based-religion/3608726002/ (accessed April 29, 2019).
4
https://www.apnews.com/Terroristattacks (accessed April 29, 2019).
5
https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en/ (accessed on April 29, 2019) and https://www.timesofisrael.
com/topic/anti-semitic-attacks/ (accessed April 29, 2019).
6
http://visionofhumanity.org/app/uploads/2018/12/Global-Terrorism-Index-2018-1.pdf (accessed
April 29, 2019).
7
http://visionofhumanity.org/app/uploads/2018/12/Global-Terrorism-Index-2018-1.pdf (accessed
April 29, 2019).
8
http://visionofhumanity.org/app/uploads/2018/12/Global-Terrorism-Index-2018-1.pdf (accessed
April 29, 2019).
9
http://visionofhumanity.org/app/uploads/2018/12/Global-Terrorism-Index-2018-1.pdf (accessed
April 29, 2019).
1 Introduction 3

• In Senegal and the Lebanon, 10% or more of the resident population support
Hamas and suicide bombing and in addition are in favour of either the Taliban or
Hezbollah.
• More than 10% of the resident population in Pakistan and Nigeria support Hamas
and Hezbollah. Of particular concern is also the radicalization of segments of the
Israeli Arab population, which supports to a rate of more than 10% Hamas and
Hezbollah. In the NATO member country Turkey, there are more than 10% of the
resident population which support suicide bombing and the Taliban.
• What’s more, a third or more of the resident population in key Western allies
think that Islamic extremist groups are a minor threat or not a threat to the
country: such rates were observed in Canada; Turkey; Czech Republic;
Australia; Poland; Greece; Germany; Japan; Britain; South Korea; Spain; and
the United States.
• Not only in many Muslim countries but also in NATO member states such as
Turkey, Greece, Spain, France, Germany, Italy and Poland, 50% or more of the
resident population hold an unfavourable opinion of the State of Israel.
• Iran’s nuclear programme is seen as constituting only a minor threat or not a
threat at all to the country by more than 1/3 of the resident population in key
Western allies: Canada; Turkey; Britain, the Czech Republic; Spain; Australia;
Germany; Japan; France; the United States; and Poland.
50% or more of the total resident population are in favour or strong favour of the
following measures:
• Shar’ia: Afghanistan; Iraq; West Bank and Gaza; Malaysia; Niger; Iran;
Pakistan; Morocco; Bangladesh; Egypt; Indonesia; Jordan; Algeria; Tunisia
• Death penalty for people who leave the Muslim religion: Egypt; Jordan;
Afghanistan; Pakistan; West Bank and Gaza; Algeria; Malaysia
• Punishments like whippings and cutting off of hands for crimes like theft and
robbery: Pakistan; Afghanistan; Algeria; Niger; West Bank and Gaza; Egypt;
Malaysia; Iraq; Jordan
• Stoning people who commit adultery: Afghanistan; Pakistan; West Bank and
Gaza; Egypt; Algeria; Niger; Jordan; Iraq; Bangladesh; Malaysia
33% or more of the total resident population are also in favour or strong favour
of the following measure:
• Honour killings (female offender): Lebanon; Egypt; Jordan; West Bank and
Gaza; Pakistan; Bangladesh; Niger
More than 20% of the respective Muslim population hold racist and xenophobic
attitudes:
Rejecting neighbour of a different race: Libya; Thailand; Bangladesh; West
Bank and Gaza; India; Lebanon; Saudi Arabia; Philippines; Turkey; Egypt;
Yemen; Jordan; Indonesia; Malaysia; Azerbaijan; Iran; Iraq; France; Kyrgyzstan;
Cyprus; Bosnia; Nigeria; Algeria; Uganda; Mali; Ghana
4 1 Introduction

Rejecting neighbours (immigrants/foreign workers): Thailand; Libya; Egypt;

Malaysia; Bangladesh; Jordan; India; West Bank and Gaza; Iraq; Lebanon;
Indonesia; Turkey; Montenegro; Iran; Cyprus; Saudi Arabia; France; Bosnia;
Kazakhstan; Azerbaijan; Kyrgyzstan; Singapore; South Africa; Pakistan; Algeria;
Nigeria; Mali; Bosnia; Yemen; Russia; Philippines; Serbia; Ghana
Rejecting neighbour of a different religion: Libya; Yemen; West Bank and
Gaza; India; Saudi Arabia; Bangladesh; Thailand; Jordan; Algeria; Kyrgyzstan;
Turkey; Azerbaijan; Indonesia; Lebanon; Iraq; Philippines; Malaysia; Tunisia;
Iran; Morocco; France; Nigeria; Cyprus; Ghana; Bosnia; Mali; Albania
Can the Open Society (Popper, 2012) of the Western world be silent about such
phenomena?
In Chap. 2, Islam Is Religion and State?, Hussein Solomon starts from the
assumption that the Muslim world is currently undergoing a political, social and
economic crisis. This is a truism which is acknowledged by Muslim scholars and
policy-makers. Islamists, those seeking to capture political power to legislate the
perfect Muslim, believe that this Muslim decline can only be reversed by creating a
polity which resembles that of the first Islamic state—that of seventh-century
Medina during the rule of the Prophet Muhammad. Despite sharing this common
goal, Islamists are divided into three groups on the basis of which tactics to employ
to achieve their common objective. Purists focus on non-violent methods of prop-
agation and education, whilst politicos enter the political space in an effort to
legislate “good” behaviour and sanction “bad” behaviour. Jihadists constitute the
final grouping, and they seek to topple the existing order through revolutionary
violence. The Islamist rejection of democracy, their intolerance and rejection of the
proverbial other, however, hardly suggests that the Islamist path would lead the
Muslim world out of the current morass they find themselves in.
In Chap. 3, “The Age of Ignorance” and the Civic Culture of Democracy: A
Multivariate Analysis Based on World Values Survey Data, Arno Tausch analyses
available global opinion data from the World Values Survey (WVS) project in
72 countries of the world, representing some 4/5 of the global population in the
context of debates about Islamism. The author turns in this chapter to the roots of the
Islamist ideology, which so forcefully expanded in the second half of the twentieth
century, and analyses key propositions of the writings of the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb
(1906–1966), who defined the conditions of our globe in terms of Jahiliyyah, which
touches upon issues well-known to contemporary global value research—the rejec-
tion of traditional values relating to family and society combined with the margin-
alization of religion. When Qutb talks about the “pagan” and “materialistic Greek
culture”, which—according to him—began to dominate the West, and when he talks
about Western religion as being isolated in the sentiments of people’s hearts and
souls, and when he talks about the West as being materialistic and morally
exhausted, his analyses render themselves open to the objective analysis of global
opinion data in the context of the World Values Survey project. Neoliberal political
economy in the tradition of Hayek maintained for a long time that the disrespect of
property rights and traditional family values can have disastrous social and economic
effects. The study renders support for this theory: based on a variety of statistical
1 Introduction 5

analyses, including a factor analysis of 45 key items from the WVS data, Tausch
concludes that the disrespect of property rights and traditional family values,
analysed by Hayek, emerge as the major drivers of social decay. The combination
of the “Egyptian plagues” of the erosion of religion and the decay of the disrespect of
property rights and family values is especially strong in the countries of the MENA
region.
In Chap. 4, Islamism in Practice: Politicos in Power in Egypt, Sudan and Turkey,
Hussein Solomon asks the question: How do Islamists govern when capturing
political power? Do their Islamist nirvana meet the basic needs of their citizens? Is
the cause of political freedom advanced with the assumption of the reins of political
power? In each case the answer is decidedly negative. Examining three country case
studies—Egypt, Sudan and Turkey—the chapter examines how Islamists in these
countries managed to destroy any prospects of democratization in each country
through their centralization of power. In the case of Egypt, this power was central-
ized in the office of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide. In the case of Sudan,
power was centralized in the hands of the military as Islamists joined forces with the
men in uniform in 1969 and 1989 as they staged coups. In the case of Turkey, power
was centralized in the hands of first Prime Minister and then President Erdogan.
Moreover, in each case the socio-economic circumstances of citizens deteriorated
under Islamist rule. Patronage networks, nepotism, corruption and general incom-
petence came to characterize their rule. All this served to undermine economic
growth and service delivery. Their attempt to Islamize society more only served to
alienate the local population. Both Egypt’s President Morsi and Sudan’s Al-Bashir
were ousted as a result of popular protests, and Erdogan’s era is rapidly coming to an
end in Turkey.
In Chap. 5, Political Islam: Between Luther and Locke, Hussein Solomon starts
from the diagnosis of the poor performance of Islamists once in power together with
the failed Arab Spring protests which resulted in some scholars positing the Islamic
exceptionalism thesis. According to this, Muslim societies are unique in their
inherent rejection of modernity, democracy and secularism. Flowing from the
Islamic exceptionalism thesis is the argument that Islam itself needs to be reformed.
Rejecting such a position, this chapter argues that one needs to make a distinction
between the political aspects of Islam and the distorted view of the faith as promoted
by Islamists. What is needed is not an Islamic Reformation, but reformation of
Muslim interpretations of Islamic teachings. Surveys have also demonstrated that
Muslims desire to be both religiously observant and politically free. Drawing from
the works of John Locke, Alfred Stepan and Juan Linz, the chapter argues that a
polity is possible which is both Islamic and democratic. What is key to realize this
happy outcome is what Alfred Stepan refers to as the “twin tolerations”. Recognizing
that secularism has little appeal in the Muslim world and that it hardly exists in the
West, what is needed is significant institutional differentiation between religious
establishment and the political sphere.
In Chap. 6, The Return of Religious Anti-Semitism? The Evidence from World
Values Survey Data, Arno Tausch addresses the return of religious Anti-Semitism by
a multivariate analysis of global opinion data from 28 countries. For the lack of any
6 1 Introduction

available alternative, the author used the World Values Survey (WVS) Anti-
Semitism study item: rejection of Jewish neighbours. It is closely correlated with
the recent ADL-100 Index of Anti-Semitism for more than 100 countries. To test the
combined effects of religion and background variables like gender, age, education,
income and life satisfaction on Anti-Semitism, Tausch applied the full range of
multivariate analysis including promax factor analysis and multiple OLS regression.
Although religion as such still seems to be connected with the phenomenon of Anti-
Semitism, intervening variables such as restrictive attitudes on gender and the
religion-state relationship play an important role. Western Evangelical and Oriental
Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism are performing badly on this account,
and there is also a clear global North-South divide for these phenomena. Challenging
patriarchic gender ideologies and fundamentalist conceptions of the relationship
between religion and state, which are important drivers of Anti-Semitism, will be
an important task in the future. Multiculturalism must be aware of prejudice,
patriarchy and religious fundamentalism in the global South.
Chapter 7, Towards an Islamic Restoration, written by Hussein Solomon, exam-
ines the underlying theological justification for it as well as how it might be
practically manifested in specific Muslim-majority countries. Utilizing insights of
ijtihad, the chapter notes that shari’a is far more nuanced than Islamists would have
us believe and creates the conditions for legal pluralism. This legal pluralism is seen
in the contending schools of jurisprudence in Islam as well as the fact that shari’a
exists on two levels—siyasa and fiqh. Whilst fiqh constitutes the interpretation of
legal scholars, siyasa belongs in the realm of the state. The primary purpose of such
state law is the public good of all the country’s citizens. Such law is pragmatic and is
not necessarily sourced from the Qur’an or hadith. As such, it is infinitely possible
for a country to be Islamic without even being inhabited by a majority of Muslims.
The chapter then goes on to examine four country case studies. Three of these—
Tunisia, Malaysia and Indonesia—are attempting to promote an Islam which is both
emancipatory and forward-looking. The fourth country case study, Saudi Arabia,
however, seems to be undertaking superficial reforms for the purpose of public
relations in an effort to endear it with the West and for the Crown Prince to
consolidate his diminishing political power.
Given the challenges confronting the Muslim world, how is it expected to be true
to its Islamic faith whilst embracing modernity, liberalism and economic growth
whilst halting the spread of Islamism? The Conclusion, written by Hussein Solomon
and Arno Tausch, argues for a separation between religion and politics where
political elites do not seek legitimacy on religious grounds. The chapter also argues
that where Islamist parties seek to enter the political sphere, state authorities and the
general public need to ensure that these do not only engage in behavioural moder-
ation but also ideological moderation. Moreover, political democratization is not
possible unless intellectual dissidents are not only protected but also celebrated.
Liberalism and political openness, however, will not occur without economic
growth. As such business interests need to be accommodated at the political
bargaining table, and the Muslim world will need to adopt new technologies and
Literature 7

invest in human capital and human development whilst creating the conditions for
the private sector to thrive.
The final Appendix (The Islamist Constraints Against Democracy in the MENA
Region: A Collection of Data) presents the most important World Values Survey and
other opinion data on the issues dealt with in this volume.
Work on this volume ended on May 8, 2019. If not specified otherwise, all
electronic links were rechecked by the end of April 2019.

Literature

Grinin, L., Korotayev, A., & Tausch, A. (2018). Islamism, Arab spring, and the future of democ-
racy: World system and world values perspectives (perspectives on development in the Middle
East and North Africa (Mena) region). Cham: Springer.
Hentz, J., & Solomon, H. (Eds.). (2018). Understanding Boko haram: Terrorism and insurgency in
Africa (contemporary terrorism studies). London: Routledge.
Popper, K. S. (2012). The open society and its enemies. London: Routledge.
Solomon, H. (2008). Challenges to global security: Geopolitics and power in an age of transition
(Toda institute book series on global peace and policy, 2). London: I.B. Tauris.
Solomon, H. (2013). Jihad: A South African perspective. Bloemfontein: Sun Media Bloemfontein.
Solomon, H. (2015). Terrorism and counter-terrorism in Africa: Fighting insurgency from al
Shabaab, Ansar dine and Boko haram (new security challenges). Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Solomon, H. (2016). Islamic state and the coming global confrontation. Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Tausch A. (2017, January 12). Occidentalism, terrorism, and the Shari’a state: New multivariate
perspectives on Islamism based on international survey data. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.
com/abstract¼2731640 or https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2731640.
Tausch, A. (2009). What 1.3 billion Muslims really think: An answer to a recent Gallup study,
based on the World Values Survey. New York: Nova Science.
Tausch, A., & Karoui, H. (2011). Les musulmans un cauchemar ou une force pour l’europe?
(Histoire et perspectives méditerranéennes). Paris: L’Harmattan.
Tausch, A., Heshmati, A., & Karoui, H. (Eds.). (2017). The political algebra of global value
change: General models and implications for the Muslim world (economic issues, problems and
perspectives). New York: Nova Science.
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Chapter 2
Islam Is Religion and State?

Abstract The Muslim world is currently undergoing a political, social and eco-
nomic crisis. This is a truism which is acknowledged by Muslim scholars and policy-
makers. Islamists, those seeking to capture political power to legislate the perfect
Muslim, believe that this Muslim decline can only be reversed by creating a polity
which resembles that of the first Islamic state—that of seventh-century Medina
during the rule of the Prophet Muhammad. Despite sharing this common goal,
Islamists are divided into three groups on the basis of which tactics to employ to
achieve their common objective. Purists focus on non-violent methods of propaga-
tion and education, whilst politicos enter the political space in an effort to legislate
“good” behaviour and sanction “bad” behaviour. Jihadists constitute the final group-
ing, and they seek to topple the existing order through revolutionary violence. The
Islamist rejection of democracy, their intolerance and rejection of the proverbial
other, however, hardly suggests that the Islamist path would lead the Muslim world
out of the current morass they find themselves in.

Keywords Islamists · Democracy · Violence · Tolerance · Muslim world

2.1 Introduction

The sorry state that the Muslim world finds itself has increasingly attracted the
attention of Muslim scholars, the political class and the ordinary man and woman.
Muqtedar Khan and Tahir Shad begin their article with this truism, “The political
reality of many countries in the Muslim world is untenable and reforms and change
is absolutely necessary” (Khan and Shad, 2017). The untenable nature of the
political reality afflicting Muslim state and society is evident in any Freedom
House, Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch Report. Political freedom
has been jettisoned in favour of some form of authoritarian regime. Indeed, recent
research undertaken by John Walker highlights this truism. Muslims make up 80%
or more of the populace in 36 countries worldwide. Of these Walker notes only two

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 9

H. Solomon, A. Tausch, Islamism, Crisis and Democratization, Perspectives on
Development in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22849-1_2
10 2 Islam Is Religion and State?

are ranked as free according to Freedom House’s definition which includes respect
for political rights and civil liberties (Walker, 2015). Human rights abuses are the
norm as opposed to the exception in the Muslim world. The brutal killing and
dismemberment of renowned Saudi journalist and critic of the Saudi govern-
ment—Jamal Khashoggi—on 2 October 2018 in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul
emphasize the point (BBC, 2018).
This decay in the Muslim world will be explored more in depth in the next
chapter, but it is a phenomenon which Muslim politicians were also compelled to
confront. Already in 1994, Anwar Ibrahim, then Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia,
presented a lecture at Georgetown University where he admitted that “. . . ignorance,
injustice, corruption, hypocrisy and the erosion of moral rectitude are quite prevalent
in contemporary Muslim societies” (Manji, 2013). A decade later, then Pakistani
President, Pervez Musharraf decried the state of the ummah (global community of
Muslims) when he asserted that Muslims today, “. . . are the poorest, the most
illiterate, the most backward, the most unhealthy, the most unenlightened, the
most deprived, and the weakest of all the human race” (ibid, 2013). There are
unfortunately copious amounts of evidence to support such a bleak assessment.
Hillel Ofek notes that whilst there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, only two
scientists from Muslim countries won Nobel Prizes for science. This was in 1979 and
1999 for physics and chemistry, respectively. Perhaps even more to the point,
46 Muslim countries combined contribute a mere 1% of the planet’s scientific
literature (Ofek, 2011).
The burden of this miserable state of affairs is felt most acutely by the man and
woman on the street in the Muslim world. As she demonstrated in Tahrir Square,
Caro, in 2011, 24-year-old Noha Hamed, a worker in an advertising agency, made
clear her views about the corrupt ancien regime of Hosni Mubarak: “We are
suffering from corruption, oppression and bad education. We are living amid a
corrupt system which has to change” (Acemoglu and Robinson, 2013). Her
comrade-in-arms on that sweltering day was 20-year-old pharmacy student, Mosaab
El Shami who expressed the hope that, “. . .by the end of the year we will have an
elected government and that universal freedoms are applied and that we put an end to
the corruption that has taken over this country” (ibid, 2013). Noha Hamed and
Mosaab El Shami got their wish when Egypt’s latter-day pharaoh was forced to
resign in February 2011. However, their nightmare of oppression and corruption
continues. The Muslim Brotherhood’s incompetent and authoritarian rule was
quickly followed by the recapture of the Egyptian state by the men in uniform.
The dearth of democracy in much of the Muslim world raises serious questions as
to whether Islam is indeed compatible with tenets of liberal democracy like toler-
ance, pluralism, rule of law and most importantly secularism. The common refrain
by Islamists that Islam is religion and state (Islam din wa-dawla) certainly seems to
undermine any attempt at a rapprochement between Islam as faith and democratic
governance (Hirsckind, 1997; The Economist, 2017).
There has certainly been a resurgence of Islamism since the twentieth century
with the establishment of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, the Iranian
revolution of 1979, the establishment of the Shia militant Hezbollah in Lebanon in
2.2 Understanding Political Islam/Islamism 11

1985, Hamas in the Palestinian territories in 1987, the Taliban in Afghanistan and
Pakistan, Al Qaeda, Islamic State and various regional groupings like Boko Haram
in Nigeria and Al Shabaab in Somalia. Despite their tactics and ideological differ-
ences—Shia or Sunni—all these groups have two issues in common. First, they all
share a certain telos or end-state—one which resembles the first Islamic state that of
seventh-century Medina during the rule of the Prophet Muhammad (Wickham,
2004). As a concomitant of this, all Islamist groups seek to capture political power
in an effort to legislate the perfect Muslim. This emphasis on the organs of state
power is problematic in an age where one has witnessed the steady erosion of the
state because of processes of globalization and technological advances (Van
Creveld, 2002). Perhaps, this was the reason for the Qur’an to lay greater emphasis
on the concept of the ummah (the global body of Muslims) as opposed to focusing on
governance within the territorial boundaries of a supposed nation-state.
Second, these Islamists share a rejection that any separation can exist between
religion and faith and a rejection of democracy. For Islamists, Islam transcends the
confines of a religion and also constitutes a political, economic and social system
(Osman, 2017). This God-given system of governance takes precedence over any
man-made creation, such as democracy. Democracy, with its inherent popular
sovereignty, in their estimation is a sin since God is supposed to the source of all
authority (hakimiyya)—not the people (Kazmi, 2017). The government exists to
fulfil God’s edicts and not to govern on the basis of any social contract. This book
rejects such a position and argues that traditional Islam is perfectly compatible with
the tenets of liberal democracy. It justifies such a position not only theologically but
also providing practical case studies demonstrating this truism. Indeed, it holds that
the Islamist position itself is untenable in the light of the Qur’an and Islamic practice.
In doing so, it argues that the Islamist position itself is un-Islamic and impractical to
realize. What follows next is a critical exploration of the Islamist position.

2.2 Understanding Political Islam/Islamism

Political Islam or Islamism has been described by Zeynep Kuru and Ahmet Kuru
(2008) as “. . . an ideology that emerged in the twentieth century in reaction to
colonialism and modernization. Political Islamism aims to create an ‘Islamic state’
ruled according to the Shari’a. Although political Islamist movements can be
characterized as part of the Islamic religious resurgence, these movements are
primarily political. Political Islamists regard the foundation of the Islamic state as
the sine qua non for the attainment of a complete Muslim life. The key ideological
components of the political Islamists programme are: taking the Quran as the source
of political, legal and social systems; and claiming to return to the example of the
Prophet Muhammad”.
Whilst agreeing on these core aspects, Islamists are divided into three major
factions, according to Quintan Wiktorowicz (2006), on account of their differences
on tactics to be adopted. Purists focus on non-violent methods of daw’ah
12 2 Islam Is Religion and State?

(propagation) and education to connect more people to the Islamist ideal. At the
same time, they shun political participation, viewing it as deviant. The second group,
or politicos, seek to participate in the political arena, believe this route to bring about
social justice and to legislate good behaviour and sanction bad behaviour. Purists
and politicos view the process of Islamizing society as evolutionary. The final group
consists of the jihadists who adopt a more revolutionary approach, believing that the
current status quo can be toppled through violence (Wiktorowicz, 2006). In practice,
these demarcations between the groups tend to be fluid. Egypt’s Muslim Brother-
hood, ostensibly a politico organization, had an armed wing in the 1930s and 1940s.
Following a harsh government crackdown, they chose a political path (Simcox,
2017). In 2014, however, the Egyptian government reported that the Muslim Broth-
erhood had reactivated its armed wing, killing five policemen in one attack (Reuters,
2014). In the same vein, the line with purists and jihadists are also porous. Consider
Tableegh Jamaat which is active in 150 countries and has 80 million active fol-
lowers, making it the largest Muslim proselytizing organization in the world (Burton
and Stewart, 2008). Despite its proselytizing focus, however, various scholars have
commented on the organization’s proximity to jihadist groups. Alex Alexiev (2005)
writes:
After joining Tableegh Jamaat groups at a local mosque or Islamic centre and doing a few
local dawa (proselytism) missions, Tablighi officials invite star recruits to the Tablighi centre
in Raiwind, Pakistan, for four months additional training. Representatives of terrorist
organizations approach the students at the Raiwind centre and invite them to undertake
military training. Most agree to do so.

Given the porous nature of the borders between these three groups of Islamists,
this chapter will provide an understanding of the overall Islamist ideology as
opposed to focusing on individual groups of Islamists. Given the central thrust of
Islam and democratization pertinent to this volume, however, a subsequent chapter
will focus exclusively on the politicos within the Islamist current.
The Islamic tradition of tolerance has been increasingly displaced by what Abdul
Hadi Palazzi (2001) terms “Islamism” or political Islam with its obsession regarding
the capture of political power. Islamism is a twentieth-century totalitarian ideology
that seeks to mould Islamic religious tradition to serve narrow political ends of
domination. Khaled Abou El Fadl (2005) also refers to this as a “puritanical”
tradition within Islam noted for its “fanatical reductionism and narrow-minded
literalism”. Whilst having been moulded and coming together as a somewhat
coherent ideology in the twentieth century, its theological roots ostensibly go all
the way back to the thirteenth century to the time of Ahmad Ibn Taymiyyah
(1263–1328 CE) (Laqueur, 2004). As with other totalitarian ideologies of that
blighted century, Islamism shares more characteristics with Nazism and Fascism
than it does with the Qur’anic teachings alluded to earlier. Islamism capitalizes on
feelings of humiliation and powerlessness that Muslims started feeling in the early
twentieth century with Western encroachment and colonialism, the dismantlement of
the Ottoman caliphate and the economic backwardness of their societies in relation
2.2 Understanding Political Islam/Islamism 13

to their Western counterparts (The Economist, 2017). In an audiotape released

following 9/11, then Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden proudly declared:
Here is America struck by God Almighty in one of its vital organs, so that its greatest
buildings are destroyed. Grace and Gratitude to God. America has been filled with horror
from north to south and east to west, and thanks be to God. What America is tasting now is
only a copy of what we have tasted. Our Islamic nation has been tasting the same for more
than 80 years of humiliation and disgrace. Its son killed and the blood spilled, its sanctities
desecrated. (The New York Times, 2001)

As with other totalitarian ideologies, Islamists do not tolerate difference or accept

the proverbial “other”. Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792 CE) famously
declared all those who did not conform to his purist vision of Islam to be apostates
and worthy of death (Armstrong, 2000). The self-styled Islamic State has continued
this Wahhabist tradition with labelling fellow Muslims as apostates before executing
them (The Economist, 2017). Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, the president of Zaytuna
College, a Muslim liberal arts college in California, has taken issue with the
relevance of apostasy laws in the twenty-first century. He notes that such laws did
not only exist in Islam but in early Christianity, too. Moreover, it was specifically
meant to protect the faith at a time when Islam was threatened and serve no other
purpose today than to drive people away from Islam (Dajani, 2015). The head of
Egypt’s esteemed Al-Azhar University, Grand Sheikh Ahmed Al Tayyeb, in the
same vein, argued that Islamists are using the death for apostasy religious decree
( fatwa) by Ibn Taymiyyah who was writing within the context of a bloody conflict
between Muslims and Tatar groups. As Muslims are no longer confronted with such
an existential crisis, he argues, this fatwa is no longer applicable (ibid, 2015).
A visceral intolerance towards dissent against established dogmas and the pro-
verbial other lay at the heart of this brutality. It was also vividly portrayed when the
Taliban desecrated the giant Buddhas that were sculpted out of the walls of
Afghanistan’s mountains between the third and fourth centuries (Meddeb, 2003).
It is also seen in the desecration of Sufi shrines in northern Mali, Somalia and Nigeria
as well as the repeated attacks on churches in Egypt, Pakistan and Indonesia.
Intolerance is also seen in the virulent anti-Semitism of Islamists—another charac-
teristic they share with the Nazis. Notions of Jews controlling the world feature
prominently in their discourse as a perusal of the Hamas Covenant will testify to. The
Hamas Covenant seeks to fuse militant nationalism with violent Islamism and
bizarre conspiracy theories. As with other Islamists, peace is jettisoned in favour
of violence. This is explicitly articulated in Article 13 of the Covenant:
Peace initiatives, the so-called peaceful solution, and the international conferences to resolve
the Palestinian problems are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement
. . . There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. The initiatives, proposals
and International Conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility. The Palestinian
people are too noble to have their future, their rights and their destiny to be submitted to a
vain game. (Laqueur, 2004)

Anti-Semitism and an Islamist view of history from Article 22 of the Covenant

provide interesting insights into the mindset of Hamas as an organization. Here we
are told that Jewish capital controls much of the world and that the Jews were behind
14 2 Islam Is Religion and State?

the French Revolution of 1789, the Russian Revolution of 1917, as well as the First
and Second World Wars. Moreover, the Hamas Covenant tells us that Jews had set
up freemasonry, Rotary Clubs and Lion Clubs as destructive spying agencies
(ibid, 2004).
Together with this rancid paranoia, discussion, dialogue and open debate are
anathema to Islamists. Maulana Abul Ala-Maududi (1903–1979 CE) the founder of
the Jamaat-e-Islami organization in Pakistan and the ideological father of the Taliban
movement in Pakistan is perhaps the best exemplar on the use of force and coercion
to dealing with difference. He had this to say, “. . . force may be used, in fact should
be used to prevent people from doing wrong. Non-Muslim countries and cultures
cannot be allowed to practice immoral deeds” (Ahmad, 1989). What is important to
note here is the emphasis on non-Muslim countries and societies. Indeed, Maududi
himself was to call for a universal jihad. In this Islamists, too, share another
characteristic with the Communists, Fascists and Nazis of the past—that of global
domination (Phares, 2007). Maududi argued that “Islam does not want to bring about
the revolution in one country or a few countries. It wants to spread it to the entire
world. Although it is the duty of the Muslim Party to bring this revolution first to its
own nation, its ultimate goal is world revolution” (Ahmad, 1989).
Whilst ostensibly a wholly authentic Islamic movement, Islamism borrows
extensively from radical Western ideologies. This prompted Pankaj Mishra to refer
to Maududi’s Islamist movement as, “the first Leninist-style revolutionary vanguard
party anywhere in the Islamic world” (Ruthven, 2017). Notions of a vanguard party
also come with its own baggage. In this case it is the centralizing, authoritarian
tendencies displayed by Islamists—seeking to monopolize all power whilst stifling
dissent. Imbued with the arrogance of those who believe that they speak on behalf of
God, these Islamists “. . .presenting [themselves] as an avant-garde aiming to con-
quer power and denying legitimacy of all other parties” (ibid, 2017). This is hardly
surprising given the fact that Islamism show scant regard to democratic institutions.
The Islamist Hezbi-Islami (Party of Islam), for instance, argue that “. . . parliaments
and other democratic institutions are clear and obvious forms of disbelief and of
shirk, or setting up rivals of Allah (by ascribing legislative power to people) and an
unforgiveable sin and a contradiction of the purpose of creation” (Benard, 2003). As
strongly worded, as this statement is, it is fundamentally un-Islamic as will be
explained later in this book.
Maududi’s works were to have a major impact on Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini who
translates it from its original Urdu into Persian (Benard, 2003). Whilst Maududi’s
writings were to heavily influence militant Shia thought through Khomeini, it was
among his fellow Sunni Muslims where his thoughts were to find deep resonance.
The reason was that the Sunni Muslim world for much of the twentieth century was
awash with totalitarian ideologies given the emasculation and resentment they felt
towards colonialism, technological backwardness, their interactions with Western
totalitarian ideologies, the various Arab-Israel wars and the penchant of the West to
overthrow leaders they did not like as happened to Iranian Prime Minister Mossadeq
in 1953 (The Guardian, 2013). As such, when Maududi musings were a product of
and built on previous Islamist works such as that of the Egyptian Hassan al-Banna
2.2 Understanding Political Islam/Islamism 15

(1906–1949), founder and Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, “It is the
nature of Islam to dominate and not to be dominated, to impose its laws on all nations
and to extend its power to the entire planet” (Post, 2007).
Like Fascism and Nazism and Marxism-Leninism, Islamism is utopian (Palazzi,
2001). Islamists put forth a vision of an ideal society drawing inspiration from an
idealized seventh-century Arabia which is more the result of myth than the product
of historical fact. Consider the myth around the so-called rashidun—the four rightly
guided caliphs—to succeed the Prophet Muhammad. What Islamists politely omit in
their discussion of the reign of the first four caliphs is the fact that three of the four
caliphs were assassinated and that nepotism, political unrest and outright civil war
plagued their reign (Armstrong, 2000). Despite their historically fallacious views,
Islamists attempt to recreate their seventh-century nirvana and refer to themselves as
salafis. The word salaf essentially refers to the first companions of the Prophet
Muhammad. This is the hubris which only the true believer can conjure up. Salafis
believe that only by emulating every detail of governance and lifestyle of the first
generation of Muslims can a Muslim life be truly lived (Wiktorowicz, 2006). Living
in the twenty-first century whilst seeking seventh-century governance, of course,
throws up enormous practical challenges! Consider the fact that the population in
Medina, the first Islamic state, was between 600 and 1500 (Misra, 2011). Compare
this with today’s Muslim populations—229 million Muslims in Indonesia, 189 Mus-
lims in India, 96 million Muslims in Nigeria, 82 million Muslims in Iran and
32 million Muslims in Saudi Arabia. Even non-Muslim Japan hosts 185,000 Mus-
lims (Wikipedia, 2019)! How can a polity of a few hundred be governed in the same
manner as that of Indonesia with a quarter of a billion? The short answer is that it
cannot do so. Unfortunately, because human reason is rejected to interpret the faith
by Salafists (Wiktorowicz, 2006), they will continue to attempt to squeeze round
pegs into square holes. The second major challenge confronting such Salafis is the
fact that the state no longer holds sway like it once did. With globalization, state
power is steadily being eroded.
As with other totalitarian ideologies, Islamists are quite adept at blaming others
for their problems. It hardly needs reminding that the Muslim world was already in
decline by the time Napoleon entered Egypt in the eighteenth century. Indeed, it was
precisely because of their internal decay that allowed much of the Muslim world to
be colonized so speedily. More contemporaneously, this attitude is seen in Islamists
refusing to take responsibility for the ills of their own country or region and prefer
conspiracy theories such as the West wanting to undermine Islamic nations. As
Thomas Friedman put it so succinctly, “Is it America’s fault that Korea had the same
per capita income in the 1950s as many Arab states but Korea has managed its
development so much better since that it now dwarfs all Arab economies” (Fried-
man, 2003). This is indeed the core of the problem of Islamists. We know what they
are against (almost everything) but what are they for? Whilst there are calls for an
intifada for an independent Palestine, but what should an independent Palestine look
like? For that matter, what about an intifada for women’s rights, democratic gover-
nance, press freedom and an end to nepotism and corruption, cronyism and the
persecution of minorities in Muslim countries?
16 2 Islam Is Religion and State?

Coupled with their desire to not look at their own warts, Islamists also betray a
selective amnesia of history. When looking at the glory days of Muslim influence on
world history, they tend to omit the fact that this period also coincided with a period
when the Muslim world was at its most open—not closed. As Friedman again notes,
“The Muslim world reached the zenith of its influence in the Middle Ages—when it
preserved the best of classical Greek and Roman teachings, and inspired break-
throughs in mathematics, science, medicine and philosophy. That is also when Islam
was at its most open to the world, when it enriched, and was enriched by the
Christian, Greek and Jewish communities in its midst” (Friedman, 2003). A similar
case of historical amnesia is Osama bin Laden’s lament of the passing of the
Ottoman caliphate. However, the Ottoman caliphate was derived less from Islamic
principles and more on the Byzantine model of absolute monarchy (Armstrong,
2000). Moreover, the Ottoman Empire actually separates mosque and state in their
governance. Interestingly, this has its origins in the Christian tradition which the
Ottoman liberally borrowed from. When posed a question, the biblical tradition tell
us that Jesus responding by enjoining Christians to “. . .render unto Caesar the things
which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things which are God’s” (The Holy Bible,
2017). In a dispute with the Patriarch of Constantinople, the Emperor Justinian
(518–527 CE) used this biblical verse in his letter addressed to the Patriarch where
the separation between the sacred and the profane was made clear. In the letter,
Emperor Justinian states:
The greatest blessings of mankind are the gifts of God which have been granted us by the
mercy on high—the priesthood and the imperial authority. The priesthood ministers to things
divine; the imperial authority is set over, and show diligence in, things human; but proceed
from one and the same source, and both adorn the life of men. (Lewis, 1995)

When the Muslim Turks conquered Constantinople, they imbibed much of this
separation between church/mosque and state from this Justinian tradition (ibid,
1995). Given these historical facts, bin Laden’s obsession for Islamist Ottoman
caliphate makes absolutely no sense.
Despite their affinity to the caliphate, Islamists would do well to recall the sagely
words of Sheikh Abd al-Raziq, “The caliphate was not only neglected by the Quran,
which never so much as evoked it, but also by the Sunna which does not mention it at
all” (Meddeb, 2003). Despite the fact that the institution of caliphate was not
mandated by God, Mustafa Akyol argues that “traditional Muslim thought regarded
it as an inherent part of Islam, unintentionally politicising the faith for centuries”. In
other words, then, the Islamist proclivity that Islam is both religion and state is both
erroneous and has no religious sanction.
The selective amnesia demonstrated by Islamists is also evident in how they
selectively appropriate thinkers and twist their teachings. Such is the case of Ibn
Taymiyyah who is a source of inspiration for Islamists on account of his ostensibly
fundamentalist views. Yet, these same Islamists ignore the fact that Ibn Taymiyyah
urged that people should only be judged by how God-fearing they were and the
extent of their service to humanity as opposed to their ascriptive qualities (Kull,
2005). This stands in stark contrast with the position espoused by Islamists.
2.2 Understanding Political Islam/Islamism 17

Moreover, contrary to the authoritarian impulse within Islamist thought, Ibn

Taymiyyah embraced freedom and stood up to autocratic rule. It was precisely
because of his opposition to tyranny that he was imprisoned for many years and in
1328 died in a Damascus jail (Kull, 2005). Moreover, Ibn Taymiyyah saw no tension
between revelation and reason and could well be regarded as a reformer as opposed
to a fanatical reactionary as cast in Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s diatribe (ibid, 2005).
Islamists, then, deliberately twist the teachings of previous scholars to fit their own
narrative.
Islamists also share other characteristics with their fellow ideologues to the right
and left of the political spectrum. Violence and intimidation are part of the tools of
the propagation of their creed. Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini proclaimed, “Whatever
good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People
cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The word is the key to paradise,
which can only be opened for holy warriors” (Wright, 2007). For Maududi the act of
religious worship lost its spiritual purposes and was merely militarized. Thus he
noted, “The prayers, fasting, charity and pilgrimage have been prescribed to prepare
and train us for this purpose of jihad. All the governments in the world give their
armies special and specific training, their police and civil service too. In the same
way, Islam also trains those who join its service—then requires them to go to jihad
and establish the government of God” (Ahmad, 1989). Indeed, Maududi argued that
jihad was the central tenet of Islam. No scholar or cleric before him made such a
claim—placing jihad on equal footing as the Five Pillars of Islam (Armstrong,
2000). In the process, Maududi was more than just interpreting Islam—he was
reinventing it! A few years later, the Egyptian Mohammed Abdus Salam Faraj
penned a treatise entitled Jihad: The Absent Obligation where he stated, “It is
clear that jihad is now obligatory upon every Muslim” (Laqueur, 2004). Suddenly
Islam moved from having five pillars to six with the inclusion of jihad—and the
Islamists idea of jihad at that. Of course both Maududi and Faraj were borrowing
from Ibn Taymiyyah here. In 1300 already he wrote, “To fight in defence of religion
is a collective duty; there is no other duty after belief than fighting the enemy who is
corrupting our life and our religion” (Townshend, 2002). Of course, what is delib-
erated forgotten is that Ibn Taymiyyah was writing within the context of a serious
existential threat the Muslim world was confronted with in the form of Mongol
Tartar hordes.
Given this spurious ideological justification for mass murder, should we be
surprised at the number of terrorist groupings proliferating across the Middle East
North Africa (MENA) region? Despite the ejection of Islamic State (IS) from the
territory of Iraq and Syria, many of these fighters have simply moved into other
countries and have switched tactics from conventional to insurgent asymmetrical
warfare. In Jordan, security forces have successfully thwarted several IS-inspired
terrorist plots. Egyptian security forces are battling with Islamic State-Sinai Province
(formerly Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis), whilst across the Maghreb former IS fighters have
returned homes to foment rebellion and violent insurrections against existing states.
In Syria, Islamic State’s military defeat created the space for Al Qaeda affiliated
al-Nusra Front to merge with other terrorist groups to create Hayat Tahrir al-Sham
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 ‘Twenty-five pounds down,’ said the partner—she decided he was more
a partner than an interpreter—‘and twenty-five pounds in the middle of the
treatment.’
‘Certainly,’ she murmured.
Dr. Sanguesa was observing her while the partner talked. Every now and
then he said something in Spanish, and the other asked her a question. The
questions were intimate and embarrassing,—the kind it is more comfortable
to reply to to one person rather than two. However, she was in for it; she
mustn’t mind; she was determined not to mind anything.
In her turn she asked some questions, forcing herself to be courageous,
for she was frightened in spite of her determination and hopes. Would it
hurt, she asked timidly; would it take long; when would the results begin?
‘We will see,’ said Dr. Sanguesa, who hadn’t understood a word,
nodding his head gravely.
It would not hurt, said the partner, because in the case of women it was
dangerous to operate, and the treatment was purely external; it would take
six weeks, with two treatments a week; she would begin to see a marked
difference in her appearance after the fourth treatment.
The fourth treatment? That would be in a fortnight. And no operation?
How wonderful. She caught her breath with excitement. In a fortnight she
would be beginning to look younger. After that, every day younger and
younger. No more Maria Rome, no more painful care over her dressing, no
more fear of getting tired because of how ghastly it made her look, but the
real thing, the real glorious thing itself.
‘Shall I feel young?’ she asked, eagerly now.
‘Of course. Everything goes together. You understand—a woman’s
youth, and accordingly her looks, depends entirely on——’
The partner launched into a rapid explanation which was only saved
from being excessively improper by its technical language. Dr. Sanguesa sat
silent, his elbows on the arms of his revolving chair, his finger-tips together.
He looked a remote, unfriended, melancholy man, rather like the pictures
she had seen of Napoleon III., with dark shadows under his heavy eyes and
a waxen skin. Every now and then his sad mouth opened, and he said quite
automatically, ‘We will see,’ and shut it again.
 She wanted to begin at once. It appeared she must be examined first, to
find out if she could stand the treatment. This rather frightened her again.
Why? How? Was the treatment so severe? What was it?
‘We will see,’ said Dr. Sanguesa, nodding.
The partner became voluble, waving his hands about. Not at all—not at
all severe; a matter of X-rays merely; but sometimes, if a woman’s heart
was weak——
Catherine said she was sure her heart wasn’t weak.
‘We will see,’ said Dr. Sanguesa, mechanically nodding.
‘The examination is three guineas,’ said the partner.
‘Three more, or three of the same ones?’ asked Catherine, rather
stupidly.
‘We will s——’
The partner interrupted him this time with a quickly lifted hand. He
seemed to think Catherine’s question was below the level of both his and
her dignities and intelligences, for he looked as if he were a little ashamed
of her as he said stiffly, ‘Three more.’
She bowed her head. She would have bowed her head to anything, if
these men in exchange would give her youth.
The examination could be made at once, the partner said, if she was
ready.
Yes, she was quite ready.
She got up instantly. They were used to eagerness, especially in the
women patients, but this was a greater eagerness than usual. Dr. Sanguesa’s
sombre, sunken eyes observed her thoughtfully. He said something in
Spanish to his partner, who shook his head. Catherine had the impression it
was something he wished interpreted, and she looked inquiringly at the
partner, but he said nothing, and went to the door and opened it for her.
She was taken upstairs into a sort of Rose du Barri boudoir, arranged
with a dressing-table and looking-glasses, and another nurse—at least, she
too looked like one—helped her to undress. Then she was wrapped in a
dressing-gown—she didn’t like this public dressing-gown against her skin
—and led into a room fitted up with many strange machines and an
operating table. What will not a woman do, she thought, eyeing these
objects with misgiving, and her heart well down somewhere near her feet,
for the man she loves?
Dr. Sanguesa came in, all covered up in white like an angel. The partner,
she was thankful to notice, didn’t appear. She was examined with great
care, the nurse smiling encouragingly. It was a relief to be told by the nurse,
who interpreted, that her heart was sound and her lungs perfect, even
though she had never supposed they weren’t. At the end the nurse told her
the doctor was satisfied she could stand the treatment, and asked when she
would like to begin.
Catherine said she would begin at once.
Impossible. The next day?
Oh yes, yes—the next day. And would she really—she was going to say
look nice again, but said instead feel less tired?
‘It’s wonderful how different people feel,’ the nurse assured her; and Dr.
Sanguesa nodded gravely, without having understood a word, and said, ‘We
will see.’
‘He hasn’t tried it on himself, has he?’ remarked Catherine, when she
was in the Rose du Barri room again, dressing.
The nurse laughed. She was a jolly-looking young woman,—but perhaps
she was really an old woman, who had had the treatment.
‘Have you been done?’ asked Catherine.
The nurse laughed again. ‘I shall be if I see I’m getting old,’ she said.
‘It really is wonderful?’ asked Catherine, whose hands as she fastened
her hooks were trembling with excitement.
‘You wouldn’t believe it,’ said the nurse earnestly. ‘I’ve seen men of
seventy looking and behaving not a day more than forty.’
‘That’s thirty years off,’ said Catherine. ‘And supposing they were forty
to begin with, would they have looked and behaved like ten?’
‘Ah well, that’s a little much to expect, isn’t it,’ said the nurse, laughing
again.
‘I’m forty-seven. I wouldn’t at all like to end by being seven.’
‘Your husband would pack you off to a kindergarten, wouldn’t he,’ said
the nurse, laughing more than ever.
 Catherine laughed too. She was so full of hope that she already felt
younger. But when she put on her hat before the glass she saw she didn’t
anyhow look it.
‘Don’t I look too awful,’ she said, turning round frankly to the friendly
nurse, who, after all, was going to be the witness of her triumphant progress
backwards through the years.
‘We’ll soon get rid of all that,’ said the nurse gaily.
Catherine quite loved the nurse.

XV
It was an exciting life during the next week,—so much to plan, so much to
arrange, and she herself buoyant with hope and delight. She couldn’t, of
course, leave London during her treatment, so to Christopher’s
astonishment she urged him to go to Scotland without her.
‘But Catherine——’
He couldn’t believe his own ears.
‘Go and have a good time, Chris darling.’
‘Without you?’
‘I must stay in London.’
‘In London?’
‘Yes. Virginia may want me.’
‘Now what in God’s name, Catherine, is all this about Virginia. The
other day——’
Then she told him, secure in the knowledge that she was so soon going
to be young again—she didn’t in the least mind being a grandmother if she
wasn’t going to look like one; on the contrary, to look like a girl and yet be
a grandmother struck her as to the last degree chic—that Virginia was
expecting a baby in September, and as babies sometimes appeared before
they ought she must be within reach.
Well, that was all right; he understood that. What he didn’t understand
was Catherine’s detachment. Why, she seemed not to mind his leaving her.
He couldn’t believe it. And when it became finally evident that such was
her real attitude and no pretence at all about it, he was deeply hurt.
Incredibly, she genuinely wanted him to go.
 ‘You love Virginia more than me,’ he said, his heart suddenly hot with
jealousy.
‘Oh Chris, don’t be silly,’ said Catherine impatiently.
She had never since their marriage told him not to be silly in that
sensible, matter-of-fact way. What had come over her? He, who had been
feeling he couldn’t breathe for all the love there was about, now found
himself gasping for want of it. The atmosphere had suddenly gone clear and
rarefied. Catherine seemed to be thinking of something that wasn’t him, and
once or twice forgot to kiss him. Forgot to kiss him! He was deeply
wounded. And she was so unaccountably cheerful too. She not only seemed
to be thinking of something else but seemed amused by it, hugging
whatever it was with delight. She was excited. What was she excited about?
Surely not because she was going to be a grandmother? Surely that would
make her brood more than ever on the difference in their ages?
‘She wants me to go to Scotland with you,’ he said, bursting in one day
on Lewes. ‘She wants me to go away without her. Doesn’t care a hang. Four
solid weeks. The whole of August.’
‘How sensible,’ said Lewes, not looking up from his work.
‘It’s that beastly baby.’
‘Baby?’ Lewes did look up.
‘Due in September.’
‘What? But surely——’
‘Oh, don’t be a fool. Virginia’s. She won’t leave London. Why she can’t
go somewhere round near Chickover, where I could go too and be with her
and get some golf as well—Lewes, old man, I believe she’s fed up with
me.’
And he stared at Lewes with hot eyes.
In his turn Lewes told him not to be a fool; but the mere thought of
Catherine, his Catherine, being fed up with him as he put it, sent him
rushing back to her to see if it could possibly be true.
She was so airy, so much detached.
‘Now Chris, don’t be absurd. Of course you must have a good holiday
and get out of London. It’s lucky that you have your friend to go with——’
That was the sort of thing.
 ‘But Catherine, how can you want me to? Don’t you love me any more?’
‘Of course I love you. Which is why I want you to go to Scotland.’
This was true. The treatment was being gone through for love of him,
and he must go to Scotland because of the treatment. She was to have as
much quiet as possible during it—‘No husbands,’ said Dr. Sanguesa
—‘You’ve got to be a grass widow for a little while,’ interpreted the nurse
—‘You must go to Scotland,’ still further interpreted Catherine.
But he couldn’t go at once. It was still only July. The first two treatments
took place while Christopher was still in London, and as it was impossible
without rousing his suspicions to keep him entirely at arm’s length, she
wasn’t surprised when the effect of them was to make her feel more tired
than ever.
‘It’s often like that to begin with,’ encouraged the nurse. ‘Especially if
you’re not having complete rest from worries at home.’
Did she mean husbands by worries, Catherine wondered? There certainly
wasn’t complete rest from that sort of worry, then, for Christopher, as
Catherine apparently cooled, became more and more as he used to be, and
possessed by the fear that he was somehow losing her rediscovered how
much he loved her.
He had, of course, always intensely loved her, but he had felt the need of
pauses. In her love there had been no pauses, and gradually the idea of
suffocation had got hold of him. Now, so suddenly, so unaccountably, she
seemed to be all pause. She tried to avoid him; she even suggested, on the
plea that the nights were hot, that he should sleep in the dressing-room.
Whatever else he had tired of he hadn’t yet tired of the sweetness, the
curious comfort and reassurance, of going to sleep with his arms round her.
Since their marriage there had been no interruption in his wish to cling at
night; what he hadn’t wanted was to be clung to in the morning. One felt so
different in the morning; at least, he did. Catherine didn’t; and it was this
that had given him the impression of stifling in treacle. Now she not only
showed no wish at all to cling in the morning, but she tried—he wouldn’t
and couldn’t believe it, but had to—to wriggle out of being clung to at
night.
‘Catherine, what is it? What has come between us?’ he asked, his eyes
hurt and indignant,—when Catherine had asked this sort of question, as she
had on first noticing a different quality in his love-making, he had been
impatient and bored, and thought in his heart ‘How like all women,’ but of
course he didn’t remember this.
‘Oh Chris, why are you so silly?’ she answered, laughing and pushing
him away. ‘Don’t you feel how hot it is, and how much nicer not to be too
close together? Let us be sanitary.’
Sanitary? That was a pleasant way of putting it. She was going back to
what she used to be at first, when he had such difficulty in getting hold of
her at all,—going back into just being an intelligent little stand-offish thing,
independent, and determined to have nothing to do with him. How he had
worshipped her in those days of her unattainableness. Her relapse now into
what threatened to become unattainableness all over again didn’t make him
worship her, because that had been the kind of worship that never returns,
but it lit his love up again, while at the same time filling him with a fury of
possessiveness. A thwarted possessiveness, however; she evaded him more
and more.
‘I can’t go to Scotland and leave you. Damn golf. I simply can’t,’ he said
at last.
And she, as cool as a little cucumber and as bright as a gay little button
—the comparisons were his—told him he simply had to, and that when he
came back he would find they were going to be happier than ever.
‘You’ll love me more than ever,’ she said laughing, for though the
treatment was extraordinarily exhausting her spirits those days were bright
with faith.
‘Rot. Nobody could love you more than I do now, so what’s the good of
talking like that? Catherine, what has happened to you? Tell me.’
And there he was, just as he used to be, on the floor at her feet, his arms
clasping her knees, his head on her lap.
All this made Catherine very happy. She began to see benefits in the
treatment other than the ones Dr. Sanguesa had guaranteed.
 XVI
He went to Scotland, and she stayed in London. She was inexorable. It was
as if his soft, enveloping pillow had turned into a rock. She lied at last—
how avoid lying, sooner or later, when one was married?—so as to get rid
of him, for he was insisting on taking rooms for them both at the sea near
Chickover, where she could be within reach of Virginia and yet not away
from him. Driven into this corner what could she do but lie? It is what one
does in corners, she thought, excusing herself. She told him Virginia was
probably coming up to London to have her baby in a nursing home, and that
was why she couldn’t go away.
He went off puzzled and unhappy, and his unhappiness filled her with
secret joy. What balm to her spirit, which had lately been so anxious, to see
all these unmistakable symptoms of devoted love in him. And she pictured
his return in September, and herself at the station to meet him, changed,
young, able to do everything with him, a fit mate for him at last.
‘You’ll never, never know how much I love you,’ she said, her arms
round his neck when she said good-bye.
‘It looks like it, doesn’t it,’ he said gloomily.
‘Exactly like it,’ she laughed. She was always laughing now, just as she
used always to be laughing at their very first meetings.
‘I can’t make it out,’ he said, looking down at her upturned face. ‘You’re
sending me away. Suppose I meet that girl up there—Miss Wickford, or that
other one who looked like a shark—I should comfort myself.’
Even that only made her laugh. ‘Do, Chris darling,’ she said, patting his
face. ‘And then come back and tell me all about it.’
She was changed. He went away extremely miserable, and Lewes’s talk
—that talk he had thirsted for when he thought he wasn’t going to get it—
seemed like just so much gritty drivel.
Left alone in London Catherine gave herself up entirely to the treatment.
Twice a week she went to Portland Place and suffered,—for it hurt, though
Dr. Sanguesa told her through the nurse that it didn’t. They laid her on a
table, and a great machine was lowered to within a hair’s breadth of her
bare skin, her eyes were bandaged, and crackling things—she couldn’t see
what, but they sounded like sparks and felt like little bright stabbing knives
—were let loose on her for half an hour at a stretch, first on one side of her
and then on the other. When this was over she was injected with some
mysterious fluid, and then went home completely exhausted.
All day afterwards she lay on her sofa, and Mrs. Mitcham brought her
trays of nourishing food. She read and slept. She went to bed at nine
o’clock. She did nothing to her face after Christopher had gone, and Mrs.
Mitcham, looking at her and seeing her so persistently yellow, asked her
with growing concern if she felt quite well.
After the fourth treatment she was to begin and see a difference. How
anxiously she scanned herself in the glass. Nothing. And her body felt
exactly as her face looked,—amazingly weary.
‘It takes longer with some people,’ said the nurse, when Catherine
commented on this on her fifth visit. ‘There was one lady came here who
noticed nothing at all till just before the end, and then you should have seen
her. Why, she skipped out of that door. And sixty, if a day.’
‘Perhaps I’m not old enough,’ said Catherine. ‘All the people you tell me
about are sixty or seventy.’
She was sitting on the sofa of the Rose du Barri boudoir being dressed.
She was too tired to stand up. Those crackles, going on for half an hour,
were a great strain on her endurance. They didn’t hurt enough to make her
cry out, but enough to make her need all her determination not to.
The nurse laughed. ‘Well, we are depressed to-day, aren’t we,’ she said
brightly. ‘People do get like that about half-way through—the slow ones, I
mean, who don’t react at once as some do. You’ll see. Rome wasn’t built in
a day.’
The next time she came the nurse flung up both hands on seeing her.
‘Why, aren’t you looking well this morning!’ she cried.
Catherine hurried to the glass. ‘Am I?’ she said, staring at herself.
‘Such a change,’ said the nurse with every sign of pleasure. ‘I was sure it
would begin soon. Now you’ll see it going on more and more quickly every
day.’
‘Shall I?’ said Catherine, scrutinising the face in the glass.
For the life of her she could see no difference. She said so. The nurse
laughed at her.
 ‘Oh, you doubting Thomas,’ said the nurse, whose friendliness had
flowered into a robust familiarity. ‘Just look at yourself now. Don’t you
see?’ And she took her by the shoulders and twisted her round to the glass
again.
No, Catherine didn’t see. She saw the nurse’s laughing, rosy face close
to hers, and hers yellow and pale-lipped,—just as it always was now when
nothing out of Maria Rome’s box had been put on it. Maria Rome had had a
terrible effect on her. Her hair was startlingly more grey, now that the dye
had had time to wear off, than it used to be before any was put on.
‘It’s the trained eye that can tell,’ said the nurse brightly. ‘I notice a great
change.’
‘Do you?’ was all Catherine could say.
That day she seemed so much more quiet and tired than usual, lying on
her sofa in the flat and not even reading, that Mrs. Mitcham, who hadn’t
been at all happy about her since Christopher’s departure, asked her if it
wouldn’t be a good plan to see a doctor.
Catherine couldn’t help smiling at this. Why, that was what was the
matter with her, that she was seeing a doctor.
‘I shall be all right soon,’ she assured Mrs. Mitcham; for she still hoped.
It wasn’t till after the ninth treatment that her hopes began to grow
definitely pale. Nothing had happened. She was just as old as ever; older, if
anything, for those stabbing sparks made her brace herself to an endurance
that left her utterly exhausted. The nurse, it is true, continued stoutly to
express delighted surprise each time she saw her, but this merely caused
Catherine to distrust either her sincerity or her eyesight. She became more
silent and less interested in the tales about other old ladies. Their alleged
skipping began to leave her cold. It was possible, of course, that they had
skipped, but she wasn’t able to bring herself to believe in it really.
‘Those other old ladies——’ she said, on her eleventh visit.
The nurse interrupted her with a gay burst of laughter. ‘You’re never
going to class yourself with old ladies?’ she cried. ‘Now, Mrs. Monckton,
that’s really naughty of you. I won’t allow it. I shall have to scold you soon,
you know.’
‘Well, but this is my eleventh time, and you said they were all skipping
by their eleventh time——’
 ‘Not all. Come, come now. It takes people differently, you know.’
Not that I want to skip,’ said Catherine, wearily pinning up a strand of
hair the eye-bandage had loosened. ‘It’s that I don’t feel the least shred of
the remotest desire to.’
‘That’ll come. It’ll all come in time.’
‘In what time?’ asked Catherine. ‘I’ve only got one treatment more.’
‘It often happens that people feel the benefit afterwards. Weeks, perhaps,
afterwards. They wake up one morning, and find themselves suddenly quite
young.’
Catherine said nothing to this. Her hopes had flickered very small by
now.
The nurse, as jolly as ever, rallied her and laughed at her for being so
ungrateful, when she only had to look at herself to see——
‘I’m always looking at myself, and I never see,’ said Catherine.
‘Oh, aren’t you a naughty little thing!’ cried the nurse. ‘I don’t know
what would become of poor Dr. Sanguesa if all his patients were as
obstinately blind as you. Well, there’s still Thursday. Sometimes the last
treatment of all convinces the patient, and we shall have you writing us
wonderful testimonials——’
There was no response to this gaiety. Catherine went away heavy-footed.
She was poorer by fifty pounds, Christopher was coming home in a week,
and that bright dream of meeting him at the station seemed to the last
degree unlikely to be realised. Useless for the nurse to pretend there was a
difference in her; there was none. Perhaps if she hadn’t pretended Catherine
would have been more able to believe. But the nurse treating her like a fool
—well, but wasn’t that precisely what she was? Wasn’t any woman a fool
who could suppose that she could be stirred up to youth again by showers
of stabbing crackles?
She went home heavy-footed and ashamed. Trouble, expense,
disappointment, an intolerable long separation from Christopher,—that was
all she had got out of this. Oh yes—she had got the useful knowledge that
she was a fool; but she had had that before.
Still, she wouldn’t quite give up hope yet. There was one more
treatment, and it might well be that she would suddenly take a turn....
 But she never had the final treatment, and never saw either Dr. Sanguesa
or the nurse again; for when she got home that day, she found a telegram
from Mrs. Colquhoun, asking her to come to Chickover at once.

XVII
There was a note of urgency in the telegram that made Catherine afraid.
Going down in the slow afternoon train, the first she could catch, which
stopped so often and so long, she had much time to think, and it seemed to
her that all this she had been doing since her marriage was curiously shabby
and disgraceful. What waste of emotions, what mean fears. Now came real
fear, and at its touch those others shrivelled up. Virginia down there at grips
with danger, being tortured—oh, she knew what torture—just this stark fact
shocked her back to vision.
She sat looking out of the window at the fields monotonously passing,
and many sharp-edged thoughts cut through her mind, and one of them was
of the last time she had gone down to Chickover, and of her gaiety because
some strange man, taken in by the cleverness with which Maria Rome had
disguised her, had obviously considered her younger than she was. How
pitiful, how pitiful; what a sign one was indeed old when a thing like that
could excite one and make one feel pleased.
She stared at this memory a moment, before it was hustled off by other
thoughts, in wonder. The stuff one filled life with! And at the faintest
stirring of Death’s wings, the smallest movement forward of that great
figure from the dark furthermost corner of the little room called life, how
instantly one’s eyes were smitten open. One became real. Was one ever real
till then? Had there to be that forward movement, that reminder, ‘I am here,
you know,’ before one could wake from one’s strange, small dreams?
She had to wait an hour at the junction. This comforted her, for if things
had been serious the car would have been sent for her there.
It was past nine when she reached Chickover. The chauffeur who met her
looked unhappy, but could tell her nothing except that his mistress had been
ill since the morning. The avenue was dark, the great trees in solemn row
shutting out what still was left of twilight, and the house at the end was dark
too and very silent. The place seemed to be holding its breath, as if aware of
the battle being fought on the other side in the rooms towards the garden.
Silence everywhere, complete and strange; except——
 Yes—what was that?
She caught her breath and stopped; for as she was crossing the hall, past
the pale maid, a slow moaning crept down the stairs like a trickle of blood,
—a curious slow moaning, not human at all, more like some poor animal,
dying hopelessly by inches in a trap.
Virginia....
Catherine stood struck with horror. That noise? Virginia? Just like an
animal?
She looked round at Kate. Their white faces stared at each other. Kate’s
lips moved. ‘Since this morning,’ came out of them. ‘Since early this
morning. The master——’
She broke off, her pale lips remaining open.
Catherine turned and ran upstairs. She ran as one demented towards the
moaning. It must be stopped, it must be stopped. Virginia must be saved,
she couldn’t, she mustn’t be allowed to suffer like that, nobody should be
allowed to suffer like that, hours and hours....
She ran along the passage to Virginia’s room, the same room where
nineteen years ago Virginia herself had been born, but instead of getting
nearer the moaning she seemed to be going away from it.
Where was Virginia, then? Where had they put her?
She stood still to listen, and her heart beat so loud that she could hardly
hear. There—to the left, where the spare-rooms were. But why? Why had
they taken her there?
She ran down the passage to the left. Yes; here it was; behind this shut
door....
Catherine’s knees seemed to be going to give way. The sound was
terribly close,—so hopeless, so unceasing. What were they doing in there to
her child? What was God doing to let them?
Her shaking hand fumbled at the handle. She laid the other over it to
steady it. She mustn’t be like this, she knew; she mustn’t go in there only to
add to the terror that was there already.
With both hands gripping the handle she slowly turned it and went in.
Stephen.
 Stephen half sitting, half lying on the floor up against a sofa. His mother
standing looking at him. No one else. The room shrouded in dust-sheets, the
bed piled high with spare blankets and pillows. Stephen moaning.
‘Stephen!’ Catherine exclaimed, so much shocked that she could only
stare. Stephen—Stephen of all people—in such a state....
His mother turned and came towards her.
‘But—Virginia?’ said Catherine, her lips trembling, for if Stephen could
be reduced to this, what dreadful thing was happening to Virginia?
Mrs. Colquhoun took her face in both hands and kissed her,—really
kissed her. Her eyes were very bright, with red rims. She had evidently been
crying, and she had the look of those who have reached the end of their
tether.
‘All is going well I believe now with Virginia,’ she said. ‘I tell him so,
and he won’t listen. Do you think you could make him listen? There was a
terrible time before the second doctor came and put her under an
anæsthetic, and it upset him so that he—well, you see.’
And she made a gesture, half shame, half anger, and wholly unhappy,
towards the figure leaning against the sofa.
Then she added, her bright, tear-stained eyes on Catherine’s, ‘To think
that my son and God’s priest should go to pieces like this—should be
unable in a crisis to do his duty—should lose—should lose——’
She broke off, continuing to stare at Catherine with those bright,
incredulous eyes.
Catherine could only gaze at Stephen in dismay. No wonder Kate
downstairs hadn’t succeeded in saying what she was trying to say about the
master. Stephen, the firm-lipped, the strong denouncer of weakness, the
exhorting calm Christian—what a dreadful thing to happen. She didn’t
know husbands ever collapsed like that. George hadn’t. He had been
anxious and distressed, but he hadn’t moaned. The moaning had been done,
she remembered, exclusively by her. George had been her comfort, her
rock. What comfort could Virginia have got that day out of Stephen? And it
was after all Virginia who was having the baby.
‘Couldn’t the doctors give him something?’ she asked, feeling that poor
Stephen ought certainly too to be given a little chloroform to help him
through his hours of misery,—anything rather than that he should be left
lying there suffering like that.
‘I asked them to give him a soothing draught,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun,
‘and they only told me to take him away. Of course I took him away, for he
was killing Virginia, and here I’ve been shut up with him ever since.
Catherine——‘it was the first time she had called her that—‘I don’t
remember in our day——? I don’t remember that my husband——?’ And
she broke off, and stared at her with her bright, exhausted eyes.
‘George didn’t,’ said Catherine hesitatingly, ‘but I think—I think
Stephen loves Virginia more than perhaps——’
‘A nice way of loving,’ remarked Mrs. Colquhoun, who had had a
terrible day shut up with Stephen, and whose distress for him was by now
shot with indignation.
‘Oh, but he can’t help it. Dear Mrs. Colquhoun——’
‘Call me Milly.’
Milly? These barriers tumbling down all round before the blast of a crisis
bewildered Catherine. Stephen, who had been so firmly entrenched behind
example and precept, lying exposed there, so helplessly and completely
exposed that she hardly liked to look at him, hardly liked either him or his
mother to know she was there, because of later on when he should be
normal again and they both might be humiliated by the recollection, and
Mrs. Colquhoun, not only turning on her adored son but flinging away her
insincerities and kissing her with almost eager affection and demanding to
be called Milly. Strange by-products of Virginia’s suffering, thought
Catherine. ‘I must go to her,’ she said, going towards the door.
‘Dear Catherine,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun holding her back, ‘they won’t let
you in. It will soon be over now. And what will she say,’ she added, turning
to Stephen and raising her voice, ‘what will she say when she asks for her
husband and he is incapable of coming to her side?’
But Stephen was far beyond reacting to any twittings.
‘Oh, but he will be—won’t you, Stephen,’ said Catherine. ‘You’re going
to be so happy, you and Virginia—so, so happy, and forget all about this
——’
And she ran over to him, and stooped down and kissed him.
But Stephen only moaned.
 ‘He ought to go to bed and have a doctor,’ Catherine said, looking round
at Mrs. Colquhoun.
‘He isn’t having the baby,’ was Mrs. Colquhoun’s reply.
‘No—but mental agony is worse than physical,’ said Catherine.
‘Not if it’s babies,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun firmly.
What a strange night that was. What a night of mixed emotions,—great
fear, deep pity immense surprise; and what a clearing up in Catherine’s
mind of nonsense, of her own private follies. None of the three in that room
had yet in their lives been up against this kind of reality, this stark, ruthless
reality, before. There were hours and hours to think in, hours and hours to
feel in. A few yards away lay Virginia, hanging between life and death.
From her room came no moans. An august silence enveloped it, as of issues
too great and solemn being settled within for any crying out. It was the
slowest, most difficult of births. She herself was far away, profoundly
unconcerned, wrapped in the mercifulness of unconsciousness; but how
long could even the youngest, strongest body stand this awful strain on it?
The two women away in that spare-room on the other side of the house
didn’t dare let themselves even look at this question. It lay cold and heavy
on the heart of each, and they turned away their mind’s eyes and busied
themselves as best they could,—Catherine with stroking Stephen and
murmuring words of comfort in his ear, of which he took no notice, and
Mrs. Colquhoun with making tea.
All night long poor Mrs. Colquhoun, herself within an ace of collapse,
made fresh tea at short intervals, finding in the rattle of the cups and saucers
a way of drowning some at least of her unhappy son’s nerve-racking moans
and her own thoughts. She couldn’t and wouldn’t contemplate the
possibility of anything happening to Virginia; she insisted to herself that in
that quarter all was well. Two doctors and a skilled nurse, two doctors and a
skilled nurse, she kept on repeating in her mind, her shaking hands
upsetting the cups. A difficult birth, of course, and a long one, but that was
nothing unusual with the first child. Nonsense, nonsense, to let even the
edge of an imagining of possible disaster slide into one’s mind. One had
quite enough to think of without that, with Stephen lying there disgracing
himself and her, denying in effect his God, and certainly abandoning his
manhood,—for Virginia’s screams before the anæsthetist arrived, those
awful, awful screams coming from his gentle wife, had sent the unhappy
Stephen, after two hours of having to listen to them, out of his mind. He had
killed her, he was her murderer, he had killed her, killed her with his love....
‘Nonsense,’ his mother had said in her most matter-of-fact way, on his
shouting out things like this for every one to hear,—really excessively
shocking things when one remembered all the young maids in the house;
and then with trembling hands she had led him into this distant room, and
he had thrown himself down where he had ever since been lying, and had
said no word more, but only ceaselessly moaned.
And Mrs. Colquhoun, who had never in her life overwhelmingly loved,
and never till that day known she possessed any nerves, looked on at first
helplessly, and then indignantly, and the whole time uncomprehendingly. It
was all very well, and of course a husband was anxious on such occasions,
and should and was expected to show feeling, but within decent limits.
These limits were not decent. Anything but. What would the parish say if it
saw him? What did the servants say, who could hear him?
She put aspirin into his heedless mouth, and asked him severely if he had
forgotten God. She tried to twit him into manliness and priestliness. She
actually shook him once, believing that counter-shocks were good for the
nerves. Useless, all useless; and by the time Catherine arrived she herself
was very nearly done for.
But tea, the domesticities,—natural, reassuring little activities,—were,
she found, the only real props. Not prayer. Strange, not once did she wish to
pray. If Stephen had prayed it would have been a good thing, but it wouldn’t
have been a good thing for her to pray. No emotions, if you please, she
admonished herself several times aloud—it froze Catherine’s blood to hear
her—duty, duty, duty; the making of tea to sustain the body, to compose the
nerves by the routine of it,—this was the real anchor. She would gladly
have gone round with a duster, dusting the ornaments that collect in spare-
rooms, but to dust at night seemed too highly unnatural to offer a hope of
forgetfulness.
So she kept on ringing the bell for fresh hot water and more cups, and
just the sight of the housemaid in her cap and apron at the door—she wasn’t
allowed inside, because of Stephen—seemed to hold Mrs. Colquhoun down
to sanity. There were other things in the world besides suffering; there were
next mornings, and the precious routine of life with its baths and breakfasts
and orders to the cook,—how she longed for that, how she longed to be
back in her safe shell again, with everything normal about her, and Stephen
in his senses, and the sickening load of fear on her heart lifted away and
forgotten.
A cup was chipped. She held it to the light. Kate, of course, who really
was most careless with china. At that rate Virginia would soon have none
left.
She rang the bell and sent the housemaid for Kate, and when she came,
her cap a little crooked and her hair a little wispy, Mrs. Colquhoun took the
cup out into the passage to her and scolded her soundly, and it did them
both good, and Kate was so much restored by this breath of normality that
she was able to ask in a whisper how the master was, and Mrs. Colquhoun,
dropping unconsciously into the very language of the occasion, replied that
he was doing nicely.
And indeed Stephen’s moans seemed less since Catherine had taken his
head on her lap and was stroking and patting him. She stroked and patted
without stopping, and every now and then bent down and murmured words
of encouragement in his ear, or else, when she found no words because her
own heart was so full of fear, simply bent down and kissed him. Did he
hear? Did he feel? She couldn’t tell; but she thought his moans grew
quieter, and that he seemed dimly conscious of comfort when her hand
passed softly down his sunken face.
‘You’ll wear yourself out,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun, pursing her lips to keep
them from quivering.
‘It comforts me,’ said Catherine.
‘You’d much better have another cup of tea.’
‘How passionately he loves her. I didn’t quite realise——’
‘Loving passionately seems to get people into nice messes,’ said Mrs.
Colquhoun grimly.
‘I suppose one really oughtn’t to love too much,’ said Catherine.
‘I consider Stephen preached himself into it. That course of sermons last
Lent—you remember? I thought at the time that he was almost too
eloquent. It sometimes very nearly wasn’t quite what one wishes a parish to
hear. The love he talked about—well, he started with St. John’s ideas, but
soon got away from them into something else. People, especially the
servants, listened open-mouthed. They wouldn’t have done that if there
hadn’t been something else in it besides the Bible. And you know,
Catherine, one can talk oneself into anything, and in my opinion that is
what Stephen did. And he came to think so much and so often of that side of
life that he forgot moderation, and here he is. This is his punishment, and
my disgrace.’
‘No, no,’ said Catherine soothingly.
‘It is—it is.’ And Mrs. Colquhoun, who had kept up so courageously till
then, bowed her head over the teatray and wept.
It would be useless, Catherine felt, to argue with poor Mrs. Colquhoun
about love, so gently laying Stephen’s head on a cushion she went over to
her and sat down beside her and put her arm round her and began to stroke
her too, and murmur soothing words.
How strange it was, this night of fear spent stroking the Colquhouns.
That queer imp that sits in a detached corner of one’s mind refusing to be
serious just when it most should be, actually forced her at this moment,
when hope was at its faintest, to laugh inside herself at the odd turn her
relationship with Stephen and his mother had taken. The collapsed
Colquhouns; the towers of strength laid low; and she, the disapproved of,
the sinner as Stephen thought, and perhaps he had told his mother and she
thought it too, being their only support and comforter. The collapsed
Colquhouns. It really was funny—very funny—very fun....
Why, what was this? She too crying?
Horrified she jumped up, and hurried across to the window and flung it
open as far as it would go, and stood at it with her face to the damp night air
and struggled with herself, squeezing back those ill-timed tears; and as she
stood there the sluggish air suddenly became a draught, and turning quickly
she found the door had been opened, and a strange man was framed in it,
with Kate in the background ushering him in.
One of the doctors. She flew to him. He was very red, with drops of
sweat on his forehead.
‘Where’s that husband?’ he asked, looking round the room and speaking
cheerfully, though his eyes were serious. ‘Oh—I see. Still no good to us. I
never saw such a fellow. He might be having the baby himself. Well, his
mother, then. Oh dear—what’s this? Tears? Come, come,’ he said, laying
his hand on Mrs. Colquhoun’s shoulder very kindly, and looking at
Catherine. ‘Are you the other grandmother?’ he asked, smiling.
 ‘Grandmother?’
‘A whacking boy. The biggest I’ve brought into the world for a long
time.’

XVIII
When Virginia recovered consciousness she lay for some time with her
eyes shut, frowning. She seemed to have come back from somewhere very
far away, and it had been difficult, so difficult to come back at all, and she
was tired out with the effort. Where had she been? She lay trying to
remember, her arms straight down by her side, the palms of her hands
upturned as if some one had flung them there like that and she had been too
indifferent to move them. Her hair, in two thick plaits, was neatly arranged,
a plait drawn down over each shoulder, and her bed was spotless and tidy.
She opened her heavy eyes presently, and saw her mother sitting by the
pillow.
Her mother. She shut her eyes again and thought this over; but it tired
her to think, and she didn’t bother much with it. Her mother was sitting
quite still, holding a plait of some one’s dark hair against her lips and
kissing it. There was another person in the room, moving about without any
noise, dressed in white. Who?
A glimmer of recollection stole into Virginia’s mind. Without bothering
to open her eyes—the exertion of doing that was so enormous—she
managed to murmur, ‘Have I—had my baby?’ And her mother took her
hand and kissed it and told her she had, and that it was a boy. A beautiful
boy, her mother said.
She thought this over too, frowning with the effort. A beautiful boy. That
was the opposite of a beautiful girl. And the nurse—of course, that white
thing was the nurse—came and held a cup to her mouth and made her drink
something.
Then she lay quiet again, with her eyes shut. She had had her baby. A
beautiful boy. The news in no way stirred her; it tired her.
Presently there came another flicker of recollection. Stephen. That was
her husband. Where was he?
With an effort she opened her eyes and looked languidly at her mother.
How hard it was to pronounce that St. Such an exertion. But she managed
it, and got out, ‘Stephen——?’
Her mother, kissing her hand again, said he had a little cold, and was
staying in bed.
Stephen had a little cold, and was staying in bed. This news in no way
stirred her either. She lay quite apathetic, her arms straight by her side, her
hands palm upwards on the counterpane. Stephen; the baby; her mother; a
profound indifference to them all filled her mind, still dark with the
shadows of that great dim place she had clambered out of, clambered and
clambered till her body was bruised and sore from head to foot, and so dead
tired—so dead, dead tired.
Some one else came into the room. A man. Perhaps a doctor, for he took
up her hand and held it in his for a while, and then said something to the
nurse, who came and raised her head and gave her another drink,—rather
like what she remembered brandy used to be.
Brandy in bed. Wasn’t that—what was the word?—yes, queer. Wasn’t
that queer, to drink brandy in bed.
But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. It was nice when nothing
mattered. So peaceful and quiet; so, so peaceful and quiet. Like floating on
one’s back in calm water on a summer afternoon, looking up at the blue sky,
and every now and then letting one’s head sink a little,—just a little, so that
the cool water rippled over one’s ears; or letting it sink a little more,—just a
little more, so that the cool water rippled over one’s face; and one sank and
sank; gently deeper; gently deeper; till at last there was nothing but sleep.

XIX
When Christopher arrived in Hertford Street from Scotland a week later,
Mrs. Mitcham met him in the hall of the flat. He knew nothing of what had
happened at Chickover. Catherine had written him a brief scribble the day
she left, telling him she was going to Virginia, and as he hadn’t had a word
since, and found his holiday, which he anyhow hated, completely
intolerable directly she cut him off from her by silence, he decided it was no
longer to be endured; and flinging his things together, and remarking to
Lewes that he was fed up, he started for London, getting there hard on the
heels of a telegram he had sent Mrs. Mitcham.
 She came into the hall when she heard his latchkey in the door. Her face
looked longer than ever, and her clothes seemed blacker.
‘Oh, sir,’ she began at once, taking his coat from him, ‘isn’t it dreadful.’
‘What is?’ asked Christopher, twisting round and looking at her, quick
fear in his heart.
‘Miss Virginia——’
He breathed again. For a terrible moment he had thought——
‘What has she been doing?’ he asked, suddenly indifferent, for the
having of babies hadn’t entered his consciousness as anything dangerous; if
it were, the whole place wouldn’t be littered with them.
Mrs. Mitcham stared at him out of red-rimmed eyes.
‘Doing, sir?’ she repeated, stung by the careless way he spoke; and for
the first and last time in her life sarcastic, she said with dignified rebuke,
‘Only dying, sir.’
It was his turn to stare, his eyes very wide open, while dismay, as all that
this dying meant became clear to him, stole into them. ‘Dying? That girl?
Do you mean——’
‘Dead, sir,’ said Mrs. Mitcham, her head well up, her gaze, full of rebuke
and dignity, on his.
Too late to go down that night. No trains any more that night. But there
was the motor-bicycle. Catherine—Catherine in grief—he must get to her
somehow....
And once again Christopher rushed westwards to Catherine. Through the
night he rushed in what seemed great jerks of speed interrupted by things
going wrong, every conceivable thing going wrong, as if all hell and all its
devils were in league to trip him up and force him each few miles to stand
aside and look on impotently while the hours, not he, flew past.
She hadn’t sent for him. She was suffering and away, and hadn’t sent for
him. But he knew why. It was because she couldn’t bear, after all the things
he had said about Virginia, to smite him with the fact of her death. Or else
she herself was so violently hit that she had been stunned into that strange
state people got into when death was about, and thought no longer of what
was left, of all the warmth and happiness life still went on being full of, but
only of what was gone.
 But whatever she was feeling or not able to feel, she was his, his wife, to
help and comfort; and if she was so much numbed that help and comfort
couldn’t reach her, he would wait by her side till she woke up again. What
could it be like down there, he asked himself as the black trees and hedges
streamed past him, what could it possibly be like for Catherine, shut up in
that unhappy house, with young Virginia dead? That girl dead. Younger by
years than himself. And her husband.... ‘Oh, Lord—my Catherine,’ he
thought, tearing along faster and faster, ‘I must get her out of it—get her
home—love her back to life——’
Pictures of her flashed vivid in his mind, lovely little pictures, such as
had haunted him with increasing frequency the longer his holiday without
her dragged on; and he saw her in them with the eye of starved passion, a
most lovely little Catherine, far, far prettier than she had ever been in her
prettiest days,—so sweet with her soft white skin, so sweet with her soft
dark hair, so sweet with her soft grey eyes, and her face lit up with love,—
love all and only for him. And he who had thought, those last days before
Scotland, that there was too much love about! He all but swerved into a
ditch when he remembered this piece of incredible folly. Well, he knew now
what life was like for him away from her: it was like being lost in the frozen
dark.
He got to Chickover about five in the morning, just as the grey light was
beginning to creep among the trees. He couldn’t go and rouse that sad house
so early, so he stopped in the village and managed, after much difficulty, to
induce the inn to open and let him in, and give him water and a towel and
promise him tea when the hour should have become more decent; and then
he lay down on the horsehair sofa in the parlour and tried to sleep.
But how sleep, when he was at last so near Catherine? Just the thought
of seeing her again, of looking into her eyes after their four weeks’
separation, was enough to banish sleep; and then there was the anxiety
about her, the knowledge that she must be crushed with sorrow, the effort to
imagine life there with that poor devil of a husband....
At half-past seven he began to urge on breakfast, ringing the bell and
going out into the beer-smelling passage and calling. With all his efforts,
however, he couldn’t get anything even started till after eight, when a
sleepy girl came downstairs and put a dirty cloth on the table and a knife or
two.
 He went out into the road and walked up and down while the table was
being laid. He wouldn’t question any one there, though they all of course
could have told him about Virginia’s death and what was happening at the
house. And they, supposing he was a stranger,—as indeed he was and hoped
for ever to be in regard to Chickover—did not of themselves begin to talk.
He knew nothing; neither when she died, nor when she was buried.
Perhaps she hadn’t been buried yet, and in that case he wouldn’t be able to
get Catherine away, as he had hoped, that very day. He found himself trying
not to think of Virginia,—he owed her so many apologies! But only because
she was dead. Who could have supposed she would die, and put him, by
doing that, in the wrong? One had to talk as one felt at the moment, and it
wasn’t possible to shape one’s remarks with an eye to the possibility of their
subject dying. Yet Christopher was very sorry, and also sore. He felt he had
been a brute, but he also felt she had taken an unfair advantage of him.
He switched his thoughts off her as much as he could. Poor little thing.
And such fine weather, too,—such a good day to be alive on; for by this
time the September sun was flooding Virginia’s village, and the dew-
drenched asters in the cottage gardens were glittering in the light. Poor little
thing. And poor devil of a husband. How well he could understand his
misery. God, if anything were to happen to Catherine!
He drank some tepid tea and ate some unpleasant bread and butter—
Stephen evidently hadn’t succeeded in making the village innkeeper good,
anyhow—and then, feeling extraordinarily agitated, a mixture of palpitating
love and excitement and reluctance and fear, and all of it shot with distress
because of Virginia, he started off through the park, cutting across the grass,
going round along the back of the kitchen-garden wall to the lodge gates,
and walking up the avenue like any other respectful sympathetic early
caller; and when he turned the bend and got to the point where one first saw
the house he gave a great sigh of thankfulness, for the blinds were up. The
poor little thing’s funeral was over, then, and at least he wasn’t going to
tumble, as he had secretly feared, into the middle of that.
But if it was over, why hadn’t Catherine sent for him? Or come home?
Or at least written? He remembered, however, that she supposed he was in
Scotland, and of course she would have written to him there; and, consoled,
he went on up the avenue whose very trees seemed sad, with their
yellowing leaves slowly fluttering to the ground at every little puff of wind.
 The front door was open, and the drawing-room door on the other side of
the hall was open too, so that while he stood waiting after ringing the bell
he could see right through to the sunny terrace and garden. The house was
very silent. He could hear no sounds at all, except somewhere, away round
behind the stables, the quacking of a distant duck. Wasn’t anybody having
breakfast? Were they still asleep? If Catherine were still asleep he could go
up to her,—not like the last time when he came to this place to fetch her,
and had to wait in the drawing-room, a stranger still, a suppliant without
any rights.
Kate the parlour-maid appeared. She knew of course, directly she saw
him, that this was the young gentleman Mrs. Cumfrit had married—there
had been talk enough about that at the time in the servants’ hall—and the
ghost of a smile lifted the solemnity of her face, for an ordinary, healthy
young gentleman was refreshing to eyes that for the last week had
witnessed only woe.
‘The ladies are not down yet, sir,’ she said in a subdued voice, showing
him, or rather trying to show him, for he wouldn’t go, into the drawing-
room.
‘The ladies?’ repeated Christopher, not subduing his voice, and the
house, for so many days hushed, quivered into life again at the vigour of it.
‘Mr. Colquhoun’s mother is staying here, sir,’ said Kate, dropping her
voice to a whisper so as to damp him down to the proper key of quiet. ‘Mr.
Colquhoun is still very ill, but the doctor thinks he’ll be quite himself again
when he is able to notice the baby. If you’ll wait in here, sir,’ she continued,
making another attempt to get him into the drawing-room, ‘I’ll go and tell
the ladies.’
‘I’m not going to wait anywhere,’ said Christopher. ‘I’m going up to my
wife. Show me the way.’
Yes, it was refreshing to see an alive gentleman again, and a nice change
from the poor master; though the master, of course, was behaving in quite
the proper way, taking his loss as a true widower should, and taking it so
hard that he had to have a doctor and be kept in bed. The whole village was
proud of him; yet for all that it was pleasant to hear a healthy gentleman’s
voice again, talking loud and masterfully, and Kate, pleased to have to obey,
went up the stairs almost with her ordinary brisk tread, instead of the tiptoes
she had got into the habit of.
 Christopher followed, his heart beating loud. She led him down a broad
passage to what appeared to be the furthermost end of the house, and as
they proceeded along it a noise he had begun to hear when he turned the
corner from the landing got bigger and bigger, seeming to swell at him till
at last it was prodigious.
The baby. Crying. He hoped repenting of the damage it had already
found time to do in its brief existence. But he had no thoughts to spare for
babies at that moment, and when Kate stopped at the very door the cries
were coming out of, he waved her on impatiently.
‘Good God,’ he said, ‘you don’t suppose I want to see the baby?’
She only smiled at him and knocked at the door. ‘It’s a beautiful baby,’
she said, with that odd look of satisfied pride and satisfied hunger that
women, he had noticed, when they get near very small babies seem to have.
‘Hang the baby—take me to my wife,’ he commanded.
‘She’s here, sir,’ Kate answered, opening the door on some one’s calling
out, above the noise, that she was to come in.
It was Mrs. Colquhoun’s voice. He recognised it, and drew back quickly.
No—he’d be hanged if he’d go in there and meet Catherine in a nursery,
with the nurse and the baby and Mrs. Colquhoun all looking on. But he
didn’t draw back so quickly that he hadn’t caught a glimpse of the room,
and seen a bath on two chairs in front of a bright fire, and three women
bending over it, one in white and two in black, and all of them talking at
once to that which was in the bath, while its cries rose ever louder and more
piercing.
Absorbed, the women were; absorbed to the exclusion of every wish,
grief, longing, or other love, he thought, swift hot jealousy flashing into his
heart. He felt Catherine ought somehow to have known he was there, been
at once conscious of him the minute he set foot in the house. He would have
been conscious of her all right the very instant she got under the same roof;
of that he was absolutely certain. Instead of that, there was that absorbed
back, just as though she had never married, never passionately loved—
every bit as absorbed as the other one’s, as Mrs. Colquhoun’s, who was an
old woman with no love left in her life except what she could wring out of
some baby. And whether it was because they were both in the same attitude
and clothes he couldn’t tell, but his impression had been the same of them
both—a quick impression, before he had time to think, of a black cluster of
grizzled women.
Grizzled? What an extraordinarily horrid word, he thought, to come into
his mind. How had it got there?
‘Shut that door!’ called out Mrs. Colquhoun’s voice above the baby’s
cries. ‘Don’t you see you are making a draught?’
Kate looked round hesitatingly at Christopher.
‘Come in and shut that door!’ called out Mrs. Colquhoun still louder.
Kate went in, shutting it behind her, and Christopher waited, standing up
stiff against the wall.
He hadn’t expected this. No, it was the last thing he had expected. And
now when Catherine came to him Kate would be there too, following on her
heels; and was it to be a handshake, then, or a perfunctory marital kiss in
the presence of a servant, their sacred, blessed moment of reunion?
But it was not to be quite like that, for though somebody came out and
Kate came with her, somebody small who exclaimed, ‘Oh Chris——!’ and
who seemed to think she was Catherine, she wasn’t Catherine, no, no—she
wasn’t and couldn’t be. What came out was a ghost, a pale little grizzled
ghost, which held out its hands and made as if to lift up its face to be kissed;
and when he didn’t kiss it, when he only drew back and stared at it, drew
back at once itself and stood looking at him without a word.

XX
They stood looking at each other. Kate went away down the passage.
Emptiness was round them, pierced by the baby’s cries through the shut
door of the nursery. Catherine didn’t shrink at all, and let Christopher look
at her as much as he liked, for she had done with everything now except
truth.
‘Catherine——’ he began, in the afraid and bewildered voice of a child
fumbling in the dark.
‘Yes, Chris?’
She made no attempt to go close to him, he made no attempt to go close
to her; and it was strange to Catherine, who couldn’t continually as yet
remember the difference in herself, to be alone with Christopher after
separation, and not instantly be gathered to his heart.
 But his face made her remember; in it she could see her own as clearly
as if she were in front of a glass.
‘I had no idea—no idea——’ he stammered.
‘That I could look like this?’
‘That you’ve suffered so horribly, that you loved her so terribly——’
And he knew he ought to take her in his arms and comfort her, and he
couldn’t, because this simply wasn’t Catherine.
‘But it isn’t that only,’ she said,—and hesitated for an instant.
For an instant her heart failed her. Why tell him? After all, all she had
done was for love of him; for a greedy, clutching love it was true, made up
chiefly of vanity and possessiveness and fear, but still love. Why not forget
the whole thing, and let him think she had grown old in a week from grief?
Creditable and touching explanation. And so nearly true, too, for if
passion had begun the ruin, grief had completed it, and the night and day of
that birth and death, of the agony of Stephen and her own long-drawn-out
torment, had put the finishing touches of age beyond her age on a face and
hair left defenceless to lines and greyness without Maria Rome’s massage
and careful dyes, and anyhow twice as worn and grey as they had been
before she began the exhausting processes of Dr. Sanguesa.
But she put this aside. She had had enough of nearly truth and the
wretched business of taking him in. How could she go on doing him such
wrongs? She had done him the greatest of wrongs marrying him, of that she
was certain, but at least she would leave off making fools of them both.
Rotten, rotten way of living. Let him see her as she was; and if his love—
how natural that would be at his age, how inevitable—came to an end, she
would set him free.
For in those remarkable hours that followed Virginia’s death, when it
seemed to Catherine as if she had suddenly opened the door out of a dark
passage and gone into a great light room, she saw for the first time quite
plainly; and what she saw in that strange new clearness, that merciless, yet
somehow curiously comforting, clearness, was that love has to learn to let
go, that love if it is real always does let go, makes no claims, sets free, is
content to love without being loved—and that nothing was worth while,
nothing at all in the tiny moment called life except being good. Simply
being good. And though people might argue as to what precisely being good
meant, they knew in their hearts just as she knew in her heart; and though
the young might laugh at this conviction as so much sodden sentiment, they
would, each one of them who was worth anything, end by thinking exactly
that. Impossible to live as she had lived the last week close up to death and
not see this. For four extraordinary days she had sat in its very presence,
watching by the side of its peace. She knew now. Life was a flicker; the
briefest thing, blown out before one was able to turn round. There was no
time in it, no time in the infinitely precious instant, for anything except just
goodness.
So she said, intent on simple truth, ‘I did deeply love Virginia, and I
have suffered, but I looked very nearly like this before.’
And Christopher, who hadn’t lived these days close up to death, and
hadn’t seen and recognised what she so clearly did, and wasn’t feeling any
of this, was shocked out of his bewilderment by such blasphemy, and took a
quick, almost menacing step forward, as if to silence the ghost daring to
profane his lovely memory.
‘You didn’t look like it—you didn’t!’ he cried. ‘You were my Catherine.
You weren’t this—this——’
He stopped, and stared close into her face. ‘What has become of you?’
he asked, bewildered again, a dreadful sense of loss cold on his heart. ‘Oh,
Catherine—what have you done to yourself?’
‘Why, that’s just it,’ she said, the faintest shadow of a smile trembling a
moment in her eyes. ‘I haven’t done anything to myself.’
‘But your hair—your lovely hair——’
He made agonised motions with his hands.
‘It’s all gone grey because of—of what you’ve been through, you poor,
poor little thing——’
And again he knew he ought to take her in his arms and comfort her, and
again he couldn’t.
‘No, it wasn’t that made it go grey,’ she said. ‘It was grey before, only I
used to have it dyed.’
He stared at her, entirely bewildered. Catherine looking like this, and
saying these things. Why did she say them? Why was she so anxious to
make out that all this had nothing to do with Virginia’s death? Was it some
strange idea of sparing him the pain of being sorry for her? Or was she so
terribly smitten that she was no longer accountable for what she said? If this
was it, then all the more closely should he fold her to his heart and shield
and comfort her, and what a damned scoundrel he was not to. But he
couldn’t. Not yet. Not that minute. Perhaps presently, when he had got more
used....
‘You dyed it?’ he repeated stupidly.
‘Yes. Or rather Maria Rome did.’
‘Maria Rome?’
‘Oh, what does it matter. It makes me sick to think of that old nonsense.
She’s a place in London where they do up women who’ve begun not to
keep. She did me up wonderfully, and at first it very nearly looked real. But
it was such a business, and I was so frightened always, living like that on
the brink of its not being a success, and you suddenly seeing me. I’m sick,
sick just remembering it—now.’
And she laid her hand on his arm, looking up at him with Catherine’s
eyes, Catherine’s beautiful, fatigued eyes.
They were the same,—beautiful as he had always known them, and
fatigued as he had always known them; but how strange to see them in that
little yellow face. Her eyes; all that was left of his Catherine. Yes, and the
voice, the same gentle voice, except that it had a new note of—was it
sensibleness? Sensibleness! Catherine sensible? She had been everything in
the world but that,—obstinate, weak, unaccountable, irrelevant, determined,
impulsive, clinging, passionate, adorable, his own sweet love, but never
sensible.
‘Doesn’t it seem too incredibly little and mean, that sort of lying, any
sort of lying, when this has happened,’ she said, her hand still on his arm,
her eyes very earnestly looking up into his. ‘So extraordinarily not worth
while. And you mustn’t think I’m out of my mind from shock, Chris,’ she
went on, for it was plain from his expression that that was what he did
think, ‘because I’m not. On the contrary—for the first time I’m in it.’
And as he stared at her, and thought that if this was what she was like
when she was in her mind then how much better and happier for them both
if she had stayed out of it, the baby on the other side of the door was taken
out of its bath, and that which had been cries became yells.
‘For God’s sake let’s go somewhere where there isn’t this infernal
squalling,’ exclaimed Christopher, with a movement so sudden and
exasperated that it shook her hand off his arm.
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