Mickelsson's Ghosts by John Gardner (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

to what had once, according to his neighbor John Pearson, been the pond of the Susquehanna ice-house. The sound of falling water was much louder now, almost a roar—not a true, natural waterfall, but water pouring over the break in the high spillway, plunging into a dark basin edged with ice, from there rattling away down the steep, shale-and-icicle-lined glen.

“It’s pretty,” she said. “Isn’t this close enough?”

Ahead of them lay a makeshift bridge of boards mounded in snow, patches of gray wood showing through. In the snow on the bridge and around it there were deer-tracks and the triangle tracks of rabbits.

“It’s nicer from the middle,” he said. He let go of her hand and took her elbow. She tried to pull away. He held on. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “See? Deer have walked across it.” He pointed to the tracks.

“Nothing doing,” she said. “I’m not a deer. Do I look like a deer?”

“A little.” He grinned.

She stared at him, then tried harder to pull away. “What are you, nuts?”

“Take my word for it,” he said, “it’s perfectly safe. I’ve walked across it a hundred times.” He gave a little tug at her arm, moving her two steps toward the bridge. “Come on,” he said with a laugh, “you’re acting like a city slicker.”

“I am a city slicker, God damn it.” With a sudden sharp jerk she pulled free of him. She moved three long steps back from the water, then stopped.

He stood still, looking at the snow between them like a hunter. “It’s a wonderful feeling, looking down from the bridge,” he said. He held out his arms. “I hate for you to miss it. Come on. Don’t be a coward!”

“You go look down.”

He thought, then shrugged. “It’s pretty from here too,” he said. He put his hands behind his back and, after a moment, moved toward her. Though he was sure she would run at any moment, she held her ground. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Maybe we can come in the summertime, when it’s more peaceful and you can see the boards.” He smiled, then cautiously put his arm around her.

“Maybe,” she said. She stood rigid.

“Of course in the summer there are rattlesnakes.” He turned back to the water.

They stared together into the churning, dark basin, watching gray water from above plunge in. Beyond the basin bare willowtrees shone, dripping wet. There seemed a faint red aura around them.

“It’s spooky here,” she said.

He nodded. At last, some of the rigidity leaving her, they turned, together, moving farther away from the water, up the snowy bank. He said, “What I meant to tell you before, about this argument by R. M. Hare …” She kept walking. He took her gloved hand once more in his. “The thing about aesthetic arguments is that there’s no resolving them. One can debate whether a trumpet’s been played badly or well, but if one person loves the trumpet and another person claims it sets his teeth on edge, there’s no use trying to reason it out. De gustibus.” He glanced at her to see if she was bored. He couldn’t tell. “What R. M. Hare points out is that in some ways the affirmations of, for instance, a Nazi are like aesthetic preferences. A Nazi’s a man who has a certain ideal for human nature—or anyway so he claims—just as one might have an ideal for the sports car: precise steering, vivid acceleration, reliable brakes—”

He broke off. She said nothing, walking with deliberate steps up the snowy hill toward the outbuildings and house. “Nazis have an ideal,” he said, speaking more hurriedly. He could not have explained why it seemed to him important that he convince her. “Insofar as the Nazi’s not lying to himself—and they almost always are—the Nazi would say that even he himself, if it were proven that he has ‘the inferior qualities of the Jews,’ as he thinks—he himself in that case should be exterminated. The Nazi, insofar as he’s not lying to himself, is a man who will let no ideal—least of all liberal concern for others—stand in the way of his vision of good.” Because she’d paused, he glanced at her and saw that she was looking up at where the road wandered into trees. He said, “Your Marxists are more like Nazis than they like to think. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Mmm,” she said. She asked, “Pete, are there wild animals around here?”

“Nothing that would eat you. There are supposed to be bears, but all people ever see is the tracks.” He dropped her hand and got out his cigarettes. He held the pack toward her. She shook her head, then looked up at the trees again. He lit one for himself and hauled in smoke.

They began to walk again, three feet apart, not holding hands, rising through stubble and snow toward the barns and road.

“Your Marxists believe in manipulating people—for people’s own good, of course. It’s that that makes them like Nazis.” He waved the cigarette, then on reflection took one last drag and threw it away.

She shook her head. “That’s stupid,” she said. “They care very much about people and … social justice.”

He bent down to scoop up the makings for a snowball. “Maybe. But they’re just as much social idealists as the Nazis were.” He packed the snowball tigher and tighter, not looking at it, gazing up at the house. “To use Kantian jargon,” he said, “the liberal’s ideal is a kingdom of ends in which all citizens are legislating members. The liberal won’t violate his fellow citizens’ freedom because freedom is the social value he believes in. Your Marxists don’t believe in that ideal for one minute.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. She stared at the snow and stalks of weed ahead of her. It was clear enough that he was making her angry; it wasn’t clear what he’d done wrong. “They care about people,” she said again.

“Sure. Like the Grand Inquisitor.”

“Peter, let’s drop it, OK? Let’s talk about