Chapter 34. Book I: The Dream. A Memoir of the Future

MAN (to Rosemary) Arjuna said, you remember, ‘I will not fight’, and threw down his bow. He did, however, pick it up again, allowing himself to be persuaded by Krishna that he did not know everything and that even if the opposing army did consist of his friends, and love was prominent amongst the foes, it was his business to fight. This (indicating Bion) – I hardly like to call him ‘fool’ – is too proud to admit that he could be mistaken or that the world of thought that he inhabits could conceivably be better than the world of his own invention. I remember sending a very good friend of his to Oxford to try to show him that even then he was behaving like Achilles sulking in his tent. The friend became someone – a man of consequence – though suffering terrible setbacks. Bion remains a fool still. He sulks in his tent and feels how wonderfully like Achilles he is. It would be laughable were it not tragic. I realize it must be terrible for you to have the pain of discovering that someone one has loved and admired is not worth it. Even worse is his own private hell which you and I can see him suffer and realize that he has always lavished love and admiration upon himself. This admiration is still, as always, devoted to his least admirable qualities.

BION Shut up, I say! Shut up!

MAN You see, Rosemary? There's nothing more we can do. Let us leave him. The man or woman who is given the privilege of making a decision also has the privilege of making the wrong one – again and again.

BION You sound remarkably smug to me. If my choice is between remaining in me or becoming like you I do not know that I

am convinced that I would feel greatly improved by becoming like you two.

MAN You would not become me, that is sure – only ‘like me’. An allegory of a man. You would ‘borrow’, as you did from your father and mother – with the understanding that you