Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3814/The Problem of Life
The noise of the retreating sea came pleasantly to us from a distance. Celia was lying on her—I never know how to put this nicely—well, she was lying face downwards on a rock and gazing into a little pool which the tide had forgotten about and left behind. I sat beside her and annoyed a limpet. Three minutes ago I had taken it suddenly by surprise and with an Herculean effort moved it an eighteenth of a millimetre westwards. My silence since then was lulling it into a false security, and in another two minutes I hopes to get a move on it again.
"Do you know," said Celia with a puzzled look on her face, "sometimes I think I'm quite an ordinary person after all."
"You aren't a little bit," I said lazily: "you're just like nobody else in the world."
"Well, of course, you had to say that."
"No, I hadn't. Lots of husbands would merely have yawned." I felt one coming and stopped it just in time. Waiting for limpets to go to sleep is drowsy work. "But why are you so morbid about yourself I suddenly?"
"I don't know," she said. "Only every now and then I find myself thinking the most obvious thoughts."
"We all do," I answered, as I stroked my limpet gently. The noise of our conversation had roused it, but a gentle stroking motion (I am told by those to it has confided) will frequently cause its muscles to relax. "The great thing is not to speak them. Still, you'd better tell me now. What is it?"
"Well," she said, her cheeks perhaps a little pinker than usual, "I was just thinking that life was very wonderful. But it's a silly thing to say."
"It's holiday time," I reminded her. "The necessity of sprinkling our remarks with thoughtful words like 'economic' and 'sporadic' is over for a bit. Let us be silly." I scratched in the rock the goal to which I was urging my limpet and took out my watch. "Three thirty-five. I shall get him there by four."
Celia was gazing at two baby fishes who played in and out a bunch of sea-weed. Above the sea-weed an anemone sat fatly.
"I suppose they're all just as much alive as we are," she said thoughtfully. They marry"—I looked at my limpet with a new interest—and bring up families and go about their business, and it all means just as much to them as it does to us."
"My limpet's business affairs mean nothing to me," I said firmly. "I am only wrapped up in him as a sprinter."
"He's not quite ready yet. He still his suspicions."
Celia dropped into silence. Her next question showed that she had left the pool for a moment.
"Are there any people in Mars?" she asked.
"People down here say that there aren't. A man told me the other day that he knew this for a fact. On the other hand, people in Mars know for a fact that there isn't anybody on the Earth. Probably they are both wrong."
"I should like to know a lot about things," signed Celia. "Do you know anything about limpets?"
"Only that they stick like billy-o."
"I suppose more about them is known than that?"
"I suppose so. By people who have made a speciality of them. For one who has preferred to amass general knowledge rather than to specialize it is considered enough to know that they stick like billy-o."
"You haven't specialized in anything, have you?"
"Only in wives."
Celia smiled and went on. "How do you make a speciality of limpets?"
"Well, I suppose you—er—study them. You sit down and—and watch them. Probably after dark they get up and do something. And of course, in any case, you can always dissect one and see what he's had for breakfast. One way and another you get to know things about them."
"They must have a lot of time for thinking," said Celia, regarding my limpet with her head on one side. "Tell me, how do they know that there are no men in Mars?"
I sat up with a sigh.
"Celia, you do dodge about so. I have barely brought together and classified my array of facts about things in this world, when you've dashed up to another one. What is the connection between Mars and limpets? If there are any limpets on Mars they are freshwater ones. In the canals."
"Oh, I just wondered," said said, "I mean"—she wrinkled her forehead in the effort to find words for her thoughts—"I'm wondering what everything means, and why we're all here, and what limpets are for, and, supposing there are people in Mars, if we're the real people whom the world was made for, or if they are." She stopped and added, "One evening after dinner, when we get home, you must tell me all about everything."
Celia has a beautiful idea that I can explain everything to her. I suppose I must have explained a stymie or a no-ball very cleverly once.
"Well," I said, "I can tell you what limpets are for now. They're like sheep and cows and horses and pheasants and—and any other animal. They're just for us. At least so the wise people say."
"But we don't eat limpets"
"No, but they can amuse us. This one"—and with a sudden leap I was behind him as he dozed and I had dashed him forward another eighteenth of a millimetre—"this one has amused me."
"Perhaps," said Celia thoughtfully and I don't think it was quite a nice thing for a young woman to say, "perhaps we're only meant to amuse the people in Mars."
"Then," I said lazily, "let's hope they are amused."
*****
But that was nearly three weeks ago. Ten days later war was declared. Celia has said no more on the subject since her one afternoon's unrest, but she looks at me curiously sometimes, and I fear that the problem of life leaves her more puzzled than ever. At the risk of betraying myself to her as "quite an ordinary person after all" I confess that just at the moment it leaves me puzzled too.