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“[A] part of him […] always wondered why […] he had never dared to do what instinct told him to do a hundred times […] as, a few yards away, one of his dearest friends sat alone on a disgusting sofa, making the slow, sad, lonely journey back to consciousness, back to the land of the living […]”
After Jude and Willem move into the apartment at Lispenard Street, in Part I, Chapter 1, Jude has an episode and Willem chastises himself for leaving Jude alone to ride it out. Jude is a complicated person, and while his friends love him, they do not always know how to support him. In this friend group, Jude is more of an observer than a participant. So when he is in need, the friends simply observe him in return because that is the degree of reciprocity that Jude has taught them to engage in with him. Unless Jude is on the verge of death, his friends are reluctant to breach his barriers, ask him necessary questions about his physical health, and give him the care that he needs.
“I know my life’s meaningful because"—and here he stopped, and looked shy, and was silent for a moment before he continued—"because I’m a good friend. I love my friends, and I care about them, and I think I make them happy."
As Jude mourns Willem’s loss in Part VI, Chapter 3, he reflects on a conversation they had at a dinner party in which friends posed the question whether, in the absence of children, they felt their lives had meaning, a question over which Malcolm agonizes. The others, mostly artists, feel the need to justify their lives given that they do not contribute to society in traditional ways. Willem could easily fall prey to the same insecurity. But here, Hemming’s early and lasting influence shines through. Willem learned early in life the value of caring for others, and he knows that life is not about what we produce or leave behind. It is about the effect we have on others.
“My life, he will think, my life. But he won’t be able to think beyond this, and he will keep repeating the words to himself—part chant, part curse, part reassurance—as he slips into that other world that he visits when he is in such pain […]: My life.”
In Part II, Chapter 1, Jude takes a walk that he realizes is too taxing for his physical condition, after which he has to literally crawl into bed and try to endure the pain. This incantation, “my life,” is a desperate attempt to hold on to the “little life” that Jude possesses. Jude’s life feels to him circumscribed by what happened to him as a child rather than by what he accomplishes as an adult. He is restricted by what his body and his mind will and will not permit him to do. But at the same time, Jude’s life is huge. How many people can formulate a mathematical axiom, play the piano, speak Greek and Latin, sing German lieds in a perfect tenor, and practice law? His existence, as “little” as it is, is a miracle.
“[I]t was a larger sadness, one that seemed to encompass all the poor striving people, the billions he didn’t know, all living their lives, a sadness that mingled with a wonder and awe at how hard humans everywhere tried to live.”
Willem looks with love and sorrow at Jude in Part V, Chapter 3, while Jude massages Willem’s feet after ballet rehearsal. Jude has just reassured Willem that even though everyone dies, life can still be beautiful, especially if one has their physical needs tended to and is surrounded by loved ones. Willem thinks about how Jude has earned this knowledge, and while he is tempted to pity Jude, he really feels awe for how spectacularly he has survived and found a way to thrive despite everything he has endured. Willem then reflects upon the many people who have lived under similarly nightmarish conditions and have still found reasons to cling to happiness.
