A Darling of the Gods

A Darling of the Gods by E.V. Lucas

E.V. Lucas's "A Darling of the Gods" recounts the narrator's recollection of his friend X, recently killed at thirty-eight after being run over by a motor-bus. The narrator remarks that he wishes he could find someone who helped pick X up, just to know whether he said anything at the end, and this prompts him to explain X's peculiar creed. X's foible, the narrator explains, was his conviction that everything that happened was for the best — not for mankind in general, unlike Dr. Pangloss's belief that this is the best of all possible worlds, but specifically for himself. X believed his own fortunes were vigilantly and tirelessly watched over by tutelary powers; he considered himself, in short, a pet of Fate. The narrator illustrates this with an anecdote of once hurrying with X to catch a train that X insisted he must not miss at any cost. The two men ran with heavy bags, injuring themselves in the process, and still missed the train. X calmly declared that he was evidently intended not to catch it. When the narrator asked why X had dragged him along at such a pace if that were so, X replied that one has to try, since one does not know what the stars' game is. Asked what he thought the game was, X speculated that the train would meet with an accident, and that they were well out of it. Upon reaching the London station, the narrator asked a porter whether the train had arrived safely, and was told it had come in to the minute. When the narrator confronted X with this fact, X simply replied that someone with an infectious disease had probably been sitting in their compartment, and they would otherwise have caught it. The narrator reflects on this trait, noting that an ordinary fatalist who believes nothing he does can matter is bad enough, but a fatalist who is also an optimist, secure in the knowledge of his own prosperity, is worse. Yet the narrator concedes there was something fine in it too, since the hardest rebuffs left X smiling. The narrator recalls another instance: X once lost a great deal of money in an investment. When the narrator called this serious, X answered that it was not so bad as it might have been, since the loss was meant to teach him not to speculate, as speculation went against his true nature. He reasoned that having lost five hundred pounds now, he had been spared losing five thousand later. The narrator, amazed, perceives in this a kind of inverted Christianity at work in X, though X prided himself on his paganism. The narrator concludes that now X is dead, he can find no extenuating circumstances for the fatal event, but the narrator has no doubt X would have explained the catastrophe perfectly had it been anything short of fatal. He imagines X would have said he was getting very cheap and needed rest, which he could not have obtained naturally because he was far too busy, so the accident was sent to keep him in bed for a couple of months and pull him clean round. The narrator closes by observing that it is hard when the protective stars suffer from too much zeal.

By E.V. Lucas · Genre: Satire, Philosophical Fiction, Character Study · 691 words

First lines

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I see by the papers, with deep concern, that my friend X has been run over by a motor-bus and killed, at the age of only thirty-eight. I wish I could find some one who helped to pick him up, just to see if he said anything about his end: because -- --

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A Darling of the Gods is listed on Textopian as a short story by E.V. Lucas, dated Date unknown.

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Genres

Tags

fatalism · optimism · fate · self-deception · rationalization · irony · satire · dark comedy · absurdism · death · accident · luck

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